Change Happens Inexorably; How Do We Handle It?

2009 has been a time of great changes for the Moores living on the Carver Curves.  Dolly has grown into her new job as executor/executive and Trustee for her father's estate and the bequests the estate created, while learning the scope of her fibromyalgia and its effects on her body and her lifestyle.  Warren has used all of his eligibility for financial support from the two educational trusts his grandparents created, so he has had to apply for financial aid outside of the Trusts; at the same time, he's changed his academic focus from a major in Japanese language with a minor in Computer Science to a major in Business Administration with a minor in Economics.  Dale has suffered some very serious spinal cord injuries that put him in the hospital and confounded most of the physicians who have examined him, and he has officially and formally filed a claim with the Social Security Administration for Total Disability Income payments.


The Stock Market Crash and Economic Recession of 2008/2009 combined with Dale's inability to earn an income to deplete most of the Moore family's immediate savings, putting their ownership of the Lodge at the Carver Curves in real jeopardy.  Dolly observed the value of the Educational Trusts she had been entrusted with plunge during the Stock Market Crash, and the other assets of her father's estate also lost value and immediate marketability, which exacerbated the overall sense of financial and physical insecurity she had been feeling ever since the family moved to the Lodge.  Warren had to forge a new strategy and tactical plan to make completing his education and emerging from school with an ability to earn an adequate income a specific possibility, instead of a nebulous and indefinite objective.  Dale became convinced for several months that he was in imminent danger of dying; his overall levels of pain and physical dysfunction escalated steadily until in June and July of 2009, he called each of his sons and asked them to discuss any grievances they might have with him, as he believed he might die in the immediate future, and he wanted his sons to achieve as much closure and completion with him as possible.


Change usually is accompanied by upset, uncertainty and varying levels of resistance/acceptance on the part of the people whose lives are undergoing significant change; the Moores definitely experienced upset and uncertainty as they alternated between resisting and accepting the changes they were experiencing.  Over time, they became convinced that, like the victims of the Borg of the Star Trek adventure series, they were discovering that "resistance was futile", and acceptance was not an aggressive enough response to empower them to take charge of their lives and begin creating a future of their own choosing and design: they began to embrace the changes they were experiencing, and then to harness them to drive the creation of the future they jointly desired, even demanded, from their joint destinies as a family and as individuals.

How We Roll... (and a Change to the Purpose of this Blog)

Our Family Unit is made up of three members living onsite at The Lodge at the Carver Curves of the Clackamas River: Dale, who is husband to Davona (Dolly) and father to Warren; Dolly, wife of Dale and mother of Warren; and Warren, loyal and kind son of Dale and Dolly.

We live in a two-house compound at the edge of a 25-acre flood-plain just upstream from the Carver Bridge on the Clackamas River in Carver, Oregon.  The houses are joined by a common deck; Dale and Dolly's house is about twice the size of Warren's.  Our property includes a deeded 20-foot-wide, quarter-mile-long parcel leading from the houses to the banks of the Clackamas River, where the beach and swimming hole make it a popular spot for rafters, boaters, and fishermen to gather before the last quarter-mile float downstream to the Carver Park boat ramp.  The beach borders a stretch of the river known as the Carver Curves; the stretch of road in front of the flood-plain between the beach and our compound is also known as the Carver Curves, as it consists of several narrow S-curves with a sharp 50-foot drop-off into the river with only a guardrail on one side, and basalt cliffs rising up and bordering the road on the other side.

This particular portion of the main road to Estacada is the scene of at least one or more traffic fatalities annually, as drivers roar through the curves at insane speeds, sometimes while intoxicated; illegal (and unreasonably dangerous) passing maneuvers account for most of the fatalities.  The Clackamas River is only slightly less deadly just downstream from the beautiful swimming hole and beach located in the middle of the river's version of the Carver Curves: the current pushes mightily against a deeply undercut basalt cliff, sucking in the strongest of swimmers; their drowned corpses have to be winched out from where they are wedged underwater.

Because of the unique geology and hydrology of the Carver Curves, there are just eight residential compounds ringing the floodplain; the cliffs across the road from our neighborhood make the prospect of new development there highly unlikely.  The little hamlet of Carver was annexed by the new city of Damascus in 2006, and some on the City Council of the new city had visions of an industrial park springing up on the floodplain, until the local residents and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) pointed out that the entire floodplain flooded with swift-running Clackamas River flood-waters every winter.  Now our neighborhood has been re-zoned as a "Conservation Overlay" area on the Damascus Planning Commission zoning maps.

So, everyone in the neighborhood lives just above the hundred-year flood level of the river, and we all enjoy the fertile sandy soil of the floodplain through the gardening season; the blackberries are plentiful in the fall, and leftover plantings of grapes, apples and pears from past farming operations provide ample bounty for the entire neighborhood in their seasons.  Each winter, we watch the river rise and inundate our gardens and fields; we've learned to bring everything of value up to the house for winter storage so the river doesn't claim our stuff.

The Moore Family unit living in the Carver Curves has a unique little attribute that makes us a little different from a lot of families:  we're all totally disabled.  Dale has numerous spinal cord injuries to a malformed  spine that cause seizures, blindness, very convincing but false symptoms of heart attack and respiratory failure, and seem to be correlated with outbreaks of bipolar syndrome; Dolly has severe fibromyalgia and debilitating migraine headaches that occur very frequently; and Warren has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism.  With all the work necessary to pay the bills and maintain our home compound, it takes some special teamwork to keep everything from falling apart at The Lodge, our fond nickname for home.  Somehow, Dolly and Dale manage to trade off good days and bad days to support each other physically, mentally and emotionally; and Warren provides essential support for both of his physically-challenged parents while living at home and attending PSU at age 28.  We have had to learn to be actively understanding, compassionate and empathetic with each other in order to keep our lifestyle going.

We've changed this blog to a team effort to share what we've learned and what we're still learning, as well as to share photos, recipes, plans, and whatever else that we think might be useful to others.

We welcome comments and input.  This blog is also intended to be a new way for us to stay connected to the outside world, as we tend to become a bit isolated due to our location, lifestyle and disabilities.

With respect, and hopes for a bright future of personal growth and new understanding,

Dale

Purpose (From Dale)

20 years ago, I was a workaholic. I was father to three incredible, smart, beautiful little boys who questioned and explored everything in their world; husband to a woman who appeared in my life at 13, convinced I could do a better job of choosing female companions than I had demonstrated so far (she was, and usually is, right); and struggling to make sense of my role as provider to the family and worker-bee in the commercial hive.

I didn't start out to be a workaholic. At 18, when grilled by my future mother-in-law about my career aspirations ("If my daughter marries you, you'll drag her the the bottom of the social heap, and any offspring you have will become millstones around her neck."), I replied, "I plan to be the best husband and father I possibly can be; it doesn't matter if I work as a garbage collector or a stock broker, as my career will only serve as window dressing for who I am and what I do."

Somewhere along the path in the next 15 years, I lost my way. My moral and entrepreneurial compass spun wildly whenever I searched for a direction, and I slogged through jobs that sent me home unhappy and unsure of who I was, unable to take a stand when employers threatened my imagined financial/social security and demanded I kowtow to their authority, defer to their dictates of process and relations with customers and vendors. I tried to resolve conflicts with my values and the various demands of my employers by working harder and longer.

It didn't work. I became more and more frustrated and tired, but I couldn't resolve my search for real meaning in my work by just keeping my head down and working harder to please my boss.

Looking back, I realize now that it wasn't because the people I worked for over the years weren't necessarily bad or misguided (although some definitely were) that I wasn't getting any satisfaction from my work. I wasn't taking responsibility for choosing my own path in life. I wasn't totally aware of what mattered most to me, and so I wasn't protecting and nurturing what was essential to my own growth and happiness. The garden of my life was full of random plantings of things I didn't really want or need, and it was full of weeds that sucked up essential resources and threatened to choke out the important stuff. I had no reserve of the things essential to promoting healthy and vigorous growth, and I suffered with shortages at harvest time. Worse, all of this chaos and suffering devolved onto my wife and sons.

I knew, and had experienced, much better. For the first seven years of my life as an independent adult, I had learned to garden and farm organically. I mastered the art of making compost. I made plants and animals grow heartily, and I was healthy, strong, and happy.

Then I forgot how. That's another story.

Remembering, recovering and adding to to all the lost knowledge of my "salad days" is what this blog is going to focus on. I will add my thoughts to this verbal compost pile, and let the resulting "ruminations" nurture and protect a different kind of garden: a legacy of experience, of failures and successes. The Chinese have a saying I dearly love:

"He who learns from his mistakes is a wise man. In contrast, he who learns from the mistakes of others is a happy man."

Compost is amazing, a miracle of life infused into what we once thought of as trash. So, too, are the thoughts and experiences I will leave on this blog: not too valuable until they have fermented awhile in the compost pile of rumination about meaning, purpose, and intentions for the future.