New Year Wrap-up

Yes indeed, the sun has set on yet another year and  2016 blew in with with gusto and freezing temps here on the northern shore.  Some strange atmospheric anomaly brought with it the tease of seeing the northern lights as far south as Cannon Beach, so in search of a little magic, a friend and I put on one each of the collection of jackets-hats-vests-and gloves co-mingling with the family of boots to drive up to one of the lookout points away from the light pollution of the metropolis of Cannon Beach. 

We set off into the inky night, any glow from the moon obliterated by the giant specter-like Spruces guarding one side of  Hwy 101 and the Pacific Ocean- – blackness incarnate –  on the other.  Headlights are all but useless on this road of hairpin curves and the darkness swallows the meager glow fr m our high-beams.  So we threaded our way out of town into the encroaching spookiness  until we came to Nekehanie lookout where we might be able to search out out some light-play on the horizon. The wind howled with a vengeance on this point as it juts out into the Pacific;  Manzanita to the south and Cannon Beach to the north.  My shoe-box  size car does not like this kind of wind, nor does its driver – so we inched up as close to the wall separating parking lot from the sheer drop into the ocean and turned off all the lights hoping for a light show.   As we waited, the car shook, the cold crept in and the spook-factor ratcheted its way up.   The only light we saw were those of few fishing boats tossing at sea and I again thanked the gods that I was not on a boat tossing in the dark.  As we sat, cloaked in the black night, it reminded me of the William Ernest Henley poem:

Daytime view from Nekahanie Lookout

“Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul…

In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud;

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody but unbowed…

It matters not how straight the gait,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;  I am the captain of my soul.”

That same captain saw fit to settle me on this gorgeous coast with the intention of reinventing life and so I am.  The first week of the new year always brings up the urge to avoid New Year’s Resolutions, but a review of what’s past and what might be ahead always seems to creep in.  While mulling over such things, I began to fall into that abyss of trying to figure out what this time of life is all about.  I’ve never really understood or identified with the term retirement.  Thank God I was rescued from further ruminations by a phone call from a strange country code: 256…   I answered my dark-ages black flip-phone (yes I admit it…) before the whereabouts of the prefix had been found in my mental Rolodex, for those of you old enough to remember such things.  A resonate voice full of lilting accent blossomed forth….     Identifying the accent, but not the words I knew it was Uganda calling!    A little knee-jerk panic hit as I wondered if  I was going to being able to understand any of this. Historically – the answer would be no:  lousy acoustics of my  phone, poor connection, a vaguely British accent speaking across thousands of miles, old fart hearing and a brain (mine) being out of practice in processing the uniquely Ugandan way of stringing English words together.

But we prevailed and it was the most delicious, surprising conversation.

She said “It is the New Year and I could not welcome it without calling you!  I have been missing you!  And I love you too much… and I could not start another year without saying thank you for all you have done? We miss you SO much!” 

Oh my, I felt wrapped in love and gratitude for knowing this woman, having lived those years in Uganda,  having  been “enough” to be missed two years later.  Overcome with emotion I couldn’t think fast enough to ask her about everyone and when I tried one volley, I could tell there was familiar mis-step in making oneself understood (it goes both ways)  when the crackle of a poor connection took over … In the next moment,  I think I heard her ending the conversation as it was just beginning. It was a very Ugandan practice – usually without preamble the conversation is simply “finished.”  Air-time is a precious commodity and telephone etiquette is just different.  Was that “Goodbye”  I just heard?  Yes – I think so. And I thanked her for calling and told her,  “I miss you and love you ‘too much. ‘ ”  And then it was over.   Had it actually happened? 

Wow!  What a gift! What a spectacular way to start a new year!  A with it,  a heartfelt reminder of the impact we have on each other’s lives.  Emily – who rescued a toddler literally from the sacrificial alter of a local witch doctor and moved heaven and earth to help me with Peter’s horrid school situation had far more impact on my life in Uganda than I perceived  having had while there.  Still, I believe any small act of caring resonates far more deeply that we can imagine.  It was – for me – a clarion call to continue to be mindful of our ability to change the world through small acts of kindness given freely and without attachment to the outcome. And that continues to be one of the repeating gifts from my time there: to simply to the next right thing without expectation of return.  Just do it.

 Three weeks later, life has resumed some form of normality. The elk herd wanders down the street and fat racoons maraud around town at night and the wind blows. 

One big step for me in the ongoing process of re-calibrating and redefining life has been to jettison some of the trapping of a prior life that no longer support me.  The knowledge from and the appreciation of that life remain, as do good friend but other things no so much.  The website I had for 20 years Focus On Space and the email that went with it, along with it the book site are now defunct.  And I will tell you that the conscious dismantling and untangling of a previous identity with so much history was daunting.  It is so much more than I thought and as liberating.  Rather than dragging my history along behind me by default, I decided-to-decide what I would keep.  That said, there is NO aspect of life that that site did not touch:  accounts, online billing, contacts, professional life,  ad infinitum.  As soon as one layer was cleared another took it’s place.  But, slipping around in the primordial goo of a new life forming is a distinctly unsettling – if often exhilarating – experience. 

So I am exploring and face it – funds are essential. But  thanks to Peace Corps and  other internal shifts, my relationship with money has changed as has the life-style I choose, allowing a lot of latitude.  But this new life I have here has no real rhythm and that’s taking some getting used to.  I’ve taken on something new for me that stems from the language training in Uganda and my short stint in Mexico, learning how to teach English as a Second Language.   I’m the new coordinator for recruiting students and tutors for a TESL program funded by Clatsop Community College.  It ends in May, when the tourist season starts here and it’s been interesting.   It’s a bit like herding cats:  finding both tutors and students and then matching them up and finding venues for sessions: different schedules, abilities, transportation limitations, etc. etc.  I’m teaching one class a week that ranges from 5 – 12 students, half at any given time are new… English skills all over the place and great fun.  What a great group of lovely, supportive, funny women.

My role as staff for  Haystack Rock job starts and this year I’m getting paid for what I did for free last year.  That fulfills one of my intentions: to get paid for work I would do (and have done) for free 🙂  Since that job revolves around low-tide, there’s no normality to be found there.  The tide waits for no man, so all other schedules have to dance around this one.  No sense of balance there…   But being paid to be on the beach, talking to people about the wildlife is pretty fine.  However, the first session of beach duty was a little raw: 45 mph winds, cold and rough surf. 

And somehow I’ve made it onto the front page of the local papers without doing anything illegal or outrageous – yet.  I was interviewed about my Peace Corps experience, so it was fun and lovely to have the chance to the experience.