Inch Six: Soldiering On

Why the oval pan? Because an 8x13 oval will do for a recipe calling for a 9" square pan, and I see no reason to go out and get a pan size that I have seen called for only TWICE in the last 25 years! 

"Soldier on." Many (most? some?) of us know that phrase. It means to keep on keep on keeping on, no matter what the obstacles, no matter what the weather (figuratively or literally), no matter what.

In looking for the origin of that phrase, I expected to find something dating back to WWII or maybe even WWI. Nope. The phrase came into usage in this country in the early 1950s, possibly (probably) in response to the Korean War. That was a war that had no clear goal; that was the war where our country's soldiers were stuck in mud and brutal winter; that was a war that Chaim Potok captured the trudgery so clearly in his novel The Book of Lights (and Potok served as an Army chaplain in South Korea after the war).  

Lately that phrase has been coming to my mind regularly. Both Warren and I have a tremendous capacity to soldier on on our various obligations. Warren is involved in at least six (Six!—Count 'em—Six!) major endeavors right now. Mine are not so numerous, but sometimes just as time consuming. 

Sometimes it would be nice just to say "Not now." 

I'm not talking about the inability to limit my commitments. I have no problem saying "no thank you" to most social interactions, any board invitations, and a whole bunch of other things. I'm talking about the commitments that are a part of me: Dad stuff, Legal Clinic stuff, other family stuff. Oh, and my own medical stuff. 

So why am I whining since I truly cut out that extraneous "stuff"?

Because I am tired of soldiering on. I know I don't have a choice (well, a moral choice, that is) when it comes to Dad, for example. I can accept that.

But I want to go away. not forever, just for a bit.

In a recent phone call with my son Ben, when I said we would not be coming out there this summer—too many obligations, with his Grandpa Dale being one of them—Ben immediately responded.

"Oh, I get it, Mom, I get it." (They lead a busy, overpacked life out there, so Ben does get it.)

I do too. All the same, it hit me hard when, paging through past blog posts, I saw one noting that 2020 and the pandemic lockdown made it the first year since 2013, when Ramona was still LITTLE, that we would not see her either here or out there. 

Oh.

We used to travel more, and just not to the Pacific Northwest. Heck, I used to travel more.

Soldier on.

And most days, trust me, we both do in this household without feeling the weight of that concept weighing us down. And how do I know that? Because Warren had a birthday a few days ago and I made the cake pictured above! No soldiering on there: just joy. 

Focus?

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

 

Just 10 days ago at the mid-January point, I wrote about what the month had held so far and what some of the topics on my mind were. With only 6 (!) days remaining to this first month of 2025, I feel as if I am still tiptoeing through the days.

My study is a mess: Dad paperwork (some old, some older, some newer, some new, and, of course, miscellaneous) in a couple of piles, my paperwork (the same), a small but growing pile of donations after the heady exclamation in that aforementioned post that we had moved a lot of things to Goodwill, and, of course, some other stuff. At the same time, there are some small, "neater" stacks of papers on the couch in the downstairs study that (a) are mostly mine and (b) need to move upstairs to my study and get filed, shredded, or recycled. My study is chillier than downstairs (excuses, excuses) and I keep looking at those downstairs stacks and think, "I'll get to those...later."

The real issue is that my mind is cluttered or, more to the point, my focus is blurry right now. I am working hard (perhaps too hard?) on finding my center, my cornerstone. (Maybe I have more than one cornerstone?) Maybe it has been this cold wave (finally ending, it would appear) that has kept me from walking as much or as far as I want and am used to (I did walk home from visiting Dad today; that was a good thing!) that is pushing me down. (As I wrote just a few days ago, walking is a very important part of my life.) I am quite sure that the noise, much of it toxic, blasting out from the new administration is part of the picture as I worry about the safety and well-being of family and friends in this new era. 

And, having written all of that out and seeing my words in the light of day, maybe I do have a focus after all. I remember that not only am I am my best when I focus on the small moments, the immediate moments, and the community moments, but it is more than my just noticing those things. It is my moral duty, one I take up gladly, to do my part to mend the broken seams of this world. 

Maybe I am indeed ready to move forward. 

Crossroads

Photo by Mike Enerio on Unsplash

I am at a crossroads.

I have had some weeks that have been more challenging emotionally than usual, both in good ways and in harder ways. My article at Medium on my recognizing I'm dying? Wow! Last week, one of the editors emailed and asked if he had permission to feature it. Seriously? Okay, now I've gone from getting a base hit in my first time at bat (when it got curated) to getting a triple (to being featured). I just signed off Thursday on the final edits and formatting. So that was a good, no, GREAT thing.

Then my "replacement" column for the Myeloma Beacon ran this week; I found out when Reader Comment emails popped up in my Inbox. The column was deliberately safe and non-threatening, likening the persistent physical weight of my chronic cancer to the chains Marley's ghost drags with him. And damn if a well-meaning fellow columnist didn't comment sincerely and warmly about whether there might not be some other reasons I was feeling the way I felt, have I investigated those possibilities, we're all aging and that makes for different bodies, and remember to savor each day.

Talk about mixed feelings. On the one hand, I appreciated her concern. On the other hand, I emailed my editor that those well-meaning and totally-missed-the-mark comments were exactly why I wrote the column (the rejected one). As to any option of answering that comment online as the author, the publisher, who would not run my column to begin with, curates the comments and would probably not be comfortable with even a benign comment such as "it's not something else."

OTOH, OTOH indeed.

 I have been stewing on the whole rejection/acceptance thing. I struggle with whether I continue to write a column for the Beacon, not because of the rejection in and of itself, but because the rejection threw up a barrier which is making me reflect on what I am writing and in whose voice. I am second guessing myself as to the next one: if I write this and that in the course of the column, will it be rejected? If I don't write this and that, am I censoring myself in ways that I cannot accept?

Add to that stew of feelings the fact that the Beacon has been home to my column since January, 2013. More important, its community of readers have been a support group for me in lieu of a live support group (we have one in the greater Columbus area; I attended it twice very unsuccessfully). Most important, my editor Maike (who is married to Boris, the publisher) is a close, personal friend in addition to being my editor, and both she and Boris have been guests in our home. I don't want to jeopardize that friendship; I don't think I would if I stepped away from my column, but there would likely be some fallout on all fronts.

I have been turning this over in my head much of the day (it is now mid-afternoon); Warren and I discussed it at lunch. I am tired; other matters call.

Hanging out at the crossroads, wondering which way to go.

Rethinking Nashville

I may have to rethink Nashville.

We were there four years ago to pick up a timpani Warren had purchased. We stayed overnight an hour north, in Franklin, Kentucky, and truly just zoomed in and out. We visited the Tennessee state history museum, the Parthenon (yes), and walked around the grounds of the Statehouse.

I was not impressed. I was upset by the museum's presentation of slavery (there were some evils, but most slaves were treated well) and its hagiographic elevation of Andrew Jackson (with nary a word in the museum about the genocide he committed against the Cherokee and other Southern tribes with their forced removal). On the street were historical markers venerating the Confederate cause in the Civil War. On our way back north, we pulled off the Interstate to get gas and found ourselves on a road with another historical marker: the highway we were on was part of the Trail of Tears (the path the Native Americans were marched along under military guard). Its name? The Andrew Jackson highway.

Can you say "tone deaf?"

I wanted out of Nashville. I wanted out of Tennessee. I could decisively mark the state and city off with "don't go there again."

So when it was announced that the 2019 League of American Orchestras national conference would be held in Nashville, let's just say I was less than enthusiastic. But, married to the Symphony as I am, I sucked it up and went back down.

I came away with an entirely different view of Nashville.

For three days, we were in the heart of the downtown. We stayed on the other side of the Cumberland River, near the football stadium, but were only there at night. Days and evenings were spent in downtown Nashville. While the League activities were centered in the Omni Hotel, we were out and about on the streets at times, especially with League-related activities Monday and Tuesday evening.

And I did a fair amount of walking by myself the first morning,  having no session to attend. I ended up walking across the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, after skirting the Country Music Hall of Fame (which butts into the Omni) and going around the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. CMA Music Fest was only a few days away (it was getting underway as the orchestra conference was leaving) and there was a lot of activity downtown as the city prepared. There was music of all kinds on the streets, in the halls, in the air.

My view of Nashville started changing.

I looked at the people I passed. Many were no doubt tourists or event-goers, like myself, just in town for a few days. There were street performers on many corners (everyone is a potential performer in Nashville, including one of our Uber drivers). There were street people, just trying to survive, including the one who after trying to wash up in a fountain at the Schermerhorn and being chased away by a guard, came back to debate that the water was there for all to enjoy. The guard listened respectfully, then said, "That's true, but y'all can't take a bath in it." That seemed to satisfy both of them. There were orchestra people talking music, there were country music people talking music, there were just people going about their day.

I spent a surprising amount of time (for me) in Circa, the gift shop of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. I was looking for postcards (which I indeed found) but I found myself engrossed in the books, the clothing, the mugs, the stuff. I told Warren later that I have never come so close to buying just for the sake of buying. I stuck to buying just the postcards to send to family and friends and one ornament for our Christmas tree.

I loved one postcard so much that I went back the next day to buy one for myself:

It is now on our refrigerator. (I found it hilarious, okay? Well worth every penny of the $1.10 it cost.) For the record, I am fine with country music. Had I been feeling better that morning, I would have gone to both the Patsy Cline museum AND the Johnny Cash museum, but I can only burn my candle at both ends and up the middle for so long these days. 

Coming into Nashville on Sunday, we had bypassed the Interstate and traveled back roads to get a sense of the country. I liked what I saw. I want to see more. Some of my dad's family came out of Tennessee and for the first time ever, I found myself wanting to explore more of where they came from. When Dad stopped by the day after we got back, I pulled out a map and he pointed out the likely areas. I may delve deeper into that side of the family, even if I never go back to Nashville or any other part of Tennessee. 

The truth is, I was taken by Nashville and would go back to explore it more deeply. 

There is a wonderful line early on in Moon Over Manifest, the 2011 Newbery Award winner by Clare Vanderpool: "But as anyone worth his salt knows, it's best to get a look at a place before it gets a look at you." That sentence played in my mind as I walked across the bridge on that sunny morning and as I walked around in the downtown. I don't know if Nashville got a look at me, but I indeed got a look at Nashville. 

I liked what I saw. 

First Steps

My foot is back.

For the last four weeks, I have had one operable leg and foot (my left) and one inoperable leg and foot (my right). As I wrote about some weeks ago, I had surgery in early February to repair a torn peroneal tendon. I spent the first week with my foot and leg up to my knee swathed in bandages. I spent that week at home, reading voraciously (well, I always read voraciously, so I guess I read more voraciously). 

A week out of surgery, I exchanged the bandages for a nifty fiberglass cast. Given my choice of colors, I picked Symphony Blue:

Symphony Blue, you say? Why, of course:

My blue cast was still non-weight bearing, so I got around with the aid of this trusty scooter:

The scooter went like the wind on the smooth, polished halls of the county building in which our Court is located. And it was the envy of the walker/wheelchair set at the assisted living facility where Aunt Ginger lives. One wheelchair-bound tiny lady beckoned me over and said, with great longing in her voice, "I bet that goes fast." (A coworker, when I told him the story, laughed and pointed out that compared to the wheelchairs and walkers, I was in a sports car.)

With the scooter, I went back to work 12 days after the surgery. I couldn't (didn't) go to schools to conduct attendance mediations but there was other work to be done. All the same, I was counting down the days to March 9, when the cast would come off and I would get a walking boot. I was dreaming of being able to go to bed without a log (albeit a snazzy blue, lightweight one) wrapped around my leg, of being able to use our bathrooms without having to strong-arm myself on and off the toilet, of being able to stand on my own two feet again.

Yesterday morning very bright and early Warren and I were at my surgeon's complex. The technician cut the cast off and unwrapped my leg from the mummy-like cotton swaddling under the cast. X-rays, a chance to wipe off some of the dead skin that accumulates under a cast, a thumbs up from the PA, and the snipping and removal of the stitches followed. Then technician fitted me for the boot and I stood upright on both feet for the first time in weeks. All was great until she said, "Okay, take a step."

Take a step? I looked at her wild-eyed. I looked back at Warren. Take a step? Take a step? I had forgotten how to take a step! Warren stood up immediately and offered me his arm. Leaning heavily on him, I took one tentative, lumbering half-step. 

"I don't know how to walk." I was frozen and afraid to move. 

Talk about embarrassing.

In the end, I climbed back on my scooter (which I had hoped to return to rental that day rather than rent for an additional week) and scooted out of the examining area, out of the reception area, out of the building to our car. Warren was very sympathetic; nodding but not saying "I told you so" when I said I didn't trust my foot.

All the way home, all 30 minutes of that drive, I thought about walking. I have been walking for over 61 years. I thought through the act of walking: weight on foot, one foot in front of the other, left, right. Come on!  

We pulled in and I scootered to the first small step up to our slab porch. Warren made ready to help me get up and in, but I held up my hand. 

"No, I have to do this and I am going to walk."

And I did. Up the small stair, across the porch to the larger step into the house, into the house, and into the hall. My steps were halting and clumsy, but, by god, I was walking.

And I have been walking ever since. By midday yesterday, I had relearned the rhythm of walking. I'm not elegant by any means, and I get clumsy by day's end, but I am walking. The scooter is sitting in the living room where Warren parked it. I am delighting in being able to carry items in my hands, not having to back up the scooter to make a turn, in being mobile. 

Sleeping last night was heaven.

So this is my boot, my assistant foot, for four more weeks: 

I still won't be able to drive, but I head back into the schools for attendance mediations starting midweek this week. I am baking a pie tonight for our conductor, Jaime, for tomorrow's concert. 

The longest journey begins with a single step, according to the ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi. For me, yesterday, the longest journey started with me taking that first step down the hallway.

I haven't looked back.  

Inch One Hundred Forty-One: What's In A Name?

The co-chair of the working group kept addressing the other co-chair by the wrong name throughout the entire teleconference. The former was white, the latter was African-American. (I know this because I have met both of them.) The white woman has a Ph.D. and was addressed as "Dr. Susan" by the moderator. The African-American woman, Shelisa, is from a small Ohio county and is court staff, as are several of us in the working group.

Dr. Susan called Shelisa "Shelist" and "Shelista" and "Shelizza." Not once in the call, which lasted 50 minutes, did she pronounce Shelisa's name correctly.

I doubt that Dr. Susan intentionally mispronounced Shelisa's name. But she certainly did it carelessly. Shelisa did not correct her, but did make a point to say "This is Shelisa..."whenever she spoke during the call.

I wondered after the call whether I should have spoken up and said "Look, can you call Shelisa by her  right name?" But I was too polite and the moment and the call passed. Shelisa, without confronting the issue directly, made sure she introduced herself clearly each time she spoke. She handled the situation in her own style.

I have a saying on my refrigerator: "Speaking up is a choice. And yes, standing on the sidelines is a choice."

During the teleconference, I stayed on the sidelines. Next time I need to choose better.

Inch One Hundred Thirty: Road Trip

We are coming back home tonight after over two weeks on the road.

Remember my post about minimalist packing when I went to Seattle and Portland earlier this summer? Minimalist packing turned out to be a brilliant (and successful) idea.

Well, this trip has combined minimalist packing and minimalist camping (to cut the cost of the trip).  We hope we have done it for under $1000 (subject to one footnote).

Just so you all know, I am writing this post BEFORE we head out, and scheduling it to run just as we return. So all of this is speculative: the camping, the cost, the endurance. But I did spend a fruitful morning the Saturday before we left making camping reservations from here to there and back again.

Once I get unpacked and some laundry done, I will write about what the last two weeks held in store for both of us.

Inch Thirty-Five: Romance

The young (in her mid-twenties) woman was lamenting the progress of her romantic life. She and the object of her affections (same age) texted or messaged one another often, but she didn't know whether he shared her feelings, which she never revealed in the texts. She said he did not always reply to her texts and sometimes he would comment on others' Facebook posts while failing to respond to her messages. (Mind you, many of these "conversations" fall into the "hey, whatcha doing?" category.)

She agonized over whether to continue to text him. You couldn't ever tell what someone was really saying in a text, she observed.

He lives down the street from her. I suggested she knock on his door and invite him for a walk. As in "oh, hey, I'm just walking by and wondered if you'd like to join me?"

Her eyes widened in alarm. A face to face encounter?!

Well, I said, you could do it the old fashioned way and write him a note. Not a lengthy letter, not a love letter, but just a "maybe I'll stop by one day and we can go for a walk!" type note. Or send him a funny Halloween card.

Now the young woman looked positively ill.

Send him a card? How weird was that? That was just too strange.

At this point, I rolled my eyes and asked my friend if she had ever read Little Women. No. Well, you should, I said, and proceeded to tell her about Meg's glove.

If you have read Little Women as many times as I have, you will remember that one summer day, Meg lost a pair of gray cotton gloves in the conservatory of the Lawrence residence. Only one was ever returned. Months later, on a fall day, Laurie reveals to Jo the location of the missing glove. His tutor, John Brooke, has been carrying it around all this time. Jo is upset.

          "Where?"

          "Pockets."

          "All this time?"

          "Yes; isn't that romantic?"

          "No, it's horrid."

He carried her glove? The young woman looked at me incredulously. Why would he do a stupid thing like that? Clearly the romance of Mr. Brooke's gesture was lost on her, much as it was lost on Jo.

I related the story to Warren, musing out loud that Louisa May Alcott used the same romantic gesture in An Old-Fashioned Girl. Tom carries "my Polly's rose" in his wallet when he goes away to work off debt and redeem himself, while Polly keeps a clip of Tom's hair, a button from his coat, and a boyhood  picture of him in a locket. Only when they finally admit their love for one another does each reveal the token that kept hope alive.

Warren was quiet. "Well, I kept those photographs all those years."

He's right. I had taken a shot of his foot back in high school, never daring to take a photograph of his face, and had made a print of it for him. I had also taken a photo of his first car, a Volkswagen Bug, and given him a copy. Warren had hung onto them through the decades. He still has them.

And for my part, for the very longest time, I had a scrap of a broken Remo drumhead that Warren had given to me during his senior year marching season. I kept it in a small box of mementoes and would never see that ragged piece without thinking of Warren and those long ago hopes, hoping he was well, hoping he was happy.

The course of true love never did run smooth, according to Shakespeare, and any of us can easily attest to that. The age in which we live now—with texts and messaging and the expectations that responses will be instantaneous—adds an extra kink to that course. There is something to be said for not having an immediate response, for carrying the glove in the pocket, the rose in the wallet, the hope in the heart.

Belly Flop

When I was a kid taking swimming lessons, it took me a long time to learn how to dive. I would stand at the side of the pools, toes curled down on the edge, my arms over my heart with my hands in a prayerful position. I would start to lean over, willing my hands and arms towards the water. But invariably, when I got to the critical "about to go in" phase, I would lift my head up and smack belly first into the pool.

Belly flops, we called them. Young boys thoughts they were great fun and would spend long summer afternoons trying to outdo one another in making the loudest, most painful smacking sound.

I belly flopped recently. No, not in water, but in real life.

I have been intrigued by the rise of massive online open courses (MOOCs). The more I read about them, the more I wanted to sign up for a MOOC. This fall I finally jumped in (so to speak) and signed up for a MOOC on early New England poets, taught by Harvard professor Elisa New.

Four weeks of classes, with new video lectures, readings, and online discussions coming out every Thursday.

Easy peasy, no?

It would have been, in a perfect world. It would have been, if I had been more driven and more focused. It would have been if I could have shut out everyone and everything once a week for, oh, 4-5 hours.

I made it through week 1 and 2, then fled.

When I signed up for the course, I wrote enthusiastically to friends about how much I was looking forward to being in a poetry class again. Now I am scuffing my toe in the dust and mumbling how it didn't go as I had hoped.

When my boys were little, they watched a children's puppet show, Eureeka's Castle. One character was a bat named Batley, who always smacked face first into a wall or door in every episode. Batley would fall to the ground, then rise up, spread his wings, and declare "I meant to do that!"

Well, I didn't. I meant to do all the readings, listen to all the lectures, and engage in discussion with my fellow online students. I meant to gain more insight and understanding into the world of the early immigrants to this country. I meant to dive right into the waters of poetry and come up refreshed and revitalized.

Instead, start to go in, lift up the head, and splat!

Belly flop.

The Bees Are Back

The bees are back.

The rudbeckia (rudbeckia nitida) is in full bloom finally, and it is once again Bee Central. Given the devastating collapse of commercial bee colonies nationwide and the greatly diminished number of wild colonies, I was afraid they would not return this year. The later we went into July and the scant number of bees that appeared, the lower my hopes and expectations fell.

But I came home late afternoon today to find the bees crawling and buzzing, working the flowers over furiously.

Making hay while the sun shines, so to speak.

I hope the bees fertilize my zucchini plants while they are at, as the zucchini have been sending up blossoms that open, linger hopelessly, and then drop off for lack of pollination. When I saw the bees in the rudbeckia, I promptly moved all three pots of zucchini plants next to the flowers.

I all but cheered when I saw several bees drop down to the zucchini and start mining the blossoms.

In an increasingly fragile world, where economies, nations, and environments are as shaky as the commercial bee colonies, the return of the bees bolsters my hope for the future. Maybe it is silly to stake my hopes on such a small thing, but I have appeared silly before.

Emily Dickinson wrote "'Hope' is the thing with feathers." Not in my world. In my world, "Hope" is the thing with wings. And right now Hope is having a fine time in my flowers.

North

When we finish a good book, we feel as we do at the end of an appetizing meal—satisfied, refreshed, ready to continue our normal lives with renewed energy. When we finish a great book, we feel, Jonah-like, as if we've been swallowed up and tossed onto an unknown shore, lucky to be able to breathe at all.  (Margaret Quamme, "Great books demand transforming,"essay from the early 1990s.)

I have carried around Quamme's quote for some twenty years because she is right in the largest sense of the word. Good art—a painting, a book, a concert, a play—suspends time briefly and then lets you gently back into the everyday world.

Great art tears you right out of the comfortable world in which you live and pounds you into another reality all together.

I just had a great art experience.

Last Saturday, Warren, our friends Margo and Gerald, and I watched the final rehearsal-before-opening-off-Broadway of a one act play, "North."

"North" is about Anne Morrow Lindbergh and a weekend meeting between her, her husband Charles Lindbergh, and the French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. All but a handful of lines in the play come from the writings of the three main characters, especially from Anne's published diaries and letters.

I came to the production with high hopes and expectations. The reality far exceeded anything I had imagined.

The play is excellent. The actors who play Charles and St-Ex, as Anne referred to him in her journal, are superb. The staging, the set, the costumes, all incredible.

But Anne? Anne was alive for the hour plus of the play. Christine Ritter, who plays Anne, is Anne Morrow Lindbergh, moving through her life and her words and her thoughts right there in front of us. I sat through the play with one hand literally to my throat, the other figuratively on my heart. Seeing Anne come to life was draining, exhilarating, and deeply moving.

Afterwards, the cast, the playwright, and the stage designer held a conversation with the audience. Jennifer Schlueter, the playwright, asked us for feedback and questions. There was that brief awkward silence while everyone looked around furtively, weighing whether to be first, and then someone jumped in with a comment.

"Someone" jumped in? Oh, it was me. You know that.

I looked at Christine and said, "You were Anne." I explained that I was a rabid AML fan and how deeply I responded to the performance. Christine grinned and admitted she was a huge AML fan. It turns out that a number of the audience members were also huge AML fans, and at times the post-play dialogue turned into the Anne fans, as Margo referred to us, commenting on this or that nuance of the performance based upon our cumulative knowledge of Anne.

The four of us went out for ice cream afterwards, still talking furiously (an Anne phrase if ever there was one) about the play. Warren and I talked about it before falling asleep that night and again over breakfast Sunday morning.

You know you have seen an amazing play when Warren, who knows very little about Anne, Charles, and St-Ex and absolutely nothing about their meeting, was still talking about it.

The "North" poster at 59E59 Theatre

The cast and crew of the for/word company left for New York city and as of this writing, have arrived. They open this Thursday at 59E59 Theatre and will be there all month. For anyone who is or will be in New York this month, find some time and go see the play. Even if you have never heard of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles Lindbergh, or Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, go see the play. I dare you not to be moved by what you see performed.

In theatre circles, the saying for a successful run is "break a leg."

Break a leg? Break a heart.

The Project: A Teaser

Then he began racing wildly up and down the bank, looking everywhere. ...[A]fter a while they found the canoe—but it was a mess. ... Stuart was heartbroken. ... "It's no use," he said bitterly, "it wouldn't be the same." From Stuart Little, by E. B. White

I thought I was going to learn first-hand exactly how Stuart felt. From mid-June until the 2nd of July, I labored on a very special project which, upon finishing, I wrapped and boxed and promptly shipped west to Portland. As Ben and Alise have recently moved, I sent the parcel to Alise's office by priority mail.

With the holiday last week, I nonetheless optimistically assumed she would have the box by Friday. It had not arrived by the end of Friday. Alise stayed home on Monday (so no package update) and home yesterday as well (so no package update again).

By last night (not realizing Alise had stayed home the second day), I was convinced the parcel had come undone somewhere between Ohio and Oregon. I had wrapped the project in numbered parcels; I knew parcels 1, 3, and 4 were scattered across the Great Plains. First thing  this morning, I emailed Cindy, "I am making myself sick over this—if it is gone, it is gone, because it 's not like I can go out and buy another (and I don't know if I could bring myself to sew another)!"

Visions of Stuart, sobbing because his canoe had been vandalized, danced through my head all morning. That is, they danced through my head until I received the following text from Alise: The parcel is safely on my desk. Thanks april!

Come back tomorrow to read the story of the project.

Pennies Under The Rug

Last night I had a short, intense exchange with Sam on the issue of finances. Mine, not his. The dialogue was prompted by my asking him his financial status, as Sam's dad had just asked me to contribute more to Sam's monthly expenses. Sam immediately asked why we were even having that discussion without his involvement.

Good point, Sam. And thank you for making it.

Emails about money from my ex-spouse, no matter how well meant, always cause my stress level to jump way into the red. Because of the long and often difficult history between us, including major struggles on financial issues, I cannot read any inquiry from him as neutral. This one was no exception.

To reply to his email required much agonizing over words. As I labored through a draft, I cried out "I can hear Doug [my brilliant therapist of yore] talking to me!" Warren, who was providing moral support and a listening ear, asked me what Doug was saying.

"Stop thinking that telling your story means it is heard."

Doug was right. My long, labored explanation added nothing to the discussion and only made me feel worse. I trimmed my reply considerably, reined in my feelings, wrote that I was already doing all I could do, and would stretch more when I could. Then I hit "send."

But not before Sam and I had our quick exchange. And not before I assured Sam that he was not the source of financial stress in my life.

I grew up in a hardworking, blue collar family where my parents made it clear from grade school on that they would support and provide for my brothers and me until we graduated from high school. After that, we were on our own and either had to join the military, get a job, or go to college. If you chose college, good for you, but it was on your own dime. After my parents drove me to Chicago in the fall of 1974 and unloaded my suitcases, their obligation ended. It was my scholarships, my loans, and my meager savings that got me through that first year and the years to follow.

Having gone to college on the sink or swim financial plan, I have always felt strongly about helping my children through college. What I hadn't planned on was Life, in the form of a major illness and an extreme and permanent reduction in income, messing up my plans.

I struggled my way through the responses and the guilt last night. I did not want to turn my back on Sam, and while I "knew" I wasn't doing that, I didn't accept that I was not. I "know" I am doing what I can to help him achieve his education. Is it all I want or hoped it would be? No. But I have to accept that my means are far more limited than in "the old days" and I am doing what I can. I can only shave pennies so thin, no matter what my desires for my children. And at this point, all my pennies are pretty thinly shaved. (Confession: I did just start a "getting away" account, but with my opening deposit being a whopping $96.33 and a third of that being spare change and another half being rebates and coupon savings, I don't think I am being selfish at the expense of a college education.)

For me, the big issue is changing my mindset that spending money equals love and that the only way I can prove myself as a good and loving parent is to overextend myself financially. As I told Warren, I could move this amount from here to there (because I also pay some other bills for Sam), but I was really just playing a shell game. Spread the dollars as I might over my budget, there are still only a given number of dollars.  Like resolving to buy the gift I can afford versus the splashier, pricier gift I can't, I have to work through my feelings and accept that it is okay to say "I can't do that amount, but I can do this amount."

I have to accept that about myself: that I am doing all I can. I have to give myself permission that "all I can" is a loving response.  

My friend Arlene recently shared her memory of her mother helping her with her college education: How well I remember my mother's jar of dimes. I still have tears when I think of the morning she rolled back the worn rug and removed enough nickels, dimes, and pennies to pay my first quarter tuition at OSU.

It is a beautiful story and one I thought about last night as I struggled with my desire and my inability to provide everything I would like for my children.

Sam will be home in four weeks for a visit and a brief respite from school. He'll have a chance to talk; I'll have a chance to listen. We are both looking forward to cooking together and recently talked about some of the dishes we want to try. And perhaps we'll have a chance to roll back the rug and find treasures underneath.

To an Unknown Concertgoer

Today's poem is also based on a true event. At the March 2010 concert, someone in the audience was so struck by the soloist's performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor that he called out the moment she lifted her bow off the strings. Clearly the concertgoer was deeply moved by the performance he had just witnessed. A few weeks later, in rehashing the concert with another attendee, I mentioned that moment in reference to the virtuosity of the performer. The woman with whom I was talking pursed her mouth sharply and made the comment captured in the poem.

Over a year later, I still find myself reliving that moment. The air was still vibrating and someone in the audience could no longer hold in his emotion over what he had just experienced. I'm glad he couldn't.

*********

To the Unknown Concertgoer

There are those who attend to concerts with precision:
Never clapping out of turn or being the first to rise in appreciation.
And, heavens, no shouting "Bravo!"

He was not one of them.

When the last note of the violin concerto was played, he cried out
The moment the soloist lifted her bow in completion
And there was that half beat of silence
Before the conductor lowered his baton.

We could all hear his call, like a mourning dove up in the dome of the hall,
An aching, yearning "ahhh" that he had to release.
It hung in the air just before the wave of applause broke.

A patron pulled her mouth tight recounting the moment.
"Well, clearly that was not someone
Who has been to concerts frequently enough
To know how to behave."

I wish I had been that listener in the audience
    Crying out in appreciation
    Crying out at music so moving that it would break the heart to keep silent.

I wish I had been the one to not behave so beautifully.