Mardi Gras!

Roll call on Mardi Gras morning was at 5 am as I rolled away from the swamp to head on down to see the Zulu King! I rode my bike through the streets of New Orleans.  What a thrill an Iowa farm boy weaving in and out of traffic jams to get to where the parade was assembling and where it started. The parade began with the 100 member Southern University band sending out a clarion call of brass that must have pierced the cold gray sky.  The plumes on their marching hats conducted rays of sunshine as they marched under the live oaks. The first sun we had seen after a week of rain. Soon after came the Zulu king himself and of course the queen. Spike Lee was the honorary king and busied himself throwing beads. I caught a coconut!

Perhaps the biggest thrill of the day came as the sun was setting and I came onto a Mardi Gras Indian chief under the I-10 overpass near Cajun Seafood with his entourage of spy and flag boys!  Soon he was confronted by another Chief and a taunting swirling dance of colorful feathers, beads, drum beats and singing ensued. Wild Tchoupitoulas! I was touched to feel up close the inter-generational family tradition of artful work that makes that dance happen year after year, generation after generation.   I imagined the hours and hours of intricate sewing that went into the costume. The love and dedication of family members coming together after coming home from work in their Northside shotgun style home: Killin em dead with needle and thread! This was a life of creating not just passive consuming! I cried to see the chief's daughter come up to him with a towel and wipe the sweat from his face during a pause from carrying his head dress.  And the future chief! A little guy who could have been barely two banging on a tambourine, exclaiming the rhythm that he heard from the womb! I could feel the strength and grace of it all holding this family together. I laughed to see the traffic jam on St Bernard Ave that the Indian face off caused. And yet no one honked this is just what we do in this neighborhood on Mardi Gras day. Indians!!!!!! Fighting in the streets!!!

After we followed the Chief on down the street toward his home in the twilight.  I sat on the side walk just outside a home that had a makeshift sign tacked to the side of the house. I picked out the $7 plate of red beans and rice with a slab of catfish. Served up right from the home kitchen of Belinda and Troy.  What a lovely end to a lovely day to eat my plate of food on the sidewalk as the neighborhood homes began to turn on lights. I got to talking with Troy and Belinda and told them I was gearing up to bring volunteers to plant cypress trees on the Northshore.   I asked them if they could cook up some rice n beans with some volunteers and share with us a bit about the history of their neighborhood and issues facing it today. They were happy to oblige saying, " The church channel was saying to me this morning to expect a stranger coming with good news. We all can learn from one another."

"Mardi Gras is the love of life.  It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods and our joy of living. All at once"  Chris Rose

Love from New Orleans.

Wetland Restoration

The air is thickening down here with Mardi Gras merriment and the occasional warm day brings out the dank of the swamp. I am definitely at the apex of my career trajectory as I'm living in the Merry Green Marvel under a bridge down by the river!  But I'm at least with gravel underneath not sinking all that pure green joy into the swamp.  I'm slogging away meeting with folks and cooking up projects for next Fall season. 

My love for cypress swamp grows with each kayak paddle. I felt I was watching the dawn of creation as I watched the moon rise through the bare trees out of this primal soup the last few nights.  I remember other times of my life needing to find swamp or a place where the going is hard just to provide the physical metaphor for the journey through this crazy world.  

The other night I ventured off the river into an area flooded by recent rains.  I ran out of easy passage water and began bushwhacking the kayak getting hung up on cypress knees and pushing through thorny strip ya naked vines. I got what I sub consciously needed: Lost.  I felt frustrated and a growing need to quell the panic impulse or at least the self consciousness of how stupid it would look to  Be seen. As I pulled away on trees and pushed with my paddle I wasn’t sure where I was going and if I’d make it back out to the river before dark. I used setting sun to reconnoiter.  On a tangle of thorny vine I saw a little snake all coiled up.  I’m pretty sure it was the poisonous kind, but I felt sympathy for it more than anything. Most likely displaced from its winter slumber by the flood.  It was clinging to that vine just inches above the cold water.  I wondered how it would make it through the cold night.   The sun was sinking fast.   

When I finally could see the river there was surge of exhilaration siphoning off the last of the adrenaline.   I paddled off into a side swamp and waited for the moon rise.  The  chill that came with the evening fog started to settle in and I felt it in my bones.  I switched on my head lamp and was amazed to see sparkles in my high beam coming off the tree trunks near where the high water mark lapped up.  I felt transported into another constellation!  Curious I paddled closer and found that each sparkle was a spider!  I was in the swamp orbiting with thousands of spiders!  

I’ve never forgotten the phrase from the Lakota that says, “It is a good day to die.”  Why would they want to issue a death wish to the sun rise?  Now maybe I understand the death we give ourselves over to as the way to real freedom and peace.    Yes there is the good fight and much to live for, but carrying the worldly weight grinds us down.  When I can accept that death is the most natural occurrence everyday in nature then maybe that frees up more heart space for faith.  They say faith sees best in the dark.  How else can I explain the myriad of diamond glow in the swamp that night?   I paddled home riding the swift current of the flooded river watching the moon rise though thin clouds making it look like gauze on a wounded weary world.  Let’s call it wetland restoration.

Notes from the Adventure Bus

Super Moon

Tortoises can live for over 100 years.  This one raises

its head and with a wink of a blinkless eye a sparkle blooms

from the sags and wrinkles and worries of a weary world.  A

sparkle that says, “Why not?”  Why not ride this Yum Yum bus.  

Climb aboard this is a yes to Yeehaw! Yes to shedding old skin.

Yes to stepping out of comfort zones.  Inhibitions cracked

like the eagle of soon to be six foot wings busting through a hard

shell with open maw ready to “Eat More Food!”  And we all get

to ride this born again bus, incubating in the ripe dimthuey

of smelly socks, snores , sneezes and sighs. And Yes! To riding

no matter where we’re from, or who we worship or how deep

we’ve drunk of the very cup of trembling.  This bus is out to prove

that Happiness floats as we wade on in, back to Mama, bobbering

with shrimp and fly larvae in a lime green brine as Tufus, of course,

can’t help but trumpet, “Yum, Yum!”  Yum Yum to curry seasoned

with the spice of a sunset that takes us in , no matter how small we are,

no matter how our hearts have  numbed and pulls us up to scampering

on tip toes every which way because it’s so everywhere and suddenly

we are everywhere and with everyone who has ever loved us.  Earth! We

grab for cell phones to try and text a photo but not even the vroom of devices

can keep up with this feeling as still more dappled dusk divines

into the pulse of a heart becoming a river braiding its way into story:

and then! and then! and then!  And you’re still talking about the sunset!   

And then:  Even when there’s dishes to do a musical medley breaks

out in the musical notes of what a heart can gather like the smell

of Ponderosa Pine, the shine of morning sun on obsidian, Aspen giving

their gold away, towering crescendos of white granite, meadows

called Tuolumne (To All o’ Me), and spires of trees at night stirring

the stars into a milkiness that dawns.  And these songlines imprint

your soul so that in those moments when it’s utterly dark and you’re

furthest away, you find a memory floating up inside you like a moon,

you thought was clouded over, slowly emerges from a total eclipse

and you catch yourself humming, “Yum. Yum!”

Mom's Eulogy

Can we take one last walk with Mom?  You come too. The poet Wendell Berry asks us, "To practice Resurrection."  For Mom just getting up out of the bed was an act of Resurrection. But being 80 or 95 or even 99 was never an excuse to sleep in.  Seldom was she ever not up at least by 7am. But it didn't come easy. This Resurrection involved canting a litany of the saints: Oh my Mother in Heaven!  Jesus, Joseph and Mary! Lord have Mercy! Oh my darling Harry! and quoting great grand daughter Amaya: C'mon Mom Mom you can do it! You can do it Mom Mom!. And the sounds that came out of her were a cacophony of Uncle Eddie's two banger engines puttering and gasping through a cold start and then there came the wheezing and releasing the stiffness, shuddering a little like a big Belgian horse pulling the plow as the first furrow of Spring turns over.   But once up, she is a force to be reckoned with for she walks with a down hill lean and has 99 and 5/6 years of momentum on her side. She is a charter member of the force of Love! From all that living she knows truly that God is able and with God, indeed all things are possible!

And there is no going out to do the work of the Lord without gussying all up with one of her many pant suits, a coordinated scarf, jewelry, a pair of S.A.S. shoes (Beige, Navy, and Black) and of course her make up. Her eyes are not so good so the eye brow pencil can veer up in a rainbow arc creating a look of total amazement.  Which come to think of it is all part of this walk; why not look pleasantly surprised and why not to set yourself on a path in perpetual state of wonder and amazement. She'll help you be amazed too. Mom found Beauty in this world and brought it out in those she met. In every walk there was always new friends to meet.

And once she met you, you were not forgotten.  She really listened to you didn't she? And she took a sincere interest and wanted to know what's important to you and how you connect. No one can break down the six degrees of separation faster than Mom. "Oh if you're from Dows then you must know Dale and Imogene Hostetler who live out on the county road going east out of town.  Being a nurse all those years she'll probably remember too if you've had your gall bladder out. She has lived for five generations and has the wide spreading branches and tangles of genealogical trees stored in what seemed more memory than any device to come out of Silicon Valley. And her memory was sincerely tendered. If you lived in Hardin or Franklin County chances are she knew who you were related to.  

Mom had a saying in her later years:  "Give me a second to bring that to the front"  Imagine her memory as a huge warehouse of files upon files.  Files so high you need a ten foot step ladder to reach the top. When she says "Give me a second to bring that to the front,” imagine her minions of elves and gnomes scurrying about finding your three ring binder and pushing it up to the front on a flat bed push cart. And don't you feel special that she remembers so much about you?

And of course this vast memory was really  just a glimpse of her magnanimous heart. Magnanimous in its range of generosity and forgiveness, the warmth of her heart offered horizons upon horizons that stretch into the infinite revealing a faith that served her again and again, hardship after hardship, tragedy after tragedy, weakness after weakness.  Like the Iowa farmland that raised her and sustained her: She was understated yet with deep reserves of resiliency to meet whatever needed to be met and a richness of resolve to carry on no matter what. She never seemed to need to check out with the usual numbing diversions, she just seemed ready and willing to do what the Lord asked of her, whatever the case or the day. And whatever the day she was always happy that you stopped by and loved "whipping up a little something to eat before you have to go."

This walk could never have gone the distances she covered without stopping to pray.  And praying brought out the serious, distressed look, often with a set jaw. But as in the determination she put into her walk, Mom was determined to find the strength to keep on keeping on from her prayer. Her constant plea was in the form of the Prayer to St Jude, patron Saint of hopeless causes. Apparently everything and everyone, herself included, fit somewhere on the spectrum of hopelessness.  Praying to St Jude was going right to the special forces and not wasting time with some saint that only dealt with somewhat hopeless causes. She wore out many St Jude prayer cards over the years until she got one that was laminated on a board when she was out to Arizona with Dad, Melvin and Agnes Mary back in 1974. That one, though peeling and rubbed to oblivion, was like a daily touchstone. It carried the essence that gave her the poise that lifted her into her highest self.  

From that higher ground she truly had the long view that assured her and those she touched,that it's going to be alright. No matter your grievance, no matter your feelings of being treated unfair or not appreciated you must know this: it may seem bad now but it's just temporary.  Don't give into your anger, your judgments that spring from your fear and ignorance. Refrain from numbing yourself to the pain. This can only hurt you and those closest to you who may be trying their best to love you. Trust your heart and its impulse to keep giving, find compassion, reach out knowing full well that you may never see what comes of this love you have to give.  But know without a doubt that your contribution builds up the force of love in this world. Her 99 year long view that was born before women could vote and sliced bread was invented will be your daily testimony that Love always wins!

This is the heart shine you see coming off her as you walk along with her.  This is the profound freedom she is giving you as you make this walk. You have options! Use them. Develop your talents, open your mind to new learning everyday.  Don't let yourself become a feeble pawn to someone else's power and greed. Laugh often! It helps you transcend your pettiness to see the humble and fragile humanity in yourself so you can see it in others.

From this place she couldn't help but be generous and realize it's more fun to give it away than to cling and hold on tight and spite others who are less fortunate.  1936, in the depths of the Great Depression she was in her last year of nursing school. She came home for Christmas to find that there was no extra money for material gifts in her family of ten.  Although with the Oppolds all it really took was a deck of cards for a raucous good time. But Mom made a note to herself. "Not again." The following Christmas times were still hard, but Mom had graduated and had started her first job working a 12 hour shift for five dollars.  That Christmas she came home with gifts for everyone: Eddie got a pair of skates, one of the brothers got a shot gun, Ruth got a winter blazer and Mama and Papa got a brand new bedroom set.

Fast forward 79 years: on the day Mom died she woke up weak and unable to stand on her own. Somehow she still found a way to get on her make up and dress up.  She was taken to the hospital in Iowa Falls. There she felt a growing sense of weakness through the day. But always aware and always a nurse, she knew that 3pm meant a shift change and that a new nurse would be coming on the floor.  Making connections to the end, Mom was happy to meet the new nurse and ask about her family and place her in the grand genealogy she kept compiling. This nurse was accompanied by two local nursing students from Ellsworth College, whom Mom also found the reserves to interview and place them.  One of them piped up at the bedside of this grand elder: "You're Evelyn Lawless?!? I was the one who received your nursing scholarship just this past year." Tears are shared. A torch is passed. It was the last chance Mom had to make a new friend. Soon after she had a massive stroke and moved on along.

So here we are.  But know this walk with Mom isn't over. There are no excuses or better alternatives than to keep on walking. "Get up. Get into it. Get involved!"  She is always available to walk with you. To be this big heart that is your biggest fan, rooting you on, making you feel that you are her favorite. Thrilling in the adventure of deepening your own heart. Keep giving to the circle of kindness and know that you may never know or recognize how it comes around and how it gives back to you, but oh do know that this is it. This is the Resurrection!

And before you go out, know you shouldn't attempt this walk without necessary supplies: Mom's last shopping list was on her end table near the St Jude prayer card: Toilet Paper, Room Air Spray, Puffs and Ice Cream.  And don't forget the Ice Cream!