This Week’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News

“I am thankful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.”

–Henry David Thoreau

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

It feels a bit ironic to be writing The Moment on a day that is nationally set aside for giving thanks. Some readers have referred to this blog as a gratitude list, and I’ve always felt just a little bit cringey at that. I’ve tried, in the past, to write gratitude lists. But there’s something about doing that, about actually calling it that, that turns my lists into obvious and repetitive cliches. Whenever I’ve tried to do a gratitude list, they become the same thing, over and over, by day 3:

1. I’m grateful for my family.
2. I’m grateful to have a place to live.
3. I’m grateful that AllWriters’ is still thriving.
4. I’m grateful…

And there I would bog down and push the list away and head on to other things. By the time I got to day 4 or 5, the list was forgotten.

Something about calling it A Moment Of Happiness made it easier. I started the blog during a phenomenally stressful time in my life that, after I announced that I would do the Moment publicly and every single day for a year, became even more stressful. I went from an assault to job losses to my daughter being severely bullied to my diagnosis of breast cancer. And yet, overall and in retrospect, I am so glad I started the Moment when I did, because it truly got me through that awful year.

Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News officially started in 2017, and then This Week’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News followed in 2018. Which means I’ve been writing this blog for five years. To me, that’s nothing short of amazing, and like that first year, I really believe this blog has gotten me through. It’s caused a major paradigm shift in me – from the negative to the positive. No, I am not someone who curls my hands together to form a heart, nor am I someone who croons, “Everything happens for a reason,” whenever someone tells me about something awful that is happening in their life. I also never, ever remind people that there are others who have it worse. No one should be made to feel shame for feeling what they feel. We all have our own personal challenges and to us, they’re huge. No one should diminish them. Not even ourselves.

This all leads up to this week’s Moment. When I considered what I was going to write about this week, I kept coming back to the same thing, but then I shook it off and thought, That’s too small. But that particular moment kept drifting to the top of my brain. So eventually, I pulled myself aside and said, “What’s too small? You once wrote about a grasshopper landing on your windshield. You also wrote about a straw wrapper taking flight in your convertible and reminding you of a moth which led you to a childhood memory of chasing moths, which you then called butterflies, in your backyard. So what’s too small?”

I made good sense. I love when I talk to myself. I’m a good conversationalist, if I do say so myself to myself. Though I do wish I’d quit doing it in the aisles of grocery stores and in public restrooms.

So here’s the Moment.

Last Saturday, I took Grandbaby Maya Mae to the movies. We saw Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile which ended up being an absolutely wonderful movie. It’s very musical, with really, really good music, and partway through one of the songs, a little girl in the section right in front of the screen stepped into the aisle.

I noticed her when she came in. This wasn’t a princess movie, but she was decked out in full princess. Gown to the floor. Silver slippers. Long hair swept up away from her face and then trailing down her back in waves of gold.

And now, in the glow of the movie, she stepped into the aisle. And she DANCED.

Arms up, she twirled. She shimmied. She swung those hips and she jumped. She was absolute pure movement. Joyful movement. Completely unself-conscious movement. She didn’t care if no one watched and she didn’t care if everybody did. She just had to move and her movement was beyond joyous.

Thank God no one stopped her. Her mother just let’er rip.

I watched this little one and I rejoiced. Look at her! Look at her!

And of course, it tumbled me into the memory of another young one. Olivia was seven years old when the movie Mama Mia! came out. I fell in love with the music, bought the CD and played it incessantly in the car. Olivia fell in love with the music too, so we took her to see the movie, even though it was rated PG-13 and she was only seven. We took her to see it at least three times, and one of those times was a singalong. And in all of those times, Olivia, filled with that same musical joy, leaped into the aisle and danced. And I didn’t stop her.

And now, this little one. In full princess regalia. My heart lifted and danced with her. And with her mother.

When the movie was over and the lights came up, Grandbaby Maya Mae looked at me, in all her serious I’m-almost-ten-ness, and said, “Well. That movie was stunning.”

I have an almost ten-year old granddaughter who uses the word “stunning” while discussing movies.

Oh, it was such a good day.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Here’s to a Moment of Happiness every day.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

One thing I’ve learned over these years of writing the Moments (and I’ve said this before) is that you have to let go of the idea that moments of happiness will just somehow appear. You have to look for them. They’re often spontaneous, but you have to look, or they’ll zip right by and be gone before you pay them any mind.

And sometimes, the Moments are something you reach out and grab and shape with your own hands.

That kind of Moment happened this last week.

It’s no secret that I love clocks. Antique clocks, to be certain. They have to be wound, with keys or with weights. Battery power does nothing for me. I look at these old clocks and I think about all they’ve seen, all they’ve ticked through. When I wrote my first novel, The Home For Wayward Clocks, it came to be on a day that I’d just visited my favorite clock store, that featured an entire floor of antique clocks. Wouldn’t it be fun, I thought as I drove away, to live in a clock store? By the time I arrived home, I had the original opening line (“They call me the clock-keeper; I’m the keeper of the clocks.”), and I had my character, James, who ran a clock museum in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. The town, on the edge of desperation with poor economic times, followed James’ lead and did up the whole town in clock themes, became a tourist attraction in the middle of one of the most boring drives ever – I-80 through Iowa. The book came out of my head like magic, and the novel I’d been working on fell to the side, lost in a later hard drive crash that took its first 100 pages. To this day, I can’t remember what that book was called or what it was about.

But this book…clocks.

I can trace my love of clocks back to my maternal grandmother. When she moved in with us when I was a child, she brought with her a very old, very scratched-up camel-back mantel clock. That clock and I spent hours playing together. I ran Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars over its hill, I sat Barbie dolls on its ends and perched at the peak. I made up stories around it and with it. When my grandmother passed away, the clock was something I chose to keep. It sits here still, right across from me, on a shelf in my office. I see it every time I look over the top of my computer screen.

From there, I began to go to flea markets. I will be the first to admit that the clocks I adopted were not pristine, were not polished to a high shine, most often were not even working. They were sad orphans and I wanted to give them a home. I cleaned them, fixed them when I could, and if I couldn’t, kept them anyway, even if they were silent. I own a grandfather clock that was built by hand (not from a kit) by a pastor, who, when he moved to a much larger congregation, decided he needed a grander clock and traded the clock he sweated over for the new one. That clock, borne of a man’s hands and rejected by the same, came home with me. There is a Felix The Cat clock, the black and white cat with the left and right swinging eyes and pendulum tail. When I had a cleaning lady, she knocked this clock off the wall twice. Its tail is gone, the eyes are off track and wonky. But it still hangs on my wall. It’s a wounded warrior. I no longer have a cleaning lady.

All the clocks have stories.

I just wandered through my home, counting the clocks. I did not go down to the classroom, where I know there are more. I have 80 clocks on the 2^nd and 3^rd floors of my condo. I know there are two more on the stairwell to the classroom, and I believe there are at least five more in the classroom, so that means there are approximately 87 clocks in my home.

Yep.

Which, of course, led to Big Ben. I have wanted to see (I nearly typed “meet”; that’s what I really mean!) Big Ben for years and years. In The Home For Wayward Clocks, my desire to meet Big Ben, and to see the largest antique clock collection in the world, scattered throughout Buckingham Palace, is expressed through James. He never got to England. He died without meeting Big Ben.

In 2017, Big Ben fell silent while he went through a five-year renovation. He’s been surrounded by scaffolding. He’s had no voice. In March of 2023, all of that will fall away and he will chime again.

I am now 62 years old. I’ve held the same dream as my character James. For a very long time.

Which is why, after several weeks of discussions and ruminations and worries and anxiety, I reached out with both hands and molded my Moment of Happiness.

In August, I’m going to London. And I’m also going to Paris. Which is lovely, but my entire being is caught up with one thought:

I’m going to meet Big Ben.

I’m going to see him. I’m going to hear him. And I’m also going to see him from the inside out. I have no idea if I’ll be able to climb all 334 steps to the top…but I’m at least going to be fully surrounded by Big Ben.

I was very lucky to have a super nice guy with the tour group I’ve signed on with. He was absolutely no pressure. I talked to him for three weeks, three weeks of back and forths and maybes and I don’t knows, before I finally emailed him and said, “Call me. Let’s do this thing.”

And of course, as soon as I signed on the dotted line, I immediately slammed both hands over my mouth and shrieked, “What did I just do?”

And then I felt awash in joy and thought, You’ve just put a dream in motion.

Ohmygosh. I’m going to London. (And Paris.) I’m going to meet Big Ben.

I may have to resurrect James from the dead and take him through it, in a new story. Maybe he’ll be a ghost. We’ll see.

But I’m going to see Big Ben. I’m going to hear him. I’m going to reach out, pat him, and say, “James says hello.”

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

(And by the way – when I go, from August 15 – 25, I will switch the blog back to Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News, and post every day. )

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Sleep has always been a challenge for me in adulthood. As a kid, particularly as a teenager, I slept too much. I usually finished my homework in study hall, so once I was home from school, I was up in my room, writing. Then as soon as it fell dark, I would stretch out on my bed and listen to music, usually the Moody Blues, but also Supertramp and Queen and a few others. And then, at around 8:00, I’d go to bed. Until I left home for college at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, I basically slept my adolescence away.

But at college, the night owl in me came out. Whether studying or partying or simply getting engrossed in deep What’s-the-meaning-of-life college-y discussions with others, I was often up until the wee hours. I learned quickly to never schedule a class before 10:00, because I simply wouldn’t make it.

When college was done and I was married and babies started showing up, I was often still awake for middle-of-the-night feedings. As the kids grew older, their bedtime became 8:00, and I would head to my basement office to write until at least midnight. Then I would need to unwind, so I’d watch the Waltons, cry, and finally sleep.

And now? Now I run my own business. Burning the candle at both ends isn’t a thing, because there are no ends. My candle just burns. Since I can’t sleep anyway, I figure I might as well be working, and so I do. Bedtime for me is still typically around 3:00 in the morning. Just like in college, I try not to schedule any clients before 10:00…but this has eked back to 9:00.  So I typically get less than 5 hours of sleep a night.

I’ve been experiencing issues with my memory, which has always been really strong. I can have a student come back to class after a five-year absence, and I can tell them what they were writing and where they left off. But suddenly, I was waking up in the morning and not knowing what day it was. I would know where I was when I was driving, but suddenly not know why I was driving, where I was supposed to be going. It was scary. So I went to see a neurologist.

She put me through a battery of tests. At the very beginning, she said, “I’m going to tell you three words, and I want you to repeat them. Then remember them. I’m going to ask you about them at the end of this visit.” The three words were apple, books, and coat. Then there were all sorts of other things to do. The only thing I couldn’t do was count backwards from 100, by sevens. I flat-out said no. “I am math-deficient,” I said. “Not without a calculator.” Partway through the tests, the neurologist began to laugh. I wondered, but stayed focused on what I was doing.

At the end, she said, “Kathie, in all my years, no one has gone through these tests as quickly and perfectly as you just did. There is nothing wrong with you neurologically. You are not losing your memory.”

And that’s when the discussion of sleep began. By the time I left her office, I’d been told that I am “profoundly” sleep-deprived. I had a solid prescription of no physical activity for several hours before bedtime (do you remember when I was going to the gym at midnight?), no screens before bed, no food before bed, and to try to employ a regular time for going to sleep and waking up. She also left me with a warning.

“You need to get more sleep. It’s life-sustaining. This is not something you play with. This is as serious as getting chemotherapy, as receiving radiation. You. Need. To. Sleep.”

Okiedokie then.

One thing I’ve done for the last several years is meditate before bed. I started by meditating in the recliner in my bedroom, and I found that I was constantly falling asleep, then waking up and having to go to bed. So I began to meditate in bed. But the same thing happened. I’d be on my back, not my usual sleep position, nod off, jar awake, and then remain awake for hours. Sometimes until six or seven in the morning, when I had to get up at 8:20. Sometimes I didn’t sleep at all.

And then I had a brainstorm.

I was meditating on my back. What if I meditated on my side, in the way I typically sleep? I immediately worried over not shutting off my phone. But why? I’d have it on silent, it wouldn’t wake me up. And if it ran out of power, I’d plug it in in the morning.

This was so obvious and so simple, I wanted to smack myself repeatedly on the head.

So, for over a week now, I’ve been doing exactly that. The first night, I fell asleep long before the meditation app ran down. I woke up in the morning, not having gotten up in the middle of the night, not having awakened at all. Granted, it was still five hours of sleep, but it was five SOLID hours of sleep.

I woke up that day and looked right into the face of my cat, Muse, who was sitting on my shoulder. “Oh!” I said. “Hi! Good morning!”

“Mah!” she said back. I think she’s going deaf (she’s 19) and so her meows are very loud and raucous and not meowy at all. But I think she was congratulating me.

I slept! And, except for one night of insomnia during this last week or so, I’ve slept every night. I am working on getting to bed earlier. I am working on rearranging my schedule so I can sleep a little later. I am working on it. Really.

And I am waking up with a smile. Sleep feels so good!

Oh, and by the way…I emailed the neurologist late that night. “You forgot to ask me about the three words,” I said. “Apple, books, coat.”

She emailed back, “Go to SLEEP!”

I did.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

Maybe I will too.

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

So there’s Baby’s First Step. And Baby’s First Word. And Baby’s First Tooth. Oh, and don’t forget Baby’s First Television Appearance.

What?

Yep.

This coming weekend, Olivia and I are the Saturday morning keynotes at the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books, with our poetry chapbook, Olivia In Five, Seven, Five; Autism In Haiku. The book came from an April, which is National Poetry Month and Autism Awareness Month, where I challenged myself to write a poem a day about Olivia and autism. Olivia provided the subject of the book, and she also wrote the final poem, talking about her experience with autism.

Baby’s First Cause. She speaks, beautifully, for the autistic community.

So far, the book has been a real public speaking learning experience for Olivia. In July, at the AllWriters’ Annual Retreat, Olivia read from the book in front of 26 writers, gathered for a 4-day writing immersion experience. She faced a friendly crowd of people who already knew her. In September, Olivia’s college, Mount Mary University, hosted a launch for the book. Olivia read from the book and answered questions from an audience of primarily strangers…though one person stood out. Olivia’s kindergarten teacher showed up. And teared up during the presentation.

Olivia did fine there too, though she choked on one question: “What did you think when you found out your mother was writing a book about you?”

Later, Olivia told me, “I didn’t know what to say. It’s just what you do.”

Which is true. All of my kids are used to me writing about them. That’s why I’ve always had the best-behaved kids.

And then…we were asked to be on television. WTMJ, Milwaukee’s Channel 4, has a great morning talk show called Morning Blend. They wanted us to talk about the book, and to represent the book festival, now in its thirteenth year. Olivia went with me in 2018, when I was on the show for Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News. She sat on the sidelines and watched. But now…she was going to sit on the big yellow couch with the hosts of the show. And she was going to talk.

The girl who, we were told, was never going to talk.

In the weeks leading up to it, I fielded questions lobbed to me, often from Facebook Messenger, while Olivia sat in her dorm room at school and I sat at home.

“What should I wear?”

“Will they see all of me?”

“What if I don’t know what to say?”

“What are you going to wear?”

“Will there be coffee?”

“I’m nervous, Mom. Nervous.”

And then the morning arrived, this past Tuesday. Baby’s First Television Appearance.

We had to leave by 7:45 a.m. Olivia came out of her room wide-eyed, dressed in a great little overall dress and flouncy-sleeved shirt. “Okay?” she said.

“Okay.”

“I’m nervous, Mom. Nervous.”

At the station, we were led back to the waiting area. Olivia sat next to me. She wrung her hands and repeatedly crossed her legs. We watched the show and I told her all that she’d be experiencing. The couch. Being wired for sound. The cameras that are computer-operated and move spookily on their own. How you’re supposed to look at the hosts and not the cameras. Speak slowly (an Olivia challenge – she rattles like a chipmunk) and watch her voice, which tends to reflect that chipmunk by getting squeaky when she gets excited.

All things that I know, because I’m her mom. I’ve known her for her forever.

“I’m nervous, Mom. Nervous.”

When we arrived back in the studio, Olivia took everything in as they ran microphone wires up our clothes and out onto collars. And then, there we were, on the big yellow couch. One of the men on the floor counted down the last five seconds. And we were on!

The host introduced us and the topic of our book. She said, in the introduction, that we were told when Olivia was three years old that she would never speak, and she would look at us like bumps on a log. She listed Olivia’s accomplishments, Dean’s List, inducted into an exclusive national honor society, its members all in the top 5% of their college classes, the finished first draft of a novel. And then she turned to us and asked Olivia, “So, Olivia, what’s the most difficult thing about being autistic?”

And Olivia, nervous Olivia, Olivia who wasn’t supposed to speak, opened her mouth and SPOKE.

She talked of having a silent disability. She talked about being a woman, a word that took me momentarily aback (she’s my baby girl!) with autism, and that mostly, white boys are diagnosed, and so her gender is often ignored, as are people of color with autism. And then she said, and I about melted into the couch with pride and amazement, “People need to look at the autistic, not for what we can’t do, but for what we CAN.”

One of my poems in the book refers to a shirt Olivia wore for a long time. On the front, it said, “I can and I will.” On the back, “Watch me.”

I was watching. I always have. I always will.

Sitting quietly on the big yellow couch, I wondered why I was there. Olivia is the star.

As we left the studio, “I’m nervous, Mom. Nervous,” became, “That was fun!”

Good. Because we’re doing it again. On Saturday morning at 9:00, Olivia and I will be keynotes at the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books. She and I will read from the book, and then we’ll be interviewed on stage by Jim Higgins, the books editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Audience members will have a chance to ask questions too.

Come ask questions. Give me the chance to see my daughter SPEAK again.

Baby’s First Keynote.

This mama is so proud.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

If you’d like to see the video of our appearance, click here:

https://www.tmj4.com/shows/the-morning-blend/southeast-wisconsin-festival-of-books?fbclid=IwAR3UNA1rS6GIc438kkn8K_QiMF2-wiXkVSu8CiTRgD8fWYavTpyQNp553ek

And check out the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books at www.sewibookfest.com!

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

This might be kind of a weird one.

Monday was my first day back into reality, following a two-week trip away to the Oregon coast. I didn’t just step back into my roles, but I dove in immediately over my head, with Monday encompassing six clients, a class, and a book festival meeting, as well as numerous errands.

My 11:00 client canceled at the last minute. My husband was out grocery shopping and I was supposed to pick him up (he doesn’t drive) around noon or so. I decided to just take a quick nap, only for an hour, and then get back to it.

I sank very quickly into a deep, deep sleep. I dreamed I was walking along the Fox Riverwalk here in Waukesha, one of my favorite places. I heard my name called and looked over to see my friend, Kelly Cherry, sitting at a picnic bench. “Hey!” she called. “Come on over! It’s good to see you!”

Now here’s the thing. Kelly passed away on March 18^th of this year.

Kelly Cherry was my first creative writing professor when I came to the University of Wisconsin – Madison in the fall of 1978. Our relationship started in a bad place – she wasn’t happy she had a freshman in her intermediate creative writing workshop, which was for upperclassmen, and I wasn’t happy that she wasn’t happy with me. My high school creative writing teacher emailed the head of the English Department on my behalf, including my work and saying that I could not be in a beginner’s class. The head agreed and plunked me into Kelly’s class. I was the first freshman to ever be there.

Up until that time, I’d pretty much been placed on a pedestal, in regard to writing. I published for the first time at the age of fifteen. I was raved about, lauded, told the world was my oyster, whatever the hell that means, as I’m allergic to oysters. Kelly was the first person to ever shred me. And shred me she did.

Luckily, I’m a pretty stubborn person, and I just kept coming back.

Because of my start with advanced classes, I proceeded more quickly than most through the program. As a result, I ended up taking the intermediate workshop twice, the advanced workshop three times, and doing independent study twice. The second time I had to do independent study, that same head of the department and I sat down to figure out who I could do it with. I’d worked with so many, it was going to have to be a repeat.

“How about Kelly?” he said.

I flinched, but said, “Sure.”

We went out in the hall to find Kelly. He asked her about doing an independent study with me. Kelly flung up both hands, proclaimed, “I’ve done everything I can with her!” and flounced off down the hall.

I did my second independent study with someone else.

So how did she and I end up being friends?

Over the years, I realized I found great value in being pushed by her. She taught me to be tough, to let things roll off my back, if they couldn’t be applied, and to sit quietly and take the criticism if it did. I truly did not understand Kelly’s value in my life until much, much later.

In 2014, I was (and still am) working with the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books. We were looking for a keynote. Kelly had a new book out. I suggested her, she was accepted, and I reached out. She remembered me immediately. She praised me for what I’d done (turns out she’d been following me), accepted the keynote, and we reunited at the festival. We remained fast friends until her death this last March.

I think we most remember the teachers who built us up. But I remember Kelly because she built me up by tearing me down. She made me try harder. She made me prove her wrong. Which was what she was after all along.

So in this dream, I joined her at the picnic table. She reached across and grabbed my hands. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” she said. “Look at you!”

“Look at you!” I said. She looked wonderful.

She smiled. “You need to keep looking,” she said. “You need to see.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know what she meant.

“You know now, don’t you.” When I shook my head again, she said, “It never gets any easier. We wait for it to, but it never does. No matter the publications, no matter the awards, no matter about anything, it’s always hard, and we always think we’re not good enough. Always. We’re rough on ourselves, so we push ourselves to go further, so we can get away from the rough.” She sat back. “Like I did with you. Like I did with myself.”

I felt my eyes fill. My latest novel was turned in to a publisher months ago; it comes out on March 7^th. I didn’t write for months after finishing that book. I honestly thought I was done, and I had no idea how to deal with being done.

“You’re not done,” she said. “Your brain just needed a rest. You know that now.”

In Oregon, I’d sunk fully into a new book. By the time I came home, I was sixty pages into it. The doubts are there, as they’re always there. But I wasn’t done.

I suddenly woke up with a gasp, tears still on my cheeks. I was disoriented, unsure why I was in bed. Then realized my alarm hadn’t gone off – it was 12:30, I was supposed to be getting Michael from grocery shopping.

It was one of those dreams that didn’t let me go for awhile. I felt underwater for the rest of the day.

But I saw Kelly. And she taught me again. The doubts never go away, not even 14 books later. Not even hundreds of short stories and poems and essays later. Not even awards later. But you plow through them anyway.

And I’m not done.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

(And a special note – the 13th annual Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books is coming up on November 4 and 5! We have an absolutely stellar line-up this year, and I’ll be the Saturday morning keynote, along with my daughter, Olivia. Check out the book festival at www.sewibookfest.com!)

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Well, really, the last two weeks have been a moment of happiness. Being in Waldport, Oregon, in a place I love to distraction, has been wonderful. A student emailed me and spoke of the “joyful photographs” I was posting on Facebook and elsewhere. If my joy at being here can come across in photos, then that joy is pretty darn powerful.

I’ve been coming here since 2006. In that time, there were a few years that I didn’t show. 2017, when I was in treatment for breast cancer. 2020, Covid. For two years, I went to different places in Maine, on the exact opposite coast. One year, I won a week-long retreat in Valton (where I fell down the steps in the beginning of September this year, when I won the contest again) and so I combined it with a week in La Crosse, WI, another favorite place.

But I’ve always returned to Waldport, and when I haven’t been here, my thoughts still make the trek. A wall next to my desk in my office at home is devoted to photos from this place. The wall behind me has art pieces incorporating sand dollars given to me by the ocean. Joyful photos. Joyful answers.

Wonderful things have happened here, both this year and in all the years previous. Magical things. Things that can’t be explained. Things that have never happened anywhere else.

There were not so great moments this year too, as there are every year. One happened with a nameless, faceless woman, just a voice on the phone, who wasn’t even here, but who helped connect me, in Oregon, to my daughter Olivia, in Wisconsin.

When I originally planned this trip, back in January, I decided to come in October, instead of my usual June, July or August. My summer was packed this year, and so I thought a trip in October would expand my view of this place, allow me to see it in the fall, a different season than I’d ever been here before. I planned on having Olivia come with me, for at least part of the trip, to celebrate her 22^nd birthday here. Olivia has traveled with me here three times, twice for the entire trip, and her first time, when she was seven, when she joined me here partway through my trip with her father. She loves it here. Since she usually has Fridays off in her school schedule, I thought she could fly in for an extended weekend.

I forgot that this year, her senior year, had an extra to it. She had school and she had work, but she also had her internship. There was no time for her to come. This meant that for the first time in her young life, I would not be there for her birthday.

She was turning twenty-two years old. She’s an adult. This shouldn’t be a big deal. But to me, it was.

The night before her birthday, I was rattled and trying to figure out what I could still do to make her birthday special. I went to a well-known flower site. Olivia never had flowers delivered to her before. Her favorite holiday, maybe because of its proximity to her birthday, is Halloween. I found a lovely flower arrangement of pink roses, her favorite color, that would be delivered in a white ceramic pumpkin. They guaranteed delivery on her birthday. Bam. Perfect. I made the order, but still went to bed in tears.

The next day, Olivia messaged a family chat we have on Facebook. “Did someone send a surprise present?” she asked. “There’s supposed to be a package waiting for me downstairs, at the front desk.”

“I did!” I said.

And then all hell broke loose.

She couldn’t find the package. She was told deliveries weren’t allowed at the front desk (then why have a front desk?), but that packages were brought to the mail room. She checked; it wasn’t there. She checked with public safety; not there. She was told it went to the Welcome Desk, and there, she was told that the delivery person said that it had to be paid for (it didn’t), and when the person at the desk said no, he took the arrangement away.

No flowers. No white ceramic pumpkin. No heartfelt card.

I got on the phone to the flower site. It took a bit, but I managed to get through to a person. By then, I was both in tears and mad as hell. Not a good combination. I explained the whole thing. “Hang on,” the woman said, “hang on. I’ll find out what this is about.”

A few holds later, she came back. “The flower shop we arranged the delivery through isn’t answering its phone,” she said. “My feeling is that someone thought they could get a few extra bucks into their pocket. Don’t worry. I’m sending the arrangement out again, with a different shop, and it will get there, just not today.”

Not on her birthday.

“It’s the first time I’m not there for this,” I said. “I’m not there for her.”

She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Kathie, I’ll make sure she gets them tomorrow. I’ll follow up myself. And as soon as we hang up, I’m going to call your daughter. I’m going to wish her a happy birthday, and I’m going to make sure she knows this is our fault, not yours. And that she has one fantastic mom.”

It was the second time I was called this during this week. Both times by people who weren’t my kids.

The woman on the phone did exactly what she said. The day after her birthday, my daughter had her flowers. “They’re so beautiful!” she said, sending me photos via Facebook.

And they were. So is she.

And so is that nameless, faceless woman on the phone. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I’m currently on the Oregon coast, in the little town of Waldport, for two (and a half) weeks of retreat. The primary purpose is to write, settling into a novel I officially started the first week in September. But there are other purposes too – to catch up on sleep, to read for enjoyment, to maybe paint, and to have some fun.

I’ve been coming to this little town, and to this little house, since 2006. It feels like a second home to me. The travel is getting harder as I get older, and I do worry about being here by myself, more than I used to. During the day, the ocean seems friendly, if vigorous, and the chance of earthquakes and tsunamis seem minimal. I drive over bridges that have been here forever. I walk on a beach where many, many footprints have been left and washed away. Daytimes make this place seem immortal. Night times, I worry that it’s not.

And that I’m not either. A fact that I’ve always known, but which seems to get more real every day.

But even so, I sleep here. And I revel and relax, more than I worry.

Yesterday, I decided to drive into Newport, where there is a SuperWalmart. Waldport has a lovely grocery store, but it’s small, and many of the items I searched for when I arrived on Saturday weren’t there. It’s a gorgeous drive, one I used to make every day, to get to Starbucks. Now, there’s a great little coffee kiosk in Waldport, Espresso 101 (it’s on the coastal highway, Highway 101) and I go through there instead. They make a fabulous macadamia nut latte. And a French toast latte too! But on this day, I went into Newport, and enjoyed the drive the whole way.

On the way out of the store with my bags, I saw it. An original VW Beetle. Bright baby blue. Gorgeous. I thought immediately of my daughter, Olivia. She’s been Beetle-crazy since she was a little kid. There are Beetle posters in her room, both at home and at school. She wears Beetle t-shirts and Beetle jewelry. She owns all of the Herbie The LoveBug movies. When she was first learning to drive, I bought her a beater Beetle, which she loved and called Starlight Lashes. She adorned it with hot pink eyelashes on its headlights. I went online and found an original Beetle flower, which sits in a special vase built in to every old Beetle. The bud vase and flower was discontinued in 2011. Starlight Lashes unfortunately didn’t last very long. She was a mistake. She broke down several times just sitting in the parking garage. I eventually junked her, before Olivia learned to drive.

Later, I bought Olivia another Beetle, this time from a dealership that included a warranty. This one, she named Snowbug. I called her Lil B. In this one, Olivia not only learned to drive, but she took it to college, and the little Beetle drives her faithfully back and forth.

I honestly don’t think Olivia will ever drive another type of car.

So…this old Beetle in the Walmart parking lot. Baby blue. Winking in the sun.

I put my bags down and got out my phone so I could take a picture and send it to Olivia. As I did so, a man came up to stand beside me. “You like it?” he asked. “It’s mine.”

If anyone belonged in this classic Beetle, it was this man. Hair, albeit gray, down to his elbows. A tie-dye t-shirt. Torn jeans. And a great smile.

I told him about Olivia. He told me that he had 3 other old Beetles at home, and he’d just gotten this one running.

“It’s really cool,” I said. Then I went off to my rental car, which it took me a couple tries to find. It looks like so many others in the lot. Not like the standout that is the VW Beetle. Embarrassing to admit, but yes, I hit the unlock button and tried to open the back of a car I thought was mine…and then realized it wasn’t. My car was a couple rows over.

After I loaded up, I was bringing back the cart when I saw the blue Beetle coming toward me. At the wheel, the smiling man. He stopped by me and rolled down his window. “This is for your daughter,” he said. He handed over a small metal sign, pink, of an original Beetle. On it, it said, “Love” and “XOXO”  and “Heartbreaker.”

The Beetle is the original LoveBug, doncha know.

“Thank you,” I said. “She’ll love it!”

He winked at me. “I found it at Goodwill. Knew I’d find a use for it.” He laughed and drove off.

So now I have a special souvenir to bring home to Olivia. And a story.

And the thing is, he could have been angry at me for taking a photo of his car. He wasn’t. He could have stormed off without saying a word. But he didn’t. He not only talked to me, he listened to me when I talked about Olivia. And he didn’t have to go out of his way to find me again, in a completely different row, to give me the little Beetle plaque. But he did.

Sometimes, people are just really nice. And there shouldn’t be a just in that sentence. Sometimes, people are nice. It’s a great thing to be reminded of that.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

So last week Thursday, I had a new author photo taken. For many, including me, this feels like a necessary evil. People like to know what you look like when they read your books. I remember flipping to Wally Lamb’s photo a thousand times as I read She’s Come Undone, because I simply couldn’t believe that a man could write a woman’s point of view so very well. Each time, I nodded at him and said, “Good job,” as if he could hear me. I find myself smiling at a lot of author photos, because they make me feel like I can now picture a new and very good friend.

But photos of me – blech.

I was born with strabismus, which causes my eyes to cross. I had five surgeries to correct it as much as it could be – one at 16 months, 2 when I was 8 years old, and 2 when I was fifteen. The nights before school photos were torture. My mother would sit me on a footstool before her and we’d practice how I should hold my head just so, so that my eyes would look straight. Tilt here, tilt there, turn your chin, and so on. But when I sat down on the school’s stool, the photographer took the photo before I even had a chance to recite the directions to myself. My mother refused to buy my 7^th grade photo. I bought it myself, so I would have record of who I was then.

So photos are not my favorite thing. I was in my early 30s before I could look anyone in the eye.

Body image is also another bugaboo. We talk a good game in this country about not body shaming, yet plus-sized models get slammed for being “unhealthy”, and thin models beam from multitudes of magazines. And don’t even get me started on how we deal with women and their breasts. We talk the talk, but we don’t walk the walk.

For me and my own self-image, I started with the crossed eyes. Don’t look at people, and then they won’t notice your eyes. I remember my father arguing with my mother, who wanted to get me braces. “Just don’t,” he said. “She gets teased enough about her looks already.” My weight has gone up and down so many times, I no longer know where I feel my best. I used to work as a weight loss consultant. At that point, I was a size 6, I worked out at the gym for at least three hours every day, and I had an eating disorder that outweighed my weight. I’ve had four babies, five, if you count the one I miscarried, and I do. And then there’s the breast cancer, which brings me right back to breasts again. My right breast has, with all good intentions, the ultimate one being to keep me alive, been mutilated.

It’s hard, sometimes, to look in the mirror and smile.

A few weeks ago, I bought a lovely soft sweatshirt. It’s blue, and in silver letters, it says, “Strong Women Come In All Shapes”. I saw that shirt in the store, teared up, and bought it.

And so now, we come to last week’s photo shoot.

My photographer, who has been with me for years now, is a lovely man who refuses to let me frown. Or even look brooding. He makes me smile. And when he takes my photo, he makes me feel the way I imagine supermodels must feel. Or the way they should feel, no matter their size.

For this shoot, I really wanted a photo by a weeping willow tree. This photo is for my novel, Hope Always Rises, which comes out on March 7. A willow tree features very strongly, and so does the Fox River. And so Ron and I trudged across the grass in Frame Park in Waukesha, heading to a weeping willow tree I love and always pat when I pass by. It didn’t take long to get the photos.

The next day, Ron sent me the digital image gallery. And I admit, the first thing I thought when I scrolled through them was, Oh, no.

I could hear my mother’s voice. “You should have tilted your head that way! Turned your chin! Look at your eyes!”

I heard my father’s voice. “She gets teased enough about her looks already.”

But mostly, I zeroed in on my breasts. I have a prosthesis, but I rarely wear it. It’s not that it’s uncomfortable. It’s that it’s a reminder. Plus, I honestly thought that the difference in breast size between my left and right really wasn’t all that noticeable.

In these photos, oh, yes, it was.

I sat with these photos for a few days. I showed them to my husband and my daughters. When I said something to my husband about not realizing that one breast is noticeably smaller than the other and why didn’t anyone ever tell me, he didn’t say a word. He just looked away. I didn’t say anything to my daughters. I let them pick out their favorites.

And then, reluctantly, when Ron called me to get my decision, I made up my mind. I actually went with his favorite.

The next day, I wore my “Strong Women Come In All Shapes” sweatshirt. I let it hug me.

Just a short while ago, Ron sent me the finished image. I sighed and opened it.

And you know what? My photo smiled at me. Strong. Confident. And you know what else?

I smiled back.

Because it was me. I shoved aside all the voices and just saw myself. I looked into my own eyes, I looked at my smile, I looked at my body, which, despite many battles, has served me well. I gave a nod to my mind, which fuels all of me, and has served me even better.

I smiled back.

Strong Women Come In All Shapes.

And I’m one of them.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

This week’s moment started with a not-so-great moment. I looked out into what is a writer’s almost worst nightmare.

A practically empty room. (Not a worst nightmare because it wasn’t completely empty.)

One of the most challenging parts of being a writer is having to get out there and speak in front of groups. Due to changes in the publishing industry, writers, the vast majority of whom are introverts, have had to work hard to fashion themselves into extroverts, at least for as long as it takes to get up in front of a group, read from your work, talk about your work, and then return to home or hotel room and sit in the dark for a bit. Gone are the days of J.D. Salinger, where a writer could be, not only an introvert, but a hermit.

Over the years, I’ve fought with my own sense of introversion to get out there and speak, and I’ve gotten myself to a point where I actually enjoy it. I’m terrified right before, but as soon as I step into the room where I am to appear, an alternate personality takes over and I’m comfortable. I’ve been told that when I enter a room, I own it. Trust me, that is an ability that took years to hone.

One of the events I always picture as I’m preparing for an event, and it’s a memory I wish I could purge, is a time early on in my career when I was asked to present at a bookstore in Green Bay. I walked in, owned the room…and absolutely no one showed up. No one even came into the store during the two hours I was there. It was like someone took out a billboard, saying, “Kathie Giorgio is at the bookstore…Don’t Go!” It was just me, the bookstore owner, and her two cats. I returned to my hotel room, devastated. Since then, I’ve presented to groups of many sizes, from a dozen to hundreds. But that image always haunts me…and always dissipates when I face my newest group.

Until last Thursday.

I was set to present my novel, All Told, at a local library. When I arrived, there was only one person – a lovely student who showed up to hear me speak. He and I talked while I set things up, and then we settled down to wait. And we waited. And no one else showed up. Fifteen minutes in, I packed up, thanked my student for showing, and then went home. Devastated.

Facing a fully packed room is a scary thing. Facing a room you thought was going to be fully packed, but has one lone person…abysmal.

But there was an up-side.

Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve read every night to my granddaughter, Maya Mae, who is now nine years old, soon to be ten. We meet on Zoom, and our time is 8:30. On this night, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see her, as the event was supposed to go until 8:30. But instead, there I was, home.

So instead of reading to a filled room, I read to my computer screen, filled with the expectant face of my granddaughter. Who listened to every word.

Now granted, I wasn’t reading from my work. Maya and I recently read, and fell in love with, Katherine Applegate’s book, Crenshaw. It was so good that even Michael made sure he was nearby, so he could hear me read the next installment. On this night, we were starting a new Applegate book, Wishtree. I let Maya’s parents know I was unexpectedly available, and then, whoosh, there she was, grinning at me, on my computer screen.

That smile alone is enough to brighten my day.

We talked about her school day, and then I asked her if she was ready to read the book. She said yes, but then said, “Guess what, Grandma Kathie?”

I miss being Gamma Kaffee, but love anything this little girl will call me. “What?”

“My school library has Crenshaw!”

Her excitement let me know that this book, Crenshaw, is likely to become the book she remembers the most from her childhood. For me, it’s A Candle In Her Room, by Ruth M. Arthur. Maya is in the fourth grade now; I was in the fourth grade when I discovered A Candle In Her Room. I checked it out so many times, the public librarian gave it to me. It sits with all the other books in my classroom.

I’m not a librarian, but I gave Crenshaw to Maya. I remember who I was at that age whenever I look at my copy of A Candle In Her Room. I hope, in the future, Maya remembers herself. And me.

I cracked open the cover of Wishtree and began to read. The book began with an amazing description of a northern red oak tree named Red. Red told us that all red oak trees are named Red.

Maya began to wave her hand like the eager student she is. “There’s a tree like that near my playground at school!” she said.

“Maybe it’s Red,” I said.

She agreed.

When we finished our chapter, she sat back and sighed. “This is going to be a good book,” she said.

Looking at that bright face, eyes filled with visions of oak trees named Red, a cat named Crenshaw, and sassy little girls named Junie B. Jones, Ramona Quimby, and Gooney Bird Greene, I sighed with her, filled with satisfaction myself. It was going to be a good book.

And I have a granddaughter, a sassy little girl named (Grandbaby) Maya Mae, who is going to be a reader. She already is.

It almost made up for the nearly empty room at the library. Almost. It surely helped.

Thank you, Tony, for showing up on that night.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Several members of my family work in customer service. My husband, one of my sons, one of my daughters, and my daughter-in-law all deal directly with people and have been trained to smile cheerfully and respond politely to whatever is thrown their way. The stories of what is thrown their way often leaves me with a dropped jaw and a sense of horror.

I was equally amazed during the early times of Covid, when everyone who could hunkered down at home. Most who worked customer service jobs could not work from home – they had to be where the items were that people continued to need, pandemic or not.

And pandemic or not, I think customer service people are heroes.

I had an experience this week with a customer service worker that left me comforted, laughing, and happy.

Over the weekend, I had to return a package to Amazon. At least here, Kohls department stores serve as a place to hand over returns to Amazon. So I went, but of course, I couldn’t just leave the store without poking around. That’s just not physically possible, especially since they put the booth for Amazon returns at the far back corner and you have to walk through the entire store to get to it. Smart. I found a style of leggings that I just loved, and on sale, which is my call to action. All of the colors weren’t available at the store, so when I went home, I hopped online to kohls.com. There were the leggings and there were the colors the brick and mortar store didn’t have…and for a dollar less! Ohmygod, I heard the trumpet call! I made my purchase and signed off.

The next day, I received an email that said my items shipped. Fast! But as I scrolled through the email, I found that my leggings were shipped to an Audrey Thomas in Michigan. What? As fast as that trumpet call sounded the day before, it now turned into a wailing siren. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Was I hacked? Was this Audrey even now charging up my Kohls account to its max? I ran, if you can run to a website, to kohls.com and swiftly changed my password. Then I started scouring the account to see how I could stop the shipment…and there didn’t seem any way to do that.

Bear in mind this is around midnight on Monday. And it was a Monday that had been very, very, very long.

I was surprised to see the little icon for being able to talk to someone at Kohls via text. Expecting it to say that the system was closed for the night, I clicked it. And I was connected to someone named Anna. She greeted me as cheerfully as text can greet. I explained my problem and she set about seeing if there was any way to stop the delivery in Michigan. As she left me on pause to do that, my husband Michael wandered by. I explained what was happening.

“Wait,” he said. “Don’t you have a grand-niece named Audrey Thomas who lives in Michigan?”

Oh. My. God. I do. She is soon to be ten years old. She’s a very sweet munchkin.

When Anna came back, she explained that the last time I used kohls.com for an order, I sent a package to Audrey Thomas in Michigan. This was when Audrey was two years old, and was experiencing the joy of receiving not one brother, but two. Little baby twins. I sent the boys a package from another store, and then bought Audrey something special too, from Kohls, so she would also have something to open, just for her.

Eight years ago. I hadn’t ordered anything else from Kohls in eight years.

“Ohmygod,” I typed to Anna. “Can you stop stopping the delivery? I just realized that Audrey is my grand-niece. She lives in Michigan. Can the delivery still happen and I’ll just ask my nephew and niece-in-law to send it on to me?”

She answered, “LOL! And sure!”

“I’m so, so sorry,” I said. “I am so embarrassed!” And truly, though she couldn’t see it, my face was as red as could be, and tears were welling in my eyes.

“It’s okay!” she typed. “With all that’s happening in the world today, it’s easy to get lost in all the details. You’re fine! It’s all taken care of. And,” she added, “you gave us both a good laugh.”

I did. And I’m sure I gave my nephew and niece-in-law a good laugh too. Good grief.

“I’ll take care of it,” Anna said. Those are the sweetest five words ever spoken.

“Thank you,” I said. I wished we were in person, so she could see that gratitude on my face and hear it in my voice. But black and white texting would have to do.

“You’re more than welcome,” she said. “We had fun tonight! Thank you right back!”

And we signed off.

That extra warmth from a faceless, voiceless woman named Anna from who knows where allowed me to go to bed that night with a sigh of contentment. All the sirens were quieted. Everything was well. She could have handled it with just flat text, with no personality whatsoever. But she didn’t. She reached out with her words and provided comfort.

Thank you, Anna, wherever you are.

And Audrey, your great aunt Kathie did not forget you. I thought it was an incredibly odd coincidence that whoever this person was had my grand-niece’s name. I just never connected you with ordering grown-up leggings from Kohls, especially at a time of night when you were likely sound asleep.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.