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Tag Archives: worry


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clear as day. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

it’s a little foggy. childbirth is like that. cloudy memories.

in the stunning way of time – and how it flies – it has now been thirty years. today.

my baby boy was placed in my arms thirty years ago. it’s astonishing. i remember everything and i remember practically none of it – it is all blurry.

what i do know – just as i knew in 2020 on the thirtieth birthday of my daughter and the thing that i knew in 1990 my very first day of motherhood – is that it changed my life.

both times.

and every day since.

there is little that can color all your days, for most things are fluid and we roll with it all, hoping there is a next day – to right things, to stand back up, to move on. but motherhood doesn’t play by these rules. if you are worried about your child – regardless of their age or stage – it stays with you. it is – for me – one of the first things i think about when i wake and one of the last things i think about before sleep. it is that which will keep me pondering in the night. it is that which will find me deep in thought in the day. there is really no stopping it.

so, my sweet momma, now i get it.

all that worrying you did, all that championing, all that abiding silently by and waiting, all those pompoms – i get it.

the last time i saw my own sweet momma she was sitting on the edge of her bed, a little later in the morning than usual, still in her nightgown, going slowly, but – mostly – concerned we were not yet on the road, driving I75 and I65 and I94 back home. i don’t know if she knew that 18 days later she would be on a different plane of existence. she just worried about me…all grown up and, yet, her little girl.

i get it.

these amazing children – now both in their thirties – are still the same people about whom i have always wondered – about everything – from the tiny to the gigantic – if they need snacks, if they are healthy, if they are happy, if they are feeling valued, if their work feeds them, if they feel reciprocal love and care in their relationships. they are forging their way in the world – making a difference that only they could make – shining their own stars – with their own brilliance and their own wit and creativity and humor. life is fluid clay in their hands, fresh silly putty out of the container, playdoh with the most extraordinary cutters and fun factory presses. they are right close to the ages i was when i became their mother. in a foggy blur of time. how does that happen?

the tree seemed to be alone in the field, nothing beyond it. but because we pass that field and that tree often, we know that is not the case. it is just very, very foggy and so we cannot see.

i look back and back and back. i can’t see it all; it is foggy and very foggy and very, very foggy.

but i can feel it.

all of it.

clear as day.

*****

happy birthday, my beloved son.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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the turtles. [k.s. friday]

i think about the turtles. they are there in the warmer months, sunning on logs and rocks that jut out of the river. but, when it dips below fifty degrees or so – and stays there – they disappear. apparently, they dive down to the muddy bottom, their metabolism slows down, they require less oxygen. their mucky homes keep them safe as they bide time, these wise, long-lived creatures of the water and the land.

from time to time on the trail we look for them. we know where they hang out and have watched for telltale signs of small snouts poking out of the water. but then it got cold and we just missed them.

the river is alive with other wildlife. geese and a few hardy ducks, squirrels, deer – we see them as we hike.

but we always talk about the turtles anyway. just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean we forget about them. we know they are there – somewhere – in hidden spots, places they feel sheltered and secure. i think about what they might be doing. they are silent and the fallow is long. i trust they are sorting what is next, kind of like us.

he can tell you i worry about them, despite the fact that i know they are completely capable, totally self-sufficient, quite brilliant actually. nevertheless, i am more comforted by seeing the turtles every now and then – at least – than by wondering how they are faring. time keeps moving, though, and i keep hope that when it warms up and the turtles have a more secure sense of themselves in the world they will reappear, out of the suspension of presence. i’m hoping for an early spring.

i know that the turtles are aware i am watching for them and waiting. and the river freezes. and then it thaws.

*****

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fred rogers and sam sifton. [merely-a-thought monday]

i suppose the line is blurry.

before-after. end-beginning. horizon-sky. chrysalis-butterfly.

the pragmatic side of my brain says, “of course. this is logical,” while the other side is grasping onto the silky threads of hopeful and wishing to call mr. rogers – does the other side have cell service, i wonder.

it’s in looking back that it is easier to see the gradient shading of end and beginning, one into the other. it is easier to recognize the softer side of transition or, at the very least, the survivability of it all.

sam sifton wrote, “everything is going to be all right.” i believe he was talking about food and preparation for the thanksgiving meal. that is his wheelhouse. i prefer to generalize his words – they were sent to me by a dear friend and i am going to apply them to life and hold him to it.

and so we walk. and we look for signs. the smallest of goodnesses. tiny reminders of value. the way the sun punctuates our walk, the way blue sky makes us feel.

and we look up. the tops of the trees look different than the trunks. not stalwart and thick and steady, those branches much more fragile. yet there they are, existing in the wind and storm and warm days, rooted, all the way down.

but this is redundant. and i have spoken of the tide washing out and then back in before. the tide turning. i have metaphorized change and loss, in efforts to – maybe – temper them. but, in truth, they are raw and lay on the beach of our hearts in all the elements of our lives.

i wrote – a while back – to one of my nieces the words of my sweet momma “growing old is not for wimps”. she wrote back, “living is not for wimps.” so true. just when you think you have a little bit of it figured out…whammo! it seems that the universe may think that arrogant.

and so, we will try not to be assuming. either way. not assuming good, not assuming bad. no assumptions. just walking.

relying on fred rogers and sam sifton.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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polly and anna. [merely-a-thought monday]

there is a fine line between security and insecurity, a line that runs invisible through days of buoyancy and through days of challenge. we have seen it – that line – when we least expect it, just at the moments you are beginning to breathe, at the instant you are sinking a little into ease.

i suppose that having crossed the line – back and forth, back and forth – gives us the ability to tread water, to sort, to distinguish that which is important and that which is not. but that tiny vibration that sometimes trembles in my chest returns, despite any pollyanna-ing i attempt.

we sat in a starbucks the other day. i mean, literally – physically – went inside, stood at the counter, and used some gift money that had been sitting on our app foreverrr. and then we sat there and sipped coffee and shared one of those lemon cake slices with the schmear of sweet frosting. it felt out-of-body…it had been sooo long since we sat in a starbucks.

over d’s head on the opposite wall the words “you’ll make it” got my attention. i was hoping it wasn’t the universe simply placating me. i was thinking more of digging out the colorful magnetic plastic letters circa 1995 and pulling out d-a-m-m-i-t for the fridge. but i guess i will have to choose to believe otherwise, leaning on both polly and anna.

“you’ll make it” – good words when you can see the line.

i sipped my pike roast and listened to laverne and shirley’s silk-flowerish theme song in my head, “there is nothing we won’t try. never heard the word impossible. this time there’s no stopping us. we’re gonna make it…”.

sometimes, though, you just have to sigh.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY



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sleepynightnight. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

there is no question – whatsoever – that i lay awake inthemiddleofthenight waaay more than he does. i ponder and wonder and fret and worry and perseverate and plan and make lists and sigh and re-start the cycle over again. i lose sleep over things that are troubling me and during times of discontent. it is impossible for me to not carry these concerns into sleep – it’s disquieting and, most definitely, interruptive.

on the other hand, it takes david about six seconds to fall asleep and – perish the thought – stay asleep. there is little to no tossing, turning, blankets-on-ing-blankets-off-ing, staring-at-the-ceiling, looking-at-the-clock. somehow it is possible for him to empty-his-mind-of-all-troubles and just sleep.

how annoying! 😉

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING SMACK-DAB.

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#ewbok. [d.r. thursday]

sarcasm is babycat’s modus operandi. his viewpoint is much more cynical than dogdog’s, who is a tumbling optimist. dogdog listens to the rise and fall of our voices and reacts accordingly. babycat merely takes a look at things and lists his sweet hulking body to the sardonic.

we read it on a wall in chicago: “everything will be ok.” i really want to believe that. there’s so much.

we are not 65. nor are we essential. workers, that is. so it will take some time before we are eligible for vaccines. the mutation of the virus sounds like it will give the vaccine a run for its money and, still, we drive past full restaurant parking lots, bustling bars.

yesterday was the year mark on my broken wrists. my right wrist refuses to cooperate, having been stunned into re-injury in september. i wonder how it will be in the future. there’s a lot i want to do with that wrist.

we are sharing the crossroads of before and after with the millions of unemployed people in this country. we search for ways to use all we have learned, all we have done, all we have experienced, to make a difference in the world today.

we wonder about people who used to be an integral part of our lives. we try to understand things that have no real explanation. i try to shove the grief into a corner and the anger into another corner and take off the boxing gloves. we hike on the snowy trail and those gloves are nowhere to be seen. but reality returns back in the car somewhere on the way home and then we try to move beyond the big disagree, this thing that lurks, the poison that was pointed my way.

we watch from afar, our hearts hurting, as d’s sweet dad is moved into care, out of his home, away from his wife and all that he used to recognize. we tether ourselves to our phones to field any calls from his momma as she tries desperately to deal with all the details, the loneliness and worry and fear that brings her. she made sure he has his record player and records to listen to and she yearns to be around people at a time that is most dangerous.

and we scroll through the news. our sigh of relief with this new administration is consumed by lies perpetuated by complicit voices of violence, of extremism, of overthrow. it takes our breath away to read of legislative branches, in states and in the federal government, making excuses for the dreadful and inexcusable mayhem, the inciting of riot, in our nation’s capitol. racism, gender-discrimination, ignorant social injustices are rampant. the chasm is ever-widening and the bridge is ever-crumbling.

the wall in chicago reassures, “everything will be ok.” #ewbok

and i remember hearing the saying, “it will all be ok in the end. if it’s not ok, it’s not the end.”

yep.

it musn’t be the end.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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AT THE DOOR ©️ 2017 david robinson, kerri sherwood


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so, dance. [d.r. thursday]

TANGO WITH ME

when my daughter was a baby, the thing that could calm her, quiet her unhappy crying, was to hold her tightly and dance with her. her favorite back then was the sound of marvin gaye’s heard it through the grapevine and i can remember it on repeat in the sitting room while we danced and danced and danced.

it seems perverse to think about dancing in the middle of a raging pandemic, in the middle of intense concern about david’s dad’s declining health, in the middle of being fired from my job. so much to worry about, the list seems expansive and ever-growing. i wonder what will calm us, what will quell the fears that keep us awake at night.

jonathan wrote to me, in the wise way of jonathan, and said to “get the water boiling and the corkscrew; it’s time to celebrate!!” he left no room to push back. “take stock,” he texted.

i’m wondering if i should put on the big chill soundtrack and put #1 on repeat. maybe the music of marvin gaye and dancing would help.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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TANGO WITH ME ©️ 2018 david robinson


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messier. more color. [d.r. thursday]

sketch image

heart and strawberry

peter max, a pop-art-expressionist, popped into my mind when david showed me this sketch.  add bursts of color to this and it’s the happy full-spectrum pieces of the 60s and 70s, full of rainbow and light.

one of the presents i received for my birthday this year was a coloring book and colored pencils.  at the time i was unable to use it, but i put it aside for when my broken right wrist might cooperate and i might be able to lose myself in good-old-fashioned coloring.

i dropped david’s sketch into photoshop and started to peter-max it.

the more i worked on it, the happier i became.  it was so messy.  but it was just so – fun.

color – this infinitely wide range of possibility – fills the lines, goes out of the lines, overlaps and bleeds into the next, reminds me that life, even in these very times, times of chaos and unrest and pandemic and exponential worry, is not just black and white.  and, surprisingly, not just the blurry grey in-between.

life is much more peter max than that.  messier.  more color.

which brings me to this:  while it is easy, particularly right now, to sort to grey, perhaps an answer to the myriad of questions is to open the delicious tin of 50 premium artist pencils.  and just color.

yes. as dear jeff used to say, “that’s the ticket!”

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

colorized

early on…just a little bit of color…and infinite peter-max possibilities

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a dance in the night. [k.s. friday]

slow dance

to sit in the dark.  to watch the flicker of flame on the yard torches.  to stare into the bonfire.  to listen to the crickets.  to feel cool air brush your face.  to walk barefoot in dewy-damp grass.  to slowly swirl, in time to music, in time to your heartbeat, in time to deep breaths.

we all need a break.

instead of a mind racing-against-itself in the middle of the night, we need a dance with slow.  we need a dance of hope.  we need a dance of release.

do you remember how to slow dance…in the middle of the night?

even in the bleakest of times, even in the dark.  the tiniest pinprick of light through an inky sky will remind us of the trillions of stars that are always there.

 

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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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SLOW DANCE ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood

 


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i wish. but i can’t. [flawed wednesday]

calm

it wasn’t just because of the font.  i’m sure he poured my coffee in this mug because i am anything BUT calm.  perhaps he was hoping for the power of suggestion working on me.

i wish i could write something heartening about calm. i wish i could wax poetic about sitting on a rock next to a cool mountain stream or in an adirondack chair on the back deck.  i wish i could write about the hush of rain or the tranquility of a sunrise.  i wish i could narrate moments of sustained serenity – meditative and centered.  i wish i could chronicle days of relaxation and a giving-over of worry and stress.  i wish i could report on ease of mind and a stillness of spirit.  i wish i could relate stories of soul-replenishing time shared with loved ones.  i wish i could recount adventures and goings-out without anxiety.  i wish i could write of a quiet, peaceful heart.

but right now, i can’t.  calm is elusive these days.

read DAVID’S thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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