Author: Kathie

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

Last night, when I went to bed, I couldn’t sleep for frustration. I hadn’t been able to figure out what I was going to write about for this week’s Moment. There are weeks when the whole world seems so dark, I struggle coming up with a Moment. But this week wasn’t dark. My every thought was toward going away on a retreat, leaving on Friday, having an entire week to write and to sleep and to stare at a lake and literally do whatever I want whenever I want, and not do it at home. At times, I felt giddy, other times, worried. It’s been an entire year since I’ve been away from home. COVID grounded me. And now…and now…I am going to step out.

This morning, I woke up with the same frustration. I began to peg through my schedule, figuring in everything that is supposed to happen between now and tomorrow at 1:00 p.m., adding in a surprise vet visit for my dog who was suddenly limping, and wondering how I was going to get it all done…when I realized.

My Moment of Happiness this week is that I am feeling anticipation. I’m excited! I’m looking forward! I’m going on a road trip in a new car and I’m going to be all by myself in a little one-room cottage that faces a lake and OHMYGOD, I’M GETTING THE HELL OUT OF DODGE!

It’s been a year. I think it would be wrong to say it was a totally awful year, as there were some really nice moments and events. But…it’s been a year.

Since I started my studio, AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop, I’ve made it a point to get away, by myself, for at least two weeks every year. I typically go to the Oregon coast (I’ll be there in July!), which is pretty much as far away as I can get without leaving the country. Few more steps and I’d be riding a whale to Japan. The retreat has become so important to me, because when I’m there, I feel like I sink most deeply into who I am. I step away from my roles as wife, mother, grandmother, instructor, editor, coach, business owner, even, really, my role as woman. I become just…a writer. Me. I’ve deliberately left the studio phone as a landline so that I can’t take a cell with me – the studio stays home. For those two weeks, I sleep when I’m tired, I eat when I’m hungry, I read what I want to, and…I write. I also paint, but the painting is for pure enjoyment, not for the outside world.

In the last year, I couldn’t do that. I tried to take breaks from my home, but it just doesn’t work that way.

A few years ago, I won a week-long retreat through a contest with a Wisconsin writing organization. I was delighted, but I knew one week wouldn’t be enough. I decided to forego Oregon and combine that week with an additional one in a lakeside cottage somewhere. The won retreat was in the middle of Amish country, and I knew I would miss being by water. So I found this little cottage on Lake Onalaska, near La Crosse (one of my favorite Wisconsin towns). My week there was idyllic. And so, even though I know I’m going to Oregon in July, I decided I would take a week’s retreat back to that cottage. When I booked it, I didn’t know the vaccine was going to be spreading almost as fast as COVID did. I reasoned that, even going during the time of COVID, I am basically trading one set of four walls for another set, but this new set looks out on a lake and is, above all, quiet, tidy, lovely.

And now I’m less than 24 hours away from being there.

My adrenalin is up, not from fear, but from anticipation. Everything in me is leaning forward, ready for the starter’s pistol: Get ready…get set…GO! RELAX! WRITE! BE!

The news has basically been good lately. We’re still hearing COVID numbers, but we’re hearing the vaccine numbers too. People are cheering for themselves and for others who find themselves at the business end of a needle. You can feel the uplift. Under their masks, people are smiling. I read an article in the New York Times the other day, about the things people are saying they’re going to do first when they’re two weeks past the second injection. Number one on the list was hug grandchildren, and I immediately burst into tears.

I’ve already told Grandbaby Maya Mae that, two weeks after my second shot, I’m going to hug the stuffing out of her. And we’re going to the movies.

The second thing: have everyone over for dinner.

The third will happen two weeks after my oldest daughter gets her second shot: Going to Louisiana and seeing her for the first time since the August before COVID. Hugging the stuffing out of her too. Seeing firsthand what her new life looks like.

But first…sort of as a pre-first thing, I’m stepping back into myself. I’m leaving home and hunkering down in a beautiful spot and I’m going to do what I do best. Write. Then write some more.

Welcome back, anticipation. Welcome back, excitement.

I’ve missed you.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

I think, whether we’re willing to admit it or not, we all have emotional connections with inanimate objects. Sometimes, we’re made to feel shame about this – “It’s just a material thing!” – but ultimately, I think it’s a human thing. Or, maybe it’s something that makes us human.

The objects that I actually talk to, connect with, claim as family…are my cars. Queen’s song “I’m In Love With My Car” was written for me, I think.

From the very first car I owned to now, everyone has been given a name. Everyone has a personality. My first car was a 1969 Chrysler Newport 4-door sedan that I bought from my father for a dollar in 1980. His name was Tank. He is featured very strongly in my novel, In Grace’s Time, that car such a presence that he became a silent character. When the publisher asked me for ideas for the cover, I said, “It has to have a tan 1969 Chrysler Newport, four-door sedan.” I sent a photo. And so the car is immortalized on the cover.

Since then, there’s been a Dodge Neon, a Chrysler LeBaron, a Ford Windstar (the only vehicle I’ve ever owned that I hated and did not cry when I traded it in), a Nissan Frontier Crewcab Pick-up, a Chrysler Sebring, a Chrysler 300C Hemi, and a Chrysler 200 convertible. Neon (not the most imaginative name, but pronounced with about five E’s), LeB, Windy, Fronty, SeB, Hemi, and Semi.

Last July, I tried and failed to replace Hemi and Semi with a new car, a Beemer convertible. Even before I drove it off the lot, I knew I hated it. How? I didn’t know its name. It was a gorgeous car, but it was so full of technological bibbledy-bobs that I couldn’t even take joy in driving because I was constantly trying to figure out why the car was blipping at me. I returned it in 24 hours and got both my cars back.

But Hemi. Hemi was a 2006. A few years ago, he ran over a deer that was hit by a car three in front of us. He survived, but he was never quite the same. Different things began to go wrong, including his headlights and his interior lights suddenly shutting off with no warning and not coming back on until I could stop the car, shut it down, wait a while, and then restart. Three mechanics couldn’t figure it out. I began to feel unsafe in the car that I called my bodyguard.

Hemi’s incredible engine growled at everyone. He was my get-the-hell-out-of-my-way car. His memory seats moved back so I could get out comfortably, and when I got back in, he restored me to prime driving position. Heated seats, amazing sound system. When I was dealing with cancer, I often slipped out of bed in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. I got into Hemi and just drove. I always said he took care of me. My bodyguard.

And now I felt unsafe.

Still stinging from my failure this past July, I began tentatively looking for a new car. At the same dealer where I bought my last several cars, I found a 2018 Chrysler 300S. Low miles. Clean Carfax. A deep, deep burgundy – not show-offy bright red, but classy, strong, assertive. Panoramic sunroof. Lots of bells and whistles…but no memory seats. No Hemi engine. I asked to see it anyway.

In my head, a name popped in. Barry. For berry red, but also because if this car could talk, he would have the deep resonating voice of Barry White.

As I drove to the dealer, I said over and over to Hemi, “You’ve been so great. I can’t believe I’m feeling grateful for a car, but I am. Thank you.” I heard about a million voices mocking me and saying, “It’s just a car! It’s a material thing! That’s all it is!”

No. My cars wrap me in comfort. In strength. When I’m feeling scared or lonely or worthless, I drive. And every car I’ve had, except for the stupid minivan, lifted me up. Whether it’s the power of the engine and the car around me, or the music coming from the speakers, or the car doing my every bidding, turn here, stop there, speed up, slow down…I come back into myself and return home feeling better.

And Hemi was the king of them all. But even cars and kings get old.

I test-drove Barry and I brought him home. By the time I was done with the paperwork, Hemi was no longer in the parking lot. “Hello, Barry,” I said as we left the dealership. “I think you’re going to be my new best friend.” But I wept all the way home.

There are new bells and whistles to learn. There are some losses – no memory seats, no CD player. Our relationship was unsteady until today.

I was driving home from a doctor’s appointment. My heated seat was on, my interior temperature set at 78 degrees. There was music – I found a portable CD player developed just for cars. It plugs into the speakers, and while I can’t control the music from the screen or the steering wheel, it will do.

And then I heard a blip.

I looked around, wondering what went off. And then I saw, on the car’s screen (which I’m still adjusting to – I’ve never had a car with a screen before) – a weather warning. My car was informing me that my county was under a high wind warning.

Barry was telling me the weather. And keeping me safe.

I laughed out loud and then I patted the dashboard. “Thank you, Barry,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

Feeling safe. Feeling cared for. Even when it comes from a car – an inanimate object – it’s oh so welcome.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

If you live, like I do, in a place that has all four seasons, you know how the weather can start to affect your emotions. Each season has a moment that grabs my heart and lifts it. In fall, there’s always that day when I realize all the colors on the trees are changing and my lush green landscape has turned to reds and golds and oranges – sunset and sunrise all day in the trees. In winter, even though I hate snow, there is still that moment of the first snow, especially when it happens at night, especially as it glows in the moonlight. In summer, there’s the heat that falls around my shoulders like a blanket and follows me inside and I look up to the sky as blue as what you think of when you think of sky, and there’s the sun, and everything is logy and lazy.

And then there’s spring, after a long, cold, snowy winter. This year, there’s the spring after the second winter of COVID. Cabin fever on steroids. The black and white photograph season that feels never-ending.

This spring.

Early this week, we were gifted our very first warm temperatures of the season. We zoomed up to the fifties. I opened every window in the condo, and both deck doors. I breathed in, and I think my walls did too, and the cats fell over each other, trying to get to the third floor deck door. It was lovely, and I couldn’t believe it was only March.

I had to bring my convertible, a 2013 Chrysler 200 named Semi, to have his emissions tested for my license plate renewal. I usually dread having to do this, because I don’t drive that car in winter. I avoid road salt and snow and slush. With my license plate renewal always due in March, it’s like playing weather roulette to see how I can get the car to an emission station without suffering any underbody splatter.

But this year…warm temperatures!

I don’t think the car was backed fully out of the garage before I hit the button that lowers the roof. I also hit the button that turns on my heated seat – how wonderful to be toasty as the still chilly wind rushed around me. The place I go to for emissions is located outside the city limits, so as I hit the highway, I also hit the gas pedal and yet another button…on the CD player.

Oh, glory!

I sang. I danced in my seat. I revved the engine and I laughed out loud. Spring!

Semi passed his test and I drove happily back home. As I got near the city, stoplights popped up like daffodils, and I didn’t even care when one turned red. It meant that much longer before I was home and the car was back in his garage and I was back behind my desk. At one red light, I was belting out Charlie Puth’s “One Call Away”, feeling every bit like the super hero referred to in the lyric, “I’m only one call away, I’ll be there to save the day. Superman’s got nothin’ on me…” when from the next lane, another convertible-driver called out, “I’m calling! I’m calling!” I was mortified for all of two seconds, but then I joined in his laughter and I waved as he turned right and I pulled ahead.

It didn’t stop me from singing. I hit replay and started all over again. And then I came to another light, a particularly long one with turn arrows and such, just as it changed to red. What luck! More time!  While I sang and swayed, I noticed the music suddenly got richer.

Because the guy in the car next to me, with his windows rolled down, started harmonizing.

And we sang. I turned toward him and our voices blended like the sweet air and new heat of spring. We raised our melody and our harmony to the new sky, just as blue as we pictured it would be, in the gray days of February.

When the light changed, he dipped his head in a bow and I waved my hand queen-style.

At home again, my garage door closed, my car silent, and I was parked too, in front of my computer, the warmth and music continued all around me. I said, out loud, “I think I just had my moment.”

I was right.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

If you want to see/hear the song we were singing, here you go.

 

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

When I considered what my “moment” was this week, I knew exactly when it was that it occurred. In fact, it was an over-the-moon moment, as opposed to a gentle “aaaah” moment when the realization of happiness falls over me like the cloth of a just-right shirt. This week’s moment was like standing in the middle of a sudden downpour, and the rain is warm and invigorating.

But I was reluctant to write about it, and I took a (another) moment to examine why. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the discomfort was because it would feel like bragging.

We all experienced a conundrum when we were in school, and we likely experience it with our children or grandchildren now. When we, or they, accomplished something, we encourage them to cheer, to relish, to enjoy. True moments of accomplishment can be rare, and we say they should be celebrated. Stand in front of a greeting card display sometime, and you will find a whole section under the heading, “Congratulations!” We were told to cheer, we cheer for our children and grandchildren. But as we get older, and we settle into our lives, sometimes cheering feels like bragging. Like we’re calling attention to ourselves. And like it’s not a good thing to do.

At AllWriters’, whenever a student has a publication acceptance, we “woohoo” it. On social media and in the classes themselves, we cheer. I tell my students this is important, because the accomplishments in writing and in the publishing industry are so hard to accomplish and happen with way less frequency than rejection. Man, celebrate! Cheer! Revel!

Some of my students make sure I know about the opportunity to cheer – they email me, tag me on Facebook, jump up and down right in front of me. Others kind of sidle in sideways, lower their heads, and whisper, “I have something you can woohoo about…” The point being that, even if a person looks away and says, “Oh, shucks,” when a cheer goes up, you can bet they’re glowing inside.

And I am all about making my students glow inside. So why did I hesitate to share my own glow?

Probably because I saw a writer once on Facebook, a fairly well-known writer, say, “Why is it that some writers feel the need to cheer about their publications? It’s just what we do.”

I’ve met this writer. And I’ve seen the position of his head, which is normally tilted back so he can look down his nose. And because I cheer for my students and I also cheer for myself, I shrunk a bit that day. And I think of it whenever I have something to announce.

However, there is something else I noticed about that particular down-the-nose looking writer. His posts are mostly complaints about the publishing industry, complaints about editors, complaints about other writers. Even though he’s had some significant accomplishments. So no wonder he doesn’t celebrate. He can’t even feel the joy of what he does, what he’s done, and who he is.

I can.

So I’m throwing my discomfort to the side. And I’m reveling. Here is my moment of happiness, which occurred over a 48-hour period.

• My next poetry chapbook, Olivia In Five, Seven, Five; Autism In Haiku, has been accepted by Finishing Line Press! It will be my 13^th book overall, my 4^th poetry book. And this book, as you can probably tell by the title, is so very near and dear to my heart. YES!
• A few hours after this acceptance, I heard from a literary magazine called Months To Years. They focus on pieces about death and dying. I’d sent them an essay, and the editor emailed to tell me they loved it, but their spring issue was full, would I be okay with waiting until the summer issue? Hmmmmm…SURE!
• And then a few hours after that, the editor from Cutthroat Literary Press emailed, asking me if the story I submitted to them, Even The Air, was still available for publication in their upcoming anthology called Corona Chronicles. It is indeed, since I only submitted it to them. So it will be coming out too. AND this is the first story/chapter from my current novel-in-progress to be accepted as a story. Before I’ve even finished the book. YES!
• A little after that, an email came from a woman in Tampa. Seems she read If You Tame Me and loved it so much, she approached an AARP representative there and they formed a book club and are going to discuss it. Would I consider Zooming in to the discussion? YES!

So in a 48-hour period, I had acceptances in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Acceptances for a book, an anthology, and a magazine. And an invitation to a book club that was discussing one of my books.

WOOHOO! This kind of thing doesn’t happen very often. Acceptances happen, but to have them all fall, bing, bing, bing, and soak me in that rainstorm I mentioned at the beginning…oh, that’s rare.

In this field, and in any career involving the arts, the slaps on the back are few and far between. Even rarer are the slaps we give to our own backs. For what we’ve done. For what we’re doing. For who we are.

I’m slapping! I’m slapping!

And I’m not going to shrink at all. I don’t want my students to shrink. Neither will I.

WOOHOO!

Please celebrate something you did today. Please acknowledge it. And then go to bed smiling.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Last week, I worked with a client whose scene in a novel just felt heartwarming and dead on, and just so basic and familiar with memory, it could have been a photograph. It’s a fantasy novel, and his main character, a young girl, puts on a dress for the first time ever. Her life and her personality haven’t been such that she would ever wear a dress, and in this scene, she has no choice. It is the only thing clean to wear.

After the dress is pulled over her head and settled on her body, the girl looks down at the fabric flowing loose from her waist to, if I remember right, her knees. She looks for a bit longer, then, in a barely there, oh so subtle moment, her hips swivel. Swish, swish. And the dress swirls in that wonderful way fabric does with this gentle and feminine movement.

Swish, swish.

Anyone who has a girl, anyone who knows a girl, anyone who is a girl, knows this moment and this movement. It doesn’t matter if she never wanted to wear a dress or if she’s always wanted to wear a dress, there is just that breath of a moment. Swish, swish.

I praised my student for getting it exactly right.

I thought of my own daughters, Katie and Olivia, 13 years apart and total opposites in personality and passions. Katie teaches math at the University of Louisiana – Lafayette.  I used to buy her used math textbooks when she was a child and that was how she kept herself busy. She had a calendar where each month showed a fractal, and when she moved into her own apartment in Florida to get her Masters in math, I carefully took all those pictures out of the calendar and formed them on the wall behind her bed, so she could have a fractal headboard. Olivia, in the meanwhile, cries her way through math. She was required to take a math class and now a statistics class in college and she hates both of them. But give her the opportunity to create art, or write, or play one of her four instruments, and she’s happy. Katie played the flute, but I don’t think she’s picked it up since graduating high school. Katie danced – ballet, tap, jazz – and would dance still, if given the opportunity and if COVID would ever go away. Olivia danced for a bit, because her big sister did, but then gave it up.

And as for dresses, Katie wanted to wear them all the time. All the time, every season, every day. Olivia could only wear dresses in warm weather when she could go bare-legged, because she hated the tights required in winter, so as a result, she preferred leggings and t-shirts or sweaters.

But both of them, when they pulled a dress over their heads, would stand for a moment, look at the fabric, and swivel. Swish, swish.

Whether the dresses were for fun, for school, for dances, for dates, a choice of their own or a requirement from Mom…swish, swish.

And I remember swishing too.

The day I talked to my student about his scene, Olivia messaged me on Facebook. She told me she had a sudden craving for a long-sleeved dress. “I only have one,” she said, “and it’s ¾ sleeve.” I hesitated to mention that she didn’t wear dresses, so instead, I said, “It’s winter, and you don’t like tights.”

“Oh, I can wear tights now.”

I’ve been amazed at what she’s learning in college. Tolerance for tights measures right up there.

Wanting to avoid the malls and the stores, due to COVID, of course, I suggested we go to Goodwill. I also had an ulterior plan – if we bought a dress and she never wore it, it wouldn’t cost a fortune. Olivia also has one stunning dress from there that we purchased when she started high school and needed a black dress for orchestra. It has an odd puffy hemline and zippers and buckles and Livvy wears it with fishnets and combat boots. She looks like a heavy metal violinist. Somehow, she could handle the strings-between-the-toes of fishnets, but not the leg-hugging tights. When we got the dress home and looked it up, we discovered it was actually the work of a very exclusive designer. Livvy wore it for her graduation photos. So maybe we would strike gold again.

We did, or at least, I did, but not with a designer. I sat on the bench of the dressing room while she tugged on the dresses. My job was to put the dresses back on their hangers after she pulled them off and tossed them over her head at me. And with every dress, every single one, whether she liked it or not, she would stop after pulling it on, look at the skirt, and then ever so slowly and subtly, swivel her hips.

Swish, swish. Swish, swish. Swish, swish.

I think she tried on 10 dresses, and I watched, mesmerized. Every image of both of my girls, every dress from toddler to adult, every moment watching the girls grow up, floated before my eyes. Then and now.

And I saw myself too.

Swish, swish.

What a lovely afternoon. Oh, and we bought five of the dresses, I think.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

We hear and say a lot about the little things. Little things mean a lot. Little things make a difference. It’s the little things in life. Little steps. We’re even told to not sweat over the small stuff.

2020 was all about the big things. 2021 hasn’t been much different yet. We aren’t just sniffling, we’re dealing with a pandemic. We’re seeing unprecedented numbers in illness, in hospitalizations, in deaths. We just had a huge election and a huge response to that election. We’ve had huge crimes against humanity in the last year. We’ve even had big weather. For heaven’s sake, Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas.

So…the little things. Small stuff.

On Tuesday, I was in a hurry when I ran out my front door. My car, in an attempt to get it out of the never-ending snow (big weather!), was parked across the street in the parking garage. As I turned to trot down the sidewalk, I caught sight of a small face looking at me out of a snowdrift.

No, not a child’s face. A small face, a photograph. I wondered if it was a driver’s license and so I pulled it out. It was a work ID badge, and a very, very nice work ID badge. Encased in a tough plastic holder, bearing a bar code, and a name. Zack. Who, according to this ID, worked in the physical therapy department of a senior living community in a nearby town. The ID told me he worked there since 2018. It didn’t tell me his last name. There was a belt clip, and even one of those stretchy retractable cord things that allowed you, or Zack, actually, to pull the ID from his person, beep it through a reader, then let it snap back against him. A neat way to prevent loss.

That didn’t work.

I was running late for an appointment. I knew Zack didn’t live nearby – I know all of my neighbors in my condo group. It wasn’t a matter of just dropping it off in a mailbox. So I tucked it in my pocket and ran for my car. As I drove toward my appointment, I called information and was connected to the senior living community.

After I explained to the receptionist what I found, I said, “I’d like to get this back to Zack. I’m sure these cost a pretty penny – you have great IDs!”

She laughed and said, “How nice of you! Do you think you could get a padded envelope, to protect it, and then mail it to us?” She then recited the address. I was so flabbergasted, and trying to concentrate on my driving on slippery roads, so I said, “Okay, but…can’t you…but…okay.” And I hung up. Afterward, I really wished I’d said, “Can’t you just call down to your physical therapy department and ask for Zack? Or patch me through?” But I didn’t.

I stewed over this through my appointment and on the drive home. I mean, really. It’s an ID. No big deal. Yeah, he’d have to shell out some bucks to replace it, most likely. But really. Have me mail it? I knew I couldn’t go there and drop it off – COVID kept visitors from coming in.

I should just throw it away and forget about it, I decided.

But I didn’t. I brought it in with me. And I posted about it on Facebook. This created a long list of suggestions. Put it back outside, in case Zack comes back to look for it. Hang it from a tree or a fence. I explained I live in the city, there are no trees, there is no fence, so then I was told to build a fence (all in fun – not serious). Put it in a plain envelope, slap a couple stamps on it, send it off. Call the senior community back and ask them to send me a postage-paid envelope.

While the Facebook reaction was growing, I met with a client, and during that meeting, the studio phone rang. When I could, I checked my voicemail.

“Hi, Kathie, my name is Zack. I think you have something of mine! Give me a call back, please, and thank you so much!”

I stared at my phone and laughed. Then I called him back and we arranged to have him pick up his badge. Apparently, he’d been picking up a package from near here and the ID must have fallen out of his pocket. I asked him how he got a hold of me.

“My friend Danielle – she called me and said you found my ID and were looking for me.”

So…someone not from the senior community. I went back and looked over the comments on my Facebook page. No Danielle. But someone somewhere saw it or heard about it and knew Zack and got him to me.

Six degrees of separation.

Small things.

When Zack came to pick up the ID, we both wore masks, but I could see that his face was the one that looked out at me from the snowbank. “Thank you so much,” he said. “This would have set me back a bit.”

“I figured,” I said. “It’s a nice ID badge.”

“I don’t have any cash on me, or I’d give you a reward,” he said.

I laughed. I mean, really. I wanted to get him the ID to save him money, not cost him money. “Don’t even think it,” I said. “I’m glad to help.”

“Well, I’ll pay the kindness forward then,” he said.

Perfect.

A little thing. And now he’ll do a little thing. And hopefully the chain will continue. It’s amazing how good it made me feel.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

23 or so years ago, when I divorced my first husband, I drove out of there without any idea what to do for my car. I could fill it with gas, and I could take it through a car wash. That was about it. I didn’t know how to fill my tires or change one. I didn’t know how to check the oil. I didn’t know anything.

I’ve learned a lot since. Especially since my current husband doesn’t drive. I am the car person in my family. And I kinda like it. I so wish now I’d taken auto shop classes in high school. Engines fascinate me. Cars fascinate me. But I still don’t know a whole lot.

Olivia dreamed of owning a VW Beetle since she was in late elementary school. Her room at home and at college is decorated with Beetle posters. She has a Beetle throw rug. She has Beetle t-shirts and Beetle jewelry. Her high school graduation gift was a little white VW Beetle, who she calls Snowbug.  I call it (her) Lil B. I love this little car, particularly after I did a spectacular job of showing my lack of knowledge by buying her first very used Beetle, a black one called Starlight Lashes (it had pink eyelashes). It was very, very, very used, but I thought it was fine for a first car, one for her to learn how to drive in. I don’t even remember how many miles it had, but it was well over 100,000. I called it the rollerskate. But it chugged more like a train. The darn thing broke down just sitting in the parking garage so many times, the tow driver knew me by my first name. Olivia rarely drove it, and I ditched it before she learned how to drive. Then, later, I bought her this much nicer Beetle. She learned to drive, and now she and the car move together, back and forth, to college.

Recently, Wisconsin has been hit with lots of snow and then bone-chilling cold. Lil B, out in the college’s uncovered parking lot day and night, was buried in snow. And then frozen. Solid. She got it mostly scraped off and drove it home. But the driver’s side front window was about an inch down, and it wouldn’t close or open the rest of the way. The inside of the car was covered with frost.

She drove home anyway.

I tried scraping all around the window, even getting the scraper into the indentation where the window disappears. I pounded gently. Nothing.

“I think there’s ice below the window, in the door,” I said. “I’m going to buy some de-icer.”

The next day, I trotted off to the auto parts store and acted like I knew what I was doing. Can of de-icer in hand, I had Livvy warm the car up while I was on my way home. Then I sprayed and sprayed in that little groove. We waited a few minutes.

Nothing.

I sighed and told my daughter to drive the car up into parking garage, so no more snow would get inside of it. Then I would have to drive Olivia back to school, and get her car in to the mechanic this week, because I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I went into the house, dejected, while she drove it up the ramp.

From the garage, she texted me. “Mama! The window went down and then it closed all the way! It worked!”

And I suddenly felt like the mechanic in the golden coveralls. I figured it out! I diagnosed the problem! I fixed it!

I very much remember the first time I checked my oil after my divorce. I was driving a cute little Dodge Neon, that I loved with all my heart. I propped the hood up, used the oil stick, checked it like a chemist at work on the cure for cancer, and then went inside and bought the oil. I bought the correct oil, after reading what kind in the manual, and then rereading it and rereading it again. I used a paper funnel and I filled my oil. I rechecked it. I rechecked it again. It was at just the right level. I cured cancer!

Well, no. But I sure felt capable there, in the gas station’s parking lot. I wanted to ask other drivers if they wanted me to check their oil, just so I could do it again.

And now, the driver’s side window of my daughter’s little VW Beetle. And you know what? I showed her how to do it too. So she can be a mechanic in golden coveralls.

There have been many challenges in my life, over what I can and cannot do. It’s amazing how something as simple as checking a car’s oil or getting a window to open and close can lift the spirits and the confidence.

But I didn’t stay Supermechanic for long. When my daughter drove back to school that day, I texted her and asked if the car did okay on the drive.

“It did just fine, Mama,” she said.

“Your mother is brilliant,” I answered.

“Oh? What did you do?”

Sigh.

Well, I still have the golden coveralls in my closet.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Well, there are two moments. I had one all picked out, and then this morning happened, and then I had two. So I’m going to write about them both. One is sort of ego-y, but honestly, I think one of the good things about getting older is you don’t care anymore. I no longer look at things that make me happy and think, Can I talk about this? Will it make people think I’m bragging or snotty? If they do, well, that’s their problem, I guess. I’m going to revel.

So the first one, which is the ego-y one. Last week, I got my hair cut and colored. As I was getting ready to leave, I picked up my purse and immediately, the woman two chairs over began asking about it. I get a lot of mileage with this purse – it has a working clock on the front. People stop me to ask about it, and of course, when they ask where I got it and why, it’s a natural lead-in to talking about my first novel, The Home For Wayward Clocks. So I rolled into that explanation when the woman two more chairs over said, “I have that novel on my bookshelf, Kathie Giorgio, and in fact, I have all of your books there.”

My jaw dropped.

Turns out she was someone who bid on a basket of my books at a raffle. She wanted them, bid like crazy for them, she won them, she read them, they’re displayed in her home.

This sort of thing really doesn’t happen often. When it does, it’s just oh-so-good. Validating, Energizing. If it wasn’t for COVID, I would have hugged the stuffing out of her. I smiled all the way home.

Priceless. It’s said that the best thing you can do for a writer is leave a review. That’s true, from a sales perspective. But from an emotional perspective, the best thing you can do for a writer is contact them and tell them how much the book or books meant to you. It’s wonderful.

So then came moment number 2, which was surrounded by pretty high anxiety. I was due this morning for my routine breast MRI. Routine, since I had breast cancer in 2017. Because of heavy scar tissue, my doctors have me on an every-six-months cycle, alternating mammograms and MRIs. MRIs are very grueling. You’re stuffed in a tube, but the breast MRI adds its own unique bit of torture: you’re on your stomach, laying over a plastic mold that runs up through your sternum to your collar bones, dropping your breasts down into gaps below the table. Your back is arched a bit and your face is put into one of those cut-out circle pillows. Your arms are pulled up next to your head, so you look like you’re flying. Oh, and it’s hot, despite the fan they have blowing on you, and incredibly noisy. I know people who have to take calming drugs before they do this test. Calming drugs make me anxious – go figure – and so I just face it down.

I was a wreck going in. Even being prepared doesn’t help with this. They did add a mirror this time, somehow attached to the pillow, so I could see the room behind me. That helped – it felt a little less enclosed. But my right shoulder locked in place and was excruciating. I couldn’t move it because that would wreck the test and we’d have to start all over. Even with earplugs, it was very noisy. And of course, before, during, and after, I was worried about the result.

When they finally backed me out of there, I was soaked in sweat. They had to lift and move my right arm for me, to get it going again. It is now two and a half hours since I left there, and my body still bears marks where the plastic form was. I didn’t cry while I was there, but I did, all the way home.

And the moment of happiness? Within a half-hour, I had an email from my doctor, cheering that the MRI was all clear. Clear, clean, cancer-free.

The breast cancer road continues long after the cancer is removed. I’ve been talking with a friend who is newly diagnosed and now breast-deep in chemotherapy, with a double mastectomy marked in red on her calendar. She asked me this week if I hated seeing the ads for breast cancer, on TV, online, showing smiling happy women, wearing pink. If I hated the middle school humor around it, save the ta-tas, help the girls, and on and on.

“Yes,” I answered. “All of it.”

“I can’t watch it,” she said. “I turn it off. This is hell. This is hell on earth.”

It is. And while I no longer think about it every day, while I can now look at myself and not flinch at my grossly distorted, but still there right breast, it’s a part of my psyche now. I know women who are 25 years out who still worry when their yearly exam comes up. I know that my days of running in for a mammogram as just another errand on my to-do list are over.

But…I’m okay. Not only am I okay, but someone out there has all of my books on display in her house.

I smiled all the way home from the haircut and color. I wept all the way home from the MRI. But I’m cheering now. And refusing to look at the calendar for my next appointment. I’ll deal with it when it comes. And cheer then too.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Since early spring of last year, I’ve been visited regularly by many large, multi-colored cranes. Not birdy-type cranes. Huge, machinery-type cranes.

My city finally decided to put a roof over a 3 ½ story straight-up ramp into one of our parking garages. Every winter, since we moved in here 14 years ago, I’ve sworn at that thing. If it snowed or iced, that ramp was impossible to get up, and unsafe to drive down. From my vantage point across the street, I watched through snowstorms and icestorms as cars and trucks fishtailed, smacking into the concrete walls on either side of the ramp, made it ¾ of the way up, then slid all the way down, hopefully stopping before they smacked into the concrete wall waiting for them at the bottom. I often wondered what enticed the designers to have a ramp of that sharp incline left bare naked to the elements. But now…a roof. And it’s been under construction for months.

Since summer, the cranes have visited, literally right outside my door, close enough at times that I was able to pat them. They lifted men and materials, and I’ve watched the work with fascination. As isolated as I am during the pandemic, the cranes provided an odd sort of company. The men on the cranes often turned to wave at me or give me a thumb’s up as I stood and sat, read and wrote on my deck. I happily waved back.

I’ve always had a fascination for things on wheels, especially those that pack power. When I was six years old, I moved from St. Louis to way northern Minnesota, where I lived in a small town tucked between Duluth and Cloquet. Esko. Our house didn’t yet have a garage, but it had a huge sand pile where the garage would be, and for me, that was the best part of the location. I unpacked all the toy cars I owned, plunked myself in the dirt, and began to play. I built roads and mountains, valleys, racetracks, construction yards and garages.

Vroom!

While I had my share of “girly” toys, Barbies, Breyers horses, I also collected and delighted in Matchbox cars and Hotwheels cars. I had the bendable bright orange tracks that looped the loop. I had the “supercharger” that shot cars out at what I believed to be great speed. But, being who I was, my play carried things one step further: my cars had names. They had families and relationships. The cars didn’t just race and crash, win and lose, they had LIVES. They were put away in a certain order, so that the families remained together. In my mind, the cars talked to each other. They laughed and they cried. And most importantly, they kept me company. They helped me write stories in my head. And as I learned to write, they gave me characters to put down on the page.

This love has extended to my vehicles, from my first car, a 1969 Chrysler Newport sedan named the Tank that I purchased from my father for a dollar in 1979, to a Nissan Frontier pick-up truck named Fronty, to the rest of the Chrysler family: LeB, the 1994 LeBaron convertible; SeB, the 2003 Sebring convertible; Hemi, the 2006 300C Hemi; and Semi, the 2013 200 convertible. Hemi and Semi still reside with me. And when I drive them, we talk. They keep me company.

And now, the cranes. They come and go in families too. Yes, they have names as well. Not very creative names, I’m afraid. Big Dawes (look at the photo – you’ll see why). Greenie. Tall, tall Orange Stretch. Big Blue. This morning, I was delighted to see two blue cranes out my window. Big Blue and now, Blue Bonnet. A dad. A mom. A son. A son. And now, a daughter.

It’s winter now, and we’ve had quite a bit of snow. I can’t go on my deck, unless I want to step knee-high through the drifts. I don’t. So as I watched this morning, I felt a bit cut off from my big blue metal company.

When I went downstairs to the second floor for lunch, I moved first to the floor to ceiling windows in the living room. They face over the street, and they put me just as near Big Blue as I’d been this summer on my deck. There was thick glass between us now, of course.

“Hi,” I said, and tapped on the window. I waved to the newcomer, Blue Bonnet, who was a little further up the street and would have been out of my reach even if I was able to get on the deck.

So maybe it was the movement in the window. Maybe someone somehow heard my tap. But the man on Big Blue turned and saw me. He smiled and he waved. I looked toward Blue Bonnet, up the street, and saw the man on that crane giving me a thumb’s up.

I laughed and waved back.

Good company. Small gestures make all the difference.

Vroom.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

On Monday, my oldest son and first child, Christopher, turned 37 years old. And today, his daughter, my only grandchild, Grandbaby Maya Mae, turned 8 years old. I love that they are attached to each other and both firsts for me – first child, first grandchild.

When Christopher was born, I was only 23 years old; I would turn 24 in July. I was a stay-at-home mom, and Christopher is my only child (there are three more!) who indeed was my only child – for 24 months, before his brother was born. He was the best possible child to have as my first – he loved routine, still does, and before he was six weeks old, he and I established a daily rhythm that suited us both. At the time, in those dinosaur days, I worked on an electric typewriter, after hand-writing my first drafts. Christopher took a nap in the morning, so that’s when I sat at the kitchen table and wrote in my notebook. Then he took a nap in the afternoon, and that’s when I typed what I wrote that morning. Because he was born in January in Wisconsin, we spent most of his early months inside, and in between his naps, my days were all things Christopher. In between his naps, we played and we read books and I marveled at everything he did. I remember, since we were stuck inside, I would take time every late afternoon when the light began to change outside, to walk him to every window in our small 2-bedroom apartment. I talked to him about the view from every angle. About the snow and what was under the snow and what we would do when it grew warm out. About the sun, which was going down, and about the moon, which was about to rise. The light changing from gold to silver.

We had such a magical time.

Years later, when Christopher was getting married, I warned him not to make me a grandmother before I turned 50. It was hard enough, finding him at an age to be married and off into his own life, without being made into a grandmother, who I likened to Grandma Walton from the television show, The Waltons. I told Christopher that if he made me a grandmother before I was 50, I would remove the apparatus that made me a grandmother before I was 50. Grandbaby Maya Mae was born when I was 52, and I would turn 53 in July. My son listens to me.

My first glimpse of Maya was at an ultrasound. The moment that little face appeared on the screen, so much more clearly than my own ultrasounds years before, everything in me melted. Who cared if being a grandmother meant I was getting old? There was this little girl!!!!

I had the great privilege of being in the birthing room when Maya was born. I was there to support my son, who, like all the jokes made in TV movies and shows, would faint at the sight of blood. So while he stood at his wife’s shoulder, I watched down below and reported to him everything that was going on. Just like in the beginning, he and I worked together in a rhythm.

And I was there when Maya first slipped into the world. I can’t even write words about that moment.

It was such a magical time.

This child. The book, Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News, is filled with Maya Mae Moments. She told me that trees talk to her, trees pronounced as “srees”, because to her, that’s what T’s do. She loves “swocolate” milk. She confessed that mosquito bites make her hair fall out. She puzzled over how she has five toes here and five toes there, five fingers here and five fingers there, but only one head. “Why only one head, Gamma Kaffee?” she asked me. “I would wike 5 heads.”

I told her that would make just too much hair to brush and too many thoughts to think, and she thought about that, then nodded.

Her backseat rendition of Uptown Funk about caused me to drive off the road. The lyric is, “Uptown funk you up, Uptown funk you up.” Except in Maya’s world, the “funk” didn’t come out that way. I thought her mother was going to die when I told her. “Funk!” Amber exclaimed. “Funk!” I dropped them off at home and howled all the way to mine.

Recently, when I asked Maya, via our nightly read-a-book and discussion on Zoom, what she wanted for her birthday, she said, “I don’t know.” She put a finger to her chin. “I need to consider what suits me,” she said.

A few days later, she showed me a book of 101 knock-knock jokes that she’s reading. “This,” she said, brandishing the book to the camera, “is a torture device.”

(She’s getting a book of 101 Elephant Jokes for her birthday. I figure it suits her.)

Back in 2017, when Maya had just turned four, she sang another song in my back seat, and it ended with an unintelligible word. I asked her to repeat it, and when she did, I still couldn’t translate. “Oooookay,” I said.

She gave the mightiest of sighs. “Gamma Kaffee, you just don’t get it.”

“I’m sorry, Maya Mae,” I said.

Another sigh, as big as the first. “Nobody gets it,” she said in a very small voice.

But I tried, and eventually, I did, by Googling the song and then repeating the lyric back to her. And I will always try to get it. Always. Every word, every facial expression, every emotion, every moment. I had her amazing father as my only child for 24 months. We shared magic together. And I’ve had Maya as my only grandchild for 8 years. More and more magic. She is held tightly to my heart. I will always listen. I will always try until I get it.

Maya and I see each other through Zoom mostly, because of the pandemic. I haven’t seen her since October, when she came to dinner after I was awarded a place on the Wall of Stars at my high school. This Saturday, she’s coming here for lunch, for a special birthday cake, for presents.

To see me. And she’s bringing her daddy. My 37-year old son.

(And to get a torture device.)

I can’t wait.

Magic.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.