Sell Me a Dumbo

The Mini Cooper returns to America, 2002*

There are things I now know I am never going to do in life:

• Live in Montana and watch a winter storm move in across the mountains.
• Live in a waterfront house—ocean or lake—anywhere.
• Win the Pulitzer Prize. Or the National Poetry Award. Or be asked to become the Christopher Gray of Chicago. (Go ahead, I'll give you bonus points if you know what I am talking about.) 
• Bike across the United States.

Given where I am in life, given my age, my health, my finances, my profession, my marriage, my family, and my husband's age, profession, finances, and family, there are some other things I am pretty darn sure I am never going to do:

• Live in a house that is 900 sf or less. (Where would we put the gongs, let alone the marimbas, xylophones, drums, and timpani?) 
• Own a Mini Cooper.* (Same issue as with a small house.)
• Spend a year crisscrossing the United States—Gettysburg, Mt. Desert Island, Savannah, Key West, Missoula and the Lolo Pass.

Somedays I look at my "never" list and my "pretty sure not" list and sigh just a little. Or a lot, depending on the mood.

It reminds me of Dumbo.

As a child growing up in the 60s, almost every single Sunday night revolved around "The Wonderful World of Disney" on television. And somewhere in that opening montage, there were scenes of Disneyland and the Dumbo ride.

How I wanted to go to Disneyland and ride the Dumbo ride. How, when my parents talked of summer vacations, I prayed that the magic word, "Disneyland," would be spoken.

It never was. Looking back, we took some pretty amazing trips for a blue-collar family, but Disneyland was not one of them.

So when at the age of 32, I finally got to Disneyland and finally rode Dumbo with a very young Ben, it was too late. Don't get me wrong: I loved Ben's excitement. Ben loved Disneyland. Ben loved riding Dumbo. But I could not call up the 10 year old girl I used to be and thrill to riding Dumbo for my own sake.

I recently recounted this story to my friend Margo. We laughed as I explained that what I now realize is  that when I finally got to Disneyland, I didn't want to ride Dumbo. I wanted to own a Dumbo. I wanted a fiberglass Dumbo fresh from Disneyland. Not the whole ride, just one of the Dumbos in my backyard. One with a pink hat. I think it'd make a really good planter, with flowers and trailing vines where the seats are.

I looked at Margo and said, "I want to say to Disney, 'Sell me a Dumbo.'"

I'm never going to have a Dumbo. I'm never going to have a Pulitzer or a waterfront home either. I'm not even going to get the Mini or the small house.

Life is what it is and at some point, you let go of some dreams and wishes. You take satisfaction in what you have. You count your blessings, and mine are many. I am blessed with an extraordinary degree of good health which, given the cancer, I should not have statistically. I am blessed with a husband and a rich marriage I never expected to have. I am blessed with wonderful children, with an amazing daughter-in-law, and with a granddaughter on the way. I am blessed with incredible friends and a community in which I am allowed to serve.

Blessings rain down upon me every single day.

And yet, as I recently wrote a friend, I sometimes find myself hemmed in by my life. The parameters in which I live sometimes chafe and the chafing bubbles up between the lines. I bump my head against them. I worry that as I set aside the unattainable dreams (goodbye, Pulitzer), I run the risk of setting aside other attainable dreams, of not challenging myself to even try to attain them. I run the risk of accepting the status quo even if it doesn't quite fit, just because it is so darn comfortable and easy. My greatest worry is that by not reaching, stretching, growing, I will diminish my engagement with the world and with my deepest self.

So I need to be sure to hang onto some of my dreams, dreams which I have not even listed above. I need to be able to reach into my pocket and pull out a rainbow, or a blue-bordered handkerchief, or a song. I need to be able to continue to live life deliberately and as fully engaged as possible.

But I still want a Dumbo.

***********

*The Mini Cooper was unavailable in America from the late 1960s until 2002. The ad, dating from its reintroduction, is classic.

Changes

"New Occasions Teach New Duties."

Those words, from the hymn "Once to Every Man and Nation" by James Russell Lowell, are inscribed on the façade of what used to be our community's high school and is now one of our two middle schools.

When I was in high school (the "new" high school), Mr. Felts, the quintessential math teacher who'd begun his career decades earlier at the "old" high school, would sometimes look at the class with a glint in his eyes.

"Mr. Wilson," he would say, calling on a student. "New occasions teach new duties. And now I need you to rise to the occasion. To the board, Mr. Wilson, to the board."

That motto and that scene are echoing in my head these days.

This coming Monday, I begin a new job as a mediator for our county Juvenile/Probate court. For the first time since I last practiced law in May, 2005, I will have an office. For the first time in over a decade, I will have a supervisor, a schedule, a regular paycheck, and (drum roll, please) medical insurance.

New occasions and new duties, indeed.

For the last five years, almost to the day, I have been the special projects administrator (a self-coined title) for David Sunderman, one of our two Municipal Court judges. David and I had been colleagues at the bar and friends for many years and he had actually asked whether I would be interested in working for him back in late 2004, less than a week before I was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. I began in March 2006 once I was well enough to start working and have never looked back. 

Working with David Sunderman has been a blessing, professionally and personally. By any measure, it has been a successful collaboration. I have had my hand in a variety of projects over the years. The two I am proudest of are the establishment of a mental health docket for criminal defendants with mental illnesses and the establishment of a civil mediation program. The last five years epitomize what I recently took to heart: "go where your best prayers take you."

My new position first came to light last summer when I fielded an email from a good friend and employee at Juvenile County telling me one of their two mediators would be retiring and asking me whether I knew any mediators who might be interested in the position.

If memory serves me, I replied, "yes, I do." As in "Yes, I do know mediators who might be interested."

My friend immediately responded with "Good! I was hoping you would be interested!"

To this day, I still don't know how "yes, I do" became "yes, I am," but it did and, as it turns out, I was.

I kept "my" judge in the loop from the outset. It wasn't until this February, however, when the job officially opened and I applied and was given an interview that it suddenly became apparent that I might be leaving Municipal Court.

And then it changed from "I might be leaving" to "I am leaving."

This past Monday my "new" judge, Ken Spicer, made me the formal job offer. I've known Ken for years; I've practiced in front of him. (I've known many of the people I will be working with, including my new supervisor, for years.) I accepted.

On Tuesday, I sat down with my "old" judge and began discussing my transition. Because the new position is part-time and the two courts are only a half block apart, I will have the ability to move out of projects over the coming weeks and not have to do it abruptly.

I am about to experience a new occasion.

This new occasion became real - more real than saying "yes" to Judge Spicer - when I drafted notes to my co-workers at Municipal Court announcing my new job. One to the Mental Health docket team, one to the deputy clerks in the Civil division, one to the mediators, and the last to the court staff. 

I was a little sad, but reserved, with the first.

I was sad with a lump in my throat with the second.

I had a larger lump in my throat as I did the third.

It was the fourth note, though, that brought me to tears. In sending the note to the administrative staff in chambers, I added a post script asking Pat to please make sure the bailiffs got a copy of my announcement. I wrote: Especially the bailiffs, since I have been a "Junior Bailiff" on Thursday afternoon for months now.

That's when the tears started rolling. I hit "send" and cried. Not long, not hard, but I baptized my new occasion with tears for the old.

Yesterday I was at Municipal Court to manage the small claims mediation program. My space at the court check-in table was covered with chocolates, courtesy of the Mental Health Docket coordinator. Dave, one of the bailiffs, announced with a grin, "oh, I see our Junior Bailiff is here." Throughout the afternoon there were comments ranging from "gee, I'm sorry you are leaving" to "just wait until they find out over there what you're really like to work with - you'll be back."

It just about killed me.

Last night Warren and I were en route to a Symphony concert-related event with our good friend (and Symphony Board member) Dave, who happens to be the person who asked me many months ago whether I knew anyone who would be interested in the mediator's position. As we drove along in the dark and the snow, Warren and Dave talking Symphony matters, his children having a verbal tug-of-war over a small flashlight, and me sitting in the back of the van remembering my children having similar skirmishes, Dave suddenly asked "so, April, are you excited about starting on Monday?" I answered back immediately that I was and Dave replied with an emphatic "Good!"

It is good. I am excited.

New occasions teach new duties. My five year stint at Municipal Court was a wonderful occasion with many great learning experiences. The new one awaits.

Change

We all think about change and improvement: changing ourselves, improving our communities, changing our attitudes, improving our spouses. We change our hairstyles, we change our beliefs, we change what we do or what we eat or what we read or what we listen to, trying to better our lives or the lives of those around us. 

Some of us even think about changing the world. Few of us ever try, though, because it is so daunting a task. How can someone just plain Jane ordinary little old me really help change the world?

Sometimes the first step in changing the world is as simple as refusing to give up your seat.

Thank you, Rosa Parks, who 55 years ago today chose to stay seated.

Warren and April's Big Trip

"Are you ever going to write about our trip?"

Warren posed that question to me late the other night.

"I don't know," I replied, adding "I have written about our trip."

Well, a little. And I did write about the wedding, which is, unbelievably, now more than a month behind us.

Warren's question came back to me yesterday as we headed to Mansfield, an hour north of here, for an afternoon rehearsal and evening concert. About three-quarters of the way there, I said, somewhat incredulously, "I think this is the farthest we have driven together since coming back from our trip."

I was quiet a moment, then added, "In fact, this the first I've been out of the county since getting back."

Yesterday was an early fall day. The soybean fields are turning golden. Trees are looking dusty as the summer greens fade. The afternoon sky was not the deep blue we see in October, but it was not the thin, almost transparent blue of high summer either.

A month ago we were driving across the plains at the height of summer.

Am I going to write about our trip? Apparently, judging by this post.

As always, the small moments stick in my mind:

Hot fudge sundaes in Le Mars, Iowa, at the Blue Bunny ice cream parlor and then, as we drove further east into the night, stopping on a two-lane road in rural Iowa, cutting the headlights, and seeing the Milky Way spread out above us.

The golden rolling hills of Montana.

Mount Rushmore being far larger than I remembered.

Clouds above the plains, endlessly changing.

The big buffalo. The big cheese. The big sundae.

The big spaces.

The terrible empty stillness at Little Bighorn.

Coming around a bend in the road and catching our first glimpse of Devils Tower.

Looking at the architecture everywhere we were. At one point, I turned to Warren and said "I've driven over 1700 miles and what do I do but look at buildings?" (To which he replied, grinning, "all you've done on this vacation is show me rocks.")

The Music Man footbridge in Mason City, Iowa.

Sheer American goofiness that works just because it is so goofy: the Corn Palace, the gnome Ferris Wheel.
The joy of crossing the Continental Divide.

Fistfuls of small moments.

Since coming back, the routine events of daily life, not to mention the demands of our schedules, have swept in again like the tide. Meetings, band camp, legal clinic, the first football game, the Symphony office move, coffee with friends, breakfasts, laundry, dishes, groceries - you know.

Daily life hasn't changed one bit.

But I am. Changing, that is. I have written about my disorientation since coming back. I am rooted again, but I am changing. The trip kicked open a door to change. I can't define it, I can't describe it yet, but I can feel it.

After feeding the throngs who followed him up into the hills on five loaves and two fishes, Jesus told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments that are left over, that nothing may be lost." (John 6:12)

We took a great many photos on our trip, gathering memories, that nothing may be lost.

Warren still speaks with reverence and appreciation about our trip. For him, it was a chance to see a part of the country he never thought he'd see. The highlight of his trip was Devils Tower, which we walked around the base of when we were there.

For me, it was the chance to revisit places I never thought I would see again. My highlight was the plains - the Dakotas, Montana - and their vast emptiness. It was driving US 12 across Montana, watching it unroll from east to west, and losing myself and my thoughts in those golden hills.

Sometimes my small moments seem like fragments of the day - a chance meeting of a friend while dashing to the grocery, an unexpected note in the mail, Warren's face lighting up in a smile. Our trip was full of so many of those moments - threaded together by laughter and wonder and shared companionship.

And hot fudge sundaes.