Tag Archives: love

Reminders from the Cosmos

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Fairhaven was all green and sparkling this morning. Everything looked fresh and new. I found wonderful magic up there today.

I got up there early enough that I could get free parking for a couple hours. I parked near the Village Green and then – because the trail is still closed between Fairhaven and Taylor Dock – I hiked up a block and then over and down to the gateway to the boardwalk.

There was a gentleman sitting on a bench there with a big backpacking pack and a couple bags, and, as we watched a little bird flitting around under the gateway, we struck up conversation. I learned his name was Mountain Wiserd. He noticed my amber necklace and told me about the rocks and fossils he’s found on his travels. He told me about a piece of amber he’d once found that had a mosquito in it – the mosquito made the amber special, and a museum had bought it from him. He’d also found a fossilized tooth from some kind of dinosaur with a duck bill – and his find had led scientists to the site, where they’d found a whole skeleton, as well as a prehistoric nest.

Mountain asked me if I could buy him a coffee and some food. I told him sure, and we walked together down the boardwalk and to Wood’s Coffee shop in Boulevard park, where I bought Mountain a coffee and a sandwich, and bought myself a lavender green iced tea. We hugged and parted there – Mountain to go to the second floor of Wood’s to eat his sandwich, and me to continue on my walk.

As I was beginning my walk back to the boardwalk, I saw that the new picnic table that’s been roped off while the baby grass grows around it, is now officially available for use. I’ve long been awaiting my inaugural use of the table, and headed that way. Two of the maintenance crew sprucing up the park were standing nearby, and I told them how excited I was to finally use the picnic table. I asked them if I could take a picture – “I’m a Boomer, so this will probably end up on Facebook.” And they laughed and graciously agreed to let me take their photo. I asked them their names – Kyle and Armando – and introduced myself to them. “I am a Boomer AND I’m named Karen.” They started laughing, and posed for me in front of the picnic table.

I settled into the picnic table with my tea and scrolled through the notifications on my phone. I could hear Kyle and Armando chatting in the background, and at one point I heard Armando tell Kyle that “Leo” was his brother. I perked up when I heard Leo’s name. Leo is the man who keeps Boulevard Park and the Village Green clean and functioning. I told Armando that I’d just seen Leo getting the restrooms above Taylor Dock ready for a new day, and I told him that Leo is one of my favorite Bellingham people.

After I’d sat at the picnic table for a bit, I got back onto the boardwalk and headed back to Fairhaven. I met little Charlie pup and gave him a pet, and my old friend, Dan, appeared with Jakada pup. Dan and I hugged and wished each other a good day, and I went on up the ramp from Taylor Dock, up a block to by-pass the trail closure, and back down to my car.

My entire walk I felt like I was enclosed in this peaceful bubble of Love – greeting Leo, meeting Mountain Wiserd, chatting with Armando and Kyle, giving sweet Charlie pup a pet, and running into Dan and Jakada.

I’m so grateful for these reminders from the Cosmos that the world is still a beautiful place.

Tearing Up at the Sweetness of It

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I just have to share this quick glimmer I experienced today in Fred Meyer’s. I put myself in line behind a little family – a mother, a girl of grade school age, and a little boy sitting in the seat in the shopping cart. The little boy was shaking a tube of candy and making it rattle, and he was having such fun with that, I found myself grinning as I watched him. I asked him how old he was – and I held up two fingers and then three – “Two? Three?” He held up three fingers in response, and said, “Three.” I told him my granddaughter was going to be three in a couple months, too. The little boy’s mother turned around and smiled at me then. She knew she was looking at a grandma.

I asked the little girl if she was a big sister, and she smiled and nodded her head. I told her I was a big sister, too – I have two little brothers, and I know what it means to be the “big sister.” I told her I could tell she was a good big sister, and she smiled.

The mother and daughter talked in Spanish for a moment, then I saw the little girl get out her own wallet. The mother had already paid for her groceries, but now the little girl was going to pay herself for her own art supplies. Her mother patiently helped her count out the money – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten – the total for the purchase had been $9.93 – so now the mother and daughter counted out three pennies, so that the little girl would get a dime back. They carefully put the cash and pennies in the cashier’s hand, and the cashier smiled and placed a dime back in the little girl’s hand.

And I can’t even tell you what there was about this exchange that so touched me, but I found myself tearing up at the sweetness of it.

Six Decades of Friendship

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What a wonderfully surreal and fabulous day!

I drove from my home near Bellingham down to Olympia to visit with my FIFTH GRADE TEACHER (!!!) and two of my fifth grade classmates – people I’ve known for almost 60 years, but only reconnected with seven years ago. We hadn’t seen each other in the person since our visit with each other back in 2019 – separated by seven years that included the death of my dad, the death of Sue’s mom, Susan’s marriage to Sam, a new granddaughter for me, and a world-changing pandemic.

And oh! It was so good to be with my grade school people again!

I got to Olympia about an hour early, and thought I’d check out the Olympia Farmer’s Market. I met Talbot, who was selling cool artsy candles, and who, I learned, was a friend of one of my Bellingham friends. (I love these connections!) I bought one of his candles – a little snail – which I plan to light only sparingly. It’s too beautiful to let it melt away.

When I got done exploring the Farmers Market, I gave a call to my brother, Dave, who lives in Olympia. I hadn’t called him before because I’d assumed he’d be doing some ultra marathon running thing this Memorial weekend – but, when he picked up, he told me he’d just finished up shopping downtown and could meet me at the Farmers Market in, like, five minutes! So not only did I get to see my old fifth grade teacher and friends, but I got to have a quick visit with my “little” bro, too! (He suggested I stand on a rock for our picture because he is, like, a foot taller than me.)

A couple of fun people things I have to share:

When I got to Lacey, I exited to make a stop at the Safeway for a mocha and a restroom break. Something happened to me there that I don’t think has ever happened to me before – I stepped out of the women’s restroom at the exact moment a bearded and “flanneled” man of about 40 stepped out of the men’s restroom opposite. We looked at each other and spontaneously grinned. It was one of those awkward moments where you find out if someone has a sense of humor or not. He had a sense of humor. I really appreciated that grin.

I’d parked my car at the Farmer’s Market. When I got back to my car after my visit with my friends, a young family had just arrived at their car, too. I asked the father if I could get back on the freeway by going that direction, and I pointed east. He smiled and came over to me with his phone. He opened up a map on his phone and showed me what route he was going to take to get back on I-5. He was kind and helpful and treated me exactly as I hope my sons treat other lost women of a certain age. I shook his hand and thanked him, and asked his name. He told me he was Maurice. He asked my name and I gave my standard line, “I am, of course, Karen” and he started laughing.

I’d found an old Simon and Garfunkle CD before I’d left home this morning, and now I listened to it on my drive back to Skagit County. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” got me through the traffic jam in Seattle. Simon and Garfunkle’s magic still works!

P.S. Do you see the watercolor in the group photo? That was a painting Dad gave to Sue Lyon’s mom years ago, and Sue gifted it back to me yesterday – she thought it should be reunited with my family. That really touched me.

And the Cosmos Replied: Love

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Here’s where I am right now, she said.
I need a reason to go on.
Does anything I do or say or write
make any difference,
or fix what’s wrong?

Platitudes and preaching,
sermons and lectures
from the “experts” –
aren’t helping or healing
or making anything better.

Why am I here? she asked.
The age-old question.
I see cruelty, selfishness, greed, hate
going unchecked. I see evil rewarded,
and true heroes unsupported,
and the unfairness of it is killing me.

I see and hear people who I thought
were my friends saying the most
hateful things – condoning murder
and torture – with faces that show
no remorse, or recognition of the rot
of civilization.

I feel like I’m in the land of the walking
dead, she said, like the zombies
are already here among us,
with their bland and placid faces
reciting the lies they’ve been fed.

I feel hopeless, she said.
Hopeless and helpless,
mourning the loss of decency,
and kindness, of honesty
and intelligence and grace.
I need a reason to go on, she said.

And the Cosmos answered:
Love.

-Karen Molenaar Terrell

“There is a large class of thinkers whose bigotry and conceit twist every fact to suit themselves. Their creed teaches belief in a mysterious, supernatural God, and in a natural, all-powerful devil. Another class, still more unfortunate, are so depraved that they appear to be innocent. They utter a falsehood, while looking you blandly in the face, and they never fail to stab their benefactor in the back. A third class of thinkers build with solid masonry. They are sincere, generous, noble, and are therefore open to the approach and recognition of Truth.”
-Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 450

A Homonym Ferry Tail

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Hear’s a spot of fun four my fellow English teachers, what?

Wants upon a thyme, their lived a wee girl in a we town on a we planet. The we girl wanted two make a difference too the whirled, butt she didn’t no what she could due two make the whirled a better place.

Sew she thought and thought and thought about it.

Won mourning, she woke up after a good knight’s sleep – feeling full of joy and hope. She’d had a suite dream about her grandparents, who had dyed before she was borne. She’d never bin able two meat them in the person, butt she’d always felt like she new them because of the stories she’d herd about them. In her dream, she felt like she’d finally met them, four reel.

They’d smiled at her in the dream, and she’d felt there love fore her. She felt they’re love bloom in her hart.

And the we girl woke up from the dream no-ing how she could make the whirled a better place!

She wood love! She wood love everyone, everywhere, like their was know tomorrow! She wood love without distinction or discrimination. Know won wood be outside her love. She wood love the rich and pour, the old and young, the people on the left, and the people on the write, two. Everyone wood feel her love, and the love would bloom in the whirled just like it had bloomed in her hart.

And sew she loved. And the love bloomed. And their was peas.

The End.
Karen Molenaar Terrell

My Ego Gets Pulled

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My ego gets pulled into the false narratives –
wanting to set the record straight –
who started what and who did it first
and who is the most violent
and who is the worst.

And my ego’s input feeds the beast,
feeds the narrative, feeds the hate-feast.
It becomes a finger-pointing frenzy
of sleights and wrongs and fear,
with everyone only hearing
what they want to hear.

I think I’ll get off of this crazy ride.
I think I’ll focus on what’s true.
I think I’ll spend my time and energy
in loving you and you and YOU.

-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Happy Earth Day!

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Happy Earth Day!

I celebrated Earth Day in Fairhaven today, and it was glorious! My day was filled with green paths, spring blossoms, and happy earthlings – a squirrel, a robin, a towhee, a couple of deer, and some way cool humans.

I parked in front of The Landing at Evil Bike store, and took the trail up to the path that goes to the Post Point dog park and the heron rookery. There weren’t any pups in the dog park, and there weren’t any herons in the rookery, either. But there was a towhee on a branch, and a robin in the crook of a tree, and a hummingbird on a fence three feet away – flexing his wings, and posing – who flew away as soon as my camera focused on him.

I walked on down to Fairhaven Coffee, where Lauren fixed me a honey and cinnamon latte, while we chatted about her experience as a scuba diver and her hope to one day do underwater photography. She made me an excellent latte, and I sat down with it at one of the tables.

At the table next to mine, three gentlemen were talking about subatomic particles, how they relate and communicate to each other, and what it is that defines life. Whoah.

“Are you talking about quantum physics?” I asked, intrigued.

They nodded their heads, and one of them explained that they were talking, specifically, about consciousness. And then I threw in my thoughts about a universal consciousness of Love, and, to their credit, they did not laugh at me. We talked about teaching, and science, and outer space, and the viability of colonizing Mars, and species going extinct, global warming, glaciation, and how the land is slowly rising after being flattened from years of being covered in ice. Marshall, Mitchell, and Larry were fascinating. They seemed the perfect people to be chatting with on Earth Day.

I walked to the ferry terminal, and then down to Marine Park, and headed back to the Post Point rookery and dog park. At the sign leading into the rookery, I paused to ask a gentleman about the Arroyo Park trail that was listed on the sign. We got to chatting, and he learned I live in Bow. Bill said he used to go to the Edison Inn all the time, but he hadn’t been for a while and he wasn’t sure if everything was the same. I told him Edison is a foodie heaven – we have the Edison Inn, Tweets, Mariposa, Terramar for pizza…

… and Bill said, “And Breadfarm!”

…and I said, “And Slough Food!”

Bill was fun. He was wearing a hat that said: “It’s weird being the same age as old people!” That got me cracking up. I could relate.

Bill continued on his walk, and I continued on mine.

A runner went by me at a good clip. My sons had been x-country runners in school. I’d gone to a lot of their meets, and I could recognize good runner’s form when i saw it. This runner was good!

When I got to the dog park, I could see the runner was doing laps around the park, and, as he went past, I snapped a couple photos. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to use the photos, though, because – even though the runner had grinned at me and my camera as he ran past – I hadn’t officially gotten his permission.

I continued on my walk and, when I got back to The Landing at Evil Bike shop, who should I see running towards me from the opposite direction but the runner I’d seen in the dog park? He stopped and chatted with me – I learned his name is Ian and he ran for WWU – but he said he was now “retired.” He said it was fine to post his picture.

I decided to take Chuckanut back to my home, and this is when I saw the deer casually grazing on the lawn in front of Fairhaven Park. It seemed fitting that they should be there on Earth Day.

“EARTH. A sphere; a type of eternity and immortality, which are likewise without beginning or end.
To material sense, earth is matter; to spiritual sense, it is a compound idea.“
-Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 585

Not Separated by Time

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Went up to Concrete today to pay a visit to the 5b’s Bakery. 5b’s owner, Em, came out of her office and sat down with me for a coze. It was so good to see Em again – she is a remarkable person who’s led a remarkable life, and it’s always fun to talk with her. Em introduced me to her sweet therapy-pup-in-training, Hugo, and gave me the okay to take Hugo’s picture. And a friendly young man named James who hails from NY and works as a forest ranger gave me the okay to take HIS picture, too.

As I drove home from Concrete, I impulsively turned off onto the Baker Lake Road to see what I might see. I ended up at the little Shadow of the Sentinels interpretive trail. This trail holds special memories for me – it was my first hike with my youngest son when he was a week old; when my dad was 100, his care-giver, Gwen, loaded her van with Dad, another man in their adult family home, me, and a couple of wheelchairs and took us all up to the trail because she knew Dad and Joe were in desperate need of a trip to the mountains; and when my granddaughter was not quite one, she’d hiked the trail, too. I was surrounded in sweet memories: Xander trying to focus his new eyes on the trees; Dad pointing to the tops of those trees and checking to make sure I’d gotten a picture of the forest canopy; and my little granddaughter toddling along the boardwalk, holding her mama’s hand, and grinning at her papa who waited for her at the end of the trail – a trail he’d hiked with me when his little brother was just a week old.

And, honestly, it felt like none of those memories were separated from me by time at all – all the love is still with me, and I can still feel the joy of those moments surrounding me in the woods.

For most of my drive home, I had no one behind me or in front of me on the road. It was lovely. I was in my own little bubble.

I stopped off at the Otter Beans Coffee stand for a lavender green iced tea. The young man in front of me in line was fun. He’s a manager for the local casino and took out his phone to show me some of the shows that will be appearing there soon. “Whose Live Anyway?” comedy show is coming soon – that looks like it will be fun.

I brought home more photos, some new memories, and a perfect lavender green iced tea made by Dani.

Neither Facebook, PayPal, Fox, or AI…

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For I am persuaded that neither
Facebook, PayPal, Fox, or AI,
nor trolls, nor bots, nor politicians who lie,
– not conglomorates nor fake news
nor oligarchs nor gazillionaires –
can separate us from the power of Love
that is everywhere.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell (at 5 in the morning and still half-asleep)

I typed this poem out on my Facebook wall early in the morning, and when I came back to check on it, I found a little box underneath it, with the question: “What does this poem mean?” I was curious what Meta’s AI would have to say about a poem that talks about Meta’s AI. (Which is META by definition.) I found myself laughing out loud when I read when Meta AI had to say about the poem. It was kind of sweet. It actually guessed correctly my intent. It lacked any human ego and took no offense. It was kind of charming. Here’s a screenshot:

Wedding Day

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March 31, 1984.

You know those shows you see on television where the bride spends HUGE amounts of time, thought, and bucks choosing the just right ring, dress, caterer, flowers, music, photographer, and reception venue for her “big day” – those shows where every minute detail of the wedding production is analyzed, critiqued, and judged for its merits on visual perfection? Where the ceremony is somber and refined and the highlight of the whole shebang is the dress the bride wears?

Yeah. That wasn’t us.

My engagement ring was a little garnet ring I picked out from a small jewelry shop in Pike Place Market in Seattle, and the man who sold it to us was cheerfully, flamboyantly, hilariously gay – he had us cracking up the minute we walked into his shop. My wedding dress was the first dress I tried on from the sales rack at our local Bon Marche. Cost me $120. Our minister was a hoot – we’d met with him for a required counseling session, and when he told us that anything he had to say to us would be pretty much useless at this point – because it’s really only AFTER the wedding that the bride and groom realize what they’ve gotten themselves into (we later learned that he’d just recently been divorced), we immediately recognized the man had a sense of humor, and he was, for sure, the minister we wanted officiating our nuptials.

The wedding was a joyful, light-hearted affair in a small Methodist church in Gig Harbor – I remember the minister asking us if we really wanted to hold the service in his church – it was very small – could maybe hold 100 people – and very old (it’s since been torn down and a larger church built in a different location) – but, for our purposes, that little church was perfect – I liked the cozy smallness of it and the stained glass windows – and from the church’s steps we could look out across the water and see Mount Rainier rising above the hills in the distance. The wedding itself was simple, joyful, and natural. We weren’t too concerned with “perfection” – we just wanted our guests to feel comfortable and loved.

The reception was held in my parents’ backyard – with the sound of laughter, and the smell of daffodils and plum blossoms, filling the air. And we played volleyball in the pasture – the groom’s team won, but it was a close game. The minister came to the reception, and fit right in with our hooligan families and friends. Before he left he told us that sometimes he’s really worried about the future of the newlyweds he marries – they often seem more concerned about the wedding than the actual marriage – but, after watching us yukking it up with our families and friends, he felt good about being a part of our ceremony. He knew we were going to be alright. We knew how to laugh.

***

When I think about that day, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to deny other people the right to a wedding, and to a life-long commitment in marriage with the partner they love. I can’t understand why any couple would feel their own marriage is threatened by allowing others the same rights that they have. I feel a real yearning for other folks who love one another, and are brave enough to make a commitment to each other, to be allowed to have what my husband and I were allowed to have.