"Spring will come and so will happiness. Hold on. Life will get warmer."
Anita Krizzan
This weekend — April 26th to be exact — marks the 14th anniversary of when I moved to Bend/bought my first house, as well as the anniversary of when I sold it 11 years later. I’ve been reflecting a lot on that day because these anniversaries are also intricately connected with my Realtor Terry Skjersaa who, along with his wife Renee, died in a freak (read: climate change-related) avalanche in February while backcountry skiing. To be sure, Terry was far from a careless, novice skier: he was practically born with skis on. (Pretty sure “Skjersaa” is Norwegian for “skier": His grandfather, Olaf, emigrated from Norway in 1925 and opened the first ski shop in Bend in 1939.)
Terry and Renee. Photo Credit: Matt Lasala
Once, during one of our outings, Terry left David and me in awe when he shared that he and his friends routinely skied down the steep east face of Tumalo Mountain, using ski skins to climb back up to do it all over again. There has literally never been a time since that I haven’t thought about him when I look up at that flat-faced, snow-frosted mountain, a geographic jewel tucked between Mt. Bachelor and Broken Top in the postcard view from my neighborhood.
(I need to add here that, as I wrote this, I was simultaneously watching a small black spider rappel down from my bedroom ceiling and back up again multiple times…🤔)
Tumalo Mountain, a shield volcano. Photo Credit: Adrian Klein
Terry was not just a Realtor — he was “The Mayor," as David and I affectionately called him. Having lived here his entire life, he not only knew almost everyone in town but he was also liked and respected by nearly everyone in town. Although we didn’t travel in the same social circles as Terry, whenever we ran into him, it always felt like meeting an old, trusted friend.
Patty McMeen, another local Realtor who had set us up with great vacation rentals starting with our first trip from Phoenix to Bend in July 2009, referred us to Terry when we decided to buy in 2010. While we had asked her to be our Realtor, she mentioned that she was scheduled for surgery that would keep her off her feet for a few months and wouldn’t be available to assist us, so she connected us with Terry.
From the start, we knew Terry was the salt of the earth — authentic, low-key, and genuinely interested in the people he met; we immediately asked him to be our Buyer’s Agent. After extensive home tours in and around Bend, we chose our ideal neighborhood, The Parks at Broken Top, an enclosed subdivision adjacent to an excellent elementary school for Susie, who was 11 at the time. For one reason or another, the houses we wanted fell through (one older couple decided not to sell; another was occupied by the owner’s son, who refused to allow showings). The sole remaining house in the neighborhood had been on the market for over a year, in foreclosure, and, to be honest, neglected. It was listed for $259k, a $20k price drop from the month before. Heartbroken over the loss of the house I truly wanted (sunny, spacious, chef’s kitchen, soaking tub, huge corner lot for $315k), I walked through this forlorn house in mourning, repeating, “I DON’T FEEL THE LOVE." David said, “We have to make the love…we can make it the house we want.” We returned to our vacation rental and talked at length about the possibilities of making it a really nice home — not our first “rodeo” — which gave us a ray of hope.
Early the next morning, after a fitful sleep, I sent Terry an email: “I’ll make an offer, but I won’t pay a penny over $200K.” He promptly forwarded the offer to the bank’s agent and just as quickly sent back a message from her rejecting our offer, which simply said, “Have a nice day.” With heavy hearts, we returned to Phoenix to consider the next steps toward our dream of living in Bend. I periodically checked the listing over the next few weeks to see if “our” house was still active, and, of course, one day it was no longer on Zillow. “Someone got the house,” I told David, dejectedly. “Time to move on.”
To my surprise, Terry called me the next day and said, “How do you feel about a purchase price of $205k?” I sputtered, “W-w-w-what do you mean? The house is off the market.” He replied, “The agent is willing to accept $205k. It’s yours if you still want it…” He explained that he had waited patiently until the day before her listing agreement was set to expire, then called her and said, “You know there’s no way the bank is going to renew you as the listing agent since this house has been sitting for over a year…At least you’ll get some commission with our offer.” She responded, “FINE! $205k and it’s done.” He was not manipulative — he was a strategist, all for the purpose of doing the best, most ethical job for his clients.
True to form, I learned later from Patty that Terry had shared a generous portion of his commission with her.
In 2022, post-pandemic and post-divorce, I decided I needed a change. A big change. I decided to move to Maine to be near family, so I called Terry. With economic forecasts predicting an imminent recession 😣, he judiciously listed the house just below market value, knowing that there would be heightened interest with the upgrades we had done. He was right. I accepted an offer from an older woman, moving from Maine, who agreed to an extended two-month, rent-free rent back until the end of June. For me, after a rugged and heartbreaking loss on all fronts, Terry helped me in so many ways to move forward and on.
The last time I saw Terry was a few days after I settled on the house sale. He came by to bring me a lovely set of expensive chef’s knives as a thank-you gift. (He was thanking me?) We sat on my front porch for a spell, talking about my plans to move to Maine, about Renee and his two daughters, and about how Bend had changed so dramatically in those intervening 11 years. He said, “Did you realize you settled almost 11 years to the day when you bought the house?!” I nodded and said, “Yes. It’s a wrinkle in time.”
* * * *
Losing two DEEPLY GOOD HUMANS in the dark, early days of 2025 was and still is a gut punch. At their memorial service, Terry’s business partner Jason Boone said, “It’s unbelievable that some people could have so many best friends.” I think, in Terry’s and Renee’s case, it’s like Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Regarding Maine, I was within inches of buying a beautiful house in Brunswick, sight unseen but with much effort on my sister-in-law’s part. It’s just as well, I have often thought in retrospect. Although I was moving toward something good, for what it’s worth, I learned that one should never make big decisions in the wake of grief; better to gather one’s counsel —friends, family, professionals — and, to the extent possible, wait at least six months to a year when the landscape will hopefully start to look different. When I arrived in Maine in August 2022, almost from the moment I crossed the state line, I realized just how much Bend had become part of my soul. When we drove back into Bend two months later, I rolled down the windows and Maya started barking joyously as we crossed the Reed Market Bridge toward the West Side. I knew just how she felt.
Last October I bought a 2025 Subaru Outback with an interesting feature called “Driver Focus” that “gives you a gentle reminder to help bring your focus back to the road.” The only time it ever activates is when I am at the intersection adjacent to my old house, where I invariably look to the left and ponder the Purchaser’s reason for painting it baby poop brown. Then, the car beeps and the display says, “Keep your eyes on the road ahead.”
I initially started to write this post about “magic” and “you are where you are supposed to be” moments, about meeting Patty, who introduced me to Terry. That was the story I intended to tell because it is magical and still leaves me in wonderment all these years later. (Sometimes the keyboard is like a Ouija board: things that want to be said first find a way to be said first…)
After I settled on the buying the house in late April 2011, I reached out to Patty in early June and said, “You know, we’ve never met, but I’d like to buy you dinner to thank you for referring us to Terry—he is awesome.” I proposed we meet on June 4th which happened to be her birthday, so we agreed to make it a double celebration.
At my beloved “longboard” community table at Zydeco, the best restaurant in town at the time, I asked her the most common question in Bend: “How did you come to live here?”
She said, “Oh, I moved here thirty-odd years ago from Ohio, relocating with Bell Telephone for a job here.”
I said, “Oh, where in Ohio?”
She said, “Oh, a small town in eastern Ohio.”
I said, “Oh, what small town in eastern Ohio?”
She said, “Oh, you’ve never heard of it…it’s just a small town outside of Youngstown.”
I said, “Oh, what small town outside of Youngstown?”
She said, “Oh, a town called North Jackson.”
I said, “Oh, it’s just that my parents were born in North Jackson, both sets of my grandparents lived and worked in North Jackson, AND most of my extended family still lives in and around North Jackson!”
As it turned out, Patty’s father, a retired auto executive who had worked his way up from mechanic, was living with her, so she went home and asked him about my dad. He said, “Oh yeah, Elmer…he was a Chrysler guy…” (True! But not entirely true: my dad had a weakness for Ford Thunderbirds, but he DID buy his fair share of Chryslers over the years. But really? Who remembers this fifty-plus years on?)
Over the next several months, Patty would share some very salient and mutual family history: Her mother’s high school graduation booklet revealed that her mom had gone to school with both my mother’s brother and my father’s brother. Patty’s family’s burial plots are one or two paces away from my family’s plots. Our families likely crossed paths at the Austintown shopping center, where my parents sometimes bought us school supplies while visiting from Pennsylvania in late summer. Once, in 2012 when I was visiting my sister, Terri, who lived in Warren 10 miles north of North Jackson, Patty also happened to be in North Jackson. She, her best childhood friend Nugie (pronounced “Noodgie”), and I met at Stonebridge Grille and Tavern, a hole-in-the-wall in Austintown, to toast our ghost connections.
Let’s be clear: The odds are pretty slim that two people whose family roots were based in a tiny town in northeastern Ohio, who moved to another small town 2,600 miles away, 30 years apart, would meet in such a weird, coincidental, fateful way. We pretty much decided during that first meeting we were cousins because, in all likelihood, our DNA had crossed somewhere too.
My “cuz” Patty and I at Zydeco in December 2012
These days, Patty and I connect every couple of months, and it always feels like meeting up with family with whom you share childhood memories, even if you weren’t in the exact same place at the exact same time to be in the same family photos.
Here’s to the truly good people in our lives and in our hearts. 🥂
With love,
S.
4.25.25
What I’ve Been Cooking:
Roasted Carrots with Whipped Tahini (NYTimes Gift Link) - This. And I mean, THIS!
Samin Nourat’s Buttermilk Brined Chicken
Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins (used half whole wheat, half whole wheat pastry flour - delicious!)
What I’ve Been Reading:
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi
What I’ve Been Watching:
Government Cheese (Apple TV)
Friends and Neighbors (Apple TV) - Can’t get over Jon Hamm…
Chef’s Table (Netflix) - The link here is to a post about my favorite episode featuring Chef Grant Achatz - incredible story.
Next - Chicago - (The chef from my short stint in culinary school turned us on to this fun YouTube which is why Chef Achatz…)
In the News:
The Trump Administration’s First 100 Days (NYTimes Gift Article) 🤦♀️
Quote of the Month
“People tell you who they are,
but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.”~ Don Draper, Mad Men
So long, February!
It’s crazy, isn’t it, how the last two months have felt like two years and yet, at least to me, February seemed to fly by…
Since the election, I’ve been sending smatterings of emails to various groups of friends and family, prequels to this inaugural post. You may have heard me say before that I firmly believe the solution to this cluster in which we find ourselves is to strengthen our personal connections with like-minded folks and try to “hold space” for the others. As many of you know (and are probably tired of hearing!), I have canceled my Washington Post subscription (last July!), access select articles in the New York Times free via the local library, and have entirely foregone all social media. I’ve since opted to connect directly with people in my circle, either in person or by text/email; I have some loved ones I can only reach with an old fashioned letter, for as long as the USPS remains intact. (I solemnly swear my mental health has improved dramatically with these changes alone.) This Substack-ish newsletter is a streamlined way of reaching out to my circle and to encourage you all to connect personally with your respective circles. It seems intuitive to me, by making this effort, we will find safety and comfort, and hopefully change, in numbers.
Not gonna lie (ngl, for the hipsters): A few months before the election, I was just emerging from a deep, three-year, post-divorce funk peppered with health issues (both mine and my furry children’s) which nearly tanked me. As my spirits began to lift (queue July 21st), I continued to follow through with a hope-filled plan to transform my political/non-profit-oriented consulting business into one focused on grant writing/non-profit support. I consulted mentors, took many classes, read all the books, developed a website, and was in the process of reaching out to my network when November 5th happened. (As I correctly predicted that night, grant writing, as we know it, has been dramatically imperiled, along with everything else right now.)
Since then, you too have likely had gut-wrenching 3 AM wake ups, if not outright insomnia. Along with envisioning the impending demise of democracy, I had been calculating daily the right day to say goodbye to my almost-19 y.o. cat girl Annie[1]; I learned shortly after Christmas that Maya, my 13 y.o. “pit llama” dog, has a mass in her liver[2]; and I was in chronic physical pain. These stressors and the seeming lack of viable future financial prospects led me down The Dark Path.
Don’t get me wrong: I have a true “dream team” of friends and family who would stand by in tough times but, at that point, nearly everyone I know was grappling with a terrifying future and I did not want to add to the disquiet with my inner terror(s).
In early January, with A LOT of time freed up from banishing social media, I read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. All I will say here is most everything that had been confusing about my life — including the political landscape — suddenly untangled. I’ll venture to add, in addition to just reading a good book, an effective anti-depressant can be reliable and resonant scientific information that fills in the gaps between what we feel and what we know.
On January 21st, a whimsical Substack post by writer Jen Louden landed in my inbox. It entertains the idea that “magic” might be a way through/out of our collective national nightmare. That led me to consider so many of the “magical” moments I’ve experienced over my lifetime; it was then I realized (again) life and this world are brimming with pockets of magic and small miracles… and so are we. I’m reminded, too, of what Bill Clinton said in his first inaugural address: “There is nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured by what is right with America.” Maybe we can’t “fix stupid” (or evil) but we can use our own individual magic for good. For me, that means writing — to you, to newspaper editors, for organizations doing good work, or for the sake of writing.
I hope you’ll continue to join me here for some collective pondering and whimsy in the weeks and months ahead. I want to know too how you’ve been dealing, what you‘ve been reading, watching, making, paying attention to. If you’d like, please share in the comments.
In the meantime, with love…
S.
2.28.25
What I’ve Been Reading
A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko. If you haven’t read it, The Emerald Mile, also by Kevin, is the place to start; it’s arguably the best book I’ve ever read.
No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz.
If You Can’t Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury by Geraldine DeRuiter.
What I’ve Been Watching
The Wire (MAX) (I can’t believe, as a former Marylander, that it took me 20 years to watch this—incredible dialogue.)
Zero Day (Netflix)
Rustin (Netflix) Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama.
What I’ve Been Making/Baking
Baked Feta and Chickpeas (Love & Lemons, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake (NYTimes Gift Link) (Made this for friends & neighbors for Valentine’s Day - BIG hit!)
In the News
“Seal seeks sanctuary in New Haven streets” (Yale News)
“‘What fresh hell awaits me today?’ Federal workers share their stories”
(The Baltimore Banner)
“10 Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy” by Marc Elias (Democracy Docket)
“The SAVE Act Is Voter Suppression Disguised as Election Integrity” (Ms. Magazine)
_________________________________________________________________________
[1] The girls (Lily and Maya), my dear friend Susan, and I said goodbye to Annie here at home on January 23rd, with assistance from the girls’ longtime vet.
[2]…which could be removed to the tune of $8k-$12k. I won’t make you queasy by telling you how much I’ve spent over the last two years at the vet. Elizabeth Warren is not wrong. It may or may not be cancer but is likely, at some point, to be fatal. I sure hope not. In the meantime, I’m making sure she is living her best life.
