Remembering....

Forty-some years ago, my life changed forever.  On May 4^th.  At 9:32 at night.

A high school graduate, unemployed, and married for less than a year, I became a statistic: a teenage mom.  Planned or not, good timing or not, affordable or not, the baby was on her way, literally.  Dreams put on the back burner, an acceptance letter to UC Santa Barbara carefully put away as a memento.

In our tiny duplex, the hand-me-down crib was in place.  What few clothes we could afford for the baby were washed and ready.   Since the baby wasn’t due for a few more weeks (or so we’d been told), I spent the morning preparing a casserole dish to take to that evening’s church potluck.

I spent the evening at the hospital instead with a “stomach ache”…..and then labor pains.  A pain shot, ordered by the physician, put me to sleep and, in the morning, my labor had stopped.  The physician came to see me and announced, matter-of-factly, that I would be sent home if my labor didn’t start again.

I remember thinking that I did not want to go home without a baby.  I had already worked too hard to go home empty-handed.  I was angry at the physician for giving me the shot that stopped my labor.  And that anger did the trick…..

I remember waking up and asking the nursing assistant who was taking my vital signs if I had a boy or a girl.  She just snickered and kept doing her job.  I really wanted to know, as I was quite “snockered” during the delivery and didn’t remember much of it.

And then the OB nurse came in and had me stand up so they could change the sheets on my bed.  I asked her what time it was and she said “it’s 10:30”.  I asked her if it was morning or night and she snickered, too.

Apparently, it was 10:30 at night, because the next morning, the physician came in and told me I was doing well.  The day shift nurse was kind enough to show me the bracelet on my wrist that identified my daughter as “baby girl _______”……and I smiled.  I had wanted a girl.

And then, another nurse came in my room, pushing a metal cart with a plastic container on top.  Not just a plastic container, but one with the most beautiful baby ever born inside it.  They put her in my arms, and I just stared at her….

If I was going to give up my freedom, and take on the title of “mom”, this was certainly the baby worth doing it with, I thought to myself.  And just then, she opened her eyes and looked at me.

And life took on new meaning….

Cali

Routines...

There’s something about springtime that makes me happy.  The sun and green grass after a long, cold winter?  The chance to begin anew?  The reminder that life is seasonal?  Perhaps the answer is “all the above”….

It’s been sunny and mild in Podunk this week.  The tulips are a riot of pink in the container garden on the patio.  The first lilac blooms are opening.  The grass is greener than green, and the sky is blue and cloudy.  It feels like spring….

We went to the nursery yesterday and came home with some new plants: snapdragons, hydrangeas, and a calla lily.  Something about purchasing new plants for the garden is so exciting.  The only thing that is better is getting plant cuttings from friends.  The blue iris, a gift from a friend, is doing well, as are the narcissus that he replanted.  I guess they were a gift from my mother, who planted them so many years ago…

A renewal of another kind is happening, too.  It has been ten months since I retired.  Although they’ve been busy months, they’ve been somewhat disjointed.  Or unplanned, or something.  After a career of planning every moment, wearing the clock out by looking at it, and recording every movement and action, I was feeling lost.  Very lost.

Nurses assess the patient and write a plan of care.  We then evaluate the efficacy of the plan as it is implemented and make any necessary changes.  Medications are given at specific times.  Procedures are done on a schedule, too….

It’s no wonder that I felt adrift when I first retired.  Nothing is planned to the nth as it used to be.  While that fact has a definite up side, it also left me wondering what to do and at what time.  Sort of.  It has been fun to sleep when I’m tired, eat when I’m hungry, and hop in the car and go somewhere when I’m bored….

There’s no more TGIF, because every day is Friday.  There ARE weekends, and I keep track of them so we don’t end up needing groceries when the rest of the world is in the store.  And there are appointments, duly written down in an appointment book and on my iPhone.   At least the phone beeps at me to remind me where to go, and when….

I truly don’t get bored very often.  I do get tired of doing one thing and move on to another, leaving the first one incomplete.  But who cares?  What I don’t accomplish today I can do tomorrow.  Right?  I hope so…..

Slowly, but surely, some sense of routine is developing.  There are times for doing chores and times for being creative and times to just relax and enjoy the day as it unfolds.  Since I’m no longer working, there are more hours in the day, my day, than there used to be.  I figure it’s time to use them as I see fit….

Like driving up to the lake to watch the sunset….

Cali

Through My Daughter's Eyes...

(This was written in late March, about a month ago....)

My daughter and her husband are in The Big Apple this week.  It’s the first vacation in a long time for them.  My daughter works too hard, going in to work extra shifts when there’s a staffing shortage, working a double shift when someone calls in sick, and taking the ER duty when no one else wants it.

She’s a Certified Cardiology Tech at a hospital about 45 miles up the road from Podunk.  She does the 12-lead EKGs as ordered, transcribes Holter monitor reports, and makes her mama proud.  She was even ACLS certified for a few years.  (CCTs are not required to take Advanced Cardiac Life Support training: she just wanted to know more about the EKGs she does….).

There was a patient once, who had an EKG done in the morning.  Later in the afternoon, he was complaining of chest discomfort and the physician ordered another EKG.  My daughter compared the two EKGs and alerted the RN that there was a significant change in the afternoon EKG.  The RN shrugged and mentioned that the physician would be in “soon” and she would tell him them.

Not satisfied with that response, my daughter paged the physician.  When he called her back, she shared her concerns about the patient.  To make a long story short, the physician came straight away to see the patient and took him immediately to the cardiac cath lab.  When he was finished, he came back to the cardiology department to inform my daughter that she probably saved the patient’s life.

No, not a proud mama here….  But you can see just how important it is that she has a vacation.  And so, she’s posting photos on Facebook from her adventures.  Every chance I get, I go online to see where she is and what she is seeing.  In the photos taken by her husband, she is happy and smiling, with a little bit of wide-eyed awe thrown in….

She has ferried out to Ellis Island, taken photos from atop the Empire State Building, been to all the important museums on Manhattan, walked through Central Park, made a pilgrimage to Tiffany’s, and even spent some time in FAO Schwartz…..

It has truly been a trip of a lifetime for her.  A chance to see a place she had only seen in movies and dreamt about seeing in person…..some day.  And her someday finally arrived…..  She has seized the moment and put all her energy into enjoying her time there, just as she puts so much energy into doing her job well.

And I have been to New York this week, too, through my daughter’s eyes….

Cali

Collaboration....

Is it Tuesday already?  Good intentions.  I have lots of them….

Last week was rainy.  Every day, it seems, was dark and cold and wet.  Bad weather for working in the garden, great weather for being creative….  I have always had a creative bent, making what I could out of what I had.  It served me well when I was a young mommy with children who grew out of their clothes as fast as I could sew them.

Since retiring last year, I have found new creative outlets.   My daughter and I have been scrapbooking together since last fall.  We both enjoy being the keeper of our family’s memories and doing it in an artful form…

With the rain last week, and derailed plans of working in the garden, I turned to creative endeavors.  And I had an epiphany: I enjoy creating scrapbooks as much as I enjoy filling them with memories.  That explains why the shelves in my crafts’ room are overflowing with things I have made.  And it causes me some sense of guilt.  What’s the use of creating something that will just sit on a shelf?

So, when my daughter came to visit last Thursday, I offered a suggestion: since she is so busy with her full time job and her family, I could make some things for her to sell in her online shop.  I was tentative about making the suggestion as I didn’t want to step on her toes….

No need for trepidation as she was thrilled with the idea.  She was lamenting the fact that she has so little time to make things to sell, and my contributions would be greatly appreciated.  And no, I am not advertising here.  I will not share the what or the where of our collaboration as that’s not relevant.

What was meant to be a quick get-together last Thursday, for my daughter and me, turned into a day of planning.  We talked and laughed and thought of all kinds of things we would like to do and make.  It was fun.  It IS fun, to collaborate with my daughter.

The days since that first “business meeting” have been quite busy.  I have made half a dozen products for her to put in her shop.  I have ideas for another dozen or so things.  And, come this Christmas season, when my daughter designs things to sell, I will be busy in my workshop, producing them for her.

Last evening, I read the blog she wrote yesterday.  If I had any doubts that she was as enthusiastic as I am about what we are doing, her blog erased them.  It was delightful to read her rememberances of the things I created when she was a child.  And I was reassured by her kind and thoughtful words about our joint efforts….

While it’s not all that important in the overall scheme of things, this collaboration is something to celebrate, to me.  We have had our times apart, my daughter and me, while we fought our own battles and didn’t impose on each other.  We have never been estranged, or anywhere near estranged, but we have not been as actively involved in each other’s lives as we are now.  We are mother and daughter, dear friends, and now, collaborators…

In a creative way, that is….

Cali

Long Ago and Far Away....

How long ago is long enough?  And how far away is far enough?  I’m sifting through my ancestry, again, and now I’ve gotten back as far as 540 BC.  To me, that’s amazing.

 

Apparently, some of it has been easier for me because so many of my ancestors were dukes, or kings, or queens, or conquerors, or even pharaohs…. Who knew?  I guess, since the family sailed to the New World, in the early 1600’s and settled on Long Island, we’ve become a little more common…

Sitting here, clicking on leaves on my family tree, it has been fun to see how far back in time I could go, and who I would find as I journeyed farther back in time.  I found William the Conqueror several months ago: he was the husband of my 27^th great grandmother, Mathilda of Flanders.

In the past two days, I have ventured even farther back in time, finding my 35^th great grandfather, Charlemagne.  Then I found the 51^st, Constantine.   Another great grandfather, the 65^th, was Herod the Great of Judea.

Still traveling backwards, I ran into a rather interesting 73^rd great grandmother named Cleopatra.  Poor dear, committed suicide at age 30.

The Rosetta Stone describes my 75^th great grandfather’s coronation as Ptolemy V.   And, apparently, way back there in the annals of time, my 79^th great grand uncle was a guy named Alexander the Great.

All told, there have been kings of England, Wales, Scotland, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Macedonia, Egypt, and who knows where else.  It gets confusing, at times, because royals usually married royals, so there are familiar names on almost every branch of the tree.  Cousins marrying cousins, etc.  It’s a wonder we turned out normal, or sort of normal….

And then, in the New World, titles were given up.  Lineage didn’t matter.  It was a brave new world, full of opportunities and fraught with danger.  A duke or earl or consort was no safer from the ravages in an unknown world than the common person.

 

My first great grandparent to arrive in the New World was apprenticed to a carpenter.  He was given the choice of being freed from his obligation and remaining in England, or sailing with his master to make a new life in the new colonies.  Of course, he chose to come to America.

The family settled in Long Island and lived there for nearly 300 years.  By the time my great grandfather died, at the ripe old age of 90-something, he was known as “Captain” and was an accomplished sailor, as well as a carpenter.

As the colonies became a country, my ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War I and II.  There have been, in addition to soldiers, sailors and marines, many physicians, newspapermen, and other noble occupations.  

My grandfather opened the first movie theater in New York City, according to my father.  He had two partners in the venture: Lord Mountbatten (I have a photo of him with my grandfather), and an actor named Charlie Chaplin.

Now, it’s nice to be able to “drop names” sometimes, but mostly, it’s nice to be proud of one’s own endeavors, even if they are not royal, or historical, or humanitarian.  We all came from somewhere, but that is not as important as where we are going….

Researching my ancestry is giving me a sense of being grounded.  But today, and maybe tomorrow, is what really matters….

Cali

Grandpa Jarvis...

"Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

(Wm. Shakespeare)

That’s the first thing that came to my mind, about an hour ago, as I was doing some family research online and came to a curious character named Jarvis Mudge.  It seems that poor Jarvis is famous simply because of his relationships.  No, not for being my seventh great grandfather, although that is a worthy reason to be famous…

It seems that Jarvis was married to the widow Elsen.  They had two children: Moses and Micah.  But that’s not his “claim to fame” either. 

You see, Massachusetts didn’t have a corner on the witch hunt market.  Connecticut had their share of witches, too.  Hence, the great Hartford Witch hunts of 1692-1695.  And poor Rebecca Elsen Mudge, a confessed and convicted witch, was hanged on Gallows Hill on January 22, 1693. 

Yup, my seventh great grandmother, on my father’s side, was a witch.  I don’t know if she had a cauldron, or not.  And I have to wonder if she read Shakespeare’s Macbeth….

I heard, for most of my early life, about my heritage.  The English sailors who braved the seas.  The Vikings and their conquests.  My grandparents and great grandparents life and times….  I don’t know if my father knew we were related to William the Conqueror or not. 

If he knew about Rebecca the Witch, he kept it to himself….

Cali

The Good Old Days??

Those of us who have reached a certain age, remember how things used to be….

I know people who are quite incensed that things have changed so much since they were young.  They can sit and recall, for hours on end, all the wonderful things that they remember from the good old days….  And I always think of the quote:   ”The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is…….” (Marcel Pagnol)

Having just finished my journal of the Christmas season, I can tell you that the good old days weren’t all that good…..

I remember a project I had to do for an advanced placement class I took in my senior year of high school.  We had to answer “millions” of questions about things that were going on in the world at that time.  Our answers had to be scholarly, as in including references….

I know that my report was 140 type-written pages long.  I also remember staying up all night, the night before it was due, to complete it.  Oh, I had been working on it all semester, believe me.  I was on a first name basis with all the librarians at the Podunk Public Library.  I was there almost every day, it seems.

And I typed my report on an “portable”  typewriter.   Since the questions had to be answered in order, I would leave room for an answer I didn’t have yet and go on to the next question.  In the end, I had answered all the questions but not always with references (“my dad” didn’t count as a reference). 

The reason I bring up that old memory is because I used my typewriter to journal the month of December, 2011, in my December Daily scrapbook.   Thinking back to that 140-page tome I wrote, I am amazed…….still.

You see, even on the soft setting, the keys are still hard to press.  There is no genie living in the typewriter to automatically capitalize the first word in a sentence.  Nor can I figure out how to “cut and paste” something that is in the wrong place…….other than with scissors and glue.

I had forgotten that my typewriter didn’t have an exclamation point.  You had to make your own….  And the numbers don’t include a “1”……I had to use the small “l” instead.  That is, when I didn’t forget and use the “i”…..which looks funny next to a real number….

And mistakes?  Easy.  Start over on another piece of paper…..

I am thrilled that I have a documentary of our Christmas season.  I had fun making it, too.  And using the “old” typewriter is quite the “in” thing to do, in the scrapbooking world, at least.  Too bad there are so many letters typed over because I didn’t want to use the White Out…..

And I think, actually, THESE are the good old days……

The Spirit of the Season...

Since the beginning of time, or at least, since humans realized that the days were shorter and the nights longer, in the winter, we have celebrated the winter solstice.  Different cultures have recognized the time as a rebirth, of sorts, and celebrated with holidays and festivals.

For centuries, different cultures have commemorated the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem with a holiday occurring near the winter solstice.  And other cultures have celebrated the birth of the Christ Child in a manger, in a stable, in the Middle East.  More recently, it has become a time to honor African-American heritage and culture.

In a song, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.  Yet, that’s hard for some to accept.  Was it wonderful when loved ones were thousands of miles away, in harm’s way, fighting a war?  Was it wonderful in 1929 when the Stock Market had just crashed?  Is it wonderful today, with double digit unemployment?  It’s double digit where I live, anyway….

Ah, and the nightly news does nothing to make things merry and bright, does it?  Unspeakable crimes, political shenanigans, death, destruction and despair rule the airwaves, it seems.  Just yesterday, there was a story about a small town north of Podunk, where all the toys donated to make Christmas “merry” for needy children were stolen….

Tonight, on the news, they showed the long line of cars full of people waiting to donate toys to replace those that were stolen.  It’s a small town, but the donators came from towns all over the valley in an attempt to replace more than 3000 toys in just 24 hours. 

It was uplifting to watch families with children bringing toys to donate to other, less fortunate children.  What a wonderful lesson to teach all of us:  it is better to give than to receive…. And tomorrow, the celebration will go on as planned: free hot meal, gifts for the children, and 65 cubic yards of shipped-in snow to help make Christmas merry and bright.

Of course, there are Secret Santas at work all over this country right now.  Some have paid off layaways at Kmart stores so children can have Christmas after all.  And others are paying for tanks of gas for amazed gas station customers.  Still others have taken toys to children in hospitals, or gifts to the elderly in nursing homes.

Perhaps the spirit of the season is still alive and well, despite the economy.  Perhaps there truly is hope for this little blue marble we live on.  Perhaps man’s inhumanity to man has a noble opponent in those who would commit kindnesses to others without expecting anything in return….

Perhaps the spirit of Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or whatever you choose to call it, is alive and well.

And this world isn’t all bad….

Christmas Lessons...

One of my favorite things to do, during the Christmas season, is watch all the classic Christmas movies.  Last night, we started with Christmas Vacation, the 1989 John Hughes’ classic.  Full of pratfalls, one-liners, and unimaginable happenings, it’s probably my favorite Christmas movie.

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen it, but I see something new every time I do…

Last night, I realized that, more than pratfalls, impossible and improbably story lines, and a cast of true characters, it’s about expectations.  Unreal expectations based on a heartfelt desire to make this Christmas really special……and perfect.

It’s the story of me….sort of….

As far as I am concerned, there was only one perfect Christmas, and that was over two thousand years ago.  And, believe it or not, I was not around then…..

That doesn’t seem to stop me from trying, year after year, to make Christmas just perfect for my family and friends.  Beautiful Christmas trees and decorations, delicious food, the perfect gifts, a house full of family and friends……I want it all.  And mostly, I get it.  Every year….

But that’s not the point.  Try as hard as he might, Clark Griswold just can’t seem to pull off the perfect Christmas.  Whether it’s his feuding parents and in-laws, his bored children, his miserly boss, or the uptight yuppies living next door…..no one is going to let him have his dream come true Christmas…

And yet, through all the disasters, it comes around to perfection in the end.  Realistic perfection.  The family is all together.  The house didn’t burn down.  Two Christmas trees, a chair and a cat have burned up, but the house is mostly intact.

No, things don’t go the way we plan them, most of the time….  Sometimes, they’re better for all the mishaps.  Who wouldn’t like to stand on the front lawn, watching the Santa decoration launched into the sky by methane gas, and sing the National Anthem?  Especially when surrounded by his entire family, his miserly boss, and a Chicago SWAT team?

Lesson learned: make plans, execute as able, and sit back and laugh at what goes wrong.  Nothing more, nothing less….

Well, maybe without the SWAT team…..

The Christmas Gift.....

As I decorated the house for Christmas yesterday, I thought about something that happened nearly twenty years ago. And every year since then, when I unwrap the figurines for my Nativity scene, I think of the same event.

Way back then, I was setting up the Nativity scene before Christmas. Since there would be “little ones” in the house for Christmas, I chose to put the Nativity scene on the mantle. We had a corner fireplace made of brick, including the mantle.

As I thought about where it came from, unwrapping each figurine and placing it “just so” in the manger or surrounds, I dropped the figurine I was unwrapping at the moment. It bounced with a sickening “ping” on the brick hearth and then on to the carpet. 

I gasped and tears welled up in my eyes. My mother hadn’t been gone all that long and I was devastated to have broken something so special that she had given me. I closed my eyes and decided that, no matter how broken it was, I would glue it back together and continue to use it.

It’s now been forty-one Christmases ago that my mother gave me the Nativity scene. She bought it for me at a little gift shop here in Podunk. It was, and still is, a link to my mother and our family traditions. I have never seen another Nativity like mine: pure white ceramic figurines made by Hummel. They came with a simplistic manger and a gold tin star. 

Even if there were readily available replacements, it just wouldn’t be the same.

Slowly, I bent down and picked up the fallen figurine. It was the Virgin Mary. My tears made it hard to see, so I felt her outstretched hand with my fingers: still there. I felt the base: still complete. I ran my hand over all her surfaces: no chips, nothing missing.

Full of hope, and with my tears dried, I looked at her under a very strong light. Not even a crack, anywhere. I was utterly dumbfounded. How could a small ceramic figurine, with outstretched hand, fall so far, hit so hard and not be broken?

Christmas miracles come in all sizes and shapes, I guess….


Cali