the minis are the best. though i haven’t had them in forever. available in the ever-popular neopolitan ice cream flavors, i prefer vanilla.
charleston chews. yum. everyone has their crutch. a while back, mine would have been kitkats. someone could have said to me, “you can’t kitkat your way out of this” and, though i beg to differ on the “can’t” and “out of this” parts, they would have been right-on about the kitkats. avoidance and tangents and, yes, even food in desperate situations, go hand in hand. diverting, skirting confrontation, maintaining decorum, keeping peace…some things require overt and potent bribes.
he says i change the subject. i get a kind of blank look on my face and “squirrel!” into some other path of conversation. were i to spend some time thinking about this, i am guessing he is right. once i am in an exchange that can only head downhill, my brain is rolodexing for something else to talk about, to veer off to, to act as distraction.
he hasn’t had a charleston chew. this is preposterous and certainly un-american, so i will have to remedy this. but i know if i held a dark chocolate bar or a chocolate chip cookie or, now, a piece of crumbcake, in my hand – even in the middle of a “talk” – he would bite.
because the truth is…you CAN charleston chew your way out of many sticky situations. you just have to know what a person’s charleston chew is.
a rock and a hard place. he is wedged between them and help-me-i’m-wedged-and-i-can’t-get-out he can’t escape. there is no choice but to say the wrong thing. go either way and he has sunk miserably to the levels of pond catfish, carp at best.
in these days of changing-changing-changing bodies and expectations of ourselves, we peer in the mirror and are astounded at what we see staring back. menopause and “men”opause (whatever on earth that is called) – in all its glory – has taken its toll on our metabolism and our hips and someone with a line-defining pen has carved on our faces while we sleep in the night. and those jowls. let’s not forget them.
so while i want him to understand – to really get it – to grok it at a cellular level – to feeeeeel my pain, he is thinking, “she’s beautiful” and tells me so. ohmyheavens, seriously? can he not share in my astonishment, couple with my what-do-i-do-now-ness, sympathize in a big-big way, help me pick out jeans in the next size?
there is no winning here.
it is the perpetual “does my butt look big in this?” question. over and over. forevermore.
he can “pretend” not to notice, which undermines his believability factor and, ultimately, leaves him stranded with no credibility when i am facing down the mirror. he can acknowledge and discuss the merits of aging with me, leaving me incredulous that he would suggest that i am aging. he can try to play long ball – riding the fence – acting like he can’t hear me – changing the subject.
no matter what, he will find himself in the rock garden.
eh. who am i kidding? it’s more like a deep, dark quarry.
there is no such thing. “too tired to snore.” uh-huh.
there is also no such avoidance as “i just won’t sleep on my back.” or “i don’t snore when i turn my face to the left.”
sometimes, snoring happens.
and before you get all up-in-arms about my picking on him, i, yes, sometimes snore too. though naturally, it is delicate whilst in sweet slumber and sounds a bit like a beautiful melody floating over our pillows, wrapping us in a symphony of joy. uh-huh.
there is nothing worse in the middle of the night – pre-menopausal-menopausal-post-menopausal and wide-awake, ruminating over life and all its stuff, desperately trying to go to sleep, staring at the moon out the window, hot-flashing and then freezing, covers-off-ing-covers-on-ing, mushing and re-mushing the pillows, trying to relax through the tiny aches and pains catching up, hungry and thirsty and ignoring the tinkle-urge – than having the person next to you start snoring. like a semi coming through your bedroom. uh-huh.
i don’t believe there is much more frustrating than trying to get the attention of someone you love, someone you care about. you keep upping the ante, waving your arms above your head, metaphorically jumping up and down, raising your own bar time and again. just to get their attention. you try more-achievements-for-1000-please, imploring-for-800-please, passive-aggressive-ignoring-for-600-please, lonely-weeping-for-400-please, poor-acting-out-behavior-for-200-please, but none of it seems to work.
i read in the book “the sentimental person’s guide to decluttering” (claire middleton) a few days ago that the author suspects “people who only need a cup, a plate and a blanket are cold-blooded”. i know this was in application to stuff-in-the-house. but i would hasten to add that it applies to relationship as well. some people, in an unplugged, unsentimental-about-other-people way, don’t need any more than a cup, a plate and a blanket. it all seems such a waste of good time.
when my adored big brother died i was pregnant with my second child so i was an adult, 33 years old. though it is just shy of 30 years ago now i still vividly remember the stunning realization that the world kept going anyway. i had lost grandparents; i was a bit familiar with grief. but this was strikingly different. i could not grok how the world kept going without my brother being able to feel it. this sounds like gibberish to some, i suspect, but grief is not linear nor is it rational. it asks questions of our heart and mind and it slays us with feelings of overwhelm at moments we don’t expect. i looked to a gift i was given – a ceramic sign that says “this life is not a dress rehearsal” – and i thought “pay attention!”.
a few days ago i was talking to one of my long-lost-and-now-found-cousins on the phone. she told stories of her mom, my dad’s sister, things i had never heard. i could literally feel my heart swelling as i listened and laughed and i wanted more tales of my sweet dad’s growing-up years. the summer home upstate new york, the rice in the sweater pockets from mice and the snakes in the outhouse, housekeepers i was unaware they had, the mob boss around the corner in the city. my grandpa’s felt business in brooklyn, piecing felt for pianos, of all things…that connection. a little bit of touch-back, an hour of family-i-had-lost-in-the-confusing-shuffle-of-life. building. paying attention. being astonished.
in a world full of intricacies and details and deadlines and accomplishment and competition and agenda, to stop and pay attention is sometimes a challenge.
to marvel at the song of birds at dawn, to watch the east sky change in answer to the western sunset, to taste the first sip of coffee in early morning, to stare wide-eyed at your grown children…astonishment in exponential depth.
to tell stories of life’s moments, the tiny ones, the top rung ones, the puddle-on-the-floor ones…is exponential sharing of living.
to pay attention to the other, really pay attention – without prompt and without reward – is exponential love.
the up-north gang makes plans that feature rest rooms. we travel distances – often caravaning – but we know that we will be stopping. no ifs, ands or buts.
the drive to cedarburg is not long, but the last thing any menopausal woman OR – let’s-face-it – man wants to do upon arrival anywhere is to desperately look for a bathroom. there is no time for that. no one wants to feel imperiled by the call of nature.
it feels somewhat irresponsible to be writing about paper bags and tic-tacs and mini-mart restrooms while russia invades ukraine and people’s lives are in jeopardy. it feels a little like it could be interpreted as not-paying-attention. we sat with our coffee this morning and talked about families packing up a few things and leaving…just leaving…with no place to really go, not knowing what to take, separating from the men in the household who have been ordered to stay, conscripted. it is nothing shy of terrifying and we wonder, yet again, how it is that this world is so conflicted and broken. yet we look around and we see evidence of division and suffering and methods of control everywhere.
and so, last weekend, our little field trip to cedarburg’s winter festival was exactly the right thing to do. we stopped at the gas station we always stop at. they had added two new restrooms, good news for a bunch of 60plussers on the move. less waiting that way. we watched the sled dogs race, we wondered about whether the river had been frozen the day before for the bedraces. we wandered in and out of shops and finished our day all together in the tiny bar of a bed and breakfast there. faces reddened from the wind, laughter up and down the table.
our up-north-gang mini roadtrip was before the invasion. i would choose it again, though. because we need to be reminded – over and over – that those are moments not to be taken for granted. the silly oh-my-gosh-i-need-a-restroom-right-freakin-now shared times of this gang as we age and age. the familiarity and ease of people you have spent time with, people you are in menopause with, people who talk about utterly anything. presence is not to be underestimated.
we are fortunate. and we know it. and as we give thanks for all we do have – including people we love and new mini-mart restrooms and winter festivals and freshly fallen snow – all under a sky of freedom – we also lift up those in a land not really so far away. and we hope for their safety, their very lives and an end to conflict they did not choose.
it was a first. the very first time that david had a dozen roses sent to me.
i heard the knock on the door and went to see what it was. the tall package was sitting there. fromyouflowers.com the label read. i, excitedly, called d down from his office upstairs, saying, “look! i got flowers!!” he ran downstairs, looked at the box with a slight furrow and replied that they were ordered to arrive monday, on valentine’s day. i suppose that might have given us a glimpse into what-would-be.
i brought the box into the kitchen and grabbed the scissors to slice the tape, tears coming to my eyes as i gently pried the flap open and saw the red-red of roses inside. we’ve been daisy-people with a single rose-here-or-there, but never a dozen roses. i extracted the inner cardboard holding everything upright and looked down into the top of the bouquet.
there were loose rose petals everywhere. rose buds floated on top of the bundle and i could see the stems where they belonged. sensing that this was not going to be pretty, with d watching, i unwrapped the paper around the stems.
rose petals and leaves fell around us, on the counter, on the floor, on my clothes. though d had not ordered an invisible flower girl, it appeared that one had magically appeared to shower us with rose-love. clearly when he ordered this gift he hadn’t checked the option where the buds and leaves were attached to the stems.
his face said it all.
the one time he went all-out. the one time he surprised me with delivered-to-the-door-flowers. the one time he sent a whole dozen roses.
i gathered together all the rose petals and rose buds that still-tightly-held-their-shape-but-not-their-stems. i went into the dining room and took out a beautiful crystal bowl that used to be my sweet momma’s and poppo’s. i placed all the petals and buds into the bowl, arranging the buds so their graceful curls faced up.
i looked at david and said, “still beautiful. just different.”
a little later, work-day over, we lit a candle, clinked glasses and sent naked-stem-photographs to our friends and family, sharing the moment and lemonading rose petals.
the chasm between women and men widens post-menopause. i mean, it’s not exactly a divot before that. theyyy – meaning men – love to solve for things. everything. no matter what. weee – meaning women – sometimes just want to talk or vent or express how we feel. we are completely capable of solving-for when we want to be. and we are also completely capable of asking for help, asking for advice, asking for solutions…when we want them.
but, ahhh….that chasm. there are moments i start a conversation and announce, “i just want to vent.” it absolves me of guilt when i start growling if he starts to solve for the issue.
as we all know, many – and i won’t say “most” here, to avoid generalizing – many men can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. in mere seconds after placing his sweet problem-solving head on the pillow, d will be sleeping. down and out sleeping. meanwhile, my head is on my pillow, pondering life and all its idiosyncrasies. i find it flabbergasting how quickly time passes in the day and how slowly 2am – 5:30am crawls. or 12:30am – 3am. or 1am – 4am. it’s a goulash of wee-hour-clock-combinations.
so, while changing diet and exercise and patterns all seem like spiffy-doo-dah ideas, when one wants a little sympathy, one does not want spiffy-doo-dah suggestions. just sayin’.
not that i’m speaking from experience or anything. 😉
on island he gazed south. here, at home, he gazes north.
it doesn’t matter that there are inches of snow piles on the deck. ever the snowdog, he lays in it, relishing the cold, and gazes north. i wonder what he is thinking.
dogga is rarely still. he seeks the bark-back of other dogs in the ‘hood, standing in the middle of the backyard. he runs around the opposite-traffic-circle sign, around the pond, to the fence, then the other. scoping out, trying to get the attention of simply any other canine.
but there are those moments, in the middle of his self-initiated fray, that he is quiet and still and he poses, like the lions “patience” and “fortitude” flanking the front of the new york public library. “patience” and “fortitude” have been trademarked and are featured in the logo and all of the library’s marketing shenanigans. perhaps dogdog is the branding of our backyard, of our home. gazing north. or – simply – gazing.
for we, too, are gazers. we sit and ponder. we gaze and wonder. we watch the backyard change seasons as we change seasons.
the other day dogga was laying on the bed when i walked into the bedroom. i sat down next to him, his wagawag-tail thumping. i told him all the stuff i was thinking about, because isn’t that one of the reasons we HAVE dogs?
he listened. thump. listened. thump thump thump.
he did not solve anything. he did not answer any of my questions nor did he ask any questions. he did not agree or disagree. he did not argue for reason. he just listened. with patience and fortitude.
were i to lay in the snow with dogdog on the back deck gazing north perhaps i would also have more patience and fortitude in this season of time. at the very least, i would be in the best of company.
much like the teacher in the peanuts cartoon (do not pass go until you watch this!), sometimes when people around us speak – even people we love dearly and eternally, even people who are wise and whose opinions and advice matter, even people who are thinking of our and their best interest, even people who are well-intentioned, even people who want to have thoughtful shared-planning-the-future discussions – we hear “wah-wah-woh-wah-wah-wah”.
we are the victims. we are the perpetrators.
the blah-dee-blah-dee-blah. the eye-rolling moments. the oh-geez-good-grief-criminy. the if-i-sigh-will-they-hear-me-and-stop. the maybe-yawning-would-work. the what-can-i-say-to-bring-this-overkill-conversation-to-a-screeching-halt. the distract-distract-distract. the load-up-the-cleverly-snide-remark-and-shoot.
ahhh yes. and then there’s the faux-innocent-smug-comeback.
and no thanks to cervantes here. clearly, he was full of double-talk.
the conversation started just over nine years ago. emails back and forth and then texts. going back, reading, it is stunning to see how many times coffee entered the stage of our new relationship then, as if it were anxiously waiting in the wings or in the green room, one of the stars of that friendship that grew into love. we would send photos of mugs or cups full of coffee across the country, finding each other in our respective days, the places we were sipping, where we were headed. coffee became a locator. and still now, it was one of the joys of those early days, months and months and months of writing and wondering what it might be like to have a coffee together.
the tiny house had a coffee station. nothing run-of-the-mill and industrial, instead it was a sweet spot along a bit of wall bespeckled with signs about coffee. certainly this was an airbnb owned by someone who appreciates the finer points of first-thing-in-the-morning brew.
i think coffee is one of those things you either love or totally dislike. it’s not really a take-it-or-leave-it kind of beverage. my sweet momma and poppo could sit over coffee for hours. it wasn’t the cup of java that lasted that long; it was the coffee-sitting. it was conversation and quiet, it was waking up and catching up. it was at breakfast, at coffee-break time, maybe a cup after a celebratory dinner. i learned the goodness of coffee-sitting from them and miss those times around their table. coffee makes me think of them.
i know that, although my dad never met david, he is rooting every day for him. i’m sure he watches each evening as david sets up the coffee for the morning, his own practice back in the day. i’m sure he approves heartily when d pours mugs early in the morning, adding no sugar or creamer or milk or sweetener; he was a black-coffee drinker too. i’m sure he smiles and nods when d walks steaming mugs in to me, still with my head in the pillows. he is likely whistling, “the best part of waking up is [coffee] in your cup.” it took a long while for me to convince him that there was coffee that wasn’t folgers. we are big bold coffee fans. but when there was a ball jar sitting on the counter in our tiny house with the words “fresh folgers” on a lid it was me smiling, positive of the presence of my mom and dad.
it is the wee hours of the night as we write today’s post. i couldn’t sleep, so we decided to sit up and compose our blogs. david said, “should i put the coffee on?”. i emphatically replied “no!” as i have every intention of trying to sleep again once we have written and my insomnia turns to sleepiness.
besides, i so look forward to a bit of mountain-town light streaming in the windows in a few hours and hearing david’s voice as he offers me a mug, a cuppajava, as i pick my head up from the cozy pillows. and just like my dad, i can hear it: “the best part of waking up is [coffee] in my cup.”
reverse threading 