I wake up at four in the morning and find my son has just messaged me from Australia. I reply and let him know I’m up. He is at the end of the day, and I am at the start of the same day. I ask him if he has any tips for me from the future. And suddenly time disappears. The space between us disappears. And there is just Love everywherenow, connecting me to him, and connecting me to the universe. We message back-and-forth for 15 minutes – text-chatting and text-laughing together. And then it’s time for me to go back to bed, and my son thanks me for “dropping in.”
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
“I climb with joy, the heights of Mind To soar o’er time and space; I yet shall know as I am known And see Thee face to face Till time and space and fear are naught My quest shall never cease Thy presence ever goes with me And Thou dost give me peace.” – V.H., Christian Science Hymnal #136
I pass her first in the pet food aisle. Her expression is serious – like she is considering important things – and my expression is probably serious, too. Pet food is serious business. Next I pass her by the milk. I think we smile at each other that time. Then I come upon her in produce – and this time we full-on grin at each other.
I have to choose between two checkout lines and finally settled on lane #3 – behind a fellow boomer wearing a friendly smile and a baseball cap with the name of a golf course emblazoned on it. He grins and quips that any line behind him is going to end up being the slow one – and I assure him that if this line ends up being slow, it’s entirely me to blame. I am a slow-lane magnet. But, I tell him, I am retired, so I’m in no hurry. It’s all good.
Just as he gets to the front of the line, he turns to me and says – his face totally serious – “Oh! I forgot something in the farthest corner of the store! Is it okay if I go back and get it?”
I start laughing. I know what he’s up to. “Go for it!” I say. And he starts laughing, too, then. Then he says he has a good one-liner for me. He says, “What do a flat tire and a bad attitude have in common? They both have to be changed if you want to get anywhere.”
“That’s a good one!” I say.
The cashier rings him up and he turns to me and wishes me a good day before he leaves. He has already given me a good day.
After I pay for my groceries, I go to the in-store Starbucks to get myself a mocha. And, after paying for my mocha, when I turn around to go wait in the pick-up line, who should I see standing behind me but the woman I’ve been running into all over the store? We both start laughing like we’re old friends – and maybe we are by this point – and I say, “I’ve been following you all over this store!” And she nods her head, in happy acknowlegement.
A truck tailgates me and passes me going more than 60 in a curvy, no-pass 40 mph zone that has small businesses and homes on either side. I get on the freeway and a car zips around me and then pulls in front of me in the slow lane, goes past the car in the fast lane and then cuts in front of the car – so close he almost hits the front fender and the driver of the other car has to tap the brakes.
And I decide to just give up. I decide to have a crappy day. The world, I decide, is full of thoughtless, impatient, selfish people, and I’m suddenly too weary and worn to fight it anymore.
I exit in Mount Vernon and park in front of the CS Reading Room. Go inside and buy some “Quarterlies” and then walk down to the Skagit Valley Food Co-op at the other end of downtown. As I approach the door, this man going into the co-op opens the door wide for me – a big smile on his face – and asks, “Going this way?” I smile back and thank him.
I go to the other end of the store and pluck out some ginger chews from the candy rack. Then I see the Mother Earth News on the magazine rack. I pull it out and turn to the back page – knowing I’ll find one of my photos there. And there it is! I have to share this tiny moment of glory with someone. The cashier in the lane in front of me isn’t working with any customers at the moment and so I say, “Look! Here’s my photo!” And she grins a big grin and says, “No way! You took this picture?!” And we chat for a bit about how to get your pictures in Mother Earth News and I encourage her to submit her photos.
I go to the front of the store to pay for my ginger chews and the woman in front of me says, “You go ahead of me – you’ve just got that one thing.” What a nice thing to do!
I walk down to the Ristretto coffee shop for a mocha. The barista is really cheery and friendly. She asks me my name. And I often use that as an opportunity to make some quip about my name, but this time my pause is genuine. I really do not want to admit my name is “Karen.” But I finally choke it out and both the baristas and the customer next to me smile these kind smiles at me and assure me that my name might be “Karen” – but I am not a “Karen.” I give the barista a 30% tip – she’ll probably never know what she’s given me this morning.
As I’m sipping my mocha and writing this post on my cellphone, a thirty-something man goes up to the counter and starts regaling the baristas with a story that has everyone laughing. I find myself being pulled into his joy. As he leaves with his coffee, he glances over at me and grins – including me in his circle, and I grin back.
I leave Mount Vernon and decide to go to La Conner to pay my broadband bill. On the way I stop at Christianson’s Nursery to, literally, smell the roses. A begonia plant with pink flowers calls to me from its place on a table and I pluck it up and head for the checkout. The checkout man is so fun – his hair keeps falling into his eyes and he keeps blowing it out of his face, and pushing it back with his hands. He laughs and says, “It has a mind of its own.” I tell him I can relate – my own hair is always going rogue on me.
Now I drive into La Conner to pay my Astound bill – I’m hoping that Jolyne will be there – I always enjoy connecting with her every month. She makes me smile.
After I pay my bill and have a nice chat with Jolyne, I head for the La Conner boardwalk for a walk. On my way I come upon a young family enjoying the day together – there’s a boy of about nine, astride the mechanical horse in front of the “curiosities” shop, a young girl, a father, and a mother with gorgeous gold extensions to her black hair, braided down her back. The family is beautiful. They stop at the ice cream shop where there’s a photo stand-in of ice cream cones – it looks like the father wants to take a picture of his family there. I ask him if he’d like me to take a photo of all of them at the stand-in – and he’s happy to let me do that. The family arranges itself around the stand-in and I snap a couple of quick photos and hand the phone back to the father to see if what I took will work. He smiles and says, “We never get photos of all of us together. This is great!”
I’m so happy I got to do that for them.
I continue on my walk – enjoying the reflections in the Swinomish Channel. I wave to the person sitting at the back of a motorboat going past., and get a wave in return. I end up at the Calico Cupboard bakery, of course. This was always my plan. As I’m waiting in line to buy an apple cinnamon roll, I hear a woman talking to the hostess about the friends she hasn’t seen in twenty years, and file that away in my “interesting people” file in my head.
Cinnamon roll successfully purchased, I head for the door and see the woman who was meeting her old friends, talking to another woman – who I assume is one of these friends. Of course, I’ve got to know more. “So you haven’t seen each other in twenty years?” I ask. And the women laugh and explain that they’d met in a Bible study years ago, and one of the women had moved to Arizona and the other woman had moved, too, and this is the first time they’d seen each other in two decades! One of them lives in the Bow area now – where I live! – and I find out that one of her old friends from high school lives just down the street from me!
Isn’t life great?
I pass a man sitting on a bench, and point to my cinnamon roll box. “I bet this thing weighs five pounds,” I say. And he laughs and says, “Yeah, they make ’em big there!”
I pass the apartments where my parents used to live, and wave to the balcony where Mom always waved to me. I smile at the memory.
And then I’m back in my car and headed home with my cinnamon roll.
Another great walk this morning in Bellingham – I always find the smiles I need there, and the joy.
My first smile came when I was waiting to cross the street from Fairhaven Green to the path to Boulevard Park. A man in a delivery truck was trying to back up across 10th Street and onto Mill Ave. I stood back so he didn’t need to worry about me crossing the street, and could do what he needed to do. I could tell he was working really hard to navigate his truck backwards through the crosswalk, and when he got to the other side of the crosswalk and was finally able to stop and go forward, I saw him let out one of those “Whew!” sighs. I could relate to his human-ness in that moment and started grinning in human camaraderie. He happened to look over at me and saw me smiling. He smiled a big smile back and waved. That wave totally made my day.
I started down the path and saw a squirrel busily gathering his morning meal – nuts probably. He stayed still long enough for me to get some quick pictures, and then scampered off with his loot.
As I neared the ramp to Taylor Dock, I spotted a bunny hopping this way and then that way and then back the first way and, finally, stopping in the middle of the street. There was a youngish man on the other side of the bunny, watching its antics, a grin on his face. When the bunny finally hopped off into the bushes, the man and I made eye contact and smiled at each other. “Talk about a funny bunny,” he said, laughing. And then we both continued on our separate journeys. But I love those quick moments when we share an experience like that with someone else, and connect briefly.
Down at Boulevard Park I saw a crow showing off his morning snack – a crab leg maybe? – and soon three or four other crows showed up to try to snatch it from him. Crows crack me up.
I really needed my morning walk today. I needed the smiles.
part of me is still in Australia I still smell the fragrance of the winter flowers and hear the magpies warbling their beautiful harmonies I still feel the weight of my new granddaughter in my arms and see her sweet face looking back at me and when I look up at the stars from my backyard in the States I feel those stars connecting me to the skies above Australia I’m living in two worlds now -Karen Molenaar Terrell
feeling rejected, dejected, jettisoned and ejected and it occurs to me that this is a choice I am making and Father-Mother Love says, “I love you. You are Mine. Forever and always, beyond time. I will never reject you. I made you for Me. Let go of little ego, let go and just be. You have more important things to do than to spend your time appeasing a human ego no part of Me or mine.” -Karen Molenaar Terrell
I left a land of cockatoos and palm trees and landed before I left in another time zone under gray skies and Douglas firs – Karen Molenaar Terrell
In the end, we arrived back in America a couple of hours before we left Australia. Yes, I’m here to tell you that time travel is, indeed, possible.
There is a seventeen-hour time difference between Australia and where we live in Bow, Washington. So we lifted off from Vancouver, BC, on July 5th and landed in Sydney 18 hours later on July 7th. And from that point until we arrived back in North America yesterday, everything has been a little upside down and backwards for me. In Australia, the sun moves along the northern sky and rises on the right; Folks drive on the left side of the road; and Australians have their winter when North America is having its summer. On our return, we left Sydney at 8:40 am on July 25th and arrived in Vancouver 15 hours later – and two hours earlier – at 6:40 am on July 25th. Whoah.
***
Australia was wonderful. The people are friendly and fun. The birds are full of color and music. The flowers are vibrant. The winter weather is like springtime in my part of the world.
I met so many amazing people “down under” – the helpful, smiling security folks at the airport; the travelers from Canada who waited with us in the customs line and let me know that I’m not the only one who’s always checking to see if my passport is still where it needs to be – apparently other people check to see if their passports have somehow leaped out of pockets and purses, too; the woman who laughed with me when, after my husband asked me if I needed help, I pulled my heavy suitcase out of the baggage carousel at the Sydney airport and repeated Aussie Helen Reddy’s lyrics, “I am woman/hear me roar”; the staff at Karen’s Diner and the staff at the Baytouna Lebanese restaurant; the cheery cashier at the coffee shop who taught me how to say “table seven” (“tible sayven”); the police officers and soccer fans celebrating the women’s soccer team in Sydney; the firefighters at the cafe; the confident, competent, lovely midwife who delivered my new grandbaby; the line of passengers at Sydney airport who laughed with me when I got into their line accidentally and almost boarded the wrong plane – “Americans!” I said, shaking my head, and grinning in embarrassment, and they joined me in my laughter and helped me feel accepted in my human-ness; and the wonderful woman from Quebec I met while waiting to board the plane I was actually supposed to be on, who shared how she travels from Canada to Australia twice a year to visit her son and daughter (who both married Australians) and to see her grandchildren. She inspired me and helped me realize that I’m not alone in the physical distance I have between my son and daughter-in-law and grandchild – that other people are in similar situations, and that we all want our children to live the lives they need to live, even if it means they’re on the other side of the world.
***
I’m thinking about all that needed to happen for our beautiful baby granddaughter to arrive on this planet. I think about the miracles that brought little Marilyn here. Her maternal grandmother, Kim, had to survive a year in a Vietnamese prison, working as slave labor, after being caught trying to escape from Vietnam when she was 18; her maternal grandfather, Ben, had to escape from Vietnam on a terrifying boat ride before finding a new home in Australia. Little Marilyn’s paternal great-grandfather, my father Dee Molenaar, had to survive a desperate situation in 1953 on K2, the world’s second highest mountain – his life hanging on the end of a rope belayed by his climbing teammate, Pete Schoening. Little Marilyn’s paternal great-grandmother, my mother “Moz,” was the tenth of ten children – somehow managing to squeak into birth after her mother had decided she was having no more children after birthing number nine nearly killed her. Little Marilyn’s paternal grandfather, my husband Scott, had to impulsively get in a car bound for the west coast with his friends and start a new life in Washington State so that we could meet and marry and start a family. Little Marilyn’s parents, my son and daughter-in-law – one from Washington State and one from Sydney, Australia – had to both decide to visit a Buddhist retreat in California during the pandemic, in order for them to meet and fall in love, and bring Marilyn to us.
What are the odds of ANY of that happening?!
Marilyn’s existence has made all our lives more important than they were before she came.
***
I have so much to be grateful for today. My heart is full. My daughter-in-law and son are already amazing parents – nurturing and conscientious, and in love with their new baby; my new granddaughter is healthy and strong and beautiful; my daughter-in-law’s mother, Kim, is generous and kind and took wonderful care of us during our stay in Australia. Instead of love being cut off from me and separated, the love in my life is expanding and including more people and places. My sense of what constitutes “family” is growing.
I always hope I’ll be seated by great people on my airplane trips – and I was especially hoping for that on our 13-hour flight to Auckland – and I hit the jackpot with my seat mate! I sat next to a wonderful young man, originally from Punjab, India, but relocated for the last five years to Auckland for work. He helped show me how to play the Solitaire game on the screen in front of my seat; pushed some buttons to see how the “food and drink” tab worked and ended up with cookies and a mocha which he handed off to me; and he used the map on the screen to show me where he grew up in India, and where he lives now in Auckland. He had a great sense of humor and we spent a lot of time laughing together. He helped the flight go faster for me.
Yesterday we went to a Farmers Market near Sydney and – as always at Farmers Markets – we met dogs with wagging tails, and people with smiles on their faces, and the air was filled with laughter and joy and the smell of good things to eat. I bought cookies from two wonderful women at the Gumnut stand who chatted with us about our travels and gave us a little bag of free cookies as a welcome to Australia. We met Maisie, a sweet black Labrador who licked my hand and smiled a doggy smile up at me, and her human, Anna, and her mates – who all laughed with me when I introduced myself as “Karen” and said, “But what are you going to do?”
When we boarded the train after the Farmers Market – and I was looking at a map on the train’s wall and trying to figure out when our next stop was – a very cool chap named Andrew with long dyed hair, shades, and fingernails painted black, came up to the map and showed me where the route would take us. As it turns out, I couldn’t have come upon a better person to help me with this – he actually works for the trains as a guard and was on his way to work on one of the trains when he appeared. Andrew also works as a photographer for musical events – and he and my husband, Scott, got into conversation about lenses and cameras and their experiences as professional photographers.
When we got into Sydney we walked over to the Opera House (of course!) and met all kinds of wonderful people there, too. There were the people who moved over for me so I could take pictures of the seal sunbathing below us. The seal did not appear to be moving and I asked, “Is he alive? He looks so chill.” The people who’d moved over for me smiled and reassured me that the seal was alive and he was just doing what we all should be doing -enjoying the moment. A couple of young men from India asked me if I could take their picture – which I did – and then, later, they reciprocated by taking a picture of me with my family in front of the Opera House – and did an excellent job for me.
Next to the Opera House is a botanic garden. On the way to the garden we saw a bride and groom having their pre-wedding photos taken. On the way back from the garden we came upon the bride and groom again. They looked so radiant and joyful that I felt the urge to capture their joy and share it – so I asked them if I might take their picture. They were happy to smile for my camera. I told the bride that her bouquet was beautiful and she looked at her groom proudly and said that they had made the bouquet together.
After our explorations around the Opera House we went to Karen’s Diner for dinner. My daughter-in-law, Christina, had heard about Karen’s Diner from a friend and had learned that people named “Karen” could be given a free drink there. The theme at Karen’s Diner is that the food is great, and the service is deliberately rude – but rude in a funny way. I loved the whole experience – our servers were great! – and I got a free milk shake out of the deal.
On the train back from Sydney I sat next to a lively, fun family with three youngsters aged five, four, and two. The father was originally from Jamaica, and the mother had lived back and forth between Italy and Australia during her growing-up years – between them they were citizens of three countries! The littlest girl played peek-a-boo with me, and soon Christina and my son, Andrew, who are due to become parents any minute, were chatting with the parents about the joys and challenges of child-rearing. There was a lot of laughter in that conversation.
I am loving Australia and the people who live here.
Flash of red cardinal in the trees Flutter of orange butterfly over the beach Flash of silver bluefish over waves Flicker of bright fireflies in the night Flash of lightning from a thunderstorm Flex of arching color in a rainbow over the sea
I got an ad in my email with a suggestion for a gift for Dad for Father’s Day. It gave me a little jolt. Dad has been gone for more than three years now. I always bought him a shirt for Father’s Day – usually with blue in it to match his Dutch-blue eyes. And it always tickled me when he actually wore those shirts.
I miss him.
Dad and my husband, Scott, are wonderful examples of fatherhood. Here’s a poem for them:
Protecting and guiding nurturing, gently widening our world and helping hone our skills so if we’re alone we can survive on our own
Sharing joy and adventure never there to censure helping us become who we already are -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 