This is Week 1 of a two and a half month long road trip around the West Coast, first visiting my daughter Dara.

Gus, Vivian, and Dara

I enjoyed seeing my grandchildren in Bend, and was surprised how much they have grown up in the past year.  I very rarely hear from them and don’t feel like I know them very well.  But they are a close family, Dara is a good mother and I am proud of her.

They live on a ranch where they are devoted to their horses, family activities like hunting, shooting, and outdoor life. But mostly we have to be careful not to talk about many topics including politics, wind or solar energy, or any kind of environmental issues, since they are ultra right wing conservatives while I tend to be much more liberal and progressive .(Or as I call it, sensible, intelligent, or “normal”.)

For the past ten years, Dara has seemed angry with me and frequently acted hostile for no reason I could understand.  This time I knew we needed to talk about it or else this problem would never get resolved.  After prodding her to open up, and then letting her vent at me while I apologized repeatedly, it turned out to have been a big misunderstanding about how much property I own in Alaska and she was angry I wouldn’t sell her land that I never owned.  It was painful, but it gave me some perspective on the necessity I have felt to sacrifice my own future to maintain what she calls our “family home”, the house I designed and built when she was a teenager, and that I have spent nearly all my money to pay for and maintain.  I guess it’s time for us to grow up and live our own lives. I’m not sure how soon I want to repeat this visit, but at least we cleared some air and I hope it lasts.  I guess I need to accept the way life is and stop trying to “fix” it.

Flash to the Past –

Mom Kristin with Dara in Hawaii when she was fourteen years old, both of us brown from the sun and happy.

From 1975, when I became a single mother and sole support for my three small children…

… and at last we could sing and dance anytime we wanted instead of only when their father wasn’t around.