Author: kcmoyer65

The snow began about three pm on Friday, as predicted, falling softly at first. It fell all night, and into the next day. The initial soft dry flakes changed to tiny icy flakes, and the snow continued to pile up. It covered the streets and the sidewalks, the patios and decks. It buried the cars and the shrubbery and all the outside furniture. It turned familiar landscapes into mysterious vistas. It fell for over thirty-six hours and deposited two or more feet to northern Virginia. It hushed our noisy world and stopped our usual lives. For a time, everyone turned inward to their homes and lives, cooking pots of chili and chicken stew, playing board games, binge watching television shows.

And then on Sunday the snow had stopped and the sun was shining, and people emerged to begin the big dig out, with shovels and snow throwers and leaf blowers. Plows were slow in coming, but people dug out their cars from the two foot snow caps that crowned them, and shoveled driveways for hours. Neighbors helped neighbors, potluck parties blossomed. Children and dogs frolicked in the snow, and as the snow grew softer, the children built snow forts and snow caves and sled runs. So did the adults. Gradually as the snow plows arrived to clear suburban streets, people were released back to their ordinary lives.

I watched the snow fall on my hilltop, and shoveled my walkways on the first night of the snowfall, and ran the snowblower on the walks multiple times even during the height of the storm.. I watched my world outside fill up with snow, until the tree stump that held the sundial disappeared and the woodpile that I had assembled for my fireplace changed into a small mountain of snow explored by the house wrens and English sparrows and chickadees.

When the snow stopped and the sun came out on Sunday, I, too, went outside to start clearing the snow from my truck, but I was in no hurry. I knew it would be a long time before the county snow plows cleared my country road, and then I would have to find a crew to plow my driveway. No rush. I had all the essentials—food, drink, firewood, projects to do, books, videos, cats—to be comfortable on my hilltop for days. I would be fine, I said to family and friends.

But today five days after the storm began, I realized what I have been missing deep in my heart: people. I have not seen another human face—not a single one— since I left the community center on Friday morning after my water aerobics class. That is almost five days. Thanks to the telephone and Internet, I have had communications with family and friends—telephone calls, e-mail, text messages, Facebook postings— but I have seen no one in five days. Such a difference to past major snow storms here, when Bill and I shared the adventure together, riding the storm out together.

I am isolated, due to this historical storm, and it made me think tonight about how people are isolated in other ways—by prisons, by mental illness, by the lack of friends. One of the worst things in a human’s life must be solitary confinement, and I am grateful that President Obama is making changes to that punishment for young people who are imprisoned. Humans are social animals, and cannot be happy alone. I now can better understand a person who might talk to a basketball on a desert island. I am talking to my cats, and to myself.

I am here tonight on my Snow Island on top of my hill, with gradually melting snow criss-crossed by the slender feet of birds, printing a delicate language that our brains think we should be able to decipher if we just stared a little harder, a little longer, and by the furrows of the deer, as they waded through the deep snow, and by the deep, widely spaced, prints of the red fox. The Snow Moon rises over the hill and casts its cold light over the drifts and the snow covered hollies and azaleas. I am grateful this is not a desert island, and I am not a castaway, and in a few days or so, I will see a human face again.

December 1, 2015

This falls into that category: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.

Last March, when I was recovering from my total knee replacement surgery and feeling housebound and despondent, I decided to extend my November trip to Central America with a few days at a beach resort in Belize. Originally I would have been returning home two days before Thanksgiving, after spending almost two weeks following “The Route of the Maya” through El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. But then Overseas Adventure Travel modified the itinerary and added two days to the trip—meaning that I would be flying home late on Thanksgiving Day, returning to a dark and empty house.

That thought was depressing, and in addition for a long time I had wanted to snorkel off the reef that runs along the coast of Belize. So I researched on the Web and found a small resort at the north end of Ambergris Caye that was close enough to the reef to offer wade-in snorkeling. Tranquility Bay Resort was miles from the town or any other resort and only accessible by boat. So I booked four nights in a one-bedroom casita facing the ocean. I would be alone, but I am used to being alone. I would be fine. I was a bit nervous about disobeying the cardinal rule about never swimming alone, but thought there would be others in the water.

On November 26th, I said good-bye at the Belize City airport to the fifteen other travelers in my small group, boarded the ten-passenger airplane to Ambergris Caye for the fifteen minute flight, and took a taxi to the wharf.

The resort’s small boat bounced on the rough waves for the fifteen miles up the coast, coming down and smacking the ocean hard. I held on and admired the passing coast and a dolphin that plunged out of the water. Finally, the boat slowed and veered into the dock and a small cluster of buildings on a dock. We had arrived. 

It was noon on Thanksgiving Day. The white casitas with brightly painted trim were charming. Lounge chairs sat in the shade of the palm trees, facing the blue ocean. Well, the blue and brown ocean. There had been a storm the night before, and sand and dirt were suspended in the water. The wind was blowing hard, not the best snorkeling conditions so I did not go in.

That night the resort offered its guests a full Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie for dessert. I sat by myself at a table for four. One extended family took up a table for sixteen. There were other family groups and couples dining. It was the first time in my life that I had been alone at Thanksgiving. I tried to fill my mind with gratitude for all the Thanksgiving dinners of the past and be thankful that I had the means and energy to travel, but a sadness enveloped me. I missed Bill very much.

Somehow I had forgotten how much I dislike eating dinners alone in a restaurant, too. When I was traveling on business, if I could not eat with colleagues, I usually ordered room service. But that was not possible at this small resort. The next three nights I read the news on my cellphone while eating the delicious seafood dinners. The two waiters provided good service and never neglected me, even though they were very busy.

During the day, I relaxed under the palm trees. I watched the birds and read my books. I tried snorkeling the second day and found myself gasping for air through my snorkel in the murky water. Not being able to see clearly had panicked me, and according to a husky neighbor, there were nurse sharks at the reef. Nurse sharks are considered non-aggressive, but I did not want to meet one in the murk. The third day there was no one on the beach or in the water, so I took a quick swim and did not try to snorkel.

Finally on the fourth and last day, the water was clearer and calmer and I was able to spend some time snorkeling around a small coral head and watching a wide variety of fish there. The reef was still a long way out (you can see where the waves are breaking in the photo), and my new knee was complaining about the weight of the fin so I did not try to swim out to it. Besides, being alone in the water made me nervous. My neighbors in the casita next door had seen me go in the ocean which was a bit reassuring. I should have signed up for a snorkeling excursion with the resort, but I was worried that my knee would not hold up.

Do I regret the decision to go this tropical paradise? No. It was beautiful and relaxing. I now can check off “Belize coast” on my bucket list. But I also realize that being a solo traveler in a small group is much different than being a solo traveler in a small resort setting. And next time I go snorkeling, I need a buddy.

Bill and I used to divide the worrying. He would worry about the big things such as international events and I would worry about family and friends. When he was diagnosed with cancer, we both worried about his cancer. At least, I know I did. He did not worry visibly.

Now that he is gone, I do all the worrying. Right now I am worrying about my swimming pool which I had renovated beginning on September 4th. It was a large and complicated project involving replacing the tile at the water line, installing a new main drain, replacing the two underwater lights, and applying a new exposed pebble finish to the old plaster. I watched and worried throughout the project, remembering the problems Bill and I had when the pool was built twenty years ago: the electrical wires that were not installed in conduit per the contract and that had to be dug out and redone; the stone coping that suddenly switched from large rocks to small rocks and had to be chipped out and replace with more large stones. This fall the masons cut a large hole down through the concrete right to the dirt to make a space for the new rectangular main drain (a safety feature.) I watched with apprehension and went to bed worrying. Would the pool be water tight now?

Finally the day came for the new finish to be applied to the bottom and sides of the pool. It looked navy blue. Was that going to be the color of the pool, I worried? The following day the crew returned and with a power washer and acid scoured off the top layer of cement to reveal the shiny black pebbles and tiny glass beads of blue and bits of white shells. It was beautiful and while the water truck filled the pool with water, I relaxed and smiled. The project was finished.

But the next day I noticed white blotches on the bottom of the pool, in the shallow end. That was four weeks ago, and the pool company still is trying to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it. I am upset and angry and I worry a lot. One of my friends told me not to worry, but it is hard not to, particularly when I have to go down to the pool and brush it twice a day and check the water balance.

So I have come up with a technique which seems to be helping. Every time I start to worry about the pool, I imagine a very large clear balloon and I put the pool inside that balloon, then cut the string and watch it float away.

There are a lot of those balloons out there right now; take a look and maybe you will see one.

June 5, 2015

Fifty years ago today I walked down the aisle of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.  I was wearing a floor length ivory wedding dress and veil and I held the arm of my father dressed in his blue Army uniform. I was not at all sure I was doing the right thing, but I did not see backing out as an option. By the altar stood Bill wearing his Navy dress whites. He was very thin and suntanned from serving on a U.S. destroyer off the coast of the Dominican Republic during its civil war.  I had seen him briefly on a weekend in February when he had been home on leave, but then not for four months. The day before the wedding he flew to Chicago from Norfolk, and we had had only a little time together before his college friends took him off for a stag party.  I was not at all sure who this stranger at the altar was. He seemed very constrained and rigid the day before, and the sense of humor that had so appealed to me had been no where in evidence.

By Bill’s side stood his best man Steve and the minister.  Proceeding down the aisle before me were Gwyn my maid of honor, and my sister Kara-Lynn. They were wearing short white lace dresses lined with yellow and white lace kerchiefs on their heads, made by Gwyn and my mother. Even by wedding standards of the day, it was a simple wedding. I was paying for most of the expense myself, out of my savings. I had graduated from college in May and then had worked for a month in the drama department; Gwyn and I had stayed in a our rental apartment, but for the past week we had been packing up our things. The day before we had loaded my boxes into Bill’s mother’s car.

Now I was at the altar, and when my father gave my hand to Bill, I was reassured by Bill’s warm brown eyes. The man I loved was there, under the disguise of this young thin Naval officer. My father sat down next to my mother in a front pew.  My parents and sister had flown in from Oregon and had met Bill for the first time the day before.

 
Bill and I said the traditional vows: “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.” We exchanged the plain gold bands, and were declared man and wife. We walked down the aisle together while the organ played. Our life’s journey together had begun, and it would be one filled with babies and homes, tears and laughter, worries and triumphs, amazing adventures, and throughout all the years it would be a journey supported by steadfast love.