family

Travels

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 4 Comments

In my adult life, I’ve lived in fifteen homes: one in Key West, Florida; seven in California (six in Santa Cruz and one in Watsonville); two in Portland, Oregon; one on Orcas Island; and four in North Carolina (three in Asheville and one in Black Mountain). Yesterday, I landed at my sixteenth, this one in Sonoma, California.

While my body feels near collapse, well aware of what it just went through, my mind can’t really believe that we traveled for 8 days, crossing North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before reaching the Golden State.

The day we left, we awoke at 6 a.m. and spent the next five hours loading the remainder of our belongings into a PODS container, then making the house look like this:

The dogs had to guard the door to make sure we didn’t forget them.

That was a miserable, exhausting experience, followed by a 7-hour drive. Thankfully, the AirBNB that greeted us in Jackson, Tennessee featured several of these lamps, which was a pleasant consolation for the somewhat miserable day:

Just as he did before our last cross-country move, my husband JR got us walkie talkies for the journey. When I mentioned this to my mom, she said, “Will we have handles? I want to be Eager Beaver.” She chose this moniker in homage to a weekend trip we’d taken with two other families when I was a kid. There had been a CB radio in each family’s vehicle, and the kids in said vehicles had periodically taken turns singing The Beaver Song to each other. [For reference, here is a YouTube lady enthusiastically demonstrating The Beaver Song with wide-eyed glee.] After one particularly rousing version, there’d been a brief pause, and then a grizzled male voice had crackled over the airwaves and asked, in a thick Southern drawl: “What in the HELL was that?” All us kids had laughed about that for the duration of the weekend, and then over the next ten years.

I told Mom that yes, of course we’d have handles, and that JR and I were Joe Rodeo and Chickenhead, respectively. About an hour after we embarked on our journey, Mom heard her walkie talkie crackle and thought one of us was trying to reach her. She picked it up and said, “Eager Beaver, come in!” Unfortunately for her, neither of us had been trying to reach her, nor were we within range, and it was some random man who replied, “Eager Beaver? Hey, y’all, we got ourselves an eager beaver over here. Eager Beaver, I got some wood that needs choppin’ – come on!”

😂

Mom let out a squeak and threw her walkie talkie to the floor. She didn’t change her handle, though. Eager Beaver for life!

Over the 8-day trip, we stayed in six AirBNBs. I learned that there seems to be a rule among AirBNB hosts that their home should feature at least one image of a cow.

Also, a framed version of 1 Corinthians 13:4 is very popular, because all travelers need to remember that love is patient, kind, etc.

Our journey was long, tiring, and really quite wonderful. We got to experience the big skies of Arkansas and Oklahoma:

We got to see family:

And beautiful places…

The Foothills in Albuquerque

Painted Desert National Park

[I used Magic Eraser to edit out Daisy’s leash, and now this photo gives me heart palpitations.]

Heading towards the San Francisco Mountains in Arizona

The dogs slept and snuggled through it all.

In my 2025 calendar, this is the image for November:

Before we embarked on our journey, I sent the photo to Mom and JR, suggesting that we, as a traveling trio, would likely be rotating through the emotional states of the pictured wolves, namely: frenzy, wariness, and irritation. In reality, though, we were more like this:

We stayed positive, kept ourselves and each other sane, and savored each leg of the journey.

And now, though it feels unbelievable and surreal, we have arrived in Sonoma, and we have so much learning and exploring to do, it’s a bit overwhelming. However, I’ll strive to face the task just like our 8-day journey:

Stay in the moment.

Breathe.

Observe.

Appreciate.

Take my time.

And enjoy.

Slug Porn

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 1 Comment

[Viewer warning: This post contains sexually explicit images of slugs.]

During a backyard fire with our nephew last summer, I noticed something on the unoccupied chair beside me, then shone my phone’s flashlight on this scene:

I’d seen in a nature documentary that slugs are hermaphrodites who entangle themselves when mating and both end up pregnant afterwards, and I assumed this was the start of such an act. My husband, nephew, and I expressed gratitude that we’d chosen the three slug-free chairs around the fire, as sitting on the slugs would’ve been super gross, especially given their size – about the length and width of an index finger.

We chatted and fed the fire for several minutes before I remembered the love slugs, shone the light on them again, and found them fully entwined, hanging from a string of slime:

I’ve mentioned before that if I think something’s gross, my sister will think it’s cool, so when I encounter gross things out in the world, I take pictures and send them to her. True to form, when I sent the above shot to my sister, she wrote back: Coooooooooollll!!! The rest of us were not convinced, however, our reactions trending more in the “ew” zone.

A few minutes later, I turned the light on the pair once again, and this time, I almost barfed.

I mean, what the hell is happening here?? I sent the image to my sister along with: They’re creating a slime creature! A few seconds later, she wrote back: That is the freaking coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time! I’m sure you totally agree!

At this point, my nephew was laughing really hard, because every time I took a flash photo of the amorous pair, I’d blurt out, “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!” I just felt bad. Here are these slugs peacefully trying to fulfill their life goal of procreation, and some big lout keeps shining the brightest light in the world on them.

From there, I stopped taking pictures, but what happened next was this: the two climbed back up the string of slime and separated, then one of them ATE THE STRING OF SLIME while the other one left the scene. I have no idea what happened to the slime creature they’d created. It probably broke off and is now running for Congress.

I think it’s very telling that I haven’t done any subsequent research to find out what was actually going on with those slugs. I am curious, but I know that going down that rabbit hole would involve lots more images of slime strands and slime creatures and I just CAN’T. Blech. Perhaps I’ll ask my sister to conduct the research, then give me the Cliffs Notes version…sans visual aids, please and thank you. 😁

Four Years

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 1 Comment

On the morning of Monday, September 14, 2020, I received a message from my supervisor, letting me know that my colleague’s mother had died of COVID over the weekend. My heart ached. When I’d talked with my colleague the week before, she’d told me her elderly mother had developed a fever and started to cough, and I knew this was the eventuality she’d feared most.

Needing to clear my head, I decided to take a quick walk before the workday began. About two blocks from home, Mom called. “I can’t believe I have to tell you this,” she said in a tone I’d never heard before. “Daddy died.”

I turned around, already blinded by tears, and stumbled back to the house. My husband’s eyes grew wide when he saw me. I choked out what had happened, and he yelled, “No!” We held each other and sobbed. When I was able to catch a breath, I told Mom I’d pack a bag and head to her house right away. Before leaving, I sent a quick text to my supervisor: My dad died last night. Heading to my mom’s. I’ll be in touch when I can. In the back of my mind, I wondered if my supervisor would even believe me, given that morning’s news about my colleague. What are the chances that both of his employees would lose parents on the same weekend? (As my dad would’ve said: “Apparently 100%.”)

A few minutes from Mom’s house, the skies opened up, and I drove the final mile of steep, twisting mountain roads in a blinding rainstorm. My knuckles were white and jaw clenched tight by the time I pulled into Mom’s driveway. She stood in the garage, her face pinched with worry. Apparently, we were both in the same mindset about the likely outcome of my drive through this storm. Given our family’s recent circumstances – six months into my sister’s cancer treatment, tag-teaming with my parents to care for 8- and 5-year-old boys who couldn’t go to school or see friends, and preparing for my sister’s upcoming hospitalization for a stem cell transplant, scheduled the following week – it would’ve been entirely apt for me to be swept off a cliff by a flash flood on the morning of my father’s death.

But that didn’t happen. We went on. One foot in front of the other. Gallons of tears shed. Countless deep breaths. And somehow, four years passed.

Since I hang the necklace I wear every day on a photo of Dad and me, I look at his smiling face at least twice a day. Sometimes I look at him and think, I’m sorry you missed this. You would’ve loved it. Other times, I think, I’m glad you’re not here for this. Because I know some events would’ve made him furious, or despondent, or just left him feeling helpless.

And every single time the necklace goes on or comes off the frame, I think, I miss you. That sentiment never wavers.

Share the Love (Gratitude, Part III)

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 2 Comments

I’ve written a couple of times (here and here) about a gratitude challenge my mom, sister, and I completed from 2019-2020. We liked it so much that this year, we embarked on a new one. Each month, we send someone in our lives a message of gratitude, detailing things we appreciate about them. This can be done by card, email, text, etc. The platform doesn’t matter as long as the message is conveyed.

After six months of engaging in this challenge, I have a recommendation for everyone on Earth: YOU SHOULD DO THIS. Truly, the impact is staggering, while the required effort is minimal. Whether the format is a card, email, or text, the message doesn’t take long to craft, and the process of writing out what you love about a person is really heartwarming. Then, there’s the effect on the receiver. Imagine it: you go to your mailbox, open your inbox, or check a text, and what you find is a spontaneous outpouring of admiration from someone in your life, explaining how much you mean to them and how awesome you are.

If a photo could represent what this challenge has been like, it would be this:

Or maybe this:

That is to say, it’s fabulous, and if you’ve been looking for a simple strategy to make life better, here it is. In an environment of doom-scrolling, apocalyptic media, and endless bickering, this is the perfect way to insert some much-needed joy into the world.

Walk the Labyrinth

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 4 Comments

I am an incorrigible brat when it comes to rain. If I’m inside looking out at rain, I can appreciate its pleasant tranquility, but if I’m outside with rain falling on me, I’m more like this:

When my cousin Sheri came to visit me on Orcas Island, I did a pretty good job of planning our outdoor activities in accordance with the weather report, but one day, I missed the mark. The skies opened about halfway through our hike, and for the next hour or so, I crankily stomped across the soggy ground while Sheri, who didn’t share my sour attitude towards precipitation, merrily chatted away. We finally came within sight of the car, and I heaved a sigh of relief as Sheri exclaimed, “A labyrinth!”

I glanced over at the pretty green maze beside us and muttered an offhanded: “Yup.” Sheri, however, had come to a stop. Flashing me a huge smile, she said, “I always walk labyrinths.” She stepped to the opening, clasped her hands, and commenced the slowest march ever known to man: left foot, feet together, right foot, feet together. At the pace of your average inchworm, she traveled along the winding path while I stood, mouth agape and water dripping down my face, wondering how rude it would be to wait in the car.

When she finished at last, she turned to me, face aglow with serenity, and all of my impatience and rain-hatred washed away. “You look beautiful,” I told her, then asked her to wait while I retrieved my camera from its waterproof bag to snap a quick photo.

Cousins are the best. In childhood, you play together, and then you grow up and get to see what kind of adults you all become. It’s particularly cool to learn a new life perspective or skill from someone with whom you share one of those uniquely close, “I’ve-known-you-since-we-were-kids” relationships, and I definitely took Sheri’s labyrinth appreciation to heart. Since that day back in 2012, I don’t think I’ve ever strolled right past a labyrinth, regardless of time constraints or weather conditions. Like her, I’ve embraced the opportunity to clasp my hands, bow my head, and take a slow, mindful walk to its center.

Two weeks ago, Sheri passed away suddenly, sending shockwaves through our family. Months before, she and I had commiserated about the Sriracha shortage, and just a few days before she died, I found out production had begun again and ordered two big bottles. My plan was to send her a photo of me holding the bottles, with the caption: It’s back, baby! But I never got the chance.

Death is insufferable with its finality. I want to grab it and scream, “No! I wasn’t done knowing her yet!” But Death doesn’t care. It takes and takes and makes no excuse for itself.

I will always remember Sheri for her luminous spirit, cutting humor, adventurous nature, and unconditional love. And whenever I walk a labyrinth, I’ll hold her even closer to my heart, grateful for the day she taught me, when the universe places a spontaneous meditative ritual at your feet, the correct answer is: “Well, thank you so much. Don’t mind if I do.”

Yes, even in the pouring rain.

Messy

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 5 Comments

After Dad died, I cried every day for a year. Before then, I pretty much cried annually, and while I recognized that wasn’t the healthiest practice, I still considered it a point of pride.

It was interesting timing, becoming an emotional basket case right after Dad’s death. Dad wasn’t a fan of emotions. In my early childhood, he identified me as “too sensitive” and taught me how to think my way out of uncomfortable feelings. There’s no point in crying; it doesn’t change anything. Nightmares aren’t scary; they’re not even real. Sure, that’s sad, but it is what it is. Etcetera etcetera – the basic message being: bad feelings serve no good purpose and should therefore be logicked away.

I loved my dad. I admired him, wanted to make him proud, and valued our connection. And so, as my grief counselor so eloquently put it, in the early years of my childhood, Dad and I worked together to cut away a key part of me – my highly emotional self – and set it out to sea.

Now, if it had actually gone out to sea and disappeared over the horizon, all would’ve been well, but that’s not how a human system works. The stuff we ignore or suppress lodges itself in the body, then creeps out in other ways. In elementary school, I wrote stories that centered around conflict, with characters constantly shouting at each other. This baffled my parents, since we didn’t have a “yelling house.” Where was this melodrama coming from? At age 12, I was diagnosed with TMJ disorder and started wearing a night guard to keep from grinding my teeth down to nubs. Around that same time, migraine headaches became a regular thing. Later, I turned to numbing agents like smoking and drinking – anything to hijack emotions or turn them off completely. My body had plenty of messages for me, but I ignored them, having fully embraced my stoic, tightly-controlled sense of self.

At almost-50, I finally feel ready to relieve my body of its burdensome store of stifled emotions. Some of the work is underway, like validating negative feelings when they show up. As a mental health worker, this is something I’ve done for others for well over twenty years, so I suppose I’m a bit overdue in affording myself the same consideration. It’s actually a very simple act – far more so than analyzing the shit out of vulnerable emotions in an attempt to turn them into something else. I’m so well-versed in that process, though, that it’s hard to remember, in the moment: It’s okay to feel sad about this. It’s okay to feel nervous about this. It’s okay to feel discouraged by this. But I’m working on it.

I’m less sure how to tackle the other part: releasing all the feelings my body has smooshed into various muscles, joints, and organs over the past four decades. I talked with someone recently, however, who said that’ll be my heart’s work, not my brain’s, and that was a relief to hear, cuz when I asked my brain to figure out an emotional unclogging strategy, it just sent back the shrug emoji.

They say our ancestors live in our bones, so I like to imagine that Dad and I are doing this work together, kind of like a post mortem group project. That being said, Dad did love to delegate, so I see our group project more like this scenario, when Dad took out a couple of lawn chairs so he and his grandson could watch these guys fix the road:

In the case of my current project, as I toil and question and fail and succeed, I’ll picture Dad sitting in a lawn chair nearby, leaning slightly forward with his hands in his lap, saying, “Good job with all that emotion stuff, kid. Keep it up.”

A Year of Challenge

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 4 Comments

Back in January, I wrote about the 52-week gratitude challenge my mom, sister and I had embarked on three months earlier. Last week, we arrived at our final topic: Lessons Learned/Did this challenge change you? Though we should’ve finished back in October, we had to hit pause on a few occasions, namely:

  • My sister’s hospitalization, cancer diagnosis, and beginning of treatment (March-April)
  • Dad’s sudden death (September)
  • My sister’s stem cell transplant and recovery process (October-November)

Quite a year. I think there might’ve been a plague, as well. And a bunch of other gruesome shit.

🤬

As it turns out, choosing that particular challenge was eerily timely. Given all the trauma and tragedy of the past year, it was a true blessing to have a designated time each week to focus exclusively on gratitude.

Here are the final emails we sent each other:

My Response:

To be perfectly honest, when I look at this week’s subject, part of me is like: Barf! Screw you, Gratitude Challenge, my lesson learned is that everything sucks! 

😭
👿

Ahem.

Okay, so really what I learned over the course of this challenge is that it is always an option to be grateful, rather than focusing on struggles and suffering. Concentrating on points of gratitude is best for my mental health, physical health, and general state of well being.  

The past year has certainly provided its share of challenges, and having this weekly exercise has provided a consistent reminder to shine the light on gratitude. Choosing to prioritize gratitude is the wisest choice. It feels better and is more beneficial, so why not do it?

I am grateful to both of you for hanging on over the last year+ to complete the challenge. It hurts my heart to think back on the breaks we’ve had to take over the past year, but I am grateful we’ve come through it together, and I am grateful for the honor of having you both in my life.

Love, Kelly

Mom’s Reply:

So beautifully stated, Kel…. particularly the disclaimer at the beginning!  

😄

But I think that that is what we’ve all learned in a nutshell: Even though everything sucks, there’s always something to be grateful for, and looking for those things helps to keep us calm(er), happier and sane. It’s quite remarkable that we chose to do a gratitude challenge during what turned out to be the worst year of our lives; and it certainly turned out to be a timely and beneficial choice.

Katy’s little sign in her kitchen says it so well: “Every day is not good, but there’s something good in every day.”  Another expression I love is: “Keep your head where your feet are”. Focus on where  you are, not where you’ve been or where you might go. My tendency has always been to spend a lot of time ruminating ….regretting things that did or didn’t happen in the past; worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future. But this challenge has helped me to stay focused on today and what is good about today. And there’s always so much to be grateful for.

I’m grateful for having made this journey with you, and for all I learned about you. Something I didn’t learn because I already knew: There’s nothing in this world I’m more grateful for than both of you.

Love,
Mom

My Sister’s Conclusion:

I’ve taken so long to respond because I don’t really have much to add to all the beautiful things you both wrote! 

☺

It really has helped me get through this godforsaken year having these weekly emails to look forward to and to keep my focus on what is good and positive in our worlds. I learned that gratitude really is a mindset that can be cultivated.

I’m grateful to the children’s book club meeting I went to where I learned about this challenge, and I’m grateful that you both were willing to take on the challenge with me!

I’m grateful that we didn’t let misfortune and long breaks derail us and that we persevered together.

Now, what’s next?

Love you both so much!

💕

And…scene. Challenge completed. As my sister said, it’s time to pick the next one. I’ve done a little online digging and haven’t been inspired thus far, having found mostly kill-joy self-improvement projects focused on crap like budgeting strategies and home organization. Snore. I did see one about sending a personal piece of mail each week and may try that. I mean, who doesn’t love getting mail?

I know we’re all anxiously awaiting the end of 2020 while faced with the reality that nothing will be different as of 1/1/2021. That being said, I encourage everyone to try the gratitude challenge. I truly believe it saved Mom, my sister and me over the past year. Despite everything that happened, we were still inspired to send each other Bitmojis like this:

And who knows, maybe when you reach the final topic 52 weeks from now, life will be a little more normal. Maybe we’ll even get to see the bottom half of people’s faces again! Can you imagine?

Just Like That

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 1 Comment

During a recent conversation with a 10-year-old, he let me know he’d spent the weekend at his cousin’s. When I asked if the two got along, the boy replied, “Well, no. He’s a butthole.”

That turn of phrase is the perfect descriptor for my current feelings about mortality. Mortality, you are a total butthole. In January, you took my Gaga. In May, you took my Libby. And in November, you (literally) messed with my mother’s head.

Two days before Thanksgiving, while mortality busily maneuvered a blood clot towards my mom’s brain, I asked my husband to take this photo:

DSC_0003

We were vacationing on the Georgia coast, and I knew Mom would love the image, as she always says I’m not really on vacation until she sees a picture of me in a tree. Before I had the chance to show it to her, however, I got a call from my sister.

“Hello, Sister!” I answered cheerily. “How are you?”

“Um, I’m okay,” she said, but her tone was strained. I held my breath in anticipation of what would come next. “I need to tell you that Mom had a stroke.”

While awaiting post-surgery news with phone in hand, tears streaming down my face, I scrolled through saved texts, emails, voicemails, and photos from Mom. Just like that, the emotions associated with her contacts had shifted entirely. The same images that would have brought a smile to my face before my sister’s call now filled me with bitterness and heartache.

Twenty minutes later, I received word from Dad that Mom was out of surgery, wiggling her toes, talking, and laughing. The next day, I sent her this photo of my husband, taken that morning:

She sent back a series of happy faces and hearts.

Due to an amazing set of circumstances that some would call blessings and others would call luck, only two hours passed between my sister’s 911 call and the blood clot’s evacuation. Four days later, sitting with both of my parents in their car on our way to their home in Florida, I snapped this photo to share with Mom’s many admirers:

All crises leave lessons in their wake. From this one, I’ve been reminded that Mortality the Butthole does not mess around. It tears loved ones away without warning or apology. Even if no words are left unsaid, hugs withheld, or moments unsavored, the loss will hurt like hell. I suppose all we can do is recognize and cherish the precious, finite time we have with each other and let that be enough. Attachment inevitably leads to suffering, and I choose to attach. Grief is just part of the deal.

And my final, lingering lesson from the recent crisis is this: referring to mortality as a butthole kind of helps. I recommend it.

Dad Talks

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 3 Comments

Butterfly1.JPG

My parents celebrate their 50th anniversary today. When they got married in the summer of ’68, Dad was 25, and Mom was 3 days shy of her 20th birthday, which means this year brings other milestones as well: Dad’s 75th and Mom’s 70th. To honor their awesomeness, I’m going to write something about each of them. Dad was born first, so he gets Post of Honor #1.

Because I’ve been in the counseling field for almost 20 years, I tend to avoid things like talk radio, podcasts, and Ted Talks. The last thing I want to do outside of work is spend more time listening to people talking. But Dad’s talks are different. Like precious gems, they are both rare and valuable. The ones that stick out most in my memory are those that came during times of transition, usually right before a big move.

Dad Talk #1: On the night before I headed to college, Dad told me we needed to talk. He took me aside and said this: “At the place you’re going, there will be a lot of kids who are smarter than you and a lot who have more money than you. And I don’t want you to forget who you are.” His warning stuck with me, and each time my identity got derailed throughout the college years, his words helped me find the way back to myself.

Dad Talk #2: Six years later, when I made the decision to move from the East Coast to California, Dad sat me down for another talk. “All right, there’s something important I need you to know,” he began. Tears sprang to my eyes as I prepared for a heart-wrenching farewell speech, but what came next was this: “If you’re attacked by a mountain lion, you need to fight. You can’t play dead. It’s the same with black bears. Playing dead only works with grizzlies. Black bears and mountain lions will kill you, so you’ve got to fight.” I said, “Okay, Dad,” but what I thought was, If it comes down to hand-to-paw combat between me and a mountain lion, I will not win. I will be cat food. He did get a little more emotional after that. Once I’d agreed to fight off mountain lion attacks, he added, “I hope you don’t like it out there. But I know you’re going to love it.”

Dad Talk #3: Fast-forward fourteen years. When Dad caught wind of the fact that I was planning to move from Oregon to San Diego, I received a voicemail: “It’s your father. Call me.” Since his usual message was: “Kelly, call your mother,” I figured it was serious and called back right away. “Your sister tells me you’re thinking of moving back to California,” he said. Before I had a chance to respond, he continued, “Your nephew is moving to North Carolina, and he’ll need his aunt and uncle. It’s time for you to move back east. Your mother misses you.” The way I figure, if someone I love and respect gives me one stern directive every couple decades or so, I should probably follow it, so my husband and I packed up and moved across the country. That was five years ago. Now we have two little nephews, and it’s awesome to be a part of their lives.

Of course, Dad has taught me way more than what I gleaned from those three talks. He taught me to fish, shoot, play sports, face fears, be true to my word, appreciate the outdoors, keep an open mind, hold myself to a high standard, treat people with respect, and be an honest and genuine friend. He also taught me that vanity is stupid, which is an invaluable lesson. He once dreamt that he had a bald spot on the back of his head. Upon waking, he decided it was true, then retained the belief for an indeterminate period of time (weeks? months?) until he happened to mention his bald spot to Mom, who informed him that it didn’t exist. I just love the fact that he never checked.

DSC_0021.jpgSpeaking of hair, that hairy beast is ’90s me, fishing off the seawall with Dad

Many years ago, back in my mountain-lion-battling California days, I gave a training to a group of child advocates. At the end of the session, one of the trainees stayed behind to ask me some follow-up questions. He let me know he was a single dad raising two teenagers, and we chatted for a while about kids, families, and child rearing practices. Before he left, he asked if I was raised by both of my parents, and I told him I was. “Were you close to your dad?” he asked. I said I was and still am. “It shows,” he said with a smile. That was one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.

Love you, Dad. Happy anniversary. ❤️