Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Like the tide
When the hunky scientist and I went to Hawaii last November, there was a tsunami warning midway through our trip. It ruined a day of boogie boarding for us, but we did get a chance to see a remarkable thing: As we sat at a table near the shore, we could watch the sea retreat far past its normal low-tide mark, then come washing back to over-fill the cove. Yesterday I learned grief can be like that. During the night before I felt all emotion ebbing away, sinking into the crevices of my mind and heart and leaving me curiously disquieted and gray. The next morning, it came flooding back in a tide of sadness that seemed to cover everything. Fortunately, the next retreat was to a normal emotional level, and here it remains. For the moment.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Uh oh. A deadline.
I went to my first writer's group meeting last night. At the end, I volunteered to offer up something for the next meeting. This fills me with amusement and dread. Amusement because I have no works of fiction to present. Dread because I have to work something up quickly. But it's not as though my life has been lacking in material. I'd better get busy.
+++
I've been singing again, and that reminds me of my mother. I sing songs she liked, standards like "Cry Me A River" and "The Very Thought of You," and numbers that just make me think of her and our old life, like "This Old Porch" by Lyle Lovette and "Still Crazy After All These Years" by Simon and Garfunkle. I sing songs my father played for me when I was a child, and I sing songs my parents never sang, songs from my madrigal days. I sing with my singer's spirit of a voice that nobody will ever know about because I was too shy a teenager to take it on the road. I sing a memory of my mother and my father, sing a portrait of us, and my singing builds melodies as bright and strong, fragile and brief as the lives we all spend here together.
+++
I've been singing again, and that reminds me of my mother. I sing songs she liked, standards like "Cry Me A River" and "The Very Thought of You," and numbers that just make me think of her and our old life, like "This Old Porch" by Lyle Lovette and "Still Crazy After All These Years" by Simon and Garfunkle. I sing songs my father played for me when I was a child, and I sing songs my parents never sang, songs from my madrigal days. I sing with my singer's spirit of a voice that nobody will ever know about because I was too shy a teenager to take it on the road. I sing a memory of my mother and my father, sing a portrait of us, and my singing builds melodies as bright and strong, fragile and brief as the lives we all spend here together.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Completely different news
The hunky scientist proposed marriage to me on Sunday, and I said yes, of course. He's been getting hunkier lately, thanks to increased bike riding and weight lifting, and I figured if I didn't say yes that some other broad would grab him. The only bummer in the thing is that now I have this gorgeous, sparkly symbol of attachment and he's still running around out there lookin' all buff, tan, and single. Maybe I'll invent the first man's engagement ring. It'll be a thick platinum band that's engraved on the outside with the words "Too late, ladies!" All joking aside, I'm thrilled; my heart is content. And I'm happy, too, that neither of us wants a big, showy wedding. We just want to be married and have a nice time with our friends and family.
+++
Next week I'm going to attend a writer's group for the first time. Should be interesting and fun. I'll report back.
+++
On the grief front, I'm sleeping better this week, though work is kicking my butt and stressing me out (that's why I haven't posted in a little while).
+++
Next week I'm going to attend a writer's group for the first time. Should be interesting and fun. I'll report back.
+++
On the grief front, I'm sleeping better this week, though work is kicking my butt and stressing me out (that's why I haven't posted in a little while).
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Sorting through 70 years
Our home is on the market. It's been cleaned, painted and manicured. One-third of the furniture is still in the rooms, placed just so for staging. And nearly all my mother's framed watercolors are on the walls. Everything else, the contents of two people's 70 years, along with the flotsam of five children's lives, was stashed out in the garage in the rush to get the house ready for the summer market. Our mission this week was to go through everything in the garage and disperse it or label it for sale. It's a large garage. And it had never (seriously. NEVER.) been cleaned out before, and now nearly the entire contents of the house were out there, too.
Everyone told me this was going to be a difficult week. "It'll be so emotional," they said. And it has. But not in the way everyone expected. The main emotion I felt during the whole week was "How could anyone accumulate so much useless STUFF?" Every No. 2 pencil in the county of Santa Barbara seems to have made its way to my mother and father's house, where (it seems) they were certain to find safe harbor. Baskets, too, found shelter at our little East Side home. If you've mailed anything to my parents, chances are good that the box and its packing material were saved for eventual re-use but are, as of this week, reposing in the recycling bin. And in the back of the garage, every can of paint, turpentine, spackel, and cleaning fluid my dad had ever used (partially or fully) sat waiting for us on their shelves under at least a quarter inch of accumulated dust. They're now stacked in a mighty, rusty drift beside the back fence, awaiting transport to the hazmat waste site.
On the bright side, my mother also kept every calendar she ever used. I'll go through those and read the chronicles of her days before I consign them to the recycler. She kept every card, letter, and note we ever wrote her; books we composed in 3rd grade (one grabby title penned by my cousin, then about 8: "The Mouse Who Was Tired of Living in a Hole"); pictures we crayoned or painted. She kept diaries. She saved vital records. She rescued personal memorabilia from my father, whose preference was to erase the evidence of his existence behind himself as he moved forward through his life.
And so we've had surprises as we've opened dusty boxes. There have been many "awwwww" moments, but no tears. All this week I have also kept up working for my day job, which has kept me going until midnight every night and up early every morning to make up for the afternoon hours spent in the garage. Call me stubborn, but I just can't take vacation time to do this work. I'll need real vacation time later. And later I'll linger over the things I have asked to take home, like the red fleece throw I found. I don't really love that throw, but my mother did and I found when I put it next to my cheek that it still smelled like her perfume. When I inhaled, it felt like my mother was standing next to me. Later, when that scent has faded, will I keep that throw? I can't say. But from what I keep I'll compose scrap books. Later, I'll deliver slides to be converted to photo files and photos to be duplicated and mailed. I'll turn in old cassette tapes of my mother's singing to be made into CDs to share with her friends and our family. All those things wait to be done. But tonight I just want to decompress. This week it's been just a long and often gritty slog, punctuated by screaming nieces and sibling politics, and I can't wait to go home.
Everyone told me this was going to be a difficult week. "It'll be so emotional," they said. And it has. But not in the way everyone expected. The main emotion I felt during the whole week was "How could anyone accumulate so much useless STUFF?" Every No. 2 pencil in the county of Santa Barbara seems to have made its way to my mother and father's house, where (it seems) they were certain to find safe harbor. Baskets, too, found shelter at our little East Side home. If you've mailed anything to my parents, chances are good that the box and its packing material were saved for eventual re-use but are, as of this week, reposing in the recycling bin. And in the back of the garage, every can of paint, turpentine, spackel, and cleaning fluid my dad had ever used (partially or fully) sat waiting for us on their shelves under at least a quarter inch of accumulated dust. They're now stacked in a mighty, rusty drift beside the back fence, awaiting transport to the hazmat waste site.
On the bright side, my mother also kept every calendar she ever used. I'll go through those and read the chronicles of her days before I consign them to the recycler. She kept every card, letter, and note we ever wrote her; books we composed in 3rd grade (one grabby title penned by my cousin, then about 8: "The Mouse Who Was Tired of Living in a Hole"); pictures we crayoned or painted. She kept diaries. She saved vital records. She rescued personal memorabilia from my father, whose preference was to erase the evidence of his existence behind himself as he moved forward through his life.
And so we've had surprises as we've opened dusty boxes. There have been many "awwwww" moments, but no tears. All this week I have also kept up working for my day job, which has kept me going until midnight every night and up early every morning to make up for the afternoon hours spent in the garage. Call me stubborn, but I just can't take vacation time to do this work. I'll need real vacation time later. And later I'll linger over the things I have asked to take home, like the red fleece throw I found. I don't really love that throw, but my mother did and I found when I put it next to my cheek that it still smelled like her perfume. When I inhaled, it felt like my mother was standing next to me. Later, when that scent has faded, will I keep that throw? I can't say. But from what I keep I'll compose scrap books. Later, I'll deliver slides to be converted to photo files and photos to be duplicated and mailed. I'll turn in old cassette tapes of my mother's singing to be made into CDs to share with her friends and our family. All those things wait to be done. But tonight I just want to decompress. This week it's been just a long and often gritty slog, punctuated by screaming nieces and sibling politics, and I can't wait to go home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)