My Life in a Storage Locker Filled with Waterfowl Installations

ReverbBroads11 prompt: What does your office/home/bedroom tell others about you?
via Kristen

1. I was screwing around in another room when they gave out the square footage. My house is way too fracking small. (We own a 1300 square foot half duplex for for the five of us, plus my mother every evening.) So my living room/dining room/office/den/play room looks like the room you are keeping your garage sale items the night before you take them outside. Except they never go anywhere, and I just yell at everyone, cry and then cover everything with Celtic tablecloths to hide all the clutter. Today I found a child's sock in my file tray.
2. For reasons no one understands, my children call themselves "artists" and believe that they can display their "art" wherever they want, even if their "art" is two pieces of Scotch tape covered with green permanent marker attached with a shoelace to a milk jug, or a mutated waterfowl. If my house was a municipality, they could be arrested for this.
3. My husband is a hoarder. You should probably call Social Services.
4. I try really hard to make things look nice, and it just makes me look like a loser who is trying too hard. Which is what is the only conclusion one can draw when one has painted one's hallway red and cream with a magnetic wall for children's work, but there is no trim covering the exposed insulation around one's door jamb. And nothing covering the sub-floor. 
5. And that's why we are not allowed to have people over.

The top part of the hallway. Kind of like the head of Typhon. (Rowan drew the Pegasus.)

The hideous snaky bottom: adhesive stuck onto old hardwood.

Dining room/den/living room with block play area, adjacent to my work area. SQUOOSH.

Why wouldn't it be OK to put your Mr. Potato Head with the centerpiece?

"Mom, I made it! It's a one-eyed alien duck!" We like it with the Kachinas.

Southwestern art and pipe cleaner duck...

The hanging cabinet AFTER my husband re-organized it. I am not making this up.

This Nutcracker Prince is on my work space. At least he's not a sock.

Zero Diamonds, Many Funny T-Shirts

ReverbBroads11 prompt: Write about the things you collect, include photos, tell why these items are cherished by you. via Catie

I like witty t-shirts. 

I treasure wit the way normal women treasure diamonds. Therefore I own zero diamonds and many very funny t-shirts. Here are some of them: 

THAT is what life feels like when you are a misfit.

I seem to have a new, totally free built in fibromyalgia alarm clock that wakes me up at 6 AM, despite the fact that I am on vacation. It uses nausea, burning muscle pain and the overwhelming urge to stretch instead of a buzzer.

Photo by Paul Downey

So I write. Because God gave me fibromyalgia so I would write. Or because he's an asshole. Or because he doesn't exist and, infuriatingly I have fibromyalgia for no reason. One of those. But this morning I woke up and looked at all the Reverb writing prompts that I have missed, or that are coming, and realized I can't write on any of them because I'm a misfit.

One is asking if my life was a board game, what it would be like. I just can't answer that without sounding like an asshole, so I won't. I have no specific memory of, or interest in, my favorite Christmas gifts, given or received, and you will NOT want to read my post on whether or not I am a romantic person or "more non-traditional." All of my responses to these posts will serve only to prove that something is terribly wrong with me.

Do you know how you feel when you are excited to be around people with a common interest and you're all getting warmed up to share about what you really think? Imagine this scene:
You are about to meet with a group of these other people, almost all of the same gender as yourself, to discuss and engage in the thing that you do that is closest to your heart-whatever that is. Acting. Gardening. Calligraphy. Whatever. Maybe it's something you don't get to share about a lot with other people because you don't happen to have many friends with that common interest. So, sharing your thoughts and your work here is going to be a blast. You arrive at the event in question slightly late, after the discussion has already just begun and slip quietly into a seat. You're so excited, having been looking forward to this as if it is the answer to some question you didn't even know to ask. This is going to be great.

And it begins with a get-to-know-you exercise. Someone addresses the room, "What is most important to you in life?" The first participant, an attractively dressed woman, quickly raises her hand and confidently says "Dental floss!" Everyone else nods in enthusiastic agreement.

Well, THAT is what life feels like when you are a misfit. You are always smiling and nodding while people talk about their personal (and strangely abusive sounding) relationship with Jesus and their deep love of nail polish and romantic comedies while you are wondering how quickly you can find a way to be in another room without being rude.

This is why I am married to Mike Adams. He shares my inability to make small talk. The two of us together are the worst possible couple to have at a light social hour and the best two people to ruffle the feathers of a committee of church members on any subject. Our social interactions go like this:

Normal Person:  (sweetly) "So how are you guys? How have you been?"

Me: "Well, at long last, I finally learned that I suffer from fibromyalgia so I've been exploring and writing on the nature of pain and how it defines our sense of self. Going through this illness and the process of trying to get a diagnosis and the effect that it's all had on my social ties; it's allowing me to reflect on the whole idea of compassion and see where it is that we stop practicing compassion, and the tremendous cost of that......Oh, and how are you?"

NP: "Fine....I guess. I've been...skiing. Tara, have you seen Dr. Dung? She's a great Oriental Medicine doctor?..."

Mike: "I think that what Tara's pointing to is the larger societal cost of our lack of compassion, by contrast to who we say we are. For instance, here at church, we begin every service with the statement, 'Whoever you are, wherever you are on your life's journey, you are welcome here.' But then, do we really live that? Are we actively welcoming people of different theological perspectives? People of limited means?"

NP: "Sounds...interesting. I think I left my....

Mike: "This country passed a law called 'No Child Left Behind' and yet we are leaving children behind all over the place. People in this country, on Indian reservations and other places as well, live in abject, third-world poverty. Why is this acceptable to us?"

NP: "It isn't."

Mike: "It IS."

And so on. This is why we have to be Unitarians. Sorry about blowing off the writing prompts.

So, if my husband left me, I would probably just pole dance to support my three kids.

Today's #ReverbBroads11 prompt: If you could have any job, what would it be? via Dana at http://simply-walking.com/.

This question is rather fraught for me. You see, I don't have a "real" job.

Photo by Greg Sloan

Don't get me wrong. I have an awesome job. In fact, my daily work includes things like having kindergartners compete to see which one gets to "wake up" my room with the motion control lights and demonstrating the vocabulary words "imaginary" and "proceed" by proceeding into in an imaginary door in my room to the addictive sound of their resounding laughter. I cannot communicate how cool this job is.

I work as a part-time instructional assistant teaching reading to kids. And I make a tiny little paycheck. (Like, if you suddenly sneezed, my paycheck is what you would wipe off your chin afterward.) There is no real possibility for advancement and the district has frozen our pay for the last three years or so as a budget-saving measure.

So, the upshot is, if my husband left me, I would probably have to pole dance to support my three kids.

The poster from my day care's art center

Prior to getting this job, I had worked as a family day care provider, a waitress, a veterinary assistant and a cafe barista. I do, however, have one claim to fame: For two years, I was paid five cents a word to write a monthly community column for the Russian River Monthly, so I am a professional writer, bitches.

Other than that, I was a full-time mother (By the way, what the Hell does that mean? Who is a part-time mother?) And I was a serial volunteer (but not a cereal volunteer.)

I have always been bugged by the fact that I could not support a family, or myself, or probably even a pet dog, on my own earnings. So, I have spent years trying to imagine what I might do that would elevate me to the category of people with careers. Here are some of the ideas I have had:

Job# 1: Devin, 4  and Rowan, 2004

1. Project manager for the community environmental project I helped spearhead
2. World's most qualified family day care provider (pays the same as poorly qualified day care provider)
3. Sociologist (requires PhD, which seems totally do-able since I'm already one third of the way to a Bachelor's of Arts right now)
4. Computer Graphic Design Specialist (This is only funny if you know me.)
5. Permaculturist (allowing me to bring five thousand layers of philosophy, planning, list-making and mental masturbation to growing a fucking garden. The perfect job for me!)

This list is partial, but you get the idea. I have spent the larger part of my adult life wondering what I was going to turn out to be when I grew up, sometimes taking some actions toward doing something about it, sometimes not. In this pursuit, I have generated countless lists, which I still have on file, in case they are needed. I have consulted multiple web sites, studied child development tirelessly, and visited UNM to make a decision about entering their Professional Writing program. I have discussed all of these options in agonizing detail with my parents and husband, year after year, while they patiently supported me, with the result that I have not done a damn thing but be a mother and work with kids. Still.

Fine motor practice (otherwise known as screwing around with pom poms), 2007

I am thirty-six now, and I have worked long enough to say that I think I do at least have a basic outline of what I need in a job to be happy. If I had any job in the world that I wanted it would need to include three things:

1. Making a difference 
2. Working with children
3. Writing

Crap. I have that job now. The writing part happens on the side, and is unpaid at present, but basically I already have the perfect job.

 So, one question. Can I have a raise now?  

Now I remember.

Today's #ReverbBroads11 prompt:   Post a picture of you that you like, write about yourself, post a video - what do you want your self-portrait to say about you? via Kristen at http://kristendomblogs.com/

I was a creative kid, and I always thought I was going to be special. 

My family taught me to believe that I was brilliant and I could change the world.

I had my first son when I was twenty-two. I was a very young twenty-two, but I was a good mother. 

I just didn't know yet that the most important thing in the world was not going to end up being whether or not my kids played with wooden Waldorf toys but whether or not they could learn to make lives worthy of their putting their socks and shoes on everyday; lives that make them catch their breath and forge onward, even when it hurts, because the pain is not as big as the feeling of inspiration that they have learned how to summon.

Photo by Samara Graham, 2010

I had Mikalh when I was twenty-nine, after my divorce and before Mike and I got married. I wasn't expecting to have any more kids, and I had just traveled right into the fiery heart of Mordor and, in a convulsion of mingled despair and blind faith, tossed in everything that had gone before. 

Mikalh made room in my heart for the faith to believe that I could do it all over again because, despite anything else, he was going to be the most loved baby in the world. 

His love of literature and creative pursuits has touched the part of my soul that remembers knowing I could do whatever I wanted and be whomever I chose. He has made me believe again.

Photo by Samara Graham, 2010

My family is the cornerstone of my life. I am not a career woman. I don't think that there is anything that argues with genuine feminism in saying that I choose to focus on the raising of my family, both for economic reasons and for personal ones. 

But for many years, I felt so defined by their needs that I could not really answer the question, "What do you enjoy?'

Now I remember.

I love ridiculous humor.

I love the naked truth where others want to obfuscate.

I love the human capacity to transform.

I love music that shatters the peace and music that holds my aching soul in its arms and tells me it understands.

I love garden soil.

I love to write.

The Poetry of My Last Twenty-four Hours: Words that Cut to the Bone of Truth

I invite you to re-visit this post from last December as part of A Writer Weaves a Tale's Old-Post Resurrection Hop. Check Sandra out. She's a brilliant writer and her blog a way-station for talent.

Words that cut to the bone of truth, sawing away muscle and fat, leaving bare the skeleton of what it means to be human, in all its starkly bloody glory.

Words that take me to the heart of who I am and what I feel.

Photo by Mark

The Poetry of My Last Twenty-four Hours

5 AM. The pain of my fibromyalgia has woken me up to send ripples of flame that spread down my forearms and lick the web between each finger, bringing me moment by moment further from the sleep my body desperately needs. A deeper, hotter fire pours down the column of my spine and fills my sacrum, making it a vessel of aching cramp. A persistent nausea pulls at my insides. 

In the war between discomfort and exhaustion, discomfort has won. I will get up. I will write.

Photo by Jilly

2 PM. The baby that my arms still remember, who smelled of a fresh sweetness as bafflingly ambrosial as a morning bakery, the boy whose soft possibility touches the core of my longing to want good in the world, that boy is sobbing on my couch, having been physically and mentally wounded in his daily battle with Life. 

His cries feel like jagged glass, like punches to my stomach.

At this moment in time, his soul is a crushed tin can beneath the foot of the world. His body curls inward, protecting himself. He is a fetal image again, a sprouting bean, or something bent-maybe not yet broken. I catch my breath, and beg myself for the capacity to remember that this is just a moment in time that can pass. 

If I let myself live inside that strangled sob, inside that inward-bent body, I may soon be crushed again myself, as I was when I had to pass through Scylla and Charybdis to become a grown woman myself. But I will not let him pass through alone, if he could know someone is with him and that he is loved. 

Something is always torn and bloody when a child is birthed. New tears rend me as they grow and I let myself feel the disquiet of Life as it shapes the men they will become. Sometimes all I have to offer these children is an outstretched hand.

Photo by Jenny Downing

6 PM. My church community has gathered in the darkness of December around an elaborate double spiral of pine boughs in our icy church parking lot, to usher in the winter solstice. 

The planning for this has been halting, filled with confusion, miscommunication, and emotional exhaustion. Leading up to this moment, I have felt more than once like stepping away from the project. 

Community is never what you think it is. It is always unkempt, filled with unintended power struggles and accidental slights; with the tireless wars we launch daily in the practice of attempting to live together.

Chanting begins, led by teenagers with a chant they have learned at a youth con, "Spiraling into the center, the center of the web, we are the weavers, we are the woven ones, we are the dreamers, we are the dream..." The background is punctuated by the sounds of the reverse signal of a backhoe that is moving snow nearby into great useless dunes by the roadside. 

Our community-elders, young children, teenagers, adults are moving into the center of a spiral, holding tiny pine cones to drop into a fire as an act of letting go. Upon reaching the center, they receive a candle and place it where they wish among the boughs on the arm of the spiral leading out. I am directing a child on crutches in an icy parking lot, listening to a persistent beeping, but, more-so, I am enveloped by the intention of the ritual. 

I desperately need to let go. I need to leave the self I thought I was in the light of summer in that fire and walk out with a new self, strong enough to meet the challenges Life has chosen, in its dazzling randomness, for me to face. I will do this, even if I must do it while prodding a crippled child whom, unbeknownst to me, I will later learn has already fallen with his crutches on the ice and suffered a concussion.

Photo by Kristine Coblentz

"Return again. Return again. Return again. Return to the home of your soul. Return to who you are. Return to what you are. Return to where you are. Born and reborn again. Return again..."

The comfort of the truth of these words washes over me. Where sweet encouragement to cheer me would sour in my ears, the beauty of darkness juxtaposed with light, the Truth of Nature and of being human holds me like a child in a mother's arms, comforting me with reality.

Litany. In the greatest darkness. Response: The light is reborn. Out of winter's cold. The light is reborn. From our deepest fears. The light is reborn. When we most despair. The light is reborn.  The light is reborn. The light is reborn. 

To end the ritual is my part. I lead the crowd inside, where seven children, fourth grade to ninth, guide us all competently, confidently, and gorgeously in the act of welcoming in the four directions and putting the ritual to rest. 

They say, finally, these words that I have written for them:

"The wheel of the year spins inward toward dark and quiet, outward toward light and creation. Again and again, it spins, and our lives spin with it, through happy times and sad, new inspirations and times of letting go.

Our lives mirror the beauty of the turning of the wheel.

We hope you will stay with us for cider and social time and that you will take with you the collective light of this community into the dark places you must go this coming year, and use it to germinate your dreams." 

I am bursting with pride in my community. We are raising bold children who know beauty, who can lead, who can think. We have wisdom among our elders in Los Alamos that would be the envy of any convocation of sages. Our families are vibrant, seeking, and strong.

In this moment, it is worth it to be human in a community, to suffer through emails that I don't understand, to bake a dozen cookies while getting ready for work, to attend meetings at the end of exhausting days, to struggle with how to live in beloved community.

I think that it is worth it to love the poetry of dark and light, to love the shadows that play around the edges of our lives, for the depth that they add to living.

If I live with more pain because I take the time to see them, I say I live, too, with more beauty.

Photo by Patrick Kelly

 This song makes me catch my breath and remember.

Notes on photos: The first three photos are creative-commons licensed searchable images that I found on Flickr. The fourth is a photo taken by my incredible, inspiring friend Kristine Coblentz at the Solstice ritual last night. She should also be credited with taking a huge leadership role in creating that ritual and having it be what it is. Her vision inspires me. The fifth photo was taken by me of my son Devin at our church's UU Nativity Pageant last Sunday, when he was a sheepishly smiling Caesar Augustus. The last photo is used with permission by my talented friend Patrick Kelly, whose gorgeous photographs can be found at http://photos.pmkelly.com/. Go look at them.

I guess the upshot is I'm really a redneck.

Today's #ReverbBroads11 prompt: Instead of a list of your favorite things, write a list of your least favorite things, e.g. Worst book you ever finished, the color you hate, bad songs, bad romances, bad recipes?via Amy at  http://2bperfectlyfrank.blogspot.com/

OK. This is a phone-in post. I am truthfully pretty focused on the fact that I am in consuming pain for no good reason, but a list that looked like this: 1. Pain, 2. Pain, 3. Pain would be dreary, so I will attempt to remember other things that I hate as well:

Photo by Matt Brown

1. Worst book ever. This is going to make me sound like a total asshole, but I read Tale of Two Cities for a book report in sixth grade because I was busy trying to prove what a genius I was, and I am still scarred. In my defense, I am an actual Dickens fan. I have read David Copperfield, A Christmas Carol, and The Adventures of Oliver Twist. But the words "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." are scrawled onto my brain in the same fashion that "I promise to be a good boy" might be scrawled repeatedly upon a page by a castigated schoolboy. Never again.
2. Color I hate. Avocado.This offensive color is always associated with the 70s, and paired with burnt orange, which was obviously the result of psychological tests to determine the color combination most offensive to the human eye. Especially when combined with paisley. UGH.
3. Bad songs. Anything by Charles Mingus. I know. Throw stones. Really hard ones. But the thwacking sound of the stones bashing my skull will still sound better than this kind of jazz. Don't even get me started on Monk. OK, OK, I'm a total Philistine. I don't really like Classical either. I will go crawl in a hole and die now. A hole with my Disturbed mp3s...
4. Bad romances.What does this mean? All romances are bad romances. Well, that's not true. I love most of my married friends, and I obviously love my husband. But I hate romances. Hate chick flicks. Hate romantic comedies. Hate romance novels. Hate celebrity magazines. Hate celebrities. I may as well grow a penis.
5. Bad recipes. The worst is probably pickled eggs. I tried them at a luncheon. Everyone was fawning over them, but me? I was overcome with revulsion. I could hardly stand that they were even allowed on the table. They looked like giant tumescent eyeballs stained with bloody vinegar.

I guess the upshot is I'm really a redneck. Those formative years in high school when I watched a lot of Beavis and Butthead have obviously
damaged my sense of class permanently. I guess I'll go fry a squirrel...

People who take Topomax should never do anything.

Today's #ReverbBroads11 prompt: What are your biggest pet peeves? via Em at  http://warmedtheworld.blogspot.com/

I'll focus on one: forgetfulness!

I hate when people forget things. It makes life like this: everyone else is a cub scout but me-I'm the den mother. Did I mention my whole family has ADHD? (My middle son leaves socks around our house the way the Easter Bunny leaves eggs.)

Here's the worst part:

A couple of months ago, my neurologist prescribed me Topomax for my migraines. And it dramatically reduced my migraines. Which is a big deal, since, prior to that I had UPGRADED to an average of 15 migraine days a month.  But it made me an idiot.

The first week, I lost my credit card, forgot to pick my six year-old up from school, and tried to set fire to my house over and over again with a glue gun. Now it's a bit better. But I can't write letters backwards in the air anymore! (Shut-up. I need to. It's part of my job. I'm a reading instructional coach.)

A funny thing happened today.

I can't hand-write the addresses on my holiday cards anymore, because of my fibromyalgia, and my husband had the brilliant idea of using Excel and Avery labels to make the job easier. So, last night, I was carefully aligning and sticking labels onto holiday cards. Which I send to everyone in the goddamned world. 'Cuz I'm that good. I even wrote a cute holiday letter.

So today I'm carefully, lovingly folding each letter to include with the photo cards of my three kids and my canine-donkey hybrid dog. I've got through about thirteen when I notice they all say

"We hope 2010 finds you happy and well."

Maybe it will be construed as a joke?

Just when I was feeling really low, though, my mother, a brilliant woman and writer who graduated summa cum laude with a degree in creative writing, calls me:

Mom: "My car is gone."

Me: "WHAT?"

Mom: "It's just completely GONE. I parked it on the side street, on Bathtub Row, outside the Senior Center, and when I came out, it was just...gone."

Me: "It isn't."

Mom: "What do you mean?"

Me: "It's not gone. You just can't find it. Do you need me to come and get you and help you to find it?'

Mom: "Yes, because I'm about to cry."

Me: "OK. I'll be there in a minute."

Mom: "I'm in front of the Senior Center. I'll be the one crying."

So, I got in my car, my self-esteem having already been slightly elevated. My mother, although having been blessed with a well-honed wit, has been given short shrift in the mathematical and directional skills departments. But, to be fair, this was her first visit to the Senior Center since moving to Los Alamos.

I drove up to the square grey Senior Center building and adjacent parking lot, and came immediately upon my mother's silver Toyota Corolla, with her sunglasses perched on the hood. She was nowhere in sight.

I phoned her. The ringing ceased and a loud rustling sound commenced, which continued for about forty seconds, until I hung up. "God damn it, mother!"

I put the car in gear, rounded the corner, drove down a side street and discovered my mother standing on a snowy sidewalk outside a brown apartment building, looking expectant.  I honked.

She got in the car. "Well, I don't know where the fuck you think YOU were but your CAR is at the Senior Center."

And we both started laughing. It's good when you can laugh through the dementia.

It eases the pain.

I'm having an early midlife crisis with technicolor, knee socks and pony tails.

Today's #ReverbBroads11 prompt:Did you taste any new flavors this year? Did you love them or hate them or in between? Will you incorporate these new flavors into your life? via Bethany at  http://bethanyactually.com/

Color.

All my adult life I have tended to choose black clothes most of the time to avoid having to coordinate colors. And this year I actually embraced color. Kinda like when Dorothy first stepped into Oz.

Also I started wearing ponytails and knee socks. Because I've had undiagnosed fibromyalgia and so I have spent the last several months wondering if I am going to be sick all my life and whether I will be able to work and who I'm gonna be. I think this is my version of a midlife crisis. So, the result is copious writing, color and questionable hairstyles.

I'm just gonna go with it.

The story of how I accidentally and shockingly helped save a creek and now no one remembers but me and Amy.

Today's #ReverbBroads11 prompt: Is volunteering something you do regularly? If yes, where do you volunteer? If not, why not? via Kassie at  http://bravelyobey.blogspot.com/

Amy and me on the bridge, summer 2010.

Interesting you should ask. I volunteer at my church. I do two things there currently. One is co-teach a Sunday school class for middle school aged students, and the other is serve on our church's religious education committee. All of which is very interesting considering I am an atheist.  But...I digress. How about, in keeping with my usual form, I do this assignment wrong and tell you about something else, something I have talked about less.

Like the time I saved a town and a creek from near destruction.

I am going to cut to the chase here. If you want to become informed about watershed issues, you will need to read something else. This will be a nuts and bolts sort of description of how I was accidentally and shockingly charged with leading a citizen's advisory committee reporting to an actual government body. The mission: to create a plan with community buy-in to fix our fracked-up streamside beach.

The old bridge.

Here is the real story:
Between 1998 and 2003, while I was in my early twenties, I was doing four things (besides chasing around little demons in cloth diapers):

• attending local Recreation, Park and Water Board meetings in tiny little rural town, population 700+
• taking part in the Dutch Bill Creek Watershed Group, which was an organization of local people; most of them scientifically trained environmentalists; organized around raising awareness of and creating solutions for problems in our local watershed, a tributary of the Russian River.
• taking transformative seminars that made me sure I could change the world and
• drinking too much coffee

The scenario was this: Camp Meeker had long been a summer resort town, whose single loveliest feature was a dammed up creek swimming hole with a Podunk snack shack and lifeguard. Since the turn of the century, this had been the case. The first year or two that I lived in Camp Meeker, that swimming hole was the best thing going on summer days, and a focal point for the community.

The swimming hole in Camp Meeker in the old days

Until the hippies ruined everything. Scratch that. Actually, it was the goddamned salmon! It turned out Coho Salmon, which are severely at risk, live and breed in Dutch Bill Creek, and that they can't actually jump thirty feet in the air to get over the dam that we had built. (Like I said, this is a not a very good scientific explanation.)

And the permit for the summer dam was withdrawn. Within a couple of seasons, what was left behind, was a gravel and algae-filled muck-pit covered with encroaching Himalayan blackberry and broken beer bottles. A sad spectacle of what was once the gathering place of a community. People felt resentful and, in a way, demoralized to have had an impersonal government agency come and take away what had been the heart of their community.

The environmentalists, who lived there, wanted a nice creek-side beach that was not a detriment to salmon as much as anyone else, but the government board and the watershed people were not really in communication, due largely to the fact that there are only so many meetings working people can go to in a month.

And I was the common link. Me and my best friend, Amy Lemmer, earth mother and community builder extraordinaire, who for some reason, took a back seat and decided to cultivate me as a leader rather than taking the driver's seat.

Winter flood over the old dam, circa 2003.

Somehow, through the process of showing up in all these places hyped up on caffeine and idealism and not being the other person in the room (who was a weirdo with a tape player that he used to record all the board meetings and then accuse the board members of everything from Brown Act violations to being secret members of the Illuminati), I was selected to get the environmentalists and the rednecks to talk to one another and recommend a course of action to the board.

Because I had no idea that this was weird, and I was a dewy-eyed idealist (as I've mentioned) I invited everyone in the world to the first meeting, including government officials working for relevant grant-writing agencies. And, weirdly, they came. The committee called itself the "Dam Plan Committee".

We met. We planned. We wrote two grants that failed. No one wanted to fund us without studies having been done. And no one wanted to fund studies. Let me make this clear: I didn't do the work. I didn't even understand the science. The committee included an engineer, a salmon geneticist, an ethnobotanist, a watershed workshop leader and wildlife biologist, an environmental educator and someone from NOAA. I didn't finish high school, and my major qualification for anything is that I am companionably bossy. I sent reminder emails, typed up reports, smoothed over ruffled feathers and kept holding up the vision of having a solution that worked for people and fish.

Then, even more strangely than anything that preceded, some drinking water was flushed into a body of natural water in our district, someone was fined, and a grant was created for $190,000 to give someone. And they gave it to us.

Because the person making the decision was the charming young woman, Leah Mahan, that I had invited from NOAA and subsequently befriended.

Then later, I got divorced, had a nervous breakdown, picked myself up, reinvented myself, had a new baby with a new man (my now husband) and moved away. And others stepped up, took the lead, took the project the rest of the way and...they finished it. They built this beautiful bridge and restored the creek bed. It is gorgeous. I have walked there.

They did it without me, but it couldn't have happened without me. You know what I mean?

So here's the thing: I don't care who you are and what your limitations are. Don't ever, ever let anyone tell you that you can't make a difference.

The new, salmon friendly bridge over Dutch Bill Creek, as seen on the Gold Ridge RCD web site.  

If you want the long version of the story, which is interesting and also makes me tear up, here it is:

12 min version: Summer Dam Removed to Create Fish Refuge - Camp Meeker Dam Removal from Ben Zolno on Vimeo .