Comforters

We were almost home from our walk last night, enjoying the cool breeze and the last remaining bits of sunlight.  The dogs stopped to leave one final "calling card" on their favorite bush. "Did I ever tell you how I got this scar on my elbow?" Jim said, looking off into the backyard of the house in front of us. 

"I don't think so," I answered, although he has, and several times in fact, but I thought he might need to tell it again.

"Well, it was right here," he said, "before this house was built of course, this was all a huge field of grass and tall weeds, but there was a dirt path worn through from bikers.  I was riding across, fell off my bike, and landed on some jagged piece of glass which cut my arm."

"So, what did you do?" I asked.

"Got back on my bike and rode home - really fast!, because it was bleeding a lot," he answered.  "I remember my buddy Fred calling out to me, but I didn't even answer."

"Did you get stitches?"

He laughed dryly.  "No. I didn't even tell anybody.  I just got some band aids and went into my room and fixed it up myself."

"Gee," I replied.  "I was always falling off my bike when I was a kid, and I'd be screaming and crying for my mom all the way home.  My mother said she could hear me coming for blocks."

"Well, that was you," he answered.  "I just had to comfort myself."

My husband's been telling me a lot of those stories lately, and I suppose it's part of coming to terms with his mother's imminent death.  If you read here at all regularly, you'll know that their relationship was not particularly close or loving, was in fact characterized by a lot of unrealized expectations (on her part) and guilt (on his).  When her dementia progressed to the point that she no longer recognized him or remembered his existence, I think he felt freer than he ever felt in his life. 

But as I look at her now, hovering near the end of a life that never seemed quite what she wanted it to be, I can only feel empathy for her.  After all, no one sets out to be a bad mother, no one aims to drive their children crazy, or purposefully withholds the love and nurturing they need. (Well, I suppose some people do, but they're simply psychopathic).  I honestly believed she loved Jim with all her heart...she simply didn't know how to express it in a way that was meaningful to him.

Sometimes people can only love as much as they've been loved.  The stories I've heard about her father revolved around his rules - for behavior at the dinner table, for keeping strict curfews.  She's often told the tale of being locked outside for the entire night because she was five minutes late getting home. And then she married a man twenty years her senior, a man whom she addressed in their early correspondence as "Pop," a man who was neither affectionate, nor humorous, nor given to indulgence or enjoyment.  Their marriage was always fractious and contentious - I never once heard them exchange a kind word.  

A chilly childhood and a loveless, bitter marriage are probably not the best ingredients for good mothering.

Nevertheless, sitting by her bedside I'm always moved to tears, mostly for her and for the happiness she couldn't seem to find.  She has lingered with this wretched illness for so long... six years now of drifting farther out to sea every day...and I wonder what divine plan this could possibly be part of. 

So I come home and hug my own mother, whose love has comforted me so well all my life, and hug my husband, who has lots of overdue comfort coming to him.

And I wish I could hug my son.  But I hope that I've comforted him well when he needed it.

Hanging in the Balance

The scales of my life are quite weighty at the moment, with more and more things piling into them on a daily basis it seems.  Over the past several days, my mother in law (who has been suffering from progressive dementia for the past six years) slipped into renal failure and is now in hospice care.  In the process of making all these arrangements, checking on her daily, trying to complete the car repairs from the minor accident I was involved in a couple of weeks ago, and also deal with an ever increasing work load at the office, it's been a bit difficult to achieve any kind of balance in my life.  And although my husband is the Libra in the family, I'm the one who really craves things to be on an even keel and to have my ducks in a row at all times. I've been thinking about the balance in relationships, especially in marriage, for I think a natural division of labor and responsibility usually develops between a couple, often unspoken, but simply mutually agreed upon by experience and preference.  This week I've been handling the medical details, since I'm more comfortable in that arena and speak that language, while Jim has been in charge of the car repair since he's the most experienced in that realm.  We fell into those activities quite naturally, it seemed, without discussion.  He knows I hate making phone calls, so he's done all the talking with insurance adjusters and mechanics.  I know he's uncomfortable with illness, so I've spent the most time with his mother, talking to the hospice staff and trying to make sure she was comfortable.

Of course, inequities will occur, even in the best of systems.  Housework is usually one of them, isn't it?  Men seem to be missing the gene that causes anxiety when the laundy piles up, the dishes aren't done, and cobwebs hang from all the corners.   Alternatively, I can't muster much enthusiasm for watching auto racing in stereo surround sound.  So, occasionally even the most evenly matched couples become out of balance. Perhaps a new circumstance comes into play, one that neither party has ever dealt with before. 

Sometimes, adjustments must be made. 

Through it all, keeping a good balance is key - in relationships, and in life in general.

So wish me luck, as I keep working to even the scales.

In a Writer's State of Mind

Even though my week has been topsy turvy, filled to the brim with family obligations, car repairs, the beginning of fall musical activities, and of course, regular work responsibilities, I've felt the urge to write quite often during the middle of these hectic days.  You know what I mean - ideas popping into your head unbidden, like gifts you can't wait to open, tickling your brain and leaving your fingers itching to pick up a pencil.  Yet even when you get in the mood to write, circumstances aren't always conducive to actually writing.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could stop everything when the ideas start coming, and write until we're exhausted?  Sadly, that usually isn't the case, and writing all too often goes on the back burner of life.  So we must learn how to rekindle that urge to write, get ourselves mentally and emotionally back into the place where the imagination is free to roam.

The writer's state of mind, says Jack Heffron, is a state of "alert passivity, a state of mind that allows us to trust our instincts and frees us to take risks."  (The Writer's Idea Book)   The writing state of mind occurs when our brains are alert, yet not aggressively pursuing a train of thought.  The phrase my yoga instructor uses is "willful determination without putting pressure on yourself to be perfect." 

Have you ever noticed that your best ideas usually come when you're doing something completely unrelated to writing?  For me, it's usually when I'm driving to work in the morning...my brain is fresh, I'm anticipating the tasks ahead of me, and then it suddenly occurs to me that the character in my story should already be having an affair when the story starts, or that I could write an interesting essay about that one old home still standing amidst all the new office buildings along Haggerty road. 

In her book Becoming A Writer, Dorothea Brande talks about "the mysterious faculty," which produces "the flashes of insight, the penetrating intuitions, the imagination which combines and transmutes ordinary experience into the illusion of higher reality."  Each person has their own "individual endowment of genius," she says.  We must only learn to "release" it.   Often, she advises, it is some totally unrelated activity - walking, driving, cutting grass or scrubbing floors - that puts the writer into a "state of hypnosis" where the unconscious thoughts are allowed to play.

The writing state of mind also occurs when you relax your brain and let your instincts take over.  One of the greatest lessons I learned as a performing musician was to let my instincts take over when I stepped on stage - to stop concentrating all my attention on each note and passage, to relax and let all the practice and preparation do the work for me.  As writers, we prepare for our writing "performances" by reading good literature, studying the way other writers work, and mostly by keeping our writer's mind open to life experiences and the world around us, which will bring us all the ideas we could ever need.

There is undoubtedly a lot of hard work involved in good writing.  But I think there's also something a bit mystical about the writing state of mind.  Perhaps it's similar to what athletes call "the zone"...that place in your mind and body when you become one with the activity, when nothing else in the world matters - not hunger or pain, not ringing telephones or barking dogs -except the work in front of you.  For writers, it's the point where you've tapped into that state of mind where the ideas flow freely from the deepest well of your imagination, and your fingers can barely keep pace. 

How about you?  What's your writing state of mind these days?  How do you access that "mysterious faculty" where insight and imagination are nurtured?   How do your instincts about your writing ability help you?  What's your experience of being in "the writing zone"?

The Thrill is Gone

It's over.  There's no doubt in my mind. 

Yesterday was proof positive - seven excrutiating hours, endless nagging and niggling over petty details, nothing ever quite right, no one happy, nothing being accomplished.

I'm done.

I admit, for a moment there, I was thinking about giving it another try.  A hand was offered (again) and it occurred to me that perhaps this outreach was a sign this relationship was "meant to be," that I should step back into the ring and start swinging once again.

But after yesterday, I knew I was through.

My relationship with Classical Bells is over.

When I joined this performing group in 1998, it was such an exciting experience for me, and the opportunities that arose from being a member were priceless -performing with the Detroit Symphony, playing for national conventions in Las Vegas and Virginia, and countless other concert venues in between.  Life long friendships were created and cemented and countless laughs and tears were shed over late night wine fests/practice sessions.  Believe me, you haven't seen anything until you've seen 13 pajama clad women in a hotel room at 1:00 in the morning, drinking wine and  "air-belling" their entire program. 

I left the group about five years ago, but I've remained on the sub list, meaning I return to fill in at rehearsals (and occasionally concerts) for friends who are on vacation, maternity leave, or some other emergency situation.  Yesterday was just such a day...the annual weekend "retreat" that occurs every fall, a two day marathon of rehearsals to get a jump on the fall concert schedule, which this year will culminate in a performing tour in France to celebrate the ensemble's 25th anniversary.

That's right.  Seven days in France - three concerts, the final one being in the American Chuch in Paris. 

Even as I write, there is a huge part of my heart that's screaming "Do It! Do It! Do It!"  Because not only have they asked to me come, they've offered to pay my way.

Before you light into me with cries of "Are you crazy?"...let me enlighten you a bit.  Returning to this group would require a "Gi-Normous" committment.  Six hours of rehearsal every Monday, plus a hefty concert schedule...24 concerts are already on the books (including 13 in the month of December alone - everyone wants bells at Christmas time).   A concert entails at least 6 hours (not including travel time).  And I haven't even figured in the practice time to learn/re-learn all the music.

Sigh.

When I joined this group in 1998, I was in my forties, I had only one home, I wasn't working, and all my elderly relatives were healthy and independent.  Every one of those circumstances have changed, in ways that make the level of commitment and energy required to be a member of this group impossible for me to support.

Knowing when to quit is not easy.  I'm always impressed by entertainers and athletes who have the guts to quit while they're ahead, before they lose their ability, but also before they lose their love.  I have wonderful memories of my time in this group...I gained enough confidence in myself to go out into the world and tackle things I'd never done before.  But yesterday, after spending the entirety of a beautiful fall day stuck inside a musty church with 12 snarly women, I realized that coming back could mean tarnishing all the good memories with dissatisfaction, resentment, and anger.

I don't doubt that I'll feel pangs of regret come spring when they all set off on their journey to France.   But I know I've made the right decision in the long run. 

I'm over it.

So, how about you?  Have you ever quit while you were ahead? 

Another Country (for Write On Wednesday)

This week's Write On Wednesday  Prompt: “The loss of a place isn’t really so different from the loss of a person.  Both disappear without permission, leaving the self diminished, in need of testimony and evidence.”   Bridge of Sighs, Richard Russo

Write about a place you’ve lost….

Wonderfully strange and exciting, those first days and years of love are like crossing another country, one whose customs are foreign, whose flavors are intense, whose ways are altogether unexpected.  Every part of you tingles with anticipation -what marvelous new sight will appear before your eyes? What soft new breeze will touch your skin?  What pungent aroma will fill your nostrils? What fiery touch grasp your skin?

And the object of your affection begins to appear differently before your eyes.  You devour guidebooks, hoping to soak up all the information you can...favorite songs and colors, preferred foods, morning or evening, fast or slow dancing...how can you best accomodate yourself to this new and beloved place, for, lost in desire, you'll do anything to belong, to become a citizen of this new world of love.

So you settle in to your new home, this land built by love, and dwell there as days become months become years become decades.  You barely notice the landscape changing around you, when the lustre of architecture fades, the gilding begins to tarnish.  Occasionally, you're startled by a missing step, cracks in the foundation that were never there before, huge spider webs and dust bunnies that speak of decay.  You hurry to get paint, polish, and begin to scrub furiously, peering intently for a small spot of original glory.

Exhausted, you finally accept the inevitable. 

For no one can be a newcomer forever and each place on this earth is subject to change, every country, whether on the map or in our hearts, grows old, and can be lost.