Last week was the first week of school

and I'm already beat! When will the summer come?

Oh that's right, it hasn't left yet! 

 

BTW: I am really hating on Piknik/Picasa/Google- whoever it is that decided not to keep Piknik going. I loved being able to add my name to my pics so easily. Now it's a PAIN IN THE Ass (yes, I said it). 

It's just a little hike then a nice climb...

yeah, right!

 The goal was to climb a Thirteener... one of the many peaks in our state that are 13,000+ feet high (thus, the name Thirteener). Oh I know, some of you hard core hikers, bikers, or climbers will scoff and say our goal was ridiculously attainable- simple even. But for me, a person who at 16 or so went on a hike with friends and camping pals up Horn's Peak (13,450) but cried in despair before reaching...well, anywhere near the top. On the upside I did hike up Pike's Peak (a slightly higher peak but also a slightly easier climb) a few years later. But I am loosing ground here...

 So in the beautiful blue of early morning's sky, we headed off with walking stick, lunch and plenty of water to aid our trek.

 I felt a little like Bilbo or Frodo may have felt... adventure and challenge lay in front of me. I was ready for the day! Or so I thought...

 It was beautiful as you can see. We jaunted along jauntily until we read the sign that said it was 3 miles to the lake that was well below the peak and then, well let's just say, I was slightly less jaunty. (I had thought the 3 miles hike started a mile earlier in our day!) 

 Nevertheless, we had planned to make it up that hill and make it we would (although to be honest, when I saw a lone woman traveling downwards, her traveling companion somewhere UP THERE, I began to think I would let Mo make a successful climb to the top without my labored step to slow him down). We finally made it above timberline (below) and I was pooped.

There is video of my giving my final thoughts and bequeathments, what to do with the body, etc. at this point but that is obviously not going to make it onto this blog. But I didn't actually die here fortunately and did keep going up the final leg...

to Gibson Lake. Alas, I could go no further and Mo gallantly would go no further. I sat for a while (not as long as I wished) to get my strength back and then we headed down. The weather (Mo said) would not allow us to make it to the top. The real truth was that there was no way I was going to make it up to the peak that day after that long of a hike so we went to the stopping point of many of those before us and then turned around to leave the Thirteener to another day.

I'll make Whale Peak another day... perhaps by helicopter 

A Mother's Face

The month of August is a poignant one for me. It is, of course, the countdown to getting the kids back to school (which all of us experience- some with more joy than others). This year is my son's first year in high school so I have-- trepidations. 

It's also the month of my oldest's birthday and her birthday makes me feel old in a way that my own cannot. The whole experience makes me feel weary... 

and perhaps a bit perplexed.

 After all it seems just like yesterday that I was giving them their baths...

And watching over them as they explore the boundaries. 

 

Being a mother isn't easy, but it's satisfying.

 

Yesterday's heartbreak

People talk of heartbreak all the time-- mostly from disappointment in love affairs, sometimes in their relationships with their family. But the heartbreak of having lost a loved one in a random act of violence is one that can not be borne. Here in the metro Denver area, the Columbine families continue to suffer and now we have (at least) 12 new families who have joined their ranks. The news continues to focus on the drama of the shooter- the (apparently) excellent neuroscience post-grad student who one day left the ranks of the ordinary student/man/American to become join the ranks of the notorious-- like Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh (not to mention the deceased Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold). Having left his home booby trapped with bombs and incendiary devices, onlookers can only shake their collective heads in puzzlement as to what happened in such a mind to create such a nefarious and destructive plot.  

The natural human reaction is to ask WHY???? My co-workers and I were no less human in our reaction yesterday and one coworker suggested that perhaps we long to know why because we want to assure ourselves that we are not capable of committing such atrocities. Or perhaps we want to be sure that our neighbors and coworkers are not potential assassins.... whatever our desire, it seems to me that the WHYS and WHOs are as random as an atom's ability to appear as a wave or a particle.

And for my part I stand amazed at this randomness even as I mourn... one person is standing, another dying (or dead) on the ground, one person gives witness and the other is too injured to speak. The theater that was assaulted yesterday (shortly after midnight Friday morning) was a few miles from my work. One customer came to my desk and when asked how she was said she was trying to get by. She'd had a friend in that building who was shot. Another regular customer said he knew someone there who had not been shot but was no less terrorized.  My own 21 year-old daughter was going to that theater that night but at the last minute cancelled her plans with her friend who was waiting at the theater. Her friend was supposed to be in theater 9 but was switched to theater 6 at the last minute. My other (older) daughter was also talking about going to the movie at that theater but her boyfriend tore his ACL days before the tickets were to be bought so they decided not to go. Some might attribute this to a deity watching over them but I do not ascribe to such vanity- for it would be vanity to see god's hand protecting my family while others are experiencing so much heartache and sorrow. (For me that always presented the biggest WHY- Why them and not me? Why me and not them?) So I will not attribute this to anyone's god. I am simply glad that the particles fell into place for me and my family that night. 

As for the WHY? There is no reason that can explain or mollify the broken hearts of the people who lost loved ones yesterday. The heartbreak will not be lessened with an answer, it is simply there. Pain and sorrow and tears and a huge broken heart.