All the Undone

A beautiful post written by my friend Shira.

I've been thinking about projects left undone lately.  Not that this is exactly what Shira is writing about, but I think writing projects can be come undone projects if not tended to, which is what she is writing about.

But I've been thinking about projects generally.

There is that novel I started a long time ago.  It was wacky and all wrong and needed lots of work--I'm not a fiction writer after all--but sometimes I think about it.

There is the old blog at blog.com that is begging to be copied over into a blogger platform so that I can have it bound into a book before all that writing and those memories just disappear.  I would gladly pay someone to do this for me, but who?  When?  How?  I can't even figure out how to make this person appear, and it makes me tired thinking about it.

There is the incredibly complicated peacock embroidery.

I'm tempted to frame it as is, because my God, when am I ever going to finish that?

There's all the clothes and jewelry I'd like to make and sell.  There is volunteering for fine organizations and political canvassing.

There is the Science Communication faculty workshop I was going to create, the National Science Foundation career award I never applied for, the curriculum for the kids' school on energy and environment, the garden, the 50 recipes I was going to learn this year (I did come close), the plane tickets to fly my sister out over spring break, the deck that needs building, the bathroom that needs remodeling, the phone calls to make and the 60 holiday cards I still haven't sent out.

There is the grading and the committee work and the quality time with my husband, children, friends, and family afar.

Hmmm.  I've been thinking a lot lately about why I get so sick all the time.  I am sick a lot, yeah?  This time there was the strep, followed by the typical one-two punch of the sinus infection and bronchitis.  I'd like to say I might be getting better but often I get a stomach flu after things like this, and though I don't want to bring it into being simply by saying it, I wouldn't be totally surprised, either.  Really, really exhausted and sad, but not surprised.

"Maybe you'll just get to rest," a friend says.  "You do everything right," says another.  I wonder if it's not enough protein or too much sugar or I'm not handling stress as well as I think I am.  Maybe it's that trailer we lived in when I was five that off-gassed formaldehyde and asbestos from the walls; maybe it's genetics.  Maybe I don't clean the house well enough or wash my hands like I should.

I don't know.  Are these things related?  The drive to finish things and my getting sick?  Can you live a full life, even an ambitious one, and also be healthy?

Or is it nothing I've done at all?  Maybe my kids just bring home a lot of germs.  Maybe it's just dumb luck.

I'm surprised that I feel a little ashamed at being sick yet again.  The need to find an explanation for it, too, is strong.  Mostly, probably, I'm just tired, and the chinks in our armor show most when one or all of us is ill.

Can you see the sun shining through those chinks?  Is my armor all aglow?

McCall in Winter, and Us in Winter

My cousin Heidi took this from my grandmother's place.  The lake is fairly well frozen over, and you can't see the mountains for the fog.  That place is magic.

And here's Addie, doing some hand-sewing on a little felt star.

I take pieces of felt and let the kids draw shapes on them, then we cut out two layers of their shapes, and I draw little dots around the perimeter. I safety pin the two layers together.  Addie then sews in and out, following the dots.

Everybody except Addie felt a little shabby yesterday.  Nolie and I have developed some sort of cold/sinus action, which has been really great after having strep throat last week.  I think one of my goals this year should be figuring out how to bolster my immune system some, don't you think?

Anyway, we canceled our plans to go skiing and stayed in crafting and cleaning house and watching football.  Which ended up being quite nice anyway, and is sort of the way of our family in these cold months.  Other than venturing out to ski here and there, we pretty much hunker down, make, and be.

Just a little less being sick would also be lovely.

On the Trail of the Bittersweet

That trip to Idaho was a bittersweet thing.  Sweet, mostly, in ways I didn't expect.

Going back to see my Mom so quickly after being there for Christmas somehow eliminated all of the weird warming-up we usually have to do on our visits, the strange formality that exists between us as strangers with whole lifetimes of memories existing under the surface, and with the strain of her near-death, our relationship's near-death, a few years ago.  This time there was none of that.  We went shopping together, without any of the weirdness of my self-imposed rules about consumption.  We ate lunch together, made easier by the fact that I am no longer vegan.  We crawled into bed together and cried over Eat, Pray, Love (I know).  She told me I was beautiful, and I allowed myself to believe it.  I allowed myself to believe that maybe I still have my mother, that maybe I can soften a little around that and not protect myself so vigilantly.

And there was my grandmother's funeral.  It wasn't sad, really.  My aunts were sad, I think.  But for the most part, there was a gentle acceptance.  She was 94; lived a good life on her own terms; and died in the home she loved in the place she loved, surrounded by her girls.  The service was Episcopalian, with all the ritual that entails, but it wasn't stuffy.  The kids had placed Muggs's ashes in an MJB coffee can--MJB were her maiden initials, and she has used the can to huckleberry, and had requested that they "just put her ashes in a coffee can" when she died.  So they did.  There was laughter at the reception afterwards, an astonishment at the breadth of our family, all the kids, grandkids, great-grandkids.  The introductions to a cousin you know you recognize but about whom you know nothing, really.  So all that was good, and fine.

The Great-Grandkids

The sadness, for me, came on the way home, thinking about how it might be to live near my family, or near E's.  Thinking about the moments we miss, and that they miss, because we are apart.

Totally romanticizing things, of course.  I know that.

Still.  The longing is there.

Oh, and one more thing.  Like I said earlier, I don't feel like I knew my grandmother very well.  I didn't see my Dad much growing up, much less his family.  And they really only get together for funerals.  It's just "the Davies way," this friendly distance.

But my Aunt Diane told some lovely stories about my grandmother at the service, and one in particular stuck with me.  She talked about how there is usually one message or saying that sticks with us from our parents, one thing they say over and over again that then plays in our heads as our own.  For all six kids, she said, it would be my grandmother's voice saying, "Be yourself."

That's pretty after-school-special, isn't it?  Pretty inspirational-poster-stuff?  But I don't know what else to say except that it hit me like a ton of bricks, that fact that my grandmother passed that onto her kids, that imperative to individuality and uniqueness and self-security.  I'm sure they've had their own struggles, each of them, and yet it's hard not to look at them and see how each has done exactly that:  been themselves.

So I'm thinking on that this week, this injunction from my grandmother to "be myself."  For some reason, simple and cliche as it is, it's bringing me comfort and peace, and even joy.  It's even inviting me to laugh at and celebrate things I've maybe been ashamed of or intent on hiding.  And what a great thing for me to remember to tell my own kids.

Thanks, Grandma, for that.

Minding What Really Matters

Maybe for obvious reasons, this post from Martha Beck spoke to me this morning:

I don't want to be a drag, but I've spent most of my time over the past few months thinking about a close friend - my age - who is dying. Oddly, as you may know if you've had this kind of experience, once you've accepted a loved one's passing there is almost as much awe and wonder in the process of making this inevitable transition as there is fear and sorrow.

As we begin 2011, the brevity of life is especially clear to me, and because of this I am more committed than ever to really living every moment I have on this planet. This has brought me several surprises. For one thing, I discovered that my personality is more cat than dog. For years, I've pushed myself to be more social, more tail-wagging, more ingratiating. When I'm really honest, I wander off by myself almost all the time. I turned down several delightful New Years Eve invitations and went to bed at 9:00, not because I wasn't in a festive mood - I was - but because a peaceful, restful new year was far more enjoyable for me than a noisy gathering. If this makes me the most boring human being in the world, I do not care.

My friend had lost the ability to swallow food or liquid, so all her liquids come from an IV (intravenous drip). She says she feels very thirsty, and as I sit with her, my mind goes often to the poetry from Mary Oliver's book, Thirst:

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half perfect?

I will keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,

Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished...

Which is gratitude,

to have been given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleep dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

It may seem like a buzz-kill to sit in a hospital room quoting poetry. But don't knock it until you've tried it; the "buzz" that often comes over me in this place between life and death is powerful and amazing. When I sit still and read, not moving at all, my friend begins to breathe more easily, and tells me that her pain and her anxiety diminish. Scientists now know that one human brain focused strongly and calmly "entrains" other brains, broadcasting peace that travels heart-to-heart, requiring no action whatsoever. The shortness of life, which we all discuss, but which is very clear to me at the moment, makes keeping and spreading a joyful peace more crucial than ever before. Let us keep our minds on what matters, which is our work, which is astonishment and gratitude. From this quiet magic comes a power for all other new years wishes to come true.

In Honor

My grandmother Margaret (Muggs) Davies made her transition at 5:30 this morning.  After my class Thursday, I'll fly back to Idaho for the service.  She died a few years after my Grandpa Homer, her husband, died of lung cancer.  I'm glad that she didn't suffer for a very long time, and that she and my family had the wisdom to let go when it was time.  I'm glad that my aunts brought her to McCall a few days ago, so she could be in the home she loved when she died.

As with my other grandparents, I don't know a lot about my Grandma Muggs.  She loved huckleberrying in McCall, Idaho, where she lived for most of her life.  She was a devout Christian.  She had a palsy that caused her to shake badly and made it very difficult for her to eat and communicate at the end of her life.  She almost always wore a gold cross around around her neck.  Her skin and hair were a translucent white.  She was stubborn as hell, but I mostly experienced her as quiet and loving.  She was trained in physical education early on and always cared about nutrition and exercise.  She had a temper, but was thought of by some as a "blue-blood," and so her temper looked something like Katharine Hepburn's temper:  big but genteel.  Everyone in McCall knew her, and her family, the Browns.

I should know more of the history, but I don't.  I'm going to re-read this book, which has a lot of my family history in it:

Then maybe I'll know more.

Of course, the knowing is not the thing.

Anyway, three years ago, I had all of my grandfathers and grandmothers still alive.  My three grandfathers have all passed.  Yesterday, I still had my three grandmothers.  Now I have two.  I'm so grateful to have known all of my grandparents, and to have had them around this long.

Thinking of Margaret Brown Davies today.

Someone's Fierce

Rowr.

New Year's Wishes

Last Year's 12 Wishes for 2010 were:

1.  Happy, healthy family.
2.  Find joy at work.
3.  Enjoy kids' enthusiasm.
4.  Show compassion to kids.
5.  Make time for things we enjoy.
6.  Feel fit and strong.
7.  Play!
8.  More sincerity, less sarcasm.
9.  Enjoy libations w/out excess.
10.  Make AND be!
11.  Relax.
12.  More family fun and travel.

You know, looking over that list, we did pretty darned well!  With the exception of a few bumps in the road, we had a happy, healthy, adventurous, relaxing, and fun year.  This was a year very much in balance, for me at least.  In fact, I was telling some friends the other night that I felt like it was the best year of my life, and that I was very much looking forward to 2011.

With that, here are my wishes for the next year.  E. decided to opt out this year.  I felt sad about this for a moment, and then greedy and happy because all 12 wishes get to mine!  Plus, I bet if you pressed him, he would share some of mine with me.  So, here they are:

1.  Experience gratitude, always.
2.  Make lots of wonderful mistakes.  [I stole this from my friend Ellen. I love it.  And you can't miss!]
3.  Spend money on experiences, not things.
4.  Give more.
5.  Act more like Milo--sleepy, full of heart, joyful, always loving, walks a lot [but maybe minus the pooping in the yard and drooling].
6.  Leave open the possibility to be always surprised.
7.  Family first.
8.  Break the rules more [by rules, I mean my self-imposed rules having to do with order and control.  Like, I've been staying in my jammies a lot lately.  Rule breaker!]
9.  Laugh a lot.
10.  Go to church, wherever that is.
11.  Release fear.
12.  Say yes to what you love [and by extension, no to what you don't.]