In the dark
I see
you wanting another thought from me
I walked in circles
and bought the wrong thing
again.
Twenty nine boxes of soup
and a carrot
I thought I'd make something
like the things I always make
but I couldn't remember the recipe.
The pet store opens early
but not early enough
To walk the bird aisle
Talk to some quality
people
get some words.
Tomorrow is a Tuesday
I dreamt it was a Sunday
I was prepared for something like church
And delivered rain.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Returning
It has been one year since I decided to throw away many ideas about myself. It didn't happen intentionally. I started last summer, pretty much like every summer since age 12, with a big plan for my transformation. This one was going to be big. Bigger than last year, and the year before that, and, you know, the year before that. Some summers have gone "better" than others. There was the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college when my boyfriend had broken up with me and I travelled to Long Island to spend time with my college roommate, to get away, the reinvent myself. My father had pushed $150 in my hand and a train ticket home and in my life in 1991, that was a lot. I had gone running everyday while on Long Island. I didn't eat and I listened to these strange Long Island women talk in a funny accent about making themselves smaller. I wondered what was small enough.
I made it home that August a little person, tanned, hair topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was smiling to hide the tired. I was so tired all the time. I got the boyfriend back, found my friend alcohol again and moved onto the next time.
There was the summer in 2009 when my 57 year old step father went on oxygen full time and we watched him wither away to an old man before our eyes. I took up road racing and stopped eating. I spent that summer turning into something while people celebrated the new me. I knew there was something wrong with me to begin with and this reaffirmed those thoughts. You thought I looked more healthy, happier, better, thinner. I must have been pretty bad off to generate such a strong social reaction.
He died anyways.
And I spent years trying to get something back. I'm still not sure what.
There was the last big time in 2015 when I went through my divorce and fell in love with Jeremiah and literally changed everything, my life all topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was high on the challenges, pushing all hard things away. I signed up for a triathlon. I spent the summer running and biking and swimming. I shrunk myself into a new normal. My heart rate got down to 38bpm when I rested. I went to the emergency room because my heart was all jumpy and the doctors laughed at me. I was a worrier, maybe it was anxiety. I was a triathlete. I was in great health. I hadn't had a period in months. I was living on carrots, pickles and coffee. Maybe I was wrong.
Last summer I emailed a friend. I asked him to be my runner in a half Ironman triathlon. I figured this would be really good for me. I would spend another summer reinventing myself. I was going to get healthy after all. But I wanted to go camping and to have cook outs, and there was the beach, and we had friends over. I spent the summer biking, probably, definitely obsessively, but I ate. I ate things like ice cream and birthday cake (I turned 47) and hamburgers. I tried meals that friends prepared for me and I tried on different types of clothes. I continued to hide my legs and I watched as my 47 year old body took up more space.
The real change came in October. I got invited to a weekend away with some relatively new girlfriends. I wanted to go. I didn't want to go with my own packed food, my measured out and planned salads, my gum, my yogurt and apples. I wanted to eat our shared meals and to share snacks while we watched movies and to drink coffee with cream AND sugar and to think about other things aside from what I put in and what I put out.
And I did.
The pandemic has made for an interesting time to stop dieting, to try to reinvent myself. It seems the PERFECT time to do this! I could come out of hiding a whole new me, metamorphosis.
Maybe I will.
Maybe I'll try eating all the different kinds of food with as many or as few people as I feel like on a given day. Maybe I'll eat ice cream every single night and then maybe I'll get sick of ice cream and move on to a scoop of pudding or maybe I'll feel full from dinner and go to bed.
Maybe I'll bike too many miles, injure myself a little and do yoga until I can't stop my anxious thoughts. Or maybe I'll decide to read an entire book in two days and sit by my garden.
Maybe I was ok all along anyways.
Maybe when I was six years old with Good Humor ice cream melting down my chin, at the park, in July, and I felt so much happiness, it was like a glittering explosion and I didn't notice my thighs or my belly and I laughed loud. Maybe I'm returning to this.
I made it home that August a little person, tanned, hair topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was smiling to hide the tired. I was so tired all the time. I got the boyfriend back, found my friend alcohol again and moved onto the next time.
There was the summer in 2009 when my 57 year old step father went on oxygen full time and we watched him wither away to an old man before our eyes. I took up road racing and stopped eating. I spent that summer turning into something while people celebrated the new me. I knew there was something wrong with me to begin with and this reaffirmed those thoughts. You thought I looked more healthy, happier, better, thinner. I must have been pretty bad off to generate such a strong social reaction.
He died anyways.
And I spent years trying to get something back. I'm still not sure what.
There was the last big time in 2015 when I went through my divorce and fell in love with Jeremiah and literally changed everything, my life all topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was high on the challenges, pushing all hard things away. I signed up for a triathlon. I spent the summer running and biking and swimming. I shrunk myself into a new normal. My heart rate got down to 38bpm when I rested. I went to the emergency room because my heart was all jumpy and the doctors laughed at me. I was a worrier, maybe it was anxiety. I was a triathlete. I was in great health. I hadn't had a period in months. I was living on carrots, pickles and coffee. Maybe I was wrong.
Last summer I emailed a friend. I asked him to be my runner in a half Ironman triathlon. I figured this would be really good for me. I would spend another summer reinventing myself. I was going to get healthy after all. But I wanted to go camping and to have cook outs, and there was the beach, and we had friends over. I spent the summer biking, probably, definitely obsessively, but I ate. I ate things like ice cream and birthday cake (I turned 47) and hamburgers. I tried meals that friends prepared for me and I tried on different types of clothes. I continued to hide my legs and I watched as my 47 year old body took up more space.
The real change came in October. I got invited to a weekend away with some relatively new girlfriends. I wanted to go. I didn't want to go with my own packed food, my measured out and planned salads, my gum, my yogurt and apples. I wanted to eat our shared meals and to share snacks while we watched movies and to drink coffee with cream AND sugar and to think about other things aside from what I put in and what I put out.
And I did.
The pandemic has made for an interesting time to stop dieting, to try to reinvent myself. It seems the PERFECT time to do this! I could come out of hiding a whole new me, metamorphosis.
Maybe I will.
Maybe I'll try eating all the different kinds of food with as many or as few people as I feel like on a given day. Maybe I'll eat ice cream every single night and then maybe I'll get sick of ice cream and move on to a scoop of pudding or maybe I'll feel full from dinner and go to bed.
Maybe I'll bike too many miles, injure myself a little and do yoga until I can't stop my anxious thoughts. Or maybe I'll decide to read an entire book in two days and sit by my garden.
Maybe I was ok all along anyways.
Maybe when I was six years old with Good Humor ice cream melting down my chin, at the park, in July, and I felt so much happiness, it was like a glittering explosion and I didn't notice my thighs or my belly and I laughed loud. Maybe I'm returning to this.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Air hits my face
like traffic stopping suddenly
to let a baby
and a fast dog cross.
You are standing on the other side
Rain falls up
running away from us people
down here
small people
most people are sick today.
The ground underneath my feet
startles me.
I thought I was in air
I was looking up
glasses on
For you.
Parakeets and cockatoos
fly past and I think
you are in danger
you need a cage.
Eagles hold onto the bars.
I have my moon boots on.
I am a little girl.
1978.
The snow is in my way.
Christmas has come and gone.
The reindeer stands frozen
in my garden
eating carrots
from my hand.
Yesterday I saw a spark
on my walk
in the dark
by the trees.
Today I smell smoke
and I hear the small cry
of a coyote
a fox
a deer.
Mothers cover their sleeping babes
And sleep, child
And sleep
And sleep.
Pandemic
March 2020 has turned out to be the weirdest month of my life. I wouldn't describe it as terrible, although for people who are sick or destitute it certainly has become terrible. For me, this Coronavirus pandemic has forced me (and lots and lots of other people) to take a look inside, under the hood of a person and poke around a bit. I find myself, now that I have literally nowhere to go, waking up at 330 or 4am every morning, wandering around my house like I am looking for someone. My children are now at their dad's for the weekend and so when I awoke this morning it was especially quiet. There was no need to creep in to Jonah's room to make sure he had put his cell phone away. There were no girls, ages 17 and 19 now, to check on as well.
These last few days have been filled with children again. These children come in another form than the children I knew many years ago. The pitter patter of their feet down my stairs is replaced by my 6 foot 1 son screaming across the house for Alexa to play that stupid SpongeBob song again while his sisters yell, "Alexa STOP!"
Its homeschooling over here because all of the schools are closed now. Sadie's back home for good for her semester and in five days it is like she never left. She is like an extension of us, a part of the machine that doesn't necessarily make the thing work but when it is in place that machine is so so much better. Nora has so much school work to do and she has turned in to such a good student, a good person. Standing in line at Richardson's two days ago she's worrying that a brownie sundae is seven dollars. She is her grandmother, frugal and worried.
And I have decided to teach Jonah how to cook but in reality what I am actually trying to do is keep him off his phone for at least an hour a day.
I felt instantly back in my element. I revisited days gone by so quickly. These weren't little children anymore but they had all the flavor of their little children selves.
The real truth is I was my best when my children were young. The little person in me that was such a lonely little thing for so many years, she got to come out and play. She helped me be the mother that climbed up the slide at the park and made sand castles at the beach. She went in to the water to swim and was just as excited to see Finding Nemo and countless other movies when they came out in the theater. She enjoyed all the Harry Potter books and playing cards and drew pictures.
Yesterday we went for a hike with my friend and the three teenagers were way behind us. We were chatting away and I kept looking back to see these three laughing or chatting in rhythm with each other. A large group of teenagers approached and walked past us. I watched as my teenagers kept with each other, protected in the umbrella of a family. I used to envy them this, I was such a lonely teenager, didn't they know how lucky they were? But now I know, they know, even if they don't admit it. They know.
Today I am alone, 4am, coffee in hand next to the laziest dog on the planet. It's so quiet in this house and I have very little to do today.
All of the movies that we watched growing up didn't prepare me for this kind of quiet. It's a wondering quiet. The dog isn't phased by the silence at all.
March 2020 has turned out to be the weirdest month of my life. I wouldn't describe it as terrible, although for people who are sick or destitute it certainly has become terrible. For me, this Coronavirus pandemic has forced me (and lots and lots of other people) to take a look inside, under the hood of a person and poke around a bit. I find myself, now that I have literally nowhere to go, waking up at 330 or 4am every morning, wandering around my house like I am looking for someone. My children are now at their dad's for the weekend and so when I awoke this morning it was especially quiet. There was no need to creep in to Jonah's room to make sure he had put his cell phone away. There were no girls, ages 17 and 19 now, to check on as well.
These last few days have been filled with children again. These children come in another form than the children I knew many years ago. The pitter patter of their feet down my stairs is replaced by my 6 foot 1 son screaming across the house for Alexa to play that stupid SpongeBob song again while his sisters yell, "Alexa STOP!"
Its homeschooling over here because all of the schools are closed now. Sadie's back home for good for her semester and in five days it is like she never left. She is like an extension of us, a part of the machine that doesn't necessarily make the thing work but when it is in place that machine is so so much better. Nora has so much school work to do and she has turned in to such a good student, a good person. Standing in line at Richardson's two days ago she's worrying that a brownie sundae is seven dollars. She is her grandmother, frugal and worried.
And I have decided to teach Jonah how to cook but in reality what I am actually trying to do is keep him off his phone for at least an hour a day.
I felt instantly back in my element. I revisited days gone by so quickly. These weren't little children anymore but they had all the flavor of their little children selves.
The real truth is I was my best when my children were young. The little person in me that was such a lonely little thing for so many years, she got to come out and play. She helped me be the mother that climbed up the slide at the park and made sand castles at the beach. She went in to the water to swim and was just as excited to see Finding Nemo and countless other movies when they came out in the theater. She enjoyed all the Harry Potter books and playing cards and drew pictures.
Yesterday we went for a hike with my friend and the three teenagers were way behind us. We were chatting away and I kept looking back to see these three laughing or chatting in rhythm with each other. A large group of teenagers approached and walked past us. I watched as my teenagers kept with each other, protected in the umbrella of a family. I used to envy them this, I was such a lonely teenager, didn't they know how lucky they were? But now I know, they know, even if they don't admit it. They know.
Today I am alone, 4am, coffee in hand next to the laziest dog on the planet. It's so quiet in this house and I have very little to do today.
All of the movies that we watched growing up didn't prepare me for this kind of quiet. It's a wondering quiet. The dog isn't phased by the silence at all.
Friday, January 19, 2018
When I think about Sadie learning to drive, I think about Sadie helping me deliver papers up and down Centennial Ave when she was five years old. It was Molly's paper route officially but she was 13 years old with huge hoop earrings and a bad attitude and we were broke so delivering the paper was my third job most days. Sadie would help. She was the oldest five year old I've ever known. Molly could pay her a quarter to clean her bedroom but she would have done it for free.
When Sadie was 7 years old she went through a sleep walking phase. Two AM would roll around and there would come Sadie, looking like Chewbacca, strolling past our doorway, undecided and forceful in her footsteps, as if she had a place to go. Always moving, Sadie. When it came time for swim meets Sadie would lose hours of sleep. She'd spend days asking questions like, "If I sink to the bottom and I'm in the middle of the race, will someone save me?" and "What if I come in last?" Always the planner, ready for the next firestorm, big brave eyes, Sadie. The day I asked her if she wanted to try an overnight camp in the woods in Maine, she was pretty sure that would be ok. She nonchalantly said yes and then asked for a ride to Annie's. I enrolled her in 10 days in nature without any ability to reach us and nothing was mentioned until the night beforehand when she cried so hysterically in the driveway that I thought maybe someone could die of fear. But she got in the car the next day, travelled with me to the Campsite and waved as I left her behind, with strangers, to come back to Gloucester and move away to begin divorcing her father.
Sadie came home from camp and did a lot of wilderness time after that. Sometimes I would not be able to find her and her cell phone would be left behind and she would be on a journey somewhere in the woods, in her head, working something out.
It took Sadie a long time to figure high school out and then all of the sudden she did. I found myself no longer the consoler. No longer the advisor. She was navigating life like she put together 1000 piece puzzles, with care and determination and self sufficiency.
Now she's learning to drive and we find ourselves on car rides where I feel free to listen to music and I imagine her less and less the little paper carrier, the little side kick who always accompanied me around town. Sadie has become
more of a peer, a friend. As she learns to take a left hand turn in on coming traffic and to make friends she really clicks with, and to feel disappointment, loss and betrayal and still get up in the morning and do it again, I hope she remembers me. I hope she hears me cheering for her like a recording of a soccer game from the 3rd grade, or maybe last year. I hope she gets the big tips and the cars slow down for her and the weather is always dry and 70 degrees.
When Sadie was 7 years old she went through a sleep walking phase. Two AM would roll around and there would come Sadie, looking like Chewbacca, strolling past our doorway, undecided and forceful in her footsteps, as if she had a place to go. Always moving, Sadie. When it came time for swim meets Sadie would lose hours of sleep. She'd spend days asking questions like, "If I sink to the bottom and I'm in the middle of the race, will someone save me?" and "What if I come in last?" Always the planner, ready for the next firestorm, big brave eyes, Sadie. The day I asked her if she wanted to try an overnight camp in the woods in Maine, she was pretty sure that would be ok. She nonchalantly said yes and then asked for a ride to Annie's. I enrolled her in 10 days in nature without any ability to reach us and nothing was mentioned until the night beforehand when she cried so hysterically in the driveway that I thought maybe someone could die of fear. But she got in the car the next day, travelled with me to the Campsite and waved as I left her behind, with strangers, to come back to Gloucester and move away to begin divorcing her father.
Sadie came home from camp and did a lot of wilderness time after that. Sometimes I would not be able to find her and her cell phone would be left behind and she would be on a journey somewhere in the woods, in her head, working something out.
It took Sadie a long time to figure high school out and then all of the sudden she did. I found myself no longer the consoler. No longer the advisor. She was navigating life like she put together 1000 piece puzzles, with care and determination and self sufficiency.
Now she's learning to drive and we find ourselves on car rides where I feel free to listen to music and I imagine her less and less the little paper carrier, the little side kick who always accompanied me around town. Sadie has become
Thursday, January 4, 2018
Some years winter has bothered me. The darkness envelopes me calling me in to its long cold arms and telling me lies, in my own voice. Some years I have rallied around a few days of snow, the break, the cookies, the sleep and the snowball fights. But it has to be like just a perfect amount and with the immediate promise of some warmer weather soon.
The winter of 1994 was right around the time when drinks became more than social softening for me. That winter we had what felt like record levels of snow but I don't know if that's true or not and I was only 22 years old. I remember I had just walked out of the campus of Boston College and quit, just like that. And I remember that I had no job or maybe it was just a stupid little job I don't really remember and that didn't really mean anything to me at the time. And there was the relationship I was in at that time which centered on drinking and youth and missed opportunies. And that was the winter I kind of went crazy or maybe I got sane. Either way I got sober.
The winter of 2015 some probably say I lost my mind. It snowed so much that year that people used words like "Snowmagedden" and one day during maybe our fourth or fifth snow storm in a row the US Army dispatched the Nation Guard. It was the War on Snow in Gloucester. Every week, always on Mondays we had a major snow storm. There was so much snow up there people lost direction, gave up hope and just stopped shoveling.
I had given up hope a long time ago in a lot of things. Mostly my marriage. But I kept it locked away hidden in the house on the hill and somewhere beneath about 18 layers of snow gear. I had planned a trip to Costa Rica and that was going to be the solution to the snow problem and the marriage problem and my problem.
But it wasn't and it wasn't like the day I got back that I realized that. It was in the airport staring out the window at the airplane which was seated on a bed of ice and snow. People were celebrating their escape from New England and I couldn't breath.
Looking back on that year, three years later and on days like today I am reminded and I mind and then I remember that I can breath. The weather is malleable like everything, so changing and evolving. The New England snow fall will make way for the longer days and the bulbs I planted in the fall will fill my yard in days to come. There is no place that I need to run to today because I am already here. Its hard to believe that that winter made way for the heat of the summer of 2015 where Jeremiah and I learned the back roads of Beverly on foot and bike and where I taught myself to cook in a tiny apartment the year I left everything in Gloucester and ran. With a clear slate and a clear mind I found piece by piece the life that I had wanted all along. It was right there under the layers of snow, just waiting for the sun and some water and time. Lots and lots of time.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Tuesdays
There are many things that the people, young and old, in our home do not agree on. We agree on the Patriots, Saturday night Live and reruns of the Simpsons. We have to take turns with the Bluetooth to listen to music in the car. The whining that happens in the car when a song happens to pass the five minute mark is almost unbearable. And food is sporadic and plenty, picked apart and thrown away so quickly,.
When it comes to Tuesday though, we all agree. Tuesdays are the worst day of the week. I am sure we are not the only family to feel this way and it never seems to get easier. Even on a vacation week like this where we all had Monday off! I was sure I would wake up and dance through the day with the vigor and energy of renewed Monday. Monday, that day that promises a fresh start. The day that means that children go back to school and I can resume getting paid for work (rather than that voluntary job of parenting).
But by Tuesday most people have already thrown in the towel. And its only Tuesday. And there are still three more days left until the weekend. And no one really likes Wednesday either so you can't just go to bed early and get to the next day. Tuesday you are stuck idling outside a Ninety Nine waiting for your food when you really want to be sitting at the Ritz. It's just crappy and unfair. I try and mix it up with Taco Tuesday, and overdramatized episodes of This is Us and promises of things to come.
This Tuesday Jay had overtime. He has overtime all week. And he hates his job, a job that is tedious and exhausting and frankly just soul sickening. So he didn't get to the gym and he didn't go to the meeting and its like -5 degrees out and my lovely son pounced on him like a tiger the second he walked through the door. Tuesday.
I got to the gym and went to the meeting and started my day off bright and hopeful. At 1030 I learned that a young woman I had been trying to help in AA had impulsively thought that there was something left in a high to get her through something, maybe the thought of Tuesday. And died. A little light going off in Danvers, a 12 year old girl left an orphan and a mother left devastated. Again. I drove through Wenham and then right past my patients house into Topsfield all the time thinking about how that little girl with the ponytailed hair and the pajama bottoms could be dead.
Yesterday I looked in the obituaries because that's what you do for fun when you work for hospice or are Irish or are just a little dark and morose. There was a picture of a three week old baby right next to a lovely photo of an 103 year old woman and then there is Glenna. It doesn't make any sense.
Tuesday Sadie got in to her first choice college and we all cheered! Nora had a friend from school over and we watched the news guy tell us that there is snow in the forecast.
A snowday.
Now that could shake up Tuesday.
A snowday on Thursday gives Tuesday a little hope.
Just for awhile.
When the snow falls I'll think about Glenna. I'll think about her beautiful laugh and the way that I saw her eyes light up when she talked about her daughter. I'll smell the season, the clean air and the cold on my cheeks. My children will be happy. Or maybe they won't but at least it won't be Tuesday.
There are many things that the people, young and old, in our home do not agree on. We agree on the Patriots, Saturday night Live and reruns of the Simpsons. We have to take turns with the Bluetooth to listen to music in the car. The whining that happens in the car when a song happens to pass the five minute mark is almost unbearable. And food is sporadic and plenty, picked apart and thrown away so quickly,.
When it comes to Tuesday though, we all agree. Tuesdays are the worst day of the week. I am sure we are not the only family to feel this way and it never seems to get easier. Even on a vacation week like this where we all had Monday off! I was sure I would wake up and dance through the day with the vigor and energy of renewed Monday. Monday, that day that promises a fresh start. The day that means that children go back to school and I can resume getting paid for work (rather than that voluntary job of parenting).
But by Tuesday most people have already thrown in the towel. And its only Tuesday. And there are still three more days left until the weekend. And no one really likes Wednesday either so you can't just go to bed early and get to the next day. Tuesday you are stuck idling outside a Ninety Nine waiting for your food when you really want to be sitting at the Ritz. It's just crappy and unfair. I try and mix it up with Taco Tuesday, and overdramatized episodes of This is Us and promises of things to come.
This Tuesday Jay had overtime. He has overtime all week. And he hates his job, a job that is tedious and exhausting and frankly just soul sickening. So he didn't get to the gym and he didn't go to the meeting and its like -5 degrees out and my lovely son pounced on him like a tiger the second he walked through the door. Tuesday.
I got to the gym and went to the meeting and started my day off bright and hopeful. At 1030 I learned that a young woman I had been trying to help in AA had impulsively thought that there was something left in a high to get her through something, maybe the thought of Tuesday. And died. A little light going off in Danvers, a 12 year old girl left an orphan and a mother left devastated. Again. I drove through Wenham and then right past my patients house into Topsfield all the time thinking about how that little girl with the ponytailed hair and the pajama bottoms could be dead.
Yesterday I looked in the obituaries because that's what you do for fun when you work for hospice or are Irish or are just a little dark and morose. There was a picture of a three week old baby right next to a lovely photo of an 103 year old woman and then there is Glenna. It doesn't make any sense.
Tuesday Sadie got in to her first choice college and we all cheered! Nora had a friend from school over and we watched the news guy tell us that there is snow in the forecast.
A snowday.
Now that could shake up Tuesday.
A snowday on Thursday gives Tuesday a little hope.
Just for awhile.
When the snow falls I'll think about Glenna. I'll think about her beautiful laugh and the way that I saw her eyes light up when she talked about her daughter. I'll smell the season, the clean air and the cold on my cheeks. My children will be happy. Or maybe they won't but at least it won't be Tuesday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)