Wordy Wednesday

09 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in wordless wednesday, writingdownthestory in Photograph

Tags

#lasttriponAlaskanWayviaduct, #wordlesswednesday, Alaskan Way viaduct, Bertha, commuting in Seattle, seattle, tunnels, wordless wednesday, wordy Wednesday

For three of the last five school years, I have driven into Seattle on the Alaskan Way viaduct nearly every Monday to care for one or the other grandchild, and back across the next day. Trust me when I say it’s been the highlight of the drive, otherwise traveled on Interstate 5.

This week was the last time. The high roadway flanked on one side by Puget Sound with the sparkling Olympics on the horizon (on clear days) and ferries, cruise liners, and barges and the Emerald City on the other side closes permanently this weekend. When it’s torn down, the penthouse dwellers will have their view unsullied by the eyesore of the roadway far below them; and the lowly commuter will travel underground in a two-mile long yellow tunnel.

The new tunnel entrance

In the three weeks while they connect the north end of the tunnel with Highway 99, the 90,000 cars that travel the viaduct every day will be on already overcrowded I-5. Next week I’m not going. Then I will figure out some alternate timing for the duration. And will they really get it done in three weeks? Remember Bertha, the tunnel driller that got stuck?

I won’t miss the elderly short tunnel at the end of the viaduct. Remember when it collapsed on Grey’s Anatomy a few seasons back? Or the real life time not too long ago when the automatic sprinklers came on and drivers couldn’t see a thing? Then there was just last month when I drove it and the “tunnel closed, do not enter” lights came on when it was too late to abort and I had to sit in the full tunnel until whatever closed it was cleared trying not to hyperventilate.

I will brave the tunnel (I am not fond of any long tunnel, think Princess Diana) until it becomes a toll road in June or so. When my weekly gig is over forever when school’s out (another sadness), I will probably just do the crappy interstate drive through the city on the occasional visit to the Littles to avoid the toll. Or maybe I’ll just get the darn Good to Go pass.

A cloud and I commiserated together as I drove the last few miles to the viaduct on Monday, after the relief of exiting I-5.

On Tuesday evening, I approached the lower deck of the viaduct for the last time, heading back home. Goodbye old friend.

The First Christmas without My Mother

25 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in writingdownthestory in Blog

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Christmas, death of a parent, grandchildren, holidays are hard, Hood Canal, letters from World War 2, nostalgia, seattle, Washington State Ferries

I’m spending Christmas at a friend’s wee place on the edge of Hood Canal on the Olympic Peninsula. The Olympics are hidden today, but were sparkling when I arrived yesterday after crossing Puget Sound on the ferry from the Emerald City with the Cascades as backdrop.

After dropping my family off at the airport the night before, with dinner at Chuck’s before that. (Word today has it that Adrian did take off the cape to sleep, but not the cuffs, and donned it again up awakening.)

Today, Christmas, I reluctantly got dressed at noon and went for a two and a half mile hike at Twanoh State Park next door.

As I walked through the deep damp wood, I realized this is probably the first Christmas of my life I haven’t at least talked to my mother by phone. It feels strange. My mind drifted back to the letters my father wrote to her during the war. So long ago. My children are older than they were then.

When I got back to the couch, I looked them up. Christmas is such a time of nostalgia. It’s what makes it special and, for so many whose present doesn’t measure up to the past, sad. My next writing project is to do something with these letters and the story of a family separated by a war. All of them missing each other. They are all gone now, and I miss them.

December 25, 1942
Ann Arbor, Michigan

(My father was home in Ann Arbor from NYC where he was in officer training; his love was at her home in Tennessee.)

Merry Christmas, Stellajoe. I tried to call you this afternoon but the operator said that it wouldn’t go through for 3 hours because of over crowded lines so I waxed patriotic & cancelled it. I would liked to have talked to you & wished you a Merry Christmas. I wish I could celebrate it with you. I hope that I can the next one. I hope that the war will be over. I hope that you’ll love me as much as I do you. For if you do your name won’t be English.

Sincerely,  George

Christmas 1943 they had been married for nearly a month and were living in Texas together. They did not yet know that in two weeks he would get overseas orders, something they didn’t think was going to happen at all. But his sister, a nurse already stationed in Italy, wrote to them. And they wrote to his parents.

December 26, 1943
Dallas, Texas

Dear George and Stellajoe,

Another Christmas has come and gone. May we not be separated for another! Everything possible was done to make the day pleasant but nothing could quite eliminate that feeling of loneliness.

Love and best wishes to you both, Helen

Christmas Day 1943

Dear Folks,

We have had a very nice Christmas. Can’t say that I don’t miss being home, because I do. But if we have to be away, me and wife couldn’t have done better than to be married.

Sincerely, George

Dear Folks,

I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season. It would be nice if we could all be together in one place place, but it is good that a few of us at least could be together.

How much we’ve enjoyed your fruit cake, cookies and jam. We’ve been rationing them so they wouldn’t be all eaten at one meal. Thanks so much for sending them.

Thanks too for the wedding gift. Do you mind if we save it for a while until we can buy something we’ll need? It’s too hard to know what to buy now – when we think we might have to be moving around.

Love, Stellajoe

Christmas night, 1944
Near Paris, France

In a way it’s a shame that the weather was arranged as it was. Yesterday the Air Forces were every way hammering the jerry. And I presume the same was true today. The war reached a peak of fury right on Christmas. Not a pleasant Christmas for those doing the fighting. And even less so for the jerrys. But I’m not wasting any sympathy on them, even on Christmas day.

This abnormal life – such as being away on Christmas – sometimes gets me down. And it’s then that I thank God that I have the love of my wife, of my family, and family background to fall back on. I suppose it’s sort of like a religion. I feel so sorry for those who can’t have memories and visions of a future to live on. Homesickness, and an inability to tell right from wrong, is the inevitable result. That has taught me to be more tolerant of waywardness than I ever was before. War is a terrible thing, and that is one of its worst features.

I was hoping to write you a long and interesting letter, but I just am not in the proper mood. But I can tell you this: I love you, dear wife. My Christmas was much happier because I have you to love. I love you wherever you are and wherever I am! Next Christmas I hope we’ll be together, and every Christmas thereafter.

Goodnight, sweetheart
George

December 25, 1945
Ansbach, Germany

Well, Christmas is almost over. Like I wrote mom, we haven’t had it half bad here. Christmas was a very welcome and happy holiday. But even so, I’ve spent most of my time thinking about and remembering Christmases past. I can almost see what’s going on each hour at home. And the rest of the time I’ve been dreaming of Christmas next year and the years after that. That’s a bit different because you’re in those dreams and Christmas will be our own.

Sincerely, George

Merry Christmas, Mama and Daddy. I hope you are together again forever and with the family you loved so well.

Adventure Log: Showing off my corner

17 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Big Cedar Olympic Peninsula, Centralia Bordello Museum, Centralia WA, Chihuli Garden & Glass, Hoh Rain Forest, Kalaloch beach, Olympic Peninsula, Pacific Northwest, Ruby Beach, seattle, Seminary Hill Natural Area, Three of Earth Farm, touring the PNW, Washington State Ferries

A friend from the east coast visited me this past week, her first time to the PNW. We packed in the Big Five, dimmed a bit by the wildfire haze.

Mt. St. Helens National Monument

Mt. St. Helens

Coldwater Lake, Mt. St. Helens

Mt. Rainier National Park

Centralia

The Bordello Museum

Three of Earth Farm

The Centralia Historic Train Depot

Seminary Hill Natural Area

Olympic Peninsula

Ruby Beach

Kalaloch Beach

Mama Cedar

Hoh Rain Forest

Seattle

Bremerton Ferry

Pike Place Market

Chihuly Garden & Glass

Seattle Center

Adventure Log: Carkeek Park, Seattle

17 Thursday May 2018

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Blog, writingdownthestory in Photography

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

#adventurelog, #daughteronduty, Adventure Log, Carkeek Park, Daughter on Duty, grandchildren, Mother's Day, seattle, Stellajoe Staebler

“Stellajoe!” my father used to say, “How would you like to live in a place like this on a day like this?”

It’s become my mantra. I would like to live in a place like this, especially when the sky is blue, the trees are bursting into green and pink and red, the rhodies are stuffed with pompoms of bloom, water is sparkling, the mountains are still brilliant in their white garb of winter. Pacific Northwesterners are the luckiest people on the planet. (I know, people elsewhere think they are the luckiest, which is a happy thing.)

I spent last weekend in Seattle. Friday the Littles’ daycare was closed and I had them both, all day, by myself. They were, um, energetic.

It wasn’t cold, Elliot just likes his new jacket. And I couldn’t find his sweatshirt.

The bakery.

Gigi needed a break.

Grabbed those bananas himself when my back was turned.

Elliot, budding creative chef, made a pb/jelly/green bean/carrot sandwich for snack (after not eating the pbj sandwich at lunch).

Beautiful, but he declared it “yucky.” Said the green beans were old.

Making a Mother’s Day card while the moms went to a spin class.

Saturday was Adrian’s second birthday.

Another stunning creation by Mama Wynne. It was, by Adrian’s choice, a Dog Party.

Best ever gift from Aunt Becca and Gigi.

Sunday was my first motherless Mother’s Day. I had planned this weekend long before I knew last Mother’s Day was to be her last. I was a little anxious, and a little defiant when I put it on the calendar. What if there are no more years after this one to celebrate my mother, and I’m selfishly off wanting to be the mother for a change instead of the daughter? What if she’s having a bad day and I have to cancel my plans at the last minute?

Last year, one year before she left us.

To have been freed last month of these dilemmas will, I think, continue to cause me wonder for a long time. I can go off on an adventure without planning ahead, without the possibility that I will have to cancel, without having to watch the clock to return in time to visit her or relieve Rebecca of responsibility. I’m not wishing for those days back; don’t make me into some paragon of regret that they are over. (You’ve read my blog, right?)

But to spend days like this in a place like this, I can’t but think of her, and of my father, with gratitude for their quest to move to the corner of the country, to love it, to instill that love in me and my family. I suspect I will hold them with me everywhere I go.

We went to Carkeek Park. I had never been. It is, incredibly, ten minutes from my daughter and daughter-in-love’s home. And it was a sparkling day.

Teaming with life,

(sea cucumbers)

(anemone)

and love.

I’ve been digging through my mother’s scattered collection of favorite poems, quotes, and her own prolific writing looking for ones my sisters and I will use in special tribute at her memorial service next month. I found notes she wrote about me describing what was blooming two or three springs ago, she wishing she could be out in the glory, that she could see it through eyes that had become pale and cloudy. I hope she is in it now, and in her own glory.

Meanwhile, the weeds are growing. And I’m not out there pulling them. Last winter’s blow down (and that from the year before) still hasn’t been picked up. The hawthorn and the apple trees didn’t get pruned again and are now infringing on the view. The out-of-control vinca is climbing into the lilac. Blackberry vines are growing through the rhododendron. I still haven’t planted flowers, squash, and beans in my garden. I miss winter.

The Joy of Life

How sweet is Life, how beautiful!

Go, happy life, and say to Death –
“I gave this woman sufficient joy
To last her for a thousand years.”

Stellajoe Staebler
June 2008