Month: February 2018

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news (which I nearly forgot!).

This past Saturday, two momentous things happened. One, my daughter Olivia interviewed for and landed her first job. And two, my granddaughter. Maya Mae, posed for her fifth birthday portrait.

In both cases, I saw two little girls, years apart from each other, growing up fast. And while I missed the little ones they used to be, I love who they are and who they’re becoming.

My daughter is 17 years old. When she was three, we were told she was autistic and that she might never speak. A few days before she was hired for this job, she sat in my office and had a phone interview. Every answer was calmly and professionally given. She was polite. She was adult. She was adult! And then she hung up the phone and squealed. Okay, maybe not so adult.

On the way home from her interview, I asked how it went. She said fine. I asked if she got the job. “Well,” she said, “they said they’re going to be calling me tomorrow or the next day to set up orientation.”

“Olivia!” I said. “That means you got the job!”

“I did?” She sat up straighter. Her shoulders went back. “I did?” She beamed.

She did.

The silent girl has become a confident, well-spoken, thoughtful and compassionate adult. Who talks constantly.

Then it was time for Maya Mae’s portrait. She and her father, my son, showed up at the condo and we added Olivia to our little group and off we went to the portrait studio.

Which was running very, very late.

Maya just turned five. Five-year olds are not patient. Many five-year olds and under were shrieking in the waiting room. But Maya, after we changed her into her beautiful new dress, spent most of her time practicing her curtsey and talking to Grumpy Cat, her best friend. When her picture time finally came, almost an hour late, she graciously walked into the room and did everything the photographer told her to. She jumped. She said, “Turkey.” She said, “Hot dog.” She stood and looked coyly over her shoulder, she stretched out on her belly, she sat on stools and boxes and a turned-over bucket. And through it all, she spoke calmly, confidently, and politely.

There was only one momentary bobble. There was a prop, a gigantic crown, used typically for babies and toddlers to pose within its circle. Maya saw it and lit up, but she was too big to sit inside it.

“What do you want to do with it, Maya?” the photographer asked.

Maya grasped the giant crown in her two hands and hefted it over her head like a sumo wrestler in a dainty flowered dress.

This girl, I thought, will not be satisfied with any crown. This girl will hold up the entire world.

The photographer snapped and snapped. Maya’s arms sunk, but then she thrust the crown up again. And she smiled and smiled.

It was when she set the crown down that the bobble happened. I saw it first, her little mouth turning down. Her eyes filled, but she did not cry. “What, Maya?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

She rubbed her arms. “It was heavy.”

But she wanted that crown. She wanted that photo. And even though it hurt, she held it up and she smiled.

That determination? That insistence on reaching a goal? Oh, she’s going to do well.

Kind of like the silent girl who was told she would never speak, but who now never stops speaking, has a job, plays the violin, is an accomplished artist and writer, maintains a 4.0 GPA, and plans to go on to college to be an art therapist and a writer.

And now for a moment of sheer obnoxiousness. Ready?

Yes, I know who they take after.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Boy, does that traditional opening line resonate today. Despite the news. It’s very, very hard to write about a Moment on the day after a school massacre, leaving 17 dead. All the Moments I’ve been sifting through, choosing between, suddenly seem trite and simplistic, next to the enormity of this newest tragedy.

But they aren’t, and I know this, even as I struggle to write it. One of the things I learned in the year of writing Today’s Moment every single day is that it’s sometimes the little things that give us something to hold on to. You know those rock-climbing walls? Those tall, sheer structures you struggle up handhold by foothold, and the whole goal is to get to the top? I’d never be caught dead on one of those, but when you look at them, it’s the handholds that make a difference. One grip at a time, you make it to the top.

So. This is my grip for the week. A handhold.

Last weekend, Michael and I traveled to Wausau, Wisconsin. The trip was Michael’s birthday present: tickets to a live performance of a radio drama by Wisconsin Public Radio, a stay in a nice hotel, and a chance to see a town in Wisconsin he’d never visited before. The hotel was indeed lovely, and on the first floor, it housed several small shops. I had a little time before the radio show, so I wandered through to see what was there. And I found a consignment shop.

You put me before a store that sells used ANYTHING, and I’m a happy camper. Goodwill, Salvation Army, St. Vincent De Paul, flea markets, antique malls, consignment shops…happy, happy, happy. For me, it’s not just about finding a treasure that is also a bargain. It’s about saving an orphan. I always see these items as being abandoned, and so I give them a new home. My condo is filled with orphans.

I only had a few minutes, but in that time, I found a great pair of earrings. I bought them and told the owner I’d be back the next day. Which I was.

As Michael and I walked in on Saturday, there, front and center, was a woman looking at herself in a mirror. She was in a gorgeous floor-length dress, bronze, beaded and glittered. It was form-fitting and it followed every curve on this woman the way a river follows its bends. She stood there in that classic “I am Woman!” pose, one hand on a cocked hip, the other draped oh so casually on her thigh. She was beautiful. But her face…her face wasn’t sure. Her mouth was scrooched to one side and she frowned. Her body showed confidence; her face showed excruciating doubt.

Without even thinking about it, I cried out, “You look stunning!”

She startled, then turned to me, that doubt-face in full bloom. “Really?” she said.

“Ohmygod,” I said. “Whoever made that dress was thinking of you. Look at you! It’s beautiful!”

There is no other word for it. She BEAMED.

“Thank you,” she said, and then she turned to the shop owner. “Sold!”

When we walked out of the store later, Michael said to me, “That was a nice thing you did.”

“What?”

“Telling that woman how great she looked. She just lit up. Did you see her light up?”

Well, then it was my turn to beam. I’ve been thinking about this all week.

I’ve been reading many articles and stories and such lately about how we should tell our daughters that they’re smart instead of beautiful. It’s the “instead of” that bothers me. I tell my daughters they’re smart. They are. I tell them they’re beautiful. They are. For that matter, I tell my sons the same thing.

There are times that we just want to be beautiful. To ourselves. And to the world. Every creature in Nature preens. So do we. So glory in it. Beam.

I hope that the woman in the consignment shop wears that dress often. And I hope her face is never scrooched in doubt again. I hope every time she wears that dress, she hears my voice saying, “You look stunning!” And I hope she hears her voice saying it too.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

It was a difficult week, this first week without the dogs. Michael and I both realized that, with the exception of short stints in apartments during young adulthood, neither of us has ever been without a dog before. And our daughter, at 17 years of age, has always had a dog in the house. For the last 11 years of her life, there have been two. Blossom and Penny. And then Blossom and Donnie.

And now there are none.

I wasn’t aware how much noise the dogs created in our household. Or how much visual effect. The condo no longer jingles with the tags on their collars. Donnie’s tag was blue and treat-shaped and was engraved with his name. Blossom’s was pink and heart-shaped, and besides her name, also held the word Princess. Their toenails clicked on our concrete floors. Donnie talked constantly, emitting barnyard and zoo sounds out of his beagle mouth. They jumped up and down off the furniture. Sightwise, whenever I walked down the steps from the third to the second floor, my eyes automatically went over the banister to the couch in the living room, where two beagle heads lifted their noses toward me. Donnie usually jumped down and ran to me; Blossom winked or wagged a regal tail. They were at the door when we came in. They were at the door when we went out. Donnie’s nose was immediately there whenever anything opened: closets, cupboards, dishwasher.

This morning, when I took my box of cereal from the cabinet, I automatically closed the door, forgetting that I no longer had to. The cupboard can now stay open until I put the box away. There is no one to stuff his face inside, looking for crumbs.

It’s been a sad week.

The day the dogs died, I went to the humane society and made a donation in their names, arranging to have a plaque created for them which will be on a wall in the doggie kennel. This felt good, but it wasn’t right. I didn’t feel like they’d been acknowledged enough. Memorialized enough. We are having the dogs cremated and their ashes aren’t home yet, so I told myself I would feel better when the urns were here. But I was still bugged, poked, kinda like Donnie’s persistent nose on my calf when he was trying to get me to go faster (usually to the treat jar).

Sometimes, when we grieve, we feel driven to do unusual things. And mostly, we talk ourselves out of it. It’s not the proper way to grieve, we think. Olivia keeps asking me if she’s grieving “normally”, and I keep telling her that however you grieve is the right way. A couple days ago, as I said it to her, I heard it for myself.

The dogs’ collars have been sitting on our kitchen island. I was figuring on wrapping them around the urns, but in the meantime, there they were, misplaced, empty, sitting where the dogs were never allowed. And every day since their death, coming downstairs, I’ve faced that big empty couch. Donnie’s spot, on the left. Blossom’s, on the right. We’ve had that couch for years and I don’t know that I’ve ever sat on it. It’s where the dogs go.

Yesterday, I stood at the island and stared at the empty couch. It was my first day home alone without the dogs. Olivia was sick this week and was home on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, it was just me and the cats. And the collars and the empty couch.

And I felt the unusual urge. Any way you grieve is the right way to grieve.

I picked up the collars and took them to the couch. Donnie’s collar, blue treat-shape lying flat and his name in full view, went on the left pillow. Blossom’s collar, heart out, name shining, went on the right.

The dogs were in their places. And I was able to breathe. In my mind, I heard the jingle. I saw Blossom’s wink. I heard Donnie’s donkey-call, my favorite of his vocabulary. I saw them both wagging their tails, Donnie’s in his odd happy twirly circle, Blossom’s in her regal queen wave.

I was forgiven for making the decision that had to be made.

And now, several times, I’ve been able to walk by the couch, pat the pillows, and say hello to the each of them. The couch is not empty. It’s full of memories. It’s full of them.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.

And no, it has nothing to do with the Superbowl, Justin Timberlake, or holograms of Prince.

Last week, Today’s Moment reached its one-year anniversary and I said I would announce on this day what the future of Today’s Moment will be. But first…the Moment itself.

Well, the Moment IS the Moment, really. I spent a lot of time today, both in meditation and just in general, considering the Moment. What started out as a desperate whim (I’m overwhelmed, so I’m going to post one moment a day that made me happy on Facebook) became something much bigger. From a single sentence at the beginning to what I would now call quiet, unedited essays, I kept at it, writing just what came to mind. I was determined to not make the Moment a professional endeavor. I wasn’t writing for publication, I wasn’t writing for an audience. I wanted to keep it at a Moment that made me happy and examine why. That was a struggle for me as I became aware that there was indeed an audience – an audience that caused my website to crash several times because of traffic! I’m a professional writer, I tend to even edit my thoughts and whatever I say before I say it, not to mention edit everything I read, from news articles to books to comic strips. But I wasn’t going to edit, I wasn’t going to improve the pieces – in a sense, Today’s Moment is Kathie Giorgio – Unplugged.

I’ve learned so much from writing the Today’s Moments. I learned, first of all, that there is at least one Moment in almost every day. Even on dark days. I might have to look for it, but it’s there. And that was a lesson unto itself – happiness is an active endeavor. It isn’t something that just comes along and happens to you. Sometimes you have to look for it.

So I’ve learned to look.

But alternatively, I’ve also learned to honor sadness and anger and fear. I couldn’t chase these away by writing about a Moment of Happiness. I couldn’t chase them away by becoming aware of a Moment either. A Moment isn’t a pill I could take to chase these negative emotions away. There is no pill, no prose, no prettiness that will keep a person happy one-hundred percent of the time. Today’s Moment allowed me to release a very unrealistic expectation – that if I could just find One Big Thing to make me Happy, I would never ever be unhappy again.

But finding that One Moment helped me to navigate through some pretty dark times. It gave me the one good thing to hang onto. Some days, that was like holding onto a rope while dangling off a cliff.

One of my favorite Moments is the one where I was told I didn’t have to be strong all the time while I was going through breast cancer. That I could be scared, that I could be sad, that I could be weak. That illustrates what I’m trying to say about the unrealistic expectation. I know now to look for the Moment of Happiness, but not to expect that finding it means I’m going to waltz down whatever path opens before me next.

But the Today’s Moment does keep me looking ahead and looking up. My favorite quote from literature, which is engraved into a ring I wear every day, is from John Irving’s The Hotel New Hampsire: “Keep walking past the open windows.” I’ve now edited it a bit, to “Keep looking for Today’s Moment.”

So what’s going to happen to Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News, now that I’ve reached my goal of one solid year?

It’s not going away, but it is changing. It’s going to become This Week’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News. I will only post it one day a week, and I’ve chosen Thursdays, at least to start. There has been no small amount of pressure, trying to come up with something every day. I’m looking to relieve that pressure, but also to expand my vision and understanding. I think that by having to sort through many moments every week to pick out just one to share, I will become further aware of just how many Moments there are in this world and in every life. I’ll give it a shot.

If you are worried that you might forget to check my website on a Thursday, then just click on the button that says “subscribe” on the upper right of this page . Then you’ll receive a notification when each new Moment appears.

When I look back on this year, I could be focused on the many bad things that happened. I had to deal with an assault, my daughter’s being bullied, my husband’s job losses, and above all, breast cancer. But what I focus on instead is the amazing coincidence (if you believe in coincidences) of my starting Today’s Moment at a time when it would turn out that I needed it most. It got me through. And everyone involved, by reading the Moments, by commenting on them and discussing them, got me through too.

Incredible.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

(Look for the next Moment on Thursday! )