Author: Kathie

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

It’s really interesting, sitting down to write my Moment, when the current day, today, makes the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day look like a romp with unicorns and rainbows. The blog was supposed to be posted by 3:00. It is now 7:47, and this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write this.

And this is my day off this week!

As a run-down:

I had my alarm set. But when I opened my eyes, my clock said it was 1:27 in the afternoon. I had a meeting set for 1:00 and another for 2:00, so I spent about twenty minutes running around, alternately screaming and swearing, sometimes both at the same time, until I happened to notice my cell phone’s clock. And then my computer’s clock. Which both said it was 11:25 in the morning.

Our power had gone out while I was sleeping. My alarm clock resets itself to midnight when the power goes out for more than a minute.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I made my 1:00 meeting (on my day off) and my 2:00 meeting (on my day off) and then got Ursula, my dog, into the car for her 3:30 vet appointment (on my day off) to trim her toenails and recheck the toe she seemed to hurt last April. Had to wait in the car because they’re still not letting owners in the clinic because of COVID. Then the vet calls me. Turns out Ursula didn’t have an injured toe. She has some kind of autoimmune disease called Lupoid Onychodystrophy, which I can’t even pronounce. It makes her toenails grow in weird, become brittle, misshapen, possibly crack or fall off, and it makes the dog’s feet hurt. She came home with a regimen of pills she has to take for the rest of her life, and possibly a procedure in three weeks where she will be sedated and her nails that are about to fall off will be removed.

WHAT?

I took her immediately to Starbucks and got her her very first “pupcup”, a free little cup of puppy latte – whipped cream. It seemed to make her feel better. Not so much me.

So I am more than a little bit crabby. More than a little bit dismayed. More than a little bit full of shrieks that sound like, “My dog has WHAT?”

But…today is Thursday. And it’s when I write my Moment of Happiness. Which made me think back over my week and remember:

• the amazing joy of Saturday when Michael and I ate INSIDE a McDonalds, went INSIDE a grocery store, picked up Olivia and went to a MALL (what the heck is a mall?), went out to dinner and ate INSIDE an Applebee’s (and had a vat of sangria), then went to a late movie INSIDE a movie theatre. In the mall, I even took my mask off (I’m vaccinated). Ohmygod, how normal.
• reading Ramona The Brave to my granddaughter and getting to a point where Ramona is so angry, she announces to her family that she’s going to say a bad word, and then she yells, “GUTS! GUTS!” and hearing my granddaughter dissolve into giggles over a book I read when I was in elementary school. And I giggled with her.
• seeing a student dissolve into happy tears when she realized she accomplished what she set out to do: write a book based on a family story, finish it, prepare it for submitting to publishers…and the only step left is to hit the “send” button.
• hearing another student say, “You are exactly what I need.”
• hearing an editor who accepted one of my short stories say, “I was going to send you the edited version for your approval, but your story didn’t require any edits. What the heck!”
• And just a couple hours ago, seeing my dog, who sat in the front passenger seat of my car, looking (forgive me) hangdog, and then suddenly perk up when I offered her a simple pupcup. Ears up, tail wagging, tongue going slup-slup-slup, and then licking my cheek in a way that made me think she was repeating what my student said: “You are exactly what I need.”
• And let’s not forget my hibiscus.

So my moment of happiness? That I write this blog, which forces me to look for happiness, even on the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad of days. And not only look for it, but find it. And that I have readers of this blog, because otherwise, I might be tempted on some days to just run screaming to my bed, pull the covers up and over, and not come out til the morning (on my day off).

Thank you.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

It’s not a secret that I am scared of birds. I don’t even think the word “scared” is appropriate here. “Terrified” is much more accurate. Last summer, I believe the terror crossed over into the phobia department when I was attacked three times by red-winged blackbirds during different walks. Two occurred on Waukesha’s lovely Fox Riverwalk. I’ve only been back once since then, and my fear and constant scanning of the immediate area for those telltale red-striped wings ruined the experience. The worst one happened after I switched to walking on city streets, thinking that would keep the birds away. A red-wing on a street sign saw me and plunged itself into the back of my head repeatedly. I ran and tripped and ended up face down on the pavement with my arms over my head as the bird swooped and pecked. It was my nightmare come to life.

Last Saturday, while working on summerizing our third floor deck, I let my cat Edgar come out with me. Edgar is not a worry on the deck. At 18 pounds, he is too big to fit through the railings. He also has extra toes, extra kinks in his tail, a too small head for the rest of his body, and a distinct problem with balance, so he never jumps on anything. Our vet calls him a genetic anomaly. We call him sweet. Instead of being cat-like, he is a very special cross between a dog and a bowling ball. He is round, heavy, comes when he calls, and is very gifted at the plaintive silent meow. When he does make noise, he sounds like a raptor from Jurassic Park.

So Edgar and I stepped out, I checked on my hibiscus, and then I turned to go back inside. And there was a bird on my table. A black and gray fuzzy-ish bird. A bird that, granted, looked more like a baby than an adult. A bird that opened its pointy little beak and made a sound very similar to Edgar’s.

A BIRD.

I trace my fear of birds back to two distinct events. The first was watching Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds, at the tender age of eight. When that red-wing chased me flat-faced on the pavement, I became that little boy being attacked by a seagull. The other event was before I was afraid, when I carefully carried home a dead bird so I could have a funeral and bury it. My mother smacked that poor bird out of my hands, sending it on its last flight, then she pulled me down to the laundry tubs and scrubbed my hands for what seemed like forever in very hot water and strong soap. All the while, she told me how birds are full of diseases and bugs, crawling with maggots, and that I would be very lucky to not become horribly ill from touching the bird.

And now a BIRD was on my TABLE and it was only about a foot away.

I ran into my house and slammed the screen door shut. The bird lowered himself to his tummy. He seemed prepared to stay awhile.

And then Edgar, bowling ball-dog Edgar, became a cat. He stalked, his eyes zeroed in, his pupils widened to the size of marbles.

“No, Edgar!” I yelled. “Leave the bird alone! Come here!”

And Edgar ignored me. Like a cat.

I didn’t want the little bird to be hurt. But I didn’t want to go near it either. I yelled for Olivia, and I asked her to get Edgar to come in. Like me, she stood in the doorway and yelled. “Go get him!” I said.

“Mom!” she said. “I’m scared of birds too!”

Oh, no.

Edgar was now at the bench behind the bird. One ungainly, un-Edgar-like leap, and he would be within reach. I ran out and grabbed him, yelling the whole way. The bird, in a weird flutter-flappy fly, managed to get from the table to our outdoor light, next to the deck door. Livvy ran screaming into the house. I bowled Edgar inside too, slammed the door, then stood at the window and looked at the bird, who looked back at me.

“Hi,” I said.

It squawked.

I began a series of phone calls. To the humane society, to a bird rescue that turned out to rescue only domestic birds, to a wildlife rescue. I was on my way to the grocery store when a very nice woman at the wildlife rescue called me back. I texted her a photo and she said it was a fledgling grackle. She said it likely had just left the nest, got caught in an updraft and carried to my deck, and now it was trying to figure out what to do. “It’ll be gone, later today, I bet,” she said. “No more than a few days.”

By the time I got home, the bird was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief, that it was gone, and…that it was okay.

Which led me to my moment of happiness. I don’t like birds. But I don’t want them hurt or dead either.

Once, years ago, I got into an argument with my father. He yelled, “The problem with you is that you believe there is good in everybody!”

And that was true. Even when I write my novels, and I’ve written some pretty difficult characters, I try to write a separate short story in the “bad guy’s” point of view, to better understand, and to find something that is redeeming, that is human. When I wrote Rise From The River, I stepped aside to write a short story from a rapist’s pov. Hardest thing I ever did.

But I did it.

In the last few years, with all the divisiveness going on, from race to guns to masks to presidents, I’ve wondered if I lost that need to find good. If I was starting to hate too. To condemn. To judge. To see life only through my glasses, whatever color they are, and no one else’s.

But now, there was this bird. Who scared the holy hell out of me. And who I wanted to live and be okay.

Someone said to me last week, “You always want to see the good in everyone. That’s amazing.”

Amazing. Not a problem at all. And yes, I even extend it to birds. Just don’t make me touch one.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

It feels like I got a promotion. Not at work; I own my own business and I’m the person who hands out promotions, and I’m very hard on my employee, who is me. But the promotion is in my cancer afterlife.

On June 27^th, it will be four years since my breast cancer diagnosis. On July 25^th, four years since my partial mastectomy. On September 25^th, four years since my last day of radiation. On September 27^th, three years since the infection that showed up in the surgical site a year and two months post-surgery, that nearly put me in the ICU and caused my right breast to collapse on one side.

Do I remember these dates? Yes. They seem to be forever burned into my memory.

When cancer is presented on television series or in movies, we often see the cancer patient sit down at the “end” of her ordeal, and her doctor says, “You’re cancer-free!” There is much cheering and happy dancing, and then the patient, no longer a patient, skips out of the cancer center and on to a new bright life that has nothing to do with cancer whatsoever.

Well, in reality, it’s not quite that way.

Yes, I am cancer-free, at least as of my last MRI last February. Four years strong. But the thing is, every cancer patient lives with a regimen of reminders. Doctor’s appointments. Tests. Procedures. The cancer is gone, but we need to make sure it stays gone.

The first year of recovery, this meant visits every three months with my radiation oncologist, my medication oncologist, and my surgeon. I loved my team, though I was horrified at needing a team. I was told many times I had a dream team, and I agree with that. At the end of the first year, I said goodbye to my radiation oncologist and I was down to two. I looked forward to the eventual stepping away of the surgeon, and then the medical oncologist, somewhere in my future.

But the infection brought things to a halt. One night, I felt like I had the flu. In the morning, I got up, stripped to get in the shower, and discovered my breast was as red as a tomato. Off to the clinic, and then to the ER. Massive infection. I had to pass two out of three tests to stay out of the ICU. The first one, I passed. The second one, I flunked. The third one…took forty-five minutes, but I passed. I was put on massive antibiotics and my surgeon called and told me to go to the mammogram department at the Cancer Center. There, an ultrasound determined the infection was in my surgical site. The radiologist inserted a syringe into that site and withdrew the fluid, and my breast promptly collapsed on one side. You know how balloon animals can sometimes lose their inflation in one part, but not the other? That’s what my breast is like. Then a drain was inserted and I had to live with that for several weeks. It lived a lot in cupholders. In my car, in my recliner. Around the house, I tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans.

An infection specialist decided that when I went for a mammogram a couple weeks earlier, the particular picture that focused on the surgical site clamped down too hard and I was injured, causing internal bleeding in the surgical site, which then led to the infection. I remember that this was the only time I cried at a mammogram. I was up on my toes and sobbing with the pain.

Eventually, after being on antibiotics for about three months, they were stopped, the drain was gone, and I was left with a collapsed breast. It has never re-inflated, so to speak.

But because of that, I didn’t continue down the shrinking path of doctor’s appointments. I saw both my surgeon and my medical oncologist every three months, alternating. I also alternate mammograms and MRIs every three months, because of the scar tissue built up from the infection and subsequent collapse.

So when my reminder came up that I had an appointment with the surgeon in early August, I sighed. Again? And again and again and again?

And then I thought, Why am I still seeing the surgeon? It’s been four years since surgery, three years since the infection. I’m fine. I have no intention of having reconstructive surgery. So…why?

I gathered my courage and called her. It’s a hard thing to challenge a doctor, especially one that was part of a team that saved your life. But as we talked, she said, “You know what? If the medical oncologist is willing to oversee your mammograms and MRIs and future decisions regarding those, you can just see him. That’s not a problem.”

So I asked my medical oncologist. And he said yes.

And just like that, I went from three doctors, to two doctors, to one. Just like that, I went from seeing doctors every three months to every six. I will still have the alternating mammograms and MRIs, at least until February when I sit down with the medical oncologist and discuss this. My next mammogram is in August. I’m still on the oral chemotherapy and will be for at least another year.

But…movement. Movement that I haven’t seen since my radiation oncologist stepped away three years ago.

I hung up the phone and whooped. I’ve been promoted! I’m not quite so cancery as I was.

Trust me, that’s a reason for joy.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

I’m discovering it’s very, very hard to find a moment of happiness in a week that was very quickly dunked into sadness and grief. On Monday morning, I was told that a young student was in ICU and not expected to make it. On Tuesday morning, she died.

She was 34 years old. She would have been 35 in July, a few days before I turn 61.

I met Carla long before she became my student, but we both knew, on the day we met, that our paths were going to converge in that teacher/student way. Carla was a friend of my daughter Katie’s, living just down the hall from her in a dorm at UW-Madison. Before I met her, I heard of her, through my daughter. Carla had cystic fibrosis, had known about it her entire life, knew almost from the moment of her first breath that her time was limited. Yet she plowed ahead in the most amazing manner, accomplishing things she wanted to accomplish, reaching for goals, attaining them, and relishing every breath she took. The day I met her was on a step away from a goal – she was leaving the university. Her CF made it impossible for her to keep up, though she tried and tried and tried.

She knew I was starting a business, a creative writing studio. She called me in to her room because she had a kid’s table, that she used for doing crafts, that she thought might be perfect for the studio. Its legs looked like sharpened pencils, complete with erasers. At the time, the studio had a storefront, and I ended up using that table as part of my display during our entire time there.

I sat on Carla’s bed and we talked. At the end of our conversation, I said, “You have to write a book.”

She looked directly at me and said, “I do. And it has to be with your help.”

And so a new goal was created.

This was likely in late 2004 or early 2005. We stayed in contact, but Carla didn’t begin working on the book until July of 2018, 8 months after going through a double-lung transplant. It had been a rough road, but she was feeling good and she was ready. We began to work.

And then she was handed a diagnosis of thyroid cancer. It was another rough road, with complications and unexpected developments.

And then, a couple weeks ago, she went into the ER for a dangerously low blood sugar. She was also diabetic. From being hospitalized, and expecting to be released, she slid into unconsciousness last Thursday, with her liver and kidneys failing, and was transferred to ICU. Then Monday. Then Tuesday.

I have always cringed when people cry, “This is so unfair!” But when she developed thyroid cancer, that’s what I wanted to yell. And now I want to yell again, but something further. This is more than unfair. This is cruel. And I don’t know who is dealing out the cruelty. Fate? The Universe? God? I don’t know. I just know this is cruel. To Carla, and to those of us who knew her. And who love her still.

So where is my moment of happiness?

On Monday, soon after I was told what was happening, my husband texted me a picture from work. “Coming off the truck,” he said, and it was a photo of hibiscus trees.

Last summer was Hibiscus Summer for me. A hibiscus tree, whose branch reached out and grabbed me by the pants leg in the grocery store during our first pandemic spring, helped me through a pandemic summer. The blooms were constant and incredible. I took photo after photo. Carla and I spent a lot of time, talking about the hibiscus and ways to get through the isolation of the pandemic. Every photo that I posted on Facebook, she exclaimed over. I think that little tree kept us both going.

In the fall, I brought the little tree indoors too late. The shock of coming in from a cool-to-cold outdoors to a warm house was too much, and the leaves turned yellow, dropped off, and the little tree died. Both Carla and I grieved.

So on this last Monday, I went to my husband’s work to look at the hibiscus. As I walked down the aisle, I thought of Carla and I teared up. “Help me pick one out, Carla,” I whispered. These new hibiscus were a different color than last year’s, the one I loved so. As I circled the group, a branch reached out and grabbed me by the leg. I looked at the buds and saw they were the color, the right color, the color we both so admired. It was the only tree there with that color flower.

So that hibiscus came home. And on Tuesday morning, Carla died.

It was too cold to put the little tree outside, so it stayed in my office, in front of my desk. Late last night, as I started closing down, I walked by the tree and noticed one of the buds was starting to bloom. This pretty little flower was opening up. I grabbed my phone and took several pictures.

And then, all by itself, the bloom fell off. And I cried out.

A young and beautiful flower, lost before full bloom.

Well, I live my life in metaphor, donchaknow.

I picked up the little flower and said, “Hi, Carla.” And then I cried in a way I hadn’t been able to yet.

The tree is now named Carla. And I think she will get me through another summer.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Last Friday, I was midway through a phone appointment with a client when I saw an email cross my desk. The header said, “Wavecatcher Happy Dance”, and if I could slam my foot onto the brakes while sitting at my desk, I would have done so.

“Hang on,” I said to my client, “a video just showed up in my email. I have to look at it.” All I had to say in explanation beyond that was that it was from the women who own the little house in Oregon where I go on retreat. My client knew me well enough to understand.

Have you ever found a place that is Home, Home with a capital H, even though you’ve never lived there? A place that didn’t find its way to your heart, but was already there, and you just didn’t realize it until the first time you walked in, and when you walked in, it was like every part of you and every part outside of you suddenly slid into place and you were where you belonged?

I have.

In 2008, I went to Waldport, Oregon, for the first time. I nearly fell over with that sense of recognition, and from that point on, I visited almost every summer. There were a couple summers where I went to Maine instead, once because a student graciously sent me on retreat, and the other time, because I found just a lovely place I couldn’t refuse the chance to visit. One summer, I won a weeklong retreat here in Wisconsin, and so I combined that with a weeklong stay at a lakeside cottage (the one that nearly killed me last April). And once, I had a summer of breast cancer treatments and wasn’t healthy enough to travel. Last summer, of course, was COVID. I was supposed to go to the little house and celebrate my 60^th birthday there. Instead, I stayed home, had an in-home retreat on my own deck, and grieved.

The owners, Jesse and Mer, grieved with me. I immediately set up dates for 2021 and set my sights on the future. And so I will be in Oregon for my 61^st birthday.

But along the way, while waiting for the time to pass, for COVID to pass, for life to return to a new normal, other bad things were happening.

The Oregon coast suffered through a bad winter. With ocean levels rising and storms increasing in strength and frequency, the dune right outside the little house was battered. 10 feet of back yard was washed away. The stairway that led from the house to the beach was destroyed. When Jesse and Mer called me, they told me there was now no longer a way to get from the house directly to the beach. The plan was to encase the dune in riprap, but that wouldn’t be done before I arrived. New stairs would be built after the riprap was put in place. “You can walk a couple hundred feet down the coastal highway,” they said. “There’s a way down there, to get to the beach.”

Sure, I could. But so much of the magic of this place was in being able to open the sliding glass door, walking out and down, and greeting the ocean, who greeted me right back. Standing on that deck, looking at the ocean, and not being able to reach her, just would have felt…so wrong.

Many things have happened to me at that little house. Wonderful things. Unexplainable things. And they all happened because I was able to open that door and walk out. There was the huge pelican who literally fell from the sky, landing with a thud less than two feet in front of me. Because of my proximity to the house, I was able to stay with him for the day, running into the house as I needed things, but coming right back before curious children poked the great bird with sticks or tossed stones at him. I stayed with him, talking to him, trying to reach help at the aquarium in Newport or with animal rescue, until dark and it grew too cold. In the morning, when I came running out, he’d passed away, his body stretched in full flight formation on the beach. I have no doubt his spirit flew to Heaven. I stayed with him still until the aquarium came and took him away.

There was the time I arrived the summer after cancer, when I dropped my suitcases in the kitchen, ran through the living room, threw open the glass doors, and kept running until I stood knee deep in the ocean. With the water around me, with the air around me, with the ocean holding me and that little house at my back, I let my public strength drop and I wept for everything I’d just been through. The fear, the pain. Everything I wasn’t able to show during the experience, but could show, there, at Home.

And there was the old man with the sand dollar, a story I’ve told so many times, I won’t repeat it again. But on that trip, I’d made a bargain with God. “If I’m on the right path,” I said, “let me find a whole sand dollar. A whole one.” And on one foggy evening, an old man emerged out of the twinkling mist and he didn’t say hello. He said, “Have you found a whole sand dollar?” And he gave me one.

All those things and so many more would never have happened if I had to walk out the front door, made my way carefully down the coastal highway (you wouldn’t believe how fast people drive on that thing), and then entered the beach at a different place. Not at Home.

And so I began to hope. That place, my Home, would never let me down. It has always given me exactly what I needed.

And now, this email. “Wavecatcher Happy Dance.”

My client patiently waited while I opened it. On my computer, one of the women, Mer, shouted, “Okay! Here we go! Happy Dance!”

And she danced her way down some newly built stairs to the beach. “Steps! Steps!” she cried. Then she blew me a kiss and she bowed. Jesse held the camera, recorded, and laughed.

All the way in Wisconsin, I laughed with them, returned to my client, then after hanging up, played the video at least another twenty times. In the background, the ocean waved at me.

Miracles happen. Home happens. Sometimes because of the ocean and a little house that wraps itself around you like the warm and healing arms you’ve always wanted. And sometimes because two women, who you’ve never met in person, know you, understand you, and do everything they can to help.

Come on, July.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

If you are interested in visiting this amazing place for yourself, here is the website for the Wavecatcher: http://www.wavecatcherbeachrentals.com/home.html

 

(Click the link to watch the video!)

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

Many people say that when you adopt a rescue animal, you just don’t know what you’re getting. But honestly, when do you know what you’re getting? Whether you adopt a brand new puppy or even take on a dog that a friend can no longer care for, you don’t know what’s going to happen.

Almost all of our pets have been rescues. The exception is Muse, our 17-year old gray cat. She was adopted from a student’s friend, who was traveling cross country in a camper. Their cat had kittens, and so when they brought the box of cute little furballs into my classroom, you know one just had to stay with me. But everyone else came to us from a humane society or rescue mission.

Our dog, Ursula Le Guin Giorgio, came home with us three years ago from a humane society. She’d been brought there via truck with 6 other dogs from Alabama. She was an adult, probably about 3 years old. She’d clearly had puppies. Not much else was known than that.

Ursula was the dog I said I didn’t want. We were reeling from the loss of our two beagles, Blossom and Donnie. Blossom came from a humane society and Donnie from a rescue mission. Blossom developed kidney disease which was supposed to move quickly, but took years. Donnie developed a bone cancer which was supposed to move slowly, but took weeks. They both arrived at the end of their lives at the same time. We tried everything to keep them safe and happy, but it got to a point where there was no way to move them away from misery. They died side by side at the vet’s, with two veterinarians inserting the syringes at the exact same time, and all three of us present, with a hand on each dog. It was the most peaceful release we could have given them, but oh so devastating for us.

I said I didn’t want another dog. We live in the city, we don’t have a yard. And I just didn’t want to go through the sadness again. But the silence in the house, no toenails clicking, no tags jangling, was resounding, and three weeks later, we found ourselves at a humane society, looking at this dog they called Mama from Alabama.

In the kennel, she seemed calm and easy-going. At home, we discovered we’d adopted 50 pounds of fears and anxieties. She was renamed Ursula Le Guin because Le Guin was a strong, outspoken woman, and I felt our Ursula needed to be that too, to get through whatever it was she’d already gone through. But she wasn’t so strong and outspoken. We should have named her Mouse.

Despite her challenges, she’s settled into our family. Whenever one of us sits, we tend to have a concrete head placed in our laps. We’ve grown used to a dog who does not like to be outside, who will not walk down a hallway in our home because she doesn’t like narrow spaces, who freaks out at the sound of wind. We also made it through the discovery of heartworm, and then the treatment of heartworm which put her into cardiac arrest.

A few weeks ago, Ursula turned up with an infected toe. I noticed her licking and licking, and at first, I thought it was allergies, even though she hasn’t had allergies in three years. But it was only on one foot. Then she started holding the paw up. Off to the vet we went, to the new COVID procedures of having to wait in the car while our nervous dog went into the vet without our support.

An infected toe. Maybe from all the licking, maybe from allergies, maybe she injured it. I thought of the couple weeks prior, when our condo complex went through a testing of its fire alarm system. All the alarms in every unit went off. I couldn’t stay with Ursula because I’m the condo president and had to accompany the inspectors. By the time I got back home, I couldn’t find Ursula. How do you lose a 50-pound dog? Finally, I looked where she never went – down that hallway to Olivia’s room. There was Ursula, hulking on a small fur-covered chair (not pet fur – deliberately furry, like a stuffed animal), a chair way too small for her. The only way she could have gotten up was to pull herself up. I placed my bets on one of her nails getting stuck in the fur and pulling.

So we followed a regimen of meds. Antibiotics. First Benadryl, then Prednisone. The Prednisone made her excessively thirsty and she began to pee everywhere and all the time. I made the executive decision to take her off of that and just stick with the antibiotic – this wasn’t an allergy.

The licking has slowed. There is no longer a limp. The sad face of a dog who knows she is doing naughty things has begun to fade away.

Last night, Ursula came into my office while I was working. Clunk went her head on my lap. I looked down and saw the eyes of a dog who was apologizing. “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re a good girl.” At the words “good girl”, the tail became a helicopter propeller.

This morning, Ursula sat up on the loveseat where she sleeps and she gave me a big Ursula grin. She feels better.

I can’t help but wonder if she worried about losing her home. About being hurt. It’s said that dogs don’t have long memories, but I don’t believe that for a minute. She knows what she went through, and she shows us through her behavior. Her behavior also shows us her recovery.

The smile this morning shows me she knows she’s not going anywhere. That she is a full and accepted part of the family, even when she does naughty things, deliberately or out of her control.

Adopting Ursula, we didn’t know who we were getting. We didn’t know she was a dog who is freakishly afraid of gospel choirs, bolting upstairs whenever they come on television. A dog who is afraid of wind and rain and flags flapping. The microwave. The icemaker.

But we got her. And we couldn’t be happier.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Over the weekend, Michael and I decided to be brave and venture out to a movie. We hadn’t been inside a movie theater for over a year. When someone asked me what the first thing would be that I’d do after my second vaccination, I immediately said, “Go to the movies.”

The streaming movie channels are fine. But there’s just something about going into a theater.

I think the first movie I ever saw was 101 Dalmatians. I remember going to a theater in Cloquet, Minnesota. The fold-down seat wouldn’t stay down very well for me, because I was so small, and that screen! That screen was just so big! I honestly don’t remember anything about popcorn or soda…just looking up at those big, big dogs, Pongo and Perdita, and their babies and all of those spots.

Looking at research on that movie now, I’m not quite sure why I would have seen it. 101 Dalmatians originally came out in 1961, when I was a year old and living in St. Louis. But I know this was in a theater in Cloquet, right next door to Esko, Minnesota, where I moved when I was six, and that I was still little. So maybe the movie was going through as a revival. I do know that several years ago, when I traveled up to that area of Minnesota, I saw that theater, now an antique mall and coffee shop, and I immediately felt the seat under me as it tried to fold me into it, and those big, big spotted dogs. I remember being chided for being a baby as tears ran down my cheeks as the little puppy Lucky was born, and nearly died.

From that point on, it was all about the movies for me. The amazing, amazing movies.

My favorite movie, if I had to choose one, would be Mr. Holland’s Opus. Though there are so many others as well. The experience of seeing them on the big screen was always breathtaking. Even bad movies are better on the big screen. When the movie Cats came out in very late 2019, it was almost universally panned (I didn’t agree). But in the theater, I sat between Olivia and Michael, and when Jennifer Hudson completely filled that space with her voice and her emotion when she sang Memory, I sobbed out loud. Would it have been as impressive on my television at home? Not a chance. But there? Every bit of me was affected.

And so, during COVID, I really missed the movie theater.

When I looked at what was showing last weekend, my heart fell. There was nothing I wanted to see! How could there be nothing I wanted to see after more than a year of being unable to see? And then, by chance, I looked at a movie theater we don’t go to often, because of the distance. It had a movie with only one showing on Saturday. French Exit. I read the description to myself, and then to Michael, and then we set our sights on it.

Driving to the theater, it was clear things weren’t the same. Businesses that used to be landmarks were no longer there. Restaurants were gone. When we used to go to this theater, pre-COVID, we often went to dinner at Applebees, which was located at the far end of the parking lot. But Applebees was shuttered and dark.

Inside the theater, when we bought the tickets, we had to choose our seats, so that social distancing would be maintained. We wore our masks for the ticket purchase and the purchase of popcorn and soda. The aromas in the theater remained the same. The young man who sold us the popcorn asked what we were going to see, and when we told him, we got into an engaging conversation of how he’d seen Michelle Pfeiffer as Cat Woman, and now here she was, playing a widow in her sixties.

In the theater itself, we found our seats, roped off with a paper barrier that promised us our seats were sanitized and safe. It was a little like ripping off the paper barrier on hotel toilets. I glanced around before we sat. People were seated with great gaps between them, and those that weren’t munching on popcorn wore masks. My own mask came off while I munched on the popcorn that only tastes like this in the theaters. Yum. And then the mask went back on.

I wondered if the whole experience would feel odd. I wondered if nothing was the same.

And then the movie started.

When you laugh with others in a movie theater, you can’t tell that you’re laughing through masks. You can’t tell that you’re sitting in seats that have been sanitized for your safety. You can’t even tell that everyone is distant from you, because the sound is so clear. So you laugh, and you gasp, and you sigh, and you do all that with other people who are doing the same thing. At one point, a character in the movie jumped up from her chair and walloped her head on a standing lamp. I involuntarily exclaimed, “Ow!” and all around me, I heard other people who had the same reaction, and then we all laughed.

We all laughed. The magic was still there.

The magic of great big spotted dogs on an impossibly large screen. A little puppy not breathing, but then breathing again, right before my eyes. A woman walloping her head on a lamp and all of us feeling it, even though it didn’t happen to us.

Still there. Even behind masks, we could see smiles as we walked out.

This weekend, I am taking my granddaughter to the movies. She will wear her little mask and I will wear mine. And we’ll laugh just like we did before COVID. Just like we always will.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

 

 

It’s the during-the-day before an evening when I’m reading and Q&Aing at an event, and those are always days full of jitters.

I teach, coach, guide, and advocate for writers. But a huge part of my job is building up a writer’s confidence when their confidence collapses. And because I do this, many people seem to believe that I have confidence that can’t even be broken by kryptonite.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Twenty-five years of teaching, and a lifetime of writing has taught me that writers are this confounding conundrum of amazing Ego (I’ve written something important! I’m going to change the world!) and an absolutely crippling lack of self-confidence (Whatever made me think I can write? I can’t write. No one thinks I can write. I suck.). Writers can zing between these extremes at a rate beyond the speed of light. I’ve seen it happen in the course of the same sentence: “I’ve written something really important, but really, I only write for myself, because nothing I have to say is worth reading.”

And the thing is, I can say these sentences too. “My twelfth book is being released at the end of the year and my 13^th book is being released at the beginning of next year and here’s a rejection from Rinkydink Magazine and ohmygod, my entire career is just a fluke.”

I’m not kidding.

So now we zoom in on today. The event is just under 9 hours away. And I’m already a big ol’ blob of nervous sweat. I’m the featured author for the Pendleton Center For The Arts First Draft Series. I’m going to read for about a half hour, from If You Tame Me and No Matter Which Way You Look, There Is More To See. Then a Q & A, and then there’s an open mic.

I was originally supposed to do this last July, live and in person, in Pendleton, Oregon. I’ve been to Pendleton before, in 2016, when I was asked to visit the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute, a men’s prison which also happens to be the home of the last clock-making school in the US. The director of the prison asked if I would come and share my novel, The Home For Wayward Clocks, with the men in this school. It was an event that changed my life, my vision of what prison is, my perception of who resides inside. So I was delighted to come back to Pendleton, to serve in a different way. And, upon reading the website for the Pendleton Center For The Arts, I saw Ursula Le Guin presented there. I was going to get to stand where Ursula did, read my work where Ursula read hers. I was thrilled outta my mind!

There’s a reason why my dog is named Ursula.

And then, of course, COVID. My trip was canceled.

Now, nine months later, it’s moving ahead. Not live, but on Zoom. I won’t stand where Ursula did. But I’m still a part of what she was a part of.

Last night, I was talking with someone who is familiar with the Pendleton Center For The Arts, and who is attending. She told me about someone else who will be there, someone who is an artist and has exhibits in museums around the world.

And I felt a twinge of the crippling end of the conundrum I spoke about earlier.

At the top of the Center’s website is a place you can click to see, as they say, “the list of esteemed writers who have headlined this series since 2013.”

Esteemed! And I lost my legs.

Then I looked through the list. And began to whisper, “Why, why, why am I doing this? Why did they invite me?”

Writers. Confounding conundrum. Big Ego. Crippling lack of self-confidence.

Including me. Even after a lifetime.

About an hour ago, I pulled out what I’m going to read tonight. And I read it. And frankly, I loved it. Loved it.

That’s when I really heard my lament, the words I chose to use, that had my answer within it. “Why did they invite me?”

They. Invited. Me.

Ursula Le Guin said, “Belief is the wound that knowledge heals.”

I believed. I hurt. I know.

And I will take the stage tonight in a Zoom way, with the stage being my office and my audience being a screen full of faces in boxes, and I will have the time of my life.

I hope Ursula watches from above.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

If you wish to attend tonight, here is the Zoom information. The event will be followed by an open mic, which you do have to sign up for. The event begins at 7:00 p.m. Pacific time, 9:00 p.m. Central time, or 10:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4648101155?pwd=SjVvaFk1SjVDNzVCZzB1THdMRUM4UT09

Meeting ID: 464 810 1155
Passcode: PCA

 

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

Since the onset of COVID, which meant a sharp decrease in seeing my granddaughter, Maya Mae, I’ve been meeting her almost every night on Zoom. I read a chapter from a book, and lately, she’s been reading a book to me as well. We often chat about her day, about what she’s up to, where her interests are going. I’ve watched her ride around the house on her hoverboard, make great creations with her Light Bright and a variety of different tiles and bricks, and I’ve said hello to all manner of stuffed animals. While it’s nowhere near the same as seeing her, it’s been wonderful.

Recently, she shared her new collection of coins. They were just your everyday coins, but to Maya, they were magical, with their dates and ridged or smooth edges, the variety of heads on the front, the silver, the bronze. And of course, they rattled when she shook them. It sparked a memory for me, and so I went digging.

In the back of a dresser drawer, there was a sandwich baggie of coins that I’ve had since childhood. There was a 1925 silver dollar, that I’m told I was given by my maternal grandmother on the day of my birth. 1925 was the year my mother was born. The silver dollar was indeed all silver. It was kept in a special plastic pouch to keep it from tarnishing. The silver gave it a solid weight and, as a child, when I held it in my small palm, I was amazed at how much space it took up. I was also amazed that something that was a “dollar” could be worth more than a dollar.

Tucked in the plastic pouch was a 1964 quarter, which I’m assuming was given to me on my fourth birthday. 1964 was the last year that quarters were made with silver.

Rattling with these in the sandwich baggie was a Bicentennial half-dollar, and I remember well tucking this coin away. My father was recovering from his first heart surgery that July 4^th, and I remember sitting with him and watching the regatta of tall ships on television. I also had several coins that my father brought back from WWII, coins from different countries. One of my favorites was a penny that, unlike our penny, was a large coin, as large as the 1925 silver dollar. It amazed me that our penny was so small, and this penny was so huge.

So I pulled these coins out of the hidden recesses of my dresser drawer, where they languished. They hadn’t been part of a small girl’s admiration for many years. It was time to change that.

When I was on retreat last week, I visited a Goodwill in La Crosse, one I’d been to before, and absolutely the best Goodwill I’ve ever been to. I scoured the shelves of odds and ends until I found the perfect container for the coins. It was a pink pleather jewelry box, small, with a snap closure keeping everything inside safe. It was lined with pastel pink crushed velvet and the insert that was meant to hold rings easily lifted away, giving a nice space for the coins to rest. I pictured Maya holding it by the strap and shaking it gently, listening to that glorious rattle. The little box made the trip home with me.

Sunday was Easter, and because I now had my second vaccine, I had Maya come over, even though I wasn’t yet past the 2-week waiting period. It was worth the risk to give her her Easter presents in person. After she exclaimed over the fuzzy stuffed cow, the book of 5-minute Pepa Pig stories, a make-your-own unicorn terrarium (Grandpa picked that one out!), a chocolate bunny, a chocolate bunny lollipop, a bag of jelly beans (which Maya told me she doesn’t like, but since they were Starburst jelly beans, she would give them a chance) and a bag of peppermint patties, I called her over to me and showed her the little pink jewelry box.

“I know you’ve gotten interested in coins,” I said. “This is a special present, which you have to keep very safe. Look inside.”

She unsnapped it and I lifted out the coins, one by one, and showed them to her.

“Remember my telling you that my grandmother gave me a 1925 silver dollar when I was born?” I asked.

She nodded.

“This is it.” We took it out of the pouch and I laid it on her palm.

“Oooh,” she said. “It’s heavy!”

Our heads bent over her hand, we marveled at how much space it took up on her palm.

“It’s from 1925,” I said. “Do you know what year it is now?”

She thought for a moment, and then said, “2021.”

“Right!” I said. “That means that in four years, this coin will be 100 years old.”

Her eyes got as big and round as the silver dollar. “Really?” she whispered. “Wow!”

I showed her all the others, and then explained again that these were special coins and she had to take special care to make sure they remained safe. “Especially that silver dollar,” I said. “My grandmother gave it to me. And now I’m giving it to you.”

The hug was the best part. I felt a bit misty as Maya walked out the door, carrying the coins I’d held onto for so long, and carrying the coin that was a part of me for my entire life. Now it was a part of hers.

The next day, on Zoom, Maya took me into her bedroom and showed me the pink box. She took out all the coins and displayed them to me again. She held the silver dollar on her palm. Screen to screen, we bent our heads over it. After she carefully put it back into the pouch, she held up the foreign penny. “Look at how big this penny is!” she said. “So much bigger than ours! Isn’t it huge?”

In her voice, I heard my voice echo. I see my wonder in hers. I see me in her, young all over again, life just starting out.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Since starting this blog back in 2017, I guess it could be categorized as an “I’m happy to be alive” sort of thing. But I never expected my moment of happiness to actually be an “I nearly died and I’m so glad I didn’t” moment.

Last Friday, I left home for the first time since COVID hit. I don’t really count trips to the grocery store and to pick up take-out. I mean leave, as in climb in the car and go somewhere and stay awhile. In this case, it was for a week-long retreat in Onalaska, Wisconsin. As I wrote last week, I take retreats to get a break from the many roles that I play. It’s a chance for me to fully immerse myself in my own writing, to be alone in the quiet, to do things because I want to do them, not because they’re my responsibility. I learned over this past year that it’s just not possible to do this at home. I live in a live-where-you-work condo, and so AllWriters’ is on the first floor, at its own address, and I live above it, on the second and third floors. Consequently, I am never away from work. Taking a “retreat” at home, it’s all too easy to answer the phones, answer emails, check out possibilities for the studio, still let it eke into my everyday existence. And so I go away.

I’ve been to this little cottage before. It’s all in one room, the only doors leading to outside and to the small bathroom. A few feet away from my front door is Lake Onalaska, an expressive lake that changes every single day. I knew there were going to be differences with this retreat, with COVID still around. I wouldn’t be going out to eat. I wouldn’t be sitting in a coffee shop every day, casually sipping my drink of choice and reading a book of my choice. I wouldn’t be wandering the streets, window-shopping and going into stores that attracted my attention. But I still wanted to go.

And what I learned was that I really need to pay attention to my own gut instincts.

When I arrived in the early evening on Friday, I opened the door, heaved a big breath, and  instantly thought I smelled gas. But then I made excuses – it was probably just mustiness. The owners had been in the cottage before I got here, restocking it and leaving me the keys. They would have noticed the gas smell. So I went around and opened all the windows, despite the 40-degree temps outside. The place aired out quickly, and by the time I went to sleep that night, I didn’t smell anything.

Over Saturday and Sunday, I thought I smelled whiffs of gas, especially as I passed through the kitchen area on the way to the bathroom. There was a gas stove. I don’t use a gas stove, but I thought it was probably normal to get brief sniffs of gas from one.

Then I began to get headaches. Allergies, I thought. I felt queasy from time to time. Eating too many prepared foods, I thought. I noticed my skin was pinker than normal, and I wondered if I’d somehow gotten sun on the way to the cottage, despite not being in the convertible, or if the owners possibly used bleach in their sheets. I’m allergic to bleach.

But then Monday morning. I’d had an odd night, in and out of bizarre dreams, not quite able to wake myself up. Then I did suddenly come awake at 10:15 a.m., with a horrendous headache, fully nauseated, and the smell of gas all around me. I got out bed and had to hold onto the walls as I went from window to window, throwing them open. I had very little muscle coordination. And all I kept thinking was, I’m dying. I’m dying.

I threw open the front door and stood in the fresh air, not caring that I was naked, not caring that it was freezing. I breathed. I tried to get my brain to work. I got to my cell phone and texted the owners. I didn’t think to call 911. My brain was stuttering.

I managed to get pajama pants and a t-shirt on before the owners arrived and called someone to come turn the gas off. I just kept breathing.

It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that the enormity of what happened, of what could have happened, hit me. The cottage was aired out. The leak was to the stove and the gas was shut off. I got in my car and drove to an independent bookstore, Pearl Street Books, in La Crosse, one that had me visit twice for an event and signing. With COVID shattering so many small businesses, I wanted to stop in, to share my encouragement and support, to buy some books. I told the woman behind the counter who I was and she immediately ran about, finding the books of mine they had for sale, having me sign them, taking a photo of me which went up on their Facebook page. I bought every Ramona/Beezus/Henry book by Beverly Cleary they had. Three days before Beverly Cleary’s passing last week, I was reading a book over Zoom to my granddaughter, and a character in that book mentioned Ramona and I lit up. “I need to read you the Ramona books!” I said. And then Cleary died, and I thought, I have to read her even more now. She has to stay alive.

I stood there in that bookstore. Bookshelves with ladders went up to the ceiling. Old hardwood floors that gave that special creak. Writers everywhere, including me. Including me! I turned to my left and my eyes fell on a shelf that held two novels written by one of my students.

And I was suddenly saturated with the realization that I was alive, the gift of being alive, the wonder of waking up as my breath was being taken from me. Everywhere around me in that bookstore in that moment was my life…writing, writers, students, books, bookstores, family, passion, compassion, and on and on.

I was never so happy to be breathing in my entire life. Not when I made it home after the assault that started this blog. Not when I woke up after the breast cancer had been removed from my body. Never so much as at this moment.

I have never been so happy to be here. In this body, in this brain, in this life. I am so grateful.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.