after the storm

Good morning, friends,

If you live nearby you weathered an incredible storm last night-awesome in its power. Phone lines are buzzing this morning with stories from benign to tragic of its consequences. The sheer volume of water coming down from the sky was hard to wrap your mind around. And, it raged well into the night.

The storm left its mark in many ways on the beach.  The waterline showed evidence that the waves traveled farther than halfway up Riley beach, and dragged sand to the shoreline, forming a little dune. Everywhere, the rushing water carved rivulets into the sand, re-enacting the making of the Grand Canyon on a small scale and creating crevices  delicate and precarious.  Fractal patterns were everywhere along the sand. Debris had been lifted, carried and dropped along my path, most organic but also, the remnants of beachgoers mixed in-a stray sandal, plastic components of something or other, charred wood from campfires.  

The wind was refreshing and clean. The sky as peaceful as it was turbulent the night before. 

The beach once again has been made new, baptized by the rain and the magificent dance, the raging minuet of the water, in and out, to and fro.

I walked in tandem with the footsteps of a child for awhile and wished that I could see around me with his eyes, free of thought and preoccupations. As happens so often, I thought of all of the people I have loved who have walked this beach with me, both in person and in spirit. Again I saw the two certainties of life-that it will change, and that it is eternal.

I have a good friend who is having a storm of her own this weekend. This morning's call sounded like it is dying down and the sun is peeking through. 

words for today:

abundance

light

force-light

school's out

School is out as of noon today and me without a camera! I wish I could have shared some images with you of my fifth graders at their Aloha breakfast-they were just beaming with joy and promise and although I will miss them all I am happy to send them forward from their Waukazoo nest to the bigger world of middle school. We teachers waved good bye from the hill and I brought home another rose bush from the Marsman family--this one is coral pink, a fitting color to represent their youngest and most colorful child, Kristin.  Three other Marsman bushes grace my garden and the blooms are almost as beautiful as the girls (Kaitlin, Kelly and Kara).  

One of my favorite things is finding a piece of artwork like the one above on my desk.  Perhaps this helps to explain my relentless optimism-kids having a way of making your world much brighter. I have a friend who is retiring next year, and when I asked her why, she said, "you know, Claude, being an accountant for such-and-such company isn't quite as rewarding as teaching art to children." thanks for the slap upside the head, Jean...:)

My heart has been so full today that I am now sitting here listening to the wind blow and feeling the peace that has alluded me all week. The transition was aided by a call from my darling Vanessa, who had her last day yesterday. Only teachers know how it feels. 

I have a poem for you from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda that speaks to this idea of stillness after such busyness:

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the

earth,

let's not speak in any language

let's stop for a sceond,

and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment

without rush, without engines;

we would all be together in a sudden strangeness...

sending peace vibes out and feeling them coming back...

love,

claudie

another passage

I sit here in my wonderful old leather chair with Bella sleeping soundly on my lap (just the tiniest sound of a snore) and the intoxicating breeze blowing the curtains as it enters the house and whispers, "summer! summer!" The birdsong, the smells. The cup of coffee in my favorite mug.  All of this and the promise of some open time ahead. Longer mornings, the beach, a nap on the couch in the middle of the day. It seems impossible to be this blessed!

Yesterday I taught yoga and papermaking to my kids. Today I say goodbye to my fifth graders at their Aloha breakfast. The teachers at Waukazoo have a fine tradition: we stand on the hill by the driveway and wave goodbye to our kids as they leave in their busses and cars. It is like a parade. There is an exquisite feeling of joy and sadness-and love. We all know that we will be together again.

A quote for you from LEGACY OF THE HEART, by Wayne Muller: 

"As we explore the practices of faith, sraddha, and equanimity, one thing becomes clear: Genuine faith is born of the ability to trust in what is most fundamentally true within ourselves.  Circumstances will change, and all manner of things pleasant and unpleasant will arise and fall away; sometimes our lives will be touched with joy, and at other times we will be given tremendous pain and sorrow.  Many times we will be afraid.  But the object of faith is not to eliminate difficult circumstances, nor is faith about trusting in a God who will rescue us from hurt, or who--if only we believe strongly enough--will make everything better.  The real question of faith is when pain and loss inevitably come our way, do we withdraw in fear that we will be destroyed, or do we deepen our trust in our innate capacity to endure them? Can we find a strong and courageous heart, a place of clarity and wholeness within ourselves in which we can place our ultimate trust, gently allowing both the fear and the pain to simply move through us?

Faith is a centering response.  The search for faith is a search for our true nature, for the spirit within, the divine strength that lives in our deepest heart...we begin to see that true safety is not the absence of danger but rather the presence of something else-the presence of a sense of faith, born in the heart and sustained by a spirit of serenity, trust, and courage. "

peace to you, friends.

love,

claudie

annie's home!

 What a morning for a walk on the beach.  Glorious. So good to have Annie here. 

join me for Relay For Life!!

Relay for Life Holland will be held on June 13th and 14th at West Ottawa High School. I will be new to this adventure this year but have heard such great things about his event that I can hardly wait to get there! I have joined the West Ottawa team and am inviting you out there to join us.
Basically, everyone has to raise $100, and we take turns walking thwe track for 24 hours to earn our pledges. Fun, food and fellowship will abound!
If you are interested please follow these simple steps:

Go to the website www.relayforlifeholland.com

Click on Join a Team and follow the steps.

Then, got to the Particpant Center and click on the Personal Page Icon and customize your page. Add a photo and tell others the reason why you Relay. It seems like we all know someone who has battled cancer--let's get their names and pics out there, too.

Or, ask them to walk the Survivor's Lap, which will be at 6pm on the 13th. I will be walking with friends and colleagues who are cancer survivors and we would love to have more join us. Contact me if you have questions: 616-786-1894.

Thanks, All.
Love,
claudie

symbols of peace and harmony for you

the Mighty MO

On Saturday my friend Kathy took me to the cemetary where her dad, Ralph Martinus, is buried, and I had the pleasure of meeting him, or at least his spirit. I have heard a lot about him from Kathy and he sounds as though he was quite a guy.  He was in the Navy.  My dad Tom was also in the Navy, as was my Uncle Jack and my Uncle Larry.  My dad was on the Battleship Missouri, also known as the Mighty Mo. He has a great portrait of her at the house, and when I grew up, I loved looking at it. My dad looked handsome in his sailor blues and all three boys had their military portraits hanging in my grandparents' house. I often wonder if his love of maritime stories (and mine, for that matter) comes from the time he served as a young officer on that huge ship.  

It has been a good weekend, with the weather finally feeling like spring and the warm sun shining. I built a little wall around my garden and I have my friends to thank as usual--Carolyn provided the little paver bricks, Bobbi helped me haul them and Kathy helped to dig up the dirt and put them in.  A friendship wall. It warms me to look at it.

Also bookended my Sunday with Mark and Reggie...breakfast at I-Hop and dinner at my house.  Mark made some monster grilled asparagus and we watched an inspiring documentary about a teacher. 

In between, I got out on the golf course with the girls and am thrilled to tell you that there didn't seem to be much difference for me between golf with two eyes and golf with one. Honestly, I was hoping I'd be able to keep my eye on the ball better, but alas, no such luck. Not one bit better. But oh, it was such fun!

LEMMINGS CLOCK

I was mezmerised by this video that I found while browsing blogs tonight so here it is for your amusement. how weird! and it just keeps going, on and on and on. no "play" button. just an endless loop. yikes.  

one year ago..

A year ago tomorrow was my wedding day. Had we not called it off after our disasterous spring break in San Antonio (scene of the Alamo-and we stayed at a hotel that used to be the jail--that pretty much paints the picture), I would be out buying an anniversary card for Dave. Or not. Sometimes I think that is overly optimistic. 

I met Dave on eharmony and we were together for a little over two years. We had hideous fights in all the best places: Minneapolis, Sante Fe, Denver, Tuscon, Milwaukee, chicago.....even the wilds of the UP. We had sleepless nights at all  the best hotels.  We bought lots of cards for each other which described our endless love for each other, and we slammed doors and screamed into telephones and I cried more tears than I thought you could produce.  We saw therapists, read spiritual guides and psychological profiles.  We even consulted the Enneagram, trying to determine how a fearful 6 like him and a bossy 8 like me could find lasting happiness.  We wrote beautiful, spiritual vows, hired a hip minister, rented the coolest house on the beach and hired the caterer. I had a beautiful wedding dress waiting in the closet.

Peachy flowing bridesmaid's dresses for Annie and Sarah.  Nifty pinstripes from Banana Republic for the boys.  Annie worked on artistic invitations.

After it all went to hell, we decided that we would somehow stay together and see what happened. It was kind of like the movie Frankenstein--the one with De Niro,  when Dr. Frankenstein takes his dead fiance and attaches her beautiful dead head to another body and re-cooks her and then they have that gruesome dance scene when he is smiling frantically (he is utterly mad at this point, of course and saying to her, "remember? remember???" 

Anyway, we spent the wedding weekend at the beach house. What an appetite for pain we had.

By the way, for the exact hour that the ceremony was to take place, there was a torrential downpour. We sat and watched it and I cried and cried. Dave politely got after me for leaving my kleenexes all over the place.  We had an unwedding night.

The next morning, a young deer appeared on the edge of the water. He had gotten separated from his mother and appeared to either be exhausted or injured. We couldn't get too close to him, and didn't know what to do, so Dave called the DNR and then the cops but no one was interested in a stray deer on the beach.  People walking the beach stopped to take pictures.  An hour went by.  Finally, in a burst of speed, he began to swim, moving farther and farther from the shore.  We watched him until he was out of sight. 

That evening, another beach walker told us that they had seen a dead deer on the beach up the shoreline a ways. I don't know if it was him.

Dave and I dated all summer and had an almost anticlimactic breakup in October. I will remember those months as an uneasy truce. We took a couple of trips and all went well, and then, the cracks began to appear....an explosion on our anniversary weekend in Saugutuck, and then the final bullet to the head prior to my birthday trip to Traverse City.  

To paraphrase Tom Waits, the music had stopped long ago, but we had kept trying to dance. That gruesome, sleeping, trancelike dance of denial, smiles plastered to our faces.

After the breakup, I went to DC, to Shambhala in Colorado, and Austin....I lost Miles and got Bella, got cancer and lost an eye, started this blog, reconciled with people who I thought I had lost, and learned a lot about myself, love, friends, happiness, art, and breathing.

Happy Memorial Day weekend...love to all of you out there in cyberspace. May your troubles be small and may you feel the sun on your faces today.

Love,

Claudie

RIDE OF SILENCE 2008

My dear ex, Mark Hagar, has once again coordinated the Ride of Silence and I am giving him a shout out here for his hours and hours of hard work and devotion to this cause.  For those of you who don't know about it, this ride is what it sounds like- a silent ride which is in honor of bicyclists who have been killed while riding. My son Jon and his partner Vanessa rode in Austin.

There are 285 rides that all happen at the same time all over the world and it is growing every year. For more information check out their website at 

http://www.rideofsilence.org/main.php

Here's a clip from Mark's interview with WZZM yesterday:

"People are taking their bikes out of the garage and bringing them into the bike shops to get them maintained because they're going to start communicating because they can't afford gas prices.  With more and more cyclists out there we need to make motorists and the public aware to please be careful because we are out there.  You need to share the road with us."

By the way, Vanessa (who is even cuter from the front) just bought a white Vespa to zoom around Austin in.  Jon dubbed it "The Vanespa."

Thanks to Mark for helping make our roads safer for cyclists. 

love,

claudia