Goodnight Mom

After the rain, after the florist, after the priest’s comforting words about someone he didn't really know…..  after the hugs and the tears, after the generations of photos posted on a white board, after the grandsons’ escort….  after the mud and the single roses laid on the coffin and car doors shutting with loud thumps….  after the three course luncheon at a familiar restaurant….  after all this, I find myself alone and stunned.  Numb, maybe.  Yes, numb.

The last 48 hours raced by like the 5:19 Metro North express to Tarrytown.  We got the news, convened, planned, selected, decided, procured, and finalized.  We gathered our children, watched them cry their eyes raw and knew there was nothing we could do to soothe them.  We called, emailed, cried, hugged, greeted, thanked, laughed and cried again.   Then it was over.  

I feel an inconsolable sadness missing my beautiful 93-year old mother already –  this feeling is unmistakable but unexpectedly powerful.  Sadness comes in many colors, and this one, though somewhat familiar, like the shades of grey in the black and white photos of mom as a young woman, triggers a hazy yellow brightness that makes me want to first squint, then shut my eyes against it.  I keep thinking  “what would I have done without mom when….” (fill in the blanks), and “what will I do without mom when…..” I’ve never had to do without her so I don’t have an answer.  Instead, I shut my eyes against the haze and try to sleep my mind quiet.

But tonight my mind won’t be quiet, and I can’t sleep.  I don’t know what comes next. I have become in one instant, the oldest generation of three.  I am mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, friend.  With mom gone, how do I call myself daughter?  When our mothers die, are we no longer someone’s daughter?

Of course, I know I am daughter to Laura Sinisi Breen, fun spirited woman, undaunted young widow, hard working mother, adoring grandmother and adored great-grandmother. Mom was cast-iron strong inside and out, and marshmallow soft-hearted through and through.  She is in my bones and in my blood.  But right now there is a space above me, and a silence hovering nearby.  The feeling of emptiness often can be intangible, but at this moment, I can see it and hear it with amazing clarity. 

I miss my mom more than I could ever know. My mother Laura Sinisi Breen was an extraordinary woman.  Right and wrong were black and white to her, she loved us passionately and parented us as her mother had taught her -- with all the rules and limits people only talk about and write about today.  She is the model of unconditional mother's love.  She was also generous beyond explanation, since she lived a very modest life.  They tell us to take what we remember about a loved one who has died and make it real in our lives today.  Keep her present in thoughts and words and her strength and love will go on through all of us.

Good thoughts for tomorrow, but not for tonight.  For tonight I will take Mom’s long standing advice when I was dealing with difficult days in my life—I’d ask her what should I do and she would say, “have a glass of milk and get some sleep.”   Goodnight Mamma.

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When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.  ~Sophia Loren

The Skier

The brass chandelier in the dining room downstairs sways and its six blown glass globes clatter as they rock in their bases.  Plaster dust falls onto the dark wood table with each pounding thud on the bedroom floor above.  

Upstairs, the carpet in his bedroom is strewn with damp towels, worn tee shirts, muddy sneakers and smelly socks, inside-out sweaters and a well-worn baseball cap.  Three of the four corners of his room are staged with sports equipment.  In one, a set of golf clubs, in another, a lacrosse stick topped with a helmet, shoulder pads and gloves, in the third, a baseball bat and two fishing rods.  His platform bed is pushed up into the fourth corner to support its wobbly frame, and make some room for play.  The bed, of course unmade, is littered with books and wrinkled homework papers.  

The top of his dresser holds a left-handed golf glove, a ripped nerf football, three drinking glasses caked with dried soda and juice, and an autographed photo of twin brother athletes from Syracuse University’s varsity lacrosse team.  And old shoe box on the dresser is filled with assorted coins, movie ticket stubs, chewed up pencils, and the sticks from eaten tootsie roll lollypops.

The walls are scattered with academic awards, his team portraits and framed photos of him holding up large fish and smiling proudly into the camera.  One wall sports black half-moon scuff marks, the scars of repeated battering with a basketball.

He stands in the center of his room, in a clearing just wide enough for his skis to lay parallel.  He is anchored to his skis by black molded boots which force his shins forward at an angle and cause his knees to bend.  He is crouched like a racer at the starting gate, bent over at the waist till his chest almost meets his knees, poles held horizontally under his armpits and eyes fixed on a snowy place in his memory, far beyond his bedroom walls.  He is wearing mirrored sun glasses.

He raises his arms, plants his poles upright in the carpet and moving only the lower half of his body, jumps into a parallel turn to the left.  His skis land in a dull crash on the carpet.  He repeats the turn to the right and then to the left again and again.  Plant, jump, turn, land.  Plant, jump, turn, land. The floor shakes, the walls rattle, the chandelier clatters, the dog barks.  His rhythm is unbroken.

My car pulls into the driveway and I step out.  He looks quickly toward the window.  Before I reach the front door of the house, he speedily and quietly unlatches his boots, jumps out of them, and stands the skies with boots still locked in the bindings up against a corner of his room.  He leaps onto his bed and opens a book.  As I climb the stairs, I notice the swinging chandelier, the dust on the table – again – and wonder.  “What are you reading?” I say as I greet my smiling son at the bedroom door. 

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Jack

Magical, mystical and miraculous was the birth this week of Jack, my third grandchild.  Mom and Dad are more than miraculous in what they achieved, conceiving, nurturing and birthing this perfect new human being.  They are brave and loving, adventurous and more noble than they have ever been, and these qualities will only strengthen in their life together as a family.

Jack has bright curious eyes, searching, straining to connect with voices of family and friends around him; hair dark and thick, with a little wave that can be fashioned into a Mohawk; long fingers and toes on large strong hands and feet; and skin soft as velvet, with a rosy, olive complexion reminding us that his origin is the legendary blend of Italian and Irish.

As I look down at my grandson in my arms pushing his fingers and toes out of his swaddled blanket, I experience an extraordinary moment.  I know there will be thousands more extraordinary moments with him, having had the last seven years to experience moments like these with my other grandchildren.  I know we (my family) are enormously fortunate.  I cherish our Baby Jack beyond description.

We cannot forget, as well, how fortunate we have been to live in New York City with the best access to excellent health care for our mothers and our babies.  We can’t forget how lucky we are to have good jobs and good health insurance to pay for these things.  We can’t forget the good fortune in all that.

My political, feminist, humanist self reminds me that with fifty million uninsured Americans, some mothers and babies never get the prenatal care they need.  We can’t forget that many hard working Americans are in the group of fifty million.  Other families are just not as fortunate as my family has been. For those who may believe childbirth is easy, simple, ordinary and routine, I have news for you and it isn’t good.  When we hear politicians yelling about decent, affordable, universal healthcare in this country we really should listen and effect change for the better because this will improve the health and lives of new parents and the newest generation of children.

I am remembering an editorial I read recently about the state of maternal care and childbirth here in the United States.  The U.S. ranks only 39^th in the care and safety of moms during pregnancy and birth.  That means 38 other countries have a better track record of keeping our new mothers safe, alive and well  -- countries like South Korea, Bosnia, Poland, and Albania.  Spain, the UK and Italy.  This trend is getting worse for us, not better, and hasn’t gotten better in the last generation.

Today I go back to New York City to visit with my one week old grandson Jack.  I can’t wait to hold his perfect shiny miraculous self in my arms.  Once again I’ll be stunned and grateful for this amazing gift of life.  His parents share him with his grandparents, aunts and uncles, their sisters and friends, knowing he can only enhance all our lives from this day forward.  Hopefully we can have a positive, loving influence on him as he grows.  And hopefully the future will only get better for all new parents and babies.

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Overheard in a maternity ward this week: 

 “Why do they call them ‘contractions’ instead of ‘searing pain that feels like you are being split in half?’”

“It’s a natural thing.  In some countries, women give birth working in the fields, and just go back to working.”

“If men gave birth, every child born would be an only child.” (meaning, of course, they’d never do THAT again!)

A Day at the Beach

Ocean City NJ, August 2011

We parked and loaded up our Tommy Bahama back-pack chairs with towels and water and ipad and kindle and newspaper and knitting and an umbrella, then trekked down several streets to the beach. I stopped before we started across the sand and down to the water struck by the panorama.

There is nothing like being greeted by that salty wind and bright sun, and in the blue sky, a double-winged plane pulling a banner that said “Happy Bi thday Alison” with the ‘r’ missing. The beach was unusually wide with fine chalky sand, the waves were high and rumbled with a roar you only feel and hear when sitting near the water. We set up camp as close as we could to the ebb tide.

I am a sucker for all of it, but then again, I was taught to love the beach early in my life.  I remember treks to Jones Beach with my family when I was very young, then Rockaway Beach with my friends as a teenager.  The best days were when my Uncle Dominick wasn’t working, when we piled into his gigantic old Buick (I always sat on the floor in the back seat) with pans of macaroni, franks and peppers heroes and lots of fruit, and drove across the Bronx to the Throgs Neck Bridge and Jones Beach beyond.  There were always at least eight or ten of us (my parents, sisters, my aunt and uncle and cousins) in his car-- no seat belts in those days, no child restraint laws, but luckily we survived.

The funniest sight had to be two of us, usually the kids, carrying an old milk can filled to the brim with lemonade and ice by its double handles. If you know Jones Beach, you know the walks from the parking lots to the beach can be very, very long….  The can was heavy and hit my ankle bone with every other step, but that lemonade was oh so refreshing on a hot day at the beach.  My uncle or dad or one of the mothers (mine or Aunt Jeanne) would dig a deep hole for the can to be buried in, so that only the lid and a couple of inches of can were above the sand.  They had devised a simple yet innovative way to keep the lemonade cold all day long.  We ladled the lemonade into plastic glasses all day long.

I remember my cousin and me burying each other in the sand, only our heads sticking out.  I remember digging for tiny crabs near the water.  I remember pulling mussels off the jetty to cook later at home, and I remember holding on to the long ropes and floats that the lifeguards put out in the water to provide some feeling of security for those who were afraid of the waves.  I remember my mom standing by the edge of the water waving her arms and calling to us “Come back, you are out too far!”

We always arrived early and stayed till the sun was very low on the horizon, the lifeguard chairs had been abandoned and most beach-goers had left.  It was quiet at the end of the day, the sky was huge, and it became mesmerizing to just listen to and watch the waves.   Today I think The Captain and I will do the same.

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“My life is like a stroll on the beach...as near to the edge as I can go.”

--Thoreau

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art

I woke up this morning and knew I had to go to the Met to see’ Savage Beauty’, the Alexander McQueen exhibit before it ended on Sunday.  I’ve been avoiding the trek to Grand Central on metro north and then the number 6 train up to 86^th and Lex. only because of the heat of the last few weeks.  But faced with missing the exhibit, one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s most visited shows in history, made the suffocating heat a minor inconvenience—I caught the 9:37 to the city, then the number 6 up to 86^th street.  When I made a left onto Fifth Avenue, I could see the steps of the Met already packed with people sitting, standing and lining up to get in.  I made a mental note to myself not to arrive so late ever again.  It was about 10:45. 

After the security check, I went straight to the information desk in the center of the lobby to get directions.  The sign on the desk said “McQueen exhibit line closed” so I said, “excuse me, what does that mean?”  “It means”, the woman behind the desk replied, “you can’t get on the line to view the exhibit until it opens again, and that probably will not be for several hours.”  OMG I thought and said, “what about members?”.  I knew from all the membership marketing signs hanging in every corner and on every wall in the gigantic lobby that ‘MEMBERS SKIP THE LINES’, but I needed it confirmed.  Miss blond, 55-ish facelift leaned closer to me and said, “no one gets in while the line is closed”.  I smiled and thanked her, moved around to the other side of the huge circular desk and asked someone else the same question.  Same answer.  I didn’t believe them for a minute.  

So I figured I’d join the museum anyway, since I plan to go a lot this fall and winter, now that I’m retired, and made my way to the far right to the Membership desk.  There was a line, as I guessed others had the same idea as me, join and “skip the line”.  I joined and got my temporary membership card. I asked the friendlier-looking worker if I could now, indeed, “skip the line” and she repeated: no one, even members, cannot get into the exhibit if the line is closed.  She also suggested that I return on Saturday or Sunday morning at 8:30 am, when only members are allowed in for an hour.  “Your chances are better then.”  I said “good idea”.

I made my way up the wide, sprawling, center staircase to the second floor and was immediately confronted with people on line, a line I knew I could identify as the line I wanted to skip.  I followed it winding through what seemed like every gallery on the second floor, crossing halls and roped off on one side, so other museum goers like me could walk freely.  I reached a point where I couldn’t walk alongside the line any longer, and asked the guard keeping me from going any further if members could continue on and get in.  She said, no, no one was entering the exhibit now, but why don’t I just go up to the front of the line to see where the exhibit is, so that later I can “skip the line” when it opened up again.  So I did.

After many more halls and galleries, THERE IT WAS!!  SAVAGE BEAUTY – I heard music, I saw flashing and swirling lights and people standing, sitting on the floor and generally looking tired and impatient waiting behind the rope in the hall.  I had been walking through the museum for at least 20 minutes, passing signs reading “2 hour wait from this point” and “1 hour wait from this point” and “line closed indefinitely”.  I walked up to the guard at the entrance, smiled, held up my membership card, and asked again, “Can members enter”?  He looked at me, unhooked the rope and said, “go right in”.  Best $70 I ever spent!

Savage Beauty was stunning, magical, disturbing, enchanting, electrifying, it was everything I never imagined and more.  I didn’t know much about the designer Lee Alexander McQueen before this exhibit but now I feel I have a tiny inkling into his psyche, or maybe none at all.  It is hard to tell.  He said himself, “There is no way back for me now.  I am going to take you on journeys you’ve never dreamed were possible.” The exhibit is multi-media including holograms, videos, and tricks to startle the gapers. His designs were romantic, regal, futuristic yet historically influenced, sometimes conjuring madness, at others, softness and beauty. Oh, yes, and then there was the sort of erotic and S&M leather, thorns and chains.  But always, always original stretching the imagination to places I can’t say I’ve ever been.  Primitive yet enlightened, romantic/gothic (his words) yet avant-garde.  Dresses, gowns were made of lace, silk chiffon and tapestry, then birds’ feathers, clam and mussel shells, and flowers.  And then there are the shoes…… the accessories….. 

The limitations of my ability to adequately describe this exhibit are so much greater than my infinite desire to share it with readers of this blog.  I can point you to the Met web site where you can view videos of the exhibit, but more intriguing, his runway shows – elaborate presentations of his original concept for every collection.  Take a look if I have spiked your interest, and go to the Met if you can before Sunday, August 7 – but go as a member so you can skip the line!

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/video/

 

If you don’t already know, sadly, Lee McQueen died by suicide in February of 2010.  His mother had also died by suicide a week before.  He admitted to be distraught and unable to handle her death.

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Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.

-- Jules de Gaultier

Starting a long vacation

Today I retired.  I was sent off with a great intimate party of my close friends, a Samsonite roll-aboard overnight case, flowers, gift certificate and a CD of music chosen by my friends for relaxation and fun.  One of my gang said "Remember, it is much easier to leave than to be left".  I've heard this before and I've lived it too.  But she was saying "stop being so happy, we are left behind here to miss you".

Now I know I'm not so memorable that I will be missed for very long.  People get busy and have important issues to deal with and soon, the empy chair will be filled, new paintings will be hung on the wall and photos arranged on the bookshelf, and when I stop by or meet the lunch bunch for lunch, they will have more in common with each other than they will with me, yet we will all leave lunch surprised.  You see, the connection fused by what happens from 9 to 5 will be broken.  The intimacy fired by the demands of deadlines and office politics is also soldered by personal ups and downs. So we will meet at walks for ALS and cancer organizations, and have lunch on birthdays and try to hold onto what we don't want to lose, what we were before.  Good friends will remain forever, this I believe!!

But this is now and I have plans.  Join the gym, take a walk, lose some weight (well a lot of weight), read the seven unread books on my kindle, visit the MET and the Modern, catch up on doctor and dentist visits, clean out my closets, see a movie alone, have a glass of wine on a weeknight.  Then there are the kids and spouses, grandkids (two going on three), time with my mom, catching up with friends.  Of course there is all that knitting I have calling me.....
 
So I will make lists.  Have you done that?  Let's see, top of the page, date.  Left column is time of day,  and center of the page, events.  So I start with 6:30 am -- take Toby for a walk, 7:00 am breakfast and the paper.  7:30 go out for a power walk myself (you see Toby is a little old, and can't walk far or fast any longer), 8:15 shower and get dressed.  It isn't till around 2:00 pm that I can find a time slot to break out of the ordinary routine, and get on with reading, or a swim at the town pool.  I believe in my lists.  They will help me isolate more of the time slots called 'retirement activities'. 

Gotta go set my alarm -- I need to get started early tomorrow.


"Forever is composed of nows."
-- Emily Dickinson

Gone to the Capitol

The Reflecting Pool is muddy, littered with noisy tractors and cranes.   I entered the park and strode up to old Abe, hi I said, smiling at seeing my old friend, turning around to inhale the shining beauty of the Reflecting Pool behind me, and then.....  mud and trucks and hard hat workers.  So my morning was off to a not so great start, and along with the fact that DC was experiencing one of its hottest April days in history (it was in the 90s), my fantasy three days was turning into something very different than I expected.  But there is the rub, you see, the expectation.  Expectation always ruins me.

We (my man and I)  left Lincoln and walked down past the Viet Nam Veteran's Memorial, stopped to see the statue honoring the women who served in that war, and tried to stay out of the sun.  Halfway between Lincoln and Washington a new memorial to World War II veterans has been erected.  On the day we were there, red and blue tee shirts dotted the plaza.  Some of the red shirts were in wheelchairs, authentic, real-life World War II vets, being wheeled by the blue shirts, authentic, real-life Viet Nam Veterans.  I walked up to one man in a wheelchair who reminded me of my mom, now also unable to walk much, and I held out my hand.  I said, thank you so much for your service and your bravery.  He took me hand and smiled and shook it really really HARD.  No slacker this guy. No wonder why we won the war.

World War II Memorial

The younger man who was his escort, pushing the wheelchair, held out his hand.  I said, you can't be a veteran of the second World War, and he said, no, I served in Nam.  So I thanked him as well. Then with tears in his eyes he said, "We just came from the Viet Nam Memorial. First time I've seen it.  It brought back so many memories" and he cried a little.  So I touched his arm and he smiled.  We said goodby and much later in the day we crossed paths again.  He and the man in the wheelchair were smiling ear to ear, really having a great day.  Remembering the morning's encounter, we greeted each other like old friends.  "Have a great day", they said to us and waved goodby as we walked in opposite directions on the winding memorial park's path.

So.... you know what I'm gong to say, right?  Even though the day started out a little disappointing, I made memories I won't soon forget.  Did you know the museums of the Smithsonian are free?  There is a box in the entrance of each building for a donation, but there is no forced ticket price.  What a breath of fresh air -- 90 degree air, but fresh and clear.
  

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abraham Lincoln

First Meeting

The first time I met my grandson was at the international arrivals waiting room at Kennedy airport.  It was summer and the room was steamy, windows dirty, and the swinging doors hollered at me every time they swung open and closed.  We waited, gramps and I, for a couple of hours. 

I knew I'd know him from the videos my daughter took on their last trip to the orphanage, his tiny torso trying to sit up at five months' old, sky-blue eyes searching his new mom's face for an answer or instructions.  But the videos and pictures were months old now, and five months had turned to eleven, and I was bursting to see how he had grown, if he had hair and whether he'd accept me or turn away. 

The heavy double doors swung open with a push, no, more like a kick.  My son-in-law barreled through looking travel-tired and wrinkled, from 18 hours on planes and trains, my grandson strapped to his torso in one of those baby-carriers, clinging to his dad's shirt.  I flew up the exit ramp to meet them but they kept cruising down at me, so I stepped aside, let them pass and followed back down.  My daughter caught up to us, and silently they sped to the airport exit doors, then stopped and turned around to look back at me and Gramps, as though they just realized we were there. Where's the car? my daughter asked. I didn't answer, I was mesmerized by the huge wide open saucers of blue staring at me and I say as softly as I could, "Hi sweetie, it's grandma"  My grandson replied with the biggest, cheesiest, dimpliest, knowing smile.  As if he wanted to say, course... I know that!  What a moment in time I'll never forget.  My kids were home and we were a family.  Hallelujah!

My son-in-law looked down at his son and said to us, 'he just cried for eleven hours straight' and just shook his head, then kissed the head of his son, smiling back up at him.  

" All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them."
Erma Bombeck

Endings and Beginnings

Someone once said to me, "My biggest fear is that everyone else will be gone and I'll be left alone."  I really never thought about it, maybe because I am a grandmother which guarantees that I'll never be left alone, rather I'll be the first to leave...  A co-worker and friend said to me, "It's much harder to be left behind than to be the one who leaves."  Of course with this I agree, and she speaks from the recent loss of her husband and best friend from pancreatic cancer at the young age of 50.

What I've been thinking about though, isn't the devastating loss of a loved one through illness, old age, or unspeakable acts of violence.  No, I speak of our everyday beginnings and endings, losses and gains. I'm talking about how we keep the balance so that the losses don't swallow us up, and the happiness score doesn't make us really uninteresting to others struggling with their own balance.

I'm retiring in a few weeks and have been cataloging the reactions of friends and co-workers when I share the "big" news.  This is a move I've been wanting to make for some time, and when I think of retirement, I get this big, silly grin on my face, my auto-happy reaction.  But of course, for friends I'm leaving behind at work, they feel naturally feel some sadness.  I understand this, having been in the same situation many times.

Concurrently, my sister and best friend is moving from across the lawn (we have apartments in the same cooperative building) to about an hour away in Connecticut.  We have almost always been within a short drive or a short walk of each other, and this is a big change, a big loss for me.

So how do we deal with these changes?  God, I am really bad at it.  I was shamelessly unkind to my sister for awhile, and eventually had to apologize for my bad behavior. Talk to myself in the mirror in the morning, you know...  But see, she has that silly auto-happy grin on her face when she talks about the new place, so I suddenly realized I'd have to look at it all a little differently. 

Retirement brings the balance for me, the loss/gain balance. It is allowing me to feel happy for her, be supportive and appropriately excited when I see her new apartment for the first time, talk about redecorating with her.  At the same time I'm thinking about excursions to the River Park with my dog Toby, sitting with a book in the Sculpture garden at the Met.  I'm thinking about getting up before dawn, so that I can walk down to the river with my coffee and watch the orange light fall on the Palisades as it comes over the hills.  I'm thinking of spending a Tuesday with my sister in her new world, shopping, walking by the water, gabbing -- something we could not do while I was working full-time.

It all balances out....


Always in motion is the future.
-- Yoda

What are you wearing?

What are you wearing?  What color?  Heels or flats?  Oh, you have to wear heels with a skirt!  Hat or no hat?  Are you bringing a big bag or small?  What's the weather?  Will I need a coat?  If you're wearing pink, I'm not wearing cranberry-- I'll try for a blue or something.  DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK FAT?

Can you wear pants to a wedding over there? You have to have something on your head.  Ever heard of a fascinator?  Look it up, you'll be surprised.  Yes, let's go hat shopping.  We'll have to ship our hats over to the hotel, can't take big boxes on the plane.  omg omg.

I have spent so much time in my life talking about what I am wearing... to work, to weddings, to Christmas dinner, on a hike, to the beach, to vacation, and so on....  do men do this?  Agonize over what they are wearing, or do they just go to the closet, choose a suit, or pants and a matching shirt and polish their shoes.  They are set and they look great without the angst, without the endless consultations.  It is no wonder we women have such complexes over how we look, how everyone else will view us, and our comfort level in our own skin, much less our clothes.

Many women would say, I love shopping, thinking about what to wear, dressing up, talking to friends about it.  Sometimes I say that too.  Right now I'm not.  If I had the seconds, minutes and hours back, what would I do?  Train for a marathon....  or maybe sail around the world. 


I base most of my fashion sense on what doesn't itch. 
~Gilda Radner

Spring Rains

Raining for the third day in a row, and except for some chilly wind and messed up hair, I can't complain.  After all, people in the corn belt are flooded beyond repair from these spring rains.  Fields looking like lakes, furniture ruined, televisions and computers made to be recycling fill.

I remember stories of Viet Nam flooded rice paddies, my cousin sleeping in ankle deep sludge with the rains pouring on his helmet.  Desperate to sleep, being soaked to the skin and caked with mud wasn't a deal breaker.  Sleep had to come.  I remember a summer not too long ago when rain was scarce, and we were rationing baths and only flushing when REALLY needed to try to keep the reservoirs above critical lows. 

The Japan earthquake and tsunami have filled our eyes and ignited our fears.  Thousands in the path of a murderous wall of water, cars, buildings, trees, concrete and all forms of debris never had a chance to even look back.  The tragedy is overwhelming, surreal, even horror-movie like.  Yet we cling to the hopeful videos of a dog lost for three weeks found a little skinny, but ok; the photo of the three month old baby alive and well under a tent of fallen lumber found in the same town where her parents grieved at their presumed loss.  We hang onto daily measurements of radioactivity in the cooling water of the damaged nuclear power plant, and the myriad of experts telling us it is nothing to worry about, could be something to worry about, is critical and we should worry about it.

Once again, I'm stunned by how small the earth, how far the stretch of what we choose to learn, what information we accept, what we keep and what we decide to dispose of.  Information overload, fear of the real possibilities of century 21, desire for the happy ending?  I think it simply hopefulness and determination.  We hope we will overcome.... we are determined to get back on track. 

“It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily. "So it is." "And freezing." "Is it?" "Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately.”

Time and time again

The Cross County Expressway is a parking lot.  Traffic stands still, and wrenching my neck to see beyond the lineup of cars and SUV's ahead, I see no flashing lights, hear no sirens.  I wonder, is it the rain, flooding, that slowed me down?  We all inch closer and closer, advancing a foot or two at a time, till slowly, steadily, I start to move a little faster, the space between cars widening with every minute.  Suddenly the two lanes on my right, taking the Hutchinson Parkway south, are stopped, and I'm flying.  So it is the merging highway, I'm good.

But I've lost some time sitting on that mess of a roadway.  Count it up, once a week, twenty minutes each time, sitting, listening to the news, traffic and weather on the radio repeated over and over.  Even with the same sound bites, so that after a few times, I can recite the news like dialogue in a play or an old Seinfeld episode.

Then the tables turn...... tonight I leash up my dog, Toby, and head out the front walk with her It is around 9:30, and I am expecting the cold damp windy air we've had for the last two or three days. Instead, it is calm, warm, bright.  Almost a full moon, and  gigantic puffy white clouds reflect like street lights on the grass.  I can even still see blue sky even though it is nighttime.  We saunter towards the river -- I live on the Hudson -- and the water is like a lake.  I've gotten into the habit of calling the Hudson River the Hudson Lake or the Hudson Ocean, based on the calmness or white caps it takes on.  Tonight definitely the Hudson Lake.   A lone tug is pushing a barge north.  It is close to my side of the river, where the shipping channel lies, and it is all lit up with golden lights.  The engine is not very loud, but I still hear its chug chug chug.  I am cemented to my spot on the grass near the fence looking out at the river and the Palisades cliffs on the other side.  The moon, the sky, the river, the tug surround me in a peaceful hug.  I could stand here forever letting time go by and never miss an instant of it.  I want to understand why there are times when every second standing still feels like a second lost and other times when the stillness is perfect, wonderful and sadly fleeting.

Toby poops so it is time to pick up and go to the trash.  We take the long way back though, to pass again by the river in time to see the tug way has made its way north -- just a speck of light in the dark water.   What a remarkable way to spend twenty minutes.

“Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin
Into the future …”
- Fly Like an Eagle, Steve Miller Band

The Big Winter

After the snow in Hastings on Hudson

2011.  This is the BIG winter in New York.  We've had the snowiest January, and today, February 1, threatens to be the start of the snowiest, iciest, coldest February.  What happened to the big meltdown?  The big thaw?   The year of global warming?  Well, I do believe in global warming, but right now images of polar bears on ice floats in the arctic are a dim memory. 

I work at a college, and we have had many "snow days" this winter.  It feels kind of childish, hoping for "snow days", especially while my work piles up on my desk, yet....  About 5:45 am my cell phone dings, announcing a text message.  I know what it says with my eyes closed.  "Snow Day".   But I don't go back to sleep, I get up out of bed.  I get up because the hours I usually spend running around to get out in time to get to work are so precious to me when they suddenly become available as anything I want them to be.  I get up in the dark, set up the coffee pot and listen to the water purr and drip.   I bring in the NY Times and actually read it, instead of just throwing it on the kitchen counter till after work.  I turn on a light in the living room and turn on the news or the weather channel. I sip my coffee slowly instead of cooling it down with a lot of milk so I can chug it before I leave for work.  Quite a different story, snow days.

On days like these, I wonder how life has gotten so fast.  It does, you know, get faster as we get older.  I finally figured out that it just takes me two to three times as long to do things, you know?  Like bath, hair, makeup, getting dressed, making lunch--everything takes longer.  Still, this leaves me speeding into my last third and fearing that it will take less than a third to get through.  Last third, you know, 1-30, 31-60, and 61-90.  This is just plain not fair.  Not fair.

So what's the moral of the story?  What is the wisdom I wish to impart?  More snow days.

T. S. Elliot: Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.

The Beginning

Well, I'm going to give this a try... again.  The Blog thing, to test my theory that no one really gives a hoot...  so lets see if anyone follows me!

You know, lately I find that what I'm doing with my life is less interesting to most people than what they are doing with their lives.  That's probably the way things should be, always are and always have been, but when I was younger I thought everybody was interested in what I was up to. What I was wearing, where I went, if my hair was a mess or my shoes were the "right" ones for work, for hanging out with my crowd.  But how come it took me 61 years to realize I'm not the most important person in the world? 

Then again, why do I care? 

Did I say yet--I have two (a third on the way) hilarious, warm, huggy, beautiful grandchildren who light up my life. When you are with a two year old who looks at you with eyebrows clamped down and one hand on hip, the other one pointed at me and says, "Don't you look at me Gamma".  I just crack up.  The hugs come later.  This is pure, unadulterated joy.  But more about them in a future blog.

So anyway, maybe this is the time of life that I become less interesting to most people, and must become even more interesting to myself.  That way, every time I wake up and look in the mirror I can smile knowing the day holds many interesting activities, and happy events.  Events like, hmmmm finishing the book I started two months ago, completing knitting my grandson's sweater, taking a careful walk in the snow (so I don't break any more bones) or just sitting quietly and planning the next day. 

You know, we, none of us, really know what comes next, so .......

Aren't you just excited to read more..... Please come back soon.

********************************************
“Life isn't one damn thing after another. It's the same damn thing again and again.”

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay