Because the Night Belongs to Us

Because the Night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us.
Bruce Springsteen, 1977.

Bruce. Musician. Poet. On a recent drive back to my hometown, I listened to an interview with The Boss at the Toronto Film Festival for the screening of The Promise, a documentary about the making of his album Darkness on the Edge of Town. Bruce’s gravely voice took me back (30 years!) to Mrs. Garfield’s English class where Monica Doslak and I used to sit, scribbling about marriage to Cleveland quarterback Brian Sipe on each other’s spiral notebooks, and penning my first real piece of fiction – Netti Spaghetti and the Meatball Kid..

When asked about his success, Bruce termed the feeling “survivor guilt”, because he and his band survived Asbury Park to achieve success. The musicians weren’t trying to be bohemian, or best the beat poets. They didn’t read or write tomes about the Road. They lived in a darkness that was simple and created one where it was safe to explore.

When The Boss sang, “They can’t hurt you now,” on the track Because the Night, I believed him, disappearing inside music emanating from the family’s turntable. I took cover from forces unseen – those that would take away the family shoe business and my father’s livelihood and those of my own teenage angst. I hid from every day which looked good on the outside – national honor society, class vp, varsity volleyball - but days which contained plentiful rumblings underneath, including the malcontent of a middle child.

In my hometown, darkness reigned. We cruised out to Gore Orphanage Road, listening for the screams of children who supposedly burned in a fire years ago. Late night, we drove past parties we weren’t invited to, in order to stalk boys we thought we might date. When dusk descended over the lake at Andy’s beach house, the gloom of the water enveloped my naked body as I skinny dipped to prove that I could be cool – and stupid too.

Tonight I ‘ll be on that hill, Bruce crooned in Darkness on the Edge of Town and I recalled the sledding hill behind the Golden Acres Nursing Home where evening would fall and bodies would tumble on top of each other. Those winter nights we spent listening to Bruce inside a Chevette, a Subaru, a Citation or a yellow Spitfire that only a few rode in, whatever magical bus was not being used by siblings or parents.

Shadows crept up on us at the sandstone quarries where there were no neon lights or glare of video games. Boys would rather fumble with a girl’s bra strap than adeptly maneuver the remote control of an Xbox. After family dinners, we would bolt from the comfort of pot roasts and NYPD Blue to get to that edge and went past it to find Newport cigarettes and stale pot, Old Milwaukee beer and petting sex, fast friendship and even faster betrayal.

There had always been darkness and we liked it that way. We could be someone else, run off, forge a new road divergent from the back streets. The Boss belonged to me, to Monica, and everyone else in that small town from which we came. Even if we never shared our miseries with each other, Bruce Springsteen’s music tapped into our anguish and became our bond.

Bruce represented our sense of place, persuading us to make a home in the darkness of backseats and craters of sandstone quarries. His music, his words, gave us the brashness to seek out our own edge and stand in it, no matter the cost.

A Prayer for the Bengals

Please Dear God –

Let the Bengals win today. For eight years, the headlines in the media have vacillated between – almost and not quite - brilliance and stupidity. Chad Ochocinco now has as many TV shows as he has receptions. And dear Marvin, that poor baby, looks like he hasn’t slept in years. Could you please send him some cucumbers for those bags under his eyes? I hear they work wonders.

Lord, you know my troubles as Cleveland fan. We stay the course, we curse our coach and we show in weather that tends to run on the negative side of the Fahrenheit and wind chill scale. Being a fan of Cleveland has always required a heavy dose of stamina, a bit of faith and Uncle Tony smoking his cigarettes cussing out Art Modell.

But week after week, as I have made Cincinnati my home, the taunts about the Cleveland Browns continue, even as the home team of the Bengals descends into madness, or at least the fans do. I turn the other cheek, as the gospels have counseled me to do.

Please take pity upon the citizens of Hamilton County who have been forced to pay for a stadium in exchange for an NFL team “to be named later”. Since I have helped pay the king’s ransom as well, Lord, help me increase my spending so that Mike Brown has more money to do less with.

Lord, only you know the challenges of living in a city where life stops, along with the traffic on the interstate whenever the Bengals play, because the fans are busy holding their breath, the sports columnists have run out of ways to phrase “another loss” and the Bengal’s receiver is all thumbs because he Tweets too much.

Please God, bring the Bengals a victory, so the rest of us can get on with our life.

Sincerely,

Annette “Little Dawg”

Things to Do - Switch Roles

In the days before cell phones, telephone calls to my parents were a source of frustration due to the interweaving of my father’s silence and my mother’s protestations, “Ette, are you there? You can say something too.” The course of the conversation would devolve to where Mom and Dad would simply forget I was on the other end. If I happened to mention that I was doing something on a Tuesday, Mom would glance down at her calendar and then begin a conversation with my father about a dentist appointment and ask when he would have time to get to the barber for haircut. Three-way calling took on a new meaning.

My mother was not only the primary communicator in the family, but the source of organization too. She would pour over the AAA books, mark the pages of hotels suitable for a family of seven, and familiarize herself with the Triptik. She organized family dinners every night for a troop of seven, and when the troops diminished, she still managed a pot of tomato sauce and meatballs. She remained the primary disciplinarian, but detested that role more than cleaning the toilets.

Except for my mother’s perseverance through a bout of breast cancer and a hip replacement when my father became caregiver, Mom gave meaning to the word caregiver. Only recently, have I come to see my father and her as having switched roles.

No, he is not making meatballs, though he did always help with her cookies and raviolis. He was a willing participant in the kitchen for the Thanksgiving turkey, Wedding Soup, and the clean-up that ensued. Many nights, following parties and celebrations, the kids went to bed while the two of them stood at the sink, drying the dishes that my mother refused to let dry themselves. She never did allow for things to be left to their own devices.

Though I have done my mother a disservice in not acknowledging her as caregiver of the family earlier in my life, I am now tipping my hat to Dad.

Dad has become the primary communicator on the phone. He might say, “Hold on, let me get your mother on the phone.” Mom will ease in the occasional hello, mention something about the weather, “Oh, its cold here today. What’s it doing in Cincinnati?”, and then slip off the phone. This is typical for individuals with Alzheimer’s, as they cannot comprehend the passage of time. What was only two minutes on the phone, might feel like a lifetime to her. Of course, I recall evenings as a teen, when one of my siblings might call and relentlessly discuss the drama of the day. My mother would hold the phone away from her ear, and those of us still at home would chuckle, haltingly, wondering when she might have responded that same way to us.

These days, when Mom vacates the conversation, I imagine Dad, simply shrugging his shoulders, giving a slight chuckle and saying, “Well, Net, what are you gonna do?”

He is now keeper of the calendar, which involves a myriad of doctor and clinical appointments. They see their doctors more than their children, not necessarily by choice. And when I mention this to Mom, “Wow, that seems to occupy all your time these days,” she simply replies, “Oh, no, we’re not at the stage yet.” In the same way, in midst of telling a story where she has forgotten the flow of her words, Mom will mention, “Sometimes, I think I have that disease. What do they call it?” And I tell her, “Mom, you are doing just great.”

My father did not arrive in this role with fanfare and a ticker tape parade, though he would have welcomed the initiation. He came into the role mostly kicking and screaming. Weeks went by before he agreed to a part-time in-home caregiver for Mom, partly denying the reality of their precarious lease on life. Convincing him it was time to switch Mom over to a gerontologist, away from the convenience offered by the family doctor down the street, I watched him grit his teeth. He will occasionally confess to me that he still sees Dr. X, “just for some things”, of which no one can place blame.

When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer fourteen years ago, I mentioned a girlfriend that had battled the disease was attending a support group, which was still a newer concept. I suggested to Mom, “Have you considered a support group?” To which she promptly responded, “I don’t need a support group, what do I need one of those for?” She did recover, though I often wondered if she needed a place for her fears that none of us could house. But I also know we were her support. And we have performed admirably, but not without some hiccups ever since.

But the other day, my father called and proceeded to share on all sorts of topics that were troubling him. After my puzzled silence, he apologized, saying, “Well, Net, what am I gonna do? Your mother is the only one I have left to talk to anymore and she forgets everything I tell her.” I tried to bite my tongue, and not suggest a support group, but my tongue broke through, “Dad, what about a support group?” And he said, “Yeah, I been thinking about one.”

My father, reluctant to ask for help, silent in so many ways, always letting his actions show his love, was now talking about talking. When sharing with him that I had once been in therapy, he had asked, “Why didn’t you just go to church and confession?”

I don’t know what the Vatican says about support groups and the circles they create to hold everyone together, but they work. The reassuring uplifting compassion passed from one human being to another can only be described as the work of a Higher Power. God uses humans to do His work, so much that God perhaps orchestrated my father’s change of role and change of heart.

My father and I have grown in our relationship. I perceive him more clearly in this new role, as an avid supporter and lover of my mother, and their life. And that, though he always brought home the bacon, he has never loved her or protected her more fiercely than now.

10/15/2010

Missing Home - Scenes from the Lower Ninth

Cinder blocks
stand like prehistoric Stonehenge
holding up
the stale bayou air
as it wafts across the Lower Ninth.

Did the ancients too
undergo tragedy born of man’s desire
to conquer canals
and barren fields?

The neighborhood’s landscape
is now blemished
by broken sidewalks,
grafitti masking cash machine as art,
and a lone mailbox with contents marked
“return to sender”.

No one is left
to tell the tale
of the wooden table and chair
strewn along Flood Avenue,
knobby leg poking through wildflowers
chair seat matting down nearby weeds

Imagine,
teetering atop the chair
as flood waters rose,
then stepping onto a wobbly table
to reach the ceiling,
crawl out a hole in the roof
and wait

for rescue.

And return
to the skeleton
of a home lifted off its haunches and carried away.

The burial of what died in the Lower Ninth
comes slowly
as seasons overcome the work of man
who long ago created channels
that could not hold back the surge.

A set of steps stays behind
to welcome its ghosts home.

Things to Do - Give Pause

Four index cards sat on my car’s dash, each with their own list. Vacation loomed, and the laundry was piling up while I busied myself with lunches, work, and the exchange of a shirt for a son who didn’t fit into size 15 neck.

I had spent much of the week in the car, or behind a computer. Or writing, I was always writing. Writing a grant, writing about a writing class I teach, writing about writing - which I hated, writing the backstory for a new novel, writing emails, writing Facebook messages for friends who don’t check email, NOT writing about writing, or just plain not writing.

Earlier in the week, I could have accomplished more, but I dragged my husband from the comfortable confines of the family room to Fountain Square where we pulled into the parking garage at the EXACT moment Jay Bruce hit a home run and fireworks were let off, thereby missing THE moment in recent Reds history.

In all of that, I was told a story while on a morning walk with a friend. A young college boy at Rutgers asked his roommate for privacy. The roommate conceded, left the room and somehow turned on the webcam, to watch while the young man had sexual relations with another college boy. The video was then posted by the roommate for all to see. The boy committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.

We had been walking amidst the early fog settling heavily across the Little Miami River. The fog thickened and suddenly, my pace slowed. My feet dragged. I felt pulled into the weight of the busyness of our lives. Earlier, I had bought a shirt at JCP and KNEW the quality was poor, but I wanted the task off my list. After one washing, the sleeve hems frayed and there I was, back at the store. Like those college students, I had stopped thinking about the consequences of my actions. Intentionality had been strangled by my busyness.

Fr. Lou Gunzelman wrote of this factor, as it related to the emptiness of church pews, “The people who are not at church on Sunday are not at home … They are sleeping, shopping at the mall, working in their yard, having team practices, jogging, walking, watching football, etc.”

I was one of them, ascribing to the “need to jog” notion instead of working out my spirit. I adhered to the “other activities”, out of town on a college visit with the kids, can’t find a church, or going to celebrate a Reds’ victory, school of thought.

I arrived home, index card lists still full, and sat again at my computer to edit a podcast recording. The young man’s suicide stayed with me, as I listened to a writer speak about sandcastles as a metaphor for life, surrendering to what is, not running. So I stopped - to write this down, knowing my words gave breath to life and redefined must-do lists.

There are many types of misdeeds in our lives. In an effort to be efficient, and make it to vacation day with nary a care, I had committed a few offenses of omission. The crime in that young man’s death was not one of hate or passion. It was BIGGER. It was the crime of unconsciousness. And the only solution is to give pause. For if we don’t stop, who for God’s sake will stop the kids?

Things to Do - Bless the Young Men

When I was in high school, two young men who were older classmen were killed while driving through a railroad crossing. Paul Opheim and Steve Shannon. They had been friends of my brother’s, and, if memory serves, there was the outside chance my brother might have been riding in that same car had it not been for the interest of a young woman.

The heartbreak our high school experienced was unmatched, in that none of our friends had experienced loss before this event. We had grandparents that had died during the course of our years growing up. But somehow, their actual dying was as far removed as a third cousin. Even in my own family, my siblings and I sensed the death of my mother’s first born, as we often marked his birthday and frequented his gravesite. But we did not carry the grief that my mother and father had to bear, only the imagined loss of elder brother.

When Paul and Steve were killed that fateful day, the young men and women of our high school had to learn how to mourn in community. St. Joseph’s church held a Mass, which my brother and parents attended. I still had to go to school. I don’t know why. My girlfriends and I had been close to my brother’s class, such that any one of those boys was considered an older brother(and dating prospect) to us. But we mourned in our own way, drinking beer, sitting at Andy’s Dad’s beach house, wondering how families and friends would move forward from that day on.

Fast forward twenty years. Today, I attended a memorial service for a young man, a senior schoolmate to my freshman. A senior at Moeller, he was struck by a car and killed. He would have been 18 tomorrow, falling short by four days of his 18th birthday.

How many times had parents around the world muttered to themselves, “That kid’ll be lucky if he makes it to his 18th birthday,” when their sons didn’t pick up their room or turn in homework on time, or when they danced to the beat of their hormones and not their brains. Tragically, this young man was simply on a skateboard assuredly doing something he enjoyed.

It is in how a community mourns that we understand how a community lives. Hundreds of young men of Moeller dressed in shirt and tie, seniors in suit coat, streamed into the auditorium, prayed and sang. When the priest invited the students to pray the “Our Father”, not one hesitated to grab the other’s hand to hold in prayer.

In that moment, I felt my own gratitude – that my son had elected to come here to school, in a setting where grief was as welcome as Friday Night Football and that I too could mourn in community for the families in this tragedy, feeling again the loss from my high school years, and the ones that have been strung together since.

While the boys will rise to the challenge of this tragedy, this is perhaps their first experience with grief so close at hand. Though the students are often nicknamed “Men of Moeller”, many wore ties that touched below the belt and shirts with sleeve cuffs turned up a few times. Their youthful faces and pants that sagged in the leg were a reminder that they will learn to grieve here long before they grow. It is in this that they will need our prayers.

For Josh. 09/13/2010

To Teddy Bear, With Deep Affection

This morning, our writing circle at the Alois Alzheimer Center wrote to the theme of teddy bears, reflecting on bears they had while growing up, or stuffed animals belonging to their children. We created a group poem from their written and spoken words.


Teddy Bear, With Deep Affection

My children always had bears.
If you had children,
you had to have teddy bears.
He was given to me at Christmas,
with button eyes and soft paws.

He was a good friend.
Bobby.
My brothers would toss him in a tub,
my mother would dry him out.

I never had a teddy bear,
I was always doing adult things.

A tan teddy bear sat in a chair
by my bed at night
so he could watch over me.

He was a small bear,
I don’t remember his name.
I like the Big Bear,
he looks soft and squeezable.
I had a brown teddy
that I took to bed with me.

He reminds me of
the Mickey Mouse Show on TV.
We didn’t have a teddy bear,
we had a French poodle instead.
Winnie the Pooh
makes me think of warm weather.

Just Teddy.
Plain, medium-sized,
showing signs of wear and tear
from just plain loving.


Group Poem – September 9, 2010
Found Voices Writing Circle
Alois Alzheimer Center

Baby Steps for the Eighty Something Crowd

Last month, my eighty-two year-old mother had abdominal surgery. The operation was a result of three days of tests and an abdomen swollen to the size of a basketball.

Following surgery, she was released to a skilled nursing facility, where she could continue to recuperate, with others keeping a watchful eye. She promptly refused admittance and begged (or told) my father to take her home. He did so without hesitation.

But this left my parents in a predicament. Mother has dementia. She and Dad have lived in the same home for 30 years, until now without help. They are without clear medical oversight. Their grown children are working jobs and balancing families, some far away. Surely they had conversations about their long term health needs, enough to fill out the Health Care Power of Attorney forms and Advanced Directives. Yet none of these pertained to where they would make their home, once their home was no longer suitable for their needs.

A subset of siblings began to make phone calls, pleading with my father, who in the stubbornness associated with his generation, refused to bring in a caregiver, on the basis of money, not wanting someone else in their house, and pride. On those points, I was unable to get him to move an inch.

For two weeks conversations went back and forth between siblings and father. He would play the role of martyr to one, and play a different role to the next. I would hang up the phone wondering if I had just spoken to Jeckyll or Hyde.

I can’t pretend to know what was in his head, his heart. I did however have the background of caring for my first husband through his cancer battle, and knowing the end result was one I still regret. I gave him more care than I did love. Maybe this point is more important to women. Perhaps my father feels it is his duty to give Mom more care and that the love came in the form of the testimony to their nearly 50 years of marriage.

But when I was at home during mom’s operation, I found food spoiled, towels unwashed, left stiff. I found baggies from store-bought cold cuts being reused, as if there were no such thing as salmonella. And I found Mom needing company and a hair wash.

My mother was always one for appearance. She too was of her generation, taking pride in what she owned and in her appearance. Before we even drove to the hospital for her surgery, she stopped to put on lipstick. Throughout her stay, she was always inquiring as to the location of her comb, regardless of when her hair had last been washed or set.

Several weeks following the surgery, my father caved. I clearly stated Mom is not getting what she needs, and he is not in a position to give it to her, because her needs are beyond what any one person can offer. This same man who had uttered, “I should have taken your mother on more vacations,” hesitated. So I finished with, “Well, Mom won't be going on too many vacations, but she can retain some dignity.” And her clean home and hair.

He relented long enough for Tamara to come into their home. He and I have not conversed in depth about the situation. It is too early. I don’t want to open the door for him to walk out on this deal.

But I did speak with Mom one morning, when Dad had departed for a meeting. Their caregiver, Tammy, had answered the phone then passed it on to Mom. She was laughing in the background as she came to the phone. I said, “Hi Mom. What are you up to?” And she replied, “Oh, well. I have a friend here and we are going to sit outside. It’s so beautiful today.” I could almost see her smile.

We didn’t speak long. I wanted Mom to hold fast to that feeling of friendship and freedom. I hung up and cried a little, called my younger sister, relayed the story, then cried a little more.

Baby steps, I had repeatedly told my father, as Mom progressed from the ER through surgery, ICU and finally home. Baby steps, I kept telling him, in regards to Mom’s recovery and in-home care.

Baby steps, I remind myself again.

8/24/2010

Blessing of the Lake

May the fish frolic in places unsuspecting,
their pools casting ripples beyond the no wake zone.

While you watch, may your loyal ally rest upon your lap
and a light breeze lift your spirit
off the dock, separating from the body which aches.

May a red ball of fire suddenly announce its presence
on the horizon, its reflection in the lake
growing longer as it rises, pushing the day’s clock to begin.

When its light is splintered by trees, may you still know warmth
as you sit on the dock toes dipped in water
creating ripples to meet those of the fish.

And may the blue herons nudge you from this trance,
the long flaps of their sails
soaring over the morning’s grace.

8/14/2010

Praying the Rosary While Sleeping

A machine drones on, squeezing
and releasing to keep her legs from clotting
She whispers, lips moving at rocket speed
She cannot be singing, not that fast
She is speaking, not aloud, but to her Maker
in an appeal.

Her hands curl around the finger probe
toying with imaginary beads
Parched lips struggle
to separate on the “Hail”
purse together for “Mary”
then finally form “full of grace”

She blesses the fruit of thy womb Jesus
while her own womb bears a new incision
“Holy Mary Mother of God” she murmurs
moving beads through bandaged hands

She clenches the rosary lifts it up
the beads speak back
a dialogue between hands and heart

Her eyes open, roll back into her head
looking inward for salvation
from this cruelty imposed upon her
She contemplates the Mysteries
joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious
in rhythm with the IV drip.

7/25/2010

Things to Do - Be a Stepmom

As I churned the marshmallows in the large stainless steel pot, readying them for Rice Krispie treats, my phone rang twice. One stepdaughter was asking to go out to a party following Ultimate Frisbee practice. The second stepdaughter was going out as well. For now, they had the same destination, but different curfews.

As I hung up from the first, who I encouraged to go despite the early curfew, telling her she needed the practice to drive, her last words were “I love you,” streaming forth from the speaker though I had already set down the phone and hit “end” to stir so the marshmallows wouldn’t burn.

A similar situation occurred with the second. As I was hanging up, trying to keep the Rice Krispies from popping, an “I love you” was quickly muttered.

I was pleasantly surprised at how both conversations ended, but instantly my mood turned sour when I thought about Kyron Horman, the missing Oregon boy. More so, I thought about his stepmother who had been in the headlines of every Google News column and People magazine caption.

Stepmothers get a bad rap, and I tire of it easily. The girls have done things on occasion that I am certain their mother would have found abhorrent, and certainly would have disciplined them in a harsher manner than I did. The “evil stepmother” term has probably been tossed around behind my back, but I take comfort - and humor - in that.

And the fact remains, I am still here. I wash their laundry. I am at the other end of the phone when they call to tell me good news. I drive them to colleges and orientation, encourage them to shop for new clothes, which they don’t often do (who are these girls, right?). I am not perfect, nor do I have the patience for their nonstop speeches when I am ready for bed at 10 p.m. But I am still here.

A good friend told me one of her acquaintances in Arizona referred to her stepchildren as “bonus” children, and she their “bonus” mother. In our case, I tell folks, we are a blended family, but the girls are all mine. By this I mean, I treat them as if I birthed them. Sometimes there are discrepancies in my tone with my son vs. them, but there is also room to point out how different it is in raising girls and boys.

If Kyrons’ stepmom is responsible, shame on her. She will get what she deserves and most likely not be a part of any family that some one would trust her with. Mostly, shame on Disney, the Brothers Grimm, and the other fantastical media breathlessly waiting to type out, “The child’s stepmom…” They should work harder to find a better ending, I know I did.

7/5/2010

Top Ten Reasons to NOT Play Golf

1. I don’t have the right hair cut for it. Really. I have this disjointed thing goin’ on that everyone loves, but its not right for visors or ponytails.

2. I get poison ivy whenever I am near the woods and I go there often with my drives.

3. I have a novel in waiting. My characters live in early 1900’s, they just wouldn’t understand. They don’t make a move without me.

4. My sister looks better than I do in the chic golf clothes that she sells.

5. My son can outplay me, though I outweigh him.

6. My husbands swears a lot when he is on the course, and I like to retain my view of him as calm and humble.

7. I am opposed to drinking and driving (a ball or a cart) at the same time.

8. One never has enough balls….

9. Number 18 at O’Bannon finishes at the clubhouse, with a veranda full of people in view, just waiting for my errant shot. I would hate to get sued….

10. Really. Novel. Still. Waiting.

Things to Do - Celebrate a 50th Birthday

Yesterday came and went so fast, I hardly had time to adjust to the knowledge that I had been dreading the day. My first husband, Devin, would have turned 50. So long as Davis has been able to walk and golf, we have played golf in honor of his dad’s birthday, sometimes not so successfully (of course, only speaking for myself).

The day came in spurts of driving, drop offs, and errands. The girls were off on their mission trip and even Davis was not home for long until he reentered the house after a basketball game and said, “Welp, I just need to get changed and we can go!”

I sat in a kitchen chair, dumbfounded, having been living in the world of my fictional character, trying to develop a life for her mother who had gone missing and her father who had stayed. Of course, this was just the opposite of what Davis had experienced ten years ago. A father passing, a mother who stayed.

As I dug my nose out of the History of Cincinnati Opera book, Davis came back downstairs, carrying an envelope full of memories. His grandparents had been cleaning out drawers and passed along a stack of newspaper clippings and pictures from his father’s childhood and young adult years. A few snapshots made me wince, as I recognized a young self with BIG hair seated next to a young man, a smooth tan face, eyes engaged on his subject. Davis was quick to note he might never be as tall as his father, but I was quicker on the draw. "Yes, but you have his smile."

I’m sure it was difficult for Davis to read what an accomplished golfer his father had been. But Devin grew up on golf courses, had a father who was a golf coach, so he was already ahead of the curve that Davis is driving on now.

And here I sat with Davis, wondering. Have I made the right decisions for him? How will he serve others? Will he find his passion, or does he already possess it within?

The heat took my breath away and thus I took my time on the golf course, also savoring each minute with Davis. I had to admit, perhaps we were not there to honor his father’s birthday, so much as give me an excuse to be with Davis. He would soon be in high school. Months after Davis was born, a lunar eclipsed occurred. I wrote, “As hands travel around the clock, with you I have traveled the world. I have tasted more than I ever dreamed possible.” Yes, these were the gifts that kept on giving. Time with Davis, time to understand how to let go.

We began arguing about whether or not he was taking his time on his putts, which were a little off that day. He was using his Dad’s putter that had been regripped, “I’m still getting used to the new grip.” My claim was, “You need patience.” But really, no soon to be 14 yr old had ever developed patience without trying their parents. He turned to me jokingly and said with a smile, “Dad wouldn’t want us to be arguing on his birthday.” And I replied with a smirk, “We’re not arguing, your dad would have told you the same thing.”

Later, on the 14th or 15th hole, he made a shot from behind the trees that was quite spectacular. When he came out from the trees to find me, his smile was wider than any I can recall in recent memory. That is what his dad would have wanted on his birthday.
.

To Do List - Climb a Tree

I amazed at how long it takes the seeds in my life germinate. They are unlike the lettuce seeds sowed only weeks ago and now I can enjoy the fruits of my limited labor. But the seeds that are cause for growth of others around me, or even myself.

Several years ago, I undertook the effort to become a certified facilitator in the ways of Women Writing for (a) Change. Though I had long been a published author, a writer in the WWFC groups, a board member of the foundation and a podcast facilitator, I had yet to commit myself to a life of writing. They were seeds scattered, hoping a plant or flower might grow. Hope triumphed over intention, and intuition reigned over planning or action.

Early last year in 2009, I found myself walking through a newly wooded path carved out near my home. I was listening to a podcast in which a well known author Don DeLillo and Alan Dienstag had teamed up to produce a writing workshop for individual in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

My mother lives in northern Ohio and I live in Cincinnati. At the time, she too had begun the descent into dementia, with family well aware of the potential outcome in years to come. At that moment, in those woods, with snow softening my heart, something inside of me melted as if to water a seed newly planted. I knew I may not frequently be in a place to offer my gifts to Mom but resolved to share them with others in a similar position.

With vigor, I created a lengthy proposal to create a writing circle that could potentially be administered and supported by the Alzheimer’s Association, in the same way they support an art program called Creative Memories. While researching, I found the Arizona Alzheimer’s Poetry Project and studied their findings. I misspelled Alzheimer’s each time I typed the word and cursed Alois Alzheimer, the neuropathologist who first described the condition back in 1906, on the surface because of his name, but deep down inside, for the disease itself.

Through the Internet, I came across the name of a former writing sister who had been a board member of the association. I made contact with her, asked for her input, and put my proposal to the association in the mail.

By now, it was summer. Six months had passed. Lifetimes had come and gone for Alzheimers individuals. Present day events were escaping their memory as fast as I could type.

Four weeks following my submission, I called the director. She seemed rushed, though took my call. I briefly explained who I was and asked was there interest in this program. She sucked in her breath, and brusquely told me they had plenty of programs they were already offering and had no interest in mine at the time.

I hung up the phone and sunk into my chair. Plenty of programs, but how many were designed to recover lost voices? As would happen, I was an avid newspaper reader, and because of Mom’s condition, had noticed the ads about the award winning Alois Center near Winton Woods. I knew nothing of the center, had not visited, yet I placed a call to the number indicated regarding activities for the residents and shared my thoughts. I no sooner heard back than was sitting with the Director Jennifer Delassandro and Activities Director Marvin Knoblach about the creation of this circle.

Though I was blunt about wanting funding, and my proposal would prove to be out of sync somewhat with what the residents were capably of, the center offered me the opportunity to launch this program, with the understanding that they would be my only client in the memory care field. This was a difficult decision to agree to, as it was also stipulated that there would be no monies available in the immediate future, but perhaps there would be access to funding in the long run.

Because this seed germinated deep in my heart, from a place only a higher power could have reached to plant, I agreed to let it grow within me. Luckily, a close friend of mine, Leigh agreed as well.

Over a set of four weeks, and then another four weeks, we threw out all my original poems and ideas. but one. It was the beginning class. “I am from,” the poem begins. We asked the residents to use this line as a jumping off point for their own writing. And when we did, we found residents “from a river town in Kentucky” and found others that wrote about where they were from, but soon tore up the paper in an effort to destroy the memories.

We captured each agenda and lessons learned, of which there were many. Focus on the rhythms of poetry as much as the words. Keep it simple. Facilitators should not be writers. Help them remember. Involve the use of multiple senses to evoke. The basic tenets of any teaching were all present. And yet something was lying underneath.

Though we were there to talk about poetry and writing and their lives, we also existed in a one hour vacuum that allowed for the residents to be present in moment, together in community. They would laugh at each other’s jokes. Hold hands. Pass the stone to check-in, which was one day a baseball instead. Smell rawhide. Eat birthday cake. Hold up a shell to their ears to listen for the ocean. Run their fingers through sand in a box. Croon all the words to “What a Wonderful World.”

Eat a hot dog while singing "Take me out to the ballgame," even if they “hated Sundays because my mother and dad always watched the ballgames on TV”, or while they recounted the memory of their “father working at the post office, and occasionally taking me to the game,” or even chastised “those who drink too much beer at a ballgame.”

For our “Jazz” theme, each participant was given a musical instrument, culled from our possession of preschool items, outdated in both our households. Each resident took up their instrument, in a call to arms, and shook rattles and bells to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Though some were not mobile, we encouraged those who could to rise up and march. Some looked at us with a blank stare, but two bold women jumped out of their seats, with urgency of someone who heard “Fire,” and began to clap their hands and shake their tambourine.

My mother would have been singing Louis and Ella, and for certain, she would have danced with the other bold women. One might think I could have facilitated this one on one with her, but I have found that it is the energy of the group which fosters the courage to grow, to dance.

The center maintains files with the resident’s writings. When the staff meets with the family of a participant, the writing is shared. Families are seeing loved ones in new ways, separate from their disease.. Someone who regrets “not buying that house on Cape Cod, when it was selling for pennies.” Someone who will write down simple words, “Elba, Italy with my wife,” as a special time spent at the ocean. And those simple words speak volumes for one who can’t.

What was lying underneath the participants and their writing was the seed that had been planted in me. We had now planted those seeds within them. Most residents don’t recall what day of the week that we arrive with more bags than a family of four on vacation. But they have a sense that they don’t want to miss it. “Make sure they remember to come get me when you are here,” one woman tells us each time. And hugs are always exchanged, both ways.

With gratefulness we were rewarded by the staff who provided us with support, inspiration, gifts cards to the Cheesecake Factory, and journals for our own words. And even more satisfying, a phone call came later in our last week, from the Executive Director, interested in meeting with us, to find funding so the residents could continue this method of self-expression.

There are tomato seeds that push through the earth to become food and seeds that grow into bursting dahlias for my vases. But some seeds take root farther below the soil. Seeds that become trees for shade on a simmering August afternoon, for leaning against while killing time, and those that perennially produce fruit and nuts. Best of all, some seeds become trees that are meant for climbing.

Knowing What is Coming 

2010-05-09 A somewhat fictional take on Mom’s dementia

One day, they remember Holden
from Catcher in the Rye - and can recall
Tony Bennett all brown-eyed singing
Close Your Eyes while their hips swayed

Soon they begin to ask to go home
while they are sitting comfortably in the wooden chair
where they rocked their babies and yours
They forget the name of your children and or their husband
They walk out of doors cleverly concealed
behind rock band posters from the 70’s
you thought they might recognize
because they hated kids listening to that music
and they would yell turn that damn thing off
but they find the door because they are on a mission

following fences or power lines
to reconnect with their chatty maid of honor
whose voice was silenced by sickness
or to find their child who will only exist
in a cemetery plot where babies are buried

or drawn to the lake
where you went together and watched the sun go down
They licked around the edges
of your banana ice cream cone
telling you don’t let it drip all over the car
while you watched the sandstone fountain
spray runny reds yellows then greens and blues

and only now, can they catch sight of rainbow’s end
which no one could see during those summer nights
when the ball of fire set late o’er the waves
From the front seat they would recite
red skies at night, sailors delight,
red skies at dawn, sailors be warned
And you took delight because you knew that rhyme by heart.

2010-05-02 To Do List – Laugh with my Husband



We woke this morning to rain, lots of it. I considered the runners from the local Flying Pig Marathon. How would they cope? In my mind, I ran down a mental list of items I would want with me in the rain, should I have been one of those unfortunate flying pigs to persevere through the finish line. Luckily for myself and my family, I was not. My husband and I showered and dressed for church, ensured the teenagers were up and not snarling at our request for them to attend church this morning, gave Enzo several opportunities to go outside and perform admirably in the rain, to which each occasion, he rose then solemnly sulked away.

At mass, the congregation was celebrating First Communion, one of four classes that would celebrate that sacrament over the next two weekends. We met up with Mark’s parents, sat in our usual pew, Davis taking to his usual commitment of “going to use the restroom” as a means for distraction or procrastination towards actually sitting down for more than an hour.

Church was not overly crowded, as per typical on a sunny Sunday morning in Spring. Most had heard through the grapevine about the sacraments being celebrated. Coupled together with the torrents of water spilling out of gutters, the reasons were aplenty to stay in bed. But this morning, I had organized a sendoff for Mark, attended by our children and his parents, prior to his medical mission trip to Haiti. I had postponed this effort, mainly to postpone thinking about it, but the day had arrived when we had to all fully accept the reality of his decision to care for those who needed him more than we did for the week.

Fr. Anthony gave the homily to the second, and some third graders. He spoke about learning, and how coming to church represented the classroom of spirituality, and humility and love for God. And of course, the gospel shared was the one story that spoke volumes about any trip one might undertake to a ravaged country to which one has no ties, but only obligations, “Love One Another.”

I found myself through most of the mass holding on to Mark’s hand more so than usual. We laughed when I deduced that the music of late was not up to par for our Sunday Mass the Musical that we said we would one day bring to Broadway. The tempo had been slowed, perhaps a request by the newer pastor. The music still was uplifting, but nothing that would raise the roof or cause audiences to jump up from their seats and start singing.

When the service ended, the family headed home and Mark’s parents joined for a short order brunch. I had not really prepared any foods in advance, as I had done so for our Easter Brunch, no French Toast casserole, or Phyllo Pie. A few sausages in the oven. I could hardly ask Mark to stand in the rain, and cook over the grill, despite having done so for Thanksgiving and Christmas. A few slices of bread. Davis made the Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls, much to our delight, as we watched him struggle to open the rolled container, figure how to work the timer on the oven, and determine when the rolls were done.

During brunch, the conversation focused much on Shannon’s graduation and our disappointment that the ceremony would be held in the gym at her school, and not at the Oasis, as it had for Cheryl. There were rumors of families already securing reservations, when in fact, no word or letter had been sent to the parents with instructions to do so. A few zealous parents anxious to see their children off were nervous about not getting seats. These were probably the same that filled out their children’s college apps, helped with their homework, and made some calls to find them a summer job. Don’t get me wrong. We are as ready for Shannon to go, as she is to leave us. But I doubt one is ever really ready to admit their child has graduated into from the school of academics, into the school of life.

“Shannon, not to cut short this discussion, I said, “but since this was put together for your dad, I have a little exercise for us all today. I have a card I am sending around the table. I want to ask each of you to write down a one word prayer. One word that you want Mark to carry with you, that he can keep as a handy reference while doing his work.”

This was going to prove a problem for Mark’s Mom is who loves to chat and write in equal parts. It was agreed by all that I had the unfair advantage of knowing about the exercise in advance and therefore I knew what word I would write down. “Yep, when I thought of this exercise this morning, I knew what word I wanted to write, right away.” So, I quickly jotted that word down, and the card was passed to the others. In mere minutes, we had completed the task. Then, I asked each member to speak their word, and share a little of the sentiment behind the word.

Papa’s word was “proud.” How proud he felt that Mark had chosen this path and was following a call for help. Kaitlyn’s word was “remember”, to remember us all here, and that Mark would remember this experience for the rest of his life. Davis passed until he could clearly articulate the feelings behind his word. Shannon went next. “Changed” was the word she chose, because the Haitian people will be changed by Mark helping them, even just one person. And that Mark will be changed by this experience. Davis called for the chance to speak and used his word “hope” because Mark will be giving the Haitian people hope to believe in. Nana went next. The only word a mother could possibly write down. “Love” - because I love you and you have always shown so much love for others.”

Finally, my turn. “Openness”. Because Mark was open to making the decision to do this, because he will need to be open culturally, medically, in so many ways, when treating his patients, and because his openness will be a gift to others, to invite them into his circle of caring.

Of course, tears were shed. Then, I asked Mark, “What would your one word be?” And he barely squeaked out his prayer, “Starfish” We all looked at him quizzically, but Shannon knew right away what he meant. Since Mark was clearly choked up, Shannon went on to tell the story of a little boy who would go out after the storms, and throw the stranded starfish back into ocean. One day, a stranger stopped him on the beach and asked him, “Son, there are so many starfish out here, you will never get the job done. Do you think that’s going to make a difference?” The little boy didn’t respond, but instead, picked up another starfish, threw it into the water, and said, “Ït did to that one.”

As I write this now, I have just finished reading the orientation document for Mark so I don’t appear too ignorant when he starts speaking in acronyms. Kaitlyn is at work, Shannon with her boyfriend. Cher has yet to weigh in via text messaging with her “word” for Mark’s prayer card. Nana and Papa are probably making dinner, watching the evening news. And Mark is in the basement, playing Xbox with Davis. They are playing the FIFA soccer game and laughing hard at Davis who always loses at this game because he gets carded. A smile comes across my face when I hear Mark chuckle again. How lucky the Haitians will be to encounter Mark - smiling blue eyes and the vastness of his love.

2010-03-31  No Day for Writer's?

First my husband Mark arrived home with paperweight. The next year, he returned with a crystal bowl for nuts. And this year, he proudly presented not one, but two gifts, a to-go coffee cup and a single serving thermos (Who drinks a single serving of coffee?). They were gifts from the hospital for Doctor’s Day. And they had been graciously accepted by my husband, an anesthesiologist.

So I posed the question, “If they can have Doctor’s Day, why is there no Writer’s Day?” And there’s not. There is National Writing Week. National Novel Writing Month, National Letter Writing Week (mothers may enjoy this). There is National Poetry Month. We have poet laureates. We have National Writing contests, local writing competition. Some have even created a March Madness poetry contest, which is pure genius if you ask me.

There is even a National Day on Writing, October 20, which in 2009, fell between National Boss Week and United Nations Day. On that day, I went to yoga at 9 a.m., came home and wrote some poetry. I recorded a podcast interview with a writer and then returned home to cook dinner. But I know I did NOT celebrate National Day on Writing, only because it sounded like a federal holiday, a national day of mourning when I should fly my flag at half-staff. And, it’s a day on writing, where one can explore topics on writing. The designation does not imply that one should be a writer not implore one to write. The declaration simply recognizes that people write, which can be accomplished by viewing hieroglyphics as well.

Still, there is no Writer’s Day.

In 1994, while enjoying Easter dinner at my in-law’s house, the family had this notion to go around the table and ask for new news and old news. I was still new to this family and would not marry into the family until September of 1994. Anything I had to say would be not only new, but possibly unimportant. My super smart brother-in-law, who would eventually earn his PhD in Mathematics, turned up the heat on the competition and announced, “Well, they discovered a new prime number today.” And certainly, the largest known prime number was discovered on the Cray research supercomputer. I would print the number, but don’t want to waste digital ink. Besides, prime numbers having been getting good press since the number two zero was invented.

I was again reminded of how science supersedes art, when I heard that the large Hadron Collider - the world's largest science experiment—shattered records in March, 2010, by successfully colliding particle beams at a combined energy of 7 tera electric volts (TeV). This marked a milestone in the collider's progress, and ushered in the beginning of up to two years of intensive investigations. The headlines of an Irish newspaper read, “Think making two bullets collide is difficult? Then try doing it at the subatomic level.” I wonder if the columnist had ever tried to write a ghazal or a cinquain, or a work of fiction or memoir. Even super colliders get more affection than writers.

Some states and writing groups have attempted to formalize a Writer’s Day within their own organizations. But I don’t want anything formal. No research grants or tera electric volts, though I could use the resulting energy to ramp up my level some mornings. I really just want a day when the phone does not ring, when the Internet is down, so I am not prone to surfing, when my husband is not quoting me from his Kindle, when someone feeds the dog or realizes it is OUR dog that is barking and the noise is grating on MY nerves.

I want a day when I receive a crystal bowl that I can use for my post-it notes full of ideas, or a stainless steel thermos bigger than the one my husband brought home because writers operate best under the influence of more caffeine than a doctor should consume.

2010-03-27 To Do List – Open the Cage

Thursday morning came the realization that I have finally achieved “I am my parents” status, when Davis asked, “Is that what you are wearing to chaperone my (Christian fellowship) group this morning?” I had on a bright pink sweat top, with a clean, unwrinkled pair of black, not too tight, stretch pants, purposely selecting those pants aware that I would be in a room with 13,14 and 15 year olds boys in just an hour or so.

Davis, unlike his father, was not one known for fashion. We had lampooned his choices in our annual Christmas letter, stating that he was now working on Project Runway. The temperature was hovering around 40 degrees Thursday and he was wearing gym shorts and his orange school sweatshirt, which he had worn everyday this Spring, because its his “track” gear.

We managed to buy our donuts and make it to the church on time. I watched hungry teenaged boys walk in, eyes clamped shut, mouths wide open, ferociously consume 4.5 dozen donuts, in a fifteen minute timeframe.

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

They came for the treats and stayed for the fellowship and the understanding that they are loved by God, and the other boys in this room. A local father ran this group, meeting every other Thursday morning. He prepares an agenda, which includes a review from the past week’s meeting, highlights about Bible stories relevant for these boys (Sampson, Moses) and throws in some trivia about the NCAA, March Madness and the Masters.

The boys are asked to keep prayer journals, and use them to write their intentions, their questions. Even if they are never voiced, their words have a place that is secure from society.

That morning, prayer intentions included a young boy battling cancer, a school teacher recovering from cancer treatments, sports injuries, the lacrosse team, and another young man, a high schooler, in the same school system, who had committed suicide two days prior. Davis had informed us of this incident the night before, at dinner, where we promptly, but briefly, discussed the topic.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

At the time, I asked if counselors spoke at Davis’s middle school, separate from Scott’s (not his real name) high school. Davis said, “No, there wasn't much talk about it, other than from students.” Even at his fellowship meeting, before the impact of this event on the boys would dawn on them, they seemed content to speak of it  and move on.

I too moved on with my day, feeding the neighbor’s dog while they were in Florida. I finished the last of the laundry, and decided the blankets in the flophouse part of the basement needed cleansing, which thankfully, I did. I found a pair of girl’s underwear (clean) and a men’s adult sized long sleeve jersey shirt. One cannot ponder these items too long for fear of where it might let your mind lead. I assumed the underwear came from a sleepover, and the men’s shirt was left behind during a recent party our kids had with their Mission Trip friends.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

I drove to meet my sister for lunch, with a stop at Ursuline to drop off paperwork to Shannon so she could order our couch through her Crate and Barrel discount. As I left, I was halted temporarily by the notion that I had selected the wrong color – Mocha instead of Sable. Quickly I ran through the printout of the paperwork in my mind and breathed a sigh of relief.

My cell phone rang as I drove the down the highway. I thought it would be my sister calling to tell me she would be late. That phone call would come, but it was my father, who always calls with a dire tone, asking if I could participate in a conference call with him and his lawyer sometime in April. “Dad, I don’t have my calendar with me, but I am sure, I can do it. I’ll call you after lunch.”

“Oh, my mom, interjected, “You are having lunch with your sister? That is so nice. Your father never wants to go out for lunch. We have all these restaurant cards that we never use.” Sure, I wanted to be in the middle of THAT conversation. I switched gears to talk about the weather. My mother always felt better when I told her the weather was as equally dismal here in Cincinnati as it was in Cleveland.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.


I have amazing and talented sisters. This one had been valedictorian and started several businesses during her working life. She was in the process of “becoming unstuck from a bad story” and “creating her new story” which has been my buzz line these days, thanks to Donald Miller, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”, and Jim Loehr, “The Power of Story.” Having been a writer now for 13 years (I use Davis’ age as a benchmark, since my first poem I wrote was about becoming his mother), and despite having penned my memoir and several anthologies of poems, and facilitating writing workshops, I never equated the word “story” with the word “life.” But today, I kept driving the point home with my sister. Either she finally heard me or was sick of me!

After lunch, rain continued to pound on the roof of my car, but I drove out to Benken’s for my annual pansy purchase. I spent an hour in the greenhouse, mixing and matching colors and sizes to achieve the look I wanted for my outdoor pots. I stayed a little long, because breathing in the oxygen created by those plants was certainly the closest thing to heaven here on earth.

I completed my rounds with a stop at Petmart for pizzles and Nyla bones for Enzo only to receive a text from Davis that Track was cancelled and he would be home shortly. I texted him back, “I will be home at the same time.” Then he responded “There is a video on Youtube about Scott. Can I watch it?”

Clunk. That was an imaginary sound. I did not really smash into another car at that moment, but it was my fears slamming into my insight. I did not know what was on that video. But if I didn’t allow Davis the space to open up about this, to grieve whatever loss he may be feeling, I would slam the door on an opportunity for him to grow in wisdom and compassion.

“Yes, but wait for me,” I typed back.

I arrived home first, let the dog out and welcomed Davis home with my presence. He could not drop his backpack fast enough, which is not usual, and ran to my office breathlessly waiting for me. “Davis, why don’t you search for the video and I will be right there?” In seconds, he called out, “I found it.”

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

From the kitchen, I took a deep breath and dragged my feet and heart into my office. He clicked “play.” The video was approximately four minutes in length and had been posted a few days prior. I will paraphrase his plea:

Scott was a junior, hoping to pursue teaching and photography, but now, he says, he was finding it hard to be interested in anything. He had been to counseling, took medication, but nothing seemed to keep him from this darkness. He went to sleep in class during the day, and stayed up all night. He could not understand what was happening. He used to be a good kid in school, made the honor roll, was a good kid at home. Now, he feared his girlfriend leaving him, he felt isolated from any friends, and felt that he was in cage he could not get out of.

Scott concluded with a cry for help. “If there is anyone out there that can help me, let me know what you have done to get through this”.


Scott presented all of this with a sense of practicality. His life was a problem he was trying to solve. I wept throughout the entire video. Davis sat stone silent until he could no longer keep his tears at bay. We remained in quiet for a few minutes after the video concluded. He did not have the words for this moment, so I began:

“Davis, it sounds like everyone was really trying to help him. We know so little about mental illness, except that there is a change in brain chemistry that alters that person’s perception enough to keep them in a cage.”

“I know because I’ve been there during some challenging times in my life, taking the medication, then gone off because I think I am better, sliding back into my lonely self.”

“But sometimes, a person gets so far down inside of himself, they cannot find the way out. And there is very little we can do to help them at that point.”

“Its so sad Mom.” I understood this to mean that he is a lover of life. Davis will go to school, enjoy track practice, sign up for classes at his new high school, eat a plateful of tacos, go to baseball practice, take out the garbage, and then come home and sigh, “Finally some me time,” and then we all laugh!

He cried a little while longer that afternoon then promptly announced he had to take care of the neighbor’s dog and walked out of the house.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

I understand about cages, and how one can feel imprisoned, despite all the air that enters and exits between the bars, despite all the good intentions, therapy, friends and prayers. At times, I have been locked in my own pen. I have visited with others who are fenced in because of the law or their choices. Even our homes or diseases for which we are diagnosed become cages if we let them.

I pray God grants Scott the freedom from his cage that he so desperately deserves. And may we be reminded that healing begins in our own lives when leave the cage door open or hold it open for someone else.

* “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou.


* The video has been removed due to its content which may or may not be good. What Scott said has a lot of relevance and could someday be used as an educational and emotional tool for others. While I deplore the use of social media for some to “showcase” their work, I cannot ignore the fact that for the next child, a posting such as Scott’s, just might save his or her life..

2010-03-22 Middle Child

Red rocks band together, forming cup-like around me.
I do not worry about what I am keeping at bay –

the coyotes, the scorpions, who I was in Ohio,
steel grey clouds in my distant sight.

But instead, I think of what is keeping warm
the muscle that is my heart.
In this sauna of sagebrush and stones,
I am rediscovering my core and it is everywhere –

in the spiral petroglyph, while its loose end gives birth
to a fossilized human, its origin is etched stone.

And in the medicine wheel,
which steered many an ancient people.
I stand in its center and think,
“cob of corn, chewed apple core, elongated spine.”

Even the basalt boulders rise up like an altar
from beneath the sandstone seams in Cathedral Rock.

All my life, the middle was a birth order defect.

But here,
I am one and whole.

Stay rooted, I tell myself.

2010-03-22 To Do List – Save a Child

A friend read one of my recent blog posts and suggested I continue writing on a similar theme. The theme of the first post was the creation of my to-do list for the day, and comparing that with the list of someone else, chosen randomly from my subconscious for their to do items impact on my psyche. So today, I begin again.

To do list for yesterday. Yesterday was Sunday, and yet it began at 2 .am. Our Saturday evening with our friends Jenny and Dan turned into Sunday morning, which happens quite often when Jenny is involved. The night also included a late round of euchre in which Jenny and I were partners, with my husband Mark and Dan as our opponents. We “possummed” them in the first round (this is akin to “skunking” but includes total anniliation). They in turn, skunked us (only “skunking” because we scored). We concluded with one last tiebreaker, though by now, my focus was on faces of the two dogs who desperately wanted to sleep, but could not bring themselves to do so, in the face of an opportunity to lap up whatever we might spill in the wee hours. Of course, pretzel crumbs and wine were not quite up to par for their tastes, as might be steak and eggs, but they persevered and their sad looks caused me to lose focus, and lose the final round.

Sunday began with an unusual waking by the Abby, a very large golden doodle we were dog-sitting for my in-laws. Our puppy Enzo sleeps in a crate, outside of our room, because I am a light sleeper and this was one concession that I won. Abby was still new to our household, and we wanted her contained so we knew her whereabouts. She slept in our room, until about 7 a.m. (which translates to 5 hours of restless, wine-induced tossing and turning).

From there the day’s race was on, including baking a French toast casserole with blueberries before our hungry bunch would rise and decimate the cereal aisle in our pantry instead.

Our breakfast conversation turned to the topic of Haiti. A local reporter had returned from that country and written a articles that kept my Mark entranced. Mark was heading to Haiti next month. When had he first told me about the opportunity that existed for doctors through his Notre Dame alumni connection, I simply said, “You have to go.” I never looked at our schedule, nor did I consider being widowed (again) if events turned sour in Haiti while he was there. He simply “had to go”.

Then, Mark received a lengthy e-mail with explanations about where he would stay, how he and his companions would travel and what vaccinations would be necessary prior to departure. Also discussed were malaria and other diseases for which there were no vaccinations. Swine flu wasn’t scary when one compared that to traveling in mosquito-infested countries with rains that wash away potential sprouts of corn or wheat.

I was still hungover, tired, dehydrated, and could take in neither what Mark Carnette had experienced and cataloged, nor could I absorb all that Mark would witness in the upcoming month.

I left the article about Haiti on the kitchen table, showered, attended a Mother-Daughter fashion show and drove out to Frontgate Outlet Store to purchase an outdoor lantern that matched one I purchased yesterday, when I was not convinced I needed two. But, the lanterns had been on sale, I reasoned. I even negotiated with the manager to include another set of pre-burnt pillar candles to match the ones paid for the day before.

We watched the XU basketball game in earnest, biting our nails until the very end. My daughter’s boyfriend thought the team had it in the bag when they went up by 6 or 7 with a few minutes left to go. But I needed to see things through to the conclusion. And sure enough, the game ended, but without our viewing (thanks Time Warner, CBS, NCAA, and Dick Vitale, or the obscure technician in the control booth). XU did secure the win. We all felt a sense of relief, until Thursday when they would play again.

During the game, we had seen snippets for the news magazine show 60 Minutes, which would follow the broadcast of the games. Mark, Shannon, Davis and I stayed glued to the couch when 60 Minutes began. Katie Couric interviewed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He too carried a hand-written to do list, beginning with 3 minutes with President Obama, and ending the day with what Rahm called their “wrap up”. The end of their day was significantly different than mine or the rest of us. But his to-do list was no less impressive, and he probably did not complete his list with a hangover.

Then, a segment about Haiti began playing, and we sank into silence. To be honest, the camera footage was the first I had seen, other than pictures in the newspapers. I am not one for denial, but for the past two months have battled my own demons and could not take on those of the world. Devastation did not begin to describe the scenes which were shown and the apt title the Lost Children of Haiti scared me. Scott Pelley traveled to Haiti for 6 weeks. He first spoke with Moise Vaval, pastor of a local church who also worked for an orphanage. His eight year old boy, Jean Marc, had gone missing in the earthquake. What began as a father’s quest to find his child became an incessant drive to locate and match missing children with their parents. His restlessness drove him to support others in need until his son’s backpack was unearthed ten weeks later, and his small boy body removed from the rubble beneath the school.

The reporter then profiled Jean Robert Cadet – a Restevec – a former child slave. My husband and I had met Jean Cadet at a local fundraiser. Following the earthquake, he had visited Davis’ school, which raised $17, 000 for Jean Cadet to build schools in Haiti. He is a Cincinnatian, who has created his own foundation to save the children of Haiti from the fate he experienced as a child. Child slavery in Haiti is not uncommon nor is it illegal, so Jean Cadet uses his weight as a teacher to encourage families to give up ownership of children that do not belong to them.

Scott Pelley asked him about slavery. “The earthquake created child slavery?” “No, it created the opportunity for more children in slavery,” says Jean Cadet. “But Jean Cadet, if there are 175,000 child slaves, how do you think going door to door can help save any of them?”

Jean Cadet looked almost incredulous, as if to say, if you knew my story, you wouldn’t ask. Of course the reporter knew his story, but Scott wanted to draw it out of him for others, back home, sitting on a green leather pit group in front of a large screen TV, still nursing a hangover and yelling about the dog barking and no one letting him out.

“Someone made a big difference in my life, someone believed in me.” When Jean Cadet’s owner-family came to the U.S., they threw him out onto the streets. A teacher of Jean Cadet’s spent months with him, got him in the welfare system and help improve his education. He went into the military, became a teacher and returns often to Haiti to pry children from the grasp of slavery.

I looked beside me, Shannon to my right, her connection to Haiti through her French club activities, and Davis to my right. Both were children who had lost parents to a physical disease and not a societal one. Somehow they were easier to save than the little children on TV. Scott Pelley held a young boy in his arms, and cuddled with him, in the same vein that I recall Davis snuggling with my mother, so much that she called Davis her “little snuggler.” She would undergo breast cancer surgery after she held that baby for the first time.

I thought about what Jean Cadet said, “Saving one is worth it.” And while he is right, he is also mistaken. Children save us - from becoming inhuman.

When my writing is complete today, the last item will include reading Mark Curnette’s newpaper article or the e-mail on the logistics of Mark’s trip. I had put off learning more, which is unlike me, because I didn’t want to face the danger Mark may be in. But there was a part of me, some human part that knew, while he was administering anesthesia to a young child who may need amputation or surgery, he is the only person that I would want in the room rescuing any child with compassion and his care - and some child would save him too.

To Do List:
1. Testify

It is 9 a.m. I sit at my desk, a ray of light traveling towards the doorway of my office, slowly creeping over towards and warming the sleeping pup at my feet. I look down at my “To do” list for the day: Call for hair appointment, complete update to master family calendar from son’s track schedule, pickup son at 4:15, ask daughter if she is attending driving class tonight so I know what time to have dinner ready. Since it is Monday, the list includes writing. So I do.

I keep imagining what it would be like to look down at my list and see “Testify in daughter’s murder trial,” as Lisa Siders-Kenney is doing so right now, on behalf of her murdered daughter, Esme.

I don’t know Lisa. I only know of her through the women at WWfaC. I bought a pendant from an artist friend of hers, a chiastolite stone, as part of a fundraiser for a scholarship in Esme’s name. Also known as the "cross stone" because of a natural cross pattern in the stone.

It is described as thus: “Chiastolite is a stone of balance, stability and harmony, as traditionally indicated by the cross. It can help with physical, mental, intellectual and emotional stability, enhancing problem solving and adapting to change. It can enhance spiritual awareness and inspiration, as well as astral travel and practical creativity.

Chiastolite is used for healing rheumatism, blood disorders, veins, blood circulation, balance of blood pressure (high or low), and lactation. It has a specific use in balancing all base chakra energies.”

When I researched which stone I wanted to buy, I knew this one instantly. Not from previous hands on experience, but heart experience. At the time, I was in need of healing, and a gentle reminder that I could always return to God, when the time came, with a whole heart, and a body that felt broken, or at least broken down. The astral travel is my favorite part of the above description. Astral Travel - or in layman’s terms – out of body experiences, seems a key in healing. If we can remove our selves (two words) from our bodies, and see how wrapped up we are in our body experiences and not the experiences of self, we would be further along in our healing, and certainly evolutionary emotional intelligence.

I pray that Esme experienced astral travel to escape the heinous acts that were done to her body. That the killer would sit with her body afterward, watching it burn, horrifies me in a way that I cannot articulate.

I wore that pendant everyday for a while, even promised myself I would wear it every day of the trial of Esme’s murderer, but I failed in the those efforts this morning as a barking dog usually throw my mind off track. I do not even have it on now, but am simply holding her mother in my care, in my writing hands and hoping that is enough.

My list also involved investigating vortices, in particular in Sedona, purported to also have healing energies, but this too reminds me of Lisa, Esme, her family caught up in a not so harmonic convergence of events – go for a run, encounter a man, offer him the wrong name, watch man turn into monster, remove self from body, become a force for change.

I am multi-taking now, trying to follow any news development that hinges on the words of this heart-sunken mother, for she must have pushed her emotions so far down, so as not to fall apart during her time of testimony.

She begins by telling about the day of Esme’s murder. She had been removing dust from their recent remodel. “Drywall dust is dangerous, you know,” she states. She is being asked to describe Esme for the jury. She says, “She just turned 13, just precious, so innocent and so sweet.”

Esme had asked her mom to go along on a run. “We usually went together as a family,” says Lisa. “across the street to the reservoir. Its where she learned to ride a bike. It was like our backyard.”

Some of Esme’s last words were about a cousin, “If Franny calls, tell her I’ll be right back.”

When the police arrived after Lisa’s suspected disappearance of Esme, they kept using the word teenager. "They just had a different picture in their mind,” Lisa confessed, obviously still frustrated that the police did not understand the true essence of Esme.

The police envisioned a picture different from the actual one shown by the prosecutor in the final minutes of Lisa’s testimony. I don’t know which picture it was. I hope it was not of her body wearing only socks and shoes. Lisa tearfully and proudly responded to the lawyer's question, “That’s my baby, Esme Louise Kenney.”

When I look back on this day, I want to remember what it was like to be a witness to Lisa Kenney testifying – tears and fears about my own children, wincing at the prospect of a chaplain at my door, the horrors that Esme endured in her final hours. There is no reconciling Esme’s fate with the outcome of the trial with the exception of a mother bearing witness to the life of her “baby.” - 2010-03-08

2010-03-01 Thin Blue Line


The Winter Olympics closed, the torch passed.
It is March, and snow turns to slush, unlike Charlie Brown’s January snow
that Lucy declares is best.

Time now for swimming.
I dip my toe in the chilly water of the lap pool, and begin to think Summer and the athletes, winter and summer, who train long hours.

I once hoped to be an Olympic champ - super-sized hopes for a peanut-sized person.
I would jump over hurdles or glide down the slalom, and all the world would stare.

The pool is cold, steam fogs the windows. I cannot see out. No one can see in.
All three lanes are empty. The surface is still, the only noise is the buzz of the heater
and the jets of the spa nearby.

I lower my towel and slide in, wakened from my morning state.
I turn somersaults at laps’ end, and shoot through the water to begin the next leg.
The painted blue line below me remains visible so I do not go left or right of center.

My body’s shadow in the water becomes magnetized, pulled towards the line
in the moment Olympians live for – to become transparent, constant, fluid.

Many laps later, I toss my tired limbs onto the pools’ edge.
The surface ripples to the rhythm of a stroke I am no longer executing.

The body has left the pool, the spirit remains.

I am resurrecting this one, after making my own fudge....

The Urge to Savor

I learned from my mother
how to make creamy chocolate fudge
that would keep
her children coming back,
a knowledge that did not come
from any recipe

but her habit of sending each of us
this box of chocolate
on Valentine’s Day
wherever we made our homes.

I learned from her how
to cut the squares
so that they were in number
divisible by five,.
each portion then
carefully cuddled
by plastic wrap and paper.

She with my father
carefully labeled
and packaged five boxes,
entrusted this treasure
to the local postmaster
who sent them off
to faraway colleges and states.

I learned that
for the gift to take hold,
we must share it –
with roommates, neighbors, spouses, kids –
but that it was still my gift to share.

Mother accepted praise
for this wondrous treat
and never let on
it was anything less than pleasure
though her arthritic hands
and crippling hip
might have said otherwise.

The stoop sat empty
this Valentine’s Day,
left me craving
her mind and her fudge.




Annette Januzzi Wick
In dedication to the miles that the Fudge has traveled.
2/18/2008

I am From poem, written with the Alois Alzheimer Group, Found Voices.
Annette J. Wick
1-14-2010


I am from shoe stores
musky cardboard boxes cradling women's heels.
From a father who spent nights
calmed by the whir of the adding machine.
Lilac bushes – one white, one violet
at the back corners
of the house on Ridgeland Dr.

I am from apple trees and stealing Mr. Wittes’ apples.
From sledding hills and Harold, the tractor driver,
who mowed the grass at the sanitarium.
I am from passion and temper, gerbils and rabbits,
but never a puppy or kitten.

I am from parties for every birthday, communion and confirmation,
and from my father pulling at the covers
on Sunday morning, calling us to church.

I am from beefsteak tomatoes, hanging like Christmas ornaments,
in the garden, and thick tomato sauce always on the stove.
From 26 different kinds of Italian cookies – some with no names at all.

I am from families dispirited and hearts that have healed.
From Mother leading us in nighttime childhood prayers,
“Dear God, please watch over us,”
and the family motto, “To go where there is need.”