Ma-Me-O Beach (Joan Armatrading)

Was it really only 48 hours I was gone? - amazing the tricks time can play on us...

As noted previously, my husband and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary last week - actually, the date of our union was September 18... but the celebration took place the last few days, as we decided to check into a hotel on the Ft. Lauderdale beach as a well-deserved and long-overdue getaway...

Since I spent the majority of my summer taking care of mom, and then the last month at home attempting to catch up from being away, I had forgotten how much I'd missed being outside... in the sun... particularly at the beach - my husband and I have now vowed to do this at least once a month, even if for only one night. There's much to be said for the curative powers of the ocean, an overload of sights, smells, sounds, sensations and salty tastes - I am tan, I am relaxed and, most importantly, I feel that I am on my way to a self-healing of great magnitude...

It has been a most difficult year, as I was reminded often over the last few days, remembering back to August 2008 when we took the family beach vacation Mom had always wanted, which would be our Last Hurrah, since she went on 24/7 oxygen a few weeks later - I segued from being a mess as I watched her decline... to experiencing the redemption of aiding in her peaceful passage...

I just felt so aware and flexible and receptive during this time off - what could have been a problem... wasn't... because I didn't allow it (room changes, husband's behavior, inclement weather). It all happened for a reason, and I took delight in whatever came my way (the trade-off of a larger room for one with a balcony, letting go of expectations and rediscovering the prose of two of my favorite authors: Pat Conroy and Anna Quindlen)...

I slept... a lot... I woke up to watch two glorious sunrises... and then went back to sleep... I stretched... I walked (some days twice!)... I gave and received love... I had my favorite meal (calamari and a dirty martini)... I reclined on a rented beach chair under the shade of a fluttering umbrella... or not, when I wanted to bake in the sun's rays... I wore my mom's bathing suit... I felt more limber and thin and self-confident and, yes, even beautiful than I have in a while...

I immersed, literally and figuratively, in the reconnection with my husband... as well as solitude and serenity - may this be the start of a new year of health and gratitude and acceptance... in my relationships with family and friends... and for myself...

SONG: Ma-Me-O Beach by Joan Armatrading

BOOK: Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen

POEM: All My Body Calls by David Whyte

All my body calls

for something in this sleeping

earth

we call the spirit.

But how

from lifted arms

where stars run through fingers

and the night is like sand

do I breathe a fragrance of its wisdom
do I call its name

or listen to the drops
that trickle down to earth

and hear

life being given

not only through the moving hands of the forest

but through the hand that reaches in

the dark unmoving regions of the chest

and uncovers slowly

the enormous

indistinct

shape of the ocean.

QUOTE: "Don't grow up too quickly, lest you forget how much you love the beach." ~ Michelle Held

Peace Like a River (traditional)

Today is my 33rd wedding anniversary - for three hours, I had my air ducts cleaned out. Lest you think that is a metaphor for... something else... I assure you, it is the literal truth - we have been on a straightening/cleaning jag (motivated by a party we're giving next weekend) and that was one of the things on our To Do List. Later tonight I intend to invoke the metaphor as well - our evening is low-key because we are headed to a hotel on the beach for two nights mid-week for our actual celebration (more on that as it gets closer... :-)

I've spent the day re-evaluating what's kept us going these 3+ decades - my daughter told me earlier that she didn't think she'd ever get married because we are the only people she knows who have stuck it out, while everyone else is divorcing, some even multiple times. I told her that it shouldn't discourage her, and that we have had just as many troubles as everyone else - the risk is the reward, and the leap of faith is the longevity... that we just keep getting up and doing it again... amen (to quote Jackson Browne)...

My husband makes me crazy... and he makes he feel adored - he is frustrating... and he is flattering. He is honest, even when I don't want to hear it... and I know I can trust his words and his actions (how many people in our lives can we say that about?!?) - he is intuitive, which is sometimes annoying but mostly a blessing. For my birthday last month, he wrote in my card: "Another year of challenges and you keep on going with class and dignity! I not only love you but admire you!" - sigh...

Tomorrow will be two months since my mom's passing... and one month since I've been back home in Florida - I'm beginning to move past the numbness and into question/overanalyzing mode. I've been lucky to have some good friends who will listen to my process without judgement and I'm finally feeling... dare I say it?... peace - I still miss mom and I still cry a good bit... but I know I am a better person for the experience...

Last Sunday was Water Sunday at our UU church - the format is that people bring water from (or use tap water that symbolizes) their summer vacation or travels. It's a lovely ceremony, and one in which I usually participate... but all I could think of was that I spent mid-May through mid-July refilling mom's oxygen tank twice a day with distilled water... and I knew I couldn't verbalize that without falling apart - water as a life force was quite literal in my case...

After the service, I was speaking with an older woman from the congregation who spent her summer at various doctor's offices - she too had refrained from the public ritual of sharing. We decided to ask the interim minister if she could "officiate" while we privately poured water into the community bowl and spoke our tearful intentions - it was quite cathartic... and, yes... even peaceful...

By the way, the ending hymn of our church service was Peace Like a River and, when I got home and turned on our local folk and acoustic radio show at 2 p.m., it was the first song the DJ played - meant-to-be... :-)

SONG: Peace Like a River (traditional)

BOOK: The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes and Stories of My Life by Pat Conroy with Suzanne Williamson Pollak

POEM: The Waltz We Were Born For by Walter McDonald

Wind chimes ping and tangle on the patio.

In gusty winds this wild, sparrow hawks hover

and bob, always the crash of indigo

hosannas dangling on strings. My wife ties copper

to turquoise from deserts, and bits of steel

from engines I tear down. She strings them all

like laces of babies' shoes when the squeal

of their play made joyful noise in the hall.

Her voice is more modest than moonlight,

like pearl drops she wears in her lobes.

My hands find the face of my bride.

I stretch her skin smooth and see bone.

Our children bring children to bless her, her face

more weathered than mine. What matters

is timeless, dazzling devotion—not rain,

not Eden gardenias, but cactus in drought,

not just moons of deep sleep, not sunlight or stars,

not the blue, but the darkness beyond.

QUOTE(S): "Love is the river of life in the world." ~ Henry Ward Beecher

"As I make my way around this life, I look for signs and baubles and charms and amulets and secret texts that there is a meaning and significance to human life that is under the control of some great moderating force. I like the glimpses of sorcery and fantasy that sometimes enter the human arena at the oddest, most unexpected times." ~ Pat Conroy

Blue Rondo a la Turk (Dave Brubeck)

One of my earliest memories is being with my father, listening to Harry Belafonte’s Matilda, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade and anything by Johnny Cash (I *still* know all the words to his songs) – I was born in 1954 and we had a hi-fi back then. I will never forget the momentous occasion when my dad brought home a *stereo*… took great delight in setting it up… and then had me sit down on the couch, at the apex where the speakers joined to make “the sweet spot”... and played Dave Brubeck’s Take Five – magic!

The song Unsquare Dance, on the same album, was one of Dad’s favorites – he explained to me it was in 7/8 time, quite a tricky tempo as the piano, bass and various percussion instruments weave around the chorus of clapping hands. Every time he played the album, which was quite frequently, he encouraged me to attempt to clap along, which was quite fun and challenging for a seven-year-old child – even though the tune was only two minutes, I never could keep the rhythm all the way through… but he always did.

I was raised to believe there were only three ways to do anything in life: the right way, the wrong way and the Marine Corps way - that's a really catchy saying, but the reality is that "right" and "Marine Corps" are actually one and the same, leaving recruits with only two options. They can do what they're told or they can suffer the consequences - we learned not to question authority.

I believed I had a perfect childhood… up until the year I turned 27 – my parents divorced after 29 years of marriage, mainly because of my father’s alcoholism. His prestigious jobs were a thing of the past – he found himself working as a clerk at Radio Shack, making minimum wage. His self-worth plummeted – a few times the police had to be called to intervene in domestic situations. At that point, I was living an hour away, with a husband and a small child – my visits home decreased as the situation worsened.

My father died on my 19th wedding anniversary – I had not spoken to him in the 3 years before his death because he had chosen to take his life in a direction I did not wish to follow. I felt no guilt about our diverging paths, only regret that there was a finality to whatever possibilities I may have envisioned for our future. On the day after his memorial service, as my mother, brother, sister and I drove up to Anna Ruby Falls in North Georgia to scatter my father’s ashes, we took turns telling stories of our interactions with him over the years – it was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, as we all had such different, and sometimes conflicting, memories to share.

My father is so much in me: my love of music, my affinity for the written word and my appreciation of humor, especially a good pun - on the dark side, I have also inherited his qualities of perfectionism which leads to procrastination which leads to paralysis.

There is a relatively happy ending to this story – when my father died he was living in my grandmother’s house, which was subsequently sold. There were 8 grandchildren, and, after all the debts and estate costs were settled, each received $3,000.00 – my husband and I discussed how to spend the money, and there were certainly bills that needed to be paid. Ultimately, frivolous as it seemed, we decided on a Jacuzzi for the backyard – I joked that my father had caused so much stress in my life it was the least he could to do relieve it through his legacy. I must confess I am in the hot tub almost every evening… and not a night goes by when I don’t think about my father… in a peaceful, calm and loving manner – the last 12 years have given me the closure I needed… and I hope that somewhere, some way, he feels it too…

For my fortysomething birthday (one or two?), I called a few of my close friends and asked them to join me to see the movie Smoke Signals, mainly because Dar Williams' song Road Buddy was included in the soundtrack - the film was a winner of the Sundance Film Festival in 1998, the first feature made by a Native American crew and creative team… and is about a young man, accompanied by his friend, who travels from his home on an Idaho reservation to Phoenix to pick up the ashes of his father, whom he hasn’t seen in 10 years. The movie is based on the book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist-Fight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie - the poem I've chosen for today's blog post is read during the last scene.

SONG: Blue Rondo a la Turk (music by Dave Brubeck, 1960; lyrics by Al Jarreau 1981)

BOOK: The Great Santini by Pat Conroy

POEM: by Dick Lourie

How do we forgive our fathers?
Maybe in a dream.
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often,
or forever,
when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage,
or for making us nervous
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all?
Do we forgive our fathers for marrying,
or not marrying,
our mothers?
Or divorcing,
or not divorcing,
our mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses
of warmth
or coldness?
Shall we forgive them
for pushing
or leaning?
For shutting doors?
For speaking through walls?
Or never speaking?
Or never being silent?
Do we forgive our fathers in our age or in theirs?
Or in their deaths,
saying it to them,
or not saying it?
If we forgive our fathers, what is left?

QUOTE: "I am reminded of the old show business adage. Showing up is eighty percent of the work. The rest is about concentration and focus, about being specific, all of which - just being there, just being - are deeply spiritual values. And that's what a father has to do, too. Not 'to be' or 'not to be.' Just be. Be, be, be." ~ M. G. Stephens