Here I am Again

August 1, 2023 at 2:39 pm (Uncategorized)
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Whenever I log on to WordPress with a blog post in mind, I wonder why I don’t come here more often. And yet today, I am here with nothing particularly in mind that I want to say. While looking for a blank notebook in order to start a story, I ran across some early notes I wrote early on in my career as a widow. I did a lot of journaling right after TT died. So much so, that I am building it into a book that I may or may not publish. It’s likely that I will jump into the deep end once I have it all into a formatted manuscript. Something tells me that it might help another widow along her journey. Other’s may run away from me, clutching a bulb of garlic to their chest. Who knows?

Anyway, there were some interesting little notes in the notebook I decided to pillage. Not many pages were used, so I tore them out. Some of the notes are here. They came to me from who knows where. If anyone is offended by any of these aphorisms, I am afraid I will not apologize, except to say these were my truths. You are welcome to your own.

Comparison is the thief of joy. – Mark Twain

The grief journey is not a competition. Stop comparing your grief to another’s.

Disappointment is the offspring of expectation.

Just breathe. Sometimes it is the only thing to do. Sometimes it’s the only thing we CAN do.

Stop blaming others for your pain.

You’re grieving, so everything is going to hurt. There is no need to be angry at everyone’s attempt to comfort you or help you. Forgive them. They don’t understand the depth of your pain. How could they? Have they experienced your loss?

Your family and friends have lost someone they love, too. Talk about your beloved. It helps everyone.

You do not have dibs on tears or heartache.

Being a widow (or widower) is not permission to be mean or rude.

Let your tears flow without shame.

Eat vegetables, fruit, and good quality protein.

Cheese is comfort.

Don’t make any big decisions for a year.

If you need to sleep, then sleep. Make this a practice for the rest of your life.

We are not a special as we think we are.

If you can’t adopt a pet, try a houseplant. The point is to care for another living thing.

Join a grief support group or two.

Forget the dogma.

Wasted days are not really wasted, so ditch the guilt.

Who am I without TT?

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Something about Lent…And

March 7, 2022 at 10:23 am (Uncategorized)
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When I was growing up, during the Lenten season, I was relieved to not be Catholic. Our small city was predominantly Catholic, so I would hear most of the kids in school talk about what they were giving up for Lent. Chocolate, cookies, candy, cake, pizza – you name it. These kids were going without something they loved for six long weeks.

As much as I sometimes wished I could be one of the cool (Catholic) kids, with their First Communion and Confirmation events, both services usually followed by inflows of cash gifts and a big party to celebrate, when it came to giving something up for Lent, I was content to be out of that circle. We didn’t give anything up for Lent, and we still got candy from the Easter Bunny.

I had never even considered giving something up for Lent, until my Pastor, and now friend (remember him from my last post?) suggested that making a change in our daily life in response to the Lenten season was not solely owned by the Catholics. And, he suggested, that perhaps a Lenten practice could actually be the addition of something – attending a mid-week Lenten service, a daily time of prayer or Bible reading, a walk after supper, maybe even increasing water intake, I don’t know really – but it made sense. I’m pretty sure his family followed suit.

So every year since I have considered what I might change for Lent.

And for thirty-plus years I continued to not follow through, not wanting to make a commitment I knew I would break.

Until this year.

This year I am trying to drop some of the many pounds I packed on during TT’s battle with cancer and after his passing. It hasn’t been easy, especially at my How Did That Happen? age.

I signed up for Noom, and even though my results have not be stellar, I have at least stopped gaining weight. Noom is mostly psychological in its approach, with some food science and encouragement mixed in, and I am sensing subtle internal changes in how I operate around eating. That’s neither here nor there, and this is not a paid endorsement for Noom.

The point is I’ve decided to add a daily practice for the Lenten season, and it will be an experiment inspired by my Noom experience.

I am going to eat an apple each day and see if it helps me with my consumption habits.

Go ahead and chuckle if you want. I don’t really like apples unless they are in a pie, so I will be replacing something I do like (likely a less intelligent food choice) with an apple. It will be a spiritual practice; I can feel it in my bones.

I’ll let you know how I made out after Easter.

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I Should Do This More Often

February 19, 2022 at 10:49 am (Gratitude, grief, Journaling, Writing)
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Maybe even weekly. Write in this blog, that is. Not sure why it’s so hard to build a practice, but from what I have learned in my x-number of years riding around the sun, the problem is real, and I am not unique. Building a practice takes time, effort, no regard for failure, patience, and perseverance. Probably some other characteristics as well, but you get my point. The road to hell, and all of that. Here I am. Back on Intention Road.

A friend started a blog (with encouragement from me, I might add) and he writes, not like clockwork, but far more often than me. His thing is theology, and his approach leans toward the academic. Whenever I get one of his posts in my email, I read it with interest, and then remind myself I should get up off my butt and fire up WordPress as well.

I also encouraged him to write the novel he’d been pondering for nearly a decade, but he hasn’t done that yet. I, on the other hand, have published my first novel! The title is Sawdust and Dreams, and I published it just before Christmas. It is the sequel to Christmas at the Inn, which I originally published in 2015, with Annie Acorn Publishing LLC, but she retired at the end of 2019 and returned the rights to me, so I re-published it in January of 2020. Christmas at the Inn sold very well – over 40,000 copies, and when I first published it, readers were clamoring for more of the story, and I started the second story, but life and death happened, so it was several years before I got to finish editing and finally publish Sawdust and Dreams. Here’s the Amazon link for Sawdust and Dreams, in case you want to read it.

https://amzn.to/3sAypdT

Damn, I hate cancer! It’s been almost two and a half years since TT died, and it has only been in the last few months that words have begun to flow again. Trauma and loss will do that to a person. A friend told me she couldn’t write for four years after her husband died.

Anyway, I’m not here to lament. I’m here to say hello.

I think another book might be underway, but what has finally taken hold is a need and desire to keep a journal. I really enjoy the freedom of it, and sometimes what comes through gives me pause. Perhaps you keep a journal as well and have experienced the same. Where do those profound thoughts come from, anyway? I don’t know, but I sure like exploring it. My higher self tells me repeatedly that I should write for myself and not worry about anything else. If I do that, everything else will fall into place. That is what I have chosen to believe and am following suit.

From a page a few weeks ago:

Thank you for words, but where does my eloquence go when I pick up my pen? It flies away, to a tree top, perhaps, from where it taunts me about my inability to reach it. This morning I will turn my back on Miss Fickle Eloquent and write gratitude with simplicity, but no less from my heart.

Thank you for reading this. I’ll be back.

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Journaling Group

March 29, 2021 at 12:21 pm (Uncategorized)
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I participate in two women’s journaling groups. We meet via Zoom and will continue to do so, I’m sure, until the “All Clear” is sounded by the powers that be. At first, I went along with the switchover to Zoom because virtually meeting beats not meeting. I didn’t have high hopes for what might flow onto the paper, but somehow the energy has made it through the airwaves. One of the things I like about the groups is that we have prompts. I like writing to prompts.

The one I chose the other day was about what urgent questions do I need to ask. This is what came from my pen.

**

The question I don’t dare ask is “What Next” because the Universe is always happy to oblige with an answer to that question, and for the last decade, the answers to “What Next” have been enough to send me running down the street, hands in the air, screaming, like that poor little Vietnamese girl after her village was mistakenly napalmed. So, “What Next” is off my list of urgent questions.

I want to ask, “Why” but my “Whys” are not of a historical or scientific nature. My “Why” questions are usually met with an utterance like, “How many times do I have to tell you, your life is on a need to know basis, and the answer to “Why” is above your paygrade.

“Why” is revealed in retrospect.

I ask “When” and all I get is “When you’re ready”. So, I ask when will I be ready? And the answer is you’ll know you’re ready when it happens. Round and round we go, God and me. (Sighs loudly here and takes another sip of coffee)

“Who?” “Who comes with when,” says the Sage.

So, my only other urgent question is “How”. How am I going to make it through the rest of my days?

Widowhood is not for the faint of heart.

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A New Story

December 6, 2020 at 5:25 pm (Uncategorized)
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Took me all year, but I’ve published a new story. And looking back, I don’t know how I managed.

TT and I wrote the story together. I came up with idea not long after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We had a couple of false starts with plots that didn’t resonate, and then we decided to write a romance.

We each took a character and pretended we just met. The question was, what would it look like, and how would it go if we met now, in our 60’s, both healthy of course, and fell in love. It was the only way I could think of to immortalize my beloved husband. Give him his voice, and publish his words.

So that’s what we did. It’s a simple story, but TT and I enjoyed a simple life together. So don’t look for high tension or deep drama when (and if) you read it.

The new story is all about love. But in reality, isn’t that the whole story, beginning to end?

Here’s the link to A Birds and Bees Christmas. https://amzn.to/37zNS1r

We hope you enjoy it.

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Alternative Endings

November 28, 2020 at 11:12 am (Uncategorized)
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I opened a notebook this morning that I thought hadn’t been used, but there in the middle were a couple of things from the Children’s Literature class I took while an adult student at Providence College. I have no idea why I started these assignments in the middle of a notebook. Maybe so I could find them some Saturday morning.

Anyway, the classroom assignment was on the subject of alternative endings. We had ten minutes to write alternative endings for Cinderella. We each wrote two.

While these days I take wishing for an alternative ending pretty seriously (widowhood will do that) these made me chuckle. I hope you enjoy them too.

Reminder: They are rough, first drafts, straight out of my imagination.

AE1

The wedding banquet ended in the wee hours, just before dawn. The handsome prince escorted his golden-haired bride to a bed chamber, opened the door, allowing her to pass though.

When he didn’t follow her in, she turned, her eyes a flash of confusion.

“Won’t you join me? asked Cinderella.

He was so buff and beautiful, she’d been awaiting their consumation with fire in her thighs. Her mind raced with the thought of wet flames waiting to be subdued.

“No, my dear. I must confess to you, I don’t care for women. I prefer men, but I need a wife for public relations reasons, and you’re perfect for that role.”

***

AE2

“What do you think, Inspector?” asked the mousy detective with sticky hands. He’d been nibbling at leftover pumpkin tarts.

“Toxicology shows no drugs or alcohol in his blood stream, so we can rule out accidental death. I think he was pushed. There are wounds on his arms, like he’d been hit with a broom handle or fire poker.” The inspector paused. “He was murdered.”

“On their wedding night, how tragic,” exclaimed the detective, as he scurried to the edge of the roof. “The poor princess. She must be bereft. Who could have done such a thing?”

Meanwhile, the bride packed quickly, frantically. She needed to leave undetected before she became a suspect. “Hurry, you silly whores!” she cried to her stepsisters. “We need to reach the coast by midnight!”

The horsemen were ready, and the women reached the ship just in time. The plank was raised, and with shouts of “Underway!” and “Ahoy!” the ship pulled away from the dock, just moments before the inspector arrived.

“Damn it,” he cursed, turning to his partner and spitting at the harbor.

In the distance, he could hear Cinderella and her stepsisters laughing and raising glasses as they sat atop a truck filled with the Prince’s treasures. Diamonds, gold, and a mink coat for his bride.

***

That’s it for today. Maybe I’ll find some more obscure notes and give you another peek into my sometimes twisted imagination.

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Once Upon a Time in College

October 25, 2020 at 10:30 am (Uncategorized)
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It’s been a while, and lot has happened.

Some of you know I went back to college a few years ago to finish my degree as an adult. I’d put it off for thirty years, mainly because I would need to take a math class. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mathematics, and I respect the elegance of it, I love the fact that there is a solution somewhere, always. But when I look at a word problem, all I see is spaghetti that moves around on its own, and my brain gets tangled around the fork in numbing confusion. Nevertheless, two tutors later, and having taken advantage of every incentive, I passed Algebra (this is so humiliating) with an A.

Please feel free to ignore the above paragraph, because this blog post has nothing to do with Mathematics.

TT died. He did battle with pancreatic cancer, an assault from the blindside, and after fifteen grueling months, he surrendered his beleaguered body and transitioned to the other side of the veil. I’m still reeling with grief, although most of my friends and family might not know it. I can put on a good show when I need to. And besides, no one needs to hear me screaming into a pillow or watch as I curl into a fetal position with a teddy bear to sob myself to sleep.

Nope.

All this leads me to this morning’s venture into Cleaning Things Out. Not just TT’s things, which I can work on for about fifteen minutes before collapsing in a heap on the floor, but the whole messy collection of things that will need to go if I ever decide to sell my house.

Today it was notebooks and binders from college, which have been cluttering up a perfectly good bookshelf since 2014. The only time I’ve looked at them was to consider tossing them. Somehow they are always returned to the shelf, because “I might need it” someday.

Today proved my point, sort of. While searching for a blank notebook I found one with only a few pages used up, marked “Fairy Tales”. Good, I can start a story with this one, as soon as I rip out these pages, which led me to read the pages, which led me to a classroom assignment. I think we were given fifteen minutes to come up with something, and then we read our words to the class.

Maybe it’s the magic of fairy tales, or maybe I was supposed to read this today. Either way, this post is getting to be long, so here’s my contribution to that class. WARNING: It’s rough.

I may have been unexpected, but she didn’t seem to mind. She wasn’t as I expected her to be, but that was okay too. It had been a long walk from the castle, two dawns with a descent of pitch darkness in between. Somehow, I needed no sleep, even as my body protested with weariness and my eyes grew gravelly and dry.

Persist. Step by Step. Keep going.

“You must go,” he had said. “Find the Collector, find your Magic. It won’t be on her shelf, but you will find it there. She will show you what it isn’t.” My father’s last words were spent on this sighed instruction to me, a priceless gift. “Do not take your horse. The horse will find you when you need him,” he had said.

So, I wrapped the borrowed heavy cloak around my shoulders, pulled the hood over my head for added security, and set out along the path away from the castle.

The guards will be in a frenzy by now, looking for the fair Princess, who keeps her pace along the river, in search of a cottage made of blue stone, just across the hidden bridge. The Queen will be pacing in her chamber, anxious for news of the Princess, a step-daughter beyond reprove, but despised nevertheless.

“One foot and then the other,” I told myself.

Finally, just as the sun reached its peak for the day, and my stomach moaned its hungry lament once again, the bridge appeared, and across the river at a wide turn just beyond a foggy mist, sat a cottage built of blue stone.

The woman by the front door wore purple with golden brocade edging. A woman wearing purple stirring a pot of soup – an oddity.

She looked up, unsurprised. “I’ve been waiting for you,” was her greeting. “Have some soup and bread, and we will begin.”

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In Line at CVS

February 14, 2017 at 9:57 pm (Safety Pin)

Talbots carries a particular type of top that I like to wear. It has three-quarter length sleeves and a cross-over bodice with a V-neck. They are a nice fit and flattering for my shape. The only problem with them is that the V-neck is a little to loosey-goosey for my comfort, so I use a safety pin on the inside of the shirt to hold the fabric closed where I want it.

This morning as I was getting dressed for work, I grabbed one of said favorite go-to tops, and while I was tossing it over my head and getting the safety pin straightened out, I thought to myself that maybe today I should wear the safety pin on the outside of the shirt. I didn’t, and promptly forgot about it.

And it didn’t matter.

During my lunch hour I ran to CVS to pick up a Valentine’s Day card. It was a high traffic day in the greeting card aisle, and there was quite a line at the checkout. One cashier had a customer who was being difficult, so she had to call for the manager. The other had to run back to the pharmacy to do something special for her customer, so it was taking longer than usual, and there were about eight of us in line.

While I advanced to being first in line, the store manager set the original clerk up at the register in the photo pick up area and she called over the next customer in line. That was  me, so I stepped over to that register. As I did so, I spotted a woman in non-western dress and with her head covered in a (beautiful, by the way) hijab. She had a small child and an infant in a stroller with her. She looked confused as she hesitantly tried to advance, as I stepped up to the counter. I didn’t mean to be rude, really I didn’t.

She waited patiently for me to make my purchase, and tried to advance again as I left the line. It would have been fine, except there were now  even more people who had already queued up, so she would have been cutting them off. I turned to her and smiled.

“The line is here.” I said, almost in a whisper. I pointed to the people who had been waiting.

“Even for photo pick-up?” She pointed to the sign over the register.

“Yes. Usually this register is just for photo pick up, but when the line gets long, they open up all the registers for any purchase.”

The clerk was a little less generous. “Yeah, you still have to get in line.” Her voice had edged toward tart.

“Thank you, I didn’t understand,” she replied.

“I know, it can be confusing.” I repeated how the line works and what can  make it shift, and she nodded her understanding. She’ll know next time.

By now I had complimented her on her beautiful baby, and asked the little boy if the baby was his brother or his sister.

“He’s my baby brother, and his name is Omar.” He was very proud of his brand new sibling. By now we had an audience.

 

“He’s very handsome, and you know what? I have a friend name Omar!” My exclamation, which I made sure was loud enough for everyone to hear, brought a light of surprise to the woman’s face, and I could almost feel her relax.

Omar’s wife makes falafal like nobody’s business, and if you want to know where to get some just ask me, and I’ll tell you where their shop is.

We bid each other a good day as she guided the stroller to the end of the line and I left the store. As I was getting into my car I remembered the safety pin hidden on the inside of my top and chuckled.

I wish the woman well, and I hope to see her again sometime. Maybe she’ll recognize the middle aged white haired woman who has a friend named Omar. We can greet each other with a bit of familiarity and enjoy a moment or two of sharing the planet.

 

 

 

 

 

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Cucumber Sandwiches

July 14, 2016 at 3:24 pm (baking, cooking, family, Food, gardening, Gratitude)
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It’s a hot July afternoon, steamy with showers and intermittent sunshine. Each round of it builds heat and pressure. Tomorrow’s promise is for an even hotter day, when the temperature will cross the line and go into the nineties, something we find worthy of grocery  line chatter, along with the nor’easters that will barrel in from the Atlantic a mere six months from now.

It’s the perfect day for a cucumber sandwich.

TT got a call this morning from EB, his big-garden buddy, alerting him to the mass of green beans that are ready for picking. I can picture EB standing in the middle of their four acre vegetable patch, cell phone in hand, squash plants tickling his knees. It’s quite a place, the big garden. It’s more than a garden though. Over the years it’s become a little community, with shared spaces, exchanges of onions for corn or potatoes, or vegetables in exchange for planting and weeding help as the season progresses.

We didn’t plant green beans in our backyard garden this year, so this is a welcome call, and I add “green beans” to my errands list and make a point of taking a tote bag with me when I set out.

Well, you know I can’t stop at picking just green beans. I spotted a couple of small tomatoes that had ripened when no one was looking. Their red skins were blushing from underneath the protection of their leaves, so I picked those, which are enough for tonight’s salad. I heard a couple of bright yellow summer squash calling my name, and even though we have some in our own yard, I had to oblige.

Then I meandered over to the cucumber patch, and glory! What a year it has been for cucumbers! Before you could say Israeli salad, I had ten of them in my tote bag, picked from just three plants. I’ll be making an Israeli salad for twenty next Saturday. I guess having enough cukes for that won’t be a problem.

This is the long way around to tell you this:

I got home, mixed up a batch of double chocolate zucchini bread and had that in the oven in less than half-an-hour. My stomach rumbled its discontent at being empty as I then eyed the cucumbers, which were still warm from the field.

It was meant to be, so I went for it and slathered my multi-grain bread with more mayonnaise than would be considered respectable in polite company, doused that with salt and pepper, then peeled the best looking cuke of the bunch and trimmed it so its length matched the size of my bread. Then I sliced it into thin lengthwise slices, and stacked the slices on the bread.

Such luxury the bounty of summer brings to the gardener. An entire cucumber on a sandwich. This was no fussy tea sandwich. This was a two-fisted, open your mouth wide to take a bite, feast.

As I was constructing my lunch, a mantra waltzed through my mind.

“Thank you, dear mother earth, thank you, dear mother, thank you.”

And before I knew it, I was sobbing in grief for my mother, who I miss every day, as I have for more than twenty-nine years.

And I was sobbing in gratitude for her, and for the times the two of us would sit at the table on a hot summer’s afternoon enjoying a cucumber sandwich together.

Sometimes it’s the littlest thing that will trigger a flood.

 

 

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October Light

October 10, 2015 at 2:56 pm (Poetry)
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October light,
Softened by lace-dressed windows
Splays gently, silently
Across the bed
Trees dance in the window, and
Tiny spotlights glide over a
A roll of mingled thighs
Entangled in the interlude
Between passion and repose

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