Hopelessly Devoted

For several days I’ve been waking around 4 or 5 a.m. - not with the kind of agitation and anxiety to which I’m prone, but with a sense of quiet energy and anticipation. I don’t bother fighting my wakefulness, but slip as quietly as possible out of the warm nest of blankets and dogs and make my way to the kitchen. While the coffee is coursing its way through the Cuisinart, I take a few moments to stand at the window and greet the silent, snowy day, before I empty the dishwasher and preheat my favorite mug. With my coffee balanced on a small, cloth lined tray, I make my way back upstairs and into the Room of My Own, the bedroom in our house that’s become my de facto office/reading room/retreat. For the next few hours, I read, write, think.  As the sky brightens outside the window, I allow myself to sink deeper into my ideas, my thoughts, my memories. By the time my family is awake, I am spent, but also energized. I feel a sense of accomplishment, and excitement. The words are taking me places I’ve never been, and I’m excited for this journey.

This is my work these days, and I am devoted to it.

Devotion is my key word for this year. It is a word layered with many levels of meaning, a word that began to crop up in my thoughts several months ago when I decided this would be the year I devoted to myself, my projects, my creativity. It is a word that carries traces of the holiness which I hope to bring to daily life. It is a loving word, a word that means giving freely of time and attention to that which is important. It is a gentle word, that implies persistence without the need for perfection.

It is a word I bring to my writing, but also to my body with all its desires and imperfections. To my husband and our marriage, in honor of true generosity and faith. To my mother, whose needs increase with age but whose love is proportionately far greater than her expectations of us. It is a word I bring to Life in General, with a growing awareness and acceptance of what makes me happy and a genuine dedication to seeking it in my daily living.

Enjoyment, then, is another important layer in the concept of devotion. It feels almost sinfully luxurious  to have the time and ability to ponder and pursue these things - this writing, this life, time to sit with what I’ve learned and explore things I want to learn more about. It’s like receiving a box of Belgian chocolates and knowing you can eat as many as you want without gaining an ounce. I smile at the very thought, don’t you?

For the past year or two, I’ve been about the business of stripping away layers - layers of clutter, of memories, of  expectations. So much has changed during that time. I’ve streamlined my living, literally and figuratively. I once thought change was evil - I dreaded it and fretted over it and hung around the edges of it as long as I could. But if there’s one thing that’s certain in life, it’s the fact that nothing stays the same, nothing is static. I’m finally starting to be okay with that idea. Lately, change has been good to me, and for me.  Now I can devote myself to seeing where it all will take me.

Snow Birding

We are hunkered down here in the midwest, heeding weather forecasters who predict another barrage of snow on top of the storm that ushered in 2014 earlier this week. But it was sunny and bright during the early part of the day, and we walked down our frozen street wearing the unlikely combination of sunglasses and earmuffs. Between the holidays and two big snowstorms back to back, I’ve found myself with a totally unprecedented amount of quiet time. Is there anything I like better than quiet time?

Not much.

Of course I can always find ways to keep busy. I’m surrounded by books, I have hundreds of movies and TV shows at my disposal (thank you, Netflix, Amazon, and TiVo). I always have the Book Project to fall back on should I find myself bored. (ha!)

But as snow falls gently and steadily outside the window, I’m content to sit in my chair, my hands wrapped around a steaming mugful of tea, and watch the chickadees and goldfinch flocking to the feeders. My interest in birds is a new one, and because there are so many birders in our neighborhood who feed and water them regularly, there is a large assortment always available for observation.

A friend sent me an interesting article about chickadees - apparently their little birdbrains physically expand by 30 % every winter to accommodate memory storage of all the places they’ve hidden gathered seeds during the fall. When spring comes, their brains “shrink” back to normal size. "They grow more brain when they need to remember things; then shrink that brain when the "remembering" season ends."

As recently as 1994, scientists did not believe this was possible - in birdbrains, let alone in human brains. But guess what? Homo sapien brains can expand too. Every time we learn something new, we grow brain cells.

Learn enough, and the concept of big-headedness will be more than metaphorical.

That’s kind of comforting, isn’t it? Especially when you’ve reached the age where recalling the spot you left your coffee mug, book, and reading glasses can lead you on an hour long wild goose chase through the house.

So yes, bird (and presumably all mammals) can grow brain mass and power. But it’s the second part of that sentence which really caught my attention.

That their brain shrinks when the remembering season ends.

Sometimes it seems like old age marks the end of the remembering season. Especially when folks become infirm and  have to move out of their homes and into care giving environments. Although they might provide “memory-stimulating” activities, it seems like they're really just false approximations of the real-life events our brains are designed to work with.

Even at my stage of life, I can sometimes feel my brain stultifying (especially after too many hours on Facebook!) I really want to stay firmly rooted in the remembering season. That’s another reason why I love reading, writing, and playing music  - those activities are the nuts and seeds I gather all year round, expanding my brain cells with every page written and read, every note played.

Hieroglyphs on a Rock

I endured these (childhood) fantasies and premonitions by writing about them. The stories I made up were medicinal. My inner life was barbed, with jagged edges. Left untended, it felt dangerous, like it might turn on me at any moment. Intuitively, I understood that I had to use it. It was all I had. By writing, I was participating in a tradition as old as humanity. I was here. Hieroglyphs on a rock. I was here, and this is my story. Dani Shapiro (Still Writing)

Novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro often writes about the way her childhood influenced her writing. The only child of older parents who “fought constantly” and “whose greatest source of conflict was me," Shapiro says she “felt as if she were navigating the world on a borrowed visa.” She turned to writing as a way of coping, of marking her territory, of staying safe. 

I was here, and this is my story.

I can relate to Shapiro’s sense of danger and unease about her place in the world.  As the cherished only child of over-protective parents and grandparents, I was treated more like a china doll than a normal little girl. Ever fearful of my getting broken, my mother tried her best to keep me in a safe cocoon. In her eyes, disasters lurked around every corner like potential land mines waiting to explode.  I often had bronchitis and asthma, and so many of the activities my friends engaged in were off limits to me. Things like running (which made me short of breath), swimming (chlorine in the pool aggravated my asthma), ice skating (I might fall and break something), overnights with friends (their houses might have too much dust which would set off my allergies) were all verboten.

I developed a sense of fragility about life in general and my own in particular, a belief that I should never put myself in harms way- even if the potential for harm was practically negligible. So I learned to be content with quiet pursuits like writing stories, many of which were potboilers about young girls in dangerous situations - locked in haunted mansions, being pursued by ghosts or kidnapped by gangs of thugs. Interestingly enough, I rarely finished these epic tales, probably because I couldn’t conceive of a way to reach the happy ending I wanted so desperately.

I think I was in fourth grade when I first heard about the cave paintings in Lascaux, those images etched into the walls of a dark cave that appeared to be a form of primitive communication. I remember a chill running down my spine as the teacher explained how scientists believed these drawings to be early man’s first efforts at leaving a message or telling a story. Preserved for eons, these odd images were proof positive that some sentient being existed, one who was compelled to leave a message for posterity.

From that moment on, I became fixated on the idea of using words and images to leave a lasting legacy. My belief in the power of our individual stories was born on that day. No matter what might happen to me  (a fatal asthma attack brought about during a secret playdate in my friend Lisa’s dusty basement!) my mark on the world could be ensured through writing.

I was here, and this is my story.

This year I will publish a book called Life In General, a collection of essays from the past 8 years. These pieces will tell the story of my here and now, my life in this 21st century - what makes me smile and laugh and cringe in fear. They are the compilation of my hopes and dreams, my thoughts about family and home and reading and writing. They are the shared stories of women I know, those of us who struggle to balance our lives with the needs of children and grandchildren, spouses, aging parents, and employers. They are all aspects of my story, each one a hieroglyph on the wall of my cave.

I was here, and this is my story. 

And I’m excited to share it with you.

Turning the Page

One of my favorite things about a New Year is a new calendar. I love seeing all the blank pages with their empty squares waiting to be filled. Even though many of those squares will contain mundane things like haircut appointments and rehearsals, there will also be outings with friends and concerts and even a trip or two. There will be, of course, disappointing day - days when I fall short of the expectations I make so eagerly every year as I begin to pencil plans and dreams onto those blank pages. But I am learning to be gentle with myself over those failures, even when they seem monumental. It’s okay, I whisper, much as I would to my little grandson were he to present me with some sadness.  I love you no matter what.

As I begin 2014, I am excited, I am eager, I am looking forward to a year I intend to devote to ME.  That sounds selfish, doesn’t it? When I was growing up, “selfish” was a dirty word, and the last thing I ever wanted to be. It was a lesson I internalized extremely well. Like many women I spend much of my time tending to the needs of others, and although these are things I do with great love they sometimes take every ounce of my energy, leaving me irritable and unhappy.

But as my friend Deb Smouse reminds me, “When you are living a happy, full, and complete life, you give others a gift. The greatest gift you can give the world is a happy you.” I’m happiest when I have time and space which I can devote to the things that feed my soul. While none of those things are extravagant or expensive, they are invaluable to me in terms of helping me feel fulfilled, energized, confident - happy. They are as simple as sharing morning coffee with my husband, walking my dogs through the quiet streets of our neighborhood, spending time at my keyboards playing with words and music.

As I turn the calendar page on January 1, my life is serene and in order.  I am where I want to be, literally and figuratively, after spending the past few years churning in a sea of cluttered physical and emotional space. My head is above that water now, I can breathe freely and turn my attention inward. I can look at the blank pages and empty squares of my life and begin to fill them with what is important to ME.   I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to do that.

I want 2014 to be the year  I lean with joy into this life I love. The year I write more seriously and more often.  The year I  publish a book of essays called Life in General, culled from the 2000 blog posts I’ve written in the past seven years. The year I dive into self care routines that nourish my body and spirit. The year I read more thoughtfully and carefully. The year I learn to live more in the real world than the virtual one.

But although I want these things for my little life, I have learned to temper desires such as these to the dictates of reality. I am long past the point of worrying about whether I achieve every item on a list. Sometimes it’s enough to just make the list, to know those aspirations are there like distant stars on the horizon, to fondle and play with as life permits.

I deserve the time and energy to dedicate to my dreams and passions. This is the year I intend to take it.

So let’s turn the page and begin.

Filling the Empty Spaces

My father loved Christmas. His generous spirit delighted in gift-giving, and especially in finding creative ways to present the gift. There was often a big “un-veiling” involved - one year he bought my son a pint-sized 4-wheeler and rigged up a concealing cover that Brian lifted off with a pulley. I recall searching through a huge cardboard box filled with scrunched up newspapers and a carbide tools from his shop, finally unearthing a slender box that contained a diamond tennis bracelet. And one year he presented me with an autographed, hardcover copy of Arthur Hailey’s book, Wheels. He stood in line for hours to get it, and must have told Hailey about my aspirations to be a writer, because it was inscribed, “Good luck with your writing, Rebecca.” I was 14 years old at the time. As we opened and enjoyed our lavish Christmas presents, he often recalled his own boyhood Christmas, which consisted of a box from the Goodfellows containing a pair of socks, an orange, and sometimes a rubber ball. “That orange was the best thing I ever tasted,” he said. As a pampered only child, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to get only an orange- something I had every day -  for a Christmas present. Nor could I fathom the kind of life my Dad lived as a child -where there was never quite enough food for all six children, where shoes were handed down from one brother to the next and resoled with cardboard, where he went without prescription eyeglasses even though he was severely near-sighted because there was no money to get them.

My father was a self-made man, the kind of man who symbolizes everything America stands for. The son of Armenian immigrants, he left high school in his junior year to fight in The Great War. When he returned, he learned a trade and, at the age of 30, started his own business. For the next 30 years, he ran a very successful tool and die company, a company successful enough to put oranges on our table every single day and diamond bracelets under our Christmas tree. He was proud of that, and rightfully so, and nothing made him happier than sharing his good fortune with his family.

Christmas was never the same after my parents divorce and my father’s move to Florida. Those first few years were especially devastating. Not only was he gone from our family, but we learned he had a new family to celebrate with.  I would sometimes find my mother sobbing in the aisles of the grocery store, heartbroken by  tinny strains of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” playing on the overhead speakers.

Over the next decade, I learned to survive Christmas without my Dad around. I missed his gag gifts, missed the packages he wrapped for me in the color comics from the newspaper. I missed seeing him at my concerts, missed him at our dinner table where there was always more than enough food to go around.  In 2005 my Dad and I re-connected after being estranged for some years, and we often saw each other during the holiday season when Jim and I went to our house in Florida.

But of course it wasn’t the same.

This is the first Christmas without my Dad being in this world, but it is not the first Christmas I’ve spent without him in my life. Still, I find myself grieving the loss all over again, knowing the finality of it this time. One more piece of my little family puzzle is gone, a puzzle I imagine being like those made for preschoolers, with only three or four big pieces. When one of those pieces disappears, a huge gaping hole remains.

I’ve been trying to fill that hole with music and visits with friends, with writing in my journal early in the mornings, with soft music at dusk and shimmery white lights on a small Christmas tree. I’ve been losing myself in good books, dreaming  about what the new year might bring. I find moments of delight  in pictures and videos of my Grandson which I play over and over because they always bring a quick, happy smile.

One of the things I valued most about my Dad was his constant cheerfulness and positive attitude.  He was very sanguine about life, and he believed in happiness and good times and doing what you enjoyed. When people tell a bereaved person that their loved one “wouldn’t want them to be unhappy,” I know that’s true of my father.

I’m  searching for happiness wherever I can find it - in twinkling lights and candle flame, in strains of beautiful music, in my Grandson’s sweet voice.  Just for a while, I set aside those things that worry me, and let myself enjoy life everything that’s beautiful about my life right now.  I believe that’s a gift he would want me to give myself this Christmas.

So I unwrap it from the layers of colored paper and revel in it.

Merry Christmas, everyone.