I'd like to start by saying...I'm fine. Or at least, I will be fine. Eventually.
If you've been wondering where I've been, well...I've been wondering that, too. After a declaration in May that I was going to get more serious about writing, after fixing up a quiet corner of our home into a writer's nook, after even toying with the idea of taking a year off of my real job to see if writing full-time could produce anything, I failed to write anything this summer longer than a swim-season grocery list. And while those lists are long and include all the main food groups a growing swimmer needs, like Clif bars by the dozen, it wasn't quite the writing I set out to do.
I have excuses, if anyone cares to hear them. Ainsley had some recurring asthma issues that kept us in doctor's offices and pharmacies more than usual. The 11-12 age group in swimming also has a more intense practice schedule than 10-and-under swimming, so I was running to and from the pool and sweating it out in a hot car in the pick-up line more than I anticipated. We had more travel meets this summer, too, meaning not only was I busy every other weekend, I was stuck in a hotel room 2 hours away from home every other weekend. It's hard to write when you're never home, and hard to find something to write about when the only drama in your day was that your young athlete didn't come out of practice on time because she prefers daydreaming in the locker room after practice to keeping Mom from sweating to the point of dehydration in her Pontiac Vibe.
And yet I still could have used the cushion of summer vacation to take that step into writing I'm always threatening to take. But I didn't. I didn't do a lot of things I set out to do this summer, actually. With the bottom line being...I sort of quit. Checked out. Gave up.
You may not have noticed if you saw me this summer. I didn't make a big deal of it, I didn't talk to anyone about it, and I assumed my blues would, as they usually do, lift on their own and melt in the bliss of a Kentucky educator's summer like so much snow.
I'm still waiting.
I tried the various tricks in my bag I reserve for times like these. I did something outside every day. I exercised. I napped. I attempted meditation. I went away on vacation. Sometimes, briefly, the fog lifted. But it always came back, and by the time I started my pre-school-year extended employment days the first week in August, I was like that frog we always hear about who lands in a pot of water that keeps getting hotter and hotter but the poor amphibian doesn't realize until too late that he's thisclose to boiling.
My realization that I was almost boiling came one sunny afternoon when I was headed to the gym to clear my mind and learned that Robin William was dead in an apparent suicide.
Like many with ongoing depression and anxiety, it has been a trigger. The idea that someone as brilliant, as seemingly joyful, as family-oriented as that man could wake up one day and go, "F*ck it, I'm done," hits hard. If he couldn't find a reason to go on, to push through the pain another day, what the hell hope do the rest of us have? I have always assumed that no matter how dark things get for me when I'm going through a depressive episode, I'm always going to get better. Through medication or therapy or self-awareness or all three. Because I always have.
And I would guess Mr. William always had, too. Until that one time he didn't. And that one time he didn't trumped the many times before that he did.
It's frightening beyond blog-post words.
I'm taking steps to get through whatever this is I'm going through now. I acknowledge that a winter and spring that saw me weathering a basement flood, unexpected orthopedic surgery, swine flu, and dental woes culminating in dry sockets (the pain of which I feel is tragically underrated) could get my chemicals out of balance. I acknowledge that some changes in my work environment could have me feeling just overwhelmed enough to magnify everything. I acknowledge that on top of all of this I just turned 40 and have a very active family and probably don't take enough time to do basic things for my mental health like get enough sleep and eat something for lunch with more healing power than a bag of Cheetos and a Snickers.
Basically, I acknowledge that I have some baggage I need to put down. I've enlisted some help. Things aren't so bad that I don't see hope. This, too, shall pass. And God knows I've been through worse.
In the meantime, I'm just not really feeling like writing anything. I have just enough creative energy to say one light-hearted, possibly-funny sentence per day, and while that's awesome for Facebook or Twitter, it makes blogging or starting the Great American Novel sort of complicated. So I'm signing off for a while. (To give you any indication how hard I'm finding it to write, I started this on August 12. And have only been able to focus on it roughly 30 seconds a day.)
I'll focus on getting back on track. I may be back. Or I may start writing a memoir or some essays or, at the very least, a recipe book I can spiral-bind and pass along to my grandchildren when they come over to my house in their flying car and ask, "What is this 'book' thing of which you speak, Mamaw?" Because writing is important to me and I know I'll find healing in it again.
So, you'll be hearing from me again soon. Maybe not on this platform, but somewhere.
In the meantime, thanks for reading.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Friends of the Family
For the first time in many years, I cried when someone pulled away from my house.
When I was a kid, I cried every time we had house guests and they left. And every time we were house guests and we left. Goodbyes are hard for me; I can't seem to get over the "I miss you already" part to look forward to the "I'll see you again soon" part. As I get older and begin to lose more people from my life, I've also learned that, sadly, you can't take for granted the whole "I'll see you again soon" part. Goodbye is, sometimes, permanent.
In my adult life, we've had plenty of house guests who I've hated to see go. But the vast majority live a short drive away. I know that, in a year at the absolute most, we'll be hanging out sampling Kentucky's finest bourbon again. When my college roommate and her family pulled out of my drive Sunday, it was different. She lives in Atlanta; it had been seven years since I last saw her in person. We both have younger children and lives it's hard to get away from. It could easily be seven years again.
My tears Sunday night also came from the realization after spending a couple of days back in her company that my friends have become, especially in the two years since I lost Mom, my family.
When you lose that last parent, you so often lose the various threads that tie you to the body of your blood family. I have a sibling, but we are two very different people with nothing really in common except for the genes we share. In times of crisis, I now turn to the group of people who support me by choice, not chance. The men and women who grew up with me, went to school with me, pass me in the halls every day at work, share a side yard. These are now my people. My tribe. They now know me better than anyone else still living on this planet. We've shared laughs. We've shared tears. We've broken bread together at occasions of both great joy and great sorrow. We've climbed mountains and fought in the trenches. Our bonds are deeper than blood.
My college roommate's visit brought back a trove of good memories. Of course we talked about those. But not having seen her in a while, we also re-discovered each other as adults. Adults who, since our last adventure, have lost some of the people we held most dear. Who are raising children in an increasingly scary world. Who balance work, family, and our homes.
We've changed. But we've changed together in spite of the miles. And in just a couple of hours spent catching up on the front porch, we were right back to being two girls who shared a dorm room.
No matter what, we'll always have Danville.
And though we aren't connected by blood, I will always think of her, as I do so many others of my friends, as family. Family who have been there for me when I've needed them the most.
We weren't born to the same mother and father. But my friends are my brothers and sisters all the same.
When I was a kid, I cried every time we had house guests and they left. And every time we were house guests and we left. Goodbyes are hard for me; I can't seem to get over the "I miss you already" part to look forward to the "I'll see you again soon" part. As I get older and begin to lose more people from my life, I've also learned that, sadly, you can't take for granted the whole "I'll see you again soon" part. Goodbye is, sometimes, permanent.
In my adult life, we've had plenty of house guests who I've hated to see go. But the vast majority live a short drive away. I know that, in a year at the absolute most, we'll be hanging out sampling Kentucky's finest bourbon again. When my college roommate and her family pulled out of my drive Sunday, it was different. She lives in Atlanta; it had been seven years since I last saw her in person. We both have younger children and lives it's hard to get away from. It could easily be seven years again.
My tears Sunday night also came from the realization after spending a couple of days back in her company that my friends have become, especially in the two years since I lost Mom, my family.
When you lose that last parent, you so often lose the various threads that tie you to the body of your blood family. I have a sibling, but we are two very different people with nothing really in common except for the genes we share. In times of crisis, I now turn to the group of people who support me by choice, not chance. The men and women who grew up with me, went to school with me, pass me in the halls every day at work, share a side yard. These are now my people. My tribe. They now know me better than anyone else still living on this planet. We've shared laughs. We've shared tears. We've broken bread together at occasions of both great joy and great sorrow. We've climbed mountains and fought in the trenches. Our bonds are deeper than blood.
My college roommate's visit brought back a trove of good memories. Of course we talked about those. But not having seen her in a while, we also re-discovered each other as adults. Adults who, since our last adventure, have lost some of the people we held most dear. Who are raising children in an increasingly scary world. Who balance work, family, and our homes.
We've changed. But we've changed together in spite of the miles. And in just a couple of hours spent catching up on the front porch, we were right back to being two girls who shared a dorm room.
No matter what, we'll always have Danville.
And though we aren't connected by blood, I will always think of her, as I do so many others of my friends, as family. Family who have been there for me when I've needed them the most.
We weren't born to the same mother and father. But my friends are my brothers and sisters all the same.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Other Mothers
"I didn't know I had another mother."
"Of course you do. Everyone does."
--Coraline
Today being Mother's Day, I will, of course, honor my mother. She was a good one, and I owe so much of who I am to her. But I also want to honor my other mothers; those women in my life who had no genetic or societal obligation to me and my raising but who loved me, fed me, and cheered me on even when I was falling over hurdles/singing off-key/making questionable hair and clothing choices.
In this spirit, I want to wish a happy Mother's Day to Other Mother Jayne, my childhood best friend's mom, who did not freak out the first time she invited me over for dinner and I put cottage ham and green beans (the first time, but not last time, that I had that greasy-good Cincinnati specialty) onto one single paper plate which the cottage ham just sort of...dissolved. God love her, she still didn't freak out later that same weekend when I ate an entire jar of Klaussen pickles from her fridge. Basically what I'm saying is there are a lot of times Jayne should have freaked out on me when I was at her house, which was almost daily. I was not big on social graces at the time. She gave me rides home from everything her daughter talked me into participating in and cheered for me when I ran the last leg of the girls' 4x400 relay in 8th grade, even when every team but ours had already finished the relay before I even started my leg, leaving me to do the loneliest 400-meter "dash" in the history of awkward athletics. She was always patient, always kind, always welcoming, and still looks out for me to this day.
I also want to say "Thank you" to the Other Mother who is, actually, my older sister. Eleven years my senior, she filled in the gaps that my mom couldn't or wouldn't. I didn't realize it until years after I left home, but my mother was borderline agoraphobic. Especially in those early years of our move to northern Kentucky, which must have completely overwhelmed her, seeing as how she had spent her entire life previous in rural small-town one-street-light Appalachia. My sister went to school open houses, spelling bees, school plays, parent-teacher conferences, and even visited my kindergarten class last-minute when my mom bailed on her plans to talk to us about her job for Career Day. (For what it's worth, my classmates were just as enthralled by my teenage sister's description of working the cash register and baking potatoes after school at Ponderosa as they would have been by my mom talking about giving wash-and-sets to ladies in their 60s.) When the UAW went on strike and Dad wasn't working, Joanie made Christmas for me, buying all my toys that year and asking nothing from my parents in return. My childhood would have been rather bleak without her in it.
And finally...Other Mother Kathie. THE Other Mother, from a marriage standpoint. She raised a good boy who turned into a good man who turned into the best father. She made me believe I was pretty--she was the first female I wasn't related to by blood who told me so, and sometimes this made me think it was possibly true. I learned so much from her, everything from the importance of spring cleaning to making milk gravy to grieving with grace. She and my mother were two very different people with two very different personalities, and each balanced the other's world views during my impressionable teenage years. Some women have mothers-in-law from hell and see their significant other's mother as the enemy; I am grateful that mine treated me as one of her own. Like my own mother, I miss her deeply.
The saying, "It takes a village to raise a child" has become more controversial than it should be, perhaps due to the politics of the person who most famously said it in a public forum. In my mind, it is absolutely a true statement. No one mother can be everything her children need. Sometimes you have to call in an assist to fill in a gap you either temporarily or permanently can't provide. I am lucky that I had women who stepped up for me those times and in those unfamiliar areas where my own mother couldn't.
After you have celebrated the fabulousness of your own mother today, take some time to remember your Other Mothers. They didn't care for you because you share half their DNA; they cared for you simply because they wanted to. Even when you ate all their pickles.
"Of course you do. Everyone does."
--Coraline
Today being Mother's Day, I will, of course, honor my mother. She was a good one, and I owe so much of who I am to her. But I also want to honor my other mothers; those women in my life who had no genetic or societal obligation to me and my raising but who loved me, fed me, and cheered me on even when I was falling over hurdles/singing off-key/making questionable hair and clothing choices.
In this spirit, I want to wish a happy Mother's Day to Other Mother Jayne, my childhood best friend's mom, who did not freak out the first time she invited me over for dinner and I put cottage ham and green beans (the first time, but not last time, that I had that greasy-good Cincinnati specialty) onto one single paper plate which the cottage ham just sort of...dissolved. God love her, she still didn't freak out later that same weekend when I ate an entire jar of Klaussen pickles from her fridge. Basically what I'm saying is there are a lot of times Jayne should have freaked out on me when I was at her house, which was almost daily. I was not big on social graces at the time. She gave me rides home from everything her daughter talked me into participating in and cheered for me when I ran the last leg of the girls' 4x400 relay in 8th grade, even when every team but ours had already finished the relay before I even started my leg, leaving me to do the loneliest 400-meter "dash" in the history of awkward athletics. She was always patient, always kind, always welcoming, and still looks out for me to this day.
I also want to say "Thank you" to the Other Mother who is, actually, my older sister. Eleven years my senior, she filled in the gaps that my mom couldn't or wouldn't. I didn't realize it until years after I left home, but my mother was borderline agoraphobic. Especially in those early years of our move to northern Kentucky, which must have completely overwhelmed her, seeing as how she had spent her entire life previous in rural small-town one-street-light Appalachia. My sister went to school open houses, spelling bees, school plays, parent-teacher conferences, and even visited my kindergarten class last-minute when my mom bailed on her plans to talk to us about her job for Career Day. (For what it's worth, my classmates were just as enthralled by my teenage sister's description of working the cash register and baking potatoes after school at Ponderosa as they would have been by my mom talking about giving wash-and-sets to ladies in their 60s.) When the UAW went on strike and Dad wasn't working, Joanie made Christmas for me, buying all my toys that year and asking nothing from my parents in return. My childhood would have been rather bleak without her in it.
And finally...Other Mother Kathie. THE Other Mother, from a marriage standpoint. She raised a good boy who turned into a good man who turned into the best father. She made me believe I was pretty--she was the first female I wasn't related to by blood who told me so, and sometimes this made me think it was possibly true. I learned so much from her, everything from the importance of spring cleaning to making milk gravy to grieving with grace. She and my mother were two very different people with two very different personalities, and each balanced the other's world views during my impressionable teenage years. Some women have mothers-in-law from hell and see their significant other's mother as the enemy; I am grateful that mine treated me as one of her own. Like my own mother, I miss her deeply.
The saying, "It takes a village to raise a child" has become more controversial than it should be, perhaps due to the politics of the person who most famously said it in a public forum. In my mind, it is absolutely a true statement. No one mother can be everything her children need. Sometimes you have to call in an assist to fill in a gap you either temporarily or permanently can't provide. I am lucky that I had women who stepped up for me those times and in those unfamiliar areas where my own mother couldn't.
After you have celebrated the fabulousness of your own mother today, take some time to remember your Other Mothers. They didn't care for you because you share half their DNA; they cared for you simply because they wanted to. Even when you ate all their pickles.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
The force is weak with this one.
There are certain things we wish for our children. Health. Enough intelligence, initiative, and ambition to place them on a solid-enough career path to allow them to eventually move out of our basements and feed and clothe themselves. Self-esteem. Not necessarily beauty, but at least straight teeth. Braces, they be expensive.
Sometimes we want them simply to be a little like us. To share a common passion, to have our same sense of humor, to be good at something we're also good at. It helps assure us that while we can't be immortal in our own bodies, we can live on through passed-down traits from generation to generation.
Which is why it pains me deeply to say this today, on the eve of May the fourth: my daughter hates Star Wars. Each word a dagger to my nerdy heart. Hates. It.
I have to believe that this hate has more to do with taking a stubborn stand against something the yucky-blucky boys in her class love than with the movies themselves. After all, we can't even get her to sit down to watch the first one. (And, to be clear, by "first one" I mean "Episode IV." I am a purist in this regard, and don't you dare try to Jedi-mind-trick me into believing otherwise.) She decided she hated everything pertaining to the Force several years ago before I even had a 31-inch Darth Vader gracing our hearth or displayed my lightsaber over the mantle. She hates it on principle and in theory, not so much in practice.
This gives me hope. A New Hope. A "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" hope. Seriously. She likes Gandalf, she just may like old Ben, too.
She greatly enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy and is suffering, like the rest of us, through The Hobbit (she adores Legolas, so thank God he makes an appearance), so one would think Star Wars would be a natural fit. Her generation is also accustomed to dystopian fantasies and rebellious teens blowing stuff up; they cut their teeth on The Hunger Games. I can't help but think a girl who adores Katniss Everdeen will someday cheer for Luke to get that proton torpedo into a hole roughly the size of a womp rat. Luke and Katniss are cut from the same cloth, really--rural teens who find themselves fighting (and whining about fighting) against a vast and oppressive regime using skills they didn't know they had until called upon to save the world as they know it. Katniss even sports a very Padawan-esque over-the-shoulder braid. Ainsley has to at least feel some cathartic teen angst when watching these movies, right?
I plan to find out. I have been over the moon (I mean Death Star; that's no moon) ever since the fuzzy black-and-white picture of the cast of the new film was released this week. There's Carrie! And Mark! And Harrison! And the impossibly tall guy that plays Chewie! And OMG Andy-freaking-Serkis. My two geek worlds collide in that picture and I can hardly see straight.
So a proclamation went out last night over dinner. As a family, over the course of the next year, we will watch the original trilogy. Multiple times, if necessary. If we have to, we will watch the prequels. But only if we have to. I may not be able to make her love it, but I want her to at least be able to tolerate it. For we have a date. We will go, as the family unit we are, to the opening of the new film when it finally arrives in theaters. We will do this because the best memories from my childhood revolve around seeing various trilogy films for the first time--I saw Episode IV the night it premiered on HBO, I watched The Empire Strikes Back at a midnight showing with my Dad the weekend it came out, and my sister and brother-in-law waited in line for hours to get three tickets to take me to Return of the Jedi on opening night. I have to see this new movie. And whether she knows it yet or not, so does my daughter. If she's going to use her hate, she needs to know what it is she hates. And maybe, just maybe, there's more than a Sand Person's chance in Hoth of her letting her guard down and her prejudices go and liking this epic story of good and evil.
I can't just let her go to the dark side. The dark side being, of course, teen vampire romance movies.
I don't want to force my kid to be someone she's not or like something she doesn't simply because her mother loves it. But the cultural impact of these movies can't be denied, and I want her to at least know about them and make an informed decision. Then, if she doesn't like them, I will accept it. I won't like it, and I'd be lying if I said my feelings wouldn't be a little hurt. These movies were a huge part of my childhood and loving them is a part of my identity and embedded into my DNA. Not my midichlorians, George Lucas. My DNA. Leave the Force the mystery and ancient power it's supposed to be and quit explaining stuff you don't need to explain.
Wait, what? Where was I?
I would imagine that someday my daughter will have children of her own. And she will pass on to them some of her childhood loves--Phineas and Ferb, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Divergent. They will either like it or they won't, and she will have to cope with that. If I am lucky enough to still be on this planet and not be a shadow-y, see-through apparition appearing at Ewok celebrations, I'd like my grandkids to ask their mother why Mamaw has a big robot-looking guy dressed in a black cape on display in the basement right next to a weird light-up sword (and, if dreams come true, an R2-D2 keggerator.) And I'd like my daughter to answer that question with something other than, "Because your Mamaw is a weirdo."
Ideally, her answer to why Mamaw has all these strange things in the basement would begin thus:
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...
Sometimes we want them simply to be a little like us. To share a common passion, to have our same sense of humor, to be good at something we're also good at. It helps assure us that while we can't be immortal in our own bodies, we can live on through passed-down traits from generation to generation.
Which is why it pains me deeply to say this today, on the eve of May the fourth: my daughter hates Star Wars. Each word a dagger to my nerdy heart. Hates. It.
I have to believe that this hate has more to do with taking a stubborn stand against something the yucky-blucky boys in her class love than with the movies themselves. After all, we can't even get her to sit down to watch the first one. (And, to be clear, by "first one" I mean "Episode IV." I am a purist in this regard, and don't you dare try to Jedi-mind-trick me into believing otherwise.) She decided she hated everything pertaining to the Force several years ago before I even had a 31-inch Darth Vader gracing our hearth or displayed my lightsaber over the mantle. She hates it on principle and in theory, not so much in practice.
This gives me hope. A New Hope. A "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" hope. Seriously. She likes Gandalf, she just may like old Ben, too.
She greatly enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy and is suffering, like the rest of us, through The Hobbit (she adores Legolas, so thank God he makes an appearance), so one would think Star Wars would be a natural fit. Her generation is also accustomed to dystopian fantasies and rebellious teens blowing stuff up; they cut their teeth on The Hunger Games. I can't help but think a girl who adores Katniss Everdeen will someday cheer for Luke to get that proton torpedo into a hole roughly the size of a womp rat. Luke and Katniss are cut from the same cloth, really--rural teens who find themselves fighting (and whining about fighting) against a vast and oppressive regime using skills they didn't know they had until called upon to save the world as they know it. Katniss even sports a very Padawan-esque over-the-shoulder braid. Ainsley has to at least feel some cathartic teen angst when watching these movies, right?
I plan to find out. I have been over the moon (I mean Death Star; that's no moon) ever since the fuzzy black-and-white picture of the cast of the new film was released this week. There's Carrie! And Mark! And Harrison! And the impossibly tall guy that plays Chewie! And OMG Andy-freaking-Serkis. My two geek worlds collide in that picture and I can hardly see straight.
So a proclamation went out last night over dinner. As a family, over the course of the next year, we will watch the original trilogy. Multiple times, if necessary. If we have to, we will watch the prequels. But only if we have to. I may not be able to make her love it, but I want her to at least be able to tolerate it. For we have a date. We will go, as the family unit we are, to the opening of the new film when it finally arrives in theaters. We will do this because the best memories from my childhood revolve around seeing various trilogy films for the first time--I saw Episode IV the night it premiered on HBO, I watched The Empire Strikes Back at a midnight showing with my Dad the weekend it came out, and my sister and brother-in-law waited in line for hours to get three tickets to take me to Return of the Jedi on opening night. I have to see this new movie. And whether she knows it yet or not, so does my daughter. If she's going to use her hate, she needs to know what it is she hates. And maybe, just maybe, there's more than a Sand Person's chance in Hoth of her letting her guard down and her prejudices go and liking this epic story of good and evil.
I can't just let her go to the dark side. The dark side being, of course, teen vampire romance movies.
I don't want to force my kid to be someone she's not or like something she doesn't simply because her mother loves it. But the cultural impact of these movies can't be denied, and I want her to at least know about them and make an informed decision. Then, if she doesn't like them, I will accept it. I won't like it, and I'd be lying if I said my feelings wouldn't be a little hurt. These movies were a huge part of my childhood and loving them is a part of my identity and embedded into my DNA. Not my midichlorians, George Lucas. My DNA. Leave the Force the mystery and ancient power it's supposed to be and quit explaining stuff you don't need to explain.
Wait, what? Where was I?
I would imagine that someday my daughter will have children of her own. And she will pass on to them some of her childhood loves--Phineas and Ferb, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Divergent. They will either like it or they won't, and she will have to cope with that. If I am lucky enough to still be on this planet and not be a shadow-y, see-through apparition appearing at Ewok celebrations, I'd like my grandkids to ask their mother why Mamaw has a big robot-looking guy dressed in a black cape on display in the basement right next to a weird light-up sword (and, if dreams come true, an R2-D2 keggerator.) And I'd like my daughter to answer that question with something other than, "Because your Mamaw is a weirdo."
Ideally, her answer to why Mamaw has all these strange things in the basement would begin thus:
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away...
Friday, April 25, 2014
Reach for the stars
When I was eleven, I found nothing in my world nearly as beautiful as the full-color pictures of the Orion Nebula in the pages of Astronomy magazine.
Always a nerdy girl who couldn't decide between the Barbie Dream House and the Millennium Falcon, I became obsessed with the night sky and with the burning desire for my own telescope when I was in fifth grade. I don't know how it started, but I know that by Christmas of my 6th-grade year I was lobbying hard for a backyard telescope. It took my parents so off-guard that my mother began to ask her hair clients if they knew anything about amateur astronomy. It turns out one did, and before the telescope came I inherited five years' worth of back issues of Astronomy magazine, cast-offs from the college-departed son of one of Mom's ladies.
The magazines, it would turn out, were better than the telescope itself.
The telescope we could afford, purchased at Toys 'R' Us, was a huge disappointment. My dad and I could see the craters of the moon and, with a solar filter we probably shouldn't have trusted (I swear I haven't being seeing colors as brightly the past 29 years), some impressive sunspot activity. But stars were no starrier through the lens of our scope, and Jupiter and Saturn and Mars no more than small bright discs with no detail. The telescope sat in the corner of my bedroom collecting dust until I myself went off to college, when it became the problem of our local thrift store.
But no dust gathered on the Astronomy magazines.
I marveled at galaxies, nebulae, and clusters, and the amazing telescopes, trackers, and specialized cameras that made capturing their images in colorful, detailed glory possible. I wondered what sort of training one needed to have that job--sit at an observatory under a huge reflector telescope seeking and finding the marvels of our vast universe. Years later I found out that the training one needs to do this job actually requires a hell of a lot of advanced math, so I lost interest in it as a career. But I never lost interest in looking through a telescope and seeing the beautiful and amazing universe we live in.
So much so that I majored in astronomy in our state's Governor's Scholars program and lived for the Wednesday night viewings out in light-pollution-free rural central Kentucky, where I first looked through an amateur telescope large enough to allow me to see the rings of Saturn. Seeing that planet through a good eyepiece for the first time, at once both smaller and larger than I imagined, I gasped. It didn't look real; it had the pastel hue and crisp edges of a piece of penny candy someone had dangled at the end of my field of vision. But there it was--a celestial body I knew was so far away its light took five hours to reach my eye, but so close it seemed I could reach out and grab it.
Yet outside of viewing nights, my astronomy major was all math-y and physics-y and involved discussions of the big bang and photons and black holes and the space-time continuum. I was an arts-and-humanities-brained person trying to grasp quantum mechanics. I grew miserable and felt dumb on a daily basis and didn't look through a telescope again for years. But, oh--Saturn's rings. That's the stuff of poetry.
Flash-forward two decades. Two GSP astronomy majors have a daughter who likes to watch shows hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Jason, wanting a high-quality amateur scope without a high-quality pricetag, built a large reflector telescope so good that one of our friends used her iPhone to capture a picture of Saturn's rings through the eyepiece. Let me repeat that, so me at eleven can have her mind blown--I married someone who built a telescope powerful enough to show the rings of Saturn (and one of her moons) at a time when nearly all humans have a high-quality camera on a phone they carry with them all the time in their pockets.
In another plane of existence, in a parallel universe, 6th-grade me just got the shivers.
Last night, to make sure Ainsley's and Jason's spring break fun went out with a (big) bang, we took a family field trip to an observatory. Reservations were made before we knew it would be a cloudy night, but even on cloudy nights seeing a movable observation roof, a giant antique telescope, and getting a lecture on deep-space objects is good geeky family time. Luck, for a change, was on our side--shortly after dark, at the end of the lecture, the skies temporarily cleared. We took turns gazing at Mars, Jupiter with 4 of her moons, and a double star. The detail of these bodies was the best I've ever seen. I was giddy. It wasn't a page from one of those long-lost Astronomy magazines, but it was the stuff nerdy dreams are made of. And my own 11-year-old and my husband were just as in awe as I was.
I burned through a lot of dreams when I was kid. Like many, I dreamed of being rich, of being famous, or being a star. For a while, I dreamed simply of seeing stars. Not with my naked, nearsighted eyes, but in a way that makes this huge and overwhelming universe feel a tiny bit smaller. A tiny bit more accessible. A tiny bit more human.
On a suddenly clear night in April, my family beside me, I finally got to look through a huge professional telescope and see the details of another world. I reached for the stars and grasped them. And it was just as amazing as the Orion Nebula on the pages of a hand-me-down magazine.
Always a nerdy girl who couldn't decide between the Barbie Dream House and the Millennium Falcon, I became obsessed with the night sky and with the burning desire for my own telescope when I was in fifth grade. I don't know how it started, but I know that by Christmas of my 6th-grade year I was lobbying hard for a backyard telescope. It took my parents so off-guard that my mother began to ask her hair clients if they knew anything about amateur astronomy. It turns out one did, and before the telescope came I inherited five years' worth of back issues of Astronomy magazine, cast-offs from the college-departed son of one of Mom's ladies.
The magazines, it would turn out, were better than the telescope itself.
The telescope we could afford, purchased at Toys 'R' Us, was a huge disappointment. My dad and I could see the craters of the moon and, with a solar filter we probably shouldn't have trusted (I swear I haven't being seeing colors as brightly the past 29 years), some impressive sunspot activity. But stars were no starrier through the lens of our scope, and Jupiter and Saturn and Mars no more than small bright discs with no detail. The telescope sat in the corner of my bedroom collecting dust until I myself went off to college, when it became the problem of our local thrift store.
But no dust gathered on the Astronomy magazines.
I marveled at galaxies, nebulae, and clusters, and the amazing telescopes, trackers, and specialized cameras that made capturing their images in colorful, detailed glory possible. I wondered what sort of training one needed to have that job--sit at an observatory under a huge reflector telescope seeking and finding the marvels of our vast universe. Years later I found out that the training one needs to do this job actually requires a hell of a lot of advanced math, so I lost interest in it as a career. But I never lost interest in looking through a telescope and seeing the beautiful and amazing universe we live in.
So much so that I majored in astronomy in our state's Governor's Scholars program and lived for the Wednesday night viewings out in light-pollution-free rural central Kentucky, where I first looked through an amateur telescope large enough to allow me to see the rings of Saturn. Seeing that planet through a good eyepiece for the first time, at once both smaller and larger than I imagined, I gasped. It didn't look real; it had the pastel hue and crisp edges of a piece of penny candy someone had dangled at the end of my field of vision. But there it was--a celestial body I knew was so far away its light took five hours to reach my eye, but so close it seemed I could reach out and grab it.
Yet outside of viewing nights, my astronomy major was all math-y and physics-y and involved discussions of the big bang and photons and black holes and the space-time continuum. I was an arts-and-humanities-brained person trying to grasp quantum mechanics. I grew miserable and felt dumb on a daily basis and didn't look through a telescope again for years. But, oh--Saturn's rings. That's the stuff of poetry.
Flash-forward two decades. Two GSP astronomy majors have a daughter who likes to watch shows hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Jason, wanting a high-quality amateur scope without a high-quality pricetag, built a large reflector telescope so good that one of our friends used her iPhone to capture a picture of Saturn's rings through the eyepiece. Let me repeat that, so me at eleven can have her mind blown--I married someone who built a telescope powerful enough to show the rings of Saturn (and one of her moons) at a time when nearly all humans have a high-quality camera on a phone they carry with them all the time in their pockets.
In another plane of existence, in a parallel universe, 6th-grade me just got the shivers.
Last night, to make sure Ainsley's and Jason's spring break fun went out with a (big) bang, we took a family field trip to an observatory. Reservations were made before we knew it would be a cloudy night, but even on cloudy nights seeing a movable observation roof, a giant antique telescope, and getting a lecture on deep-space objects is good geeky family time. Luck, for a change, was on our side--shortly after dark, at the end of the lecture, the skies temporarily cleared. We took turns gazing at Mars, Jupiter with 4 of her moons, and a double star. The detail of these bodies was the best I've ever seen. I was giddy. It wasn't a page from one of those long-lost Astronomy magazines, but it was the stuff nerdy dreams are made of. And my own 11-year-old and my husband were just as in awe as I was.
I burned through a lot of dreams when I was kid. Like many, I dreamed of being rich, of being famous, or being a star. For a while, I dreamed simply of seeing stars. Not with my naked, nearsighted eyes, but in a way that makes this huge and overwhelming universe feel a tiny bit smaller. A tiny bit more accessible. A tiny bit more human.
On a suddenly clear night in April, my family beside me, I finally got to look through a huge professional telescope and see the details of another world. I reached for the stars and grasped them. And it was just as amazing as the Orion Nebula on the pages of a hand-me-down magazine.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Let me bring you a plate.
Food is love.
I've often heard it said but never really experienced it until the outpouring of food-love I received in the weeks following my shoulder surgery. My friends and co-workers, knowing that providing healthy food with one arm for a growing swimmer could be a challenge, kept a meal train going for me that included homemade specialties, our favorite carry-out dinners, and restaurant gift cards. I didn't have to prepare a dinner on my own on a weeknight until I started weaning from the sling. It was a gesture from those closest to me that on more than one occasion made me so grateful I could (and did) cry.
I come from a southern-slash-hill-people family, so I should have known that food isn't always just food. If I was sick, if I'd gotten my feelings hurt, if I was coming home on break during my difficult first two years of college--I got fed. My mother knew how to soothe my heart by way of my stomach better than anyone.
And when she had prepared for me one of my favorites, be it chicken and noodles, or fried spinach, or a cheeseburger, or even just a sloppy peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she always announced its readiness with the same verbal dinner bell:
Supper's ready. Come fix you a plate.
What a great colloquialism: Fix you a plate. Just that word "fix" implies healing and repair. For either your spirit or your body or perhaps both. It's not just putting food on a piece of ceramic--it's arranging it according to your own needs and personal aesthetics. It's art and medicine all at once.
My mother always said that the food she cooked for other people tasted better than the food she cooked just for herself. In her later years when she lived alone she rarely ate her own cooking, and swore that when she cooked for others, she cooked with joy and love. The proof for her was literally in the pudding. The banana pudding.
Because I am my mother's daughter, my first solo dinner following surgery was homemade chicken noodle soup for my ailing daughter. She came home from school last Wednesday looking pitiful with a spring cold, and she needed love in the form of protein, veggies, and carbs.
She was on my mind as I cut carrots, cubed chicken, and simmered broth. I didn't just sprinkle poultry seasoning into the pot; I poured in a little of my heart as well.
And I'll be damned if that wasn't the best pot of chicken noodle soup I've ever made.
I'm determined to pay forward the kindness of my friends and colleagues. I've brought food to ailing friends and family before, but not as often as I should. I am in debt to those who helped me through a physically tough time, and the debt needs to be paid in chilies and casseroles.
So if you find yourself sick, or in spiritual turmoil, let me know. I'll stop be your house. And I'll bring you a plate.
I've often heard it said but never really experienced it until the outpouring of food-love I received in the weeks following my shoulder surgery. My friends and co-workers, knowing that providing healthy food with one arm for a growing swimmer could be a challenge, kept a meal train going for me that included homemade specialties, our favorite carry-out dinners, and restaurant gift cards. I didn't have to prepare a dinner on my own on a weeknight until I started weaning from the sling. It was a gesture from those closest to me that on more than one occasion made me so grateful I could (and did) cry.
I come from a southern-slash-hill-people family, so I should have known that food isn't always just food. If I was sick, if I'd gotten my feelings hurt, if I was coming home on break during my difficult first two years of college--I got fed. My mother knew how to soothe my heart by way of my stomach better than anyone.
And when she had prepared for me one of my favorites, be it chicken and noodles, or fried spinach, or a cheeseburger, or even just a sloppy peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she always announced its readiness with the same verbal dinner bell:
Supper's ready. Come fix you a plate.
What a great colloquialism: Fix you a plate. Just that word "fix" implies healing and repair. For either your spirit or your body or perhaps both. It's not just putting food on a piece of ceramic--it's arranging it according to your own needs and personal aesthetics. It's art and medicine all at once.
My mother always said that the food she cooked for other people tasted better than the food she cooked just for herself. In her later years when she lived alone she rarely ate her own cooking, and swore that when she cooked for others, she cooked with joy and love. The proof for her was literally in the pudding. The banana pudding.
Because I am my mother's daughter, my first solo dinner following surgery was homemade chicken noodle soup for my ailing daughter. She came home from school last Wednesday looking pitiful with a spring cold, and she needed love in the form of protein, veggies, and carbs.
She was on my mind as I cut carrots, cubed chicken, and simmered broth. I didn't just sprinkle poultry seasoning into the pot; I poured in a little of my heart as well.
And I'll be damned if that wasn't the best pot of chicken noodle soup I've ever made.
I'm determined to pay forward the kindness of my friends and colleagues. I've brought food to ailing friends and family before, but not as often as I should. I am in debt to those who helped me through a physically tough time, and the debt needs to be paid in chilies and casseroles.
So if you find yourself sick, or in spiritual turmoil, let me know. I'll stop be your house. And I'll bring you a plate.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Two Years
Hi, Mom.
I'll admit, I'm currently going through one of those phases where I'm pretty uncertain about where I stand on God/heaven/an afterlife/angels, so I don't know if these words will find you. And if they do, that first sentence is probably breaking your heart because your firm and unshakable belief has been confirmed and I'm down here doubting and debating you as usual. No matter. Because two years ago today I sat at your bedside in hospice and held your hand and said goodbye to you for the last time without knowing it would be for the last time, and I find myself missing the spirit that made you you, wherever that spirit and energy may now be. And I need to talk to you even if you can't listen.
I wrote the above paragraph yesterday after school in an attempt to express the heaviness and sorrow I felt knowing that today is my least favorite anniversary. I typed it while Ainsley did homework, then stared at it, had no more words, and went about the rest of my day.
I went down to our basement laundry room and began to take my daughter's clothes out of the dryer. As I stood there, I mulled words and phrases around in my head trying to figure out what I could possibly say to you, my readers, and to myself, that would give me comfort and strength and express what it's like to lose your mother too soon.
And then I saw something out of place on top of the lint filter. Something that I did not expect to find at all, especially not in my clothes dryer. I found a necklace. I found the necklace. And I've been trying to wrap my head around it ever since.
To tell you that story, I have to tell you this one.
In the months following Mom's death, Ainsley and I both clung to tangible items that had once belonged to her that made our healing hearts feel a little less empty. For me, it was one of her watches. It was too small for my wrist and more white and more large than I prefer my watches to be, but I wore it every day that first summer. For Ainsley, it was two things: the little stuffed lamb that had sat at Mom's bedside in the hospital and which she told me she wanted Ainsley to have when she knew she wasn't going to make it, and the silver palm tree necklace that Mom had brought back for Ains from vacation not long before she got sick.
Ainsley wore the necklace every day the first weeks of her summer vacation, only taking it off for swim practice. One day she got invited last-minute to go to the neighborhood swimming pool with our neighbors, and in our rush to get her out the door, we didn't secure the necklace first. When she came back from the pool it was no longer around her neck. Neither a frantic search of her swim bag nor violent shaking of her towel, swimsuit, and cover-up yielded the necklace. For a week I retraced her steps through the yard, called the pool, checked the lost-and-found, looked for something shiny on the pool bottom. With a heavy heart, I accepted the necklace's loss and mourned for it. It was the last gift she ever gave her granddaughter, and it was gone.
That was July of 2012. Since then, life has moved on. I had forgotten all about the lost necklace. Until it suddenly appeared in my dryer the day before the second anniversary of Mom's death.
I immediately ran upstairs to Ainsley, still doing homework in her room, and saw that she was as surprised as I was. She had not seen it since that day at the pool, either. But together we came up with the most logical explanation for its return.
Sunday night I washed her swim bag, which she had taken with her that day. Even though we turned that thing upside down and inside out looking for the necklace initially, and even though it's been emptied and washed several times since July of 2012, it must have been hidden deep inside a pocket. It finally emerged Sunday, and hid itself in the three other loads of clothes I did until, like the magic bullet or the one ring, it perched itself cleanly out in plain view.
That's the logical explanation.
But the timing of its discovery leads me to believe (bear with me, skeptics) that there is an unseen hand in this, and that it was a message of comfort to get me through a difficult day.
Do I believe in angels, or ghosts, or that the energy of the dead can somehow communicate with us from whatever is Beyond? I still don't know. It depends on the day, the slant of the moon, and how recently I've watched a horror movie. I've seen things that could lead me to believe that a bit of our souls, a bit of the energy and electric charges that make us us, sticks around a bit after we've breathed our last. Yet the older I get, and the more bitter and cynical I get, the less I believe in things I can't quantify. I doubt. Daily. And will probably spend the rest of my days in a cycle of belief/disbelief that colors my views on God, the afterlife, and the supernatural in various changing shades of gray.
Today, I lean toward belief. Mostly because it gives me comfort. Today, what was lost has been found. I feel my mother's presence in this whether it's there or not. Because of this, it's not a sad day. It's a happy day. My grieving heart has been made light.
So Mom, if you are indeed listening...thank you. Even if the necklace was not your doing...thank you. For everything. I love you, and I still miss you, but now I know: there's always a little piece of you in my heart. Like the necklace, there are times I've thought it was lost. But it's still there, just waiting for me to find it again.
I'll admit, I'm currently going through one of those phases where I'm pretty uncertain about where I stand on God/heaven/an afterlife/angels, so I don't know if these words will find you. And if they do, that first sentence is probably breaking your heart because your firm and unshakable belief has been confirmed and I'm down here doubting and debating you as usual. No matter. Because two years ago today I sat at your bedside in hospice and held your hand and said goodbye to you for the last time without knowing it would be for the last time, and I find myself missing the spirit that made you you, wherever that spirit and energy may now be. And I need to talk to you even if you can't listen.
I wrote the above paragraph yesterday after school in an attempt to express the heaviness and sorrow I felt knowing that today is my least favorite anniversary. I typed it while Ainsley did homework, then stared at it, had no more words, and went about the rest of my day.
I went down to our basement laundry room and began to take my daughter's clothes out of the dryer. As I stood there, I mulled words and phrases around in my head trying to figure out what I could possibly say to you, my readers, and to myself, that would give me comfort and strength and express what it's like to lose your mother too soon.
And then I saw something out of place on top of the lint filter. Something that I did not expect to find at all, especially not in my clothes dryer. I found a necklace. I found the necklace. And I've been trying to wrap my head around it ever since.
To tell you that story, I have to tell you this one.
In the months following Mom's death, Ainsley and I both clung to tangible items that had once belonged to her that made our healing hearts feel a little less empty. For me, it was one of her watches. It was too small for my wrist and more white and more large than I prefer my watches to be, but I wore it every day that first summer. For Ainsley, it was two things: the little stuffed lamb that had sat at Mom's bedside in the hospital and which she told me she wanted Ainsley to have when she knew she wasn't going to make it, and the silver palm tree necklace that Mom had brought back for Ains from vacation not long before she got sick.
Ainsley wore the necklace every day the first weeks of her summer vacation, only taking it off for swim practice. One day she got invited last-minute to go to the neighborhood swimming pool with our neighbors, and in our rush to get her out the door, we didn't secure the necklace first. When she came back from the pool it was no longer around her neck. Neither a frantic search of her swim bag nor violent shaking of her towel, swimsuit, and cover-up yielded the necklace. For a week I retraced her steps through the yard, called the pool, checked the lost-and-found, looked for something shiny on the pool bottom. With a heavy heart, I accepted the necklace's loss and mourned for it. It was the last gift she ever gave her granddaughter, and it was gone.
That was July of 2012. Since then, life has moved on. I had forgotten all about the lost necklace. Until it suddenly appeared in my dryer the day before the second anniversary of Mom's death.
I immediately ran upstairs to Ainsley, still doing homework in her room, and saw that she was as surprised as I was. She had not seen it since that day at the pool, either. But together we came up with the most logical explanation for its return.
Sunday night I washed her swim bag, which she had taken with her that day. Even though we turned that thing upside down and inside out looking for the necklace initially, and even though it's been emptied and washed several times since July of 2012, it must have been hidden deep inside a pocket. It finally emerged Sunday, and hid itself in the three other loads of clothes I did until, like the magic bullet or the one ring, it perched itself cleanly out in plain view.
That's the logical explanation.
But the timing of its discovery leads me to believe (bear with me, skeptics) that there is an unseen hand in this, and that it was a message of comfort to get me through a difficult day.
Do I believe in angels, or ghosts, or that the energy of the dead can somehow communicate with us from whatever is Beyond? I still don't know. It depends on the day, the slant of the moon, and how recently I've watched a horror movie. I've seen things that could lead me to believe that a bit of our souls, a bit of the energy and electric charges that make us us, sticks around a bit after we've breathed our last. Yet the older I get, and the more bitter and cynical I get, the less I believe in things I can't quantify. I doubt. Daily. And will probably spend the rest of my days in a cycle of belief/disbelief that colors my views on God, the afterlife, and the supernatural in various changing shades of gray.
Today, I lean toward belief. Mostly because it gives me comfort. Today, what was lost has been found. I feel my mother's presence in this whether it's there or not. Because of this, it's not a sad day. It's a happy day. My grieving heart has been made light.
So Mom, if you are indeed listening...thank you. Even if the necklace was not your doing...thank you. For everything. I love you, and I still miss you, but now I know: there's always a little piece of you in my heart. Like the necklace, there are times I've thought it was lost. But it's still there, just waiting for me to find it again.
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