Well, well! Now you don’t have to wait until Mother’s Day to listen to your mother. Stephanie and Megan are producing the first ever LTYM alumni show and I’m thrilled to be part of the cast.

This from their announcement:

“Dear LTYM supporters and friends,

It is our honor to introduce you to the talented alumni cast of Listen To Your Mother Denver! We can’t wait for you to experience the first alumni show on Sunday, November 5th at 5:00 pm! With poignant and unforgettable tributes to mothers, tales of hilarious family mishaps, lessons learned from motherhood, beautifully courageous parenting stories, and LTYM’s trademark raw honesty, you do not want to miss these stories! We are even more excited that you get to enjoy them for the first time at the Oriental Theater in the Tennyson neighborhood of Denver’s Highlands, a unique venue complete with refreshments! Tickets are on sale at https://holdmyticket.com/event/421928  

It’s a great cast. Hope you can join us.

“Have you been dive bombed by the hawk yet?”

The question comes from my neighbor, Larry, standing at the end of his driveway putting out his garbage cans.

“I have,” he tells me, “and I have talon marks to prove it.” He points to the bike helmet on his head and explains it as hawk protection. He goes on to list all the neighbors who have recently been given a clear message by the hawk parents: too close, get away. The male and female birds fiercely protect their nest from predators like crows, raccoons, other falcons—and, apparently, people.

It’s an intense under taking to help these young into the world. The female hawk stays on the nest almost exclusively for the 34-36 days it takes the eggs to incubate and then for another two weeks after the eggs hatch. The male hunts and brings food to her and the young birds.

At the same time this hawk family is preparing to send three babies off into the world, my own chicks are spreading their wings. Soon they too will be fledging.

In shooing people away from the nest, the defending hawk approaches from the back. My neighbors who have experienced it say there’s no warning until you hear the rush of wings through the air and perhaps get a knock on the head. By then, well, it’s too late.

Luckily I have not been chased away despite a few attempts to locate the nest in the tree. Lingering in the vicinity is clearly not a good idea. So despite my curiosity and wonder, I keep moving.

The hatchlings emerge from their eggs with a short coat of fluffy white and buff down. Over the next week or so, they develop a longer coat of thermal down, are able to regulate their own temperature, and start to move around the nest.

By week three, they have juvenile feathers on their wings and tail. They have started to move beyond the nest, hopping onto branches, flapping their wings and leaping at the tree trunk and small branches to practice grasping and balancing. The female continues to stand guard from a nearby branch.

I feel a bit like the hawk mother right now, suddenly hyper-vigilant and over-wrought because my fledglings are perched precariously on the side of our nest, the last few downy feathers waving on their necks. In a month, we will load a van full of furniture and personal belongings, drive our two sons plus one long-time live-in girlfriend and one summer live-in girlfriend 1800 miles away. And leave them there. All on their own.

Just like the hawks, we have a nest full of fledglings. I’m uncertain what this flying thing will look like. Will there be immediate and easy soaring? Certainly there will be growing pains as they become more independent. Except I will not be perched on the branch just above them to flap my wings and bare my talons at perceived predators.

One day our local bird expert and neighbor announces on our neighborhood website that the hawks have finally left the nest but are still in the area. The hawk parents have a few more weeks of feeding the young birds while teaching them to hunt on their own. I imagine it to be similar to our encouraging the kids to finish off the frozen pizzas in the freezer and take advantage of a few more home cooked meals before they became totally responsible for procuring food and feeding themselves. Granted, the kids’ task seems a bit easier than that of a young hawk zooming through the woods trying to catch small birds and other prey. But still.

And then comes the sad news that two of the young birds have been injured, both flying into windows. Both are taken to the local birds of prey rehab center. The third seems to be faring well. When I tell my husband about the window bashing, he quips, “Well the third and uninjured one is probably a girl.” Indeed. Female Cooper’s Hawks are larger and tend to fledge a bit later. Having raised two boys with him, I have to laugh.

Of course, I wonder what form the window bashing might take with our own young flyers. It’s an exciting time but also ripe with risk. I mean, does it really seem like a good idea to fling oneself into the air from high on a branch? And does it really seem like a good idea to drive your kids thousands of miles away, shove them out into their own apartment (after buying them dressers and decorating their bathrooms) and drive away? Why don’t they start from lower down? Why weren’t they starting out a tiny bit closer to home? Are my chicks launching from an optimal height?

As I anticipate their flight, my insides feel wobbly, my appetite questionable. Although I am trying to remain open and curious about what this empty nest thing will look and feel like, right now I am mostly anxious and sad. When my husband and I arrive back home one day and both the kid’s cars are gone while they are at work, he says, “See, in three weeks, this is how the driveway will look all the time, the new normal!” I am uncertain whether to cry or cheer.

There’s a huge part of me that feels ready. Ready for me, ready for them. That is ready to stop counting cars in the driveway and accounting for everyone’s whereabouts. Ready to have my clean kitchen counter stay clean, to stop finding hiding places for the good towels and premium ice cream, to not have to tell anyone to clean up their mess of discarded energy-drink cans and wet bath towels. Did you know—actually, OF COURSE you know—that the mother bird keeps the nest tidy by removing shells and waste from the nest? That she eats any parts of the prey the young birds cannot eat or digest and she tidies up after each feeding? Alas, once they start self-feeding in the nest, it becomes littered with partly eaten prey—hence the term fouling the nest.

Which is perhaps why I am fantasizing about having a dumpster delivered and throwing out half the contents of the house once they’re gone. I’ve already told my husband to prepare himself to come home one day and find I’ve taken a box cutter to the nasty carpet in the kids’ rooms and dragged it out into the garage.

And yet. I can hardly remember what it was like to live in a house without kids. In the past few years, I haven’t done a lot of care taking for them but their energy is in the house. And when they turn up in the afternoon after work or join us for dinner or I hear the squeak of a bedroom door, I rest assured they are accounted for for another day, my chickies still safely tucked into the nest.

My husband keeps saying to me, “it’s going to be okay.” I know he’s right. That once I get through the transition itself, once I actually say goodbye to them, once I drive away and set out towards home, it will be fine. The question is how to make it through to that part. It’s always hardest for me when I’m staring the object of my goodbye in the face.

And so I have to make a plea to those around me. It goes like this: I’m sorry if I’m cranky like the hawks over the next few weeks. Please forgive me if I swoop down over your head squawking and beating my wings or if I bonk you in the head with my talons. My birdies will fly, I will feel less afraid and I’ll fly a little freer too.

July 26, 2023

by Hannah Stewart

I haven't spent much time in the South-sure, I've been to Disney World and I had what felt like an eternity-long layover in Georgia-but after reading Chris Chandler's book "Stay Sweet: Tales of Quirky Southern Love," I almost feel as though I've lived there.

The beauty of this book is its raw honesty. It's part-memoir, part-historical text, and part-personal musings on life, family, and love. Through a series of vignettes, Chandler shares moments throughout her life, many concerning her maternal grandmother, May. Some of these vignettes, however, instead focus on other members of her family, such as her great grandmother, Wea Wea.

In essence, this book is an ode to Chandler's family, community and more. I loved her inclusion and perspectives on the power (and importance) of storytelling and of going through family photos. It was lovely to read about her and her family's antics-hearing about how May would often throw burned food out "for the birds"-–made me laugh at the mental image, totally able to see myself in the same situation.

That's another huge reason to love this book, Chandler writes in such a relatable way, her stories feel like they could be your own.

I thought it was interesting, however, that the various anecdotes are not in any particular order. There are chapters where she shares a moment of her childhood, followed by an account from her college days, and then a memory of her wedding cake made by May (complete with recipe), before telling yet another story from her childhood.

Normally, the nonlinear timeline would bother me, but I think it really lends itself well to the conversational and nostalgic tone of the book. Often, I find that when sharing personal stories with others-familial or otherwise-these accounts are seldom told in terms of an accurate timeline of events. Instead, the flow is determined almost randomly, fueled by the narrator's feelings, or stories that prompt other stories.

When I first received this book from the Inkberry Books team, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would it be filled with tales that celebrate the South and long for a time long passed? No, not really.

There is definitely a sense of nostalgia, but there is also a sense of acceptance and gratitude. This feeling is expertly conveyed in one of the final chapters titled "Hands," in which Chandler describes the initial feeling of dread when seeing her aging hands, and then realizing that hers now mirror those of her ancestors. She misses the powerful women who shaped her and her perception of the world, but she is also grateful for the support they gave her, for the opportunity to grow as a person under their mentorship and love.

In sum, this is simply a lovely book. You can practically feel the affection and appreciation Chandler has for her family, her childhood, the South, and moving away from it. It's a relatable collection of mini-tales that explore the ideas of family, memory and more. I think this would make a lovely gift while also serving as a fun and engaging way to get you out of a reading slump. I highly recommend it and am thankful to Inkberry Books for sharing it with me.

Happy reading!

As most of you know, my book, Stay Sweet: Tales of Quirky Southern Love, was published on May 9, 2023 by Red Thread Books (RedThreadBooks.com). They are a hybrid publisher which means I contributed to the publishing costs and they provided support and services to help me birth that book baby into the world. It was four short months from the time I signed on with them until my book was published. It was an intense period of time during which A LOT of different things had to get done from proofreading to cover design to deciding on the interior formatting the book.

Now that the book is out, my overarching feeling is relief. That surprised me. Sometimes I feel like I should have a different answer. I AM excited. But mostly relieved! The four years it took to form all those words into a coherent narrative and then the four months it took to push it into the world have left me tired!

The efforts that will go into this book now will be stretched out over time as I find ways to get the word out to readers. The shoutin’ part!

Yesterday I celebrated by having a launch party with local friends at a wonderful historic barn next door to our neighborhood (YellowBarn.farm.com). It was so much fun to have people from various segments of my life come together—book club, writing group, neighbors, friends, Red Thread authors.

My book pays homage to my Southern heritage and so, of course, the refreshments had to live up. On the menu were Coca Cola’s in glass bottles and chilled on ice, cheese wafers (read the book if you want to know about these delicacies and find a recipe), and pimento cheese with pecans from a recipe from Southern Living magazine. The cheese wafers were such a huge hit one neighbor texted me immediately about her new obsession with them. On my way home from my exercise class the next morning, I saw her and another neighbor walking in the neighborhood, going in the opposite direction from my house. I stopped to speak to them both and to offer her a few. Wafers. Without a moment’s hesitation, she turned to her walking companion and said, “We have to turn around and go to Chris’ house NOW.” Which they did. I sent them on their way with small platters of the prized snacks. I know what food I will be expected to future neighborhood gatherings.

If you weren’t able to come to the launch gathering, I hope you’ll save the date for another event. Here’s what’s on the calendar so far (keep an eye on my website or social media for additions):

—July 29, 7:00 pm at Inkberry Books, Niwot CO. Reading from Stay Sweet.

—August 12, 7:00 pm at Junkyard Social Club (2525 Frontier Avenue, Boulder,Colorado). Story reading (not book related) on the theme “curiosity.”

—August 29, 4:30 pm Explore Booksellers, Aspen, CO. Reading from Stay Sweet.

—October 5, 6:30pm Boulder Bookstore, Boulder, CO. Reading from Stay Sweet.

Many thanks to you, my friends, for your spectacular support!

(Find all my links here: linker.ee/chrischandler)

CalWood Fire, view from our neighborhood, photo credit Greg Greenan

Saturday October 17, 2020 started out leisurely. A slow wake-up, breakfast, conversation and reading the news. A dog walk around the lake. Picking paint for a pop of color in two rooms. Mushroom and Saffron Threads. I was excited and embarked on a sort of plan-your-own-adventure in my head. When we returned from buying paint and grocery shopping, would I start painting a room, sit on the couch watching HGTV (the subscription to which my husband had surprised me with the night before), read, or a little of it all. Also on tap was filling out our mail-in ballots.

Driving west toward home after shopping, we saw a huge plume of smoke rising from the foothills over our neighborhood. Wait. What? I said to myself. That can’t be from the wild fire that’s been burning from some time to the northwest of us. It’s too far south.

“That’s got to be from the Cameron Peak Fire,” my husband said.

“But that doesn’t seem right. It’s too far south to be from that. I don’t get it. We need to get our ducks in a row in case we need to evacuate.” But I meant sometime later.

We arrived home and started unloading paint, groceries and furnace filters. I went next door to deliver the eggs I’d picked up for my neighbor.

As I stood on her back deck, my husband shouted to me from the yard.

“What?” I said, unable to make out what he was saying.

“WE. NEED. TO. EVACUATE!”

I looked at my neighbor who had just moved into her house in March standing there beside her 83 year old mother.

“You need to pack and leave. NOW. We just got an evacuation notice due to wildfire,” I said to them both as I shoved her cat inside.

“Huh?”

We’d done this before but she had not.

“Meds. Important papers. ID. Pets. I’ll text you an evacuation checklist. There’s not much time,” I told her as I ran toward home.

I looked up to see black and brown smoke boiling over the ridge that makes the west border of our neighborhood. We’ve been evacuated due to fire before and had even seen flames but the situation had never seemed so dire. I plucked the evacuation checklist from my bulletin board and started down the list.

1. Prescription medications—done.

2. Pets with food, bowls, leashes, medications if needed—check.

Well, kind of check. As I came down the stairs, the kids had already gotten one cat into a carrier. But Cat #2 was putting up a fight. He’s not fond of the carrier anyway and now he was surrounded by a panicked household who had no time for patience and coaxing.

Try to put him in head first and his front lets splayed out barring entry. Ditto trying to insert him butt first.

I stood on the stairs above the scene unfolding in the small entry hallway, trying to figure out what to try next. My phone rang and I could see it was my mom calling. I answered on speakerphone.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Mother FUCKER!,” my 20 year old son shouted as the cat escaped yet again and clawed the bare hands, chest and neck of my other son’s girlfriend.

“Mom, can I call you back?”

A pillowcase over the cat’s head and wrapped around his back legs finally contained his flying limbs and claws enough to allow us to unceremoniously stuff him into the carrier, slam the door and latch it shut. Under normal circumstances I would have felt bad but this was an emergency, life and death. His wounded pride was secondary.

3. One week’s worth of clothing and toiletries; don’t forget glasses or contacts if needed.

Luckily my glasses were on my face. One week’s worth of clothing? Time was ticking. I stood in my closet, turning in a tight circle. My mind couldn’t determine what that meant.

I have two pair of casual very cute pants I bought late last winter at Anthropologie, embarrassingly expensive for someone like me who doesn’t spend much money on clothes. They had become a mainstay of my wardrobe. I’ll be damned if I’ll let my cute expensive pants burn. Boom. Into the suitcase. One long sleeve t-shirt because it was right in front of me. Three pair of underwear and socks, pj’s and my oldest and most favorite pair of Birkenstocks. The sneakers on my feet. A few t-shirts, a piece of fleece. A coat, a hat, gloves.

Into the bathroom to pluck my two favorite pairs of earrings from the rack where they hung.

4. Cell phones, computers, chargers. Yes, yes, no.

I realize, once it’s too late, that though I have my phone charger, my computer cord remains at home. I do have my phone, it’s charging cord, my external backup hard drive and my computer containing my manuscript.

“HOW could both kids manage to leave their computer chargers at home,” my husband wants to know later.

“Um, the same way I left mine?,” I say.

5. An inventory of the contents of home and/or video recording of same.

Uh—no. I did this long ago but am embarrassed to realize I recently deleted the photos from my computer for more storage space because the inventory was outdated. Guess that goes on the the to-do list if our home survives this.

6. Tax documents for prior and coming years.

No. I skip this step entirely figuring in the digital age, all of this exists somewhere else and is the least of my worries.

7. Important documents including passports, deeds, titles, social security cards.

Yes. We have a fire proof safe containing all of this and one of my first actions was to empty the entire thing into a bag.

Meanwhile my husband has thrown sleeping bags and camping pads into the car, retrieved a large plastic bin full of photo albums, moved the propane tanks away from the house, loaded the dogs in the car, assigned each kid a car to drive, and taken care of his own packing and made sure the kids have packed.

To my pile I add 5 books and a nightlight. I know. A nightlight?

It’s time to shut the doors and leave.

“We’ve got to go. Anything else?,” he asks me.

I run back inside and snatch a painting from the wall.

There’s no time to make a plan except to designate a meeting spot a 1/4 mile from the house. We’ll figure out our destination from there.

******

There’s a text thread going on with about nine neighbors. We’re now three days into evacuation. So far, our neighborhood is safe but the fire is far from contained. It has been confirmed that the houses just to the north of us have burned to the ground and though we are hopeful, we’re not out of the woods yet.

T writes: “I don’t know why I feel so weepy in the mornings but am staying busy shopping for socks. Who FORGETS to pack socks? Ugh!”

Reply from L: “OMG! WE FORGOT SOCKS TOO!”

I add: “We’re dealing with a shortage of socks and underwear over here. But I have cute pants, earrings and a painting!”

L, constant knitter, lets us know,”I have no knitting! But I have a sewing machine. Like I’m going to sew in a hotel room!”

T writes again: “ I grabbed our dog’s favorite toy, Lambie. But I have cold toes due to lack of socks. My daughter who happened to be visiting grabbed a box of canned beans.”

A says: “ I have passports and my (teenage) kids’ baby blankets but no hairdryer, brush or meds . . . .”

We find out what’s really important, the things we reach for when there is no time for thinking or planning. It’s not underwear or socks or hairbrushes but the most elemental of things, things that are important to our hearts.

*****

In 20 minutes, we left our entire life behind. I was fairly certain the next time we saw it, it would all be reduced to a pile of gray ash. We each grabbed a few prized possessions—son #1 took his guitar, his girlfriend took a beloved stuff animal, I grabbed my two favorite pair of earrings, a painting and my computer with my manuscript on it, my husband snatched his cameras.

For the next several days, I lived firmly in two states of mind. One: denial, refusal or disbelief, I’m not entirely sure which. I sat firmly in the the idea that my house would not burn down. Second: when I walked out of my house, sure it would burn down, I knew I had everything I needed. I would be okay.

After 6 days of camping out in our business warehouse, checking Twitter, Facebook, the local Office of Emergency Management and our neighborhood website repeatedly, exchanging a million texts with family and neighbors and friends, we get the all clear. The fire has been contained enough to allow us to safely return home.

*****

I look outside and can just see through the trees to the ridge where the fire crept down, can see the black that stops at the faint red scar, the line where the giant DC-10 dropped a long streak of fire retardant. Just below that line, homes of our neighbors. I walk to the other side of my neighborhood and see the adjacent road, the one that runs parallel to ours for a bit. I see the way the black comes up to the asphalt and stops. Over there, 20 homes flattened, nothing but white circles of rubble and ash. Over here, it’s all the same as when we left.

Our homes stand untouched. I wake up in the morning in my own bed. I walk my dogs around the lake. I wonder, did that just happen? Did I just spend six days camping out in a warehouse with kids and cats and dogs while a wildfire threatened everything? This morning we’re all putting out our trash and my neighbors are sniping at one another on the neighborhood website and we’re buying groceries and cooking dinner. Life is back to normal.

But will it ever be normal again, I wonder. Should it be? I feel some how deflated. After the intense focus of checking in on one another, keeping each other updated with information and news, the singular focus of surviving the crisis, it’s all gone flat. What do I do now?

I had no reason to doubt my house would burn to the ground. That everything would go up in flames except the few things we’d managed to walk out with. Somehow, miraculously, with a change in the wind and a stunningly accurate drop of slurry, the fire moved northeast, just licking properties here but not coming quite close enough to do any damage. It left us untouched. I don’t know what to call that. Luck, that hand of Providence, a blessing of the Universe?

I’m beyond grateful. There’s no doubt in that. But I’m disturbed by this sudden return to normal, like nothing just happened. Will we, will I, just sink back into to life as it was before? What will I take away from nearly losing it all? And where will I take these feelings? Who wants to hear them? Because, the world seems to say, what’s your problem? You didn’t lose anything. Stop talking about it and move on the the next thing.

But I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to forget the preciousness of my home. I don’t want to forget what I stood to lose. I don’t want to forget the feeling of returning home and experiencing vacuuming the rug and wiping the counter as a prayer. I don’t want to forget what it’s like to be terrified of losing it all while also knowing I’ve escaped with what’s most important—my family and my pets. I don’t want to forget that while home is a place, home is a feeling. It’s the love I carry with me wherever I go.