Author: Kathie

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

It’s been a long winter. A long, long, LOOOOOOOOOOONG winter. Even my granddaughter Maya Mae, who is six years old, is sick of it. Sick of it at an age when she should be delighting in making snow angels, snow forts, having snowball fights, sliding down slippery hills on sleds and toboggans and even her own snowpantsed bottom. But last weekend, she looked at me, shook her head, and said in the saddest of voices, “Oooooooh, Gamma Kaffee. I need the cold to become the warm again.”

Out of the mouth of babes.

This past Saturday, my day was supposed to be relatively simple, by my standards. Run errands. Get work done. Pick up Olivia at work at 3:30, drive her to Oconomowoc (about 20 minutes away) to see her boyfriend. Come back in time to grandbabysit Maya Mae. Pick up Michael. Go back to Oconomowoc, pick up Olivia, go out to dinner. Bring Maya home. Simple. But as I sat in the Starbucks drive-thru at 3:15, the clouds opened up. It rained so hard, I couldn’t see the car in front of me – in a drive-thru lane. It was 34 degrees. I knew what that meant. I knew it way too well.

What followed was the cancellation of Olivia seeing her boyfriend and dinner out. It meant white knuckles on the steering wheel. It meant swearing. And as the sheet of rain turned to sheets of sleet turned to ice turned to snow, it meant tears. Weather doesn’t usually unravel me, but it did.

It’s been a LOOOOOOOOOOONG winter.

And now it’s today. Five days later.

It’s fifty-five degrees.

And I have a car whose plates are up for renewal and who needs an emissions test. Semi. My Chrysler 200 convertible. Who has been sitting in my garage since November because no road salt will mar this car’s underbelly and no snow will ever warp his ragtop retractable roof.

But it was raining.

Still. The emissions test needed to be done. The license plate would expire in two weeks.

Grumpy, I took the car out, top up. We drove in the rain to the oil change place where I get my emissions tested. Semi passed – good boy. And then I drove out of the garage.

And I swear I heard the angels sing!

The clouds split. The sun came out. The sky was blue. I imagine my whoop was heard all the way up to Minnesota. I pulled over to the side and I hit the down-roof button as if I was pulling a parachute’s ripcord.

For the record, I think my car whooped too.

Oh, the air! The sunlight! Oh, the warmth that wasn’t really that warm, but sure as hell was a lot better than subzero (but hey, I have heated seats and that’s what the heater is for!)! I dug out a CD, threw it in, cranked it up, and hit the gas.

SPRING!!!!!

When I pulled into the drive-thru at Starbucks, where just five days ago, I couldn’t see the car in front of me for the downpour of about-to-freeze rain, I heard whoops that echoed my own from across the speaker. “Kathie’s got the top down!” one of the baristas yelled. “It’s SPRING!”

Then I ordered my cinnamon dolce latte iced, instead of extra hot.

To hell with the robin. There is no surer sign of spring than Kathie riding topless, an iced latte by her side.

The forecast for tomorrow? A high of 36 degrees, with a mix of snow and freezing rain.

But we’re not going to pay attention to that for now.

WHOOP!

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

On Tuesday, I returned for a visit to the female inmates in the Waukesha County Jail. I think it’s been a year since I was there – the last time it was scheduled, there was a “substitute captain” and he decided that I wasn’t vetted enough, even though I’d been there a lot by then. Talk about feeling ineffective; there was no one I could complain to, no one I could yell at. I just had to accept that I wasn’t going in that day, and the women who were expecting me would just have to talk about the book to each other and their instructor.

That not being allowed to do something I so wanted to do – pretty much the epitome of jail and prison life.

I started doing this a couple of years ago, beginning with a visit to the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute in Pendleton, Oregon, a maximum security men’s prison. I was invited in, because this prison is also the home of the last clock-making and repair school in the United States, and, of course, I wrote The Home For Wayward Clocks. The experience was life-changing in a way that I still can’t articulate. When I wrote about it, a reader here saw it and invited me in to the Waukesha County Jail. I know many writers lead writing classes for inmates, but I didn’t want to. Not everyone is a writer, believe it or not. But everyone can benefit from reading, and I wanted to connect through my words, not my teaching. It’s been amazing. I’ve learned something every time I’ve gone in.

This time was no different.

While the women were told to focus on In Grace’s Time (Today’s Moment was not allowed in because the captain decided the cover was “too graphic”), they were also encouraged to grab anything I wrote. All of my books (except one) are in the jail library. This resulted in the most comprehensive discussion of my own work that I’ve ever been party to.

For a writer, this is just a mind-blowing experience. You always wonder if your work has any impact, if you’ve made any difference. All around the table that afternoon, surrounded by the plain white walls of the jail, I saw the difference. I saw the impact my words and sentences and stories were having. Each of my books (but one) was held tightly in eager hands.

I made a difference. Holy cow.

Though I suppose you could say I had a captive audience too (someone had to say it…it might as well be me).

But then there was this. My liaison said, “Oh, did I tell you what happened after you left last time?” No, she didn’t.

The Correctional Education Association of Wisconsin sponsors a yearly creative writing contest, open to people currently incarcerated in the prison system. They publish the winners every year in a book that is also filled with artwork created by the inmates.

When I left last time, four of the inmates could not wait to get to the computers they only have access to when they’re in class. They wanted to write.

They wanted to write.

And they made it into the collection.

I was given the little magazine. The pages were marked so I could find the works by the inmates I’d met. My liaison told me of one woman who sat at the computer and wept the entire time she wrote.

Oh, the words!

Where do I go when I can’t see them anymore? Did they notice I left at all?

Trial…I AM SO SCARED.

The most beautiful smile is marked in/the heart/like a tattoo made in the soul

In the prison system, healing is as hard to find as natural light. But there are ways.

One of them is reading. And another…is writing.

I made a difference.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

On September 12, 2010, Michael, Olivia and I spent a sunny afternoon at Mount Mary University’s annual outdoor festival, the Starving Artists show. Olivia was a month shy of ten years old. She was agog over everything, the people, the art, the food, the music, the sunshine. As we walked through, I kept a watchful eye on a young girl who was still compulsive, zipping everywhere her attention blipped, talking with strangers, reaching out to touch. Just wanting to embrace everything.

We were seven years in with dealing with an autism diagnosis. In seven years’ time, we whiplashed from devastated to outright amazed at our daughter’s abilities, versatility, persistence, and determination. At three years old, when we were given the diagnosis, Olivia was basically nonverbal, filled with expressive sounds and syllables that were words to her, but not to us. Then she went into a parrot phase, where she memorized complete scripts from television shows and commercials and attempted to use them in everyday conversation. On the day of the art show, she was fully verbal and had the vocabulary of a college kid. There were challenges, so many challenges. Body language, facial cues, social interaction remained as foreign to Olivia as words used to be.

But oh, did she want to learn. Unlike what you typically hear about autistic kids, Olivia threw herself into social activities and groups. As harried parents, we often lost her in a crowd, chasing after the streak that was our daughter, only to find her deep in conversation with a stranger or a group of strangers. Once, at an antique show, we found her with her head in the lap of an old gentleman, who gently stroked her hair. “He’s a grandpa,” Olivia said. “I wanted to see what a grandpa was.” Both of her grandfathers passed away before she was born. The man smiled at us and gave her a hug before we moved on.

Olivia has a knack for finding generous, genuine people.

On the day of the art festival, we finished our shopping and went in search of a labyrinth I’d been told was on the grounds. I love labyrinths and walk them wherever I find them, and often use them as a teaching tool. We found the labyrinth in a quiet spot by some trees. Michael stayed in the car, but Olivia and I got out to walk.

I usually encourage quiet and introspective walks on a labyrinth, but for Olivia, the curving certain path just meant joy. She danced and sang her way in, sat quietly with her head bowed in the middle for all of five minutes, then danced her way out. I took photos of her and at one point, teared up when my camera lens caught her in a refracted sun shower. She was just aglow. When I posted these photos in an album on Facebook, these are the captions I wrote:

Olivia, of course, is not one for quiet and thoughtful walking. Her journey is joy. Her dance is delighted.

Most children would probably jump the stones, head straight toward the goal of the benches and the exit. But Livvy finds joy in the journey and she follows it through. I don’t know what she offered up when she reached the benches. That’s for her to know, and for Whomever was listening.

Livvy skips through the labyrinth, calling, “I can make it, Mama! I can make it!” Oh, yes, she can.

I remember whispering that final sentence out loud in the labyrinth as she called to me. Oh, yes, you can, Olivia. Yes, you can. It was a prayer. It was a promise.

I didn’t take a photo of the moment Olivia suddenly spun toward me, flung both her hands in the air, and sang, “I’m going to college here, Mama! I’m going to college!”

But I remember saying again, Oh, yes, you can.

Olivia is now 18 years old. She is a senior in high school. She applied to four colleges, one of them Mount Mary University. She was accepted at all four, offered scholarships at all four. She wants to be an art therapist. She wants to help others. One of her college essays was about a shirt she wears. On the front, it says, “I can and I will.” On the back, “Watch me.”

I’ve watched. I still watch. I will always watch. With so much belief in this child in my heart that at times, I am sure it will burst.

This past Tuesday, Olivia made it official. We took a final tour of Mount Mary. And that’s where she’s chosen to go.

I’m going to college here, Mama! I’m going to college!

I looked out the window at one point during the tour, and I believe I found the labyrinth, buried under the snow. On August 21^st, 2019, after helping Olivia move into her dorm room, I am going to take her by the hand and we will walk out to that labyrinth. We will walk it together.

And then I will let her go. It is at that point, I believe, that my heart will finally burst. With pride for this young woman. With joy, with love. With the full understanding of the supreme blessing she is in my life.

Oh, yes, you can, Olivia.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

About a year ago, we adopted our dog, Ursula LeGuin Giorgio. She came to us when we were hurting; our two beagles were put to sleep a few weeks earlier, both on the same day, side by side, with Michael, Olivia and I standing by, our hands on each dog. Blossom was fifteen and very ill with advanced kidney disease. Donnie was thirteen and had cancer, which spread faster than any of us expected. I didn’t want to get another dog. All of our hearts were broken, twice over.

And then one of our humane societies sent me a picture of a dog they called Mama. They thought she was around three years old. She came from Louisiana, driven up here by another shelter in a truck with three other dogs. She was called Mama because she clearly recently had puppies. The humane society said she was a “hound/terrier mix”, but we could see she’s a pitbull. And as soon as I saw that face, I was smitten. We went in to see her, and we wouldn’t leave without her. When she walked out the door of the shelter, she was no longer Mama. She was Ursula LeGuin Giorgio, named after one of the strongest women writers I know.

Soon after we got her home, it became clear that Ursula wasn’t the quiet dog in the shelter because she was calm and confident. She was quiet because she was terrified. For this first year, we have struggled with her through fears of the refrigerator’s ice maker, the microwave, things sizzling on the stove, the television, the fireplace, the piano, the Christmas tree, the vacuum. We can’t take her for walks around the block because she’s afraid of the traffic, the buses, the flags flapping in the wind, a door slamming. She prefers concrete to grass, which leads me to believe she was a kennel dog.

And yet…she wasn’t afraid of us. 45 pounds of dog on your lap is a challenge. She curls up by whoever happens to be there. During the day, she is typically by my desk chair, laying her concrete head from time to time on my lap, letting me know she’s there. She doesn’t know how to play – we’re working on that. We throw a ball and she gives us a look that says, “So what?” But she does know how to ask for what she needs: close human contact and a safe place to be. We give her that.

When we lost the beagles, I said I didn’t want another dog. Then, when we met Mama, I said I didn’t want a project dog. Well, somehow, here we are.

So the moment of happiness. Over the weekend, Michael was in the hospital (no, that’s not the moment!) with a bowel obstruction. This meant that the late night (figure two in the morning) walk before bed was up to me. Sunday, it snowed all day. When I took Ursy out, the parking lot next to us, which she prefers, was transformed into a snowy moonlit field. It sparkled. It was quiet. We could have been out in the country instead of in the middle of a sleeping city.

Ursula did her business. I took care of her business. And then, she looked up at me…and suddenly threw herself down on her belly, front legs extended, tail in the air, like a dog about to pounce. “What?” I said. That was all she needed.

She began to prance, to bounce, to play in the snow. She leaped, she rolled, she ran in circles as far as she could get as I let the extra-long leash out to its full length and ran with her. This dog did fast-paced yoga in the snow, a zippy downward facing dog, then an upward facing dog, her nose to the moon, a silent “Arooo!” clearly coming from her throat. Boing, boing, boing.

My god, Ursula PLAYED. She became a DOG.

I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in months.  I hope I didn’t wake my neighbors. If I did, I hope we entertained them with this cavorting crazy dog.

And then we came inside. She looked at me and grinned and if she could have talked, she would have said, “How was THAT?”

I answered out loud, “WHAT was that?”

This morning, Michael found Ursula sleeping on the loveseat in our bedroom. Curled in her tail was our little gray cat, Muse.

Oh, welcome home, Ursula LeGuin Giorgio. It took about a week short of a year, but I think we’re finally getting somewhere, puppy.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Over the weekend, as I drove into the grocery store’s parking lot, I saw a man helping his wife into one of those motorized scooters provided by the store. With our snow and ice, this was not an easy feat, and I admired him and his hard work as I found a parking space.

But then I was startled when I got out of the car. The man looked back at his wife, gave a dismissive wave, and marched off for the store. She maneuvered the scooter herself, going around snow chunks dropped by cars, sliding a bit through the slush. I followed a bit behind, just in case she needed some help.

When we went through the automatic doors, I breathed a sigh of relief. She was inside and safe. I went to get a cart, and then I heard the woman exclaim, “Oh no!”

Her scooter was jammed to a halt. There were rugs laid out for people to wipe their shoes when they came in from the snow, and the scooter just wasn’t built for rugs. When the rug passed under the front wheel, it curled up into big loops before it hit the back wheel, and the back wheel couldn’t get over. No matter which way she steered, the rug just bunched up more. I glanced through the second set of doors into the store. Surely her husband was somewhere close by.

Nope.

Hurrying over to her, I patted her on the shoulder and said, “Let’s figure this out.” First, I tried to pull the rug out from the front, thinking it might unfold. It didn’t. Then I got behind her and tried to push and lift the scooter up over the blockage. I couldn’t. Then another woman came up to us.

“Let’s try this,” she said. “You hold on to her handlebars and seat, to keep the scooter from tipping, and I’ll try to pull the rug out sideways.”

And so we did. I held the scooter – and the woman – steady, and the other woman yanked the rug free. By then, five or six other people gathered in the vestibule and when the rug was released, they all cheered.

The rug-yanker and I high-fived and the woman in the scooter thanked us several times and then scooted her way into the store. As the other woman and I picked up our purses and she prepared to leave and I got ready to go in, yet another woman came up to us. “That was so nice of you,” she said. “That was really wonderful of you to help.”

The rug-yanker and I looked at each other, both of us, I believe, feeling a bit bewildered. But then we smiled our thanks and went on our way.

In the store, I saw that the woman on the scooter caught up with her husband. She was sitting quietly while he loaded the little basket with produce. I wondered if she told him what happened. I wondered if she asked where he was, why he didn’t come back to look for her.

And I wondered why anyone would think taking the time to help someone is an exceptional thing.

I thought about saying something to the husband. I really did. The woman turned and smiled at me then and mouthed, “Thank you.” There was something in that silent, careful gratitude that moved me forward, just a bit. I went to her and patted her on the shoulder. “You have a good rest of your day now,” I said. Turning to the husband, I said, “Take care of her. Please.”

I wandered through the store, picking up what I needed, and pondering. Wondering about a husband who would oh so carefully put his wife from their car into a scooter on a snowy slippery day, but then leave her behind to handle the elements and bunchy rugs herself. Wondering about being thanked for helping someone, when helping someone should really just be a normal, everyday thing. Wondering about my own caution in telling the husband to take care of his wife.

By the time I headed for home, I felt pretty settled again. I stopped to help someone. And when I couldn’t do it by myself, someone stopped to help me. We were there for her, this time. In our own small way, we helped to set her free. I hoped it was enough.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

You might think that my signing a contract for my 10^th book (5^th novel) would be my moment of happiness. Or you might think that my preparing to celebrate my studio’s, AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop, 14^th birthday would be my moment of happiness. These numbers-around-words moments definitely made me happy…but it’s not going to be what I write about.

Imagine. Ten books! When I can still clearly remember sitting on my bed after yet another rejection (it took me three years and two agents to sell my first novel, before I sold it all by myself), weeping and saying, “Please…just one book. I’ll be happy with one book.” Imagine. Fourteen years! Owning, running and maintaining a business that I was told was destined to fail.

Imagine. Oh, yes. Happy.

But there was something else.

Like most of the country, if not the world, Wisconsin has been having lots of weird weather. Yes, it’s been icy, snowy, and cold, which you would expect from our state. But truly, it’s been ICY and SNOWY and COLD. Extreme weather. When I walked from my condo to the parking garage to start my cars, trying to make sure they’d still run, my eyes teared and those tears promptly froze to my eyelashes. My fingers were “frostnipped” when I tried to fill my car’s tires. Schools closed. The post office closed! Hell, after our governor declared a state of emergency, Wisconsin closed.

Not fun. A new and dangerous level to normal.

In the middle of the Polar Vortex, I woke up at four o’clock in the morning and found myself unable to get back to sleep. I wrapped up in a soft robe and wandered the house. Eventually, I ended up in my office, my writing room. There is a door here that leads to our third floor deck and there are windows that rise to the top of the 20-foot ceiling. I leaned against my desk and looked outside. All that was between me and the Great Frozen was a sheet of glass. Yet I was warm.

It was so, so quiet.

Everyone in the house but me was sleeping. Even the dog and the cats. There were no buses rattling and shaking by, no sirens splitting through the crystal air from the nearby fire department, no train whistle howling from one of Waukesha’s many infamous railroad crossings. There was no traffic. No snow plows.

Quiet.

Outside, the frigid temperatures made the air clear and sharp. There was a moon, and it streamed silver light onto the white snow and ice. That light passing through the thin metal railings surrounding my deck threw a neat geometric grid on the snow, creating an oddly organized, but still surreal impressionistic nature-created painting. I looked out on it and felt that everything was in its place. Everything was as it should be. Even in this crazy, unheard of weather, familiar to those of us who live here, yet not familiar at all, there was order. My shoulders relaxed.

There was nobody else in the world. There was just me.

I don’t get these moments often. I live a heavily populated life. Right then, I breathed it all in, the quiet, the organization, the feeling of just being settled. In my head, I said, “It’s all okay.” I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t want to shatter the silence I very rarely hear.

And then…I went back to bed and fell almost instantly into a dreamless sleep where the silence continued all around me.

That’s it. It might not seem like much, compared to a tenth book and a 14^th birthday for an impossible business. But it was amazing.

It was just what I needed.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

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

The switch into second semester brought a sigh with it in my house. We haven’t had much of second semester yet, because of a rash of snow days – four in the last two weeks – and that’s been okay. It gives us a chance to brace ourselves because we’re heading into the season of last-times.

This is Olivia’s last semester in high school. And this is my last semester of having a child in the Waukesha school system.

I graduated from Waukesha North High School in 1978. I was only in the school system for three semesters, moving here during the second semester of my junior year. But I consider Waukesha North my school home. My oldest boy, Christopher, entered kindergarten in 1989. And in June of 2019, my youngest child, Olivia, will graduate. While Olivia attended her freshman and sophomore years at Waukesha South, all four of my kids graduated or will graduate from North.

This is the season of the last time I will have to fill her school lunch account. Her last IEP. Her last orchestra concert at the high school level. The last time I have to sign class syllabi. The last, the last, the last.

It’s odd. It’s bittersweet. It’s exhilarating.

Olivia applied to four colleges and she was accepted at all of them. We haven’t announced which one she’s going to yet, because we’re still waiting for one more package. But we’ve received one really outstanding offer, and we think that’s where she will be going. I’ve spent a lot of time, picturing her walking on those school grounds, standing by the bell tower, passing historical buildings where so many young women have gone before her. Talking, listening, learning. Growing and becoming. And it makes me tear up every time.

When Olivia was born, my three older kids, Christopher, Andy and Katie, were 16, 14, and 13 years old, respectively. One of the benefits of having a child when I was forty years old, over a decade after my last child, is that as those older kids get older, I was able to turn to Olivia and say, “Well, I’m still the parent of a pre-schooler – a kindergartener – a sixth grader – a high school kid.” Now, when I turn, I look directly into her eyes.

It’s hard.

But…during these snow days, there was one morning where she got up well past noon. When she finally stumbled into the kitchen, she was wearing…one-piece furry hooded Eeyore pajamas. The slick, sophisticated young woman in black leggings, black army boots, and a black leather jacket wasn’t there. Instead, there was my toddler, and I could see her again, in her pink fuzzy footie one-piece pajamas, looking sleepily at me, rubbing one eye with her fist.

There she was. And I was so happy to see her.

I realized as I wrote this that I see glimpses of my little ones in all four of my kids. My oldest, Christopher, is thirty-five, married, and is the father of my six-year old grandbaby, Maya Mae. But whenever he sees me and it’s time for him to go, he says, “Bye, Mommy,” and gives me a hug and a kiss on my cheek. He even rests his head on top of mine, and for that moment, he’s the little boy who wrapped himself around me whenever I had to leave him. Andy, at almost 33, still finds the time once a week to come over before Olivia gets home from school to set up an entire dramatic scene with her stuffed animals, complete with dialogue written on torn-page speech bubbles from their mouths. I see Andy at 14, when I was alone with him in the car and I apologized that my situation was such that I couldn’t afford to take him and his siblings on vacations to Disneyworld, like his father could. “Mom,” he told me then. “You’ve already given me the best gift. We have Olivia.” And Katie, who will soon be 32, who today texted me from an airport and said, “There is a child next to me, not more than 4 years old, and his name is Virgil. Virgil. Thought of you.” Virgil is one of the main characters in my novel, In Grace’s Time. And Katie is the child whose every sentence, practically, started with “Mommy! Mommy!” And she once called me her best friend.

And now, Olivia. In fleece one-piece fuzzy Eeyore pajamas. Every morning, when she gets up and comes looking for me, she sings out, “Mama!”

I raised my kids to embrace the world. Instead of me.

But they find ways to do both.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.                               

Yesterday, my friend John died. I’ve known John for at least fifteen years. He was my hair guy, but he was also a great friend and in the tradition of barbers and hair stylists, he was someone with a wide-open heart, wide-open arms, and ears always ready to listen. John was featured in the 7/11/17 Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News. You can see it in the book, but I am putting it back up here, in his honor and memory and with great love. I already miss you, John.

7/11/17

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

I know that many people believe, thanks to Charles Schulz, that happiness is a warm puppy. I do love puppies. But happiness to me today, and pretty much any day, is a hot hairdryer.

I honestly don’t remember how old I was the first time I sat under a salon hairdryer. Comfortable chair. Big bucket over my head. Hot air blasting out of it onto my hair, down my neck, onto my shoulders. White noise that blocked out everything else in the room. I do know that I fell in love that day.

It probably helps to know that I was a child who sat on heat registers too, with my shirt belled over it, so that the heat surrounded me. I drive my convertible with the heated seats on. In my currently air-conditioned house, I use a space heater on my desk, and I often sit under a heated throw.

I kinda like heat.

Today, in the middle of all that’s been messy lately, I went for my standing hair appointment at Foxies Salon in Waukesha. I started going there when Olivia was in kindergarten – she’s going to be a junior in high school now. So it’s been a while. John, my hair guy, is the person responsible for the red spiky hair that I’m recognized for now. At first, when I had my hair cut short and kept it brown, he would spike it for fun before I left the salon. I’d smile, then go home and wash the gel out, and return me to my flat-haired, brown-haired existence.

But something happened when Olivia was five and I was forty-five. Not only did I let the spikes stay, but I told John to turn it red. And boy, did he.

Somehow, from that, I emerged.

And John, bless him, figured out very quickly that no matter what the weather, the season, the temperatures, or my current state of affairs, it was absolutely necessary to turn the dryer on high, lower it over my face, and leave me sitting there.

Today, he added further gentleness. I think, in his quiet way, he knew I needed it.

He turned the hairdryer on ahead of time. It was already hot when it reached my scalp. He turned the chair just so, so I could reach my iced latte, sitting on his covered sink. He handed me my book. And I’m pretty sure he cranked the timer to extra minutes.

For that little bit, I was in an inner sanctum. There was heat. There was coffee. There was a good book.

There wasn’t any cancer. There was just me.

I can’t explain why sitting under a hairdryer means so much. There’s just such comfort there. The noise that isn’t a noise blocking out the rest of the world. The heat. No one and no thing can reach me when I’m in there.

Though one thing did reach me. Kindness.

Thanks, John.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.      

 

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

I’ve been finding myself craving silence lately. During the day, when Michael is at work and Olivia is at school, I’m working out of my office at home and I’ve been keeping the house in silence. No television, no music, nothing. I even mute my phone. In the car, I usually hit the music as soon as I start the engine and I sing along with whatever CD I’m obsessed with at the moment. But right now, the CD player is off. I drive in silence. When I’m done teaching a class and everyone has gone on home, I dim the classroom’s lights and take a little longer than normal to straighten everything up, just so I can stay in the quiet for just a bit longer. In the morning, when I wake up, I’m not getting out of bed very quickly. Instead, I lay there and look out the window and listen to nothing, except maybe a cat’s purr. Then I step into the chaos that is the world right now.

I’m avoiding busy places, like the mall. When we go out to eat, I choose a quiet restaurant and we go late. I haven’t been back to the church I visited on Christmas Eve, because of its loudness. And often, involuntarily, I realize I have my hands up over my ears.

Years ago, when I still watched horror movies (the last one I saw, which did me in, was An American Werewolf In London), I watched the screen with my hands over my eyes and my fingers slitted, just a bit. Now, I check the morning news headlines on the internet the same way. I want to know what’s going on, but I don’t want to let it in. There’s a part of me that wants to declare a personal boycott on the news, but then there’s an underlying thrum of fear that if I’m not aware, then I won’t be prepared…but for what? Armageddon? The end of the world as we know it? The Zombie Apocalypse?

So I keep watching, through slitted fingers. And now, craving silence. My hands over my ears.

Our dog Ursula is an anxious dog. She’s a rescue who we adopted last March. In that time, she’s improved greatly, but we’ve had to work through her fears of the television, the microwave, the icemaker on the fridge, slamming doors, loud voices, the sound of the busses going by, the piano, the toaster, the Christmas tree, my teapot…you get the picture. She’s afraid of everything. Lately, Ursula’s place of comfort has been my daughter Olivia’s bathroom. It’s the only room in the condo that doesn’t get any natural light. It’s painted a soothing, quiet blue. There is a soft powder blue bath rug on the floor. The bathroom is in the center of the house, so while her world reels around her, Ursula sits in the dark on the soft blue rug. It’s quiet.

Yesterday, I went looking for her and that’s where I found her. I decided to join her for just a bit. I lowered the lid on the toilet seat and sat down. Ursula shifted, wedged herself between my legs, and we were still.

It was silent.

It was dark.

It was warm.

And so we sat.

After about five minutes, Ursula rested her big concrete head on my knee and she heaved a sigh that expanded her ribs like an umbrella and then she deflated. I sighed with her. I felt us both relax.

I have no idea how long we stayed there. But I do know when we walked out, we were both the better for it. I think Ursula is on to something.

Apparently, happiness – and peace – can be found in a dark silent bathroom. With a dog.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.       

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

I suppose it’s a natural thing to take stock at the start of a new year. We’re seventeen days in now, and I’ve been taking stock since New Year’s Eve. 2017 and 2018 were years that taught me that nothing is in my control, and in fact, I watched those two years unravel with events that were totally out of my control. I could only roll with them and wait to find my way back to the surface.

When I visited my medical oncologist in December and I told him that the cancer was actually harder to deal with after it was over, he said, “That makes sense. You’ve had two major events (the cancer, and then the infection) over a short period of time that could have killed you.” I said, “I don’t think of it that way.” When he asked me to explain, I said, “I’ve had two major events where I lived.”

But still, as 2019 came in, I found myself searching for something that I could do that would give me some sense of being in control again. And that’s why last Sunday night, at 11:00, I found myself in the AllWriters’ classroom, the lights on and blazing out onto the dark street.

One whole wall of the classroom contains tall bookshelves, and in front of the floor to ceiling windows, there are four more short shelves. The shelves are stuffed with books. There was an article released this week, and it’s echoing many others, saying that book sales are up and that the sale of physical books, not e–books, is thriving. You have only to look in my classroom to see the proof of that. Once or twice a year, I typically straighten the books, because as new titles are added, space grows slim, and so new books are stacked sideways on top of the others. I haven’t done the straightening for almost two years, because of the weakness in my right arm, one of the remaining insults of the breast cancer.

For the last several months, I have glared at my messy bookshelves every time I walked into my classroom. I was going to straighten them during my week off between Christmas and New Year’s, but things kept interrupting. Finally, I made a promise to myself that the books would be done last weekend. I had a class on Saturday until one, Michael had a client at two, and then I would rework the bookshelves.

Except, of course, life interrupts and I ended up chauffeuring family members around so they could get their own to-do lists done.

By Sunday night, I was rabid. So at 11:00, I went downstairs. It was late, I was tired, but I didn’t care. I was taking control of something, even if it was my own schedule and getting something done that needed to be done on MY list.

Until just after two in the morning, I sorted books, shifted books, placed them in piles and revered their memories. I dusted the shelves, front to back, left to right, and I dusted the books. Somewhere after one o’clock, I had to start doing things with mostly my left hand and arm – my right was rendered useless.

But when I stood back at 2:00 in the morning, the lights bright as classtime inside, all of my books were standing tall, their spines straight. They were in order, alphabetically. Outside, our Little Free Library was full once again, with books waiting to be opened by someone new, and there are more ready to go, tucked away in a cupboard for now. On the classroom table, there was a line of books about writing, which would be offered to students as they came in during the week.

As I stood there, my spine straightened too. Control. My classroom looked like my classroom again. And my love for words, for writing, for reading, for writers, was once again bright and ready for anyone and everyone to see. My life looked like my life again.

Sometimes, all it takes is row after row of books standing in order to snap an entire life back in place again.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.