Tag: Memoir

Under a Sepia Sky

Terah Van DusenLeave a comment

Sunday

It was September 6, 2020. The sun appeared like an eraser tip in the sky – gray, muted and small. Usually in September the sun was a bright yellow beach ball shining down over our homestead halfway between Eugene and the Oregon coast. There were high winds. We never got high winds. Smoke appeared to be coming over the mountainside and our sheep were hunkered down in a huge heap out in the pasture. Within days, record wildfires would burn more acres of national forest land than had been burned in all the previous 36 years combined. They’d even give it a special name, the 2020 Labor Day Fires. But we didn’t know any of that yet.

When the smoke settled in and the electricity companies turned off the power, I closed and locked every single window and door in our manufactured home. I didn’t know if locking the windows made a difference, but our home wasn’t that airtight. It was something we struggled with in the winter. If we didn’t have a fire going in the woodstove, we woke up to temperatures near what it was outside.

Wildfires were burning on the other side of the valley. Flames licked up and down the McKenzie River corridor, people’s lives were in danger and farm animals were being transported to the fairgrounds.

“Why, mama?” Our child, who was barely verbal, asked me of the locked windows and doors. She wanted to run and play outside, like she had done during other moments of daylight in the summertime.

“Smoke,” was all I could respond.

Reading the news headlines was making me anxious, but I kept scrolling anyway.

“The Oregon Health Authority warned Saturday that wildfire smoke can exacerbate respiratory diseases, including Covid-19.” September 6, 2020 OPB.org

I retrieved two kerosene lanterns, wicks, and oil that I kept stashed for when the power went out, then set out to make a dinner of lemon and chicken on top of our woodstove. Years ago, a friend of ours had jokingly said that we were the couple he’d want to pair up with in an apocalypse. It was a nice thought, and far from the truth. How many millennials would actually fare well in a real, live apocalypse? That was the word that kept coming up, apocalypse.

On top of feeding, entertaining, and caring for our toddler, I was wondering how I would accomplish a Zoom conference the next day, type and submit an article for the paper, and how the helk we were going to care for all the farm animals given the current conditions.

If the smoke persisted, what would happen to the hundreds of chickens in our care? I stared out the window and feared the worst. I’d been working on a pastured poultry farm two summers prior and we’d suffered a few fatalities during a particularly smoky season. The smoke we were experiencing was already preceding that summer. The sky had been a strange shade of sepia for more than twenty-four hours. It was as if we were all stuck in a vintage photograph. But no one was using words like unprecedented or hazardous to describe the smoke just yet…that would come later.

In the morning, when the water ran out completely, I opened the cupboard where we kept roughly 10 gallons of emergency water in plastic jugs. My soon-to-be husband was working at another farm, his day job at that time, and Autumn was still asleep, so I carried three jugs of water out to our farm animals. Because there was no electricity, there was no pumping water into the water lines.

I watered the flock of sheep and quickly fixed up our chicken brooder, placing blankets over the top to replace their heat lamps. It was probably eighty degrees out, but little chicks need it to be closer to 95 degrees. I was relieved to see that the baby chicks still had one full waterer. I felt like crumbling under the stress, but instead I stepped outside the brooder and took a deep breath, with my hands cupped over my mouth to avoid the smoke.

I craned my neck looking at all the Douglas fir trees surrounding our property. They were towering over me. Dense forest everywhere. Suddenly, it was as if we were living in a matchbox, and all it would take was one spark. I’d lived in the forest for most of my life, but up until then I’d never feared it.

When my fiancé came home from work I was on edge, despite all the deep breathing. He gave me a quick, dry peck on the lips. We were running out of water from our “apocalypse” stash, I told him. He said he didn’t think watering the farm animals with water from our home stash had been such a good idea.

“You take care of the farm, and I’ll take care of Autumn,” I told him through gritted teeth.

Monday

On Monday, Labor Day, I’d been scheduled to pick up twenty 50lb bags of chicken feed from a mill fifty miles north of us, but on route in our minivan with Autumn in tow, the smoke, high winds and impending fires had me feeling unsafe. I explained all of that to the mill’s owner over the phone when I turned around halfway. It was clear he was less than impressed that I’d been unable to follow through. Tensions were high. What kind of farm wife was I?

After returning from work, my fiancé promptly left to purchase a generator. He was also going to pick up the chicken feed: my failed mission. He didn’t mention the massive water shortage issue. I knew he was dealing the best he could. It wasn’t his fault he’d been asked to pick vegetables all day in the smoke. He had a job to do. More than one. Same as me.

I paced around the house, looking out all the windows into the sepia haze. It was day two of no power, no water, and lots and lots of smoke. The sheep were grazing out in the pasture, though they didn’t appear to be eating. I felt horrible for them.

The week before, my biggest concern was catching the Coronavirus. This week I was mentally packing our go-bag. I wondered what other families were doing right then: fashioning air filters out of box fans, purchasing brand-new air filtration systems, watering their lawns and roofs. I felt like a sitting duck and I didn’t like the feeling. I was resentful that farming was demanding so much of my fiancé’s energy and time. I had Autumn to care for…and my own work deadlines to meet!

Thick, mucusy smoke was seeping in through the floorboards and flimsy doors. Our shared objective became to open and close the door as quickly as possible. There was our border collie, Cedar, who was coping with all of this as well.

I ran into our neighbor, an avid outdoorsman, out near the water pump. “I’ve been preparing for this my whole life,” he said to me, cloaked in camo. It was true, he had a generator, and other fancy, survivalist-things. He pulled 5-gallon water containers out of the back of his full-sized truck while his four-year-old ran circles in the thick smoke.

I kept mentally packing my go-bag. Although our neighbor offered me one of his 5-gallon water jugs, my pride, or something, wouldn’t allow me to take it. Probably a stupid decision on my part. Had I taken it, it may have changed the trajectory of our next few days. It might have allowed our family to stay together.

It felt as if the disaster was throwing people into camps: Survivor. Dependent. First Responder. We were all reacting so differently to the stress of the wildfires–which were colliding with our already fragile psyches, beaten down after a year of pandemic isolation and political and social discord. The clock appeared to be ticking slower and slower. Of course it was just the numbers displayed on my cellphone screen that I was going by. I had to run my vehicle in order to charge it. My one source of information and communication never displayed more than two bars of charge at any given time.

I tried not to let my fear show as I nursed Autumn. I didn’t cry. I didn’t complain. At this stage I was still nursing up to forty hours per week. I silently scrolled the news on my phone, hoping my eyes didn’t reveal the anxiety building within me. I couldn’t yet admit that I felt abandoned by my partner due to his lack of communication. I couldn’t yet recognize that rooted deep down inside me was a resistance to trusting anyone for anything. Maybe if he knew all of that then he would have acted differently and communicated more. The lack of control I felt over the situation led me to spiral. Somewhere inside me the reaction to take flight began stirring.

“More than 120,000 people lose power across the Portland Metro area due to a rare and powerful windstorm.” September 7, 2020 KPTV.org

I thought of my college friends in Portland. Pictured them with all their scented candles lit in their apartments, their fur babies and houseplants. This was affecting all of us, I knew. Due to the refrigerator losing power, I’d dragged a large cooler into the kitchen that I’d filled with ice packs. Inside was a half-gallon of milk, yogurt, and some leftovers in glass Pyrex dishes. I looked out at the sepia haze, longing for the electricity it would take to power our two box fans. I knew when Autumn’s dad returned with the generator, it would be used primarily to power the freezers in the shop, containing all the meat he’d raised through his pastured poultry business.

It didn’t take long before I got to thinking about myself and Autumn independent of him. I thought about that quick, dry peck on the lips. I wasn’t crazy when I’d said, “You take care of the farm, and I’ll take care of Autumn.” Was I?

When I suggested packing a go-bag, I’d been met with an eye roll. I shook the image from my mind and retrieved a large plastic tote from the closet. I tipped it over on its side, letting gift bags and wrapping tissue fall to the floor. Autumn gleefully played with them while I placed the items inside the plastic tote from my mental go-bag list: diapers, wipes, three pairs of pants for each of us, three clean shirts for each of us, my laptop and charger, the lock box with our important family documents, a framed photo of my Grandma Peggy, a couple children’s books, and my memoir manuscript. Operating on instinct, I put our go-bag inside my Dodge Caravan, snug behind the driver’s seat. I placed half a dozen apples, a bunch of bananas, and a frozen jug of water from the freezer into the cooler with the other food and hoisted that out to the van, too.

Desperate for information, and though I didn’t recognize it at the time, for connection, I pulled up the news on my cellphone as it charged in my van. A headline from KATU 2 News in Eugene jumped out at me: We should expect loss of life from this fire.

I started the van several minutes before our departure, windows rolled up, cool air circulating throughout. Then I retrieved Autumn from the house. Because she wasn’t speaking much yet, I wasn’t entirely sure how she felt. But I tried to maintain my ordinary cheerfulness and act like everything was normal. My initial plan was to fill up eight of our 2-gallon water containers and then return to the farm. But a part of me just wasn’t committed to coming back. As we drove away, images of flickering flames on the other side of the valley filled my brain. I could see our neighbor and his son in the rearview mirror, but barely.

I had everything we needed if we took refuge some other place. Some place with water and power, I was thinking. Some place kind of wet. Driving west toward the town of Mapleton, away from the fire up the McKenzie River corridor, I realized I didn’t really want to go back to the farm. I just didn’t feel completely safe there. With my history of trauma, it was likely I’d been suffering from PTSD my entire life. Safety, mine and my child’s, came above all else. I’d learned there was no one I could really rely on but myself. I hated to think that my soon-to-be-husband might be unintentionally reinforcing that belief.

I remembered what I’d told him, “You take care of the farm, and I’ll take care of Autumn.”

I hoped he would understand, but naturally I was afraid he wouldn’t. I couldn’t quite identify what was happening inside of me—a combination of fear and hope. Fear of wildfires, hope for safety. It was fight or flight, and I was flying. My cooing, burbling baby girl came first. Somebody, somewhere, had to understand. I didn’t know if we were in real danger at the farm or not, but I wasn’t going to stick around, managing the oil lanterns and the meals single handedly, while missing out on work, to find out. And the smoke. It was all coming down to how airtight your home was. I suddenly thought of Dad in his modest cabin near the redwoods.

I appeared calm but was acutely aware of the coniferous forest waving in the high winds all around us as I drove. Just one spark to ignite a spot fire. Maybe we’d head to northern California to ride out the storm, I was thinking. Shit, the Coronavirus. Not even family would want us showing up on their doorstep at a time like this. I kept driving toward Hwy 101 anyway, stopping in Mapleton to fill up the water, and call my closest cousin, Crystal, while Autumn napped in her car seat.

“No, girl, there’s fires down here, too,” Crystal informed me. “Interstate-5 is closed and it’s burning all between here and Medford.”

“What? Oh my god. But we’re coming down the coast,” I told her. “Do you think it’s any better in Crescent City?”

“The smoke isn’t any better in the Illinois Valley, but you can try Crescent City. I don’t even know if I could get to Crescent City if I wanted to. Hwy 199 might be closed, too,” she said, sounding as frightened as I was.

“What. The. Fuck. Do you guys have power at your house?”

“For now, but there’s talk of them shutting it off here in Grants Pass, too.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about the smoke there? Is it bad?”

“It’s so bad. It’s been like a thick, hazy and orange for a couple of days. And it’s getting worse.”

“Yeah, here too. I just left the farm. We have no power and no water.”

“What? Where are you going? Are you all together?”

“No, we’re not. It’s just me and Autumn. I was thinking of driving to Crescent City, but now I’m not so sure.”

Ashes were falling on the windshield. My headlights were pointed toward the coast, and even in broad daylight, the ash looked like snow lightly falling. If I squinted my eyes, I could pretend it was Christmastime in Montana, where we went every winter to visit my in-laws. I just wanted to breathe, and I felt unanchored, so we drove toward the ocean, fifteen miles away. Before I started driving, my phone vibrated and lit up. A quick glance told me it was an email reminder of my upcoming Zoom conference for work. Knowing I was going to miss it, the best I could do was laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all.

Tuesday

September 9, 2020 “Thousands evacuated as ‘once in a generation’ wildfires burn through Oregon” -Washington Post

Aerial image of west coast wildfire smoke on September 9, 2020. Credit: SciTechDaily

Finding a hotel room had been a beast. There were no rooms available in Florence or Coos Bay, and there was a wildfire up north in Lincoln City, preventing us from driving anywhere but south. I’d called the Best Western Inn in Bandon and, fortunately, they had a room. It cost $200 before taxes but since I had no other options, I said we’d take it. I got a dog-friendly room, in case the rest of the family needed to take refuge there as well. The hotel was on the south end of town near a beach called Face Rock.

After dragging the cooler upstairs and settling into our hotel room, I opened my cell phone to check the wildfire news. A wildfire had ignited near us in Bandon (on the coast of all places!). They name it the North Bank Lane Fire. Fire officials were currently working to put out the blaze, which was 20% contained. The fire had started from a downed power line and had burned over 300 acres.

Meanwhile, the Holiday Farm Fire up the McKenzie River corridor was 0% contained and already 37,000 acres. The hazardous smoke had caused an air quality index of over 300 and rising in the Willamette Valley. On the coast, the AQI was 150, which is still considered unhealthy. One headline read that the air quality in western Oregon was worse than in Beijing. Aerial footage showed astounding images of plumes of wildfire smoke blanketing the west coast. I was shocked to see wildfires dotting entire mountain ranges in northern California and Oregon. The west was on fire and it was unprecedented in my lifetime.

Even though I knew there was a wildfire burning just a few short miles away, I felt safer than I had in days. Autumn and I quickly fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. Guilt tugged at my eyelids as I drifted off, and I tried to ignore it. I knew if it weren’t for my postal service union settlement money, none of this would have been possible. I thought I’d made the right decision coming to the coast and escaping the smoke, but I still wasn’t sure. My fiancé had been distant ever since I’d told him where we were.

Wednesday

To comfort and reassure myself, I analyzed the AQI information over my morning drip coffee. Children and the elderly were not supposed to be out in the hazardous air. I thought of my grandmother, who’d always been my closest confidant. I called her in Arizona to tell her about the craziness happening in Oregon. I let her know where we were and that we were safe.

“Yee-gads!” She responded. “That sounds absolutely awful. What about all those farm animals? Are they going to be okay?”

“I don’t know. I can’t think about that, honestly. I’m on a deadline.”

I told her what I said about him taking care of the farm, and me taking care of Autumn. To my surprise, at the end of our conversation, she said she was proud of me. Something about my maternal instincts.

The things my grandmother was proud of sometimes came as a surprise to me. Like the time I got suspended for punching a girl in the nose during math class. That time, she was proud of me for standing up to a bully. The world wasn’t so black and white. It felt good to have someone on my side.

After the conversation with Grandma Peggy, Autumn and I ventured outside willingly for the first time in days. In the lobby, during check in, I’d learned that some people staying there had been misplaced due to wildfires. They were meant to be there. It was a last resort for them. For us, not so much. I didn’t want to let on that a wildfire hadn’t actually made it to our town. That we were just escaping the smoke.

We walked a narrow sandy path down to the shore. Above the sea, the sky wasn’t clear but the salty air was so satisfying that I ate it in gulps. It was like the ocean produced an atmosphere all its own. The freshness was a gift. Autumn didn’t act like she knew what was going on with the wildfires, but as she ran up and down the beach and for nearly an hour, I felt like maybe I had done something right. I felt like I had done something that made sense to me, even if it was a little privileged.

Autumn and another child social distancing amidst record wildfires and hazardous air.

That night I stayed up and wrote my article that was due at midnight. The writing came naturally. I wished I could sit there with my fingers pounding on the keys for days. Not only was writing a welcome distraction, it was also completely necessary. It simply had to happen, especially since I’d bounced on Monday’s Zoom meeting.

Thursday

Every day I called my fiancé to ask if we had any water on the farm yet. That would indicate whether we would go home or not. Even if there was no electricity and even if the AQI was still 500, I said we’d would return if there was water. Despite a good friend of mine quipping “Well, have fun,” over the phone, I knew we weren’t on vacation. We needed a fair amount of water to cover the basic washing, cleaning, food prep, and cooking back home. I needed something to work with. A couple five gallon jugs, something.

The whir of helicopters outside became a constant, no matter where you were in western Oregon. A good sound or a bad sound, I couldn’t decide. There were still bone dry weather conditions and gusty winds. Dad had been evacuated. The Red Cross put him and others up in a hotel in Crescent City.

September 10, 2020 “Wildfires have burned over 800 square miles in Oregon” –Wildfire Today

Being from northern California, wildfires weren’t foreign to me. But they weren’t commonplace, either. I remember as a kid the first night I got a glimpse into the terror that fires can present. Late at night at my grandmother’s house, we were watching a program that detailed the 1991 fires in Oakland, California. My grandmother fell asleep and I, scared straight, pulled my covers up to my chin. I was obsessively envisioning orange embers tapping at the windows. I was terrified.

Naturally, I’d already come up with an escape plan from our Bandon hotel room. I knew that from our hotel room to the beach was approximately 264 steps. One step equated to roughly one second. So in four minutes, with Autumn strapped snug in her Ergopack, we could escape to the beach via the trail. Half the time if we were running instead of walking. The beach, where there were lots of rocks and sand. The beach, where there were no trees. Going down this rabbit hole in my mind led me to envision the National Guard rescuing people off the coast of Oregon. They would take us all out on boats, where we would see our former homes, our former habitat, aflame. A scenario, I later learned, that was not far removed from what played out on the coast of Australia during their unprecedented brush fires just one year prior.

Friday

September 11, 2020 “At least six people dead, more missing in Oregon wildfires” –OPB.org

Because of the high cost of the hotel room I was in, after a few days, I called around and found a cheaper room at the Red Lion Inn in Coos Bay.

Coos Bay was closer to the farm, where there was still no water, and where the AQI was still off the fucking charts. Moving hotel rooms was an almost shocking thing to do during the pandemic, as the goal was to prevent as much contact with others as humanely possible. I wiped down all the surfaces myself when we entered the hotel room.  

The truth was, at this point I was probably more likely to bring harm to us by catching the Coronavirus, stepping on a jellyfish on our daily excursions to the beach, or getting t-boned coming out of a coffee hut. I vowed to start paying more attention to things other than the smoking woodlands all around us. I didn’t want to put us in unnecessary danger. I needed to get a grip, but all I could do was grip my cellphone and consume whatever I could online about the unprecedented wildfires. I couldn’t spell out “wildfires” in my journal without putting the word “unprecedented” before it.

If you know anything about Paradise, California, you know that in the span of forty-five minutes the town was in a grid lock of bumper-to-bumper traffic with about 30,000 residents trying to flee and the police department hanging up on people due to the volume of calls.

“If you fear for your safety, even if you’ve not been evacuated, you can leave, ma’am,” a police officer reportedly said.

One minute it was falling ash, the next minute it was all up in flames. School children were reporting falling, flaming branches on the playground. People had underestimated mother nature’s fiery roar.

No one could believe it, except maybe the climate scientists.

Credit: ESRI.com

Saturday

Most other farm families couldn’t afford what I was doing. Did that make it inherently bad? A girlfriend, who I’d spoken with on the phone, the one who’d said, “have fun,” was under the thumb of her long-term partner. She was scared too, I knew, and her kids would have really benefited from being able to run around on the beach like Autumn was. I invited them to stay in our room, but deep down I knew her partner wouldn’t “let” them. I also knew that domestic violence starts with being provided just enough to live by, but not enough to leave by.

Our world was quickly becoming divided by those who were going towards the flame, and those who were running from it. Me? I was clinging to a wet seashore. But I knew deep down that I was one who was built to go towards the flame, and that my newish role of mother was setting me apart. Whenever I could, I splayed my memoir pages out on the hotel room desk, revising furiously, as if the world were on fire. The guilt had me feeling like I should be “doing something.”

While she was sleeping, I stepped outside the hotel room door. I’d brought along my cannabis vape pen. I took a long drag, exhaled. The sky was still sepia-tinged. How strange it will look when it finally goes back to normal. Which it will, I assured myself. A blue heeler dog gulped at the air as he leaped and charged at birds in the parking lot. A cop car raced down the highway, sirens blaring. My body quickly reminded me how fragile my nerves were, jumping at the sound, which was so loud and so close. A single plastic bag floated in an algae-filled swimming pool below. I stared at it and thought of how void our current existence is of celebration. About how alive it is with fear. Then I stepped inside and logged onto Instagram, forgetting about the apocalypse for an hour or more, before calling the farm again to ask about the water status. I was wondering when we would return home. Wondering if it could ever be like it was before. If we could ever really go back.

Back Home Before You Know It

Terah Van Dusen7 Comments

Driving past the massive redwood peanut carving meant that we were halfway to Eureka, California. The redwood peanut was also a marker of the town where my mother, Moonbeam, lived. Every other weekend, Dad drove me to Orick for our mandatory visit. Mandatory just meant that the law was involved. The law being involved was practically a law of the universe for people like us.

But the law had little to do with why we were driving past the redwood peanut that day. Except that after my scheduled ear surgery, I was mandated to remain with Moonbeam in Orick–in civilization–until my eardrums fully recovered. It would likely take the rest of summer. My earaches had become regular enough that a physician recommended I get tubes put in to help drain out all the gunk. I would also be getting my tonsils and adenoids removed. The plan was that after leaving the hospital in Eureka–the same hospital where I’d been born nine years earlier–Dad would drop me off at Moonbeam’s before heading back upriver to our home off grid. It would be the longest I’d ever stayed with Moonbeam, my stepdad, and my two younger brothers. I stared out the window as we drove past the huge redwood peanut, anticipating the story I knew was coming.

“That peanut,” Dad began, “was trucked all the way to the White House in Washington D.C. as a gift for President Jimmy Carter. But because Carter was an environmentalist, he shipped it back. He saw it as an insult. Here Carter was, trying to save the redwoods—or what was left of them—and some loggers from Orick send him a redwood tree carved into peanut! What a joke. I mean, can you imagine?”

I didn’t say anything in response. Didn’t need to. Sometimes Dad talked to keep himself awake while driving. Despite that it wasn’t nighttime, I knew Dad was probably tired. He’d worked at the road department all week, helped get my belongings together for the trip, then driven from near the border of Oregon in a car we’d borrowed from a friend of his. I didn’t really know why we were in the car, and not in Dad’s pick-up truck. Maybe the truck got a flat tire or needed a repair. Or maybe driving the car had been mandated. For whatever reason, I was riding in the backseat: precious cargo.

The car smelled horrible and was making my stomach turn. I never got car sickness on windy roads, but I suddenly felt queasy. It was as if invisible cigar smoke was emanating from the maroon velvet seats. Dad didn’t smoke, but whoever owned the car sure did. I was getting nauseous. I tried to lie down, the seat belt digging into my waist. I didn’t know what was worse: watching the tops of the redwood trees zoom by out the window, green morphing to white given all the movement, or closing my eyes. Both felt impossible. The pain in my ears faded to the background as my nausea took centerstage. I heard Dad mumble something about the time. My ear surgery was scheduled to start in one hour, so we’d be cutting it close. I gripped the car seat with one hand and held my other hand to my forehead, trying to remain steady. One more hour to go, and then the hard part would begin.

Naturally, I didn’t remember a thing from my first visit to Humboldt General Hospital–the day I’d been born there. This time though, I’d remember every detail. Starting with how enraged Dad was when I finally puked as he whipped the car into the parking lot.

“Couldn’t you have at least waited until I parked?” Dad yelled at me, swinging my door open.

Dad rarely yelled and never hit me, but in that moment, he looked like he wanted to rip my head off. Now that I am a parent myself, I know the look. It was stress. It was fear of failure. It had little to do with me. Fucking up created shame. Dad couldn’t win. We were late and I’d puked in the car he’d borrowed. This would all make him look bad. It would take time that we just didn’t have. Dad quickly shook out the floor mat, tossing the vomit into some nearby bushes, and then we raced into the hospital.

Before long, the hospital staff were preparing me for surgery. Dad may or may not have told them about the vomiting. It was all happening so quickly. They said I wouldn’t feel a thing during the operation, no pain and no nausea, because they planned on putting me to sleep. I was intrigued, then confused. Instead of reading me a bedtime story, a nurse placed a large, rubber mask over my mouth and nose. Because I’d never worn anything like the mask, I was frightened—and then I was out.

I remember a few details from right before they put the mask on. After being wheeled into the room, they positioned me with my feet pointed toward the door we’d entered through. There were three people: one doctor and two nurses. They were all wearing masks too, but a different kind.

Then things changed. The doctor began counting back from ten. By the time he got to four, I did indeed fall asleep. But I also rose up out of my body. Suddenly, my feet were no longer pointing at the door from which we’d entered, but my back was. And instead of laying horizontally, I was standing vertically. I was technically floating and there were two of me: the “me me” and the “hospital bed me.”

Me me observed the doctor and one nurse performing the operation, and a second nurse standing off to my right.

I woke up as I was being wheeled down a short hallway. Never mind that I was getting too old for stuffed animals, I was downright giddy when someone handed me a small teddy bear wearing a white t-shirt with the name of the hospital printed on it. Maybe they’d known they almost killed me back there, and the teddy bear was my consolation prize. I didn’t care. The deal was made even sweeter when I was given a popsicle in the recovery room. I was instructed to eat lots of popsicles in the days to come. Maybe it will be okay after all, I thought.

Driving back to Orick, I sat in the backseat again. I told Dad about the strange occurrence when they’d “put me out” at the hospital.

“Hey, that’ll happen,” Dad said reassuringly, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

Dad was nonchalant. He knew his stuff. This was child’s play. Dad was the one who had spent weeks on the other side after a drowning accident when he was a kid. They’d dubbed him Miracle Boy in the local newspaper. After the accident, our family felt Dad got touched by an angel, because from then on, he was so different. Not just his voice, which had been scarred in the accident, but his whole way-of-being. He was spiritual and special. What I’d experienced was only a blip. I didn’t get so much as a glimpse of heaven. It was practically nothing. I needed to focus on my future, on getting better, on summer.

Today I understand why I didn’t go to the great beyond. Had things ended differently that day, Dad would never have forgiven himself for how he’d left things, for yelling at me like he had in the parking lot. We drove past the redwood peanut again and I sighed audibly.

“You’ll be back home before you know it,” Dad said, empathetically.

I wasn’t entirely sure if Dad meant our cabin by the river, or our home up in the sky.

Killing My Darlings at the Colonyhouse

Terah Van Dusen3 Comments

Late August brought with it my long anticipated road trip north to the historic Oregon Writers Colony Colonyhouse in Rockaway Beach, Oregon. A trip I’d been planning for a year. The time to “kill my darlings” had finally come. I’m quoting William Faulkner there. He was speaking to the act of “letting go of the bits of your writing you are holding onto selfishly.”

Looking down into the dining room where my darlings, or rather, scraps of paper and Post-It notes still needing to be “merged” into my memoir manuscript cover the table. I kept about half the ideas. “Killed” or recycled the rest.

A semi-unexpected surprise was the hominess of the Colonyhouse itself. I knew that the writers’ house (more like a lodge) was established back in 1988, when I was three years old. So I expected the writing desks strewn throughout every room and the impressive collection of coffee mugs hanging in the kitchen. But what caught me by pleasant surprise was how much it smelled like my great aunt’s house and the moment when I stumbled upon a signed copy of my favorite author’s memoir. It was the epitome of homey. Like, I didn’t want to leave.

The Colonyhouse was designed by the same architect who created Oregon’s Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood. All the little details, down to the doorknobs, were a wonder.

My writing goals for the five day stay at the Colonyhouse were mammoth. I was going to incorporate into my manuscript all the feedback I had received from my critique group, all the changes I had outlined for myself into my manuscript in red pen, all the “notes” you saw earlier, and write an ending. Endings are hard. Writing is hard. Editing is hard! All of it is just plain hard. I had to take deep breaths and remind myself of two things. Number one, Anne Lamott’s well-earned advice: Bird by bird. Number two, it’s all about the journey!

Mid week. Notes. Office supplies. Coffee. Water. And a view of the ocean.

Once I got over the initial shock of all that I was trying to accomplish, I started setting goals. Attainable goals. I incorporated all the feedback needed to make my manuscript shine (or rather, stand up on two shaky legs). I wrote an ending and accepted that it will need more work. (First drafts of chapters typically aren’t ready for publication!) I embraced what I would be leaving with: a completed fourth draft. And let go of what I would not be leaving with: a draft that’s ready for querying. Most importantly, I took moments to be grateful, experience joy, and celebrate in my own sacred little ways.

Something else happened, too. Existing inside of my story all day every day for five days was quite emotional. There were tears and reflection and ruminating. I realized that telling my story is a lot like holding up a massively heavy thing for everyone to see. It is deeply emotional work, especially the ground that I delicately try to cover in The Poetry of Place.

I am superstitious when it comes to the craft of writing. I have to have certain objects that invoke inspiration, such as certain books, Dad’s Spirit Path cards, and my satchel of crystals, pictured here.

Wrapping up the five day writing retreat was bittersweet. My writing spells, interspersed with walks on the beach, and sleeping to the sound of ocean waves, would be missed. My only solace was that every other writer I know would likely have also found the retreat too short to cover the creative distance they wanted. So I leaned on my old, trusted way of thinking, and reminded myself that my manuscript is 100% better than it was.

I also left with the understanding that my story is getting too heavy to lift. And although it is not there yet, it is getting ready to take flight. I can feel it.

Love,

Mama Bird

Sunset at Rockaway Beach, Oregon

What Matters Most

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

I shouldn’t still be thinking about the earrings I wore on the day of our wedding on Sunday, May 22, 2022, but I am. I’d wanted to convey that, despite Dad’s passing less than three weeks earlier, I was OK. It was all good and everything was fine.

But when I look back at the photos, I see me the day before the wedding, running frantically around the mall alone, bombarded with choices. There were plain gold hoops, bright neon feathers, faux diamond drop earrings, shaped like leaves, and the ones I got: showy gold hoops with crimson silk flowers. The earrings were distracting, and I hadn’t noticed that at the time.

What didn’t help is that until 72 hours before the wedding, I didn’t know which dress I was going to wear, my original choice never having arrived in the mail. It also didn’t help (or maybe it did) that, since Dad died, I decided that nothing superficial mattered anyway. It wasn’t what you wore, it’s what you said. It isn’t how you look, it’s how you see.

So on the one hand when I look at those photos, I think of those earrings as my “fuck it” earrings. The slap it all together and play-it-cool mood of that unique moment in my life. The wishing I could hide in plain sight. But the only statement those earrings seemed to be making was “whatever you do, don’t look at me.”

Do I wish, instead, I’d have selected the faux dangly earrings shaped like leaves? Yes, I can too clearly picture how they would have sparkled when catching the sunlight through the trees. But would I take it back and change it? No. Not really, because something else would have been off. As is in life in general. As is when you are having a wedding and you are having a funeral.

In this life, it really, truly isn’t about the perfect look and the photo-worthy setting. And I give myself grace that I knew that going into it, and I placed my priorities elsewhere when I didn’t give myself a lot of time to shop for the earrings, and I didn’t take along a friend. I didn’t really get that “bride moment”…the one that they were selling me. For me that fantasy involved a careful putting on of my high-heeled shoes (I would wind up wearing slip on leather wedges), a cheers with my bridal party, Lorde’s “Royals” blasting in the background, my “Cinderella” moment. What I got instead was a mad dash to the mall for last minute, unplanned accessories, and, in the bridal suite, our children running around underfoot, only the sound of shrieking and chatter in the background. What I got instead was real life, what actually matters, the people, the experiences, and yes, even the innocent fashion mistakes.

Now when I think back on our wedding day, I remember being thankful it didn’t rain. I remember being grateful nobody got hurt. I remember that “My Sweet Lord,” Dad’s song, came on the radio on the drive to the mall and it felt like it was playing just for me. I remember I cried. I remember I was fragile, deep down. I remember I couldn’t afford to crack. I remember writing and practicing my vows. I remember carefully putting out the ceramic dinner plates and silverware, buffing smudges out of the wine glasses in the dining room late into the night before our wedding.

I am trying to forget the sparkly earrings that got away. I want to let go of notion that tells me our wedding needed to be more perfect than it was. That I needed to be a better bride. That I had somehow let something slip. That I should have spent even more money. Then, maybe, things would have really been perfect. Maybe. When the only thing that honestly would have made that day better, is having Dad there for it.

Love and mysterious blessings,

Mama Bird

All The Tattoos I Never Got

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

Tattoos are expensive. But not the first tattoo I never got. The first tattoo I never got was going to be free, because my friend who was fourteen, had an older brother who was sixteen, and he was doling them out for free. He may or may not have been on something. But the real reason I didn’t get the first tattoo I never got–a flaming heart on the inside of my right hip bone–was because I knew Dad would kill me. Or that he’d want to. Or, at least, he’d say he wanted to. “I could kill you,” I could picture him saying, fists clenched like he wanted to fight, but without a fighting bone in him. All soft on the inside like the bubblegum ice cream he bought me down at CC’s Diner.

Plus I didn’t think my friend’s brother could do color, and I didn’t want a green flaming heart, I wanted a cherry red one with licks of yellow and orange flame coming off of it, like was on the sides of the hot rods down at the annual Sea Cruise.

The second tattoo I never got wasn’t quite as symbolic as my “love equals pain” flaming heart. Like my friend Aimee had done, I was considering a full back tattoo–a landscape. The landscape of home. A redwood tree, and the ocean, and maybe some rhododendron. The plan only got as far as that–a fantasy–before cost prevented me from even considering it. Months later, at 23-years-old, I moved from the high desert where I was living in Arizona, back to the Pacific Northwest. Back to the big trees and the sea. It hadn’t been about having a tattoo at all, but about answering a calling.

The third tattoo I actually got close to getting. It was on a whim which, I was sensing, had to account for at least half of all tattoos out there. It wasn’t even during a break up, or anything. I can’t even put my finger on why I was going to finally get the tattoo I never got. Something about being hip, or the potentiality of appearing as hip as I felt.

I almost went through with it. I thought about it for several days before walking into Cry Baby Tattoos in Eugene. I presented the tattoo artist with an image from my phone: two minimalist looking tattoos, a sun and a moon. Stick drawings for the backs of my arms, placed above my elbows. The sun on my left arm, the moon on my right. I kept thinking of a favorite quote, “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

The tattoos would be a reminder to always be truthful, to seek truth in all situations. To demand truth. To be truth.

As soon as the tattoo artist stenciled the designs on my arms, a perfect replication, I looked into the mirror and suddenly my elbow wrinkles jumped out at me. I hadn’t noticed them before. And when I bent my arm at the elbow, the sun and moon stretched, misshapen.

When I confessed to the tattoo artist that I felt conflicted, and didn’t think I could go through with it, he responded gracefully, “It’s your body.”

The next tattoo I never got were the coordinates of home:

41.7353923 N -123.9828519 W

It was either that or a fiddlehead fern on the inside of my left wrist, to remember Dad by. Later, I learned that I didn’t need the coordinates of home tattooed on myself anymore. Because now that place would forever be a part of me. I could plant trees in Dad’s yard instead, and spend decades watching them grow. It seemed I had outgrown all of the tattoos I never got, which lead me to thinking that from here on out, maybe I should just let my scars do all the talking.

The Importance of Showing Mercy in Memoir

Terah Van Dusen9 Comments

Like all of us, I’ve always been of the belief that actions speak louder than words. But over the past several months, I’ve been thinking about how loud words do speak, particularly if you are a memoirist.

I’ve had many years of writing and publishing (mostly here on my blog) to teach me that those who are written about will read your words closely and they will take them to heart, naturally. I have also had the luxury–I humbly admit–of those characters showing me extreme grace and forgiveness.

My memoir writing journey began in my very early twenties, and because I knew virtually nothing about memoir, other than having read a couple of them, I approached my writing this way: I wrote everything about everyone and used all their real names.

Now, I look at my pages and I see the truth, yes. But I also look at those pages and see real live people with real live emotions, and I have to honor that. At this juncture, having written the meat of the story, and revised it several times over, I have a choice: Do I change names or soften the story? Do I painstakingly sort through and assign similar sounding names to key characters? Cousins, boyfriends and bosses? Or do I keep their names and speak as if they are there in the room with me: with honesty, integrity, and compassion?

Writers in the genre have all heard the same line, “If they didn’t want to be written about poorly, they shouldn’t have behaved badly.”

It’s a fine starting point, a line to help you get your pen moving across the page. But I am curious to hear from other aspiring memoirists if it’s that same sentiment they think of when crossing over the threshold into querying and publishing.

Because, after all, most books do not become overnight bestsellers. What if we memoirists, in the end, sell our books only to our family members. If your book subject matter, childhood trauma, wouldn’t make for some awkward Thanksgiving dinner conversation, well I don’t know what would.

But here’s the thing, when it comes to me, the majority of those who have purchased the books I have self-published are not my family. I haven’t had a Thanksgiving with my mother, ever, and abandonment, whether comfortable or not, is central to my story. I cannot untangle myself from the truths and tell some other story. But maybe I can tell my story with a balance of both transparency and grace. Maybe. That’s what I hope for.

Back when I first started writing The Poetry of Place, long before it had a title, long before I’d changed my mother’s name to Moonbeam, and long before I started dragging my pages through critique group, it was all about the therapeutic benefits of memoir. I didn’t think of it in those terms back then, but looking back I’d really, really, really needed to exorcise my story. I was always a writer, from elementary school on up. So my story–once I finally realized it’s potential–became viable subject matter. And my intention morphed from the therapeutic benefits of writing to the creative challenge it presented: Writing a book worth reading.

So rather than “If they didn’t want to be written about poorly, they shouldn’t have behaved badly,” how about, “Hurt people hurt people.”

Most people agree with that statement, and I believe the message is being conveyed through my memoir. Therefor I cannot take responsibility, or blame, when expressing, in so many words, something that we all agree is true, that “hurt people hurt people.”

But that’s what it all comes down to, responsibly. Because memoirists aren’t just airing our dirty secrets, but in some cases the secrets of others, too. In turn we have the potential to create a significant portion of someone’s legacy. And that is a responsibility that should not be taken lightly. Ever.

As I cross over the threshold into querying (that’s the long process of landing an agent or a book deal), and as I refine its final pages, imagining its bound version, I weigh my options. I am trying to strike a balance that honors both what I’ve endured, and protects the inherent innocence of those surrounding the story itself. Because none of us are perfect. Not even close. I think the most helpful advice I have heard is to be as hard on myself in the story as I am being on others. I assure you, given my nature, that my flaws will come across strongly in the final story. No matter what version you get.

Love (above all else),

Mama Bird

Surrendering to a Season of Change

Terah Van Dusen1 Comment

We woke up to rain. Big droplets clinging to the rhododendron and sunflowers outside the bedroom window. Every day on the weekend I ask myself the same thing: Should we stay home and clean, or leave and spend money?

It would be a stay home and clean kind of day.

Usually I welcome fall with open arms. If the fact that we named our daughter ‘Autumn’ is any indication…But this year I’m just not as warm to fall. The summer was long, and scorching. One of our farm cats perished in the 108 degree heat. More positively, we managed to get some family time in with loved ones. Long overdue visits and quality connections as we somehow managed to not even get the Coronavirus. Several times, I thought we had. This most recent time impacted A’s experience at preschool — she missed her first whole week. Over a cold. But we rolled with it. Rolling with it is just the way now. Things change all the time. With headlines like, “National Guard Deployed to Drive School Busses in Massachusetts” and “UN is seeking $606 Million in Emergency Aid for Afghanistan After Taliban Takeover,” we’re living in a totally new reality. Disappointments are common place. Ours are minor.

I started gardening this summer. With a lot of cooperation from my fiancé and our neighbors, a plot of food erected itself, now in view from our bedroom window, beyond the rhododendron and sunflowers. My life is layered and rich. We have tomatoes and peppers piling up in the kitchen, and are running out of freezer space. I’m going to miss the days of summer…stretching on and on. Brown shoulders. Blackberries. Golden sunsets.

With the rain, the environment feels to have shifted beyond its allotted amount while we slept. The moon when I last looked was half full — now it appears almost completely full. It is waxing and ready to shine. Last night, a coyote was howling — more like yelping — and it wouldn’t stop. I went outside to make sure it wasn’t down with the chickens, having a feast and tipping us off with its cries. Barefoot on the dry pale grass, it felt like no one was aware of this animal but me. It was ten o’ clock at night and everyone else was sleeping. I shone my cellphone flashlight in the general direction of the coyote — like what was that going to do? When I went back inside and crawled into bed, the yelping suddenly stopped.

Maybe the coyote doesn’t want summer to end, either.

This pandemic, hanging over us like a curse, feels just a little lighter in the summer. We can pretend that things are sunny, even when they’re not.

Then I came across this quote, which I felt echoed the changing season:

“Historically, the Waxing Gibbous Moon symbolized the concept of ‘final steps.’ It is a time of the month in which people strive to complete their projects, just as the moon strives to become full. As such, it represents the hardest part of the month for many people. How the Waxing Gibbous Moon behaves is instructional for our lives. For instance, it doesn’t require the hard work of change. Instead, it trusts nature and energies and always transitions to the full moon, without fail. Thus, we should try to do the same.”

The words were an antidote. Meant to counteract the insecurities I am currently feeling about Autumn being in preschool and, more specifically, my routine changing as a result of that. I used to be on the farm all the time, now I will be in town two days per week, minimum. A temporary sacrifice to provide Autumn with her Montessori preschool experience. I don’t want to give up my work-from-home life, but when quotes like the above one jump out at me, I’m sensing that I need to adapt. I need to have some faith that something good can come from being in town. (It just goes against my instincts. Hashtag hillbilly.)

I will leave you with this, “Through the unknown, we find the new.” If you, like me, are feeling negative about the future because you just can’t predict it; then what better time to attract the things–and places–that feel right to us? My life is a blank page, waiting to be filled with all the right things. Finally, at thirty five years old, I feel like I can trust myself to choose wisely what will ground me. No matter where I am.

Love,

Mama Bird

On Doing Things for Myself, Not the ‘Gram

Terah Van Dusen6 Comments

At the beginning of June we went home to visit my roots. We drove the four hours from here to Northern California. I didn’t just see my dad, but I revisited the land that, in some respects, raised me. The waters that taught me how to swim. The trees that taught me how to climb. The land that taught me how to respect it. Or at least, how to see it. How to listen.

Autumn and I spent one sunny morning away from the campsite and on the sandy banks of the Smith River. Usually extremely cold in early June, the water was fine. The deep jade pools were manageable to swim in wetsuit-less, because the snow melt had been so little. I wasn’t expecting it, but I’d worn my blue one-piece Speedo just in case. I also brought along my mask and goggles. Plus one extra pair. The others stayed with the children on the shore, while my friend Alice (we’d worked together at the Oregon Caves) and I swam and snorkeled.

We traversed the widest part of the river. A front-stroke and dive ever so often to catch a glimpse underneath the glasslike water. We took our time. Reaching the other side, sea-lioned atop two slabs of rock, we waved big mama waves to our little ones–who now appeared even smaller–on the sandy shore. They waved back.

We leisurely swam up stream, underneath Second Bridge, and my body pointed–briefly–in the direction of home. My true north. Alice didn’t know it, but a roaring gorge was further up the canyon. An impassable part of the river for most, and certainly for me. A passage that a male cousin of mine rafted down once, and swore he’d never do again. A passage that Dad ran on an inflatable air mattress. So many stories. So many laughs. So many dives this life of mine has taken.

I dove to the bottom of the river and dug my palms into the satiny sand. Eyelids safe inside my airtight mask, I let the sand sift through my fingers, certain that no other person had touched this exact pile of sand before. My feet rested on the bottom. I briefly wondered if Alice might want to play underwater tea-party, like us kids did when we were young, in this very river.

But Alice was floating on her back under the bridge. And in a few short weeks she’d be flying back to Germany.

The river back home, near our farm, was shoulder high and a little murky.

I pushed up from the riverbottom with my right foot, darting toward the surface, light filtering through the water the same way it did in nearby redwood groves. Coming up, I blew hard on the snorkel, and water blasted toward the blue sky. I was a little out-of-practice, but it was coming back already. The snorkeling.

(I was a fish. I’d almost forgotten.)

Back on the shore, Alice and I nursed the little ones, and dug our legs into the almost-hot sand. Satisfied smiles rested on our faces. A man and two women around our age showed up. They shook their towels out on the sand and pulled out their phones.

We had our phones too, of course. We had all snapped a few photos together, snorkel on my head, dry hair. I’d taken a few photos of Autumn exploring the shoreline. The same shoreline I’d first dipped my toes into.

We politely tried not to notice as the two women, probably our age, took off their layers and walked to the edge of the shore. Tip toeing on the river rocks, they held their phones in their hands. “Jump in!” Their companion hollered. “It’s not cold when you get in. It’s cold when you get out.”

I shivered, thinking: he’s totally right.

The women waded into the river carefully, up to their waists. They could have been locals. I’m sure they loved this river. Who was I to judge. Then one of the women tipped back her head just enough to wet her hair up to her hairline. She motioned for her friend to take her photo. They wanted, we all gathered from the shore, to capture that slicked-back, wet “look.”

The background was striking: deep pools of emerald-teal water. But from this vantage point, having just come from that same water, I worried that the women were missing something. Not seeing. Not hearing.

It wasn’t long before they got out of the water and huddled together on their towels, noses in their phones. I’m not saying I don’t relate to them, I do. I do relate to them, and that’s what I’m saying.

Just not on this day.

On this day the snapshot I took was scooping two handfuls of silky sand into my palms, and letting my past filter through my fingertips.

On this day the snapshot I took was my inhale/exhale through the snorkel as my body cut through the surface of the water.

So the contrast of these two things: the realness of that, of what I’d just experienced, and the falseness of a pretty photo, well, it got me thinking. Doing it for the ‘Gram is fine. But doing it for yourself is 100% better. It’s something I’ve always known, and now I feel compelled to share. Whatever it is, I’m in it for the realness of it. A pretty picture is just a bonus.

Love,

Mama Bird

I Needed to Make My World Small Today, and That’s OK

Terah Van Dusen5 Comments

I have this thing where I ask myself: Do I need to make my world big today, or do I need to make my world small today? Big days are off-farm days. Small days are days like today.

I am mostly a small day kind of person. For me, it’s not about adding things, it’s about subtracting them. (Of course I sometimes–maybe even often–forget this and try to fill the void with material things or quick distractions.)

In-between housework and Zoom calls and farming and writing, I have been reading a book titled “Hare Krishna in America.” I am neck-deep in the memoir-writing process now, and I have a three day retreat upcoming at the end of June. Going into that memoir rewriting retreat, I want to better understand what Krishna Consciousness is. What Krishna Consciousness has meant to other Americans. I write about my narrow slice of experience with Krishna Consciousness in my memoir extensively, but I have always lacked a birds-eye view of the religion (or cult; even the label is controversial). The author, E. Burke Rochford, Jr., immersed himself in Krishna Consciousness in the late 1970s. Rochford worked to maintain his position as an un-bias journalist, while experiencing all that one would experience undergoing the transformation–the journey to becoming–a Hare Krishna devotee in America.

The scenes that Rochford describes echo my experiences. They tell me that those memories I have written down are true. In many instances, Rochford is referring to temples whose grounds I have walked on with my own bare feet. And perhaps most astoundingly, he describes Krishna Consciousness as a sect of Hinduism that branched in large part due to beliefs of inclusivity: Hinduism as a religion adhered to the idea that only members of a certain caste could achieve spiritual liberation.

“Caitanya preached that all people, regardless of their caste or station in life, could be self-realized through their activities performed in the service of Krishna.” E. Burke Rochford, Jr.

It was no wonder why my twenty-five year old father, who was set apart due to a disability he suffered, in conjunction with a near-death experience, was (and still is) drawn to Krishna Consciousness. Given the background that I am learning about, through this book and other personal stories I am reading about online about Krishna Consciousness in America, it is easy to see how Dad extracted so much meaning, and so much hope, from the Movement. Many Americans, disillusioned with their own culture, did and still do derive meaning from Krishna Consciousness.

In a final act of transparency, my good friend who will also be completing the writing retreat with me in June, is writing about her childhood raised in another counterculture, one that is more commonly perhaps than Krishna Consciousness, referred to as a cult. That group was the Children of God. For fourteen years I have known this friend and we have connected over many things but this, somehow, the shared experience of being raised in very strict religious households or communes, was never at the center of our dialogue. Until now.

~ ~ ~

I have been having a hard time sleeping at night. I just don’t want to sleep or go to bed. I find it boring. Life is so much more interesting right now. My creative and emotional energy is high. I can’t quite put my finger on why. So after I nurse Autumn to sleep, too tired to write, I’ve been watching This is Us, an NBC family drama streamed from Hulu.

In it, the character Randall is reconnecting with his biological father, who disappeared from his life almost as soon as he was born. (If you know anything about my personal journey, it is easy to see why I feel kinship with this character. I, too, lost a biological parent very early on.) Anyway, there is a hilariously embarrassing scene where Randall is trying to express an artistic part of him that he believes is somewhere inside him, because his father was so artistic, he must be too. Randall is clearly trying to win his fathers approval, and bridge the years between them in a very short amount of time. It is painful to watch, because Randall sings a song and plays piano in front of a live audience, and totally bombs it. His intentions were good, but Randall momentarily lost sight of his strengths, of who he is, and how to best express himself. The vulnerability in that scene is heartbreaking, and heartening.

I can relate.

Sometime in 2013 or so, I took my poetry in front of a live audience. I didn’t rehearse like I should have. I think I cried. I think I’ve cried every time I’ve recited my poetry in front of a live audience. People I knew and loved were there. They told me “good job,” but, probably, they felt kind of sorry for me. My performance fell flat.

I should have asked myself that day, “Do I need to make my world big today, or do I need to make my world small today?”

I am a small day kind of person. Recently, someone asked me what my “happiness trigger” was. My answer: peace and quiet. Does that count?

I don’t know if it’s the Hare Krishna in me. The little calm devotee. But I am getting more and more comfortable with who I am, and saying “forget it,” to who I am not. I am not a performer. I am a writer. It is time to edit. To cut. To whisper. To be quiet in my surroundings, and loud and performative on the page.

My mind is poised toward this writing retreat, and my daily happenings are becoming more and more narrowly focused toward this one goal of sharing my story, my memoir, with the world.

So, what’s your story?

Love,

Mama Bird

Water Signs

Terah Van Dusen1 Comment

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Dad nearly drowned in the mouth of the river in Fort Bragg, California, but that was before I was born. He spent the rest of the summer in the hospital. That didn’t stop him from loving the ocean and water. You can’t trust it, he said. You can’t help but love it either.

Dad was in a coma for most of one month. When he came to he had to learn to talk again. He had to learn to walk again. He was just nine years old at the time. Somehow, though, Dad still knew how to swim. A photo of him and his parents posed alongside the doctor was published in the Fort Bragg newspaper. He was the boy whose life was almost taken by the river at Van Damme State Park. “Miracle Boy” the headline read.

I came thirteen years later. The daughter of Miracle Boy and Moonbeam.

When I was six years old and he was twenty-eight, Dad took us sea-kayaking off the coast of California. If I remember correctly he was trying to impress a woman who wasn’t my mother. We almost got pulled out to sea and I remember being frightened. Or maybe my memory doesn’t serve me right…maybe we did have fun. But the waves, they were so large and I was so little, how could I have? I just remember fearing for my life, I think the girlfriend did too.

I was around one years old when Moonbeam left us (I’m not looking for pity, those are just the facts). Some man I never learned the name of had lured Moonbeam away. I’ll never know the things he promised her. I’ll never know what tempted her. All I know is she took the Ford Pinto when she left. She didn’t go far—just down the road to Eureka. She wasn’t far, no, but she was gone.

Dad took to doing the dishes by hand, very slowly, with hot soapy water. But this wasn’t so strange because Dad did the dishes before she left too. I think he just liked being in the water.

As a toddler, I crawled around on the sticky linoleum floor. I remember looking up at Dad doing my mother’s job. He was in his work clothes and it was after dark. I saw a flash of myself in the kitchen sink before Moonbeam left. I could almost see her standing there washing my body—a dishwater blond with no face, just legs and shoes like the moms in those old cartoons. Comfort just for the fact that they were there. Dish-doers and diaper-changers and dinner-makers and ice-tray-fillers. An essential tool: missing.

Several years later I had my birthday party at the beach. I invited my entire sixth grade class and to my shock everybody showed up. Dad embarrassed me by bannering long streams of white toilet paper from the driftwood poles on the beach, a marker of where the party was. A store-bought stream of purple tissue paper had not been considered.

A couple of the mothers who dropped off their daughters off looked warily around for signs of my mother. But they found none. I just wanted them to go away. I did not even want them to stay because their judgement and misunderstanding was palpable. They finally left, not quite sure what to think. These are the ones who returned first for their daughters.

Dad warmed hot dogs on driftwood sticks over the campfire and we all ran around like we were still kids, which we were, but barely. My peers brought gifts, tons of gifts, each one of them. Dad bought me the expensive black and white Adidas jacket I had wanted so much. The ocean was lapping at the whole scene, father and daughter, fire and friends. The sun went down while we were still out running and playing up and down the beach. And even though I didn’t have a mother…well I thought life was just about perfect.

I had been so excited about my abundance of gifts but was so busy running and playing that I didn’t notice when tide came in and took my birthday booty— piece by piece into the setting sun. It was all gobbled up by the great inhale-exhale of the Pacific Ocean. And there would be no getting any of it back. It wasn’t far, no, but it was gone.

When Dad was a boy that same beach was at least 70 feet under water. The tsunami of 1964 picked up dive bars and fish n’ chip shacks and set them back down, upside down, right on top of Highway 101. To this day Crescent City, California is the only town in the continental United States where a tsunami has killed people. True story. Eleven people died. You can’t trust the ocean, Dad said. You can’t help but love it either.

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Water Signs is an essay from Earthside and Other Everyday Miracles which I am publishing through Groundwaters this spring. I will keep you updated on all the details here on my blog, and also over on my Instagram page! (See sidebar to follow me there.) Thank you, faithful readers!