This n that

Bluff overlooking Teklanika River, Denali Natʻl Park, Alaska

What am I most proud of?  Heʻs standing there in front of me.  Over 15 years in the making and an ever amazing work in progress.  The most precious part of my life.  My son, Connor.

 

He has stood up for kids who were being bullied.  Years afterward, he was bullied but somehow found it within himself to walk away and not give the offender the satisfaction of knowing he was bothered by it.  I really donʻt think thereʻs a mean bone in his body.

Heʻll play video games till the cows come home but will help me out with ideas for crafts Iʻm completing. Proof that kids can make something without a joystick, left trigger, X to jump and Y to exit.

 

He loves to ride a fast, stinky, noisy snowmachine across the tundra but is content to sit quietly and fish on a summer day.  Or hike the river with Auntie Ti.

When he was in first grade, someone made fun of him for coloring a giraffe green.  It hurt his feelings very much.  He told me about it when he got home.  I asked if he remembered what Iʻd always told him about art.  He said, "yes, you said art is whatever you make it and you can do it however you want because thatʻs why itʻs called art".  His teacher said the next time they had an art project Connor very nicely shared our thought about what art is.  There were no more problems and, in fact, the other kid loosened up with his own art guidelines.  Too funny!  Wonder if there were purple hippopotomuses and pink iguanas in class that day.

Oh and heʻs taller than me.  In case he reads this at some point Iʻd better include it.  Taller.  Taller.  Taller.

At times the teenage attitude rears its ugly head.  Thankfully not often so far.  We butt heads at times but thatʻs to be expected. No grudges are held and things resolve quickly because we talk.  Ok sometimes we go to separate rooms to cool off but in the end itʻs only a matter of minutes before weʻre back on track.

He has a heart of gold, filled with love and kindness.  As painful as it is at times to see him hurt by words or actions, heʻs well enough grounded that he bounces back.  Onward and upward!  

He has remained true to himself and not been swayed by the "in crowd" to do otherwise.  In fact, one kid told him "you never want to do anything (drinking, out past curfew, shoplift) because your dadʻs a cop and your momʻs a dispatcher" to which he answered "No!  I donʻt want to do those things because theyʻre wrong to do no matter who my parents are".  Bam!  (And, yes, I know itʻs dumbfounding to think kids his age are already drinking.  Unfortunately in my line of work weʻve seen them as young as 10 years old.)  Heʻs a freshman now and, though high school years can be rough, so far so good.  

Letʻs hope his strength and character hold strong.  I know there will be slips along the way but isnʻt that how you learn life best?  He has family here to support him through it all, too, which I think in many cases tips the scales in a kidʻs favor.
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On an earlier post mentioning the trip to Teklanika, pictured above and below, my sister commented: "Interesting how sometimes we forget how quickly our little babies are maturing. How we just assumed all these years that they were ignoring those 'boring' moments with us. When in actuality they have weaved them so quietly into their own fuzzy sweaters of life that they love to snuggle with. Sis"   Love the way you worded that, Sis.  And oh how true.

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Eyes forward

Ever get that uneasy feeling?

Kodak moments

 

To those with an eye for photography, the lighting is far from perfect in these photos.  The viewer has no connection to the image so they may critique it.  But I see the events before and after the shutter button was pressed.

Pictures can take us back in time.  They can trigger memories and feelings stored away in our psyche. If you look at a familiar picture say of your child or your vacation,  chances are youʻre not judging it for first place ribbon potential.  Instead your mind begins playing like a movie as you recall the time surrounding when the image was captured onto a disk or film negative.  Younger readers may need to refer to Websterʻs to understand "film negative".  Aged myself with that statement, I suppose.

The first photo was taken from the gravel bars of the Teklanika River in Denali Park in mid-August at around midnight.  It was during a three day trip with Ti and her daughter, Des and my son, Connor.  We had finalized plans a month earlier and were excited for time to pass so we could head out to The Park.  As luck would have it, the dynamics of family life in my house changed dramatically the week before our trip.  Nevertheless we ventured on and enjoyed ourselves.  So for me the moon rising photo reminds me of how the world is calm even when life may jostle you around.  It reminds me of my precious son as he hugged me tight during a hike earlier that day and said, "Itʻll be okay, Mom".  Kids see through whatever facade you put up to protect them from your worries and pain. It reminds me of untapped strength in myself and those whom I hold dear.

 The sunset picture was taken while Connor and I drove six hours home to Fairbanks from Anchorage recently. He hooked up his iPod to the car stereo and we sang along to everything from Black Eyed Peas to Godsmack to Keltik Elektrik.  We made the usual stops along the way  for munchies and restrooms.  He even worked on his homework!  The autumn colors were the most spectacular theyʻve ever been north of Broad Pass.  I decided, however, that we wouldnʻt make photo stops since Connor had school the next day.  He was tired and we had two more hours to drive.  Yet as we zipped past a scenic lookout at 65mph, he shut off the radio, turned to me and pointed out the window, "You HAVE to pull over Mom!  Look at the sky, no WAY are you passing this up!".  Sure the sunset was gorgeous!  But when I look at the photo, I see a teenage boy who enjoyed a stop to view natureʻs beauty.  A boy who unabashedly sang a duet with his 40-something mom to My Humps; he was Will I Am and I was Fergie.  Probably good we were confined to the soundproof car.  Then there was the semi driver who flipped on his overhead floodlights, turned them to point into our eyes and purposely blinded us as he came down hill toward us.  Not sure what his issue was!  And I remember miles of no music as my boy and I chatted about trivial things and life issues.

A picture is indeed worth a thousand words and endless memories.

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Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Come a little closer, you look yummy

Lynx at Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, Portage Glacier, AK
(ignore the cage blur in forefront of photo)

Grizzly at Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, Portage Glacier, AK

Tennyson

"Tears, Idle Tears" 

- Alfred Lord Tennyson 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather in the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

   Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

   Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

   Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

Thematic Photographic 156 - Red

 Meet Lucy.  Sure Iʻd like to say I took these photos while diving in some exotic locale but Iʻm an above the water kind of gal.   And Lucy here is a giant Pacific octopus living at the Seward Sea Life Center in Seward, Alaska.  Sheʻs HUGE!  Huge looking in the photos anyhow. 

At the time of this photo, Lucyʻs bulbous head was only about the size of a small cantalope.  She was young.  Average size for her species full grown is 16ʻ total length and 110 pounds.  Theyʻre able to move up to 700 pounds with those strong arms!

It was mesmerizing to watch Lucy effortlessly maneuver over every square inch of her tank.  She never stopped moving.  All eight arms constantly reaching in different directions.  Her color would shift from a dull orange-red to deep or bright red if someone stepped near her tank wearing red.

(For more Thematic Photographic, visit Carmi at Written Inc.  Itʻll be time well spent.)

Become one with the deck

Perched on the cable for Zazuʻs run

They saw Mom nearby but she wouldnʻt come up while I was visible.

They look a little miffed about lunch being late.

Mom hanging out waiting for me to scram.

Yippee, lunch time!

Magic invisibility blanket.  Donʻt knock it, it worked.

Met any good eggplants lately?

"If opportunity doesnʻt knock, build a door."~~ Milton Berle

Walking around what is nicknamed "Glitter Gulch" near Denali Park I passed other pedestrians, cars, bridges, trees, a river, buildings and.......a door.  It stands perfectly upright about ten steps off the pedestrian/bike path along the main highway.  For a split second I was perplexed then intrigued. Then a little light went on in my head and shortly after passing this door I built my own door of opportunity and took the first step toward a business venture in Glitter Gulch.  More on that at another date.

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it,

bearing within him the image of a cathedral."~Antoine de Saint-Expéry, Flight to Arras, 1942

Naturally I didnʻt open the grey door in the picture here.  After all it is marked "Private".  The mind whirls with logical thoughts of what might be on the other side, doesnʻt it?  A shanty shack?  A modern, luxurious mansion?  Iʻll tell you itʻs most likely a shack since just past those trees the hillside drops at a severe angle down to the swift running Nenana River.  Not a lot of real-estate on which to build mansions (or cathedrals). But Iʻll bet whoever lives there is as happy as a lark being able to spend their summer in Denali Park.

"I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed.  If you truly eradicated it in

a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant."~Ursula K. LeGuin, The Language of the Night

Enough with logic.  I love to imagine ludicrous things where logic dictates otherwise.  Imagination keeps the mind and heart young.  Expressing it out loud can quite often generate odd looks from folks.  Oh well never you mind those eggplants walking around.  They donʻt know what theyʻre missing.  Whatʻs on the other side of the door?  My sister says itʻs the Other Narnia.  Maybe itʻs a time portal back to when paved roads and motorized vehicles didnʻt exist.  Perhaps to the future, though thatʻd take all the fun out of living day to day I think.  Or is it the door to immortality?  Or might you become the wind or a dragon if you step through?   A superhero?  Yes the possibilities are endless!  Unless, of course, youʻre an eggplant in which case you stepped through to find.......gravel and trees alongside the highway beside a grey door marked "Private".  I for one am NOT an eggplant and I doubt you are either.  So tell me what happens if you step through the door......

Eyes forward

Bald eagle seems a fitting photo for July 4. (photo taken in Homer, AK)

Zazu-magoo

camping from Fairbanks to Soldotna

This is Zazu.  Heʻs 12-years old now.  Heʻs a mix of chow and husky.  A split-second earlier his head was on his paws and the big brown eyes were peering up at my son and I.  My son said it looked like Puss n Boots from the Shrek movies.

In 1999 when I visited the local animal shelter, Zazu was in a pen alone.  As folks walked by he sat quietly but intently watching "the humans" from the back area of his pen.  As I walked by, he bounded to the front of his pen and began bow-wowing and warbling at me.  If youʻve ever been around huskies you know the kind of warbling, talky-bark thing to which Iʻm referring.  I stopped to "talk" with him and noticed he would barely use his back right paw. As I continued walking through the Shelter, the talkative dog sat back down but kept watching.  Quietly.  Until I walked by to leave and once again was greeted by bow-wowing and husky-speak.

The next day I took my son with me to see this funny dog who seemingly ignored other humans.  The dog who had all but yelled at me as I walked past him.  And wouldnʻt you know it, the red dog repeated his performance on my second visit.  It was then I figured for whatever reason this fuzzy curly tail canine had to come home with us.  I asked the staff why he limped.  They said he was owned by a street person who had accidentally stepped on the dogʻs back paw.  All the bones in the paw were broken.  The street person knew they couldnʻt take care of a wounded dog and brought it to the shelter.

Day three.  My son, my husband and I returned to the Shelter to adopt the dog with the broken foot.  Several other people were there to adopt other animals, however, two families were interested in the same dog as us.  This meant a drawing of names would occur to determine who gets to adopt.  Itʻs not a first come first serve thing.  Everyone stands in a room together hoping their name is drawn.  And Iʻll tell you itʻs a strange mix of excitement and guilt to hear your name drawn.  We won!  Yippee!  Then I saw the sad little face of the child across the room whose name wasnʻt drawn.  Ugh.

The red dog was happy to see us come to take him home.  The x-rays confirmed every bone in his foot was broken.  It healed with no treatment or complications.  Quite honestly Iʻm not even 100% sure it was his right back paw or the left, thatʻs how perfectly it healed.  I named him Zazu after the character from Lion King, my favorite Disney movie.

Iʻm convinced that Zazu chose me as much as I chose him that day at the Shelter.  Heʻs definitely a Mommyʻs dog as he pretty much ignores the "other humans" as he sees fit.  Right now it means Iʻm the one most covered in fur since itʻs shedding season.  I swear thereʻs a whole dog in the Dyson each time I vacuum which right now is a daily chore.

Thematic Photographic #150 - Signs that make us wonder

No smoking life vest under my seat?!  What a relief.

Is this where the saying, "let me change into something more comfortable" began?

Pass.  Thank you.

No touchy!  Got it.

Wordless Wednesday - Beecause I can

 

What's your point?

Didn't expect to see me up here, did you?  Yeah, I could tell by the way you hit the brakes and flipped around in the middle of the highway to come back.  I'm just enjoying a midnight snack.  You do know it's midnight, right?  And your friend there in the car with you has to be at work at 7am.  What's that?  You want a couple pictures?  Okay, no problem, I know I'm cute up here looking deceivingly fluffy.  Besides the mosquitoes are hungry, too, and by the looks of the black cloud swarming your head you won't stay long.  I've got all night.
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Hi, PJ here.  Shortly after I left I'm certain the porcupine and mosquitoes were high-fiving each other and laughing it up.  In fact, the mosquitoes probably said something to the effect, "Thanks Earl.  Works every time.  Silly humans stop to fawn over you and we get lunch. Score!!".  Queue music, The Circle of Life.

A day at the park

Caribou in Denali Park

Willow ptarmigan, Denali Park (photo by B. Geier)

Willow ptarmigan, Denali Park

Porcupine in trees, Denali Park near Savage Creek (photo by B. Geier)

Mama moose & baby moose, Denali Park (photo by B. Geier)

Caribou in Denali Park (photo by B. Geier)

 

Thematic Photographic 146 - Aerial

Flying to Maui last month it was hard to resist getting a crick in the neck while admiring the blue sky and fluffy white clouds below the aircraft.

The view changed often.  Varying between a hundred shades of blue and more cloud formations than you could ever describe.  In childhood there were always rabbits, dogs, fish and igloos in the clouds.  I looked but didn't find any of them on this day.

Relaxing comes easy when tropical sands are the destination and I felt pretty relaxed.  Then I looked out once again and saw this.  For whatever reason, any remaining tension fell away like a silk veil.  It was as though I was silently floating at the edge of the stratosphere, a breath away from leaving this Earth and entering the heavens.  Silent.  Weightless.  Pure.  And I understood why astronauts are in awe each time they look down on our Blue Planet.

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(For more Thematic Photographic visit Carmi at Written Inc.)

Keālia Pond

Hawaiian Stilt / Himantopus mexicanus knudseni / Ae‘o (one standing tall).  Endangered.

They're about 15" long and their legs are almost as long as their bodies.

Life on Mars

About a five minute walk from the car through green pastures to the edge of a cliff and you'll think you've arrived on a different planet.  

Saltwater has sprayed up from the ocean over time and eaten away at the rocks here creating the most amazing geological eye candy.  These were near Nakalele Blowhole off the Honoapi'ilani Highway north of Kapalua.  Beautiful up here!  So diverse in it's scenery that I forgot I had the camera and missed multitudes of indescribable rock formations.

Magical moments

Yertl the Turtle is what my son and I used to call sea turtles when he was a toddler.  We'd walk over very early in the morning to sit on the black rock point at the beach.  The sun would begin it's ascent over the dormant volcano, Haleakala, and soon burn off the shadow of night, replacing it with warmth and blue sky.   We'd choose a fairly smooth rock on which to perch then silently watch the ocean.  Nary a peep would come from my son as he'd sit beside me or on my lap.  His blue-grey eyes sweeping left then right.  Intent on seeing the shell or better still the head bob up for air.

"I see him, Mom" he'd say excitedly but not too loudly.  He'd point in the direction of movement with those indescribably cute little child hands.  The hands that every Mom knows and misses as her child grows up.  He'd turn his head to be sure I'd heard him and I'd see the excitement in his eyes.  He'd look and look again.  Then he'd sit back on my lap and we'd make up stories about what Yertl might be doing today.

"I think he's eating seaweed, Mom" to which I'd agree.  "How come the waves don't bother him?" to which the answer was it's his home and he's very, very strong.  "Where are the other turtles?" was apparently not answered to his liking when I said, "They're probably done with breakfast and are swimming somewhere else now".  My son, big hearted and ever-caring, kept his eyes on Yertl and said tenderly, "Well, that's not very nice.  His friends should have woke him up so they could all go together". 

Today as I went snorkeling I saw Yertl.  In fact, Yertl was quite content floating along so closely to me that we could have kissed.  I moved backward by circling my arms to push water and slowly distance us.  Yet he seemed happy to follow me.  Maybe Yertl saw us all those years ago watching him and feeling badly that his friends didn't wake him.  That's what the little boy of years ago might think.  But we know better.  

My son is a teenager now and, of course, has a more mature view of what Yertl does.  It doesn't mean, however, that his mom wouldn't have loved to have shared her magical Yertl encounter with him. 

Who goes there?

Many a critter skittered, waddled, walked and crawled on the beach before 7am.