Another thing about America to be thankful:

4. American Christmas          
An American Christmas is something to be thankful for. I have all kinds of memories that I associate with Christmas. My Dad’s family always did Christmas up big, having Santa bring not only the presents but the tree and all the decorations with it. Christmas Eve was the beginning of Christmas, but poor Grandma and Grandpa got no sleep. My mom said no way to that tradition, so we went with the tree going up a couple weeks before Christmas and coming down just after New Years. But all that tradition still provided its own magic for me as a kid. And I know I’m not alone because we have tons of shared American Christmas experiences that should be enjoyed, and none of them include Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

            Let’s start with Santa Claus. Everyone else’s Father Christmas was turned into the American Santa Claus by the New York Dutch and their way of saying St. Nicholas. Santa was further enhanced by Thomas Nast, the artist that gave Santa his pipe and bag of toys over his back. And the Columbia professor, Clement Clarke Moore, described Santa and his reindeer with his “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem. The Coca Cola Corporation added a few accents to the already timeless figure with plenty of advertisements.

            And Bing Crosby? Who doesn’t  dream of a white Christmas? Even Californians, Hawaiians, Floridians and all the other southerners who may have never even seen snow dream of a white Christmas. Thanks Bing. And since World War II all Americans (no matter their faith) want to be home for Christmas. We sing about it every year to the point of nausea, but we love it anyway. And Hollywood adds all those special movies every year. We can’t not love Christmas.

            Pumpkin pie? Of course that’s American. And sleigh rides? In Europe they don’t even have sleighs, they have sledges. How could you be merry in a sledge, no matter how many horses pulled it?

            These are just a few of the stand out American Christmas traditions. So these next few nights when you walk down the street (ok, drive—we’re American) and see houses lit up with fantastic displays you are, indeed, enjoying an American Christmas. Our Christmas in America is like nowhere else in the world and I, for one, am thankful for it. So wherever you are, I hope you have a very merry Christmas this year.

Here is a poem I wrote a few years ago that seems especially wintry, if not a little depressing.

Salt Shaker

Palsy and ice met

on my grandfather’s steps

while Morton sat

on the counter

mocking the flavor

I saw in the frozen pool

of red and tasted

in the warmth

flowing down my cheeks

when the last rites

were said

and the steps

could have been solid

with the bitter salt

but the priest only shook

his head and said

when it rains

it pours

and Grandpa

flavored the earth.

Brian Potter

It’s December and I live in North Idaho. It snows in Idaho in December even when the winter’s are mild. I’m getting older and I learned a couple of years ago that when I fall I can break. (See a previous entry.) It’s also dark in December here in North Idaho.

            Now in case you were wondering, that last paragraph was an intentional, albeit valid, list of excuses for me to not run. But I have also learned that there are ways to overcome excuses and here are some ways that I am working on overcoming those excuses. I need to exercise because it keeps my body healthy and it keeps my mind geared toward positive thoughts. It’s the same reason I write in this blog—to maintain the water in my cup above the halfway point, to fill it to overflowing so when I can’t get out and run as much (because I don’t want to fall and break) I cross train. I cross train in unconventional and conventional ways. Now there is enough snow for me to cross country ski and I love it. When I ski I work out my entire body without having to throw in a few planks or pushups. And I get to see places that you can’t normally get to in the winter. Do you realize how beautiful snow is?

            The other cross training that I do is shovel snow. I know that sounds like work but—darkness be damned—I can do it at any hour of the day. It’s better than lifting weights because I am outside being constructive and working off pent up aggression. And it helps everyone because they don’t have to worry about getting around on snow covered paths.

            I also spend some time throwing in a few pushups and other random exercises for about 10-15 minutes every day just to keep cobwebs out of my head. And it’s not like I don’t run at all. I still go out a couple of times a week, but I’m a little more confined to park pathways and those few minutes of daylight that I actually get to run. But I have decided that if I only get one or two miles in on a run in December and January I have still worked to maintain my running and those two months are just going to be the two down months. And if I absolutely have to, I can run laps around the gym at school or get on a treadmill at the local fitness center, though I’d have to be pretty sluggish and on my last creative sip before I’d get on a treadmill. I’m still fully convinced that I need to be outside, that I need the fresh (even frigid) air and that I need to be gracious to myself in considering my purpose in running. The goal is to fill my cup to overflowing and I don’t always have to use the same tap as long as it’s still water from the main source, the giver of life. 

My third installment for things to be thankful for in America is the Snake River:

3. High along the Continental Divide is a great caldera filled with simmering geysers that shoot off their steam at regular intervals and those are the headwaters of a beautiful river system that drains much of the northwestern United States. The river starts in the land of earthquakes and mountains rising, flowing into the territory of its namesake, the Shoshone tribe. In the old days it was said that these people lived off of snakes, hence the name Snake River. It is one of the great rivers of the west and part of the larger Columbia River system. The Snake gouges the deepest canyon into the North American continent. The snows and rains of huge swaths of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming flow into its body from Yellowstone National Park to the Tri-cities in Washington.

My second installment of things to be thankful for in America is connected to the first very closely and the next few will also be connected. They reveal my biases as an Idaho boy.   

    

2. Salmon River Tributaries

       

    The tributaries of the Salmon River are myriad. The North Fork starts high in the Bitterrot Mountains and furiously rushes down their slopes through lush green forests. The Middle Fork takes on the aridity of some of the southern mountains such as the Lemhi range. The South Fork drains the western ranges with their Lodgepole and Ponderosa pines. And there are creeks and lakes flowing out of all those mountain ranges draining the beautiful mountain lakes of the Sawtooths, the Seven Devils and all the ranges of the great Idaho Batholith. It’s an overwhelmingly wild and free river system that tumbles out of all those mountains into the Snake River in Hells Canyon. The beauty and magnitude of that river system overwhelms me and right now I find myself wishing I were hiking the banks of one of those streams.

For its Independence Day issue Time magazine published an article for the 240th anniversary of our country. It had 240 things to be thankful for in the United States. I made up my own list to write about, so I thought I would them in this blog. Here is my first installment:

            1. Sometimes when that ice ball of anger and/or fear knots inside the center of my being, I go away to the Salmon River Canyon in the heart of Idaho either in reality or in my mind. There I let that ice explode and go out of my body into storm clouds that I can see in the water dogs nestled in the trees on the side of the canyon walls, I can feel in the cool streams and river flowing through the rocks and crevices, and I hear it in the rushing water falls of a Lightening Creek or an Alison Creek or the Ruby Rapids. The scent of sun soaked sand on the bars cleanses all the negative emotions and there I can just breathe. There is not so much sky to overwhelm and make me feel vulnerable to attack, but just enough to know the beauty of forever.

            Those hills are the ones I have always taken comfort in and where I lose any reason for fear or anger. As a boy I would climb up the hills and lose myself in trees or run through the grasses, sometimes stepping on cactus, startle grouse—no, they would startle me—and feel the freedom of being alive.

            The canyon carves itself from the Bitterroots to the Seven Devils Mountains, gouged North from the Bitterroots then carving itself west between the Clearwater and Salmon River mountains of the Idaho Batholith, again it turns North abruptly upon meeting the Seven Devils. Its waters are from the largest wilderness in the continental U.S. and only two highways have dared to intersect its sanctuary. Few people inhabit its hollows and I count myself blessed to have ever been one of them. It is my sanctuary from the stress that balls into my being from the cacophony of the world.

 There is something beautiful about October turning into November and all the joy of running under puffy white clouds against the cerulean of the autumn sky. My footfalls seem lighter and the herd of kids I ran with earlier in the season have dwindled away, so that all the middle aged man complaints of achy knees and losing my breath from running sub seven minute miles in training (god these kids are young!) shuffle away into the rustling leaves. The opportunity to run solo after months of group runs with junior high and high school kids is just nice. If that hill is overwhelming me and I want to walk it I can. I don’t have to run myself through the guilt trip that I naturally do when I know I am not going to let any of those kids walk up a hill. “Hills make you stronger.” And so they do, but sometimes the run needs to just be about looking at the rocks in the road, the cracks in the sidewalk, the leaves on the ground, the clouds in the sky. Of course eyeglasses are an important part of that looking.

Just a couple of years ago on a very brisk Veteran’s day I went for a run in my progressive lens bifocals (wouldn’t want to appear too old). I was running by the Post Office and smiling, occasionally waving, at all the people I knew there. A school bus went by and I waved at my students, looking down at the sidewalk. But where the rise in pavement should have been was a fuzzed spot through my vanity glasses and I tripped, falling hard. I caught myself with my right arm but I still fell hard. Feeling foolish I forced myself right back up to running. After a block I felt abrasions on my gloved right hand. I took it in my left hand and a bone popped sickeningly into place. It wasn’t painful, but I heard it. I took off my glove and swelling had already commenced. No big deal, I thought, and decided to finish my run. By the time I hit the edge of town it began to dawn upon me that I had actually broken my hand. Broken my hand? How stupid. There was not ice or snow. It was the sidewalk! Can I really just publicly embarrass myself and break at the same time?

I turned back, met one of my cross country runners and showed him my hand. He said, “Mr. Potter, you need to go to the doctor.” That part still hadn’t occurred to me. But I heeded his advice and went and got some ice for my hand and the road. I never really did feel much pain, but the inconvenience of it all just seemed crazy to me. For the first time ever, I drove my stick shift pickup with my left hand. Cars honked angrily at me for going so slow. I raised my broken right iced hand in reply. I think one of them may have misread my meaning.

When I got home my wife took over. We went to the emergency room because Quick Care had closed by then. The emergency room doctor told me it was broken. I told him I knew that. He smiled and said I might need surgery later on because that spot where I broke my hand was notorious for messing with the nerves of the little finger. Thanks, buddy.

Over the next couple of months I learned how to do all kinds of things with my left hand. I wrote on the chalkboard for my students. They pretended they could read it. I washed the dishes with one hand. My wife rewashed them. I dressed myself with my left hand. My wife buttoned my shirts.

There is something beautiful about October turning into November and all the joy of running under puffy white clouds against the cerulean of the autumn sky. My footfalls seem lighter and the herd of kids I ran with earlier in the season have dwindled away, so that all the middle aged man complaints come into focus. My right little finger still doesn’t work the same as it did three years ago, but I can write with my right hand again. I can dress myself and drive my pick up when it will start (another story)… And now I have lined bifocals. 

Every one of us encounters difficulties in life and it can send us spiraling into a dark abyss, but really there is no reason for that to happen. We have all kinds of things to be thankful for, even if it’s only the sighting of a full moon on an otherwise cloudy, rainy night. Moments like that need to be held and cherished because life is too short to dwell on the negative. This blog is my attempt to dispel the darkness in my own life, and maybe that of those who stumble upon it or read it after seeing my twitter page. I really believe it is our duty to help one another see the light everywhere and to not linger in the darkness.
I had another blog that I kept but I can no longer get into it, so I just decided it was time to start a new one. This is it.