Author: Kathie

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

One morning, as I finished up with a coaching client, we fell to chatting. “Kathie, tell me,” she said, “about you and coffee.”

Me and coffee.

I get asked a lot of things, by students, clients, readers. Most common is the question about my writing process. Next in line is the question about how I get so much done. But I was never asked before about me and coffee. It is a love affair. Coffee drives my heartbeat, flows through my veins, is the first to say good morning to me every day. We are soulmates. Attached at the lips.

Coffee and I met when I was in the second or third grade. I lived in way northern Minnesota and I walked to school, so my mother wanted me to have something hot at breakfast. There was already a percolator of coffee, so it was an easy thing to give me a cup. I took one sip and then reached for the sugar bowl. Five heaping teaspoons later, I had coffee so thick and sweet, I had to stir it between every sip. And I was hooked.

Coffee and I became constant companions. I discovered coffee-flavored candy and coffee-flavored ice cream. My father came from Connecticut and we spent some time out there every summer, always lugging home a carton or two of coffee-flavored syrup that was made on the east coast. We put it in milk and over ice cream. It was my favorite part of our trip.

Interestingly, that syrup showed up in one of Wally Lamb’s books. Reminded of it, I looked for it on Amazon, found it, ordered it, tried it…and hated it. It tasted like chemicals, which it likely was.

I started drinking gas station lattes and cappuccinos somewhere in my mid to late thirties. You know, the kind made by a machine that coughs out a dusty powder and adds hot water. But no more, except in an emergency. Because eventually, I answered that caffeinated siren song.

Starbucks.

Yes, I know. Big corporation. Support the little guy. But I do. I have my favorite drink in every little coffee shop around town. But Starbucks has my drink-to-end-all-drinks. The grande cinnamon dolce latte with only two pumps of syrup please. Extra hot when it’s cold out. Iced when it’s hot. Delicious all the time. I don’t even need to order anymore. I just call into the speaker, “Hey, it’s Kathie.”

Last July, on the day I had my partial mastectomy, my son drove to Starbucks for me, post-op. He called out my order, written down for him so he’d get it right, into the speaker. There was a pause, and then the speaker-voice said, “Is this for Kathie?” My son said yes. My cinnamon dolce, extra hot, just two pumps of syrup, arrived with well-wishes written all over the cup. And it was on the house.

Best cinnamon dolce ever.

I asked for coffee after the births of all four of my children. At the reception of my first wedding, my silver engraved wine goblet held coffee. I’ve held coffee in my hands as I’ve gazed at the ocean, at sunsets, at the rare (for me) sunrise. When I launch books, teach classes, present workshops, I usually have a mug of coffee in my hand. If a moment is important…there’s coffee. Times of elation, times of sadness, times of frustration…coffee.

But the best part?

Meeting someone in a coffee shop. Student, friend, family, lover. Looking at that person over the rim of my mug. Dreams mixed in the steam and someone else’s eyes. Wrapping my hands around the mug, soaking in the heat. Sometimes, someone’s hands wrapping over mine, so I am encased in warmth. Good conversation. Good coffee.

“Coffee makes me happy,” I said to my client that morning.

It does.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

I’ve never been a mani/pedi sort of woman. In my lifetime, I’ve had one pedicure and two manicures, all gifts from well-meaning students. Way too many years ago, when I was in grad school, a friend pulled me aside and painted my toenails. I didn’t know why then, and I don’t know why now. But from that point on, I painted my toenails during sandal seasons because I felt like it was something I was expected to do, something I’d made a grievous social mistake by not doing, With the arrival of the robin and sixty-degree temps, a simple color sprouted on my toes. And when winter came, I shoved my feet into socks and shoes and forgot about them.

A few days ago, when it finally began to get warm, I chucked my jeans and my socks and my sneakers and pulled on capris and sandals. Then I looked down. And cried.

The medication I have to take for breast cancer recovery for the next five years causes severe joint pain. It also takes conditions like fibromyalgia or arthritis and puts them into overdrive. I have fibro. My body has become the 3-D definition of pain. I’ve lost a lot of my flexibility and in particular, my hips have grown tight. On this day, I looked down, and realized there was no way in hell I was going to be able to flex enough through the pain to paint my toenails, let alone trim them.

Prior to this, I’d asked for help from those in my home and let’s just say the response wasn’t enthusiastic. On this day, when I dried my tears, I called a local salon and asked if they could fit me in for a pedicure. No time slots were open. So I hung up the phone and cried again.

And then I grimly got out my nail clippers and my polish. I moved around the house and shrieked my way through a bajillion bodily contortions. When I was done, I wiped the sweat from my face and the new tears from my cheeks and looked at my toes.

I did an absolutely horrific job. It looked like I attacked my toes with a machete.

Tears again. I threw off the capris and kicked my sandals into the closet. The jeans came back on, and so did the socks and shoes. It was going to be a sneaker summer, I decided. And cried some more.

Later, of course, when I undressed for bed, I discovered that the polish wasn’t quite dry yet when I changed into socks and now my nails sported stuck-on white fuzzies and threads.

Sigh.

Today, it was warm again. And instead of tears, I got angry. It was spring. I needed to paint my toes or commit some kind of social sin I didn’t understand. Why do women have the need to decorate their toenails and fingernails? Why was this tying me in knots? I marched over to Walgreens in my sneakered feet and bought nail polish remover.

At home, I tore off the shoes and socks and then looked around for ways to apply ingenuity. I have a footstool that breaks from top to bottom into three equal pieces. I sat down and separated these and placed two so that my legs would jut out at my body from an angle. No more leaning straight over my legs. Instead, I would lean forward into the gap between my angled legs and then turn at my waist. Carefully, I scrubbed each digit with smelly polish remover. I scrubbed until my own naturally pink nails came back, clean of gummed-up botched polish and white fuzzy sock detritus.

I sat back and breathed a sigh of relief. But then I saw my abandoned polish out of the corner of my eye. I’d found a way to remove the polish without killing myself. So…maybe…

But why? Why the need to change what was perfectly fine, au naturale?

I thought back to my friend painting my nails in grad school. And I thought of how I’d done it ever since. Every summer. It was a normal life thing.

More than anything, I want to return to my normal life. Cancer-free.

Painted nails in sandal season.

Spreadeagled, I propped my feet back up at angles and I set to work. It was harder than removing the offending polish. But I moved slowly and carefully and when it hurt, I sat back and gave myself a breather before leaning forward again.

The end result? Not bad. Not perfect. But no machete in sight.

Normal. Normal life. Some days, you’re just grateful you can paint your nails.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

Early this week, I was stopped at a stoplight as I went to pick up Olivia from school. There were happy shrieks coming from a playground, so I took a look. Running from the swings to the slide and playhouse and back again were two girls. I watched as they ran and shrieked and played with abandon. They weren’t in Oshkosh B’Gosh overalls, but oh-so-today ripped jeans and crop tops. Their hair was flying, but it was a controlled fly, held with perfectly placed headbands and clips. They were at least middle school age, maybe high school.

But they played. As the light turned green and I pulled away, I fell headlong into a memory.

One week before my first wedding, back in June of 1981, when I was a month shy of my twenty-first birthday, I had a sense of sinking, not elation. I was going to be married. I wasn’t even out of college yet. I hadn’t yet worked a full-time job. I hadn’t had the responsibility of bills and paying rent on apartments and utilities and owning a car. Yet I was getting married. And no, I wasn’t pregnant. I was so overwhelmed with potential adultness, adultness that I felt I had to face if I was going to take those steps down the aisle and take that man as my husband in front of my friends, my family (especially my parents, who said that my choice of husband was the only thing I’d ever done right in my life – hence the wedding that I wasn’t really ready for, but I was bound and determined to finally earn that approval), the priest, and ultimately, God. I was frozen with fear and worry and trepidation.

Then, out on a date one week before the wedding with the couple who were to be our best man and maid of honor, Bob, the best man, pulled over by a city park. “Let’s get out here,” he said.

Here? We were by a playground.

He grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of the car. As we walked toward the swings, my soon-to-be husband followed, as did Bob’s fiancé. I started out slow. I bounced a little on the bouncy horse, my knees up to my chin. I let my fiancé spin me on the merry-go-round. I began to laugh when we sat on the see-saw and at its height, our feet still touched the ground.

And then I got on a swing. I flew. As my toes pointed toward the sky, I was six years old again, and I was hopeful and dreamy and the world was possible and I was possible and I could do absolutely anything.

Even walk down the center aisle of a church and get married, when I was oh so uncertain.

When we returned to the car, sweaty, dirty, giggling, Bob said, “You better now?”

“Yes,” I said.

And I wondered about the young man who picked up on my mood and my needs more than the man I was marrying. But it didn’t stop me. A week later, I was married.

It didn’t last, really. Well, it did, for seventeen years and three beloved children. But then I finally acknowledged the mistake I made and I left. You could say I pointed my toes toward the sky again that day.

On this day, at soon-to-be 58 years old, I soared again at the memory. My spirits lifted, like my toes did, thirty-eight years ago. I didn’t stop to play on the playground because I had a child to pick up, and because with my luck, I would likely get dizzy and fall off the swing, breaking a hip, a leg, an arm. But not my heart.

“You better now?” Back then, when I was almost 21, playing on a playground reminded me of potential, of play, of life, of profound joy. And now, at almost 58, the memory provided me the same thing.

When my daughter and I took off for our next stop, her job at a grocery store, she snarled about being old (she’s 17) and having to work and not being ready to be a grown-up. Later that night, my husband walked in and said, “I’m tired of adulting.”

I thought of those swings, my toes and the sky. I see a playground in our near future.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

In April of 2012, I adopted a genetic anomaly. There were extra toes. There was a right-pointing kink in his tail. And his head was too small for the rest of his long, then lanky body. He lacked a cat’s natural grace and ability to leap. This cat missed and crashed, or if he succeeded, he fell off within a few steps.

The humane society called him Trillium – the Muse of Grammar, which I thought was appropriate, but god, what an ugly name. Trillium is now Edgar Allen Paw.

Six years later, his body is still long, his toes are still extra, his tail still kinks to the side …and his head now appears even smaller because he’s not so lanky. Edgar has become a big orange furry bowling ball. I don’t know his exact weight, but I’m sure he’s pushing twenty pounds.

Edgar’s nature is beyond affectionate. He has his own spots in the house that he loves; no one sits in the one easy chair in my living room now because it’s Edgar’s chair. In six years, he has never been hurt. He has never been out in the cold. He has never found himself alone on the side of a busy highway, as he was when he was picked up by animal control. He has never missed a meal.

Try to tell Edgar that. He has not yet accepted that there will never again be a day when he is left hungry. So he eats.

Our condo has no basement. When it was built, we were in a conundrum over where to put the litterbox. Litterboxes, to dogs, are buffets. It had to go someplace where the then-dog-later-dogs-now-dog-again could not get it. I asked the builder to install a small pet door into the door of our large closet where the washer and dryer and water heater are. It’s worked; the closet has become the laundry room/kitty haven. Until Edgar started getting stuck as he tried to squeeze through.

Our cat is on a diet. And he is not happy.

He has diet cat food, only a half cup a day. He gets a quarter of a can of canned cat food once a day. Muse, our other cat, a lightweight at only five pounds, has her own bowl of regular cat food filled to the brim up on a counter that Edgar can’t reach. I swear she waits until he’s looking and then she jumps up and crunches as loudly as she can.

The diet has been going on for three weeks. Edgar has taught us all what the word caterwaul means. Holy cow. During the day. Middle of the night. I think the most common phrase heard around the house right now is, “Edgar, please shut UP!”

He’s not happy. We aren’t either. We tell ourselves it’s for his own good. He has to fit in the kitty door to get to the food dishes and the litterbox.

The other night, it was just Edgar and me in the late-night living room. Michael was out doing the final walk with our dog, Ursula. Muse was somewhere. Olivia was sleeping. Edgar, having just munched on his half-cup allotment of diet food, was on his chair. His extra-toed paws hung over the edge. His tail, flat and straight, was quiet, except for the right hand kink that flickered.

“Eddie,” I said. “Eddie, we love you. There will always be more food. I promise. With all my heart.”

Do you know that cats can smile? Their eyes turn into angled slits. Their mouths curve. Edgar did just that. And then he started the other part of his genetic anomaly: he purrs like a broken train. He is the Train That Could Maybe Do It.

He smiled. And he chugga-chugga-pause-chugged.

I looked left. And I looked right. The downstairs door had not yet opened, letting in Michael and Ursula. Muse was still nowhere to be found.

I got up and snagged five pieces of the regular cat food, so out of Edgar-reach on the counter. And I fed them, one by one, to Eddie. He chugga-chugga-pause-chugged. And chewed.

Yes, I helped my cat cheat on his diet. I don’t regret it. I so want him to know that he’s home.

I’m going to research bigger kitty doors.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

On Monday, I was tired and grumpy, deep into the I-have-too-much-to-do blues. I grumped my way through morning clients and through Monday business errands. Then I grumped my way toward home.

On a busy street, I saw a little squirrel take off from the curb to my left. He had to get across oncoming traffic, and then my lane to reach the other side. I slowed to let him go. And then I shrieked when an oncoming truck hit the gas. The little squirrel dodged like a soldier under gunfire, made it before the truck caught up to him and then crossed in front of my stopped car.

I got a glimpse of the truck driver as he roared past me. He was laughing.

What makes people do such things? Why would plowing a multiple-ton truck over a tiny squirrel give someone a jolt of power? Why would it make anyone happy?

I don’t like squirrels. They give me the willies, and I see them as bushy-tailed rats, which I don’t like either. But I slowed my car. I stopped it entirely when it became clear the squirrel was charging out of sheer terror and might not see me. I would never want to kill it, and I would have felt bad if I had. Yet this guy was laughing.

Way back when I was fifteen years old, I witnessed a boy a few years younger than I was, playing in a field with his dog, a German shepherd. Except this play wasn’t play. He kept lighting a tennis ball on fire and throwing it for the dog who obediently tried to fetch it. He picked it up, dropped it, picked it up, dropped it. The boy, like the truck driver who tried to kill the squirrel, was laughing. Loud. Boisterously.

This was well before cell phones. I ran to the corner where there was a phone booth and I called the police. They were there in minutes. While I know the dog was taken to help and safety, the image of that dog trying to do as his boy wanted him to do has haunted me for years. But so has the sight of that same boy, leaning against a police officer and crying when his dog was taken away.

Those images came roaring back on Monday morning, as I saw the squirrel leap the curb, then run up a tree, and as I watched the man drive by me, laughing.

This morning, during a meeting with a client, she told me that she stopped her car the other day because there was a turtle in the road. She got out of her car, checked to make sure it wasn’t a snapper, which would have been dangerous to touch, then she picked it up and moved it to the other side of the road. “I think it hissed at me,” she said. But she moved it anyway. And then she drove home.

The turtle, though it hissed, is safe, thanks to kindness. That little squirrel, though terrified, is safe, despite cruelty, but thanks to my kindness at stopping my car to create a clear path in the midst of panic. The German shepherd is long gone by now, hopefully peacefully and gently. His boy would be a man, somewhere in his mid-fifties. Maybe driving a truck. Maybe laughing as he attempts to run over small animals.

But maybe not. I hold on to the hope that those tears transformed. That they led to a healing from whatever it was that caused him to harm his own dog. A dog who was willing to do anything for his boy.

The laughing man has haunted me this week. And so has the memory of that crying boy. I’ve realized that, despite the fact that I work hard at empathy, at understanding the best in people and the worst, I am just not capable of ever understanding how someone can go out of their way to harm an animal.

And my moment of happiness? I’m grateful that I’m capable of not understanding. And I’m happy for that German shepherd, that squirrel, and that turtle.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Last March, when it was stupid-cold and several feet of snow obliterated my third floor deck (my second favorite “room” in our home), I was wantonly seduced by a Wayfair ad. While their catchy theme song caressed me with the words, “Wayfair, you have just what I need…”, I watched as a woman immersed in springtime grasped the back of what looked like a plain wooden bench and pulled it with one hand. Sproing! The bench became a picnic table capable of seating a family.

Ohmygod. They DID have just what I needed! And I didn’t know it, because I didn’t know something like this existed! So I ordered it (on sale! because it’s March and it’s a freaking picnic bench!) and for a couple months, this huge gigantic box sat at the bottom of our stairs, just inside the front door. Every day, as I went in and out, trudging through snow, and ice, and slush, and wearing a winter jacket and gloves, I stroked the box and sighed.

The seduction continued. I saw the commercial again and again and knew springtime waited in my entryway, hiding in a brown cardboard box, taller than I was.

So last weekend was our first really warm, really sunny weekend. My son hauled the huge gigantic box up to the third floor and my husband went out on the deck and prepared to build spring for me. He was joined by our grandbaby, Maya Mae, all of five years old.

Soon, the air was filled with the sounds of springtime. Birds tweeted their mating songs. New leaves rustled in the gentle breeze. Motorcycles, freed from garages. Music drifted out of open car windows. And there was ratcheting as bolts were put in place. Not to mention the choked-off, guttural swearing of a grandfather who wanted to swear, but knew he shouldn’t in front of the grandchild (but Grandma, however…).

And what a grandchild. Without being told, she threw herself into helping. She fetched tiny plastic bags of parts, even when the instructions were, “Can you hand me the bag of those little shiny circle things?” She picked up loose parts that scattered and nearly got away. She ran after the directions when the wind tried to steal them. She picked up the garbage, including all the little Styrofoam pieces that threatened to make my deck look like crunchy snowfall again. And she did it while she sang and chattered and told us stories of little boys who gave her flowers (a dandelion, I learned later) and her best friend who gave her a marijuana sticker (WHAT? I shrieked. And then found out it was a sticker for the Disney movie, Moana, pronounced, apparently, Mo-wa-na, or like a five-year old’s pronunciation of marijuana.

But she helped. And helped and helped and helped.

Now this little girl wants to be a princess. She wears hairbands and calls them crowns. She wears dresses, by choice (though she did inform me that she was SICK of PINK, and so I bought her a green and black dress, which she loved). She loves the Disney princesses. She plays with dolls and dollhouses. She also plays with Legos and building blocks and trucks. And at no time during this entire afternoon did we marvel that a girl was helping with building a bench/picnic table. Not once. It was just…everyday.

How cool is that.

When she and my husband were done, we took a little video of what that table can do. It sproinged into spring on my own deck. Michael was a great Vanna White. And Maya Mae, when it was her turn, raised her hand high in triumph.

She did it!

A few days later, she was at my house again. The first thing she did was come upstairs and look out my open deck door. She perched both hands on her hips, thrust out her chest and said, “WOW!”

Indeed. Maya Mae built that, with her grandfather. Maya Mae built that without being told, without wondering if she should, and she did it without complaining. And Maya Mae built that without once questioning if this was an appropriate thing for a girl to do. Or if it was an amazing thing for a girl to do. It was just something that she did. Everyday. Because she wanted to. And the smile, the stance, the tossed-back hair and the superstar elbows just shouted her accomplishment. And it wasn’t because she was a girl. It was just because she did it.

I have to echo her. WOW!

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

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

Twice in the last week, I’ve been enchanted by visions along the side of the road. It’s probably safer to be focused on the road in front of you than what’s along the side, but, well, I notice. Once, my side-of-the-road-watching earned me a poem, a haiku, called, appropriately, “On The Side Of The Road”:

Woman walking black

flowing skirt leopard backpack

fashion plate of sass

She was SUCH attitude, in her mid-20’s, I bet, stalking, stomping, arms swinging, hands fisted, skirt flapping, backpack bouncing above her hips. That was a woman to be reckoned with, and I bet she’s stomping in success somewhere now. She made me smile for the rest of my day.

And so this week, two visions. First, I was pulling up to one of the more obnoxious intersections in Waukesha, at Barstow and St. Paul. It was our rush hour and it’s a time of tempers and horns that honk before the red turns fully to green because you are supposed to GO, DAMMIT! I was the first in line to turn left from St. Paul to Barstow, and I was edgy, waiting to be honked at.

Across the street, sitting on a patch of grass, a man with a scraggly beard and scragglier hair sat cross-legged and smiled over a sketchpad. His hand moved so fast, as fast as the car behind me would want me to go, and he kept looking up and then straight down Barstow, his smile widening into an open-mouthed laugh.

I see this intersection at least once a day and I couldn’t imagine what was bringing him such joy. Joy to the point of wanting to sit right down, right there, sketch it and keep it forever. So at the risk of missing the moment the red turned to green, I turned my head so I could look in that direction. I saw what I always saw. A car wash on the left, our out-of-business Hardees on the right, the bridge that crosses the Fox River, the road leading toward downtown.

But this man sketched with open-mouthed joy the view I see every day. And his joy was contagious. By the time the light switched and the inevitable honk came, I was beaming too. I don’t think I’ll ever see that street the same way again.

Then, a few days later, I was heading home and at another light, I saw a man standing at a bus stop. He was on the sidewalk, not leaning against the post or a tree, but standing upright. He wasn’t staring down the street, grasping for that first sign of the bus, tapping his foot. He didn’t even have his face in a screen. No watch, no phone, no tablet.

He was holding a book. A book-book. A REAL book. And he was immersed. I think the bus could have come and gone and he would have never noticed.

I know that focus. That sucked-into-a-story-to-hell-with-the-rest-of-the-world concentration. That just getting lost in a book feeling. And as someone who tries to write so that others can get lost, let me tell you, that was such a gratifying sight. There are so many articles and studies out there that claim we aren’t reading. But this man was. Not only that, he was READING. Reading with ferocity, reading was his LIFE, in that particular moment. And I bet, when he closed his eyes to sleep that night, he still saw those words behind his eyelids.

I drove home happy and looking at the streets before me like artwork. Like books I haven’t yet read or written. I drove home happy.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

Well, you know, I had another book accepted this week.

Doesn’t that sound oh-so-casual? Like I just offhandedly flipped that comment over my shoulder, “Oh, tralala. Another book. What’s on television tonight?”

Of course it wasn’t like that at all.

Years and years ago now, more than I like to count, my middle son came flying into the house, home from second grade. He walked home with his older brother and his younger sister, but when he got to the driveway, he ran up and got in the doorway – and to me – first. “Mommy!” he yelled, “I wrote a story! About a wizard! You have to see it!” He dug in his backpack and then hesitated. He said, “But I might have spelled wizard wrong.”

And that’s how it felt on Tuesday when I received the news that “another book was accepted this week”.

When I work with clients and students, I can pretty much guarantee that if I say, “This was really good! You did great this week!”, the response will be a corkscrew mouth and then a dubious “Really?” It doesn’t matter if I’m working with a brand new writer or one with years of experience. “Really? This?”

And that’s how it felt on Tuesday when I received the news that “another book was accepted this week”.

When that email arrived, I could see the little preview with the opening words. “Dear Kathie Giorgio,” it said, and I figured it was a rejection and so I ignored it for about a half hour. Then I read it. And I saw, “Thank you for sending us “When You Finally Said No”. Your manuscript has been accepted for publication. We would love to publish your poetry…”

I sat there with both hands slapped over my mouth and I read it and reread it and reread it again. If I’d spoken, I would have said, “Really? This?” When I finally lowered my hands, I opened that manuscript and started looking it over for things I did wrong.

I might’ve misspelled wizard.

Where the heck does that come from? Here I am, with seven books out, numbers 8 and now 9 due out this year, and the book I thought was going to be number 8 is now number 10. In bios, my name often appears with “critically acclaimed” in front of it. And yet my first thought here was, Something is wrong.

And the next thing I did? I went back to the email, doublechecked that they used my name (they did) and that they listed my manuscript by title (they did), and then even so, I wondered if they hit the wrong button and sent me an acceptance when they really meant a rejection. The acceptance was probably for a writer named Cathy Georgia and the manuscript was called “Then You Firmly Said Nah”.

For Christ’s sake.

So I took a deep breath and I responded to myself as I do to my students. “Yes, really! Yes, it’s that good! Yes, you’re that good!”

Eventually, with this reassurance, my students begin to beam. And then we move on. Until the next piece. When I hear, “Really? This?”

So I said to my computer screen, “Yes, really! They want it! They love your poetry! They meant to accept it! Book number 9!”

And then I beamed. And I will, until the next piece. Likely until I move on to the next section of the novel I’m working on, and my writing day ends as it always does: “Oh, dear. I think I might have to trash the whole thing.”

I might have misspelled wizard.

But I’m beaming for now.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway. Really!

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

When you’re a mother and your child’s heart is broken, it has an odd reverberating effect. Not only do you feel your child’s pain, but you hear echoes as memories of times your own heart was broken come slipping back into your bloodstream. And if you’re a mother of more than one child and this new broken heart is beating in the chest of your youngest, you also hear echoes of your older children’s broken hearts. It’s a familiar, unnerving pulse.

Olivia’s boyfriend broke up with her on Tuesday, in the new modern way of sending a text, but while she was at work. With a month to go before prom, a prom we already have two dresses for.

A seventeen-year old broken heart is a miserable thing. It’s full of questions and self-doubts, anger and betrayal and profound sadness. As a parent, there’s not much else you can do but hold the child, who you suddenly find in your lap again, and pat her back and tell her it will all be all right, eventually. You know this, having lived through your own broken hearts. And now, you wish you could break your own heart again, in place of hers. Parenthood means bandages. Broken hearts are hard to bandage. But you try.

In a strange coincidence, an hour after my daughter received her text, I was in the AllWriters’ online classroom, talking with a client from Australia, whose college-age daughter was also going through heartbreak. “Her first serious love,” my student said, and I understood. A love that had the potential to be lifelong suddenly wasn’t.

We talked about this for a while. My first serious love, discovered in high school at sixteen, ended in divorce after 17 years of marriage, when I was 37. That was a complicated broken heart because I’m the one who threw what was left of my heart on the floor and watched it shatter – it was me that chose to walk out. But in actuality, my heart broke long before that moment where I left, and it was that brokenness that gave me the strength to close the door on what I considered my home. My student, on the other hand, was still joyfully married to her first serious love.

There just isn’t one path when it comes to matters of the heart.

As I held my daughter, I remembered when two of my older children had heartbreaks at the same time. My daughter, dumped on Facebook. My son, dumped right before what was to be an epic date. My daughter was in college and my son was already living in his own apartment, but for this, everyone gathered under my roof. I did what many mothers do – I fed them. I drove to Buffalo Wild Wings and I swear I brought home at least one of everything on their menu. There were tears and there was laughter and there was delicious aroma and spices and sauces and food, food, food. Into the night and throughout that long weekend.

And here’s the thing: My divorce was 20 years ago. I’ve been remarried for 18 years. While I still ache when I think back to that boy, then man I used to know, while I still wish sometimes for someone who knew me then, who shared my past, I’ve healed. My daughter and son have healed; my daughter is happily married and my son is still happily single. It’s the happiness that counts.

I was told by a doctor when I broke my wrist that bones that break and then heal are stronger than they were originally. I believe that to be true of hearts as well. My heart beats stronger now. It has to, so I can hold others, like the 17-year old who sat on my lap on Tuesday night.

So my moment of happiness? When Olivia came home from school today and I asked her how the day went, she looked at me and said, “You know what? It was pretty good.” And then she smiled. The ache is still there. It will be for a while. But she smiled.

I’ve told her she’ll be all right. The heart that breaks grows even stronger.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

 

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

It was a hard week to focus on happy. I returned from my week-long retreat to Indiana on Sunday. On Monday, midway through the day, I suddenly received an urgent email from eBay, saying my account was breached. I figured it was a scam email since I haven’t used eBay in forever, but I went to the site anyway to see what was up. Sure enough, someone bought an $890 Apple iPhone on my account. With my debit card, which was registered to that account.

And so all hell broke loose.

I’ve never been through anything like this and it was crazy. In a freaked-out flurry, I changed everything on the eBay account and then closed it. I contacted Paypal. Figured out how to shut down the debit card which was connected to my bank, and my bank was closed because it was after 5:30. Did I think to look on the back of the card for the little number that says, “Call here if you think your card has been stolen”? No, I did not. I frantically looked around my bank’s website which was no help at all, stumbled across a number, called it, and they passed me on and on until I came to the right place that shut down my card. Then, the next day, I went to the bank for a new debit card, notified the fraud department, then contacted all three credit bureaus to put fraud alerts out and to lock down or freeze my credit, so that no one applying for credit in my name can do so. And…and…and…and now what? I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do, but how do I feel safe ever again? Especially when every other commercial on TV speaks in deep foreboding tones about the “dark web”.

So…frantic. Not fun. Lots of fear.

Early this afternoon, when I walked the dog, I discovered how nice it was outside. In the upper fifties – I didn’t even need a jacket. When we returned, I went around the condo and opened windows and deck doors. The air that started flowing through was Spring. I could hear my wind chimes. I could hear birds. Unfortunately, Ursula and I could also hear the test tornado siren, the firetrucks, the police cars, the street cleaner truck, the frontloaders, and all sort of banging slamming trucks for the Water Department across the street and it freaked Ursula out. I told her to chill out, this was Spring in the City, and she went to sulk and cower on the couch.

I sat myself down at our kitchen island for lunch. The island is in the exact center of our house. It’s the middle of the middle floor. Where I sat, the breeze just fluttered on through, back of the condo to the front.

What, I thought as I sat there, am I going to write about today? What moment of happiness? It’s been moment after moment after minute after hour after week of frustration and fear. Happiness?

The breeze ruffled my hair. My dog, on the couch behind me, closed her eyes and sighed.

What was I going to write about?

Again, the breeze, warm, new, not frosted with ice or snow or a hint of winter, but instead spun with the promise of spring and summer, of sunshine, warm days, sandals, convertibles with the top down, blue skies, few clothes, late nights, laughter, whooshed through the open deck door, down the hall, and all around me.

Like my dog, I also closed my eyes and sighed.

There it was.

If you live in the heavy winter states, there is nothing more uplifting than the first day where you can open the windows and doors. Where you turn your furnace off and turn your face toward the natural heat of the sun. The canned air is chased out by the fresh air coming in. It’s fresh air that’s beyond a breath. It’s a new start. It’s the end of winter. Which has ended like the billion winters before it.

Spring.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Even in the City. Even among faux tornado sirens, firetrucks, police cars, street cleaners, slamming bamming clanging banging trucks. Even among the dark web and strange skulking people who spend their lives trying to get what you have worked so hard for. Despite that, there is birdsong. And new, new air chasing the old out. There is closing your eyes and sighing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Spring.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.