Milestone realized!

Sat down at the piano this morning for the first time in many, many weeks and could not stop the tears welling up from somewhere in my chest at the sheer joy of playing again.  A big YES -- this is what it means to heal.  

The freedom of playing for my own enjoyment is one of the greatest thrills life holds.  I don't much like playing for other people -- my liberty comes in letting fly and sight-reading through page after page of cool melodies and chord progressions.

Played and played and played until the back said, "Okay, save some for later."  Today was a long time coming, but SO worth waiting for.

Think I'll throw myself a pity party!

What an ordeal this has been.  Out of necessity, I've trained myself to be a patient person, but this is trying even the far limits of my capacity to "just wait it out."  

Long days, weeks, and months of debilitating pain, followed by even MORE weeks of excruciating agony after the surgery.  Finally got almost to the end of that and a killer cold, complete with body aches, chills and fever, jumped on me.  Lay in the recliner last night and cried like a big baby.  And then coughed myself inside out.  

This is so stupid.  Get a little perspective, kiddo ... you've simply shot your immune system.  Temporarily!!  Not permanently.   And whaddaya gonna say to that brave young girl who's in the process of losing her extremities to a flesh-eating disease?!  Would you be up for lying down next to her in her hospital bed and comparing notes??  Get outta here!!!  

So no more of this.  Go find something constructive to do and get over yourself.  You have no IDEA about pain and suffering -- NONE!!  Life is good.  End of story.

What is it about moms?

Oddly enough, my mom has been in my thoughts all weekend.  It can’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that today is Mother’s Day, but there it is, nonetheless.

My mother was a complex contradiction in terms, as moms the world over tend to be.  She grew up all tomboy with six brothers and two sisters, while simultaneously evolving into an indisputably voluptuous young woman.  She was born and raised in a small southwest Kansas town, went to tiny schools, and was afforded the somewhat stunted educational benefits that generally attach to such an environment;   but curiosity, intelligence, and EQ were in her DNA, so she found herself on a quest for learning from the start. 

Mother graduated high school and then earned what was known as an Emergency Teaching Certificate through a six-week course at what was then Ft. Hays State Teachers' College.  This was during WWII and the situation called for desperate measures.  At about 18 years old, she taught for one year in a country school where most of the high school boys were taller than she was.  Then she met my dad and that temporarily ended her teaching career.  She married a few months short of her 19^th birthday, and three weeks short of her 20^th she delivered her first baby – me. 

   

Four more babies followed, one of whom she lost during delivery, and what with being a mother and a wife, and filling countless other roles, she didn’t get around to college again for a decade and a half.  There was never a time, however, when she wasn’t reading at least two books and filling journals with her thoughts. 

Finally, when I was a junior in high school, she enrolled in the local community college and graduated with honors.  Then she went on to the local four-year college (I was a freshman there when she was a junior) and graduated with HIGHEST honors.  With those credentials she taught English, Drama and Yearbook for several years at the high school my siblings and I attended.  In fact, my two sisters and my brother all had her as a teacher, and she and my dad were so well-loved that they were invited to help chaperone a Senior Trip.  Later, she taught EMR (old label, but it stood for Educable Mentally Retarded) classes, and was one of a handful of women who founded the Learning Co-op for this part of the state.  I was thoroughly immersed in my own life by then and didn’t keep up with everything she was doing, but I knew enough to be justifiably proud of her.  

Somewhere in there, Mother earned a Master’s degree, again, fittingly, from Ft. Hays State, and had family circumstances not intervened it’s highly possible she might have gone on to get a doctorate.   

   

Because of Mother’s love of learning and reading, my sisters and brother and I grew up in a household of books.  When we were little she read to us a lot, and later on she carted us to the Carnegie Library every week or so and let us choose our own stack of books to take home.  She had a small office filled with books, and her end of the couch was surrounded by more books and notebooks.  Each of us absorbed her priorities and ended up with our OWN love of reading. 

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to our beautiful, intriguing mother far too early.  A sudden heart attack took her from us when she was just 67 years old.  I often find myself wondering what she might be like now in her 80s, but I really only have to remember what my grandmother – her mother – was like into her 90s --- lovely, intelligent, interesting, kind, thoughtful, funny and fun-loving.  I miss them both!  And therein lies another story ….  

 Mommy & Me on Mother's Day

The Power of Memory

My son is an only child, so I asked him once how much he’d minded growing up “in solitary.”  He said he liked having his own room and possessions, without having to worry about siblings messing everything up, and he enjoyed all the attention and the regular proximity to adults and their world, but his one regret was that he had no one to share his memories.  There was no brother or sister involved in the events of his childhood, no one to corroborate or contradict now when the stories start, no contemporary to help keep the memories alive when Mom and Dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles are all gone.  And implicit in all of it was the fact that there was no one to share the blame when things went south.  

   

I, on the other hand, am blessed with sisters – two of them.  And we had a younger brother whose memory is sweet beyond words.  When my sisters and I are together it’s all ABOUT the memories.  Even when we aren’t actively talking about the past it’s there, part and parcel of who we are.

We had no shortage of memory-making opportunities during our growing-up years.  We lived on a farm, across a gravel driveway from our grandparents, so we had plenty of space, including two good-sized houses, for inventing make-believe.  We built forts in the barn and forts in the house, decorated dollhouses upstairs and down, strung paper dolls, Baby Linda dolls, Barbie dolls and their wardrobes from one end of the house to the other, set up tea parties in Grandma’s garden, made mud pies in front of the playhouse.  Whatever fantasy world a child is capable of creating, we most likely did.  And possibly the most interesting, compelling and fabulous fun we had was playing dress-up in Grandma’s attic.  

Getting there was a bit of a trek.  The stairway was hidden behind a wall in the kitchen and accessed by a door.  Once we stepped up onto the landing, the view was straight up the narrow staircase, with not much hint of what lay beyond.  It was always perfectly still up there and the air felt heavy.  We could hear wasps buzzing in the windows, but we knew from experience that if we left them alone they could probably be counted on to return the favor.   Every once in a while Grandma would go up there with a big pair of scissors and methodically cut off their heads, which we found deliciously cold and efficient on her part.  Of course it only added to her “cred,” and we ALREADY tended to obey her faster than we did our mom.  This is the same grandma who pinched the heads off the red and black box-elder bugs she found crawling across her floors and feared neither snake nor bug in her garden.

There was a shallow ledge parallel to the stairs which served as storage area for an intriguing assortment of items, both old and more recent, but there wasn’t much time to take it all in as we had to concentrate on not tumbling back down to the bottom.  At the top was a bookcase holding musty old volumes, including my first acquaintance with “Gone With the Wind.”  It literally fell apart before I got to “Frankly, my dear ….”.   Also sitting on the shelves were several of our dad’s iron toys from childhood.  Those heavy cars and trucks and cleverly-designed coin banks brought a nice sum years later when our parents held their retirement auction. 

I don’t recall ever venturing up that staircase alone until about Jr. High.  It wasn’t so much creepy up there as heavy with history and the weight of lives lived, and it just seemed to be better experienced in the company of others.  Our dad’s model airplanes still hung silently from the ceiling of what had been his bedroom, and the pictures on the walls beckoned us back to an era we knew very little about.   There was an old feather mattress on the bed in the biggest room and everything had a patina of dust that made it seem as though nothing had been touched since the former occupants, our dad and his brother, went off to take up lives of their own.  

The space held enough mystery to provide the perfect setting for make-believe, so it naturally followed that we and our friends would spend hours on lazy summer days assembling just the right outfits and then posing for Grandma and her old Brownie box camera.   We had a wealth of treasures to choose from, as the bedrooms included slant-roofed unfinished closets tucked under the eaves, full of a pretty wondrous array of dresses, hats, gloves, jewelry, shoes, jackets and coats dating from the early 1900s forward.   Flowing crepe dresses, hats with veils, long gloves, moth-eaten fur coats and stoles, all of which we would set off with sticky bright red lipstick and old-lady face powder.  Our grandparents’ house wasn’t air-conditioned, so the upstairs area was stifling hot in the summer, but we didn’t mind.  We were having far too much fun to worry about it.

It’s a simple memory, this one.  No big drama happened, no momentous story.  Nothing to see here, folks, might as well move along.  Just varying groups of young girls trying on adulthood for size.  

Speaking of size, it strikes me now, looking at the old photos, that our feminine forebears must have been truly petite, delicate women.  Incredibly, I see my four-year-old self wearing a dress that looks only slightly too large for me, albeit too long, and other photographs tell the same story.

I can only wonder at the patience it took for our grandparents to listen to us clomping endlessly up and down the stairs, giggling and chattering non-stop.  Amazingly, I don’t remember any of us ending up in a heap at the bottom.  Or maybe since it didn’t happen to ME, my brain thinks it didn’t happen at all.   One thing we didn’t do at Grandma’s house was argue.  At the first sign of disharmony, all she had to do was remind us quietly, “If you quarrel, you’ll have to go home, remember?” and all was suddenly copacetic again.  

When we finally tired of the game, I’m sure it was left to her to restore order to those magical closets, even though it was part of the deal for us to at least try.  I do know that we three sisters would give a lot to go back and thank our grandparents for all they contributed to our lives in countless ways.  They were a huge part of the rich, full childhood we enjoyed and took for granted, and there’s really no way to overestimate the value of that kind of heritage.

 My cousin Katie, maybe 9 years old, and I, at 4 years of age

Me with my friends Karen and Jo

Warning: Whining Ahead ...

Wow, beyond depressed today.  I've been trying to analyze it all morning, and as far as I can discern I've most likely just hit the wall after two years of pain and six weeks of KILLER pain.  Everything's basically okay -- except for a maddening (and obviously worrisome) increase in the pain level since Thursday.  My advice to myself would be to get outside for the daily walk and then apply my energies to a project.  Or take a nap, whichever wins. 

Okay.  So that's that.  Out the door.  And how handy to have a blog for the purpose of talking to myself -- clever idea!

Monday, Monday ...

I've been working for a week on a piece for public consumption that isn't coming together, for whatever reasons.  At this point I'm frustrated and discouraged, two feelings I abhor.  So maybe it's time to just bang out something for me and let the chips fall willy-nilly. 

I'm worn down by pain and sick to death of pain meds.  They have an adverse effect on my energy level and my mood and they're a constant reminder that "stuff happened."  I'm moving toward full recovery day by day (or at least I HOPE that's where this is going), but it's SO SLOW!!!  Maybe that's so I'll appreciate it enough to preserve it once it finally gets here.

It's less than intelligent to let life get to me when things in general are so fabulous.  I have nothing to complain about other than a little pain, and who doesn't have some of that?  So, of course, that being true, the next thing I have to deal with is guilt.  Which I also hate.  

I was never going to be one of those little old ladies who is focused on -- consumed with -- things like surgeries in all their disgusting details, pain in its various iterations, or BMs and whether or not the day produced one.  Blech.  Dear God, may I never reach that state of mental and emotional elderliness.

Okay, so life happens.  And keeps on happening.  One day becomes the next and brings its own load of challenges ... and joy. 

There is no good reason to lose heart, even on a momentary basis.  Part of adulthood is taking what comes and continuing to move forward.  

So hello, Monday, my old friend.  We're in this together -- always were, always will be.  Life is good.  Let's see what's next ...

Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I WAS raised in a barn ...

If your birth year falls anywhere near mine, you probably heard your parents say at least once, “Shut the door, were you raised in a barn?”  Grown-ups saw it as a clever way to grab a child’s attention; however, the question never had its full effect on me as a reprimand because one of my favorite places in the whole WORLD was a barn, a big gray wonder situated in the middle of the corral on our farm.

It wasn’t always gray and weathered, of course.  Before I was old enough to be aware of its existence, it was a proper barn-red hue, with a shiny tin roof.  Or maybe the roof was originally composed of green shingles.  Or wood.  Sadly, there’s no one left to ask about the details.  I’m the eldest sibling, and everyone above me is gone.

The barn had two stories and a tall peaked roof, and the ground floor was lined with pens and milking stalls, along with two store rooms for tack and supplies.  The top level was usually stacked floor to ceiling with fragrant hay bales – green rectangles of alfalfa lightweight enough for enterprising farm kids to rearrange into forts.  That loft was also where nearly all new batches of baby kittens were to be found.  

My grandma told me stories of when the barn was new and the loft floor solid and grand.  She and Grandpa held barn dances there which the neighbors clamored to attend.  The mental image could keep me occupied for days …

Recently a friend posted a link to an essay by Michael Sims, published in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, about that pseudo-children’s book Charlotte’s Web.   (It’s a book for grown-up types and we all know it!)  As I read Mr. Sims’ essay, my mind snagged on a single line and wouldn’t turn loose, 

" … the barn’s handmade stanchions and hoof-scarred planking ..."

Every inch of “my” barn was handmade by my grandpa and uncle and dad, and its stanchions and hoof-scarred planking are in my DNA.  That graying expanse, with its sweet hay, lowing cows, newborn calves, sinuous cats, and the scent of freshly-drawn milk in pails, taught me as much about life as did any classroom in which I ever languished. 

It was in the barn loft that I learned how to cuss.  Lying on a stack of prickly hay bales, watching dust motes float down the sunbeams from roof to floor, and plotting my next adventure, I’d hear my dad bringing the cows in to be milked.  Invariably, especially in the evening, there was at least one that declined to obediently trot to the stanchion and wait for him to slide the trap against her neck.  Instead, she’d go a little wild, kicking and bellering, with my dad hot on her tail.  He was tired from a full day’s work and would have preferred the coolness of the house, his supper, and some peace and quiet.  But here was this ol’ heifer, intent upon vexing him in every way possible.  As he unleashed an incredibly creative string of expletives, swinging a sawed-off 2x4 in the air for emphasis, I couldn’t help feeling ever-so-slightly superior to him for just those few seconds because I instinctively knew that if he’d just give the old girl  time to settle down a bit it would work out much better for both of them.

True to stereotype, I learned how to smoke behind that barn.  The “cigarettes” were made from weeds wrapped around more weeds, but the Diamond matches cadged from next to Grandma’s stove were the real deal.  

I learned a little about life and death there, too.  Not all the kittens born in the loft survived.  And not all the baby calves brought in and penned up with their mothers lived. 

I learned that if you leave big spiders alone in their nests they’ll go about the business of eating flies and bugs and leave you to your snake-killin’, which was Grandma’s word for any and all endeavors.

I learned that baby mice are pretty cute, their parents not so much.  

I learned that if you hear your name being called but don’t answer right away, your mother will move on down the list to your sister.

I learned that I was a farm girl and my Detroit cousins weren't.  My cousin Katie became infamous for her plea while walking through the manure-filled cow lot after a rainstorm to "Get me outta this tow-tinkin' tuff!!"  

  

The barn still stands and has been repaired and rejuvenated, but the farm is no longer in the family.  The three farmers who made all the haying and milking and calving happen – my grandpa, my dad, and my brother – are gone.  But they, even more than that big old barn of my childhood, are part of my DNA and I will never forget what a gift they were to me.  The tears in my eyes and throat bear testament to how much I miss them.   

 My dad, a neighbor, my grandpa and me, filling the silage pit next to the barn.  

I was four years old.

Poor little girl from "The Grapes of Wrath."  The old Diamond T truck had seen its day long before I arrived, but honey, those high-water pants, suspenders, and headscarf make it look like we were contemporaries.  The Joads LIVE!!

 My friend Tish and me on a summer day.   

It's entirely possible I haven't spent a day quite as carefree since.

 Me, my little sister Rita, and my friend Tish, sitting on one of the barn's old beat-up gates.  I see lipstick, so I know we were fresh off a dress-up session in Grandma's attic ... 

but that's a story for another day!