The ending days of this waning year have been piling up, one on top of the other. We are down to the dregs of 2011, and I for one am ready to put the year to rest. This has been an exhausting year at any level. Margo and I were discussing the year over coffee just yesterday, exclaiming at the fact that so much happened worldwide that has already faded from her and my daily consciousness: the Japanese tsunami, the Joplin tornado, the Arab spring. I wondered aloud whether they had faded because of the nature of news (in that we are always moving on to the "next" story), or whether they had faded because, on mental overload constantly, I let more and more slip through my fingers.
Back in the old days, when I first started practicing law in a small firm here in town, the last two weeks of the year were always a hectic time. Clients always rushed to get done in the last two weeks of the year what they should have done earlier, very often related to gift or charitable giving for tax purposes. Files would pile up precariously on the conference room table; staff members would be rushing to get copies made or documents corrected; lunches were discouraged. But in the midst of the rush and chaos, there was always that exquisite moment when the senior attorney would announce, "that's all we can do this year. We'll start again after New Year's. Close the doors."
I want to say that in my personal life. "That's all I can do for this year. Close the doors."
I worked this morning until early afternoon. Out of hours for the week, I then walked home. I am done at the office for the rest of this year, a luxurious sounding phrase if there ever was one. I just mailed off the Christmas boxes to Ben and Alise and Sam. I have nothing on my schedule, nothing of my calendar, nothing calling my name until 2012.
Close the doors.
****
Two updates from 2011 blogs. (1) I have not yet found my grandmother's popcorn ball recipe. I didn't even make popcorn balls this year - not because of the loss, but because of time and being too rushed on too many fronts. (2) Back in August, I predicted that our local legal clinic would see over 250 clients for the first time in its eight years of existence. Indeed, the Andrews House/Delaware County Bar Interfaith Legal Clinic saw and provided services to 254 clients (including a Wills Clinic that served 16) in 2011. By comparison, we served 206 in 2010. That's a 23% increase in one year. While deeply sorry to see that record set in terms of the community difficulties, I am proud to be associated with the many volunteers who make the Clinic happen month after month.
Showing posts with label schedule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label schedule. Show all posts
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Looking For Proof Rock
This post started as an email to my friend Cindy in which I wrote: I wish I could get more charged up about things. Feeling like there is never time for "anything" that isn't mandatory. I don't mind most of the weekends going to work/chores, but all of them? And all the evenings? No time to dream, think, write, contemplate. Maybe I am too self-indulgent!
But now I am taking a few steps back from being so critical. Maybe I am not too self-indulgent. Maybe this persistent sense of being dissatisfied and disjointed is just my inner self trying hard to be heard.
I have gone through long periods of time in my life where I have not taken the time to listen to my inner self. While that is advice I freely give to others, it is advice I have difficulty following myself. The truth is I am more careful and caring of my friends than of myself.
When advising friends to listen to their inner selves, I often send them the following paragraph from the novella I Heard the Owl Call My Name, which is a favorite of mine:
I love that image of the observations and questions rising towards the door of the conscious mind and then a seemingly simple act, the call of the owl, being the catalyst to allow them to reach the door and open it.
(What is it about the act of opening a door?)
I haven’t wandered off to a quiet spot (preferably one by water) to let the observations and questions rise within me. I haven’t given myself the time or space in which to do that. Despite that, and perhaps because I have been so persistent in not granting myself the luxury of taking care of myself, those thoughts are rising to the surface all the same.
So, what do I want?
Time.
Writing time: blog, letters.
Feel as if I am on top of things: the house, the garden, the bills, cooking, food storage (canning and freezing).
Rekindle the connections with Warren beyond the dailies. We seem to have less and less time to dream or share things beyond the immediate day-to-day stuff that is always demanding our attention.
Go away for a day or two. Not a vacation (yet), but a break. Water would be nice. Away would be nicer. Somewhere that is not Delaware.
Brownbag lunch with Warren at the springs on campus.
Be somewhere where I am not expected or required to be my Delaware self with all the responsibilities and weight of the schedule and commitments.
More sleep.
More connections (personal) with my friends: coffee, walks, something.
Regularly swim and walk again (exercise).
Walk regularly with Warren again (relationship).
Read more poetry.
Rediscover Prufrock.
Not be Prufrock.
Watch more movies (I don’t mean go out to the movies, I mean watch more movies).
Watch more sunsets.
Those were all items I jotted down quickly, without thinking too hard and without censoring myself. (I haven’t rewritten the list for publication either, as I prepare this post.) So many of them are small things. Doable things. And so many keep pointing back to time and personal connections (with friends, with Warren).
So why am I not listening to myself and doing some of these?
I don’t know. Maybe it goes to back to my feeling that if I do the things I want to do, I am being self-indulgent. I think women more than men (but not exclusively) tend not to place enough value our wants and our needs. It is always easier to take care of others first. Maybe I don’t want the internal critic pointing her finger at me, accusing me of being selfish and thinking only of myself.
Or maybe I am afraid the list will become one more demand on my time, one more set of responsibilities and commitments I have to keep.
For awhile, lots of people were doing lists of “50 things you want to do before you die.” Then everyone talked abut their “bucket list.” Same idea, new name. Folks would meet and say “so, what’s on your bucket list?” or “Yep, I put that on my bucket list.” Some of those bucket lists are pretty staggering.
I have a “50 things” list on my computer, one I put together many, many years ago. I have not looked at it for a long time; I know I wrote it pre-cancer. Post cancer, I’m not sure it matters as much. I really am that different. Things that once seemed important to me have slid way down in priority.
The list I scrawled out is not a bucket list or a 50 things list. It’s a little list. It’s a “maybe could I just live a little more deliberately and not feel so harried and out of touch with my life?” list.
Time will tell.
As is so often the case when I am musing, Warren often brings me back to reality with one tug of the kite string. I shared the list with him last night and then commented this morning at breakfast that I was a little surprised that he didn’t say anything about it last night.
“I was thinking about it,” Warren replied. He then calmly ate his oatmeal while I explained the Prufrock entries on the list.
“Prufrock” is “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot, and is probably my all time favorite poem out of a long list of favorites. It was on my mind because Monday evening my friend Jacob and I had kept up a running repartee about Prufrock on Facebook after he had posted a video of Michael Gough reading it.
Warren, as we famously know, is not into poetry. I lost him somewhere in the breakfast discussion. He confirmed that later this morning when he wrote: As for Prufrock, I was thinking Proof Rock and wondering where it is.
Like I said, a good sharp tug on the kite string does wonders.
I have a list, a little list, in hand. I have Warren beside me.
Now if we can only find the time to go looking for Proof Rock.
But now I am taking a few steps back from being so critical. Maybe I am not too self-indulgent. Maybe this persistent sense of being dissatisfied and disjointed is just my inner self trying hard to be heard.
I have gone through long periods of time in my life where I have not taken the time to listen to my inner self. While that is advice I freely give to others, it is advice I have difficulty following myself. The truth is I am more careful and caring of my friends than of myself.
When advising friends to listen to their inner selves, I often send them the following paragraph from the novella I Heard the Owl Call My Name, which is a favorite of mine:
All day long, on his way back to Kingcome, because he was alone and receptive, the little questions, the observations he had pushed deep within him, began to rise slowly towards the door of the conscious mind which was almost ready to open, to receive them, and give them words...In front of the vicarage he anchored the boat and waded ashore. He trudged up the black sands to the path and stopped. From the dark spruce he heard an owl call—once, and again—and the questions that had been rising all day long reached the door of his mind and opened it.
I love that image of the observations and questions rising towards the door of the conscious mind and then a seemingly simple act, the call of the owl, being the catalyst to allow them to reach the door and open it.
(What is it about the act of opening a door?)
I haven’t wandered off to a quiet spot (preferably one by water) to let the observations and questions rise within me. I haven’t given myself the time or space in which to do that. Despite that, and perhaps because I have been so persistent in not granting myself the luxury of taking care of myself, those thoughts are rising to the surface all the same.
So, what do I want?
Time.
Writing time: blog, letters.
Feel as if I am on top of things: the house, the garden, the bills, cooking, food storage (canning and freezing).
Rekindle the connections with Warren beyond the dailies. We seem to have less and less time to dream or share things beyond the immediate day-to-day stuff that is always demanding our attention.
Go away for a day or two. Not a vacation (yet), but a break. Water would be nice. Away would be nicer. Somewhere that is not Delaware.
Brownbag lunch with Warren at the springs on campus.
Be somewhere where I am not expected or required to be my Delaware self with all the responsibilities and weight of the schedule and commitments.
More sleep.
More connections (personal) with my friends: coffee, walks, something.
Regularly swim and walk again (exercise).
Walk regularly with Warren again (relationship).
Read more poetry.
Rediscover Prufrock.
Not be Prufrock.
Watch more movies (I don’t mean go out to the movies, I mean watch more movies).
Watch more sunsets.
Those were all items I jotted down quickly, without thinking too hard and without censoring myself. (I haven’t rewritten the list for publication either, as I prepare this post.) So many of them are small things. Doable things. And so many keep pointing back to time and personal connections (with friends, with Warren).
So why am I not listening to myself and doing some of these?
I don’t know. Maybe it goes to back to my feeling that if I do the things I want to do, I am being self-indulgent. I think women more than men (but not exclusively) tend not to place enough value our wants and our needs. It is always easier to take care of others first. Maybe I don’t want the internal critic pointing her finger at me, accusing me of being selfish and thinking only of myself.
Or maybe I am afraid the list will become one more demand on my time, one more set of responsibilities and commitments I have to keep.
For awhile, lots of people were doing lists of “50 things you want to do before you die.” Then everyone talked abut their “bucket list.” Same idea, new name. Folks would meet and say “so, what’s on your bucket list?” or “Yep, I put that on my bucket list.” Some of those bucket lists are pretty staggering.
I have a “50 things” list on my computer, one I put together many, many years ago. I have not looked at it for a long time; I know I wrote it pre-cancer. Post cancer, I’m not sure it matters as much. I really am that different. Things that once seemed important to me have slid way down in priority.
The list I scrawled out is not a bucket list or a 50 things list. It’s a little list. It’s a “maybe could I just live a little more deliberately and not feel so harried and out of touch with my life?” list.
Time will tell.
Postscript
As is so often the case when I am musing, Warren often brings me back to reality with one tug of the kite string. I shared the list with him last night and then commented this morning at breakfast that I was a little surprised that he didn’t say anything about it last night.
“I was thinking about it,” Warren replied. He then calmly ate his oatmeal while I explained the Prufrock entries on the list.
“Prufrock” is “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot, and is probably my all time favorite poem out of a long list of favorites. It was on my mind because Monday evening my friend Jacob and I had kept up a running repartee about Prufrock on Facebook after he had posted a video of Michael Gough reading it.
Warren, as we famously know, is not into poetry. I lost him somewhere in the breakfast discussion. He confirmed that later this morning when he wrote: As for Prufrock, I was thinking Proof Rock and wondering where it is.
Like I said, a good sharp tug on the kite string does wonders.
I have a list, a little list, in hand. I have Warren beside me.
Now if we can only find the time to go looking for Proof Rock.
Friday, October 15, 2010
October Notes and Scraps
It's Concert Week, which means Time, speedy little bugger that it already is, flies faster than ever. Here it is early afternoon Friday, dress rehearsal is tonight, Season 32 launches tomorrow night, post-concert reception after that, and this household is at sixes and sevens.
In short, life as usual for when you are married to the Symphony.
In all my running around today (the post office, two grocery stores, dropping off library books, getting the car back to Warren so he can use it), I managed all the same to call a time out and scrawl some notes for October on the back of the grocery list. Two hours later, as I sit here typing, I look at my notes. They read like this:
dress tonight
walking - running into Don and talking
Large inflated cat - 10 feet? makes me smile
ghosts of Halloweens past
drumming rain in early morning move closer to W
impossibly blue
Deciphered, they mean this:
dress tonight There is dress rehearsal tonight. I will be at Gray Chapel much of the evening, helping set up the ticket and lobby areas. It will be a late night (no surprise). So will tomorrow (no surprise).
walking - running into Don and talking Although I was driving this morning, our one-car status continues and I have been spending a lot of time on foot. I like walking, a lot, although when you have to walk, you are far more aware of the extra time it takes to walk. Have to be at the courthouse by 12:30? Build in that extra 15 minutes to get there. Walking home from the courthouse yesterday afternoon, I was deep in thought (Legal Clinic, Concert Week, bills, supper, chores) when someone called my name. It was my good friend Don, who is the director of our amazing community resource, Andrews House. He darted across the street and we talked for about 10 minutes. As I walked on home, I found myself thinking that if I had been in the car, I never would have run into Don and we never would have had that conversation. That's but one of the many upsides of walking: the constant opportunity for community and friend interaction.
Large inflated cat - 10 feet? makes me smile Driving to the grocery today, I went past a house on a corner which has heavily indulged in the inflatables market for Halloween. There are pumpkins and bats and ghosts and a huge (truly) black cat with an arched back and upright tail. The cat is easily eight feet high at its back, and the tail makes it even larger and taller. Warren and I are not inflatable folks, but the displays of others never fail to make me smile. Especially when it is an enormous inflated cat on a quiet residential street.
ghosts of Halloweens past I can't look at Halloween decorations without thinking of my own boys. When Sam and Ben were young, we had a series of Halloween windsocks - pumpkins, skeletons, vampires, Frankenstein - that hung on the front porch. The annual hanging of the windsocks was a big deal to two little boys once upon a time. (And I'm glad my two guys predated the inflatables trend.)
drumming rain in early morning move closer to W It rained early this morning and I woke up just enough to hear it drumming on the roof. I moved closer to Warren, sound asleep, and let the rhythms lull me back to sleep.
impossibly blue A few hours later, the sun was out and the sky was the color I call "October blue." October blue is impossibly blue, especially when a flaming golden maple is stuck up against it. It is so blue my throat aches just looking at it. The sky is that color right now.
The day calls and I need to turn back to the tasks at hand, which are multiplying rapidly. There are other posts still out there, tugging at my sleeve, tripping my thoughts up as I walk, but Time is tapping its foot. For today, these notes and scraps will have to mark my place, tossed into the wind, tossed into that impossibly blue October sky.
In short, life as usual for when you are married to the Symphony.
In all my running around today (the post office, two grocery stores, dropping off library books, getting the car back to Warren so he can use it), I managed all the same to call a time out and scrawl some notes for October on the back of the grocery list. Two hours later, as I sit here typing, I look at my notes. They read like this:
dress tonight
walking - running into Don and talking
Large inflated cat - 10 feet? makes me smile
ghosts of Halloweens past
drumming rain in early morning move closer to W
impossibly blue
Deciphered, they mean this:
dress tonight There is dress rehearsal tonight. I will be at Gray Chapel much of the evening, helping set up the ticket and lobby areas. It will be a late night (no surprise). So will tomorrow (no surprise).
walking - running into Don and talking Although I was driving this morning, our one-car status continues and I have been spending a lot of time on foot. I like walking, a lot, although when you have to walk, you are far more aware of the extra time it takes to walk. Have to be at the courthouse by 12:30? Build in that extra 15 minutes to get there. Walking home from the courthouse yesterday afternoon, I was deep in thought (Legal Clinic, Concert Week, bills, supper, chores) when someone called my name. It was my good friend Don, who is the director of our amazing community resource, Andrews House. He darted across the street and we talked for about 10 minutes. As I walked on home, I found myself thinking that if I had been in the car, I never would have run into Don and we never would have had that conversation. That's but one of the many upsides of walking: the constant opportunity for community and friend interaction.
Large inflated cat - 10 feet? makes me smile Driving to the grocery today, I went past a house on a corner which has heavily indulged in the inflatables market for Halloween. There are pumpkins and bats and ghosts and a huge (truly) black cat with an arched back and upright tail. The cat is easily eight feet high at its back, and the tail makes it even larger and taller. Warren and I are not inflatable folks, but the displays of others never fail to make me smile. Especially when it is an enormous inflated cat on a quiet residential street.
ghosts of Halloweens past I can't look at Halloween decorations without thinking of my own boys. When Sam and Ben were young, we had a series of Halloween windsocks - pumpkins, skeletons, vampires, Frankenstein - that hung on the front porch. The annual hanging of the windsocks was a big deal to two little boys once upon a time. (And I'm glad my two guys predated the inflatables trend.)
drumming rain in early morning move closer to W It rained early this morning and I woke up just enough to hear it drumming on the roof. I moved closer to Warren, sound asleep, and let the rhythms lull me back to sleep.
impossibly blue A few hours later, the sun was out and the sky was the color I call "October blue." October blue is impossibly blue, especially when a flaming golden maple is stuck up against it. It is so blue my throat aches just looking at it. The sky is that color right now.
The day calls and I need to turn back to the tasks at hand, which are multiplying rapidly. There are other posts still out there, tugging at my sleeve, tripping my thoughts up as I walk, but Time is tapping its foot. For today, these notes and scraps will have to mark my place, tossed into the wind, tossed into that impossibly blue October sky.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Time On My Side? Not This Week
My friend and colleague was at it again.
"You haven't been writing, April," he said during a recent phone conversation. "What's going on?"
I forget exactly what I said in response, but whatever phrase I used caused the concern in his voice to ratchet up several notches. I quickly backtracked: "I'm fine, really. It's just way busy around here right now."
We are experiencing very full days right now. Full weekends as well. Last weekend was so packed that I turned to Warren and said "I hate the weekends. I just want it to be Monday again."
My calendar is scribbled on day after day. I am still struggling with the tiredness that took a running headlong leap onto main stage when I got sick earlier this month. I have been so tired in recent weeks that it started to nag me. Was it "just" tiredness? Was it something else? ("Something else?" There is only one "something else" in my life.) It finally hit me yesterday that I am commuting two hours a day - an hour each way - taking Sam to and from work.
I shared my discovery with Warren over supper last night. I told him I thought my driving to and from Acorn Farms Monday through Friday was taking a bigger toll on my energy than I had realized and was tampering with my overall sense of good health.
Warren couldn't keep the broad smile off his face.
"What? What's that smug smile about?"
Warren protested. He wasn't being smug. He was, however, pleased to remind me that he had pointed out that very fact several weeks ago and had offered more than once to give me an occasional break by driving Sam himself.
I have nine weeks left of the daily commute, followed by a whirlwind driving trip to Montana and back. Between now and then are concerts, the garden, a quick trip south to pick up instruments, and a handful of holidays.
Right now I am missing too many things. I miss writing - this blog, letters to friends. I miss having pools of quiet time in my day. I miss taking the time to sit with friends and really listen, really share. I miss time with Warren that is not backed up against competing schedules or sandwiched in between four errands and three meetings.
I think I need to take a carving knife to my schedule.
As I have written more than once before, ultimately I'm the one filling in the blanks on my calendar. Oh, sure, there are some things - taking Sam to work, the upcoming concerts - that are fixed and must be worked around. But almost everything else is my doing.
No wonder my Muse has fled. She is probably out back, watching the garden grow.
Which is where I need to be. Just as soon as I get back from court. Well, and get the dishes done too. And make the bed. And figure out what we are taking to the cookout on Monday. And finish a memo for the judges. And...
Where's that carving knife?
"You haven't been writing, April," he said during a recent phone conversation. "What's going on?"
I forget exactly what I said in response, but whatever phrase I used caused the concern in his voice to ratchet up several notches. I quickly backtracked: "I'm fine, really. It's just way busy around here right now."
We are experiencing very full days right now. Full weekends as well. Last weekend was so packed that I turned to Warren and said "I hate the weekends. I just want it to be Monday again."
My calendar is scribbled on day after day. I am still struggling with the tiredness that took a running headlong leap onto main stage when I got sick earlier this month. I have been so tired in recent weeks that it started to nag me. Was it "just" tiredness? Was it something else? ("Something else?" There is only one "something else" in my life.) It finally hit me yesterday that I am commuting two hours a day - an hour each way - taking Sam to and from work.
I shared my discovery with Warren over supper last night. I told him I thought my driving to and from Acorn Farms Monday through Friday was taking a bigger toll on my energy than I had realized and was tampering with my overall sense of good health.
Warren couldn't keep the broad smile off his face.
"What? What's that smug smile about?"
Warren protested. He wasn't being smug. He was, however, pleased to remind me that he had pointed out that very fact several weeks ago and had offered more than once to give me an occasional break by driving Sam himself.
I have nine weeks left of the daily commute, followed by a whirlwind driving trip to Montana and back. Between now and then are concerts, the garden, a quick trip south to pick up instruments, and a handful of holidays.
Right now I am missing too many things. I miss writing - this blog, letters to friends. I miss having pools of quiet time in my day. I miss taking the time to sit with friends and really listen, really share. I miss time with Warren that is not backed up against competing schedules or sandwiched in between four errands and three meetings.
I think I need to take a carving knife to my schedule.
As I have written more than once before, ultimately I'm the one filling in the blanks on my calendar. Oh, sure, there are some things - taking Sam to work, the upcoming concerts - that are fixed and must be worked around. But almost everything else is my doing.
No wonder my Muse has fled. She is probably out back, watching the garden grow.
Which is where I need to be. Just as soon as I get back from court. Well, and get the dishes done too. And make the bed. And figure out what we are taking to the cookout on Monday. And finish a memo for the judges. And...
Where's that carving knife?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
A Wedding, A Death, And Life
My son Ben and my almost daughter-in-law Alise have set a wedding date for this August in Helena, Montana.
I'm thrilled! I'm overjoyed! I love Montana! I love Ben and Alise!
And I'm looking at my budget trying to figure out how on earth to manage it. (Don't worry, you two, we'll be there. Oh, we'll be there!) Earlier today I was running trip estimates and despairing each time a new balance came up on the calculator. Warren could hear it in my voice when we talked on the phone.
In all fairness, it's not just the expense of that trip that is on my mind or in my voice right now. Yesterday I saw Tim, my oncologist, for a quarterly checkup. While I got good reviews, we talked at length about the costs of tests and how far apart I could space them before he started losing vital connections to my health history. I told Tim I needed time to pay off the medical bills that have accumulated since Dr. Bully put me behind on the count and could we delay everything for another six months? I knew from his face and carefully worded response that he was uncomfortable with that option. He had questions of his own. How much did it cost just to see him? What if I saw him in 90 days without any testing? Could I afford that? We compromised by agreeing I would see him in three months - without any labs or other tests - and then repeat the kappa free light chain assay, one of the best tests today for myeloma, when I see him in the fall.
I said to Warren as we drove home, "Tim doesn't like my IgG." It hasn't moved upwards since last July, but it hasn't moved down either.
So that is gnawing at me.
Interlaced with my medical and medical/financial concerns, our household is running on vapors right now. I have taxes bumping aside the medical bills in the next two weeks. Both of us are writing grants for our respective employers. Our weekday schedule has changed now that I drive Sam to and from work every day and we are still all adjusting to the new schedule. Warren has been playing concerts all over, has more coming up, will be playing Easter at Maple Grove, has the May concert and the composer residency bearing down like a steam locomotive on him and the Symphony, and is trying to finalize another food pantry benefit concert, all while trying to finish building a vibraphone for the May concert (as well as have a set of crotales cast so he can machine and finish them in time to play in the same concert).
And our friend and neighbor Tom Prengaman died last week.
Tom was only 57. He had had three bouts with lymphoma over the last 17 years. It sounds as if his death was caused by a recurrence of it, although he didn't live long enough for his oncologist to run definitive tests. If the cause of death wasn't lymphoma, the lymphoma was the major contributor.
I'm sad and upset that Tom died. Besides being a friend (along with his wife Kris and their now adult daughters, who I have known since they were in grade school) and our backyard neighbor, Tom lived in Cancerland. Just like me. When I was facing my first stem cell transplant, Tom sought me out at a barbeque and talked about his own experiences and transplant. He talked directly and bluntly about his illness, which I appreciated deeply.
Tom's death is gnawing at me. I know it is and I know why. Those of us who populate Cancerland live with the reality of the cancer someday coming back with a vengeance. We know it. We don't always face it, but we know it deep in our bones. Tom dying last week made me face that it could happen to me too.
It could happen to me too, but it is today I must be living. And while I pound away at the grant application, or shuttle Sam to and from work, or rework the figures on a trip to Montana, I need to keep that thought - that it is today I must be living - first and foremost in my mind.
Funeral processions have the right of way on our roads. We pull over and let them go by; if we are at a light and it turns green, we sit and wait until the last vehicle in the procession clears the intersection. Besides being the law, it is the remnant of a time when we knew our community well enough to know who was being buried and stood silently by in respect as the procession went by.
In the Jewish tradition, however, the outcome is different in one situation. If a funeral procession meets a wedding procession at a crossroads, the wedding procession has the right of way. The rationale behind this custom is that life always takes precedence over death.
Life takes precedence over death. It is today I must be living.
We've got a wedding to get to in August.
I'm thrilled! I'm overjoyed! I love Montana! I love Ben and Alise!
And I'm looking at my budget trying to figure out how on earth to manage it. (Don't worry, you two, we'll be there. Oh, we'll be there!) Earlier today I was running trip estimates and despairing each time a new balance came up on the calculator. Warren could hear it in my voice when we talked on the phone.
In all fairness, it's not just the expense of that trip that is on my mind or in my voice right now. Yesterday I saw Tim, my oncologist, for a quarterly checkup. While I got good reviews, we talked at length about the costs of tests and how far apart I could space them before he started losing vital connections to my health history. I told Tim I needed time to pay off the medical bills that have accumulated since Dr. Bully put me behind on the count and could we delay everything for another six months? I knew from his face and carefully worded response that he was uncomfortable with that option. He had questions of his own. How much did it cost just to see him? What if I saw him in 90 days without any testing? Could I afford that? We compromised by agreeing I would see him in three months - without any labs or other tests - and then repeat the kappa free light chain assay, one of the best tests today for myeloma, when I see him in the fall.
I said to Warren as we drove home, "Tim doesn't like my IgG." It hasn't moved upwards since last July, but it hasn't moved down either.
So that is gnawing at me.
Interlaced with my medical and medical/financial concerns, our household is running on vapors right now. I have taxes bumping aside the medical bills in the next two weeks. Both of us are writing grants for our respective employers. Our weekday schedule has changed now that I drive Sam to and from work every day and we are still all adjusting to the new schedule. Warren has been playing concerts all over, has more coming up, will be playing Easter at Maple Grove, has the May concert and the composer residency bearing down like a steam locomotive on him and the Symphony, and is trying to finalize another food pantry benefit concert, all while trying to finish building a vibraphone for the May concert (as well as have a set of crotales cast so he can machine and finish them in time to play in the same concert).
And our friend and neighbor Tom Prengaman died last week.
Tom was only 57. He had had three bouts with lymphoma over the last 17 years. It sounds as if his death was caused by a recurrence of it, although he didn't live long enough for his oncologist to run definitive tests. If the cause of death wasn't lymphoma, the lymphoma was the major contributor.
I'm sad and upset that Tom died. Besides being a friend (along with his wife Kris and their now adult daughters, who I have known since they were in grade school) and our backyard neighbor, Tom lived in Cancerland. Just like me. When I was facing my first stem cell transplant, Tom sought me out at a barbeque and talked about his own experiences and transplant. He talked directly and bluntly about his illness, which I appreciated deeply.
Tom's death is gnawing at me. I know it is and I know why. Those of us who populate Cancerland live with the reality of the cancer someday coming back with a vengeance. We know it. We don't always face it, but we know it deep in our bones. Tom dying last week made me face that it could happen to me too.
It could happen to me too, but it is today I must be living. And while I pound away at the grant application, or shuttle Sam to and from work, or rework the figures on a trip to Montana, I need to keep that thought - that it is today I must be living - first and foremost in my mind.
Funeral processions have the right of way on our roads. We pull over and let them go by; if we are at a light and it turns green, we sit and wait until the last vehicle in the procession clears the intersection. Besides being the law, it is the remnant of a time when we knew our community well enough to know who was being buried and stood silently by in respect as the procession went by.
In the Jewish tradition, however, the outcome is different in one situation. If a funeral procession meets a wedding procession at a crossroads, the wedding procession has the right of way. The rationale behind this custom is that life always takes precedence over death.
Life takes precedence over death. It is today I must be living.
We've got a wedding to get to in August.
Congratulations, Ben and Alise!
Friday, March 26, 2010
The Week That Was
This has been a busy, busy week. I am so glad it is Friday.
I have already written about my United Way week. But United Way was not the only thing that happened this week.
This week I filled, seeded, and watered 66 pots. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, some ornamental gourds (seeds from another, so they may be crossbred) because Warren wants to experiment with gourd instruments some more. After doing that Sunday I was tired, tired, tired.
While I was in United Way meetings all day Tuesday, Warren and the Symphony were launching the big event of the year: the Symphony participating in the Ford Made in America program. The kickoff event was a luncheon of community leaders to introduce the program, explain the related community events, centered around a four day residency with composer Joseph Schwantner, and seek community imput.
And at home in the evenings, Warren was building a vibraphone. Except for Tuesday night, when we went to hear Liz's band concert.
When I wasn't at United Way this week, I was in court meetings. I am the lead writer of a grant due April 8 and those days are ticking fast.
When I wasn't at United Way or in court meetings this week, I was on the road. Sam started work on Monday and I am driving him to and from the job each day. That has required us to set the alarms earlier and run the days a little later.
Today is the first day all week that, after driving Sam to work, I have not had to turn around and prepare for a meeting outside of the home. Maybe I can catch up on a lot of laundry, paperwork, writing.
As I said, this has been a busy week full of hard work, accomplishments, proud moments, news from Montana (there's a wedding in the works!), and Sam's new job. Whew.
Mother Nature apparently felt left out of the whirl, so she added her piece to the week as well. This morning, the last Friday in March, we all woke up to this sight outdoors:
And this one indoors:
The broccoli is up! Now that's the way to end a busy, busy week!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Racing Derby
March has started fast right out of the gates. It is Symphony Week (concert this Sunday). It is United Way Reading Week, with agency visits starting next Monday at 9:00 a.m. I have read 30 of the 39 proposals at this point. (And, no, Katrina, I am NOT whining. I am pumped for United Way March Madness to begin!)The pace is brisk around here. I can hear the thunder of hooves.
I love carousels. (Weren't expecting that jump, were you?) I have always loved them. As a little girl, my ride tickets at the county fair would go only to the merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel. Nothing else came close.
While I have always loved the beauty of a horse, there is something Big and Large and Uncontrollable about a real one. My lifelong friend Cindy has spent most of her life on the back of a horse and I admire her comfort and ease around them. Me? I like to stand on the other side of the fence and watch. I'll gladly pat their flanks, but don't expect me to sit easily on top of one.
On a carousel, though, the horses are brilliantly colored and easy to mount and you can ride like the wind (accompanied, if you are really lucky, by an authentic band organ playing traditional music).
Cedar Point Amusement Park, in Sandusky, Ohio, contains one of two "racing derby" style carousels left in the country. On that type of carousel, the horses go back and forth, rather than up and down. The horses are four abreast; the rider "races" the other riders in the lane. After you have ridden it a time or two, you learn how to sit to make your horse stay in the lead.
Racing derby carousels have a distinctive rumbling sound to them. This is largely due to the power needed for the turntable to reach its top speed of 15 mph (which is pretty fast for a carousel). The rumble sounds like thoroughbreds pounding down the home stretch, which adds to the fun of the ride.
And brings me back to March starting off fast right out of the gates.
March is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb.
Mine came in with the thunder of hooves.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Faster! Faster!
"Now! Now!" cried the Queen. "Faster! Faster!" And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy.
The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, "You may rest a little now."
Alice looked round her in great surprise. "Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!"
"Of course it is," said the Queen, "what would you have it?"
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else - if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
"If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
This has been a Red Queen week for me (Warren too, but I'm not speculating as to his thoughts about it). Looking at my calendar tells the tale: rehearsals and performances of all kinds all last weekend ending midway through Sunday evening, evening meeting Monday, United Way agency training all Tuesday morning (it's almost that time of year again), Legal Clinic that night (22 clients plus family and friends, 6 attorneys, 3+ hours of intake and counseling, 2 pre-law students from OWU doing intake, 2 plates of fresh baked goodies, 1 attorney coordinator, 1 coffee pot, 1 pot of hot water, 1 jack of all trades(i.e., me) - do the math), small claims mediation all afternoon Thursday, Chamber dinner that night (our United Way received the Quality of Life award!), and then a long, long day yesterday that took us to Columbiana County in far eastern Ohio and back again, albeit the return trip was via Akron so we could have dinner with Warren's son, David.
That just brings us up to last night. And doesn't count the smaller moments - all the meals, laundry, swimming, walking, catching up with friends over a cup of coffee. (Along with Warren, my friends are the glue that helps hold me together when my calendar is running faster than the Red Queen.)
Today has been a catching up kind of day - finally finishing the bean soup that was started Wednesday night, baking two apple pies (just out of the oven) for our evening plans, washing the towels, working on court projects, working on Symphony projects (I often write for the Symphony). Warren is working on house projects, working on Symphony projects, and practicing. Our day today is a series of deftly woven events, interlaced with the rich smell of bean soup cooking and apple pies baking. Tomorrow holds a rehearsal and performance in Mansfield, and then the week turns over again. It is already full and ends with us heading to New York for the Midwinter Managers meeting of the League of American Orchestras and not returning until Tuesday night.
Despite the crowded schedule (and all of January has been like this), I don't feel the mind numbing rush that dogged my steps in December. That's not to say I am not exhausted at times; last night I was so worn out physically by the time we made it home that I stumbled over my thoughts and my feet more than once before finally dropping into bed.
But my spirit is not rushed and that has made all the difference.
Last night the three of us talked and laughed over huge servings of Barberton chicken at one of the local chicken house. David is funny and loquacious and so reminds me of his dad at about that same age. It was a space carved out of three busy schedules and filled with sharing and family. Tonight we'll share a meal and pie with friends and talk and laugh some more.
Alice had to run with the Red Queen in order to reach the first square of the giant chessboard that comprised Looking Glass land. She was eager to begin the game and reach the eighth square so she too could become a queen. After all, as the Red Queen promised, "in the Eighth Square we shall be Queens together, and it's all feasting and fun!"
I don't know about being a Queen, unless I am a Queen of Pies, but I do know about feasting and fun. And about friends and family.
And about making sure I don't find myself running in place so fast that I miss out on them.
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