Potter

Three years ago, I was working at a doctor’s office as a part-time aide. I pulled patients’ charts, scanned medical documents and organized faxes for the doctors. But my favorite duty was calling patients to remind them of their appointments. Most patients were well past retirement, and sometimes I would have to yell for them to hear me. Sometimes they would think I was their daughter. Other times, they would tell me all about their incontinence, flatulence, son or daughter — or their son’s flatulence and their daughter’s incontinence. Some would hang up without saying goodbye or thank you, and others would simply not understand why I was calling them.

Then there was Roslyn.

She was my favorite. She would call me Booby, tell me I’m a doll and that she loved me. And for whatever reason, she turned into one of my favorite people in the history of the world. She would come in about every two weeks, and her appointment was always at 3 p.m. Every time I’d see her name on the schedule, my heart would jump and my hands would shake as I went to call her number. I wanted to talk to her for hours, and just listen to that quintessential New-York-Jewish accent call me affectionate names I’d never even heard of.

I always got off work at 1 p.m., so I had never met her — until my last day of work.

I waited around for two hours after my shift. When she arrived, everyone knew I was anxiously awaiting her, so they hollered at me to go meet my best friend. I peered around from behind the shelves of patient file folders into the waiting room — and there she was. I walked up in front of her and nervously stammered, “Hi, Roz, I’m Elizabeth, I’m the one who —” and she interrupted with a, “I know who you are, doll,” grabbed my hand, and pulled me to sit down with her.

We sat and held hands, like old friends, or family, or even some random seventysomething [hec: Erika – how should we write this?  :  ]sitting with some admiring twentysomething-year-old [epo: twenty-something or 20-something?:  ]super fan. She asked me why the hell I was leaving and I told her I was working two other jobs and she promised to come visit me. We talked about school and the future and how her granddaughter is about to write her master’s thesis and how her late husband used to teach plant pathology at the university. She pointed to her oxygen tank and told me she was coming from her lung therapy appointment — only to cut herself off, mid-sentence. She squeezed my hand extra tight, and looked me square in the eye with genuine love.

“Darling, I wish you all the little bluebirds in the world.”

And it was at this point, like a goon, I started crying. Why? I don’t know. Couldn’t tell you. Call me my emotional mother’s over-emotional daughter, but sitting there holding hands with my idol, she was everything I’d hoped her to be (minus the blue hair, diamond studded cat-eye glasses and sequined sweater I’d always imagined). She told me this job at the office was too boring for me because I was too smart for it. And she told me she always talks about her “peaches-and-cream” who calls from her doctor’s office. That she’d miss me something awful.

And that she loved me.

Turns out, I meant as much to her as she meant to me, however that happened and under whatever weird circumstance.

And maybe that’s why I couldn’t stop crying. Even now, years later, I am overwhelmed with unexplainable emotion when I speak of her. I met this strangely amazing woman who gave me a kiss on the cheek and called me her dear, dear friend, and I never ever, ever doubted her sincerity or love.

At the time, I was in need of the realization of the person I wanted to be. I was a mess of an existence: maxed out, working five months without a day off, 60 hours a week between three jobs, stressed, on edge, depressed and coming to a boil. Meeting Roz was like popping a zit of emotion or something gross like that, with all of this nasty stuff I’d been bottling up inside of me for absolutely no reason coming to a head and struggling to be freed.

I want to be like Roz. When it comes to the rest of my life, I want to be like Roz. I want to be that person you know nothing about other than notes in their doctor’s chart that you sneak peeks at every time you pull it to make sure she’s doing OK. And find yourself so moved by her genuine kindness and whatever magic little spark there is inside of her that you feel it in those two-minute phone conversations, and it makes you infinitely better for holding her hand for five minutes.

As I sat there next to her, I couldn’t even find the words to tell her she was my favorite person — or maybe I did, but I was so wrought with emotion that I may have not said a single word the entire time. I called my mom crying to tell her I met Roz, tried to mask my emotion when my boyfriend answered his phone briefly, cried while I filled up my car at the gas station, cried while I drove home, cried on the couch harder than I’ve cried in a long time, and am even crying again now as I write this.

Have you ever fallen deeply in love with a stranger? Even if it was only for a brief moment — like watching a little boy tenderly kiss his baby sister in the shopping cart at the grocery store. Or seeing a married couple in their 80s holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk. Or making a new friend and connecting with them so passionately, that after a week you can’t imagine living your life without them in it.

I believe that we each have a series of soulmates that we are meant to cross paths with in our lives. They each have a different lesson to teach — sometimes with a beautiful feeling, endless fits of laughter, or inexplicable familiarity; sometimes in the most painful of ways. They touch us in a way that can’t be put in words.

These soulmates aren’t here as missing pieces to our life’s puzzle. They’re mirrors; they reflect back to us pieces of ourselves. Sometimes it’s the part of us that we don’t want to be reminded of, and those are the people who usually drive us nuts. But what Roz reflected back to me was powerfully touching. She showed me the compassionate, powerful, loving woman I longed to be. The way she spoke of her late husband made me realize I was not in the relationship I wanted to be in. That I was too smart for all these random, mindless jobs I was trying to distract myself with. Her kiss reminded me of the pure love I have to share with so many people yet in my life.

And she reminded me that, damn it, I’m worth all the little bluebirds in the whole wide world.

— Elizabeth Potter, of Boulder

I’m not a spiritual “born again.” I don’t want to talk about how Jesus or any 12-step program saved me. Nevertheless, Dec. 26, 2000, was a day that changed me forever. For it was on that day that I attempted to end my own life.

Once upon a time, I had been a happy young woman. I was in the academic top five of my high school, active in the honor society and the school newspaper, adored by my teachers and even bragged about by the principal on parent teacher night. I received high scores on my ACT and SAT, was awarded several scholarships for academic achievement, and was confident that I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my future as well as how to get there.

Then I entered college. Suddenly, I was nobody afloat in a sea of other nobodies. It is easy to become lost in classes with hundreds of students. None of my professors knew my name, let alone enough about me to show an interest in my dreams. I think it was then that I slowly began to lose myself, and my dreams, as well. I had once been secure in the knowledge that a journalism career was what I wanted. I was no longer certain. If not that, then what?

I am sure many young women and men go through similar experiences as they enter college and adulthood. I’m equally sure many of them make it without becoming trapped in a swirling black hole of depression and anxiety about the future.

I was not one of them. For whatever reason — biological, psychological, plain old bad luck — I found myself in a vicious cycle from which I could not break free. I was afraid — of everything — to such an extreme that I became agoraphobic. I had to move home with my parents. I rarely left my bedroom. I could not see my way out of the blackness that filled my mind. I could not see that my family loved me and desperately wanted to help me. All I could see was an empty hole where my future was supposed to be.

When you have reached a point where you believe that your death would be better than your life, you have to make a choice. I had reached a breaking point. I was tired of being depressed because I was afraid and afraid because I was depressed. I was tired of feeling so lost, so trapped and so alone.

If you have never been there yourself, it may be difficult to imagine what would drive someone to suicide. You have probably heard people say, “Suicide is a selfish act.” And it truly is, but not because the person who is suicidal wants to be selfish. In my experience, having reached that point, one is so trapped in one’s own head, consumed with one’s own misery, that you not only are you not thinking about anyone else’s feelings, but you couldn’t even if you wanted to.

However, perhaps the most glorious thing about life is that change is always possible — and it often comes about in unexpected ways. On Dec. 26, 2000. I gave up. I chose death. I took a bunch of pills, wrote my note and lay down on my bed. But I didn’t die. My sister called me on the phone and could tell that something was wrong. She called my father and he rushed home to take me to the emergency room. I had my stomach pumped (I don’t recommend that experience), I vomited a lot. Nevertheless, I lived.

When I was released from the hospital, I was ready for a change. I determined that I would climb out of the black hole I had been trapped in, even though I didn’t know what my future would hold, where I would end up.

Sure, it was hard at times, and I faltered on occasion, but it was better than the alternative. I found a job I could deal with — maybe not one I loved, but one that kept me busy from day to day. I moved out of my parent’s house three months later. I met my now husband shortly after that. I stopped taking the prescriptions for anxiety and depression that various doctors had told me I would have to take forever. As the side effects that came with those pills wore off, I felt better and better.

Sixteen months after my suicide attempt, I lost my job. Instead of jumping back into the black hole, I took what I had learned and forged ahead, landing a significantly better job only a few weeks later. I now have a position where I get to do many of the things I love, including writing, editing, even cooking. I have found my path, and myself, again. I’m even writing a regular magazine column — a dream I thought I had given up all those years ago.

I look back at the scared young woman I once was and wish I could talk to her. I would hold her hand and tell her that nothing is ever as bleak as it may seem. Losing your way does not make you a failure. Asking for help does not mean you are weak. When you hit bottom, it is the perfect time to start looking up.

The holidays can be tough for many, and today’s economy is not going to make that any easier. If you know someone who is struggling, let him or her know that you care. They may not be ready to ask for or even accept your help, but at least they will know you are there for them.

If you are struggling yourself, do not give up. This is your opportunity to change — an opportunity to put yourself on a different path or to rediscover a path you thought you had lost. You do not have to do it all at once. A gradual change, day by day, is all that is needed to take you from the point of wanting an end to living for a new beginning.

— By Angela Rose, of Longmont

Each stitch reminds me that it is a gift for my friend who is enduring the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and radiation. I’m told one of the side effects is the coldness that enters the body — a cold unforgiving illness. I call them her “healing sessions,” trying to soften the language as if to make a gentler journey.

For 16 years, we have met once a week for coffee — sipping in our shared stories of children, husbands, parents, births, deaths, divorce, bad days, good days, recipes and real estate. It was our lives, one hour each week. Until her sore throat. “The doctor said antibiotics should help.”

But they didn’t help, and then we were no longer talking about someone else’s cancer, but her own esophageal cancer. There is a set of symptoms that develop for friends of those with cancer. I’m scared, I don’t sleep well, I’m sad, I feel helpless, I’m angry, I worry about my own lymph nodes and freckles on my husbands back, but most of all I want to help so much that it aches inside.

Before she was nauseous every day, I baked pumpkin muffins and bought her Starbucks; I gave her sweet smelling cream and purple soft socks; I called and wrote e-mails, sent poems and prayed. But so often I feel cancer ties our hands, taunting us as we are cornered in powerlessness.

Her latest e-mail read, “Just wondering if by chance I could take you to breakfast and catch a ride to one of my many doctor’s appointments?”

Given she’d been so sick from her treatments, I hadn’t seen her as frequently and imagined the worst. But she looked beautiful. It was more than her pretty face and wisps of curly hair, though. There was clarity in her eyes, someone who knew what she wanted, and it was as simple as wanting to live.

The only sign of her painful truth was the blistery burns on her neck left by radiation. She gracefully unwrapped her scarf to let me in closer and admitted it had been excruciating, but she was slowly healing.
For now, because her throat was so sore, she spoke in a quiet laryngitis voice. I ordered our bagels in the noisy shop, relieved to show my care and concern in such a concrete way — handing her a small plastic knife and napkins, like I would for my children. We sat with our bagels and hot tea. She no longer drinks coffee but instead her tea, along with an 1/8 tablespoon of morphine so she can swallow small bites of bagel and cream cheese.

She patiently told me everything revealing her journey, like after returning from a frightful trip. I listened with a mixture of sadness, fascination and deep respect for her survival on the cancer trek. Halfway along the trail, she still has major surgery left to remove the tumor from her esophagus. Sometimes she’d write in pretty script on the pad next to her, when talking became too tiring.

“I’m never scared of dying, just scared of feeling sick forever.”

As she talked quietly and ate slowly, I too did the same. It felt so peaceful. We talked about how her cancer forced her to take care of herself in the way we did when we were pregnant: naps, gentleness, trying to eat well, depending on others. Birth and death are such powerful teachers.

Her doctor’s appointment was quick and her surgery is set for just three weeks away. We celebrated the definite date for an eight-hour surgery to rebuild her esophagus. We’ve celebrated many things in our friendship, but never esophageal surgery. I drove slowly home, not wanting our outing to end.

As I picked up my knitting that evening, I realized my shawl wasn’t so very different from a baby blanket. There is a tender feel to birth and death — both a powerful reminder of the beauty of life and friendship in between.

— By Priscilla Dann-Courtney, of Boulder
“Radiating Friendship” is expected to appear in Dann-Courtney’s collection of essays, “Room to Grow,” scheduled to be published by Norlights Press in November.

Pregnant! Me? I can’t be.

The doctor confirmed my suspicions. I was a 20-year-old college junior at Douglass College in New Brunswick, N.J., married less than a year and definitely not ready for this unplanned pregnancy.

How were we going to manage? I wanted to finish my degree in speech pathology. He wanted to make more money so we could buy a house. My mother was not happy with the news and the stress on me seemed insurmountable. Our dream future had been college, work two years, buy a house and then have a baby.

But dreams do change.

As summer turned to fall, my stomach began growing and I started feeling strange. Was that a pain? Was that a flutter? Was my baby moving? Was I imagining something that wasn’t there? I had no one to discuss this with because I was the first of my friends to be pregnant. So I read book after book and realized that I wasn’t imagining anything. My baby was moving and I was really going to be a mother.

I started my senior year in the fall as a part-time student. The baby was due in December, and I thought I could finish in three semesters instead of two. We looked at baby furniture and bought a neutral-colored layette, yet it still seemed surreal. I continued commuting to school, even though I worried my ballooning belly wouldn’t fit behind the wheel of the car.

Then one Friday in December, I felt it. The movement was different from anything I had experienced before, and I knew this was it. Very quickly it became obvious that this baby wanted out.

We raced to the hospital. Three hours after our arrival, our bundle of joy made his way into our lives. When he was handed to me and I counted his 10 little fingers and his 10 little toes and saw that dimple in his chin, all of the stress I had felt during the last few months melted away. It doesn’t get any better than that.

— By Susan Litt, 64, Boulder

The life of a college student in Durango calls for a lot of things: a tolerance for cold, constant tourists and the twice daily sound of the narrow gauge train to and from Silverton. Not among these requirements is a cool ride, which is why a 1993 emerald green Dodge Shadow with loud gold rims was my transportation.

On one of my many trips to the grocery store (at 20, I hadn’t grasped the concept of buying more than one meal at a time), I was simultaneously eating a deli salad and driving down a one-way lane in the parking lot. In what I remember as slow motion, a tall Chevy Avalanche began backing out of a space. On my other side, a gaggle of teen boys sitting on the tailgate of a truck watched in horror with me as the Chevy reversed directly into my little green car.

I was not injured but thoroughly distraught. The passenger side was completely folded in half. I’m not an angry person by nature so when the Chevy’s owner kept apologizing profusely and handed over his insurance information, I just nodded wordlessly, imagining the days to come and the laughter from my friends when they would see this atrocity.

Fast forward 30 days. A local mechanic had deemed the car a lost cause in the repair department and so I chose the other option, a handsome settlement check. I had been in some ugly debt for months leading up to the accident and wasn’t going to be able to attend my fall semester of college. When I learned the amount of the check, the heavens opened and shone on my little crushed car.

I drove it for two more years. You lose a certain anonymity with a car like that, but she was very good to me and taught me that vanity is worth less than ability. More importantly, I graduated.

– Clare Tischer, 25, Boulder

As a young mom, I remember when my son lost his umbilical cord. I smiled and said to my husband, “The next step is college.”

And what seems like a day later, we’re at that next step. We just returned from Seattle, where our son is beginning his freshman year. Under a beautiful northwestern sky, the only raindrops were our good-bye tears. My son allowed me to hug him tighter than I had in years as he gently bent down to rest his cheek on my shoulder.

I wish I could say the whole weekend was back-to-back tender moments, but like the last four years, he spent a lot of time dodging me as I tried my best to keep up with the forever two-step dance of parenting: “Mom, please stop bringing up the issue of something to hang on my walls” and “Do you have to talk to everyone?”

Move-in day began with instructions for all Seward Hall third-floor students to arrive at 9 a.m. to reduce congestion on stairways. When we opened the door to room 316, we were greeted by his new roommate and parents’ smiles. As we all climbed over boxes, bedding and guitar cases, we decided a trip to Target might make the unpacking easier for his roommate. Maybe we were all yearning for the security of those red concentric circles.

List in hand (scribbled on the back of the rental car agreement), we grabbed two carts. Similar trios or dyads surrounded us, the common denominator being a son or daughter, where shopping with parents was a necessary but irritating experience. I was reassured when I heard a son announce to his mother, “I really don’t care what color the rug is, just pick one.”

The cart piled high, I happily checked things off — feeling in control of something. Animal crackers sat invitingly at the check-out counter, but somehow didn’t match with my son’s shaving crème and small Guinness poster.

After hauling everything up three flights of stairs that were starting to feel like six, my son brought up lunch — for my husband and me.

“I’ve got it covered here,” he said.

We found the nearest coffee shop and exhaled. We were exhausted, and it was only noon. In truth, Target and stairways were the least of it. It has been a long 18 years, and simultaneously wanting to leave as quickly as possible and stay together forever is an exhausting dilemma.

The day wrapped up with convocation. As we sat elbow-to-elbow on stadium bleachers, I focused more on the families around us than the college president’s insights. The red-haired woman next to us leaned in to her father and whispered, “I love you, dad.” My son sat wearing his backward baseball cap, definitely not thinking about how much he loved my husband and me. And honestly, at that moment, I wasn’t thinking about how much I loved him. I was thinking about dinner and wondering if I’d be sad or relieved when we said good-bye and wondering if we’d gotten everything on the list.

The following morning, the “moment” in the parking lot arrived. I wanted to stop time for a minute, just to figure out how to do and say the right “mom thing.”

My son turned to me, and as we looked each other in the eyes, holding a gaze, neither one of us had to figure out anything. Our tears actually felt like a beautiful, “Hello.” I’d never felt the truth so poignantly as I did that morning. Good bye to our children allows them to hold on tighter, and it is a wonderful reminder that the umbilical chord will always remain an ever-changing golden thread between us.

I’m not a morning person. In fact, I was once kicked out of a carpool for being habitually late for my ride in the morning. I never thought I would say that my favorite time of day happens before 7 a.m., but being a mother resets your biological clock in more ways than the cliche’ states.

I love sitting down at the breakfast table to share a bowl of cereal with my 2-year-old son. I watch him and try to memorize his movements: the dip of his head to catch the milk, as he struggles with the big spoon he insists upon. I watch him and think about the man he is going to become. I say a prayer for the woman who will someday fall in love with him. I pray that she will be astute and intelligent, witty and compassionate. I pray that she will cherish the way that he crosses his ankles when he sits in a chair and how he wrinkles his nose when he grins.

This morning, he sat in my lap as we shared a bowl of Cheerios. I put my cheek against his and moved the spoon towards his little open mouth. At the last second, I pulled the spoon towards me and took a bite. His open mouth followed my face, planting a huge milky kiss on my cheek before we erupted in giggles.

He’s up far too early for anyone to be awake on a Saturday morning, but the rewards of greeting the sun with this little angel are far better than any my Denver Mattress has to offer.

– Lyn Rinehart, 28, of Windsor

We at Women’s Magazine believe the answer to most (if not all) problems is perspective. That’s why we thought it was important to dedicate a space in our lives every month to stories about blessings in disguise. Share your own experiences at speakup@womensmag.com.

“When are you going to get married?”

Did I miss the worldwide memo stating once two people have been in a relationship for longer than four years with no talk of a marriage, it is your job to push the marriage question?

I must have, because that infamous question started right at the 4-year mark of our relationship. And not only from friends and family. Also from total strangers, like my massage therapist.

We are programmed to follow the rules: You date first, marry second, and have kids soon after, thus completing the faade of “a happy life.” Well, what if you date first, move in together second, open a business together third, get cancer fourth and get engaged last? I would call that a twist of fate.

Luke and I started dating in 2003. We opened our business, The West End Salon, in 2006. And our answer to the marriage question had always been, “Why? Maybe never!” Our relationship was solid, regardless of a ring. Then cancer came.

I was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in 2007. I was only 27. I still remember listening to the recording (record all commentary concerning major surgeries in case you forget what the doctor said!) of my doctor telling my family and Luke that I had ovarian cancer, for which he had to perform a complete hysterectomy, and chemo would soon be required.

All I could hear on that tape was Luke crying.

My parents were rattling off important questions, but Luke just cried. His girlfriend, the love of his life and best friend was deathly ill.

When they say cancer changes people, they mean it. It changes the person diagnosed, but it also severely changes the people who love them.

I have to be honest and say regardless of our relationship, I didn’t know if he would stick around. Luke is a loyal, genuine man. But being involved in the cancer “journey” (more like a nightmare voyage), as well as being the caretaker, is a lot to ask someone when they have their whole life ahead of them.

But Luke was behind me when I fell, ahead of me when I needed direction, and beside me when I needed comfort. It might sound cliché to say cancer made our relationship stronger, but the proof lies ahead.

First, we — including our 130-pound Rottweiler and bearded dragon — moved out of our condo and into my parents’ house for eight months. Second, despite the doctor’s words like “We are just trying to buy you time,” Luke decided however long or short my time may be, he wanted it to be spent with him — as his wife.

Luke spent two months secretly searching for the perfect diamond. Soon, we were headed to Las Vegas. Luke proposed at The Bellagio, on one knee, at a private table overlooking the pool. It was almost midnight and we had just finished a coffee and a long chat about how cancer changed both of our lives.

I would be lying if I said he proposed, I accepted with tears in my eyes while gasping at the ring, and then he swept me off my feet as we engaged in a celebratory kiss. The real version went like this:

Luke on bended-knee, tears in his eyes, ring in hand: “Will you marry me?”

Me: “This is a joke, right?”

Luke, hand shaking and still on one knee: “No, I love you. Will you marry me?”

Me: “Are you kidding?!”

Luke, still on knee: “You’re looking at the ring. Does this look like I am kidding?”

Me: “You’re kidding me, right?”

Luke, on sore knee: “I don’t know if I like your answer.”

It finally registered with me. The man I loved more than anyone in the world was on one knee with ring in hand.

Me: “Yes! Yes, of course I will marry you!”

No doubt, cancer changes people. Maybe it was the difficult seven months that drove him to ask. Maybe it was the thought that if I was his wife, he would never lose me to cancer. Maybe it was just pure love. Maybe it was all three.

What I do know is when I said yes, cancer was kicked to the back as my heart sailed to the front.

– By Deandra Trevino, of Boulder

Valerie Grant

I’m digging almost crystallized honey from a jar. As I lower the spoon into a mug of tea and watch the cloudy mass dissolve, I remember yesterday’s e-mail from my mother, and hope that by adding honey I am actually lowering my cholesterol, curing any snippets of heart disease I may have, and also preventing arthritis, cancer, indigestion and the common cold.

I receive almost daily emails from my mother, age 73: photos of a herd of elk in the Wyoming mist; China from the sky; three-dimensional sidewalk art. I get videos: sea otters holding hands; a dog dragging a wounded dog across traffic to safety; a baby moose running through a sprinkler.

From her messages, I have learned to put Vics VapoRub on the soles of my feet when I have a cold, been warned of the latest scams as they are breaking, and know that the early stages of a heart attack look different for a woman than a man — although at this moment I can’t remember how. My mom actually deletes all the forwards and writes personal messages like, “You have to watch all the way to the end!” “Ouch, I can relate!” and “This is truly amazing!”

Valerie Grant (left) and her mother

When my mom became computer savvy and all this started, I sighed and rolled my eyes, probably out of habit from the teenage years. Then I went through a period when I felt a little overwhelmed with my life, and I confess: I watched Paul Potts audition for “Britain’s Got Talent” every night for at least a month. It’s possible I may have even cajoled my young daughters to watch with me, as our family evening ritual between brushing teeth and tucking in.

My mom walks with a cane and considerable pain, and whether she needs to or not, she worries that my dad may have trouble finding his way home from Kiwanis. There are the ravaged investments, the busy grandchildren, the narrowing comfort with driving. But she has found a window to look through, and as when I was a child, she calls my focus to points of interest.

I learned a while ago that one thing that can save my life is to pay close attention to the physical details of the moment I’m in. Because it’s always something: Last year’s hospital bills still haunting; the stucco falling off the house; the puppy who comes to me in the middle of the kitchen, looks up charmingly and pees at my feet; my uselessness with sixth-grade math or my friend’s broken heart. I’ve found that noticing what is right in front of me is the threshold to the Larger, the Beyond, where peace is waiting. I get there when I notice the tiny blue river of vein that flows below one daughter’s right eye, the paintbrush tips of crocuses breaking through brown leaves. And sometimes I get there through my mother’s e-mails.

Now, at the end of a full day I pull up to the computer, take a deep breath and open her latest. I sit before an altar of sorts with my mom. I let myself marvel at Libby, the seeing-eye cat; a sheep who raises her head for a bird to clean out her nose; and a leopard who is raising a baby baboon as her own.

Because she is passionate about trash – or rather, finding out what’s in your trash and convincing you not to throw it away.

For more than 20 years, Skumatz, 53, has used economics to solve energy and recycling problems. She runs her own company, Skumatz Economic Research Associates Inc. If you live in Boulder or one of the 7,100 communities across the country with pay-as-you-throw trash programs, you can probably thank Skumatz.

Turning challenges into opportunities got her where she is today.

Dumpster diving isn’t in the job description for most people with a PhD in economics from Johns Hopkins University. But Skumatz dives it because reducing garbage is a powerful — if unexpected — way to fight climate change.

When it comes to curbing global warming, “the best, first stop-gap strategies are waste related,” Skumatz says.

She sets a legal pad and pen next to her breakfast of Wheat Thins and Diet Coke, sketches a pie chart of carbon emissions and points to a sliver.

“The EPA shows a 3 percent wedge that is due to waste,” Skumatz says.

Her company’s analysis shows pay-as-you-throw programs are the cheapest, fastest way to cut emissions. Cities have more control over waste than energy, so “every household is hit immediately.”

Skumatz’s company has four employees, not including the two puppies that share her home office.

“That’s my crazy dog who jumps straight up into the air,” Skumatz says, letting her chocolate lab, Sadie, out the door. “I find the dogs calming. Which is good, because I have kind of a volatile personality.”

That personality has served Skumatz well.

“She’s a real dynamo. Never seems to slow down. Sometimes I wonder if she sleeps,” says Marjorie Griek, executive director of the Colorado Association for Recycling and Skumatz’s colleague.

After graduating from the University of Wisonsin-Madison, Skumatz worked for Ralph Nader in Washington, D.C., analyzing the cost of nuclear power plants.

It was a big change for someone from a town of 3,000 people.

“Yes, there is a Heartland, Wis., corny as that sounds,” she says. “I was the only person coming into the office in skirts that were not hippie-type skirts. And I was eating at McDonald’s, which they were just aghast at.”

After graduate school, she says, “I wanted to start from total scratch. So I went to the place where I didn’t know anybody.”

That place was Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Richland, Wash., where she worked on energy conservation.

When the consulting firm she worked for in Seattle folded in 1990, she seized the opportunity to start her own company.

Skumatz has worked with Louisville, Longmont, Broomfield and Aurora, but the blue trash bins dotting the sidewalks of her neighborhood aren’t pay-as-you-throw.

That’s not for lack of trying.

Skumatz moved to Superior eight years ago when her husband, Jim Heidell, got an engineering job nearby. When she learned the homeowners association had a contract that barred pay-as-you-throw, she ran for office.

“She has moved beyond just providing excellent advice to her clients. She also is an activist, be it in terms of local community politics, to being a board member of the National Recycling Coalition,” says Jerry Powell, editor of Resource Recycling magazine.

On the Superior Board of Trustees, Skumatz influences recycling policy and protects open space.

Skumatz won lifetime achievement awards from both sides of the waste stream: the Solid Waste Association of North America and the National Recycling Coalition.

After letting the dogs inside, Skumatz sits down, takes up the legal pad, and redraws the pie chart.

The EPA has updated its stance on the importance of waste in cutting carbon emissions. Now, “what goes to a landfill takes 38 percent,” she says. “It’s much more reflective of solid waste’s contribution.”

And Skumatz’s.