Gift from my other daughter.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Listening Up
"What is your favorite?"
I had only time for one question; the great author was only signing his name, only three times per person. Those were the rules we agreed to before we got in line for his autograph. Five people before the signing table, we were told to "nest" our books so that there would be no delays in the execution.
I understood that. There were a thousand people in attendance to hear him read, and most of them wanted autographs. I've been to dozens of readings in that hall and none that were so well attended had even allowed signings.
But I couldn't just stand there while he scribbled his "John Updike" and gawk. I came to the reading with knowledge only of what he'd written, not any personal experience, other than a short story here or there. I'd looked down the list of his publications, and listened carefully as he'd described stories and their history. His credits page is long. Where would I begin?
So I asked him. He smiled, ran his fingers through his hair and laughed an almost nervous little laugh. "That's a hard question," he began, "they are all… "
"Like your children, I know. But which one really? I promise not to tell the others."
"You knew I was going to say that."
Hey, we have the same number and combination of children. It made sense that it would be the same comparison. Only a writer understands that each story is jealous of the one before it and the one that followed. Stories are living creatures!
He stumbled a little more, wrote his name my allotted three times, and the person behind me had his books on the table. I was moving away, when he finally replied. "Coup" he said. And then turned away, redirecting his attention so as not to dwell on his disloyalty. That book, after all, was not available for signing tonight.
The interesting thing about his answer was that he'd already described that particular novel as the one least in his style, the one that made him get out of his comfort zone. Something to think about.
I had only time for one question; the great author was only signing his name, only three times per person. Those were the rules we agreed to before we got in line for his autograph. Five people before the signing table, we were told to "nest" our books so that there would be no delays in the execution.
I understood that. There were a thousand people in attendance to hear him read, and most of them wanted autographs. I've been to dozens of readings in that hall and none that were so well attended had even allowed signings.
But I couldn't just stand there while he scribbled his "John Updike" and gawk. I came to the reading with knowledge only of what he'd written, not any personal experience, other than a short story here or there. I'd looked down the list of his publications, and listened carefully as he'd described stories and their history. His credits page is long. Where would I begin?
So I asked him. He smiled, ran his fingers through his hair and laughed an almost nervous little laugh. "That's a hard question," he began, "they are all… "
"Like your children, I know. But which one really? I promise not to tell the others."
"You knew I was going to say that."
Hey, we have the same number and combination of children. It made sense that it would be the same comparison. Only a writer understands that each story is jealous of the one before it and the one that followed. Stories are living creatures!
He stumbled a little more, wrote his name my allotted three times, and the person behind me had his books on the table. I was moving away, when he finally replied. "Coup" he said. And then turned away, redirecting his attention so as not to dwell on his disloyalty. That book, after all, was not available for signing tonight.
The interesting thing about his answer was that he'd already described that particular novel as the one least in his style, the one that made him get out of his comfort zone. Something to think about.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
intensity
That is the word I'd use for the concert last night. I'm trying to decide what it is about it that makes me feel today like turning over rocks and telling all the bugs of the world to move along, but I'm not sure if that is the music, the presentation or the "package" that went with it.
What do I mean package? Well you know, all the details of a night out. What to wear, what to do with the 13 year old, do we eat first, last, not at all, where to park, buy t-shirts or cd's or beer?
Suffice it to say that we don’t go to concerts of this variety very often. Symphony? Sure, Opera? Occasionally. Theatre habitually. But the music of Sigur Ros is not in any of those categories. But then, it is.
You may not have ever heard the group. I'd heard only the songs played for me by my daughter, who'd given us the tickets to the concert for Christmas, and she tends to have offbeat taste. I liked what I'd heard: haunting melodies, interesting combinations. None of that prepared me for the intensity of the live performance.
I should have had a clue though, from the quiet. The crowd of mostly 20somethings was sober, calm. No one passing joints around, the occasional cigarette was the only disruption to the air. A bar in the lobby, but no line, no one really all that interested in the offerings.
We found our seats, and listened to the opening band, young women from, I assume Iceland, because they didn't speak English very well and their sound had those haunting, wide open tones that seem to come from that part of the world. For their "big" number, one woman played the saw… a real live cut wood saw, with a bow, and it was so beautiful it could bring tears … mournful and full and a touch wild. Two others played what looked like service bells from a hotel, while the other played water glasses. All of this orchestrated by a computer, incidentally the same brand and model as the one I type on this morning.
I wasn't completely sure these girls weren't the band. I hadn't adjusted my attitude appropriately yet, and still thought we were in for the kind of good time we used to have at rock concerts years ago.
I was ready not to be my age. Had on my jeans, which fit well thanks to all the salad, white shirt and had straightened my hair. Okay, if one looked close, they'd see that the concealer doesn’t really deal with the dark circles around my eyes, and the texture of my skin beneath them lately has me trying every kind of anti wrinkle cream I can get my hands on. I won't say we were the oldest people there, but we were in the top ten percent.
My husband was just as bad. He's been to more rock concerts than I ever dreamed of, was actually part of that generation of students who did things like close colleges with protests, went to war. You know, real intense situations. I was always in awe of them, being just a few years too young for it in any capacity but tagalong. He'd already made me promise that if it was bad, we could leave, and just be polite to our daughter should she ask.
So we invited my son's best friend to spend the night… leaving one thirteen year old alone seemed wrong, but the two of them together was okay. (Best friends parents were home, just five minutes away.) Ordered them pizza, decided not to eat before the show. Got directed to four parking lots before we could park.
The second clue that things weren't going to be as we expected was a line in the men's room. But not the women's. Any woman who's ever been out to a public place knows there is something wrong there.
We found our seats, high in the second tier, in the next to last row along far aisle. I will have to ask my daughter if that was intentional… I suspect it was. We really were able to fade into the theater and observe.
The music… electronic and vocal and gifted. Bows used on guitars, I guess that is a new thing, but I'd not seen it. Behind the band, a constant light mural, changing from the faces of the most innocent looking little girl you could imagine, all bright eyes, round cheeks and braids, to, by the end of the set, army boots marching through puddles. The audience was quiet, (and for the most part, there were a couple of inappropriate whoops) respectful. And once I got through the mindset that this was supposed to be a fun concert, and listened, just listened, the intensity of what this little group of people from Iceland were doing struck me. I looked around the room and realized this is the generation that has to deal with things almost harder than that Vietnam group. These people have the legacy of what we've …their parents… done to the Earth, to the world. They don't take anything as lightly as my apathetic generation did. Even their music is intense, and meaningful and what felt like, important.
I can't say I enjoyed it. But I was moved.
The group took no intermissions, did only one curtain call, and returned the standing ovation that carried on for what felt like ten minutes to the audience.
They didn't speak one word. It was all the music.
We left the hall and I realized that I had found something of "not my age" after all. I realized I used to feel that intense about what was going on in the world, that I used to carry a torch with me wherever I went. That was the stake that drove through hearts of my family members. They didn't want to know about global warming or overpopulation or hunger or racial cleansing or back alley abortions and welfare mothers and homeless people and HIV and all the other atrocities that were going on all over the world. It was the Seventies man, and they wanted to hide under rocks and live the lives they were given in their safe little corner of the world, run off to Wal-Mart and Target and buy cheap electronics and country western music cds. They wanted to just be, while I burned with the injustice of it all.
And I'm ashamed. I became more like them, less the idealist. And under what excuse? I had children, a marriage, a job, a career! I could just sit back and enjoy the fruits of labors, not only my own, but those of the rebels before me, who'd won me the right to work for equal pay, to take time off for maternity leave without losing my job, to send my children to free public schools that addressed even their exceptional needs.
And what did it all come down to?
Going to a concert where I wanted to straighten my hair, recapture my youth and rock out, but finding instead, that recapturing youth isn't about sexuality or looks or what to wear… we knew that then…it is about recapturing the fire, the intensity of feeling, that let us have the courage to at least think we could change the world.
And realizing what gifts my daughters have really given me.
What do I mean package? Well you know, all the details of a night out. What to wear, what to do with the 13 year old, do we eat first, last, not at all, where to park, buy t-shirts or cd's or beer?
Suffice it to say that we don’t go to concerts of this variety very often. Symphony? Sure, Opera? Occasionally. Theatre habitually. But the music of Sigur Ros is not in any of those categories. But then, it is.
You may not have ever heard the group. I'd heard only the songs played for me by my daughter, who'd given us the tickets to the concert for Christmas, and she tends to have offbeat taste. I liked what I'd heard: haunting melodies, interesting combinations. None of that prepared me for the intensity of the live performance.
I should have had a clue though, from the quiet. The crowd of mostly 20somethings was sober, calm. No one passing joints around, the occasional cigarette was the only disruption to the air. A bar in the lobby, but no line, no one really all that interested in the offerings.
We found our seats, and listened to the opening band, young women from, I assume Iceland, because they didn't speak English very well and their sound had those haunting, wide open tones that seem to come from that part of the world. For their "big" number, one woman played the saw… a real live cut wood saw, with a bow, and it was so beautiful it could bring tears … mournful and full and a touch wild. Two others played what looked like service bells from a hotel, while the other played water glasses. All of this orchestrated by a computer, incidentally the same brand and model as the one I type on this morning.
I wasn't completely sure these girls weren't the band. I hadn't adjusted my attitude appropriately yet, and still thought we were in for the kind of good time we used to have at rock concerts years ago.
I was ready not to be my age. Had on my jeans, which fit well thanks to all the salad, white shirt and had straightened my hair. Okay, if one looked close, they'd see that the concealer doesn’t really deal with the dark circles around my eyes, and the texture of my skin beneath them lately has me trying every kind of anti wrinkle cream I can get my hands on. I won't say we were the oldest people there, but we were in the top ten percent.
My husband was just as bad. He's been to more rock concerts than I ever dreamed of, was actually part of that generation of students who did things like close colleges with protests, went to war. You know, real intense situations. I was always in awe of them, being just a few years too young for it in any capacity but tagalong. He'd already made me promise that if it was bad, we could leave, and just be polite to our daughter should she ask.
So we invited my son's best friend to spend the night… leaving one thirteen year old alone seemed wrong, but the two of them together was okay. (Best friends parents were home, just five minutes away.) Ordered them pizza, decided not to eat before the show. Got directed to four parking lots before we could park.
The second clue that things weren't going to be as we expected was a line in the men's room. But not the women's. Any woman who's ever been out to a public place knows there is something wrong there.
We found our seats, high in the second tier, in the next to last row along far aisle. I will have to ask my daughter if that was intentional… I suspect it was. We really were able to fade into the theater and observe.
The music… electronic and vocal and gifted. Bows used on guitars, I guess that is a new thing, but I'd not seen it. Behind the band, a constant light mural, changing from the faces of the most innocent looking little girl you could imagine, all bright eyes, round cheeks and braids, to, by the end of the set, army boots marching through puddles. The audience was quiet, (and for the most part, there were a couple of inappropriate whoops) respectful. And once I got through the mindset that this was supposed to be a fun concert, and listened, just listened, the intensity of what this little group of people from Iceland were doing struck me. I looked around the room and realized this is the generation that has to deal with things almost harder than that Vietnam group. These people have the legacy of what we've …their parents… done to the Earth, to the world. They don't take anything as lightly as my apathetic generation did. Even their music is intense, and meaningful and what felt like, important.
I can't say I enjoyed it. But I was moved.
The group took no intermissions, did only one curtain call, and returned the standing ovation that carried on for what felt like ten minutes to the audience.
They didn't speak one word. It was all the music.
We left the hall and I realized that I had found something of "not my age" after all. I realized I used to feel that intense about what was going on in the world, that I used to carry a torch with me wherever I went. That was the stake that drove through hearts of my family members. They didn't want to know about global warming or overpopulation or hunger or racial cleansing or back alley abortions and welfare mothers and homeless people and HIV and all the other atrocities that were going on all over the world. It was the Seventies man, and they wanted to hide under rocks and live the lives they were given in their safe little corner of the world, run off to Wal-Mart and Target and buy cheap electronics and country western music cds. They wanted to just be, while I burned with the injustice of it all.
And I'm ashamed. I became more like them, less the idealist. And under what excuse? I had children, a marriage, a job, a career! I could just sit back and enjoy the fruits of labors, not only my own, but those of the rebels before me, who'd won me the right to work for equal pay, to take time off for maternity leave without losing my job, to send my children to free public schools that addressed even their exceptional needs.
And what did it all come down to?
Going to a concert where I wanted to straighten my hair, recapture my youth and rock out, but finding instead, that recapturing youth isn't about sexuality or looks or what to wear… we knew that then…it is about recapturing the fire, the intensity of feeling, that let us have the courage to at least think we could change the world.
And realizing what gifts my daughters have really given me.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
No words, but looking up
Blogs without pictures get boring. These are just in my files. It is too dreary to leave them there tonight.
Skyfire, in South Haven, Michigan.
Skyfire, in South Haven, Michigan.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
the power of touch
Sometimes I take out memories, and just think about them, about what they meant then, what they mean now.
When my mother was lying in the hospital, trying to recover from the heart attack that led to the stroke that caused her kidneys to shut down, her lungs to fill and eventually, her death, I was lucky enough to get to be with her, at least some of the time. It took nearly two weeks for death to finally claim her. In that period of time many moments stand out as extraordinary. The most intimate moment between just she and I, perhaps any time since maybe infancy, was the night I was alone with her, and massaged her leg.
There was less than half of the leg left, she'd endured so many amputations in that last ten years, and I never touched her before that. I wondered if massage would help increase the circulation that she lacked, the absence of which led to each successive operation. But I didn't live near, I saw her four times a year or so, and she had a husband. It wasn't really my "place" to offer to rub away the pain.
I suppose I was in denial all those years. The last nights in the hospital made me understand that all the people who were close around her those last years were not there out of concern for her, but out of their own needs. Needs which she, even in her compromised state, filled without complaint.
But she was lying there in a hospital bed, unable to move, unable to breathe without assistance, denied even ice chips for fear of aspiration, and the people who'd surrounded her in her years of need were down the hall in the lounge, eating pizza and having a party.
I stayed in her room. It was cold. So cold. Probably sixty degrees, and she was still feverish. The medication they'd given her to regulate her heart rate had the side effect of something thermal, overheating her. The nurses knew this and dialed the thermostat down as low as it would go. But we were dressed for summer, and easily chilled. They gave us blankets to drape over our shoulders.
She moaned; the pain from her tubes, her afflictions surely awful, but it wasn't that. It was the phantom pains that woke her crying in the nights. Pain in the limbs whose circulation had shut down and killed the tissue.
I can handle crises. I don't fall apart when immediate danger threatens, or when someone is hurt. I forgot all about my denial, and went to her. Her leg was bare; she'd pulled the hospital gown up as high as she could to feel the blessed cool air. I'd never really looked at it, and when I placed my hands on the skin of her thigh, she quieted. I kneaded the muscle, soft and pliable, more like the feeling of those water tubes we get at conferences with advertisements, to handle for stress.
The connection was immediate. I knew that it felt good to her, to be touched, to feel my hands working the pain from their memory. I didn't mind, and unlike the way my fingers get when I'm giving a massage I'm not really in the mood to give, I didn't tire. I didn't stop until the nurse came in to do a breathing treatment, and to sedate her so she could rest.
Before I left the room, she took my hand and squeezed it.
I looked in on her the next morning, but they'd decided her best chance was to be drugged to a state of unconsciousness, so that they could perform the next procedure needed if she was ever to come home. Her husband gave consent. His right, his responsibility. She never woke from that state, and a week later we had to turn off the machines.
I wasn't the last person to touch her, there were people in and out the whole week as she slept, but I'm pretty sure I'm the last one whose touch she knew. No one else was with us, we didn't speak, but the power of touch between us reaffirmed a connection that isn't explainable without the experience of it. Parents know it, it is the same one that settles a child's nightmares when he doesn't quite wake up, the
I will always wonder, if I'd been there more, if I'd been there to touch her legs, rub her feet before the doctors began their surgical solution, could her life have been better? Could it be so simple?
This isn't about my mother, or me for that matter, but about the power that humans hold in their hands with such simple things. A soft voice, a kind word, a simple touch, given without obligation or expectation. It astounds me really.
When my mother was lying in the hospital, trying to recover from the heart attack that led to the stroke that caused her kidneys to shut down, her lungs to fill and eventually, her death, I was lucky enough to get to be with her, at least some of the time. It took nearly two weeks for death to finally claim her. In that period of time many moments stand out as extraordinary. The most intimate moment between just she and I, perhaps any time since maybe infancy, was the night I was alone with her, and massaged her leg.
There was less than half of the leg left, she'd endured so many amputations in that last ten years, and I never touched her before that. I wondered if massage would help increase the circulation that she lacked, the absence of which led to each successive operation. But I didn't live near, I saw her four times a year or so, and she had a husband. It wasn't really my "place" to offer to rub away the pain.
I suppose I was in denial all those years. The last nights in the hospital made me understand that all the people who were close around her those last years were not there out of concern for her, but out of their own needs. Needs which she, even in her compromised state, filled without complaint.
But she was lying there in a hospital bed, unable to move, unable to breathe without assistance, denied even ice chips for fear of aspiration, and the people who'd surrounded her in her years of need were down the hall in the lounge, eating pizza and having a party.
I stayed in her room. It was cold. So cold. Probably sixty degrees, and she was still feverish. The medication they'd given her to regulate her heart rate had the side effect of something thermal, overheating her. The nurses knew this and dialed the thermostat down as low as it would go. But we were dressed for summer, and easily chilled. They gave us blankets to drape over our shoulders.
She moaned; the pain from her tubes, her afflictions surely awful, but it wasn't that. It was the phantom pains that woke her crying in the nights. Pain in the limbs whose circulation had shut down and killed the tissue.
I can handle crises. I don't fall apart when immediate danger threatens, or when someone is hurt. I forgot all about my denial, and went to her. Her leg was bare; she'd pulled the hospital gown up as high as she could to feel the blessed cool air. I'd never really looked at it, and when I placed my hands on the skin of her thigh, she quieted. I kneaded the muscle, soft and pliable, more like the feeling of those water tubes we get at conferences with advertisements, to handle for stress.
The connection was immediate. I knew that it felt good to her, to be touched, to feel my hands working the pain from their memory. I didn't mind, and unlike the way my fingers get when I'm giving a massage I'm not really in the mood to give, I didn't tire. I didn't stop until the nurse came in to do a breathing treatment, and to sedate her so she could rest.
Before I left the room, she took my hand and squeezed it.
I looked in on her the next morning, but they'd decided her best chance was to be drugged to a state of unconsciousness, so that they could perform the next procedure needed if she was ever to come home. Her husband gave consent. His right, his responsibility. She never woke from that state, and a week later we had to turn off the machines.
I wasn't the last person to touch her, there were people in and out the whole week as she slept, but I'm pretty sure I'm the last one whose touch she knew. No one else was with us, we didn't speak, but the power of touch between us reaffirmed a connection that isn't explainable without the experience of it. Parents know it, it is the same one that settles a child's nightmares when he doesn't quite wake up, the
I will always wonder, if I'd been there more, if I'd been there to touch her legs, rub her feet before the doctors began their surgical solution, could her life have been better? Could it be so simple?
This isn't about my mother, or me for that matter, but about the power that humans hold in their hands with such simple things. A soft voice, a kind word, a simple touch, given without obligation or expectation. It astounds me really.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
changes
It is the New Year, time for reflection, resolution, revival. I could go on with the "r" words, reason, ruffled, rational… well. You get the idea. I want to get back in touch with words in this blog, and am thinking of stealing the word a day practice that my friend Seliot seems to have abandoned. I've long been addicted to A Word A Day and I can try using them to keep a bit of blogging practice going. There are enough words for both of us. And the rest of you, too!
But tonight's blog entry is about changes. I've given up the Horror writing so many of you have watched me play with. Not because I don't still enjoy playing, but because it wasn't about writing anymore. Many other fine objectives, but the people who I'd enjoyed no longer wanted to have fun with it…it became too serious. So I vacated. I'll move the stories to the website soon, and we can all laugh at Megg's antics. She worried me sometimes anyway.
And look! No more pink! I am not crazy about this color scheme either, but the pepto bismol tones were long overdue for remodeling. The website is next… I don't even have anything I've written in this century posted there.
But tonight I'm in the mountains of Colorado, and I'm using dial up. I don't have the patience for web work on dial up. I know, I'm terribly spoiled. A deal I couldn't refuse. We got ten inches of new snow last night, and clear blue rocky mountain skies this afternoon. Very nice for skiing… tomorrow I hope to actually put some on. Knees, you know.
They tell me it was in the eighties in Houston. It won't be hard to go home.
I've several notes I've not transcribed into this blog that belong here, things from workshops and teleconferences I'd like to share, even some pretty cool photos. I don't think humility is a word of the day.
I'll be adding more links soon, so drop me a note if you want to be included. And for those of you who've faithfully linked to me, thank you. I'll try harder to earn the honor.
But tonight's blog entry is about changes. I've given up the Horror writing so many of you have watched me play with. Not because I don't still enjoy playing, but because it wasn't about writing anymore. Many other fine objectives, but the people who I'd enjoyed no longer wanted to have fun with it…it became too serious. So I vacated. I'll move the stories to the website soon, and we can all laugh at Megg's antics. She worried me sometimes anyway.
And look! No more pink! I am not crazy about this color scheme either, but the pepto bismol tones were long overdue for remodeling. The website is next… I don't even have anything I've written in this century posted there.
But tonight I'm in the mountains of Colorado, and I'm using dial up. I don't have the patience for web work on dial up. I know, I'm terribly spoiled. A deal I couldn't refuse. We got ten inches of new snow last night, and clear blue rocky mountain skies this afternoon. Very nice for skiing… tomorrow I hope to actually put some on. Knees, you know.
They tell me it was in the eighties in Houston. It won't be hard to go home.
I've several notes I've not transcribed into this blog that belong here, things from workshops and teleconferences I'd like to share, even some pretty cool photos. I don't think humility is a word of the day.
I'll be adding more links soon, so drop me a note if you want to be included. And for those of you who've faithfully linked to me, thank you. I'll try harder to earn the honor.
Friday, December 16, 2005
cooking
Three a.m, destined to stay awake another hour, because I'm cooking. Yeah, cooking.
I know it's a bit strange, but it's a creative outlet and very soothing. Tonight it is "brook lodge water chestnuts." Last night it was "red velvet chocolate cake"... earlier this week it was chocolate chip cookies. Those are all gone. I have sons.
Why cooking? Non-threatening, left over mid western comfort I suppose. Beats depressed angst-ridden writing, wouldn't you say?
In this room.... the Christmas tree, eight feet tall and nearly as wide. Douglas fir…. The branches are a bit weak, but the needles are soft. That's important when you leave it up for a month and forget to water it starting about the second week.
There weren't enough branches for all the ornaments, even as wide and tall as it is. The ornaments are a habit, some would say a collection but we spend money on such silly things I think habit is more appropriate. They were something easy and inexpensive to trade as youth, and I've collected them since the early seventies. Nothing of more than sentimental value, but there are ornaments from all the milestones it seems. One from our honeymoon, one for each child's birth. One my husband gave me the third year we were married that says "twenty five years together"… it would have been romantic if he'd actually read it!
So many of the ornaments have stories… were gifts or purchased with special people. The tree is like a journal too, keeping its memory pockets.
Last week I was in Chicago, in time to get snowed in. I felt like I was there for my lethal injection of Christmas cheer. Everywhere I went, the decorations seemed gaudier, the music relentless, the compulsion to buy buy buy overwhelming. I succumbed enough to tire of wearing my heavy wool coat, to realize the tax was as high in Chicago as it is in Houston, and to know that if I bought anything of substance, I'd have to check my luggage.
And now I am back, where cold is fifty degrees, and the time warp that goes along with travel has overtaken me. The injection of Christmas spirit took over on Monday and I invited some fifty people to my home. On Monday, there were no signs of a holiday here. Now each corner is adorned with something festive and if I were anyone but me I'd be "bubbly."
Instead, I am cooking. And the chimes to the oven timer say I'm finished for tonight.
I know it's a bit strange, but it's a creative outlet and very soothing. Tonight it is "brook lodge water chestnuts." Last night it was "red velvet chocolate cake"... earlier this week it was chocolate chip cookies. Those are all gone. I have sons.
Why cooking? Non-threatening, left over mid western comfort I suppose. Beats depressed angst-ridden writing, wouldn't you say?
In this room.... the Christmas tree, eight feet tall and nearly as wide. Douglas fir…. The branches are a bit weak, but the needles are soft. That's important when you leave it up for a month and forget to water it starting about the second week.
There weren't enough branches for all the ornaments, even as wide and tall as it is. The ornaments are a habit, some would say a collection but we spend money on such silly things I think habit is more appropriate. They were something easy and inexpensive to trade as youth, and I've collected them since the early seventies. Nothing of more than sentimental value, but there are ornaments from all the milestones it seems. One from our honeymoon, one for each child's birth. One my husband gave me the third year we were married that says "twenty five years together"… it would have been romantic if he'd actually read it!
So many of the ornaments have stories… were gifts or purchased with special people. The tree is like a journal too, keeping its memory pockets.
Last week I was in Chicago, in time to get snowed in. I felt like I was there for my lethal injection of Christmas cheer. Everywhere I went, the decorations seemed gaudier, the music relentless, the compulsion to buy buy buy overwhelming. I succumbed enough to tire of wearing my heavy wool coat, to realize the tax was as high in Chicago as it is in Houston, and to know that if I bought anything of substance, I'd have to check my luggage.
And now I am back, where cold is fifty degrees, and the time warp that goes along with travel has overtaken me. The injection of Christmas spirit took over on Monday and I invited some fifty people to my home. On Monday, there were no signs of a holiday here. Now each corner is adorned with something festive and if I were anyone but me I'd be "bubbly."
Instead, I am cooking. And the chimes to the oven timer say I'm finished for tonight.
Friday, December 09, 2005
from Chicago
I wish I had a camera today, one that would capture the light from the view out my window. I'm staying at the Swiss this time, "where the river meets the lake" and the view is amazing. Navy Pier, snow covered and flanked by lake cruise ships docked for the winter frames the left, tall luxury condos on the right. In the center of the view, the lighthouse out in the water, marking the levy that protects this bit of shoreline. Farther down the beach, which I can see if I stand at the window, the waves are frozen in quiet fear, as though the wind and cold came at just the right moment to scare them to death, their curls and tendrils turned white with the fright of it.
Yet there isn't the silence that I know from the west side of the lake. Around me the city is awake and vibrant as always, despite ten inches of snow last night. Cars along Lake Shore Drive are moving at a healthy clip and even the construction crews on the 27 floor (I just counted) frame of a new building between the lake and me have kept working.
My daughter's college in Austin cancelled classes yesterday due to ice on the ground, yet here in Chicago, life goes on. "Ice on the ground." she laughs. "Texans."
And for her, it explains it all.
Yet there isn't the silence that I know from the west side of the lake. Around me the city is awake and vibrant as always, despite ten inches of snow last night. Cars along Lake Shore Drive are moving at a healthy clip and even the construction crews on the 27 floor (I just counted) frame of a new building between the lake and me have kept working.
My daughter's college in Austin cancelled classes yesterday due to ice on the ground, yet here in Chicago, life goes on. "Ice on the ground." she laughs. "Texans."
And for her, it explains it all.
Monday, December 05, 2005
frustration
It only takes about half an hour for the day to wake up, going from tormented clouds in a granite sky to wisps of glittered cloudstroke on a backwash of blue. I envy the accomplishment.
I was looking for some magic this morning, I admit it. Something to restore faith and hope and anticipation to my life, or even as non-ambitious as the day. A little Christmas spirit, or anything really. All I found was more negativity, more emptiness, more …nothing.
A failing in myself, of course. What is spirit if not the energy from within to find joy or triumph? What is happiness if not communication, resolution, peace?
Pen to paper, ass to chair.
This is the writing advice I was given by a writer who never seems to have a lack of something to say. It annoys me. Not his work, of course, but that I sit here, fingers poised on the keyboard and words, my best and only friends it seems, evade me. I am ready for them, have purged the 50,035 words of nonsense from November and feel I've paid my dues. It is time to be able to write something good, something interesting, something special! Yet… nothing.
I know how I got here. I know I'm a person who thrives on feedback. Some say I need "validation"… but that's not it really. It is that I …
No, I'm not even able to type that.
That's the problem. I'm not willing to expose my weaknesses. I’m not willing to give anyone the power or the right to judge feelings truly felt, ideas that may not have merit. I’m not willing to risk my tenuous grip on sanity for someone who thinks I'm full of shit. And only when I am willing to do that will the words make sense, make anyone at all care.
In short, I don't have a trustworthy reader, and I'm too chicken to take a risk. I'm like the cat in this room, so brave on this side of the glass, chattering at birds in the garden. He is all talk and no action these days, grown fat and lazy and satisfied. He wants to chase the birds, but what if it means he can no longer lay here by the fire, and watch them out his window, and just talk?
I was looking for some magic this morning, I admit it. Something to restore faith and hope and anticipation to my life, or even as non-ambitious as the day. A little Christmas spirit, or anything really. All I found was more negativity, more emptiness, more …nothing.
A failing in myself, of course. What is spirit if not the energy from within to find joy or triumph? What is happiness if not communication, resolution, peace?
Pen to paper, ass to chair.
This is the writing advice I was given by a writer who never seems to have a lack of something to say. It annoys me. Not his work, of course, but that I sit here, fingers poised on the keyboard and words, my best and only friends it seems, evade me. I am ready for them, have purged the 50,035 words of nonsense from November and feel I've paid my dues. It is time to be able to write something good, something interesting, something special! Yet… nothing.
I know how I got here. I know I'm a person who thrives on feedback. Some say I need "validation"… but that's not it really. It is that I …
No, I'm not even able to type that.
That's the problem. I'm not willing to expose my weaknesses. I’m not willing to give anyone the power or the right to judge feelings truly felt, ideas that may not have merit. I’m not willing to risk my tenuous grip on sanity for someone who thinks I'm full of shit. And only when I am willing to do that will the words make sense, make anyone at all care.
In short, I don't have a trustworthy reader, and I'm too chicken to take a risk. I'm like the cat in this room, so brave on this side of the glass, chattering at birds in the garden. He is all talk and no action these days, grown fat and lazy and satisfied. He wants to chase the birds, but what if it means he can no longer lay here by the fire, and watch them out his window, and just talk?
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
trying, too hard, perhaps
The moon is still nearly full, its luminescence the only light in the room but for the screen of my keyboard. The keys aren't lighting for some reason, but that's okay. I don't need to see them. They don't need to see me. This is an exercise of ... touch. "Let me touch your slight indentations, create a mood or a place," I ask them. "Let me touch your mind, your heart, your soul in our creation," they respond. They are warm to my fingertips, these word creating keys, and if I were more of a romantic, I'd make some reference to the heart of the machine, trapped inside, coaxing me to coax it free with the cadence of the clicks of my nails against the smooth surface, the letters connected to my skin, and in turn to my blood and well. We could go on like that. Or not.
Hi. Remember me?
I've meant to write more, really I have. It isn't that I've been too busy. It's more a lost kind of thing. Can't find my routine, can't find my rhythm, can't find my passion. See? It isn't you. It's me. I can't find me.
I am so good at distractions. It can be baseball (go 'stros) or hurricanes, or websites. Kids home, kids gone, kids kids kids. I have a friend whose command of the language I admire, and that word is one of his pet peeves. I tried hard T, really I did. I guess I'm destined to stay among the lazy speakers… "kids" just has more punch than "children," ya know?
Anyway. I'm tired…. Just let my finger rest on the "k" while I was trying to remember where I was headed with that thought and got kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk…..
So many nice k words to distract me…..
Got a new prescription for vicodin today. Anyone who was with me during knee surgery knows that that's one I just can't handle. And I'm silly enough while taking it not to realize it. But it doesn't matter, I've already decided against the procedure anyway on more valid grounds. Mainly, there is another alternative.
Eh, falling asleep. Wake up G!!
I'm reading a book that keeps posing questions to me in that subtle way fiction does...that way that isn't "this applies to you" but lets you step into the character and become her for a while. For some of the more exotic locales (like South Africa and Madagascar and Spain? ahem.) it saves me lots of money, this imagination of mine. But it also has turned me into such a skeptic. I don't, for example, believe in happy endings anymore, and I scoff at books with happy endings for that reason. Give me an honest story, where the end isn't so tidy but the people are interesting any day.
Like real life you know? I don't have to have my friends all tied up with satin ribbon. I like loose seams and rough edges.
I can't think straight anymore. I'll try to come back and fill in the missing pieces on this, otherwise, just remember it's past midnight and 4:45 comes early.
Hi. Remember me?
I've meant to write more, really I have. It isn't that I've been too busy. It's more a lost kind of thing. Can't find my routine, can't find my rhythm, can't find my passion. See? It isn't you. It's me. I can't find me.
I am so good at distractions. It can be baseball (go 'stros) or hurricanes, or websites. Kids home, kids gone, kids kids kids. I have a friend whose command of the language I admire, and that word is one of his pet peeves. I tried hard T, really I did. I guess I'm destined to stay among the lazy speakers… "kids" just has more punch than "children," ya know?
Anyway. I'm tired…. Just let my finger rest on the "k" while I was trying to remember where I was headed with that thought and got kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk…..
So many nice k words to distract me…..
Got a new prescription for vicodin today. Anyone who was with me during knee surgery knows that that's one I just can't handle. And I'm silly enough while taking it not to realize it. But it doesn't matter, I've already decided against the procedure anyway on more valid grounds. Mainly, there is another alternative.
Eh, falling asleep. Wake up G!!
I'm reading a book that keeps posing questions to me in that subtle way fiction does...that way that isn't "this applies to you" but lets you step into the character and become her for a while. For some of the more exotic locales (like South Africa and Madagascar and Spain? ahem.) it saves me lots of money, this imagination of mine. But it also has turned me into such a skeptic. I don't, for example, believe in happy endings anymore, and I scoff at books with happy endings for that reason. Give me an honest story, where the end isn't so tidy but the people are interesting any day.
Like real life you know? I don't have to have my friends all tied up with satin ribbon. I like loose seams and rough edges.
I can't think straight anymore. I'll try to come back and fill in the missing pieces on this, otherwise, just remember it's past midnight and 4:45 comes early.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
contra flow and other observations
The morning blurred with heavy clouds and it seemed there would be no sunrise at all. I poured coffee and stepped out to the patio, empty of all its chaises and umbrella tables, looking bleak without its party clothes strewn about. The green cast to the pool, usually blue and sparkling, was more witness to the heat and days without filtration than the storm, though the leaves and twigs lying on the bottom didn't help. I glanced up to the eaves and was not surprised to see the mud houses of the wasps intact and thriving. Before the furniture returns, the power washer will come out and they too will succumb to the force of water. Odd that nature teaches us the best ways to destroy.
And as I sip the hot coffee, the steamy day begins with a lifting of the dark clouds, and I see far to the east and south, for it is autumn now, pale pink light. One songbird lifts his chortles to the wind, and I remember that a symphony begins with one note.
Observations.
I'm going to go ahead and post these, because this is a journal and I've given a full week now to preparation, evacuation and aftermath. Some of my notes were time markers, from email and test messages I sent en route, some rambling from notes I kept of images I didn't want to forget. It really is okay if you skim by, or turn the page. There are two entries, one, chronological, the other, images. There is some repetition, and I could edit it all to one nicely flowing story, but I am eager to get back to the business of living and want to put this behind me for now.
My list of things to remember:
Contra Flow: doesn't "contra" mean "against?" If so, this works. There couldn't have been more against "flow" of this traffic unless it moved in reverse.
Parking lots: not just the freeways themselves, but the nightmare of cleanup that owners of those lots easily accessible to the masses. I used to think it was the storm that caused the mess. But it was there… long before the storm made landfall.
Caravans: We traveled next to many caravans. It occurred to us that if every family had taken only one car, filled with people and essentials, the traffic would have been cut in half and there would have been no fuel shortage. Instead, there were caravans of cars, many occupied with only one person. Car insurance is required by law in Texas…. So these people thought their cars were their most precious possession? Add to that the group behavior… these were the folks pulling out on the shoulders and driving past the traffic for several miles, then slowing the flow even more when exits, construction or stalled cars forced them back into the main lanes. Amazingly, no one laid on horns.
Semi towing: A cab of an eighteen wheeler, driven by one person, chained to a pickup truck, at least two occupants of that one, tied to an old ford with a nylon rope. No signal lights, no electrical hooked up between them at all. In the third car? Children. Occasionally passed with baby formula back and forth to the pick up. No seat belts.
In the back of other pick ups: Children tucked in to sleep under blankets in the hot sun, and into the night. Dogs in crates, some of them shaded with blankets or tarps, but all of them miserable. Much barking. At one point, when traffic was stopped, a man got out of a car following one of them and offered a water bottle to the dog in the cage of the truck. The dog knew what to do, and drank the water. The driver of the pickup flashed a thumbs-up to the Samaritan. I don't think they knew each other. My own dog drank from my palms. Her tongue on my skin was completely dry, and she had a/c most of the way, and no sun.
Camry, beige: We followed this car for hours. There were five people inside and they were in the "fast lane"…we were still hopeful when we got into that lane that an entrance to the contra lanes would sometime open up. The people drove, as did many, with the doors to the car opened. Occasionally, one of them would lean out of the car and pick up baling wire that had been used to create the road. It was odd, like a bird pecking worms from the spring ground. Just as often, someone would lean out of the car and vomit.
Flushing. We stopped at four different gas stations hoping to find facilities along the way. The first one, on the west side of Houston, where there was no threat, told us there was no water to flush. The next one was closed entirely. The third one was in the town that was supposed to have gas, per the police, but didn't. They did let us use the restroom. The men and women were using both sides, one line, for a change. I got the women's room. When I got there, it was filthy. Paper towels strewn on the floor, the baskets overflowing, the sink splattered and soiled. I took two paper towels and smushed the trash down into the basket and picked up the litter on the floor. I wiped down the sink. I washed my hands thoroughly with soap. I remember my eighth grade science teacher telling us there is no excuse for filth so long as there is running water. I would have done more, but people were banging on the door.
The next one (these were in those last few hours) had long lines, but had reverted to male/female lines. Not sure why, but one woman went to the men's room and opened the door when there were no men waiting and the women's line snaked out to the gas pumps. She simply went "eww" and backed off. The rest of us took her word for it. I didn't try to clean that one. But I did promise myself I would not be a helpless refugee. I'd seen enough of that with Katrina victims, especially in the last weeks. (Incidentally, do you know that the remaining 1700 katrina evacuees in the shelters were flown to Arkansas to avoid the storm? I know that part of it was to take care of the people. Part of it was to get them off the city roles. And part of it was no doubt a publicity stunt. But I'm very cynical now so don't mind me.)
Cats and dog: Animals have so much more intuition than we do. The cats hate to ride, and usually hide from us. They came right out to the car and got in without fuss. They were calm the whole way. Their litter box was available in the back, but they didn't use it. We were in this together. Scout slept with her head on my son's lap most of the way. Sometimes he slept with his head on hers. None of them let me out of their sight the whole time we were in Austin. We are a team.
Things heard on talk radio in the middle of the night: The coast guard had been called to help with the freeway crisis. Huh?
This one made my twelve-year-old cackle. He heard the president's speech…when was that? I don't have a sense of the time anymore… it was sometime after dark. C quotes it as follows. "It's a BIG storm. But don't go getting your guns and start rioting just because you can't get off the highway. " That was about it. When the interview/speech (what was it?) turned to Iraq, even news radio cut him off. A big storm? When we finally arrived in Austin and saw our Leader on TV, the thing that struck me was that apparently he didn't have speech 101. He sat in an open collared blue shirt … how many of those does he have? At North Com and addressed the nation. He smirked. He swiveled in his chair. He smirked when asked if his trip to the storm zone would be getting in the way and said no. But then his plans changed. I don't care what his politics are. There was no call for smirking. There was a need for reassurance and leadership. I didn't get it from his casual attitude. Did you? I'm not a snob, but it was time for him to look like a leader, dress like a leader and speak like a leader. I do note that on Sunday (Monday?) he wore a suit… green with a red tie. I do note as well that he stumbled over his words and lost his train of thought several times. I heard the interview first on the radio and wondered if he were having a stroke. When I saw it broadcast later, and heard him tell us that he was suspending EPA regs, that he was opening up the oil reserves and that we needed to cut through the red tape to let the refineries expand, I had the sensation of thirty years of hard fought battles for the environment whooshing by. I wondered what Jimmy Carter must have been thinking. At least he added a windfall profits tax. Why don't we just hand over the reins publicly to the oil companies? I worry about how well my son and I will be able to breathe now. We are both sensitive to the pollution here.
Honesty: Rather than alarming everyone with 24-hour coverage and flashbacks to Katrina, why not say we don't know?
And as I sip the hot coffee, the steamy day begins with a lifting of the dark clouds, and I see far to the east and south, for it is autumn now, pale pink light. One songbird lifts his chortles to the wind, and I remember that a symphony begins with one note.
Observations.
I'm going to go ahead and post these, because this is a journal and I've given a full week now to preparation, evacuation and aftermath. Some of my notes were time markers, from email and test messages I sent en route, some rambling from notes I kept of images I didn't want to forget. It really is okay if you skim by, or turn the page. There are two entries, one, chronological, the other, images. There is some repetition, and I could edit it all to one nicely flowing story, but I am eager to get back to the business of living and want to put this behind me for now.
My list of things to remember:
Contra Flow: doesn't "contra" mean "against?" If so, this works. There couldn't have been more against "flow" of this traffic unless it moved in reverse.
Parking lots: not just the freeways themselves, but the nightmare of cleanup that owners of those lots easily accessible to the masses. I used to think it was the storm that caused the mess. But it was there… long before the storm made landfall.
Caravans: We traveled next to many caravans. It occurred to us that if every family had taken only one car, filled with people and essentials, the traffic would have been cut in half and there would have been no fuel shortage. Instead, there were caravans of cars, many occupied with only one person. Car insurance is required by law in Texas…. So these people thought their cars were their most precious possession? Add to that the group behavior… these were the folks pulling out on the shoulders and driving past the traffic for several miles, then slowing the flow even more when exits, construction or stalled cars forced them back into the main lanes. Amazingly, no one laid on horns.
Semi towing: A cab of an eighteen wheeler, driven by one person, chained to a pickup truck, at least two occupants of that one, tied to an old ford with a nylon rope. No signal lights, no electrical hooked up between them at all. In the third car? Children. Occasionally passed with baby formula back and forth to the pick up. No seat belts.
In the back of other pick ups: Children tucked in to sleep under blankets in the hot sun, and into the night. Dogs in crates, some of them shaded with blankets or tarps, but all of them miserable. Much barking. At one point, when traffic was stopped, a man got out of a car following one of them and offered a water bottle to the dog in the cage of the truck. The dog knew what to do, and drank the water. The driver of the pickup flashed a thumbs-up to the Samaritan. I don't think they knew each other. My own dog drank from my palms. Her tongue on my skin was completely dry, and she had a/c most of the way, and no sun.
Camry, beige: We followed this car for hours. There were five people inside and they were in the "fast lane"…we were still hopeful when we got into that lane that an entrance to the contra lanes would sometime open up. The people drove, as did many, with the doors to the car opened. Occasionally, one of them would lean out of the car and pick up baling wire that had been used to create the road. It was odd, like a bird pecking worms from the spring ground. Just as often, someone would lean out of the car and vomit.
Flushing. We stopped at four different gas stations hoping to find facilities along the way. The first one, on the west side of Houston, where there was no threat, told us there was no water to flush. The next one was closed entirely. The third one was in the town that was supposed to have gas, per the police, but didn't. They did let us use the restroom. The men and women were using both sides, one line, for a change. I got the women's room. When I got there, it was filthy. Paper towels strewn on the floor, the baskets overflowing, the sink splattered and soiled. I took two paper towels and smushed the trash down into the basket and picked up the litter on the floor. I wiped down the sink. I washed my hands thoroughly with soap. I remember my eighth grade science teacher telling us there is no excuse for filth so long as there is running water. I would have done more, but people were banging on the door.
The next one (these were in those last few hours) had long lines, but had reverted to male/female lines. Not sure why, but one woman went to the men's room and opened the door when there were no men waiting and the women's line snaked out to the gas pumps. She simply went "eww" and backed off. The rest of us took her word for it. I didn't try to clean that one. But I did promise myself I would not be a helpless refugee. I'd seen enough of that with Katrina victims, especially in the last weeks. (Incidentally, do you know that the remaining 1700 katrina evacuees in the shelters were flown to Arkansas to avoid the storm? I know that part of it was to take care of the people. Part of it was to get them off the city roles. And part of it was no doubt a publicity stunt. But I'm very cynical now so don't mind me.)
Cats and dog: Animals have so much more intuition than we do. The cats hate to ride, and usually hide from us. They came right out to the car and got in without fuss. They were calm the whole way. Their litter box was available in the back, but they didn't use it. We were in this together. Scout slept with her head on my son's lap most of the way. Sometimes he slept with his head on hers. None of them let me out of their sight the whole time we were in Austin. We are a team.
Things heard on talk radio in the middle of the night: The coast guard had been called to help with the freeway crisis. Huh?
This one made my twelve-year-old cackle. He heard the president's speech…when was that? I don't have a sense of the time anymore… it was sometime after dark. C quotes it as follows. "It's a BIG storm. But don't go getting your guns and start rioting just because you can't get off the highway. " That was about it. When the interview/speech (what was it?) turned to Iraq, even news radio cut him off. A big storm? When we finally arrived in Austin and saw our Leader on TV, the thing that struck me was that apparently he didn't have speech 101. He sat in an open collared blue shirt … how many of those does he have? At North Com and addressed the nation. He smirked. He swiveled in his chair. He smirked when asked if his trip to the storm zone would be getting in the way and said no. But then his plans changed. I don't care what his politics are. There was no call for smirking. There was a need for reassurance and leadership. I didn't get it from his casual attitude. Did you? I'm not a snob, but it was time for him to look like a leader, dress like a leader and speak like a leader. I do note that on Sunday (Monday?) he wore a suit… green with a red tie. I do note as well that he stumbled over his words and lost his train of thought several times. I heard the interview first on the radio and wondered if he were having a stroke. When I saw it broadcast later, and heard him tell us that he was suspending EPA regs, that he was opening up the oil reserves and that we needed to cut through the red tape to let the refineries expand, I had the sensation of thirty years of hard fought battles for the environment whooshing by. I wondered what Jimmy Carter must have been thinking. At least he added a windfall profits tax. Why don't we just hand over the reins publicly to the oil companies? I worry about how well my son and I will be able to breathe now. We are both sensitive to the pollution here.
Honesty: Rather than alarming everyone with 24-hour coverage and flashbacks to Katrina, why not say we don't know?
evacuation
A soft light pours into the kitchen window, filtered only by trees, the air so much cleaner that it is at home. I take the snapshot, "sunrise from my daughters porch" I name it in my mind, in an effort to combine the seen with the thought. I remember that my favorite poet has determined to simply not seek publication anymore, because it robs the joy of the words from her, and I understand that.
My back aches, the mattress that we sleep on is new and unbroken, it doesn't yield to the curve of my spine or my hip and I find my sleep restless. I want to go home, not because I am not happy here or because I am concerned. I can't decide, really, where home even is.
The trip: It will help you to understand that I am in Clear Lake, zone C of the mandatory evacuation area…which means that a category 4 or 5 direct hit could send coastal waters to flood this far into the city. We are about half way between Johnson Space Center and Ellington field, if you know the city. Tuesday night, the news announced the mandatory evacuation of all the zones, and gave times for when they were effective. Noon Thursday was the time we were given.
Houston is a freeway city. There are two loops around the downtown core. The outer loop is a toll road; ordinarily it costs $3.75 to get from my house on the southeast side to interstate10 on the west side, which is the fastest road to Austin, where my daughters have a condo and enough space for my husband and I, my son and the pets. (Two cats, and Scout, none of them welcome in hotels.) We considered going north to the cottage in Michigan, but my spouse needed to stay close to his office.
8:15 Wednesday night.
The alternate route out of town, (state road 90) which my husband wanted to take, has a 9 car pile-up on it. They've announced that there are no resources… i.e. police or ambulances, to service roads that are not designated evacuation routes. State road 90 is not an evacuation route. I 45 between Galveston and Houston was taking 5 hours for motorists to complete the normally 35 minute drive. We acknowledge that if it were just the two of us, we'd stay here. Instead, we decide to open a bottle of wine and relax tonight, get up early and go in the morning. The neighborhood is empty already, except for Matt across the street who is putting painters tape across the lead glass of his front door. We didn't board windows or tape them up or move the furniture to the second floor, as our neighbors have done. Nothing we own is that special. Instead, we move the lawn furniture to the empty garage, wrap the boxes and boxes of photographs in plastic and put them high on shelves in our closet, the most hurricane proof room in the house. The house was only built in 2000, and is built to withstand 135 mph winds. The storm at this point is gusting to the 180's. We are glad that we shared pictures with our parents in the Midwest all those years, so all will not be lost even if our makeshift efforts don't work. We are hanging out tonight, will go in the morning. Car is packed, all but computers and toothbrushes... and we have nothing else to do but sit in the car tomorrow.
Some people are just getting rooms in Houston. I could see us doing that. The girls are excited to have us come. They are a little more afraid of the storm than we are, so we will go.
12:51pm, Thursday
Have been on the road 7 hrs. Not to 59 (southwest freeway) yet. Decided to try J's shortcut anyway, all freeways are nearly stopped, and we figure we have a better chance on the state roads. 103 degrees. Many cars already on the side of the road, out of gas. There is none to buy. I'm glad we chose to only bring one car.
1:38 p.m. The radio keeps announcing that there are refuel trucks on the roads to help motorists. We've seen nothing. We are down to half a tank, still plenty to get to Austin.
3pm We'd be fine if we could just drive! We are all the way to Sugarland. (Suburb on the southwest corner of Houston. Normally a 40 minute drive from home.)
4:18 pm. They just turned all I10 lanes westbound headed to Austin. The radio says the entrance is at highway 6, and that traffic is moving. We are just east of highway 6, decide to give it a try. Besides, we have to pee and need to get out of gridlock to find a place to go. The car thermometer says 115 degrees.
Highway 6 is moving well (northbound from 90 to 10.) There was a convenience store opened, but no gas. No problem, we will just use the restrooms. They tell us they have no water so they won't let people use the facilities. A lady in the parking lot says they do, they are just closed to evacuees. At this point, I don't get it. The boys pee in the grass behind the car wash. I wait. I'm a woman, no big deal.
7:04 The mayor has just announced that if you are in zone C and haven't evacuated yet, that it is too late, given the freeway situation. He says that storm appears to have changed its target and zone C should be okay. We consider turning back as we are still not out of metro Houston and it's been over 12 hours. We call the girls, who are adamant that we keep going. We figure they know more than we do, so agree.
8:17 the real problem is that nothing is open-no food or bathrooms. I wonder for the first time why there aren't Red Cross stations set up along the evac route. 10mph and we are finally at Katy… west suburb of Houston. I know of a truck stop here, surely they will be open.
We stop at the truck stop. It is …frightening. Evacuees are parked everywhere: the parking lot, the gas pumps (empty) the lawn, all along the road. Trash strewn all over as well… as though there are no receptacles or people don't know better. Of course the place is closed. Mob mentality is taking over, and we don't even want to let the dog out of the car here. We've already been warned to take a gun with us, but we wouldn't even if we owned one. I've never been actually afraid of a crowd before. This one scares me.
A note about the contra flow. The radio keeps announcing that I 10 contra flow lanes are opened and that traffic is breezing along. No doubt those announcements add to the mess. Reality is that they are open, but the only place to get ON to the contra flow lanes (the eastbound interstate lanes turned to accommodate westbound traffic) is in Downtown Houston. There are concrete barriers… movable barriers, between the east and westbound lanes. No one has moved any of them. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles are trapped in the westbound lanes, people who joined the line sometime after the entrance to the fast lanes. Our frustration grows as we see an occasional car zipping by in the eastbound lanes at 80 mph. I'm guessing the ratio to be 1:1000 or so. Some drivers have exited and are driving across medians in construction zones for access. We can't believe they won't open another legal entrance… there are at least two places it could be easily done.
Neither one is open.
11:46 Friday. My friend emailed that the cams show the highways are clear on TV. The cams must be from another day. The roads have not changed. Cars all over the place are out of gas... everything gridlocked. At least where we are.
At 3 am, we gave up on I 10 and decided we should have stuck to our original instincts and take the farm to market roads. We aren't city people; we know how to use them. And we know that sooner or later we will find an empty one and I will be able to pee. Only I'm still such a girl, I feel like the bugs are watching and can't even relieve myself in the darkness. The boys are fine, the animals too, and I'll just deal with it.
Only there were a number of others with the same idea and for the first time, we are at dead stop. People have set up camp in lawns along the way, it is like a mass tailgate party in the country. The traffic moves so desperately slow that I can walk the dog alongside the car faster than it moves. We judge how low our gas tank is getting and know we have to go to an "approved" route, if there is any hope of refueling at all. A policeman stationed to block off a road off the state highway that would let cars into town, says there is gas at the next city, on 290. Another 15 miles. Our computer says we have 40 miles of gas left. Austin is still about 70 away.
We ran out of gas and I ran out of phone battery to at 4:30 am, in not the next town, but the one after that, Giddings, and so we stopped at a restaurant parking lot. J passed out; he would never give up the wheel. I tried to sleep, the windows down to the night air but also to the noise and mosquitoes. I realized that now I was an evacuee, and understood a bit of what kept police and National Guard holding "them" at bay in New Orleans. The mindset was not so much of survival, but of lawlessness… there was no camaraderie, but I suppose that I felt that partly because I was a minority for really the first time in my life. I didn't see another white face for hours. I am bothered by the fact that I know that, I am not usually a person that does.
The restaurant opened at 5:30 and at last we were able to use real bathrooms and have breakfast. The people there could not have been nicer. The waitress called around town and said that she'd not been able to find gas yet, but her friend Bucky was going to call her as soon as his station got some. We ate from a Texas buffet: grits and biscuits and milk gravy. Behind us, a couple who'd left from Santa Fe, a suburb in zone b, at 9:30 pm the night before we left. We had arrived at the same place. Their trek took them ten more hours… so perhaps the shortcuts were in fact shorter. A co worker of my husbands, known for his fussiness and conservatism, left town on Tuesday, with two cars for he and his wife. Their trip took 40 hours.
None of us saw fuel trucks. None of us saw National Guard. None of us saw the Red Cross. I'm not saying they weren't there. But that on three different routes out of town, I saw none. TV news shows them on the broadcasts, some people interviewed apparently were helped. I am learning to be skeptical of what I see now.
By the time we'd had coffee, there a few stations were opening and actually had gas in Giddings. We put in half a tank… we only had 57 miles to go and knew what was behind us. It only took five hours to travel the last 57 miles.
By then it was mid afternoon on Friday. Austin was Austin… open and friendly and good. The announcers on the local radio listed things for evacuees to do while there, and asked that we please be more careful with our litter. A caller reported that he'd seen someone throw a whole bag of garbage into the river.
Then the vigil of watching the storm, until my daughters boyfriend came over with DVD's and insisted we pull ourselves away from TV. We watched two seasons of Northern Exposure, and slept off and on. I woke up at 4 am, Saturday, and watched the newsmen blown by the wind and rain. I wonder what makes them think their reports are more credible outside?
The next two days were spent being good refugees. We refinished the wood floor at my daughter's condo, and took them shopping for things they needed and hadn't gotten to yet. They are both very busy, almost never home. School, work, internships, boyfriends, and even a social life. I'm jealous.
We came home to trees down in the neighborhood, one on top of a house. Our home was spared damage, just junk in the pool. The security alarms were blaring, but I assume that was because we turned off the power before we left. They announced an orderly return to the city, but they partitioned it off so that people who were never in harms way returned first. Those of us who were evacuated from the southeast side still show as "pending" on the map of when to come back. Pending? We left Austin a little before ten, and were home in 4 hours. Seems most people followed Judge Willy's advice, from the county just south of us, instead of the wishy-washy ineffectiveness of the Mayor who had the audacity to announce early last week that Houston was the most prepared city in the country, and that we would handle this. I'm sorry to those who want to believe they did the best they could, but if less time had been spent on photo ops telling us that the "plan was almost ready" and simply doing the work, there would be less anger and resentment in the city today.
I don't mind being told "I don't know." I do mind being told, we are ready, when clearly, we were not. We are too smart for this. All of us.
My back aches, the mattress that we sleep on is new and unbroken, it doesn't yield to the curve of my spine or my hip and I find my sleep restless. I want to go home, not because I am not happy here or because I am concerned. I can't decide, really, where home even is.
The trip: It will help you to understand that I am in Clear Lake, zone C of the mandatory evacuation area…which means that a category 4 or 5 direct hit could send coastal waters to flood this far into the city. We are about half way between Johnson Space Center and Ellington field, if you know the city. Tuesday night, the news announced the mandatory evacuation of all the zones, and gave times for when they were effective. Noon Thursday was the time we were given.
Houston is a freeway city. There are two loops around the downtown core. The outer loop is a toll road; ordinarily it costs $3.75 to get from my house on the southeast side to interstate10 on the west side, which is the fastest road to Austin, where my daughters have a condo and enough space for my husband and I, my son and the pets. (Two cats, and Scout, none of them welcome in hotels.) We considered going north to the cottage in Michigan, but my spouse needed to stay close to his office.
8:15 Wednesday night.
The alternate route out of town, (state road 90) which my husband wanted to take, has a 9 car pile-up on it. They've announced that there are no resources… i.e. police or ambulances, to service roads that are not designated evacuation routes. State road 90 is not an evacuation route. I 45 between Galveston and Houston was taking 5 hours for motorists to complete the normally 35 minute drive. We acknowledge that if it were just the two of us, we'd stay here. Instead, we decide to open a bottle of wine and relax tonight, get up early and go in the morning. The neighborhood is empty already, except for Matt across the street who is putting painters tape across the lead glass of his front door. We didn't board windows or tape them up or move the furniture to the second floor, as our neighbors have done. Nothing we own is that special. Instead, we move the lawn furniture to the empty garage, wrap the boxes and boxes of photographs in plastic and put them high on shelves in our closet, the most hurricane proof room in the house. The house was only built in 2000, and is built to withstand 135 mph winds. The storm at this point is gusting to the 180's. We are glad that we shared pictures with our parents in the Midwest all those years, so all will not be lost even if our makeshift efforts don't work. We are hanging out tonight, will go in the morning. Car is packed, all but computers and toothbrushes... and we have nothing else to do but sit in the car tomorrow.
Some people are just getting rooms in Houston. I could see us doing that. The girls are excited to have us come. They are a little more afraid of the storm than we are, so we will go.
12:51pm, Thursday
Have been on the road 7 hrs. Not to 59 (southwest freeway) yet. Decided to try J's shortcut anyway, all freeways are nearly stopped, and we figure we have a better chance on the state roads. 103 degrees. Many cars already on the side of the road, out of gas. There is none to buy. I'm glad we chose to only bring one car.
1:38 p.m. The radio keeps announcing that there are refuel trucks on the roads to help motorists. We've seen nothing. We are down to half a tank, still plenty to get to Austin.
3pm We'd be fine if we could just drive! We are all the way to Sugarland. (Suburb on the southwest corner of Houston. Normally a 40 minute drive from home.)
4:18 pm. They just turned all I10 lanes westbound headed to Austin. The radio says the entrance is at highway 6, and that traffic is moving. We are just east of highway 6, decide to give it a try. Besides, we have to pee and need to get out of gridlock to find a place to go. The car thermometer says 115 degrees.
Highway 6 is moving well (northbound from 90 to 10.) There was a convenience store opened, but no gas. No problem, we will just use the restrooms. They tell us they have no water so they won't let people use the facilities. A lady in the parking lot says they do, they are just closed to evacuees. At this point, I don't get it. The boys pee in the grass behind the car wash. I wait. I'm a woman, no big deal.
7:04 The mayor has just announced that if you are in zone C and haven't evacuated yet, that it is too late, given the freeway situation. He says that storm appears to have changed its target and zone C should be okay. We consider turning back as we are still not out of metro Houston and it's been over 12 hours. We call the girls, who are adamant that we keep going. We figure they know more than we do, so agree.
8:17 the real problem is that nothing is open-no food or bathrooms. I wonder for the first time why there aren't Red Cross stations set up along the evac route. 10mph and we are finally at Katy… west suburb of Houston. I know of a truck stop here, surely they will be open.
We stop at the truck stop. It is …frightening. Evacuees are parked everywhere: the parking lot, the gas pumps (empty) the lawn, all along the road. Trash strewn all over as well… as though there are no receptacles or people don't know better. Of course the place is closed. Mob mentality is taking over, and we don't even want to let the dog out of the car here. We've already been warned to take a gun with us, but we wouldn't even if we owned one. I've never been actually afraid of a crowd before. This one scares me.
A note about the contra flow. The radio keeps announcing that I 10 contra flow lanes are opened and that traffic is breezing along. No doubt those announcements add to the mess. Reality is that they are open, but the only place to get ON to the contra flow lanes (the eastbound interstate lanes turned to accommodate westbound traffic) is in Downtown Houston. There are concrete barriers… movable barriers, between the east and westbound lanes. No one has moved any of them. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles are trapped in the westbound lanes, people who joined the line sometime after the entrance to the fast lanes. Our frustration grows as we see an occasional car zipping by in the eastbound lanes at 80 mph. I'm guessing the ratio to be 1:1000 or so. Some drivers have exited and are driving across medians in construction zones for access. We can't believe they won't open another legal entrance… there are at least two places it could be easily done.
Neither one is open.
11:46 Friday. My friend emailed that the cams show the highways are clear on TV. The cams must be from another day. The roads have not changed. Cars all over the place are out of gas... everything gridlocked. At least where we are.
At 3 am, we gave up on I 10 and decided we should have stuck to our original instincts and take the farm to market roads. We aren't city people; we know how to use them. And we know that sooner or later we will find an empty one and I will be able to pee. Only I'm still such a girl, I feel like the bugs are watching and can't even relieve myself in the darkness. The boys are fine, the animals too, and I'll just deal with it.
Only there were a number of others with the same idea and for the first time, we are at dead stop. People have set up camp in lawns along the way, it is like a mass tailgate party in the country. The traffic moves so desperately slow that I can walk the dog alongside the car faster than it moves. We judge how low our gas tank is getting and know we have to go to an "approved" route, if there is any hope of refueling at all. A policeman stationed to block off a road off the state highway that would let cars into town, says there is gas at the next city, on 290. Another 15 miles. Our computer says we have 40 miles of gas left. Austin is still about 70 away.
We ran out of gas and I ran out of phone battery to at 4:30 am, in not the next town, but the one after that, Giddings, and so we stopped at a restaurant parking lot. J passed out; he would never give up the wheel. I tried to sleep, the windows down to the night air but also to the noise and mosquitoes. I realized that now I was an evacuee, and understood a bit of what kept police and National Guard holding "them" at bay in New Orleans. The mindset was not so much of survival, but of lawlessness… there was no camaraderie, but I suppose that I felt that partly because I was a minority for really the first time in my life. I didn't see another white face for hours. I am bothered by the fact that I know that, I am not usually a person that does.
The restaurant opened at 5:30 and at last we were able to use real bathrooms and have breakfast. The people there could not have been nicer. The waitress called around town and said that she'd not been able to find gas yet, but her friend Bucky was going to call her as soon as his station got some. We ate from a Texas buffet: grits and biscuits and milk gravy. Behind us, a couple who'd left from Santa Fe, a suburb in zone b, at 9:30 pm the night before we left. We had arrived at the same place. Their trek took them ten more hours… so perhaps the shortcuts were in fact shorter. A co worker of my husbands, known for his fussiness and conservatism, left town on Tuesday, with two cars for he and his wife. Their trip took 40 hours.
None of us saw fuel trucks. None of us saw National Guard. None of us saw the Red Cross. I'm not saying they weren't there. But that on three different routes out of town, I saw none. TV news shows them on the broadcasts, some people interviewed apparently were helped. I am learning to be skeptical of what I see now.
By the time we'd had coffee, there a few stations were opening and actually had gas in Giddings. We put in half a tank… we only had 57 miles to go and knew what was behind us. It only took five hours to travel the last 57 miles.
By then it was mid afternoon on Friday. Austin was Austin… open and friendly and good. The announcers on the local radio listed things for evacuees to do while there, and asked that we please be more careful with our litter. A caller reported that he'd seen someone throw a whole bag of garbage into the river.
Then the vigil of watching the storm, until my daughters boyfriend came over with DVD's and insisted we pull ourselves away from TV. We watched two seasons of Northern Exposure, and slept off and on. I woke up at 4 am, Saturday, and watched the newsmen blown by the wind and rain. I wonder what makes them think their reports are more credible outside?
The next two days were spent being good refugees. We refinished the wood floor at my daughter's condo, and took them shopping for things they needed and hadn't gotten to yet. They are both very busy, almost never home. School, work, internships, boyfriends, and even a social life. I'm jealous.
We came home to trees down in the neighborhood, one on top of a house. Our home was spared damage, just junk in the pool. The security alarms were blaring, but I assume that was because we turned off the power before we left. They announced an orderly return to the city, but they partitioned it off so that people who were never in harms way returned first. Those of us who were evacuated from the southeast side still show as "pending" on the map of when to come back. Pending? We left Austin a little before ten, and were home in 4 hours. Seems most people followed Judge Willy's advice, from the county just south of us, instead of the wishy-washy ineffectiveness of the Mayor who had the audacity to announce early last week that Houston was the most prepared city in the country, and that we would handle this. I'm sorry to those who want to believe they did the best they could, but if less time had been spent on photo ops telling us that the "plan was almost ready" and simply doing the work, there would be less anger and resentment in the city today.
I don't mind being told "I don't know." I do mind being told, we are ready, when clearly, we were not. We are too smart for this. All of us.
Friday, September 23, 2005
The other side of the mirror
The other side of the mirror
High thin clouds banded like the rings of calcium building up in whirls of a seashell against the pale pink of the sky. The sun itself sparkled lemon, a yellow diamond where the softness of a pearl should have been. The sweet pastels calmed the torment of the night; when I listened closely, I could even hear the sea.
Yes, I watched the sunrise out my rearview mirror this morning, and wondered if I would write it here for you. So many images, so much stress, overwhelming emotions from one extreme to another.
I will write it, perhaps later tonight. I owe you that.
But for now, I will just say thank you to all who have expressed concern. We were in zone C for evacuation, mandatory evacuation as of Wednesday. As you all now know, the storm has shifted to the north a bit, and now they say it is okay to "shelter in place" if you didn't get out. Better than the highway situation.
It took 26 hours to make a 3.25 hour trip. Sadly, most of that was within the city. But we are safe in Austin, at my daughter's house.
The wind has diminished, and the tides have changed. More soon.
High thin clouds banded like the rings of calcium building up in whirls of a seashell against the pale pink of the sky. The sun itself sparkled lemon, a yellow diamond where the softness of a pearl should have been. The sweet pastels calmed the torment of the night; when I listened closely, I could even hear the sea.
Yes, I watched the sunrise out my rearview mirror this morning, and wondered if I would write it here for you. So many images, so much stress, overwhelming emotions from one extreme to another.
I will write it, perhaps later tonight. I owe you that.
But for now, I will just say thank you to all who have expressed concern. We were in zone C for evacuation, mandatory evacuation as of Wednesday. As you all now know, the storm has shifted to the north a bit, and now they say it is okay to "shelter in place" if you didn't get out. Better than the highway situation.
It took 26 hours to make a 3.25 hour trip. Sadly, most of that was within the city. But we are safe in Austin, at my daughter's house.
The wind has diminished, and the tides have changed. More soon.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
just thinking
My son was explaining the different saws he's learning to use in school when my mind traipsed down a path it hadn't been down in a long time. I could hear the ring of a skil saw echoing around the basement walls, feel the vibration of wood against sawhorses, and smell the unforgettable scent of sawdust.
I wish the memory went farther. I wish I could remember anything my father built in that basement. I can return to that place, even now, and see the work table he built for his shop, an identical one built for holding clean laundry across the room. I don't remember them in process. I remember the noise and the concentration, the time it required, the relief from yelling that his preoccupation with woodworking provided. But I don't know that I ever saw what it was we were working on.
Strange to me.
I should think that memory would operate on a LIFO system, so that we remember most the last thing someone said to us, or the last interaction. But it isn't really that way is it? Memory is more like popcorn, random spurts of perfect kernels, each crest of the inflated seed tied to another. And so many old maids left in the bottom that didn't get enough time, or enough heat to reach their full potential.
I guess it is best that we don't remember our last contact with those who are no longer part of our lives. I would not want to remember only the last painful argument, or the way a loved one looked at the funeral.
Still I'd like to know what it was my dad made all that time in the basement workshop, when I was indentured to hold the wood.
*********
There are a million stories from the shelters. Imagine how long we would be spellbound if someone could tell them all. But the telling is exponential. For every storyteller interacting with a "client" at the shelter, another story is born, and in the retelling yet another.
At one point, I wanted to record each day, my impression of the locale, the people, the attitudes of the officials, the volunteers. But what I've decided is that this was like any other shock situation. The reality lies somewhere between the heartbreaking losses and those who would try to beat the system. Most of the people have survived, and are getting on with their lives. It's time I did that, too.
I wish the memory went farther. I wish I could remember anything my father built in that basement. I can return to that place, even now, and see the work table he built for his shop, an identical one built for holding clean laundry across the room. I don't remember them in process. I remember the noise and the concentration, the time it required, the relief from yelling that his preoccupation with woodworking provided. But I don't know that I ever saw what it was we were working on.
Strange to me.
I should think that memory would operate on a LIFO system, so that we remember most the last thing someone said to us, or the last interaction. But it isn't really that way is it? Memory is more like popcorn, random spurts of perfect kernels, each crest of the inflated seed tied to another. And so many old maids left in the bottom that didn't get enough time, or enough heat to reach their full potential.
I guess it is best that we don't remember our last contact with those who are no longer part of our lives. I would not want to remember only the last painful argument, or the way a loved one looked at the funeral.
Still I'd like to know what it was my dad made all that time in the basement workshop, when I was indentured to hold the wood.
*********
There are a million stories from the shelters. Imagine how long we would be spellbound if someone could tell them all. But the telling is exponential. For every storyteller interacting with a "client" at the shelter, another story is born, and in the retelling yet another.
At one point, I wanted to record each day, my impression of the locale, the people, the attitudes of the officials, the volunteers. But what I've decided is that this was like any other shock situation. The reality lies somewhere between the heartbreaking losses and those who would try to beat the system. Most of the people have survived, and are getting on with their lives. It's time I did that, too.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
wake up
The sun sparked behind the palms this morning, dazzling rays breaking between the fronds and lifting lightly above the tree line. The morning settled like a soft quilt over the late summer morning, a little warmer than comfortable, but one I wasn't quite ready to kick off, hook my feet on the outside to cool down a bit, and awaken. The light was gentle and persistent, not an alarm clock, but the gentle voice of a mother shaking me awake. I had been dreaming, waiting for the call, and could only tell myself, it's about damn time.
Wake up.
I've become skeptical about public entries in times of great crisis. A friend has accused me (and all women, so don't worry. No one is picking on me.) Of latching onto national crises and making the issue our own, attempting to show how much we care and turn the focus on ourselves when it rightly belongs on the people directly affected. Nevertheless, I choose to write anyway.
I'll say this right up front though. It isn't about me. So if it appears that I am attempting to divert attention or to latch onto this crisis, please accept my apologies. Consider it a failure in my ability to communicate, and not a female thing, okay?
Let me start by saying, I'm really tired.
I'm tired because I spent the day on the phone, on the net and in the shelter, trying to find what I could do, and then doing it. I have done enough volunteer work in my life to know that the very worst thing is to have volunteers show up and not have work for them. So I spent days writing email, making calls, signing up on online databases to do everything from share the extra space in my house to assist in the preparation of FEMA claims. I watched the news; I sorted clothes from the children's rooms. I pulled out the stash of personal items we always bring home for shelters from hotels. I waited for the phone to ring, watching with anger and disgust as the images from my television showed the desperation in New Orleans, the devastation along the Gulf. I wondered about my brother, in Alabama, but knew he wouldn't call me in any case. But surely, surely in this place I have decided to call home, I could do something. There seemed to be so much.
Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I logged onto the site of the nearest shelter, and saw its call for donations. Flat sheets, hand towels, pillows, light blankets. At last, something tangible I could do.
I drove to Sam's club, determined to get the most for my money. Flashed my membership card and went right to linens. There were packs of six, white, hotel quality sheets, All the twin sheets were gone, all but one set of full size. I took them, and another case of queen sized. I know the cots are small, but reasoned that the people using them could fold them, or use one sheet for top and bottom. I found blankets as well, but the only pillows left in the store were king size, not reasonable for the intended use. No problem, there were several other stores between Sam's and the shelter. I headed on through the store, determined to fill the cart before I went to the shelter. I found hand towels in packs of twelve, soap, diapers. When I checked out I was surprised at the total. It had always been my way to write a check, but I'm glad I did the footwork this time. It gave me a better sense of how far the money I donate goes… or doesn't go, as the case may be.
I had to wait in line at the check out, and what was in the carts of those ahead of me was an epiphany. The carts held cases of water, juice, personal items. Food in large quantities… not just the general Sam's club value packs, but whole carts filled with hot dog buns, breakfast rolls. Fruits. Essentials of the most basic needs, hunger, thirst, shelter, hygiene. And the mood of the shoppers was neither jovial and friendly, nor desperate and frenzied. It was a mood of action. Of doing something for others, without need for recognition or back patting or being told what to do and how to do it. I was proud to be there.
I stopped at the Linen store to complete the bed pallets I'd determined to deliver, and bought pillows and cases from the 'back to the dorm' specials. Finally I had enough the first trip … I could no longer see out the back window.
With the car filled with my "excuse" I drove to the shelter, a modern church building near the Space Center. Pulled up to the donation site, and helped some grandmothers unload the cargo. I wanted to hug them when they asked if the diapers stayed, too. Of course, all of it.
Then I noticed D. D was manning a card table next to the Youth Center of the church, a separate building, and Red Cross notices all around identified it as the shelter. I parked in a guest spot in the lot, and walked over. "I've signed up online, as soon as this was designated as a shelter…"
"Can you stay now?"
"Yes."
I filled out his forms, very basic, stuck a name tag on my shirt and was officially a Disaster Relief Volunteer. He sent me back to the building where I'd dropped off my donation. There dozens of people sorted donations, placing items in Sunday school rooms marked with makeshift signs on the doors: Water, linens, toys, baby items, clothing, school supplies. We brought donations from the curb to the rooms, divided them as noted and people inside the rooms sorted and divided further: new items, gently used, okay, last resort, and trash. As the day went on, more volunteers came to the rooms to pick out the current needs of the evacuees: towels and blankets were the most popular. Like that famous wine and bread, there was always more than was needed.
I asked the people in the distribution rooms about the organization, which was basically each volunteer for themselves. It wasn't hard to figure out what needed to be done, and do it, but I'm an ex junior leaguer, and wondered where the leadership was. A woman from NASA who was helping sort the towels explained that when the Astrodome filled up the night before, they'd sent us a bus at 1 A.M. The shelter that was barely half full at close of business Thursday was beyond capacity by dawn. All efforts had been focused on getting people places to sleep, fed, showered. No one had time to deal with phone banks and volunteer waivers and the nonsense we've created in the world. So today, the organization went by the wayside, and the caring took over.
At about 6 p.m., a fresh set of volunteers arrived and the donations slowed so that there wasn't much point in the people who'd been there most of the day staying. I went back to the registration table to sign out, and D was still there. He'd been there all day. I tried to get him to let me take over for a while, but he wasn’t' ready to go. I bet he's still there.
As I signed out, I got to interact with the people being sheltered, who were moving from the shelter building to the meal center. They were clean, peaceful, and polite. A group of boys played basketball, laughing and being kids. Another group had found a guitar, and the music that their city wins hearts and minds with was starting to come back. One beautiful woman came to me and asked if there was a list of survivors anywhere. She wanted to find her people. I took her to the registration desk for clients, and all they could do was hand her a paper with phone numbers and websites. She thanked me, and went in to dinner. As far as I know, cell phones in Louisiana are still not working. The only computers around were in use by the registration staff and medical personnel. Tomorrow, I will take more.
Dinner was huge quarters of chicken, and what Texans call "all the fixin's." Yet another cadre of volunteers served the meal, and the mood in the dining hall was not the somber tears or anguished moans we've been seeing on network TV. It was the mood of family… conversations, children, laughter, and the clatter of forks and plates.
It was just people.
Some of them no doubt are the poorest of the poor in the city that was their home. Some of them no doubt have better accommodations in our shelter than they had before the storm. Some of them were people who heard an order of evacuation, and left, finding when they arrived that they couldn't live a vacation lifestyle of restaurant dining and hotels for an extended period of time. They are people who wonder if their children will be okay, if the schools that we will shuffle them to will accommodate them, or if they will be further ravaged by the bias of other people like they were with this storm.
An old friend called me this morning, a friend who grew up in Louisiana. She and her family will stay with me off and on over the next few months, as our schools have opened their doors to the "homeless." I'm sorry to say that her attitude is not one I really want in my home: that this may be the best thing that ever happened to Louisiana. She is frustrated, as a resident, with the gangs that run the public schools, the dishonest politicians, the crime, the filth. She wants the country's attention to clean up the mess in more than just the physical consequences. Her house, incidentally, was not damaged. There are many that weren't, despite the dramatic pictures, particularly in the outskirts.
I'll let her stay, because our boys are great friends. I would let her stay even if they weren't.
You see, it isn't just the government. It isn't just the infrastructure.
It’s the people.
But for every one of the people whose minds are closed, whose anger erupts in violence or hate, for every one who wants to blame the president, the Iraqis, or God, there is at least one fellow like D, still there handing out name badges.
New Orleans will heal. The Gulf States will rebuild. The bureaucratic means that we have well into place will eventually work the way it is supposed to work, and life will go on.
Because, someplace, someone brought an old blanket, washed it, folded it and placed it over a shivering child, or held the hand of a weeping man, or gave a voucher for a quiet meal out to a mother who's seen more than anyone should ever have to see.
Yes, I'm really tired. But I've slept in a warm dry bed every night this week. I've eaten more meals than are healthy, and I've engaged in frivolous exercise on a silly machine. I've had wine, talked to friends, laughed at my daughter's who’ve painted their living room jungle green. I've lived the life I expected to live. Tonight, I am glad to only be tired.
The checks you send are being used directly for such things as vouchers for gas, food and hotels for refugees, school supplies, clothing and basic necessities. As you watch, and see the numbers of the dead and missing grow this weekend, please don't let your anger at the administration keep you from focusing on the people who are alive. Please be like the volunteers at the shelter today, and do what needs to be done, because we can all see what needs to be done, without anyone telling us. And don't do it because "next time it could be us." Do it for the people. The survivors. And maybe, just maybe, we might all find our way to a little more humanity.
Wake up.
I've become skeptical about public entries in times of great crisis. A friend has accused me (and all women, so don't worry. No one is picking on me.) Of latching onto national crises and making the issue our own, attempting to show how much we care and turn the focus on ourselves when it rightly belongs on the people directly affected. Nevertheless, I choose to write anyway.
I'll say this right up front though. It isn't about me. So if it appears that I am attempting to divert attention or to latch onto this crisis, please accept my apologies. Consider it a failure in my ability to communicate, and not a female thing, okay?
Let me start by saying, I'm really tired.
I'm tired because I spent the day on the phone, on the net and in the shelter, trying to find what I could do, and then doing it. I have done enough volunteer work in my life to know that the very worst thing is to have volunteers show up and not have work for them. So I spent days writing email, making calls, signing up on online databases to do everything from share the extra space in my house to assist in the preparation of FEMA claims. I watched the news; I sorted clothes from the children's rooms. I pulled out the stash of personal items we always bring home for shelters from hotels. I waited for the phone to ring, watching with anger and disgust as the images from my television showed the desperation in New Orleans, the devastation along the Gulf. I wondered about my brother, in Alabama, but knew he wouldn't call me in any case. But surely, surely in this place I have decided to call home, I could do something. There seemed to be so much.
Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I logged onto the site of the nearest shelter, and saw its call for donations. Flat sheets, hand towels, pillows, light blankets. At last, something tangible I could do.
I drove to Sam's club, determined to get the most for my money. Flashed my membership card and went right to linens. There were packs of six, white, hotel quality sheets, All the twin sheets were gone, all but one set of full size. I took them, and another case of queen sized. I know the cots are small, but reasoned that the people using them could fold them, or use one sheet for top and bottom. I found blankets as well, but the only pillows left in the store were king size, not reasonable for the intended use. No problem, there were several other stores between Sam's and the shelter. I headed on through the store, determined to fill the cart before I went to the shelter. I found hand towels in packs of twelve, soap, diapers. When I checked out I was surprised at the total. It had always been my way to write a check, but I'm glad I did the footwork this time. It gave me a better sense of how far the money I donate goes… or doesn't go, as the case may be.
I had to wait in line at the check out, and what was in the carts of those ahead of me was an epiphany. The carts held cases of water, juice, personal items. Food in large quantities… not just the general Sam's club value packs, but whole carts filled with hot dog buns, breakfast rolls. Fruits. Essentials of the most basic needs, hunger, thirst, shelter, hygiene. And the mood of the shoppers was neither jovial and friendly, nor desperate and frenzied. It was a mood of action. Of doing something for others, without need for recognition or back patting or being told what to do and how to do it. I was proud to be there.
I stopped at the Linen store to complete the bed pallets I'd determined to deliver, and bought pillows and cases from the 'back to the dorm' specials. Finally I had enough the first trip … I could no longer see out the back window.
With the car filled with my "excuse" I drove to the shelter, a modern church building near the Space Center. Pulled up to the donation site, and helped some grandmothers unload the cargo. I wanted to hug them when they asked if the diapers stayed, too. Of course, all of it.
Then I noticed D. D was manning a card table next to the Youth Center of the church, a separate building, and Red Cross notices all around identified it as the shelter. I parked in a guest spot in the lot, and walked over. "I've signed up online, as soon as this was designated as a shelter…"
"Can you stay now?"
"Yes."
I filled out his forms, very basic, stuck a name tag on my shirt and was officially a Disaster Relief Volunteer. He sent me back to the building where I'd dropped off my donation. There dozens of people sorted donations, placing items in Sunday school rooms marked with makeshift signs on the doors: Water, linens, toys, baby items, clothing, school supplies. We brought donations from the curb to the rooms, divided them as noted and people inside the rooms sorted and divided further: new items, gently used, okay, last resort, and trash. As the day went on, more volunteers came to the rooms to pick out the current needs of the evacuees: towels and blankets were the most popular. Like that famous wine and bread, there was always more than was needed.
I asked the people in the distribution rooms about the organization, which was basically each volunteer for themselves. It wasn't hard to figure out what needed to be done, and do it, but I'm an ex junior leaguer, and wondered where the leadership was. A woman from NASA who was helping sort the towels explained that when the Astrodome filled up the night before, they'd sent us a bus at 1 A.M. The shelter that was barely half full at close of business Thursday was beyond capacity by dawn. All efforts had been focused on getting people places to sleep, fed, showered. No one had time to deal with phone banks and volunteer waivers and the nonsense we've created in the world. So today, the organization went by the wayside, and the caring took over.
At about 6 p.m., a fresh set of volunteers arrived and the donations slowed so that there wasn't much point in the people who'd been there most of the day staying. I went back to the registration table to sign out, and D was still there. He'd been there all day. I tried to get him to let me take over for a while, but he wasn’t' ready to go. I bet he's still there.
As I signed out, I got to interact with the people being sheltered, who were moving from the shelter building to the meal center. They were clean, peaceful, and polite. A group of boys played basketball, laughing and being kids. Another group had found a guitar, and the music that their city wins hearts and minds with was starting to come back. One beautiful woman came to me and asked if there was a list of survivors anywhere. She wanted to find her people. I took her to the registration desk for clients, and all they could do was hand her a paper with phone numbers and websites. She thanked me, and went in to dinner. As far as I know, cell phones in Louisiana are still not working. The only computers around were in use by the registration staff and medical personnel. Tomorrow, I will take more.
Dinner was huge quarters of chicken, and what Texans call "all the fixin's." Yet another cadre of volunteers served the meal, and the mood in the dining hall was not the somber tears or anguished moans we've been seeing on network TV. It was the mood of family… conversations, children, laughter, and the clatter of forks and plates.
It was just people.
Some of them no doubt are the poorest of the poor in the city that was their home. Some of them no doubt have better accommodations in our shelter than they had before the storm. Some of them were people who heard an order of evacuation, and left, finding when they arrived that they couldn't live a vacation lifestyle of restaurant dining and hotels for an extended period of time. They are people who wonder if their children will be okay, if the schools that we will shuffle them to will accommodate them, or if they will be further ravaged by the bias of other people like they were with this storm.
An old friend called me this morning, a friend who grew up in Louisiana. She and her family will stay with me off and on over the next few months, as our schools have opened their doors to the "homeless." I'm sorry to say that her attitude is not one I really want in my home: that this may be the best thing that ever happened to Louisiana. She is frustrated, as a resident, with the gangs that run the public schools, the dishonest politicians, the crime, the filth. She wants the country's attention to clean up the mess in more than just the physical consequences. Her house, incidentally, was not damaged. There are many that weren't, despite the dramatic pictures, particularly in the outskirts.
I'll let her stay, because our boys are great friends. I would let her stay even if they weren't.
You see, it isn't just the government. It isn't just the infrastructure.
It’s the people.
But for every one of the people whose minds are closed, whose anger erupts in violence or hate, for every one who wants to blame the president, the Iraqis, or God, there is at least one fellow like D, still there handing out name badges.
New Orleans will heal. The Gulf States will rebuild. The bureaucratic means that we have well into place will eventually work the way it is supposed to work, and life will go on.
Because, someplace, someone brought an old blanket, washed it, folded it and placed it over a shivering child, or held the hand of a weeping man, or gave a voucher for a quiet meal out to a mother who's seen more than anyone should ever have to see.
Yes, I'm really tired. But I've slept in a warm dry bed every night this week. I've eaten more meals than are healthy, and I've engaged in frivolous exercise on a silly machine. I've had wine, talked to friends, laughed at my daughter's who’ve painted their living room jungle green. I've lived the life I expected to live. Tonight, I am glad to only be tired.
The checks you send are being used directly for such things as vouchers for gas, food and hotels for refugees, school supplies, clothing and basic necessities. As you watch, and see the numbers of the dead and missing grow this weekend, please don't let your anger at the administration keep you from focusing on the people who are alive. Please be like the volunteers at the shelter today, and do what needs to be done, because we can all see what needs to be done, without anyone telling us. And don't do it because "next time it could be us." Do it for the people. The survivors. And maybe, just maybe, we might all find our way to a little more humanity.
Friday, August 12, 2005
writing and depression
I went to hear John Irving speak the other day. If you've ever read him, you will know what I mean when I say he writes the same way he speaks. He's extremely entertaining, but takes a very long time to get to the point. In his latest book, apparently he touches the issue of psychotherapy, particularly the use of antidepressants.
A year ago, a doctor of mine, ex doctor I should say... prescribed antidepressants for me. I suspect she was just trying to avoid more questions, but it is quite an experience when you are presented with that prescription. Like getting a ticket to the big game, or admission to some exclusive club.
I filled the prescription. I have it in my vanity drawer (no, not THAT drawer) as a reminder. I don't believe in them, though I'm willing to accept that some people need to have them. I knew that what I really needed was someone to talk to, someone who cared, not someone I paid. It always reminds me of that scene in Pretty Woman, the movie, where Julia Roberts has her legs wrapped around Richard Gere in the bathtub and says "that's 29 inches of therapy wrapped around you" (or something like that)
Anyway.... Irving says that depression is like plotting. It is all about the connections:
We don't really have any control over where events take us emotionally. A small argument takes on proportion that no one anticipates because it dredges up the feelings of another time in our life when bad things happened, and that feeds on itself to remind us of another and another and another until our emotions are spiraling so far that we are officially depressed. The options are to work through it, or distract our minds or bodies with something else... some people are compulsive exercisers, for example ... Irving was a wrestler. Others turn to drub abuse, still others turn to other addictive behavior... gambling, sex, whatever. The difference is that when introducing the chemical substances, whether legal or illegal, you redirect the mind from the connections ...the emotional issues that spiraled into the depression in the first place, severing the one-to- another links of the unrelated events. So for a writer, that is creative suicide, (in his opinion.)
It is the same theory I've always tried to explain... that emotional highs and emotional lows go hand in hand with writing. if I am happy, I am rarely able to string sentences together. It seems only in the rollercoaster ride, either up or down, that I personally can spend time creating worlds.
So depression isn't always a bad thing. And truly, I'm not an unhappy person. I tend to use my friends though, so if you feel used, I guess I owe you a bath. My legs are a little shorter than Julia's, I'm sorry to say.
I have more notes, but I'm feeling nerdy enough already.
A year ago, a doctor of mine, ex doctor I should say... prescribed antidepressants for me. I suspect she was just trying to avoid more questions, but it is quite an experience when you are presented with that prescription. Like getting a ticket to the big game, or admission to some exclusive club.
I filled the prescription. I have it in my vanity drawer (no, not THAT drawer) as a reminder. I don't believe in them, though I'm willing to accept that some people need to have them. I knew that what I really needed was someone to talk to, someone who cared, not someone I paid. It always reminds me of that scene in Pretty Woman, the movie, where Julia Roberts has her legs wrapped around Richard Gere in the bathtub and says "that's 29 inches of therapy wrapped around you" (or something like that)
Anyway.... Irving says that depression is like plotting. It is all about the connections:
We don't really have any control over where events take us emotionally. A small argument takes on proportion that no one anticipates because it dredges up the feelings of another time in our life when bad things happened, and that feeds on itself to remind us of another and another and another until our emotions are spiraling so far that we are officially depressed. The options are to work through it, or distract our minds or bodies with something else... some people are compulsive exercisers, for example ... Irving was a wrestler. Others turn to drub abuse, still others turn to other addictive behavior... gambling, sex, whatever. The difference is that when introducing the chemical substances, whether legal or illegal, you redirect the mind from the connections ...the emotional issues that spiraled into the depression in the first place, severing the one-to- another links of the unrelated events. So for a writer, that is creative suicide, (in his opinion.)
It is the same theory I've always tried to explain... that emotional highs and emotional lows go hand in hand with writing. if I am happy, I am rarely able to string sentences together. It seems only in the rollercoaster ride, either up or down, that I personally can spend time creating worlds.
So depression isn't always a bad thing. And truly, I'm not an unhappy person. I tend to use my friends though, so if you feel used, I guess I owe you a bath. My legs are a little shorter than Julia's, I'm sorry to say.
I have more notes, but I'm feeling nerdy enough already.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
beach journal
These may not seem coherent at all, but until i post them i can't write more.
(more photos here, but i've screwed up the sizing and am out of time. Crystal Beach)
--The routine is the same, wake, coffee, journal. Walk to the bluff with coffee, assess the day. Take cups back to cottage, put on swim suits. Walk for an hour or so, to the state park or thereabouts, depending on the crowds, the number of dogs on the beach, whether the flies are biting or the sand stinging. Relish knees working again, the way they should. Spend the morning either visiting, or reading on the beach, or playing in the water, with kayaks, sailboat, skim boards, sand. Talk to people.
Afternoon, realize too much sun and the dog is tired and tends to get grouchy. Return to the cottage for lunch, then read, sleep or go to town for whatever.
Wake, go to the bluff for sunset.
--From AWAD- oneiromancy (o-NY-ruh-man-see) noun: The practice of predicting the future by interpreting dreams.
And this:
Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go
hand in hand. -Emily Kimbrough, author and broadcaster (1899-1989)
--Dream notes:
-Paralyzed. Watching as the needle is inserted into the spine and fate sealed. Though mind is fine, no way to communicate. Watching as the man takes first your spouse, then you child and tortures, rapes in front of you. Who is the man?
-Walking along the beach and finding the body. From the cigarette boat races, when one flipped. "I can't go home without my son," his mother said.
-Camping. (why so many things in my dreams that I just don't do?) Coming so close to kiss …but being told no… no. you are married. Knowing yet being consumed with a need to touch, be touched. The kiss so tender, so clean, that my mouth waters to remember it. Lovemaking so powerful and intense … the full moon effect?
--I woke on the couch with a start to the phone ringing, only I thought it was a cell phone and answered mine, my son's and his best friends, only to put together that it was the land line when I picked it up and it stopped, no one there.
I fashioned all sorts of possibilities in my head. It was my husband, who'd stepped out to buy toilet paper or something else that would look odd in the small town blotter, arrested for speeding or reckless driving or something and using his one prison call to call me on the land line, cell phones somehow prohibited in jail.
But it was my friend, to whom I'd sent email that morning.
--Later, in the single digit morning, I went to bed. The air had cooled so much that the fans created cold wind, and I burrowed beneath quilts. What a luxury, fresh air and quilts in July. I fell asleep immediately, the northwoods night like a drug, the sleep REM filled and colorful.
--More dream notes:
--And then I was going down an escalator in a mall someplace, and fell. The falling startled me. I was fully awake and disoriented. I imagined I heard the phone ringing again, and stayed there in bed trying to decipher its jingling ring from the sounds of the night birds and the neighbors, whose cabin had been singing loud country western tunes through the open back window for hours before I went to bed. I am sure now that all that phone ringing had to do with traveling without three of the four children. They grow up. They stay behind. But just as I still hear cries in the dark when they are hurting, I still hear the phone ring to tell me they are home safe and fine. And they are. Mother's ears, I guess, we just don't outgrow them.
I didn't get up. Eventually I went back to sleep. The bed was hard, too hard for my softness. No matter which way I turned, the circulation seemed constrained where I laid upon my own flesh. I thought about dying in my sleep, and wondered if that is how it happens, the strangulation of oneself on mattresses too hard to give. Or so soft one cannot breath. Like Sids, only for adults. Sudden Adult Death syndrome. SAD? Yes, I believe people die from being sad. Especially in their sleep.
The next thing I knew, Scout was nuzzling my hand. Full daylight had broken and she was ready to trek on the beach for hours, ready to make friends with anyone, her tennis ball ready.
--Again the morning was perfect, 72 degrees. I've spent too many hours driving to escape bitter cold in the winter in the north, stifling heat in the summer in the south just to get to 72 degrees. The only thing I worried about were the bugs that had started to take over the beach. They blew in across the lake with that cool wind from the corn fields of Illinois, droves of yellow cucumber beetles. They don't really do anything other than land on us and crawl. They don't bite. Still the sight of them, the thickness of them is disturbing.
I went outside with Scout, and returned a smile to the scowling neighber who watched her. She pointed to the posted, typewritten list of rules. "Keep dogs on leash" is number 12 on the list. Only there have been dogs here longer than I've been here, and I've been here for seventeen years. Whoever posted the rules has neither the right nor power to restrict access to anyone, including dogs. I know my dog too, and know she'd never defile the beach. She goes into the woods like any civilized creature. The dogs are not the problem. Are they ever, really?
---The shadows are long this morning already, I've lain (is that really a word?) in bed too long again, but it was probably 3 before I fell asleep. That is six hours, not too much I think. It was so late because we had a disagreement about sex. (scene deleted)
So that stands between us this morning,
--Thunder is making its way closer, rumbling on the slight breeze that barely ripples the surface of the lake. The air is heavy and damp with anticipation, the night pregnant with the storm that promises cooler weather.
There is nothing quite like a storm coming across the lake. Lightning cracks the vista like the sunset, highlighting the striation of the clouds and sizzling into the water the way the sinking sun does. We can watch it from where the lake curves on the horizon, and can tell within minutes when it will hit the shoreline. The speed with which the storm approaches warns us if we will lose power. Not this time for us, but they do in town.
We leave the decking that leads down the bluff to the beach when our wine classes are empty, and when we are tired of swatting away the flies and mosquitoes. Scout left at dusk with the boys; none of them have patience for friendly chatter. Tonight it is the neighbors who bought the cottage of our closest friends out here…Bill and Molly. Odd that our best friends were in their seventies. Bill taught us to sail when our children were still small enough to all fit comfortably in the sunfish sized boat, and sold us his Hobie cheap when he moved to Florida full time. I miss them. I miss the boat. It stayed on the beach one beautiful fall clear into October. We didn't want to bring it up and put it away… just one more sail. Then the storms came, and it was gone.
--more dream notes:
--In the next dream I was throwing a party for people from my husband's office at my mother's tiny house. Distributed very fancy invitations, vellum paper inserts and tied with satin ribbon… 5-8:30, dinner. Then had to clean the house… my mother was a lot of things but never much of a housekeeper. As if anyone with seven children, a full time job, widowed at 45 ever could be. I pull the party together, everything from plates to bathroom towels; I am good at this. Her bathroom was the same as when she died, handicap equipped, in fact, everything seemed the same as when she died but her. She was two-legged and sober and helpful, even taking me to the factory where she'd worked to get plates from the Employee Club closet. We didn't end up doing that because she clearly thought it was wrong and really, what did plates matter to me? In the end, the plates were the plastic ones with seashells that I'd bought for my daughter's graduation. Nothing fit together in the dream.
--Cool cloudy morning, gentle waves on the lake and the whole neighborhood seems to be sleeping in. I've done some research this morning on the Resort Era in South Haven. Famous Jewish resorts. Some of them world renowned: the Catskills of the Midwest, they said, from 1910 to about 1960. Only a few still standing, most destroyed by fire or the greed of people wanting to own a piece of the lake. Am I any different?
The resorts were torn down, mostly in the sixties, condos, private homes and in one case a parking lot replaced them. At least now I understand the city flocking to the north beach…the north side of the River. It is where all the resorts were, across a drawbridge; there is no bluff to speak of there. Our side has the lighthouse. We also have trees and the state park, and the bluff and no crowds, most of the time, but we are a few miles out of town so the comparison isn’t really fair.
--The boys are interesting this year. They aren't eating as much as boys their age and size should eat, and they are staying up til one a.m. every night. Strawberry pop tarts, blueberry pancakes (the blueberries are amazing this year) and taco pizza sustain them. The term 'beach brothers" comes to mind. I am very fond of the boy my son has chosen as his friend… he is middle child sweet and so easy to get along with. His favorite phrase: "You’re funny."
--The air has finally changed back to typical Michigan air… the morning was in the sixties and everyone complained that there weren't enough covers on the beds. Over our heads is the question of whether we leave today, controlled inmterestingly enough, by the girls even though they aren't bere. If my closing is Friday, then we must leave today. If not, we can take one more day. It feels like we are stealing time. We take it.
We build a bonfire on the beach, roast hot dogs that somehow ended up without sand (unheard of!) and watched the beginnings of the meteor shower. We note how we've seen the stars from so many angles this year, it seems like different skies. Four shooting stars should be good luck, shouldn't they?
After 20 hours of driving, more stops for fast food than I can in good conscious count, and listening to all 17 discs of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on cd, we are once again at our permanent address.
When we arrived, the back door was standing wide open. One of the cats was in the front yard. The trash container was lying on its side in the street, it's lid in the neighbors yard. After determining that no one had broken in, we ventured inside.
Stacks of mail were strewn all over the kitchen. In the family room, cables for x box and computers and tivo webbed their way through furniture. Paper cups and sandwich wrappers decorated every flat surface. An air pump, from the garage was lying on the rug a friend sent from Turkey years ago, and a gold toned soccer ball, fully inflated, was nearby. A chocolate cake from the grocery story, 80% gone, sat near the stove. The TV was on, 19 messages lit the voicemail box. My bathroom was littered with the paraphernalia of a teenager. The drawer… yes, THAT drawer, in my vanity, was ajar.
You see, my son stayed home to "house sit."
He was at work when we got home.
It's a good thing.
My younger son ventured upstairs, but came back down right away. "Something happened in Jon's room."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything is like… messed up… and there's a blanket over the window."
My son later explained that he "decided" a few days ago to "take over your bathroom."
And that since he was not going to bed until 5 am any night, that even the sun that filtered through the wooden venetian blinds bothered him sleeping. To his normal "wake up hour" of 2 . PM.
When I left, there was fruit, cheese, milk, and meals he could warm up in the refrigerator. When I returned, not only was that still "there"… but also left over sushi, pizza, chicken wings, pasta….etc.
Did I mention he leaves for college in two weeks?
-Quote from my best girlfriend D: "I was the one that found that man. He was still making noise, but everything was crumpled, arms, leg, neck. It was so apparent that he was dead, even with the noise. I was the first responder. It was a long fall. But a short jump."
(more photos here, but i've screwed up the sizing and am out of time. Crystal Beach)
--The routine is the same, wake, coffee, journal. Walk to the bluff with coffee, assess the day. Take cups back to cottage, put on swim suits. Walk for an hour or so, to the state park or thereabouts, depending on the crowds, the number of dogs on the beach, whether the flies are biting or the sand stinging. Relish knees working again, the way they should. Spend the morning either visiting, or reading on the beach, or playing in the water, with kayaks, sailboat, skim boards, sand. Talk to people.
Afternoon, realize too much sun and the dog is tired and tends to get grouchy. Return to the cottage for lunch, then read, sleep or go to town for whatever.
Wake, go to the bluff for sunset.
--From AWAD- oneiromancy (o-NY-ruh-man-see) noun: The practice of predicting the future by interpreting dreams.
And this:
Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go
hand in hand. -Emily Kimbrough, author and broadcaster (1899-1989)
--Dream notes:
-Paralyzed. Watching as the needle is inserted into the spine and fate sealed. Though mind is fine, no way to communicate. Watching as the man takes first your spouse, then you child and tortures, rapes in front of you. Who is the man?
-Walking along the beach and finding the body. From the cigarette boat races, when one flipped. "I can't go home without my son," his mother said.
-Camping. (why so many things in my dreams that I just don't do?) Coming so close to kiss …but being told no… no. you are married. Knowing yet being consumed with a need to touch, be touched. The kiss so tender, so clean, that my mouth waters to remember it. Lovemaking so powerful and intense … the full moon effect?
--I woke on the couch with a start to the phone ringing, only I thought it was a cell phone and answered mine, my son's and his best friends, only to put together that it was the land line when I picked it up and it stopped, no one there.
I fashioned all sorts of possibilities in my head. It was my husband, who'd stepped out to buy toilet paper or something else that would look odd in the small town blotter, arrested for speeding or reckless driving or something and using his one prison call to call me on the land line, cell phones somehow prohibited in jail.
But it was my friend, to whom I'd sent email that morning.
--Later, in the single digit morning, I went to bed. The air had cooled so much that the fans created cold wind, and I burrowed beneath quilts. What a luxury, fresh air and quilts in July. I fell asleep immediately, the northwoods night like a drug, the sleep REM filled and colorful.
--More dream notes:
--And then I was going down an escalator in a mall someplace, and fell. The falling startled me. I was fully awake and disoriented. I imagined I heard the phone ringing again, and stayed there in bed trying to decipher its jingling ring from the sounds of the night birds and the neighbors, whose cabin had been singing loud country western tunes through the open back window for hours before I went to bed. I am sure now that all that phone ringing had to do with traveling without three of the four children. They grow up. They stay behind. But just as I still hear cries in the dark when they are hurting, I still hear the phone ring to tell me they are home safe and fine. And they are. Mother's ears, I guess, we just don't outgrow them.
I didn't get up. Eventually I went back to sleep. The bed was hard, too hard for my softness. No matter which way I turned, the circulation seemed constrained where I laid upon my own flesh. I thought about dying in my sleep, and wondered if that is how it happens, the strangulation of oneself on mattresses too hard to give. Or so soft one cannot breath. Like Sids, only for adults. Sudden Adult Death syndrome. SAD? Yes, I believe people die from being sad. Especially in their sleep.
The next thing I knew, Scout was nuzzling my hand. Full daylight had broken and she was ready to trek on the beach for hours, ready to make friends with anyone, her tennis ball ready.
--Again the morning was perfect, 72 degrees. I've spent too many hours driving to escape bitter cold in the winter in the north, stifling heat in the summer in the south just to get to 72 degrees. The only thing I worried about were the bugs that had started to take over the beach. They blew in across the lake with that cool wind from the corn fields of Illinois, droves of yellow cucumber beetles. They don't really do anything other than land on us and crawl. They don't bite. Still the sight of them, the thickness of them is disturbing.
I went outside with Scout, and returned a smile to the scowling neighber who watched her. She pointed to the posted, typewritten list of rules. "Keep dogs on leash" is number 12 on the list. Only there have been dogs here longer than I've been here, and I've been here for seventeen years. Whoever posted the rules has neither the right nor power to restrict access to anyone, including dogs. I know my dog too, and know she'd never defile the beach. She goes into the woods like any civilized creature. The dogs are not the problem. Are they ever, really?
---The shadows are long this morning already, I've lain (is that really a word?) in bed too long again, but it was probably 3 before I fell asleep. That is six hours, not too much I think. It was so late because we had a disagreement about sex. (scene deleted)
So that stands between us this morning,
--Thunder is making its way closer, rumbling on the slight breeze that barely ripples the surface of the lake. The air is heavy and damp with anticipation, the night pregnant with the storm that promises cooler weather.
There is nothing quite like a storm coming across the lake. Lightning cracks the vista like the sunset, highlighting the striation of the clouds and sizzling into the water the way the sinking sun does. We can watch it from where the lake curves on the horizon, and can tell within minutes when it will hit the shoreline. The speed with which the storm approaches warns us if we will lose power. Not this time for us, but they do in town.
We leave the decking that leads down the bluff to the beach when our wine classes are empty, and when we are tired of swatting away the flies and mosquitoes. Scout left at dusk with the boys; none of them have patience for friendly chatter. Tonight it is the neighbors who bought the cottage of our closest friends out here…Bill and Molly. Odd that our best friends were in their seventies. Bill taught us to sail when our children were still small enough to all fit comfortably in the sunfish sized boat, and sold us his Hobie cheap when he moved to Florida full time. I miss them. I miss the boat. It stayed on the beach one beautiful fall clear into October. We didn't want to bring it up and put it away… just one more sail. Then the storms came, and it was gone.
--more dream notes:
--In the next dream I was throwing a party for people from my husband's office at my mother's tiny house. Distributed very fancy invitations, vellum paper inserts and tied with satin ribbon… 5-8:30, dinner. Then had to clean the house… my mother was a lot of things but never much of a housekeeper. As if anyone with seven children, a full time job, widowed at 45 ever could be. I pull the party together, everything from plates to bathroom towels; I am good at this. Her bathroom was the same as when she died, handicap equipped, in fact, everything seemed the same as when she died but her. She was two-legged and sober and helpful, even taking me to the factory where she'd worked to get plates from the Employee Club closet. We didn't end up doing that because she clearly thought it was wrong and really, what did plates matter to me? In the end, the plates were the plastic ones with seashells that I'd bought for my daughter's graduation. Nothing fit together in the dream.
--Cool cloudy morning, gentle waves on the lake and the whole neighborhood seems to be sleeping in. I've done some research this morning on the Resort Era in South Haven. Famous Jewish resorts. Some of them world renowned: the Catskills of the Midwest, they said, from 1910 to about 1960. Only a few still standing, most destroyed by fire or the greed of people wanting to own a piece of the lake. Am I any different?
The resorts were torn down, mostly in the sixties, condos, private homes and in one case a parking lot replaced them. At least now I understand the city flocking to the north beach…the north side of the River. It is where all the resorts were, across a drawbridge; there is no bluff to speak of there. Our side has the lighthouse. We also have trees and the state park, and the bluff and no crowds, most of the time, but we are a few miles out of town so the comparison isn’t really fair.
--The boys are interesting this year. They aren't eating as much as boys their age and size should eat, and they are staying up til one a.m. every night. Strawberry pop tarts, blueberry pancakes (the blueberries are amazing this year) and taco pizza sustain them. The term 'beach brothers" comes to mind. I am very fond of the boy my son has chosen as his friend… he is middle child sweet and so easy to get along with. His favorite phrase: "You’re funny."
--The air has finally changed back to typical Michigan air… the morning was in the sixties and everyone complained that there weren't enough covers on the beds. Over our heads is the question of whether we leave today, controlled inmterestingly enough, by the girls even though they aren't bere. If my closing is Friday, then we must leave today. If not, we can take one more day. It feels like we are stealing time. We take it.
We build a bonfire on the beach, roast hot dogs that somehow ended up without sand (unheard of!) and watched the beginnings of the meteor shower. We note how we've seen the stars from so many angles this year, it seems like different skies. Four shooting stars should be good luck, shouldn't they?
After 20 hours of driving, more stops for fast food than I can in good conscious count, and listening to all 17 discs of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on cd, we are once again at our permanent address.
When we arrived, the back door was standing wide open. One of the cats was in the front yard. The trash container was lying on its side in the street, it's lid in the neighbors yard. After determining that no one had broken in, we ventured inside.
Stacks of mail were strewn all over the kitchen. In the family room, cables for x box and computers and tivo webbed their way through furniture. Paper cups and sandwich wrappers decorated every flat surface. An air pump, from the garage was lying on the rug a friend sent from Turkey years ago, and a gold toned soccer ball, fully inflated, was nearby. A chocolate cake from the grocery story, 80% gone, sat near the stove. The TV was on, 19 messages lit the voicemail box. My bathroom was littered with the paraphernalia of a teenager. The drawer… yes, THAT drawer, in my vanity, was ajar.
You see, my son stayed home to "house sit."
He was at work when we got home.
It's a good thing.
My younger son ventured upstairs, but came back down right away. "Something happened in Jon's room."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything is like… messed up… and there's a blanket over the window."
My son later explained that he "decided" a few days ago to "take over your bathroom."
And that since he was not going to bed until 5 am any night, that even the sun that filtered through the wooden venetian blinds bothered him sleeping. To his normal "wake up hour" of 2 . PM.
When I left, there was fruit, cheese, milk, and meals he could warm up in the refrigerator. When I returned, not only was that still "there"… but also left over sushi, pizza, chicken wings, pasta….etc.
Did I mention he leaves for college in two weeks?
-Quote from my best girlfriend D: "I was the one that found that man. He was still making noise, but everything was crumpled, arms, leg, neck. It was so apparent that he was dead, even with the noise. I was the first responder. It was a long fall. But a short jump."
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