When the weather goes from cold and snowy to warm and rainy, the air becomes thick with moisture as though the clouds have dropped to the ground.
Walking through the mysterious murk, we heard voices before we could see their source. Dogs popped in and out of the grounded clouds.
Last January, I claimed the word “focus” as my New Year’s vow, and some things are sharper today than they were back then. Yet I’m viewing the year ahead through a soft-focus lens. The changes and events to come are as foggy as these woods. I’m okay with that uncertainty.
If I learned anything from my year of increased focus, it was that the best, most memorable experiences came when I just let them, when I stayed in the moment and swayed with the wind of life rather than fighting it. My trip to Morocco is but one example.
Of all the New Year posts and articles I’ve read these past weeks, it is Dominique Browning’s words that I keep repeating over and over in my mind. She was recounting her year, “It was a big year. But every year is a big year,” she wrote. And then she said,
Every day is a big day. That is what we realize when we are older. That we are lucky enough—and that is all it is, plain dumb luck—to be here makes it a big day, a big year.
So maybe my “resolution” this year—if you want to call it that—is to celebrate my life and luck every day. I’m going to burnish my love for my family and friends until it is a beacon they will return to over and over again. I’ll make every day a big day.
The last time I saw my mother was the day I finished my junior year of high school. It’s been more than 40 years since I basked in the warmth of her smile, or heard her musical laugh. And even longer since we argued, but I still remember the last time she annoyed me.
She had neglected to compliment me on my newly acquired driving skills. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” I asked before tossing the car keys towards her. They hit her thin shoulder and fell to the garage floor. She looked at me, startled, her blue eyes filled with hurt.
She was dying and that made me mad. For the rest of that spring, I put my new driver’s license to good use, shuttling back and forth between home and the hospital every day after school.
She’s missed a lot. She wasn’t there for my high school and college graduations… or my wedding. She never met my husband or her two grandsons. And yet, after all this time, our relationship lives on.
Since her death, my mother has been with me many times — especially when I do things that she couldn’t. The first time I traveled to Europe with a friend, she was there too. She had always wanted to go, but because of my travel-phobic father, she never had the chance. On that first trip, I lit candles in churches all over England for my Jewish mother.
She made it clear that I was going to college. Trapped in a difficult marriage, a college degree, more than anything else, symbolized freedom to her. She badly wanted the ability to support herself, and she didn’t want me to be stuck, dependent —like her.
Each time that I checked a new accomplishment off her list —earning that diploma, landing my first “real” job, and renting my own apartment — I could almost hear her cheering in the distance.
Because she made sure that I got the extras, like music lessons and summer camps, my sons got them too, even when the cost seemed onerous. She’d be thrilled to know that one grandson recently performed at the Kennedy Center, and that the other is living and working abroad. She may be gone, but her influence still has legs.
Shortly before my 16th birthday, on a sunny, brisk spring day, she took me to a nearby shopping center to pick out a bracelet. We left the store with a one-inch sterling silver cuff that came in a maroon flannel bag. In my mind’s eye I see us talking and laughing companionably as we stroll from store to store.
I think of us together every time I wear that bracelet. The memory of that ordinary day—so long ago that it now seems extraordinary—reminds me to treasure every small moment I can snatch with my husband and sons.
She and I didn’t have a lot of tough conversations. I was rarely in trouble, but because she was my safe place, my comfort zone, I knew it was important to provide that space for my own children. I think, I hope, they know that they can tell me anything.
Often, I imagine her in the kitchen, cooking a meal with my younger son, who shares more than a passing resemblance to her father in both looks and spirit. Or joking with my older son, who always has a good story to tell, and whose big, blue eyes match hers. When I do those things, she’s there too
If she were still alive, my mother would be 92 this month. Even though she has been absent for most of my life, memories of what she said and did guided me through early adulthood, marriage, and motherhood. I am now seven years older than she was when she died. As I move through middle age and progress toward old age, she can no longer show me the way.
And yet, as long as I am alive, and still straining to remember her voice, and hear her laugh, the relationship goes on.
***
This post is part of a series about mother-daughter relationships published on “Daily Plate of Crazy.” Click here to read other posts in the series.
It has been nearly 32 years since my husband and I met at a neighborhood party. When we first started seeing each other, I had no idea where the relationship would go, but I suspected it would be an important one. I was lucky —we were lucky — to be in the same place at the same time, and in a situation that allowed us to connect.
Two years later, on a cold, rainy, November afternoon, we exchanged wedding vows.
I took the above photo while visiting some old friends whose relationship probably dates back to about the time I was born. I first met them when I was five years old, and they were a young, married couple with two careers, and one small child. Now in their eighties, they are, to all appearances, still good together.
It is impossible to know what goes on inside someone else’s marriage, but I’m guessing that they nurtured a healthy relationship while developing careers and raising five children by bending —sometimes towards each other, sometimes in opposite directions. Whichever way they curled, however, each knew that the other would be there to catch them.
When I was a kid I spent a lot of time at their house. Even with the chaos that comes with a big family, even if there was yelling, there were times when it felt safer than my own home across the street.
Ever since Paul and I have been together, home has been where he is, and there is no place I’d rather be. He is my best friend, my cheerleader, my teacher, my student, and I am all of those things to him. Even though we fill each of those roles differently, and life together isn’t always perfect or pretty, I am sure of our partnership because we discuss it often.
He can fix almost anything, including a sore heart. He holds my heart in his big, capable hands every day, gently, and with great care.
We are closer than those two pillars and just as strong. Our bodies may be less supple than they were 30 years ago, but in our life together we’ve become more flexible. Unlike those pillars, we are not made of stone: We can bend.
***
Friendship is also the topic of my guest post this week on Daily Plate of Crazy. Click here to read it.
Never mind what the dream was about. It could have been about so many things: my mother-in-law’s passing last month; my kids being far away; my own mortality, my husband’s, the dog’s… But in the moment of the dream I felt as deep and raw a sense of loss as I’ve ever experienced in waking life.
But then I woke up, and poof, the feeling evaporated. Soon after that, I realized that I haven’t heard the owl this summer. Usually I’ll hear him in the wee hours through the bathroom window, a muffled hoo, hoo, hoo, hoooo floating softly over the grass between our house and the woods.
His (her? their?) call has been a comfort these past 20 years. I first heard the owl a year after we’d moved in while I was in the midst of cancer treatments. That summer and fall, I found the nature here—the owl hooting from the woods, while I lay awake, feeling my poisoned blood pulsing in my abdomen, or a pheasant strolling across the lawn on a sunny afternoon when I was waiting for test results— to be comforting omens.
Being in nature grounds us. And, in fact, it’s good for writers. “Nothing coaxes jumbled thoughts into coherent sentences like sitting under a shade tree on a pleasant day,” writes Carol Kaufmann in last week’s New York Times, “With a slight breeze blowing, birds chirping melodies, wee bugs scurrying around me and a fully charged laptop or yellow legal pad at hand, I know I’ll produce my best work.”
I also heard writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben speak this week about why we must fight to prevent approval to complete the Keystone XL pipeline as one step in solving our climate crisis. He is so smart, so sensible, so inspiring, I hope everyone will join me in reading his new book, Oil and Honey: The education of an unlikely activist.
Nature is one of the things that truly matters to all of us, whether we know it or not. It is what binds us to this earth. We can’t live without it.
Now when I think back to that dream, I don’t worry about my mortality or my family’s — or even the owl’s, who if it was the same one, lived a good, long life.
No, I worry about the end of nature as we know it, and how little time we have to halt its decline. Not succeeding would be the greatest loss of all.
The past few weeks have brought hot, humid weather to the Northeast. Morning after morning, I hustle Karina along our customary walk, swatting away the multitude of flies and mosquitoes that swarm around us all along the way.
The heat and humidity make it hard to focus, and if I were to have a coherent thought, typing while my fogged-over glasses slide down my sweaty nose (and this is after a shower), is nearly impossible. To top things off, my computer went haywire, the cursor skipping around from sentence to sentence, clicking on ads and other links of its own accord.
I was wallowing. A lot.
It started in early June. A piece that I had put my heart and soul into didn’t get published when promised. It may soon see the light of day, but its timely lead is no longer timely and it is deeply personal. As more time passes, the more nervous I feel about people reading it.
As June progressed, and the weather got hotter and hotter, I deflated and drooped a little more each day. Pretty soon I was comparing my publishing success to that of others….always a sure road to nowhere.
To be fair, June has a history of being difficult. It is a month of anniversaries that clearly demarcate the all-too-swift passage of time. Forty-one years since I became motherless, and 30 years since I became a mother. Yes, I have a child who is 30 years old. That particular anniversary, more than the other one, hit me hard this year.
In mid- June I pulled some muscle or other in my thigh. Swimming and walking are fine, but rooting around in the garden isn’t possible, and so, I’m letting it go feral this summer. Like everywhere else, it’s too hot and buggy in there anyway.
As if I weren’t already feeling decrepit enough, my dermatologist implied that my multitude of freckles/moles were solely due to too much sun. Sun? Really? In the Northeast? Haven’t you heard of genetics, Bub? So I wallowed in that for a while… until I noticed a woman at the pool. Deeply tanned, her skin was covered with large dalmatian-like spots.
Sometimes, comparison is helpful.
Then my computer went kablooey, and there were histrionics.
The atmosphere inside our little house got even hotter, and to escape, I started reading a book with an angry woman narrator. I am so into that book right now (The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud). And I can’t wait to discuss it with the friend who gave it to me — especially the comment my local bookseller made as I was buying it for another friend. He said that he found the opening paragraphs “a little too shrill.”
Female anger is such a bummer, especially for men. My husband can handle it though. As he told me after the histrionics subsided, “… it’s good that it wasn’t directed towards me.”
But today, things are looking up. First off, the temperatures are in the 80’s not the 90’s and I can actually type this post without dripping all over the keyboard.
Yes, my computer has been fixed.
New track pad: $90.
Having a place to vent: Priceless.
And, I have had some writing published this summer. Climate change, always on my mind, came to the fore and I submitted a couple of posts to Moms Clean Air Force. One on how Climate Change has hit home, the other on how it is threatening New England seafood. By the way, you don’t have to be a Mom to join, just an engaged citizen, and if you haven’t already, I’d urge you to take action.
Then, a couple of days ago, the brilliant D.A. Wolfe reminded me of how lucky I am that my sons are independent, that they still want to share their lives with us, and that both are doing work that they and we can be proud of.
Shameless plug: older son’s band is releasing an album on October 8. Freckles or no freckles I’m still cool enough to rate an advanced copy. I’m listening to it now and the music has enough energy to make even the most lethargic among us want to get up and dance.
And you know what else? My garden is doing just fine without me.
In so many ways, I am a free woman!
We all need work, we all need purpose and I’m glad that those are the things I’ll be obsessing about this summer — rather than who’s publishing where, or who or what is or isn’t to blame for my spotty skin — because the day we stop looking for work and purpose is a day when the wallowing has gone too far.
When I’m about to embark on something new, different, and a little daunting, I often remind myself to “go with the flow,” stay in the present, and loosen my grip on the controls. I imagine myself diving off a cliff and taking a very long ride down into a warm, welcoming sea.
Putting away my expectations, hopes, and fears and just taking the new adventure one step at a time allows me to release the burdensome stones that tend to accumulate during everyday life.
It’s like spring cleaning for the mind. We take a few steps back,
put the past aside,
and step into the light.
The photos above were taken at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. Walking into this atrium was like stepping into a serenity bath. These figures are locked in their quiet reveries for all time. Standing among them, I felt all the residual heaviness I’d accumulated over the past winter vaporize under their cool gazes.
Stuck as they are, these statues remind us that we can lighten our mental load by letting go of those tightly held ideas that hold us back. Instead of jumping in to make “wise” pronouncements about people and things, we can instead bolster our wisdom by simply holding still and taking the time to listen and observe.
In a few days I’ll be traveling to new places. The landscape, culture, and people will be very different from what I am used to. We won’t even speak the same language. So that I don’t miss anything and take it all in, I’m going to follow my own advice. Mentally, at least, I’m packing light.
My 90-year-old stepmother lives in a nursing home now. Paul and I visited her this past weekend. It’s depressing to see a once active person slumped in a wheelchair, her mind and body brought down by Parkinson’s disease.
We don’t have a lot of choice as to what our final days will be like. No one wants to end up like my stepmother. She certainly didn’t. But beyond the uncontrollable, how do we make our final years count?
While I have a ways to go before I hit “old age,” (I turn 58 this week), I do think a lot about what I want those years to be like. Why do some people remain vital and continue on in their sunset years as they have their entire lives? Part of it depends on luck and genetics, which determine whether your body and mind remain functional.
But given reasonable health, pursuing a passion or continuing to engage in meaningful work helps us stay alive in the fullest sense of the word. We have to remain curious. We have to stay in love with life.
The following duet between Tony Bennett, who is 86, and 70-year-old Aretha Franklin, illustrates that point beautifully. At first glance the song seems to be about love and maintaining a relationship with another person, but they could also be singing about staying in love with life.
During my early twenties I occasionally frequented an Asian restaurant near my rent-controlled apartment in Boston’s Back Bay. The menu included a list of soft drinks, with descriptions. I have forgotten its name, but there was a Japanese beverage described as “the taste of new love.” Right under it was Coke, “the taste of old love.”
Old love vs. new has been on my mind lately — and not just because of Valentine’s Day.
A few weeks ago, after a particularly anxious morning, I leaned against my husband, wrapped my arms around his chest and rested my head on his shoulder as he stood with his back to me, looking out the kitchen window. When he reached up and grabbed my arms, my anxiety evaporated. “This is it,” I thought, “old love.”
Is old love really like Coke? Sweet, syrupy, and heavy? And is young love somehow lighter, more carefree —more fun?
Well, I’d say that while both old and new love can be fun, they each have their share of angst. One is a fancy, new shoe that needs breaking in, and the other is well-worn and molded to every curve of your foot. One may pinch and cause blisters, the other sometimes feels a little tired.
Old love may lack the excitement of learning about a new person and seeing oneself through fresh eyes, yet when the partnership continues to grow, solidify, and reach new levels, it can delight as never before — with the added advantage of allowing both partners to feel safe in just being themselves in ways not always possible when love is new.
I feel extraordinarily lucky to have made it to “old love.” When Paul put his arms over mine that morning, I felt a measure of love and safety that I can’t get anywhere else. That comfort not only reassured me, it rejuvenated me and enabled me to face the day with good cheer.
Our love may be old in years, but it makes us new every day.
We recently spent a weekend in Brooklyn. Older son was playing with Raya Brass Band in the annual Golden Festival — two nights of music and dancing. Balkan folk music comes in many forms and celebrates the joy, sadness, and complexity that makes life on earth so sweet.
By Saturday night the festival was in full swing, the sound level and crowds were intense. In one room, an enormous chandelier danced up and down to the beat.
So on Sunday, needing some quiet time, we took a short walk through Brooklyn’s Greenwood cemetery. Our goal was to find Leonard Bernstein’s grave. After a weekend of music, it seemed fitting to pay homage to the maestro.
As we walked through, I wondered about the less famous people buried here. Who were they? Who was missing them? What had they done with their time on earth — and, for that matter, what am I doing right now with mine?
The gravestones provided some information.
But no specific answers. At least not to the questions I was pondering.
But then we came upon this tree with elephantine roots, its grip on the ground made stronger by the passing years.
“Grab on to this awe-inspiring, irreplaceable planet with both hands,” it seemed to say. “We are privileged to live here. Celebrate your beautiful life!”
Before we got in the car, I stood and listened. After two nights loaded with boisterous music, the only sound I heard was the wind rustling through the dried branches overhead. The earth was singing.
January is when we realize that the bills, the deadlines, and other unpleasantness we put aside for the holidays are still waiting. They didn’t disappear when we turned the last page of our 2012 calendars and entered the new year.
The color palette outside makes me realize that as much as I admire those clean-looking, all white interiors in design books, I could never, ever live in one. Even a pink-ish sky at sunset looks cold and lonely.
There’s nothing like January, with its anemic sky, dirty snow, and “clean slate” reputation to make you take stock and focus. In fact, focus is one of my key words for 2013. I’ve never been one to write down New Year’s resolutions, so this is a first.
It’s time to rein in my dilettante tendencies, stop dabbling, stay off the internet, avoid the TV, and write more, read more, listen to more music, and do all of it with the intensity I had as a girl. Back then, my mom amused herself by saying nonsensical things to me while I was reading, just to see how long it would take to pull me back from wherever the book had sent me. In fact, it took several minutes before her voice would penetrate my fictional world and I’d look up, blinking as though awakening from a deep sleep.
These days, my eyes are on the book, but my brain is elsewhere — worrying about friends, thinking about the laundry, or anxiously tallying the balance in our bank account.
Gone too are the days when I would lie on my bed for hours listening to music, so fully caught up in its emotion that the world outside my bedroom walls ceased to exist.
Sometimes, often, writing pulls me into the “zone” where I am so engaged with the words that I forget about time, that loaf of bread I’d meant to start, or my loved one’s need for civilized conversation.
I want to transfer that intensity into other domains: to do more, feel more, know more. But I can’t do any of that without fully committing to the task at hand.
There are other words on my 2013 list as well, but first I’m going to concentrate on focus. The white days of January seem like a good time to start.
Shifting Gears 