Tag: family (Page 2 of 3)

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Wizardry

5 June 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Susan Shea

While I was choosing a
casket for my father a bluebird
tapped on our front living room window
flew to the back window
kept tapping until my husband
stood up to join him
he flew to a nearby branch
making his tu-a-wee sound
sitting right next to a female

my husband immediately believed

it was my father making him know
that he was now with my mother again
tu-a-wee two are we

I mentioned this story to my niece

two days later I gave the eulogy
mentioned that my daughter
repeatedly noticed me singing “we’re
off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard
of Oz” while driving to visit my father

right after the eulogy my niece presented me
with a framed photo of two bluebirds on a branch
with the quote “somewhere over the rainbow
bluebirds sing…the wizard of Oz”
we all made the connection at that moment

tu-a-wee
tu-a-wee
tu-a-wee

you are here
out from behind the curtain
here from beyond the veil

Susan Shea is retired school psychologist who has been a poet since third grade. She has been published under her previous married name, Susan Townsend in Plainsongs, Pudding, Poetry Forum Newsletter, Oxalis, The Orange Review, and the Accordion Flyer. Poetry is what keeps her pilot light on.

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The Old Photographs

3 June 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Joan Potter

My ex-son-in-law, who’s been out of my life for several years, just mailed me two photographs. I’m looking at one of them now. It’s an 8 x 10 print, in muted colors overlaid with a faded golden tint. Resting on a table in the foreground is an oblong Pyrex dish holding the remains of a green bean casserole, some creamy sauce still coating the inside corner. Next to it is an earthenware bowl with a spoon balanced on its edge, and a glass half full of red wine.

Across the table sit three of the dozen or so family members celebrating Thanksgiving in my daughter’s dining room. I’m on the left, wearing a red ribbed turtleneck, my grey hair cut short. I’m looking off in the direction of someone out of the picture.

Next to me is my youngest grandson, still with the chubby cheeks of a twelve-year-old. He’s smiling as he digs into his plate of food; he always loved to eat. On his other side is his teenage cousin, face partly hidden by the wine glass in the foreground, glancing with amusement at his young relative.

We always gathered for Thanksgiving dinner at the house my daughter shared with her then-husband and their two girls. It was just a few miles from where my husband and I lived in our New York City suburb. Their house had the most room, as well as a fireplace we could relax in front of after dinner.

The second photograph my ex-son-in-law enclosed was taken in the living room. In this one, my eldest granddaughter, a teenager then, is in the foreground, strumming a guitar with her lips parted in song. My husband, wearing a colorful sweater and khaki pants, is seated in a chair near her, looking thoughtful.

These pictures were taken almost twenty years ago. I don’t know why my former son-in-law decided to send them now. Perhaps he’s feeling sentimental. He and my daughter have been divorced for several years – amicably, she says. The chubby-cheeked grandson is now thirty, an engineer. His older cousin, my second daughter’s son, works on an upstate horse farm. I never hear from him.

The guitar-playing granddaughter lives in a small Midwestern city where she moved to be close to her younger sister, whose husband is studying at the university there. The younger sister is now planning to file for divorce. The older one, the guitar-playing one, is pregnant with her first child. She says she’s been having some problems with her boyfriend, the baby’s father, but they’re working things out. My husband, who was pensively listening to his granddaughter’s song, has been dead for six years.

Now that I’ve pored over these two photographs long enough, there’s no reason to keep them. They’re too big to store and the quality is poor. I already have closet shelves full of albums and boxes stuffed with hundreds of pictures of family as toddlers, teenagers, new parents, grandparents. It can be both enjoyable and painful to sift through them – my mother and father smiling in front of their California house, my four kids eating lobster rolls in Maine, and the many images of my husband, looking proud and content, with various babies resting on his lap.

Joan Potter‘s personal essays have appeared in anthologies and literary journals. Her piece, The Blur, appeared in the January, 2023 issue of The Bluebird Word. Her work has also been published in Persimmon Tree, The RavensPerch, Bright Flash Literary Review, Iron Horse Review, and others. She has published several nonfiction books.

home for the holidays

3 March 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Nicole Farmer

the cold the waiting
the airport the anticipation the anxiety
the arrival the introductions the hugs
the car the road the talking
the home the familiar the suitcases
the shopping the cooking the eating
the mess the cleaning the dishes
the board games the laughter the competition
the fire the warmth the stories
the traditions the movies the quoted lines
the photos the misunderstandings the confrontations
the alcohol the overeating the teasing
the gifts the hugs the texting
the sore throats the tea the tissues
the cold the grey the wind
the accusations the whispers the hurt feelings
the love the irritation the exhaustion
the suitcases the packing the loading
the car the road the silence
the airport the departure the hugs
the cold the relief

Nicole Farmer is a reading tutor living in Asheville, NC. Her poems have been published in many magazines. Her chapbook entitled Wet Underbelly Wind was published in 2022. Her book Honest Sonnets: memories from an unorthodox upbringing in verse will be published by Kelsay Books in 2023. Read more at NicoleFarmerpoetry.com

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The Leavings

17 January 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Susan Reese

I feel the days of parenthood creeping by, distant and unfulfilled. I hear the ticking of my children’s childhood clocks as that time passes forever by. Without a present and without a memory. These are feelings which fill my days and flood my heart with longing, the pain of separation and the melancholy of despair.
Lou Reese, #52760-080, 1992

You called late one night. You called every night, but it was unusual for you to call so late. After the kids were already asleep.

I was in our bed, exhausted from the day, finishing my tea and reading for a few minutes before turning out the light. That first year with you away in prison, it was hard to fall asleep.

We chatted about this and that. You had a new cellmate. Just arrived today. How was I holding up? Pretty good I guess. How was Beau’s sleepover with Orion last night? Fun. Uneventful.

I could tell there was another reason for the late-night call.

I closed my book and placed it on the bedside table. I turned off the lamp and lay on my back in the dark, holding only the phone, pretending you were lying next to me.

There was an awkward silence before you cleared your throat, lowered your voice, and said, “Susan, do you think it would be easier for the kids if you all stopped visiting me? Let them stay home, concentrate on school, their friends and having fun? Let them just pretend I’m away on a long business trip?”

My impulse was to comfort you, to say whatever I had to say to make you feel better, but my anger rose as I recognized your selfishness. I sat up and switched the light back on. Maybe that would be better for the kids, you’d said. My heart was racing as my eyes adjusted to the light. I was wide awake now.

How could you imagine our children not seeing you for three years? Hearing your voice from 800 miles away without seeing your face, or you theirs. Katie needing you for every precarious step from thirteen to sixteen. You were the most important male in her life. Beau needing you for the things I felt ill-equipped to handle. Sports, competition and before long, girls. And McKenzie—the baby. Needing you to be proud of her successes and your reassurance that she was not being disloyal having surrogate fathers for the first grade, father-daughter pancake breakfast and her first under the lights soccer game.

And me, needing you to be strong, to somehow manage to thrive. With the addition of everything else, were you willing to hand me the entire weight of parenthood for three years?

The longer we talked into the night, the easier it was for you to tell me the truth. I relaxed back into our bed and listened to you, my faraway husband.

“I don’t know if I can handle this, Susan. I’m ashamed, and I hate the kids seeing me this way.” Ashamed to be in the visiting room filled with strangers. The f***ing guards on red alert watching for a forbidden kiss between us. Ashamed of the count, having the kids watch as you line up subserviently with tattooed, long-haired inmates. Ashamed. “Every time you all come to see me, I don’t think I can stand it. When you all leave, I’m a total mess.”

Yes, the leavings hurt the most. Watching us walk away from you—off to the Comfort Inn as you head back to your dorm to climb up on your tiny top bunk, put your t-shirt over your face, and cry yourself to sleep. It would be easier for you to do your time on your own. Sure, probably. But at what cost to our kids? Not a price I was willing to have them pay.

Susan Reese is writing a book length manuscript dealing with the experience she and her family had when her husband, Lou, was incarcerated for three years. Writings include poems and essays written by Lou (the insider) and Susan (the outsider), reflecting the fact that the whole family was incarcerated.

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Help?

25 December 2022 / Editor

Special Selection for the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Issue

Fiction by Kraig Kiehl

She knew this was going to be a terribly busy day. They always were this time of year. Gail took off her wreath earrings, since they got in the way of the headset, and accessed the call database. Her day began.

Gail answered the first call, “Emergency Hotline, what is the location of your emergency?”

A woman on the line whispered, “I’m in the garage.”

Gail knew the steps that followed: she had handled many calls like this in her almost 40-year career.

“Ok, sweetie, please stay on the line with me. Is anyone hurt?”

“No, not really – just my feelings.”

“Ma’am, what is the nature of your emergency?”

“I’ve never cooked a turkey, and my mother-in-law says I won’t be able to do it. And I can’t cook a turkey, but I want to.”

“Can you help me?” the woman pleaded in a whisper.

Gail could help her and did. She had worked in this role since the early 1980s. There was no one better in the business. She was armed with a degree in home economics from the state college, a teaching certificate, and over 30 years’ experience as a teacher at the largest high school in Blair City. The kids called her Mrs. G – short for Mrs. Gail. She was retired now and spent more time with her kids, grandkids soon hopefully, but the community needed her today.

She was the lead dispatcher for the Butterbaster Turkey Hotline. It was Christmas Day and although Thanksgiving kicked her butt each year, it seemed like people needed her more on this special holiday.

She completed her notes for the last call, took a sip of water, and reached to pick up another call. The room was buzzing with activity; over 50 other good citizens, in cubicles, in a large room were busy at work; the people needed them.

“Emergency Hotline, what is the nature of your emergency?”

“Mom, it’s me. Why are you not answering your cell phone?” the female caller asked.

“Tara, honey, I’m at work, and the calls are coming in. What can I help with?”

“Mom, I tried the Supercenter like you asked to get our turkey on points, but they were out of turkeys. Dad’s not helping; he is watching Christmas Day bowl games with Uncle Barry. You know this may be a big night for me.”

“Honey, just go over to Martin’s. I know the manager, and he promised to put a nice turkey aside for us. So just take Daddy’s gas card with you to get the discount. Make sure it’s a thawed bird – we are running out of time. I will talk to you later.”

Buzz, Buzz. “Hi, honey, how’s it going?”

“Mom, it’s terrible. Dad and Uncle Barry are going crazy. State is down by 10 points.”

“No, honey. How did the turkey work out for you?”

“Mom, that’s the thing. Martin’s manager promised to hold your turkey until 11. He had to give it away. Stores are closing. What should I do?”

“Well, well…” Gail stammered.

“You are always more worried about other people’s holidays than our family. I just don’t understand,” Tara said with a sigh.

“Honey, you know that’s not true. What I do is important.”

“Yes, Mom. It is.” Tara said.

“Now, listen. Go down to Sanderson’s and see Joey Rabowski.”

“Who?” Tara asked.

“Joey Rabowski. Your Dad and I went to high school with him. Your Dad always called him Little Joe – not sure he liked that. Joey and I dated before I met your dad. He has always had a thing for me.”

“Oh, Mom, that’s gross.”

“Honey, it’s fine. Joey says he always keeps a turkey for me every year just in case I need it. He also gives me chocolate on Valentine’s Day, but don’t tell your dad.”

“Ok,” Tara said reluctantly.

“Go see Joey. They close soon, so hurry.”

Gail closed her flip-phone and wondered, was Tara right? Did she care more about other families than her own?

I really may have ruined my holiday this year, Gail thought.

“Emergency Hotline, what is the nature of your emergency?” Gail asked, a little less confidently than the calls earlier in the day.

“Hi. No emergency. We just called to get your advice on recipes for side dishes for our turkey. We are cooking a turducken in our outdoor oil fryer.”

“Well,” Gail said, “that is certainly a popular way to cook a turkey, not our recommendation, but a popular way. You are surely going to be fine, as long as you are following the directions.”

“We are…” the caller said and began to trail off.

“Sometimes people don’t thaw the turkeys, and they try to cook them froze– .”

Gail heard an explosion on the line, and the caller screamed.

“Ma’am, are you ok?” Gail questioned.

“Um, um. The turkducken exploded, was shot from the fryer, and is on fire in our front lawn. What should we do?”

“Call the fire department and rush over to Sanderson’s. I hear they have turkeys. They may be frozen but see if they have thawed ones in the back. Little Joe, um, Mr. Rabowski can help you.”

Gail disconnected the call.

“Emergency Hotline, what is the nature of your emergency?” Gail asked.

“Mom, it’s me. We got a turkey. Your old boyfriend hooked us up. He had a 20-pound turkey set aside for you and gave us extra cranberry sauce.”

“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful. We will be fine.”

“Mom, ah, one thing. The turkey is frozen,” Tara confessed.

Her day was not turning out the way she expected. Her husband and brother-in-law had drunk a case of Schlitz beer while watching State lose to Southern. Tara was already at the house.

“Emergency Hotline, what is the nature of your emergency?” the operator asked.

“Ethel, this is Gail. I need some help.”

Kraig Kiehl is an American writer of short stories and fiction prose. Kraig is a retired military officer, a former college professor, and currently an executive for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Kraig lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Renae, and two needy dogs.

Nourish

12 December 2022 / Editor

Special Selection for the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Issue

Nonfiction by Becky A. Benson

I still have the tiny baking set my mom bought for me from the Tupperware catalog
in the early eighties. The mixing bowls, various and hideous colors of burnt orange, sungold yellow, and dirt brown, (although today I suppose they would call it espresso) were a 1970s left over influence that looked like the color palette had been borrowed from a bag of Reese’s Pieces. The rolling pin is a free spinning wood tool with red painted handles, and of course, the bake ware is metal. Impossibly small sheet pans, muffin tins, loaf pans and even a pie plate.

My stay-at-home-mother made everything from scratch. Everything. And I would
sidle right up next to her in a chair pushed to the edge of the counter and mime along with the baking. My favorite was when she allotted me the extra pie crust to roll out because the extra would always be baked with cinnamon and sugar. It was one of my favorite treats. It still is.

Baking along with my mom was an act of love, one I still practice today. I loved
spending that time with her. Her mother’s recipe for southern chocolate pudding pie is our family’s all-time favorite dessert, and holiday staple. Propelled by both nostalgia and hope for the future, I had the recipe printed on tea towels as a gift for everyone in the family. My eighteen-year-old daughter is now the fourth generation to make this holiday and family gathering staple. Her first job was as a baker at a local bakery and she came home beaming with pride every time she expertly crafted a new treat.

This last Thanksgiving my brother looked on intently as we began making the pie.
Calculating and reprogramming our movements in his mind, filing them into a folder he could open at a later date, and asked my mom and me to describe, in detail every step of the pie making process as we stood at my mom’s stove and did just that.

“You have to temper the eggs,” I told him. “It’s a very important for creating the
custard in your pie and getting it to set up correctly without having scrambled eggs end up throughout the chocolate pudding. Wisk the eggs in a separate bowl, then add some of the chocolate mixture a little at a time, mixing as you go. Next, return the egg mixture to the pot with the rest of the chocolate mixture and stir until it’s nice and bubbly.”

After returning home he promptly and proudly sent us a picture of his very first
homemade pie. It was perfect.

As I knead the dough that has risen in my kitchen next to the warmth of the oven, I
think of the process of creation. Bread making teaches patience with its often, multiple intervals of rising. A science unto itself, baking relies on the correct proportions, of mixing and combining ingredients to create a new chemical compound. A flavorful chemistry experiment. I smell the yeasty scent wafting up to meet my nose as I pull and shape the ball of dough on my counter. I think of the nourishment it will bring my family, the joy over the comfort of it, and the relishing of the taste it provides.

It’s taken many years to become a skilled bread maker, and it’s a skill I’m proud of.
A fresh loaf of warm bread is always a welcomed offering. Creating these devourable masterpieces feels a lot like offering my love. The process is also an act of self-care for me in many ways. It accomplishes the necessary task of providing food, but it’s also a creative outlet where I can dream up new concoctions and combine them in a way to delight the senses.

In the kitchen I can tune out the world. I can focus on the task at hand because it
requires every ounce of my attention to be successful. Here I can leave the worries of my day behind and add a little goodness back into my immediate world. The meals and memories shared in the kitchen have the power to stick with us throughout our lives.

My confident, self-sufficient, enterprising young woman of a daughter once
famously told me, when I sarcastically quipped that she, “apparently didn’t need me for anything,” that she still needed me to make dinner. Then capped it off with, “I’m just a kid. I can’t use the stove.” She was five at the time and happily reports (often) that she’s able to use the stove these days. Moreover, she prefers to do it all on her own now. Sometimes I’ll come home to the most delightful treats I had nothing to do with. I couldn’t be prouder.

I wish I could have spent all these years baking with both my girls, laughing together and dusting their noses with powdered sugar as they tried to sneak a lick off the spoon. The memories we were never afforded the opportunity to make wash over me in a flood. Who would my youngest daughter be had she not died of Tay-Sachs disease at the age of three years old? Would she love chocolate pie as much as the rest of us? Would she, now at should-be-fourteen, also use the stove all on her own? I’ll never know.

My nine-year-old son stands in my doorway as I type and sheepishly asks if maybe
we can make something together today. As a child who spent the entirety of his short life in an unfortunate, harmful, and unstable placement in the foster care system before coming to us just a week shy of his seventh birthday, he relishes in any time we spend simply doing things with and including him. Finding his voice to speak up for even these small requests has been a big step in learning his own agency, as well as connection, and support.

Of course, we can make something together today. I know just the thing. After all,
who doesn’t love chocolate pie?

Becky A. Benson‘s work has appeared in print, online, and various television and podcast outlets. Becky serves as a public speaker, holds a degree in psychology, and works for the National Tay-Sachs & Allied Diseases Association serving families of terminally ill children as the organization’s Family Services Manager.

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The Christmas Tree Shop

4 December 2022 / Editor

Special Selection for the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Issue

Fiction by Derville Quigley

There is a Christmas Tree Shop where the chemist used to be. I work there. Today an old man and his daughter passed through. The man had a slight American accent and the look of a returned expat. He was dapper, carried a blackthorn stick, wore a long tweed coat and a knitted woollen hat.

“We would like one of your finest trees,” said his daughter.

“At a good price,” he piped up.

She smiled lovingly at him while throwing her eyes to heaven. With that he turned on his heel and walked to the far end, to explore the shop on his own.

“I love the smell. Daddy, don’t you just love the smell?”

He was ignoring her, lifting his stick to poke the trunk of a tree on display. The sign said, Non-shed Trees For Sale and he saw hundreds of pine needles scattered on the ground.

“We normally have an artificial one, but this year I have persuaded Mum and Dad to get a real one,” she told me.

“What do you think of that tree in the corner, Dad?”

“No,” was his adamant reply.

“Tell me about them,” she said.

So I told her how they were all Noble fir grown on the side of a mountain in County Wicklow. Grand, full trees. Sixteen years old. No trimming necessary.

“What do you think Dad?”

“I think you’re wasting your time,” he replied.

Her smile dropped and she walked over to the trees still packed in their netting. Bing Crosby sang of days merry and bright. There was a low fog and the lights glowed red, green and blue on the tree outside the courthouse. Meanwhile the old man was bent over his stick, looking at the pine needles lying everywhere. For a precious moment, the three of us were suspended in silence, in the fog.

“Show me one, which is seven foot and full right up to the top. I don’t want gaps and I want a bushy one,” she said sharply.

“Dad do you want to sit down?” she asked.

“No,” he replied.

“Okay we’ll take this one,” she said pointing to a large tree, wrapped and close at hand.

“Dad I’m going to pay for it and don’t tell Mum how much it cost.”

He took no notice of her. “I’m just going to bring the car back around and go to the bank machine. You stay here.”

She left the shop and he relaxed although looked weary. I faced the chair towards him and he sat down.

“Which one did she pick?” he asked clutching his stomach.

“This one,” I said.

He looked frail and tired and although genuinely interested he seemed to have more energy when despondent.

“I have birds in my chest,” he said. “I can feel them, their beaks pecking through my ribs. Sometimes they sing to me. There are six of them.”

He smiled with a wink.

“I was in hospital, treated for cancer and the damn bastard thing is back. I tell ya, I’m going to drink a lot of whiskey before I go. When a doctor tells a sick man to carry on as normal and don’t change his lifestyle, that’s when he knows he’s had it. Dr. Dutton told me not to listen to my wife…to do whatever I want to do. Not listen to my wife…and now we’re getting a real tree.”

For a moment he looked terribly frightened and then he started to laugh. We both laughed and snorted as tears streamed down our faces. “It’s getting dark now,” he said, sobered by the thought. She came back red-nosed with her purse in hand.

She was muttering to herself, “I’m going to be all right with the tree. I think I’ll be able to manage it in the car.” She handed me twenty euro.

“Did you ask the girl for a discount?”

“No, Dad, I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “‘”I can’t give any discounts. They’re not my trees.” He stood up straight and poked another tree.

“I would have preferred that one myself, anyway I thought our plan was to leave by sunset.”

“Dad, I still have to collect the turkey,” she said, and with that pulled the large, awkward, prickly tree out the door.

Derville Quigley is a writer and poet based in the Netherlands. She is co-founder of Strange Birds, a migratory writing collective and a co-organiser of Writers Flock, an international writers’ festival. Visit www.dervillequigley.net for more info.

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Sunrise Dances

21 November 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Hawke Trumbo

My mother taught me to slow dance.

She placed my left hand on her shoulder,
my right hand in her left.
Her right palm rested on the curve
of my spine.

Pre-fab flooring supported our steps
as my feet shadowed her glide.

We swayed in a Virginia valley
to the tune
of a Rocky Mountain hiiiiigh Colorado.

We saved time in a bottle,
lulled by the easy silence
of our pine and oak audience.

We twirled in kitchens,
perfected our timing to strums
’bout poems prayers and promises.

We pivoted as a teenager
found her feet and a mother learned
to loosen her grip.

Our arms stayed firm,
so we never lost each other.

Hawke Trumbo (they/them) is an East Coast writer and graduate of Chatham University’s Creative Writing MFA program. Their work has appeared in Coffin Bell and for the Western Pennsylvania Disability History & Action Consortium.

Never Too Late

8 October 2022 / Editor

Nonfiction by Nick Wynne

I had no experience with fatherhood, nor did I have the kind of experience with my father that would have helped me to be a better one. My father was an alcoholic, and I and all my siblings bore the brunt of that. He could be kind, but he could also be harsh and emotionally abusive. Despite his shortcomings, he and my mother made sure that we grew up with strong moral values and work ethic. Although we went through periods of severe economic stress as a family, they sacrificed to ensure that we were fed, clothed, and loved. Tragically, as a family we didn’t articulate our love for each other until after his death. It was there, but we didn’t express it.

I must confess I never really understood my father until I was in my mid-30s. Only then did I understand that he was a brilliant man who could have been anything he wanted to with an education but was forced to leave school in the third grade and work to support his mother and family. We, his own family, were five in number, and he worked hard to support us despite knowing that every job he took involved hard labor and minimum wages. Nevertheless, he persisted. It is no wonder that he took to drink to relieve his frustrations at not being able to provide more. Hard to understand, but understandable.

I do know that I never told my father I loved him until he was on his death bed. My brother Joe and I were in his room where he was in a coma. Joe left for some reason, and I was there alone with him. He briefly opened his eyes and looked at me. I felt compelled to tell him face-to-face, “I never told you this, you old sonofabitch, but I love you.” He blinked his eyes, smiled a little smile, closed his eyes, and died.

Nick Wynne is a retired educator and published author. He is a native of McRae, Georgia but lives in Rockledge, Florida. His latest book is Cousin Bob: The World War II Experiences of Robert Morris Warren, DSC. His website is www.nickwynnebooks.com.

The Place Between

29 August 2022 / Editor

Nonfiction by Susan Pope

Nothing but white. Walls, comforter, window shades, pale light leaking around the edges. Am I awake or dreaming? Is it night or day? I’ve lost all tethers.

The fury that delivered us here to Iceland spun out. In the calm, bird song. I slip from the warmth of my husband’s side, fumble for hat, coat, gloves, binoculars, and gently open the door.

“Where are you going?”

My eighteen-year-old grandson lifts his head from a pillow in the next bed.

“For a walk.”

“At 4:30 in the morning?”

He, at least, has come to rest on local time, while my body hovers between oceans and continents, time zones and eras. We pause between our home in Alaska and our destination, Paris, where we’ll join the rest of the family for a grand tour of Europe.

Moist air skims my cheeks as I hike a worn path to the lake. Steam lifts from the shore, drifting up from thick black mud. No other humans stir, but the birds sing, each in its own language. In the distance, whooper swans trumpet to each other, surely bowing and weaving their long, elegant necks in a courtship dance. Close by, Arctic terns, bodies sleek and silver in the luminous light, hover, swoop, snatch fish from the smooth water, and hum their raspy tunes.

I imagine a tall, sturdy Viking woman walking this same path. She’s slipped out of her sod hut, leaving her husband and children tucked beneath their sheepskin robes, on her way to fish for Arctic char or steal eggs from bird nests along the shore. She feeds her family.

By contrast, here I am, a small, American grandmother in a blue and purple hat, wandering with no other purpose than to spy on birds and guess their names.

This extravagant journey was my idea, a gathering of three generations before my teenaged grandchildren flee my grown daughter’s nest. I hope that a glimpse of the wider world will be my legacy to them. But, more honestly, the trip is a gift to me, as I turn seventy. If I can just hold my family close one more time…. What? They will love me? Remember me? Thank me?

Eric Erickson, the developmental psychologist, believed that the task of the last phase of life is to reconcile integrity with despair. If we look back on our lives and feel a sense of accomplishment, then we will feel complete, that our life had value. If we look back and feel guilty that we have not met our goals, then we will feel hopeless. The ultimate goal in this phase is wisdom. But, I feel neither wise nor hopeless, nor ready to declare this the final chapter of my life.

I reach a small clearing beside the lake. A weathered sign proclaims this ground—heated from the earth’s molten core—a sacred place. People once traveled here for healing. Now, it’s overgrown and neglected. Perhaps no one needs to make a healing pilgrimage anymore. I move to the center of the weeds and wait for a tingle of enlightenment. Instead, I feel only the warm ground at my feet and cool breeze on my face.

My mother turned seventy the year my daughter turned twenty-one. Their birthdays were two days apart, so we held a double celebration, my daughter reaching adulthood, my mother, wisdom, or at least longevity. I discounted my mother’s life then. I tried my best to be nothing like her. She had no interest in education, career, travel, or anything broader than taking care of husband and family. By contrast, I layered my life with diplomas, careers, and travel to exotic places. It was never quite enough.

I turn back, heading up the hill to the old school turned tourist hostel. Just as I fumble for my key, the night clerk rushes to open the door for me. He must have been watching the crazy woman roaming among the birds.

When I enter our room, it smells of sweat and damp clothes. Old man and boy man. I slide off my coat and shoes and slip back into the cocoon for a few more minutes, close to my men with their soft snores and grunts.

I don’t know if my mother felt wise when she died twelve years after her seventieth birthday. I do know that she was content to fiercely love the small cluster of people she kept close to her. Maybe that’s enough of a legacy for anyone to leave.

Susan Pope writes about nature, travel, and family. Her work has appeared in Pilgrimage, Under the Sun, Cirque: A Literary Journal of the Pacific Rim, Hippocampus, Burrow Press Review, BioStories, and Alaska Magazine, among others. Her writing reflects intimate ties to the North and a restless pursuit of faraway places.