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Hardwoods and Hard Heads

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image:depositphotos

image:depositphotos

I had about decided this floor was going to be the end of me.  Or, Mother was going to be the end of me because she was so frustrated with my efforts to deal with the floor as they only seemed to make life harder for her.

It didn’t seem that big a deal in the beginning.  I thought about all the steps for weeks and decided I had worked through all the issues and had a good and a not too difficult solution.  First, pack up all the knick-knacks and books and stuff that cover every surface and stack all the boxes in my bedroom.  Second, hire some teens from the church to rip up the thirty plus year’s old, red carpeting, hack up the underlying pad and cart it all out to the street where the garbage trucks would pick it up.  And third, clean up the dust and dirt and put down a layer or two of MinWax Refresher for wood floors and, voila, pretty, shiny hardwoods!  Granted, the floors are as old as the ninety year old house, so a little stained and marked up here and there, but hardwoods, after all, and that was worth the work it might take.  Right?

I talked to Mother about the plan for several weeks before it was time to put it in place.  She would need that amount of time to get adjusted as she does not like change or surprises.  She never has.  The only times I ever heard her and Daddy fight were when he brought some traveling minister or missionary home without giving Mother weeks of notice.  Her stress level went through the roof and his frustration went right with it.  Shouldn’t we be gracious and share what we have with others?  That was Daddy’s take.  Mother’s was, I am worn out and now I have to cook extra and make sure the house is clean and that I look my best and you’re just now telling me, while your guest is sitting in the other room?

For Daddy, giving of himself and his home was never about what it looked like or how someone was dressed.  It was about sharing his love of God with someone else who loved God and who needed a meal or a place to stay.  For Mother, routine and space and time were the things she needed to be prepared to let in the world.  I saw Daddy learn what it took to have peace at home and he didn’t bring people home after that.  It didn’t stop him from going where the people were, though, as he poured out his life in loving people who needed Jesus.  And Mother joined in willingly, in the routine of Sundays and Wednesday nights and the occasional extra meeting at church.  As long as she had notice ahead of time.

image:expodirect

image:expodirect

So, a change as big as pulling up the carpet and pad in a house she and Daddy bought nearly thirty years ago, red carpet included, was big.  Not that she liked the carpeting.  She frequently tells the story of how when they were house shopping and found this one, she hated the red carpeting and all the dark mahogany colored ten inch baseboards and wide window casings and door frames and open beams across the ceiling of the living room and dining room.  But she loved the big yard and the garden and the quiet neighborhood, so she finally said yes and their years of enjoyment and hard work began; and not once in all the years of seeing the red carpet expanse across the dining and living room, did she or I ever think of how the red carpet is rolled out for royalty or celebrities.  After all, this was a simple home, not a hot spot for important people and so the red carpeting seemed strange, not exotic, and was a color to be tolerated and a grateful warmth underfoot on cold nights.

Now, all this time later, as I take Daddy’s place in maintaining this life and this house, I look around and see the things that need attention and beyond the clutter and dust and cobwebs, I see the potential beauty of a 1930’s craftsman style interior to this little Spanish style house and I think, why not uncover all that beauty?  Why not let it shine?  Isn’t that worth the effort?

Of course, any project sounds easier that it actually is, particularly when you uncover a 4’ x 5’ section of the hardwoods under the dining room carpet that have been badly stained and are covered with some thick, hard, crusty layer of what appears to be carpet glue or underlying pad that got wet and ground into the floorboards.  The area rug I purchased didn’t cover it all and all the smaller rugs I tried didn’t work in the space, so the only thing left to do was to clean and re-stain that spot; much easier said than done, of course.  After lots of thought and research to determine the best plan, stripper was poured on, scraped off, the wood scoured, bleached, then vinegar added to stop the bleaching effect, wood soap to clean it all, then new stain, then MinWax finisher.  The stain was too dark so, once again, stripper was poured on, scraped off, scoured, and mopped, then a lighter stain.  Cherry wood stain.  Who knew the original floor stain was cherry?  I don’t even know what kind of wood the hardwoods are, but the Cherry stain comes closest to matching and, God willing, we’re on our last round of MinWax and then it will be done.  Whew!  This has been going on since last November when those kids showed up and made quick work of getting rid of the carpet and pad.  That part really did turn out to be the easiest.

I struggled with getting it right and getting it done.  The vision in my mind of a fresh, cozy palate of warm golden floors and tones of teal and light blue, beige and chocolate in the new area rugs and décor of the transformed living room pulling me on.  Mother struggled with feeling out of control, her familiar, comfortable world turned upside down, her path to the bathroom, kitchen and dining room all obstructed and difficult.  She erupted, more than once, with a fevered pitch to her voice as she demanded to know why I couldn’t wait until she was dead to change everything!  Why I thought it necessary to disrupt everything!

We’ve come to a new understanding of each other.  I understand now that just because she said ok to the changes, that didn’t mean she really wanted them done or understood why I thought they needed to happen.  And, I understand now that what I was really saying was that her style of life, her decorations were ugly and dated, which really meant I was disrespecting her.  I’ve apologized for that and she agreed we had to go forward; we’ve come too far to go back.  What she’s come to understand about me, I’m not sure, other than she’s had to remind herself that she’s grateful I’m here, because it means she continues to live in her own home.

We’re in that tug of war between the middle-aged and the elderly with a sometime energy and resolve and drive on my part to transform the space that surrounds me and a sometime energy and resolve and drive on Mother’s part to just keep on living through the pain and slowness and difficulty that is old age.  It is said, iron sharpens iron, and I find that to be true with Mother and me.  She’s a tough, old bird and I’m just as tough.  I don’t know that I knew that about either of us before, but now it’s as clear as that shine on the hardwood floors.  Neither of us will give up on making it through this journey.  Thank God for that because it means we’ll survive and be the better for it at the end.  And that end will be with hardwoods, not old red carpeting.

Raining Apricots

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image:google images

image:google images

Apricots.  Falling from the tree with loud plunks as they hit the H/A unit; sometimes arriving whole and only slightly dented or bruised at the point of impact; sometimes smashed flat, the sun kissed skin split wide and the goldenish-orangey inner flesh oozing out, its juice running rivulets through the dust and leaves on the metal casing.  Those that missed the H/A unit and landed in the grass,often look deceptively perfect until turned over to reveal the flesh half eaten away by birds and  the remaining half now crawling with ants and buzzing with mites.

The wastefulness of this drives Mother crazy and because it drives her nuts, guess who also gets to go nuts?  Me, of course.  I’m ok with the birds and the bees and the squirrels and the bugs getting a few of the apricots, after all, that’s fewer that we have to deal with, right?  But, no, not Mother.  She remembers all the years when the tree provided lugs and lugs of fruit and Daddy climbed the ladder and used the nine foot fruit picker pole and that was a sight to see, believe you me.

This went on for twenty-five plus red years, Daddy got the fruit in and Mother blanched and iced and cut off the peal bandage and poured in the FruitFresh to keep the apricots from turning brown and then they were sealed in freezer burn containers and stacked in the stand-up freezer in the garage.  And when the freezer was iceberg full and Mother’s energy gone, lugs of apricots went to the church and all the people steeple happily took home a bag full.

And Daddy and Mother were grateful for the apricots and grateful for the plums, both the purple plums and the green plums, and Daddy planted Thompson seedless grapes along the east fence and Concord grapes next to the house along the east fence and Daddy plowed up a section of the yard and planted tomatoes and planted cucumbers and planted squash and daily he weeded and he watered and he fed the plants and he and Mother reaped a harvest.

image:google images

image:google images

It was always fun to come visit in the summer or early fall when there was this fruit and vegetable bounty.  I could indulge in eating and go home satisfied and somehow evaded all the work involved or if I visited during the winter, there were containers of plums or apricots from the freezer to go along with dinner.  My nieces in Northern California remember the fruit years best of all the grandchildren because in those years, Daddy and Mother made sure to pack up the fresh fruit bounty when they went traveling along that black ribbon that wound north, pulled along by an invisible tie that drew them hungrily to their grandchildren in an arrival made sweeter with bright apricot and purple plum and green and concord grape lushness.  Their fewer but longer trips following undulating mirages across the desert to New Mexico and Texas and Tennessee were trips too far for taking fruit very often so those grandchildren did not know what they had missed.

Its thirty years this summer since Daddy and Mother first moved in and began their affair with fruit.  The yard is changed now.  The small apricot and the green gage plum and the purple plum trees aged and dried up and had to come down.  The large apricot tree has some dead spots and while it is still huge, it produces fewer and fewer apricots these days.  In fact, this year, the apricots are few and small and for once, I agree with Mother that I should get out and get the fruit before the birds and the bugs and the bees and the squirrels do because this year’s crop is not very large.  Still, large enough that unless some get prepared and into the freezer, they will go bad.

And so, today, Mother got up a little earlier to attack the apricots.  She washed the plastic freezer containers and pulled out the largest stock pots and sorted apricots and said,

“You’re going to help me.”

“I am?”

This was new.  All those years of preparing fruit, she had never needed help.  Nor was I ever interested in learning the craft.  This is puzzling to her; so foreign to her experience; but she’s not trying to teach me, today she’s trying to get a job done before she fatigues out or is in too much pain to go on.  I bring in a ten pound bag of ice from the freezer and carry the stock pots brimming with water to the stove and turn on the burners.  When the water has boiled, I carry a pot back to the sink and pour it over the apricots she has washed.  She sets the timer and in just a few seconds we’re dumping out the boiling water and dumping the apricots into an ice bath, then lifting the apricots out of the water and into the empty stock pot.  And she begins to peel the apricots and place them in the freezer containers.  I go back to what I was doing on the computer and I hear her sighing and moaning and fussing about feral cats in the yard irritating the birds.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if you sat down?”

“Yes,” she sighs heavily, “but it means pulling out the cutting board and getting the stool over here and finding something for me prop up my feet and it’s just too much work.”  She stops peeling apricots and tries to stretch the kink out of her shoulders but her scoliosis keeps her crooked and there’s nothing that stretches that out.

I pull out the cutting board, balance it on the utensil drawer, get the kitchen stool and a small stool for her feet and find a large towel for her lap and in less than three minutes she’s seated and ready to continue.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I go back to the next room where I’m working at the desk and she starts telling stories about years of apricots and fruit they took to people and people who shared fruit with them and her sighs and moans have stopped.

“All done.”  She says.

I clear off the cutting board and move it so that she can get up and I help her off the kitchen stool and when she has taken a few moments to straighten herself out, she reaches for her cane and says,

image:Mother's garden

image:Mother’s garden

“I’m going to go survey my kingdom.”  And she heads for the back door and the yard and the flower garden.

“Good idea, Mother.”

And so we’re done with apricots for another year.  They’re ready to go to the freezer; the grapes won’t be ready ‘til mid or late summer, and the peach and nectarine trees that Daddy planted, but never got to taste of their fruit before he died, will be ready in the next two months and the apples sometime in the fall and the grapefruit around Christmas or the first of the next year.

Mother struggles with the loss of her productivity and the loss of the familiar of all the years with Daddy when they worked side by side.  As for me, I struggle with all the work that has little meaning for me; and I get irritated at how slow she moves and at her ready view of any event through the lens of a worst case scenario.  Sure, I enjoy the fruit, but very much of it and my blood sugar does flip-flops and besides, there are so many other things I’d rather do with my time than pick and clean and take care of fruit.

How ungrateful is that, God?  I’m living in this bounty and looking right past the blessing while Mother is slowly moving beyond this blessing to her eternal blessing with You and she’s already grieving the leaving.  I guess we’re both a pretty good imitation of the human condition, God.  Thank you, that there’s You to lift us up above our pettiness and remind us to look beyond ourselves and see that it all comes from You.  Thank you, for the fruit and the work that it takes.  And suddenly I see how like the human condition that is – that things worth having take work.

Salt

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image:google

image:google

The headline of the article caught my eye, “Do you lie to your elderly parent?”  The choices were yes, or no.  Does “sometimes” count?  Is it really a lie if it’s for their own good?

Ok, not that I really want to admit to it publicly, but yes, I have lied to my mother.

Like right after she’d collapsed with heart failure, spent a week in CCU not expected to recover, another week on a regular hospital floor and then four weeks in a care facility getting physical therapy to get her back on her feet.  They sent her home with pages of information on how she should eat and things she should do after heart failure, but the biggie was: No Salt.

I was determined to be there for Daddy and Mother.  To do whatever they couldn’t do.  And if that meant following the new diet restrictions closely, then that’s what we’d do.  I would pick up the slack and somehow I’d make their lives normal again.  I’d fight against Mother’s heart failure and against Daddy’s cancer.  I’d set aside my life to be there for them; which wasn’t as hard or as selfless as it might seem because the bottom had dropped out of the Real Estate market and my business had just about dried up, and anyway, I suddenly had more important things to do.  So, I flew in from Nashville with one suitcase, moved into the spare bedroom/storage room and cleaned house and ran errands and did the shopping and got them both back and forth to their doctors and made sure Mother had everything she needed.  Except Salt.

I wasn’t sure of the routine with their food, so Daddy had taken over the cooking.  He’d finished his six month round of Chemo and was doing well and as if nothing had happened, went on doing whatever was needed in the house, just like he’d always done.  I’d get the food Daddy cooked on the table and call to Mother to tell her we were ready to eat.

She was still living in her pajamas and her pale purple brushed cotton robe, sitting sideways on the sofa in the living room, her feet up, her legs covered with a pale green and lavender lap blanket that one of her hospital roommates had given her.  Her insulated cup filled with ice water and a box of Kleenex sat on the coffee table where she could reach them.  The classical station on the radio played softly and she was more content than I’d ever seen her.  She’d used a safety pin to hold back the window sheers right at her eye level and she sat for hours staring out the front window, her eyes taking it all in as if the grass and trees, the birds and flowers, the lizard that followed the sun around the porch, the cars passing and people walking on the sidewalk were brand new images to her.

The only times she left the sofa were to make her way slowly to the bathroom or the bedroom at night or to the dining room table.

When I called, she roused herself from the sofa and used her rolling walker to finally get to the dining room table and got herself settled in her regular spot on one side where her placemat sat next to a Kleenex box, the stack of crossword puzzles, pens and pencils in a coffee mug, cut out articles she was going to read one day, her bottles of prescription pills and the latest volume of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.

image:google

image:google

“Where’s the salt.  I need salt.”

“There’s no salt.”  I lied.

“Yes, there is.  I know there is.”

“This is your new salt, Lite Salt.”

She glared at me and fussed under her breath as she sprinkled the Lite Salt on her food.

“This is terrible.  I can’t eat this.”

“Sure you can.”  I sat on the other side of the table and passed the regular salt to Daddy.  “Remember what the doctor said?  No salt.”

Daddy salted his food and said nothing.  Mother grumbled and tried more of the Lite Salt and took a few bites and grumbled some more.  Daddy passed the regular salt back to me and I salted my food.  This went on for months.  Same routine.  She used the Lite Salt but she wasn’t happy and she let me know it.

It was more than six months before she was back in the kitchen helping to get meals together.  By that time, I’d hidden the Morton Salt carton in a bottom cabinet behind the pots and pans.

“Where’s the salt?  I can’t cook without salt.  You have to salt the soup while you’re making it.”

“Here you go.”  I handed her the Lite Salt.

“Where is the salt?”  Her voice rose, color flooded her cheeks, she glared at me, arms on her hips.

image:google images

image:google images

I moved around the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher, gathering dishes and silverware to put on the table.  She’d finally give up and pour in some Lite Salt, grumbling under her breath as she stirred the soup, or mashed the potatoes, or browned the roast, whatever the meal.  I acted as if her complaints went in one ear and out the other, saying nothing, appearing calm, staying strong, while I bit my tongue to keep from yelling back at her.

She was so stubborn!  Her ankles and feet stayed swollen and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand how she could not see the connection.  How could she miss that connection, God?  She hated the swelling and complained about the pain so how could she think taste was more important than being healthy?  I just didn’t get it.

Besides, I ate the things she cooked with Lite Salt and they weren’t that bad; even if I Daddy and I did sometimes add regular salt, from the salt shaker on my side of the table, where she couldn’t reach it.

I look back on that time now and think about all those months of agony she put herself and us through and I’m just glad she finally adapted.  It took somewhere around a year, but her taste adjusted and she quit fussing over the Lite Salt and she stopped asking for regular salt.  Now when we eat out, she complains about how salty everything is.  And, the regular salt shaker now sits on her side of the table with her Lite Salt and she passes it to me when we eat, never even tempted to use it herself.  So, yes, I lied about salt with regularity and read labels and bought only reduced salt items and sometimes told her that was all the store carried and we made it through.

She learned to live without salt and I learned that I could not stop Daddy’s cancer or make their lives like they used to be.  By the time she adjusted, Daddy was worse and I was in the middle of learning what it meant to give Daddy twenty-four hour care and then I learned to live through missing him so much my heart hurt.

And meanwhile, life with Mother continued.  Her heart rebounded to 98% function, which the doctors didn’t understand and couldn’t explain.  We called it a miracle and I’m sure it was because after all, Daddy prayed for it and his faith was huge, so it had to be a miracle.  But it wasn’t the miracle I wanted.  I wanted the miracle where Daddy no longer had cancer.

Instead, I had to learn to accept that I was left with the difficult parent and the strong, loving, supportive one was no longer here.  I had to learn to be honest with Mother even though I know it means I’ll have to repeat what I tell her, because she won’t remember the details and I’ve had to learn to accept that for some reason, her ability to reason logically is gone.  Possibly it’s because she’s eighty-five, but I think it has more to do with that time when she collapsed and the oxygen to her brain was diminished.

She’s grateful I’m here because it means she can stay in her home; and it does feel nice to be appreciated, but, I don’t need the appreciation as much as I need the miracle of your strength, God, because she may have lost some mental ability and her memories can often be spotty but she hasn’t lost her stubbornness and her strong will to do what she wants to do, regardless of the consequences to her well-being.

So, help me, God, to keep on learning to respect and love her, even when she makes me so crazy I want to scream.  Remind me she is who she is and my job is not to change her, my job is to be here so that her last days are comfortable, so that she feels safe surrounded by the sameness of her home, the sameness of her routine.  Help me God, to not just spend my time counting the days until there’s life after Mother.  Help me to know, God, with your help I can do my job; I can love her.

Ah, there it is: that message that brings peace, that brings rest, that brings relaxation; that says, it’s ok, Victoria, I’ve got your back.  Love, God.

 

Epilogue:  I told Mother I had written about her trial with salt today.  Her response?

“Oh, you weren’t here when I had to go through the torture of giving up salt were you?”

“Yes, Mother, I was.  It was right after you came out of the hospital.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

And there you have it.  I struggled over that time and had to hang on to my belief that she would be better off without salt even as I worried that it might cause lingering tension between us; but when all is said and done, in her memory, it was a difficult time, but a memory into which I didn’t figure.  That gives me freedom to go ahead and do what needs to be done; it makes me glad it didn’t cause a rift between us, but most of all it makes me smile as it reminds me that the time of salt really wasn’t about me at all.  It was all for her.  I love you, Mother.

Trailing Clouds of Glory

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image:google:fineartamerica-semmick

image:google:fineartamerica-semmick

Health, smealth.  There’s always something, right?  You’d think I was getting older, know what I mean?  The simple things, like bending over just aren’t so simple any more, if you catch my drift.  Oh wait, that’s me drifting over to one side trying to get my foot inside my jeans.  And what’s with that third toe?  That little jolt, like an electric shock when my feet hit the floor in the morning?  Seriously, that toenail that always wants to be in-grown, it’s gone its wayward route and will need rescuing, again.

Rescuing billows of stamina and strength are what’s needed for my friends who wear the badge of diabetes and must be vigilant warriors against the onslaught of their own body’s attack.  They fight the battle against sugar as it masquerades, innocent looking; its luscious aromas wafting; its delirium inducing sugar hiding in bread and vegetables, not to mention candies, cakes, pies and donuts.  It’s a choice you have to make, if you have any ailment.

Do you want to feel look or do you want to eat that thing you think you can’t live without?  Green it’s worse that than.  It’s do you want to live by eating the right things bracelets or do you want to lose your toes to gangrene or your eyesight or…?  You pick the worst case, because when the body fails F it gets ugly.

image:google:btccgl

image:google:btccgl

Those years you felt invincible, those years you felt unstoppable, those years you craved excitement, those years have flown and left in their wake: reality.  The reality of lowered expectations; reality of acceptance of limitations; reality of gratefulness for any movement, any progress, any staunching of the drag of gravity that pulls, moment by moment, towards that dust to dust, towards that ashes to ashes.

On the other hand, if the media is to be believed, you don’t have to grow old, you can wave away those wrinkles, those brown spots, that double chin, those sagging jowls.  It only costs money.  And what’s money after all?  Can’t take it with you, right?  While that may make sense for the beautiful people, those stars and celebrities whose persona requires only the best and who have the money it takes to stay beautiful, what about the rest of us?  The common folk, the regular people, the average of us who aren’t living on the street by any means, but who have to budget and conserve for the future and can only splurge once in a while?  What about us?

image:google:makebeautysimple

image:google:make
beautysimple

Shouldn’t there be a beauty to the art of growing old gracefully?  I’ve seen that grace.  Think about Mother Theresa.  She gave her time, her energy, her life to help the less fortunate and the lines on her face were like a map of her devotion.  They grew heavier and deeper and spread until the whole surface was covered.

I saw that grace in my own father, who loved God first and that love spilled out into how he treated my Mother and his kids and grand kids and great and great-great-grand kids – all his progeny.  He wasn’t afraid to love us unconditionally and he kept on doing the right thing as he grew old and knew there would be a limit to what he could do and how long he would be here, yet, even as he accepted that old dried age and dying were a part of life, he never gave in either.  He counted calories and had a goal runner of where he wanted his weight to stay and up until late dark in his eighty-eighth year, he walked three miles a day, lugged the edger and lawn mower around the yard, climbed ladders and hefted power tools and saw weeded the garden.

image:google:nytimes

image:google:nytimes

What about me?  Will I choose to see the value of acceptance balanced against the task of staying fit and on the move?  I tell Mother that if she only sits and never moves, her bones will calcify, she’ll be stuck in one position.  Easy for me to say, but when I’m in pain as she is, will I keep moving?  How long will I buy the best wrinkle creams and do what it takes to keep my hair looking its best?

How can it be that my worth, my value, my importance are tied up in this world when it’s the soul that longs to soar and fly the heights of eternity, free of the shell of wrinkles and pain and limitations?  How can I not see that it is life, it is breath that is important and it is the real interior me that is destined for never dying?  Not this shell, not my hands with spots here and there and veins that stand up where once they were smooth; not the widows peaks under the hair I pull forward on my face to hide my receding hairline, and the spot above my right ear where the hair is not only turning white, it’s so thin I have to cut it just right to camouflage that increasingly bald spot; and not my funky endocrine system with its thyroid disease, its fatigued adrenals and malfunctioning hormones.  These don’t define who I am.  They will all fall away and my eyes will for once and ever clearly see the truth.

image:google-flickr

image:google-flickr

Then I will sing out in chorus with William Wordsworth:      “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: the soul that rises with us, our life’s star, hath had elsewhere its setting and cometh from afar.  Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.”

Siren Call

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I’m transfixed by the sight.  They loom over me.  I want to reach out to them but I’m tiny and insignificant with arms too short to traverse the space between us.  They rise over the horizon tall and majestic, varied in hue and shape and size.  There’s an imperiousness to their grandeur and their heft.  They are immobile yet changeable with the shifting cloud’s caress.  Some reflect the dawn’s pale pallet and the end of day’s bright glare while others remain dense and stark, unfazed by any movement of light.

I envision hope and determination and purpose swirling around them not unlike multiple lanes of traffic crisscrossing over and under and around on elevated highway exchanges.  And I’m drawn to them, my spirit and soul pulled closer and closer, wanting to join in, to let the swirling wash over me until I am one with the flow.

My spirit rises with anticipation of their mystery and I feel alive just to be in their shadow.  They call to me with some indefinable promise of unknown adventures; unknown paths to take and challenges to be conquered.

When I see them at night, they confuse the senses.  Their shapes are both intensified and vaguely indefinite against the night’s backdrop.  A backdrop punctuated by neon, taillights, headlights, lamps on tall streetlight poles and the erratic checkerboard of interior lights left burning after the five p.m. exodus has left those tall structures empty.

My memory takes me back to the days I did touch them; the days I stood in their halls and breathed their air; the days I braved the frantic pace that engulfed them in life each morning and the weary escape that left them behind each evening.

I had been drawn in by their promise and it was a full life that took strength and verve if I wanted to scale their heights.  Eventually, though, it all became not much more than office politics.  I felt no further promise there and tired of the heights, I merely wanted to emerge whole.  I left those highrises behind and set out to discover the me I would be apart from them; apart from the siren call of big city living.

image:discoverlosangeles

image:discoverlosangeles

These days my life’s tasks generally take me speeding past those behemoths, those skyscrapers that appear to me to be like sentinels guarding the way.  But I never pass without thinking, I know how you feel, those of you who enter their domain daily; I know what you’re going through. I’ve been there, I’ve lived that life.  I know what it’s like.

The intervening years between then and now have taken me other places and on a different journey and while I wasn’t looking, time ebbed away and now there’s a part of me that feels incapable of scaling their heights once more.  That is, until I see them again and then the old flame ignites.  There’s life here, it signals to me.  There’s excitement and purpose here, it whispers in the rush of air flowing past my speeding car.

But I don’t detour.  I continue along the concrete path that winds past downtown and the business centers, past the shopping centers and the factories and industrial areas and off the freeway’s paved canyon into suburbia’s land of houses and gas stations, churches, schools and grocers on the corner.  Into the land that was my Father and Mother’s life; into the alley behind their house and into their garage and on into their house I go, closing the door behind me.  This is my life now and I determine to continue here, to engage in this journey, this challenge.  But down inside, the flame is still lit and its warmth reminds me that I can be in both worlds.  The choice is mine.  There will be time once this task with Mother ends.  There’s a journey still ahead.

“You made it safe?”  Mother calls from her island of sameness at the dining room table, surrounded by familiar things, some treasured and some worthless yet hoarded rather than tossed out.

“Yes, Mother.  I’m here.”

Oh for the bravery of the Wild Outdoors

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humingbird

image:birdsandblooms

You’ve seen hummingbirds, right?  Minute things whose wings go faster than you can see, know what I mean?  They’re like a blur, they move so fast.  And the colors!  Jewel tones, like deep green and red and purple; they’re like, wow, just gorgeous, get my drift?  And they’re drawn to red things, right?  So the feeder in Mother’s garden is red on the top and the bottom,can you picture it?  And she makes this red, sugary water syrup and the tiny little things are drawn to it.  They hover over the yellow, daisy shaped holes in the base and drink with their little bodies making tiny up and down movements.  In the heat of the summer, the bees are drawn to the feeder pine and they swarm around the little holes, which means the hummingbirds have to brave the bees to get any of the sugary water syrup and I feel for those poor little hummingbirds because not only do they have to eat several times an hour to survive, now they have to fight the battle of the bees taking all their nourishment.

Is that fair?  Is life fair?  Is there any place I can go to get nourishment that doesn’t include some battle against some force that wants to defeat me?  Will I have the strength and courage to keep up the fight for what I need?

image:thriftyfun

image:thriftyfun

Oh, for the bravery of the jeweled colored hummingbirds,                                                                    oh, for the bravery of the loud, buzzing, bright yellow and black bees,                                                                                                                                                                                 oh, for the bravery of the feral cats who stalk the jeweled colored hummingbirds in Mother’s yard,                                                                                                      who ignore the loud buzzing of the bright yellow and black bees,                                                                                                                                                                    those feral cats who’ve got our movements down                                                                                                                                                                                             who know to run when we come outside;                                                                                                                                                                                                                oh, for the bravery of the wild outdoors.

It wasn’t always this way.  In the gauzy memory of my childhood, my stalwart father’s cheerful, loving spirit hovered over our home as its benevolent and strong protector and my ever present Mother in her dutiful homemaker role made a safe and loving canopy for my brothers and my sister and I to grow; in those days our sanctuary included cats and a caged bird or two and there was harmony for both species.

But somewhere along the way, Mother decided that the back yard should be a bird sanctuary, so she had Daddy get her a stone bird bath, shaped like a huge concrete flower on its concrete stem and most days, she went out to clean out the birdbath and put in fresh water and she kept the hummingbird feeder filled and she determined to chase away the feral cats in the yard to keep them from stalking the birds.

image:ehow

image:ehow

At the merest sight of a cat, she rushed out as if she too had wings, all the while yelling or hissing at the cats and the yard erupted in the black and gray blur of running cats and a great cloud of bird wings rose from the grass to the fence and to the trees where they squawked loudly at the whole commotion.  These days, Mother has lost her wings and her movements are slow and ponderous, punctuated by her cane’s thunk and the times she gets outside are fewer, face it bud, it happens to the best of us, but this doesn’t change her worry, know what I mean?

No, what happens now, if you get what I’m saying, is, now she frets and fusses and tries to hiss at the cats through the window or bangs on the wood part of the back door to scare them off.  Or, she does try to slowly get outside and I’m sitting there, trying to write, and I’m thinking, how can I write with all this going on around me?  Is this part of the test of being a writer, being forced to find the concentration amid all the distractions?

image:fanpop

image:fanpop

I resist the urge to try to take over the task for her, resist trying to alleviate her stress, to make her situation better.  In truth, she’s the only one who can decide to let go of the things that make her nuts.  I can’t fix that for her, so I am resolved I will not let her stresses make me nuts.  I let go. I envision the hummingbird and I take flight.  I will fly unafraid as on the wings of a writer.

And the circle of life goes round…

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circle of life family

image:familycourtservices

Family.  A collection of men and women, boys and girls, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, grandsons and granddaughters, adults and children, little people and big people, older people and younger people, teenagers and senior citizens and babies and every age in between.  And the circle of life goes round.

They come in all shapes and sizes and ages; from the spectrum of the patriarch and the matriarch who started the whole procession across time and states and lifestyles to the tiny ones just starting out on their journey that could take them across time and states and lifestyles.  And the circle of life goes round.

The patriarch and the matriarch began their journey together in the days when not so long before they’d had to brave the cold and dark of night to visit the outhouse; and not so long before, the family had gotten their first car; and not so long before, one of the older brothers had brought in enough money to have the telephone wire run to the house.  Why, there wasn’t even a radio in the house when they were young.  Not so long before.  Not only that, they’d had their own small children running around the house before TV became the new phenomenon.  And the circle of life goes round.

And the patriarch and the matriarch did their best for their children and felt great pride as their children became young adults and started their own separate journeys across time and states and lifestyles and they cried a little (or a lot in the case of the matriarch) as the home nest emptied and the patriarch and the matriarch were just two again.  And the circle of life goes round.

And the family came together in happiness and enjoyment when the first grandchild was born and the patriarch and the matriarch felt vindicated and pleased as they kissed the chubby cheeks of the golden-haired little girl.  And the circle of life goes round.

And careers took hold and the children’s lives were busy and spread out around the states and weddings were celebrated and more grandchildren arrived and the patriarch and the matriarch wished they lived closer so that they could squeeze those grandchildren on a more regular basis.  And the circle of life goes round.

And the grandchildren thrived and the years were captured in the school photos and family portraits and milestone announcements that were sent to the patriarch and the matriarch who proudly decorated their walls and table tops with these trophies of the Family.  And the circle of life goes round.

And the years marched on while grandchildren grew and aged and began careers and found mates and began the next generation and before you knew it there was a third and a fourth and a fifth generation of offspring and they spread across the years from the newborn to the middle-aged.  And the circle of life goes round.

And one day, the family paused in its mad pursuit of life to mourn the death of the elderly patriarch and to contemplate what it all means and to be grateful for their place in the midst of this maddening and nurturing animal called family.  And the circle of life goes round.

And the matriarch moved slowly on through the pain and difficulty of old age, and her children, gray-haired and slower themselves, began to see themselves in a new light, no longer the ones on the quest for new worlds to conquer but instead the pillars of this thing called family.  And the circle of life goes round.

And they saw they were part of the procession that would continue after they were gone and they prayed that the third and fourth and fifth generations and beyond would find the real meaning of life; that they would cherish and embrace this thing called family.  And they saw they would have to trust that the thread of beliefs and values that were passed from their ancestors to them would continue on to their descendants.  And the circle of life goes round.

Why they remember a time when TV was black and white and man first walked on the moon and every house had a landline, except in those days it was just called the telephone.  And the circle of life goes round.

And they saw that the beliefs and values could transcend the new age of smart phones and iPads and technical gadgetry that consume the time and energy of the family.  And they saw that the beliefs and values could live on as the future dawns with even more startling and unimaginable advancements.  And the circle of life goes round.  And the circle of life goes round.

Exercise those trite sayings…

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image:chorltonrefurb

image:chorltonrefurb

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?  Yeah, but what’s a girl supposed to do when the stupid HVAC is wigging out?  Oh, yeah, they say it’s working  all right, but man, can you believe what they think is right?  I mean, come on, just because warm air finally comes out and eventually the house warms up, I mean, seriously, am I supposed to believe the thing is fixed?  What’s a fix anyway?  That thing that makes you feel good or at least makes you forget why you felt bad? 

Bad, smad.  It’s all relative, right?  I mean we’ve all got those relatives that make us crazy.  Pull your hair out time, because if you don’t do it first, they’ll sure do it for you.  And where does that get you?  Bald patches, that’s where.  Of course with bald patches, you might maybe feel the warm air more and then maybe you won’t feel cold.

So, anyway, like I was saying, if they think the way the heater’s working now is right, what happens when we switch to A/C?  Will the thing run non-stop but never do the job?  Oh sure, it’s easy for you people on the West Side where the temps don’t do much moving up or down.  Try living somewhere else.  Like further out the 10 freeway where you get to colder nights and hotter days.  Hey, no jive, I’m telling it like it is.  We’re out there in the desert.  Although, I must confess, not as far out in the desert as say, Palm Springs, or Needles.  Needles.  Now that’s hot.  Drove across the Mojave to the Painted Desert and Monument Valley in Arizona, and on to New Mexico.  110 degrees in the shade.  If I’m lying I’m dying.  Dying for an ice cream cone or a chocolate shake while trying to find some shade under the arms of a Saguaro Cactus.  That’s like trying to stay out of the rain under a scarecrow.  Ain’t gonna happen, my friend.

image:chumpysclipart

image:chumpysclipart

When Dad’s got the car running again and the four of us kids and Mom are back inside, roaring down HWY 66 at sixty miles an hour, the windows all rolled down to keep all of us from melting, now that’s a scene, everybody’s hair is standing on end and all arms are up at an angle, anything to dry out those pits, anything to keep one part of your body from touching another part of your body.  At least it’s dry air, right?  Thought that was nuts?  You ain’t seen nothing yet.  Just keep pointing that car east until you get to real heat.  ‘Cause ain’t nothing hot like good ol’ humidity.

If I’m lying, I’m dying.  Oh yeah, you think you’re dying.  Try breathing when it’s 95 degrees out and at least 90% humidity.  Might as well just forget taking a shower and putting on clean clothes.  Did you know Atlanta didn’t even become a serious city until the 1960’s when air conditioning became the thing to do?  They put A/C in all those offices and voila!  No more mid-day siestas.  What do you know, a banking center, a business center, an up and coming city bursts into life.

image:sodahead

image:sodahead

I mean, you’ve seen “Gone With the Wind”, right?  Why do you think those big old plantations had shutters on all the windows with heavy drapes and genteel ladies spent the heat of the day in their crinolines and wore out their delicate wrists moving their tiny fans back and forth.

You can dig it, right?  You gotta do what it takes to breath, man.  Gotta keep the outside looking good.  Keep the sweat dried off and the smiling face painted on.  I mean, who’s your daddy?  The one who takes care of you, right?  And who wants to take care of you when you’re looking all bedraggled and wilted?  Who’s gonna trust you as their Realtor when the A/C in your car dies and you have to excuse yourself to go dry off and put on the dry clothes on that you left hanging in the office, because you knew the things you’d worn from home would be totally ruined by the humidity by the time you got to the office?

But I digress; it’s the heater we’re talking about.  And hey, this is April.  Shouldn’t be too long and we won’t need the heater till next fall, right?  Ha!  You wish!  I’m not alone in this predicament.  There’s my 85-year-old mother who’s cold unless it’s at least 75 degrees inside the house.  And the absolute rub?  Live long enough in the same space as the elderly and your own body temp changes and what do you know?  You’re cold too, unless it’s 75 degrees inside.  Now that’s irritating, my friend.  Just plain irritating.  Know what I mean, jellybean?

Did I write that right?

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Image:fanpop

image:fanpop

So, here I sit again in front of those sheers on the window that soften the view.  Write without a purpose or goal in mind, my writing teacher, Jack, instructed.  How does that work?  Especially when the mind is always thinking, moving from subject to subject.  I don’t know that I get this exercise, God.  How do I write with no goal or agenda?  Do I write the random thoughts that lead to whole other subjects?  Do I write the ongoing conversations that you and I have throughout the day?  Do I write the goals for the future?  The fears?  The frustrations?  The hopes?

If I have to get Jack’s book out to look at the example again, isn’t that writing with a purpose?  And, since I’ve spent the last few years thinking about stories and plots and characters and writing them, how does that get turned off?

I was just preparing for tomorrow, for the class I help teach on Sunday’s.  It was all about listening to God’s Spirit speaking to my spirit.  How do I have all that in my head and not write about something specific?

Meanwhile, Mother is in the other room burping.  Loudly.  It’s the GERD reaction to what she eats.  I’ve explained to her several times that’s why she has a hard time swallowing, getting medication down, taking all the vitamins and supplements I want her to take so that she can be at her best.  She’s determined to eat what she wants so I drive her crazy with my reminders about GERD.  She complains about her GERD symptoms, which drives me crazy.

Ok, now there I go, telling a story.  Or am I just embellishing or explaining a small thought into full-fledged sentences and story lines?  I’m not sure I get this process.

So, how do I do this?  If this is just a journal of what’s happening in my head, then it’s a writing down of thought processes that always lead back to you, God.  Because I don’t like dwelling on any thought, fear, hope, joy, whatever, without bringing it back into context of how it fits into You, God.  For me, that’s what pulls all of life together.  Knowing that there’s a bigger picture than I can see, but taking joy in the knowledge that it’s like the backside of an intricate, detailed tapestry.

image:tapestryshare.blogspot

image:tapestryshare.blogspot

Lots of random threads that seem to go nowhere, colors intermingled, some tiny stitches overrun by long, bold stitches, everything seemingly unorganized.  But, when the tapestry is turned around, there is a beautiful scene or portrait that couldn’t have been planned or designed by me, yet it’s there and every now and then I get a glimpse of the beauty that is being made through the pain and struggle, or during the inane and boring, or the frustrating and difficult.

Hold that thought.  Mother is calling from the other room to come turn off the ceiling fan over the dining room table.

It’s another hot day and the A/C can do just so much to take the heat off the house.  Personally, I’d be happy with fans in every room, but the medication Mother takes for high blood pressure and huge edema in her feet and legs, lowers her blood pressure and with it her body temperature so that she’s always chilled.  And accusing me of trying to freeze her out when it 78 degrees inside the house.  Good thing I’m beyond hot flashes or we’d really go at each other in frustration.

So, now the fan is off, the orchid is watered and I can return to the keyboard and she can return to trying to stay awake.  I read the other day that the curse of the elderly is spontaneous sleeping.  Mother and I laughed over that because it’s true and she is always trying to stay awake.  Or maybe I laughed and Mother frustratingly agreed it was true.

Mother’s calling again.  It seems the water that I just gave the orchid was too much because it’s running out of the pot.  Good thing I put the pot on the table before I watered it so that it has a long way to run before it runs off the edge of the table.  Mother, of course, is sure that I’m about to flood the dining room.  It only takes three paper towels to sop up the excess and Mother is mollified.  Somewhat, anyway.

image:123rf

image:123rf

She and I have two different outlooks on the world.  Yin and Yang.  I tell her that her glass is always half empty and she tells me no, it isn’t, her glass is cracked and the liquid is oozing out the bottom.  Totally agree with that!

Daddy’s glass was always bubbling up and the excess running over the top.  How in the world did her live with her for sixty-one years and not lose his excess?  How did he retain his equilibrium and provide enough for her as well?  Well, I know the answer to that.  I’ve never known anyone who loved God more and spent more time with God daily than he did.  To me, that proves it.  God has to be big because he’s bigger than Mother’s pessimism.

Which brings me back to the whole point of a journal.  For me, anyway.  It’s reaffirming, with every rabbit trail, every thought, every distraction, that God is big.  Big enough to get me through.  And, thankfully!  To get me through with excess bubbling over the top of my glass instead of leaking out the bottom.

and the “Bizarre Doctor Award” goes to….

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image:silverdoctors

image:silverdoctors

Have you seen the British show “Doc Martin”?  It airs on public television and Mother and I watch it without fail, even though we’ve seen all five seasons several times.  We keep hoping that just maybe this Thursday night will be the night they’ll tell us when we can expect to see season six.  It’s set in rural England and is about a surgeon who because of his new aversion to blood becomes a general practitioner.  He’s uptight, tactless, socially challenged and doesn’t necessarily set out to torture his patients but he never fails to offend several people per episode.  While miraculously solving several health problems, of course.

It’s fun to watch the mayhem that occurs in the small town as the big city surgeon tries to fit his superior skills to the need of the local common folk.  And it’s harmless because we are the viewers are not affected by Doc Martin’s behavior.

What’s not as much fun are doctors in real life who are tactless or less than efficient or caring; or just plain bizarre.  I bet you’ve met one or two.  Am I right?

There was the ophthalmologist who tried to talk me out of contact lenses when I was twenty-seven and was fed up with glasses.  He was sure I was too old to make the change.  In the thirty-five years since, my contacts and I have been best friends.

How about the gynecologist who wanted to know if I was a nervous person?

“Only when I have to come here and put my feet up in stirrups.”  I answered.

Then there was the allergist who needed to draw some of my blood and the only way I could bare my arm was to pull my dress over my head because the sleeves were too tight to pull up my arm.  He went beet red in the face.  What was the big deal?  He was a doctor after all.  I wondered when I heard later than he committed suicide by jumping off a building what had really been going on inside his head.

image:bps-research-digest

image:bps-research-digest

And of course, the one that takes the cake (or at least is in the running for first prize) occurred on my first visit to a new gynecologist.  In the year or so prior to my visit I’d had a small patch of very painful shingles on the back of my upper thigh.  I got treatment and was told the scar would take a long time, if ever, to fade.  So there I was in the new doctor’s exam room, up on the table, and he has me lie back and put my feet in the stirrups.  I get in position and he and the nurse move to the end of the exam table and he says, LOUDLY, with shock in his voice,

“What is that?”

As I was younger in those days and had a brain that worked lightning fast, I immediately ran through all the possibilities of what he could possibly be seeing, as well as the idiocy of a medical professional asking a rude question at such a delicate time and decided to not panic or be rude back.

“You mean my shingles scar?”  I said.

Those are all harmless incidences that make good party stories but the ones that are not so funny are the ones that border on the incompetent.  Two of my favorite doctors who were taking good care of me decided to rearrange their practices and so I had to find a new endocrinologist to manage the challenges that I have with the triangle of health that is the endocrine system: thyroid, hormones and adrenals.  In balance with each other, they function wonderfully and I enjoy health.  Let one get out of balance and the whole triangle falls apart and misery ensues.

image:paulsjourneytolife

image:paulsjourneytolife

My new endocrinologist took one look at my medications (that had been working just fine for me) and kept saying,

“A normal person does not need all this medication.”

So, of course, he would only write prescriptions as he saw fit and did not take into account how the changes would affect that delicate balance that allowed me to enjoy life.  When my system crashed and I was distraught, his advice was that I seek out a counselor to help me with my mental and emotional issues.  I found help, all right.  From another medical professional who understood how to treat all my physical issues, not just one.

But the strangest doctor I’ve come across just might be the Urologist who treated Daddy for his prostate cancer.  The man never came closer than three feet to Daddy in the exam room.  He knew his stuff and gave responsible advice and care, but he asked me to help Daddy get on the table and to loosen his clothes.  He sent his nurse in to check Daddy’s catheter and on another visit, to remove the catheter.  The doctor never touched Daddy.  Never shook his hand.  Never came close to either of us physically.  Come to think of it, he fits the Doc Martin mold pretty well.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the Bizarre Doctor Award goes to….?   Which one would you choose?  Or, perhaps you have a better candidate?