22. Watermelon

There is something inherently American about watermelon and summer time.  I am always reminded of picnics and watermelon seed spitting contests.  Or there was always someone’s pickled watermelon rinds.  As a kid I felt that I could die peacefully by drowning (I loved water) but to drown in the sweet cinnamon-y syrup of pickled watermelon rinds would be heaven.  Those are the childhood memories of my Americana and watermelon but I am still enamored of the fruit.  I don’t know why watermelon has the reputation of being southern (except maybe for its need for a long growing season) because it is so abundant here in the Northwest though it’s pretty hard for many of us in Idaho to grow it in our backyard gardens.  Hermiston watermelon (from Oregon) is very famous about this time of year in these parts, but they are, however delicious, gigantic.  A newer thing is the oh-so-sweet Dulcinea or “personal” watermelon that I have come to prize.  It’s just as good as the seeded and overgrown Hermiston but it also fits in my refrigerator just fine.  But to be honest, the only reason I’m picky is the size.  I even tasted a yellow fleshed watermelon a couple weeks ago and I really liked it no matter how much it looked like cantaloupe.  I don’t see watermelon disappearing from the American landscape anytime soon and for that American summertime tradition I am grateful.

Running Injuries

            The thing about running injuries that really gets to me is all the inactivity that is required to heal.  It seems counter intuitive to all active people like me who know about moving:  it keeps you healthy and alive.  I sprained my ankle a couple of months ago while picking huckleberries and I’m just getting back to jogging a little.

Now I’m back to coaching my cross country kids and jogging a warm up with them before biking the full run alongside their running strides.  It’s very hilly here on the Palouse so biking has more uphill challenges than just running and my kids know that.  Some community members chide me while I bike alongside the kids, but I remind them that you don’t see the football coach out there taking hits on the line with his players.

The good thing about all of that is that it gives me time to read and sit in the sun drinking beer or gin and tonics or some other summer-y concoction.  As I assumed, I gained a few pounds while icing an achy ankle but I am staying semi-active and riding out the storm.  Even when I originally wrote the first draft of this I sat in the morning sun drinking a hot cup of tea and enjoyed the companionship of my cat.  You have to take life in stride and if that means (and here I use two overused—perhaps even patented—saws) making lemons into lemonade, just do it.

21. Alaska

            Alaska is an unbelievable space. I think it is representative of American ideology in every way:  frontier, open spaces, beauty, and unfettered wildness. I love all of that.  I love the Alaskan coastline in the southeast where the rain endlessly pelts the unending forests.  I love the mountains that reach as far to the sky as they can, frozen in their stature as glaciers slowly bring them to their knees.  I love that the rivers turn to ice in the winter and give access to villages that in summer become marooned in swamps and clouds of mosquitoes.

            I have been to the tundra and walked across its spongy surface watching clouds of mosquitoes rise to ravage my face in spite of deet dreams of shooing them away. Grizzlies have shaken the school bus I rode into the wilds of Denali National Park, curious to see if we’d come out to play.  A moose has towered over the car I was in and I almost felt I could drive between her legs.  While the sun might momentarily set in Fairbanks in August it doesn’t get dark enough to get much sleep.  And the whales breaching the surface of the bay not far from where glaciers calve causes me chills just in its memories.  Nothing is small in Alaska, not even the jokes about Texas.

            While part of me gets a little spooked by the great expanses where I might be the only person for miles, mostly that just thrills me.  I would cower at the darkness of winter but probably not the cold (I am from Idaho…).  In winter I could see myself turning alcoholic like so many others have.  But overall, I just love that huge expanse of beauty stretching from the rainy southern coasts to the frozen arctic and I just want to go back for another trip to its beautiful expanses.  And even while Alaska or that type of place may not be everyone’s cup of tea, we need to be grateful that it’s there and work in any way we can to keep its landscapes and cultures intact and as pristine as possible because they balance our world.

You Can't Grow By Worrying

We all have it in us to fall into depression.  At times the state of mankind seems utterly hopeless.  At times our own lives seem utterly hopeless.  In fact, if we were to dwell on eithr of those things our existence would become utterly meaningless and would, indeed, be hopeless.  So if you don’t think about the hopelessness but just the ability you have to focus on the positive you will grant yourself great purpose and great power.

            One of the many things that can cause me to go down the vortex of depression is my fears for my children, but especially my youngest son who has Leigh’s Syndrome, a particularly scary type of mitochondrial disease.  Mitochondrial disease can be, and often is, an inherited genetic disease and in the case of Leigh’s Syndrome it always is.  I won’t explain it anymore than that because my purpose here is to avoid that sense of hopelessness and to help you do the same.  We have no control over our genetic make-up so why focus on it to feel powerless?

            My fears for my son can be very real, very overwhelming and send me spiraling into that never ending vortex of despair.  Who will take care of him when we die?  We’re already in our mid 50’s.  What if he falls when we’re away from him?  What if someone takes advantage of his disability or just doesn’t recognize it?  What if?  Funny how all those stupid fears can be applied to myself as well.  I just sprained my ankle out in the woods while picking huckleberries. Do I paralyze myself with fear about being alone in the wilderness?  No! So why should I do that for my sons?  I should not.  I do, however, use those fears to spur me on to teach him independent living skills which are infinitely more difficult for him than they are me and I don’t detect him having great fears for his own life. Yes, he has some, but not nearly what I have.

            So I went out huckleberry picking again during the Great American Eclipse. I didn’t get many berries because I was with my son and neighbors and we mostly watched the eclipse. What amazing order there is in this universe. I have no control over it and everything works just fine. It was a gentle reminder, with my youngest son right there with me, that I need to pay more attention to the big picture and how small I am in it. Things might not go how I plan, but they go so perfectly when I see the entire solar system and universe where. I need to stop the worrying and watch the sun rise and sunset, the eclipse and the patterns of the world and the universe, not the pit of despair that really isn’t even there. Someone has it under control and that someone is way bigger than me. That someone doesn’t know despair, so why should I?

20. Gordon Birsch Brewery

My family and I were in Washington, D.C. the week of July 4th.  The weather was summer time warm, but not really too muggy considering the fact that we were on the east coast.  But we were walking and pushing my youngest son in a wheel chair near the National Portrait Gallery (well worth a visit).  We were going to meet a friend for dinner but we still had an hour to go so we decided to just rest at this micro-brewery we found at the corner of 9th and F called Gordon Birsch Brewery.  I thought a beer would probably be the equivalent in price to a six pack at home.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the prices were no higher than any micro-brewery in the Northwest. I ordered a Total Cluster IPA and found it to be quite nice.  We sat outside on the street and enjoyed our beers.When the city and heat get to you, there is always beer. And I am thankful for American beer.