On Thanksgiving we had dinner with my father and stepmother. My sisters and brother were elsewhere. My daughter is up in the Pacific Northwest, my son is home. Can’t say we’re doubling down on tradition this year: we ate out for Thanksgiving; we’re going to have, for the first time in my life, an artificial Christmas tree. With colored lights: High WASP sacrilege.
Despite our untraditional plans I feel quite familied-up. Although my mom flickers in and out of her Alzheimer’s, my father and stepmother are as present and thoughtful and fun as ever. I have siblings and step-siblings, I feel like their personalities keep me company even when they are not here.
And of course my two adult children. Neither of them have started families themselves but they are both, what, embarking, yes, embarking that’s the word, on work/careers they have come to independent of me. In fact without much assistance at all. My daughter, as I’ve told you before, is a neurosurgical resident. My son, as I’ve not told you yet, is in his first year of an MFA in Creative Writing, down in Southern California. Isn’t that cool? The little guy with chubby feet coexists in my imagination with the bearded person carrying a coffee cup into the living room.
Also my beloved husband.
I think I mean to write about conscious family.
I love the instinctual sort, don’t get me wrong. An absent-minded pat on the shoulder, stockings hauled out of the garage, remembrance of brussels sprouts past. Feeding a crowd. Playlists: Oh Come All Ye Faithful. All I Want For Christmas Is You. But I am slowly, slowly learning something more conscious. I have to – I’m alone in my house a lot, I have to watch that I don’t try to comfort others just because it comforts me. I have to make sure not to get so lost in feelings of love and identifying that I forget that sometimes sad things happen and they are not to be fixed. That people don’t always want help. Need has to be defined by the needer.
I feel I need to mention cranberries here, I’m not quite sure why.
So here’s a tradition. People need things from each other. Families are to make that OK. However it happens.
This morning we’ve had a blueish sort of sky. I think it’s turning taupe but that might just be me projecting. In any case, the air quality is Unhealthy but that’s better than yesterday when it was Very Unhealthy.
I live 200+ miles from Paradise, California–the most populated town affected by the Camp wildfire. I should say, formerly most populated because it has entirely burned down. The fire has destroyed close to 10,000 houses, over 70 people confirmed dead, hundreds more are missing. Their air is Hazardous.
From one perspective, the bad air in the SF Bay Area is just a side note to a true and terrible tragedy. I cannot imagine how the dead and their families have suffered. I am so sorry, and if any of you have lost someone I send you all sympathies.
I am holding a moment of silence on my sofa. It’s really hard to take in.
Our brown sky is its own story as a sign to do something. Sky-writing. I am the first to admit that I don’t volunteer out of a sweet well of virtue. I do it to be able to survive the hours between 2:15 and 4:43 pm, when I’m troubled by anxiety and the desire to drink more than I should. This way, when I look out the window, listen to the whirring of our air filter, wonder whether it’s less healthy to sit inside or to take a brisk walk wearing an N-95 mask, I can say to myself, “I volunteered to elect someone who will work to find solutions.”
It’s party-politics neutral, see. I have my ideas about what is causing these out-of-control fires, other people believe otherwise, but the action is correct independent of particular beliefs.
Ironically, volunteering also makes me worry more. I worry about the kids I teach, living in apartments with old windows, no air filter, old cars without air conditioning maybe. Asthma plagues poor children. But in the end I’d rather worry about someone else than about myself.
These fires also make me think – there are so many ways to help. You can donate money, if you’ve more of that than time. You can volunteer directly, help organize food drives, set up bake sales. You can support a candidate with good ideas, or, hey, you can become said candidate. I am guessing the group here knows even more than I do what is possible and useful.
I don’t know how to sit in sorrow and helplessness. Not in my genetics. All I know how to do is pick something to do, do it, and then turn around to see what you know now.
This morning most of all I feel a swell towards normalcy. I grew up believing in systems, that rules were generally fair and the responsibility to follow, mine.
I’d already woken up lighter and more quiet on Wednesday. As though I’d absorbed the country’s conflict, and could now let it go. If we indulge in fancy, we might say that I had been experiencing a battle which has now settled back down into a loud but not lethal ball sport. Baring of teeth; no deaths. Checks and balances.
I’m pretty sure that’s what has come to be meant by “privilege.” When “normal” means “safe.” I suppose now, after staring out a few windows and hugging some family, I should try to support others in also feeling that safe is normal.
Then last night my husband told me we had a frost warning, so I went outside into the cold smoky night and put a sheet over my fuchsia plant. It was still blooming. This morning it is not dead.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone. I remain optimistic.
For non-American readers, I should point out that we had elections this past Tuesday. Am being intentionally oblique so as to kind of sort of adhere to the policy of no politics here. These are just my own set of emotions – I do not mean to impose them on anyone else.
After close to 10 years of long hair I am suddenly tempted by short.
Why? I find that more and more often (as in almost always) I default to a braid down my back. And it appears that, absent hair to fluff or float around my face, all I can see is lines and wrinkles. I don’t want to be defined by the crevasse between my eyebrows.
That was easy. I mean, I don’t really need my mind blown but in this era of hyperbole that’s probably the level of impact I’d be looking for.
For example. Style #15 of the 100.
Not that I’d walk around with my hair in my face, too many years of my mother’s training for that, but, you know, as a direction.
Or even a little shorter, as per Style #12.
What do I aspire to?
An edge, but warm
Balancing masculine structure with feminine volume and tendrils
I’ll blow dry and use product once or twice a week, but this needs to be wearable even on the days when I cannot be bothered (my current regime may need more oomph, although I do like my straightener)
I don’t want to travel to San Francisco, I need to rely on a hair stylist in my suburb
Oh, and I still want to avoid coloring. I think I have enough of a silver/white stripe that my hair might look something like this – all of its own accord. Never too late to be a punk rock star.
I haven’t even looked at Styles 20-100 yet. Weekend reading.
Finally, in case you wonder if I’ve forgotten something, yes, I know there’s an election on Tuesday but I cannot imagine that anyone needs a) a reminder of my political leanings or b) a reminder to please vote.
So I’ll just wish you all a wonderful weekend. I look forward to hearing your opinions on Haircuts For A 62-Year Old Woman Who Is Not Prepared To Surrender Modernity, Just Yet.
All the best to you and yours.
This post is not monetized, old posts may well be, they’ll be clearly marked
She is quite embarrassed that we caught her in bad lighting. So here’s a quick iPhone portrait mode glamor shot to mend fences.
Here’s our new White Alder. He was very picky about his lighting too. We gave him several options; he chose “All.”
8am.
8:30am.
4:30pm.
He still insisted on a closeup.
And now I’ve just read the news about the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and I can’t continue. I’m sorry. I plant trees and write blog posts both because it makes me happy to do so and because I hope to be useful in the world, but this morning I am of no use and I am broken.
This is the Jewish prayer of mourning.
If it’s inappropriate in any way, please let me know right away and I’ll take it down. If there’s something better, let me know and I will put it up. My deepest sympathies to those who now grieve.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, quietly, so as not to wake anyone but myself. I am always reassured by my capacity to do that. Then I fumble a bit for my phone and earbuds, which will have tangled with my glasses, carry it all to the kitchen. I do like the sound of the soles of my feet on the floor. I make tea.
To be fair, I think any time before 5 am is unholy. That’s night. Night-waking is only good when it passed unnoticed. But early morning, especially when you’ve allowed yourself the chance to fall asleep and it’s clear you are rested, the best.
It’s light outside now. I guess I just love that feeling of things to come?
Out my window I can see the native alder we just planted. We also have a new incense cedar, but that’s around the corner. I’ll water it, probably bend forward to smell it, a little later. The drops of water are particularly beautiful hanging from its, what, needles? Foliage that is not leaves?
I hope a breeze springs up. Turns out that alders, who do have leaves, pointed oval leaves, twist in the wind like birch and aspen. It’s hard not to imagine ballet. I believe that as nights get longer and colder, the leaves will fall off. Things to come.
I just got back from two nights at an old friend’s house, in the hills above Santa Fe. I keep predicting high desert outside my window; it will take a while longer for my imagination to come home.
You can see why.
The day after I arrived we went hiking in the Tent Rocks national park. At the entrance, cacti,
and erosion in apricot stone.
Once you get up into what they call the “slot canyons,” you can really see the formations known as “hoodoos.” They look like people. That’s one of my friends, taking a photo of her own. She is in fact a person. Not long ago she hiked 100 miles around Mont Blanc. It’s good to have a buddy who can set an example.
But look at those rocks. Extraordinary, no? All kinds of imagery comes to mind, the most anthropomorphic being families. Grownups grouped together, chatting, children down the way hoping nobody puts an end to their fun.
After our hike we went into town for a little gallery wander, then out for dinner in the evening. We returned for a chat around the dining table before bed. I’ve known these women since college, it’s a real joy to catch up.
Here are some things I learned from our conversations:
A cookbook called Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables is good. Sounds excellent for eating more green stuff.
You can try to reduce inflammation in the body using cryogenic cooling. As one who suffers from soft tissue aches and pains, I’m interested.
Puppies. They are really cute.
Sunrise. The view from our host’s beautiful and simple house. Apparently Netflix is setting up a production facility in Albuquerque. I look forward to all the Golden Skies Of Future Television.
The stripes are me, reflected.
The third day we went up higher, to aspens and evergreens.
Yes, that’s snow. Some more fell as we were getting started. I kept laughing. My thin down jacket, cashmere beanie. and stretch walking pants were not warm at all. Little bits of frozen water clattered down my arms. One of my friends loaned me her vest, that did the trick.
I recognized fronds of fern-like yarrow on the forest floor.
I am reminded that the universe hands out exhilaration freely – in compensation for my anxiety maybe. I was transported.
Literally and figuratively.
And now back to editing my book draft. To letting the white roses make rose hips and fall dormant. To anticipating our rainy season and teaching reading to kindergarteners who don’t speak English at home and refining a process for stirfries. To preparing to vote.
Thank you again to my friends of many years.
Have a wonderful weekend, every single stem and stalk of you.
The past few days I’ve had a houseguest. Frances, of Materfamilias, came to stay.
Time to explain that she’s my writing partner. For the past year we’ve been sending each other sections of our longform writing projects. I won’t speak for her, but I’ve relied on the structure of our timeline, the sharing, and the feedback to get this phase done. I doubt I’d have finished the novel’s first draft without our relationship.
I wanted to work with Frances for the same reasons I read her blog – she’s thoughtful, well-read, questioning, and loves a good metallic oxford. Seemed we’d be well-suited. And with the goal being simply to finish, we kept our feedback very light. I was prone to sending my sections accompanied by questions such as:
Is this totally terrible? Do you just want to stop reading?
As it turned out, discussed our writing, some. But over two nights and days of companionship, of course we talked about other things. I just want to note that you can make friends over digital media. And when you see them in person, an infrastructure will have been built that means you don’t have to start at the standard beginning. It’s a different way to grow a friendship, sure, not identical to living down the street or up the road, still true.
On Thursday we took a hike. That’s Frances, in the photo above, after we’d climbed the final hill. Turned out, as I took her photo, she was sketching me.
How’s that for redefining the media of friendship?
Have a wonderful weekend, with, if you like, friends.
These days she can hardly talk. When she’s having what I can only call delusional memories, talking to someone who isn’t there, she’ll say more than usual. At other times she will remember social phrases, “I should think so,” “Marvelous!” But if you ask her a question about the here and now most often she responds with one or two words, and then devolves into what I will call gibberish.
When you have a parent with Alzheimer’s you use words that used to feel bad but have become OK.
On Tuesday when I greeted her she looked up and said, “Darling!” She couldn’t really get much else out, at least nothing that made linear sense, but I gathered from language fragments that she wanted to “do something.” So the care managers helped me get her into her wheelchair – she rarely walks – and off we went.
First we went into the residence’s little enclosed garden. She ignored the various pots of flowers and gestured with certainty towards the iron exit gate. I pushed her close, she took hold of it and shook. “It’s locked, Mom,” I said. “But I know another way to get out.” So we went through the front door to the parking lot. I asked her, “Which way?” She waved towards the sidewalk, away.
Her residence is on a main street. Cars go by really fast. At the corner I asked her again, “Which way?” She gestured forward, we turned, went into another parking lot, this one surrounded by rosebushes. We came back out. I kept asking if this was good. She would say “Yes,” another word she hasn’t lost.
She said “No” to going home. So I asked her again, “Which way?” This time she pointed across the main street. It’s not really pointing, I need to give you a better picture, she makes a sort of chopping gesture with her hand. When the light changed we charged, me veritably running to cross all six lanes in time.
It seemed she wanted to keep going. So I pushed her into the neighborhood, down the sidewalk, past the houses, and the trees. A young boy passed, wearing his school uniform, coming home. She noticed but she wanted to keep on.
Then I realized she was raising her eyes as I walked. The trees in the neighborhood were quite tall – she was looking at an evergreen on the far corner. “That’s a tree Mom,” I said. “See how it’s green? See how the sky is blue?” These days I have to lean forward over her shoulder so she can hear me. She was looking with an air of such intent, such clear desire to know.
“I can’t see,” she said. “I know you don’t see well any more,” I said. I wanted to acknowledge her reality. One of her cataract lenses got loosened recently, we haven’t sent her for repair, fearing surgery would do more harm than good. I turned the wheelchair so she could see down the street, further. An even taller evergreen stood outlined against the sky. She said, and I do not remember precisely, something like, “That one I know.”
So I kept pushing, until halfway down the block we came to a driveway shaded by three large trees. Twined trunks, large low dense canopies. We just stood there for a while. Possessed by the idea that the universe was talking to me I told her to look right up, I told her the trees loved her, that she was beautiful. We all say that a lot, she seems glad to hear it.
Then I asked if we could go home. She assented, I think.
Just as we were about to cross back over the large main street she said, “I want..” I figured she meant something to eat or drink. I think her memory has retained the fact that I am the one who takes her out – even though I’ve only done it a handful of times – and that when I do I get her food.
So we stopped at a smoothie place. She said, “I don’t think so.” We kept going. Then the sidewalk got really bumpy and she said, “I don’t like this.” I cannot stress to you how extraordinary this level of communication felt. As though the sky I’d explained as simply blue was cracking open.
So I wheeled her into a nearby bodega and bought her a Twix ice cream bar. She liked it so much she said, and by now I am possibly inventing entire paragraphs, or maybe I myself said some part of this, “This is delicious. If we want, we can COME BACK.”
I know I then said, “If you want another one you can have it. No limits.” Because that’s what I was trying to do, to give her a day without limits.
I got her another Twix. I talked to the guy behind the counter, young Middle Eastern guy, he was so friendly. Homeless guy outside was friendly too. I bought a Lotto ticket for the hell of it. I will tell you now I did not win the drawing.
Meanwhile Mom is just cramming this Twix bar into her mouth. But I haven’t taken off all the wrapping. So I see that if she takes one more bite she’s going to eat paper.
Also by now I am hot and sweaty. It’s a warm day, the wheelchair is not light, I am almost 62 years old, I forgot to wear a hat. I try to take away the ice cream. She says, “NO!” I think, “I meant to give her a day with no limits, but I have also done all that I can and I’m going to get out while I am still in good humor.” I manage to peel back the paper on the bar without her biting me. This takes some effort. I stand over her waiting to extract the melted ice cream and caramel in its crumpled wrapper from her fingers. It’s oozing. I seize my moment, I throw it in the garbage.
She doesn’t object, we’re on a roll. We go home. It is now her home.
I am breathing hard as much from exhilaration as exertion. I am not quite sure what has just happened but I am very happy. I feel I have done well by her.
In my mother’s last days in Santa Barbara, when she could still walk and talk (although she’d lost the idea of who I might be a year before), she would sit in the front seat of the car waving her hand at trees, saying, “So beautiful.”
Just last weekend my middle sister and I had been talking about a Richard Powers book, The Overstory. It’s about, well, trees. And some people but mostly trees.
I wholly understand all this may have been coincidence. I don’t think it matters. It was a time full of enough meaning that I don’t care who was talking, the universe, Mom, me.
Tell me a story, I do believe my words are worn out.
Are you busy? It’s so funny, I can go three months without talking in-depth and in-person to anyone but my husband and family. Maybe even half a year. But these past few weeks people have been visiting and I’ve had conversations – some profound, some companionable, some both, all wonderful – full of in-depth talk. Is it fall? Is this the retired person’s version of Back To School? Goodness knows I’ve been learning.
Also I’m in a place, maybe some of you have been here too, where a longtime online group is at a turning point. The turning point requires, unsurprisingly, talk. Although there of course I mean typing, but still, words.
I love to say words. I cannot imagine that’s a surprise. And yet one of the tasks of my adult life has been to learn to listen. To learn to hear painful or scary feelings from another. To learn to actively stop, look at the person across the table and wait. To learn to hold a model of a friend and their reactions and needs in my mind even as I process my own.
Sometimes I have felt as though I have lacked a certain set of neural circuitry, that now I’m trying to build it up. As though with any luck I might replace my fraying fast-talking fast-thinking capabilities with something slower and more responsive. Like I said, with any luck.
So if you have a story, I’m listening. Perhaps a recent insight. Maybe a small message to the world. Or we could all just sit here quietly, together.
Am I serious? Privilege? Yes. At least when I'm not joking. While privilege can teach you what color shoes to wear with navy blue, nothing beats the privilege of being alive. So let's talk style, in the context of culture. Let's focus on the over-50. For more, please go here. Or you can reach me at my email: [email protected]. That's the name I wanted to be called when I was 16. Ah. 16....
