coffee is how we start the day. hot bold black coffee. columbus says it’s way too strong, but this is from a man who makes coffee that his son says tastes like ‘sockwater’. our coffee must be an acquired taste.
when we travel we seek out starbucks (and, to be honest, small independent coffee cafes as well) to stop and have a double espresso. now that we are a teeny weeny bit older, it’s not as smart to have huge cups of coffee while driving long distances. there’s a teeny weeny bit of an issue with not enough rest areas now. so we try to be smart.
every single time we stop for a double espresso we take a picture and then we send it to 20. we have pictures of double espressos in illinois and indiana, in colorado and wisconsin, in florida and georgia, in north and south carolina, in kentucky and tennessee, in connecticut and massachusetts, in new hampshire and rhode island, in new york and pennsylvania, in washington and idaho, in iowa and kansas, in montana and north dakota and minnesota, in missouri and california, in amsterdam and brussels, in paris.
coffee has always been one of our touchstones. from the very beginning d and i spoke about and revered coffee, together. i learned early on from my sweet momma and my poppo how to coffee-sit and it is with them in my heart, coffee in hand, we continue the tradition.
as each day ends and d sets up the coffeemaker for the next morning, dogdog listens for all the familiar sounds he knows that signal the end of the day. he waits on the bed for his bellybelly and then time for sleep. and he knows, too, that when he wakes we will sit with our hot black bold coffee the next morning. without fail.
“…it overwhelms me what i feel…this heart outside of mine….is walking in another person, in another life…” (lyrics)
there is something mysterious and knock-you-to-your-knees-powerful about feeling like you have a heart walking in another person. i know – now – how my sweet momma felt. each time she asked me to let her know i arrived safely while driving cross-country, each time i shared good news, each time she checked in on me after any sort of gritty life-drama, each time she sent cards with messages of encouragement or congratulations, each time i saw her try not to weep upon my leaving. i get it. she could feel her heart – out there – moving around in the world, just outside her sight view.
motherhood is not for wimps. it is, by far, the most gratifyingly-toughest-most-important job i will ever know. i have had to grow two extra hearts and then let them go, wandering and exploring this good earth, finding themselves and their happiness. i can feel it, these hearts – out there. but, with the exception of the time i can actually put my arms around My Girl or My Boy, it’s all just outside my sight view. overwhelming. yes.
and, although i have told it before, here is the story – again:
we walked The Girl to kindergarten. it was spring and sunny and warm. dandelions were everywhere. on the way home, The Boy dropped my hand to toddler-zigzag around a yard where dandelions > grass by far (kind of like ours.) he bent down and picked yellow flower upon yellow flower. until he came running back to me. he held up his sweaty-dirty-little-boy fist, full of bright yellow and green dandelions and said, “woses for momma.”
i did not inherit good teeth. were i to be a horse i would not be running in the derby or any other horse race (which, right now, sounds like a good thing.) anyway, i blame my sweet momma and my poppo; i’m not actually sure who gets the lion’s share of the blame, so i will just blame them both (and all the ancestors before them who did not have great teeth – we might as well make this a class-action-blame-suit.)
when i was a child growing up, my parents were quite a bit older than most of my friends’ parents. this is because my sister is sooooo much older than me. i was born soooo much later and, so, had parents who had some, maybe, backwards ideas.
drumroll, please. my sweet momma – adorable as she was – and my sweet poppo – equally adorable – never ever EVER had novocaine when they got fillings. for some unknown reason, they just toughed it out. now, i am quite sure you are cringing at the very thought. those drills. that hook thing that tries to pull your tongue out of your mouth. the sounds alone are unnerving. anyway, they seemed to reach deep inside, thinking they were getting extra points or something, and they endured the pain throughout drilling/filling procedures.
this brings me to me. because that is what they believed in, i was subjected to the same torture and did not have novocaine until i was well into adulthood and realized it was a thing. having had two children without the benefit of anesthesia, i can honestly say now that i would rather have more children than go through any more dental work without novocaine or some such numbing agent.
so, this is a long preamble to my story.
i broke a tooth during lent. you would think things like that wouldn’t happen during lent, but, alas, it did. my dentist, who is a saint, was out of town and i waited for his return. because of my ptsd from childhood dentistry, i cannot go alone to an appointment like this so david went with me. he always does. we try to be there for each other in each of our doctor/dental appointments; it’s part of the i-support-you-in-everything deal.
my favorite moment when we walk in (my REAL favorite moment is when we walk OUT) is when the dental assistant says to david, “you can sit on the tooth.” it is pretty funny to see a grown man figure out how to sit on a tooth. it’s even funnier to watch him not feel awkward. he handles his tooth-sitting with great aplomb, alternately cracking jokes with dan, the dentist, and holding my foot, since he can’t reach my hand from the tooth.
for this dentist who has all the patience in the world for my terror and for david’s presence there on the tooth, i am eternally grateful. i would totally sit on the tooth for him.
my sweet momma was an optimist. growing up, she’d wake me up in the morning with a cheery, “good morning, merry sunshine” and she would happily start her day. she would jot everything on her desk calendar (the kind with the base, two metal rings and sheets for each day that were replenishable yearly.) for her, everything counted. she would write down all of it, in her personal shorthand. to read her calendars now is to see all parts of life – the magical parts and the painful aspects. but momma? she just had a way of listing to the magical side.
we drove down to florida nine to ten times in the last couple years of her life. we’d visit and laugh and listen to stories and catch her up on our life. she was in assisted living then so we would listen carefully if she mentioned something she clearly wanted from the home she and my dad had shared. her finnish wood carvings, a certain sweater, a jacket, a movie in the entertainment center…all things back home. we all worked to be sure she was surrounded by things that meant a lot to her.
one day momma started to recollect another of the rich stories she and my dad had experienced on their trip to europe decades earlier. she spoke of the brand new vw bug they ordered ahead and picked up in germany. she spoke of roadtripping for six weeks around the countryside. and she spoke of a red notebook in which she wrote down all her impressions, all their doings, all the adventures during their trip. she wrote of tender moments and of the simplest of pleasures. she wrote of what made that trip magical and painful challenges they had. she didn’t write of the grandiose or the impactful tourist spots. she wrote of what made that trip theirs and theirs alone, a deeply personal account. and as she spoke of it, you could feel the presence of my dad by her side. these were cherished stories and precious time she spent with her beloved husband. clearly, she pined for this notebook – written memories of that magic.
we went back home that evening to my parent’s house with a mission – find the red notebook. we started in the office, scouring the desk and the closet, going through bins and boxes, our eyes searching for a red spiral. defeated in the office, we moved on. every nook. every cranny. we opened every bin and box in the house, rifling through, trying to find it.
we moved on to the garage. tall filing cabinets stood against the wall (for basements are somewhat inconceivable in florida). i started pulling out drawers. david headed for the stacks of plastic bins, piled in another part of the garage.
we kept at it. determined, but losing some hope.
david opened the last plastic bin, the one on the very bottom of the piles. he shuffled through the papers in the top; his eyes fell on a brochure. a travel brochure. from europe. his pulse racing, he continued to dig through the bin.
and then he saw it. a BLUE spiral notebook. on the front was penned the word EUROPE.
the last time i saw my momma – ever – was the very next morning. when we left her, she was clutching the blue notebook to her chest, tears in her eyes.
“don’t judge a book by its cover,” my sweet momma used to say. i’m missing her today as i write this post for tomorrow. four years ago today she left this good earth and i could feel it tilt on its axis, trying vainly to readjust. she was generous when it came to people. she saw past what was on the outside; she sought to see what was inside.
the rough exterior we sometimes see on the outside of people is quite often a guise. we all know someone we believed to be gruff, but turned out to be quite the mush, once you were able to peel back the protective layers. we believe we know what someone else thinks or feels, but we are actually unable to physically pare back those visible and invisible outer layers, the extrinsic stuff, to get to the raw of their heart, to feel their actual worries or concerns or fears.
we each have our bark-masks, carefully designed for the venue or situation within which we find ourselves. we choose what to share with others, rarely brave enough to shed all that outer bark. for there have been times when you have peeled back the layers, revealed truths in confidence, perhaps looking for wisdom or common ground, and have been torturously walloped with judgement or scorn. it becomes much harder to allow the next shared peel.
it takes courage to BE who you really are with others. it takes courage to meet on common ground. we fear the gruff outermost skin, we are afraid of what we see and don’t understand. we may not realize someone else feels that same fear.
but there are cracks in the bark; there are fissures in the icy exterior. the tree may be shedding, the trunk expanding, growth waiting in the wings. allowing for cracks, fissures, reaching toward and not away – those can be the gps to another’s heart. it’s not always what it looks like. growth is waiting. because, you know, you can’t judge a book by its cover.
everyone does it. in the middle of conversation. in the middle of silence. in the middle of a piece of music. in the middle of a dance. you vamp…buying time.
my poppo would vamp through a silence when he couldn’t think of anything else to say by quipping things like, “how ’bout them apples?” or “how do you like them apples?” or “do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?” he didn’t really expect an answer in particular. (well, except for the rhubarb question, in which case the standard ‘correct’ answer, accompanied by rolling of eyes and laughter, was always “not if it’s in cans.”) my dad was a better ponderer than conversationalist. my sweet momma handled most of the conversations of their over-70-years-together time. but you could always count on my adorable poppo for this tad bit of random.
my very-excellent-“it’s-fine”-producer ken can pick out my “how ’bout them apples?” notes in a millisecond. he recognizes them instantly and will say, “thinking note” as i vamp through a thought process heading in some direction or other with a melodic conversation in a piece of music.
some people say, “ummmm.” others say, “liiiiike….” or “welllll….” or “okaaaay….” we each have our own colloquialism, our own phrase that buys time. it’s all good. ummm, well, ok, like, as long as we’re having conversation.
my sweet momma would often call me just as the time i was born would pass on my birthday. at the end of her life she didn’t do this anymore but i always remembered anyway. mid-morning i would know that this was the moment i arrived at this place, this was the beginning of my passing through, the time of my visiting.
today, this very morning, it was 60 years ago that i joined the rest of this good earth on its journey around the sun. spinning, spinning. every day.
it wasn’t long till i realized – as an adult – that we spin our wheels constantly to get to some unknown place we can’t necessarily define or find. we search and spin faster, out of mission, out of passion, out of frustration, loss, a feeling of no value or a sense of lostness. we spin. we seek. we try to accomplish. we try to make our mark. we try to finish. we try to start. we leave scarred rubber skids of emotions on the road behind us; we burn out with abrupt, unexpected turns, we break, wearing out. spinning. spinning. from one thing to another, our schedules full of busy things to do. often, days a repetition of the previous day. every day full. full of spinning. but we are still seeking. life is sometimes what we expected. life is sometimes not what we expected. and that makes us spin faster, our core dizzying with exhaustion.
the simplest gifts – the air, clear cool water to drink, the mountaintop exhilaration of parenthood, hand-holding love, the ephemeral seconds of self-actualizing accomplishment, the sun on our faces…we have images stored in our mind’s eye like photographs in an old-fashioned slide show, at any time ready for us to ponder. but often-times we fail to linger in these exquisite simplicities. the next thing calls.
this morning, as i stare at 60 – which, as i have mentioned, is kind of a significant number for me – i realize that everything i write about or compose about or talk about or hold close in my heart is about these simplest things, the pared-down stuff, the old boots on the trail – not fancy but steadfast, not brand new but muddied up with real. in our day-to-day-ness i/we don’t always see IT. the one thing. there is something -truly- that stands out each day in those sedimentary layers of our lives. it is the thing that makes the rest of the day pale in comparison. in all its simple glory, the one true moment that makes us realize that we are living, breathing, ever-full in our spinning world. the thing that connects us to the world. the shiny thing. the mica. that tiny irregular piece of glittering mica in the layers and veneers of life. the thing to hold onto with all our might.
that tiny glitter of mica. mica nestles itself within a bigger rock, a somewhat plain rock – igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary ordinariness. not pinnacle, it is found within the bigger context. sometimes harder to find, harder to notice, but there. and it makes the day our day, different than any other. it is the reason we have learned or grown that day. it is the reason we have laughed that day. it is the reason we have picked ourselves up off the floor that day. it is the reason we have breathed that day.
and now, at 60, i resolve to see, to collect those pieces of glitter. not in an old wooden box or a beat-up vintage suitcase, but, simply, since they are moments in time, in a tiny notebook or on my calendar. join me in #TheMicaList if you wish. as we wander and wonder through it is our job, in our very best interest, to notice the finest shimmering dust, the mica in the rock, the glitter in our world.
with all the reminders around us to remember-remember-remember that every day counts, we get lost in our own spinning stories, narratives of many strata. i know that in the midnight of the days i look back on the hours of light and darkness in which i moved about and remember one moment – one moment – be it a fleetingly brief, elusive, often evanescent moment of purity, the tiniest snippet of conversation, belly-laugh humor, raw learning, naked truth, intense love – those are the days i know – i remember – i am alive.
my visit to this physical place is not limitless. but each glitter of mica is a star in a limitless sky of glitter, a milky way of the times that make me uniquely me and you uniquely you, a stockpile of priceless relics. my time stretches back and stretches ahead, a floating silken thread of shiny. it’s all a mysterious journey.
my sweet momma always said that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. although she stood her ground, she rarely pushed back. well, maybe at my dad…i certainly heard her push back in that relationship. she was a woman before her time, struggling to be seen and heard…in relationship, in work, in the world. nevertheless, she led with kindness and generosity.
recently i surprisingly found myself in a situation where i felt the kind of civility that is needed to accomplish anything was lacking. instead it was aggressive, pointed, antagonistic. “when push comes to shove” implies escalation and this, indeed, was the case. instead of actual conversation, it was a push-shove back-and-forth. instead of communication, it was a shining example of what-not-to-do.
we drove past a passiton billboard on the way up north that read these words: when push comes to shove, don’t. civility is in you. what does a boorish push or a retorted shove accomplish other than an establishment of immaturity, a driving desire and play for power and an uncooperative non-collaboration?
civility is not that hard. it should be what we lead with. respecting others and their place in their world. we each get the same air to breathe and we each breathe in and out the same way. instead of escalating to shove or pushing yet harder, how might we fill our lungs with responses of peacefulness, thoughtfulness, fairness, appreciation, intelligent consideration, magnanimity, grace, even reconciliation. why must push come to shove? it needn’t.
20 rolled his eyes at himself when he told us the story. he was at the grocery store and was looking at dish soap. he likes dawn dish soap; it gets the best ratings, he said. as he is peering at the shelf of containers, he can see that way in the back is a container with just a bit more…the volume of the ones in the front seem lower than this particular one in the back. so he reaches all the way in, moving aside other dawn bottles now rejected by him and pulls out the one where he can see the soap level just-a-little-bit-higher. he notes that the plastic bottle is not squished or dented (for obviously that would cause a rise in level) and he triumphantly puts the chosen bottle in his cart. voila! “there must be something wrong with me,” he said.
as a person who grew up with soap socks and leftovers i couldn’t disagree more. of COURSE you look for the highest level of soap in the bottle. that’s a no-duh. penny-pinching and making things last as long as possible were unspoken mantras for me; they still are.
my sweet momma kept a soap sock. for those of you who have no clue what that is: as a bar of soap gets smaller and smaller it becomes increasingly difficult to use. never to waste anything, my momma would gather all of her tiny vestiges of soap bars and put them in a clean white sock (generally a sport sock…something a little thicker with a tooth like a washcloth.) she would tie off the end and voila! there you have it – a washcloth with built-in soap! a soap sock!
i have inherited this trait from my momma. i will turn bottles upside down and squeeze the life out of them in order to finish all the product. days after d has declared a shampoo bottle empty i am still encouraging shampoo out of its depths. our refrigerator rarely has much extra in it – we buy for what we need and we use it up, even if it ends up as some weird concocted leftover. growing up i didn’t need the “starving children in ….” speech. i had dna.
so when 20 told us that he takes three pre-packaged 3 lb bags of potatoes over to the scale and weighs them i listened. apparently, 3 lbs of potatoes can look like 2 3/4 or 3 1/2 or 4 1/4 lbs. who knew? you can bet i’ll be trying that. more potatoes for the money! voila!
“there must be something wrong with me,” 20 said. nah.
it comes in waves. in less than two weeks i will be 60. i’m not a consumed-with-my-age-person, but this particular birthday is proving me different. without any prompts, i find myself sorting through my life, the six decades that lead me to right now. memories flow in and ebb out like the tide on a surfboard of emotions. trying not to resist, i ride the wave as it brings me growing up times on long island…my nuclear family all together, all alive, gathered in our dining room on abby drive or up in the catskills in a rustic state park cabin….bike hikes and carvel….simple times of arguing for john denver over bob dylan….time walking or sitting or playing frisbee on crab meadow beach…late sunday morning mc-arnson sandwiches or waffles and ice cream around my sweet momma and poppo’s table in florida…the time of building the first home i ever bought, a big choice for us as a young couple…the sheep farm in new hampshire….moving to wisconsin away from family and the challenges that raised…celebrating the amazing birth of our daughter and son and watching them grow into the people they are….recording my first album and what that meant….letting go of the day-to-day mothering as my children became adults and still being an every-single-day mother….balancing the impact of good decisions and bad decisions….times of intense grief….choosing love….starting over….wondering what is coming next….
the inner monologue chronicles through all of these years…i sit in quiet watching the slideshow in my mind’s eye and ponder. what was most important, what is most important, what will be most important. what it all means. and it’s clear most of the time. the people who have surrounded me, who have loved me, who i have loved. the people i am missing – and will always miss – as well as the people who are right here. the times i am missing – as well as the times -moments- i could miss right now were i to be too engrossed in something else.
on the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART, the track that i selected to follow MISSING is called CONNECTED. because it all stays a part of the vast ocean that is each of our lives. the missing and the now and the wondering, all part of the whole. all waves to ride.
reverse threading 