The dating game

I never thought much about what it would be like to date after my divorce. Maybe some folks think about it, but it was the last thing on my mind. It took me two years to consider it. And when I did. . . Let's just say the results have been something short of spectacular. Mickey Rooney short.

I met the first man while having dinner at a local establishment in Tallahassee. He was here on special assignment for the Marines. I should have known from the first that we probably didn't share many interests when he told me he didn't know Tallahassee was the capital of Florida. He assumed it was Jacksonville. I overlooked it because he was from Georgia, originally from Michigan. The next night I decided we would go to dinner downtown and sit outside at Andrews within view of the tall capitol building - Tallahassee's only sky scraper. I ordered a glass of wine, and he ordered a pitcher of beer.

"So this is where the hoopla took place during the 2000 election. Katherine Harris came down here and the reporters hung out at Andrews," I said.

"Why?"

"The 2000 election? Hanging chads, Al Gore, George W. Bush?" I ventured.

A blank look told me he thought I spoke a foreign language. The waiter deposited my glass of wine and one pitcher of beer with one glass.

I was at a loss, but he filled the gap to tell me about his ex-wife with the crack habit taking care of their 14 year old daughter.

"Do you think I should try for custody?" he asked.

I no longer remember his name; I simply call him Moron, with apologies to anyone this might offend.

The waiter returned, and I hoped to get the check, but my date had other plans.

"This pitcher got warm before I could finish it, so bring me a bucket of beer this time," Prince Charming Moron said.

On his second beer from the bucket, he had another tale to tell.

"My mother and I don't get along," he said.

"Why not?" I asked wondering how to feign the plague so I could get out of this hell.

"Well, back when I used to drink a lot. . ." he began.

I gulped my wine.

"One night I beat up my sister, and my mother had me thrown in jail."

First date ended.

The Great Jacksby

Jack Hunter (AKA The Great Jacksby) died this morning peacefully in his beloved home in St. Augustine. Perhaps in the days to come I'll be able to write the words that are not taking shape right now. My heart is full of love and loss at the same time. Gratitude slips in as well. My whole relationship with Jacko was ethereal yet solid. His words echo in my head without warning and in a later blog I will share some of his gems. But not tonight; tonight I want those thoughts left right where they are where I can treasure them and know that no one else shared those moments we had together.

Jacko, you were simply the best.

Challenges

Today's inspirational message in my e-mail comes from Cicely Tyson. It says challenges are those things that take us further than we ever thought we could go. So true. I'm in a challenging place now with my job. It's something that keeps rearing its ugly head ever since I started this job - different people, different situations. It probably won't go away until I face it and my complicity in the challenge. That's the tough thing. It's easier sometimes to think in terms of things "happening to us." But the truth is we've made decisions all along the journey that have brought us to particular places. If the same type of challenge keeps reappearing, I'm convinced we've missed something when first dealing with it. The first step is to recognize that and get out of the victim mode. Take responsibility for what is happening and make a concerted effort to not be in that type of challenge again.

Then it will be time to start all over again with one more challenge that takes us further than we ever thought we could go.

Live From the Road

It's frustrating to have a completed book just sitting and waiting to be read. There's one in a file cabinet drawer written in collaboration with a couple whose tale it really is. Two Moons in Africa is the story of Barbara and Brent Swan and it examines what happens when Brent is taken hostage in Angola and then the aftermath of the next two decades. I hate thinking of it these days because all efforts to publish it have hit brick walls. Of course, I don't do much trying these days because it seems so futile. I know it disappoints the Swans as much as me.

Now I've finished another novel, and it too sits waiting. I am pursuing publishing this because I haven't been totally discouraged yet by the lack of response. It's one thing to write the thing, another matter entirely to get it published. And then if I am fortunate enough to have a publisher bring it to light, there comes the promotion. Not a whole lot of writing going on when that's happening. Live From the Road is a rollicking journey where Jack Kerouac meets Martha Stewart on acid. At least that's the way it seems as four females hit the road for adventure and enlightenment. They end up with a whole lot more! It's my favorite of all the books I've written because of its poignant simplicity. Perhaps one of these days I'll post an excerpt.

The Happiest Days. . .

are those days when I work on my novel. Live From the Road is completed, waiting for some unknown entity to read an excerpt or my carefully crafted query and say, "This is the best thing I've ever read." And my fifth novel, begun three years ago and left on the shelf while I moved and wrote another book, is now out of the closet. I'm intrigued by the story I began, but with the distance provided by my life, I am excited to see where I need to tighten the plot, create more tension, describe characters in detail. Right now it's a series of threads not yet woven into a tapestry. That's the challenge and the joy: To take the threads I have dangling over the page and tie them all together into one complete quilt.

At first, I thought being published was the reward and so I always looked to the future - that lofty long-term goal. Once the glow faded from book signings that could mean 40 or 50 books sold to the book signings where 5 made me feel successful, the glow of being published has faded. And now I am happiest simply writing and creating the stories.

First and foremost, in everything I write, whether it's a news release, a report or a novel, I am a storyteller.

The End

Happy birthday, bro

Today is my brother Bill’s birthday. I won’t broadcast his age, but I will say he’s my older, much older brother.

There’s all the usual childhood memories of a big brother teasing and protecting. One time while on summer vacation with Bill and wife, Kathy, and their two children, I met a young man who took me out on his boat on a small lake in Minnesota. Bill told the guy I couldn’t go out on the boat unless he could come along. So for an interminable afternoon, Bill, my beau and I rode around the lake until finally Bill took mercy on the guy and asked to be dropped back off at the dock.

Later as we climbed the hill to go back to the cottages, the young man attempted a first kiss, which didn’t go very well. I couldn’t stop laughing when I looked over the guy’s shoulder and saw my big brother running between the trees spying on us. Our last night in Minnesota, my 16-year-old love interest told me I was a sweet girl, but he couldn’t take my brother. The teenage love affair was over.

There are many memories that make me smile, but the memory that I will cherish forever occurred just last year. Bill and Kathy came for a visit soon after I bought my first house after my marriage ended. Another brother had just died, and they drove from Michigan to Florida just to help me get through it because they knew I wasn’t handling it well.

In addition, having divorced the year before, the details of living alone and owning a house overwhelmed me at that time. But the thing that almost sent me over the edge was the day the pull chain on my lawn mower broke. It was Bill and Kathy’s last day in Florida, and my brother was helping me with some of my “overwhelming chores.”

Bill didn’t quite know what to do with my tears and frustration as I stood next to the broken mower. I hadn’t cried over my 26-year marriage or the death of my brother Don as much as I cried over that sorry mower.

“I’m just going to sell this house and move into an apartment,” I wailed.

“You’re not going to sell this house over a broken lawn mower,” he said. Then he put the machine in the back of his van and drove both the broken machine and broken sister to Lowe’s where he insisted I was given a new mower.

After we came home, he put it together for me and showed me how it worked. Then I pulled the chain and in one quick motion, I was mowing.

I kept the house, and the lawn mower still works. And so do I.

No matter what happened to the kid in Minnesota, I came away with something even better than a handsome young man with a boat.

I still have my big brother, and he’s still running behind trees, fixing my mower and making me feel like the luckiest baby sister in the world.

Happy birthday, Bill.

The Aries

Most of my life I have been surrounded by Aries, the ram. Mother, father, husband, two brothers -- what it means I'm not really sure except it's not really a compatible sign for me, the goat. The past two weeks have been reminders of those folks - only two of them are alive today - as their birthdays come and go. They are all very different people with one common denominator - I love them all and all held the power at one time or another in my life to control my life, except perhaps the one brother whose birthday is tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be his day in my blog.

My beloved lighthouse

I love walking on the beach around St. Marks Lighthouse on the Gulf of Mexico just 30 minutes from my home in Tallahassee. It's an isolated and wild beach, an area where the monarchs migrate to each fall and the whooping cranes wintered this year. Today red-winged blackbirds kept me entertained. I stopped for a long time and stood feet away from one in a bush as he warbled his song. And then I stepped on a Styrofoam cup.

A little further, an empty yogurt container kept the crabs company on the sand. A small tub, once holding bait sat on the rocks near the water. I picked them all up stuffing the trash in the bait container. And as I straightened up and began my walk once again toward the lighthouse, I stepped on a filled disposable diaper. That I did not pick up since I had not brought on my peaceful Sunday morning walk either plastic gloves or bags. Next time I'll come armed with both.

Who would come to such a place of beauty and leave such ugliness behind?

Saturday morning meowing

I have a weekend dilemma. My cat, Grace, becomes quite agitated when I'm not out of bed by 7 a.m. - seven days a week. This morning with no commitments until later in the morning I burrowed under the covers. The clock told me it was 6:30, and I sighed in relief. Saturday morning and sleep I thought, but Grace had other plans.

"Meow" she screeched next to the bed. She continued until I responded. By 7:30, I realized I was not sleeping, and my cat was not going to be satisfied until the coffee began brewing.

How do I train her about weekends? In fact, how do I train her period? On Wednesday, I overslept until 7:15. Where was her meowing then?

Now she sits quietly in the window next to my computer gazing outside, her job finished for the day. I yawn and long to go back to bed knowing that I will put her on duty once again.

Life Without Lights

Last night I sat in my living room, in the soft glow of candlelight, hungry and sweaty from my kick box class. All day I'd thought about my dependence upon technology — and by extension, electricity. Then when I rushed out of the store with a frozen pizza — my soon-to-be dinner— into a torrential downpour, I said aloud to the rain, "Thank God for attached garages." When I arrived home, the power was out and therefore my electric garage door would not open. After dashing through the rain to my front door, the frozen pizza was quickly stashed in the still-freezing freezer, and I raced around lighting candles. Then I wandered from room to room, wondering what do I do now? No television to watch, no computer to cruise, no lights to read by.

Last week the Internet and blackberry service at work shut down for the good part of a day. It nearly shut down the rest of us, too. Then yesterday I switched to a new computer but one without all the bells and jingles I'd grown accustomed to using. I nearly had a melt-down because people were depending on me to produce and I was paralyzed.

So last night with the wind howling and my stomach growling, I picked up a pen and notebook and wrote in my journal - the old-fashioned way - by candlelight. I paused periodically to watch the flame flicker; I listened to the only sounds in the house - my cat crunching on her dinner. And I savored the moments before the lights burst back on while I ruled the world rather than the world ruling me.

The Wildlife Forecast

Here's the first installment of my column "The Wildlife Forecast." I write this column for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Today’s wildlife forecast: Overcast with patches of sun

Did you hear the one about two panthers hanging around the watering hole in the Everglades? One says to the other one, “Did you notice it’s getting warmer around here?”

“We better go north soon, but how are we gonna cross I-4?” the other panther asked. “We’ll melt waiting for traffic to clear.”

This fantasy account contains some pertinent reality. Wildlife does have the ability to adapt to changes in the environment; the climate is on a warming trend; I-4 does provide an impediment to wildlife moving north.

And Florida is facing an accelerated changing environment with human population growth and rising temperatures.

But it is not all doom and gloom. A few months ago, I witnessed Florida wildlife’s glimmer of hope in the forest at a gathering of the nation’s top scientists – experts in both wildlife management and climate change. As a nonscientist amid such an array of minds, I caught the passion for doing something now to aid wildlife’s adaptation.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) asked these folks to attend “Florida’s Wildlife: On the front line of climate change” in Orlando this past October. They gathered not to bemoan the possible effects of climate change, but to find answers that would help our precious and unique fauna.

“We are experts on wildlife, but not on climate change,” said Tim Breault, the FWC’s director of the Division of Habitat and Species Conservation.

Breault’s admonition came with the addendum, “We are asking the experts to come to us so we can gather all the information we need to move into the future as the protector and manager of Florida’s wildlife.”

And indeed those experts came. They came from state agencies such as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and water management districts; they came from federal agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey; they came from national organizations such as the Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Federation; they came from universities and the private sector.

The resumes of those in attendance only added to the importance of the event: Ph.D.s, wildlife managers, professors and Nobel Prize laureates all shared in the summit’s discussions along with students, volunteers and FWC staff from all levels.

The predictions that were presented, such as South Florida’s increased drying trend, may sound dire on the surface, but there is hope. I saw it shouted throughout the halls and salons and ballrooms of the hotel where the summit was held.

During the second day of breakout sessions, led by the FWC’s top experts, the passion fueling the participants became obvious. Large sheets of paper began appearing on the walls of the workshop rooms, and recorders wrote comments furiously on the paper as participants yelled out the concerns and challenges.

Moderators struggled positively to preserve order so all the voices could be heard. The discussions spilled over to the luncheon in one of the hotel’s ballrooms. The day’s session had to be firmly ended by the facilitators so all the information could be compiled into cohesive, action-oriented lists.

Breault’s wish came true. The experts came and shared their knowledge, and the FWC now leads the way in the country as an example of a wildlife agency that has begun to take action rather than waiting to react to what might come next.

As the climate warms, wildlife will move north to seek cooler climates. But impediments to wildlife travel in this state will be a hindrance. The wide ribbon of asphalt and concrete of I-4 stretches from the Atlantic Ocean, north of Orlando, right across the state to the Gulf of Mexico.

The FWC and its partners must work now to create corridors that will aid the safe passage of wildlife needing to travel north.

The summit generated a tremendous amount of information for the FWC to develop a blueprint. The FWC’s Executive Director, Kenneth Haddad, recently appointed an internal Climate Change Oversight Team, which will oversee all climate-change-related activities at the FWC.

Each month I’ll report in The Wildlife Forecast on the FWC and its partners, keeping you abreast of federal, state and local programs and legislation on climate change and its impacts on wildlife.

With allies such as the ones who huddled together in Orlando at the FWC’s summit, The Wildlife Forecast for this month feels confident in predicting that Florida’s wildlife has some sunshine in the future, despite the stormy weather on the way.

Contact Patricia Behnke at pat.behnke@MyFWC.com.

The Alzheimer's Journey: From mathematician to artist

Today, April 1, is my brother Marvin's 71st birthday. He died on January 3, 2009. This essay is a tribute to him and all those who loved and nurtured him during his life.


Alzheimer’s breathed a new life into my brother, Marvin. I made this jarring observation when I flew to Phoenix to spend some time with my sister-in-law after his death in early January.

In the life where I knew him best, Marvin controlled his surroundings by using a sharp analytical mind and an even sharper tongue. His intellectual capacity scared me as the sister 17 years younger. He could talk philosophy – albeit with cynicism – and he could rip into mathematical theorems as easily as he walked. But he was also my older brother, playing Santa Claus when he came home from college to give me a bit of childhood in a household filled with adults.

He lorded over my other brothers and me as the reigning first-born son. I feared him, loathed him and revered him all in one big bundle of mixed baby sister emotions. He was sometimes difficult to love during those years, but as I grew older, we developed a mutual respect for one another.

A decade ago, he began to lose his capacity for speech and overall memory of simple tasks such as balancing the checkbook. That’s when the personality transformation began.

My brother became as endearing as a lost little boy in the woods, unsure how he got there but curious about the leaves on the ground. He returned to the state of grace found only in the very young — that place before the world intruded and caused us to put up our defenses.

His wife, Joyce, assumed the role of leader. He trusted she would take care of him as his mind lost its former sharp edges.

Long before becoming a math professor, Marvin harbored creative talents for music and painting. Joyce enrolled him in an art class at the local senior center in Scottsdale.

In that small room filled with tables and easels for 15 students, the new Marvin emerged from the cocoon as a butterfly, fragile and elusive, but beautiful in his individuality. With inhibitions gone and judgments no longer impeding his path, he let loose on canvas the reds, oranges, yellows, blues and greens of exploding creative expression.

In that art studio, Marvin regained the dignity stripped away by Alzheimer’s. He told Joyce after his few first classes, “I was a mathematician, and now I am an artist.”

He lived for his art classes and greeted each painting with pleasure. I visited him after he had created a dozen paintings. He proudly showed me each one that hung in his home.

His presence in that art class stripped away many of the assumptions held by others about Alzheimer’s. There is a tendency to treat those with mental challenges as if they are no longer human or capable of understanding the most basic of human expressions. We lose them to the disease because we are told this is what happens as the disease progresses. In Marvin’s case, Joyce did not know those with Alzheimer’s disease weren’t supposed to have the ability to draw or paint because of their lack of visual and spatial acuity. And because Mary Gulino, Marvin’s art teacher, didn’t know that either, she treated him as the person he had become — a man with much to say but without the verbal ability to express it.

After three years, Marvin had painted more than 20 Arizona landscapes, all recognizable and vibrant — a miracle on canvas.

Joyce and I visited Marvin’s Monday morning class the week after his death. When we walked in the classroom, Mary rushed over and grabbed me. “You look just like him,” she exclaimed.

“For three years I studied his face,” she said. “I watched him to see if I could discern what he needed as an artist since he couldn’t tell me. The angles of your faces are exactly the same.”

She told me she mixed the paints for him and then she would hand him a palate knife covered with paint. I asked about a recent photo that showed my left-handed brother painting with his right hand.

“He painted with either hand depending on his mood,” she said. “I would hold out the knife, and he would decide which hand.”

Several students from the class joined the discussion.

“He would start by touching the knife to the canvas over and over again,” a gray-haired woman said. “I’d watch fascinated because I thought he was creating nothing and then this beautiful mountain would appear.”

I thanked Mary, but she pushed aside my inadequate words. She said Marvin had made her a better artist, teacher, person.

“Thank you for sharing him with us,” Mary told Joyce.

A few weeks before Marvin died, Joyce held an art showing of Marvin’s paintings at their home, inviting Mary and all of his fellow art students. A photo from that day shows Marvin standing tall, with dignity and pride, a broad smile on his face. He did not resemble a man nearing the final stages of Alzheimer’s. He resembled at man at peace with his world.

“I just wanted people to recognize that he was still a human being,” Joyce said.

The Alzheimer’s journey is daunting. However, with the support of many loving people escorting him down the path, Marvin lived a full life to the end. His canvases filled with vivid colors leave joyful hope for a brighter journey for others living with Alzheimer’s.