Out of Shape: A Ramble

My writing muscles have atrophied from lack of use. Here’s what happened today when I decided to sit down to blog:

I’ll wash the dishes first. Is that a cloud? I better take the laundry off the line. Phew, it’s hot! I need a cold drink. I better refill the ice tray. Now I have to pee. I’ll text Molly and see when she’s heading back from her weekend jaunt out of town. I’ll just read the first section of the newspaper…

You get the idea. In the end it took me nearly an hour to finally hunker down. This is typical these days as is using the delete key like crazy, backspacing out as many words as I write, sometimes clearing away full paragraphs so I’m facing the same blank page I began with. Left to ferment, my perpetual inner-critic has grown bigger than ever.

From lack of use, I struggle to find my voice again. And then there’s the existential part. Why do it? This is what I’ve been wrangling with.

Last autumn I experienced a big change – I felt like a rock at low tide – upended to reveal things I never imagined beneath me. I’ve yet to process it all and will not do it here except to say I ended things with the man I’d lived with for 10 years. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a brief statement about the break-up of her marriage that resonated with me. “…I trust that you understand how this is a story that I am living—not a story that I am telling.” I can write about my late husband because he’s dead and because my daughter’s okay with it. Thanks to the gift of time, I do so from a loving place. But this new chapter in my life, put my writing life on pause.

Did you see Everything is Copy the excellent documentary about Nora Ephron by her son? I flinched more than once at how meanly, even if brilliantly, she wrote about people in her life that she’d once cared for. I don’t have the stomach for inflicting pain with my writing. My blog once went ‘viral’ read by thousands a day for a few days. Part of the blog was critical about someone I didn’t know, who I never imagined would read it since I usually had only a few dozen followers. My thrill at having so many hits was eclipsed by a sick feeling when the person (not identifiable except to her) read it and let me know. I was mortified, deleted the reference and still feel badly. I could never be a critic! And where does that leave me as a writer, period? Am I brave enough to write without restraint? I grapple with that.

tet

Then there are safer subjects – my meanders through the world, observing nature through the seasons. Without the sweet ritual of morning walks with Tetley who died in early Spring, I have floundered. My quiet time out on the street at the beginning, the end of the day, to look at the sky, smell the change of seasons, search for the songbird in the wood, feel the grit or slip under my feet. This discipline put me in a good place to write from – all senses alert. I miss that, but no I’m not ready for another dog. For one, it’s not fair to leave a dog alone all day and I haven’t won the lottery yet and must keep my day job.

Why write? Why blog? Even an inkling of those questions will halt my presses and the less I wrote these last months, the more I questioned.

I started this blog years ago on the advice of someone in publishing who said I should ‘establish an internet presence’. Initially I was reluctant thinking it self-indulgent. I hesitated to reveal myself to complete strangers – or even friends. Ironic since I’m also flogging my very personal memoir.

But in blogging I discovered the joy of being read. And of reading other blogs. And the tremendous benefit in regularly excavating, spewing and honing and finally letting go of something, surrendering it to the world.

Ultimately I know getting in shape is like any exercise: it’s about discipline. I also know it’s worth it. When I am in the flow of writing a piece, even if only for 30 minutes before going to work, I get to carry it with me as I go about my day, incubating my piece. It almost feels physical – a sense of well being, excitement.

That’s it, I guess – why I write at all. I feel better for living a creative life. In examining the unexpected world beneath that rock at low tide, I learn things about myself. Writing helps me figure out where I am, where I to go. Sometimes I think you, my dear readers, find it interesting too. I cherish that and frankly – wouldn’t do it without you.

Forgetting and Remembering a War

UN helmet

Excavating memories of Bosnia, I stumble on buried sadness and shame. Since my husband’s death there is no one who shares this time of my life with me, no one who understands – and so I can forget. Even when the Balkan war was raging, like any war that’s not yours, it was more than most can fathom so questions do not get asked, stories are never told. But the recent conviction of Karadzic and the new novel by Edna O’Brien – The Little Red Chairs (beautifully reviewed here) launched me into emotional archives.

I arrived on New Years eve and heralded in 1993 by drinking too much beer with British and Danish soldiers in the basement of a hotel-turned-UN base in Kiseljak, just 20 miles outside of Sarajevo. UN Peacekeeping seemed like a chance for me to make a difference – an idea quickly squashed by hopelessness and a murky mandate. I followed orders and stuck to the rules like a good neutral, well-paid international civil servant.

My job was to take notes at meetings with now-convicted war criminals. In bombed-out factories and airport hangars, freezing schools devoid of students, the men smoked, drank slivovitz and monologued about ancient grievances. On the way to one meeting, we passed burning houses, doors open, laundry flapping – the people fled – or worse. As I watched the thugs suck on their cigarettes, it was the smoke of the village that made me cough until tears ran down my face. The reports I wrote up were received on waxy paper that faded within weeks. At night, when I hid under my covers listening to the HVO (the Bosnian-Croat army) moving through the streets and thought of the violence of neighbor on neighbor, I wept and felt guilty for being there and doing nothing, ashamed for being part of the human race.

Whenever I could I spent the night with my husband-to-be at the Holiday Inn where he lived with the rest of the International Committee of the Red Cross. I envied them the good work they did, delivering tangible results – reuniting families, bringing in relief supplies. Neil brought cigarettes to prisoners and did his best to make everyone laugh. A natural rule-breaker, he looked to save lives, smuggling people out of the city more than once. I fell for him because of that and for the laughter. Also at the hotel were the many journalists who passionately exposed atrocities and relentlessly pushed for the world to see what was happening on their doorstep. I was quiet at these dinners, not wanting to identify myself as part of UNPROFOR – the Peacekeeping Operation regularly under fire by them – for me – doing nothing. I felt a fraud.

On one snowy day, I sat in the back of the armored car driven by the sweet young British soldier who’d been assigned to drive my boss. The 5 ton vehicle strained to get up the winding hills over Sarajevo. The view was incredible –  the hills from where the Serbs lobbed thousands of shells into the city, torturing their former neighbors for more than 3 years. One big gun erupted – as if shot for our benefit or warning – just as we passed. The massive car lifted and we continued up the road deafened, to the well-fed town in the hills above the city they were strangling.

My boss and I sat across the table from him and his wife and between bites, chatted about their work as psychiatrists, the time they spent in my old neighborhood not far from Columbia. She made some comment about New York being a good place for psychiatry. He mentioned the poets Charles Simic and Kenneth Koch as if they were friends. He asked how the food was where we were based. Only after the crumbs were swept off the table did he discuss his map – getting up with a toss of his hair to point out his version of the future – using the word ‘cleaned’ in referring to entire area of Bosnia and into Croatia. Cleaned. Of the many men I met who did terrible things, he was most clearly evil.

Perhaps forgetting makes sense for what is there to do with such guilt? Who do I ask for forgiveness? So I bury it and wait for the discomfort, the sickening feeling to fade. What is to be gained by remembering? Or what might be lost in forgetting? There was little I could have done – but I did so little.

Carrying Air to the Lungs

I’d been thinking a lot about breath lately, trying to breath better – if you will. Which is why getting hit with bronchitis feels like some weird message from the cosmos. What do I need to pay attention to? Am I going about this all wrong?

My mornings begin with at least a few minutes of meditating. I focus on my breath in between thinking about going back to sleep, what was my dream, or what do I need to do today? If my mind is particularly squirrel-y, I count and perhaps pause at each inhale, exhale. During the day, I do my best to breath from my diaphragm not my chest.

Being so conscious about my breath, I feel WTF? about getting this diagnosis. No cold, no sniffles, no flu – just all of a sudden a weird sensation of wheezing and a cough as if I smoked – and I never have. What am I missing, universe?

I know I need to do it harder – to more vigorously exercise beyond my preferred yoga – to make myself breathless. Aerobic exercise increases the body’s need for oxygen and the benefits to the body AND brain have been impressively proven, etc. etc. I try to walk sort-of fast around the track with my friend although we’ve been slacking. Still, I rarely sweat. I never run and I a haven’t ridden a bicycle regularly since before Molly was born.

Now that dear Tetley is gone, I must intentionally go out to walk. Without my dog companion I feel naked and am missing so much in my little hood: the up-close view of bluebells in bloom on my neighbors’ lawn, the glorious full moon glimpsed only while driving, fresh morning air of spring, the early, the late light of day as I trail after his wagging tail. Oh, don’t get me started on how I miss my little guy!

I told you last time how I listened to him dying, counting his last breaths but leaving him be because somehow, I felt he wanted to be left. And what could I do anyway? We die alone and I think, dog or human, it is rarely easy. I sat, respectful and moved by being witness to his death. And oh, the beauty of my uncomplicated grief! He loved, was loved and now, he is missed. Terribly. But even the sadness, feels rich and dear.

I am not used to uncomplicated grief. And breath feels profound for me – my mother died of lung cancer at 64. Diagnosed in Spring, she died the following Autumn. My husband chose to end his life by halting his breath. I cannot think long about breathing, the finite-ness of our inhalations and exhalations without launching into such musings, loaded like my bronchial tubes today, sticky with grief.

So what is there for me to learn here? Perhaps to not approach breath with just reverence, but to expand my lungs, thus brightening my brain, pumping my heart. This sounds so simple – exercise? Then why do I feel almost moved to tears by the notion of pushing myself beyond where I am comfortable, beyond my calming breaths, that there’s something more, something I have been missing and now it’s time to make a run for it. Or something.

How’s your breath? Any suggestions?

Tetley: Love Letter from a Reluctant Dog Owner

Neil fancied himself a Doctor Doolittle and if he had his druthers. would have made our house into a menagerie. Although I was never a cat person, he persuaded me to adopt a total of 3 in our first year together in Croatia. During our stint of living in Italy, he once rescued an owl from a barbed wire fence, and regularly welcomed ratty dogs to our villa until he could find homes for them. I found this endearing until we moved to Connecticut and I struggled to pay the bills. A full grown Golden Retriever needed to be spayed and ate weird things then left putrid puddles that as the early riser, I always got to clean up. After someone told me about a friend who spent $10,000 on their Retriever for surgery after it ate socks and a Brillo pad, I nixed this Golden – and any more dogs. Anyway, we had Katty who’d moved in on us when we first arrived back in the States. No dog, we agreed. So I thought.

tet and katty

On a December night, second grader Molly sprawled across the foot of our bed watching television. I was reading, propped up  against my pillows when Neil, blustered into the room, just home from work, his coat damp from the snowy night. I knew he was hiding something. After a quick kiss, Molly turned her attention back to her show. I peered suspiciously over my glasses and he opened his coat revealing a tiny gray dog. I couldn’t believe it. “No!”, I mouthed, gesturing for him to go downstairs  so we’d be out of Molly’s earshot.

molly and tetley

Neil handled the tiny, bedraggled puppy to me. “I’ll take him back if you want.” But he knew, he knew that as soon as I held that little beating heart to mine, I’d fall in love. We went back upstairs and presented Tetley to Molly who burst into tears of joy. Neil trained him brilliantly and this sweet Cairn loved us fiercely. Our corner plot surrounded by a hedge was his kingdom. I have lived in this neighborhood for close to 20 years and Tetley lived for 14 and I wager, more people know his name than mine.

tetley

He’s been gone 2 weeks and still I expect him to greet me when I come home from work, I look down, expecting to see his hopeful gaze as my knife hits the chopping board. My feet search for the warm lump of him at the foot of my bed. I think I hear the clicking of his nails against the hardwood floors. I leave time in the morning to take him for his walk before going to work and in the afternoon, I look out the window forlornly, missing our jaunt up the hilly streets, him proudly strutting beside me. What will I do without my guy?

Tetley faded fast. Molly and I had been bracing ourselves for years – we know loss well and this time, hoped to be prepared. He’d stopped eating his own food 2 weeks earlier, swallowing only the most savory treats: a rotisserie chicken was a big hit, steak, bacon – everything drenched in beef broth. He still loved a walk – even as he barely managed to step over the threshold, he wagged his tail furiously and announced himself to the squirrels with a few barks. But eventually, it was all he could do to toddle drunkenly into the yard, take care of his business before collapsing in exhaustion on the damp lawn.

Molly came down from college to spend the night that Sunday, knowing it would be her last opportunity to hold her beloved dog. When I returned home Monday afternoon, he still lay in his bed – the egg and bacon I’d left him in the morning, untouched. With my fingers, I offered a tidbit but he turned his head away and I knew this was the end. Molly and I had agreed that if he became like Katty – unable to even stand, I would bring him to be euthanized. The thought of his terror of the vet, the coldness of the metal table and scrubbed floors, made me ill. I didn’t want that to be his lot. Kneeling before him weeping, stroking his sweet head, I pleaded with Neil, gone 12 years this May, “He’s yours now! Please take our dog, please take him, Neil, please take him!”

With night, his breathing grew more labored and I thought – this is it. Finally, life is about breath. I counted his. In the early hours of the morning, I woke to hear him making his way under my bed so lifted and held him, smelling his fur, his now knobby spine against my chest. After a few minutes, he seemed to pull away, straining to get off the bed so I put him back down and again, he dragged himself as much under my bed as he could.

As a child, I loved a series of books about Collies – and recalled reading how the dogs knew when it was time to die and disappeared into the woods, under houses. They hid, wanting to be alone. Remembering these stories, I resisted the urge to hold him, to touch him, to let him know I was there – that’s not what he wanted. Instead, I listened to his inhales and exhales until there was silence. Then, I sat and said a kind of prayer, filling my own lungs, counting my own breaths, and with every beat of my broken heart, realizing his absence. And I thanked Neil for taking as he brought to us, this beautiful creature, finding comfort in imagining somewhere, somehow, him with the little Cairn and perfect love he delivered into our lives one snowy December night.

Wondering About Belief

 

gardenia

As people flock to catch even a glimpse of Pope Francis during his visit to the United States, I wonder about faith. The lackadaisical religious training of my upbringing (4 years of Catholic School) is long gone but I love this remarkable spiritual leader as he rejuvenates the conscience of the church, of all of us, demanding we pay attention and act against injustice, poverty. How can we not be moved? He gives me belief in humanity – a good place to start.

Because of too many recent deaths, I have been in different churches celebrating and grieving lives of those gone. It’s good there are places to do this. I flailed after my husband’s death – not knowing where or even how to hold a service but thought it important to have one for my daughter, for me. I remain ever grateful to the Unitarian Minister who guided me with poetry in his beautiful church. But it was mostly him that drew me – the congregation was too white and wealthy to become my community.

To some extent, I envy the assurance of my wise friends of faith. They know where to turn to make sense of the world, they find comfort believing their loved ones are welcomed by a benevolent God after death. It’s a beautiful story but I don’t feel that belief. During prayers, I bow my head in quiet reverence and appreciate the hum, the music, the silences of the faithful I stand with and envy the ready community to be found in a church of shared faith. But I don’t share it.

And I wonder – how others feel so sure in their belief and why I don’t. I joke about being a recovering Catholic and that recovery takes a lifetime. But even that gives more weight to the impact my early childhood religion had on me. I was done early. I went to Catholic school until 3rd grade and in 4th or 5th, had the misfortune of encountering a mean priest in confession. Other than funerals and weddings, my family no longer went to church nor did we ever pray or discuss faith. It didn’t stick.

Even as I join with others in church, knowing I am welcome, sure my questions would be embraced, I feel a foreigner who doesn’t quite understand the language. I’m glad for the visit, sometimes, even exhilarated by the energy, the force of many voices raised together, the easy support they give each other, the love offered. I listen carefully and sometimes join the prayers waiting to be moved, for them to feel like anything more than a recitation and –  am not. So there you have it.

Yet, walking home from a love filled memorial service in a beautiful old church yesterday evening, the moon appeared huge and bright on the horizon. My heart filled and I felt the wonder of the earth beneath my feet spinning through the universe.

Sparks of Joy, Embers of Sadness

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo is a wildly popular little book that has been sitting on the bestseller list for a few weeks. It’s a bit wacky and wonderful, and somehow, incredibly motivating. Basically, the author suggests that you get rid of anything that does not spark joy in you. I confess, I’d read only a few chapters before launching full speed ahead into sorting out the joy from no-joy in my closet. Doing this with Winter clothing was easy — especially after this year’s grueling season. I was all too happy to give a heave-ho to my woolies and packed up 3 garbage bags.

Hidden in the behind my clothes was also something I’d been ignoring for 11 years – since my husband’s death. An oversized blue duffle bag full of papers documenting symptoms of his demise including collection letters, bank notices, recovery books and saddest of all, his return plane ticket to England for May 5, 2004.  He never got on that flight, instead, in the early hours of May 1st, he chose to end his life.

I’d held onto this bag of sadness for more than a decade. Why? To remind myself of what a lost cause our marriage had become? Proof I had done what I could? I don’t need that kind of reminder any more. As the years have passed, it’s gotten easier to remember the wonderful things about the father of my daughter, the man I’d once been wild about. The funny, warm, generous guy he was before addiction swallowed our marriage and eventually, him. Time has delivered healing, allowing me to better remember the laughter, adventure and love we shared. On a recent balmy night – too warm for a fire, I sat in front of the fireplace feeding the flames with sad history, sparks flying up the chimney into the night sky.

The Focus Turns From Death to Life

On the front page of last Saturday’s New York Times, the headline read “As Ebola Ebbs, Focus Turns From Death to Life”. Norimitsu Onishi’s article is about life returning to normal in Liberia, featuring wonderful images of people on the beach, a newborn, a wedding. Smiling faces, normal life. So different from the heartbreaking photos of the disease ravaged scenes we’ve become accustomed to seeing out of West Africa.

The focus turns from death to life. A simple line that strikes me as being a key to healing after loss. Of course this will have a hollow ring to the newly grieving. Moving beyond heartbreak when we are deep in the trenches of sadness feels impossible. We cannot imagine we will ever be able to do anything but focus on the pain of our loss. We wonder if a feeling of normal will ever be ours again. Forget about joy, ever feeling normal again seems inconceivable.

But with time, the focus does turn. I know this to be true. If you’ve tangled with grief but some time has passed hopefully, you do too. I think it’s less a ‘getting over’  but rather, with time, allowing ourselves to look elsewhere. Away from sadness. The thing that happened remains with us forever but the grip on our psyche, our heart, can loosen. Pleasure and even joy are indeed possible. I have experienced this and witnessed it in others. Perhaps it’s this focus shifting from death to life that’s necessary to continue on with our own.

For close to a decade my life was dominated by my husband’s addiction and then, his suicide. Loss felt long and drawn out, even while he was alive but fading away from us. After the violence of his death, my grieving was complicated. Since then, ten years have passed again and now this is mostly a story. Mine (and my daughters because we lived it together) but a story. When I think for long about the painful times I can evoke some tough emotions. I rarely do.

Over the years, many people reacted by saying “I can’t imagine.” but as many have their own tales as terrible or worse than mine. Like the loss of a child. I cannot imagine this – and hate to even write it as if doing so might make the possibility more real. And yet, loving parents lose their children and go on living their lives.They find a way. WE find a way. Us remarkable humans. How the hell do we do that? How do we go on to choose life?

Inspiring stories abound of generosity and purpose born out of loss and grief. Parents who vowed to remember their children by reaching out to others, lending support to others, creating scholarships, foundations. Like the incredible human spirits, rising from the ashes to create something new and good out of  loss: the families of Sandy Hook whose children were killed on that hideous day in December 2012.

Our focus turns to life. Maybe it’s as simple as that for those of us without some structure or core of belief. Our losses will only increase with age. What are we to do we do as we lose more and more people (and pets!) we love? How do we continue moving on with our lives even as we know there will be more losses ahead? We turn our focus to life, remember love and continue to love. Love. It’s a start and if we’re lucky, it will be our finish too.

Favorite Things and Cultivating Detachment

Thirty-five years later, I can still hear my roommate’s tragic voice and pronouncement: “That was my favorite bowl.” Linda enjoyed eating her salads and soup from the over-sized blue-glazed, handmade piece of pottery I had just accidentally shattered to bits. Apologizing profusely, I guiltily attempted to match the largest shards together. There was nothing to be done. While saying she forgave me, her big sad doe-eyes told me otherwise. I felt terrible. I also hated her a little for making me feel so awful. Perhaps it’s my guilt about being angry with her that keeps this memory so fresh in my mind.

Since then I have suffered similar losses of ‘favorite’ mugs, books, bits of clothing – ruined or lost by others. I always remind myself to try and let the thing go and not to amp up the guilt the way Linda did. Accidents happen. I live where it’s easy enough to shop for a new ‘favorite’ to fall in love with, to infuse with new memories and tea stains.

These musings were brought on by hair-line cracks I recently discovered in my favorite tea pot. My attachment to this thrift-shop find is merely that it is beautiful and made in Italy near where Molly was born. See how lovely it is?

teapot 1

It’s so easy to infuse meaning and sentiment into anything. While this is a nice pot, I have a back-up, Less charming but certainly as functional for my morning brew.

teapot 2

I remind myself not to get too attached and yet, surrounded as I am by so many things, sometimes that’s a challenge. But definitely not as hard as it once was.

According to Buddhism, the origin of suffering is attachment. I railed against this non-attachment stuff as a twenty-something woman living in Kyoto and longing for love. I associated this way of being with lack of passion. Of course it didn’t help that I had an unrequited crush on a strapping, young, handsome American man who had just emerged from a year of living in a monastery. I really wanted to crack his detachment…

Decades later, I get it. After a while, accumulated losses gave me a new appreciation for non-attachment. Eventually, these kind of scars turn into well-worn tracks of the heart, weirdly making it easier to navigate the next time. And there will always be a next time – be it large or small. Broken bowls? Cracked tea-pots? Eh.

The beautiful teapot does not seem to leak – not yet – but I’ve stopped using it since discovering the cracks. But why should I? Without use, it will become invisible to me, it’s importance will fade. I know I could put a plant in it, turn it into something else. I never really do those things – it would sit and gather dust and be forgotten.

I think I’ll just keep using it until one day, the boiling water seeps through and floods the counter. It won’t surprise me – not really. Until then, I’ll work on letting go and have another cup of tea. And if it cracks on R or Molly’s watch, I won’t blame them.

Relief in Recognition – War

People who have lived through war are often reluctant to talk about their experiences – it’s like you are speaking another language – one that most people don’t understand nor care to learn. So when someone shares even a smidgeon of common experience or gives you a speck of recognition, the feeling is relief. We don’t really want to be alone.

About a year ago after an event at the store, I heard a young woman behind me say she was from Croatia. I turned and asked, from where exactly? She responded, you probably don’t know the place: Knin. I said, I do – I lived there. Knin is often described as dreary, sitting over the last rocky mountain range before reaching the stunning Dalmatian coast. In 1991, the Krajina Serbs declared it the capital of their self-proclaimed country. From June until December 1992 I was based there with the UN Peacekeeping mission in former Yugoslavia – UNPROFOR.

knin rail river and empty roads

I didn’t always feel comfortable on those dusty streets – strangely dark with soldiers looking out from the shadows of the perpetually open bars. But gradually, I made friends – mostly with women. Relationships were usually limited, because of language barriers, to smiles and shared Turkish coffee cooked over propane or wood stoves because more often than not, there was no gas nor electricity.

A few months older than Molly, the girl in the bookstore had been an infant when the shit hit the fan. I left Croatia around the time she was born, on my own maternity leave – earlier than expected because the slow simmering conflict of four years, was escalating. Shells were being lobbed between the two sides. The Croatians were done waiting and were taking back control of what had been UN ‘protected’ but Serb controlled areas. In August, I was across the Adriatic in Italy with Molly in my arms as I watched the news – the roads out of Krajina to Serbia packed with cars and horse drawn carts for carrying hay loaded with suitcases, refrigerators, whatever they could carry. I searched the faces for my former landlord, my neighbors and local colleagues.

view from Knin window

The girl told me her mother would know about that time and worked nearby at a hair salon not more than a mile from here.

It took me a year, but last week I called the salon and asked for an appointment with the woman from Croatia. An attractive, fashionably dressed woman greeted me with a warm hug. She said, “It’s been awhile! How have you been?” I told her we had never met. “But you look so familiar. I know your face.” Well, I said, that’s interesting… and then I told her how I knew her tiny, troubled town twenty years ago. Her eyes filled and so did mine. She grabbed me and insisted on introducing me to her colleagues, “Look! She lived in my town!” They smiled politely. “Come, I have to tell my boss.” A short man sat going over a paper with another stylist – he looked up as she said, “You have to meet this lady! She lived in Knin!” “Was there water and electricity?” he asked, thinking he was making a joke. “Only sometimes,” I answered. He went back to his work.

Sitting in front of a mirror for the next 40 minutes as she combed and snipped, we disappeared into another time and place. I wanted to hear her story and I knew what questions to ask. I know something of the roads she traveled.

window view

She told me they were a ‘mixed’ family meaning she was Catholic (Croatian) and her husband, Orthodox (Serb). She remained in Knin with her husband and the Serbs instead of leaving for the beautiful Croatian town on the coast where she was from. She didn’t mention this as being unusual but I know, it was. The family fled Krajina that August with only some clothes packed beside their babies in a Yugo. They crawled along on the road full of refugees, driving to Serbia. She’d had a good gig cutting the hair of UN soldiers from Kenya and the UN police from all over the world, and saved her money – enabling them to rent a little house in Serbia rather than be put in refugee hotels. Her husband was called up by the army and he said, “To fight for what? I’ve already lost everything.” So they threw him in detention. After a few years, they made it to the States as refugees and landed in a large, very depressed city in Connecticut. From there, they rebuilt their lives.

She nursed her baby during the 10 hour trek out of Krajina or she said, her daughter might not have survived since there was nothing else. Across the Adriatic in Italy, I nursed my girl and watched the news.

“You don’t seem bitter or angry. How is that?” I asked.  She shrugged and said, “I was young. If this happened now, I’d have a heart attack.” But I think it’s more than youth this ability she and others have to not be swallowed by sorrow. Of course, she knows she is luckier than too many from those years – her family alive and well – her beautiful daughters all thriving. But it’s more than that – this woman of warmth, life and humor seems determined to always choose love. And she also has a skill. While we were talking she’d stop and say, “You should put some color in you hair!”

We were both moved – and perhaps me more than her. She told me she Skypes regularly with her family there and couldn’t wait to tell them about me. And of course she is with her husband – they made that long journey together. But I have no one to speak with about this time – it’s too complicated to explain and frankly, no one is really interested. I was glad to remember and share this stretch of history with this vibrant woman. The stuff of our lives, the joys, the sadness — we long to have it recognized by someone else, don’t you think?

Like any war, there were many villains and so much evil there. But there were also families, nursing mothers and little children wanting nothing more than to live there lives.

I am glad to have connected with this kin spirit of shared roads, a mother who moved beyond her loss and obstacles to live a life of joy.

Conjuring Mothballs

umbrella

I prefer ushering summer in, more than I do out.  Packing away shorts, and cotton shirts is a melancholy activity – unlike the joy of pulling all these garments out after a long winter. It seems I wore only half of my summer dresses this cooler-than-usual summer, and now I am folding them up for another year.  From the basement, I haul up the heavier load of winter clothing – darker tones and heavier weaves.

I learned this ritual of switching my wardrobe, from my mother. I remember the smell of mothballs permeating our apartment as she pulled out our stored clothing from the massive suitcases wedged into the top of the coat-closet. I laugh thinking about oh! my dread of my older sister’s hand-me-downs and how now, she and I relish each other’s rejects.

I survey each piece of clothing: to keep or not. This is a good time to purge the barely worn frock with the velvet bits. And certainly the linen pants I’ve been hanging onto with the illusion my waist line will ever be that size again. Times up on that one! I pile my has-beens on the bed, trying to embrace advice from the anti-hoarder experts — something like if you haven’t worn it X amount of time in the last season, it’s time to let it go.

Although I took a good load to Goodwill today, it should really have been bigger. I still cannot part with my faded cotton bathrobe – now ripping in places. It would be a good rag, or if I were crafty, maybe I could turn pieces into a quilt. But I’m not, so it gets packed away so next year, I can find it again and remember when my husband brought it to me, then lovely crisp and too-expensive, the day after I landed in the hospital on a sweltering June in Italy when I delivered Molly 2 months early. That was 19 years ago and I still can’t part with this now tattered robe.

There’s also a very pretty dress, although not really me, that I wore to N’s memorial service.  He’d bought it for me one day for no reason I knew of, about a year earlier. I’d barely worn it even then, because it’s a little too dressy and not the nicest fabric – but I can’t get rid of it. I like to think of him shopping for me, looking for something that I might like, that would suit me. He liked to shop and had expensive taste he indulged, even when he had no money and that was most of our marriage. But, I imagine him lovingly thinking about me — not trying to make up to me or distract me from maybe being coked up.

Anyway, I focused on him that day at the Unitarian Church – remembering him and his life and death on another day in June. It was the first day since his suicide a month earlier, that I was able to move past my fury and shock and begin to think of him with love and to mourn him.

The anti-hoarders would have me get rid of it perhaps, because all summer this dress has hung in my closet unworn. But instead, I’ve packed it away for another year.

The closet and drawers are emptier. I’ve yet to unpack any sweaters, the wooly socks, the corduroy pants. Not yet. It’s still warm enough and for now, I enjoy the space that lies between.

snow tree

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