Author: Kathie

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

A couple days ago, I was sitting at my kitchen island, quietly eating lunch and reading, when a sudden squeal of feedback shrieked from down the hall, followed by a BA-WANG!

The dog fled up the stairs.

My daughter Olivia called, “I’m going to practice my electric guitar. I need to use my amp.”

I thought of my daughter’s other instruments. The sweet violin. The classic sound of acoustic guitar. The twinkly plunking of the ukulele.

But she was practicing the electric guitar.

“Okay,” I said.

Last semester, my daughter was in her dorm at college, happily moving through her freshman year. She brought all of her instruments with her, except for the electric guitar. Amps weren’t allowed in the dorm. And so the beloved pink electric guitar has been sitting, with its amp, in hibernation, at home. This semester, she’s still in college, still in her freshman year, but thanks to COVID-19, she’s back at home and her classes are all online.

So now, the electric guitar. A benefit she could reach for that wouldn’t be at college.

“Okay,” I said again. The dog remained upstairs. I munched on my egg salad as I listened to her twang a warm-up. And then…and then…

The First Noel.

I sat back. The First Noel, a Christmas carol, was being played on a pink electric guitar, drifting down my hallway, in April. During a pandemic. During a quarantine.

“Okay,” I said again.

You know, everything has just become surreal. Toilet paper disappearing moments after it is stocked on shelves. People wearing homemade masks, and those masks quickly becoming basically a fashion statement. All over Facebook, photographs of folks with masks, their eyes smiling above them. Eating dinner out…in. Dropping off my granddaughter’s Easter presents on her porch, then waving at her through the picture window and calling, “I love you.” Having to imagine the hug. Smiling at the photo my daughter-in-law sends me of Grandbaby Maya Mae holding the larger than life pink bunny, who she has named Bun Bun.

And now, The First Noel, on a pink electric guitar, in April, during a pandemic.

I sat a little longer and listened to the end of the song. I hummed along. Then Olivia went into a song I only know as the Baby Bumblebee song: “I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee! Won’t my mommy be so proud of me…”

And I laughed.

As she continued, playing a full concert of songs, most of which I didn’t recognize, I went on upstairs. It was my writing time, and so I worked on my new book, accompanied by the sound of my daughter’s musical talent. Her sense of humor. Her brilliance, which has lit up my day so many times before.

My shoulders relaxed. And for that time, there was no pandemic. There was no quarantine. There were no masks, no daily death count, no politicizing at the expense of people’s lives. There was just normal. Just the familiar.

My daughter reached for the familiar, and a familiar she wouldn’t have, if she wasn’t at home because of COVID-19.

And I reached for a familiar too, a familiar I wouldn’t have, if she wasn’t at home because of COVID-19.

Even if it was The First Noel on a pink electric guitar in April. During a pandemic.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Like many, if not most, people, I’ve had some problems dealing with this whole pandemic thing. There is the frustration of limited movement, limited resources, limited interactions. But ultimately, there’s the fear. Will I get it? Will my family get it? And for me, there’s an addition: How will this affect my small business, AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop. The fear also centers around my having at least four of the “risk factors”: I’m soon to be sixty, I have asthma, I’m in treatment for breast cancer, and I have high blood pressure. I feel like a walking target, if the COVID bugs zoom anywhere near me.

All of this began manifesting itself in insomnia, in feelings of panic, and ultimately, sleepwalking, which I haven’t done in years. This morning, I woke up as I was attempting to pull back the covers and climb out of bed to go who knows where. I was only thwarted by my cat, who was laying on top of my covers and making it difficult to get out. The struggle woke me. I guess I should thank her.

But I am getting some stress relief now, and it came in the strangest way. When I first mentioned the sleepwalking on Facebook, my son Andy’s friend, Rayne, who has been a part of our lives since they were in high school together, and who I consider a part of my family, messaged me and said I needed to start playing Animal Crossing, a video game. Andy, an avid gamer, took up the call.

So you have to understand – Animal Crossing is the only video game that has ever seduced me. A game called Harvest Moon came close to having the same impact, but Animal Crossing is IT in my book. Years ago, I bought myself my own Nintendo Game Cube system to just play that game. I bought myself a Nintendo Gameboy DS to play that game. And now…well, there is a new Animal Crossing out. For the Nintendo Switch, a system I don’t have and never wanted. I drooled, but said, “No. I’m not going to pay for a new system now, when I don’t know how my business is going to fare with COVID-19.”

Later that same day, I was going through an old photo album of my mother’s. My mom passed several years ago, and my brother has been going through her extensive photo albums, dating back to when she met and married my father. My brother went through them and took what he wanted, and right before the virus got serious, I went to his house, collected the albums, and started to go through them on my own. I found an article that I’d written for Wisconsin Magazine, a part of the Milwaukee Journal’s Sunday edition years ago. This article was published in June of 1992. It was about my decision to allow my kids to have the original Nintendo game system. And about how my then-husband and I decided to limit their playing time, at first to keep them from overdoing it…but after awhile, it became so we would have time ourselves to play!  There’s a picture of us in front of the system, and smack dab in the front is my son, Andy. And this boy, at six years old, is quoted as saying, “I think kids only get to play Nintendo for an hour, but big people get to play all they want.”

Smart, smart kid. He was right.

So now, when I said no, he took matters into his own hands for his mother. He had to search to find one, but he did, and he bought me a Nintendo Switch. When it arrived, he set it up.

And suddenly, there I was. In charge of my own desert island. I’ve already gone from a tent to my first house, which is decorated sparsely, but it’s getting there. I have a pet seahorse and a pet hermit crab. I go fishing, I catch things in nets, I shake trees for treasure and sometimes get stung by bees. I helped establish the island’s museum. I talk to other island folks, a set of three raccoons who run the store and who gave me my mortgage on my house, and also a purple kangaroo who says “Boing!” a lot, and the world’s ugliest squirrel who likes to work out. This afternoon, I traveled to a mysterious island, where I invited a sheep named Vesta to be my  neighbor. She said she will.

I know. The whole thing sounds nonsensical. And you know what? It is. When I sink into this game, I’m not trapped in my house, but I’m on an island where I can control certain things (not getting stung by bees, apparently). The creatures are happy. I’m not worried. I even planted a money tree. It’s different even from writing fiction, because when I do that, there is always the undertow of concern: Am I writing well? Will readers like this? Is this the best I can do? Playing Animal Crossing, who cares? It only matters to me.

And my stress level? Way, way, way down.

Smart, smart kid, this Andy. And Rayne too. I love them both.

And yes, that helps. Despite Anyway.

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

Well, like pretty much the rest of the world, my family and I went into lockdown this week. On Monday, our governor announced that he was putting in a “Shelter In Place” order, on Tuesday, it became official, and on Wednesday, it went into action. So here we are.

As a family, our habit has been to go out to dinner on Saturday nights, and often, we also go to a movie. I’ve loved going to the movies for pretty much as long as I can remember. The big screen, the brightness, the sound…all of it is larger than life and I soak it in. The theater we tend to go to recently added really nice seats that recline with the push of a button. Every now and then, they run a special with older movies and I delight in bringing my 7-year old granddaughter to them. The last movie we saw together was the original Sleeping Beauty. She was mesmerized, even without all the bells and whistles of current animation. Partway through the movie, I leaned over and whispered, “Do you know how old Grandma was when this movie came out?” She shook her head, her eyes glued to the screen. “I wasn’t even born yet!” I said, and then she did turn to me, her already large brown eyes even larger, widened in amazement that what she was watching was even older than her grandmother!

The first movie I remember seeing in a theater was Disney’s One Hundred And One Dalmatians. I remember sitting in my seat and looking up at that screen and being as agog as my granddaughter. I remember gasping, laughing, crying, putting my hands over my eyes to block the scary parts. But the weird thing is the movie came out in 1961, when I was a year old. I know this took place in Minnesota, where I lived from 1966 – 1972. I remember being little, my legs not hanging over the edge of my seat. But I wasn’t one. It must have been a revival of some sort, a showing of an older movie. All I know for sure is that I loved it, and when I was old enough to date, the best date anyone could take me on was to the movies. The boys I went with knew that the movies weren’t an excuse for a make-out session. My hand could be held or an arm could be draped around my shoulders, but let me focus on that screen. It’s still that way today.

Which is why I felt sad that we were locked down before I had a chance to see The Call Of The Wild or The Assistant, both on my to-see list. We locked down before I could bring my granddaughter to see Onward, which I’d been planning on since I saw its first trailer.

One of the things I’ve learned from this lockdown is that our lives aren’t completely online. We still treasure many places and experiences that occur off the worldwide web. I miss the movies. My gym. Going out to eat. My students.

But last Saturday night, we ordered pizza and wings and had them delivered. Then we sat down to watch a DVD. Yes, a DVD – not a movie on Netflix or Hulu or any of the other streaming services. Michael and I have been hooked on watching the series This Is Us on Hulu, and one of the actors is Mandy Moore. This brought us to remember the movie Saved, with Mandy Moore, Macauley Culkin, and Jena Malone. Michael and I saw the movie together in the theater in 2004 and were so taken with it, we bought the DVD. So we dug it out, dusted off the DVD player, called Olivia out of her room, and we watched.

And here’s the thing. In a theater, I typically sit with Michael on one side of me and Livvy on the other. We eat popcorn and slurp soda and push the buttons on our recliners to get comfortable. But while we might whisper a comment or two to each other during the movie, we’re silent, out of respect for the other theater-goers.

But at home?

We talked.

We talked before the movie, introducing Olivia to what it was about. We talked during the movie, pausing it if we had an extensive conversation. And we talked afterwards, without the disruption of pulling on jackets, grabbing purses, walking to the car, paying attention to the road.

We talked.

It was just the nicest evening.

Now when (note I didn’t say if) life goes back to normal, will I be back in the theater? Oh, yes. Partly for myself, because I love the cinema. But partly for the theaters themselves, because they’re going to be hurting very soon. Someone told me that this is likely the final nail in the coffin for theaters, who have been struggling to compete with streaming systems. I’m going to try to pull out that last nail. I may be almost sixty, but there’s a part of me still that sits agog in front of that large screen, watching black and white dogs do amazing things, and that part of me wants to glance over and see my granddaughter, the reflections of the film playing over her face.

But will I remember this evening of watching a movie I love, watching my daughter watch it, talking to her about it in real time and not waiting for the two hours to go by? Oh, yes. I think we’ll be exploring more of the DVDs we have hidden away in our coffee table.

In the middle of this chaos, it was just the nicest evening.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

Well, holy cow, this is a challenge. Writing a moment of happiness when our entire world has been turned upside down. Kids at home, people staying home from work, closings here, there and everywhere.

So sure. A moment of happiness. Hmmm.

I admit that I’ve spent a large amount of time this week thinking about how awful this all is. Perseverating. Obsessing. Checking the news several times during the day. Watching the numbers. Taking my temperature. Taking Michael’s and Olivia’s temperatures. Coughing and wondering why I was coughing. Sneezing and wondering why I was sneezing. Worrying about family that have customer service jobs and are still out there, working in grocery stores and retail stores, surrounded by panicked people. Who might be coughing and sneezing. And, selfishly, worrying about myself. I’m in the “high risk” category. I have hypertension and asthma.

I told someone I felt a bit like that old carnival game, the shooting galleries, where a row of metal cut-outs streams across a booth and you use a pellet gun or something to shoot at them. I felt like one of those cut-outs, just waiting to be shot.

Well, anyway, it’s not been a great week. I don’t imagine it’s been a great week for anyone, really.

But I found myself in conversation with a student this morning. She’s a coaching client, and she’s local, so typically when we meet, we’re sitting across from each other at my classroom table. I have a lot of fun with this particular client – she’s writing a whacky and wonderful book and she’s whacky and wonderful. We laugh a lot. But this morning, I was looking at her on my computer screen as we Skyped. And she was looking back at me.

We talked some about all the things we can’t do right now, and for an undetermined amount of time. Go to a restaurant. Go to the movies. Go anywhere, locally or otherwise. In Wisconsin, it’s still cold – I just received a weather alert that it’s about to snow. Going out to take a walk is a challenge, and for me, until the weather gets into the upper 40’s, it’s an impossibility. Breathing cold air throws me into an asthma attack. As we talked, I could feel us both deflating, this wonderful whacky student and me. Which was so wrong. We don’t deflate. We laugh.

And then I mentioned that we would still be getting our Thursday Sundaes tonight. Culvers, like many restaurants, is closed for dine-in, but they’re still open for drive-thru. And I saw my student light up. “Sundaes!” she said. “We can still get sundaes!”

I get the feeling I’m not going to be the only one sitting in the drive-thru tonight, ordering frozen custard.

Warming up to my subject, I told my student how, for over a year, I felt bad about having Oral Allergy Syndrome and focused only on the things I could no longer eat. Fresh fruit. Fresh vegetables. Nuts. Seeds. And as a result, I ate horribly unhealthy stuff. But then I began to turn it around. “I started to focus on what I CAN eat,” I said. “Cooked fruits. Cooked vegetables.” With that, everything changed. I began to eat better. I joined a gym (which I now can’t go to, but more on that in a sec). Since January 4th, I’ve lost 18 pounds. It’s slow, but that’s okay.

“Maybe,” I said, “that’s the case here too. Maybe we need to focus on what we can do, instead of what we can’t.” And we began to list them.

Order take-out or delivery (and help restaurants which are struggling now).

Go for a walk (when it’s warm). Visit state parks. Stand and marvel at Lake Michigan.

Watch television shows you used to love, and television shows you’ve never seen before on streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

Talk to family on Skype.

Pore over old photo albums.

Read. Write.

Order a set of free weights and a little stair-stepper to work out at home. (There’s my missing gym.) Shriek with delight when your gym offers a daily Facebook Live free 20-minute workout.

“Go get sundaes!” my wonderful whacky student cheered.

Go get sundaes.

And as much as we can, look at each other on Skype or FaceTime or Facebook Messenger, or hear each other on the phone (call, don’t text), or stand six feet away from each other and say, over and over, “It’s going to be fine. We’re okay.”

Somebody said that to me this week, in my only face-to-face no-screen-between interaction outside of Michael and Olivia and my son Andy. This person sat across from me and said, “You’re going to be fine.” And I said, “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

So let’s keep saying it.

Because that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

 

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

Well, this is a challenge. Trying to find a moment of happiness to write about during a pandemic, and among so much chaos and panic. But you know what? Look around and you’ll find it. Look close.

My daughter Olivia has been thinking about dying her hair for some time. First, she wanted pink. Then purple. Then teal. Then navy blue. The issue is that Olivia’s natural hair is very, very dark, like her father’s, and to achieve those vibrant colors, the hair has to be bleached.

One day, she was in the salon chair, getting a haircut, and I was waiting for her. A young woman came in, her hair just looking…wrecked. There’s no other word for it. It looked like it was electrocuted and frazzled and left to die. I saw Olivia eyeing her as she explained to the hair stylist that her sister tried to bleach her hair so that it would take color.

The end result: buzz cut. So the hair could grow back.

I don’t think anyone in the salon looked anything but horrified. Olivia decided pink or purple or teal or navy blue hair was not worth possibly looking like that.

She bought a dye from a teenage-type store that was supposed to be for dark hair. It was supposed to be purple. And it was – but only on her scalp.

Then she looked at the hair dyes sold in grocery stores and drug stores. She found one that was red. MY color red. And it was for dark hair. She decided to try it, but before she bought it, she texted me. “Mama,” she said, “would you mind if we had the same hair color?”

It made me laugh. Why would I mind? It kinda made me happy. She said, “Well, I just wanted to make sure.”

I helped her dye it this weekend. And it looks amazing.

That night, I was out shopping for some new jeans. Believe it or not, my dog ate mine. While poking around, I found a sweatshirt on clearance. It had rainbow bands around the upper arms, and in capital rainbow letters across the chest, it said, SERIOUSLY?

This is one of Olivia’s most-repeated phrases. And she loves rainbow-anything. So I plucked it off the rack. Then I turned around and on another rack, a rack with my current size, there was another one. Same color, Same rainbows. Same SERIOUSLY?

My oft-repeated phrase isn’t “Seriously?” It’s “Really?” But still. I liked it. Then I looked at hers, already draped over my arm. And I looked at what could be mine, still on the rack.

Mama, would you mind if we had the same hair color?

Would she mind if we had the same shirt?

I remembered back to being nineteen. I would never, ever, EVER have wanted to wear the same clothes as my mother. I didn’t want to wear the clothes my mother wanted me to wear. One of the first things I did when I arrived at the University of Wisconsin – Madison for my freshman year was to hop a bus to East Towne Mall, run into The Gap and buy a pair of Levis. I was never allowed to wear Levis before. I wasn’t allowed much in the way of jeans. My mother was a firm believer in polyester.

Oh, those Levis. I gasped at the price. But I’d been working hard as a kennelworker at the Waukesha Humane Society for two years and I’d socked away every single cent I made for college. I bought the jeans. And I wore them until they were nothing but denim raggedy strands. And then I bought more.

But this shirt. Would Olivia mind?

I bought it and brought both home, along with my new jeans, two sizes down, thank you very much. I showed Olivia hers first. “Oh!” she said. “I love it! It’s perfect!”

Then I pulled out mine. “I bought the same one for me,” I said. “I like it too. I hope you don’t mind. I’ll always let you know when I’m going to wear it, so we don’t –“

“OH!” she said, and clapped. “Seriously? Maybe we can twin!”

Ohmygod.

Before my newly red-headed daughter drove back to college that night, she said to me, “So what day should we each wear the shirt? Thursday, when I come home? Friday?”

It’s on the calendar. Friday.

I think we all look for signs that we’ve been good parents. Some look at their kids’ accomplishments. Some look at grades, at scholarships, at job choices. Some look at how often those kids visit or call or email.

I’ve been looking at that shirt all week and dreaming of Friday.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

You would think, since I’m a writer, that I wouldn’t be amazed at the power of a single word. Words should be my everyday, my cup of coffee in the morning, my latte in the afternoon. Really good, but familiar. Yet one word can wallop us upside the head sometimes. And for me recently, that word was HOME.

Olivia’s been off to college now since last August. We see her often – she comes home every other weekend to work, and even on the weekends she doesn’t work, she tends to come home to see the boyfriend. Not us, donchaknow. But the boyfriend. I talk to her every day via Facebook Messenger or text.

But it’s still been a difficult transition. She’s my fourth child, and the last to leave. My oldest daughter lives in Louisiana now. My two sons are still in Waukesha, but lead busy lives and so they aren’t cups of coffee anymore. And now Olivia. Olivia is the cup of coffee that has rattled my world for nineteen years. Almost twenty, if you consider the time she spent in utero, my 40-year old body stunned by her sudden presence. And now, her presence is usually elsewhere.

I’ve adapted. When she returns to school, I straighten her room, smooth her bedspread, close her dresser drawers, tuck in her desk chair. When night falls, I turn on the reading lamp in the corner. When I go to bed, I turn it off. I’ve had to learn to sit on my hands when she’s had difficulty, watching as she deals with it herself, because to the legal world, she is an adult. There’s a show on Netflix called Atypical, featuring a young man on the autism spectrum. When he goes to college, his mother says to another mother, “It’s like I’ve become illegal.” I feel every bit as illegal as she does. I didn’t feel that with the other three…but with this child, I do.

Still, life has settled into a kid-in-college routine. But then something started happening. She began to refer to school and her dorm room as home.

Home.

I Googled the definition of the word. It said, “the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.” Interestingly, the example they gave was, “I was nineteen when I left home and went to college.”

Home is where we fought battles to establish communication with a child who was predicted to be nonverbal. Olivia began to memorize scripts from television shows and she’d throw lines at us in desperation, trying to express what she wanted, and we just didn’t understand, though we tried. Oh, the temper tantrums. Home is where we dreamed for our daughter, and when she suddenly began to speak, and to speak in complex, complete sentences with the vocabulary of an adult, she began to dream with us. Home is where we said, “You can!” and she said, “I will!” Home is where I held her when she went through her first boyfriend break-up, dealt with best friends who turned into bullies, when she learned that she is autistic and she lived in fear that she would wake up one day and find herself at the bottom of the spectrum. Home is where we have cheered and applauded everything, from potty-training to learning how to chew to tolerating the feel of denim against her skin to being a 4.0 student to expressing herself with music and writing and art.

This is home. Her father is home. I am home.

She began sending me messages, saying, “I’ll do it later, when I’m home,” or “I’ll text you when I get home from classes.” I gritted my teeth, but I handled it. I’m illegal now, after all. But then last weekend, she was home, here, and I reminded her of something that she needed to bring back with her, and she said, “Oh, you’re right, I should bring that home with me.”

Her voice, saying that, was what got to me, I think. Not black texted words on a screen. But her voice.

She was in her room. I was in the hallway, walking away to return to my office to get some work done. I spun on my heels. “This is home!” I cried. “This is home!”

“What?” she called from her room.

“This is home! That’s school!”

“Oh, Mama!” She ran from her room, down the hall, and wrapped me in a hug.

Olivia’s done this thing, when she hugs me, since she was in elementary school and tiny. She stands on her toes, trying to make herself taller. At one point, she would stand on her toes and smack her hard skull into my chin, and so I learned to tilt my head away. Then her toes made her as tall as I am. Then she was as tall as I am and her toes made her taller. Now she starts out taller, and her toes make her taller still. I’ve had to grow used to no longer being able to rest my cheek against the top of any of my children’s heads. I now rest my head on Olivia’s shoulder.

When Olivia raises up on her toes, it’s tradition for me to say, as all one word, “Getoffayourtoes!” And she giggles while I attempt to yank her flat-footed. It’s pretty near impossible now.

So she hugged me. “Oh, Mama,” she said. And then those toes raised her up.

“Getoffayourtoes!” I said. “And this is home. THIS is.”

And she giggled.

There was that sound. Olivia’s giggling was one of the first indicators we had that we could communicate. We would laugh and Olivia would laugh with us, looking directly into our faces, and we’d rock together in hilarity. Or she would laugh at something and we’d join in and there we were again. Connection. If we could connect, we could communicate. And if we could communicate, she would succeed. We did. She has.

She giggled. And then she lowered herself down flat-footed. “Okay, Mama,” she said, and went back to her room. And I relaxed.

But damned if she didn’t message me on Facebook, “I’m home!” when she got back to the dorm on Sunday night. And then she sent me a laughing emoji.

I could hear the giggle from here.

Home.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

 

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

Two years ago, we lost both of our beagles on the same day. Blossom was 15 years old and in the final stages of kidney failure. Donnie was 13 years old and had cancer that spread very quickly to his brain. It took some time, but all three of us, Michael, me, and Olivia, realized that we’d turned our home into a doggie sickroom. The dogs were only allowed on the second floor, in the kitchen and the living room. Both of them lost their ability to be potty-trained. Both of them were so confused – two years later, I still can’t erase the image in my mind of Donnie standing in his food dish and looking at me, as if he was saying, I know this isn’t right, but I don’t know what to do! Both were losing their cognitive abilities. It was a horrifying and sad time, and we finally made the decision to help them to the other side, together. Our veterinary clinic was very accommodating – the dogs were side by side, all three of us had a hand on each of them, and they were injected simultaneously. For them, it was a lovely and peaceful letting-go of life, surrounded by those who loved them. For us, well, our hearts were pretty much ripped out. Leaving them at the clinic for cremation and coming home alone was beyond hard.

I said no to another dog. And I said no. And I said no.

But the silence in the house. No jingling collars. No clicking of nails on concrete floors. No conversation – Donnie was a very talkative beagle. And the couch was really, really empty.

So I started looking, just glancing, dontchaknow, out of the corner of my eyes, at humane society websites that just happened to pop up on my computer screen. I don’t know how that happened. Then I went to see a dog, but he just didn’t fit with us. The humane society called me the next day. “Kathie,” they said, “we think we have someone here for you. Her name is Momma. She came up from Alabama in a truck with six other dogs.”

So all three of us went to see Momma. And all three of us found our hearts again. I like to think that she did too.

Within a week, we also all realized that she wasn’t the calm and collected dog she was in the humane society. She was scared of everything. EVERYTHING. The icemaker in the fridge. The microwave. Loud noises on the television, particularly gospel choirs, which, thank goodness, aren’t on that often. The buses going by. The cars going by. The flags flapping in the breeze. The ducks in the parking lot. Squeakers in dog toys. Holy moly. Everything.

It’s been a challenging two years. But we don’t give up easily. And when she’s not hiding somewhere, she gives back as good as she gets. We changed her name from Momma to Ursula – I named her after the writer Ursula LeGuin, as she was a strong woman, and I figured Ursula needed to be strong too, to get through whatever she went through.

So this week (and yes, this will connect!), I finished the first draft of a new book, a novella. And here’s a hidden secret about writers – we have a habit of hating what we’re writing. I see it happen to my students at the end of first drafts, and second drafts, and so on. With books, it happens around page 100, and 200, and 300. And, well, it happens to me too.

So I wrote the last sentence. Then I glared at the screen. And I thought. BLECH. This is horrible. No one wants to read this. Why did I just waste almost a year writing it? Why should I finish it? I should just hit delete. Blech. Blech. Blech.

And I groaned.

Ursula, snug on her loveseat in our bedroom, which is right next door to my office, came trotting around the corner. She ducked under my desk in her hurry to get to me and then her head popped up on my side. Clunk, her concrete head landed on my thigh. And she looked right at me.

Have you ever looked deeply into a dog’s eyes? I know I’ve read a lot about what people see there. Loyalty. Love. Even gratitude. But what I saw on that day was pure faith.

In me.

You’ve got this, Mom. You did great. You ARE great. It’s a really, really good book. I’ve heard every word. I love you, Mom.

Her head stayed there, solid on my thigh. I kept glaring at the screen. And then I took a deep breath and my hand slid from the keyboard to the top of my dog’s head. She let out a grumble – I think she’s learned to purr from the cats.

“You’re right, Ursula,” I said to the dog named after a woman writer who I admire for her strength, her courage, her honesty. “Let’s go get a treat. And I will start on Draft 2 on Monday.”

And that’s what we did. Ursula no longer slinks up and down the stairs. She skips. She doesn’t slink across the floor. She sashays and lives up to her southern heritage.

Thanks to Ursula, I skipped too. And I sashayed. In a Midwestern sort of way. She had a dog biscuit. I didn’t.

We miss our two beagles, Donnie and Blossom. But meeting Ursula two years ago – one of the luckiest days of our lives. Hers too. When this new book comes out, I may just have to write a dedication to my dog.

Thank you, Ursula.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

On January 4^th of this year, I joined a new local gym and made the decision that, come hell or high water, I was going to gain the strength back that I’ve lost through the breast cancer. Losing weight is a part of what I’m doing, but it’s not at the heart of it. The breast cancer I experienced in 2017 left me feeling betrayed by my own body. I no longer trusted my body, even if I was feeling good. I wondered what it was hiding from me. My right arm has been significantly weakened due to the partial mastectomy, to the point where when I fly, I can’t put my baggage in the compartment above my seat. There’s no strength to push it up there.

I also had the realization a few weeks ago, as I read a poem called Sex After Breast Cancer at a poetry marathon that, while the cancer was removed from my body two and a half years ago, I can’t really say I’m cancer-free. I have to take a pill every night for the balance of five years (I’m in the middle of year 3) – this is called oral chemotherapy. Because of the staggering of appointments, I am still running into the Cancer Center every three to four months for blood work or a breast MRI or a mammogram. I do not feel cancer-free. It’s still very much a part of my life. I long for the day when my check-ups return to once a year and I no longer have to pop a little yellow pill at night that comes with side effects that far outweigh the tininess of the pill.

So I decided it was time to take matters, and my strength, into my own hands. I needed to feel strong again. I used to do weight training and seriously considered going on the amateur body-building circuit. I loved aerobics, but weight training showed me a concrete sign of my own strength. I was a strong woman, back then. This new gym in town was open 24/7, and it was staffed – I would never be walking into an empty gym. And so I began a regimen of working out late at night. I leave here around 11:30 or so and work out until just before 2:00. Then I come home, drink some juice and have some yogurt, and go to bed. I do cardio every day, usually the treadmill. And I lift weights, alternating upper and lower body, for five days straight, then give my body a 48-hour break to recover.

It’s been wonderful. Since January 4, I’ve only missed three times – the night of the studio’s birthday event, last Thursday, when I had a no good, awful, very bad day, and this past Monday, when I had a cold and felt horrible.

On Tuesday, to my great relief, I felt good enough to return to the gym. I sweated out my minutes on the treadmill and then returned to the locker room to put away my phone, water bottle and headphones, so I could be hands-free and distraction-free for lifting weights. There were two other women in the locker room, young women, standing by the row of sinks. They looked at me when I came in and then they giggled. I smiled at them, then went to my locker. I was reaching up to put away my water bottle when I saw, out of my peripheral vision, one of them slip right behind me. She tossed a piece of paper onto the bench and then she and the other woman ran out, laughing loudly. I puzzled over it as I turned to see what the scrap of paper was.

It was an advertisement for a weight loss program.

I froze.

Then I tore it up. I threw it away.

I will admit that during my whole weight circuit (I was working lower body that night), I had tears running down my face. There were very few people left in the gym and nobody noticed. I finished my work-out and went home, where I sobbed on Michael’s shoulder.

I am working so hard, on top of working so hard in my daily life. I’ve already lost 13 pounds, and I’ve been so happy to see the definition start to come back in my arms and legs. I feel better. I’m sleeping better.

And then this. In a gym that prides itself on being a “judgement-free zone”. That was more important to me than the 24/7 hours.

The next day, on Facebook, I discovered that there was a special group page for the gym’s members, nation-wide. So I posted what happened, and I asked them all, “I’m thinking about not going back. Do I go back? Maybe I just don’t belong there.”

Holy cow, the responses. Here are just a few:

“Don’t let anyone steal your joy.”

“The voice of truth says do not be afraid. They have bigger problems than you do. Cruelty is an extremely hard habit that makes you ugly no matter how great you think you are.”

“Love your heart. Hold your head high and return to the gym.” This one included an invitation to meet me if we worked out at the same place – unfortunately, she was in West Virginia.

One even called these two young women “twitwattles.” I think it’s my new favorite word.

The outpouring of support was incredible. As of this writing, there are 343 comments. And not one was negative.

I went to the gym last night. I will go tonight. And if the two twitwattles show up, I know there are a bajillion others who have my back and are supporting what I’m doing.

A friend told me a couple days ago that when I make up my mind to do something, I become a pitbull. And I do. But, as I’ve learned from my own dog, Ursula, even pitbulls can feel hurt. And isolated. And unworthy. But boy, does a good scritching and a “Whatta good girl!” ever help!

Last night, I worked upper body. I sat at a machine that has thwarted me since I started – an overhead lift, which showed me, every time I tried to raise it over my head, how much of my own strength was gone. Last night, the weights went up. It was a strain, and I couldn’t do more than a few reps, but they went up. And then there were tears for a whole new reason.

Thank you to the online Facebook community of Planet Fitness members. You made all the difference.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

Well, there’s been a new, and somewhat odd, addendum to the missing Little Literary Lion story. No, he hasn’t come home. But the people I suspect were the thieves did – and one of them was someone I know.

On Tuesday night, I teach a book-writing workshop in the AllWriters’ classroom. We were hard at it when we suddenly heard a knock. Looking up, I saw a man at the window. He knocked on the glass again, then went to the door.

“I think he wants to come in,” one of my students said.

But I didn’t recognize him, and I was teaching, and I figured he would have to wait. But then he stood in front of the window again and held up two fingers, then pointed to the door. I thought he was saying that he just needed two minutes of my time. I shook my head and pointed upstairs, trying to indicate that Michael was home and he could take care of things. The man moved to the doorway again and we heard the doorbell ring. Michael came down and we heard voices.

Try teaching a class when you’re trying to figure out what the hell is going on. And try expecting your poor students to concentrate at the same time.

We heard the door close and the man walked by the window, stopping again to knock, and then to flash me two two-fingered peace signs. I smiled, not knowing what else to do, and waved. The man disappeared. Then Michael came in. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “That’s our Little Free Library thief.”

I think we all chorused, “What???”

“And,” Michael said, “you’re not going to believe who it was.”

When AllWriters’ opened in January of 2005, we were renting a space on Grand Avenue in Waukesha. During our first summer, in our notoriously boisterous Wednesday Night Workshop, we had a young man named Andy. Andy was a little different. Sometimes sober, sometimes not, he always had poetry to share. The poetry veered wildly around lyrics from Beatles’ songs, a rambling about three little piggies on Capitol Hill (which kept reminding me of Schoolhouse Rock), and assertions that drugs should be legal because God made them, and God only made good things.

One of the things I stress at AllWriters’ is acceptance of all writers, no matter what they write, no matter who they are. And so the class gently flowed around Andy. He never felt unwelcome. And even if we glanced at each other during his sometimes loud readings, he knew he had the freedom to express himself at the studio.

I think we all need a place where we are safe to express ourselves.

He disappeared when autumn came, though I would see him every now and then, walking his bike around the downtown. He always cheered a hello at me, told me he was coming back, and then he didn’t. I haven’t seen him in a long time.

Well, until he showed up at the door, flashing peace signs.

He told Michael that he and his wife were the ones who took the Little Free Library books on that late November night. “I know it was wrong,” he said. “And I’m very, very sorry.”

He let Michael know who he was. Michael hadn’t recognized him.

“I didn’t take your lion,” Andy said. “I don’t know where he is. But I didn’t take him. I promise.”

Michael reassured him that the police returned our Little Free Library books and then some. He told Andy it was all right. And then Andy left.

But not before he stopped one more time in my window, raised his hands in two two-fingered peace signs, and beamed at me in that same way he used to beam when he read his poetry in my classroom.

So.

I don’t know where Little Literary Lion is. It’s hard to accept that Andy didn’t take him – but I’ve decided this isn’t about that.

I don’t know if Andy knew who he was taking the library books from. But he did know who he was apologizing to.

It’s possible Andy was making amends. Maybe his wife too – she sat in the car across the street the whole time he was talking to Michael. It’s possible that he apologized because he remembered. He remembered reading his poetry, unabashed, fully accepted, in a safe classroom filled with safe, compassionate people who encouraged his love of words.

Maybe I’m naïve and totally a fool here. Andy didn’t have to come to my door to apologize. But he did. And he did it sincerely. He flashed peace signs and gave me that smile that reminded me of the poet within. I believe he really is sorry. And if he is making amends, I have to believe that he is finding his way to recovery.

And maybe, maybe, maybe, he’ll write poetry again.

Andy said God only makes good things.

God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

And always help me to find the ability to forgive.

(Though I still wonder where my lion is.)

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

The Superbowl was last Sunday, something which I go out of my way to ignore. I usually take advantage of the masses hanging around their television sets by going to the mall or some other typically heavily populated place and enjoying the lack of crowds. This year, I just pretty much forgot about it.

Afterward, there was the usual halftime show hooha. This year, it was over JLo and Shakira. The applause and derision ranged over their dance moves and their clothes. If I’d paid attention and known they were going to be performing, I could have predicted the fracas. There will always be people who think women should be dressed from their necks to their toes. There will always be people who are uncomfortable with those who can move their bodies in incredible ways. And there will always be people who are okay with it. Oh, and there will always be those who are okay with it for the wrong reasons – leering, making sexual remarks, etc. Such is the way of the world.

But there was a meme that caught my attention. It showed two pictures, side by side. One was of Rue McClanahan, in her role as Blanche from the television show The Golden Girls, which ran from 1985 to 1992. The picture was just of her face, her mouth open, and it was blurry. The other was of JLo, in her sparkly Superbowl performance outfit, swinging around a pole. The picture was bright and sharp. Over Rue, it said, “50 Years Old In 1985”, and over JLo, it said, “50 Years Old In 2020”.

I glanced down at my own self. I’m going to be 60 in July. I do not look like JLo. And while I don’t particularly look like Rue either, I definitely identify more with her.

Rue’s character, Blanche, in The Golden Girls, was a woman who was absolutely sure of herself. She had a strut that just wouldn’t quit. She exuded confidence. She knew what she wanted and she went for it. She wasn’t ashamed of her sexuality, her desires, or her sexual activity. She opened her house to two other women, and also allowed one of those women to bring in her elderly mother. At one point, she even allowed one of those women to bring in a chicken that played a piano.

I think Blanche is a pretty amazing role model.

I also thought about all of the eating disorders in this world. I dealt with one myself, in my late twenties and early thirties. If you’ve ever read an article about eating disorders, you’ve likely read that one of the culprits, if not the main culprit, is our constant lauding of rail thin models and celebrities, presenting bodies that are, first, next to impossible to achieve, and second, truly unhealthy. We place Barbie dolls in little girls’ eager hands, showing them bodies that are out of proportion and impossible and calling them beautiful.

And now, the 50-year old woman has JLo pushed in her face as the physical goal to shoot for.

No offense to JLo. She’s a lovely and talented woman. But frankly, I don’t want to attempt to look like her. I don’t feel like my life is bereft because I can’t swing and twist my body over and around a pole on a stage.

I think it’s more important to encourage women of all ages to be who they are. To be comfortable in their own bodies. To be secure in their own choices, whether it’s dancing on a stage at the Superbowl or enjoying retirement in a house in Florida. Or doing any of the other multitude of things we could be doing. For me, writing and running a creative writing studio.

Rather than showing JLo in that meme, with the “50 Years Old In 2020” banner, it should have been a broad photo of the audience, with all the different women in it.

Right now, I’m marching myself to the gym at midnight every night (and I have since January 4, only missing one night so far) in a quest to build my strength and my health. I don’t want to look like JLo. I love Rue McClanahan as Blanche, but I don’t want to look like her either.

I just want to look like me.

My moment of happiness? I’m no longer seduced or coerced by media manipulations that make me feel badly about being who I am.

And that’s exactly what we should want for all women.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.