New Orleans

I can't not say anything about the Big Easy. Less than two weeks ago, I was enjoying a lovely dinner in the Garden District, having ridden the trolley all over the city. Keven and I went for a long walk all the way to Bourbon Street. Greg and Scott both made big purchases at stores on the River Walk. Friendly people. I'll pray for strength for them..and send some money to the Red Cross. Just phoned in my donation...

One Leg Later

My mother lies slackjawed in slumber on her hospital bed. The flesh on her face sags in sleep, you can see her cheekbones and the faint age spots dotting her face. Her body jerks, an unconscious grimace to the fate that awaits her today.

I can’t imagine what is going through her head. She is truly trying to sleep through the trauma. Not an illogical reaction, but different from what I would do. My leg would go kicking and screaming…but then, its Mom’s inability to kick and scream that has caused this problem in the first place. I’m guessing my reaction, although, who’s to say? I’ve never been faced with the prospect of an extremity essentially dying before I did. Who knows what I would do.

I haven’t been to the gym since I was on the cruise ship. I say that when I visit my mother, I go directly from her apartment to the gym to ensure that her fate will never be mine. But these past two weeks, I’ve been visiting her everyday and haven’t made it to the gym even once. Its not just my mother who’s in denial. I’ve got my own River in Egypt running through my life.

“Just a minute! Just a minute!” my mother hollers. She opens her eyes and looks at me. “There’s someone knocking at the door!”

I smile at her and ask softly, “Are you dreaming, Mom?”

“No! Someone wants in! I guess they went away to call someone.” She lays back in her bed in resignation.

I wonder who she sees in her dreams.

The clock ticks in time with the intravenous medicine dispenser. 12:15pm. Mom’s surgery is scheduled for 2:45pm. She opens her eyes and smiles sadly at me. I pull my chair closer to the edge of her bed and place my hand on her arm. She drifts off back to sleep, but only for a moment, or so it seems. Her face seems to be in a constant contortion of pain, even in the sleep she seeks to avoid her grim reality.

I lift the sheet to look at her left leg. Her skin has a polished apple sheen. From her ankle to her shin is the color of eggplant, mottled with large white splotches. Her foot is black, the onset of gangrene spreading on her toes. Her flesh dies as surely as if given last rites. A railroad runs up her leg where they took the vein out to save her right leg, the most personal of Sophie’s Choices to be made. The railroad line is jagged and haphazard, not repaired for cosmetic purposes, knowing the leg is sacrificial. I had asked what would happen to the removed leg. It will become medical waste, incinerated somewhere, tossed out with the garbage. I look at my own leg, imagine it apart from me, imagine my sense of loss, the mourning I would feel for the loss of my dignity, not to mention an actual body part.

My brother arrives with my nephew, Will, and we stand around the foot of Mom’s bed and reminisce…about Roger’s hay fever at my wedding, about Kathy’s motorcycle riding ex-husband, about Evie’s precocious four year old (who is now 6’4”). We discover, upon reflection, that Mom’s first great grandchild was born only two years after her last grandchild…my son, Kevin. We talk as if Mom could hear us as she dozes in the background, and in fact, she could.

When the surgeons came to take her, she moaned her fright. I soothed her as best I could, stayed by her side as long as I could, kissed her forehead, assured her that she was in the best of hands.

Which of course, she is. Its all in God’s hands now.

Two hours later, a roll of cinnamon menthos and butter rum lifesavers later, the doctor came to give us the good news. She did just fine, was already off the respirator, would spend a few hours in recovery, then would go back to her room.

When they finally let us see her, we huddled around her bed, held hands, said silent prayers of thanks. We didn’t really know what to expect. When we told her we were all there, she furrowed her brow and said, quite clearly, “Then why on earth is it so quiet!!”

We laughed and looked at each other in amazement. As we prepared to leave for dinner, I asked her if she wanted us to bring her back anything. Without opening her eyes, she laughed. Not giggled, not smiled. She laughed. For the first time since this whole ordeal started, I heard my mother laugh.

She is going to be just fine.

Sweet Caroline

I picked my sister up from the airport Thursday night. She flew in from Seattle. I bought her a ticket as soon as we realized how serious Mom’s condition was. It was the least I could do for my mom, to get all five of her kids rallied around her. I felt proud of myself, felt like I was really doing something special for her, spending all that money (that I really didn’t have) for a last minute airline ticket. Turns out, as much as Mom may have benefited, it was nothing compared to what it did for me to have all three of my sisters around.

We got to the hospital. Mom was out. Really out. So out that we couldn’t rouse her. Couldn’t get her to wake up. Scared the shit out of us, quite frankly. Her cheeks were flushed and she was warm to the touch. Her pupils weren’t dilating right or doing whatever it is that pupils are supposed to do, but most of all, she couldn’t wake up to say hello to the daughter she hadn’t seen for over three years.

Finally, after getting her mouth swabbed out, after a nurse almost yelled into her face (none of us had the ovaries to speak that loudly to her) after having her eyelids probed and her arm patted and the head of her bed moved up and down, finally she woke up enough to say “Evie’s here?” and then went promptly back to sleep.

I woke up yesterday morning still worried about her apparent desire to sleep through this whole ordeal. She had asked Kathy if she couldn’t just go to sleep until it was all over. Maybe that’s what she wanted to do. I had decided a long time ago that Mom’s life was Mom’s life and I was not going to tell her she had to do anything. If she was not capable of coping with life without a limb, then I had promised myself that I would not be selfish and I would understand. I was not going to lecture her, I was not going to remind her how much my boys would miss her, or I would miss her. If Mom was going to live through this, it needed to be because she needed to, not as a favor to anyone else.

Roberta and I were getting ready to go to the hospital. The surgery wasn’t until 11:30, so we were having a somewhat leisurely morning. It occurred to me that since Mom had a cd player in her room, I should take some music in for her. Music is so very important to me, I wanted to share some of my music with her. I had taken her to see Neil Diamond several years before, so I grabbed that cd. My Michael Buble cd had lots of oldies from when she was young, so I grabbed that one, too. I remembered my dad singing Sweet Caroline (my Mom's name is Carolyn) to my mother, the one and only time I ever heard my dad sing. He had such a sweet voice, too, one he rarely used for good purposes. I remembered my mother’s face lighting up whenever she heard that song, I remembered her gripping my hand when we were at the Neil Diamond concert when he sang that song…just for her, of course. I checked my cd of Neil Diamond’s greatest hits…but it wasn’t on there. I searched my other cds. I searched my compilation cds of seventies hits. NO SWEET CAROLINE! Once I had gotten the idea to play that song for her, I had to do it. I had to. I went on the internet, downloaded the song, and listened to it. Relief flowed through me. I opened a new pack of blank cds and popped one in. It wouldn’t burn. I couldn’t get it to burn onto the new cd. I was almost frantic. I had to do this. In my head, this is what my mother needed to survive this surgery. I called my friends that might be home, that might be able to email the song to me. No one was home.

Roberta and I had been talking about her love of singing, and I love to sing, so I downloaded the lyrics and took them with me to the hospital. We practiced in the car, trying to find the right key. When we got to the hospital, Mom was awake, but still very groggy. My three sisters and I gathered around the foot of her bed and sang to her. We made the nurse’s cry. Mom was…so pleased. So very pleased. She rallied and smiled and grinned and even laughed a little.

She got through the surgery with flying colors. The doctor was almost joyful when he came to talk with us. It had gone technically as well as he could have possibly hoped for. We waited a long time to see her after her surgery…almost five hours. When we got into the room, her right foot was pink and pretty.

She will still lose her left foot on Tuesday, but this will at least give her a fighting chance to acclimate.

After we all visited with her for a few minutes, we did what any sisters would do after an emotionally grueling day at the hospital…we went to Graeter’s. Sitting at the small round table, we piled our hands together in a huddle. We promised each other that we would exercise, so that what happened to Mom wouldn’t happen to any of us. We promised each other that we wouldn’t let the men in our lives mistreat us, or anyone else for that matter. We promised each other that we would keep God in our lives, however we defined him. We promised to always love each other and to keep in touch with each other, no matter how far away from each other we lived.

I laughed more with my sisters than I had on any of my dates. I was more myself, more relaxed, happier than I had been in years, surrounded by my sisters. What does that say?

I dreamed last night that I was on bridge over a big river. (Remember, the only fear Betty has is of crossing bridges.) I was not afraid. I leaned over the bridge and accidentally dropped a bag in the river. I was close enough that I could reach the bag, so I pulled it up, but in the process, something fell out. The matching cushions to the chairs surrounding my kitchen table fell back down into the water. I tried to reach them, but I couldn’t. I scrambled off the bridge, and with sure, swift feet, I nimbly hopped from rock to rock, trying to get to the shore of the river. Just as I was sure I was close, I looked up and the river was farther and farther away, carrying away my seat cushions. Finally, I realized that they were only seat cushions, and I didn’t really need them, and I let them go.

Wonder what that means.

Sweet Caroline

Where it began, I can't begin to know when
But then I know it's growing strong
Oh, wasn't the spring,
And spring became the summer
Who'd believe you'd come along

Hands, touching hands, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline
Good times never seem so good
I've been inclined to believe it never would

And now I, I look at the night,
And it don't seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two,
And when I hurt
Hurting runs off my shoulder
How can I hurt when holding you

Oh, one, touching one, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline
Good times never seem so good
Oh I've been inclined to believe it never would

Ohhh, sweet Caroline, good times never seem so good

Hazy August

Its beautiful outside right now. Sun is shining. I sat by my fish pond this morning, sipping coffee, and I wore my slippers rather than going barefoot because the air was…chilly. The air was chilly. September is knocking at the door. Summer is almost over. The boys are back in school. Vacations are over, we are getting back into a routine. At night, I brush and floss my teeth, put line cream under my eyes, moisturizer on my face and get into my big bed by myself and mark the passing of another day.

Mom is really weak. I arrived at the hospital an hour or so before Kathy. I sat with her and gave her sips of water, soothed her dry mouth with lip balm. I smiled into her eyes and asked her how she really felt. Her eyes filled with fear and then resolve.

“I don’t want to think about it, Betty.”

“I know, Mom, neither do I. I need you to know that you have options, though. Losing a leg is God Awful, but its not the end of the world. I talked with the boys last night, and we want you to come live with us, if you want to, instead of going to a nursing home. You have a choice.”

“Oh, Betty, I don’t want to kick one of the boys out of their room. They’d hate me.”

“Not a problem, Mom. We never use the living room, its all yours. Easy access to the bathroom, big enough for a television just for you, big picture windows so you could watch me work in the garden. We could put up the window and you could give me all the gardening advice you wanted.”

She laughed, she couldn’t help herself. Mom is not an advice giver…except when it comes to gardening and taking infant’s temperatures, but that’s another story in and of itself.

“My leg, Betsy. What will I do without my leg?”

“Well, first of all, your foot won’t be torturing you anymore. We will get you whatever tools you need to maneuver yourself around. My house has no stairs, so you’ll be fine.”

She sighed and leaned back in her bed. I hadn’t convinced her. No one could. My mother might be a bit on the naïve side, but she’s never been stupid. Living without her left leg is going to be hard. Very hard. We both knew that.

My sister and I cheerleaded her through lunch, coaxing her every bite. The doctor came in to talk with her about her surgery tomorrow and I watched her face cloud over and collapse as he sadly informed her that there was nothing, nothing they could do to save her left foot. They were 70% hopeful for her right foot.

We turned back the sheet to check her foot and I had to stop myself from gasping. While yesterday it was dark red, today it was black, mottled with white spots where no blood was going at all.

Time marches on whether my mother has her feet to keep up or not.

My sister Evelyn arrives from Seattle tonight. Roberta called an hour ago asking directions. My brother has already been here four times this month, so he won’t be coming until Saturday. Tonight, it’s the five Winters’ girls…my mom and her four daughters. We will pull each other through whatever tomorrow brings.

And God knows, we’ve pulled each other through worse things.

I thought of the July evening thirty years ago when we confronted my father, piled into the brown station wagon and left the torture chamber that had been our collective childhoods.

Thirty years ago.

I was sixteen.

Mom was forty six. Now, I’m forty six.

And yet, here we all are. Pulling together, yet again, but for a very different purpose. We have all lead mostly happy lives. None of us won the fairy tale lottery, but none of us repeated our childhoods, either.

We will get through this. All of us. Even Mom.

August will fade into September.

We will march to whatever beat lies ahead for us all.

Looking in the Mirror

My older sister is here in Cincinnati during my mother’s medical emergency. Although we don’t talk often and only manage to see each other every couple years, whenever we are together it’s just as if we had coffee yesterday morning. For some reason, perhaps because our parent’s impending mortality brings us up close and personal with our own, our time together has been even more relaxed and friendly than it usually is. I listen to her laugh and I hear my own. I watch her raise her eyebrows in question while talking with the surgeon and I see my own expressions. I see her smile at my Mom and I watch myself smile. I listen to her soothing voice comfort me and feel my own strength.

Kathy couldn’t find her keys as we left the hospital last night. It was no big deal. We both took turns searching the room, searching her purse, searching the box of crackers we had stuffed an apple into. She finally found them nestled under the pillow supporting my mother’s mottled feet. We walked out to her car. She waited for me to get to mine so I could follow her to Graeter’s. In my similarly befuddled state that evening, I had locked my keys in my car. She drove me home.

We have been taking turns driving each other places. Kathy has never been a big fan of my driving, and with good reason. I hate to drive. When it was her turn at the wheel, we headed off Reagan highway towards the hospital and Kathy was uncertain of which way to go, veering to the right, then sharply turning back to the left. I made a wry comment suggesting that perhaps I was not the only one in the family who was driving challenged. She retorted petulantly, “I’m telling Mom.”

We both burst into laughter and laughed all the way to the hospital.

This morning, as we pulled into Bob Evan’s parking lot for breakfast, I grabbed her arm.

“Thanks for being here, Kathy. Its nice to not have to always be the strong one. Its nice to know that I don’t have to talk to the doctors because you are here to do that. Its almost like there’s another one of me here, and I appreciate your strength.”

My staff commented on how much we look alike after we stopped by to copy a directory of nursing homes in possible preparation for Mom’s recovery period.

I watched her walk ahead of me and saw my own rear end.

Damn, I look good.

Drama Queen

My memories of my mother are probably not the same as most girls. I don't remember my mother ever fixing my hair, or painting my fingernails. To the best of my recollection, I've never gone clothes shopping with my mother, or asked her for advice on decorating or fashion. Nonetheless, I do have lots of vivid memories of my mom.

Mom dozing in a chair after working the night shift as an obstetrics nurse when I was thirteen.

Sitting on my mother’s lap when I was five.

Helping my mother plant flowers when I was eleven.

Learning the fine art of growing tomatoes when I was ten.

Polishing my mother’s nurse’s shoes when I was seven.

Going to the Laundromat with my mother when I was eight.

Driving to Texas with my mother to meet my would be husband when I was twenty-three.

Smoking pot with my Mom when I was twenty one. Only once…but boy, the colors sure looked brighter, she said.

Convincing my mother that I was sick with the flu after my first drinking binge when I was sixteen…I never did it again…at least, not as badly as that first time.

This is my summer to be a drama queen. First my father’s brush with death, then losing my dog, then trees falling all around my house and now this. My mother’s surgery to revascularize (I’m sure that’s not a word) her legs was not successful. Friday they will amputate her left leg, and perhaps also her right. She is obese, has only one kidney, is having trouble maintaining a steady blood pressure and does not react well to long periods of anesthesia. The doctors have told us quite frankly that they are not hopeful. Regardless of the outcome of the surgery, my mom will not go home. She will go to a rehab center, then to a nursing home. Life as she knew it, living a block away from me and her three grandsons, is over.

If you pray, a prayer for strength to deal with what tomorrow brings us would be greatly appreciated.

Six Feet Under

I watched Six Feet Under last night. I’ve been watching that show religiously for a year and a half. I watched the first three seasons on HBO on Demand, following last summer and this summer every Sunday night at 9:00pm.

When I first heard about the show, I thought the premise was silly. Who wanted to be entertained by death? It sounded morbid beyond belief, but after I had watched every episode of the Sopranos and every episode of Sex in the City, I haphazardly clicked on Six Feet Under and was hooked. I had been warned…there was a gay couple in the show, but by the time I started watching, the gay thing was long gone from my pain radar, and I simply found it fascinating. I fell in love with all of the characters. As in life, I found it easy to find something attractive amidst the imperfections that each character portrayed.

In any dramatic, long term television series, the characters come into your homes and live with you for an hour, maybe longer, every week. You think about the conflicts they each face, the choices they make, and you reflect on them as you do the dishes and empty the garbage and check your email. If you are like most people, you don't think of them again until Sunday night rolls around and you eagerly check the television guide to see if a new episode will air.

I rarely cry during television episodes, perhaps there is not enough time to get intrinsically involved in the course of an hour. Perhaps because the topics covered are often vapid and cold, sprinkled with emotive moments like candy confection on an ice cream cone. One ordinarily doesn’t devour enough to generate tears in the course of a one hour program.

I cried last night.

I wept openly and without shame.

How beautifully done it was. How neatly the ends were tied up and clipped. My tears were as much tears of gratitude to the writers and producers as they were emotional empathy for the characters.

I took my tear stained face in to say good night to Greg and his friends. He asked why I was crying and I told him that I had just watched the series finale of Six Feet Under. He laughed at me and said, “What, did every body die?”

I laughed and nodded my head.

His eyes widened and he said, in disbelief, “Every one of the main characters died?!”

I nodded again and explained gently. “Yes, Greg, they all died…but not at the same time. Over a period of years, over the course of a lifetime, just like we will all die, they also died. The writers were kind enough to give us a glimpse into the future and to see what happened to all the fictional people we have grown to care about, clear up to the point of their deaths.”

Made me want to rewrite the ending of my novel.

Sort of.

Not really.

Nonetheless, I bid a fond farewell to a very well done HBO series.

Who’d a thunk they could do such a good job with death.

Let It Be

“When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me…”

And I’m not even Catholic…

“Speaking words of wisdom,
Let it be.”

I woke up Thursday morning, happy to have been on the cruise, the previous evening’s Karaoke experience still resonating in my heart, but also looking forward to going home. I roused Kevin for breakfast and turned on my cell phone. No messages. I had a momentary feeling of letdown. I’d been gone for five days, no cell phone service in the Gulf of Mexico. I had told everyone I knew that I was taking the boys on a cruise. But still. Ah well. Sometimes no news is good news.

Kevin and I rounded up the two older boys who had stayed up all night and we all headed out to breakfast. After docking and trudging four blocks with our loaded suitcases, we arrived at the hotel. The Holiday Inn Select was far from full, so they let us check in early. Greg and Scott crashed in grateful exhaustion. Kevin and I left to explore New Orleans. I took my 10 year old to Bourbon Street, just so he could say he’d been there. Its pretty tame at 10:00am.

After Papa John’s pizza for dinner in the hotel room, I heard my phone ring. I didn’t get to it in time, out of practice I suppose, in racing for the ring tone. The person calling left me a message. I checked the missed call log. Its my best friend, Jennifer, who has been watching my cats, feeding my fish, and checking in on my mother while I’m gone. I smiled to myself and pushed the message button.

And then they came. Message after message. I hear “911” and “blood clot in her lung” and “possible gangrene on her toes”. I hear “hospital” and “surgery” and “your sister flew in from Mexico, your brother and his wife are here and they are staying at your house.”

Now that makes me smile. My cleaning lady came the day I left, so at least I know that my house is in good shape for company. Besides, I love company at my house, especially family company. I have awesome siblings. We always laugh so much when we get together.

We try to get an earlier flight, but end up spending the last day of our vacation waiting at Gate 4 of the B terminal at the New Orleans International Airport. We walked in the door of my house finally around 1:00am. By now, I have spoken to my sister, Kathy and my brother, Roger, as well as my mother. It’s not pretty, but its not the life and death situation I was afraid it was. No blood clots in the lungs, but big time problems with her feet. They are going to do surgery on Tuesday to remove a vein from her leg and reattach it to circumvent the clogged arteries. I don’t quite understand all that they are saying and am grateful that my sister, a pediatrician, is there to make the major decisions and translate for me. I looked at my Mom’s leg with her magic marker line stretching from her heal to her hip, marking the map of her planned incision. I am reminded of my sons’ arms, graffitied with the telephone number of a girl on the ship, in the same black magic marker. She wrote on both boys’ arms. I wonder whose wounds will heal faster.

“And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.”

Kathy left to go to my house to shower. She spent the night in the chair bed next to Mom’s. I watched an old movie with my Mom. The phone rang. Its Kathy.

“Betty, the tree next to the driveway was hit by lightening and is laying across the road. It took some power lines down with it, I think, and another tree in the back yard was hit, too.”

I looked outside my Mom’s hospital window. The sun was shining.

“And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.”

I left for home. Sure enough, a section of my Bradford Pear rested across the road. Another branch, though not a huge one, was just outside my back door. No damage to the house. I breathed a sigh of relief. The city arrived in a few minutes to whisk away the tree.

Sunday morning, I met Kathy for breakfast. We had a wonderful time, laughing, chatting up the waiter, who was obviously new to his job, but very personable. He’ll do well. We ran over to the mall to get her some shoes so she can work out with me. The phone rang again. Roger and my nephew, Nick, are at my house. I headed home, Kathy headed for the hospital. I bounded into the house, eager to see my brother.

“Hey, Bets. Wow, you got lucky with that big limb in the back yard. It just missed the house.”

I looked at him quizzically.

“That big limb that fell in your back yard, across the fish pond.”

My eyes widened in terror and I raced out the back yard. I can no longer breathe. A tree laid across my beautiful sanctuary. The roof of my shed was concave where it was once convex. My flowers were almost invisible with the greenery engulfing them. The pond continued to bubble cheerfully. I checked out my fish. They were swimming carefree as always. I thought for a moment. It wasn’t there when I left for breakfast. I remembered checking the fish, admiring the purple flowers on the vines embracing my fence. I usually have coffee out here in the mornings. I looked at my bench and smiled to myself. I would have been fine. I might have had a brown mess to clean up had I been sitting there, but the tree wouldn’t have hurt me. The shed sheltered my bench.

There appears to be no damage to the fish pond or my fence, only the shed housing my garden tools and a few bikes. I needed to clean that shed out anyway.

Nonetheless, I feel lucky to be alive.

And lucky to still have my Mom.

“Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.”

A Novel Experience

I'm back from the cruise, will post more tomorrow, but right now, I'm pooped.

But I have good news.

I finished the novel.

I am a novelist.

(happy dance)

More tomorrow. Its so good to be home.

Cruisin'

I'm off on vacation with my three boys, will return next Saturday, perhaps with pictures, definately with stories and memories. Hold us close in your thoughts. We are all still struggling to wrap our hearts around the loss of our dog. I'm hoping this time away will help.

Grandma Gymnastics

Elizabeth thought she would be so much smarter, so much more graceful in matters of the heart. She thought that a woman in her forties would have overcome the pimply faced awkwardness, the bumbling replies, the tipping over of wine glasses that so besought her in her twenties. She thought that her heart was stronger, after seventeen years of rigorous marital workouts, that it could withstand rejection like the tall hickory trees in her back yard, bending to the wind, snapping back upright with effortless ease. It was tougher than she thought, this second chance stuff, this chance to get it right in middle age. She felt like a grandma trying to do gymnastics, things just weren’t as flexible as they once were, and more often than not, she fell flat on her face.

An excerpt from the novel I’m working on, and a topic of numerous conversations I’ve had as of late, all entirely unrelated. This second chance at love thing, this chance to get it right in middle age, for some it seems so effortless. For some, the right partner falls into their lap in their first foray out onto the playing field. Not so with me…and not so with most people I know.

I have reached a conclusion, based on my bouts with both rejecting and being rejected. Its not my fault. If I am rejected, its not about a defect in me or a deficiency in my character or my body type…and truth be told, I have ALWAYS thought, when a lover chose someone other than me, that it was because my butt’s too big. Always. My epiphany in front of my fish pond a few days ago was that it really has nothing to do with me. We choose our partners because of our childhoods. We chose our partners, mostly unconsciously, based on our experiences with our parents. Needs that were unmet for us as children guide us in seeking to have those needs either met as adults, or repeated like a broken record in the dance of love.

As a child, I was neglected and abused. I know, I know, weren’t we all neglected and abused….and I think, in one way, shape, or form, we all were. They don’t make perfect parents. The child feels an unconscious need, however major or minor, and if that need is felt long enough, then it surfaces when choosing a partner later in life. In my case, I felt a strong sense of being unprotected as a child, and as an adult, I am almost exclusively attracted to tall men…men who I think could protect me…from my father, who is now a sick old man living in a nursing home. I could take him with one hand tied behind my back now. I have no need of a protector anymore….yet there is no denying the physiological response my body has to a tall man. Put some weight and muscle on him and my knees are shaking.

At the writing retreat, one of my small group members, who is 5’5” and is spectacularly beautiful, talked about her boyfriend, who is 5’4”. I listened to her in amazement. The thought of falling for a man who was shorter than I made me giggle. And then I thought, “I am cheating myself by ruling out people based solely on their physical stature.”

The fact of the matter is that its hard to change the tapes with which we were raised. They replay over and over. As do the tapes in the hearts and minds for those we love, or want to love. We can’t change the tapes in anyone’s heart except our own. If my lover rejects me, its because I don’t play the tune that fits with the tape from his childhood. Its not about me, its about him. I shouldn’t feel bad that I don’t fit his tape, that would be like feeling bad because I’m not four inches taller. Nothing I can do about that.

The bottom line is that I have figured out a way to absolve myself from responsibility if a guy I become enamored with does not return my affection. I can just blame it on his mother….

The down side to that is now, every time I look at my boys, I feel sorry for the poor girl who is going to have to live with my mistakes 15 years down the road. Adds yet another layer of responsibility.

Which just goes to show…you win some…you lose some. Even when it comes to responsibility.

The Road Less Traveled

My stay at the convent was restful, relaxing and productive. I came to the retreat with Chapters 1 through 6 completed. I did some editing to those chapters, completed chapters 7-15, got three quarters of the way through chapter 16, and wrote chapter 20, the last chapter of my novel.

Just as I did last year, I quickly acclimated to my new surroundings, establishing a routine to ensure adequate writing time, but also to allow space to bond with the other writers accompanying me on this week’s journey. I would awaken around 8:00am, have coffee and conversation with the other women until around nine, write from 9:00am to 11:30am, go for a power walk, work up a sweat, shower and go to lunch. After lunch was small group, then I would write for another two hours, go to dinner, write for another hour, then the entire circle would meet from 7:30pm to 9:00pm. We had a party every night after 9:00, followed by a skinny dip in the pool and stargazing, supine on the cement pathways of the cemetery. We saw some spectacular shooting stars.

On Thursday, my morning went as usual. I was having a bit of difficulty with Jason’s coma and awakening thereof. At 11:30, I donned my exercise garb and headed for the outdoors. Previously, I had explored the three ponds of the Sisters of Loretto, and today, I decided to get a gander at the lovely waterfalls I had admired next to the road when I was here last year. I checked my watch at the end of drive. Five minutes. I figured I needed to walk ten minutes, turn around, walk ten minutes back, five minutes back up the drive and I’d be right on schedule. I had left my head phones behind, hoping for conversation with my muse. Ten minutes later, I slapped the red stop sign which happened to coincide with my halfway point and turned back to the convent.

The road back was downhill. I expected it to take less time. About half way back, my characters started carrying on a conversation and I was conscious only of their words. It was wonderful. My head bent, oblivious to my surroundings, my muse chattered away, writing the end of my novel, the critical last line. He whispered secrets to me about my characters and hints as to how to solve a couple of puzzles pausing my hands as they had hovered over the keyboard earlier in the day. I picked up the pace, wanting to get back to my room so that I could have a few extra minutes to tap away the thoughts on the computer before lunch. My characters continued their discussion and I listened happily.

I paused in my pursuit to look at my watch. Surely I should be close to the convent by now. I was aghast to find that half an hour had passed since I had last looked at my watch. I looked around me. The creek was on the opposite side of the road than where it should have been. I realized I didn’t recognize the farmhouse ahead, nor the pasture behind me. My throat was suddenly dry and parched. I had been out in the scorching sun now for almost an hour. I felt light headed. I was now aware of the blister on my right heel and that I was limping slightly.

When the buzzards began circling overhead, I got a little nervous.

I turned around and started walking back the way I came. That had to be the convent just over the next rise. I kept walking. Another pasture. Another farm I didn’t recognize. Another unfamiliar stand of trees. I knew that the creek crossed under the road at the entryway to the convent, so I kept an eye out for the creek across the street. After awhile I saw it angle away and just up a head, it angled back towards the road. Finally, pastureland succumbed to well tended lawn. I had walked right past the convent. I had walked past the huge, black lettered sign, the 50 yards of open lawn laying in stark contract to the fenced in pasture and woods both before and after.

I thought to myself, only a damn writer could get lost on a straight road.

Convent Conversations

I had a spectacular week at the convent. Fourteen women, in total, comprised our circle. We laughed together, cried together, shared our words and our stories and our hearts. Ranging in age from 35 to early sixties, I found it interesting that not one of us was with our original husband. Two women had never been married, a couple of us had only been married once and were now divorced. A few of the women had been married and divorced more than once.

A group of us went skinny dipping in the convent pool…after 11:00 at night of course. Imagine, if you will, five middle aged women, of all shapes and sizes, buck naked under the stars at a convent in the middle of Kentucky. We had so much fun. One of the women has a laugh that rivals my own in velocity and frequency. We were laughing our fool heads off, that first night, telling jokes, amazed with ourselves for having the audacity to skinny dip in the first place, and in a convent, no less. We were marveling at the fact that in the water, with nothing on, our breasts were buoyed back up to where they belonged. I was indescribably pleased with my perky teenaged tits, skinny dipping in that pool. When I floated on my back, my nipples pointed to the stars instead of trying to hide in my armpits, like they usually do.

I am very heterosexual, as those of you who know me can surely attest, but I have to say, I got a good look at the naked ladies swimming with me, and they were all soooo beautiful. It could have been because I had heard their words and I already loved their souls. It could have been because their bodies bore an uncanny resemblance to my own, or it could have been that with the cover of semi darkness and the glitter of the stars, everything is beautiful. Regardless, I am never going to cover my nakedness from an appreciative eye again. If the beauty I saw in my fellow swimmers is what my lover sees when he looks at me, then I’ve got nothing to hide.

So there we are, frolicking in the water, laughing and floating, tits staring at the stars. The convent has an infirmary, so when the lights of cars started passing by the pool in increasing frequency, we figure its just the shift change for the nurses in the infirmary. A truck goes by, turns around, goes by again. The next time past, it stops. A door opens. The crunch of boots on gravel silences our laughter.

“You girls are having entirely too much fun in there.” A distinctly male voice rings out from behind the pool fence. Silhouetted against the night light left of the pool is the shadow of a medium sized man.

We race for the other end of the pool, porcelain bottoms gleaming in the translucent chlorinated water.

“You know, that’s not allowed.” The man continues.

“What’s not allowed?” one woman asks, tremulously. We are all three harboring the hope that our lack of proper swimming attire has escaped his notice and he is simply addressing the loudness of our laughter or the lateness of our fun.

“I’m just kiddin’ y’all. I’m the night watchman.”

“Ok, thanks.” Someone says.

“A night watchman at a convent in the middle of no where?” I think to myself.

“Y’all let me know if y’all need anythaaannng.” He drawls. He watches for a few moments as we twitter nervously. He gets back in his truck and purrs on down the drive.

“Yeah, right,” A.M. sputters bravely, the truck’s taillights blinking a fond farewell. “I just bet he was hoping we’d invite him in for a swim.”

“I wonder if there even is a night watchman!” I chime in.

“Did anybody get a good look at him?” G.H. asks.

“Yeah, I mean, was he cute?” I asked, innocently.

“What, so we could invite him in for a swim?” A.C. laughs.

Why not, I think to myself. The way I figure it, one medium sized guy with five voluptuous middle aged women…how much damage could he do?

Damn

Shit. Fuck. Goddamnit. This sucks. Fuck this shit. What the fuck.

I miss my dog.

Farewell to a Friend

Copper Winters Waite
Born: Unknown…sometime between 1993 and 1996.
Died: August 6, 2005
Cause: Cancer

Valued friend, faithful companion, guardian of the Waite pack, purveyor of shoes, purloiner of cat food, bastion of good will to all…except the mail man.

Survived by a tearful mother, three brothers, unabashed in their affection for him and free with their expression of their sorrow, two cats only one of which liked him much, an extended family and a plethora of friends who will miss him dearly.

I’m at that stage in my grief where for a moment I can still forget that he’s gone and picture him vividly carrying off my shoe, or asking politely for a drink of water. The tears still streak a steady stream down my face and I battle acceptance of what has happened.

It happened so fast. When I left on Sunday, he was a happy, energetic puppy, hopeful for a ride in my car, disappointed to see me speeding off without him. On Wednesday, my nephew says he was a little mopey, but still playful. On Thursday, he was vomiting excessively, on Friday, blood exited both ends of him, and on Saturday, the doctor said the dreaded word, “cancer”. Lots of cancer. There was nothing they could do. I left my retreat before closing ceremonies, set the cruise control to 80, met my sons and my nephew at the clinic. We concurred as a family the correct course of action, and we said our goodbyes. We must have used an entire box of the veterinarian’s Kleenex. The boys did not want to watch, but I held my doggy’s head while the doctor injected him, a silent scream to the universe the whole time. It seemed so wrong…

I kissed him goodbye and told him I was sorry, that I’d never forget him, that I’d love him always. I buried him next to my bench by the fish pond.

I’m not done writing about Copper. But I’ve written all I can for now.