Meditation VI

     Sun passing through a mini-Tibetan prayer flag, hanging in my classroom window, forms rainbow blocks on my desk. One moment they are brilliant squares of red, green and gold. The next moment they disappear with a passing cloud.

     On Monday morning I drove to school with the Super Moon visible through my windshield and the Rosy Sun rising in my rear view mirror. They tag teamed me the entire 25 miles, up and down the leafless hills between home and work. I remembered the day my sister died and full arching rainbow across the highway at the halfway mark.

     Walking in the woods on dried leaves and slippery pine needles the rays came sideways through the tree trunks. It was only three in the afternoon, yet the promise of an owl felt almost certain. Looking up the conifers, to their usual pitchy perches, no big eyes greet me.

     Ten at night. I take Cora out the back door for "the last pee of the nighttime". I bend to unclasp her lead from the post, as I hear them snort, stamp and start to leap. Looking up I see the white tails rise and hold her collar tight as the deer flee my leafy dooryard. I clip Cora into her tether, go back into the kitchen to retrieve the beautiful multi-colored sugar pumpkins that we'd used for centerpieces on Thanksgiving. They will make a sweet winter treat for the returning herd on a less moon-lit night.

    Clouds stack together in ridges like hard sand after the tides gone out. The wind is moving fast above, while there's barely a breeze on the ground. The blue tide pools between the grey-white mountains lend themselves to the idea that the days will start to get longer again, soon.  The candles and Christmas lights chase away melancholy on these dark days after sunset.

     Sounds of the heater filling up with hot water and an airplane flying high overhead are all that accompany me while I wait for my next inspiration. I've placed a blanket over my legs and haven't taken off my coat as the house is cold after being left empty, except for Cora, all day. Now a large V8  is down shifting towards a curve in the road by the cemetery.

     Snoring dogs, sketching boys, pinging computers and cellphones. All else is still in this house. My mind is only receiving and not leading. After five years of meditating, I've become faster at sweeping out the noise of the day. Not everyday, but most.

   My eyes are dry. The skin on my hands is becoming the parchment paper of my Mother and Nana. The veins are rising between the same tendons, too. Each generation twins the last and too fast.

    Time to play taxi. Taking teenagers to and fro. Seems I'm on the suburban carousel of cocooned kids who don't want to drive cars. Yet when it's behind me, I know I'll miss the candor that transpires when I wore my chauffeur's cap.

      Good night, dear reader, good night.......
   


 



   

   


   

   

Meditation V

     At  3 o'clock in the morning my head woke up full of ideas. It was saying to me I could explore various ideas in depth as the structure. Exposition, Rising Action, Climax/Catastrophe (repeat the last two if it's an action story), Falling Action and Denouement. How often have I mapped that out...

     Exposition has to do with setting (which equals time and place), starting in the middle of things, while giving clues to the protagonists deepest desires or motivations, the other characters who either enable or disable this protagonist, and grabbing the attention of the reader.

     Last night, I woke up thinking about Setting = Time + Place. How one place at different times (seasons, stages of life, hours of the day or night) would suggest a wildly different set of expectations and directions to my story.  Bolton from zero to 10? Lincoln from 10-16? Maine at the age of 4, 14, 24 or 34? Living on a cement sailboat at 17-19 in the Gulf of ME and St. Croix  and having sailed between the two through a hurricane? Visiting NYC at puberty, living/working there in my 20's?  Being in Copenhagen with the first terrorist bomb went off in 1985? Being in Belgrade at 23 and fearing being arrested for singing "Summertime" too loudly after midnight? Doing business in NYC while living in SF  my 30's & 40's? Or visiting NYC post 9/11 with my own kids and later students?

     Place has been very essential to my identity. New England, regionally and Maine in particular. But also my first home of Bolton, MA. It was truest home, from birth 'til I was 10. Leaving it made me heart and soul sick. It meant the true end of my nuclear family (although that had really come unravelled by the time I was 5). It also meant the end of living on 50 rural acres, in which I'd explored every inch with my dog, both of us untethered and unfettered. Running through fields, granite outcroppings, bunny circles, over the pipeline and skating on the pond. From there being moved to the confines of a quarter acre lot smack in the center, complete with a five-way intersection outside our picket fence, of a Boston suburb that although it had plenty of conservation lands, still felt like a slap to my sense of self. My dog, Tiger, ran away. He ran all they way back to Bolton. Through at least three towns.  I'd never been more proud of him.  He would have covered 18 to 25+ miles depending the straightest of driving routes. Goggling  the route we usually drove, and where he would have known the scents, it was the marathon distance he most likely ran!

     When I first moved to NYC, all I did was discuss the perfection of Portland, ME. New acquaintances wondered aloud, why did I every leave. Simple: one couldn't learn about publishing and the business of writing in Portland. At The Radcliffe Publishing Course, after 8 weeks of working 20hrs a day, with one day off and having produced three magazine proposals and five books proposals prior to our arrival (which were judged/graded by the Who's Who of NY Publishing world), the Course informed us that we all had move to NYC and must attend a job fair at The New Yorker.

     No pressure. Yet I pined for Maine (pun intended). The one writer/editor/mentor I knew in Portland was the person who recommended that I apply to Radcliffe, John Preston. Much to my amazement I was accepted. I was even more amazed when I arrived to learn that of the 100 students (out of thousands who applied), I was one of five who had attended a State University, and not the flagship at that! By the end of the summer we were down to 75+-students. Many of the myopic Ivy league kids couldn't cut it with the group work and the hours. Having done nothing but deadline group work (cabinetmaking, salvage diving, reporting, waitressing, crewing on boats); I was used to delivering my piece of job in a timely fashion so that the whole of a project could work.

     I would then go on to live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan. Very few friends would trek to Brooklyn to visit me then, yet now many of them own houses there! My how the times have changed. New York was so different then in the go-go 80's when the streets were still lined with used needles and not brass kick plates along Thompson Square Park. I would go to work at the agency that represented my friend John, Curtis Brown Ltd. It was there I did an apprenticeship  and paid my dues that allowed me to start my own agency later in SF.

     So if I were answering the question of structure only from the point of view of where and when, what is the question:
Where and when was I the most miserable and how did I climb out of it (ala Wild)?
Where and when did I realize the drama and dysfunction in my life was  due to coming from a long line brilliant depressives and that I was just the next in line (ala too many authors to count and I'm directly related to Meriwether Lewis and one of the first Directors of McLean)?
Where and when did I accept that I wanted to be successful, even with my failures (ala many motivational speakers)?
When and where was I in extreme elements where I thought I could die, and others did or may have (ala books from the pages of Outside or War reporters)?
Where and when did I feel like I had arrived "home" after being "gone" for so long (ala either a love story or the lure of the local or a heroes journey).
Where and when did I know I could never go home again and could only create it in words or stories (ala T. Wolfe (perhaps soon?), many songs, nostalgic novels and immigrant memoirs)?

I have answers to all the above questions. I'm just not sure which is the deepest mine and which will set me on a fruitful path. Time to make dinner....Good Night patient reader, G'night.

Meditation IV

     Baby steps. Not giant steps, but baby steps. In my family Giant Steps could mean one of two things: something to do with my brother's band or a natural rock formation leading from the land down to the sea on Bailey Island, which is actually called Giant's Stairs.



     But this is no world tour announcement or conservation trail walk invite, this is me, myself and I taking a different kind of journey.....the writing kind.

     All day long I help students write: complete sentences, fiction, non-fiction, memoir, chapter books, college essays, 5 paragraph essays of all types and more. I help them focus on a topic, prompt, obstacle, issue, thesis,  argument or phase of life to build a narrative. It's often arbitrary which they hate, so I've learned to try to make it as meaningful to their daily lives, goals or desires as possible. I try to impart why it's important to write clearly, whether its about an imaginary world or the history of a mad scientist or cover letter. I've been doing this for 15 years.

     Before teaching students to write, I used to help authors shape books: from the proposal to the finished book; both fiction and non-fiction. I worked at agencies, writer's conferences, books festivals, author's guild seminars and conventions. Combining my work in NYC at Raines & Raines and Curtis Brown Ltd, and running my own agency in SF, the total amount of time was roughly 20 years.

     There was an overlap, as I started Grad School and teaching while I wound down my stable of authors. Thus, as I stated the other day, it's been roughly 30 years of helping other writers to write.

      Now I'm finding it hard to focus on just one topic and idea I want to convey. I feel like one of my students who wants to show me everything they've learned on a given subject, but can't arrange it simply enough to make their point.

     Topics: Love, Loss, Nature, Family, and Choices.
      Love: childhood, teenage, young adult, adult, middle aged...
      Loss: ditto; family, friends, critters, places, self
      Nature: ditto; reefs, dark, silence, animals large and small, "extinction tours"
      Family: framing is messy at best; only one frame could work, but which one?
      Choices: We are our Choices; right down to the stories we tell and the way we choose to tell       them, revise them, forget them, shade them and inflate them.

     The power of suggestion has always directed me to write about living on the boat or people and places I've lost. Events and places that are permanently and safely in the past, yet have also left an indelible stamp upon my character: Maine, Pinion, St. Croix, NYC of the 80's, SF of the 90's,  Craig Dempsey, Peter Frankham, Carolyn, Rosette, John Preston, Alton, and David Rakoff.

     Then the agent in me says, write about what you've learned from all the above. What I learned in all those places and the people who have taught me lessons along the way. How I fortunately had mentors at each abrupt and startling turn. Each choice seemed dramatic, and yet each organically made sense at the time.

     Then I think, the lessons might be easier to show in fiction. Like the short story I began last December, before everything fell to pieces (see archive). The lessons, loves, family and choice can be shown more easily in fiction, yet I want to try to remember, recollect and recreate moments from my life that mattered. To make sense of them for myself and those I love, and by extension, perhaps impart a connection or bridge to other readers going through similar phases of life.

     Other times, I feel like I did at Radcliffe, an impostor, who has no right to write. Who am I to espouse on lessons or insights that I've picked up along this journey called life?

     But I've learned some valuable things:

  When you're young, surround yourself by older people.
  When you're old, surround yourself by young people.
   If you don't use it, you lose it.
   Life is messy, and so is love.
   Children and travel are the two best gifts you can give yourself.
   Animals are Us; We're human animals and should never forget it.
   The only permanent home you'll ever have is planet earth and your body; be respectful of both.
    People who have the least are the ones who tend to give the most.
    Music and nature calm the spirit. 
    Nothing is constant except change.
    Life long learning is a must (see "if you don't use it, you lose it").
    Shared history with friends and siblings is treasure for the soul and a lifetime.
    Where ever you go, there you are (no such thing as a geographical solution).
    Power of suggestion is strong; be careful with what you suggest.
    Drama obscures reality; say no to drama at every turn.
    When one is in a flow-state the world becomes more open; strive for flow time.
    Time is far more valuable than money when you're given the choice.
    Health is wealth (cliche and true).
    Cooking for others is an intimate offering of self, never apologize and do so freely.
    Prejudice can't survive proximity.
    Doing things that scare you will slowly, but surely, make you fearless.
     Making small achievable goals, and allowing for refinement, will bring success.
    Letting go is never easy but often necessary in life.
    Embrace change and surrender to the pain of learning curves...it prepares you for parenting.
    So does surrendering control....
    However with writing and art, one has to set a structure to create the work that has meaning.
    Archetypes and creation myths make for good universal readership; singular and true is better.
   

     Thank you for indulging me with my topical baby steps and toe dipping. I could keep on going, but then dinner would never be made...Good night dear reader, G'night!
   
   





   

Meditation III

     My sleep was interrupted with additions that my mind wanted to make to yesterday's post. I guess the blessings and curses of being a writer are visiting me early and I'll take it as a good sign!

     The images were of Rosette. How our friendship bridged her entire lifespan. How it bridged coasts and bodies of water. How it bridged long distances and sometimes a year at a time passing without seeing each other face to face. How our journey together began and ended on North Haven, the island in Penobscot Bay where her family has a multi-generational and multi-home parcel of land that rolls down to the sea. The sea that we both loved most of all and to which we spread her ashes on her favorite sun bathing rock for the tide to collect after we left.

     She was the glue between the Nazor/Lattimore/Linnell families. On the day of the memorial celebration, those present were mostly Nazors, Lattimores, Pettits and Johnsons. I can't remember if any Linnells were there or not, I was too overcome with emotion. When that happens, as my children and siblings attest, I can forgot entire films or events in my life. Usually it's fear that triggers this erasure mechanism. This time it was a profound, and to the soul, sadness the had left me bereft  of my usually acute memory.

     What I do remember is music being performed by multiple generations (both on the stone beach and up in the dooryard of her mother's house), sweet words from her twin brother, Evan. Her sister, Clare with her dog Rosy who drove all the way from Alaska and took the ferry to be there. Rhodec, Rosette's son, being so kind, sweet and open to us all. Emily, Rosette's mother being so gracious to include my mother, my siblings and more at her home before and after the seaside service. I remember it was a clear, sunny August day in Maine, with a slight breeze ~ can't get much finer than that.

     The time we spent taking turns with Rosette in those last months in Eugene did something no amount of talking or writing or wishing could do. It had bound us together the way none of Rosette's beautifully woven blankets could do. She was our shared love. We learned how to share her and love her together. No easy task, as our family is full of strong personalities combined with subterranean sentiments that can take years to parse fully. This was a gift she cultivated with us as she lay dying and we've continued it since her death by extending it to being able to share and equally love Rhodec; he has become the next generation of glue ,that we all treasure, and forms a new bridge of love to the past and future.

     I met Rosette on that Island. Named the only doll I ever attached feeling to after her; Rosey. It was given to me by my grandmother; an antique china and plaster doll with cotter-pin hinged joints. Rosette and my stepsister Maggie made clothes for this doll as Christmas gifts to me when I was a girl. I still have the doll and the clothes. As I stated yesterday, that turned into a letter correspondence that continued until the advent of email, roughly two decades. We were both journal writers, too. We'd often copy passages out of our journals and write them again as a letter. We shared our deepest thoughts, fears, dreams and desires.

     As kids we skinny-dipped on the stone beaches of North Haven, later off the dock at Dingley Island, once in a lake in CA and our last shared water experience of wading in the Willamette River, which has a smooth rocky floor, much like the beach in Maine. Having her ashes on her sunning rock was one of those moments where I wished I could magically make her morph back to life. Yet, with each of us placing another rock on her sunning rock, it became apparent that no such magic would occur.

     Rosette is not the only touchstone person I've lost before we could grow old together. Another friend, whom I shared with my sister Leslie and Rosette in SF, was Alton Belcher who died on 12/11/97...so we're coming on an anniversary (imagine that spoken in as Joni Mitchell singing "Coming on Christmas" in a deeply Southern - Huntsville, AL- accent and that would sound like him).  The other dear-heart I lost in the fall was my touchstone of youth, Carolyn Glass. Her sister's book "I See You Everywhere" was a nice tribute, but I can't help feeling like I may have to write one of my own. We were partners in crime together. Adrenaline and Animal Adventures Crimes.  No one was hurt (except her boyfriend Paul, skiing, even though I warned them not to go, but that's another story), and many animals were saved. I miss swapping adventures and learning about animals from her. Plus barrel racing and jumping her family's foxhunting horses over the stone walls and through woods of Lincoln's conservation lands.

     I've outlived them all and they each knew my essence so truly, that it's hard not having access to that shared history any longer. So one idea has been to write about loss as a series of touchstones. Another has been to write about adventures (living on the boat, New York in the 80's, SF in the 90's, and my wild childhood--or traveling). Each has a different frame of reference and lens to focus on a different stage of my life and how I bridge/processed moving from one frame to the next. That is what my students and children most want to hear/read. At least that's what they tell me....

     Speaking of students, I must return to grading and my hour of writing is just about up (and yes I type straight into the keyboard and know I should correct typos/added-dropped words/tenses, but will once I start to structure a draft of something her); they also want to hear about how I met or know so many "famous people". My stock answer is that they weren't famous when I met them, they were artists (of one sort or another) or business folks who wanted to do good work. They wanted to master something or invent something that hadn't been done before and were choosing to live an uncomfortable existence and stay committed while they did it. The famous authors I met at various writer's conferences or conventions had started off the same way: wanting to do good and meaningful work.

     This ends my daily meditation and going forward I'll start to thing about one narrative to develop.


 

   

Meditation II

     Commitment. Structure. Routine. These are the things that I lost in the last year.  These are the things I'm giving back to myself now. I will be selfish and true. It took me years to find the value in these three words. As I'd grown up in a dramatic fashion where the value of these words were unfamiliar.

     Being a bridge for myself will be renewed task and hopefully a successful one. You see, I've been a bridge person within my family when I was young, my peers as I grew older, with writers as an agent and now as a teacher with students. Now it's for myself I'm building a bridge: from aspiring writer to working writer. The work will be committing to a story, structuring it, making a daily routine and refining it over time. It's an art that I've dared not practice seriously, yet I've been helping others with the tools and craft for decades.

     I learned to read and write late. Yet once I started, I haven't stopped. Story telling was a way of communicating in my household as a child. Music enhanced the stories with songs and we made up radio plays. My grandparents repeated stories to teach us our personal history and what they had learned from living the American Dream and traveling. My immediate family read books, wrote stories, listened to all kinds of music, went to concerts and stage productions of every sort. We painted, drew, burnt designs into driftwood with magnifying glasses.

     My family started off small; mother, father, sister and me. After the divorce when I was 6, my mother remarried to a man with four children (two sons and two daughters), while my father remarried to a woman with two sons. Basically I went from being one of two children to being one of eight children, and from being the oldest to squarely in the middle of the pack.
   
     We all lived in neighboring towns, Concord and Lincoln,  in Massachusetts after I turned 10. From birth to 10 I lived in Bolton. The adjustment or bridging to the cultures of these  two suburban towns was harsh. Instead of being judge by you physical abilities and common sense, you were judged by your wardrobe and vocabulary. During the summer we all went to  Maine. In July, my sister and I were  at my father's in Georgetown. In August, we moved to my mother's house in Harpswell. So six of us in July and eight of us in August.

     During the school year, we went to my father's house every other weekend. Walden Pond, still a touchstone to my spirit, was the half way mark between my parents homes. My stepfather's kids lived half a mile from our front door and could come over whenever they wanted to do so.

    From September to June there were lessons and classes and outings. During winter breaks we spent time skiing, skating and sledding. Traditional New England fair. In the summers we were free to explore the peninsula of Georgetown and the Island in Harpswell. We swam, sailed, rowed, kayaked, climbed, built structures, fished, picked berries and read books. With my father we sometimes climbed Katahdin and sailed on rented family friendly sail boats. With my mother,, for the first few summers we rented houses on islands in Penobscot Bay: Matinicus and North Haven. Later she bought a house on in Harpwell on Dingley Island. From there we went to see musical theater at Bowdoin and Shakespeare in Monmouth. If there was a  raging storm or full moon low tide she may take us to the granite shores of Pemaquid Point or the sandbar at Popham Beach.

     My sister and I bridged homes, expectations, abilities and ages. It wasn't easy. In hindsight, I see why it took us so long to form our own authentic identities. Unspoken rivalries between the additional six siblings, on top of our already fractured-by-divorce insecurities, stunted our development. Different sets of expectations in each household contributed to the internal schism. I was often either confidently carefree, manically macho,  or silently pensive. My sister was better at expressing herself, and yet she struggled, too.

     We have each chosen to live on the East and West Coasts during out adult lives. We've bridge and benefited by the two distinct cultures . We both were married and had out children on the West Coast, yet moved back East once our kids became school ages. I moved back to Massachusetts, after living in Maine, New York and California. She moved to Maine after living in California. I've been trying to move back to Maine ever since I left it 30 years ago (the last time I was paid for a byline). I still plan to retire there either in a small efficient house/condo or in a Golden Girl complex (Jennie and Nan, I'm not joking). My father and stepmother and one of my stepbrothers live there full-time now, too.
My mother and stepfather have retained the ritual of being in Lincoln during the Academic year, and in Maine the summer, and now some shoulder, months.

     In High School I wrote about trying to bridge my different selves. The Karen of the Nazor/Murnik gang and the Karen of the Linnell household. Little did I know that in my mid-twenties, a family with six children whom we'd known since I was 7 or 8, which included a dear friend, would become additional siblings. Now I'd become one of 14 children with including the Lattimore family. Which was fine, as we were mostly independent by then, and only met for Winter holidays in Lincoln and Summer holidays on Dingley Island. But that didn't mean new kinds of bridges didn't have to be built, they did.

     The dear friend was the youngest daughter, Rosette. We had chosen to bridge and weave our lives together since childhood. Through words and drawings sent through the mail we stayed close. Having six siblings each, we developed a coded language, so that nosey sibs couldn't read our letters; we each held the key for years. I still have bundles of the letters and cards in box in my room. She went to prep school with one of my Linnell sisters, and then we overlapped briefly in NYC after College. We both spent a lot of time in the Bay Area, and when I became engaged, she became pregnant and moved to Eugene, OR to be with the father. We resorted to mostly seeing each other in Maine in the summers and sending emails to each other. We coordinated being in Maine so the cousins could know each other and we could stay current. The last summer in Maine we kayaked around the island and the kids splashed about in the canoe. We shared bathing suits and clothes as we were the same size. She had always been a teacher, of music, and I was new to being and English teacher. She was very generous with ideas and praise. She was a phenomenal teacher, choir director, piano player, mother to her son and sister to all. At Thanksgiving we learned that she'd been sick and upon investigation, it was discovered that she had appendix cancer. She made it home for March, for her father's/my stepfather's 80th Birthday party. She never made it to Maine again. Having helped friend die (of Aids/Cancer/Heart disease), we had discussed me coming to her where she "felt the time was right". I went when she called. Our last outing was to a river, where we waded in the water and through our lives together. She asked me tough questions and I made her promises regarding her son, who I adore. She medically shouldn't have been alive for as long as she survived, but her spirit was fighting to reach her son's 16th birthday. After she achieved that, she died a month later (a month before Thanksgiving...she didn't want to taint the holidays).

     Her friendship bridged all kinds of odds. One of the tough questions she asked in the river was "when are you going to let yourself be the writer, instead of helping everyone else"?

     For my children, students and Rosette, I must start building/writing stories that can bridge my experience into something useful for others.

     (I started this yesterday, but finished today. After grading, I may write a short piece just for today).

   

Meditation I

     "Own Who You Are".....

     In doing a 3-day workshop with Deepak Chopra 4 years ago, his way of settling us into ourselves was to ask us who we were and to clear our minds for what came into our heads for an answer. At first it was things like "mother", "sister", "daughter"  and then in progressed to "newly divorced", "nature lover", "want-to-be-writer" and finally "me and all that means".

     Words do matter. I've lived in the life of the mind since I was a child. I've been making a career with words, one way or another, for 30 years now. I plan to keep writing until I form a frame for something worthy of sharing. My practice, towards that goal is this blog. Which I abandoned for nearly a year, as I lost myself and my sense of movement.

    You see, I literally couldn't move under my own power, very well, for the first third of this year. Once I could, I found it difficult and I had to make many adjustments. I simultaneously had to put others before myself for a myriad of reasons and I was fine with that; but I lost my drive, vision and purpose.

     This summer was tough, as I recounted in the last post. However, I would be remiss in not stating here that another highlight of this summer, beside swimming again, was a retreat I took with my daughter. Again, just like my workshop with Chopra, the retreat was held at Kripalu; a mother-daughter yoga weekend.

     Over those three days we walked, ate (silently at breakfast, per the rules), wrote, drew, talked practiced yoga, saunaed & soaked, swam, slept in bunk beds, and played with Tarot Cards. We were each very present in every moment of those three days. We were fortunate that it was not too hot (as there was no AC) and not too cold (for early morning yoga). The mother-daughter group was large, with at least 50-70 people present. For imost it was a celebration of their relationship, for some it was a bridge to each other and for a few it was an awkward exercise in intimacy. I think we experienced all three.

     My favorite section of the weekend was when we did partnered yoga. My daughter and I each have had knee issues and both of us were gaining stamina this summer. We had to be both gentle and strong in our poses. We had to trust one another physically, like we hadn't since she was a toddler. I had to trust her as an equal partner, too. The paradox was not lost on me. It was symbolic of the point we find ourselves now in life. She as a young woman, coming of age, and me letting go for her grow completely independent. At the end of the weekend, I bought her a adult length and nicely padded mat for her to take to college. The one she's used at home, since middle school, was too short and hard. It no longer served her well, she'd outgrown it.

     So "owning" and "growing" are closely related in my mind these days. A valuable part of moving forward requires discarding things from the past that no longer serve you well. Whether it be an old yoga mat, a hairstyle or way of being. Middle age kicks mortality into the mirror. When we look at who we are , you start to see that we are a sandwich generation (if we're lucky enough to still have our parents). Our children are growing their flight feathers and our parents are saying a long goodbye. We are the matter in the middle, they are the staff of life that brought us into the world (on one side) and who will remain after we leave (on the other side).

     Occasionally, I wonder if I should be spending more time with my parents and children. Have I learned, listened and leaned-in enough? I feel both, in equal measure, slipping through my influence and it's a new way of being that I need to practice. Yet my daily life is so full right now, with work and mundane matters, that it's hard to slow down enough to answer these kinds of questions.

     Which brings me back to owning who I am. I am a full-time teacher. I am a nature lover. I am a traveler. I am a writer. I am an athlete. I am a lover, mother, sister, daughter, friend and woman. I want to be a life-partner. I want to be published. I want to travel to Africa, Asia and Croatia. I'd like to swim in all Seven Seas. I want to retire in a decade +- and do meaningful work while writing. I want my kids to grow strong and independent. I want my parents to know in their bones I treasure them.

     Right now, I have no future goals mapped out to which I can assign a check list. I'm thinking that writing may be the future to build a checklist around, as my immediate life  will have no dynamic changes in it. So I've circled back to where this blog always returns: words, words,  and how words give meaning to my life. I must no longer linger on sharing, practicing and shaping the perfect memoir or story, but just commit to writing each and every day. No matter what inelegant and unattractive shapes the words expose. It's time to get naked; learn how to be a strong, gentle, blunt and abstract writer in a style that resonates with others in a meaningful way. That is who I want to be now and forever, time to own it!

Thankful Tuesday (2017)

     My most read post is entitled Thankful Tuesday. It was written in November 2016, during Thanksgiving week. You can (re)read it in my archives. It gave a snapshot of my new romance, the election year and my family. Now, a year later, I have a great deal of recollecting and reflecting to do.

     Thankful Tuesday ended with Thanksgiving in the offing, an election requiring vigilance, and a family blending...

     December came with it's usual hectic school and holiday madness. My boyfriend bought me brand new downhill skis for Christmas at the local school ski & skate sale. It felt like a next step in our relationship, to be included in his winter passion, while sailing slept for the season.

     I'd skied my whole life; downhill and xc in New England as a child and young adult. Then later as adult I skied out West:  the Sierras, Cascades, Rockies, Sandias and Sangre de Cristo mountains that candy-assed me for life; dry powder, wide open trails and warm air. Both his boys skied on teams. My Dutch ex-husband hadn't skied with me or my children (although he had learned in the Alps and claimed to enjoy it) on either Coast. I couldn't get either of my children on xc or downhill skis, except once each when they were very young. After their favorite neighborhood babysitter died in a ski accident in Colorado, that was it. Skiing wasn't safe and wasn't for them. Since I moved back East,  I'd just xc-skied out my back door or on local conservation grounds.

     Christmas break was short, yet packed visiting family and friends. We celebrated Christmas in MA and ME with all four kids in tow. The two college age children dutifully tagged along and made the most of it with cousins and siblings. When we returned to MA, it was time for me to give my boyfriend his present: One night being the keepers of Rose Island Light in Newport, RI.

     We rode from Newport out to the Island in the once-a-day lobster boat at 10am. The wheelbarrow in the above picture is filled with driftwood and scraps that we found for the fire we had in the stove that night. We spent our last full night of 2016 alone, no other guests, in this wonderful house with only the wind, light and sea around us. I'd brought all the provisions (as apart of my gift), and the house has a cistern in the cellar for drinking water and a shower: a must for my man. The park ranger showed us how to manage all the necessities. It was like living on a boat, only on an island there is no rocking; just the rattling of the wind against the windows and the sound of the surf crashing on the rocks below. The ranger then bid us goodbye, saying he'd return with tomorrow's guests around 10:30 in the morning.

     The next 24hrs were spent circumnavigating the island by foot,  watching the day turn to night over the Narragansett Bay while the gulls, terns, and ospreys road the thermals at the level of the Fresnel lens, cooking three simple yet decadent meals in the small kitchen full of light, sitting in languor by the wood stove, watching the flickering lights of the bridge from our bed and exploring the light house from catwalk to the cistern cellar. We were relaxed, happy, engaged and carefree. Little did we know that would be the last time we could honestly say that....

     We lingered in Newport after disembarking from the lobster boat. Our New Year's Eve parties didn't start 'til after dark, and our kids were with the exes. Neither of us are big shoppers, but it was pleasant to walk the boutique lined wharfs, without the summer crowds, and be leisurely about it. We dragged our heels driving home; back roads as much as highways.

     For the second time in as many years, I had my man to kiss at Midnight. Can't tell you what a deeply satisfying hum that brings to my being. We all made it to midnight, with the same collection of characters I mentioned in the last Thankful Tuesday blog. I love the simple continuity of these rituals and rights of passage...

     A week later, I went on a ski trip with my boyfriend and his younger son at a crew member's house in NH. It was a pilgrimage of sorts, as her house was in Jackson and Black Mountain was her home run. Black Mountain and the Inn at it's base, Whitney's, is legendary in my family. My grandfather took my mother and uncles to ski there for their entire childhood, and he was an original investor in turning the Mt. into a ski resort. My mother and remaining uncle have "lifetime passes" as a result. Although I grew up skiing in New England, skiing was primarily done in MA and ME where we lived over the course of my youth. I'd never been to Black Mountain, although I'd seen pictures and home movies, complete with rope tows and shovel lifts (which were still standard fair in my childhood when I was learning to ski ).

     Saturday morning my boyfriend and his son, along with our hostess and her family, went skiing at Black Mountain. I was glad to see it was more of a hill and that I could learn to use my new "curved" skis somewhat quickly. I had to train my body to move differently, more subtly with the new design, which was fine with me, once I figured it out. My boyfriend's son, being on a ski team and getting weekly couching, was excellent at passing along what he had recently learned, and teaching it to me. I followed in his tracks and could feel the new movements and curving styles that were more efficient and responsive than my hopping turns. Over the course of the day I progressed from Green to Blue and felt like I could have stayed longer than we did, as my three season open-water swimming and four season running had trained me well for cold weather sports. At the end of the day, our hostess took a picture of me in the lodge to put in their history of Black Mountain scrapbook (my being a Harrison Grandchild). It felt nice to have been on that Mt.,  skied it well and with honor. We had a lovely dinner and lively discussions at her house that night.

     The next day we decided to go to Attitash Mountain in Bartlett, NH,  as we worked out way back home to MA. We again started with Green trails and I progressed to Blue. Now I can't remember if it was a Attitash or Black that we took a lift to the top and the Green trail was closed and we were forced to take a Black Diamond, but I believe it was Attitash. However, that morning went well, and I enjoyed myself immensely. It was bright and sunny as we ate lunch at the lodge. I remember overhearing a middle aged man say, "I don't ski after lunch, it's too icy", and tucking into my brain, but not taking it seriously. Since I'd gone a day and a half in tandem with my boyfriend and his son, and I could tell they were itching to challenge themselves while I had relearned to ski, we agreed to go up together and take different runs down.

     This course of action worked swimmingly for the first 3-4 runs. However, on the last  run, the sun was dipping behind the peak of the mountain, the snowboarders had skimmed the snow off the ice and laid in deeply cut tracks which the shadows made difficult to determine moving at high speeds. I was on the same Blue Trail, Upper Cathedral, I'd been running with the guys, going fast on the steepest section when it happened. My downhill leg (left), became stuck in a snowboard track and I couldn't release it before slamming into a wall made from groomed ice and snow shavings. I saw a large orange-red ball  of light burst before my eyes, felt my knee buckle backwards unnaturally and then collapsed onto my right side.

     I didn't hear anything, which was odd. As someone who has broken more than her fair share of bones, one usually hears the break internally; you know it's broken the second it happens. This was different. I hoped for a vain minute, that the hyper extension would just result in a pulled ligament or strained muscle. But as I attempted to stand up, with the help of a Frenchman who stopped immediately upon seeing my accident, my head (which had blinded me with the bouncing red ball of light) was now telling me that I had no leg under my knee; I simply couldn't feel it when I attempted to stand on it. The Frenchman, followed by at least two other concerned skiers, all went for help and asked if I had anyone to tell. I described my boyfriend's son, as he has a long mane of hair that's hard to miss, his name and what he was wearing. I was later told that they were both waiting for me at the bottom; when told, the son said he wanted to be the one to go to me first, and my boyfriend wanted to make sure medical/EMTs were on their way to me.

     The son did arrive first, then the EMTs and then my boyfriend (at least I think that is the order). The ski patrol wrapped me up like a burrito in a papoose sled and pulled me down the hill; looking up at the cloudless blue ski, shiny green pines and white snow-shower wake of the EMT flying above me, I felt a childlike happiness. My boyfriend and his son skied along side the whole ride down.

     At the bottom, they hooked the papoose sled to an ATV and dragged me across to the full length of the base of the Mountain to the Medical hut. I remember the woman who treated me was named Patty. She had connections to New Mexico. She looked like a healer. She had me try to stand. I couldn't. She had me try to bend my leg, which I could, as the swelling hadn't made that impossible yet. She said she, like me, hoped it was just a pulled or torn ligament, but she wanted me to have x-rays at a hospital. She made a splint out of cardboard boxes and padded it with forgotten gloves, mittens, and hats, and then wrapped electrical tape around it. She taught us (my boyfriend and I) how to get me in and out of the car.

     Now as I write this story, and as I've told it to others earlier, the question becomes, "Oh, you must have been in so much pain. How on earth did you manage 3 hours in a the back of a car like that." I say, "It's funny what shock and desire can do." On one hand, I was still in denial and shaken. I desperately desired for it to be a pulled, or at worst torn, ligament, so I battled with my mind to make it so. My body, on the other hand,  was screaming different outcomes to me every time my boyfriend hit a pothole. So how did I cope and not let on, stoic Yankee style: I sang! I sang along with as many songs as I knew and played solitaire on my phone when I didn't know the songs. Amazing how we can override our own circuitry, isn't it? It was my blatant attempt to keep the guys from the front seat in the dark, because if I let on to how much pain I was in that would mean this wasn't going to be a rest and recover accident, but something more substantial.

     We dropped his son at my boyfriend's house,  and then he took me to the ER at Emerson Hospital in Concord, MA. The nurses were impressed with Patty's cardboard splint. I don't remember it taking long to get an evaluation room. In keeping with my laconic evasion of the growing reality of my limb, I sent my boyfriend on his way to buy groceries and to make dinner for his son.  I was tested, x-rayed, and sampled. Then the look I was fearing arrived. It came with the words, "your x-ray is abnormal, you need surgery as soon as possible." My first tears.....they would flow on and off for months, and still come now when I least expect them. That was Sunday, the 8th of January.

     I called my boyfriend who was still in the grocery story. I repeated what the nurse said. I could hear the air escape his lips like a sliced canvas life raft; airy, watery and thick. It took him a few beats to believe it, but once he did, he was all there. He contacted my family and friends. Fortunately I have a wealth of medically trained friends and family members.  They all researched the surgeon on call for the am and found her to be a good sports medicine Doc. Only one friend, who had worked with the surgeon in the past, hesitated regarding her bedside manner, not her ability to perform the required procedure. Path of least resistance won out. I was now in full blown pain, as the shock dissipated and denial disappeared. By this point I had surrendered to the pain, medicines and diagnosis.

     Tibial plateau fracture. That was the breaks name. The surgery took 3 hours and required a plate and 7 screws. I don't remember much of Monday through Wednesday, except for the surgeon telling me I might never run again, that I wouldn't be allowed to walk for 2 months, and that it would take 6-12 months to heal.  I can still summon mental snapshots of my neighbor and her mom sitting with me, my family coming in and out, and my boyfriend bringing homemade chicken soup and a box filled with multiple kinds of macaroons for me and the nurses!


     Wednesday we went home. Not to my house, but to his, as there were too many levels and stairs to navigate at my house. My son and dog also moved into my boyfriend's house. Part of what we discussed with our four children at Thanksgiving and Christmas had been the possibility of blending our tribe and moving into a house of ours within a few years. So this was simultaneously welcome, unprecedented and an interesting experiment. Half the week we had both boys under the same roof, too.

     Thursday the first PT and OT came to the house to help me learn to navigate basic tasks. After just a short session of attempting to use a walker, learn how to properly stand and sit, and be told attempting stairs were still days away, I was exhausted. It was hard to believe that I'd run a half marathon two months earlier and swum a 5K a few months before that. Yet the surgeon told me, it was because I was so active that my femur hadn't shattered in the crash. Most people with tibial plateau fractures like mine end up with broken thighs, too! The muscles in my legs, absorbing the impact, had spared my upper leg. I fell sound asleep on the couch in the living room.

     I was shaken awake by my boyfriend. His eyes told me something was terribly wrong. He told me his older son had been in a horrible ski accident and he had to wait for another call to know more. His son was a Sophomore at CMU, a dual mechanical engineering and physics major, a stellar student athlete and on the ski team. The next phone call would result in my boyfriend collapsing to the ground, on the second floor, having me desperately attempting and succeeding to climb the stairs backwards on my butt and crawling to cradle him as he took in the news.

     His son had been racing with friends down an easy trail, which set his ski to chattering, under the speed,  that one released, having him lose control and flying into the trees. He punctured both of his lungs, fractured six ribs, his collarbone, and six vertebrae, damaging his spinal cord in the process. This was the afternoon of  Thursday, 12 January. 

     Now it was my turn to be all there for my boyfriend. While he arranged a flight to airport nearest the trauma center his son was being airlifted to, I arranged a car service to pick him and drive him to the hospital. My father who was visiting from ME, enroute to my niece's volleyball game in CT, took my boyfriend to the airport. My dad and stepmom cancelled their plans to go to CT and stayed on to take care of me and my boy. This is all a blur, as I was in much pain, medicated and out of sync with myself. Now I was texting his relatives, mine, both our exes and others on an as need to know basis. 


     For the next two months his son was in Hospitals: Mass General and Spaulding.  His son is now a paraplegic, paralyzed from the chest down. During those same months, I went to visit him in the hospital and even spent the night before his spinal surgery in a hotel around the corner to support my man and his family. I had to go in wheelchair. It gave me an immediate initiation to non-walking life. It was exhausting and required lots of advance planning for even the simplest of tasks. I injured my shoulder from "pacing" in the halls the hours of his surgery, it took six months for it to not hurt when I slept on it. 

     In February I lost two dearly beloveds and nearly a third. Jack Robb, the patriarch of the Robb family and a dear friend succumb to Parkinson's disease. Bingley Robb, my trusted canine companion of 12 yrs and a chosen brother of Cora, died after a heroic fight, as well. My massage therapist, Tony, had to have emergency open heart surgery and it was a delicate surgery. Three touchstones of mine; two taken, one receded from my life until this month.

     My boyfriend's son handled his surgeries and hospital stays with grit and grace.  My man and his ex-wife took turns being with him non-stop for 7 months. I moved back into my own house, with my son and dog, in mid-March. His son moved into an accessible apartment also in March. 

     On the Ides of March my daughter was hospitalized; first on Long Island, New York and then in MA. During March my son, daughter and I were reunited under our own roof. Neither my daughter nor my boyfriend's son would return to college until the fall semester. We all had a lot of healing to do. I went back to work, on crutches, in mid-March.

     April, May and June we all did various therapies to regain our strength and stamina. My boyfriend and his ex-wife decided to beginning renovations on their respective homes, while their oldest son lived in an accessible apartment for the Spring and Summer.

     I had my last physical therapy appointment in June. I'd asked if I could safely enter a race in July and was given the green light by my surgeon. I swam a 3 Mile Open Ocean Swim on my 55th birthday in July, the morning of the 15th. It stands as the personal highlight of this year. My number one super-fan, my mother, came with me. She watched the rowers and SUPs  race the 4 Mile loop around Misery, while we swimmers raced 3 Miles from in Manchester-by-the-Sea to the inside of island and back on that overcast morning. It was fitting that on the day she gave birth to me, I felt reborn by the sea; not being able to run and still hurting to walk, swimming has been my salvation this year; mentally and physically. 

   

     The next morning, 16 July,  my boyfriend and I departed the dock on his 37' sailboat for a week. A year earlier, we had sailed for two weeks; one with his youngest son and his son's friend, and the other week just the two of us. It had been wonderful and we hadn't wanted to end.  I'd been looking forward to this week to commune with nature and each other. Nature rose up to meet me, but my boyfriend did not. We spent a week sailing in a loop from the North Shore to Cuttyhunk and back. It was his first week away from his son in 7 months.

     He'd been telling me that he was looking forward to being alone with me. However, I now believe he was just looking forward to being alone and away from people and buildings. We had both experienced deep trauma during the winter.  I'd hoped that this week in the summer would renew us individually and as a couple. It nearly ended us instead. I was hurt and angry by his lack of engagement and felt rejected although he'd stated he was looking forward to being with me. I was realizing just how limited our relationship had become and it scared me. He apologized for his lack of engagement and said he hadn't planned to be that way...but after 7 days of making the same choice it broke my spirit.

     I'd vowed to myself to never again be in a relationship where I felt emotionally, spiritually and physically abandoned. By the end of this week I was feeling all three and was wondering how patient I should be with myself and with him. I'd been alone in my marriage for easily 5 years before I asked him to leave. I'd waited 6 months for him to ask me on a date, and when he didn't, I knew it was over. Now it'd been over 6 months, but both of our children, and my own leg, had been broken, which had resulted in a fracturing of our relationship. This week of sailing, I'd hoped to reconstruct a way forward, but we were stuck in neutral or worse, grinding gears. Fortunately, I take solace in the sea and pleasure in simple things.

     Mostly I love life. I love making plans and setting goals for the future. I try to keep moving forward and not to get too mucked down by the past. Yet all future language in our relationship had disappeared. Beyond the return to college of our two eldest kids and the deadline of finishing the renovations on his house prior to Thanksgiving, there remain no future discussions. He has been hanging on by his fingertips and going forward one detail or punch-list item at a time. I've felt sidelined.

     A year ago, I wrote the most read entry, about our relationship and taking it to the next level. Now here it is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I'm feeling Thankful, but not in the way I imagined.

     I'm thankful for modern medicine and modern healing arts. I'm thankful for a strong and supportive friend and family base. I'm thankful for being able to walk, and even jog, in the woods again. I'm thankful for both our oldest children resuming their lives with so much grace and grit. I'm thankful for the resilience of the two younger brothers. I'm thankful for my parents who want the best for me. I'm thankful that my kids talk to me, deeply and often. I'm thankful for being able to appreciate all of these things in the moment...........

     Yet, I'm wary. I know there is nothing constant except change...but there remains no talk of the future with my man; yet there is love. For that I am thankful and scared. Does one wait a year for trauma to stop obscuring reality and the ability to discuss the future? Has our reality permanently been altered so that future is too much to ask?  Is there ever a good time, or does one just go about her business with her future on hold, although that is not at all who she is or what she wants? Or do you just know when you know and decide then?

     I'm a Tigger by nature; an optimist, an idealist, and a romantic. But this year has found me down in Eeyore territory (I couldn't bring myself to write about politics or work) for far too long; having to tirelessly manufacture optimism and viable horizons. In two days, ten of us will sit at my boyfriend's table and share a Thanksgiving feast. I'm looking forward to preparing the food and atmosphere for this gathering.  I'm suggesting that love and hope will win out, and would be most Thankful if you, dear reader, sent some loving and hopeful vibes my way this season! Gobble, Gobble to all!!