On Level Ground

Lots of ups and downs lately, a veritable roller coaster ride through life.  Things have evened out a bit on one front, thank goodness- my daughter in law came through her surgery with flying colors and a very positive report from her physician, so my worries on that front have eased up a bit.  (Thanks to everyone for their concern and good thoughts - the vibrations apparently reached all the way to the South Pacific!) When I came home today, my husband was on the phone with our friendly mortgage company, trying to work out the details of that re-finance on our property in Florida, and I felt the roller coaster car speeding toward the top of the next precipice, preparing for another belly wrenching plunge.  But I held on to the safety bar, pressed my feet firmly to the floor, and gutted it out.   My darling husband managed to come up with a few choice "questions" for the banker that actually sent them scampering into their corner with a pledge to "check with their supervisor" and "get back to us tomorrow."  He's really good at that kind of thing :)

And that's only one of the reasons I've stayed married to this guy for the past 32 years (today). 

On May 8, 1976, I was nothing but a baby - 20 years old, and I had never even spent the night away from home- really!  What in the world was I doing getting married?  I'm sure nearly every one of the 150 people in that church were shaking their heads in dismay. 

I was the first of my 13 Michigan cousins to get married - but I'm the only one still  married (to their original spouse, that is!)

So there.

Not that it's always been a picnic.  Of course not.  We've certainly been apart far more than I would have dreamed back on May 8, 1976, when I could barely stand to let him out of my sight for 20 minutes.  He's worked away from home a lot - on long term assignments everywhere from Dayton, Ohio, to Chengde, China.  And he's worked long hours even when he was home.  Sometimes I felt as if I were raising our son alone - and that's a big reason why we didn't have more than one child.  But the reason he worked so hard was to give me the ability to stay home and be a full time mother, something we both felt was really important.  And I'm more grateful than I can say, for those years were a true and lasting gift.

But the distance between us has never been in more than miles.  For at the end of the day, we can count on each other - he knows it, and I know it.  We cover each other's back in those hard "life" things, but we also give each other space to pursue our individual dreams.  We share the same values - the importance of family, of caring for other people, of giving your best effort to everything you do.  And we share the same dreams -traveling the world, making beautiful music, trying to make the world a better place, and sharing life with our children and their children.

I'm certainly not complacent about marriage, even one of 32 years.  My parents marriage ended after 42 years, so I know we're nowhere near home free in the longevity department.  As we move into this middle aged stage of life, with more physical challenges presenting themselves everyday, more world problems intruding on and affecting our hopes and dreams, our patience and thoughtfulness is called upon in new ways.  Because of Jim's neuropathy, he has a hard time taking walks, one of the things we used to love doing.  I admit it, I occasionally get annoyed about that.  Or about the fact that his medications make him sleepy, so he tends to nod off the minute he sits down. 

But he still jumps up when I call his name, ready to do whatever needs to be done.  He still sends me little notes during the day (text messages now) with encouraging words when he knows I need them.  He still thanks me for making dinner, tells me I look great (when I know I don't), and never complains if he can't find a pair of socks that match (as long as he can find the tv remote, it's all good!)  Next Saturday, he'll get up at the crack of dawn and drive me to Sandusky, Ohio to play for my friend's elementary school choir in a competition at Cedar Point - he does it every year.

On May 8, 1976, I might have been only 20 years old, but I knew what I was doing.

He's a good guy. 

And he keeps me grounded on this roller coaster ride of life.

Happy Anniversary, Jamey.

 

Stormy Skies

For most of my life I've been an expert worrier - if there wasn't a good reason to worry, I could make one up.  And there have been several periods in my life when stressful situations were outside the norm - the year my parents split up, the year my grandmother died and my husband lost his job (all in the same week), the year my son moved away from home.  During those times, I found it difficult to eat or sleep, found myself obsessing over the situation to the extent that I was unable to concentrate on anything else, found myself lying around staring mindlessly at the television for hours on end. It's been a long while since I've had a really substantial worry, and I guess I've grown a little complacent.  I believed I had learned how to handle life's smaller vicissitudes with a bit more aplomb, and that's probably true.  But I have several very substantial worries right now. 

Just last week I was musing about my son, comparing his life to a multi-colored kite soaring in the breeze.  That kite has encountered some stormy weather, and is being tossed about quite roughly, so we're all feeling the effects here on the ground.  For not only have he and his wife run into some significant roadblocks in their quest to start a family, my daughter in law is suddenly facing unexpected surgery this week. 

It never ceases to amaze me how life can turn itself on a dime, how things can be going just swimmingly, and suddenly you're caught in a riptide being sucked under before you have a moment to catch your bearings.  I find myself slipping into that familiar mode of obsession/distraction, riffling the problems over and over in my mind like strings of worry beads between my fingertips (maybe I should get some of those).  I had saltines for dinner,  spent two hours last night watching the Entertainment channel (ick), and fell asleep in the chair.  I wander around the house, picking up clutter and setting it down somewhere else, desultorily play a song or two on the piano, just pounding the notes mechanically beneath my fingers. I feel as if I haven't learned a thing about how to handle stress, for I've simply reverted to patterns established years ago.

Most of my difficulty arises from the loss of control that is inherent in any situation like this -from not being able to fix things, from not knowing what will happen next.  I feel completely incapable of handling life, so I wander, dither, worry.  As the saying goes, "Worry is like a rocking chair - it gives you something to do, but gets you nowhere."

There is much written these days about the power of positive thinking, of envisioning the future you want to have.   I would like to buy into that philosophy, but maybe I'm just too old.  I keep slipping back into my familiar mentality - bad things will happen, and there's nothing you can do to change them.  Because lately I haven't seen too much evidence of good things happening to anybody, positive attitude or not.  Amidst the continuing stories of economic and social doom and disaster clouding even the bluest sky, there hasn't been much evidence that anyone's vision for a brighter tomorrow are coming true.

But right now, the concerns of the wider world are of little consequence to me.  It's just my small corner of the world I'm worried about - my family, it's present and it's future. 

And the skies are a bit too blustery for my liking.

Kite Flying

Right before my son’s senior year in high school, my friend Pat gave me a framed reprint of the poem titled “Children Are Like Kites.” You’ve probably seen it - the gist of is that you spend years prepping children to “get off the ground.” You run with them, patch them up when they’re torn, pick them up off the ground countless times. You let the string out a bit at a time, until finally they’re airborne. Then, “the kite becomes more distant, and you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds you together and it will soar as it was meant to soar - free, and alone."

By the time you get to this part of the poem, you’re choking back tears. Even now, over a dozen years later, I get teary-eyed reading those last few words.

But then there’s the final sentence:

Only then do you know you’ve done your job.

I believe that’s true. It’s in the letting go that a parent really comes to know what they’re made of. And if you’ve done your job well, when you read that very last line, you’ll dry your tears, stand up a little bit straighter, take a deep breath, and carry on.

My husband and I are only children, and when it comes to feeling responsible for their parents' happiness, I think the burden on an only child is rather great. My parent’s and my husband’s parents were as different as night and day in their child-rearing styles, but the outcome on each side was exactly the same. Both of us always felt the need to be perfect and do whatever it took to make our parents happy, even if that meant subsuming what we desired for our own lives.

So when we married, we had an agreement. If/when we had children, we would not stand in their way, would not make them feel as if our lives depended on their constant presence, not make them feel guilty or worried about what we’d do without them.

In short, we’d let them break the kite string and soar.

We’ve tried really hard to do that, and I think we’ve succeeded pretty well. Our only son left home at age eighteen to go to college in Florida, traveled more than halfway around the world on several occasions, then met and married a young woman from a completely different culture. He’s lived in Florida for the past twelve years and is planning a move to Texas to embark upon another era in his life’s journey.

Sometimes I laugh at just how well we’ve succeeded in allowing him to soar. I’m sure his trajectory boggles the minds of our parents, as well as other more conservative folks in our families, who probably always wonder why in the world we let him do those things.

Make no mistake; there’s nothing easy about this process. There’s no magic pill you can take to stop missing your children, to keep your heart from aching when you’re apart on birthdays or holidays, to prevent you from wondering what they’re doing or how their day is going, if they’re in a bad mood or on top of the world. I’ve always been deeply involved in my own mother’s life (probably more than is good for me), and I know that I will become more involved from now on as she draws nearer to the end of it. It hurts to think I might never have that kind of relationship with my only child, that I may well need to depend on “the kindness of strangers” to shepherd me through my later years. 

But, as writer Phyllis Theroux says: “My children have taught me more than I have taught them, given me more joy than I have given them, and their not being present or even much aware of me now does not alter this."

Watching those beautiful, strong, colorful kites waving proudly in the breeze is worth everything and is one of life’s greatest experiences.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Communication Gap

One of my co-workers and her husband travel regularly from Detroit to Burlington, Vermont, which is about a 14 hour car trip, and I once asked her if they listened to music or books on tape while they traveled. "Oh no," she said brightly.  "We just talk.  We always have lots to say to one another."

Lest you think this is a couple of starry eyed newlyweds, I must tell you that they will celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary this summer.

This conversation came to mind tonight while my husband and I were waiting for dinner,  sitting outdoors at the little cafe located a short bike ride away from our house.   I was gazing peacefully across the lake, watching the herons diving for their own evening meal.  And Jim was -well, totally immersed in communion with his telephone.

A couple of weeks ago, he got a new cell phone that allows him to connect to the Internet anywhere.  You can surf while standing in line at the grocery, while waiting for dinner in the restaurant, while riding in the car (suddenly, he's all too happy for me to do the driving, so he can play with his telephone). 

Is there a word that describes the willful destruction of an electronic object - cybercide?  Or a word for divorce caused by alienation of affection secondary to the Internet? 

I realized tonight what an inordinate amount of time my husband spends staring at a screen-televsion, computer, and now telephone.  Of course, I'm no slouch when it comes to cybersurfing.  Just last night, we were both standing at the kitchen counter, staring at our individual laptops, racing to see who could be first to find the site to download a song we'd heard earlier in the day.

But I find myself resenting his constant immersion in all things electric.  "I can see I need to start bringing a book everywhere we go," I remarked this evening.

"Why's that?" he asked, without even looking up.

"Since you're so enthralled with that telephone, I need some way to pass the time," I answered.

"Oh for pete's sake," he said, shoving the little stylus back into its slot.

But then we sat in silence until our burgers arrived.  

Sometimes I wonder if our reliance on electronic devices for entertainment and communication has gotten out of hand, if its hampered our ability to communicate with people in the real world and in real time.  When Jim and I drive to Florida, we stock up on audio books, and dowload movies onto our laptops.  Frankly, I can't imagine what we'd talk about on a 14 hour car trip. 

Of course, it wasn't always that way.  Before we were married, we talked on the phone for hours every night, even if we'd been together during the day.  And we wrote letters -ten pages or more! -everyday when we were in college and separated by the whopping distance of 32 miles.  In those days we were like my friend and her husband - there was always plenty to talk about. 

But it seems we've become more interested in virtual communication than in exerting the effort to communicate with each other.  So we fall prey to an increasing sense of isolation and disconnection with one another. 

 Perhaps every couple should take a long road trip now and then, with no electronic distractions allowed, and see how many things they can find to talk about. 

How about you?  Have electronics impacted communication in your relationships?

Dreaming the Night Away

Last night was a terrible, horrible, very bad night.  Oh, don't be frightened, I'm fine.  Nothing bad really happened.

It was all in my dreams.

Usually, I don't dream.  Or at least, I don't remember my dreams.  And last night, I was really looking forward to a good night's sleep.  You see, I'm at my Florida house all alone -  no dogs hogging the bed, no chainsaw massacre snoring - just the king sized pillowtop mattress, the gently whirring ceiling fan, and me.

Alas, it was not to be.  I had nightmares of epic proportions, a continuing saga of a dream that kept waking me up with a start, and then, picking up where it left off when I managed to doze off again.  Somehow it involved me and two of my friends on a trip somewhere, and terrible things kept happening so we couldn't get home.

The last scene involved a gunman holding a woman hostage - she was tall and blonde and dressed in a forest green business suit.  "Don't hurt me, Paul," she kept saying, as he pointed the gun directly at her head.  Meanwhile, my two friends had disappered and I was crouched in the hallway of some conference center, not ten feet away from where this drama was taking place. 

Despite her pleading and the police totally surrounding him, he fired the gun and she crumpled to the floor.  A policeman tackled him, but he turned and started firing the gun randomly in the air, until the policeman wrested him to his knees, taking the gun from his hand by grabbing it with his teeth!

Dear Lord.

So much for a restful night's sleep.

Where in the heck do dreams like that come from?  Was it the late dinner at PF Chang's where we stopped on the way home from the airport?  Was it the extra glass of wine I polished off before bed?  Was it talking with my son and daughter in law about their upcoming trip to Thailand?  Was it being all alone in this big house?

Some people believe our dreams have important messages for our future.  The high school kids I work with just presented the musical Fiddler on the Roof, and it contains a scene where Tevye uses a (fictional!) dream to convince his wife their eldest daughter is destined to marry the "poor tailor" instead of the butcher chosen by the matchmaker. 

"Tell me your dream, and I'll tell you what it means," Golde says to Tevye.  And he proceeds to recount a horrific tale that involves Golde's grandmother and the butcher's first wife, both of whom have been dead for years.  By the end of his story, Golde is convinced.  "It is a sign," she says.  "So that's how it was meant to be, and it couldn't be any better."

Of course Sigmund Freud made a scientific phenomenon of dream analysis.  In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, he contended that the foundation of all dreams was "wish fulfillment" and the instigation of a dream was always to be found in the events of the day proceeding it.

If that's the case, then I think Sigmund and I need to have a talk.  Neither of these options is very appealing in light of last night's dreams.

Last week, a blogging friend had some interesting things to say about the connection between depression and dreams.  Seems a book she read indicated that depressed folks dream more, and as a result, wake up feeling less rested, thus perpetuating this vicious circle of depression and bad feeling. The whole bad dream cycle begins as a result of "failing to have ones basic needs met," thus inciting worry about these particular difficulties.  The authors of this particular tome (which she never identified, more's the pity) refer to this as "misusing the imagination," by allowing "emotionally arousing thoughts to go round and round in their heads." 

And so night falls, and one's mind must deal with all these bad thoughts and feelings that have been roiling around all day.  The mind converts them into dreams (and not necessarily good ones), but in doing so it prevents the body from falling into the deepest level of REM sleep needed to feel rested and refreshed the next day.

Remember those "basic needs," the lack of which started this cycle to begin with?  Well, one of them is (of course!) plenty of restful sleep.  And so the cycle begins again, in all its viciousness.

If you visit here regularly, you'll know I've had some worrying things to ponder lately.  Perhaps last night's dream was the equivalent of "worry soup," an amalgam of all my concerns and fears, all poured into the stockpot of my unconscious mind, and set to bubbling in my sleep.

Surprisingly enough after last night, I've felt rested today.  I spent the morning quietly, drinking coffee, sitting on the lanai doing some writing, taking a long bike ride before lunch.   Jim arrived this afternoon,so I'm no longer alone.  The four of us enjoyed a good dinner on the lanai and sat around talking in the cool evening air.

And now its late once again...the king sized pillowtop beckons. 

What dreams will come tonight?

I wonder.

How about you?  What are your dreams (or nightmares) telling you?