With or Without Caffeine

I am almost tiptoeing down Mom’s hallway this morning, the silence overwhelming.  Is everyone napping?  In their rooms?  In activities, though the room looked empty upon first inspection.

I come upon Mom, seated in her regular vinyl chair, in the far corner of the TV room.  Six other women are present in the room, some snoozing, others watching The Andy Griffiths show, one whistling along.

“There she is,” my mother greets me. This is her standard phrase when she first notices me coming towards her.

“Well, hi Mom, how are you?”

She repeats after me a lot.  “How are you?” then quickly segues to her, “well its right there.”  She points to the vacant magazine rack, no running commentary, she simply wants me to know it exists, and that she has questions about why it sits empty.

We nuzzle for hugs, and she tugs at my fleece.  “Hey, I like that.”  I tell her she has the exact same fleece, only in pink, and she questions me, “Where?”

“In your room?”

“Where is that?”

Her room is right around the corner from where we are located, but I let this drop.

She is giggling now, at the sight of me. Her eyes, which I expect to be sleepy, are wide open, I can almost see inside her mind. If only.

“Hey, let me see that,” she reaches over to take hold of my short coffee cup, filled with a vanilla latte.  Normally, I would have ordered decaf at this point in the morning, but I was feeling risky and went with a regular.

She sips on the coffee, licks her lips, while we discuss the rain. “Look at you, you have water on you.”

“Its pouring, outside.” I emphasize pouring, for the remaining audience.  Many heads shake.  “Oh no,” one whispers while D., who is typically nonresponsive, perks up and mumbles in our direction. What I don’t know, but I am surprised by the mere fact she is attempting to speak.

Dominiki strolls by. She loves Mom.  She sits with us for a few moments, while Mom keeps asking, “Hey, what’s this,” referring to Dominiki’s tattoo on her arm.

Suddenly, Mom is giggling.  Then, out and out laughing.

“Mom, you have the giggles today.”

“Oh, I do?  Well, I guess I do.”  She bursts out in laughter some more.

On a dismal morning such as today, I would have expected her to be fast asleep, a little Sinatra or Glenn Miller turned up in her room.

Instead, she is moving constantly, like a character in an arcade game. I cannot keep track of her.  She proceeds to sit in the chair in the kitchen, the only chair.  I call it the Chairman of the Board chair. She can oversee the food preparation, the medication dispensation, the parade of residents marching up and down the hall to meals or activities, the entrance to the Tub and Shower Rooms, and the dining area.

She lords over the kitchen as a famed chef might, but from a seated position.

I hop on over to follow her, asking her to get up, because there is nowhere for me to sit.

“Do you want to walk?”

“No,” she responds plainly. The nurse, caregiver and other residents laugh.  I laugh.  Mom out and out falls out of her seat she is laughing so mightily.

When she is finished with the giggles, she does however stand up.  I guide her down the hallway, as she reads out the names on the doorways.  “E. Swiss helm,” she stumbles, attempting to pronounce the last name.  “Now what is that?”

First, I try to articulate the name. “Its Swisshelm, like you know the head of the Swiss.”

She looks at me like I am that one who has lost her mind.

“What is that?”  and she yanks on my arm until I can properly explain the last name.

One more shot at humor. “Its an elm. Like a tree.  Only its Swiss.”  This explanation she believes and then starts to laugh, this time holding her stomach.

She still hasn’t stopped chuckling, as we stroll down the hall, and towards Coffee Hour.  She enters the room, and makes her entrance grand, by reading whatever is written in the board, “Participating in Meaningful Programming Moments at Arden Courts.”  I have heard this before, about a thousand times.  I am going to suggest an LED sign in its place, so the wording can be modified daily. I am always making suggestions for improvement, given the time I spend with Mom at Arden, and the lack of diversions while there.

The table of residents stop to listen to Mom read, then immediately continues with their parallel conversations, unimpressed.

Mom reaches for my arm again, “C’mon, let’s go down here.”

We make our way to the far end of the room, where she can observe the Black-eyed Susan garden that has yet to sprout.  I pray they planted other flowers in there too this season, just to mix up my view, not necessarily hers.

She turns from the rain riddled window.  The male residents in the room, all four of them, are positioned at this end.  She motions towards E., a decidedly younger male with round eye glasses and curly hair. “Hey, look at that one.”

“That one, Mom, what are you talking about?”

She has never spoken of an interest in any men, other than B.’s grandson who often appears in suit and tie, carrying a bag of Burger King French fries. And he she notices, mainly because she wants some of his fries.

“You know, that one.”

Not only is Mom showing interest in a male, but she is continuing with a line of thought, despite distractions all around.

“Yeah?”

Mom nudges me with her elbow, and raises her almost nonexistent eyebrows, “Yeah.”

We chuckle together, and a roomful of eyes cast their sights upon us, hurt to be left out of a joke they wouldn’t understand.

I situate Mom in chair near that end then tell her I have to leave. She no longer laughs, curses at me instead.  I walk out with my head held high, despite the reprimand just received.

Amazing moments still transpire in Mom’s life, with or without caffeine. Amidst the backdrop of an ordinary routine, I sometimes miss these singular moments.  But they are there, however fleeting. 

3/19/2014

White Space

I liked it better

when the “feel better” bags

on airlines

were made from paper

and not plastic

as I root for an object

to become the target of my pen.

Me, writer, no paper.

Often I resort to this,

backside of the drycleaning slip,

margins of the trailing grocery store receipt.

But I am trying to capture

a fleeting thought

one that will not wait

and so

the Tag Heuer wristwatch ad wins.

Only such an expense

could afford white open expanse

to promote a black onyx face

and leather strap.

But here is what I want to say

as I sit in proximity

to an Asian woman.

I can see into her ears.

Yes, she is that close.

Yes, she cleaned them this morn.

The side of her face is dotted with

age spots I am trying to rid of myself.

Earlier she was reading

symbols that ran up and down

on a page. I am trying to see

if the corners of her eyes

slant up or down.

I am looking over her arms

when she retrieves her boarding pass

to read her name

but she is sly this way.

I do not see a name.

If I did, I cannot recall.

Is it, a short name is Chinese,

long is from Japan?

I don’t know why

I am desperate to know.

She too is writing - in a journal.

She is more organized. I am Italian,

I go in fits and starts. But I ask,

reflecting on her race,

if as the Atheist claims,

we did not all come from one race

then how is it,

she closes her eyes

bundles beneath a blanket.

I close mine, cuddled in my scarf,

and we both fall sweetly in slumber.

How could be not alike?

Inspired by the woman sitting next to me, and the Creationism vs Bill Nye debate

2/6/2014

Upon Contemplation of 48

The nickel moon is half in half out this morning. Half in this world, half in the other. An appropriate moon for the day I turn 48.  The bitter cold smacks me in the face as I let the dog out. He roams and barks at the wind. I too am barking at its grip on this part of the earth. But I am a January girl.  Rumor has it, and the almanac confirms, that on my birthday, a record amount of snow fell for that season.  It is still listed in the top 50 since 1950.  I cannot claim anything having to do with that statistic, other than it was the day I arrived.

I take note this morning, in the shower, of my body. Wash my hair, now longer, with care, and not the harsh scrub my mother used, over the stationary tub, when I was little, Johnson’s No More Tears streaming down my face. Oh, I hated water, hated baths, hated having my hair washed.  Did I mention I am a January girl, an Aquarius no less?

I brush, tweeze and floss the crevices of my body. I am learning to move slow.  No. Not slow down. But move slow. To my own rhythms.  It is a lesson long in coming, in my history as a runner, running into my mother’s arms, she asking why I am running so fast. What was I running away from? What was I running towards?  Running, as I fell over hurdles, at a track meet in seventh grade, the asphalt I can still detect, as the suds roll over my bumps this morning, embedded in my knee as a footnote to my glory days, and a reminder there will always be something in my path that I will trip on. But I will rise and finish.

As I reach down into my cabinets below, I am stopped mid-air.  It was only yesterday morning that I awoke inbetween, a place where women don’t often find themselves, but perhaps once or twice in their life.  Puzzlement over the stage of life their body is in.  No longer twenty, yes.  Not yet 50, yes.  But the middle. Where, when a period over two weeks late is evaluated, perseverated upon, sweat over, and the sweat is evaluated, perseverated upon, and sweat over.  Am I? Or am I not?  Am I pregnant, or is this really mid-life.

And in those twenty-four hours, I am like a new student on the target range, aiming all over the place. I can shoot effectively. I just don’t know where I want my arrows to land. Blame on the doctors who performed my husband’s vasectomy many years ago.  Frustration at my own body’s silence.  Anger at my first husband, Devin, for leaving me with only biological child.  Sadness that Mark and I did not create together. We opted for a dog, and the wisdom that came from - when in doubt, go with the dog.  Uncertainty, that on the eve of Roe v. Wade, what would be my stance should I be pregnant.  More confusion, at my age, delivering a child, no matter its health. Blessedness of the three young women and one young man who make up the posse I call “my kids.”  Relief that I would no longer have “count days” or endure the extra three cycles my body “gifts” me each year.  Gratitude I would not endure more post-period anemic, depressive episodes.  Wondering what room, “in the new house” would be sufficient for a nursery, deciding it would be my office, more fury that would signal the end of my writing career for a spell.

In the inbetween, the time in which I open my eyes to the reality of the day and the time in which I put feet to the floor, grounded in what lies ahead, these thoughts bounce around like ping pongs in the lottery machine, wondering which number will be pulled.  Will I win the lottery?  Define “win.” Define “lottery.”

But as I approached the bathroom, a warmth trickles through the insides of my belly, a belly taut only days earlier, when I practiced yoga, skied down a few black diamonds, ran on the treadmill, a belly which now shook with each step I took.  Minutes later, confirmation that I had not yet achieved middle age, nor would I conceive.  It would have been miraculous, either way.  For some odd reason, I entertain mixed emotions over both outcomes.

I stand inbetween, at the crossroads of motherhood and empty nest.  Between pages written in the past, and the white, empty pages of my horizon.  Half-cocked writer, full-blown author. Love for family. Want for “self.” 

I look back into the mirror, the pregnancy test now out of mind.  I caress my arms and legs with lotion to soothe my current aches. I run over scars still healing from surgery of the shoulder.  Hips that don’t lie from only one birth, as another scar across the pubic bone reveals the other half of that birth.  A tailbone once cracked from a bumpy bike ride on campus.  The knee, again.  The one age spot on my face I am trying to rectify.  The hands that will never be my mother’s.  The feet, oh my sturdy feet, they are my father’s.

I turn to attend to my hair.  The dog scampers in. He thinks it beauty parlor day, but I tell him I will go first this time. The hair that has grown longer, has also revealed the cowlicks of my younger days.  The pain of trying to achieve the Dorothy Hamill look. To be more like those whose hair I coveted – the Robin Eichenlaubs, Julie Pines, or Julie Drugas of this world.  I cannot train my hair to go where it was not meant to go.  My body neither.

So, I sit in this inbetween. As I writer, I am unabashedly in favor of these words becoming a noun, no longer a preposition or a phrase that governs another noun.  I want it instead to govern my life. I want to live in that gray area, because the adage, “When I grow old, I will wear purple,” never applied to me. I have been wearing purple since I was sixteen. 

I see inbetween as the world created when I am spinning around, and the whirl which is visible is that inbetween and if I step in that path, follow the energy, I can stay in this world inbetween.

1/22/14

One Word New Year's Eve

One Word New Year’s Eve

2013

We spent our post-Christmas days in the purportedly, but not always, sunny Miami Beach.  Three of our four children were with us. The fourth, Cheryl, had departed the same day we did, for a 13 hour drive to NOLA, with her fiancé. Their wedding fast approaching, I’m certain they had their own resolutions to contend with, as the new year set in.

The night before we all abandoned the dog to spend with his “girlfriends” down the street, the rush of Christmas had caught up to me. Our children had been spending time together shopping, eating, watching movies, playing XBox. And somehow we were left out. 

Not in a sad way. But in a realization that their relationships with each other were now equally as important as their relationships with us. And the boy, Davis, without having flown the nest, found comfort in someone else being the object of attention, though we might argue “affection.”

Miami Beach brought about sullen weather, but didn’t dampen our spirits. We were energized by the town, the water waves roiling, the Art Deco hotels, the shoes. Oh, the dazzling, platform shoes.

While we encouraged the kids to go off on their own, we spent most of our time together, whether poolside under towels as the skies sprinkled droplets on our chairs, walking on a rainy day down Collins Avenue pockmarked with construction, or our twice in one day 16 block walk and two-hour wait for Joe’s Stone Crab. Dare I say, the key lime pie was a match for the stone crabs.

Our conversations were mostly catch ups on the day’s news, sporting events, and minor details of the children’s lives. But they also included questions such as, “Where are you finding spirituality in your life these days?”  And that’s with only one of the children of age to drink.

Another question that came up one night at dinner on New Year’s Eve was related to focus. We, like everyone else, shy away from resolutions. It is too hard to find failure in that word. Focus is a more active word that one can recover quickly.  So, we went around the table and shared areas in our life that we felt needed focus or attention. In Mark’s case, it was his attention itself that needed attention. 

I sat back and considered the depths of the questions and answers. I can’t divulge them. They were privately shared, and they will stay privately realized.

But the final question from Shannon was, “What is your one-word prayer for the year?”  This seemed to echo the previous question, but it was in essence boiling it down to where the acting it out was palatable.

Everyone but me offered his or her one word.

I don’t know why I couldn’t provide an answer. There was so much ahead of us in the year – marriages, graduations, our transition downtown, children moving around the planet like pieces on a chess board, and last, my mother’s condition.

I still had one more day to think about the word, when Shannon offered we could change our answer to three words.  Well, that just confounded me even more. I was working hard on relaxing, and encouraging the sun to come out. That seemed about enough of a prayer for me for the time.

But on the plane ride home, I was recalling our New Year’s Eve dinner. It was a fabulous meal, the pesto gnocchi, porcini pappardelle, ricotta torte.  However, the meal and I did not agree later on its proper digestive technique and I spent New Year’ Eve in the bathroom, the boom from the fireworks my family was viewing rocketing in my ears at midnight. It was memorable in a way.

But upon their return, they insisted that we would pop the champagne the next night to celebrate with me. And thus we did, albeit a shorter ceremony, on the beach, where I believe the champagne might have been chugged, to get it over with, so they could spent their last night of vacation away from parents.

The week of Christmas and the past week in Miami were now in the rearview mirror. And I, the writer, had yet to articulate the word that would encompass the upcoming year, in prayer-like fashion. It was perhaps because I am the writer that I was seeking the right word from my muse, who apparently I had left behind in Miami after the sun rejoined the shore.

In our blended family, our children now have blended memories. They will boast about the camel ride in Senegal, laugh at Uncle Kevin’s stories about the nieces and nephews they once babysat, relive the dreaded march back to Joe’s one windy day in Miami Beach and fall over at the endless water supply at Lure.

I think about how their lives would have turned out, before each other, without each other.  How they have propelled their interrupted lives, into lives worth living.  I am amazed how each of them have come through their own storms, a little banged up, a little more sure of where they are going.  And I am heartened how they are learning to rely on each other to pull them through when they are stuck.

And the only word that comes to mind is grace.