Old Dogs

 Our next-door neighbors have dogs. So do we. When I sit at my kitchen table to write, I look out on their fenced yard and see their dogs out playing and walking around. 

Petunia, the oldest and smallest, has developed Old Dog Vestibular Disease. That condition usually is severe in the beginning and then gets better after a couple of weeks. One of our dogs had it and I remember how scary it was at the time. Petunia is a 15-year-old terrier and the most persistent little dog I know. She wobbles and sometimes falls down, but never gives up. Every day she stumbles around the yard with great determination. She sometimes curls up in the sun and simply sniffs the air. Right now, she's inspirational to me.

I seem to have developed old people vestibular something or other. Through the last eight years of Qigong practice, my balance has improved immensely. That's just the opposite of what you might expect because I've simultaneously gotten older. Now, at 70, I have better balance, stronger legs and ankles, and surety of foot than I did a decade ago. And yet . . .

There are days the world spins. Yes, I know about the Epley Maneuver and use it. Often, it helps. Until the next time. When my head is heavy and unstable, when my steps are not entirely under my control, I remember how it felt in the bad old days I thought were the good old days, back when I drank to excess to produce that same effect. It was fun, wasn't it? Euphoria, out-of-control, funny. Walking into walls and tumbling down steps wasn't embarrassing, it was hilarious. Until the next day.

If I were a believer in punishing gods, I would think I'm getting my just desserts. But I don't. I will go through the painstaking steps to try to pinpoint the cause and accept whatever remediation is indicated. I also know and remember every day, that I am happy to still be alive. The odds weren't always with me living to this ripe old age. 

Like Petunia, I will persist. Some days all I can do is sit in the sun and enjoy the scent of grass and trees, marvel at the flocks of birds flying in formation, feel the breeze kiss my cheek, and be grateful for my life as it is.

Once and Future

I used to spar with my brother-in-law. We couldn't have been much more different, except that we were both writers who swam in the water of words and ideas. I, a staunch if not militant atheist and iconoclast, who enjoyed a little bear-poking. He, a born and bred southern evangelical preacher, up and coming in the world of young clergy, with plenty of followers and fans. We traded books and kept it friendly though I harbored doubts about his sincerity and he, no doubt, about my sanity.

Along about 2012, we had a long-distance discussion by email. I was in Iowa with my mother, visiting relatives. We got a bit more biting than usual and I fired off a simple retort to something he said, something I don't remember now. All I said was "Kinder, Kirche, Kűche"

“NO!” he responded.  Hitler and Nazi Germany were off-limits, beyond the pale. I was being hyperbolic and irresponsible to even suggest such a thing in regard to his chosen religious beliefs and politics. 

It made me stop for a bit. Was I? The theocratic world created by Margaret Atwood in A Handmaid's Tale still haunted me nearly twenty years after I first read the book. I strongly felt that his brand of Christianity, along with the Republican party, was trending that direction. It didn't feel inconceivable to me.

We let it slide and never brought it up again, but every so often I found myself reflecting on that nascent fear which he had so cavalierly  brushed away. Toward the end of his life, in the last lengthy conversation we had, he expressed his own doubts about the direction things were going, both politically and religiously. 

He died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 49. I still miss talking with him. It was through those conversations that I got some insight into the mind of one who was committed, by default and by intellect, to ideas that were antithetical to my own. It was bracing and underlain with acceptance of each other as worthy humans.

I rather wish he were still around to see what's happening today. How would he respond to the pandemic? He had a good and loving heart, even though he was beset by fears and failings, as we all are. I know he would be horrified to see what has become of his Republican party as the DOJ officers are deployed to the streets of American cities, as leadership has failed to make any but the faintest attempts to rein in a plague that is killing thousands of citizens, and "freedom of religion" is employed to disparage and curtail civil rights.

I have been homebound now since March 16, as have so many other people. I read the news and try to maintain some sort of hope that life will become easier, something resembling normal once again. I have the sinking feeling that won't happen. I fear that we are closer than ever to the loss of democratic norms that we have taken for granted. The authoritarianism that seemed possible but unlikely in 2016 becomes more realistic every day. 

I wish my dear, departed brother-in-law had been right. 

Kinder. Kirche. Kűche

You Moved How Many Times?

  

This was my home for the first 4 weeks.

I will soon be seventy years old, which blows my mind. This morning, while reading a biography of Louisa May Alcott and seeing that she moved around a great deal as a child, I decided to count up my moves. 

One of the things I realized as I made the list is that my memory does a lot more spinning than it used to as it tries to retrieve information. I can picture the little buffering circle going round and round. So I'm not sure I got them all, nor can I remember very many street names. 

The final count, in my just-short-of-70-years, is fifty-one. Five. One. Including a few instances of couch-surfing and camping out, which I never think of as homelessness even though I technically didn't have an address and had to use my grandparents' home address as mine. I never lived with my grandparents.

Evergreen, Colorado 1956

My parents moved quite a bit, every year or two, even once during the school year in spite of the fact that my father was a teacher. After they started teaching for the military dependent schools overseas, things actually settled down. Then everyone around us moved and we were in the same place for several years at a time.

Unlike Louisa, I didn't grow up with a fanatic father whose beliefs precluded him from working for wages or owning property ----- or eating regularly. My father was a musician, though, and an aspiring, frustrated concert pianist who always felt like his big break was around the next corner. If only he hadn't somehow saddled himself with a wife and four kids! So there are similarities. 

My sister Barb at our small, plain house - 1958

By the time I graduated from high school in Rota, Spain, I had attended 8 schools. I married at 18 and lighted out on a remarkable journey of geographical cures for anything and everything that ailed me. By the time I was 30, my lifetime score was up to 32 moves and still going. Thirty was a turning point, though. That's the year I got sober for good.

I've been in the same house now for 15 years. Jill and I bought separate new houses when we met and it took us three years to merge. We've been stable ever since.

Sometimes, I get itchy feet. Sometimes, I lunge at the internet looking for a place to move, a desirable house in a new city or country. I may never get over that urge to pack up and search for adventure. But it's different now. I love my wife and the house we live in. She has a hometown not far away with family and familiar places. Occasionally, I even want to move there and try to adopt her home since I've never had a hometown of my own. 

In the meantime, here we are growing older together in a house I still think of as brand new, though it was 2002 when she got it.  That's long enough to launch an entire kid from scratch! (we didn't.)

 

My children have houses of their own, and marriages and careers to go with them. They've been more geographically stable than I, despite my best efforts to haul them from pillar to post in the early years. 

Seventy, huh? That means what, fifteen or twenty years more? Twenty-five if I stretch it? Considering my grasshopper-wastrel days of yore, I'm already living on borrowed time. And here, in this house that is definitely a home, I have found a measure of peace I never expected to have. 

Feet on the ground, breathing the air. Who knew it could be like this?

Buddy and Nana

Are we there yet?

This morning, I heard an interview on NPR's Morning Edition with our very own North Carolina Sec. of Health, Mandy Cohen, MD. She's been diligently working with others in state government, especially the governor, trying to ride this bucking bronco of a pandemic since the beginning. 

The stay-at-home order was issued, businesses shuttered, or were severely restricted. The traffic dropped in Raleigh below the level it was when I first moved here in 1987. Not that I would know, mind you, since I wasn't going out. But we do back up to a well-used street.

At first, it was kind of a breathless adventure, like waiting for a hurricane. We received our bidet even before the shutdown. Prescient, no? We stocked up on canned goods and pet food, pasta, tuna, rice, popcicles and ice cream, too. 

I'm old-ish. Turning 70 this summer, with a few predisposing but controlled health conditions. Jill is on medication that negatively affects her immune system. My very part-time job has no prospect of starting up again soon. She works in a surgery center, assisting surgeons with mainly elective procedures. We both had loads of unexpected time on our hands. 

As the days turned to weeks some of us, (Ahem) settled into the slow pace and isolation while and others, (not naming names), had a bit more trouble with it. The yard received careful attention. I bought a new sewing machine and started making masks to give away. The three bird identification books that sit on the kitchen windowsill got a workout. All in all, it was a novelty. Not bad, we congratulated ourselves. But then...

In the OUT THERE, protests began. Unmasked throngs descended on downtown hollering and carrying on. Even though we live right here in the state capital, we witnessed it on screen like everybody else. "Crazy" we agreed. "Do they want to die?"

What happened? Was it the protests against the shutdown? The people carrying guns in the streets of downtown? Was it boredom or short attention spans? Too many people out of work and scared for the future? Maybe it was just the call of summer. Suddenly, people were over it. 

LET THE OPENING BEGIN!

Are we there yet? No, assuredly not. All those carefully tracked numbers are rising inexorably. Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are going up here in NC, across the US, around the world. This ain't over yet, not by a long shot. 

So I'm hunkered down. It's hard to make myself answer the phone. I'm getting a lot of writing done and will likely publish two new books this fall. My house isn't much cleaner, I'm having trouble distancing from the fridge, sometimes I stare blankly at the wall wondering what to do next. But I've learned the difference between house sparrows, song sparrows, and chipping sparrows. I've held a lost Carolina Chickadee baby in my hand. I've taken naps and learned new pieces on the piano, put together some puzzles, read lots of books, and listened to sooooo many podcasts.

We're not there yet. Maybe we never will be. But one way or another, life is still good.

Grandma, what did you do in the plague?

My paternal grandmother, Ida, spent two years in a tuberculosis sanitarium in the early 1930s. It was in Ottumwa, Iowa, and it no longer exists. My father was six when she got sick. Ida's sister, Anna, took care of the family. That's what families do.

Years later, in 1967, I lived in Spain and was diagnosed with TB and treated for a year with medication and monitoring. Since then, I've gone for periodic rechecks and there's been no recurrence. Unlike my grandmother, I didn't have to be held in a sanitarium away from my family and normal activities. Advances in medicine, I guess. 

This time of plague has brought up reminders. TB patients, according to what I've read, were plied with lots of fresh air, even sleeping on open porches in all weather. I've spent much of each day on the deck during this time. It has been a balm to my mind and spirit and, perhaps, I'm channeling Ida.

I am acutely aware of the privilege I have during this pandemic. A house, first of all, with electricity, hot and cold running water, food, and the internet --- don't forget the internet! My wife and I find we enjoy each other's company and not a single spat has arisen. After 18 years together, we've been through enough counseling and hard times that we've learned to be gentle with one another. Also, we leave each other alone for our personal pursuits in the same house.

One of the underlying complaints I glean from what I read online is a feeling that this "shouldn't" be happening. As if life in modern America should not be subject to such an indignity as infectious disease. "It's not FAIR!"

No, but it's real life and how we respond is what matters most. Do we abandon our values of compassion in favor of some sort of "every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost" philosophy? That seems to be rearing itself in some quarters.

Or do we take this for the challenge it is, put hearts, minds, and strength to bear in acknowledging the stark reality and solving it the best we can? 

Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and even God will not bail us out. This is our collective moment and everyone has a part to play, even if it is just staying home or wearing a mask to the grocery store. 

My son is an ER doc. His job is well-defined and he is in my thoughts every single day. My wife is a Surgical Tech; she's got 35 years of familiarity with PPE. Thousands and thousands of regular people, sons, daughters, wives, husbands, go to work each day and face unknown risks. The best way you and I can support them is to stop the spread of disease.

Me, I may be getting old and retired, but I'm still kicking it right here at home, writing stories, sewing masks, checking in on friends and family by phone and computer. I may not be on the front lines, but I'm doing my part. So can you.

Sew the masks!

My great-grandmother, Ava Vista Cramer Ewers

It's a time-honored tradition, women supporting the war effort with fabric creations. Civil War -- rolling bandages. WWI -- knitting socks. WWII -- making and selling quilts for the Red Cross, all this and so much more. In times of war and national disasters, even before women were common in the workforce, organized efforts brought the traditional domestic skills of women into production for the greater good.

Now we see people making protective equipment to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Across Youtube and all platforms of social media, patterns, encouragement, and videos are shared. While we don't have the social aspect of physical sewing circles (with tea and cookies, no doubt) pictures and stories are widely distributed online. And yes, the needle arts are still produced mainly by women. 

At one time, I was a moderately skilled seamstress. I learned to sew on the machine in seventh grade, though my mother had instructed me in hand-sewing and embroidery from about the age of six. I'm very grateful to Miss Miles, my Home Ec teacher at Bremerhaven American High School in Germany. First semester of 7th grade we made aprons. Of course, we did. It was 1962. My mother's best friend, Joan Lindquist Flory, was an extraordinary seamstress. She guided me through shopping for fabric, provided tools and instruction and didn't even scold me when the jumper I made turned out so odd. I had pre-shrunk the dress material but not the lining. Bad move. 

I never developed my skills to a professional level, but I made many of my clothes in high school and college, including my prom dress in 10th grade. 

When I worked as a historic interpreter at a 19th Century farm in Illinois, I sewed all my own period clothing as well as my daughter's. Later, for my business, I spent fourteen years running around the wilds of North Carolina taking history programs to classrooms. My work clothes were the ones I made, the dresses, aprons, hats, cloaks, petticoats, corsets and drawers of a farm woman 150 years earlier. There was always something that needed to be replaced or repaired.

My parents gave me a sturdy, turquoise, metal Singer for graduation from high school in 1968. It stood the test of time right up through December when I made a new Christmas stocking for my brother. When I called it into service in February it had given up the ghost. Maybe it could be revived but I decided it was time for a new one. I don't sew much anymore, a little quilting, incidental costumes, mending and hemming. My fingers don't work as well as they used to; after 5 hand surgeries, they're not what they once were. Kind of like my old sewing machine.

I ordered a low end, light-weight machine online and got it last week. Now I'm starting to make masks. Jill wants me to make head coverings she can wear in the operating room. I'd like to make a busy-apron for my mother-in-law who has dementia. It feels good to sew on a smooth machine that has way more bells and whistles than the old one could have dreamed of.

So I'll take my place in the tradition of women responders, wielding needle and thread in service to others despite the on-going controversy about whether or when face masks are useful. It's what we do and it sure beats housework!

Not my first rodeo

Apprehension. That's the feeling in the morning when I first open my computer to look at the news. What happened while I was asleep? You do it too, don't you?

It's almost palpable, the feeling that something dreadful is going to happen and there is no way to stop it. It's like a hurricane, with pictures on the screen to track its advance. When will it hit and how bad will it be? That's what the news is like today.

And yet, it's not the first time the world has felt topsy-turvy. A half-century ago it felt much the same, for many of the same reasons. Power, greed, autocratic rule. As different as the world is today, those human traits persist and rise up every generation or so. 

In 1968, when I graduated from high school, the US was in turmoil. Assassinations, riots, cities were burning, people marched in the streets. This was the America I returned to after living in Europe for 8 years.

Fifty years ago now, I was a recently married 19-year-old student at the University of Illinois. Tom and I met in Rota, Spain on the Navy base where I lived. He was a sailor, I was in high school. We had all of the aspirations and excitement of young lovers everywhere, despite the world around us. 

Our campus, that spring semester of 1970, was alive with protest against the war, against atrocities foreign and domestic. The National Guard marched down the middle of the street in front of our shabby, store-front student apartment. They marched on the quad and in front of buildings, carrying guns, herding students willy-nilly, protesters or not. The men in uniform were no older than the students, but they had the firepower and it was during that semester, on the campuses of Kent State and Mississippi State that they used them. They killed college students, black and white, because the world was upside down.

We were sure The Revolution was upon us. How could it not be? They were shooting and bludgeoning citizens in the streets. The powers of government were arrayed with deadly force against the people. Our leaders were being killed. Cities burned. Nobody was listening, all was chaos.

Tom and I left for Canada. He had done his four years in the US Navy but this didn't feel like a country he would ever defend. We lived for three months in a tent, in basements of churches for refugees and were sometimes taken into the homes of lovely Canadian grandmas. We weren't the only ones who left. We were probably not the only ones to come back.

The Revolution didn't happen then, but there was still a war to rise against, civil rights to demand, a corrupt government to deal with. 

You may have noticed that everything has not turned to roses and rainbows since 1970. Once again, we are in a state of upheaval. People have taken to the streets and will again. After all these years, my protesting chops are a little rusty but still, I march and chant with the young people. I write letters and emails, pick up the phone, canvass door to door. I just might not drive at night.

When the world is topsy-turvy and the malignant powers-that-be are in ascendence, what else is there to do but join together and assert that love and justice matter?