Your Day So Far

There is a welling up inside,

like the day’s rain,

just waiting to happen.

You spill coffee

on the overly scotch-guarded chairs

at the mammogram station.

You say station because you belly up,

or breast up, to the machine,

while the technician fills the room

with talk of non-essential topics.

You squeeze your eyes,

she squeezes your breasts,

like a bartender crushing a lime in your drink.

You tarry along to the car dealership.

You pray your son turns out

as pleasant and attentive as

Travis, the service manager.

You avoid eye contact,

not for fear of him thinking

you are cougar-like,

but tears will fall if you meet human eyes.

It is only hormones, you tell yourself,

and telegraph that thought

to the woman seated beside you.

You want her to know you have regrets

about everything right now –

your parents’ care,

communication in your marriage,

leaving the dog without walking him,

starting to write a new novel

without finishing the last,

leaving your character “Celia”

without resolution.

When Travis displays your filthy car filter,

you hold it in no longer.

Tears stream down. He is appalled,

Perhaps never having had

girlfriend or mom.

You excuse yourself, pay for the transgressions

then scurry out into the rain.

While in the grocery store, you spot a friend’s car.

You debate, knowing your fragile state,

whether to seek her out.

But there she is, with her mother,

lingering in the peanut butter aisle.

You greet each other and hug.

You discuss Love Cake

and its simplicity.

You turn away to find the hard stuff,

Romano cheese,

as close to religion as you come on this day.

Suddenly disoriented,

you cannot locate the cheese,

you forget to pick out leafy greens,

coveted because you cannot stand

a bland dinner table.

With one open hand still remaining,

you reach into the cooler,

a breeze penetrating your hot skin,

and swipe off the shelf

a six-pack of bottled beer.

Helianthus

Early

summer,

beneath the iron trellis

a weed breaks through mulch,

my children chide me to dig it up.

One day, with pruner

toning down tomato plants,

I am tempted to snip at the weed.

Weeks go by, I am less at home,

stopping in for laundry

then leaving for the road.

Late July heat sears souls and skin,

encourages growth.

By some miracle,

where weed once stood,

a bloom unfolds,

a green sea anemone

readying for tides.

A golden sunflower

opens mid-week.

I am ecstatic,

my children retreat.

Five, ten, then twenty blossoms

perform sun salutations.

Just below,

another shoot presents more blooms.

Can it be if we are patient,

every weed will turn

into an object of wonder,

if only we forget its name?

The Summer I Grew Up

Summer has always been a season of firsts. First softball game playing second base for the “Jumpers” in my dyed-to-match-the-uniform Converse hi-tops. First time swimming in the deep end at Maude Neiding Pool. First summer job not related to the family business, working the late-night drive-through at McDonald’s. First real move after college to Cincinnati to work for a chauvinistic boss at Star Bank.

Always summer had been a pivotal season, catapulting me into a new realm where I understood, in an instant that my life had changed, as I rubbed out the dirt on the leather face of the softball, drove to my first outdoor summer concert in my dad’s Suburban or drank my first beer at a graduation party for someone three years older.

This summer has been no different.

The season opened late May with the graduation of our first daughter from Loyola of Chicago. I cheered and roared, while the Irish side of the family sat more reservedly.

To send one out into the world, gives one a sense of accomplishment and relief. You hold your breath as they pass through the portals of high school and college, and exhale a teensy bit when they saunter across the stage at graduation. You buy them a satchel for their first job, and relish in the comment, “I don’t need a gift, you gave me a college education.”

Following that occasion, Mark and I signed a design contract for a home in Over-the-Rhine, the neighborhood once famous for its riots ten years prior. But young people are flocking there, and though not young, we want to experience the rise of a once great town returning slowly to prominence as The Queen City. It will be many months before we move, but the architectural line has been drawn. We have made a statement to our children to carry on with their lives while we do so with ours.

At the start of summer, we shipped another daughter off to Tanzania, where she tracked rhinos, jumped over waterfalls and drank African beer. She created a blog to keep us abreast of her activities, and kept me in tears as I read her words, day after day, witnessing her growth and the cultivation of her writing voice.

The third daughter, whom we have hardly seen, has one foot out the door pointed in the direction of college next year, and the boy, we have shuttled back and forth while he experienced his first taste of summer jobs, as caddy and part-time baby-sitter.

During the span of July, we celebrated two fiftieth wedding anniversaries, one for Mark’s parents, one for mine. Alas, there will be one more this upcoming fall to remind us of our place.

Early summer, I had also begun the arduous process of locating the right care facility for my parents, as they age through Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. We continued our tour through the months, traipsing through some communities resembling museums, and others that felt one step away from the graveyard. As Mom and Dad relinquish their rights as parents, so am I letting go of being their child, so that I can make the decision that best suits their needs.

Early August, my husband and I celebrated our five-year anniversary. We no longer look at each other as two parents the Fates cast upon the sea together to traverse through the turbulent teenage years. I look at my husband now and see my partner, my equal.

As for my physical makeup, I have more flab behind me, and as a matter of fact, plan to create a Facebook page for “My Backside”, so my husband can still “like” it. Early to give birth to my son and to every party ever attended, I am now in early menopause, with no particular end in sight. And despite my best efforts, my triceps flap just a little so I pretend they are eagle’s wings.

In a sense, these sweltering months have still comprised a season of many firsts, the foremost being the first time I actually felt like an adult, and not just acted like one.

A little Bruce to end this piece:

Well, my feet they finally took root in the earth, but I got me a nice little place in the stars

And I swear I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car

I hid in the mother breast of the crowd, but when they said, "Pull down," I pulled up

Ooh... growin' up

Ooh... growin' up

Returning to a Life of Pigtails

Returning to a Life of Pigtails

8/12/2011

I sit across from my mother at lunch, Dad at her side. We are eating at Bucks, a rather rowdy establishment on weekends and during sporting events, but today, early afternoon, the only patrons are a few barflies and a table of elderly women, playing rummy.

My parents have been visiting for a few days, and our next destination is the Lodge Care Center, a long-term care facility located near my home. Dad knows this, but Mom's dementia blocks her understanding that a commitment would mean a move.

They are eating BLTs, which my dad still swears, “The best BLT in Cincinnati was down at that place at Findlay Market.” I nod, and say, “Paula’s,” then tell him she moved her café, but the restaurant perpetually wins Best BLT in the City award.

During lunch, we joke about their visits to Cincinnati over the years, when my sister Laura and I would tell them, “Oh, its right down the street,” and we would be driving to the west side from the east side just for dinner, which few Cincinnatians EVER consider. But we grew up in a family of drivers. My parents drove for miles to the Melon Festival. They thought nothing of caravanning us to the other side of Cleveland, if it meant the Feast of the Assumption in Little Italy, and homemade cannoli.

In the midst of our laughter, my mother stops. Her facial expression grows serious, “Oh Annette, you’re the best,” she says. But then she raises her finger and begins pointing at me, “But something you should have changed a long time ago was your hair, I don’t like those strings coming out of it.” She begins pointing, “You have one, two, three, four, why can’t you do something about them?”

Tears begin to leak out, not because my mother has just knocked my haircut for which people have stopped me on the street to rave about, but tears of happiness flow because that is the essence of my mother. She cut her words as sharp as her Christmas cookies.

During this same stay, she had told Mark, “Hey you’ve got a pot there,” and pointed to his stomach. She told Laura, “Hey you need a little sun on your legs.”

I am grateful for these snippets of my mother that reveal her true nature, and I revel in the fact that, despite the disease altering her mind, it has not altered her character.

In this state, Mom has a tendency to continue along the same lines of an idea for hours at a time, unless we introduce a new subject matter. For a while, driving to our new destination relieves her from the need to pummel me on the topic of hair.

We tour the care center, Mom walking endlessly, complaining often, and walking more as we tell her, “Just one more room to view.”

We return to my home, and are seated in the family room, with Enzo licking at Dad’s hands. Dad and I are attempting to have a grown up discussion about the pros and cons of the care community accommodations, when Mom interrupts the conversation.

“Hey Annette,” she says. I am grateful that today, she knows who I am, even if I look like the other sisters of mine floating around the house. She starts pointing her finger again, and I dread where this is going.

“You know, when I first met you…” she begins. I cringe, because we met in the womb, when I had no hair. Mom continues on, “I thought to myself, she is cute and all, but she needs to change her hair.” “Can’t you pull it back or something and get rid of those things sticking out of your head?” She jumps up with the energy of a five-year old and ambles over to where I am sitting.

“This is gonna hurt,” she warns me, “but you know, get rid of these things.” And with that, she yanks at the wisps that frame my face.

My father cannot believe what is happening. I too am wide-eyed, and laughing hysterically, when I should be in tears. Mom is pulling my hair as hard as when she made my pigtails in first grade.

In this moment of present joy, my laughter is derived from the sense that, Mom pulling on my hair is better than Mom not caring at all.

Chairs

Anniversary

Music Hall will rise each evening,

deserving of its view

from our third floor perch.

Chairs once folded up and in

will now expand,

and beg us to stay.

We will sit side by side

but will not

share the same view,

nor would we want to.

For you will see, rising high,

the pinnacle of the front gable.

The intricate rose window

will remind you

of a church you once knew,

and the faith of your foundation.

I will see light, sunshine

reflecting in the window

bouncing back over

centuries of people

who built Washington Park.

I will see city, all dirt and gleam.

The Pecorino will sting the tongue,

the asparagus will snap in half.

Both will rest dreamily between us,

as if food is the only thing

on which we could ever disagree.

The View from My Backyard

A View from the Backyard

7/26/2011

(pictured Austin, Davis, Reed, Cole, Blake, 2002)

It is not often one sits down to eat a meal amongst heroes, but yesterday was my blessed day.

A young man was seated next to me, lamenting the music choice of the DJ at an event we were attending, while chewing relentlessly on Montgomery Inn ribs. When asked about family vacations, he chattered endlessly that he didn’t have time for vacations, he’s got “stuff” going on… lifting for football season, then he shows me the picture of a young woman he had invited to attend the event with him. She had declined due to volleyball practice. He bemoaned another young woman whom he had accompanied to homecoming, said she wanted to get to know him better and then broke up with him shortly thereafter. Our table had quite the laugh. “Women,” I exclaimed, and my husband chimed in agreement.

The young man rose from the table and wandered about, talking to various guests. I was also privileged to sit at the table with this young man’s older brother. He talked about his summer spent away from his family, playing baseball up and down the East Coast at colleges such as UVA and UNC. He told me in the next breath that he would also be visiting Ohio State and Miami soon. Both coaches had made contact with him regarding their baseball teams. We laughed, “Thank goodness its not football!” (Sorry OSU fans!). When asked if he was considering East Coast schools at all, he mentioned the usual equation: out of state costs – minus scholarships = decision point. Having sent two off to college already, we understood the math of finding a college closer to home. He casually mentioned wanting to make is easier on his mom and dad. While his point may have been financially-driven, it was emotionally-packed too.

The first young hero was my backyard neighbor Cole. Struck by a batted ball two years ago, he suffered a traumatic brain injury, and on the road to recovery was met with many new challenges, including dystonia. His parents have traveled the country to find treatments (deep brain stimulation) that will allow Cole to regain more control over his motor movements. I love this boy, and had written about him before, how he held my son’s hand so many years ago and led him through the darkened wooded path that separated our two homes so Davis could be surrounded by this wonderful family of boys.

And while Cole was a first friend of Davis’, his brother Reed, the other hero, became the older brother Davis never had. Through teasing, baseball, food and general conversation, he modeled for Davis the actions - and antics - of an older brother.

As I sat through dinner, a fundraiser for children with TBI, I reflected on Reed, how he had matured since the backyard baseball days. And how much he had to grow up, when his younger brother was severely injured. And to speak of lifting the load of his parents was cause for me to hide my joy and tears. Not many teenagers could swallow the notion of making sacrifices for a younger sibling. While I assume he still beats up on Cole, compassion and determination have become his constant companions along the path these past two years.

The reality is that this has not been Cole’s journey alone. It has been a family trek. No one in that family has not been impacted by the turn of events on a warm May afternoon.

Before the fundraiser, I had been visiting with a sick friend in the hospital. Knowing she had been confined to a room at UC for over six weeks, I ruminated on my own marathon hospital visits, and certainly those of Cole and his family.

I was reading aloud to her a book of haiku, poems written mainly by Japanese poets, but also by the beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerourac. Poetry for me had always been a sort of prayer, but also an opportunity to capture a moment, like a Polaroid camera once did.

Jack wrote,

“The taste of rain –

why kneel?”

The author who had compiled these haiku also added her insights into the meaning and relevance of each. As she explained this particular one, she cited a Japanese phrase that translated to, “the poignancy of the transient moment.”

We cannot attach ourselves to the joy and pain of every living thing. But last night sitting at dinner, listening to talk about baseball and country music, I at once felt buoyed by my relationship with both these heroes.

It is a moment that I will remember, and remember the tenderness of it all.