The space in between

Have you ever noticed that in writing, the parentheses often bookends the interesting details, the context, the stuff that makes the sentences rich?

I’ve been thinking about parentheses recently. I’ve been thinking about my life recently too. I’ve been thinking about this upside-down world and how to find the parentheses (the tranquil, quiet minutes and the loud, glorious moments)—the things that capture who we are amidst the now.

Friends and family voice fear, confusion, frustration, grief.  Time is lost as we watch the supposed-to-be  moments floating away like clouds. We are all talking about the hurt. Some louder than others. Yet it all whispers pain.

.

But smiling, shiny moments upstage the rest. Babies born. Children playing outside.  Families playing games. People locking arms for change. Kindness to strangers. Facetime wine dates. Intimate weddings. Neighbors acting like neighbors. Sigh-worthy rainbows.

I don’t know why things happen. (It seems random but not). If I listen too hard the cognitive dissonance behind my eyes is blinding so I focus on small things. Swinging on my porch watching the trees. Reaching for the book of poetry beside my bed. Morning coffee in the shower. Laughter with my son. Dreams with my daughter. Text messages with my mom. Bellowing rainstorms. A bird hopping onto my hand. (My own love story).

So what is the sentence and what is the parenthesis?  My hope for the people I love is that their paragraphs are not made of stressangerdepressionillnesslonelinessdespair. I want the paragraphs to be the beautiful things we create in our minds and lives. Yes…the painful parentheses are there. But the jarring depth of what is hard brings into focus what we must do to thrive. 

Every sweet breath keeps us alive. Not the dark spaces in-between.

The Oak

Sitting on my front porch steps this morning with coffee cup in hand, I feel the sun beaming on my shoulders as I look over the wooden round rising out of the grass. For years I held a mug or a glass of wine as I’d slip out onto these steps, as kids settled down, sneaking a conversation with you-- moonlight and leafy shadows against my face.

When I moved into my home 18 years ago, my beautiful oak looked regal to me. But my neighbor walked over, introduced himself, and pointed at the tree “you need to take the trees down. He is not well”. But my tree seemed strong and willful. So I willfully watched my tree through the years.

With hurricane winds he stood straight and strong. With ice storms he braced against the weather, dangling stunning, icy jewels from his branches, saying to me “these are yours” and I was smitten. 

Once a tornado crashed through our street pushing down tree after tree. Mine, however, fought the winds--standing tall amidst the others’ broken, downed branches. The neighbors deemed him Old Faithful.

Every spring I would watch vivid green sprouting from my tree. I’d notice curious squirrels scrambling through halls and splendid cardinals landing upon sills. Yet every year I softly noticed another naked branch standing still.

One year I spoke with an arborist who said the oak was safe if pruned but that it might be smarter to take him down. But I decided to just cut the branches. I wasn’t ready for more. My tree looked a bit bare but he’d still have coffee with me in the mornings and offer tranquil shade.

Over time the branches stopped bearing green and would fall with the rain. My children could no longer play beneath the leaves--the limbs were dangerous for those walking beneath. So I chose to say goodbye to my friend.

This morning I stare at what is left--the stump of my oak. Still beautiful to me with his artful rings of time, love, and  I struggle to remove the last bit of him.

A child walks in front of my home and leaps onto my tree. I call out “please play on it, it will be gone soon”. And the boy grins, gleefully hopping up and down from the wood to the grass and I watch—happy and sad with my beautiful memories of leaves, play, even shadows. And I know it is time to let the grass grow again where the hole will be.

I had 18 years of my tree. I loved this oak with roots deep and strong, seeing the good, committing to what was beautiful and true until the risk outweighed the good.

Understand, this is how I loved you too.

If I could just go back

My sweet, beautiful boy. The swim meet crowd bellows in the background. I watch you on the small platform poised to fly into the water--you hear nothing but the sound of the horn--focused, strong and precise-- you hit the water like an arrow until you surface above the blue.

As a toddler you would pretend to hear nothing as I frantically chased and yelled after you racing toward the water. I knew the potential dangers of backyard ponds, grandparents' pools, even bathtubs--but you, my fearless tadpole, would wriggle free of arms and even watchful eyes. You belonged to the water and it to you.

We enrolled you in the emergency swim classes. You hated being thrashed around in the water this way--pushed and pulled under by your teacher. He tried to give you a healthy fear of the water but once the sessions were over, you simply kicked through the water with a grace that left others wide-eyed.

The tub, the pools, and then the ocean...I could barely keep you from the sea. It called to you over and over...over my voice warning "Joshua, stay here!" If I could just go back to that first moment, that first trip to the beach, and watch you dip your tiny toes into the sea foam, the delight you must have had.

But I don't remember.

I remember your glorious fiery hair and your brilliant blue eyes and your laughter and the smell of your skin. But I missed that moment among the laundry, the packing and unpacking, the doctors' appointments, bills, school, homework, discipline, fighting and the slow distance that grows between a growing boy and his mother.

So I watch you now. And I cheer for you. I see you in the water. And I will remember it all.

Bruce

Bruce is my best friend's father. He passed away a couple of weeks ago. I think he left quietly and peacefully after an incredible life full of meaning and joy even in the face of an awful disease. I know the last years were hard on him...I'm sure they were. Huntington's disease takes everything from a person. Except their impact on everyone around them. This will be celebrated tomorrow.

To me, Bruce was more than my best friend's father. He was like a father to me too. Looking back on how engaged he was with us, how much he planned activities and played--he was an amazing dad to Michelle...and to me. I wish I was as good of a mother as he was a father.

As a teacher he had his summers off. And luckily I got to tag along with him and Michelle. He signed us up for cooking classes, reading contests at the library, Tom Sawyer day camps, diving lessons. He took us swimming and to the park. We went on walks and we got to choose whether it was a junk walk or a nature walk. We'd take a bag--gathering tinfoil, glass and bottle caps for "junk" or nuts, leaves and buckeyes for "nature". These were amazing treasure hunts.

My favorite memory is when he turned a refrigerator box into a clubhouse. In the family garage he laid down scrap carpet and put the box on top. Somehow he created 2 rooms in our clubhouse. He cut out doors and windows. He added a lightbulb through the box ceiling to light up the inside.  He then gave us an enormous bucket of crayons and told us to decorate our house. So we spent days giving it brightness and color. We loved that clubhouse so much.

He loved to make us laugh. I remember him tucking us in during sleepovers. We would have staring contests to see who Bruce could make laugh first. Michelle would usually lose. No one could make her laugh harder than Bruce. Isn't laugher such a beautiful expression of love?

But he wasn't always easy on us. There were times he would catch us being mischievous. I remember one time he walked me home telling me he was disappointed in me. It was awful. On vacation we got caught coming home past curfew once and we were grounded. But we had so much respect for him that these were huge teaching moments. He made us better people.

He was a teacher and a coach at Atherton High School. As a kid I would go to his games but I didn't realize how much he impacted and inspired his team. Now I'm hearing story after story about how he shaped their lives. It's rather awe-inspiring.

As an adult I was in a play and Bruce came by himself to watch the performance. I could hear him laughing in the audience. In retrospect it means so much to me that he wanted to be there to support me.

He also came to my wedding. Michelle was a matron of honor. By that time his symptoms were very prevalent--with Huntingtons your body becomes very jerky. I remember him walking back and forth by the dance floor waiting for the opportunity to dance with me. It is hard to admit but I was uncomfortable with the symptoms. I didn't know how we could dance. But when we did, he was able to dance without the movements and the whole time he happily told me about making a hole in one at his last golf game. Even in the midst of a horrible disease he found joy. I'm so glad we had that dance.

I wish I had gone to visit him more. He was so important to me growing up. I wish I was a better friend to Michelle who is now living with Huntington's. I know we all do the best we can. But I just haven't quite learned how to deal with anticipatory grief--knowing something awful is happening or will happen...and how to live with it every day...compartmentalizing the sad so it doesn't consume you. I tend to want to put my head in the sand and ignore the grief. To go away and pretend there is nothing there. This is a flaw in me. I'm going to do better.

So there he goes....teaching me again even in death.

Bruce, coach, dad....we will all miss you so much. We are all better for knowing you and your loving spirit. RIP Bruce Veneklase--love you so much.

The second half

Monday is surgery day. A long time coming and definitely necessary but if I'm being completely honest, I'm not quite ready. I procrastinated for two years and finally came to the conclusion that it was time to let go and look ahead.

Having talked to a number of women I think feelings of grief are perfectly normal. I think many of us, from toddler years onward, dream of being mommies. And how blessed am I to have realized those dreams with the most incredible of little people who challenge, fascinate and inspire me everyday?

"You should not have this surgery if you want more children" the Doctor said two years ago when I still wasn't ready to let go...


hazy reverie of an intact family, maybe a third little one...an easy-happy nine months of love, support, collective excitement


As recently as winter I pondered the possibility with someone. From a pure rationality perspective for all involved I knew it was a risk...but for a minute I believed in the magic of possibilities. That brief hope sadly faded with the season. But that ending did bring clarity. I embraced where I was with the best people in the world who need me at my very best. And called the doctor.


So I will probably shed a few more tears, maybe indulge a few angry thoughts for vacuous promises, love on my babies and get excited about Phase 2 of my life.


Here's to the second half...

Footprints and Snow

Tonight while carrying groceries, I glance at my footprints in the freshly fallen snow. With each snowfall I am sad to sully the still perfect white. But I am late with children to feed and the snow is wet and cold on my face.

For a senior year poetry class in college, I wrote "A Memory of Snow". At the end of the course my professor remarked that it was the "most moving "of the semester although it still needed work. I have yet to finish it...

The poem is lonely. I have always been melancholy over footprints in the snow.

Making soup in the kitchen I look out my window at the white pouring from the sky. Through the streetlight, the flakes sparkle. Still I feel sad because life is different. Just my children and I on a snowy night. The kitchen is messy and I still have a pantry of food to put away.

Dad playing games with the children....keeping the fire warm.
Mom finishing dinnerand starting cocoa. Kids laughing over plans to sled.

All of us.

Alone I am lucky to keep a candle lit and to find one pair of matching gloves.

One child whines there is no hot chocolate although I know it was among the bags. I throw on my boots and shuffle to the car in hopes of finding the missing box. Sure enough, it had fallen on the floor.

Grabbing the cocoa, I slam the car door and walk toward my porch where I notice the footprint has disappeared under a new layer of shimmery white. I smile.


and the snow falls

 

You're so vain...you probably think this post is about you...

It has been quite a while since I last posted. I've had a lot of alone time to think and feel and play with my kids...bolster my business. I just haven't felt inspired to write. But apparently (and flatteringly so)....people continue to read my blog. And in some instances personalizing what I've said. Even asking "was that about me"?


I dated a musician/songwriter once and I had so many fantasies about him writing a song about me....which never happened sadly....it could have been a great song...but oh well, and I digress...


So let me just say this...Sometimes it's about you. It usually is not. If I thought something about you then....I probably told you about it because I say too much anyway. I am about as mysterious as the guy in the gorilla suit on the side of the road with a sign saying he will buy your gold.


But because you asked....I'm going to jot down a bunch of secrets about you and you and you--some for 20 years...feel free to guess what goes where.

• Because of you, I still think about eating peanuts on my carrots.
• You taught me to love poetry and changed the course of my life.
• You won't be faithful to her either--you quit every time the going gets tough and look for a new shiny thing. I feel sad for you...but mostly her.
• Everytime I smell Drakkar Noir I think of you.
• There were a few nights I woke up every couple of hours all night long --I would remember you weren't in my life anymore and then cry myself back to sleep.
• You snore but it's ok.
• You snore but it's not.
• I wish you kissed differently. It is why we broke up.
• I can picture seeing you for the first time and everything else went out of focus. To this day...I feel that way sometimes if I think of you.
• I haven't seen you for years since you were married but your wife "liked" a bunch of my facebook photos. I  didn't know someone could do that who wasn't a facebook "friend". I was scared for a minute. I hope it's because she really liked them...
• I kept dating you because of your dog. I threw away your pictures. I kept one of him.
• You are one of the most amazing people I have ever known. I was so young and immature. To this day I am haunted by the fact I hurt you. Seeing your newborn son was poignant and amazing. I was not good enough for you.
• I will always be polite and civil...but you will never be able to hurt my feelings again. I will not risk being your friend....you bite people who offer their hand to you.
• When you kissed me for the first time and cupped my face with your hand...it was a moment I won't forget.
• I wanted to tell you I loved you. Because I think I did.
• I thought I loved you in a romantic way but I really didn't. I'm sorry I said it because I know it confused you. You deserved better from me. I appreciate and respect you more than you know.
• Why didn't you ever ask me about what I liked?
• You told me the same stories over and over and I pretended it was new...every. single. time.
• 4 of these are about you.
• I want to say something kind about you but years later I'm still too sore.
• You smell like heaven.
• I can't forgive you.
• I'll never forget you.

Well that was freeing....Now onto the next 20 years!!