Gratitude to all my yoga and T'ai chi chih teachers/Coronaville/Day 10

My yoga and t'ai chi chih studio

These two regular practices have been part of my life for some time. This routine has never been more important to me. What's getting you through?

New pandemic paranoia: Panting joggers, runners, and bicyclists who speed by me with huffing and puffing (droplets?) as they pass. Walkers seem to be much more respectful of the 6-feet rule. I wish we could all have masks. I'm working on a less-traveled route.

New favorite pandemic amusement: Kitchen island ping-pong. Unfortunately, the net and the paddles are nowhere to be found. Yesterday a friend and I tried wooden spoons as paddles, then rubber spatulas. Ultimately we settled on the metal pancake-flipping type spatulas. Without a net. The laughing was an immune booster for sure.

I counted steps on the most circuitous route possible through my condo, including bathrooms and closets. 300-- If I go around the dining room table and the kitchen island four times. How many times a day can I do that? How many steps can you walk through your space?

I am a student of the book arts, and yesterday I worked on my first small drum-leaf bound book with content. Here are the first three pages. If I never get my full-length memoir out into the world, there's this.

And I also worked on this zine about seasonal depression. It kinda translates to a pandemic lockdown, I think. It's hard to read because of the way it needs to be laid out, but you get the idea. All the marbled paper snips were marbled by me. It's pasted up the old-fashioned way rather than designed on a computer. Because paper.

Start on the bottom left, then move to the bottom right and work your way up and around.

Orange really is the most amazing color. What's your happy color?

Gratitude once again to all health care workers, and to the groceries clerks, delivery people,   

law enforcement personnel, and everyone who is working. 

xo

Leaving Coronaville/Day 3

I am most definitely not in my pajamas as I write this. I think I'm putting this selfie up to remind myself NOT to get into my pajamas. Not during the day, I mean. Back when this place was called Pillville--and even way back when it was called Divorceville/Margaritaville there was a whole lot of pajama wearing going on. I recall a particular evening when, as my mom sat at the dining room table with her martini, I bought three pairs of my favorite brand of p.j.s online. Dan had already died by then, and I thought maybe I could just pretty much live in pajamas.

So far the year 2020, my self-proclaimed great year of travel, has seen three cancelled trips. Other than that, I'm doing what I do. Writing, learning to make art (totally from the confines of home now that all my book arts classes are cancelled. )

On my to do list:

Subscribe to the two local small theatre companies that I adore.

Give to a food pantry.

Establish a routine and really let it do the good things that routines do.

Favorite thing to do during a pandemic: Shower.

Pandemic goal: Learn to draw.

first drawings

I think I'm going to use my last handmade book (Japanese stab binding) as a sketch book.

Gratitude to all governors, mayors, health care workers of all kinds, grocery clerks, first responders. 

So, how are you doing today?  I'd love to hear. 

Thank You

I've turned my bath tub area into a place to put plants. Eventually, there may be plants IN the tub.

But what I really want to say here is thank you. I've gotten some very nice responses to my anxiety post here on the blog and elsewhere. I'd send you flowers if I could. Your kindness is beautiful.

Thanksgiving and Thank You

It was unsettling at first to change our Thanksgiving routine. No family dinner. Winter travel. Flying. 

But I emailed off the dessert recipes to my daughters and, on Thanksgiving Day, got on a plane.

I saw my mom. She looked and felt good. (Why didn't I take a photo?) She's gained a couple pounds. I credit the array of salads available--jello with whipped cream, anyone? No? How about pasta salad with mayonnaise?) She was talkative and brighter--just as she was when I saw her six weeks ago. When my mom came to live with me in August of 2012, I was determined that she would live out her days with me (I figured we's be lucky if she lasted six months.) She spends a lot of her time reading (currently a racy Harlequin romance!) as opposed to the group activities, but she eats all her meals in the dining room and seems to enjoy the conversation and company. The realization for me here is that I could not be all things and everyone to my mom. I'm her daughter. One of her children. The population in Margaritaville was two most of the time. In Iowa there is an array of a dozen people who visit her. If you're one of them and reading this, you are among the people I am most thankful for this Thanksgiving. Bless you.

And I should mention that I did see my daughters anyway. We met at the nursing home on Saturday. Saturday night there was a restaurant dinner for 14 in my hometown with the daughters, my brother and his family. By then, I had a plate full of gratitude with no side of regret.

And I enjoyed the mini-road trip immensely.

Mississippi River Sunrise

Chicago Clouds

Indiana Dunes--if you look closely you can see Chicago in the distance.

It'll be a long travel day, but by midnight tonight I should be asleep in my own bed. 

Blessings on all your households.

Thank You for all the Birthday Wishes

Tonight's sunset

Some say that the soul leaves the body at the moment of death. That it rises up to heaven. Or that it descends to receive its eternal punishment. Others say that the soul wanders around for a while or that the spirit of the dead person can return for an earthly visit, or that death is simply the end. Having held a person in my arms at the moment of his death, I still cannot say for certain.

It was my birthday today, and how can one help but ponder death on the anniversary of one's birth? Birth and death are life's bookends. So, yes, Happy Birthday to me and someday my soul will go somewhere even if that somewhere turns out to be nowhere. Meanwhile, I'm full of joy and gratitude for this life. For love, friends, family, food, drink, music, theatre, art, my good health, beauty in all of its incarnations--clouds, birds, rocks, a finely crafted sentence, a pretty scarf, and for birthday wishes.

Yesterday I read about Einstein in the New York times. THIS INFO GRAPHIC blew my 63-year-old mind. And there was this quote: "In 1907, Albert Einstein had his “happiest thought” — people in free fall do not feel their own weight. This simple idea laid the foundation for his general theory of relativity, which Einstein presented 100 years ago this month." 

If I woke up in a box, completely weightless, I wouldn't know if I were falling or floating. Maybe that's how the soul feels.

And before the sunset's color drained from the sky, the full moon appeared from behind the clouds.

Wednesday Beach Report

Yesterday I felt wrecked. My hair in tangles from the wind, my throat dry, never quite warm enough to be comfortable. The bereavement group I attended left me feeling rattled. What do I do with that box of videos on my garage shelf that may or may not contain footage of Dan? Will there be some future day when I sit on the couch with the curtains drawn, fast-forwarding through past moments when I didn't even know him? What do I do with Dan's computer? What would I search for there? Is compartmentalizing a good thing or a bad thing? How do we mourn a loved one's continued absence while acknowledging that we've moved on? How do we live inside the gratitude for that love and translate that into living each day going forward? There were answers to those questions. Just not an answer.  And what about all the grief in that room? How does each of us carry it? The box of kleenex that gets shoved from one end of the table to another seems like a metaphor, but I can't quite put it into words.

By bedtime last night, still a bit teary-eyed, I shivered under a tower of blankets, figuring I was coming down with something.

This morning I woke up feeling well. Better than well.

Not today's actual surfer--but a previous day's surfer. Just in case someone recognizes this guy and he's supposed to be at work.

The beach today was windswept today. A lone and patient surfer waited far out from shore for that perfect moment. As I walked back, he was riding in, every breath full of balance and grace. So much of every day feels like a chain of perfect moments for me right now. But I haven't really caught my wave. I'm still treading water, figuring out how to manage my freedom.

Living with My Mother at 37,000 Feet

Here's picture of a dove. Whatever.

There were 20 people cued up for wheelchairs at the Southwest terminal at LAX. There was a roped off seating area and a maitre d' at a podium, taking names. This is the beginning of the future as the baby boomers age. Most of the wheelies were 2 or 3 decades younger than my mother. I am so grateful for my healthy body.

At the gate, there was a culling of the herd. "Who can walk onto the plane?" a chipper young woman asked, scanning the 10 or so wheelchairs at the gate. Her eyes brushed over the top of my mother's white head. When we got to the aircraft door, the young woman who'd wheeled the chair down the jetway didn't ask. She commanded, "Take my hand," she said at the doorway of the aircraft as she handed my mom off to the waiting flight attendant. Bless all these people. They make me want to skip and sing while tossing 20 dollar bills in the air.

We're fairly good at this now, my mom and I, on our third trip east, but once again my mother has said that she's never flying again. It's hard. I could rant about the specifics of that, but I won't.

Already, in the midst of this small torture, we're planning a trip to Iowa for my sister's 40th wedding anniversary. "Should I drive her there by myself?" I asked the charming and kind M as she drove us to LAX  this morning?  M explained to me how NFL teams choose their rosters. "They look for the best of the best overall players," she said. "Or they go for a specific skill set." You need a partner with a specific skill set." She said I should find him and get that road trip in motion.

Okay.

Here I am. A 62-year-old version of gorgeous. I need lots of time to myself to write and think. I do yoga. I do T'ai Chi Chih. I love to walk on the beach. I'm a lazy and healthy cook. I'm a reader. I like poetry. I'm learning to ballroom dance. I'm not getting married unless you're a billionaire. You can like what you like. I don't have to love it. We just have to like each other. And there's that road trip. There'll be a lot of bathroom stops and we'll be off the road every evening in time for a cocktail. We won't get started again until after breakfast. 400 miles per day absolute fucking maximum. Go ahead, tell me your interested. I dare you.

Repair Central

A favorite piece of art by I Made Arya Dwita Dedok

Things are breaking here in Margaritaville. The microwave, the toilet. The sinks are dripping which is a criminal, given the drought. And last night I felt as though I was breaking, a crucial leak sprung, unstoppable.

But the microwave repairman has just left and charged me nothing even though he replaced everything (a re-repair.) And the plumber has made off with a hundred bucks. Not a terrible price for the assuaging of guilt and fixing a toilet and a sink.

I have friends coming to dinner and I'm lying on the couch, flattened by some kind of cellular recognition in my body that last year about this time, it was the beginning of the end for Dan. I feel it in the slant of the sun, the way the wind blows, and in how the fog rolls in. I feel it in the way the world looks as I walk in the surf, knowing that my feet are falling in the same places on the sand.

I keep hunting for ways to feel better and the only idea that sounds good is living outside. I googled it. I like the highlighted suggestions of other things to try. I feel hemmed in. It's hot in my house and stuffy. If the door opens for even a minute, my mother asks if the air-conditioning is on. The ceiling bothers me and I think the sky would feel better. I always think a second glass of wine, or a third will relax me out of sadness and I'm hardly ever right. I might pitch a tent on my patio and give a friend the key to my wine refrigerator for safekeeping.

My mother, thank god, is feeling well. Remember the moaning that has driven me insane for the past three years? She's stopped. And last night we had Chinese food for Mother's day and this was her fortune.

My fortune is more puzzling. 

I'm not sure where to find this merry heart medicine.

But I do think of one of my favorite pieces of art (see above.) My heart is heavy these days, and I thank those of you who are helping to carry it. Especially those bent beneath the unwieldy heavy end. A million thanks. I'm going to get up now and set the table.

Thank you. You have no idea. Well, Maybe you do.

I snapped this photo on Valentine's Day

Thank you, everyone, for you well wishes for my mom--and for me. Thank you for your emails. your texts, your Facebook Likes, your calls, your company, the wine, the pie, your yoga and T'ai Chi Chih classes. Thank you for your phone calls and the nice things you said or wrote to me about caregiving. Honestly, I'm tired. And I'm shitty at it some of the time, so your words give me the faith that I can turn those shitty moments around and be better. God almighty, what would I do without you? If I had a nifty little convertible like this, I'd deliver a dozen roses to each of you.

Sincerely,

Denise

View from the Couch

I'm here. Silent as the farthest star. Reading your blog if you have one. Cruising through your Facebook posts. Saying pretty much nothing. But I'm thinking of you.

My heart is full. Thanks for the visits. For the light. For the warmth. For filling my house. The candy, the sangria, the wine, the laughs, the texts, the gifts, the ideas, the books, the music, the help, the love.

Give Thanks, Give Thanks, Give Thanks

our pretty table

Of course there was a an immense amount of mess, unseen here.

And merely hinted at here, but of course by the end of the night, the happy chaos had spread everywhere. Happiness itself had spread too. I enjoy my daughters and our friends very much. The turkey was especially good this year. Even my mom, who doesn't really like meat, said it was delicious. My first attempt at homemade cranberries went very well, as did the grilled asparagus, and my friend Ellen's homemade chutney was a wonderful and different addition.

 But the friends have gone home; the daughters and my mom are asleep. The dishwasher is running its second load, and the greasy roasting pan and cutting board are congealing in a far corner.

I'm having one of those nights when I could sit here forever and stare out at the dark water.

"Birth Mother" my memoir from Shebooks is now available for purchase!

Amazed and grateful.

 I have a lot of people to thank.

Here's the link:  "Birth Mother" by Denise Emanuel Clemen

I love this cover--it's perfect!

You can also buy it on Amazon and for the Nook.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

Thank you for every kind word, every hope, every whispered prayer, every encouragement, every personal story that let me know that you, too, experienced loss this profound. Thank you for the poems, the cards, the emails, the blog comments, voicemails, letters, photos, the remembrances of Dan from times long before I met him. Thank you for the flowers, the sandwiches, the beautiful fruit, the coffee, the cakes, pastries, cookies, candies. Thank you for the pizza. The visits. For bringing your darling dogs. For playing music and more music. Thank you for traveling long distances and short ones. Thank you for keeping things tidy in my kitchen. For shopping. For errands. For folding laundry. For the changing of linens. For staying overnight to keep the vigil. For making phone calls.  For making chili, for making soup, and chopping vegetables. Thank you for the bringing of chocolate and wine. Thank you for the love, for talking, for sitting up late, for sleeping on the floor in my room so I wouldn't be alone. Thank you for the things I'm forgetting to thank you for.

I would be utterly lost without you.

I've tried to respond to all the emails and thanked many of you on Facebook. There are many blog comments I have not yet responded to. And there are many more of you. I hope you see this post. Spread the word to those who might not.

Again, thank you.

Stronger

Accompanying the man who loves me to the oncologist yesterday, it felt like a lonely trudge through the dark parking garage to the elevators. We got lost looking for the second set of elevators that led to the office wing of the hospital and ended up at the hallway that led to the maternity floor. There was a cluster of people holding a bunch of balloons, and for a second I envisioned a sign with diverging arrows: LIFE/DEATH.

But when we opened the door to the oncologist's office, the waiting area was bursting with people and a hum of conversation. It didn't feel dark and lonely at all. ALL of these people have cancer,  I thought. It was both alarming and weirdly comforting. And the realization that followed was even more comforting. It wasn't true at all that everyone in the waiting room had cancer. Each patient was there with someone. When a names was called, groups of threes and fours went through the door that led to the exam rooms. We needed a maître d'--"Party of three to exam room #1"--not a receptionist. Which made me think of this:

The title of this print by Balinese artist, I Made Arya Dwita Dedok, is Stronger

I own this artwork, and it hangs on my living room wall. I met the ARTIST at a residency at the Vermont Studio Center.

We are carried along by so many others, and I think the willingness to be carried makes us stronger--not weaker. I was able to spend the day away from home because daughter M was with my mom. And we also enjoyed the first day with Rosa--a woman who may become a regular companion for my mother. The comfort and help from M and Rosa infuses me with strength, and I give thanks for it.

Hospital: Day 3 or How I learned to love the L.A. freeways--and thank you

The infamous 405, (as seen from the Getty Museum) looking like a river of molten lava

I moved to Los Angeles from the midwest in 1975. I didn't have a car, so I took the bus to work, and my boyfriend drove me anyplace else I wanted to go. The freeway on-ramp in our neighborhood was also an off-ramp (I'm not going to explain this--if you don't get it, be glad.) When I finally started driving in L.A., I would cry--no matter if I was merging in or getting off. Thirty-some years later, I still loathed driving the freeways.

It was a big relief for a million reasons when I moved out of L.A. to my little paradise up the coast. These past few days with the man who loves me in a suburban L.A. hospital, the freeway speeds me to him. Five lanes going exactly where I want to go.

This marvel of modern urban engineering also delivered my friend Toni to my house this morning where she is hanging out with my mother, who after her tug of war with the neurologist yesterday, has fervently promised to be good, while admitting that she should not be left alone for hours and hours. (More about that in the next report from Pillville.) This evening the freeways will speed me to the nearby house of a couple more friends where I will enjoy their good company and the antics of their handsome cats before I'm given a bed for the night.

Then tomorrow, back to the hospital for day 4. The man who loves me is doing well--as well as anyone can do after such a traumatic surgery. The cancer is out. The road ahead of him will not be a fast and furious freeway. But on that slow and narrow lane that leads back to wellness, all I ask is that it be smooth.

Thank you all so much for your good wishes.

It's time to say, "Thank You."

Thank you, dear readers, for your many comments of late. You are inspiring, informative, supportive, smart, generous, and sometimes you even make me laugh out loud.

I appreciate each and every one of you.


photo credit: inboundstrategy.com