Fix You (Coldplay)

Family vacation, July 2017, Cudjoe Key, photo credit: https://www.emileemcgovern.com/

It was a quiet, low-key week... Day-Quil-ing and Night-Quil-ing and Hall's lozenging, oh my!  I should have given you all a heads-up to buy stock in Kleenex... 🤣

It was also a strong emphasis on Radical Self-Care:  lots of hot baths, early bedtimes, catching up on TV shows (I finished Six Feet Under, at least as fabulous as I remembered it, if not more so):

"You think you finally get to the bottom of the feelings... and then there are more."

***

"I know.  I still can't believe it.  It's like... now we just go on with everything?  It's what people do."

***

"This is a hard day, and we're all very upset.  The loss of a young person is always a terrible blow.  But, in this case, it's even more cruel because [no spoiler!] was an idealist, and he struggled, all through his life, to be a good man.  He wasn't perfect; but then who among us is?  And he never gave up on himself, the people he loved, or even love itself, in all its vexing, beautiful forms."

***

"I forget how anyone ever gets over anything."

"...with time."

"...by remembering love."

"what the h*ll does that mean?"

"Slowly you fall back in love with whatever really mattered to you."

I started a WhatsApp Winter Wellness Challenge (in a no-pressure, no-guilt, no-stress definition of the word) for the month of December, inviting immediate as well as extended family members to join me in sharing (publicly or silently) their accomplishments... their stumbles... their affirmations... their words of wisdom... their get-up-and-do-it-again-amens... their memes... their goals, etc.  Motivate.  Inspire.  Encourage.  Today is Day 3 and it's already unbelievable lovely... 💖

I was delighted to test COVID-negative on Friday, meaning I could gather with Sarah, Colin, and Rob to decorate her Christmas tree that evening... as well as get back to the Hope garden yesterday.  "Oh patience" indeed... ॐ

SONG:  Fix You by Coldplay

BOOK:  Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations For Working Through Grief by Martha Whitmore Hickman

POEM(S):  Allium by Rosemerry Wahola Trommer

 

While I did not fix

the thing I most

wish to fix, and I

did not do

the most important

thing on my list,

and I did not save

anyone, and I did

not solve the world’s

problems, I did

plant the onion sets

in the garden,

pressed my fingers

into the dry earth,

knew myself as

a thin dry start.

Oh patience, good

self. This slow

and quiet growing,

this, too, is

what you are

here to do.

Shoulders by Naomi Shihab Nye

A man crosses the street in rain,

stepping gently, looking two times north and south,

because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.

No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo

but he's not marked.

Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,

HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.

He hears the hum of a boy's dream

deep inside him.

We're not going to be able

to live in this world

if we're not willing to do what he's doing

with one another.

The road will only be wide.

The rain will never stop falling.

QUOTE(S):  “You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and finally, grief ends up giving you the two best gifts: softness and illumination.” ~ Anne Lamott

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” ~ Pema Chödrön 

"Our death is our wedding with eternity." ~ Rumi

"I held on to a thought about my boy that helped me face a future without him:  He had loved me his whole life.  That love is precious; and it's for keeps.  I will not waste it." ~ Hilda Bastain

Don't Panic (Coldplay)

My daughter Sarah had an appointment in Wynwood this past Saturday afternoon and asked me to accompany her.  I of course said that I'd love to and suggested that, if we had the time/energy/inclination, we should walk around afterward.  The area is a famous community showcasing graffiti artists, and I'd never been down there.  And we did.  A-f*ckin'-mazing!

Here's a bit of backstory:  Wynwood Walls (which is currently closed) and American History... and some photos as examples of the coolness.  We strolled for two hours, stopping for a short while to enjoy tacos, guac/chips, and beers.  I was so impressed, and want to return soon... 😍

NR:  In Zanesville: by Jo Ann Beard

SONG:  Don't Panic by Coldplay

BOOK(S):  The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein

Walls of Change: The Story of the Wynwood Walls by Jessica Goldman Srebnick, Franklin Sirmans, Martha Cooper (Photographer), Hal Rubenstein (Introduction)

POEM:  Textbook Statistics by Arkaye Kierulf

On average, 5 people are born every second and 1.78 die.

So we’re ahead by 3.22, which is good, I think.

The average person will spend two weeks in his life

waiting for the traffic light to change.

Pubescent girls wait two to four years

for the tender lumps under their nipples to grow.

So the average adult has over 1,460 dreams a year,

laughs 15 times a day. Children, 385 more times.

So the average male adult mates 2,580 times with five different people

but falls in love only twice in his life—possibly

with the same person. Seventy-nine long years for each of us,

awakened to love in our twenties, so more or less

thirty years to love our two lovers each. And if, in a lifetime,

one walks a total of 13,640 miles by increments,

Where are you headed, traveler?

is a valid philosophical question to pose to a man, I think, along with

Why does the blood in your veins travel endlessly?

on account of those red cells flowing night and day

through the traffic of the blood vessels, which if laid out

in a straight line would be over 90,000 miles long.

The great Nile River in Egypt is 4,180 miles long.

The great circle of the earth’s equator is 24,903 miles.

Dividing this green earth among all of us

gives a hundred square feet of living space to each,

but our brains take only one square foot of it,

along with the 29 bones of the skull, so

if you look outside your window with your mind only,

why do you hear the housefly hum middle octave, key of F?

If you listen to the cat on the rug by the fire with

the 32 muscles in your ear, you will hear

100 different vocal sounds. Listen to the dog

wishing for your love: 10 different sounds.

If you think loneliness is beyond calculation,

think of the mole digging a tunnel underground

ninety-eight miles long to China

in one single night. If you think beauty escapes you

or your entire genealogical tree, consider the slug

with its four uneven noses, or the chameleon shifting colors

under an arbitrary light. Think of the deepest point

in the deepest ocean, the Marianas Trench in the Pacific,

do you think anyone’s sadness can be deeper? In 1681,

the last dodo bird died. In the 16th century,

Queen Elizabeth suffered from a fear of roses.

Anne Boleyn had six fingers. People fall in love

twice. The human heart beats 3 billion times — only — in a lifetime.

If you attempt to count all the stars in the galaxy, one

every second, it’ll take 3 thousand years, if you’re lucky.

As owls are the only birds that can see the color blue

the ocean is bluish, along with the sky and the eyes

of that boy who died alone by that little unnamed river

in your dreams one blue night of the war

of one of your lives. (Do you remember which one?)

Duration of World War 1: four years, 3 months, 14 days.

Duration of an equatorial sunset: 128 seconds, 142 tops.

A neuron’s impulse takes 1/1000 of a second,

a morning’s commute from Prospect Expressway

to the Brooklyn Bridge, about 90 minutes,

forty-five without traffic.

Time it takes for a flower to wilt after it’s cut from the stem: five days.

Time left our sun before it runs out of light: five billion years.

Hence the number of happy citizens under the red glow

of that sun: maybe 50% of us, 50% on good days, tops.

Number who are sad: maybe 70% on the good days—

especially on the good days. (The first emotion’s more intense, I think,

when caught up with the second.) So children grow faster in the summer,

their bright blue bodies expanding. The ocean, after all, is blue

which is why the sky now outside your window is bluish

expanding with the white of something beautiful, like clouds.

Fact: The world is a beautiful place—once in a while.

Another fact: We fall in love twice. Maybe more, if we’re lucky.

QUOTE:  "We are all dreamers creating the next world, the next beautiful world for ourselves and for our children." ~ Yoko Ono

Fix You (Coldplay)

I can't recall the last time I went this long between posts... but I returned late Tuesday night from spending a week with my mom and have only now slowed down enough to process and record my thoughts - I already know this is going to be long, so settle in with a cup of hot tea (or join me for a glass of wine, which seems to take the edge off the telling)...

I've written here before that my 78-year-old mom has pulmonary fibrosis and kidney disease, both chronic, irreversible and incurable illnesses – at this point, it's a matter of attempting to slow down the progression and maintain her comfort level. When I saw her at Christmas, I could tell she was much worse than when I'd gone up for the Dar trip at the end of October, only a few months before – I felt the need to have a quality, one-on-one visit with her, outside the structure of our family holiday hecticness of so many people, so little time. Since I'm still unemployed (I continue to plead the blessing-in-disguise defense), I feel fortunate I had a window of opportunity in which to follow through – add to that a $150 round-trip deal, and it was the proverbial offer I couldn't refuse...

Mom has been on oxygen 24/7 since mid-September – her basic routine is to get up, make a pot of coffee and settle in to a corner of the couch in her living room, where she stays the majority of the day, watching television and napping, leaving there only to get something to eat or go to the bathroom or return to her bedroom at night. Breathing is more of a struggle when she moves around (activity also causes coughing) – it's therefore more comfortable (and comforting) for her to stay as sedentary as possible. Mom is so frustrated – her mind is still so sharp but her body is betraying her...

The first thing I did when I arrived was to head up to Publix and spend $200 on healthy foods to cook for mom – I planned a week's worth of meals, the most important of which was the Southern sh*tpot of soup, for which I used ground turkey and organic vegetables: carrots, green beans, onions, corn cut off the cob and rice (I had to use white because people with kidney disease can't process brown rice... nor whole grain pasta, wheat bread or any high-fiber foods). We had the soup for dinner that evening and I put up 8 containers in the freezer – I did the same for each subsequent meal such that, by the time I left there were 19 Tupperwares stockpiled for future use (2 of them contributed by my dear sister, who will continue the ritual... :-)

Another reason for going was to assess mom's 24/7 routine, as well as gauge how she's able to accomplish certain tasks (with or without help) and what tools/support she needs to make her life easier on a day-to-day basis – first of all, thankyoujesus for my sister Mari, who gets mom to all her doctor appointments and runs interference with the medical/insurance/paperwork world... and to my brother Brad, who stops in weekly or every other week to handle major tasks that mom cannot (grocery shopping, putting up/taking down her holiday decorations, changing the sheets on her bed, etc.). Mari and Brad each live about 30 minutes from mom, which is quite a consolation to me, 12 hours away – I do not take them for granted...

Then there is mom's secondary support group, the amazing angel neighbors of Rose, Claire and Ann – seriously, mom would never have been able to stay in her house as long as she has without their assistance. They are all dear in their own way... Rose sweet, soft-spoken and a great listener (she's a nurse); Claire strong, independent, outspoken; Ann judgemental, tactless, protective – Rose walks across the street and visits with mom each evening, and Ann and Claire call her during the day and, if mom doesn't answer her phone after a few attempts, one of them will go to the house to check on her. They will carry her laundry basket to the utility room so mom can wash clothes, take her garbage to the dump (no curbside pick-up in Flowery Branch, Georgia!) and bring in her mail – they are glad to run errands, do chores and buy anything mom needs while they're out...

Mom and I did a lot of heart-to-heart talking while I was there, which I knew was cathartic for both of us – one thing she wanted to do, which we split into two days, was to go through each room of the house, her telling me about various pieces of furniture, knick-knacks and photos. What could have been a sad experience was instead bonding and joyous, as mom filled me in on the history/backstory of cherished items, some of which I knew and others I didn't – it was lovely having her describe the pins on her hat when she was an Atlanta Olympics volunteer... and pointing out the myriad uncles/aunts/grandparents in the sepia-toned stills of Italian families on both sides. It wasn't about divvying up or tagging, but instead a walk through her past - I of course took copious notes, and will type up a document which I'll e-mail to my sister, who will print and have mom look over and make corrections, if necessary. Mom did, however, give me a silver necklace I admired when we were going through her jewelry – Ralph (her second husband, who was killed in a car accident 8 years ago) gave it to her for Christmas in 1999 and the sentimental value is priceless...

Friday afternoon I drove mom to her haircut appointment – she did fine up to a certain point (having her portable oxygen tank with her), but ran out of energy toward the end. Myra, her hairdresser, walked us to the car and sweetly told mom that, from now on, she'd be more than glad to come to mom's house and cut her hair (as she had a few other people she did that for) – we were so touched at her offer, and I've encouraged mom to take her up on it...

Friday night we watched the movie Young @ Heart, an uplifting documentary which Anne told me about when I posted Yes We Can Can for Hope and Change Week on Star Maker Machine, warning that a few of the elderly characters died during the making – we decided to go ahead with it, and were so glad we did, as mom truly enjoyed, despite the bittersweet nature of the film which celebrates the aging process, knowing their accomplishments were beyond her capabilities. The soundtrack was amazing and, even though my husband is a big Coldplay fan (as is my daughter), I've never really listened to their music – the song I used for this blog post title, Fix You, hit me in the heart as it began as a duo between two male characters and ended up as a solo...

My sister and brother came over Saturday night for a confab with me and mom, to discuss short- and long-term options – it was a great brainstorming session, in which we came up with so many options to expand her ease of operation around the house: Brad will buy and install a hand-held shower attachment for mom's bathroom; we will get her a LifeAlert necklace; I set up one of her spiral notebooks as a To Do List of Chores/Errands/Purchases so she can write down whenever something needs done (rather than having to remember it) when someone asks how they can help; I got my aunt's walker out of the garage and although mom stubbornly refused to use it most of my visit, she did try it out my last few days there and begrudgingly admitted it made things a bit easier; I placed a few of her dining room chairs throughout (calling them “halfway houses”), in which she could sit and catch her breath on her way from one room to another...

Saturday afternoon we (my mom, me, Mari and Mari's 12-year-old daughter Julia) played Scrabble – I kicked everyone's *ss (as usual!)...

Sadly, my sister told me a few weeks ago that she's getting a divorce... and thankfully so far everything's been amicable – the blessing in disguise here is that Mari will now be looking at houses with a downstairs bedroom/bath for mom to move in. Mom has informed us she wants to stay in her own house as long as she's able, and we agree – however, it's nice to know there's a Plan B when the time comes (as of this writing, Mari had put in an offer on a house which feels like a meant-to-be... and my purple candles have been burning non-stop)...

We also came up with lots of questions to ask mom's new pulmonologist, which she saw Wednesday, the day after I left – a full report on that tomorrow...

I brought my laptop and 5 books and was able to do a bit of work/play at night or when mom napped or showered, but didn't have nearly as much free time as I thought I would (getting through only 3/4 of one of the novels) – I didn't even walk while I was there, mostly because it was cold but also because I didn't want to leave mom alone for long. I concentrated on staying strong and upbeat when we were together, but allowed myself to fall apart in the car running errands... or late at night when she was asleep... or in the shower (like Glenn Close in The Big Chill) - it sometimes was too much to bear, as it still is when someone asks how she's doing and I feel so fragile I fear I will shatter into a million pieces...

One of the things I did when I got home was to set up an e-mail distribution group called The Connie Circle, consisting of me, Mari, Rose, Claire, Ann and my daughter Sarah – this way we can all keep each other in the loop regarding doctor appointments, visits and ideas...

I don't know who was more grateful for our time together, me or mom - she was so appreciative of my assistance and company... and I felt glad to finally be able to do something tangible instead of worrying long-distance...

To be continued...

P.S. SMM here, here, here, here and here...

SONG: Fix You by Coldplay (YouTube video here...)

BOOK: The Breakdown Lane by Jacquelyn Mitchard

POEM: For the Traveler by John O'Donohue

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

QUOTE: "Live with skillful nonchalance and ceaseless concern." ~ Prajnaparamita Sutra