I have thank you notes to write, calls to make, people I should hug for 100 years, lovely people who sent wonderful things, beautiful pieces of art, music, prayers, offers of coffee and friendship. I’ll reply soon and acknowledge how much I appreciate you. I’m so sorry and I know some of you are worried and maybe even hurt. Please forgive me. I’m trying.
But what is it? I can’t move. I sit on the couch and look outside to watch the wind blow through the trees and I think, “Dad would have loved this garden,” and then I cry. Grief is nothing to trifle with and I’ll hold grief’s hand until he feels like moving on. We sit quietly together for long hours these days.
Mom sent me a small box of photographs and they arrived today. Going through them was wonderful, but now I can barely breathe.
Jim wanted to walk through a park with another couple tonight but I couldn’t do it. Some of it is also because my ankles creak and crack with arthritis and so I’m slow. It’s embarrassing to feel like an old woman. Sorrow and shame. Humiliation. He went without me.
On the other hand in the afternoons I sit in my wicker chair, right in the middle of the lawn, and water the flower beds in the sun. Sometimes I close my eyes and almost fall asleep. Sometimes the breeze brings mist across my face. It feels like a caress. I miss that kind of tenderness. I don’t feel it much myself these days, but I understand this is all temporary and tomorrow I’ll laugh. He’d eventually laugh if he were grieving me.
That’s all I’ve got. Here is a simple but beautiful song from someone hardly anyone knows.
June 10, 2009
Now That He’s Gone
March 10, 2009
Piles
I had a little relapse and spent yesterday feeling sick and miserable. Slept off and on all day and ate toast and drank a few glasses of protein water. Operative word: Blerg.
Today is a brand new day. Instead of dark and gray and snow flurries, there is sunshine and blue and a very cold breeze. Chloe has already been to the beach with Jim and me (thank you my lovely friend] this morning, but I feel like taking her again. She’s chewing up a barbecue tool while her car blanket spins in the washing machine. The television is on, but the sound is muted. I can’t stand anymore bad news.
When the blanket is clean and dry we’ll head back to the shore. I could stand another quiet day before I dive into a new plan.
Nothing has felt right. Nothing fit. I didn’t feel excited, not a bit of passion, no love, whenever I thought about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I did think about what I didn’t want. No cold calling, sales, high-energy, multi-tasking, rock n roll, get ‘er done and work my ass off because I enjoy making the lazy CEOs rich. I wondered about what was wrong. Was I way too past my prime? Had I become obsolete or at least irrelevant? Why didnt anything fit? Why did I feel apologetic? Embarrassed? Unconvinced and therefore unconvincing?
I don’t want to sell you anything. That’s key. On the other hand, I don’t want to feel like your underling. I don’t mind being helpful. I even think it’s cool to be a servant, but I don’t want to be a modern-day knave to any corporation/kingdom. For a while I wondered if there was something wrong with my attitude, but I understand it now. I come from blue-collar stock, at least partially. I also come from a group of brilliant thinkers, creative artists, and hilarious rascals. We make our own way. We were independent business folks, farmers, factory workers, think tank members, stay-at-home moms and entrepreneurs.
Follow your passion, was the advice. Horticulture! Web design! Writing! Art! But how do any of those become a new career for an already middle-aged woman? That’s my problem. That’s where I run into a thick brick (and ivy covered) wall. That’s where the jokes about mothers and old people on Facebook and riffs about age shut me down, and shut me down completely. Utterly, really. I mean it.
I hate being laughed at. I fear the inevitable snickers, snide comments, and assumptions about who I must be (for instance, I didnt know anything was wrong with Chico’s).
Here’s the thing. So what?
That’s all there is to it. So what? I’ll do what I love, go where I want to go, say what I need to say, love who I want to love, laugh when something’s funny, cry when I’m moved to cry and if that makes someone snicker, so what?
On another note: crocus!
A pile of things: The gigantic fallen branches are gone and the leaf mess is gone from the patio. Ferns are poking out, as are the tulips. Daffodils bloom. We need a bazillion pounds of mulch and pea gravel for the various paths. This year we should split the Hostas.
Clean and organize the office. Organize the art supplies, which is a never-ending clarion call. Make the two-headed doll and create a few more springtime cards. Mop the floor. Pre-cook several pounds of ground beef and freeze it.
These are wishes (like fishes) that may or may not get done this week, but I put them here in the spirit of hopefulness.
Have coffee with one old friend and a new Twitter friend that shares my love of gardening. Take that damned placement test I keep putting off because I’m terrified. Change the air filter. Make our bed.
My stomach is gurgling in protest, still unsure if she wants me to have a good day. Stomach doesn’t have much authority if I don’t fill it, so I won’t. She’ll have to go to the beach with me so Chloe can run with her friends while I watch the sun sent over the water and behind the Olympic mountain range. Thats the plan.
We’re off.
October 10, 2008
September 22, 2008
Notes
it’s dark outside and the air is cool. Jim’s taking a bath. I’m watching Heroes, but absent-mindedly (that’s not a word). I started fleshing out some characters yesterday. Katie and (the confused) Jon James. Eric Anderson of course and Cyndi the trailer trashy, bipolar, man-stealing whore disguised as the kids’ beloved aunt. I think I like Storyist. Maybe I’ll buy it.
I read an essay by Jim Wallis that included a “message from God” to Wall Street. It comes from the Old Testament. It seems like prophecy, but probably isn’t. I’m sure greed and avarice has been a mainstay of the human condition for as long as we’ve been on earth. The passage comes from Micah 2:1-4:
Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it. They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them. They defraud a man of his home, a fellowman of his inheritance. Therefore, the Lord says: “I am planning disaster against this people, from which you cannot save yourselves. You will no longer walk proudly, for it will be a time of calamity. In that day men will ridicule you; they will taunt you with this mournful song: ‘We are utterly ruined; my people’s possession is divided up. He takes it from me! He assigns our fields to traitors.’”
Mohinder Suresh is hot, I’m just saying…
Tomorrow: Finish the leasing spreadsheet, photograph the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom(s). Place the ads. Blinds? Fire/Safety system? Call the door company about the codes for the openers. Update my calendar. Walk. Refuse to buy a latte. Drink water instead.
Dig up the coneflower. Plant the coneflower into the ground. Compost, then mulch.
September 13, 2008
bits
We have two goofy little dogs. They’re Chinese Cresteds, but not the mostly naked sort of the breed. These two little lovelies are called Powder Puffs. The best description of their personality would have to be “clowns” and that’s all they live for. They love to love, need to see their people smile. Since we don’t own a herd of anything (except maybe shoes), we don’t need working dogs.
Their names are Heckle and Jeckle. They’re litter mates, both boys and they’re inseperable. Heckle is shy, leery of humans and only trusts my husband and I. He’s been this way since birth. We chose him because he actually chose us. Jeckle came to us a week later when the owner of the puppies called to see if we’d take him.
“My husband is being deployed. I’ll have to move on base and I can’t take him. I’ll give him to you for free,” she said. We couldn’t say no, so we didn’t. Jeckle is dumb. Very. He makes it up to the Universe by being very sweet, full of love for everyone. He didn’t know how to play. No matter how much we tried, he couldn’t figure out how to play fetch, never got the idea of “keep away” and wouldn’t wrestle a toy, nothing. Poor little sweet dumb Jeckle would watch his brother toss his toys up into the air without a clue.
Suddenly, he plays! We don’t know what happened, but he plays and wrestles, plays fetch and runs around the yard in with doggy abandon. Weird, but wonderful.
He injured his back last year and for a time was paralyzed. We bought him a little doggie cart but he wouldn’t use it. I had to carry him outside and hold him up so he could pee. He was smart enough to understand I was helping him, so he’d pee on command. Good boy. His back legs got better, although they’re stiff and he can’t jump up on furniture too well. Since that time, he plays! Did Jeckle feel like he was given a second chance at life?
In an hour, son and his wife will be here. We’re taking them to the airport for a 6am flight. “We don’t need dinner, Mom. We’ll eat before we drive down,” he said. (They live 1/1/2 hours away.) I’m making spaghetti anyway, just in case, because I’m his Mom and he likes spaghetti. So there.
We’ll light a fire outside and have an adult conversation for once. No kids. I can’t think of the last time we’ve seen them without their fantastic kids who happen to 
be our fantastic grandkids. The Boy has school, so the two lovelies are staying home with the Other Grandma while Mom and Dad go to Wisconsin for my son’s first art show – coffee shop style.
I still haven’t read the piece I need to read on economics. I need to understand how and why (well, HELL, I know why) corporations are changing our democracy into an oligarchy and what I can do about that.
In the meantime, I make spaghetti sauce and boil water for pasta. I water the garden (it’s warm today) and wait for our company to arrive. It’s going to be a beautiful evening, a beautiful night.
Morning
The hemlocks, wizened trees and so many, are wrapped in a wisp of fog and the morning feels unusually cool. It’s quiet in the neighborhood. Our next door neighbor is puttering on one of his innumerable cars (I think he has six if you don’t count the two four-runners he revs up every week or so), but he putters quietly, no radio and that’s fine because I’m listening to Radiohead and letting the melancholy wrap itself around me like a wisp of fog.
Our other neighbor’s daughter is having a birthday party today. She’s six and we’ve attended every birthday party since she was born. We’ve been told she loves Hanna Montana, so Hanna Montana stuff we will seek and buy.
I need to fill the pond and turn the waterfall back on – water the thirsty ferns. “Let’s cover the garden with compost this year,” I say to Jim right before he falls back into his luxurious Saturday morning sleep. We are sick of gardening work by this time every year, we neglect to do the important autumn gardening chores and instead let the perennials die their natural death, but we’ve invested blood, sweat, and maybe not tears into this place. Compost can’t hurt.
Maybe we can plant tulip bulbs before we cover the garden with compost. Maybe then we can plant winter pansies and carefully cover the rest. When the weather turns, we won’t go into the backyard much but wouldn’t the squirrels appreciate the color?
I hear laughter coming from another neighbor’s house. It’s a wonderful sound. Someone tosses bottles into a recycling bin. A dog barks, startled by the sound of breaking glass. We’re waking up. The fog begins to lift allowing the first morning sun to pour through the hemlock trees.
What i want to do: Read an article about economics. Put the drycleaned clothes away. Dust.
Coffee!
September 10, 2008
Selfish
I spent the morning moaning to my husband (poor man). “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to stay home. I want to take care of my house, cook healthy meals, bake cookies. I want to garden. I want to write.” I want. I want. I want. The fact of the matter is I’m being selfish. I’m ungrateful. I’m coming from a period of six months of my life spent without a job after my first layoff ever. I was frantic with financial worry. Finally after months of an agonizing search I found what I hoped was God’s answer to prayer and within three months, I am miserable (again).
What’s wrong with me?
I drowned my fears with a venti vanilla latte, hugged my husband goodbye and drove into the responsible day. I’m sitting at my desk, unable to focus. Function. Make. It. Work.
Last night I poured through dozens of blogs and I realized a few things: 1) There are many amazing women out there. 2) I am average. 3) I feel old and ordinary by comparison.
I think I might be lying to myself. There are many amazing women, to be sure, but no one is average. We’re all unique. We all have gifts. We have potential, much of it unrealized and that’s the crux of the problem for me. Because this job (this job that enables me to pay the mortgage and pay for the pretty Subaru I drive, helps my husband cover the rest of the bills) sucks most of me dry. Where is the expendable energy for “realizing potential”? How can I realize potential while unemployed (which would be the solution to my “I want to stay home and bake cookies” rant) and facing certain foreclosure?
I’m positive that Grandma didn’t think this way. She worked because she had to work. She held a job, baked, cooked, cleaned, and entertained her grandkids almost daily. She worked in a tuna cannery – hard work, and she was old. Her bones ached. Her body stooped as she walked home from her bus stop, but she lit up with joy as soon as she saw her grandkids waiting for her on the front porch.
I light up when I see my grandkids too. Maybe they’ll never know how I feel (unless they find this blog). Maybe my freedom to express myself is part of my own undoing and instead of whining, I should lean into my responsibilities and get them done. Accomplish good things. Work as if the working becomes the song.
Or something like that.
September 7, 2008
Hint of Fall
Today was an ordinary Sunday: Sunny after the clouds melted away, a little windy with a hint of fall in the air. The flowers are beginning to fade. Yesterday I cut the Monarda down. The Hostas are edged in brown and the Bleeding Hearts are gone.
My husband is a union guy and his union is on strike. He headed out early this morning to spend his obligatory four-hours on the picket line. The house was all mine (if you pay no attention to the two dogs, two cats and two very quiet fish). We had company coming for dinner, so I wandered through the house cleaning things off and on. The dishes and the countertop were the first to get it. I folded a quilt that’s been draped over the laundry sink for two weeks. I put a couple of guest soaps on top of the wall-mounted soap holder. I read three or four online articles about Sarah Palin (I still don’t like her) and drank a Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
We were having Martha’s Company Casserole for dinner. I made the sauce, put clothes in the wash, chatted with a friend, filled the pasta pot full of cold water and turned on the stove, decided I need more poetry because I’m running out of meaningful things to say.
I get this way every fall. I feel a loss in an almost inexplicable way and therefore decided while I chopped green onions to explain it.
This could be the year.
Jim came home and made himself a sandwich. We turned on the television and became captivated with the Ice Road Truckers marathon. I had no idea!
The olive-green bowl needed lemons and we agreed to have ice cream with the apple pie, so Jim drove to the store while I stirred cream cheese and sour cream into the cottage cheese mix. Green onions.
I arranged a bouquet of deep blue hydrangeas and fennel and made a smaller jar of mixed things from the fading garden: peach-colored roses, salmon coneflowers and a few small branches of Japanese maple. Verbena.
I wonder if we’ll survive this election. I’m stressed, worried, concerned. I obsess over the Internet and Digg up articles as if that will make a difference. My job. My job. My boss is extremely conservative – sends me news articles with the hope I’ll see the light – can’t meet my eyes anymore and I’m upset with this. He jabs at liberals. He pokes and then disengages, disappears into his own conservative thoughts. It’s all about the economy again, and I’m stupid.
We’re too polarized, too willing to believe the salacious stories, too satisfied with sound bites and unable to see life in anything richer than black and white. I tell a friend that I want to take a class (or two) on modern-day economics so I can understand where we’re going. I only get as far as the surface of things and long to go deeper. Is it too late?
Our company arrived. We were visited by Jim’s nephew and his fiancé, her little girl too, a precocious girl with long golden hair. Jim is making their wedding cake. We met to decide what they’d like and it was easy. They wanted something elegant and simple. Fondant-covered white cake with cream cheese and raspberry filling, champagne-gold ribbon and rosebuds surrounding the bottom of the cake. Four tiers.
His nephew read his poetry to us. It was beautiful and gut-wrenching stuff, full of longing and visceral pain. His voice cracked and my eyes filled with tears.
“I didn’t know you were a writer,” I said. All these years I’ve loved this young man and I just didn’t know.
I confessed to him, “I’m a writer too.”