Peg Kerr's Journal

Our trip to Yellowstone was a long day, but lots of fun. We saw an impressive number of wildlife: moose, elk, deer, bison, foxes, etc. No bears, though. I'm not sure I'm quite disappointed about that. We saw Old Faithful blow and walked around thermal pools/mud pots. The weather was gorgeous. Sitting in the back seat, Delia sang hundreds of times, "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves and this is how it goes: I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves . . . " but we were all in such a good mood that we just laughed at her.

The families have been taking turns serving dinners. Last night it was the turn of my brother-in-law Phil (the geology prof) and his wife Tricia. Tricia had stayed back at the condo cooking up a feast while everyone was at Yellowstone. Since this trip was originally supposed to be the family's Australian trip, she made an Australian feast: sausage rolls, meat pot pies, curry rice salad, and no less than four desserts. Then every family had to offer an Australian thing: a skit, a game, a charade. I had much more wine than usual, which was perhaps not very helpful when it came time to do the boomerang toss. For our family, I taught the girls a song I'd learn at camp: "Australian girls, they have no combs (they comb their hair with codfish bones)." The girls were tentative, but the song absolutely cracked everybody up.

Today, our family is cooking, so Rob and I are about to leave for the grocery store. Dinner tonight will be a fourth of July picnic menu: brauts and pasta salad, with watermelon for dessert. Delia is off horse back riding right now, but this afternoon, we'll probably poke around the stores at Jackson Hole for a bit.

Have a great 4th, everybody.

Well, we have safely arrived in Jackson Hole, and we're staying at the Snake River Lodge and Spa here with the rest of Rob's family (mother, step-dad and brothers and sisters and their kids, along with one cousin and her kids.) This entire trip was made possible by the generosity of Rob's mom and step-dad. They had planned to take us all to Australia for years, but it became clear that Australia just wasn't going to happen, so they decided on Jackson Hole instead. I've never been here before; it's absolutely lovely, and ths lodge is very luxurious. Our families are sharing several condos at the lodge.

Yesterday, we split into two groups for hikes. The ambitious group, which included Rob, Fiona and Delia, hiked a mountain behind a lodge, a five mile trek, and then took a gondola back down. Delia made it three miles and that was the limit of her endurance, and then she and Rob turned back. I think she did wonderfully to make it that far. The altitude certainly was a factor. Fiona made it all the way. I didn't think I'd better attempt this because of my surgery last month, and so I went with the other group, which did a flat hike in the Grand Teton National Park. This trek got cut short because Rob's step-dad had to stop due to trouble with his knees. So we came back rather earlier than we expected.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a massage at the spa. Everytime I get a massage, the masseuse usually comments on the unusual amount of tension I carry in my back and shoulders, and this time was no exception. My trapezoids are tight, and imbalanced (doubtless because of the heavy purse I carry), my rhomboids are incredibly tight, and there is still a little inflammation in the vertabrae in the small of my back, opposite the surgical scar in my navel.

After the massage, I took a shower in the spa's incredably luxurious locker room (it sounds strange to describe a locker room as luxurious, but this one was). As I took off the fluffy spa bathrobe and slippers and stepped into the shower, I took stock of my body. My belly button, once an innie, is now half-innie, half-outie because of the surgical scar, and there are two other half-inch scars from the laproscopic scope. I am still about ten pounds heavier than I would like, and I carry the extra in my belly. My legs are strong. My arms aren't exactly "cut," but they are certainly better defined than many women's arms. I checked a website last week to find out my body mass index, and the site told me that my BMI put me in the top 20% of American women my age and height.

Not perfect, my body. But I felt a strange surge of affection for it yesterday, standing there in the shower. It has borne me two beautiful children. It has carried me this far in forty-seven years. I am becoming more active, and I hope to get in better shape still, if I can manage to continue the biking and karate. Yes, there is a little belly fat, and yes, I need to work on my strength and flexibility, and yes, I'd like to be ten pounds lighter.

But right then, I felt like a strong woman who is in good shape, who is taking conscientious care of herself. I liked my body just fine.

Last night, Rob's brother Phil, who is a professor of geology, gave us a powerpoint presentation about the history of geological changes that formed Yellowstone National Park, in preparation for our visit to the park today. It should be a fun day.

Having a great time here in Wyoming.

Rob, alas, has to work for three hours this morning. Bad timing, that. Then we jump in the car and drive an hour and a half north (the wrong direction) to the girls' camp, where we will be treated to a recital of the musical program they have been working on this week. From there, without going home, we are heading south again, this time all the way to Tennessee, where my family is gathering at a time share resort for a family reunion: my parents, sibs, and all our kids. My parents are providing the time share time.

I am really looking forward to it. The camp pick up is not good timing either--the family is gathering there today, and it will probably be a sixteen hour time to get there. I'm not sure we will drive through the night. Rob's the night owl, not me, so perhaps he could, but he has been feeling a little under the weather lately because of an infection in his foot. We'll see.

We convened at Cousin Kerry's house today. This was perfectly calculated to please everyone: they have a lovely house with a fine backyard equipped with a patio deck with furniture overlooking the garden, a trampoline, a swing, a basketball net and a hot tub. The kids kept up a steady bouncing on the trampoline for hours, but eventually, a subset of us decided to go to the beach, so we drove, in shifts, to Torrey Pines State Park Beach. Rob stayed, but the girls and I went.

I cannot remember specifically the last time that I walked into the ocean. Years. Decades, possibly. The one time I definitely remember was the trip taken to the east coast, when I was nine. And there was my travel across Europe, which included time spent in Greece, when I was twenty-one. There were probably times since then, but not any that I remember in much detail.

You must understand: I grew up near Lake Michigan, one of the largest lakes in the world, and so when I stand on a beach and see an expanse of water, so large that I can't see the opposite shore, I imagine it to be fresh water.

And yet I remember the taste of the sea. Taste it once, and then touch a few drops of that salty bitterness to the tongue again, years later, and the memory returns with a jolt: oh yes. The sea.

Rob's sisters Shannon and Erika and I stood in water knee deep and laughed as the waves washed over our legs. Strands of seaweed continually wound themselves around our ankles, and the pull of the water back from the receding waves kept making the sand shift and slither out from beneath our feet, so we could not simply stand, but kept walking toward the waves and stumbling back. Fiona had borrowed a boogie board and was rapidly making friends with the waves, but it took me awhile to immerse myself entirely. At first it was cold, but then as the water splashed further and further up my waist, I stopped sucking in a breath and standing on my toes as each wave came. I deliberately turned my back to the shore and walked in until I was wet from head to foot.

I spent a half hour watching the waves, walking into them, riding them back toward shore and walking out again as they hissed their way back to the sea. The sand was soft under my feet, but interspersed with hard smoothnesses--pebbles? Shells? The light shifted on the waves, sliding across the ever-changing surface, and the infinite variations of the interplay of gray and green and white reminded me of volcanic glass. A milky froth floated on the water's surface, loose strands of seaweed drifted just underneath, and in the depths, millions of suspended particles of sand caught the sunlight in ever-shifting golden flashes, like the flecks in goldstone. The tops of the waves shifted in cascades of curves, and then became angular, then jagged, and then crashed into foaming white power that rushed and tumbled and roared toward the shore. I walked out farther. The waves now lifted my feet from the sand and then dropped me back again, and the waves now crested over my head. Unafraid, I watched them come toward me, one after another, with a regular timeless rhythm which I knew would be relentless whether I ducked or ignored them or tried to turn to flee. Like breaths, I thought, like the rocking caresses of Mother Earth. I spat out the salty taste . . . and this is the taste of her blood, a flavor that all her children instantly recognize whenever they taste it again, no matter how many years it has been.

We are packing to fly to Los Angeles today. We will drive from there to San Diego, where we will join Rob's family for a family reunion this weekend. Then we'll drive to San Francisco to be with Rob's mom and step-dad for a day. We'll leave the girls there to be spoiled rotten by their grandparents for a week and a half and Rob and I will fly home by ourselves. I'll have my laptop on the road.

Rob and I drove with the girls to Redwing, Minnesota, as sort of a weekend getaway. Well, not quite an entire weekend. We drove to Lakeville and stayed at a hotel there Friday night, and then drove to Redwing Saturday, to browse through the arts fair and the shops. The girls made sea shell necklaces at the children's art booth (and Fiona lost hers somewhere during the day, causing much angst). It was a very pleasant day, and the weather turned out to be much nice than expected.

Weird but true: I had mentioned that I have already seen one possible embodiment of my protagonist Solveig, an architect who was answering questions about the newly designed library project. This past week, I've been thinking that one of the attorneys in my office might also make a good Solveig. Now, at one point in Redwing, we stopped in a store which sold fine Scandinavian gifts. I found a book on Scandinavian folk beliefs. I was trying to decide whether I wanted to buy it, and I turned around, and that attorney was standing right in front of me. She had driven down to Redwing for the weekend, too, and had also wandered into the store.

Hey, I can usually grasp it when the universe hands me a big clue like that. I bought the book.

Peg