Doctortayria's Blog

I moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina desiring an opportunity to finally discover what it is like to live in the wilderness. Ever since reading Henry David Thoreau in college it has been an idea in the back of my mind. Whenever I visited someone who lived far away from it all, I was so curious. In the last decade of my marriage, our family was fortunate to have some property at Hollister Ranch in Gaviota, California – a wild and uncultivated terrain that the Chumash Indians used to inhabit. We spent whatever time we could there, weekends and summers, but I never got to live there permanently. When the divorce finalized, my last daughter went to college, my Ph.D.was completed and I finally decided this was my chance to finally live in the way I have dreamed of. I found property in the North Carolina mountains and moved here.

In the last several days I’ve been thinking, however, that my own body is as much or more of a wilderness than anything outside myself. It is very mysterious and unknown to me. The little sensations, pinches, cramps, aches, hurts, gurgles, drives – what are they talking about? There are thousands of messages in this one little wilderness of cells that I inhabit. I long to learn their language and be in a conscious relationship to it all. I want to know how to feed, nurture, develop and not pollute this terrain.

This winter of being snowed in for days and weeks has driven me inward. I am by default more attentive to my internal cellular being as well as my emotions, psychological complexities and spiritual urgencies. I am learning first hand that one doesn’t have to move to the wilderness to be in the wilderness. We carry the wilderness wherever we go. It’s all here; an unknown, and ever surprising landscape. Suddenly a diagnosis, a system failure, a complete change of perspective – all as unpredictable and unpreventable as a tsunami or earthquake. Right now this is the realm of nature that is challenging and confounding me constantly. I’ve got my ear to the ground and want to hear and learn.

Today I have been tempted to feel those lost and lonely feelings that the uncertainties of life can stir up. What am I doing? Where is this going? How will it work? Why haven’t I been able to… yadda, yadda, yadda.  Intriguingly today, as if there were a tail attached to the thought itself, another little one has come right behind it that saying to be calm, the Universe has something in mind about all of this. There is a pattern in this chaos, an intelligence; I’m thought of by whatever designs it all. It has been very comforting. I often have to struggle to brush myself off when I’m down and push thinking into a positive direction, but today hasn’t been like that. I worried because my Mom hasn’t been feeling well, but then a little vision seemed to show her in a matrix of the Great Mind, gently held and clearly thought about. I’m concerned for one of my daughters who is grappling with big issues. My heart started to get all stirred up with worry, then a stabilizing feeling flowed in and stilled my heart. A dear friend has just had a scary diagnosis and I’ve been worried. He wrote telling me of a dream he had last night that says to me that the universe is on it, powerful forces are called in. I always loved the words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament that say not even a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father in heaven knowing about it. I felt the truth of this today and I’m grateful.

It is Valentines’ day and I feel moved to give a special tribute to the original love in my life, my first love, my Mother, Kathryn Whitlow. I am one of the lucky ones in the world who had two parents completely devoted to their children. My mother was a 1950’s stay-at-home Mom who always let my two sisters and me know that we were the most important thing in life to her, along with my father. She was consistently a cheerful and conscientious Mom; we never doubted for one minute whether we were loved or would be cared for. She cooked dinner every night, made a lot of our clothes herself, and loved to think of fun things to do. She was especially good at birthdays and holidays.

I remember thinking I had the coolest Mom. She was a very stylish dresser, and when we kids were lucky enough to be at parties with the adults, I remember Mom standing next to the piano and singing, so lively and unafraid to shine. I thought, “I want to be like that.” She could do the Charleston, and taught me how to also. She was the life of the party as far as I could tell, and my Father always seemed to be so entertained by her and proud of her.

Then when the nest became empty, Mama certainly didn’t pine away. She and Dad created a really fun life for themselves. Mom took up tennis when she was about 60 and played constantly. When my Father died too young, in his early 60’s, Mom and her women friends became the sharpest, funniest, most sincere, compassionate, and hilarious group of women to be around. While my oldest daughter, Josi, lived in Chicago she used to go visit Mom often and she’d always tell me what a blast she had when she got to go out to dinner with the ladies.

Mom has said her rosary and a long list of prayers every morning every day of her life as far as I know; we always know when not to go in and bother her. Every friend and friend of a friend knows what it’s like to be on her prayer list. And Mama never forgets to ask how they are doing. As my nephew Tommy says, “Grandma and God are like this,” as he crosses his two fingers together. She can’t see the hungry face of a child without wanting to give them everything she has. Those charities design all of their flyers exactly for people like my Mom.

Mother is modest and humble, I often think too humble. She delights in bragging on those she loves, but I have never heard her brag on herself, even when she downright should.

When I was going through the most painful time of my life, my divorce, my Mother was there for me every single step of the way. I think we talked on the telephone every day for a long time, maybe a year. She did not want me for one minute to feel unsupported or alone in my agonizing process. She listened, she asked questions, she offered advice only when I asked for it, and was the best friend any woman in that situation could ever have. She got me through it.

Mom has been ill much of the time for the last few years, but hates to complain. She will be honest when we need to know what is really going on, but then follows up the information with how lucky she is and how much she has to be thankful for. Even in her own discomfort, she is never forgetting anyone else in theirs. She keeps a drawer full of greeting cards ready so that she can always send a note to someone who might be comforted by it.

This might be the longest blog I have written, and it only scratches the surface. My mother walks the path of the true human being. She is a lady, with love and passion and patience and moxie. It’s a proud life to be her daughter because everywhere you go people say, “Oh, you’re Kathryn’s daughter? She is such a ….”  and follow with whatever their particular set of superlatives turn out to be. Mom only got to come to the mountain where I live once before she got too ill to travel, but everyone here fell absolutely in love with her and ask about her like they are asking about a dear friend.

I have many, many things in my life to be grateful for. And my first love, my Mother, is at the top of the list.