Summing Up

The year 2010 has been one of those years that will stand out in my memory forever.

The birth of my grandson. The death of my mother. The marriage of a son. The first full year of a new job. Trips to Kentucky and New Mexico. Managing my mother’s estate, managing my own complicated life. Decisions made about the future.

But all that is behind me now, for the most part. I know we have no way to foresee the future, so every plan I make for 2011 is a wish, a hope and a prayer. Here’s what I pray for:
• Calm
• Peace
• No changes

That’s not asking a lot, is it?

Christmas Baking

My daughter, Sloan, is baking today. Last night she sorted through all my mother's old recipes, written by hand on little recipe cards and stored in a large baggie. Even without remembering the cookies themselves, we could tell which ones were her favorites by the condition of the cards. The more stained and crusty, the better!

My mother loved to bake Christmas cookies. For many years I would join her for a full day of baking which seemed to me, the unenthusiastic cook, to be excessive. She couldn't just make three or four different types of cookies, she had to make about a dozen, and carmel corn, and fudge and sometimes peanut brittle.

It is the strongest Christmas memory I have of my mother. Now my daughter, who is an enthusiastic cook, is baking from these same recipes. In this first Christmas season of not having mom with us, I will get to taste her cookies once again. It's one of the best presents Sloan could give me.

The Iridescent Peacock

Enter the front door of the Morton House and climb the narrow birds-eye maple staircase, covered with a carpet runner specially ordered from Marshal Field’s in Chicago, and you’ll find a display case. Surrounded by peacock feathers and beaded bags and hats from the 1920’s, you’ll see my great-grandmother’s peacock carnivalware bowl. I have loaned it to this small museum for their Christmas display and it is the first time in 20 years it has seen the light of day.

It is a particular orange color called “marigold” with the characteristic iridescent sheen and the peacock spreads its tail feathers to fill up the dish with its finery. The bowl was first owned by my great-grandmother, Addie, and then passed to my grandmother, Rozella, then to my mother, Delores, and now, with my mother’s passing, to me. When the time comes, I will give it to my own daughter, Sloan, to continue the five generation chain.

I never met my great-grandmother, but I know she was a simple farm woman, as was my grandmother. It must have been a fabulous treasure for Addie, who struggled her whole life just to keep a roof over her head. I don’t know how or where she got it, but I’m betting that she never actually used it, as neither my grandmother nor my mother did, since it has survived these 80 years in pristine condition. It was probably enough for Addie just to know she owned something so glorious.

That dish inspired my mother to collect marigold-color carnivalware and in her typical fashion she was able to amass about 40 additional pieces. But, 20 years ago she remodeled her kitchen and the dishes were packed away for safe-keeping. When she built a new house 10 years ago, that old-fashioned glassware didn’t seem to fit with her décor, so they remained in their storage box.

Now it is up to me to decide where they must go. Among her many things that I have distributed, this collection is one that has stymied me. I know it was something she loved, but she also has not unpacked them for two decades! In the end, I have decided to donate the collection to the Morton House and many of the pieces will probably be sold for its benefit. I will keep one raspberry-patterned candy dish that is my favorite and the rare red bowl Tom and I bought for her in Durango, Colorado. Sloan will keep the 7-piece fruit dish set.

And of course the peacock bowl. Even though each generation of the women in our family has become more comfortable, more educated, worldlier; it is still, perhaps, a dish too glamorous for any of us. I can’t picture it in my house. Where could it be kept safe from curious cats and the rambunctious grandchildren we are just beginning to have?

But I am a sentimental woman and I know that some things you do and some things you say and some things you keep, just because it’s right. Great-grandma Addie can count on me.

Christmas Carols

So far my Christmas season has been full of singing. Last Saturday Tom and I sat at the Box Factory for the Arts, a 100+ year old building renovated into a haven for artists. Four cabaret singers from Chicago, two men and two women, made the journey around the lake to come and sing for us. It was a soup supper with wonderful cheese and bread and pasteries for dessert.

As I sat there listening to their Christmas songs, I thought again about how the walls of this old building would feel - if they could feel. In its early days of serving as a factory, Saturday evenings were dark and quiet. Now music and creativity echo around its old wooden beams and the building feels warm and happy.

A week later, last night, Tom and I went to University of Notre Dame to attend a performance of the Men's Glee Club. First we had a delicious dinner at the Inn on campus and then we made our way to the theater. It was the first time I had attended an event in this relatively new performance building. It was cold and raining and it felt good to sit in this remarkable building and listen to these young men sing so beautifully while the storm raged outside.

This morning I went to church and listened to a visiting choir sing Handel's "Messiah". It was a small group in a modest church - but the sound was incredible. Tears ran down my face during the "Hallelujah" chorus - it was just so beautiful.

I love to sing, but have put it aside for the last few years while I dealt with difficult personal times. Perhaps it is time to take it up again in some way.

Thanksgiving Brunch

We solved the dilema of Thanksgiving with a last minute suggestion from my daughter-in-law, Candice - a brunch! She brought over a breakfast casserole, my other daughter-in-law brought over an Oreo cheesecake and I threw a ham in the oven (the turkeys really were safe from us this year), some cheese potatoes, fresh fruit salad, 7-bean salad - all things that were pretty easy to prepare and not so traditional that they made me sad to have them.

Everyone came over to eat about 10 o'clock and we were done and the kitchen was cleared up by noon - and I didn't feel over-the-top stuffed! It left me with the rest of the day to just relax and read and watch shows (not football or the dog show) and indulge in a piece of pumpkin pie.

All in all a good day, and tomorrow we venture out to find a Christmas tree. It may even snow!

Surrounded by Turkeys

In the early morning hours, a mist sits low and wispy on the field next to Max's house.I watch it disappear as the sun moves higher and the air warms.

At the far edge along the tree line to the woods beyond,I see dark shapes emerging from the scrubby bushes until there is at least a dozen which have ventured out
a little way into the field. They are wild turkeys, dark brown and fat through the body with thin necks and small heads and they are feeding on the left-over grain scattered over the ground. They move slowly, casually; when I check back on them a short while later, they have blended back into the woods.

Later I am diving over some back country roads near our house, when I see a large dark shape take flight on the left side of the road. I realize it's a turkey and he is barely clearing the ground, just barely clearing my windshield.

It seems I am surrounded by turkeys this year, including the ones on television as cooks give out all kinds of advice on how to cook them. But I am torn about Thanksgiving this year. It was always my mother's holiday. And she did it wonderfully. I always meant to take it over, but I never did, and now she's gone and like it or not, do I get it by default?

I will not be able to taste her cooking again,and, even if I used all her recipes, I know I would not measure up. I won't be able to walk into her kitchen with my pitiful offerings of salad, cranberries, rolls - and smell all the aromas of the dishes she always made for us, including a roasting turkey.

My mother and I were a lot alike, but I am a pale immitation of her in the kitchen,
and somehow this year I don't even have the heart to try.

I think the turkeys are safe!

Halloween Twist

Max, Sarah and baby Nolan trick-or-treat


We passed a milestone last night, which I was well aware of, but it still made me feel a bit sad. Our son and his new wife and our first little grandson came to our house to trick-or-treat.

No longer are we the young parents with kids in costumes and bassett hound on a leash, walking the neighborhood in the dark, collecting candy and saying hello to all the neighbors we don't usually have a chance to speak to the rest of the year.

Now we sit at home waiting.

Waiting for trick-or-treaters, who have not come in our neighborhood since our own children have grown up. Each year I buy candy, just in case, but there it sits for want of a tiny ghoul.

Waiting for our grandchild, who came late, after they had spent time with friends. Who came tired and ready to go home .... a mercy visit to grandparents who just wanted a few pictures, who just wanted a touch of that magical night that was such a a big part of our lives while the kids were young.

It's a twist, a handing off of the baton, and once again we are on the sidelines watching as our children move forward.

Campus Visit

I drove up to East Lansing to visit my daughter at Michigan State University. She is in her junior year there and it's hard to believe even that much time has gone by. The trees along the roads and on campus were still bright, but this time of year they are starting to fade and drop their leaves. The weather was overcast and a bit melancholy.

On Saturday we shopped at quilt and antique stores and sat at the Dairy Store on campus and ate ice cream out of waffle cones while we listened to a radio broadcast of the last few minutes of the football game, which they won in a nail-biter.

Sloan drove me around campus through all the twisting and winding roads lined with stately buildings both modern and historic until I was throughly confused. I only really know how to get to her two former dorms, which I tried to visit as often as I could, and now to her house off campus.

Sloan stayed with me at the hotel on campus and we had nice talks at a leisurely pace. I know these kinds of visits are few and far between since we both live hectic lives. But I cherish the time we have together.

I hope she'll look back on these days at college with fondness, and remember her old mom who comes for the occasional visit and is trying so hard to let her grow up!

Golden Afternoon

I sat on a bench at North Lake Park and looked out over the water. It was the kind of autumn afternoon that I loved. The summer heat was gone, but it was not yet too cool. The trees that rimmed the small lake were turning shades of yellow and orange here and there, but it was still too early to see the real color, which would peak a week or two from now.

I stretched my legs on the bench, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was at this park on a mellow, golden afternoon for a reason. I was stuck on a writing project and thought coming to this quiet place would help me work it out.

Near the shore, moving around the base of the cattails were several mallard ducks; the males with their iridescent green heads and the females a drabber brown. They were letting out a series of quacks and I didn’t know if it was because they were chatting back and forth to each other, or if they saw me there on the bench and didn’t like me being all that close. Either way, I needed to write something about birds, so these guys were the likely candidates.

This whole year has been a challenging one for me and I was able to cope with it by writing out my feelings. But now I felt the worst of the busyness and obligations were behind me and I wanted to brush away this veil of stress and sadness and see – really see – the beauty of my favorite month; to find balance again after being lopsided for so long.

I am not a trained poet, but I like to write poems and I am writing one for every odd day in October. Here is the one I wrote on this day, at this park:

“The Show, The Center”
(mallards at North Lake Park)
He is the show,
with his shiny green head,
white collar, handsome brown vest,
but he is never very far from her;
the drab one, the quiet one.

It is clear that she is the center,
the one who creates the family,
carries on the species.
He preens his beautiful feathers,
but he knows his place.

I closed my notebook and took another deep breath while sending out a little prayer of thanks for these ducks, the park, this life I have right here, right now. When my thoughts and my days seem flighty and out of control, along comes October with its blazing beauty to ground me and clear my vision.

A flock of geese flew overhead in their traditional “V” shape against a sky so blue it nearly hurt to look at it. Oblivious to that sight, the mallards continued to swim on the deep blue water of this tiny lake concerned only with themselves and perhaps that strange human who won’t go away. I’m reminded once again of an old folk song, based on Bible verses, that has brought me much comfort this year:

To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Autumn Wedding

Our son Max got married to his Sarah this past Saturday. The weather was absolutely beautiful, in the high 70's, and the colors of the trees were just about at peak.
I show Max here with his son, our wonderful grandson, Nolan who was the honorary best man, standing next to him is Josh, one of Max's best friends since high school. They are at the rehearsal at the church.

Max had four friends and his brother Caleb stand up for him in the wedding. Our daughter Sloan was one of the bridesmaids. The closest I came to crying during the ceremony was when all three of them were standing up in front of the church waiting for the bride. I am so proud of all of them. They are all grown up and are wonderful people in their own right. I think Tom and I had a lot to do with that, but I just find myself grateful that it worked out that way.

Leading up to the wedding I found myself often feeling sad as I thought about my Mom and the fact that she wouldn't get to see this wedding. We talked of it often in the early months of the year, and I was hoping it would give her something to look forward to as she faced her fight with cancer. Unfortunately it wasn't to be, but I wore one of her necklaces to the wedding and I know she was there in spirit too, wishing her grandson happiness as he heads into this new phase of his life.

Quilt Workshop

Gwen Marston with one of her quilts

Just returned from a quilt workshop with master quilter Gwen Marston. She holds workshops every year for five one-week sessions at an old lodge/restort in Elk Rapids, Michigan called White Birch Lodge. Usually I go in week five, but needed to move to week three this year because of my son's wedding coming up in two weeks.

This year the theme was "liberated quilting" which is a technique of hers. We were free to just sew, shop, and go out to eat for five whole days - it was heaven! I worked on two projects, plus my daughter's college quilt. Very productive time for me and it felt good to be able to sew, which is something I've really put on the back burner this year while I dealt with other family and work issues.

The weather was beautiful the first two days, rained like crazy the third day, the wind blew in a truly spooky way on the fourth day, and it drizzled again on the fifth day. But the sixth day it was cool and sunny for the drive home and the trees along the sides of the roads were starting to turn into their fall colors.

Back to School

Each year whenever my children would head off to school, I would line them up on the front porch and take their picture. Since I've had children attending school since 1985, I've got quite a collection. This year I forgot to do that with my daughter on the day we took her back to college.

We also missed the opportunity to go with her to buy her school supplies; at 20 years old she pretty much takes care of that herself. But for many years she would go with her father to work on a day in late summer on something they would call "special days" and buy a backpack and supplies and anything else she needed following the list from school.

I loved going to school, and I loved sending my own children off to school. Something about this time of year just fires up the blood and makes me anxious to get back to work and learn something or create something.

Now, with all my children out on their own, I am contemplating a return to school myself and am studying for the graduate exam. It's been a while since I've stuck my nose in a book for anything except pleasure and now I'm studying and trying to get information I don't really want to know to stick. It's a challenge.

Dark Omens

There was a loud and raucous cawing filling the air as I stepped out my front door. I walked the length of the porch to investigate, but I knew what I would find. In the two tall, dead trees bordering our yard, a flock of crows had taken up squatters’ rights in the tallest of the skeletal limbs and were squawking at each other. Groups of crows are sometimes known as a murder. Was this a warning?

It’s hard not to conjure up scenes from a Hitchcock movie when I see this many of that kind of bird together. The kind that attacked, the kind that pecked eyes with their long, black, lethal beaks.

On the drive into town I stopped at a red light and there, perched on the sign next to the road, was a single crow staring at me, sizing me up. Was this a dark omen?

Like the raven who came tap, tap, tapping on Poe’s window and entered to watch a mad man rant, could these dark wraiths harbor anything but doom?

Ravens or crows, I’m sure any competent ornithologist would gladly tell me how they differ, but I like to think of them as simply blackbirds. Then it brings to mind the gentle lyrics of a Beatle song:

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly,
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive.

Don’t we all, in the deep, dark part of our soul, shelter a little broken wing? And don’t we all have some kind of “moment” we are awaiting to arrive and thrill to the notion that it actually might happen?

These dark omens dressed in mourning feathers and perched high over my head in dead branches, could be just a bunch of crows with nothing better to do – or they could be harbingers for the start of new possibilities.

My choice!

Denise Kalin Tackett
Sept. 14, 2010

Fragile Wings

There are monarch butterflies in my backyard. We usually see a few this time of year as they travel down the shore of Lake Michigan, but this early autumn they have alighted in our pine trees and transformed our yard into a butterfly garden.

I believe that God sends us reminders when we have faced so many difficult times that it's hard to believe we will ever feel happy again.

This year the hydranga bushes that line the back of my mother's house exploded with blooms. The thing is - they had never bloomed before! I know because we discussed it every year, how big and beautiful the bushes were, but no blooms, and this went on for eight or nine years. This year, after she died in early spring, they bloomed; big pink, flat blossoms that lasted throughout the summer.

And now I have monarch butterflies in my yard. Orange and black creatures that seem too fragile to travel any distance at all. I don't know how long they will stay, and what the journey ahead holds for them, but I'm grateful they came to give me this gentle reminder that life goes on, that beautiful days can and will happen.

A message carried on fragile wings to a grateful heart.

Summer Beach 2010

I'm starting up my writing group, NightWriters, for the season tonight. The assignment was to write about "my summer vacation." Here's my essay:

On a quiet Friday morning at the end of August I impulsively pulled on a swimsuit and jumped into the car. We live about 500 yards from Lake Michigan, but to get to a swimming beach requires a drive of about three miles. At this time of day, mine was the only car in the small gravel parking lot.

I stood on the boardwalk and looked over the narrow deserted beach and the calm, cool water beyond. Half of the small beach was inhabited by sea gulls nestled into the sand looking like they were not yet ready to rise for the day. The other half was empty of life and a long, dead, driftwood tree was lying parallel to the shore. That’s where I spread my blanket and, with my back against the tree, I ate my picnic breakfast and wrote in my journal.

A tiny voice in my head immediately sounded a warning about swimming alone, but I decided “to hell with it” and took the plunge. I eased my way past the stones near the shore and soon enough reached the sandy bottom where I had enough even footing to dip my whole body down into the water. Despite many, many hot days this summer, the lake was still cold enough to give me that gasping shock I usually felt when first going into big lake water.

This was my lake, the one I grew up with, the one I felt safe in although, truth be told, it could be dangerous. It had already claimed several lives by this point in the summer. As a nod to my more cautious side, I decided not to swim out over my head, but I went out deep enough to stretch my arms and legs. I’ve been a swimmer all my life and this was what I loved the most – that feeling of weightlessness when floating in water. Perhaps even more appreciated this year when I feel as if the weight of my life is sitting heavily on my shoulders, threatening to drown me.

It was the end of the last month of summer and this was the very first day I was enjoying it. I had gone off to a weekend at a cottage with my family in July and off to Santa Fe for a vacation earlier in August, and there were plenty of times I sat around and did nothing, but I was always agonizing over everything I should be doing. This was the first time all summer, maybe all year, when I gave myself permission to not feel the pressure to go – do – finish something!

I have noticed throughout my life that sometimes a given year will carry a theme; 2010 is such a year and the theme seems to be one of endings and beginnings.

Already this year my best friend lost her father two weeks before I lost my mother and a few days ago one of my daughter’s best friends lost her mother to suicide. These were heart-wrenching endings. On the flip side, before the year is out, I will have attended three weddings, including my son’s; and five people close to me will give birth, one of which has already produced my first grandchild.

And, here I sit in the middle – too old for beginnings and, God willing, too young for endings. The wide-eyed observer destined to float along and let the joy and sadness wash over my heart like waves, trying not to get caught up in the undertow.

I hobbled back over the stones and went up on the sand to lie down on my blanket. The beach was still deserted, but the sun was warming the air and felt good on my face and arms; too long spent indoors.

In a few days we will move our daughter back to college, but this year she goes into a house. When she lived in a dorm it was a little easier to think of her as still living at home, but when you move furniture, dishes, whole wardrobes - there’s no denying she has a new home base.

It’s a different kind of ending and beginning; certainly not as final as death, not as life-changing as marriage or birth; difficult for me, but so exciting for her.

So perhaps this fall I can finally relax and ride out the rest of this year…. float on my back while the swells push me along, let my bruises heal, and gather strength to face the endings by embracing the joy of the beginnings.

Happy Hippies

I said I wanted to compare the photos from my son's 2005 wedding and this summer's renewal of vows at the Phish concert - and here they are:
Yes, that is my son with his dreadlocks in pigtail form.
God bless 'em - they're happy!

2005 left
2010 right

Heartbreaking News

Our daughter, Sloan, is part of a group of six girls who formed a deep friendship during high school and have managed to maintain it even two years into their time at college .

I show them here on the day of their high school graduation when their whole wonderful future stretched out in front of them - and they just knew it was going to be fabulous!

They were lucky enough to live charmed lives with parents who loved them, a small town that nurtured them and a wider group of friends to hang around with.

This past weekend one of the girls, Clare, lost her mother. Having just lost mine recently, I know a little bit about how she feels, only I had mine for much longer and I was a grown woman with a family of my own when it happened. How does a 20 year old girl feel? A young woman who is not yet out on her own, a young woman who could have really used her mother's presence for a while longer.

It is perhaps the first taste any of them have had of untimely grief. You kind of expect your grandparents to die, but someone so close is unthinkable. A dark cloud in the sunny sky that is their lives.

I'm so proud of the other girls, who have rallied around their friend and tried to help her as much as they can. She'll need all the support she can get in the months to come as she gets through the funeral and then back to college where she'll have to pick up the pieces of her life and deal with these difficult feelings at the same time.

But I know she'll be in good hands with these five fast friends who will wrap her up in their support and love and, even from different college campuses, reach out to their hurting friend.
They're good kids. They're loyal like that.

Bear Warning

Here's a poem about Yellowstone I wrote for my National Park collection:

Bear Warning

When we pulled into the parking lot
it was twilight on a September evening.
We were the only ones there at this time, in this season.
It was an area of thermal pools in Yellowstone
next to a lake and a beach, the steam from the pools
wafted over the boardwalks like an eerie scene from the Scottish moors.

Right away we saw a sign that sent chills down my spine
“Warning: Bears are known to frequent this area!”
There was darkness in the woods surrounding the pools.
We saw a lone cow elk calmly munching grass
near a pool where humans were not allowed to tread.

The darkness continued to deepen.
Tom prowled the walkways with his tripod and camera,
oblivious to the unnerving atmosphere.
It was cold, I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms,
not sure they were from the temperature, or the thought
that a bear could roar out of the forest at any moment.

I continually glanced over my shoulders into the depths
of the woods, watching for movement, longing for haste.
A ghostly husband walked through the steam toward me.
Out on the beach from behind a copse of bushes,
a bull elk appeared and walked towards us,
his antlers tall and multi-pointed.

We stared at each other for a short time.
Although it was mating season and we were warned
that they could be sensitive and aggressive,
he didn’t seem to think we were worth the effort.
We retreated to our warm car, leaving the pools to the elk
and any bears in the dark shadows “frequenting the area.”

Denise Kalin Tackett
Aug. 13, 2010
Trip : Yellowstone, September 2008

No Good Pie

I'm sorry to report that I did not find good pie in Santa Fe!

The first night we were there Tom, Sloan and I split a piece of key lime pie that looked promising, but really lacked any flavor of lime.

A few days later we ate at a restaurant that bragged about their pies, but when I got a piece of strawberry/rhubarb it was okay, but the edge crust was about an inch thick. You can always tell the quality of pie by its edge crust - even if you don't chose to eat it.

I was hoping to pick up some fruit at the farmer's market to make a pie back at our casita, but the market wasn't open on most days we were in Santa Fe.



One morning we drove early to the town plaza and went to a French pasterie shop. There were tarts there that looked much like this photo - but we were there to buy something for breakfast, so we passed them by.

Later, when we went back to have lunch, they were all gone for the day. A tart is not pie, but perhaps it's close enough and I missed my best chance for it!

A Flash of Scarlet

This is an entry for my Quintet writing group's "Bird" project:


I am visited by cardinals this year. They have always been one of my favorite birds, not the least reason being you can often see them in this part of Michigan in the winter and that spot of scarlet in a desolate landscape is like a bright treat to the eye. But another reason I love them is that you seldom see them alone, they nearly always have their mate near by.

This past April I was writing a new poem for every even day in the month and I was also spending a lot of time with my critically ill mother in what would turn out to be the last month of her life. One day I sat alone at her kitchen table while she slept in her bedroom a few feet away. I had scraps of paper on the table before me on which I was scribbling beginnings of a few poems.

Outside her window I spotted a flash of red from the corner of my eye. On the branches of the tree near the house was a pair of cardinals. I don’t know why but, as I watched them flit about, for some reason they reminded me of my parents.

Even though my father had been gone 21 years at this point, when he was alive he and my mother had a close bond dating back to when they were 16-years-old. She was only 58 when he died, still a relatively young woman, but for the rest of her life there was never any other mate for her.

We were still in a hopeful stage at this point, still trying to believe there was a chance she would overcome this illness. But as I sat at that table, in that quiet house with those bits of paper before me, a little thought crept unbidden into the forefront of my mind. I wondered if this pair of cardinals appearing to me now was a sign that Mom was nearing the time she and Dad would rejoin each other.

I wrote this poem:

Red Devotion
There is a cardinal couple
in the tree outside the window.
He flits about much more than she,
hopping from branch to branch,
but they are never very far apart.

When he decides to fly off,
she follows shortly after.
An old married couple
loath to be apart.
Bright red devotion.


My mother died on a Saturday a little after midnight on May 1. Now, in late July and the beginning of August, a cardinal has visited again, only this time it’s at my home and it is the female alone. Each time I see her I go to the window and search in vain for her partner somewhere in the branches nearby.

I believe in signs and I believe that these visits from a poor widow cardinal are from my mother. Has she come back to check on me? To see how I’m doing? I’m not sure how to answer that; how to reassure this tiny messenger. Certainly it has been hard, but it’s supposed to be difficult to lose someone you love very much. I take comfort from the idea that she is with my father and that someday I will see them again.

So, it’s time to fly Mom. It may take a while, but I’ll be fine.
Go and rejoin Dad. You’ve waited long enough.


Denise Kalin Tackett
August 10, 2010

Santa Fe Thoughts

We are home from our trip to Santa Fe and I have begun one of my favorite things about vacations - thinking about it! It usually takes a little time and distance for me to come to any conclusions about places we visit, especially when it's a place we have never been before.

I have mixed feelings about Santa Fe right now. I loved the adobe buildings, which were everywhere, and gave a sense of age and a distinct place in the world. The scenery wasn't as beautiful as I find it to be in Southern Utah and Arizona, and I find myself wondering about Georgia O'Keefe who was so fastinated by the place and was so inspired with her painting.

I did not feel a spiritual connection there - which I do feel in the red rock country. I did not feel inspired to write much, although I took a lot of notes and may tackle some pieces soon.



I was very concerned about the food there, because my poor taste buds and stomach can not tolerate too many spicey, hot things, but for the most part I was able to find things I could eat and several meals we had were very good. It was fun to look through the books and magazines and pick out a different restaurant for each meal.

Unfortunately the Farmer's Market was only open on Tuesday and Saturday mornings, so my notions of going there every day and buying fresh produce to cook, did not pan out. And, unlike Michigan this time of year, there are no roadside stands of farmers selling produce each day.

It was good to get away and our trip out by train and back by plane were pleasant and uneventful. Our little casita we rented for the week was perfect and only a few blocks from town and the center of everything.

I'll share samples of any writing I do about the trip in the near future.

A Phish Wedding #2

Five years ago on August 13 our first born son married his high school sweetheart in a charming country wedding at a renovated dairy barn called "The Blue Dress Barn."

There were nine bridesmaids dressed in rainbow patchwork dresses (one color per girl - our daughter was orange) and the morning of the wedding my best friend Carla, Tom and I went scavaging for wild flowers from the side of the road to make table arrangements in blue glass canning jars. The wedding cake looked like the rain forest. It rained early, then became sunny and hot.

It was a charming wedding that was exactly what these later-day hippies wanted. I, true-to-form, sailed through in a nervous and over-whelmed state. I wasn't doing much journaling at that stage of my life and I wish I had it to look back on and remember exactly how I felt.

This year brings us their 5th year anniversary, which they plan to celebrate by renewing their vows prior to a "Phish" concert. They are inviting all who attend to wear their most tie-dyed and hippie-like outfit. It will be interesting to compare their renewal pictures to the one I show here taken that sunny/rainy day in 2005.

This fall, our second born son is planning a wedding in October. It will be a much more formal affair - but it will also reflect the couple getting married. I am planning to take a much lower-key part in it, but I'm sure I will still be in a frantic state come Oct. 9.

Our daughter is only 20 years old - perhaps I'll have another five years before I have to deal with this again. And perhaps by then I'll take it all in stride.

But I doubt it!

It's too Darn Hot!

It's been hot in Michigan. And muggy. And we live near Lake Michigan, which is supposed to cool us off. But, it's still too darn hot to do most things - and one of those things for me seems to be writing.

What I want to do is take my notebooks and laptop out onto the deck and sit under the umbrella and gaze into our leafy green back yard and compose pithy prose while sipping iced tea.

But instead I'm stuck inside, a captive of air conditioning and staring at the same four walls I look at when it's winter and I'm longing for summer and complaining about ice!

In a couple of weeks we leave for a vacation in Santa Fe. It's a place we've never been to before, so each day will present new adventures and new things to write about. And, because we are renting a house with a kitchen, I'm planning to hit up the farmer's market and turn out a pie with a southwestern flair.

Of course, I also plan to write. Perhaps a piece for each day we are gone - perhaps a piece about pie!

Mobbing

Our family was sitting around the campfire at a cottage in Irons, Michigan, overlooking Maple Lake. It was early evening, not dark yet, when our conversations were interrupted by birds making a fuss high in the tree branches over our heads.

I was the first to notice it and I looked up at them three or four times before I remarked on it to the others. There were a lot of small birds squawking and flying back and forth in an alarmed matter.

We got up from our chairs and walked around trying to figure out what was happening and it didn’t take long to see the problem. A large spotted barred owl was perched on a branch high up in an oak tree.

About twenty birds were chirping madly and flying quickly back and forth past him. From down on the ground I could see that at least some of the birds were robins, but they were to far away for me to see if all of them were.

Then we saw something strange. A few of the birds, as they flew by, would dip low enough to strike the owl. This happened over and over again; we could see the feathers ruffle up with each hit, but the owl remained unperturbed. He did not make a sound. Occasionally he would fly to a different branch, but never very far away. He was silent and patient.

Later, when I asked a friend of mine (an avid birder) about it, she said it was something called “mobbing” and was often done to birds of prey by smaller birds, even though, as in this case, the owl was no danger to them or their territory.

Eventually we grew tired of watching, returned to our seats and broke out the som’ more supplies. As it got darker the frantic chirping gradually stopped as the torturers went to roost. As we sat around the fire, quiet and tired from a full day, we listened to the frogs croaking on the lake.

And from somewhere in the tall trees that surrounded us, we heard the owl call out.

Denise Kalin Tackett
July 10, 2010 – journal entry

Copper Top

July 1 marked a new time for me. A time I can put aside the trials of dealing with my mother's passing and closing her estate and begin concentrating on my writing again.

It also marks a time when I broke open my packed-away novel and began putting some serious effort to finishing it before the end of the year.

The working title is "Copper Top" and it's a "cozy" mystery set in the Southwest Michigan area where I live. It's about a young woman who is trying to become a mystery writer, but in the meantime works in a place that is a combination bakery and yarn shop, named "Copper Kettle Yarn and Bake Shop." She happens upon a mystery that is decades old and figures it can't hurt to look into it.

I've been working on this on and off (mostly off) for about three years, but I still love the characters and the plot - it deserves a fair shot at me finishing it. So I am fitting in time each week among my other writing projects to move it forward - 2,500 words a week - 10,000 words a month.

I've also decided to use the main character, Margo Lee Booker, as the central person for the series of short stories I'm writing for my Writing Quartet project of "birds." This way I can explore the personality of Margo a little more while I'm deep in the process of putting her through the paces in the novel, and still satisfy my monthly writing requirement for the Quartet (which, if you remember from an earlier post, has to include a bird somewhere in the text).

It feels good to just let my mind wander into these other worlds of my writing and not have to worry quite so much about the world I'm actually living in.

Summer Solstice

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and all day I kept thinking about how, when the kids were young I would try to celebrate both this day, the first day of summer and the last day of summer, with a picnic.

It got a little more challenging as they got older and we were often tied up with some sports event on one or both of those days, but I tried my best for as long as I could. It's been a long time now since we went on a picnic of any kind and I miss that.

I'm hoping that once I get my mother's estate settled and my own house organized and less of a jumble - I will be able to have a much less over-booked and frantic life - one that includes time to sit on the deck and write, one that includes camp fires in our backyard, and one that includes picnics!

Father's Day

Sloan & Tom
photo from Sloan's senior tennis season, spring 2008


It's been twenty-one years since my own father passed away, so it has been a long time since I celebrated the day as a daughter. But I have lived through 29 years of Father's Days with the man who is my children's father. This week, as we get ready to celebrate another, I am thinking about the men in my life who are honored on this day.

My father was a hard-working man who devoted his life to his family, although he didn't relate to his children all that much, especially me, his only daughter. I never remember just having a chat with my father. We had serious conversations about serious topics, we had offhand conversations in passing, we had disagreements which would sometimes end in shouting on his part and tears on my part - but I don't remember just sitting and talking to him about my life. And I don't remember him being particularly interested either. There was no doubt he loved me, but to this day I don't believe he understood me - or wanted to.

In many ways my Tom is like my Dad. He too works hard and devotes himself to our family. He doesn't like chicken, he doesn't pick up his laundry, he likes to watch stock car races on TV.

But, unlike my father, he is a Dad with a passionate interest in his three children - including our daughter, whom he may not always understand due to gender difference, but he sure does want to!

From the very beginning he wanted to be a part of their lives and activities, even when we had to take books out of the library to learn soccer before he had to coach our oldest son's first team! In addition to soccer - year after year, child after child - he coached baseball, softball, YMCA basketball, and one season of rocket football. When the kids got to a point where they played sports in school, he came to nearly every game, and together we were passionate boosters, with him doing the lion's share of the heavy lifting!

At home he remodeled our modest house over and over as the kids grew up, trying to give them the space they needed. He put aside the activities he loved to do, golfing, photography and travel, because they were too expensive while we had a family to raise. He took multiple trips to Disney World and Cedar Point because the kids enjoyed them more than a walk through the wilderness.

Now the kids are grown up and we are spectators to their lives, but he still stays involved and worries about them constantly. We conjure up ways to be with them.

Max & Nolan

This year he celebrates his first Father's Day as a grandfather and gets to share the day with our son Max, who has a five month old son of his own. I watch Max as a father and I know he's learned a lot of what he does from watching his own Dad.

Happy Father's Day, Tom. I'm proud and happy to have watched you with our children over the past many years, and look forward towards many more.

Full Moon Writing

Photo by Tom Tackett for "From the Desk - Writings under a Full Moon" (left to right) Ali, Emily, Sue, Denise



I have belonged to a small writing group of four women for about three years or so. In the past year we have been working on pieces of writing about the full moons, which have a different name each month. The challenge was to come to the group with a piece of writing about the moon.

During this year we all faced trying times and sometimes did not get our assignments done in the exact month they were due - but eventually we all finished our work and will be publishing this book of writing in the next few weeks.

We'll introduce the book to the public at the gallery opening reception of Ali's retrospective of a lifetime of her art work - which includes these written pieces in the "moon" book. The reception takes place at the Box Factory for the Arts in St. Joseph, Michigan on July 30.

It has been so much fun working on this project with these creative women and I'm so looking forward to seeing it in the printed form. (Ali is creating special artwork for both the cover and the title pages for each of our sections in the book.)

We've recently added a fifth member to the group, Judy, and we've decided to begin another year-long group project - this one with the theme of "birds." We can write anything we want - but a bird has to appear in it somewhere. Sounds like a challenge (not so much for Sue, who is an avid birder) and we begin next month when we meet at Ali's for our July session. (And no, I won't be tweeting!)

I'll write more about this as we progress. Bye, bye birdie!

Pearl Moon of Loss and Remembrance

This is a dedication essay from the Full Moon book the members of my quartet are writing. We have decided to dedicate it to our mothers, and here's my offering:

The full moon coming in the last week of May 2010 finds me struggling with a whole new set of emotions as I go through my mother’s house after her death to finish writing the last chapter of her life for her.

Ten years ago, already a widow for a decade, she sold the house where my brothers and I grew up, built a brand new one and then decorated with all new furniture. I have no emotional connection to the house or any of its furnishings, so the thought of selling it to someone new is not difficult. Neither is going through all her clothes, many of them only worn a few times, or the dozens of pairs of shoes or the mounds of costume jewelry or the new dishes and pots and pans. All of that is just the flotsam and jetsam of a woman who was fortunate enough to be comfortable in her retirement years.

It is the other things that I come upon that cause me to stop in my tracks and wait for the wave of grief I know will come. The notes written by my children and carefully tucked in unexpected places; the recipe cards written in her hand and stained from years of use; the one carnival ware dish from her grandmother, miraculously kept safe from the growing pains of her five children.

In her jewelry case I found her wedding bands from fifty years ago, worn so thin that they were replaced with a new ring long ago. These original bands, bought by desperately poor 18 year-olds, were carefully preserved in their original case, the socket where the tiny diamond sat empty, pulled to put into an arrangement in the new ring. Only a few months ago my mother pointed that diamond out to me – still proud of its clarity and shine. Now, I posses both sets of rings. I put them together and they fairly throb with the ghostly remnants of their hope for the future.

Shortly after my parents were married, my mother gave birth to a daughter, She was born with a severe birth defect and only lived to be 12 days old. In the old cedar hope chest in the storage room of my mother’s house, I find a scrap book where notes and cards from a happy baby shower are pasted, followed by the death notices and sympathy cards and a ribbon from a funeral flower arrangement with the name “Theresa Ann” on it. She never spoke of these events unless I asked her about it, but there in the chest, next to the little white garment that was my christening dress three years after that first baby, was this scrapbook – now entrusted to me to keep.

When my father died I was already a grown woman with a family of my own. My parents lived in a split level which had two short sets of stairs, one going to the lower level and one going up to the bedroom level. Because the upper set was not set into the ground, they squeaked when anyone walked on them. When you lived in that house, you got to know who was coming down the stairs by the sound of the squeak. The day of my father’s funeral my mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table in the center level of the house. We could not see the steps from where we were sitting, but I heard someone coming down them, and that someone was my father. Of course, it was only a split second before I realized that he couldn’t be the one, but when no one came into view I couldn’t help feeling a little unnerved.

Later, I interpreted that as a sign from him that he was gone, but still near. After my mother died on May 1 this month I watched carefully for a similar sign from her and was disappointed when none seemed to be coming.

One hot day this week, 23 days after my mother passed, my daughter and I were working at the house beginning the clear out. Sloan was in the bedroom trying to sort through the mounds of jewelry my mother collected. She wasn’t one to buy or wear expensive pieces, but she loved costume jewelry and sorting it into some reasonable form for the sale was a challenge. When I sat down in the bedroom chair feeling weary and over-whelmed, Sloan handed me a flat, velvet presentation case and told me I might be interested in what was inside.

It was a pearl necklace.

All my life I have loved pearls. My husband has given me pearl earrings and a bracelet and this year for our thirtieth wedding anniversary, which is the pearl anniversary, he gave me a ring. But we could never afford to buy a pearl necklace, which I have coveted since I was a teenager. And here, in just an ordinary moment of an ordinary day, was the pearl necklace I’ve always wanted but never thought I would have. A necklace I never remember my mother receiving or wearing.

I took it out of the box and fastened it around my neck. The pearls felt heavy and cool against my skin. The perfect round orbs glowing like the full moon itself and I felt a sense of peace ease around my heart.

And that was my sign that mom is near.

Denise Kalin Tackett
May 27, 2010

Buffalo Jam

This is another essay from my National Park Series and a photo I took at Yellowstone

They seem out of place in our modern world, a holdover from a time people needed the meat from such large beasts, but there are buffalo everywhere in Yellowstone.

Some are in herds like the one we stopped to see on a quiet early morning, but many are in groups of three or four. Sometimes just one will come moseying down the road or lie like a dark boulder in a field or stand like a sculpture set among a clump of trees.

This ancient mammal was almost killed off by greedy white people who really didn’t know better, or care, but today these animals are safe within the park boundaries. Now they must live as they once did taking their chances against nature and weather and predators and the occasional careless motorist.

We snap photo after photo of these lumps, as dark brown against the yellow grasses as dark chocolate wrapped in a gold tissue, and as usual when there’s an animal visible from the road, a car jam begins to form. At Yellowstone the sight of any animal can cause a jam. Once you’ve been there awhile, you learn to stop whenever you see a car on the side of the road with their occupants staring into the distance.
“I think it’s a bear – see that dark spot moving on the far hill?”
Or
“There’s a buffalo in the trees by the river!”
Or
“A big elk with huge antlers just ran over that hill.”

Because Tom is a landscape photographer and not especially concerned about capturing photos of wildlife, we are often the cause of mini-jams ourselves. People would pull off the road next to our car and look eager until they realize Tom’s camera is pointed at the scenery and there’s not a critter in sight. So, they get back into their cars and drive off, no doubt a bit disappointed.

In the nearby town of Cody we visit galleries where large photographs of Yellowstone’s animals are on display and for sale. We wondered how much time a person would have to spend in Yellowstone to capture just the right shots of these animals.

But we didn’t have to wonder who was doing it. Throughout the park, as we were stopping to look at the sites, a car or pickup truck would pull up and someone, usually a man, would get out holding a camera with a huge, long lens and fire off a few quick shots if an animal was in sight. If there wasn’t one, he wasted no time getting back into his vehicle and racing off to the next location.

It is perhaps a way to make a living, but not in the spirit of the park, which exists to preserve nature and wildlife and shouldn’t be rushed through like another day on the clock.

A New Resolve

One of the things people close to my mother said to me during the recent visitation and funeral was that she was a talented artist, but she never felt confident about it - she just never felt anyone else would think that about her.

It's true that she did have a wonderful artistic eye and she was successful at pretty much any kind of art she tried - but I think she was hampered by her own self-confidence. She was self-conscious her whole life about having to quit high school to go to work to help her family, and I think she believed only someone more educated and formally trained would have the right to declare herself an artist.

I’ve been thinking about this for several days now and it occurs to me that I am treating my creative writing the same way. Although I did go to college and worked in some form of commercial writing for many years; I’ve made it a life-long habit to hide away my creative writing and share it with only a few, carefully chosen friends. Although it would mean the world to me to be recognized in the greater world as a creative writer, I have also had to battle with my self-confidence.

My mother would hate that. She was always one of my biggest supporters when it came to my writing (although I seldom shared it with her either). She and my Dad worked so hard to send me to college – the first in my family to do so. Although she found it hard to promote herself, she would have been the first one to tell me to be brave and give it a try – after all, I have very little to lose and so much to gain.

When I gave the information to the funeral director for Mom’s death certificate, I made sure her profession was listed as “artist” instead of “homemaker”, knowing full well that if she were alive it would make her squirm, even though it was the truth. I have a hope that future generations doing genealogy research will look at that certificate and get a more accurate picture of the person she really was. And, by the same token, when I come to the end of my time I hope someone will list me as “writer.”

Now, I will honor my mother by working hard to make it true.

Memories of Mom

It's been 12 days now since my mother passed away and I'm beginning to put aside the sadness and helplessness I felt during her final weeks and think about the wonderful woman she was to me and to her family and friends.

This photo is one I snapped at Sloan's high school graduation, on a beautiful day nearly two years ago, before Mom got sick. It's a picture of the two women that mean the most to me; like bookends on each side - one a generation older, one a generation younger. We were a threesome of like souls.

Sloan and I will honor my mother's spirit and life in the coming months by going through her house and belongings and finding them new homes. And by putting her memory in the proper place of honor. It doesn't dwell in her house or in her "stuff", it belongs in our hearts and the two of us will cherish that the rest of our lives.

Pie Disasters

This weekend I went to a quilt retreat in Shipshewana, Indiana. It's a town that's famous for its Amish population and its good food, not the least of which is pie. Unfortunately, I was pie disappointed twice! At lunch on Saturday I ordered a piece of strawberry/rhubarb pie and got this horrible concoction with a half-inch of crumbs on top and the rhubarb encased in a thick custard on the bottom - it was inedible!

At dinner I thought I would be rescued with a piece of raspberry pie, but was served a slice of some kind of gook with two inches of pudding and about a quarter inch of raspberry smeared on the soggy bottom shell - again - inedible! I wanted to cry.

Where is a slice of good old-fashioned baked fruit pie? I'm not picky: peach, raspberry, apple, cherry - just about anything would do.

Of course I realize that I was probably over-reacting to this pie situation because my mother's death is still so raw and fresh on my mind. I feel helpless to change anything about that - and I take it out on the pie, knowing full well that, at least at lunch, I could have ordered a different slice and it would have been fine.

When I came home today, Tom and I went out to eat and it was so hard. Everywhere we went, the restaurants were full of people taking their mothers out to dinner for Mother's Day. Not only was I not able to do that for my mother, my own children were not available to do it for me.

I know I'm sounding sorry for myself, but there was no pie at that dinner either. Perhaps that would have changed everything, but on the other hand, there are some things not even pie can make right.

Sloan in the Garden

I was able to finish writing all my "even day" poems during April despite, or perhaps because of, my mother's illness. It seems the only thing I could do during this strange month was write. Here's one about our daughter written on April 10.

Sloan in the Garden

Sloan is in the garden.
She empties the pots,
chops down weeds,
tills the ground.

She cleans the tools,
rakes the old leaves,
piles up winter debris,
plans which plants to grow.

Inherited from my mother,
and skipping a generation,
this need to make things grow,
not minding the heat, dirt, bugs.

Sloan readies the garden,
on a warm, sunny April day,
even though it’s four weeks
until plants can feel the ground.

She looks ahead, she plans the future.

Final Times

My mother passed away early this morning, May 1, May Day.

It's ironic that this is one of the days I always loved when I was a kid and each year I presented her with a May basket of wild flowers in a container fashioned from construction paper and an old tin can.

So, I give this thistle to my mother today, a wild flower that grows in the fields where we live, and a weed that the artist in her loved for the sheer beauty of its shape and color. An acknowlegement that sometimes life is full of prickers and things that hurt, but overall it's a beautiful gift.

This is something she knew all too well, and a lesson I need to keep in mind over the next few days and weeks as I adjust to a life without her calming presence.

Rising Sun, Setting Sun

I drove East early today.
The clouds were dark against the sky
as if they were in mourning,
but the sky itself was bright orange
streaked with pinks and blues.

I drove alone over back roads,
past the trees full of blossoms,
past yards green and needing mowing,
past fields dark and ready to plant.
Winding roads with no other cars.

I drove forty-five minutes to South Bend,
where I joined my four brothers
in our mother’s hospital room.
“Hi Honey,” she said when I came in.
She was glad to see me.

I drove to the hospital to hear the doctor
tell us what we have feared,
that he’s done all he can,
there’s no more treatment, no more hope.
She is ours now, as she always has been.

I drove back the long way over quiet roads.
We will bring her home, make her comfortable,
stay with her, as she has stayed with us.
Tonight the sky glowed orange once again,
as the sun slowly settled into the lake.

Counting my Blessings

Auntie Sloan and Nolan

Sometimes when life is heading down a difficult path, I need to stop and remind myself that, no matter how scary things are, my life is also full of blessings. Two of the many are my beautiful daughter, who has always been the shining light in my life, and my adorable grandson, who has so many wonderful things ahead of him.

Annie Oakley Recollects

The week of April 18 is "Cowboy Poetry Week" and this is the one I did to share with my writing group.

Annie Oakley Recollects
I was just a little bit of a thing,
but I took no guff from any man.
I learned to shoot to help my ma,
but I entered that shootin’ match with a plan.

I beat Frank Butler fair and square,
then joined his act and went on tour.
It wasn’t long before we fell in love,
and we both kept shootin’ straight and sure.

We signed up with Buffalo Bill Cody,
he called me “Li’l Missie.”
Sitting Bull called me “Little Sure Shot”
but nobody called me “sissy.”

I shot cigarettes out of Frank’s mouth,
my shooting skills made quite the scene.
We toured swanky places in the East,
then sailed abroad to meet the Queen.

I shot with Winchesters and Colts,
Smith & Wessons were equally fun.
I liked to tell people all the time,
“don’t trust you life behind a cheap gun.”

For many years we travelled with the show,
I never lost my keen eye sight,
until a train wreck in North Carolina,
turned my hair white overnight.

It was time to retire I told my Frank,
and he agreed it was time to rest.
It’s funny that I spent my life as a cowgirl
but never once set foot in the West.


Denise Kalin Tackett
April 20, 2010

Snapdragons

During April Poetry Month I am writing a poem every even day of the month. Here's one I wrote for April 16








Snapdragons
There are snapdragons on my mother's table,
sent in a get-well arrangment.
They are wilting, the colors fading,
much like the woman they were sent to cheer.

When I was young she grew snapdragons in her garden.
She would bend over, her red hair shining in the sun,
and show me how to squeeze them softly,
to make their mouths open and close.
Standing on their sturdy stalks, the plump buds
snapped like dragons at play.

Now I look at these sad flowers arranged in a white basket,
hardly strong enough to stand on their own,
their lower buds withered and dried,
their upper buds can barely snap,
but I gently try each one,
anyway.

Daffodils for My Mother

I have not written much lately because of a difficult time in my life right now. My mother is critically ill as she battles cancer and seems to be traveling down a road from which she will not be able to return.

In the tradition of Charles Dickens, I have come to think of this spring in terms of "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Although my situation is certainly not as dire as the French Revolution, it is a way for me to cope with all that's going on.

The spring has been beautiful, with an early disappearance of snow and an early appearance of flowers, blossoms and warm weather. Daffodils ($1 a bunch!) are in roadside stands everywhere.

We have been blessed with a new baby boy grandson, Nolan, who is 3-1/2 months old as I write this, and he's so perfect.

But all this is shadowed by my mother's illness. Watching this once vital woman fade away. Watching her lie in her bed and tell me she just feels miserable, and both of us feeling so helpless to change it.

I am her only daughter, I have given her her only granddaughter. We have a strong bond. We like each other. I have always felt I could handle anything that came my way because she was there to back me up. It is difficult for me to think that may not be the case for much longer.

When I hold Nolan, his warm little body curling into mine, his soft baby hair against my cheek, I know that life is meant to go on. That I can not save her by my sheer force of will. I know it is out of my hands, it's up to a higher force. But I still can't accept that, I can not imagine the hole I would have in my life.

All I can do is be with her as much as possible. To buy her bunches of flowers to brighten her room. To let her know I am there, even if she must travel to that place she must go to alone.

Embracing Caution

"Bright Angel Trail" by Tom Tackett

Here's the introduction to my National Park Collection:







Embracing Caution
When I was growing up in Southern Michigan I roamed the ravines and woods around our house without fear; observing the seasons, enjoying the wildflowers, thrilled with the wild creatures. As I became older, my life definitely became one where I spent nearly all my time indoors, first with school and working and later adding a family that kept me confined in the house with chores that consumed my free time. It got to the point where the only significant amount of time I spent outside was watching the kids play sports and the occasional family picnic.

So, a little over twenty years ago when we finally got the opportunity and time to begin exploring the national parks, it felt like I was coming back to my true nature. Unfortunately, it was a more cautious nature than I remembered.

When Tom and I put together a book of his photos and some of my writing in 2009, a friend read my essays about travelling with my family and mentioned that she liked the image of me standing vigil over the children while we were in the wild. When I reread my own writing with her comment in mind, I see that she was, of course, correct. Each essay I wrote about travelling with any of my children is filled with the ghostly presence of me, hovering, ever vigilant, as they navigate the wilderness.

I’ve been reading the work of Terry Tempest Williams, a naturalist and writer who is my age and lives in the one place on the face of the Earth, besides Michigan, that Tom and I have taken into our hearts – the red rock canyons of Southern Utah.

She writes about hiking into the distant canyons, barely escaping flash floods, boating on the Colorado River, bathing naked in warm mud pools, all while fighting the good fight to save these wild places. She is spiritually connected to the land and the mystical beliefs of the native people there. Although we have only met through her books and we live nearly fifteen hundred miles apart, I feel we are almost kindred souls.

Almost, except for one major difference – although she also has been married for a long time, she made the conscious decision to not have children.

While she devoted her life to nature and spiritualism, I made a pact with a different kind of muse – the kind that delivers mounds of laundry, fussy babies, worrisome teens, empty bank accounts. And, like a mother bear protecting her cubs, caution was woven into my soul, and there it stays.

When I wrote a poem for this collection called “Boys on the Edge” about two young men acting foolishly at the Grand Canyon and my gut reaction when I saw them, I found myself thinking later about how Terry would have reacted to the same scene.
Without that maternal quirk ingrained in her nature, would she have felt as protective? Or would she, a woman who has taken a few tumbles into canyons herself and lived to write about it, think that they had the right to enjoy the canyon as they wished, no matter how dangerous?

So, I'll continue my journey to explore and absorb the mountain and canyon country that’s so different from this place where we choose to live. I’ll do this despite all my limitations which include: being from the Midwest, having tricky knees that keep me firmly on main roads and trails, but most of all, having an over-riding sense of caution in a place that’s still wild, still dangerous.

I know with all my heart that there’s room for both of us: Terry, the thoughtful, adventurous, naturalist; and Denise, the slow, careful, observer. And we can meet in the middle on the page, where we both write about the land we love.

Denise Kalin Tackett
March 16, 2010

Harvest Moon

Here's an example of one of my full moon essays from the collection my writing quartet is pulling together and will publish the end of July. We wrote one for each month of the year.

Harvest Moon of October
On a beautiful, crisp October evening I pulled on a red sweatshirt and headed to the stadium. Dodging excited teenagers, perky cheerleaders and well-armed trombone players, I made my way to our reserved seats right on the 50-yard line. I settled in and got my bearings by taking attendance: husband on sidelines with camera – check! No. 1 son milling around with the rest of the football team – check! No. 2 son and daughter ensconced with friends and ignoring the fact I exist – check! check!

I sat back to relax and saw a bright orange Harvest moon hung low in the sky behind the visitor’s stands. I knew this would be a magical night. Going to a football game at Lakeshore is an event full of band music, cheerleaders, pompon girls, boys with bodies painted red who run up and down the sidelines carrying huge flags and fireworks whenever the home team scores.

But all of that pales in comparison to how I feel when I watch my children play sports. All three of them played a variety of things when they were growing up, but by the time they got to varsity level in high school, they each settled on one sport to concentrate on - our oldest son played football, our second son played soccer and our daughter played tennis. All of them were very good at their sport, but none of them were superstars, for which I am very thankful.

Until I had children I never knew how proud of another person I could be. I was happier and more excited about their achievements than anything I could ever manage to do myself. I would sit and watch them on the field, the pitch, the court, and I would try to contain myself; after all, modesty is a much-valued Midwestern trait. But inside I was bursting with a mix of anxiety and pride and I watched their every move like a stalker.

I didn’t really care if they won or lost – although truth be told, winning was so much more fun for all of us. What I loved was to see them practice those values that seem so out-of-fashion these days: good sportsmanship, trying their hardest, supporting their teammates, grace under pressure. All of them managed to do this throughout their years of playing sports and I think that’s a fine base on which to build the rest of their lives.

That night I sat in my stadium seat watching my first born and felt both happy and sad while the frantic activity swirled all around me. I couldn’t imagine it would get better than this and I didn’t want this time to end. But the truth was, we would have many more of these times in the coming years as our children grew up – month after month, year after year, doing us proud under the Harvest Moon.

Denise Kalin Tackett, October, 2009