Defending Against the Pendulum - A Reflection on My Stand

As a writer, I simply cannot just “change my profile” or hit the “like button” on a red box to tell of my journey of acceptance of gays.  I needed to write it down, so I finally knew what I thought.

As a young girl, growing up in a small town, whose population was predominantly white and Catholic, I had little exposure to anyone considered a minority.  There was Jon, an African-American, who worked at my dad’s shoe store. Inherently funny, and creative, I never saw him as black, only a person in my father’s employ.

There were the Puerto Ricans, yes, they were from Puerto Rico, which Lorain County at the time had the highest population of Puerto Ricans per capita, other than New York City.  They were customers at one if my father’s store, which had been located in South Lorain, known for its crime, yet my father and uncle still chose to situate a store there to serve that population.  When working in that store, I learned a new language, and watched many customers pay using food stamps.  I often wondered about my father’s choice in location, but he never shied away from assigning us duties there.  I can’t say I accepted or denied the existence of Puerto Ricans as minorities. After all, they were bascially the entire customer base.  But I did treat them like anyone else shoe shopping, and, they had the BEST taste in shoes.

In high school, I recall one young woman who we always suspected of being a lesbian, and as young people, we all threw around the terms of gay, lesbian and homosexual, as if we knew what we were talking about. We were so naïve.

As I went off to college, my field hardly allowed for exposure to gays.  The math and sciences were dominated by young white, Asian, Indian or other foreign-born males. The gays were majoring in other fields, more artistic endeavors, at least that was the perception in the 80’s.  However, I did feel myself the minority within these male circles, and fought to overcome my insecurities every day.  I could never discern if Lebanon-born Maher was approaching me for a date, or to converse in COBOL but we persevered regardless, and I was blessed to attend his citizenship ceremony two years later.

Later began a series of jobs, undertakings which took me inside the corporate world, but never inside the world of where the gays lived. It was only known to me that in Cincinnati, Northside supported a strong population of gays.

Then, I met Phebe.

I had been active in a writing center, Women Writing for a Change, for several years, having had outstanding support during the publishing of my book and other endeavors.  I was leading a group of women who were creating a new podcast show for WWFC, and someone mentioned asking Phebe.

I had heard Phebe’s name in other circles at WWFC, but we had never met.  All I knew of Phebe was that she had gone through the WWFC leadership training and she was a lesbian.  One day, my husband and I were in, of all places, Northside, and bumped into Phebe at a lunch spot.  We had just been in contact with her to join our group, so she and I both considered the run-in fortuitous.

I could not know in that instant that Phebe was a rock star in the Gay-Lesbian world in Cincinnati, having been the archivist of the GL archives, that she had promoted diversity before I had been born, that she was a poetess extraordinaire, who, as I discovered when I read her poetry, saw the world in the same way I did, or better yet, captured it in word in the same manner as myself.

As I began to know Phebe better, I watched her, as she struggled to find a meaningful relationship. She was approaching or maybe had hit sixty, and this seemed to elude her in life. Perhaps it was because, for Phebe, the act of loving a person wholly and committing to them for one’s entire life had been considered a sin, an act of treason against the sanctity of marriage.  I always wonder if that had held some back.

One afternoon, she arrived for a meeting, literally floating on air.  She had met Judy.  I swear Phebe stayed afloat the entire length of the meeting, and probably drifted back home, unable to recall the events of the meeting, or the commitments she had made.

We, my circle members and myself, watched in awe as this sixty something became a teen, anxious for phone calls from Judy, coffee with Judy. The relationship progressed and the excitement heightened as Judy moved in.

I have been fortunate to meet Judy, hosting her in a writing circle, and embracing her during events at WWFC.  I feel like I know her, in the same way Phebe would embrace my husband Mark and my kids.

In my darkest times, Phebe not only brought me joy, and modeled happiness and reckless abandon and love, but she taught me a lot about self-care, as she instituted it for herself. Her emails to me, when I had to back out of commitments due to parent duties or shoulder rehab were full of reminders to care for the self first. “Go slowly and let everyone else wait,” were words that echoed inside my head each day.

Phebe is at once friend, writing sister, and mother. To many writers, she is a mid-wife of their words.  When it was time for me to return to a writing circle, I chose one Phebe was leading. I was in need of a mid-wife and mother.

I often thought it was a shame she didn’t have children, even though she owned a few dogs.  If she had had children, or for any child with gay parents, I would hope they would not similarly be knocked over by the pendulum that has been swinging back and forth on the issue of gay marriage. 

Perhaps I am a bit like Rob Portman, impacted only when coming face to face with these issues.  I always said though, if people knew Phebe, they would never take a stand against gays or lesbians again.  I also believe gays and lesbians are some of the truest people I know. They have done the soul work. Their commitments run deeper because they have had to dig deeper to make them.

So, I will stand tall in defense of Phebe and her choice to love and marry, despite the great struggles it brings, despite what the courts decide.  The pendulum has swung.  I hope we don’t knock everyone over once more.

A Different Kind of Passegiatta

I sit with my mother on white wicker chairs in her care home.  Like the swallows revisiting Capistrano, Mom always returns to the white wicker, her movement based on time of day, and season. She is seeking warmth from the sun. And though warm today, as we have just walked outside around “her block”, there is no sun. However, light bounces off white and gives the illusion of heat.

“Lots of traffic today,” I say aloud to Mom, watching the residents move along the corridors.

Mom nods her head, as she scrutinizes each resident who passes us.  P. is always walking. Thin, with sturdy shoes, P. also owned a little dog, but I’m not sure what happened to him.  She is on her third lap, when she bumps into the marketing staff person, accompanying a new resident and family.

Sons and staff are convincing this woman she is in her new home. As the woman enters the hallway, her son magically appears to coax his mother towards her room.

These are the games we play.  As family, we don’t always play nice, like our mothers chided, but we play with the best intentions.

P., when encountering all the fuss, looks up and says, “Great, just what we need. Another person living here.”

I nod with a smirk. There are sixty rooms here, about 50 full most of the time.

Just what they need, she means, is another person she has to adjust to, become familiar with seeing, but not remembering.

While this interaction with P. has been taking place, J., one of the few males, is now doing laps. Mother shys away from J., often shooing him away.  His blank stares scare her, but other than that, he is harmless, and when I look into his eyes, I see fright in them too.

When J. circles back around, he is now locked arm in arm with R.  R. often stops, when I am cranking the Frank Sinatra, as if he too is transported back to a time when life made sense, or at least Frank Sinatra did. I often wonder if he wants to ask Mom to dance, but Mom would chase him away too.

As the strains of New York, New York, kick up in volume, another woman, S. has stopped to ask where Room 43 is, and as much as I have spent time here, have to answer, “I don’t know.”

Its beginning to feel like a parade, as five minutes later, S. has stopped by our sitting area again.  Lost, again.  She too is tuned in to the music, “I get a kick out of you….”

She overhears Mom, who utters a well-worn line whenever she hears Frank.  She will interrupt whatever is happening, and point to the sound, or grab my arm to force me to halt, and say, “Now wait minute…..what’s that sound?”

Mom doesn’t actually mean, “what”, she knows the “what”. It is the sound of her youth, before her disease, before her kids, before Dad.

But she can’t always put her finger on the “who”, in that she can’t name him. Almost as if the naming is sacred, but really the name just escapes her mental grasp.

“Mom, its Frank,” I say.

“Oh, yes, that’s right.”

“Old Blue Eyes?”  I ask a knowing question.

Then she gives me a stern look, as if I am speaking down to her, “Of course, its Old Blue Eyes, did you think I didn’t know that?”

S. is standing over us, still confused, looking for Room 43. But it’s clear that she has made a connection to the voice.

“Did you like Frank Sinatra, when you were younger?” I pose to her.

“Oh yes,” she responded.

“Did you ever see him in person?”

“Oh, once or twice, in Chicago and Indianapolis.”

She could have been making this up, but she answered so emphatically. “He was a big part of my life when I was young, but I don’t remember anything anymore.”

“My mouth never shuts up, but my mind doesn’t do anything.” S. sighed, and walked away.  She really hadn’t given herself enough credit.  That was more than I will probably recall.

The parade continues this day, reminding me of the Italian social tradition of passegiatta, where folks would come out in the evenings, following dinner, and promenade around the piazza.  Mothers looking for activities for their youngsters, older gentlemen deeply engaged in the day’s or world’s events, young men looking to impress the young girls, and young girls pretending not to care.  There is an art to this act of strolling, depending on who you are.

Mom instantly rises because she hears a noise, and walks around the first corner, then the next, and spies her singular moment of recognition in the past hour, a poster that contains the Ten Commandments of Health Care, as practiced by the center. She is drawn to the swath of blue ink at the bottom of poster, and always is fascinated by its odd shape, a hill irregularly sloping downward.

“What is this?” she asks, tracing the line with her finger.

I shrug. She shrugs. 

“C’mon Mom, let’s walk,” and I nudge her away from the only thing in this hallway anchoring her to the present.

We rejoin the lappers, making their rounds, adding their voice to whatever conversation makes sense to them. Here, the passegiatta, though it happens a bit earlier in the day, is its own art, demonstrating to others, I am still here, convincing the self, I am still me.

For another take on Passegiatta, visit this blog post.  Passegiatta in Washington Park

 3/18/2013

Nice and Easy Does It

“Oh there you are Netti!” Mom exclaimed as she opened one eye.  She was seated on a floral chaise, one arm resting on a footstool turned armrest placed nearby.  That had become her favorite piece of furniture as of late, but never used the stool to prop up her feet.

Her use of “Netti” threw me off, reminded me of those years when I would call from Oregon or Cincinnati, and she would answer the phone, “Oh Netti, I knew it was you.” She sat straight up and immediately her eyes were drawn to my feet, in particular, my blue running shoes.  They were a neon blue – think North Carolina with a little Oregon swag to them.

“Hey, what are you doing with those blue shoes?” She questioned me.  I shrugged.  “They’re my running shoes Mom, I was a runner, ran track, jumping over hurdles, remember all those times I fell…”  A part of her connected to that time, as a smile crossed her face in the same instant as the sun shone through the window.

“All those times I fell.”  We chuckled together on that one.

“C'mon lets get up and go walk around,” I told her.  She sighed, her trademark for quit telling me what to do, but I will probably listen to you anyhow.

We wandered from her hallway out into the main gathering space.  Jerry and Richard were actively engaging in a conversation that went like this - Jerry: "Well, if you at run this, does not you tell look back," and Richard mumbling over Jerry, "Most people know how to work airplanes, they make them ride...” But truly, the men appeared to be battling it out in Congress over the budget.

Mom continued to point out one of the caregivers Q., who had rolled her hair into a bun.  Mom exclaimed, “Well look at that, she thinks she is all high and mighty, with her thing up like that.” It took some doing, but I convinced Mom all the young girls were wearing buns, and reminded her it was once her style too, perhaps not that I witnessed, but a style in her day for sure.

These moments I had catalogued before, but I called them B.D. moments, before Dad’s death. The occurrences were not only regular, but entertaining, as well as challenging, because Mom was thinking, and was stating aloud what it was she was thinking. She too was engaged.  But the circumstances of her life dictated she would fall into a state of grief that was difficult to understand and explain to someone who had Alzheimer's, and even more onerous to explain to one who regularly pushed her own emotions below the surface for the sake of others.

And so she progressed through his death, her moves, the addition and removal of medications, the holidays.  The rate of suicides and deaths among those who experienced grief always rose post holiday season.  I held my breath.

We celebrated her birthday in January at a restaurant where she mistook the waiter, dressed head to toe in black, for a priest, then laughed when Mark suggested, the waiter was there to serve us bread and wine.

Mom came to my house to celebrate Mardi Gras, sans all the kids but one, with our tradition of gumbo, muffuletta and king cake.  Mom even picked the cake piece with the baby in it, and we will hold her to buying the cake for next year. 

She followed along in conversations with my in-laws, and they remarked, how much mom was involved, interested in the flow.

Grief comes in waves for all of us, including those with Alzheimer's.  Mom could still be stuck in an angry place, but her surroundings have offered her a change of pace, constant social contact and a weekly hair appointment, seriously, her hair was always important. And as such, constant attention to her needs and responding to her want of hugs have also helped.

These are small moments between the long hours when loving someone with Alzheimer's. I am not there to care for her, but even the hour or two I spend when visiting her or she with me, brings a heightened awareness that her awareness could all be gone again, so easily, and not even with her death, but with her disease.

On our walk, we came across a chaplain who visited every other week, to meet with residents, and hold a service of sorts in the afternoon, following lunch when the residents were more alert.

“I love your having your Mom with us.” 

I didn't know who he was, or why he had spent time with Mom.

“I'm a chaplain,” he explained, telling me about his service and how Mom loves to sing church songs.  “Oh yes,” I responded.  “And Frank Sinatra.”

He turned to Mom,  “So you love Frank?”

She grinned ear to ear.  “She worships at the altar of the Good Lord and Ole Blue Eyes,”  I noted, then left him to finish his meeting and gently tugged Mom away.

We sat ourselves outside of Boathouse Cove where Mom loved the white wicker furniture in that courtyard, either reminding her of the glamour of Cape Cod, or the cleanliness with which the bright furniture shone.

We positioned ourselves opposite of each other. I had let her hold my music player, listening to Sinatra. She sang along, “Nice and Easy does it…” She forgot to repeat the phrase several times and immediately added, “every time.”

She rose to dance with me then sat down sighing, tired again.  I put the earbuds in her ear, so she could listen more clearly to the music.

“Mom which song is it?” I asked.

She answered, “Come fly with me..,.” then added, “with your blue shoes on....”  She threw her head back to laugh and laugh and laugh.  So hard she could have slid off the plastic cushion on the chair.

“Mom, you are making no sense.”

Pleased even more so, she answered, “Oh, I know.”

And I believed her.

She rose up to wander towards the health office, where the nurses met, and poked her head in, “Umm. Hi, what's going on here?”  In the same tone she used to check in on kids when we were younger.

This scene was repeated often in the short time I was there.  She was curious, she was amused, she had a life outside of anything I knew of, including the singing service, and teasing the girls who were wearing buns in their hair.

When I was younger, I recall my parents muddling through marital, financial and parental struggles. When I didn't want my parents to consume their energies on my doings, I would just tell my mom, “Don't worry about it.”

In some ways, I removed from her the ability to be my mother, for me to be her daughter. Even these past many months, I had felt the parental one, overseeing her care.

But for the first time in two or three years, I wasn’t worried about “it”.  I felt refreshed to simply be her daughter, to be Netti, and bask in the beauty that was my mom.