Quilt Success

My quilt, "Early Morning in Grand Teton National Park" made it into the Michiana Annual Art Competition and won an "honorable mention" in the fiber arts category.

It's always a little nerve wracking to enter contests, but I'm glad I pushed myself to design and sew this quilt.

Now if I can just push myself to finish the writing project that does with it!

Nolan's Spring Training

As each of our three children hit 5-years old we would sign them up for the tee-ball league, often volunteering to coach one of the teams ourselves, then spend a season of agony! Most of the kids (not ours of course!) had no concept of how to play the most basic game of baseball. Most of the kids couldn't hit a ball off a tee to save their lives - heck most of the kids couldn't even keep their hats on or stand in the outfield without sitting down to pick dandelions!

But our little Nolan doesn't seem to be heading down that path at all. We bought him this little baseball tee set and he can already whack that ball a fair distance. And although he does occasionally hit the tee - he's only 2-1/2 years old - just imagine what he'll be like when he turns five! He carries the name of a pretty famous baseball player, but it's a name our daughter-in-law chose - I'm not sure she even knew the baseball connection. But I can see the drive in Nolan. He's so much like his father: our son who never met a sport he didn't like.

For Easter Nolan got a tiny leather baseball mitt and the other day when he came over he brought it with him.  He shuffled through the stack of our old mitts that Tom had unearthed from the closet and found one he thought would work for me - then out we went to play catch. To be perfectly honest, I never once played catch with any of my own kids, but now that I'm a grandma, here I stand in the yard giving catching hints to a preschooler. "Keep your mitt down, keep your eye on the ball!"

He's losing any traces of the baby that he used to be such a short time ago. But that's okay, because I'm enjoying each step of him along the way. It won't be long before we're in the bleachers again!

Sloan's graduation

Earlier this month our whole family went up to East Lansing to see our daughter, Sloan, graduate from Michigan State University.  It was a fun time together - something we don't always get to do too often - and of course we were so proud of Sloan's accomplishment.

About a hundred years ago, when I was in high school and considering the almost unthinkable thing in my family - going to college - Michigan State University was where I wanted to go.  For some reason they never shared with me, my parents told me I had to stay home and start at our local community college. I don't know if they couldn't afford it, if they thought I was too immature to go away to school, or they didn't think I was smart enough to succeed - or a combination of all three.

All I know is that I went to community college and did very well there, but when it was time to transfer to a 4-year university, I bypassed Michigan State and chose a smaller state university instead because it wasn't so overwhelming.  Despite doing well at my chosen school, I have regretted my decision ever since.

Part of it was that my best friend from high school, Janice, went to Michigan State as a freshman and I thought she had a snooty attitude about it while I was tolling away in the "rinky-dink" community college - working and trying to save as much as I could and proving to my parents that I was worthy of making the jump to a university.

But a big part of it was that I really was afraid to go to that big school where I thought everyone else in my class would have had a two-year head start on me. I regret that I wasn't braver and far more confident.

So, I was very proud when our daughter decided that she could manage Michigan State from the start and probably over the last four years I have taken a bit too much pride in telling just about everyone I ran across that our daughter was at Michigan State.  But it is something to be proud of! She did very well. She's going to be a special education teacher.

She's never going to "bleed green and white" as so many MSU graduates seem to do for the rest of their lives - and I probably wouldn't have done that either. But it was thrilling to see her in her graduation gown and that graduation weekend will be a time I'll never forget.

Step by Painful Step

Sloan, Me and Tom somewhere in Utah
Here is the epilogue  essay from my National Park Project

I have a secret about my travels West.

The trips I write about in my National Park collection took place over a 23-year period of time, but there was a ten-year gap between our first trip and our second, and four more between the second and the next. It was with this third trip in 2003 that we started travelling to the West in earnest, trying not to let more than 18 months go by between excursions and sometimes managing two trips within a year.

It was also the start of the physical difficulties for me as my arthritic knees became increasingly painful until they got to the point where I was barely functioning at all. And that’s my secret. For nearly a decade I tried to enjoy the magnificence of these vast national parks, while mostly sitting on my butt!

The pain crept into many of the essays in this collection and I would refer to my knees as “creaky” or “tricky,” but those were just euphemisms. The truth was – they just hurt! Every single step felt like grinding. I was already making quite a few concessions – Tom would mostly go on hikes alone, or with our daughter, Sloan, if she was along. I would sit in the car, or on a bench, or on a rock and try to enjoy the scenery all around me – but it wasn’t the same as walking into those far off vistas. I spent time in the hotel room or in the lobby, writing or sewing – certainly enjoying myself – but not out in the park, not fully embracing what it had to offer.

On a trip to Santa Fe we visited El Santuario de Chimayo, described as the “Lourdes of America.” We entered the dim sanctuary and sat quietly, praying a bit for a miracle, before going into the room with a small pit holding rust-colored sand. I rubbed it on my knees and hoped for the best, but not even the Saints would help me out and there wasn’t any improvement to be had.

We put off scheduling trips to the west coast, to see all that California, Oregon and Washington had to offer, because the idea just seemed too exhausting to me. Even navigating airports was horrible. Airports are painful places for people with walking issues, especially when they are too proud to admit they really should use a wheelchair! I got to the point where I wondered if I could manage to go on many more of these trips we loved so much.

Finally my doctor asked me a simple question. Did I want to live in pain for several more years before I admitted that I needed knee replacement surgery? Or would I like to live those years without that pain? Put like that, the answer was obvious.

As I write this I have already had one knee done and will have surgery on the next in a few months. And the pain in my right knee, by far the worst one, is gone. Just simply gone! Already I feel so much better and I’m beginning to realize how much that pain colored and controlled my whole life, not just my travels.

We are taking this year off from traveling in the West to give me a chance to build up my strength, but after that we have ambitious plans, including a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, and those postponed trips to Yosemite and the Redwoods.

So, this is a good place to end this collection of work. I have produced the last piece of writing shadowed by my pain and limitations and look forward to truly being part of the experience of our National Parks.

More to come!


Denise Kalin Tackett

April 10, 2012