Adventure Mom

Morning Egg and You Can, Too Sunrise, Mt. Maunganui, NZ "The thought of later in the day having to explain to myself why I didn't run that morning is enough to get me out the door." - Linda Johnson                                  Light brushes my shoulders like a lover’s caress.  I’m running the beach in Mt. Maunganui.  Going. And  glowing.  Behind me, a large orange egg rocks atop an undulating gray-blue skillet. I’ve served myself the morning’s first egg with a side of sneakers.  Sunrise tastes delicious. My GPS watch (a gift from my late husband, Sean - the device has tracked mileage around the world) tells me it’s 6:30 am. I left the house just in time to catch the show. To Summit, or Not? My size 10.5 blue and gray Adidas trail runners pound packed sand  - 2.5 kilometers until Moturiki , Leisure Island. I exit the beach by jogging ...

For Finley on his Seventh Birthday Finley, my love, my baby, my only son – grin-giver, chaos-creator  – you, my boy, are seven. What does seven mean for you ? A third birthday without your dad. Second birthday in New Zealand. First birthday minus two front teeth. Who are you , at seven? You stand 47 inches (120 cm) tall and weigh 49 pounds (22.4 kg). You’re one of the smallest boys in your Year Two class at primary school.  You own a thatch of thick brown hair and recently cut your own sideburns. A spray of freckles stipples your button nose. Your cheeks lack their former ‘baby-man’ voluptuousness but remain round and soft. At least, that’s what I recall when you stop moving long enough to let me brush my hand across your face. Movement is your best friend. So’s Noise. You never travel without them. “Finley, do you ALWAYS have to make noise?” I’ll ask each morning at the breakfast table while you hum, sing, screech, chatter and squawk. ...

Raising the Lunch Bar Kiwi food processor that nearly took my hand off I battled a prehistoric Kiwi food processor for the first time today.  The 1960’s or 70’s Goldair beige contraption spit oats at me, then acted constipated when I fed her pitted dates. Even worse, she tried to amputate my hand. “Goldie” doesn’t like it when you try to separate her blade from her bowl (even when you twist to follow the arrow that says, ‘remove’). I took Goldie for a test drive because of my new obsession with energy bars. We recently exhausted our supply of calorie-dense, chocolate-peanut buttery, factory-processed rectangles smuggled in my luggage from the US (a bargain at 50 cents each). Similar confections in New Zealand cost three or four dollars. Bugger that, I’ll make my own. I mix my inaugural chewy squares using Pete’s Breville Motiv blender . Add one cup of oats, one-half cup of powdered milk, one-half cup of almonds, one-half cup of diced dried apricots …. Soon, food f...

The Affair Ohope Beach, NZ I had an affair last week. I’m not ashamed to tell you, either. It was sweet and sad. It made me laugh, cry, sigh and dance in my chair to James Brown and Rupert Holmes. My Kiwi PAHT-nah, Pete, even facilitated the tryst, though neither of us knew what to expect beforehand. Pete watched the kids while I was gone for five nights. Five whole nights.  No kids. No TV. No partner.  I enjoyed a dalliance with my late husband, Sean (though I should write instead, ‘dead husband,’ because Sean hated being late). It happened in a wood-paneled house across the street from the ocean, in Ohope Beach, New Zealand. I attended a writer’s retreat to work on the memoir. I revised six sections totaling more than 40,000 words. In the course of revising- subtracting old text and adding entries from letters Sean had written me when we first started dating, plus journal entries he wrote around the time Fiona was born - I fell in love again. With Sea...

Story Keepers How is it for you to be in the world? Grandma (Ellanore) Picken and Fiona - August, 2012 I’m 12 years old again. You devolve into a tween when your dad drives you to see Grandma. It’s an hour and-a-half of déjà vu en route from Ashtabula, Ohio to Cleveland’s West side. You’ve made the same trip all your life. Three decades later, you’re still making it. Only this time, you’re bringing three people you couldn’t have envisioned at age 12 – two you helped produce and one you’ve commandeered from 16 times zones away. We enter the building through a stone-pillared portico. Our entourage - Dad, me, Fiona, Finley and our Kiwi import, Pete (my PAHT-nah) - gradually hushes as we snake down the beige-carpeted hall. Dad points us to a door marked, “Ellanore Picken.” My grandmother told me years ago the midwife who delivered her couldn’t spell ‘Eleanor,’ hence, her name’s unusual spelling. Family and friends call her ‘Ellie.’ Grandma and Finley Caught in th...

Reunion August 3, 2012 Love at Spokane Falls His connection’s too tight. He’ll miss the flight. He won’t arrive ‘til tomorrow. He’ll be dead-tired. Do I have to spend another night without him? Negative prattle skitters through my head en route to Spokane’s airport. It’s just past ten pm. After four-and-a-half months of separation (broken only by my six-day jaunt to New Zealand), Pete (the PAHT-nah) and I will reunite. My stomach flips as the black-heeled sandals I’ve chosen for the occasion clickety-clack the deserted tiled hallway of the main terminal. I’d gotten a text: “Hey babe. At LAX” hours ago, so I knew Pete made it to the US. Will I really see him? Will he really be here?  After 17 Pete-less weeks, I was beginning to doubt his existence. Not because we didn’t message or talk online (we did – daily), but because I’d steeped in singledom so long. My six and eight-year-old dinner companions would inhale macaroni and cheese and sniff at salad before hu...

No Epiphanies, Please Faith, doubt, hippies and sugar snap peas in Canada She said 'No Mascara' God told me this morning to skip eye makeup. “You’re at family camp, for God’s, I mean, My sake. Besides, you’ll want to swim later. Forget it.” She was right. I thanked her later for the tip. I’m sitting at the outdoor chapel at Sorrento Centre, an Anglican retreat on the shores of Lake Shuswap, in the middle of British Columbia. The day is clear and bright – the sun can sear un-lotioned flesh, even at 9am. This is when I start crying. Fortunately, I’m wearing sunglasses (possibly another tip from her Almighty-ness, or from years of habit – I can’t be sure). I wasn’t even going to attend this service. I’m not here for an epiphany. I’m not making time for a spiritual experience. I want to write, run and do a load of laundry or two, because after five days on the road, the dirty clothes bag stinks. And I’ve neglected the writing. And I’m moving to New Zealand...