ALL GROWN UP CHRISTMAS

With some amazement, a great deal of gratitude and not a little sadness, I have just realized that five days shy of my sixtieth birthday I will celebrate my first Christmas which will not include the presence of any children on Christmas Day.

Like many families, the Christmas tradition runs long and deep in ours. I had nearly reached a half century before a Christmas arrived when my parents, my sisters and our respective children were not all together. Not until that year did I become truly aware that our long standing ability to gather on Christmas was rare and privileged. For almost forty years my family came together from near and far to our childhood home. When Mom and Dad moved to my two thousand mile away city, only the location changed. Even the year one sister was recovering from cancer surgery we simply moved the site but not the celebration.

Over the years we had lots of guests, related and not, delivered cheer and gifts to those less fortunate and tried hard to honor the spirit of the season. Through good fortune and hardship we always had the family holiday and the season itself seemed to wrap us in a blanket of invincibility to an inevitable growth and subsequent geographical drift of family.

Holding us together was my Father, the genuine Santa Claus. Product of the Great Depression and seasoned in World War II, Christmas was the way in which he expressed his abounding delight and love, first for his family and then for his American Dream world. And while his generosity lasted all year round, Christmas provided the excuse to gift friends and family in abundance.

His most important gifts taught us that it was the thought that counted, that little things mattered and that traditions could be built around the simplest of gifts. Three delighted little girls became three grown sisters who still gift each other one large candy cane, one box of Andes Candies, one Lifesavers Stories box; who wrap in multiple layers, who's trees are piled with wrapped - but not always neatly - gifts of love. On Christmas morning gifts are opened individually, in rotating order so that each may be properly considered and applauded (oohs and ahs here, please) by recipient and onlooker alike. We were still young children when the pleasure of giving...thinking of, devising, planning, wrapping, making, finding the perfect gift...surpassed the pleasure of gifts received.

And so, around my half century mark, the flow of life began to change. One sister and her family could not make it home. My father died. My daughter married and had two families to honor. Christmas traditions remained, but the tides of change moved more swiftly now.

The single constant, I have belatedly realized, was the presence of children; mine, my sister's, my grandchildren. This year, the whims of time have conspired to leave my child and grandchildren as well as my sister, niece and nephew thousands of miles away.

And I'll admit this make me pretty blue. I still believe. Believe that Christmas should be seen through the eyes of a child, that hugging a child is the best Christmas breakfast, that adult wonder never quite matches that of a child, that quiet is not the proper atmosphere for Christmas morning, that Christmas can be special but is incomplete without a child present.

I also believe that life changes, that times are what they are, that one must never waste the present no matter what your circumstances, that quiet holidays are likely in the future, that love and children and Christmas can reach across the miles even when your heart is aching to touch. I believe in every word of "I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams."

Father's handmade, six foot Christmas star hangs on my home, our lights will twinkle and our tree will bend but not break loaded with all our child-made or family heirloom ornaments. My 2007 Christmas family, six adults, will wake Christmas morning with true holiday spirit; then with love and warmth for those present or absent, honor tradition, rejoice in the present and begin claiming the future.

HOW WILL I DIE?

Not to be morbid, but I really believe it is normal to think about dying as we get older. And in thirty days, like many other Boomers, I hit the Big 60.

Now, I've always been in the "it's better than the alternative" camp about aging. Thirty and Forty went by without a twinge. I hinted at (and got) a surprise 50th birthday party because I felt I had earned every one of those years. But I'll have to admit that something about the '60' has me a little more wary. It's one thing to be starting down the closing slope at 50. The second half of my allotted century I forthrightly proclaimed. It is quite another to be already part way down a very slippery slope of uncertain length.

My husband Al hit sixty a few years ago - with long thoughts and a long face. I was cautious, but wasn't very charitable. It's just another ten years I reasoned. We all end up in the same place I reasoned. No one controls our time left I reasoned. Eventually, it did dawn on me that I had to go there too - and that reason had little to do with it..

So let's just say the thought of dying is no longer foreign to my meandering mind.

And then a TV ad about surviving breast cancer and dying while dancing with joy sent me careening down a whole new thought path about death and dying.

I want to die with someone I love; my husband Al, my daughter Stephanie, Jackson, Dylan and Karly my grandchildren, my sisters, my cats Samson and Lily.

I want to be hugging, snuggling, laughing, singing, dancing, bicycling, skiing, snowshoeing, reading, eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate, playing catch, listening to the trees, watching deer, hearing birdsong, staring into a campfire, awestruck by lightening and thunder, making love by moonlight.

No, I don't believe I have control over how I die.

But I know that I will never die in any one of the many ways I wish if I am not doing those things in life.

So now, for me, thinking about how I will die begins with thinking about how I will live. Doing.

Lewiston Library Foundation: GoodSearch.com & GoodShop.com

The current City of Lewiston(Idaho) Public Library is a small building that used to be a hardware store and which shares one wall with a bar.

But we have BIG ideas, dreams and goals.

The City has committed to matching the funds raised by the Lewiston Library Foundation (a 501-c-3) at $200,000 a year for five years in order to build a new library.

And EVERY PENNY HELPS!

Please GOODSEARCH and donate to a worthy cause without spending a cent!

At www.goodsearch.com you just type in Lewiston Library Foundation as the recipient, hit verify and search as you would on any search engine. Each search pays the Library Foundation about $.01.

Better yet, GOODSHOP and make all your holiday (and all year) online purchases by clicking through to the hundreds of online stores (either through GoodSearch or www.GoodShop.com) and a portion of your purchase is donated to the Foundation.

Be a "Do Gooder" and always GoodSearch!

PORTLAND LIVESTRONG CHALLENGE 2007 RIDE REPORT

Amazing. Inspiring. Awesome. Moving. How many superlatives can a person use to describe an event without sounding syrupy? But it’s true, the 2007 Portland LiveStrong Challenge is an event that profoundly inspires and is great fun at the same time.

Hopscotching right over the rather long and tedious drive to Portland, Saturday begins with packet pick-up and a visit to the LiveStrong Village. The first indication that this group cares about and supports each and every participant comes when you are handed the packet. Bells are rung and cheers go up as the entire room celebrates the efforts, and many times the cancer survivorship, of each rider, walker or runner.

In the LiveStrong Village are exhibitors of all types who support the fight against cancer. If a person hasn’t figured it out already, you begin to understand the breadth of the support and the depth of the commitment.

Saturday afternoon, Team IMAGINE has its first face-to-face meeting. With team members from Lewiston, Clarkston, Spokane, Provo and Hawaii their acquaintance with me and deep commitment to the battle against cancer are what they share. Now they get to meet and meld. Already they have made a huge effort in fundraising for the Challenge. Out of 181 teams we end in 12th place in total funds raised and are justifiably proud of the effort of a team with only nine members; the winning team has 229 members, is based in a metropolitan area and has corporate sponsorships. Team IMAGINE…Imagining a world without cancer.

Saturday evening is a pasta dinner for top fundraisers for which I and team member Diana Brown have qualified. At this smaller and more intimate gathering and with spouses in tow, we hear from Lance Armstrong and Alberto Salazar and listen to some of the amazing stories of the people participating in the Challenge; stories of courage and strength from survivors and family of survivors that often bring tears and always bring inspiration.

I am struck by being in a room full of people who are there because they have been touched by this awful disease and determined to fight. Each person in this room understood completely when Lance titled his book It’s Not About The Bike. And each person in the room knows the LiveStrong Challenge is not about the bike/run/walk either.

Sunday finally arrives. The rain starts about 5:00 AM and continues to pour down for the 7:00 AM starting ceremonies. But no one is complaining - for most of the people lined up at the start have faced or had friends and family face much tougher times that don’t end in a few wet hours.

We ride. Seventy miles. The rain does not stop. Team IMAGINE though, dressed for the weather, ALL make the 70 miles and cross the finish line through showers of yellow rose petals. And it turns out that we had fun riding, even in the rain. Go figure.

I ride because I want my grandchildren and their children to hear the word cancer and think only of some half forgotten disease from the olden days. Currently one in three men and one in two women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Not acceptable.

And then, of course, there are the millions of current survivors. A person becomes a survivor the minute they are diagnosed. And for as long as they live, years or decades, they remain survivors. Right now there are more than ten million people living with cancer in the United States. And it is estimated that 1.3 million more will be diagnosed in this year alone. For each of them, the battle against cancer is about much more than a seventy mile bike ride.

Nobody engages in a project like this alone. Team IMAGINE is a very special and dedicated group. My heartfelt thanks to Diana, Michele, Peggy, Tammy, Karen, Vicky, Nikki and Crissy. The Crazy Ladies Cyclists, Twin Rivers Cyclists, friends and family (Especially my husband who cracks the whip when I get lazy and rescues me when I bite off more than I can chew!) have all been wonderfully supportive.

And to the many family, friends and all contributors…you’re the greatest!

LITTLE LOSSES

A wise woman once told me that the rule of thumb for fashion - at my age - was that if you had worn it the first time around you should definitely NOT wear it now. Mini-skirts, hip-huggers, platform shoes, peasant blouses, skin tight, belly revealing and so forth.

And if you think you are the exception...you're not.

Well, I was okay with that. Proudly I knew I could, would - was - aging gracefully; combining dignity with just the right amount of dash to keep things interesting. Understanding all too well that my mental picture had stopped aging in my thirties and resolving to live and dress according to the mirror not the internal image.

Even with the occasional blunder, (Damn, that is really a cute dress.) I shopped and wore with a blitheness that ignored the unseen and unsuspected future. Until I retired. And was looking sixty in the eye by a lash.

Even my occasional free-lance jobs, my charity speaking engagements, the occasional nights out can no longer obscure the fact that my fashion choices have narrowed. It's not that I really miss most of them. It is just that I miss the potential they represented.

Sigh...Tall high-heel boots? I look at the ads and simultaneously wonder why I ever wore such monstrosities and also why I miss the excitement of the purchase. Itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny bikinis? Shame on me if I fail to blush. Low rise jeans (hip-huggers reincarnated)? Let's just say my tummy has lost it's suck.

It's the little losses with age that wear on your mind. Knowing that once, you could do or be anything you wanted. Each year knowing that you were making choices; not doing some things that were still possible if you made other choices. Then knowing that choices had been made that ruled out some possibilities.

Eventually, knowing that no matter what choices and changes you might make, some possibilities were gone forever.

I'm grateful the boots and bikinis were once part of my life. While secretly I'm rather glad they're gone, I mourn their passing as my own.

Chocolate-Cherry-Peach-Crumble-Ripple-Chunk-Slow-Whip Ice Cream: A Lament

The younger generation may get tired of hearing 'when I was a kid' laments, but jeez Louise, could we please have some simple straight forward purchasing opportunities.

I didn't walk miles to school through the snow and ice. Although since virtually everyone took the city bus to and from school through our high school years, walking home was a treat not a punishment. Kind of like playing hooky.

And I've never begrudged the fact that pants overcame the "dresses and skirt whose hem touched the floor while kneeling" school wear of my generation. In fact, leading the move to pantsuits and then slacks and even jeans was a pleasure in which I indulged with both pride and practicality.

I even used to teach a class called Managing Change.

However, mistaking complexity for progress is driving me into that crazy old woman category.

When was the last time you tried to buy simple ice cream. Vanilla, chocolate or - yum - fudge ripple? If you look on the bottom shelf in the far corner you might spot as close it comes vanilla bean, or double custard vanilla, double dutch chocolate or chocolate, caramel ripple. But you better have good eyes and supple bending power.

Otherwise, it's row upon row of triple, quadruple, quintuple flavor, fruit, nut combos with names that never come close to revealing the contents. Contents may (or may not) be listed in tiny, beyond bifocal print on the wet, leaky edge of the carton.

Of course, you may also choose between, iced, yogurted, churned, slow-churned, hand packed, natural, organic, fat-free, sugar-free and possibly all chemical, although it would be hard to tell the last one from some of the others.

Each holiday adds a new special edition, as if missing the opportunity to expand the combinations might bring about the demise of the industry.

Not to mention the bars, sandwiches, rockets, mini-bars, singles, doubles and a true plethora of sizes, shapes and colors, mostly multi, that constitute the rest of the frozen dessert aisle.

Do folks today really need multiple, high stimulation tastes to enjoy ice cream? Simple, clear flavor and clean quality is all that it takes to please my taste buds. If I ever eat bear claws or moose tracks, I hope I'm winning the Iditarod.

LiveStrong Challenge Portland Oregon 2007

This is a personal and heartfelt plea...............as the Lance Armstrong Foundation says:


"Unity is Strength, Knowledge is Power, Attitude is Everything."


***************************************************************************


Since retiring, my life has been transformed in many ways. Chief among those transformations is my work with the Lance Armstrong Foundation; combining my passions for bicycling and for fighting and defeating cancer.

After an incredibly inspiring LiveStrong Challenge bicycle/fundraising ride in Portland, Oregon in July of 2006 (70 tough miles on the bike!) I was fortunate to be chosen as a delegate to the first LiveStrong Summit in Austin, Texas last fall. Along with 800 other delegates, all committed to fighting and defeating cancer, I pledged to develop a Personal Action Plan to be implemented upon my return home.

My plan involves presentations to community, school and employee groups; serving on a Colorectal Cancer Coalition locally, developing and staffing exhibition booths and riding once again in the LiveStrong Challenge 2007 in Portland.

The statistics are frightening…Cancer is now the number one killer of Americans under the age of 85. It will take 1500 people – today and every day – from our lives. It will strike more than 40% of the American population. Right now there are more than 10 million people living with cancer in United States, and it is estimated that close to 1.3 million more will be diagnosed this year alone.

And I can guess without fear of being wrong that each of you fits those statistics in some way. We are all touched and tested by cancer.

I am in the final weeks of fundraising for the LiveStrong Challenge and I Need Your Help! Each and every individual contribution regardless of size is both critical to the fight and greatly appreciated.

You may donate online at my personal LiveStrong Challenge webpage:
http://portland07.livestrong.org/marcia_illian_banta
(or go to http://portland07.livestrong.org/ click on Donate and search by Marcia Banta)

FIRE

Exactly two weeks ago, almost to the minute, Al and I sat at a high mountain lake in the Eagle Cap Wilderness staring into the campfire that accompanies this blog. A tough four mile, 3000 foot pack into Maxwell Lake had left us both weary and exhilarated. And hungry.

After a welcome dinner, we settled into the growing twilight and contemplated the still water, lake ringing cliffs and - the fire. Grateful for its warmth, fascinated by its dance and pulled deeply into its trance, the fire both centered and reflected our experience.

But now, back home and away from the controlled campfire that masqueraded as a friend; fire is scorching lands, forest and buildings within only a few miles of my home. It is fire come into its own, fire uncontrolled by man, fire dictating its own terms.

This fire scratches the throat, waters the eyes, frightens the children forced to flee. In the midst of its destruction are sown the seeds of rebirth, but it is impossible to look that far into the future. Impossible to see around, through or beyond the fact of the flames.

The knowledge of this dual nature resides deep inside my psyche; recognized in its likeness to man.

TRUST

We ride a BMW 1200GS. Or, more accurately, the rider (driver for you non-motorcyclists) is my husband Al and I am the pillion (again, for the auto folks, passenger). We’ve been riding “two-up” for all our twenty-four year marriage, yet I still find it difficult to describe the pleasures of the back seat adequately.

Many, if not most motorcycle “riders” wouldn’t be caught riding pillion and thus not be in control of the bike. Non-motorcyclists think in terms of risk, exposure and lack of mobility.

I think riding pillion is all about trust.

There are the obvious building blocks. We both ride with helmets, gloves, boots and full, armored suits. The bike is fully serviced pre-ride and then checked every night at our hotel before we clean up and have dinner. And we never, ever drink while riding. Never.

But any two people can – and should - do those things. For riding two-up what you really must have is good communication, because everything that happens on the bike, every move made by either person, affects both rider and pillion and the bike itself. And because the rider has responsibility for both the bike and the pillion, every move must be communicated and coordinated.

But the final decisions on a bike are always made by the rider. This means the pillion gives up complete control while still being responsible to be an alert and actively involved passenger.

So there you are, lots of responsibility and no control.

Like I said it takes trust; trust that your rider is well trained, capable, alert and can handle both the bike and anything that riding the road throws his way. Trust that he is ready, willing, able, even eager to assume the decision making responsibility.

Once you trust your rider, a pillion enjoys the best form of travel: movement through open air, exceptionally wide views of the passing scenery, the clear sounds and rhythm of the road, the close companionship of a single other person.

Mountains become a range rather than a single peak, desert heat has both smell and taste, the sounds of the river run beside you down the highway, birds swoop and dive literally in front of your eyes, sunrises hang before your face and warm your cheeks and you move with each lean of the bike from side to side in rhythm with the road and the beat of the day.

On a motorcycle you do not pass through the scenery, but enter and partake.

Trust has many rewards.

A JUG OF MILK...AND THE CAPACITY FOR RAGE

My destination is the local store for a jug of milk and the radio is talking to me. It is sunny and the trip is mundane, but the words I hear are all about hundreds of thousands of missing emails, a vice-president who is or isn’t part of the executive branch of our government and a political system that seems caught in it’s own cross hairs. And while I feel the beginning of a surge of irritation at the state of our country’s leadership, a single thought continues to intrude.

How often can I follow one more piece of astonishing malfeasance with true and useful anger or action? What is my – or any other citizen’s - capacity for outrage?

When you have heard yet another news story, read yet another daily/weekly/monthly latest need to know e-newsletter, received yet another forwarded email; is it possible to summon the outrage?

When we reach the limit do we explode in anger, dismay, disillusionment? Are we incensed or incapacitated?

Is there only one answer?

I buy milk.