we were talking on the phone. it had been quite some time and there was so much to catch up on it was difficult to know where to start. we started with this week. “so much life lived this week,” heidi said. yes. so much.
in the last week or so we have traveled both east and west. from the ocean to the mountains. from children to parents. from littlebabyscion to big red. we traveled from together to missing. from gathering things for a new home base to removing things forever from a home. from being known to the dementia-induced-agony of being not-known. from a new plan to yet another new plan. from certainty to uncertainty. from before to after.
we have driven over 3000 miles and flown 1000 miles. we had the absolute joy of being with our children. we had the absolute joy of being with david’s parents. we’ve been with beloved family, with our dearest friends, with complete strangers on airplanes, in rest areas, in hotels, in shops. we laughed, we talked, we questioned, we argued, we cried, we cringed at how life changes, we celebrated life’s changes.
days swirled around us as we turned the pages of our calendar and we kept going. taking snapshots, memorizing moments, sealing memories for eternity (as mike wrote). for this was only one week or so. and yes, there was so much life lived.
i researched. for months. looked at tons of sites and reviews. i ordered brochures from the chamber of commerce (which, incidentally and almost predictably, arrived after we returned from the trip.) i poured over other people’s adventures and stories, made lists of things to do and places to go. it was a really important time for me and i wanted it to be perfect: my-children-under-the-same-roof-at-the-same-time. the perfect mom-gift.
always up for a roadtrip adventure, we drove to hilton head in our littlebabyscion. first thing upon arrival, we opened the shades in the living room. the dunes and the ocean exploded into view, the sunset beckoned us. without unloading, we took two juice glasses of wine and a blanket down to the water’s edge and watched the sky relinquish day. night arrived and it was perfect.
My Girl flew in the next morning and My Boy the very next day. the sun was bright, the sky was blue, the sand hot, the ocean was a constant lure. walks and conversation, games and homemade sangria, bold coffee and generous glasses of wine, watching crabs on the sandbar and googling jellyfish, chips and guac and kirsten-margaritas, eating out on the deck under the umbrella and time in the pool, watching kirsten or craig prepare a meal or two, relaxing on lounge chairs and a one-time bowling adventure. this was the stuff. it was hot; over 100 degrees with the heat index; a bit too hot for kayaking or standupboarding under a sunburning sun. but time seemed to morph and days passed us by in the way time on the beach does.
later i wondered why i didn’t take out my lists, my research, my reviews, the brochures i got from the grocery store. why i didn’t insist on an adventure-a-day, an activity. but jen encouraged me to let that go. she said she does that every time she is lucky enough to have her children all-under-the-same-roof-at-the-same-time as well. a mother’s brain (and heart) on overdrive.
it isn’t the activities or the adventures. it’s simply the time. when you are there and you are real and you share bits and snatches of life, joyful or trying. when you catch your breath gazing at your children, beautiful human beings experiencing the wide spectrum that life offers. and you love them beyond words, grateful that they have given you this time. together. under-the-same-roof-at-the-same-time. HH. hilton head. perfect.
my poppo would probably have liked chip hailstone. an as-long-as-i-can-remember subscriber of national geographic, i imagine he would have liked the show ‘life below zero’. he was good at solving problems, figuring things out, making stuff out of nothing. his words of wisdom were simple. “plan ahead,” he would say. he was a card-holding-club-member-regular-reader of the handyman magazine; he easily could have been a contributing writer. he would have loved chip hailstone’s comment, “you can make a long piece of wood short, but you can’t make a short piece of wood long.” ahyup. it’s in the details. plan ahead.
we were coffee-sitting around the kitchen table. it was a late florida morning, years ago now, and coffee break time was an every-day thing. my dad suddenly got up from his chair and left the room, using his “stick” to get to the bedroom and back. he returned moments later and started to speak. “i have something for you, brat,” he started. “with these years on your own you have learned so much out of necessity. it’s time for you to have this. you have earned it.” he handed me his handyman club membership card and said, “this is yours now. i’m proud of you.”
it was big news to get this card from my poppo and i didn’t underestimate its import. it would not have made me more gratified to receive a grammy award. his -my- membership card is in plain view in my studio, reminding me of my dad and his words to me.
we watch ‘life below zero’ episodes and there are simple wisdoms dancing throughout the show. things i can hear my dad say in his brooklyn accent. things you think, “well, duh, of course.” the same things you realize after-the-fact that you should have thought about before-the-fact. yup, poppo. plan ahead.
‘you-hold-me’s i will always remember… among the more-than-i-can-count-mom-heart-moments, one of the last times My Boy fell asleep on my lap and i knew – at the age he was then, rounding 5 or 6 – it was something to hold onto. or the time he, all-grown-up, bent down and, one more time, hugged me goodbye. precious time dancing to marvin gaye with My Girl in the sitting room, her favorite infant-lullaby. the bittersweet-tender-time-stood-still time she – as an adult – fell asleep while i held her. in o’hare airport when d just held me while, with people swirling around us, we were lost in reuniting, in recognition. the greetings we get from dogdog and babycat every single time we arrive home. the hugs we get inside the door to our best friends’ house, their big beloved dogs jostling for attention. the memory of watching my sweet momma and poppo hold hands as they walked, always…those linked hands grasping each other. watching my momma hold my dad’s hand at the side of his last hospital bed, nodding off, both of them, but holding on. ‘you-hold-me’s aren’t always just about you.
in these times, in any time, the simple feeling of being held – a quick hug or embrace that goes on and on – is the one true thing. it doesn’t solve any problem, take away a worry, change any circumstance. but it is a reminder that you are not alone. you are woven of and into so much more. and you are held – by your family, by your children, by your friends, by this good earth, by a higher power. in appreciation of you. in a bigger thing called love.
we sat arm-in-arm in the megaphone. we had been hiking in the snowy woods and it was the driest place to sit. we’ve written about this megaphone before; it is a nature megaphone and it is supposed to amplify the sounds of nature from the woods and into the woods. because someone didn’t maybe quite get the purpose, the megaphone is actually pulling sound from the street – a county highway through the woods on the narrow side of the amplifier, the side that draws in sound. a small adjustment in its location would afford it the purpose for which it was designed. it was built lovingly as an eagle scout project, but until this small adjustment in placement happens it will, unfortunately, not be as effective as it could be.
a small adjustment. how many times would just a small adjustment create a path closer to success, a path more in alignment with purpose, a path that maximizes effectiveness, a megaphone that actually amplifies the amazing nature in the woods? we get stuck in a line of thinking and, full-speed-ahead, think that is the only route, the only way. until someone says something – a suggestion of a small adjustment – in thinking, in action, in REaction, in placement of our focus. an ah-ha moment.
in the recording studio, as really in every musical performance, there is a groove. it is the place where the tempo of the piece being played is “right”… everything comes together and syncs, the intent of the piece shines. sensitive musicians and conductors can feel any deviation from that groove. when it’s off, too slow, too fast, it doesn’t deliver the same emotional message. just a slight adjustment brings it into center.
it’s the same with tuning. A440 pitch is the universal standard tuning pitch. a quarter tone off here or there makes a difference; not only can you hear this slight adjustment, but you can feel that the vibration is quivering, off its mark.
two people. a difference of opinion. the quivering vibration is palpable. a small adjustment left or right, quietly spoken or wisely quiet, pivots them back to the heart-core, brings back solid ground.
that same kind of vibration…present in any gathering of people…in sync or magnets repelling each other…with underlying fields of pre-formed assumptions getting in the way of the small slight adjustments needed – the ah-ha’s – to be in actual alignment, stronger together than separate, amplifying the real sound of this earth – in the groove, in tune, on the mark, grounded, mutually, cooperatively, collaboratively on-purpose.
in the middle of the night when i wake up – which happens every night thanks to the keeps-on-giving gift of menopause – i can hear them.
dogdog is gently breathing, sometimes punctuated by his paws running in a dream where he is doing laps around our pond, excitedly barking. his even breaths, a dog in mostly-quiet slumber, reassure me, and my heart and i listen as he peacefully sleeps.
the peaceful-sleep bar is different for babycat. he is not a stealth-sleeper. well, actually nothing that babycat does is stealthy. he’s not that kind of cat. instead, his sleep on the end of the bed (he picks the side and you definitely know early-in-the-night if you have drawn the short straw) is noisy, fraught with snoring. i’ve never heard a cat snore as loudly as he does; it is absolutely necessary to nudge him a little so that he steps it down a tad bit. even with the snoring and the give-him-an-inch-he’ll-take-a-mile-bed-hogging, babycat’s presence sleeping on the bed is reassuring and i lay awake in wonder at how peaceful he seems, how content.
these two are buddies. i was concerned at the beginning, having never had both a dog and cat simultaneously. i needn’t have worried though. they will lay napping on the raft back to back, with their people nearby. perhaps at those times it is the two of them tuning in and listening – to our voices, our laughter, the rhythm of our day. and perhaps it is those times that they are reassured.
in the last few days, one of my friends became a first-time-grandmother. those of us who were aware of her daughter’s giving-birth-countdown would text her asking for any news or updates, as excited as if it were our own story. sunday morning she texted to say that indeed a little baby girl had been born in the pre-sun hours of the day. her daughter, a friend of my own daughter’s since kindergarten, was now a mom and all was perfect in the world.
i saw this painting-in-process as i walked down the steps into david’s basement studio. the new mother, sitting cross-legged, gazing intently at her new baby made my heart skip a beat. i recognized the look, the tilt of her head, the gentle but secure way she was holding her baby. it took me back – immediately – to my first moments holding kirsten or craig, those nothing-short-of-miraculous minutes when time stood still and everything was perfect in the world.
i cannot imagine the power of this painting when it is completed. it’s already intoxicatingly striking. it brings back every memory. it reminds me of what is most important. the delicious feeling of holding a tiny baby, the dreams that soar in your head, the bond of love. times when everything is perfect in the world.
the last i saw him was not the last of this world being this world. but it was the last moment my world was the same. i wrote about this yesterday. it’s all fragile. like a soaring violin note bowed over a line of piano, it’s ephemeral. it will vanish in the next moment. we keep hearing the line in our heads; we keep hearing the cello passionately talking to us; we keep those we have never seen again close.
i wrote this piece to speak to the last time i saw my big brother. i listen to it now and it is also about the last time i saw my sweet momma, my poppo, my uncle allen, my grandparents, my adored high-school-english-teacher andrea, my not-really-a-triplet-from-elementary-school-on-dear-friend kenny… it’s about the last time i saw people i’ve loved forever. it’s about holding on to shared moments with my living-far-away-children. it’s about the last time – when i don’t know when the next time is.
LAST I SAW YOU is the gossamer strands of connection between us. it’s how we hold that and honor that. for me, just know it is a statement of enduring love.
download THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on iTUNES or CDBaby
it wasn’t exactly a blizzard, but it was a great snowstorm. it makes me wonder what would have happened if i had wished for something else….
every weekend My Girl drives back and forth across the high mountains. she is a head coach for a snowboard team in aspen and instructs in telluride, so this four-and-a-half-hour-each-way-she’s-driving-where-there-are-no-guardrails-worry-zone for me is a necessity in her life. i check the weather and implore her to stay in touch as she goes. this last week, both of these towns and pretty much every town in-between had “winter storm warning” and THIS posted:
not exactly words that warm a momma’s heart. but kirsten knows i am worried and, probably rolling her eyes, generously lets me know how things are as she goes. she has good snow angels and i count on them.
i always say things like, “someday you’ll understand” to kirsten and craig, but i know that right now my mom-worrying might just be a burden to them. i’m grateful they humor me, and i do know that someday they’ll understand.
when we were driving across the country in really bad weather, wendy had the ability to locate us and we were both really relieved for this. checking in every so often, had something happened, at least she knew where-in-the-world we last were. a good snow angel. both The Girl and The Boy can locate me at any time too. this is not an uncommon device used by families and i know that every mom has eternal gratitude for such a thing.
we took a walk in the freshly fallen snow. It was very cold out and the wind was blowing, causing drifts across sidewalks and the waves to slam against the rocks on the lakefront. i was glad not to be driving and my mind wandered back in time to other snowstorms….ones where my children bundled up and ran out to build snowforts and snowmen, ones where i was the one on the road and my sweet momma was the one worrying. snowstorms when i went outside and played in the snow laughing with beloved old friends.
it had been kind of a long while since i’ve made a snow angel. we got back from our walk downtown and were in front of our house. i took david’s hand and we fell backwards into the snow. i drew in my breath at the cold and laughed, my arms the wings of a snow angel.
on my nightstand next to the bed are two frames. both written in little-kid-writing, they are notes i saved from long ago. one is from My Girl and it reads, “goodnight mom” surrounded by hearts. the other is from My Boy and it has two words on it, “craig” (with a backwards g) and “mom” and has hearts filling up the rest of the notepaper. each night i see these as i wish them both, from far away, goodnight, sweet dreams, restful sleep.
i come by this threadiness honestly.
we were in florida visiting; two of the days we were there, despite bright sunlight and temperatures in the 80s, we spent in a storage unit. what was left of my parents’ belongings was packed in boxes, stacked in a unit, waiting for us to put our eyes on all of it and decide what to do with each of these things. my mom’s impulse was to keep things, especially paper. photographs and slides aside, there were files and files – some of which we will wade through later. there were boxes of mugs and baskets and trinkets, a kaleidoscope of the pieces of life, carefully packed by my sister and brother-in-law during a time of sadness, a time that was not ripe with paring down or organizing, a time that is difficult for anyone who has packed up a house. larger items were already distributed – furniture given away or passed down to the next generation. but these boxes….
i was quite sure that, even if i hadn’t seen anything in any of the boxes, i had all i needed….my treasures of my sweet momma and my poppo are tucked in close to my heart and i have physical memories of them around me in our home. they are not the high-priced treasures you might think people would save or claim. instead, they are small, meaningful, invaluable and thready things that speak to me. old calendars of my mom’s, my dad’s small rickety wooden boxes from his workbench, glasses from which my dad sipped his scotch, a flannel shirt my mom wore that matched my dad’s, a board with hooks that is wood-burned with the word “keys” and hung in our growing-up house for as long as i can remember…
spending time in the storage unit, surrounded by memories and the fading scent of my mom’s perfume and their house, i was heartened to see that i actually could go through and pare down. it gives me hope about our own basement. the real things of our past – sweet treasured memories – are not things. everyone gets meaning from and sees value in different stuff. two days in the storage unit reminded me again of that.
this time i didn’t cry. i laughed with my momma, who, no doubt, was rolling her eyes in heaven over the fact that she had saved sooo many pieces of paper…paid bills, old house contracts, warranties from appliances long gone, car receipts from several cars ago. a collection of life gone by, i know she smiled when every now and then we stumbled onto something i loved to touch….i kept the little scrap of paper that fluttered to the floor that my mom had written my full birth name on…i kept a couple calendars with my poppo’s handwriting…i kept a tiny folder of maps my mom collected in her curiosity about the changing world…i kept my dad’s brown suede cap, the one i bought him a million years ago…i kept a manila folder of letters i had written to them over the years – that my momma saved…these pieces of evidence of who they were, heirlooms of what was most important to them.
i vowed, once again, to go through, give away, sell the things in our own home that are not necessary. but those bins in the basement labeled “kirsten” and “craig”? those will stay. i will delight in going through the artwork and stories and notes and school projects from their childhood and growing up. and some day, maybe they too will see how infinitely important each of the baby steps and adult steps they have taken are to me. and maybe some of the thready treasures i have left behind will give them pause and, maybe, they will save a scrap or two, a calendar, a notebook of unpublished songs, photographs, something that reminds them of what was most important to me – the thready things that are memories of love, of family, of them.
it wasn’t sunny or 82 degrees inside the storage unit. but it was warm in a whole other way.
reverse threading 