Happy Birthday????

I have one of those odometer birthdays coming up soon, and I've been puzzled by my feelings around it. For years, I've thoroughly enjoyed marking another year completed. It's solid proof I'm still alive and greeting the morning. 

This one has been different. I've been avoiding thinking about it; haven't wanted to celebrate in any way, shape, or form. It wasn't until I was talking to Kate this morning that I figured out why. It's because I'm being greedy.

There was a point in my life when I'd have been happy enough to reach my last days. I'd seen enough, done enough. I was weary and didn't look forward to trudging through the gray sameness of the days to come.

All that has changed. I've rediscovered many hidden pockets of good things and I want to experience them all. I want to see all of the beauty and to learn all of the things. I want to listen to the music and to dance and to write and to make art and to travel and to stop and to just be.

I keenly feel the fact that my days are numbered, and I think the number is too small. I mean, sixty doesn't necessarily mean I've reached my last days, but it's a definite indication I'm past the noon of my life and am well on my way to approaching sunset.

I want desperately to hold onto the days, all the moments I have left. I want to hold the good ones close in my arms and keep them forever. Unfortunately, the tighter I hold, the more pieces that fall beyond my reach. When I try to shift to recapture them, I lose grip of the entire unwieldy load, and the entire thing crashes to the floor and makes a huge mess. Greed does that. 

When I am afraid of losing my grip, I sometimes focus so closely on the holding on part that I lose my chance to enjoy the moment I'm trying to capture. That's truly sad.

The realization that fear (disguised as greed) is at the root of my ambivalence helps a lot. Once I know it is fear shaping my reaction to the day, I know to call its bluff. Libby and I decided fear is the greatest obstacle between us and our ability to enjoy the days we have, and I think we were onto something.

So, I'm stopping to take a deep breath. In. Out. 

Working together, my lungs and heart {a miracle happens here} infuse the cells of my blood with the fresh essence of life and send it on down the road to my fingertips and toes, where {another miracle happens here} life is traded for depleted waste which is brought back to center, where it's traded out and the cycle begins anew. And the whole thing usually happens without any conscious help from me. Amazing, eh?

Everyday miracles. But holding on to the breath doesn't help; it just prevents the miracles from happening. They only happen when I let go.

And so I will (again) try to apply this lesson to my moments. Let go of fear; it doesn't help anything. Don't try to number the moments, don't crush their beauty by futilely trying to hold them tight. Rather, enjoy them as they arise, one after another after another after another. 

And when the day comes when the moments stop, well, that's when, in the heart of me that believes beyond reason, I hope I'll get to visit the stars. 

Happy Birthday, to me!

Turnabout

And, poof! It's spring! ish. this week anyways. Let's not get too excited about the change in the weather just yet. I've spent enough time in this part of the country to know winter could still have a trick or two up its sleeve. 

But. These past few days. Somehow, it feels like a greater gift as the temps nudge sixty when those temps come on the heels of a cold snap like the one we just went through. An extra-special reward for surviving the frigid weather. Look closely at the attached picture. That's green in the center there. For real!

For me, the tipping point of winter always comes right around Valentine's Day, regardless of the weather. In these parts, it is then that the sun begins to move to the north in earnest, and there are enough hours of daylight to brighten the sky both before seven in the morning and after five in the evening.

These past few days have seen my blood begin to move more lightly through my veins. My energy level has gone up a notch, it's easier to drag me out of bed in the morning. I look around the house and instead of being overwhelmed by the projects that need to be done, I'm ready to dig in and start thinking about tackling them. (Good thing. I have a long list of to-dos I deferred at my house in the interests of getting the kids into the castle.)

And, speaking of light, there is a light that just might be something other than a train at the end of the hunker-down-because-of-the-virus tunnel. The vaccine pipeline is starting to flow more easily. I just saw something that said everyone who's willing to get a shot should be able to get it by mid-summer.

That said, I am concerned that some of the people running state governments are erasing restrictions too quickly. The numbers are down, but they're not down to zero and I'm pretty sure pretending all is back to normal will send them back up, will cause more needless deaths. But maybe by now, enough people have lost people they love to this thing that they'll wear masks and stay away anyways? Maybe...

Regardless of what 'they' do, I've hunkered down this long, I can hunker down a bit longer. (Especially since I'll be able to see some people again as the weather turns nicer and we can meet outside.) Now is not the time to jump the gun and declare victory. I don't want to be the last person in the COVID-19 pandemic to die from the virus. 

The weather is turning. The tide on the battle with the virus is turning. 

I'm beginning to allow myself to nurture glimmers of hope. This, too, shall pass.

An Unfamiliar Face

I look in the mirror these days, and don't recognize the face looking back at me. It's disconcerting, to say the least.

It's happened a time or two before in my life. Obviously, I don't have the face I did when I was twenty, and the aging process is not linear, at least not for me. This is one of the times it's progressed in a couple of big jumps, so the face I see in the mirror today is not the one I saw when I looked there a year ago.

Working in the castle all last year definitely didn't help things any. I spent most of my days there, where there were few mirrors, and I certainly didn't spend any time trying to find one in order to check my appearance. When I was home, I'd look at myself just long enough to make sure I'd gotten all the plaster dust and paint daubs out of my hair. Somewhere in there, I got my hair cut much shorter than I've worn it as an adult - the daily routine of dirt and washing had destroyed the ends (and much of the middle parts).

It's just a little nerve-wracking, this process of catching an image I don't recognize out of the corner of my eye. I'm the only one here, so you'd think I'd recognize ALL the faces around the place. But, no. I see a face, jump a little, and then realize it's just me.

I've stopped a few times to study this new face, the person people see when I leave the house. (To be accurate, they will one day see it, on that day faraway when we can be around people without wearing masks all the time. The day will come, I'm pretty sure.)

She's not bad looking, the woman in the mirror. She's no longer young, but the lines around her eyes and mouth speak of a lifetime where smiles showed more frequently than frowns. I like that about her. Her jowls are loosening, the lines sharply defined between the corners of her mouth and her chin line. She looks a lot like the aunts on my Mom's side of the family. She has a dimple in her cheek accenting her smiles. Her short, curly, mop of hair has several generous streaks of gray, and she has clearly given up all attempts to keep it tamed. It's spunky.

I am relieved to conclude that she looks like someone I would like if I ever got to know her, because somehow, improbably, when I make a face in the mirror, she makes the exact same face in return. She is me, or I have become her. Whichever.

While there's a small part of me that's sad to know the last vestiges of youth are quickly leaving my face, the greater part of me is most grateful I'm around to observe the changes. You aren't born with a face like mine, you have to earn it!

And, Good willing, this will not be the last time I need to adjust to reality. Gettin' older ain't for sissies, but it sure beats the alternative. (At least as far as I know, but that's a whole 'nother topic.)

Here's to life, changes and all!

Happy Cancaversary #9

I still think I should get some sort of medal for showing up that day, the day of my surgery.

I'd been having the time of my life, wandering around the country worried only about where I'd stop the next night. I felt FINE; nothing in my body told me anything was amiss; nothing alerted me I needed surgery. I needed to be cut open, because, why????

Stupid lump. It brought my trip to a screeching halt. There were tests and more tests. I managed one more quick two week journey between the last test and the time my new apartment was ready for me to move on in. It was a bittersweet reprise, a chance to say goodbye to my dream.

I had a wonderful time those weeks despite my underlying 'what if' concerns, the miles made almost unbearably precious by the awareness these might be the last I'd travel. I went south and west, staying with family and friends. I can still see the winter-barren landscape of northern New Mexico, the spot I pulled off the road to talk to the breast surgeon. I remember the burnt-yellow grasses and tumbleweeds, the blue sky striped by winter-gray clouds, the rising hills, the barbed wire next to the road, the sense of unreality as I looked at the beauty around me while we hammered through the pluses and minuses and decided that yes, I wanted to go ahead with a double mastectomy.

I felt fine that morning nine years ago - but knew I wouldn't in a few hours.

Near as I can recall, I was outwardly calm as I walked up to the desk and checked myself in like the adult I'm supposed to be, not letting any sign of my inner screams of terror show. Because we were behaving, the hospital staff let me have six (or so) of the allowed two friends in the small curtained cubicle where we waited for surgery to start. I was grateful for the distraction; glad to not be alone with my fears surrounding the brutal amputation to come. (Brutal, yes. But the best chance I'd have to have more days to travel new roads.)

They started an IV, wheeled me down the hall to the operating room. My memories start again in the hospital bed sometime late that afternoon, those same friends still there, talking and laughing and distracting me as the drugs wore off and the pain sauntered on in to stay for a spell.

Along with the pain, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief at the wonderful news awaiting my return to awareness. My lymph nodes were clear. They'd gotten good margins around the tumor. All evidence of disease was successfully removed. My chances to survive for some time were good.

Nine years ago. It feels like it was yesterday. It feels like it was three lifetimes ago, maybe four. It's been a tumultuous nine years - filled with loss and new life and hard lessons to learn and wonder at the power of Good. As grateful as I still am that mine was the kind of cancer we know how to make go away for a while, I know it was chance's whim that mine wasn't the sort of aggressive cancer that killed my sister, Libby.

I've traveled far. And while (maybe, because??) the awareness that the cancer can and probably will reappear one day is never far from me, I've learned to do my best to live each of the days I've been given. To try not to mourn the might-have-beens, the once-wases, the will-never-bes, but to look for the good in every day, because when I remember to look, good is there. Every time.

Nine years later, I am still here; my story continues.

Good Is.

 

Music Returns?

I can't pinpoint just when the music went away.

It started drifting away after the kids left home for college. I still sang with Musica Sacra, but somewhere in there, quit playing piano.

By the time my dream trip was abruptly cancelled, and I started getting back on my feet after cancer treatment, music was gone. Even after I moved into my current house, almost eight years ago, and got my piano back from the friends who stored it for me when I had no space for it, the instrument was mute.

The piano is certainly a presence in my space - it's a grand piano, and takes up a sizeable chunk of my living room real estate. But I've been walking around it for years. I've gotten it tuned occasionally. I sometimes stop to run a hand along the curve of the sound box, just to enjoy the tactile sensation of the smooth wood. I've even thought, once in a while, about getting rid of it, but that thought's never gained serious traction. 

I've held onto it. But. I haven't played it.

Until just this last week.

For reasons I don't yet understand, the desire to make music started stirring in my heart shortly after the inauguration. As part of my campaign to figure out (again) what I want to do when I grow up, I've been trying to listen to what I'm trying to tell me these days.

So.

I got the piano tuned. (first things first...)

After the tuner left, I dug through my music cabinet, pulled out a yellowing book, and sat down to play a once-loved piece. Clearly, taking a decade or so off from playing doesn't do much for skill levels. I couldn't even begin to make it come together. *sigh*

But rather than give up, I dug through the cabinet again, looking for some basic skills books. Sadly, I came up empty.

But rather than give up, I called my longtime friend, Lisa, who taught lessons to my kids, and asked her for recommendations. She had some books on her shelf she was happy to loan me, and I went and picked them up late last week. She was also kind enough to give me some pointers on how to get started.

Now, when I sit down to try to play, I have more luck. I have even made some progress. The notes that were tentative and uneven that first night have already begun to smooth themselves out a bit.

Oddly enough, somewhere in there, while my active mind has lost the ability to read both the left and the right hand staffs simultaneously, my unconscious mind still has the skill. If I can get into a zen state, I can play some simple compositions. The minute I try to think about the music, it's one hand or the other, not both. I presume this, too, shall pass. Hopefully - it's disconcerting.

I've been trying to play each day for about thirty minutes - long enough to make a little progress, not enough time to get overly frustrated with myself - and wonder of wonders, the music has begun to return. 

As I play, something inside loosens a bit, unwinds, relaxes, breathes. Tears rise, and sometimes fall, but they are good tears, healing tears. I think I've missed the music more than I knew. 

I'm glad it's thinking about returning, I hope it will stay.

Inaugural Moment

I've been waiting for January 20th to arrive with anticipation for quite some time, excited by Biden's promise of a coordinated response to the covid-19 virus. I'm tired of staying home.

I heard the unfounded cries that the election had been stolen with a jaded ear. Let Trump cry; judges at multiple levels in several states tossed his team's lawsuits because he had no evidence to back his claims. He wasn't going to get anywhere.

It wasn't until the day the Senate was attempting to certify the votes of the Electoral College (a day I've never paid attention to until this year), the day the U.S. Capitol was invaded by a short-sighted mob, that my attention was jolted back to the transition at hand. Thankfully, the invaders were unorganized and without a cohesive plan. While four of the them, and one Capitol officer, paid way too much to delay the process, they didn't stop it. The horror of the images flashing across my screen that day will stay with me for the rest of my life.

My inner tension finally eased as I watched the inaugural ceremonies. I breathed a little more easily as the oaths were proclaimed; the deal, sealed. The clock ticked passed noon. The baton had been passed,  codes had been changed, a war hadn't been started. *Whew!*

I expected the ceremony and accompanying speeches to settle my mind, and they did. The part I didn't expect was the part where we heard the words of a "skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother". I wasn't paying close attention as she walked out and stepped up to the podium, her name and story were not one I knew. Then, the slight young lady in her bright yellow coat started talking. Her words. Her words bypassed my mind and heart and struck directly into my soul. 

Amanda Gorman's hands danced as she read the poem she'd written:

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:

That even as we grieved, we grew

That even as we hurt, we hoped

That even as we tired, we tried

For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Powerful poetry

Speaking of and to the nation, somehow she spoke directly to me.

Her words describe my journey. 

My struggles to be brave these past, hard, years.

My struggles to see the light, to be the light, if only for a brief moment.

The wisdom of her words, the tilt of her head, the sparkle in her eye - all these embody hope. 

Hope for change, hope for unity, hope for a better tomorrow.

Yes.

 

Time To ???

It's either been a little under four weeks since they moved out, or three months. Something like that.

One of the things I've had trouble with since retiring is the way time refuses to settle into a steady rhythm. The weeks fly, they drag; they skip along, they trudge in deep snow. Morning is gone in a blink, the afternoon lasts for at least nine hours - the next day, it switches up. No, staying away from everyone in the world because of covid doesn't help.

These past weeks have been of the fly by variety (which, now I think about it, isn't typical for me these dark weeks of January). 

Kate had to travel to the east coast for business last week, and wasn't sure what to do with Lexi - her usual sources of alternate care are unavailable because of covid. I didn't think twice before letting her know Lexi was welcome to stay here; I figured Kate could drop her off on the way. Amazingly enough, it all came together, and time last week flew as I reveled in the unexpected pleasure of having Lexi's company, masks and all. She spent the weekdays in school; I was in charge of making sure there was something to eat at snack time. There's something both wonderful and terrible in the way she was able to jump onto her classes remotely without missing a beat. (Is this really a skill we need our fourth graders to have mastered? Given the givens, I guess so...)

We had just one day free, and used it to go to the Toy and Miniatures Museum just down the street. We marveled together at the tiny dishes, houses, furniture. She took about a thousand pictures. I'll admit I spent more time looking at her than I did at the miniature marvels before us - seeing her face as she worked to grasp the details of scale was fascinating.

I was sorry to see her and her energy go home on Sunday morning.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. That whole, 'what's next?' thing. I've added a little structure to my week. I've signed up for a couple of zoom classes which will run until spring - one, a group of women who gather to do art, the other a yoga class I'll be able to take with Kate. For both groups, being able to gather remotely means being able to gather at all, one of the silver linings I've seen arise from sheltering in place. That's two days where someone beside me will know if I've gotten out of bed. I figure that's a good start.

I've kind of fallen into vacation mode. My head is pretty convinced I'm going to have a lovely few weeks off here, then I'll need to head back to work. I think it's going to be kind of fun when I convince me that's not the case; that this freedom to choose how to spend my days will be mine for... a while.

Baby steps. I'll get there.

On To 2021!

Pay close attention now. 
Start gradually moving towards the exits in small groups. 
Make no sudden movements. 
No loud noises. 

Don't. Touch. Anything.
The last person out, please close the door carefully and quietly behind you. 
If we do it right, 2020 won't notice us leaving until it's too late to try to follow us into the new year.

Yup, it's been a humdinger of a year. It's not the hardest I've lived through, but it is the one where I've had the most company in my attempts to keep an uncertain balance as things kept tipping around me. This time, most of the world is keeping me company as the planet does its wobbly spin. (There are definitely those who would beg to differ. Kate's dog, Sylvester, for one. He thinks it's been the best year ever! The people were home A LOT. He got lots of walks and hugs and consistent attention. He is now less anxious, more playful, better behaved. His life is GOOD.)

A few years back, I was in a stuck spot, and tried to imagine how life would be some nine months out. I thought things would be better, calmer, easier. I couldn't have been more wrong, and part of me is still convinced I jinxed the outcome by trying to skip over the hard parts I knew were between where I was and where I wanted to be. So I try not to do that anymore.

I think, when I look back on this year, it'll feel like one long detour; a convoluted journey down a side road which somehow managed to land me right close to where I started. There were interesting sights along the way - not the ones I'd anticipated, but good ones all the same. There were hurdles and dry spots and ice cream and moments of joy.

But in many ways, I feel as if I'm right back in the liminal space where I started the year, on the bridge between the known shape of my life as it was and the possibilities of the new shape it will morph into during the coming days. (Staying in the old shape is not one of my options.) I'm doing my best to look forward to those possibilities, to let go of the mighta, coulda, shouldas which arise when I spend too much time gazing back down the road I've just finished traveling.

I've gotten a good head start on moving on this past week. The quiet isn't as overwhelming today as it was the first few days after they moved out. I'm kind of liking the part where it stays clean(er). The cats are doing their job - they've given me something to fuss over, keep the house from staying too tidy, and come to purr at me at random intervals, so I don't feel too lonely. My days are managing to fill themselves with worthwhile things.

That's not such a bad place to start a new year.
Here's to a less interesting 2021!

Christmas Present

Merry Christmas!

This year, I've received the usual slew of Christmas letters from organizations I support. Their flavor has been different from the usual, as they address the uncertainty of these COVID times. My favorite included a new (to me) poem from John O'Donohue:

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

His words speak to my heart.

This will not be my first quiet Christmas.

Unlike many people I know, I will not spend it completely on my own. The kids moved on to their new place just a week ago - that's close enough for me to still include them in my COVID bubble. They will come over later today for the traditional John Christmas lasagna dinner. (Honorary Italians that we are...)

They won't stay long, we need to work around the baby's sleep schedule, but they will be here and that adorably stinkin' cute toddler will fill my heart with his presence. I will get to see him tear some wrapping paper, see if he pays any attention at all to the contents of the packages he opens. He will bring with him the promise of a good time to come where the air will be kind and blushed with beginning. 

Tomorrow, which I will spend alone, I will try to hold onto that promise, use it to kindle my own hesitant light. It's been an interesting week. I feel much the same mixture of churning emotions I did when I first sent my kids off to college. Joy mixed with sadness, leavened with pride and a bit of fear.

I've worked hard on the castle this past year. I'm not sure how one sends a house off to school, but my mixed feelings around letting go extend to the building. My hands have been an essential part of the effort to grant her a new life; to bring her back from the brink of falling apart at the seams. I am proud of the work I did. Almost all of my time since April has been spent there and it will take some time to shift gears, to begin to figure out (again!) how I want to spend my days; what I want to do when I grow up.

I will do my best not to let the wire brush of doubt scrape my heart as I work to find my sense of self; to find a new balance in my life. I get to start just after winter's solstice, with the promise of light returning. I get to start at Christmas time, with its story of new life in the darkness.

I get to start again - a chance stolen from too many this year by the blasted virus - and will, after lying low to the wall until the bitter weather passes.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Christmas Past

We finally got a few days of honest winter around here last week. No snow, but cold enough that I needed a real winter coat to venture outside. The sky was gray, the air crisp, the smell of the cold reminded me of home.

I stepped outside the other night to walk over to a (properly socially distanced and COVID-aware) holiday gathering, and was transfixed by the beauty of the neighborhood. People have outdone themselves around here to decorate their houses; the lights are varied and beautiful and speak to me of hope for better days to come.

As I walked home after our lovely gathering, I took a trip down memory lane.

I remembered a cold Christmas Eve, coming home from mass.  My rear was freezing cold as I sat in the back of the station wagon, but my heart was full as we headed home to open our gifts. We were all there, old enough to know how to sing in parts, and sing we did. I can still hear the sound of the old carols. Mom on the melody - her strong voice carrying the tune, Dad's low, growly, off-key voice riding along. Tony on tenor, Julie and I on alto, and the everyone else singing as the spirit nudged. Surely the angels rejoiced along with us that long ago evening.

I remembered another Christmas. Mom made Julia, Colleen and I matching floor-length flannel nightgowns that year. All I'd wanted for Christmas was a Giggles doll, and Santa had been able to find one for me. It was one of my life's best moments (so far). That Christmas morning, as I sat amidst the debris from the wrappings of gifts for eight kids was strewn about the floor, covered in soft warmth from neck to wrists to toes, playing with the doll I'd wanted so badly, but hadn't expected to receive, I was happy. Completely happy.

Today, too many of those faces are gone; I'll not see their smiles again. The hair of those of us who remain is better kempt than it was that morning, but thinner and tending towards gray. Time has etched its mark on our faces. It matters not. The joy of those distant moments lives on.

As I finished my walk and arrived back home in the present day, I carried the memory of joy through the door and into my waiting bed. I slept a good sleep that night, my mind and heart still partway back in the time-place before I knew deep sorrow. 

While I can't stay there in the past, it's good to know I can visit once in a while. It's good to see their faces and hear their voices once again. 

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams....