Veteran’s Day

It should be no secret that soldiers are as vulnerable to mental damage as they are physical. This is obvious from the mental illness and drug addiction so rife in returning soldiers. My late-husband was a veteran.  Always a voluble guy, he told compelling tales of his past, of growing up in England, his travels, the movie and music business of which he was also a veteran, yet he rarely spoke about his time as a 17-20 year old British soldier in the 70s.  Like most over the past decades, the battles his government sent him into were dubious ones – even secret – and he lived with the resulting nightmares of terrible violence and shame with uncharacteristic silence.  And ultimately, he paid the price as we, his family did.

This excerpt is from the memoir I am working on:

I used to wonder why veterans are reticent to talk about their war experience. They flinch at the thoughtless question, “Did you ever kill anyone?” yet put them in a room with other soldiers, even former enemies, and in hushed tones their stories flow. Soldiers believe their experiences are too terrible to repeat to civilians. Ian did.

Can anyone who inflicted and suffered terrible violence ever really experience peace again? Maybe only those who see at least a glimmer of possibility through the demons of their past, manage to survive.  Perhaps the veterans of war keep their terrible memories locked away in the hope they will eventually disappear. And maybe I need to tell mine so they won’t.

This nod of a named-day or a float in a parade, a bumper sticker — none of these are enough. Soldiers, are claimed as points of righteous patriotism and used as political batting rams.  They return home from ostensibly protecting their country, their people — and are left with little support of the kind that can make a difference. Instead, after being feted with parties or a parade, they are expected to return to their roles of parents, children, brother, sister and friend. To carry on. Instead, an increasing number are so damaged and without support, they kill themselves and sometimes, awfully, their own families.  Something is wrong.  Silence is a killer and must be broken to save these lives tasked by governments with the notion of protecting ours.

A Time for Birds

Branches almost completely bare of leaves are now busy with bird life.  Mourning doves sit silently shifting their proportionately huge (their heads are so weirdly small!) bodies around the maple tree.  Cardinals line-up at the bird feeders and chickadees creep upside-down around the crab-apple tree at the end of our driveway, now heavy with fruit.

My neck cricks, watching all of the fluttering action on this bright Sunday morning walk with Tetley.  We turned the clocks back an hour, another milepost for the season and technically, it’s still early and quiet (no leaf blowers) enough so I heard a distant line of geese, flying as only half a vector.  Why did they fly in a straight line although there were enough of them to form a V?

Yesterday, half-a-dozen parrots decorated our oak tree. I rarely see them still – usually they flash by as noisy-green squawking mobs. But there they were – sitting, tropical green and magnificent throughout the oak’s dull branches, unusually quiet, they let out only the odd screech.  I love to see these accidental-immigrants (the story goes that years ago there was a crate-escape from a shipment landing at La Guardia airport.) but don’t want them moving onto our property — which makes me sound like some kind of bird-bigot. It’s just that they make way too much noise and their nests can overwhelm and kill a tree. So Molly and I stood beneath them, doing our best screeching imitations of parrot-speak, to say: ‘move-on!’ before collapsing in hysterics.

I hope to see our neighborhood raptor soon.  The branch in the neighboring wood where he sits in-watch or to digest some unfortunate, small creature, is visible again. In the summer we sometimes heard his distinctive high-pitch, plaintive scream, but rarely saw him for more than a few minutes, majestically floating by.  While I am sad to be edging closer to winter, I love our new view of the birds.

In-between

Waking on weekend mornings when I don’t have to go to the bookstore, it takes a few minutes for me to realize that the day is mine. I must veer my thoughts away from work-life: the calls I didn’t make, the tasks still waiting on my cluttered desk. Where I write from is so far away from that world and weekdays, while I try and rise early enough to have time to write, to exist in that internal place, there is never enough time. I need to be in almost a reverie when I work – best right out of sleep – my subconscious still primed from a night of dreams.  On work and school days, I have the finely tuned but harried, going-to-school and work rituals of making sandwiches, calling M to wake up, (again and again) before we bustle out of the door and roll into the dark morning towards our day-lives. But Saturdays and Sundays (two days in a row!) are precious – time to really look at things – within and without.

The dog still requires I venture outside and if I heed him early enough, the moon’s glow is still brighter than the sun’s. I revel in the magic between night and day, sleep and waking and these days, between the seasons. Over this past month, it is has gone from twilight to dark when I answer Tetley’s call for a quick morning walk down the street. This week, there were days when the weather was crazy-warm and as I made my way past the hedges, I heard the murmur of a summer insect, delightful and comforting.  An extension of the spirit of summer along with the weather.

There is a fleeting quality to these days. Autumn and spring pass quickly – the sweetness and drama between heat and cold and the melancholy of the brevity of this beauty is potent. So I pull myself out of the warmth of my bed, and for the time I have here in the now-cool mornings (we are reluctant to turn on the heat – as if waiting will keep the cold at bay) I do my best to pay attention.

Beach Morning

I pushed aside the curtain to the yoga class and knew I was too late. Chock-a-block sticky mats only inches apart from each other, guarded by their owners in various twists or (my favorite) corpse pose, waiting for the teacher to start. With so many bodies packed together, the room already smelled. I left. Maybe later I will pick up another class to shake out kinks from a week of too much sitting. Instead, I headed to the beach.

Parking near our kayak launch spot, I zipped my jacket and pulled up my hood. A cloudless sky but a decent wind made for brisk walking and I headed over to the sandy beach, deserted but for a distant man with a fishing rod stuck in beside him.  It was still early – not even the gulls were out to explore the morning’s pickings. This beautiful spot is only minutes from our home. During the summer, we get down here whenever we can to paddle away from shore in our yellow kayak.  We rarely step on to this sandy stretch – the beach where swimmers and sunbathers crowd. I am drawn here only when I know it will be deserted – early or late or during a storm. This morning, the water like glass barely lapping against the tightly packed sand. No waves today, at least, not yet.  Looking out at the islands we kayak around, I was tempted to rush home and pull Rob out of bed to join me in yet one more outing on the water.  But we get wet in our flat ocean-kayak and the thought of sitting damp in a boat with a stiff wind blowing was enough to keep me on my sandy trek up, and then down again, the length of the beach.

At one point, with a nod to the yoga class I was missing, I stretched. Hanging over, my arms heavy, releasing my back and gradually loosening until my fingertips barely touched the sand, the moving tide seemed also to be trying to reach my toes.  Breathing in and out of my nose, filling my lungs with sweet air and releasing again while marveling at the beauty on my doorstep. As a child growing up in NYC, I longed for such access to nature. Just to go outside, I needed to ride the creaky elevator and although magnificent VanCortlandt park was just across the street, I could not venture into the woods for fear of scary men. Remembering this, I feel grateful for my world and the morning’s too crowded yoga class.

Wake-Up

In the sleep stolen between the sound of my alarm and Tetley’s barking, I dreamt I was traveling somewhere in Europe.  The place is less important than the feeling conjured by the dream.

The weather was cool. I was moving on from a little pensione where I knew no-one, to another place and had little heart for it. What I wanted was to be home, to actually have such a place. Living without schedule or purpose beyond being somewhere and then only to go to yet another place – only an observer of other people’s lives – in both my dream and memory, I recall how exhausting and lonely this exercise often was.

On the road, it was home I longed for – a home I did not have.  Instead, I kept moving on, traveling to another exotic place hoping to find my place. That somewhere, I would discover a reason to stay.

From the recesses of my unconscious, I am reminded of these times and thus, to savor my present. These days are so busy with external demands,  I long for unscheduled, contemplative hours until the dream reminds me that what I desired so many years and miles ago is here: I am home.

October

Gusting winds whipped through the garden, with the same rhythmic power of the sea. Leaves swept inside-out and then back again, still clinging to branches, the violence of the movement sounding like waves crashing onto shore.  Laying still in the dark of early morning, I am reluctant to move, wishing I could remain in retreat and follow the wild-weather from the comfort of my bed. But up I get to join the fray.

The wind brought the rain — falling in lashing grey sheets throughout the day. Rivers of water filled the roads and traversing even the shortest distance from car-to-building was enough to get drenched. Still, it felt tropical – more summer than autumn. But that was yesterday. This morning, my street is filled with storm-flotsam: twigs, leaves, branches pooled by flood waters into a topographical map over the cracked tarmac.  The sky is vivid blue and the leaves seem to have changed into their autumn colors overnight.  A flock of birds settle noisily into the trees. I cannot make them out between the foliage, nor do I recognize their song – more like chatter – as if they are discussing what route to take. They are on their way somewhere – at least 30 of them. It feels cold and pulling my jacket close, I yawn and my breath forms a cloud.

The seasons were wrestling these past few days – but this morning we have a winner: autumn is here.

Living with Books

When I ride the train, the subway, walk on a beach – and see someone reading, I always want to know – what?  When people are photographed or interviewed on television in front of a bookcase, I try to make out what titles are on their shelves. Because I work in a bookstore? Maybe, but also because I am nosy – it is as if I’m sneaking a peek at who this person really is by checking out their books.

My own bookshelves are packed to capacity – including too many books I have yet to read. Will I ever? There are titles that I feel like I should read — a great example being a huge tome: Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia by Karl E. Meyer and Shari Blair Brysac.  Autographed by these local authors and scholars – I do want to read it for a better understanding of this volatile region we have been so mired in – and so it stays and I think: one day. The same ‘should’ keeps From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman on my shelf for years.  I cannot let go of these books nor my good intention to read them but other books always jump the reading queue.

Then there are the books I may want for reference – that get yanked from the shelf about once a year or so – Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide by Goldberg and The Art Book – a book published by Phaidon door-stop sized book I picked up once at a tag sale. It’s a fast-food kind of look at the history of art.  I have more cherished art and photography books I also found on sale and could not resist – the most recent find being Andy Goldsworthy’s Passage – this remarkable sculptor’s poetic works are created out of nature – powerful works of time and space – some of stone but many others of ice, leaves, the tides and now, only a photograph remains.  It sits on a table in my living room and I have looked at it maybe once but I am so glad it is there.

I have the powerful photography books by my friend Ron Haviv – his important documentation of wars including Blood and Honey: A Balkan War Journal – the war I knew. My Balkan titles can take up their own shelf and I have read them all, hungering to understand the madness that was my life for four years.  My collection began back in 1992 with Rebecca West’s classic Black Lamb, Grey Falcon and Misha Glenny’s The Fall of Yugoslavia. Later on, I added David Rieff’s Slaughterhouse, Peter Maass’s Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War. And perhaps the one most poignant for me, My War Gone By, I Miss it So by Anthony Lloyd – a powerful memoir of addiction to war and to drugs.  

The addiction self-help books have mostly been purged – in the hopes that the problem is also gone out of my life, I have passed them on to others who might find them useful.  But I have kept the memoirs – Beautiful Boy by David Sheff, Mary Karr’s Lit.

Over the years I have amassed a collection of signed titles that are impossible to part with – I see them as a legacy for my daughter. J. K. Rowling – the second Harry Potter title signed at an event at the store early on in her success.  Still, it was like hosting a rock star but she was lovely, signing well over a thousand books and looking every child in the eye and sharing a chat while signing with her arm in a brace.  My inscribed copies of Angela’s Ashes and Teacher Man will always have a revered place on my shelf with warm memories of my encounters with Frank McCourt.

There are books I can and should cull: novels I have read and never will again. Outdated travel guides – to Bali, Martha’s Vineyard (I have not been since high school), the Florida Keys (I have never been) parenting guides, cookbooks I never open – but as my eye scans the dusty spines, I think of a reason why I want each one to stay – a memory, the possibility I might one day need to check on the correct Serbo-Croatian word or refer to that book The Brain. I won’t though — the internet is too easy.  At least, I will dust them.

Next Year May Be Better (The Garden)

A rare Saturday with nothing planned. Much to do, but nothing required. The ‘to-do’ is catch-up cleaning, inside and out.  The garden looks abandoned – petunias dried up in the window boxes, basil plants going to seed, morning glories strangling scraggly rose bushes and in the vegetable garden, pokeberry and crabgrass reign. A few perfect, little heirloom tomatoes are rallying on an almost-leaf-less plant, and I hurry to rescue them before the birds and squirrels attack. And jalapenos – I can’t make salsa fast enough and they wrinkle on the kitchen counter. But the garden is at the end for the year.

As the days finally cool down, I plan on how to prepare it for winter.  Rather than yank up all the crabgrass, I’ll probably cover it with newspapers, then layer leaves, compost, dirt in ‘lasagna’ garden fashion. By spring, it should be rich earth, ready for planting. Although it was a bad year, I am planning for next. An optimist – next year may be better and, in any case, I will try.

Fleeting Summer

These days the seasons seem to change back-and-forth between autumn and summer – almost daily.  This morning, the sky thick with clouds, I dug a sweatshirt out of the closet to ward against the chill, while yesterday was hot enough to kayak.  We rode wide heaving waves out just beyond the first island and then, with our paddles out of the water, lolled luxuriously in the heat of the sun while the current and tides carried us back to shore. Climbing out of the boat, as relaxed and mellow as if I’d just had a massage, I wondered if this would be our last day a-float for the season.  There may be the sweet Indian Summer day or two, but with less daylight, it’s tricky to find the time to get out on the water.

So yesterday, I studied the horizon, the school of tiny fish leaping out of the water in a flash of silver, and each salty, deep breath I took in, came out as a sigh, the melancholy that comes with the end of something wonderful.  A sense of this being the end of things makes everything more vivid – our mind’s way, perhaps, of preserving memories.  At least, this is what I do: psychically save scenes of beauty and peace to conjure up when I need them – in the dentist’s chair, for example.  When the metal scraping in my mouth seems unbearable, I transport myself back to the heat of seashells as I lay on the beach of an island on the Sound with only the plaintive sound of seagulls and rhythmic waves around me.

A Book to Read

I finished reading Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell two days ago and like a good book will, thoughts of it linger in my consciousness. Yesterday, as I walked by a stack of them in the bookstore, a woman about my age browsed nearby.

“This is wonderful.” I held the book up.

“Hmm. I thought it sounded depressing,” she answered.

I paused, surprised. Depressing. Yes, of course a book about the loss of your best-friend might sound like a downer.  Why was I surprised at her reaction?

“Oh, no,” I said. “Poignant, yes – but very beautiful – not depressing.” I wonder if she picked it up after I left.

Earlier in the day, a woman looking for a new parenting book called Little Girls Can Be Mean and I agreed how puzzling it is that girls are indeed, so often mean to each other -much more so than little boys.  Yet later in life, women’s friendships are so rich and loving – more than what most men get to experience. Boyfriends may come and go but our girlfriends remain anchors and our loyalty, fierce. Years have sometimes passed without contact with some friends but when we reconnected, it was as if no time or space ever separated us. My friends are now tightly woven into my life. During bitter times, they held me together, letting me cry, reminding me to laugh.

One dear one is as far away as Tasmania and another is  across the street.  Most precious of all is the friendship with my sister, Anne. We have the bonus connection of genetic understanding as additional cement. We get each other immediately and on every level. This is what Caldwell and Knapp had.

Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a loving glimpse into Gail Caldwell’s enviable relationship with fellow writer and dog-lover, Caroline Knapp (Drinking: A Love Story and Pack of Two)  who died while still in her forties, of cancer.  This gem of a book was borne out of Caldwell’s loss. Affecting, (I made the mistake of reading the last chapter during a lunch break at work) but not depressing.

I am fascinated by grief – or maybe not really grief itself, but rather, how us humans process profound sadness, the inevitable and dread part of the emotional spectrum of life. Gail Caldwell opens a door to this dark room and amidst the shadows of sadness you feel grateful for the experience – all of it: the pain, the love, life.

Follow

Get every new post on this blog delivered to your Inbox.

Join other followers:

%d bloggers like this: