who made it possible for you to march?

Who made it possible for you to march?
Tell me, can you tell me–

who filled the salt & pepper shakers
your waiter will twist?
Tell me, can you tell me–

How much of a tip
you left for the immigrant
who made your bed?
Did you think about her as you drifted
off to sleep, worrying about whether
or not the others
would care if you snored? Or was it only
when it came time
to dole out the few crumpled dollars
you discovered in the pockets
of that coat you hadn't worn in ages?

Tell me you will read them more poetry.
Tell me, can you tell me–

Who made it possible for you to march?
Was it the husband or wife who picked up the kids?
The partner who prepared dinner?
The friend who covered a shift?
The teenager you trust enough leave home alone?
Tell me, can you tell me–

what you have inherited from your ancestors?
Tell me, can you tell me–

Who made it possible for you to march?

because when i say "bunker's cabin", i want you to know what i'm talking about

summer, '09:










It's where John proposed to me. One of the tattered old log books still holds proof of that Labor Day weekend, 1995.

It's where I asked him, "If a bear came and attacked me, what would you do?" and he answered, "Run like hell!" Which at first I misunderstood entirely to mean he would run away, but after a thorough explanation from him, I learned that he meant that he would sacrifice his life for mine.

It's where we took my mom once when she came to visit Colorado. Before she got cancer. We cross country skied for several miles up Burnt Creek.

It's where I spent Thanksgiving, 1998, with friends I don't see much any more, but still hold close in my heart, because they are friends who have known my husband longer than I have.

It's where I baked a pumpkin pie from scratch when I was six months pregnant with my firstborn for previously mentioned Thanksgiving dinner.

It's where we passed the Summer Solstice of 2009, after I had just finished a year's worth of cancer hell. (pics above)

It's where the latest log book now holds entries from my sons.

It's where, during Spring Break of 2010, we froze our butts off at night, skied while the world was advesperating, and tried to forget (for a little while) about all the life changes coming our way very, very soon. (pics below)

spring break, '10:












It's where, next summer, we will return with fishing gear, and the boys will catch some trout while I rest on a log beside Cliff Lake and do nothing but watch and listen to them.

bye-bye nine!

I'm ashamed to admit that my first thought upon opening my eyes this morning and reentering the world of light and life was not, "Hey, it's my son's tenth birthday!!!" but rather it was, "Oh, chemo."

I lay there for a short while. After I had slowly crawled out of my own ego, John and I walked downstairs and sang Grant awake.

Later, after taking the boys to school, Brandy drove me to chemo. It was, thankfully, uneventful. Grandma came over for Chinese food and cake. At the end of the night, Grant popped balloon number nine. He's no longer nine. I'm no longer stuck at nine. These two events, his birthday and my chemo, will be inextricably linked in my memory for as long as I live.

penalty

The most common question asked by well-meaning friends is, "How much longer?" or sometimes it's, "When are you going to be done?" They mean treatment, of course, but my brain always turns to the long haul, the forever, because you're never done fighting, once you have cancer.



As for the treatment, I am sick and tired of not knowing the answer to those questions. There are too many uncontrollable variables. This time, it was my liver. Yesterday, it threw me a "delay of game" penalty. I arrived at oncology with my sister-in-law Gwen (all the way from Ithaca, NY), mentally prepared and with a bag full of diversions. I was ready for round number nine, only to be told that my chemotherapy appointment had been canceled, and.... "Didn't anyone call you?"

No! They didn't!

My brother and family are visiting from New York! It's a holiday! Everyone else is skiing! I could have gone too! Why didn't anyone call me Friday to tell me my lab results!? (After I had calmed down a bit, I apologized to all the other chemo patients for my outburst, which I'm sure contained many a swear word.)

So Gwen and I headed up to Monarch on a bluebird day to join my brother, my husband, my niece, and my sons, for a day (half-day by the time we arrived) of skiing and then relaxing at Mt. Princeton Hot Springs. Was it better than sitting in the chemo chair all day? In the words of my 9-going-on-13-year-old son, "Well, duh!"

But would I rather have been in the chair with blood poison number nine?

"Well, duh!"

number musings

A friend and I have made a pact to live until the year 2049.

In 2049, I will be 82.

I am 41 now, which is 50% of 82.

I am half-way through chemo. Six-twelfths. 50%.

My husband just celebrated his 50th birthday. One of his friends called it, in youngster-hip-speech, "Fiddy".

My mother-in-law's nickname is "Phiddy". She is 82 right now.

According to the computer-calculated data, I have an 82% chance of living 10 years.

Forty-two and seven-twelfths..... here I come!

thanks, sister sarah!

It's about 30 seconds long. Totally worth it.

What old people do for fun

nyc in summer

I often get overwhelmed when there is too much to say. I think that's why I like poems so much, because they are microcosms of moments. I spent five days with my family in New York City- that's enough to overwhelm anybody I suppose! How about a list? A list would be good. Here are some of my observations and experiences, and some pics to go with.

dark-skinned women with light-skinned infants and toddlers all throughout Central Park. I did not, of course, take any photos of them. But I did spend a lot of time wondering about the women who were at work for the day (both dark and light) while we were wandering through Central Park on vacation.


G and B and U trying to be cool and NOT hold onto the handrail on the subway


finding a chrysomelid beetle (if you know my husband, you know this is not really unusual) while walking around the top of the Empire State Building. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I did get one of a pigeon.


a young woman who stopped mid-jog over the Brooklyn Bridge to ask us if we would like her to take a picture of all four of us (it's the only one we have from the whole trip)


the unexpected friendliness of people on the street

the hostel we stayed at where 20-somethings partied until all hours and neither John nor I had the heart to tell them to be quiet because we remembered our own hostel traveling days. Thank god for the air conditioner whose white noise and coolth a. kept us from dying in the heat and b. kept us from committing murder

B always trailing a pace or two behind, but never once complaining

texting Marina in secret in the Natural History Museum, awaiting the moment when Ursen showed up and surprised the boys. We were looking at these cool creatures. I always like the microscopic ones best


Melissa (another one from this group) and her 12-hour workday reality. I hadn't seen her in, like, 15 years!


realizing that immigrants still come to New York, looking for something, hoping that what they find will be better, somehow, than what they left behind. It often is, but is not always apparent. At least not right away.


Remember Marina's kitchen?



And hey, anything's pretty much better than what we've got:

my life imitating an rei catalog

Sometimes, in life, you turn a page, like when you watch a movie or read a book or make a new friend that creates a spark.

Other times, you begin a new chapter. A child is born. You get a new job. A marriage.

Sometimes, however, a change is so dramatic that it's as if you were closing one book and opening up the next one in the series. These aren't necessarily the "big" moments or the traditional rites of passage. But they are the ones that shift your perspective and create a whole new way of being in the world........


For the first time in Spengler family history, we loaded FOUR mountain bikes onto the Blazer! For those of you who think that's just a page, think again. This is monumental. A whole new world. A new book. Let it be known that my boys, on their very first true mountain biking experience, went up and down shit I had to stop for. Oh my.....





Yeah, we were simply one of many. One of the loaded down SUV's headed out to the desert for Spring Break. Yeah, we burned a whole lotta oil to get there. And yeah, we feel insanely guilty about it. And yeah, we had a really great time.

Nightmare necklaces made by the Navajo:

Newspaper Rock:

North Window:

You know, you can't really capture the essence of Canyonlands NP or Arches NP in a photo. At least I can't. But the first time you walk under one of those arches, something begs you to lie down on your back and look up. Only from the most vulnerable position can you truly get a glimpse of the greatness.

Arches is a place full of sexual imagery like no other I have ever seen. Or maybe it was just me. There were penises and breasts and pregnant women and vaginas and all manner of earthly delights. I desperately want to go backpacking and lose myself in this wildness for a few days......



In a moment of insanity, I thought I could ride up something that truly was not within my realm of ability:

Bennett and I conspired to tell Grant that a mountain lion had attacked me, and that Bennett had scared it off and saved my life. The look of panic on Grant's face for all of three seconds before he realized it was a joke was priceless.

I guess this photo pretty much sums it up:


Yeah, it's like that. In the desert. In springtime.

and what did YOU do...

during YOUR Christmas dinner?


By the end of ours, we had the US leadership team for the next four years sorted out.

The premise was this... get rid of the whole election process that threatens to eat away at our sanity for the next 11 months, and just put 'em all in. Somewhere. Anywhere. Kinda like the interim government in Iraq. And why not? It's not any crazier than our current method!

So without further ado, here is the culminating consensus (yes, sister-in-law Sarah actually wrote the final list on a napkin!) of the lively discussion of nine adults, ranging in age from 19-81, with a little input from red wine and champagne----

President: Ron Paul
Vice-President: Ralph Nader

The Cabinet Secretaries:
Secretary of State: Joe Biden
Attorney General: Rudy Giuliani
Defense: John McCain
The Interior: Cynthia McKinney
Housing and Urban Development: Barack Obama
Health and Human Services: Hillary Clinton
Commerce: Mitt Romney
Education: Fred Thompson
Labor: John Edwards
Energy: Bill Richardson
The Treasury: Chris Dodd
Transportation: Mike Gravel
Veterans Affairs: Duncan Hunter
Agriculture: Mike Huckabee
Homeland Security: Dennis Kucinich

Haven't spent such an enjoyable time over roast beast and mashed potatoes (and with family, no less!) in a long, long time.

If your knowledge or opinion deems a different outcome for one or more of these posts, please, by all means, let me know.

the ghost of christmas present

I was in a particularly happy and Christmassy mood on Saturday. Our whole family went downtown together, something we very rarely ever do. We did arrive in two cars, however: John and Bennett in one, coming from karate, and Grant and I in another, coming from home. But hey, there was free parking!

We spent time in various parent/son combinations while trying to secretly purchase presents for each other, and then return them to the trunks of our cars (where we didn't have to feed the meter!) Most of my time was spent in The Compleat Gamer, with a nice gentleman who helped me find games that our whole family can play together.


As the sun was slanting westward, Santa came out of a doorway to welcome us into his little brick haven, where he sat on the floor with the boys, showed them his sleigh bells and performed yo-yo tricks. He was the Real Deal. Best of all, there was no one taking photos and trying to sell them to us on mugs or t-shirts or ornaments.


On the corner of Tejon and Boulder, Grant and I stopped and listened to a man playing the guitar and singing.... "Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel, things are going to be much better, if you only will...." (Confession-I love James Taylor, if only because John played and sang "Something in the Way She Moves" while I walked down the aisle at our wedding, but that's another story)

Even though I knew Grant was anxious to get into the toy store, we just paused to listen for awhile. When the song was over, I got out my wallet to give him a buck, only to find out that I had neither cash nor coins.

Grant said, "I have money."

And he wrestled his wallet out of his coat pocket, opened it, dumped some change into the palm of his hand, and placed it in the guitar case. That was the beginning of my "particularly happy and Christmassy mood."

Later, on the corner of Tejon and Bijou, we walked by a blind man in a black overcoat with his hand out. Again, Grant shook some coins into his hand, and bravely walked forward to place them in the man's dirty palm. I know he was a bit frightened, but he didn't hesitate.

I was so proud of him at that moment. I felt the nearly nine years of child rearing paying off, with interest.

Our afternoon was made complete by a late lunch at the newly-opened Heart of Jerusalem Cafe (on Bijou where the Jambo Juice used to be - Go there NOW!). I was prepared to get my supertaster a bagel from around the corner, when I saw that they had chicken nuggets on the menu. Halle-fuckin-lujah! Bennett and I had falafel, John had lamb, Grant had nuggets (again, like Santa, the Real Deal). Everybody happy!

I don't care if the blind man spends the money on booze or if we spent too much money on games or if Santa is a lie or if Tejon is going to go both ways or if free parking is part of a plot to lure shoppers downtown or if Jerusalem (and Colorado Springs, for that matter) is a city fucked up by religion...... (it seems I can't write a truly "happy" story anymore, sorry folks... ) Anyway, the point I'm trying to make (rather feebly at this point, I admit) is that Christmas should make us all slow down, eat good food, spend time with our families, suspend disbelief, go downtown instead of to the mall, and take time to give. Sometimes it's OK, and even necessary, to leave our cynicism behind.

the ghost of christmas past

My father left his wife and two kids on Christmas day in 1971. I was four. My brother was ten. In the years that followed, the three of us always celebrated together on Christmas Eve. Christmas day was a solitary but exciting affair, when the one unwrapped present from Santa (and the only toy) arrived under the tree. My mother was never there, under the tree with us, on Christmas morning.

I have absolutely zero memories of Christmas as a family of four, and there are no pictures remaining to help me remember. The memories I do carry with me are the ones my mother tried so desperately, without much money, to create. Upon our arrival home from Christmas Eve service, my mother would light a fire, as well as every last candle in the house, and turn off all the lights. It was like magic to me, this candle-lit time, when the ordinary became mysterious and cast shadows on the wall. My mother, my brother, and I would then gather in the front room to open our presents.

Perhaps it was because there were so few of them, or perhaps it was because there were so few of us, or perhaps it was because my mother was trying to savor these few brief moments of her children's happiness. Whatever the reason, we opened our gifts slowly, one at a time, with reverence. Gifts from our mother were always hand-made items (or necessities), and I'm absolutely certain that my brother and I never rewarded her fully with the joy she had hoped to see on our faces. I have asked her forgiveness for this more times than I can count. If it's any consolation, Mom, I still have my skirt with the elaborately embroidered Holly Hobbie on it, and I know that my brother's giant stuffed brontosaurus still lives somewhere (if only in his mind).

It's only now, as a mother of a seven and eight year old, that I can truly appreciate the sleep she must have sacrificed to get those presents under the tree for us. It's only now that I am grateful that she informed my world not with mounds of material things, but with gifts of time and talent. It's only now that I can see how my sense of tradition has carried over into how I raise my own boys.

And it's only now that I am able to recognize her pain and sorrow behind the candlelight during those years. She could have given in to misery and self-pity every Christmas, but she chose to make it special for us, using her sheer will to make it so.

And I am absolutely certain that this melancholy feeling, along with my desire to overcome it with candlelight and small things and willpower, is something I must have learned from her.

grany's dethday...

is what my 8-year-old son Grant wrote in the August 2nd square on the calendar hanging on our kitchen wall. At least he got the apostrophe right anyway. He's been reading the Harry Potter series furiously, and has gotten through books two and three in the past week (having read The Sorcerer's Stone a year ago), and is at my feet presently with The Goblet of Fire. He reminded me that Nearly Headless Nick had a "deathday party" with rotten food and raucous ghostly guests and musicians playing "not even real music".

He then most wisely informed me that in death years, Granny is only one year old! I'm wondering now if all our living years are like the negative numbers on the number line, and when we hit death, it's ground zero, and then the years we are no longer among the living can be counted into infinity. Or at least as long as there is someone left to count. Nearly Headless Nick was celebrating his 500th deathday. We will be dead for so many more years than we are alive.....

technology in new york

above: My brother's partner Gwen works at a microfluidics lab in Ithaca, where they make these little chips and circuits that can adapt themselves to all sorts of lab tests, including HIV testing. The explanation of how this high-tech gizmo works went fairly over my head, but I liked the little gurgling sounds it made, and the fact that it all fit into a neat little compact suitcase.

below: My brother works at a food lab in Ithaca, where they make Splenda and other secret foods. It was like being in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, without the Oompa-Loompas. This is a not-so-high-tech piece of equipment that my brother used to invent a candy straw for Frito-Lay (coming soon!)