Recently, I saw true love. Love intertwined with my own personal history, sheltered in a place rich with meaning.
This love was not romantic, but held longevity and fierce loyalty.
A mother and a daughter, Jennifer and Nancy, are living together on their land in California. A place I know intimately, inhabited by two humans I adore. Women tenderly trading love back and forth like cherished heirloom jewelry.
We are not blood-related, but I have known Nancy and Jennifer since I was seven. Nancy and her husband Bob were my parents’ closest friends. Over the years, we have spent countless days together, shared many holidays, and taken family trips. Nancy was like a second mother to me, especially during my formative years. Children need people who believe in them, and Nancy believed in me. She recognized my hidden academic potential. She drew out my true creative self, and gently prodded me when I got too serious or withdrawn.
Tahoe, 1980. My family joined Nancy, Bob and Jennifer for a cross-country ski trip.
Recently, her daughter Jennifer shared with me that Nancy was having some health difficulties. If I were going to visit, this was the time. Jumping on a plane and flying across the country, I imagined my visit. I would spend time helping around the house, explore the garden and sit with Nancy.
What I did not expect was to be so moved by the depth of love and devotion between two people. Viewing my own history through fresh eyes, I gained a deeper appreciation of the role that beloved elders have played in my life.
Holding Nancy’s hand.
In my 5th grade year, I attended The Higham School, a private garden and arts school Nancy and her husband Bob ran out of their Santa Rosa home, the same home she remains in today. The school was a creative haven for children who gathered every morning to sing songs from The American Songbook and beyond. We learned (alongside reading and writing), pottery, art, puppetry, and mask making by a variety of Sonoma County artists.
We took field trips to the redwoods and the Pacific Coast and made apple cider in an old-fashioned press. Bob decreed that you would not be excused from lunch unless you had eaten the apple you picked off a tree that morning, down to the core. Only the stem and bitter seeds in their casings should remain. In my mind, Bob still looks over my shoulder when I bite into an apple, ensuring nothing goes to waste.
Nancy oversees a class art project, 1982. I am on the right in the striped shirt.
Memories of The Higham Family School can still be found in Nancy’s house today. Clay faces created by students peer out from a wall and Nancy’s library still holds the Beverly Cleary and Shel Silverstein books I once savored. The ancient apple press sits unused in the garage.
Through the years, Nancy’s sharp educator’s mind (she’s a UC Berkeley graduate), sense of humor, and practical nature have provided a steady stream of wisdom and unfussy guidance to me and many other young people. She still participates in a book group with women she has known since college (they call themselves the “Bookies”). Now that I am a teacher (a profession I fell into willingly but unexpectedly), I often find myself thinking “What would Nancy and Bob do?”
It wasn’t just in my childhood that Nancy played an important role. When I was a young professional in San Francisco, Nancy often hosted my fiancé and me for Easter and Thanksgiving. Later, knowing that I was an eight-month pregnant soon- to-be mother missing her own mother, Nancy flew to Indiana and designed and implemented an entire landscaping and garden project for my now husband and myself. My two children only met Nancy and Bob a few times, but loved them and and didn’t want to let go.
Nancy and Bob Higham, 2004.
The last few years have been difficult for Nancy and Jennifer. Nancy’s beloved husband (and Jennifer’s father), Bob, passed away, joining their son who had died far too young. Bob’s absence leaves a gaping and very quiet hole in the house, and Nancy misses Bob terribly. Health issues have piled on top of both ladies like the manure heap in the back corner of the garden.
Still, I know no other human who is more fiercely connected to and defined by her home, garden, and surrounding land than Nancy is, and Jennifer has given Nancy the gift of staying in her home, of “aging in place” with exquisite 24-hour caregiving. And even though two terrifyingly destructive fires in recent years have burned many surrounding houses to the ground, Nancy’s still stands. Despite exhaustion and an unknown future, so do mother and daughter.
Nancy and Jennifer have learned to cultivate small joys – enjoying fresh and preserved food from the garden, arranging flowers from the beds outside, savoring ice cream and fresh bread from a local bakery, watching home improvement shows, reading out loud, and tending to their pet (the only remaining chicken from the once robust flock in the garden), an 11-year-old miracle chicken named Sweet Pea who prefers her granola handfed. This year, Nancy and Jen decided that they enjoyed the lights of the Christmas tree so much it would stay up into February.
Sweet Pea enjoys lunch.
True love can be hard to find in our world today. We wonder whether love is genuine, if there is an agenda, and if it will disappear tomorrow. Spending those days in Nancy’s house, sitting quietly and holding her hand, watching Jennifer’s patient caregiving, I was shown how Nancy’s love and guidance have impacted my life.
Arrangement of daffodils picked from Nancy’s garden.
I saw that no health challenge, no passing of time, no fire or painful loss can cancel the knowledge and devotion shared by family, or family of choice.
Inside a home that housed a school, the place that helped shape so many young hearts and minds, a woman shares her final chapter with her daughter. What I experienced during my four-day visit refreshed my belief in the power of presence and devotion.
May we all know such an enduring impact, such true love.
Bob and Nancy, walking into the future with my daughter.
1926 Tournament of Roses “Prizewinners” pose, 50 and 100 years before our story takes place
Pasadena, California, January 1, 1986, 5:15 AM:
I wake to the sound of my dad’s voice—hushed and gravely. “Kiddo, time to get up. We’ve got to get out there early so we can get seats. Melba has some cereal for you in the kitchen.”
Sleeping on the polished wood floor of my grandparents’ tidy Pasadena bungalow hasn’t exactly made for a restful night. Slowly, I roll over and open my eyes to the darkness of the living room. As I wiggle out of my sleeping bag, I remind myself that there’s a lot to look forward to. Today is the first day of 1986! I’m turning 15 in a few months! I get to watch the Rose Parade in person! And unlike my chilly, often rainy-in-the-winter hometown in Northern California, today will be sunny and warm. This is LA, after all. I head to the kitchen to eat Wheaties with my dynamic, turquoise-collecting, organ-playing step-grandmother, Melba.
Me and Melba (a few years later, in 1995)
Pasadena, California, January 1, 2026, 5:15 AM:
A few seconds after swiping the bar to silence my cell phone alarm, I roll over and gently nudge my 12-year-old daughter’s shoulder. “Time to wake up, Bunny…it’s the first day of 2026! Dad’s got a blueberry muffin for you in the kitchen.” Groaning, she shakes off my hand. She’s not easy to wake up on the best of days, but this morning I fear that the combination of the 3-hour change from our Midwest home, plus an ungodly wake-up time, might make it impossible. The driving rain outside doesn’t help either. Not fair, we’re in LA!
To claim our prepaid parking spot for the Rose Parade, we must arrive by 6 AM. The sun won’t rise for hours over the spacious modern house we are staying in—a house belonging to good friends who are out of town. And thanks to the unusually heavy rain sweeping across the Los Angeles basin, we won’t feel the sun on our skin for almost the entire day. With the promise of an early visit to Starbucks, our daughter finally rises. Blurry-eyed, mostly silent, yet eager to experience the parade. She refuses the muffin.
Los Angeles sunset as seen from the modern house’s kitchen
1986, 6:30 AM:
After piling into our blue Honda Accord, my dad steers the three of us (Mom, Dad, and me) the few miles from my grandparents’ house on Arden Drive to Colorado Street in downtown Pasadena. We are meeting our family friends, Kathy and Phil, at the parade. I am particularly fond of Kathy and Phil. The two of them live (child-free) in a house on a steep hillside above the Russian River, where banana slugs leave thin gossamer trails. However, they also once lived out of a school bus full of intricately handmade wooden cabinetry stocked with Mexican beads that was parked in our driveway for a month.
Kathy Toomire, 1982
It’s early enough that we easily find a parking space, but incredibly, many of the prime viewing spots along the parade route have already been claimed. My parents good-naturedly refuse to pay for “overpriced bleacher seats.” As our group stands on the curb discussing what to do, a truck suddenly pulls up next to us, and a burly guy leans out of the driver’s side window. “Hey, we got couches for rent,” he yells. “We’ll drop it off on the street right here and pick it up at the end of the parade. Thirty bucks!” The grownups look at each other, unsure about the offer. I quickly pipe up, “Oh please please please, that’ll be so fun!” Everyone agrees, and the five of us soon find ourselves sitting thigh-to-thigh on a fake leather couch, unexpectedly granted a rather cushy front-row seat to the 1986 Tournament of Roses Parade.
Seated on our parade-viewing couch, from left: Phil, Kathy, Mom Patricia, me, Dad David
2026, 6:30 AM:
“Two hot chai lattes with oat milk, one hot cocoa, and a croissant, please.” As one of the few cars in line, we quickly move along the Starbucks drive-through and are soon pulling into our assigned parking space, right on time. Our (uncovered) bleacher seats are only two blocks away, and the parade starts at 8. There’s only one hiccup—it’s raining. Hard.
We are prepared. The day prior, after trying four separate stores, we were finally able to purchase plastic rain ponchos (never mind that we now appear to be huge LA Rams fans). We are also equipped with plastic garbage bags to sit on, snacks, and a change of clothes. My husband, who is attending the Rose Bowl football game after the parade, has his own see-through bag packed complete with regulation-sized water bottles and a towel. We waive off the friendly lady weaving through the nearly flooded parking lot, offering Rose Parade seat cushions for $20 each.
Sitting in the dark, we listen to the rain drum on the car windows and sip our warm drinks. Our breath builds steam as we stretch out with the ease of the early hour. I’m grateful to share this cozy time with my daughter and husband. These quiet moments with our girl are fleeting—she’ll turn into a teenager this year. I can feel her consciously shaping her own identity apart from us, no longer attached to my hip or sharing every detail of her life with me the way she once did. She got her first phone for Christmas this year. Turning to ask her something, I see that she’s stretched out across the backseat, her head resting on a rolled-up sweatshirt, sleeping soundly.
1986, 8:00 AM:
The Pasadena City College band marches by, mere inches from our crossed ankles, the blaring horns and drums making my head throb. “Did I ever tell you I went to Pasadena City College before I went to Principia?” asks my Dad. I roll my eyes (a common occurrence), “Yes, Dad, many times. I know you played baseball for them, too.”
He clears his throat, then his thoughtful gaze shifts to mine. “What would you think about taking the Honda over to the Rose Bowl parking lot tomorrow? If it’s not too crowded, you could practice the stick shift a bit.” My eyes grow wide. “Really?” I ask incredulously, even though I know he wouldn’t ask if he didn’t mean it. My dad never goes back on his word.
My father the pitcher, Monrovia, CA 1956. His greatest claim to fame was not his sucessful career as a journalist, it was the time he once pitched a no-hitter.
This Grand Marshal of this year’s 133rd Rose Parade is Mickey Mouse, tying in perfectly with the theme: A Celebration of Laughter. I’ve been to Disneyland once, when I was three, but not since. My dad is a freelance writer, and our vacations are almost always centered around visiting family or camping. I know better than to ask for a trip to Disney—there isn’t a budget for that.
Mom, Dad, Kathy, and Phil point out the flower-covered floats, plentiful prancing horses, and celebrities. The sun is out and beginning to warm the excited parade crowd. After a while, I lean against my mom, close my eyes, and turn up the volume on my Walkman. The parade is entertaining, but I’m tired. I’ve never been much of a morning person. Right now, I’d rather be at home, calling my friends on the phone and listening to Adam Ant.
Adam Ant fan, 1984
2026, 8:00 AM:
Still in the car, we’ve been waiting for a break in the rain, but it hasn’t arrived yet. Parade start-time is approaching, so we pull on our ponchos, ready our bags, and step out into the downpour. At least it’s daylight now. Suddenly the festive atmosphere surrounds us. I get the sense that this is about as friendly a scene as you’ll find in Southern California.
We walk the two blocks to our assigned bleacher seats, avoiding puddles and trailing behind a group of young Latino men yelling into a microphone about the importance of fearing Jesus (what would the all-loving Jesus say about that advice, I can’t help but wonder).
Above us, a large squawking flock of Pasadena parrots flies by, a welcome distraction from the rain. This flock is much higher in number than the flock that used to fly above our San Francisco cottage.
Look closely to see the parrott fly-by
We’re up in the 20th row of metal bleachers ($336 for three seats, parking, and one program). The garbage bags we brought have come in handy, and we place them across the soaked seat. Behind us, a young girl is on the lookout for her dad, who plays the clarinet in one of the marching bands. Directly in front of us is a couple sharing our love for the Indiana Hoosiers, playing in the Rose Bowl football game in just a few hours for the first time since 1968. How wonderfully strange it is to travel across the country only to be surrounded by people connected to our own Midwest hometown and team.
Around us, the damp crowd stirs as the first rose-bedecked motorcycles cruise by. The 137th Rose Parade is starting! One clever, vibrant float after another sails by, horses of every breed and color (from the Budweiser Clydesdales to mini therapy horses from Calabasas) and the most impressive, inspiring marching bands we’ve ever seen in a parade.
One band, the Allen Eagle Escadrilles from Allen, TX, includes so many members (600) that they create a royal blue sea stretching down the road as far as the eye can see.
The Allan Eagle Escadrilles from Allen, TX take over Colorado Street
My daughter is particularly impressed by the perpetually waving lovely 2026 Rose Court, the elephants on the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (announcing the park’s new Elephant Valley attraction), and the stack of hot syrupy pancakes featured on the City of Sierra Madre float.
City of Sierra Madre float
My husband and I enjoy the gorgeous City of San Francisco float (our former hometown), the Star Trek 60 “Space for Everybody” float featuring a grinning George Takei and Tig Notaro, Apple TV+’s Shrinking float (one of our favorite shows, shot in Pasadena—where are Harrison Ford and Jason Segal and Jessica Williams??), and a glimpse of the great Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the 2026 Pasadena Tournament of Roses Grand Marshal, still going strong at 66 years old.
City of San Francisco float Impressive Baobab trees on the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance float Delfines Marching Band from Xalapa, Veracruz, MexicoParade Marshal Earvin “Magic” Johnson, basketball legend. His hand is the right size for effective waving.
Through the rain, the brave parade participants wave, drive, clop, and march. Under her poncho, my daughter texts her friend, “Can’t talk now, I’m at the Rose Parade.”
1986, Noon:
Walking up the low concrete steps leading into my grandparents’ home, the five of us feel hungry, tired, and overstimulated. My step-grandmother Melba has made us soup and sandwiches, and we eat together in her immaculate kitchen, bright Los Angeles sunshine reflecting off the yellow walls. Phil regales us with stories of his wayward youth in San Diego. Across the room, my towering Swedish Grandfather winks at me, his kind blue eyes crinkling at the corners.
Afterward, collapsing on yet another couch, I lean heavily against my mom. I might be fourteen, but in many ways I’m still her little girl.
2026, Noon:
The parade has ended, and for the most part, so has the rain. Walking carefully down the bleachers, we make our way to the street, where we part ways with my husband. Father and daughter hug tightly, and we tell him to enjoy an experience he has been dreaming about since he was a child, his Indiana University team playing in the Rose Bowl. (Not exactly a) spoiler alert—they won.
The Indiana Hoosiers’s second appearance at the Rose Bowl since 1967 Photo Credit: Tom Stryker
Weaving through the parade stragglers, we head in the direction of our car. The two of us are hungry, tired, and overstimulated. While her dad walks down Colorado to catch the shuttle to the Alabama vs Indiana Rose Bowl Football game, my daughter and I head to Glendale where we have tickets to see the final episode of Stranger Things on the big screen.
A few hours later, reacting with emotion to her favorite character’s shocking demise, my daughter leans heavily against me in the dark theatre. She might be twelve, but in many ways she’s still my little girl.
Daughter and Dad explore Griffith Park, December 30, 2025
Thanks for the memories California, you know how to throw a parade, no matter what year it is. We’ll be back soon. Hopefully the sun will be out.
The time: Tuesday, September 1, 1981. Late afternoon.
The place: An art gallery in the South of Market neighborhood, San Francisco, California.
Some of the artists, dressed mostly in black, are huddled together, looking out a window. I can tell something is wrong. Wandering a little closer, I try to listen to their conversation while pretending I’m looking at a large blurry painting of a blue car (at least I think it’s a car).
The nine artists featured in the show.
“Look at him smoking pot out there on the street corner … he won’t come up here,” I hear Jill Coldiron say. “I mean, he doesn’t like his placement, but I don’t know why he’d sabotage himself this way during the reception.”
I head over to the food table to grab some more grapes and that yummy, crusty sourdough bread. I have no idea what Jill is talking about, but I do know that if anyone can solve a problem, she can.
Jill is the organizer of this art opening and a good friend of my parents. I like being around her because she’s smart, loud, and funny. Sometimes my mom and I drive south across the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco to have lunch downtown with Jill—I love doing that. She and my mom laugh so hard when they’re together it makes my ears ring. When Jill invited my dad to be in this group art show he yelled to my mom from the other room “Good news Patrish … Jill wants my cars in the San Francisco show!”
Curator Jill and my artist father discuss arrangement of his cars in the show.
The warehouse gallery is full of bright light, and the high ceiling is echoey with the sounds of clinking glass, people talking, and live music played by some nice musicians in the corner.
I’m the only ten-year-old here, something I’m pretty used to since I’m an only child. I don’t mind because I’m good at secretly spying on adults, just like Harriet the Spy.
Ten year-old art critic and part-time spy.
Slightly wobbly in my wavy-soled high-heeled hand-me-down Famolare shoes and flowered Gunne Sax dress, I walk around looking for my parents. Spotting them across the gallery, I see that they’re standing next to one of my dad’s art cars. They look happy. That’s how they usually look.
Mom and dad, artists and appreciators.
Lately, when he’s not writing, my dad works on his cars. Most of his art, both the large wooden constructions, and the cars, make some sort of point about politics. I don’t understand the messages, but I like what he makes. A lot of other people seem to like his art too since there have been articles about him and his art in magazines and newspapers.
Excerpt from an article about my father’s art cars.
The cars are shaped out of wood and have shiny parts made of sheets of aluminum that he hammers thumbtacks into. There are funny looking characters in the driver’s seat that he shapes out of clay. The cars have names I can’t pronounce, like Senator Kincade’s Private Secretary, Compulsory Arbitration, and The Subcommittee Investigator.
“The I.R.S.”“Senator Kinkaid’s Private Secretary” A selection of my father’s wooden art cars, circa 1983.
I like it when my dad’s art is in shows, mostly because I get to spend extra time with him. Once he had his art in a street fair in Palo Alto and my cousin Laurel and I helped him set everything up. People stopped by and talked to us and bought some of his work. Normally, I’m not allowed to have sugar, but that day I got to have some cotton candy.
Supervising the Palo Alto street fair art booth with dad and cousin Laurel, 1978
We know a lot of artists. I like to make art too, but I don’t think I’m very good at it. My mom makes pottery on a big wheel that I can spin, and my best friend Portia’s parents are both silkscreen artists—when I sleep over at her house we sneak into their studios. We’ve seen stars through the skylights. We shake the brightly colored paint bottles and run soft paintbrushes across our cheeks. Sometimes Portia’s mom drives us to the art supply store in Santa Rosa in her tan VW bus. She lets us pick out pastels in colors we like.
When is this art opening going to end? My feet are getting tired, and my stomach hurts from eating all that fruit. The artist who was outside earlier is back inside the gallery now, talking to Jill in front of his sculpture that looks like huge melted Tinkertoys. His eyes are red and he still looks mad.
Now lots of people are gathered around my dad’s cars. A lady who is a friend of my parents commissioned (that’s a fancy word for “bought”) one of my dad’s cars for her husband. She’s giving it to him as a surprise. The musicians play a happy song while my dad announces that he made the car especially for the lady’s husband. There’s even a head that looks like his head driving the car. Everyone claps loudly. The man looks surprised and smiley, and his wife gives him a big kiss.
Unveiling of the art car commission.
Time to ask mom and dad if we’re leaving soon. I’m too full of art and fruit.
I’m thinking about how art seems to make adults happy—when they’re making it and when they’re looking at art that other people made.
Except for that one artist, I guess.
Artist David Holmstrom (aka my dad) poses with one of his art cars.
When your mom has been gone for 23 years, you develop a muscle. This missing mom muscle strengthens each time you use it, keeping you afloat when you might otherwise drown in her absence.
You flex the muscle when you want to call her, but she’s not even in your contacts—she died before the first iPhone. When you see her favorite Constant Comment tea at the grocery store. When you find the wrinkled brown paper bag holding her gold-rimmed China plates. When you smell the bittersweet scent of marigolds, or her soft lavender-colored wool sweater you keep on the top shelf of your closet. When you hear Robert Redford died—she adored him, especially in The Way We Were.
The safest place on earth (backseat of a Volkswagon Beetle), 1971
Watching your Kindergarten students love their mothers, your missing mom muscle twinges. Every morning, a little girl tells you her crayon picture is for her mama. Rainbows, crooked flowers, lopsided smileys, and dark caves—each one for mama. A lump forms in your throat, but you flex the missing mom muscle and push it down. You want to tell her you understand, that all you do is for your mom too, but you don’t think that would make sense to a five-year-old (although you might be wrong). Instead, you smile, praise her picture, and say you know her mom will love it.
Kindergarten masterpiece, for her Mama
The times that are the hardest, the times when the missing mom muscle gets a serious workout, are when you feel mistreated or misunderstood. Even, maybe especially, by your own family. Those are the times when you want to collapse into her arms, to feel her cool hand on your forehead, to hear her softly singing hymns to you like she did when you were a child. Mostly, you want to be understood the way she understood you, to be known and loved the way she knew and loved you. You hate the devastating truth lurking behind your yearning—no one will ever understand, know, or love you that way again.
In those times, the missing mom muscle feels like it’s tearing.
Other times, you want her to swim in your puddle of pride. The change in careers, the longevity of your marriage, your spiritual evolution, the birth of your children, your writing, and your sobriety. Your triumphs would be that much sweeter if she knew, if she could celebrate alongside you.
Enjoying Mexico with Mom, 1998
You sort through pictures, and you find some of her gazing at babies.
One of the babies is you.
You know she would have looked at your children, her grandchildren, the same way, and that they would have adored her. You know she would have loved them the way she loved you. You feel as if there is a gaping hole in your children’s lives, and you wonder if they feel it too.
You close your eyes and call on all she taught you about the power and the infinitude of Love. You flex the muscle harder than ever. These 23 years have taught you that you won’t, you can’t, let yourself drown without her.
Years ago, two men of integrity walked down a San Francisco sidewalk.
Heading to the Saturday Farmer’s Market in the Ferry building, they made a striking pair. One was tall and lanky with long loping strides, the other short of stature with a quick shuffling gait. The shorter man took two steps for every one the tall man took. On that chilly, foggy Saturday (it was summer in San Francisco, after all), as they strolled along they exchanged ideas about basketball and politics and UCLA (which they had both attend/and or worked for), and the state of the world in 2004.
The daughter of the tall man was dating the son of the shorter man. The men had known each other less than 24 hours, having met the night before at a table tucked into the back of a crowded seafood restaurant on Polk Street. A gigantic bottle of Veve Clicquot champagne sat chilling on the table, a surprise gift provided by one of their children’s high-powered bosses to mark the occasion – two families connecting for the first time.
The introduction of these two men was significant not only for their son and daughter (who would go on to marry and raise future grandchildren who the two men cherished) but for another important reason. The tall man and the short man were each exceptional in character, in achievement, and most of all, in their roles as world-class reliable, loving fathers.
It didn’t matter that one of the men believed in God and the other in classical music. That one preferred apple juice, the other vermouth. That one had an absent father, the other a present one. Instead, they leaned on their commonalities— a passion for books, baseball, basketball, and travel ran hot through their collective veins. Both had backpacked through Europe in their early 20s and burned through every last dollar. The two men also shared an ability to view life through a global lens, lifting up the people working toward active peace and reconciliation and calling to task those who stirred war and destruction. Successful careers had challenged and fulfilled them—the tall man as an award-winning writer/journalist and the other a respected professor/Dean at a Big Ten university.
Unlike so many men of their generation (born in the late 1930s), they viewed women not only as equals but as individuals to be championed, as co-workers to support and mentor. Both had chosen remarkable women as partners to whom they remained committed and loyal for as long as they were able (the tall man’s wife had recently died when the men first met). In fact, one of the reasons the tall man’s daughter knew the shorter man’s son was a keeper was that she noticed the son enjoyed close, easy, respectful friendships with women. She has no doubt he learned from his father’s example.
Soon after, the shorter man’s son and the taller man’s daughter eloped to San Francisco City Hall (the families managed not to hold it against their children). A year later, the son and daughter left San Francisco for the Midwest. They settled down the street from the son’s family, including the shorter man of integrity. Soon after, grandchildren joined the family, which thrilled the two fathers—now grandfathers—to no end.
At family gatherings and holidays, the short man and the tall man enjoyed each other’s company, discussing grandchildren and books, movies, and traveling. The tall man, who lived in another city, visited often. The two men adopted the Spanish noun “consuegro” (meaning in-law) to describe their relationship. “Ahoy, Consuegro!” they would say loudly as they thumped each other on the back. To them, the foreign term legitimized and solidified their familial friendship.
One tall, one short. Both impressive.
Despite their stellar qualities, I do not mean to imply that these were flawless men. In fact, challenges hunted them throughout their lives. The short man was born prematurely, his tiny body cradled for weeks in a hospital without air conditioning. In his early years, the tall man was plagued by a severe stutter. In childhood, both men were taunted for their differences. Later on, there were tyrannical bosses, an early divorce, a tendency for one of them to drink too much. Yet during their formative years, neither man became bitter or angry and avoided blaming others for their problems. They remained caring and open to the world. They consciously decided to learn from their mistakes and avoid harnessing anger in destructive ways or using loved ones to deflect and/or pay for the sins of others.
In 2020, the pandemic hit, along with stormy seas for the two men of integrity. The shorter man, having been felled by a massive stroke on Christmas Eve 2019, found himself in a Midwest rehab center no longer able to walk, or even read. There were few visitors, and for the first time in decades, the subscription to his beloved New York Times (a daily fixture of his pre-stroke life) had to be canceled.
The taller man, facing dual dementia and lymphoma diagnosis, had recently been moved by his daughter to the same Midwest town where she lived with her family, just down the road from her in-laws. Incredibly, the daughter found an apartment for her tall father in the same retirement community where his shorter consuegro was undergoing rehab for his stroke. The tall man, thanks to worsening dementia, was no longer able to spend his days writing and could now be found at the small library in the retirement home reading his beloved New York Times (often the same paragraphs over and over).
Despite their failing health, the two men of integrity were able to attend a few of their grandson’s baseball games where they sat, socially distanced from each other, watching the action and shaking their heads in collective amazement at the eight-year-old’s impressive pitching skills.
Enjoying the local ballpark with their grandkids.
Back at the retirement community, the tall man discovered that he could walk to the shorter man’s room in the rehab building and began to make his way there for daily visits. Seventeen years after their first sidewalk stroll, neither man could have imagined that this is where they would end up: sharing the same retirement home, in failing health, during a pandemic. Health issues were piling up like rush hour traffic in Los Angeles and both men struggled to accept that they had entered their final chapter(s). Yet, alongside the struggle, their friendship burned bright. During those historically difficult months, while pandemic chaos raged around them, they sat, masked and happy, discussing basketball and baseball and exchanging ideas about the Midwest, politics, and the state of the world in 2020.
We live in a world desperate for men who lead with integrity, and who contribute through their intellect, not just their muscles. Men who are generous with their talents and lead with open hearts. Who can drive when required, but refuse to steer their own ego’s bus into a crowd of innocent bystanders, forever tainting lives. Men whose loyalty to their spouses and those they love is paramount. Men who champion and mentor women in the workplace, and in academia. Who refuse to look at women through the limited lens of sexuality and don’t allow what is between their legs to lead their lives. We need men who are curious about the way the world works, and who want to make this planet a better functioning place for all of us.
Sadly, both men are gone now. The tall man died in 2020. The shorter man passed a month and a half ago. In life, few things matter more than integrity and friendship and these two perfected both. May the children and grandchildren of the two men wrap their legacies across our shoulders like a warm blanket and draw from what they poured into us for the rest of our lives.
Once, at a party celebrating the shorter man’s 8oth birthday a family friend who happened to own a classic blue Thunderbird convertible nudged the two men and remarked, “You’re only going to be 80 once, why don’t you take it for a drive?” Needing no other encouragement, the two jumped in. Quickly fastening their seatbelts, they grinned at each other and then took off into the sunset, waving all the way.
Taking the wheel of the Thunderbird.
The tall man of integrity was David W. Holmstrom and the shorter man of integrity was Richard E. Stryker.
The other day, as I drove around town, I was in a rush. One kid had been dropped off at gymnastics, the other needed a pickup from soccer later. There were errands to run, some calls to make. Familiar demands and busy end of the school-year times.
Then, as I sped through the West side of town, rounding a corner near the old hospital grounds, I saw it.
A dark green peony bush in someone’s front yard, stem ends bursting with deep pink blooms the color of a brilliant sunset. Somehow, in the busyness of life, I’d forgotten all about the peonies.
“Yes! It’s that time again,” I thought. And then, “Rose Hill must be going OFF!”
I told myself to forget the calls, put the to-dos and the worries aside for a bit—the cemetery was calling.
The first few years after my husband and I moved from California to Bloomington, Indiana (his Midwest hometown), we lived in a 90-year-old bungalow one block from the sprawling Rose Hill Cemetery. Initially unsure, I grew to adore the acres of rolling green grasses dotted with the spreading shade of centuries-old trees—maple, oak, sycamore. Meandering among the granite, limestone, and marble headstones became one of my favorite pastimes, a unique way to root myself in an unfamiliar landscape.
The first year, when May rolled around, my appreciation of the cemetery was taken to new heights when suddenly peonies (the flower I’d used to create my bridal bouquet, primarily because that’s what remained in the San Francisco flower shop the night before our elopement to City Hall), began blooming everywhere. And I mean everywhere.
Two years later, when I faced a devastating loss, wandering through Rose Hill and reading the gravestones became a kind of grief meditation, maybe an attempt to assure myself that there was a certain cyclical beauty waiting within death, if I could accept it.
At the time, I could not. But I still loved Rose Hill.
In mid-May each year Rose Hill Cemetery becomes so jam-packed with blooming peony bushes that if you stand at the highest point in the cemetery, clumps of color stretch as far as the eye can see. The honey-sweet smell of the blooms wafts through the air, and a plant nestles next to nearly every headstone.
This was the case the other day, and I inhaled deeply as I walked along the road that runs through Rose Hill. A storm was brewing in the distance, and above me, a flock of smaller birds noisily chased a hawk into a tall pine. Winding my way through headstones both recent and centuries old, I thought about the losses that have circled my orbit lately—the death of my father-in-law only a week earlier, the looming May birth/death date of my first son, my best friend’s recent loss of her soul-mate doggie companion. Pensive and prayerful, I realized that without even trying, I had again landed in the perfect place to consider the loss of these close-to-my-heart souls, no longer here physically.
In truth, I think about death a lot. Over time, I have moved from abject terror and bitterness at the subject to a place of consideration, curiosity, even awe. Much has contributed to my death evolution, including prayer, cultivating humility, writing about my experiences, reading as much as I can on the subject, watching interviews about NDEs (Near Death Experiences), and simply getting older. I have learned to gather my death-related feelings and experiences like a bouquet and place them carefully on the vast table of my life.
I also noticed that the surrounding rainbow of cemetery peonies mirrors a shift in my attitude toward death: amongst the gravestones, and the devastating losses, beauty blooms. Instead of hope and joy trailing behind me, dragging their feet, we are now companions, partners in my journey. I believe there is a sacred purpose around death in our lives, and that we can approach it as a path to celebrate the love and respect that we feel for those who have died. By facing the death of those we love, or the death of anyone, really, we open the door to navigating the hopes and fears around our own deaths. We cannot avoid death, but we can open our hearts to learn from it, to understand its true purpose.
As I stroll the cemetery grounds, I am awed by the vast array of peony bloom colors and shades: white, pink, scarlet, and even a red variety that I’ve never noticed before. Passing by the “New Spencer Addition” section of the cemetery, I think of the powerful storm that passed through in 2011, in which an ancient maple was felled by a wind and lightning storm. The morning after the storm, while shedding a few tears for the grand tree, I carried off a large piece of bark from the thick trunk. The bark still survives today, lining the side of a garden bed. Holding on to a piece of the former giant makes me happy.
The split maple in the aftermath of the May 25, 2011 storm.Shrunken and dried, the bark endures.
Peonies, which happen to be the official Indiana state flower, are sometimes associated with the memories of loved ones. They are also hearty plants and require little ongoing maintenance. Unlike my writer/gardener friend Tara Austin Weaver, who authored a beautiful, useful book titled Peonies, A Little Book of Flowers, I know very little about the many varieties in the genus Paeonia. From Tara’s book, I learned that peonies are “thought to confer good fortune, prosperity, and a happy peaceful marriage,” so apparently, I should be glad that the shop where I purchased my bridal blooms had been cleaned out of every other flower option that evening.
Under Rose Hill Cemetery soil lie many fascinating, important souls whose lives show diversity and accomplishment. Among them are George (Anner) Shively a musician/poet/baseball player who played with the Negro Baseball League, Margaret Hemphill McCalla, the first female superintendent of schools in Indiana, Alfred Kinsey, the infamous founder of The Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, Hoagland (Hoagy) Carmichael, the legendary Hollywood performer and musician who recorded “Stardust,” and won an Oscar and John B. Crafton, a successful Bloomington businessman who made the unfortunate decision to voyage across the Atlantic on the Titanic and lost his life when it sank. (Information taken from “A Walk Through the Rose Hill Cemetery Historic Tour Guide No. 12”).
My personal favorite, tucked far into the Southwest corner of Rose Hill, is a fascinating headstone marking two life partners who shared a passion for The Wizard of Oz.
I imagine these two men had some stories to tell.
Besides providing a vital service to us humans, cemeteries offer a chance to learn about the lives of individuals who may otherwise have slipped into history. From lost infants (so many lambs on grave stones) to centenarians, to everyone in between. While walking, I remember the grave of a woman my daughter and I once visited on Martha’s Vineyard Island. The lady had devoted her life to chickens, evidenced by the carved stone birds gathered around her grave. Each grave tells a story. Every person lost was grieved for by someone (or some bird).
Nancy Luce loved and cared for chickens.
I walked for an hour that stormy Friday, soaking in the color and assessing my losses and gains. I bumped into two friends who expressed their condolences regarding the loss of my father-in-law, one offering a warm hug in sympathy.
It was time to leave the grounds and return to daily life. Slipping out of a cemetery side entrance, I felt inspired. By nature, by life, and even by death.
“Death is not the end of everything, but a new beginning.”
Today, in honor of my mother’s birthday, I will share a hot tip: find a partner who sees and admires you enough to take pictures of you as beautiful as the ones my father took of my mother.
San Francisco, California, 1971
My mother, Patricia H., was an East Coast native who took to Northern California and its terrain and culture like a cat to a warm shaft of sunlight. She stayed for nearly two decades, living and loving. Besides her work as a spiritual healer, she counted caring for me and my dad and tending a large abundant organic Sonoma County garden (that fed our family of three for years) as her greatest joys.
Yosemite, California 1974
A woman both vibrant and quietly confident, her boisterous grinning laugh used to take over her body while her head bobbed slightly to the infectious beat. She affectionately called me Chickadee and to me, her only child, time seemed to pause while I took in the beauty of her laugh.
Honolulu, Hawaii, 1969
A memory of her laughing will remain forever in my mind’s eye, but I also like to keep a photo of her in the act above my writing desk. In the image, taken by my father, my mother and I enjoy a humorous moment at my fourth birthday party.
Cocoa Beach, Florida, 1975
Unbelievably, my mother has been gone for nearly twenty-one years now. Thankfully, photographs play a vital role in keeping her image alive. My children never had a chance to meet their maternal grandmother but I hope that they can gaze at her photographs (and some video) and imagine her as part of their experience.
1979
Because she still is.
Larkspur, California 1977
My mother’s career as a spiritual healer meant she helped people learn about divine Love. She had a gift for facilitating trust and understanding that resulted in true healing. I often think about how the world could really use her prayers right about now, but I also believe she is still actively sending them our way.
Phish, pictured in The Boston Globe, January 2, 1993
“When I jumped off, I had a bucket full of thoughts
When I first jumped off, I held that bucket in my hand
Ideas that would take me all around the world”
-Phish, Back on the Train, Farmhouse
August 3, 2024, Noblesville, Indiana. A quizzical anticipation washes over the restless amphitheater crowd as the short, bespeckled man strides across the stage, dragging a vintage vacuum behind him. The man’s light cotton dress ruffles as the familiar red (or yellow this time?) circles dotting the fabric glow in the oppressively humid evening air.
My eyes remain glued to the giant hanging screen to my left as I watch the band’s namesake, Fishman, carefully place his lips to the end of the vacuum’s hose and … blow.
Jon Fishman makes the Hoover sing.
Imagine a cross between a flatulent Kermit the Frog and a beached seal’s whistling lamentation and you might come close to the sounds that emit from the microphone. As the crowd roars in appreciation, I stand on a narrowly folded picnic blanket, stagnant air trapping me, my husband, and our two friends in a sea of drifting marijuana smoke and patchouli-scented, undulating, frequently tie-dye adorned Phish fans.
Suddenly, the darkening sky above me appears to divide between the present and the past. I’m traveling back in time. Waaay back. Thirty-five years in fact.
January 31, 1989, Boston, Massachusetts. I am nineteen years old, a recent college dropout sitting on the arm of a floral couch talking to my cousin on the phone, the receiver heavy in my hand. “We’re seeing Phish tonight,” she announces excitedly, “with a P, not an F … they’re hard to describe but I think you’d love them … this is their first New Year’s Eve show ever.” Impulsively (how else does a nineteen-year-old make a decision other than impulsively?) my high-school boyfriend and I decide to see the mysterious, aquatically-monikered band play in Boston that evening.
At that point, the future stadium-fillers only had a handful of fans. Jenny, my older by six months cousin, was first exposed to Phish’s music while attending a very alternative boarding school in Vermont (so alternative that her “roommates” at the institution consisted of her boyfriend and their pet rat—or was it a ferret—and their “dorm” a dilapidated cabin on a wooded Vermont hillside).
That final, frigid night of the 1980s found a group of us stomping along city streets, cold air winding its way under my velvet scarf and straight through my silvery tights as we searched for Boston’s World Trade Center Exhibition Hall, tucked away at the end of a pier. Once inside the wide, dark space we gripped our drinks and watched as the opening band, the popular Ululators, warmed up the festive, eclectic crowd.
Soon it was time for the main attraction to take the stage. A group of four grinning young guys walked out, not much older than us. The two guitar players wore tuxedos and top hats, and the drummer sported nothing but a G-string with tuxedo tails streaming out behind his bare rear.
As soon as the four launched into “I Didn’t Know,” I knew.
While it was clear that these guys were gifted musicians, but something else was also going on, fresh and wholly different. Lyrics were whimsical, clever, and funny. Guitar riffs melodic and transporting, with piano and drums providing both a classic and fresh accompaniment, rousing and soothing the crowd. This was rock music, but it was also a kind of entertainment, a university of the musically absurd.
I’d never seen a band enjoying themselves as much as the crowd facing them. Audience participation was encouraged, as important to the life show’s life as the performers on stage. As the four burned their way through instant classics like “Bathtub Gin,” “Split Open and Melt,” and “Fee” the energy created was reciprocal, as evidenced by the ecstatic grin splashed across the face of the man I later learned was Trey, the enthusiastic, head-bobbing red-haired guy who appeared to be leading the charge.
The notes built and crested and shattered as they rolled around in my head, sometimes all at once. But the highlight, the episode we talked about for days after, was when the red-circle-on-grey-fabric-dress-wearing Fishman (who in my opinion should receive more national credit for normalizing men wearing dresses) rolled a cylindrical vintage vacuum out on stage.
“Maybe he’s going to do a little cleaning,” I thought, “Hoover up the confetti?” Instead, he raised the hose to his willing lips and began to enjoy himself playing the vacuum like an instrument. Our mouths opened in wonderment, the crowd laughingly danced around the room and shook our heads in disbelief. That was it – I’d wager that everyone at that show became a Phish fan for life.
Some of the motley crew that attended the first New Year’s show in 1989
After that first magical night, Phish and their musical movement became a part of my world. Despite an obsession with David Bowie and New Wave music in High School I easily made the shift to devoted Phish fan. I was fortunate to live in Boston throughout the 1990s (which also happened to coincide with my 20s), the same decade the band was rising and growing exponentially in popularity. While Phish launched their brand and collected a gigantic fan base I launched my adulthood, experienced my first broken heart with that first Phish-loving boyfriend, and attempted to discover my place in the world. I never followed the band nationally from venue to venue like a truly dedicated Phishhead, but during those days I saw enough shows in Boston and other Northeast venues to know the words to every song and start a half-inch-thick prized collection of ticket stubs.
Phish ticket stub, 1991
August 3, 1991, Auburn Maine. I had added my name to Phish’s mailing list early on and one day in June 1991 a postcard arrived. It was an invitation to a concert dubbed “Amy’s Farm” because the show was held at the Maine-based farm of Phish’s first fan and friend, Amy. Given that Phish signed with Elektra Records that same year the band was offering thanks in the form of a free show to the fans that had stood by and supported the foursome from their very beginnings in Burlington, Vermont in the early 80s.
This explains how I found myself camping in a dusty field in Northern Maine one hot August day, listening to Phish play under the stars and pines pondering how I got to be so completely free and fortunate. A vague, filmy memory of the band riding out of the thick forest behind the stage, naked, atop horses bounces around my mind, however to this day I’m not certain if this image is a dream, the truth, or a mirage. The sole bummer of the day: we forgot the tent.
Phish ticket stub, 1992
December 31, 1992, Boston, Massachusetts. Another New Year’s show, this one at Northeastern University’s Matthews Arena. Unbelievably, the venue was walkable from the apartment I shared with my best friend in Boston’s South End –no need for tires to make contact with the road. Standouts at the show included the person suspended over the audience in a chicken costume and the mass hysteria signal Trey gave the audience (that I believe was responsible for the “mysterious tremors” mentioned in the Boston Globe the next day). This was also the night I lost track of my group entirely, only to look down from a balcony and immediately spot my friend Nat, his thick bouncing ponytail silhouetted in the immense gyrating crowd like a furry creature signaling his location.
Phish ticket stub, 1993
August 20, 1993, Denver, Colorado. That summer I worked at the Colorado-based camp I’d attended since age six. Phish was playing at Red Rocks and some friends and I managed to get tickets. That evening, I watched the lithe bodies of multiple fans leaping over three benches at a time as the band played “Run Like An Antelope” and the setting sun turned the natural rock walls of the amphitheater a red so brilliant I had to look away.
Watching “the smoke around the mountains curl,” Colorado, 1993
Alas, all was not perfect in Phishland. As much as I enjoyed the concerts, the traditions, and the fan culture I sometimes felt excluded by the masculine energy created by the four men on stage. I got tired of the same jams played by the same dudes with the same expressions and longed to see a woman up there, blending her voice with theirs, or theirs with hers. Where are the female jam bands, I wondered?
The amount of wasted, stumbling, blank-eyed fans who don’t know they are that far gone could be off-putting, even if I was sometimes one of them. Undercurrents of negativity surround certain Phish songs, and I didn’t enjoy the screeching, off-key vocals that sometimes took over. My least favorite song is “Wilson,” which invariably turns into a yell-along for the audience. I do realize, however, that music (especially Phish’s) reflects all aspects of the maze that is the human condition and neither band members, nor fans, are immune to life’s peaks, valleys, and temptations.
July 10, 2003, Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View California. In 1998, after ten years in Boston, I moved back to my native Northern California. Soon after, I met my Midwest-raised future husband when our work cubicles were situated next to each other. One of the first things we connected about? Our mutual love for Phish. During the early years of our relationship, right about the time Farmhouse was on permanent rotation in our car’s CD player, we caught a few Phish shows at Shoreline. The most memorable of these was the final show before the band went on a six-year hiatus. Sitting on the lawn at Shoreline, my shoulders sunburned from a day in the California sun, I gazed around at the massive, dancing crowd while the band launched into an encore of “Rift.” It was hard for me to grasp that this wacky little band I had once stood five feet from was now selling out four nights at a 22K-person capacity amphitheater.
Speaking of valleys, Phish’s founder and lead singer, Trey Anastasio struggled with a variety of addictions and was arrested in December 2006. I followed his story closely, perhaps recognizing some of my creative path, as well as addictive behaviors in his, and acknowledging that our idols can be as fallible as ourselves.
In a January 25, 2019 interview with GQ magazine about his embrace of sobriety Anastasio remarked “You know, I look to my heroes to be reminded that really good, really smart, really talented people can fall into this trap pretty easily, far down the road, if they’re not careful. The important thing is to know that there is a way out. And the life at the other end of that is a beautiful life. Everything bad turns into an incredible gift. If people can find the way out.”
Mistakenly, I thought a sober, creative life would be about as exciting as a bleached sample in a jar, but I assure you, just as Trey has, that it is even more beautiful and exciting than anything that has come before.
Caught between the past and the future, Arizona, 1995
August 3, 2024, Noblesville, Indiana. Back on the lawn at Deer Creek (as Hoosiers will forever insist on calling it), the glowing orb of a setting sun is held by the branches of a lone tree. I am content, the kids are safe at home and my grooving, grinning husband of eighteen years dances alongside. I have been held by Phish’s music for so long that it has become a part of me, the branches of my life growing around the always-evolving but forever-burning core.
Sunset at Deer Creek, August, 2024
And miraculously, thirty-five years after first hearing the tortured sounds emitting from Fishman’s vacuum hose, I am listening to them once more.
Look back but don’t stay too long.
Note: Special thanks to Phish.net which provided many clarifying details to my sometimes (okay, often) hazy show recollections.
This is only the second turtle visitor we have found on our property in 9 years.
Every year something special seems to happen on this day — this morning a (rare) turtle visited my husband in the garden. In the afternoon, I took a hike with an old friend where the breeze caressed my cheek, the sunlight dappled the trail ahead and the trees seemed to reach out their limbs in comfort and praise.
Rainbows have stretched over us on this day, unexpected flowers have bloomed, and one year the first dragonfly ever glimpsed in our garden made a brief, brilliant appearance.
Tonight, our family will mark the day by gathering to light a candle, as we always do on May 20th.
Fourteen years ago, this day was not a celebration. My oldest son Cypress was born at full term, but he was not alive. I’m always full of conflict when the anniversary comes around. Part contemplative, other parts sad, proud, happy, and tired. Also, oddly energized.
Fourteen years ago, instead of cradling a crying, radiant newborn, we sat in a silent, cold hospital room, heavy with grief and pain. Birth most often brings gifts of joy, relevance, and new life. But Cypress did not get to live out his earthly life, and that fact can feel punishing and cruel. The truth is, on the day of his birth I was swimming in so much physical, emotional and spiritual pain that I couldn’t imagine ever feeling joy again.
As always, the forest comforts, provides solace, and accepts me as I am.
However, to my amazement, not only have I felt joy again, his birth and the nine months I cradled him close to my heart have also brought great gifts. Slowly, the value of those presents have unfurled over the years. My understanding of the meaning and truth of life has deepened and expanded. I’ve become more compassionate, patient, realistic and loving since becoming Cypress’ mother.
In the early days of my loss I hardly wanted to be around babies, pregnant people or children. Protecting myself and my heart felt necessary. Nowadays my two living kids and my work as a preschool teacher ensure that I have daily contact with children, their lives, their challenges, their growth, their joy.
Growth and rebirth never stop, for plants and humans both.
It is clear to me that we have as much, if not more, to learn from children as they do from us — if we are willing.
No longer do I neglect my talents, numb my mind/pain, ignore what requires attention. I understand our time here on this beautiful blue-green ship must not be wasted, pushed away, or taken for granted. Besides that first awful year after his loss, bitterness, self-condemnation, hate, and depression have not won. I’m determined that they never will.
Despite material appearances, we are still connected to our oldest child, he will forever be a part of our family. That’s why special things happen on this day (and other days). Cypress is close, he would like to reach and teach us if we open our hearts and recognize his presence. In turn, I can offer him the mothering he still waits on and needs from me.
The sun ray captured yesterday in the garden made me think there might have been a third presence (in addition to the cat).
He is wise, thoughtful and funny, my oldest son.
Strengthening connections to those we love who have passed on brings rejuvenation and healing to our minds and hearts.
And there are some days we need it more than others.
When I was growing up in California in the 1970s and 80s, church was quiet.
At 9:55 am on Sundays, I parted ways from my parents and headed to the Christian Science Sunday School where students of all ages gathered to sing a hymn. Immediately afterward, our teacher gathered us up like chicks, pulled two heavy accordion doors shut, and sealed our class of five or so into a cramped room. There we sat around a pine table in our hard cane-backed chairs, earnestly discussing the meaning of God and Love.
Other times, when I joined my mom at Wednesday night testimony meetings at the same church, we sat thigh-to-thigh together in the half-full edifice, listening to people (most over the age of forty) as they stood and shared their accounts of spiritual healing. An organist accompanied the congregation’s soft, hushed singing voices, and my mother often shushed me as I fidgeted in the pew and shifted my restless legs.
Back then, church meant learning about God and healing, and being with my family. Sometimes, when my grandparents or extended relatives visited, we took up an entire pew (I was allowed to skip Sunday School on those days), and then piled into separate cars to drive down Hwy. 12 to the Chuck Wagon cafeteria where I had permission to eat as many marsh-mellow dotted Jello’s as I could fit on my tray.
The Christian Science branch church in Bloomington, Indiana
Fast forward to today, where I live in the small (but growing) city of Bloomington, Indiana in the Midwest of the United States. And for the moment, let’s put aside the decades of spiritual wandering, questioning, doubting, seeking, and finding that have passed since my early church experiences. Those details are for another post (or book – wink wink).
Over the past year or so my friend Hether (who grew up in the same church I did) and I have been practicing what we call “church hopping.” About once a month (not every Sunday thanks to baseball, soccer, and…life) we pay a visit to a different congregation. Sometimes we have a connection to the church, other times we don’t know a soul.
The dome at the Monastery Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Ferdinand, Indiana
We’ve only scratched the surface of the large number of churches that dot our town, let alone state (visiting fewer than ten different faiths so far), but the exercise has been thought-provoking and eye-opening. Among other things, what’s become clear to me is the vast range of religious and spiritual experiences we humans require and yearn for — so many people need regular gathering/support/community, inspiration, and yes, even entertainment.
Individual pastors have a whole lot to do with setting the tone for a church, I’ve noticed. In my church of origin, Christian Science, (not to be confused with Scientology), the “pastor” is comprised of two elected “Readers” who recite aloud to the congregation passages focused on a weekly theme. The readings come from two books: the King James version of the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. While services are often thought-provoking and inspiring, you can pretty much anticipate what you’re going to get each time. There are very few material surprises in the Christian Science church.
The soaring sanctuary in the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington, Indiana
But now, after experiencing a variety of different pastors preaching to their congregations, I’ve seen that each pastor brings their interpretation of scripture, God, or the world of spirit to the podium. In many cases, a pastor’s outlook becomes the lens through which their congregation views the world.
And the music! To go from generally solemn, sedate organ or piano music to an entire band rocking, soaring, and singing ear-splittingly loud “worship” music accompanied by a light show and multiple massive screens has been, to say the least, disconcerting. The first time Hether and I attended one of these “contemporary Christian” churches I was, honestly, sitting in wide-eyed shock for most of the service.
Something else has occurred to me through these visits: It’s possible that I feel more comfortable, inspired, and accepted meditating in a temple, shrine, or ashram with the scent of incense threading through the air than I do inside a church building. Or, maybe instead of getting caught in comparisons I can acknowledge that each location of inspiration offers its own unique value.
Stupa at the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center (founded by the Dalai Lama’s brother) in Bloomington, Indiana
This Sunday, Hether wasn’t available, but my ten-year-old daughter was. “Let’s visit the big church, Mom” she suggested. The “big church” is the one closest to our house, a sprawling mega-church with six entrances that holds three services each Sunday and hires a cop to direct traffic in and out of the parking lot. I think my daughter was just as curious as I was about what goes on inside the building whose grounds we have walked and played on for years.
After parking in one of at least twenty specially designated “First Time Visitor” spaces, we were enthusiastically greeted and directed to a computer to enter our contact information, then handed a welcome bag (containing pen/notepad/church logo plastic cup/stickers) and directed to the children’s wing. My daughter, however, did not want to join the youth classes and instead opted to sit with me in the main sanctuary for the service.
While helping ourselves to a quick coffee and hot cocoa from the well-stocked café space we spotted a (lovely) familiar face, our friend and former neighbor who invited us to sit with her and her husband during the service. “I can’t wait to see his face when he sees you, he’s going to be so surprised and happy,” she said about her husband. My daughter, who adores this couple and once spent Christmas Eve with them due to an emergency in our family, happily sat down in the pew next to them and basked in their love and attention. This is the first time she’s sat in church with her elders I thought to myself.
Sherwood Oaks Christian Church, Bloomington, Indiana You know a church is big when it has a “Worship Center North”
“Wow, this isn’t what I expected, it’s not very church-like,” my daughter whispered to me as the lights dimmed, the band with four vocalists stepped out on stage and the loud music began filling our ears. Given her (admittedly limited) church experiences in the ten years she has been on the planet I didn’t blame her for being taken aback.
We sat together through the service, my arm tight around her shoulders, absorbing the resounding music and listening to the sermon. The pastor’s message, centering on divine reminders to rest, and step away or remove obstacles and stressors from our lives rather than pile on more, resonated with me. In the end, I think my daughter was mostly impressed with seeing our friends, and the chance to sip on hot cocoa before noon.
An important message outside the First United Church (combined Baptist and United Church of Christ) Bloomington, Indiana
Later that same day, after yet another church visit (this time for a beautiful and inspired blended poetry and song performance by the poet Ross Gay and our local Voces Nova choir), Hether and I sat outside in the soft spring evening air. Our discussion returned to our spiritual paths (as it so often does).
“I’m not totally sure what I’m looking for as far as church,” I told her plaintively. “I mean if I could design my own what would it look like?”
It’s actually an interesting exercise, designing one’s one church. If you’d really like to know, my ideal church would be one that accepts all colors and creeds, features time for silent prayer, an inspirational healing message, some guided meditation, rotating musicians, and a little stretching/yoga/Pilates during the service. All in an old-growth forest cathedral.
If anyone knows a church like that, let me know.
In the meantime, we’ll keep searching, listening, and hopping.
Still...however...maybe... 
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