Traveling With Joyce

To the grocery store on a rainy day. 

I looked up at chattering overhead...

Daughter, grandson, and I drove to Albany, their first visit, my second. We wanted to see the carving in the basement. And there was the senior carver, Larry, telling us about carousels, and that this one has been carved in the old tradition, by hand, even with the carving tools being sharpened with a leather strap.

And he told us that many people work on each animal--this is on purpose to keep one person from claiming possession. Within the hollow belly of an animal is a time capsule of all the people who worked on it.

Do you know the difference between a Carousel and a Merry-go-round?


A carousel is fixed, usually in a building or a Pavilion. a merry-go-round is movable, such as those in traveling amusement parks.

And then driving home down I-5

Monday came and with it a celebration of the leaves. A footbridge leads from the parking lot on one side of the Willamette River to a park on the other side. Many people come and go across the bridge walking or with bikes, and some leading dogs. Sweetpea proudly pranced across it as though she was a charger.

A walk through the Park.

Back on our home street, I hear this from the tree, "Hey man, I was sleeping, you know, when suddenly something cold hit me, and I woke up with one limb red as a lobster."

A block from our house I sit under a spreading walnut tree,

Home, I am met by our Magnolia tree, and I think,  Hum, all these Magnolia leaves will soon be on the ground, our ground... 

But, come spring

our Pegasus Magnolia tree will awaken with buds in her hair.

Our Purpose

For the past 29 days I have been doing a self-imposed process. I’ve been taking and posting a photograph a day.

If someone had asked me what I did during the past month, I would hem and haw, either not wanting to explain, not remembering, or making small my experience. Sometimes it does appear we do not accomplish much, we go through our daily process and nightly sleep, only to get up and do it all over again.

Taking those pictures made me notice what was around me and to find something noteworthy in it.  It made me keep my word. It was a journal in pictures.

There is nothing terribly fancy in my pictures. It is life as I see it, beautiful flowers wet with rain, a tiny frog, baby chicks, carousals. Go for a walk and what do you find? A horse coming to the fence to greet you, a tree turning color behind your house*, mushrooms in the yard.

Me and my phone walking  around.  One more photo to go.

 All are posted on www.travelwithjoyce.com

And now about our purpose:

Ever since I heard the writer/ researcher Michael Tellinger say, “Our purpose is to raise the consciousness of the people,” I said, “Yes. That’s it.”

This is the top purpose, you might have sub-purposes, like pursuing your dream of becoming an artist, or building a hospital in Africa, but first and foremost, we ought to uplift the consciousness of the people that populate this planet.

We do not need to fix people; we need to assist them in fixing themselves. One by one if people popped out of their limitations, the world would be transformed without our lifting a finger. And we could say that rarely do we find a broken person, only people in want of something.

Evidence of my claim is that hordes of people are seeking out healing experiences, joining consciousness-raising groups, and studying Quantum physics to understand where they fit into the cosmos. People throng to Tony Robbins events with the belief that their lives will improve because of it. Millions follow the TED talks with presenters encouraging us to live our dream, follow our bliss, and live the life for which we were born.

All this tells me people are hungry to know and to understand where they fit into the cosmos. People throng together to bring fresh water to Africa, to begin a peace movement, to stand up for green movements, promote solar energy, animal rights, clean ocean, and healthy forests.

See, people do care.

The negative side is upping the ante as well. Perhaps we have negativity running scared. Movies feature violence unprecedented, with writers coming up with atrocities that rival the inquisition. Television, once fun, and a cultural unifier, has become to use Seth Godin’s phrase “An instrument of dissatisfaction.” Either it presents something we can’t obtain, or it tells us that something is the matter with us for which a product can fix.

Don’t listen. Don’t watch.

We have become polarized over politics to the extent that we can hardly have a civil conversation. The Democrats think the Republicans are stupid. The Republicans think the Democrats are losers. You can shake your head and say, that’s about right, yet, remember the neighbor who took you to the hospital when your little boy broke his arm? She was of the opposite party from you, yet, she was your friend. It is hard to hate someone close up.

“Dehumanizing,” according to sociologist Brene’ Brown , “always starts with language, often followed by images.” We call people aliens, cockroaches, or savages, to justify exterminating them, ostracizing them, delegating them to subhuman status, or just plain not liking them. When I was a teenager I read that in 20 years it would be as abhorrent to us to kill a person as it was then to eat one.  Whew, I thought, however, I must wait a while longer.

We have been enslaved for millennia, and largely still are. That’s where we need to assert our independence. And people are—when employment became ridiculous to obtain even with advanced degrees, people turned to entrepreneurship. 

We are a creative bunch.

The best account I have read of unleashing your creative self, came from #Don Hahn, the producer of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast (animated version). He was the son of a pastor, and his Sunday morning memories were of the fragrance of coffee and doughnuts wafting up from the basement. One morning his teacher read a Bible verse that changed his life. She read that God created humans in his own image. Wow, thought Hahn, I am related to God.  A creative relationship, like the potter to his clay, the painter to his canvas, the baker to his bread. And, God is crazy about creativity—oh he must have had a few false starts, like dinosaurs, and giants, but look at his successes.  Then, thought the young Hahn, if I am related to God, I must be creative too. (Hahn was an animator for Disney.)

“Rather than searching for life’s meaning, know that you have the power to create it.” –#Marie Forleo

Multnomah Falls Still Roar

Monday Sept 25, 2017

I must write this while it is raw.

When I read that the firefighters where striving to save the bridge over Oregon’s Multnomah Falls my heart ached. The bridge! A fire decimating the forest around Multnoma Falls? It can’t be.

When I was eight years old I saw the falls for the first time, and our love affair was instant. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And over the years we often hiked to the bridge and looked over its cement railing to the tumultuous water spurting out beneath us. When I was a kid we drove up the Columbia River Gorge, past the falls, to Portland. Now we live on the west side of the gorge and last Sunday my husband and I drove down the always exquisite gorge to our little home town of The Dalles.  

Mulnomah Lodge, a stone structure with a cedar roof, sits at the base of the falls.

When flames ripped across the ridge at the top of the falls, they swept down the hillside, and raced toward the Lodge and all those cedar shakes.

The firefighters had their marching orders: “Protect the lodge.”

It was an exhausting overnight firefight. They brought in sprinkling trucks and drew water from the creek. The one that made the falls, and flows steadily toward the Columbia? 

See the falls was instrumental in saving its Lodge.

“Multnomah Lodge is the icon of Oregon,” said Lance Lighty, a Eugene-Springfield Fire battalion chief called in to help manage the blaze. “We didn’t want Oregon to lose that. And we weren’t going to let the fire win on this one.”

I couldn’t believe it when I heard that the Gorge was on fire.

Yesterday when husband dear and I drove to The Dalles, and passed Multnomah Falls we could see that the bridge and the lodge was still there. And looking to the bluffs we could see that the burn had been chased by the wind into a serpentine pattern.

Strange, seeing the scars that were once green trees, and seeing that portions burned, yet next to it giant green Douglas fir trees stood healthy.

I heard that the fire jumped the Columbia River—a mile wide strip of water one would think would be the best fire berm in the world, but winds being what they are, and cinders floating on currents, a spark can travel a long way. Thus an area on the Washington side of the river burned as well.

I was happy to see that the area around the gorge still had green trees and was still gorgeous, but the fire is still burning, out of sight of the highway, and about 50% contained. Sunday, however, the air was clear.

Looking on the bright side, perhaps this fire will rejuvenate the forest, fertilize the soil, clear the underbrush, and open some pine cones that only reproduce when fire has melted the wax that binds them shut.

We must drive by in a year or so to see the recovery.  Some trees will survive. Some will be gone. Some will grow up from the roots. We’ll see.

My mother and I moved to Oregon when I was seven years old. We moved from the flatlands of Illinois to mountainous Oregon-- eye-candy to a flatlander.

The soldier-boy my mother married had enticed her with images of his home town of The Dalles. It is nestled beside the Columbia River east of the Cascade Mountain range with its resultant rain shadow. This leaves The Dalles’ topography close to a barren prairie. In spring, though, the hills emerge triumphant. The area is known for its fruit, and in the spring the enormous orchards burst into color, and little wildflowers sprang up and spring shoots transform the area. The rest of the year, set me up with eyes that love green.

And as they say, you can’t go home again. You can, but it hurts.

What was once home isn’t home anymore, guess that’s the reason they say you can’t go home again. The Dalles feels worn compared to its life when I was a child, relishing horseback rides, camping trips, and excursions to the creek to fish.

The Dalles Dam desimated Celilo Falls that narrow strip of river that was a Native American fishing ground. (A treaty said the Native Americans could fish there forever.)  Once, so it has been said, salmon were so thick you could walk across the river on their backs.

We have a lot to apologize for.

My husband’s brother said that they used sonar to determine if the rugged basalt flow that made Celilo Falls still existed under the lake behind the dam. Some proposed that the rock formation, now buried under so many tons of water, had been blasted away removing any possibility of future litigation, for it is a sore point with many people. But the rocks are still there, neither are they silted in as some had surmised. Future generations may have them back. Someday we will probably have no use for dams. But we will always have use for a river.

Imagine this: You know how prospectors pan for gold in creeks? Perhaps those rocks have collected gold dust over the years, the rushing water upstream washing it down to the now buried Celilo Falls.

Does it then belong to the Native Americans?

Ha!

I’m dreaming.

While in The Dalles, we drove past my parents old property on Cherry Heights, and I didn’t even recognize the spot. It was as though straw covered.

The house—gone. The terraced lawn my mother kept so beautiful—gone. The crabapple tree that blossomed, a bouquet in the front yard, pink flowers along with green leaves that was so gorgeous drivers stopped to take pictures of it—gone. The cherry orchard, peach orchard, and apricot orchard—all gone, as were the apple trees that grew abundantly around the house. And that peach tree in the front yard with its peaches so juicy you could hardly eat one without choking? Gone.

Don’t go home again. It isn’t there.

The museum where my brother-in-law and wife volunteer, rather bothered me, not because it wasn’t an excellent museum, and I do believe in preserving history, but except for the nostalgia I just talked about regarding my childhood home, and the memory of good times, it is best to look ahead.

Looking back works if we learn from it, but it does not provide uplifting thoughts.  

I believe in a better world, a forward thinking world, not holding onto the old ways. But remember how resourceful those people were, the ingenuity of the men with their farm equipment, the arrowheads of the Native Americans, the creativity of the women, beading, quilts, some artwork made from their own hair. These people used whatever resources they had on hand.

And regarding the falls--
jim Ryan

Writer for The Oregonian, said:

 “Gone are the swarms of snapshot-seeking tourists at the foot of Multnomah Falls. The hordes of hikers are nowhere to be seen. There are no diners in the lodge. No fight for parking.

“But the falls don’t need an audience. They continue to roar.”

A Free House Moving?

Motivated by Casey Hester on the Texas Flip and Move TV show, who to sweeten the pie for bidders (he needed a certain amount for his flip house to break even) offered a free house moving.

Okay, I thought, when it comes time to sell my book how can I be different?

What could I offer as an incentive?

See I need a little help from my friends.

My book won’t come out for probably another year, but I’m thinking about it. Bookstores have gone kaput. Golly, I just saw this morning that Toys R (backward) Us has gone bankrupt. That was toy heaven when my kids were little.

Have people stopped buying toys, electronics, books?

Nope.

They are buying online.

So, how do you stand out online?

Well, you can move a house if you have enough strong backs.

I’m not a salesperson. I don’t believe in talking a person into buying something they don’t want. I don’t believe in seeing everyone you meet as a potential customer. I hate being in that little room at a car dealership, left alone with my husband to “Talk about it.”

Didn’t I go there to buy a car? So, give me a good price, be nice to me, and I’ll buy it.

Of course, I might be “Just looking,” or checking out their cars so I can buy the same model at that cheap joint down the street. So I guess they must hook me.  But I don’t like that. Just give me what I want and I’ll buy it.

I think that if you want something like insurance, something everyone needs, but doesn’t want to buy, that you are there as a facilitator, to be of help, to make the painful process easier, not to strong arm the customer.

How can you be of service and not be pushy?

Am I off track?

A book is somewhat different. A person must want to read it. And they must know enough about it to make it a “must read.”

That’s where the reader comes in.

A book is something you write because it speaks to you, but then a book without a reader is like a seed planted on pure obsidian.

That’s where the reader comes in.

Well, I have a year to think about it—a lot can happen in a year.

Any suggestions?

And then Seth Godin’s blog popped up with this:

#Your fast car—Seth Godin

Right there, in your driveway, is a really fast car. And here are the keys. Now, go drive it.

(Want the car.)

Right there, in your hand, is a Chicago Pneumatics 0651 hammer. You can drive a nail through just about anything with it, again and again if you choose. Time to use it.

(Don’t want the hammer.)

And here's a keyboard, connected to the entire world. Here's a publishing platform you can use to interact with just about anyone, just about anytime, for free. You wanted a level playing field, one where you have just as good a shot as anyone else? Here it is.

 Do the work.

(Want to learn this.)

P.S. Still doing my photo a day. www.travelwithjoyce.com

Fun, Box Springs, Work

  

That’s Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. After the serious blog of last week, this one is frivolous. 

Are you in?

The fun was visiting the Carousel in Albany Oregon. When friends invited us to visit a carousel, I thought, O.K., an opportunity to be together, to visit, and I love carousels. I just didn’t know how much I would love this one.

And since I have kept my agreement with myself, to take a photo a day for thirty days, I thought, Wow, a photo opt.

I didn’t know how astounded I would be. That was the most exquisite carousel I have ever seen. Husband and I rode it. How could one resist?

Yes, and I posted more than one photo that day on Instagram. I couldn’t’ resist that either.

All the animals on the carousel were hand carved and hand painted, a three-year process for each animal—two to carve, one to paint, and there were months of curing. One cannot ride an animal until it is trained. Whoops paint cured.

The attention to detail was exquisite, the unique adornments art in themselves. And although each animal was one of a kind, they all fit together like a collection on the dress design show #Project Runway.

I almost fell on the floor in awe and envy of the artists.

The pavilion that housed the carousel was a work of art, too, as were the tables placed around the periphery of the room. The tops had been hand painted each with a different carousel animal.

I am even reticent about posting pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but this carousel must be experienced to be fully appreciated. I know that not all my readers live in the vicinity, so here you are folks, but if you are ever here, know that I did not photograph all the animals. I left some for you to experience live.

And I must visit again. With an appointment, a guest can visit the basement where craftspeople carve and paint the animals.  A notice said more were on the way. I saw the drawing of a proposed bison, a bucking horse, a bird…and in the photos below you can see a few animals in process—these were displayed next to the gift store. And there were some antique animals on display as well; one was a Zebra named Sweetpea. That’s my dog’s name.

My carver daughter’s teeth will probably ache at seeing this opportunity, although, it is all volunteer. Talk about a labor of love.

2. Box Springs:

There is a mountain range outside Riverside California named The Box Springs; I always thought How strange, almost as bad as Drain, Oregon, but here I am talking about true box springs. You know, ones that go under a mattress.

We invested in a pair of box springs to go under our King sized mattress. We have been sleeping on a platform bed, one that has an air bed on top, and does not need springs. It’s one you hear so many ads about, a “Sleep number,” bed where each sleeping partner can, with a remote control, adjust their side of the bed. No compromise there. The trouble was since it was so low; it was like crawling up from a squatting position. And in the middle of the night—you can imagine.  Now with the box springs, it has been brought up to civilized height. I’m a happy sleeper.

3. Work:

That was Monday. I got the first two chapters of my manuscript back with editing comments. Now it looks as though it is glued together with red ink. I am happy for the comments, though, for it is just what I need. Elaborate here, adjust this, put this over there. Great input. I am so afraid to bore people that I tend to be cryptic. That works for blogging, not so much for a full-length book.

My editor is the best. She is a gift.

Carousel work in process: 

A Poodle dog about to become a carousel mount. 

The horse is before it has its glossy top coat. I like it this way, but I guess it wouldn't hold up to wear.

Patterned after the artists own rescued a retired Grayhound

Who do You Trust?

 “I just spent 90 minutes talking about authenticity dressed in an outfit I only wear to funerals.”—Brene’ Brown

That was today.

This was yesterday:

 “Trump isn’t crazy. We are.”--Allan Francis.

I had to laugh out loud when I read that. Not because it was ha ha funny, but because it was pathetic funny.

Trump has scared so many people that six dystopia classics have suddenly jumped to the top of Amazon’s top seller list. 

They are Orwell’s 1994 and Animal Farm, Huxley’s Brave New World, Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. Margaret Attwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Psychiatrist Allen Francis, twilight of american sanity (small letters his.) “A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump” writes that “Being a world-class narcissist doesn’t make Trump mentally ill as many diagnosticians claim.  

It makes him even more fearsome because he isn’t. 

If he was we could excuse him, kick him out of the Presidency, or dismiss his blatant blow-hard tactics.

“Insanity in individuals is somewhat rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”-- Freidrich Nietzche

Well, crumb, and here we are sitting right smack dab in the middle of it.

Perhaps that readers are turning to the classics will make us saner people.

Francis wrote the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. While other diagnosticians are correctly noting that the disorder’s defining features fit Trump like a glove (grandiose self-importance; preoccupations with being great; requiring constant admiration’ feeling entitled; lacking empathy; and being exploitive, envious and arrogant) still Francis maintains that it does not prove that he is mentally ill. 

Actually, it has gotten him fame, fortune, women and now political power.

That people call Trump crazy is to ignore a deeper social sickness.

Simply put, Trump isn’t insane, but our society is.

An individual can be dead wrong and not be crazy, but for a society to be dead wrong is scary.

Used to be the world was huge, the resources boundless and self-preservation necessary for personal survival. (Often they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from.) The survival instincts that worked for fifty thousand years now need to be redirected into a world that requires cooperation.

I don’t know what a big hairy dilemma looks like but I know he has horns for I am sitting on one.

Why would we elect a man so blatantly against the earth, global warming, woman, immigrants, ethnic differences, conserving resources, and world trade?

Throw out a phrase, “Make American Great Again,” and enough Americans believed it to elect Trump, not to mention that Hillary was demonized to the extent that even women didn’t trust her.

I think it was the Archie Bunker phenomenon (TV’s All in the Family). Archie began as a laughable bigoted buffoon, and he became popular. Perhaps people appreciate an individual who lets his thoughts spill out his mouth without censorship, and without any care about what others think. It is what they wish for themselves.

 It is a child that has never grown up.

Why we can't stay silent on social issues due to fear of criticism or getting it wrong.--Brené Brown,  BA, MA and PhD.

And then today happened.

As I listened to Brene’ Brown talking about “Belonging, Courage, and Constructive Conversations” on Marie Forleo’s show, I was reassured about the health of our society when nigh on to 40 million viewers showed up for her Ted Talk.

I am reassured when attendees in the thousands plunk down funds and go to a Tony Robbins event to confront their psychological, financial and spiritual issues.

Brown points out that we are hard-wired not to hurt each other for we are a social species.

But, to harm another first we need to dehumanize them.

When the president calls women, “pussy,” or “dogs,” it renders them subhuman.

On the flip side when we call him “a pig,” we are doing that as well.

This chips away at our soul.

It is a moral exclusion and at the core of every genocide.

If they are sub-human then we can justify eradicating them

People are hard to hate close up.

What is Trust?

Brown says there are 7 elements to trust, and these are observable and testable.

Her anarchism for those elements is BRAVING

B is for foundries, what’s ok, and what’s not ok.
R Reality. Say what you’ll do, and do what you say.
A Accountability
V the vault. Think of the cone of silence. It is a safe place where trust is shared. Sometimes we “talk out of school” to make a connection. However, we are telling stories that are not ours to tell.
I Integrity, choose what’s right over Fun, Fast, and Easy. People don’t do discomfort well. We have become a society of fun, fast and easy. 
Both Brown and Forleo said that the important things they achieved in life were not easy.
N Non-judgement
G Generosity. Assume positive intent. In the absence of data, it is human nature make up stories. We can run a long narrative of how they did us wrong when we aren’t facing them head on. (Remember it is hard to hate someone close up.)


The earth still laughs in Flowers.

This Gerbera Daisy from my porch wintered over. I was surprised to see its little green sprout in the planter box, and so I tenderly watered it, and look what I got. 

I have high hopes for it as winter is coming on. 

Perhaps we, too, can winter over.


 From my daughter’s trainer:
“Avoid realistic goals.”
“With realistic goals, you will settle. Instead set realistic time frames.”

I like that man.

5 Good Reasons to Drink Coffee

I began drinking coffee when I was 18 years old out of desperation.

I was then a dental assistant, and we worked from 8 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. our lunch break.

 I was starving.

So I began drinking coffee mid-morning.

We used Cremora in those days.

I tried it with the creamer, didn’t particularly like it. Tried sugar, liked it less, but gradually found it palatable with the creamer without the sugar.

One day, the second dentist I worked for piled a heap of dental plaster (same color as Cremora) into my cup of coffee and stuck a sign in it, “Cream gone bad.”

I tried to get back at him later by partially blowing up a weather balloon he had bought, and stuffed it in the closet so when he opened the door to get his smock, he would be met with a floppy pile of escaping rubber.

It partially backfired on me, for when I came back from lunch, he was working on a patient in his dress shirt. He asked me to get the pen out of his pocket, and, chuckling under his breath, sent me to face the balloon.

However, I knew it was there and squeezed past the rubber, found the pen and took it to him.

Well, you know he had encountered the balloon earlier.

I wish I had seen it.

Okay, I was talking about coffee.

I have gone through thinking the caffeine wasn’t good for me, so I drank it decaffeinated.  When I read that the chemical used to decaffeinate was worse than the caffeine, so I tried steam-decaffeinated. Thinking that dairy wasn’t that good for me, I tried soy lattes.

I stopped drinking coffee when I was pregnant, which is probably a good idea, and if the mother is breastfeeding, the baby has to process the caffeine.

If a breast feeding mother isn’t careful about spacing her caffeine intake and her breastfeeding sessions it can lead to a caffeine build up in the baby's system. To give you an idea of how long it takes, the half-life of caffeine for a newborn baby is about 3-4 days, compared to 2.5 hours for a six-month-old. For an adult, it's about an hour and a half.

Now, not pregnant, not breastfeeding, and knowing that fat is a necessary ingredient to any diet,  I can pour on the cream, and chug down the coffee. 

I love it with half and half, hot or iced, especially iced.

And when I heard that coffee is good for us, I began drinking it in earnest.

Got my computer, got my coffee. I’m set.

And now not only can I drink it guilt free, but I find it is healthy.

1.     Studies say drinking coffee will make you live longer.

More than 35 studies have been done covering more than 2 million people that indicate coffee directly influences what Public Health Nutrition calls “all-cause mortality.”

Those in the study that drank 3 to 5 cups a day saw more benefits than those that drank 1 cup a day.

Brace yourself.

2.     Current studies on coffee have deemed it a “health elixir” that not only protects the heart but also lowers the risk of several cancers as well as the risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Coffee lipids act as a safeguard against some malignant cells by modulating the detoxifying enzymes. According to #About.com, men who drank six cups of coffee a day reduced their chances of developing type-2 diabetes by half, and women who drank the same amount cut their risk by 30 percent.

3.     Coffee is super-concentrated with flavonoids, an antioxidant compound well-known for its antiviral, anti-allergic, anti-platelet, anti-inflammatory, and antitumor benefits.

4.     Drinking coffee may be a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s, according to a 2010 study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. The study found that caffeine treatments in mice led to a lowering of the levels of Abeta, an abnormal protein believed to be responsible for #Alzheimer’s. Not only did this treat Alzheimer’s, but it also seemed to lower the chances of developing it at all. Additional studies have continued this line of research into how coffee might influence Alzheimer’s in humans and, while the jury is still out, positive evidence is accumulating.

5.     Because it enhances blood flow to the brain, coffee is a rapid mood enhancer. It helps us think, keeps us alert and promotes a sense of wellbeing.