A Look at the Gardens

Back in late April, I shared that our vegetable garden, the one I call the "kitchen garden," had been cleared and tilled by Warren, and was just waiting for planting. It looked like this then:

What I have not shared, because my posting has been, ahem, irregular at best, is that we added a second garden, the Hej (pronounced "hedge") garden. The Hej garden actually sits on our backyard neighbors' parcel. The owner before the current ones was an avid gardener, a certified Master Gardener, and she had established a thriving vegetable garden in the far back corner of the yard, just where it butts up to the little dogleg on Warren's parcel. It has been tilled but not planted for several seasons, as our current neighbors have many, many demands on their time and a garden just wasn't one of them. So I proposed that we take over the garden, they can have some of the vegetables grown on it (making me a sharecropper no matter how I look at it), and there we go. 

The Hej garden is our zucchini garden, because our kitchen garden does not have enough space for zucchini. It has been planted twice, because the first planting of 20 zucchini seeds resulted in five coming up.

Five.

You could toss a coin, call "heads," and get better results than that.

About three weeks ago, I tore out everything but those five zucchini and planted it over again, this time marking the seeds (which I doubled and tripled) with spoons:

And today, I was in the garden at 6:30 a.m., transplanting the zucchinis that came up in twos and threes to the spaces where there were still not results, marking the transplants and their former companions with the spoons upside down:

It's been a lot of work. This garden also contains  five extra tomato plants we had from my over-ordering tomatoes this year; they are along the fence on the left side of this photo. 

The kitchen garden and I likewise got off to a rocky start, but we have smoothed out our most of our differences. How rocky? Lettuce that didn't come up, parsley that didn't come up, marigolds (border) that didn't come up. You get the picture. So there was some extensive replanting in that garden as well. 

But just a day into summer, and it is looking good:

Bit by bit, it is coming along. Tomatoes are starting to form:

Indigo Rose

Early Girls

My very favorite feature is the ceramic partial border in the kitchen garden. As I continue to sort through stuff in my house, some of the stuff is headed west to my sons out there. Sam declined any of his childhood pottery attempts; Ben and Alise took a few. I couldn't just toss my children's offerings over the years, so I put them in the garden instead. 

The border

A ripply plant impression plant by Ben

A skull by Sam

I smile every time I walk by, seeing my children's art springing to life in the garden.

Some 2020 Thoughts

Everyone—everyone—is writing about the new year, their ideas about what the year may hold, some goals they hope to attain. Letters from friends reflect the same: what will 2020 bring?

Writer Katrina Kenison is standing on "pause, choose." Ben Hewitt, whose writing I greatly admire, just posted his first 2020 words at Lazy Mill Hill Farm, reflecting on being too busy to take notice and write, then promising himself to "pay attention," if just for the moment. My child-in-law Alise has set the intention to step free of "that old' gifted child' trap of perfectionism," being okay with not being immediately good at something, and hoping that her 35th year (she's a January 2 baby) she can give herself "some grace to continue to learn and grow."

The new calendar year is not yet three weeks old and I find myself wondering about 2020 myself. I feel I have only half-baked thoughts at best, but here are some of them.

HEALTH
The myeloma, progressive and incurable, continues to be surprisingly stable. My longevity (15+ years), flatline labs (no gains, no losses), and other medical markers, including no bone involvement, make my oncologists shake their heads. I am truly an outlier. Nevertheless, my overall quality of life, including declining energy and dragging around this disease's growing weight (figuratively speaking; think Marley's ghost), continues to deteriorate. I've had to step back from commitments at work and in the community, and from coffee dates with dear friends. I've met with my supervisor about changing projects I am too ill to undertake to the same degree I had intended. It has been several months of coming to accept that my body is wearing out.

That being said, I go on. "Persist," my longtime oncologist Tim told me Tuesday, as we discussed this. And I will, until it is no longer beneficial to persist. Part of my persistence in 2020 will take the form of being even more mindful of my daily life activities, especially diet and movement.

WRITING
In the last months of 2019, my writing trailed off. I only have a few posts on this site (and some of those just about the mundane topic of money); my last Myeloma Beacon column was in September. Perhaps, like Ben Hewitt, I have been too busy to take notice and need to pay more attention.

Something I will try in 2020 is a once-a-month 100 word post on this blog. Over my most recent trip to Mayo (just last week), I read the excellent Shapes of Native Nonfiction, a series of contemporary essays. One of the writers (and I did not note this closely enough) spoke about a series of 100 word essays she and other Native writers had published and the discipline it takes to write in only those few words. I was intrigued. Cait Flanders writes several 100 word posts within a larger post, which is one approach, but I am more interested in the spareness of just 100 words.

I am looking for ways to write more, be it this blog, poetry, or other forms. I just got my first poetry rejection of 2020 (okay, listen, one of those poems was really superb) and am aiming for 100 rejections this year. They don't have to all be in poetry.  As I think about it, I have TWO rejections for 2020 as in a first-time-ever move, my editor and publisher at the Myeloma Beacon rejected probably some of my best writing ever for being dark and too blunt. Only 98 to go.

ESSENTIALS
I continue to work at cutting out the noise (literally and figuratively) of daily life. My phone is often on silent; I try not to automatically turn to the electronic siren of Facebook and email and Google. I find I am still breaking that twitch, sometimes hourly, sometimes daily.

I still tend towards piles building up before I sit down and tame them, but I am getting better at reining the flow in before having to tame it.

Concentrating on writing more (see above) should help. (I usually write with pen and paper before turning anything with a keyboard on.) And although it is only January 18, I am increasingly thinking of this year's garden. I want to join Thoreau in fishing in that stream of time.

MONEY
I'll write about money issues in a separate post. As I looked back on 2019 spending on food, I made some observations and I am still turning those over. Stay tuned.

Although my earnings have increased in 2020, the demands on my money have become much tighter. I'll write about that too in the weeks to come.

Warren and I have been doing some retirement planning, realizing that it will be him alone in retirement as even with persisting, I likely do not have that many years left. Our mutual goal is to make sure he is in a good position after I am no longer alive and part of this household.

More to come.

TRAVEL
We (Warren and I) don't know what this year holds in terms of travel, conferences, and such. As I noted in my last post, we did treat ourselves to a slightly longer excursion to Mayo last week. Instead of blasting up and back, we meandered up and dallied back, spending two nights in Chicago (with the additional bonus of Warren being able to attend a board meeting of KV265 in person instead of over the phone). There are grandchildren in the Pacific Northwest, and dear friends in Maine, one place in this country I would very much like to see again. The League conference is in Minneapolis this June and I string together wild plans to travel to PDX (solo), meet up with Warren in Minneapolis, and then drive home via Mayo (my next appointment will be that time). I don't know if I am able to fly solo that far (see HEALTH, above) or able to afford that side trip (see MONEY, above). But it's fun to think about.

ALL ELSE
In the aforementioned rejected column, which may see light in some other site, I noted the amazing freedom in saying out loud that I can feel my body (and life) starting to wind down. It is as if the emotional and psychological equivalent of the 4th wall in the performing arts came down with that acknowledgment. The world has become far more immediate, far more real. Amazingly, it has stayed that way since that moment.

And that is something I can carry into 2020.

Small Moment: Isn't That The Point?

We are packing tonight for an early morning flight to PDX. As I noted recently, there is one grandchild I am eager to meet for the first time, and two others I am anxious to spend time with again.

The bag from three years ago

I am again bound and determined to pack small and light. Three years ago, I managed to pack clothing for a conference and a visit in a bag approximately 9 x 18 x 9 inches. I told Warren to get that one out for me for this trip as well. Sticking to a trimmed list, I packed away.

Okay, I got almost everything in that I wanted to get in. But dang, that bag was heavy. And tight. And...

Too Full.

I am also carrying my go-everywhere bag, and it too was weighted down, mostly with things that did not fit into the bag.

Clearly I had to rethink my approach.I thought about what was in it: a minimal amount of clothing (we will be staying with Alise's parents, so we can do laundry). Some photos that I want to put in Sam and Ben's hands, culled from my parents' thousands of photos. My Chromebook layered in between a skirt and a pair of shorts.

[An aside: Warren is packing a big carryon and a small person bag as well. But I don't want to weigh him down with my stuff. ]

I looked again at my list, looked again at the little bag straining at the seams. What could go? What did I not need to bring?

Or rather, what did I need to bring most?

Once I reframed the question that way, the answer crystallized. Other than clothes, what I needed to bring most was me. Me as in being mindful and focused on enjoying my children and our grandchildren and our family. Me as in leaving behind a basket full of stresses and worries that have dogged me all summer. Me as in "I want to savor this time." 

"I want to savor this time."  Indeed, isn't that the point of my going?

Exactly.

Once I answered that question, I knew exactly what to pull out. Out came the Chromebook. It can stay behind for ten days. My world won't come to an end without access to Facebook and email and headlines. (Warren is bringing his laptop so he can do some Symphony work, but I generally do not get on his machine.)

Once I removed the machine, the bag gave a sigh of relief and zipped easily. I, too, gave a sigh of relief.

And now I am ready to go.

Coming Full Circle

In this part of Ohio (smack dead center) when I was growing up (I started 1st grade in 1962), it was not unusual to hear a classmate announce "I'm part Indian" or "I'm part Cherokee" or something similar. (Maybe it still is, but I am talking about then, not now.) Everyone (well, at least four or five kids)  claimed Native American ancestry, often Cherokee, whenever indigenous peoples were talked about, which in school meant when we talked about "ancient" Ohio history—the Adena and Hopewell tribes, called "Mound Builders" by the dominant white colonial society—or around Thanksgiving.

Heck, my family even had an "We're part Indian" story that persisted into the 21st century. My

Grandma Skatzes: not Native American 

Grandmother Skatzes told stories, perhaps more than one, that we had a Native American ancestor in her family tree. It was a grandmother, three or four generations back, who would tie her children to the fence so that she could work in the garden. (My grandmother, a gentle-hearted soul, would tear up when she told this, saying "That was a cruel and terrible thing to do! Those little children would holler all day long!") There was never a name attached to this allegedly Native American ancestor, just the story of tying the children up so she could do her chores.

Another version which popped up once or twice was that we had a male ancestor, supposedly of the Apache tribe, somewhere back in the past. Seriously? Besides the fact that the historical lands of the Apache were in the southwestern part of this country, a part of the country we did not move to or come from, a narrative involving a relationship with a male Native American runs contrary to what the standard settler/Native interrelationships looked like: male settler, Native woman.

Trust me, it didn't happen.

Still, the stories persisted. As I grew older and learned more history of the colonization in this part of the country, I began to disbelieve the whole family myth of a Native American ancestor. Most of our maternal genealogical records, even without digging too deep, followed such traditional white trajectories that I could not begin to shoehorn a Native American ancestor into them. Rape or sexual assault somewhere in the past? Absolutely a possibility. But a marriage or domestic partnership? No way. It was white, white, white all the way.

With the advent of DNA testing for "heritage" purposes, one of my cousins on my maternal side took a test. She was excited waiting for the results, anticipating seeing threads of that Native American ancestor pop up in the results. I told her to be prepared: there won't be any Native American DNA identified. Yes, there will be, April! Just wait and see!

True to my prediction, there was no Native American DNA. Zero, nada, nothing. Unlike Elizabeth Warren, we couldn't even pretend to have any Native American lineage.

That story resurfaced when I went to Kentucky last month with my dad and brother and sister-in-law. While we were eating dinner at a Bob Evans, Mark brought up that we have Native American blood in the Strickler family line (our mom's maternal lineage).

"No, we don't. There might be some in the family, but it's not there."

Dad looked at me quizzically. "The Skatzes side?" (That would be Mom's paternal lineage.)

"Not there either," I said, explaining that our cousin (who has the same Skatzes/Strickler DNA that my brother and I do) had a DNA test and the results were negative for Native American DNA.

"Frankly, if there is any Native American blood, it'll be on your side, Dad."

I went on to point our that his family history, of which I know the bare bones narrative, was more likely to have Native American/settler interrelationships of the kind that would lead to marriage or a domestic partnership. Our ancestors were in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky very early in the dominant white colonial history of this country, and probably far enough in advance of "civilization" that tribes in the area would have been the only other humans around.

That's when I came to a complete stop in my mind.

Oh hell.

We, my family, did that. We were part of that wave of white settlers invaders, part of the white colonization mindset that it all belonged to us and those others—those indigenous people seen as lesser than, if seen as human at all—deserved to be pushed out of the way or slaughtered or both in the name of God, the King, the United States, the whatever.

We were those people and for all of my participation in circles on historical trauma and cultural and biological genocide and (gulp) restorative justice, it never hit me that I was a direct heir and beneficiary of that. All my law school clerk experience in the Native American law field, my championing of tribal law and the many Native sovereign nations: that was good work, but I was flying blind, in the fog, and upside down. I couldn't even coast by saying my family came to those parts of the United States (Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio) post-Civil War through Ellis Island after all the tribes had been exterminated or removed.

Oh, no, no, no, we were here from the very beginning and took part of that long, horrific history.

Oh hell. Talk about privilege. Talk about white dominant colonial culture bias.

Talk about feeling like a totally clueless goof.

If my child-in-law Alise, who is Anishinaabe, is reading this post, this is about the point where she is nodding her head and saying "uh huh, April, uh huh. Now you get it."

Better late than never.

But dang, that "late" was way late in coming.

Cultural Identity

Orlando arrived by scheduled C-section, so plans were made ahead of time for Ramona to be at the hospital for part of that day. Papa (Alise's dad, Joe) picked her up from school early last Friday (has it only been since last Friday?), and then he and Nana (Alise's mom Mona) helped her pass the time until she could see her mom and meet her brother.

While waiting, Ramona made the above picture of her family. Ben is easily identifiable on the far left, complete with beard. While sizes are all relative, I'm guessing Alise is next (albeit blond) and Ramona on the far right as the smaller figure. New addition Orlando is in between the two females.

What I especially love about this drawing is that Ramona put Orlando in a cradleboard. This is my Native American grandchild being raised with immersion in her culture. So of course her little brother is in a cradleboard.

That is how my brilliant, assertive, secure-in-who-she-is granddaughter makes sense of her world at age six.

These are difficult times for those of us who are not dominant culture because of race, ethnicity, tribe, gender identity, sexual preference, religion, economic status, language of origin, and so on. Last night our community's newly formed African-American Heritage Council put on a first ever Black History Month Celebration, which Warren and I attended. Students volunteered their talents—oratory and artistic—and many of them made thoughtful and provocative observations about being black in a predominantly white community.

I listened closely and at times got teary. Ramona and Orlando and my far-flung family were foremost in my thoughts. What would Ramona's education and sense of tribal identity look like if she were here in this town in our schools? Not as good as I would want, and that is written by someone who believes in our local schools. And in America at present? Not even that good.

Even in the best of times in this country, we as a nation have a long ways to go to being truly inclusive, whether we are talking about school youth or adult policy makers or just everyday folk. Last night was the right step forward for Delaware.

And way out in Washington last Friday, sitting in a hospital waiting room, a little girl drew her beautiful family, complete with her little brother in his cradleboard.

Ramona, you are amazing.

Look Who's Here!

Back in October, I announced that Ramona was getting a baby brother sometime in the early months of this year.

Orlando James Sanchez entered this world yesterday in the early afternoon. 6 pounds, 3 ounces. When Ben's text came through, I started crying with relief and joy and love.

Alise and Orlando are doing well. Ben and Ramona are doing well. All of us, out there and back here, are doing well.

Lots of pictures are flooding the social media venues, but this one is the one that absolutely melted me:

New Big Sister. New Baby Brother.

Looking Back: The 2018 Books

My last library receipt of 2018

Way back in January, I started the year with a "challenge" (in the most casual sense of the word) to read 50 books in 2018. (Well, it wasn't my challenge exactly but the challenge my friend and yoga instructor Amanda put out in the world.)

Okay, I passed 50 books sometime in March. Yes, I am bragging. No, I am not bragging because I knew going into the year that I read a lot. 50 did not surprise me in the least.

So where did I finish the year? At a respectable number, but not as far as I had hoped. As I noted before, November and December took a lot out of me in so many ways, and reading was one of them. I finished with a solid list, but maybe 30 to 40 books off the projected mark.

So what were my final 2018 books? These:
203. Why Religion? A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels (this memoir/examination of faith by a preeminent religion historian is stunning; I could say so much more but words fail me)
204. Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan (I always enjoy McMillan's writing and this novel from 2013, written on the edge of the heroin epidemic, was no exception)
205. The Names of the Mountains by Reeve Lindbergh (this was a reread of a novel by the youngest of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's children, in which Reeve first explores, albeit in fictionalized form, her mother's dementia)
206. Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of A Black Theologian by James H. Cone (reading #203 led me to Cone when Pagels thanked him extensively in her acknowledgments, mourning his death in 2018 and expressing gratitude that he completed this book, his memoir, of being a "Negro graduate student" who was transformed and radicalized by the Black Power movements in the 1960s, and becoming a Black theologian who pioneered black liberation theology; I cried several times while reading this one)
207. An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott (while not Little Women [let's face it: nothing is Little Women], this is nonetheless a classic Alcott tale of a poor but resourceful young woman who finds purpose and love in her life; this was, of course, a reread)
208. Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home by Nora Krug (this graphic memoir is an amazingly open look at the author's research of her German family, their lives in Nazi Germany and whether they participated in the Nazi regime, and her finding a small piece of hope and comfort in tracking down the son of a Jewish survivor who possibly kept her grandfather from imprisonment and prosecution post-war for being a registered Nazi)
209. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (a reread of the beloved story of Milo, who finds his way, replete with Jules Feiffer's brilliant illustrations)
210. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachan (the wonderful Newbery Award novel about two young children and their father "testing" out a mail order candidate for matrimony; known for many years as the "shortest" book ever to win a Newbery, this book lost that status when the Newbery committee honored Last Stop on Market Street, a picture book, with the medal in 2016)
211. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels (in the memoir above [#203], Pagels writes about her interest in ancient texts and her writing of this book, which in 1979 caused a great uproar in the Christian theological world; as someone who intentionally (deliberately, thoughtfully) left the Christian faith for lots of reasons, I found this book enormously enlightening and comforting, but I can see why the Christian theological establishment attacked Pagels and this book when it came out)
212. Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson (a reread of another Newbery classic, this one by two-time Medal winner Paterson, the story is narrated by Sarah Louise, who carries hurt in her heart until she realizes she was loved and worthy of love always)

I finished that last book late yesterday afternoon and wondered which way to turn next. Some weeks ago, I had started The Dollmaker by Harriet Arnow, a gut wrenching Appalachian novel that I read years ago. In light of my Appalachian readings earlier, I had turned back to it, then set it aside when library books, with due dates, flooded in. (Spoiler alert: If the title sounds familiar, there was a made-for-television version decades ago starring Jane Fonda in the lead role: the happy ending manufactured for television is NOT how the book ends!)

But speaking of libraries, my last check-out receipt for 2018 is above, showing that I saved over $3500.00 in checking out library books this year. I don't think our library started tracking checkout costs until March, when it joined a large consortium, so my 2018 savings were probably even larger. Still, $3500.00 is nothing to sneeze at, and when I posted the photo in the 2019 No Spend Challenge Facebook group I belong to, it got a lot of Likes and Loves.

So what have I learned this year?

A lot.

A. Lot.

One thing I learned about myself was that I do not like tracking my reading. I have good friends (Mel especially comes to mind) who faithfully record their reads, titles and authors, in ledgers, some of those ledgers dating back many years. Me? This year was interesting but no thanks moving forward. I read what I read and if I feel like talking or writing about it, I will, but no more lists.

What else have I learned? More than ever, my 2018 reading, which included some very deliberate choices, slammed me in the face with what privilege I have as a white reader in a country which primarily publishes (and reviews and promotes) white authors.

Holy smokes.

One of the challenges I set out in early 2018 was to read through this list of 46 books by women of color. Our library consortium contains all but three of those books, so I had 43 books to read. As of yesterday, I had read 38 of them (88%). Many of those books, especially the essays and even the acknowledgments, led me to other authors of color of all genders.

And it was a humbling experience. I had to read outside my box to see the larger picture. And it is not that this picture is "new" or the result of the current administration, loathsome and racist as it is—this reality of racism and bias and "otherness" has always been here in this country. Always. I am the one who has failed to acknowledge it in any significant way.

I could not read authors of color in 2018 without recognizing this over and over and over again. I could not look at the publishing house lists and the New York Times book reviews without seeing this. I could not think of books for my grandchildren (the two here and the one coming) without wondering what I get to read to them. (Other than Last Stop on Market Street for both households!)

"Own your privileges," say writer Roxanne Gay and social activist Vijay Gupta, among many others. Here are the privileges I own: as a white person, as a woman of a certain age, as a college educated woman, I have so many privileges that I more than take for granted that allow to move through my day and my life without hassles, without setbacks, without struggles. Yes, I have had other setbacks and barriers, socio-economic and family of origin issues chief among them, but my white status has given me a leg up. These privileges are so inherently a part of my life that I don't even think of them. And reading books by authors without those privileges made me have to face those privileges, have to think of those privileges, and, like Vijay, think of how to move ahead not taking those privileges for granted but using them in ways to move us all forward. To paraphrase and turn back on myself a Black food activist quoted in Buttermilk Graffiti (#135), what am I willing to give up so that others may succeed?

A most apt question on which to start a new year, especially as I am starting to take a deeper and longer look at time and especially my health, which continues to decline, albeit slowly and gently. In my daughter-in-law's (and grandchildren's) culture, death is often spoken of as the person "walking on." I have seen my life, especially in recent years, as a long walk first towards and now into the foothills of the mountains, knowing that my old companion Death is walking alongside me. When I walk on, I want to have left this community in better shape. And more than ever, many of my readings in 2018, by those shut out, have moved me to greater commitment than ever.

Here's to 2019, and all the books it may hold for all of us.

Not A Small Moment

This is NOT a small moment. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Baby Sanchez #2 is coming in, with arrival slated for late February/early March 2019. I have been sitting on the news since the first night we were out there in August. Ramona gets to be a big sister to little brother Orlando (Ben's grandfather's name) and cousin Lyrick gets another boy in the family.

Yes, my heart is overflowing.

To Everything There Is A Season

 And this is the season for books.

Many have expressed to me their amazement at my rate of reading, either catching up with the count in this blog or asking me outright. What can I say? I read quickly and I read a lot. A whole lot. Given my uneven energy levels on any given day, an evening spent with a good book or two is sometimes the very best of all worlds emotionally, mentally, and physically.

So what have I read since I last posted? Oh, lots. LOTS:
109. Mean by Myriam Guba (this is a memoir with an attitude by a queer, mixed-race Chicana growing up in a small town)
110. (((SEMITISM: Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump))) by Jonathan Weisman (I can't describe how much this book impacted me, especially given that one of the most pointed personal attacks I have experienced for being Jewish came recently not from the alt-right but from a very close friend of very liberal bent; Weisman correctly points out that at some point on this topic, the far right and the far left are not that far apart)
111. How To Survive Without A Salary: Learning How To Live the Conserver Lifestyle by Charles Long (before Amy Dacyczyn [the Frugal Zealot], Dave Ramsey, Katy Wolk-Stanley [the Non-Consumer Advocate], or the Frugalwoods (#97], there was Charles Long and his wonderfully wacky treatise on truly doing without; this was a reread of a copy I have owned for 30 years)
112. Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation (updated edition) by Tom Bissell (essays about writing and filmmaking and the creative process)
113. Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover (Westover grew up in an isolated family of survivalists in Idaho; this is her breathtaking and heartbreaking memoir about what it took to break from her family to save herself)
114. Kudos by Rachel Kusk (the concluding novel of Kusk's trilogy (see #105 and 108), a review on the book's back called the tale "alienating" and I cannot disagree; having read the entire series, I can safely say I do not care one whit for Faye, the center of the novels)
115. Whiskey & Ribbons by Leesa Cross-Smith (heartbreaking, heart-lifting , beautifully written novel)
116. Happiness by Aminatta Forna (this novel has many threads, including urban fox populations and habits; while I was reading it, Warren casually mentioned "You know what I saw today in our yard? A fox!")
117. Disoriental by Négar Djavadi (Kimiâ is many things—a child traumatized fleeing Iran, a bisexual person in a culture that cannot accept anything other than heterosexuality, a daughter, a sister, a political refugee, a writer—and she narrates her stories in fits and starts in this patchwork novel)
118. Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (excellent short stories that keep interconnecting and interweaving with each other story in the collection)
119. Being Mortal: What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande (I read this book in 2014 when it first appeared; rereading in 2018, I am hit and moved even harder by Gawande's views on the disservice the medical profession does those of us with progressive, terminal diseases by refusing to talk meaningfully about end-of-life choices)
120. Calypso by David Sedaris (Sedaris is a writer I cannot read without laughing out loud; thank you forever Ben and Alise for introducing me to his wit)
121. There There by Tommy Orange (this first novel is getting a lot of well-deserved attention; Orange writes knowingly and devastatingly about urban Indians in Oakland California, pulling several characters into a horrific event at a powwow—I told a friend who has it on her "to read" list that it is superb, but remember to breathe)

122. Chasing Slow: Courage To Journey Off the Beaten Path by Erin Loechner (this book is about minimalism and, perhaps, about finding oneself; I enjoyed it because Loechner has the humility to laugh at her own ludicrous lifestyle choices along the way)
123. Sick: A Memoir by Porchista Khakpour (a memoir of Lyme disease, of dislocation (Khakpour's family fled Iran), of addiction, of mental illness, of PTSD, of racism, of writing; this book is not for the faint of heart)

I'm curious where I will be a week from today, at the year's midpoint. You'll find out.

All The Little Girls

This is the season of little girls. There are three I am thinking of in particular right now: our next door neighbor, Alice, my granddaughter Ramona, and my niece (well, great niece) and Ramona's cousin, Frida.

I only had boys. My sons were and are great. I loved raising them; having grown up with only brothers, I was on familiar territory with Ben and Sam. I do not regret for a single moment that I never raised a daughter.

Little girl territory—their mannerisms, their interests—I could be anthropologist watching a hitherto unknown population for all I know of little girls. And in the past several days, I have had three little girl moments that melted my heart.

Alice next door is sweet and shy, just past two years old. For many months, she would duck her head if she saw us; as she grows older, she knows Warren and me well enough that she no longer hesitates to run up and talk. Two weeks ago, when we were in Indianapolis, I brought her back a small tambourine as a thank you for some cookies she had brought over to us. A few days after I dropped off the tambourine, there was a very soft knock at the door. There was Alice (and her mother Maura) with another little bag of cookies. When I thanked Alice for more cookies, Maura asked Alice is there was something she wanted to tell me. That little smiling face looked up, and she said "Thank you for the..." You could see her mind working for the word, then she burst out "TAMBOURINE!" with an even bigger smile on her face, if that was possible.

Heart melt.

Ramona with her Legos

The next little girl moment was with Ramona. Since she has started kindergarten this fall, my son Ben and my daughter-in-law Alise alternate days when one leaves work early to pick her up, working from home and saving on childcare. One of Ben's days is Monday and we have started video chatting with Ramona when they come in from school. Ramona talks about school (some), her toys (a lot), and answers questions with a natural nonchalance. Last Monday, she was showing off her new Playmobil hospital. At some point while she toured Grandma April and Grandpa Warren through the rooms ("this is the maternity ward"), we said something and she responded "I remember visiting your house this summer." Then she got close to the camera and said "I miss you."

Heart melt.

Note from Frida

The next day was a long day for both of us: chemo (Warren goes along and works in the cancer center lobby while I get my treatment), then back to the office for Warren and home for me, then Legal Clinic for us both until mid-evening. By the time we got home, tired, hungry, I was ready to be done with the day. Sorting through the mail (a thousand pieces of non-profit mail for Aunt Ginger, who was on every mailing list in the world), I came across an envelope from my nephew Eric. Eric is a schoolteacher and an artist, so I thought he was sending me one of his works. Upon opening it, I found a sheet of paper with drawings not by Eric but his oldest daughter Frida, who is a year younger than Ramona. "Dear Aunt April," it began, and went on to describe what she had drawn.

Heart melt.

A handful of little girl minutes. A handful of melted hearts.

Inch One Hundred Seventy-Nine: Here And Gone Again

They should be in the air and headed back to Portland as I type. Too many feelings to write.

Inch One Hundred Seventy-Seven: What July Will Bring

It is early morning on the first day of July. We had heavy rains last night; the air is cool and damp. The skies have not yet cleared, but in looking at the radar, that should follow soon.

Brian and Margaret have come and gone. The pie was delicious. The company was even better. We did eat the pesto (it, too, was delicious), Brian took several lengthy bike rides, and Margaret joined me at Poetry Night. (Heck, even Brian and Warren sat in on some of it.)

Much is afoot here. Tuesday is 4th of July, which in this household means the day starts early and runs late. Long after the last firework has faded from the sky, Warren and I and a host of volunteers will still be striking the stage from the annual concert. Looking back at past 4th of July posts, in which I sound similar themes, I would also note that my garden is right on pace (perhaps even a little ahead) and the coneflowers, earthbound mimics of fireworks that they are, are already thrusting their bright colors straight up into the heavens.

Even without the 4th of July thrown into the mix, the first week of July this year starts out with a bang. Later next week I will helping my beloved Aunt Ginger move into assisted living.

Aunt Ginger will be 88 this October. I wrote about her on her 80th birthday, which we all (30 or so of us) celebrated happily and noisily. At 88, my aunt is frail physically and mentally. She is not happy at all about the move (this will only be the 3rd address she has had in almost 88 years), but after shedding a few tears every time we talk about it, she squares her shoulders and tells me she will just have to make the best of it. And knowing Aunt Ginger as well as I do, she will. With bells on.

And right after the Big Move? The contingent from the Pacific Northwest arrives with Ramona, Alise, Mackenzie, and my sons, Ben and Sam, flying into Ohio and into our house for a week of family and cooking and family and laughter and family and love and family.  Oh, and fireflies (lightning bugs) which Alise and, of course, Ramona, have never seen. We have a bumper crop this year and I cannot wait to see their reactions to our nightly light show.

And of course there will be pie. Likely more than one this time.

I started this morning (after typing the first paragraph) with breakfast with Warren followed by my going into the admittedly soggy garden and weeding. The basil is finally showing signs of coming up. There are lots of tomatoes on the bushes, but I doubt any will be ripe enough for Ramona to pick. That's life.

Any day (and month) that starts with breakfast with my beloved husband followed by quiet time in the garden is bound to be a great one. Welcome, July, welcome.

Inch One Hundred Seventy-One: Bone Tired and Other Little Bits

Last week I wrote about finishing the attendance mediation and speculated on its length and depth. I spent a part of the work week this week running numbers. Our department attended 384 mediations, 341 of which were mine. Our first mediation was, as I had speculated, in September 2016; the last was almost eight months to the day in May 2017.

And I am still recovering.

How tired am I? Yesterday I gave our bathroom a long overdue deep cleaning (and noted this morning as I showered that I still missed some spots in the shower). A byproduct of the cleaning was a stack of wet, dirty cleaning rags, destined for the washer. This morning, I started to hang up the rags to dry before I washed them, um, later today.

Really? Really?

You know you are really, really tired when you start to hang the wet dirty rags so they'll be dry when you go to wash them the same day.

While I type this, Warren is downtown doing some of the earliest grunt work for the weekend's Arts Festival. Time was, a decade plus ago, when I would have been downtown at about 5:30 a.m. to help chalk the streets and prep for the vendors to arrive. I have great memories of those days, but can't say I'm sorry they are over.

2007 Arts Festival Prep

A well-meaning friend recently reminded me that, in our early 60s, we are all at the age where we are more tired, take longer to heal, and generally are older, so I should not be so quick to look to my myeloma as the source of my exhaustion. I replied that I know we are all older, and I take that into consideration, but trust me, there is a difference between the two types of tiredness and I can tell the difference.

The caption of this post promises "Other Little Bits."

The first little bit is that I got my first poetry acceptance by an online journal. No pay, just publication. I am thrilled. More to the point, I am encouraged to go on.

The second little bit is about pets. When my sons were growing up, we did not have pets. Period. Their father was opposed to having a dog, ever. There were enough allergies in the house that a cat was ruled out as well. Ben, especially, very much wanted a dog, so it was no surprise to me when, as a young adult, he and Alise acquired Lucy, a medium large dog of indeterminate background (at least to me) and gentle temperament. Lucy accepted Ramona without much fuss and has tolerated her many depredations over the years.

Let's hope the newest addition to the family does as well. Meet Squishy Sanchez, joining Alise, Ben, Ramona, and Lucy this week:

I don't name them, folks, only meet them on social media.

Inch One Hundred Sixty-One: My Reedie

I love Reedies.

Reedies are students at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Twice a year I get a phone call from one of them as part of the fall or spring college fund drive

Tuesday night my Reedie called.

All Reedies follow a script; that's just the reality of fundraising. But what I love about Reedies is how they deviate from the script quickly. My Reedie, looking at my connection to Reed College, asked me about my son Ben (Reed, 2008). That lead to my commenting about my daughter-in-law Alise (also Reed, 2008). She then asked questions about whether they met at Reed (of course) and all but swooned when I said they got engaged on Commencement Day. "That's so romantic," she breathed.

My Reedie this time around is a linguistics major. She knows German and "some Chinese," but the language she is concentrating on presently is sign language. To me, that was a classic Reedie answer.

My Reedie asked me if I'd ever been to campus. Oh, yes, oh, yes. I explained that besides Ben's commencement, I was occasionally on campus during my Portland years (1977-1983). In fact, as I shared with her, when I transferred at the tail end of my junior year to a Portland college, the only reason I applied to Lewis & Clark instead of Reed was that L&C had a three-quarters residency requirement, whereas Reed required six quarters. Wanting to be done with my bachelor's degree, I chose efficacy over quality. It was the right decision for me at the time, but I always had a slight tinge of regret that I skipped Reed.

Maybe that's why I encouraged Ben to look at Reed closely when he started his college search. And when Ben said he was applying only to Reed, I backed him 100%.

Reed gave Ben a lot of thing, starting with acceptance. At Reed, he gained intellectual growth, being a part of a close community, and his wife, among other things. Because of our greatly reduced financial circumstances (Ben went to Reed during the years I was in dire financial straits), much of his education was free.

It is that last point—that Reed paid for much of my son's college—that explains why, when my Reedie asked me if I would give again, I said yes and pledged $25.00.

Under my current stringent financial controls, that small pledge will come out of my "spending money," which currently stands at $74.00, with another week until payday. That might make things a little tight, especially if I end up buying any groceries this coming week, but I can make it work.  It's for a college that set my older son on his path to adulthood.

And besides, my Reedie asked.

Inch One Hundred Twenty-Six: Poetry Night

Poetry Night is every Wednesday evening, starting around 7:30 p.m.

Poetry Night can be at Mark and Mel's house, or my house, or Michele's house. We may not end up at Michele's house until the fall, because of other complications, but the point is that Poetry Night floats.

Poetry Night involves food and drink. And, of course, poetry. Lots of poetry. 

Lots. 

Poetry Night just started a few Wednesdays ago, but shows signs of becoming a permanent fixture.

If you come to Poetry Night, you may read either your own poems or poems by someone else. At the last Poetry Night, which was held on our back deck, we soon had a towering stack of poetry anthologies on the table. I read some of my own work, as well as "Supper with Lindsay" by Theodore Roethke. I read the Roethke because Mel had just read Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California" and Walt Whitman appears in both of them. 

At that same Poetry Night, Mel also read Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," which is a heartbreaking poem. 

You may attend Poetry Night and not participate, but so far that is a limited privilege granted only to my husband, who got badly scarred somewhere in his formative years and has been poetry adverse ever since. However, despite his scars, Warren sat and listened and smiled. 

Poetry Night is the inspiration of my friend, Mark, with whom I created the Death and Dying Poetry Club.  Because we know each other's work, he can say to me, "oh, read the one about the baggage," and I know exactly which poem he is referencing. 

At the last poetry night. Michele read a work in draft about fireflies. Some of the poem contrasted the use of the light for both mating and attracting prey. Mel and I heard the word "prey" as "pray" and so we had a whole different take on the poem. It was appropriate that we were on our back deck and the fireflies were just beginning to flash their lights as Michele read. 

Mark read some fragments of poems at the last Poetry Night, then emailed them to us all. Our assignment is to use the fragments as prompts for writing a poem. I wrote mine last Friday while sitting in the parking lot at the library waiting for it to open. Mine is called "When Walt Whitman Called Upon Emily Dickinson." 

Warren and I will miss two weeks of Poetry Night in August, when we are traveling out of town, but I am hopeful I will find some poems in our travels and bring them back with me to Delaware. By then, I should have received a copy of a small poetry anthology I just bought online at Etsy. It is a collections of works by indigenous poets, and my daughter-in-law Alise has a poem in it. I am looking forward to reading both her poem and my poem at the same Poetry Night. 

There are undoubtedly poems in Poetry Night itself, but none of us has written them yet. 

Inch One Hundred Twenty-Two: Home Again

I got home Monday at about 5:00 p.m., almost the last person off the plane. Of course we were parked at the very furthest gate, so I had a hike (albeit a small one compared to coming through Houston a few hours earlier) before I could clear the security area, drop my bags, and hug Warren.

This trip may have been the very last lengthy trip I take where I fly by myself. Besides the simple pleasure of having Warren with me, my overall health may be such that I simply need to have him accompany me. I am typing this on Friday and I am just now starting to feel I have recovered from the travel.

Health issues aside, it was a very, very good trip. The Seattle conference was exciting, my joint presentation with my daughter-in-law Alise was lively and thought provoking, and there are not enough words in the dictionary (to quote an old friend) to describe how great it was to be with my family in the Portland/Vancouver area.

There are no words to describe adequately what a wonder Ramona is at three and three-quarters years of age. Of course, she is a wonder child. She is funny and bright and lively and thought provoking (not unlike our seminar) and I marveled at her every moment I was with her.

As may be expected, I took pictures, but not as many as I would have thought. I realized that the only way to fully appreciate the trip—Seattle, Portland, my sons, Alise, Ramona, Mackenzie, and the rest of the family—was to put the camera down and just savor the time.

Ben, Alise, Ramona, and I went to the Oregon coast, to Rockaway Beach, on one of my days. It was
a typical Oregon coast day: cold, windy, overcast, an occasional sprinkle. All the same, Ramona frolicked in the tide pools until long after she was wet and chilled and ready for lunch. I found myself going between watching Ramona scamper and standing facing the ocean, watching the gray waves break as they came in.

I have always loved the ocean; I have always found its ceaseless rhythm to be a source of comfort. This time was no exception. Children (and grandchildren) grow up, cities change, life happens, the world turns, but the ocean, the amazing ocean, stays eternal.

Inch One Hundred Twenty: Seattle Bound

By the time this post appears, I will be en route to Seattle and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) annual conference. The AFCC is an international organization; this is its 53rd annual meeting. The theme this year is "Modern Families: New Challenges, New Solutions."

My daughter-in-law Alise and I are co-presenting a session on Friday morning. It is a Big Deal to be chosen to present at AFCC and I am looking forward to it. We titled our session "Seeing Color in a White World: Courts Working With Families Across Cultural Lines." That topic is near and dear to my heart and I am hoping for a lively session. After AFCC concludes midday Saturday, Alise and I will head to Portland on Amtrak.

As excited as I am about presenting, I am even more thrilled that I managed to pack all of my clothes

and toiletries in one small bag measuring approximately 19 x 8 x 9 inches. Not only did everything fit, but if I had been truly economical on what I took, I probably could have traveled with a half-full bag. But I splurged on underwear (packing enough to get me to Portland without having to wash any in the hotel room in Seattle) and on a second pair of shoes. I'll wear running shoes out; the sandals are in the bag. I have problems with neuropathy in my feet, and wearing a pair of sandals for 14 days is not an option. I did a run-through of the packing Sunday afternoon and laughed with glee when I zipped up the bag easily. (In the photo, I am touching the bag, so you can appreciate how small it is.)

So what is packed in the bag? 1 pair of sandals, a skirt (easily the most voluminous piece in the bag, being my Frida Kahlo in Oz skirt), a swimsuit, an oversize tee and soft shorts to sleep in, a pair of shorts to wear, 3 tops, one other tee-shirt (not to sleep in), 2 pairs of socks, 8 pair of underwear, and 2 quart size bags for toiletries: one with liquids for TSA and one with the rest of my toiletries. On travel day, I will wear a pair of jeans, a top, shoes and socks, underwear (of course), and a lightweight sweater.

And yes, I did a list. 

I will carry a second over-the shoulder purse with my ID, my AFCC papers, my tickets, and assorted

items such as a brush, a small notebook and pens. The second bag, which will double as a purse, measures 12 x 15 inches, not counting the handles. This is one of my favorite bags, made by a good friend, and it has served me on a variety of trips and for a variety of purposes, including being my go-to-chemo bag. Moby-Dick just came out of the bag for the duration and will float on my desk until I return.

In a pinch, both bags could fit under the seat in front of me.

The hardest part of all this is knowing that I will be away from home and Warren for the next two weeks. Time is growing increasingly precious, especially our time together, and two weeks is a long time. While I worked on the garden Sunday morning (yes, I got it all done!), I took a break and sat on the deck stairs while Warren got me a glass of ice water.  He came back out to the sight of tears running down my cheeks, as I was thinking of the future and how much I love Warren and our life together. We sat quietly together, my head against his shoulder, before I went back to the garden.

I will enjoy the trip. I cannot wait to see Alise, Ben, Ramona, Sam, Mackenzie, and Alise's family. I am looking forward to seeing Eric, my former nephew, and his family. I am seeing old friends in Seattle as well. I am thrilled to be traveling so light.

And it will be a great homecoming at the other end, when I land back in Ohio, back at home, back in Warren's arms.

Inch One Hundred Eleven: A Half Dozen

Random bits that have dropped into my life this week:

1. I recently received a University of Chicago Alumni Association email entitled: Let's try something new!

What could that be, you ask? Well, apparently that means coming to Alumni Weekend, June 2 to 5.

Sorry, Chicago, I have a prior appointment in Seattle from June 1-4 for the AFCC conference, followed by nine days in Portland with my sons, my daughter-in-law, Ramona, and others in our families.

I'll be co-presenting a workshop at the conference. (Alise is my co-presenter.) That's enough new for me.

2. Roaming through the new books shelves at the library, I ran across one entitled No Baggage : A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering. Written by Clara Benson, it is a memoir about lots of things, including traveling for three weeks from Istanbul, Turkey to London, England, with, truly, no baggage except the clothes on her back and the few items she packed into a very small purse. The "no baggage" rule also included making no reservations anywhere, but just arriving (in Istanbul, for starters) and hoping for the best. (There's a lot more to her memoir than that, but the no baggage piece is the part I am writing about here.) 

I met my friend Mel for coffee when I was about two-thirds through the work and told her I was intrigued with the idea for when I head to Seattle and Portland. Well, I wouldn't go totally without baggage, but if I could get it down to one tiny bag, I would be thrilled. My myeloma has impacted me enough that I have to check a bag whenever I fly because I don't have the strength to hoist a loaded bag into a baggage compartment if I am traveling by myself. Traveling wayyyyyyyyyyyy lighter would take care of that issue.

Mel, who went to Europe for three weeks last year, had her baggage lost en route for 10 of the 21 days. She bought one light top, a pair of shorts, two pairs of underwear, and a lightweight wrap for cooler nights. She also had her personal travel bag (toothbrush, toothpaste) so she was okay on that front. Mel did confide that she got "awfully tired" of her limited selection, so when her husband Mark joined her part of the way through the trip with a gift of a large piece of woven cloth from friends in Belgium, she improvised a skirt with it. 

"Do it, April, do it!"

I may just do it. Or some variation of "it."

3. My son Ben has had boxes and boxes of books and things in our attic; these are books, CDs, and stuff from high school (and before) through his first year of college. Ben had hoped to come back this summer for a visit and sort through them, but it looks like other events will likely keep him and his family west coast bound this year. So I went through ALL of the boxes, compiled a list of what was in each one (lots), and asked Ben for his input. He said to get rid of about 99.99% of everything, saving only ten titles and a few other items. Among his reasoning was this: "I'm sick of carting around old things that I don't look at ever." So boxes are going to Goodwill, Half Price Books, maybe a video games dealer, definitely a card shop (we are talking thousands of baseball cards, folks). And looking at his boxes getting ready to leave the house permanently, I am adding items of my own: the CDs I never listen to, more of my books, things like that. 

The handful of items Ben wanted, including the ten titles? Those shipped to Portland yesterday.

4. As I sort through things, my mind runs back to Christopher Milne, son of A. A. Milne and the "real" Christopher Robin of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories and poems. Milne wrote an autobiography, The Enchanted Places, in 1974, and in it he commented upon his decision to donate the original Pooh bear and the other Pooh characters to his editor, who gave them to the New York Public Library. Milne wrote about Pooh fan reaction to his decision:

So, if I am asked "Aren't you sad that the animals are not in their glass case with you today?" I must answer "Not really" and hope that this doesn't seem too unkind. I like to have around me the things I like today, not the things I once liked many years ago. I don't want a house to be a museum. When I grew out of my old First Eleven blazer, it was thrown away, not lovingly preserved to remind me of the proud day I won it with a score of 13 not out. Every child has his Pooh, but one would think it odd if every man still kept his Pooh to remind him of his childhood. But my Pooh is different, you say: he is the Pooh. No, this only makes him different to you, not different to me. My toys were and are to me no more than yours were and are are to you. I do not love them more because they are known to children in Australia or Japan. Fame has nothing to do with love.

I wouldn't like a glass case that said: "Here is fame", and I don't need a glass case to remind me : "Here was love".

I don't need a house full of stuff, some of it long set aside (even in the case of my things), to remind me of love and life.

5. Yesterday Warren and I went north to pick up a set of his crotales. On the way back, we stopped for a brief walk through downtown Medina, then swung over to Akron to pick up son David and bring him back to Delaware (he'd just completed a road trip to Maine), then back into town in time for First Friday. 40 years ago, I could drive nonstop from Portland, Oregon to Delaware, Ohio in 48 hours if there were two other drivers in the car. Yesterday, the less than six hours (none more than two and a half hours at a time) of driving took a toll on me. Like the books and other items I am shedding, I look back at that person and wonder who she was.

6. April is National Poetry Month in this country, and that means I will post a poem a day on my Facebook page. I started at about 5:00 a.m. on Friday with this Nike ad featuring the poetry of Pablo Neruda:





My sister-in-law Margaret commented: "Huh. Nike, Neruda, and . . . the prelude to Das Rheingold? Even the postmodern mind boggles a bit. Or maybe not."

As I reminded Margaret in response, this is advertising and in advertising nothing should ever boggle the mind. Ever. 

The same rule goes for poetry. Happy Poetry Month! 




 

Inch One Hundred Nine: Lares and Penates

Lares were Roman deities who protected, among other things, crossroads and boundaries. Within a household, they protected all of those within the boundaries of the family line. Penates were the guardians of the pantry and wealth of the family, related to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. Together, they were often worshiped in a family shrine.

Lares and penates. My desk and study are full of them.

A painted china pig, with chipped ears and one penny rattling around inside of it, a pig that was old when I first claimed it as my own as a child. A little ceramic owl, chosen from a collection of owls at calling hours for a friend who wanted her owls to go out into the community after her death. A little soft plastic Pegasus that will make its way into my novel. A  papier-mâché fish, which opens to reveal a cache of paperclips. A string of little wood houses, a few small rocks from Lake Superior, a skeleton Frida for Day of the Dead. A geode holding a dime won over a poetry bet and a piece of paper with a quote about poetry. A small framed picture of Warren.

If you sit at my desk and look at the walls and at the back of the door, which serves as a wall to my left, you will see more. There are photos and postcards of places I have been, poems,  two articles on writing, one of which is Neil Gaiman's thoughts about it. There is a cover off of the University of Chicago Magazine, showing a street sign for University Avenue covered in snow. On a bookshelf on the other side of the door are photos of Sam, Ben, Alise, Ramona, and Warren. Behind me in the small bookshelf: a Mason jar with marbles, a heavy glass horse head bookend I have had as long as the china pig, my engagement gong.

Years ago when I moved out of the house and into my first post-marriage space, I had a small study tucked into a walk-through space. My desk, a table, looked out onto an urban rooftop that could have graced any Edward Hopper urban painting. On the wall next to my desk, I taped anything that caught my eye. Quotes, photos or bits of photos, magazine pictures of Mini Coopers, buildings. By the time I moved out, I had covered a good six square feet or more of the wall. My study today is a variation of that wall.

My writing habits have changed over the last decade plus. I deliberately created this space but I rarely write—in the sense of creation—there. In the old days, the days of the apartment above the streets, I would make notes on buildings, put on headphones, and, often starting at 11:00 p.m. or later, bang out a 2500 word article on architecture while listening to Queen. Now I most often write in pen, usually somewhere other than my desk, then turn it into a column or a post while sitting at my desk surrounded by my lares and penates. This post started out on a concert program, while Warren played timpani up in front of me. I will carry this program home, carry it up to my study, and turn my scribbles into print.

When I read articles about decluttering and simplifying, my desk and its surrounds could be called clutter by the authors. Too much clutter.

And maybe someday I will feel that way. But for now I see lares and penates, guarding my desk, guarding my home, guarding my loves.

Inch Ninety-Four: Standing Down

I am finally standing down.

For the uninitiated, "standing down" is a military term meaning "a relaxation of status of a military unit or force from an alert or operational posture." 

I recently realized that I have been, mostly unconsciously, on alert, trying to create around Ramona the wall of books with which I sheltered Ben as a young child. And here's the thing that finally hit me: I don't have to be on alert. 

I can stand down.

I can stand down because, quite simply and beautifully, Ramona doesn't need protected like that.

Ramona is part of a secure, loving family made up of her parents, Papa and Nana, Uncle Sam, Auntie Jenna and Uncle Cholo, and other family and friends. Unlike her father and to a lesser extent her Uncle Sam before her, Ramona does not need protected from a vengeful parent, a depressed parent, an alcoholic parent, an angry parent. Ramona can be her own bold, funny, confident, secured, loved and loving self day in and out. 

This realization on my part started to come to a head when I recently attended a conference session on the impact of chronic intense stress on the developing brain. Listening to the neurobiologist describe the chemical and physical consequences of chronic stress of a child's brain triggered a PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) reaction in me. With deep breaths and some mindful thinking, i managed to make it through the session, but it shook me up. The speaker's descriptions brought up painful memories of my sons' childhoods and my inability to fully protect them from the emotional chaos and conflict that marked our family. Each child reacted differently to that conflict and both of my sons still carry scars and quirky coping mechanisms today as a result.

My intense response to the speaker surprised me, catching me unawares as it did. But people with PTSD can have episodes triggered by innocuous circumstances, and I chalked it up to that.

Then came the books.

Books are important to me. They are important to Ben and Alise. They are important to Ramona. who is starting to puzzle out the sounds of the letters in her books. She lives surrounded by books: a house filled with books, her own bookcases at both her parents' house and Nana and Papa's house, and even her own library card. Ramona is not book deprived, to put it mildly. She already owns a number of titles that duplicate books I have here in Ohio.

So why did I have a small but plainly PTSD reaction when I made plans to ship some of the dozens of children's books to Eric and Brandee, Ben's cousin and wife, for their daughters Frida and Frankie?  It wasn't that I didn't want to share the books with Eric and company. I knew his girls would enjoy the books. These were books I read to Ben throughout his childhood, wrapping him in the comfort and security of the stories. (To a lesser extent, I read some of these books to Sam, who when young was not interested in being read to most of the time, being more interested in being on the go and chasing after his big brother and his friends. Different child, different needs.) I knew Frankie and Frida would enjoy them. 

What was going on?

I texted Ben my intentions, and he texted back immediately that he had no problem with my plans. I still put off filling a box for another week. Then I sat down by the bookcase and began to sort through the dozens of books, culling a bright assortment for the girls.

My discomfort finally revealed itself as I chose titles and started to flip through pages. I was afraid that I would leave Ramona unprotected if I didn't hold onto the books. I was afraid she would have no shelter. I was afraid she would not have the security of my library to hide within. 

I was afraid of things which have no basis in reality. Ramona's childhood is not her father's childhood. Ramona has Alise and Ben and unconditional love and that has made all the difference. 

When I realized that, I took a deep breath, books scattered around me. These books were going out to Oregon as gifts from one generation to another, not from mother to son to his child but sideways from one-time aunt to former nephew to his children. It was a perfectly good gift, full of adventure and love.

With that understanding, the weight lifted off my chest and my breathing calmed down. I chose the books with zeal and wrapped the box tight after slipping in some titles for the grownups as well. The books went west and I am waiting for confirmation of their delivery. 

And the joy of books. Yes, I am waiting for the joy of books. Because I am finally able to stand down and see them as that: bundles of joy.