My baby sister is my hero. The one our grandpa called Dutch… the child who could fall out anywhere, get puppet-walked to bed and go right on sleeping without missing a beat… grew up to be one hell of a nurse and an even better human being. She doesn’t have an RN behind her name, it’s more of an IC (I Care), but she’s a caregiver beyond measure and you’d be grateful to see her there if you needed help.
She spent three months this summer as angel of mercy to her lifetime best friend (since they were five), taking her to all the doctors’ appointments intended to address her out-of-control back pain before it was finally discovered that she was suffering not from a bad disk, but a spine full of tumors. Fifteen days later Hospice started visiting twice a week while Rita hung in as caregiver as it quickly became a full-time job, pouring love into her friend’s life while she changed sheets and finessed every detail.
I was privileged to be there with Rita as Joy took her last breath. Such love… sixty-plus years of it… heartbreaking and humbling to witness. It’s a story that’s happening about every 80 seconds in America right now with a virus moving among us, life and death played out, often with no loved ones close by… and every individual story matters. We’re so blessed if someone’s there to hold our hand and say our name and smooth Carmex on our lips as we make our exit. And if it’s from the comfort of our own bedroom with our devoted dog on the bed with us, even sweeter.
I’m so proud of my sister and her friend – there was no word of complaint that either of them had been dealt a bad hand, no going back on promises made, no shirking of the job in front of them… Joy’s to die, Rita’s to be there. It’s possible that humans are the worst thing ever to happen to planet Earth, but there are shining stars out there who pull everything together and cause it all to make perfect sense for a while. You see that circle of love and you know it’s what we live for and that it’s all worth it. In a year when everything hurts and it feels like genuine brotherly love has fled the universe, a hellish experience showed once again that if we’re supremely lucky, love and caring show up where we need them – with skin on.
Being there. It’s what you do when you love somebody.
Quintessential Joy
Rita & Joy
Rita, Joy & Caroline – the Three Musketeers– from Five to Life
It’s 10:45 and the day already feels endless. I walked before it got hot, came in and iced my hip… and went into neutral. Sometimes I try to remember why it felt like there was more to do in The Before because it wasn’t all that much. But we had lunch out a few days a week… wandered in and out of stores without a second thought… went to KC for this and that… planned short or long trips and took them… saw friends once in a while or had them here… what we thought up to do wasn’t contingent on virus numbers or the necessary restrictions they’ve brought into everyone’s lives.
With the new phase we’re into in the election cycle, birtherism is the Soup of the Day again. And after seeing shots of neighborhood mailboxes – those familiar Dalek-like blue sentinels – being removed and hauled off on trucks in Portland and other cities, the sure knowledge that we’re across the line into authoritarianism can’t be put off any longer. I know, dear Diary, nobody likes it when I talk politics, but it’s just you and me, so I’m going to tell you a secret I discovered this morning – I’m okay with not seeing people anymore if they’re in favor of what’s happening to America, and there’s a certain freedom in that. As Kim always says, “I feel so much better now that I no longer care.”
Welp, when you’re blue, you’re blue, but sometimes you can get glad in the same pants you got sad in, so maybe it’s time for music…
Another cool morning, so I wandered around the neighborhood for an hour, racking up a prideful number of steps for that time of day. The GPS map of my route will be fun once I find it in the app!
Discovered lots of big and small changes along Mass Street and points east – it’s interesting to see how Downtown is rising to the occasion and finding creative ways to stay in business while dealing with the reality that is COVID-19. A young street-guy hollered from across Mass Street “I feel like a surgeon!” I said “Because of your mask?” (Which was hanging off one ear.) “Yeah, my mask! I feel like a surgeon!” The surgeon was wearing what looked like a water shoe on one foot, the other was bare, and I saw by his outfit that he was no cowboy. We waved and went on our way, whereupon I heard him loudly proclaim to the next strollers “Hey, I feel like a surgeon!”
I’m glad Downtown and East Lawrence are full of walkers and bike riders so the white-haired short stack with her hiking pole doesn’t stand out, other than to budding surgeons in search of an audience. And now, after a full-service shower, I’m ready for the PickleBall player to come home so we can figure out what the rest of the day holds.
Annnnd… so far there’s been a light garage clean-out and coaxing an ailing car across town to said garage. And lunch. Only about 9 hours to go until bedtime, yay. Daily diversions, take me awaaaaaaay…
It’s been rainy for a couple of days, starting with heavy fog this morning and morphing to rainfall once again. We bob along on the surface, trying not to just go through the motions like it’s Groundhog Day ad infinitum, but that’s an increasing challenge for me due to “the life of the mind.” BC [Before Covid], I spent most of my hours right here anyway, thinking thoughts and doing the daily, so the difference DC [During Covid] is in the nature of the thoughts. They’re circular, thus unproductive, and they’re relentless… figure this out, make sense of that, reconcile yourself to one unpalatable truth after another. I try to run them all through the Zen shredder before digesting them, for the sake of gut health, but their very insistence and the dearth of answers make each new 24-hours a maze to navigate from waking to sleeping.
Pretty sure this is why humans would rather not think about things too much, why comfortably numb is the preferred state of mind when life gets dicey… and life is always dicey. When your inner self gets to do her own thing, she comes up against pieces/parts that don’t fit… then what? If she goes around them, they’ll always be there serving as obstacles to other pieces/parts of life, so the only choice is to deal with them, which usually involves discarding something, and that’s when the fight starts.
Looking out at the mist hanging in the trees, I have one wish… that I had known the pandemic was on its way and would change life irrevocably for all of us. The heaviest shock, beyond the staggering death toll, is how it’s separated us politically, intellectually, and spiritually – a virus the whole planet is dealing with but Americans have managed to turn into internecine warfare.
There’s always blue sky somewhere, though, and often it’s right overhead, with the half-moon at its center.
Woke up before six to a great morning – 74º and 97% humidity. Body knew we needed to walk, Brain wasn’t buying it.
BRAIN: I’d rather stay here, take my time waking up, get caught up online…
BODY: Online will be here when we get back – I’m not camping in that chair again all day.
BRAIN: It’s gonna hurt.
BODY: Yeah. Let’s go.
We walked down Rhode Island to 9th and when we came up New Hampshire toward home we found our reward – a display for the specially-commissioned mural painted on the adjacent building. After reading the bios, I’m good for at least a week on learning one new thing a day – Kansas has a rich history in every direction. Aaron Douglas, Gordon Parks, Langston Hughes, Oscar Micheaux, Gwendolyn Brooks, Hattie McDaniel, and Coleman Hawkins all spent a portion of their lives here and contributed to the genius that is us while sharing themselves with the greater world.
Ms. Head’s full of it and she knows it. If we listened to her all the time we’d miss some of the best stuff.
DISCLAIMER: Kim Smith had nothing to do with these wonky early-morning caffeine-free photos.
For reasons I’m still exploring, I grew up a pleaser and it’s taken me most of my life to shed that tendency, but at this point the people I care about keeping happy are few in number and all the “should” has gone out of my relationships and interactions. “Is it true, is it real, is it right?” If not, our conversations are going to be brief.
The isolation that defines 2020 is showing me that I’m really not all that nice a person and people are likely justified in their relief to be shut of me, at least for the time being. A quick mental inventory of extended family members tells me the gene pool is overweighted by about half toward the conservative-thinking side, and most of those choose to keep me at arm’s length, at the least, for which I can’t blame them since I rarely shut up online. It’s a different story in person… there are days when I don’t say much of anything out loud.
Most of my lifetime has been marked by saying too much, blurting stupid things, irritating friends and family with my penchant for trying too hard, so I love my life in recent years, here in my comfy citadel where I have few opportunities to be overbearing, at least in the flesh… and I’m learning from all of it. I say what seems important to say and a steady sense of detached calm carries me through and over a lot of things… but at its bottom is a loneliness that defies description. It embodies the grief of death and endings, and the nowhere feeling that comes from having no idea what will happen next, where it all goes from here. It sounds like worry when I put it in writing, but it isn’t so much that as the waiting… the heavy sense of quiet outside and in… the tension everywhere… while the fight we can’t do anything about swirls around us.
I just want it over, decided, finished one way or the other. Either full-on fascism will be the victor, everything about America that hasn’t already changed will complete its metamorphosis, and we’ll live with the results or die FROM them… or we’ll get a second chance to make democratic government work. One hundred days is a long time to hold our breath.
So what do people do who don’t write? Explode… give up… give in… go batshit unhinged… disappear, what? Clearly there are other channels, reading being one, and it’s looking better on that front the past few days, although I still tend to abandon a chapter and wander off without notice. My safest and best outlet is to write it down – whatever’s eating my lunch – put it out there where I’m accountable for what I’ve said, and let the dice keep rolling. Odds are that at least one other human will read my words and just like that, there I am – a responsible adult saying things out loud and standing behind them.
This so-called responsible adult shows few outward signs of owning the title, all things considered. Most days I sort more detritus out of my life – digital or otherwise – manage a shower, eat stuff, watch TV with some level of engagement, and fill the gaps with whatever I can stay focused on. Hey – it’s a life.
So good thing I did something Grandma… all my grandmas… would have approved of:
He covers a multitude of sins on my part, including that of sloth, and has the grace to give those sins kinder names, thus making me look like a nicer person than I am. And he’s yet to meet a grandma who didn’t like him so I rest my case. 💋 Still celebrating #16…
Got out and walked in the cool air just after six this morning and watched the neighborhood wake up – or not… pretty quiet Saturday so far, but Farmers’ Market was setting up and a few other walkers were out. Increased my distance this morning with half the pain, so I’m calling it a win.
When I was almost home, Kim zipped up on his bike on his way to PickleBall and got cheeky with me, so win-WIN. Sidewalk kisses under a shade tree are great any time, but they’re a must if it’s your 16th wedding anniversary when everything’s a celebration. My future looked like a blank slate to me when I was a little farm kid, but two things took shape as life materialized: I wanted to be happy… and to know that I, the authentic me, had made someone else happy. Feels like it’s all about winning today, of the satisfying kind.
Ms. Brain just asked “Where’s the music?” and now da boyz, Leon and Johnny, are in my head like the best friends they’re becoming. Mr. Russell’s soulful twang… and lord, lord, those pounding chord progressions… and Elton John being his inimitable self. Neither of them will ever know what their gifts to the world are giving to me, that farm girl who had no clue where she was going… but I hope in the economy of the universe they’re both richly repaid. And please don’t tell, but now the girl’s dancin’ to “Hey Ahab,” have mercy! Could just accidentally survive this whole catastrophe.
Things being what they are, we decided to let Anniversary Day plan itself and we’re right on schedule. We’ll have The Breakfast, as is only fitting, with The Best Salsa In The Known World, and then we’ll just hide and watch – the day will be good stuff. Tonight we have tickets for an outdoor cabaret being put on by friends – the audience sits in their cars and listens on an FM station, BYOB and popcorn, what could be better?
“Every time you argue with reality, you’re going to lose.” Proven fact… want stories? John, in off moments between hospital shifts, has been sending me short self-development videos done by a young Canadian woman who’s fun to listen to and easy to look at, and her delivery is quickly growing on me. One of yesterday’s was called “How to Accept What Causes You Pain” and I found it helpful – simple reality is powerful. Here’s the link if you’re interested. It’s about ten minutes long…
Still playing with my new headphones and tracking down music on Pandora. So far this morning I’ve listened to Sam Smith’s “Fire On Fire” three times, Elton & Leon’s “Never Too Old to Hold Somebody” twice, and I revisited Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” just for old times’ sake. Speaking of old… Joe Cocker’s cover of “I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends” is staying on my playlist. But “The Union” is the album that’s putting wind in my sails just as the doldrums have settled on us in earnest, and I’ve discovered that I can match tones again, with the music directly in my head… although I only sing along when Kim’s out.
Notes on the ties between Elton John and Leon Russell:
“At the time of their first meeting, on August 26, 1970 at the Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles when Leon was in the audience during Elton’s United States debut, one of the two pianists had already written two hit songs, played on over a dozen Top 40 records, and was at the beginning of a six-year run where ten of his albums appeared on the Billboard Top 100 charts – including one live album and one greatest hits collection.
“And the other one was Elton John.
“Leon had a four-decade-wide dovetail relationship with Elton. In the 1970s, the pianist and singer from Oklahoma was a major influence on John’s early piano-playing style and song-writing. In 2010, Elton used his passion for his early mentor to record an album together [at a barebones low point in Leon’s life] and get his name back into the music lexicon, saying at the time, “If Leon can get the accolades he deserves and be financially O.K. for the rest of his life, I will have done something decent with my music,” and their collaboration eventually resulted in a Top Five album and Leon’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In Mr. Russell’s words, “Johnny found me by the side of the road and picked me up.”
In the documentary of The Union album, Leon does a run-through of “In the Hands of Angels” and Elton John breaks down in sobs against a door frame. “When he played that, we just lost it. No one has ever written me a song before. He said, ‘I want to thank you for saving my life,’ and I just burst into tears.It was the most magical of times because here was my idol accepting me. Actually, he could eat me for breakfast at playing piano.”
The Union is a seminal work full of pain and promiseand I can’t get enough of it in this new age of detached living.
The album came out in 2010 and Leon died six years later at age 74, releasing several more albums during that time. Thank you, Elton John, for those extra years you gifted to him and to us.
Leon Russell and Johnny …
I rode to the farm with Kim on Wednesday for pool maintenance and when we got back to town he drove me around to point out changes since the last time I stuck my nose out. We used to do that with my mother-in-law, he and I, and I sounded just like she used to… “Oh my, when did they redo THAT?” “THEY closed? Really?” “Wow, THAT’s totally different!” I love our space, the quiet, the insulation from chaos, but if we’re forced by misguided egocentric fellow citizens to remain in this state of limbo for another year to 18 months, it won’t always feel so Zen, especially when we look around at how other first-world countries have managed the pandemic – resentment is a totally human emotion and no respecter of persons. From the tone and nature of online comments, I know that people my age group and up are expendable, as are children, so home continues to be okay with me for now. Case numbers in Douglas County are over 500, with two deaths and a predominance of recoveries, so we know it’s being managed about as well as possible, but there’s just nothing I miss enough to mingle. And I could take myself for a drive any day of the week if Kim didn’t tote me along… I obviously haven’t been sufficiently motivated yet.
Past a certain age, people start to become invisible to the energetic viable world, but “Remember: when they look right through you, you’re still there.” – Guante
A tacked-on thought after an hour of internet reading: I wish people would leave Harry and Meghan alone. Love is hard. Life is hard. Relationships are hard work – let them breathe.
I walked this morning before 7 o’clock while the air still held a hint of cool. Kept moving until my back said “Let’s go in,” and if I could just do that three more times today I’d have 10,000 steps.
Blew some of my allowance on a set of bluetooth headphones which arrived yesterday… and now I’m sitting here with Leon Russell and Elton John, tears on my cheeks, while they deliver The Union. Small mercies, children, I can hear every note and nuance. Beautiful morning…
The book I mentioned on Sunday was consumed in two days and I immediately started another, so maybe the reading logjam has been broken. I’m not me without a good book going so this feels like psychic progress.
Now here’s Leon with “When Love is Dying” and I can’t even, it’s so heart-rippingly exquisite. Ever since I realized my hearing was fading, I’ve wanted to make music sound real and right to me again, and this is the closest I’ve been in ten years. I’ve missed it like pure cold well water. And here come those plummy hair-raising chord progressions of “Never too Old to Hold Somebody” and there’s just no way not to lose it.
Healing comes to us in any way it can – any fissure or crack in the protective veneer and there it is, warm, welcome, filling whatever space we’ll give it. Books and music have done that for me since childhood and it gets weird without either one, so everything’s sunny-side-up this morning even as I type through the tears. You have to hurt good sometimes to feel better.
The boyz are singing to me now about Shiloh…
Gone to Shiloh For the Union Shoulder to shoulder Side by side Gone to Shiloh Hope springs eternal When flags and bullets start to fly
The year 2020 seems to be our Shiloh and there’s nothing for it but to face it, in union, shoulder to shoulder, side by side. Hope springs eternal.
Now, let’s have some Mr. Blue Sky and bring the house up into sunshine range. “Mean Evil Woman” is the second track, how cool is that? “Don’t Bring Me Down” is #4… Ooo-oo rrrooop…. I’m going with that for the day. The calendar tells me this is HumpDay, so let’s all get over it in style. 💋
That reprieve we needed… it’s here, as of yesterday evening, and it’s pretty sweet. Temp of 72º this morning, and the only reason the humidity is in the upper 90s is that it’s still raining a little. We asked, we received, it feels like a benediction.
Decatur Man and I exchanged quick humor bytes this morning before he texted this in response to my question about his schedule:
“I’m in Covidland today. I got floated here yesterday, and the unit manager, who’s a friend of mine, was crying because she’s so overwhelmed. So I picked up an extra shift today (12-hr shifts), along with 2 of my 4200 (Oncology unit) buds. It’s terrible here these days.”
At this point, any united effort to halt the spread of the virus would be a godsend. Anything, any level of genuine concern, any solid indication that the naysayers are at least trying not to make it worse. It seems somehow unAmerican that the helpers are fair game and entirely expendable – our teachers, healthcare workers, and the countless others who keep the great world humming. I dislike the fact that everyone’s chances of survival seem to be linked to the common sense of others – the odds are not in our favor.
But Pool Man will be home soon from the Ponderosa and he’ll probably stay tucked in with me until the skies clear – he’ll have to get out and ride his bike or walk at some point, rainfall permitting. Life continues to be a desirable thing… irreplaceable and worth defending for everyone I love, however long it takes, so no whining here about anything but the flies in the honey.
Showersbring flowers. Reminds me of my grandma’s house.
It’s one of those Zen mornings when the sun comes up but hides behind dark clouds right away and everything changes. Kim had to vacate the PickleBall court ahead of the rain, so maybe we’ll pretend it’s still the weekend, have a big breakfast with the fresh salsa a friend delivered, and hit the spa tub again. I would not object. Rain is cool – it happens, literally, out of the blue, and always feels healing to me.
The process and experience of healing means different strokes for different folks, and I used to see it in my imagination as a fluid line moving forward, when it’s anything but that. You have to want to get there – the work, receptivity, and humility required don’t come cheap.
The isolation 2020 has imposed, in all directions, is proving to have some benefits, as most things in life do, however grim they may be at the time. It never hurts to take a step or two back and look things over from a new perspective, in fact it’s what keeps us from solidifying in place and letting life go on without us. The rain washed those thoughts in…
Weather forecast says showers could hang with us for a couple of days, so we’ll happily hang in…
The joy of reading has eluded me this year, a true frustration. I’ve finished a handful of books, but have yet to find the one I couldn’t put down, good as they were. A few sentences in, my mind runs off on its own and I end up reading the same paragraph three times before I give up. I have literary riches at hand… it’s all the not knowing that keeps me off balance and unable to concentrate. I started a book yesterday, though, that might be the one… hope so.
I’m good with fairly mindless tasks like dumping computer files and email. I walk. I watch TV with the sound off while I rearrange my virtual world ever more to my liking. My life isn’t so very different from The Before, except that I leave the house about once a month just for the heck of it, and the vibe is so changed. We miss the sounds of life around us – kids running down the street, laughing and yelling; a band warming up somewhere in the neighborhood; our parking lot full on Farmers’ Market mornings; the buzz of daily living.
The atmosphere outside has been ponderous for the past few days – we need rain again to break the heat and humidity, which was in the high 80s this morning when Kim walked. The picture up top is his, taken in South Park at sunrise. He said the blooms are big as dinner plates.
So, yeah… we’ll have our omelets in a bit and then… maybe I’ll read for a while.
My Wagner/Stauth/Dierking/Fuhrmann DNA is pretty straight, as in straight off the boat. I have a copy of the ship’s manifest for my Great-grandma Caroline Fuhrmann Dierking’s voyage with her parents and eleven siblings from Germany to the United States on the S.S. Silesia, and I heard all the stories, still fresh, from my grandma, Caroline’s daughter.
My Reese heritage is more mysterious to me, but only because I didn’t grow up next door to it and I spent far less day-to-day time with that part of my family. My Uncle Vic’s extensive family genealogy, lovingly and painstakingly assembled over the years, is priceless. Without him I would likely never know that my grandpa, his dad’s, lines were from England, Wales, and the Netherlands, or that grandma’s were from Ireland, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. See? Mystery…
My Great-grandmothers, each holding a grandchild, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Bette if memory serves.
Great-grandma Somerville on the left was a wife, mother of three sons and three daughters – one of whom became my grandma, Jennie Reese – and she was a midwife and ran a boarding house. Unfortunately, she was gone before I arrived, but I remember visiting Grandma Cummings, my grandpa’s mother, in various tiny houses that always smelled of mothballs and peppermint. She gave me my first real acquaintance with what “jolly” meant, but I know her life wasn’t easy.
Great-grandma C and Me – 1948
My grandpa, Victor E. Reese – enlisted in the U.S. Army underage, was at the front during WWI at 18 – came home to marry my grandmother and start a dynasty.
Jennie Marie Somerville at age 15 shortly before Victor Reese met and married her. They raised a family of six boys and three girls and were married for 56 years.
4-Generations – Great-grandpa Somerville, Grandma Reese, my mother Virginia, and new-baby me. Apologies to my sisters – it’s just all about me today.
Vic and Jennie Reese with their six sons, three daughters, and their first grandchild. Grandma received the title before she was 35.
All nine Reese siblings with their mama.
Not even half of the cousins. One of the last big reunions we had.
The Queen Bee at 95, livin’ the good life at home. I was privileged enough to be with her as she left…
When nostalgia hits (see yesterday), my mental viewfinder fills up with images of family and the farm where I grew up, or at least came of age. If you liked my Memorial Day post, these photos are for you. (Link follows)
The people in the image above are my Grandma and Grandpa Wagner, my dad and his dog Sarge, in 1933 when my dad was 11 years old. The garden in the story was north of the house but you can see my grandma’s pretty fish pond in the background, filled in before my memory because of the dust off the cattle pens and the hazard to toddler grandchildren. Grandma had plans that didn’t always suit farm living, but she never gave up.
My grandparents, my dad, about 6 yrs old, and his brother Ed, eleven years older. They had a good relationship as adults.
The Dierking sisters – Nora, Ruth, and Clara (my grandma)
My Great-aunt Ruth in flush times
The dugout/livestock barn/root cellar where the three girls grew up, shown during a visit by family in the late 50s or early 60s, long after it had been abandoned.It was outside a little town about an hour SW of where I live now.
Caroline Dierking on the right, mother of the girls – and my great-grandmother – with her sister Emma.
In Sheboygan, Wisconsin with my Great-aunt Emma and a little relative on her right whose name was Colleen.
My cousin Katie, Uncle Ed’s daughter, and I after playing dress-up in Grandma’s big upstairs closet. I was about 5 and worried that my dress would end me as I negotiated the steep stairs.
The Wagner munchkins, Rita, Judy, Susan, and our brother Danny in Grandma & Grandpa’s shelter belt north of the garden. Says 1957 so I was ten years old. And our mom was obviously curler-happy that day.
Tomorrow… barring anything unforeseen… my mom’s people. 💙
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Welcome to my weekly blog on life's happiness. We are all human and we all deserve to smile. Click a blog title or scroll down. Thanks for stopping by.
Creative humour, satire and other bad ideas by Ross Murray, an author living in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Is it truth or fiction? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
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