Holy Ground for Sale, Sunday morning off.

A church for sale in Maryland - something about God's house as common real estate amuses me - another intersection between the ethereal and the corporeal. How much is God's house worth on the open market? If no congregation is currently using it, has God vacated? Is He a tenant, awaiting the next landlord? What if Hindus buy the place? Will He be a room-mate? Vishnu stays up late and plays the radio loud. There's no cross on that steeple, so they're obviously ready for anything.

This morning the bald woman with the bandanna who delivers our paper has not arrived. We're sitting together, Robyn and I, she with her tea and me with my coffee, enjoying the cool quiet of early morning after a long soaking rain last night. Tye is at our feet. The kids were out late, Caitlin at prom with a friend and Walker up the street with a couple pals (no bonfire last night - only a muddy party in someone's shed, and she's "annoying") and they're sleeping in, looking more innocent than they tend to when awake. As long as we don't disturb them they'll remain children for a while, without the smirks and witticisms that remind us they're approaching the front door of adulthood. The paper woman has many vehicles, most of which idle badly, so we can assume that she'll show up in a while, late, with someone else's vehicle, hurriedly lurching down the street from box to box, making up for lost time while the rest of us sit in our comfy chairs and note the disturbance in our routine. Paper's late. Damn! More coffee. There she is. Same car - maybe she just decided to sleep in a little, too. It'd be a real treat for her. Have one on me, bandanna lady!

On this, the one day that I have no appointments or obligations, I give thanks, primarily for this peaceful feeling I have, this feeling of rested alertness, of transient well being, of right things being in right places, of the world in a certain order. By now a potential congregation has occupied the church, placed an appropriate representative symbol atop the steeple, filled the cupboards of the church school with Tang and Nilla Wafers, and settled it's cumulative rear end in the long dark polished pews which once sat lonely in the sanctuary. God's unpacking his eternally omniscient suitcases in the Upper Room, relieved that the new owner isn't a cult or a hippie co-op. Let the right living commence! We're all ready.

Emotional memory

The photo here may imply a darker mood than I'm really experiencing. I'm finishing up editing the graveyard photos I took the other day. I jacked up the contrast on this one and now I'm trying to decide if I've gone too far.

Going too far and reeling it back in is a pattern with which I have some familiarity.

It's early Spring and I found myself surprised by the seasonal depression that surprises me every year. Dad died the first week in May. Our good friend Diana died at the end of April. It seems that I conspire with myself to ignore these dates every year. What I notice is that I'm getting angry about things. My attitude becomes more negative. Many of you become more irritating. I don't suppose you'd notice that, being the way you all are, but I lack the patience to tolerate you that I might ordinarily have. So, I ask myself, in some moment of reflection, why I'm so grumpy and a little voice says "It's April, the cruelest month, the season of people wasting away." I realize that I'm dancing familiar steps in a dance that always seems to include a little surprise. Insight and self-delusion doing a tango in the new grass.

I had a physical this week and my doctor helps me manage my depression (actually she manages the treatment - I manage the depression). She went over the challenges in my life that she well knows contribute. How's your mother? How's family life? How much are you working? I tolerate this litany and for a moment realize that my "not that bad, really" approach falls short of the mark. All in all, things are going well. Along the line, though, we pick up a load of grief and loss, sadness that begs to be recognized even though we don't want to give up the time, ruin an otherwise beautiful day by giving in to sorrow.

It's Sunday, my day off. I go to see Mom in a few minutes in her comfortable Memory Care unit to bear witness to her entropy and titrate a little sorrow in what feels like a manageable dose, regular and small in the way that we build up immunity to bee stings or snake bites. It's not that bad. It's the end of a productive life, inevitable as . . . taxes.

I learned at my physical that I'm a little more than an inch shorter than I was before my accident. Now I'm just a little over 6 feet tall. My friend Chris cheerfully announced that we're all getting smaller from here on out "so it's just going to get worse." I was drinking his beer and so I allowed this impertinence. I would have been a lot shorter in a wheelchair.

I read recently that people with Alzheimer's Disease who can't remember anything from minute to minute still benefit from regular visits from loved ones. I know this is true. I still benefit as well. I remember things about Mom and about our lives together. I remember things about myself. The idea, I think, is that emotional memory is longer lasting than conscious memory. I know that when I was injured I didn't see Mom for quite a while. When I saw her again, she couldn't put her finger on it, but she seemed a little hurt . . . or perhaps not hurt, but aware that I had been gone. It could be my imagination, but she seems to be on a more even keel when I go regularly to see her, even though she forgets I'm there each time she closes her eyes.

After I visit Mom, I will work in the sun, in the yard, and bathe in some vitamin D. The answer to the emotional memory of long held sorrow is the sunny morning. Ah.

Sacred Ground

There's a little old graveyard on my way to work in Vinton, just off Highway 30. Because I pass there every day, and because I love its scraggly tree, I stopped yesterday to take some shots that I've been meaning to take. I think black and white is best for cemeteries.





I just had a little time so I didn't stay long, but these missed opportunities chafe at me, and I've looked at this cemetery all Winter, thinking about how old and lonely it is. A farmer was out in his tractor, plowing the surrounding field. I wonder if he comes and mows. All the graves are old, from the late 1800's, and some have pretty expensive granite stones. This one was more economical.

My Mom and I used to go do grave rubbings. You place a sheet of newsprint against the stone and rub with crayon or charcoal. The result is a negative of what was written on the stone. Another way to read them is to go after dark and shine a light straight down the length of the stone, enhancing contrast.






My love of signs continues. Sacred is where you say it is. A kid asked me one time, "Mr. Thompson, where do you worship?"

"Everywhere I go," I told him. Everywhere I go.

Membership

The law of unintended consequences: "Any intervention in a complex system may or may not have the intended result, but will inevitably create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes."

I am working on arrangements for Mom's burial, something which is turning out to be more satisfying than I thought it would be. Trappist monks outside of Dubuque make really beautiful wooden caskets. The people in charge of the Old Welsh Cemetery in Sharon Center are very pleasant and helpful. After the roads dry out I'm going to go out and pick out a spot. "Tell him not to come yet!," Mr. Pate hollered from the background as I talked with his wife, "it's a dirt road. He'll sink to his axles!" The Pates live on a century farm nearby which they'd be proud to show me. It sounds like fun.

My mother's family is prone to hyperbole. Actually, I'm prone to hyperbole. They just lie. If the sentiment calls for it, or if it makes a better story, they just make it up. My Aunt Joan and my mother were close, and they would get together, knock back a few martinis, and tell each other that they would take care of each other. "We promised we'd always be family for each other," Mom told me. It didn't really work out that way. After Aunt Joan retired, she sank into alcoholism and dementia. Her beautiful apartment, filled with marvelous antiques and art, devolved into squalor. She had her groceries and liquor delivered by John's grocery and she didn't leave the place. At the time, I lived three blocks away but she never once visited our home, telling my mother "I can't smoke there." We invited her a few times. I would stop and chat on our way to and from.

At the time, Mom was preoccupied with taking care of my father in their home and had little time for anything, not even grandchildren. She felt guilty and did nothing in response to Aunt Joan's decline. Her relationship with my father trumped all, and perhaps that's as it should have been. They had a unique, intense, and very loyal tie, those two. I remember visiting them after I married my first wife, Nancy, and realizing that I was no longer in that "club." Close, but no cigars. Perhaps that's what growing up means to everybody. To me it was both a sadness and a relief.

Aunt Joan told Mom that she had a "plot" at the Welsh Cemetery and that there was a place beside her when she died. That's where Mom wanted to be. It's a lovely old place, grassy and well kept, with graves dating back to the 1800's and a small church next door. Knowing that things are not always as they seem, I asked the Pates to look and see if there was anything there with my mother's name on it. There is not. What is there is a "plot," which means space for about seven graves.

I messaged my cousin Paul on Facebook to see what he knew about things. He first sent me a medium length message telling me that he was sorry about Mom and that he didn't do messages on Facebook. My email server was down yesterday, so after a while he sent me another rambling message full of good will and some useful contact information for his sister, the cousin with the paperwork for the plot. As his message continued it recounted the recent feuding amongst his clan, full of misunderstanding, spiced with recrimination. I recalled Mrs. Pate saying that Sarah called, very angry, reminding her that "My mother paid for that spot!" (There were some mix-ups with the last sexton, I guess, and the Pates have been organizing the mess, according to Jerry, the minister of the Old Welsh Church.)

Paul told me about Aunt Joan and Sarah going together to the plot and picnicking together. Sarah and Aunt Joan had a close, tumultuous relationship. Aunt Joan was a fierce and angry parent, prone to guilt trips, moody and intimidating. (She was always very kind to me, I must add, but by all accounts as a mom she was a bumpy ride.) I suspect that further inquiry into this plot may lead to more drama and intrigue than I am ready to undertake. I suspect it would make me more satisfied with my status as an only child, now that the logistics of moving, repairing, selling, inveigling and persuading are mostly finished between my mother and I.

Mrs. Pate has explained to me that a person can decide to purchase a "plot," which has room for a number of burials, "more room if you cremate!", she informed me cheerfully, or a person can buy a "membership" in the cemetery, which allows for a single grave. I'm not a big joiner, but there's plenty of room amongst the decaying Welsh folks of Sharon Center, according to the cheerful Mrs. Pate, and I believe a single spot, near Aunt Joan but perhaps not right beside her may be just the thing.

I'm thinking a little bitty graveside service with Jerry, the Congregational minister, with the cool wooden casket, perhaps in secret to avoid family hyperbole, and then a memorial service for Mom in Wichita, where her active life and contributions happened. Funerals are for the living, mostly, right?

dental work and other intricacies

There was a very popular book in the '80's (I think) called Passages, in which Gail Sheehy outlined the many stages of life. I think I'd better actually read this book. The idea is that there aren't a few - there are many of them. I agree. It's probably on my Mom's bookshelf.

Taking Mom to the dentist yesterday gave me a lot to think about. She can barely stand up and has poor balance these days. Her cognition, such as it is, lasts moments. I had to remind her that it was me pushing her in her wheelchair. At the dentist I stood in front of her so she'd have a frame of reference. Transferring her from chair to car and back was an interesting dance. I learned quickly that you can't muscle her. She moves very slowly and with much anxiety and my urge was just to pick her up and move her. She told me "that feels like knives!" I learned to have her put her arms around my neck and dance with me with slow small steps, explaining each step as we went and praising her. The hug was reassuring and she seemed to calm down.

I prepared the dentist's office for the visit, explaining that Mom was in "end stage Alzheimer's" and thankfully they understood that long term dental prophylaxis made little sense. My once patient Mom now suffers little intrusion and has been known to clock impertinent Summit Pointe staff with her coffee cup. If you leave her alone she's fine in a minute (literally) but woe betide you if you push your luck! Dr. Berst looked into Mom's mouth and found that there are no rotten teeth (the reason for the visit). The exercise in patience ended with the attempt at bite wing xrays. I stepped out of the room for a second and heard Mom: "Get away from me!" The dental tech was good, but she's the loud chatty one. I can't tell you how often I have wanted to say that. Home we went with a new flossing tool and some mouthwash.

What I appreciated about the visit was their understanding that these days it's about making Mom as comfortable as possible. For a while the cardiologist still wanted to see her, the optometrist insisted on running her through a bunch of tests, even though she just needed to replace her glasses. We're not sure how Mom is processing visual input these days anyway, and she's lost those glasses again. If Mom's tooth is not rotten and there's nothing giving her pain, she gets a free pass from dentistry. A major heart attack at this point would not be the worst outcome. Somewhere, the spirit of my Mother, often absent from this withered body these days, is hovering and saying "screw cardiology!" It's my job to remember her, even in her presence, and to be pragmatic.

Mostly Mom sits in a comfy chair and sleeps, waking occasionally. Her hands roam around her lap, feeling and investigating wrinkles and folds in the blanket, her eyes closed. Sometimes she's mutter something. "See you in the morning."

I had forgotten that bedtime ritual from my childhood. Every night when she tucked me in:

"Good night." "Sleep tight." "See you in the morning!"

The other morning I had just helped her sit down in the big chair. She really hates sitting down. She can't see what's behind her and she feels as though she is falling. It feels very out of control and she says "ohh, ohh!" and we have to talk her through it. I forget what she said, but it was something about how pitiful and helpless she felt.

I told her: "Mom, you're a very accomplished person. You taught the most disturbed kids in Wichita for 12 years. You worked for Cerebral Palsy Research and supported hundreds of disabled people through the process of deinstitutionalization. You started the Independent Living Center for brain injured people, the Women's Equality Coalition, and Woman Art/Woman Fair to promote female artists. You took care of me and took care of Dad."

"Thanks," she smiled. "I needed that," and leaned back, and dozed off, hands again wandering her lap. Good night. Sleep tight. See you in the morning.

brief revery - no photo

It's been an interesting week, full of ups and downs, opportunities to engage my better and "worser" self, to enjoy both Spring and Winter (in that order), and perhaps today more Spring. I left my photo stick at work, and I'm on Walker's computer, so there is no photo today.

I discovered that my camera does not like being cold and demonstrates this by refusing to download pictures. I had to take it out of my car, which is where I like to put it. Now it goes back and I have a lot of shots I have been thinking about taking all Winter. I can feel my thickened blood stirring. I can hear my expanding gut remind me that I vowed never to get to 260 pounds again and urging me to get moving. It's time to pump up the bicycle tires on the mountain bike and see how things work. The road bike has low handle bars and would require me to look up from a very low position. I suspect that this posture is no longer possible. From now on, it's straight handlebars for me! The larger impediment at this point is sloth, and I'm very pleased at this. There could certainly have been more serious impediments than my old familiar one. I'd also like to try and run again, but I think this process will be gradual -- a little walking, a little running, more walking -- because lifting and jarring my spine are still touchy activities. People are now espousing the benefits of running barefoot because people naturally avoid hard heel strikes and use their feet better when they run this way. Except for all the rocks and glass on the road around here, that might be a pretty good idea. I understand that there are shoes being made that imitate the benefits of not wearing shoes. Sounds pretty paradoxical to me. A person could really riff on this concept. Not this morning, though.

My soon had a big party last night at our house and Robyn and I played dead upstairs. It was an enthusiastic event with a lot of singing together and by the sounds of thumping, much romping with the dog. Tye's arthritic foot is acting up this morning and he's limping pitifully. We old dogs need to learn restraint. Good luck with that. This was a "clean" party - no drugs or alcohol - and I am left wondering how loud they'd have been if they'd had beer! I had clean parties at Walker's age, too. My behavior didn't nose-dive, really, until college. It was a fine nose diver and I (mostly) don't regret it. I'm not predicting Walker will meet a similar fate. He seems to have a mind of his own.

As to my better and worser selves, they continue to be in protracted talks. On a good day my better self speaks and my worser self merely mutters. Today looks like it may be one of those days.

inertia and osculation

We watched a movie about spectacular vengeance last night. I don't even remember the name of it this morning, but the plot is familiar: A man's family is brutalized and murdered before his eyes while he lies on the floor, duct taped and helpless. He is let down by the system and left alone and profoundly let down, everything he's ever had to love in his life destroyed and no justice to show for it, the evil doers plea bargaining their way to easy street. This pathos gives way to massive amounts of vengeance and lesson learning unleashed upon the hypocrites and evil doers by the suddenly empowered and brilliant formerly-helplessly-suffering-guy who has monster abs by the way.

It was very satisfying. It made me want to convene my own military tribunal and railroad somebody.

I fell asleep pretty early and woke up early, here in my somewhat less clear cut world. Winter has thickened my blood and I'm peering out the window thinking about somehow moving more quickly. I'm dragging with me a foggy cloud of ennui that I haven't been able to shake for weeks. When I'm occupied, I'm fine. Things have been busy and so mostly I've been occupied. Sometimes, though, in the silence of an empty cluttered house the fog descends and I look around at all the things to do, tasks not done, riddles unsolved, loose ends untied, and I'm inert. Perhaps I'm an emotional shark and must keep moving to survive. The warm weather reminds me of my bicycle and my running shoes. It's time to test my titanium spinal superstructure and get myself some endorphins.

Today Caitlin flies to Germany for a senior trip. She'll visit Berlin, stay with a host family for three days in a small down to the south, and then visit Munich. All told she'll be gone ten days, which is about as long as she's ever been gone from us, I think. We all view this as a rehearsal for college this Fall. She's a ready as any of us ever are for what passes as independence when you're eighteen. She was taunting her mother last night with threats of "making out with German boys" to "see if they do it differently." A cultural saliva exchange! For peace! Robyn played along threatening dire consequence if Caitlin is flown home in disgrace. I worry for the poor unsuspecting German boys, personally.

I doubt that the Teutonic method for osculation is any different. Lips is lips. I had a girlfriend once who was enamored of the French. It was her major after all, but I was an unsatisfactory boyfriend in that I didn't share her passion and hadn't learned that being supportive is part of the job. My observation was that minus the accent, her French friends were no more interesting than my American ones. There was one really mad fellow named Andre I really liked but he seemed more temperamentally Russian than French. I never kissed any of them, but I think my girlfriend did. I think they supported her passion better than I did.

Soon I'll head to Iowa City and visit with my ornery kids. We step onto the moving sidewalk with little time to reflect, doing and doing. Inertia is like that: it moves until it stops, stops until it moves.

If I can ever lose my blues
Walk on over and turn on the tv
What I'd like to do is lie down on the sofa
Later on
I might walk my dog, baby

--James Taylor