Reincarnations

The sun was just beginning to set and it cut bright almost blinding ribbons of light across the lake. In the distance, there were sailboats, their sails pure white against the blue water. From almost anywhere in the house I could look out and almost imagine I could see the ocean. If I lived here, my friend Tricia said, I'd never get anything done. I felt exactly the same way.

Inside, we were sorting through and packaging up the remains of a life. Books, dishes, table linens, china, knicknacks, furniture, lamps, Christmas decorations ... in another week, they would all be neatly wrapped, arranged and priced and set out for sale. Possessions of one life would pass on to others, perhaps to fill a need, perhaps because they fit someone else's collection ...jewelry, glassware, candles, a fur coat .....they would go on being useful for someone else. I imagined their former owner would be pleased. Even the grand house on the lake would go to someone else, though in this case it would stay in the family and perhaps re-adapt itself.

Garden tools, planters, napkin rings, paintings, pillows, toys ....all would find their way to other homes. Tricia makes her living at estate sales and I like how she does it. She recycles possessions and preserves memories. Nothing is too small or to large to live another day.

A Change in Vision

The aftercare counselor held up a magazine and said What do you see? I said a Queen's Guard at the same time my husband said Jack Daniels. The counselor smiled and said And you're both looking at the same picture. Aftercare counselors can be such wise asses but he'd made his point about how we all the see the same world so differently and therefore react to it in such different ways.

I try to keep this in mind as I go through my days but it's tricky since my natural reflex seems to be to expect everyone to see things as I do. Horseracing, Nana would say, would be a damned pitiful sport if we all thought the same. Sometimes the simplest concepts are the easiest to forget.

Nana wasn't much for frills.She never went a day without stockings and her corset. She and her sensible shoes descended the stairs each morning, dressed and made up, tied on her ever present apron and went straight to work. To do otherwise would've been an insult to the work ethic. She made breakfast - dry toast, orange juice, coffee - then washed the dishes. She swept, mopped, dusted, did laundry, scrubbed the bathrooms, changed the linens and baked. She had her hair done and a manicure once a week, she answered mail and watched an occasional soap opera at lunch. Your problem, Jan, she would say to my mother, is that you're not useful. Usefullness was a cardinal virtue to my grandmother and idleness a serious lapse if not a potential sin. God dislkes idle hands but He despises an idle mind was one of her favorite sayings. My mother and grandmother did not get along well. Although they spent considerable time together as adults, they saw the world very differently. Play the hand you're dealt, Jan, Nana advised her, stop wishing for different cards. My mother was rarely out of her nightclothes until noon, she bathed every other day or less, and after one or two visits to our house, Nana put her foot down and came no more. She couldn't abide the lack of housecleaning.

I didn't know it at the time, but each summer when we were in Nova Scotia, my daddy cleaned house from top to bottom, a solid year's worth of grime and dirt was attacked and removed. But he was very careful about the process because if my mother had discovered these goings on, there'd have been hell to pay. He needn't have worried - she never noticed. She cleaned with a lick and a promise, a practice my grandmother found despicable. I raised you better than this! she would snap at my mother, look at this floor! My mother would snap right back about not living a privileged life and there they would stay, two hard women, spitting venom and worn out with each other. It might've been comical if it hadn't been so unrelentingly sad.

Nobody gets along with everybody all the time but it seems to me that we can stay at odds with the world or make peace with it, depending on how we see it.

Simple Gifts

Driving along the interstate the night sky is suddenly alive with neon lights and fireworks - you can hear the roar of the roller coasters and see a ferris wheel spinning. As you pass by, there's music and laughter and the unmistakable sounds of machinery and screaming crowds. The State Fair is in town again.

The fair has changed over the years. The vendors are a little tackier, the parking more expensive, and the crowds are more gangs than families, but you can can still get your fill of hot dogs and cotton candy and caramel apples. It makes my teeth hurt just to think about it.

In Nova Scotia, we had an annual Sunday School picnic and everything was hand made. Box lunches, three legged races, a softball game. Everyone came and brought all their children, blankets and quilts were spread on the ground,
there was dancing and dominoes and pie eating contests. We all stayed until the sun went down and then while the little ones slept, there would be a singalong - a hundred or so voices carried on the air and across the water, songs like ....if I could erase the lines from his face, and bring back the gold to his hair .. sweet old songs for simple times and uncomplicated people leading quiet lives...if God would but grant me the power to turn back the pages of time....
for that silver haired daddy of mine....

Pulling Weeds

I have always taken very particular care of my grudges.

Like needful plants, I was careful to keep them watered and fed, provided them with lots of sunshine and fresh air and nutrients. I watched over them, nurtured them, checked them on a regular basis. I was a caregiver to hurt feelings and with my help, they blossomed, grew new leaves, and demanded more and more of my attention. Eventually,
they outgrew and overtook everything else in the garden. High maintenance plants became low maintenance weeds and weeds need no special attention to multiply and spread - they develop a life of their own.

This kind of gardening is hard on the soul. Weeds want it all and will choke out anything else that tries to grow. Give a weed an inch, and it will take an acre. When I began the long process of pulling weeds, I discovered just how strong and determined they are, how deep their roots go, how tangled and intertwined with each other they become.
They have a network. They're organized. They take no prisoners and will fight to the last leaf. Weeds eat their dead.

Be patient. Be prepared. Be committed. Wear gloves.

Seasons, Reasons, Lifetimes

Halloween is just around the corner. The churches have put up pumpkin patches for the children to play in and be photographed in, dark of evening arrives by late afternoon, and I reach for a jacket on my way out the door. Frost on the grass crunches underfoot in the morning and at night windows are lit with wickedly grinning jack'o'lanterns. It's a time for Indian corn to be hung on front doors, a time for harvesting and planning for the winter, a time for preparation. For me, it's always been a time to reflect on the closed doors in my life and it seemed appropriate to me that a dear friend sent me the following and I opened it just as it turned full dark.


People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.


Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.


LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

Gravity

There's just no getting around it - fall makes me think about dying and dying makes me think about what's on the other side.

I don't believe in the heaven and hell I was taught in Sunday School, I don't take the Bible literally,
I don't imagine God as Charlton Heston (at least not anymore) but I do spend a fair amount of time wondering about what happens after. I think spirituality is a custom fit, different for everyone, and part of mine is that I can't imagine not being here. When I was a child, I would sometimes look at the sky and the stars and try to understand that we were on a planet and that I wasn't just looking at a pretty ceiling. The concept was and still is beyond my grasp. Like electricity or infinity or wireless connections, I just don't understand how it all works. I can't make sense of the idea that if not for gravity, we would all fall off. Galaxies and such things are the products of creative minds and Star Trek episodes and sometimes I think it's all nothing but science fiction.

Still, death seeks and finds us all. Maybe it will be Brad Pitt in a tuxedo, maybe a hooded, faceless figure with a scythe, maybe a simple tunnel of light to guide us or even a stairway to the sky in the company of angels and friends. Or possibly nothing, just like extinguishing a candle. However it comes, I hope I will be strong enough, healthy enough, and independent enough to want to resist. If not, I hope everyone will remember how I feel about being kept alive by any artificial means and not make me save up sleeping pills. There is no dignity in dying old, sick and alone and I do not want to have to invite death in.

The mystery remains. Whatever we believe - what is or isn't on the other side, whether there even is an other side - we can't know. We aren't meant to know. So until the phone rings and it's Mary Baker Eddy letting us know, the best we can do is trust and try to be unafraid.

Autumn

Fall was in the air but has left for more friendly places.

In other parts of the country, leaves have begun to turn and at early evening the smell of bonfires is on the air. The sun sets and is replaced by cool night air. Frost is likely on the pumpkins somewhere and snow may even be falling in the far north. Here in the south, temperatures still climb into the 90's every day.

Life is made up of trade offs and some are geographical. Soon, friends in New England and Nova Scotia will be watching the weather here and moaning in envy. But come next summer when they are enjoying perfect summer days, we will be in day to day scorching heat and humidity and envying them. Though we may tend not to realize it during the different seasons, it all evens out.

The changing seasons are much more than just climate to me. They represent a timeline of living, a reminder that our lives have limits and that each will end one day. More important, they remind me that it's all part of a natural process, one season ends to make room for the next. Though we may not know what the transition is to or what comes next, I have to believe that we've nothing to fear and that the good we do in life will outweigh the bad.

But for today, we burn leaves, shovel snow, or turn up the air conditioning. Whatever waits for us,
will wait another day. Each season in it's own time, each life in it's own season.

Wind, Rain & Other Elements

The rain began last night, falling softly at first then as the wind whipped up, falling harder through the trees and eventually turning into a steady downpour. Safe and warm inside, I listened to the branches scraping the roof and bending toward the ground, thunder rumbled in the distance and the small brown dog crawled up into my lap, trembling slightly, big dark eyes seeking reassurance from the storm. The new kitten joined her and they cuddled up together next to me, nose to nose and soon asleep, all conflicts forgotten for the moment.

The rain is a force for renewal and growth. It washes away the dust and dirt, it turns brown back to green, it cleans the air and sometimes leaves a rainbow. It also floods the streets, makes driving miserable, and can inflict damage on unsuspecting homes.

My search for the forces in life that are not double edged swords is ongoing.

20 Degrees of Difference

Butterbean looked at me, looked outside, and slowly eased herself away from the open back door. She sat down and cocked her head at me with a bewildered expression. It was 56 degrees and the day before it had been 82. She was unprepared and unwilling to cross the threshold that led to the outside world. The feeling was mutual but as a dog, she has no Plan B, so I tucked her under my arm and carried her out to the yard. The second I put her on the ground, she began to shiver and whimper and look at me with pleading, desperate eyes.

I stood firm. I refused to make eye contact or sympathize or be manipulated. I would not be moved. After several minutes, she tried a tentative step or two in my direction. I turned my back and pretended to study the clouds. Eventually, I was able to say "Good Girl!" and watch her sprint for the back door like her tail was on fire.

I've noticed some things about habits and change. The cats are immediately on guard if anything is moved - they become suspicious and have to re-adapt. Both dogs are fearful of a new piece of furniture. And I still reach for my toothbrush and other things in places where I haven't kept them for months. Established habits are very hard to break.

For me, moods and mental states are like habits. If I decide in advance that something's hopeless, it becomes so and I give up. If I decide in advance that anything is possible, then I'm willing to keep trying and I stay optimistic. Every day is an opportunity to choose a black cloud or sunshine.

Stagefright

"Your teeth," my dentist tells me with a shake of his head and a distressed expression, " are supposed to last a lifetime."

"That," I say as I always do when he tells me this, "was when people only lived to be 35."

He sighs, reaches for an instrument, a syringe, and the nitrous.

I am a great trial to him, always have been. He works amazingly hard to save my teeth and though my intentions are always the best, I never live up to them. I am also more than a trifle phobic about dentist visits and he's worked with me for years to overcome this fear - his success has been limited and a less caring man would've written me off years ago -

Dental hygiene was something less of a priority when I was growing up and the first time I saw a dentist, I was twelve. His office was on the 6th floor of a building just outside Central Square in Cambridge and the chair faced the street. Through the blinds I could read the lettering of the businesses across the street. The one I remember because it was on the 6th floor and directly in my line of sight was a ballet school. My mother left me in the dusty waiting room - I could hear the sounds of drilling and other noises that I didn't recognize and the whole place reeked of antiseptic.

Dr. Fishman was a fairly large man with white hair, black framed glasses, a stained labcoat and Parkinson's. When he spoke his voice was overloud and threatening and he smelled of the same nasty antiseptic as the waiting room. I began to be afraid, of what I wasn't sure, but I could feel fear beginning to churn in my belly like stagefright. Nicotine stained hands with too long nails began poking and prodding inside my mouth with sharply pointed, wicked looking instruments. I drew in a breath and the air hit my teeth like a hammer, sending pain flaring into my jaws. I jumped in surprise and agony and tried to close my mouth in protest and he snapped at me to "Grow up! Behave!" I started to struggle and he leaned in closer and pressed one arm against my throat until I gagged. "Think of something else!" he growled at me and all I could think of was dying. "Breathe! he ordered and took his arm away. He picked up a syringe and I thought she's left me with a monster and he's going to kill me.

The local punctured my gums and I could suddenly taste salt and blood together and then something vile and metallic. I couldn't breathe and couldn't hear for the roaring in my ears. When I opened my eyes, the old man was looking at me with a satisfied smirk. My heart was pounding impossibly loud and way too fast and with a sick, defeated feeling, I realized there was nowhere to go. When I refused to open my mouth again, he grabbed my jaws and pressed and the pressure woke up the sleeping pain in my back teeth. He reached for a drill and with badly shaking hands he came at me. There was a lot of blood which he ordered me to "Spit!" and each puff of air brought a wave of fresh and raging pain. At some point, little points of light danced in front of my eyes and I thought maybe I would lose consciousness and wake up when it was over but then those shaking hands would miss their target and pierce my gums or my cheek.

After twelve years of neglect, the nightmare had only just begun. I begged, pleaded, cried not to be taken back but I wasn't believed. "He's a good enough dentist for me," my mother said acidly, "and he's good enough for you." She would haul me into the waiting room and then leave. Like Pavlov's dog, it wasn't long before I associated every sound and smell of that office with torture. I carried all that terror into adulthood and even when I discovered dentists that were kind, gentle, patient and understanding, the moment I stepped into their offices, old reflexes kicked in.

My current dentist, though I suspect he despairs of me, refuses to give up. He worries, he cares, he has a gentle soul and an even gentler nature. He was made to help people just like me. If current kindnesses could cure past horrors we'd all be so much better off.

The Ice Storm

The ice storm was predicted but there was really no way to prepare for it.

That morning, there was no power anywhere. Tree limbs were intertwined with power lines and they lay across streets, over cars and houses, draped over lawns and driveways. The sun was shining so bright it was almost painful and everywhere we looked, everything was encased in ice. It was bitter cold and treacherous. Familiar landscapes had been turned into wastelands of ice and the weight had brought down trees, fences, billboards, telephone poles and street signs. I had managed to get the cats to the vet's where the kennels were powered by generators but Josh and I had yet to find shelter. I packed sweatshirts, jeans, and essentials as quickly as I could, turned everything off and made my way to the car, feeling as if I were jumping ship. The first four or five motels had no vacancies and the next few wouldn't take dogs and it was beginning to look grim before I finally found a room at La Quinta. They had heat, water, lights and they took us both in.

For the next couple of weeks, a hotel room was to be home. I went to work in jeans and with Josh and was more fortunate than many. The entire city had been victimized by a force of nature and recovery took months. The cold did not diminish for days and so the ice was sustained - it was magnificent and horrific and destructive all at the same time. Blizzards had been common enough in New England but they'd been childs play next to the destruction and damage this storm inflicted on our small southern city. For many, the wounds were deep and would take a long time healing.

During the aftermath of Katrina, as thousands of evacuees flooded our city, I was to think about the ice storm and it's effects frequently. New Orleans was a grand old city with a one of kind culture and nature had simply waved her hand and it was gone.

Still, inexpicable tradgedy and random destruction cannot match human endurance and resiliancy. We come back time and time again - we fall and get up time and time again - we dig in and dig out.
It's our nature and though we are not as powerful as Mother Nature, we are a force to be reckoned with. The human spirit may be forced to give ground but not without a fight - we don't seem to know when we're licked and we turn our backs on giving up, even when surrender would be a wiser choice. Nature's lessons can teach us much about choosing our battles.

The Hay Wagon

His name was Johnny. He was tall and a little on the thin side with a shock of dark red, wavy hair and brown eyes. He had a chiseled type of face with high cheekbones and a come-and-get-it grin. He was the oldest boy in a family of nine, a third generation fisherman and the only one to complete grade 12. After a summer of serious dating, he joined a crew of islanders who were going north to pick apples and we were able to continue to see each other all through the fall. My family loved him as did I.

Apple picking season ended in October and he made plans to return to the island. One autumn afternoon, a dozen roses were delivered to me with a simple card that read "Marry me." I was 18 and he had just turned 20 - we were young, we were in love, on fire with passion and blinded by the moment - we saw no obstacles we couldn't overcome, no objections we couldn't wear down, no real problem that we couldn't solve together. We imagined a small house overlooking the ocean, a veranda with rocking chairs, kids and dogs playing in the yard and a vegetable garden out back. We imagined a dream made of endless summer nights and sleepy mornings. Love conquers all.

He's dirt poor, my grandmother allowed, you'll be barefoot and dirt poor the rest of your life.
Are you crazy? my mother snarled, marry him before he changes his mind! How many offers do you think you're going to get?
Think it through, my daddy said mildly.

In the end, it was snow that did us in. He couldn't imagine living anywhere except where he'd been born and raised and I couldn't imagine surviving a lifetime of Canadian winters. It was a sad, sweet
goodbye.

I saw him again almost 20 years later. He'd married an island girl and had raised four daughters on a house overlooking the ocean with a vegetable garden in the back. He'd barely changed. We walked along the old road on a warm summer afternoon, taking our time and talking of the past. At the breakwater where he'd first kissed me all those years ago, we stopped and watched the sun go down. The ocean was calm and the clouds were streaked with red and pink and gold. The boats were coming in for the night - their slow moving silhouettes were outlined against the sky and we could hear the shouts of the fishermen as they hauled in their nets. For a few moments it seemed as if the past could be brought back, as if we could travel backwards in time. Who will it harm, he asked softly and I was about to say No one at all when the hay wagon rounded the corner with a clatter of horses hooves and rickety wheels rumbling. Uncle Shad - wearing a top hat and a brightly colored woolen scarf - was driving the team, trying to avoid the ruts and keep his seat at the same time. Willie Foote was lying flat on his back atop the hay bales, a crowbar in one hand and a Union Jack flag in the other. Uncle Shad tipped his hat to us and nearly lost the reins and the seductive spell of lost love dissolved into laughter as the unlikley pair passed.

We walked back hand in hand, leaving the breakwater, the magic spell, the nostalgia and the temptation behind. Just two old friends walking down a dirt road, bound by what might have been and separated by what was.

Divided Selves

When I knew how to do it, the word "multi tasking" hadn't been invented. It just meant that you could do more than one thing at a time without forgetting your name or losing your place - or that if you were interrupted mid task, you could actually remember what you'd been doing and not forget to finish it. It's a skill I badly miss.

I now work at a modeling agency. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 potential models are signed up to attend a twice yearly competition. They are first divided by competition ( summer or winter ) then summer and winter are divided by cities. Cities are divided by class schedules, class schedules are divided by payment plans ( up to 4 are available ) and payment plans are divided by method of payment. Models are divided by age, gender and category ( print, commercial or fashion ). Scripts are divided by category ( drama or comedy ) and drama and comedy are each divided by age and gender. All this division has got me to envying the simplicity of schizophrenia.

Like it or not, to a certain extent we are all defined by what we do. When a customer at my last job described me as a "fixture" - meaning that she couldn't imagine my not being there - I was flattered as well as a little taken aback. We are more than what we do.

At a recent and high class fundraiser, I saw a great many people that I had waited on for the last ten years. A great many were all smiles and hugs but an even number looked right through me - I suppose because I wasn't in place behind the counter. It's ocurred to me on numerous occasions that there's a difference between serving someone and being a servant to them, a distinction many overlook. We are more than where we may be.

During my first marriage, I hid behind my new name. It was a time of great insecurity and change and my fight or flight reflex was constantly being triggered. In no time, my identity became so and so's wife and it was a very long time before I decided to be my own person. We are more than who we marry.

We are more than where we come from, more than what we do, more than what people see. We are more than our expectations or ambitions or flaws or mistakes. We are much more than our packaging. We are who we are.