Now you know

It has been a dream off and on now for at least 25 years.

I've wanted to be a newspaper columnist. One of those people who spout off their opinions about this and that next to a little mug shot so you can judge their words by their mugs. My opinions aren't always about politics. More often about people. And life. And natural beauty. And the things you've been reading in this blog.

I first wrote a column 27 years ago when I was expecting my first child and about to retire from reporterhood. I wrote about the importance of chocolate during pregnancy. They ran the story but got the wrong mug. Some man -- we never figured out who -- was pictured in the text about being pregnant and craving chocolate. It was a bad start.

And it was pretty much the finish too.

When my children were little, I wanted to prove to myself that I really had something to say every week, so I sat down regularly to write, with kids here and there and everywhere.... and it worked. The ideas kept coming. I was surrounded by ideas.

Ideas weren't the problem.

Editors were.

There was one at a daily in Oregon who liked my stuff and offered me the job. But before it was signed and certified, she was promoted to a position where she no longer hired columnists.

I tried everyone from the Washington Post to the San Francisco Examiner at times and when nobody gave me the go-ahead I talked my husband out of some investment money and published my favorite columns in a book I called, "In This Together." Because as the saying goes, when your ship hasn't come in, you have to swim out to it.

And when you have something to say, you have to say it.

But then the trick is finding someone who wants to read it. Not my specialty.

I know being a columnist would be hard.

I have "exposure" dreams whenever I'm about to publish something -- dreams that I can't find any privacy. I have a tendency to take any criticism hard, mulling it over and over, hearing it again and again.

Columnists are exposed and they are criticized.

So why is it still a dream? And wouldn't a rational person abandon it?

I don't know. But I can't. Not yet.

So I thank those who read this blog. It is my column.

Thank you to family and friends. And to those who have posted postive comments from Brazil and Croatia and India -- places I couldn't have reached even in a newspaper.

I hope what I have to say has meaning.

I hope somehow it makes the world a better place. Or maybe helps people see the world as a better place.

Because no matter what anyone else says, if a tree falls in a forest -- even if no one is there to hear it, I believe it makes a significant sound.

You know what this means!

The woodpeckers are tapping on the side of my house looking for a good place to make a hole, the magpies are back and taking command of the neighborhood, a robin perches on the branches now and then to check out the surroundings we share, the snow remains only on the north side of the house where it successfully hides from the sun even now, the temperature is 62 degrees.

And the crocus are out.

We made it!

It worked

OK, so I learned to ski from a book.

So a lot of people over the years have laughed out loud over that, but it was "Ski in Six Days" by Billy Kidd and it got me going.

And it's better to learn from a book than from a boyfriend standing over you saying "see how easy it is to turn?" "just lean into the hill" "put pressure on the outside edge" and other things that don't really help when you're sitting at the top of a mountain with nowhere else to go but what appears to be straight down and no way down that doesn't look slippery considering what's attached to your boots. Because that's where boyfriends take most of their friends after teaching them how to put their skis on -- to the top of a hill on a run that's marked intermediate but they're sure is more like a beginner slope and in the belief that you'll get the hang of it just by watching how easy it is for them.

So that's why I'm glad I learned to ski from a book.

No pressure.

Nothing steep until I chose it.

Nobody telling me to just "go like this" or that the slope was "not bad once you get past this first part."

The first day, according to the book, was just put the skis on and walk around at the base. I lumped it together with the second day which was snowplowing. There was a day for stem christi and a day for parallel skiing and one for moguls. And since that doesn't add up to six days, I guess I forgot one.

But I learned to ski and by the time I skiied with my boyfriend, he could take me to the top of the hill and give me pointers and I didn't freak out.

That was 30 years ago.

That boyfriend, now my husband of 29 years, and our four kids ski together. And while I'll never be as fast or tackle slopes as steep as they are and do, we can at least ride the lifts to the top of the mountain together.

Thanks to Billy Kidd.

I don't get it

Why does she stand there?

The woman who just found out with the rest of the world that her husband used call girls -- women he didn't even know well enough to like well enough to rationalize a decision to be unfaithful -- women he just pre-meditatively arranged for and used. Why does she stand there while he confesses and resigns?

Is the humiliation not yet great enough? Is the anger already passed? Is his need for support greater than her need for privacy?

Somehow it doesn't even appear as strength. It appears more like one more woman being used.

We were surprised when Hillary did it. And then we turned on her.

Is standing by an unfaithful husband in those first raw moments saying you knew it all along or didn't mind it so much? Or is it saying you are more forgiving and accepting than the rest of us would be.

My guess is Hillary's road would have been easier if she had left the man then and there. She would have been the victim, the martyr. She would have had sympathy and support and left behind the baggage he brings to the relationship even to this day.

Sure, relationships can be healed as time goes on and trust is rebuilt.

But in those first, fresh, painful moments, nobody would mind if the grieving woman stayed in her room with the blinds drawn and the phones unplugged.

In fact we might prefer it.

It's the least he deserves.

Winter wondering

There's nothing really bad about winter. If you've got a winter coat and a snow shovel and four-wheel drive and skis, that is.

Yes, it's cold and yes, it lasts a lot longer than you wish it would, but since the snow covers up the dead grass and brightens up the gray days, it's actually a nice change every year or so.

I like the blanket of white -- especially when it coats the mountains. I like the fluffy flakes -- especially when they're decorating the pine trees.

I like the puff of white that proves my body is warmer than the air that surrounds it.

Yes it's cold, but it's what makes hot chocolate and fires in the fireplace and ear muffs and snuggles all the more necessary.

And that's all good.

51 reasons to celebrate

It's not just because my birthday's coming up that I'm feeling old. It's because I looked in the mirror -- not to see if my masquera was on properly or if the necklace worked with the outfit, but to get the overview. And it did seem I'd put on some years since the last real look.

Alas, it happens and it's not all bad and there's not a lot I can do about it.

Some might suggest I could dye my hair, but what might be fine for everyone else is, in this case, not for me. It's more of a hassle than I'm willing to put up with and once you start you can't stop and thank goodness I've lived in Oregon long enough to appreciate natural, and besides that my mom's gotten away with grey hair all these years and my husband doesn't mind it since he has grey hair too and anyway -- why do something men don't have to do?

Besides shave legs, that is.

So I think I'll just get old and not even pretend I'm not.

Another way to fly

So the body hasn't been able to go very far lately. It's been stuck with responsibility and lack of opportunity, in a cold, white, wintry, windy world that now is home. But that doesn't mean I haven't traveled.

I just got back from a sojourn courtesy Elinor Burkett, who took me along for her year in Kyrgystan through her book, So Many Enemies, So Little Time. That was perhaps a trip best taken second hand since it included frustrations over everything from food to politics to heating systems to visa applications.

But I learned. About journalism in a post-Soviet society, about women in a post-Taliban society, about Iraqis' views of Americans in a pre-war society.

Previous to traveling through her book, I traveled to southern Utah for an inside look at a fundamentalist community. Again -- thankful not to have experienced it first-hand, I became ever-so-grateful for where I was born and how I have lived.

Now I'm traveling through time, as I experience the Depression through the eyes of an author whose research makes the fictional story educational as well as entertaining.

So yes, though I'd generally rather be the one traveling and writing about my discoveries, I must admit sometimes it just can't be. Time-travel or Afghanistan travel must be considered impossible and unlikely in that order.

That's what books are for.