The Geographic Cure

At AA meetings, you will frequently hear about this concept of moving somewhere else to make a fresh start, get away from the old grind, see things from a new perspective. We call it the Geographic Cure. We call it that because it sounds like just the ticket for a lot of what might ail you about where you live.  If you are still out there drinking, you might be thinking of escaping from  a variety of stinky relationships, obligations, and messes created while under the influence or trying to get under it somehow.  We alcoholics have a way of finding every conceivable bridge that might offer a way out or up and burning it the hell down.  We go through lots of friends, lovers, jobs, rental agreements, cars, library cards, volunteer commitments, gym memberships...you get the idea.  So, moving sounds incredibly seductive and we do it a lot, only to find, to our horror, that wherever we go, there we are (to paraphrase another AA ditty).  

If we aren't drunks or addicts, we still may have reason to want to make that leap into a new life.  This seems to be the case with we boomers, as we contemplate the possibility of retirement, or just the possibility that we could die before we get the chance to live in the mountains or go to Bangladesh for a stint in the Peace Corps.  We have a sort of renaissance of the same cravings for adventure, novelty and challenge that we had when we were starting out, except that we have some money in the bank, a longer and more impressive resume, and maybe a slightly more mature perspective.   

For the past few years I have toyed with the idea of moving to Colorado or New Mexico. I love it out there, have friends and family strategically placed and once again am wondering how in the hell I will survive another winter in the Land of Grey that is Holland at that time of year.

This year, I looked into it a little deeper, talking to my financial guy, Ron, ever patient, practical and steady, and to some friends, and to my kids.  What I found happening was that I began to create a sort of dichotomy or polarity between here and there in which I was able to create an ever-longer list of pros for there and cons for here. Some of them were no brainers: Denver gets 300 days of sunshine a year, there are cool people out there and I can live out all of my hippie fantasies in close proximity to Boulder.  Others, a little more subtle: I have been doing the same thing for a long time here. That is the good news and the bad news of it all. That is the trap and the allure.  Could I do it? Could I pick up and leave, sell it all, take off in my little car with my little dog and just go? Find a funky little apartment out there somewhere and simplify my life?  Make a new start? Escape the sameness and the routine of my life here?

Of course, I am a drunk, and this could smack a little of the GC, though of course daydreaming about the possibilties in life is what keeps us interested and moving ahead.  It could be quite the adventure to move away. The only trouble is, I can't figure out how to do it without taking me along.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the things that are bugging me about my life have little to do with where I live and everything to do with my reticence to do the work I need to do to make it better. The grand gesture always sounds better to me than the daily work of making a life and making it worth living.

The Last Day of School

If  you are in the proximity of a school child today,

you cannot help but know that school is either out or should be, depending on which school you are talking about.  And, it you are in the proximity of a school teacher, you probably are making an effort not to be today: we glow on the first day off, and it can be a little annoying to the rest of the world, for whom Monday will be business as usual. We are alive with the possibilities of summer and all it may hold. We may have a fat check in our hands that we vow we will not piss away by the end of July, leaving us penniless and counting the days to the first paycheck in September.) We may be feeling some sadness, saying goodbye to certain kids who burrowed into our hearts especially deep.  We may be pushing aside the nagging reminder that our rooms need to be packed up and report cards marked.  We may, as I am, be slightly nauseous from a last-week diet that was a little too carb-rich and veggie-light.  (In the teacher's lounge on Thursday: two  boxes of donuts, a box of bagels and cream cheese, a huge sheet cake from a family saying, "Thanks Waukazoo Family", that was out of this world, a crock pot of overcooked veggie chili (my contribution) and lime-flavored tortilla chips.)  

But, understand this: we are glowing anyway, as we throw out the produce in the fridge that we bought with good intentions, as we clean out boxes of end of the year gifts, the best ones hand-made, and re-read heartfelt letters smudged and misspelled so endearingly ("Thank you for making me hapy. Love, Thomas"), as we clear off the kitchen table and throw in the laundry and go to Lowe's to get serious about the lawn.

Yesterday was a half-day, and as always there was so much to do. There is a sense for me on that day that I need to be ready for anything, and of course I never am ready for what actually happens.  I did pretty well in passing back gobs of artwork (cursing myself for procrastinating), 

saying goodbye to kids, getting started on room clean-up, chatting with friends (and fitting in several cake-trips to the lounge).  Then, at about  11:00, one of my first graders named Jaden came in and asked me about his clay fish. The one he had to make a week late, because he was sick. The one that had lots of very sharp teeth and  a long tail...you remember, right, Mrs. Art?

(Fish? there is still a fish that hasn't swum home yet?) Then, I remember, and there he is, sitting on the edge of the kiln, ready to go. Jaden and I put together a tray of paints and brushes and he sets off for his classroom to paint his fish. All seems well. Phew, I think, I am glad the little guy remembered!

Then, at 11:40, twenty minutes before the final eruption of joy when the kids run out that door for summer vacation, Jaden returns with his fish. It is in three parts.  Apparently, it was on his desk, and he lifted the top. sending it flying onto the floor. The delicate jaw with its snaggly teeth has broken off, as has the sleek (really, really skinny) tail. 

Quick calculations tell me I can do this, and I plug in the glue gun and examine the pieces.  The jaw and teeth aren't too hard, but the tail is really a challenge; the hot glue leaves a thick line that doesn't allow the two pieces to fit together well, and it takes repeated tries to get it back on. (Jaden: "his tail is very thin so he can swoosh it through  the water and go very fast.")

I get it on, and then he says, oh, here is another piece-it is the tip of the tail." It is now five minutes before the bell. I am sweating and I have glue on my fingers. Nothing like  challenge in the last lap of the marathon.  I glue the tiny piece on and the whole tail falls off.

Somehow, the tail gets glued back on and Jaden hugs me and says goodbye. He walks out the door with his ferocious fish and now, only now, do I feel like school is really out.

Love and gratitude to all teachers out there. 

Breathe.

claudia

bad day

I usually don't write about the bad stuff, but I am going to today. It is the end of the school year, and I, like everyone else at Waukazoo school, am cramming six or seven days worth of work into every five and wondering if I will get it all done by the last day, when we all wave goodbye to the busses and collapse in a heap.  I feel this way every year, no matter how I swear that I will plan better, do fewer last minute clay projects (this totally demolishes me every year, but I do not learn), get more sleep, say yes to fewer commitments....the end of May comes, and I am right back here, feeling harried, worried, exhausted and stressed.  Don't get me wrong--there are many gifts each day that come from working hard and keeping those commitments: watching first graders painting their awesome clay fish, putting on a play with third graders which germinated one day a while back when I mentioned, "wouldn't it be fun to turn this story into a play?"), seeing smiles on kid faces enjoying creating in the art room.  So today, just to balance that all out, I guess, I find out that Sarah's second clay zebra has blown to smithereens in the kiln (so did her first one)--and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.  And this was a beautiful zebra, folks.  She worked so hard on it, and she is a great artist. I wish I could just blow myself up instead. She cried when I told her. God. I hate it. I feel like such a failure.

I also had some other negative stuff come my way, no way as severe but enough to stick in my head, and enough to make me feel like a loser.

I hate these days. I do know, however, that I won't have two like this in a row, because I never do, and somewhere inside I know that this is life and it is only my feeble ego that is whining now. Whining loudly. Telling me, who needs this job, anyway? Well, as a matter of fact, I do, and not just for the money.  I still have this idea that if I just try hard enough, all of the bad stuff will somehow vanish.  I know that this is impossible but I just keep trying.

garden stories

Judging from the crowd at Lowe's garden center this weekend, my passion for gardening is shared by a whole lot of people. I love to walk through the rows of flowers and look at the bags of mulch, the cement pavers, the wheelbarrows, the planters and all of the lawn medication designed to cure the ills caused by a long winter. Today, I bought a calla lilly plant and a foxglove to add to my front flower garden. I chose two good spots, dug holes, felt the warm dirt in my hands as I patted it around the stems, and then got out the sprinkler.  New additions for the new year. 

The first thing I learned about planting a garden is that it is an act of faith; a good garden takes years to evolve.  What you do this year probably won't flourish this year. The next thing I learned is that weeds are really a matter of opinion; some of my favorite little guys arrived unbidden by me and have stayed.   The third thing I learned is that, like every other living thing, each plant has a story to tell.

My iris, for example, began with a couple of plants that I bought on the way to my dad's house. There is a place in Renzelaar, Indiana, where you can buy just about any kind of day lilly or iris, and they have a gorgeous koi pond where you can eat your lunch. Anyway, I bought the iris because my grandmother had them in her yard, and then my dad had some of her bulbs in our family garden when I was growing up. I felt that iris were a part of my family history and so a good start for my plot. It took about three years to get one to bloom, and what a joy when they did! I have since added more iris (and day lillies) from my trips to my dad's. They will be blooming in a couple of weeks; I often greet the first one right after the last day of school.

My lilac bush is enormous and also reminds me of my grammy Freda, as do the tuberous begonias I plant every year. She loved them and had them in the bed in the front of her house in Howard City. I remember walking around the yard with her every summer and listening to her stories about those flowers.

Next to my new calla lilly is a huge bleeding heart that was a gift from an old boyfriend. When he told me its' name, he smiled sheepishly.  The only picture I have of him was taken by that plant. It grows bigger and more beautiful every year.  I have three rose bushes, each of them a gift from one of the Marsman girls, students of mine from Waukazoo.  The peonies went in after a trip to the Ann Arbor Arboritum.  The black-eyed susans are my reminder that it is almost time to go back to school. The cone flowers are probably my favorite of all; those orange spiky centers and delicate purple-pink petals are ravishing to me. The Japanese maple started as the tiniest little snippet from my dad's and is now shoulder-high.  The pansies are in honor of my mom. When I was little, it was my job to pick them so that more would bloom. I never look at a pansy without thinking of her.

Hauling the hoses around, pruning branches, weeding, digging, raking, mowing... what joyful work it all is. Days like today, with the breeze blowing, the water pump groaning as the sprinkler arches back and forth, and the hostas unfurling, seem like a long way away from those frigid days of winter. 

sunday afternoon

This morning I walked to the beach, as I so often do on Sundays, with my camera in hand,and looking forward to seeing just what yesterday's storms had wrought on the beachscape.  As always, I am guided in my picture taking by intuition, by my artist self, snapping only when certain. I can't tell you what captivates me so about certain images: delicate ivy growing up the trunk of a massive, gnarly tree trunk; evidence of other beings who were there before me, such as birds crowding around a fish carcass and picking it clean; the light on the tops of the beach grass so delicate as the filtered sun bathes them. The sounds have changed from my last visit; the waves caressing the water's edge unimpeded by ice and snow. The rhythm is ancient music that we all respond to, if we listen.

  

As I walked I thought once again that this place is as constant as anything I have experienced in my life.  As a child, the beach was across Lakeshore Drive, just like it is now,  but in a town south of here called St. Joseph. To get there, I walked through the neighbor's deep lot, past a vegetable garden and a grape arbor, and climbed down the rickety steps that had all of the character of fine driftwood.

My brother and I wandered down there very early one morning with our blankets and rolled up in them, pigs in blankets, and fell asleep to the wavesounds.  I found clay on the sides of the bluff and walked on it, feeling aboriginal.  I watched the boats.  My parents took us out in ours for day-long picnics, the little vessel rocking contentedly offshore, held by the anchor. I made Frank Lloyd Wright houses out of flat stones with my mother. I made sand portraits. I do this, still, and I dig my toes into the sand, and I have to stop myself from diving into those waves before the water warms. When I was little, i jumped in in March once.

Today, of course, so many new things to see, as always: my favorite image was that of delicate bird feet, so lightly impressed into the loose sand and reminding me of Japanese kanji.  This sense of timelessness and newness is the stuff of life-I look in the mirror and I see that little girl walking the beach and building houses with her mother. I see that young mother digging holes in the sand with my Annie; watching Jon, drenched with water, deliriously rolling in the hot sand. I see myself today, slowing down, seeing differently than before, seeing better in some ways, delighted by that which used to elude me.  I see an older me, if I am lucky, still finding the perfect piece of driftwood and trying not to frighten the gulls as I approach. It is the same being and I am seeing her on different days. My essence is the thread that connects us all.

Maria Felix

Actress, art collector, fashionista, outsider woman.

Just had to share.

Edvard Munch

Yesterday I was able to go to the Art Institute of Chicago and see the Edvard Munch exhibit with Annie and her friend Efrat. The exhibit was powerful, with themes of melancholy, anxiety, 

love, and alienation. His prints are really amazing and very rich in their technique; his paintings, many of them, are very linear in their style, which surprised me, given the looseness of the brushstrokes  of his most famous work, The Scream.  One gets the impression that Munch was a serious sort of guy, given to some obsessiveness and more than a little gloominess.  The yellow vertical symbol for the moon on the water, seen in Summer Night, the Voice, is a recurrent theme in his work, and I think it symbolizes the melancholia that he so often expresses in his work. 

I am sure that it wasn't lost on many who attended this exhibit that his themes are just as relevant today as they were then. The other day, I had a discussion with dear friend Bobbi about medications that have been developed for the anxiety and depression that seem to be sort of running rampant among us today.  Would Munch have created these works if he had the edges softened a little by a daily dose of Prozac?

 

Easter Sunday

eye stuff

Sometimes I forget that this blog began with a grim diagnosis coupled with a car crash. The eye and the car have both been replaced, with varying degrees of success. My car is pretty fabulous: a little white Toyota Rav-4 with a pug nose and sexy lines (in an athletic sort of way).  It goes pretty fast and, with my many custom-cool mirrors attached, my visibility is really good.  Weirdly, I can parallel park better than ever.

My prosthetic eye is another story. It is beautiful, that is for sure.  Michael painted it for me, following some vague directions about echoing the colors of my favorite turquoise ring. I was hell-bent on an artistic prosthetic. It is a work of art, I thought. It is but another way to express oneself, I reasoned. I can tell you that the usual responses to it are 1) wow, it sure looks real! and 2) why is it a different color?  So, in terms of aesthetics, mission accomplished, sort of.

What is lacking, to some extent, is what opthamologists refer to as "horizontal motility", or the ability of my prosthetic to move from one side to the other.  The up-and-down movement is pretty good-at least within the realm of normal eye movement.  We just don't peer WAY up or WAY down that often.  The problem comes when I am looking at you from a slightly sideways perspective. My artistic prosthetic stubbornly stares off somewhere in the distance while the real one works the way it should, giving me a rather cross-eyed appearance. 

My friends assure me that this is not noticeable with glasses on, but I am aware of it, and no more than when I am a close huddle with my little guys at school. It just looks a little weird.

Fortunately, there is a solution: the peg.  Here is what happens: the occular surgeon drills a little hole in your implant, and inserts a titanium peg in it that sticks out a little bit.  Then, the occularist, Mike in my case, makes a little dent in the back of my prosthetic, into which the little peg fits. As a result, the prosthetic eye articulates back and forth in concert with the other one, with a few adjustments here and there.

I consult with the surgeon at the end of April and we take it from there. 

A good day to read books....love to all out there in the universe.

Claudia

Annie Lane

I got pregnant again when Jon was only six months old. It was a surprise, but then again, so was Jon, so Mark and I, happy in our lives as young parents, looked forward to meeting the next little Hagar. It was an uneventful pregnancy. I knew that delivery would be by C-section, as Jon had been; that was just the accepted procedure. 

A week before the scheduled birth, I went to my obstetrician, who proclaimed all well and sent me home. The next day, I felt a heaviness through my swollen belly, and as the day went on, a quiet stillness came over it. By eight, the contractions had begun and we left for the hospital, leaving baby Jon with friends.  My joy evaporated as I watched the face of the physican who was moving his stethoscope over my contracting abdomen; he was searching in vain for a heartbeat.  Someone took my hands and lifted them over my head; still nothing.  An anesthesia mask came down over my face. "Count backward from ten," a voice instructed.  Their urgent faces told me that the baby was in trouble. I began to cry as unconsciousness overtook me. 

I woke up to see my doctor standing by my side, tears streaming down his face. He told me that our baby, a girl, had been stillborn. My husband Mark joined us. More words about autopsies and possible causes of death were uttered but of course we were beyond hearing such things.

I was placed on the surgery floor, away from the new mothers, in a private room. Later, a nurse came to give me a backrub. I remember that she was very kind and had gentle hands. As she kneaded my shoulders, she quietly suggested that I see the child I had lost. I hesitated, remembering something someone said about a facial deformity. I was afraid. She told me that in nature, mothers always inspect their young, whether living or dead. this made sense and I agreed to see her before the funeral.  My dad arrived, picking up the tabs for funeral and headstone and fighting back tears at my bedside.  He and my mom had lost two little boys in similar fashion and it brought it all back for him. 

Mark and a friend went about the business of buying a coffin and arranging for a funeral. We named her Annie Lane-Annie because it is a beautiful name, and Lane, after my mother. I found the christening dress that my mother had worn as a baby and we sent it to the funeral home for her to wear. We arranged for a private viewing.  My father, Mark and I entered the chapel and sat with her for a few minutes. She was quite beautiful, and all of these 28 years later, I wish that I had taken her picture. She looked a lot like Jon when he was tiny. 

Mark chose a plot at the Lakewood Cemetary, across from the elementary school. He told me that he wanted her to be able to the sounds of children playing. We chose a line from a Shaker song for her headstone: "Tis a Gift to be Free." Someone cleared out all of the baby items. I never found out where they went.

We buried her on March 19th, in a drizzle of cold rain.  I still remember how it felt to stand there shivering and looking at the tiny white coffin going in to the ground.  Afterwards, my friend Patti DenUyl, who was nothing if not generous, arranged for half the staff of Point West to come to my rented cottage, setting up tables loaded with a huge buffet dinner. She brought with her a large basket overflowing with personal things for me: bubble bath, lipstick, scented oils.  She was pregnant, too, and her grief nearly matched mine that day.  A few weeks later, her Mia was born. 

Of course, time heals, and now I mark March 16th by visiting her with flowers, and talking with her for awhile.  Early on, of course, Mark and I went together, and took Jon and then our beautiful Annie Elizabeth, born 54 weeks later, with us.  They would find pinecones and beautiful sticks to put by the stone. Later, after the divorce, we would show up separately, one of us adding flowers to those left by the other. 

When Annie Elizabeth was born, we had the same team in the delivery room; the nurses joked about putting "pink juice" in the IV to assure that a little girl came out. Tears of joy reigned as she entered the world loudly and confidently, looking slightly Asian and very pink.

I spent a week in the hospital and she rarely left my side (I  marvel that my insurance company paid for that now; how relaxed it all was back then.)  

I sometimes wonder about what Annie Lane would look like.  I try to imagine a collage of Jon and Annie. For some reason, I think that her hair would have been more like Jon's, darker and coarser. I see a taller and somewhat more lanky version of Annie Liz.  I think that she would have loved music.   

To all those who have been close to the death of a child, there is this kind of dreamy wondering and speculation.  In one way, we feel that we knew them so well, as they nestled and swam inside of us. In another, they barely touched this earth, and what is left is what might have been.

The picture was taken when I was about seven months along with Annie Lane.  I marvel at my youth and I marvel at the resilience that we all have to have when walking through this life.

I am not sure how to close this post, except to say that tomorrow, when I visit Annie Lane, I will tell her once again how she would love her brother and sister, how beautiful the trees are around her, and how much her spirit sings inside of me still.