Face painting at the Carnival

So with all my ranting and raving about all those greeting cards that the original Inez Schanker saved and my reluctance to throw them away even though they had very little connection to me, I came upon my own stash of old greeting cards, letters, play programs, and notes. Ummm. I am guilty as charged. A saver!

It is or rather was all in a box labeled “suzanne’s memories.” And they are just that. I had packed that box so well. Much from high school and college years, some that was stuffed in to fill the box, I suppose, and much later. Get well cards from my appendectomy and subsequent infection when I was 15, graduations from every level of education, christmas cards from high school and beyond. And like I’ve done before, I sorted, putting items in the yearly folders. And because I just fretted over Inez’s collection, I am determined to discard what will mean little to my girls and their girls and their girls. The remembrance is sweet. I saved half a dozen cards from Inez’s collection. I should do the same of my own.

I used one the Inez’ old cards for Julia’s Valentine from me. She loved the little skunks who wanted to cuddle. I gave her some soap in the shape of a dragon that could be a dinosaur. She is washing herself in the shower regularly and pretty soap is good incentive. After her shower last night, Julia asked if we could skip the medication and she could just put on her pjs. I let her do that. One night without medication is no big deal and she doesn’t seem to be scratching at night so going out the itch meds is also okay. I have been keeping her body so close, been taking such care. It is nice to see her want to take herself back. I have to be grateful that Julia trusted me enough to have me medicate daily all over her body. She has had no privacy for months now. During the last week or so, I’ve been allowing her to stay in one room while I go to another. And for about a month, she has been going to the bathroom alone. She still has about 20 active sores on her body. Each one is so persistent going through a dormant phase and then exploding/blooming into an itchy, bloody-looking mess. I am not sure but two new bumps have come out. What I am not sure about is whether the new bumps will be active sores, or perchance, they are merely skin irritations. Even the sores that are healing itch at times and there are probably about 10 to 15 more than the active 20. There is progress but it is so damned slow.

Julia and one of her therapists made me a candy tree with little snickers pinned all over a ball. Such a nice thought, but I am not sure how to avoid the snickers! Julia wished me a happy valentine’s day a few times during the day.

And Cheshire sent tulips to me and the beautiful dinosaur. They arrived later in the day and she was anxious enough to ask me in the afternoon whether anything arrived. The were boxed and took overnight to look happy in water. Red and white tulips from my dear girl. My dear girl who is looking for a new apartment, one to share with Chris, her boyfriend. It is a step for them, and of course, there is so much it reminds me of. Finding an apartment in New York is still no easy task.

The final box of the day was one marked “Cheshire” and what I expected to be odds and ends from her bedroom turned out to be a pile of very early art work -- streaks and hand prints, two squares and a triangle glued to a piece of construction paper. These were from Cheshire’s first four years in New York. I am sure when we moved it to Bloomington, I had some intention of going through it but apart from this box moving from NYC to Bloomington to Indy to Madison, not much has been done. I handled each piece of kid art, so much of it so inconsequential. There is a first face and some dates put on pages that I must have thought important. There are first scribbles and first words. I remember the charming child. The sprite of a girl who stood at the top of a staircase in Brooklyn and waved to her Daddy and said “Ci vediamo dopo,” see you later, and popping the final “p” and laughing with hands over her mouth.

I don’t remember ever being as nostalgic as I am these days. Everything and every time seems so precious. I know. It is expected. The timing, the exercise, the resolve. I seem to instinctively hold on to each and every piece of the life that I have lived, hold is very close, and then let it move away. I have not lived in the past before this, and I do not mean that I am living there right now, but I am remembering all the was sweet and kind in my life. Seeing the proof, and I have never really doubted it, that my happy life came not from my family of origin, but from the family I made, the friends I pulled close enough to become family. People have said that there were things they would have liked to tell their younger selves. Certainly, if I could speak to my child self, I would tell her that so many lovely things were coming and to hold on and dream, just like she/I was doing. And during the painful transition years of early adulthood, I would tell myself to be kinder, love more deeply and truer. And of course, there would be lots of career advice although I sincerely doubt whether my younger self would have accepted any of it. But what could I say, I would have nothing to say to the self who cared and is caring for my girls. Maybe more patience, always more patience.

Written 14 February 2012

There are mornings when I can’t wait for Julia to step on that bus so that I can sit and write. Oh, how glorious is that? This is one of those days. Snow is falling, quieting my world and looking for all the world just like I imagined this winter sort and clean out would look from my dining room windows. I have been dealing with two types of things, sheet music and the old greeting cards that my in-laws sent to one another in the 1940’s and early 50’s. Both are just loaded with sentimental, nostalgic feelings, and it has been hard to rip them out of my tight fists. But why save?

The music, two full boxes of it, David’s music for his base and drums and some original compositions of his. Many violin, trumpet, and band books and sheet music from Cheshire. My contribution to those boxes was musical scores, band sheet music, choir music, and piano cheat books (that I used when I was singing with strangers, not that I ever played.). As I went through those boxes, I wanted to save everything to remember it all, but I do remember it, admittedly not as clearly as when I see the music. Still, it is from a time gone by. I have not looked at any of it for more than five years, and someone can use at least some of the material. So, it goes to a friend of a friend, a young many who is a music teacher by day and a drag queen by night. Oh, I love that! I am sure he will not value all of it. He may throw lots of it away, but maybe he will save the score to South Pacific and sing “Some Enchanted Evening” or give the Susuki violin books to a little boy who is just starting violin. And then our love of music, our experience of music, and how it enriched so many corners of our lives will live on in places and people that I will never know.

The cards are from a scrap book that David’s mother kept. She seemed to have saved every greeting card that anyone would have sent her or attached to a gift between the time that she was engaged until just after her children were born. I am imagining that there was no time for such time consuming past times once the kids were born. David got the scrap book as part of the boxes that his father was cleaning out of the attic. That was before we moved to Madison. At some time, before Madison, the scrap books’ black pages got damp and blew up like a sponge. The cards were not affected at all but the book took up an entire box. In my very early sorting before David died, it was an easy way to get rid of a box. I took all of the cards off of the pages of the scrap book and threw the book away. One might wonder why I did not throw everything away -- ah, my tight little fists held memories that were not even mine very close. I did not feel it was my place to throw the cards away, they belonged to David. David did nothing with them and so they sat until now.

The cards have no collecting value. My cousin, who is a poster collector, said that many people saved greeting cards from that time and no one collects them. Interesting that Innie was just doing what others of her generation did, and equally interesting that my mother didn’t. So, even though these cards held no sentimental value to me, in fact, I don’t know who signed many, many of the cards, it was still hard to decide to get rid of them. But once I wrote my cousin, the cards were on their way out. With no value to any collector or historical society, I decided that I would offer the cards to Julia’s art teacher and she assured me that she could find plenty of uses. I will save a few for the chron files, a few for Cheshire that she could recycle and use -- they are signed by Inie after all and Inez is her first name -- and a few that I can recycle and use. And then the rest will be gone tomorrow.

I am waiting for Julia at the clinic and since she is not downstairs right now, I think I may be an hour early. So, time for this. There is a People magazine with Demi Moore on the cover. “Life in Danger” it reads with “The real story” underneath, and as one of the bullet points right below that “tortured by insecurities”. Well, I guess if Demi can feel insecure, maybe I shouldn’t feel badly that I’ve been feeling it all day.

To explain: I called my County Case Worker today to catch up -- he hasn’t called in months --, to ask him about transitioning -- Julia’s state intensive autism fund ends this spring --, and to ask him if he wanted to come to a team meeting at the clinic. I caught him up on Julia’s progress and present challenges. He knew nothing about the skin challenge! And he asked me if I had returned to work yet. There was no disapproving tone, no tone at all, it was just a question, probably a friendly question. But immediately I did some heavy internalizing. On the spot, and for hours afterwards. Ugh!

Shouldn’t I be working by this time? Should I be working? Is what I am doing important enough not to work? Does everyone expect me to get a job? What aren’t I just getting a job? What should I do? What should I get a job in? Should I renew my attorney’s license? Should I hang out a shingle and defend someone? Why am I not doing that? And what must everyone think of me for not working? Not even wanting to work? Especially at law.

Breathe.

I did.

I’m not going to read why Demi is insecure but she went into treatment. I haven’t gone into treatment. Ok, I got some drugs. Rationally, I believe that what I am doing is important and worth while, but man, that rational mind is on shaky ground.

My mind wanders to what I would be doing if I did not have Julia because one of my big and easy justifications for not working is that I have Julia to take care of. No, that is not the reason for taking this year of fallow, but when I think about the time I put into Julia’s care, including just being home so that she can receive therapy, there is no way I could work full time and meet those demands. No way that I could work at a legal job with the expectation that I could work any hour of the day and night and keep up with Julia.

If I go beyond Julia and think of what I am doing/ have done in the past 6 months -- the renovation, the packing and then putting the house together again, the sorting and cleaning of all our stuff, the writing, the working out, the meditating and the venturing out just beyond myself -- I know that if I was working, all of it would be put aside, on some back burner while I rushed from work to caring for Julia with time for little else. Believing that my complete sanity is worth this time, without being sure of some measurable result, is the leap into empty space that is most perilous. Most fraught with second quessings.

The work goes slowly -- the sorting that I’ve begun again. I am getting rid of the boxes of sheet music to a friend of Mary. I have greeting cards from the 1940’s that the art teacher will take off my hands. I will get all of David’s books in one place and start mailing some out to those who want it. The dining room is filled with piles and files. The look is early chaos and the basement doesn’t look that empty, but I am in the midst of the process. I feel burdened now with the amount of time the process is taking and the amount of stuff I have to sort through, but it is no where near the burden I’d feel if it was all just sitting there. I have to remember that I’ve gone through many, many boxes. Those boxes would be still sitting there. Yes, there is burden now, but no where near what it would have been.

And what would I be doing if I did not have Julia? I ponder this because so much of what I am doing and what I think about doing is intwined with her and her challenges. First, I’d have to go back 6 years and undo my passionate desire for a second child. Then, would I still be in Chicago? I was not working very well there. I don’t know how long I would have lasted if I had not been distracted by Julia’s needs and our impending move to Madison and left of my own accord. But thinking of David’s death as the unchangeable event, I wonder if I would have stayed in Madison? In Chicago? Would I have sold the house immediately? Would I be traveling now and living off a much reduced income? Would I be living with Lisa and Nick? Would I have returned to NYC? Or would I be working double hard trying to make sense of the rest of my life? What would have happened to our stuff if I sold the house? Would it be in some storage unit? Where?

No answers. Just musings. And impossible to even make guesses that we too many variables over too long a time. And how could I live with Julia in my life?

Am I a cliche? Am I asking the expected questions? Is this merely the 12 step program of mourning?

I lost my temper with Julia this morning. She can be exasperating. I am no saint. Getting her to get dressed in the morning on any sort of schedule, before her meds take effect is more than a challenge. As she is able to take back more of the process because her skin needs less of my attention, I struggle to reestablish the queues and support that can get her operating independently. Every piece is a struggle and some mornings I am just not up for the challenge. Today, I was angry.

I spent time on the phone the morning investigating options for next year’s therapy. If I can put Julia on my insurance, the family plan will more than double the current rate that I pay, she can get another year of intensive autism therapy. We all agree with this would be ideal. Now to find the money to make it happen. But now that I think about it, another year of intensive means another year of getting therapy right after school and on weekends and makes full time paid work elusive. Not that I know what I would even look for to do, but unless it could be contained in the school day, it would be impossible. The worry that this causes is not productive in the least. I need to put energy into doing not worrying.

Tomorrow is Valentines Day and I am no one’s valentine. I couldn’t even write that one last year. I have had the thought that I have only myself to please and it makes me think about the daily round that I have. How much do I like a clean kitchen? How much do I value a bed that is made? How much do I want a variety of food to eat? Do I like to wear nice jeans? Is it important to change the ugly living room light? Of course, some of my questions impact Julia and I do try to please her, but so much is what I want. Me. Just me. No parents or partner. Not sad, just curious right now. I almost don’t understand what this means. I know that when I talk about my insecurities, about my reaction to having someone ask me if I have a job, the obviously I am not completely comfortable with pleasing myself. If I was, the question would not stir the caldron of feelings. So I ponder and I wonder.

What in all the world should I be doing living for myself?

Secret Friend Gifts

Julia received a sheet on which her secret friend answered questions of what she liked -- animals, activities, food, etc. Her favorite pet is a paraket and so Julia drew one and then together we framed it.

I wanted to give Julia the opportunity to drew as much as she could on the gift. We made an exploding box which gave her 12 little flaps that she could decorate. The outside box was decorated with the animals that her friend likes.
A toucan.
Another paraket.
A dog.
And a cat.
On the next box, she drew pictures of what her friend liked to do. Horseback riding.

Gymnastics.

Reading.

Swimming.

On the inside box, Julia drew a picture of herself with flowers and ribbons for her friend.
And this is a picture of her friend, who in truth, looking nothing like this picture.

This is the box folded up and wrapped.

Julia also made the wrapping paper for the picture.
Ready to go to school.

It was a challenging day. I was fragile. I was on the brink of tears, of out right crying all day. I was resilient, not quite of this world but moving about my day as if I was perfectly fit to it. I was a mess at church, and the fact that we had a lovely soprano singing Hebrew folk songs just didn’t help at all.

There were gifts of the day and my gratefulness is deep. My amazing community that seems almost miraculously drawn to response when I am in most need. What seemed like minutes after I wrote the post about my dream, Marcia called -- to check in, to chat, to proposed an interesting get together. And after talking to her, I check back on the blog to see that Traci had commented -- loving and kind. I loudly proclaim my disbelief in a micro-managing god or in a force so powerful that it can be specifically and pointedly driven, but I have no need for belief when those who care about me come rushing out to catch me. Jump and the angels will catch you. The more that I jump, that I embrace the jump, the more angels that I find.

I wanted to sit down and write all day. I could have. I could have written the day away. But the day was filled with tasks. Cooking in the morning while Julia had therapy. Cooking for the church pot luck after evening service. Then on to the school carnival. Loud kids, face painting, and cotton candy. Yes, I got my own cotton candy because I like it too and Julia just refuses to share this once a year confection. Funny, I used to limit Cheshire to once as year too. It was usually at the Indiana State Fair when Cheshire had hers. For Julia, it is the school carnival. After waiting on line for about 40 minutes.

As much as I fear, almost daily, for Julia’s social development, I watched her at the Carnival and saw progress. She still does not listen and pay attention when someone speaks to her, but she is willing, on her own terms, to try conversation with anyone. When her attempts are ignored by the subject of her attempt, she is undaunted. Whether undaunted is because she has no understanding of the rejection, and perhaps rejection is too strong a word, or from some great resiliency, I have no idea, but watching her work on her social skills is inspiring. Julia knows kids by names now. This has not been a strong point with her in the past and certainly she did not greet other kids and adults by name last year. She calls out to kids in her class, she goes over and says something to them. To be sure, many of her statements, not necessarily greetings to others, are not particularly appropriate and usually, almost always, center on herself. Some, especially the boys and a few cool girls, are embarrassed by her attention. Her attention takes energy to respond to, too much energy and attention for kids who are focused on themselves. Again, that does not stop her, whether it be strength or her inability to recognize their embarrassment.

Before a performance of hip hop dancing, the mother of a classmate tells her to so and sit with that child. Julia actually looks for the child and when she can’t find her in the crowded cafeteria, she looks back at us and calls out, “where is Lucy?” And when she finds Lucy, the two sit side by side and watch the performance. And Julia watches, does not do more than really normal drifting from what is going on. This is the same little girl who was Julia’s secret friend, for whom Julia drew the picture of the parakeet, made the box, and wrapped the picture. I heard from her teacher, that when Lucy was told that the gifts from Julia were hers, Julia jumped up, happy and excited, and shouted that she made them. This is not the child who was oblivious to others a few years ago, or who addressed groups of kids with, “hey, boys” or “hey, kids” only a few months ago. Now, if she can only learn to turn her attention to a person speaking to her and be interested in her talking partner’s interests and thoughts. If she can only ask me what I did with my day without a prompt. I want it so much, and if she knew what it meant and the world of friendship that this skill would open, I know she would want that skill as well.

We stopped at home, picked up our dinner offering and headed off to church. Good service but too much talk about love tonight. The good Samaritan, loving neighbors as ourselves, the eternal, unconditional mother love, and feeling always loved. Feeling always loved -- didn’t feel that until I was grown. I hope Cheshire didn’t have to wait so long. I hope Julia has some inkling. Then dinner and home and walking the dog and then the evening ritual of shower, medication, and stories. And there I was, back in bed tapping on keys again.

That dream, incredible as it was, cost me today. It disturbed every fiber of my being. I was not in my right head all day. I felt apart from where I was, I could have been watching myself go through the motions of this everyday time. Feet were not on the ground. I was the observer, not the observed. I wonder if that is how physics feel after an intense reading? Is that how saints feel after a devine appearance? I don’t mean to be profane. I only imagine it so. Maybe it is as close as I get.

Between batches of sweet potato quesadillas on the stove, I went through one of the boxes of sheet music that will sooner be leaving the house. I came across the stash of Italian music that I sang after we came home from Italy. Senza Fine. An old song, recorded by everyone, including Dean Martin, but the version that I fell in love with was by Ornella Varoni. A singer that we “discovered” when in Italy. She sang at the San Remo Music Festival in 1984 that we watched on a rented tv.

The Festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo was a pre-cursor of shows like American Idol, but it was the songs that were featured, a competition among songs. I think they were previously unrecorded songs sung by new singers with more established singers filling out the bill and pulling in the crowds. At least, that is what I remember.

Ornella Varoni was an old favorite by 1984. She was a big deal in the ’60’s and ’70’s. A voice that was a smoother Piaf, but like Piaf, layered, deep, smokey, and rich. A voice that belonged to a woman who lived full out, maybe a bit crazy, but full out and present. I listened to her and Paolo Conti for the morning -- Conti who David loved to listen to while he was washing dishes after supper. I could not get away from connections today, could not get away from David today. I have that music on my ipod only because David had it on his and I downloaded his collection before Cheshire took the ipod for herself.

It was like a hangover. A sort of spiritual hangover. I suffered it rather gladly for the sake of that dream. And it exhausted me. Still, I do not sleep long for the night and my fixes and determination wear off before dawn and afford me time to write before today’s busyness begins.

This is a dream. The way I used to dream. The way I probably always dream. Like an alternate life. Like reality. There are so many connections that even as I write, I lose the thread of the dream at times. But I always come back to it.

I woke up at 4, checked the clock, was very happy I had slept for 6 hours straight, and resolved to get back to sleep for at least another hour. When I woke up after the dream, it was 5:30.

I just woke up from a lovely dream of David, of New York, of that time just after we came back from Italy. We loved Italy but we came home and recognized that New York City was our home. We were infatuated with our city, our circle of friends, our plans. I was just pregnant with the child that I would lose in three months. David was accepted to the Columbia Writing Program for graduate school. This after he set his heart on Yale, was accepted to Iowa and wait listed at Columbia. The dream time borrows from time over a number of months. Soon after we returned from Italy which seems to be the time of the dream, the school decisions came in. We were not happily infatuated with the city. David was mourning the loss of his dream of Yale. Iowa seemed like the only option. We planned a summer trip out there to scope things out. I don’t remember when the Columbia acceptance came -- before or after our Iowa trip which was so awful.

We had planned to be in Iowa for an entire week, but left just after the Fourth of July. Four days in the midwest. We hated it. Iowa City was flat, dry, dusty, and deserted in the summer. There seemed to be a bar on every corner, no work available for me at all, ugly apartments. The head of the writer’s lab entertained us in his large restored victorian house which sat in what I recognize now as the historical district of the town. And it seemed like a town, not a city at all. Oh, we were such snobs! He was gracious, but not kind. We told him how we would need work out there to live, and he told us that there wasn’t really anything much. The bars were no place for me -- I was pregnant at the time -- but that seemed like such a definitive statement. All my non-theater work at the time was waiting table. He sneered at the prospect of waiting table. This was the summer that I decided to wear all white all summer, like an updated version of something from a victorian movie. My body was rapidly changing due to pregnancy -- Cheshire, this time -- nothing fit and so I bought cheap painter’s pants and skirts and tee shirts. All white to walk around the city in. The head of the Iowa Writer’s Lab said something sarcastic, I thought it was mean, about my white clothes. What I remember now is his asking if I was a nurse, and wasn’t it impractical to wear white in the City. Was it just his tone? He did not like New York. Did he say more?

On the Fourth of July, we went to the fire works in a flat open field that was called a park. We sat on the grass, not having a blanket to put on the ground. It was a bit wet. We saw families, a number of Amish families. They all seemed to us at the time insular and without need of any outsiders. I think now that our observation from that time was accurate in that breaking into the Indianapolis “society” was very hard for us. Everyone seemed to have friends since childhood, everyone had a family there, everyone was friendly but not everyone was open to the deep abiding friendship that seemed so easy in the City. Now, I think that the deep but quick friendships of our City time was more a product of our late 20’s, early 30’s than the place. We did not know that then.

We were miserable that Fourth of July. What seemed like a good idea -- grad school in the midwest -- was turning out to be a disaster. David’s best option for a job there was driving a truck when he was not in school. Affordable housing was going to be a cheap looking-new apartment on the outskirts of an ugly town, far away from campus. We did not have a car at the time and there was no way we were going to survive without one. We would be carless for another three years and pretty happily so.

We watched fireworks, sitting on damp ground as fog rolled in. By the end of the show, it was hard to see the bursts of light, hard to remember where the rented car was parked, and eerie being around people who were not at all friendly in their self-containment. The next morning, I think it was the next morning, it could have been that night, we made the decision that we couldn’t live there. We cancelled a few appointments to see apartments and interview for jobs and if I remember correctly, have another meal with the department head, and left.

But that was reality. In this dream, it was the time before I was pregnant with Cheshire, after David had been accepted to Columbia, but when we had just gotten back from Italy. We were walking around infatuated with the City.

We were seeing each other after a long time apart. I could presume that it was the time before we were married just after our last breakup, but at some point walking around, I thought our separation was much longer than the few months of that breakup, more like years, more like now.

We held hands the way new lovers hold hands. In pockets, walking through tight crowds, and when inconvenient. Holding hands when any established couple would let go. We were claiming each other. We talked as we walked, and I cannot remember a thing of what we said. It was all very real. How I miss that kind of talking, the kind of talking that goes on for years without end.

We had been apart and now we were together. I had moments of knowing that the apart was David’s death, but I was not surprised that we could be together again. At times there was a child with us. Cheshire, I think, but this was not the real Cheshire and we were not acting like real parents. This was the image of a child who darted in and around the crowd as we walked, who stopped in stores and who caught up with us at the corner. None of this was my experience of parenting. This was the dream of parenting of those who are childless. And the scene was about us, about David and I.

We walked under bridges and through the park -- Central or Prospect. A park with hills and flower beds and benches. We were on crowded streets looking at restaurant menus. We stopped to look at some art installation that was sort of a dark phone booth and we stood very close in that dark space without kissing. We were drunk on the City and on each other. Our conversation came around to what I was doing these days. I tried to explain how I was going through all of our belongings and remembering so much of our lives. I wanted to tell him what all those things were seducing me to feel. I tried to tell him that I was having a hard time separating our love from the results of our love, our life from our decisions about life, the feelings that began the life from the process of living. I was having a hard time finding the words. Finally, I said that I am not sure whether I am in love with you or whether you are just all my happiness. David laughed at me, and didn’t say, but in the moment I knew that it didn’t matter which. What is the difference?

By this time, or better, the scene shifted the way scenes shift in dreams. We were suddenly in a bedroom of a rather ugly apartment that we might have been moving into. There was a bed in the middle of the room, linoleum on the floor, the walls painted that off white that landlords always use, the sheets on the bed were very white. Windows were big and old with peeling wooden sashes. We were undressed and ready to go to bed and make love. And then a child, about five years old, and alternately Cheshire and Julia, although five year old Julia did not have enough English or enough maturity to voice what the dream child voiced, complained that we were moving around too much in bed. Her presence did not bother us in the least -- which is surprising as I type this. We were always very careful to keep our private lives private and would have moved to another bed if a child was in bed with us and we wanted to make love. The child -- now more Cheshire than Julia -- moved to my big blue chair that I bought for our Washington Blvd. house and which Cheshire has now. It was/is a great chair to sleep in and it was better that the child was going to sleep in the chair and leaving us alone. I realized again that David was naked. I must have been as well. I was between white sheets. His body was lovely, probably his body when he was in his 30’s. Maybe collectively our best physical time ever. I was engaged in kissing David’s elbow -- he had very nice elbow -- and appreciating his naked body. I was in bed and he was getting into bed. He settled into my arms with his arms around me. I was very happy. I didn’t make note of the happiness then. I do now and it reminds me that I told David how happy I was in Madison, being Julia’s mother, being a stay-at-home mom. Now, I would add to that few years in Madison that the happiness came from him, from us being together. There were just a few weeks, after the transplant, when summer was dawning, when the gardens looked good, when we were outside filling a plastic blow up pool that I bought thinking that it would be fun for Julia when we could not go to the Goodman pool because of her therapy or David’s doctor appointments. It was a very short time of relief, of feeling that we could move our lives from fear and anxiousness back to something that felt like normal life.

In the dream, we were not even close enough long enough to kiss when the child, who was not Julia, shrieked that there was a bug in the bed. Now, she and an old friend, Marcia Blank -- who was not in our lives when Cheshire was born, let along when Julia came home -- were in a bed next to ours, and they were making all sorts of noise that there was a bug in their bed. David told them to take care of it, that it was probably from someone’s bag, brought in from the moving (this idea came and went without explanation). Julia complained that the bug was very big and I glanced over and indeed it was a water bug, one of the incredibly disgusting things that makes the back of my knees scared. It fluttered its wings and got a few inches off the mattress. Yes, it was scary. I don’t think I even asked or thought to ask David to get up and take care of it. In all of our life together, it was always him who would get up for such a thing. At first it was gallantry, it was him as a male taking charge. Later, it came to be his job and I always felt vaguely guilty for not at least volunteering to get up. But I did not ask, he did not move. I just got up and went to the bathroom to get a kleenex to catch and kill the bug. And as I was getting the kleenex, I thought that I would not have done this task when David was alive.

And then I woke up and let the memory of the dream wash over me. I made the connections that I just wrote about and realized that I was not going back to sleep.

Did I love him or was he merely all my happiness?

I read what I’ve written. I cry a bit, just tears, not sobs. I am sad. I have an acceptance growing that what was cannot again be. I am very grateful for the dream. I don’t push away the confusion of feelings. I know how happy I was for so much of the time. I am scared that I will never again have happiness. I am sure that I will have tomorrow.

I posted the book give away on Face Book as well as on the blog. I have about a dozen takers so far. It is an interesting endeavor.

As I clean out the basement stuff, I find things I have not thought about in years. Now, what do you do about things you haven't thought about in year? If I haven't thought about it, does it make sense to keep it? I haven't use it, its existence hasn't even crossed my mind. Like those two boxes of sheet music that is finding a home thanks to my friend Mary. I found a set of castanets from Cuba that David must have had since he was a boy. Julia is very excited about these, as she is about setting up the electric piano and digging out all the instruments that we have. I've promised her a space for all of them, probably in the basement, when I finish my sort and clean. Those are easy things. Easy because they will be put to use.

And there are the boxes of books. David's novels. I have found three full boxes of those books. It is not unusual collection for an author. Books go out of print. Authors like to give books away when they are introducing some new work to an organization or publisher. But it doesn't make sense for me to keep them. I fretted over this dilemma for a short time -- not wanting to take the books to Half Price Books like I did with other unwanted books, but not wanting to commit myself to carrying around more boxes for the rest of my life, and leaving the dilemma to Cheshire and Julia when the books are old and the pages cracking. Of course, waiting that long will make the trash can look so much easier. Postage is such a small price to pay to get those books into loving hands. It will take me a few months to get it together. I am rather overwhelmed with so much stuff, but slowly I will make my way to sending volumes on their way.

Some will make it to Australia -- maybe soon, maybe in awhile. David's mother's side of the family has a branch in an around Syndey, with one cousin (of the second, third, and much removed sort) who has visited the states, even met Cheshire last summer. He wrote and asked for some to be saved or sent for the branch. It is only in the last few years of his life that David became interested in his extended family. He set up a family tree and enjoyed being in touch with one of the cousins. He had hoped to travel to meet some of these long lost cousins. Maybe his book can do a bit of that for him. I hope that I can make that trip, visit my friend, Marianne, and meet some of those cousins.

And the stuff. The dining room is full of what I am sorting. The crono log boxes which grew from four to seven this week and which now include material from David’s parents and a bit from his grandparents continues to grow. Some of this will be discarded and some of the discards belong no place else by the garbage, but I wonder about some of it. Greeting cards from the ‘40’s, school work books from the ’50’s and early ’60’s. Would a historical society want those? When we cleaned out my mother’s house we discarded some things like my father’s foot ball uniforms that should have been offered to his town’s high school or historical society. They may not have wanted them, but perhaps the articles may have filled holes in collections. I will try not to make that mistake again.

It is snowing today. Our first snow since my birthday, maybe in a month. It is light but persistent. I have no inclination at all to check what the prediction is -- whether we will be snowed in tomorrow morning or be sweeping it off the sidewalk. It is funny that I complain so much about the amount of snow we’ve have in previous winters in Wisconsin. It has been overwhelming and taken up so much time and energy to deal with, but this year, without much snow, I miss it. I have not felt the need to closet myself and Julia inside and sit by the fire. Are we ever satisfied? Is the satisfaction with the present a chunk of enlightenment? Australian cousins. He had wanted to

In the middle of cleaning out boxes and boxes of accumulated treasures and/or junk, I have uncovered a good sized cash of David's first novel, A Criminal Appeal. If there is anyone who would like a copy, please let me know. I will mail anywhere. I mean it. Send your snail mail address if I don't have it. I do not want to carry boxes of the books around with me for the rest of my life. Likewise, I can't trash them. I would like friends to have copies. It might take me a few months to get them all posted, but please, I'd love to send copies all over the world. Check out http://www.amazon.com/Criminal-Appeal-D-R-Schanker/dp/0312192533/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_har?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328801261&sr=1-1 for some reviews.

Happiness? It is an illusion to think that more comfort means more happiness. Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. - Storm Jameson

I’ve finally started up again in earnest. The boxes in the cellar still look overwhelming but I’ve emptied two today. One box was the box that Cheshire and I found in David’s father’s house in Union. It was a box that I would have sworn was among our own. Here. It had my old journals and David’s high school and college papers, letters, notebooks, and clippings. Slowly I sort and file. I found a fiery school newspaper article that David must have written as a sophomore or junior. I know it was one of those years because the person that he wrote it about was not at school when David was a senior. And I found notes from what must have been dorm or floor mates. Some are from girls. All very young with the easy familiarity of college freshmen. And many of these notes were addressed to Oscar, as if David had introduced himself as that at the very beginning. I know nothing more. And I did not know this at all. Oh, not a secret really, not even that exciting, But something new of someone I knew so well. Nice to think that there was more to find out.

That was my morning and a noon I headed to church to do a tai chi form called the crane and a guided meditation. It is a small group, mostly older women, who meet every Wednesday for about an hour to do this. Another group meets one night a week, but I cannot commit to that. This was so convenient. I have been doing it for three weeks now and today, as I was doing it a new found peace settled over me. It was the right thing at the right time in the right place. I am not sure who to thank for this gift, but I am so grateful.

After tai chi, I did errands -- filling up the car with gas, faxing some papers to my realtor for the Bloomfield house, and stopping at the library. Julia is going through a fair number of easy readers each week. I had decided that I would get books that really didn’t challenge her because we read them at night before she sleeps. I wanted the reading to be easy for her. And it is. And she loves doing it. It is amazing to step back and remember that this was the child who not only did not seem to be able to learn her letters and sounds, but a child who had absolutely no curiosity to learn. We started to read to Cheshire when she was 6 months old. She was pointing to words, picking out letters and sounds, and recognizing words before she was three. We started reading to Julia when she was five and a half. She was nine when she began to find her passion for reading. I guess the timing was really not that different. My heart aches for the time that I was not Julia’s mother. Who would this child be if she had found a family when she was a baby?

Besides Julia’s books, I also went looking for another junky science fiction book. Not that I finished the first one I found last week. Oh, it was junky al right! The writing was awful! The story simplistic! No style, no decent form. I could not get beyond page 15. It took me that long to be sure that it was just not me. I hope my new choice fares better. I just want to find my own reading passion again. A few days ago, I picked up White Album, an old collection of essays by Joan Didion describing her view of the 60’s and mostly in Hollywood. Stunning, evocative. I can swallow that woman whole. I have not read anything but her last two books. Now I have to find more.

Just before school let out, I went to Randall. I am volunteering at the PTO Foreign Language program and enrolled Julia is a beginning Spanish class. She will take it with kids from Franklin, that is first and second grade kids. But before we could go to class, Julia was put on the bus to go home. Julia has never gotten off the bus with me or a therapist waiting at the corner for her. And it has been me all of this school year. The fear that shot through me was . . . I left the school to see if I could get home before the bus. At the same time the school secretary call the bus company to see if she could catch Julia’s bus driver before he let her off. I only got a few blocks in my car before the school called me to say that the bus would bring her back to school after it finished its run. The runs are pretty short and not that far from the school so it was not that much of a problem.

Oh, the emotion roller coaster of it all! My heart was in my throat until that child stepped off the bus. She was fine! She likes the bus driver and when he said that I was at school waiting for her, she seemed to take it all in stride. And I could breathe again.

The class went well. Very well. The teacher even told me that if I didn’t want to stay in class (I intended to act as Julia’s aid for this class), it was fine. I will stay for at least the next few weeks and see how the classes go. Julia was game to try to pronounce and remember the new Spanish words. She was not perfectly in tune with the games played but she was enthusiastic and wanted to please. She needed some cueing and some help following all the directions, but she handled herself in the class better than I have ever seen it done. Her classroom teacher stopped by when she heard Julia’s voice. She told Julia that she was excited to see her taking Spanish, and Julia beamed. Julia has learned that pleasing is fun and worth the effort.

I don’t expect that this class will give Julia much Spanish, but it is a beginning. If we can make it to Bolivia in another year, I want to see if Julia can get a bit of a foundation in Spanish. If only to teach her that there are more languages that she can learn, and places where they are spoken. Maybe a simple aim, but one that is essential for good traveling and living abroad.

We came home and I made a quick supper from the freezer. As I was heating up the tomato sauce and meat balls and boiling water for pasta, I had the feeling of some normalcy. Like settling into the present. I am not using my words very well here. I have made/bought/brought in supper every day for Julia and I since David died. Today was the first time in more than a year that it felt like regular family life. A switch was thrown and I could feel the comfort of the moment.

I took Julia to my after supper meeting at church. I am on the religious education committee this year. I wish the meetings were not the second wednesday of the month because PTO is the second Tuesday. The second week of every month becomes a scramble for a babysitter and the guilt that I am leaving Julia for a few hours. This week, there was not sitter and so Julia went to both meetings. She took coloring books and crayons, had a great time talking to the teachers who were at the PTO meeting, and showing her work to the other members of the RE committee. And each night after the meeting, we came home, walked the dog, gave Julia a shower, put medication on her body, put on pj’s, brushed and flossed, read a story, and went to sleep.

And so, today, not easy to begin with, but pretty close to good by the end.

Amen.

Julia has been very cooperative with me for days. It may be a new cooperation; it may be something back from before her skin condition flared. She is doing more than the usual amount of playing or talking about violent dinosaurs. She is also angry at me when I insist that she look at me when I am directing her, but that anger is usually short lived and manageable by her for the most part. Last week, I started expecting her to greet people in what I consider a proper way. Julia has to stop what she is doing, say hello, and ask an appropriate question, like how are you. When someone leaves, she must stop what she is doing, walk with them to the door, and have something appropriate to say. Both of these can be hard for her sometimes, no, they are hard for her all the time. She has the chance to practice greeting and leave taking with her line therapist and their coming and going usually coincides with something that she passionately wants to do, like coloring or setting up dinosaur games. To some extent Julia’s behavior is nothing more than typical 11 year old behavior, grown ups forgive it and kids may not care, but for Julia any social interaction comes after a lot of practice and I don’t think we can wait until she is 15 to start that practice.

Watching Julia walk the dog these days makes my heart glad. We go together, I don’t know when and if I will ever trust her alone, and she can hold on to the leash the entire walk. She must still be reminded at times to let the dog spend some time sniffing and doing her business, but Julia is slowly becoming more aware of those necessities. Sometimes, when Latkah is in the mood, the two of them run together a bit ahead of me. Sometimes Julia skips, in an awkward and deliberate way, but skips with some abandon and much joy. She tells me that it is a good day. When I see this, I do feel like we have both gotten the gift of her childhood.

Sometimes Julia tries to be deliberate about laughing. She does not laugh much. I would impulsively say that she never laughs but I don’t think that is true. I don’t laugh much these days and I expect that our lives have some bearing on this, but Julia does not like to be tickled and she does not yet understand most jokes. Yes, there has been some laughter and there has certainly been delight. It will come, I tell her. Don’t force it, I tell her. It comes to me that when once yawning was a very rare occurrence, it is now common and daily indicates when Julia is tired. I remember realizing that Julia never yawned and watched her so carefully in case I had overstated the idea in my head. Now, I think that we must wait for laughter. Just be patient and it will come. There are signs now and again of some sense of humor. Perhaps she will begin to laugh regularly when I am ready to be funny with her.

3:53 and I am awake and typing. I have been better this week about sleeping entire nights and providing myself with better sleep habits, but I have been having difficulty getting to the Y and getting into the work of completing the sorting of stuff that I have again taken up. I write “completing” but right now it looks like a unending mountain of papers and debris that refuses to be separated and made orderly. I second guess myself when I discard old greeting cards and programs. Will I one day be relieved that I’ve kept some of these things? In one box, I find a small pile of get well cards from the time of David’s transplant. I have no idea what to do with these. I find one from David’s aunt who died a few months before he did and I suddenly realize the effort that it must have cost her to make sure that David had her good wishes. She could not have been well at that time. But that is the rare card, one that has more than the regular wishes for recovering health. And yet, to throw the greetings from former and current employees and friends away -- I will not remember these people, even if I can recall them right now. But, my mind churns on, these were the last get well cards the David received. Does that make them worthy to be kept? In the end, I give up the deliberation and realize that I will probably keep more of the paper related to or received during those months before and after David’s death than I really need to. Maybe one day I will weed more out, or maybe it will be left for Cheshire and Julia to do.

These days are not easy. I am having trouble moving on, as if the next part of this process of fallow lying is something insurmountable. I want to do the tasks I’ve set for myself, but I feel the malaise of the middle. I do not have the end in sight. I have not yet gained any great insight to spur me on to completion. I have lost the excitement of a new plan when expectation is high and the time is all promise and possibility. I am forced to push though every day, and at times I long for the end of day and the oblivion of sleep, which for now has escaped me. Part of me believes that all I need to do is to get off my butt and do what I’ve set out to do. Part is not interested. I cannot see the crack of light I wrote about on Sunday, and sometimes I no longer believe that it is even there. Talking to Lisa today, I’ve begun to admit to regret, something that has not been a part of my process of grieving. Maybe it is inevitable and a process requirement. Regret stings, and for me at least, it is not about huge life decisions but for the smaller experiences. I did not know a dying David. We did not have the chance to say good-bye or to talk endlessly about what life would be like for me after he died. Up to now, I have not felt or admitted to this. I am not sure which. Regret is like guilt. I cannot see what purpose it serves. It wastes time and energy. But then, there it is.

Lisa said that it sounded like the process was happening and that possibly this was the time before discovery, that a-ha moment, when the old, the what needs to be moved and changed is making a last ditch effort to hold itself in place. In some way, it is the last possible time of failure, and that is it may be the hardest time. And maybe, she is right and I will in a few months look back at this time, this writing, and smile and sigh. Oh yes, that time demanded so much trust and faith in process. But right now, it is just hard without reward.

Ok, it is now 4:32 and reading this over, it sounds so much more desperate than I feel. Over lunch yesterday, a friend talked about her own process of changing focus and in passing said that she did not have privilege of a fallow year. I would have said that a few years ago. This time that I describe as such a burden is a privilege and gift. Change, enlightenment, deepening is not easily won.

I know all that. And still, I feel the pain and complain. Julia will laugh; I will once again know joy. I have to believe these things. It is the reason to rest and the reason to awaken again. Even perceiving that I am standing still may be movement. Coming to see the observer and the observed is movement.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

Leonard Cohen, Anthem

Julia and I are working on her first relatively big school assignment. Instead of doing Valentines day -- making or signing valentines for an entire class which is good name signing practice but really unless they are all handmade an incredible waste of time and paper -- each child has been assigned a secret pal for whom some gift that corresponds to their likes and dislikes must be made. I feel a particular push to be very involved in this because I want Julia’s gift to her secret pal to be as meaningful/interesting/good as the gifts made by the other fourth graders. And she is not quite as interested as she should be although as we’ve worked on her gift, she has become more engaged in the experience.

Maybe that is the best reason for me to be so involved.

We have the answers to a questionnaire that the kid filled out. Honestly, if I knew who the kids was I’d call her (Best guess is a girl because she likes American Girl Dolls. Girl or very interesting boy.) mother and get some more clues. But the names have been blocked off which is Julia’s case is good since keeping a secret for two weeks is still a bit hard for her.

And there has been no homework for the last week to give the kids time to work on their gifts. Oy! A bit of pressure.

Julia’s secret pal likes parakeets and last week Julia drew a really beautiful picture of a blue parakeet. I bought a cheap glass frame yesterday and we will work on a mat today, as well as some home made gift wrap. We are also making -- via inspiration of one of Julia’s therapists -- an exploding box. I am not going to try to explain it. See http://glitteradventure.blogspot.com/2006/11/exploding-box-class.html. We picked out the paper together. I did the measuring, she did the cutting. She is drawing little pictures for each flap and writing little messages. She’s already drawn the animals that her secret pal likes, and a picture of a girl on horse back (her pal’s interest) and a little dinosaur with a flower for the center of the box. If it all goes together easily, it will be finished tonight.

I was very involved in Cheshire’s early projects at school, but it was more about making sure she got the good mark. Should I be admitting that? I can laugh at myself now. I could see how other parents “helped” their kids -- it was a gifted school and some parents were into proving just how gifted their kids were. If some parent didn’t help their kid with science fair or the wetland’s scrapbook, the work might truly reflect what a third, fourth, or sixth grader could do and fall far short of what other kids were doing. Now, I believe it was so much ego on my part. Cheshire did pick up some valuable hints for projects under my tutelage but really, she would have figured them all out for herself. Maybe sooner if I would have stood out of the way.

For Julia, I am trying to inspire her to be involved -- which so far is succeeding, but more than that, I don’t want her secret pal to be disappointed with what Julia can do. I so want acceptance for her. And maybe, that is just as foolish as trying to keep up with the other parental intercession for Cheshire. Julia is who she is, and I cannot prop her up to speed her acceptance. Her peers like or dislike her, not me. Not me at all.

Last week, she finished a dinosaur mosaic piece that was part of a kit she has had for a long time. The kit had two pictures to stick on tiny, shiny squares in dinosaur patterns. She did one more than a year ago. It was a challenge for her then and when she was finished she had no interest in doing the second one. The picture was put on the wall and slowly lost some of its tiny, mosaic squares. Julia didn’t seem to care about it and it was looking a little sad, and so, when I packed up for last summer’s renovation, I pitched it, sure that Julia did not notice and would not miss it. She took out the kit about two weeks ago and worked on the second picture with her therapists. I could see that she was much more focused on the process and when she was finished asked to put it on the mantel. When I noticed it, she told me that this time, she didn’t want it thrown away. Oops! Ok, she noticed.

Yesterday’s sermon was about imperfection. Music included the Cohen’s Anthem. I had not thought of the words for a long time. I like them; I can believe in the concept, and yet, I fight so hard for that elusive perfection that cannot really be achieved. I blame myself for missing the mark -- perfect mother, perfect lawyer, perfect partner, perfect friend -- because I can be none of that. Letting myself breathe in place of good enough is not easy. Again, it is the middle ground, the middle path. Moderation is damned hard.

And again, Julia is my teacher. When she enjoys something, like drawing and writing, she wants perfections. She will make a letter over and over until it is perfect and there is a hole in the paper. She will overdraw a picture until the perfect form is hidden beneath erasures or dark draft lines. Teaching imperfection is so important for her because she can get stuck, really stuck, in the chase for perfection.

I am no different.

At the Waisman Center on both Thursday and Friday listening to exciting lectures of which I understood little, I wonder at my strong desire to find a place there. I admire and respect the researchers and the work, but I am no scientist. I am no researcher. Is my desire to find a place there, a desire to be among the enthusiastic? Is that all it is? I don’t think so but it was a thought that came to me as I listened to yet another excited scientist speak. And I still don’t see an easy way in -- all I see is my square peg self looking for a suitable round hole. Then again, it is a place where I am a perpetual beginning. A place where I may never be perfect. It is a place where light can be let in? And is that part of my mission?

I ask questions and I continue to ask them, and yet, I know and am beginning to take deep inside that the answers will come in their own time, if at all. It is the questions that I have to live. I will take up the answers when they come.

written 4 February 2012

I may have fixed my video problem by uninstalling the flash player and reinstalling it. I think my version needed updating. Oh, I hope that is what I needed. Funny about tasks like that. If David was alive, I’d just hand it off to him and he’d figure it out. It is not that I couldn’t do it, but he did it better, quicker, and I didn’t really like fooling with it. Same with my printer that I battle with some of the time these days.

Is that what marriage is? A pair who each take on the tasks they prefer. Who retreat from those which are a bit too challenging? David used to cut the girls’ finger and toe nails. I am just awful at it. Too many years of biting my nails and now that I don’t bite my nails, I could use him to tell my when and how to cut mine. With Julia’s skin picking and scratching, I have had to cut finger nails short and often. Of course, I can and could do it. It was a matter of brining my attention to the task.

How many tasks are like that? Right now, I can think of the many things that David did. How he contributed to our family in terms of tasks. I can’t think of many things that I did at all. And yet, taking over all of the chores and tasks has been burdensome but not impossible and so I did have a half of some sort that I did.

Neither of us like making the bed. And my bed is still not made. Sometimes I straighten the quilt, but that is all. Things change, some things don’t.

Julia is being difficult for her therapist this morning. She is more stubborn than usual and less willing to do what the therapist suggests. She needs to learn to share the lead and that is a difficult lesson today. She settles into a math crossword puzzle -- the kid really loves crossword puzzles. Is it because it is a word game -- in this case a number game -- that doesn’t involve comprehension?