Again, Remembering -- A Special Friend

                                                  Sunset on the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv


It's been too long since I've written, but once again, I'm compelled to write about the loss of a friend, Hilda Ratner, who died peacefully on Thursday afternoon with several gathered as or immediately after she moved on from us. I chose the photo above as Hilda was a Jew, though her religious home
was the Unitarian Universalist Church, and when I shared my photo book from last year's Israel trip, she especially liked this picture of the sea. She spent many weeks of vacation walking on beaches, particularly the one at Hilton Head where she had a time share, and where one summer I walked with her.
 
Hilda was my older (90 on March 6th) friend whom I visited each holiday or other visit when coming from Colorado to Nashville. She had a stroke seventeen years ago as I was driving to Colorado and had found a wonderful assisted living facility near where each of us had lived in which to make her home for the last dozen or so years. Her 90th birthday party was a wonderful time, but it also marked the beginning of her body giving way.

Hilda at her 90th birthday party with Phil Ryan, a friend who also worked for me years ago at Economic and Community Development. Kathy Bryant, the hostess, is in the background at the table.

In her remembrance on Facebook, Kathy said it well--Hilda could get us to hear things about ourselves that no one else could--about a time when I drank too much at a Unitarian Singles Party (I first met her at one!), and she worried about my driving home, she said, "If you have to drink that much to be at the party, maybe you should stay home. That's what I do." Another time she warned me about a good friend, and another she quoted her delightful husband, Aaron, saying after meeting a new man in my life, "there she goes again, thinking this man is wonderful--and we know it won't be long before she won't know what she saw in him." He was right about that one--and the pattern as well!

Hilda could listen and hear more than I realized I had said. Then she would say back, "so you're saying . . . or it's interesting that you see . . .. Though Hilda credited her attendance at EST, Werner Erhard's program, with transforming her relationship with her mother, and encouraged me to participate in The Forum, EST's successor program (which is now embedded in Landmark), I don't believe she ever participated in any of the communications programs that suggested that approach in listening. I am reminded how effective it can be as I write.

I was not one of her "girls," younger women whom she mentored and mothered (no birth children), nor was I one of the "old girls," women who were her contemporaries and who had known her longer, nor was I a work associate. We came together partly because we were single, then because the men in our lives were friends, partly because we were both involved in the finances of the UU Church in Nashville in the late 70's and 80's, and perhaps more, because there was simply a connection between us.

I am blessed to have been here and visited her in the Alive Hospice facility where she died, and to have had good conversations with her there. During one of our last visits, she asked if there was positive movement with my daughter. When I said, no, she shook her head, sadness in her eyes. This
concern was typical, even though her days were difficult much of these last weeks.

Some of her wisdom resides in my head. Her buddy bear resides beside my own, and her Mexican fish on my living room window ledge. Many memories from our years of friendship have floated back during these last weeks of her life.

I was privileged to know and have Hilda as a friend and to be there on Thursday afternoon to send her body off. I have to break the habit of thinking about what time I can go by to see her, but am glad she suffers no more.

Here's to Hilda--a life well lived!!

Obed Wild and Scenic River Refuge -- A Beautiful Hike

It's not a falls in RMNP or the Indian Peaks Wilderness, but one in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee. To my surprise, this area is a National Wild River Refuge managed by the National Park Service.  On their posting for the area, it says that this land is much the same as it was when the first white settlers visited in the 1700s. It is about an hour off the interstate from Crossville, TN. The NPS says that the land was too poor for even subsistence farming so while fishing and hunting in the area helped settlers with their food supply, few lived nearby. Water sports dominate during the season these days. We saw winter kayakers both put in and take out after several hours on the white water river they had to themselves.

Although meeting a group of mostly strangers in a Kroger parking lot in a part of the Metro area that's not familiar in the dark of 6 am is not my idea of how to begin a wonderful Saturday, it often is the starting point for East Tennessee hikes when a distance drive is required to reach the hiking area. So---I set my phone for two wake-up alarms a few minutes apart and slept completely through the first one. I arrived at the large parking lot with no idea what type vehicles I was searching the lot to find. Two Metro cops sitting side-by-side chatting turned to stare as I slowed to look around. I lowered my window and explained that I would be cruising the lot for my hiking group. A man from last fall's hike at Rock Island State Park was coming and had offered to drive. He expected me, but I saw him no where. Then I saw two cars with men sitting inside and pulled up beside one. Yes, they were the hikers. My acquaintance and his new girl friend came a few minutes later, and we were on our way--me riding in the middle between two men I'd just met.

As I read what I've just written, I'll have to admit that it took a certain amount of gumption to set out on that hike. I did consider canceling more than once. Since it was a meetup group, I would have needed to let the leader know I wasn't coming.

When I chose this hike, I didn't know how beautiful it would be. I chose partly because it was a reasonable distance--about 6 miles more or less--and most of all because the hike leader promised time to enjoy the views! Many of the meetups say that you must be able to hike fast, or moderately fast with little or no time to enjoy the surroundings. This one promised to be different. It was. Our leader knew each and every place to stop since he grew up in the county seat a few miles away. Sometimes one knows both too much and not enough as was the case with our leader.  He took us away from the trails for views. Great! Some followed him to a point where the ladder below was visible. We hiked to his lunch spot where I took the photo above, ate a leisurely lunch and enjoyed views and took photos. Younger hikers asked about the ladder. He promised that on the way back, we would stop and perhaps those who wanted, could go down the ladder, which might not have been a bad decision had he made it clear that everyone who climbed down would need to climb back up. Even then it would have required patience and waiting from the remaining hikers. However, when we reached the ladder, he told those who wanted to go down that there was another trail below. He warned of big boulders to climb over but that only made the trek sound more exciting. Five of us, including the leader, chose not to take the ladder down. (I took the photo below from a hiker who did go down the ladder.)

When the last person who wanted to go was safely on the ladder going down, the five of us went on our way, expecting to wait and meet the others at a place our leader named and that all knew since we had passed it on our way up. What our leader didn't know was that at the bottom, those folks would discover no trail! After some exploring to be sure they weren't missing it, there was a move to climb back up. One woman said she couldn't because of her knees. A hiking leader friend said, when I told him about this, that he would have been insistent that she try it--and would have helped her along. However, the man who professed to be a hike leader (in training at least) with them had no such leadership skills.  And our hike leader--he later admitted that he hadn't been on that lower trail in five or six years (maybe longer?!).

We got to the meeting place. We waited. One or another went back on the trail they were supposedly taking to look. There was a lot of ice along the trail under the bluff. Those folks were going to have a hard time.  We would wait. . . wait. Concerned . . . concerned. Getting cold from standing still, the other woman and I walked on

down the trail and back. We waited again. Then she was too cold, her boy friend agreed, and we left the leader and another man to wait while we headed to the final lookout and the car--with heat. At the lookout's wide view, we saw colors moving along the riverbank far below. We looked harder. Yes, it was some of our group. The man went back to tell the leader where our hikers were. We went to the car to get warm. It had been an hour's wait and would be another hour of waiting, but the second hour was spent in a warm vehicle. Our driver said that on any future group hike, he would insist that those who rode with him stay together since we were waiting on only one of our occupants. The leader was with us too, and we weren't sparing as we told him how he shouldn't have let the group separate. A quiet mild-mannered man, he first said that he couldn't have told them they couldn't take the ladder and that trail, but after a few more minutes of conversation, he reluctantly agreed. We had great views without even going out to the spot where the ladder could be seen.

I wouldn't have missed the hike though think it likely that the my cold germs got a boost from getting chilled while waiting in the damp woods. By Sunday afternoon, my nose was dripping steadily as I sat in the theater watching our Shakespeare company's production of King Lear.

I am going on a February hike a few miles farther into that area with the same leader. I asked if there was any way, on the upcoming hike, for the hikers to separate into more than fast hikers and slower ones going up the same trail. He said no, that we would all be on the same trail. His route to the lookout on that mountain is shorter than the others posted and his gait slower so I've left my name on the list. He promised to cancel if there is rain or snow or if the trail is snow covered.

This arch is about 50 feet from top to bottom. The trail didn't go through it, but the stopping point off the main trail was another of our leader's lovely detours. The rhododendron bushes were thick in those forests, and I can imagine a flower hike there in the spring!

YES--I am posting this without photos of yesterday's 7" snow here in Nashville. That's another story!

Remembering the Sparkle that was Lynn!

This sparkly lit glass tower from the Chihuly exhibit we saw at the Denver Botanic Gardens a year ago last fall reminds me of my friend, Lynn, whom we lost two weeks ago tonight. Lynn sparkled in ways that weren't always noticeable, standing beside and supporting her husband in his role as arts benefactor. However, as I looked through her closet on Thursday, heeding her husband's "see what you can use," I was reminded of how much she enjoyed sparkly clothes. Her height and carriage--she and her sister practiced walking with books on their heads to embrace their heights--kept those sparkling jackets from overshadowing her lovely face and winning smile.

One of Lynn's favorite activities was modeling for a local store. Her Pendleton wardrobe was worthy of a store section. She savored bargains found at a choice second-hand store in Estes Park, especially those sparkling jackets she wore with such grace. When driving from Boulder to join Lynn and Peter at a musical event, I asked how dressy she was going to be. Her answer was "nothing special." I often arrived to find her decked out in a purple or black outfit one could wear to an opera gala in the city. I eventually quit asking. Never did I try to match her lovely outfits and certainly not her grace or carriage, though I, too, modeled years ago.

I returned with two items I saw Lynn wear more than once--a hand-made vest, yes with a few sparkles, and a long red paisley skirt that I won't try to wear with her grace. I wore the vest to dinner with friends in Boulder and felt as if I was wrapped in Lynn's warmth.

As I look for photos, Peter is in more of them, perhaps because he hiked with me. I enhanced the one above. However, the one I pulled up was the original. Maybe I can fix it later!

I love that my compassionate therapist friend, one who could go to the darkest places with me, also loved sparkle and modeling. She said the Lynn who modeled and invited folks into the store was a different personality than her usual reserved self. I was privileged to count her as a friend.

PS:  The two photos of Lynn and Peter were taken on our wonderful trip to Israel last April, one as we were about to cross into Jordan to see the Petra ruins, the other at Peter's birthday dinner in Tel Aviv--joyous times!

Leaving --- Savoring -- Following the Path

Two versions of the path, but somehow the same. Look down to the left in the Blue Lake mountain photo. Is that a tiny path? And what would it take to get there? On the right, is the light on a path? Or merely where the sun is shining? Neither path is clear, much like the paths in our lives, even when we think we know what's ahead.

Two recent and ongoing losses experienced by dear friends embody that not knowing. Yesterday I received a note from a priest friend in his 90s who recently lost his wife of more than 60 years. He said "You knew hard times and you survived and so will I." He knows survival and counts on his faith, but doesn't know what it looks like or how he will move through his days without her.

I awakened Tuesday morning to find an e-mail written about 1:45 am titled "Lynnette had a stroke tonight." Nothing had prepared for that. Recovering well from knee surgery, we had visited by phone on Sunday. She was upbeat, getting stronger and having less pain. She had no stroke markers, and her stroke was a bleed so not at all related to the knee surgery as her doctor husband first surmised. The reason--sometimes as we age the artery thinning breaks. No way to predict when or for whom that might occur. My friend is a couple of years younger than me--not old as we think of it today. They had had, as we all should, the conversation about how they would want to live -- or not -- in the event of a catastrophic stroke. Lynnette did not want to live with years of rehab, with mental and physical defects that drastically limited her lifestyle. Her husband moved immediately to implement those wishes. She was in the ER within minutes of the stroke, but he followed her wishes and denied that immediate treatment that might guarantee the years of rehab. Today she will be moved to Hospice for her few remaining days or weeks.

Since there is no way to predict what the path ahead holds, whether there are years, months or days remaining on this planet, I am struck with how often little things get in the way of savoring the moments. The path isn't clear, I complain. Why don't I know exactly why I needed to make this move at this time? I can see that I might not have had the energy a few years later, but then I might have been able to hire more help. Perhaps. Maybe not.

As I sit here in my 17th floor apartment with Nashville's tall buildings in view out my windows and a clear sky belying the stormy night that preceded this morning, I wonder. I would usually be at my son and daughter-in-laws or flying in from Colorado today. But then, were I still in Colorado when the e-mail came, would I have cancelled my holiday plans and stayed to support my friends?

Our Christmas holidays always include a birthday celebration for my younger grandson here, and those plans were changed several ways when his older brother needed to stay on his job in Florida. After a busy weekend, dinner for Mike, Margaret and friend Tiffy on Monday evening, a walk with Will on his birthday afternoon since he wasn't here in time for Monday's dinner, his birthday dinner and our family's movie outing afterward--StarWars this time (!), yesterday was open, as is today. Yesterday I grieved, walked in rain that spit and stopped and spit again, and was fortunate to have wonderful telephone visits with two friends who walked so many mountain (emotional and spiritual as well as physical) paths with me. One was with me last summer on the hike to and past Blue Lake where the mountain photo was taken, the other with us on earlier hikes to that lake. This year, one is in her lovely mountain townhouse alone, the other walking California's beaches and I am in this still sometimes strange high-rise apartment in Nashville! A few years ago, we wouldn't have predicted this physical separation.

The St. John's hiking group, pictured above, heading down from the Butler Gulch meadow, one of my favorite spots!

I've written a lot about getting settled, finding paths, and being here. I've written less about leaving behind my beloved mountains, friends and what will likely always be my church and heart home. It hasn't been easy, in fact, harder than I expected when I knew it wouldn't be easy.



Yes, that's my RMNP water bottle on a bridge in Radnor Lake Nature Preserve in Nashville!





The most encouraging happening, other than the dedication of Mike and Margaret to getting together with me regularly, was connecting with a small group of like-minded folks with whom I shared a retreat at the Sister of Loretto Abbey the 2nd week of this month. I will write more about that soon. Finding a few soul friends to go with a few long-timers is encouraging. Below is the sunrise over a lake at the Abbey.

Most important is looking each day for small things for which to be grateful, seeing wonder in faces and spaces, savoring each bite of food, appreciating each step, each kind voice, loving with a bigger heart, realizing that all is a gift. Have a blessed Christmas season.

                                                            Peace and love

Morning Musings

                                                                 Center Hill Lake

On a visit to the Appalachian Crafts Center, a drive of a little over an hour from Nashville, we passed the Center Hill Lake, and could look through the mostly leafless trees behind the center and see a small portion of this 64-mile long lake or hike to its banks. Constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1948 for power production and flood control, the craft center and three state parks are near its banks.

I had forgotten how quickly one reaches the Cumberland Mountains driving east on Interstate 40, such a beautiful area even with the bare trees. Balancing time in the nearby hills and mountains with my city life is a challenge. There are, however, lovely streets, most with sidewalks, on which to take exercise walks without getting in my car. The lovely tree below brightened yesterday morning's walk through a nearby residential areas.

For me that balancing challenge can be likened to time with my inner life as well as the outer one. It's easy to fill days and evenings with doing, hard to refrain from volunteering just to be interacting with others. Today, with Pilates at noon and an African drum and dance group's program at nearby Blair School of Music (at Vanderbilt) enticing me this evening, I will have no more than passing words with a Pilates classmate or a fellow audience member this evening. I would likely feel less alone staying in my apartment, but not only is Pilates good for my body, I am refreshed by the energy at the downtown Y and heartened by smiles of welcome from the staff. This evening's
Sankofa group will no doubt bring a different energy to enjoy. (Two friends--one new and one old--I asked to attend declined.)

After an interesting coffee/tea conversation with the Cathedral Dean yesterday, during which I learned that there are ministries that need new leadership or ideas of new ones that need fleshing out, I came home wondering if I might become involved in something different than centering or healing prayer. But healing is my call, my head reported. A bit later, that voice that insists on being heard said "there are many ways to work for healing."

"Wait," I said to the Dean. "Not today. I'm recovering from being needed and want to let that settle for a bit longer." We will meet again after the first of the year and sort through possible ministry work there.

I am finding acceptance that Nashville will be my home for the remainder of my years. I haven't yet found a need to assume that this apartment will also see the end of my days.

These musings call for stillness, being with what is, as I end this post.

                                                         On the Vanderbilt Campus

Remembering Another Time Brings Focus to Now

  This photo is of what I called my "pink rocks" in the lumpy ridge formation easily seen from Devil's Gulch Road in Estes Park, which is where I accessed trails back in the fall and winter of 1999. I'm reminded that I used those rocks as a point of strength on days when I was alone and lonely, missing friends in Tennessee (though mostly Chattanooga friends since that had been my home for the previous ten years).

Especially before I found the Estes Park Centering Prayer group and for the first months I centered with them, I often saw or spoke with no one I knew. I sought community in the small Episcopal Church and one woman became a friend. I was in a much more vulnerable place, and the rector made certain that I knew that he couldn't be of much help. It wasn't the church, but the centering prayer group that provided the spiritual sustenance I needed.

I'm recalling those days this morning as I'm allowing grief--more than expected--to swell from inside as I miss the mountains, friends, and St. John's, my home church in Boulder. I also remember that St. John's didn't become my home church immediately upon stepping foot inside the building as it has for some. It helps put my feelings in perspective.

I realized over the weekend that my flurry of activity--rushing from one talk or concert to another, while providing intellectual stimulation and nourishment for my soul, and reading the pile of reserved books that became available near the same time, had kept my feelings of loneliness and loss at bay. Since years of experience has shown that feeling the pain is the way through to the other side, and my coffee date this afternoon was cancelled, I'm allowing those feeling to hold sway.

Gratitude, my daily practice, is supported by remembering those other times, feeling gratitude for the good in the midst of pain. Mike and Margaret are coming for dinner tomorrow night. It's a quick in and out when they come since week nights are best for them, but always so good to have them here.

For years on Sundays, 3 of 4 wasn't unusual, I had duties either in the service or afterward. There were certainly mornings when it seemed heavy, but most times I felt blessed to be part of the St. John's community serving in that way. As I recall other churches, I've generally found ways to serve before I felt at home. I don't know that this will happen here, and I'm not ready yet. My postponed coffee this afternoon was to include a conversation about the possibility of joining the healing prayer ministry at the Cathedral. Since today I have no clarity about calls, it's good not to have that conversation.

                                                            Radnor Lake's Cove Trail

I have plans for a walk, though it may turn into coffee/tea since rain is predicted, with a possible spiritual friend, also a newcomer to the Cathedral, on Wednesday afternoon and look forward to getting to know her. An acquaintance from Boulder days, who moved to the suburbs with her husband this summer, and I have a long-planned coffee date on Thursday, halfway between our homes. She's often an "it's wonderful" person so I'll look for my happy hat before I leave for that drive.

My Saturday guided hike was cancelled, and I joined a group of six who were also headed for that hike at another trail. I trailed them--literally--for the 4.5 miles on the steepest up and down trail in our local parks in this area. I'm definitely out of shape, but was able to catch up when they stopped for water or to let everyone gather. Our time was slightly over an hour and one half!!! While that equates about 20 minutes per mile and my preferred faster time is 25 minutes per mile, I would need to hike at that pace for 7 - 10 + miles in order to do some of the meet-up hikes at state parks away from here with the younger hikers, and I would love to hike several of those trails. I'm hoping to meet some older folks who are hikers at the Tennessee Trails Monthly Meeting I plan to attend next week.

We continue to have some color on the trees in the city. The photo below is from my window toward the Vanderbilt Campus. The misty rain has moved in while I was writing. If it doesn't get harder, I'll walk in the neighborhood or on campus this afternoon. The color really pops in this weather.

I continue to have much gratitude for my place here and always for my health. A Chattanooga friend has been told that even if the next round of chemo is effective, she can expect more tumors--and she is about fifteen years younger. I hold gratitude and loss together on this fall day.

Peace and blessings

Exploring the Nashville/Tennessee Parks

This beautiful waterfall, one of several in the Rock Island State Park, is about the same driving time away from my home in central Nashville as from my home in Colorado to the Bear Lake or Glacier Gorge trailheads in RMNP. It's farther, of course, as the narrow roads are only for the last ten or so miles. I went there a week ago Sunday with a meet-up group that, because of forecasted rain, dwindled from 16 to 9 people. A light misty rain began only as we were close to the end of our last trail.

I learned that many of the exciting and beautiful Tennessee hikes in parks and natural areas explore canyons and gulches packed with slippery wet rocks and several creek crossings. My boots held up well on this one! Behind and around me below are the rocks at the bottom of this riverbed canyon. It doesn't show the cliff ledges on the left that we had to scramble up and walk on to get there and back again! Three, sometimes four of the much younger folks, hiked back with me, partly to enjoy the scenery, and on the skinny ledges, to be sure I wasn't left in the lurch! While they began to see that I didn't need the assistance they offered (but took it a couple of times), I was sometimes slower. We all laughed about the man who was the supposed leader. If he hadn't been wearing a red shirt, we wouldn't have seen him through the trees far ahead.

 Closer to home, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Radnor Lake provides an array of trails, some for an easy stroll and others with more up and down. The trail I've enjoyed most was developed after I left the area. The deer and I were alone on much of that trail the first couple of times I took it.

The leaves are falling, opening patches to see the vistas in the distance while other spots are still too dense to see through the trees. Next Saturday I'm scheduled for a hike that has some bushwacking in an area of the Warner Parks where one can only go with a naturalist. There should be views of the hills around and through that part of the park. A newer area will open in the spring though the steeper trails may be only naturalist led.

I've found a local-only walker friend who may become a hiker as far as our parks go, good company but nothing that will keep me in shape so far, and am still looking for a hiking group with older folks who do some of the interesting and challenging trails away that I shouldn't do alone. With shorter daylight and the driving time to do several of those hikes, I understand the need for a faster pace than I might be happy with--or able to do comfortably. Spring will be my time for those hikes. And I understand that in March-April-May, there are many wildflowers too!

I'm joining the Tennessee Trails Association and plan to drive to REI in Brentwood (near Mike and Margaret's) for their November meeting with the hope that will connect me with some hikers nearer my speed. And tomorrow, when the rain is supposed to dissipate and the clouds roll away, I'll continue hiking nearby. I do remember that I didn't find my long-time hiking companions in Estes Park immediately upon moving there. Patience, patience, patience.