Magic Wineglass Tours

Category: Everything

  • The Wolf Moon

    The Wolf Moon

    I awakened out of a sound sleep, confused. It wasn’t dark in my room, but I was certain it was dark when I went to bed.  It’s easiest for me to sleep in deep darkness, so that’s the way I arrange my nights.  The room was aglow, but not with the rosy light of dawn.  My room was bathed in grays and blues.  In seeming darkness, but every object distinct.  It was the moon.

    And what a moon!  Certainly, the full moon has lit the bedroom before.  Regularly.  This, though, this was different.

    I tossed the piles of blankets aside and stepped out on the deck to see.

    Now, these musings are always a little intimate – deep dives into my mind or heart.  But here you’re going to learn more about me than I planned to tell you, things that make the experience ring true, but that you really did not need to know about me personally.  You do need to know, though, if I’m to convey the richness of these moments.

    The setting: I live on the side of the mountain, sheltered under hemlocks and poplars, river birch, maple, red oak, and others I cannot identify.  The understory of this mountainside forest is great rhododendron, ancient behemoths towering over twenty feet tall, thick with glossy evergreen leaves.  All of this serves to make the deck off my bedroom quite private from the neighbors, with houses an acre or more distant, below me on the hillside.  It’s wintertime, so the trees are bare, with the exception of the hemlocks, but none of those evergreens are above the deck.  In winter, I can see sky overhead.

    I live alone.  I sleep alone.  Pajamas are something I wear until I go to bed.  I consult no one about the temperature of my room, so it’s the way I like it, unheated (until the outside temperature dips into the teens) and I pile my favorite blankets and quilts on the bed and burrow under them, in a nest of warmth.

    So tossing aside the piles of blankets and stepping outside on the deck in the moonlight this night is a bit risqué, not to mention chilly, but I was not publicly exposed.  What I was, though, was standing in pure poetry.

    There was a misty rain falling, so silently that it was completely unexpected.  Hugging myself for warmth from the chill rain, I took it all in.  The world was every shade of bluish gray.  Deep shadows were indigo.  Bright light was that palest blue that shines off sterling silver.  The level of light was that of early dawn or dusk, but washed of all color, save those tinges of blue.

    And then, then I looked up, for the moon.  I had heard there was a Wolf Moon tonight.  Shrugging it off as just one more full moon, I had thought nothing of it and went to bed -early for me- maybe 10:30.  Waking up after an hour and a half of sleep is not my routine.  Once I’m asleep, I stay asleep until morning.  The brightness of this wild moon had pulled me out of slumber.  And the reason for the spectacular light was the sky.  Overcast, with the thinnest of cloud layers, the sky was nearly white, and completely backlit by the full moon.  I looked up at it through the inky deep blue lace of wintry bare branches, watching as wisps of deeper gray clouds skittered and raced across the face of the moon.  The moon itself was an indistinct hazy orb of light, with a wide fringed halo extending far beyond the norm for such things.  I stood watching the gossamer bits of darker clouds in their frenzy flying past the front of the moon, and I was unaffected by the cold, so deeply mesmerized was I, by this scene.  The mist settled on me, definitely falling, like rain, but fine and soft like a falling frost.  The world was utterly silent and perfectly illuminated. Still and serene.  And like no other earthly landscape I have visited outside my dreams.

    Finally, shivering, I stepped back into my room, thinking a hot shower would settle my nerves and I could go back to sleep.  But the words kept spinning in my head, the whole time warm water relaxed the chill off my skin.  Ethereal.  Other worldly.  Those skittering dancing filmy clouds chasing each other across the face of the moon.  The woven basketry of the inky bare branches between me and all that outer space.  The impossibility of a rain so fine and the quiet.

    So I bundled up in pajamas, added socks and a sweater, and armed with sweet tea and reading glasses, sat down to share this with you.

    And now it’s late, so I’ll publish this and bid you goodnight.  I hope you saw the moon.

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  • Retirement Plans

    Decades ago, when Florida first got a lottery, Larry would joke that his retirement plan had nothing to do with working at Martin Marietta, he just needed six numbers.

    We trotted that out for years. Every time we bought lottery tickets, we called them our retirement plan. Every time someone mentioned a retirement plan, one of us would pipe up with, “All you need is six numbers.”

    Unlike those who think they have a lock on the winning combination, and use the same set of birthdays and anniversary dates to get their weekly tickets, we were a bit random. We didn’t buy tickets often, and were as likely to grab a ‘Quick Pick’ from the cashier, as anything else. It didn’t matter what the numbers were: the fun was in six numbers being our retirement plan.

    I was shopping in a catalog this week, and stumbled across a gift package. It was for a pair of personalized bracelets, commemorating anything you please – a wedding, special trip, birth of a child, graduation… retirement. And all you needed to personalize it was six numbers.

    I about dropped the catalog. I stood there stunned, all those moments of six number silliness running through my head. Six numbers for retirement. It took a moment to regain my focus and astonishingly, the six numbers were not as I suspected. They didn’t form a date. No, the six numbers were for a location. Latitude and Longitude. Degrees, Minutes, Seconds, for each.

    And it hit me. This. THIS is my retirement plan. Because I’ve been on the move as long as I can remember. That’s the thing – to keep moving. To travel. To see, to experience, to go and do. Changing latitude. Changing longitude. Gathering all those numbers, six new ones every time. And since retirement, heaven knows, I’ve accumulated an impressive collection of six numbers! I’ve cruised the Mediterranean and been to Spain and Malta and sailed across the Atlantic and hiked the volcanic ridge in the Azores and had Turkish coffee in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul and made pasta in Florence and eaten fresh sardines on the coast of Portugal. I’ve tasted grapes from the vines in California and remembered the Alamo and played hide and seek with the prairie dogs at Devil’s Tower and watched the mist rise off the lake so far north in Minnesota that even the fish are Canadian. I’ve danced in biker bars and shopped in the bookstore that inspired the moving Hogwarts stairs in the Harry Potter novels and stayed in a palace and a monastery and a spa and a 17th century inn and a teepee. I’ve made friends all over the world, and even revisited a few. I’ve learned to order beer in five languages and can lie in four of them. And there is so, so much more ahead. In truth, changing latitude and longitude, travel and collecting those six numbers from so many unique and diverse places, really is a fabulous retirement.

    So if you ask me, the result is just the same. Having all those experiences? It is exactly like winning the lottery.

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  • An Excellent Decision

    An Excellent Decision

    So often, I question my choices. Some of them are impossible to recant. It’s a matter of gathering all the information I can at the moment, measuring the options, and then making a leap of faith.

    And some of those choices are fraught with emotion, which is what I faced as I stood in the closet, looking at Larry’s shirts, hanging exactly where he left them.

    Let me take you back to a cruise ship in the Caribbean, some ten years ago. Larry and I had booked back-to-back cruises, and had sailed the first ten days with friends from Canada. They’d returned home, and other friends had joined us for the second cruise. But the first one had taken about all the energy Larry could muster. We were both alarmed at how quickly his breathing became labored. And having been told at an early age that his condition was terminal, we were both concerned that this was the end. We spent the trip saying our goodbyes over tears and coffee for breakfast each day. And then we pressed on and savored each moment of the day. Larry was pretty sure he wasn’t ever going to return home. He had resigned himself to dying on the ship. That was Our Little Secret from our friends. And while Larry held up the pretense and made sure to put on his best face for our friends, it was a bit more than I could shoulder.

    Of course I confided in the folks traveling with us. Very much on the QT, but they were tremendously supportive. And Larry and I continued to make sure nothing was left unsaid between us, those tender moments in the early hours. We took a lot of comfort in the absolute certainty that we were in love and had no regrets. Ten years later, I have to say, those days were powerful lessons for us, and the impact of those tearful mornings enriched our marriage like nothing else could have.

    After coffee, it would take Larry a while to get his day started. He would begin the morning mostly in slow motion, and then there were medications and breathing treatments before he would shower and dress and emerge from the cabin to greet the day. I took that time to abscond to the upper deck where I could sit with another cup of coffee and my journal, where I could pour out my angst without upsetting him.

    I met a young woman on the deck. She had a willing ear and I had a need to share my story and unloaded the whole thing on this girl, as yet unmarried and childless and with little to prepare her for this middle-aged woman’s trauma. But she listened with care, offered what comfort and kindness she could. And she let me talk. And we decided to keep in touch.

    Fast forward a million years or ten, and I was standing in the closet trying to force myself to take Larry’s shirts off the hangers, fold them up, and donate them to charity. I couldn’t do it. I walked out. And when I sat down with my ipad and signed into facebook, there was my young friend – now ten years older and wiser and married and a busy mother of two. I’ve been following her for a very long time, and periodically comment on her posts, which are usually filled with self-deprecation and wry humor and a healthy dose of dismay at the workaday life of a mom. But this day, she was posting about making quilts, about, “…a quilt made from a sweet mama’s dress. She was taken from her babies too soon.” And I knew exactly what I wanted to do with those shirts.

    There was a lot of back and forth discussion, about how these are not artful quilts, but rag quilts. And about how I thought the backing should feel like a teddy bear, and whether the pockets should be there, and about stars. The stars are just especially meaningful to me. I never doubted that I was doing the right thing. The decision had the sense of peace about it that you only get when you know you’re heading in the exact right direction. It didn’t matter that she only makes rag quilts. To me, that meant that I was supposed to get a rag quilt. Because it is imbued with history – not only the history of Larry wearing those shirts, of buying them and washing them and packing them into suitcases as we went off to see the world together, but also including the history made on that cruise ship of tears with coffee and a sweet understanding young woman. We are all in this quilt.

    Today, it arrived. I admit, I was nervous about opening the box. I opened all the rest of the mail first. I even read the advertisements. Finally, I carefully cut the tape at the end of the box and oh so gently opened it. Inside, naturally there was a sweet note (tied with a shell and a piece of coral – this is Florida) tied with ribbon around the tissue paper wrapping. I eased out the quilt and my heart skipped a beat.

    There. Familiar patterns in a jumble of fabric. Memories rushing in of the time I fell asleep against this shirt or that, a flash of a day at the beach, or a chili party, or the times I nagged him to button his pocket so it would look tidy.

    I pulled it to my face and cried hard. The backing is plush and heavy and thick and beautiful and feels just exactly precisely and perfectly like a teddy bear. The way a rag quilt is constructed means it’s just as warmly welcoming on the front, too. It’s magnificent. More than I could ever have expected. Stars are fashioned from the cloth of one shirt onto another. It’s all there, all the different patterns and colors and the memories of every shirt are seared into my skin as I’ve held my husband in my arms so many, many times, in each one.

    Through a veil of tears, I saw an unbuttoned pocket on the quilt. A smile for Kelly. I had told her I would sleep with this quilt next to my pillow, and she had expressed concern about buttons stuck on my face in the morning. I gently buttoned the pocket and moved to button another. But wait. There’s a bit of plastic sticking out. What’s this? Oh. Oh, my. It’s a bag with a wadded tissue in it. Well damn. I guess I hadn’t laundered that shirt. Because Larry was always jamming a wadded fresh tissue in his pocket, heading out the door. She had put the pocket into the quilt. And put the tissue, carefully wrapped, back into the pocket. There is a heart there that goes beyond my understanding. This woman is an angel. Thank God I recognized her when I met her the first time. I asked God for an angel to look after me now and then when Larry died. Today, it was Kelly Gaudette. I tucked the bag, with its precious cargo, back into the pocket, and oh so carefully buttoned it closed.

    Click.

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  • Hanging the Moon

    Hanging the Moon

    The Sun and Moon sculpture, from Venice, hangs on my wall as a tribute to me and Larry.  It was our ‘thing’.  He wore a sun charm on a gold chain.  When we fell in love, I gave him a lady-in-the-moon charm, because I told him he brought me into the light.  He was still wearing both the day he died. 

    A year earlier, this papier mache sculpture had me and both his daughters in tears in the store in Italy, and it’s a treasure. 

    We three Wicked Women (I’m the wicked stepmother, they’re the wicked stepdaughters, and we are the Wicked Women, in the Boston sense of the word) were having a Carnivale adventure together, in Venice, Italy.  Larry was very much with us on that trip.  He slept when we slept, on his side of the planet, and was constantly on one of our phones, texting and video chats and sharing photos.  He talked to waiters and shopkeepers and chefs and the people at our hotel.  We walked him down the twisty alleyways and showed him gondolas and bakeries and the Grand Canal. But our phones were off the evening we entered the mask maker’s little gallery, and we were all thunderstruck by this piece.  Hurried discussions ensued about who was going to buy it, which of us could most appropriately own it, how we were going to share this symbol which had expanded from a love story to embody our blended family so well.

    If our family has a crest, this is it.

    In the end, it was the stunning price.  I was the only one willing to shoulder that.  The elder immediately found a smaller piece representative of the same sun and moon symbology, and purchased that one for herself.  The younger contemplated for a moment and looked at me and asked, “Could I inherit it?”  Absolutely.  And the transaction was made.  And then she said, “Oh, look.  She is sleeping in his arms.”

    And I just died.  In the nicest way.  For years, Larry was unable to sleep lying down.  He would sleep on the sofa, which had recliners built in. And he’d pull a pillow onto his lap, and I would lay there while we watched TV and invariably, I’d fall asleep with Larry playing with my hair or rubbing my shoulders.  (Until a little rock and roll music played.  Then the drummer awoke and I’d find my arms and back and even my head being played like conga drums.  Ha!  I never minded being Larry’s drums.  It made me laugh.  And I’d snuggle back down and go to sleep when the music ended.)  It was a special thing with us, the business of falling asleep against him.  It seems that on his first date, back in high school, he took a girl to the drive-in movies.  She fell asleep against his shoulder during the movie, and Larry came home devastated, and told his mother about it.  She, being a very wise mother, told him that he had been paid the highest compliment, because that girl clearly trusted him enough to be vulnerable in sleep.  So each time I dozed off during whatever movie Larry was watching, he treated it as a compliment, and a testimonial to the trust I had in him.  One day, having shuffled off this mortal coil, I hope to be able to thank his mother for that.

    And now, looking at this particular sun and moon, that’s all I see.  His comfort.  Her trust.  Their love.

    The purchase made, we had it shipped to Orlando, where Larry was waiting.  It arrived in the States before I did.  He called the moment it arrived.  He was astounded at how perfectly it suited us, as if we had commissioned it ourselves.  

    I had the silver star garland all over the tree for what turned out to be Larry’s last Christmas, and was draping over everything in sight, including everything hanging on the walls.  When I took the decorations down, Larry asked, “Can that bit on the sun and moon stay up?  I really like that.”  And there is stays, today.  It’s part of our story. 

    I’m so glad I have stars in unexpected places.  They’ve always held more appeal than little hearts.  Hearts are adorable.  Stars just seem to hold the promise of the universe. So adding them to our sun and moon makes the picture complete.

    Recently, I returned to Venice.  Alone, I wandered into a familiar looking store and lo and behold it was the exact one.  There was a similar piece on the wall and I asked about the provenance.  I was given the artist’s name and information, and wrote to him about the sun and moon I have.  He responded, “SoleLuna.  The circular shape alone is a symbol of the never ending circle of life. Placing a half moon and half sun inside the circle supplies even more meaning. The sun is often recognized as a symbol of rebirth, strength and power. The moon is associated with the female in many cultures often in the form of a goddess.”  I sent him a photo of ours, complete with the little star garland, and told him a bit of our story.  

    This is the first important piece I ever purchased.  SoleLuna.  

    Sole.  Luna.  And the stars.  So here at my home, it’s sole luna… e stelle.

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  • Everlasting Love and the Meaning of Life

    Ok, y’all get ready for some really heavy stuff.  This is the real deal.  Meaning of life and all that. Seriously.  Now maybe y’all don’t think I’ve got what it takes to talk about that.  But you’ve all heard me say, just about forever, “This is the romance of the century.  I just don’t have time to write the book.”  Well, here it is.  Distilled.  The essence of why that works, how it happens, what makes it real.  And it’s not that Larry and I were so special (of course, though, we were and we are, but so are you) it’s just that we took care to recognize what was happening, while it was happening.  We paid attention.  We took note.  We gave credence to it, and treated it with care, with the reverence it deserves.

    And you’re still reading, so you’re asking yourself what this ‘it’ might be.  It’s love, of course.  Isn’t everything?  But that’s such a general term, used in every hackneyed greeting card sentiment.  It’s selflessness, giving.  Ditto.  It’s not going to be summed up in a word.  I have to tell you about us.

    Larry was diagnosed as a teenager, with a terminal disease.  That is, he was told he only had a short time to live.  He was 14 years old, and told he would not survive his teens.  By the time I met him, at 33, he’d had surgery to remove one lung, had been in and out of the hospital and told he was dying every single year since.  So when he asked me to marry him, I was faced with the daunting prospect of marrying a dying man.  Told you.  Heavy stuff.  It didn’t take a lot of convincing, though, that whatever time I could have with him would be better than skipping the sad part. (I had no inkling, then, what being a widow meant.  The sad part, indeed.) And frankly, I was 29 years old, and that’s not a particularly bright age –apologies to twenty somethings everywhere, I promise, each decade will bring its own enlightenment – so I had a youthful point of view.  If I was only going to have Larry five years, I imagined I would have Larry, exactly as he was, for five years, and then I would not.  That’s as far as my mind stretched.  I didn’t fully understand his disease, although to be fair, neither did the medical community, but deterioration wasn’t part of my thought process.

    And miraculously, thankfully, I had that man for thirty years.  Three entire decades.  And we spent the first decade dealing with that prognosis, battling it like an enemy, fending it off, and raising children and having careers and making a life the same as every couple in their thirties does.  We battled each other, too, and emotions ran high – love and anger and laughter and sorrow – and somehow, we came out the other side, children reared, careers settled, and the next twenty years took shape in the mountains.  I was running a bed and breakfast, and taking care of Larry.  At first, he was helping, whenever and however he could.  But progressively, he just could not.  Others filled the roles he’d once held.  Handyman.  Photographer.  He became more and more housebound and as a result, so did I.

    And through it all, I was sure I was the most pampered, spoiled wife on the planet.  And Larry was sure he was the lucky one.  You hear that, now and then, in a particularly successful marriage.  I want to tell you what it means.  In my case, it means I was married to a wonderful man, with whom I was head over heels in love, and he had only a short time to live.  For me, that meant that every decision was based on making sure that he had the richest experiences.  That his dreams all came true.  If he wanted something, it became my quest to obtain it.  If I overheard him mention something he would enjoy, it became my quest to make sure it happened.  In time, every decision I made was based on making sure that Larry had the absolute most wonderful life possible.  And of course, without having any idea it was unfolding that way –something I’ve only learned in hindsight- I was making sure I had the same.

    Because, you see, Larry was doing the exact same thing for me.  He knew he only had a short time, so he wanted to make the most of it.  And for him, making the most of it meant being in love with me.  How do I know that?  Because he told me all the time.  All.  The.  Time.  Every single day.  We had a little ritual of toasting every day.  With wine glasses, with coffee cups, with cheetos or the remote controls.  Didn’t matter.  The thing was, we had to look each other in the eyes and mean it.  Even on the crappy days.  That’s not always easy, folks.  But we did it.  So yes, I knew he loved me completely.  And he knew I loved him.  That wasn’t ever in question.

    Over time, this developed into a giving relationship, and I mean everything was a gift.  Everything I did was a gift to Larry.  And everything he did was a gift to me.  I never sat a plate of food in front of that man that he didn’t light up and say, “Wow!” Ok, occasionally it was with humor, but he always followed it up with a thank you.  And for most of our lives together, Larry cooked, a lot!  And received the same accolades and the same thanks.  Whoever cleaned the kitchen got thanked.  Hang up the clothes from the dryer?  Thank you!  Make iced tea, you are so wonderful.  Take out the trash, oh gosh thanks.  Bring me ice water, you are a blessing.  Because each of these was treated as a gift, by the giver and the recipient.  And when your focus is on giving the one you love gifts throughout the day and throughout the years, there is no time to focus on what you don’t have, whether that is time or energy or things.  You’re far too focused on love.

    And there you are.  Together.   

    “I’m the spoiled one.”  

     “No, I am.”  

     And while making Larry’s dreams come true, I accidentally made myself this magical life.  And he made his magical life making my dreams come true.  When every single thing that you receive all day long is a gift from the one you love, it gets pretty easy to live a life of gratitude. 

    Think about that for a moment.   

    When everything you receive all day long is a gift from the one you love…

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  • A Singular Pilgrimage

    I’m pretty sure we live this life in the singular.  We come into it alone, we go out alone, and we live all the in-between alone.  That’s not to say we don’t have company.  Family, friends, community, humanity, it’s all there.  Around us.  With us, even.  But you do live in your own head.  Alone.  (Except for that nagging, incessant voice that won’t shut up, especially when you’re trying to fall asleep, but even that’s just you.)  And while we make this journey in the singular, we do find companions to share the trip, to walk alongside us, and there is joy and satisfaction in that.

    The plurality that comes with friendship and family and marriage, is more a one-plus-one than an equals-two.  Your singularity isn’t replaced with duality.  It’s paired with another’s singleness.  Finding your partner in life, your mate, your soulmate, will not relieve you of your oneness.  You walk your journey alongside that person.  And when you’re weary, he’ll stop beside you, and allow you to rest your head on his shoulder.  And when he is injured, you carry him.  And when there is joy, you dance!  But your journey is, daily: your journey.  Yours alone.  Each day, you decide to continue in the company of your mate.  Each day, albeit with a heavy price, you have the option to remove yourself from this pairing.  That’s the nature of the singular pilgrimage.

    I don’t wish to discount that which is created by our pairings.  You plus me, my friend, we are more than just a pair, walking singly side by side.  We create a friendship, a relationship, love, and a shared history. Neither of us have that alone; it exists because we share this walk together.  And this phenomenon is why we seek others.  It’s why we search for our soulmates, why we forge friendships and alliances.

    But what to do when your soulmate’s journey ends before yours… You aren’t gone.  You didn’t die.  Your pilgrimage did not come to an end.  You stop.  You rest.  You feel the great loss of that shoulder upon which to rest your weary head, the place you’ve become accustomed to resting.  And the one person you’ve relied upon to shore you up during difficult times, that’s the one who is gone.  The very one you need most to help you weather the loss, that’s the one who is missing, leaving only empty space beside you.  There you are, still on your path, still with a journey ahead of you.  You’ve lost more than a traveling companion.  You’ve lost more than your place of rest.  You’ve lost that which you created together: the friendship, the love, and the shared history is now only your memories.  It only lives in that voice in your head, talking to you as you try to fall asleep each night.  So much is gone.  So much.

    And yet, you journey.  This isn’t a matter of choice.  Each on a singular pilgrimage, weaving in and out of each other’s paths, forging alliances, making a difference, love and hate, comfort and fear, good and bad, weaving our tapestry of individual threads.  Yours is blue and mine is yellow, and looking back from a great enough distance, we see green.  But we know.  In our hearts, we know.  Blue.  Yellow.

    Time, life, it all goes on, even while we stand still in our paths and grieve, or rest… or dance, when we can.

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  • Farewell to Wendy Mills

    Farewell to Wendy Mills

    How many thousands of times have I said, “Once you’re my bride, you’re always my bride!” I’ve meant it, too, every single time.  The brides that pass through these doors carry a bit of my heart away with them.  The grooms are my heroes, knights in shining armor, sweeping their darlings into their arms and taking them off on great adventures, as they Happily Ever After.

    Today, Wendy and Ever After met face to face.  This woodland faerie sprite of a creature, joyful and loving, whisked into my life one October afternoon, and promised to love Blake for the rest of her life.  And so she did.  So she did.

    And on this day, nearly a year after losing my own true love, I can offer no words of comfort to Blake.  I can say comforting things – of course. And I can give excellent advice, things that have helped heal my own heart.  I can say to him: find your gratitude, and live in it.  Search hard and dig deep, for the things that she meant to you, and hold them dear.  Be grateful.  Be thankful.  It will get you through.  And later, maybe, those words will help.  But not today.  Today is for the heart-wrenching gut punch of grief.  The relief to see her stop suffering.  The guilt for the relief.  And the overwhelming sorrow that drops you to your knees and makes you cry out in an unfamiliar voice.  Today is for sadness, and while I can’t help with that, I can empathize. Sometimes, that’s enough.

    For Blake: I can offer you this.  I love the way she looked at you.  The way she lit up when you came into the room.  I saw her light up like that once when she was facing me, not you, and you came in behind her.  She knew you were there, and just glowed with pleasure.  It was the day she made us the turkey dinner at the Creek House.  The day she taught me to cook the turkey upside down, to keep it moist.  A day filled with laughter and newness and discovery and two couples head over heels in love with each other.  

    I’ve married a lot of couples.  A lot!  And they’re all in love and they’re all promising Happily Ever After, but not all of them share what you had.  What you still have.  I saw a kindness and a tenderness in you that I doubt you shared with the rest of the world.  You didn’t shine it on me, or on Larry.  But you lavished it on Wendy.  I saw it while you were in Maggie Valley.  I saw it again, over and over, when we went on the cruise.  

    And I can give you one more thing: I don’t know if this will fit into your world.  It does in mine.  I realized one day that just because Larry died, didn’t mean I didn’t love him any more.  So.  I’m a woman in love.  And being in love is a joyous thing.  Every so often, in those first moments, first days, first weeks after losing him, every so often, a little glimpse of the joy of loving him shone through.  Be watchful for them.  They will sustain you.

    And always know that when you were gazing at her, your heart so full, she was doing the same.  If she can, I’m sure she still is.  I wish you peace, my friend.

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  • Shared Experiences

    Ok, so this is enormous.  My esteemed and much admired son-in-law lives all the way out in California, three thousand miles and a couple of lightyears away from me, here in Central Florida.  We are separated by distance, states and rivers and mountains, time zones and the Continental Divide, age and gender and politics.  And yet I love him more than ice cream.  This fellow is dear to my heart.  And clearly, he loves my stepdaughter, because he stays married to her in spite of having two, count ’em two, -shall we say ‘challenging’? mothers-in-law.  As it is with most parents, it is an ongoing thrill for me to watch them organize their lives into workaday and parenting and being a happily married couple, a vibrant part of their community and productive members of society.  We love to see our children thrive.  But I’d like to think that even if I’d never met them, I would admire these people.  The fact that my son-in-law enjoys my company is hugely satisfying, and I am grateful for it.

    During my visit to them last fall, I stole away with said son-in-law to do a bit of necessary shopping (I needed something protective for the wine bottles I intended to transport in my luggage) and he chose the time to show me the sights.  We stopped into the Jack London Square ‘First & Last Chance Saloon’ est 1883, and sat at a rickety table on a crooked floor and tipped back a cold one.  Steeped in literary wonder, we talked about my book clubs back in North Carolina and Florida and he suggested, much to my surprise, that we two have our very own book club.  Just the two of us.  I was reeling, and it wasn’t attributable to the architecture or the alcohol.  It was the notion that he’d be willing to share such an experience!  Reading a book at the same time, discussing chapters, talking about what the author must have been trying to convey and how it resonates with you, how it changes you (because books change you) is something that cements friendships and relationships in a way other things do not.  It is an intellectually intimate process.  And you know both yourself and your friend on a level not anticipated before you started.  So this.  This was big, all right.

    I was delighted when he said we could begin with Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain.  It’s a book I kept intending to read, but had not.  I was eager to begin, but you know how life is: it interferes with pretty much all your plans.  So here I am, months later, ready to start.

    Meanwhile of course, there are those other two book clubs.  It’s winter now, so I’m in the Florida club.  It’s a long established group and they’ve been generous about including me.  The books are interesting, the process more formal than the fledgling Carolina group, but I enjoy both clubs for different reasons.  I’ve just gotten the next book for February in Florida.  It’s a biography and not particularly interesting to me, but I’m sure once I start reading, it will capture my attention.  Biographies are like that – I enjoy them.  It’s just not one I’d have chosen.  That’s the beauty of a book club, you never know what you’re going to get.

    The Carolina book club chats online.  It’s one of my favorite things about them.  It’s very rarely about the books.  We save that for when the group gathers for discussion each month.  No, the online chat is typically very social.  We talk about our kids and household projects and the weather and vacations and share all sorts of silly memes, generally book related.  A woman recently shared a picture of a book cover with a moving story of reading that book to a sick friend.  The conversation was about the process of reading aloud to another person, and I was reminded how very much Larry enjoyed it when I’d read to him.  I never did read to him in the hospital.  When he was there, even for extended periods, even unconscious on life support, I never did read to him.  I just talked to him, as if everything was fine.  Rubbed his feet.  Combed his hair.  You know, stuff.  But not reading.  Now in hindsight, that would have been nice, too, but I have no regrets on this matter.  Conversation made it feel more normal, and more like he would wake up just fine, any moment.  So I didn’t read to him there.

    I read to Larry at home.  We started rather incidentally, on a long night-time drive.  We were on the highway, far from a city, and radio stations were sporadic and static filled.  Larry said, “I don’t want to fall asleep.  How about finding something to read to me?”  And we had such a good time, I read whole books to him, on a regular basis.  It was way more fun than watching TV.  I’d read to him.  He’d rub my feet.  It was lovely.

    So today, I finally got around to checking out Kitchen Confidential from the library.  I generally do this electronically, and read it on my iPad.  Today, two copies appeared on the screen: an ebook, and an audiobook.  Oh my.  I hadn’t thought about getting an audiobook.  But those things are chopped up and never quite what the author intended.  And if you’re reading, especially nonfiction, half the fun is trying to ‘hear’ the author as intended.  I noted the big red band across the audio version.  It said, “Unabridged!” And then, my breath caught in my throat, because underneath, in very small print, “Read by the author.”  By the author.  By Anthony Bourdain.  Anthony Bourdain, who died last summer, who I’m never going to get a chance to meet in person, who I admired so much, who would not mind one bit that I’m not using ‘whom’ in this sentence…   Well.  I clicked on the audio version.

    Bourdain is going to read me his book.  Himself.  I won’t have to wonder which syllable or word he wanted to emphasize.  He’ll be doing it.  Every nuance of what he wanted to convey is going to be given to me, like a gift.  Like he’s talking, right to me.  Everything he wanted to tell, what he wanted me to know, he’s going to say.  Like a book club with two members, just me and Tony.  Like a long lunch.  Like old friends.

    And then, to share all of this with my son-in-law.  I’m blown away.  This is going to be the richest experience!  I couldn’t wait to share it with you all.  Signing off, turning up the speakers, off I go, to Parts Unknown….

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  • Once upon a time…

    Once upon a time…

    Ok, let’s get this straight from the get-go: I’m not going to cry.  Got that?  No crying. Because yesterday I acted on a crazy impulse and had my eyelashes ‘done’.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing and poof, today I woke up with eyelashes you could actually see in the mirror, and no great mascara raccoon eyes underneath, no blobs I should have washed off the night before, just beautiful silky black lashes like all the other people in the world enjoy, except us redheads and a few especially pale blondes.  For me, this is an astonishing transformation, and I’d like to keep it that way.  Particularly because of the whopping $225 I laid out for this lark, and full awareness of the seventy bucks it’s going to cost every time I need an overhaul.  (Euphemistically called a ‘fill’ by the person on the receiving end of said dollars.)  Not that the woman creating all this magic doesn’t earn every penny – she does!  For more than two hours, she painstakingly attached one long black lash to each of my short red ones.  She encouraged me to step out and ‘go all glam’ but I demurred, insisting that single, unfluffy, classic, normal length lashes in a traditional black (you’d be surprised at the options!) suited me just fine.  When it was finished, I was impressed with the transformation.  This look is what I strive for, but never quite achieve, when applying makeup.  Now, it’s effortless.  I’m batting my eyes at you right now.  Trust me, they are pretty.  I like them plenty.  And the aesthetician (thank you, spell check) admonished me not to cry for at least 48 hours.  So.  There will be no tears.

    Tomorrow is Veterans Day. Larry took the photo of the flag back in 1999.  People are always surprised when they ask for a favorite holiday and I answer with Veterans Day.  But this is mine, and for more than one reason.  The obvious: I’m a vet.  It’s such an honor to stand with pride when presented with an opportunity to do so, in any group of vets.  It’s moving, to salute the flag as a civilian, hand over heart, instantly recalling the thrill of being able to salute it as a soldier.  I remember, when I was in the Women’s Army Corps and later the US Army, each evening at dusk when the flag was struck and the bugler played To The Color.  Everyone on base was expected to stop what they were doing and honor the flag.  Career soldiers would scoot inside where they could continue whatever they were doing uninterrupted.  But for me, saluting the flag was a privilege and I would walk a little slower to my car, just to participate.  When someone says, “Were you in the military?” I stand a little taller when I say yes.  It’s a point of pride.  I’ll never get used to the current thank you for your service response, because I reserve that for the people who have been at war.  My own service, although at the end of the Viet Nam era, was all stateside.  But like all of us, I went where I was told to go, where I was needed.

    But there’s more.  For me, Veterans Day marks an anniversary.  Once upon a time, one November day in 1987, my sweetheart stood in a jewelry store, having a diamond mounted into an engagement ring.  I waited out in the mall, smoking what would be my last cigarette of my pack-and-a-half a day habit.  I would have to trade the habit for the ring.  This man I loved had to fight for his oxygen.  If I wanted to be a part of his life, I couldn’t very well make that fight harder.  So I was out in the mall thinking, “Wait.  Don’t propose yet.  Just one more.”  But I stubbed it out and walked away.  And Larry came out of the jewelry store and said, “Let’s go.”  He’d been rehearsing exactly what he wanted to say.  All I had to rehearse was, “Yes.”  We headed over to the Sea Grille, a special restaurant where Larry had out of the blue, and quite publicly, kissed me for the first time, scaring the living daylights out of me and changing my life forever.  He thought that would be the right place to propose.  But when we got there, he was clearly uncomfortable.  And boy, so was I.  He was about to order drinks and I was about to attempt a cocktail without a cigarette.  Hmmm.  You could say I was distracted.  And Larry was squirming in his seat.  I thought it a bit odd that he’d be so nervous when the outcome was a given, but it turns out, he’d had a change of heart.  Not about me.  Not about getting married.  About the venue.  “This is all wrong,” he said, and escorted me out.

    We went back to the house.  He put on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and proceeded with the most long-winded convoluted proposal, evidently winging it, stumbling for the next sentence until with a sigh of relief he asked, “Will you marry me?” When I said yes, he kissed me, of course… but he had timed it for the bells at the beginning of the Time soundtrack.  For the three decades that followed, he kissed me every time that song began.  We raised four children who knew that when Time started to play, they needed to get out of the way because no matter where we were in the house, we would find each other for that kiss. Damn. No crying. No tears!  I like these lashes.  Whew.  Ok.

    Well maybe just one tear, for the time I forgot to take the Dark Side of the Moon CD out of the player when Larry was out of town, and had the player set to ‘random’.  When Time started, the kids all froze.  I didn’t know what to do.  And then Gary, who was four, came running up to me and said, “I’ll kiss you, Mommy.  I love you.”  I said, “I love you, too, sweetheart,” and he said, “I love you three.”

    Ok.  Misty.  No tears.  I got this.

    Larry kissed me at the Sea Grille August 14, 1987.  He proposed to me on Veteran’s Day, 1987.  We were married August 14, 1988.  Dates are important to us.  Dates matter.  But they aren’t sacred.  We moved holidays around to suit us, or family obligations.  We celebrated in silly ways.  Larry took me to Burger King for my birthday and wedding anniversary.  He bought me things for Christmas if I asked for them.  (Once, I told him that the most romantic thing I’d ever seen was when Rigo filled Audrey’s Christmas stocking and included emery boards.  It was just so thoughtful.  And every single Christmas after that, there were emery boards in my stocking.)  I got roses on my anniversary, one red rose for every year of marriage, and one white rose for the kiss.  But he reserved all his energy and creativity and grand gestures for November 11th.  Veteran’s Day.  He would laugh and say it was because it was the day I quit smoking.  But I knew.  I knew how proud he was to be married to a vet.  And I knew he was marking the day he proposed.  And he’d put on Pink Floyd.  And Time would play.  And he’d kiss me, and I’d hear bells.

    I’m going to ruin these stinking eyelashes at this rate.  Well.  Who needs eyelashes when you’ve had Larry Wright for thirty years?  I win.

    See ya later.

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  • First Responders, Last Call

    We’ve all been there, or known someone who has.  It’s last call, we’re pushing the line of being over-served, a bit worse for the wear, maybe not staggering drunk but long past tipsy.  Time for the taxi or the designated driver or the dreaded phone-a-friend option.  We’re thinking about keeping the party going, and then sleeping it off.  Some of us have favorite hangover cure recipes.  Some of us just grab a couple of aspirin and pull the covers over our heads.  We probably don’t have rehydration at the top of the do-list, while the bartender recites the adage, “Closing time.  You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

    But we should.  We’ve all heard the admonitions about it.  Even non-drinkers know the whole drink plenty of fluids drill.  And a binge leads to dehydration, which is only going to make things worse in the morning.

    Meanwhile… 

    Since losing my sweet wonderful Larry back in February, I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff.  Not just the emotional fall-out, but the actual stuff, not the least of which is a whole bunch of medical equipment and supplies.  I’m thrilled at the amount that went out with Larry’s home health nurse, which she was able to get to Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.  That’s fantastic.  But I have more.  Lots of it in Orlando, not just Maggie Valley.  It’s really overwhelming.  And I still have some of Mom’s old furniture in the house that has to go.  The really tattered stuff has gone to the curb.  The usable has gone to family, Habitat for Humanity, and I listed some medical equipment on facebook marketplace and craig’s list. 

    I’ve had quick a flurry of responses on facebook.  Until today, my favorite was Jeffrey, in Tennessee.  I listed an IV pole for $15.  Jeffrey wanted to know if I could do a little better on the price.  I figured if $15 was going to be a stretch for this fellow, he could have the pole.  But I know better than to say free – because it encourages folks to not show up, and leave you waiting all afternoon at your meeting place.  (This is the voice of experience talking, people.)  So, I told him five bucks.  And told him I’d meet him at my favorite coffee shop because I don’t mind being left there waiting.  We agreed.  Next thing I know, I’m giving ole Jeff a quick tutorial in how to add someone to a conversation because his sister wants to talk to me.  This is when I found out he lives in Tennessee, a couple of hours away, and his sister will be completing this little transaction.  She agrees to the meeting place.  And then wants to know why we have to meet there.  What’s this place.  Why do I need to make her come to it.  Why does it have to be at that time on that day.  So, I say, the place is where we’ve agreed to meet.  I’ll be there for a couple of hours.  I can go back on the next day if that’s more convenient for you.  Nope.  I should drive to the next town over because that’s too far for her to come either day.  I should drive over to the next town and wait in a parking lot for her to show up.  So, again, I say I’ll be happy to wait for her at the coffee shop on a day that suits her schedule.  And the belligerence commences.  Am I refusing to come to the parking lot? Don’t I want to sell this pole? Why am I being so uncooperative? She has car trouble and doesn’t think her car will make it all the way to the coffee shop twenty minutes away.  At this point, I have to wonder how her car is going to make it the hundred miles or so across the mountains to her brother in Tennessee, but before I could voice my concern, good old Jeffrey pipes up with, “Nevermind.  I can get one for $10 right here in Tennessee.”  I busted out laughing when I read that!  Seriously?  Why would he have his sister spend her afternoon picking this up, and then driving 100 miles, each way, spending far more than that in gas, if he could get one locally for $10?  As a matter of fact, why would he contact me at all when mine’s listed for $15? This was getting really entertaining, as the sister blasted me once more for forcing her to drive out of her way for this now-$5 IV pole that she was going to haul across the mountains in her unreliable vehicle. I’m just watching this unfold.  Still taking the high road, I responded…

    Gosh!  I’m so nasty!  The two of them proceeded to tell me all about myself and then closed with, “Have a good day.”  Hmmm.  I don’t think they meant it.  So.  If I can figure out how to get that IV pole to Haiti, off it goes.

    But wait!  There’s more!  Because I have a NEW favorite story to tell you.  Today, I’m in Orlando.  Where I have yet another IV pole.  And yet another facebook marketplace listing for said pole.  And I got yet another, ‘Is this still available?’ message.  But I was out of town and said as much, to which this fellow said not to worry, there was no rush.  He was polite and friendly and frankly that’s not been my experience with these buyers so far, so that was nice.

    Today, I’m back in town and contacted him and he said he could meet me at the 7-Eleven near me in 20 minutes.  I piled the pole into the back seat and took off.  How easy is this?  Traffic was ridiculous, and even though I was a few minutes late, this fellow was later.  We texted back and forth while he was stuck in traffic.  Jokes.  Polite behavior.  A series of cars came through the service area to get air for the tires, or gas at the pumps.  The best were the ones with all the windows down and Latino music blasting out of the speakers.  I stood in the hot Florida sunshine, leaning back against my car, sunglasses turned skyward, listening to great music, and felt like dancing!  Where was my ice cold cerveza? What a great day.  And my buyer arrives.  This big burly mustachioed guy climbs out of a monster truck with a fire station license plate and insignia on it.  Shakes my hand with his bear paw and introduces himself.  I take out the pole and push it across the pavement to him.

    Nostalgia rolls over me in waves.  Any widow will tell you that grief comes in waves, sometimes tidal waves, and it’s impossible to know what will trigger them.  I was transported to all those different times and places I rolled IV poles around for Larry.  Larry, in the hospital, trying to sit up for the first time.  Larry, housebound, trying to get from the desk chair to the sofa.  Larry, having his bi-weekly infusions, taking the IV pole down the hall to the bathroom.  Larry, unable to sit up without help, and the pole is too far away so the hose is a problem.  Larry, with 27 (not kidding, 27) different wires and tubes going into him in the ICU.  It was stunning.  And I had a grip on that IV pole.  Like letting go of it would be letting go of Larry.  This all happened in a flash, less than a second, but I was changed. I tried to act normal. Act.  Not be. And this fellow comes to the rescue, albeit unknowingly, but that’s who he is.  That’s what he does. He gives me a big grin and tells me in a booming big voice, “My wife and I are paramedics.  Sometimes we like to drink a little too much and so we start IV’s on each other to rehydrate.”  Wait.  What?  Say that again, what?!  Nevermind the image of drunken paramedics starting IVs (now you know why I’m not telling you his name) this was instantly transformed into a party pole.  And a whole new wave of memories came crashing in.  Crashing, rolling, weaving, layering, replacing those earlier images with Larry, laughing to the nurse and demanding rum in his IV.  Larry, telling the rehab doctor, with a straight face, that he would like a prescription for limes to go with his IV cocktail.  Larry, insisting in the ICU that if his mouth had to be swabbed, it be with Captain Morgan instead of mouthwash (and much to my surprise, the doctor said, “Why not?” and I came right back with a little bottle of it). Larry, perpetually joking about what’s in the IV bags as he pushes the pole across the room, making nieces and nephews more comfortable with the scary sight.  (He was also likely to pull off his oxygen hose, and offer to it a teenaged nephew with a quiet, “Pssst, hey kid, want a hit?”) Again, all in a single second.  Big burly paramedic whips out a twenty, doesn’t ask for change, and takes off in his great big truck.  And I’m left standing in the sunshine, Mexican rap music blasting from the jeep that just pulled in, traffic pressing ahead and the little kid hanging onto a woman’s hand as they go into the store, “Please please can I have ice cream?” And all is right with the world.

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