You Must Remember This, A Kiss is Just a Kiss

I'm pretty goo-goo about babies these days. Jill knows I'll zero in on any that cross my path. I've become one of those grandmotherly types that tells strangers their baby is "so sweet" just so I can get some face time with an infant.

The other day, we were waiting for Jill to have some medical tests in the basement of the hospital. A couple came in with a stroller and a two year old. When the baby started to move, Mama took him out, all wrapped up in a hand-crocheted blanket, and comforted and patted him. The baby didn't cry. As he kicked around in the blanket, I noticed that one arm was only a partial. Ah, I thought. The baby is the patient. After awhile I noticed that both arms were truncated. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer and I went over to do the grandma thing.

As soon as I saw him, I realized this child's legs were like his arms, and he had a trach as well. No wonder he wasn't making baby noises. But he looked at me with those big blue eyes and he followed my face as I talked to him. After only a couple of minutes, Mom asked me if I wanted to hold him. Did I? Of course! I held this precious child and chatted Mom-talk, some related to his condition, some just regular chit chat.

My own two babies were healthy and whole. I feel remarkably lucky to have them in my life still, as the fine adults they have become. But it really is a crap-shoot, isn't it? Nobody knows when the unexpected will strike. That's why they call it unexpected. Sometimes babies are born with health problems, visible or not. Sometimes the people we love most are injured, fall sick, disappear, die. At every step, there's not much to be done but take it in stride.

Jill's chronic health problems are what took us to the hospital basement that day. We weren't just hanging out because we like the magazines. Emotions and fears rise and fall with each new development for her. Even though nobody has any guarantees in this life, when there are potentially life-limiting conditions to deal with, perspectives change. In some ways, it's a blessing. We don't take each other for granted. We try not to blow anything out of proportion. To that end, we've developed a way of communicating that keeps both of us very current, nothing left unsaid, clear space between us. And into that space, anything can be spoken. In this way, so far, we've been able to handle whatever comes along, and I don't expect that to change.

I wouldn't have set out to marry someone with health problems like Jill has, not if I were listing out the perfect mate. And yet when she told me about it, shortly after we met, it already didn't matter. If I were able to wave my magic wand and cure her forever, you better believe I'd do it. I hate seeing her go through pain and uncertainty and way too many procedures. But altogether, I'm grateful that we have been able to spend the last eleven years together. When we met, she wasn't sure she'd be around another year or two. Every day is an actual gift, a celebration of life. And every day we show it, and speak it, and dance in the kitchen, and play with our fur babies, grateful for another day together.

View from the back deck

My grandfather, back in Iowa, used to sit out on the kitchen porch after dinner and chew on a sprig of parsley that he picked from the flower box. Good for digestion. Of course, not in the winter time. Winter in Iowa is not conducive to either porch sitting or parsley.

I used to notice older people doing things like that, sitting on the porch or a park bench or, most amusing of all, in the open garage doorway since so many houses are built without porches these days. It always looked kind of sad to me as I raced by in my car on the way to somewhere, to do something. How sad it must be to be old and have nothing to do but sit. Especially in the garage.

Nothing in my life encouraged me to relax and contemplate. If I had occasion to sit and wait, I usually had a book to read or a notebook in my purse so I could plan or make notes. I had kids with me, or the radio to listen to. I had places to go and people to see.

I'm starting to change my tune and guess what---- it's not sad. Maybe what's sad is all the time I've spent rushing through the world not really seeing or hearing or smelling or tasting much of anything. Until I was 30 and changed my ways, fun revolved around intentionally changing my perception as much as I could, trying to find that fine line between euphoria and oblivion. Once I put that behind me, I still wasn't ready to be present to myself or the world around me. I was busy. I had responsibilities. People expected things of me. I didn't have time.

It's only been in the last couple of years that I have been able, with any consistency, to slow myself down to a pace that allows me to simply be for longer than a few minutes. It wasn't that I didn't see any value or try to do that before, but it's hard to still a racing mind. What I discover now is that sitting and being is not sad. I don't have to always distract myself with music or a book. And most startling of all, it's not boring.

So I'm on the back deck doing the old person sit. It's the same view as it's been for the past ten years--- except it's not. The pine trees that used to come up to the first floor windows of the houses across the way now tower over the rooftops. I can't even see the houses anymore. A few days ago, the silver maple had lots of seed pods, but almost no leaves. Now the leaves obscure the seeds. The ash tree was bare, but this morning there are tiny leaves, the butterfly bush has its first hints of purple. The mockingbird--blue bird wars are in full swing.

The view may seem the same at first glance, but it's never the same way twice. The wind shifts direction, the clouds blow across the sky, the sun angles differently with each season and time of day. The corkscrew willow that dominated the yard is now gone. I've erected a bottle tree in its place, and sunlight dances through the colored glass.

I have a baby portrait of myself hanging in my study. I was about 6 months old when it was taken. It's large and framed in gold-painted wood. I've seen this photograph all my life. When I look at that picture I know it is me 62 years ago and, strangely enough, it looks like me. I haven't changed a bit, except for the growing up and growing older part. I still look like me.

So if you walk through my neighborhood and you see me sitting on  the glider out front, doing nothing, don't shake your head and feel sorry for me. I'm not doing nothing. I'm smelling the scents, just like the dogs do. I'm feeling the air move across my face and arms. I'm listening to birdsongs and relishing the first bright pink azaleas. I'm noticing the sun as it descends to the horizon and yes, I'm greeting people and dogs as they walk by.

Someday, I hope you'll have time to sit on my porch, too. We'll have a glass of tea and talk a little bit. We'll watch the evening gather and keep an eye out for the first star. And maybe we'll just sit in companionable silence for awhile. But you'll have to bring your own parsley.

Out of the House and Into the Streets

Stadt Theater, Bremerhaven, Germany

So this is it. This is how it works in the real world. I've spent most of the past 5 months hibernating, squirreled away in my house, surrounded by all the things I love, battling demons and scratching out words, trying to make sense of something, anything. And then the sun shines for a few days, and the temperature warms up and what? I shake off the lethargy and stretch and yawn and drink some coffee and next thing you know, I've got car keys dangling from my index finger. 

I could never figure out how a person could be agoraphobic. I have been on the go since I got my first permission to ride the bus by myself. I wanted to be with my friends and go places. If I was stuck in the house, I was on the phone talking about future plans. I was the girl, 50 years ago, who would put on a nice dress, flip my hair and put in the little clippy bows above each ear, smooth on stockings ---- yes, with garters, because pantyhose hadn't been invented yet ---- and go downtown on the streetcar, with my best friend, to that upstairs restaurant kitty-corner from Karstadts department store, and order coffee and pastries, just like grown-ups. Then we would stroll down the street admiring the window displays until we reached the Stadt Theater, where we would attend a matinee performance of an opera or symphony concert. How very ladylike can you get at 13? Okay, this was in Bremerhaven, Germany. I doubt we would have done it in the States. But it was emblematic of my passion for being out and about with friends.

Fast forward five decades and here I am, glued to the couch for an entire winter. I don't want to go see friends ---- I don't want to answer the phone. I make myself get out for a few meetings, and once a month or so push myself into the nearly overwhelming company of a couple dozen women and a table full of potluck food. It doesn't help that Jill is a congenital introvert who depends on me to blast her out of the house in the best of times. And the longer I stay at home, the harder it is to get out. So now I see how that fear develops. Even today, when the sun is shining and my countenance is cheerier, I have to assure myself that I can always leave, I'm always at choice, I don't have to stay, it's okay to come home.

This morning, I joined up with a couple hundred of my closest friends to be educated about the pressing issues being presented in the North Carolina legislature, now that it has changed hands. There were some people I actually know, and most I did not. I went to the wrong church first ---- and didn't use that as a reason to turn around and go home. I allowed myself to catch the spirit, to remember my convictions, to rekindle the connection I have with others who feel, as I do, that there is injustice afoot that must be stopped. I even leaped up from my seat and went to the front when the call went out for volunteers from the throng to be the visual representation of diversity in this movement for fair play and justice. I didn't veer off to the parking lot when we moved two blocks to the legislative building. I found the offices of my representatives and spoke my name and left my concerns, and yes, I felt good afterward.

Will it make a difference? I don't know. I believe that efforts like this make more of a difference than sitting on the couch forwarding cartoons on facebook. What I know for sure is that it makes a difference to me. And I guess that's really what counts.

Is it real or is it ..... chemistry?

This is my mother, Nancy Lou Ewers Bundy. She was born in 1930. She doesn't know that anymore, not even her name. I visit her several times a week, but I don't know who she thinks I am. Sometimes she calls me Margaret, her big sister's name. I consider that a compliment. Most of the time she just seems to know that I'm someone familiar, like the women who are her caregivers at the Alzheimer's Unit where she lives. I'm the one with the chocolate mint in my pocket.

Every visit is different. Today she was not very alert. She moved and spoke as though she were underwater, very slowly with a WA-WA quality to it. It took her 15 minutes to drink 2 ounces of orange juice in teeny, tiny sips. I read her a new book, an oversize children's picture book. Sometimes she can still read words, but today all she did was point to the pictures and look away. Whenever I touched her, she startled and cried out.

As I watched her sit in the wheelchair looking around, her lips moving in small, stuttering words that only she knew, I wondered for the millionth time what it is like to be inside of her, inside her addled mind. She used to read everything she could, she had a wicked sense of humor and unbounding good cheer. Most of the time, her good cheer is still in evidence, but since she can't express herself, she can't really share the things that amuse or perplex her.

At one point today she fastened her attention on something only she could see. She touched it and talked about it, rubbed it in her hand and finally handed it off to me and grinned. I have no idea what gift she gave me, but you can be sure I said thank you.

A long, long time ago I used to attempt to expand my consciousness with chemicals. I discovered that different substances produced different effects, some of which I liked and others which I didn't. I wondered today if the place where mama lives is similar to the places I induced by artificial means, 40 years ago. 

I scare myself by worrying about my odds of following in the footsteps of my demented parents.  From the outside it looks like one of the worst things I can imagine, and it takes SO LONG to reach the end of that path. But what if it's not all that bad? What if it's like the pleasant oblivion of a really long acid trip ---- without the scary stuff? I know it's a crap shoot. Dad's dementia seemed to involve a lot of visual and auditory hallucinations, many of which scared him. (These days he might have been diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia.) But mom, even when she's interacting with people or things that I can't see, doesn't seem to be disturbed or afraid. In fact, she spends an inordinate amount of time giggling to herself. Maybe she's flooded with dopamine and seratonin and oxytocin and whatever other happy brain chemicals there are. 

It doesn't HAVE to be tragic, maybe. I hope. For her sake. And mine.