Ain't no mountain high enough

It has been five years.

Five years is a milestone. It feels like a significant amount of time, when memory of an event, or a person, starts to fade.  It becomes part of history.

I was thinking about this over the past week with the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard about those planes hitting the towers, I watched them crumble live on TV, I experienced the aftermath. But for a generation of children – including my own – it’s a historical event, before their time. They know about it but don’t feel it. The way I might look back on the Kennedy assassination or the moon landing.

That’s why a yartzeit is so powerful – it’s a deliberate remembering of someone every year. You think about them. You talk about them. You celebrate them and their life and their legacy. You recite the Mourner’sKaddish, which doesn’t mention death at all – it talks about the future.

By doing this climb every year, for Emma and for others, I do what I can so that the memory doesn’t fade. And I do it in a way that is out in nature, and that requires intense physical and mental effort – it’s life-remembering, and life-affirming for me as well.

Christin and I had decided to do our yartzeit hike on Saturday, September 7. Zeke said he wanted to do it too, so the plan was that we would all meet up in Breckenridge on Friday night, spend the night there, and then do the climb Saturday morning.

But then the highway was shut down because of a rock slide, and all efforts to find alternate routes around it were unsuccessful. We were rerouted on secondary roads through canyons to no avail, and ended up having to stop in Central City – home to Colorado’s low rent, tacky-ass casinos – so that poor Zeke could get something to eat because he was feeling sick from hunger. Defeated (though nourished by the casino buffet), we ended up back at home four hours after we left.

At the time, I obviously had no idea that that rock slide would eventually lead to one of the best climbs of my life. That, and my Peloton bike.

Christin and I decided to try again the following weekend. The kids weren’t with me this past weekend and their Australian relatives are visiting, so I didn’t mention the re-do effort to Zeke and decided that if he wants to do a 14er with me, I’ll take him to do another one.

My feelings leading up to the weekend were as they always are – excitement and anticipation mixed with anxiety about the difficulty of the climb. Fourteeners are hard for me. I struggle with the intense exertion at high elevations. Christin is seemingly impervious to it – she clearly has some kind of genetic predisposition to performance at altitude, like she was Tenzing Norgay in a past life or something like that. She’s climbed Kilamanjaro (which tops out at over 19,000 feet), for god’s sake.

I will never climb Kilamanjaro. (I did see Mt. Everest from an airplane a month and a half ago, but I will write about that another time).

Anyway, I was excited and a little nervous. But also curious. Because physically, I am in vastly better shape than I’ve ever been leading up to a climb.

Last Thanksgiving, I was at the tail-end of that miserable time when Zeke was suffering and I was suffering along with him. A woman in my office recently remarked to me that as a parent, you’re only ever as happy as your unhappiest child, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard truer words in my life. I was unhappy and I wasn’t taking care of myself. I had gained 20 pounds. It astounds me to even read those words, but it’s true. I felt awful.

Then I saw my friend Ali at Thanksgiving, and she looked and felt amazing. She had lost 50 pounds using Weight Watchers and regular exercise, and she raved about it.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” I thought.

I signed up for Weight Watchers in December and immediately started losing weight. Around the same time, I felt like I wasn’t getting enough cardio work, so I bought myself a spin bike and started doing Peloton classes via their digital app. I thought about buying the Peloton bike itself, but it’s super expensive and I thought I’d save myself some money.

I diligently did the classes. I enjoyed them and felt myself getting into better shape. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that bike. There are certain metrics that you can track on the Peloton bike that I couldn’t duplicate on my setup. I wanted to be able to track those metrics. I wanted the smoother ride. I wanted that fucking bike.

So in May I bought the bike, and it ended up being some of the best money I ever spent. As with most things that are worth the money, when I climb on the bike – which I do 4-5 times per week – I never think about what I paid for it. I only think about how much I love it and how happy it makes me. I have lost the last of the 20 pounds I gained a year ago.

I started doing a very structured form of training that focuses on power output and that helps  strength and endurance. I do a functional performance test every month or so to track my improvement, and it is steadily going up up up. So in getting ready for the climb, I was curious as to how that training would affect my strength and endurance on the mountain.

We set out for the trail head at about 5:30 a.m. I think we both knew it was destined to be a good day when, independent of one another, we had both chosen to wear Dead & Company concert t-shirts.

The full moon over the trailhead

The plan was to climb Mt. Bross as an out-and-back. Bross is a shorter climb in terms of distance, but having less distance to reach the summit just means that it’s very steep. No gradual uphill walking before hitting the hard stuff – you hit the trail and you’re climbing right away. 

We knew that going in, and we were prepared. The hike was immediately intense. But I was fine. I was astoundingly fine. I didn’t struggle with the altitude at all. We would stop occasionally to have a snack, or to figure out how to pee somewhat discreetly on a totally exposed ridge, or to take a short breather to stretch out our calves. But at no point did I ever have to resort to the 50-steps-then-50-breaths that I’ve had to do in the past as a way to keep myself going. At no point did I feel like I couldn’t get enough oxygen in my lungs, or that there wasn’t enough air in the air. 

No, the problem wasn’t my conditioning or my ability to physically handle the climb. It was that the climb was so steep, with nothing but loose rock and very narrow ridges to navigate, that the thought of descending the same way we went up was utterly terrifying. I had visions of losing my footing and tumbling down with nothing but rocks to break my fall.

Looking down from the ridgeline. It's hard to capture how steep this incline is. It scared the shit out of me.

Up on the ridge, looking back towards our ascent route. Narrow path with steep inclines on either side. No thanks.

So we changed our plan.

Bross is part of a canyon that includes four fourteeners - Mts. Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross, commonly referred to as the Decalibron loop. There is a saddle between Democrat and Cameron that has a trail leading down from it that provides a manageable descent back to the trailhead. We didn’t feel like doing Democrat again – its descent can be as nasty as Bross’s – so we decided to go from Bross to Lincoln to Cameron, down the saddle, and then down the trail back to the parking lot. And in the process, bag three peaks instead of just one. 

The Decalibron loop as seen from the trailhead. We started on the right side and went around to the left.

Our route (in yellow)

It turned out to be a fantastic decision. It was a stunningly beautiful day – perfect temperature, clear bluebird skies, very little wind – and the views went on forever. We could see all but one of the summits we had reached in previous years. Through it all, my lungs and heart and legs felt strong.

At the summit of Bross, we talked about Emma and what she was like. We talked about Josh and the grace he has shown in building a good life for himself since Emma and Lori died. We read the names of loved ones who had been given to me by friends and family – parents, children, siblings, friends, students lost to suicide or accident or cancer or old age. I recited the Kaddish for all of them. We cried and talked about life and pain and resilience.

And then we walked. We felt the sun on our faces and the strength in our bodies. We talked about books and told funny stories. We settled on Mexican food and beer for our post-climb meal. We planned future climbs and future trips – the Camino in Spain, perhaps? I nixed the idea of doing Kilamanjaro, but if I continue to train and feel as good as I do now, who knows? My legs are a little sore and tired today, but when I get home from work I will climb on the bike and do an hour-long endurance ride, because I can. Maybe 19,300 feet is a possibility for me after all.

Summit of Bross

Close to the Lincoln summit. That dude over my head is holding a bike. Welcome to Colorado.



Heading up to the summit of Lincoln

Mt. Lincoln summit



Mt. Cameron summit

View back towards the trailhead from the saddle between Mt. Cameron and Mt. Democrat

View of our descent route between Mt. Democrat on the left and Mt. Cameron on the right.



Toasting to an amazing day of hiking

As ever, we were grateful for our health, our friendship, and our lives. It breaks my heart that Emma will never have the types of experiences that I have had – traveling, children, adventure, loss, pain, love, all of it. Maybe doing this yartzeit climb every year, keeping her alive in my memory, is my way of having those experiences for her.

Here we go, yo

Yesterday I was sitting in my office revising a policy document when I blinked and suddenly felt like there was a boulder in my eye.

It was a coffee ground.

In the morning, when I was cleaning the coffee grounds out of my French press, I got it all over my hands and then, like an idiot, rubbed my hands in my face. I was removing coffee from various parts of my face for the rest of the day.

The day before, I was texting my cleaning lady to let her know that I don't need her to come next week because I'll be out of town. She responded by informing me that I had left the stove on.

This is not like me. I am a clear and rational thinker.

But my brain is all over the place this week.  On Monday I had such a flood of adrenaline and nervous energy that physically, it felt like the worst anxiety attack I've ever had in my life. I stopped for coffee and my way to work and realized that if I drank it, I'd go into orbit.

A week or so ago Lisa and I were talking about excitement but also nervousness about our upcoming India trip - as I type this, I'm leaving for the airport in three hours.

The excitement is obvious. And so is the nervousness, I think. It's a long way. It's a long time to be away from our homes and our children. I already haven't seen my kids in two weeks - they're in Mexico with their dad. So by the time I get home, it will be a month - I've never been away from them for that long.

And Lisa said that she hadn't been in such extremes in a long time - maybe since we were last in India. Extreme heat, extreme crowds, extreme poverty.

It's a lot.

But as it's gotten closer and closer - three days, two days, TOMORROW!!! - the nervousness has abated and the happiness has settled in.

I'm so happy to be doing this trip. I'm so happy to be doing this trip with Lisa. We're organized, we're vaccinated, we're packed.

My mother and I were talking about it yesterday and I was describing all the amazing things we're going to do. We're staying at Claridges in Delhi, where as moronic teenagers we used to go after school to drink gin & tonics. We're taking a flight along the mountain ridge that includes Mt. Everest. We're staying in a palace in Udaipur. We're staying with one of our old classmates in Kathmandu. We're going on Monday to see our school.

"Oh, Wendy. That's so incredible. I'm so happy that you're going on this trip. Thinking about you and Lisa seeing the school again after all this time - it makes me want to cry."

"I know. I know. Me too. It's crazy - being there was such a special and formative time of my life. I think being back there is going to be incredibly emotional. It's overwhelming."

Rajeev, our classmate in Nepal, called me the other day at 4:30 in the morning. He's in Thailand and didn't realize I was in Denver.

But it didn't matter. I was up.

I haven't spoken to him in 31 years, so we were catching up. I mentioned I was divorced.

"I'm so sorry!" he said.

"Oh, don't be. I'm not."

I'm so not. I'm free. I can do what I want. I feel empowered. The divorce was the beginning of me figuring out how I want to live. And bit by bit, I have. I feel better about myself and my life than I ever have.

My friend Christen is in school to become a therapist. A while ago she was telling me about this exercise that her class did in which the instructor asked people to think of a life motto or guiding principal that could be distilled down to something that could be small tattoo.

I thought about it for a second and said, "say yes."

Say yes to adventure, say yes to new experiences, say yes to love, say yes to opportunity.

When Lisa told me last year that she wanted to do a trip back to India this year to celebrate her birthday, she asked me if I wanted to go.

I didn't hesitate.

"Yes."

So off we go, and I'm so ecstatic I can barely stand it.

Happy birthday, beautiful. In the fields of this day, hear a song.

My dearest Emma,

You would have been 22 years old today.

Everything is making me cry.

Zeke was Charlie in his class's production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday. He worked really hard to memorize his lines. Josie and I have run lines with him over the past few weeks. I have helped him on the singing part - how to do some of the harder transitions to the high notes. How to think about what his character is going through in the moment so that his actions and reactions feel more authentic.

And he nailed it. The whole performance was so cute - all the kids were great. Their energy was amazing. Zeke hit the high note at the end of The Candy Man. We were all so proud.

I cried. Such naches.

My parents flew in for the performance, because that's what we do in our family. We show up for each other. They cried, too.

Assuming all had gone according to schedule, you would be graduating from college right about now. Maybe you would have ended up at the Naval Academy. Maybe you would have taken another road altogether. Whatever your choice, I know you would have done great - with your work ethic and your zest for life, you would be successful at whatever you decided to do.

We all would have shown up. We undoubtedly would have cried.

I have had a number of photos printed out to put on the wall next to my staircase. It's mostly pictures of my own kids, from trips that we have taken, but I also have one of my grandparents at my wedding, and one of you and your sisters when Hazel was a baby. You were 11 - Zeke's age.  My parents and I were looking at it yesterday, missing you and mourning your loss.

The school district where I work experienced a school shooting this week. A young man who was 18 years old, who was three days away from graduating, died when he rushed the shooter to try to disarm him. He was his parents' only child, and by all accounts he was a wonderful person. A great kid.

I know what they are going through because I watched my brother, your mother, and your sisters go through it. It makes me cry to think about it.

You were a wonderful person. You were a great kid.

We don't always remember you with sadness. We frequently remember you when we're telling funny stories. Like the time when we were at the Outer Banks when you were three. Your parents went home early and you stayed with my parents for a few extra days. We were driving back to their house and we stopped at a diner for some food.

You were delightful and adorable. You had a super cute (and totally developmentally normal) speech tendency in which you mixed up hard consonants that were made with the back of the throat with those that were made at the front of the mouth. "K" became "t." "G" became "d." "Come" became "tum." "Girl" became "durl."

We were finishing lunch and getting ready to go when you said, "where are you going?"

"We're going back to Virginia," I said.

And you responded, "can I tum?"

I laughed and scooped you up and gave you a kiss. "Of course you can tum, silly."

I would have taken you anywhere you wanted to go.

We all miss you and think about you and talk about you. We won't ever stop loving you.

Love,

Wendy

So fill up your cups, your loving cups, as full as full can be

Late last year my Virginia girlies and I made a plan to have a mini-reunion girls' weekend in Florida. It's the 50th birthday year for many of us - not me, yet, as I liked to remind them - and that provided us with as much a good reason as any to plan a trip when we could hang out on the beach and eat and drink and sleep and relax and get caught up.

We picked a weekend in mid-March. We found an AirBnb in Boca Raton with a pool, plus it was close to the beach. We determined that giant pool floaties of the unicorn-shaped variety were a must. We were super excited to see each other.

Then we just had to wait for the day to arrive.

Of course, because Colorado's weather in the spring is batshit crazy, a monster bomb cyclone snowpocalypse blizzard had to hit the day before my friend Jen and I were flying out.

The weather forecasters weren't wrong. The storm was a beast. That Wednesday the kids and I hunkered down in the house the way we've hunkered down for Category 1 hurricanes on the Outer Banks. I pulled the chairs in from the upstairs porch and secured the garbage cans and that sort of thing. Then we watched movies and drank hot cocoa and listened to music. The wind was whipping hard, blowing snow all over the place.

The kids were nervous.

"Are we going to be OK? Is the house going to be OK?"

"We'll be fine, guys. This house is 123 years old. It has survived many storms. It's tough."

The power went off at one point for about 5 minutes. When it came back on, we resumed watching whatever we had been watching.

The girls and I had been texting about the trip.

"Is it going to mess up your travel?"

"Nah, it should be fine. Flights are all cancelled today, but the weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow, so I don't think it'll be a problem."

(NARRATOR: It was a problem.)

On Wednesday afternoon, I received a text from United that my Thursday morning flight had been cancelled. But hey, feel free to rebook on our website or our mobile app!

Feeling sick to my stomach, I tried to rebook. Nothing was available. No direct flights (which is what I had), no connecting flights, no flights into other airports around the Miami area, nothing.

I was in tears. I couldn't bear the thought of not going on this trip that I had been looking forward to for so long, I called United. I was on hold for an hour before I was connected to a person.

Finally, finally, a lady picked up and began a 45 minute process of working her ass off to try to find me a flight that would get me in Thursday night (instead of Thursday afternoon) or, at the latest, Friday morning. She was tireless and patient, and got me onto a flight that got in late Thursday night. Instead of direct, I had to connect through Houston. But I would get there. Poor Jen was not as fortunate, which totally sucked.

Of course, the travel was not without its drama. My flight from Denver was exactly as late as the length of my layover in Houston, so I got off the plane in Houston and literally (literally literally, not figuratively literally) sprinted from one end of the Houston airport to the other in order to make my flight.

Which, going from sitting for hours to a full sprint, is not a good look. I'm more of an endurance athlete, not a sprinter. And I was wearing boots with heels and the wrong bra for sprinting. So I was teetering through the airport pulling my suitcase with one hand and holding my boobs with the other. By the time I made my connecting flight I was wheezing and coughing so severely that I feared I would puke. Literally.

But I didn't puke. And I was on the flight. I arrived in Fort Lauderdale and then took a Lyft up to Boca and everyone was awake and waiting for me when I arrived just after midnight.

I immediately relaxed and felt the love. Y'all know how much I love reunions.

The house was beautiful. The pool was beautiful. The beach was beautiful. My friends are beautiful. We relaxed and ate chips and salsa and watched basketball and swam. We hung out at the beach. We took a mellow booze cruise and went stand-up paddle boarding in Lake Boca, which is basically a giant tailgate party with boats. We floated on unicorns.

 

If I were any more relaxed I'd be dead

Susan brought souvenirs for everyone - personalized to-go cups with our initials in UVA colors, perfect for beer or wine or whatever else we wanted to carry around. We took them everywhere we went.

There is something so amazing about being with girlfriends that you have known for 30 years. We feel so comfortable around each other, and we know each other so well, and all of the bullshit anxiety that we carried around as 19 year olds - about fitting in, being cool, looking and dressing the right way, all of that shit - is gone. We own and embrace our flaws because they contribute to who we are, which is something to be celebrated. We can just talk and laugh and be honest with each other. It's the best.

After we had all returned home, I got a notification from AirBnb that Bob, our host/property manager, had left a review.

"Loved having these young women at our beach house!"

I don't know that we particularly feel like young women anymore. But maybe we keep each other young.

In any event, we'll take it for as long as we can get it.

Sometime's he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer

A few weeks ago Zeke had some friends over and after that my beloved Cutco French chef's knife went missing.

I've had that knife for over 27 years and it is my favorite. I use it every day. I've never used a knife that feels as good in my hand or that is so perfectly balanced.

When I was in law school, my roommate and I had some friends over for dinner. The guys were in the kitchen while I cooked and started futzing around with the knife. I yelled at them, not because I was worried they would cut themselves, but because I didn't want them messing with my expensive knife.

So a few weeks ago, I was cooking something and getting ready to cut some vegetables. I opened my knife drawer and reached for the French chef's knife - it lives in the far right slot of this knife tray - only to realize it wasn't there.

"Huh," I muttered to myself.

I went and looked in the sink. Not there. I looked in the dishwasher. Not there.

At that point I had exhausted the list of possible locations where it could be. I am not a meticulously neat person -- except when it comes to my kitchen. Everything has its specific spot. Everything always gets put away in that specific spot, every single time. Always always always.

I asked the kids where my knife was. They professed ignorance.

I looked all through the kitchen. Every drawer, every cupboard, in the fridge, in the freezer. Everywhere. I did this multiple times.

I asked Zeke if he and his friends had been playing with the knife. He denied it, but he's a shameless liar, so who knows.

I looked throughout the house, under beds, on shelves, on tables and desks, in bookshelves. I did this multiple times.

I became increasingly irate. I told the kids that everyone was grounded until my knife was found. They started to cry, so I backed off and offered a reward of $25 to anyone who found it or provided information leading to its discovery.

My friends on Facebook made a number of suggestions, my answers to which were as follows, in no particular order:

I don't carry my 15-inch-long knife in my purse. It's not in the kids' backpacks because I don't make their lunches. I don't take the knife with me anywhere outside the kitchen. I would never loan it out.

People kept saying, "it'll turn up, things like this happen...

Actually, they don't. Knives don't just up and waltz themselves out of the kitchen.

The only thing I could think of was that Zeke and his friends had taken it. Nothing else made sense, especially with those particular friends. One is a sneaky little shit and I'm convinced the other is going to end up murdering his parents in his sleep. Possibly with my knife.

The next day I got a call from Zeke.

"Hey, mom! I think I found your knife?"

"Is that so? Where?"

"On the top shelf of Josie's closet!"

The ceilings in my house are very high. Getting to the top shelf of Josie's closet would be quite an undertaking.

"Really. That's very interesting. What were you doing poking around the top shelf of Josie's closet?"

"Oh, uh... I wanted to look at the box that has the fire escape ladder...."

"Uh huh."

"No really!"

"Whatever."

He texted me a bit later.

The kid's got balls, I'll give him that.

Needless to say, he and I had another long talk about how I can't stand it when people lie to me, especially when they're so fucking bad at it. I always know. Always. ALWAYS.

Nobody got the $25.

It costs money because it saves money

For someone who lives in a place that is highly affected by the weather, I tend to be largely oblivious to it before it happens. Every morning I say, "Alexa, what's the weather today?" so I know what I can or should wear to work, but I'm always surprised by the answer.

I mean, not surprised as in "shocked." She doesn't tell me the day's high and low temperatures only to have me go bug-eyed and say, "WHAAAT???" But I don't pay enough attention to the forecast that I'll have a general sense of what she's going to say before she says it. I'm more reactive than proactive.

"Oh, it's snowing in the mountains? Sweet, I'll go ski tomorrow!"

Saturday I was having a lazy day, just kind of dicking around doing laundry and watching sports. I looked out the window at one point in the afternoon only to realize that there were 3 inches of snow on the ground and it was supposed to continue through the night.

"Huh," I though. "I guess I'll go shovel the sidewalk."

That's when I realized how cold it was. A good day to shovel and then go back inside to chill out.

It stayed really cold.  And then this morning when I got up to go to work, I went to brush my teeth and when I turned on the water nothing came out.

"Hmm," I thought.

I checked to make sure I hadn't forgotten to pay my bill. Nope - no problem there.

I went down into the cellar to see if there was flooding or anything overt. Nothing looked unusual.

So I called a plumber.

"Do you think my pipes are frozen?" I asked.

"Could be. Why don't we come out and take a look."

"I need to go to work. Could you do an afternoon appointment? Is it ok to leave? The house isn't going to blow up, is it?"

I have no idea why I asked that. I'm really not a ditz when it comes to home repairs.

"You should be fine. Leave one of the faucets on - maybe they will thaw out if it gets sunny later."

So I left a faucet on, and figured that if I needed to, I could stay in a hotel if I didn't have water for a couple of days.

I was talking to my mom about it as I drove to work.

"Ugh, the house is so old, I figured something like this would happen eventually. It'll probably cost me thousands of dollars."

"Well, I hope it's not that much," she said.

"Remember Moonstruck? Plumbing costs $10,000." 

Everything I know about plumbing I learned from Moonstruck.

"But do you have copper pipes?" she asked.

"In fact, I do. I checked!"

I got to work and went about my day. I spent many hours in meetings where people yelled, sometimes at me. I went to truancy court. I tried not to think about getting home to burst pipes and water everywhere.

Some people at work said that a lot of times when pipes freeze, it's no big deal. You just have to wait for them to thaw. I actually felt very zen about it.

But then I got home and turned on the faucet. And water came out!! And the faucet that I had left on upstairs was running. Huzzah! It was a huge relief.

And I'm convinced it worked out because I had copper pipes, just like Cosmo said I should.

Today I didn't even have to use my A.K., I got to say it was a good day

I turned 49 a week and a half ago.

That same day I went skiing and pushed myself hard, skiing through trees (which I had basically never done before) and burning my legs out on moguls. Then that night I went out for a fun birthday outing.

It's always fun to celebrate something, and a birthday is as good an excuse as any. I'm shameless about asking for a free drink or dessert. I mean, all they can say is "no," right?

On a deeper level, though, I have no idea what that number means. I mean, obviously, I understand the numerical value of 49. But as an age - as my age - I don't know how to feel.

I know how my children feel. They think I'm fucking ancient. Josie has been fascinated by my age for a while now. It's become a running joke that I'll go skiing with the kids and sometimes we'll get in the single line because it's quicker, and then meet up at the top. Invariably, Josie will start chatting with the people on her chair lift, and by the time they get to the top, they know all about me, including that I've got one foot in the grave, at least according to my daughter.

Often they will wait with her until I arrive, and say, "we know everything about you. We know where you've lived, where you've traveled, what you do for a living, how old you are..."

"She's 49!" Josie will repeat.

They laugh. "She's adorable!"

Whatever.

As an age, 49 is sort of unremarkable. It's the last time I can say I'm in my late forties, but it's not quite 50. Now 50 - that feels insane to me. My grandmother was 50 when I was born. When I was younger, 50 was super close to death.

But I don't feel old. I don't even feel middle aged. I have friends my age who refer to themselves as middle-aged and I'm always taken aback by it.

I hear and read about women reaching a certain age - i.e., my age - and starting to feel invisible. They lament that while men in their late 40s and early 50s are still considered attractive and virile, women of the same age fade away in the eyes of society.

I feel fortunate that that has not been my experience, at least not yet. Physically I feel as strong as I ever have. My skin is holding up pretty well. By virtue of not having been able to breast-feed, my boobs are still relatively perky. Men, particularly younger men, still notice me.

As my friend Ali observed, "yeah, 50 is the new 30 or whatever. Of course, 60 is still 60, so...."

I've got some time.

And honestly, I'm very happy with where I am in my life. I have a wonderfully rewarding career. I'm strong and healthy and in shape, particularly since I lost 10 pounds doing Weight Watchers. My kids are great, I have friends and family whom I love. I live in a place that lets me pursue things I love, like skiing and hiking and travel and culture.

Maybe that's the best thing about being in your late 40s. You can enjoy life more because you have lost  the ability to give a fuck about stuff that's inconsequential. I don't worry about the opinions of people I don't know, or who I'm not connected to emotionally. I'm confident in my abilities. Nothing makes me nervous. I feel prepared for whatever comes.

I can't feel the weight of age when I'm still jumping at the chance to see Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and Warren G at Red Rocks next month. Or flying down mountains with Zeke, going as fast as we can go. Or climbing fourteeners. Or surf camp in Mexico. That's all got to count for something, right?

So I'll keep on keeping on and feel fine about it.

I can freak out next year when I turn 50. For now I'm good.

Happy birthday to me

Fear of fire, or why I won't marry for money

I was leaning over the stove trying to scrape ground turkey that had accidentally fallen on the side of the pot rather than into it, when I was making a batch of chili.

Suddenly I smelled something burning.

I looked to the counter and saw that a paper towel that was too close to the flame had caught fire. I had a flash of "aaaauuuughhhh," and then, because there was no one else to deal with it, I picked up the non-burning end, tossed it into the sink, and turned the water on.

I had a very different reaction when my mother and I were cooking Thanksgiving dinner in November and we opened the oven door to discover that the oven wasn't just preheating to cook the turkey roulade - it was on fire.  Flames were shooting out from the bottom pan of the oven.

I am terrified of fire. I consider myself relatively fearless - I don't worry about being mugged or eaten by bugs or of walking by myself at night. But fire - and particularly kitchen fires - seriously freak me out.*  Maybe reading too many news articles in the Times of India about dowry killings when we were there - mothers-in-law who murdered their new daughters-in-law, but it was always made to look like a mysterious kitchen fire.

Although I suppose that if I need to be worried about being burned up in a dowry fire, I would have to be married to someone whose family only wanted me for my dowry. At this point in my life, I don't think my parents would pay someone to take me off their hands. And I'm certainly not forking over the cash. I don't have any particular desire to get married anyway. So there. Eat shit, imaginary future mother-in-law.

Anyway.

My mom and I looked at each other. We are both intelligent, sensible, highly educated people. But we were paralyzed.

What do we do??

My brother Josh was sitting calmly at the kitchen table reading the newspaper.

I said, "JOSH! What do we do when the oven's on fire???"

Josh is always a calm presence. He's level headed. He knows what to do. He doesn't freak out.

He came over to the oven. There was obviously some substance or object burning under the bottom pan, but we couldn't figure out what it was. A number of options were thrown out.

One of them involved trying to smother the fire with flour. That ended up just making a mess.

Finally Josh figured out how to remove the lower pan. What we found was a ton of dog food, some of it in flames. No one could understand how any of it got there.  We cleaned it out.

Buster must have been to blame. But Josh saved the day.

That's what he does.

_______
*I am also terrified of birds, but that's another story.

Hannukah music

I've written before about my love of bluegrass and how, at the age of 27, my particular love of the banjo spurred me to ask for one when my mother asked me what I wanted for Hannukah.

At first, I played all the time. I was young and single and childless and had endless time to hang out with my musician friends, singing and playing and drinking bourbon. Then I got married and had children and didn't live in places where my circle of friends all played the guitar or the fiddle or the upright bass or the mandolin.

That's still where I am. I pick up the banjo from time to time. My kids ask me to play songs for them. But my friends are almost all married with kids, and my limited social life does not involve picking parties full of song and bourbon and bonfires. And banjo isn’t really a solo instrument.

I love music, though. I always have it playing, often I'm singing along, often my kids are often singing along. It turns out Zeke has a beautiful voice. He's in choir and was selected to be in the all-city choir group and is going to audition for the Denver School of the Arts. I don't know if he'll get in, or even if it's a good fit for him, but it's cool that it's an option.

It also turns out that he's taken to playing the piano. His after-school babysitter has a piano in the house and she encourages the kids to bang away at it. Zeke has learned/taught himself a bunch of songs, and is always fiddling. Let's just say that while we were at my parents' house for Thanksgiving - they have a piano - we heard a LOT of "Heart and Soul."

We didn't mind too much. It's catchy.

Hannukah is early this year. When we got back from Thanksgiving, it was upon us. Like my mother did for me 21 years ago, I asked Zeke what he wanted for Hannukah. Like I did 21 years ago, he responded that he wanted a musical instrument - a piano.

I looked on Craiglist. Turns out you can get a rehearsal piano for practically no money. And I would have happily bought one, except that I don't know where I would put it. We could put it in Zeke's room, which is huge, but that would entail getting up the stairs. No thanks.

But there were also a gajillion electric keyboards for sale. Some people the next neighborhood were getting rid of theirs. It's in perfect shape. It has a ton of different settings. It came with the stand and a seat. I got some cash out of the machine and Zeke and I went and got it.

It's in his room and he loves it. And best of all, it has a volume button.

When Josie came back to me after being with her dad, I asked her the same question. "What do you want for Hannukah, JoJi?"

She thought about it and said, "a guitar."

So today we went to Guitar Center and got her a guitar that's the right size for her. My parents gave her a set of lessons that will start after the new year. She has a case that allows her to carry the guitar on her back. I got her a book to get her started, and I'm teaching her the basic chords.

It's made me want to pick up my banjo again. We can have a family band and go on the road.

I'd need to learn "Heart and Soul" on the banjo.

Happy Hannukah, everyone. May your lives be full of music.

If you are going through hell, keep going

Sometimes when I think I'm going through something rough, I think about some of the awful things that other people have endured, and that are much, much worse.

People who have been enslaved, or raped, or tortured. People who deal with chronic or terminal illness and then die way too early. People in California who have lost their homes and possessions or, God forbid, family members to raging fires.

I don't have to deal with anything like that.

My children are healthy. I am healthy. I have a good job and live in a nice house and wear nice clothes. I live in a beautiful place and I am able to take advantage of what it offers. I have the means and ability to travel. I having a loving family and wonderful friends.

I know how fortunate I am.

It's not a comparative analysis, though. People get to feel bad about things even if other people are dealing with things that are worse.

Anyway.

I was thinking about Thanksgiving coming up next week. As we always do, the family will gather at my parents' house. My mom and I will walk Buster together. We will cook together.  My dad will take the kids to the Air & Space Museum, or to play at Clemyjontri Park. On Wednesday night, we will go to Tony Cheng's for dinner and then to the hockey game. On Thursday morning we will participate in the SOME Trot for Hunger and then have breakfast at the Metro 29 diner. On Friday we will have our open house and eat leftover pie with our friends. Lisa and I will plan our trip to India next summer.

(Did I tell you I'm going to India with Lisa next summer? I'm going to India with Lisa next summer. Soooo excited.)

I love our Thanksgiving traditions.

Like most people, when we sit down at Thanksgiving dinner we go around the table and everyone says what they're thankful for. Or if you're going to be grammatically correct, we identify the things for which we are thankful.

Family is always up there. Health. Love. Prosperity.

Those are the evergreens of Thanksgiving thankfulness.

This year I am thankful for all those things, as I always am. But I am also thankful for my own strength and resourcefulness. I am thankful for my ability to endure and persevere.

As I've alluded to, my son has had a really hard, traumatic six months or so. For the last two months and change, he has lived only with me. I have found and arranged for services that could help him. I have worked through adjustments in health care needs. I have worked with the school to develop strategies that would help him.

I have done everything and endured everything and arranged everything and paid for everything. I have had in that time maybe two or three nights to myself, when the kids had sleepovers.

It has been so, so hard. It has been so, so exhausting.

Emotionally, I am tapped out. I have gone through periods of intense anxiety, to the point that I had to increase my medication dosage and find others to reduce the feeling that my heart was going to pound right out of my chest.  I have cried a lot.  Many nights I have cried myself to sleep. But in the morning, I still got up and exercised and worked and did what I needed to do.

I have felt worthless and overwhelmed and incompetent and like I would never see any light at the end of the tunnel.

But now I can see it. Because of my efforts - because I loved, pushed, encouraged, comforted, raged when appropriate, held my tongue when I needed to, forced everyone to face the problem and deal with it - the light is there.

I can rest easier knowing that my son isn't in crisis. We can work toward a more normalized schedule. I can try to have some semblance of a personal life again. I can have days when I'm not responsible for taking care of anyone but myself.

So I'm thankful that I was able to do that.  And thankful that I did it.

This one goes to 11

My dearest Zekey-beans.

Today you are eleven years old.


Eleven is a weird age. There isn't the novelty of being in double digits, but you're not quite a teen. You're in full-on tween-dom. Which is weird.

On one hand, you're still a kid, still very much attached to me, still loving on me like you did when you were a toddler. You still hug me and tell me that you love me multiple times a day. You still have an extraordinary willingness to show me your physical bizness as the situation calls for it - "mom, I have a rash!" - while bending over and revealing all. Oy.

On the other hand, in true teen-adjacent fashion, EVERYTHING IS EMBARRASSING!!

You were horrified last Friday when we made our ill-fated trip to a local haunted house and Josie was so terrified of the prospect of what was to come that she burst into tears and refused to go in at all. That wasn't the embarrassing part - what upset you was my effort to go get my money back for the cost of Josie's and my tickets. "Mom, don't!! Can't we just go home???"

I'm not allowed to talk to you while you're playing PS4 with your friends while wearing your headset, because god forbid they hear me telling you to come eat your dinner, or reminding you to get off the game because it's bedtime.

A couple of weeks ago I picked you up at school and you were in tears because your teacher made some innocuous comment that could have possibly been interpreted to accuse you of looking at your girlfriend rather than at your work.

"It's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me!" you wailed.

Sigh.

Things are not easy for you right now.

You're living with me full-time because things between you and your dad are not great. So in addition to the normal mercurial nature of being eleven - the normal feelings associated with early puberty and having crushes, trying to act like you were created in a petri dish so that you can pretend your parents don't exist, generally being a dick to your sister- you're often sad and anxious and grumpy ON TOP of all that.

It's not so much fun for either of us. We fight a lot. We push each others' buttons. We don't get time away from each other.

I get no time to myself, period.

But there will be moments when everything between us feels perfect. Little moments.

Last night you were feeling sore - I think you're having some growing pains - and asked me to massage your back. So I was working on your back muscles, and then I had you lie on your back so I could help you with some stretches. And then I lay down next to you and you curled into me, and we were joking and laughing about something, all snuggled up. I showed you a picture I have on my phone of you as a baby.

"Who's that good looking fella?" I asked.

And we were smiling and talking, feeling relaxed and happy.

You have told me I am your safe person - the one person you feel you can totally rely on when you're sad or upset or scared. You trust me completely. You tell me everything, good or bad.

Sometimes being that person can be exhausting and anxiety producing. You have said, in so many words, "I can't function without you."

I feel so much responsibility to make everything OK.

But in moments like the one last night, I feel the privilege of being the one you open up to. I feel utterly, overwhelmingly loved and appreciated.

You are a complicated, difficult, delightful, intelligent, interesting, beautiful human being. I created you, and you are mine and I am yours. It is a great gift.

To say that I love you seems woefully inadequate. You are a part of me in every sense. You fill my heart.

Everything's going to be OK. I will help you and make it OK.

All my love,

Mom

Joy to the world

Josephine, my sweet love. My delightfully funny, beautiful darling girl.

Today you are nine years old.

You are with your dad this week, so I went to school this morning to find you and wish you a happy birthday. I was already having a frazzled morning and I wandered around school, not able to find you. I was about to leave when I got a message from your dad that you had come to school late. So I got out of the car and went back in and had to wander around some more because you had left your classroom with a math group you're in.

Something about all the wandering around, not able to find you, made me feel weepy. I wanted to say to everyone I encountered, "where is she?? I just want to wish her a happy birthday, dammit!"

So when I finally found you, I did weep a little bit. I wrapped you up my arms and hugged you and kissed you.

You shouldn't have been that hard to find. Your short, blue-green hair stands out.

We did your hair two weekends ago. You really really really wanted blue hair. I had no problem with blue hair, but I really really really didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars, and many hours in a hair salon, in order to achieve it.

So I did it myself.

The bleaching part was easy, though there were gaps in my application. So when we rinsed and dried it, there was a little bit of a tiger stripe-y effect. Which was kind of cool, honestly.

Then we applied the blue dye. After 45 minutes, we rinsed it out. I realized that when you're paying all that money at the salon, what you're really paying for is access to a salon sink, in which you can tilt your head back and rinse the dye directly down the drain, rather than having to kneel in the shower as blue runs over your hands and your body and gets on everything.

But it was worth it. It looked super-cool.

You're super cool.

You're in fourth grade now. You have tons of friends. Everybody loves you and thinks you're delightful.  You're funny and goofy and strong.  You keep getting taller and taller.

Your brother is having a rougher time right now - he frequently feels like you're the favored child. And he's probably right, for some people. It's not fair, but it's true. You're easier than he is, at least for the time being.

The two of you bicker and get on each other's nerves, as siblings do. But when you were at your dad's this weekend and Zeke was with me, I had a feeling you would miss him. I wasn't surprised when you texted last night asking to talk to him.

You are a kind soul. You still say, "AAWWWWW!!!!" every time you see a dog anywhere, anytime. You're sweet to your friends.  You're funny as hell.

Even though you now have your own room with two beds, you still always sleep with me. "I don't like being away from you," is your rationale. And it's OK. I don't mind. I love waking up with you. You put your hand on my face and say, "I love you."

I love you, too.

There was something about your new hair color that was reminding me of something, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then the other day, in an "ah-ha" moment, I realized what it was - the character of Joy, from the movie Inside Out. With her optimism and cheerfulness and zany side.



 You are Joy. You are joy.

I love you to the moon and back.

Love,

Mom

River deep, mountain high

Dear Emma,

It has been four years since you left us.

Even though in other areas of my life, four years feels like a million, with you it doesn't feel as long as that. The pain, while duller at this point than it was, is still fairly acute and close to the surface.

When we were at the beach this past summer, Zeke was going through some stuff (still is, honestly), and your dad and I did some bonding over the dilemmas of single parenting and pushing through the difficulties. And we talked about you a little bit, and what that is like for him. He is an amazing person and an amazing father, and truly an inspiration to me. I have more respect for his strength, resilience, and grace under pressure than I can possibly say.

It made me think that another reason that your death was such a tragedy - on top of the tragedy of your life having been cut short, and the family's loss and grief - is that you are missing out on the experience of having the love and support and guidance of such an incredible father.

I climbed another mountain for you this past weekend for your yahrtzeit. The only deviation from tradition is that I wore a different baseball cap because I can't find the green Red Sox hat that I usually wear. It actually really bothered me not to have that hat.

Every year the way I approach the climb changes a little bit. So many people I know have lost loved ones recently. I thought that maybe instead of just hiking for you, I would ask people if there was a loved one they wanted me to carry up the mountain as a way of honoring their memory. In the end, I carried nineteen names in addition to yours. I was touched by how much it meant to people, and I was touched by how much it meant to me as well.

We climbed Mt. Democrat in honor of the upcoming midterm elections. I feel like you would have approved of that. Neither Christin nor I had a good night's sleep, but I think that actually portends a good climb, because our best climbs have come on days after a shitty night's sleep.

This was a great climb.

I have been doing some running over the past couple of months. My body hates it - I get weird pains in my hips, my boobs are too big, it's not pleasant for me. But I sure felt the results - I was astounded by how much stronger I felt at high altitude. I only had to really gut it out with 50-steps-then-50-breaths for the last 100 feet or so.

And man, was it ever a gorgeous day. The sun was shining and the aspens are gold and Christin and I could not stop marveling at how lucky we are to live in Colorado.

The yahrtzeit hike presents such a range of feelings and thoughts. It always takes me back to those awful days immediately after your death, because the reason I started walking so much after you died - the reason the climb is at once so fulfilling while at the same time being so wrapped up in losing you - was because of the amazing hike up the Longs Peak trail that Christin and I did 4 days before you died.  When we were in New Hampshire doing our version of shiva, miserable and devastated and out of our minds with grief, all I could think of was that day on the mountain when everything was beautiful and perfect and life-affirming. I was desperate to get back there.

And so I take myself back there every year, in your honor. I get to experience the beauty and perfection that makes me feel the life and strength in my body, while also keeping your memory vibrant. I think that that's what makes reaching the summit such a mix of accomplishment and pride and sorrow - that punch in the gut that makes me catch my breath and cry as soon as we take that final step to the top of the world.

It's like every year, through the joy and effort and flood of memory and emotion that the climb brings on, I re-experience that juxtaposition of intense happiness and then intense agony from four years ago. The climb itself brings you back to life in my head, only to experience losing you again.

As hard as it is, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

I hope you know how loved and missed you still are. We don't shy away from talking about you - you are and will always be part of us. Our family will never be complete without you. We miss your smile and your energy and your kindness and your generosity of spirit and your sense of humor. We miss hearing about what you're up to.

We just miss you. I miss you. I love you and I always will.

Wendy

Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me

I woke up to the sound of someone walking into the house. I reached out to look at my phone - it was 1:15 in the morning.

I was startled but not afraid. I knew who it was.

I walked down the stairs and into the living room. He stood there looking exhausted and weepy.

"What are you doing here?"

He shrugged, helpless.

"How did you get here, sweetie?"

"I walked."

"You walked here from daddy's?"

It's three and a half miles. It's 1:15 in the fucking morning.

He nodded and started to cry. "I needed to be with you," he said.

I looked down and saw he wasn't wearing any shoes. Three and a half miles. Three and a half miles in the middle of the night with no shoes. Wandering around Colorado Boulevard in the middle of the night.

Three and a half miles in the middle of the goddamned night with no shoes.

"Mom, I'm so tired. I'm so cold."

I sat down on the couch and he curled himself into my lap.  I wrapped my arms around him and rocked him the way I did when he was a baby.

"It's ok, honey. You're ok. I'm here. You're safe."

He nodded and closed his eyes. He was so worn out and relieved to be with me that it brought tears to my eyes.

"Sweetie, let's go upstairs and get in bed. You need to sleep. We can talk in the morning."

He was going through some stuff with his dad. Neither of them was handling it well, but one of them is a child, and one isn't. Sometimes I think adults don't realize the emotional impact they have on their children. They don't think about how their words and actions can make their child feel like the solid ground beneath their feet has turned to quicksand. They don't realize that a cutting remark doesn't just leave a scrape - it's a deep stab.

I was in a constant state of crippling anxiety, worrying about my children, trying to help them navigate a rough time, trying to keep work and the house and everything else functioning.

A woman I know, whose son is friends with Zeke, remarked, "he left his dad's house in the middle of the night and walked to your house without telling anyone? That's such bad behavior. You must have been ready to kill him."

I wanted to say, of course I wasn't ready to kill him, you moron. A ten-year-old doesn't walk three miles to their mother's house in the middle of the night - barefoot - because they're misbehaving. They do it because they're in pain.

It was devastating to think about how desperate he must have felt to do that.

We went to the Outer Banks a few days later. It was as it always is - familiar and beautiful and consistent. I got a good tan. I read some books. I spent some quality time with my brother Josh.

But Zeke was a mess. I was a mess. I felt like my life was a mess. I wasn't sleeping. The anxiety gripped my chest like a vise. I cried constantly. I felt responsible for everything, and like I was utterly failing.

Eventually, after we were home, he and his dad worked stuff out. He's much, much better. School is going well. Everyone is getting along.

You think that the awfulness can't possibly resolve itself. And then, very quickly, it does.

But man, it was a hard summer.

It's not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy

Zeke recently asked me, "Mom, is it OK if I sleep by myself?"

My children have been crawling into my bed since they were babies. Sometimes I have gone through periods of proclaiming "EVERYBODY SLEEPS IN THEIR OWN BED!!"

It never sticks. They are warm and snuggly and sweet. They argue about who gets to sleep next to me. They reach their hands out in the morning to touch my cheek and say, "I love you, Mom."

I'll take it as long as I can get it.

But Zeke is starting to pull away. He'll be 11 in a few months, and he is exhibiting early signs of pre-teen-ish behavior. Spending all hours talking to his friends. Preferring to hang out with them on weekends. Holing up by himself in different parts of the house, away from Josie and me. Being churlish to me and his sister.

"Ugh, he's such a dick!" Josie will exclaim.

"I know," I'll say. "Older brothers can be jerks."

He's noticing girls, and they're noticing him. Sometimes I look at him and am struck by how handsome he is. I do my best to hammer home the importance of treating girls - and himself - with kindness and respect. His looks would make it easy for him not to.

Of course I understand that this separation process is normal. I try to give him space. When he's acting like a asshole pre-teen, I make every effort to not take the bait, and usually I succeed. It diffuses the conflict and his sweet self eventually reemerges and comes back to me.

Tomorrow is the start of the kids' two-week summer stint with Jason, followed by our two week trip to the Outer Banks. I will be using that solo time to set the kids up in their own bedrooms. They have shared a room since Josie was born, but we have reached That Time. They need their own space.

The bummer is that I'm losing our playroom/workout room setup, but the little alcove off my bedroom that I use as an office - which has never actually had much use as an office - will become my home gym. It'll be fine.

I told Zeke that of course he could sleep in his own bed.

So now, most nights he goes to sleep in his own bed.

But most mornings, he still wakes up in mine.