Hidden in Plain Sight

Today, I walked out of Loussac Library and a woman came up to me, all aglow and excited. “Come see my artwork,” she said. She led me off just to the side of the entrance. Eventually, it will be planted I’d guess, but right now, it’s all torn up with construction so there are just loose rocks thrown around. It’s a pile of dirt and rocks and pebbles.

She was a woman about my age, dressed nicely, but just so excited.

“I don’t see it,” I said.

“There,” she pointed.

“A few pebbles? Stacked up?” There were three on a rock. They weren’t even a cairn, nothing balanced on anything. Who was missing something here, me or her?

And then I saw it. The indentation in the big rock.

“Do I need to highlight it with marker?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “keep it natural.”

And that was it. A smile when and where I least expected it. But this is what I really loved: Somehow, that regular woman – could be a PTA mother, a secretary somewhere, or even a banker – had seen the potential of a smile in that rock. She’d followed her imagination through and was so excited about it she grabbed me – a stranger – to share it.

I don’t know if she lives her life like this, or if this was a fluke for her, too. But I’m glad I was in the right place at the right time.

How many hidden smiles do I usually miss?

Insatiable log splitter on the loose

By the time other people reach their Third Thirds in Alaska, they often have a cabin. By the time I’ve reached my Third Third, I have friends with cabins. Boy, am I lucky!

I have resisted a cabin for us because I have enough trouble maintaining one residence and its assortment of do-over-and-over-again chores. But I certainly do relish the idea of one’s very own national park in the middle of whatever wilderness it’s planted. So we were delighted to visit Connie and John’s cabin.

As we hiked in, Connie said she used to just walk on trails. Now she realizes how much WORK it takes to keep those trails from being overrun by vegetation, mud, rain, muskeg. Brush, swamp, tree roots. Decay, rust, animals. When they’re your trails, it’s your WORK.

It was a spectacular sunny day. Denali was out and brilliant, the cabin is a 10 on the comfort scale, and Connie and John are gracious hosts. And then I was introduced to QuickSplit. I was so enamored with QuickSplit, I hogged it, didn’t let anyone else get to use it.

Meet QuickSplit:

Why QuickSplit is more fun than a barrel of monkeys:

1. I’ve never done it before. It’s my newest New Thing.


2. It takes a job – splitting logs – and adds two of those six simple machines to it to make it EASIER. I feel very homo sapiens-proud when I can see evidence of the brain making the brawn work better. Hooray for the lever and the wedge!


3. It works better with a partner keeping the log in position. Tim holds the log so the log rises up to the blade in the middle. When the split needs a little help, Tim wields the axe. (He’s good with axe handles….) When you need brawn, you need brawn. I don’t even have aim.


4. QuickSplit exists within my danger parameters. The blade comes down slowly; it’s not a guillotine, and I’m a whole lever away. Unlike my issues with the axe.


5. I can see the pile of split logs growing and growing and growing! Yes, this might be a do-over-and-over-again chore, but there is now a mountain of split logs. I am not the one who’ll do it over-and-over-again; and I am helping friends not to have to do it over-and-over-again as soon.


6. At one point, QuickSplit stopped working. Uh, oh. I broke it. But Connie showed me the little doohickey that swings the ratcheting thing back into position. So now, I KNEW QuickSplit; I was knowledgeable and experienced. Always good feelings.


7. Sometimes, the log was extra dense and I needed lots of force on the lever. Then I’d have to JUMP UP and PUSH down with everything I’ve got. I love my brute force.

8. It was sunny, gorgeous, and I was being the little squirrel preparing for winter. I was not waiting till it rained to repair the roof; I was being READY. Something in me felt … righteous.

After a long while, after the wood shed was starting to bulge, I stopped splitting. But then I noticed some newly-chopped log rounds just winking at me, begging to be split. It’s hard to quit when you’re having such a good time.

I set my calendar by the State Fair

The world always seems to be divided into two kinds of people; this week, it’s those that LOVE state fairs and those that groan and say, “Oh, not that again.” I’m in the first group. Come August, when it dawns on me that the State Fair is imminent, visions of quilt shows, funnel cake, and giant vegetables dance in my head.

In fact, I think the State Fair is a perfect Third Third activity. Every funnel cake or pet rabbit triggers a memory of prior funnel cakes, prior rabbits. They sweeten the whole day, but then you find a magician who’s brand new, and he’s terrific, too.

Judith and I go together. Judith is an especially valued friend, but she was especially valued when we traveled with our two girls: Judith can do rides. I throw up on merry-go-rounds. Judith can do them all, but thank goodness, those days are over. We don’t even enter ride territory any more.

Judith and I walk in the Red Gate and check the time. Every hour on the hour is the quilt show so we have to figure out where we’ll be. The quilt show is mandatory, just like visiting Paul, our friend and bonsai guy.

Right off the bat, this year’s Fair amazed us with the prehistoric mammals exhibit. Woolly Mammoths, Sabre-toothed Cats, the Giant Sloth. New to me: the Terror Crane, a giant Big Bird-type creature set up right next to the herd of tiny horses. According to the signage, the little horses had big brains, and the Diatryma (the crane) may or may not have been carnivorous or herbivorous. Except that the exhibit clearly had the possibly vegetarian bird eating a little horse (despite its big brain). All these prehistoric mammals moved and shook a bit. A New Thing and we hadn’t even been in the Fair ten minutes!

Next Judith and I caught Antwan Towner, “comedy magician and mind reader.” He was great! He’d reach into his shiny silver briefcase, preparing us for the next trick. “Wait till you see this!”

His sleight of hand was wonderful, but it’s his patter that delighted me. And the mind reading. I don’t know how he did it. He couldn’t have replaced a whole audience of kids and parents with his own prearranged confederates. I just don’t get how he did it. You go – tell me!

Sometimes, in the Irwin Building, we talk to the wood folks, sometimes the sewing women, sometimes the spinners. Then sometimes it’s the Demo Derby, sometimes the lumberjack show; this year, it was the Tractor Pull.

It took us years to discover Raven Hall, the “slice-it-dice-it” building. Now we relish the pitches and the gadgets. That’s where I’ve fought off the lotion people, the chaga people, the Noni juice people. But that’s also where I got my favorite Cutco knives, where I check out the new Pampered Chef offerings.

Judith and I have worn a path of memory through the Fair. We head to where Southcentral Foundation usually has a booth; where are they? Where’s the potato chip guy, he’s usually right over here. And was there no Visit Juneau booth or did we miss Pampered Chef? I still miss those Racing Pigs.

This is what life does, too: change, take away some things, give us New Things.

But the Fair always has to give us … Fair Food. First Judith and I get something healthy, like salmon quesadillas. Then it’s The Big Decision: on to the funnel cakes for me and corn fritters for Judith. Then the dipped ice cream. Then….

Every inch of the Fair is a memory: my first visit to the Rat Race when I’d just moved here and I thought Alaska was INSANE; the time infant Sophie fell off a straw bale in the petting zoo and was buried in rabbits; the Kirby vacuum guy who then made a house call; the reptiles that still give me the total creeps. The sauerkraut lesson Judith and I took; my total envy when I first spied the Cabbage Fairies’ outfits. One year, I even told stories on the Colony Stage!

My memories are sweet to me, maybe just lists to you. (What’s on your list?) But we all have our places that stay the same/change over time, those places that have taken root in our lives. Like Thanksgiving Dinner, the State Fair comes back year after year, bringing fond memories, good stories … and turkey legs.

Anatomy of a Sleepless Night

When I discovered the Big Three recommendations for a good Third Third (structure, purpose, and a sense of community), I knew my most obvious challenge was probably going to be sleeping. Or rather, sleeping on a regular basis on a regular schedule for a regular number of hours. Or, to be more accurate, sleeping. Period.

Some people fall asleep. They close their eyes, and sleep comes to them. With my husband, sleep overtakes him. For me, sleep hides. I have to hunt for it, coax it out of hiding, and hope it decides to stay.

I used to follow little schedules: no exercising after 8 p.m. Begin sleep readiness and shut-down behaviors at 9 p.m. Go into bed at 10 p.m. Hope.

When Sophie was born, that was shot to hell. I don’t think she slept through the night till she was eleven. Even if she’d slept, I’d be Alert to Her. After I stopped being crazy from lack of sleep (Did I stop?), I adapted. I simply acknowledged that every now and then, I’d “go around the clock,” stopped fretting about it, and went along pretty smoothly. If you don’t worry about being tired, you can find that you don’t feel tired. But that was my Second Third.

Right now, writing this, I’m sort of dulled. Not comatose, but just a step up. No zip. I had a long, long night.

10 p.m. Uh, oh, I already knew I’d messed up. I was reading Nicci French’s Thursday’s Child, which is fourth in her series. Her books are intelligent and clever, but they kind of make my hair stand on end. I’d decided it was a daytime-only read book, but at 10 p.m., I’d already messed that up.

11 p.m. Go into bed. Pick some reading material that will force Nicci French out of my head. Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time had worked the night before. Tim’s head hits the pillow, and he’s out.

12 a.m. According to general relativity, time moves more slowly closer to the earth’s surface because of gravity so, for example, a clock at sea level will run slower than one on a mountaintop. But is the clock itself actually slowing down – its mechanism and all – or is the elapsed time slowing down? Would the clock show a minute and ten seconds, for example, or would it show a longer minute? Obviously, Stephen Hawking is not putting me to sleep. He’s giving me IDEAS! I am so absorbed in this – I’ll have to check out the 1962 water tower/atomic clock experiment he refers to – that I have two choices: get up, embrace the night, follow this physics problem to its conclusion, OR try a chemical aid.

I have several choices: Advil PM or prescription Lunesta. I have to make this decision quickly because any later, and I’ll be stuck and groggy in the morning. I go with my latest experiment, that ZzzQuil generic.

1 a.m. I’m definitely drowsy, but now my restless legs are awake in bed. My head has moved off clocks and is back with Nicci French and who did it? I have learned that there is no relation between physical exhaustion and falling asleep. Either the toggle switch toggles to “sleep” or it doesn’t. I’d gone for a hike today, been outside, drank my warm milk, done all the right things to promote “feeling tired.” No dice.

3 a.m. I am really, really trying not to fret about the clocks and gravity. I think maybe if I browse a Good Housekeeping magazine, it will be brief (short articles), not intellectually exciting, and not scary. I lie in bed.

4 a.m. I decide to get up and go out to the couch so my reading won’t disturb Tim. As I cruise around getting a blanket, Tim emerges: “What’s going on?” and scares the shit out of me. Now I’m wide awake with adrenalin pumping and might as well finish the Nicci French book. Maybe once the mystery is resolved, I can relax and fall asleep.

6 a.m. I think that works; I may have dozed off for a while. Tim says goodbye. I get the newspaper.

8 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. I may have lost some time there because I’m aware of waking up to look at the clock (which is at sea level). I feel queasy and fogged. This is not going to be one of those smooth round-the-clock days. This is going to be a mess. I miss a 10:30 gathering.

I compensate by cleaning the stove, sink, and cabinets and Googling the water tower clock experiment and Einstein’s time dilation.

Relativity question: Is my Third Third going to be longer than my previous thirds because I spend more of it awake? Is my clock running slower? Or is that just a foggy question from a sleep-deprived fool?

Profiles in Third Thirds: Mia

Mia’s house is on the market. She’s already bought a condo in Portland so forty years in Anchorage are about to come to an end. In our conversations, she uses the word “wrenching” a lot. But once we’ve moved past moving sales and real estate, finances and de-cluttering, archives and shipping – the to-do lists of moving – the words she uses become “novelty” and “footloose” and “unfettered.”

The word I use to describe Mia’s moving is “bereft,” as in how I feel. Mia goes back almost to the beginning of my arrival in Anchorage. No matter what direction my life took, somehow we always intersected. I can always count on her for thoughtful consideration, new ways for thoughts to turn, and the remarkable ability to follow ideas through to their twists and turns and implications. I’ve always hoped that maybe sharing the same birthday gave me a leg-up in aspiring to her wisdom. (sigh)

Mia was visiting friends in Portland, heard there was an opening in their building, and bought the condo right then and there. As she put it, “I’ve spent more time buying a pair of pants.” But really, she’d been talking about it for years and her son had moved there. But she still just thought of it as a “vacation home,” like a cabin. Home was still Anchorage.

Until Anchorage kitchen renovation and then the leak and then the renovation re-do. It’s amazing how many relocation decisions hinge on a major house headache. So Mia and Pamela have spent the summer de-cluttering, selling, packing, coming to terms with how much they’ll leave behind. And how much they’ll discover anew.

Mia can’t walk into a community event or gathering without running into her own history: friends from way back when, friends from past jobs, friends from past community efforts. She was one of the founders of Childcare Connection – her contributions to Anchorage are still part of the fabric of our community. Mia’s thread is woven throughout – Understanding Neighbors (a conversations dialog project), Anchorage Film Festival, a whole series of public initiatives to gain and keep protections for LGBT Alaskans. Severing these threads are … wrenching.

But practical matters intercede: “What to do with all that embroidery thread? I might have time to do embroidery again; it comes with us. What to do about the yarn? I might take up knitting again; it comes with us.”

“The hip waders, the XtraTufs, the tent? No, I’m looking for new adventures.”

And so all these decisions are really the practical side of the big question, the one Mia calls “How to be in the world?” (Oh, do you see why I’ll miss her!) Will she volunteer to be an usher so she can see performances and make new friends? Will she become a volunteer docent at the Japanese Garden?

Mia practices, teaches, coaches mediation. She’s brought her skills to warring couples, bickering organizations, struggling community efforts. “How can I use my skills in a different way? Which organizations are the ones to connect with? I’ll have to learn how things work, who’s doing what. It’ll be fun to figure this out,” she says, and now it’s clear we’ve moved past wrenching.

“I have some unrealized ideas to work on. I think we need to face more conflict in our everyday lives. We need to get comfortable with it, learn how to handle it well and productively, and we can’t do that if we keep shying away from it. Broach that subject, figure out how to disagree. I haven’t found an outlet yet for that kind of idea,” Mia says, but I can see her wheels turning.

She says all these moving sales and giving away, all this letting go, has opened up a desire in her to be footloose and less fettered. She doesn’t know what’s next, and suddenly I am jealous of how wide open she is, right now, at this moment. She’s launching into her Third Third.

“Maybe,” she says, “I’ll have a bigger life than I’ve imagined.”

Invasion of the Vegetables

I never thought I’d find this week’s New Thing at the Farmer’s Market, and certainly not a Scary New Thing, but here it is:

It’s called Romanesco cauliflower, and it’s enough to keep me up nights. It looks like something prehistoric or extraterrestrial. I don’t think I can actually get up the courage to eat it. It would grow aliens inside my stomach. Last year, when I discovered that Brussels sprouts grow on stalks, they looked magical. The cauliflower: frightening.

The Farmer’s Market was such a display of abundance! It’s not even that my head of Romaine lettuce is the size of a laundry basket or that one bunch of Swiss chard can take up a car seat. The giant zucchini are making their appearance – yikes, there are even Romanesco zucchini! And now there are so many varieties of heirloom tomatoes: Black Krim, Green Zebra, and Chocolate Stripes. But my favorite name is the Mortgage Lifter Tomato.

There’s a build-your-own bouquet flower stall and Wild Scoops ice cream. The fish guys, the sprouts guys, the bread folks. One sign said, “Distressed Gingerbread Cookies, $1/pkg.” I had to ask. The answer, admitted the bakers sheepishly, “No, they’re not unhappy. They’re just not … up to par.”

The musical entertainment was lovely, but all the entertainment I need is to watch Karl of La Grassa slice fresh pasta. He lays out the sheet of perfect pasta, folds it meticulously, and then slices it cleanly. He peels a tab back from the fold of each slice, lifts it up, and shakes the pasta loose. I could watch it for hours.

Special last Saturday, Alaska Farmland Trust had a tent set up for tasting vodka and vodka-inspired food. Clayton, the chef, said he was given the vodka to taste and then he created the dishes: “Heirloom tomato Bloody Mary salad with ghost pepper vodka” and “Spent grain bacon waffle with blueberry vodka whipped cream.” Not much of a drinker, I had the Forget Me Not blueberry vodka with organic lemonade. But then, after a sip of Glacier Melt Vodka, I felt loopy and had to have more of Clayton’s “Potato latkes and smoked salmon with Yensis onion jam.” I just had to. I was driving.

I’m not a foodie. I don’t take photos of my food or look for fancy, creative selections in restaurants. When I buy a potato, it’s either smooth, baking, red, or sweet. But at the Farmer’s Market, there’s Yukon Gold, Lemhi, Magic Molly, Huckleberry, Doc’s, Allagash, and German butterball.

The sun was shining, the music playing, and all around me were bushels and bushels of vegetables and healthy food. Everything was just so HEALTHY and fresh. Friends said hello, and I thought, things don’t get better than this.

Beware the Cosmic Light Bulb

We say the Third Third is the one without a parent, without a boss; it’s the Third we get to define for ourselves. But there’s a certain peril in not working in an office, not having the hustle and bustle of externally-mandated to-dos. Not having to do things because someone else or some institution wants them, having lots of alone time, sometimes unencumbered time. The same thing applies with the empty nest: no kid responsibilities.

Before, my roles and responsibilities – daughter, student, employee, wife, mother – defined a lot of my being in the world. In my Third Third, I define myself.

The peril is self-centeredness. I’m not sure that’s the right word. Being self-absorbed? Edgar Bronfman calls it “incessant self-focus on my own problems and issues” in his recent book. In college, we called it being the Cosmic Light Bulb.

Yes, I volunteer and I do things for other people, but I’m the one in charge of deciding what I do. I’m autonomous, and the dictionary says that’s “self-governing; independent; subject to its own laws only.” Sure, I think independence is a good thing, and it’s probably a cornerstone of my personality, but every now and then, I see the pitfalls in the available solitude and autonomy of my Third Third. If I’m not being vigilant, my world is About Me.

Even if I regularly examine my life (and the philosopher in me does it all the time), the autonomy of my Third Third often means that’s happening in isolation. While I may be a constant critic of myself, I’m still a one-sided critic. Sometimes that’s not fair to me, and sometimes that’s not fair to everyone else. In my own world, in the land of I-decide-what-I-want, I can be an autocrat.

It happens gradually. I look at the world and stop noticing that I’m looking through Barbara-colored glasses. And then someone plays Copernicus to that worldview; they see things differently, want different things. Suddenly, the universe becomes multi-dimensional – rotating around the sun, not around me – and from that other perspective, it makes sense. A different sense, but still sense.

If I’m lucky, that’s illuminating and enriching, and I re-orient. I appreciate the different sides to the universe, the variety of wants and desires, hopes and viewpoints of other people. It’s a tremendous feeling of social connection with a spirit of compromise. But if I’m unlucky, I’ve already focused on Me, disparaged a few feelings, overruled a few choices, pushed too hard. Without even noticing.

Okay, this isn’t unique to our Third Thirds. The land of About Me isn’t restricted to any age group. Maybe we thought by the time we reached our Third Thirds we’d be better – resolutely empathetic, kind, and generous. (sigh) Sometimes I still need a smack to the head to reflect, reconsider, and make right with other people. I still make resolutions to do better. I worry that a blog is the very epitome of self-absorption.

There’s a fine balance between working to define ourselves without our old roles and thinking too much about ourselves. A fine line between autonomy and pushiness. If life is a constant story of error, correction, and resolution to do better, I guess there’s more of the same in my Third Third. Yup.