Haiku on the Beach

Last month, I posted some Facebook photos of a day at the Oregon coast. When my mother saw them, she wrote a series of Haiku poems to complement the pictures. Here is the complete set:

overcast morning
and wet sand – good walk
to reflect on


three graduate students
have refined skills to build
sand castles


fish ‘n’ chips
and clam chowder on the deck
beach fare


petunias
and umbrella – mom and daughters’ smiles
beach color


craggy rocks
topped with crowds of murres
habitat haven


in afternoon sun
dune shadows on silver sand
cast moving patterns


these days a hand
from granddaughter makes dune climbing
fun again


sail boat reflection
wavers on water – no barrier
to swimming sea gull


railroad trestles
historic reminders of trains carried
a century ago


this bridge spans miles
and connects three generations
with fond memories

When I was small, we spent several summers in Newport. My dad was a marine biologist, and I grew up visiting tide pools. My mom has always claimed I knew a sea anemone from a sea urchin before I knew a horse from a cow. And no matter how hard my parents tried to distract me, I always noticed the Newport Bridge. Whatever I was doing, I’d stop and burst into song: “London Bridge is falling down….”

So, yes, the bridge unites three generations – even though my daughters never met their grandfather.

(Haiku by Betty McCauley; photos by Jane Thomas)

Hiking While Rome Burns

I’ve had this title in mind for weeks. Originally, I planned to use it right after a separate posting on this year’s backpacking, which began in the midst major national debt struggles. What I didn’t expect was that the forest itself would be burning just west of us, with giant clouds of yellow smoke.

This wasn’t the first time we’d hiked while forests burned. In 2003, Rhiannon and I circled Oregon’s South Sister during fires in the Jefferson Wilderness, just to the north. As we hiked the Pacific Crest Trail under sunny skies, we remembered places we loved, now disappearing in flames.

What can we do when chaos threatens? Do we glue ourselves to the television? Or do we hike the Three Sisters while Jefferson burns? This year the chaos has been ongoing, from threats of government shut-downs to actual cancelation of summer school at my college. Disaster looms all around. And still I hike, though sometimes I wonder why.

This was also the first backpacking of my sixties, twenty-one years since the original trip when Rhiannon was ten. Hiking, I’m slow. My body aches; I sense the passing of time. I recycle old questions: What am I doing here? Am I actually enjoying this? And yet, all year I plan for this annual hike.

Sunday, the first day, went fairly well. On Saturday we’d acclimated ourselves by driving up to the bristlecone pines, walking at 11,000 feet. The next morning, we drove back down the Owens Valley and up some amazing zigzags to the Cottonwood Pass trailhead at about 10,000 feet, south of the main Sierra in the Golden Trout Wilderness.

Switchbacks led up through foxtail pines, closely related to bristlecones. It was tempting to photograph every golden snag. I was slow; Rhiannon came back to carry my pack up the last stretch to 11,200 feet. We then followed the Crest Trail – the same trail that goes all the way through Oregon to Canada – around the corner to Chicken Spring Lake.

On Monday, I found myself lagging. This was the first time in years that we’d carried the packs a second day – our goal was Soldier Lake. Sometimes we went downhill – meaning uphill if we came out the full distance on Wednesday. Each bend promised a view of the “real mountains,” but when they finally appeared – the backside of Mineral King, maybe? – they were dim in a haze of smoke.

We rested at the Sequoia Park border. Maybe I’m getting too old for this, I said. Maybe we should look for alternatives: Shorter trips ? (maybe). Lower trails? (but Oregon bugs remain till my school starts). Horses? (worth trying). Lose some weight? (but it always comes back). We gave up on Soldier Lake and backtracked to a tiny stream. Above it, a perfect campsite overlooked a valley, with another valley far below.

And above our camp was a tiny unnamed lake, with pink Sierra primroses blooming among the rocks. Primroses! – suddenly it all seemed worthwhile.

That evening, smoke clouds lifted to reveal hidden mountains south of camp. After dinner, we played cards, using a bear canister as a card table, and talked about previous trips – some spectacular, others discouraging: Seven days across the Wallowas, our second summer of backpacking; later, a walk along the Snake River, where I was so out of shape that we only went a mile and a half.

Maybe it’s OK to be tired at sixty. Sierra trails are hard – they’re covered in granite steps like a giant’s staircase; they go above 11,000 feet. I’m doing better than I did ten years ago.

Tuesday morning we set off again. The sky had cleared; the mountains were crisp. Without the big packs, it was easy to bend down for flowers. One dry meadow was full of tiny monkey flowers and miniature lupine mats, along with a small Lewisia – not to mention the butterflies.

At Soldier Lake, a ridge of rocks still hid the “real mountains.” Rhiannon led us up a gully, and with the climb, I found myself losing momentum again. Too steep, too high – why bother? When I caught up, I found her reading the plant book in a hanging meadow that would have been ideal for mountain goats. “It’s just a bit further,” she encouraged me.

She was right. Just above, beyond the shooting stars and a patch of snow, I watched her disappear through a little notch. Soon she was standing on a mound of rocks. “It’s amazing up here!” she called.

And it was – or at least it should have been. Finally, we could see the real mountains – sort of. Like ghosts of themselves, they stood lost in a shroud of smoke. Rhiannon recognized The Miter, mentioned in the High Trail story, which she’d started the night before.

Below us was another unnamed lake. By the time I caught up, Rhiannon was already in the water. It was chilly, but my quick dip was refreshing. And basking in sunshine afterward, I realized again that it was worth it after all.

Avoiding coming down the gully, we plotted a different course across the granite, stopping for rosy sedum and pale yellow columbine. Circling the ridge behind Soldier Lake took us down and down… we eventually joined a trail in a green meadow of shooting stars – and mosquitoes.

Bad planning – we’d left the bug repellent at camp. One meadow led to another; each time I rubbed my arms, I’d squish half a dozen bugs. (Rhiannon sensibly wore long sleeves.) I flapped at the swarms, breathing them in. My arms went bumpy with welts.

Finally, the trail led into the forest… but uphill. Uncharacteristically, I charged upward – bugs followed. Part way up, we met a string of hikers. “Do you have any bug dope?” I asked a man my own age. He did; I slathered it on. “Thanks – you’ve saved my life!” The bugs continued to whine, but my arms were safe.

That evening, I was exhausted. I think it was the mosquitoes and that long charge up the hill. But Wednesday morning, we climbed again to the primrose lake, setting up the camera to photograph us together. Hiking out that day, Rhiannon generously carried part of my load.

On Cottonwood Pass, we met four men who’d just climbed Mt. Whitney. I volunteered Rhiannon to take their picture. “I’m doing a survey on people’s ages,” I added – “I’m sixty.”

“I’m seventy,” one of the men told us. And further down, we met two women with backpacks. One was sixty-eight.

We were still on the pass when the smoke came in, a giant billowing yellow bruise of a cloud. It followed us down; the sun shone blood-red, and the forest was lit by pale watery light. By the time we reached the main road, the whole Owens Valley was filled with smoke, all the way north past Bishop.

Later, further up the road, my aunt and uncle took us to dinner at their retirement community lodge. Here was another view of aging – could these women, aging gracefully with their neatly coiffed hair, be me, a few years on? Did they still climb mountains? Why am I still so driven?

Maybe it’s the primroses. Maybe it’s the need to visit what can only be reached on foot. I don’t know.

Or maybe it’s the need to “get it while you can,” now, while it’s still possible. My English teaching begins again soon; I share the fears that inspired Andrew Marvell and the other Seventeenth Century poets: But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near. At sixty, that chariot seems closer than ever.

And as the country struggles with its big debt questions, what really counts? Surely, the little things still matter – a daughter’s generosity, the primroses by an alpine lake. For me, it’s still worth the effort to climb those mountains. Marvell, again, on getting it while one can:

Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.

(I love those “amorous” birds of prey.)

Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life….

Big things happen, and ordinary life goes on. Mt. Jefferson burns, so we hike the Sisters. Chaos looms, yet I “tear my pleasures” however I can – even if it’s only by climbing a mountain to photograph the primroses.

A Divided Life

Teaching makes me happy, I wrote at the end of this past semester. Teaching gives me energy. I made those notes because I knew that without summer school, I’d forget what I value in teaching. And with a whole semester of lessons to plan, I’m still trying to convince myself that there’s value in what I do.

For as long as I remember, there’s been a split in my life. On the one hand, science and the outdoors; on the other, writing and literature. I started out in the sciences. Lab jobs led me toward a physics or chemistry degree; with summer field jobs, that goal morphed toward botany and birds.

I like plants. In our family, my ex-husband and one daughter and I all know plant names. We spent years studying birds and plants and monkeys in Africa, later doing rare plant surveys for the Forest Service and BLM. Every summer, I’d alternate between two lives: my forestry editing job during the week, and then long weekends of tromping the mountains of eastern or southern Oregon, finding plants.

But at the same time, I’ve always been a reader and writer. And when I chose to go back to school in my forties, I could imagine teaching writing, but not botany. After five life-changing years in school, I became a full-time English teacher. And it’s been a very satisfying life. I love my students; I love what I teach.

Yet a part of me still craves the outdoors. Since moving to California, I’ve spent more and more time in the mountains. The flora is all new; it was several years before I could recognize most of the plants. Even now, I’m an amateur – but for most of the flowers, I can figure out names from the pretty-picture books. And often I can intuitively guess the family and genus – in Latin. After years of typing plant lists for forestry papers and plant surveys, I can spell them all.

Much of the year, I spend time in the mountains. Living next to the Sierra Range, I find spring flowers blooming from February through August (if I climb high enough). I’ve landed in a great place for botany.

It surprises me that most of my Blog entries have been about the outdoors. I thought there’d be more of a balance – outdoor postings, teaching postings. But when I teach – and when I grade – it absorbs all my attention. When I hike, there’s time to think: about plants, about teaching, about the next thing I want to write.

Hiking and the outdoors add to everything else I do. At one point, I realized I’d just explained four different species of birds – in a poetry class. And now, as I try to move back into teaching, I have to remind myself that teaching, too, enriches my life.

My Daughter, My Colleague

In my own life, there’s a split: Science and outdoors vs. teaching and literature. My daughters seem to have divided those interests between them: Rhiannon studies plants and carries a backpack, while Emily’s finishing a PhD in literature. Because I seem to write more about hiking than teaching, it’s Rhiannon who’s appeared most often in this Blog.

But when I think about teaching, it’s Emily I call. She’s the one in our family who’s gone straight through school without a break, ever since kindergarten. She’s the one who resists learning plants. She backpacks with us sometimes, but she’s not a fanatic. At twenty-seven, she has long since passed me educationally. Proud as I am, there’s a bittersweet feeling, too: Why didn’t I do a PhD? In dividing up the two main strands of my life, my girls should each go much further professionally than I have.

Emily has always had skills the rest of us lack. She’s the one I’ll consult on hair care or clothing. Long ago, I attended a far-off editing conference. Emily, then twelve or fourteen, helped plan my wardrobe for each event, packing clothes and accessories in labeled plastic bags. Where did she learn such things?

This spring, I drove to Oregon right after finals. As soon as I reached Eugene, I settled into Emily’s big red easy chair. She was teaching a Shakespeare class. She’d created some excellent overheads to illustrate paraphrasing and analysis, based on speeches in Hamlet. No one ever taught her these skills, she said, but it was clear her students needed the help.

This is just how I teach, seeing a need and coming up with a handout to teach it. Despite my twelve-hour trip, we spent the next hour discussing teaching. Sometimes we’ve even collaborated on handouts. She’s there when I need help on a literature idea, or when I need someone who understands campus politics.

Talking shop is one of the pleasures of having a daughter who’s also a colleague. Admittedly, we teach different things and in different places, but it’s all English. Emily is working on a PhD in Renaissance Studies; I’ll never do a PhD. But I’m ahead when it comes to teaching experience. She’s never had to deal with teaching five classes at once, as I do at my community college – not yet, at least. And if she gets a good job at a small liberal arts college – if – maybe she’ll never have to deal with that teaching load.

And now I ought to stop posting blog entries and plan my lessons for fall – but first I need to consult with Emily.