Lea Sylvestro

Feast to Flight

2012-02-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

Our departure from Sukhothai did not start out well.

To celebrate his wife’s birthday, our host, Marco, graciously invited us to a traditional Thai luncheon along with the other hotel guests. After checking out of our rooms, Dave, Casey, Karis and I gathered with the others on the porch at the main house. The cool refreshment of the morning’s dip in the pool had sweated away in stuffing the backpacks, hauling them to our shoulders, and lugging them to the front entrance. While the view from the shelter of the porch was sunlight on neat patches of lawn bordered by green fronds and flowers, it was sweltering hot.

Stretched the length of the table, browned and grinning, was a roast pig. A whole pig. I glanced at Dave, chagrined. Since childhood, I’ve been a fan of pigs – Wilbur of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, and the plucky Babe of the 1995 movie by that name. Pigs are smarter than dogs, and with a forgiving permanent smile, greet a world that sees them as pork and bacon. Where many would relish this feast as a delightful native experience, Dave and I don’t eat meat, so we were grateful for the hospitality, but tentative. One hears stories of guests eating monkey brains and eyeballs rather than offending a Chinese host, and while this was not as dramatic, I wished not to be rude, but was not going to eat that pig.

Ceramic bowls heaped with steaming concoctions were arrayed around the main course. Perfect. I ladled onto my plate a generous portion of pasta-like tubes in thick red sauce. The dish smelled rich and spicy, but I was wary enough to ask before digging in. It was not pasta and tomatoes, but a stew of blood sauce well stocked with assorted arteries, veins, and ducts. Surprisingly, I was not hungry. There was a lovely bowl of fresh fruit on the table, thank God, and I can report that orange and banana peels make excellent cover.

After picking and poking through the meal, artfully arranging the remnants on our plates, we thanked Marco and his wife effusively, then requested a tuk tuk for our trip to the airport. Marco waved the idea aside – cordial as he was, we’d found he was a man of strong opinion, accustomed to control – and declared a minivan was better, given the length of the trip and the nature of the roads. He made the arrangements and indicated a cost of 300 baht, or nine dollars. Not bad for a forty-five minute ride for four people.

Upon arrival at the airport, the driver turned and requested payment, 1200 baht.

Casey leaned forward from the back seat, her spine rigid, uncompromising. Her eyes locked with those of the driver, her gaze strong as a steel beam. “That is not what we were told.” She said.

The man spoke little English and repeated the price. Held up four fingers. Pointed at the four of us. Perhaps we were unaware of our number? Couldn’t add?

My daughter shook her head, lips set in a tight line. “Not acceptable. I realize this is not your fault, but we will not pay 1200 baht.”

Who was this woman, so firm, so noble, in her pursuit of right? Her antennae had been quivering with caution about Marco since she met him. He was out of her reach, beyond the laser of her indignation, but she was glorious in her determination to shield her parents from his conniving.

Unfortunately, Dave and I were not up to the battle. Soothing others, seeking agreement: that’s what we do. Maybe this was a misunderstanding? Given the option of striding from the van trailed by a protesting driver, Casey and Karis with heads high, Lea and Dave, heads down, hoping no one would see us, we paid. “I’ve learned to sniff out scams, Mom, and that’s what this was.”

*Sigh*

But what better way to ease resentment than to spend an hour or two at Sukhothai airport? I jest not; the place was a joy. The waiting area was an open-air shelter, breezy and aromatic with the scent of surrounding gardens. Rows of comfortable wooden chairs branched from the central focus, an artful arrangement of sea-swept gray driftwood and sinuous purple and white orchids. To increase the pleasure of our stay, a complimentary self-serve counter offered juice, tea, cappuccino, hot chocolate and coffee, as well as banana chips and crispy rice treats studded with sesame seeds and cashews. It was festive, light-filled, as we chatted, snacks in hand, with a couple from Australia.

A winged vision in pink, red, yellow and coral glided to the gate, and our flight was announced. I fairly danced to the plane with its mural of fanciful fish and flora painted on the fuselage. Smiling attendants bowed in greeting as we boarded, and once we were seated and buckled in, outside the window, the ground crew, in neon vests and goggles, waved as we rolled away.

Asian airlines return fun to flight.

On this one-hour jaunt, lunch was served; one of the best meals I’ve had on the trip so far. Wide noodles, shrimp, carrots and baby corn in a sauce with a hint of curry. I don’t like cooked carrots as a rule, but these were cooked to the point of just the right crunch. Oh, and did I mention the free beer and wine?

Who do I write to lodge compliments and complaints? I’ve come to accept the harsh conditions of the airlines we usually travel. Delta seating allows no room to shift or stretch and throws a defiant gauntlet to one my age. Creaky knees? As if we care. Sore coccyx? Alternate butt cheeks. Hungry? Have some peanuts. But Bangkok Airways? May I offer more fresh pineapple and papaya? How can I make you more comfortable?

While we relaxed with our wine, fruit, and curry, the view out the windows of the land passing below was grim: swaths of brown mud with geometrical borders of spindly green: flooded rice paddies. On the ride from the Lotus Hotel to the airport, we’d seen our first glimpses of the devastation reaped by the floods: people picking around in yards strewn with debris, porches askew, roads and bridges washed out. This plane ride had been the only viable route open, as we’d heard that buses were forced to take detours up to twelve hours long, and even then, some bogged down, water seeping into the vehicles' interior.

What would await us in Bangkok?

Sukhothai - Part II - Breathing with the Buddha

2012-01-29T18:01:00.000-08:00

Casey and Karis don’t trust Marco, and I hate how much that influences me. He is chatty and informative, indulges my efforts at Italian, and hustled us out last night as soon as we’d dropped our packs in our rooms so we could take a tuk tuk for a spin around the historic park during the Saturday night illumination. It was amazing, and we would have missed it otherwise. But I confess, he makes me uncomfortable too, and I am not sure why.

Still, he promised an incredible breakfast and even if it had been toast and coffee, I would have enjoyed it from my seat on the porch at the main house, surrounded by lush gardens, tall, graceful lotus flowers, rustic chairs of twisted vine, and tables set with fruit and jam in painted ceramic bowls.

Marco greets us warmly and places a small green pouch of banana leaf on the placemats before us. “Coconut and rice pudding. An old woman in the market makes it every day,” he says. “And this,” he says, referring to a long stick encased in seeping translucent gold, “wild honey from the forest.”

We peel open the little pouches and spoon honey on the pudding inside. I don’t like coconut, so I take a cautious nibble. Divine. I love it, so Marco brings me another, as well as eggs to order, coffee, juice and toast. Incredible. He was right.

Dave asks about the ceramics - our sink, the pots on the table - so Marco disappears in the house, and returns with a map of the town. He draws an arrow to indicate the location of the ceramics shop and instructs us to rent bikes to visit the park. “Go now. Later on, it is too hot. Come back to the pool for the afternoon, and return to the park for sunset.” He could not be more gracious, and I am defensive when Casey is annoyed when he asks for payment for WiFi use. I want everyone to get along, everything smooth. One of Casey’s personal goals for the trip is to free herself of undue concern over others’ opinions, expectations and moods; I could use a dose of that myself.

* * *

After our morning tour of the park, Casey and Karis head back to the pool while Dave and I ride out in search of ceramics. We steer our bikes down a narrow lane lined with rickety shacks separated by corrugated metal fences. A man squats in a doorway making a broom. A family prepares to sit for lunch at a table beneath a metal awning. Will they shoo the kitten off the table, I wonder? The dog stretched languorously by their feet is not budging, and everyone’s ignoring the chickens scratching about the table legs. Dave and I know nothing about Thai economics or social circumstances and this neighborhood is, at best, humble, but we’ve seen many streets and abodes like this. Still, it’s hard to imagine a shop of fine ceramics in this setting.

I slow down and stop to show the map to a strolling couple. They look blank and shake their heads. A wisp of an old woman limps by, leaning on her walking stick. We greet each other, Sah-was-dee-kah, but I don’t bother her with the map. Finally, a young man in a soccer jersey appears in a yard, studies the map for a moment, and directs us back the way we came, indicating a final jog to the left.

We retrace our path, take that left… and the shacks, metal fences and dusty yards give way to thick jungle ferns stalked by snarling green ceramic guardians; Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu god of success; writhing serpents; many Buddhas….and a woman in a surgical mask bathing a small naked boy in a tub. She waves as if she’s been expecting us, and points to a doorway across the road. We park our bikes hesitantly; will they be safe? I look to the woman, gesture to the bikes, try to come up with some universal signal for safety. Can’t think of any. I make a concerned face, wave my hands around to take in the area and the bikes. She nods and bends to douse the child with water.

Inside, two women greet us, bowing, beneath a carved wooden lintel. In shin length jeans and a multi-colored shirt, one woman is fiftyish and matronly, with a round, flat-planed face. Her feet are bare. Her regal companion is older, seventy or so, with youthful, fine-boned features. Her shiny, black hair is pulled back in a tight bun and her white jacket is stylish over an ankle-length skirt. A small reserved smile curves her lips. Beyond them, a hallway is lined with shelves piled high with plates, bowls, tea sets and vases. We see jam pots like those at Lotus Inn, as well as the mammoth bowls that serve as sinks. As we browse, the older woman remains silent while her round-faced partner follows our eyes, hands us pieces to inspect, and spouts prices. “Hand made. 400 baht.” About twelve dollars.

I picture my already burdensome backpack, considering what I can toss out, what products I can combine, how much I could carry in a separate bag. I’d love a full set of dinner plates…and those sinks? Out of the question, of course, but they are glazed with a subtle crackle finish that makes them look ancient, and Asian design or not, they’d be perfect in our early American house.

We have wandered into a warehouse area stocked with life-size Buddhas and guardians. The lovely woman in white abruptly takes my arm, turns me around, and walks me purposefully toward the front hall. Have I offended? Is she kicking us out?

No. She has decided that guardians are not on our shopping list, and steers us toward the items-that-might-fit-into-a-backpack room. She knows clients and wants to get down to business. Her companion pulls over a stool for me, and then our two hosts sit cross-legged on the floor. Dave joins us and the negotiations begin. A young girl appears from the back with a tray, bows, and offers water in sealed plastic cups: a variation on the tea theme, perfect for this hot day. Dave and I press our hands together, bow, and say “Kah-poon-kah.” Thank you.

“Babies?” the round-faced woman asks.

At my answer, “one girl, one boy,” she rises to fetch two small figurines – a pony and a bird – and hands them to me. “Gifts.” She then adds another bird and an elephant, and with an open hand, palm up, indicates me and Dave. “For you.”

I feel like I’m in a movie. Shopping at the mall, this is not.

Dave and I review the array before us and begin eliminations: if only we could carry more! I ask, with a combination of words and gestures, if they ship to the U.S. They shake their heads no, so we are down to a vase, two bowls, four small saucers, and the figurines. The women give no sign of disappointment in our meager purchases when we signal we are done.

After an abundance of wrapping in newspaper and bubble-wrap, several bows, and “Kah-poon-kahs,” Dave and I mount our bikes, now ungainly because bulging plastic bags dangle from the handlebars. How? How? How will we fit all this into our backpacks?

* * *

It’s not work from which I need a break, but myself.

After our excursion to the ceramics emporium, Dave and I join the girls at the pool at Lotus Inn. Due to the heat and relentless sun, they have taken refuge on colorful fabric mats in one of the raised, thatch-roofed platforms pool-side. We claim the adjacent shelter and stretch out. Could not be more idyllic. But I am mentally twitching. This morning as we biked the shaded roads of the historic park past stately Buddhas, bulbous towers and corridors of ancient columns, I admired the view, but my mind was a hamster on a wheel of worry. We have hotel reservations in Bangkok tomorrow night, but because of the floods, trains aren’t running and normal bus routes are closed. Earlier, we’d asked Marco to look into our options and he said, “Bangkok is floating. You can take a bus, but with the detours, it will take twelve hours at least. You’ll have to fly. That’s it. Fly.”

That’s it. Fly. Casey hates flying and both girls are budget conscious. The unexpected plane fare was bad news – not to mention the “Bangkok is floating” part - and Marco, the messenger, received a low grade from the girls. But we had no choice, and booked the flight with Bangkok Airways. So that was set, but I sense the tension. Dave and I will help the girls with the ticket price, but still, Casey is annoyed and anxious, and the shadows are lengthening. If we are to make it to the park for sunset as planned, we have to hurry.

Hurrying is hateful when it is sweltering hot, the shower sprays water all over the bathroom (as there is no shower stall, no shower door, no shower curtain, just the shower itself with the resulting wet toilet paper, wet toilet seat, and wet towels), clothes are clammy the minute you dress, and the bike ride (over streets littered with flattened snakes, land crabs, turtles, and toads) is steamy.

We wheel into the park as the sun sinks. It flames orange through the trees and glints off the reflecting pool at the entrance. We leap off our bikes to capture that shot, then re-mount and pedal like crazy to reach the monuments. We let drop the bikes and run up the walkway, past snoozing stray dogs and sauntering tourists who’d timed their visit better.

This was our third visit to the park in twenty-four hours. We’d taken the illumination tour last night as well as this morning’s spin around the reflecting pools and temples, so we have seen the sights. Photography has been an important part of Karis and Casey’s trip; they have experimented with color pick-up, lighting, silhouettes, and details. The purpose of this sunset trip is its artistic opportunities…and we are late. I do not want the girls to be disappointed.

Without a word, the four of us scatter. Where might the colors of the sun’s final show best be seen?

Like the others, I dart down pathways between rows of columns and clamber crumbling stairways, clicking frantically as the sun disappears. On a massive platform before a giant Buddha, near the vine-like trunk of an ancient bodhi tree, I finally give in and sheath my camera. Nestled in the roots of the tree, a scruffy dog nurses her squirming puppies, and I wonder at my haste, my frenzy of photos. I am not a photographer, and three other cameras in skilled hands have been zooming and focusing to freeze this evening for us. Why have I rushed about so, when a pen is my tool?

I sit on the sun-warmed bricks in the dusky light and watch the puppies. Crickets hum. In a grassy area nearby, young boys dash after a ball. I am wistful, envious of their easy laughter. This is their home; these monuments, so familiar, a barely noticed backdrop to their Sunday night soccer.

My gaze shifts to the Buddha. Twenty-five feet tall and painted white, he holds one arm out, bent at the elbow, hand upraised, palm out. Dave learned in an audio tour this morning that this is the posture for fearlessness, protection and peace. Physically, it is not an easy position (I tried), but I yearn for these three blessings for myself and my loved ones. I breathe more slowly and strive to release worry about flights and the girls’ feelings. Breathe… Breathe… Breathe... The Buddha’s smile is serene; I try to match it.

Karis appears below me, camera upraised and aimed in my direction. “Lea, don’t move,” she says and presses the shutter. For the moment, with the help of the Buddha, I am the image of peace.

Sukhothai, Part I - Plan B

2012-01-23T14:18:00.000-08:00

The ancient city of Ayutthaya is flooded, so we won’t be wandering among its temples as planned. Rising waters are eliminating travel routes and transportation possibilities, but I am striving to stow worry about reaching Bangkok in time for the flight home in five days. Live in the moment. Pay attention. Absorb my surroundings. Good goals. And right now, Karis, Casey, Dave and I are tucked in a van among a jumble of bags, backpacks and passengers for the trip to Chiang Mai en route to Sukhothai, our Plan B after studying the guidebooks for un-flooded ancient sites.

The girls were shaking and wobbly-kneed after our wild careen up to Pai, and were not about to tolerate reckless driving again. Seasoned travelers as they are, they have learned to assert themselves and demand satisfaction. My sisters tell me I’m conflict-avoidant and there may be some truth to that, so I have been impressed with my daughter’s confident “don’t mess with me” attitude.

In this case, Karis did not wait for Poo, the unfortunately named driver, to demonstrate his skills at the wheel, but put a hand on his arm as soon as he settled into the seat next to her. Her blue eyes and solemn smile expressed, “We will understand each other,” as she said, “Slow and steady wins the race.”

“Number One driver,” replied Poo, hand upraised, index finger extended. #1.

“Number One, yes, if you get us to Chiang Mai with no one sick and everyone safe.”

“Number One,” repeated Poo.

“Do you know the story of the tortoise and the hare?” Karis asked.

Casey, Dave and I chuckled, sure that Aesop was prominent in Poo’s education. Still, either Poo is a man who values his passengers’ lives and mental health more than his colleagues, or Karis’s intensity conveyed her message. He takes the switchbacks cautiously, honks a cheerful warning before blind curves, and drives at a speed that leaves us hands-free as opposed to clinging desperately to the seats before us.

“Besides,” Karis tells us, “the number on the van is my mom’s birthday, so she has us covered.” Karis lost her mother six years ago, and we are grateful for this sign that Cathy’s on watch from the Other Side.

Once underway, the girls flip through Poo’s CDs, and discover Rod Stewart. Crazy. As soon as Rod begins to rock, the girls chime in and commence a synchronized chin-jut, shoulder dip routine in rhythm with the sway of the van. Poo observes their antics with amusement. “I bet he doesn’t usually share the front seat with dancers,” Karis says with a grin.

I love my view of those two bobbing heads, Karis’s streaky blond hair in its neat bun, and Casey’s tousled brunette knot, wispy tendrils curling down her neck. I am infused with their joy, these funny, light, high-spirited girls who are reveling in this portion of their Asian journey.

Beep, beep, beep. Poo blows the horn as we pass a van on its way up to Pai. “Was that your friend?" Karis asks him. He smiles, but doesn’t respond.

“Nice. Nice greeting,” Casey says. I think they’re relieved to have a sane man piloting us down the mountain. Everything he does is cause for praise.

“He’s being very careful, girls,” I say as Poo honks a warning at a pedestrian.

In unison, their heads swivel to smile at me and nod. “Yes. I love him. I might even give him a hug once we arrive.” Karis beams.

* * *

A night arrival to the unforgiving white lights of a bus station in an unfamiliar town is always unsettling. Add the Asian factor? Disorienting and disconcerting. Disappointing. Disheartening. All kinds of words that start with “dis.” It is warm out, but I’m cold, perhaps it’s my mood more than the temperature. We have no reservations, and when a tuk tuk driver, handsome despite a birthmark that stains half his face, grabs two of our packs and hustles us to his vehicle, we comply without complaint. He has a tiny child in tow, a little girl, and for no good reason, that reassures me, but knowing nothing about my surroundings is way out of my comfort zone.

We load into the tuk tuk and leave the station behind. I watch suspiciously as a sign for the historic park points one way, and we head in the opposite direction toward “New Sukhothai.” Doesn’t sound good. I don’t trust “New.” I want to say, “Wait!” but there’s a window between the driver and me, so we forge on into the dark.

In ten minutes or so, we pull into what appears to be a rest stop. No. It’s a hostel. Dave and I clamber from the tuk tuk to check out a room. It’s clean, but sterile, and I can’t imagine that New Sukhothai is the place to be. We shake our heads and our guide says he will show us something else.

“Something else” is down a long, light-less, street that snakes along a canal. “Something else” is a place where one might be murdered and disappear forever. No.

Casey has been flicking through the Lonely Planet guidebook and finds an inn near the historic park. Our driver hesitates, “Far away. 15 kilometers.” My fellow travelers are adamant, thank god. Alone, I might have caved and settled for the sterile hostel, but we head for the Lotus Inn which, as it turns out, is only ten minutes away.

The place is whacky; we can see that despite the hour. Chubby statuettes of gnomes and grinning, bare-bummed girls peek from ferns lining wading pools afloat with water lilies. Paths inlaid with ceramic flowers weave among shrubs and canopied enclosures hung with bamboo hammocks. Scents of wood-smoke, honey and incense perfume the air. We are charmed as we can be, given our rumpled state and fatigue, as Marco, the proprietor, leads Dave and me up the steps of a porch to a snug bungalow.

Marco is sixty-five or so I’d guess, and his white hair is swept back from a high forehead, prominent arched nose, and piercing eyes shadowed by extravagant brows. In a loose canary-yellow shirt, he fumbles with the lock, opens the door, and gestures for us to enter. The room is small but attractive, the bed draped in mosquito nets. Oddly enough, rather than fleeing after spotting a pile of chewed fabrics and telltale turds – a rat’s nest perhaps? – we troop behind our host to check two other bungalows. During our short time in Thailand, I have tried to suspend my American sense of what is acceptable. Besides, I have never slept behind mosquito nets, and I am drawn by the stunning red lacquer bathroom with its sink of smoky blue ceramic graced with circling fish in simple brushstrokes. We search the rooms thoroughly - no sign of rodents – and agree to stay.

We will not tell the girls about that nest.

Are You Ting Tong?

2011-12-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

“Are you Ting Tong?” Whatever it was, I hoped not. The words were silly, like “tinkle” or “twaddle,” and every time I saw the question scrawled on a sign, a telephone pole, or a mirror, I was vaguely annoyed. Whoever the Ting Tong enthusiast was, he or she was graffiti-prolific in Pai.

During a night-on-the-town-without-parents, Casey and Karis discovered Ting Tong’s definition - crazy beautiful - and the marketing motive behind its ubiquitous expression. It was the name of a bar, a funky hangout where the girls settled in for some Singha beers and communion with the locals. They met Thanwa-Thayahan, a bearded fire staff dancer who went by the name “Bank,” and Maxie, a tall “model-gorgeous” New Yorker who came as a tourist and never left. Tutu, Ting Tong’s bell-bottomed owner, served up the Singhas and told the girls Pai needed pilates instructors. It was a tempting proposal as our two travelers loved the laid-back life in this tiny, soon-to-boom, mountain village, and had already decided they’d return for a longer stay.

Karis also met a guy who said he’d come to Pai to learn to love himself. Over breakfast, she mentioned the conversation, and I wondered if this was a self-conscious line to throw at a cute blond American girl in order to sound introspective. But upon reflection, I mused that for many, for me, it is easier to see one’s own flaws and failings than to recognize one’s worth. Had he achieved it? Did he love himself? How did one learn such a thing?

On our last night, we were finishing a tasty dinner of curry, fresh vegetables, and pasta at The Witching Well when Karis gave a hoot; she’d spotted Marcel, our young Brazilian friend from the jungle trek, passing by in the street. It is a surprisingly frequent aspect of travel to meet up with those encountered before. To see a familiar face and be hailed as an old friend in the mountains of Thailand made the world seem a kind and comfortable place.

Marcel pulled up a chair, ordered a Singha, and told us of the sights he’d seen. He whipped out his camera and thumbed through some pictures.

“Whoa, hold on,” I said. “Where is that?”

“About fifteen minutes away by motorbike,” he replied.

In the photograph, Marcel was a speck with his arms thrown wide, standing on a narrow precipice against a back drop of scrubby trees and red earth that dropped dead away. A canyon. A canyon! How had we not heard of this?

Well, we hadn’t. Nothing to be done. We had walked through rice paddies past thatched huts, a newly-constructed spa, and several hostels offering sheltered hammocks as accommodations. We had darted beneath a spectacular web strung across the road, the girls laughing anxiously as they photographed the impressive spider splayed in waiting. And we had climbed 375 steps to watch the sunset from a lofty temple, its entrance flanked by snarling blue-faced guardians armed with scimitars. But no one had mentioned the canyon.

So I awakened this morning wishing for one more day. Longing to see the canyon. Filled with regret that we would miss this Pai marvel. And then I thought, wait. The van leaves at noon. We’d strolled past the bike rental shop several times – it was maybe a five-minute walk. And rentals were cheap - $3.00 a day.

We could do this!

At home, I am a calendar queen, more at ease with plans made well in advance, but Thailand-Lea, traveler-Lea, is flexible, and oh, how I prefer her! It was 7:30 am when I woke my husband and made my suggestion. Dave is spontaneous by nature and needed no urging. Within an hour, we were showered, dressed, and motorbike-mounted, my arms tight around Dave’s waist, our helmets clunking together with each stop or turn.

Dave on a motorbike is a happy man. He called over his shoulder as we zipped along, “We’re on the opposite side of the world, Lea!” Yes! On the opposite side of the world!

We chugged past mountains wreathed in filmy mist, the scent of wood smoke in the air. Cameras poised, we captured a farmer herding goats, workers repairing an exotic red phone booth, a man in flowing robes, coolie hat, and staff, strolling serenely, alone. We stopped and started for shot after shot, for as is true in life, this jaunt was not just about the canyon, but also about doing it, about paying attention, about getting there.

The canyon was hidden from the road. We thought we’d missed it, doubled back, and asked directions of some road workers who spoke no English and had no idea what we wanted. They turned my tattered map of Pai round and round, scratched their heads and pointed. *Sigh* We allowed ourselves a little more time, but Connecticut-Lea was re-surfacing, tapping her watch, worried about hotel check-out, bike return and the van’s departure. We drove a mile further... and found the parking area.

A paved path wound uphill and opened to blue sky, pines and the erratic twists and cuts of the canyon as it snaked about the land. Sandy slender trails padded by daring feet led to the edge of promontories carved by some primeval rush of water, some cosmic slide of earth, or some giant hand slicing the red soils away like a potter at his craft. In his picture, Marcel stood on a spot, almost a pedestal, with space only for his feet. We found the location, but were not brave enough for the balancing act required to cross the tiny land bridge over.

And it was time to go.

Once on the bike, I hugged Dave’s waist as we steered onto the road back to Pai. I imagined myself, like Marcel, fearless, arms wide, so different, so different from me. What does it take to loosen, to lighten up, in a lasting way?

Letting go has many meanings, and at times the literal and figurative merge. I sat back in the seat, released my hold, flung my hands out, batting the breeze. Emboldened, I can do this, I circled my shoulders, let my arms flow, laughed, and performed a swaying, sinuous Thai dance. Matronly and bulbous in my clumsy blue helmet on a motorbike on the opposite side of the world, I felt Ting Tong, crazy beautiful.

"Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?"

2011-12-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

Dave is sipping his Leo beer and I my Bacardi Breezer as we sit on the porch of our bungalow at the Pai River Corner Resort. Karis and Casey are snoozing in the bungalow next door. Multi-beaked flowers of brilliant scarlet sprout beneath the wide leaves of the palms that skirt the lawn before us. Across the way, the turquoise waters of an infinity pool sparkle in vivid contrast to the mud-brown river flowing just beyond. On the opposite bank, people squat, washing dishes. Yes, they are wearing coolie hats and washing dishes in the river as we sit on our porch with our drinks.

The dish-washers have a fire going, and it smells like autumn in New England as plumes of wood smoke rise above bamboo huts visible among the palms. From the hotel bar sound system, the ‘80s singer Boy George croons, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”

I know. Crazy.

Pai is a clash of cultures: hippie-meets-island-meets-jungle-meets-up-and-coming-resort town. Strings of red lanterns criss-cross narrow streets of tiny storefronts interspersed with tangled vines, palms, and open-air restaurants beckoning with swings or resting platforms as seating. Thai silks and hand-woven scarves form colorful curtains and neat rainbow mounds in several shops, while right next door, an establishment sells kewpie dolls, dingy yellow rubber duckies, an E.T doll in a red sweatshirt, pink knitted pig heads, and retro wind-up streetcars, fire engines and satellites. Intriguing.

Signs for Thai massage are an omnipresent lure. Dave plans to partake and during this afternoon’s exploratory stroll, he peered into each parlor, hoping to spot a babe of a masseuse. So far, the women glimpsed have appeared sturdy and strong, but definitely not babes.

Lining the main walking road, vendors on blankets, in booths, and with pushcarts hawk their wares. Skinny, dread-locked jewelry merchants sit cross-legged, stringing beads, next to black-garbed Hmong women in colorful embroidered vests selling handmade purses, skirts and bags. Dumplings simmer in boiling oil, vegetables steam, eggs bake in wrought iron pans, and meats roast on skewers. Despite one hideous case of food-poisoning in Laos, Casey and Karis are bold about tastings. Dave and I, however, are wary of street food. Prior to our departure, many people warned us about gruesome diarrhea, parasites and stomach aches, so my backpack is heavy with a plethora of potions: Pepcid, Pepto-Bismol, Cipro, Maalox, cranberry lozenges, charcoal pills, Imodium, and Ex-Lax. We hope to avoid their use.

As it is, Dave and Thai food have not been a good mix. The coconut milk, soapy-flavored basil, and sour fermented fish (a real favorite) have made him bloated, uncomfortable and suspicious. The Witching Well, a cozy Pai eatery decorated with witches, orange walls and spooky black trees, served the best food we’ve had in Thailand: tofu, broccoli, mild curry, cauliflower, and cashews. Delicious.

Pai has been a lull in our quest for danger, for this morning, our driver, a man for whom brakes do not exist, did his best to kill us on the switchbacks in the mountains on the road to Pai, and yesterday, we snuggled with tigers.

Tigers are not in this world for people to pet, but Tiger Kingdom offered that opportunity with the assurance that “Tigers do not have to be drugged to be tamed.” Drugging aside, I’d prefer tigers free and wild, and elephants unchained. I don’t want farmers to lose crops to a stampede, nor their small children to a hungry orange and black striped beast, but how do we reconcile large animals and humans? The answer is not elephant rides and tiger temples, I know, but here, one can lie with tigers, and we did.

At home, organizations and agencies seek to save us from folly and unhealthy leanings. Regulations, red-barred circles, barricades and fences remind or coerce us to caution. Not so in Thailand. As we took a tuk tuk (a motorized rickshaw/taxi) to Tiger Kingdom, motorbikes zipped past us, laden with entire families. Without helmets or safety devices, three-to-four people clung to each vehicle. In the back of pick-up trucks, aged crones and tiny grandchildren made the ride to home or market. And at Tiger Kingdom, a signature on a waiver gave daring, or possibly stupid, tourists full responsibility for whatever mauling or mutilation they might incur as a result of their choice to cuddle an impressively clawed and toothed 700 pound animal.

Casey and Karis were the impetus behind this tiger encounter. They were also the ones with a healthy fear. I, who suffer from anxious butterflies for days at the thought of a few minutes of public speaking, had no qualms. Perhaps I still unconsciously adhere to my naive childhood belief in the protection and concern of beneficent governments, confident “they” wouldn’t let us do this if it were dangerous.

A quaint notion.

After reading the rules, a list of “Do Nots” - Do not approach the tigers from the front, do not touch their paws, do not engage in provocative behavior - we removed our shoes and donned slippers to enter the cage with the baby tigers. Seventeen months old, and the size of a hefty beagle, they were precious – big kittens! Most were napping, although some batted littermates’ ears, climbed up on the low table in the middle of the enclosure, or ambled about checking the visitors.

Casey and Karis were charmed. They cooed and beamed as they stroked orange fur, rubbed tiger tummies, and lay against warm bodies. What a moment: our dear, intrepid travelers, faces blissful, curled up like children with beloved and trusted pets.

Trainers bearing sticks the size of pencils – the means used to train the cubs from the time they were tiny, a quick rap on the snout enough to halt iffy actions – accompanied each tourist group, ever repeating rules and cautions. I’m an intelligent person. I read the rules. I heard the trainers. Still, when a cub honored me with his attention, established eye contact, roused himself from the floor to begin a slow, purposeful saunter my way, I looked him in the eye and made “awww, you are the cutest little guy” type-sounds. Three trainers sprang between us, pencil-sticks at the ready, firmly hissing, “Avoid eye contact! He thinks you want to play! Dangerous!” The tiger backed off and I was flush with embarrassment. I had provoked a tiger.

After that success, it was time to see the big cats.

Again, foolishly – I seemed to have an instinct malfunction - I was not afraid. Dave wore a bright smile; I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Casey and Karis wisely stifled their default mode of raucous laughter. They approached this encounter with wide eyes and hesitant, should-we-really-be-doing-this smiles of awe, respect and again, healthy fear.

As suggested by a pencil-armed trainer, we took turns draping ourselves across the broad muscled backs of four different animals and running our hands along their sides. I hoped the tigers, who gnawed coconuts, licked their paws, yawned, and shot the occasional bored glance at whomever was lounging on their flank, would not reach the point of annoyance and cuff the offender. Headlines ran through my head, a ticker tape of unnerving possibilities, all a variation on the theme, “Tourist Loses Face in Tiger Incident.”

For these tigers were alert. When not subjected to our ministrations, they paced the enclosure, grumbling. Huge paws placed one before the other, they padded back and forth along the fence of the enclosure. At one point Karis knelt by a tiger, patting and smiling, patting and smiling, her smile stretching too tight, blue eyes widening as I cheerfully video-ed her tiger time. “Um, Lea? It’s probably okay, but there’s this tiger? Right behind you? Don’t make any sudden moves…”

Wishing only to make a sudden move, I kept the camera running, continued narrating in a singsong voice, turned s-l-o-w-l-y, and reflected that while I didn’t want the tigers drugged, I’d thought, had hoped, they’d be, maybe, drowsy...

But the tiger was far more interested in the tussling of his fellows in a nearby enclosure than he was in me. After Dave, Karis, Casey and I immortalized each other with our tiger companions in a variety of self-conscious poses with four separate cameras, our time was up.

As we headed to the exit, Dave’s grin relaxed and his eyes widened as he said, “You won’t believe what happened to me!”

What? What could have happened? We were all in there together.

“Before we went in. I was strolling over there,” he indicated the slip of a path between two cages and the animals within. “I took a few pictures, and as I walked away, I heard thudding. When I turned to look, that tiger had a bead on me and was loping after me. As I scurried away, the tiger on the left was coming at me too! Might need to change my pants after that one!”

He provoked the tigers too!

Turned out, Karis had an unnerving experience as well, when the one lion in the place turned nasty as she lined him up for a portrait. He lunged at her, but crashed into the chain link fence. Whoa. Provoked again. What set them off? Maybe Dave and Karis smelled…tasty. Good thing we had pencil-waving trainers to protect us when we walked into the cage with the tigers.

We Gulp from the River of Shit and Visit the Marigold Strippers - Part II of the One Day Trek

2011-11-27T17:47:00.000-08:00

(See Part I below)

It is raining. Of course. In the front seat of the van, Casey and Karis are white-knuckled as they press their fists to their mouths and then cover their eyes as we speed, skidding, over a slick red-mud road cut through the jungle. The mountainside rises immediately to our right; there is no shoulder to the left between the van and the drop to the river. The van fish-tails, wheels spinning, spewing a slurry of brown slush. “And they were never seen again,” someone intones. It is too easy to imagine that red earth, rain-loosened, sluicing down the slope and sweeping this creaky van with it.

But we make it to the raft loading area – an open-sided, roofed shelter – where we shed our clothes, but for our bathing suits, and don yellow life-vests and helmets. We hear our captains long before they drive into view, hanging off the side of their van, honking, hooting, exploding firecrackers, a wild yowling crew of yahoos eager to have some fun with the tourists. Wonderful.

Actually, we are pleased with the arrogant stance of the young man who props one foot on the raft we are assigned to, a paddle gripped upright by his side like a shepherd’s staff. He is cocky, lithe, and tattooed. He has almond eyes, cocoa skin, and black hair pulled tight into a short ponytail. Captain Don.

Don gives clipped instructions in pidgin English. He shows us how to wedge our feet under the inflated rubber seats of the raft to anchor us, how to paddle forward or backward on command, how to hold the rope and prop the paddle across a thigh when he says “stop.” How to leap to left or right to shift weight so the raft does not flip.

“No flipping!” I say sternly. “I am the mother! Keep us safe!”

“No woman, no cry,” Don says, grinning. Could mean anything.

“Okay! We Off!” Captain Don barks orders and we snap into action, shoving the raft into the tug of the current. We paddle like crazy people, clutching at the safety rope as the raft buckles and twists up and around hidden rocks, folding as it tumbles into troughs. Eyes bulging, mouths agape in screams or laughter, hard to say which, we ride, waves lashing our faces, drenching us. “Great!” Dave hollers. “I brush my teeth with bottled water at Sirilanna, but I’m swallowing gulps from the river of shit!” Oh yes. We’d seen the turds, big as bocci balls, that the elephants dumped in this river.

Don hoots with glee. We laugh – hysterically. Don shouts orders. Dave repeats every one. Casey yells at her father to shut up. “Forward! Stop! Back!” calls Don. “Forward! Stop! Back!” whoops Dave. Casey glares at him. Dave ignores her. The raft zips and careens as we leap to comply to rocket-fire demands. Our captain is amusing himself at our expense; still we dare not disobey.

And then, peace. The rapids are behind us. The water is calm, our paddles at rest across our thighs as instructed. We admire the scenery. And Don tells us to pull over.

Crude rafts of bamboo float along the bank. Don points and we clamber awkwardly out of our rubber craft - which looks pretty luxurious at this point - to crawl on hands and knees in water a foot deep, our fingernails scraping up wads of muck. We jabber about the possibility that resident worms and bacteria have easy orifice access. I assume someone will tell us how to distribute our weight evenly so the raft will float on top of the water as pictured in the brochure, but no. Once all eight of our original Panda Tour crew assembles, we set off, with Karis still on hands and knees, giggling, wide-eyed.

We drift downstream in water up to our waists as a man seated at the rear paddles listlessly. The raft rocks steeply left to right, right to left, left to right: why is it so unsteady? I picture the post-ride gathering of the captains as they exchange tales of idiotic clients and their own cleverness in ordering us about. I glare at the paddler in the back, sure he’s the cause of this shaky ride. He does not return my gaze.

* * *

The ride is blessedly short and when we dock, Ghee and the Panda Tour van wait among a cluster of guides and vehicles parked at a rough encampment. In open-air cinder-block shower stalls, we rinse-off in a warm dribble of water no doubt siphoned from the river, then pull on our damp clothes for the well-earned drive back to Sirilanna.

Except we don’t go back yet. After a brief drive, the van slows and pulls over. “You’re kidding, right?” Casey moans, her eyelids drooping. “What did we sign up for?”

A tour of the Mae Tang-Muang Khaud Area, is what. And today’s trek includes visits to several mountain villages. This one, our third, is surrounded by sweeping hillsides stained with orange, pumpkin orange, orange the color of monks’ robes, a brilliant wash of color in the dusky light. “Marigolds,” Ghee says, “used to make dye.”

Our bedraggled troop trudges down dirt roads, past rude shacks with roofs of corrugated metal, wood, or thatch. Dogs lounge against walls, and bare-chested men squat in doorways or snooze on hammocks suspended beneath platform-porches. The way opens to an area encircled by shelters, floors spread with blue striped cloths piled high with orange mounds. Men, women and children bend to the task of stripping petals from stems; they grin and nod when we hold up our cameras for permission.

I feel sheepish as I point and click, point and click at the marigold-strippers, at ancient women working their embroidery, at small children playing with puppies. What must they think about these sodden white people captivated by work and flowers, by baskets of corn, cooking fires, a cow in a rickety pen? Life here is utterly alien, a life I am grateful to visit, a life I want to capture on film, but a life I wouldn’t want.

On this day, this one day, I have lived many days. I am thrilled to be able to head back to Sirilanna’s Jacuzzi, pool, comfy beds and fresh fruit. But today, with my dear ones, I trod a slick red-mud jungle trail, bathed in a waterfall, and clung to a rope in a raft on a swirling river. Today I rode on an elephant.

Casey's blog

Rumblings, Gunshots, and Hysteria in the Jungle - Part I of the One Day Trek

2011-11-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

I know two Thai words and one is our elephant’s name, Sawasdee, or “hello.” Yes, Dave and I are seated on a metal bench resting on many layers of padding upon the shoulders of an elephant. Casey and Karis are similarly situated on an elephant behind us. The girls are laughing and indeed, there is a swell of such joy in my chest, such astonishment, that I am in Thailand, lurching and sloshing through a chocolate mud river on an elephant’s back, that my laughter spills and mingles with theirs. The sun is bright and hot. Dark, mysterious mountains, wreathed in mist, slope to meet an expanse of brilliant green rice paddy. Beneath my feet, leathery gray skin puckers as a great ear flaps and Sawasdee’s trunk stretches to probe the shrubs along the riverbank. How, how is this real?

At 8:30 this morning, our guide, Ghee, arrived with her driver in a tattered Panda Tour van to pick us up at Hotel Sirilanna for our “One Day Trek of the Mae Tang-Muang Khaud Area.” Ghee’s tiny pale face, bushy hair and over-sized glasses peeped from a beige wide-brimmed hat. She was fully swathed in a long-sleeved rain jacket, jeans, socks and sneakers. Doubtfully, she eyed my sleeveless shirt, striped Capri pants, and sandals, and said, “Walking shoes? You have walking shoes?”

I headed back to our room to change and met Casey and Karis on the stairs. Both were wearing camisoles, shorts and sandals. When I told them Ghee’s remark, they exchanged a look. “These were fine the last time we rode elephants, Mom,” my worldly girl commented. “It will be harder to clean mud off of sneakers.”

Oh. Well. “Ghee was adamant,” I said.

So, with sneakers on our feet, bathing suits under our clothes, and raincoats in our daypacks, we rejoined our guide outside the hotel and climbed into the van. Four others had signed on for the expedition: three girls about Casey’s age and Marcel, an engaging young man from Brazil.

After a brief stop at an orchid and butterfly preserve, we were off to the elephant camp, a compound of thatched huts, canopies and platforms at the toe of the mountain, at the edge of the ride paddies, in the curve of a river.

Elephants!

We were distracted, delighted, and amazed that we were in the presence of elephants, so Ghee had some difficulty corralling us to read a large sign, written in English, posted beside the platform where we mounted up. Frequently asked questions – or perhaps, accusations – were addressed, most of them related to the chains around the animals’ ankles and the prods used by the mahouts, their trainers. Elephants, the sign said, are not allowed in the jungles or paddies, and they are prone to disputes, or even stampedes, at mealtime. The chains minimize such problems. As far as the prods, they do not have points, and we saw that the mahouts were gentle and affectionate with their charges. Still, something is wrong in the world when elephants are banned from their jungle, and chains on ankles are the answer.

Two by two we were helped onto our elephants. Soo-Ree, the mahout, speaks no English, but turns to grin at us often and, open-handed, reaches for Dave’s camera to capture our ride upon Sawasdee.

In front of us cavorts James Bond, a two-year-old baby elephant the size of a VW Beetle, tethered to his mother’s leg by a length of chain. Despite the mahout’s calls and urging, young James lolls in the water, at times disappearing below the surface but for the tip of his trunk. He emerges, his mother tugging him along, but he pulls to the bank, flops in the mud, wallows, takes his time – he’s a little kid out for a stroll. There’s fun to be had and he is doing what he wants – at least, to the degree he can at the end of a chain.

James’s mother urinates copiously, impressive amounts, gallons, into the river.

We hear a hollow thrumming, in this setting, a sound we know only from war movies. It would seem a helicopter is approaching. Sawasdee shoves past shiny green ferns as the grumbling grows so loud, we can feel it in our feet. In our feet! It is not a chopper, but Sawasdee, working up to a resounding trumpet! We are thrilled at her call. What is she saying? From behind us, Casey and Karis’s elephant rumbles a reply. We imagine the exchange between these two immense working girls, When do you go on break? My back is killing me.

I crane through the safety bar to caress tough skin bristling with wiry hairs. I take in the view down my leg: my sneakered foot, the mound of massive skull, the slap of a gray, wing-like ear. I want to soak in the scent of earth, manure, bug spray, sunscreen and elephant, the squelch of huge feet in mud and water, the shrieks of our two girls as a spider web sweeps their faces as they brush through overhanging foliage.

An hour passes and we circle back to the enclosure to dismount. Dave buys some bananas to thank Sawasdee and James Bond. Two snaking trunks eagerly probe for the yellow fruit and curl it away, gently, from our hands.

Ghee gathers our group and herds us to lunch at a wooden plank set on a platform beneath a thatched canopy. Two women garbed in black dresses swathed in pink fabric with multi-colored beads and ribbons serve bowls of yellow curry with tofu and potatoes, and a salty soup of broth, carrots and cucumbers. The food is delicious. After we eat, one of the women coaxes Casey, Karis and I to a booth draped with beaded necklaces, silver bracelets, woven goods and embroidered bags. “I make,” says the woman, and Casey and I pick out two beautiful scarves.

A little girl sits in the shade of the booth playing with a kitten. Near strangling the kitten. Tucking the kitten into a bag and zipping it shut. “That cat’s not going to last long,” Karis murmurs. We mime cradling, cooing and patting an imaginary cat, and for the time being, while we are there, the child heeds us.

“You ready to walk?” Ghee appears at our side. “We go down, down, down, then up, up, up.” She did not say, “is velly dangerous.” She saves that for later.

* * *

Gingerly, we seek solid footing on widely-spaced rocks at stream crossings and on the deep-red earth of the narrow path, stretching for a toe-hold where the trail has not washed away. We are grateful for our sneakers. Through much of the hike, we laugh hysterically – and I mean that literally. We are scared, but exhilarated. I wonder how we missed the part in the trek brochure that said “periodically perilous.”

NPR did a segment on laughter in one of their Radio Labs and concluded that it is not just a response to humor. Fear and anxiety are triggers as well. When Dave falls from the spine of a massive downed tree, when Karis slips on rocks beneath a pounding waterfall, when I tumble as the trail drops away, we are teary with laughter.

Always after one of us trips over roots or rocks, after one scrabbles to regain footing on a particularly tricky incline, or after the rickety bamboo handrail sways out of reach just when a clawing hand lunges for it, then Ghee shouts from the head of our wavering line, “Keh-ful! Slipp-a-leeee!” And it is. So very slippery. We crack up, weak with laughter and exertion, at the too-late warnings, the monstrous spiders, the holes by the track the girls insist are tarantula lairs, the gun shots cracking through the jungle. “This is where the sound track turns ominous and the drug lords appear and lead us, at gunpoint, to their compound…and we are never seen again,” I observe. Laughter. Hysterical.

“And they were never seen again,” becomes a regular refrain.

As we inch over a section where the trail used to be, Ghee sings back a minute too late, “Keh-ful! Landslide!” We glance up the slope of slick red earth at the jagged gap between the mountainside, the tiny trail on which we stand, and the dead drop through groves of bamboo, ferns and trees. Hysterical.

“We are in ‘National Geographic’,” says Dave, breathless.

After an hour and a half of sweating, muscle-twitching, weepy-with-laughter hiking, we hear the thunder of falling water – a promise, a beacon. Our skin is feverish, burning; cold water sounds heavenly.

“Strong water. Velly dangerous,” says Ghee. Ah yes. Danger. And we are howling again, laughing like lunatics.

A wild froth of water tumbles from an unseen source hidden in the foliage high above. Marcel, the young Brazilian, is first in and he disappears beneath the deluge. “It’s great!’ he shouts above the water’s din. “Come on!” Ghee slogs in, fully dressed, and submerges.

Casey and Karis have learned on this trip to turn no opportunity aside. They stagger into the churning foam, mouths wide, laughing. These girls have a spirit and courage I envy.

Dave and I make our way slowly and cautiously into the pool and toward the waterfall, but I can’t bring myself to take on the full force. Karis slides on a rock and goes down, wincing as she smacks her shoulder. It hurts, clearly it hurts, but she smiles, rolls it back to test it, and says she’s okay. Reassured, Casey yells, “Someone take pictures! Awkward family photos!” a phrase she and Karis use for the goofy stances they’ve observed other tourists assuming. Marcel climbs from the water to oblige. So, there, in the jungle, beneath a waterfall, after an elephant ride, we point our toes, grimace and primp for the camera. Hysterical.

“Next, back to the river,” says Ghee. What? More? “White water rafting,” she adds.

“No way,” says Casey. “Was that in the brochure?”

Ghee nods and says, “And bamboo rafts after that.”

Casey's blog

Chiang Mai - From Wat to Wat

2011-11-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

At her desk, Sophia, Sirilanna’s concierge, patiently removes tiny flowers from a stem as we eat our breakfast of yogurt, muesli, Asian rice, fresh fruit and fried eggs. When we leave the hotel, we see that she’s created new arrangements in the water-filled pots lining the stairway: green palm fingers spread wide on the water’s surface, white blossoms floating between each one. Simple. Beautiful. A quiet task that took some time and, with gentle color and grace, sends guests into the clogged, busy street.

For the road outside Sirilanna, indeed every road we walk in Chiang Mai, is a sensory assault of clamoring street vendors, ropy black tangles of overhead electrical wires, roaming dogs, dingy facades, bright red Tiger Temple vans, careening, beeping, tuk tuks (open-air rickshaw/taxis propelled by drivers on motorbikes) and… apparitions. In the midst of a neighborhood scrabbling with modern life, we’d come upon a wat, or temple, with sweeping red-tiled roofs tipped with graceful finials, soaring towers, stone elephants, and gaudy, snaking dragons with gold teeth and flashing, multi-colored glass scales.

We are in Thailand. Foolish as it sounds, we say it often. It is like a pinch, a needed pinch, to process our surroundings, so alien are they from anything we’ve known. It is with this sense of near-disbelief that we slip off our shoes and don the shapeless blue robes offered to cover shoulders and knees to enter Wat Chedi Luang to stand in the presence of a towering golden Buddha.

He is thirty feet tall, smiling, serene. I can’t avoid the contrast to a Christian church in which one is met by images of a tortured, bleeding man on a cross. In this spacious, dimly lit hall, I am enveloped by peace. Thailand is known as the Land of a Thousand Smiles and I reflect that it would be easier to beam if, instead of sin and the struggle for redemption, your culture were grounded in a religious philosophy of wisdom and harmony.

A cluster of life-sized Buddha statues surrounds the base of the Golden One. Each smiles, each sits in the lotus position, inviting me to fold my fifty-eight-year-old body into a similar pose. Instead, I take pictures.

Moving on, we visit several other wats in which wax monks meditate in glass cases. They are eerily real and I walk around and around them, examining fingernails, wiry eyebrows, and creased skin for hints of life. With their orange robes, shaven heads and lean bodies, might they be monks of the highest order, those who have reached nirvana? How long could one go without food or water if truly enlightened? They are immobile, unblinking, but so real. As with the many monks we’ve seen in passing, the robe and shaved head virtually eliminates individuality. But for the arch of a nose, the angle of cheekbones, each is one of all.

Karis says she’s heard that education is the motivation for many boys to become monks. We’d noticed signs for a “monk chat” and when we stop in a few days later, the monk, Jikmy, confirms that 50% take the robe for that purpose. We sit on stone benches around a table beneath a large leafed palm. Four mongrels snooze at our feet, occasionally lifting scarred muzzles to scratch an ear or lick a paw. Scrappy as they are, they seem well-fed and content. Jikmy tells us that each temple has a pack of dogs. “They do not cross the line from wat to wat. Very territorial.” At 6:00 pm, the air is loud with ringing bells…and barking, howling dogs. “It hurts their ears,” the monk explains. “They bark to balance the sound.”

Jikmy is good-humored, educated, and enjoys practicing his English. He makes it clear that monks are not to touch women. He confesses that, as a twelve-year old novice, he would hug his mother during weekend visits even though that was not kosher. He is happy to pose for a picture, although he reiterates that Karis, Casey and I must remain hands-off. When he requests a pen to write his email address in order to get a copy of the photo, he recoils when I offer mine. I had to give the pen to Dave to hand to Jikmy. Please. This is not my favorite Buddhist tenet.

Still, one young man, as orange-robed, austere, and clean-shaven as the rest, asks Casey where she is from and tells her she is beautiful. That raises a sparkle from my girl at being irresistible even to a monk.

Doves coo as we stroll the bricked compound, fragrant with sweet jasmine. Small boys gleefully heft wooden mallets to whack heavy bronze bells suspended on racks setting off a solemn, resounding echo.

A beautiful, wizened, woman shaded by a coolie hat squats by the corner of a shrine. She wears a long flowing skirt and loose jacket and smiles widely to show off perfect white teeth. She gestures at her tray of peeping, woven, covered baskets, each holding fluttering wrens. “100 baht – set a family free.” She makes a sweeping motion and wiggles her fingers to the sky. Flight. Freedom. Lofty blessings to be had for roughly three dollars.

I know freedom will be temporary. I know it is probably a bad idea to encourage this practice. I think I read in one of the guide books that this is a Buddhist version of a Catholic indulgence – a mercenary act of compassion to buy a token toward heaven, although that doesn’t mesh with Jikmy’s explanations of his religion. Still, I am drawn.

The woman smiles at her success in sucking me in as I fumble in my bag for bahts. She hands me a trembling parcel of chirping, pooping (yes, on my fingers) life. I flip the latch and hold the basket aloft to watch as the birds perch on the rim, stretch their wings…and fly away.

Flying Dreams and Happy Landings

2011-11-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

October 13, 2011 9:00 AM

Cathay – Marco Polo’s destination. The word whispers of ancient cultures and kingdoms. Silks, incense, temples and elephants. And we are going there, borne by Cathay Pacific Airways. For two anxious months we’ve wrestled with doubts: should we go or not? Can we take the time from work? Does Casey want us or will we impose on her free-wheeling journey? Will it be an incredible experience or an opportunity to contract malaria, polio or typhoid fever? The path scattered with those decisions and fears is behind us, and we are waiting among our carry-on bags and fellow passengers at Gate 22. I am afloat with elation. I feel daring. This is not just a trip, it’s an adventure.

Dave and I have been rendered disease-immune machines by a multitude of inoculations. To-do lists are done, discarded in the recycling bin. Research and recommendations have reaped a hotel in Chiang Mai for five nights, and a few sights to shoot for, but for the most part, we fly to Karis' and Casey’s guidance… and chance…as well as floods and monsoons.

When we made our plans, the dates dictated by when we could leave work and where the girls would be during that brief window, we knew we’d be hitting the rainy season: we have our EMS raincoats in our backpacks. Casey called two mornings ago to alert us to possible travel glitches due to flooding in Thailand. Trains are no longer running, but she assures us that they will get to us… somehow.

Control is an issue for me, yet today, I feel giddy at letting go.

In-Flight:

We are off to the other side of the world! My personal display screen and entertainment center (yippee!) flashes the time in New York and Hong Kong (Hong Kong!) in English and Chinese characters. Dave and I will be aloft for twenty some hours. Unclaimed hours! Hours without phones or email! Hours to read, write and watch movies! Twenty hours might not be enough. I want to watch movies that Dave would hate – Green Lantern, Bridesmaids, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Thor. I want to read Paul Theroux’s Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. I want to read magazines and write. I want to sleep a little.

I have time and choices. Bliss.

* * *

When we boarded, lovely Asian women with serene smiles directed us to our seats in Economy. We passed the private cubicles of business class, each with its cozy quilt, individual monitor, stretch-out seating and decorative purple orchid sprig, but even our steerage seats are roomy compared to the cramped quarters offered by Delta, Continental and their ilk. Our meals have been delicious, and during the quiet lights-off hours, a whiff of something soothing and salty led us to a woman stirring noodles with chopsticks. She grinned and nodded and waved toward the rear of the plane. Apparently, we can lurch back to the galley any time we wish to order noodles…or tea, or peanuts or crackers. Dave clambers from his seat and returns with two steaming bowls, a glass of light, fruity white wine for me, and a beer for him. Bless you Cathay Pacific!

Brunch is served a few hours later – a noodle dish and a cup of fresh fruit. Soon after, a pleasant attendant distributes drawstring bags of water, oat bars, apples and refreshing towelettes for our comfort. Heaven forbid we be hungry for even a moment. Fed! Entertained! Rested! May I recommend Cathay Pacific for your traveling pleasure?

Our on-screen flight information display tells us we have 8 hours, 55 minutes and 4386 miles to go. We are content and cared for, our circumstances clear, while all is uncertain once we land.

October 14

I had set my expectations low. In fact, I’d aimed for no expectations. With reports of hundreds dead in the flood, the potential for Karis' and Casey’s delayed arrival, and the possibility that we’d be stranded in the airport, it seemed a wise mindset. My aim was a Zen sense of calm even if our bags were lost, no one showed to meet us, and rain poured.

But ours was a joyous welcome.

First, triumph, as we spotted and retrieved our backpacks from the tumble of duffles and suitcases rattling by on the conveyor belt at baggage claim. As I slipped my arms into the straps, bent to take the weight in my knees, and straightened, I pondered that an exercise-aversive 58-year-old woman had no business carrying a forty-pound backpack. But I liked the image – the connection to the twenty-one year old Lea who traveled Europe in the seventies.

Like wistful children hoping their parents have not forgotten to pick them up after school, we pushed through the double doors into the pick-up area and scanned the crowd. An Asian couple, a young man in a coral uniform jacket and a woman in a white blouse and black pants, held a sign bearing our name. As we approached them, they beamed and bowed, hands pressed together as if in prayer. They seemed as overjoyed to see us as we were to see them.

Outside, the hotel’s van was a silver mirage of sumptuous seats, ornate mirrored décor, and frosted water bottles in cupholders. We were in THAILAND!

During the brief drive we learned that, yes, Casey and Karis had arrived earlier in the day. Karis, a petite, spirited blond with expressive blue eyes, was Casey’s roommate in New York for three years. She has been my daughter’s companion on this journey, experiencing the extraordinary, as well as sharing the anxieties of the utterly unfamiliar and the terror of the seemingly dangerous. They have also peed together in the dark of a rice paddy and shared a bathroom in weathering the hideous aftermath of a tainted chicken sandwich. As Casey says, “We were close. Now we’re closer.”

Borne in comfort by our silver van, we passed tented street stalls, lighted store-fronts and the swooping red-tiled roofs of temples. As we took a turn, the woman said, “And now down this road, a beautiful hotel.” I craned to see, and she giggled. “It is our hotel! Sirilanna!” And we pulled to a stop before a stairway flanked by two snarling white plaster lion-guardians and water-filled pots arranged with palms and flowers.

Our hosts would not let us tire ourselves with our backpacks. Those were whisked away up a flight of stairs as we were invited to sit, sip a chilled glass of guava juice and wipe our faces and hands with a damp, warm towel. Happiness! But where were Casey and Karis?

Hospitality is not to be rushed. Once assured that we were indeed refreshed, we all pressed our hands at chin level in that prayer-like gesture and Bow-ee, a slender girl in a white silk top and black pants, led us to our room. With as much delight as if she’d crafted them herself, she showed us the massive carved wooden armoire, a chair of sinuous dragons, the throne of a bed with its carved head and footboards. She gestured toward the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors to the balcony overlooking the pool. She pushed through saloon doors to the expansive bathroom to point out the double Jacuzzi, tiled shower and folding stained glass windows with jeweled handles of amber, emerald and turquoise that opened to the bedroom. Spotless, beautiful, luxurious! Thank you Sirilanna! All for eighty-five dollars a night!

On the desk, a wooden bowl borne on the backs of elephants was heaped with pomegranates, pineapple, and what looked like a plump pink blowfish. A baggie of…hmm…yes… large stewed crickets - perhaps a daughter’s touch? - was tucked beside some bananas. An aromatic lei of jasmine blossoms twined across the arrangement. All lovely, but I could wait no longer. Where were the girls? Bow-ee smiled and said, “Right next door…”

I peeked out into the hall just as a face appeared. Casey! We hugged and danced and clapped and grinned. And then Dave and Karis trotted into the hall and we babbled and hugged and danced some more while Dave and I took in these two travelers, heroines of our favorite blog, dauntless voyagers of the Mekong River, Great Wall, and Angkor Wat, survivors of Viet Nam thefts, piddles in paddies, creepy boatmen, and tubing in Vang Vieng. Dressed in blousy Asian pants, wrists wreathed with beads and string bracelets, hair wispy in the heat, faces alight, here they were before us, in the flesh, themselves still. It seemed weirdly natural and normal to be together, but we kept shrieking, “Here you ARE!”

And for two weeks, we will be together, part of their adventure, In THAILAND!

Rolling Refuge

2011-09-23T06:04:00.000-07:00

The other night, I drove in from work, looked over one shoulder, then the other, and backed in to the narrow parking space in front of the house. I sat for a minute in the warmth and darkness of the car and listened to the end of the song on the radio as I often do before heading inside. It was comfortable and peaceful, the work of the day complete and the chores before me on hold.

I climbed out, leaving the headlights on to illuminate the road, then crossed the street to fetch the mail. As I walked back, I gazed fondly at my car. Something about her front grill and headlights seemed to smile. The thought crossed my mind that she’d put in a lot of miles and it was time to think about getting a new vehicle.

I burst into tears.

My mid-size 2001 Caravan is a deep purple-blue: a unique color when it first came out, but now, you see it on the road a lot. After our kids left for college and our dog died, we down-sized from a Grand Caravan, but this model is still bigger than I need. While she does okay on gas – maybe 21 mpg – I feel guilty about not driving a hybrid.

I have never had my own brand new, snappy auto. When I was a teenager, I inherited a black Ford Falcon with a white vinyl top when my grandfather passed away. When my grandmother, Byeo, died, I took the wheel of her mammoth maroon Impala. Once I married Dave, we shared a car, and when the kids came along, so did the larger family vehicle. My Caravan is the first one that has felt like mine. She is matronly, but has held up well, so we are a good match.

While I never named her or anything, she has been a good friend to me. She has held me through some hard times. I slumped, sobbing, in her gray velour seats in the parking lot after visits with my father-in-law, Colombo, at the nursing home. She was womblike and warm, ready with heat, old favorites on the radio, and the reassurance of my own independence, my own abilities to punch buttons, turn the wheel and go, even though Colombo had lost his.

When I received my cancer diagnosis, she was the first to offer comfort. I’d held myself together as I walked through the waiting room of the radiology center and crossed the parking lot. But I couldn’t wait to get to my car, buckle in and break down before assuming a brave face for my family and friends. And throughout that year, en route to scans, hospitals, doctor’s appointments, and surgeries, she was my refuge. I cried a lot behind the wheel, but I also knew that as long as I was in her seat, I was safe.

Living in the moment got me through that time. As my car and I made our way to whatever needle, stethoscope or prodding awaited, I would tell myself, “Right now, you are fine. Right now you have control. Right now you decide on your music, heat, mood and destination.” And it helped.

In my car, I had no need to be cheerful, or self-conscious about my scarf. In fact, the small square of the rear-view mirror framed only my eyes, so I looked the same as before the cancer. Well, maybe a little sadder.

I will miss my Caravan. It will seem like a betrayal, to park her in a lot somewhere and drive away.

A Night at a Country Carnival

2011-09-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Two decades ago, my husband Dave and I stood among the parents waving and grinning as our kids whirled in a silver Scrambler car or spun by in an oversized teacup. Easton’s Fireman’s Carnival has expanded since then and our children have grown up and left home, but the scene is still gloriously familiar. Bells clang, neon lights flash. Kids kick off their flip-flops as the Rip Cord ride rises slowly up a glittering shaft, then – whoosh! – drops its cargo of shrieking passengers. Indulgent dads squeeze into tiny compartments next to their gleeful little ones within a winged serpent for the Cobra’s gentle, undulating version of a small-scale roller coaster. Tan, lithe-limbed teenagers saunter and flirt with much self-conscious hair tossing (girls) and elbow-nudging (boys) as they enjoy a summer’s night out. Wafting over all is the whiff of grilled hamburgers and the sweet, sweet scent of sticky cotton candy.

Dave and I are the rare adult couple strolling without children in tow. For us, this is a chance to wander, hold hands, and catch up with friends and folks from earlier life stages. We spot parents of our children’s school friends, and even some of their former classmates, their second, third and fourth grade faces still recognizable in thirty-year-old bodies. But our memories are not what they used to be; periodically, one or the other of us furtively whispers, “Name?” as someone familiar, but not immediately identified, approaches with a smile.

We make our rounds of the rides remembering when we had the stomach for the lurch, spin and soar of Zero Gravity, the Dodgems, Ali Baba, and Dizzy Dragons. No longer. Dave owes me my annual stuffed animal, so we head to the games and stop at a baseball toss, a likely choice because Dave was a pitcher in high school. We chat with Irv Snow, who is one of those on duty at the booth. Almost every tent, game, and attraction is manned by one of the town’s volunteer firefighters, putting in still more hours on behalf of Easton’s fire department. I’m surprised how many people I know who are wearing firefighters’ blues tonight.

Dave’s pitching prowess wins me a stuffed purple turtle to add to last year’s Chihuahua, and the dolphin and long-legged brown bear of years past. As is our tradition, next we slip into the baked goods booth to savor a slice of blueberry pie in a flaky, buttery crust. Delicious. We catch up with Carol Mulligan who has volunteered here for as long as I can remember, then Dave and I beeline for the Bingo tent: for us, the high point of the carnival.

The place is jammed and we scan the tables for two open seats together. We recognize Kyle Haines, the Kushnir brothers, Jon Davis and the Sabias among the uniformed firefighters serving as Bingo ushers. We grab two seats next to Bill Bartosik (whose math-tutoring savvy helped our daughter through quite a few math tests as well as the SATs) just as the next game begins.

Used to be a dollar bought one cardboard playing card and a handful of corn kernels to mark off numbers. Now, that same dollar buys a three-card sheet. I can barely keep up as I hurriedly scan the appropriate columns when a number is given and, with a magic marker, place a splotch of brilliant red when I’m lucky.

The caller, Joe Puchalski, is a kick. His patter rolls with the fluidity of a stand up comic; if Bingo weren’t thrilling enough, he brings an energy that keeps us in our seats far longer than usual. “Keep your eye on your card, a hand on your dauber and another hand on your seat,” he advises. “Things move fast here in the Bingo tent!” His expression gives nothing away as he reaches for the next number. He intones, as if it were a moment of high import, “Whoa – another ‘B’!” and draws it out, the suspense palpable – how many are waiting for just…this…number for the five-in-a-row or all four corners that would win the pot?

“B-4!!!” Joe calls to hoots of relief when no one shouts “Bingo!” He pauses to announce, “My Chief Financial Bingo Officer tells me we have $50 riding on this game. Yes folks, here in the Bingo tent you get the biggest bang for your entertainment dollar. It’s not just the winning, but the unbridled excitement of the game!” We players crack up and remain in our seats for round after round, earning us Joe’s commendation. “This crowd will go down in Easton Bingo history…In fact, some might say in world Bingo history!”

Eventually, Dave and I lay down our daubers, still grinning. We stroll across the firehouse green to await the shuttle bus to the parking lot at the middle school. We line up behind chatty teenagers, heads bent as they text, weary adults and sleepy little kids clutching their trophies – stuffed frogs, mustachioed bananas (!?), and fuzzy dogs with floppy ears. Everyone is smiling, everyone is happy, after a great night at the carnival in Easton.

Zombies Beware

2011-09-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

Video games. Please. I have never understood the appeal. In fact, I’ve worried that they spell the end of literate society as my husband, Dave, and my son, Tucker, seem to have abandoned the joys of absorption in a good book in favor of provoking angry birds, meddling with a pond full of hungry fish, and knocking off Egyptian pool balls.

A few weeks ago, Tucker came to visit. After dinner, instead of a family gathering of Scrabble or Scattergories, my son introduced Dave to a game with defensive gardening as its goal. In Plants vs. Zombies, the player must fortify his virtual front lawn with shrubs that shoot peas, catapults that fling butter pats, peppers that fire flames and grumpy squashes that squish intruders. All this to defend one’s home and brains from zombies.

Zombies? Yes! Well might you smirk! I did too. “Are you kidding, Tuck? A smart guy like you?” But my son merely smiled and tapped the screen of his iPad.

A simple, swaying, cheerful - and yet vaguely foreboding - melody played, a synthesized piano and violin instrumental. I was reminded of the mesmerizing strains of a snake charmer urging a cobra from a basket, except this time it was zombies lurking off-screen. “Ready! Set! Plant!” flashed an urgent red alert. Tuck tapped a round-faced smiling sunflower and “planted” it in the yard between a house façade and rickety fence. Periodically, a sun popped from the sunflower and with another tap, Tuck earned points toward plants. The music hummed as my son planted sunflowers, pea-shooters and mines. “The zombies are coming!” rumbled a threatening, throaty voice and I felt a mild unease because the pea-shooter seemed slow on the draw as cartoonish, bug-eyed zombies lurched toward my son's "house."

My book remained on the end table by the couch in the living room as I stayed on my stool, perched behind Tucker with a view over his shoulder. He lives in Boston and I don’t see him as much I’d like, so I hovered, an observer, as he fought off the undead.

As I said, I was concerned the pea-shooter was too slow and my boy’s brains were at stake. “How about the purple plant, Tuck?” I suggested. (This particular flower lunges at zombies, snaps them up, chews them with a gratifying crunch and swallows them.) “Sweetie? Maybe the cherry bomb? Watch it! Zombies in the upper right!”

A mad fray ensued - leaping zucchini, exploding cherries, flying peas, zombies losing heads and arms and finally falling. I watched with my heart pounding (yes!) until a harp-like trill of triumph signaled the game’s end and the zombie defeat. Exhausting! Exhilarating! Fun! Still, when Tuck swung around in his seat and offered me his iPad, I snorted dismissively. At first.

It was so stupid. But I wanted to play.

So, I did. And I’ve been playing too often since. Sometimes until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. The other day, I announced I was going on a zombie sabbatical – a “Zombatical” - just to prove that I could.

But Dave lures me in. He turns it on, I hear that snake-charmer music and I’m drawn as sure as that sinuous cobra. And I get it now. Fun feels good! Dave and I usually play together, taking turns, reaching over to tap the screen when the odds are too overwhelming, laughing aloud at the antics of shifty-eyed water plants, spore-spouting mushrooms, and zombies on pogo sticks, ladders and bungee cords. Who thought of this stuff? I can only imagine the self-amused glee of the brainstorming team behind Plants vs. Zombies.

The truth is, Dave and I do plenty of fun things, but for the most part, silly and goofy went out the window a decade ago, and it’s silly things that make one giggle or laugh until it hurts. Laughter is a balm in this grown-up life and for some reason, battling a zombie horde does the job.

Problem is, we’ve developed strategies too tough for the zombies – rarely do they breach the doorway to eat our brains. Tucker says there’s another game we should check out – something about covering oranges?

Rainbow Black Out

2011-08-17T15:07:00.000-07:00

How could anyone grow up in the fifties without watching Dorothy dance down the yellow brick road? My husband and I had tickets to see “Wicked,” but Dave revealed he’d never seen “The Wizard of Oz.” We compared notes on childhood TV viewing and, as expected, “The Wonderful World of Disney,” “The Flintstones” and “The Ed Sullivan Show” made both our lists. The absence of Oz was a surprise.

Dave grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts in a duplex on St. Nicholas Avenue, a neighborhood where, on nice evenings, Dave’s father, Colombo, and his friends strung a net across the road to play volleyball or coached the kids during pick-up baseball games. Sundays were spent with Colombo’s parents for suppers of slow-cooked sauce over pasta and peppers stuffed with anchovies, garlic, olives and breadcrumbs.

There was little contact with Dave’s mother’s family. Ma avoids speaking about her childhood: the alcoholism, neglect and abuse as she was passed from one aunt to another. I never learned why her mother didn’t keep her, and she says she doesn’t remember much. “To tell you the truth, darlin’, I don’t even want to go there…”

She knew she wanted a very different life for her boys and was fierce in her devotion to them. But she’d also learned to shield herself from hurt, and when her sons disappointed her, they knew it, for she withdrew, face closed, lips tight, sealed off from painful feelings. For years, Sylvestro gatherings included roars of laughter at tales of Dave’s efforts to win her back as he scurried about at age four or five, washing ashtrays, hoping to melt her with each swipe of his cloth.

Recently, those stories have not seemed so funny.

Dave was a smart little guy and he can list every teacher he had, the subjects they taught and what he learned in each class. When I marvel at his mastery of facts from geography to history to science, he says, “Didn’t you learn them in grammar school?”

Perhaps, but they elude me now. In fact, all of my second grade year is a blank except for hunching over the toilet, feeling sick every week-day morning. Mom says my teacher was mean to me, but my brain has blocked that memory. How amazing, the mental power to deflect or conceal.

Around the age of four or so, Dave developed a stutter and attended speech class for three years. It was a difficult time. When kids teased him, his older brother Steve came to his defense, but when, in sixth grade, the bully was Mrs. Wiley, his teacher, there wasn’t much a brother could do. Once, Dave had barely begun his oral report on rockets when Mrs. Wiley stopped him and made him start over. He re-stated the title, but the teacher interrupted again, her voice stern and unforgiving. In front of his classmates she said, “You’ll have to do better than that, David, or you’re going back to speech class with the second graders.” Apparently he’d not mastered “r’s” to her satisfaction.

I’d have pled illness for weeks after such humiliation, but Dave says, “That kind of experience shapes a person, shaped me and heightened my sensitivity to others. I know how it feels to be teased, how it hurts to be different.”

Anyway, our date to see “Wicked” was approaching. We rented the classic film for our trip to Oz, prepared pasta for dinner, poured some wine, and inserted the DVD to watch Miss Gulch of the beaked nose and glinting eye pedaling her bike furiously, with Dorothy’s dog Toto in her basket.

We twirled our spaghetti as Dorothy fled with Toto to a haystack behind the barn. Why oh why are there cruel people in the world? Where can you go to escape them?

Somewhere over the rainbow is where. As Dorothy sang, I sensed movement at my elbow and turned to Dave. His hands covered his mouth; his eyes were wide. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He was crying.

“My god, honey! Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” He snuffled, took deep breaths and said something about the song.

The song?

I hit the pause button and onscreen, Dorothy froze, mouth open, eyes dreamy.

“Give me a minute,” Dave said. He went to the sink, washed his face and returned to the couch. He took a deep, chest-filling breath and said, “Okay. I’m ready. Let’s try this again.”

I reversed the DVD and Dorothy stepped back. I pushed “play” and she resumed her post by the haystack. “Somewhere over the rainbow…” she sang, and the couch shook as Dave burst into tears.

My husband is a psychologist and once he’d composed himself, he was intrigued. The song was a trigger – why?

Thank goodness for Google; few questions need go unanswered. He looked up the first televised broadcast of “The Wizard of Oz” and called his mother. When she answered the phone, he blurted, “Ma, why do I cry when Dorothy sings ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow?’”

“Hey darlin’. I don’t know. That is odd.”

“It first ran on TV in 1956. In the fall. I was four. Think.”

“I have no idea, David.”

“Try to remember, Ma. What happened around that time, traumatic enough that I would repress it?”

“Well. Hmm. That might be the year I had a D & C. You and Steve stayed with your grandmother. The doctor said cancer was a possibility, but you knew nothing of that.”

He might not have known, but a small boy so tuned in to his mother’s moods, a boy prone to washing ashtrays to make things right, such a boy would have sensed fear. Might have thought it was anger. Might have thought he’d done something wrong. Did Dorothy sing as Dave tried to bring his mother back, tried to make her well with his washing?

“Besides, I was fine, so that can’t be it,” said his mother.

For forty-five years, Dave avoided the movie, his brain protective, directing him, “Don’t even go there…”

“You never seemed troubled by it…” his mother added. “Except, now that you mention it, when I came home from the hospital, you’d developed that stutter …”

Romance in Ice

2011-08-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

Dave and I had known it was coming. In May, our son, Tucker, called us, his grandparents, and his sister to let us know he was planning to propose to his girlfriend, Lisa. He wasn’t sure when he’d make his move, but it would be soon. He said he had a couple of ideas, but was having difficulty acquiring permits.

Permits?

Times have changed. Dave asked me to marry him in a parking lot on Cape Cod after a party. He was dear and loving, but the only permit required was bestowed by my dad. Dave offered his much sought-after Bloody Mary recipe hand-tooled on leather and mounted on a wooden plaque in exchange for my hand. Dad thought he was getting a great deal.

Tucker, clearly, had something more in mind. Spring passed. A trip to Spain passed. (A combination of business for Lisa and pleasure for them both and, we thought, an excellent opportunity for a proposal… Not so.) July arrived – stultifying, steamy, debilitating. Still no word.

Dave and I departed for Italy. Much as we love that country, it was hard to fully appreciate Florence as the heat bore down, suffocating and heavy. It would not have been surprising to see Michelangelo’s David spin his legendary marble sling in an effort to stir a breeze.

To accommodate the time change and snag some cell service, Dave and I climbed a small hill one night to check in on our kids. When connection with our son was established, he crowed, “Tonight’s the night!” He was off on his mission – whatever was permitted - and would not divulge details. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

As much as we wondered what he might do, it was astounding to realize our boy had found the girl with whom he wanted to spend his life. “When you know, you know,” he’d said. In the way of mothers, or this mother at least, I flipped through a mental slide show: his birth, toddler Tucker sucking his thumb and stroking the ear of his beloved stuffed pig, Bacos, little Tuck in his corduroy Osh Kosh jacket, barreling toward me for a hug, adolescent Tucker, tight-lipped and reserved, and then the blessed transformation when his spontaneity, kindness and humor re-surfaced as he grew in confidence, grew into his Ingersoll nose, grew into himself.

Dave and I were standing above a vineyard in Tuscany when Tuck’s call came. We huddled close to the cell phone blaming faulty service and inadequate satellites when we thought we heard Tuck mention snow in Boston.

“Sorry, Tuck. Once more? Stupid phone…”

“I had 800 pounds of snow trucked in to the Esplanade!” The Esplanade is a park that runs along the Charles River, cooler than some spots, perhaps, but ice cubes in a drink were a fleeting pleasure on these sweltering days, so we were incredulous. Snow? In Boston? In July?

“I tried to get a permit for ice sculptures, but the city wouldn’t allow it. The 4th was out as the Boston Pops perform their annual concert on the Esplanade. Then, a movie was being filmed on the site. What a process! Finally, I was able to get a permit for this date and the snow. Lisa loves to ski,” he explained. “We joke about her being a ski bunny and I knew she’d get a kick out of this. So I had a guy build a ski slope with a family of stuffed bunnies perched on it. The words ‘Will you marry me?’ were sculpted on the bottom in ice.” I could hear his grin, so gleeful was his tone.

In today’s world, one need rarely speculate or imagine for long. By the time we returned to our room and Dave’s computer, Tuck had posted a photo gallery documenting the delivery of bags of snow, the creation of the snow sculpture, Tucker and Lisa’s arrival on the scene, and my boy on one knee. There were pictures of the kiss, a brief snowball fight, and Lisa’s “yes!” written in snow on the ground.

Such a romantic, our Tucker. Who knew!?

Link to Pictures

Into the World

2011-07-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Casey’s eyes are bright as she flips the pages of the guidebook to photographs of Angkor Wat. She presses the leaves open so, together, we can look at temples, lichened stone gateways carved with blank eyes and broad lips, and pillars bound by sinuous, elephant-leg-thick vines. My daughter is planning a four-month trip. She says she needs to throw her life up in the air and see what comes down, and I get it – I felt that way when I turned fifty. I understand the lure of a mysterious, ancient place such as this, but I wish her life-tossing could happen close by, at least someplace closer than Asia.

As she talks about visas and inoculations, elephant orphanages and tiger cub snuggling opportunities, I want to hold her close and keep her here. Well, no, I’m not being honest. For her, this is the time for such a trip and I want all that it promises for her. I just want her to be safe.

But it has been a long time since I had any control over her safety. Actually, given the circumstances of her birth, I never had control over that.

Twenty-eight years ago I stood on a stone bridge with my friends Chris and Wendy, telling stories we’d heard about embarrassing places to break one's waters: the release of amniotic fluids that signals the onset of labor. Not the usual topic in some circles, but I was seven and a half months pregnant, and we all had toddlers, so talk was often about bodily functions, diaper rash, stool consistency and runny noses. While we chatted, we watched our kids, Tucker, Molly Beth and Nikki, playing in the yard of the school where we all lived and worked.

Suddenly, I felt a trickle down my leg. I was chagrined, but not surprised - unwanted and unexpected physical sensations had become commonplace over recent months. I excused myself and walked the short distance to our apartment, thinking “Just a little “mistake.” Except I couldn’t stop the flow. I had to laugh. We’d just been talking about broken waters and apparently that’s what this was. From my reading, I assumed birth was imminent. It was early, yes, but it was 1983, and I was not concerned about the baby’s safety. I was in good shape, Tucker’s birth had been smooth, and I’d taken Lamaze classes to refresh my breathing techniques.

Within a half hour, I’d spoken with the Cones, friends who would be caring for Tucker and our dog for the few days I imagined this would take. Tucker stood tearfully by the bed, still zipped in his brown corduroy jacket. “Don’t worry sweetie,” I told him, “I’ll be back in a few days with the baby.” I was confident and Tucker was comforted.

But I was wrong.

The baby did not budge. According to Dr. Hoffman, my obstetrician, that was a good thing: the longer the child had to mature in utero, the better. But the sterile protection of the placenta had been breached, so the doctor had me admitted to the hospital to stay until labor commenced. No germs there, right?

Wrong.

Despite my robust health, I was quarantined in the maternity ward in order to keep me as germ-free as possible. Other than my husband, Dave, I was not allowed to have guests. Apparently, only my friends were potential contaminants because I was encouraged to exercise and I was permitted to walk the halls and mingle with other people’s guests as they ogled the newborns. Maybe the germs found me as I stood among those strangers admiring their infants.

Or maybe they found me while my room was cleaned by The Crazy Lady.

She’d earned that less than complimentary title because of her dour manner, wild gray hair, and blank stare. She always wore a pale pink shirt-waist uniform and rarely spoke. I hadn’t seen her in a few days, but she appeared one morning and true to form, grunted to my greeting as she shoved my bed out of her way. She set down her bucket, dipped the mop, and swabbed the floor, sniffling and coughing a lot, but saying nothing.

Out in the hall, a nurse passed the door to my room and spotted her. “Hey! You’re back,” she said. “Feeling better?’

“Nah,” the Crazy Lady replied. “But I need the money.”

Ah, hospitals. While a blessing in many ways, they can be tricky. Never have I been as sick as during that stay. Natural childbirth purist that I was, I’d avoided even Tylenol throughout my pregnancy, yet, after a few weeks of bed rest, I was red-nosed and congested and taking a regimen of some of the biggest pills I’d ever seen. I would have refused them if I could, but I needed to breathe deeply, easily and energetically, once labor began.

When would that be? I’d begun to despair.

Three weeks passed and still not a twinge. Who would have thought I’d clamor for contractions, but so it was. Dave had brought in my sewing machine, scissors and a supply of gingham and calico fabrics to help pass the time. I cut out squares of blue, yellow and green, arranged pleasing patterns on my bed, and made bumpers for the baby carriage and a full-sized patchwork quilt for Tucker.

Tucker. I was frantic to go home to my boy. He fell under the prohibition against guests and was allowed only an occasional, bewildering visit. Why was I in my nightgown during the day? What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I hold him? Why couldn’t I go home? From what I heard, his confusion at my prolonged absence was resulting in tantrums, tears and battles for control. His two grandmothers were taking shifts caring for him while Dave worked, so he was in loving hands, but he needed me… and I needed him. I’d had it with the hospital. If the doctor refused to induce me soon, I planned to slip into my street clothes and sneak out.

When Dr. Hoffman stopped in for our daily visit, I pled my case: during my stay, I’d seen many healthy babies born three to four weeks early, and I was but two weeks from my due date. I painted a dire picture of Tucker’s yearning. I described the sick crazy lady swabbing my floor. I was revving up for another salvo when the doctor said, “Sure.”

What? Oh. That went better than I’d expected. He scheduled a pitocin drip for 8:00 a.m. the next morning.

For me, labor was a glorious battle with a baby as the prize. I was well-armed with my breathing techniques, lollipops and ice chips for dry mouth, and tennis balls to counter back pain. Dave, my valiant cheerleader, was at my side. A joyous picture of Tucker was prominently displayed as my focal point. I was ready.

Dave’s eyes were filled with loving respect as he held my hand while contractions sent wiggling lines soaring on the monitors, but I remember only the good, hard work of helping the baby make her way out to my arms. I remember the strain of pushing and my faith that Dr. Hoffman would not let me hurt myself, so I was free to bear down, bear down, bear down when it was time. In my mental movie of the birth, shot from an angle that allowed me to see my red face, eyes squeezed shut, mouth pursed and blowing, I bellowed as Casey surfed into the doctor’s hands.

“It’s a little girl,” he announced, “and she’s so sweet.”

Now that sweet little one is off to Asia. She mentions destinations like Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia, names that to me, still conjure guerrilla warfare and napalm devastation. While I am excited about her adventure, I am anxious. She says, “Mom, I don’t want to be raped or kidnapped any more than you want me to be. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” But, I want the trip to be over, with Casey home again, telling me of the wonder, learning and challenges of her adventure, complete with pictures, wide eyes and shrieks of laughter.

I love this brave, beautiful girl who has been out on her own for years now, living in New York City, and I have to admit, that was scary for me too. I think back to the frustration of my long wait for her birth in the hospital, and the years – such a short time it seems - when she was safe in her car seat, safe in her bed, safe in our care, and still, it is hard to let go.

Trombones to Tears

2011-06-06T12:04:00.000-07:00

I am crying in my car as I drive to work. For me, this is not so unusual. My car is a roving cocoon where I ruminate, dream, and work through conflicts via inner enactments. I nudge or shove myself to tears with poignant reminiscence or imaginative pursuit of fears and worries to their full, dramatic, gut-wrenching finales. I fuel whatever mood takes me, such that often I arrive in the school parking lot with make-up smeared and lips twisted in an effort to quell sobs.

Often the cause lies with music. By radio or CD, the morning’s selection can tease out a memory with its full sensory accompaniment. A little Loggins and Messina can spin me back to the seventies, to my bedroom at #638, to the pale blue bedspread with multi-colored flowers, the clatter of Mom making dinner in the kitchen below, the window open to soft summer air, and my own nasal voice, filled with yearning for my new boyfriend, Dave, as I sing along with “Till the Ends Meet.”

Today, however, the brass section blared “Seventy-Six Trombones” when I started the car for the drive to Southport. It was sunny and warm enough to roll down the windows, let the breeze take my hair, and invite every passerby to March! March! March! with Professor Hill’s boys’ band. I was smiling and tapping my foot, but one song led to another and, of course, “The Music Man” is not solely music, it’s a story, just like every day of my life, of anyone’s life. I’d grinned through “The Sadder But Wiser Girl,” started to tear up when the Buffalo Bills crooned “Good-Night Ladies,” and knew I was gone, pathetic, when I had to bite my lip to keep from sobbing when Winthrop lisped his way through “Gary, Indiana.” Oh please, Lea, there is not a word, not a note of that song that warrants tears.

But here I am weeping as I drive down Hillside Road because my own story line inter-weaves with that of Harold Hill and his librarian: this weekend, my nephew Campbell is playing the role of River City’s pompous Mayor Schinn in the Shipley School production of “The Music Man,” and I cannot be there.

While I organize clipboards and review the benefit schedule, ponder placement of jewelry and action figures for the live auction, the lights will dim in Shipley’s theater as nervous eighth graders take their positions behind the curtain for the Saturday matinee.

I have not been totally deprived. Last weekend, I returned to my childhood home to attend my 40th Shipley reunion. Rehearsals for the play were in their final days, so in between receptions and dinner with the women who were my friends from kindergarten to ninth grade, I snuck into the darkened theater to catch a few acts. Again, there is nothing to warrant weeping in this show, yet I smiled and wept throughout – at the talent and youth onstage, Campbell’s perfectly irascible performance, the innocence of the storyline, and at memories of being in my daughter Casey’s audience throughout her school years.

I was born to be a mom seated in the darkness of a student production; there are few places where I feel as blissfully engaged, euphoric and sad – all at the right moments in the plot. Through our membership in Casey’s fan club, Dave (now my husband) and I learned the responsibility of being a good audience; the importance of laughing at funny lines and clapping wildly at memorable scenes. The kids feed off that energy and it was our joy to provide it.

Campbell will have a full complement of cheerleaders as his parents, my sister and brother-in-law, will be at the show, as will my other sister and my mother and father. The whole family. I want to be there with them in one of the folding seats in the dark to beam and cry and applaud.

I pull into the parking lot, emotionally tossed from high spirits to wistful tears and back up again as the reprise of “Seventy-Six Trombones” spins twirling batons, the clash of cymbals and high-stepping majorettes through my mind. I check the mirror for tell-tale smudges of midnight blue eye-liner, make the necessary touch-ups, take a deep breath, and head into the school.

Tribute to a Friend and Artist

2011-05-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

Our friend Steve Larrabee passed away April 5. May 13th would have been his 61st birthday. I wrote the following essay and sent it to him about four years ago. He called me after he'd read it and told me I didn't need to worry, that things were not as bad as I seemed to think. That wasn't the truth.

Dear Labs,

I wrote this piece with the greatest love in my heart. We want you to be happy and inspired and well.

XXXXOOOOO

Hi. My name is Lea and my friend Steve is an alcoholic.

I worry. When we talk on the phone, his voice does not sound the same. When I ask what he’s doing, how he’s doing, he pauses too long. He is a talented artist - is art always linked with torment?

The power of Steve’s craft inspires. Both my husband Dave and his brother embarked on their woodworking efforts after admiring Steve’s projects. Undulating shelves, multi-colored lamps, and inlaid chopping blocks – he rendered even everyday items extraordinary.

Testaments to his talent and love abound in our house. In the mid-eighties, three watercolors of our children arrived unexpectedly in the mail. There was no occasion – they were just a gift. Casey at one or so, Tucker at three. Steve captured the light in their eyes and the roundness of their kissable cheeks – a moment for us to hold on to, now that the kids have grown up and left home.

We have a dulcimer of black walnut that Steve made in the seventies. It is sinuous grace carved in chocolate wood. We don’t know how to play it, but it’s a beautiful accent, leaning against the wall behind the dining room table and Windsor chairs that Steve also made.

Our house was built in 1783. We love antiques of that period, but could not afford authentic chairs to go with the table we’d purchased at an auction. While the idea of making eight of one thing must have grated a soul fueled by novelty, Steve agreed to the project… and I love my chairs. New as they are, they speak of the centuries. For all of their hard wooden-ness, they are as comfortable as if cushioned. Steve’s caring and craft are in each spoke and leg.

In the mid 1980’s, Steve cut off four of his fingers at the first knuckle. He was guiding a plank through a joiner and somehow, his hand slid into the machine too. A chill touches my spine in picturing the scene. The shock. The realization. The trip to the hospital. “I need those fingers,” Steve said at the time.

But it turned out he didn’t. He healed, at least outwardly, the skin closing over the wounds, and he learned to make do without those fingers.

We have undertaken several house projects over the past thirty years, an addition in Clinton, a kitchen and porch here in Easton. Steve drew plans and “made boxes” that became cupboards and shelves. There is as much of Steve in our home as there is of Dave and I. He is in the etchings on the wall in our bedroom, in the drawers, knobs and wainscoting of the kitchen, in our living room built-ins, in our dining room chairs.

We have photographs documenting these various stages. Steve grinning as he posed, drill in hand, on the roof at Clinton, his beard sawdust-speckled, his eyes behind plastic safety glasses.

I should say something else about Steve’s eyes. When he smiled, his eyes danced; they were crinkly and kindly. You could not help but love the man you could see through those eyes. The last few times I saw him though, his eyes were shadowed. He would tell me he was not drinking, but they say alcoholics lie.

When we spoke, before he moved away, he would tell me of his pain. He could not seem to meet the Mount Everest of a standard that he’d set, even though the rest of us saw him bravely scaling that peak. He said he was a bad friend… and I’d run through the long list – all the help, all the love, all the inspiration, all the art, all the CUPBOARDS! But I could not convince him, even with tangible proof. He dwelt in a dark pit, sealed away from the truth of his contributions. As much as they were a light for us, he would not let them shine for him.

He moved to Easton with Joan about thirteen years ago. Together they built a house that was more than a house. Two artists, they brought their touch to its moldings, its beams, its railings and floors. We have a picture taken of the two of them standing on the poured concrete foundation, tarred brushes in hand, mugging for the camera. They lived in a trailer on the property, working at their day jobs as well as the new house. Despite all the work and the stress, they were tight. “It doesn’t get much better than this,” they would say to each other.

What happened?

Was there a tipping point? Steve had been sober for twelve years. What happened?

Even now, Joan wonders if an intervention could save him. She still loves him… and we do too. Dave has heard from addiction counselors that the only thing that could reverse the course would be if the person he loves most tells him that his choices are ruining them both… and turns away.

“He lost Joan and he lost Moo,” I remind Dave. “Who else would that most beloved person be?”

We worried when Steve moved to Vermont, to a 250 acre farm. It’s a big responsibility for a man who worries about money and duels with demons. We hear he dates a woman who fights duels of her own. We worry; it sounds like another set of hands digging his pit deeper.

When we built our porch, two years ago, Steve came with his backhoe to dig holes for the posts. Like the New England farmers of the seventeenth century, he discovered a healthy crop of boulders impeding his way. It was laborious work, but being our friend, he helped us, as he had done many times before, and dug them out, adding them to the ancient wall behind our house, laid by those long-ago farmers.

Steve is here in the stonewall and the porch where we sit, overlooking the woods while spring peepers sing. He is here in the kids’ portraits and our dining room chairs – and in the kitchen, the dulcimer, and the etchings hanging on our bedroom walls.

And in our hearts – did I say that? He is in our hearts too….

We miss you, Labs… and we worry.

Remorse

2011-05-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

As soon as I returned to my car, I regretted what I’d said. I’d lost an opportunity, a moment I’d not even recognized as an opportunity. But of course, that is what every moment is.

I’d almost passed the service station when I remembered I needed gas. I cut the wheel sharply and drove in. One pump was free, but because my tank’s on the driver’s side, I had to pull around the other pumps to align the hose and tank. By the time I was in position, a young man in a white sedan had scooted in from the other side. Grill-to-grill we idled, eyes locked through the barrier of our windshields, waiting to see who would back down.

I’d been in high spirits when I swung into the station. I’d finished a big project at work, the air was soft through my open window, and daffodils beamed yellow against pale green grass. I’d received the results of a clear PET scan the week before and was still basking in that joy, in the promise of a future newly confirmed.

If that wasn’t enough, K.C. and the Sunshine Band were rockin’ on the radio and I was tappin’ my boogie shoes right along with them.

So I felt strong, a feeling rare enough that I relished it. And this little showdown at the pump roused a cockiness that felt good. I did not toss my head defiantly or jut out my chin in a show of obstinacy, but I felt that energy and it was as glorious and novel as the spring evening. I was there first. He could move.

But he didn’t. Beyond our two windshields, he appeared young and muscular, with short, dark, curly hair, a handsome youth of twenty or so. He looked a little tough in fact, and I read his expression as saying, “I’m stayin’ right here, lady.”

As a rule, I am easily cowed, and would have wavered almost immediately – out of timidity or graciousness, it’s hard to say - but on this occasion of spring air, new hope in the future and boogie shoes, I had a right to that pump and was not going to be intimidated.

But I’m also fifty-seven and it became clear the kid was not going to budge. Staring him down made no impression, so eventually, I shifted into reverse, gave him the pump, (take it, brat!), and wound up one stall over. We emerged from our cars simultaneously. Loving the brazen, fearless, boldness bubbling within me, I met his eye and said in a tone too close to a sneer to make me comfortable now, “I’d wondered if you were going to be a gentleman, but nooooo…”

I’m not proud of that, but I wasn’t finished. The boy smiled sheepishly (he probably wasn’t a bad sort) and walked toward the Medi-Mart. I called at his retreating back, “What would your mama say?”

It sunk in quickly, my poor behavior, and I winced as I slunk to my seat behind the wheel.

I fuel myself regularly with the wisdom of self-help books about being loving and kind. I know, very well, that everyone has a story and a hard life or a sad morning can lie behind pursed lips or shadowed eyes. I am mindful of ripples, of how the good or ill in a moment flows on and outward, a continuing current of impact. So how had my joy and energy so misfired? How did feeling strong become cocky and snide?

As I drove away, I wished I could re-wind. What if I’d stepped from my car, and said with quiet humor, “Okay, this time, you win”? - a jolly encounter to send us smiling on our way instead of this mutual shame.

My husband, Dave, is ever my defender. When I confessed to my lapse, he said, “The kid should have backed down. Maybe he needed the reminder.” But I know better: this wasn’t for the boy; it was for me. It felt good to snarl, to say exactly what I felt, and I hate that, unguarded, I was a bitch.

Fortified by the Other Side

2011-04-18T13:23:00.000-07:00

Dad was warming up to the punch line of his story. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His eyes were bright as he described an auction in which he bid on a portrait of a distant relative on behalf of the board of the Drexel Foundation. He was successful in his charge, he told us with relish, but at significant cost. Significant cost. So, he was called before the board “to explain the bidding process.”

It was a tense gathering held at the Drexel University Art Gallery. On the walls, above and behind the severe individuals ranged about him, were portraits of my father’s mother and grandparents. When Dad told the trustees of this relationship – and Dad laughed when he said this, a choked chuckle that let me know he was near tears – they cheered.

At first, I thought Dad meant his relatives cheered, and I had a momentary image of Gaga and Grammy and Granpa Mills beaming and rooting for my father. I wanted to think Dad sensed their exuberant support from the Other Side as he justified his actions to the board.

On the wall in my bedroom hangs a small oval watercolor of my mother's mother, my grandmother, Byeo. Auburn curls frame her face and she wears a pale blue dress adorned with pink roses. At some point, she sat before an artist, smiling her small smile, as he mixed colors and dipped his brushes. At times, I feel, in a shivery prickle along my skin, the poignancy, the presence, in that moment, when Byeo was warm and young, posing, alive.

Where is she now? I want to believe that the soft flush in my skin while standing before her painting, remembering her, is her touch.

Particularly during hard times, I imagine her, sitting by my side in the passenger seat of my car, striving to assure me all will be well. Can she, like air, meld with my molecules, travel within me, as fluid as blood, sparking memories and feelings to sustain and comfort?

When my mother faces trouble, she appeals to her parents, hoping they are vigilant from their heavenly perch. Years ago, as she and Dad spun in a three-sixty on an icy road in Vermont, she begged them to hold off on-coming cars. When my nephew, Jared, was little, doctors feared he had a rare disease that would cause unbalanced skull growth, so Mom sought Byeo and Poppy’s intervention. And I know they heard from Mom when I had cancer. Apparently, they have us all covered.

Dad’s mother, my Gaga, lost her firstborn son, Hobie, when he was eighteen months old, a tragedy that haunted her life and that of her children. When my sister’s son Campbell was about the same age, he fell backwards, face up, into a glass cupboard. Dagger sharp shards scattered with the force of the boy’s fall, but he sustained not even a scratch. After desperate hugs and tears of relief, we all whispered, Gaga: she was not going to lose another baby boy.

Throughout my life, I’ve been lavished with love and endearments. While Byeo called me “Lambie,” Gaga preferred “Moosie-dear,” a variation on the widely used “Lea-Mouse.” For a while Dad opted for the questionable “Lea-lice,” I assume for the pleasing alliteration as opposed to some connection with the vile bug. I’ve saved boxes-full of letters closing with “oceans of love,” “oodles of love,” and countless “X’s” and “O’s.” With this foundation, I should have the sure-footed durability of a pyramid, but often I’ve felt timorous, unsure of myself. Lately, however, I realize I am stronger. Family and friends, age and post-cancer wisdom have played a crucial role, but also, I smile and stand a bit straighter when I think of my ancestral cheerleading squad.

Another Chance

2011-04-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

The narrow path to the feeders is lined with mounds of snow, four feet high. With a flutter of wings, two hungry chickadees, alarmed, fly to low branches as I trudge forward lugging a bucket of seeds. Gluttonous squirrels and messy birds dined well this morning and scattered a fan of sunflower hulls, black as the sweep of a crow’s wing, over the snow. I lean down to scoop out some seeds and …what’s this? Three holes in the banks surrounding the foot of the pole. Squatting for a closer look, I see curving tunnels littered with the leavings of rodent breakfasts.

“Are they stocking up for the Snow Ball?” I wonder wistfully.

When my kids were small, snow days meant snuggling up with cozy stories, and Jill Barklem’s tales of the mice of Brambly Hedge and their grand winter celebration was one of our favorites. If little Tucker and Casey had seen the tunnel entrances at the foot of the feeders, they would have been wide-eyed envisioning an apron-ed mouse matron bustling in a kitchen crammed with crabapples on shelves, dried thistle hanging from beams, and mouse children nibbling popcorn.

I miss my little ones desperately, and I miss the world I was allowed to re-enter through them: a world of bright colors, bubbly tub times, baby-doll tea parties, forts, silly songs and happy endings. A world where a hike around the yard could be an adventure because onion grass and sticks were the makings of stew, acorn caps were fairy hats and a tumble of boulders was a giant’s castle. Instead of schedules, experience shaped each day. A parade of ants might bring us to our knees to watch in wonder the struggle to haul a crumb to a nest in a rotted log. A rock overturned would uncover a hidden haven for tiny bugs, squirming salamanders and writhing worms: a chance to teach compassion and gentle quiet instead of stomping and shrieks.

Now my kids are twenty-seven and thirty. I love the people they have become. But I miss grubby little hands, kissable cheeks, goofy dances and feet pajamas.

After storing the seed bucket in the shed, I stomp the snow off my boots before going into the kitchen. It used to be such a production to wrestle little kids out of parkas, sodden mittens and wet socks. Lots of whining and giggles. Lots of mess. Lots of noise. It is silent in the house as I slip off my boots and place them neatly side-by-side by the back door.

Tea might be nice. And I want to read some cozy stories.

Many of our children’s books are stored away, but I’ve kept some in the shelves in the living room. I know exactly which books I want and where they are: Jill Barklem’s Winter Story and Happy Winter by Karen Gundersheimer, right there on the left side of the top shelf. Often little hands reached for these books so their jackets are faded and torn. Happy Winter is still sticky, as a matter of fact, because it holds the recipe for our first-snow-day tradition, Happy Winter Fudge Cake. If I were to call Casey, who turns twenty-eight next week and say, “Happy Winter! Rise and Shine!” She would say without pause, “I love the early morning time,” so beloved and well-read was this book. And as I turn the pages slowly, with love, each picture, every cheery rhyme, is achingly familiar.

And because I want to immerse myself in the mood and the memories, I climb the stairs to the second floor, open the hall closet and pull out the small jacket wedged to the wall by the press of adult overcoats. Fleece lined brown corduroy, zippered front and hooded, with "Osh Kosh B’Gosh!" on the inside label - it was Tucker's. I am doing this to myself on purpose, fueling the tears, but it feels good to hug that little jacket close and remember, so easily, the small boy who wore it.

So, I settle in with a cup of tea, Tucker’s jacket and a book, and smile as mice dig snowy tunnels, carve ice columns, and prepare “hot soups, punches and puddings” for their Snow Ball.

Winter Story by Jill Barklem, Philomel Books, 1980
Happy Winter by Karen Gundersheimer, Harper & Row, 1982

The Sting and the Blessing

2011-03-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

The fridge held plenty of leftovers, but Dave wanted grilled salmon for dinner. So, despite falling snow and the required hat, scarf, parka and gloves, my husband geared up and headed outside to the grill.

He was in the mood to cook. I was in the mood to write in front of a cozy fire in the dining room. As always, I felt some guilt over this. I would benefit greatly from his mood. He would gain little from mine.

The industry involved in preparing dinner was evident in the repeated opening and closing of the back door, the chopping sound of knife on cutting board, the hollow tap of wooden spoon against steel. The scent of toasting sage and simmering onions competed gloriously with the woodsmoke of my fire.

“Anything I can do to help, Hon?” I called, hoping for a negative. Pleased to get it, I resumed typing.

Dave’s way is to scurry, mine to be still.

When I was growing up, time spent writing or absorbed in a good book was viewed as a pastime important as schoolwork. Now it is a guilty pleasure. It’s hard to feel at ease with indolence when Dave strides by, drill or hammer or spatula in hand. I always feel better if I leap up and clean a closet or organize a drawer, but I wish I didn’t feel the need to strive for equal worthiness.

The products of his efforts benefit us both: delicious meals, cut firewood, home repairs, freshly-baked bread. Mine, less so: an orderly house, bills paid, errands run. Guilt is neither necessary nor constructive, I tell myself, and yet, I’m not convinced.

The pressure to perform does not come from my husband; even at age fifty-seven, I am sheepish to admit, it stems from my need for approval. Through Dave’s long career as a school psychologist, he has earned respect and love in counseling kids and their families. My path has wandered, a reflection of my own lack of clarity and purpose. But even in college, when first we were dating, I recognized the responsibility, the challenge, of attachment to one so good. Friends would tell me, “The guy’s a saint! Don’t blow it!” And I have continued to feel I stand in the shadow of that goodness; that Dave’s abilities, his work, and his character have set a bar that I, like a puppy after a stick held teasingly out of reach, can not hope to attain.

Years ago, when mothering was my primary role, the kids and I were playing on the lawn at the school where we lived. A pretty young thing of a teacher passed by and observed, “Must be nice to have such an easy life. Time to hang out with your kids in the sun.”

I flushed with anger. “Easy life”? I’d like to see her deal with ear infections, carpools, diapers and croup. And yet, her comment touched a chord. I did feel guilty. If Dave came home from work to find me watching a video of “The Goonies” with the kids instead of folding laundry or making dinner, I’d tick off a list of whatever chores I might have accomplished earlier in the day to justify my sloth. He’d make no comment and I knew he thought nothing of it, but I did. The sting and blessing is that Dave was the perfect husband and father. Beyond his work at the school, he helped with vacuuming, cooking, dishes, and the kids. Some (myself included) might say, “What are you whining about, for god’s sake?”

Whenever I mention to Dave my discomfort over his flurry of activity while, I, say, read in bed, he responds, “And we’re both doing exactly what we want.” Just the right answer. A soothing answer. A psychologist’s answer. And he means it.

So, on this snowy evening with the fire warm on my back and Dave bustling in the kitchen, I file guilt away. The window before me looks out over the backyard. A spotlight mounted on the roof illuminates the dance of whirling flakes, the path to the bird feeders Dave shoveled earlier, and the tangle of spindly branches traced with snow.

“We’re just about ready,” Dave calls from the kitchen. I add another log to the fire and move my computer aside to make room on the table and then head to the cupboard to fetch plates and glasses. In the sink, a soiled whisk, wooden spoon, platter and saucepan soak in soapy suds.

I will wash the dishes after dinner. Truly, I will.

Dave serves up the salmon with a glaze of mustard, honey and Jack Daniels barbecue sauce. I spoon helpings of herbed potatoes and collards onto our plates. If we’d spent the afternoon together, reading in front of the fire, followed by a dinner of eggs or oatmeal, I’d still be content.

But that salmon looks pretty good too.

Good Neighbors

2011-01-31T14:40:00.000-08:00

Beyond the window, boughs of fir trees bend beneath the snow. Mounds of white, indistinguishable, conceal stone walls, porch railings, a grill and rose bushes. A cloak of quiet muffles all sound. Well. Except for the sound of Eddie’s snow blower.

That might sound like a complaint. Far from it. For our neighbor never fails to pilot that blower across the street to clear off our driveway and a path to our door. When winds whirl and snow falls, Eddie’s the cavalry, a sight as welcome as the good guys astride mighty steeds.

My husband Dave smoked a slab of salmon for Eddie and his family in thanks, but Eddie says, “No more gifts, now. I don’t do it for presents.”

And we know that, but what a blessing to have neighbors who watch out for us.

Soon after we moved to Easton, my parents came to visit. My mother spotted a road sign that made her nervous. It portrayed an eye, open wide, and the words “Neighborhood Crime Watch” in bold letters. “Oh dear,” said my mom. “That doesn’t sound good.” I explained it did not mean this was a high crime area, but rather that people looked out for each other.

She wasn’t entirely convinced.

A few years later, I was at work when the school bus pulled up to our house to drop off my twelve-year-old daughter, Casey. We lived in a safe neighborhood and had a large dog, but Nancy, the bus driver, was unnerved when she noticed a man in a baseball cap at the front door. She kept Casey with her and called the police.

Officers responded quickly and apprehended the man a few blocks away. He said he was looking for directions. Maybe. But for Nancy, it might have gone very differently.

And I can’t even think about that.

Nancy left Casey with her friend, George, who lived down the street. George’s mom called me at work to explain the situation and said, “Casey can stay here all afternoon, so take your time.”

Of course, I was frantic and did not take my time, but sped home to pick up my girl. As I hugged her, weepy with gratitude, I said, “Sweetie, just think of all the people who helped you! Nancy, the police, George and his mom!” It was a wonderful message about how much it means to live in a community that cares.

That was fifteen years ago, and a recent robbery around the corner again showed the importance of neighborly bonds. Within a few hours, I received a call and an email alert. Eddie and his wife, Laurie, said, “Don’t worry, we’re keeping an eye on your place,” and of course, we’re keeping an eye on theirs.

Through the years, we have minded each others' pets, picked up mail and newspapers, and lately, attended to leaks. Until this winter, I’d never heard of ice dams, roof rakes or the usefulness of old stockings stuffed with salt, but foot upon foot of snow has increased my anxiety when snow is predicted and fostered new knowledge of snow-management strategies. Last weekend, Dave and I went to visit my parents, anxious about abandoning batteries of saucepans and plastic containers perched on windowsills and positioned under spreading ceiling stains. “No problem,” said Laurie, who came over to empty the make-shift buckets. And last night, when Dave was up shoveling off the roof, Eddie came by in his chest-high waders, wielding a roof rake to help.

Who said, “Good fences make good neighbors”? Thank goodness for Google – it was Robert Frost. He looked like a kindly soul, but I hear he was a curmudgeon. And clearly, he was clueless. Blowing paths through the snow, keeping watch, and caring: that’s what makes good neighbors.

But I'm Sure I Did...

2010-11-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

The drawer was full of Halloween cards.

This would have been fine if it was October 15th, or maybe the 20th, but it was November 2nd. I’d dipped into the drawer to select a “Get Well” card for a friend when I discovered the distinctive orange and black collection I’d purchased a month ago.

The other day, I asked my mother if she’d received the Halloween card I’d sent her. She said, “Um,” but when I said I’d sent it a few weeks ago, she recovered quickly and replied “Oh yes.” Her voice lacked conviction, but I gave it little thought. For I knew I’d signed, stuffed, stamped and mailed those cards.

Apparently not.

Then today, while conferring over the calendar with my brother-in-law about a date to take his mother out for her birthday, I saw a notation on November 7. Yesterday. “Ruth Ann at the Olive Garden,” I’d written. Oh no. I’d missed a visit planned, discussed and anticipated for over a month to a friend from Florida who was up for a brief stay in New England.

With my heart lodged somewhere in my stomach, I called Ruth-Ann and apologized, and apologized, and apologized. She was gracious and forgiving, and we were able to re-schedule a quick glimpse on another day. But still, these memory lapses are a worry.

For me, this is not a new development. Over ten years ago, a parent at the school where I work donated a baseball signed by legendary pitcher, Whitey Ford, as an auction prize for our spring benefit. To Yankees fans, the man is a hero. Reverently, I placed the ball in the locked closet in the headmaster’s office reserved for treasures.

As the benefit drew near, I went to the closet to review those prizes in hand… and was horrified to discover that the ball was missing.

I flew into search and self-defense mode as I asked the headmaster, the director of maintenance and my office co-workers, “Have you seen the Whitey Ford ball? I locked it in the close, but it’s gone!”

Of course I could not tell the donor. No. She would have had a fit.

My sainted husband leapt to his trusty computer and checked Ebay. Yes! There was a Whitey Ford ball available! The opening bid was pricey, but we had no choice. We were in.

So were a lot of other people. Too many. We were outbid.

A week before the auction, I ran into the ball’s donor at a party. Emboldened by a glass or two of wine, I confessed to the ball’s disappearance. She looked at me, bemused. “Lea, I haven’t given you the ball yet.”

Blessed relief! But soon, recognition of the smirch on my memory and credibility was evident as I thought of all my protestations of certainty over days past. “And I locked the ball in the closet myself!” Yes. Well.

For now, I have devised elaborate systems of memory ticklers. Calendar indicators for upcoming events begin with a heads-up reminder a week in advance. Lists, post-it notes and a small pocketbook pad provide additional prods. I leave messages for myself on my home and work phones, so many that often the blinking red light will signal four-to-five messages – all from me.

I know, I know. We all have too much to think about. Everyone has tales of Alzheimer’s-like behavior. And we all reassure each other with a laugh. But sometimes I wonder. My doctor says, “At your age, this is perfectly normal.”

Humph. At my age, indeed.

What's Happening in There?

2010-11-08T18:14:00.000-08:00

The rest of the world falls away while gathered with loved ones in a hospital waiting room. Chairs of chrome and stiff fabric. A table strewn with magazines. A clock with hands set at an impossible crawl. Each person donning the public face crafted for such vigils, a mouth that laughs at jokes and responds to questions as the mind asks incessantly what is happening in there?

Lisa, my nephew’s wife, was in labor. Two generations ago, tradition would have had the husband pacing a bright, sterile-white corridor by himself, but Trevor was in the delivery room with Lisa, working to welcome their baby, little Ava, into this world. So it was up to Lisa’s parents and assorted Sylvestros to pace.

It began well.

When I arrived at the desk in the maternity ward, the pleasant but firm receptionist barred me from joining Trevor’s Mom, Deb, and Lisa’s parents, Paul and Diane, in the labor and delivery area. She directed me to a glassed-in area just beyond the barricade of the ward’s heavy swinging doors. I took a seat in what was apparently a maternity waiting room.

“I’m a bit out of place here,” I said, my gaze sweeping a line-up of ponderous bellies. One soon-to-be-mom said, “Careful! Could be contagious!” sparking a laugh as the group took in my gray hair and middle-aged body. Another woman beamed as she caressed her belly and spoke eagerly of birth. Several others, phones in hand, sat still but for tapping thumbs, texting. A round-faced girl, quite young, confessed her fear.

Beyond the glass enclosure, I saw Deb and Diane stride down the corridor. I grabbed my bag and trotted off to catch up with them. “Lisa’s pushing!” said Diane, her smile bright. “Her mouth is dry so we’re going to get her some ice chips.”

They fulfilled their mission and headed back to Lisa, Trevor and Ava-in-transit, leaving me on my side of those swinging doors. I had barely returned to my seat when they reappeared laden with blankets, pillows, tote bags and a computer, as well as Paul, Lisa’s father, in tow.

Why so soon?

As we walked down the hall to a waiting room unoccupied by expectant mothers, Paul and Diane said nothing. Their eyes were red-rimmed and concerned. “She needs a caesarean,” Deb said. “The baby’s heart rate was dipping with each push. The doctor said they could let it go on for another hour, but Lisa would be exhausted and might not make any headway.”

“She was sobbing with disappointment and pain,” Diane said quietly as she tucked Trevor’s computer under a chair. “It’s hard to see her like that.” Paul shook his head and remained silent, his lips tight.

Unlike many expectant mothers today, Lisa had not wanted even an epidural. She thought a natural birth was best for the baby so she and Trevor had signed up for Lamaze classes. But they were disappointed. “They didn’t teach us anything practical. It was all about history and mechanics. And the video they showed? I did not need to see that,” Trevor had said with a grimace.

When I had my kids in the early eighties, Lamaze classes to train mothers for natural childbirth were routine. My husband Dave and I practiced the strategic breathing techniques while watching TV, driving and walking in the woods. My ability to adjust the type and level of breathing became automatic. I felt fearless and prepared when my contractions began – I knew what to expect. I had tools to deal with pain.

Lisa did not have that benefit, but breathing techniques would not have changed this situation: the baby’s posterior presentation called for caesarean section.

While Trevor donned scrubs and Lisa was prepped for surgery, those of us waiting talked, our wiggling feet and chatter the outer manifestation of inner pacing. But minutes passed to a half hour, then an hour, and even I knew a caesarean should be quick. What was wrong?

Diane and Deb are knowledgeable nurse practitioners, so each at one point went to the desk to seek news. They were told, “She’s not out yet.” Well, obviously.

Trevor’s father, Steve, arrived, his white hair wild from a windy ride over in his convertible. His smile slipped at hearing of the caesarean and the length of time, but quickly he slapped on his public face and told a tale of an encounter in downtown Bridgeport on his way over. While stopped at a traffic light near the hospital on Boston Ave., he saw a group of high school boys hanging out with a cute puppy. So he smiled. Presumptuous, apparently, for one of the youths snapped, “What the F*@% you smilin’ at?!”

Tension bred hilarity and we dissolved, loopy with laughter. The punch line warranted repetition. Better that than voicing the reel playing in each head, Why so long? What is happening? What is wrong?

Weary from a traffic-heavy commute, my husband, Dave, finally pulled in. Again, the brief collapse in expression before his public face slipped back into place as he learned of the caesarean and delay. We insisted Steve tell him of the dog and the boys. “What the F*@% you smilin’ at?” And we roared with laughter.

Then, from my seat against the windowed wall, I saw Trevor in the hallway. Pale, unsmiling, eyes dull.

Oh my god.

He trudged into the room with its clock and chrome chairs and pile of public faces discarded on the floor. Questions flew: “How’s Lisa? Is the baby all right? What happened?”

Trev ran a hand through his matted hair.

“Tell us. What’s going on?” Diane begged.

“Well, they took the baby upstairs for oxygen,” said Trevor.

“Oxygen? Why? What’s wrong?”

“Didn’t anybody tell you?”

We were frantic. Paul, Lisa’s father, while usually soft-spoken, cut through the cacophony, his voice clear, insistent. If this were the movies and Paul were a different man, he might have grabbed Trevor by the shoulders and shaken him. “Trevor. Trevor. Is Lisa okay?”

Poor Trevor had not slept in two nights and Lisa’s pain had been his, as close as was possible. And he’d seen too much of his wife’s blood beyond the thin veil of the sheet. He’d no idea we knew nothing. For, now, he knew too much. He said, “Well, yeah. She’s tired and sore. They’re stitching her up and won’t let me in. My god, she was a warrior. And the baby needed oxygen. But they’re all right.”

Now, a week later, Ava is dressed in pink. She has a head of black hair and soft kissable cheeks. She is healthy and beautiful and it is a joy to watch her sleep, feet crossed at the ankles, her hands - tiny hands – curled at her chin.

And we all have something to smile at.

American Party - Fenway Park

2010-10-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

“Fresh lemonade! Git your lemonade hee-ah!” Oh yeah! Throughout our section, hands fly up and wave as if to snag a wayward ball. The sun is savage, seemingly purposeful and angry, in radiating a heat so oppressive. The vendors drip sweat as they trot up the aisles, swinging coolers from atop their shoulders to set them on an armrest while passing drinks down the rows hand-to-hand.

Our son, Tucker, and his girlfriend, Lisa, have joined Dave and me for this sweltering day at Fenway Park. Lisa has curly blond hair, blue eyes and skin so fair the sun laughs at her 75 SPF sunscreen. So she is swaddled against the blistering heat in a white cardigan sweater, long pants and a baseball cap. Tuck adjusts his camera. I lather on the Coppertone. My husband is deep in conversation with the guy sitting next to him who, like Dave, was a pitcher while in high school.

A patter of talk ripples through the stands about such personal pinnacles of baseball glory on campuses around the country. Also recalled are moments of Red Sox history, past heroes and plays witnessed first hand. “I remember when…,” “My grandfather told me...,” “Did you see…?”

“Did you ever catch a game ball, Dad?” says Tucker.

“No, but you did, when we were here with Grampy in ’92. You got Walter “No-Neck” Williams to sign it. Remember?”

“Of course!” responds my thirty-year-old boy. “I still have it.”

Tucker was six years old when he first went to Fenway with his grandfather and Dave. With seats so close to the field that Tucker’s call to the first base coach - “Mr. No-Neck! Mr. No-Neck!” – got a smile and a promise, later fulfilled, to sign his ball.

On the field, the Sox are garbed in white and red, and around us, the crowd is in uniform too. From those stooped and white-haired to those tiny and wide-eyed, the uniform is jeans and jerseys of red or navy blue, each emblazoned with Varitek, Papelbon, Ortiz, or Lowell. A smattering of vintage shirts say Yaz and Fisk, for this park is about tradition as much as the game. Those who once came to Fenway with their fathers or grandfathers, now hold the hands of their baseball-capped little ones as they point out players or explain the score. To them, the park is as familiar, venerable and snug as a well-worn catcher’s mitt.

Maybe sixteen rows away from us, and a scant stretch of grass beyond, first baseman Kevin Youkilis hitches up his pants and scratches his nose. Wow! Youk! No one would ever call me a sports fan, but still, this close, I’m excited. And since 2004, I’ve been tearfully grateful to this team.

We’d received a midnight call from Dave’s Aunty Cam, to inform us that his father, Colombo, had had a stroke. We picked up Dave’s brother, Steve, and headed to Memorial Hospital in Worcester, not knowing what to expect. Despite a history of heart trouble, Colombo had been healthy. He’d retired a year before, played golf every week and was diligent about his exercise routine. Sure, he loved his Sapphire Blue martinis, but a drink is good company during the evening news or while watching a game.

The play-offs were underway and the Sox were holding their own against the Los Angeles Angels. As we crossed into Massachusetts and onto the Mass. Pike, signs hung on the overpasses read “Go Red Sox!” At the hospital, doctors, nurses, visitors and patients were abuzz with updates and every television suspended above an ailing loved one was tuned to the game.

As humming machines and bags of clear fluid worked to restore Colombo’s body, the Sox lifted his spirits and those of his sons. And when the team won the World Series, Dave’s dad was able to celebrate.

Today, announcements light up the big screen with birthdays and anniversaries and we applaud and whistle with our fellow party-goers. “Courtney, will you marry me?” flashes on the DiamondVision in center field, big and bold. TV cameras pan the crowd then zoom in on the couple as they kiss. A good sign. The four of us scan the stands…and there they are two sections over! 30,000 of us whoop our benediction, sharing the joy of a successful proposal. Underfoot, peanut shells crunch as Dave cracks, chomps and tosses them. I grouse a bit about littering, but he only laughs.

What do I know? At Fenway Park, that’s how it’s done.

In front of me, the neck of a woman in a Bucholtz jersey flames red. Should I say something? Of course. I offer my Coppertone and she takes it with a smile. Meanwhile, up on the screen, a family is featured. We meet the Dunns of Connecticut, a graying patriarch, his son and his toddler, plus assorted female members of the clan. Their legacy of Red Sox support passed from father to son or daughter is acclaimed with thunderous applause.

Despite the heat, it’s like a party for 30,000 – actually for 37,974, as this day is the 600th consecutive sell-out crowd. We drink our beer and sweet, icy, lemonade, snack on Cracker Jacks and peanuts, and sing “Oh-Oh-Ooooh” and “So GOOD, So Good, So good...” as the organ booms “Sweet Caroline.” We leap from our seats, arms upraised, when a cheering wave passes through. Doing one for the team.

“Colombo loved the wave,” says Dave. “He was always such a softy for that stuff…”

And so am I.

Two Septembers

2010-09-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

Transcribing my work responsibilities from last year’s date book to a brand new one was a satisfying job for the first day of school. Each entry looked neat and clear-cut, written in blue ink with my favorite Bic fine point pen. It was a startling reminder, however, to note the doctors’ appointments squeezed in last September between my routine tasks. On one day, highlighted in bright yellow, I’d written: “11:00 – infectious disease specialist, 1:30 – plastic surgeon, 6:00 – home infusion nurse” interspersed among “Arrange meetings with the potluck supper chairs, write thank you notes to welcome committee members, and prepare for wrapping paper sale.”

When school opened last fall, concealed beneath a blousy shirt, I wore a contraption affixed to my chest that enabled me to administer home IV infusions for a breast infection. My hair was lank and thinning. Most of it fell out by mid-month. Now, it is short, gray and curly. Curly! But for a few years in the eighties when I paid big bucks for a look that my husband said made me look like a poodle, my hair has been straight. I’ve been told my locks will return to normal, but it’s fun to glimpse this very different, apparently self-assured and sassy woman, in the mirror when I pass.

The self-assurance is an illusion and the gray hair gives me pause because I do look older. Photographs of brunette, ponytail-Lea make me wistful because that girl had no idea what lay ahead. And while I know that life was not always smooth before cancer, still, I realize I believed that in living right, I carried a shield; now I know I’m unarmed.

Dave argues me on that. He says in being tested, I discovered a strength, resilience and courage I’d not known I possessed, which is true. And while the Universe failed to sweep away those invading cells, it did mobilize my Dave, kids, friends and family to surge to my defense with fortifying love and care. Dave would say that is how the universe works.

This weekend, as has become tradition, Dave and I went to Block Island for the Race Around the Block. Need I say that I was not running? Dave’s brother Steve was the token racer and we went with the usual band of dear friends to cheer him on from the hill above Champlin’s dock while sipping mudslides, a delicious concoction of ice cream and rum.

Last year, I was bald and chemo-weak on race weekend. Dave had pulled a muscle in his back and walking was painful. It was cold and rainy, empathetic weather. I did not want to go, could not imagine the energy it would require to walk up the ramp to the ferry, much less ride a bike to the Narragansett Inn once the boat docked. But our friends were a powerful draw, so scarf-bedecked and limping, we went. It makes me teary even now to remember our arrival and the sight of those smiling, encouraging faces lined up at the wharf to greet us.

The year of cancer had another unexpected benefit: focus. As a student, if I’d given it any thought, my purpose was evident: to perform well in class and on tests. As a mother of young children, it was to provide healthy meals, tub times, cozy stories and plenty of snuggles. Since my kids left home, however, my purpose has been a puzzle producing a pit in my stomach, as I wonder if I’m on the right path. Cancer provided temporary clarity: I had to do what was needed to be healthy. Eat well. Exercise. Maintain my spirits. Avoid stress where possible. It was a relief to have a goal so clear.

I would like to say the disease taught me perspective, that I no longer waste worry on piddling concerns. Not the case. Intellectually, I have a better grasp on what is worth the twist in my gut, but I’d need a new personality to banish the butterflies and middle of the night mind rush.

The other evening, however, I sat at the top of the stairs and listened while Dave played his new electric piano. He did not know I was there. I was wearing a pair of olive green hand-me-down shorts from my daughter, Casey, plus a long-sleeved brown sweater. My feet were bare, toenails painted “Cherry Crush,” my favorite shade. On the white stucco wall beside me were two family photographs. In one, a wild-west tourist shot taken in Jackson Hole, Wyoming seven years ago, Dave wore a black hat and overcoat like Maverick in the old TV series. My son, Tucker, looked handsome and dangerous as a gunslinger, and Casey and I were gun-toting barmaids in lacy camisoles and feathers. The other picture, vintage 1975, was a portrait of Dave, me, Steve and his wife, Debby, plus my nephew, Christopher, at age two or so. All of us had long hair.

As Dave experimented with the new piano’s functions, adding a brass section and strings, the music swelled and soared. I could feel the house absorbing the sound, absorbing the moment, storing it in its annals, just as those photos held onto the people we were in ’75 and ’03.

Dave at the piano, me listening, unseen, on the steps. Both of us healthy, strong, loving each other, safe. Tears rolled down my cheeks because that inconsequential moment was so poignant.

And that’s what I’ve learned. Life is precious and I want to pay attention, with every sense open, as much as I can.

A Wedding, So Sylvestro

2010-09-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

Beyond the white wedding canopy trimmed with roses, sailboats sat motionless on still water. It was hot, too hot, and the heat was a presence as real as the sweaty guests pooled in their wooden folding chairs, waiting.

Murmurs, murmurs. What was the delay?

As yet, there was no sign of Trevor, the groom, nor his brother and best man, Christopher. The guests had been content in the air-conditioned club, sipping cocktails and snacking on bruschetta. But someone – who? – had urged them outside, to wilt, to melt, under the fireball sun. Behind programs fanning flushed red faces, people whispered, “What’s holding things up?”

Has ever a couple made it to the altar without tears over guests lists, stained gowns or bad weather? Glitches seem part of the process in this rite of passage. Still, the glitches for this wedding began months ago, soon after Trevor and Lisa announced their engagement in December. They’d been together for almost a decade, so unofficial plans for their wedding - a full weekend of festivities on Block Island - had been unfolding for years. It was a shock, hard to absorb, when Lisa discovered she was pregnant.

With regret, she canceled the big Block Island cottage with its expansive lawn, perfect for volleyball. She scanned the yellow pages for venues closer to home and found the Norden Club, right in Black Rock. She contacted a caterer to talk about menus, and re-thought her gown, both the style and the size. And with news of the baby, the significance of the wedding waned. It moved down the checklist, behind nursery renovations, doctors’ appointments and infant supplies.

After three months of migraines and nausea, Lisa finally felt great. She yearned to meet the little one rolling inside her. “I can’t believe, in a few months, I’ll be responsible for another human being!” Lisa told her friend, Casey, one evening. Possible baby names, along with words for her vows, wound through her mind like DNA strands.

In June, Lisa and her bridesmaids went to a spa for manicures and massages. That same month, Trev and his groomsmen went to the Adirondacks for some bachelor-type revelry. (The stories about that outing aren’t too clear.)

Trevor’s father, Steve, his uncle, Dave and his brother, Christopher, practiced the guitar parts and words for Paul Stookey’s “Wedding Song,” a family tradition since the seventies.

Lisa and her friends selected the bridesmaids’ dresses, sleek brown sheaths from J. Crew. The groomsmen submitted measurements for their tan cotton suits. After an exhaustive search in the weeks before the wedding, Lisa found and ordered ties for the men and sashes for the bridesmaids’ that matched the periwinkle blue color of the hydrangeas featured in the bouquets and centerpieces.

Each day after work, Trev attacked projects: the nursery, the bathroom, and the canopy for the wedding. He stinted on sleep, battled stress and chipped away at his list. He was delighted that Lisa had taken care of the bridal party’s clothing arrangements. Certainly, ties were the last thing on his mind.

Trevor’s Uncle Dave, an ordained minister of spiritual humanism, had been asked to perform the service. In crafting the words to be spoken at the ceremony, he mulled over themes of resilience, cooperation, persistence and selflessness, qualities he’d seen in the relationship between these two young people.

Meanwhile, a heat wave, relentless, set in. It was hard to move, much less carry a baby and plan a wedding.

The rehearsal was casual: tee shirts, shorts, flip-flops, pizza, salad and Dave’s home-brewed beer. At the Norden Club ceremony site, the bugs were vicious: insect repellent was added to the wedding day list. Christopher’s doberman and Lisa’s yorkie terrier, Riley, yapped, chased each other and scampered in circles. Then, Riley relieved himself, front and center, on the spot where the vows would be spoken.

Hence, another item for the list: leave the dogs at home.

July 24th. Wedding Day. The flowers arrived at the Norden Club right on time Saturday morning: a bright array of hydrangeas, but they were purple, not periwinkle blue. Hot, anxious and disappointed, Lisa sent them back. The florist apologized and promised prompt delivery of the proper shade of flower.

The forecast, too, had become a worry, for the plan was to hold the ceremony outside, on the harbor. The terrible heat was already an issue and, while the predicted thundershowers would be welcome in the evening, heaven forbid the skies open at 4:00, wedding time. Just in case, Lisa’s mother decided to nudge the service forward; a phone flurry ensued to get the word out.

And so, that afternoon, the guests sat beneath the broiling sun, waiting. 3:15. 3:30. 3:45. Some abandoned their seats and sought refuge in the shade. Water was passed and umbrellas fetched to shield those of fair skin.

What was happening? Everyone wondered.

Inside the club, Lisa was desperate, deeply concerned for family and friends baking in their chairs by the harbor. In her creamy crepe gown, blond curls tumbling over bare shoulders, she was weepy and wild-eyed as she spoke on her cell phone to Trevor, who was back at the hotel, searching for his tie (for that was the hold-up; it was missing.) She snapped her phone shut and hurled it across the room. “I’m marrying a moron!” she sobbed, while Casey dabbed Lisa’s eyes, trying to staunch a stream of mascara.

Meanwhile, Trevor was a man possessed. He’d checked and re-checked the place where Lisa said he’d find the tie. It just wasn’t there and time was passing. His father, Steve, called and growled, “Where the hell are you?” Poor Trev. Everyone was furious with him. He explained his quandary, “I’ve got to find that tie! Lisa wants everything to match.”

Steve said, “Get your butt over here. We’ll figure it out.”

4:15 at the Norden Club, out by the harbor: breathing was difficult because of the heat. At the head of the satin runner, the groom was in place, along with his brother, to the left of Uncle Dave. The parents, Deb, Steve and Diane, took their seats. By then, Steve was tie-less, if anyone happened to look.

Beaming and sweating, the attendants left the haven of the club and walked down the aisle. Lisa and her father, followed, herding Emma, the tiny flower girl, who solemnly scattered petals.

Christopher sang and Casey read a poem. Dave spoke of history and looking to the future. And no one heard the exchange, although they might have noticed a shadow passing over the bride’s face, as Lisa whispered to her groom, “Trev? The lost tie? It might be my fault. I think it’s in my drawer at the condo.”

Trevor’s smile never wavered and he took Lisa’s hand, for it was time to say his vow. “You’ve become my balance for life. You see right through me and without even trying, have made it easier for me to become so many things: the man here before you, a husband, a proud father… Lisa, you really are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Lisa responded, “Trevor, you have brought out the best in me. You have given me confidence, encouraged me to follow my heart. You have taught me to look through the eyes of others. And you have been my rock.”

Later, at the reception, stories about the missing tie trickled out, passed with trays of crab cakes and cheese. Few realized that, after the ceremony, Trevor ran home to the condo, where he found the tie in Lisa’s drawer and hid it under the bed in the guest room. Better, for now, to take the blame, for he knew how crushed Lisa would be if the mix-up was her fault. Selflessness, resilience, cooperation, and persistence: traits to treasure in a partner.

And so, despite a host of unpleasant surprises, plans, problems and people came together, like the plaits of a braid, woven tight with love and a periwinkle blue tie.

Do-Over

2010-07-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

As I walked into the office, my co-worker, Gail, looked up from her desk in surprise. “What are you doing here?” she said. “I thought you were going to school with Casey today.”

My heart sank. How could this happen? Each morning, my head spun with lists and to-do’s from the first touch of bare feet to floor, and my daily trip to work was so automatic that I had simply forgotten. Holding back tears, I raced to my car for the ten-mile drive back to my daughter’s school. “I’m coming, sweetie. I’m coming,” I murmured. Tears spilled down my cheeks, as I pictured Casey, forlorn and alone, amidst a happy babble of children and parents bent head-to-head over art projects.

Along Highland Road, up Broadside, across Senate Street to the intersection at Route 135. Red light. For god’s sake, change! And then the long haul up Morehouse Parkway, past the golf course, through two stop signs. Endless. Endless. Oh Casey, I’m on my way.

I swerved into the school lot, parked the car and ran through the front door, down the corridor, my heart pounding, my feet pounding, into the art room.

Watercolors of lions, horses, and houses with apple trees adorned the walls. Wooden easels, their supports splotched with reds, blues, and smeared purples running to muddy brown, stood like scarecrows at haphazard angles about the room. Racks of glass jars bristled with paintbrushes. Lumpy clay animals, pots and figurines crowded the counters. Around long, low tables, parents squeezed on under-sized chairs leaned close to their children, their fingers stained rust-red with terra cotta clay. And Casey sat next to an empty chair - empty because I’d forgotten this special invitation – head bowed over her project.

Fifty years have passed since that mad rush from work to art room and still I cannot think of that day without tears. For my parental sins did not end with forgetting.

“Mommy!” Casey beamed as I scooted into that empty chair. Without a hint of reproach in her almond eyes, she hugged me, then brushed her long brown hair away from her face with her wrist and explained the day’s project. “See those boxes of stuff in the middle of the table? You can use whatever you want. You stick ‘em in the clay to make a design! See mine?”

Mrs. Alderman, the art teacher, said hello and handed me a flat circle of clay about the size of a lunch plate. It was smooth and yielding, rich with the earth-scent I loved during my own school years spent rolling and pinching and shaping to produce a frog, an owl, or an ashtray. And I remember the satisfaction, the predictability, in knowing that the clay would be dry and ready to paint by the next class, another hour of quiet concentration spent dipping a brush into syrupy colors and dabbing a face to life, a flower to brilliance. Unlike a meal, a neat room, or a pile of folded laundry, clay figures lasted.

I studied the blank circle before me, perused the box of buttons, dried flowers, feathers and twigs, and planned. I selected a few items and began.

It was fun: the feeling of my fingers damp with moist clay, the scene I’d envisioned emerging before me, my daughter bustling cheerfully beside me.

“There! I’m done,” Casey announced. “D’you like it?”

“It’s beautiful, sweetie,” I crooned. “I love the way you made the grass.” She’d had a head start and I was not finished yet, so I turned back to my clay, my pine needles and feathers.

“Can I help you with yours?” Casey said.

I remember glancing at the teacher with a quick smile. What kind of smile? Did I have the sense to be sheepish? I can only imagine her reaction as I said to my daughter, “Mm. You made yours just the way you wanted and I think I’ll finish mine by myself.”

At age eight, Casey was content with my answer; it was, after all, a response an eight year old could relate to. And my daughter seems to have suffered little from my poor behavior that morning. I have apologized many times and at age ten, fifteen, eighteen and twenty, her reaction has been the same: a roll of her eyes and an exasperated release of breath. “Mom, relax. I don’t even remember any of this. Get over it!”

But I can’t. Because I want to re-wind. I want my younger self to inch over with a welcoming smile and make room for Casey’s clay-stained fingers touching my own.

In the years following, I have tried to make decisions based on what might create a meaningful memory. Do I want to remember that I attended a meeting or that I drove up to my son’s school with my husband to take photographs before prom night? Do I want to remember (or will I remember at all) that I cleaned the kitchen cupboards or that I accepted the spontaneous invitation for dinner with friends? Do I want a clay plaque that I made all by myself or do I want a messier, more precious, version that Casey and I made together? Oh, how I want that do-over.

Too often, I can’t find my purse, my glasses, a favorite necklace or my car keys, but I know exactly where those two medallions are now. They are buried beneath layers of off-season clothes at the bottom of a red wooden chest that belonged to my father when he was a boy. It is painful to look at the reddish clay discs, but I’ll never throw them away.

In order to write this, I dug them out and realized they are almost a match. One, crafted by Casey, age eight, the other by Lea, age thirty-nine. Both are imprinted with a border of circlets, a spray of pine needles to represent grass, and a twig to convey a sparse tree. The only real difference is in mood. Mine appears wintry, while Casey’s has warmth, for she added the sun, its rays drawn in deep, straight lines.

Stages of Snore Response

2010-05-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

Sleeping, once a reliable natural process, is now a nightly challenge, a precious luxury. Falling asleep on my own, without benefit of Ambien, is cause for celebration, even a childish pride – I fell asleep all by myself! And if I happen to achieve that goal, my initial drift into slumber is fragile. While it would not blend well with our colonial décor, after last night, a blinking neon “Do Not Disturb’ sign is something I’m considering for the bedroom door.

For the past two weeks, my husband, Dave, has been exhausted, stressed and gloomy. After an hour-long commute from work yesterday evening, he dragged himself in the back door and announced, “I’m going to bed early tonight.”

But, he did not count on the Celtics.

Following dinner, as I headed upstairs to book and bed, Dave passed me in the hall, his arms laden with hangers, slacks, and an iron. “The Celts are playing and I've got some ironing to do. Be up soon,” he said, planting a quick kiss on my cheek.

Apparently, his definition of “soon” differs from mine, because I washed up, wrote in my journal and read for a bit before turning out the light. And still no Dave. It must have been a long game.

Stealth is not Dave’s strong suit when he readies for bed. I was awakened from the pleasant sleep I’d managed to slip into all by myself by his thumping, teeth-brushing and flushing. A glance at the clock told me it was 11:45. Damn.

Evening toilet accomplished, Dave snuggled in beside me, threw an arm over my shoulders and dropped off to sleep within seconds.

Not me.

I took a sip of water from the cup on the nightstand, re-applied my Chapstick and pulled the covers up to my chin. Rats. I sort of had to go to the bathroom. Not too badly, but enough to think about it. Enough to get up and trudge down the hall.

Once I returned to bed, Dave’s night noises had increased in volume. He’d moved past soft splutters to a gutteral gurgle. It was amusing, actually, and I smiled as I curled on my side and closed my eyes. A gasping, snorting transition from gurgle to full-out snore stole the smile from my face and nudged me toward annoyance. “For heaven’s sake, Hon,” I whispered, perhaps louder than necessary. I poked him gently but firmly enough to put his snoring on pause. Only briefly.

Lying grim-faced next to the sound-machine in my bed, I practiced the conversation I planned for the morrow, a conversation in which sleep deprivation and lack of consideration figured heavily. With a shudder, Dave let loose a thunderous snore which drove me to press my fingers, hard, into a muscle in his back. A deep press. A press that bespoke my growing irritation. A press that made it clear I didn’t care if I woke him.

And he stopped snoring. In fact, he stopped breathing. For a while. For too long. “Honey?” I said, my voice guilty and concerned.

No answer, but his breathing resumed.

So, I knew he was fine, but that breathless silence reversed my mood. I thought past the snores, to the dear man with whom I share basil martinis on Friday nights, Sudoku on Saturdays and on Sundays, “Meet the Press.” I thought about our wonderful kids and thirty-five years of marriage. I thought about the cold, lonely silence that was the alternative to companionable snores. And so successful was I in my maudlin meanderings that I got a little weepy and cuddled closer to Dave. Despite the fact that he was still asleep, he stirred at my touch, kissed my hair and whispered, “Love you.”

One would like to think that this cozy scene ended with me soothed to sleep, all by myself. But no. Dave wheezed and grumbled while I tried to settle in and snooze, and finally, I reached for the Ambien.

Missing Home

2010-05-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

In the 1950’s, home for my husband was in Worcester, MA, in a neighborhood with yards bounded by sidewalks where kids walked to school though drifts of leaves or snow. He grew up in a neighborhood where cars drove slowly because kids were apt to be in the road playing baseball. He grew up in a neighborhood where kids scoured the surrounding woods for detritus treasures left by the tornado of ‘53. And he grew up with Italian grandparents who spoke little English, but whose garden flourished with the eggplant, tomatoes, onions and garlic that when stewed and simmered, made a rich red sauce for Sunday dinner.

But in September, when he goes back to Worcester for his 40th high school reunion, he’ll have to stay in a hotel.

It wasn’t until Dave mentioned this for the third time that I thought to stop what I was doing and look at him. His eyes were soft and wistful; he was sad. We haven’t been to Worcester since 2003, when his father, Colombo, and Colombo’s older sister, Cam, moved to a senior community in Southbury, Connecticut. Twelve years before, his mother had moved south to be closer to Dave and his brother. And while Dave has many wonderful memories of his childhood, my sense was that when the senior Sylvestros left town, he’d moved on too, with barely a backward glance.

Apparently, I was wrong about that.

The topic had come up because of my plans to visit my parents in Bryn Mawr last weekend. I am supremely spoiled because my mother and father are alive, still married, and living in the house they purchased when I was ten. Both of my sisters live with their families only minutes away. When I go home, my parents burst from the front door at my arrival, waving their hands and blowing kisses. When I go home, it is to the same green carpet in the living room that has always been there, to the bedspreads that covered my Mom’s twin beds as she grew up in St. Louis, to the 1938 Roper kitchen range that was in the house when Dad bought it, and to the same tricky toilets that take ages to refill after a flush. When I go home, I feel secure as my little-girl-self in the stone Pennsylvania house shaded by the two-hundred-years-old copper beech tree.

I can still go home. I can drive down I-95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, shed the skin of wife, mother and grown-up, and slip gleefully into my old roles of big sister and daughter. It feels comfortable, easy, and familiar.

This particular trip south held an added bonus: my childhood friend Edie, now a resident of Washington state, was coming to visit her father who lives in the house that Edie grew up in, a house where I spent many nights talking about boys, dancing to Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” and sneaking tastes of Edie’s mother’s home-made chocolate sauce, too tempting in the pot on the stove.

“I’m envious,” said Dave. “You’re lucky to be able to go home to your parents, your house, your sisters and Edie.”

I know this well; I cherish each visit home. Like some kind of crazy person, I caress the stair railing, pat the walls and even hug the copper beech to the extent that my arms can reach around its massive girth. At night, I lie in bed knowing my parents are just down the hall. I hear their voices and tense my jaw, my fists, my closed eyes in a prayer or incantation that all might remain as it is. Home is part of me, part of my footing, as it is for most people, I imagine. As it was for Dave.

During our years as a young couple, Dave and I split holidays and visits equally between Worcester and Bryn Mawr. While in Massachusetts, we would drive past playing fields where as a youth, Dave had thrown touchdown passes, hit homeruns, and pitched as if throwing strikes were easy. We ate mocha chip ice cream cones at Pinecroft Dairy, shopped for deals at Spags and in winter, skated on the pond at Elm Park. And of course, we would have Sunday lunch at Nanny’s, which became Cam’s house when her mother passed away.

Jack, Cam and Colombo’s brother, was the gardener and while he was alive, the lettuce in the smooth wooden salad bowl came straight from the garden outside the back door. Cam would add some olive oil and fresh-squeezed lemon juice, maybe a little salt and pepper, and that was the best dressing you could ask for. She would make peppers stuffed with black olives, anchovies, capers and breadcrumbs. She made pasta with slow-cooked sauce that she topped with a sprinkle of crushed nuts. “Adds a nice crunch,” she would say.

Cam once said, “You are always welcome here,” and while she didn’t need to say it for us to feel it, I remember thinking how much it meant that there were still grown-ups to take care of me.

And Dave doesn’t have that anymore.

While I am still my parents’ child, seeking approval, occasionally hissing, “Don’t tell Mom!” to one of my sisters, Dave’s relationship with his parents changed years ago. We were married a year after Dave graduated from college and his parents divorced three years after that. We had thought them the ideal couple and it was a bolt out of nowhere when they separated. Visits to Worcester, for a time, were a balancing act as we tried to give equal attention to his mom and dad, avoid ruffling any feathers, and play it straight down the middle.

Dave’s mom moved to Connecticut while his father took an apartment on Harley Drive, literally a stone’s throw from Dave’s childhood backyard. Small as it was, Colombo’s new “pad” was cozy and, along with Cam’s yellow house at #3 Stratfield Street, felt like home.

When Dave and I dropped our daughter Casey off for her freshman year of college, I worried about my life without kids to care for. As we drove away, leaving Casey to four years of independence, fun and hopefully, learning, I was envious of the open field before her. You have an open field too, I told myself as we drove to Worcester for a night with Colombo. This is every bit a new life phase for you as it is for Casey. What do you want to do now?

What did I want to do? I’m still trying to figure that out, but at that point, holding myself together was the more immediate goal and staying with Colombo eased my yearning for the end of my hands-on mother years. For me, Colombo whipped up a strong White Russian – a tasty concoction of vodka, Kahlua and cream. He and Dave sipped Sapphire Blue martinis and watched the Red Sox on T.V. I felt soothed and cheerfully foggy in my spot on the mustard yellow couch that had been a staple in Sylvestro world for as long as I had been. While Dave’s anguish over our new status as empty-nesters was not as overt as mine, it was a comfort for us both to have a parent to retreat to.

Cam and Colombo have both passed away, but I know my husband is thinking of them when the Red Sox do something great or stupid and he’s itching to call them to hoot or grouse. And whenever Dave makes stuffed peppers or stuffed squid, there’s no question Cam’s looking over his shoulder.

“Honey? Forget the hotel. Why don’t we find a nice bed & breakfast and make a weekend of it when you go up for reunion?” I suggest. But Dave shakes his head. That isn’t the answer. It’s not so much the missing bed, roof, walls and place to stay, it’s the void where the smells of red sauce, the tang of Sapphire Blue, and Colombo and Cam used to be.

Pride in the Waitin' - Part III

2010-04-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

November 7, 2008

“Helloooo,” I croon into the phone, my voice ending in a singing hoot because Devore’s message indicated that her final GED, Science, went well. “So, you didn’t think the test was too hard?”

“No, it was okay. I had to use the process of elimination and all, but I think it went fine.”

“So, we have to wait a month to get the results?”

“Yeah, ‘bout that.”

“That’s going to feel like a long wait,” I say.

“I know, but my birthday is next week and that makes me happy. You know I always dress up in a skirt for my birthday.”

“Omigod. That’s something I want to see. I can’t even imagine you in skirt.”

Devore laughs. “Well, you come to the center on Monday and I’ll be dressed up.”

“I’ll be there! We haven’t spoken since Tuesday,” I crow, “Not since Obama was elected president!”

Devore and I have spoken often of Barack Obama’s historic campaign. In fact, we used his speech on race in America as the basis for several lessons.

“I waited two hours to vote,” she said. “The lines were so long.”

“It must have been quite a scene.”

“Oh yeah. It was a scene, alright. Kids on their cell phones, textin’ or talkin’. The old people had their chairs; they were sittin’ there with their arms folded across their chests. We were all glad to be there. In fact, folks’d see someone they knew waitin’ in line who’d offer to let ‘em cut in. But, they’d always say no. Everyone wanted to wait. There was pride in the waitin'.” I could picture Devore on the other end of the line nodding reflectively as she said this. She repeated, “There was pride in the waitin’.”

“I can see that,” I said. “In waiting, there must have been a sense that you were giving to the cause – giving your time.”

“Yeah. That’s it. Givin’ your time. You know what? I’ve been keepin’ all kinds of Obama stuff since this campaign began. I’ll bring it in so you can see it on Monday. Oh! And you won’t believe this. When I got home after my Science GED on Thursday, there was a piece of paper stuck to my boot. I thought it was litter or somethin'. Anyway. I pulled it off and it was a sticker. It said, ‘You did it.’”

Goosebumps course up my arms. “You’re kidding.”

“No. Honest to God, Lea. It said, ‘You did it.’”

“Wow. That’s a message from the Universe!”

“I know! Of course I kept it. I’m gonna bring it in to show you. I put it right in my scrapbook, with a picture of Obama. ‘You did it.’”

Epilogue

And she did do it.

On November 17, Devore received her test results. She passed the GED. She is now attending Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport to pursue a career as a juvenile counselor.

Pride in the Waitin' - Part II

2010-04-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

July 28, 2008

But for the baggy trousers, Devore could be off to a tennis match after class in her white polo shirt and baseball cap, although she’d have to swivel the visor around front to lose the rapper look.

She looks up and smiles when I give her a welcome-back hug. She’s already seated in a cubicle, writing in a math workbook. “So, how was your vacation?” she asks. “You look nice and tan.”

This woman always surprises me. I’m amazed by her good spirits. I had driven over today, my stomach in a knot, wondering which Devore I would find waiting. I had pictured the Devore of November 2006, defiant and blank-eyed after a grand mal seizure prevented her from taking the GEDs. It has taken almost two years of tutorials with me and her math teacher, four two-hour sessions a week, to get her back to that point. She’d planned to take the GEDs two weeks ago. Instead, she’s been shuttling back and forth to the hospital because efforts to wean her from a medication triggered a series of seizures.

“You’ve had a rough time lately, I hear,” I say as I flump down my book bag after slipping out the orange GED language arts workbook and a pack of vocabulary flashcards.

“Yeah,” she says, playing idly with her pencil. “Yeah. Did you hear about what happened?”

“Some of it. They were trying to cut back your medication?”

“Yeah. But it didn’t work out so well. I’d have a seizure; my sister’d call the ambulance; I’d go to the hospital; then they’d send me home after I rested a bit. But I kept havin’ seizures. I knew I had to get myself to Yale. They have my records there and I figured they’d know what to do.”

“I didn’t realize you’d been to Yale,” I say. “Did somebody drive you?”

“Nah. I took the train.”

“The train! But it sounds like you weren’t feeling so good.”

“Nah. I was pretty messed up. But I needed to get help, you know what I’m sayin’? Like I said, I had to get to Yale. So I got myself over to the train station. Got on the train. Told the conductor, ‘Get me off in New Haven.’ Luckily, it only cost $1.50, ‘cuz that’s all I had. And the conductor, he let me know when we got to New Haven just like I asked him to.”

I listen to Devore and imagine the scene: I see her in a polo shirt – maybe her lavender one - baggy jeans and her brand new white sneakers. She is foggy after the seizures and shifts in medication. Energy low. But resolute.

“How’d you get to the hospital?” I ask. “You said you used all your money on the train.”

She laughs quietly, “I walked.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, I walked. I kept goin’ up to people sayin’, Can you tell me where the hospital is?’”

Her eyebrows seem to frame her eyes like hands might cup a child’s chin. She repeats softly, “I just kept sayin, ‘Can you tell me where the hospital is?’ And I found it. They ran some tests and kept me overnight.”

“You’re so brave,” I gush. And I mean it. I don’t know that I could find my way to Yale-New Haven on a good day. I don’t know that I could get myself back to this school to work on comprehension and grammar after such a setback. I don’t know that I could walk a day in her new white sneakers.

I think back to the school’s recognition ceremony in June. Devore and I sat together in the cavernous auditorium of one of the city churches. The speaker, Sharon Lewis, had talked about “WHIGMIT” moments – “What have I gotten myself into?” moments. Moments when poor choices and listening to others’ negativism hold you back. “There’ve been times when I’ve been down and people I thought were my friends didn’t support me,” said Ms. Lewis. “At first, I was discouraged and hurt, but then I said to myself, “Maybe they don’t deserve to have a front row in my life. They belong in my balcony!”

One voice, Devore’s, called out, “Amen!” to a burst of appreciative, knowing laughter.

Following the speech, awards were distributed to those most improved and those who’d passed their GEDs. The silence was heavy beside me. Then Devore murmured, “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment at 1:00. I gotta go.”

“What? Can’t you wait ‘til it’s over?”

“No. Gotta go.” And she was up and striding down the center aisle. Gone.

On my way out after the ceremony, I ran into Michele, Devore’s math tutor. “What happened with Devore? I saw her stalk out,” she said.

“She mentioned a doctor’s appointment, but she’d said nothing about it before.”

“I think she was upset. She had that face on.”

That face. Michele and I know that face.

At our next meeting, Devore said, “I s’pose I owe you an explanation. I was listenin’ to that lady talkin’ about her - what did she call ‘em? Oh yeah, WHIGMIT moments, and I was thinkin’ that I shoulda been up there with the others who passed their GEDs. I waited too long to go back to school. Even now, I listen to too many people who say, ‘Why you keep goin’ to that school?’ I shoulda been up there.”

Her expression is tight, not closed, but tight.

“Omigod, Devore. When else could you have started? You’ve been here at the school for, what, three years? You’re showing up. You’ve had to deal with seizures, family issues, personal issues. These aren’t excuses; they’re reasons. You’re right on time, given what life has dealt you.”

She looks at me thoughtfully and nods. “Maybe. Maybe I am.”

Meanwhile, two months have passed and her bout of seizures may have cost her a shot at this summer’s round of tests.

“Well, let’s do some work,” I say. “We’ll review your vocabulary. Between the month-long break and your seizure-wearied brain, it may take time before you remember all the words, so don’t worry about it.”

I flip through the deck, making sure that a few of the words she has told me she knows “to the depths of her soul” are near the top so she won’t be discouraged. I hold up a card and she nails it. I flash another and her answer is swift and correct. We continue on until the pile of words she has identified correctly is about double those she has missed. I hold up a card.

“Res… resil… hm. I don’t remember that one. Can you put it in a sentence?’ she asks.

I grin. I always use the same example. “It’s what you are…” I say.

She smiles back at me. “Oh yeah. You can’t keep me down. ‘Resilient.’”

To be continued...

Pride In the Waitin' - Part I

2010-03-29T13:40:00.000-07:00

June 6, 2008

10:00 A.M.

“I’m not lookin’ to aggravate you, Jane, but I wanna take the test. I’m tired of waitin.’ I wanna take it now.”

Devore’s eyes are dark pools, inscrutable, beneath the Corona baseball cap pulled low on her brow. The shoulders of her oversized navy sweatshirt are damp from her walk to the school through the rain. She speaks quietly, but with an edge of determination.

I watch as Jane, Mercy Learning Center’s director, studies Devore’s face.

Jane’s appearance is as no-nonsense as her demeanor. Her steel gray hair is close-cropped. Her striped oxford shirt and navy-blue slacks are business-like, but casual. She turns to me and says solemnly, “There are no cubicles available. I’m due in court in five minutes. One of the other students is sick and I need to make arrangements for her.” I can guess the thoughts that go unspoken. This is not a simple matter. I want Devore to succeed. The test-taking circumstances have to be optimal. Will the stress trigger a seizure?

Jane comes to a decision. “Okay Devore, you can do the science portion. It has twenty-five questions.”

To me she says, “I’ll set you up in an office on the third floor. She can have extra time, but watch the clock so that we get an idea of the time she needs.”

Devore tucks her head to her chest in agreement. She is smiling.

10:50 A.M.

Devore sits working at a round table by the window. She is focused, but her mood is light. Taking this practice test is a step toward getting her GED, or certificate of General Educational Development.

The Corona cap is on the table. A black do-rag stretches like shiny skin over Devore’s skull. She taps the test booklet with her pencil as she tracks each word and skims the bridge of her nose with an index finger.

Beyond the rain-spattered window, eighteen-wheelers and a steady queue of cars stream by on Interstate-95. From my seat on the couch, I am eye-level with the elevated highway a block away. The hum of engines, the strained kiss of tires to wet asphalt, the shriek of a chill wind probing for entry harmonizes with the ticking clock and Devore’s whisper as she reads.

She jiggles her foot. The table trembles as she erases.

The traffic slides by, hushhhhhhh, scattering water.

Devore and I met a year and a half ago here, at the women’s literacy center. She’d just turned twenty-two. Prior to our meeting, the director filled me in on Devore’s history. “She has a seizure disorder – multiple injuries and scars sustained from falls and mishaps during seizures. She’s served jail-time. Her father’s deceased. Her mother’s in and out of rehab. Two years ago, Devore was ready to take the GED, but suffered a grand mal seizure. After six months of treatment and medication, she needs stimulation. She needs to get her brain back on track.”

Out of my league! I thought. “I’ll do my best,” I said.

At our first session, Devore’s face was impassive. She wore a do-rag, low-slung baggy jeans, a hooded sweatshirt and heavy boots. Pink patches - burn scars - mottled the dark skin of her long, graceful fingers. Thin lines crossed her jaw and neck – more scars.

She has the face and statuesque frame of a runway model, but chooses to dress like a man. “I’ve always been a tomboy,” she says.

At that first meeting she made her goal clear. She wanted to pass the GED as soon as possible. She didn’t want me wasting her time with any childish stuff. I’d read some of the excerpts in the GED workbooks Jane had provided; there was nothing childish about them.

In fact, I worried that the material was too difficult for me. I like to think I’m smart, but I was stumped by some of the questions; I had to check the answer sheet at the back of the book at least once for every excerpt.

Would I be able to help this young woman?

11:25 A.M.

Devore continues to fill in the circles in the booklet. She looks up and says, “Miss, I might’ve messed up the order.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I erased some and I’m not sure if I put the answers in the right spaces.”

“Go back about four items and see if the answers match up.”

“Already did that.”

“Okay, you can do a full check at the end.”

Discouragement tinges her words as she adds, “I’ve only done half the items of this part.”

I glance at the clock. “Then you’re right on track. Jane figured it would take you double the allotted time and it’s been just over forty-five minutes.”

“Oh!” Her face brightens. “You’re right! I forgot I was only doin’ the science section. I was lookin’ at all these other columns.”

She bends over the table and returns to work.

As I wait, I think back over the months we’ve spent together, over what I’ve learned about this woman. Devore has described arguments with her sister, confrontations with her mother. “I speak my mind. I can’t just let things pass, y’know what I’m sayin’? People tell me, ‘Girl, you got attitude. You always have that face on.’”

I know the face they’re talking about. It’s the expression she wore at our first meeting. Closed. Sullen. Intimidating. A face without light. Dark eyes unreadable, seemingly all pupil. Jaw tight. Shields up, fighting mode.

For Christmas, I gave her a copy of The Secret. The next time we met, she said, “That book’s the bomb!” and she meant it in a good way.

We talked about the ideas discussed in the book: gratitude, the law of attraction, the fact that we can control our thoughts. From then on, we started each session reviewing the events of our week, specifically, things that had happened that made us happy.

One day she said, “I saw this nature show on TV. It was about butterflies and it showed their mouths. I was walkin’ the other day and I saw the same kinda butterfly. So I followed it to try to find its mouth.” She laughed. “People musta thought I was crazy! Runnin’ after this butterfly, tryin’ to find its mouth!”

Another time she said, “This boy in my neighborhood came home from shoppin’ with his daddy. He got out of the car with new sneakers on and he was proud of those shoes! He kept sayin’, ‘I got me some new shoes!’ All the neighbors were in the street and we were grinnin’ at him and sayin’, ‘Just look at those new shoes! Just look at those new shoes!’” She smiled at the memory.

I forgot, once, to ask about her week. She called me on it with a teasing smile. “You forgot to ask what made me happy this week.”

Truth is, I don’t see that closed face of hers very much anymore. I marvel at the strength of hope’s tiny flicker that could battle the harsh elements that created that face.

How has that flicker survived?

She has an older brother, “a fine man” who works hard to care for his kids. He’s the model and rock of the family. Devore also loved her father. “We had a good relationship. He came to visit me at least once a year.” Her grandmother, whom she loved, took care of the children when she and her brothers and sisters were too much for their mother. Another friend stepped in when the grandmother died. So there were arms waiting at every step. Devore has told me, “If you lose someone, I’ve learned there’s always a special person waitin’ to take their place.”

But still, rough kids harassed her when she was younger. As a result, her beloved cousin’s in jail. While defending Devore, he shot one of those kids. She writes her cousin faithfully. “He was just a kid when he went in. Twenty-six year sentence.” As I said, she’s done some jail-time herself, but we don’t talk about that.

She has a lot on her mind. “I wanna pass my GED. Get a car. Move outta Bridgeport.” She started taking classes at Mercy Learning Center three years ago. “People say to me, ‘You still goin’ to that place? What for?”

She knows to put those remarks into perspective. “Huh,” she snorts dismissively. “Those folks’re goin’ nowhere. Still. I’ve been here a long time. I’m ready to take this test.”

11:55 A.M.

Devore rests her elbows on the table and holds the booklet up, eye-level. She murmurs as she reads over her answers. Beyond the window, the trucks and cars, a gray-white stream through the mist of rain, travel north and south.

Two Poems

2010-03-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

Going Down?

“We should be all right,” the pilot droned.
That raised an eyebrow. “Should”?
Seatbelt signs stayed lit, as the plane
lurched and swayed,
a small toy batted by winds.
I tucked my hand in the crook of Dave’s arm,
glad of his warm skin and his presence,
glad of the life we’d been given together,
hoping this night meant not
sorrow for our kids.

We laughed with the man in seat 21C.
He was broad and bald and jolly.
We laughed, the three of us,
at sitting together and not
with the gum-snapping
blond in 17B
who’d bitched and whined at
our flight’s delay.
“Won’t she be pissed if we go down,”
the fat man said.
And we laughed.

A Toast to Appearances

Alone at his table across the restaurant,
he smiles at our shrieks and guffaws.
He leans slightly forward
to better hear the joke
and maybe thinks back
to past raucous meals--
to the teasing and laughter of children,
to his wife, then seated beside him.

At our table, over pasta and fish,
we are carefree and happy,
it would appear.
But we were drawn to each other,
supplicants seeking comfort, as
a son, a husband and a wife are sick.
Hours have passed in waiting rooms
for news too often grim.
And so, with food and wine and friends,
together, we shoulder hard times.

We lift our glasses to the blessing of health,
and beam and laugh in company.
In his tweed jacket, seated by the door,
that is all the old man can see.
He lifts his glass, nods our way,
and smiles his toast to our joy.

Parkway Connection

2010-02-27T11:35:00.000-08:00

I dial Dave’s cell number, as I do every morning, push the “speaker” button and set the receiver on the bedside table. As the phone rings, I tug the quilts off the bed to fold them.

As he does every morning, Dave answers, “Yo Baby! How you doin?” His voice is muffled by the murmur of the car radio, the whisper of road traffic, and his unpredictable Bluetooth.

“You’re breaking up,” I say as I pull the sheets tight and tuck them in.

“Just a sec,” says my husband. The radio quiets as he turns it down. The road noise is hushed as he closes his window. “How’s that?”

“Good. So where are you?” I thump the pillows and pull up the coverlet.

“Just passing exit 42.”

“Hm. Slow going, I guess.”

“Yeah. I’m zipping along at 10 miles an hour,” he might say. Then perhaps, “Great view. I’m stuck behind a Hummer next to a particularly beat-up carcass.” Or, “Asshole just cut me off. New York plates - big surprise.” Or, “The sunrise is amazing. Gold and rose on the treetops – too beautiful. Can you see it where you are?”

No, I can’t, because I’m making the bed at home while Dave drives the Merritt Parkway south to work.

When he leaves the house each weekday around 7:00 am, I’m still half-asleep. Since I lost my hair in September, I’ve worn to bed a lacy pink nightcap embroidered with rosebuds and vines. To block any light, it’s pulled low on the bridge of my nose. Dave’s parting view of his alluring wife, therefore, is lips, nostrils and a rosebud cap.

He kisses those lips and we both say, “Love you. Drive carefully.” It’s a ritual we take seriously, for if he doesn’t acknowledge the “drive carefully” part, I rouse myself enough to call down the hall, “Honey? Did you hear me? Drive carefully!” Consigning my dearest Dave to the oft-wacko drivers of the southbound commute demands faith and ritualistic blessings.

Usually, I climb from the covers at 7:14 – the digital age allowing a precise time check. On rare occasions, I make it to the window before Dave’s Volvo pulls out and watch as he walks to the car, his computer in one hand, his travel coffee mug with a piece of toast balanced on top in the other. Sometimes, I knock on the glass pane and wave. When I had two boobs, I’d grant him a quick flash and be rewarded with his wide eyes and broad grin. Generally, I give him about fifteen minutes to get on the parkway, then call around 7:30.

Once the bed’s made, I take the phone with me to Tucker’s old room. I lie on the floor to do my exercises, Dave chatting away from the black receiver leaning against the bookshelf while I stretch, count and breathe. Dave reviews road conditions, we relate any dreams of interest, and report on how we slept. Once we’ve covered the preliminaries, we delve into discussions of school issues and intrigues, our kids’ jobs and their significant others, cancer concerns, retirement plans, and - endlessly – my anxieties. What do people do without a partner so patient?

“Where are you now?” I ask periodically.

For a long time, one of the markers for Dave’s progress down the Merritt was a stunted pine that grew in the median strip. It bent this way then that, like a once graceful woman now twisted with age. It was Dave’s favorite tree. Last July, soon after my mastectomy, the tree was cut down. Dave understands; as a Merritt driver he’s conscious of limbs falling, but still, he misses that tree.

These car chats take place every weekday morning, even though we’ve just passed an evening and night together. But when competing with cooking, side-by-side keyboard tapping, a glimpse on the way out to night meetings, or phone call catch-ups with family and friends, presence is fleeting and taken for granted. During morning calls, despite radio crackle and my abs-work-out count, our connection is strong. We focus on each other and listen.

Done... Right?

2010-02-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

At this point, I thought there was nothing the oncologist could say that would disturb me. I’m in the final stretch, after all. A month ago, perusing the mail, much less responding to emails, was overwhelming. My to-do list was a reproach on paper, for I had not the energy to visit the attic, much less sift through old paperwork, organize shelves and haul bags of cast-offs to Goodwill. I would make it through my workday and head home exhausted; running errands or attending a meeting afterwards was not a possibility.

Gone now the lethargy of those chemo days. I’ve straightened the attic and made that Goodwill run, relishing the pleasure of pounding feet and powerful legs with each dash up the stairs. After a day of work followed by a trip to the dry cleaners and the grocery store, I can’t help but smile when I arrive home, sling my purse over my shoulder, grab a shopping bag in one hand and a full complement of clean shirts in the other, then nudge the car door shut with my hip.

But for my edgy-lesbian butch hairdo, I’m back.

This busy, competent Lea is a much-missed old friend and oh, I welcome her! My chemo treatments ended in November, thank god, and the Herceptin drips, which will continue until August, have no side effects. I feel great and, to all intents and purposes, I am done with this cancer.

So I thought.

During my last visit, Dr. Lawden called me from the infusion room into his office for a consultation. I sat in a beige chair, my IV stand with its bag of fluid tethered to my chest by a thin plastic tube. The doctor asked about neuropathy, or numbness of the hands and feet, which I was delighted to report, was not an issue. “Still active?” he asked as if perhaps, despite his directive that I exercise forty-five minutes a day, I’d opted for indolence. I nodded, masking a mental eye-roll.

We discussed diet and sleep patterns and he checked my fingernails. I haven’t bitten my nails since I was a kid, but another charming chemo manifestation is wavy, peeling nails. Who knew? I find myself gnawing away like some anxious teen and my nails look awful. “Part of post-chemo recuperation,” he said.

With mutual smiles and the closing of a manila file, we wrapped up. I was on my way down the hall, pushing the IV stand before me, when he called, “Lea! Wait! I forgot to discuss the main purpose of our consultation.”

I had no reason to be suspicious.

“We need to talk about hormone therapy once your treatments are over,” he said.

“Hormone therapy?”

“Yes. Chemo is generally followed by a course of Tamoxifen.”

I’d heard of this drug, but it had nothing to do with me. I was done. I thought that after surgery and chemo any cancer that had a chance in hell of causing a problem was banished. I should have learned from all of this, however, that nothing is certain.

I am not one to talk back or question, and certainly not to a doctor, but I’d had enough of bad news and flattened spirits. “No one mentioned further treatments,” I said, my arms crossed defiantly across my chest.

My tone must have given him pause, for he said, “I thought I’d covered it; sorry if I didn’t. You’ve had a lot to absorb. I’m going to research your case some more. Weigh the risks and benefits…”

“Risks?” I cut in.

“Yes, well. As I said, I’m going to study your case and then we’ll review the specifics of maintenance.”

Maintenance? Damn.

A Cat's Life

2010-02-01T18:07:00.000-08:00

Our cat, Fuzz, is dying. Five days ago, he started refusing food, even the enticements of well-mashed tuna and the bowls of milk that he’d nibbled and lapped, listlessly, for a few weeks now.

I took him to the vet last month when his usual voracious appetite, the-appetite-that-compelled-us-to-feed-him-separately-from-his-sister-Raven-because-he-was-such-a-pig, had waned. Blood tests indicated kidney failure, so he was put on a diet of special food and anti-biotics. For a while, he loved his new regimen, but that interest faded too.

He is weak and disoriented. The soft gray-striped fur that once swathed a corpulent body hangs loose from his bony spine and haunches. He staggers to his water bowl, compelled by muscle memory perhaps, and sits and stares, without drinking.

Still, he surprises us. Even though we’ve been carrying him up and down stairs to spare him strain, three days ago I had to fetch him from the top of the water heater – a good six feet high. And more recently, after he’d slept for twelve hours straight and we felt sure the end was near, he jumped on our bed in the middle of the night.

When I hold my old friend, I can feel his heart beating beneath my fingers and I am moved to tears at the mysterious force that compels that rhythm, a force beyond health, beyond sustenance.

Sixteen years ago, Fuzz and Raven were born in our house of a lovely, but promiscuous black cat named Melissa. In her youth, she lived free because her owner was constructing a house across the street and the two camped out regularly in an old red barn on the property. Our daughter, Casey, befriended them both, but we cautioned her against loving a cat who regularly crossed a road. The builder, as it turned out, offered Melissa as a gift, but we were a dog family, and our 100-pound malamute, Kody, was unpredictable when it came to cats. Actually, she was predictable and that was the problem.

But, after a lengthy and cautious period of adjustment, the two animals made their peace and Melissa moved in with us. Soon thereafter, we noticed she’d gained weight. About the same time, we saw a handsome, rakish, lady’s man of a tiger cat hanging around the barn. Now that she was ours, Melissa’s days of outdoor roaming were over, but evidently she and the tiger had shared some good times. Our new cat was pregnant.

We loved to hold her as her belly grew, feeling the flutter-kicks of tiny kittens – new life! - beneath the rapid beat of their mother’s heart.

Our children, Tucker and Casey, were at school when Melissa announced it was Time. She wove about my legs, yowling, until I followed her to the spot she’d chosen on the third floor, a gap between the wall and an unused toilet in an unused bathroom, far from Kody’s keen nose. I gathered a large sturdy box and a wad of towels, fashioned a soft nest, and then dashed to the car to pick up the kids so they could witness the birth.

And so, we were there from the beginning when Fuzz, Raven, and their two siblings joined us in this world. Toby and Cow Pie found homes with my mother-in-law and a friend. Raven – ebony black like her mother, and Fuzz – a miniature of his wandering gray-striped father – stayed with us.

Even as the tiniest kitten, Fuzz established himself as the alpha male. He shoved his litter-mates aside while nursing and grew fat and brassy. There was no question that we would keep this adorable fluffy cat with his long white whiskers. Raven, meanwhile, was the runt; she would have died if we hadn’t held her brothers at bay to give her a chance at the milk. She is sleek, beautiful and elegant now, but as a baby she was scrawny and we suspected she might have brain damage.

Meanwhile, Kody seemed to sense that something new and alluring had taken up residence; she spent a lot of time sniffing at the door to the third floor stairs. But we were careful that the babies remained safe, away from the dog.

At least, most of us were.

It was Dave who introduced Fuzz to Kody. The cat was but a handful, and my husband was cuddling him when our malamute entered the room. Holding the cat cupped close in his hands, Dave allowed the dog a sniff and a peek. That was all it took and Kody grabbed the kitten by the head and tossed him in the air. Dave suspected his own days at the house were numbered as he reached out, terrified, to catch the baby as it fell.

But Fuzz was purring, unharmed.

An odd friendship formed with that first encounter. The two animals would nap snuggled together when not enjoying their favorite game, a re-enactment of their meeting, called “Kill the Cat.” As visitors watched, horrified, Kody would take Fuzz’s head in her mouth and swing him about on the floor… and Fuzz loved it.

As Kody neared her end, at the age of fifteen, the two cats kept her company, curled by her side on a royal blue dog bed. Dave snapped a picture of the three old friends together the day before Kody died, but the camera jammed. We assumed the picture was lost.

Weeks after Kody’s death, we picked up a packet of pictures at the camera store. As she flipped through the shots, Casey gasped and said, “Look Mom, they’re kissing you!” Somehow the lost photograph had survived, superimposed on another picture of me with two friends. Ghostly images of Fuzz and Kody flank me and appear to be kissing my cheeks. A loving good-bye from the Other Side.

While many cats are aloof, Fuzz is companionable and responsive. If a welcoming lap is available, he takes it. If a body is curled, cozy, for a snooze, he snuggles into the crook of an arm or the curve of a knee. If one of us is sick or sad, he can sense it, and arrives to offer warmth and comfort.

Of course, he and his sister leave us presents as well. Recently, I picked up a tuft of shredded beige yarn kneaded by cat claws from my grandmother’s hooked rug. I transferred it to my other hand and reached for another loose cluster on the floor. I was inches from the nondescript scrap of brown when I noticed the eyes. Two eyes staring at me, mid-scrap.

It was a mouse scalp with eyes. This is not the type of gift that I like, beloved cats.

Melissa passed away years ago, hit by a car when she slipped out a basement door mistakenly left ajar during a furnace cleaning. Tucker and Casey have grown up and left home. For awhile now, Fuzz and Raven have been the kids we come home to, but Fuzz is leaving soon.

Plenty of Company

2010-01-19T14:25:00.000-08:00

Long before cancer threatened me, I fretted, worried and plucked at life. What was my purpose? Was I on the right path? My to-do list stared me down like a stern parent, hands-on-hips. While I stewed and roiled, others, it appeared, went smoothly through their days. My friend Gail listened kindly to my rants and cautioned, “Don’t judge your interiors by others’ exteriors.”

And then, in May, I received my diagnosis. Now I did have something to worry about. Fear and uncertainty shadowed my soul while all around was soft light, windows open, leaves pale green. More than ever, I felt alone as everyone else joyfully welcomed spring.

One Friday, Dave and I drove south on I-95 having left the hospital where I’d had an IV anti-biotic to combat an infection. Dave’s phone buzzed with a text message from our friend Sharon. He was driving, so I checked the small screen.

“A group from school is meeting at Ash Creek and she wants to know if we’d like to join them.” Mentally I leaned toward a knee-jerk no.

“What do you think?” said Dave.

To my surprise, I responded, “Might be fun. Let’s do it.”

We swung off the ramp and drove to the saloon. Our friends were gathered, as usual, at a long table toward the back of the restaurant beneath a punched tin ceiling, swooping long horns and a pair of mounted chaps.

As Dave and I pulled up our stools, we were greeted with broad smiles. Hallie was well into her cosmo, Sharon was sipping a margarita, Deb had a lemon drop martini and the boys – Matt, Steve and John – were polishing off a pitcher of PBR’s – Pabst Blue Ribbon beers.

The room was crowded with bald paunchy guys in tee-shirts and jeans, muscled young men in tee-shirts and jeans, and shapely women in tee-shirts and jeans. The air buzzed with good-natured chatter, anchored by laughter from our table at the end of the bar.

I gazed at my friends – happy, laughing, seemingly carefree - and thought that if I were anyone else in the restaurant, ours was the table I’d envy. But I know the stories behind each bright-eyed smile: Hallie and Deb have both lost sisters, Sharon’s best friend passed away last summer, Matt’s girlfriend is scheduled for heart surgery, and Steve has prostate cancer.

Of course, I had no way of knowing what worry the guy in the Grateful Dead tee-shirt tucked to the back of his mind while meeting his girl for a beer at Ash Creek. And the sassy woman with the full red lips chatting with the bartender? What might her silent sorrow be? Exteriors. Hm. They tell so little.

With my hands cupped around my margarita, I took in the scene: Hallie’s head thrown back in laughter, Sharon grinning, Steve and Dave touching mugs in a toast, Deb calling the club on her cell to sign up for spinning class. A warmth of understanding suffused me as I realized that we’re all in this together. We are each other’s comfort and company during the hard times that are, as much as love, part of life.

Weight Lifting

2010-01-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

Rain taps at gutters and rushes through leaves, wet drops course down the windowpanes. At mid-afternoon, it is dark as dusk and I feel heavy and sad. Is this a reaction to chemo or to my barely fuzz-covered head? We’re supposed to go to Block Island today and I just want to curl up on the couch and cry.

For years, Dave and I have loved this annual “Race Around the Block” weekend when his brother, Steve, runs ten miles or so while we sit drinking mudslides, a frozen rum treat, with friends on a hill overlooking the sun-flecked harbor. Block Island is AWAY and since Dave’s father’s internment in the nursing home and Steve’s cancer diagnosis, this tradition has been a wonderful escape.

But this upcoming weekend has hovered like a cloud on my horizon. So much of the joy of being on Block Island - taking the ferry, free-wheeling with friends, riding bikes, and beaching – involves wind-in-the-hair fun. Involves an uncomplicated diet. Involves sun.

The label on my amber bottle of anti-biotics says “avoid sun.” It also says, “Avoid alcohol.” My oncologist has suggested I avoid fried foods, white flour, white rice and fats. That knocks out fish n’ chips, chocolate chip pancakes and ice cream – the usual Block Island fare. Avoidance plays a big role in my new regimen; Block Island is all about embracing – fun, friends, food, and wind.

That wind alone has me panicked. Usually, I love its many forms: the banshee wind shrieking through a crack in the window in the bathroom at the inn, the wild hair-tossing stream on the ferry, the soft, cooling, breezes while riding my bike past meadows yellow with golden rod. But I worry about wind and my head-gear options. I don’t want salt and damp to wreck my wig and I’ve only worn the scarf twice at home. How small a flick of wind would it take to carry that flippet of fabric away leaving me large-eyed, bald and mortified?

I hear Dave honk the horn in greeting as his car pulls up outside our house. I meet him at the door, watching as he walks stiffly after sitting in traffic for an hour and a half during his commute. I’ve washed my face, but still my eyes are swollen and red.

My public face is a source of pride. Even when despair has held me under, I’ve been told, “It must be nice to be upbeat all the time.” I’m skeptical of book passages in which moods are revealed in a character’s eyes. Hah. I know how easily they are masked. Unless allowed to be so, eyes are not windows, but I don’t have to fake it for Dave.

“I don’t want to be this sad person you come home to,” I tell my husband as he pushes open the screen door.

He slides his computer onto a stool by the kitchen counter and gathers me in his arms. I snuffle in his hair; my tears soak his shirt. At first, he just holds me, saying nothing.

“We don’t have to go,” he says quietly.

“But maybe it would be better to be with the others. Maybe I’d feel better once we were there. I just… I just… I worry about the scarf and the wind.”

“I know. Let me check the weather and the ferry schedule. My vote is we go tomorrow and settle in here tonight. We could do Chinese take-out for dinner.”

I whimper into his shoulder. “I’m not very hungry. How ‘bout a salad?”

“A salad would be perfect. I’m not hungry either.”

He has saved me again. Granted me permission to give in. Don’t need to be brave or cheery or chatty or strong or a good sport. What would I do without him? And that spurs a new onslaught of tears because I really don’t know what I would do without him. I am afraid to even peek in that shadowed corner.

Once I calm down, Dave goes to check the weather online and - he says with a grin – to change his shirt.

“No worries about leaving today, Lea,” he calls from his post at the computer upstairs. “They’ve cancelled the ferries.”

Saved again. I’m not to blame for this postponement: the heavens have given me leave to hole up.

* * *

We wake to overcast skies and drizzle. It’s 7:24 am. I still don’t want to go, don’t want to leave this cozy hollow between the sheets, don’t want to ride the ferry or my bike in the rain. Don’t want to meet up with friends while I’m wearing a scarf.

“What do you think?” says a snoozy Dave.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Well, how do you feel?”

“Okay.” (I’m not being very helpful.)

“What if we skip the bikes?”

“Skip the bikes?”

“Yeah. Would you be more comfortable if we take cabs instead once we get to the island?”

I feel a trace of weight lifting. “Hmmm. No bikes. Usually that’s what I love about being there, but yeah. That’d make a difference.”

“All right. That spares me from loading the bikes on the car. I’ll check the ferry schedule again to make sure everything’s running.”

We get out of bed and Dave heads to the computer while I grab our rolling overnight bags from the hall closet. I turn to my bureau and open a drawer. One night only, but it could be wet, cold, or hot. A small pile mounts on the floor – underwear, shorts, capris, socks, a tee-shirt, flip flops. I’ll wear sneakers, a sweatshirt and raincoat for the trip over.

“We might have a problem,” says Dave as he walks slowly into the bedroom. His hips are skewed to the side.

“What’s wrong?”

“I ducked my head to miss the beam on the stairway and wrenched my back.”

Oh no. Dave’s back is tricky and once a year or so, it goes into spasm. His face is grim as he stalks rigidly around the room trying to stretch it out.

“This is ridiculous,” he hisses. “I chopped wood last weekend, worked out last night and exercised my back every day this week, and I can’t walk down the stairs without hurting myself?”

“Have you taken any Advil yet? Okay. I’ll get some. Plus an ice pack. Your bag is right there. What do you want to bring?”

“I can do it,” he says through tight lips as he hobbles to his closet. I dash from the room to get the ibuprofen and ice.

The ferry departs from New London at 11:30. Advil-stoked, ace-bandaged, ice-packed and breakfast-fortified, we set off from the house at 9:30. “We have plenty of reasons to stay home,” says Dave, “but nine reasons for going…” and he lists the friends and family awaiting us on the island, “Steve, Deb, Hallie, Buck, Len, Mary, Joan, Janet and Art.”

* * *

As the ferry rides to the crest of each wave and glides down into a trough before mounting the next swell, a number of our fellow passengers turn ashen. All the restrooms are occupied. White seasick bags appear like mushrooms after a spring shower.

I am chemo-punky, devoid of energy and enthusiasm, but blessedly not nauseous. We’d nabbed a booth of stiff red upholstered benches upon boarding and have spread our back packs, books and water bottles about on the table between us. Our overnight bags are tucked in close so as not to trip passersby. Dave is practicing mind-over-matter, willing his back to resist another spasm.

I pick up my book, but it is too tiring to hold the pages open so I give up and slump back against my seat. Dave writes a word in his crossword puzzle – in pen, in capital letters, as is his custom.

Four little girls race up and down the aisles, their blond ponytails bobbing and swinging. It’s exhausting even to watch them. A woman two rows over combs her abundant hair up into her fingers and wraps it into a knot. I bet she doesn’t think twice about all that hair. A young couple sits spooned together in the next booth. The woman wears a green plastic necklace festooned with four leaf clovers. Her eyebrows are raised, her mouth twisted in a grin as she peruses her issue of “Cosmopolitan.” How lovely to delight in something so simple as a magazine article.

After an hour or so, the ferry bumps into the dock on Block Island. Dave slides gingerly from his seat and shakes one leg. He adjusts his stance and leans over for his bag. “I’ll get it, honey, “ I say, reaching for the handle.

“You’re not supposed to lift anything either,” he says, but actually, it makes me feel better to help. What a sorry pair we are, crooked, scarved, tremulous, and irritable. I’m glad our kids aren’t here to see us reduced to this gimpy, wincing couple.

We follow the line of passengers down the metal staircase, onto the deck and out to the pier, our bags clattering on wheels behind us. Standing at the end of the walkway, behind a portable fence, are all nine of our reasons for coming, waving to us in welcome.

My sister-in-law, Deb, comes forward to hug me and whispers, “I spoke to Kathy at the Narragansett’s front desk and arranged for you to have a private bathroom at no extra cost.” I am wordless with gratitude. Usually, we use the communal bathroom in the hall and I like the youthful flexibility that implies. But the side effects from my anti-biotics make a convenient bathroom desirable and I had worried about lines of disgruntled guests forming as I monopolized the restroom.

But Deb has taken care of that - another worry gently taken from me.

And then, a literal lift, Joanie grabs my bag and hoists it to her shoulder.

“You’re so dear,” I say, “but it’s light. I can handle it.”

“I know you can, but let me do this. It would make me happy.”

And so, for a moment, but for the weight of fatigue, I am unburdened. Still, there is the matter of transport to the inn. I wonder where we catch a cab?

“Hey babe. I’m going over to check out the mo-peds,” Dave has left his bag with Art and is limping across the driveway to the awning-ed shack that houses the rental shop.

“Are you kidding? I thought we were going to take taxis.”

“Nope. I want to be mobile.”

A few pounds of worry re-establishes residence on my back. To the perils of wind, I add speed, accidents and helmets. “Dave…”

“Relax. It’ll be fun.”

I feel limp and out of place, a gypsy refugee in a lavender paisley scarf. Dave is gone. The others have not moved, but the mood has shifted to one of next steps. Their bikes are lined up, ready to go.

“Um, I guess we’ll catch up with you at the Narragansett,” I say, turning toward the rental shack.

“Okay,” sings the friend-chorus brightly. Easily, they spin their bikes around, flinging legs up and over to mount up. Oh, the energy. Was I ever that light?

Dave is checking out helmets when I reach him at the shop. Having made his choice, he heads out to the parking lot. Listless, uninterested, I try one heavy, ill-fitting black shell after another. Oh, who cares. This one will do.

Out on the lot, Dave is riding a snappy-looking silver mo-ped. He circles cautiously, then applies a hint too much gas and whacks into the barricade of hay bales lining this section of the parking lot. He stops and grins, singing out, “C’mon babeee! Get on!”

I am ever attuned to my husband’s moods and I perk up at his obvious cheer. Once the rental agent is satisfied as to Dave’s driving competence, he releases us to the road.
I hug Dave’s back, my arms around him, my hands tucked into his belt, a motorcycle mama in a scarf and black helmet.

“I love having you close like this!” Dave yells over his shoulder as we skim past Victorian hotels, strolling tourists, tiny boutiques and the sea. Life is all around me and suddenly I realize that my own is not on hold for the next three months. Pills, chemo and worry may be part of my days, but friends, outings, mudslides and mo-ped rides are still mine to savor.

Agile and free-wheeling with the aid of a motor, Dave laughs with the joy of the ride and I smile into his back.

Where has the weight gone? It, too, has taken off.

Fall Out

2009-11-29T17:32:00.000-08:00

The last time I had short hair, I was five years old and Freddie King had turned me into a boy. We’d been playing on the swing set in the backyard that connected our two properties. It was October and my zip-up corduroy jacket was the russet-red of the oak trees towering overhead.

Our sneakered feet pounded on earth packed hard to a dark shine as we took a running start before taking off, legs out-thrust, toes to the sky. As we flew, Freddie said, “Do you want to be a boy?’

Freddie was only a year older than me, a round little guy with sandy hair and a cowlick, so I’m not sure why I thought he could accomplish something so significant. But maybe at five, I didn’t think it was such a big deal, for I said, “Sure,” without giving it too much thought. I didn’t even ask how he'd do it.

We slowed our swings, heels dragging in the dirt to stop us, then jumped off and marched to his house. I followed him into the kitchen and waited while he dug through a drawer, shoving aside a box of thumbtacks, a bottle of Elmer’s glue, some loose rubber bands, a ruler and a screwdriver. Finally he located a pair of scissors.

Ah. Scissors. What was to be cut? Why wasn’t I alarmed?

For I’d not realized that the key to gender alteration was simply a haircut. So easy.

Freddie attacked my chin-length pageboy, his gaze intent, tongue caught between his teeth. When he was done, he stood back, a smile of satisfaction creasing his cheeks. When I checked my image in the mirror over the bathroom sink, I had to admit, he’d done a good job. I did look like a boy. Sort of waifish and ragged, with a trace of pink scalp showing here, an overlong wisp of hair left there.

When I scampered home and banged open the back door with the proud announcement, “Look, Mom! I’m a boy,” my mother was horrified. She’d been content with a daughter after all. A desperate trip to the barber helped only a little: the only thing that really worked was a total cover-up with a red cowgirl hat. Have to say, in old pictures of that year, I look pretty cocky in that hat.

My nephew Christopher, with his worn jeans, leather vests and boots can carry off a cowboy hat. I’m not sure that I can anymore. So I’ve purchased a wig and two turbans, and my sister Rita’s friend has supplied me with a pile of scarves from her days of chemo-caused baldness. I’m as ready as I can be for the day when a lock of hair twisted idly around my finger comes loose in my hand.

I’ve received a lot of advice about how to handle the hair loss from those around me: “My friend just shaved her head when it started to go. She wanted to show those follicles she was still boss.” Another suggested I cut my hair now and donate it to “Locks for Love.” “Maybe you’ll feel empowered,” she’d said.

I’m just not ready. I don’t want this to happen at all, much less do something before I have to. It’s stupid, I know, this angst over a temporary condition. Such a small thing compared to other losses and risks. But it has been a comfort through the diagnosis, the biopsies, the MRI, Pet scan, echocardiogram, and boob-exchange (forty-three year old friends for slightly bigger, round, vinyl-rippled, somewhat hard, but perky boobs) to look into the mirror and see myself, eyes a little sadder, but face and hair same as always.

A scalp-capped skull instead of my brown hair with its highlights and lowlights framing my face? It’s hard to think about. Hell, a bad hair day is tough on self-confidence.

Other women get this. When their faces fall at the news of my cancer, they almost always ask, “Will you lose your hair?”

At times, when I’ve felt the evidence of my surgery is obvious - the bulge of the drains under my shirt, the pink bracelet – I’ve been aware of meeting the eyes of women I encounter in Shaws or Lupes Drugstore. Every time, I’ve received smiles of such warmth that I’ve thought, “They know… and they’d understand how I feel about my hair.” And, as has happened in almost every conversation since my operation, I believe that if we fell into a chat before the stranger ran off to pick up a child at school, drop off dry cleaning or buy groceries, each would have a story of a friend or mother or sister and breast cancer. So I smile back with sincere warmth as well, because we are in this together. We are all women. We have breasts. This can happen. Depending on the day, I feel like saying, “Have you had a mammogram lately?”

I bought a wig and actually, it’s realistic and becoming. But will it be itchy and hot once I’m bald? Will it stay in its box in my closet because I can’t stand to wear it? Will I be a turban-lady?

So, I’m going to wait for the day when I wake to a hair-littered pillow to play with the scissors. I’ll go to a short shag, then a bob, then a pixie cut. I haven’t had short hair since I was five, but I wore it with a cowgirl’s attitude then.

* * *

The fall-out started when I washed my hair before going to a Conservation Commission meeting. I’d wrapped a navy blue towel in a turban around my hair after stepping out of the shower. As always, I left it up while I brushed my teeth and applied eyeliner and blush. When I shook my hair loose, the towel was coated with silvery strands.
Omigod, omigod, it’s happening. I thought fearfully. And that’s how I felt. I was afraid. I waived the blow dryer and brushing. My hands trembled as I fluffed my still ample tresses with cautious fingers. I selected a shirt mindful of what might better camouflage the situation. Certainly not black. A pale aqua tee shirt? Yes.

At the meeting, every one of my furtive glances at my chest revealed a scatter of hairs. Inconspicuously, I hoped, I gathered them in a nonchalant sweep of my hand and dropped them on the floor. No one’s looking. They’re focused on the meeting, taking notes… I’m sure someone will vacuum in the morning…

After the meeting ended, I went home to my husband, Dave. “It’s happening,” I said. He reached out for a hug and I snuggled in. I felt shaky, but I don’t remember crying.

“I’m cutting it off,” I decided suddenly and ran upstairs. Pulling my hair on top of my head, I tied it in a ponytail and took my scissors out of the cabinet.

“Are you sure you want to do this so soon?” Dave had followed me upstairs and watched my face in the mirror.

“What more do you want, Dave? Look at this!” I raked my fingers across my scalp and held up, accusingly, handfuls of hair.

“Do what makes you feel better,” he said gently.

But he was right. I was rash. I’m glad I didn’t shave my head or go for the pixie cut then. I cut off five inches, but it took two weeks for the majority to fall. The gradual loss made it easier I think, but once it was over, my relief made me realize the anxiety of every combing, every head toss, every shower, every touch of my head to someone else… for I was generous in lavishing hair on others.

Every hug left residue on shoulders. Each kiss risked a little spare hair. On the way to the car the other day, my daughter, Casey, sputtered and snorted, “Pft, pfft, pffft! I must have walked through a spider web!” No. It was not a web. She wiped her lip-glossy mouth and held up a straggly offering of Mom-strands.

We had to laugh.

I hadn’t seen my nephew, Christopher, since my surgery, so his hug on a recent visit was long and loving. When we pulled away from each other, he bore an unkempt fu manchu, my hair, caught in his scruffy beard.

Again, laughter. Sharing, sharing.

For now, for a short while longer, I can pass, although my hair is old-lady thin and wispy. Not my best look. But I took my wig for its maiden voyage yesterday – a brisk walk with my dear friend and walking buddy, Michele, and then dinner at Barcelona with my sister Francie, her husband Matt, and my nephew Campbell. Breezes did not budge it, other restaurant patrons were oblivious, and my loved ones were complimentary. Success. And I felt better.

When I went to the restaurant ladies room and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I smiled. There I was! Not the gaunt, unhappy, almost-bald woman, but me!

An Earth, Wind and Fire song came over the speaker. I eyed my mirror-self and gave her a grin. Then we danced, just a gleeful little body shake, together. Maybe when this is all over, I’ll get me a red cowboy hat.

Bacteria and Bubbles

2009-11-13T08:22:00.000-08:00

Once again, I’m in a doctor’s waiting room. This, however, is a far cry from the spacious, trellis and flower muraled room at the breast center. A far cry from the comfy chairs tucked in quiet nooks at the plastic surgeon’s office. A far cry from the bright, windowed drip room at the oncology center. Here at the infectious disease specialist, we patients sit elbow to elbow – with our various diseases – in straight-backed chairs that encircle the room.

A large, low, table strewn with magazines squats before us, its offerings within easy reach of every chair.

Four seats over from me, a heavy blond woman has propped her swollen, scarlet-red leg on a pillow. A cadaverous elderly woman five seats to my left smiles kindly in my direction. The friendly Hispanic woman next to me reveals, after we’ve chatted for twenty minutes or so – breath-to-breath – that she’s “not feeling too good. Kinda achy and flu-ish.”

Great. My smile remains in place, but I excuse myself to go to the ladies room. I’m sure there will be a hefty bottle of anti-bacterial soap in there. An exploratory sniff as I leave the waiting room does not reveal the scent of Purell, although a constant, cleansing mist of the same, wafted through the air system would seem an excellent idea.

After I wash my hands with plenty of foam and hot water, I gingerly re-take my seat, wondering what disease might have occupied this chair before me. Consumption? T.B.? Swine flu?

I select a well-thumbed People magazine and mentally flash on all of those thumbs. I sigh. I will wait a little while before dashing back to the bathroom and the anti-bacterial soap.

Needless to say, I’m not here today doing research. I have an infection myself – a fierce purple redness in the site of my former right breast that started with a fever a week ago. When I asked my sister-in-law Deb, a nurse practitioner, how I might have contracted this, she said, “Bacteria can sneak through any tiny opening in the skin. The chemo has compromised your immune system and you have two foreign bodies in place which are susceptible to attack.” My implants. And they are the cause for worry. I met with Dr. Philipson and Dr. Alton, my surgeons, at the hospital yesterday and they explained that a bacterial film could form on the implant requiring its removal if the infection persisted. After one look at my purplish skin, they sent me upstairs for an immediate intravenous anti-biotic and set up this appointment with the infectious disease specialist.

After a two-hour wait, I meet the doctor. He is boyishly effervescent, swarthy-skinned, smiling and handsome. He examines my flaming skin and prescribes a two-week course of self-administered IV anti-biotics. Yet another fascinating new experience to add to my medical journey.

After a quick session with the anti-bacterial soap and hot water in the rest room, I head home to await the infusion nurse.

Dave, meanwhile, has been out purchasing a squadron of germ-fighting soaps. I grew up with a pediatrician and a mother who believed, rightly I think, that children needed a daily portion of dirt to build immunities. In my current state, however, I am a hand-washing machine. Why, who knows which door knob or encounter at the grocery store, school, or a party initiated this infection? So Dave arrives home from Shaws with an impressive supply of anti-bacterial pump soaps for the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and anti-bacterial Dial soap for the showers. I have individually wrapped, Purell-soaked, towelettes for the car and my pocket-book, as well as a mini-bottle for my desk at school. I am sick at the thought that I could have prevented this infection through hyper-hygiene. Never before has health seemed such a responsibility.

Shortly after two large grocery bags of medications, tubing, alcohol swabs and syringes are deposited on my kitchen counter by an affable, but sweaty, deliveryman, Nurse Nicole arrives. She is pleasant and efficient as she lays out the series of saline flushes, meds and anti-coagulants that I will self-administer. She slides an IV pole to its full height (my own IV pole!) and untangles a five-foot length of tubing studded with clips and dials. Dave joins us with pen and paper in hand and the two of us scribble step-by-step notes as Nicole explains the process.

To start off, she affixes a needle access to the port that was installed in my chest three weeks ago for chemo. A small blue nozzle, or clave, is suspended from the port and I will connect the various meds to that clave for each infusion. As Nicole cautions me to wipe the clave carefully with alcohol between each stage of the process and warns me not to touch this plastic pointy thing to that plastic screw-top thing, my unease grows. Thank God Dave is writing down every step. Thank God I am reasonably agile of mind and fingers. What if I were eighty and alone?

Nicole guides me through saline flushes, a push-medication, and the tricky preparation of the drip IV. Once the drip is underway, I notice bubbles in the IV line. There’d been bubbles in the syringes as well and Nicole had demonstrated how to pull down the plunger and then express, slowly, a few drops of liquid before injecting whatever fluid it might be into my chest, but bubbles remained anyway.

“Don’t worry about them,” Nicole reassures me as I point to the line. “You need, oh, six inches of air before you have a problem.”

“But on T.V…”

“Yes, well, you don’t have to worry.”

“What are the chances I’ll kill myself with bubbles?’

“Not gonna happen,” says Nicole as she packs up supplies, pulls a pen out of her purse and proceeds to sift through pages of paperwork.

Dave and I have our lists and Nicole gives me a typed version as well. Still, I’m nervous about doing this on my own; day after tomorrow, Dave will be back at work. I’ll be alone with my IV pole and drip, scanning for that six inches of air. But the amazing thing is, despite the despair I felt initially about this infection, the possibility of losing the implant, and the discomfort of this needle access on my chest for two weeks….I know I can do it.

I have spent my life worrying about just about everything; I have brooded, Eeyorish, over my lists and obligations. But I have learned something about myself over the past six months – I am more resilient than I’d thought. Cancer, chemo and infection are hard, and yet after the initial reel into darkness with each complication, I bounce back. With Dave, friends and family as buoys, my strength and spirits remain fortified, afloat.

Glad I Had That Mammogram

2009-11-03T09:54:00.000-08:00

It’s been a week since my surgery. I feel so good as I strut in for my follow-up appointment with Dr. Philipson that I practically high-five the receptionist. Theresa, the doctor’s nurse, sticks her head out into the hallway and I zip over to give her a hug. I am all smiles and she is warm and calm as always. Maybe she seems a little sedate, in fact, but I write it off as her way.

Dave and I take a seat in the waiting room and I beam at the women who are flipping through magazines, glancing up at the approach of footsteps, fingering the clasp of a pocketbook, each with her own fear and story. In my near-giddy state as one who has made it through surgery and is healing like a champ, I want to assure them that they’ll be fine. That they’re in the best hands possible and that the anesthesia cocktail is a dream. That recuperation hurts a bit, but the medications soften the edge. And that, if their people are anything like mine, they’ll be cared for with unbounded love.

Speaking of my people, Mom and Dad are coming for the weekend. They’ll probably beat us home in fact. Phone assurances have been inadequate; they want to see me for themselves. Like Dave, Mom has said, “I wish I could do this in your place,” but she will see that I don’t need a surrogate; I’m great and she needn’t worry.

When my name is called, Dave and I hop from our seats and saunter down the corridor to Dr. Philipson’s office. I give her a hug too, but her eyes do not reflect my jubilation. We sit across from her and I don’t really follow what she is saying about “micro-invasive cells.” I’m still smiling because the significance does not register. My lymph nodes were clear. The cancer is out. What more is there?

Apparently, the pathology on the breast tissue revealed something else. Cells that could send out seedlings. Cells that require preventative action. “The good news is that a drug, Herceptin, has been made available within the last two years that targets these specific cells,” says Dr. Philipson.

Wait. She’s saying it doesn’t end here. She’s talking about chemo. Scarier than cancer. Chemo.

“You did the right thing in having the double mastectomy,” she concludes. “but I know this is not what you expected. I’m so sorry.”

I am slow to process her words. I think about what might have happened if I’d not had that mammogram. What might have happened if I’d not gone for the double. What might have happened if the medical world had not continued to paw through my breast tissue in some lab somewhere even after removal.

I could have died.

But I don’t feel relieved. I’m thinking about chemo. And I’m thinking about Mom and Dad waiting at home for me to come dancing through the back door, maybe minus a drain or two, to be doted on. Again, I must tell them hard news.

We leave the office and I call my parents by cell phone. I tell them about Herceptin – so new, so specific to my case – and remind them that all of the other good stuff still holds true – early stages and clear lymph nodes and margins.

Mom and Dad rush out of the house as our car pulls up. They are somber, but glad to hold me, to see me. To see that I’m the same, minus a few body parts.

For lunch, we sit on the back porch and pick at a platter of tuna chunks, olive tapenade, roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, cheese and Italian bread. The food tastes fresh and tangy, but it’s hard to sit still. I restrain myself through the meal, then say,” I’ve gotta make a few calls.”

I fly upstairs to call Wendy. She had a double mastectomy two years ago and has been a voice of experience and comfort since I was diagnosed. She did not have chemo herself, but says, “Lea, I know many women who are going through treatments now. We still walk together; they go to work, they feel okay. There’s some fatigue, but they’re not sick. They look great. This is a disappointment, but you’re going to be fine and chemo will make sure of that.”

Okay. Good. Thanks. Breathe. Breathe.

I call Joanne.

Joanne had a double mastectomy thirteen years ago. She did have chemo. And she has a spirit that barrels through that phone line to hug me and lift me up.

“You want this, Lea. Believe me. You don’t want little cells floating around making trouble. Chemo’s so different now. You won’t throw up. I know you won’t. You’ll be tired maybe, and then you’ll be through this and you’ll be fine. You want this.”

I want this. Well, not exactly, but Wendy and Joanne have said the right things and I can breathe again. I am fortified. And I can go back to the porch and tell Dave and my parents what my two friends said and I can say it with cheer and confidence. And they will believe me as I believe Wendy and Joanne.

More About Love Than Disease

2009-10-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

Dave bends over one of four turkey-baster-like bulbs suspended in white cotton sacks from the imposing fifties-style bra that protects my new scarred, but implant-enhanced, breasts. Each rubber globe is attached to a two-foot long drain that snakes from my side. It is Dave’s job to “milk” the tubes and measure whatever fluid has collected. This will be an exciting new phase of our relationship.

Some men might shirk from such a task. Not my husband. A failed chemistry exam his junior year in high school crushed his hopes of being a doctor. He is positively giddy about exercising those untried medical skills.

His eyes are bright behind wire-rimmed glasses as he extracts bulb #1 from its pouch. He has drawn up a chart, to be typed later, with blocks to be filled in with dates, times and fluid amounts. My plastic surgeon is a babe – a babe he’d like to impress – and surely his attention to detail will not go unnoticed. Of course, he wants to take good care of me as well.

As he squeezes the tubing through his thumb and forefinger, I wince, anticipating a tug, but he is very gentle. He holds the bulb, trailing its accompanying drain, up to the light so we can study the level of liquid.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“Um, 32?’

“Maybe it’s closer to 34,” he says, writing down that number on the chart.

This is not an exact science.

He repeats the process three more times. Our heads are bent close together, both of us watching his fingers and the movement of pink fluid through the tube.

I love Dave’s hands. Where both of us show our age in graying hair and lined skin, his hands haven’t changed in the thirty-seven years we’ve been together. They are strong and boyish, olive-skinned, and I have kissed those hands many times in the past few days after they’ve plumped my pillows, placed on my lap a tray of juice and melon garnished with a green sprig of fresh mint, helped me dress, washed my hair.

“I wish I could do this for you,” he has said of the cancer and surgery. “I wish it were happening to me instead.”

I know what he means. I know he hates the fact that he could not protect me. But, oh, I am grateful for the roles Fate has allocated. I can do this. I could not stand to watch Dave or one of our children endangered.

Many people, after asking how I’m doing, will ask, “and what about Dave? Is he okay?”
He has a good game face, and I think it’s sincere for now. My prognosis is excellent and now that I’m home, he can contribute to my well-being. “I can’t have the disease for you, but I can keep the house clean, cook, and take care of you.” He is the best of men.

When we were younger, often he’d wake to the sound of me sniffling into my pillow because I’d brought myself to tears in imagining him lost to some disaster. “How did you kill me off this time?” he’d ask in a voice of kind resignation.

I’d bawl, embarrassed that I’d bothered him, but glad, so glad, to have him with me, alert and well and whole, in our bed. “A car accident,” I’d sob. “The police had just called and I asked Steve to go with me to the hospital.” This happened more times than I care to confess. Dave would always pull me close and nuzzle my hair, kiss my cheeks, and say, “It’s not going to happen. I’m not going anywhere.”

It was as if I were practicing, hoping that if I lived through enough of the calls and funerals in my mental-movies, I’d be able to deal with it better when I had to. I’m not sure what made me stop those sad fantasies. As we got older, perhaps I worried I was putting too dangerous a possibility out to the Universe.

After the bulbs are empty, we go downstairs and Dave sets me up on the back porch. He arranges a backrest of pillows on the wicker loveseat and brings me a glass of ice water with a wedge of lemon on the rim. I write a few thank you notes while he does a crossword puzzle. I read a little. Some friends stop by. After an hour or so, I feel as whiny and petulant as a child needing a nap. It’s all I can do not to cry. I look desperately at Dave and catch his eye. He rises from his chair saying, “Great to see you! Lea needs to head in for a rest now.”

A new phase of our relationship indeed.

After I give good-bye hugs and kisses, Dave walks the guests to their car while I head inside and upstairs. I stop in Casey’s room to fetch her pink bunny from the top of her closet. I’d put him away soon after returning from the hospital in the belief that I didn’t need him anymore. Guess I was wrong. It still hurts to stretch my arms, but I want Pink Bun, so I stretch anyway and then shuffle to my bed clutching the flannel rabbit just like sleepy Casey used to do as a toddler.

Our bedroom is brilliant and aromatic with the colors and scent of countless flowers. Yellow roses, lavender irises, sunflowers, delphinium, lilies, snapdragons. A garish royal blue feather boa is draped over one window – a gift from my friend Gail who demonstrated with a flourish: “When people ask how you’re doing, flip the boa dramatically over your shoulder and say, ‘I feel marvelous!’”

A photograph of a sandy beach, with cobblestones arranged to form “LEA,” is on my bureau. I cried when Hallie gave it to me. So thoughtful, so enduring, my name in stone.

A teddy bear from our neighbors sits in the window, a healing angel from Sharon on my bedside table. I’ve received books, pajamas, meals, pies and brownies. Every day, Dave serves me a plate of daisy-shaped melon and pineapple, remnants of several “Edible Arrangements” from dear friends. A wooden bucket next to my bed is crammed with cards, not only from those I love, but some from my sister’s friends, from Carey’s friends, from relatives I rarely see, from acquaintances I know only from committees and meetings. I have been embraced and buoyed by waves of kindness.

But right now, I feel lonely and sad. I wish Dave were here.

He is downstairs, playing the piano ever-so-softly. Is he playing for fun or a lullaby for me? The song is Tom Waits’ “Serenade,” one of my favorites. I think of this song as the sound track of our lives: it is beautiful and poignant and Dave plays it often. I hold Pink Bun close and sniffle at my good fortune in all the love that surrounds me, and in this dearest of men at the piano.

“Serenade” ends and he shifts to something else. The melody is familiar; what is it? He’s playing it slower than usual, soulful, heart-felt. Ah, it’s The Beatles’ “She Loves You.”

Since my return from the hospital, as Dave has bustled about, joyfully bearing the newest lovely arrangement to my side, vacuuming, or making the bed, I have said, “Honey, do you know how much I love you?” He always says yes, but too often in taking him for granted, I’ve been snappish and dismissive. Does he see beyond that?

The piano is quiet. I hear footsteps on the stairs. As if he’s felt the pull of my loneliness, Dave has come to me. We smile at each other as he enters the room.

Careful, That's My Mother in There

2009-10-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

by Guest Writer: Casey Sylvestro

Four or Five martinis? Okay Ben, Dr. Sleep. One cosmo - two tops - and my mother is unfit to operate a stationary bicycle let alone have conversations concerning signing away her life and well-being. And judging by the drowsy droop of her eyelids and the baby sloth smile sliding over her lips, I’d say the 3rd martini effect you described has just kicked in.

Dr. Ben, the anesthesiologist, says the cocktail he has dripping into Mom’s IV will leave her with lowered inhibitions and drug-induced amnesia as well as a sense of peace. A nice improvement over the weepy, nauseous, muscle-tense anxiety she’s been feeling for the past two hours or so. Thank you, Ben.

When Tucker and I first walked into the hospital a couple of hours ago and saw our mom lying on her gurney, she started crying. She looked so teeny under all the blankets, and being skinny anyway, the hospital gowns kind of hung off her narrow shoulders. I didn’t like seeing my mom anxious and scared (after months of being strong and brave) and in pain from the stupid lymph node dye they’d injected into her right boob. I understand that they needed to see what they were removing to test for the possible spread of her breast cancer, but when I peeked through the door and saw my mom lying alone on the MRI table, clutching my Pink Bunny and looking weepy, I couldn’t help wondering why she would be left by herself. Where did that young and somewhat irritatingly perky nurse in the flowery scrubs go? Her company would have been an improvement upon being alone and scared on a chilly table, awaiting needles filled with dye.

After maybe thirty minutes, Mom came shuffling out of the room, confirming that it had not been much fun, and that the site of the injection was still burning. A sweet, older lady nurse arrived with the gurney and helped Mom gingerly lower herself onto it. Mom asked for more heated blankets to combat the shivers she’d started having to coincide with the headache she’d had all morning. We (Dad, Tucker, Mom’s friend, Carey, and I) fell into stride behind the gurney and marched down to Pre-Op.

Mom’s “room” was a little cubicle sectioned off with a flimsy wall and standard
hospital-y looking curtain. All those curtains look the same: that flowery, thin material that you find in doctors’ offices, school infirmaries, and nursing homes. If dentists had cubicle curtains, I bet they’d have them too.

Mom, of course, had to go to the bathroom. The nurse assigned to her (to us) came and escorted her to the ladies. Twiddling thumbs ensued. Hospital humor. Poking at and touching things we probably shouldn’t have; the hospital staff wouldn’t have had any reason to assume Sylvestros shouldn’t be trusted to behave appropriately in any given uncomfortable situation. Anything to lighten the tension, really.

When Mom came back, she looked slightly pinched, and confided that she’d had dry heaves. Luckily, (weirdly) it made her feel better and she settled down into her bed, looking tiny and exhausted, barely flinching when the nurse inserted an IV needle into the back of her left hand. Impressive. We waited for the surgeons and anesthesiologist to come and talk to us and answer any questions we might have.

Dr. Ben, the anesthesiologist, is the person I have been most anxious to meet. I insist that my Aunt Debby, a nurse practitioner, be there so she can look at any paperwork that may have medical language and fire any questions at Ben that Dad, Tucker and I hadn’t come up with. I don’t like having Mom sign a form that states she understands the risk of death from anesthesia, even though Debby assures me that all patients have to sign it before going under. I’ve heard stories about people having routine surgery and, because their anesthesiologist was a bonehead, they never opened their eyes again. I also read Coma last summer, a book about evil doctors purposely comatose-ing their patients. I’m not an elephant, but certain things you never forget. So I’ve been adamant about wanting to meet the man who was going to put my mother to sleep while the surgeons removed the cancer from her body. I wanted him to know that I would be very, very angry if everything did not go 100% textbook with my mother. I wanted to make sure he knew that I know where he works. I would find him. And I wanted him to see my face. And know that THAT face would haunt him if anything happened to my mother.

As it turns out, Ben may be my new favorite person in the whole world. A quick glance at his left hand tells me I can’t dream too far, but his blue eyes, sparkling behind his glasses, are tender, caring and incredibly warm and comforting. He reminds me, looks only, of Miranda’s boyfriend Steve on Sex and the City.

Dad, stroking Mom’s hair the entire time, keeps a running dialogue of medical questions about bodies and drugs and disease. Such a nerd. He catches my gaze as he says to Ben, “I love biology. I would have been a doctor if I hadn’t failed Chemistry.” (Dad would have been the BEST doctor. Talk about an amazing bedside manner.)

Ben’s sense of humor, and his clever way of integrating stories that illustrate how experienced, impassioned and skilled he is into his assurances of how fine my mother will be and what good hands she’s in, has won us all over. I think he likes us, too. He holds eye contact with whichever one of us he’s speaking to and makes sure to answer all of our questions thoroughly and in laymen’s terms. We all understand exactly what he’s telling us.

Well, most of us.

At this point, Mom’s enjoying the effects of her fifth martini. Actually, probably more like her seventh or eighth. The preparation of the operating room is taking longer than expected, so Ben gave her another dose of his fun cocktail. (I want some.) She’s slipping in and out of sleep, the occasional groggy wake-up making us chuckle with her utterances of “Am I drooling?” or “Oh. Why are you still here?” and “Where‘s Ben?” and (my favorite) “Gimme the Bunny.”

I’ve been crouched next to the gurney, holding her hand almost this whole time. The surprisingly firm grasp she has and the intermittent squeezes she gives my fingers makes me ask her if she’s awake, but no answer. Maybe not awake, but I like to think she’s aware and giving me squeezes on purpose.

The two surgeons who will be operating on my mother come in for a brief chat. Both are women. Both gorgeous. The surgeon, Dr. Philipson, who will be performing the double mastectomy, is a sunny, outdoorsy looking blond with a no-nonsense air about her. I find this extraordinarily comforting. I don’t want nonsense either. This is my most precious of people she will be cutting open and I want her to be very sure all the parts go back exactly where they should. I also want her to be certain she gets everything OUT that doesn’t belong inside my mother. So that vibe she’s giving off of “I know exactly what I’m doing, so let’s get the show on the road” is precisely what I would want from the surgeon taking care of my mother.

The plastic surgeon, Dr. Alton, who will be performing my Mom’s reconstruction, looks like she stepped off the pages of a Maxim Magazine. Also blond, hair pulled back into a knot, with pearls and carefully applied makeup, she looks fresh and powdery. Appropriate for a plastic surgeon, I think.

Together they describe what will be done while my mother is under, and assure us that they expect it to be easy and smooth. Nothing about what they describe sounds easy OR smooth, but not being a surgeon, I’m not going to question them.

Both surgeons march away to the operating room, and Ben slides back in place. It is showtime. Mom rouses enough to receive our kisses and hugs good luck (not goodbye). I’d been pretty good up to now, but hugging Mom sets the tears loose I’d held trapped behind my eyes all morning. Tucker’s holding it together, but he has that tight smile that I’ve seen before in not such fun or easy times, and he comes to stand next to me with his arm around my shoulders.

Dad has his summer tan, but I can still see the teary redness of his face as he’s kissing Mom - One. Two. Three. Four times before we watch her wheeled around the corner, and out of sight. She is clutching my Pink Bunny, much, I imagine, the same way I clutched Pink Bunny for comfort when I was two. Pink Bunny brought me comfort for bed; Pink Bunny’s bringing Mom comfort for bed. I never went to bed to have cancer cut out of me though. Hopefully, there’s still enough comforting power left in his love-softened felt and worn satin ears for that big a job.

Jamming his handkerchief into his eyes and puffing out a huge breath, Dad joins me and Tuck in our walk back to the waiting room.

“That was NOT fun.”

No, Dad, it was not.

Walking into the waiting room makes me dissolve into tears. Seeing all those expectant faces: Debby, my uncle Steve, Gram, and our friends Joanie and Carey. Almost everyone’s wearing pink, the Breast Cancer color. Steve’s pink button down shirt, Joanie’s pink button down, Deb’s pink cable knit Polo sweater. Pink bracelets, pink ribbons, Pink Bunny. Everyone settles in for the long wait. Ben said probably three and a half to four hours for the surgery and that no news is good news, so relax in the meantime. Yeah, okay, Ben.

Tucker’s googling on his iPhone, Joanie’s reading the book Mom wrote about our trip to Italy, Dad’s doing crossword puzzles (although I haven’t seen many squares filled in). The waiting room reminds me of an airport gate: rows of chairs, back to back and lining the wall, comfortable enough for short periods of time, but not for a lengthy sit.

Staring into the huge tropical fish tank on the wall, I notice a fat little red fish head down against the back wall. Dead. Honestly, people - this is a hospital waiting room. There shouldn’t even be a dead PLANT around. I comfort myself with the thought that everyone is too busy saving the lives of people, too busy tending to my mother, to worry about cleaning the fish tank.

Not being a stand-around crowd, we gather our bags and venture down to the hospital café after much debate of whether or not to leave the hospital and go get pizza. I’ll be damned if I am leaving my mother here and my sentiments win out.

On our way in to the cafe, who should show up but Carey’s son, Malcolm, and his wife, Liz. Last summer, my father was ordained online to marry Malcolm and Liz. As I hug Malcolm, whom I haven’t seen since I was maybe fourteen, and thank him for coming, he shrugs and says, “Well, we love your parents.”

Yeah. Who doesn’t?

Seated at the tables in the café, which to be honest really could be a far cheerier place with a little love (again, probably more important things to worry about in a hospital, but this is where my head goes), there are about a dozen conversations happening at once. Each one has the undertone of “I will talk about anything as long as it takes my attention away from what’s going on in Operating room 2C.”

Lisa and Lauren, my two cousins’ girlfriends, have joined us - both the most wonderful of girls and dearest of friends. They are a nice distraction, as is the food in front of me, until I notice that I have no cell phone service. Panic. Dad gave his cell number to the surgeons in case we needed to be reached. I call this to his attention and he bustles outside to check it. No news, but I am through with Pandini’s Café. Lisa and I grab our bags and head back up to the waiting room. We sit, adjusting ourselves in the oversized, snuggly chairs (Ha. Ha. Ha.) and Lisa eyes me down.

“You looked like you were ready to run out of there,” she says.

Yes, well, I may not be able to do the surgery myself, but I can be close by in case something happens.

It’s been one and a half hours. Maybe two. At least one more hour to go. Every sound of an opening door, every footstep down the hall causes my head to snap up. Mom’s was the last case of the day, so we really have the waiting room, if not the entire floor, to ourselves. Very quiet. Everyone trickles back in from the café and settles in with… whatever. Lisa and Lauren read celebrity gossip magazines. I diligently take notes for, well, this. And honestly, if one more Michael Jackson story comes on the TV, I’m going to throw my chair through it. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind throwing chairs around the room anyway. I feel like that might help alleviate the tightly wound ball of anxiety pressing to explode from my stomach.

My mother is a hallway away, stretched out on a table, asleep, while doctors root around inside her. No way do I want to be in there to see that, but I want to be in there to keep holding her hand. To make sure she still has her hold on Pink Bunny. To make sure she knows that she isn’t alone in there and that we’re all here waiting for her to wake up. I know she knows, but I want her to know. I want to be standing at Dr. Philipson’s elbow saying, “Did you get it all? Are you sure? CAREFUL please that is my MOTHER you’re mushing around there.”

I’d like to sit tapping my foot as Dr. Alton begins her reconstruction. “Remember, Mom said a smidge bigger. Are you SURE you understand exactly what she wants? Do you know how to not go huge? (Can you even order small boobs from a plastic surgeon?) And make them perky.” What good is going through all this if you don’t get great boobs after all?

I know these women are skilled surgeons. I know that. But I want them to know that they have my mother in there. And she is not just every other patient they’ve ever had. She is different. She is far more irreplaceable and important than anyone they have ever had on their respective tables. Same to you, Dr. Anesthesiologist Ben. Remember. I will haunt you.

Dr. Philipson walks in, startling all of us. Oh god. It’s way too soon. It’s been like two and a half hours. Dr. Ben had said no news is good news. I know it’s bad. She’s had a reaction to the anesthesia. Her lymph nodes have cancer. I think my heart stops as my friend Amanda’s face flashes through my head; she lost her mom to cancer. My roommate Karis flashes through my head; she lost her mom four years ago. I don’t want to be them. I don’t want to be them. I cannot be them. I am not a girl who can go through life without her mother, her best friend. No, no, no, no!

“Wow, are you all here for Lea? What an important lady!! Everything went smoothly. Dr. Alton is finishing up right now. Lymph nodes are negative.”

I love Dr. Philipson.

The sigh of relief around the room feels like a whoosh of air. My dad starts talking to Dr. Philipson as I cry - I am my mother’s daughter. I choose that moment to look at the fish tank. The chubby red fish is swimming around happily, scooping up stones from the bottom and spitting them out. Apparently, he was on the same sleep schedule as Mom.

Time to Get This Done

2009-09-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

My toothbrush clatters into the sink and I fumble to retrieve it. For three days, my legs and feet have been numb and tingly and now my arms and hands feel the same way. Plus, I have a headache and a touch of nausea. I think I have M.S.

I gaze into my own sad eyes in the mirror above the sink and take a deep breath. Stop. Breast cancer today; I’ll worry about multiple sclerosis tomorrow.

But I hope I’m not sick. I won’t tell the doctors. I'm having this surgery today, no matter what.

Downstairs, Dave is nabbing a quick cup of coffee and toast in the kitchen while I get ready to go to the hospital. I hear him closing drawers and fishing around for utensils. The cats are squalling, and he’s talking quietly, so he must be soothing them and getting their breakfast as well. The toaster dings and I can smell the coffee, but I’m not hungry. I’m not allowed to eat even if I wanted to.

I slip off my PJ’s and give my breasts, this familiar body, a last wistful look. I have a moment of panic at the thought that I’ve made the wrong decision. Again, I stop myself. You don’t have a choice. No choice. For some reason, this comforts me. I step into the hot stream of the shower. Teeth clenched against the nausea, I rub my hands together with shampoo and lather up my hair. I won’t be able to shower again for a while.

My body has gone into siege mode. I am yearning for the anesthesiologist who will take the responsibility for my health and my spirits and my family’s spirits from me and let me sleep, unaware, for three hours.

I don’t envy my loved ones that vigil. My husband has told me how weird it will be for him. I have been with him during every other difficult wait – during his brother Steve’s surgery, during his father’s crises. Dave has said, “I’ll be hearing your voice. I’ll be expecting to see you across the room. And you won’t be there.”

Our adult children, Tucker and Casey, have come to be with us for the procedure, but they are still asleep. Dave and I were told that my prep-time at the hospital would be about an hour, so they’ll join us there later. As I towel off and dry my hair, one of the cats weaves into the room and brushes against my leg. He stretches, paws fully extended, in a sunny spot on the rug. I think of the joy of having the kids here, at home, in their beds. I wish this were a normal day, a normal visit.

After I slip into shorts, a tee-shirt, and flip-flops, I re-check the canvas bag of supplies I’m bringing to the hospital. Books, magazines, socks, toiletries and Pink Bunny.

About a week ago, I decided that Casey’s Pink Bunny, a floppy, flannel, tattered rabbit that spent his best years draped over my daughter’s arm from her infancy until she was about eight, would be a comfort to me on this day. I’d thought he might be in a trunk in the attic somewhere, but I found him on the top of her closet; he hadn’t gone too far after all. It made me smile just to see him. I held him to my nose to check for baby Casey scent, but he’d been washed too many times. He was part of her anyway, part of my life as a mother, and I wanted him with me.

It’s time to go.

After stashing my bag in the back of the car, I settle in and buckle up. Dave slides behind the wheel, but then, as usual, darts back into the house. He is gone. Still gone. Still gone. Oh, for god’s sake. Where is he? I get out of the car and march to the back door just as he re-emerges. “I can’t find the directions to the hospital,” he says.

“You just printed them out, “ I manage to bite off.

“I know. They’re on a folded piece of white paper.”

“Is it in your pocket? On the kitchen counter? On the dashboard?”

“No. I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Jeez, Dave. What’s it like to be you?”

“Hard sometimes. “ he says ruefully. “But I think I remember how to get there.”

“Oh, that’s just great.” I’m trying not to snarl because my dearest of men may be suffering more than I am. He has been so brave, never voicing a word of doubt as to the outcome of this surgery. But I know where my mind would be if our positions were reversed and I would be sick with fear at the possibility of losing him. So I am stone silent. Clenching. In annoyance and my efforts not to throw up. My head hurts and the back of my neck has tightened into a rigid bar. Like a junkie, I dream of release and that needle in my hand.

We arrive at the hospital without a glitch. While I sign in and complete paperwork at the reception desk, Dave calls Tucker and Casey to give them our status. He’s still on the phone when a lovely little woman with kind eyes and wispy white hair appears at a side door and calls, “Eleanor?”

I fish my book and Pink Bunny out of my bag. “Right here. And it’s ‘Lea’” I say automatically as I wave at my husband and rise to follow her.

“Wait,” says Dave, his head angled to hold the phone, his eyes desperate at my sudden departure. He reaches for my hand and I walk back to give him a quick peck on top of his head.

“Oh, you’ll see her again before the surgery,” my escort says pleasantly. Once we’ve left the waiting room, she adds, “My name is Louise and I’ll help you get organized. How do you feel?”

I don’t like to think of myself as a whiner, but I run through my lengthy list of afflictions, trying not to sound too obnoxious. I don’t mention my worry about M.S. by name.

“It’s the nerves,” Louise assures me. We turn down a corridor and she directs me into a narrow room lined with lockers and a low bench. She hands me two plastic bags, a pair of gray slippers, a robe and a johnny gown – the same blue diamond pattern on white that I’d worn for my colonoscopy last summer, I note. “Put your clothes in one bag, shoes in the other. The johnny’s worn open to the back. Once you’re dressed, let me know. I’ll be right outside.” She indicates a door to the right and says, “And there’s the loo, if you need it.”

I do.

I’m never one to pass up a toilet if offered, so I sink to the seat for a moment and then turn to my knees. Dry heaves. Yuck. But I feel better.

Louise’s voice comes, muffled, concerned, through the door. “Are you all right? There’s a pull cord on the wall if you need help.”

“I’m okay. I’ll be out in a sec.”

Deep breath. Deep breath. I am okay. I get to my feet, flush the toilet, and wash my hands. I straighten the johnny, pull on the thin robe and open the door.

I grab my book and Pink Bunny from the bench and Louise puts the bags with my clothing and flip flops into one of the lockers then leads me around a corner to the first in a row of glassed off cubicles. “Make yourself comfortable,” she says, settling me into an upholstered blue recliner. She unfolds several heated beige blankets and tucks them around me. After taking my blood pressure and temperature, she says, “A nurse will be here soon. Was that your husband with you?”

To my nod, she says, “I’ll get him for you.”

I’ve been holding on, waiting for her to leave, to indulge in some tears. They break through. “Oh, Dearie,” she says, just like my mom would have.

“I think I need to be alone,” I say. “Just for a bit.”

She leaves me with a gentle look of sympathy and I bury my face in Pink Bunny. What a relief to be here, finally. Sobbing, by myself, in this semi-dark room in my nest of blankets. My public face of two months no longer necessary. Today, I hand it over. Time to get this done.

A nurse with a clipboard comes in shortly with Dave close behind her. He smiles, with relief it seems, and gives me a one-armed hug so as not to block the nurse as she checks the plastic ID bracelet I received at check-in. He stands beside me, a hand on my shoulder as the nurse runs through a list of questions and says, “And you’ve had nothing to eat or drink since midnight?”

Shit. No one said anything about drinking. I’ve had boatloads of water so I wouldn’t be hungry, but I’m admitting nothing that might postpone this surgery.

“Nope,” I answer definitively.

Official business complete, Louise returns to lead me to a stretcher in a corridor. There is a flurry of yellow snapdragons and bustling cheer, incongruous in that stark setting. It’s Carey, my college roommate and dear friend, sprightly and perfume-scented with her so-short streaked hair and red-lipsticked mouth, eyebrows raised, smile-brilliant, as welcoming and happy as if she were greeting me at a restaurant for lunch.

Except I know how worried she is. Her public face outclasses mine. I’d seen the color drain from her skin when I told her my diagnosis. She has called me every day, after every appointment. “We are in this together,” she has said.

And then my kids are here, both with set, forced, “everything’s going to be fine” smiles, the same smile I’ve worn for a month now myself, and I dissolve, weeping on Pink Bunny.

Like an honor guard, Carey, Tucker, Casey and Dave walk alongside my stretcher as I am wheeled to radiology. They stand back as Gina, dark-eyed, tan and enthusiastic, steps in for Louise and pushes me over the threshold. The door closes slowly on my family, their faces remaining in the diminishing space between the door and the jam mouthing “Good luck! Love you!” until the crack disappears.

“This will burn,” says the doctor administering the dye. “We need to mark the path from which the sentinel node drains.” At least I think he says something like that; even without anesthesia, a fog has taken me. But I feel the burn and it hurts. Tears run down my cheeks and Gina squeezes my hand kindly, but says, “Oh, now. Be brave. No need for that.”

Excuse me, bitch?

Once the dye procedure is finished, I’m wheeled back to the hall. Steve, Deb, Dave’s mom and my friend Joan have joined the others. They line up beside my stretcher with words of love and encouragement. Steve leans over to hug me, then turns away. He had prostate surgery four years ago. This is hard for him; he is right there in my head with me.

I am wheeled somewhere else. I’ve lost track of corridors, cubicles and waiting rooms. The Team – my team – is waiting for me: the surgeon, Dr. Philipson, and the plastic surgeon, Dr. Alton. Strong, competent, blond, beautiful women in blue scrubs and confident smiles. In my mind, their feet are planted squarely, hands fisted on hips, capes flowing behind them. They will take care of me. I know they will.

Off to the side, leaning against a counter, is a guy with blue eyes wearing a shower cap. Only, it’s not a shower cap, he’s in scrubs. “Just waiting my turn,” he says with a grin.

It’s Ben, the anesthesiologist. The man I’ve been waiting for. He sits down beside me, close, face-to-face. And I don’t have to worry anymore.

I Hate To Do This To Them

2009-09-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

Mom and Dad already called this morning to sing “Happy Anniversary” to Dave and me. I beamed, teary-eyed, as I always do for their milestone calls, in hearing the smile in Mom’s cheery soprano and the love in Dad’s rumbling bass accompaniment. We just hung up the phone. It’s 11:45 AM. My parents have no way of knowing I’ll be calling back in fifteen minutes, as pre-arranged with my sisters, to tell them the bad news.

I’ve known for certain for about three weeks. I’ve had biopsies and an MRI. I’ve talked to a number of my surgeon’s patients – wonderful women who encouraged me and generously described their experiences. I’ve decided on a double mastectomy, even though only one breast is affected, so I don’t have to do this – or worry about doing this – again. I have a surgery date – July 1. And I have words like “Early stage, non-invasive, inter-ductal cancer.” I wanted to know as much as possible before telling my parents and my children, Tucker and Casey.

My dread of these conversations has clouded each day almost as much as the diagnosis itself. I’ve cherished the fact that my role as the chatty daughter and strong, supportive mother is intact. I’ve marveled before at the success of my public face, but in this case the mask is not a disguise as much as a happy refuge where doctors have not yet weighed in.

I told my two sisters, Rita and Francie, a week ago. I wanted to give them time to absorb the news so they’d be ready, calm and informed, when Mom and Dad found out.

The three of us came up with a plan: Francie and her husband Matt would arrive at Mom and Dad’s just before noon so they’d be there when I called. Rita would be available in the afternoon, so Mom could rehash, as we knew she’d wish to do, later on.

It has not been an easy year for my parents. They’ve lost several lifelong friends and had their own health issues to deal with. I marvel at their stoicism. They mourn these losses, but still, when I call, they answer with exuberance. When I’m older, I want to be that way for my kids. When Tucker and Casey ask, “How’re you doing,” instead of responding with blood pressure numbers or an update on my aching back, I hope I remember to answer, as my parents do, with a good natured, “Fine! And you?”

It’s 11:55. Francie calls on her cell to tell me that she and Matt are pulling up to the house. I wait five minutes so they can park and get in the door before I dial the same number I have dialed since I was ten years old.

Mom answers. “Lea! Hi! Francie and Matt just dropped by.” So happy to have two of her girls checking in at once.

“I know, Mom. Could you ask Dad to get on the line too?”

In prior discussions, Rita felt strongly about this. She thought it would be too scary for Dad to hear only Mom’s half of the conversation; to see her face drop – maybe see her cry – and not know what was happening. He gets everything second hand. Ever since we were kids. He’s always across the room saying “What’s going on?” as Mom gasps into the phone and says, “Heavens, Dearie, how exciting” or “That’s awful!”

Clearly, Mom’s antennae are tingling; I don’t think I’ve ever asked Dad to join her on the phone. “Is everything okay?” she says.

“I’ll tell you all about it, Mom. Everything’s fine. Is Dad on yet?”

“Just a sec. Paul?” She calls, “Pick up the phone. Lea has something to tell us.”

Pounding. My heart. I hate to do this to them.

“Lea? Is that you, beloved child?” says Dad.

I picture the four of them – Mom, Dad, Francie and Matt – waiting in my childhood home to hear what I have to say. I am pretty sure that Mom picked up the phone in the “New Room,” a modest sitting room so named about forty years ago when it was re-decorated, the stucco walls painted pale yellow and the furniture refreshed with blue and green slipcovers. In my mind’s eye, my mother perches in the straight-back wooden chair by the phone, her silvery hair pulled back in a colorful hairband just as she’s worn it since she was a child. My sister, perhaps with one finger twirling a strand of blond hair, watches from a seat on the sofa in front of the window.

In the den, where I imagine Matt and Dad have settled, the shelves that held red leather volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia when I was young are now laden with antique toy cars, boats and tiny figures waiting on an old-fashioned train platform. Across the room is the bar, a wooden dry sink, scarred and scratched where I used to poke at it while chatting on the phone with my best friend, Edie. My father, I feel sure, sits heavily in the red and white striped overstuffed chair in front of the window, his usual spot, while Matt probably sits in the matching loveseat.

“Are you all right?” Mom says.

I take a deep breath and spell it out. Boom, boom, boom. No breaks between words. Facts, dates and reassurance. I don’t cry. Thank god, I don’t cry. In fact, I think I sound pretty chipper.

Dad, whose feelings spill easily into tears, holds it together, asking questions and
saying, “I see. Okay,” at my answers. Eventually, he says, “Courage, Child” and hands the phone abruptly to Matt. Mom is worried and weepy. Both are brave.

Just as I knew they would be.

* * *

Despite her dancer’s posture and athletic strut across the concourse of Grand Central station, Casey’s pale skin and dark-circled eyes convey fatigue. Her tight yoga pants and camisole are black; “Pilates” is written in white across her chest. Her auburn hair is clipped back in a loose knot that bobs when she pauses to cough into the crook of her arm. I can hear her hollow, chesty hack from where Dave and I wait on a stone staircase.

We’d planned all along to take her out to dinner this weekend – and tell her about my cancer – because we knew we’d be in the city for last night’s party. Then, she called a few days ago, her voice plaintive, to say, “I think I have the flu, Mom. My roommate will be away; I’m sad about Zach and I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want you and Dad to catch this, but I want to come home.”

Besides her illness, my girl is still grieving about her break-up with her boyfriend. I wanted her to come home. I love the fact that she still finds comfort with us. Plus, there are few things that anchor me so completely as having my kids home in their beds. But my surgery is in two weeks: I cannot get sick. So I called Debby, my sister-in-law, who’s a skilled nurse practitioner and asked her advice.

“Of course you want Casey home,” she said. “But wash your hands regularly with soap and water. Don’t kiss her on the face and don’t let her kiss you. And don’t hug her.”

My daughter is sick and sad and I can’t hug her? This is going to be hard.

I’m still wondering how to avoid that hug as she joins us with a weak smile. I hold my breath, lean over and brush her cheek with mine. “Hey Sweetie! You feeling any better?” I say.

“A little. I had two pilates clients this morning so I’m kinda wiped.”

Dave gives her a good, big, real hug. “How about some coffee for the ride?” he says. “We have time.”

“That’d be great, Dad.” She grabs her rolling bag and the three of us stroll down a corridor to Oren’s Coffee Shop. Dave goes inside to order and Casey and I wait by the door.

When will I tell her about the cancer? My girl who’s sick and sad? Who needs my comfort, not more sorrow. On the train? Tonight? Now?

Pounding. My heart. I hate to do this to her.

“I’m having a mandatory boob job July 1.” I blurt. I came up with that opening line weeks ago. It opened the door. It sounded harmless. But it told the story.

“Wha… Mom?” Her eyebrows arc as she tilts her head, her eyes puzzled. “A boob job? I don’t get it.”

“I have… a little breast cancer,” I say apologetically. For that is how I feel. So sorry. Sorry that I’ve brought this into her life. Into our lives. I roll out the spiel, watching my daughter’s face tighten from confusion to worry… to tears.

“A little breast cancer? What do you mean “little”? Mom, I can’t look at you and believe this. You’re so healthy. How could this happen?”

I’ve wondered myself, but there’s no answer.

“Everything will be fine, Sweetie. I’ll be fine. It’s just lucky I had that mammogram.”

Dave returns with our coffees. “I told her,” I say. He nods and we turn toward the ramp to walk to our train, but first, I hug her for a long time.

* * *

Tucker has been serious about life and his work since he was very young. While other kids were out playing, he’d be bent over his homework or the computer, absorbed. I’d encourage him to join them. “Come on, Lovin’! Go outside and have fun!”

Without looking up, he’d respond, “I am having fun.”

In college, again, he was wed to his work. I remember once I said, “Tuck, lighten up! This is the time life gives you to be a kid.”

He snorted and said, “Mom. I haven’t been a kid since I was ten.”

And in a way, he was right.

So, I knew that my level-headed son would take this news as well as anybody. That he’d listen to the information, process it… and believe it. That last part is important for me now, too. I want to believe the “non-invasive, early stages” stuff, but how do the doctors really know until they get in there?

Anyway, Dave and I had a long-standing plan to visit our son and attend a reading by two authors at a bookstore a few blocks from Tuck’s apartment. When my diagnosis was confirmed, we decided this would be the time to tell him. My poor boy – little knowing that this delightful parental visit would be an ambush.

As always, when we’re about ten minutes from Tucker’s place, we call him on our cell phone to let him know we are close. We arrive just as he is getting off work, about half an hour before the authors’ presentations are due to begin. With near perfect synchronization, he strides into view as we park the car on his street.

“Hey Mom and Dad!” His smile is broad, happy to see us, unsuspecting. I reach up to hug his tall, skinny frame. “Hello, my lovin’.”

“Hey Boy!” says Dave.

Oh this is so weird. The three of us so cheery. So normal. Yet everything has changed.

“We should head over to the bookstore,” I say. “These guys are pretty well-known. It might be crowded.”

As it turns out, it isn’t. We have plenty of time to purchase some drinks and muffins at the snack bar before sliding into the second row of folding metal chairs set up in the back of the store. Almost immediately, Dave makes friends with an older couple sitting in front of us. As they talk about the ease of city life and the convenience of walking everywhere, Tucker peels the paper wrapping off his blueberry muffin and I open a bottle of water.

Pounding. My heart. I hate to do this to him.

When will I tell him? Now? At dinner? Tonight?

I am counting on my boy here. He will take it well.

“Tucker, I might as well just come out with it.”

He turns to me with a bright smile, expectant. Why not? I’m good at this now. There is nothing foreboding in my demeanor or expression. I’ve told enough people that the words roll off my tongue with brisk confidence. I even laugh at the end of the stream of information and say, “Not exactly what we’d planned to do this summer.”

His smile lingers for a moment, an expression leftover when it’s meaning has flown, before his brow furrows and his eyes darken. “Oh my god, Mom. How long have you known? Are you okay? I can’t believe you’re able to laugh about it. ”

“I’ve had a month to think about it, to make some sense of it. And yeah, surprisingly enough, I’m okay. I’ve been lucky all these years. Everyone has hard times; it’s my turn, I guess.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go through this,” says my son as he puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. We remain still and quiet as people file into their seats, as Dave chats with the couple about their travels, as the first speaker shuffles his notes at the podium.

Waiting

2009-08-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

I wish the phone would ring.

An odd desire. Yearning for a harsh jangle to jar my solitude would seem a poor choice since it’s rare that I steal time to lie on my bed as I’m doing now. Not reading, not writing, not paying bills, just lying still with my cats.

I could be doing something constructive, like going through a decade’s worth of paperwork on the third floor as I’d planned to do this afternoon. But I don’t want to. I’m frozen next to the phone. Despite the whirr of the fan, the purr of snoozing felines and the soft touch of fur to skin, I’m roiling inside. I’m waiting for Dr. Bolton to call so we can talk about my next step.

All three of the cats are keeping me company. Most days, Raven curls, a shining ebony ball, in the swivel chair upstairs by the computer, but she is on my lap. Her brother, Fuzz, is quiet at my side. Usually, if his sister has a plum spot like this, he lavishes her with a false show of affection, licking and grooming her until she gives up and leaves. Not today. Toby, a gray tiger like his brother, is sleeping against my thigh. Have they gathered here, a little phalanx of comfort, because they sense my sadness?

I am resigned to this cancer. If the biopsy comes out clear, it will be a miracle.

No one knows yet. I haven’t even told Dave about the callback mammogram. Dave cheery and oblivious calms me more than Dave worried, but I must tell him now.

I am sick at the thought of telling Mom and Dad. My mother lost a dear friend to breast cancer fifteen years ago and that’s where her thoughts will run. Dad has been making too many treks of his own to doctors - for platelet and blood transfusions, a hernia operation, and cataract removal. It’s been my joy to be a source of cheer and consolation; I don’t want to add to their worries.

My daughter, Casey, has felt adrift lately. She recently broke up with her boyfriend and many New York shows are closing; it’s hard to find acting jobs. The spring was a time of transition for Tucker as well. It is not a good time for me to have cancer; I need to remain an anchor, steady and strong.

I think I could do this more easily if no one knew. And yet, it’s all I can do not to call my friends and tell them.

Before settling in on my bed with the cats, I studied my face in the bathroom mirror. I pulled my hair back tight and tried to block the frame of brown color with my arm. Not so bad. It might be weird to lose my eyebrows, though. When drawn in on others, they always seem fake, but maybe with eyeliner, my eyes will look okay. With my health at risk (how weird is that?), it’s silly to worry about appearance. But I want to see the woman who has always looked back, not a cancer patient. I want to know I am still the same person.

Raven stretches with content as I caress her. I dab at my nose with a wad of damp tissues. Positive thoughts are critical and I don’t want to jinx myself, but I can’t stop crying.

Casey has a picture of the two of us together on her bureau. We are sitting on a stonewall in the woods in the fall wearing jeans and burgundy sweaters. The sunlight is bright as a benediction on our hair. Without meaning to, I realize I am imagining it on display at my memorial service.

Not good.

I wish the doctor would call.

Not What I Expected

2009-07-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

The technician wedging my breast between the two plates of the X-ray machine barely reaches my shoulder. “Why do I get all the tall ones?” she says, laughing. Barbara is matronly and pleasant, the perfect kind of comforting soul to perform “callback” mammograms on anxious women dreading bad news.

After the breast-squishing and the hum of the machine ceases, the two plates open, releasing me. I shrug my arm into the long-sleeved green and white seersucker robe provided by Advanced Radiology and walk over to Barbara’s side of the screen.

The undersized breast that has been such a disappointment to me all my life has ripened a bit with menopause. It looks satisfyingly full on the monitor. It is also flecked with dust. “Not dust,” says Barbara. “Calcifications.”

They look harmless. Hard to believe those flecks might signal cancer.

Barbara tells me that larger calcifications are common as women age. She says that she has some in her breasts, as a matter of fact. “Sometimes,” she adds, “calcifications appear in layers that follow the path of milk ducts. Those usually pose no problem.” The ones on the monitor, on my breast, are small and randomly scattered.

“Well, that should do it,” Barbara says. She escorts me to the coffee room saying she’ll come back shortly with news. “Hopefully, I’ll simply say we need to see you again in six months.”

Two other women garbed in matching seersucker robes barely glance up from their magazines as I take a seat. When I am stymied by the fancy coffee machine, however, both rise to flank me and demonstrate how to place a white plastic “pod” into the well on top. “Don’t forget to put a cup underneath,” says one, an attractive white-haired woman of sixty-five or so.

I survey the boxes of available coffee pods. Hmmm. Hazelnut. Vermont Country Blend. Vanilla. Dark Magic. I settle for the Vermont Country Blend and regret it as soon as my cup starts to fill. Why didn’t I choose “Dark Magic”? What was I thinking? I could use some magic right now.

A nurse in royal blue scrubs appears at the door and says, “Florence? I need to take another picture.” The woman with the white hair puts down her magazine and follows the nurse into the hall.

She looks totally calm. Is her heart pounding like mine?

As I stir two creamers and a sugar packet into my coffee, Barbara returns. “I’ll take you to your dressing room and once you’re ready, Kelly will take you to the doctor.”

No mention of “See you in six months.”

With my right breast still warm from its squeezing and me now very conscious of my right breast and sensing - whether physically or not – pinpricks of what I perceive are calcifications, I pull on my turtleneck and sage green fleece. I slide back the door of the dressing room. Kelly, a cute young blond in that royal blue outfit, is waiting to guide me down the hall.

Dr. Wallace has shoulder length blond hair and bangs. Her name is written in blue script on her white lab coat. Her eyes are kind and moist, as if she were teary. Hers must be a hard job.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she says, gesturing to an overstuffed chair. I sit down. She pulls a rolling chair over from the counter-top desk and sits in front of me. Squarely in front of me. “There are calcifications in your right breast that weren’t there before. Sometimes these mean nothing, but we need to do a biopsy to check them out.”

So reassuring. But I saw those flecks. Random and small. “You’ve seen lots of these films, Dr. Wallace. In your opinion, what do you think?” I say.

She tucks in her lower lip. Her eyes never leave mine. Her skin seems sort of ruddy, as if she’d gotten too much sun over the weekend. “Since you ask, I’ll be honest with you. I think you might have a little cancer.”

I wonder if she threw the “little” in there so it wouldn’t sound so daunting?

I don’t feel weepy. I’m surprised at how well I’m taking this. So I am equally surprised when my question comes out a choked sob. “Why would this happen? I don’t eat meat. I nursed my kids. I have no family history…” I break off.

Dr. Wallace pats my leg. “You need a tissue.” We both look around the office, but don’t see any. “Just a minute. I’ll find some.”

I see her reaching up to a shelf across the hall and then notice a box of Kleenex on the table by my chair. Right next to me. Duh. “I found some,” I call to her.

She returns and takes her seat again. “I know this is hard. You take care of yourself. But you have breasts and ovaries. As women age, sometimes this happens.”

This is not what I expected to hear. None of this. I am an anxious person. I worry about my parents, my kids, the environment, war, animal cruelty and house invasions. But basically, I’ve had faith in my body. I never thought I’d be one of those women in a pink baseball cap or scarf.

Dr. Wallace tells me to call my doctor to get a recommendation for someone to do the biopsy. She asks me to sign a form indicating that she has given me my x-ray films. After I assure her that I’m okay, she leaves me to collect myself. I scribble a few notes. I cry – only a little - and wipe my nose. I puff my lips and blow out a long, rushing, breath. Okay. I’m fine. I can do this.

Kelly is standing in the hall. Her smile is sympathetic, almost apologetic. “Are you okay to drive?”

I nod. But suddenly, I really want to get to the car and cry some more.

Kelly leads me back to the waiting room and I walk through, dry-eyed and smiling so I don’t alarm the women with pounding hearts who are reading Vogue and Connecticut Magazine.

On the Way Home from the Vet

2009-06-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

Dr. Wallace speaks quietly as he examines Fuzz. He turns the gray tiger cat’s head back, lifting a lip to check the teeth for plaque. Raven - my sleek, black, beauty - waits calmly beneath my stroking hand for her turn. As always on these visits to the vet, I am proud of them both. Not many cats would endure so peaceably this probing on a cold steel table.

I glance out the lilac-framed window at the gravel drive bordered by a split rail fence, an overgrown swamp beyond. It is lovely here; if I were a cat, I’d join Fuzz and Raven in purring. “They’ll do that when they’re nervous as well,” says the doctor. Really? Contentment and anxiety expressed via the same soothing rumble?

After their examinations, the cats slide into their carriers without fuss. I pick up some free samples of cat food, then head out the door and crunch over the gravel to the car. “We’re going on a little field trip before we go home,” I say to the cats. Unmoved, they gaze through the bars of their cages with green, unblinking, eyes.

I take a detour down Orchard Lane, so narrow as to grant only one car passage. Lavender lilacs brush the car as I pass with windows open, breathing in the scent. The rocking chairs on the porch of a roadside farmhouse call for a sit, but no one is home. Slowly I drive past barns and orchards, enjoying this drive through a vestige of the town’s farming history. The dairy industry has collapsed and developers lust over these flat fields where cows used to graze.

As I round the corner and head down Sport Hill Road, horses browse on hay in a muddy pasture. Just down the way, spiked black staves encircle the ancient gravestones of Union Cemetery across the road from a pond encircled by woodlands. A subdivision of twenty ten-bedroom houses is planned for that wooded property. What will the White Lady, the legendary ghost known to drift about the cemetery, make of trundling yellow bulldozers growling and tearing at the earth near her domain?

The cats are quiet as I drive and ruminate.

The town is characterized by stonewalls, spring gardens, colonial homes and woods re-established since the clearing of Connecticut ended, since the water company purchased thousands of acres of land to protect their reservoirs. I turn left on North Park and pass through Maple Row Farm. Rows of balsam and Douglas fir roll away to either side, left to peaceful growth until the Christmas shoppers descend.

I backtrack in order to pick up some eggs. Joe is in the yard, pulling up weeds, serenaded by the gentle clucks of his hens and the occasional crow of a bossy rooster.

“Your daughter was here yesterday,” he tells me, straightening up, weeds hanging limp from his hand. He peers through his spectacles from under a hat worn low on his brow. Mutton chop sideburns cup a face browned by outdoor work.

“She did? We’ll have a good supply then. I saw the empty carton on the counter and Dave had a half dozen eggs boiled and cooling in the sink, so I figured we were out.”

“She bought two dozen.”

“Well, I’ll get a dozen anyway. We’ll eat ‘em.”

The door to Joe’s basement is unlocked. Assorted tools, paint cans, and stacks of newspaper share space with empty egg cartons and a refrigerator. I open the refrigerator door and select a carton marked “$2.00 – Please Return” in red magic marker. I leave the money in a cigar box that holds some change and a few singles. I love this honor system. It makes me sad to remember that, once, someone stole Joe’s egg money.

Joe goes back to his weeding as I turn the car around. I call endearments to the chickens as I pass their cages: the white furry hen that looks more like an animal than fowl, the full-breasted henna brown nester, the soft-cooing quail, the banty roosters. On some days, they are free to peck about, but when I spot a man walking by, straining to control two German shepherds, I’m glad the birds are caged this afternoon.

I drive past the police station, town hall, and library, and then up the hill, where farm fields border the road. The new elementary school, completed less than a year ago, is set back to the left. I’d worried about the effect of the construction on this old road lined with maple-shaded stone walls, but sometimes things work out right. Gambrel barn roofs and a silo house classrooms and an auditorium and, but for the parking lots, it would not be surprising to see cows munching grass in the playing fields.

Fuzz and Raven are silent in their plastic caves on the floor of the car as we draw closer to our house. The two cages are face-to-face so the cats can see each other, and perhaps they are calm because they know the pattern of these rare trips: into the vehicle, onto a cold shiny surface, pricks and prods, the hum of the engine and then, home again.

Feeder Frolic

2009-05-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

A little girl in a white frock and oversized bow leapt at a fawn, shrieking, “Come play with me!” With a kick of slender legs and good sense in his choice of playmates, the fawn beat it into the woods. As I sat in my mother’s lap listening to the story, even I could see, though I was no more than six, that this child was doing things all wrong. On every page of the book, the grabby sprite showed no social skills whatsoever: jumping at the frog who jumped away, flying at the bird who wisely flew. By the end of the tale, the child had slumped to a log in lonely despair. Emboldened by her immobility, the forgiving forest creatures crept to her side, the bird perching on her shoulder, the frog harrumphing companionably at her feet. A happy ending of species co-existence.

Such a lovely, simple book for a fifties child like myself. No dying pets, ailing grandparents, or moral quandries - just a happy story about the futility of aggression and the rewards of quiet acceptance. Well, surely that was implied. I think of that little girl often as I sit here on the back porch. As long as I stay still, the bird feeder at the edge of the lawn draws customers looking for a bite.

I am witness, daily, to the reality of pecking order. Titmice and chickadees alight without fanfare on the feeder platform, while bluejays swoop in with self-important squawks; they prefer ground droppings, but seem to enjoy the satisfaction of scaring the little guys away. Doves browse in droves, but give way to just about everyone. In an audible whir of wings and soft coo-chidings, they disperse to surrounding limbs, resigned to waiting for leftovers. Gentle and unassuming, it appears that doves, as innocents often do, occupy the lowest rung.

Squirrels are annoying but entertaining visitors - the clowns of the feeder set. To my near-sighted eyes, they are sinuous grace in silver-gray, twining their way up the pole to hang upside down or sideways. They scold one another, darting in squirrely menace, then play chase in a dizzy circle. The squirrels defer to me, to the turkeys and to today’s formidable guest, but even the crows concede to these goofy gamesters.

From my post as serene spectator, I am ever-learning about feeder sounds and etiquette. A low-throated, melodic cluck and purposeful scuffling of leaves signals the turkeys’ approach. Tiny heads jerk on ungainly necks as they stop in to decide, on a routine basis, that they don’t much like seeds, then strut off, back to the woods. A new sound, a swoosh and thrum, jolts me to attention. A red-tailed hawk, unsuccessful in his salvo, settles his wings as he swings momentarily on a hastily selected, ill-suited twig of a branch, then takes to the sky in a thrust of powerful wings.

During the spare winter months, four deer joined the gang at the feeders. Dave would whistle as he left the house carrying his heavy white seed bucket and the animals would appear, cautiously, at woods’ edge. As soon as he retreated, they strode into the yard, nosing the feeders to release showers of seeds, sometimes rising on hind legs for a better angle. As much as we never tired of seeing them, it was sad that they were so desperate.

The chickadees, too, were made bold by hunger. Dave and I would stand by the feeders with arms outstretched, palms cupped around mounds of seeds. We could hear the flutter of wings through the trees and the echoed call – chickadee-dee-dee-dee. The black-capped birds flew in from every side and perched in the branches about us, trembling as they drummed up nerve. Eventually, one brave soul would start the rush, and they would zip to our fingers, land with a tickling touch of tiny claws, grab a seed and go.

It’s a whole new scene now that it’s May. Doves, cowbirds, jays and cardinals check each other out with flirtatious pursuits and awkward grapplings. If I were a bird, seeking a mate from those assembled, I’d flip a feather at that lusty gray mockingbird. Man, that boy can croon!

Unlike the befrocked, bow-tied waif in Come Play with Me, I seek to remain invisible up here on the porch. I doubt I’ll be nuzzled by a fawn or win a frog’s bulge-eyed admiration, but the animals seem to trust me enough to come close, and that is blessing enough.

Not So Clever After All

2009-05-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

“Where do babies come from?” All parents dread that question. Dave and I, however, had thought we’d been oh-so-clever in avoiding it by conveying the essentials to our son Tucker with the help of a cooperative guinea pig (a real one) and appropriate TV viewing.

From the time Tucker was two, Sunday night was “bug night,” our family’s name for channel Thirteen’s show “Nature.” Through the talents of PBS videographers, Tuck had witnessed any number of mating rituals and births. Calmly and honestly, Dave and I answered every question our little boy asked. It was easy when the subject matter was zebras and elk. While he developed an irrational fear about deer shedding their antlers and could not even look at a picture of a deer without tears, Tucker was relaxed regarding reproduction.

A brief confusion arose when we acquired a pregnant guinea pig. At the time of purchase, we had no idea that Scratchy was female, much less pregnant. We thought she was simply putting on weight until we began to feel the babies moving inside her.

It was a wonderful, small miracle, actually, affording an unexpected experience in animal families as well as an opportunity for further sex education. Tucker wondered, wisely, “How can she have babies without a daddy?”

Dave explained that Scratchy must have mated while she was still living at the pet store. He re-visited the facts of anatomy and process and Tucker was satisfied, comfortable with his knowledge.

What good parents! We congratulated ourselves on brilliantly sparing ourselves and our son embarrassing pre-teen discussions about sex. Initiation to the topic did not go as smoothly for our daughter, Casey.

She was only five when she returned from a playdate, tearful and anxious.

“What is it, sweetie? What’s wrong?“ I asked.

“I. Can’t. Talk. About. It,” she managed to blurt, shaking, between sobs.

She fled to her room and closed the door. I could hear her weeping piteously.

I knew the friends with whom she’d spent the day and so had no major concerns about my daughter’s well-being, but what might have caused such distress?

I entered her room and found her prone on the bed. Her long brown hair clung in sodden wisps to her flushed, tear-wet cheeks. I rubbed her back and murmured soothing words. Finally she wailed, “Courtney told me how babies are made! I’d finally decided that I wanted a baby even though it would hurt, but I’m not going to do what she said!”

Oh dear. What could I say? It’s not too bad once you get used to it? Someday you’ll like it? No. Clearly that was the wrong tack. I stuck to hugs and a vague “It’s okay, precious” kind of approach.

Over the next three days, Casey’s crying bouts lessened, but her concerns did not. “I don’t want to think of my pretty mommy doing that. What if I decide I do want a baby, but no one loves me enough to do that?” It was heart-wrenching to witness her loss of innocence, to see her struggle for acceptance of this, to her, gruesome fact of life.

Tucker, meanwhile, was neither moved nor curious about Casey’s tears. She was a bit of a crybaby in those days and for a time, he didn’t notice anything all that unusual. Eventually though, days had passed and still his little sister was morose.

“What’s the matter with Casey?” he said, finally.

I felt no qualms in responding. Tucker already had all the answers.

“One of Casey’s friends told her about mating,” I said.

“Oh.” He nodded, satisfied. But only briefly. He looked at me, his brow furrowed, eyes puzzled. “But why’s she so upset?”

“She doesn’t like to think about Mommy and Daddy doing it.”

His eyes grew wide. I did not see it coming. He said, “You mean humans do it too?!”

The U-Haul Is Running

2009-05-05T13:12:00.000-07:00

June, 2004

Mom says good-bye with three kisses. It is continental. It is a talisman. It is a loving, but strict rule. A kiss on one cheek, then the other, then back to the first. An audible smack: Mwah, mwah, mwah. If there is some postponement of departure, she gives a hug, but no more kisses. She would never say it would be bad luck, but that’s the unspoken truth.

Last weekend, Dave and I joined Mom, Dad, my sister Francie, and her husband Matt in Vermont to close down the house that had been my parents’ Green Mountain State getaway for over thirty years. The disbursement of furniture and collectibles had been a gradual process since December, and now the U-Haul stood waiting in the drive for the last load.

I hadn’t thought this would be particularly painful. In recent years, due to busy schedules, we hadn’t come north very often. Just in case, though, on the way up on Friday, I ran through a mental slide show of memories: sledding with little Tucker and Casey on the hill behind the house as our malamute Kody danced about nipping our boots, snow-shoeing with Dave to Magic Mountain for a glass of hot mulled wine, post-Christmas gatherings around a tiny tree, and late night woods walks by the light of a nineteenth century lantern.

The seven-hour drive from Pennsylvania had come to be too much for my parents. In addition, almost every visit to their eighteenth century house was distinguished by furnace failure, plumbing glitches or leaks. The mouse infestation didn’t help, but it wasn’t ranked high among the negatives either. Brushing pillows, pot holders and beds clear of mouse leavings were simply customary rituals upon arrival for a stay. The occasional unseen scurry across the old floorboards while drifting off to sleep was expected. In fact, we had reason to admire the industry of those mice, as they demonstrated a perseverance and ingenuity that astonished even my two mouse-phobic sisters.

When Kody was young, her food of choice was Purina Dog Chow nuggets. One morning, Mom was up first as usual, making coffee and eggs, and caring for the visiting grand-kids and grand-dog. She fetched the Purina, surprised that the bag was so light - and even more surprised to find it empty. A search of the kitchen revealed a waist-high drawer by the sink full of nuggets. The mind reels at the image of a mouse bucket-brigade stretching the length of the kitchen, passing nuggets down the line and somehow maneuvering each chunk into that closed drawer. For all their ability to startle unnervingly, those mice were mini-miracles. As I said, the mice were part of life in the house, not part of the problem.

In all likelihood, Mom and Dad would have continued to battle the rebellious furnace and unreliable plumbing if it hadn’t been for the long drive up. Last winter’s trip was the final straw. Mom was at the wheel as they approached Manchester when she “tried to kill me,” according to my father. The road was slick with ice and the car went into a 360 spin. Mom has said she prayed to to her parents, my Byeo and Poppy, to hold any oncoming cars at the crest of the hill. Had other vehicles been involved, it would have been a fatal accident. My heavenly grandparents were vigilant, however, and Mom and Dad emerged terrified, but safe.

That scare solidified my parents’ thoughts about selling and the house was placed on the market.

As we hauled the remaining chairs and bureaus from the upstairs bedrooms, we closed the door of each empty room behind us. Tucker and Casey’s room with its red and blue plaid bedspreads and ever-so-sixties jungle print quilts. Now empty. Door closed. Done. Our room overlooking the sweep of the yard graced by gray-lichened prows of glacial drop. Empty. Door closed. Done. The bathroom with its impossibly tiny shower and Mom’s pencilled note above the toilet: “Nothing goes down this john but toilet paper! No Kleenex, paper towels or Tampax.. This is a country plumbing situation!” Empty. Door closed. Done.

Dad was having a hard time. Red-eyed and drawn, he went from task to task stopping periodically in each beloved room where fresh tears would flow. To our sympathetic pats and clucks, he would grouse, “Humph! I look around and there’s nothing but work to be done! The house needs painting, there’s two dead trees... I’m only relieved.” With a dismissive wave, he’d lumber off to another pile awaiting sifting.

When Dave and I bought our house in Connecticut, Mom had warned, “A house is not a life. It’s the shell of a life.” But just as the snail would not last long without its portable shelter, our lives are inextricably connected to the roof and walls around us. As Matt and Dave rolled up the fraying braided rug in the Florida room, they uncovered five gold foil letters stuck crookedly to the floor. “C-A-S-E-Y.” How old had my little girl been when she left her mark? Now she is twenty-one, a college student, living in Massachusetts.

Mom deliberately chose Johnny Seesaw’s Restaurant for dinner Friday night as we’d never been there so it held no memories for us. Both Mom and Francie took me aside as we walked into the restaurant to whisper, “No toasts!” Dad and I are the family toastmeisters, but it is rare that we make it through our sentimental tirades without getting teary.

“But I’ll just raise my glass...”

“No - It would be too hard and Dad would dissolve.”

Dinner was jolly and the food delicious, but I felt the absence of that toast. It seemed a disservice to the house and I worried that Dad would think me remiss. Later, once Mom and Dad were snug in bed, I leaned in to give Dad a goodnight kiss, explaining my forced silence in the toast department. He burst into tears.

I guess Mom and Francie were right.

There were no weepy skies for Saturday’s departure; the house beamed in a sunshine bath. Purple irises and fragrant day lilies nodded beneath the windows overlooking the yard. Dave and I dug some up and wrapped them in damp newspaper, hoping they’d take in our garden. We have hostas from Aunty Cam’s house at #3 Stratfield in Worcester and we’d love to have a living memory of Thompsonberg Road as well.

The lawn ressembled a tag sale as chairs, rugs, tables and benches were parcelled out near the cars and truck. Gradually, those items dwindled as we stowed them away for the drive south.

Matt grimaced as he hauled an over-sized glass cask encased in basket weave to my car. “Whoa, I think you’ll be taking some of those mice with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take a whiff...”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah. A few must have crawled in and died.”

“Ugh - Can you shake them out?”

No luck.

Of course, Dave wanted to commemorate the occasion with photographs. Mom and Dad posed gamely before the house, each holding a broom or shovel, “American Gothic” - Ingersoll style. Dad’s smile was a grimace, just holding on.

The U-Haul was running. It was time to go.

We did a final walk-through, patting the walls, wishing the house well, wishing happiness for the new owners. They’d told Mom and Dad of their plans for a renovated kitchen and new master bath, but other than that, they love the house and respect its antiquity. My parents are pleased: they’ve done their job in furnishing the house with caring stewards. It helps.

We went outside and Mom locked the door. Empty. Closed. Done.

Mom’s cheery bustle had carried her through the packing, but her face crumpled as we gave the house our final tribute. There were hugs all round as we were heading in different directions. Mom gave her three kisses - Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! The U-Haul pulled out first with Dad red-faced and weepy at the wheel. One by one, the rest of us followed, a subdued four-car caravan.

“Good bye house!”

Good bye...

Lady Bugs, Inch Worms and Mice, Oh My!

2009-04-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

For the most part, you could not pay me enough to live in a brand new house. Those level-straight floors, counters that fit snug-tight and Anderson windows, thick as an astigmatic’s glasses, don’t appeal to me. Where is the character? Where is the history?

In our house, the massive beams that form the sills are splinter-rough and bear the slashes of the axes that hewed them. After two hundred and twenty years, they continue to do yeoman duty. It doesn’t require even close inspection, however, to detect the dusty residue left by hungry borers or the rot caused by centuries of rain. One would think this a concern, and perhaps it should be, but a builder friend checked out the house for us. He tested the sills by jabbing a key deep into the unnervingly pliant wood. After he withdrew it, he wiped the key clean of saw dust on his jeans and said, “Look at that. I can drive my key its full length into this beam, but you’ve still got more solid wood at the core than the width of the timbers they use in new construction. Those old builders knew what they were doing.”

I keep reminding myself of those comforting words, particularly when the yawning fissures and holes in this old house grant passage to an assemblage of creatures I’d just as soon stay outdoors.

This has been an exceptionally cold winter and I don’t begrudge anyone shelter. Even the mice that laugh at our cats would be welcome if only they’d refrain from leaving turds in the utensil drawer. As unnerving as it is to pull out the garbage pail under the sink and have a doe-eyed, Disney-eared, little guy leap at me, I could live with that. Seriously. Not so long ago, a mouse pursued by our cats around the edges of the den as Dave and I watched TV would have prompted me to shriek like a lunatic. Now, I lift my feet and urge Dave to do something, but there is no hysteria in my voice.

While mystified as to how the mice attain such a lofty and seemingly uninviting destination, I have even tolerated their leavings in the potholder drawer which is next to the stove, four feet off the kitchen floor. But when I took placemats from the sideboard in the dining room in February and discovered nibblings and turds even there, I was creeped out. Visions of running, tumbling hordes, reminiscent of those pictured in documentaries of the bubonic plague era, sent shivers pimpling my skin. It was “eewww” territory, definitely.

That’s not all. I love this house, but what is it with all the lady bugs? I have always thought lady bugs charming and highly desirable visitors. Some people import them to populate their yards - they must prey on bad bugs or something. They are the subject of cartoons, quaint watercolors, and painted handbags - always cheery in their rotund redness and perky spots. But in winter, they materialize, in prodigious numbers, on the walls and windows of our house. They crawl over one another, falling in showers from window shades and curtains. I would never have imagined recoiling from the ever- friendly lady bug, but ewww!

Sadly, anyone who reads this will give our house wide berth from now on, but there is yet another unwanted pest that has made free to join us. Gleefully tormenting us in two incarnations, sort of a chicken and egg kind of thing, we are beset by moths in the summer time. (Please note, pretty much every season is covered.) In different circumstances, I have been known to capture a moth in gently cupped hands to release it outdoors to freedom. That has changed in recent years as these dusty butterfly cousins erupt from cupboards and even from the guaranteed air-tight (moth-tight!) Tupperware flour cannisters. What is the deal? Luckily they seem more interested in the kitchen cupboards than the closets upstairs, so our woolens have been spared so far.

I am knocking on wood as I write that.

The moths are mildly annoying, but it is their delightful offspring that trigger the ew-meter. Dave calls them “maggots;” I insist on the far less repulsive “inchworm.” I picture Danny Kaye singing, “Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigold...” But I’m not kidding myself, it’s unnerving to see them on the ceiling, making their way along the shelves, curled under the lip of those Tupperware containers. I swear, we are not disgusting people - why the invasion?

I have, in fact, discovered that most of these intruders seem to have arrived in sealed bags of rice or beans. It’s small comfort because now every boxed product is suspect, the contents scrutinized for movement or dried carcasses while being poured into boiling water.

I guess these are just part of country living and I believe the trade-offs are worth it, but I can’t help a shudder as I scan the kitchen ceiling, tissue in hand, performing a maggot-purging ceremony.

EW!

Tell Me a Story

2009-03-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

“Tell me a story,” I wheedle, snuggling closer in bed to my husband, Dave.

“I’m tired,” he says with a yawn for effect.

“C’mon, Honey. I want to hear a story.”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“I’ll give you three animals…”

He groans.

I smile in the dark, hearing echoes of the voices of my little ones, Tucker and Casey, twenty-five years ago, saying, “Dad! Dad! Tell us a bedtime story!”

“Hmmm,” Dave would say. “Give me three animals…”

And that’s all it took. No matter how obscure or unrelated, Dave could spin a yarn from those three threads. I don’t know what sparked memories of those cozy evenings, but that’s what I want to hear now. I know from Dave’s groan that he is weakening, so I think back over the past few days...

We’re on vacation in Florida, staying at the Holiday Inn. Yesterday, Dave summoned me from the bathroom, saying, “Your services are required… and bring a tissue.”

I’m not in the mood, I’d thought.

But when I entered the bedroom, Dave was on the floor doing his back stretches and he was pointing at the ceiling. An insect – a centi-pede? – was motionless on the swirl of white stucco.

Dave does not like bugs.

I climbed on the couch and reached, but the insect had wings and took flight. It was not a centipede, something more like a…

“Dragonfly…” I nudge Dave. “That’s my first choice - a dragonfly.”

Dave is silent. Has he fallen asleep? Maybe he won’t tell me a story tonight, but I’ll be ready for tomorrow. I think some more...

On the beach this morning, I spotted a large, gelatinous green mass, rolling in the lazy surf. I thought it was seaweed until I noticed a quiver and the tremble of a pointy protuberance. “It looks like a huge snail without its shell,” I’d said...

I whisper into the dark, “My second animal is a sea slug. Dave? Do you hear me? My animals so far are a dragonfly and a sea slug.”

“I hear you,” says the weary voice at my side.

Number three, number three. What will it be? I hear the surf beyond the window and I picture the expanse of blue water in daylight, the wink of sun flecks dancing on ripples. Since our arrival, we’d scanned that vista, hoping for a glimpse, but never seeing a …

“Dolphin. Those are my three – a dragonfly, sea slug and dolphin. Tell me a story, Honey," I beg.

There is silence and I think I’ve lost him, when…

“I’m sorry, but I don’t breathe fire,” says Dave.

“What?” I say, confused.

Dave’s voice is annoyed, a little high-pitched. He says, “I said, ‘I don’t breathe fire.’”

I smile and pull the sheets closer to my chin. He’s already started the story!

“But you’re a dragonfly,” Dave continues in the whiny voice of the sea slug. “You must be able to breathe fire.”

“Well, I don’t. I understand your confusion, but I’m telling the truth. I do not, I repeat, I do not breathe fire.”

“Please,” said the sea slug, “I need your help. None of the other sea creatures likes me because I’m so slimy. I need your fire to dry me off a bit.”

“Even if I had fire, I doubt that’s a good idea,” responded the dragonfly.

“Oh, I don’t care if I wither like a vanilla bean or a raisin, it would be better than the way I am now.”

“I’d like to help you. Really, I would, but like I said, I don’t breathe fire. Let me think though. What’s the smartest animal in the sea?”

Again, I smile, wiggling my toes in anticipation, inching still closer to Dave’s chest. It’s my dolphin! I think.

“A dolphin,” said the slug.

“I’ll see what I can do,” said the dragonfly.

He winged his way out over the waves and spotted a fin. A triangular fin, moving very fast. He flew in close and fluttered on the fin. “Excuse me,” he said politely.

The fin tipped backwards and slipped beneath the water’s surface, revealing in its place a great mouth, bristling with sharp teeth.

“I’m sunk,” thought the dragonfly. Then he felt a strong thump.

The jaws of the shark, for that’s what this many-toothed creature was, snapped shut. He turned with a thrust of his tail and was gone, scared off by the one thing, the dragonfly knew, that sharks fear.

A dolphin! I feel like crowing, but instead I grin.

“A dolphin,” says Dave.

I knew it!

The dragonfly thanked the dolphin for his timely appearance and explained the sea slug’s dilemma. “The poor thing really is quite repulsive, so if there’s anything you can do…”

“Hmmm,” said the dolphin, only it came out a whistling squeak. He slapped the water with his tail and swam to the beach, scanning the sand in search of the sea slug.

The slug was lolling, in and out with each tug of the waves, waiting for the dragonfly’s report. Suddenly, the water whished and wavered and wrenched at the slug, tossing him up on the shore. The slug glimpsed the curve of a smile as the dolphin flipped something high into the air with a cheerful squeak.

What is it? I wonder.

“What is it?” wondered the slug.

Whatever is was, it landed smack on the slug. He felt the tapping and tickling of tiny tentacles, touching him, holding him close. Very close.

It was a starfish and it enfolded the slug, tucked him in and rolled him up. Together, they looked just like a ball. With his round gray nose, the dolphin pushed them beyond the surf line, onto the hot white sand.

“Now, I’ll dry up!” thought the sea slug. But soon he realized, “This doesn’t feel very good.”

The sun beat down. The sand was scorching and grainy. The tendrils of the starfish were still, growing tight; the starfish was shrinking as it dried. The slug thought, “I could go for some nice, wet, ooze.”

Overhead, the dragonfly hovered, concerned.

But the dolphin was wise. It was just a matter of time. He knew who would happen along.

A small boy appeared, as curious as the dolphin knew all little boys to be. He trotted over to the slug-starfish, poked at the odd-looking ball and picked it up.

“What is it, Tuck? What did you find?” called a voice.

“Don’t know,” said the child. “Something weird.”

The slug was not dry yet. He was wet. And sticky. Quite frankly, he was still pretty gross.

“Yuck!” said the boy and tossed the ball into the sea, where it sank through the rippling salt water.

“Ahhhhh!” said the starfish.

“Ahhhhh!” said the sea slug.

They stretched and separated and gratefully sucked in that water.

With a swish and tail-pump, the dolphin appeared. To the slug he squeaked, “Did you get what you wanted?”

The slug swelled and twisted, content in the water. The dragonfly zoomed overhead and tipped a wing. The starfish floated, flexing his five fingers; softly, he touched the slug.

The dolphin waited with a knowing smile.

“No,” said the slug, “But maybe I have what I need. I’m slimy and green, repulsive perhaps. That is not going to change.”

“And?” said the dolphin.

“And?” repeated the slug. What did the dolphin want him to say? He thought about the dragonfly who’d sought out the dolphin. He thought about the starfish who’d been willing to dry for him.

He smiled, as slugs do, a gross, slimy smile, and said, “And still, I have friends willing to help me.”

Just as my kids had, two decades ago, I feel cozy and safe at this happy ending. “I loved my story, Hon, I might want one every night.”

Dave groans, but he gives me a hug and a kiss.

“Let me think,” I murmur. “What will my three animals be?”

Searching for Sand Dollars

2009-03-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

I stride the beach, pausing every so often to bend and pick up a shell. Curling and whispering on the sand about my feet, slow swells of green water roll, a rhythmic pulse.

A gathering of gulls shriek and complain, no doubt wishing for an ocean stir to rough things up and slap a few fish onshore for supper.

In pink sundresses and floppy hats, two little girls crouch on their haunches, tiny fingers reaching for black ridged scallops and yellow jingle shells. An Amish woman, her hair covered in a white gauze cap, gathers the long skirts of her modest rose dress. She stops, leans closer for a better look, and selects a brown-striped turkey-wing.

Whether a leathery gent with an imposing paunch, a lithe blond in a turquoise bikini, or a well-browned matron, gold bracelets jangling, we walk the shore, hands cupped around shells, entranced by the variety of nature’s designs. We pluck them up, spiraled and curved, pottery-thick, ice-brittle, in shades from gray to vivid orange with squiggles.

Sand dollars are best. Bleached clay-white, etched with a star, they are fragile, so easily broken. It is rare to find one intact on the beach. And so, we hunters head for the water. Wading thigh-deep, the beer-bellied, bikini-clad, and sun-hatted hunch, peering through rippling water.

As I toe the sand, sifting, sending out smoky plumes, braids of gold sunlight waver. A school of silver fish flash around my feet. And I notice the absence of thought. Searching for sand dollars seems purpose enough to clear my head of its usual spin.

Squinting, I scan for the elusive disks. There? No, it’s a shell. There? No, it’s another shell. So it goes. Purpose enough.

I slosh back to the beach empty-handed, but grateful for the warm sun and wide blue sky feathered with light-hearted streaks of jet trails.

A tall man, tan, perhaps European, with dark hair and white teeth strides purposefully toward me. He holds out his hand and says, “For you. A gift. I found it in the sea.”

A sand dollar.

I beam my thanks. He smiles and walks away.

Sand dollars. A kind gesture. Purpose enough.

Running with Dogs

2009-03-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

I glimpsed the two dogs through the dining room window as they dashed across our back yard and headed toward the compost heap. When I ran outside, they were snuffling amidst clam shells, coffee filters and vegetable scraps. “Good dogs, come!” I said. And they did.

One was a handsome, mid-sized akita-type animal with fawn-colored fur and a white mantle across his shoulders and chest. The smaller of the two was a creamy lab-mix. Both were friendly and excited about their free-wheeling adventure.

The lab had a tag with a phone number and his name - Jesse. My husband phoned and learned that the larger dog’s name was Champ. The owner said he’d come pick them up; he was on his way. Unfortunately, so were the two wanderers. In the time it took to make the call and grab our old dog’s leash, they were on their way down the road.

With a herky-jerky stop-and-start, I went after them, halting to call, clap and whistle, then running to try and keep up.

While my husband, Dave, waited for the dogs’ owners to arrive, I threw caution and respect for private property aside and followed Champ and Jesse up a neighbor’s driveway. I zipped through back yards, past swimming pools and porches, scanning the March woods, the uniform gray-brown of trees, leaf litter, and rock fall for a flash of creamy-white or the wag of a freedom-thrilled tail.

In the snow’s aftermath, sticks, leaves and brambles were pressed flat so the going was easy. Easier still were the well-worn deer trails that the dogs had chosen. My feet, that four days ago had been snowboot-encased, were gloriously bare but for flip-flops. My toenails, freshly painted in red “Cherry Crush,” flashed brilliant against the drab brown of the trail. As euphoric and free as the dogs, I ran.

Champ and Jesse slowed ahead. I could see them racing back and forth. “The stream,” I thought. And sure enough… they’d been stymied by the bank of Cricker Brook, but only briefly. Champ found a way across and took flight.

When I caught up to Jesse, he was still seeking a path, but he came when I called and I snapped on the leash. “Good dog!” I said and gave him pats and a hug. “Let’s find Champ!” And we were off.

Together, we followed the deer trail, Jesse pulling and panting as he strained to catch up with his friend.

Champ bounded ahead, in sight, but out of reach. Part of me thought, “He’s loving this! Let him go!” But I knew if he were my dog, I’d be bereft to lose him, plus I worried about hunters and the inevitable road crossings. I had a brief tug of worry, about the home they were running from – was I returning them to an unkind master? No, I dismissed the thought; Jesse and Champ had come cheerfully when first I called them. They were happy and friendly; someone loved these dogs. Still, what a joy to be a dog racing through the woods… and what a joy to be a woman close behind!

I am fifty-five and far from athletic; this was the farthest I’d run in thirty-some years. But I felt great. I wasn’t tired. I loved the slap of my feet on the deer-trodden trail. I loved the ease of movement, the surprising energy of my body. I loved the tentative March birdsong and the chatter of stream-water over rocks. I loved the glimpse of deep green moss on stone and the trembling parchment-like beech leaves. I loved the sense of purpose and the company of dogs.

Champ was widening the distance between us; his ears no longer flickered at the sound of my voice. Something else was calling him and he gleefully complied. Jesse was tired, at least that’s what I told myself, so I jerked at the leash and said, “C’mon, Sweetie. Your owners will have to find your pal.” Jesse was reluctant. He whimpered and balked and searched the woods behind us, but he was used to following a human’s lead and trotted along.

I’d trespassed in those woods often enough to know where I was and I took pleasure in that too. Unerringly, I clambered over stone walls and fallen trees. Together, Jesse and I headed home.

We met Dave and the dogs’ owners once we came to the road. Jesse scrambled readily into the back seat of the car. Good; final proof he was content to be found. I was disappointed that I couldn’t deliver both dogs, but I described Champ’s general direction, and his people drove off to keep up the search.

Dave and I went to sit on the porch, basking in the sun on this seventy-degree March day. An hour later, the click of claws on wood planking, heavy breathing and the rasp of a warm tongue nudged me from my doze. It was Champ! Wander-lust satisfied, he pranced around us a bit, then settled in next to me to rest.

Rats!

2009-03-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

The old road bordered by ancient stone walls meanders from the edge of the lawn back through the woods to a lovely pond on our neighbors’ property. More than once we’ve been told, “Oh, I love your pond! We used to skate there when I was young!” Sadly, we respond that the pond went with another lot when the property was subdivided, so we’ve missed out on skating parties. Still, we admire the mythic nature of the old road itself, its stone walls alive now with colonies of chipmunks and garter snakes, having once been travelled by horse-drawn carts, and certainly those skaters, laughing in anticipation of some mid-winter fun.

The sunken bed of the road, boulder strewn, gives a trough-like effect as the bowed centerline curves gracefully up to the tops of the walls. It would be rough passage now for anything on wheels, although the deer and wild turkeys traverse it with ease. During warmer months, graceful ferns unfurl and feather within its borders and the occasional foxglove will send up a startling spire of purple blossoms.

The lawn ends at a retaining wall tangled with forsythia, day lilies and golden rod that slopes to the entrance of the old road. Sometimes I perch on the steps from the back door to the yard, listening to the summer bugs, basking in the sun’s golden warmth and dreaming of sipping tea beneath the overhang of a porch.

We have made our way gradually toward this construction along the side of our sheds, but even so modest a project seems to involve many steps when it’s a Sylvestro plan. First we dragged our feet, watching for signs from the aging apple tree as to when her demise might be planned appropriately. Once the tree came down, there were permits to be acquired, necessitating a survey of the yard. Former Dave projects, a lean- to for the lawnmower and a “firewood condo”, once sources of weeks of labor and proud show-and-tell, now required demolition. Of course, the new shed roof that Dave and I installed together five years ago was also destined for the scrap heap.

The next step was to empty the shed that would support the porch and its roof. This would have been a daunting task under any circumstances due to the fact that we’d not done a thorough cleaning since we moved here. Further, at the risk of appearing slovenly, I confess that we’d had a little rat problem this winter that had exacerbated the mess in the shed. Oh yes, Rats.

I used to love watching the cardinals, titmice and chickadees darting about the feeder hung on the lilac just outside the kitchen window. We had recycled our sturdy plastic kitty litter containers to hold the loose bird seed stored conveniently in the shed. I loved the job of filling the feeders in winter. Pulling on my LL Beans boots and tromping through the snow carrying the bucket of seed, I pictured myself kinswoman to the farmers of old, making their way out to the barn, tending to chores. We were not, however, aware of feeding an additional, less charming, wildlife species until we discovered holes the size of silver dollars gnawed through those seemingly invulnerable plastic bins. *Shudder* I’d had no idea how rapacious rats could be.

We had never seen the rats and we made every effort to convince ourselves that these were only mice. When entering the shed, however, we would approach with caution, knocking threateningly before setting foot inside. On several occasions, we sent in our feline guard on reconnaissance, but they were wary and unenthusiastic about this place that had once been a favorite play area. Later, the exterminator confided that cats do not like rats. Whole different ballgame from mice. Well, there you go. Good judgment.

One day, Dave went to the shed to fetch a tool, entering only after the required knocking ritual. Upon turning to leave, he came eyes to whisker with a rat quivering above the door lintel. Oh. My. God. With this, and the rats’ growing appetite for anything housed in the shed - coolers, life vests, rugs, bottles of motor oil (!?), we realized that co-existence was not a possibility. We needed professional help.

We established contact via the yellow pages and were given the common sense instruction to remove all primary food sources. You would think we would have thought of that for ourselves, but no. The bird seed moved inside the house and sadly, the feeders on the lilac were banished to the foot of the yard. This had the immediate effect of forcing our vermin friends into plain sight. We were treated to the unnerving spectacle of four adult rats - eight inches or so in length, not counting the tails - and seven babies, all vying and squirming for fallen bird seed at the foot of the lilac, right under the kitchen window. *Shudder* again.

Our new guru, Brian the exterminator, had the wild-eyed glint of one who did battle with rats on a regular basis. Like some old man of the sea weaving tales of legendary fish, he told us stories of wily creatures with gimlet eyes who had mocked him, showing uncanny cunning in eluding him during past engagements. He stood at the kitchen window with us, watching the roiling tumble of sleek bodies and slithering whip-like tails of our rat family.

“Don’t you resent them?” he snapped accusingly. “Look at them! They’ve destroyed your belongings and befouled your shed! It stinks in there!”

It was true. We hung our heads in shame. We had let it go too far. Pushed around by a pack of bully rats.

Well, enough of that. Our uniformed emissary set out three formidable black bait traps, anchored them to the shed and tree with ropes of wire cord and padlocked them shut. No one but rats was going into these babies. Task accomplished, Brian handed over the keys and turned to go.

“Uh, wait. Are you going to come check them? Pick up the traps or something?” I said.

“Well, I will if you want me to; it’s really not necessary.”

Again I faltered sheepishly, “Will the rats die inside the traps?”

“No, usually not.”

“Well, do they head for water?”

Brian got a kick out of that. “That’s what other guys’ll tell you, because of course, that’s a comforting concept. But no, they’ll probably die under the house somewhere...”

He was right. Those rats had us coming and going. For months we tried to mask the stench with pans of absorbent charcoal and fragrant red candles of cinnamon scent set strategically around the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. Oh yes, those rats were calling the shots even from the grave.

Which brings me back to my original point; clearing the shed. Preparation for porch construction was the incentive required to attack the build-up of thirteen years. There was now the added impetus of removing hidden nests, gnawed baskets and spewing bags of soil rent by ratty teeth - a host of forgotten detritus now made repulsive by our former tenants.

I approached the task with surprising gusto, my willingness to dispose of items squirreled up through the years made far easier by the taint of rat occupancy. Expansive black garbage bags swelled like balloons to maximum capacity as they received unmatched gloves, unused foil pans, endless bottles wistfully saved for Dave’s homemade wine, and a bag of solidified concrete mix. Out! Out! Out!

Purging provides a gratifying sense of order. After cleaning a closet - or a shed, for example - I squire tolerant visitors in for a look, so great is my sense of satisfaction. Surely the aura of “everything is in its place in my shed, and all is right with the world” is palpable to all who go there.

It took three days, but the area so recently choked with years of debris, mingled with (dare I say it) rat droppings, was finally emptied. Let the porch construction begin!

On a Sunday

2009-02-17T15:19:00.000-08:00

“O-HO!!” Dave hoots, fists clenched on arms upraised. Leaping back from his post at the ironing board, he dances tribute to the Patriots’ lead over the Rangers. In a moment he sweeps the phone from its cradle, calling his father with a smug grin, “How ‘bout those Patriots?!” he says and the two celebrate across the miles.

The sports announcers murmur in the background as Dave and his father banter, grousing and howling as plays unfold. Dave treasures the knowledge that his father is settled in his mustard yellow recliner in his Worcester apartment on Harley Drive, intent on the screen, there to receive that reflex call, there to fire back and bluster.

Dave may be ironing, but I’m still in bed, reading, the remains of breakfast, a crust of toast from Dave’s home-made cinammon bread, set aside on a blue splotchware plate. Our cats are snuggled beside me, Fuzz shamelessly angling for space and attention, Raven, imperious, gazing at me levelly with unblinking yellow eyes.

The day outside is brightening as sunshine whittles at snow lying heavy on low-hanging limbs. Shadows lengthen across the yard down to the woods edge bordered by the old stone wall. Dave beckons me to the window to see the tracks in the snow, trails speaking of the early morning search for scattered seed. The intrigue of survival is dramatically captured where the splayed imprint of a hawk’s wing puts an end to a scamper of squirrel tracks.

* * *

It is late afternoon and Dave and his brother Steve are playing music in the cellar; “Born to be Wild” thunders through the floorboards. We can feel the electric hum of the keyboard behind the guitars as the boys do their rock star thing while Casey and I sit in front of the fire running lines for Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” Casey is making headbands as she responds to her cues, and Fuzz lies toasty warm against my leg.

We skip over the parts for the daughter, Emily, as our goal is to practise Casey as Mrs. Gibbs, but my eye stops at Emily’s impassioned, “Oh Earth, you’re too wonderful for anyone to realize you! Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it - every, every minute?” I yearn to say, “Yes... yes, I do,” but would that be honest? It takes constant effort to be fully concious and too often I take life’s gifts for granted.

I spend these wintry Sunday afternoons happily reading, rug-hooking, or running lines, while the boys slip into their youthful skins to banter, sing and play. I love the sound of their time together - they are realizing life as they wail away in our basement.

On this particular day, I relish the cheer of the fire crackling, radiating its light and warmth. Casey, industrious in her hairband production, sits ensconced in the wingback chair next to the fire. Raven has joined us and rouses her brother from his nap with a gentle lick to the nose. She slinks about, scouting a nesting place and curls, shining ebony, in the antique wood box by the wingback.

Casey leans close to her sewing, intent as she draws the thread through a length of yellow gingham. Periodically she wraps the piece about her forehead, trying it for size. There’s a pause in the rhythms emanating from the basement. “So Glad We Made It” just ended in a resounding crash of cymbals not entirely in keeping with our peace upstairs, but the exuberance makes us smile.

Raven abandons her nest to curl up with her brother on the couch next to me. They seem to love each other as much as human siblings do. They snuggle up, Raven’s head on Fuzz’s shoulder, their sides rising and falling with each gentle intake of breath.

I have tried to freeze these precious moments, but despite my best efforts, the kids have grown and Dave and I have aged. But I am warm and content as the house grows dark. The embers in our cavernous stone fireplace glow and pulse as if alive, the embodiment of heart.

Just a Memory

2009-02-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Ahhh - the furnace roars as it thrums to life, promising warmth in our notoriously cold house. While we have our choice of comfortable upholstered chairs, like street people, the cats and I each claim a spot on a heating vent. Raven, our black cat, stretches languorously, curling on the floor in the kitchen. Her gray-striped brother, Fuzz, snuggles against the wall in the corner behind a rocking chair. With a mug of tea in one hand and a draft of my will in the other, I opt to settle on a floor vent in the den.

It is an afternoon in early January, only 4:00 PM, but dusky. The Christmas tree seems to glow sepia, for all its bright red and green, as nostalgic as a family photograph. Outside, a snowstorm slows all motion, wrapping us in the buffer of its cocoon.

I smooth the sheets of the will over the aged oaken floorboards beside me, imagining a future gathering around a table of high polish in some lawyer’s office. I scan the opening line, “I, Eleanor Ingersoll Sylvestro…” and to my surprise, I burst into tears. This pronouncement of my name seems so formal, so final. I don’t fear death. If anything, in my image of the hereafter, my grandparents wait for me on a comfy overstuffed couch as I stagger across the threshold. They cry “Welcome home! Have a cup of tea!” as I flump down next to them, exhausted by life. But still, to think of myself as a memory?

What will my kids remember of me? Making “Happy Winter Fudge Cake” on the first snowy day? Crafting wreaths of bittersweet vines in the fall? Cuddling on their beds with a story at bedtime? Or reminding them endlessly to clean their rooms and write thank-you notes?

With so many incidents lost to memory, I wonder about the selection process that results in those that last. Of my own childhood, I remember such odd snippets as studying a dead bumblebee on a dusty window while posing for a portrait, sitting on my grandfather’s lap as he spun stories of “Dear Johnny,” and my grandmother, Byeo, buffing my nails. What holds these vignettes in my mental album while others more momentous drift away?

What will remain of me?

The shelves of my closet hold stacks and stacks of journals, the venting and blathering of forty-some years: Lea at her best and her worst. I’ve also made quilts, Santas and hooked rugs that should survive the next hundred years. While I love the idea of some future somebody saying, “Oh my great-grandmother made that,” it’s near impossible to think of myself as a hazy known-but-not-known person long past.

And I wonder about the effects of my actions, the ripples caused by every word and deed.

As I read the will, I put question marks next to term after term: “hereinbefore,” “per stirpes” and “discretionary powers.” I shake my head at the legal lingo. Would this document be rendered powerless if normal people could understand it? I hope those gathered around the conference table will be guided solicitously through these nearly incomprehensible provisions.

As I sit on my vent soothed by the warmth of the thundering furnace, the muffling caress of the snowy eve and my two purring cats, I feel more at ease with this plan for a future I won’t share. I review my questions for the lawyer and sip my tea.

Love Works

2009-01-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

It has taken a multitude of tutorials in happiness, but I have emerged smiling from a swamp of sadness. I probably could have used therapy, but thirty years of marriage to a psychologist and a library of self-help books have kept me afloat. Still, when I have been particularly irrational or anxious, my husband Dave has observed, “So much for all of those self-help books.” He doesn’t understand that the woman he lives with is the self-help-sustained-Lea. He can’t even begin to imagine what Lea-on-her-own would be like.

What a nice change to feel buoyant. I wonder suspiciously (I am, after all, still me), if this is another hormone spike paving the way for a menopausal salvo of gloom. “No! No! No!” chirps my new happy self. “You are older, you’ve gained perspective and perhaps a little wisdom of your own.” Maybe Midwife Menopause has sprung me from my mope-y, uncertain chrysalis and I am reborn.

There have been irretrievable casualties along the way. My memory is shot. I am a list and “message-to-self” junkie. Even with these aids, a thought not immediately transcribed to some objective safe-house – a calendar, the computer, a message machine - runs the high probability of loss to the ether. There are so many words poised, beyond reach, on the tip of my tongue that it is a wonder that their weight doesn’t render me speechless. A trip to the store for spinach may reap three bags of groceries, but no spinach. A friend’s birthday card is returned in the mail marked “insufficient address.” Insufficient? I’d omitted her name and address.

I know I’m not alone in this. It’s practically a ritual of sisterhood among women my age to exchange similar stories, poo-pooing Alzheimers fears, blaming lapses on busy lives and brain-spilling details. As I returned to pick up the groceries I’d left at her station the other day, the cashier at Shaws assured me, “Dearie, you’ve just got too much on your mind.”

One February morning, I invited Doug and Robin, two fellow members of the Conservation Commission, to our house to hash out wording for a land acquisition ordinance. As we sat in the dining room, quietly talking and taking notes, our meeting was interrupted by the jangle of the phone. It was a blasé dispatcher informing me that my scheduled furnace cleaning was in jeopardy due to lack of parking along our snowy street.

Scheduled cleaning?

With the phone receiver wedged between my head and shoulder, I checked the calendar. Yes, “Furnace cleaning” was right there for this date. We’ll skip over my crisis of confidence in realizing that even calendar documentation of appointments was an inadequate prod for my feeble memory. I scurried out into the five-degree day, hat-less, glove-less, and coat-less, to greet the Wilson Fuel man and solve his parking woes.

He sat scowling in his van as I leapt into my car and shifted into reverse, pulling the car back to create space for him to park. I walked over to his window and gestured toward the clearing.

“That’s not gonna do it,” he snarled.

I hugged myself to ward off the cold and the hostile vibes, fluttering helplessly for good measure. The Wilson man climbed out of his vehicle and stood with feet planted unforgivingly, his solid form encased in navy sweats well-marinated in oil. “I’ll shovel more space for you,” I suggested.
.
“It’s not gonna help and if the van gets hit by a passing car, you’re responsible. ”

“Let me try.”

I pictured Doug and Robin nibbling wedges of provolone on Carr’s delectable rosemary crackers before a toasty fire in my dining room. I thrust, lifted and pitched great chunks of snow, all the while interspersing silent, teeth-gritted, name-calling with the satisfying image of my bitter call of complaint to Wilson headquarters about this surly worker.

I stood aside to allow the filthy white van maneuver room, and massaged the ache in my lower back. Inexplicably, a self-help mantra from author Wayne Dyer pried it’s way into my pinched heart. “Be love. Be kind.”

Hmm. Be love. Be kind. Let’s see what I’m made of.

“You must have had a long day,” I offered ingratiatingly. I left out the “that would explain why you’re being such a jerk,” part.

“I didn’t want to come on this job,” griped the Wilson man. “It’s late, but they made me come anyway.”

“Let me make you a cup of tea…” I purred.

“No, no, I’m fine. Listen, I didn’t mean to make you do that shoveling.”

“Oh, that’s all right." [Miss Pollyanna!] "How about chocolate? Surely you won’t pass up chocolate!”

With a laugh, he shook his head, “No, really, I’m fine. It’s just that I worked for twenty-one hours yesterday and all day today. I’m tired.” He held out his hand. “My name’s Theo.”

Melting, melting…both of us softening. Inspired by who knows what playful god, I gave the man a hug.

“I’m going to make you tea and chocolates!” I exclaimed and with springy steps, marched inside to prepare restoratives for my exhausted new friend.

Theo went down to attend to the furnace while I finished the meeting with Doug and Robin. I relished a few Carr’s rosemary crackers myself. Periodically, I ran down to our dark, low-ceilinged, hell-of-a-1700’s-basement to share a laugh and words of commiseration with Theo. As he kneeled on the grimy floor collecting soot from our furnace, he said, “I feel better already. I’m glad that you were in a good mood.”

We parted that night with the greatest congeniality – and I was left with stunning proof that love works. It’s not a cliché. It’s not trite. It’s true. Love is a powerful force and it changes everything.

Now, if I can just remember to apply the lesson...