Staying Calm

Right after Hurricane Fran wreaked havoc on our neighborhood, I became a mild hoarder. My children will attest to the fact that I stocked water, batteries and canned goods until the shelves sagged. I didn't want to use any of them because I was afraid we'd need them in a crisis.

That was 1996. It has taken me many years to be able to go into a grocery store and only buy what I need for the week or the month. I can only just lately let go of my fears for my children who live in big cities and who travel freely by plane, train and car. I don't worry obsessively when I get on a plane to go somewhere. I feel safe with money in banks and a few stocks.

I don't feel glad about the death of Osama Bin Laden. As a fellow blogger said, he was a cockroach, and if you kill one, there are ten more skittering around in the background. And the weather does seem to be more volatile lately. So it is very difficult for me, with the recent devastation caused by earthquakes and tornadoes and the increasing tension in the world, to keep my former unhealthy feelings at a distance. In my most worried moments, I think of survival again: moving away to a place where I can homestead (where though?), cashing in, going off the grid.

I love the interplay of life so much though that I think I would be miserable. Even if I felt safe.

I try not to watch too much world news, I steer far away from fear mongering bloggers, I meditate and breathe deeply. I go to my yoga and writing classes and distract myself by reading novels and magazines about psychology and spirituality. I go to work, live day by day without thinking too much about the future. It's a conscious effort.

I would love to hear how some of you deal with your stress over what happens around us. Fear is one of the things that keeps this world in turmoil. I don't want to participate in that.

My Easter Week

This could almost be one of my "Week in Pictures" posts, but I feel compelled to say a few words. It's been quite a few days.

Last Saturday, many tornadoes ripped through our state. For the first time since Hurricane Fran picked our street as Ground Zero, I experienced fear over the weather. I took the cats and went downstairs to an interior closet (in Fran we had to go to our dirt basement). I was so thankful I had bought a battery operated radio as we lost power an hour or so before the storm actually hit. My husband was a few blocks from this cemetery:




We were safe, thank goodness, but many others didn't fare so well. It's a reminder of our helplessness in the face of the weather.

In her usual schizo way, Mother Nature showed her beautiful side this week too. We spent a couple of days in Southport. The weather wasn't the greatest, but when you end a day looking at this, it's hard to whine.



I got up early this morning and drove to Greensboro. The choir was wearing new robes, thanks to the wonderful donations made to the church after my dad died. We had a moment of silence in his memory, and the choir members showed us after the service that each of the robes has a tag in it that says, "In memory of Ken Lewis." We were touched.



At my dad's house, everything is being readied for the estate sale. In the room where the dining room table groaned at Christmas and Easter, a card table holds dishes and silver that we didn't take. The kitchen counters are covered with pots and pans that were used to prepare his famous potato salad and pimento cheese, ham, turkey, beans. Pound cakes and pies. It's sad.

And saddest of all are the things he collected that we don't want. On this table there are newspapers announcing the end of WWII, Kennedy's death and other important events in history. He wanted us to want them, I guess, but we just can't take everything.



There's the high chair that my mother bought when my daughter was born. All of the granddaughters sat in in at one time or another. We're not taking that either.



And then there's the room that I can hardly bear to enter: his bedroom. The bed is dissembled, against a wall in another bedroom. His television and stereo lie in pieces on the floor. The books he was going to read have been shelved in the den. And the thing that is the very hardest is the sight of his clothes and shoes, neatly hung and lined up, ready for another day of delivering meals or singing in the choir or going to work.



The next time I go in the house, strangers will be looking through his things. Next will be the time when I walk in the empty house. God it's hard to say goodbye.

Weekend

(This photograph was taken at a previous exhibit.)



Friday night was the reception for the new photographs we hung in the Long View Gallery. The theme was renewal. You know how when you go grocery shopping and you're thirsty you buy a lot of drinks? And when you're hungry you buy more food than you would normally? I must be tired because three of the photographs I chose to hang were of sleeping people.

Saturday was the day I began the physical dismantling of my father's house. I brought back four or five pieces of furniture and boxes and boxes of photographs, Bibles, news articles, scrapbooks, etc. Last night, this is what my dining room looked like:




I had to get rid of a piece of furniture to bring one back. And in order to accomodate the large amount of archival materials, I had to clean out some cabinets. I got rid of bootleg tapes and old clothes and reorganized spaces to make room. The furniture looks beautiful in the new places, and I feel so happy about my choices.



It was a very emotional couple of days, made all the more so by the death of a very dear friend. In honor of her, I'm ending this post with a poem by e. e. cummings that was part of the gallery exhibit:


I Thank You

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

--- e. e. cummings

Springing forward

Mother Nature is acting like she's in menopause: hot one minute and cold the next. But I know that spring is within sight.

I haven't posted lately, but there are good reasons.

First, it felt ridiculous to post about mundane things in the face of the disaster in Japan.

Second, I didn't have any idea what to say about Japan except that it is a tragedy of not just national but international proportion. And I feel helpless in the face of it.

Third, I've been crazy busy.

Even now, sitting here, I still can't think of anything important to write about. But I wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten my blog. Or my readers. Stay with me. I'll be back to being frivolous soon enough.

Joy and Sadness - a quote

"All joy is the same, arising from an identical Universal source; every sadness is unique, rooted in its own particular circumstance."

Weekend with Friends

I spent this weekend with seven friends from high school. Two of them I haven't seen since college. We caught up on our families - the deaths and births, marriages and divorces. We caught up on our jobs and retirements. We talked about rifts and repairs in our family dynamics. We played games and ate good food. We shopped. We walked dogs and rode bikes.

In high school, there was this person. Mamie. I had some characteristics that were good. I was outgoing and did well in school. I was a friend to a lot of different kinds of people. I wasn't beautiful, but I think people probably thought I was cute.

But there were some characteristics that weren't so good. And rather than go into them, let's say for the record that I've spent a lifetime working on those negative quailites. And let's say the one that arises whenever I "go back to high school" is insecurity. About a lot of things.

But these friends are friends for life. And throughout the weekend they let me know that they loved me - then and now - and that they're proud of the changes I've made. They didn't expect me to still be the person I was then. They allowed me to be the new and improved, grown up me.

I'm grateful for their friendship. It's lasted for over forty years for some, almost fifty for one of them. Their unconditional love is amazing, and I am renewed for sharing this time with them.

Help Me, Fellow Writers!

Fair warning: This is not a post with pretty pictures!

For the past two Wednesdays, and several days before that, I've been working on submitting some of my stories. I had no idea how complicated it would be when I made this sweet little notebook:



Inside, I put together a neat chart that showed Date, Title of Story, Publication. I was ready to get my work published.

First I took this wonderful 4 1/2 page list of publications that my writing teacher, Angela Davis-Gardner, gave me. She was kind enough to narrow the list down to some of the more promising of them.



Then I went on the internet, visited each publication's website and printed out their submission guidelines. Easy breezin', right? WRONG! It has taken me another two days to go through a small number of them, highlighting what they require. Some allow online submissions; some don't. Some want cover letters, your name, address and serial number (!) on every page, the editor's name in the address. Some don't want any of that. Reading periods vary drastically. Out of the twenty or so I got through, I didn't find two publications with the same guidelines. So I put sticky notes on them with the key requirements like specific reading periods, online or snail mail, and if they particularly like flash fiction. I write a lot of flash fiction.



On some of them, I noted on another sticky note if I had a story that I thought would especially fit the magazine. And every time I did that, all I could think of was the manuscript sitting in my writing room, looking like this:



Yep, needing revision before I could send it out anywhere.

Finally, the revisions were calling me loudly, saying, "I can't go out looking like this!" So I went and printed out a few of them and started in with the blue pen.

And now the day is done and my brain is mush.

If any of my writer friends are reading this, please give me hope and/or advice. I'm feeling like the mother of an unruly teenage daughter with a list of demands. I need to know that this is temporary, and that at the end of it, just as with my daughters, I'll have something that is smart, beautiful, and income-producing.

Writing Workshop!

The week my dad went back to the hospital for the last time, I was enrolled in a week-long writing workshop with our 2010 Writer Laureate, Zelda Lockhart. One day with her was enough to show me that she was an inspiring and innovative teacher.

I had to leave after Monday to go to Greensboro and never made it back to the workshop. I decided that I was going to find a way to work with Zelda again, and organized a weekend with her at my house. I put the word out and we ended up with eleven women.

Zelda asked us to bring a favorite book of poetry, a book of unposed photographs, and music. The first night we drew a museum of objects that represented various areas of our lives: obstacles, fears, inspirations, mentors, etc. We did a ten-minute free write, packed our stuff and ended for the night.

Saturday morning we started right in, reading our work from the previous night. One of Zelda's strengths is that she takes notes while we read and points out what she calls "opportunites" - places where we can expand our work.

Using randomly chosen words from our poetry books, photographs, and objects from our museum we wrote two more free-writes. I have some great raw material. I need constant inspiration for my writing to stay fresh. These workshops are crucial for that. Teachers like Zelda are vital to the process too.

I realized this weekend that my father's death has freed something in me. I was self-conscious of both my subject matter and ability. I worried that he would be offended by some of my stories, many of which have characters crafted around real people. Many of the characters are based on him.

Meeting with a magnificant facilitator like Zelda and an inspiring, talented group of women like those at my house is an awesome experience. I'm filled with gratitude for our two days together.

Meditating on Opposites

My "Can I Do It" challenge this year was to commit to an exercise program. Using The Kaizen Way, I asked myself what I could do that I wouldn't resist.

I signed up for two yoga classes, one beginning and one more advanced, and a meditation class. This was a lot of commitment, but I have stuck with it. The beginning class starts my week off with gentle exercise, and the advanced class pushes me.

The meditation class, though, has been the one I love the most. We have learned many forms of meditation - guided, counting, breathing, walking, chanting. Most of them I was familiar with, but last night we tried something new for me.

We were to start out with a word that might have negative connotations for us and then think of its opposite. Breathe a few times on each of them. Sit with them. Then move on. Naturally, with all that has gone on with me lately, the first word that came to my mind was "death". So I then thought, "Life". Next because of my dad, my cancer, and my friend's cancer, I thought, "Sickness," and of course, "health" came to mind.

But the last one didn't go exactly as one would have thought. The word "sorrow" popped into my head. And as I breathed into the word, "gratitude" arose big and important. And for the rest of the meditation time, I breathed into the fullness of how gratitude could be the opposite of sorrow.

In practicing that form of meditation, I experienced a situation where my rational mind wasn't in control anymore. I felt peaceful at the end of the meditation, and again gave thanks for where I am with all that has happened in the last few months.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I was thirty-one years old when my mother died at fifty-five. It was the occasion of my first real faith crisis: where was she now?

Heaven was my hope, and I weighed what I considered her goodness and her shortcomings, wondering if God would find her wanting. I wanted to believe that I would see her again, that she was sitting next to the heavenly throne surrounded by those loved ones who had gone before her. But I'll be honest: my religion wasn't all that reassuring that this was the case.

My thoughts around this are different as a fifty-nine year old. My faith has matured and been fed by myriad sources. I don't feel I'm dealing with just a heaven or hell option. The God of my understanding is Love personified and perfected. He is not judgmental - after all isn't this what was asked of us - and his adoration of me is unconditional. He knows that my essence, my heart, is good and that the rest of me is trying to catch up.

What I know is this: There is something that is uniquely me. I call it my spirit, but there are other names for it. And I know that the spirit that is me, the spirit that was my mother and father, the spirit that is my dying friend, will not die. That it will live on in some form or fashion. It may be only as a memory, it may be in another life form, or it may be in heaven. I don't have the "final answer". Nor do I have to anymore.

I get comfort from this belief. I don't worry about how life adds up, whether the good outweighs the bad. This is good for my grieving, good for my living, and it'll be good for my dying.

Thanks be.

Going Away Party

I drove to the grocery store today, that most mundane of tasks. On the way I passed a teenage boy yawningly walking his dog, a few runners, children playing in the park. I passed a church where people stood in the door hugging and greeting each other, anticipating their spirits being lifted. The lines at the store were so long, people buying chips and beer and wings in preparation for the Super Bowl. I bought convenience foods and fruit and milk. Eggs and bread. Ho hum.

Meanwhile my friend is dying.

We went to see her today. At her house, she was holding court. She is always the person living life to the fullest. When my husband's band plays, it's not a party until she runs into the room and on the dance floor where she and her husband dance with proverbial wild abandon until the last song plays. She rides horses, reads book after book, sails and sits on the porch of her beach house. On New Year's Eve we are among a tableful of guests that she treats to a catered dinner. At midnight we all kiss each other on the lips and laugh and dance.

I shared with her daughter that my mom died when I was young too, and she said, "Yeah, we've been robbed." I remember her son, one of my favorite children in Mother's Morning Out. My friend would drop him off with a huge hug and kiss and let him know she'd be back soon. He would sit quietly for a few minutes, not crying, but tears falling down his cheeks. God he loves his mama.

Over the course of her illness, I've sent her many cards, called and emailed. I didn't realize how she'd come to expect this reaching out until she told me the other day that she was upset when she didn't hear from me "on Monday". Turns out I'd inadvertently gotten in touch most Mondays. And luckily for both of us, the mail had come late Monday, and one of my cards was in the mail. It mattered, she said in her email to me that night.

I've cried as much in the past eight months as I've cried as an adult. My heart is breaking that I'm losing this dearest of friends. I don't think the party can go on without her.

A Smile

There's something I can't get off my mind about the moments before my dad died. We were all standing around his bed, listening to the steady in and out of his breath. The pace of the breathing had not changed for days; it was the same as when he was on the respirator, in and out, labored. It was the only constant in the room as we moved in and out ourselves, going to get coffee or make a phone call, grabbing some fresh air or a cigarette. Our emotions were ragged and over-worked.

The doctor had said that all of his brain function was dead, only those things controlled by the brain stem kept going. This is what I found on the internet about brain stem function:

Activity in the brain stem is important for:
- bodily activities essential to survival, such as changes in heartbeat and breathing,
- initiation of a set of reflexes;
- the focusing of attention;
- patterns of arousal (that is sleeping versus waking).
If the brain stem is damaged, a person may lapse into a coma or even die because of its control of functions essential to survival.

Finally, as loud as any noise, the breathing stopped. We all stood there thinking, Is this it? And then he breathed a few more of those rhythmic breaths. In and out. In and out. And I'm not sure when in the time that he breathed some more and the time that his breathing stopped forever that this happened, but I looked at him and the smallest smile was on his face. The same smile that is in this picture.

I've only asked one sister if she saw this smile. It was much later, days or weeks or maybe even months after his death, but she says she didn't see it. There were other things, distressing things that happened right away to his body, and she remembers those things clearly.

It's corny, I know, but I like to think that in the seconds before his death, he sensed or saw something that made him happy. It comforts me that he was looking forward as we were saying goodbye.

Letter Writing

I'm trying to be more consistent about posting, and meant to write this yesterday. I'm having a writing workshop at my house next weekend, though, and a houseguest as a bonus, and was busy getting things ready. The time slipped away, and soon it was time for meditation and yoga classes, both of which wear me out!

I keep a notebook of cards and letters that I send. On Tuesday, I counted how many I'd sent in 2010 and it came to over 200. This doesn't include thank you notes I sent for the many kindnesses done to me and my family after my father's death.

I love to send correspondence by US Mail. There's an anticipation between the time I drop the letter in the box (I'm very picky about which mailbox; there's one in particular where things seem to be delivered in a more timely fashion) and the time the recipient finds it in their mailbox.

There are three kinds of cards I usually send. The first are store-bought. They range from funny to solemn. I love going into gift stores - Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, and Accipiter, a local store - and picking out funky packs of cards. I love letter-press cards. Here's one from a pack of R Crumb's art that I bought recently:



I also make cards. I use Japanese paper, magazines, punches, books of sayings, and stamps to create cards that are either particular to a situation (like a birthday) or can be used in a more general way. This card was made using one of a pack of leather frames I found in Tuesday Morning and a magazine picture:



And of course, I have my photographs. I put them in Strathmore Photo Frames. I might choose a sunflower if I want to send get well greetings, or a peaceful coastal scene for a sympathy note. This particular photograph is a favorite of my friend Nancy Olson of Quail Ridge Books. Nancy is kind enough to carry my cards also.



I send cards for birthdays, sympathy, encouragement, special occasions like graduations and anniversaries, thank you notes. I use a nice card to send donations. There are some people I write every couple of weeks to let them know I'm thinking about them.

All of this is not to pat myself on the back. Writing these notes makes me feel good. And in going through my father's stuff, I know that the letters are one of the most valuable things we've found. They tell stories of young love between our parents, relate encouraging words to us as teenagers and young adults, demonstrate remembrances of birthdays and holidays. My children's notes and letters to me are plastered on bulletin boards and stuffed in cabinets and plastic containers. My middle daughter makes art cards and these are on my refrigerator and in drawers for safekeeping.

Email has almost replaced snail mail. I'm personally trying to keep the art of letter-writing alive. It seems important, vital, crucial even, to keeping our history something tangible to be passed from generation to generation.

Remembering

Cleaning out my dad's house is an emotional roller coaster. My family is there in the tangibles, but very absent in reality. We've found Weekly Readers, constellation projects, old letters written between my parents, our fragile, falling-apart scrapbooks and theirs.



We've pored over pictures, identifying those we know and wondering about those we don't. We agonize over tossing the ones we can't identify; I've been to too many thrift stores and berated families for giving away their pictorial histories for strangers to go through. But now I understand. We've folded and unfolded sweaters knit by my mom, afghans and shawls made by our relatives. We know we can't keep everything but deciding is difficult.



It's understandable that the pictures and clothing and letters would bring out our deepest emotions, but sometimes grief springs from the oddest places. After a day of cleaning out the hard stuff, we decided to go through my dad's food cabinets, boxing cans for the Food Bank. And in the back of the cabinet, there was this:



It was a grocery bag with eight jars of pimentos, used by my dad to make his famous pimento cheese. He always had a container ready when we came home, extras to send home with my sister and for people who were sick. When he came to visit, bringing oranges and newspaper articles and DVDs of must-see recorded shows, the pimento cheese was always there too, in a Styrofoam cooler.

When my grandmother was ninety-nine years old, she had her pacemaker replaced. And on the day my dad went to the grocery store and bought those eight jars of pimentos, he displayed the same hope for more days of living, more days of sharing his pimento cheese with us. And that, dear friends, is the sort of thing that does me in.

Birthday

Yesterday was my 59th birthday and I try to think that every age is the prime o' life! It might be getting a tad bit harder as I inch toward six decades of living on this planet.

My family believes in birthdays, so my day was filled with chatty conversations with my children and my siblings. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of work done!

Something that I didn't anticipate was how my birthday would trigger a deep sadness about my dad. He always sent a store-bought card with their sentimental messages, signed simply, "Love you, Dad" or "Love, Gandan" (what the kids called him). And he called, one of the first of the day, to sing Happy Birthday to me.

A friend of mine leads grief support groups, and I told her the other day that I was going to start compartmentalizing my sadness. Say, at seven o'clock each night give myself permission to think about my dad in an effort to organize my grief. "Let me know how that works for you," she said, without a hint of sarcasm or judgement. But she must have known that grief can't be corralled, and that it will hit me when I least expect it. Like my birthday.

I had asked my daughter who makes books to make a cover that I could use for my essay notebooks. I take notes about others' writing in our writing class, so buy these little gems by the dozen when they're twenty-five cents at Target.



She went above and beyond my expectations. This is the cover that she made:



Isn't it gorgeous? I'm trying to think of other ways to use those black notebooks so I can show the cover off.

She also made two others. The first is cloth (her favorite) and the other is leather and suede. Maybe at my next writing workshop I'll take all three, show off a little.


It was a good day, all in all, and even grief has a place alongside our happiness, as I said in the last post. And I have a whole year, full of promise, waiting for me. I'll start right in on it today.

I'll Take "Happy" for $1000, Alex

Last year (but not too long ago), I read this post on DailyOm about analyzing our happiness. In part the post says:

"Those of us on the path of personal and spiritual growth have a tendency to analyze our unhappiness in order to find the causes and make improvements. But it is just as important, if not more so, to analyze our happiness.

"Recognition is the first step in creating change, therefore recognizing what it feels like to be happy is the first step toward sustaining happiness in our lives. We can examine how joy feels in our bodies and what thoughts run through our minds in times of bliss. Without diminishing its power, we can retrace our steps to discover what may have put us in this frame of mind, and then we can take note of the choices we've made while there."

After reading this, I wondered, "Do we need to analyze our unhappiness at all? Why not just concentrate on all the things that make us feel good and leave it at that?"

So I took the question to my blogger therapist friends.

First Joseph Burgo, PhD:

"I agree that it's important to take a look at our own happiness and what triggers it; I especially agreed with the point made about choices." He goes on to say, "I encourage a kind of neutrality in that way -- what you feel is what you feel, and all of your feelings have value and meaning. I think striving to have certain feelings is what leads to wordy thinking where we try to talk ourselves into those feelings; it also promotes a dishonest relationship with yourself because you've decided in advance that some emotions have more value than others."

Then I posed the same question to Virginia S. Wood, Psy D. Here's what she said:

"We always ask, from the very first session, what the person has tried in the past and how that's worked for them. And whenever a person reports the slightest, most fleeting improvement, we want to know, 'What happened?' And we take that tiny spark and help them fan it into flame." She adds later in the email with regard to a specific patient, "We analyzed her happiness, even though at the moment she was quite low on the misery-happiness scale, relatively speaking, and learned something new that she could not only amplify in the moment but can also use later." And, "Unfortunately, I would have to say that the majority of psychotherapists, as in mainstream medicine, focus on fixing what's wrong. But there's a sizable minority of us out there who see whole persons, and focus on their strengths as well as their troubles."

I have reached my own conclusions from my "investigation":

1. All of my emotions have equal weight. To cry is as important as to laugh.
2. It is helpful to examine our happiness and try to re-create it.
3. I shouldn't over-think when it comes to my emotions.
4. My happiness and unhappiness come together to make me a complete person.

I know that sometimes I get what I would call "a good feeling". When that happens, I take a moment to think about what is making me feel positive. Usually it's something I've written or a photograph I've taken, or maybe something I've done for someone else. Sometimes I get a guilty feeling or "bad feeling" and I think about what caused the negative emotion. It could be something I've said that was inappropriate (I do this way more than I'd like to) or maybe a regret I have. And I know that in both cases, there is a little voice in my head that either directs me to "do it again because I like that feeling" or "don't do it again because I don't want to feel that way."

Thanks to my experts for helping me think about this post. It really gave me pause, seemingly a no-brainer at first, but on closer inspection, not quite so simple.

Looking ahead

The other day, I had a revelation about why my life seems to speed ahead now. I live my life a month at a time, sometimes a quarter of a year at a time.

I had my calendar out trying to make plans for a writing workshop I've scheduled in February, set up an art class in March, a new gallery opening in April. There was a whole third of the year in my head.

As an accounting person, I have to do this at work too: January 31, February 28, March 15, April 15 and 30th...and so on through the year. I'm planning my job a quarter at a time.

I do this on a monthly basis too. I write down all the definites: writing class, yoga, birthdays, doctors' appointments. Then I look at the blank days and nights and fit in dinner with friends, trips to Greensboro to deal with my dad's estate, R&R weekends at the coast.

The time flies.

We all know how it was when we were young. We lived one day at a time, the anticipatory moments few and far between. Birthdays, vacations, Christmas. They took forever to get here.

So is it that my life is too busy? That I have to schedule too rigidly? That there aren't enough big things to look forward to, just little moments of happiness in the sea of obligations?

The time is precious now - I'm almost 60 years old - and I don't want to waste any of it. I want to think that I'm making good use of my days and weeks; I just wish they went by a little less quickly.

NOTE: The photograph is of one of my daughter's handmade datebooks. An excellent way to keep up with the year. You can find them at Rockpile Bindery

Saying Good-bye

I'm a bit reluctant to say good-bye to 2010. Sure, I'm glad to have the cancer treatments behind me. I'm glad we're not worried about business. And new years equal new opportunities and new possibilities.

But to tell you the truth, I feel sad to say good-bye too, because it feels like a farewell to my dad. Tomorrow his death will be "last year", the final days of his life will have taken place "last year", the time we spent together will have ended "last year".

I looked over my calendar for 2010 as I noted birthdays and anniversaries on 2011's. I remembered the night we went to see Joshua Bell, the day I went to Greensboro to see Porgy and Bess, the workshop that was interrupted by his final trip to the hospital. I saw his birthday noted in red, and thought about going into Harris Teeter, asking for a cake that said, "Happy 88th Birthday, Dad", knowing that he would never see it, or see another birthday for that matter.

I'm going to say it now: "Good-bye, Dad. Last year was tough, and losing you was the hardest part. But I'm going to be facing toward the future now, taking you with me in my heart."

Okay. I'm looking forward to looking back on 2010. All peace and happiness to you in 2011, and may your new days be filled with the love of friends and family.

Rabbit, rabbit.

Um, Not so Happy

Okay, last week I talked a good talk about happiness. But today? Not so happy.

My old cat is waking up at 3 a.m. to go outside - he won't use the litter box for certain of his duties - and he's deaf, so his meow sounds like someone getting beaten. This morning, in addition to wanting to go out at that ungodly hour, he woke us up by heaving on the floor. AND when I got up, I noticed something wet and shiny and realized that one of the cats had also peed. Pee that I had walked through in my boiled wool slippers. That can't be "washed, dried, dry cleaned" but instead should be "wiped with a damp cloth". I don't think cat pee responds to damp cloths.

On a week like this, when I wake up at 3 a.m., the list of things I need to do starts scrolling through my head: buy presents, wrap presents, mail packages, clean up for two gatherings, grocery store, end of year at work, etc etc. Once I'm through with my list, I start on my husband's. It was with those lists in mind that I walked sleepily into the kitchen and began complaining. Now after a while, you'd think my man would get it: I'm over the top with imagined stress, he's trying to eat his oatmeal, why doesn't he just say, "Anything I can do to help?" But no, he has to start in with questions about why I plan all this stuff (Christmas with family? Presents? Grocery shopping and laundry? End of the year at the office? HELLOOOOOOOOOO? I don't plan this time of year; it happens).

Okay. So here I am. Monday morning of a week that will be busy and emotional. A week that others will be stressed out too. A week that we've made into a nightmare. WWMD (what will Mamie do) if I want to achieve happiness? I can remember that it'll all be over this time next week. I can revel in the time with my children and my family. I can think about my dad, remembering the time we went to see South Pacific or the time he sat quietly on my sofa with the old cat on his lap. I can make a list and check things off. I can cut my husband some slack, knowing that in the end he'll help with everything. I can count on my girls to do a few things. I write down my thoughts for you to see. I play a couple of rounds of Bubbletown. I breathe and get to work.

Happy?

Some people might see the flower above and think, "Dying flower." I saw a star for a friend who loves stars. I've been thinking about our ability to create happiness in our lives, and how we view our world seems to have a lot to do with it.

Once I started the thought process, I talked to my friend, Nancy. Do some people just have all the bad luck, I asked, or is it all about perception? I have a couple of friends who can't ever seem to get a break. Are they inviting this into their lives or is it out of their control?

As often happens, when we open the door to an idea, the universe responds. In the past week, these are the things that showed up for me:

1. Daily Peace quote: "Enjoying life - it's a choice and a practice." - June Shiver

2. Daily Peace quote: "In difficult times, you should always carry something beautiful in your mind." - Blaise Pascal

3. Email from a Methodist church in Durham: "...as Christians, we must not let something as fickle and vacillating as our moods and emotions dictate how we live our lives. Scripture speaks of a deep, abiding joy that can sustain us at all times -through tragedy and triumph, success and failure. So no matter what may come our way...Paul exhorts us to 'rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice.'"

4. A friend on Facebook: "I decided to be happy. Forgot how powerful that is."

5. An interview with Barbara Fredrickson in the May 2009 issue of The Sun Magazine entitled, "The Science of Happiness": "There are some bedrock conditions that need to be met. Once they are met, though, even at a very low level, everyone has the same opportunities to experience positive emotions." (Let me note here that, yes, I was reading the issue for the first time. Sometimes I get behind on my magazine reading. Interesting that this was the week I chose to read it.)

Here is what it takes for me to establish and maintain a positive emotional state:

1. A sense of gratitude. Right now, that means that although I have dealt with some pretty significant things in the past six months, I am grateful for where I stand with them at this moment.

2. A sense that everything is temporary. On one of my tomorrows, my sorrow over my dad's death will become manageable. And yesterday, I was dealing with cancer; not today.

3. Something to look forward to. This may be as simple as a story I'm brewing or as large as a trip. It can be an immediate anticipation (my day off) or one that will take a little longer such as retirement.

4. Doing things for other people who are going through difficult times.

5. Creating. Cards, photographs, stories. Relationships, good habits.

6. An ability to be flexible and patient. These are toughies for me, but lack of them contributes to unhappiness in my life.

One of the readings (I couldn't locate it by the time I finally got around to writing this post) suggests that we get up every morning and decide that we are going to embrace the day with the expectation that our day will go well. The holidays will certainly be a good time to put this suggestion to the test. Let me know if you try it and how it works out.

Why Me?

I had my last radiation treatment today. I cheered with the office staff and patients, exuberantly hugged the technicians, and smiled through thirty-seconds of buzzing. I noticed that my funny bone was very closely connected to my tear ducts.

I stayed a little longer after I was finished to visit with a friend I've made, someone also dealing with breast cancer. She's almost through - nine more days - and we decided that we'd like to have a meal together to celebrate when she's finished.

There's a real feeling of "Why me?" about my experience with cancer. Not in the despairing way of why did this happen to me, not feeling the victim at all. But instead an overwhelming sense of gratitude for how easy it has all been. My surgeries went off without a hitch, I've had few side effects from the radiation, and my friends and family and even the people I've met along the journey have been loving and supportive. So why was I so fortunate?

Six months ago, when I found out I had breast cancer and my father was recovering from hip surgery, everything seemed very bleak. And a month later, I was recovering from surgery and my father died, and I didn't know how I would maneuver through the next few months.

But here I am, five months later, looking back on that time, healing emotionally and physically. Amazing.

Last night I dreamed about my dad again. He was with us for Christmas, had actually come back from the grave to be with us. And this morning, my husband called me to the window to see the sunrise: vivid reds and vibrant pinks with the trees silhouetted black against the sky.

What does this day mean to me? It means that when we gather at Christmas, all the members of my family, my father will be with us in spirit. It means that a new day has dawned for me, and I have a responsibility to take my fortune seriously and move on with my life. It means that no matter how slowly time passes, it still marches on, and eventually we get to the end of the things that we worried about and from there they don't look half so scary as they did in the beginning.

So why me? Maybe so I could come to this night, thankful for endings, anticipating new beginnings, and begin to look at scars instead of wounds.

Thanksgiving Weekend

As I said on Facebook: "This was the oddest Thanksgiving I've ever spent. I liked it. And I didn't."

My children don't come home for Thanksgiving because they'll be here for Christmas in a few weeks and it's such a terrible weekend for traveling. Usually we go to Greensboro to be with my dad. We've done this almost every year since we quit going to my grandparents' house in Carolina Beach. There's lots of food and family.

But this year, our tether has been severed, and my dad isn't around to host us. So with my kids away and my dad gone, we decided to do something totally off the wall. We took the boat to Georgetown, South Carolina.

It took us all day on Thursday to get there. Most of the leaves had fallen but there was color here and there among the brown trunks and the evergreens.



We pulled into a little creek off the waterway for lunch. It was beautiful and peaceful. The weather was warm and we enjoyed the sun and sustenance.



Thursday night we ate turkey, collard greens, and the last of our garden squash. It felt so strange, thinking about this day being one that we usually spend with so many people. I got a little melancholy, so we decided to watch a few episodes of Season 1 of the Showtime show, "Weeds". I'm hooked, and it did take my mind off the sadness. Friday we rode our bikes into Georgetown, had lunch, window shopped, and browsed the wonderful indy bookstore. As we headed back to the boat it started raining. Rainy afternoons are great for napping, so we read and slept.



Saturday morning we started the seven-hour trek back to Southport. The seagulls saw us off.



It was another warm, beautiful day. I took lots and lots of photographs, including some amazing water reflections. The waterway is so scenic. And of course, there were lots of reminders of my dad.



I had such mixed feelings about this weekend. But I couldn't have asked for more in the way of a beautiful distraction. For that I am grateful.

Milestones

Note: I realized after posting this that TOMORROW is the anniversary. I've been thinking all day that this was November 19. :)

Five years ago today I made a move that changed my life: I quit drinking. And four years ago today I gave up cigarettes. This blog has been part of the journey too, putting my thoughts and challenges out there for people to see and comment on.

I remember so clearly the day I quit drinking. I had had a particularly humiliating night the day before. When I woke up, I said, "Today's the day you give up the booze." I wanted to be farther down the road - years even - from that day, and here I am.

I planned that day to give myself one year, then give up cigarettes. And again, on the day I quit, I remember thinking, "Wish I had some time in my pocket so I could feel confident that this is for good." Again, here I am.

These two events have helped me so much as I deal with the radiation treatments. At the beginning, when thirty-two sessions under the evil rays loomed large, I reminded myself of the other times I wanted to be farther along. Today I'm two-thirds finished.

Some people make changes at the new year, but for me this day has proven lucky twice. It is my great-aunt's birthday so I can always remember it even though she has been dead for many years. Last year I thought I might be able to give up sugar, might have even vowed it again later, but today, sitting here at the computer, I ate a whole roll of Menthos!! Maybe next year I'll give up the sugar, hmmm? Today I'll celebrate how much farther along I am.

Oh Yeah

Last week I was cracking myself up. This week, it's the gods who are laughing.

Thursday the tiredness hit me. I feel like the floor is one end of a magnet and my body is the other.

It started on Thursday afternoon. When my husband got home from work, I was sulky and irritable. His way of dealing with that is to quietly walk away from the aura of the bad mood. Unfortunately for him, that was the wrong move. I started fussing and fuming and at one point he had retreated to the downstairs room and I was at the top of the steps yelling at him. Then I started crying. And I cried for about thirty minutes as hard as I've ever cried. I cried about the cancer, about my dad, about the tiredness and fear of what the next few weeks will bring. I'm sure I threw in a couple of other things while I was feeling...well, feeling.

The rest of the weekend, I tried to take it easy. This is not my style; I like to be busy. I finished the 400-page novel on Vietnam, Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes. I alternated between reading and staring at the beautiful colors of the trees outside my den window. I went to bed fairly early. I asked a few more than normal favors of my husband, and I let go of the expectation that he would get them all done. Or that it mattered that he got them all done.

So. I got ready to be tired, and here I am. Now I'm going to have to get used to letting go of a few things, and take care of myself. The countdown is still on: fifteen more treatments. I can do it.

Getting Ready

My oncologist, the nurses, the techs, and several friends have told me that I'm going to get tired as I have more and more radiation treatments. Well, folks, I have to tell you: I'm going to wear myself out getting ready to be tired!

I love a crisis that you have to get ready for. I've talked about it before. Here's what I've done so far:

1. Cleaned out the refrigerator, freezer and food cabinets. Re-stocked them with easy-to-fix foods like soups and frozen meals. Unfortunately, we have nothing to eat because I keep saying, "Don't eat that; I may need it when I get tired."

2. Written or revised at least seven stories for my writing class. Since I read at the most every three weeks, this will last me twenty-one weeks, or until sometime the middle of 2011.

3. Gotten everything ready in my workroom in case all I feel like doing is sitting around writing and making cards. I've also made about fifty cards in case I'm too tired to make cards. And you already know about the writing.

4. At work, I've almost finished closing out the year 2010 and getting ready for my insurance audits (which happen in February). All I have to do is set up the 2011 files. At this rate, I can go on a restful vacation in January, traditionally the busiest time of year for me.

5. Cleaned out my closet. Again.

6. Stocked up on books and movies. I can't read or watch any of them right now in case I need to do that when I'm tired.

As you might imagine, all that getting ready is making me very tired. But I can rest as much as I want now. And rest is good if you're thinking about being tired.

Veterans Day

I'm sure you've seen the statistics--increased suicides, domestic violence, child abuse--among our returning veterans. Then there's traumatic injury, higher survival rates due to advances in medicine, PTSD.

I took this picture at a Veterans Day parade in New York several years ago. The man was a Vietnam War vet. I'm reading the book Matterhorn by Carl Marlantes, a very realistic and graphic look at that war. And no matter how you look at it, war is an ugly, inhumane business. A huge, complicated business venture.

There are women in wars now too, but I want to look for a minute at the indoctrination that happens mostly to our male children. We give them video games at young ages where they shoot, kill, and maim imaginary characters. They play these games competitively with their peers, cheering at every death. They play at home, they play in stores while they wait for their parents to shop, they play on their phones and their televisions. Death has no meaning.

Then some of the join the military. We beat them down and wear them out, give them guns and send them to war. And when they come back? What do we do for them once they've realized that killing people isn't all that much fun?

I believe that if we're going to continue on this insane warrior path we've been walking as long as man has existed, then we'd better come up with a way to deal with our soldiers when they come back from doing the job we asked them to do. Only a handful of them will voluntarily seek mental health care--it's not the warrior way--but I believe that the government should require and pay for a minimum of two years of mental health care for every returning military person. We've brought them home from a brutal arena, thrown them and their families into the worst economic situation since the Great Depression, then we read the papers and watch the news and wonder why these guys are harming themselves and their families.

I've written a couple of Congressmen about sponsoring a bill to make this as available as the GI Bill was to our WWII and Vietnam vets. We owe these men and women something. And their sanity is the least of it.

Show and Tell

One time my sister wearily told me, "You're always wanting to show me things."

I've realized lately how much of that showing I did with my dad. Articles, pictures, anecdotes about the family. I wanted to share it with him. And I can't tell you how many times in the past four months I've resignedly said, "There's no one to show that to," because my dad isn't around.

We saw the ship in the photograph this weekend on the water. He would have loved seeing it. He served in the Navy in WWII on the USS Anzio. He was interested in so many things--sports, the arts, people, religion, wars, politics, family history--just about anything you could think of to talk about he would participate in the discussion. I swear he had a photographic memory because he remembered everything. And he knew a lot about a lot.

These are my saddest moments lately, realizing that the person who consistently wanted to look at my life and hear about what I was doing is gone. He cared about when I left on a trip and when I got back. He wanted to hear the details. He always asked how my children were doing. He could fill me in on what others in the family were doing because he was keeping up with them too.

He, and he alone, never got tired of seeing my literal and figurative stuff.

PS A perfect example of what he would have loved to hear is something that happened to my sister recently: Twenty people out of 6000 were randomly chosen to get tickets to the final shuttle launch. She was one of them. "VICKI!" he would have said, in awe of her good fortune.