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"Maybe it's gas," I told myself at 11:30 p.m. Monday night.
I knew better.
First the hint of ache. Then the increased intensity of pain until it hit a "10."
Oh yea, here we go -
into the hot bath to sooth my flank and calm my tensed body.
Up and down. Unable to sit or lay still.
Pounding water - watching the clock.
4:30 a.m. came and went.
ER or not?
This time I decided to tough it out. I had an old bottle of Vicodin on hand so I decided to pop one.
It helped.
So, I am now tethered to my toilet as I drink gallons of water, pee, and wait to pass a
5 mm stone.
I know it's 5 mm because when I awoke from my Vicodin- induced- grog, I made an appointment with my urologist, Dr. Khonsari, who sent me to get a CT Scan
Stone protocol the radiology referral read.
I know this protocol.
Anything less than 6 mm is passable unless it gets stuck in the urator. Mine is stuck in the left urator.
But I'm still gonna try to pass it.
"You are experienced at this," Dr. Khonsari said to me on the phone today.
Yep, I sure am.
My first stone was at eighteen. It came in December of 1977 after a company party in Laguna Beach.
My most memorable stones were the ones I gave birth to days after both of my children were born having to leave them in the care of my mother as I went back to the hospital pumping my breast milk while writhing in pain.
The calcium pills I had taken while pregnant produced healthy bones for my babies and a bonus for me.
My most inconvenient stones have come in the midst of production - Carousel in 1995 and most recently, during rehearsal for Les Mis in 2012.
My most surprising stone was in November of 2006 just before Thanksgiving. I was laying on a massage table during my Dahn yoga days as the practitioner shook my legs. Apparently she shook too hard, because I had to get up from the table and excuse myself in kidney stone agony before the session was over.
My biggest was 9 mm and caused me all sorts of grief including a kidney infection. That stone was so stubborn, Dr. Khonsari had trouble pulverising it. Passing the fragments from that monster was like passing a quarry of miniature stones.
There have been other, less remarkable stones I can barely recall. I know I'm up to at least eighteen -possibly more.
So today, I went to Whole Foods between potty breaks. I bought myself some magnesium powder to drink to help me better absorb calcium, and an herbal supplement called "Stone Free" which hopefully will live up to its name.
This was actually my second trip to Whole Foods this week. Last week, I went to pick up some Vitamin D and Cod Liver Oil for my new low sugar regimen.
Changing one's life takes a lot of work, commitment, time, and research.
It all started with my labs. Not horrible. Not scary. Just bad enough to be a "wake up call."
Low Vitamin D, High Sugar. Not in the Diabetic range but "at risk."
Notation: Can be reversed with diet and exercise.
And so I plunged in.
Back to the gym. Riding the bike. Gentle yoga.
Walking.
Reading recipes, trying new ones.
Thanks to my niece, Marisa, I have discovered the Paleo diet to control blood sugar.
Farewell to sugar in my coffee. With two cups a day, a spoonful of sugar in each - I was consuming 14 spoons full of sugar each week! Stevia is no replacement and I will always long for my delicious cup of sweet coffee every morning, but I'm adjusting.
Goodbye Rice. Pasta. Beans. (Though I'm reluctant to forego my legumes!)
I've discovered a fabulous cauliflower and cilantro recipe as a replacement for rice and I even dried my own herbs to make various herbal salts. I think I'm a fanatic now.
Well kind of. I am going to have to slowly ween myself off of my weekend wine.
The balancing act of lowering blood sugar by eating the good kind of carbs, fat, and protein and the dietary restrictions to reduce kidney stone production is tricky.
I might have ignored the latter had it not been for this latest episode. Lucky for me, my life style change coincided with my latest kidney stone attack which I am quite certain was brought on by my increased exercise! Go figure.
All that moving around jarred that little sucker loose!
So that is how my summer is shaping up. Or, more to the point, this is my summer of getting into shape!
My niece says, "Health is everything."
She is right. I have been the first to point my finger at denial but have not looked closely at my own.
When you ignore your body, it will get your attention one way or the other.
Mine is screaming out pretty loud for me to take care of it.
So they say confession is good for the soul.
Today, I confess to starting a new way of life.
And I've carved it
in stones.
Showing posts with label memoir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memoir. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
The Cuckoo's Nest
If a house breathes with the life of its inhabitants then mine just exhaled. The occupation is over. My exile has come to an end.
For six months, my house was rented to a woman whose pent up nesting urges filled my home with so much stuff that not a single surface was visible in any room of the house.
She invaded my cupboards, cabinets, and closets and co-mingled our belongings into a jumble of treasure and junk that looked like a packrat's paradise. Christmas decorations, religious shrines, seashells, and candles everywhere. An air of lunacy and woo woo hung throughout the house. She violated boundaries that any reasonable short term renter would find irrational. She replaced shelves of my books with her own. She moved or re- hung pictures and artwork on the walls, moved furniture into the garage, and lined the threshold of the front door with dead flowers.
In the front of our house, red, white, and blue bunting hung from the windows along with a Christmas flag. The yard was cluttered with angels, a gazing ball, and sea glass. Holiday confusion in the month of April. The neighbors were happy to see us.
I might have found within me the slightest bit of compassion had it not been for the fact that she had so violated my privacy. Now I realize that renting a house furnished leaves one vulnerable and I should have locked away every personal belonging - lesson learned. However, I had rented the house for months without incident. When I confronted her she responded quite matter of factly,
"I told you I was a decorator."
Silly me.
So this gave her the license to pull out my personal possessions and re-purpose them in unimaginable ways? In her mind it did.
It was both fascinating and disturbing - like looking into one of those warped mirrors in the fun house.
A wacky way of seeing the world.
It was my housekeeper, though, who said it best in a text message to me:
"Your house need you."
I realized it really wasn't the things that bothered me. It was her presumption and invasion of my space that got to me. When I suggested I go through the house to separate my things from hers so as not to have my things unintentionally packed up with hers when she moved out, she said she did not want her house dismantled.
Her house?
She, who had already dismantled my house?
Wars are fought over territory. These were fighting words and any shred of compassion on my part went out the bunting-draped window. I had reached my limit. I was at the end of my patience.
All of a sudden, the crystal heart given to me by a friend, that had been carried from the dining room side-board drawer up the stairs to the back of the house and placed in the little marble box from a bookshelf in the office and then moved into the back bedroom to be displayed on a dresser with her rosary beads became a symbol for the whole mess.
She had touched, searched, foraged, and moved nearly every single item in my house and it flat out made me mad.
She had to go.
And I needed to come home.
All's well that ends well. I have reclaimed my house and my table tops. My rooms have been put back in order. The bunting is down and probably won't see the light of day for another year. The neighbors have seen enough of it.
As for the crystal heart -
it will always be a reminder that
Home is where the heart is!
For six months, my house was rented to a woman whose pent up nesting urges filled my home with so much stuff that not a single surface was visible in any room of the house.
She invaded my cupboards, cabinets, and closets and co-mingled our belongings into a jumble of treasure and junk that looked like a packrat's paradise. Christmas decorations, religious shrines, seashells, and candles everywhere. An air of lunacy and woo woo hung throughout the house. She violated boundaries that any reasonable short term renter would find irrational. She replaced shelves of my books with her own. She moved or re- hung pictures and artwork on the walls, moved furniture into the garage, and lined the threshold of the front door with dead flowers.
In the front of our house, red, white, and blue bunting hung from the windows along with a Christmas flag. The yard was cluttered with angels, a gazing ball, and sea glass. Holiday confusion in the month of April. The neighbors were happy to see us.
I might have found within me the slightest bit of compassion had it not been for the fact that she had so violated my privacy. Now I realize that renting a house furnished leaves one vulnerable and I should have locked away every personal belonging - lesson learned. However, I had rented the house for months without incident. When I confronted her she responded quite matter of factly,
"I told you I was a decorator."
Silly me.
So this gave her the license to pull out my personal possessions and re-purpose them in unimaginable ways? In her mind it did.
It was both fascinating and disturbing - like looking into one of those warped mirrors in the fun house.
A wacky way of seeing the world.
It was my housekeeper, though, who said it best in a text message to me:
"Your house need you."
I realized it really wasn't the things that bothered me. It was her presumption and invasion of my space that got to me. When I suggested I go through the house to separate my things from hers so as not to have my things unintentionally packed up with hers when she moved out, she said she did not want her house dismantled.
Her house?
She, who had already dismantled my house?
Wars are fought over territory. These were fighting words and any shred of compassion on my part went out the bunting-draped window. I had reached my limit. I was at the end of my patience.
All of a sudden, the crystal heart given to me by a friend, that had been carried from the dining room side-board drawer up the stairs to the back of the house and placed in the little marble box from a bookshelf in the office and then moved into the back bedroom to be displayed on a dresser with her rosary beads became a symbol for the whole mess.
She had touched, searched, foraged, and moved nearly every single item in my house and it flat out made me mad.
She had to go.
And I needed to come home.
All's well that ends well. I have reclaimed my house and my table tops. My rooms have been put back in order. The bunting is down and probably won't see the light of day for another year. The neighbors have seen enough of it.
As for the crystal heart -
it will always be a reminder that
Home is where the heart is!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Musical Memories
Whenever My Fair Lady plays on my stereo (or now on my ipod) I am always taken back to being six-years- old and going to see the movie version of the Lerner and Loewe musical with my father. He took me because I was infuriated that Audrey Hepburn had beaten Julie Andrews out for the Academy Award that year. I could not imagine how Eliza Doolittle could possibly have been better than Mary Poppins! Daddy took me to the movie because he wanted me to see what was so special about My Fair Lady.
I had seen Mary Poppins for my 6th birthday. It was a memorable birthday all round. After attending Mary Poppins, I came down with a case of lice - much to my mother's horror. I remember sitting in the living room of our home, Mother picking through my hair with some ghastly medicine burning my scalp - the both of us crying all the while. But I digress.
I recall sitting transfixed through My Fair Lady and can say that it was quite possibly the moment I fell in love with musical theatre. I remember bounding through the front door of our house on Resh Place and reciting Henry Higgins' famous "Damn, damn, damn, damn" to my mother and not getting in trouble for cursing - "I've grown accustomed to her face..." what a line! What a moment. My heart was utterly captured and the course of my life was set.
The role of Eliza eluded me as a performer, but I still have every word of the score memorized as if I'd played her. In fact, it will always be the role that got away.
Funny how those roles stay with us. Last night I saw the movie Quartet. It is a charming film about a group of aging singers and musicians who live together in a retirement home for musicians in England. As I sat in the audience, I couldn't help thinking of how I'd fallen in love with My Fair Lady at six and how I was sitting in another movie theatre forty-seven years later, gray and vocally out of shape, watching these grand thespians, opera singers, and musicians still clinging to their favorite roles, reciting the number of curtain calls they'd taken. Roles that last a life time.
It is touching and life affirming. I fell in love with the theatre all over again. The passion, the eccentricity, the ego, the pride, and the poignancy of the inevitable passage of time reflected in dressing room mirrors and shaky soprano voices.
I adore the bigness of personality and the joy that comes from a line, verse, or chorus belted out by a group of performers gathered around a piano.
To this day, I hear the swelling of those strings at the end of "I Could Have Danced All Night," and my heart soars, my throat tightens and my eyes brim with tears. Sitting in that movie theatre last night, watching Quartet, I was grateful that Daddy had taken me to see My Fair Lady when I was six- years -old.
I am grateful that I have spent my life loving musical theatre.
I had seen Mary Poppins for my 6th birthday. It was a memorable birthday all round. After attending Mary Poppins, I came down with a case of lice - much to my mother's horror. I remember sitting in the living room of our home, Mother picking through my hair with some ghastly medicine burning my scalp - the both of us crying all the while. But I digress.
I recall sitting transfixed through My Fair Lady and can say that it was quite possibly the moment I fell in love with musical theatre. I remember bounding through the front door of our house on Resh Place and reciting Henry Higgins' famous "Damn, damn, damn, damn" to my mother and not getting in trouble for cursing - "I've grown accustomed to her face..." what a line! What a moment. My heart was utterly captured and the course of my life was set.
The role of Eliza eluded me as a performer, but I still have every word of the score memorized as if I'd played her. In fact, it will always be the role that got away.
Funny how those roles stay with us. Last night I saw the movie Quartet. It is a charming film about a group of aging singers and musicians who live together in a retirement home for musicians in England. As I sat in the audience, I couldn't help thinking of how I'd fallen in love with My Fair Lady at six and how I was sitting in another movie theatre forty-seven years later, gray and vocally out of shape, watching these grand thespians, opera singers, and musicians still clinging to their favorite roles, reciting the number of curtain calls they'd taken. Roles that last a life time.
It is touching and life affirming. I fell in love with the theatre all over again. The passion, the eccentricity, the ego, the pride, and the poignancy of the inevitable passage of time reflected in dressing room mirrors and shaky soprano voices.
I adore the bigness of personality and the joy that comes from a line, verse, or chorus belted out by a group of performers gathered around a piano.
To this day, I hear the swelling of those strings at the end of "I Could Have Danced All Night," and my heart soars, my throat tightens and my eyes brim with tears. Sitting in that movie theatre last night, watching Quartet, I was grateful that Daddy had taken me to see My Fair Lady when I was six- years -old.
I am grateful that I have spent my life loving musical theatre.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Amour Up Close and Personal
I recently saw the film, Amour directed by Michael Haneke. This exquisitely crafted, unsentimental, and honest look at caregiving and the end of life made me nod my head more than it made me wipe a tear. In fact, I didn't shed one. I found myself more often thinking, "Yes, that's right. That's the way it is." I would upon occasion grimace at a scene remembering my own experience as a caregiver. The story of Amour is direct and accurate. Hearing the character Anne's cry from the shower "hurts" made me shudder recalling standing outside of my mother's door hearing her cry out "cold" as the nurse struggled with nozzle in hand. Watching the nurse give the character Georges, instructions on turning and sheet pulling brought me back to my brother's bedside as he lay helpless, dependent on the kindness of strangers and the love of family.
The serious and at times empty look in the husband's eyes - whose days had become about diapers and feedings - eyes behind which conflicted, unimaginable thoughts dwell in hopeless resignation. "Yes," I nodded. Those were my eyes. My thoughts.
The pacing of the spoon to the mouth. The slow, labored swallow. The boredom of the fixation on how many spoonfuls went down. The fumbled aim. The tight lips refusing another bite. The impatient jamming of just one more. "Yes," I nodded. I, too, pushed the spoon just that way and felt the frustration of the turned head and the terror of the anger that bubbled up within me. Complete control and complete lack of control collide in those tiny moments bringing life into focus in a frame so small it is no wonder it was so readily captured in the film, Amour. At the bedside, life becomes a series of close ups.
The tenderness, the humility, the dependence, the humanity, the exhaustion, the struggle - it is all there to see - raw and true through the camera's lens and in the hands of a masterful, courageous storyteller.
The bedside is its own world. It can be a lonely place.
Even the cruelty of indifference and the insensitivity of a callous caregiver is captured. I recalled my own vigilance and authority as I monitored the actions of hired help. The bed must be supervised, dignity protected, and personhood preserved no matter how diminished it may appear. Caring for the dying is not a job. It is a calling. And not all are called to do the job.
Upon occasion, the window opens allowing mystery and mysticism to bring a renewed sense of awe when the meaning of life and the journey to death all seem sacred and where birds lead the way to a crematorium or bring a message of comfort. Yes, that too, I experienced. Again, I nodded. This is a film for anyone who has been there. This is a film that will open the eyes of anyone who hasn't.
It is not a good time.
It is a good film.
I emerged from the theatre, dry eyed, somber, and grateful. While the bedside has brought me to my knees in anguish it has also taught me the greatest lessons in life. We don't talk about it over dinner or polite conversation but my experience with death has made me the person I am today. To understand me is to understand that I have pulled the dentures out of my mother's mouth to brush them and have wiped my brother's bottom and held both of their hands as they drew their last breath. This is not a badge of honor. This is life in close up. I am grateful to have been able to identify with this film so personally. It reminded me of where I have been. It reminded me that we are much stronger than we ever imagine ourselves to be. It reminded me of the hospice workers who face this story every day.
It reminded me that at the end of life, compassion, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, patience, humility, and gratitude are essential compass points.
But the one true guide is amour.
The serious and at times empty look in the husband's eyes - whose days had become about diapers and feedings - eyes behind which conflicted, unimaginable thoughts dwell in hopeless resignation. "Yes," I nodded. Those were my eyes. My thoughts.
The pacing of the spoon to the mouth. The slow, labored swallow. The boredom of the fixation on how many spoonfuls went down. The fumbled aim. The tight lips refusing another bite. The impatient jamming of just one more. "Yes," I nodded. I, too, pushed the spoon just that way and felt the frustration of the turned head and the terror of the anger that bubbled up within me. Complete control and complete lack of control collide in those tiny moments bringing life into focus in a frame so small it is no wonder it was so readily captured in the film, Amour. At the bedside, life becomes a series of close ups.
The tenderness, the humility, the dependence, the humanity, the exhaustion, the struggle - it is all there to see - raw and true through the camera's lens and in the hands of a masterful, courageous storyteller.
The bedside is its own world. It can be a lonely place.
Even the cruelty of indifference and the insensitivity of a callous caregiver is captured. I recalled my own vigilance and authority as I monitored the actions of hired help. The bed must be supervised, dignity protected, and personhood preserved no matter how diminished it may appear. Caring for the dying is not a job. It is a calling. And not all are called to do the job.
Upon occasion, the window opens allowing mystery and mysticism to bring a renewed sense of awe when the meaning of life and the journey to death all seem sacred and where birds lead the way to a crematorium or bring a message of comfort. Yes, that too, I experienced. Again, I nodded. This is a film for anyone who has been there. This is a film that will open the eyes of anyone who hasn't.
It is not a good time.
It is a good film.
I emerged from the theatre, dry eyed, somber, and grateful. While the bedside has brought me to my knees in anguish it has also taught me the greatest lessons in life. We don't talk about it over dinner or polite conversation but my experience with death has made me the person I am today. To understand me is to understand that I have pulled the dentures out of my mother's mouth to brush them and have wiped my brother's bottom and held both of their hands as they drew their last breath. This is not a badge of honor. This is life in close up. I am grateful to have been able to identify with this film so personally. It reminded me of where I have been. It reminded me that we are much stronger than we ever imagine ourselves to be. It reminded me of the hospice workers who face this story every day.
It reminded me that at the end of life, compassion, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, patience, humility, and gratitude are essential compass points.
But the one true guide is amour.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Home is Where the Pumpkin Is
I bought a miniature pumpkin the other day at Trader Joe's. Nesting urges. It is fall and normally I would be decorating my house with various Halloween themed stuff. My impulse to buy the mini pumpkin and to pick out a bouquet of sunflowers for my dining room table felt like home.
I have been splitting myself between two residences. Not living in either. Staying in both.
Temporary though it may be, time is after all, all we have. Why can't I settle in? The question has been plaguing me. As if settling in might mean it's not so temporary.
I haven't really cooked in a long time. I've defrosted meat and put it on the grill to barbecue. I've tossed salads and packed my lunch. I've opened containers of yogurt and poured granola into a bowl. I've brewed coffee and boiled eggs.
There's virtually nothing on the walls. I have no place to set a glass when I sit on the couch. I watch DVD's on a 12 inch TV we bought years ago for our boat.
Mostly I manage the liter boxes - one on the balcony and one in the laundry room. I've gone through three versions and considered for about ten minutes buying an automatic one. I settled on a covered style with a filter but I'm spending more money on liter than anything else these days - I've tried pine bark and walnut shells, clumping and non-clumping. I obsess on sweeping up and spraying fabreeze. The cats have definitely settled in even if I haven't.
Friday, I got a call from my bank telling me someone had hacked my account and was on a spending spree in Brooklyn. This, on the same day that the garbage disposal went out and the garage door wouldn't open. Home repairs never seem to go away no matter where you live. And money seems to escape the bank account one way or the other.
As one of my favorite songs by Mary Chapin Carpenter says, "Sometimes your the windshield. Sometimes your the bug." Guess which one I've been feeling like lately.
The good news is, I am very adaptable.
Down right unflappable.
I'm asking myself different questions.
Having a completely new conversation.
Although, my story does seems to have a thematic thread that continues to run through every chapter.
Letting go.
I'm quite practiced at it and getting more skilled at it with each passing day.
I'm just not sure what to hold on to anymore. What is worth holding onto?
When we were young and starting out, building our home for our family was the driving force. Putting down roots was never a question I had to ask. It was a natural outgrowth of our lives. We lived close to my mother in the neighborhood I grew up in. I knew where home was. I'd lived there all my life.
Right now, I think I'm a little lost.
I think, I'm a little homesick.
I think I'm going to go into the kitchen and cook some soup.
Not out of the can.
Homemade.
Time to settle in.
I have been splitting myself between two residences. Not living in either. Staying in both.
Temporary though it may be, time is after all, all we have. Why can't I settle in? The question has been plaguing me. As if settling in might mean it's not so temporary.
I haven't really cooked in a long time. I've defrosted meat and put it on the grill to barbecue. I've tossed salads and packed my lunch. I've opened containers of yogurt and poured granola into a bowl. I've brewed coffee and boiled eggs.
There's virtually nothing on the walls. I have no place to set a glass when I sit on the couch. I watch DVD's on a 12 inch TV we bought years ago for our boat.
Mostly I manage the liter boxes - one on the balcony and one in the laundry room. I've gone through three versions and considered for about ten minutes buying an automatic one. I settled on a covered style with a filter but I'm spending more money on liter than anything else these days - I've tried pine bark and walnut shells, clumping and non-clumping. I obsess on sweeping up and spraying fabreeze. The cats have definitely settled in even if I haven't.
Friday, I got a call from my bank telling me someone had hacked my account and was on a spending spree in Brooklyn. This, on the same day that the garbage disposal went out and the garage door wouldn't open. Home repairs never seem to go away no matter where you live. And money seems to escape the bank account one way or the other.
As one of my favorite songs by Mary Chapin Carpenter says, "Sometimes your the windshield. Sometimes your the bug." Guess which one I've been feeling like lately.
The good news is, I am very adaptable.
Down right unflappable.
I'm asking myself different questions.
Having a completely new conversation.
Although, my story does seems to have a thematic thread that continues to run through every chapter.
Letting go.
I'm quite practiced at it and getting more skilled at it with each passing day.
I'm just not sure what to hold on to anymore. What is worth holding onto?
When we were young and starting out, building our home for our family was the driving force. Putting down roots was never a question I had to ask. It was a natural outgrowth of our lives. We lived close to my mother in the neighborhood I grew up in. I knew where home was. I'd lived there all my life.
Right now, I think I'm a little lost.
I think, I'm a little homesick.
I think I'm going to go into the kitchen and cook some soup.
Not out of the can.
Homemade.
Time to settle in.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Mother's Birthday
Mother would have been ninety-five yesterday. The last rose of summer, she died on the first day of spring. The memory of her tiny, frail, withered end looms large. She wore out at ninety. All that fire doused by age, pills, and dementia, Mother's passing came in time. A full life - her story is one of survival and fierceness in the face of some of life's greatest tragedies. Her last chapter was difficult for both of us but looking back five years, I now see that it was full of grace. Her death was relatively peaceful - a liberation for both mother and daughter.
I was lucky to have such a mother. It is her strength that I look to now. Her ability to fight. Her optimism. Her practical nature formed out of necessity. Mother was ready for anything and could handle everything.
My father showed up in a dream I had the other night. He seemed so distant. A long-ago memory of a figure from my childhood, he seemed for the first time in my life, insignificant. I've lived more than thirty years of my life without him. Life's real challenges started after his death so it is Mother whom I look to now as the model for living. Self reliance is something I am only now learning.
Work has always been at the center of my life. As a child, it was my parent's work in their business that was the dinner table talk. Work and home were intertwined. My father sitting up late at night hunched over papers, writing furiously in his large scrawl, taught me sales. My mother, up every morning to go into the office, taught me a work ethic and never to leave my desk messy at the end of the day.
Perspective is everything.
Thank God for my work.
Right now, my work is home. It is my salvation. It gives me purpose and meaning. It gives me security.
And if work is home then I know I will always have a place to live.
Mother worked all her life. Even after there was no office to go to, she worked at being Ga Ga. She was in the parking lot of my children's school waiting to drive them home every single day.
To the day she died, she worked at being my Mother. "Do you need anything?" she would ask from her wheel chair clutching an empty purse stuffed with Kleenex. "Do you need money?" she would ask. "There's nothing we can't handle," she would say while pointing her arthritic finger at me.
Right. That's right.
Her fierce, fighting spirit burns within me. Yes. There's nothing we can't handle.
Thanks, Mom. Happy Birthday.
I was lucky to have such a mother. It is her strength that I look to now. Her ability to fight. Her optimism. Her practical nature formed out of necessity. Mother was ready for anything and could handle everything.
My father showed up in a dream I had the other night. He seemed so distant. A long-ago memory of a figure from my childhood, he seemed for the first time in my life, insignificant. I've lived more than thirty years of my life without him. Life's real challenges started after his death so it is Mother whom I look to now as the model for living. Self reliance is something I am only now learning.
Work has always been at the center of my life. As a child, it was my parent's work in their business that was the dinner table talk. Work and home were intertwined. My father sitting up late at night hunched over papers, writing furiously in his large scrawl, taught me sales. My mother, up every morning to go into the office, taught me a work ethic and never to leave my desk messy at the end of the day.
Perspective is everything.
Thank God for my work.
Right now, my work is home. It is my salvation. It gives me purpose and meaning. It gives me security.
And if work is home then I know I will always have a place to live.
Mother worked all her life. Even after there was no office to go to, she worked at being Ga Ga. She was in the parking lot of my children's school waiting to drive them home every single day.
To the day she died, she worked at being my Mother. "Do you need anything?" she would ask from her wheel chair clutching an empty purse stuffed with Kleenex. "Do you need money?" she would ask. "There's nothing we can't handle," she would say while pointing her arthritic finger at me.
Right. That's right.
Her fierce, fighting spirit burns within me. Yes. There's nothing we can't handle.
Thanks, Mom. Happy Birthday.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Pink Flamingo Summer
My lack of roots this summer has had me less balanced than the one legged stance of the pink flamingos in my flower bed. I did not put them there. Someone else did. Their presence in my yard makes me feel like a stranger in my own home.
I left them there to help me detach.
I am as out of control as the croquet balls batted around by the wacky Queen in Alice in Wonderland. She used pink flamingo mallets as I recall.
Everything is topsy turvy.
We are playing by someone else's rules.
There is no point in trying to figure it out.
I look down the street like I've done every day for five years
but Savona Walk doesn't look the same to me.
Maybe it's because I'm preparing to have to let it go.
Maybe it's because there is such sadness at the other end of it.
Our time on Savona has been bookended by grief.
In between there was laughter and fun.
Life
in paradise.
But
When it slips from your grasp -
your home
your dream
your friend
you realize (again)
nothing lasts.
And so what does it matter?
Strangers stay in your home.
You move to a one bedroom apartment and pretend it's a boat.
And Pink Flamingos appear in your yard.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Wanderings
Director Anne Bogart says that "disorientation is good for art."
Her directorial technique, called Viewpoints has become for me this summer both a metaphor and a guide.
Recently I've been a tad disoriented. Like a gypsy, my personal belongings scattered in satchels, suitcases, and moveable crates, I wander from place to place seeking equilibrium, grounding, home. Uprooted and mobile, my adventure has spurred moments of surprise, insight, and the occasional sore back. Emotions ebb and flow by the hour sometimes. Frequently frustrated by not being able to find something, I realize that habit and comfort are twins. When forced to change our habits, we are uncomfortable. But it is in that very discomfort that discoveries are made. The looming question about whether the risk outweighs the gain takes on greater significance with each passing day. Patience and trust still tipping the scale while fear and uncertainty hang in the balance. Risk is a choice, sacrifice a by-product, and freedom a result if one can hold on long enough to see it through. This is the inner dialogue that runs through my head. What life and loss have taught me is that there is no one to rescue you. You must rescue yourself. Resilience is everything.
I spent nearly a week cast a drift in New York, walking the neighborhoods in the East Village, SoHo, and Chelsea. I elbowed my way through Times Square a midst hundreds of sticky, hot tourists, and found relief under an umbrella in Rockefeller Center as I massaged my aching feet and nibbled on overpriced hummus, while gulping an Arnold Palmer. Alone in the world, anonymously, I sat in on a talk by a casting director at the Atlantic Theatre Company in a studio full of young, aspiring actors hoping to become directors themselves. With no skin in the game, no delusions of discovery, I observed the speaker, wearing shorts and the casual confidence that accompanies one whose stories are laced with the names Bob De Niro and Sharon Stone. I left the room after the 75 minute talk, feeling better about myself as a director and teacher - a quiet, personal moment of acknowledgment that my life and experience in the theatre have added up to something. I may not be able to drop the names of famous stars, but I know I could have taught those kids a heck of a lot more about directing than what they got as they hung on to every word, digesting the "wisdom" of a guy who had little to give.
I crossed the street to the Chelsea Market and took in the sights of the beautifully designed space. My walk led me out the other end and up a flight of stairs to the High Line. At 7:30 at night, the air had cooled enough to make it a perfect summer evening. Romance was palpable. Lovers nestled and kissed against the panorama of a dramatically textured sky at sunset while jazz floated along the walkway scoring the scene like a Woody Allen movie. I don't think I've felt as much joy in discovering a place in my life. My heart soared, my spirit lightened, and I thought that without a doubt, I had found the happiest place in New York City.
The discomfort of a life in New York sans doorman, air conditioning, and lots of money is pretty tough to handle. Blocks to walk to the subway. The blast of hot air as you move below ground, the blast of cold air as the doors of the train open, the hassle of carrying everything from groceries to laundry up five flights of stairs to a hot apartment on the fifth floor, make daily life challenging. Not for the faint of heart to be sure.
But discomfort is good for art.
I took myself to A Streetcar Named Desire with Blair Underwood. An all African American cast was just too enticing for me to ignore even though my money might have been better spent on a Tony- winning production. My curiosity was too great for me not to go see how this classic Williams play that I teach every year was reinterpreted with a black sensibility. I was struck by the very startling discovery of humor found in lines that I had always read as pathetically tragic. Subtext obliterated, the text came through with astonishing clarity. Somehow, it worked. Not in every moment - but for the most part, I was able to accept what I was seeing. Interpretation, risk, and boldness of choice - daring to take on a play with the ghosts of giants hovering over the boards - Tennessee Williams' words came to life for a whole new audience. I got what I came for.
Flying home to not going home, I continued my journey of detachment. Tethered only to friends and family and a belief in the potential for small business and entrepreneurship, my adventure simmers deep within me. Punctuated by A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim at the Segerstrom Hall, my theatrical muse continued to be inspired as I listened to his sage words and basked in his quick and clever mind. Again, the take away for me was the willingness to risk.
Sondheim, on stage, quoted the late Oscar Hammerstein, "You must be willing to fall off the top rung of the ladder, not the bottom."
I'm not sure where we are on that ladder - so often a metaphor for "success". When the top of that ladder is still out of reach, there is no choice but to keep climbing rung by rung on the way to somewhere. One step at a time. Holding on. Risking the fall.
It's good for art.
Her directorial technique, called Viewpoints has become for me this summer both a metaphor and a guide.
Recently I've been a tad disoriented. Like a gypsy, my personal belongings scattered in satchels, suitcases, and moveable crates, I wander from place to place seeking equilibrium, grounding, home. Uprooted and mobile, my adventure has spurred moments of surprise, insight, and the occasional sore back. Emotions ebb and flow by the hour sometimes. Frequently frustrated by not being able to find something, I realize that habit and comfort are twins. When forced to change our habits, we are uncomfortable. But it is in that very discomfort that discoveries are made. The looming question about whether the risk outweighs the gain takes on greater significance with each passing day. Patience and trust still tipping the scale while fear and uncertainty hang in the balance. Risk is a choice, sacrifice a by-product, and freedom a result if one can hold on long enough to see it through. This is the inner dialogue that runs through my head. What life and loss have taught me is that there is no one to rescue you. You must rescue yourself. Resilience is everything.
I spent nearly a week cast a drift in New York, walking the neighborhoods in the East Village, SoHo, and Chelsea. I elbowed my way through Times Square a midst hundreds of sticky, hot tourists, and found relief under an umbrella in Rockefeller Center as I massaged my aching feet and nibbled on overpriced hummus, while gulping an Arnold Palmer. Alone in the world, anonymously, I sat in on a talk by a casting director at the Atlantic Theatre Company in a studio full of young, aspiring actors hoping to become directors themselves. With no skin in the game, no delusions of discovery, I observed the speaker, wearing shorts and the casual confidence that accompanies one whose stories are laced with the names Bob De Niro and Sharon Stone. I left the room after the 75 minute talk, feeling better about myself as a director and teacher - a quiet, personal moment of acknowledgment that my life and experience in the theatre have added up to something. I may not be able to drop the names of famous stars, but I know I could have taught those kids a heck of a lot more about directing than what they got as they hung on to every word, digesting the "wisdom" of a guy who had little to give.
I crossed the street to the Chelsea Market and took in the sights of the beautifully designed space. My walk led me out the other end and up a flight of stairs to the High Line. At 7:30 at night, the air had cooled enough to make it a perfect summer evening. Romance was palpable. Lovers nestled and kissed against the panorama of a dramatically textured sky at sunset while jazz floated along the walkway scoring the scene like a Woody Allen movie. I don't think I've felt as much joy in discovering a place in my life. My heart soared, my spirit lightened, and I thought that without a doubt, I had found the happiest place in New York City.
The discomfort of a life in New York sans doorman, air conditioning, and lots of money is pretty tough to handle. Blocks to walk to the subway. The blast of hot air as you move below ground, the blast of cold air as the doors of the train open, the hassle of carrying everything from groceries to laundry up five flights of stairs to a hot apartment on the fifth floor, make daily life challenging. Not for the faint of heart to be sure.
But discomfort is good for art.
I took myself to A Streetcar Named Desire with Blair Underwood. An all African American cast was just too enticing for me to ignore even though my money might have been better spent on a Tony- winning production. My curiosity was too great for me not to go see how this classic Williams play that I teach every year was reinterpreted with a black sensibility. I was struck by the very startling discovery of humor found in lines that I had always read as pathetically tragic. Subtext obliterated, the text came through with astonishing clarity. Somehow, it worked. Not in every moment - but for the most part, I was able to accept what I was seeing. Interpretation, risk, and boldness of choice - daring to take on a play with the ghosts of giants hovering over the boards - Tennessee Williams' words came to life for a whole new audience. I got what I came for.
Flying home to not going home, I continued my journey of detachment. Tethered only to friends and family and a belief in the potential for small business and entrepreneurship, my adventure simmers deep within me. Punctuated by A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim at the Segerstrom Hall, my theatrical muse continued to be inspired as I listened to his sage words and basked in his quick and clever mind. Again, the take away for me was the willingness to risk.
Sondheim, on stage, quoted the late Oscar Hammerstein, "You must be willing to fall off the top rung of the ladder, not the bottom."
I'm not sure where we are on that ladder - so often a metaphor for "success". When the top of that ladder is still out of reach, there is no choice but to keep climbing rung by rung on the way to somewhere. One step at a time. Holding on. Risking the fall.
It's good for art.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Summer Memories
Fifty-two summers have come and gone since my birth and I have, for the most part, loved them all. From the time I was barely able to walk, the sand between my toes felt more natural than shoes. Those early summers were full of stories, sand castles, and swimming off of San Clemente. My father, tanned and shirtless, in his white denim levis rolled above the ankle, content on the edge of the shore with a giant fishing pole in hand, was my companion. My long, golden hair blowing in the wind, my hands bloodied by the worms I proudly threaded onto my hook, Daddy taught me to cast my line into the surf and to watch the tip of the pole bend with that first nibble. The waves washed over my feet as they sank deeper into the wet sand until they eventually disappeared. Each wave retreated with a whoosh across glistening flat rocks at the water's edge, reclaimed by the ocean, leaving only a trace of itself etched in a thin, sea foam pattern along the shore. The topography of my childhood - a map of my life.
As I grew, the seaweed flags atop sand castle towers protected by deep motes built with my father's hands as he wove yarns about my imaginary adventures with sand crabs named Sandy, Amos, and one named Johnny who was in love with me, washed away with my childhood.
Growing up as a teenager in Southern California brought with it bonfires in Doheny, the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach with a twenty-five cent admission fee, and body surfing in bikinis. With white zinc oxide spread across our noses, puka shell necklaces around our necks, and Hawaiian halter cover ups, we were the surfer girls the Beach Boys sang about.
It is different now. My skin, always quick to tan in summer, is blotched with sun spots that darken faster than my tan, an inevitable consequence of a life along the coast of California. Tanned skin may be out of fashion but my yearning to worship the sun is as strong as when I was sixteen. Only now, instead of baby oil, I lather expensive sun screen with SPF 30. Gidget, it seems, grew up.
But the inner Gidget still thrills when the sun breaks through an overcast morning promising the spirit of a summer day.
And I remember my father's hands, powerful in the ocean as he swam through the waves and his toes, sifting sand and hidden thoughts. Of my fifty-two years at the beach, my last memory of my father is from my twenty-second summer, staring into the fire, his thoughts unknown to me. Perhaps he knew it would be his last full day by the water's edge.
The sun never broke through that overcast August.
The waves crashed over the castle and my youth vanished into the sea.
But the ocean remains as constant as memory and tide. As my fifty-third summer begins - I am still happiest at the beach.
As I grew, the seaweed flags atop sand castle towers protected by deep motes built with my father's hands as he wove yarns about my imaginary adventures with sand crabs named Sandy, Amos, and one named Johnny who was in love with me, washed away with my childhood.
Growing up as a teenager in Southern California brought with it bonfires in Doheny, the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach with a twenty-five cent admission fee, and body surfing in bikinis. With white zinc oxide spread across our noses, puka shell necklaces around our necks, and Hawaiian halter cover ups, we were the surfer girls the Beach Boys sang about.
It is different now. My skin, always quick to tan in summer, is blotched with sun spots that darken faster than my tan, an inevitable consequence of a life along the coast of California. Tanned skin may be out of fashion but my yearning to worship the sun is as strong as when I was sixteen. Only now, instead of baby oil, I lather expensive sun screen with SPF 30. Gidget, it seems, grew up.
But the inner Gidget still thrills when the sun breaks through an overcast morning promising the spirit of a summer day.
And I remember my father's hands, powerful in the ocean as he swam through the waves and his toes, sifting sand and hidden thoughts. Of my fifty-two years at the beach, my last memory of my father is from my twenty-second summer, staring into the fire, his thoughts unknown to me. Perhaps he knew it would be his last full day by the water's edge.
The sun never broke through that overcast August.
The waves crashed over the castle and my youth vanished into the sea.
But the ocean remains as constant as memory and tide. As my fifty-third summer begins - I am still happiest at the beach.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Thoughts after seeing The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel
Strange not being able to see into the future. Not that one ever really can. We merely imagine a future. Even tomorrow is mere fiction. Yet it is the future we propel ourselves toward. A vision. An idea. A hope. A dream. There are those who say that the energy of creative visualization moves us toward that which we dwell upon. When dreams come true, life seems to have a perfect plan. In hindsight we see how everything in our lives aligned perfectly to bring us to that moment. But when they don't - we are thrust into the abyss of uncertainty as if we have been robbed of something we deserved. The notion that we "deserve" anything is problematic in itself. Did any of those poor souls from Syria who now sit in a tent in a refugee camp in Turkey have dreams? I'm sure they did. Have things turned out differently than they'd planned? I would guess so.
I just saw the movie The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel. The fact that I chose to see it on Mother's Day says something about the demographic I now find myself in. While there were many wonderfully delightful and touching moments in the movie - I think what hit me the most was that we must choose how we go on in life. Certainly there are some things we can't choose - things happen to us that we wouldn't have chosen - but having an attitude of adventure and an outlook that embraces uncertainty and insecurity certainly makes for a spirit of openness and a strength that I admire.
In the movie, many of the characters had lost something - their position, their savings, their spouse, their health, their sense of purpose. What struck me was how we spend most of our lives dreaming of a future of security and comfort. This expectation is bred and programmed into us. When our imagined future is dashed or taken from us we often feel cheated. What, after all have we worked so hard for? What do we have to show for all those years of work?
As if the privilege of working in and of itself was not enough.
Yes, the privilege of working. The privilege of earning. The privilege of innovating and creating. The privilege of opportunity.
We have come to rely so heavily on the dream of a secure retirement that we miss the point.
I don't know what the future holds. I only have imagined one. There is no certainty. There is no security. These are ideas. My expectation of the future is but a dream which may become reality or may not. It is in the making peace with that - that I think ....we are able to go on.... no matter what.
So much of our expectation for the future is tied to the desire for material possessions.
Yet once we get the thing - there is satisfaction for a while - and then the desire for something else comes in. This pattern plays out over and over again in our lives.
One of the characters in the movie says, "I don't even buy green bananas." She has come to that place of understanding that every moment - every day is a gift and so why not just enjoy it? Each of the characters in The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel is forced to face their imagined future and to own the truth of what it actually ended up being. And what it ended up being, was the present.
I'm going to take this to heart as we begin our grand adventure. Be here now. Wherever that is.
I just saw the movie The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel. The fact that I chose to see it on Mother's Day says something about the demographic I now find myself in. While there were many wonderfully delightful and touching moments in the movie - I think what hit me the most was that we must choose how we go on in life. Certainly there are some things we can't choose - things happen to us that we wouldn't have chosen - but having an attitude of adventure and an outlook that embraces uncertainty and insecurity certainly makes for a spirit of openness and a strength that I admire.
In the movie, many of the characters had lost something - their position, their savings, their spouse, their health, their sense of purpose. What struck me was how we spend most of our lives dreaming of a future of security and comfort. This expectation is bred and programmed into us. When our imagined future is dashed or taken from us we often feel cheated. What, after all have we worked so hard for? What do we have to show for all those years of work?
As if the privilege of working in and of itself was not enough.
Yes, the privilege of working. The privilege of earning. The privilege of innovating and creating. The privilege of opportunity.
We have come to rely so heavily on the dream of a secure retirement that we miss the point.
I don't know what the future holds. I only have imagined one. There is no certainty. There is no security. These are ideas. My expectation of the future is but a dream which may become reality or may not. It is in the making peace with that - that I think ....we are able to go on.... no matter what.
So much of our expectation for the future is tied to the desire for material possessions.
Yet once we get the thing - there is satisfaction for a while - and then the desire for something else comes in. This pattern plays out over and over again in our lives.
One of the characters in the movie says, "I don't even buy green bananas." She has come to that place of understanding that every moment - every day is a gift and so why not just enjoy it? Each of the characters in The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel is forced to face their imagined future and to own the truth of what it actually ended up being. And what it ended up being, was the present.
I'm going to take this to heart as we begin our grand adventure. Be here now. Wherever that is.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Moving Day
Wow. Been here before. Phew. Yikes. I wish somebody had a "how to manual" for this. Hmm...there's an idea. Maybe I will write it.
How to get through the day your kids move across the country.
The thing is, I've been doing this since 2003 when my daughter left for college in Washington State. You'd think I'd be used to it by now! I know the drill. The duffel filled with clothes. The boxes stacked in the hallway waiting to be shipped. The bedroom looking .... still...museum-like. All the stuff of their childhood staring back at me - as if to say, "Yes, it went fast. They told you it would. And it did."
This time is easier by a degree. The difference is, my son is not going off to school - he's moving to Chicago
for a job.
That sounds so.... so grown up!
Helloooo!!!
He is.
So I must behave myself. No big emotional scenes.
Be helpful but not overbearing.
Walk that line.
Not too much mothering.
Breathe.
I mean he is going to Chicago not Afghanistan. Keep this in perspective.
And I love Chicago.
I mean, hey, one kid in New York. One in Chicago.
Just keep those frequent flyer points coming.
I've spent a lot of time booking flights over the years for my kids.
For her
Four years back and forth
Off to college at UW
Long Beach to Seattle
Seattle to Long Beach
Study Abroad
LAX to Prague
Prague to LAX
LAX to Paris
Paris to LAX
Back to UW
LAX to Seattle
Seattle to Long Beach.
Home for two years
Off to NYU
Back and forth
Long Beach to JFK
JFK to Long Beach.
Long Beach to JFK
For him
Off to college at Villanova
OC to Philly
Philly to OC
OC to Philly
Philly to USC - I mean OC
Today, a new route.
LAX to Chicago.
So the nest will officially be empty as of today.
Their rooms are here for when they come "back to California" for a visit.
Thanks, Steve Jobs, for face time.
Right now at this juncture, I realize how important it is to marry the right person and have a life of your own!
When the child-rearing, college -commuting, twenty-something -gypsy-parent-stage is over -
it's back to where you started - only a little older, grayer, rounder, and wiser.
So tonight, we head off to a party with some friends from college.
Misery loves company.
How to get through the day your kids move across the country.
The thing is, I've been doing this since 2003 when my daughter left for college in Washington State. You'd think I'd be used to it by now! I know the drill. The duffel filled with clothes. The boxes stacked in the hallway waiting to be shipped. The bedroom looking .... still...museum-like. All the stuff of their childhood staring back at me - as if to say, "Yes, it went fast. They told you it would. And it did."
This time is easier by a degree. The difference is, my son is not going off to school - he's moving to Chicago
for a job.
That sounds so.... so grown up!
Helloooo!!!
He is.
So I must behave myself. No big emotional scenes.
Be helpful but not overbearing.
Walk that line.
Not too much mothering.
Breathe.
I mean he is going to Chicago not Afghanistan. Keep this in perspective.
And I love Chicago.
I mean, hey, one kid in New York. One in Chicago.
Just keep those frequent flyer points coming.
I've spent a lot of time booking flights over the years for my kids.
For her
Four years back and forth
Off to college at UW
Long Beach to Seattle
Seattle to Long Beach
Study Abroad
LAX to Prague
Prague to LAX
LAX to Paris
Paris to LAX
Back to UW
LAX to Seattle
Seattle to Long Beach.
Home for two years
Off to NYU
Back and forth
Long Beach to JFK
JFK to Long Beach.
Long Beach to JFK
For him
Off to college at Villanova
OC to Philly
Philly to OC
OC to Philly
Philly to USC - I mean OC
Today, a new route.
LAX to Chicago.
So the nest will officially be empty as of today.
Their rooms are here for when they come "back to California" for a visit.
Thanks, Steve Jobs, for face time.
Right now at this juncture, I realize how important it is to marry the right person and have a life of your own!
When the child-rearing, college -commuting, twenty-something -gypsy-parent-stage is over -
it's back to where you started - only a little older, grayer, rounder, and wiser.
So tonight, we head off to a party with some friends from college.
Misery loves company.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
On Being Useful
Mother took a nap almost every afternoon on the couch in our living room. Wearing a snap-front, cotton, permanent press house coat, her twisted, arthritic feet crossed at the ankle, she lay, her hand at her neck, her toes wiggling slowly in rhythm to the tugging of the loose skin under her chin. Toes so crippled looking and skin so dry it was hard to imagine how once they danced in heels, her little foot, kicking up, proudly showing off the "Reid legs" - catching my father's eye.
Peering through the screen door, into the living room, I would see her there, a certainty of my life. The backyard pool, where we all learned to swim, glimmering in the background through sliding glass doors. It was a neighborhood where people grew up and didn't move far. At least I didn't. For long.
I stayed close to Mother. Two blocks to be exact. Home was a blend of the street of my childhood - Resh and the street of my children's childhood - Pine.
Whenever I approached the house, I was sure to find Mother - reclining on the couch, on a lounge chair, on her bed, a paperback in her hands. The TV Guide and her Beagle by her side. Sometimes the TV blared. Especially as she got older and her hearing began to go. The radio in the kitchen blasted news of traffic jams and pileups on freeways nowhere near us - but she never failed to report them. Ever vigilant. Ever watchful of potential threats - invasions - the weather- a full tank of gas and a full pantry her defense against impending doom.
She kept herself useful to the end even when, truth be known, her usefulness had run its course. In her mind, even after dementia set in, four words never escaped her vocabulary - "do you need anything?"
A mother's usefulness is on my mind right now.
My mother remained useful because I allowed her to be. I allowed her to continue mothering me even when I felt like I was being suffocated by her. Yet, Mother also had a way of keeping her distance. She was not an interfering mother. She was helpful. Sometimes too helpful - evidenced by a few shrunken sweaters. But there was overall a bond so intense and so practical that for the most part, it worked. For both of us.
Even at the bitter end, after four painfully difficult years of caregiving, it worked. I was able to be there in the end. No guilt. No regrets.
Just a chapter I'd prefer not to have lived. Cutting pills, brushing dentures, trips to ER, radiation for a skin cancer overtaking her upper lip, battles over the caregivers - it was a nasty time. My lower back perpetually out from hoisting the wheel chair in and out of the trunk and jutting my hip a certain way to lift her into the car. I have seen old age up close. I know what it looks like. What it smells like. What if feels like. I have walked the halls of an Alzheimer's facility, shoveled food into my mother's mouth, and held her hand, silently looking into her eyes for hours on end. There were days I was at the breaking point. A crazy woman. Me. Not her. But her too. A crazy combination. She didn't like it any more than I did.
And when it was over - it was over. We were both released from the bondage of those terrible days.
My father always said one of his greatest fears was that he would be a burden for his children. He dropped dead long before he needed to worry about that. Was Mother a burden? I would be less than honest if I said no. Mother was a heavy load during those years. Ninety is a long life. But to the end, she thought herself useful. And indeed she was. Her old age taught me an important lesson.
The lesson I learned is that usefulness, real or imagined, is the key to combatting the inevitable decline.
Mother needed me to need her.
I believe all mothers need to be needed to one degree or another.
A mother's usefulness does not necessarily translate into washing dishes and doing laundry as it did for my mother.
Sometimes, the most useful thing a mother can do - is let go.
Circumstances dictate choices.
They certainly did in my case.
I chose to stay close to my mother because our lives and losses made it nearly impossible not to.
But the lesson I learned is that a mother must be willing to release her children to their own destiny.
And her children must be willing to go.
Perhaps this lesson is one I was compelled to pass on to my children so not to perpetuate the legacy of a suffocating mother. I have been forced to practice what I preach. Both of my children have chosen to venture across the country in search of their destinies.
And as I remain behind it is up to me to find new ways of being useful. That is my job. Not theirs.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Browning Revisited
When last we were young
the world lay before us
the future everything
and nothing
unrealized dreams
propelling us into the unknown
when last we were young.
Once more
Once more
Once more
to be young
once more
before we are past
the possibility of our dreams -
Grow young along with me
the best is yet to be,
the last for which the first was made.
Our dreams are in our hands.
the world lay before us
the future everything
and nothing
unrealized dreams
propelling us into the unknown
when last we were young.
Once more
Once more
Once more
to be young
once more
before we are past
the possibility of our dreams -
Grow young along with me
the best is yet to be,
the last for which the first was made.
Our dreams are in our hands.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Power of Attorney
Getting Bob's signature for the power of attorney was an act of will, defiance, and mercy. I needed two witnesses so I called our family friend, Mike Kavanagh. He and his father came to the bedside. Mary Loyola, my friend and spiritual advisor, was also present. And standing by was the social worker from the hospital with the paperwork. Bob was incoherent. I spoke to him clearly and slowly and desperately about how important it was for us to have this paperwork in order to take care of his medical needs. With doubt in her eyes, the social worker said she wasn't sure Bob was capable of understanding.
"Bob, do you understand" I asked. He nodded slightly. "He understands," I said, utterly desperate and determined. I put the form in front of him. I jammed a pen into his hand. The pen waved wildly in the air. I looked up at the group assembled around the bed, feeling helpless and panicked. Mary Loyola, calmly and steadily, said, "He only needs to put an "X" on the signature line."
I grabbed his hand. The social worked watched with a look of concern on her face.
"Sign here, Bob," I directed. I pushed the pen against the form and guided his hand to make a faint, scribbled "X" on the line.
The social worker didn't say a word.
It was done.
Bob was released from the hospital to our care on May 23, 1994 - one month to the day after his admittance.
The day before, the infectious disease doctor, Mom, and I had stood in Bob's room. I had asked the doctor what the next step was. He'd taken me into the hallway away from Mom. "Take him home," he said.
"Home?" I exclaimed in horror. What do we do?"
"Nothing," he answered.
I glanced back through the door of the room. Mom sat in a chair looking at Bob. She had not heard my exchange with the doctor.
He then said the words that changed the course of my thinking and altered my understanding of life and death forever.
"If God would be so benevolent to take him sooner than later then that would be merciful."
I stood there, still not fully comprehending what he was saying to me. Finally in that hallway outside of room 603, I said, "You mean, take him home to die."
And the doctor nodded.
Then he proceeded to tell me about hospice and that the social worker would be coming in to see me about making arrangements. We would order a hospital bed. There could be in home care. Home hospice.
I took notes.
(Aria - A Sister's Journey With AIDS to be continued in next post - The Den)
"Bob, do you understand" I asked. He nodded slightly. "He understands," I said, utterly desperate and determined. I put the form in front of him. I jammed a pen into his hand. The pen waved wildly in the air. I looked up at the group assembled around the bed, feeling helpless and panicked. Mary Loyola, calmly and steadily, said, "He only needs to put an "X" on the signature line."
I grabbed his hand. The social worked watched with a look of concern on her face.
"Sign here, Bob," I directed. I pushed the pen against the form and guided his hand to make a faint, scribbled "X" on the line.
The social worker didn't say a word.
It was done.
Bob was released from the hospital to our care on May 23, 1994 - one month to the day after his admittance.
The day before, the infectious disease doctor, Mom, and I had stood in Bob's room. I had asked the doctor what the next step was. He'd taken me into the hallway away from Mom. "Take him home," he said.
"Home?" I exclaimed in horror. What do we do?"
"Nothing," he answered.
I glanced back through the door of the room. Mom sat in a chair looking at Bob. She had not heard my exchange with the doctor.
He then said the words that changed the course of my thinking and altered my understanding of life and death forever.
"If God would be so benevolent to take him sooner than later then that would be merciful."
I stood there, still not fully comprehending what he was saying to me. Finally in that hallway outside of room 603, I said, "You mean, take him home to die."
And the doctor nodded.
Then he proceeded to tell me about hospice and that the social worker would be coming in to see me about making arrangements. We would order a hospital bed. There could be in home care. Home hospice.
I took notes.
(Aria - A Sister's Journey With AIDS to be continued in next post - The Den)
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The AIDS Doctor
According to The Body, The complete HIV/AIDS Resource,
Later that day - April 23, 1994
It was 5:30 p.m. The doctor had cleared the waiting room. We were in Garden Grove – a town that in 1994 felt a bit like being on the other side of the tracks. The neighborhood streets in Garden Grove had no sidewalk curbs and plenty of weeds. We were there because Bob had no health insurance. With the crash and burn of our family business, he’d been forced to give it up. Choices are limited for those with no insurance. Sitting in the waiting room with my nephew, Matt, and my brother felt like a cruel irony. As if we needed any further evidence that our fortunes had turned – our hope now rested with a doctor on Garden Grove Boulevard. The three of us sat and waited. Bob’s dementia was becoming more obvious. He babbled on making no sense. It felt like Matt and I were in an absurdist drama. There was a grave air to this waiting room. The door finally opened and out came Dr. Kooshian. One look at the doctor’s eyes looking at Bob told us that he knew what he was looking at even if we still didn’t.
He led us back into the examining room.
The doctor held Bob’s hand.
My eyes focused on the doctor’s hands. Those comforting, tender hands.
Man to man.
With their touch, I got a glimpse into my brother’s hidden world.
Matt answered the questions.
“Is there a partner?” Dr. Kooshian asked.
“Yes there is a partner,” Matt answered.
“Is he positive?”
“No he is negative.”
At least we assumed he was negative. We’d never discussed it. This conversation had moved beyond the boundaries of anything any of us had ever discussed about any of this. A family with secrets. Or perhaps, to be less harsh, a family that honored Bob’s privacy.
A family that accepted what was without judgment. What, after all was there to talk about?
Until now.
A partner of over twenty-five years. Healthy.
We had no way of explaining this. Answering for this. Bob’s dementia had made Matt the spokesman for the family.
“Symptoms?” Dr. Kooshian asked.
The list went on.
“Memory loss, head aches, weight loss, shortness of breath, purple spots on his feet, cramping, unquenchable thirst…”
The doctor examines Bob.
Matt’s eyes meet mine as we watch. We look at Bob. We look at each other. We want answers.
The doctor tells Matt and I to go into his office. Bob stays in the examining room.
The doctor tells us that Bob has pneumonia/ cancer/ possibly Toxoplasmosis/ possibly Meningitis/ possibly TB/ Kaposi Sarcoma.
He defines terms: T-Cells, CD 4 Cells
Matt and I sit, pens in hand ready to take notes.
Matt writes three words and stops.
“Dad has cancer.”
“How long does he have?” Matt asks.
The doctor says anywhere from two years to three months.
And then he asks, “Why did it take you so long to bring him in?”
This is a question we cannot answer.
This is a question we will never be able to answer.
This is a question for Bob. But it was too late for him to answer.
“He needs to go to the hospital immediately,” the doctor said.
“There is a problem,” I say.
“Bob has no insurance.”
So the doctor arranges admission as an indigent.
The hospital is next door. We just need to walk him over. Matt and I take Bob’s arms and slowly shuffle to the elevator.
Bob sucks in air. Exhausted.
We sit him on a couch in the lobby of the doctor’s office and Matt goes to find a wheel chair.
Bob’s feet cramp.
I massage them.
We get to the emergency room 7:00 p.m.
We’re starving. It’s going to be a while. I run to Carl’s, Jr. Bob doesn’t eat. I devour my burger.
Bob’s feet cramp.
Matt takes one of Bob’s feet and I take the other and we massage them.
I think, O.K. now what do we do?
“Bob,” I ask, “where is your birth certificate?” It seemed any time there was official business, a person needed their birth certificate. I figured I would need his driver’s license. His social security card.
Bob’s feet cramp.
Matt holds a Carl’s Jr. cup full of ice to them. The cold helps.
“In my closet in the metal case,” he tells me. A moment of lucidity.
Three hours later, Bob is rolled by gurney to room 603.
The nurse shows him the controls on his bed.
Our walk to the elevator in the doctor’s office would turn out to be Bob’s last.
It would be one month before he was released from the hospital.
(Aria-A Sister's Journey With AIDS to be continued in next post The Hospital)
At the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) was rapidly recognized as the most frequent and severe respiratory invifecion in HIV-positive patients. Between 1990 and 1997, PCP remained indicative of AIDS in more than 15% of the cases.
Kaposi sarcoma, a common cancer among people living with AIDS, was tied to the patients CD4 and T cell count.
Later that day - April 23, 1994
It was 5:30 p.m. The doctor had cleared the waiting room. We were in Garden Grove – a town that in 1994 felt a bit like being on the other side of the tracks. The neighborhood streets in Garden Grove had no sidewalk curbs and plenty of weeds. We were there because Bob had no health insurance. With the crash and burn of our family business, he’d been forced to give it up. Choices are limited for those with no insurance. Sitting in the waiting room with my nephew, Matt, and my brother felt like a cruel irony. As if we needed any further evidence that our fortunes had turned – our hope now rested with a doctor on Garden Grove Boulevard. The three of us sat and waited. Bob’s dementia was becoming more obvious. He babbled on making no sense. It felt like Matt and I were in an absurdist drama. There was a grave air to this waiting room. The door finally opened and out came Dr. Kooshian. One look at the doctor’s eyes looking at Bob told us that he knew what he was looking at even if we still didn’t.
He led us back into the examining room.
The doctor held Bob’s hand.
My eyes focused on the doctor’s hands. Those comforting, tender hands.
Man to man.
With their touch, I got a glimpse into my brother’s hidden world.
Matt answered the questions.
“Is there a partner?” Dr. Kooshian asked.
“Yes there is a partner,” Matt answered.
“Is he positive?”
“No he is negative.”
At least we assumed he was negative. We’d never discussed it. This conversation had moved beyond the boundaries of anything any of us had ever discussed about any of this. A family with secrets. Or perhaps, to be less harsh, a family that honored Bob’s privacy.
A family that accepted what was without judgment. What, after all was there to talk about?
Until now.
A partner of over twenty-five years. Healthy.
We had no way of explaining this. Answering for this. Bob’s dementia had made Matt the spokesman for the family.
“Symptoms?” Dr. Kooshian asked.
The list went on.
“Memory loss, head aches, weight loss, shortness of breath, purple spots on his feet, cramping, unquenchable thirst…”
The doctor examines Bob.
Matt’s eyes meet mine as we watch. We look at Bob. We look at each other. We want answers.
The doctor tells Matt and I to go into his office. Bob stays in the examining room.
The doctor tells us that Bob has pneumonia/ cancer/ possibly Toxoplasmosis/ possibly Meningitis/ possibly TB/ Kaposi Sarcoma.
He defines terms: T-Cells, CD 4 Cells
Matt and I sit, pens in hand ready to take notes.
Matt writes three words and stops.
“Dad has cancer.”
“How long does he have?” Matt asks.
The doctor says anywhere from two years to three months.
And then he asks, “Why did it take you so long to bring him in?”
This is a question we cannot answer.
This is a question we will never be able to answer.
This is a question for Bob. But it was too late for him to answer.
“He needs to go to the hospital immediately,” the doctor said.
“There is a problem,” I say.
“Bob has no insurance.”
So the doctor arranges admission as an indigent.
The hospital is next door. We just need to walk him over. Matt and I take Bob’s arms and slowly shuffle to the elevator.
Bob sucks in air. Exhausted.
We sit him on a couch in the lobby of the doctor’s office and Matt goes to find a wheel chair.
Bob’s feet cramp.
I massage them.
We get to the emergency room 7:00 p.m.
We’re starving. It’s going to be a while. I run to Carl’s, Jr. Bob doesn’t eat. I devour my burger.
Bob’s feet cramp.
Matt takes one of Bob’s feet and I take the other and we massage them.
I think, O.K. now what do we do?
“Bob,” I ask, “where is your birth certificate?” It seemed any time there was official business, a person needed their birth certificate. I figured I would need his driver’s license. His social security card.
Bob’s feet cramp.
Matt holds a Carl’s Jr. cup full of ice to them. The cold helps.
“In my closet in the metal case,” he tells me. A moment of lucidity.
Three hours later, Bob is rolled by gurney to room 603.
The nurse shows him the controls on his bed.
Our walk to the elevator in the doctor’s office would turn out to be Bob’s last.
It would be one month before he was released from the hospital.
(Aria-A Sister's Journey With AIDS to be continued in next post The Hospital)
Sunday, February 6, 2011
I've Got a lot of Livin' to Do
There's music to play,
Places to go, people to see!
Everything for you and me!
Oh, Life's a ball
if only you know it
And it's all just waiting for you
You're alive,
So come on and show it
We got a lot of livin'
Such a lot of livin'
Got a lot of livin' to do!
From Bye Bye Birdie
Last night, I sat in Disney Hall, and watched and listened to Michael Feinstein perform songs from The Great American Songbook. When he sang this song, I found myself moved and energized. An unlikely source of inspiration - and yet the lyrics hit me right in the gut.
I like it when clarity strikes. But when it comes whirling at you from the likes of a charismatic, piano playing crooner, it's simply thrilling. Michael Feinstein's enthusiasm is contagious. I might just as well have been at a tent revival meeting as Disney Hall.
As I sat in Michael Fenstein's audience, I was grateful that I knew the lyrics to most of the songs he sang. I knew the composers. I shared his passion for the music and appreciated his style. He brings together many of the elements of my life.
It seemed that growing up, I lived straddling generations - my parents were of the generation that lived through the depression and WWII. I came of age in the 70's. They were living the quintessential American Dream. They came from humble roots in Kentucky and Ohio and built their lives, their business, and their family on optimism and hard work. The songs that now are billed as The Great American Songbook provided the score for my parent's lives. And mine. While my friends listened to rock and roll, I listened to Frank Sinatra and musical theatre. The contrast between the music of my generation and my parent's separated me from my peers. I was older than my years because of the music I listened to. I was never completely sure in what world I belonged.
I belonged in the audience last night at Disney Hall. It brings me comfort to know that Michael Feinstein straddles those worlds. Somehow, I understand myself better watching him perform. I grew up around piano bars. My parents danced to those romantic melodies and said things like "They're playing our song."
My father had me singing Begin the Beguine, Summertime, and How are Things in Glocca Mora before I ever even heard of the Rolling Stones.
Maybe one of the reasons, A lot of Livin' to Do struck me last night is because it straddles those worlds too. Birdie was the first "rock and roll" Broadway musical. Tame as it may be, the very story line confronts the clash of generations through music. That song, coming out of Michael Feinstein brought it all home to me.
I'm finally old enough to be singing those songs.
Thirty years have passed since grief first came to reside in my heart. I was twenty-two. As I approach my fifty-second birthday, I've decided to adopt "A lot of Livin' to Do" from the musical Bye Bye Birdie, as my theme song for the next thirty (or for however many years I have left.)
"Life's a ball if only you know it...."
If only you know it....
A good reminder to "show up" to your life.
I am keenly aware of the passage of time. Every day I look in the mirror and see my hair graying more and more. My upper arms are starting to remind me of my mother's.
There are things I want to do. Places to go. People to see.
Just like the lyrics say.
You're alive so come on and show it. We've got a lot of livin' to do.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Musical Notes
I pull the red scrap book from the shelf in the garage. The silver fish that have made it their home scatter. I open the yellowed pages. There, tucked into programs, flyers, rehearsal schedules, dried flowers, and telegrams are the little cards that come in floral bouquets scrawled with pre-show messages in familiar handwriting.
I turn the pages. There - written in large, bold handwriting, are instructions from my father turned drama coach: Amy! Discipline!!! (underlined three times) and the schedule of our practices for The Unsinkable Molly Brown, thirty-five years ago.
Amy Darling We love you reads one in my mother's hand.
With you on every word and note tonight reads another.
But the one I seek is deeper into the pages.
To Amy who will make them forget Bernhardt, Duse, and Modjeska - Love, Bob. I was eleven.
Clever.
Yesterday would have been my brother's 70th birthday. I was prompted to dig in my garage to find some remembrance of him from my early days on the stage because I was imagining the card he would have written this month to his eldest granddaughter, Hannah who stars in her first musical as Anna in The King & I. I remembered that card and hoped it could somehow be re-cycled. It is, however, glued tight onto the page.
But it won't stop me from re-cycling the message.
My brother was always in my audience. And he will be in Hannah's. I will look up to the stage and see her through his eyes just as he watched me when I was her age.
As I turned the pages of my tattered scrapbook, memories of my family came flooding back to me. My brother's wit and keen insight. My father's direction. My mother's support. We may not have been the Barrymores but the theatre pulsed through our veins.
I need only open my scrap books for evidence of why I became a drama teacher.
Greater, still, to find evidence of a happy life.
I turn the pages. There - written in large, bold handwriting, are instructions from my father turned drama coach: Amy! Discipline!!! (underlined three times) and the schedule of our practices for The Unsinkable Molly Brown, thirty-five years ago.
Amy Darling We love you reads one in my mother's hand.
With you on every word and note tonight reads another.
But the one I seek is deeper into the pages.
To Amy who will make them forget Bernhardt, Duse, and Modjeska - Love, Bob. I was eleven.
Clever.
Yesterday would have been my brother's 70th birthday. I was prompted to dig in my garage to find some remembrance of him from my early days on the stage because I was imagining the card he would have written this month to his eldest granddaughter, Hannah who stars in her first musical as Anna in The King & I. I remembered that card and hoped it could somehow be re-cycled. It is, however, glued tight onto the page.
But it won't stop me from re-cycling the message.
My brother was always in my audience. And he will be in Hannah's. I will look up to the stage and see her through his eyes just as he watched me when I was her age.
As I turned the pages of my tattered scrapbook, memories of my family came flooding back to me. My brother's wit and keen insight. My father's direction. My mother's support. We may not have been the Barrymores but the theatre pulsed through our veins.
I need only open my scrap books for evidence of why I became a drama teacher.
Greater, still, to find evidence of a happy life.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
A Baby Boomer Comes of Age Again and Again
I remember when I got my own phone line in my bedroom.
A pink, princess phone with a cord just long enough to reach my pillow.
An ancient right of passage.
Busy signals, party lines, and parent's bellowing, "get off the phone" eventually were replaced by the beep of call waiting.
In the movie, The King's Speech, the impediment that might have remained a behind the castle -gate secret is broadcast live over the air waves thanks to radio.
Silent film actors, whose flickering, expressive faces
in black and white close ups
are catulpulted to stardom
then rendered speechless in talkies.
TV sets replaced radios.
Now my kids don't even own one.
They watch the computer.
DVD's replaced VHS tapes, TIVO replaced VCR's, On Demand replaced Netflix, Netflix replaced Blockbuster.
Why go to a reunion to catch up with old classmates when you can log on to Facebook?
Remember turning pages of a book?
Remember the feel of a glossy magazine in your hands?
Scrolling has replaced flipping.
Texting has replaced calling.
The wall has replaced email.
Twitter has replaced the AP wire.
Google has replaced the encyclopedia.
Spell-check has replaced the dictionary.
An e-card has replaced the Valentine.
I am convinced that I am the last generation to wash the black ink off of my hands after reading a broadsheet.
Gone is the blue ink stain on the inside of the middle finger.
I wonder if grammar will go the way of the palmer method? Who uses cursive anymore?
Phone calls to and from Europe were once considered an extravagance. My cedar chest is full of letters written on thin, onion skin stationary in envelopes stamped with Par Avion in red, white, and blue.
My scrap books are full of telegrams sent to me on the opening night of my plays. Break-A-Leg typed out on yellow paper with Western Union across the top.
My students now rehearse their scenes holding their droids.
I asked them to write down their notes.
Instead of a pen, they pulled out their cell phones.
I paused in wonderment.
Paper almost seems silly.
Remember when lap tops were considered portable?
Who needs one when you can pull out your ipod on the plane?
I remember growing up in Anaheim where Disneyland was just down the street.
The "Carousel of Progress" previewed the wave of the future - sleek, stainless steel kitchens with washing machines and dish washers.
Even Disney couldn't keep up with the rapid changes of this communication merry-go-round!
I'm still a Facebook hold-out. One of three I think.
But, like my parents who surrendered to the separate phone line for me,
I have embraced some of the new modes of communication.
Blogging has replaced journaling. It's easier on my pre-arthritic fingers.
Texting has become my communication mode of choice with my kids. An instant, in the moment connection.
But nothing will replace a good, long, deep, conversation, eye to eye, heart to heart, with old friends around a table where we can debate whether the tie will go the way of the hat.
A pink, princess phone with a cord just long enough to reach my pillow.
An ancient right of passage.
Busy signals, party lines, and parent's bellowing, "get off the phone" eventually were replaced by the beep of call waiting.
In the movie, The King's Speech, the impediment that might have remained a behind the castle -gate secret is broadcast live over the air waves thanks to radio.
Silent film actors, whose flickering, expressive faces
in black and white close ups
are catulpulted to stardom
then rendered speechless in talkies.
TV sets replaced radios.
Now my kids don't even own one.
They watch the computer.
DVD's replaced VHS tapes, TIVO replaced VCR's, On Demand replaced Netflix, Netflix replaced Blockbuster.
Why go to a reunion to catch up with old classmates when you can log on to Facebook?
Remember turning pages of a book?
Remember the feel of a glossy magazine in your hands?
Scrolling has replaced flipping.
Texting has replaced calling.
The wall has replaced email.
Twitter has replaced the AP wire.
Google has replaced the encyclopedia.
Spell-check has replaced the dictionary.
An e-card has replaced the Valentine.
I am convinced that I am the last generation to wash the black ink off of my hands after reading a broadsheet.
Gone is the blue ink stain on the inside of the middle finger.
I wonder if grammar will go the way of the palmer method? Who uses cursive anymore?
Phone calls to and from Europe were once considered an extravagance. My cedar chest is full of letters written on thin, onion skin stationary in envelopes stamped with Par Avion in red, white, and blue.
My scrap books are full of telegrams sent to me on the opening night of my plays. Break-A-Leg typed out on yellow paper with Western Union across the top.
My students now rehearse their scenes holding their droids.
I asked them to write down their notes.
Instead of a pen, they pulled out their cell phones.
I paused in wonderment.
Paper almost seems silly.
Remember when lap tops were considered portable?
Who needs one when you can pull out your ipod on the plane?
I remember growing up in Anaheim where Disneyland was just down the street.
The "Carousel of Progress" previewed the wave of the future - sleek, stainless steel kitchens with washing machines and dish washers.
Even Disney couldn't keep up with the rapid changes of this communication merry-go-round!
I'm still a Facebook hold-out. One of three I think.
But, like my parents who surrendered to the separate phone line for me,
I have embraced some of the new modes of communication.
Blogging has replaced journaling. It's easier on my pre-arthritic fingers.
Texting has become my communication mode of choice with my kids. An instant, in the moment connection.
But nothing will replace a good, long, deep, conversation, eye to eye, heart to heart, with old friends around a table where we can debate whether the tie will go the way of the hat.
Friday, December 31, 2010
The Christmas Ladder
Remember how I said December 26th was my favorite day of the year?
Remember how much I enjoyed the pause - sitting in the midst of wrapping paper and toys, cookies, fudge, and left over turkey?
How is it that a mere four days later things could be so different? December 30th hits hard.
I am on olfactory overload thanks to the once yearned for scent of the tree, mulling spices, and cinnamon that have permeated my house for weeks.
Forgive the unpoetic phrase, but the house looks like it threw up.
The charm of the nicknacks, nativity scene, and stockings has worn off.
I feel like a pack rat. I am being buried alive in stuff.
I walk into my closet and am instantly claustrophobic.
Away you embroidered Christmas sweaters and holly- patterned scarves.
The tree is turning brown and looks as if it would erupt into flames if I switched the lights on one more time.
It begs to be hauled out having served its purpose as the centerpiece of our living room for a month.
The candles are melted down to nubs.
The wax has dripped all over the mantle.
The wreath, once bearing fresh fruit and nuts, is now rotting on my front door having baked in the intermittent sun of this holiday season.
We are almost out of firewood.
I'm sick of the Spode and am ready to return to any color palette other than red and green.
The uneaten cookies are stale. The once melt-in-your-mouth fudge is hard as a rock.
My recycle bin is overflowing with empty boxes, tissue paper, ribbon and wine bottles - visible signs of overindulgence.
Once a four bedroom house, the guest room appears to have been swallowed whole. Where once there was a floor, only the frantic remnants of last minute wrapping remain - empty shopping bags and receipts strewn hither and yon.
The task before me is immense.
The attic ladder beacons leading the way to a hidden, hot space above my ceiling full of the boxes packed full of the stuff I had to take down to make room for Christmas. The pine needles will carpet the living room as I drag the dry Douglas Fir through the front door knocking the nutcracker over and breaking its little wooden drum. I will be numb to this. Semi-relieved that there will be one less decoration to box up.
"What else can I break?" I will think.
The fake greenery is unwrapped from the banister. The bows neatly rolled. I bubble wrap the bells, bowls, and butter dish.
I turn my attention to the dining room.
Suddenly, my task turns nostalgic.
Mother's slightly tarnished silver needs putting away. I pull out the heavy, monogrammed chest and piece by piece fit the knives, forks, and spoons into their slots. I see Mother's arthritic fingers setting our dining room table on Resh Place. An inheritance of riches - not the silver. The memories of meals and conversation around the very dining room table I set this year.
I move to the coffee table, where one of Mother's favorite decorations awaits re-boxing. The box still bears her Palmer Method hand written label - "Sugar Plum Tree" in felt marker.
I begin to dismantle the Christmas tree. I carefully wrap the ornaments from my childhood -all their names neatly written in white script . Elsie. Lee. Bob. Jamie. Luskey. And mine. It doesn't seem nearly as precious.
I remember Mother on the ladder in my bedroom handing down the boxes of Christmas decorations to my father. Mother had a certain way of decorating the tree - the size of the ornaments mattered...a rule I disobey. I remember the red, battery operated Santa Clause that went "Ho Ho Ho", and the plastic holly wreaths that encircled Bayberry candles until they caught fire one year and burned our yellow, laminate, 1950's vintage kidney-shaped coffee table in the den. I remember Frank Sinatra on the stereo loving his J I N G L E Bells ...oh.
I remember Daddy at the bar. Herring on New Year's eve. Party hats and noise makers.
I do not feel melancholy per se. I am simply aware of the passage of time - Decades of Decembers marking my life.
I am now Mother on the ladder.
My own children, grown, the magic of their own childhood Decembers moving to a place of nostalgia.
One day, they, too will hold the ornaments of their lives inscribed with my name and theirs and the memory of their own mother decorated house will come to mind. The time will come when they will climb the ladder and pass the boxes down to create memories for their own children.
And come December 30th,
they will sit amidst the chaos, wade through the mess, and recall the peace of December 26th as they box up another Christmas memory, and reach for the ibuprofen to relieve the back ache from too many trips up and down the ladder. A December 30th physical pain that gives way to something else.
A pain passed on through the years.
A pain I feel each December 31st.
A pain no ibuprofin can dull.
It is the sweet pain of Auld Lang Syne.
My Heart is ravisht with delight,
when thee I think upon;
All Grief and Sorrow takes the flight,
and speedily is gone;
The bright resemblance of thy Face,
so fills this, Heart of mine;
That Force nor Fate can me displease,
for Auld Lang Syne.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Through the Years We All Will Be Together
There is laughter in the air this morning. December 26th is my favorite day of the year. It's the day to wade through wrapping paper still strewn on the living room floor. It's a day to stack the opened gift boxes brimming with sweaters and tissue paper under the tree, pine needles, brittle, dry and ready to go, falling aimlessly on top of them. It's a day to play with your toys, listen to your new CD's or read the opening chapters of your new books. It's a day to eat left overs, burn a fire in the fireplace, and watch "It's a Wonderful Life" because on December 26th you remember that it is.
My children, nestled snug in their beds till 11:00 a.m. when I call out that breakfast is ready. Coffeecake, bacon, eggs, and toast with marmalade. I want this morning to last because there are so few of them like this. No place to go. Nothing to do but be home. Together.
I light candles, put the Christmas music on the stereo and we talk of the night before. The meal. The present opening. The wine. We are happy. Home is cozy. It feels like a big pot of hearty soup. It feels like a warm bath. It feels like the lyrics to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."
No tasks. No work. No to do list. No running around. December 26th is a day to recover from the rat race of the holiday season and to bask in the joy of our little family at the beginning of the last week of the year.
Contentment.
I pick up the bag full of wrappings and decide to move it from here to there. Enough work for today. Time for a nap.
My children, nestled snug in their beds till 11:00 a.m. when I call out that breakfast is ready. Coffeecake, bacon, eggs, and toast with marmalade. I want this morning to last because there are so few of them like this. No place to go. Nothing to do but be home. Together.
I light candles, put the Christmas music on the stereo and we talk of the night before. The meal. The present opening. The wine. We are happy. Home is cozy. It feels like a big pot of hearty soup. It feels like a warm bath. It feels like the lyrics to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."
No tasks. No work. No to do list. No running around. December 26th is a day to recover from the rat race of the holiday season and to bask in the joy of our little family at the beginning of the last week of the year.
Contentment.
I pick up the bag full of wrappings and decide to move it from here to there. Enough work for today. Time for a nap.
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