From Arabic to Zulu

      (Somehow this post got omitted during the year. So I'm posting it now.)
      I can greet you in Ojibwe ("Anin"), Swahili ("Habari"), or Rumanian ("Buna") If you like, I could say "hello" to you in Hindi, Inuktitut, and Serbian, too, and in fact, in 69 other languages. I could ask you your name in all those languages, and I could say goodbye to you. In other words, I have successfully met my granddaughter's 75-repetitions challenge: to learn how to say, "Hello," "What is your name?" and "Goodbye" in 75 languages.

      I loved this project! I loved my granddaughter for giving it to me, challenging as it was. Learning these phrases took me all around the world, so I got a little geography lesson along with glimpses into the languages themselves, in all their varieties. Oh, wonderful, wonderful world.

      I started on July 21 with languages that would be easy for me: Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic. My method was to find five languages at a time with YouTube clips showing me how to pronounce them, then make a print-out of the three phrases in the five languages with my own pronunciation designations under the correct spellings. When I had memorized those, I made flash cards of them, which I took on my daily walk. The bulk of cards grew slowly. Sometimes I would get languages mixed up, but repetition did wonders. The earlier languages I learned that I had thought so difficult – Basque, Welsh, Estonian – were soon as comfortable on my tongue as French and German. Now Tamil is as easily said as Hebrew, and Tagalog as Korean.
        Below is a list of the languages I learned.

“Hello,” “What’s your name?” “Good-by” in 75 languages

75x75 item suggested by Kairos Lamblin (my 10-year-old granddaughter)

American sign language                                 Lithuanian                              

Arabic                                                             Luxembourgish

Azerbaijani                                                     Mam

Balinese                                                          Maori

Basque                                                            Marshallese

Belarussian                                                     Mongolian

Bengali                                                            Nepali

Bulgarian                                                        Norwegian

Burmese                                                          Ojibwe

Catalan                                                            Old English

Chinese                                                           Pashto

Chiwewa                                                         Polish

Croatian                                                          Portuguese

Czech                                                              Punjabi

Danish                                                             Rumanian

Dutch                                                              Russian

Dzongkha                                                        Samoan

Estonian                                                          Sanskrit

Farsi                                                                Serbian

Finnish                                                            Sinhala

French                                                             Somali

German                                                           Spanish

Greek                                                              Sumerian

Hawaiian                                                         Swahili

Hebrew                                                           Swedish          

Hindi                                                               Tamil

Hungarian                                                       Telugu

Icelandic                                                         Thai

Inuktitut                                                          Togalog

Irish                                                                 Turkish

Italian                                                              Urdu

Japanese                                                          Vietnamese

Khmer                                                             Welsh

Kinyarwanda                                                  Xhosa

Korean                                                            Yiddish

Kurmanji                                                         Yoruba

Latin                                                                Zulu

Latvian

Culmination: The 75x75 Party

        It was a wonderful party. It couldn't have been better. Between 30 and 35 people came with their  "75" tribute—75 blessings to hand out; 75 cards for people to write something about me on, which were then given to me in a nice box; 75 spoonsful of sugar in the fudge contribution to the potluck; 75 bachelor buttons (flowers); a 75-words poem about me; 75 meatballs; and a home-made puzzle of 75 pieces with "Happy birthday, Diana" on it, which people put together at the party. I recited the 75-line poem "Frost at Midnight," with only a few stumbles (although I had done it perfectly many times before). I wore the crown of 75 dried flowers and the necklace of 75 beads I had made a few days before, finishing the last of the 75 items. The pot-luck dinner was great—people walked by with plates piled high—and my cakes were beautiful, the linzertorte cake the hands-down favorite, so exotic looking, with its beautiful raspberry-jam top and filbert-encrusted sides, all decorated with white cream-cheese stars.

Most important of all, of course, was the display of the 75s. Not everything lent itself to display (take 75 naps, eat 75 blueberries for breakfast, jump rope 75 times for 75 days), but I set out the craft items—a small knitted table pad, based on 5 purls, 5 knits 15 times in a row (and, yes, someone counted); the table runner of 75 quilt squares; a trivet made of 75 wine corks with a quote wood-burned around the base: "What though youth/Gave us love and roses/Age still leaves us/Friends and wine" (Thomas Moore, 1779-1852); the 75-piece collage; a small, framed embroidery of 75 stitches; the 75 cards I made; and the 75 pieces of wood-burned driftwood, each with a different word on it, lined up along the edges of the table. 

There was a basket of 75 origami pieces and the 75-word WordArt.com piece I had made. And there were all the books I had made: 75 favorite photographs, 75 favorite hikes (each on a page, with a photo), 75 pressed flowers, 75 drawings of different botanical species on my land, 75 people who had accomplished significant things over the age of 75, 75 poems about aging, 75 pictures of me hugging a tree, 75 poems I had written of 75 words each; and a folder of lists people had challenged me to make. I set out the jar of donations (in 75s) for the Applegater, which got a few more contributions that evening. Above the table, on the house wall, I taped the list of 75 things of 75 repetitions each I had done over the past year, each identified with the name of the person who had suggested that item. Next to the display table was another small table with the 75 items I had chosen for the altar (one of the 75 suggestions on the 75x75 list).

        All evening people drew from my basket of flash cards for learning 75 languages and asked me to say, "Hello. What's your name? Good-bye" in that language. (I knew them all. The only time I got two mixed up I corrected myself immediately.) People also kept coming up to me to say, "I love the book of tree-hugging," or "Your poems about Mike are heart-renderingly sweet." All the books I set out were read—I know because each one was at one time or another proclaimed a favorite by someone or other. People even complimented my drawings of plants on the land, calling them "zen in their simplicity." They marveled at all I had accomplished this past year and asked me how I had done it. "A little at a time," I said. The best answer would have been to show them my Excel spread sheet, but I didn't know how to print it and don't know how to upload it here, either, to my chagrin. 

        My guests represented various aspects of my life: the Applegater board, skiing friends, hiking friends, long-time friends from the Applegate, teaching at Rogue Community College. They came from as far away as Ashland, Medford, and Grants Pass. They were people I have known for more than forty years and one woman I had met only the weekend before—all wonderful friends, who participated in the party (and many of them in the 75x75 project by suggesting items) with enthusiasm and delight. Everyone loved my house and its surroundings —the mountain, the woods, the garden. The weather was perfect. As people left, each had a card from the 75 I had made, an origami ornament, and a driftwood word picked from the collection at the edge of the table—and a packet of trail mix, each with 75 pieces of nuts or fruits.

        Mike's participation was inestimably valuable. In addition to helping me set up for the party and keeping guests supplied with drinks during it, what I appreciated most was the "75s" item he gave me for my birthday: "75 Things I Love about Diana." I was so touched by the things he said! But maybe the best part was that when I said, before I had finished reading the list, "Oh, Mike, 75 is a big number," knowing full well what it took to come up with a list of 75 things, he said, "It wasn't even hard."

      We cleaned up that night, since we couldn't leave anything out that the bear might get into. It wasn't late when we finished, but we were exhausted. I crawled into bed with a deliriously happy-tired feeling, my head was swimming with 7500 words of praise, appreciation, and love from so many of my friends.

Finishing the 75s

     What a year it's been! I have loved the challenges, the memories, the crafts, the involvement of friends. It has all been so much fun. How can I summarize it all and do credit to it?
        I could start with Mike. Again and again I pulled him into a project. "Let's go to Redwoods National Park so I can hug a redwood tree." "I want to collect driftwood to woodburn words onto. Do you want to go to the coast with me?" "I need a wooden base for my trivet of 75 wine corks. Can you make me one?" He dug holes for me to plant 75 daffodil bulbs. He joined me on many of the 75 hikes, and they were more fun because he was there. He did the 75-mile hike with me, down the Rogue River trail and back up again. We went to the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge because I needed to see more birds and to the Wildlife Safari in Roseburg because I needed more animals for my list. Maybe his favorite of my 75s was to try 75 new wines. I served him a lot of the 75 new dishes I cooked. We worked a lot of the 75 crossword puzzles together, and since that was his item, he didn't consider it a cheat that I didn't do all 75 by myself (although I did do that, too). He quizzed me on "Hello. What's your name? Good-bye" in 75 languages and listened to recitations of the 75-line poem, "Frost at Midnight." He made a 75s donation to the Applegater. Day after day he endured my year-long obsession as I reported on the latest conversation with a stranger or how many pieces of trash I had picked up on Thompson Creek Road, read him the latest 75-word poem or showed him the 75 origami ornaments. From the day I thought of doing 75 things of 75 repetitions each – while I was hiking with him and my son, Ela, on my 74th birthday – to the last item to be checked off the list, Mike has shared the project with me. That has been one of the best things about it.
        Another way to summarize the project is to make "best" awards, as in:
        Most Challenging Item: Learning to say "Hello. What's your name? Good-bye" in 75 languages. My granddaughter gave me that challenge, and what a great idea it was! I learned a bit of geography (e.g., Chiwewa is spoken in Zaire, Mozambique, and Malawi), noted similarities in languages (variations of "nom" for "name" in some languages, of "ignoa" for "name" in others), national customs reflected in language – different words when addressing one person or more than one, the necessity of bowing along with greetings, the different greetings and bows according to the social standing of the person greeted. My YouTube source for Balinese said that to say good-bye, one says, "Om, shanti, shanti, shanti om" – "three times," he emphasized, but I wonder how well modern young people adhere to that custom. I will be so sorry when I start forgetting these languages.
        Other "most challenging": The 75-mile hike turned out to be not nearly as challenging as it sounded, but going to 75 new places was harder than I had expected because I hadn't realized what a rut I run in – same restaurants, same routes, same stores, even the same trails to hike. Coming up with a memory for each year of my life was challenging, too, not so much for finding the memory but for straightening out the year it happened in. I'm not very good with dates.
        Most fun: They were all fun, but I especially enjoyed hugging 75 trees. All the crafts were fun – the knitting, quilting, embroidery, collage, cooking. I loved making all the books and writing the poems. It was fun talking to a man from the Philippines and asking him his name in Togalog. The whole thing was fun all year 'round.
        Most difficult: Probably drawing 75 botanical species from my land. I'm far from a botanical artist, so the drawing was difficult, but I liked walking all over my 32 acres trying to find new plants (that I could identify and that I was willing to try to draw), and I found that the inscription in the book  was apt: "Enjoy your time in nature." Those moments I spent sitting in the forest, focused on a plant, were indeed enjoyable.
        Other "most difficult": I don't like to ask friends for money, even for a good cause, but the outpouring of donations for the Applegater, in combinations of 75 ($.75, $75, 3x$7.50, etc.) was uplifting and made the difficult moment of asking worth it. Thanks to everyone who contributed, from the three quarters my granddaughter sent me in the mail to the check for $750 from my friend who suggested this item. It was difficult to count 75 sheep before going to bed because I kept falling asleep before I got to 75. I had such a hard time finding 75 pieces of music "that moved or delighted me" that I augmented the list, at the end, with a handful of theater experiences, theater being as meaningful to me as music. But one thing I learned as I worked on the 75s was to tweak the suggestion to fit my circumstances.
       Easiest: Eating 75 blueberries for breakfast. What kept the 75-minute massage from being the easiest item was that it was hard to make it end after 75 minutes.
        The one I most regret having to drop from the list: The 75 swims. Maybe I could have done them if the  smoke hadn't been so bad last summer that I was forced to stay indoors. Then it was winter, and by the time warm enough weather for swimming came along, I added up days and realized that even if I were able to take an hour's drive every day to swim in the Applegate Lake, which wouldn't have been possible, anyway, I didn't have enough days left to finish the 75 swims. Some people suggested I swim at the Y, but that isn't my kind of swimming.
        Other regrets: I really liked the suggestion to visit 75 friends. I thought it would motivate me to see friends who live at a distance and whom I seldom see as well as many friends who live in the area who deserve a visit. Alas, it didn't happen. I finally admitted to myself that I didn't have time to do all that visiting, even though it was a very good idea. Maybe I'll just stretch it out beyond my 75th year and try to visit 75 friends even yet.
        The 75 hikes and skis were great.
        Biggest surprise: Not only that I could meditate for 75 minutes but that I enjoyed it as well. I was also surprised that I could pick up a jumprope (first time since childhood!) and jump 75 times and like it enough to do it for 75 days and that I liked running 75 yards so much I doubled it before I stopped.
        No surprise: That I never did get over not wanting to talk to strangers. Often it was fun and I came away with warm feelings for that stranger. Other times I came away thinking, with irritation, "That's why I don't like talking to strangers." Still, as my sister said, it was good for me.  
        Most satisfactory: Writing 75 poems of 75 words each.
        Most gratifying: That so many friends participated with such enthusiasm. Many of them will be here to celebrate with me on my birthday this Saturday, the culmination of the 75x75s. It will be a grand party, my thank-you to them for giving me this year of challenge and fun.
        Most worrisome: What will I do with myself now that the 75s are over?
     
     

The Home Stretch

       My birthday is July 20. I have a little more than a week to finish doing 75 things of 75 repetitions each.
        I'm doing well. I know I'll finish. I won't even have to work hard to fit everything in. This is what's left:
        (1) String 75 beads. The only thing hindering me is to decide already what I'm going to wear to my party so I can make beads to go with it. One dress would take beads in reds and purples, the other beads in blues and greens.
        (2) I have to cook 5 more new dishes. I have ingredients for a salmon spinach phyllo pie from The Folk School Cookbook, from the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, that my sister, who teaches calligraphy there, gave me for Christmas. I'll make that dish tomorrow, along with toads-in-the-hole, a British sausage-and-popover breakfast dish from the same cookbook. I'll make two other new dishes next week and a new cake for my birthday, and that item will be done.
        (3) I need to stretch and dance uninterrupted for 75 minutes one of these days soon.
        (4) I need to do 6 more yoga poses. I have certainly done more than 75 different yoga poses this year, but often by the time I get home from yoga class, I have forgotten their names. A few months ago, my sister Sharon helped me make a list of 40 poses I knew I hadn't yet done. Since then I've been religiously recording them. Six more could be done in one yoga practice: crow, suptavirasana, vasisthasana (side plank, in two variations) sitting twist, high lunge, and high lunge with hands overhead.
        (5) I am still writing down something or someone I'm grateful for every 4.8 days. The latest one was "for young people who love farming." I did an interview for the Applegater the other day with a young woman who raises pigs and goats for profit. She did a WWOOFing program in Spain and Portugal for a couple of years, then interned at an organic farm in southern Oregon. She wants to do everything "right." She had a wonderful attitude towards her animals. She scratched her pigs on the head, laughed at the piglets, and picked up a duck to take it out of the pen. I am, yes, grateful for people like that.
        And that'll be it: the end of the 75s challenge for my 75th year.
        I've invited 75 people to my birthday party – more than 75, really, hoping to come close to having 75 people here. The theme of the party is "75," obviously, I guess, but my idea is that people who come to the party will begin to understand what I've been saying all year – "75 is a big number" – by bringing something "75" to the party (e.g., 75 pieces of chocolate to share, 75 fortunes to give out) or doing something "75" (e.g., jumping rope 75 times, keeping a ball in the air for 75 counts – things I'll have available at the party). I'll let people take home one of the 75 pieces of driftwood on which I wood-burned 75 different words and one of the 75 cards I made. I'll have the lists of 75s I've made – 75 favorite things, 75 places I love, 75 memories of other people, 75 botanical species on one hike, 75 prayers for the earth and humanity, 75 favorite books, 75 thank-yous to individuals who were "there for me" during difficult times in my life; 75 pieces of music that moved and delighted me; 75 new words added to my vocabulary. Guests can look at the books of 75s: 75 poems, by various poets, about aging; 75 favorite hikes I've done (with a photo for each); 75 people who have accomplished great things after the age of 75. They can read my 75 poems  of 75 words each (with a few exceptions: poems I wrote before I upped the ante by making them 75 words each). I'll have my collage of 75 pieces on display, as well as the knitted piece created with rows of 5 knit, 5 purl, to a total of 75, and the quilt of 75 squares and the embroidery of 75 stitches. I'll have an altar of 75 pieces. I'll recite a poem of 75 lines ("Frost at Midnight," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge), and I'll have my flash cards of 75 languages available for guests to choose one and at some time during the party come up to me and ask me to say, "Hello. What's your name? Good-bye" in that language. I can do it.
        July 20. Fifteen days. I'm in the home stretch.

Two Months to Go

 This was the report when I was three-quarters of the way through this 75x75 project, around April 20:

     "It's true that I have almost a quarter of the year left before my 75th birthday, and it's true that on March 20 the items on my 75 x 75 list were 78.4% accomplished, so I should be feeling pretty good about things.

      "But 'how to lie with statistics.' There is reason to forestall complacency!

      "The problem is in the nature of what I have left. Many of the tasks already fulfilled were easy ones (eat 75 blueberries for breakfast; sew something with 75 stitches; hike to 7500-foot altitude) or easily accomplished with diligent attention (hug 75 trees, jump rope 75 times for 75 days, see and identify 75 fauna). Some of the things I've marked as 'done' are difficult ones I knew I would need time to do: memorize 'hello, what's your name, good-bye' in 75 languages, memorize a 75-line poem, make 75 pendants with wood-burned words; pick up 75 pieces of trash on my road.

      "What I have left are mostly items that depend on the season (pick 75 wildflowers and make an arrangement for every room in your house; identify 75 botanical things on one hike) or ongoing items that I need to finish. That's where the slight nudge of panic comes in. I have to read 25 more books and magazines, for instance, before July 20. That would be six books a month, or slightly more than one a week. Since March 20 I have read one New Yorker and four books, so I'm doing pretty well this week, but I have to keep alert if I'm going to finish this item. I'm slightly ahead on writing poems of 75 words each. I only have twelve more to write. Four a month should be doable.

      "I've been waiting for good weather and wildflower season to do more on 'identify and draw 75 botanical species on your land,' but I think I had better get to it."

       After that assessment, I had a bigger project to take care of: I got married on May 18, and there were many details to tend to. It was a splendid wedding (see the last two posts on dianacoogle.blogspot.com for a report), and, with the honeymoon over, I have turned my attention back to the 75s project.

        Now that the weather is good, I have started on the last project mentioned above: identifying and drawing 75 botanical species on my land. The little penciled sketches aren't artistically good (I'm no artist), but when I page through the beautiful little leather book of blank pages Louise Nicholson, who suggested this item, gave me, I can see the botanical differences, and each drawing reminds me of the botanical diversity on my land.

        The best thing about doing this item is that it accomplishes what Louise wrote in her inscription in the book: "Enjoy your moments in nature this coming year." This morning, I sat on a rock to draw a cat's ear and an ookow, then moved to another spot to draw the Japanese maple sapling that is an offspring of the Japanese maple I and my siblings gave my mother one Mother's Day and that grew into one of the most beautiful trees on our sloping front lawn. The birds were singing. A slight breeze was blowing. The sky was blue – all the clichés of spring. I was quiet and concentrated on my work, but my senses were open to the whole great big beautiful world of nature around me. I have drawn 28 species so far. Tomorrow I'll go in a different direction and pick up more species.

        Looking at my rate of reading for the past year, I decided to set aside Les Misérables and like-sized books and take up young adult novels instead. The result was to read some excellent books: Sherman Alexi's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian; Judy Blume's Forever; Monica Hesse's Girl in the Blue Coat, which takes place in Nazi-occupied Holland; and Laura Amy Schlitz's The Hired Girl, a clever take on Jane Eyre. By moving into young adult literature, I have moved rapidly towards finishing this item, with 69 books and magazines already read.

        The wedding itself was good for some 75s items. I was able to talk to a lot of strangers, and finished that item. Some interactions were such that I came away saying, "That's why I don't talk to strangers," but others were wonderful moments of brief sharing, which I enjoyed. Thanks to my sister Sharon for pushing me to do that item. The wedding and the honeymoon helped me finish the 75 wines item (suggested by Jim Sartorio) and the suggestion, from Sharon and from Teya Jacoby, to go to 75 new places.  I did several hikes on my honeymoon, bringing the total of hikes since July 20 to 68, so I will easily finish that item. I had a brunch at my house for all members of Mike's family and mine who were able to come to the wedding (about 30 people), so I worked to finish the books of 75s: photographs of hugging 75 trees; leaves of 75 different trees; 

75 favorite photographs; accomplishments of 75 people over the age of 75; 75 poems about aging; photographs of 75 favorite hikes. I had on a shelf but did not wear my crown made with 75 dried flowers.

Although I didn't write any poems about the wedding, I did write a series of poems about the honeymoon (each 75 lines), so I only have to write two more poems to fulfill that item!

        The next push will be the 75-mile hike, which Mike and I will begin next week. We had thought we would go to the Sierra Nevada – Yosemite, maybe, or Emigrant Wilderness Area or Lake Tahoe – but this is a late snow year, and we couldn't find 75 miles we could hike without running into snow. What we needed was a long, low-elevation hike, and the perfect one is right here in Southern Oregon: the Rogue River Trail. It's 40 miles from its beginning at Graves Creek to its end at the Illahe Lodge. We'll camp along the way but spend the night and resupply at Illahe Lodge and start back up the trail the next day. We'll go at a leisurely pace, taking ten days for the whole trip, and in the end I will have hiked five miles beyond the requisite 75. This won't be the first of the 75x75 items I've roped Mike into doing with me, but it's one of the best.

        While I'm on the trail, I'll see if I can identify 75 species on one hike and fulfill that item, too.

A Day at the Ocean for a 75s Project

      My son, Ela, thought a long time before giving me his item for my 75x75 project. It had to be special (not something already on the list), appropriate to me, and doable in the next few months, given both the number of unfinished 75s on my list and my upcoming wedding in May. What he came up with answered all criteria: cut 75 rounds of wood and woodburn a word onto each, making pendants to give to guests at my birthday party.

      As with many of my items, I amended the suggestion. Instead of cutting rounds of wood (I'm not good with a saw), I would collect pieces of driftwood and woodburn words onto them. One of several projects I did for my house while it was being built (while I was getting my Ph.D. at the University of Oregon, eight years ago) was to woodburn quotations on the risers of my stairs. That's one of the reasons Ela's 75s item was so appropriate. That and because words are my thing.

      Collecting driftwood would also be an excuse to spend a day at the coast. Mike, of course, was more than willing to help me. The opportunity came on Sunday of last week. We chose to go to Tolowa Dunes State Park, just outside Crescent City, California.

      We couldn't have chosen a better day. No place in the world could have been more beautiful last week than the northern California coast. The sea was emerald green with a white-froth surf that gentled onto the shore with a soothing, massage-sound-track, underneath-hearing boom. There was nothing violent or seething about it, nothing gray and dark, or intense and loud. The Pacific Ocean had taken a day off from its hard work.

      When we walked over the dunes – and after we recovered from our first stunned look at the emerald-green ocean – I gave Mike a bag and instructions: look for small pieces of driftwood, smooth enough to write on but big enough for words like "graciousness" and "understanding." Pieces with interesting color or shape would be especially good.

      We wandered through scattered driftwood for an hour, then reconvened and spread our finds on the sand. We had about 150 pieces. I threw out some as too big or too rough, too round or too mottled, but I kept most of them, since I couldn't know for sure what would work till I started the project.

      We ate lunch sitting on a log facing that incomparably beautiful ocean, then took a long walk down the long beach, looking towards the mountains of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness white with snow in the distance. Over the dunes, the mountains of the Siskiyou Wilderness rose even closer and were even brighter with snow. The sky was a cloudless blue, the ocean green and white, the mountains purple and white, the wind only a brisk breeze – a perfect day!

      At home that night, I spread my driftwood on the floor to dry out and lose, I hoped, its sand.

I contemplated the project. I would insert eyelets in some, so they could hang from hanging plants or in windows. Others could sit on shelves or be carried in pockets. At my birthday party, people could choose the word that spoke to them and have a memento. Looking through 75 pieces to choose one would give them an idea of how big 75 is.

      The next day I started wood-burning the words: Beauty, Gardens, Generosity, Mountains, Love.

I thought of my sister Sharon as I burned "Yoga" onto a piece of wood; of my daughter-in-law as I wrote "Dance"; of my sister Laura as I wrote "Gardenf; of Ela as I wrote "Rhythm" and a whole lot of other words because the project had been his idea. And of Mike, all evening, because we had had such a special day collecting driftwood at the Pacific Ocean on one of the most beautiful days the Northern California coast has to offer.

The 75 words burned onto driftwood

Amazement                Fullness                     Love                    Solidity

Art                              Garden                      Loveliness            Song

Beauty                        Generosity                Magic                   Stars

The blessing of rain   Gladness                    Merriment           Strength

Bliss                           Good deeds               Mindfulness         Sunshine

Caring                        Good health               Moon                  Touch

Cheerfulness              Goodheartedness       Mountains           Trees

Color                          Goodness                  Music                   Understanding

Community                Graciousness             Nature                 Vibrancy

Compassion               Gratitude                   Peace                   Voluptuousness

Courage                     Happiness                  Pleasure               Warmth

Creativity                   Heart                         Plenty                   Water

Dance                         Home                        Poetry                   Whimsy

Depth                         Hope                         Presence                Wonder

Empathy                    Humor                       Respect                  Yoga

Family                       Insight                       Rhythm

Festivity                     Joy                            Richness

Flowers                      Kindness                   Rivers

Forgiveness               Laughter                    Smiles

Friendship                 Light                          Snow

Seventy-five Fauna Finished

      Because I live in a rural area, finding animals for the list of 75 fauna I was challenged to see and identify was at first easy and fun. I was spotting cats and dogs, cows and sheep, goats, horses, and pigs every time I drove down the road. Then suddenly it seemed as though I had seen every animal there was to see in the Applegate. Bob Cook, who had given me this item, stipulated that insects didn't count, except for butterflies, so I listed two or three different butterflies I found at the end of the summer. Birds didn't count, either, because I have a separate 75s challenge to see and identify 75 birds. On September 12 I saw an alligator lizard, and then nothing but a banana slug until November 6, when I saw a herd of elk as I was hiking up Table Rock Mountain early that morning.

      A trip to the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon, over the Christmas holiday added three animals (porcupine, two different kinds of trout, and a bobcat), and I caught sight of a fox close to my house on January 5, but I was beginning to realize how unlikely it would be that I would see 27 new kinds of animals before July 20. More intense concentration was called for. I invited Mike to go with me to the Wildlife Safari near Roseburg, a couple of hours from my house. There, I was sure, I would see at least 27 new animals.

      In spite of the dense fog at the beginning of our drive through this open-range zoo, where the people are encaged in their cars and the animals run free, we began seeing animals almost at once. A dazzle of zebras trotted across a hillside, their beautiful striped forms zigzagging through the fog.

 The Watusi cattle had enormous, graceful horns. The white rhinoceros was barely visible through the fog and the hippopotamus barely visible in the mud, but I did see them. We saw yaks and dik-diks, pythons and lemurs, lions and several kinds of deer and elk. We saw flamingos and rheas, but, of course, those counted on my 75 birds list, not the 75 fauna.

     Altogether it was a very satisfying day, and I successfully completed this item on my 75x75 project. In addition, I was inspired to write a number of poems about the animals, so I also moved forward on the item to write 75 poems of 75 words each. Here are two of the poems:

Tibetan Yaks

Three yaks stood under trees
their long black hair,
like a Mexican sweetheart's,
lush and lustrous.
One lifted a long silky tail
and waved it gently
its gorgeous white tresses
swaying like a bridal veil.
Unlike the mud-caked bison
stubbornly walking the road,
the yaks were clean, and,
having absorbed the zen of their nation
mindful,
completely "in the moment"
which was:
the shade of the trees,
the food provided,
the beauty of their being.


Watching Flamingos with Mike

You said, "There's no such color in nature"
a weird coral cum rose cum orangish pink
accentuated by the hot-pink
on the knees' kinky pink knobs
and the feet's pink webs.
Feathers fluffy as a flapper's pink boa
Legs so ink-thin you'd think they couldn't hold
the pink blood of the frilly pink bird
who, with a wink, a blink, and plink-plank-plink
just on the brink of what you think natural,
tickles me pink.