Keep Steppin'

I get the "urban word of the day" emailed from the Urban Dictionary and recently "keep steppin" arrived in my in-box. Its timing was pitch perfect. The term is defined as, "to move on from something bad" or, as used in their sentence, "Yo homie, don't worry '‘bout her, keep steppin!" It has become my new mantra as it helped provide clarity to a recent event and will now be my reaction to things that bother.

In July we went to a large family reunion in the Midwest. As my husband likes to say, "we drove almost 1,300 hundred miles for dinner," because the next day we turned around and came home. No sooner had we arrived when we discovered that our daughter, left back home with a friend so she could work at her summer job, got into a car accident and totaled her car. Speed and a cell phone were the cause. Fortunately the car did its job, the airbags deployed, and she only suffered a broken wrist. It could have been much worse as she just missed a large pine tree and had she gone over on the other side of the road she would have been airborne and launched into a pile of granite rocks—and more trees. The car was totaled but it was just a car and we are grateful to it. Our daughter is fine and her wrist will heal. (And I should have insisted that she come to the reunion with us.)

But the "push out the door" happened because, before the reunion had even begun, we were snubbed by a certain relation. We were to discover that this person had been informed about something to do with the other side of my family, not directly their own—a faction of the one back in New England. Ironically, this simple gesture from a person not even involved, and for whom I've always held in the highest regard, brought closure for me on a difficult few years. We realized that our family issues had morphed into more than the sum of their parts and that we were powerless to change that. "Keep steppin!"

A week after the reunion I attended a writing workshop sponsored by the New Hampshire Writer's Project. Its topic—Writing about Family—was as timely as that relevant word-of-the-day in my in-box. I learned that when one writes "creative non-fiction", or a memoir, that it shouldn't be motivated by revenge or self-serving purposes. Not that I have such intentions but I can imagine that nasty little "R" word all too easily creeping in if not left checked in the cloak room.

Annie Dillard wrote that "while literature is an art, it is not a martial art: no place to defend yourself from an attack, real or imagined, and no place to launch an attack." Contentious family issues are a simmering broth of emotion, upset, envy, and misunderstanding. To place all the blame on one person or event would be wrong. In our case, the unresolved issues from several generations, marriages, and unspoken expectations or wants all fell down in our laps. Did we contribute to the dysfunction of what likely can not be resolved or overcome? Of course we did—but that does not make us solely responsible.

It is not an easy thing to learn: to write with objectivity, perhaps with humor, but also personal experience and insight. All families are nuts in their own way and we all share our joys, our sorrows, and our battle scars. Perhaps that is why non-fiction out sells fiction now: people are fascinated by real lives. Memoirs by ordinary people are the literary equivalent to the "reality" television genre.

So now I'll just try to "keep steppin" over and around the stuff of life that tends to get in the way of really living it. And one day maybe I'll write about it: not dwelling on the bad but the good, the best of what resonates: what is clear, what is muddy, what was and what might have been.

Our Friend Dot

One of my best, most regular readers (that I know about!) is our dear friend Dot. I am writing about her today because she always reminds me when I haven't written something new. She reads every one of my blog entries and I think she checks daily. She is more in tune with it than I am sometimes. She keeps me honest and keeps me writing. So, today, and so I don't hear "Catherine, all I am reading lately is about Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor!" when I next see her, I am going to write about Dot.

Ironically, as I type this entry on a beautiful summer day with puffy white clouds wafting across the blue horizon, and with Dot's house in the corner of my eye through my office window (Dot lives across from us on Main Street), I have just received an email "ding". Incoming from Dot! She kindly wrote to thank us for some spaghetti dish we sent over yesterday. I've decided to do "Meals on Main Street" but from our own kitchen and without wheels. I make so much food that rather than have things rot in our refrigerator, I'll make an extra helping or two for Dot. Sometimes she can join us here, too, but she is a woman with a full life and a ready meal, taken out of her fridge or freezer when convenient, is just the thing for her. Dot, in her own way and without even needing to ask, will also keep me honest and inventive with my cooking that, frankly, could use a jump start. My kids might settle for Spaghetti O's or Annie's Shells & Cheese on a regular basis--an all too easy "out" in the game of "What's For Dinner, Mom?" but I would never think of sending those selections over to Dot.

How do we love Dot? Let me count the ways:

~ She has been like a mother to my husband for over 30 years when she and her dear husband Walt moved here in 1974
~ She has been like a grandmother to our three children
~ She makes a mean Martini (she is also a poster child for the ability to smoke and drink and how it can help longevity)
~ She makes a mean pile of Pennsylvania Dutch scrapple and the best corn meal mush (both suitable for slicing and frying)
~ She reads everything she can and volunteers her time at the town library
~ She sees and knows all from her kitchen window (and if you don't know about it, she'll tell you)
~ She lives in the cutest house in the village--just right for a Grandmother's House and it suits her well
~ She introduced us to two of our favorite people: Nancy and Barbara
~ She turns her lights off on Halloween so no one bothers her
~ She doesn't hesitate to speak her mind and she has a very sharp one
~ She is feisty and has a great sense of humor
~ She keeps my husband in line when I can't
~ She is exactly who I want to be when I grow up

We love Dot to pieces! So there, Dot: I've written another entry (well, my second since ELEANOR) and now YOU'VE been blogged! Like it or not! (Ok, well if you don't like anything, I'll take it out...)

The Bunny Diaries: R.I.P Sniffles the 1st

The other day two well-meaning friends, our son Henry's godparents, sent our daughter home with a cage, dried hay for bedding, some pellet food, and a water bottle--oh yes, and a baby bunny. He was the most serene rabbit, soft and angora-like, with dappled gray and tan coloring.

"Henry, what are you going to name him?" "Sniffles," he answered, "because he sniffs." That seemed like a perfect name, especially for an on-the-spot decision for an animal whose nose rarely stops twitching.

Several days later our son Eli came down early, as he often does, to check on things. I, too, was up early (a rare occurrence). He came inside and with a look of terror, his eyes wide, he cried: "there is blood in the cage!". I tried to be calm, fearing the worst. "Eli, come in the house and stay in the living room." I went to the cage--oh, phew, the bunny looked fine...at first glance. He wasn't and I can't possibly describe the state he was in because I don't have that in me to describe, but I knew he was suffering. I found a cloth, gathered him up and held him close, and found my husband. Henry was still asleep and Eli, having heard the sound of fear in my voice, had remained upstairs.

My first thought was, this animal is not going to make it, my next thought was deep empathy for the wee bunny, and my final one was that Henry will be devastated. My husband came down, we went to the mudroom, and I just lost it. I couldn't hold back the tears. I felt like Fern Arable at the prospect of losing Wilbur the runt to the hands of farm fate. My husband, who grew up with more farm animals than I ever did, knew what to do so the bunny would no longer suffer. I knew that calling a vet at that point was not an option. It was clear that the poor animal had been tortured by a cat who could reach his long arms through the thin cage rails. In our ignorance at the cage limitations, we had left Sniff on the porch at night. Big mistake, even for a country village bunny like ours. [By the way, my favorite all-time Easter bunny children's book? THE COUNTRY BUNNY and the Little Gold Shoes by Marjorie Flack]

Henry soon came downstairs and we brought him onto our laps and gave both he and Eli the news. As it was Henry's bunny, we knew he would take it the hardest. My husband had buried Sniff under the arborvitae hedge where he (or she--it was too soon to tell) liked to play and hide, and placed a rock over his spot. The boys brought flowers to Sniffles for several days and we even had a small memorial service for the bunny. I remembered the many gerbils, turtles, chameleons, dogs and cats that we lost as children. But there is nothing like your own child's first pet death--an important lesson in life and love. These small tragedies in the animal world make us the humans that we are.

POSTSCRIPT: A few days after Sniff died, my husband went back to our friends who had the bunny litter and brought home not one but two more: one for Henry and one for Eli. It was a huge surprise for everyone. "Sniffles II" and "Bunny" as Eli named his white and brown-spotted bunny. Sniffles looks just like the first. I'll post a photo soon. Now we realize they may be one girl and one boy so separate cages will be our next quest...or we might be finding ourselves with a litter of our own.

Eleanor

The other day, coming out of the driveway, I ran (almost) into my old boss and friend, Eleanor. We both live in the same town and as life in the country would have it, we haven't run into each other, so to speak, in several years. (Ironically, we also both grew up in the same local town, just south of where we live now.)

Eleanor worked for over twenty years as communications director at the New England branch of a national graduate school (ok, what's the big secret: Antioch New England). I was fortunate to work with her from 1991-1993 as her assistant and editor of the alumni newsletter. She and a team from the provost's office picked me from a group of over 90 candidates which was a big boost for the old ego at the time. The job also came at a time when my daughter was three and ready for preschool, when I had just finished graduate school myself, and needed a full time job with benefits. In many ways it was the ideal job and perfect nurturing environment.

I have never worked with someone as kind and compassionate as Eleanor. She had precision and a critical eye, both qualities of a fine editor. She knew what it was like to be a single mother, having had to return to work herself when her children were teenagers. She has personally overcome many health hurdles. Before becoming a mother, Eleanor worked with Thomas Hoving at the Met and I had nothing but respect for her talents.

I left Antioch because as a trained museum and history person, I was longing to return to the house museum world. On a whim in the summer of 1993 I applied to be an editorial assistant at the Getty in Los Angeles. I interviewed for that job and decided to step out of the running because upon further inquiry I discovered that my boss would have been a childless middle-aged woman who had risen the ranks and likely would not be too tolerant of single-parent issues. In sum, she was no Eleanor.

The same day I declined to be a part of the Getty process, I was offered a job as site manager at a small house museum in the Monadnock region, Barrett House, owned by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England). This came at a time when Eleanor was scheduled to have major surgery. I faced a dilemma and decided the best thing would be to stay at my job through the end of the year while she had her leave.

When I saw Eleanor the other day I realized that sixteen years have passed since I left her employ but that she hasn't aged a day in my mind! She has retired and there is no more deserving person of a more relaxing lifestyle. Antioch New England was lucky to have her. Perhaps now we can finally have that elusive lunch we've been talking about for years!

Addie's 18th

My oldest child is 18 today. It was on a beautiful summer morning eighteen years ago that she was born. The air was clear and warm and I woke up at 5:30am having dreamt of a woman rowing a small boat with a little girl sitting in the prow. It was a dream version of the Impressionist painting with a brunette-haired woman with a young blonde-haired girl. I had no idea I would have a girl--well, not through science--but I certainly knew instinctively. My dream of the painting would become both a prophetic vision for her "birth" day and the years to come. For many years we have rowed together, Addie and I, and the way has been both choppy and smooth. I awoke on the day of her birth to my water breaking. When I was 25 there were still many unknowns in my life--Addie helped define and shape the "knowns". In many ways, she became my glue.

It is true what they say about childhood passing in a blink of an eye, but it is all so important--each and every minute. Like Emily discovers in the Thornton Wilder play OUR TOWN, you can never return or go back and it all goes by too quickly.

"Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's look at each other. Oh, Mama, just look at me for one minute as though you saw me."

My advice to anyone with young children: LOOK at them. Be in the moment with them. Otherwise, these moments are gone.

"Live people don't understand, do they?" Emily later says to the omniscient Stage Manager.

"No, dear. Not very much."

..."Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every minute?"

The stage manager shakes his head.

"No. The saints and poets, maybe. They do some."

I realize that 18 is not the end of our relationship as mother and daughter. But it is a big year for anyone. Addie now has her license and soon she will have a car. She is going to a foreign land to one of the world's most impoverished cities to help build houses. She will return to the relative comfort and prosperity of her life while being a well-paid, hardworking nanny for the summer. And her senior year and college await her...her whole life is ahead of her and it will be her life, less entangled with mine. But we mothers are allowed to savor the bittersweetness of this important threshold in a child's life.

If there is anything I hope to teach, or have taught, my children, it is that life is one glorious ride. There are good days and darker days but it is all truly wonderful if we embrace them fully. I hope my children will always embrace their lives and really LOOK at the people in them.