Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Aging in Minnesota May 26, 2016

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This billboard along the northbound lane of Interstate 35 just north of Faribault prompted this post about aging. FaceAgingMN is "a statewide campaign to raise awareness about the issues of aging that accompany the reality of a rapidly aging society." The group's goal is "to create a conversation about aging.

This billboard along the northbound lanes of Interstate 35 just north of Faribault prompted my post about aging. FaceAgingMN is “a statewide campaign to raise awareness about the issues of aging that accompany the reality of a rapidly aging society.” The group’s goal is “to create a conversation about aging.”

One day, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to be old.

That single statement from the FaceAgingMN website emphasizes the positive side of aging. If we weren’t getting older every day, well, we wouldn’t be here. I remember how, when I turned 40 years old, I lamented that I was so old. My friend Jenny reminded me of the alternative. That put everything in perspective. Now, 20 years later, I wish I was only forty.

I often wonder these days, with more of my life behind me than ahead—although none of us knows the length of our days—how time passed this quickly. How can it be that I am an empty nester, now a new grandma? Where did the years go?

When I look at myself in the mirror, I see the crow’s feet lines around my eyes, the sagging chin line, the creases etched deep into my skin. I see the graying hair, the added pounds, feel the aches in my back and hip.

And, most recently, when my husband and I met with our financial advisor, we thought about retirement. How much money will we need to survive? Will we have enough? What do we envision for our retirement? How did we get this old? By living, obviously.

We are at the top end of the sandwich generation with a son about to graduate from college and parents in their eighties. Financial concerns thread through all three generations.

A dear aunt sent me a letter the other day. The golden years, she wrote, are not so golden. She then listed her husband’s health woes. I wish I could make things better for her and my uncle. I wish, too, that I could bring back my friend’s husband who died of a heart attack five weeks ago at age 59. I wish my mom would be the same mom I remember before she face planted in the floor of her assisted living apartment breaking her neck and suffering a concussion some two-plus years ago.

But I can’t change these things. I can’t change aging. But I can choose to handle aging with some sense of grace and gratitude that I get to be old.

Tell me, how are you handling aging?

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Rural roadside surveillance May 18, 2016

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Roadside stand, 93 side view

 

ALONG U.S. HIGHWAY 14 at its intersection with the road to Wanda, just east of Lamberton, I spotted a roadside stand advertising rhubarb and asparagus. I had rhubarb back home in my refrigerator. But I didn’t have asparagus and I love that spring-time vegetable.

So Randy pulled our van off the highway, turning onto a farm driveway next to a green trailer. I asked if he had $3. He did. I had only larger bills. I grabbed the money and my camera, bracing myself against a fierce prairie wind to snap a few photos.

 

Roadside stand, 95 close-up of coolers

 

Then I headed for the trailer. I lifted the lid on a red cooler, noting the instructions to “Please close tightly.” I did after finding that cooler empty. Then I opened a blue cooler with the same results. Empty. No asparagus for me.

 

Roadside stand, 97 camera

 

Discouraged, I took a few more photos and headed back to the van. Randy was already backing up, which I found odd. “Is that a wildlife camera?” he asked, indicating a camera inside a wooden box mounted to the trailer. Could be.

 

Roadside stand, 94 trailer next to driveway

 

I slammed the van door, handed the money back to Randy and buckled up as he resumed backing toward the highway. About that time, a white vehicle started heading down the driveway. “We’re being watched,” I observed, which should have been obvious to me given the camera and sign noting “Protected by security system.”

Soon the vehicle curved back onto the farm site.

 

Roadside stand, 96 close-up of sign

 

I left not only without the asparagus I craved, but also a bit disillusioned. I’d like to think unattended roadside stands don’t need security systems or chains or locks. But who am I kidding? Apparently myself.

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts after 34 years of marriage May 15, 2016

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Wedding guests toss rice at Randy and me as we exit St. John's Lutheran Church following our May 15, 1982, wedding.

Wedding guests toss rice at Randy and me as we exit St. John’s Lutheran Church following our May 15, 1982, wedding. That’s my mom in the pinkish dress standing next to my bachelor uncle Mike. My paternal grandma, in the red scarf and blue coat, is just behind me. That’s my sister Lanae, my maid of honor, in the long green dress. I love this photo. It captures a moment and portraits of loved ones, some no longer with us.

THIRTY-FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY, I married the man I love.

Our wedding day began with drizzle and clouds. But by the time of the reception and dance, skies cleared to a beautiful May evening in rural southwestern Minnesota. Family and friends celebrated with us in the Vesta Community Hall, where veterans’ uniforms hang in cases along walls. We polkaed and waltzed and bunny hopped and swung across the worn wood dance floor. I kicked off my toe-pinching ballet flats to dance barefoot.

There was nothing fancy about our wedding or the reception. Crepe paper strips running down tables and single carnations in vases. A meal catered by HyVee. Gingham aprons, stitched by me, for the waitresses. Green punch prepared by my mom. To this day, Randy remembers the not-so-appealing hue of that punch.

There are memories, too, of the trickster brother-in-law who let air out of our truck tires, necessitating a drive several blocks west to my Uncle Harold’s gas station.

While some of the memories have faded, others have not. Nor has our love. I love my husband as much today as the day I married him.

Admittedly, it’s a different kind of love, one shaped by years together, by a shared history, by the comfort that comes from being with someone for this long. Our experiences—good and bad—have made us stronger as a couple. Life isn’t always easy. But it’s easier with a loving partner beside you.

Randy isn’t the most demonstrative man. It’s just not in his nature or his genes. But he’s always been here for me and our three children, now grown.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the little things he does for me, which aren’t really little things. Every Sunday he prepares brunch. And nearly every weekend, even in the winter, he grills. I appreciate the break from cooking.

Occasionally, he buys me flowers for no reason other than he knows I need them. Each spring he brings me a bouquet of lilacs cut with a jackknife pulled from his pocket.

He works hard, sometimes too hard. I was grateful when he stopped working Saturdays a few years ago.

On Sunday mornings, he’ll sometimes slide his arm across the back of the church pew, his fingers lingering on my left shoulder. I feel so loved by that simple gesture, by having this man beside me as we worship.

Randy has also accompanied me to many poetry readings, supporting me in this writing venture. He’s a grease rimming his fingernails hard-working automotive machinist, certainly not the type you would envision ever listening to his wife read poetry. But he does, because he loves me.

I am blessed.

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Turning one May 13, 2016

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Birthday, 5 blowing out candle

 

BIG BROTHER BLEW out the candle. But one-year-old Evelyn didn’t care. She seemed more focused on the flame. And then the cake. Smart girl.

 

Birthday, cake 1

 

Her mom baked a homemade chocolate cake layered with homemade raspberry preserves and frosted with more chocolate. The cake looked like something out of a food magazine. And it tasted like something out of a master baker’s kitchen.

 

Birthday, 15 eating cake

 

Once the prerequisite candle blowing was complete, Evelyn proceeded to dig into all that chocolatey goodness while grandmas and aunts laughed and snapped more photos.

 

Birthday, 17 eating cake

 

When a child turns one, we celebrate with exuberance. It is a joyful and memorable occasion. A first. First year. First cake. So many firsts during those first 12 months of life.

I wonder what lies ahead for my sweet great niece. I look forward to watching her grow under the care of loving parents. She is much-loved, too, by extended family. And I can’t think of anything better for a one-year-old than to be so loved.

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Watching from afar as my son’s college deals with a bomb threat May 9, 2016

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 11:54 AM
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At 11:37 AM, I received this email from Tufts University:

Update #2 on bomb threats on Medford/Somerville campus

There is an ongoing criminal investigation involving multiple law enforcement agencies, who are continuing to clear buildings on campus. There will be an enhanced police presence on campus for the remainder of the day. At this time, we are unable to provide information relating to that investigation. We expect to be able to provide additional information relating to final exams and campus operations shortly.
The Counseling and Mental Health Service (CMHS) at 120 Curtis Street is open for students, while faculty and staff may seek confidential support resources through the Tufts University Employment Assistance Program (EAP).

Here’s the post I finished just minutes prior to getting that email:

Bomb threats on Medford/Somerville campus (email received at 7:50 a.m.)

It’s not an email I expected to find in my in-box alerting me to a car fire and a bomb threat on the campus of Tufts University early this morning. My son is set to graduate from this Boston area college in less than two weeks.

Within a half hour of receiving that email, I spoke with him. He assured me he is safe in his apartment across from campus. Students, according to Mary Jeka, senior vice president for Tufts University Relations, have been asked to stay in their dorms and to “take care going to the dining hall.”

Jeka spoke at a recently concluded news conference which I watched live-streamed. Her words that she is “terribly concerned” about the safety of students both reassured me and rattled me.

While the bomb threat, found in a note taped to the door of the health services center concerns me, it is the additional factor of that car fire which multiplies my concern.

During the press conference, a reporter asked whether the incident could be connected to terrorism. Jeka noted she did not know the answer to that question as the investigation continues. Likewise, others raised the possibility of a connection to disputes with the campus janitorial staff. Jeka declined to speculate on that also.

Meanwhile back here in Minnesota, nearly 1,500 miles from my son, I continue to monitor the situation which has garnered coverage from major media outlets. And I’m awaiting another email from Tufts to reassure me.

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My thoughts on motherhood after 30 years as a mom May 8, 2016

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My mother, Arlene, and me.

My mother, Arlene, and me.

IN THIS SEASON OF MY LIFE, in the year I reach a milestone decade, I have watched my eldest daughter become a mother to sweet Isabelle. This has proven a contemplative time for me as I think of my own aging mother, of my aging self, of my daughter now a mother.

Daughter to daughter to daughter to daughter, we are linked as family. Eighty-four years separate youngest and oldest.

I cannot help but feel a certain sadness in this passage of time. Wasn’t it just yesterday that my preschool daughter hovered over tulips in our front yard, observing that “the flowers are opening their mouths?”

Why do I remember that? And why do I remember my mom once so fed up with her six squabbling children that she threatened to run away?

There are certain moments in motherhood that stand out: My second daughter sticking a red hot up her nose when we were decorating Christmas cookies. My son struck by a car 10 years ago, the day before Mother’s Day. The first time my eldest went on a mission trip to Texas and I struggled with this long-distance separation. The call from my second daughter that she’d been mugged while traveling in Argentina.

I joke sometimes that I should have locked my kids in the basement in an attempt to keep them safe. While that may have spared me a lot of worry and heartache, it would have been wrong. Mothers instinctively want to protect their children. But we also instinctively guide them out the door into the world.

If only I’d known then what I know now. How true that adage. To every young mom who struggles with a night owl infant, a tantrum throwing two-year-old, a defiant middle-schooler, I want to advise her that these moments are nothing. Nothing. These are manageable situations.

We never know what life will bring to our families. Joys. Challenges beyond anything we ever could have imagined. But one thing remains constant for me as a mother. I love my children today as much as the day they were born.
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To all of you mothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day!

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A May evening at River Bend Nature Center in Faribault May 6, 2016

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River Bend Nature Center, 27 trail through woods

 

SUNLIGHT FILTERED THROUGH THE WOODS, cutting sharp angles across trails, spotlighting wildflower blossoms, gloaming with an ethereal quality.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 42 violet

 

The end of the day was nearing as my husband and I walked the trails of River Bend Nature Center in Faribault, first at a fast pace to raise our heart rates. That didn’t last long.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 29 white wildflowers close-up

 

Soon I unslung my camera from my shoulder, stopped to photograph wildflowers carpeting the woods lush with green growth. Green always seems incredibly vivid in the spring. I often wonder if that’s because it is or because we Minnesotans haven’t seen a green landscape in way too long.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 34 white wildflowers in woods

 

It doesn’t matter. I am thankful for spring’s early arrival, with winter but a memory now, although Randy mentioned the white wildflowers looked a lot like snow blanketing the ground.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 36 family on trail

 

Walkers and bikers, solo and with family or pets, traversed the nature center. We paused occasionally, wondering about the history of this place, about the pockets of limestone clearly quarried, about the Faribault Regional Center residents who once worked this land and tended livestock here, about the land before then.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 35 names carved in tree

 

I wondered, too, about Aron and Kristi who carved their names into the soft wood of a trail-side tree.

As we emerged from the woods, I scanned the vista of sky and prairie. I am most comfortable in a place where my eyes can wander, where I am not visually hemmed in by trees. The imprint of my rural southwestern Minnesota upbringing remains strong even forty years removed from the prairie.

Crossing the prairie, I watched my steps on the uneven grass trail and thought about ticks. I felt a bump on the left side of my head, my fingers drawing blood as I scratched. There was no tick, Randy assured me.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 50 Randy sitting by pond

 

We soon settled onto a bench next to the prairie pond and listened to the trill of red-winged blackbirds.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 55 cattails at twilight

 

Dried cattails plumed in the lovely light. I felt comfortably at peace.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 62 crab apple blossoms

 

After awhile we aimed back toward the parking lot, where I paused to photograph pink blossoms against deep blue sky.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 67 red-headed woodpecker

 

River Bend Nature Center, 77 bird at feeder

 

River Bend Nature Center, 80 red-winged blackbird

 

I diverted to bird feeders behind the nature center interpretative center. The birds scattered, wary of my presence. But soon they returned and I photographed them, admiring splashes of red on heads, wings and breasts. I’m not particularly fond of winged creatures up close. But from afar, I can appreciate them.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 18 geese

 

According to Randy, I should have kept my distance upon photographing a pair of geese and seven goslings earlier. It’s interesting how a camera can create confidence that perhaps we shouldn’t always have when encountering nature.

On this stunning May evening in Minnesota, all felt right in my world. And all it took was a walk in the woods and across the prairie of River Bend Nature Center.

 

River Bend Nature Center, 59 interpretative center

 

TELL ME, WHAT’S YOUR go-to place to escape into nature?

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

As Canadian wildfires rage: “What’s mine is yours” May 4, 2016

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Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo of unfurling leaves in my Minnesota backyard.

IT’S BEEN A GLORIOUS MAY day here in southern Minnesota. Sunshine. Clear blue skies. Leaves unfurling in a landscape that is a lush and vivid green.

Tomorrow, though, we can expect “milky skies,” according to the National Weather Service Twin Cities Twitter page. Smoke from Canadian wildfires is moving east into Minnesota. It will be a visual reminder of what our neighbors to the northwest are enduring as wildfires rage.

With some 88,000 people evacuated from the Ft. McMurray area and 1,600 structures already destroyed, it would be easy to feel overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster. And those feelings would be warranted.

But while I was reading about the fires and evacuation today, I was moved to tears by the goodness of people. Scrolling through posts on the Fort McMurray Evacuee Open Source Help Facebook page, I read offer after offer of help:

We have a house in north Edmonton. What’s mine is yours. Plenty of clothes for a female child age 4-6. Toys for any age. Room to park a small trailer. Room for a tent, basement and air mattress ready. Food, shower anything you need please call or text… Can pick you up and help with small children

Is anyone stranded on HWY 63 that needs fuel or supplies? Please let me know!

It’s not much. But if anyone should be coming through spruce grove on their journey tonight, I would like to give a hot meal. And a place to relax and regroup your thoughts and plans.

The Church of South Edmonton is opening its doors to those displaced by the fire. They’ll offer snacks, activities for kids, a BBQ, pastoral counseling, internet access—simply a place to recharge and refocus. People can sign up online to host a family.

Offers of help are also coming from Slave Lake, which only five years ago suffered from similar devastating wildfires:

I have a spare room ready for anyone in need in Sherwood park! Wanting to pay it forward as I’m from Slave lake and lost my house so I would love to help someone! Txt me at…

LIVESTOCK
If there’s anybody from Ft McMurray in need, I have feed and water pen space available for free in Slave Lake. Can take 10-15 head of horses/cattle

And, yes, the offers for assistance extend beyond helping people. Canadians are also opening their farms and homes to house displaced pets and livestock.

We live by Rocky Mountain house On a farm We have room and free feed for your large or small livestock for as long as needed. Also room for your rv. And a spare room. And a holiday trailer that sleeps 7 for as long as you need. We can also come up and pick you or your animals up.

If you want your faith restored in people today, then I’d encourage you to read the Ft. McMurray Evacuee Open Source Help Facebook page. Now.

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

What a little cash & a little kindness are doing in North Dakota April 30, 2016

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My creative graphic illustrating Kindness Cash.

My creative graphic illustrating Kindness Cash.

HOW WOULD YOU like to find $20 cash?

In our neighboring state to the west, Starion Financial has dropped 650 Kindness Cash wallets containing $20 each in eight North Dakota communities. The project celebrates Pay It Forward Day on April 28.

Now, if you do your math, that’s $13,000 left lying around in places like grocery stores, parks, hotels…

The idea is to use that money to do something good. And the finders are, according to Starion’s website. Organizations like a cancer support group, a domestic violence center and a humane society have already benefited from this project.

Others are enjoying treats from appreciative co-workers. Those are all great choices.

But the story that touches me most is that of Olivia, who found a Kindness wallet under a rock in a South Fargo park. Little Olivia is giving the money to someone at her school.

Likewise in Bismarck, someone found a Kindness wallet, added $80, and left it for two lucky women to find at the Comfort Inn.

I love sharing stories like this that uplift and restore my faith in the goodness of others. (h/t Fargo Forum)

TELL ME, HAVE YOU ever been the recipient of such a random act of kindness? Or have you engaged in a Pay It Forward project like this?

I’d like to hear about creative projects that encourage people to Pay It Forward, to be kind to one another.

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A grandfather’s love April 20, 2016

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My granddaughter at 10 days old.

My granddaughter at 10 days old.

THERE IS A SIDE TO GRANDPARENTING I never considered. And that is the joy of watching my husband in the role of grandpa. Randy holds his little Isabelle with such gentleness, cradling her in his arms like the precious baby girl she is to all of us.

Grandfather and granddaughter.

Grandfather and granddaughter.

He is a man who works with his hands—pounding, fixing, drilling—as an automotive machinist. Oil and grease stain his skin and rim his fingernails. He works hard. But those same strong, rough hands wrap a swaddle cloth around Izzy and tuck in her bare feet as he gazes at her with such tenderness that my heart aches.

Two generations connecting.

Two generations connecting.

And then at one point, this 10-day-old baby reflexively wraps her tiny hand around her grandpa’s right thumb. A kiss before she can kiss him. Love so sweet, so beautiful, between a grandfather and his newborn granddaughter.

© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling