Midlife Momma

2006-05-14T00:45:00.000-05:00

Today is Mothers' Day, so I would like to share some memories of my mother in her honor.

I remember my Mom buying a purple suit. It had a sleek, fitted jacket and shirt and was quite fashionable for the late 1950s in a Southern college town. She wore it with what she called an "Audrey Hepburn hat" - a broad-brimmed hat. What was fun was that she mocked herself by reciting the poem "I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one, but this I'll tell you here and now, I'd rather see than be one." So every time she wore the suit, we'd recite the poem together and laugh.

One of my favorite memories is the two of us reading a book called "Mary Lizzie" together. She would read a page, then I would read a page. I think it was my first chapter book. My mother was a voracious reader and it was like joining the best club in the world when I learned to read.

I think the first play I ever saw was "A Midsummer Night's Dream" when I was about 5 years old. My Mom took me and it was truly magical. I mainly remember the fairies, who probably had the costumes that appealed to me most. I continued to go to plays with my mother at UNC's Playmakers' Theatre or outdoors at the Greek-style theatre. My mom understood how much I liked things like dancing and theatre and art, and she made sure that I had access to them.

Well, I'm sleepy and need to stop now, but I will say thank you to my mom. I'm sure it is alright to say "Thank you" even if she has been dead for for almost 40 years now. I wasn't smart enough to thank her much when I was young.

2006-04-26T18:19:00.000-05:00

I just mailed the intent to enroll forms for my youngest child today. Off to college she goes next fall. Twenty-three years (total for 3 kids) of day-to-day motherhood is coming to an end. She will be going to school about 650 miles away - a long drive from southeast Michigan across Ohio and Pennsylvania to Westchester County, NY. Actually, Northwest Airlines flies directly from Detroit to White Plains, so it is an easy plane ride. My husband, Chris, and I will both go up with her to help her move into her dorm, though that is generally a pretty quick affair and your child is usually eager for you to leave as soon as possible so they can begin their very own new adventure.

She will be a costume design major at Purchase College SUNY. They have a big theatre department, but the costuming group is small compared to performance and to very practical technical programs like lighting and stage management. Purchase alumni include Parker Posey, Edie Falco, Wesley Snipes, and Moby, and they told us during a visit that there is a "Purchase Mafia" on Broadway/off-Broadway that helps get Purchase graduates and students jobs and great internships in theatre. Well, I hope the school connection helps, because a career in theatre is not an easy path.

My son is an acting and film double major at the University of Michigan, so he is also not looking at much job certainty. My oldest daughter is starting a doctoral program in pure math this coming fall, and I don't think getting a worthwhile tenured position in academia is easy either. I guess we always encouraged them to do things that interested them rather than insisting on purely practical courses of action. I wish them all luck. At least they are all good problem solvers, so they will probably do OK. I really just want them to be happy.

I have a test tomorrow I need to study for now, so I will blog again another day.

2006-04-22T09:26:00.000-05:00

Midlife Momma

I am alone in our house for five days total - don't know if that has ever happened before since Chris and I started living together in September of 1980! Chris is out in San Francisco working and Ysabel is in San Diego on her spring break. Liam is still in his dorm for a while longer, and Nina has been in Koeln, Germany since last July.

We are in the middle of a master bath renovation. It should be lovely when it is finished. If it isn't, I will weep buckets after all the money we are spending. I haven't yet found the perfect contractor who is an excellent communicator and is well organized and ultra-conscientious. Maybe someday. Contractors like that do exist, right? The one we have is a nice guy, but his memory is iffy (about what I have said I want) and we never know when he will show up. We haven't given him any grief about his spotty work schedule or that he almost never tells us when he will be here. I'm hoping that will get us some favors later on when we need them, but I may be naive. Doing a renovation is like being in labor - once you start, you have to finish no matter how hard or uncomfortable it seems. It has only been slow so far; I think the hard part may be coming. I can just feel that things I thought he was covering the cost of, we are going to be asked to pay extra for. And we have paid a lot already. He may think we have a lot of money because we are using such nice materials, but he is mistaken.

2006-04-02T01:26:00.000-05:00

I feel wakeful and it is about 1:30 am. I know college students are often just beginning to party about this time on a Saturday night, but I hardly fall into that category.

Bought a ton of stuff online today for our master bathroom renovation. Hope it all arrives in a timely manner so the contractor won't hate me. And I sure hope we like that towel warmer I got - otherwise it is just an expensive towel rack.

My youngest goes off in mid-April for one final college visit before deciding where she will attend next year. The school that seems to be the best fit is the furthest away of all the ones she applied to. I think she is a little nervous about this. Three thousand miles is a pretty long way from home. I can remember being her age, but I had lost my parents and wasn't even considering continuing to live with my aunt, so I was excited to go as far away as I could to college. Also, I was very eager to get back to the Northeast after spending my senior year transplanted to the South. But my daughter knows that she'd be leaving behind the comfort of getting together easily with parents and siblings and friends, so it is a harder decision for her. I wish her luck figuring out which is the "right" school/place for her to be at this point in her life. It is the first big decision that she will make pretty much on her own.

2005-11-17T00:13:00.000-05:00

LATER

She always tells me “Later”

I’ll do it later

But she has no idea

How all those laters

Can add up to nothing

A big, fat nothing

A life that could have been

But wasn’t

Dreams that stayed dreams

Long pauses that roll

Into years of little done

Until life is all used up

And then that’s all there is

There isn’t any more

2005-07-15T11:13:00.000-05:00

I've been silent during a busy period of time - two graduations along with the accompanying graduation parties, going to other people's graduation parties, taking my younger daughter to Chicago so she could begin a 5-week summer program in design, and attending a couple of days of parent orientation at the University of Michigan.

Our entire family went out to CA at the end of May for my older daughter's graduation from
UC - Berkeley. The ceremony wasn't too big because they graduate by department and her department, while one of the biggest math departments anywhere, is still quite small when compared more populated departments such as English, Computer Science, etc. I think there were about 250 graduates split between pure math and applied math (with more in applied math). Along with her parents and siblings, her partner, Scott Morrison, her grandmother, Uncle Peter, and Aunt Sophia and Uncle Pierrot came to see her graduate and later in the day eight of us had a special dinner together at Chez Panisse, Chef Alice Water's restaurant. Peter generously shared the cost of the meal with us, since it was at a dazzling (or should I say stunning) cost.

The weekend before graduation, Nina had her party in a park near her house and it was a fun time. A man (named Marcus) with dreadlocks was sleeping on the bench of one of the picnic tables. He woke up and we offered him a plate of food, and then he stayed and seemed to have a fantastic time talking to all the students. Scott, Nina's beau, bicycled to the Berkeley Bowl to get last minute needs and he made sure there was good beer.

Liam's high school graduation party involved a LOT more effort re housecleaning and yard/deck preparation, and the buying and preparation of food. Nina was in Ann Arbor for the party, so she helped a lot with the food. We had the party earlier than the majority of senior parties, so guests were able to stay the entire time and the food was a big success. We even got raves from a mom who had had a catering business for many years! She thought the chicken salad was as good as Zingerman's - a famous Ann Arbor deli. Liam was deluged with thoughtful gifts and he had a very good time at the party talking with both the adults and his friends.

I am leaving in less than a week to see dear cousins that I haven't visited with in decades. I am really looking forward to it, even though they live in Arkansas and it is mighty hot there in mid-summer. (I am known for my incompatibility with humidity). Air conditioning will save the day!
I will just have to swoop from car to buildings very quickly, before I melt.

I have been shopping much more than usual this summer as I gather all kinds of things for my son to take off to his dorm. Overstock.com purchases are arriving: memory foam mattress topper, Birkenstocks, etc. Linens & Things and Bed, Bath & Beyond are also getting my business as I buy laundry, bath, storage and bedding items. And Target and Lowe's, and the big summer sale at Marshall Field. He has little interest in any of this, but at least his dorm room should be very comfortable beneath the mess of littered clothes, papers, and books that he is sure to add to the mix.

Liam just went to Europe for the first time from mid-June through the first week of July. He talks about it very little, but he says he had a good time. He was miffed that the first two weeks, when he was on a choir tour, were very restrictive and he didn't get to meet any European contemporaries. The choir director was much tighter with the students than other groups from his high school that go abroad; it is too bad that they didn't get the chance to interact more, since that is a primary purpose of traveling to other countries. The last week he visited his godparents and went along with his godfather, Eric, and some other artists from Zurich to a ceramics conference in Wales where many demonstrations were done. He brought back pictures of huge pieces being fired in a big outdoor blaze by an African woman artist. Pretty cool.

I'm trying to decide what I want to do this fall. I have been thinking about going to Guatemala for 6 weeks to learn Spanish and to take weaving lessons, but I don't know if that is the best choice when I need to take Ysabel around to colleges so she can make some well informed decisions about where to apply for costume design. We can fit in some visits this summer, but not all. The best way to chose a costume design program is to actually see the facilities and what they produce and talk to people in person about their program and the opportunities for undergraduates.

My props supervisor job with the high school theatre guild is no more since they ended last season with some funding headaches. They are going back to having a parent help with props for a small stipend rather than having an actual paid staff person who can be there everyday. I was really depressed about it for a while because I had worked so hard this past year and felt I really had a talent for the work. More than that, I felt very bonded with the students and will miss being involved with such a great program. But, being there last season certainly sparked a renewed desire to focus on creative work, so I am glad of that and of the chance I had to work alongside some great people, both adults and students.

Must do some errands now ........

2005-05-11T13:10:00.000-05:00

I only have a minute to blog since I have to get over to the theatre for strike. "Hair" was a big success and I loved seeing how good the props and Ysabel's costumes looked, as well as watching my son do a great Margaret Mead. He was so funny.

Today is overcast and it almost seems like a bad trick after the beautiful day we finally had yesterday. Michigan weather is nothing if not inconsistant.

My house is utter chaos since everyone has been so busy and books, clothing, etc. have just been dropped everywhere. Can't seem to get into cleaning mode, but then, that is always a problem for me. I like a clean house but I hate to clean.

Saw "The Upside of Anger" yesterday evening. Joan Allen was wonderful, as always, but it was a real revelation to see how good Kevin Costner was. He truly deserves an Academy Award nomination for his role. It was a very finely textured performance of a quality I don't see that often. He is up there with Dennis Quaid in showing real depth in an over-the-hill manly man role. These kind of roles can so easily be done as a cliche.

2005-03-22T00:47:00.000-05:00

I'm working on two shows simultaneously - "Hair" and "Oedipus." I was in "Oedipus" when I was 10 years old as one of his daughters, so it brings up memories. And today when I was gathering props for "Hair," I ran across an Indian bedspread in the colorful Tree of Life pattern like my own bedspread when I was in my early twenties. I feel totally ancient.

I am such an old fuddy-duddy these days. I can barely stand living in the same house as my two younger children, the boy a senior and the girl a junior in high school. I adore them but they drive me up a wall. I feel so criticized by them much of the time that I'm most comfortable in my own house when they are out or asleep!

I realize that I have passed the half-way mark (a while back). It is very unlikely that I would ever live to be 110, even though they say people are living longer now. So I guess I am experiencing the early phase of the "declining years." I have a hard time falling asleep at night and I wake up with cricks. I even got a senior discount at the book store the other day for being 55 or over. Am I ready for this?

My oldest child is 21 (22 in late August) and in the process of choosing a school for a Ph.D. in mathematics. She visited recently and I thought about how this young adult phase really ends by age 26. That isn't very far away, and that means it won't be terribly long before I have a child who is an actual adult - one who'll have a doctorate before she turns 27. She'll be wise and respected and I'll be - well, older and possibly more ditzy. Will she smile and sigh about her mother then? Her Daddy may seem more dignified with age, but will Mom?

Wouldn't it be nice if getting older was just gray hair and the rest of you stayed the same? I'm too poor and too chicken to have cosmetic surgery, so I guess I'll just have to get used to aging. I don't think I'm going there alone. There are a lot of baby boomers coming with me.

2005-02-07T11:29:00.000-05:00

My son got his first acceptance from an audition BFA acting program, and that made everyone feel much relief. Today he is preparing to leave to go to Chicago for two more auditions, then he has two more on Friday that are only a little over an hour away from home. Then just one more in March, unless he is asked to go to MN for a call-back audition for their BFA acting program. This will end! (It feels so stressful).

I am such a bad mom these days. Everything I ask or say irritates my children, and I find that I am fantasizing all the time about my last child graduating and going off to college in 2006. It is hard to imagine a life without any of my kids being at home, but I think I could get used to it. I really enjoy my kids when they are nice and warm in their interactions, but it is not very pleasant to have them so harsh a lot of the time. I realize they just hate having any adult hold them accountable or even innocently ask them how things are going. That's about as popular as having your mother-in-law make suggestions about child-rearing when your kids are little. I wonder why we all get so touchy when we are embarking on new territory (adulthood, parenthood, etc.)? I guess we are so full of hopes, dreams, and ideas at those times that we don't want anyone else to elbow in with their different take on the situation. We feel very possessive about crafting our own future and direction.

My birthday is Wednesday and I will be 55 years old. Man, that seems so old when I can remember being half that age only about yesterday. I don't think I am vain re getting older, but I don't like feeling stiffness in my neck and shoulders or having my night vision start to decrease somewhat. I was at a museum yesterday and was sorely tempted to cross the lines in front of paintings so I could get close enough to read the little placards better. What a pain!

I have much to do besides blog today, so I will bid this blog adieu.

2005-02-02T11:41:00.000-05:00

It has been a long time between blogs. My son is auditioning for a number of theatre programs and he and my youngest daughter and I have all been very busy working on a Moliere play here in Ann Arbor. My husband is working, working, working, and my oldest daughter is waiting to hear from all the schools she has applied to for graduate school, though she is lucky enough to have had one acceptance already. She is across the country, but now that she has a cell phone on a family plan with the rest of us, she talks to us almost daily. She also spent a month here over the holiday break and is returning soon when she has a paid visit to this part of the country in conjunction with her graduate school application.

So life is hectic and I can feel the effects of it. Right now I am still in my gown and robe and have just finally gotten around to eating some breakfast though I have been up for many hours. A lot of the calls I make every day have to do with my son's college applications or auditions, but I think all this is winding down now - thank goodness! I have one more kid to get off to college and then I will never have to do any of this stuff again. The FAFSA went in yesterday and I think that is all the paperwork until April 1st letters arrive from the places where he applied. He has gotten four acceptances already, but that is just to the university, not to their theatre programs yet. I am much more nervous about all this than he is.

Anyway, my work on the present play is more or less done, but there are two spring plays I will be involved with that will start up in a month. I think having the two start up about the same time will finally force me to relax more and let the crews proceed with as little intervention as possible. This is a good thing. I am trying to find the right balance between helping the students learn to do the best job possible and having them take on most of the responsibility without much input from me unless they ask for it. I don't want them to be neurotic, but just a small amount of perfectionism would make me feel a lot more as if I were barely needed. I wish someone on my crew was particularly artistic and had high visual standards/a strong sense of color and design. But those I have are committed, and that is worth a great deal.

2004-11-12T17:17:00.000-05:00

I have been so busy with Theatre Guild's fall musical for so long that I haven't even thought about writing, or much of anything else. I spent more than two months working on gathering and making the props for the Disney musical, "Beauty and the Beast." I supervised a crew of twelve teenagers and I did the prop design. The show opened the first weekend of November and I was working right up to the day before the opening to get it all finished. It was my first experience making theatrical props; I had designed and made props for window displays I designed back when I lived in Santa Cruz, CA in the 1980s. I got to work with a lot of extremely talented professionals on the adult production staff and with lots of very impressive young people, my own son (a principal actor) and daughter (crewhead for the team that made wonderful 3-D fantasy body/head "masks")included.

I've been asked to continue for future productions. It isn't very lucrative, but I will try to continue as long as I can afford to. This has certainly been very memorable for me. It is good to do design again. I seem to still have "the eye," as my co-worker, Mark Tucker, calls it. Somehow, that is good to know.

2004-09-26T12:30:00.000-05:00

The Man Beyond the Trees

I was awakened a little after 7am this Sunday morning by a neighbor who lives behind us. He was scraping old shingles off his roof. This produces an odd noise that is quite resonate. I had padded out to our backyard in my robe to see what was happening, for at first, I thought the noise was on our land but hidden behind foliage. I was amazed his work noise was loud enough to wake me from slumber when his house is almost an acre away. But with my bedroom window open, it was.

I don't know this guy, but the general opinion of him from other neighbors is that he is a strange duck. I see his bright orange plastic leaf wall every fall. He puts it up so no one else's leaves will blow onto his property. He lives alone and keeps his place neat. Why he decided to remove shingles so early this weekend morn is a mystery, except maybe he was worried that September is coming to an end and the weather could turn colder at ant time.

Many people sleep in a little on Sunday. I guess this didn't occur to him, or else it simply didn't matter in his view of things. I can still hear him going at it, though it is past midday now. A drill sound and hammering have replaced the scraping noise. I wonder if he is doing it all by himself, or if he has any friends or family who are assisting. I think he is a lonely sort of person, from what I have observed.

I met a lady in a class I took who lives on the street opposite the front of his house. She said that he gave her the creeps. I have never even seen him close-up. He is simply a mysterious neighbor, the only one in the neighborhood to run a generator when the power goes out (we hear it's loud buzz). He is obviously disciplined and prepared, and I imagine his house as being tidy and unimaginative inside, but maybe I am being unfair. He is simply a man in his late 30s or early 40s who lives alone and likes order and keeps his property up. Since he rises early on Sundays (I presume), he must not see why the clatter of reroofing would be a problem to anyone else. Not a people person, I guess you could say.

2004-09-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

Thoughts after a late-night grocery shop ...

I had to go out to bring back videos, so I included a trip to buy the eggs I forgot to get earlier today. It felt nice to be out at night in mid-September, late enough that it was quiet and serene. The wind was gently blowing and I could almost imagine that I was smelling a sea breeze, though Ann Arbor is certainly far from any ocean.

When my children were young, I sometimes went grocery shopping late at night after they were in bed and my husband could listen for them. I used to really take my time and waltz up and down each aisle very slowly, savoring my time alone, humming to myself as I listened to the Muzak. I recalled that feeling tonight, when the grocery store in its semi-awake state seemed like another world and I could enjoy myself there for as long as I wished.

Life has always seemed like a movie to me, only in real time. When I got married at Natural Bridges Beach in Santa Cruz in wind that periodically blew like a typhoon, I laughed so much my partner, Chris, asked me if I was hysterical. I was laughing because our determination to be married on the beach despite some lack of cooperation by Mother Nature seemed like a comedy to me, of the celluloid type. I still can see my wedding in my mind's eye - the two of us casual in assorted blue cottons (for faithfulness) , Chris' brother Peter - our Universal Life minister who improvised a ceremony that invoked the four winds to bless our vows, our friend Sandy - both our witness and photographer, and her two nine-year old twin sons, Joel & Dustin, covered in oversized navy sweatshirts with the hoods pulled up. Between bouts of intense wind peppered with rain (the palms were bending low to the ground and my hair was streaming out parallel to the horizon), there appeared three double rainbows. Great special effects.

2004-09-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

Feeling rather desperate today, so thought I'd blog. It's been too long!

My source of angst is my sister's upcoming wedding in Orlando, FL on Christmas Eve. I live in a household of cynics who are not all that cooperative about going to a town famous for Disney World. While I wouldn't normally plan a trip there myself, I can see it as a silly, crazy place to go and say "What the Hell - let's do it as a sociological experiment and have fun!" My husband hates spending money in these tight times on a place that feels artificial. My kids are 16, 17, and 21, and that says it all. None of us can quite imagine our oldest daughter's boyfriend, who is also coming, in anyplace like Disney World or Orlando. He's an Aussie math grad student at Berkeley who does not suffer fools gladly, and he and our daughter are definitely "alternative." And our family is something of a cross between the Sycamore's in "You Can't Take It With You" and Dicken's Micawber family - only less optimistic (except for me or my son, Liam, on a good day).

Anyway, I found a big time-share that sleeps eight and has a kitchen, laundry, jacuzzi, pools, and free breakfasts for us all for $99. p/night. The hitch is that I have to drag my husband to a 1-hour condo information session in order to get this rate - so he is gloomy about that. He wanted to camp for $40. for all three nights about a 1/2 hour out of Orlando. But we have all kind of wedding things happening plus Christmas Day to celebrate (in our own non-religious fashion), so it seemed unduly difficult to me. Plus I remember from tent camping in nearby Kissimmee in early November back in the '70s, that it is freakin' cold at night, even though the days heat up.

The wedding is important to me because none of my siblings nor I have ever had a family wedding and celebration. We are orphans, which may explain why. I want everything to be terrific for my sister and for this to be a memorable event for us all.

It is hard for my kids and husband to understand why I feel strongly about this. They think it is amusing or even annoying for me to suddenly seem sentimental. They like my sister a lot and wish her well, but ceremonies of any kind definitely cause them to raise eyebrows.

So we are going and I am hoping they'll enjoy themselves and won't razz me or complain about anything or everything. I'm feeling a little fragile about leading a group of nay-sayers into the Land of Mickey Mouse!

2004-08-11T13:12:00.000-05:00

Two poems about my son who will be a senior in high school:

An Unwelcomed Call

Today Sergeant Somebody called and asked for my son

He mispronounced the name he was reading from his list

I told him my son was at a play rehearsal

And that he wouldn’t be interested in joining the army

I was left with a sick feeling in my stomach after I hung up

Knowing that sons can be taken away from you

If things get bad enough, they are given no choice

Just told that they must serve their country

Must offer their young bodies and minds up for sacrifice

Before they have had the time to experience much of life

My son won’t be eighteen until January, almost six months from now

He is a smart boy, a talented boy, full of enthusiasm and energy

When he was about two and a half years old

He came to me one day and proudly announced

“I am your son, your sun up in the sky”

I never forgot his big smile as he uttered his first pun

Red curls surrounding a shining face

How dark my world would be without him

They cannot have him

Looking Towards Blue

Liam and I went on a college tour today

Of the large and famous university that sits at the center of our midwestern town

He thought it was silly to go, he knows the campus pretty well

But once on the tour, he asked a ton of questions

As we walked along the Quad, I could picture him there

On his own, among peers, talking and laughing

Or rushing to get to a class on time (he often runs late)

He’s bursting to be away from home and to make his own decisions

I wonder if he will eat well?

Probably not, but he won’t be the first

He has a ravenous appetite for life, which will sustain him

Will he make some bad decisions?

Yes, haven’t we all?

What can a parent do but wish him luck

And if he decides to attend college in Our Town

Let him be the one to call or show up unannounced

2004-08-03T08:59:00.000-05:00

About the Inevitability of Death and the Question of Dogs Feeling Remorse

I showed my poem to my husband

The one that ponders that the purpose of life may be as simple as, well, death

I said that death makes life so democratic

It is the great leveler, isn’t it?

We all die, we know that

He said, “Unless you are Christian”

And I countered “Or Hindu, etc.”

Then I said that if I were reincarnated, I thought a dog’s life would be nice

If loved and well-treated

I went on about the glorious simplicity of such a life

No visions of the future, no regrets for the past, so few duties

Then my husband said, “Who knows, maybe dogs feel remorse?”

He said it not because he truly wonders

But just to make fun of my fairytale dog life of the future

Just when I was really warming to the possibility

2004-08-03T00:35:00.000-05:00

Where Do We Go From Here?

Today I wondered if the purpose of life isn’t death

I don’t mean that to sound negative, strangely enough

I just mean that we come from a place of quiet unconsciousness

And to that we return

Matter cannot be destroyed

Or so I have heard

So something of us remains

Some random molecules in a dynamic universe

And Earth that has existed far longer than any of its inhabitants

It will dissolve one day

Into the same pool of molecules

Everything that exists will cease to exist

At some point in time

Except where do all the molecules go? -

The sweepings of all that busy work

Of all that existence?

2004-07-10T10:25:00.000-05:00

I haven't written anything for a while. I have been busy with summer visitors and, consequently, busy straightening up the house before each arrival so we won't look like total slobs.

My husband and I got to enjoy taking care of our 8-month old niece for a couple of days while her parents drove across to Lake Michigan for a brief camping trip. It was fun to hang-out with a baby again, especially such a delightful one. Of course, I totally devoted my days to the baby and Chris gave her all his time apart from work. And our two teenagers still at home also participated. When it is your own baby, you still have to do chores/work and take care of any other children, so this was a pretty dedicated experience of taking care of baby. She loved all the attention. She had moments of fussiness when she got tired, so we danced with her, sang, read tiny board books, strolled her, took her on car rides to help her sleep, and cooed to distract her. I'm not sure we could have kept it up for much longer, but we really did enjoy our days as substitute parents for Elena. Maybe we'll get to do it again next summer.

2004-06-25T14:30:00.000-05:00

A Poem for My Husband's 47th Birthday

I wrote Chris a poem very early this morning. I was influenced by all the wonderful rivers I just saw in Tennessee and Ohio while I traveling this past week. Chris is a hard man to shop for and is happiest when I don't spend any money, so this seemed like the way to go:

FOR LOVE OF THE RIVER

A river widens, then narrows
In the shallows, rocks are revealed
Their hard, solid forms protrude
Above the tube of snaking water

There are points of dark and mystical depth
But its volume is subject to change
Outside factors exert their influence
Beyond the will, the control of the river

At its best, the river runs free
Runs wild and sings a song of joy
It can feel its own swiftness and power
It exalts in its life-giving nature

The river is a wonderment of beauty
Even when brown and muddy
It is cool and thirst-quenching
It can bathe the dryness of the land

2004-06-10T16:03:00.000-05:00

Feeling panicked - can't find my Master Card/debit card. Can't grocery shop, can't get cash, can't do NOTHIN'! What a huge reliance I have on that lousy little piece of plastic. Well, I could use a check, I guess. How retro. But the cash problem still exists, as the banks are closed now except for the ATMs, and those require, of course, my plastic card. So forget about going to a movie; they don't take checks or Diners Club.

Money is an odd concept at best, even the paper and metal alloy variety. And when you start using plastic and ATMs, it only gets further away from anything tangible and real. I mean, a goat for 6 chickens and some pottery is something almost anyone could grasp.

It gets harder when you trade goods for services. What is the labor of, say, someone thatching your hut actually worth? If there is only one thatcher and lots of people require that service, well, that thatcher is one lucky son-of-a-gun. Especially if thatching is a skill that takes considerable time and training to gain the required expertise, so that a new, inexperienced thatcher cannot compete. The expert thatcher can charge whatever the market will bear. Look at the totally absurd fees of doctors today if you want to see how bad it can get.

Going from bartering to currency is a leap from the concrete to the conceptual that takes more and more faith as the currency moves from precious metals to the modern stand-ins - paper and cheap metals. I think most of us just accept the bits of paper, now so carefully constructed with holographic images, because the basis of their worth is too complicated to ponder. And now I hardly even use paper money and coins anymore. Plastic is sooooo much easier.

I'm pretty untutored regarding economics, but I do know that without plastic, I am at a loss as to how to conveniently do all the things an American mom has to do. Where is my darn card anyway?!

2004-06-07T22:46:00.000-05:00

Today I had fun planning a little trip for me to take with my daughters, Nina and Ysabel, in the latter part of June. We will have an all-girl road trip - "Just us chickens," as my Mom would always say.

It's but a five night trip since Nina is home only two weeks AND she has the other weekend booked to travel with some friends from Michigan to see a new math friend from the Budapest program who lives in Pennsylvania.

I think Liam will go visit Nina in early August in Berkeley, and perhaps the two of them will travel down to USC for a campus and theatre department tour so that he see if he really wants to apply there. The one who will get to see her least this summer will be Chris. Next time he goes to Stockton, CA on business, he'll have to visit her for a little daughter-dad time.

On our upcoming road trip, we three travelers will be going to Knoxville, TN, then to Chattanooga, TN, and then to Chillicothe, OH before we head back home to Michigan. We'll visit good friends and family in Tennessee and visit the Hunter Art Museum and Chicamauga Battlefield. The lure of Chillicothe is the amazing collection of Indian mounds in that area of Ohio. I have always wanted to see them.

Well, I'm pretty tired and have to do all those dishes I have been avoiding unless I can get my wakeful son to do them rather than read his email. Not much chance of that, probably!

2004-06-04T13:17:00.000-05:00

I just found a little piece I wrote about 2 1/2 years ago. I looked at it and thought how everything disintegrates when you feel blue, one negative thought just leads to another and another until you hit bottom and no light is visible:

Thoughts Inspired by a Messy Desk

How can I work at such a messy desk?

How can I live such a disorganized life?

How can I love with such fractured feelings?

How can I parent with so many contradictions?

How can I be just with so many hypocrisies?

How can I savor life when so many ghosts haunt me?

2004-06-01T17:03:00.000-05:00

There are good reasons for life being limited. It keeps the broad human prospective more open to innovation since the cast of characters is regularly changed, and thus, we do not stagnate as a species. And because each of us knows life is relatively brief, from somewhere in the mind springs forth little reminders that life is precious and should be savored. We would sleep away endless years just from boredom if life were eternal or even terribly long, but it is harder to do that when we're fearful of missing vital events that may come but once.

I'm past the half-way mark. The first part didn't seem to take that long; what is left will probably fly by. No one will remember me but my children and perhaps theirs. I'm not famous or important in the big scheme of things. And even Shakespeare most likely will leave no trace millenniums from now. Or sooner, if we destroy the planet or humankind.

I feel compelled to acknowledge life while it is still mine. To feel the wonder of air and sun and rain, to gaze at the perfection of flowers and babies, to enjoy the vast drama of nature, to embrace my darling and watch our children grow beyond ourselves, to experience the best of art that human hands and minds have wrought.

2004-05-30T10:21:00.000-05:00

I just read an article about the new WW II memorial in Washington D.C. I couldn't help but think of my mother, who was a nurse in the European Theater from 1942 until a bit after the official end of the war when the U.S. Army rolled into Germany and the Balkans. She was 21 years old when she went overseas; her entire class from nursing school in Hot Springs, Arkansas signed up for the Army Nurse Corps right after graduation.

Sue Lee Ballard was a smart farm girl who won a full scholarship to nursing school, her ticket away from a place where you had to hide in the outhouse to read a book because there was always so much work to do. She and her identical twin, Sibyl, were born a few years after the eldest child, their brother, Rogers (not a spelling error; it was a family surname used as a first name). As the oldest girls, they were given the task of raising each former baby of the family after the newest baby was born, since four more children came after the twins. They had endless chores at home, which may have accounted for why both of the twins loved school so much. They shone at school, their main competition being each other.

So Sue Ballard was used to being a responsible person and a hard worker. She did well in the Army Nurse Corps and quickly rose to administrative positions. She saw a lot of young men who were injured and she saw people die. During the war she was notified of Rogers death at Anzio and she had an Australian fiance named "Chuck", who was also killed. She knew (and I think may have had an affair with) Creighton Abrams, who was later a general in Vietnam. I remember her seeing his picture on a 1960's magazine and staring at it for some time, saying this was the Creighton Abrams she knew in Europe.

When I see pictures of her from the war years, she looks much older than the hippies of my generation did in their early twenties. The dark red lipstick and the formal hairdos of the 1940s may have been the cause. Or, perhaps it was because life and maturity are sped up during times of immediate crisis. When you or anyone around you may truly die at any time, it is different from a generation that has enough space from catastrophe for intellectual debate and protest. Many people died in Vietnam, but I know that I was removed from seeing it in person, and, in fact, I knew not one close friend or even good acquaintance that actually went to Vietnam. The nearest thing was a few boys I vaguely knew from high school, or the older brother of a friend who went in the mid-60s as a Marine lieutenant after he graduated from college.

So, I had a very different young adulthood than my mother. I always sensed that the woman and mother she became had a lot to do with being an army nurse. I can still recall her animated conversation whenever she encountered another WW II veteran, usually a repairman or an insurance salesman, etc. My own father (who died when I was 18 mos. old) had been too old for the war, and so had my stepfather been, though he painted many of the portraits used in Navy posters produced during the war. I was the only kid I knew who had a mom as the veteran in their household. One amusing aspect of this was that my mom could literally swear like a trooper when she got really, really mad, though she was a highly respectable person, otherwise. I always silently thought how amazed people would be if they could hear her, and a little smile would curl the corners of my teenaged mouth. Since I was the source of her frustration, that little smile must have driven her buggy.

My mother died of cancer at age forty-six in July of 1967. I was seventeen years old and my half-sister's were both very young (almost two and just 5). She never received any of the belated honors for women veterans, though I know she was glad that she served her country. She revered both FDR and Dwight Eisenhower because of her wartime experience and she retained a special feeling for North Africa, Sicily, Italy, & France, places she never saw again after she returned to the U.S. She was a strong and queen-like woman, always elected as president of organizations, and the most skilled, generous, and warm of hostesses. She was the Director of Nursing at Gravely Sanatorium (a tuberculosis hospital) in Chapel Hill, NC for many years before we moved to Connecticut, closer to the New York City studio of my stepfather. My new little sisters were raised there until her death and she was a great mom to them and became a heart-felt gardener (I always wondered if her farm roots reasserted themselves after so many years).

Here's to you, Mom! Your children grew up and have children of their own. In fact, you would have just become a great-grandmother this month. In its own weird way, everything has worked out O.K. I tried to pass along your love of reading and of beauty, your strong sense of ethics and fairness to my sisters, and so along with your height and bone-structure, they reflect you. Next time I am in Washington, D.C., I will visit the memorial to World War II veterans in your honor.

2004-05-25T20:09:00.000-05:00

It is almost June again. I have lived through a few summers. I remember the hot ones in North Carolina when I was little. We didn't have air conditioning, but used metal fans that I would stand in front of and sing so that my voice was given instant vibratto. Sometimes, I would run through the sprinklers to cool off, or I would go to the UNC pool with a college-aged girl who was paid to take me out on fun outings or with our neighbors, the Greens. It was very hot there, but even hotter over in Arkansas where my grandparents lived. It was so hot when we would visit them around the Fourth of July, that it was impossible to sleep and the farm dogs could be heard howling in the heat of the night.

We moved to Connecticut when I was twelve. Our house was on a large lake and there were nice breezes and big trees that made the summer months much more tolerable. We had a shared private beachfront on the lake, so water and company were not far away.

My first summer in Boston when I was nineteen (1969) was a scorcher. I had a narrow bedroom with one window that opened up on a fire escape, but there was no cross-ventilation and I would have suffered greatly except that I had an older boyfriend with a nice, air-conditioned apartment. I remember going down to the harbor area with housemates to see the Fourth of July fireworks that summer. I don't think I had ever seen a big fireworks display like that before. I enjoyed going to buy produce at the old Haymarket Square when it was outdoors and just a large collection of carts and stands. It was my first summer on my own and I felt quite exhilarated even though St. Botolph Street, where I lived in a commune, was a real dump. I just thought it was very exciting back then.

I finally left the Boston/Cambridge area in May of 1971 and went up to Vermont for my first rural New England summer. Putney was charming though I never felt as if I quite fit in there. The best friend I made there was a nine year old boy from a well-off family that lived down the road. He would come and sit on the porch at the farmhouse where I was living and just wait for me to wake up and come out. He told me that his older sister who went to the Putney School had tried to commit suicide, and that since one brother had died of leukemia, his parents couldn't stand to stay in the same room together. He was a sweet little boy, the youngest of about four siblings, and he seemed kind of benignly ignored amidst the hustle and bustle of his household. I wasn't working that summer; I spent my time embroidering my skirt made of blue jeans and making macrame wall-hangings. I also worked on learning to drive a manual-shift car - a 1963 three-stroke engine Saab I bought for $500. Vermont is a hard place to learn to use a clutch. I had to roll down many a steep hill backwards because I had stalled out and didn't have the knack of starting the car on an incline.

The next summer I went to summer school at U. Mass. in Amherst, and the next two summers I lived in southeastern Vermont and worked as a waitress. The summer of 1974 found me living in Tempe, Arizona and working for the Arizona Health Plan in Phoenix. The entire month of June that year was filled with temperatures around 120 degrees F. It was truly hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk. I lived with a married couple I knew from Massachusetts who had just purchased a 3-bedroom adobe-style development home, and all that space inspired them to invite me, their old roommate from Cambridge, to come try out Arizona.

I spent four summers in New Haven (in a pre-ashram and then an ashram), then two in Minneapolis (also in an ashram) where I met Chris, then eight in Santa Cruz, CA (where I was married to Chris and had three babies: Nina (1983); Liam (1987); and Ysabel (1988), and then two in Oceanside, CA (we went there because of a good job offer Chris received), then two in Albion, CA - just seven miles south on Rt.1 from Mendocino (he commuted during the week to Southern CA for the first 6 months and then was able to work from home), and finally, summers from 1993-present in Ann Arbor, Michigan with my family of growing children and Chris. Chris and I both work from home for his company, Parafora Software, so during summer we are able to step outside and look out on the huge oaks and the overgrown grass in our acre of yard.

I have always loved summers. They seem magical to me. I measure my life by summers.

2004-05-24T21:56:00.000-05:00

I was rereading my poem about Nina and her friends playing frisbee in the park in Budapest, when I felt so sad because the youthful experience they were having is so different from the experience that young American soldiers in Iraq are having right now - seeing death, fear, and hatred all around them.

When my family and I lived in Oceanside, CA between 1989 and 1991, the thing that shocked me the most was how very young an 18 or 19 year-old Marine looks, even if he is over 6 feet tall and wearing a uniform. Desert Storm was going on during the last year we were living there, and we saw so many youthful Marines from Camp Pendleton who were preparing to go to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. On TV we saw interviews where guys were as excited about getting to use their training and all the spiffy military equipment as a kid with a new Christmas toy. These interview segments were scary to watch because those being interviewed seemed so unaware of the terrible things that were coming. This disconnect between the anticipation and the reality of war is the subject of almost every book ever written about war, so it is nothing new.

Just as in 1991, I do not support war, but I do worry about all the young people in the U.S. armed forces and hope that they will make it home. But even those that look unscathed, can never truly be carefree youths again because of the sights they have seen, because of the choices they have had to make. I mourn their entrance into a hard and bitter reality. Memory cannot be erased.

2004-05-23T10:35:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd update what's going on with my daughter, Nina, who went to Hungary to study mathematics from the end of January to present. She is now finishing up her final exams there, and then she and her roommate, Kate Kearney (from Grinell College in Iowa) are going backpacking in Bulgaria. After that, Nina will go to Zurich to visit our dear friends Eric and Christine one more time before she flies back to the States.

Nina traveled quite a bit during this semester. She made trips to Poland, Croatia, Romania, Albania, Macedonia, Austria, France, Switzerland, and around the Hungarian countryside. Just before she began the semester, she spent about a month in Australia over December and January.

Nina is a great lover of travel. She spent a couple of months last summer in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand with her boyfriend, Scott. He joined her this spring for her travels to Croatia, Macedonia, and Albania, as well. She began traveling to Europe for six weeks at a time when she was 12, and she got hooked. Having a grandmother (Juliette) who is a world-wide traveler certainly provides a model for her.

So, she is arriving back in Berkeley on June 15th and coming to see us in Michigan on June 17th. Her energy level is absolutely amazing; I'd be flat out if I tried to do all that on such a tight schedule. During the two weeks she is here, she says she is up for the "girls" in our family (me, Nina, and her 16 year-old sister, Ysabel) taking a week-long car trip to visit relatives and friends in Tennessee and Georgia.

Nina has a salaried 3-week math research opportunity at the University of Utah from 7/11-7/31. They pay her plane fare, cover room & board, and give her $800. It's not a lot of money, but it's a nice something to put on her resume for grad school. She applied to places like Utah for summer programs so she could do some good climbing and hiking on weekends. I imagine Scott may make it there from Berkeley for a bit of that, too.

Her senior year at Cal (UC - Berkeley) is complicated by the fact that they have raised their tuition by 30% - a lousy thing to do, but I guess the California state budget is in pretty bad shape. After this tuition hike, so is ours!

So, we look forward to having our Nina home soon. I was glad I got to visit her in Budapest in March; it was the longest visit we've had together in a while.

2004-05-19T20:52:00.000-05:00

Some people are born dreamers, and I confess I am one. I am currently obsessed with house dreams. Oh, I have a house, but not my perfect house, not the one I design and redesign every day in my mind.

My perfect house is a darn clever place where there is an actual spot built in to store every kind of thing that my family and I normally use. It's a house built of simple, durable materials that age well and have inherent aesthetic appeal. It has a plan that allows spaces to be separate or to open up to each other to create larger areas for entertaining and family gatherings. It's a "Not Too Big House", every room has a unique feature that makes it special, and natural light and good ventilation prevail.

The landscape utilizes native, drought-resistant plants and is perfect for people like our family who are not wont to spend many weekends working on the yard. In fact, other than a meadow where wildflowers abound, there is no lawn at all, but there is a surround of woodlands. Gardening is done in a rabbit-proof fenced area in raised beds with a drip system.

I like a house to be like a sculpture - every side, every aspect is thought out and lovely to look at, symmetrically balanced. It is built to complement its setting and of materials that draw upon its geographical/cultural milieu.

I want a house that I love living in, that delights me everytime I see it and use it - a functional work of art. And I want all this at a price my husband and I can afford, in a location we feel drawn to.

I'm sure my house dream isn't far different from that of many other people. Or maybe it is, since I don't see many houses that accurately reflect my own preferences. I wouldn't take most houses I see around me on a silver platter, even though they appear to be popular choices. Do they really indicate what people want, or are they simply what is available?

I'll take a "Sunset"-style house anytime over the ugly, enormous houses on the market now with rooflines on steroids, cookie-cutter design, and unimaginative terrain and landscaping.

2004-05-12T09:02:00.000-05:00

I read about the death of Nicholas Berg in the online New York Times. All I could think of was "What kind of people do something this awful?" I was appalled at the treatment of the Iraqi prisoners by the American military, but I still cannot understand how anyone could feel that it suddenly became moral to decapitate some poor young man who was not even a military person. I wish we would just leave Iraq to its own fate, whatever that may be. I cannot help but perceive the Middle East as a revenge-seeking place that is beyond any kind of negotiations or diplomacy, a place that has little rapport with the rest of the world. I know that within any Middle Eastern nation, there are those who have reason, compassion, and the ability to extend their view of humanity beyond their own borders. I wish they would speak up so that the general view of Moslems becomes not that they are barbarians, but that they are enlightened and compassionate people who can work with others for peace.

I know that George Bush should never have had U.S. troops enter Iraq. I did not support it then and I do not now support it now. I do not know what it is like to be invaded and I feel much compassion for the Iraqis. But I still can find no justification for the execution of Nicholas Berg.

2004-05-01T16:41:00.000-05:00

I have been rereading my journal from my recent trip abroad to see if I should publish it here verbatim. Somehow, I think not. My step-by-step days of travel can't be that interesting to anyone but me (they help my ever-fading memory). I will try to put up some highlights, though:

Traveling first-class from Zurich to Vienna on the 17th of April was very nice, except that we were experiencing a heatwave and the train had not yet switched to air-conditioning. I first sat across from a family from NYC who were traveling to Salzburg to go skiing over a school vacation. The 30-something mom was a very fair woman from Argentina who was traveled with her three children, Franco (9), Isabel (4), and Ines (18 mos.) and a nanny to meet the father and two other NYC families. The father was also Argentinean but he now has U.S. citizenship, as did all three children. He works for Credit Swisse and travels all over the world on business, his wife told me. She was a nice woman who was not terribly ostentatious considering the rather charmed life they led. She and the kids all dressed in simple, practical clothes and she was very friendly, even if her conversation focused most decidedly on her children. Hey, who am I to talk. Oh, Franco takes cello on West 67th close to the Hotel des Artistes, where my step-father's studio was. I think this must be the same music school where my mother-in-law, Juliette, said she took music lessons as a child back in the late 1920s-early 1930s.

After this family got off the train, I sat directly across from a Dutch woman my exact age who had lived in Vienna for her adult life and was a former opera singer. She seemed to manage the oppressive afternoon heat, even in her tailored wool suit. Her father had died recently after a long illness and the task of concluding his business affairs for the benefit of her elderly mother had fallen to her (the reason she had been away from Vienna). She was rather biased against Moslems, who she saw as expecting religious accommodations by others but offering none to people of other cultures. Her example was that there are mosques in Christian countries all over the world, but that there are few Christian churches in Moslem countries. She was also very incensed by clitorectomies, though I mentioned that not all Moslem countries subject their women to this procedure so it cannot be inherent in the practice of Islam. She was very critical of President Bush, not because he had invaded Iraq, but because he didn't have a good follow-up plan in place. I explained I wasn't at all fond of Bush myself and that the U.S. was pretty split about him and about Iraq.

I stopped in Vienna to change trains for Budapest. I was there long enough to grab the typical ham-on-a-roll available at every train station and to have a coffee. I watched all the dogs walk around the station with their owners - quite different than in the U.S.

I arrived late in Budapest. The train there from Vienna was decidedly funky compared with the previous train. No one spoke English and a girl who came in my otherwise empty compartment smoked even though the non-smoking symbol was prominently displayed. Oh, well. My daughter, Nina, met me and we had to run to catch the last metro back to Buda and Battyhany Square, near her apartment. I twisted one ankle a little rushing across train tracks, so I had to ice down the swelling when we finally got to her place.

More later ....

2004-04-26T13:48:00.000-05:00

Today I am posting a poem I wrote while I was on my trip. I wrote it while watching my daughter, Nina, and some of her friends from the math program at the College International play at Margaret Island In Budapest, one of the city's nicest parks.

The Frisbee Game

I half watch the game as I write
There are two teams of five, one girl on each side
I'm not sure that anyone cares much about winning
They just run around, back and forth
Letting their youth juices flow
So much energy exists in the bodies of university students
They must play outdoors,
Frantically couple and uncouple,
And eat and study, all at the speed of light

They have no idea that their agility will ever fade
That their sexuality will diminish
Or that their brains may falter one day
Now they feel strong and so very smart
All avenues are open, possibilities abound
I think, " Let them enjoy their ignorance,"
Since reality always intrudes too soon
No one should be aware of human frailty at their age
It would spoil the fun

2004-04-21T06:41:00.000-05:00

Jeez, it's April 21st already and I haven't even begun posting any journal sections from my trip! I experienced intense exhaustion for quite a few days after I returned and then got a cold, which I still have to some degree. I think the body just finally lets down its defenses once you get home and it seems safe to do so.

More than specific details of the trip, I have to ponder what the purpose of the trip was for me and what I got out of my travels. It was fairly radical (for me) to take off on my own for four weeks abroad, so I think that there was a need for me to do so that exists beneath the excuse of visiting my daughter in Budapest.

Mid-life is a strange time for both men and women, but while men may be at the height of their power re income and job status, many women feel the diminishing of themselves as attractive, sexual beings and some rejection by children who no longer want to be mothered. I found myself relating quite strongly to our old dog Toni, who at 12 years of age was a very different creature than the sleek black lab she was in her youth. Toni, as you may recall, died on the Friday morning just before I left for my trip the following Monday. I thought of her often as I traveled.

I'm not saying I traveled because I felt like an old dog, but I think Toni made me keenly feel the briefness of life and vitality. My mother-in-law, Juliette, continues to travel while in her early 80s. She is, however, an very unusual woman. She is extraordinarily positive and physically stoic beyond the vast majority of people. I think my travel was a shot at being the kind of woman she is - always ready to meet new people and try new things. I found I do have some of that pluck within me. I will never be a Juliette - I am probably too bourgeois for that - but I honor the spark of adventure that exists in me.

2004-04-15T11:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back from East Europe/Europe. Going shopping at a superstore today seemed darnright bizarre. Just driving around everywhere in a car seems strange. I didn't say bad - just strange. There were times on my trip when my feet were sore and swollen from constant walking (often on cobblestones) that I would have perked right up if I could have jumped into a car rather than tramping to a metro station or trying to figure out how to take a tram back to my hotel.

I kept a journal during the 4 weeks of my trip, so I will publish a few days of it at a time over the next several weeks. I'm still a bit jet-lagged, even after a couple of days of being back home. I haven't even finished unpacking yet and my passport is still in my travel purse. I got rid of all my Euros and have only a few assorted coins from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. It's back to USD now;no more calculations in my head trying to figure out if the price of something makes since when translated into dollars.

I'll start my journal blogs as soon as I have recovered from traveling. It's spring and I am home, so I will just relax and enjoy being with my family right now.

2004-03-14T09:08:00.000-05:00

Since I just wrote about my friend, Isabelle Y., yesterday, I felt inspired to write something about a women's support group I was part of during the early 1970's when Isabelle and I were college roommates. Just as I found my roommate through the Northampton Women's Center, I also found this support group through them.

I was eager to try a support group. They were a popular phenomenon of the time. I was the youngest person when my group formed; most of the women involved were in their 30's and a couple were in their 40's. Our group suffered many tragedies over the time I was involved. Two people died: one was a wonderful woman artist in her 40's who never recovered from an amputation necessitated by poor circulation and from problems associated with chronic leukemia; the other was an amazingly sweet young woman who joined in the second year of the group. She was raped and killed by a serial murderer while she was hitch-hiking in the Boston-Cambridge area.

Other tragedies concerned a mother of two young children who found out her husband was having an affair at work and went through a painful divorce while she was in the group, and another woman had a mental breakdown and ended up in an enormous state mental health facility in western Massachusetts. Shortly after the group disbanded, a second of the older members divorced her husband, the head of a department at U.Mass-Amherst and an asshole by reputation. He emptied all the joint checking and savings accounts and suspended his wife's health insurance as soon as he was served divorce papers. (She had had a mastectomy not long before and he knew she could not get insurance easily). I visited her and her kids in their freezing Victorian house in the center of Amherst - they had no money for heat! They were all dressed in stacks of sweaters, trying to make the best of a bad situation until they could get through the legal process of obtaining a fair amount of the family funds for their use. I remember my friend saying she never thought that even he would sink so low to express his anger at being divorced.

I seem to be harping on all the bad things that happened to people in my group. In reading over what I have written so far, it strikes me how many of these tragedies had to do with being women. I guess that was one reason we were trying to "raise our consciousness," so we could avoid or change bad things that have traditionally happened to women.

Beyond the tragedies, we had wonderful meetings where we talked about things most of us had never dared to talk about before, and we did so in an atmosphere that felt safe and warm. So I am documenting my support group, for my own memory, for my children to read, and to let it be known that I have not forgotten any of my friends from the group, though it was twenty-some years ago. I learned a great deal. I received support from all these women and I had the chance to give support , as well, even though I was so naive. I sometimes wish I still had a support group. We laughed and talked and shared tea, tears and advice. We listened to each other - a radical thing in itself. This group was very important to me.

2004-03-13T12:04:00.000-05:00

I leave for my 4-week trip in less than 48 hours. I am still reeling from Toni's death yesterday and feel out of synch with the world. I am not completely packed, by any means. I guess I will somehow get everything done that still needs doing, or at least done enough that I can walk out the door to go to the airport without a disaster occurring because of a major omission.

I spent last evening with my long-time (since early 1972) friend, Isabelle Y. It was nice to have time to talk and just hang-out. Both of us are usually too busy to have a chance to sit down and relax together. We are East Coast friends who both ended up living within 15 minutes of each other in S.E. Michigan. Our blonde hair has darkened over the years and we now have 8 children between us. A lot has happened since we lived in the upstairs of an old South Amherst farm house with eaves that sloped so dramatically that it was good we were both only 5' 2" so that we could stand up in most of the floor space.

Back then, Isabelle and I lived on dried beans, veggies from a weekly food coop held in a church basement, and apples and cider from the orchard behind or house that our landlord regularly bestowed upon us. Neither of us had any money beyond our financial aid grants and our work-study jobs. It was convenient that Army-Navy surplus and used clothing were chic then; I know I felt like a million bucks in my old fur coat and canary-colored work boots.

We're still not rich women, but we have had rich lives. Rich in family, rich in friends, rich in opportunities to try things that interested us. It has been a lucky friendship, begun by an ad I posted on the bulletin board of the Northampton Women's Center stating an opening for a roommate. I even met my own husband through an organization that her husband-to-be introduced me to. You never know what will lead to what, do you? My children's very existence owes something to my old friend, Isabelle Y.!

2004-03-12T09:55:00.000-05:00

A Farewell Tribute to Toni

Today is the day our dog, Toni , dies. In an hour, she will go to sleep forever. My husband and I leave the house in a few minutes to pick up our children at the high school. We four will drive to the animal hospital where Toni is suffering without words - only dog moans express her grave discomfort. We'll say good-bye to her, our dog since she was a small black ball of a puppy. We got her for free from the Mendocino County Humane Society back in early 1992. She later flew on a plane from California to Michigan to be with us in our new home, leaving behind the rural acreage, the good weather, and her favorite swimming spot at Big River Beach. But she learned to love swimming in the backyard pool here in Ann Arbor; she did laps back and forth endlessly each summer, chomping down on the droplets that sprayed before her as she swam. Saint Toni Divine, I sometimes called her. To the best tempered dog imaginable - good-bye; we will never forget you.

2004-03-10T16:23:00.000-05:00

I guess this piece shows my own ambiguous feelings about middle-class males. I both admire and am annoyed by their rather formidable work ethic.

MIDDLE-CLASS MALES

They are the inheritors of deep reserves of self-discipline

They literally work themselves to death

It is their taxes that pay for social programs

It is their income that pays for college educations

And for vast amounts of catalog sales and home remodeling projects

The national economy rests upon their aching shoulders

And yet no one applauds them for the effort they make day, after day, after day

The only pats on the back come from each other

The rest of us complain mightily

We are victims of their work ethic and stoicism

Everything we do, that we accomplish, we compare to them

And we always come up dissatisfied and resentful

They barely notice us, so caught up are they in their daily grind

Their prayer being that they can retire before they drop dead of a heart attack

Was it their fathers, their coaches, their drill sergeants who taught them that a man’s job is just to suck it up and keep going?

It is no wonder they cannot comprehend the collective angst their very existence generates

2004-03-06T16:58:00.000-05:00

A busy Saturday - getting ready for my trip and attempting to find some order in the universe

I'm getting ready for my trip to Europe/Eastern Europe. So much to do before I go since I have to make sure that a detailed calendar of all kid events that will occur while I am gone is ready for my husband, as well as getting my own things packed and ready to go without leaving out anything important.

Yesterday I got a haircut and some "low-lights" that put pigment into my random white hairs that tend to stick out at crazy angles if this isn't done. Then I bought the haircare products recommended to me and the bill came out to about one hundred-eighty bucks total! This was a shock to me; I don't usually spend that kind of money on beauty stuff. (I don't use hair products beyond shampoo & conditioner, and I don't wear make-up or even have much of a skincare regime). I bought some gel to try the look my younger daughter uses where you just scrunch up your wet hair and let it dry wavy, no blow-drying required. I figured that could come in handy when traveling. I haven't tried it out yet. I could look strange without my usual Diane Keaton kind of do. We'll see.

Today is clean-up day at our house. The many piles of info about colleges (they sure send out tons after a kid signs up for SATs), the old schoolwork and bulletins from school X two kids, the volumes of catalogs, the notices from theaters for operas/plays/symphonies, and just miscellaneous junk that we seem to accumulate at warp speed are like some sort of monstrous growth that could eventually push you right out of house and home if left unpruned. Before any actual cleaning can happen, all these piles have to be attacked and decimated, otherwise there are no surfaces with an open space to polish up. Maybe that's why our cleaning is a bit spotty around here. I dream of a clean house, but at this point in time, it is pure fantasy.

I am beginning to think that parents are willing to spend all that money for college just to get their messy kids out of the house and into their very own messy dorm rooms! Sometimes I feel quite desperate to get my house back. The idea of a serene environment is intoxicating. No kids screaming at each other at six in the morning about who has dibs on the shower first (a great sound to wake up to!), no exploded food left in the microwave, no shoes and clothes and wet towels on the floor, no Fudgesicle wrappers and orange peels left on the coffee table - that would be FABULOUS (and I didn't even get into the grosser stuff I find lying around).

I love my children very much. I just wish I didn't have to live in the same house with them. They should sell special houses for families with teenagers that consist of two totally separate living spaces joined by a breezeway or some other kind of connector.

Oh, enough of my kevitching! I should just shut-up and enjoy the last couple of years I have kids at home. I can have a clean house for the rest of my life after that.

2004-03-03T10:32:00.000-05:00

A Friend from Long Ago

I emailed a friend from long ago today. We were a little jealous of each other back when we were youngsters, perhaps because my mom expressed the wish that I could have more self-discipline like my friend, and perhaps for my friend, because I seemed so indulged. Yet the truth is, both of us had some difficult things to deal with at home. I had a predatory stepfather, though the world never knew that, and she had a mother who loved her in a very erratic and confusing manner. We both survived and made it to adulthood, but we stopped being friends somewhere along the way. I saw my friend at a class reunion this fall and was struck by what a vibrant person she is. I hope we can become friends again after all this time, because I think we have had some importance in each other’s lives.

2004-02-29T19:24:00.000-05:00

A MOST FORTUNATE UNION

Marriage is a funny thing

It is sex – especially early on, but with surprising bouts of eroticism throughout

It is sharing the important experiences of life with someone, creating a joint memory bank, even starting to whistle or hum the same songs at the same moment because the same impulse triggered it in both your minds

It is fighting like siblings and being grumpy like two old geezers and knowing that sometimes you are showing a side of yourself that you don’t even like and would never feel comfortable exposing to absolutely anyone else in the world

It is together loving and caring for and being frustrated by your cooperative genetic experiment, otherwise known as children

It is doing things you never in your life wanted to do, like cleaning bathrooms or fireplaces, with someone who makes it a little more fun - at least sometimes

It is comforting each other’s inner child when the world seems cold and uninviting or you just feel too damn tired to even want to wake up again

It is listening to your spouse snore or fart and finding it endearing, or feeling even more fond as wrinkles magically appear on a face you know better than your own

I had never planned on living married, but I like it, because it is with you

2004-02-28T22:10:00.000-05:00

Taking my son on his first college visit

Just returned this evening from my son's first college visit. We went to Indiana University in Bloomington to view the campus and to tour the Theatre & Drama Department in particular. Nice town and nice school; many more to go. We went to IU first since the drive isn't too bad from Ann Arbor (where we live) and because it seems as if he would not have any trouble getting in there. Some of the other schools he is looking at are ones where he has a chance but no certainty of getting into their drama departments. It will be nice for him to keep in mind that he likes the option of IU and that no audition is required for this school to open its arms to him. He is only a junior and it will be about 14 months before he has to finalize his decision re schools.

When I got home, I read an email from a dear friend in Switzerland who has read my blogs to date. She says I blog like I talk. Hmmm. I hope that is a good thing. Anyway, she enjoyed them. She may the very first person who has actually read them!

2004-02-26T00:43:00.001-05:00

I wrote this about the difficulty I had communicating with my youngest child when she was about fourteen. In the year or so since I wrote it, she has matured and become much more approachable. I have to admit she is still more of a mystery to me than anyone else I have ever been close to, yet I love her deeply and I can feel that I am important to her, as well.

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN

Her eyes are loaded with scorn

That shoots through me

Puncturing my hopes

Of ever being a worthy mother to her

My every move, every decision

Seem to be a mistake in

Judgment, by her account

And sometimes by my own reckoning,

After the fact

I try too hard and end up

Tired and ridiculous

And so angry that I cannot

Have a simple moment of shared happiness

With my beautiful baby

Now so large and so cold

Who wishes I would simply disappear

2004-02-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

MOMMIFICATION

My idea of moving into a new place used to be to unroll my 30”-wide foam mattress on the floor and hang fabric on the walls
I’d cover my kitchen in bold colors, slapping the paint on with abandon
And I’d have a party as soon as possible to celebrate my new digs

People were everything to me then
The books and movies I loved were particularly great because I could talk about them with friends
When did I make my life into something vastly more complicated and so much drier?

I was born an Isadora but I morphed into a matron
It was no one else’s fault; it was simply my idea of being adult and responsible
I wanted no teachers to shake their heads about my children’s home life
Nor any neighbors to whisper “It was no wonder they turned out as they did”

So I became some cliché, afraid to be entirely who I am
And now I don’t know if I can get back to the dancing girl
To the laughing and flirty girl
To the girl who insisted on being herself even if it brought disapproval

I feel like some mummy that needs to be re-hydrated
Yes, a mommy that needs to grow out of playing at being a mother
And finally becomes the real human being she was meant to be
I think my children might be startled at first, but then they’d sigh a huge sigh of relief

I think my husband would love it – it would be like having a new girlfriend

2004-02-24T09:34:00.002-05:00

This is piece I wrote a couple of years ago when my oldest child was but 18 and in love for the first time. The relationship ended within six months after I wrote this, and she survived, displaying not an ounce of drama. Now she has another beau who seems very constant and loving, but I didn't know how she would fare in the game of love when I composed this poem expressing my concern for her tender young heart. The truth is that she is much tougher than her old mom ever was.

BLESSED ARE THE TIES THAT BIND

They look at us with twin pairs of guileless green eyes.

Her ponytail is sleek and golden brown while his is a darker shade of chestnut.

Our daughter is one half of a couple now; it feels strange and new to see her thus.

They are two math majors in love.

Backpacks of heavy texts accompany them on their holiday with us.

Sitting side by side at a weathered trestle table, they touch crowns as they work on equations beyond our expertise.

Her brother and sister like him, but show a flicker of resentment in sharing her attention.

They all play Euchre, then sing – – any ruffled feathers are smoothed.

She confides: “We’ll get married after graduation if we decide to go into the Peace Corps.”

”Oh,” we reply with wide eyes.

We met his family when we stopped to pick up their son for the trip north; they are as proud of their first-born as we are of ours.

His old room at home also has layers of beribboned medals slung over bedposts and doorknobs.

Two middleclass children of exceptional promise, they’ve always basked in love and encouragement.

What if life plays fast and cruel with these untested and idealistic lovers?

I confess to my husband that I can feel her priorities and allegiances shifting, but my heart is still so connected to hers.

Our separation began at birth, but some cords are never cut.

2004-02-22T01:16:00.000-05:00

THE WAY IT IS: A Brief Commentary

When they were young in Santa Cruz, we went out for brioche on weekends and they ran around under the shrubs and tables at the outdoor café in brightly colored cotton clothes, their feet encased in tiny velcroed Zoo Shoes that displayed faces of frogs or kittens or elephants. Parents were at the center of their universe, dispensing nourishment, hugs, songs and stories. We made sure they were never too hot or too cold and kept them out of harm’s way.

Yesterday we walked with them along the vendor-crowded streets in Berkeley and they strode out ahead of us, their legs longer and stronger than ours. In a jumble of used items, one discovered a cache of old bottles perfect for storing the herbs she’ll cook with at her first apartment in nearby Kensington. One purchased a necklace for his girlfriend back home from an extremely pretty young hippie woman who rewarded him with her warm smile and bright laughter. One bought a sarong that she can roll down so that her navel winks out at the world.

I found some earrings I loved - silver with teal-colored Murano glass beads – at the sidewalk stand of an elegant Asian jeweler. And I bought two hardcover books at a bookstore that is a Berkeley landmark. I can do that now. I can buy myself things that I don’t really need.

In the evening, my husband and I take them out to dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant. There are six in our party – our family plus a boyfriend. We enjoy delectable California food at upscale California prices. The waitress is a classmate of our daughter’s, so we leave a generous tip. Then we drop off our oldest and her beau at the dorm and we kiss her goodbye because we’re flying home to Michigan very early in the morning.

This visit to Berkeley is but practice for more of the same, for the impulse to grow-up is irresistible. You’d think they’d have the good grace to make it look as if they regret leaving the nest just a little bit. Four years from now we won’t even have a dog left at home (she’s getting so old). Guess I will have some time to write, go to graduate school, figure out the meaning of life, etc., etc., . . .

2004-02-21T11:55:00.000-05:00

I have learned some useful things being a mom for many years. I thought I would share a few good tips:

TOYS - My top picks for pre-school children (you hardly need more):

1) Blocks: Buy a quality set of wooden blocks and a set of Duplos. (A wooden train set and other vehicles mix in well with the blocks). Well-priced hardwood blocks can be found on the Internet and are also available at IKEA stores. Choose Duplos over Legos for children under four years, since no one was ever able to stick the larger-sized Duplo block up a nose or into an ear. And yes, if they can, they will - ask any Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor.

2) Art materials: including non-toxic paint & crayons, paper, saved cardboard boxes & tubes, paper bags, safety scissors, and play dough (homemade is terrific - look for recipes on the Internet), etc.

3) Lots of real kitchen items: pots or metal bowls, plastic or metal measuring cups and spoons, wooden spoons, non-breakable cups/ bowls/containers. The afore mentioned items work well with sand, water, mud, etc., and indoors or out. Measuring water into a big cooking pot on a hot day is a LOT of fun. Your child will get thoroughly wet and cooled off. When leaves or flowers are stirred into the pot, it becomes pretend soup! NOTE:You do have to watch carefully to make sure that any added leaves, flowers, berries from shrubs/trees, or mud or sand are not ingested (unless you have edible flowers like nasturtiums).

A pot or bowl turned upside down can become an instrument when it is thumped with a wooden spoon. A plastic food storage container can be filled with gravel, nuts in their shell, etc., then closed by placing the lid on it to make a rhythm shaker.

I once found my children "skating" in the house by putting their little feet inside flat-bottomed plastic containers and making skaters' strides across the wooden floor. Children are nothing if not inventive!

4) Fabric scraps are great for all kinds of things - wrapping around a doll or teddy bear, making into a cape, etc. My oldest child designed a pretend swimsuit by tying knots in fabric scraps when she was about two.

5) Dress-up clothes: I found some very beautiful and beloved "princess dresses" for very little money at thrift stores where wedding clothes or prom apparel had been donated. My son had a homemade Robin Hood-style pointed hat with a feather and a green corduroy cape that he wore constantly for a year. Yard sales are also a great source of finds for the dress-up collection.

6) Teddy bear(s): My son and daughters all made great use of theirs and loved them much more than any dolls they ever had. Old baby clothes fit mid-size bears perfectly. And since it takes little time to knit or crochet a sweater or hat for a teddy bear, it is easy for a grown-up to make a special "bear present" that will delight your child.

7) Music tapes and a sturdy kid tape player are good for listening to stories and songs and for dancing. An endlessly entertaining toy that also gives your child the opportunity to make choices and to use simple technology skills like selecting the correct button to push.

8) An assortment of rhythm instruments: Whether purchased or homemade, these will add a lot of fun, and help them become personally involved with music. Used with a music tape or live singing, your child will begin to get a feel for rhythm and performance.

9) Finger puppets: Again, these can be purchased or homemade. They provide an easy means to put on a show. I used finger puppets with my children when they were very young as an accompaniment to storytelling and songs. They add an element of visual interest even for infants, and your child can begin to use them on their own as their motor skills and ability for imaginative play develop.

10) Books: Some of the best-loved books are ones you can make with your child by cutting out pictures they like from magazines, using photos, or using their own artwork. You then can write down for them exactly what they want to say about each picture and stick the finished page in a sheet protector. Tie a collection of pages together with some cord or ribbon, and voila! - a very personal book.

I particularly liked to read poetry and sing to my children, starting right from the time they were born. They loved the rhythm and joined in as soon as they were old enough.

Remember to look for books at discount bins, yard sales, and thrift stores. We got some of our very favorite books (and often, the most unique ones) this way.

Finally, let me add that a well-illustrated Mother Goose collection is worth it's weight in gold. Our family favorite was always a copy of the original Volland edition of Mother Goose (ISBN# 0517436191), which is as inexpensive as it is beautiful (about $11).

11) A red rubber ball: It doesn't really have to be red, but it is such a cheery and highly visible color. Start with a hollow ball 6-8 inches in diameter, or thereabouts. A ball can make any number of games possible. Babies who can sit up like to have a ball rolled to them. It is thrilling to learn to throw a ball or to catch one. Even chasing it is fun to a young child. The texture of classic red rubber school-type balls makes it a bit easier for a child to grasp it securely, and they come in a wide range of sizes. A ball is a toy that generally requires interaction with others, so it teaches cooperation. All kinds of games can be used or devised, and any number of people can play. A ball - simple and wonderful!

I hope that this information is helpful to someone with a young family.

2004-02-20T11:55:00.000-05:00

Susan Enters the World of Blogging

After many years of being known as so-and-so's mother, I am ready to be an individual again, but I am a little in doubt as to what that means. I'm not a hippie anymore, or a student, or a 70s-style feminist, or a guru follower. I no longer work in an office or volunteer at the school. Right now, I'm not an officer in any organization, and no longer am I an Internet entrepreneur with a website and cards. I'm in search of the essential me. Some people might say that's self-indulgent and that busy people have no time for silly questions such as "Who am I?," but I guess I have always been of the belief that "the unexamined life is not worth living." For better or worse, I intend to document my search on my blogger postings. I'm 54 and alive, and that's a good enough reason to pump some juice into my system and get going!

So what am I doing: trying creative writing, starting to write a cookbook, and beginning as a part-time technical writer - a humbling experience. I am also leaving home for a month starting March 15th to travel in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. It's my first big jaunt on my own in over 20 years and I plan to keep a detailed journal as I go.

What does my family think of this European trek? Well, my dear husband, Chris, is always supportive of any whacky thing I want to do. My two teenagers still at home , Liam & Ysabel, will probably enoy the relative freedom of having to deal with only one parent. I will see my college-aged daughter, Nina, in Hungary, where she is studying this semester. Right now she seems excited to have me come, though I may get on her nerves several days into the visit.