Category: General

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

By the time this is posted, I will be on a road trip to Winona, Minnesota, to teach at a special event in Fountain City, Wisconsin. This is joyful in two different ways: first, a road trip! Second, teaching “live” at a special event! Neither of these things were possible during the COVID year. And now…well, here we go.

AllWriters’ on-site classes returned to “live” several weeks ago, so I’ve already actually been in the same room with some of my students, rather than looking at their Brady Bunch faces on my computer screen. But this is an event, a place I was asked to come and present, and I’ll be meeting people I’ve never met before. I’ll be speaking out loud, hearing my students’ responses, watching their faces, and just…TEACHING. Reaching out. And some of it will be outside! Walking a labyrinth! And I get to stay in a hotel! And a couple of my AllWriters’ students are coming and I haven’t seen them in forever! And…and…and…!!!

Needless to say, I’m excited.

As we all worked our way through the pandemic, many of us were filled with fear. Afraid that our families would fall ill, that we’d lose loved ones, that we would get sick ourselves, that our loved ones would lose us. For small business owners, there was an additional fear. Losing the business.

When I started my own business 16 years ago, I didn’t realize how much of a living, breathing personhood that business would become. For those with small businesses, these are more than walls and products and whatever else comes with it. The business, just like a writer’s characters in a novel, becomes real. The business isn’t a job. It’s family.

Last week, I was interviewed as a writer on the New York Parrot Literary Corner YouTube show. When I was asked about my studio, about AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop, I heard myself say, “That place is my heart.”

My heart.

AllWriters’ offers classes, workshops, coaching and editing on-site and online, so the move to putting everything online during the pandemic wasn’t difficult, at least intellectually. Emotionally, it was so hard. My very first on-site workshop that instead appeared on my computer screen in a Zoom format was my Wednesday Afternoon Women Writers’ Workshop. Many of these women have known each other and me for years. We went a couple weeks without meeting while I figured out Zoom and, in turn, taught it to them. But our first day online, in the midst of that early fear and early isolation, I watched everyone’s face as they popped onto my screen. I saw that moment that they realized they could see each other, hear each other, in a different way, of course, but there we were. The joy. The relief. I could have wept, and when the class was over that day, I did.

Throughout the COVID year and into 2021, I worried. I often stood in the middle of my empty and dark classroom and I felt its sadness as well as mine. As more and more businesses staggered and went under, I worried more. There was some help – Wisconsin’s Governor Evers offered small businesses a “We’re All In” grant, which AllWriters’ received. And I applied for and received an SBA Disaster Relief Loan. Those gave me some moments of uplift, but still, I worried.

This place is my heart. And my heart was oh so scared.

One of my coaching clients used to own and run a small business. In writing about this experience, she said, “Small business people often have nothing to rely on except their intuition, their fierce commitment, and their refusal to allow themselves to openly doubt that what they are doing will somehow work out. They stubbornly in the teeth of crises use all their skills to reassure others when they are secretly fearful and wondering if they should just end it all.  In the face of possible disaster, we still forge ahead and follow the path we think is best without any concrete factual reason why. A person who hasn’t run a small business could never understand how there are stretches of time – days, weeks, months, years – when all one can do is get from morning to night.  When life is marked by mailing invoices, depositing payments, covering payroll and making sure the electricity is still on. Sometimes the way ahead turns into a ditch full of mud and shit where every step is a slog. An inch of progress is counteracted by two of failure.  If movement stops, sometimes it’s impossible to start again. In fear and dread, I followed through, and kept on going.”

Amen. I’ve done this for 16 years. And in the COVID year, my steps were the sloggiest ever and I experienced fear and grief like I’d never known.

But you know what?

I’m still here. AllWriters’ is still here.

My gratitude and my joy are an aura around me that I just can’t hold in.

This place is my heart.

The life I chose, as a writer, as a writing instructor, as an advocate for writers, as a business owner, is my heart.

I am so happy to be here.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

You know, this whole end-of-pandemic or fading-of-pandemic time has been on the odd side. I’ve had moments of anxiety, moments of sheer joy, moments of disbelief. I was thinking back over my almost 61 years, and I guess I can’t remember any other time of extended fear and worry like we’ve all just lived through, and so at least in my experience, this is also the first time of recovery.

Going out again. Eating in restaurants. Seeing movies. We’re planning on going to the Van Gogh immersion experience in July, and I’ll be traveling to Oregon in July too. Getting on a plane. Next weekend, I’m teaching my first live and public event in over a year. It’s really strange how odd normal feels. And I suppose that’s because normal isn’t quite the same either.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how on a Saturday, Michael, Olivia and I really immersed ourselves into our new freedom. Michael and I ate lunch IN a McDonalds, went INTO a grocery store, went home and grabbed Olivia and went TO a mall, then out to dinner IN an Applebees. By then, I was so giddy, I didn’t want to go home, so we went TO a movie theater and sat INSIDE of it. In the mall, I even dared to take off my mask. It felt so…risqué. And amazing!

From there, I’ve watched as, one by one, the on-site classes and coaching clients are returning to AllWriters’. Instead of looking at my local students Brady-Bunch-style on Zoom, they’re sitting around me. They’re smiling and laughing and talking, and their faces aren’t freezing and their voices aren’t suddenly turning robotic. The view behind them is the same as my own, not a manufactured pastoral scene. They’re REAL!

Smiles. I am seeing so many smiles. I’m feeling smiles on my own face.

But I think the best so far happened just this Saturday. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been reading to my granddaughter, Grandbaby Maya Mae, over Zoom. She lives less than two miles from me, and not being able to see her was oh so hard. Since things have gotten better, I have seen her several times. She was here for Mother’s Day. I took her to the movies as soon as I hit two weeks post-second vaccine. And on this particular Saturday, we had a date to go to the movies again. It was just the two of us.

Popcorn. Soda. Sitting side by side in the red leather reclining seats at the theater. The big screen. Maya and Me.

Partway through the movie, I glanced over at her, and it turned out she was just glancing at me. As our eyes met, she smiled. And it was just the best smile ever. It was a Grandma, I’ve Missed You So Much smile. It was an Aren’t We Having Fun? smile. It was a This Moment Is Just Perfect smile.

And I beamed back.

You know those moments where it just seems like all the cogs fall into place? The past falls away, the future doesn’t matter, it’s just now and now is wonderful. That was one of those moments. I felt the pandemic and all its trappings fall off my shoulders.

What followed was a great discussion of the movie. Maya always has the best observations. And you know what? I’m still reading to her at night too. We’re going through all the Beverly Cleary books that I enjoyed as a kid, and so did Maya’s aunts and uncles and her father. Maya is laughing at all the same parts the 8-year old me laughed, and my kids laughed too. Connections across the generations, through books and through writers.

Oh, man. What a hard time it’s been. And how happy I am to be here now. There is a new caution to my step. But there is great joy at fresh air on my face.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

I’ve been feeling old lately. And I’ve been feeling old in the middle of a bizarre heat wave, and our air conditioner has broken down, and the fix-it guy won’t be here until Monday. I’ve been feeling old in a bizarre heat wave in an air condition-less house while I’m still taking cancer medication that throws me into hot flash after hot flash.

Yeah. It’s been that kind of week.

I’m not sure where the “old” is coming from. Maybe from knowing that next month, a 1 will be added after the 6 in my age, which means I’ll be over sixty instead of just sixty. Maybe it’s because my list of people I know who have died is growing faster than the list of new people I meet. Maybe it’s because my news feed is full of a variety of replacements, hips, shoulders, knees, heart valves, than it is with exciting new experiences. Maybe it’s because my youngest will soon turn 21 and my grandbaby is going in to the third grade. Lordy.

So I was in the middle of feeling old and hot and grumpy this week when I found myself home alone. Both Michael and Livvy were off to work. It was just me and the dog and the cats. I came upstairs to get some work done, and as I approached my desk, I passed the floor-standing fan I have placed in the middle of my workspace, so I can sit and work in a steady breeze in the middle of this new Wisconsin desert. I sat down, turned on the little desk fan I also have sitting to the side of me, breathed a dragon sigh, and opened a student manuscript.

Then I looked up at the floor-standing fan again, its white grill looking full-face at me from just over my computer screen.

And I remembered something.

I was twelve years old before I lived in a house with air conditioning. Before then, on hot days, I would disappear down into the basement, or I’d hop on my bike and go to a swimming hole. I’d sit under a tree and read or run through a sprinkler in the back yard, or better yet, I’d dance in a sudden cloudburst. Or I’d sit directly in front of a box fan.

When we moved to the house with the air conditioning (it was my arrival in Wisconsin), it was treated as a rare and treasured commodity. It had to be scorching hot to be flipped on. My father would run around the house, shutting windows, and my mother would chase after him, closing all the curtains. Our house became a cool nighttime dark in the middle of blazing sun day. We didn’t turn lights on, because they added heat and made the precious air conditioning work harder. I would usually sit in my dark room for a while, struggling to read in the limited light, but then I’d get up and go back outside into the heat. I’d ride my bike, enjoying the breeze that kicked up. We lived near Lake Kegonsa, and I’d go swimming off the boat landing or sneak behind the clubhouse at the country club to jump off their private dock into the water. Sometimes I’d go to a friend’s house that also had air conditioning, but it wasn’t treated as such a prized commodity. The curtains stayed open and I could still see. Or I’d go to a friend’s house that didn’t have air conditioning and I would sit…in front of a box fan.

Pre-air conditioning or post, alone or with company, I did something else when I was in front of a box fan.

I sang.

Remember that? Remember the fan distorting your voice into an insect buzz? It made you laugh, it made those around you laugh if you weren’t alone, and laughing always made you feel better. It was like an internal air conditioner. About the only thing funnier was breathing in helium and turning into a Martian.

Oooo. That’s a thought. What would it be like to breathe in helium and then sing into a fan? Must remember that for later.

So I was home alone. Hot and grumpy. With a fan grinning right at me and reminding me of my past, now that I’ve reached this oh-so-old age.

I closed the lid of my laptop and walked around my desk to face the fan. It wasn’t a box fan, which is probably good, as I don’t know if I could have gotten back up if I sank to a sit on the floor. But I had to bend a little to get myself nose to nose, if you will, with the fan.

And then I sang. Old songs, that I could remember belting into other fan blades when I was a kid.

Rubber Duckie

Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head

Gentle On My Mind

American Pie (American Pie!)

You’re So Vain

Bohemian Rhapsody

That last song was particularly hysterical with my bug-buzzy voice. When I got to the “Galileo” part, I laughed so hard, I had to grab on to the bookshelf next to me to remain standing. And I discovered that while my home’s air conditioner might be broken, my internal air conditioner was still intact. A little rusty from lack of use, maybe, but laughing lubricated it right up. I laughed with tears streaming down my face, and the fan hit them and gave me a shiver (with every paper I’d deliver…).

Of course, I couldn’t hold that bent-over posture for long. My back, donchaknow. And my knees.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on student manuscripts, but taking a moment every now and then to smile at my hew friend, the floor-standing fan.

And maybe, I thought, maybe I will get a box fan. And set it up on a table by my bed, so I can lay down on my stomach and sing into it without a care about getting back up.

(But there’s one thing I know, the blues they send to meet me won’t defeat me. It won’t be long til happiness steps up to greet me!)

Remember?

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

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

It’s really interesting, sitting down to write my Moment, when the current day, today, makes the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day look like a romp with unicorns and rainbows. The blog was supposed to be posted by 3:00. It is now 7:47, and this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write this.

And this is my day off this week!

As a run-down:

I had my alarm set. But when I opened my eyes, my clock said it was 1:27 in the afternoon. I had a meeting set for 1:00 and another for 2:00, so I spent about twenty minutes running around, alternately screaming and swearing, sometimes both at the same time, until I happened to notice my cell phone’s clock. And then my computer’s clock. Which both said it was 11:25 in the morning.

Our power had gone out while I was sleeping. My alarm clock resets itself to midnight when the power goes out for more than a minute.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I made my 1:00 meeting (on my day off) and my 2:00 meeting (on my day off) and then got Ursula, my dog, into the car for her 3:30 vet appointment (on my day off) to trim her toenails and recheck the toe she seemed to hurt last April. Had to wait in the car because they’re still not letting owners in the clinic because of COVID. Then the vet calls me. Turns out Ursula didn’t have an injured toe. She has some kind of autoimmune disease called Lupoid Onychodystrophy, which I can’t even pronounce. It makes her toenails grow in weird, become brittle, misshapen, possibly crack or fall off, and it makes the dog’s feet hurt. She came home with a regimen of pills she has to take for the rest of her life, and possibly a procedure in three weeks where she will be sedated and her nails that are about to fall off will be removed.

WHAT?

I took her immediately to Starbucks and got her her very first “pupcup”, a free little cup of puppy latte – whipped cream. It seemed to make her feel better. Not so much me.

So I am more than a little bit crabby. More than a little bit dismayed. More than a little bit full of shrieks that sound like, “My dog has WHAT?”

But…today is Thursday. And it’s when I write my Moment of Happiness. Which made me think back over my week and remember:

• the amazing joy of Saturday when Michael and I ate INSIDE a McDonalds, went INSIDE a grocery store, picked up Olivia and went to a MALL (what the heck is a mall?), went out to dinner and ate INSIDE an Applebee’s (and had a vat of sangria), then went to a late movie INSIDE a movie theatre. In the mall, I even took my mask off (I’m vaccinated). Ohmygod, how normal.
• reading Ramona The Brave to my granddaughter and getting to a point where Ramona is so angry, she announces to her family that she’s going to say a bad word, and then she yells, “GUTS! GUTS!” and hearing my granddaughter dissolve into giggles over a book I read when I was in elementary school. And I giggled with her.
• seeing a student dissolve into happy tears when she realized she accomplished what she set out to do: write a book based on a family story, finish it, prepare it for submitting to publishers…and the only step left is to hit the “send” button.
• hearing another student say, “You are exactly what I need.”
• hearing an editor who accepted one of my short stories say, “I was going to send you the edited version for your approval, but your story didn’t require any edits. What the heck!”
• And just a couple hours ago, seeing my dog, who sat in the front passenger seat of my car, looking (forgive me) hangdog, and then suddenly perk up when I offered her a simple pupcup. Ears up, tail wagging, tongue going slup-slup-slup, and then licking my cheek in a way that made me think she was repeating what my student said: “You are exactly what I need.”
• And let’s not forget my hibiscus.

So my moment of happiness? That I write this blog, which forces me to look for happiness, even on the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad of days. And not only look for it, but find it. And that I have readers of this blog, because otherwise, I might be tempted on some days to just run screaming to my bed, pull the covers up and over, and not come out til the morning (on my day off).

Thank you.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

It’s not a secret that I am scared of birds. I don’t even think the word “scared” is appropriate here. “Terrified” is much more accurate. Last summer, I believe the terror crossed over into the phobia department when I was attacked three times by red-winged blackbirds during different walks. Two occurred on Waukesha’s lovely Fox Riverwalk. I’ve only been back once since then, and my fear and constant scanning of the immediate area for those telltale red-striped wings ruined the experience. The worst one happened after I switched to walking on city streets, thinking that would keep the birds away. A red-wing on a street sign saw me and plunged itself into the back of my head repeatedly. I ran and tripped and ended up face down on the pavement with my arms over my head as the bird swooped and pecked. It was my nightmare come to life.

Last Saturday, while working on summerizing our third floor deck, I let my cat Edgar come out with me. Edgar is not a worry on the deck. At 18 pounds, he is too big to fit through the railings. He also has extra toes, extra kinks in his tail, a too small head for the rest of his body, and a distinct problem with balance, so he never jumps on anything. Our vet calls him a genetic anomaly. We call him sweet. Instead of being cat-like, he is a very special cross between a dog and a bowling ball. He is round, heavy, comes when he calls, and is very gifted at the plaintive silent meow. When he does make noise, he sounds like a raptor from Jurassic Park.

So Edgar and I stepped out, I checked on my hibiscus, and then I turned to go back inside. And there was a bird on my table. A black and gray fuzzy-ish bird. A bird that, granted, looked more like a baby than an adult. A bird that opened its pointy little beak and made a sound very similar to Edgar’s.

A BIRD.

I trace my fear of birds back to two distinct events. The first was watching Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds, at the tender age of eight. When that red-wing chased me flat-faced on the pavement, I became that little boy being attacked by a seagull. The other event was before I was afraid, when I carefully carried home a dead bird so I could have a funeral and bury it. My mother smacked that poor bird out of my hands, sending it on its last flight, then she pulled me down to the laundry tubs and scrubbed my hands for what seemed like forever in very hot water and strong soap. All the while, she told me how birds are full of diseases and bugs, crawling with maggots, and that I would be very lucky to not become horribly ill from touching the bird.

And now a BIRD was on my TABLE and it was only about a foot away.

I ran into my house and slammed the screen door shut. The bird lowered himself to his tummy. He seemed prepared to stay awhile.

And then Edgar, bowling ball-dog Edgar, became a cat. He stalked, his eyes zeroed in, his pupils widened to the size of marbles.

“No, Edgar!” I yelled. “Leave the bird alone! Come here!”

And Edgar ignored me. Like a cat.

I didn’t want the little bird to be hurt. But I didn’t want to go near it either. I yelled for Olivia, and I asked her to get Edgar to come in. Like me, she stood in the doorway and yelled. “Go get him!” I said.

“Mom!” she said. “I’m scared of birds too!”

Oh, no.

Edgar was now at the bench behind the bird. One ungainly, un-Edgar-like leap, and he would be within reach. I ran out and grabbed him, yelling the whole way. The bird, in a weird flutter-flappy fly, managed to get from the table to our outdoor light, next to the deck door. Livvy ran screaming into the house. I bowled Edgar inside too, slammed the door, then stood at the window and looked at the bird, who looked back at me.

“Hi,” I said.

It squawked.

I began a series of phone calls. To the humane society, to a bird rescue that turned out to rescue only domestic birds, to a wildlife rescue. I was on my way to the grocery store when a very nice woman at the wildlife rescue called me back. I texted her a photo and she said it was a fledgling grackle. She said it likely had just left the nest, got caught in an updraft and carried to my deck, and now it was trying to figure out what to do. “It’ll be gone, later today, I bet,” she said. “No more than a few days.”

By the time I got home, the bird was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief, that it was gone, and…that it was okay.

Which led me to my moment of happiness. I don’t like birds. But I don’t want them hurt or dead either.

Once, years ago, I got into an argument with my father. He yelled, “The problem with you is that you believe there is good in everybody!”

And that was true. Even when I write my novels, and I’ve written some pretty difficult characters, I try to write a separate short story in the “bad guy’s” point of view, to better understand, and to find something that is redeeming, that is human. When I wrote Rise From The River, I stepped aside to write a short story from a rapist’s pov. Hardest thing I ever did.

But I did it.

In the last few years, with all the divisiveness going on, from race to guns to masks to presidents, I’ve wondered if I lost that need to find good. If I was starting to hate too. To condemn. To judge. To see life only through my glasses, whatever color they are, and no one else’s.

But now, there was this bird. Who scared the holy hell out of me. And who I wanted to live and be okay.

Someone said to me last week, “You always want to see the good in everyone. That’s amazing.”

Amazing. Not a problem at all. And yes, I even extend it to birds. Just don’t make me touch one.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

It feels like I got a promotion. Not at work; I own my own business and I’m the person who hands out promotions, and I’m very hard on my employee, who is me. But the promotion is in my cancer afterlife.

On June 27^th, it will be four years since my breast cancer diagnosis. On July 25^th, four years since my partial mastectomy. On September 25^th, four years since my last day of radiation. On September 27^th, three years since the infection that showed up in the surgical site a year and two months post-surgery, that nearly put me in the ICU and caused my right breast to collapse on one side.

Do I remember these dates? Yes. They seem to be forever burned into my memory.

When cancer is presented on television series or in movies, we often see the cancer patient sit down at the “end” of her ordeal, and her doctor says, “You’re cancer-free!” There is much cheering and happy dancing, and then the patient, no longer a patient, skips out of the cancer center and on to a new bright life that has nothing to do with cancer whatsoever.

Well, in reality, it’s not quite that way.

Yes, I am cancer-free, at least as of my last MRI last February. Four years strong. But the thing is, every cancer patient lives with a regimen of reminders. Doctor’s appointments. Tests. Procedures. The cancer is gone, but we need to make sure it stays gone.

The first year of recovery, this meant visits every three months with my radiation oncologist, my medication oncologist, and my surgeon. I loved my team, though I was horrified at needing a team. I was told many times I had a dream team, and I agree with that. At the end of the first year, I said goodbye to my radiation oncologist and I was down to two. I looked forward to the eventual stepping away of the surgeon, and then the medical oncologist, somewhere in my future.

But the infection brought things to a halt. One night, I felt like I had the flu. In the morning, I got up, stripped to get in the shower, and discovered my breast was as red as a tomato. Off to the clinic, and then to the ER. Massive infection. I had to pass two out of three tests to stay out of the ICU. The first one, I passed. The second one, I flunked. The third one…took forty-five minutes, but I passed. I was put on massive antibiotics and my surgeon called and told me to go to the mammogram department at the Cancer Center. There, an ultrasound determined the infection was in my surgical site. The radiologist inserted a syringe into that site and withdrew the fluid, and my breast promptly collapsed on one side. You know how balloon animals can sometimes lose their inflation in one part, but not the other? That’s what my breast is like. Then a drain was inserted and I had to live with that for several weeks. It lived a lot in cupholders. In my car, in my recliner. Around the house, I tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans.

An infection specialist decided that when I went for a mammogram a couple weeks earlier, the particular picture that focused on the surgical site clamped down too hard and I was injured, causing internal bleeding in the surgical site, which then led to the infection. I remember that this was the only time I cried at a mammogram. I was up on my toes and sobbing with the pain.

Eventually, after being on antibiotics for about three months, they were stopped, the drain was gone, and I was left with a collapsed breast. It has never re-inflated, so to speak.

But because of that, I didn’t continue down the shrinking path of doctor’s appointments. I saw both my surgeon and my medical oncologist every three months, alternating. I also alternate mammograms and MRIs every three months, because of the scar tissue built up from the infection and subsequent collapse.

So when my reminder came up that I had an appointment with the surgeon in early August, I sighed. Again? And again and again and again?

And then I thought, Why am I still seeing the surgeon? It’s been four years since surgery, three years since the infection. I’m fine. I have no intention of having reconstructive surgery. So…why?

I gathered my courage and called her. It’s a hard thing to challenge a doctor, especially one that was part of a team that saved your life. But as we talked, she said, “You know what? If the medical oncologist is willing to oversee your mammograms and MRIs and future decisions regarding those, you can just see him. That’s not a problem.”

So I asked my medical oncologist. And he said yes.

And just like that, I went from three doctors, to two doctors, to one. Just like that, I went from seeing doctors every three months to every six. I will still have the alternating mammograms and MRIs, at least until February when I sit down with the medical oncologist and discuss this. My next mammogram is in August. I’m still on the oral chemotherapy and will be for at least another year.

But…movement. Movement that I haven’t seen since my radiation oncologist stepped away three years ago.

I hung up the phone and whooped. I’ve been promoted! I’m not quite so cancery as I was.

Trust me, that’s a reason for joy.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

I’m discovering it’s very, very hard to find a moment of happiness in a week that was very quickly dunked into sadness and grief. On Monday morning, I was told that a young student was in ICU and not expected to make it. On Tuesday morning, she died.

She was 34 years old. She would have been 35 in July, a few days before I turn 61.

I met Carla long before she became my student, but we both knew, on the day we met, that our paths were going to converge in that teacher/student way. Carla was a friend of my daughter Katie’s, living just down the hall from her in a dorm at UW-Madison. Before I met her, I heard of her, through my daughter. Carla had cystic fibrosis, had known about it her entire life, knew almost from the moment of her first breath that her time was limited. Yet she plowed ahead in the most amazing manner, accomplishing things she wanted to accomplish, reaching for goals, attaining them, and relishing every breath she took. The day I met her was on a step away from a goal – she was leaving the university. Her CF made it impossible for her to keep up, though she tried and tried and tried.

She knew I was starting a business, a creative writing studio. She called me in to her room because she had a kid’s table, that she used for doing crafts, that she thought might be perfect for the studio. Its legs looked like sharpened pencils, complete with erasers. At the time, the studio had a storefront, and I ended up using that table as part of my display during our entire time there.

I sat on Carla’s bed and we talked. At the end of our conversation, I said, “You have to write a book.”

She looked directly at me and said, “I do. And it has to be with your help.”

And so a new goal was created.

This was likely in late 2004 or early 2005. We stayed in contact, but Carla didn’t begin working on the book until July of 2018, 8 months after going through a double-lung transplant. It had been a rough road, but she was feeling good and she was ready. We began to work.

And then she was handed a diagnosis of thyroid cancer. It was another rough road, with complications and unexpected developments.

And then, a couple weeks ago, she went into the ER for a dangerously low blood sugar. She was also diabetic. From being hospitalized, and expecting to be released, she slid into unconsciousness last Thursday, with her liver and kidneys failing, and was transferred to ICU. Then Monday. Then Tuesday.

I have always cringed when people cry, “This is so unfair!” But when she developed thyroid cancer, that’s what I wanted to yell. And now I want to yell again, but something further. This is more than unfair. This is cruel. And I don’t know who is dealing out the cruelty. Fate? The Universe? God? I don’t know. I just know this is cruel. To Carla, and to those of us who knew her. And who love her still.

So where is my moment of happiness?

On Monday, soon after I was told what was happening, my husband texted me a picture from work. “Coming off the truck,” he said, and it was a photo of hibiscus trees.

Last summer was Hibiscus Summer for me. A hibiscus tree, whose branch reached out and grabbed me by the pants leg in the grocery store during our first pandemic spring, helped me through a pandemic summer. The blooms were constant and incredible. I took photo after photo. Carla and I spent a lot of time, talking about the hibiscus and ways to get through the isolation of the pandemic. Every photo that I posted on Facebook, she exclaimed over. I think that little tree kept us both going.

In the fall, I brought the little tree indoors too late. The shock of coming in from a cool-to-cold outdoors to a warm house was too much, and the leaves turned yellow, dropped off, and the little tree died. Both Carla and I grieved.

So on this last Monday, I went to my husband’s work to look at the hibiscus. As I walked down the aisle, I thought of Carla and I teared up. “Help me pick one out, Carla,” I whispered. These new hibiscus were a different color than last year’s, the one I loved so. As I circled the group, a branch reached out and grabbed me by the leg. I looked at the buds and saw they were the color, the right color, the color we both so admired. It was the only tree there with that color flower.

So that hibiscus came home. And on Tuesday morning, Carla died.

It was too cold to put the little tree outside, so it stayed in my office, in front of my desk. Late last night, as I started closing down, I walked by the tree and noticed one of the buds was starting to bloom. This pretty little flower was opening up. I grabbed my phone and took several pictures.

And then, all by itself, the bloom fell off. And I cried out.

A young and beautiful flower, lost before full bloom.

Well, I live my life in metaphor, donchaknow.

I picked up the little flower and said, “Hi, Carla.” And then I cried in a way I hadn’t been able to yet.

The tree is now named Carla. And I think she will get me through another summer.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Last Friday, I was midway through a phone appointment with a client when I saw an email cross my desk. The header said, “Wavecatcher Happy Dance”, and if I could slam my foot onto the brakes while sitting at my desk, I would have done so.

“Hang on,” I said to my client, “a video just showed up in my email. I have to look at it.” All I had to say in explanation beyond that was that it was from the women who own the little house in Oregon where I go on retreat. My client knew me well enough to understand.

Have you ever found a place that is Home, Home with a capital H, even though you’ve never lived there? A place that didn’t find its way to your heart, but was already there, and you just didn’t realize it until the first time you walked in, and when you walked in, it was like every part of you and every part outside of you suddenly slid into place and you were where you belonged?

I have.

In 2008, I went to Waldport, Oregon, for the first time. I nearly fell over with that sense of recognition, and from that point on, I visited almost every summer. There were a couple summers where I went to Maine instead, once because a student graciously sent me on retreat, and the other time, because I found just a lovely place I couldn’t refuse the chance to visit. One summer, I won a weeklong retreat here in Wisconsin, and so I combined that with a weeklong stay at a lakeside cottage (the one that nearly killed me last April). And once, I had a summer of breast cancer treatments and wasn’t healthy enough to travel. Last summer, of course, was COVID. I was supposed to go to the little house and celebrate my 60^th birthday there. Instead, I stayed home, had an in-home retreat on my own deck, and grieved.

The owners, Jesse and Mer, grieved with me. I immediately set up dates for 2021 and set my sights on the future. And so I will be in Oregon for my 61^st birthday.

But along the way, while waiting for the time to pass, for COVID to pass, for life to return to a new normal, other bad things were happening.

The Oregon coast suffered through a bad winter. With ocean levels rising and storms increasing in strength and frequency, the dune right outside the little house was battered. 10 feet of back yard was washed away. The stairway that led from the house to the beach was destroyed. When Jesse and Mer called me, they told me there was now no longer a way to get from the house directly to the beach. The plan was to encase the dune in riprap, but that wouldn’t be done before I arrived. New stairs would be built after the riprap was put in place. “You can walk a couple hundred feet down the coastal highway,” they said. “There’s a way down there, to get to the beach.”

Sure, I could. But so much of the magic of this place was in being able to open the sliding glass door, walking out and down, and greeting the ocean, who greeted me right back. Standing on that deck, looking at the ocean, and not being able to reach her, just would have felt…so wrong.

Many things have happened to me at that little house. Wonderful things. Unexplainable things. And they all happened because I was able to open that door and walk out. There was the huge pelican who literally fell from the sky, landing with a thud less than two feet in front of me. Because of my proximity to the house, I was able to stay with him for the day, running into the house as I needed things, but coming right back before curious children poked the great bird with sticks or tossed stones at him. I stayed with him, talking to him, trying to reach help at the aquarium in Newport or with animal rescue, until dark and it grew too cold. In the morning, when I came running out, he’d passed away, his body stretched in full flight formation on the beach. I have no doubt his spirit flew to Heaven. I stayed with him still until the aquarium came and took him away.

There was the time I arrived the summer after cancer, when I dropped my suitcases in the kitchen, ran through the living room, threw open the glass doors, and kept running until I stood knee deep in the ocean. With the water around me, with the air around me, with the ocean holding me and that little house at my back, I let my public strength drop and I wept for everything I’d just been through. The fear, the pain. Everything I wasn’t able to show during the experience, but could show, there, at Home.

And there was the old man with the sand dollar, a story I’ve told so many times, I won’t repeat it again. But on that trip, I’d made a bargain with God. “If I’m on the right path,” I said, “let me find a whole sand dollar. A whole one.” And on one foggy evening, an old man emerged out of the twinkling mist and he didn’t say hello. He said, “Have you found a whole sand dollar?” And he gave me one.

All those things and so many more would never have happened if I had to walk out the front door, made my way carefully down the coastal highway (you wouldn’t believe how fast people drive on that thing), and then entered the beach at a different place. Not at Home.

And so I began to hope. That place, my Home, would never let me down. It has always given me exactly what I needed.

And now, this email. “Wavecatcher Happy Dance.”

My client patiently waited while I opened it. On my computer, one of the women, Mer, shouted, “Okay! Here we go! Happy Dance!”

And she danced her way down some newly built stairs to the beach. “Steps! Steps!” she cried. Then she blew me a kiss and she bowed. Jesse held the camera, recorded, and laughed.

All the way in Wisconsin, I laughed with them, returned to my client, then after hanging up, played the video at least another twenty times. In the background, the ocean waved at me.

Miracles happen. Home happens. Sometimes because of the ocean and a little house that wraps itself around you like the warm and healing arms you’ve always wanted. And sometimes because two women, who you’ve never met in person, know you, understand you, and do everything they can to help.

Come on, July.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

If you are interested in visiting this amazing place for yourself, here is the website for the Wavecatcher: http://www.wavecatcherbeachrentals.com/home.html

 

(Click the link to watch the video!)

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

Many people say that when you adopt a rescue animal, you just don’t know what you’re getting. But honestly, when do you know what you’re getting? Whether you adopt a brand new puppy or even take on a dog that a friend can no longer care for, you don’t know what’s going to happen.

Almost all of our pets have been rescues. The exception is Muse, our 17-year old gray cat. She was adopted from a student’s friend, who was traveling cross country in a camper. Their cat had kittens, and so when they brought the box of cute little furballs into my classroom, you know one just had to stay with me. But everyone else came to us from a humane society or rescue mission.

Our dog, Ursula Le Guin Giorgio, came home with us three years ago from a humane society. She’d been brought there via truck with 6 other dogs from Alabama. She was an adult, probably about 3 years old. She’d clearly had puppies. Not much else was known than that.

Ursula was the dog I said I didn’t want. We were reeling from the loss of our two beagles, Blossom and Donnie. Blossom came from a humane society and Donnie from a rescue mission. Blossom developed kidney disease which was supposed to move quickly, but took years. Donnie developed a bone cancer which was supposed to move slowly, but took weeks. They both arrived at the end of their lives at the same time. We tried everything to keep them safe and happy, but it got to a point where there was no way to move them away from misery. They died side by side at the vet’s, with two veterinarians inserting the syringes at the exact same time, and all three of us present, with a hand on each dog. It was the most peaceful release we could have given them, but oh so devastating for us.

I said I didn’t want another dog. We live in the city, we don’t have a yard. And I just didn’t want to go through the sadness again. But the silence in the house, no toenails clicking, no tags jangling, was resounding, and three weeks later, we found ourselves at a humane society, looking at this dog they called Mama from Alabama.

In the kennel, she seemed calm and easy-going. At home, we discovered we’d adopted 50 pounds of fears and anxieties. She was renamed Ursula Le Guin because Le Guin was a strong, outspoken woman, and I felt our Ursula needed to be that too, to get through whatever it was she’d already gone through. But she wasn’t so strong and outspoken. We should have named her Mouse.

Despite her challenges, she’s settled into our family. Whenever one of us sits, we tend to have a concrete head placed in our laps. We’ve grown used to a dog who does not like to be outside, who will not walk down a hallway in our home because she doesn’t like narrow spaces, who freaks out at the sound of wind. We also made it through the discovery of heartworm, and then the treatment of heartworm which put her into cardiac arrest.

A few weeks ago, Ursula turned up with an infected toe. I noticed her licking and licking, and at first, I thought it was allergies, even though she hasn’t had allergies in three years. But it was only on one foot. Then she started holding the paw up. Off to the vet we went, to the new COVID procedures of having to wait in the car while our nervous dog went into the vet without our support.

An infected toe. Maybe from all the licking, maybe from allergies, maybe she injured it. I thought of the couple weeks prior, when our condo complex went through a testing of its fire alarm system. All the alarms in every unit went off. I couldn’t stay with Ursula because I’m the condo president and had to accompany the inspectors. By the time I got back home, I couldn’t find Ursula. How do you lose a 50-pound dog? Finally, I looked where she never went – down that hallway to Olivia’s room. There was Ursula, hulking on a small fur-covered chair (not pet fur – deliberately furry, like a stuffed animal), a chair way too small for her. The only way she could have gotten up was to pull herself up. I placed my bets on one of her nails getting stuck in the fur and pulling.

So we followed a regimen of meds. Antibiotics. First Benadryl, then Prednisone. The Prednisone made her excessively thirsty and she began to pee everywhere and all the time. I made the executive decision to take her off of that and just stick with the antibiotic – this wasn’t an allergy.

The licking has slowed. There is no longer a limp. The sad face of a dog who knows she is doing naughty things has begun to fade away.

Last night, Ursula came into my office while I was working. Clunk went her head on my lap. I looked down and saw the eyes of a dog who was apologizing. “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re a good girl.” At the words “good girl”, the tail became a helicopter propeller.

This morning, Ursula sat up on the loveseat where she sleeps and she gave me a big Ursula grin. She feels better.

I can’t help but wonder if she worried about losing her home. About being hurt. It’s said that dogs don’t have long memories, but I don’t believe that for a minute. She knows what she went through, and she shows us through her behavior. Her behavior also shows us her recovery.

The smile this morning shows me she knows she’s not going anywhere. That she is a full and accepted part of the family, even when she does naughty things, deliberately or out of her control.

Adopting Ursula, we didn’t know who we were getting. We didn’t know she was a dog who is freakishly afraid of gospel choirs, bolting upstairs whenever they come on television. A dog who is afraid of wind and rain and flags flapping. The microwave. The icemaker.

But we got her. And we couldn’t be happier.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Over the weekend, Michael and I decided to be brave and venture out to a movie. We hadn’t been inside a movie theater for over a year. When someone asked me what the first thing would be that I’d do after my second vaccination, I immediately said, “Go to the movies.”

The streaming movie channels are fine. But there’s just something about going into a theater.

I think the first movie I ever saw was 101 Dalmatians. I remember going to a theater in Cloquet, Minnesota. The fold-down seat wouldn’t stay down very well for me, because I was so small, and that screen! That screen was just so big! I honestly don’t remember anything about popcorn or soda…just looking up at those big, big dogs, Pongo and Perdita, and their babies and all of those spots.

Looking at research on that movie now, I’m not quite sure why I would have seen it. 101 Dalmatians originally came out in 1961, when I was a year old and living in St. Louis. But I know this was in a theater in Cloquet, right next door to Esko, Minnesota, where I moved when I was six, and that I was still little. So maybe the movie was going through as a revival. I do know that several years ago, when I traveled up to that area of Minnesota, I saw that theater, now an antique mall and coffee shop, and I immediately felt the seat under me as it tried to fold me into it, and those big, big spotted dogs. I remember being chided for being a baby as tears ran down my cheeks as the little puppy Lucky was born, and nearly died.

From that point on, it was all about the movies for me. The amazing, amazing movies.

My favorite movie, if I had to choose one, would be Mr. Holland’s Opus. Though there are so many others as well. The experience of seeing them on the big screen was always breathtaking. Even bad movies are better on the big screen. When the movie Cats came out in very late 2019, it was almost universally panned (I didn’t agree). But in the theater, I sat between Olivia and Michael, and when Jennifer Hudson completely filled that space with her voice and her emotion when she sang Memory, I sobbed out loud. Would it have been as impressive on my television at home? Not a chance. But there? Every bit of me was affected.

And so, during COVID, I really missed the movie theater.

When I looked at what was showing last weekend, my heart fell. There was nothing I wanted to see! How could there be nothing I wanted to see after more than a year of being unable to see? And then, by chance, I looked at a movie theater we don’t go to often, because of the distance. It had a movie with only one showing on Saturday. French Exit. I read the description to myself, and then to Michael, and then we set our sights on it.

Driving to the theater, it was clear things weren’t the same. Businesses that used to be landmarks were no longer there. Restaurants were gone. When we used to go to this theater, pre-COVID, we often went to dinner at Applebees, which was located at the far end of the parking lot. But Applebees was shuttered and dark.

Inside the theater, when we bought the tickets, we had to choose our seats, so that social distancing would be maintained. We wore our masks for the ticket purchase and the purchase of popcorn and soda. The aromas in the theater remained the same. The young man who sold us the popcorn asked what we were going to see, and when we told him, we got into an engaging conversation of how he’d seen Michelle Pfeiffer as Cat Woman, and now here she was, playing a widow in her sixties.

In the theater itself, we found our seats, roped off with a paper barrier that promised us our seats were sanitized and safe. It was a little like ripping off the paper barrier on hotel toilets. I glanced around before we sat. People were seated with great gaps between them, and those that weren’t munching on popcorn wore masks. My own mask came off while I munched on the popcorn that only tastes like this in the theaters. Yum. And then the mask went back on.

I wondered if the whole experience would feel odd. I wondered if nothing was the same.

And then the movie started.

When you laugh with others in a movie theater, you can’t tell that you’re laughing through masks. You can’t tell that you’re sitting in seats that have been sanitized for your safety. You can’t even tell that everyone is distant from you, because the sound is so clear. So you laugh, and you gasp, and you sigh, and you do all that with other people who are doing the same thing. At one point, a character in the movie jumped up from her chair and walloped her head on a standing lamp. I involuntarily exclaimed, “Ow!” and all around me, I heard other people who had the same reaction, and then we all laughed.

We all laughed. The magic was still there.

The magic of great big spotted dogs on an impossibly large screen. A little puppy not breathing, but then breathing again, right before my eyes. A woman walloping her head on a lamp and all of us feeling it, even though it didn’t happen to us.

Still there. Even behind masks, we could see smiles as we walked out.

This weekend, I am taking my granddaughter to the movies. She will wear her little mask and I will wear mine. And we’ll laugh just like we did before COVID. Just like we always will.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.