there is little as comfortingly sweet as watching your dog sleep. dogdog is whirling motion so when he sleeps in your presence it is a magical time of trust and deep respite. the vision of him asleep on the bed or in the middle of the living room rug is a picture of all-is-right-in-the-world; he has no other cares except he is with his people and he can rest.
some of the times i remember most about when My Girl and My Boy were young are the times they fell asleep with me holding them, in my arms, on my lap. the moment you feel their little-child-body relax and fall into you. exquisite.
it’s that moment you sigh and lay your head back to nap with someone you love. the moment you close your eyes on the beach towel in the sun, warm sand beneath you. the moment you drift off in the grass watching the clouds. oh yes, the moment your face plants against the window at the rest area during your long journey and a couple hours pass by. the moment, hiking in high mountains, you lean against a tree and your eyes close to the sound of the wind in the aspens.
rest. a time of no real conscious worry. a time of innate trusting that all-will-be-well. a time of repose, of tranquility, of solace.
i have found, sometimes, if i want to go to sleep and cannot, that if i watch dogga or babycat sleep it will slow my overthinking-breathing. it will settle my heart and mind a bit. it will remind me that my own whirling motion – physical, intellectual, emotional – needs time to rest, to curl up on the living room rug and close my eyes.
“when we choose to be parents, we accept another human being as part of ourselves, and a large part of our emotional selves will stay with that person as long as we live. from that time on there will be another person on this earth whose orbit around us will affect us as surely as the moon affects the tides, and affect us in some ways more deeply than anyone else can. our children are extensions of ourselves.” (mr. fred rogers)
i simply cannot think of a more succinct way to say this but for the words of mr. rogers.
forever changed, i am sensitive to every little thing my even-as-grown-ups-children are experiencing, celebrating, enduring, adventuring, loving, suffering, yearning for, achieving. i feel their joy as my joy, their sadness as my sadness.
parenthood, a profound honor, in all its diamond-facets is no small feat. the vexing complexities, the moments of sheer joy, the heart-wrenching worry, the holding-on-letting-go-ness, the unconditional love. all of it.
like the moon, their tide surely affects my tide. and i would have it no other way.
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the ernie straw. this straw has lived in the kitchen drawer for decades. it served the sesame-street-zeal of My Girl and My Boy when they were little-little and has made various appearances back in the sunlit-world from time to time since then.
this summer when The Girl was here house-sitting i came home and into the kitchen to find her using it to sip her pre-workout drink. she laughingly told me, “it’s a good straw!” i can’t tell you how happy i was that ernie was still in the drawer when she went searching for the perfect sipping-utensil.
in the last week, ernie has become my constant companion. positioned carefully in my coffee hydroflask or perched in my water glass or teetering out of a wine glass, ernie and i have done beverage-life together.
they say necessity is the mother of invention and, particularly, this past week with two broken wrists, i would have to agree. stuck closer to the right side of my brain as a creative thinker (although admittedly there is quite a bit of ny-style-left-side there as well) i have had to sort out how to do things, let’s say, in-a-different-way.
i can proudly say that i can put on my socks, eat my own meal with a fork or a spoon, cut a steak (with the steak knife lodged into my RH cast), put on a little eyeliner and mascara with my LH steadying my right hand (not easy, but some things are just necessary), and type. last night i squeezed (!) the toothpaste out of the tube and surprised d with his toothbrush pre-pasted. in bigger news, i have played my piano four days in a row. i have 9 fingers to use right now; my right thumb is immobilized. but there are a lot of notes you can play with nine fingers, especially at the right angle and taking your time.
ernie and i are trying to keep a good attitude. his curlycue-ness is pretty cute and his smile engaging. he keeps me from feeling too sad, too limited. he reminds me that the constraints i feel right now are exercising my creative juju (he’s a ridiculous optimist). and he, most importantly, ties me to all the years backward, where he, yes, an inanimate object, has been a part of my life and the life of my children.
i couldn’t be more grateful to have found this life-gossamer-thread in our kitchen drawer last monday, the day i was injured. once again, something profound and something simple – and both remind me of what’s important.
i sent My Girl a photo of ernie in my coffee vessel. she quickly replied, “it’s a good straw!” yes.
two broken wrists. there’s not much that can stop me, but two broken wrists has done it.
it is profound what you do in daily living with at least one hand. really everything. this is my fourth day on this hand-less journey and i know there’s a long road ahead. i am not a good patient and the inability to perform the simplest of tasks has been world-stopping. i had to teach david how to ‘properly’ wipe my mouth, put on girl jeans, comb out wet hair. he has to hold my coffee cup (and yes, a wine glass or two) with the infamous sesame street ernie straw, feed me every bite, help me sit up from laying down, open doorknobs, pick up my cellphone so i can voice activate it, wipe my tears as i cry in frustration. the list goes on and is only limited to your imagination.
i wanted to have a tiny window into my beautiful daughter’s world. My Girl tells me lots of coaching and instructing stories from her high mountain snowboarding career, but i have never stepped on a snowboard. i wanted to physically experience the board under my feet, even a tiny grasp of how she feels. so we have planned for a long time to take a lesson and surprise her with our tale.
this week was wisconsin ski and snowboard week and for a mere $29 you could purchase lift tickets, rental equipment and a group lesson. it seemed perfect.
and for an hour and twenty minutes it was. a really difficult sport, we stood on boards and managed to learn the slightest of skills. until that little girl on skis was in front of me downhill just a bit. not really well-versed at turning and, clearly, less versed on stopping, i worked to avoid her. the stop and the fall were simultaneous. tailbone down i clearly put out my hands to help my fall, the first do-not-do-this rule. instinct took over; reflexes prevailed. that was step one in this two-broken-wrists tale, this whole rest.
four days ago i took for granted every little thing my hands (and arms) did for me. i could play the piano at any given moment, grab a pencil and jot a lyric, readjust the bench, open the blinds and let the sun into the studio. today the studio is dark, the piano quiet, the pencils waiting.
instead, moment by moment i am aware of every move i make, every single thing i need assistance with. i work each day to gain one more tiny ability. we have slowed down to a crawl and are abiding in each minute, one by one. i appreciate david’s help beyond mere gratitude or words; his commitment to my every-single-movement is humbling. our friends and family have reached out with offers of meals, company, words of encouragement and vast amounts of humor. we are right here in this very moment. presence defined.
i wonder about my piano. i know that my right hand in a hard fiberglass cast is on hiatus. i think that maybe my left hand, which is in a hard splint, might have a beensy chance at a few notes, regardless of the ensuing pain. when i was 19 i broke three fingers on my left hand slammed in a steel church door. they were splinted but i was fending for myself making a living for college as a musician and so i relentlessly started playing with those fingers anyway. this too-early-in-the-healing-process-playing prevented full healing, so i am cautious now. the piano is a part of my soul and so i honor the process of getting-back.
in the meanwhile, in the way that only the universe understands, after these last months, i seem to have needed a reminder of being loved and cared for, a reminder of attending to ‘now’ with no dreaded worry of ‘next’, a reminder of what’s truly important.
it runs in the family. we are font-picky. truth, we are font-obsessive.
when My Girl was younger and we would make a trip to the library, she would scan along the shelves. with scorn she would scoff at titles – not because of the title, but because of the font used on the spine. “it can’t be any good if they didn’t pay any attention to the font they used,” she’d dismissively roll her eyes.
i am known to go on and on about fonts. d can tell you. i am consistently surprised at how little regard is given to the chosen font in the delivery of a message – a title – a branding. i am often heard saying, “what were they thinking?” and when d can’t relate i text or show 20; i know he will join me in my rant.
we were recently walking in downtown chicago through the neighborhoods heading north with My Boy. we passed by a barnes & noble. glancing over, he derisively declared, “they really need to upgrade their font.” i started laughing when i saw d’s face; i know he was thinking i’m surrounded by them, these font-fussy folks. i couldn’t be prouder.
you have to admit though. you have, at least a time or two, noticed a font and either thought, “wow! i love the way that looks!” or “yuck. that doesn’t fit at all.” you have been on a website where the front page boasts six or seven different fonts, all different colors, no continuity, no crispness. yuck. it’s a mishmash for your eyes and makes you quickly lose interest, likely the opposite of what the site was trying to encourage.
take the title in the image above. a gift, it is literally the title of a book on one of my shelves. offering no opinion on the book itself, i just want to say that based on the font for the title merry thoughts i never would have purchased it. i mean, look at it! does that look merry to you?? it looks more like a halloween font than any kind of merry font. is it sarcastic font? is it tongue-in-cheek font? hardly. that font would have stopped me. boom! no purchase. what were they thinking?
serifs. sans serif. the kerning, the capitalization or lack thereof. the use of punctuation. the color of the font. overuse of italics. bold style vs regular. the amount of clean space. etc. etc. etc. all of it. it all counts.
i love design. inspired from years and years of watching and listening and learning and probably asking too many questions, sitting over the shoulders of 20 and justine as they worked on album covers and posters and such, i now love working on designing recognition around font or a certain ‘look’, fresh ideas for brands or organizations that seem dated or tired or just boring. there is no shortage. look around. so many graphics. so little attention to detail. what are they thinking?
we are never bored driving across town, across the state, across the country. there i am, in our giant-sign-laden-land, gesturing and ranting, pointing out the billboards with design-police diatribes. “they really need to upgrade their font!” i announce.
the video from My Girl made me out and out cry. it was just a little hello, sent from around a firepit in the high mountains after a long day of working. and it was perfect timing. to see her face and hear her voice was pure joy.
we walked and walked and walked. miles from millenium park’s christmas tree and skating rinks, past beautiful ornate displays of lights and simple twinkling white branches. in a rare opportunity linking my arm through My Boy’s as we strolled, i was filled with joy. the loudspeaker music and dancing lights of the lincoln park zoo just echoed my delight.
as adults, the holidays carry a different set of qualities than they did as when we were children. much pressure, oftentimes grief, maybe a slippery slope feeling of never-doing-enough, some disappointment, a measure of jealousy or envy perhaps as others-with-family-all-in-town gather together in big festive celebrations. for those of us who work on christmas eve and christmas day, there is a yet another added layer.
we walked through the woods yesterday looking for the right branch laying on the ground. we don’t yet have a christmas tree up. we have other little trees – i have collected small trees through the years – but no true christmas tree. each year in these last years, we have chosen that “tree” carefully, always something we found, something re-purposed into a christmas tree, something that had meaning. there was the christmas-tree-on-a-stick – a christmas-tree-misfit – we cut down on the tree farm, a piece of the tree that fell into our backyard narrowly avoiding the house, a branch that had snapped off of our beloved tree out front, a star suspended over a straight trunk wrapped in lights to tease The Boy.
this year i thought about just going to a lot and purchasing a tree, thinking maybe, in the midst of the ending of a really tough year for many, that might put me into the holiday spirit. but i just couldn’t bring myself to do that. we figured that the answer would become obvious, as it has done in the past years. and it did. watching My Boy, clearly proud of the decorations of the neighborhoods north-of-downtown, agree with us about how simple, beautiful and truly elegant the white branches were, made up my mind.
last night we put the first coat of white spray paint on the two sets of branches we brought home. we’ll finish coating them with paint later today and wrap them in white lights. we’ll gently place silver ornaments as we play christmas music in the background. i will miss My Girl and My Boy like crazy. i will yearn for my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and sister and brother-in-law and nieces and nephew and all their families, david’s parents and extended family. it isn’t the christmas of christmas-past.
but there still is magic. those moments of joy – when everything else ceases to exist and joy eclipses it all.
“this is not goodbye. it’s just farewell to the you i recognize. i’ve got a long, long time to learn how to feel you in a new way.” (lowen & navarro: crossing over from pendulum)
thanksgiving dawns. 2019.
thanksgiving dawns. rewind. 1960s. 1970s. i remember waking with great anticipation to watch the macy’s thanksgiving day parade on our black and white tv. my sweet momma, having risen early-early to put the turkey on at some ridiculous hour and my poppo, trying to appear helpful, both dedicated parade watchers, sipping coffee and snacking on entenmanns crumb cake. made sweeter for us new yorkers by seeing it in person on the streets of nyc, my mom would recollect parades-gone-by with horse drawn floats and she would cheer aloud for the tv version, even in the den. dad would be quiet, but he would be grinning, waiting for bullwinkle or popeye or underdog. these were moments i didn’t memorize. i was too young to know that i should. i was steady in the world, surrounded by family who i loved and who loved me and not necessarily given to thinking in the terms “many years later”.
thanksgiving dawns. rewind. 1990s. My Girl and My Boy were little, in pjs, fully engaged in the turkey dance their dad performed with the turkey on the counter, happily catching bits and snatches of a colorful parade i was still enthralled with, waiting to lick the dessert beaters, while i was making a feast of turkey and casseroles and setting a table with candles and cloth. we let the wishbone dry on the shelf for days and sometimes longer, forgetting about it, but eventually, they would snap it, wishes in their hands. i’m sure they didn’t memorize those moments. they were steady in the world, surrounded by family they loved and who loved them and definitely not given to thinking in the terms “many years later”.
thanksgiving dawns. 2019. it is quiet. My Girl in the high mountains, My Boy in the southern hemisphere. we will prepare for a simple meal. we will hike. we will be grateful for all the thanksgivings of the past, for all the thanksgivings of the future. for the thanks-giving of every day. i know that, indeed, despite all our failings, our challenges, our sorrows and disappointments as well as our absolute joys and successes, we are steady in the world, surrounded by family who we love and who love us. they are all here. i memorize moments all the time these days. for later. and many years later.
i have said farewell to too many. but i have learned to recognize them in the kindnesses of strangers, in the serendipities and synchronicities of wondrous things that happen. i recognize them in the gentle breezes that sweep across my face. i am learning how to feel them in a new way. and i know they – my angels – are there.
“one million plastic beverage bottles are bought every minute around the world. yet recycling rates remain low.”
(article: our addiction to plastic, national geographic magazine, 12.2019)
close to midnight and the texts started arriving fast and furiously. a warning from My Girl that she was “fighting with people on instagram”. her passionate responses to objectors on #pattiegonia’s instagram were well-spoken, well-placed, adamant about the wellness of this good earth, vehemently supportive. i paid attention.
pattie gonia is an environmental advocate drag queen. a voice. a loud, sincere, fervent, educated, inspired, contemporary, courageous voice. pattie/wyn is out there making a difference. it is easy to be proud of them, to stand with them. with the partnership of rei, they have created video to draw attention to the things we, as earth-dwellers, have failed to prioritize. if you watch their dramatic and profound videos, you will weep. guaranteed.
we must pay attention. what plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic netting, garbage, waste….are doing to our mother earth is deplorable. we would not live in such a house. why then do we live on such an earth?
i was driven to nausea the other day when we were helping someone clear out a house. it was our job to load things up in big red and go to the mini-dump not far from us. we pulled up and backed up to one of many large dumpsters, all connected to a compactor, to throw in what we had in the back of the truck. it took my breath away watching all the people throwing in all the stuff….just in this tiny corner of the world. the great pacific garbage patch looms in my mind’s eye. THIS is the reason we still have our 40-plus-year-old stove. because i can’t imagine where it will go if we just throw it out to get a shiny new model before it’s necessary, just to make our kitchen look chic (which, incidentally, is impossible anyway.)
we have been conscious, using refillable water bottles, repurposing, recycling everything we could recycle, a practice of being consumers-of-less, less buying, less keeping-up-with-the-joneses, more picking up trash and, scarily, pulling up next to people who throw things out their car windows to tell them they ‘dropped something back there’. but we have been learning. and we can do more. we all can do more. we have to. pay attention.
“…right now, there are more plastic pieces in the ocean than stars in the milky way…” (everything to lose by pattie gonia)
it’s bracing. and it’s tragic. and it needs our true attention. as pattie gonia says, clothed in a dress made of plastic bags, fully standing in garbage, a ticking clock her companion, “we have everything to lose.”
a short documentary to learn more about pattie gonia:
my sweet poppo ended up in solitary confinement. shot down over the ploesti oil fields in romania, he was a WWII prisoner of war and was being held in a prison camp in bulgaria. he was courageously condemning the rat-eaten stale bread the prisoners were served, throwing it down, and he was hauled off to solitary confinement. after months of imprisonment my dad, along with others, was able to escape this POW camp and find his way to freedom. freedom.
each of us has our own freedom route, courage to summon up. i look at both of my children as they make their way in this world. they are courageously carving out their lives. they are scrappy and they make sacrifices to seek happiness and freedom from fear of any kind. my sweet poppo is cheering them on, both of them.
this calendar page hangs in the choir room. the words seemed particularly timely to us, for many reasons, on many levels. we looked up the person to which they were credited: thucydides. a studier of human nature, he: “also has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, the emotions of fear and self-interest.”
we owe the freedom of our country to the veterans, like my sweet dad, who we honor today and to wise, thoughtful, inspired leaders of this country. we have much to be grateful for.
and yet. these savvy words of this ancient greek historian…”the emotions of fear and self-interest”. this is relevant.
my poppo sat in a prison camp cell representing a country fighting against leaders filled with self-interest and the indiscriminate propagation of fear and atrocities upon innocent people. his courage was buoyed by the courage of his fellow soldiers. my father was staunchly determined to put others’ needs first.
i fear what is happening in our country today would sadden him; his response would be that our leaders are not acting out of courage, not out of a rallying call for equitable independence of all, but instead, out of bullying and grandiose self-serving.
and i believe my sweet poppo would throw down the rat-eaten stale philosophy of this current government. with his great courage. in true freedom.
your toes curl. your breathing is shallow. adrenaline rushes. your legs are a little shaky. your hands feel tingly. butterflies in your belly. you are on the edge. in that tiny place between before and after.
i gingerly walked to the edge of the canyon, my daughter encouraging me. at the moment i stood there, feet firmly planted, no guardrail, nothing between me and canyon wall, my heart slowed down and i breathed in both the enormity of the moment and the taste of both before and after. my girl and i laughed, loudly, the sound echoing across the vast canyon. and then, it was after.
i sat at the piano, ready to record this first piece GALENA of the first album, 24 years ago, savoring the safety of before but ready for after. at the edge of the put-it-all-out-there canyon, i walked onto the stage, brand new cds in the lobby, ready, with quivering knees and boots that gave me confidence. and then, in what felt like a minute, it was after.
now, many album and stage edges later, many life and love moments later, many work and play split-seconds later, i wonder what the next after will be. i can feel the edges; i can see them. i’m aware of my toes curling. my breathing is shallow and adrenaline rushes. my legs are a little shaky and my hands feel tingly, butterflies in my belly. there is a canyon beckoning.
reverse threading 