Why I Need the Sandhills Cranes, This Year Especially

If I had the money and time, I'd head down to Mexico this week to wander among trees filled with monarchs.  Short on both money and time, though, I am lucky to have a viable, awesome alternative--a morning with the cranes.  And, while I hate to dis on the butterflies, the cranes also come with an enviable soundtrack--that strange, guttural trill that both shocks and awes.

Avian shock and awe.  That's what I need right now.  A winged beast whose ancestor's 12-million-year-old bones have been dug up in western Nebraska.  A dinosaur with wings, whose 12,000-year-old memory pulls it to the Platte each spring.

I need the dependability of the cranes' return because this has been anything but a dependable year for me.  Too much ebb and flow, grief and joy, life and lamentation for someone who likes to keep things low key.

Come early Saturday morning, then--even before our most awesome newspaper carrier has placed the fragile remains of the Journal-Star on our steps--I will point my way westward, to the place where a half million birds wait in the shallows for the first signs of dawn, hunger and sky slowly rousing them.   I will hear them before I see them, holding my breath to slow my heart.

And when the sun begins to paint the sky?  Then, I will let the sight wash over me, winged waves framed by the notes of an ancient chorale as I calibrate my life again.

Tree of Life

All my life, I've had an affinity for trees.  Maybe even a bit of an emotional relationship with them, evidenced by my heartbroken reaction to a downed branch, a pile of sawdust where a tree had just been,  or the sight of the woody wounds of an hour with an LES crew.  What I love most about trees is their gutty resilience, their stoic patience that allows them to just stay put and have faith.  Not to mention how good-looking they are when they switch out their wardrobes!

(WARNING!  Corny life-lesson metaphor to follow! Do not proceed, if your stomach is feeble!)

For whatever reason, I have been surrounded by a forest of tree folk all my life--steady and fine and fun people who remain in my life with surprising consistency.  And, like the moment I first saw the cottonwood in the photo above, I am always taken aback by their good looks and admirable qualities, a bit amazed that I happened upon them at all.

 It's no wonder I have developed into a pretty decent tree hugger.  I mean, who wouldn't want to wrap her arms around all these good and dependable beings?!

At home, one tree in particular has tugged at my heartstrings this spring--a  spindly Japanese maple on the verge of holding its own in our flower garden.  Our fourth attempt to establish a woody presence in the garden, I have been rooting heartily for its success, in part, because of the painful memories of previous failures.  So, yesterday, as I gently ran my fingers along its emerging buds, admiring the new growth, I felt like I do when I've made a new friend--ridiculously excited and hopeful, anxious to help establish the roots.

Yeah, I'm a tree person.  A person person, too.

And I'm so glad that the sun is sticking around longer each day, that winter's cold air is being pushed out by something warmer. I'm happy that the birds have again found their songs, the trees have again begun flowering, and that good folks--old and new-- have stuck around, despite my hibernation.

Loving Life's Lesson Plans

I don't know most of the people in this photo, but I love the photo anyway.  In particular, I love it because of the bearded guy in the back row, who happens to be my son, Eric.  A student teacher at Southeast and a Slam Poetry coach at Lincoln High (this is the team the day after they won their first tournament!), Eric Carlson Holt is one of the best people I know.  While I'm sure some might consider that comment biased, it is actually an accurate statement.  Eric is funny and kind, smart as a whip and humble.  And these qualities can be confirmed by others who do not share his DNA.

To think that this fine man is on the verge of being a teacher is an awesome thought for me to consider.  And it should be good news to others, too, because we need as many good people in the world as possible, especially good people who are willing to work with teens.

While babies may always trump young adults in the "cute and squishy" department, it is hard for me to imagine a more satisfying experience as a parent than to witness your own children coming into full possession of themselves.  Both Eric and Allison are so much more than the sum of their parents' parts.  Smarter. Wiser.  More. . . themselves.  And I am happy to be the person in their rear-view mirrors, as they move into the lives they are meant to live.

I'm filled with gratitude both for whom my children (really, only "children" to Mark and me now) have become and for the fine folks who have mentored and encouraged them along the way.

Stepping out of the way isn't for sissies.  It can be dizzying and a bit scary.  But the view is fantastic--stretched out and beautiful.

Good Enough

Most people are good.  Granted, good people don't make for good television, but the fact still remains.

Most people are good.  

So, enough with all of the hating.  Time to give the vocal cords a rest and use our indoor voices. Rabid animals, after all, do not live long--or well--and seldom have playmates on the weekend.  Plus, all that anger makes you look like Monica Seles, mid-swing.

When I think about the thread that runs through and holds me in my life, it always comes back to good people.  At home, "good people" are family, the folks who've seen and smelled and heard me at my worst, yet who are still willing to call me "sister" or "wife" or "mom" or "daughter."  That is no small thing.

At school, "good people" are everywhere--from my funny and smart co-workers to the always-surprising students who wend their way through the library each day.  These are the folks who forgive me when my lesson falls flat, the ones who share their creative ideas, the people who fill me up at lunch with their funny stories and, sometimes, a nice piece of chocolate or two.

In my neighborhood, "good people" are like the hyacinths that poked out their purple heads this week--surprising and beautiful, inspiring and good-natured.  Oh, and they sometimes invite me to drink beer with them on their porches.  Or offer to walk to the park with me, even if they aren't dog people.  Crummy people would never do these things.

At my church, "good people" are the folks who end up in "hobo's row" with me, always quick with a smile or story. Or they are the ones standing in front of everyone, telling us that we are okay, as is. . . which is a nice message to hear in these judgy times.  Today, I lit a candle for some of the good people in my row, a couple whose son died a few years ago in an accident.  I was glad to send up a flame for him.  He was a good person, too.

Then, there are a bunch of "good people" who don't fit into the above categories, people who were once my neighbors, or classmates, or co-workers.  People I detassled corn with, in 1976.  Or played Scrabble with day before yesterday.  People with whom I grew up, got old, lived and loved and lost with. And all of them good.

It's possible I haven't been watching the presidential debates because I'm an uninvolved, unconcerned citizen.  A more likely explanation, though, is that I'm skipping the debates because there is too much vitriol and violence, too little laughter and love to be found in them.

It seems that some people want us to think the worst about this world.  I'm tired of scorched-earth rhetoric.  I refuse to feel hopeless, though, because I know a secret.

I know that most people are good.

Click here to listen to "Shine" by Tracy Bonham

Blinding Them with (Citizen) Science

I can see how an overwintered, acorn-filled squirrel could bend a tree branch, but monarch butterflies?! Yet, that's what is happening in Mexico right now.  Consider that the average monarch weighs about a half a gram.  Get millions of monarchs together, though, and their collective weight bends limbs downward.  For the second year in a row, monarch numbers have swelled upwards, signaling, perhaps, a resurgence, proof that maybe we can turn things around.

And that is a lesson worth repeating.

We can turn things around.

I think that's why I love citizen science, a movement that is rooted in amateur volunteers who want to make a difference.  It certainly has made a difference in my own life.

Since becoming a Master Naturalist two and a half years ago, I've done all kinds of things I never imagined I'd do. From feeding tiger-beetle larvae and documenting milkweed plants to helping with a prescribed burn at the foothills of the Bohemian Alps, I've been stretched and invigorated, educated and enlightened.  And, in small but real ways ways, I've also been able to make a difference in this beautiful world that holds me.

While it has often been true for me that the less I know, the more easily delighted I am when I bump into something that is new to me, in the past few years, I've also realized how much more beautiful the world can be when I have new words to describe it.

Long-horned milkweed beetle, aka Tetraopes tetraophthalmus.  Salt-creek tiger beetle, aka Cicindella nevadica lincolniana.  Prescribed burns, aka control lines, drip torches and flappers--oh, my!

We live in a beautiful, wild state and I have loved getting to know it even better these past few years.  I am so grateful that there are generous people out there who know so much more than I do yet never hesitate to mentor me along the way.  These people have pointed my family to eye-popping glacial rock fields in the Oglala Grasslands.  They have shown me how to geocache, against the backdrop of Halsey National Forest.  They've led me down the most beautiful 60-mile-long road I've ever seen (Highway 250 out of Rushville).  They've shown my daughter and me Ponca buffalo pasturelands. Let me help release the beetles I'd fed over the winter.  Introduced me to rare plants,  salt-eroded landscapes, virgin grasslands, tiny stars sleeping inside of Cottonwoods.

Just typing these words makes me feel better.

We can turn things around.  This I know to be true.