Life with Heidi
Heidi is my daughter. Well, in fact not exactly, but indeed, yes, she is. What matters is that I think of her as so. There is a story, of course, as there always is with families, and this is ours. It began just before Halloween in 1977 when Heidi was almost nine, and I had just turned 32.
That was the summer when I first met Kit while taking a summer class that he was teaching at UCLA. Heidi and her brother Hayden were living at the time with their mother up Beverly Glen Boulevard that snakes up a narrow urban canyon off Sunset Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Kit was by then living on his own in a rented apartment not far from campus. Over the prior year he had built a bunk bed for those nights when the kids slept over at his apartment.
By fall, patterns that evolve when families reconfigure were beginning to fall into place. The kids stayed overnight on Wednesdays and most weekends. Kit was chief cook and bedtime storyteller extraordinaire. At bunk time, Hayden and Heidi played a word game with Kit called “The Cook and the King.” The kids came up with dishes like macaroni and cheese or sauces like ketchup, and Kit would then make up a story about how the king’s cook had come up with the life-saving recipe. If the king didn’t like the results, it was off with the cook’s head.
Games aside, Kit’s personal repertoire of dinner menus was exactly one—“nurkle” (his variation on the subject of meatloaf), mashed potatoes (boiled with the skins left on) and frozen green peas. Pretty quickly, I saw my role in this close-knit circle of three. Most evenings, I cooked while Kit threw a hardball with Hayden who was in Little League, and Heidi entertained herself making amazing little creatures out of Play-Doh sculpting clay.
Heidi wearing her cuffy cap on one of our fall outings in 1977.
Kit’s apartment was next to a small urban park in West Los Angeles that was landscaped with large boulders for children to climb, sidewalks ideal for skateboarding, outdoor grills, and picnic tables perfect for weekend cookouts. That October, while Hayden and Kit were playing catch, Heidi and I carried pumpkins, newspaper, magic markers, and small carving knives outside to one of the tables. Thinking back on our history, I count this event as our first, just the two of us, Heidi- and-Cathy project.
I remember three things about that afternoon--Heidi’s hair, her hat, and her bravery. Her hair—long, untamable, and curly—was a rich, dark brown. Brushing it would have been fussy, which Heidi was not. Instead, she opted to keep it under control by wearing a Cuffy Cap turned backwards. Her bravery related to our pumpkin carving exercise that turned scary when Heidi’s knife slipped and cut her finger.
“That’s it,” I said to myself as I sprinted to Kit’s apartment in search of a hot washcloth, Bacitracin and Band-Aids. “I am now officially toast in the mother-daughter bonding department. One pumpkin and done!” But there was nary a tear or sob from this brave eight-year old. Heidi, I learned, loved Band-Aids as much as she loved that old cap. I had survived my first test.
The following summer, the four of us decided to really test our new unit by driving across country in Kit’s school-bus-yellow VW, pop-top Westphalia camper van. It was a 6,000-mile journey, one of two cross county trips the four of us took during our 10 years living together in California. The trip was filled with memories but two stand out in my mind as pure Heidi. The van had no hood ornament, so Heidi created one while we were camped at Bear Lake, Idaho over Kit’s 40th birthday. Her creation was a giraffe named “Noble Neck” that rode on the dashboard the remainder of the trip, guiding us on our way and keeping us safe from wild beasts and those weird creatures that go bump in the night.
The last day of of our 1977 cross-country trip.
The other moment came on our last day of the road trip. We had swum in rivers and waded through streams from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic and back across the country’s Heartland and Southwest. Our final swim was in the Colorado River where it forms the border between Arizona and California. It was a beastly hot August afternoon, and the river looked cold and inviting. Without a second thought, we pulled off the road and suited up for a quick dip. Hayden and Heidi, both good swimmers, plunged in first, but within seconds they were caught by a current that was moving faster than they could manage. In a flash, I swam toward Heidi who hung onto my neck as I swam toward the shore. Kit headed for Hayden and rescued him in the same fashion.
That moment and the post-rescue selfie we took of ourselves—dripping wet and happy to be alive—says it all. We were a team. Over time, we would work out the semantics of what to call our evolving family relationship. The important thing is, we became a family and remain one to this day.
Heidi turned 53 this November. She is a creative artist, a community college English professor in the Bay area, and the published author and illustrator of a children’s book, Taddy McFinley and the Great Grey Grimly. A few summers back, Heidi bought a VW van and completed a 6,000-mile road trip to Canada and Alaska with her partner, Sugie, and their three dogs—Atticus, Jake, and Joaquin. There is now a new trio of dogs in their life—Tokie, Neddie, and Mingus—and they all live together in an amazing house on the outskirts of historic Nevada City, CA.
After visiting our home in Missouri last October for my 75th birthday, Heidi and her brother Hayden suggested it was time for the two of us to move to the Sierra Foothills in Northern CA and begin a new chapter out West. The rest is history. Looking back now after many life decisions, shared memories, and roads explored together as Salters, I’m delighted to be part of the circle gathered to celebrate the 53rd birthday of Heidi Goen-Salter—an extraordinary woman, friend, partner, teacher and daughter—right here where we are now exploring life anew together.
