QUAIL MUTTERINGS #43. The Ants Go Marching (December 2016)

Posted on December 16, 2016 by chivarnado

I think we humans are a lot like ants. Like them, we all spend an awful lot of time moving stuff from one place to another. In fact, this activity seems to occupy most of our waking hours. Mail is sorted into various piles or the recycling bin. Food gets pulled out of the refrigerator or cupboards and combined into meals. The act of shopping transports items from the store to home to the appropriate storage areas. On a different scale, yard work just moves bigger things. We rake leaves into mini mountains and cart them somewhere else. No longer needed or wanted items are carried off to pawn them onto someone else or donate to a charity. Remodel, add-on, spruce it up. As a lot, we big-brained, bipedal, opposable thumbed primates are not satisfied unless we are shifting stuff around.
When we travel we take our stuff with us. At least the things we think we might need. Earlier this month Kent and I went to Florida for ten days. And yes, we took our fair share of stuff with us. Being cheap, and frugal, we each only took one small, free, carry-on suitcase and a backpack. It’s enough. In fact, I’m sure we could whittle it down even more, but we don’t travel enough to not have to reinvent the wheel every time we pack. It doesn’t seem to matter if the getaway is a month, a week, or a few days. We each still pack the same small suitcase and backpack. Like the ants, we are creatures of habit.
Neither of us had ever been to Florida before. Kent was interested in running in the USATF National Club Cross Country Championships and had, by the way, talked me into racing there also. Unfortunately, I had a migraine that day and therefore did not run. His team ran quite well with the older men placing second for their seventy and up age division. That weekend was at the tail-end of our trip.
The first weekend we visited Key West, a beautiful tropical island located at the most southerly tip of the United States. The lush green landscape was not as bug-infested as I expected. Yes, I had toted a semi-natural bug spray all the way from California, but had used very little of it. Our son-in-law’s parents own a house there and we were fortunate to spend a couple of days with them. One morning, we ran a few miles barefoot in the deep sand on the beach since we couldn’t find any long dirt roads. Perhaps this is due to the development of marsh areas into people-friendly, non-muddy spaces. I was not interested in running on any more pavement.
Our next stop was the Everglades where we took a small boat and explored the mangroves getting up close and personal with alligators, crabs and tropical flora. A highlight was watching a mother alligator doze in the sun, half in the swamp water and half out. She was surrounded by a dozen or so squeaking little baby alligators who were swimming or crawling on the bank. When we were boating around the Ten Thousand Island area dolphins played in the craft’s wake, following us for several miles.
Cruising along the interstate, heading northward in our little rental car, I was again reminded how much like ants we really are. At least they all seem to follow a similar path. While we humans travel along all scattered-like, when viewed from an airplane, we appear to be marching along the well-worn ant highways.
A stop in Gainesville to visit my aunt was our next destination. It felt good to visit. I suppose it was the last time I’ll ever see her. The impermanence of everything strikes me every so often and pulls me down. Then it’s time to resume ant-like activity. Get up. Take an apple from the refrigerator and eat it with almond butter. Go outside and move firewood from one of the heaps in the yard and pile it on the front porch. Keep marching!

Chi Varnado is a contributing writer for The San Diego Reader. Her memoir, A CANYON TRILOGY: Life Before, During and After the Cedar Fire and her children’s book, The Tale of Broken Tail are available on www.amazon.com. Her collection of essays, Quail Mutterings, can be found on www.chivarnado.com.

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #42. Stretching Out (October 2016)

Posted on October 26, 2016 by chivarnado

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #42. Stretching Out (October 2016)

I’m actually stealing away for about half an hour or so during a prep period in a substitute teaching job. It’s rare, but when this happens I seize the opportunity to write. I feel fortunate today that I get to be outside most of the day overseeing PE classes out on the track. At least I’m not cooped up inside behind closed doors under florescent lighting. Carpe diem!
This weekend was bitter-sweet for me as our youngest flew the nest. Again. For a mom, each time this happens it creates a tug on the heart strings even when I know that it’s for the best. First, his coming and going during college breaks; and then, returning home after graduation. Working locally, it made sense for Chance to live at home and pay rent. Almost a year-and-a-half later he’s moving down the hill, to the city, to live with his sister, Kali, and her family. This will help them with their mortgage and he will be closer to the kind of energy that seems to fuel a millennial’s psyche. Logically, it’s a win-win for everyone and I know it’s what he needs. But I still have to go through my own grieving process as Chance moves out yet again. However, this time feels more permanent.
Milo, our big yellow cat, will miss him too. He’s used to Chance carrying him around outside on the porch for a shoulder ride, almost daily. For an inside kitty this is a special treat. I’ll miss the little unexpected connections we share. Just the other evening we watched three deer frolic on the hillside. We’ve often seen a big doe wander through the front yard and stop for a drink from the water trough fountain. At dusk a bobcat’s whisper-bark grabs our attention. A few nights ago I woke to a coyote’s yipping just outside the bedroom window. In the mornings, pre-dawn, as we are all up by then, the owls serenade us in the last hours of darkness. I’m grateful that I’m not moving to the city.

(One week later: During the next sub job’s prep period)
Chance isn’t the only one stretching his wings. I, too, am trying to reach beyond the usual parameters of my life. It had been a year of not hearing back from a literary agent who had agreed to re-read a manuscript I’d written, if I reworked it as to her suggestions. When I’d mailed it I had included a self-addressed, stamped envelope for her response so I should have at least gotten that back. I finally got up the nerve to call the phone number for the agency and, after punching the numbers for the appropriate prompts, I actually reached her. In person! She had moved her office and had not received all her mail so she gave me the new address so that I could send it again. I’m not keeping my fingers crossed, since the likelihood of actually getting picked up by a New York agent is next to nil, but I had at least followed through to the best of my ability. I’ve done what I can.
My husband, Kent, is upping his game too. He is going to run in the USATF National Club Cross Country Championships in Florida, this December. He’s joined a team of seniors to race together in Tallahassee. My spouse has found a new niche with these guys. He looks forward to the races where they share fun camaraderie afterwards no matter how they have placed. And, of course, he still runs a million miles every morning.
We’re looking forward to our adventure in Florida. We’ll probably visit a few relatives, speckled throughout the state, during the week leading up to the competition. Neither one of us has ever been to the Everglades so we plan on checking out the swamps and coastlines in that area as well. There’s always something to look forward to when you shake up your routine every so often. It feels good to spice things up a little and add to the old memory banks. We’re trying to do these kinds of things while we still can.

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #41. Letting Go and Reassessing (August 22, 2016)

Posted on August 23, 2016 by chivarnado

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #41. Letting Go and Reassessing (August 22, 2016)

I suppose there is always some fear associated with a free fall although mine wasn’t, or isn’t, really unplanned. I knew it would be difficult. I would miss the kids as well as creating in that particular art form. After thirty-seven years of teaching dance I had decided to take down my shingle and close up shop. I still loved what I did, but there were other things that beckoned me that there simply wasn’t time for. And there never would be if I continued to hang onto something that I had been doing for so long. Granted, it was huge part of who I was, but in order to grow I needed to get out of my comfort zone and allow myself more time to be available for other things. Things like writing, being an involved grandparent, and sharing our canyon with visitors who needed an escape into nature (our new ecotourism business).
By the end of April The Dance Centre had performed its last story ballet and I had sorted, sold, donated or stored all of the costumes, equipment and accessories which had called the place home since the 1980’s. After taking the last load out and cleaning the studio I fought back tears as I locked the door behind me for the final time. Since then I’ve had to bury my feelings and only allow them to surface in manageable doses, every now and then. In the meantime plenty has happened.
On May 9th my daughter, Kali, gave birth to little Kya and I was thrilled to be there in my motherly/grandmotherly/doula capacity. It was a true honor and privilege to be there to welcome our third grandchild into the family. Kali and Edwin worked well as a team to lovingly bring their new daughter into the world. And the same midwife who had delivered all three of my kids was there to bring it around full circle. A second time. She had also been there to assist Jessie through her labor. Now, both of my daughters had home births, just as they had gone through as babies on the other end of the spectrum. My mom had been in the role which I now am in and I can only hope that my presence is appreciated as much to them as she was to me.
From late May into June Kent and I spent close to a month away. We were on the East Coast with relatives for the first week and the rest was spent in France and Italy where we branched out to experience other cultures. Towards the end of July I went with my sister and a couple of female friends to stay at our cousin’s house in Costa Rica. We managed to squeeze a week in the tropical paradise just before their house closed escrow and would be gone from us forever. Sometimes you just gotta jump on those things!
These adventures have undoubtedly helped distract me from the many mixed feelings surrounding the finished chapter of my previous dancing life. There are certain things which I am definitely happy not to have to spend my valuable time doing. The bookkeeping, for instance, and all the paper/computer work. Cleaning the studio and budgeting for advertizing. Phone calls arranging extra rehearsal times. And, my driving time. Then – occupied by figuring out what I was going to teach in the classes that day, and now – listening to books on tape, music, or better yet: quiet, uninterrupted free thoughts. I don’t have to make myself think up an order of dance moves and then try to retain it all until it could be passed on to the dancers’ bodies. Yes, I really do like having my brain space freed up for extraneous thoughts that come and go.
It’s all about balance. I need time to putter. I think it might be one of my favorite things to do. Perhaps because it’s so rare to snatch a bit of time from our busy schedules and allow ourselves the pleasure of simply drifting from one task to the next. And to use the opportunity to be mindful of our actions during the process. Kent and I like to go to Deer Park every so often to get our dose of Buddhism and practice mindfulness in a supportive community. It’s hard to be mindful when we’re running around in so many directions at once. Yesterday we acknowledged the fourteen mindfulness trainings after doing walking meditation and then listening to one of the nuns give a Dharma talk. We used headsets and listened to a translator since this week’s Dharma Talk was in Vietnamese. The trainings focus on good, honest, compassionate existence with all of creation. Just imagine if every human on the planet communicated with words of loving kindness and inclusiveness rather than dualistic, separatist talk. What a place that could be. As close a thing to utopia as I can see.
So while I continue to struggle with keeping a balance in my life between work, obligations, maintaining community and family, and taking time to just smile and breathe, I realize that it will always be so. I will constantly need to let go and reassess to maintain an equilibrium in life. At least I know that it’s something worth doing. And redoing.