Letting it go - One of the things that I had to let go was trying to please my mother. I finally knew, it was never going to happen, and then, it really didn't matter. I loved her. The problem was mine.

It took me a long time to understand her often negative, “no” first responses. But once I finally understood that the core of my mother's behavior she learned as a child in occupied Holland with Nazis surrounding them everywhere, it changed everything. War really is hell, and her game was “survive,” at any cost, and it worked.

The problem for us children is that it never changed, it never adapted to coming to the United States, working their way into the middle-class and having some things. Maybe not the best, but all our needs were met, unlike when they were living in occupied Holland. Comparatively, things were great, and to this day my mother praises America as being her liberator.

However, as we were growing up, we met a lot of response that was “no, it hasn't been tried, I don't know if it will work, you might hurt yourself, don't do it, etc.” (My father was the entrepreneurial risk taker).

And if possible, her next answer was “Go outside” - which was great, it meant many hours of unsupervised play, solving many of the issues: during the day, after school or during the summer - we were up to all kinda shenanigans. Often my brothers and I would ride our bikes the three-plus miles to Giant Springs State Park.

This was a wonderland of, you know, boy biology - there was the biggest tadpole pond you ever saw just teeming with life and just across the road you had the Missouri River, and it had a whole different ecosystem going on. Where the nutrients and insects from the pond entered the river was one of the most fertile sections of river anywhere. The fish population was insane; the insect diversity was immeasurable - I often captured specimens that were not supposed to be found in Montana. Once I even caught a beetle that was native to the Middle East.

I know now Giant Springs is a wonder of nature - it's melted snow from the Little Belt Mountains that sinks into the Madison limestone and then travels all the way to Giant Springs where part of the aquifer intersects the surface right next to the Missouri River.

The water that comes bubbling out is some of the purest there is - filtered by nature for over 3 years, with its own beautiful ecosystem, unique to cold-water springs. To me it was a marvelous playground, studying Fibonacci sequences, and life's web without knowing it.

A beautiful place for me to find solace in nature and almost regain my center, get on my bike and along with my brothers, ride home.