whoa….we saw one on the des plaines river trail and stopped short. it looked like candy on the path, but on closer examination, we discovered it was a spider! an orange spider. it’s called a marbled orb-weaver. and it’s pretty intense. and, i suppose if you are not spider-phobic like me, it’s beautiful.
later that month, we were hiking at bristol woods, one of our favorite go-to places to hold staff meetings as we walk together. out of the corner of my eye i caught the glimpse of bright movement in the air…sure enough, it was one of those marbled orb-weavers (doesn’t that just slip off your tongue? lol!) it was dangling on a web-strand that was at least 5 stories high! whattheheck! this roly-poly little spider was bravely trying to reach a white mass that was a bit flattened (an egg cocoon with several hundred eggs, we read later) while being tossed about in the wind, up and down, sideways.
i could practically hear this spider whisper to itself, “gotta have sisu, gotta have sisu” as it climbed, bobbing, bobbing, up its long, high-above-the-ground web, finally reaching its cocoon and wrapping it close into its body.
wow. what we do for our babies, eh? amazing stuff. the stuff of sisu.
sisu. perseverance. fortitude. stamina. courage. determination. my grandmother mama dear used this finnish term all the time and passed it down to my sweet momma beaky who passed it down to me. a philosophy of life, a mantra, “you gotta have sisu!” mama dear would say. if up against the odds, if forging upstream, my sweet momma would say, “you gotta have sisu!” and so it was without a second thought when it was time to name my own company, the independent recording label that has been sisu music productions for the last 23 years. i can’t think of a better name for all the challenges that have risen – and continue to rise – as an independent artist.
any moment of fear, of uncertainty, brings me to draw on that sisu…digging in my heels and standing firmly in it. it’s kind of a blind faith and has everything to do with that. in the face of adversity, of the scales tilted not-in-your-favor, you just keep on. in the face of fear…everyone has their thing…the thing that makes them afraid…the thing that makes them white-knuckled…you just keep on. sisu.
i was flying back from telluride to denver a couple days ago – in a smaller plane. there was a big strapping guy all dressed in camouflage who got on the plane before me. he told the flight attendant he had been out in the middle of nowhere hunting (successfully) elk and mule deer. he was a rough and tumble kind of guy and ended up seated just across the aisle from me. when the plane hit turbulence, particularly over the front range, his face turned red and he looked over at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look and said, “i hate this part!!” i started talking to him then, trying to ease his obvious fear, talking about the wind currents and the mountains…how i could see the airport…we are almost there…just a teeny bit further…wheels are going to touch down any minute…. he was gripping the lock on the little tray table and finally relaxed his grip and smiled. everyone has their thing.
we can loan others the sisu we carry with us. we can bank on the sisu we carry with us. i often credit being-from-new-york for times i have just forged-ahead-anyway, but my sisu roots go way further back than that.
sisu. i stood back from the edge of a deep deep canyon the other day, my beautiful daughter on another boulder a few hundred yards away. i looked at the sky, the sunset playing over red rock. thought about that very moment in time, this moment i was sharing with the part of my heart known as kirsten…this moment that wouldn’t be repeated. and i heard the voice in my head, “you gotta have sisu.” i stepped to the very edge of the canyon, stretched out my arms and laughed aloud.
sisu sue swore by them. turtlenecks. she has them in every color, every kind of weave and fabric. she looks fabulous in them and wears adorable chic jackets over them. she is one cool and trendy lady and i adore her.
having already started the hot-flasharama-period of my life when we were working together, i would ask her how she could stand having a turtleneck on; it was (and mostly still is) out of my realm of imagination being able to wear a turtleneck and not ripping it off in the middle of -say- the choir room or the train to chicago or in the car while driving. this oh-so-wise treasured woman told me that someday i would understand.
THAT DAY HAS COME.
i look in the mirror, a few steps of days away from 59, and stare at (you might want to stop reading now) my NECK. what has HAPPENED? suddenly, my neck (and chin, for that matter) have become O-L-D. where has the time gone? where did my old neck go? and where did that new chin-under-my-chin come from?
my sweet momma, at 93, looked at me one day and said, “i looked in the mirror and (in a horrified voice) i saw an OLD woman.” “momma,” i reassured her, “at 93, you are an old woman, but you are a BEAUTIFUL old woman.” personally, i thought my momma was striking. every last wrinkle told a story. every last thing she saw as a flaw. but my words fell on deaf ears. she just stared back at me. probably feeling much the same as me. delusionally thinking that time would stand still in our necks and chins and -yup- everywhere else. time and menopause take their toll.
the next time you see me try not to stare at my neck (although i have likely set you up for that.) i may or may not be wearing a turtleneck. the ironic part is that a real turtle’s neck really does look a lot like mine. sheesh.
i don’t have to look further than my two children for examples of being relentless.
The Boy decided, early in high school, that he wanted to change his attention from baseball to tennis. now, most of his classmates who were tennis players on the varsity team had played since earlier childhood. The Boy had only hit the ball around on the court a few times with his very-best-growing-up-friend-miles or pierre-who-hung-out-here-all-the-time-in-high-school but his decision was made and he pursued it with zeal. a part of the jv team, he practiced and took individual lessons, group lessons, worked with his coaches. i, on the sidelines, sweated and watched, trying hard to be quiet as he pushed himself. he, a natural athlete, was moved up to the varsity team and doubled-down on the hard work of tennis – a “game” possibly more psychological than physical….ridiculously tough on a mom. he went to a university that welcomed him on their tennis team and, for years, i spent the better part of tennis season (and tournament season) driving all over the state and beyond, proud to see his skill on the court, proud to see his drive and, mostly, that it paid off for him. now he applies the same strategic tennis-approach to his life, his career. he was – and is – relentless.
The Girl decided, upon moving to the high mountains of colorado, that she, having never been on skis or other propelling-downhill-snow-gear (other than a sled), wanted to snowboard. she was working in a professional (indoor office) position out there, but she spent every spare moment on the slopes, striving to learn. every now and then she’d report in about her experience on copper mountain or keystone or breck or vail or …. she broke her arm, she twisted limbs, she broke her helmet. she persisted. time passed and she traded up for better snowboards, more equipment; she asked more people for advice or pointers; she was a learner beyond compare. she boarded in aspen, in snowmass, in patagonia. she dropped off ledges and split-boarded up vast mountains. fast forward just a few short years and she, no longer in an inside office doing the piece-of-paper-from-the-university-of-minnesota-work-she-was-trained-for, has taken the learn how to learn, learn how to persevere, learn how to dream – from life, from college, from her own purposeful heart – and is a snowboard instructor and a snowboard coach for a team in aspen. she offers more than snowboarding to those around her; she is the picture of excited zealousness. she was – and is – relentless.
so i………who read to them as little ones and tucked them in and drove them to music lessons and sporting events and played with matchbox cars and dressed barbies and ran alongside two-wheelers and crossed my fingers as they sat behind the wheel of the car and tried to instill a little appreciation of beauty and respect, and helped with homework and stayed up all night while they worked on last-minute-projects and rocked them to sleep at night with a well-loved-tattered ‘goodnight moon’ falling off my lap……..now learn from them. to be relentless.
there is this adorable couple from mississippi on hgtv these days. erin and ben star in a show called Home Town and they are working to restore their tiny town of laurel one beautiful home at a time. my favorite moment, as they run commercials for this very popular show, is erin passionately looking into the camera saying, with the most charming southern drawl, “get up and DO it.” you can tell she means this about every single thing. and to her call to action, i just might add – and be relentless.
faced with the word “brave” as our two artists tuesday image, i flounder with where to start.
very early this morning our dear friend linda left her home to go to chicago to have a cochlear implant. we spent time with her a few evenings ago, as she sorted through hope and fear, what she’s known and the future unknown. one of her greatest passions in life is dancing. she dances to music designed for dance, to music she hears in passing, to music in her head. terrified of losing the ability to hear music post-surgery, she pondered the what-if of not having this done. but her desire to actually be able to hear MORE (more beloved voices, more broadcasted music, more cds out on the deck or in the dance hall) won out and she is on a new journey. she is brave. brave. brave.
my sister just had surgery on her hand to remove a skin cancer. i am grateful and relieved she is healing from this and will likely not have to have any additional treatment. d and i talked about this on a walk the other day. i was weeping openly on the sidewalks in our neighborhood as i spoke about my big brother, who died after a valiant fight with lung cancer, my daddy who was a twelve-year-or-so survivor of lung cancer, my sweet momma who had a double mastectomy for stage four breast cancer at the age of 93. i cannot help but have some fear. who among us is exempt from that? but my big sister was brave and positive and i am determined, as i move forward in life, to be brave as well. in all arenas. on all fronts. d says i am much braver than he is. i’m not sure why he says this, but his words make me feel stronger.
we meet our challenges singlehandedly, we meet our challenges with a world of support, which is sometimes just one living person, one other being. our bravery is fortified by the love of others, by their words of wisdom, by their ability to shift our perspective, even just a little, by our re-defining. for we are not in this alone. we have on our wall in the bedroom a sign that reads, “wherever you are, that’s where i will be.” our ‘brave’ is fed by our faith, the sisu (perseverance and fortitude) we’ve honed in life, the courageous alter-reaction to the terror of taking a step, our community of people. susan and i have used the word “scrappy” to describe our lives; in looking at the definition of “brave” i would add intrepid and plucky. great word – plucky.
i mean, let’s face it – just being in the world and being who we really are each day is damn brave.
every summer i break one of my two little baby toes. every single summer. last summer alone i logged tons of miles on my $2 old navy flipflops as a result. i even talked about it on this blog. what did i learn? in particular, what did i learn THIS time as opposed to all the other times? i learned to either 1. slow down a little 2. watch where i’m going a tad bit more 3. never go barefoot. the thing is, i’m pretty sure it will happen again. i’m still learning.
i haven’t fallen off my bike in quite some time (and hope not to cause these days it will hurt much more than it used to) but i can relate in countless ways to our chicken marsala monday in the melange this week. i can distinctly remember taking off the training wheels and teaching the children to ride their two-wheelers, running down the sidewalk next to them. for that matter, i can totally -and (yougetthis) viscerally- remember teaching them how to drive.
we’ve been watching the olympics. athletes of inordinate ability who had to start somewhere – and, for sure, who fell in the process. not afraid of failing, but keeping on keeping on. being an ace anything is far off. do any of us ever really get there?
as an adult (ugh, i guess 58 qualifies me if for no other reason than sheer number) there are a lot of things i still want to learn. a few years ago i wanted to throw pots. i spent more than i bargained on for clay and lessons and studio time and more clay and ended up with the most wonderful tea light holder. (ok, i also threw a cereal-size-bowl and a few other assorted incredibly-shrinking-bowls as i struggled to center them and not have the clay collapse on the wheel.) let’s just say i was not gifted at this. but it did (and still does) make me laugh. and i know that i will someday try it again and i will add to my assortment of teenytinyclayobjects in which i can store paperclips.
when we see my amazing son and his boyfriend, we seem to be developing this tradition of bowling together. now, even though i live in wisconsin – and it is practically a law to be a good bowler here – i am pretty bad at bowling. every now and then i do something (like pick up a spare or get a strike) and am shocked, but most of the time i am aghast at how the ball creates splits in the pins and i find myself leaning while watching it careen (generous term) down the alley. the thing i must say, though, is that each time i do a little better. and the reallybadscores will, if i dedicate any time at all to practice, perhaps improve. mostly, i laugh. and i wish i could bring that to ANY thing i am learning – be it a new sport, an artform, a study of some philosophy or political issue, or – a big one – relationship. we fall. we get up, brush ourselves off, ask for grace and try again.
even though there are so many venues of crashing, the recording studio is a prime place to watch yourself fall down. you’ve written music, lyrics. you’ve practiced and practiced – there’s muscle memory in each measure. you’re ready, water and coffee by your side. (for me, not so much water once in the studio as it ….toomuchinformationalert…makes throat noises i can’t avoid.) and then you start. there’s so much riding on the line. and some days? some days you can’t get through a track. something is amiss; something is wrong. the first track of my first album was recorded in a studio in evanston. ken, my producer, was a stranger to me and i drove down with a posse of friends. i felt a little nervous, but mostly felt confident i was prepared. hours later, i had recorded the solo piano track for galena (the album released from the heart) and ken gave me a cassette tape (how funny is that?!) to listen to. i put it in the cassette deck of my old chrysler blue minivan and turned it on. and was appalled. rigid playing met my ears. it sounded nothing like me or my playing, or my piece of music, for that matter. all that confidence translated to a coldness, an unemotional-ness instead of a good track. i called ken (who i barely knew then, but now the same brilliant producer who has produced 14 of my 15 albums) and he suggested that, “maybe you should just write the music and have someone else play it on the recording FOR you.” what???!!! uhhh, i didn’t even know what to answer that would sound in the least bit polite.
and so i painfully listened to the recording again and sat back down at home on my bench. and i realized i needed to be ready -at any moment- to fall. THAT is what would make the piece sound like me and sound like, well, music. the rawness, the every-moment-ness, the vulnerability to mistakes and moving beyond them. that is what would make it shine as a learning. preparation is wise, flexibility is a must, a sense of humor is required, confidence is irrelevant, perseverance is utmost.
heidi (also known as h) said, “all of life requires us to be brave.” such truth.
tonight, as i scrolled through facebook, i saw a friend of mine from high school who posted that it had been three weeks exactly since her mom had died and she couldn’t “stand it.” i so totally understand that. totally. so so hard. where is our ground? brave.
last night crunch called and we chatted for almost an hour. our friendship goes back forty years to a time of innocence and playfulness. we don’t get to see each other hardly at all, but the time inbetween calls or eye-to-eye contact drops away with our laughter and reminiscing on the phone, my long island accent rising to the surface as we talk. the first thing i thought of when i got off the phone was that i couldn’t wait to tell momma that crunch had called. brave.
scott wanted to bring his mom’s birdfeeders with him after emptying the sold-house and driving the uhaul truck away. but the birds in that yard needed them. he had to leave them behind. so he took the potted plant she last watered, the last living thing between them. brave.
stress – everyday stressors, big stressors, teenyweeny stressors – wields a big punch. even with huge reminders about perspective, we still trod down the road of worry. what will happen, we wonder. brave.
kim posted a picture of kennedi going to pre-kindergarten, dianne posted a picture of charlie going to preschool, jamie posted pictures of the children eating corn dogs after the first day of school. all. brave.
my little girl -25- lives high in the mountains. my little boy -22- lives in the city and is at the starting gate of life. i am so proud. i adore them and i miss them. brave.
beth posts this amazingly stunningly tough and gorgeous photo of herself each time she learns of someone else who has to walk the track of cancer survivor. this photograph is beautiful and gripping and breathtaking. she is life itself in this picture. brave.
we face down our fears, we risk our dreams, we forgive without being forgiven, we acknowledge our disappointments, we are given grace in our mistakes, we plod on, we face the sun, we scurry through the rain, we feel our way through the fog, we celebrate the moment without investing in the whole day, we love without ceasing.
sixteen days ago we celebrated with momma the release of her first published book. she is beautiful and fiercely independent at almost-94 and she was full of joy as she practiced ahead of time with a sharpie and then signed copies of books for all sorts of people who showed up at the signing of ‘shayne’ – the first in a trilogy of children’s books. at the end of this enormous day, we sipped martini & rossi asti spumante (momma and poppo’s favorite from days gone by) and we ate chocolate-covered strawberries in exultant glee.
fourteen days ago my almost-94 momma sent me a text message with her iphone that said she had mastered powering her electric wheelchair all the way downstairs to breakfast and again to dinner. she was amazed she did it and i know she was beautiful and fiercely independent as she made her way through the halls of her assisted living facility.
thirteen days ago my almost-94 momma was not having a good morning, but she was elated to see the diary notebook we brought her – we had searched for it and found it in a random bin in her garage. she gently stroked the notebook titled ‘europe 1971’ and i knew she would sit and read all the details, study all the maps, look at all the brochures and hold my dad’s hand and these cherished memories in her mind’s eye for hours and hours. she would envision her beautiful self and my handsome poppo in 1971 and their fierce independence to tour around europe for six weeks in the new vw bug they had purchased there.
nine days ago my almost-94 momma called to tell me that kelly had introduced her to new potential residents as “our newly published author” and momma was humbled and oh-so-excited to report this. i am positive she rose up in her wheelchair, beautiful and fiercely independent.
four days ago my almost-94 momma was found on the floor of her assisted living facility apartment and was rushed to the hospital. i am quite sure she was beautiful to the caring people who rushed to her aid, but maybe not so fiercely independent.
yesterday my almost-94 momma was just conscious enough in her hospital bed to look through my niece’s iphone to see me. tears were coursing down her cheeks and my sister wiped them away. she looked beautiful to me. her fiercely independent spirit is fighting seriously devastating infections. she is in a precarious place. i know she reaches in her mind to my dad in another plane of existence and yet, for now, she clings to this life here.
one day ago my almost-25 daughter was briefly in chicago and i had a wonderful opportunity to see her for a precious bit of time. she is beautiful and fiercely independent; she celebrates life on mountaintops and snowboard slopes and on hiking trails. yesterday i celebrated her life with her, a couple margaritas and a gluten-free pizza. life marches on. beauty and fierce independence are passed to the next and the next.
today my almost-94 momma continues to fight. she is tired and her fierce independence is challenged. but i do know that inside of this beautiful woman is a person who will make the decisions that she wants to make. joan wrote, “…one of those times when there is no way around. only through….a transition each makes alone in the end.”
as tears ran down my face this morning after another difficult call with my sister about my momma and her prognosis, david read to me a paragraph written by pema chodron called ‘the power of the pause’ – “a momentary contrast between being completely self-absorbed and being awake and present.” he read another quote as well…this one by martha beck, “real power is usually unspectacular, a simple setting aside of fear that allows the free flow of love. but it changes everything.”
and so i hold in this pause my beautiful and fiercely independent momma. i listen for her voice, i hold her in my arms and wait to feel her arms around me. i am awake and present and hyper-sensitive in my vigil with her. i do not know what the outcome of this huge physical trial will be. i try not to have fear. i am holding on and letting go. what i do know? before the pause, in the pause and after the pause i will always love her. her beautiful-ness and fierce independence. my sweet momma.
reverse threading 