Above the archway leading to my daughter's country kitchen is a long wooden plaque that says "Home -- Where you story begins."
The story of my grandson's 6th birthday party is not an unusual one -- tables lined up with white paper tablecloths on which the dozen young guests crayon while waiting for the cake and ice cream, members of the family and extended family bustling around each other and gathering around for traditional candle blow-out.
The theme of my grandson's party was a little unusual: Massachusetts State Trooper hats and badges and ticket books young guests created themselves. Even the cake was decorated with an image of the official State Trooper car.
What will be an oft-told family story, I'm sure, is my grandson's over-the-top exuberance as he acknowledged each gift, even the ones that weren't something related to being a cop -- and especially the full police outfit that I gave him and that he wore for the rest of the day. For some uninherited reason, he's enamored of authority-figure costumes -- police, fire fighers, FBI agents/spies, doctors, soldiers.... Go figure.
On the drive out to Massachusetts last Thursday, I listened to some beautifully written stories by American combat soldiers on NPR's Selected Shorts program (see Program 42 here). These were not stories about the inhumanity of war. Rather they were stories that reflected the sweet humanity and humor of the soldiers forced to fight the war, stories that reinforced the identities of these soldiers apart from the war.
While most of the ones read on the air were true, the most poignant to me was actually a work of fiction. It was about a female soldier taking her young son to the airport, where he would fly, alone, to his grandparents, while she went off to war.
Perhaps, some day, there will be no need for war stories.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Halloween witch is that bump on her nose. Well, not only do I have one; I have three. I guess that makes me officially a witch.
The dermatologist says they are "fibromas," which are benign kinds of tumors. Mine are under the skin, and so they are not really noticeable. I can have them "sliced off" (the doctor's words), but insurances don't pay for that because that's considered a cosmetic procedure. He says it's not a big deal to take them off, or out, or whatever they do to remove them. (But he'll have to cut the skin, so how is that not a big deal??)
When I first got them (one ages ago, one six months ago, and one last month) I thought that they were sebaceous cysts, and so I put hot compresses on them and they eventually diminished in size, but they never went away.
At the moment, they don't bother me, but I know they're there. I can feel them.
I can't worry about them now, however. In two days I'm leaving to head out to Massachusetts for my grandson's sixth birthday, and I'm going to stay over at least three nights.
So it will be just my brother and mother. The hospice nurse suggested a change in my mother's medication, so we're going to try that. Her extreme anxiety is overwhelming her. And us too. I guess it's her dementia getting worse. Between that and her increasing aches and pains, it makes it almost impossible to interact meaningfully with her. It's like trying to take care of a sick toddler.
I often wish I really were a witch so I could get on my broom and fly away.
As I'm cleaning out old files, I found an old receipt from the vets with my cat's age on it. (I've been trying to remember when I rescued her from the tiny pet store cage in which she could only sit in her litter.) As far as I can figure, she's almost 12 years old. For a fat old cat, she sure is doing well.
Because I'm anticipating moving her with me when I finally get to my daughter's, I invested in a large carpeted "house" for her litter box. If I had known that it weighs 50 pounds (the inside is melamine), I might not have ordered it. On the other hand, maybe I would have, since it also works beautifully as another sunny window perch for her.
My mom, who is older than my cat in cat-years, is not doing so well. She seems to only be able to stay awake for a couple of hours at a time. She often doesn't eat unless one of us feeds her. The hospice nurse is stopping in today, but I doubt if there's anything she can tell us that we don't already know.
The only time I seem to get outside for any sun shine is when I go out to tend my kitty corner garden. For lack of any other place to put it that wasn't overgrown with weeds, I tucked it into the space between the driveway and the woods. It's not perfect, but what is.
Not even my grandson is perfect, although he's close. He can't be bothered to put on matching socks in the morning, but, as my daughter relates on her blog:
Our big brained boy wanted to know yesterday how the first person ever born was, well, born -- because if he/she were the first, how could they be if every person born was only born after the mother before them was born (this child is only turning 6 next weekend, btw).
So there I was, having to launch into a succinct, but thorough explanation of evolution from slimy muck to Man.
If anyone in the western Massachusetts area is considering using Sturdy Home Improvement construction company, you should check with my daughter, first. Read about her experience here.
For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
POEM WRITTEN IN THE CITY
OF LANDLOCKED PEOPLE WHO
THINK THAT OCEAN IS ONLY
A WORD AND SUN IS A BALL
FOR SUMMER SUMMERTIME FUN
(for mdf)
bobbing seaborne
on flashing flat planes
of sun's bouncing image,
a single dory --
oars shipped and tucked
inside for keeping --
seems adrift and lost
from coves safety.
but horizon blocked,
navigator waits --
(dancing dolphins
side the gurgling surf
astride the swollen thighs
of seaweed waves...
...candy apples and taffy twists
and caramel is a candy) --
with sleeping eyes
and fingled breath
and hands for firmly guiding.
Actually, as much as the weeds around here need whacking, they're not getting it. They are pretty much out of control. Weeds: plants considered undesirable, unattractive, or troublesome, especially one growing where it is not wanted,
It's not just the weeds around here that are out of my control. I am still living under the tyranny of my mother's growing dementia and dependence combined with my brother's demoralizing rules and realities.
Not much freedom for me here, on this Independence Day.
Maybe I should go out and buy my own little weed whacker, vent my frustrations on that army of undesirables that are intruding over every path from the door to the world. Whack! Whack! Take that, you creepy things.
I did murder a whole bunch of Japanese Beetles today as they attempted an orgy on my tomato plant. Whack! Whack!
One can only hold in anger and frustration for so long. Yes, I think I need to go out and whack those weeds, clear a path, clear my head. I know that those weed whackers are pretty loud, loud enough to muffle the yelling I need to get out of my system.
Someday I will be able to celebrate a real personal Independence Day. Until then, I need to go out and get a weed whacker.
On Independence Day back in 2002 I blogged that there should be a "Interdependence Day," and a commenter sent me to this page, where there is a Global Declaration of Interdependence, as follows:.
Preamble:
In acknowledgment of the many existing documents and efforts that promote peace, sustainability, global interconnectedness, reverence for life and unity, We, The World hereby offers the following Declaration of Interdependence as our guiding set of principles for moving forward into this new millennium. It is inspired by the Earth Charter, the essential values of which have been culled from the many peoples of the Earth.
Declaration/Pledge
We, the people of planet Earth,
In recognition of the interconnectedness of all life
And the importance of the balance of nature,
Hereby acknowledge our interdependence
And affirm our dedication
To life-serving environmental stewardship,
The fulfillment of universal human needs worldwide,
Economic and social well-being,
And a culture of peace and nonviolence,
To insure a sustainable and harmonious world
For present and future generations.
And tonight, as I watched part of New York City's fireworks, I couldn't help wondering how all of that money spent on fireworks all over this country could have instead been used for much more important and humanitarian purposes.
But rulers know how to pacify the people using bread and circuses, how to make them forget what the late George Carlin so eloquently reminded us about.
1984 -- the year my dad passed away and the year that my son b!X acquired his first Macintosh.
I unearthed it from under the steps in my brother's cellar today, padded khaki case covered with at least two and half years worth of cobwebs and twenty years worth of the dust it has accumulated as I've hauled it around through move after move. B!X long ago moved on to other parts of the country and other versions of the Mac.
I don't know why I kept it. And I don't want to have to lug it through one more move.
I can't help wondering if it's worth anything, this boxy Macintosh 128K.
I also can't help wondering -- if I kept it for another twenty years, would it be worth something then?
It's astounding to realize that the damned thing cost close to $3000 back in 1984. My dad was a very generous man, both in life and in death.
That is such a lovely and uplifting piece of synchronicity.
Not surprisingly, there are no rainbows over here in the mountains -- just lots of thunder and rain and some kind of blight happening on my little "oasis in the wildnerness" garden. And I can't take a photo of it to see if anyone knows what it is because I dropped my little camera while away the other weekend, and it broke. I bought a new little one but haven't had the time to figure it all out yet or download the software.
Meanwhile, despite taking an antidepressant, my mom is having more frequent bouts of uncontrollable crying. She keeps asking for her husband, my dad, who passed away almost 25 years ago.
We are sitting at the table, and she is eating some spaghetti with a roasted sweet red pepper sauce that I make. She decided that she doesn't like tomato sauce and she doesn't like straight alfredo sauce, so I mix my pureed sweet roasted red peppers with a little alfredo, and she wolfs it down.
"Where are your children," she asks.
"They live far away," I answer. " Where are yours?"
She looks at me and says, "I don't know."
I don't know which is worse, Alzheimer's or "old age" dementia. With Alzheimer's you don't realize that you're not remembering. With dementia, you are torn apart by a sense that you can't remember even though you want to.
I look back at my original blog, which I began in November of 2001. At that point, I was already taking care of my mom, living across the hall from her in a senior citizen apartment building. Even back then, when she wasn't so bad yet, I was struggling to have some sort of life apart from caregiving. With each month that went by, I lost more and more of my own life.
I never thought that it would all go on for so long.
Already, newspapers and magazines (and soon TV programming) are encouraged to sell key words to advertisers – so-called “in-text advertising” – in the online versions of stories. Can you imagine advertisers going for stories with key words such as “health care reform,” “environmental degradation,” “Iraqi casualties,” “contracting fraud,” or “K Street lobbyists.” I don’t think so. So what will happen to news in the future as the already tattered boundaries between journalism and advertising is dispensed with entirely, as content, programming, commerce and online communities are rolled into one profitably attractive package? Last year the investment firm of Piper Jaffrey predicted that much of the business model for new media would be just that kind of hybrid. They called it “communitainment.”
Moyers also said great stuff like:
...this Administration – with the complicity of the dominant media – conducted a political propaganda campaign, using erroneous and misleading intelligence to deceive Americans into supporting an unprovoked attack on another country, leading to a war that instead of being “quick and bloodless” as predicted, continues to this day. (At least we now know that a neo-conservative is an arsonist who sets the house on fire and six years later boasts that no one can put it out.)
and
Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent while enhancing the power of the state and the privileged interests protected by it.
Democracy without accountability creates the illusion of popular control while offering ordinary Americans cheap tickets to the balcony, too far away to see that the public stage is just a reality TV set.
Nothing more characterizes corporate media today – mainstream and partisan – than disdain towards the fragile nature of modern life and indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.
This leaves you with a heavy burden – it’s up to you to fight for the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible.
Be vigilant; the fate of the cyber commons is at stake here, the future of “the mobile web” and the benefits of the Internet as open architecture. We’ll lose without you: the only antidote to the power of organized money in Washington is the power of organized people at the netroots.
You can go to the FreePress site and read, listen to, or watch the whole amazing speech.
A couple of years ago, I agreed with Molly Ivins that Bill Moyers should be president. Maybe what he should be is Barack Obama's Carl Rove.
Surely there must be some foundation or trillionaire somewhere who might want to give out grants to independent citizen blogger/journalists? I nominate b!X to be first on the list.
I spent last weekend in a place as close to perfect as I've been in a long time. Good friends, good food, a good book, a lake, mountains, a spacious home with lots of decks, pitchers of Cosmos, and laughter-filled games of Boggle. I could have stayed there forever.
Now I'm back in the situation I should never gotten into, and I'm finalizing plans for my escape, with support from both the Hospice nurse and social worker. I would like to take my mother (92 years old and demented) with me, where we would be with our extended family in a home with beautiful gardens on a dead end street with lots of neighbors. She would have pleasant distractions from the painful movements of her body and mind. I would bring in the help we both need.
But my brother doesn't want to let her go. And I just can't stay.
As my hair grows gray, I need to spend more time in places of peace.
I am heading out tomorrow with my gaggle of friends to Lake Luzerne, which is not far from Lake George, which, as fate would have it, is the site of the annual motorcycle Americade at the same time. No doubt, the roads will be crawling with hogs of all kinds and their wannabe relatives
Back in high school, I dated a guy with a motorcycle -- unbeknownst to my parents of course. It might be fun to ride on one again. I mean, isn't there some commercial where a grandmother rides in on the back of a bike that her grandson is driving? Hmm. Maybe I'll run into a senior citizen biker.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out if the itchy bumps popping up on my arms are flea bites or hives or some sort. I can't seem to find any fleas on my cat, but I know those critters are pretty tricky.
Also, meanwhile, the hospice nurse continues to check in on my mother. Mom somehow fractured a rib while I was gone a few weekends ago. While the pain seems to be finally subsiding, she is getting less and less stable on her feet and just is not happy about very much. The nurse brought in a young woman who played the guitar and sang, and my mother seemed to like that -- although after they left, she was sure that they stole some of her jewelry.
I don't know how my brother is going to handle four days and three nights taking care of mom on his own. If it were me, I'd hire someone to come in and help. I'm leaving a list of available private hires on the refrigerator and a stockpile of food that mom likes inside.
For a while before his death in April, non-blogger Myrln (aka Bill Frankonis), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter has been sending me some of his writings to post posthumously, but we were all away all weekend at the party Bill said in his will that he wanted.
Were you whirling in your ashes as so many of those people whose lives you touched so meaningfully told stories about their relationships with you? Even a few with whom you were no longer on the best of terms stood up and remembered the good times.
I know how much you wanted to let those people with whom you felt close at various points in your life know how much they meant to you. Well, obviously they already knew.
I didn't count how many of the little theater's seats were filled, but there had to be between 50 and 60 people who came in for the story telling. And there were others who came and left before that time as well.
You would have loved to hear the stories -- some funny, some poignant -- all remembering you at your best. There is no doubt that you will be remembered by your colleagues and students not only as an amazingly talented writer and director, but also a uniquely nurturing mentor and teacher.
You would have been so proud of our two kids. Well, I should say proudER, since you always have been proud of them.
You also would have loved to see your almost 6-year-old grandson and the (equally young) granddaughter of our friends Pat and Bill. They hit it off amazingly. Word has it that she said that she really liked his hair and was going to marry him. The pairing of our respective offspring didn't happen last generation. Wouldn't it be a hoot if it happened with this one.
I wish I could talk to you about that novel Enchantment that you gave me a while ago and I found in my pile of books-to-read last week. I couldn't help see you and me in the princess and the scholar. I wonder if that's what you thought as well. I'm only half way through, so I don't know how it ends. I hope that it ends better than we did as a couple.
For the first time ever, I see a lone crow wandering around the area of the bird feeders. At first I wonder if it's a grackle, but a quick look in the Audobon bird book confirms that, indeed, it is a crow.
My mother is now losing her hair. Her digestive system is screwed up. She is always afraid, never satisfied or happy, constantly restless.
I watch the crow march back and forth across the small area where squirrels and doves are pecking at what the finches and cardinals have accidentally tossed their way. He doesn't seem to be eating. He looks like he's checking things out.
That's the dilemma of every blogger who is considering whether it's appropriate to post a certain entry.
b!X deliberated and then made the decision to post. And I could have left it at that.
But I see his Deathbed post and photo link as a tribute, a reminder -- in a sense, a virtual wake, a moment to say a final goodbye -- and, for those of us who were not there to actually witness, closure.
You can read his post and decide for yourself. This entry is my decision.
And, just as an added note that reflects how attuned our little family is to the magical occurrences in life that Myrln loved to recognize, Myrln died just about at 5 p.m. When we survivors were at his apartment last weekend sorting through his stuff, our daughter noticed that the clock on his wall, which was keeping accurate time the last time we were there, had stopped at 5 o'clock.
I woke to the smell of roses today, but there are no roses anywhere around here. I smelled them in the garage, too, when I went to take out the garbage.
My father loved roses. His wake was full of them.
My mother barely woke up this morning. Her mouth hung slack, her words slurred. She took a few bites of french toast, a few sips of her fake coffee, and now she's back in bed. I wonder if she's smelling roses.
Yesterday's Myrln posthumous post was a poem with a "life as a garden" metaphor. Reading it made me think about how many of the legacies he left are what continue to grow from the seeds of his thoughts, his words.
While the "garden" has always been a life metaphor for me as well, I tend to use it in a different way. And that fact is also a perfect metaphor for how we related as spouses: we started in the same place, with the same need, but we went out from there in very different directions.
They gave me a garden
the size of a grave,
so I filled it with raucous
reminders of sense:
marigold nests,
nasturtium fountains,
explosions of parsley, and
layers of lavender --
forests of tomato plants
asserting lush ascendance
over scent-full beds of
rosemary, basil, and sage.
And waving madly above them all,
stalks of perplexing
Jerusalem artichoke,
an unkillable weed
that blossoms and burrows
and grows up to nine feet tall,
defying the grim arrogance
of gravity.
elf
may 02
My literal gardens are transient. When I move away, they decay away and are forgotten. Such is the nature of many of my legacies.
Once in a while, though, I need to believe in something permanent -- hence, the two lilac trees I planted back from the edge of the woods around this house, where my brother most likely will not mow or snow blow them down when I move away from here. Someday, new owners will look out the window at the acres of rotting windfall and scraggly brush and old shaggy trees and see two blooming lilac bushes -- a sepia landscape touched with unexpected color.
Myrln is gone, but his spirit remains with us in the power of his words, thanks to our daughter, who salvaged his collection of writings.
Myrln's birthdate is this Thursday. He would have been 71.
Poem for My Birthday
Through years
-- with seeds my own, some received before, some given later --
I planted myself:
a feeling there, a thought,
a sense of what might be, was, seemed to be,
a tear, a laugh, angry shouts and happy,
whispers, a reaching, holding, letting go, loving,
isolationliness,
some hiding, fear, joy, longing,
scatterings
of pain, risk, uncertainy, determination,
bit by bit
seeding through the years.
And making my garden of word and heart:
some parts stillgrown,
others modest,
and a few full flourished,
all being the what why where
whole of me.
Some women take to mothering naturally. I had to work at it. And so I wasn't the best mother in the world. I would have worked outside the home whether I had been a single mom or not. But because I was, mine were latchkey kids, with my daughter, beginning at age 12, taking care of her younger brother, age 5, after school. I left them some evenings to go out on dates. Oh, I did cook them healthy meals, and even cookies sometimes. I made their Halloween costumes and went to all parent events at their schools. My daughter took ballet lessons, belonged to 4H (but I got kicked out as Assistant Leader because I wouldn't salute the flag during the Vietnam War) . I made my son a Dr. Who scarf and took him to Dr. Who fan events. I bought him lots of comic books and taught him how to throw a ball. But most of all, I think/hope I did for them what my mother was never able to do for me, -- give them the freedom to become who they wanted to be -- to explore, make mistakes, and search for their bliss. I think/hope that I always let them know that, as far as I was concerned, they were OK just the way they were/are. (Me and that dear now dead Mr. Rogers.) Not having had that affirmation from my mother still affects my relationship with her. I hope that my doing that right for them neutralizes all the wrong things I did as they were growing up.
So, you two (now adult) kids, here's to you both. You keep me young, you keep me informed, you keep me honest, and, in many ways, you keep me vital. I'm so glad that I'm your mother.
So, in memory of those not-always-good ol' days that you two managed to survive with flying colors, here you are, playing "air guitar and drums" -- enjoying each other's company sometime in the 70s and bringing so much joy into my life.
b!x has been all over online trying to find this Bailey's hat in a size large. He wants to wear it to his Dad's memorial celebration on May 25, which means he needs to get one by May 21, before he gets on a plane to come east for the event. (His Dad passed away on April 10.) There are none available online by the deadline.
Here's the challenge. If there's a men's hat store anywhere near you, dear reader, could you call them and see if they have that hat, which is a black "Johnny" braided (straw) porkpie from Bailey (item # 81680), size large.
If they have the hat, please leave a comment here letting me know how b!X or I can get in touch with you and arrange to have to hat bought and sent to him.
Again, there's no way to get it on time online, so b!X is hoping someone out there will make a miracle and find him one that he can get on his head by May 21. (It's a son-father thing.)
Myrln is gone, but his spirit remains with us in the power of his words:
From a scrap of paper on his desk -- quickly hand-scrawled, a stray thought, bit of story, strand of memory:
Dinner table – metal goblets
These goblets belonged to my mother. Asked us to drink a toast from them because had she lived she would have been 89 years tomorrow. She was 23 when she had me, and had only 4 more years left to live. There are 4 generations sitting here today. I ask you, in her memory, to remember to make the most always of the time you have with those you love and who love you. So, Mamma, here’s to you…salut…by remembering you, we remember ourselves.
salut
See www.myrln.com for information about the remembrance party being held in his honor on May 25, as well as plans for publishing his non-published works.
Myrln is gone, but his spirit remains with us in the power of his words:
Fathers and Daughters
Little girls are nice,
but we do them wrong
fussing with their hair and dressing them up
like dolls –
teaching them from the start
they are decorative playthings.
Better we should feed them
words and numbers and tools
to remind them
that before women, they are people.
Teach them love and caring and nurture, yes,
but not as the entirety of their being,
else those qualities
become walls and prisons.
Give them, as well, wings
and teach them to fly –
in case later in life
someone builds walls around them.
Little girls are nice,
but daughters who are their soaring selves
are better.
Fathers and Sons
All the time they’re growing up,
sons try hard to please their fathers.
They play ball, follow dad’s interest in cars,
or in building things,
or in fishing –
whatever it is that pleases dad.
Mostly learning how to be a man.
If they’re lucky,
they’re not required to embrace any of those
for a lifetime.
If they’re lucky,
somewhere along the way,
they’re let loose
to strike out after their own interests
and to please themselves.
And fathers,
if they’re smart,
realize that somewhere along the way
is a turning point:
a time when sons become teachers,
and fathers can learn
what their sons became on their own,
how manhood is not a fixed concept.
And say to their sons,
“Good job.”
Then both will know
they did right
in pleasing each other.
I'm back from another day of helping my daughter clean out her Dad's stuff. I focused on his clothes, setting aside some that I'll send to b!X, since they probably will fit him. As it turns out, I took a pair of summer shorts and a pair of cargo pants that fit me because they both have elastic in the waistband. Men's pants always have lots of pockets. I wish more women's pants did.
It was so strange going through his things. An invasion of his privacy. Except it doesn't matter any more. Except it sort of does.
His being gone forever still doesn't seem real.
I took a Best of Moody Blues CD. A blue pottery bowl. A mortar and pestle. An orange windbreaker. I don't have a windbreaker. I took the two new deliciously soft bed pillows that he never had a chance to use.
I took five trash bags of clothes, a big box of shoes, and several suits on hangars to the Salvation Army. And there are still clothes left in his closets.
His walls and shelves (except for the full book shelves) are covered with art and crafts. Beautiful stuff that none of us has room for. It will all have to be disposed of.
We keep reminding ourselves that these things are not him, they are not his legacy. They are the things he liked to look at, to think about, to help him remember. They served an important function in his life. He no longer needs them. His legacies are our memories and all that he accomplished through his creativity and passion.
We assess his belongings with great practicality. One or the other of us will make use of his recliner, his couch, the chest of drawers that was part of the first real bedroom set we bought when we were married. (When we divorced, he got the bed and the chest of drawers. I took the dresser with the mirror. The dresser fell apart two of my moves ago. The chest of drawers still looks brand new.)
Monday was the day that Myrln (aka William Frankonis and my once-husband) posted his rants here on Kalilily Time. He wrote a great deal more than political rants, however, and from now on, Mondays will be the place where Myrln will post some of his best writings, posthumously, through the auspices of our daughter.
Snippets from “A Letter to My Grown Children” -- post 9/11 2001
[snip]
…We live in the Now. Sometimes drastic events make us aware of that simple fact we tend to forget or ignore; we always live only in Now. As Buddhism has been telling us for centuries. No matter how or how much the world changes, we can still live only in the right Now. How is ours to determine. We may mourn loss and worry what’s to come, but here we are – Now. And Now is sometimes good, sometimes bad; sometimes easy, sometimes hard; sometimes joyful, sometimes sad. But whatever it is, it is, and we have no choice but to live in it. Which, when you think of it, is a fine thing.
[snip]
It makes sense, then, to make Now the best possible o us because we never know. And that fact should teach us: no delaying, waiting around, procrastinating, habituating, sinking into torpor. Look. See. Be. Whether alone or with others, do it. Now…not tomorrow.
[snip]
So how do I know the validity of what I’m preaching? Because in many ways, I have always delayed Now for dreams-to-come or for fear of future consequences. But I know – Now – those dreams/fears will never come to pass. And even if the fears prove true in the end or the dreams went unfulfilled, so what? Why didn’t I at least make my Nows what I wanted them to be?
[snip]
Only love lives still in past and future. Strange thing, love. It’s why I can always say I love you Now, always have, and always will.
Though solitude and communion are both necessary and do in part serve to renew the depth of one another, a man must decide for himself at which point to give up one for the other.
In the corner of a file folder holding my various diplomas -- a transcript of my grades for the 1958 - 1959 college semesters. Suffice it to say that I was much less than a stellar student. But I could hold more beer than most of the guys I knew. Ah, those were the days.
Our offspring and I are rooting around in search of legacies left by my once-husband. He left boxes of memorabilia about his plays -- from playbills to reviews, to posters -- so those legacies are obvious. What is not obvious to our kids are the times in his life before they existed, and b!X, for one, is in the process of digging out his Dad's military history -- mostly because it appears that during that time period he changed from good Catholic to angry agnostic. I met him after he got out of the army, so I have no idea what transpired to precipitate that shift in world view.
As I'm rooting around in my -- and my mom's -- old files, I'm finding glimpses of an old self of mine that I had forgotten in the lines of poetry I had written back when I was in high school. Those are the ones that my mother saved; I never gave them to her, so she must have gone through my teen-age dresser to find them when I was away at college. If I knew then that she was invading my privacy, I would have had a fit. Now, I'm kind of glad she saved them, because I never would have.
The Winter passes into Spring
The birds begin to sweetly sing,
And through the air the Church bells ring.
But, yet, I notice not a thing.
To me the world is cold and gray,
E'er in twilight, ne'er in day.
There's nothing in my life that's gay.
Happiness seems far away.
(Of course, in 1957, "gay" only meant "happy.")
Here's one from 1953. I was 13.
The land is so dry, it's all just a waste.
We've no water for days, no food to tatse.
The sand on the desert is not food to eat.
Even the cactus furnish no meat.
The sun is so hot and oh so dry.
The hot breeze in our ears whispers
"Die......dry.......die!"
I don't know if it was adolescent angst or if I was depressed even back then, but here's one I wrote when I was 18.
I hear the dreary, mournful refrain
Of the steadily falling downpour of rain.
Not the rain of a wild and stormy night,
With furious streaks and flashes of light,
With tormenting winds of passionate force
And eerie outcries from an unknown source.
Not the kind of rain that rises from hell
And holds all the world in its magical spell.
Not the kind of rain that's so torrid and splendid --
That you still stand in wonder even after its ended.
And still not the rain that's mellow and mild
As sweet and refreshing as the smile of a child.
Not the shower that calls all of nature to waken
With gentle caresses that leaves all unshaken.
Not the rain that makes every creature feel new.
Not the rain that leaves the world sparkling with dew.
But a gloomy depressing curtain of gray
That covers and hides all the brightness of day --
A shroud of depression, a mist of despair,
A cloak of discouragement, everywhere.
OK, so there's lots of trite phrases and rhymings. After all, my high school education was in a Catholic school, where in our senior year the big piece of "literature" we read was "Father Malachy's Miracle." What I can't help noticing, though, is my focus on the dark side of things. Even then.
Here's one I like. I must have been a freshman in college when I wrote it:
If I were to choose my own heaven,
It would be forever Spring,
with no bugs
and plenty of food
and books, books books
and a rock 'n roll band on weekdays
and a jazz band on Sundays
and people people people
and all of them would be college graduates.
If I were to choose my own hell
it could be no worse
than boredom.
I think that my once-husband would have chosen the same kind of heaven. Except for the "people people people" and probably the "college graduates." He was never bored in his own company. Unlike me.
Finally, I wrote this when I was 20. Apparently, I knew that one day I would be rooting around. Twenty is Young
When I am old
I will not care for
rock 'n roll,
slopping
and
jazz
bongos drums
beat poetry
and
Kafka
Kerouac
Jake Trussell
and
lifeguards with
sea-burnished hair
and convertibles.
But now I am young
and I know that all of these
will one day be
the cushions
on the couch of memories
on which I will repose
I am going through my photo albums, looking for photos of my once-husband from the old days. I was surprised to discover that I only had one of both of us with our kids, and that one was from back in 1970. b!X has posted it on his blog. There are lots of photos of our kids, but few of us together.
I did find one photo of the two of us from our beer-partying college days.
I'm hoping that, as word spreads among our long-time-ago friends, they will look and see if they have any old photos of Bill and send them along. I know that our offspring would love to have them.
The sun is out, my seedlings are thriving, I'm taking my 60 milligrams of happy pill every day, we have hospice available (including a social worker for moral support), and my mom is still sleeping a lot.
I should be feeling a whole lot better than I do. I shouldn't be feeling this "stuck." I should have more energy.
Maybe I have spring fever. Maybe it's the just-past full moon. Maybe the loss is greater than I thought.
Elevator
Jim Culleny
Be still in a field of
slowly falling snow
and renounce focus
Peer into the distance
to where the hare
hunkers under a log
and the coy dog
waits for it to move
Let a billion dropping flakes
inundate your vision
unselfconsciously
and find yourself rising,
taking the forest with you,
taking it all,
riding the snow-snuffed
woods into a gray sky,
levitating at the pace
of cool, languid
precipitation,
rising gently weightless
with pine and spruce
and the white-clad carcasses
of busted oak and ash
and every crystal-buried
stalk of undergrowth,
—the graygreen scales of lichen,
the silent future of mushrooms
underneath awaiting
the blessed touch
of damp and sun,
take with you the lights
of a distant house
and the wisps that unwind
from its chimney
like tendrils of love
of a blazing heart,
find yourself rising
unfettered as a hawk on a thermal
a dandelion tuft on a whistled breath
a balloon let loose from the grip of a child
ride upward,
easy,
weightless as a well-lived
soul
The above from one of Jim Culleny's daily poetry emails.
My once-husband was my Monday guest blogger, Myrln (AKA William A. Frankonis), who passed away lalst Thursday. In honor of his memory, our daughter asked me to post the following, which she found in his extensive files of his own writings. He doesn't have to be here to be here.
Lessons from the Wonderground: a Father to his Children
ONE
Try not to hurt anyone, which includes yourself.
TWO
Try to make yourself whole, knowing all the while that’s a lifelong process.
THREE
Be true to yourself, whatever that is at the time, for like everything else, your self changes.
FOUR
Speak out against wrong, however you define it and no matter who is the culprit.
FIVE
Honor children and always listen carefully to them; they are all smarter than we credit them and beyond you, they may have no voice but yours.
SIX
Find and honor all the wonder in all of Nature and in all of yourself, and reconnect, for you, too, are a part of Nature.
SEVEN
Keep close to family, blood or otherwise, for you are, and always will be part of each other.
EIGHT
Remember the dead in your heart, but honor life and the living with your time and attention because afterwards it is too late.
NINE
Laugh often, cry as necessary, fear what should be feared, love deeply, hurt when there’s pain, be courageous, know the holy value of breathing and of everything else that makes up living.
TEN
Find and regularly visit the stillness at the heart of life.
"..a bit of sun and the touch of love's hand," you wrote once in your script about "Myrln."
That's what we had yesterday when we gathered to pick up your ashes and bring them home. I know that you will appreciate the plans to temporarily keep them in the old Orville Redenbacher popcorn tin that you kept on your bookshelf. We are making plans to gather again this summer to take you where you found the most peace and comfort and leave you to the gentle rocking of Mother Sea.
It was a beautiful early spring day sandwiched between those wet and gloomy days April often brings. We took you to lunch. Well, we left you in the car while we had lunch. Here we are, leaving the restaurant. Not me, of course. I was taking the picture.
And then we went back to your apartment, got a bat and ball and went out into the sunny field to play. There was lots of sun and lots of love. We felt your spirit there with us, popping the ball and chasing it out into left field. I was too warm in the sweater I had worn, so I went back to the apartment and changed into one of your shirts. I hope that was OK. I guess it's too late if it wasn't.
"We're a quirky family," Melisa commented to a strange look from the funeral director after something she had said.
We all took something of yours before we left (although we will be back in a week or so to manage what needs to be saved from the complexities of memories you left behind). I took the little laughing Buddha as company for the traveling Buddha you gave me so long ago. I also took a little side table with a tiled top painted with two flowers that look kind of like anemones. That is going to become my altar space. I think that would be just fine with you.
There are so many chores I should be doing now that I'm back here with my mother. Instead, it sit alone at my computer and write and cry.. You would understand that.
I wish we had had more time with you -- a lot more of Myrln's magical
It costs much to grow old:
I've fondled the Springs
like sticks of new furniture
with the wood still sweet to the smell, suave
in the grain, and hidden away in its lockers,
I've stored my wild honey.
That's why the bell tolled
bearing its sound to the dead,
out of range of my reason:
one grows used to one's skin,
the cut of one's nose, one's good looks,
while summer by summer, the sun
sinks in it's brazier.
Noting the sea's health,
its insistence and turbulence,
I kept skimming the beaches;
now seated on waves
I keep the bitter green smell
of a lifetime's apprenticeship
to live on in the whole of my motion.
Coincidentally, this is a recent one of Jim Culleny's daily poetry emails.
A song from the fifties, I think, keeps running through my head. It's been there for almost a week now. I can't find it anywhere on the net, but, of course, I don't know the actual title. I remember the first line and the tune.
"You're my first love, and you'll be my last love...."
Any of you who remember the fifties know that song?
ADDENDUM: Thanks to Cora, who left a comment, I now know that the song is "Soldier Boy" by the Shirelles -- which is appropriate, since I met Bill just after he got out of the army and returned to the college where I was also a student.
I wasn't there this afternoon when my daughter gave permission to turn off the breathing machine and my ex-husband, her father, took his last artificial breath. I was home, getting ready for the Hospice nurse's visit tomorrow to assess my mother.
But I was with him for more than a day before that, when he told me had had an earworm for the past several days.
"Bloody Mary," he said smiling, as we remembered the production of South Pacific in which we performed together more than 35 years ago, he as Lt. Cable, and I as Liat.
In the back of my smile, I think about another bloody female. Kali: birth mother; death mother, tongue redder even than betel nuts. She had wormed in far beyond his ear.
He understood my fascination with Kali, Lilith. He might have used other names for those forces, but he knew them well. That was part of what we always had in common -- our immersion in the poetic power of myth. "Myrln" understood magic. Our son tells me that, for a couple of days before I called to tell him to get on a plane, he saw three crows chasing a hawk. Bill would have embraced that metaphor.
"There's one thing I really have to do," he had told me in between dozing off in his recliner just two days ago. "I want to write down how I feel about all those people who have been close to me. I know that I'm a very private person. I know that I've played my life close to the vest. I want to tell them how much they mean to me."
But he never had a chance to write that last piece of his special eloquence. He also never had a chance to enjoy that first day of 70 degree weather after the long dreary winter that he hated so much.
Nevertheless, the depths of his feelings had been expressed often in the many scripts (some performed and some not), memoirs, and poetry that he had written over his lifetime. His original stage play, The Killings Tale, won a audio book "Audie" in 2004.. His adaptations and original scripts have often been performed by the New York State Theater Institute.
Warner Music Group awarded NYSTI $400,000 in 1996 to develop five new musicals for family audiences. The first of those was “A Tale of Cinderella” by W.A.Frankonis, Will Severin, and George David Weiss, made possible in part by funding provided by Warner Music Group and by the participation of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. An immediate success, the award-winning show is available as an Atlantic Theatre CD or cassette and has been re-released on VHS as part of Warner Home Video's 75th Anniversary Celebration. Vocal Selections from “A Tale of Cinderella” is available from Warner Bros. Publications. The video was broadcast nationwide on PBS stations to an audience of more than 56 million TV households (half of potential US audiences). In the 2000-01 Season, “A Tale of Cinderella” toured all the major cities of New York including Buffalo, Syracuse, the Capital Region, and Manhattan.
His life and work will be remembered by a great many people. But I will remember him as the young man I married in a flurry of passion and possessiveness even though in many ways we were oil and water. We wound up being better friends than spouses.
I will miss his political rants and the books he would send me after he read them. I will miss the father he was to our children. I will miss a friend, and I will always be glad that I was able to be there for him when he needed help so close to the end of a life ended too soon.
ADDENDUM: b!X has posted excerpts from his dad's willl and it is no surprise that Bill used the same humor, honesty, and creativity in writing his will as he had with all of his other writings.
Myrln fidgets in the hospital bed in the emergency room, where they have him hooked up to various machines that beep and chime and whir.
"I just wanted a few more days. I needed a few more days. I needed time to think...." He looks at me with eyes angry and sad at the same time. He is back in the hospital after only two days at home from a week-long stay for tests and such. I have been with him for the past 36 hours, including this morning when we had to call a Rescue Ambulance because he couldn't breathe, even with an oxygen tank.
We have been divorced now for twice as many years as we were married. But time had healed our wounds and we had developed a friendly relationship.
"I will be eternally grateful," he wheezes, "for all you are doing for me now."
My eyes fill with tears. "No problem," I say.
"I have to tell you something," he says. "Even through it all, there was always a little love left."
"Yes," I say. "Me too."
And I'm crying and we are holding hands the way we once did long before I begged him to stop smoking.
Tonight he is temporarily hooked up to a respirator. b!X arrived from Oregon, and his sister and family from Massachusetts. He has not yet been awake for b!X and him to have a little time together. I hope he wakes, for both their sakes.
Meanwhile, I am back on the mountain with my mother, but I suspect will be be leaving again in a day or so.
They will take him off the respirator. He will either breathe or not. Either way, he won't be going home again.
Myrln, who once blogged here on Mondays, is my former spouse, the father of my children. He has inoperable lung cancer, which has spread to just about every vital organ.
While my mom fades slowly away, we are dealing with another crisis in the family, and that's why I haven't been blogging. I haven't been here; I've been in Albany with my daughter as she struggles her way through the health care systems to get support for her dad when he leaves the hospital.
My role was moral support, source of experiential information, and entertainer of my grandson, who had to come with her from Massachusetts. There was no one with whom to leave him for four full days while his own dad went to work and also monitored the construction process on their house addition.
Other patients came and went throughout those four days that we sat in and out of his hospital room. We watched them being taken to surgery, watched them come back and get going again.
But my offspring's dad didn't get up and didn't go anywhere. His lungs are waging war against hope. We are waiting to hear where he will be going.
And now I'm back here with my mother, and my daughter is back in her home as well. I am worried about her own health, as her commitment and persistence kick in and she continues her long distance struggle to manage her dad's care (with crucial help from a close friend of his who lives nearby).
I help from here as best I can -- checking out a county program that provides financial assistance with home care for eligible elders, local home care agencies, walkers, tub chairs, recliner lift chairs.....
Whatever the outcome of his final tests today, he will need an awful lot of help. And our small family is scattered, each with his/her own responsibilities. But we are doing all we can from where we are, knowing there will come a time, too soon, when we will all be gathering for the final going.
My mom and I eat in front of the television set in her little sitting room. She sits in her soft recliner in front of a tray table. I balance it all on my lap.
The kitchen table is littered with boxes of her favorite cookies, her can of fake coffee, glasses half-filled with water, a water jug (we have a really stinky well), her container of pills for the day, a sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers, and other assorted objects, including a pair of my reading glasses.
For the more than a quarter of a century during which I lived alone before this, I rarely sat and ate at my table unless I was reading while I was eating. I don't think we are very different from many people these days. For the most part, we've tabled the table.
Oh there are exceptions, even for me. I have a chance to sit with a family and have dinner when I'm visiting my daughter. We even have conversations -- this is when we can get a word in among the energetic chatter of my 5 year old grandson.
And one of my greatest pleasures these days is getting together around a table with my women friends, which I can't do very often because they live too far away. But when we meet, it's always around a table where we spend hours eating and laughing, talking politics and movies, and men.
And so when the following poem from Jim Culleny appeared in my in-box, I couldn't help but be moved by it.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
Joy Harjo
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
Is that the way it was done before nursing homes and hospices, before miracle drugs and transplants, when old folks died slowly at home, their sons and daughters and grandchildren and cousins all taking turns taking care? The frail old ones, dying only from the final stresses of age and gravity, moved slowly and silently, sleeping through most of those last months, last weeks, last days. Relatives came and went, stayed and shared, while the old ones slept and dreamed and waited, and that was the way it was finally done.
But there are only two of us here to keep watch, to take care. Each day she is more tired, asks to sleep more and more often. Awake, she sits sad and silent, eating slowly in front of the television that she can barely hear anyway. I sometimes still hold her and dance with her late at night, when she's afraid and won't sleep. Sometimes I sleep with her to make her feel safe. Sometimes, no matter what we do, she's up and down all night, wants to eat, wants to go home. "Please, please," she mutters, unable to tell me what exactly would please her.
Someone cracked my rear passenger side bumper, and I have to go and get an estimate so that I can get it fixed. But then what. My brother would have to get my mother in his car and come with me to drop off (and then pick up) my car from the body shop. It is hard to believe that we know no one around here who can help with that chore so that we wouldn't have to put my mother through that. I don't even think that there are taxis in this little town. At least I've never seen any. I think I'd better start checking that out.
This is not the way it's supposed to be done -- without friends, without extended family, without a support system. But this is the way my brother insists, and I am too tired to argue any more.
I'd better check the phone book for taxi services.
And I'm still purging and packing and planning. While I cook, and feed, and clean, and sit, and hold, and hope.
ADDENDUM:
Whaddya know. There IS a taxi service right in town! Family or friends would be better, but I'll settle for a taxi when it comes to getting my car fixed.
No other work of my childhood, and to a very large degree almost entirely at an unconscious level, likely did as much not just to steer me to an eventual appreciation of science fiction, but to an almost innate understanding of how deeply art in general, whether words or pictures or sounds, could implant itself into a person.
So nearly ends a beautifully written memoir by b!X about the death of Arthur C. Clarke and the influence that the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey had on his childhood aspirations and imagination. You should click here and read the whole Star Child post.
Like my son (and, actually, the whole of our family -- my daughter's wedding cake was topped with Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia), I, too, am a lover of the kind of science fiction that not only opens up possible new worlds, but also explores the kind of human spirit that will be necessary to make the best of those worlds.
My first exposure to sci fi was C.S. Lewis' Perelandra, upon which I stumbled by accident in my Catholic high school's library. As far as I was ever able to tell, it was the only sci-fi book on the library shelves.
I don't remember the sequence of my growing love of sci-fi, but I do remember watching Clarke's movie when it first came out -- a night out with my then-husband and another sci-fi fan couple. Our daughter would have been about 5 at that time; I don't remember her being with us.
But I do still remember the sounds, the visuals, the bone flung into the air that became a space ship, the appearance of the megalith, that last breath-stopping image of the Star Child.
Soon after every birthday, I take a photo of myself. My 68th birthday was last Tuesday, and here I am, way past the time when I would normally touch up my hair color. I've begun to go gray:
I took this photo with a new webcam that I just hooked up so that I can video conference with my grandson, who will soon get, from me, one
