Water, water, everywhere...

Water, water, everywhere.  That could be the slogan of the Finger Lakes Region of New York state.  There are eleven lakes that roughly run north to south - five of which resembling the fingers of an outstretched hand.  These lakes are fed by a plethora of waterfalls.  This is gorge country and the tourist office slogan says it best:  Ithaca is Gorges.  Though I'd rather have a hat that said Hello Gorges.  Maybe I will still luck out and find one.  This is the Allegheny Plateau, the Gorges ecoregion, the Finger Lake Uplands and the Great Lake lowlands.  That's enough science for today.

I am visiting my childhood friend, Pamela Barbara.  She and her partner live on a blissful ten-acre tract of forested land a few miles south of Ithaca.  Their land is roughly a five-acre by two-acre trapezoid with well-built trails, bushwhacked by Pamela and Bob.  Bob is an artisan, woodworker, sculptor, painter and all-around mountain man.  Pamela is a depth psychologist who has travelled the world and lived in other countries.  One can see their love of the land in every path and amenity.  I have the good fortune to be staying in the house with a comfy bed, my own bathroom, and a view of the woods from the bedroom window. 

                                              Sanctuary in the Woods - Pam and Bob's place

They have a private campsite up the hill, where folks can stay and enjoy a lean-to, see-saw, swing, fire pit, tepee and other niceties in natural surroundings.  Bob also built a caravan that one can rent and stay a night or two.   There are campers on the property right now - two families with three kids and one dog. There is also a bear in the vicinity.  And in the week I have been here the caravan was also in use a couple of times.  Who even knew that Hipcamp was a thing?

                                                    Lower Camp - Sanctuary in the Woods

                                                      The Caravan at Sanctuary in the Woods

The three of us ventured to Lucifer Falls in Tremen State Park on a hot, humid Sunday.  We parked high and climbed down - which instinctually seems backward to me.  The reward of this hike was well worth the effort.  On the return trip we ventured up 222 steps built in the days of the Civilian Conservation Corps, commonly known as the CCC*.  222 is usually my lucky number, but I didn't feel lucky lumbering up those stone steps to the Upper Rim Trail.  Then the skies opened up (my mother used this expression) and the tepid rain was a welcome relief to the expended effort.  

                                                         Lucifer Falls - Tremen State Park

Bob took off from work on Wednesday and we visited what might be called the granddaddy of them all - Watkins Glen State Park.  This was an uphill climb, with many CCC built paths and steps to gain access to the waterfall at the almost top of the trail. What?  More steps to the upper car park, where the signage promised a shuttle that was not running on the day of our trek.  We rested up while Pam and I debated about letting Bob descend solo and be our chauffeur for the final leg. But then we mustered a second wind and headed down.  It was pretty cool to see and hear a train on the trestle at the top of the gorge.  We crossed a beautiful stone bridge to gain access to the Upper Rim Trail.   Accessed by...  Steps!  I am learning to avoid any paths with that name.  But we did it and the remaining hike, utilizing a shortcut back to the car, was relatively flat until the final push.

                                                                        Watkins Glen

Pamela and I also ventured to Taughannock Falls.  These are the highest falls east of the Mississippi.  This was an easy walk on a treed path.  But after Watkins Glen, my legs doth protest!  I was happy to be back in the car, and happier still when we simply went to the warm water therapy pool on Friday.

                                                               Taughannock State Park

But let's get back to water.  I have been enjoying this life force in myriad ways on this visit to my home state.  In addition to hiking to magnificent waterfalls and cascades, there are others spied from the car - every trip into town pulls my eye to the right where Buttermilk Falls is visible.  And the rain!  Last night the thunderous pounding of rain on the roof was music to my arid ears.  I cannot remember when I experienced such a deluge that did not turn into hail or a mudslide.  What?  It can rain, just for rains sake?  Pelting, magical music.

After our vigorous hike at Watkins Glen on Wednesday a hearty lunch was in order.  The Finger Lakes is wine country, and many wineries have restaurants or delis.  We went to Tabora Farm and Winery in the town of Dundee.  Upon entering the building, I was awed by the baked goods.  All made in house, and everything looked amazing.  I even saw a Chinese cookie that had swirls of chocolate pinwheeled throughout instead of the usual dollop of ganache in the middle on top. This was my childhood favorite, and I had it in my mind to buy myself that treat after lunch.  I ordered a grilled panini sandwich called the Veggie Inquisitor - it was decent.  And like so many places here, one orders at one counter and pays at another.  I grabbed some gluten free parmesan cheese curls to accompany my sandwich and also to share with Pam and Bob.  At the pay station I figured out that they wanted to upsell a glass of wine to enjoy with the meal.  That would be great if I drank wine, but I don't.

I also eschew beverages sold in single serve bottles.  There are enough plastics in the waste stream, maybe even clogging the landfills.  I often wonder what really happens to recyclables.  A few years back King Soopers was scandalized when it was discovered all the bottles and cans people brought to the store, thinking they were being recycled, actually ended up in the landfill.  This was in the eighties, before curbside service made it more convenient to be environmentally conscience.  (You may detect sarcasm here) I live in a state that has a perpetual water shortage.  People carry Nalgenes and Yetis everywhere.  Many of our water fountains in public spaces have those nifty new contactless water refill stations.  Servers in restaurants don't blink an eye when I carry in my bright orange Sigg bottle  and ask for a refill.  I wish I could say it is an anomaly in Colorado to see the uninformed with an Aquafina or a Nestle water bottle.  I chalk it up to greenhorns.

When I asked where I could get a refill for my trusty water bottle, nestled all day in my fanny pack with a holder built in just for that purpose.  I bought that Zcreation pack 40 years ago in Boulder, so the idea of bringing one's own water bottle is certainly not a new concept.  Three gals huddled around the wine bar, and each looked at me blankly.  Finally one replied that I could use the sink in the bathroom.  What?  Don't they know what an unsanitary endeavor that would be?  Spigots are full of feces and other pathogens.  Look up the studies - I promised not to have any more science in this blog!  No, I said, where can I cleanly fill my bottle.  You can't was the reply.

In a world of shifting blame, I was not surprised to hear this was an edict from the owner, and these young gals were hesitant to shy away from a ridiculous policy.  To their credit no one piped in to suggest I turn around to a reach-in cooler full of single serve beverages in plastic bottles and pick one - any one - though I can surmise that was the intention of the inhospitable policy.  Honestly I was speechless.  But only for a moment.  I said things like really?  You have got to be kidding!  I might have to write a bad review over water?  The list goes on, but my library voice tirade was pretty short.  And the truth is - I don't write bad reviews, I write blogs and then email links to the powers that be.  In this case the water police of Tabora Farm and Winery.  It is after all their winery, their farm and their rules.  I cannot change the world or even one unenlightened person on the shore of Seneca Lake.  A lake brimming with water  - the volume is 1/2 of all the water in the combined Finger Lakes.  I had just witnessed a miracle of nature - Watkins Glen and rushing water that feeds the lake this winery is stone's throw from.  Literally, water, water everywhere.  But apparently not a drop to share.

Lucky for me I am from Colorado and never leave home (or my friend's home) without an adequate supply of what the human body is comprised of.  The liquid that makes this part of the country lush and green.  What the east hordes and the west covets. What Tabora Wine and Farms thinks I can do without.  Water.  I went to the car and got my quart sized back up Nalgene in an insulated sleeve.  Cool and ready for me to sip. And even though I wanted that big cookie, I decided not to support them further by buying anything else.  I showed them, didn't I?

                                                             Tabora Winery and Farms

 

Time to Write,

Jane

*CCC

Superhero

Yesterday was Mother's Day. First celebrated in 1907, when a member of Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, Virgina had the idea of a special day to honor moms.  My first Mother's Day - as a mom - was May of 1990.  I'd given birth to my son in November of 1989 and most likely was honored by my then husband on this momentous inaugural day.  Honestly, I don't remember much from those early years of motherhood, what with nursing and diapers, and the oh so famous buzzwords of work / life balance.

In the next four and half years, I'd become a mother twice more.  I'd cherish the little pre-school tchotchkes and construction paper cards that my children presented with wide-eyed expectation.  Many years and many moves later these ephemeral keepsakes have been relegated to the trash bin.  A few years into this practice of kids making me French Toast to feast upon in bed, it occurred to me that Father's Day should come before Mother's Day.  It could serve as a preview of gift giving and remembering.  

The spring of 1998 was the saddest Mother's Day for me.  My own mom had passed away the previous summer and I was finishing that agonizing year of firsts.  Her birthday, Hanukkah, my birthday, and so on.  Mother's Day hit hard.  While I was a mom to three amazing littles, I missed my own mother in a palpable and painful way.  All I wanted to do on that second Sunday in May and for many years to come, was hide in bed, under a pillow.  But as moms we muster!  Pull up our postpartum panties and smile through the sorrow.  

As years progressed, I craved alone time on Mother's Day.  I wanted my emotionally unavailable husband to father up on Mother's Day and take the children out on an adventure so I could wallow a bit in the sadness of losing my own mother.  As a kindergartener our teacher taught us how to make a flower bouquet using tissues and pipe cleaners.  I declined having Mrs. Hoffman spray perfume on the posy I would present to my beloved mom.  Even as a six-year-old I was aware of my mother's allergies, quirks and idiosyncrasies.  Why wasn't anyone paying attention to my needs?

I had suggestions for my future ex, like getting me a massage on this day or letting me take a walk by myself; anything to remove me from the heartache of facing life without my touchstone.  I am sure there was a bit of 'me time' carved out, but I also began to harbor resentments.  I resented having to beg for a moment.  I resented my ex-husband having both of his parents when I had none.  I resented my friends for complaining about how difficult their mothers are - I ached to be mad at my mom just one more time.

The combination of depression and grief I was experiencing did not set the perfect scene for my children regarding Mother's Day.  Did I teach them that a day where I was supposed to be thrilled about being a mom - their mom- brought more dread than delight?  I got better as they got older, allowing my children to show me how much they care about me and love me with small gifts and gatherings.  

Yesterday two of my kids and all of my grands met in a park for playing, eating and a walk on the trail.  I had my granddaughter for the weekend.  Her mom was in the last weekend of college and needed homework time.  I get it.  Every time I watch this three-year-old I remember how as young moms our time is not our own.  For my daughter as a single mom?  More so than for someone with a partner. And for the first time in her motherhood years, my daughter's birthday coincided with the holiday ideated all those years ago by Anna Jarvis.

My daughter did not want to meet her siblings, me and nephews for the festivities.  She craved a morning to herself.  I could go down the road of flexibility, and scheduling conflicts but I won't.  Recently my therapist suggested I institute a new family tradition, like a monthly gathering with my kids and grands.  After the hubbub of trying to schedule one day this past weekend, I abandon all thought of that undertaking.  I actually was not insulted that my youngest wanted a moment to herself.  I also reflected that she might have learned the behavior I unwittingly modeled all those years ago.  After all, she grew up with a mom who wanted a moment on Mother's Day!

Superhero

by Jane Hillson Aiello

Diapers and nursing and working.  Trying to keep

my husband happy and my children from dying.  Cook,

homework helper, project manager.  Housekeeper,

chauffeur, medical monitor, social director, volunteer.

Spiritual advisor to the babies I birthed.  Mental illness,

drug addiction, divorce, autoimmunity.  Waldo Canon Fire.

Children left, came back, left again. Holding grudges and

Resentments. Holding their own. Holding me up.  Holding on.

Holding guns.  Holding knives.  Holding scissors.

They made it to adulthood.  I am a fucking superhero.

 

Babi Yar in Denver

When I first came to Denver in the winter of 1979, I noticed a field with a small sign that read "Babi Yar".  Situated at the angled intersection of Havana and Parker Rds., I often passed by on my way to Caldonia's or The Emerald Isle.  Intuitively I know this had something to do with Jewry and the Holocaust.  But I was in my early twenties and history seemed too serious to study when I could be partying in the southeast suburbs of the Mile High City.  It was the early eighties, after all.

I never wandered into this park, but I came to learn that Babi Yar was a not as well-known site of Nazi atrocities.  As I became more in touch with my Jewishness, beyond matzo ball soup and menorahs, the interest in visiting this park heightened.  You know how life hands us excuses?  Maybe I needed a very strong push to see what this now beautifully developed memorial is all about.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine supplied all the reason I needed to venture a mere twelve miles from my home in the Centennial state.  I was further enticed because my son had invited me to join him for lunch at a restaurant practically walking distance from the site.  On a beautiful Colorado morning I made my pilgrimage.  

Let me back up.  My sister had been visiting the week prior and I fell behind in reading the newspaper.  So, on that Tuesday morning when I was set to meet my son, I was just getting around to perusing Monday's Denver Post.  On page four there was this photo of two young boys standing at one of the monuments in Babi Yar Park.  It was taken at a Holocaust remembrance that had been held on Sunday.  I took this as a sign from my Higher Power that I was meant to carry through with my plan and pay a visit.

                                                Denver Post Photo

I arrived at the park in plenty of time to take in all that it would offer.  I also wore a skirt because I was taught to be respectfully dressed in certain places, like museums and memorials.  Plus, I wanted to look nice for my eldest at lunch.  I pulled my gas efficient car into the dirt car park and had my first look.  This is it, I thought?  I could only see the two stone slabs that the photo in the paper had depicted.  I was also taught not to judge a book by its cover, so I started on the path to see what Babi Yar had to offer.

The first architectural homage to Babi Yar was a narrow passageway with painted black walls.  This symbolizes the train cars the Nazis used to transport Jews to concentration camps. In Kyiv Jews were ordered to report to an intersection near the train station.  Instead of being loaded into 'cattle cars' they were marched to a ravine where they were stripped and summarily shot.  I continued on the path and when I came to a second sharp point on the walkway, I realized I was meandering in the shape of a Jewish Star.  I had goosebumps!  The park also has a grove of 100 carefully planted Linden trees to simulate Ukraine and also commemorate those estimated 200,000 people who perished at Babi Yar, Ukraine during WWII.

I sat on a low wall in the grove and wrote notes about my experience.  Not just what I was seeing, more importantly, what I was feeling.  I know that antisemitism in on the rise, and there was an article in the next day's Denver Post that quantified the numbers; a 53% increase in hate crimes in Colorado in 2021.  We say never again, and yet it is happening here in the Queen City of the Plains and all over Colorado.  Antisemitic leaflets were strewn across driveways in Parker claiming COVID was caused by Jews.  From KRDO.com:

The flyers were reported to the Parker Police Department. A spokesperson for the department told 9News they determined the flyers are not criminal and will not be investigating any further, saying it's a matter of free speech.

Free Speech.  Let that sink in.  I lived in Colorado Springs in the 1990's and had a swastika drawn on the windows of my minivan.  Waking up to this was a gut-punch.   I felt violated - my driveway, my car, my kids as witnesses.  This is not free speech - this is hate speech.  There was so much to ponder on this visit, in this carefully curated landscape.

I walked through the two pillars that I had seen in the newspaper as my last stop in Babi Yar Park.  I read the beautifully inscribed slabs of granite.  This park has wonderful poetry that speaks to me.  I walked back through the black monoliths and there, on the ground, was a small flag of Ukraine.  I thanked my Higher Power for bringing me here and gifting me with a reminder of my contemplative morning.

I left Babi Park conflicted.  I felt heavy and sad knowing that history can and will repeat itself.  I also left with a feeling of hope.  The city I moved to and fell in love with in the late seventies was open-minded enough to have a memorial to one of the darkest moments in Jewish History.  Additionally I was grateful because I could freely leave this facsimile ravine of atrocities, in a few moments I would be filling my belly with a hot, nutritious meal, and I would be in the loving presence of a family member.  Hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma, Ukrainians and others never again got that opportunity.

I wrote two poems in the days after my visit.  The first is "Grandmother's Ravine".  The title is a literal translation of Babi Yar.  As a grandmother this was meaningful to me.  The poem is a sestina.  Don't concern yourself with the 'rules' of poetry.  Just appreciate that the repeating end words are purposeful.  I chose this form for the repetition; I think it adds to the emotion.

Grandmother’s Ravine  by Jane Hillson Aiello  4/2022

“No monument stands over Babi Yar”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

There is a ravine nearby that recounts history

The summer of 1941 - time of the Holocaust

In the gully you may feel the heartache

Of those marched and stripped and shot in Ukraine

While gazing at the mountains over Denver

Simmering with antisemitism.  Oh, to be Jewish

Reports of hate crimes aimed at those Jewish

A momentum of repeating history

Of course, this could not happen in Denver

We say never again, yet a modern holocaust

Emerges on the news of Kyiv, Ukraine

Turn the volume low, to avoid heartache

Never again we cried - no more heartache

This is the mantra of all peoples, Jewish

Be it in Colorado or Ukraine

We must remember our brutal history

Of those marched and stripped and shot in the Holocaust

Grandmother’s Ravine recreated in Denver

Babi Yar beckons to all those in Denver

To recollect ancestral heartache

Of Roma.  Of Poets. Of Holocaust

A message to all, not just the Jewish

Never to repeat senseless history

Antisemitism here - war in Ukraine

Walk the paths reminiscent of Ukraine

A Mogen David carved in the landscape of Denver

In the shadows of mountains is history

Granite walls harden our heartache

What survives in the blood of the Jewish

A lifeline stretched thin by the Holocaust

Marched and stripped and shot in the Holocaust

In a ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine

The victims murdered?  Mostly Jewish

Antisemitism resurging in Denver

Our people forced to relive the heartache

Forced to live a recurring history

People of Ukraine, we feel your heartache.  In Denver we commemorate Jewish history. 

Never again - the Holocaust

        The second poem is about the Ukrainian flag that I found on the ground at the end of my visit.

Unwavering by Jane Hillson Aiello 4/2022

There was a flag on the ground

Not posted or stuck in hard, sad dirt

Just laying on its side

Bottom to the earth

Top to the sun

This was not a flag for a small child

To wave at a parade

Though it was right sized, just for that

An overhead beacon to welcome firefighters

Or cheer majorettes

A treasure to bring home

A souvenir of revelers and marchers

Over time it would tatter from wind

From backyard antics of being furled

And thrust like a weapon at a sibling or the cat

The straw like stick would break one day

And upon returning from kindergarten

It would be forever gone and soon forgotten

Relegated to the trash during a parental cleaning spree

No.  This flag was a testament of foreign weapons

An homage of war and atrocities

Of ancestors being stripped and marched and shot

It would be held tightly to hold off tears

Waved in the wind to simulate movement

Quiver to remind us of fear

Goosebumps from goosesteps

A Holocaust remembrance in the shadow of mountains

In the thin air of elevation

Breath shallow.  Heart heavy

Two bright colors left in the grass

Blue for the everlasting sky

Yellow for the light a sunflower may bring

            For more information about Babi Yar Park in Denver:

The Cultural Landscape Foundation - Babi Yar

Mizel Museum - Babi Yar