More on Grieving, Sorry (L)

Sorry to not be able to just continue on the path that Marty has so kindly began for us. I am still to tied up in my own process, need to vent, and this is where I'm gonna do it! I also don't want to lose our flow of writing that we've developed here, just because I think no one wants to read what I'm thinking.

Following Alessandra and my's theory of the death experience being oddly like the birth, on the weekend that was two weeks post my mother's death, I felt a new similarity.

I remember when I was pregnant with my second child my pediatrician telling me to expect that after a couple of weeks my oldest would begin to ask things like "When's the baby going back to the hospital?" He warned me, at first, the older child is distracted by all the newness and excitement of a baby in the house, but after a couple of weeks reality sinks in and they've had enough and want things back to normal.

That's what I felt like during that second week: "Yes, I know my mother has died, I understand that, but when is she coming back? When will she call me?" With that sensation, depression began to set in and I wondered how I could be moving into the depression phase of grieving while still firmly in denial. On Sunday night, exactly two weeks after her passing, alone on my couch, that veil of denial was lifted, just a small corner. The wind of the reality of her loss blew in like a hurricane and cracked me apart. I literally could not believe that I would never talk to her again, never hear her voice in person, on the phone, even on an answering machine. This thought, this attempt at understanding that reality was like trying to comprehend eternity. It altered the air around me, my attempts at breathing through the wet onslaught of this gust were almost futile. When Chris came home and found me in this state, a thought bubble seemed to hover above his head as he held me trying to calm me down, "Aren't we done with this part?"

The next day, people tried to say things, kind, reassuring things. This phase of grieving needs to be silent, beyond the howling of the wind. Words cannot change reality and reality was trying to edge it's way in. Blah, blah, blah. She can't come back, I won't see her again, hear her again. No one more conversation would ever be enough, and I'd never have that one last conversation. She slipped out, as we pushed her before I could. Blah blah blah. There's nothing to be said.

The next weekend, which marked three weeks, stupidly, I let the kids all spend the night at Chris' mother's house, so we could finish shopping. Who knew they were the cork stopper in my sorrow and when they drove away in the Sears' parking lot, the bottle was upside down, flowing out it's endless depths. I walked through Shaw's crying, finally calling my sister on the phone. Chris, still angry from an earlier fight, slammed a car door on my tears and oh, how alone and sorry for myself I felt. Then I discovered what I had always known, but forgotten, when I feel so deeply sad and selfishly sorry for myself I only want to talk to my mother--creating a new cycle/cyclone of sorrow. This had never changed or eroded. My mother remained my mother and herself, complete in her mind, right up to the day before she slipped into sepsis unconscious. I still needed her, her words and voice still soothed me. I yearn for it. I don't yearn for her to be back crippled in pain and suffering trapped in a bed. But selfishly, I yearn for the sound of her voice, for days of the past when she would ride with me to keep me company.

Yesterday, I had to go to a doctor in Waterville (just a P. Surgeon who gives my scars steroid shots to make them flat). My mother always went with me for these appointments, she even taught me the back roads to get there. Like a coward, I grabbed my son and dragged him along with me to stave off the sorrow. I was repaid that evening when I opted to see the movie Benjamin Button . More on that later. Every day is better, though sometimes I wonder if every day I wall up more, or I am just placing another day between me and what I don't want to think about. I still haven't sat with the reality of it since that two week storm. Somehow, getting past Christmas has made me feel as though I have some odd permission now to just not think about it. I know it will come, it will all unravel itself slowly slowly over time and I'll just try to keep at least one hand on the string.


I posted this picture on Facebook. It's at C's mother's house on Christmas Eve. I had held firm until my father began to sing "Silent Night" and I realized I hadn't heard him sing a Christmas carol since my mother was standing next to me as we caroled, which we had done every year until she couldn't. In complete despair and surprise of crying in front of people, while not wanting to leave the sound of my father's voice, I turned my face into G's shoulder and cried as she joined me. C, unknowing of what was happening took this picture. When I saw it, I felt there is a presence of my mother in the room. Maybe that was why I couldn't leave.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive... (Marty)

Dear Sisters --

I am so sorry about your losses...
Linda, to lose two women who meant so much to you so close together...I cannot imagine.
Alessandra, my silent struggler -- you didn't let us in on the depth of your pain, but I understand why. I am glad you finally have an outlet for it.
As for me, loves, health is currently an issue for both of my parents; I fear, I fear, I fear.

HOWEVER -- I have been asked for levity...and levity ye shall receive. You are just not going to believe some of the things I have seen since moving to South Carolina...

1) ONLY IN SOUTH CAROLINA. Sunday night, out in a new bar that has free pool on Sundays. There is a gentleman with long blonde hair, in black pants and black shirt, wandering around. I thought he was a musician, as the stage in the place was lit up like a Christmas tree (in early November). Having never attended this particular bar, and it having a reputation for live music...you see where I'm going. I witnessed another man with an oxygen tank walk into the bar; I thought it strange for a such a man to be in such a smoky place; until I saw him go up to the bar -- remove his oxygen -- and smoke a cigarette. Any sympathy I had for him dissolved at that moment. Trying to shake the image, I dragged my posse over to a table near the front of the stage, where there was a jacket hanging on one of the chairs; upon watching me approach the table to sit, the gentleman in black appears at my side to take the jacket. He informs me that... a wedding -- *his* wedding -- will be taking place shortly -- in the bar. On the stage. With whatever strangers happen to be in attendance. Well I promptly bought the man and his bride (blonde hair flying in her royal blue sequin dress) a drink, of course! And then sat and watched the nuptials between shots on the free pool table. (I must, for the sake of my soul, mention what sweet people they turned out to be, and I ended up just being happy for them that they had found each other and could afford a small ceremony in this horrendous economy.)

2) ONLY IN SOUTH CAROLINA. This part of the state is famous as much for its farmer's markets and vegetable stands as for anything else, but so many of them close up this time of the year, they're hard to find. So I'm in Murrells Inlet, scouring the place for marshside restaurants and the like, and stumble across a year-round farmer's market, called "Lee's Farms." As soon as I walk in I'm greeted -- loudly -- by a fat bald man behind the register with a New Jersey accent. He tells me all about the place and how wonderful everything is. He tells me his name is "Sketch." He also keeps asking me question after question, not really letting me answer before continuing on to the next. He tells me he's a pastry chef. I ask him which of his desserts is his favorite. He says he is diabetic and has never tried any of them. I ask him how he can vouch for them. He tells me he is "Bald Steve" from the second season of "Hell's Kitchen." I tell him I used to live in Trenton. He tells me he was in prison in Trenton. I say, I don't care, you're here now. He says I wasn't really in prison in Trenton, I was in prison upstate. I ask him if he'll make a dessert for Marion's birthday. He says he's going to be hunting deer all weekend in the middle of the woods with his boss, Skeeter. Turns out Skeeter's last name is Dombrowski and all I can think about is "Grease" from then on out. Feeling that I would shortly lose all composure, I buy some tomatos and make a quick exit. But I know I'm going to go back there...I mean, how could I not?

3) ONLY IN SOUTH CAROLINA. And really? This is just to rub it in...it is currently, as I type this, 72 degrees here on the beach. It was 70 yesterday. It was 71 the day before that. It promises to be 72 and sunny tomorrow, 70 and sunny on Saturday, and 69 with sprinkles on Sunday. So, um...WHEN ARE YOU VISITING???

As for me, I have auditioned for and been cast in my first South Carolina show, "Later Life" with the Murrells Inlet Community Theatre. I almost didn't go to the audition. The first question most of my Raleigh theater friends ask is, "As an old lady?" Strangely I don't know how old my character is; but I do know that this thirty-something born-and-raised southerner was cast for...are you ready? my perfect New York accent.

Love you both muchly and fiercely...

What I said at my Mother's Funeral (L)

Someone close to me said if you're going to speak at a funeral what you say should be honest, real, and not sugar coated re-creations of the past. Now, I won't name any names, but he's my brother and he's sitting right there. And any of you that know him, you know he said a few swear words in there with that little piece of advice. So, I will tell you, when we were growing up, Ma lost her temper as often as she lost her car keys. Though she improved as we got older, she was often irritable and extremely particular, I would get flop sweats going to the grocery store to shop for her, standing paralyzed in the aisles scrutinizing her list, trying to find exactly what she was specifically describing. If you came home with the wrong kind of garbage bags, or the wrong kind of anything, (which you inevitably would) you were going to hear about it. She was consistently critical. When I would bring my babies to her, their feet were never the right temperature, if they had on socks, she'd strip them off and tell me how hot their poor feet were. If they didn't have on any socks she'd cup their feet in her hand and chastise me bringing out my baby with no socks, I soon learned to carry a pair with me on all Mema excursions. Ma was bossy, even before she was immobile, she'd set herself down in a chair and lord her dictatorship over the kitchen, doling out tasks for us to do and then watching every step, correcting you as you went. She often drove me crazy, when I was 6 months pregnant with Shea, Ma and Old most generously opened their home to my family when our house was under reconstruction, and for two months I most ungratefully wondered exactly what sin of my past I was paying for, to have to live with her again and not be able to drink. I always believed my sister Allison was her favorite. By believe, I mean, I can guarantee you if I look at my sister right now she'll be nodding knowingly, if not a little smugly.

All of these things are true, and so is this—I loved her, needed her, craved to be with her— beyond reason, beyond doubt, beyond even sometimes my own comprehension. I've sometimes wondered, is this a particular disease of being the youngest and if so, is their medication to cure it?

Fortunately, I've never sought a cure, I just continued over the years to seek out her love, company, stories of the past, and simply the sound of her voice. And many times, I’m sure, I was irritable and drove her crazy right back.

There are aspects to my dedication of hunting and gathering and revering all things Ma and Mema that I understand. She was an interesting, multi-dimensional, sometimes controversial character, and the only time you could possibly say her company was dull was when she was asleep, which was admittedly a good deal of the time as the years went on. You wouldn’t call her an angel, you’d probably call her a pistol. I think what people loved about her was her honesty; she told it like it was and didn’t really care if you liked it or not, the first word she mouthed after she woke up from her tracheostomy surgery was “bullshit”. She was smart, funny, and irreverent. And even after years of fog inducing drugs and infections, she was sharp as a tack. I used to sneak down to the nursing home at night to play Rummy with her, sometimes bringing a little audience member in the form of one of my girls. The very first time I played her there, she was laying in bed having just had a Vicodin for sleep, I beat her by a small margin, and I thought, “Finally I've found a way to even the playing field!” If she was sitting up in her wheelchair, I knew I didn't have a chance. Eventually, it became clear that first game was the last I’d win, she’d just been a little rusty. After many games as she'd lay in bed, Vicodin onboard, having to pull herself up on her little triangle grip thing each time to see the play on the tray of cards, beating me time after time; I finally started asking her for tips to improve my game.

She was truly a caring woman, in fact she was criticized in the first years of her job as a social worker for caring too much about her clients, and even in the last years of her work when she would spend an inordinate amount of time playing solitaire at the office, people would still stop my sister and I and say what a difference she had made in their loved ones life who was a client of hers. She may sometimes have seemed to have forgotten precisely what time the workday began (or lunch ended), but she never forgot she was an advocate for her clients, not for the state.

Ma knew how to sincerely say she was sorry, a skill many people never master. I heard her put this skill into necessary practice many times after she swore like an angry, bossy, severely wounded sailor, as the nurses moved her from her wheelchair to her bed at Knox.

But for me this was an especially healing trait, years ago, my mother did an amazingly simple thing after our childhood of her not being the mother to us that she had wanted to be. She said she was sorry. She said she wished she could have her babies back and do it all over again. And a very simple beautiful thing occurred inside of me, I forgave her. And about 13 years later another amazing thing occurred, I had my third child under the age of 4, and suddenly I understood her, a little bit more, probably than my siblings, who only have two right now. Good luck, John.

She always provided for us, we never went hungry or cold, or without a ride, a birthday cake, or a place to sleep, she always kept her home open to us, our friends, and later our children. When we'd come home from college, she'd stock the pantry with lucky charms, mac and cheese and all our favorite foods. When I was sad and homesick in another country or just another county, I could always count on ma for sending me copious amounts of letters. Our Christmases were always elaborate, wide eyed wonder affairs where all of our dreams came true, regardless of how we were struggling financially.

She was a strong woman and a capable woman, she was never afraid to drive in a snowstorm, change a tire, or jumpstart a car.

She loved, spoiled (corrupted), fed, played with, taught (corrupted) and snuggled all of her grandchildren with indulgent and often overindulgent love and generosity. I remember once when Sarah was little, her father telling her “When an adult tells you no, no means no—unless it's Mema”. I can only hope they absorb and carry on within them the lessons she showed them about unconditional love and not the lessons she taught them about lighting matches.

But what my mother truly had was a magnetism I can’t put words to. I can only provide evidence of it. My sister and I live about 5 miles away from my mother’s house. A week never went by that one of us didn’t see her, until they put a few states between us. We gathered around her home every holiday, every family birthday, without fail until her home became a nursing home, and then we gathered there. My father kept a vigil by her side these last few years, finally giving her the years of courtship and devotion she deserved. At Knox, she was a difficult case who medically should have been considered a bit of a thorn in their side, instead she became part of their family. Last night we read something the nurses had composed about Ma that moved us and more importantly made us laugh, realizing that they had truly known and loved her just the way she was, as we did. I see it also in the lifelong friendships she’s made.

My father, my sister’s family, my brother's family and my family, we orbited around her— many planets to her sun, even though sometimes she’d yell, sometimes she’d snap, sometimes it was hard to tell if she was even all that pleased to see you (she always was). But we’d come back again and again, to get a little more of the something that she never knew she had. Her pull is a magnetic force I’ve never felt anywhere else. I can’t remember a day in the past 11 years that I haven’t wanted to see or talk to my mother. And I can’t imagine that will change. I know my brother felt it, when instead of feeling burdened that Ma was in Rhode Island and the responsibilities that brought, he felt grateful to be with her and be needed by her. I know his wife and children felt it too, as they made the nearly hour long trip out every weekend to visit her. I know my nieces felt it even years beyond when “Mema Central” was still open and helping to raise them, as Sarah gave up a weekend at college with her friends and with her boyfriend to come and see Mema in Rhode Island, and especially when Leah was with Mema when we went to say goodbye. I know my children felt it and feel it too—from Shea plowing into Ma’s house every time we went there making a bee line for Mema as he called her name, finally presenting himself to her with a simple “Mema, I here now”; to Fiona, referring to Mema as her “other Mommy”; to Gwenyvere who said to me the other day about Mema dying, “It seems like someone turned the world backwards and didn’t tell me.”

I am so grateful that I had these past years in Maine with Ma, when she could still ride alongside me taking, advantage of the adventurous spirit she had instilled in me. I have loved and appreciated every moment and thing she has given to us from our lunches at Denny's, going to Walmart (which Gwenyvere dubbed “Mema's store”), ice cream at Dormans, tea at Aunt Ediths, bunnies and dollhouses at Ames, so many rides, trips to islands and orchards, church and donuts, drives over the mountain and especially all of the stories she shared with me of the old days--to all my babies she has held, sung to, played with and loved. I thought she was a big part of my world when her label was “Mommy”, but as “Mema”, she achieved world domination.

I told my mother weeks ago, that she’s never just lying in a bed. That I carry her with me, I take her with me on all the little adventures and rides that she trained me for: taking pictures of autumn trees, taking rides to look at Christmas lights, telling stories of the past, seeing movies, staying up way too late at night, listening to the sound of a loon calling, even just shopping at Walmart and JC Penny. She is somehow, my everything, and now I have to figure out a way to pick up my babies and walk new paths without being able to tell her the tales. I will miss the sound of her laughter, the stories of her life, the sound of her voice.

Years ago, after receiving a grim prognosis for my mother’s life, I said to my husband that I didn’t think I wanted to live in a world where my mother didn't exist. Since Sunday night, I’ve been waiting for that feeling to descend upon me, that I no longer have a mother. Many sad and heavy moments have come, but that sensation has not. Because I still have a mother, she’s just not here anymore. She is within me, about me, around me, in every corner of my life, in every inch of my soul, she is there, and will always remain— my mother.

In reply to below

Linda I'm so sorry for your loss. There are parts of what you say that remind me of my dad's death, a little over a year ago. The part about birth and death being similar, maybe that should be obvious but it still came as a surprise. And the finality of it is so crushing. Like a cruel joke where you wait for the 'just kidding' part that never comes.

My dad experienced such horrific amounts of pain to his back muscles from metastasized bladder cancer. It was undescribable really to watch someone you love experience so much pain and not be able to do anything about it. He was on superhuman doses of morphine and still in a strange distant twilight of consciousness altho he couldn't communicate with us. Like being buried alive. S., who was 2, brought us tissues as we cried and made the social workers cry too.

The doctors were so stingy with the morphine. They were so fearful of any dose that might be construed as euthanasia. But the point is moot; you can't really overdose, and when you're at the very end you're only providing relief. Or not. We had to call the doctors several times at 4:00 a.m., the i.v. pump had a lock code that allowed only a hospice nurse to access it. But it was a new model of pump and my sister and I ended up showing the nurses how to use it. We knew the code and thought many times to change it ourselves but we were afraid we'd run out before the next timed delivery.

The pain doctor we had was not well suited to his job. Our last time in the hospital when it became clear all the assurances of a pain-free end were empty, I remember him rolling my dad, who was completely conscious and otherwise normal, over on his side to listen with his stethoscope. It was such a subtle gesture but he only touched him with his fingertips, as you would touch something distasteful. I wanted to smack him. I still hate him.

He came home to die, in his own bedroom. Once he realized they could nothing for him, he deteriorated quickly. It showed not only how much he was staying alive by sheer will power, but also how incredibly powerful it was. The last thing he said was, "Good night, S." in response to "Good night, Grampa."

A couple of weeks later, several days after the gruesome death rattle started, the hospice nurse called us out of our beds for the end, she had seen it so many times it was a clinical process, like knowing when to change an oil filter. I got the distinct feeling that whatever he had been wasn't there anymore. It had already left and this was the machine shutting down. A few last breaths with longer pauses between, and then you wait for one more and it doesn't come. Except your brain doesn't want to accept it and you can swear that you still see the chest rising and falling. You're completely and utterly helpless there's nothing that you can do that will change it.

Garrett and I slept in that room for the next couple of days and I know what you mean about that wanting traces to cling; I was hoping there'd be some energy imprint in the physical space, I was hoping it would be 'haunted'. Except for an occasional waft of Nurse Lily's perfume, there was nothing.

The police came and made sure the massive amounts of opiates that the hospice nurse had flushed down the toilet were well and truly gone. The corpse seemed to be almost an afterthought. A hearse came and took the body away. S. watched the Wizard of Oz incessantly it was the most tv she'd ever been allowed to watch and no one cared. The Munchkins sang over and over: "As coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her. And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead."

A couple of months later I had an intensely real dream that he was fixing this old lavender refrigerator I used to have. We were sitting side by side on the floor in T-shirts, jeans. His smell was so authentic, so organic. We both knew the refrigerator was a pretext; this was a last opportunity to be together. I remember feeling grateful toward whatever power that had made it happen. The next night I had another intense dream that I was standing at the window of my living room except I was a small child; he was out in the driveway; a little pudgy alot more hair, much younger. He was leaving in his Triumph convertible (the car they had when I was very small). He was laughing that I was crying; I was so sad he was going. Somewhere the adult me was watching the whole thing and feeling sorry for the little girl. He waved and got in the car and drove off. And that's the end of it. Occasionally I'll have a dream that it was all a mistake and when i wake up I'm actually convinced for a few minutes. That sounds so cliche but hope is a funny, stubborn thing. I still can't really look at photos or listen to their answering machine. I don't think it gets better with time. You just learn to live with it, like a chronic sore, like colors that have become washed out.

My Mother (L)

December 1, 2008

My mother passed away last night at 6:43 p.m. The time clings in my mind like I'm storing it for a birth announcement, except for death, which no one does. But it is surprising how parallel the events are. Like the pain of labor with my children, I never could catch up to the rolling ball of her death. It should have been no surprise, as a baby being born from you after hours of labor should not be, we had pulled the plugs from her life support after all. The sepsis in her blood had staked it's claim and was not leaving. But I never really believed it would actually happen, I didn't. And as I stroked her hair as she labored for breath, I remembered Chris stroking my hair when I was laboring our children and how it calmed me. I wanted to calm her, but in my head I was shouting "come back, come back" and was running to try and catch that that moment could be real. A priest came, and like in a movie after he gave her the sacraments, her body began giving undeniable evidence that she was leaving and the moment hit, crashed and wailed.

Later I asked the nurse what time we we shut off the ventilator, and I found some inexplicable pride in my mother that she had only struggled for a very short time. Like the pride of a short push during labor. It did help to believe that we had made the right decision, that she did not suffer for long.

But what the moment gave us, we had to leave behind, unlike birth. And I find myself, not just an hour after getting home from the hospital, not wanting to wash my hair that brushed her shoulders, or brush my teeth that breathed the air around her. I want to cling to her traces.

I always believed I would be instantly shattered when I lost my mother, but it's more like I'm slowly melting and grief is dripping from my pores.

My Aunt Edith (L)

My Great Aunt Edith died last week, whe was 100. I never thought I'd use the term "beloved" with sincerity, but she was much beloved by me and my family. Here are some of the words I spoke at her funeral.

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Aunt Edith is finally with Uncle Charlie, it took her body being 100 to finally agree with what her heart wanted for 20 years. We can only be happy that she is where she wants to be. Aunt Edith was the last of her siblings, the last of many of our grandmother and mother's generation. For us, left behind, it is truly the end of an era. A time when tea was a social event, when “muffin day” was a designated day of the week, when unannounced guests were greeted as the welcome highlight to a day, hugged ferociously and dutifully waved goodbye to as they drove away. When if you didn't have anything nice to say, you truly said nothing at all. Aunt Edith kept her house clean in many ways.

What I remember most about Aunt Edith was her sense of fun and adventure, her strength, and independence; her greeting me each time at the door with a “Whyyyyy” as if she couldn’t believe I had come, whether I was visiting from New Jersey, or just down the road and had seen her the day before. I loved the twinkle in her eyes, and the tight squeeze of her hugs.

As a child, she was my great aunt who was always willing to play a game of tether ball or frisbee with any of us, who always had muffins and cookies waiting in case you stopped by, who'd spread on an amazing 4th of july bbq and then stay up in the dark summer night to serve us watermelon on the way home from the fireworks. She was always willing to join us for Walker Park or Islesboro or even the grocery store with a quick” I'll just get my purse”. I learned my childhood love of Aunt Edith from my mother. It was a woman's world at Aunt Edith full of tradition, estrogen, and tea. But as an adult, I discovered a new love and friendship in Aunt Edith. Over the years, she has been to me an aunt, a grandmother, a mother, a best friend, a companion, a co-pilot in many adventures, a grandmother to my children, and a soul friend to me. She was always there when I needed her with welcome arms, a hug for my children, time to spend with me, and hot cup of tea.

I worried when Gwenyvere was born and Aunt Edith was 90, that I was doing something selfish to foster such a close relationship with someone that I knew she would be young when she lost. But I am so grateful for the years my children had to love Aunt Edith. I look at my girls and I see Aunt Edith in them in their poise and manners and love for company and tradition. I see her in sensitivity and stubbornness of my six year old son, who told me this morning (the morning of her funeral), “I’m coming! I want to see her one more time even if she’s not alive anymore”.

Money, money, money (Alessandra)

Just got off the phone with a woman from my high school class to remind me about the significant reunion happening this summer.  All laughs and cheers and fun fun fun and then a solicitation for money.  God I hate that.  My high school is famous for its multimillion-dollar endowment.  I told her with a smile, that I wasn't giving anything. Nothing.  And then I felt like a fraud because I expressed interest in going, yadda yadda yadda.  Not realizing these reunion nostalgia trips are basically fundraising events. I've never gone to a reunion because I basically communiate with everyone I had ever wanted to, everything else is just morbid curiosity, like rubbernecking a traffic accident.   

 I'm not totally cheap: I do give money to charity, but if it's a choice between helping the third world get some medical attention and seeing that political prisoners aren't left to rot in jails or whether the golf team gets new Titleists, the choice seems pretty clear, you know?  I guess I'll never be in that preppy corduroy old boys club that gets your kids into Yale or your husband some Master of the Universe job.  Whatevs.  I just have a really bad taste in my mouth right now.  

Don't Swim Naked

Mommy Drinks (Alessandra)

I'm so fried so all you're going to get is run-on sentences. Run-away sentences. Yes Maine seems like a dream now, but maybe too lucid since bringing a newborn (party foul!) I didn't get absolutely polluted. Shopping spree at the guns ammo wedding dress store. I so wanted to put my Maine Terrorists Hunting Permit bumpersticker next to an Obama 08 bumpersticker but G. won't let me put anything on the car. Beautiful weather cool air piney smells campfire hissing and clicking like a living thing. A big fat moon looming over the lake like a window onto another world. Next year all media devices will be confiscated except for the requisite midnight call to S. Or maybe he could be beamed in via hologram for a guest appearance. Racing wild turkeys (the bird kind not the liquor kind) at 12 mph down a backroad trying to keep baby asleep waiting for Herself to open the door. Swimming in the lake all but the rudimentary brain stem shut down just soaking up the sun like plant life and feeling your heart thump in your chest against the almost-shocking cold of the water. Delicious burritos that were I am ashamed to say pretty healthy. Whose freeking idea was that? At least it was counterbalanced by a lipsmacking pesto eating session in the car in the parking lot of the store. Well hey it's a rental. I love that. I also learned a lot about moisturizer. Seriously, not being facetious. Reality check for the sad sack. Well there i jumped into the blog lake. Little cold, little slimy but not so bad.

Knew a girl named Nikki, I guess you could say she was a (Linda)

There is so much I want to escape from in my real life in the here and now--reading Marty's post was like stepping into a pool of surprisingly warm, burnt orange, sunlit memories that linger in purple twilight. There, the air is steeped thick with alcohol, laughter and song. Alcohol--the Captain's Tattoo, 3 Olives Raspberry Vodka and enough red wine to drown in. Laughter--Cooter Turtle (or was it Turtle Cooter?), Turret's Syndrome Convention (could we have possibly sworn more?), and the many ways I could spank my bottom during "Guesstures" while the two of you shouted out every word in the dictionary but "spank".

Song--here, I must depart from my format because this memory demands. Pulling in the dock from the walkway, like a boat, floating out as far as the rope would go--so separate from the land we were one with the lake. Sitting in the deep dark end of twilight as the fog rose off the water, a sheer mist around us, reeds emerged through it like fragile, slender statues. Our songs graduated with the night, as it turned darker and the full moon rose on us like a spotlight, casting aside the fog while the air grew colder and inched its way into our bones. My favorites were Prince's "Nikki" (Kudos to Marty, the lyrics queen who kept us going all night) and Hotel California. I would have never known I knew every last living word to that song. We all sang it like it was the anthem to our childhood.

I was delighted by Marty's beauty (so radiant in the moonlight!) and her honesty (though I could never wrap my tongue around the cherry chapstick/cherry cheesecake line). I was intimidated and worshipful of Alessandra's intelligence, the politics of the day peeling back the heavy shroud of her motherness, as she spoke her sharp, educated, smarter-than-I'll-ever-be mind, and the dimly lit cottage air cried, "she's baaa-aaack". Her little mini-me slept through the night and seduced us all with her dark perfection. I was pleased that we resisted gunning down the political signs (first time we'd seen Palin on a lawn) as we made our mad pesto dash to Waldoboro for our bread, wine, that addictive pesto, and small town walk. Not to mention the small bar beer. Remember the picture of a cottage on a grass lane with the moon above it? Good, I want it for Christmas, you can go halvsies.

Enough, enough, next year it will be posts about getting into bar brawls with toothless men because you hustled them at pool and used me as horny old biker man bait. I can't wait to wear a trashy denim mini-skirt again, it's been years! So, until then, keep writing--that means you, Bocco. Anything, every scrap, every bit, every run on edit free sentence your little fingers can type.

Maine Pieces. (Marty)

A crappy flight with no working lavatory. A birthday party in suburban Jersey with several rambunctious children. A late cab after three hours of sleep. An empty flight with no screaming children. Driving two hours in the pouring rain with one slightly grouchy baby. No one to greet us...again.

And then we found the liquor store. And Captain's Tattoo Black. And the angels burst into chorus.

Ahhhh, yes...this was the beginning of the beginning. Wine, women and song for three glorious days in the Maine woods. The first rainy night brought frozen pizza, chips and salsa, a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit (Genus 3) and screams of "Cheater, cheater, peter eater!" (That would be Alessandra.) We went through all the wine and liquor in the first night...not the first time, not the last. But bliss...we were together again.

Next day cleared right on up for us...many thanks to those drunk meteorologists who predicted rain for the entire trip. We were pleasantly surprised to see they were wrong. The sun convinced us to venture out into the city...Walterboro this time for more wine, a jaunt up Main Street and some of the BEST f***ing guacamole on the planet. Linda insisted we get three tubs....Al and I rolled our eyes at each other and swore we'd never eat that much. But the bread was heavenly and F*** me if we didn't eat one entire tub in the PARKING LOT. Lesson learned...Linda knows her guac. A stop at the liquor store on the way home for me (raspberry vodka this time, Linda is sharing) and we were set for the evening.

Beauty greeted us in the form of an early-rising full moon just over the lake...absolutely stunning. While Al was down with GJ for a bit, Linda and I took a (very short) canoe ride under the most beautiful sky I'd seen in a while. We drifted for a while but went back as Al was catching her second wind...and her desperate need for the perfect fire...which she was immediatly distracted from by the beautiful baby girl. When I went out to poke the fire and add newspaper, Linda took credit for the fire's health by insisting it was the dry wood pieces from the garage she found that made it roar. Whatever! Thunder stealer.

Apparently there were conversations had that I do not remember, and shamefully were reminded of later the next day...yikes. Why is it always me? Oh yeah....I drink liquor...straight from the bottle. Sometimes. You know, not always. Anyhoo...

Next day...another gorgeous day...Alessandra (the least of the night's drunkards) cooks up an unparallelled breakfast feast to calm our bilious stomachs. Linda and Al head out for Rockland for some shopping. I remain, quite contentedly and quietly for a bit, sitting by the water with my thoughts. There can be no more perfect moment. I cherish the time in the place of my cosmic sisters and wish them to hurry home...and when they do we all take a nice power walk at the perfect dusky evening moment...past the singing dogs that fill up the lake cavern with their music, music, music later in the evening. After the PERFECT burritos (courtesy of Linda and her iron skillet) we retire to the floating dock under yet another perfect moonlit sky...and add to the music of the singing dogs with our rousing (non-)campfire renditions of whatever songs pop into our heads. My old friend the Southern Cross appears in the sky and I am thankful to see it and share it with my girls. Many hours later (or so it seems) the chill is too much and inside we go to a few rounds of some timed charades game (I forget the name) with our beer and wine until the wee hours.

The discussions...the dreams...the plans...the respect...the understanding...the acceptance. I have no more words...I don't need them...they know.

Three hours of sleep. Linda, my gregarious cosmic sister, sleeps through seeing us off (though I hug her and tell her I love her anyway). Two hours of driving with a not-at-all grouchy baby. A barely-made-it there gush through airport security. A packed plane with some lame explanation. A two-hour layover in Newark, in which I watch my radiant cosmic sister and her mini-me walk away (though I hug her and tell her I love her anyway).

And then there was one. On a packed plane with a screaming baby. With a smile (well, smirk anyway) on my face and a song in my heart. And a desperate need for September to come again.

Remains of Our Days (L)

Were you really just here? Are these dim, lake lit memories real? Can I step back into them if I call them up? Will I ever be able to finish writing a sentence without a child beckoning, requesting, opening up their never closing baby bird beaks for the last drops of me?

Sigh, I remember, I remember. Just a few days ago their voices were on the other end of a tinny poor reception cottage phone and I slept until 11.

I will write more, I will dig up and spit out our stories.

Where the Title Comes From

So sorry I haven't been as present as I'd like to be but that will change very soon.  I find the whole thing a bit daunting but hopefully that will go by the wayside as a rhythm develops.  But anyway, the title. Each year Marty, Linda and I go to a rustic cabin on a lake (the water) in a remote part of Maine (the wild) and for a few days,  try to let go of our everyday roles and responsibilities and mindsets and just reconnect: drink lots of beer and wine and eat grotesquely colored, overly processed foods and  spontaneously sing show tunes around a campfire, or Cowboy Junkies tunes, and most importantly, say whatever comes to mind knowing we won't be judged no matter how outrageous or banal it is.  Kind of like being boys (see Linda's earlier post) but with more theory.  Belching and scratching are encouraged.   

The title is from a Yeats poem that resounds with all three of us, but everyone really, as we all seek the path back to innocence, uncomfortably knowing full well it will never the same, but needing that magic to live as sure as we need water and air. It happens in September and my little human children, I look forward to seeing you soon in the forgiving embers of the firelight where we'll foot it the night, weaving olden dances mingling hands and mingling glances till the moon has taken flight; to and fro we leap and chase the frothy bubbles, whilst the world is full of troubles and is anxious in its sleep.  

   

Al and G, sitting in a tree.... (Marty)

OK...you'll have to forgive me. I google my friends occasionally, just for fun of course...and I came across this article, from the NY Observer, Al...f**king hilarious, Bumsy! (I edited names...)
Luckily for me, my name is the name of a famous motorcross rider, so when you google me all you get is him.
Love you!
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Alessandra and Garrett
Met: Fall 1999
Engaged: March 4, 2003
Projected Wedding Date: May 7, 2004
Alessandra was hardly an hour into her first date with Garrett before she had swooned- literally . Yes, folks, she's a fainter!

Alessandra, the copy chief at W, collapsed in a midtown gutter after sharing her first smooch with Garrett, a longtime bartender at Patrick Kavanagh's, in the back seat of a cab going from Swift's. "I'm deadly," he said impishly. (She claims it was low blood sugar.)

He spirited her back to her apartment in the East Village-"Do you know how hard it is to hail a taxi when you have a woman lying on the ground?" he said-where he fortified her with Irish breakfast tea loaded with sugar and cream and tucked her into bed. "And he slept in the bed with me," she said. "Clothes on."

After a two-year marriage to a florist foundered, Alessandra had spent a year touring Europe on her orange '93 Harley before taking a job tending bar at the Leopard Lounge on Second Avenue. The boyishly handsome, blue-eyed Garrett was friends with another staffer and often hung around. "I thought he was adorable. He had such a kissable face!" said Al, who is 37 and dark-haired, with a sexy beauty mark on the tip of her nose. Nor was she put off by his long yarns about a misspent youth in Monaghan making petrol bombs. She began referring to him as "Rump-o." She became "Bum-sy." (They both melted into giggles when we asked them to explain the monikers.)

Garrett, 32, moved into her apartment three years later. He's taking motorcycle-riding lessons and working on his grammar. "He has punctuation problems," she said gravely. "He's always starting sentences in the middle."

Maybe that's why he let a photo album full of pictures and a round diamond set in platinum do the talkin' over dinner at Artisanal one special evening. "She was crying before I even gave her the ring," he said. They celebrated their engagement at Patrick Kavanagh's, then gave up drinking for Lent the next morning. But they were off the wagon by nightfall. "Everyone kept buying us champagne!" she said.

Following a sober wedding ceremony with bagpipers at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral (Alessandra said she's checked the wording on the invitations "400 times"), all hell is expected to break loose at the New York Botanical Gardens. The reception will feature an open bar, which is apparently unusual at Irish nuptials. Heaven knows why.

Oh, There WILL Be Blood!!! (L)

I just finished watching "There Will be Blood" with C. I can't remember the last movie we watched together and it took two nights to finish it. This is what I knew beforehand, Daniel Day Lewis had won the Oscar and it was supposed to be a long and dusty tale of greed and the beginning of oil in America.

It sounded boring. The title also made me worried me that there would be mafia street gangs covered in oil. But my mother had it on Netflix and wouldn't be watching it for awhile, so I snatched it.

As the shadowed light played over Danny boy's aging face and ridiculous mustache, his character a bit bent and hobbled by an early accident, I found myself longing for the Lewis of old who wooed and smelled of women or carved a canoe from a tree while wearing few clothes. My mind nimbly skipped over memories of his left foot. I once almost saw him as Hamlet in a London Theatre. I got as close as opening the program to see an insert that said "Due to an illness, Mr. Lewis will not be playing the role of Hamlet. It will instead be played by this wanker who nobody cares about." I later read that he had had a nervous breakdown from getting so involved as the character in "My Left Foot".

But we are all aging and getting more boring by the day, so I tarried on. I did stop to consider that he would make my top ten list of people that would make you uncomfortable to have for dinner. He seems too noble and modest. His magnificence is in his acting. He'd probably demur all questions and either be all British and smugly intelligent or incredibly socially awkward.

When I saw the first couple of people in the film get conked in the head with metal tubes that have something to do with drilling, I thought "oh good, there's the blood bit". Ha!! There was so little blood when he finally shot someone in the head, I didn't know the bullet had struck until he was burying him. I rewound it and like a fool watched to see if he'd actually killed him (Hello, he was digging a hole and rolling in a body!). But nothing could prepare me for the senseless bloody bludgeoning he delivered at the end of the movie, as he declared "I'm finished" and the credits rolled.

I was finished too, what a crap full of depression and uncharacteristic violence. Just when you thought he'd become decent, he'd do something even shittier. Why do people like this stuff? God, I had to top off my wine glass to get the taste of that movie from my mouth. If I ever do have Mr. Lewis over for dinner, I'm going to make him declare "I am a false actor! I make movies that no one should see!" and then I'm going to slap him in the face a few times and make him take off his shirt just to see if he's still worth it.

The Vulcan Syndrome (Marty)

Men in the South -- at least those whose mamas I have met -- are generally raised to keep their emotions to themselves. They are rock hard with a fabulous smile; stone silent while opening the door for you; will fight for you 'til the death...while never ever telling you exactly how they feel about you, or anything else for that matter. This exactly describes both my father and my husband, and about any other Southern raised boy I've ever met. They seem so strong and solid, chivalrous and charming. That is...until they get older. And then we have the phenomenon I like to call....The Vulcan Syndrome.

Those of you who are Star Trek fans will know exactly what I'm talking about. Vulcans are a race of humanoids who are bred to give logic all of their brain power while suppressing their more wishy-washy and manipulatable emotions. They are deemed unnecessary for a full functioning life. The consequence is that, as vulcans age, they are no longer able to keep full suppression on their emotions, and they come out in explosive ways. Outrageous mania, rampant rage, or full fits of uncontrollable bawling. The controlling mechanism effectively breaks, unleashing a river of lifelong suppressed feelings.

I've noticed this consequence in my 72-year-old father, and in other men of his generation. My father gets inexplicably and uncontrollably weepy at the most inopportune moments...he really had to have help to finish his toast at my wedding reception (yes, I know, fathers are allowed to shed a tear at their daughter's weddings, but blubbering like a schoolchild during the toast? Really?). He's done the same just having a conversation wtih me about life. Never, in my youth, would my father allowed me to see this side of him. It actually weirds me out a little bit.

I am not the crying girl. I am not the girl who bawls at beautiful wedding dresses, or throws crying fits to get her way with her boyfriend. I do not cry when I am "happy." I am not the girl who uses tears to manipulate other people. I am the angry girl...the one who will squint and puff out and very quietly (or very loudly, whichever is appropriate) but strongly encourage you to see things my way. This has worked out very well for me. Until my recent discovery.

Apparently, the Vulcan Syndrome age for women is....36. At 36 I found myself tearing up at "A League of Their Own" one day on television even though I had seen it a hundred times. The ending where all the ladies of the women's pro league were welcomed into the hall of fame, got to me. At 37 I found myself tearing up at a f**king Hallmark commercial. And by the ripe old age of 38? "A League of Their Own" will put me straight through a box of tissues. I cry when the people on "America's Got Talent" realize their lifelong dream of performing in front of a crowd and are, themselves, crying. After serving on a heartbreaking jury trial for 8 days in April, I came home with a 6-pack, a bag of Munchos, and a jar of Pepperocini and went through them all just before beginning my two-hour bawling session on behalf the people in the trial. That one shocked the shit ouf ot me. Hell...I teared up at Linda's last entry!

I mean, I can't even claim "hormones" as a factor. If you've read this blog, you already know I have no children, which is when a lot of women find that their emotions go haywire. So imagine my surprise that here I am--- a broken Vulcan. But at least I have learned something about myself along the way. I know that my experiences have given me appreciation of and respect for the unknown factor. I know that I will embrace whatever comes next. I know that the young twenty-something friend of mine starting life with her new husband loves that I share her happiness so openly on my face. And I know that tissues are expensive...toilet paper works fine.

Glowing (L)

Months ago, I asked F if she wanted to grow her hair out and donate it to cancer patients for wigs. In true middle child form, she shrugged her 7 1/2 year old shoulders and said, "sure". This past weekend, there was a Relay for Life in our area and they had a Pantene Beautiful Lengths collection for wig hair. I heard about it last minute and it never occurred to me to walk. Earlier in the day, I saw a girl who was going to donate her hair wearing a "Granddaughter of a Survivor" t-shirt. I said to F, "Oh, I wish I had thought to get you a shirt saying that, your Nannie had cancer (breast cancer), and she would like you wearing it.", F shrugged again. Suddenly, I realized, she could have "Daughter of a Survivor" on there too. It's hard for me to think of myself in those terms. I feel, comparatively to most, I'm a "mini" survivor. I got off easy with an early stage thyroid cancer, there is no radiation or chemotherapy to fix it, just radioactive iodine.

RI was what I was experiencing this time last year. The worst part of it, next to being crazy and depressed from the lack of thyroid hormone (they have to let it drop as low as possible for the treatment) was having to be isolated from my children during it, as I was "radioactive". Crazy, lonely, sad and radioactive in an empty cottage for nine days isn't much fun, but it beats chemo and radiation any day.

I remember the first time before my second surgery when a nurse referred to me as a "cancer patient", I almost corrected her saying, "No, you're mistaken, I have a cancerous tumor but I don't have cancer". In the past, cancer was not something I possessed, but something that was cut out of me. Suddenly, it seemed, I was supposed to be its owner. This tumor had done a little dance during pathology to show it could break outside the borders, and apparently when it's an actual gland that's affected, there's no unnecessary tissue or skin for it to spread to. When it goes, it goes for gusto to the necessary places. I had to wait until after the iodine treatment to see if it had wandered, it seemed it had not, and voila, here I am a mini survivor. And thus, here my F was, a daughter of one.

When my niece came over to borrow something that day, I said to her, "Hey, she could have 'Cousin of a Survivor' on there too!" My niece is a true survivor, but it was before her memory can access. She just smiled as she always does and said, "Yeah she could!". Three's the magic number right? So, out came the magic marker on the shirt. I was surprised to notice F on the floor highlighting all the letters after I wrote them, she was now past shrugging.



I was so proud of F as we stood in line to get her hair cut at the Relay for Life event. I also felt unexpected guilt at not walking myself as I looked around at all the people with their Relay t-shirts. But mostly, I felt a giddy comfort being in this giant space of carnival style celebration where the word cancer was not whispered or feared, where survivors were a sort of celebrity. I didn't feel a connection with that title here, both for the ease of my experiences and for my lack of participation in the event. The little narcissist in me did feel a tiny bit of pride that what I had gone through could somehow translate into increased light on F. Then I noticed the girl who we knew sitting in the chair waiting to have her hair cut. Her mother was beside her, face swollen with tears. Her grandmother stood behind her, post chemo hair coming through about a quarter of an inch. The crowd roared with applause as she cut her granddaughter's hair. I felt humbled.

The powers of the universe must have agreed, F was soon ushered into a chair to the side and back, where no one noticed her. The woman who sectioned her hair into ponytails asked me, "Do you know a survivor here?". I paused then nearly whispered, "yes, me". She asked me to wait for a picture and I heard her murmur into the photographer's ear "mother, survivor, daughter" and point before she handed me the scissors. I think she took a picture, I only saw the flash of my husband's camera. The people who clapped were our little family. The photographer never asked our names so she could use the photo. I think she somehow sensed from the smile and health of my face and the lack of commotion around us, whatever our story was, it wasn't newsworthy. I've never felt so grateful to be ignored.






F's hair is cute and suits her. She may have shrugged indifferently when I asked her, but she's hugged me about 10 times a day since the Relay. There is a new light of connection between us, this simple act has been bonding somehow. I can barely keep my hands off the baby softness of her new bob, she seems to fit better in my arms tucking surely under my chin. I'm pretty sure if you saw us, you'd notice a faint glow.

Phi Beta Bitches (L)

Alessandra and Marty,
Envy can strike you in some funny places. I remember reading about the male cast of Lord of the Rings and how they became this fellowship of brothers and all got a tattoo together. I longed for that summer camp style bonding as a grown up. I fantasized myself one of the boys at the local pub sharing a laugh with my best buds. Then I read Liv Tyler's account of her time on location, it sounded lonely and isolated. I realized, I could mentally join the crew, but I'd still be a girl.

For as long as I can recall, I have wanted to be a boy, although I did not like being mistaken for one. When I was four, I insisted on being called "Tommy". Later, my greatest dream was to have the nickname "AJ" because it sounded cool. My best friend through most of grade school was Ward Shaw. I called him my "soul brother". I loved my actual brother, who was mostly nice to me and tried to shape me in his image. I played the trumpet, read X-Men comic books, and was a sniper in the Army of our back fields. My sister played the flute, spent an inordinate amount of time working on her tan, and was exceptionally mean to me. It was very clear to me at a young age that boys had more fun. This was also reinforced to me in my sexist white trash home where my brother didn't have to fold laundry because it was "squaw work", and instead got the superior job of burning the trash. I wanted to be one of my brother's posse so badly that I married his best friend.

Eventually, I learned a careful selective process of picking girlfriends can eliminate much of the cattiness I detested in women. I truly believe my friends are the best of the best of the female species and I get support, perspective and empathy from them that seems virtually unattainable from the boys in my life. I also learned that I like girly things, like long hair, high heels and fingernail polish. But I never quite lost the envy of the simple loyalty and companionship that a group of male friends seem to represent.

Then there was Alessandra and Marty. I think the thing that separates our little triumvirate from any other female friendships in my life is its traits of masculinity. Ours is the closest I will ever get to male bonding. I think we all individually have lived similar younger lives of preferring male company. You two are pool sharks, we were all once upon a time probably the winner of many a beer funnel contest (Marty, I'm sure you could still drink any man under the table), Al drives a Harley, my tongue could make a sailor blush, I could go on and on about how boyish we are. Who else could I have to my camp in late September in Maine when there's no heat except the burn from our alcohol and an outdoor campfire? More importantly, our personal relationships are more like men. We pick up our friendships' threads with no venom or blame when it drops. Marty understood when I was pregnant and bleeding (ok, we're a little female) and couldn't make her wedding. Al understood when I brought a girl and not my husband (no, not gay) to her wedding. We just don't get mad at each other and stop speaking, we just never stop. That camaraderie is lifelong and in our blood and we never ask the other to prove it. It's all the best of a fraternity with none of the dues. But I still kind of want to be a boy...

Swirls (Marty)

Leave in a car, on a boat, on a plane...get in and go, get on and go, get by and go. My head just swirls...where to? what for? why now? I love my friends. I love my husband. I feel the need for something...anything...but...swirl, swirl, swirl.

I think I get like this whenever I go too long without performing. Something about it stabilizes me, lets me concentrate on someone else's fictional life, see the good in my own, be graceful. The need to develop a character like me, not me. I am a hopeless character, let's face it...a wanderer by nature, if only in desire. I want to see to believe, hear to learn, feel to love...all of which I can do without restriction when I am on the stage. No judgments await...faults and charm are not mine but hers...she dances or floats or trips or ages or lies.....

and I am fine. My self returns. Be not me to be me. Dustin Hoffman once said he would perform in community theatre for the rest of his life if that is the only place he could play. Some people believe that you are your occupation...the one that pays the bills. But when people ask me what I do, I reply "I am an actor. It is what I do for my life, not my livelihood." The passionate understand me...

The Cougar Cometh (L)

Cougar refers to an older woman, usually in her 40s-60s[11] who sexually pursues younger men in their 20s or early 30s. (Wikipedia)
A woman in same age group who from little to no fault of her own resembles one. (Linda)

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Here’s where it starts. I’m 4, I have outrageously curly auburn hair, big brown eyes, skin that tans and a bit of a pudgy nose. I’m precocious in a way that adults like because they can get me to go on stage and read things, but secretly find irritating. I once told a man in a flea market who was “cussin’” to watch his language. I’m 9, people tell me I have beautiful brown eyes, I blush, inside, because no matter how I try I can’t blush that gentle pink flush that fair blondes achieve, making them look sweet. I want to be sweet. I read Heidi over and over again thinking somehow with one more read I’ll be kind and gentle and raising baby goats. I start telling my parents I love them every day before school, because that’s what sweet girls do. It’s about 2 weeks before “I hate you and wish you were dead” slips out of my mouth again. Because my life isn’t sweet, this is the phrase my parents have earned. But I want to twinkle and glide despite them.

My father is blind, this means that I get to hear people telling him all the time how pretty I am. This also means he can’t buy his own beer. From that fact many ugly things are born. My parents not having enough money to buy me braces is probably the fairest of them all. My teeth grow more crooked, my face grows longer while my eyes stay the same size. That’s the last I will hear about my big brown eyes. That's the last I will hear about how “pretty” I am.

It is many years before I will hear someone give a new label to my looks. “Sexy”. I am 21 with long dark curly hair and dark eyes. My legs are long and lean and I don’t like to hide them. I’m no remarkable beauty and I don’t have a trace of sweet in me. Sexy? It seems with these particular features I have two choices. I can roll with it or I can slap on some Birkenstocks and grow out my leg hair.

I roll with it for years and years, but after three babies and 35, sexy is a bit of a desperate stretch, unless you’re Susan Sarandon. I am not. I fumble for a new label. My hair always gives me away. I try cutting it shorter, it just gets bigger, my new label could be “crazy hair lady”. I keep my long curly hair.

After many months of peering at me appraisingly, my posh Brit neighbor finally reveals her greatest Pygmalion tool, the straightening iron. My God, I can finally brush my hair, it feels so soft, it is so flat! Oh, but look at all the split ends, time for a major cut and how about some side bangs? With my propensity toward scar hiding scarves and in my capris, I’m looking rather yuppyish. Suddenly, any inner sexy I might have left is a secret. I am disguised as a soccer mom. Strange men look at me more. Men like a challenge. I do not like strange men, but I like finally being noticed as something other than sexy. I can join book clubs and not get dirty looks from the women dressed like pilgrims. I like this, I’m playing a new role. I finally have a new mask.

I have to buy a new dress for my niece’s graduation. I pick out a form fitting one. What’s the point of not being fat if that’s a secret too? It is tight, sleeveless, patterned, an appropriate length. My new scar hiding necklace of many metals puts one in mind of Floridians who think they’re artistic. My straight conservative hair brushes the edges of the dress and necklace. There is an essence of left over sexy. I look like something, I step back from the mirror squinting, something I am not, yet…
Next year, I’ll be forty. The Cougar Cometh.



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Dear Mrs. Hottie McHotterson...

Please come to my 21st birthday bash; all of my friends from the football team will be there and I really would like to show you around campus. Do you think any of the other catwomen from Hottietown will be able to join you? I think they'd like my friends.

Anxiously awaiting your reply,

Cutie McCalendarboy

I want my mmmm...TV (Alessandra)

Television is the national drug and god forbid there should be an interruption in delivery so you miss American Idol or worse, pick up a book or something. It's galling that our money is spent on ads to inform people with antennas that tv is going completely digital (a year from now!) and that there's a taxpayer-funded stipend you can receive to convert your analog tv (does anyone have one of these? Even the Amish have gone digital by now) to accept the digital signal.  By comparison, if there had been as remotely as organized disaster plan for New Orleans, a city below water in hurricane alley, more people would be alive and still in their own houses.  Maybe the people of Ninth Ward need a reality show on Fox so that at the rest of us would a) know what's going on; and b) actually give a sh*t.

What It Means to Be from Maine (Alessandra)

Happy birthday dear Linda

Happy birthday to you

You look like a goddess 

and you write like one too

You're an excellent parent

and the foxiest of them all

now will you let me come back 

to the cottage next fall?

happy birthday! hope you get all you want and more 

love, A

Footloose and Baptist Free (L)

Yesterday was my niece's Baccalaureate. The question of the day seemed to be "What's a Baccalaureate?" When my kids asked it, the answer was simple "I don't know, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to go to it." I was right. Turns out, a Baccalaureate is some sort church service, a sermon to the graduates! I'm sure Marty, graduating in the South, knew this. Hers was probably after church and everyone wore white gossamer dresses under their gowns and enjoyed apple pies and baskets of fried chicken at the church picnic where Jesus himself came down and said grace.

However, up here in Maine where "Jesum Crow" is the closest many get to Amen, the only information I had about Baccalaureate before last night was the recollection of my own, which consisted of three memories. It was in our high school's auditorium and the post party was at a graveyard in Rockland. (Now that I realize what it actually is, I wonder which northern heathen was responsible for cooking up the locale...) But my strongest memory of the evening was of conning Andy Grady into leaving the party and taking me to a convenience store for some unmemorable reason, where in my drunken stupor, I became obsessed with shoplifting a Little Debbie Brownie. I kept trying to slip it in my coat pocket, but was clearly lacking the skills required to actually achieve this, so the crinkly cellophane wrapper was alerting everyone to my many attempts. Andy was a good sport and kept whispering "I'll buy it for you, please stop!". To which I would reply a giggly "shhhhh" and crinkle crinkle slide down my coat's side, over and over again. In retrospect, I think that the clerk must have been working even harder than I was to pretend not to notice. Twenty-five cents was probably not worth the drama. Eventually, I realized my coat did not actually have pockets and put it in my pants. And that was my Baccalaureate evening.

Marking Time or Love's Sweet Revenge (L)

Tomorrow is C's and my anniversary. Eleven years. We have an anniversary book we sign to each other instead of cards that we can lose. We've been doing that for probably 5 years. It started out with entries like "I never thought I could feel this complete" and other lovely lines which I have since ripped off and turned into actual greeting cards. Then we started forgetting to bring it with us on our anniversary events, so sometimes the date would be a month later, then two months later, then 8 months. One year, I caught up and wrote for the previous year, but C refused to, no matter how I dogged him like a kid with a yearbook. Last year, with all the other flutters, neither of us bothered.

I remember my sister telling me that she and her husband no longer bought cards, that they would just go into a store and hand each other a card to read. I thought "how horrible!" and was later part of the inspiration for the anniversary journal. But now I understand. How many times can you write the same good things over and over, but avoiding the bad? True sincere anniversary cards would be too depressing for this stage in life, they'd say things like,

Pg. 1. Don't worry.
Pg. 3. I don't hate you every day.

Or

Pg. 1. I just wanted to thank you.
Pg. 3. For not divorcing me yet.

Or

Pg. 1. Turns out
Pg. 3. I didn't love you too much

But, there could be some nice ones too! Like,

Pg. 1. I can't believe my luck
Pg. 3. That you're not bald yet!

or

Pg. 1. You're hard to love
Pg. 3. But easy to f**k

Eye Candy, Brain Decay (L)

Last week, our MTV had no sound. It was bed time and Tila Tequila's "Shot at Love" was on. If you don't know this show, it proves that a.) you have a life, or b.) you are not a horny teenage male. So that's what is on, mindless, soundless, eye-candy TV with a target audience of boys who LOO-OOOVE to see girls kiss. As my finger was hovering above the caption button on the remote (so that I could actually read this quality television), I thought, this is how Alzheimer's begins...

Not the Mama (Marty)

OK...let me preface this by saying, Linda, that this is NOT in response to your post on babies. I swear to you that I was working on this very post the night that I wrote the one on soundtracks, when I was working at the auditorium with so much free time, and had saved it as a draft. It is pure coincidence that both our minds went to the same subject, which just goes to show why our friendship has remained over the miles...

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You'd think I'd be used to it. You'd think I would have developed the perfect answer to put people at ease. And yet, I am almost always surprised at the look I get with my answer to the question "So, do you have kids?" I almost pity the position they've put themselves in; I can just see the mind scrambling to formulate a follow up question that won't insult or enrage or crumple me. Most people, bless their hearts, just cannot fathom a childless marriage of twelve years, much less one that is deliberately so. They flounder, they scramble, they blush, they tell me "Well that's ok too!" all the while thinking "Where are the horns?" and "That bitch is wack." Once, when we offered to babysit for a newly second-childed couple (now *former* friends), the wife told her husband that she would not feel comfortable with me watching her children "because she is not a mom." Um....WHAT?

What girl code did I break? What rules did I not follow? How did I go from exercising my option not to procreate to being incapable of taking care of a child for a few hours? I secretly wished her to be hit by a dungpod ejected from an overhead 747, but so far my wish has gone unanswered.

I remember being a young woman and talking to my mom about kids. Even then, I did not feel the pull of the mama gene. She smirked her more-years-of-wisdom smile and said "Well, you'll probably feel differently in a few years." Well Mom, I waited. And I tried to be open-minded, and not be one of those people who said "Oh, I'll NEVER have children!" that wind up having seven. Even when I met the man I would marry, I told him I didn't have the Mama gene, but that I was open to the fact that my mind would change. He, thankfully, was cool with it. But that's not the way it went.....38 now, and still no Mama gene. Which begs the question.......what is wrong with me?

The way I grew up just did not lend itself to any common (much less ideal) meaning of the word "family." Adopted, then with divorced parents, splitting up my siblings and myself, then generally ignored til college...where would I have gotten the inkling that having children was the end-all be-all of being a woman? I mean I LOVE my friends' children and my nephews. I play with them when I can (in the good, get in the dirt make mudpies kind of way), try to let them know (when they're pre-teen and tween) that if they want an adult to talk to, they can call me. I let them know that when they're old enough to run away they can run away to my house (cause at least then we'll all know where they are). And I completely respect all the women out there that chose children; I know it's a special bond that I'll never understand, and I can live with that. So....why am I the one with the horns?

Final answer? There is nothing wrong with me. So stop telling me, and your other mama friends, that there is.

Marty

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Miss Marty,

You know Marty, before I had kids I was so following my inner compass toward procreating that I couldn’t imagine someone could actually not have that compass inside of them. I heard you saying you didn’t want kids and I didn’t think “oh, she’ll change her mind” but I did think maybe there was some wound from your childhood that could heal over time and your life would take you in a different direction than you imagined. Of course my then boyfriend, now husband, was claiming the same lack of reproducing gene, and I was hoping he'd change his mind! I’ll admit it was hard not to imagine you with an entire brood of boys, because you are so much damn fun!

But since having my own brood, I’ve quickly changed my way of thinking. Having children changes your life in ways you can’t imagine before you have them, of course some are rewarding and magical and amazing (see my post before yours), but many are grinding, draining, and altering in ways that can make you feel that your soul is being sucked out of you (see the lack of Alessandra’s posts); or if you are stemming that vampire drain, that you are selfish and are failing your children. It’s a huge thing, you are creating real live people who could be angels or could be monsters and whether you were the wind beneath their wings or fire beneath their scales, you are still their maker and all fingers will be pointed at you! And it’s not something you can quit or take a vacation from. Really, someone who has kids that are over the age of 2 and seem amazed that you don’t want kids, it’s really because they want you to join them in their world because why should you get to be free? (Although, I do ask people still sometimes, but it's because I’m nosy.)

Now, I have the opposite approach, I secretly hope all of my friends without children (with the exception of those who really want them) never have them, thus they will always be interested in my children and also available to me for playing. That woman was an idiot because seriously, the best babysitters in the world don’t have kids; and so they are still engaged in them, fascinated by them and willing to get on the floor and play with them, and most importantly actually watch them. We moms, we’ve developed a muscle that childfree people don’t have which enables you to seem as though you are hearing and seeing the child before you when in actuality you aren’t. Did Mary Poppins look as though she had stretch marks?

I think though the thing that has convinced me the most that having kids isn’t for everyone, is seeing people who really shouldn’t have had kids. You see them "with" their children and you know they either had kids so that they could check that box off, or because they didn’t ever stop to consider that it’s not a necessary requirement for life.

Marty, I would trust my whole pack to you, you know I was willing to send my baby girl down to you for weeks alone. You have legendary status in my house and you’ve spent less than a total day with my kids. I worked in daycare for a couple years before having kids and I think that the only way in which I am better with kids now is that I’m less self conscious reading stories aloud. But you know, somehow Marty, I don’t think that’s a problem with you…

So, say it proud and say it loud, “I don’t want to be nobody’s baby mama!”

Forever your girl,


Holly

The Smallest of Thieves (L)

Alessandra—I found this from an email I had sent you in response to the wondrous occasion of your baby S (now better known as “the boss”) 3 years ago. I thought I’d post it in honor of your most recent boss who is keeping you from writing long and reflective pieces on Lynard Skynard.


Edited from 2005 original

One of the weirdest experiences of life is having a newborn baby those first few days in the hospital. What a surreal feeling to be intimately bonded with this little stranger that has been growing inside of you. It’s a million times giddier than the experience after you're married and you refer to each other as wife and husband, and giggle thinking someone will correct you.

That feeling of calling for the nurse, saying, "I want my baby" with utter confidence when you really feel like you’ve just been handed the keys to a kingdom and no one has yet discovered that you’re really just a pauper. And the marvel when moments later they appear with this little thing that is yours, that is part of you, but hours ago, before they were born, you wouldn’t have been able to pick them out of a line up. That feeling of "Oh, there you are! That's who you are!" without actual recognition. It’s like having amnesia with your soul mate, and then having to and getting to know them all over again.

Sometimes when I'm doing G’s (my first’s) hair in the morning and her bare back is to me, I will touch her arms. They have these tiny bumps on them just like Chris’. I run my hands over their sandy surface as I stare at her back with its little dark hairs at the bottom, just breathing in the perfection of her imperfections and the beauty of her completeness as this little person. Yet it is still unfathomable that she is this grown, this absolute seven year old. I am still in awe that I made her, we made her—that once she was in me and now is growing out of me, but still is somehow half me. It's still a miracle when I have the time to slow it down enough to see it.

L

Soundtracks -- Part Deux (Marty)

Ladies --

I have pictured my entire life as a movie, and all of my big scenes have a soundtrack.
The Dance (Recital) Years. Lee Ann and I would hop around our living room making up dances to Madonna and Billy Joel, mostly because that's what was around the house. Our friends (and I'm sure yours too) would always give us 45s as birthday presents, so we had plenty of those around. Dan Fogelberg, Commodores, Eagles, Steely Dan, Lionel Richie, Madonna, you name it. It was a sad day when all of our old 45s were stolen out of a storage space my father was renting before moving into his new home, years ago. I can't listen to "Borderline" without doing my sister's choreographed dance in my head, if not in actuality.

And now, for your viewing pleasure.....--> my 80s hair.


The High School Years. Now bear in mind that it is *not* my fault that I was a teenager in the 80s. I glam-banded it up with the best of them. Mid-high school White Lion and Cinderella were frequently heard bellowing from my silver Rabbit convertible; there was rarely any doubt as to who was coming down the country road. Beach trips in this car became frequent after I turned 17, and by then I was dating a DJ far too old for me (thanks Mom and Dad) who turned me on to a lot of dance mixes, including Beastie Boys, Taylor Dayne, Bananarama, Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam, and of course...the sexiest man in purple platforms, Prince. My church youth group (I really loved being raised Episcopalian) took us to SEE PRINCE in a city TWO HOURS FROM HOME when I was 14...this a year before they took us to New York City for a week when I was 15, where I bought a pack of Newports in Yankee Stadium and then teetered around all highed up for an hour trying to find our seats. Newsflash: Newports will put even an avid drug user on his ass. But I digress...so Prince was my first live concert, and holy GLORY was it fantastic! I can listen to any Prince album at any time, but I have a special place in my heart for Purple Rain. Watching him stroke his guitar into ejaculation...words cannot describe. By the time for Governor's School came around, the summer before my senior year, I was ready for something different, and I got it in spades. All of the artsy/theatrical/vocalist/musical kids I hung out with that summer had something different going on...Berlin, Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Talking Heads were the music of that summer. I introduced many of them to Heart, still one of my favorites. Every time I go back to Old Salem I make sure to have a Berlin CD in the car. If you measure the age of a friendship by if you keep in touch, then my two oldest friends are from that summer. David is in LA writing screenplays (and we have had a long understanding between us that when his first film is optioned, there will be a small part in it for me...) and Judi is here in Raleigh, fighting through her recent separation from her husband of 12 years. My life and my music collection (thanks for all the mixed tapes David!) would not be the same without these two people...thank God for Governor's School.

College...oh boy oh boy oh boy. Literally. I met the first great love of my life about two minutes after arriving on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. A sweet Italian boy from Rochester with a penchant for Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and Miller Genuine Draft. We went to Aerosmith, Skid Row, and Bon Jovi concerts (clearly still the 80s), and listened to Winger and Poison (when we thought noone was listening) and lots of Eagles. I remember that Ozzy and Lita Ford duet "Close Your Eyes" making a regular appearance as well. After our horrible breakup three years later, I found another sweet boy whose tastes were remarkably different; hence I was introduced to the Allman Brothers, Robert Cray, Van Morrison, Public Enemy, Dire Straits, Sting, and tons of others that are today some of my very favorites. I float into the past every time I hear "Into the Mystic" or "Little Martha." My college roommate of three years had this mad crush on (read: wanted to be) Stevie Nicks, and so I fell in love with a lot of her solo stuff as well. But the roomie went by the wayside several years later when I learned she had tried to sabotage many of my college relationships; I have no friends from that time except that the second boy (now married and living in California after getting out of the Peace Corps) and I still email occasionally.

Which brings us back to Do. Wow...I just had no idea what to expect when I moved to New Jersey. By way of illustration -- take a hard-boiled egg and shove it into an olive jar. That's kinda what happened to me when I moved to NJ. Southern through and through and having never lived outside of North Carolina for more than six weeks, I was in for a rude -- and I do mean, RUDE -- awakening. Enough said about that. Melissa Etheridge, Gin Blossoms, Concrete Blonde, Counting Crows, Something Fierce, Edwin McCain...I found all of these in my three-year-three-month stint in the Garden State. I absolutely FELL IN LOVE with the Grunge period and these are still bands in my car player most often...Nirvana (I was among the heartbroken millions when Kurt died in April of 1994), Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Temple of the Dog, you name it I love it. But by far, my favorite New Jersey discovery is my two next-to-oldest friends, the women without whose opinion no big decisions are made: the esteemed and beautiful Alessandra, and the honorable and lovely Linda. Funny, Linda, that you mention that your soundtrack with Alessandra is a bit blank...I really don't hear music in my head when I think of you, except what you goad out of me around the fire (which, as we know, was years later). I know we had that unfortunate Hootie and the Blowfish thing, but in my defense, I was enamored with them because my sister had seen them perform in a bar in Sylva, NC (the very western part of the mountains) before they were famous, and she famously jumped up on stage after their first set to hug Darius Rutger and to let him know what the band's flaws were...it was the closest I had ever come at that point to knowing someone who knew someone famous. Thankfully Seema talked me out of stalking Dean Cain, but again I digress...OH! Actually, there was the summer Marion and I came up to see you and rented that convertible in Boston, and we drove around all week listening to Liz Phair's "WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg" and another album of hers that escapes naming right now. I do remember you and Chris in the back seat (I'm sure you only had Gwenyvere, and she may have been with your sister) singing right along with us to "Johnny Feelgood." Or maybe just you. But I completely disagree with Alessandra on "Achy Breaky"...that was *not* the most repeated song we had to suffer through at the pool table while you were getting your dance freak on; "My Maria" is the one that totally sticks in my head, although I concede that my year bartending in that country bar in North Raleigh in '96-97 could be what stuck that song in my head. Alessandra and I, however, have much in the way of a soundtrack for the Princeton years. Many evenings out in the field behind the florist with tikis, beer and boombox rang with the Neville Brothers "Yellow Moon." Our pool sharkin' nights were generally filled with any Lynyrd Skynyrd or Allman Brothers on the juke, specifially "Midnight Rider" and "Sweet Home Alabama." Alessandra, I think you thought it my anthem for being from the south, but Alabama is a world away from North Carolina. I loved the gesture nonetheless. Our pool sharkin' days almost came to an end one night in the Gables, when an unfortunately toothless man angrily banged his cue across the table to rattle us, just before Al sank the game-winning 8-ball shot. I think after we were followed to the car that night, we decided the Gables was not for the faint of heart...and we never went back. That may coincide with the Weekend of Bacon...but, once again, I digress...

Princeton 'til now...and In the Way Back Machine. My first year back in NC I bartended at several clubs, one of which was a dance club. The 'tenders danced on the bars ala Coyote Ugly, and I refer to that as The Dance (Club) Year. A return to dance mixes and staying up all night took thirty pounds off me and introduced me to those cheesy-turned-danceable mixes from Cher, Celine Dion, and such that were so popular at that time. There was still some sexy groove music coming down, and ten years later, Prince was still putting out tunes so hot your inhibitions melted. "Gett Off" always got me up on the bar to shake it, and my hotness (believe me, I'm laughing) got the attention of one short froggy patron...now famous for being the man that got me to say "yes" and actually follow through. Down the aisle. On the beach. In St. Croix. My soundtrack with him is limitless...the Toadies produced "our song" which, if you listen to it, will make you go "um, what?" He (being a teenager in the 70s), introduced me to Kiss (a band which I had managed to stay away from all those years until I fell in love with a live show) AC/DC and Boston. He famously got up onstage with our reception band (the first time I ever heard him sing with a band) and belted out "Brick House" to me. Everyone was stunned. As the years went on and we began to sing together (in our living room with the ultimate karaoke hookup) we have rediscovered some old favorites together -- Charlie Daniels Band (sung at the top of our lungs in a rain storm with the top down driving back from the beach) Elton John, Styx, Billy Joel, Journey, and new singing favorites, for me Melissa Etheridge, Concrete Blonde, Shinedown, and Pearl Jam (which I totally rock out...Marion says I should start an all female cover band and call it Gearl Jam). My darling husband has been singing with a Grateful Dead cover band they cleverly named "Better Off Dead" and so I've had a complete inundation of Dead music...another band I never really got into before my husband began to sing it.

Despite my general aversion to country music, lately I listen to Sugarland (because I have loved Jennifer Nettles since I first saw her perform in Black Mountain and I think she is some kind of sexy). Jimmy Buffet really has me going lately; I'm hooked ever since we went to Florida and have been at the beach in South Carolina lately. India Arie's debut album I know by heart. Edwin McCain does a cover of Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet" on The Austin Sessions that amazes. Chris Isaak's "Heart Shaped World" is an achingly beautiful album, and is best heard driving with the top down under a full moon on a magnolia-blossom and wisteria scented two-lane country road. Alessandra-- need some good old Lousiana bluesrock? You HAVE to listen to Marc Broussard's "Carencro." Concrete Blonde's "Live in Brazil" is brilliant. "Take Me Home" begins: "Pick up the phone, I know you're there, it's almost closing time./And we can toss down one more shot before last call./Are you ok? I swear to God I've got to get out of this house/I miss the days when I'd just not come home at all./So don't you cry it'll give you lines around your eyes./ You've got to try not to live so much of life alone./And if you see me getting crazy at the bottom of the bottle/ take me home, take me home, take me home." It makes me think of you both and my fantasy that one day we'll all live close enough together to make last call on a regular basis. Once a dreamer, always a dreamer....but let the music play.

Marty