8 lbs. on the dot...

October 19, 2011

My niece, your cousin, had a baby boy today. 

“8 lbs. on the dot…20.75 inches.” Your Aunt Linda texted me.

Just minutes before, on my way home from work, I talked to Linda.  After a full day at the hospital, she was headed home to rest.  Hospitals are exhausting.  All that waiting.  I called her, wanting to know if I could come be with her at St. Pete’s.  St. Pete’s where I sat alone with you many days and nights while doctors ran their tests, pumped you full of drugs, probed your body and argued over whether you had Lyme disease, MS or lupus.  It could not be Lyme disease, they reasoned with no scientific evidence, it has to be MS or Lupus.  When you and argued with them, they got angry.  Pulled the iv’s, stopped the tests, gave you release forms, and sent you home.

I am thinking of my niece.  Of being a parent.  Of all that means.  I want to call her and tell her to breathe deeply the scents of this baby, fresh from inside her.  To enjoy those first minutes when her baby will ask nothing of her, as he shakes off the transition from amniotic fluid to the warmed air room,  as he acclimates to the feel of her skin against his.  Those moments before his stomach rumbles, creating his first intense unpleasant feelings of wanting, needing, demanding that will grow as he does. 

I would give anything to be in that moment again with you.

I drop my purse and coat at the front door, let Sadie out in the back yard.  Stella wants dinner.  She gets a can of Fancy Feast.  As I put it in her bowl, she purrs. Sadie gets a can of Chef Boyardee Mini Raviolis.  I am not hungry.  My body feel like it has been beaten with a bat, like I was thrown from a car going 60 miles an hour.  It is all I can do to climb the stairs, pull back the down comforter and close my eyes. 

The sweet release of sleep.

Be seeing you.

                                          Love,

                                          Mom  

 

Perpective

October 15, 2011

Good Morning Andrea,

My stuff is all packed.  The cooler, the picnic basket, the books I brought to read, Sadie’s blanket--are all waiting on the screened in porch to be placed like puzzle pieces in the back of the Subaru.

I should be sad to leave.  I am not.  I am grateful for this six days here at the Writer’s Refuge on Whidbey Island.  I am looking forward to coming back.  I am looking forward to going home.

Yesterday Sadie and I went back to Double Bluff Beach.  This time I brought my backpack and packed a picnic.  As my feet left the pavement and hit the sand, my cell phone let me know I had a text message.  Earlier in the morning, I had texted Steve I was headed to the beach after noon.

“Hope your walk is good today.  Something about beaches…the wide expanse adjusts your perspective.”

I texted back, “That is where I am now.  Abt two miles fm car.  Pockets full of shells and rocks.”

“Pick out the best handful and leave the rest for others to enjoy.”  He wrote.

“K”  I answer.  I see a sand dollar lying on seaweed.  I am a woman with riches beyond measure.

I answer to no one here.  I am judged only by myself.  I will fill my pockets until they are overflowing. When they are full, I have my backpack.  This wide expanse of beach invites possibilities.

I do not know how far I walked.  There was no map, no itinerary, no clock.  There was only the tide changing, coming in. 

“Be careful of the tide.  It can strand you on the other side of the bluff.  The bluff is steep—cannot be climbed,” a sign at the entrance to the beach cautioned. 

I am all too familiar with being stranded.  Being closed in by tides of feeling, unable to climb or swim to get back home, I simply wait.  The tide will go back out again.  As it does, I sit on a piece of driftwood, and listen to shells being ground to sand, cockles growing hidden in bits of seaweed, dying rock crabs.  I let the wind and salt hour scour my cheeks and the tip of my nose until they feel like a layer has been abraded.  But I will not be stranded here today.  I am mindful of  when to expect high and low tide.

This pocket full of shells and rocks comes with me now.  A reminder.  When I get home, I will but them in a bowl and set them on the table.  They are the souvenirs of solitude I take with me from this place.

I wanted to see what was on the other side of the bluff.  More beach.  Miles of it.  It felt like if I kept going, I could walk the circumference of the island.  There would be another bluff that calls me out to see what lies on the other side.

Sadie and I sat on the beach and shared crackers and tuna fish.  I did not want hunger to limit how far I walked this day.  The only limitation I would accept, is the one I put on myself.  I would leave this sand and water when I was ready.  And only when I was ready.

Two hours later I turned around.  On the way out, I walked along the tide pools.  Tiptoed around small anemones.  Was careful not disturb the periwinkles stuck to bits of rocks and seaweed.  Counted mussels until I lost interest in that.  I picked up bits of clay, crumbled them, wet them with seawater and made a small bowl.  Then left it at the water’s edge, an offering of what, I do not know. 

On the way back I traced the lines of seaweed washed ashore.  It was full of dead rock crabs, bits of empty shells, a couple of dead Lion’s Mane jellyfish looking like congealed globs of blood, a dead fish, and what looked like a dead baby sea lion with the placenta still attached. 

In the midst of all of that, another sand dollar.

I need a shower now.  I have to check out of here by noon. 

The back of my car is full of sand.  My pockets are filled with shells.  My heart is still again.

Refuge.  Retreat.  Regenerate.

This is something new.

                                        I love you Andie,

                                        Mom

Double Bluff Beach

October 13, 2011

Sadie and I are back from the beach. 

I cannot believe all the money I have spent in travel dollars with this piece of paradise in my backyard.  The tide was out.  The sun was out.  The few people on Double Bluff beach were walking along the tide line with no shoes on.  It is October.  The wind was blowing and I would have been uncomfortable without a coat.  With curiosity I watched a grown man, in black wool dress pants, roll them up, take off his socks and loafers and walk out into the surf.  He did not flinch from the cold.  He must have sensed me staring at him, because he turned to me and smiled.  Sadie ran to him at full speed and I was afraid she was going to jump on his nice clothes.  I called her back and walked away.

The beach is dotted with driftwood shelters that give way to steep clay cliffs.  Chunks of clay, no bigger than a teardrop to as big as a Volkswagon bug scatter the beach. Picking some up, it crumbles under too much pressure.  It feels good to crumble it in my hands.  Always surveying the sand and rock landscape at my feet, I find the remains of rock crabs, a huge crab claw, scallop shells, whelks and giant moon snail shells--all unoccupied.  The ones that still had tenants remain on the beach.

While Sadie chased the surf out and back, I walked close to the water, letting each foot sink slowly until the ground compressed beneath it and gave no more.  It was unsettling at first, to have each foot sink until I got the feel for it and did not fight it. Almost like an earthquake, when the ground moves on its own accord.  Or life.

People bring their dogs to Double Bluff beach.  While the humans walked past each other, each engrossed in their own musings, the dogs greet each other enthusiastically. They play until their owners move uncomfortably away and there is danger of separation. 

I think that if they could, they would yell. “Wait.  Wait.  We want to visit more.” 

Each time, I stop to let Sadie play as long as she wants.  To follow the dog and its owner down the beach, me trailing behind looking for shells.  Me listening to the water speaking in a thousand tongues.  I do not have to understand anything.  I can just be.

You would love it here.  I feel it. I smell it.  I taste it.  I hear it.  My sailor girl.   

It is Thursday.  I am trying to stay in the moment.  I am trying not to think about reentry to my life on Saturday.  I should have taken more time for this indulgence in solitude. 

Until next time.

                                    Love,
                                    Mom

     

Volkswagon

October 13, 2011

Good Morning Andrea,

          The weather report last night predicted “Mostly sunny after widespread morning fog.”  I woke up this morning expecting to be wrapped in a gauzy world.  Instead, the sun’s fingers reached through the window and laid across my cheek like a warm caress. 

          The trees are still this morning.  Or so it seems.  Watching closely I catch a lone leaf move gracefully.  As if choreographed, other leaves join its movement, each in their own time.  This green leaf dance is as elegant as any ballet as I have ever seen.

          Low tide is at 11:26 a.m.  I looked it up on NOAA.  Just Googled “Langley, WA low tide.”  It amazes me how I can look up anything on the internet. 

          Like the red jellyfish I found stuck in a puddle at high tide last night.  Googling “red jellyfish” I found it was a Lion’s Mane.  They are native to Puget Sound’s inland waters.  They grow through summer eating other jellyfish and assorted crustaceans.  In late summer they spawn for weeks.  Having lived out a life cycle in a year, they die in late September, early October and wash up along the shore big as basketballs.   There sting is like a bees.

          Sadie loves the beach as much as I do.  She chases the tide out and then back in again.  She doesn’t bark when she is excited.  She  “woo woo woos”.  Sometimes, I wonder how much she remembers.  She cannot talk to me.  I have to read her eyes. 

          When Dean brought your Volkswagon to me, Sadie jumped in.  She looked at me and began sniffing the seats, the stuffed yellow flower in the vase.  She climbed in the back seat and laid on the bed you had for her there.  Everything in the car was as you’d left it.  I let Sadie have her moment in the backseat.  I could not join her, overwhelmed with my own memories.

          Taken back to Norfolk, Virginia. 

          In October, 2003 you became an able bodied sea woman with Military Sea Lift Command.  Your home base was Norfolk.  I flew out to see you that spring, when you came back from your first months at sea.  It was late when I arrived. 

          In the darkness, I was not able to fully appreciate the seediness of the motel you were housed at.  This was MSC’s official motel for all personnel that did not have a home in Norfolk.  All night long my sleep was interrupted by the click clacking of  hooker’s high heels as they strutted up and down the concrete walk way in front of your room.  I could hear them knocking on doors, the sounds of negotiation, and then furtive rumblings and drunken laughter in the rooms on either side of us.  Shore leave.

          At breakfast the next morning, I announced we were getting you a car.  We spent the day on auto row test driving Jetta’s.  Until the last lot we went we went to.  There sat a silver slug bug.  We both looked at each other. 

“Oh my God mom.  What do you think?” 

The price was right. Two hours later you got behind the wheel, your name on the registration, and drove it back to the motel.  The next time you came to port, you would have options where you lived.

          Slugbugsilver was your email name after that. 

          Sadie went with you everywhere in that car. 

          Does she remember?  I was certain, as I watched her sitting in the back seat she is remembering something.  I left her to her memories for awhile, but then it was time to move on. 

          I coaxed her out of the back seat, she looked at me with sad round brown eyes. 

          “I know.”  I told her scratching behind her ears.

          “I know.”

                                      Love you-

                                       Mom

                   

Refuge

October 12, 2011

Refuge (n):  1: shelter or protection from danger or distress  2:  a place that provides shelter or protection  3:  something to which one has recourse to in difficulty

Refuge (v):  1:  to give refuge to  2:  to seek or take  refuge

I seek and take shelter, in this 15 x 15 one room cabin, to give refuge to myself.  I seek that thing that I have recourse to in difficulty.  

  

Memories of you flicker across a wide screen only I can see.  Each scene chooses its own moment.  There is no director.  There is no soundtrack.  These films are silent.  Relentless.   Haunting.

The second anniversary of your death has come and gone.  I am a refugee in flight, seeking the power to escape the magnitude of your death. 

As if I could. 

Whatever thing I had recourse to in difficulty before you died, fails miserably now.

I am undone.

Retreat (n):  to withdraw; an act or process of withdrawing from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable.

A full retreat is not possible.  There are too many responsibilities that propel me through each day.  A full retreat takes an energy I do not possess.  A break from reality that is too cavernous.  Having no sense of balance, at the precipice, I would slip and fall.  I keep my distance from the edge.  I am respectful of the danger there.

Partial retreat is all I can afford.  Trying to accept all your death means, is difficult, dangerous and disagreeable.  Withdrawal is often the only option.  Walls are built and guarded ferociously.  I should include windows, but when I am building, I did not want to look out.  The winter landscape bears no promises.

Waking every morning with only time to shower, dress, and brew a pot of coffee, I make no time for anything.  The ten minutes from my house to the office, and the ten minutes home are the two most dangerous times of day.  I want to call you.  See what you have planned for your day.   See how your day went.  I think of walking to Barsamian’s in Cambridge, with you skipping alongside me, all energy, your words trying to express your thoughts.  I wish I could remember one thing we talked about then.   I see you meeting me for lunch at Anthony’s and laughing.  I wish I could remember what was so funny then.    

All my energy is spent trying to forget why I cannot call you.  Why you cannot meet me at the Oyster House for lunch. 

When I get home, I eat until I feel the pain of eating too much.  I focus on that, withdrawing from what is difficult, dangerous and disagreeable.  Physical pain, I understand.   That I can bear.

Respite (n) 1:  a period of temporary delay  2:  an interval of rest or relief.

I came to this refuge early Sunday evening.  Seeking respite.  It is Wednesday now.  I have wrapped myself in the down comforter here, waking only enough to relieve myself, eat, drink a cup of tea, and take Sadie out to potty.  She has been content to lay her back against mine, though she much prefers sleeping in the crescent formed by my chest and thighs.   This morning was my first shower.  I am still enjoying the scent of shampoo and soap.  The clock ticks, ticks, ticks.  Leaves dance foolishly, but gracefully in the last rays of sunlight.  Even as the tips of some leaves are turning yellow, orange, red, they seem oblivious to the silent stealing of their green.  In a month these trees will be bare. 

I wonder if the trees will grieve openly.  Or if they will bear their sorrow stoically, waiting for spring.

Wrapped in that down comforter, surfing from one dream state to the next, I find some respite.  Memories do not come unbidden.  They wait politely, for their turn.  I have trouble choosing and fall back asleep.  I tell myself, “You will wake up when you are ready.”

“And only when you are ready.”

This morning, I took a package of meat from the freezer.  I will make myself a meal tonight.  Pork chops, mashed carrots, sautéed kale with garlic, shallots and pine nuts.  I will set the table, as if I am expecting an honored guest.  I will eat slowly, savoring each bite as I watch for the moon to claim residence in the night sky.

It is 1:00.  I answered emails from six weeks ago.  Checked Facebook.  Watched an episode of The Amazing Race on hulu.  I accepted that you were not here to call and talk about the show and what we thought of each contestant.—which ones we were rooting for and which ones we wanted off the show.  I accepted that I can miss you and it will not destroy me. 

Regenerate (v) 1:   to become formed again  2:  to undergo regeneration; to change radically and for the better.

Regeneration (n)  renewal of a body, bodily part, or biological system after injury or as a normal process.

From this refuge, this retreat, this respite—I seek the beginnings of regeneration.  

You have changed me.  Your death has changed me.

  

I am trying to form again. 

I hope it will be for the better.

                              You are always in my thoughts—Love

                               Mom.

P.S.  Got carried away with the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary—Eleventh Edition .

August 24, 2011

Hey You

Crickets try to hypnotize me as I sit here, a cool breeze coming from the patio door. 

I am getting better at sitting with myself.  Alone.  Absorbing the moment.  Slowing down.  It is hard for me.  My muscles are tired, running from my feelings.  I need to catch up with myself.

And what better place than in this space I have created myself.  My woman cave.  You would love it here. 

A remnant of a dream.   “Mom, you will love it here.  The colors are amazing when the winds blow.”

I haven’t seen you in awhile.

Last night I dreamed you.

At 6 a.m., not ready to leave thatworld where dreams take place, I reached over hitting the alarm button.  Off.

To be with you again. 

I cried out. 

I was lost.  I was alone.  I was panic stricken.  On a tour in a foreign county I got left behind.  With no luggage, no purse, no i.d., no money.  Nothing to define me.  To prove to anyone who I was.  I could not go anywhere.  I had nowhere to go.  The harder I fought it, the more panicked I became.  I was shouting at everyone, and no one.  I was screaming fiercely from a primal place.

My voice was getting hoarse.  Nobody understood me.  So they got angry.  The angrier they became, the more I screamed back at them.  I only wanted them to hear me.  Finally, I understood.  I was defeated.  In that moment, I felt you. 

The warmth of you around me. 

I dissolved.  Every nerve released.  You touched my shoulders, pulled me around so I could see that it was you. 

“I will take care of you,” you said, “ I am with you.”

And you were.  Everywhere.

How could I wake up from that?

I did not want to. 

I settled for just another hour with you. 

Then just like every morning, I got up with echoes of you inside of me. 

There are so instructions for this.  No self help books.  Nothing to describe the private hell of this. 

I was going to conquer my grief like I have conquered every other shit hole deal that came my way.  But I have been humbled, conquered by your absolute absence. 

There are no stages to my grief.  It has been a constant not wanting to accept this--because I cannot absorb it.

I whisper as I type these words, “Andrea.  I wish you were here with me.”

I stop and wait for the next sentence to form.  An answer.  The curser blinks, blinks, blinks.  Like a foot tap tapping impatiently.  I tell it wait.    

You have  passed through me. 

You have passed away from me.

Now.  You are with me.

                                    Love,

                                     Mom

Yard Sale

August 21, 2011

Finally, a weekend of summer.  This has been the coldest since  1910.

The blueberries are fat and full of sugar from this long cool summer.  I bought a flat today from a farm stand, and peaches warm sitting in the sun.  I ate a bowl of those peaches, blueberries, yogurt and almonds for dinner while I wrote this letter to you.

The storage unit is almost empty.  All day Friday I pulled boxes out into the sun.  Sorted, spread their contents into  piles on the grass.  In the boxes were the final remaining tangible memories of your childhood I had yet to unpack.

These boxes have been haunting me.  Weighing me down.  In these past few days, after cleaning out, organizing the garage, I have felt that it was time.  Time to let the boxes, and whatever was inside of them, go. 

Pencils, pens, calculators, the lamp that sat on your desk.  Bedding, the throw pillows you had on your bed.  A set of fairy pictures for your bedroom.  The rubber ducky shower curtain, soap dish, toothbrush holder.  Towels with rubber duckies embroidered on them.  And rubber duckies.  Kitchen stuff we shopped together for, when you found your first apartment.  A note from Ingrid that your rent check bounced and you needed to get ahold of her.  Beanie Babies and stuffed animals, include a talking Rosie  O’Donnell doll (you had quite the collection of magazines with Rosie stories). Photography equipment, negatives and pictures that you took.  Christmas decorations.  A Monopoly game, a slumber party game and Outburst Jr.  Sports equipment.  Papers, cards.  A note from Megan she was having a party.  Please come.  Your resume.   

Yesterday, Steve’s daughter had a yard sale.  She texted me earlier in the week, inviting me to bring whatever I wanted to sell.  I took her up on her invitation.  In front of her house, Steve built tables with saw horses, an old door and some lumber we scavenged from the construction site near my house.   The tables spanned the width of her lot. 

I unpacked all the stuff I sorted and had repacked the night before, laid it out on the tables.  All day long the cars came.  A young woman furnishing her first apartment showed up as soon as we unpacked.  She bought the two metal chairs you and I purchased at Pier One for your first dining room.  She is using your old black trunk for a coffee table. 

I told her “These were my daughter’s for her first apartment,” as I helped her fit the chairs and trunk into her SUV. 

“Oh yeah?” She showed me a little cart she bought at a yard sale earlier in the morning. 

“Enjoy.”  I told her as I turned away and walked back to the tables.

A little girl came with her mother.  She grabbed the black velveteen sombrero with the silver cords. 

“Look Mommy.  Can I have it?”  She asked.

“No.  Not today.”  Her mom answered.

The little girl hung her head. 

“If it is ok with you, I will give it to her.  She can have it.”  I told the mother. 

I saw you at the little carnival in Juarez two-years-old.  Your dad put that hat on you and decided you needed to have it.  When we got home, you walked around naked in our apartment with nothing but that hat on. Brown curls, like this little girls, springing out in every direction.  Your little round belly pooched out. 

The little girl looked up at her mother expectantly. 

“Are you sure?” the mother asked. 

“Absolutely.” I answered smiling at the little girl.

The mother continued shopping while the little girl trailed behind her playing with the chin strap, reaching up to touch the braiding. 

When the mother came up to bargain over your pillows, a set of sheets, the little girl grabbed me around the waist and squeezed. 

“Thank you.”  She said.

“You are welcome.”  I told her as I put my arm on her back.  “You take care of that.  It was my daughter’s when she was a little girl.”

All day long, as strangers came to dicker over the prices on golf balls, kitchen ware, your baseball glove, Steve watched over me.   I’d feel him come up behind me , lean in and ask me quietly, “How you doin’ Sugar?” 

I would answer, “I’m ok.”  And I wasn’t lying.  I was accepting this.  Saying goodbye, a set of measuring cups, a toaster, an empty frame at a time.

All the stuff in boxes is mostly gone now.   Alot went in the yard sale.  The rest I took to the Goodwill.  All of it becoming someone else’s--imbued with their memories.  Freed from mine.

There are a few things I have kept to look at later.  Or put out somewhere that I can see .  When I am ready.

This morning, Steve brought me coffee at 7 a.m. 

“Good morning.”  He greeted me as he opened the blinds, drew back the white sheer curtains to show me sunshine.  “Let’s get going before it gets too hot.”

We had decided to finish cleaning out the recycling, the garbage and bring home the furniture so the storage unit could be closed out. 

All morning long, as the sun tracked the southeastern sky traveling west, we finished looking through boxes of papers.   Finished sorting and piling—Goodwill, recycle, garbage.  There are two banker boxes of papers, a dresser, a nightstand, and a shelving unit to bring home still.  Steve’s truck is full.  He will take care of its contents tomorrow morning.

When we finished, we were both covered in dirt and sweat. 

He had a gallon jug of water.  “Are you hot?”  He asked me.

“Totally.”  I answered.  I picked up my supersize Jack in the Box plastic cup of iced tea. 

He splashed my chest with water from the gallon jug.

“EEEEEEE!”  I screamed, first in shock at the cold splashed down the front of my shirt.  Then because it was refreshing.  Steve looked at me, gauging my response. 

“Game on.”  I laughed as I splashed him with cold tea.  By the time we were finished, our chests were soaked. 

As I sit here, typing tonight, Sadie is laying by my chair chewing on a bone.  Stella is asleep under the lamp next to me on the desk.  Steve is sleeping soundly in my bed. 

I need to go up to him now.  To quietly rest my back against the curve of his stomach.  He will wrap an arm around me, pull me closer.  

"Mmmm.  Where you been?"

"Writing." I will answer.

"You o.k.?"  He will ask.

"Mmmm."  I will answer.

My breath will synch with his as he falls back asleep.   

He is here for me.  

And I am here for him.

                                              Love,

                                               Mom