Tell Your Story

 

“If an ordinary person is silent, it may be a tactical maneuver. If a writer is silent, he is lying.”    Jaroslav Seifert

 “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your story. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”    Anne Lamott

 

I found writing memoir to be a long and difficult process. First of all, you have to live the life in order to write about it. That takes time in the most literal sense. The consequences of actions play out over many years, even decades. The ability to look back and reflect on life experiences is one of the most valuable aspects of memoir.

 My memoir is essentially about the 35 years that a serious chronic illness disrupted my life and my family, and the concurrent 30 years that raising an adopted child with serious mental health problems affected all of us for better and for worse. Either topic offers rich material for reflection; together they often feel overwhelming.

 Reliving painful experiences is no less painful than the original incidents; it’s just a different kind of pain. Sometimes I couldn’t face the work for weeks or months at a time. Sometimes I wept while writing. And sometimes I laughed out loud, remembering joyful or hilarious moments.

 In 1994, I attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a very august, 100-year-old gathering of writers held in Middlebury Vermont each summer. We were newly adoptive parents to our youngest child at the time and did not yet appreciate the difficulties that lay ahead for us.

 Someone at Bread Loaf, who heard the unusual story of how she came into our life, very excitedly told me I had to write a book about it. I thought that might be a good idea and I tinkered with it for a bit, but ultimately realized that there wasn’t going to be that much I could say about the experience until we actually experienced more of our life as this newly constructed family.

 I put the idea away and spent many years writing essays about life as we lived it. I also filled journal after journal with my thoughts and ideas. Ultimately, 15 years or so down the line, my essays and thoughts began to take the shape of a coherent story about our life. That’s when I started writing my memoir in earnest.

  There are many phases of writing a book: concept, draft, revision, more revision, and even more revision. I’ve worked with structural editors and developmental editors. I’ve had chapters read and critiqued by other writers over many years. I feel sometimes like I’ve written ten books! The day comes when you can’t do any more revising. Maybe, you just can’t face any more revising. Nevertheless, it’s time to make your manuscript a book.

That’s where I am. My manuscript is begging to be a book. And, actually, people are asking me where to buy it. I wish I had the answer to that question. Selling or publishing a book is a whole different thing from writing it. And writing it doesn’t prepare you to sell it.

 If anyone has thoughts about this, I’d welcome them.
 
Ciao

Conflating Activity with Creativity: A Wander

 I belong to a women’s spirituality group that meets for an hour on Sunday mornings via Zoom. The group, Changing Women, which started at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, has been meeting for at least three decades. I used to be involved all those years ago when we were members at First Church, but when we changed congregations to get closer to home, I stopped going.

COVID has had more deleterious effects than anything I can remember in my lifetime. Oddly enough, it did have one positive effect, at least for me. Several of my organizations started using online meetings during lockdown and continued the practice afterwards. Changing Women is one of those organizations.

 A momentary detour into geography may be helpful because Houston is so much bigger than most people who are not from here can imagine. The Houston MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) contains nine counties, Harris County being the central entity. We live on the far western outskirts of Harris County in a community called Cypress. Down the road a few miles is Waller County, and up the street a few miles is Montgomery County. Our part of Cypress is in a corner that butts up against these other two counties.

 The cultural heart of Houston is the Theatre District downtown, followed by the Museum District in mid-town. Those locations are about 30 miles from us. Driving to the far end of Harris County from our house, Seabrook, is over 60 miles. First Church is in the Museum District, so the amazing opportunity to meet online versus driving brought me back to Changing Women a few years ago.

 The group is centered around the book Earth Medicine: Ancestor Ways of Harmony forMany Moons by Jamie Sams. Published in 1994, it is a collection of daily readings based on Native American spirituality, tied to the cycle of the moon. There are two companion books to Earth Medicine: Medicine Cards and Sacred Path Cards.

 As the name implies, each book comes with a set of cards, similar in size and shape to tarot cards, meant to be used with guidance from their companion books. Medicine Cards is about how animal totems can enlighten you; Sacred Path Cards delve into Native American beliefs about spiritual development and how people should live.

 The reading for September 28 was Boredom. It told a story of one child who used time creatively and another child who felt aimless and bored. There were three questions suggested in the study guide for the reading. How are you creating beauty from what you have at hand?  What are you seeing in your mind’s eye?  How does boredom affect creativity?

 My initial reaction was kind of combative. I never feel bored. I mean, duh, books, right? Then a bit of reality slipped by my defenses. Uh, reels on Facebook? Email? Mindless games on my phone? Even when I read a “good” book (as opposed to pulp fiction), am it just masking boredom?

 This is a poser, for sure, but I have so far concluded that passing time is not creativity. Even making something isn’t necessarily creativity. I think I have been conflating creativity with activity. Shame on me for feeling so smug about my own cleverness!

 So what does constitute creativity? Two days is not enough time to devote to this question, but some things did pop up readily. Creativity requires the application of thoughtfulness and design to a problem or idea. Take making a quilt. What do I want my quilt to look like? What fabrics can I use to achieve the effect I want? How should I cut those fabrics and sew them back together to realize the image that’s in my brain?    

 Even if I use someone else’s pattern for a quilt, there are countless intermediate steps, starting with picking the fabric and ending with how to finish the binding, that require creative processes.  I have made two quilts for which the pattern and all the fabrics were pre-selected. I made them in Block-of-the-Month classes designed to teach technique and coach people through difficult quilt block execution. But at the end of these admittedly non-original, non-creative processes, I had to make a creative choice about how to finish the quilts.

 Option one, pay someone to quilt it on a machine. That’s minimally creative, assuming I pick the pattern. Option two, machine quilt it myself. More creative decisions required here. Option three, hand quilt it, which then requires several more choices about pattern, thread, and complexity.

 I hand quilted one of my non-original quilts with a fairly simple overall pattern because I had a time crunch. It turned out beautifully, BTW, and the recipient really appreciated it. I’m still working on the second one, years after I finished the top, because I picked a ridiculously complicated quilting design to hand quilt. It will be done one of these years and that’s okay.

 Most of the quilts I make now days are unique wall hangings, designed and executed by me, to express something special. Often, they are designed for particular people. Alix, for example, has a small reverse appliqué of a tree frog that I made for her because she loves frogs. I designed and made a reverse appliqué wall hanging of a monarch butterfly for myself.

Musing about boredom and creativity has led me to realize that I am spending precious time on activities with little or no value instead of activities that are fulfilling and expressive. And I’m really too old to be wasting my time like that. How about you?

 Ciao

 

 

Jonesing for Yellow Curry

     Do you have a favorite meal at a favorite restaurant? Something that makes your mouth water when you think about it? I do. In fact, there are several meals I love at different restaurants and I often make lunch plans with friends based on going to those places for those meals. One favorite is a Thai restaurant about 25 miles from home that serves a delicious yellow curry that I crave.

     It’s funny how I started eating it. A board that I once sat on would go out to eat after meetings and one evening someone suggested the restaurant Thai Spice. It was new to me. I consider Thai food generally to be too spicy, and this place was bragging about it right in the name. But I decided to try the yellow curry with chicken after the waiter assured me they could dial down the spices for my ‘delicate’ sensibilities.

     They delivered the dish in a soup pot — creamy yellow curry broth full of carrots, potatoes, and chicken. It came with steamed rice on the side. I dolloped a spoonful of rice into the broth and sampled the results, then had an OMG moment. The soup slid around my mouth like silk, rich and luscious. The chicken and vegetables tasted perfect, and I fell in love, victim of an on-the-spot addiction.

     We went back to that restaurant once in a while, and I ate the yellow curry every time. One night, I forgot to add mild to my order. The first bite tasted wonderful — just what I expected — until the curry bit me back. Oh, dear! My eyes were watering and my tongue was tingling, but I had gotten exactly what I ordered, so I could hardly send it back. Lured by the still silky and delicious taste of yellow curry broth, I soldiered through.

     There are almost always leftovers from this meal. The restaurant is generous, and I get full, so half of it goes home to give me a lovely lunch the next day. Two-for-one, who could ask for better? I've found the spice level is more intense after reheating. More teary eyes, a runny nose, but always, I soldier on. The curry is just too good to waste.

     Eventually, I stopped asking for adjustments to the spice level. A person who would never willingly eat a jalapeño or add red pepper to my chili, who doesn’t like the spicy taste of banana peppers or use Tabasco sauce ever, here I was, eating spicy curry at my favorite Thai restaurant whenever I could get there! And I still am.

     My friend Cathy lives near the dining spot, and we usually eat there whenever we lunch out, every couple of months. Fortunately, Cathy likes Thai food and has never complained about going there all the time. The lunch menu is a bit different from the dinner menu. You are served soup, a small egg roll, and a small salad alongside your smaller serving of the yellow curry, for, of course, a lower price than dinner. I think it’s a bargain. By the time I eat the appetizers, I’m full enough that I still can’t eat all the curry and I get to take home leftovers. Win-win!

     It has been a while since I ate yellow curry at Thai Spice in the Heights. I think about it anytime my mind turns to food. Literally, I can find myself jonesing on yellow curry at the drop of a hat. I beat back my cravings by remembering that I can go there if I want to; just get in my car and drive! I don’t need a lunch or dinner partner or an excuse to indulge. I’m a grown-up who owns a car, has a debit card, and can do it right now!

     I’m going to hold off though, at least long enough to see if Cathy is free for lunch soon. And I mean soon!

Ciao

    P.S. The restaurant changed its name for reasons I don’t understand, but everything else is the same. If you want to try the yellow curry — I recommend with chicken — you can find it in the Heights under the name ZapVor by Thai Spice. I’m told that ZapVor means “Super Yummy” in Thai. There's no arguing with that.

How Many Old People Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

    How many old people does it take to change a light bulb? Apparently, more than two, because Michael and I haven’t succeeded yet. The bulbs in question are actually tubes — fluorescent tubes — for the main fixture in our kitchen. Everyone has one, right? About two feet wide and four feet long, with four tube lights that provide most of the functional illumination in a kitchen.

     The four long neon tubes in ours have been faltering for a couple of weeks now. At first, they would dim and flicker occasionally, then settle down and illuminate just fine. Recently, one tube died and the kitchen got darker. When we got down to a single working fluorescent tube light, I hated working in there at night. I asked Michael to fix them: it was really too dark, even with the over-the-sink lights and the laundry room lights turned on. Michael turning on the microwave light as I complained did not much help either the lighting or my mood.

    Coming home from an event one day, I found the ladder in the kitchen and the cover off the fixture. Good, I thought, we’re going to have light again.” One tube had been removed; none of the other tubes worked at that point. I tracked Michael down in his office and commended him for working on the lights.

    “I’ll need to run to the hardware store for bulbs,” he told me. Easy enough, Home Depot and Lowe's are both within two miles of our house. Of course, one has to work up the motivation to soldier on and actually go to the store, so the ladder and cover got in the way in the kitchen for about a week.

    The next time I left Michael home alone, I returned to find new bulbs on the dining room table, one two-pack opened and loose. “I’m going to need some help with these. I couldn’t get them seated correctly by myself,” he said. “Fine, just let me know when you’re ready.”

    And so today, a Monday some days after his first attempt, he got back to it, but without waiting for me to finish lunch. Before I could join him to give whatever help he needed, I heard a crash, followed by appropriately loud cursing. The very thin glass of a fluorescent tube had scattered everywhere, and it took both of us sweeping in both the kitchen and the dining room to clear away the bits.

     “What can I do?” I asked. 

    “I can’t get the bulb to seat in the ballast,” he said. “If you could work on one end while I work on the other, that’d be great.” 

    So I dragged out the stepstool and climbed up, ready to insert and twist. I mean, that’s really all there is to it, right? Over 48 years of marriage and several different homes, we have replaced fluorescent tube lights numerous times. Mostly, Michael has replaced them, but I do know how to do it.

    But not today. He got his end in fine, but mine would not for the life of me insert far enough into the slot to twist in place. “Something’s blocking this side. It won’t go in all the way. Let’s switch sides, maybe you can do it.”

    Michael climbed down, I stepped across to his ladder, and he walked around to the stepstool and climbed up. All right, we were ready. It was going to work this time, I knew it. My confidence lasted right up to the moment I felt Michael’s end slip and heard another tube break. Fortunately, I still had a grip on my end, so we only had half a broken tube to clean up.

    At this point, Michael suggested that it was time to get track lighting for the kitchen. After all, fluorescent tubes were a thing of the past. I couldn’t agree more, but there is one thing special I want on the new track lighting for our kitchen. An installer. 

Ciao

Don't Look a Gift Bag in the Mouth

This afternoon, someone left a plain, navy blue, paper bag hanging on my front door. To say this was unusual would be a gross understatement. It’s been since my childhood — when people left May Day baskets of candy and treats on doorsteps — that any unexpected goodies appeared out of nowhere at our house. But the bag was meant for me: a handwritten note attached began “Ms. Devereaux [sic].”

(Point of clarification, there is no A in our Irish version of the surname Devereux. The sender obviously doesn’t know me well or doesn’t pay attention to nit-picky details. But kudos for getting Ms. right!)

 A quick perusal of the note revealed that the Salvation Army had delivered this bag as a thank you for completing a recent survey they emailed to me. Imagine if every one of the multitude of companies that bombard you daily with requests to complete their surveys sent gifts afterward? Responses would skyrocket.

The bag included flyers about their estate planning/future giving program and a handful of treats: two Halloween-sized bags of Skittles, one gummy and one regular; a retractable red measuring tape suitable for a sewing room; and two miniature red Salvation Army bells like the ones wielded over their Christmas kettles. The bells had split rings attached, presumably so you could slip them onto a key ring. I immediately put one of them on the font drawer that hangs on my office wall and houses a variety of tiny treasures I love. The other is beside my laptop awaiting deployment.

I am a big fan of the Salvation Army. In 1973, I was a pregnant graduate student whose husband had left her with no visible means of support. It took me a bit to get my life in order, take a leave from school, find an interim job, and support myself until Alexandra was born several months later. During that lean, mean period, the Salvation Army gave me groceries and I have been grateful ever since.

Every January, when we distribute our charitable contributions for the year, the Salvation Army gets a chunk of money. I have been giving to them faithfully for literally decades.  And I will continue to give as long as I can. I don’t say this to brag, just to explain why I might have been picked to get an unexpected gift hung on my front door today. And why they might have included some brochures encouraging me to continue giving after I die.

My immediate reaction to this lovely, unexpected token of appreciation was, “Why are they wasting money on this?  Why don’t they use the money to provide services to needy people?” Munching my way through both bags of Skittles, I did a little research on donor premiums, as they are called in the solicitation business. (Aside: Skittles gummies are surprisingly tasty!)

According to 2018 research by three Texas A&M professors (It's Not the Thought that Counts: A Field Experiment on Gift Exchange and Giving at a Public University | NBER), donor premiums do not generate more money for the organizations that give them out. In fact, they cost more money to give than the amount they generate. But charities must think that showing appreciation to donors will benefit them in the long run or why would they do it?

I do admit to feeling some warm fuzzies when I look at the tiny Salvation Army bell. I kinda wish I had a little kettle to go with it. And the gift did prompt me to write this blog, which might get them a smidgen of notice from a few people. Possibly, I will look over their brochure before I recycle it — not promising.

Maybe the Salvation Army likes me as much as I like them. Maybe they’re happy that my life turned out well enough that I could become a donor. Maybe I am WAY over thinking this and it’s time to stop looking a gift bag in the mouth. (Forgive my abuse of a venerable adage, but I couldn’t resist.)  Time to just say thank you, Salvation Army, the treats were lovely.

Ciao

 

 

Vaccines on My Mind

Vaccines are on my mind. Or, rather, the vaccine-deniers are on my mind. I have been appalled by RFK Jr. ever since he opened his mouth to run for president. (I had the good fortune not to have noticed him before then.) I have been appalled by vaccine-deniers since I first heard of them a few decades ago.

Most people do not have the associations with public health that I do because most people did not have a microbiologist for a father. My father worked for the North Dakota Public Health Service his entire career. Hired out of college, they sent him to the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor for his master’s degree. After, he went to work in the lab in Grand Forks, my hometown, and eventually ran it. Ultimately, he took over as director of the public health services at the state offices in Bismarck until his retirement. He worked in public health for 45 years.

His work had a big effect on me. First of all, as you might suspect, hygiene and food safety got a prominent spot in our household. No hands had better go unwashed! His lab tested all the milk products from regional dairies. The technicians would sample a tablespoon or so of milk, cream, ice cream, etc. from every batch. They sent the remainder home with Dad because he had a big family to feed, so we always had lots of dairy products. We also got pets from the lab: white mice.

Dad’s lab ran the tests on all animals in North Dakota suspected of having rabies, which is done using the animals’ brains. Whenever someone – usually farmers or hunters – ran across a potentially rabid creature, they would send the head to the lab by special courier. It could be any time of the day or night. Dad would get a call and go retrieve the specimen.

If it came at night or over a weekend, he’d store the package in the extra refrigerator in our basement. We were all accustomed to having specimens in the fridge from time to time. Dad used this to his advantage. When my grandmother sent homemade goodies that he wanted to save from the depredations of his large family, he’d wrap them up to look like specimens and put them in the basement. “Don’t open that box, it’s a head,” he’d tell us.

Okay, by late elementary school or high school, we’d grown pretty confident these packages were not actually heads … but not sure enough to risk opening them. Many a powdered sugar doughnut escaped early consumption because of this. Once the package was open, he kept it locked in his gun closet, which he could have done in the first place. I think he just enjoyed teasing us.

Polio was raging in my early childhood. I remember going with my neighbor Susan to whirlpool treatments for her withered leg. I’m sure it was actually physical therapy, but at 6 or so we didn’t know that. I suppose I was there was to entertain Susan while she sat in what looked like a horse trough of swirling water for her treatments. We had fun being silly together. I remember wishing I could get in the metal tank, too. It looked like fun.

When the polio vaccine came out, my dad had early access because of his job. One Sunday afternoon, he and my mother took the little kids — I was the oldest little kid — to visit their friends, the Culmers. Dr. Culmer and his wife Vangie played bridge with my parents while us kids goofed around. The adults, of course, drank as they whiled away the afternoon. To the kids’ great surprise, when the card game and libations were done, my dad collected us and Dr. Culmer gave us all polio shots!

I remember running away and being dragged back, probably kicking and screaming. There’s nothing like getting a jab from a slightly inebriated family friend when you’re not expecting it! But, really, we were probably some of the luckiest kids in town because we got protection from polio very early on.

Measles vaccines came along later. In my day, everyone got the measles. It was miserable and inconvenient for most people, but life-altering for others. Remember Helen Keller? Blind, deaf, and mute because of measles as an infant. Some kids were maimed by the disease, some died. My three older brothers had measles at the same time. While Mother was tending to them and running our household, I apparently contracted a mild case that no one noticed. I don’t remember having the measles, but everyone said I must have. In today’s world, where measles is again a danger, I really hope I did.

I do remember having chickenpox. I was eleven. I got them on Easter weekend, and my grandmother died the same day. And I remember when my son got them. He was in high school, so only 20 or so years ago. Little Tori got them from Nick. We all have a few chickenpox scars and I’ve been lucky enough to get shingles — a direct result of having had chickenpox — as well.

Now days, no child, in America at least, need ever contract polio, or measles, or mumps, or rubella, or whooping cough, or chickenpox again. No child need contract HPV, which causes cervical cancer and throat cancer, among others. My husband had HPV throat cancer in 2016. He survived after an excruciating treatment regime that you really want to avoid!

We did it. We found a way to save so much misery and loss in our world through science. And my dad was one of those scientists. I’m proud of him and happy for the safety of future generations.

But wait! The anti-vaxxers are refusing to get their kids protected. And by doing this, they are threatening the protections that we have built into our society. They are lying about vaccines and the vaccination process to scare people away from protecting everyone through childhood vaccination programs. My father is rolling over in his grave. And to make it worse, some people in my own family are anti-vaxxers who children have never been protected. I pray it doesn’t happen, but those kids, like all the other unprotecteds, are at risk of illness, disability, and death.

What has our world come to that the government agencies tasked with the health and welfare of our people walk away from proven protections? It is worse than a shame. It is a crime.

 Ciao

Relishing my Grandma-hood

These charming mice appeared in my mailbox on a birthday card from my 11-year-old granddaughter. The accompanying message said, “I’m so glad you’ve stuck with me for all my life.” Oh, Sweetie! So am I and how could I not have?

 Her little brother’s card, with rocketship graphics, said, “I love you so much my heart flys to neptune ♥”

These two cards are a continuous delight and I’ve been reflecting on grandparenting since I opened them. (Not that grandparenting has been far from my thoughts lately, since we are regularly babysitting for our 3-year-old grandson these days.)

 I never had a “grandma.” We called one of our grandmothers Grandmother Gustafson and the other one Florence. In grade school, I made a brief foray into grandma territory. Helping Florence with the dinner dishes one evening, I ventured to call her Grandma. Florence pivoted towards me and proclaimed in a stentorious voice, “You may call me Grandmother or you may call me Florence, but I am nobody’s Grandma.” Point taken, Florence.

 My mother told me she preferred to be called Mother rather than Mom, but she was, nonetheless, Grandma Jeanne to her hordes of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It went without saying that I would be Grandma Lane. I could picture it, too. I would be the Grandma the kids loved to visit when they were little and confide in when they were older. I even saved my kids’ picture books and stuffed animals for their future kids’ visits to Grandma’s house.

 In a twist of fate, the first grandchildren I got were my stepson’s kids. Because his mother had disappeared with him when he was a toddler, and kept him hidden his whole childhood, I didn’t meet him until good fortune and Facebook reconnected him to Michael in 2009. By that time, he had already married and had two children, then 6 and 9, who had ample grandparents in their daily lives. Consequently, we have a warm and loving relationship with them as Lane and Michael, not Grandma and Grandpa. Because they live in Oregon and have never visited our home, my book and toy collection didn’t get used with them.

 Grandma-hood finally arrived when our son had his children, those delightful creatures whose birthday cards I quoted above. Unfortunately, he had the temerity to move to New York City to fall in love and have a family. Visits happen regularly, but more often us traveling north then them traveling south, and so the books and toys still have gotten little use.

 Our oldest daughter, who lives practically next door by Houston standards (8 miles), skipped children. Our youngest daughter, who lived a 5-hour drive from us at the time, had three. I began to believe that my stash of goodies would finally be put to regular use.

 I’ve had one special toy put aside for a future granddaughter for many years: our youngest’s My Twin doll, which we gave her for Christmas in elementary school. As the name implies, it had the same facial shape, same skin tone, same eye color, and same hair style as our daughter. They looked alike right down to the glasses they both wore. We invested in look-alike clothes for them and I enjoyed the turned heads that followed them around whenever we went out. When she had Heaven, and later, Hayden, I expected that the My Twin doll would eventually move in with them.

 Tragically, both Heaven and Hayden died in a house fire in 2022, on Hayden’s first birthday. Heaven was just days short of 4-years old. Our grandson came along a few months later, a beacon in the darkness. Now that our daughter lives in Houston, we are regular overnight babysitters. It delights me that the books and the toys finally get plenty of use. I’m into my Grandma-hood!!

 When our daughter outgrew her doll, I sent it back to the factory’s doll hospital and had her reconditioned. Looking like new, she has sat in my closet in her custom case, with her special clothes, for 20 years, waiting to be loved again, but I don’t think our grandson will appreciate her. And I’d be mighty surprised to get another granddaughter at this late stage in the game. Giving the doll back to our daughter is fraught. I worry that it will painfully remind her of what will never be.

 Problems for another day. Today I’m basking in the wonders of grandchildren near and far who love me! I love being loved by them. I am so glad to be a grandma.

 Ciao.

 

In Celebration of Friendship

 

    One’s 75^th birthday is their Diamond Jubilee. I had the good fortune to attain my Diamond Jubilee yesterday. And I had the precious opportunity to celebrate it with a few close friends and family at a luncheon today. Some of my friends knew one or two other people there; some knew no one but me. Nevertheless, conversations took off like they were all friends already, with laughter and chatter filling the room. That’s what happens when creative people gather, and my friends are definitely creative!

     The theme for the party? Friends. A local home baker created these cookies for the occasion. The diamond for my Diamond Jubilee, the peridot green icing for my birthstone, and the sentiment from my heart.

     It is good to have friends and to find time for them. It can’t all be luncheons and parties, of course. There isn’t time or money for that in most people’s lives. But phone calls, cards – yes, mailed!! – and even texts, if you are just too rushed to do more, are good ways to stay in touch. An occasional coffee klatsch is fun. Try taking in a movie with a friend. Just connect; it’s invigorating.

     My abbreviated post today is in celebration of friendship and in appreciation of the people in my life! They make it all worthwhile.

     Check in with a friend today!

 Ciao

 

Exploring Grief

It has been a difficult week. Since I am surrounded by sad events, I’ve decided to explore grief.

 A week ago, we found out that our nephew’s 11-year-old daughter has a life-threatening medical condition. She will require a lung transplant as soon as she’s stable enough. Because of her young age, there are probably several transplants ahead for her.

 A good friend died in May and we attended his Celebration of Life yesterday. Celebrating a life doesn’t mean you wouldn’t rather have your friend alive and well. In fact, it made me miss him more by reminding me of all we’ve lost in losing him.

 Our son’s family left town for a vacation yesterday. Last night, he had such severe pain that his wife took him to the ER. There’s a kidney stone lodged in his gall bladder, an extremely painful condition, I’ve heard. He’s awaiting final diagnosis, but it will probably require surgery. Although I expect everything will be fine, I worry. Life is fragile. A niece the same age died unexpectedly last January.

 When I got the news about my great-niece, I tried to tell Michael what had happened and I couldn’t. Literally couldn’t. It triggered such anguish in me that I could not get the words out of my mouth without sobbing. We played a ridiculous game of charades as he tried to guess what I was failing to tell him. It went on long enough for me to compose myself and give him the rudiments of her story.

 I know where this overpowering grief comes from: the losses of my mother, in October 2021, and of my two little granddaughters, in 2022. That pain is seared into me.

 But what about the five stages of grief, you ask? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance identified by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. Shouldn’t I be moving through those stages, resolving my grief?

 Ha! The joke’s on all of us. Cody Delistraty, author of The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss points out that Kubler-Ross’s work applied to the dying person, not to the survivors left behind. And even for the dying person, it was never presented as a lockstep path forward, although people seem to believe that wholeheartedly. The Five Stages of Grief Are Actually Wrong. Here's Why.

 I am tired of loss. I’m especially tired of losses that are not part of expected life cycles. My mother was 99, after all. She did not die untimely. But our extended family has had four untimely deaths – two younger adults and two children. I pray that I don’t face any more of those.

 Ciao

To Hell with Aging!

 

On August 17, I turn 75 years old. That’s a BIG number! Does it mean I’m old now? When do people get old? What’s the calculus between old and young?

Last night I made an impromptu run to Kroger at 10:15 to pick something up. When I arrived and parked on a lot almost devoid of cars, it felt a bit spooky.  I forgot the store only keeps one door open at night, and I parked near the wrong door. As I exited my car, I looked around, checking out the surroundings. There’ve been a lot of carjackings and juggings in Houston and I didn’t want any trouble.

Hmm. Looks scary with no people around. Am I safe? I mean, I’m an old lady … Hmm. Am I an old lady?

I immediately thought about myself at 23, head up, shoulders back, arms swinging, striding purposefully down the sidewalk near my home in Laclede Town, the avant-garde, mixed-use apartment complex I lived in when I went to graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis.

Here I am, shoulders back, head up, arms swinging, striding purposefully across the lot, just like 1973. Is that old walking? No, it is NOT!!

Feeling a little cocky – just try something, amorphous villain, I’ll clock you good with my purse! – I strode into Kroger, bought my item, and walked back to the car, safe and sound. But the question of oldness didn’t leave me. What does it mean to BE old?

The classic indicators:  you’re frailer, slower, unsteady at times. You have under-performing quads and hamstrings that make it hard to pick yourself up. You suffer innumerable aches and pains. Unexpected confusion hits you at times. You have fatigue but can’t sleep.

I recognize all those signatures of aging in myself, but here’s the rub. I’ve had them for 36 years! At 39, I received the devastating diagnosis of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. In a transaction I’ve immortalized in my recently finished memoir,* I told the doctor I had heard of two kinds of lupus, one that was a skin disease and one that kills people. She replied, “You have the kind that kills.”

That rude introduction to my future unnerved me, but lupus did not kill me, at least it hasn’t yet. What lupus did was give me all the attributes of old age decades before I should have had them. It’s been a rollercoaster ride of incapacities, impairments, and infirmities interspersed with periods of relative well-being. I feel thankful for every day I’ve had, whether in pain or not, to share a life of love with Michael, to watch our children (and now grandchildren) grow up, to find personal fulfillment.

And where does this reflection lead me? To hell with old age – I reject it! I won’t claim young, but I’ll claim steadfastly to standing upright and moving forward despite all the years in my tally.

*My memoir is The Requirements of Love: Forging a Family Against the Odds. It hasn’t been published yet, but I’m working on that.

What a Great Idea!

 Wasn’t it a great idea when the European powers that be decided we could opt out of tracking and cookies and other obnoxious efforts by corporations to grab information about our every internet move? I thank the European Union for sticking up for the average consumer. If they hadn’t passed the law for their own citizens, people in the US still wouldn’t have those options because - one woman’s opinion - no one in our government is looking out for us.

Yes, it was a great idea. I have rejected every single option to be monitored, tracked, and cookied that has been offered to me. Even when companies make it a pain in the patooty to opt out, I do. So, why do they know everything about me anyway?

I purchased some clothing online from JC Penney in June. I’m opted out of everything but essential functions at JCP. Funny thing though, ads for the EXACT same dress I already bought still pop up on Google. Couldn’t they at least offer me a little variety?

I’m beginning my search for a publisher. That means I have been reading, researching, and taking some classes on the topics most applicable to my needs. Lo and behold, in the last few weeks, ads for self-publishing or hybrid publishing companies have magically appeared whenever I get on the internet.  How do they even know? I search in two places regularly – Bing and Google. When I pick my search engine, it’s Bing. When my email program picks the search engine, it’s Google.

I have to believe that the search engines are the ones selling my information to the trackers, marketers, scammers, and dark web denizens … And how do you opt out of the search engine tracking programs? They aren’t offering a convenient page of options anywhere I’ve seen.

Do you feel helpless sometimes against the giant corporate “Them”? I do. It’s tempting to just give up and let it slide. You can’t protect yourself anyway. How many of the places you are connected to have been breached? I get notices regularly, along with offers of free monitoring for a year or two. I always take them. By the time the free service runs out, some other company will have a breach and then I’ll get it free once more.

But really, what good do monitoring services actually do? I’ve been on the internet for over 20 years. I have sites and passwords and exposures I don’t even remember. When IDX tells me they’ve found my information on the dark web in 14 or 27 or 100 different places, what am I actually supposed to do about it? If you’ve ever looked at those, they generally don’t give you enough information to go track them down even if you had the time and inclination. Oh – unless you want to pay extra for the advanced software they offer!

I have to let this go. Every time I see a gratuitous ad on my PC or iPad, my blood pressure skyrockets and that’s not good for me. Every time I am making a new undecipherable password that I’ll have to change again in a few weeks or months (it used to be years), my teeth grind audibly. I’m sick of having to keep track of a password book. Oh, I tried a password manager, too, but those are just as big a pain as my handwritten address book is. (Remember when addresses referred to physical locations?)

Yes, it was a great idea to protect consumers from intrusive tracking and legal internet stalking. Too bad it doesn’t work.

Ciao

Three's a Charm

Ordinarily, ‘three’s a charm’ refers to attempts to accomplish something. Today I’m using it to explore the charming attributes of three-year-old kids. Tori was three and a half when she came to live with us permanently. We missed a lot of her development during the prior eight months while she languished in foster care. Language presented an especially knotty problem because we didn’t know the speech patterns she had picked up as she expanded her vocabulary.

Take the case of lemma lemmas. We had no idea what she meant when she asked for them, which she did persistently. One day, when she begged me for lemma-lemmas at Walgreens, my brain engaged and I said, “Show me the lemma-lemmas, Tori.” Off she went, quickly finding the candy aisle. By the time I got there, she had a bag of M&Ms in her little hands. “Lemma-lemmas!” she said. “Yes!” I said back to her. To myself, I said, “For heaven’s sake. How did you miss that?”

 Our grandson, who turned three mere weeks ago, is not as language-adept as his mother had been. (He is also six months younger than Tori’s lemma-lemma days.) But he’s quickly acquiring words and, with this kiddo, we understand a lot of things that outsiders wouldn’t. “Gramma,” he rumbles in the deliberately deep voice he uses when he wants something, all the while tugging on one of my hands with both of his. “C’mere.” “What do you want, AJ? Grandma’s busy.” “Gramma, c’mere!”

 The child weighs 55 pounds, so this two-handed tug of his requires bracing to resist. If I can stop what I’m doing and go along, it’s usually a trip to the bookshelf or his toy box. Hurling cars down his two-track raceway is popular, as well. Sometimes he’ll pull over one of his tiny chairs and command, “Sit, Grandma. Sit!” “That chair’s too little! I can’t sit there,” leads to dramatic scenes where he throws himself on the floor (being careful not to hit his head on the tile) or perhaps throws the chair. Anger management is a work in progress.

 AJ recognizes when he’s taking the wrong approach. He will clasp his little hands together in supplication, tilt his head up to look at you, bat his eyes (yes, bat his eyes), and say, “Pwease?” in the most pitiful voice you’ve ever heard. Whoever taught him to do that – I’m looking at you, Tori - probably regrets it daily. 

 We babysit while Tori works the late shift, so several times a week we put AJ to bed. He’s resistant most nights; it’s usually a two-person venture. Last night, after we tucked him in and turned on Mozart for his listening pleasure, he looked at Michael and said, “Nigh-nigh.” Michael kissed his forehead and said goodnight back. I took my turn and kissed him goodnight as well. This is going to be an easy bedtime, I thought to myself.

 As if he read my mind, AJ followed with, “Grampa, weave.” Michael blinked once or twice, parsing the command, then said, “Do you want me to leave, AJ?” “Yup,” came the reply. Michael looked at me and shrugged. “He wants me to leave.” ‘Fine, go then,” I told him, still hoping for that easy bedtime.

 After Michael exited the room, AJ rolled toward me. He grabbed my hand in both of his and pulled it to his chest. Snuggling with my hand, he looked up at me. A beatific - and self-satisfied - smile spread across his face. “Gramma. C’mere.” Five minutes later, he was fast asleep.

 Ciao

My Book is Done!!

 

My book is done!! 

Years have raced by while I contemplated and unraveled three decades of Lemony Snicket-class unfortunate events, along with many wonderful happenings, in the family Devereux. My memoir, The Requirements of Love: Forging a Family Against the Odds, is finished. It’s been professionally edited and revised. A few generous friends have been Beta readers for me, not once, but twice! My years of writing classes, writing critiques, writing groups, and just plain seat-of-the-pants writing have paid off.

 I’m focused now on querying for an agent and/or publisher and preparing and organizing my submission materials. Will I find an agent? Will I luck into a sweetheart deal with a good publisher? Will I self-publish? Enquiring minds want to know!

 For those of you who have been asking where you can buy the book, I don’t have an answer yet. There’s still a bunch of work to do, but I’m doing it.  

 Stay posted. I’ll be spending more time with my blog from now on!

Ciao