One Way Ticket

From Louise

While Chuck and I were traveling the globe, my daughter Vivien got married. I felt bad to miss the ceremony, but did understand their haste. Vivien is transgender and is now married to Marta. They had grown increasingly concerned about their ease of getting married as a result of November’s election so they had a very simple ceremony with two witnesses present as required by law. In a couple weeks we will go to Minneapolis for the wedding celebration. It promises to be a joyous event with old friends coming from different places. I am very happy about Vivien’s finally being able to express her true self. My difficulty adjusting to having a daughter after 48 years with two sons pales in comparison to the difficulties she experienced growing up. I still have concerns about her safety but love who she is.

Marta’s parents will not be present at the wedding celebration. They had planned to attend but have decided it might not be a good time for them to make the trip. They live in Poland and do not speak English.

It is very sad that political climate can have such an impact on ordinary citizens.

From Chuck

My father would get a weeks vacation during the summer months when I was a child living in Milwaukee. He would rent a cabin on a lake somewhere “up north “and we would pack up the car early Saturday morning arriving at the rental early in the afternoon. My sister and I were packed into the backseat and separated by a pile of bedding and clothes so that we could not fuss with one another during the long ride. From year to year we would take our turn at being carsick and thus forcing an emergency roadside stop. One year, my brother Tom upon arrival, jumped out of the car and ran down the hill to see the new lake and fell into it before anyone else was barely out of the car. He could do that because he sat in the front seat with my mom while my sister and I were still trapped in the backseat. We would take turns fishing and these turns rotated through the week so everyone got their chance to fish when the fishing was best, early morning and evening. That week was the best week of the year for me, even better than Christmas. I learned to love being in nature and catching crayfish, frogs, toads and being in the green magical woods. Often when we drove back home into the city, I would feel physically sick, so sad that the week was over. So at an early age I planned to live up north when I grew up. And as a teenager, I included the goal of having a home on a lake and raising my children there.

As an adult, I did partially fulfill that dream of living up north and raising my family there. I also had similar weeklong annual experiences in nature. I would plan extensively, a backpack trip in Western wilderness areas of Montana and Wyoming. To be out there, totally self contained and hiking into the wilderness fulfilled my need to be immersed in nature. Sarah shares my love for the wilderness hiking that we do together. And sharing this joy of being with nature with Sarah has given me a sense that this deep love and connection to nature is what unites us more than our biological heritage.

More and more I am realizing what it means to be aging. My pack weighs 37 pounds when beginning my weeklong wilderness hike. I get my body ready for this hike by walking on uneven ground up and down hills with a 5 pound weight in my hand. I gradually increase the weight in my day pack from 10 to 20 pounds as the legs get stronger over a period of 2 to 3 months. For the past three years, the legs barely get stronger. My body no longer has stability and has extreme difficulty crossing streams walking on logs and rocks. Just crawling out of a tent and standing up has become a major effort. My days of backpacking may be over.

My daughter lives in Colorado and loves all the mountain skiing and hiking. She is marrying a man who shares that love. I will attend her wedding in July. Their vows will be said in the wilderness near a bristle cone pine where they met. They will acknowledge their love for each other and by being there in the wilderness will acknowledge their love for nature.

Even though I may not be able to backpack, I am not sad. On the contrary, I am filled with joy that she and her husband will share in this life giving immersion in nature. They love each other and love soaking in the energies from sleeping under intensely black skies with equally intensely penetrating stars and planets. They will share the sounds of wind and rain on their tent, the sounds of cascading snow melt waters. They will share a frosty morning mug of hot coffee as the sun warms the mountain side view with the pinkish orange light of sunrise.