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Listen, here: That much, I can do

The status of grandmother was bestowed on me six years ago last month.  Oddly, it didn’t come with a manual.  Though it is surely one of life’s richest blessings, I’m still trying to figure out how to do it.

There must be others out there who, like me, feel so different from grandmothers of earlier generations that it is ironic to even use the same title.

After all, look how the role of women has changed in our culture in the last few decades.  Neither of my grandmothers worked outside the home.  Their parents died younger, and I have no memories of any of my great-grandparents.  They had lifelong partners, enduring marriages of five decades or longer.

In 2017, it’s a different picture for many women whose kids have kids.  Having just entered my seventh decade, I’m still a working professional, with miles to go before retirement is visible on the horizon.  I’m a single woman, looking after myself and striving to maintain a social life at the same time.  My precious mother is, thank heavens, still with us at 86, so I strive to stretch my time across four generations of family.  And many of them are 200 miles away.

Mom stirring applesauce June 2016

My mom taught us to make homemade applesauce.  I hope I get to pass that technique on.

My grandmothers occupy such large places of love and respect in my memories, but can I be to my grandchildren what they were to us?  Not likely.

 

My maternal grandmother often wore an apron, and could roast the most beautiful chicken any chef every claimed.  She came to visit for working trips, joining my mother in the kitchen for the all-day process of cooking country ham, and she patiently hemmed and mended hand-me-downs.  She was a crackerjack card player, demonstrating tactics that belied her gentle demeanor.  I liked attending her church, because its rituals were open to “all who believed” and not restricted to those who completed some class or ritual declaration.  That meant that a child could share in the communion celebration with the adults.

My paternal grandmother was a stunning, petite blonde who stayed beautiful as she aged.  She had elegant taste, a fine wardrobe, and the manners of an accomplished socialite.  That included certain standards that were not to be compromised, and when they were, hell might demand the settlement of accounts.  She hosted elegant parties that required dressing just so, and my mother prepared us carefully.   If my grandfather told raucous jokes at dinner and enjoying himself too much in his cups, she registered disapproval by threatening to leave the room—and when he didn’t behave, she vanished.  No shrinking violet, that one.

Is any of that a heritage I can pass on?

Elegant parties?  I like to set a nice table, and I have china and lovely dining treasures from both of them.  But my holiday dinners are more likely to be thrown together in the wee hours the night before, after a 50-hour work week.  By the time the guests arrive, I’m lucky if I remembered to shower and put on lipstick.  I would love to learn to cook a country ham myself.  But one has to weigh a whole day invested against the convenience of buying it cooked from one of the fine Kentucky purveyors, of which there are many.

Teach my kids how to maintain a home, how to get spots out, one of many of my mother’s great aptitudes? Don’t be silly.  Not long ago, I asked my extremely handy son-in-law to tighten the handle on a finicky kitchen faucet.  Got mildly irritated when I noticed him stockstill in the middle of the kitchen, staring intently at his phone.  Don’t they ever put the dang things down?  That was before I realized he was watching a You Tube video about repair of not just any faucet, but THAT faucet.  The next generation doesn’t need our knowledge.  They get it from strangers, on a tiny glass screen.

So what CAN we offer?  After six years, here are some intentions I have set (as the yoga teacher calls it).  The important things, it seems, are less about the hands and more about the mind and heart. They are not necessarily new to this generation, but perhaps take on a different hue in today’s times.

We can show up.  When they are older and look back on important days in their lives, I hope it means something if I was there.  So getting there is the goal.  Other things can wait.

We can listen.  The world is roaring with noise and distractions that defeat good conversation.  Yet communication defines our relationships.  If my grandkids have something to say, I want them to know I am interested in hearing it.

We can ask questions.  What happened at school today?  What’s that book about? I want Buddy and Sis to know I’m interested in their observations and ideas, their kiddie jokes, their fears.  Their parents are good talkers, wonderful at encouraging the kids to express themselves and talk through things.  But it takes a village.

We can show mercy.  A while back at a family meal, my daughter relayed a story about a particularly trying episode with Sis a few days before.  Absorbing the details of this transgression, I turned to notice Sis watching me intently, brow furrowed with anxiety as she awaited my reaction.  I support the parents in their excellent standards for discipline—but there was no need here to extend the sentence already rendered by the court.  Sis’ little map flooded with relief when I returned her gaze, winked at her, and changed the subject.

We can offer sanctuary.  It’s a tough world out there, getting tougher.  Buddy and Sis are lucky to be happy and safe in their home, but when they need another place to be encouraged, empathized with, or just to raid the cabinet for snacks, my door can be open.

At six, our Buddy is an intense thinker, progressing through reason and root cause and relevance at an astonishing clip.  Thoughts tumble out so quickly I struggle to keep pace, but I do my best.  He also seems to pick up particular turns of phrase that linger for a period in the Lexicon of Buddy.  He repeated one of those multiple times over dinner not long ago.  “Evie,” he kept asking, “Can I tell you something?”

Yes, Buddy.  You bet.  I might not get it, and it won’t be long before you are so much smarter than I will ever be.  But I am listening.  Tell me.

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From the Mat to the Mind and Heart

At first there was church, of course, but there had always been church, and probably always will be.  Then there was therapy, some of it encouragingly productive, though one shouldn’t dispense stars for service well rendered on such things, like online restaurant reviews.  There was always walking, more walking, no shortage of places to walk.  And drinks with friends, staunchly loyal and present, and drinks without friends, but not too many, or, at least, not too many too often, I’m pretty sure.  It all helped, some of the time, or maybe, when times were tough, it just comforted me to know I was trying.

But the motivation to keep searching remained.  So, one dark day when the joints were complaining, the back stiff, and the spirit low, I accepted the encouragement of a wise neighbor and turned up at the appointed time.  I choose a place near the back, close to an escape route (rather like church, come to think of it). I sit, watch quietly and wait.

Except you’re not really supposed to watch, intones the person at the front of the room, oozing meditative calm from every pore.  It’s not about what others are doing.  It’s about you.

That’s not something accepted easily by those of us with the overly anxious, driven nature, but it’s too soon to give up, instructs the driven voice inside.  I settle for surreptitious observation, rolling the eyes various directions to clock what is happening without noticeably turning my head.  Instructions commence and movement begins, while it remains very quiet, with little sound but the gentle beat of the low Hindu background music.

Meanwhile, it is plenty loud inside my head, where I am silently shouting frantic responses to the flow of action.  Balance on my what?  Recline like a pigeon?  I am almost positive pigeons never recline unless they are dead.  Down dog?  Will someone give me a treat if I do this correctly?  Dang, the people behind me look weird from this angle.

My doctor said this would be relaxing.  He must be insane.  I am 55 years old, and it is my first yoga class.

That scene, more than four years ago, came to mind recently when I incurred my first yoga injury, a painful pinch in the shoulder joint.  It seemed prudent to take a break while it healed up.   Away from the studio for longer than I’d been in awhile, I couldn’t help but wonder again if I’m too old, too unfit, too whatever to keep up the practice.  How many women who stroll into the average class with their long legs clad in designer tights and ponytails swinging cheerfully look like me—25 pounds overweight, short arms, short legs, a noticeably unfashionable yoga wardrobe?

The answer, it took me years to discern, is no one knows, or cares.  There’s no question the physical benefits can be profound and enduring.  My early-stage arthritis, stiff knees and back remain drastically improved as long as I practice. At first, I viewed yoga as a more rational cousin to pilates and hoped to build strength, flexibility and better breathing habits.   I told friends who inquired about progress that the stretches and movements are great, but I’m not very good at the “ohm stuff”.

It was true.  It took me two years to learn to close my eyes when instructed (afraid I would miss something), and even longer to lay still all the way through the closing pose, savasana, without sitting up prematurely.  (Savasana translates into English as corpse pose; who wouldn’t love that?) I was too busy running through my grocery list in my head to absorb the teacher’s closing chant.  Yet somewhere on the journey I realized, as wiser heads have known for many centuries, that the “ohm stuff” may change your life more than flattening your palms on the floor in a forward fold. I still can’t.  Not even close.walkway-over-dunes-fl-11-16

When I finally opened my heart to stillness of mind during practice, startling, sometimes unsettling, visions occupied the space that opened there.  One day, I surrendered to stillness in savasana more out of complete exhaustion than anything else, and behind closed eyes I suddenly saw a bright, moving series of images of my beloved father, who died three years before.  They flowed rapidly from one memory to the next, like still photos blended into a documentary video clip.  Tears rolled down the sides of my face and onto the mat.

When months turned into years and I persisted, I finally saw the gift of yoga that for me, matters most—more than flexibility and better posture, more than learning and remembering to breathe more fully.  When I opened my ears to instruction, not just in stretching or balancing or breathing, I finally heard it.

Yoga teaches self-acceptance, a state that eludes so many of us, for some strange reason, for most of our lives.  If you are looking for encouragement to do still more, to build reps, go faster, push harder, to shave seconds, those goals might be right for you, but you must go somewhere else to achieve them.  Yoga practice is the ultimate counter-pose to that mindset.

There it was again yesterday.  “Remember,” the teacher said as we extended forward in a seated fold (in my case, mere inches, the hamstrings pleading for mercy), “wherever you are in this pose is perfectly okay.  Contentment with where we are is a very important part of our practice.”  And:  “When we move to the second side of this pose, you will notice that one side of your body is more available than the other.  That is because you are human, and that’s how human bodies work.”

This foundational concept will always be a stretch goal (pardon the pun) for me, something to nurture and feed long after I get my palms on the floor, if I ever do.  Serious yogis know it is the journey of a lifetime.  Even those who begin that journey very late still can, I’ve learned, take tiny, baby-sized, forward steps.

One of my favorite classes is led by a teacher** who tells jokes deep into the vinyasa flow.  Probably sacrilege to some, but I adore it.  Once when we students were on our backs, extending a leg straight to the ceiling and stabilizing it with clasped hands behind the calf, he came by and saw me struggling to reach higher on the back of my leg, silently cursing my short arms and stiff hamstrings.  I’m not very good at this one, I whispered as he gently nudged my leg higher.  I need arm extensions.footprints-in-sand-10-16

“No, you don’t,” he insisted, kindly.  “You can do this.”  That tiny spark of encouragement somehow bestowed additional breath, which in turn relaxed me and magically increased my range.  Just for that treasured second, he was right.  My arms, my effort were just fine.

And that’s what keeps me going back.

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**It’s time to share my deep gratitude for the folks at Sanctuary Yoga in Nashville, Tennessee, for fostering an environment that is both enlightening and inclusive.  Special thanks to teachers Tom Larkin, Liz Stewart, and Melissa Eltringham for bringing such positive spirit and good humor to class, every single time.

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Neon, Hot Chicken and “It”: A New Year’s Salute to Nashville

You don’t have to be staring down the neon pantheon of Lower Broadway in Nashville to know one incontrovertible fact.  America’s Music City (as country’s most powerful radio station calls it) is a funky, bizarre place.

And whether you love country or Anything Else, whether you know where to get original hot chicken or couldn’t care less, whether you think we’re “It” or all the hype is just nonsense–if you’ve spent any time here, you’ve encountered the eccentricities that make our city a place like no other.new-years-14-on-broadway

Those of us who live here get lots of questions these days from distant friends and family about all things Nashville.  In homage to the weird bits I love best, and a few ongoing headaches, I started a series of Facebook mentions about the everyday experiences of Music City life.   As a New Year’s salute to my adopted metropolis, one of the best places to live on the planet (all kidding aside), I’m sharing a few here that generated the most comments and questions.  Enjoy—and come visit!

You’re so Nashville++ if:

You can immediately think of a country song featuring the first name of your friend’s newborn daughter.   Not that they chose it for that reason…but welcome to the world, Baby Ruby, from Kenny Rogers and me.

Your new bank offers the option of a debit card featuring a photo of the Ryman Auditorium.  And you take it, and proceed to show it off.

You wait your turn at the Whole Foods salad bar along with Steven Tyler from Aerosmith.  And no one around seems to notice or care.  (He’s a little dude, by the way.)

You’re in the TSA line at BNA behind a guy with a guitar strapped to his back.  Swear I don’t know how they keep their livelihoods from getting smashed on planes.  The guitars, I mean.

An informal chat about Thanksgiving plans with neighbors reveals they are traveling to New York for the holiday, to watch their son the country star sing in the Macy’s Parade.

Your favorite radio station for the inbound commute offers an ad for a funeral home that will stage services in the garage where the Harley is.

You can hear the bass thumping 19 floors up in your downtown office from the open stage across the street during the annual Country Music Association festival.  You tap your feet during your conference call and don’t bother to turn off the speakerphone.

You’ve eaten a great dinner with a friend while watching a long line of people excitedly waiting to take selfies with not Taylor Swift—but her mother.  (I, of course, had to ask someone who the woman was.)

You have recently lost a tire to a roofing nail or some other object from a construction site that is not anywhere near your house.  It’s EVERYWHERE.

You know the genuine honky-tonks on Broadway from the fake ones.

You have gone through the first three names on your list of reliable plumbers, only to discover they are all working in new residential development and unavailable for weeks.

The fill-in assistant teacher in your yoga class is a movie star.  In this case, Ashley Judd.

You have fielded requests for restaurant recommendations in Nashville by inbound co-workers or visiting parents of college students six times in the last 30 days.

You know the location of and story behind this reference to the top of region’s most famous radio tower: “That’s a funny place to build a city.”

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++Complete credit for the concept “You’re So Nashville if….” goes to our excellent alternative weekly, the Nashville Scene, which holds a submission contest annually for similar observations.  I’ve never entered, but obviously love the idea and am a regular reader. if you really want to know what Nashvillians think about Nashville, it’s great fun, and you can see the most recent one here.

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Southbound Girls and Birthday Reflections

A landmark birthday roared past recently, one of those that bestows a zero digit on your age and thus cannot be ignored.  Even for those of us who aren’t given to ruminating about the terrors of aging, it’s hard not to contemplate the implications of the ones that signal a new decade.

Not long before the Big Birthday, my three-year-old granddaughter crawled up in my lap, squirmed into the desired position and happened to shift the wrong way against my stiff right knee.  “Ow,” I winced, adjusting Sis slightly. “Be careful, sweetheart.  Evie is old.”  This last bit popped out unexpectedly; perhaps the zero-digit had been plaguing the subconscious more than I knew.   Sis absorbed my reaction and proceeded to probe further.

“Old?”  she repeated, leaning back in my lap, to get me into full cinematic view while knitting the little brow in puzzlement.  “Why?”

Ah.  Well, now.  Why, indeed.

Oh, you know, I have a birthday soon, I babbled, weakly.  And every year on your birthday, you get another year older.

That sufficed, as she nodded and moved on to other queries. But the question lingered in my heart.  Why am I old?

Well, I mean to say, how much time have you got?

I’m old because I recently argued with my sister about the color of a certain pair of gloves in a photograph.  Sometimes I argue with her for the mere sport of it, of course, but in this case, I clung to my position like a terrier to an aromatic shoe because of a rare and distinct advantage I hold over her when it comes to assessing color.  I have had cataract surgery and she (though older) has not—voila! If you have had the same procedure, you understand the implications with, forgive me, perfect clarity.  If you haven’t, well, you might not be old.

Continuing on the visual theme, I suspected I was old when I realized the military-style precision I applied to mapping out strategic geographic locations for glasses.  The aforementioned surgery left me requiring only reading glasses, and if you are old enough to need readers, you know they are never where you need them to be, like teenagers assigned to the dinner dishes.  If one wants to avoid wandering aimlessly in circles, seeking the pair you just knew was here somewhere, the only solution is to stash a pair at all strategic operating locations—home, office, car, purse, and so forth.  I bet you’ve spotted the flaw in this strategy, but I will nevertheless confess it openly, as a cautionary tale for fellow sufferers.  Once finished with the close-up task at hand, one must remove the readers and leave them where the map has pinpointed their post.  Otherwise, you wind up with four pairs in one room, and none in the critical locations, such as the kitchen, and the wandering begins all over again.

Traveling south of the head for additional evidence, I became certain I was old a couple of months back while folding forward in yoga class.  There was a sudden, strange feeling of an unusual obstruction in my right armpit, and further, discreet investigation revealed that my foundation garment (aka BRA) had given up the ghost on one side–perhaps also having reached a certain age.  This brazen abdication of responsibility allowed one of the girls, if you take my meaning, to attempt escape, traveling south and east.  This distraction did nothing for my yogic calm and meditative concentration.family-portraits

And so, the litany continues, right?  Swapping stories about such things with friends is a part of daily life at our age.

A couple of days after Sis’ question, I leaned over to straighten a photo frame on the wall of my bedroom, where hangs a collection of family portraits illustrating four generations.  Still smoldering on the upcoming Big Birthday, I peered more closely at the faces of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-grandparents, and thought about what those people had in common.  Most all were people of faith, some to an extreme that annoyed the others, but most went to their graves believing they would meet again.  And most didn’t go there early—sturdy, largely healthy, handing down good genes without disorders any more unusual than too great a fondness for Kentucky bourbon.  Hard-working folks, all of them, some of them high achievers, some more middle of the road, but all blessed with the will and ability and the freedom to pursue their own paths and support their families.    They passed down other traits, as well, like heavy eyebrows, unruly thick hair, lousy hearing, the love of a great joke, and a strong preference for fast cars.  Probably, in sum, it’s a story like those of countless families who, with all the warts and inevitable oddities, have been as fortunate as mine.

And there, I realized, is the answer to Sis’ question.

I’m old because I’m lucky.

 

 

 

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What the Mirror Asked

Like so many Americans, G-ma has been diverted from her usual ruminations on grandchildren and family and turned instead to pondering this historic time in our nation.

Anyone with their eyes open in America this week has watched shock ripples that will be recounted for many generations to come.  For me, processing shock (and its close cousin, grief) seems to require a strange sequence of polar opposites.  With no intent to trivialize or make light, but only to affirm the oddities of humanity, I confess to the following map of shock in the days since the Great Eye-Opener (or GEO, also known as the American president election on Nov. 8):

Sometimes couldn’t eat; no appetite.  Then, I consumed doughnuts three straight days at the office, followed by candy later.  The sound of the television or radio was unbearable, then I found myself obsessing over every morsel of consumable news, everywhere.  One night was insomnia, then one night it seemed I would sleep until the next decade (and sorta wished I could).

Meanwhile, a funny thing happened on about Day 3, post-GEO.  I was brushing my teeth and casually listening to a TV commentator, and suddenly I was overwhelmed by so many people opining on what everyone should think, do, feel or envision now.  How exhausting, how useless. It’s too much.  I switched the TV off.

Spitting out the toothpaste with greater-than-usual velocity, I looked in the mirror, and a thought occurred. Maybe I should pay more attention to the inside of my own head, and start my examination there.  And really consider what I’ve done, just me.  Maybe, Mirror, those things are not quite as obvious as they seemed. Before.

The Mirror looked back with some questions.

“So,” the Mirror began, “Did you do what you thought was right for your country this past week?’

Well, I thought so, I began, tentatively.  I voted, early, even, wore my sticker to the office, wrote a check to my candidate, did my best to stay in the discussion in some places and out of it in others.  I stayed up later than anyone my age that I know to listen to the results and grapple with the implications.  I prayed for insight and understanding.

“And?”  The Mirror inquired.

And, what?  I stared back.

“Do you think what you did mattered?  Was it enough?”

Oh, you know, it was about the same as most people I knew—more than some, less than others, but generally the same.

“Then I’ll ask you again,” said the Mirror, one eyebrow raised, like my mother giving us the mean eye when we were kids. “Was it enough?”

Dang.  This is hard.  I fumbled for a response, but the Mirror won’t break my gaze.  And probably won’t like the first answers that float up.  They’re about status quo, and meeting my obligation, and how so many nice people think politics is icky, and sometimes I do, too, and sometimes my friends don’t like it on Facebook, and at least I didn’t write in some crazy person…on and on.

But the Mirror is not going to let me off with this, I can tell.  Best I can manage, without averting my eyes, is:  Okay, no.  In the deepest part of my conscience, down deeper than what rustles the pillowcase on the average night, I don’t think it was enough.  I’m not smart enough to know the precise factors that would have changed what happened this week, scientifically, analytically.  All that stuff.  But yes, fine, OK, I admit it, I could have done more.

“Now we are getting somewhere,” the Mirror agreed, lowering the eyebrow just a fraction.  “Would doing more have made a difference?”

I don’t know that!  I started to raise my voice.  I can’t know that.  Who can say?  I’m just one person!

“Okay, One Person,” the Mirror volleyed.  “That’s true.  But we are talking about you, after all. You are the only person we can manage.  And you think there could be a different answer, or we wouldn’t be having this little chat.”

True enough, I sighed.

The Mirror pressed on. “Sounds like you think next time should be different.  Must be different.  Fair?  If so, what does that mean?”

I don’t know!  My voice rose again, with just a shade of embarrassing panic.  It’s only been three days!  I don’t know what to do next time!    Or, now, even.  Join the march of women on Washington?  Give more money?  Help start a new party?  Wear my friends out on Facebook until they all erase me from their feeds, or find new Facebook friends?  Talk more about this at cocktail parties, or talk less?  More yoga and meditation, and better kindness to all peoples? C’mon, Mirror, help me out here—surely you can think of something!

“Go away,” the Mirror said, calmly but firmly.  “Go away and find out.  You were a reporter once; you know how to ask questions.  Start talking to people.  Watch for ideas.  Follow the people you respect whose conscience points them the same place that yours points you.  Take a step, even one.  If it’s the wrong step, take a different one.  Remember what Dad always said:  Do Something, Even if it’s Wrong.  Then come and report back.  I expect an update.  Don’t wait long.  It’s time.”

The Mirror is right about that last, for sure.  It’s time.

I switched off the light, and left the room.

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Four Feet at a Fork in the Road

My daughter stood, firmly planted in her exasperation on the side of the road that bright October day, refusing to move and begging me to listen.

“Mom!”  she pleaded, “Come here and just LOOK.  Seriously.  MOM.  Listen to me.”

Nononono, I responded firmly, turning my back and edging away.  Now is not the time.  No, I can’t, I really, really can’t.  Come on, we need to go.

“Mom,” she grew more insistent, unrelenting.  “MOM.  Look.  Mom, really, listen, you’ve been talking about this for years. What are you waiting for?”

That last question got me.

Weakened in the shadow of this blatant truth, I turned back around to look in the direction she was pointing and stopped still to think.

The temptation at the other end of her gesture was, she knew well, a childhood dream that had been dogging me for years.  I had tried twice before to make this dream work, but I couldn’t.  The failures bruised my heart in a surprisingly deep and lasting way.  I wasn’t tough enough to try again.  I wasn’t ready.

On the other hand.  What was I waiting for?  More time, more money, a bigger house, someone to share the burdens?  Hell, while we’re on this road, how about a winning lottery ticket, a bestseller, rich lover, an unknown treasure, discovered on Antiques Roadshow, to auction for my fortune? How ridiculous was this thought process, these milestones that never get closer in the hazy, unforgiving distance that is the future?

What was I waiting for, to trust I could use my own two hands to make one tiny, little-girl’s dream come true? What does that take, exactly?  Stubbornness, stupidity, faith?  A heart that’s open to what is difficult and exhausting and expensive?  What does it cost, a little dream, and what is it worth?  Do I have the courage to laugh and agree when people look at me and say, Have you lost your mind?

Standing there on the side of that road, staring at this temptation just as my daughter knew I would, I felt something else push its way in and claim a chair at the table of this argument I was having with myself.  It was a powerful, maybe slightly perverse, desire to look at this differently.  To claim some ground for the dirty, the messy, the disruptive and difficult things that might be at the very root of love.  To speak up, for once, and say, I don’t care how hard it is.  I want to do it, I can do it, I will do it, and that should be enough.  Doubters, hit the highway.  To the practical, the perfect, the always clean and controlled:  I am not your girl.  To the slightly wacky, the challengers, the figure-it-out-ers and the carefree, I  didn’t start out on your roster, but I want on your team.  Order me a jersey.

So I took the few steps back to where my daughter was standing and reached out my hands.  And said, with just a smidge of mother’s sarcasm, Okay, FINE.  Alright.

Let me hold the puppy.

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Author’s note:  This memory is offered in honor of my best pal, who just had a birthday and joined our little household ten years ago next month.

 

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On Sibling Bonds, and Remembering Jane

Back Camera

It’s a funny thing about sisters and brothers.

You might long for them if you don’t have any.  But if you do, nothing in your life will ever drive you nuts in quite the same fashion.  That is, if you are like most of humanity.

Ours was a family of four kids, so common in those boomer days, three girls followed by a boy. My memories of my siblings as young children are distinctly unremarkable.  They might have been the bathroom wallpaper or the kitchen chairs–just there, the landscape of daily life, to be worked with, or around, as daily functioning might require.  No more, no less.

And then there was later, when inevitable dissonance and occasional outright war emerged with the arrival of adolescence.  Cruelty comes so easily then, and we devised our fair share and pointed it at each other.  When my older sister embarrassed me in front of, heaven help us, a BOY, I wrote a filthy epithet on her bedroom mirror in Vaseline (an interesting tool, yes?), using words I had never uttered out loud and might not have been able to define.  This awkward retribution earned me one of the most significant punishments of my young life.

But we three girls earned an even better one when we decided to show our young brother that he could not expect privacy in our shared bathroom.  When he sensibly resisted by locking us out, we picked the lock with a coat hanger and burst in before he could finish his business.  Our strict father exhibited zero tolerance for such bullying, thank goodness.  And really, remembering how we often we tried similar nonsense, it is a miracle that my brother is not a serial criminal, and still speaks to us.

Such stories, added to the routine family dynamics of adulthood, can crowd the heart at times.  So, when my daughter used to joke that she wished for a sister, I joked in return that I would happily give one of mine away.

That was before we lost one.

Back Camera

Perhaps more than any of the rest of us, my younger sister Jane signaled very early the adult she would become.  Named for both my parents, she was my mother’s spiritual and emotional twin, a magnetic personality endowed with faith and energy and a focus on others that drew people to her like hummingbirds to red petunia blossoms.

Her innate sense of right and wrong was maddening when we were younger.  Constitutionally incapable of tolerating unkindness or rule-breaking, she became an incorrigible tattle-tale.  For this saintly behavior we christened her Susie Good, and we dispensed revenge any time we could manage it without being caught.  We mocked her teeth, adding the nickname Snaggletooth (from the villain in the cartoon Quick Draw McGraw) and denied her entry into many of our games for no explainable reason.  Once on vacation we told her the only place available for her to sleep was in the closet, then watched with waning teenage superiority as she made the best of it and refused to cede victory by complaining.

A disposition to care for others that was embedded in her bones drew her to nursing school, and for a quarter century she nursed surgery patients, wounded diabetics, birthing mothers, and a long list of others.  She left active practice a few times, unable to disregard frustrations at the system, but she always went back to where she could get her hands on people in need.  When I observed that she would have made a great doctor, with more money for less hours worked, she rolled her eyes and shrugged, noting sarcastically that nurses are often closer to patients than doctors, and wasn’t that, after all, the point?

I can’t remember when I went from mocking what I perceived as a campaign for sainthood to admiring the person she became.  It might have been when I noticed that she showed up at every major turning point in my adult life.  She spent the night before my wedding, dispensing meds for the wedding-day diarrhea, my system’s physical signal of the unspoken fears that I was making a terrible mistake.  She took turns with my husband coaching me through labor, joking with the doctor about my cranky demands and patiently explaining every step.

Years went on, but her pattern remained.  With my older sister and brother, she came to unpack on moving day and stood by as I sobbed through my daughter’s graduation.  She drove an hour to my house so I didn’t have to be alone to tell my daughter the cat died.  Then my daughter married, and her aunt helped coached her through the birth of her first child.

My opportunity to try to balance the ledger of debts arrived way too soon, in the way you think happens to other people.  Suddenly, other people were us.  Diagnosed in her late forties with a rare and lethal form of breast cancer, she set out to wage war, and she succeeded so well for so long that at times we allowed ourselves to assume she would be among the few who beat the odds.  Whenever possible, I showed up for appointments and treatments and tests and sat in as bench support.

Even with all her professional insight, the system occasionally failed her, with an insurance snafu or a small clinical step overlooked.  At those moments, I bared proverbial claws and wanted nothing more than to use them to rip flesh somewhere on somebody, anybody, creating an uglier, bloodier version of Shirley MacLaine’s rant around the nurses’ station in Terms of Endearment.  My ferocious anger at any missteps astonished even me, but it didn’t take psychoanalysis or genetics to understand its roots. Watching her struggle was the tiniest millimeter away from experiencing it, since a sister is the nearest replica ever created to a woman’s own being.

When she said she just wasn’t up to attending the birth of my daughter’s second child, instinct told me time was short.  Diagnostic affirmation soon followed.  Along with her own two daughters  (both steadfast, brave and pragmatic like their mother), all three of us siblings took turns at her bedside in those final days.  In my heart, deepest dread joined with surprising gratitude for the privilege of being nearby, of witnessing the final steps in a journey she had defined so remarkably, all the way to the end.  As I bent to say my farewell on the last day I saw her, I said, “I’ll see you again.”  And I still believe it.

A person who lives life in service to others leaves behind a wide legacy of gratitude and, for one taken so young, profound heartbreak.  My own sense of loss at first seemed strangely functional, oddly physical.  It was like a power tool had ripped away one of my toes or fingers, or like I sat on a stool with a leg missing and was dumped sharply onto my butt on a concrete floor.  When grief is described like a part of you is missing, I had never before known how literally that’s true.

Thinking of her so constantly three years after she left us, I’m watching young siblings in our newest generation.  Their bonds and conflicts, their tender affection and dissonance, all ebb and flow with time and context.   After Buddy and I viewed a spectacular exhibit of antique Italian cars one day recently, the first thing he selected in the museum gift shop, without pausing to ask, was a present for his sister.  A couple of days later, I stepped in between them just in time as he screeched in frustration and lunged for her.  Her mistake?  She had boldly subverted his demands that she stay on her side of the line (literally) and color on her own dadgum side of the page.  And so it goes.

Will love triumph over the oceans of things that shadow sibling relationships over time?  Will they stay close enough to cheer each other’s successes, maybe even help the other one get there? If one is touched by tragedy, will the other stand shoulder-to-shoulder, ready to fight whatever needs fighting?  Of all my prayers for their future, none is more fervent than the one hoping nothing alters that singular sibling bond.

That, and the chance to be around long enough to see what happens.

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The View from the Next Booth

It’s a routine Sunday morning at my favorite neighborhood restaurant, the best place for breakfast in our part of town—that is, it’s best if you prefer to place your order while sitting at a table, to a seasoned grown-up who will bring your food as you ask for it, remembers you from last time, may even recall how you like your eggs and will check later to see if they are cooked according to your specifications.  Coffee is poured with blessed frequency into plain white ceramic mugs, and it’s unlabeled, drip-brewed coffee delivered at table-side from a glass pitcher with a plastic handle and pour spout by a cheerful, apron-wearing soul performing mission from one table to the next, topping off the parade of morning doses for the grateful, bleary-eyed patrons.

It’s the 8 to 9 a.m. crowd in this joint, the usual gathering of early eaters, a cast of characters predictably and comfortably composed of the sleep-deprived parents of small, early-rising children, a smattering of sedate senior couples, a few weary musicians on stools at the counter renewing themselves after late gigs, the occasional celebrity politely ignored and left alone over his eggs.  It is the kind of place where the waitress lays down the check but encourages you to “take your time, sweetie” over your coffee and your book, and where a waiter may be observed strolling patiently behind a departing customer using a walker, chatting her up as he totes her to-go bag and purse all the way out to her car.  It’s that kind of place.

Pushing away my clean plate and reaching to resume my book, I happen to notice a family taking seats at the table directly across.  Physical likeness telegraphs unmistakably that this is a three-generation female party, headed by an attractive blonde I guestimate at about my own age, along with her grown daughter, and two small girls, ages about three and 18 months.  A brief glance at the children and I suddenly wish that Buddy and Sis were here, because they love this place.  A few more swallows of coffee, several more pages, and another sideways glance, however, and I amuse myself pondering the marked differences between their little family party and an imaginary threesome of Buddy, Sis and me in my booth this morning.

Let’s start with Grandmother.  Watching this woman tuck a strand of her expensively cut blonde hair behind a heavy gold earring as she leans in attentively toward her granddaughter, it strikes me she could have emerged from a couple of the sorority houses I rebelled against on the campus of my distant youth and strolled through a time capsule and straight into the restaurant.  Her sheer white summer blouse is so crisply pressed that the fabric tag can be seen (and probably read, were I closer) flattened into perfect repose against the cotton below her collar.  The blouse is tucked neatly into an equally pressed print cotton skirt, which matches her purse and, of course, her heeled leather sandals.

Grandmother’s summery sartorial splendor is a rather startling contrast to the rest of the 8-9 a.m. cast at the surrounding tables, most of whom are dressed like they just rolled out of bed and are contemplating returning there as soon as they can manage it.  She contrasts with no one more than me, also a grandmother of similar age, happy in my drooping cutoffs, unruly hair yanked into an uneven ponytail, no makeup, comfortable in my favorite black weekend t-shirt with its three holes in the hem and embroidery of hound hair.

Am I insecure at the sight of women like that?  Have I just become a lazy slob who doesn’t really give a rip at this hour, in this place?  Or did I ever work at it that hard?  To quote an outrageous character in one of my favorite books:  Who knows, and babe, who cares?

This introspection doesn’t linger, because the comparison ripples around to the other occupants of their table.  The tiny girls, in particular, seem destined to carry forward Grandmother’s quiet elegance into the new generation.  Not a peep can be heard across the aisle from either the neatly combed older one, who is carefully crayoning her placemat, or her younger sister, sporting Pebbles-style spiky upright pigtails and silently shoving bits of scrambled eggs around with her chubby, miniature fingers.

I’m sure this is a lovely family of kind and well-meaning women, devoted to each other and ready to go forth on a Sunday and do their best.  May the saints attend their efforts to speak quietly, and keep hair combed and socks folded over without creases or lumps, and may matching handbags always stand at the ready in their closets, lined up next to their summer sandal collections.  I wish them all that and more, I really do.

But give me my kids who can’t stay quiet in a restaurant, even in the face of substantial bribes.   Give me their tangled and hopelessly intertwined conversation, at an impossible pace, maybe in harmony or possibly in conflict, usually too loud and laced with questions I can’t answer before the next one spills forth.  Give me Sis’ head of riotous blonde curls, often in chaos not because adults are inattentive to her hair, but because you can’t harness gale-force winds blowing across a wide open prairie.  And her obviously inherited (from me) preference to shed her shoes, sometimes even in public.  Give me Buddy’s probing questions and side-buckling giggles at the sight of the giant stuffed pickle on the wall of this very place.  Give me his precocious ability to chat up the waiter, resulting in a free extra helping as a salute to his good manners.  Give me crumbs and spills that stick to shirts and tabletops and illustrate a good meal with children, with boisterous conversation (not too obnoxious to the surrounding diners, we hope) and some unpredictable laughs.  Give me all that and my holey t-shirt, and I will call that a good time.

I watch the three generations trail away from their neat, barely soiled table.  Vive la difference, I reckon.  Now, back to my book.  And one last refill in that mug.

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Note:  Some friends have asked me where this story took place.  This very favorite spot is a deli-style restaurant called Noshville, a locally-owned Nashville treasure where the wait staff is every bit as fabulous as I’ve described, so I’m happy to name them here.  Try the french toast; they make it on challah bread, and it is out of this world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Cruel and Beautiful Tricks of Time

I like to think I became a grandparent at a fairly young age (don’t we all?).  Let’s don’t dwell on whether that is a delusion.  Just believe me when I say that life can sometimes look very similar to the way it rolled before the age of the spirit begins to diverge widely from the age of the body, and before the family grew by an additional generation.  Some challenges with my grandchildren are the same ones I had with my own young daughter, raising her as a single mom beginning almost three decades ago.

Chief among those is the struggle to give the children more of my time.  Like so many grandparents today, I remain a working professional with a more-than-full-time job and a family I adore that is spread over many miles.  Add to those factors a desire to give time back to the community and reasonable attempts at a social life and downtime, and the sum total spins the days forward at a turbo-charged pace.  And the only thing moving faster than the merciless calendar is the rate at which the children mature and change, and the heart longs not to miss it.

So it was that I was deep into some rudimentary problem at the office a few days ago when I noticed my cell phone vibrating on silent with a call from my daughter.  This was not routine; she has much-appreciated respect for the moderate insanity of my usual workday and almost never calls me before 6 p.m.  It was a few hours before quitting time, but I couldn’t stifle a prick of anxiety, so I picked up her voice message at my first opportunity.

“Mom,“ says my daughter’s voice, chirping out on the speaker, “sorry to bother you at work, but Sis wanted me to call you.  She just said she wanted to talk to you, so I thought I’d try and see if you could pick up.  We’ll catch you later.  Bye!”

Sis wanted to call me?  I’m charmed to distraction, wondering what was on her three-year-old mind.  I must call back ASAP to ascertain. But various tasks loom large before I can finish the day, so rush, rush through those, rush home through annoying traffic, rush the dog out for her business and fill her food bowl. Where did the day evaporate to? The sun is low on the horizon. Breathe at least once—now, time to call Sis back.Calendar paper.watch.5.16

Well, hang it, it’s already her bedtime.  Time got away from me again, but I’ll try anyway.  And let’s tap the wonders of technology and use the videophone, and maybe I’ll get a glimpse of that little face.  My daughter, who knows me well, picks up even though they are cuddled in Sis’ bed, finishing a story with the lights down.  “You can talk to Evie for just a minute,” says my daughter softly to her little one, turning the camera to center it on the child, “then it’s bedtime.”

I can see Sis’ expression in the dim late light, and she is tired.  Her mother’s voice is tired, and I am beyond tired myself.  Hey, sweetheart, I say softly, I heard you wanted to call me, so I wanted to be sure to call you back.  What’s on your mind?

“Evie,” she begins, then falters, facing the camera’s eye, squirming and digging deeper into her covers.  Yes, precious? I encourage.  “Evie,” she repeats, with uncharacteristic brevity, snaring a lock of hair on a tiny finger and tugging it while she contemplates my face on the phone screen.  Yes, sweetheart, I inquire again, debating to myself whether this is an expert bedtime-avoidance stall or something our little chatterbox really needs to share.  (Sis is an Olympic-level competitor in the Bedtime Stall.) Either way, Time My Enemy is ticking away, and I want to be out of my work clothes, off my feet, and tucking into some form of late dinner.  My heart wants to complete this little circle, but my head wants to get on with it.  My toes are not tapping with impatience, but they are thinking about it. Why does it always, always have to feel like time is so short?

“Sis, we have to hang up so you can go to sleep,” prompts my daughter with admirable patience (while I hope my lack thereof is not showing). “Tell Evie what you need to tell her.”

The child heaves a tired sigh and turns toward the phone screen for one last effort.  “Evie,” she says slowly and carefully, “I love you.”

And for just a moment, time stops.

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Confessions of a Spoiler

It is a truth universally acknowledged (as the immortal Austen might have put it), that giving stuff to kids is fun.

They make it so easy for you, the little buggers, when they radiate anticipation, joy, and wonder in such bewitching fashion, whether ripping into a birthday gift, staring through that store window, or beholding the bounty of Santa Claus.  Who can resist providing such golden moments, frozen in memory for years to come?

Well, I could, and I did.

When Buddy and Sis were tiny miniature people, not even walking yet, I watched the massive pileups of festive packages at Christmas and first birthdays and thought:  This is ridiculous.  These children have too much stuff, they will never play with all of it, never remember most of it, surely never realize who showered all this on their blessed little unknowing heads.  It was not the fault of their parents, or really anyone in particular—it was the collective outpouring of affection from many that looked like the offerings of a bunch of Anglophiles invited to a birthday party for young Prince George.  Those thoughts birthed other, shadowy contemplations about the materialism of our culture, the financial implications of giving children so much, the unending cycle of more, more, more.  I was raised by practical, realistic people, who loved the spirit of giving but moderated sensibly (and essentially, with four children) and started very early teaching the important truths about earning, and sacrificing, to get what we want.

I pondered this and started by holding myself a few steps removed from the gift extravaganzas, resisting the temptation to bring random gifts when I visited, carefully selecting relatively modest options on the obligatory occasions, refusing to think I could demonstrate commitment or build bonds with what I bought them.

And then some stuff happened.

The first was a memorable misfire.  When Buddy turned four last spring, I had fun selecting a bright green teeter-totter designed with the face of an alligator, or perhaps a crocodile, because I have always been confused about the difference.  The gator/croc seats two, and I thought:  Perfect!  It’s active, it’s healthy, it’s cute, they’ll love it.  Wrong. Early interest was noticeably minimal, then Sis fell off and created a stir, and it was clear we had a dud.  Confirmation was offered later, when I happened to mention the gator/croc rocker.  Buddy horrified his listening parents with precise, solemn honesty: “Next year on my birthday, will you get me something I want?”

But the real force that knocked me off my lofty perch was the simple passage of time.  The children became talkative toddlers, imaginations running wild, something bizarre and hilarious forever on their minds and coming out their mouths.  Anyone with ears and a heart, listening and seeing things through their eyes…well, what happens?  You know how this ends, don’t you? Stay tuned for delivery of the evidence.

Sis turned three a few weeks back, and I joined an expedition for birthday tea at the American Girl store.++  Contemplating this in advance, I feared disaster.  Tea and birthday cupcakes with the birthday doll (dressed to match the birthday girl), very cute and fun, can’t wait to see it.  But let her roam through the store, with piles of product on glorious display as far as a three-year-old can see?  What if she asks for one of everything?  Isn’t this trap invented by an evil marketing genius?

At first, Sis surprised me, as she so often does.  When the post-tea store tour commenced, she skipped from one display to the next, telling everyone, “It’s my birfday,” exclaiming over much and asking for little.  I watched for clues to select my own gift, but got nothing. Then I crossed the store to find the ladies room and missed the inevitable challenge.  Her mother reported it went as follows.

Sis put her birthday doll into a bright pink doll stroller with fat, maneuverable wheels and handles at just the right height, and promptly pushed her baby for a spin.  Come along, her mother said after a few turns, we need to go now.  No, came the heartbroken wail, my baby NEEDS it, and she clung stubbornly, refusing to turn loose.  Finally, her mother pried her hands off the handles and led the tearful birthday girl away before the scene reached genuine meltdown stage.  This all transpired, thank goodness, before I returned.  Because I might have caved right then, much worse (or so I told myself) than caving once the child was out of sight.

Naturally, the earlier, tougher, morally grounded me would never reward such behavior by buying the item, even though Sis recovered with more grace and self-possession than might have been expected under the circumstances.  I would have chosen something else entirely, to drive home a lesson that we never achieve good ends by behaving badly in public.

That was then, and this is now.  As with so many other things involving these children, I don’t know if it was right or wrong, or if grandparenting drives reason and logic to the far and high hills, or whether I’m over-thinking the entire dadgum thing.  But it ended this way:  Sis got the stroller (though not til the next day—give me that, please), Birthday Baby got a fine new ride, and I must face the mirror and admit I’m as susceptible to spoiling as any grandparent on this earth.  At least there is solace in knowing I have a lot of company.

 

 

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++Our experience at the American Girl store was indeed memorable.  The staff was charming to the children and exceptionally helpful, the products interesting in their detailed connection to periods of American history, the dolls diverse and representative of many origins in our American culture. I can recommend it to other parents and grandparents, but I receive no benefit from doing so here.

 

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