June arrives on time
skies still hold sun rain sleet snow
fancy bull-shitsu
JSmith 6/01/2016
Memorial Weekend…again
30 May 2016 2 Comments
Went back to my 2014 remembrance post this morning, knowing that for too many people every weekend is memorial weekend.
It’s a typically perfect Memorial Day morning here, like so many from my childhood, when every year we could count on it to be raining or blistering hot and windstill, or freezing cold, or all of the above, in gusts, or maybe cool and clear after one of those rains. In Lawrence this morning it’s 79º headed for 82, sunny, blue skies, humidity has dropped from 89% when I went out at 7am to 60% five hours later, and it’s exquisitely beautiful out.
But life holds more than beauty – especially for those who will never see any of it again – and cloudy skies take over sometimes. By 2pm we’re supposed to be mostly under cloud cover here, which seems altogether fitting for the day.
In 2016 I reshare my family’s story out of gratefulness, and out of reverence for, and abhorrence of, unspeakable loss on all sides throughout the generations.
.
First posted Memorial Weekend 2014 (with edits 5/30/2016 – a personalized haiku for anyone who’s bored enough to find them all – link provided below.)
My grandpa enlisted in the Army at the age of 17 and served at the front as an infantryman during WWI. His six sons were all military men, Army, Navy, and Marines. The three Marines, 18, 19, and 21 were in the Korean Conflict at the same time, in the same general location, under miserable conditions. All seven Reese military personnel returned home intact in body and went on to raise thriving families of their own. Many of my cousins have also served with honor in the military. The only family member I’m aware of, without digging into the archives, who was directly lost to war, was my Aunt Bette’s husband, making her a teenage widow with a baby. The baby, my cousin Vickie, is standing in front of her mother and between our grandparents in the family portrait. My mama is top right in both the portrait and the thumbnail pics, somehow descriptive of her position in my life for all time. And kudos today to my Baby Aunt Barbara, lower right in both, who put this collage together.
So thankful to have four of the original Reese Dynasty kids – Vic, Jerry, Barbara, and Roger – present and accounted for, on this Memorial Remembrance in the year 2016. Hugs and kisses all around, beloved.
Ongoing family is priceless. Feeling deeply thankful right about now.
Okay, Constant Reader, the edits took on a life of their own, so don’t even try. If, however, you’d originally thought you might, for the haiku, throw me a subject and I’ll do it anyway!
Still raining, still haikuing…
27 May 2016 Leave a comment
fronts will come and go
rain falls rain stops rain comes again
the plants are rusting
JSmith 5/27/2016
Rain or shine…
23 May 2016 3 Comments
days sunny or gray
pass like water rolling on
inspiration dry
JSmith 5/23/2016
When it rains, we haiku…
17 May 2016 4 Comments
rain rain rain all day
more falls while darkness covers
all the world so wet
~JSmith
Add your haiku in comments!!
Ode to Bella Coma
12 May 2016 Leave a comment
whine
diss
opine
agitate if you must
so sad The Tombs were out of reach
tribe matters
~JSmith 5/12/2016
For Krista
24 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
morning glorious
blue-sky easy-breeze
families farmers mowers runners riders pedalers
dogs kids coffee sprouts
players hangers-on sun-babies
he does so we can
precious spoons accrue
Fat Lady mute
JSmith 4/24/2016
{Thoughts while pondering The Meaning of Life on a Saturday, prompted by feelings about the artists who’ve helped us get through the night, know ourselves better, value our existence more, give ourselves tacit permission to be weird. Those friends of the heart are relentlessly leaving us, and not by choice. They got older along with us, and talent can’t necessarily buy extra time – so we have a sacred responsibility to own what they tried to show us, and keep the lights on. Life is a good thing.}
A gift to my niece because she asked. She is a true poet and I love her enough to put some words out, knowing it isn’t a contest. ❤
A throwback to other lifetimes…
14 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
Once upon a time there lived a little farm girl with big dreams – and who knows where that comes from?
Her mother, grandmothers, a grandpa, her aunties, uncles, sisters and cousins were voracious readers so there was never a shortage of books at hand, all of which were free for the borrowing if you thought you were big enough. {Except for that one in the top of the closet – ZOWEE!} So yeah, big dreams got planted – extra points and a high five for the sweet double entendre, thank you.
She thought she was smart – she was told as much in subtle ways by other smart people, by which we mean her sassiness was nurtured to an appalling degree, thanks, Fam.
Alas, however, a shocking number of pivotal, paramount, life-and-death aspects of life were still unexplored at a juncture when that information would have been so very helpful to our farm girl. Since she was lacking in skills acquired only through knowledge, we’re forced to conclude that she was not nearly as smart as she might have thought. Let’s just say mistakes were made. Or in the words of her farm grandma, “Too soon old…too late schmart.” Sorry, chicky.
The girl grew up, sort of, and did the thing she said she’d never do – she married a farmer. And then a lot happened: a son, a life, a love, beautiful times, ugly times, hard and dirty work, serious illnesses, deaths, near-deaths, caregiving, more deaths, colossal lifestyle adjustments…and she matured, which is not the same as growing up. Our girl continues to reject that as a viable option.
She tossed those beat up green Ropers out and hasn’t been behind the wheel of a tractor or combine for more than a dozen years – a lifetime ago; however, we’ve all heard the wisdom that says you can take the girl off the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the girl. That’s truth right there, I don’t care who ya’ are. Here’s another one – you can’t take the dream out of the dreamer – and big dreamers win big.
A day in the life…
12 Apr 2016 2 Comments
The sun’s shining, the air’s warming, and my competent young orthopedic surgeon shook my hand twice this morning before officially kicking me out. Celebrating will happen later with Kimmers, and tomorrow I’ll start working on my own rehab follow-up at Rock Chalk Park while he’s playing PickleBall. A heinous winter has come to an end far less painfully than we’d envisioned on our way to the ER, and two of us lived through it. Thank you, universe, your encouragement was highly appreciated, but throwing Maddie’s trek across the Rainbow Bridge into the mix was a nasty twist and you owe us for that.
During one of our final therapy sessions, the assisting tech asked me about retirement – and moaned when I described it as feeling like we have all the time in the world. “Oh, I SO want to be retired!” She hasn’t made it past 25 yet, pretty sure, so I feel for her because time and health are the most valuable currencies in human existence and she has a long way to travel before time is truly her friend. However, I say that knowing she’d be bored, frustrated, and guilt-laden over retirement right now. Having “all the time in the world” also means we’re personally responsible for filling those hours with things that matter in some way – things that add to our usefulness in our immediate world and inspire us to get out of bed every morning. Kim has never had a problem with that – he’s Rise & Shine Guy all the way. The retired girl has worked her way up to that status, in body at least, and is now disappointed if she misses a sunrise. I might not be awake until 10am, but I’m up, dammit, and the world is mine.
Life has gradually taken on a sweet rhythm, the pace has settled into the doable, if not always the desired, and we’re uniquely suited to the lifestyle because continued accomplishment is fun and happens of its own volition, but we’re basically lazy AF and our consciences are easily assuaged by small victories.
Breakfast is an event at least four mornings a week – biggest meal of the day – and for the remaining three we bow to the reality of late-life weight gain and decreased mobility. Mostly speaking for myself – Kim is far more capable and disciplined, bless his manly self. I’m working on it – never doubt what you can do when life goes right every once in a while.
Kim does the things I can’t do anymore, and I do the rest – it’s a division of labor that’s worked for us for almost a dozen years now, and every new day confirms that the naysayers were not only mistaken, but misguided, bless their hearts. If you know something, don’t let anyone rain on your parade – you’ll be scooping up any horseshit that falls, not them, but better than that, you’ll be reaping all the benefits. Unless the rain gods are paying your bills, their opinions aren’t worth the breath it took to blow them all over you, so walk away.
We spend hours every day writing at our computers – I spellcheck him and he edits my stuff for awkward syntax. On weekends our spa soaks are full of conversations we wish we could recreate later, on a full range of topics including politics, religion, sex, marriage, friendship, theatre, all the biggies. We’re hilarious and wise, and anyone else would find us insufferable but they’ll never have that opportunity because it’s all done entirely naked; therefore, it’s snobbishly exclusive, sorry.
After trying out a lot of the restaurants here we eat at home 99% of the time – it’s easier to the budget, and there is no better place anywhere than Chez Kim – at least not within said budget. Best food in town, and kinder portion sizes.
Evenings from 5pm on are balcony time on nice days, and from 5 to 6 no phones are allowed. The more friends out there with us the better, though, so if you’re on that list and within driving distance, get here – open invitation! Text first in case we’re naked.
Bedtime comes when we can’t keep our eyes open any longer…and the next morning we start the game fresh again. Any anger or mini-grudge has a 24-hr. statute of limitations – say what’s on your mind and get the f*ck over it because life is ridiculously short and we started late, so there’s zero time to waste on selfishness.
Sorry so long this time, but our days end up full one way or another. I hope you’re taking notes because unless we step in front of a bus we all end up at this stage of life and it helps to know some stuff going in. You’re welcome.
Update for the faithful…
11 Apr 2016 4 Comments
Happy day – unless tomorrow morning’s x-rays reveal a problem, which is hard to imagine, I’ve graduated from PT! After being around the cool people at the rehab facility for the past couple of months, I’m going to miss them. I’ll also miss 10-minute heat and ice packs, shoulder massage, and people who know how to shame me into working harder. Self-discipline will be called for if I don’t want a flaccid rotator cuff for life – so embarrassing and inconvenient. On to bigger and better things, then!
Honoring Throwback Thursday
07 Apr 2016 6 Comments
Casting a long shadow at five years old on a San Francisco street corner, little me in her plaid-lined high-waters and namesake tee, a gift from one of my sweet, hunky uncles. I still have that teeny-beany T-shirt tucked away in a box.
I vividly remember entertaining large-scale dreams early on as my wee pudding-brain started jelling – life as a farm girl was simplified down to its essence, but the world felt limitless and open to me, thanks to my mom and my grandmothers who dropped clues I couldn’t miss. The kernel of all those dreams somehow escaped with its life in spite of everything – adolescence didn’t kill it, marriage and family didn’t smother it, loss couldn’t force it to crawl into a hole and die – and now I get to live the remaining dreams on my own terms. They no longer seem so big – being a published writer isn’t the point anymore, I simply have to write or expire. Having a summer place in Colorado and a winter spot in California sounds merely exhausting. Kim and I fully intended to own a sailboat, sooner rather than later, but we turned down a prime opportunity last year because…that ship has sailed. He’s Navy and a veteran SoCal sailor, but when you own a boat you never run out of work, which sounded heinous in the light of day. Besides, a nest-egg stretches only so far.
What I remember about this Cali trip with my parents, who’d schlepped me to half the states in the union by this time, is that my sister Susan, nine months old, wouldn’t have anything to do with us when we picked her up from Grandma & Grandpa’s house. Broke my widdle heart, but she got over it, after which I undoubtedly started distressing her again. Aw, I hope not.
Incredibly, this photo was taken almost 64 years ago, which gives it the feel of belonging to someone else, and yet my DNA knows it’s from my lifetime. The hope on that little girl’s face, mixed with just a whiff of healthy skepticism, makes me happy this morning. Hope is hard to kill – it will die a thousand deaths before it reluctantly leaves us, and it has the power to keep us putting one foot in front of the other until things get better. The worst heartbreak is to give up too soon – don’t do that, okay?
P.S. Turns out I’d know me anywhere. Compare my relatively-new face on the left to my relatively-not-brand-new one in my profile pic to the right – a revelation that provides yet another ray of hope today, and I’ll take it!
Things are all screwed up …
31 Mar 2016 4 Comments
You know, you can be operating in full-scale denial mode and still pick up on things pertaining to precisely what you’re ignoring. For example, I’m noticing a whole subculture in terminology that hadn’t resonated with me until just recently. Today in the AARP Bulletin {Hey! The smug grin was uncalled for – the rag was in the mail, who can fathom how or why!} this sentence jumped off the page at me – “People think of ‘elderly’ as this gray plane, as if [older people] are all the same and shouldn’t be seen.” Wow, cold, dude.
So we have da’ yooths, who so far as we know all think and behave alike, and then ya’ got yer generic interchangeable old farts, which why are they even allowed off the grounds on their own? In the middle we have The World of Everybody Else, a world which neither youth nor old-fartism is expected, nor particularly welcomed, to grasp. Nothing personal, most likely, in most cases, just a perception – one that’s always existed and probably always will unless future technology gives us ways to read each other’s thoughts and feelings. People in the know are pretty sure the young and the old are not part of their ranks, a perception that clearly cheats the world to an astounding degree.
I had two remarkable grandmothers who were as different from each other as chalk and cheese, and each of them managed to get across to me the reality that we stay who we are on the inside all our lives while our bodies go to shit around us. One grandma, forever young, accomplished that by example, the other through stories. One night in her 80s, that grandma dreamed she was nineteen again and danced all night in a long flowing skirt and a sparkling-white Maidenform bra. Advertising in the psyche, man, but it was clear how real it all still was in the light of day. Her disappointment that it was only a dream was palpable even to a self-absorbed cheerleader-head, but the gut-punch was when she said “It was so wonderful – my body was as young as the real ME again!” That one stuck.
You can’t convince some folks that people under 18 are, indeed, people, and you can’t break the idea that after a certain age we’re all disposable. But you can try.
So healthy it makes me sick …
29 Mar 2016 7 Comments
We live, we learn – mostly we live. So as it turns out, “twice-weekly PT sessions for six weeks” merely covered Phase 1. Six weeks ended Friday morning and now we try another month. And then we “see.” Not a problem – once I graduate, there goes 90% of my outside social life, so what would be the rush?
Health, though – such a ginormous issue in every direction. Do we possess it? Do we value it? What value are other people placing on our health? Do we take it entirely for granted, or do everything we can to maintain it? Or realistically, somewhere between? And if we lose it, can we get it back?
The past few months have shown us that my bones are in far better health than we knew. And I’ve lost some pounds so my numbers are starting to improve — the dread NUMBERS that cause your extremely caring GP to make sad-panda eyes and counsel you to drop even more pounds and take scary-sounding drugs. I’m just stumbling along for now, thanks, and trying to beat those numbers into submission by means of personal discipline and other words I avoid.
My preoccupation with health at the moment stems from learning that a cousin is going through a hellish experience. He’s six weeks older than I am and we grew up more like siblings than cousins, our other siblings nicely stair-stepped or matched up in age, which made extended-family vacations oh so simple. And now the skinny little boy in the photo is all grown up and overrun by adulthood, and he’s ill and in pain. That hurts my heart. He’s a kind man who’s “been there” for everyone else. And life couldn’t possibly get away this fast and our bodies metamorphose so quickly into whatever stage this is that feels suspiciously like a cocoon, while our 60’s-addled brains go right on scheming and dreaming and making plans like a boss. Wow, whiplash!
Here, in their natural habitat, are my cousin Bruce, his big sister Vickie on the left, our Aunt Bonnie, who was probably still a teenager, and wide-eyed me, wondering what it was all about, Alfie. This was just the other day, I’m pretty sure — I remember the shingles on that house — they were a reddish-brown and felt funny under my fingertips.
Bruce will get well I think, and we’ll all go on. But the knowledge that he’s dependent for now on a wheelchair and round-the-clock help from an only slightly younger brother brings it all home in kind of an in-your-face way.
I mean, today Patty Duke has left the building. In recent days it’s been Natalie Cole, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Pat Conroy, Garry Shandling, and a litany of others in my generation. This isn’t going to stop, and I’m not ready for it. Happen it will, though, that’s how this goes.
We are ALL most definitely playing for time, boys and girls. Make it count.
An ti ci pa tion …
24 Mar 2016 1 Comment
Kim, browsing my Facebook Saved list for recipes: You have a lot of stuff in here, like really a lot. What are your plans for all this?
Me: My plans are to watch the videos, listen to the music tracks, read the articles, and use some of it as a springboard for my blog.
Kim: Really?
Me: Yeah.
Kim:
Me: During lulls when there’s nothing else on my mind and Facebook is boring and I’ve already purged all my email files.
Kim:
Me: Seriously. There are down times.
Kim: So you save stuff every day because you’re in a rush, but you’ll have time later to go back through all of it?
Me: Well. Mostly my attention span isn’t that long, and after the first handful of big-ticket posts I start to drift, but I don’t want to lose them.
Kim: So they stack up. Doesn’t that bother you?
Me: Not much, they’re out of sight. And I’m waiting for Marky to come along and give me folder capabilities for saved stuff so I can sort and find.
Me: And delayed gratification is my bag.
Kim:
Poor Kimmers. Clutter, even the thought of it, offends his OCD worse than any other, and in my morally-lax final third I’m an endless trial to him. He’s out of the house most mornings now, so I’m probably working my way through the For Later list, right? No, not so’s you can tell yet, because there’s another fact of life at work here — one must be IN THE MOOD.
And guess what, bitches, I got IN THE MOOD to compose and handwrite that belated note to Maddie’s veterinary staff. Mailed it yesterday. Booyah! I should have taken a picture for you — work of art and worth the time spent agonizing over it, except not really. Oh, life, I adore your continuing education classes.
A final Easter Egg for the faithful who read to the end: The Wurlitzer recital in my head, precipitated by my fall on the ice, ended approximately ten days after we upgraded my hearing assists and added a masking track. I’ve busted it several times trying to make a comeback, and it slinks back under the bed. Peace is not overrated.
Has to be spring …
13 Mar 2016 1 Comment
… because they’re telling us it’s time to cut the top off the blanket and sew it onto the bottom, thus allowing DST to wreck us once again. Found comment I can get behind: Let’s make Eastern & Central one time zone, and Mountain & Pacific another and be done with it.
If that sounds like an outstanding plan to you, start a petition or a march or something, please? I’m going back to bed …
And because it’s apropos in some weird way and made me laugh …
Join the conversation …