The greatest story

My grandmother turns 90 this month.  No question she’s lived a full and interesting life.  About a year ago she started mentioning that she might like to record ‘Her Story’, as she called it.  I immediately volunteered.  I believe with every fiber of my being in learning from those that come before. I’m fascinated by history, and travel, and stories of a different time, all of which this biography promised to contain.  We’re not done yet, but already there have been fabulous stories, some I knew already, some even my father hadn’t heard.  My grandmother grew up on a farm in rural Missouri during the depression, she married a soldier during World War II, she’s visited all fifty states (plus living in Alaska when it was a mere territory), she’s canned hundreds of jars of family-famous pickles, and she remembers it all.  This is my (current) favorite story.  It’s about my grandparent’s wedding.

My grandmother and grandfather are both from a small town in rural Missouri.  My grandmother actually grew up in a farm outside of town, but once she was old enough, she and one of her sisters moved to town.  Which is where she met my grandfather.  As things go, they talked, and dated, and at some point, decided to get married.  I’ve seen the gazebo where he proposed, but my grandmother has always remained tight-lipped about what he said.  I think my grandfather would have told, but she always got there first, saying that was between the two of them.  So they were engaged.  And then my grandfather had to return to base.  This was World War II, and like most men his age, my grandfather was serving his country.  I imagine they planned a wedding just as they must have kept in touch, via letters. I do know they planned on a June wedding.  This was 1944.

At the time, my grandfather was stationed in North Carolina, he was part of a medical unit that was training for deployment.  One day, my grandfather mentioned he was engaged and the wedding date.  Later that afternoon, his commanding officer called him in to the office.  There was no one else around. The C.O. opened the safe and pulled out a folder boldly marked SECRET.  He placed a page on his desk and covered all but one line with blotters.  The line said ‘. . . will depart this station on or about the 12^th of June . . .’  The officer put the folder back in the safe, and never mentioned it again.The first time I was told this story, I was quite young, and I didn’t understand the significance.  In a time of war and fear, my grandfather’s commanding officer broke what I can only guess to be several rules, and told my grandfather a date.  The date.  The date the company would be shipping out.  A date that happened to be before my grandparent’s planned wedding date.  The officer was letting my grandfather know, they needed to move up the wedding.

And so on Easter Sunday 1944, my grandparents were married.  My grandfather wore his military uniform, my grandmother a ‘store bought blue suit with pillbox hat and new shoes’.  My grandmother had ridden the train from St. Louis to South Carolina just days before.  The girls in my grandfather’s office had planned a wedding with all the trimmings, going so far as to surreptitiously visit each mess hall on base and empty the sugar bowls into their purses so that my grandparents might have a wedding cake. Two months later, my grandfather shipped off, just as his C.O. had known he would.  My grandmother would take a train back to St. Louis, and they wouldn’t see each other for fifteen months.

And to think, that was just the start of their story.

Lessons from a Road Trip...

Dearest Clara,

This past vacation, we took what we call “The Great American Roadtrip”.  Except, we didn’t take it here in the US, we took it in Europe.  We called it that because we drove for hours and hours through countries and countries to get from the Austrian Alps to the French Coast, and that seems like the kind of thing that one would do here in the US.  If someone tells you that they just drove across ten states, I think you would hardly blink twice.  But in Europe, if you tell people you just traversed ten countries, they’re not quite sure what to make of that.  Like the gentleman who stopped us at the gas station in Switzerland, who just couldn’t believe that our license plates were from Vienna, even though we were only half way on our trip.

But despite the long hours in the car, road travel is still one of our favorite ways to really “see” a country.   The landscape, the people you meet, the dishes you have to try, the improvisation that you have do to, the strange items you can purchase at the gas station – all of that gives you an entirely different sense of place.  It’s a bit like adding salt to food – it’s still the same food you are eating, just with a flavor that becomes more alive (assuming of course, that you’re not adding too much!)

Road trips turn out the best when they’re not overly planned, but still, a few things have become good lessons for us over the kilometers and miles we have traveled, at least for Europe:

• Always have a map and water:  Always.  Whatever fancy gadget your generation will have when you become of driving age might fail you, it might get stolen, it might get forgotten or it might get lost.  In short, nothing replaces a paper map.  Have one just in case.  And have water because you should for a myriad of good reasons, the most important one being because your mother said so.
• Learn how to change your own tires: I’m no pro at this, but if you learn how to drive and you put yourself on the road, you should know how to change a tire.  Don’t think that you can call up Triple A anywhere in the world, and in many areas, the faster you get off the side of the road, the better, and the best way to do that is to know how to do it yourself.
• Make time for the scenic overlooks: There’s a reason why they call those out on signs.  You probably can’t stop for all of them but make time for some – and don’t forget to take your picture in front of them! You’ll develop a fondness for them when you come home.
• Know how to drive manual:  Often times in Europe – or nearly anywhere else in the world – there will be no other option.  You don’t have to like it, but you do have to know how to do it.  Ironically, once you learn how to do it, you’ll probably love it.
• Go with your gut: If it looks like a fun place to stop, stop.  If you had a planned stop and it looks like a bad idea, don’t.  The more you move around, the more you’ll develop a sense for these things, so trust yourself to make those calls.
• Always take advantage of the bathroom: This applies to travel of any kind but if you see a legitimate bathroom, whether porcelain or tree shrub, take advantage, you never know when the next stop will be.

Lots of love,

Mom

My Story: Purpose

For most people, mid-life crises strike in middle age, when paunches are appearing and more hairs are grey than not. For me, the period of searching I began to jokingly refer to as my “quarter-life crisis” came calling a few years ago in early spring, a few months before I turned 21. Eight months after I got married, it was becoming clear that a bachelor’s degree was not going to be in my immediate future. My class schedule had been pared down until hardly anything remained; I spent my days going to class and doing homework for a degree that was realistically impossible at that particular moment in my life.

I felt adrift, confused, unsure of what my purpose in life was or what my next step should be. If not a college graduate, then what? My health wasn’t stable enough for even a part-time job. I desperately wanted children, but my husband and I had agreed to wait until my health was a little more manageable. Coupled with the fact that I knew that my cystic fibrosis was nearly a guarantee of a future infertility struggle, it seemed clear that motherhood was not something that would come to me easily or soon.

As the trees began to unfurl their first delicate green buds, I wrestled over and over with the feeling of being lost, purposeless, meaningless. Could there be value in a life so small, I wondered? Could there be a value in a life that was, more often than not, lived from the couch? Could there be value in a life that lacked all of the markers our society uses to define success—a degree, a job, children?

A few weeks after my soul-searching began, I reflected in a rather macabre moment that really, my “quarter-life crisis” might be considered a true “mid-life crisis,” if you consider a mid-life crisis to be the anxiety that strikes when you’ve lived half the years you can be expected to live. Currently, the average life expectancy for a cystic fibrosis patient is in the late thirties. Years later, I learned that plenty of CF patients in their early twenties experience a similar mid-life crisis.

Weeks passed. The snow in my mountain-locked home melted, leaving the earth saturated with mud and the constant sound of dripping in my ears. And still I felt empty, longing for a purpose. I had always been driven; I’d gone after the things I’d wanted with energy and zeal, and I usually got them. I had always had a purpose. I had been a daughter, a writer, a big sister and surrogate mother, a violinist, a student. I had had all number of big dreams, from publishing a book to living in Hawaii to teaching at a dance studio.

I felt, now, as though everything was being peeled away from me. I was left with only the barest of essentials, the simplest of responsibilities. The scope of my life was narrowing. I thought about these things constantly, talking them over with my husband, writing about them in my journal and on my blog, praying desperately for a purpose for my life.

And slowly, over a period of weeks, I began to find what I was looking for.

As days passed and I continued my relentless questioning, a word came into my mind again and again. Homemaker. It was not a term I had spent much time thinking about before; in the brief moments that I had, I had considered it a rather outdated phrase, one that pigeonholed a woman into a narrow frame of reference and failed to recognize her vibrant, dynamic nature.

But the word stayed. Homemaker. And as I pondered it, I had a revelation.

All my life, I had thought of "homemaker" as synonymous with "mother." After all, "homemaker" is the official term for a stay-at-home mother. When applying to college, I’d spent a lot of time checking boxes to indicate that my mom was a "homemaker." "Homemaker" was, in my opinion, the label that the corporate world had come up with to make a life of diaper changes and laundry baskets something you can put on an official document.

But as I thought about it, I realized something sensational: "homemaker" was not, in fact, the same thing as "mother." Although many mothers are homemakers, a homemaker does not have to be a mother.

I thought about the phrase: a simple compound word, really. Home-maker. One who creates a home. A woman who devotes herself to making her home a haven, a place of safety, comfort, and peace—for herself, her husband, and anyone who enters.

In that seemingly innocuous word, I found the sense of purpose I had been so desperately seeking. There were many things that I couldn’t—and still can’t—do. A year after that mid-life crisis, I officially withdrew from college. Three years since that spring of searching, I still don’t have a degree, or a job, or a child.

But I have been a homemaker. In every place that we have lived, I have worked hard to create a place of joy and love for my husband and myself. I have welcomed friends into our home for comfort, and companionship, and lots of late nights of games and laughter. I’ve discovered a passion for creating good, healthy food for my family.

I have made a home.

That moment of realization—the light-bulb instant where I realized just how much purpose could be found in such a neglected phrase—did not solve all my problems. I still had moments of guilt, and despair, and long nights where I felt worthless and obsolete. I still do.

But what that chilly spring so many years ago did do was answer one question that had haunted me for a long time before. Can there be value in a life so small?

Because what I have learned is that the answer is yes. There is always value. Even in the days where I feel most helpless—even in the days where I can hardly get off the couch—there is value. I am the maker of our home, an integral part in this family of two that my husband and I have created.

I have purpose.

In this space, Cindy Baldwin will share her evolution---the ways she has come to accept the circumstances of her life with cystic fibrosis and find great contentment within them. You can read the beginning of her story here and here. 

Growing Up

When you live in New York City, there are moments when you find yourself at odds with her. When my husband, James, and I moved here a year ago, I was fresh out of graduate school and just starting a new job. James was on the job-hunt and together we moved into a tiny apartment on a six-month lease just to see if we could hack it. I'll admit that this first year has sometimes seemed like a test of wills. The wills in question being our own, and the apparent will of the city herself. I don't mean to exaggerate our struggles. We've been triumphant, almost entirely. We've survived moments of legitimate worry like car accidents and thefts and desperately low bank accounts. Those moments serve best as a way to put into perspective our complaints about laundromats and malfunctioning subway cards. Despite all odds, this month, we even managed to get married.

There's little about this past year that's been truly unique. The particulars, of course, but not the thrust of the story. Since moving together last June, we've been regaled with stories of a once-upon-a-time nature from other once-young couples who shared bathrooms with neighbors and subsisted on ramen and ketchup packets and fiddling in the subway. The stories usually finish with a sigh and a "You're only young once." But while on one hand these stories offer a sense of community and the relief that someone else has also survived a difficult moment, there is a risk, I think, in believing that this kind of struggle exists only for young people.

I spent Sunday with my 90 year-old cousin, Mildred, who has lived in the same New York City apartment for 60 years. She is the picture of grace and good humor, and like us, she battles a willful city. I've decided that it's still more hopeful to realize that struggle exists at all stages of our lives and that young or not we have the capacity to overcome it. In difficult moments, I've found, a few stems of fresh flowers make a world of difference. And it doesn't matter one bit if you're 28 or 90. Mildred agrees.

Inheritance

By Sheila Squillante Something happened tonight that I was totally unprepared for.

Before I describe it, I’ll back up and say that lately, my daughter, Josephine, has been asking a lot of questions about death. In particular, she wants to know, “Did my grandpa die?” My answer is always the truth: Yes, sweetie. He died. Each time the question comes, her inquiry deepens so that we have gone through, “He was your dad? Your dad died?” “How did he die?” “Why did he die?” “Where is my grandpa now?”  and, “Can he come back?”

These questions obliterate me, but I have been able to take a deep breath each time and tell her the age-appropriate truth with maybe a little quaver to my voice, maybe a quick tear, but mostly with composure. I did the same thing for my son when he began to ask these questions.

And I’ve been telling the kids about their grandfather since they were first interested in listening to stories. Josephine has been asking for “Grandpa Stories” before bed for at least a year. She has them memorized and asks for them by name: “The Snapping Turtle,” “The Red Rooster in Brewster,” The Glue Cookies.” Tonight, though, as we were finishing up a book we got from the library, turning off the light and climbing into her bed for our nightly snuggle, she burst into racking, whole-little-body-shaking sobs out of nowhere. I thought, at first, that she had physically hurt herself. I was completely thrown and I asked her what was wrong. She could barely form her mouth around the words,

“I miss my grandpa. I want him to come back.”

Oh, sweetie.

I gathered her up into my arms and held her while she cried, stroking her hair and telling her it was okay to feel sad, that I feel sad sometimes, too. That it’s okay to miss him. But that when I’m sad, I think about The Glue Cookies or The Red Rooster and it helps me feel better, closer to him. I promised her I would tell her Grandpa stories whenever she wanted me to to help her feel better, too. I told her all this while she cried and cried and I buried my face in her hair and cried too. Quietly. Mostly swallowing my grief for fear of indulging it and letting it overwhelm us both.

It’s not that I didn’t expect her to ask hard questions about death or that she would maybe someday feel a void where my father should have been in her life.

But I did not expect it to happen *now*. She is three years old.

I have become so used to my son’s rather cerebral, analytical relationship to my father’s death (the only emotion I’ve seen him express has been around the extrapolation of death-in-general to Death of Parent. Me.), that I forgot about the child whose uncanny empathy has been a primary part of her personality since she was a year old. This should not have surprised me. This is who she is.

As I helped her settle, I realized that this was the first time in more than eighteen years that I’ve had to push my own grief aside to minister to someone else’s. That it was my own daughter’s felt terrifying–I don’t want her to hurt like this–but also, in a sense, wonderfully healing.

I have always said that part of the reason I write about my father is to continue him, to enliven him for my children. Maybe I’ve been able to do that a little, and it feels good; it makes me happy.

But somehow it never occurred to me that, along with my memories, my stories, my kids would also inherit my living, persistent, still vibrant grief.

Header Image: New York Public Library. Photo by Centennial Photographic Co. of sculpture "Grief".

The Kindness of Strangers

I’m never in a hurry to talk to strangers. For example, if I am going into a store, my preference is to dodge the salespeople who aim to greet me on my way in and avoid talking to anyone unless I purchase something. I know people who want to be greeted, but I am not one of those people. If I am greeted, and asked if I would like help, I always say, “no, I’m just looking.”  I respond this way even when I am actually looking for something and I don’t know where to find it. When I worked in retail, I felt like I could spot the people who feel the same as me---the lack of eye contact, the drifting to the side of the store---and I would forego greeting them in a silent show of solidarity. Now that I am a parent, strangers talk to me. Most of it is pretty much okay. Conversations at the playground with other moms hit the same themes (how old? what’s his name? and so on) and are easily ended when one’s child runs too far afield or asks to go on the swings. My son receives a lot of compliments on his general cuteness from strangers, and I know how to gracefully nod and say thank you, or even more cloyingly, tell him to say thank you. Sometimes folks ask questions about him that would be pretty hilarious to ask another adult stranger, but I do my best to give answers that will be found satisfactory while never actually revealing much about us at all.  A woman asks, “does he eat table food?” I answer, “he loves eating!” An older man asks, “Is he a good boy?” and I answer, “look at him!”

I thought about this recently when a friend on Facebook posted a link to the hilarious article “Hello Stranger on the Street, Could You Please Tell Me How To Take Care Of My Baby” by Wendy Molyneux. I read it, chuckled heartily, and took a moment to be grateful that this hadn’t happened to me terribly often in my son’s first year. There was the time when my wife and I were in Target and attempting to adjust his position in the baby carrier on my chest, and a woman stopped and said, “Do you need help, that doesn’t look like it is on right.” I roared to action, as someone who is sleep-deprived and carrying fifteen sweaty pounds on her chest is likely to do, particularly when she feels as though she really does have it under control.  I snapped back that we were fine and, confident in her moral high ground as baby carrier good Samaritan, my foil didn’t back down. The end result was more than a bit of incivility near the denim short display and my having a very frustrated spouse.

But that was nearly a year ago, and as I read the Molyneux piece, I thought about how it hasn’t happened often. I felt grateful to live in the East, where people are generally not overly perky or interested in one another (simply buying milk at the grocery store when I visit my parents in St. Louis makes me feel as though I have walked into another country what with all of the smiles and cheer).

As these stories always go, though, I had become too comfortable.  Too complacent. The three of us went to an art fair along the Hudson River this week. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, and breezy. We had brought our son in his big jogging stroller to be able to navigate over the grass. We lathered him with sunscreen and put on his baseball cap. To enter the fair, we had to go through a little aisle and down a small hill, and I lifted the front wheel of the stroller off of the ground to give myself more maneuverability on the hill.  As we entered the fair, a woman stopped us and said, “Just so you know . . .”

“Just so you know . . .”  It’s pretty rare when someone says “Just so you know . . . that sweater looks awesome on you” or “Just so you know . . . you make the best cole slaw.”  The phrase gave me the perfect amount of pre-processing time. I knew what was coming was going to be infuriating. I stopped the stroller.  I looked at the woman, a little older than my mother, and she said, “as you came down the hill with the stroller tilted, the sun was right in his eyes.”

I wanted to explain that my goal had been for him to never see the sun, never know that the sun existed, live a vampire-like existence of dusk and twilight and now that was ruined, ruined, and I would always think of how she had been the one to bring me the news.

I wanted to explain that we had been planning to spend all afternoon on that small patch of hill (one where everyone was coming and going in a single file all day, and where we were now holding up traffic), but that she was totally right, the angle of the sun made doing that totally impractical.

I wanted to roll my eyes. I wanted to snap back.  I wanted to say, “Are you serious?”

But I didn’t. I smiled and nodded.  I said nothing. She seemed surprised. She looked at me. I looked at her. A moment passed.  She said, “Now though, with the hat, he’s fine.” I nodded again, still smiling. She looked at my son.  She said, “he’s gorgeous.” I smiled, and nodded, and said “thank you.”

We moved on. My wife immediately praised me for keeping my cool. We realized that the power dynamic shifted the second I didn’t say anything in response, forcing her to backtrack to fill the silence. In fact, by the end of the interaction, she seemed embarrassed. In my previous experience of unsolicited parenting advice, I filled all of the potential silence with anger, and ended up feeling terrible. Furthermore, overly engaging with strangers is not something that I do---in anger or in any other situation. Unsurprisingly, being myself worked best, and we walked on, into the shade.

From North Dakota...

Dearest Clara,

You will raise a lot of eyebrows when you tell people where you’re from.  Nineteen months old and you’re already from  everywhere it seems---but I promise you the eyebrows will really pop off when you tell people that your mother grew up in North Dakota . . . Fargo to be precise.  Most people have never met anyone from North Dakota (although with all the news of oil, a lot more people seem to know about it now).  And you’ll hear a lot of jokes about being in the prairie and the wilderness.  But for all that we’ve traveled and seen, I have to say that some of the people and landscapes nearest and dearest to my heart have been from this state.

Here what I learned in my years growing up there:

• Wide open spaces are beautiful: And usually, they are beautiful because they are wide and open.  There is a reason people write songs about them.  The ability to see horizon to horizon is rare as we continue to pack ourselves into this world.  Sometimes, it can feel a bit lonely as you realize how small you are in comparison to the size of what is out there.  But most of the time I find them freeing and inspiring.  You might find yourself small, but you realize how big you can still be.
• Water is unpredictable: You would think that I would learn this lesson at the ocean, but the first time I realized the power of water, and then realized it again and again, was living next to the Red River that ebbs and flows according to what the season brings.  Water brings many gifts, but its power can come quickly and take them all away just as fast.  Don’t feel like you can outsmart water, ever.  You can be prepared though.
• Sweet and salty go together: Long before the salted caramel trend, a little shop in Fargo called Widman’s Candy, where so many close girlfriends worked in my high school years, caught on to the unique flavor that combining sweet and salty brings.  They hand-dipped their potato chips, made from North Dakota potatoes of course, in chocolate just so.  I always stop for a box when I’m home.  I always buy them with the intention of giving them as gifts, but somehow, they find their way onto my dessert plate instead.  Buy extra.
• Be part of a community: Many don’t realize it but North Dakota was once called out in a political science study for its civic engagement, which I learned about in university.  Once I thought about it, I realized it was true.  People belong to things here: bowling teams, churches, book clubs, the PTA, you name it.  And that means that they belong in general.  Be part of things, build things, and participate in your community.  After all, it will be what you make it.
• It's nice to be polite: Sometimes people in Fargo can really kill you with kindness.  They call you by name, they wish you a nice day, they go out of their way to help you at the DMV, they track down that extra set of tickets to the show you wanted to see.  It might seem overwhelming at first, almost as if it’s not genuine.  But it is---that need to be polite comes from the right place. When you are tempted to take the quicker road, take a minute to do the more polite thing.  You’ll make someone’s day, and you’ll feel better yourself.  Double-win.

We just returned from our first trip to North Dakota with you, full of sunshine and wheat fields, but this December we’ll be back for the holidays.  Winter here brings a whole new set of lessons---the first one being to bundle up! I suppose we should already start looking for a coat for you!

All my love,

Mom

Memories of Mammaries

 My friend Dorothy is a "real" writer; that is, she does it for a living. She writes for Metro newspapers and is a published co-author of a hilarious dating book,  Dating Makes You Want to Die. I asked her to contribute a story about her and her mom, to kick-start an initiative to explore other mother/daughter relationships here.  When my mom first passed away, Dorothy was there with much-needed support, including the titles of several books she thought I might find some comfort from. This piece is equally funny and reflective, just like Dorothy herself. by Dorothy Robinson

When I was newly pregnant with my baby boy Sam, my 74-year-old mother was diagnosed with cancer in both breasts. This was something of a surprise for everyone; breast cancer doesn't run in our family and Mom was diligent about having a yearly mammogram. It appeared without warning, laying claim to both her breasts. And it was fast, growing so big that just cutting the cancer out wouldn't be an option. She'd have to remove both breasts, the sooner the better.

When you undergo a mastectomy, most of the recovery is done at home. It isn't pretty.  To help with the healing process, the surgeons insert a tube in the hole where your breasts used to be, which then dangles outside out of your body. At the bottom of the tube is a suction device, resembling a tiny, clear, plastic grenade. For days and weeks after the breast is removed, the body shoots fluid to where it used to be to help clean the wound; lost, the soupy mess has nowhere to go and collects under the skin. The drains help to clear this and keep infection and pain at bay. But someone recovering from surgery needs help emptying those little grenades and keeping a log of the output. And that would be me. My 76-year-old father could hardly say the word "breast" and my brother, who lives down the street from my parents, gave me a look that said, "I fix their DVD player every week, you are doing this."

Before I heaved my pregnant self to Delaware to help while my mother recovered, I did some reading on how to help a woman who was going to lose her breasts. My mother had weathered health scares before, most notably a heart valve replacement---a much more invasive procedure, which she got through with little drama or setbacks. I figured this recovery would follow the same path. My research suggested that women undergoing a double mastectomy should get therapy to help with the psychological effects of losing their breasts. This seemed kind of nutty to me, as my mother was way past needing them. Maybe other, younger women would be affected by such a loss but not my Steel Magnolia of a mother.  A former judge and Southern WASP, she is the human embodiment of those ubiquitous "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters.

But this wasn't the case. The night before she was to undergo her surgery, I expected a usual night at home with my parents: Scotch for them, a discussion on an interesting article from that day’s Wall Street Journal with maybe a little basic cable thrown in. Instead, my mother was inflamed with sadness and anger. She wept. She yelled. She couldn't be calmed.  Wide-eyed at this woman I didn't know, I pleaded with her to take a Xanax, to have a drink---anything to calm her anxiety.  I was scared. This was not my mother. In my mind, it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't a foot or an arm. Just two lumps of flesh that had done their job. They had to go so she could live. It was a simple swap, I figured, and one that would let her continue to do important things in life, like being able to meet her new grandson. I texted my husband, who remained back at our home in New York to work, that I was surprised at her emotions. Our minister came over and, along with my brother, we held hands as a family in the living room and said a little prayer. Finally calm, she sheepishly asked me to take a photo of her breasts. Sheepishly, I did.

The surgery went well. And 24-hours after the doctors removed her breasts, she returned home, with me by her side. The nurses in the hospital rued this in-and-out policy. "A man comes in with prostate problems, he stays for four days. You get your boobs removed, and you go home in less than a day," one nurse said to us with a shake of her head, as she showed me how to clean my mother’s drains. For a week, I stood next to my sad, incomplete mother, while cells swirled within my body, creating my baby. I emptied out her blood and bits of flesh, keeping a diligent log for the nurses who would swing by our home to check on her progress.

When, six months later, baby Sam made his appearance, my mother was back to her usual self, healthy and cancer free. She has an angry scar across her chest (no matter how good the surgeon, the scar from a double mastectomy always looks like the operation was done in a back alley) and two pairs of "falsies," as she calls them in her Southern lilt, to put in her clothing to help give her shape. We can now even joke about her operation.  When she first held her week-old grandson, he tried to peck at her chest, like all hungry newborns do. "You're barking up the wrong tree there, buddy," she laughed.  That night, surged with hormones and gratitude, I wept at our good fortune.

Recently, while still on maternity leave, I spent some time with my parents at their little beach cottage to escape the oppressive heat of Brooklyn. After some trepidation at the thought of feeding the baby in front of my proper father, I finally just went for it. Soon, cocktail hour would mean sitting on the porch, my folks enjoying gin and tonics; Sam, milk.

You can read thousands of essays on the meaning of breasts, but until you place your sweet baby in front of them, you will never understand how important they are to your personhood, to your sense of self, to being a woman. To lose them is to lose a part of you; a part of your history. Finally, I understood my mother’s sadness. Perhaps if we were a more dramatic family, maybe we would have really focused on the significance of breasts and a new baby when our matriarch had just lost hers, and discuss it, like they do in therapy. Perhaps everyone did but we didn't say it out loud.  Instead, we just enjoyed each other's company under the hazy July sun. The only one who really cared about boobs or no boobs was Sam, who spent his evenings sucking happily while my mother and her new falsies looked on.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

There is a house---a camp, really---on a lake in New Hampshire that is owned by my husband's extended family. It houses many generations of strong women; a matriarchal household in every sense of the word. Bought in 1948 by my husband's great uncle and his wife, many of the women who now run the house during the summer and collectively supervise their kids running through the woods and swimming in the lake grew up traipsing through the same woods and swimming in the same waters. It's a family with deep roots and a well-documented tree, but one that is also made of people who have been brought in and enmeshed through skinny dips and grilled hot dogs. Stand in the kitchen long enough, and you'll hear one of the women say "did you hear about the time when..." before the rest of them break out in peals of laughter that carry down to the lake and across the water. The more time you spend here, the more clearly the ghosts materialize and give a sense of tradition to the rhythm of the day that has survived with the minimal necessary evolutions for over 60 years. Claude and Phyllis (the couple who bought camp) skinny dipping early in the morning and serving hot dogs and milkshakes for lunch; the bouncing Jack Russell terrier begging to be let in by appearing in two second intervals in the open top half of the Dutch door on the porch (after chasing a squirrel into its hole and getting his face stuck in its burrow); my mother-in-law first learning to waterski by sitting on the shoulders of her cousin as the boat pulled them both up. In these stories, the men are key players to be sure, but their narratives remain peripheral. The driving characters of the stories of camp are the women. I am weaving myself into the fabric of this family, first as a girlfriend, then a wife---a friend, a mother, an aunt. The Christmas before I married Jordy, the ladies of camp bought me a beach towel with my name embroidered on it. It was to be left here for the winters, awaiting my return each July. I took the gift as a statement: just as there was a place in the hall linen closet for my new towel, there was a place in this family for me. I've come here this week for a family vacation. My in-laws are here, and my husband has a rare break from work. This is more than a vacation, though. By coming here, I get to reconnect with women (and their kids) who I see maybe twice per year, but to whom I feel viscerally connected. They've held me in hard times, called me sister in happy times, and loved me unconditionally through both. For 64 years, the women of camp have gathered by the water, surrounded by bronzed children of various ages to discuss our lives, to discuss current events, to discuss what to make for dinner, to discuss what we're reading. We call ourselves "the ladies of the beach."

It's funny to have such a strong connection to the history of a family that is not biologically mine (in the abbreviation-language of camp, I am an NBR---a Non-Blood Relative). In many ways, I think that spending time with Jordy's family on land that they have shared for so long binds me to his family in a more raw and fundamental way than any other could. I learned to water ski the same way and in the same water that my husband and his entire family learned; my daughter jumps off the same rocks that my mother-in-law jumped off as a little girl, and we all make a daily pilgrimage to the ice cream shop where 2 generations have worked during the summer. The oldest of the third generation will be old enough to continue the tradition next year, and we are all eagerly awaiting her employment (though our waistlines may disagree). Connecting with Jordy's family this way encourages me to love him (and them) even more deeply, and in a sense for more time. Though my time moving forward is limited, I feel like with each summer here, I get time both in the present, and also in the past. It's a richer, augmented experience when you're layering summer on top of summer on top of summer. I recently picked up The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt. It's a story of a summer house, like this one, and the family that inhabits it. I just started the book, but I love the way that the house and the land are intertwined with the family and its history. The author's memories of his grandparents are similar to the memories that Jordy has, and likely similar to the memories that Emi will have as she grows up. It was handed to me as soon as I arrived, looking for something to read. I just finished 1Q84, and needed something to thumb through at the beach in-between discussions of the latest article in People or Frank Rich's column that morning. Reading is an integral weft in the social fabric of the ladies at camp. We love books, we love to read, and we love to talk about what we're reading. Here's a sample of what's made an appearance at the beach this week. If some of the reviews seem short, it's because I made people tell me what they were reading as they were running through the house on their way to the beach, the grocery store, or to watch the Olympics (the only time, save for the U.S. Open, that the television is allowed on).

Lulu, 65 The matriarch of this house, Lulu, has made it her business to extend her family. She is the wife of Claude and Phyllis' younger son, John, and is at the center (though some days she would like to be removed from it) of camp life. A fellow only child, Lulu's philosophy is that there are always enough beds, and we can always make dinner stretch to accommodate a few more. Lulu is an honorary grandmother to most of the kids here, and is an honorary mother to all of us. She is the grandmother who waterskis and swears like a sailor and finishes the crossword in the Sunday Times, and she makes it her business to keep alive the history of camp (and with it, her husband's family). When you come to camp, you inevitably hear the stories of this place, and Lulu is often the one telling them. Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichel "I love it. It's a memoir of her childhood with a very crazy mother and how food became so important in her life. She comes from a really crazy family, and she just by happenstance gets connected to a family that loves food, and she discovers that when the world isn't working well, you can make a good meal and all is suddenly right with the world."

Nancy, 70 Nancy's husband, Ricky, was raised with John, Lulu's husband. Both of their fathers were off fighting in WWII, and their mothers, Dot and Phyllis, moved in together. Both nurses, they were best friends, and each had two boys. They got double coupons and worked opposite shifts so that while one worked, the other watched all of the children. They shared jobs---Dot hated darning, so Phyllis did that, but Dot did all of the maintenance. The husbands were in the same medical corps in Italy. Ricky's family used to rent the camp next door when Claude and Phyllis bought this camp, and Nancy first came up to the lake when she and Ricky became engaged.

Nancy, through sheer luck, stayed up here the summer that I brought newly-born Emi to camp. She would rock Emi as Emi screamed and screamed, and she would sit with me through the seemingly never-ending nursing sessions telling me stories of her own family, in and out of which members of our family would dance. Asked about her favorite things about camp, she says, "The thing that always struck me was the intergenerational thing, the cocktail hour with the great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and kids, sharing stories and sharing time. All of the ages and stages and kids, and everyone just kind of took care of their own kids and other kids---kind of like how it is now. Oh, and coming down to the beach with all of these very professional, intelligent, highly educated women sharing stories from smutty magazines."

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy "It's a book that I never in a million years thought I would read (even though I'm an English teacher), but my book club decided they would do it. I am fully immersed in it. The first 100 or so pages were difficult just because of the many characters and getting the names straight (and feeling intimidated by the fact that it's War and Peace). But once you get over that, Tolstoy is so fluid and so all-encompassing and he understands human nature and the big picture so well, but he includes detail to make it seem here and now. The writing is a narrative, so you read it for a story, but you also get a sense of the history and the philosophical and ethical issues that people thought about at that time in Russia (and even now): the nobility and the peasants; why people go to war. You're also brought back by the everydayness of the characters that he creates, and they become real. It's a great read. We were supposed to read 200 pages and meet and read another 200 pages, but I've almost finished it because I've become so involved with it."

Emily, 37 Emily and I became fast friends when she started dating Jordy's cousin, Evan (Lulu's son). She is one of the funniest people I know. She was married here at the lake, and I was one of her bridesmaids. She returned the favor for me when I married Jordy. Her daughters, 4 1/2 and 2 years old, sandwich Emi in age, and the three of them are quite a sight to behold when they are galavanting together on the beach. Emily now does the Sunday crossword with Lulu, and she's the only person I know who can beat Jordy at Scrabble.

"I just finished Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. I loved it up until the very end, but I couldn't put it down---I was sneaking reads during work. It was a page turner, and you didn't know what was happening. It was a good mystery, and how you felt about the characters changed throughout the book at different points. I read The Art of Racing in the Rain at the beginning of the summer. It's written from the point of view of a dog---[she looks at me raising my eyebrows and goes, "I know, but it's really good."] the dog is this smart being, but because of how he was created (with a floppy tongue, no thumbs)---he's stuck with his thoughts and knowledge of things but no way to express himself. I just started reading Sharp Objects."

Alice and Claudia, 10 I've known Alice and Claudia (sisters, daughters of Jordy's cousin) since they were toddlers, speaking in one-word sentences and eager to investigate my shoes every time I came to their house. Watching them grow has been astonishing; if ever there were two more interesting 10 year olds, I don't know them. Alice is wonderfully imaginative and creative. This week, she made a magic wand for her brother out of a twig that she had stripped the bark off of in a striped pattern, and a vine woven around and anchored with pine sap. Claudia is thoughtful and funny and up for anything. She's also incredibly creative, and her wrists are buried in brightly colored friendship bracelets that she's made. The two sisters, along with their brother and cousins, are delighted to invite Emi to play with them, and are old enough to be able to tell her stories when she's older about her first years here.

Alice The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, Meg Wolitzer "It's about this dude who plays Scrabble, and he has a power in his fingers to read things with his fingertips. They're in a tournament in Florida. I got it for my birthday from Grandma and Grandpa. It was on the Chautauqua reading list."

Claudia The Son of Neptune, Rick Riordan "It's the second in a series the Heros of Olympus, which is the sequel series to the Percy Jackson series. It's about a boy, Percy Jackson, who's memory is taken by Hera/Juno, and he loses 8 months of his life with the wolf Lupa and her pack, learning to fight. Then he leaves the wolves and journeys to the Roman demigod camp and he's originally from the Greek demigod camp. I read the first one in the series and it was about a boy, Jason, who gets the same thing but goes from the Roman camp to the Greek camp, and he has to unite the camps before the prophesy can come true. It's so good, I've read it seven times."

After a bit of questioning, Claudia admits she's read it seven times because she's already read (or can't find) the other books in the top of the boathouse, where the girls sleep. I promise to take her to town tomorrow to get a new book to read at the local bookstore. She'll read it and give it to her sister and cousins---I imagine that it will end up in one of the bookshelves in the house, waiting for Emi to grow into it. As for our trip into town, I can't promise anything, but it will likely include an ice cream cone. I know all too well that in a blink, Claudia will be old enough to drive herself, and in another one old enough for me to take her kids for her while she catches a moment to read on the beach.

Creating Sabbath

When I was growing up, Sundays were church days for my family. We'd get up in the morning—later than on school days, but somehow, it still felt early—and elbow one another out of the way of the bathroom mirror for primping and toothbrushing. Then, we'd pack into the car and head to Sunday school and worship services. Afterwards, we'd grumble about the sermon running long and pile into the car again with hungry bellies. We usually had lunch out at some sort of "family restaurant" (bonus points if they served raspberry iced tea and had a free salad bar) and then went home for naps and homework. At the time, I didn't give much thought to what a Sabbath could be or should be. For us, it included a lot of eating, a little resting and praying, and a good dose of getting in each others' way. Sometimes I wondered what other kids did on Sunday mornings, but mostly I didn't question the shape of my week.

Fast forward through college and graduate school, and my Sabbath doesn't happen on Sundays anymore. After converting to Judaism, I began observing the Jewish Sabbath ("Shabbat"), which takes place from Sundown on Friday to Sundown on Saturday. My Sabbath not only takes place on a different day of the week, but the characteristics of the day itself are a little different too. While there are many different ways to observe Shabbat, mine centers around a festive evening meal on Friday and includes a lot of reading and resting on Saturday.

Perhaps one of the most curious differences between my childhood Sabbath and my current practice is that I no longer use phones, computers, or transportation during the "Sabbath" portion of my weekend. This probably sounds odd. And to be honest, I've never really come up with a satisfying explanation or justification of this practice. There are as many reasons for rituals as there are people who practice them, and perhaps more.

But soon after Shabbat took hold of my Friday nights and Saturdays—at first out of curiosity and then, perhaps, out of inertia—it became a nonnegotiable. It's a strange thing, to commit to doing almost nothing for a whole night and day each week. It's just a bit too long, actually, so that by Saturday evening I'm often a little restless, bored, or uncomfortable, more than ready to return to my regularly scheduled programming.

But at the busiest and most stressful moments during the week, I find that I try to conjure up something of the essence of the most recent Shabbat. It has something to do with quiet and stillness and do-nothing time. Ironically, my do-nothing time is often my most creative thinking time. While I'm not-writing, I can't help but conjure up a million different ideas to write about. Given this extra breathing room, my mind starts to play. Sure enough, I forget most of my "brilliant" ideas by Sunday morning, or as soon as I'm poised at the desk and ready to type my little heart out. But at least I know they're there, somewhere beneath the surface of daily life.

These days, I don't have to wonder what other kids do on Sunday mornings, but I do wonder a lot about how others practice "Sabbath." When and how do you like to rest? What's the shape of your weekend? Whether you've taken a sabbatical year or found ways to incorporate stillness into each day, I'd love to know, what does "Sabbath" mean to you?

Destiny's Child

I have been thinking a lot about destiny lately.  Whenever people hear the story of how my husband and I came to be together, they say something to the effect of, “It’s like you were fated to be married!”  When I describe my 180-degree career shift from social worker to florist, I get, “It was always what you were supposed to do!”  And there is the inevitable, “This was absolutely meant to be!” concerning the subject of my finally becoming a mother.  Having said all that, and acknowledging that my life feels nothing short of wondrous at times, I am not actually sure I believe in destiny.  I think what I mostly believe in is making choices. As a person with some fairly significant control issues, I battle with the notion that things are in any way preordained.  When confronting a particularly challenging set of circumstances, the concept of life unfurling “just as it should,” and according to some magical plan beyond my comprehension, sounds amazing.  I assert there is some truth to this - I have an indistinct sense that everything always “works out in the end.”  But I feel strongly that I have a hand in crafting the result and that, depending on the situation, my influence is anywhere from 85-99% of it.  The remaining 1-15% (author’s note: these numbers are not rooted in any scientific process) I suppose is some amalgamation of karma (at least my white, Jewish, suburban notion of karma) and dumb luck.  I never said it was sexy.

My husband and I have a really good thing going.  For his part, he is lovely, bright, thoughtful, totally friggin’ hilarious and a very involved father.  We share the same life goals, appreciate almost all the same cultural phenomena and have similar values around politics, social justice and generally how we want to function in the world.  How I landed him seems like magic, but the bottom line is I chose him.

We first met at summer camp, as teenagers.  Flash forward 17 years and we ended up married with a ridiculously adorable infant daughter.  This story is so ripe for the “meant to be” trope, it’s virtually impossible to resist.  And as much as I would like to wrap it up in a tidy bow, it feels critically important to appreciate how pro-active we both had to be to get here:

1)   How I knew Michael in the first place: As a child, I chose to participate in a Labor Zionist youth movement that offered a sleep-away summer camp.  Believe me, this is a highly specific choice.

2)   How I was in a position to date him: At age 34, I chose to leave my first marriage, recognizing that I had made a mistake.

3)   How we reconnected: I chose to reach out to him on Facebook, hoping we still might have some things in common.

4)   How the relationship developed: I chose to pursue our connection, despite being separated by 3000 miles.  I then chose to move across the country to give it a real chance.

5)   How we were married: I chose to make a life with someone that I not only loved but who treated me with respect and with whom I was a great match.

Don’t get me wrong: there was and is all manner of getting the vapors and birds chirping and stars trailing across the night sky.  However, the bones of what we have done and what we are doing together are the minute and monumental choices.  The future of our relationship depends entirely on these choices.  Are we going to be kind to one another?  Are we going to listen?  Are we going to stick around when things get tough?  Are we going to share domestic responsibilities . . . some of this is HUGE and some of it seems so piddly, I realize.  I would argue that every little choice piles onto the heap that tips the scales in favor of a partnership.

I was fortunate that someone like Michael was available for my choosing when I was ready.  It was also providence that our timing worked out just right.  But almost everything since has been instrumental and emotional elbow grease.

Chance has also played a role in my career.  I have been “lucky” to have a supportive husband, willing to bear the risk of my starting a business (and doing so smack in the middle of a global financial crisis!).  But I chose to leave a stable, essentially recession-proof career to go out on my own.  And every day I choose not to go back to a more secure position that carries fancy health benefits, so that I might create something more meaningful for myself.

The miniature cherub that lives in our home?  When it comes to her, things get a bit more complicated.  The relevant choice is that I decided to pursue and endure fertility treatments when it became clear that we would not have a child without assistance.  The staggering fortune is that it worked, and we had a healthy child.  Speaking of staggering fortune, we were also lucky to have the resources at our disposal for the procedures.  I will also say that had it not worked, I would have chosen among many other (equally taxing) options to have a child, all of which involve a healthy dose of rolling the dice.  Soon enough, we will be confronted with this crazy fusion of intention and chance if we decide to expand our family again.

The things of which I am most proud in my life — marriage, work, baby — have required a combination giving it up to the fates and making the arduous decisions of a warrior.  It gives me great solace to imagine that I am the author of my own future and that I don’t have to wait for “blessings” to be happy.  The good news is that means we can all change our lives for the better . . . it simply starts with choosing to believe that it’s feasible.

What I Learned at the Rock Concert

Part 1 Last week I went to a concert with my parents and my husband.  We saw Crosby Stills & Nash. And it was awesome.  It took me half an hour to figure out which one was Stills and which was Nash, but it was still awesome. My husband and I were definitely in the minority, most of the audience was over the age of fifty.  But they sure knew how to have a good time!

The woman sitting directly in front of me was having an especially good time.  Every time the band played one of her favorite songs, she would jump up from her seat and dance in place.  Sometimes other people around us were standing up, clapping and dancing, but often she was the only one on her feet.  But she didn’t care.  She didn’t care that she was the only one in our section dancing, or even standing up.  She was celebrating this moment, this song, this experience.

Of course her celebration was basically blocking my view.  Since her seat was right in front of mine, whenever she got up to dance, I could only see a third of CSN. At one point my husband looked over and gave me a sad faced kind of grimace, apologizing that I couldn’t see.  But truthfully, I didn’t care. This woman was so darn happy; it made me happy just to be around her.  She was getting such joy from the music and the performance; I couldn’t help but be affected by it.  Whenever she would get up and dance, I couldn’t stop smiling.

This woman was probably older than my mom, and all I could think was, I want to be that happy, that excited, that rocking in thirty years.  I want to be the kind of grown-up that celebrates life and grabs onto joy whenever its around.  I want to rejoice in those pure blissful moments.  I want to stand up at a concert and sing and dance and clap along with the band.  I want all those whippersnappers to look at me in awe and say ‘that is one groovy old lady’.

But nothing happens overnight right?  I can’t expect to wake up at 60 with all the answers and a convenient pair of rose tinted glasses on the nightstand. So I’m starting now, today; I’m making new habits.  First, I’m going to dance more; just put on a record in the middle of the afternoon and boogie in my living room. Second, I’m going to make a conscious effort to recognize the joy in my life.  To be in the moment and appreciate the bliss that finds me every day. I'm going to celebrate my life.

And in thirty years, I’m going to rock that concert.

From Cannes, France...

Dearest Clara, August is for going to the beach, isn't it? I didn't necessarily used to think so always, but the older I get, the more I miss the salt water air and carefreeness that comes with hot summer days and cool ocean water.  We were lucky this year - the beach in Cannes called our name.  Maybe if we're lucky next year, it will call again.  Here are a couple of things I've learned from this beautiful coast:

• Rosé goes with everything: Everything.  Remember how I said prosecco goes with everything in Italy? Well here you can’t go wrong with rosé.  Lunch, dinner, aperitif, fish, chicken, anything adn everything . . . when in doubt, go pink.  And you can even throw in an ice cube or two.
• There will prettier girls sometimes: At least, that’s what you’ll think, even though it is not true.  And sometimes there will be thinner girls and ones with more money, a deeper tan, cooler sunglasses . . . This is a place where often people have more, and it’s easy to get caught up in comparisons.  But believe your mother on this one, you are just as beautiful as any person out there and it will be your confidence that makes you so.  Whether your bathing suit costs $20 or $200, the ocean water will be just as refreshing.  And when you come home, you’ll wonder why you did all that silly worrying.
• You can have cheese for dinner:  Really.  Our hosts are such wonderful entertainers and chefs, and evenings around the dinner table featured so many good things that were on endless parade.  Yet, one of my favorite meals is the night we were all tired, and we had “cheese for dinner”.  Of course, there were several different platters of all kinds, and accompanying breads, and baskets of fresh figs and honey.  The milk and the creams that go into French cheeses are so good, and the process still true to what it always has been.  Sometimes, something simple can steal the show – give it space to do so every once in a while.  And don’t forget the rosé.
• Enjoy a quiet night in the garden: Cannes has a way of feeling hectic sometimes, but it’s amazing how many pockets of solitude you can find, and absolutely everything that is beautiful and fragrant seems to grow here.  I guess that’s why so many perfumes are from here.  Enjoy these plants and smells…the lavender…the olive trees…the herbs…it all comes together in such a unique combination.  You’ll come back in the future just for that experience all over again.
• Go to the beach: That’s what you’re there for.  Whether it’s a little cove off the road, or in a full on beach club, go to the beach and get in the water.  Nothing sparkles quite like the ocean in the south of France – this is your chance to be part of it.

And of course, don’t forget your sunscreen.

All my love,

Mom

A Half Moon Land Between Sky and Sea…

Liguria, Italy.

My Memories.

When I was little, my grandparents bought a house in Sestri Levante, a small village located along the Ligurian Riviera, in Italy. Since then, I like to take refuge there every time I can, losing myself in thoughts and simply relaxing. It’s easy for me to reach this half moon of land between sky and sea, as it’s only a two-hour car ride from Milan. Yet, this place seems so far away too, perhaps lost somewhere in my memories. I still remember when I was four or five, and my grandma used to push me around Sestri on my stroller because I was too lazy to walk. Well, she never suspected that I only played lazy, but I actually loved knowing I was the center of her world.

 

Nowadays I like travelling throughout the region with my husband, in search for hidden corners in a salt and sun smelling blooming nature. Liguria is a dream land to me, rich in intimate and unique details which suddenly appear to your side and fascinate you for their beauty---ancient defense towers stretching out towards the sky, small churches, chestnut woods, miles of walks with gorgeous panoramic views on sea and inland. It is the land where I spent my summers as a child and nourished my first innocent hopes and dreams.

Celebrating The Land - A Famous Italian Poet and His Words.

Prose writer, editor and translator who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1975, Eugenio Montale was born in Genoa. He spent his summers at the family villa in a small village nearby the Ligurian Riviera called Monterosso, and later images from its harsh landscape found their way into his poetry.

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A white dove has landed me among headstones, under spires where the sky nests. Dawns and lights in air; I've loved the sun, colors of honey, now I crave the dark, I want the smoldering fire, this tomb that doesn't soar, your stare that dares it to. 

Collected Poems, 1920-1954, translation by Jonathan Galassi.

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To slump at noon thought-sick and pale under the scorching garden wall, to hear a snake scrape past, the blackbirds creak in the dry thorn thicket, the brushwood brake.

Between tufts of vetch, in the cracks of the ground to spy out the ants’ long lines of march; now they reach the top of a crumb-sized mound, the lines break, they stumble into a ditch.

To observe between the leaves the pulse beneath the sea’s scaly skin, while from the dry cliffs the cicada calls like a knife on the grinder’s stone.

And going into the sun’s blaze once more, to feel, with sad surprise how all life and its battles is in this walk alongside a wall topped with sharp bits of glass from broken bottles.

“Meriggiare pallido e assorto”, by Eugenio Montale, translation by Millicent Bell.

Liguria Through My Eyes.

 

 

How It Began

When I am growing up, my grandmother often prints out thick packets of stories and legends about women who did things and sends them to me in large manila envelopes. After a while I have history and myth all mixed up, but I know more about Sacagawea and Joan of Arc, Jane Austen and the goddess Athena, than any of my friends in Mrs. Smith’s first grade classroom.

Every summer we make the drive to North Carolina to visit my grandparents. This time, I walk into the room where my sister and I always sleep and instead of the familiar stack of printed-out pages there is a small hardback book sitting on the bedside table. The cover shows a collage of train tickets, magazine photographs of the Eiffel Tower, and plastic figurines of women in traditional southern French dress. I like it right away. I have always judged books by their covers.

Postcards from France is a series of articles written back to her American hometown newspaper from a young woman spending a year living in Valence, a small city in the southeast province of Savoie. I finish the book in one day. I read it again the next year, and again, and again. Inside the back cover, in the careful, blocky handwriting of a child just starting to write, I inscribe, “This is a great book!”

From then on, I am completely obsessed with the idea of spending a year in France---of travelling the entire country, becoming fluent in another language, and making unforgettable friends. I will do this, too. And I do, in my own way.

My Story: One of "Those" People

Things were better by the time I graduated from high school. I still had to balance my schedule carefully, and I was still confined to a wheelchair when I went shopping—but I had made great strides from the year before. I could walk up the stairs in my parents’ house without pain. College would be difficult for me, I knew, but I was confident that I could handle it. With care and caution, I knew I could put together a schedule that wasn’t too much for me. At least, I thought, I wouldn’t have to be one of “those people” whose health problems were serious enough to prevent them from higher education.

I packed my bags and drove across the country with my family. I was moving from big-town North Carolina to small-town Idaho; as the trees fell away to plains outside my car window, I could feel the homesickness growing.

My first year of college went smoothly. I took as light a schedule as I could while still being a full-time student. I missed so much class that I had to have a special letter from the office of disabilities giving me extra sick time, but I still managed to make it through my first two semesters with a near-perfect GPA and a journal filled with memories.

Not long after I began my third semester, my health started to decline again. I battled lung infection after lung infection, and my fatigue seemed worse every day. The previous summer, ballroom dancing had become my passion, and I’d spent hours each week dancing. Within a few weeks of the start of the new semester, I had to drop both of my dance classes. I was too out of breath to dance like I had just months before, and the exercise left me exhausted.

Still, I tried hard to live a normal life. I kept up with my classwork, stayed on top of my healthcare regimen so that I could take advantage of the energy I did have, and got a boyfriend. As fall passed into winter—always an early occurrence in southeast Idaho—things between the two of us began to get more serious. By the time I left for Christmas, Mahon had told me that he would like to marry me. By the end of January, we were engaged.

That spring, an outbreak of a particularly nasty strain of the flu went around my hometown. For nearly a month, I stayed in isolation and didn’t see any of my friends, for fear that I’d catch it. Ironically enough, weeks after everyone else had gotten better, I started showing symptoms. I ran a high fever for several weeks, losing fifteen pounds and developing a serious lung infection. I’d already been in the hospital once that year—a fairly routine annual event—but as the first flowers began to bloom in North Carolina, I found myself a hospital patient once more.

It quickly became clear that I wouldn’t be able to travel back to Idaho in the coming weeks, as I’d planned. My recovery was slow; I lay in bed for several weeks, unable to do much more than read light books and try to gain back all the weight I’d lost. Instead of catching a plane to Idaho to spend time with my fiancé—who was still in school—and plan a wedding, I was faced with the necessity of taking a medical deferment from the summer semester that I was supposed to be attending.

Suddenly, I had become one of “those people.” Frightening possibilities crowded through my mind, marching one after another like ants at a picnic. Would I be able to go back to school in the fall? Would I be able to finish school at all? Would I have to withdraw from school to take care of my health? I had always been driven, ambitious; I had spent my life looking forward to my undergraduate education, and I had loved the year and a half of school I had already completed. Each time I thought of the possibility that I might have to eventually withdraw, I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. I spent long afternoons that summer crying, mourning the dreams that I felt were slipping through my fingers.

By the time I got married late in August, I had had three hospital stays in the last six months. I found myself wondering if I would ever manage to crawl back from where I was now; was this the beginning of a decline I’d never be able to pull out of?

I did go back to school that autumn. Within the first two weeks, it was clear that the full-time schedule I had signed up for would be too much for me. I dropped one class, and then another, until I had pared my course load down to only two or three classes. Even then, I found myself missing class often, easily drained by the effort of keeping up with homework while adjusting to married life and a household of my own.

But always, the fear haunted me. I felt hounded by guilt—at taking such a light courseload, at all the times I felt I’d failed as a wife when I had to ask my husband to take care of me yet again, at the nagging feeling that maybe I should be pushing myself harder, be one of the people in inspirational commercials who accomplishes great things despite their setbacks. I was daunted by the prospect: Most days, I considered getting through my classes and getting dinner on the table to be a Herculean effort.

The fear, and the guilt, stayed with me, an insidious voice always present in the back of my mind.

It would be years before I learned how to silence that voice.

In this space, Cindy Baldwin will share her evolution---the ways she has come to accept the circumstances of her life with cystic fibrosis and find great contentment within them. You can read the beginning of her story here and here. 

Future Shock

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend-of-a-friend, in which he essentially said this to me (and I am paraphrasing here): “You know the main reason my wife and I decided not to have children is because I think the world is falling apart at the seams and we, as a species, are doomed.  I didn’t want to saddle another generation with this mess.”   My jaw fell slack and my response was an awkwardly managed and strangely delayed “Oh, MmHmm . . .” Having rather recently procreated, myself, I am, perhaps more sensitive to the insinuation that having children might be a selfish act and one that a reasonable and humane person would sacrifice, based on the state of the planet.  And yet, I was also surprised by my initial instinct which was to reply with, “I totally hear you and I mostly agree!”  Part of the reason for the bungled response was pondering whether the mother of an infant should be concurring that having children is crazy, all things considered.  It should be established that this person works in an industry that bears intimate witness to both the real impact of climate change and the barriers to spurring governments, individuals, and cultures to reverse course.  He also described a feeling more generally that he enjoyed a measure of freedom, loved to travel, etc., but his main thesis really stuck with me.  It got me ruminating about the rationale for having children and where we are as a society—you know, nothing heavy. In some ways, despite clawing my way to motherhood against tough odds and having a singular focus about it for years on end, I can utterly relate to the idea of not wanting children.  Like any haughty adult enjoying the relative ease of life and limitless possibilities that come with a child-free future, I have fantasies of coming home at the end of the day and flitting off to a movie or hopping a plane to Bermuda.  The beginning of the end of my first marriage started with a conversation in which my ex-husband declared he had decided he didn’t want children because, “What if I want to just, like, go to Costa Rica?”  At the time, he had never traveled outside the United States, save a solitary surf trip to Mexico, and he didn’t even have a driver’s license.  But this straw man danced around in my head and the phrase “Costa Rica,” eventually became code to me for “noncommittal.”

The other problem with this, obviously, being: When was I ever a person who was able to come home at the end of the day and flit off anywhere or hop a plane to anywhere?  Let’s face facts: I plan things.  Basic work-life functions and my own overdeveloped sense of responsibility slash free-floating anxiety have basically ruled this kind of behavior out for me a long time ago.  This truly has very little to do with newly caring for a living being.  I have always been more attracted to a cozy evening curled up with magazine, husband, and domestic beast than to painting the town.  I have a knitting phase in my history, I have hosted more than one “game night” at my place . . . you don’t need further elaboration, of this I am sure.

Traveling with children is a bit more intimidating, although I do have the goal of providing as many diverse experiences as possible for my kids.  While I realize that taking a child to a place that is inhospitable, inaccessible, dangerous, etc. is no longer in the cards, (which it never was for me, either, frankly) I don’t think my only option remains a Disney Cruise.  I have lots of examples in my life of people picking up and exploring exotic places with one, two, three (!) kids, even living abroad in somewhat “colorful” circumstances.   And the people I know who have gone down this road range from families with endless resources and major job security to those working with a shoestring and cobbling together freelance gigs to make it work.  So, let’s strike that from the list.

Now on to the issue of the world and how it appears to be unraveling.  There is no denying that we are in crisis with the environment.  But, how do I know that my kid won’t be the person who develops some sensational new technology that quite literally saves the world?  I worry much more about the way our politics, culture, and social norms have degraded.  Here again, I like the idea raising a person who might contribute positively in these areas, even better than we have.  And to experience the children of our friends and family and see what lovely, tiny human beings are all around us, I am increasingly confident that we can tip the scales in the direction of progress.

There is no doubt that some element of child rearing is profoundly narcissistic.  By definition, you are creating and shaping a person and then offering that person to the world in your likeness.  This is true whether or not you have biological children.  Then again, I still submit that if all of us out here---imperfect, but kind and loving (sometimes snarky)---raise children with good hearts and strong minds, there are larger benefits than just how it makes us feel to be loved and see ourselves reflected.

From Berchtesgaden, Germany...

Dearest Clara, When we lived in Vienna, one of our favorite getaways was in the mountains, just across the border in Germany.  We spent so many weekends there---we took you for the first time when you were barely two months old, and we absolutely had to go back during our return trip this summer.  There is something about these mountains that keeps drawing us in, and I suspect we’ll be going back for years to come, even though this wouldn’t be the type of place to top most people’s “places to go list.”  All the better I say, it just leaves more of this gorgeous landscape undisturbed for those of us in the know to enjoy!

Berchtesgaden can be a tricky place.  It’s so beautiful that you want to think it was laying here so peacefully forever, but the truth is that it had its role in a darker side of history.  And visiting there presents somewhat of a quandary about how to reconcile those two things.  For me, what I’ve learned over the years is that will always be your responsibility to know the history of the places you visit.  But be sure to separate the past from the future that any place is trying to build---by being aware of both, you’ll be able to feel out what your assessment is of the present.

In addition, I’ve learned the following from this charming mountain town:

• The view from the top is always worth it: There are no shortage of hills and mountains in this area, some that you have to walk, some you can cheat a little and ride a gondola  to the top.  I think so often we breeze through places like these and just take the time to see the town and move on, but the real treat is what you see from the top of the mountain, not the bottom, so make sure you always plan for a few of these jaunts when you come across elevation.
• Tradition should always have a home: When places are small and not on the beaten path, we are quick to write them off as closed and narrow. But some people work very hard to preserve their traditions.  This time around we stumbled onto a parade of local villages, all with families in their local variations of national costumes . . . all handmade. there are very few places where such craft by hand can survive.  Know when to let people keep their traditions.
• Beef should be expensive: This sounds funny right? But in the hotel that we always stay at, they often have “filet of local heifer” on the menu and the translation has always made us giggle a bit.  And it happens to be the most expensive item on the menu by far.  This is common in many alpine areas, even though the meat is local to the region.  But it takes a lot of time and resource to raise animals that are out on fresh pasture, with space and cleanliness and natural foods.  Of course there are faster and cheaper ways of raising animals, but ultimately, animals are living things and should be respected as such.  I guarantee you it doesn’t taste the same when you take a shortcut.  You won't be able to take the long way as often though.
• Change can come quickly: Much like near the sea, the weather in the mountains can change in what seems like an instant.  Many times we’ve started out in sunshine and watched black clouds roll in, erupting the mountains into flashes of lightning.  A little extra preparation and know-how will protect you in places where change is the constant.
• Protect what’s still clean: Near where we stay there is a beautiful lake which is one of the largest and deepest in the country, but is also the cleanest.  In fact, you can drink water right out of this huge body of water in any place on the lake.  That is a rare gift that this water has been taken care of so well over so many years.  When you find these pockets of clean air . . . water . . . land . . . it is your responsibility to help keep them that way---when you find pockets that have strayed, you still have to do your part.

All my love,

Mom

A Pink Envelope

I spent the weekend with my two best girlfriends.  Aren’t friends great?  Mine are.  We all live in different towns, so we don’t get to see each other as often as we might like.  But every time the three of us hang out I’m reminded how magnificently funny those ladies are.  Then I came back home and developed a less than stellar back spasm. It was not fun and I was cranky for a solid twenty four hours.  So my husband probably wasn’t thrilled either.  Sleeping was a challenge and although the tightness had abated some by Monday morning, I still spent the day propped up in bed.  Three pillows arranged behind me just so, one on my lap to set my computer on, and one under my knees.  It doesn’t make sense, but it was comfortable, sort of.  I had moved past the point of pain and was in the restricted movement phase, but I was still cranky.  I was uncomfortable, I had a crazy busy Monday as far as work was concerned, and I was behind on my writing.  It was just an icky day and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

And then I checked the mail.

In my mailbox, squeezed between the financial newspaper I never read, the bills to be paid, and the advertisements for appliances I don’t need, was a cheery pink envelope.  My sister had sent me a letter.  I immediately ditched the other mail and carefully sat down in the living room with my pink envelope.

I love writing letters just as much as I love receiving them.  Luckily for me, my sis seems to feel the same way.  So we’re occasional penpals.  We still email, and talk on the phone, and skype, and all that modern stuff, but we supplement with honest-to-goodness letters when the mood strikes. There’s something about opening an envelope and holding a piece of paper in your hand that brings the person a little closer.

So I sat down to read my letter, and then I started laughing.  My letter was a detailed description of a recent misadventure.  I chuckled through five pages of descriptions and anecdotes, and then I started back at the beginning.  Finally, I put the paper aside stood up and went back to my nest of pillows.  My back still hurt, but my mood was drastically improved.

That’s the power of a letter and a laugh.

Things

Whenever I tell someone that my husband and I went to high school together, I’m quick to point out that we weren’t high school sweethearts. Pat, always ready with a joke, will tell you that he didn’t even like me that much during those days. An impossibility, of course, but the truth is we’ve built our relationship on compromise, laughs, and most importantly to me after 8 years in New York, a common understanding of where we come from. We know that fish frys are eaten on Fridays, that the Penfield Patriots will always be the Chiefs, that the Park Ave Fest --- in Rochester, that is --- is the first weekend in August. There are inside jokes and stories that date back to middle school, way before “Pat and Ali” meant anything. We know these things inside out, these truths about our past and present, but there has always been a piece of my husband that I couldn’t grasp. When Pat was 19, just shy of his junior year in college, his father died. Suddenly, tragically. And in the blink of an eye, his whole world changed. His dad was his rock, his role model, his mentor in sports and school --- in life, really --- and one day he just wasn’t there. For 10 years, I’ve tried to understand, but the truth is, I didn’t. I couldn’t. And suddenly I do.

There’s a desk in our apartment that Pat has had for all the years I’ve known him. For most of those years, it was nothing to look at – scuffed, with old hardware and a shape too antique for my taste. What it lacks in looks, however, it makes up for in sentimental value. It belonged to Pat’s dad, and so it has moved with him from college, to several apartments in Rochester, and then to Brooklyn in the back of a U-Haul van. Two years ago, when we moved into our new condo --- our first “real” home together --- I was determined to get rid of that desk. We don’t have the room! I want a NEW desk, one with drawers that close properly! Let’s store it at one of our parents’ houses! I tried every argument in the book, but in the end it was my mom who saved the day. She first told me to shut my mouth --- and then volunteered to refinish it for us, to transform that desk into something new. It was a compromise, and I begrudgingly agreed. For weeks, my mom labored over the desk, meticulously following each step in the refinishing process and updating me nightly on her progress. Anyone who knew my mom knows about her penchant for "winging it," and so her commitment to following the directions here was both shocking and touching.  In the end, the desk was reborn into a better version of itself. Now shiny and smooth, it has since provided a place for Pat to spend endless hours studying for the CFA exam, and is my home base several days each week. I like to think that my mom and Pat’s dad are laughing together somewhere at the humor and irony in that.

As it turns out, I now find myself surrounded by my mom’s things. On my right ring finger sits her amethyst ring. Strangers stop me to take a closer look at the ring,  guessing that it must have belonged to someone special to me, while family and friends recognize it right away. I take my mom's pearl earrings out at night and put them back in first thing in the morning. My history of losing jewelry --- earrings especially --- haunts me, but somehow I don’t let these out of my sight. My mom’s purses line my shelves, and with each trip back to Rochester, I know I’ll return with more tangible reminders of her.

In the end, they are just things, like I told Pat for so many years. They don’t replace the memories or the laughs, and they certainly don’t soothe the tears. But then, they are more than that, too. They are a constant reminder that our parents are never far; perhaps out of sight, but never --- ever --- out of mind.