Dad....Still Here....

Weeks have gone by, danced away, lazed away, drained away...gone, just the same, and I have not added anything to this blog of mine, which looks like it is becoming a yearly thing, certainly not daily....
I've thought about it....Opened the page. Left it sitting on my desktop. Had a vague idea of what I might say....But the page sat blank and unused.
This morning, it seems obvious, after I send an email to my brother and sisters. Everything looks clear. And it is okay....My mind has been preoccupied...and, actually, that's a lovely thing....

The email:
Dears,
I must admit, it is a lovely morning (especially because we had thick night fog, which is burning off, and keeping the heat wave reasonable). I sit here working on a transcript; it is boring but I am busy, engaged.
What I must admit, is that when my mind looks to what is there, in the back, in the front, in the parts I cover up with work, I am thinking of Dad....
It has been like this for me since Sunday -- well, probably actually for five weeks...well, probably actually, for the last several months!
I miss his presence on earth terribly.
I am not reconciled with the fact that he actually is gone.
I have had a few brief minutes here and there to reflect on what a tough year and a half it was....His initial throat problem (when I knew intuitively it was cancer and it was bad...), radiation, surgery, steady decline, though all the while, hoping that what the doctors assured was true....And all the while, Dad the same as always -- though, actually, changing in some subtle and some overt ways -- Dad, the same, not making it any easier to be close to him....
And anyway, the sun now is coming in the window where I work, and maybe it is Dad....Like he told me a few weeks before he died: he will be like Orion in the sky, I can't see him (without the aid of a very powerful telescope -- and, of course, he knew the exact magnification necessary), but he is there just the same....
So...I'm crying now but will try to dry my tears and return to work.
my love and good thoughts to you all,
KSJH

Endings....

Summer is, I guess, officially over...though the season doesn't expire for a few more weeks....Two of my children started high school yesterday -- my daughter, my baby, took that leap towards adulthood with a smile and her usual centered attitude. My middle child, who grew into an even taller, guitar playing, stringbean over the summer, is now a high school junior. My oldest returns to college next week...no longer a freshman....

The other day I came home to find my two boys reclining in the yard, books on their laps, oblivious to anything except the world created by the words their eyes were devouring...ah...such is summer reading....Ignoring dishes in the sink, phone calls to be returned, bills to be paid, I plopped down between them, no book, but I closed my eyes and my thoughts wandered....What had happened to summer? Where had it gone? Down what hole had the days drained? Summer started with a bang and a wake up call when I returned from an exhausting visit with my boyfriend's family to find that my house had been the locus for a frat party populated by fifteen and sixteen year olds. I arrived home from the airport -- tired and grumpy and glad to be home -- and couldn't cross the living room without my feet sticking to the old wood floor. Every step restricted by beer residue (and God knows what else). Two rooms had more than traces of three-day old, teenage, vomit....All in all, it wasn't a very relaxing way to ease into summer.

Two and a half months have somehow passed, thankfully with no more shocking parties. There haven't really been any lazy days either....The beginning of July brought my dad's 80th birthday, complete with a giant party and a reunion of out-of-town friends and relatives. My dad attended, though to me he seemed propped up solely for the festivities. By the end of the month, his doctor told him he had only two weeks to live. The cancer which everyone had assured him was gone, was certainly not gone and instead was ravaging his already weakened body....My mind played over all these events which had comprised my summer....

In the yard with my boys, as the sun warmed my cheeks and my closed eyelids, the only sound coming from the windchimes and my boys turning pages (because I've trained myself to tune out the afternoon traffic), my mind meandered over the summer days....A school ending party, children reading, children taking giant -- sometimes dangerous and inappropriate -- steps, my father leaving us forever, more family gatherings, hikes and swims at ten thousand feet, and then, school starting up again. I realized that immutable truth: life ebbs and flows, some things end, some things begin, but always, while we live, there is change. There is sadness and sweetness, a tangy mix for us to savor....

Summer....

Summer....I'm an adult...what is summer to me anyway? It's not like I get a summer vacation. Not like I look forward to a break from school work. Not like I'm going to camp....Except for the fact that my alarm can go off an hour later than usual, not much else seems different.

My kids are all home for the summer. My oldest, back after his first year at college. My middle, not working, like he did last summer. My youngest, anticipating high school. It's not like they need me around. I'm not arranging any play dates or dropping them at any nifty day camps. (Eight years ago I enrolled them all in Shakespeare camp. They were totally game. My daughter, several years under the minimum age, held her own. An impressed counselor, on summer break from the drama program at Yale, told her she should become a costume designer. Something about that camp really seemed like summer....Shakespeare performed by children in a WPA park, with its small outdoor theater....In my fantasies, it seems the quintessential summer experience....)

This summer I meant to help each of the kids get a job. Months ago, in vain attempt to plan ahead for success, I told them all, "You need to get a job this summer...." We did a little brainstorming -- but I guess that's all we did....A friend asked today about the kids and I told her the kids wanted to work this summer. She emailed back: "This summer" -- it IS this summer....Ooops, she's right: this summer is full upon us....I might have to give up on the idea that they'll earn money and/or be productive before school starts up again in the fall.

Trying to broaden the scope beyond mere, practical capitalism, I've also talked to each of them, individually, about accomplishing anything at all this summer. (I even gave an example, "Is there anything you want to do this summer? Not only working...but also...like if you wanted to set a goal to get outside for at least a half hour each day....") In my daughter-of-a-Marine kind of way, I didn't want the months to evaporate without some goal set and effectuated....

As for me, I thought that I'd work every minute before they get out of bed. And I have tried a bit of work here and there. But I am finding that my work is sandwiched in between making them breakfast -- peaches from the farmer's market are an irresistible centerpiece for them to eat and me to offer -- washing dishes, taking them on errands...and...well, talking to them....

Trying to stick to my plan, keep up my work ethic, I found myself leaving their smiling and relaxed company to steal upstairs, to stare determinedly into my computer screen, to escape the sound of their music, to be just out of reach of their voices....And then...it dawned on me: This IS summer.

It happened while I was in my room working. My sunny yard beckoned outside my window. I took a break just so that I could go outside. I found myself, (to escape the pull of my computer), cleaning up dog poop and spraying off the side yard (yes, using precious water in the process). Anything to stay outside, in the summer weather. And when I finished my task, I gave in to irresistible temptation and lowered my now heavy body onto the chaise lounge and closed my eyes for five minutes. My oldest son wandered out and we talked about his adjustment from college life to returning home for the summer. We examined the tomatoes growing in the barrel and tried to out-guess each other as to when they'll ripen. Later my sixteen year old asked if friends could stop by and he entertained two boys in his room, strumming on the guitar and playing Scrabble on the computer. When his friends departed, he actually asked for my suggestions for a five letter word, starting with the letter "i." At bedtime, my daughter asked, (thinking that I'd decline for certain), if I wanted to play cards. We played a couple of games of rummy, on a deck we'd gotten years ago on the ferry up to Victoria....When we grew sleepy, we planned to play more games tomorrow....

I think I get it now: This IS summer....This is the time my kids are here. Relaxed. Talkative. Not needing anything too desperately. Just existing in the warm sun and cool breezes of our summer....

So that's it....I have tried to teach my children something about goal setting and accomplishment and in very understated fashion, they have taught me something about relaxing and letting go. It took me three days to write this short piece. First there were the vague thoughts, coming slowly into focus. The realization that it is so difficult to get something done when gravity is pulling one onto the chaise lounge....Next came the interrupted attempts to turn on my computer and formulate words....And I think I'll have to omit the last step -- no time to read over what I've written, because my daughter asked me to wake her at 10:00 and I'm already thirty minutes behind schedule....

Enjoy your summer days.....

On Laughing...and Hot Dogs...and Life....

Sometimes it is good just to laugh....Well, actually, I think it is often good to give it up, stop all attempts at being serious, and just laugh....(Even though this can bring trouble as I do tend to laugh at things no one else finds funny and I'm sure there have been times that people have looked and wondered what in the heck is wrong with me...but those are stories for another day.)

This morning I am thinking about my aging, VERY aging, (if chronological measures are not used), parents and though I've been consciously awake for hours, I have not yet laughed. (Instead I have thought about imminent death and woke with the headache that I've had all night...but that too is a story for another time....) I open the Times online and seeing a startling photo of the tail piece from the downed French plane, all red, white, and blue on the open ocean, I do not feel like laughing.

A few articles in, I unexpectedly choose one from yesterday title "This Land -- Ambassador Hot Dog." This might seem a strange choice as I have disliked hot dogs my entire life. (When I was a teen and my parents left my also teenage sister in charge while they took a "tour of Europe," I was given the choice of eating a half a hot dog in exchange for a certain brownie...but that also is a story for another day....)

This morning I read the following and can't help but laugh out loud:

"Twenty years later, in 1959, a hot dog again figured in American foreign relations when Nikita Khrushchev, the unpredictable leader of the Soviet Union, toured the United States. At one point he stopped at a packing plant in Des Moines, where he ate his first hot dog — although at least one account says his first bite had to wait until security agents waved a Geiger counter over the dog. A mere cold war formality.

The hot dog, it seems, figures in American diplomacy only when absolutely needed. In 1999, for example, President Bill Clinton gathered at a table with Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to eat hot dogs. Kosher, of course."

Yes, it is so nice to enjoy an unexpected laugh while reading the morning paper....

Of Power and Abuses....

After dropping my son at his carpool this morning, I heard on NPR about Jacqui Smith, British Home Secretary, who had previously stated she would not quit over reports that she had purchased porn for her husband with public funds. I'm not an Anglophile and I think that one's taste in porn -- including, whether, what, and with whom -- is a private matter. However, hearing this brief news piece got my attention. It is not just the porn purchase...in fact, I find other expenditures of public money on private matters equally as shocking....Dog food and toothbrushes? Moat cleaning?

Jacqui Smith, like (perhaps) John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and so many others suffer from some kind of affliction that shocks me. Whatever they do in their private lives is not my business. What I do find shocking is the use of public money for such follies. Have all these people lost their minds? Where is their sense of good judgment? Do "these people" (and by that I suppose I mean people in the public eye) come to believe that they are above the usual rules and mores which apply to the rest of us? That good sense and decent decisions do not have to be a part of their lives?

It would be easy to say that I'm just naive, that throughout the ages, across the political spectrum, there are examples of people who "do this." Newspapers and history books are replete with references to flagrant use of public money on private desires. That fact does not dim my ire. Hmm, what comes to mind is the aphorism I heard growing up: If so-and-so played on the freeway, would that make it right? The answer, of course, is that acceptance of stupid behavior doesn't make it the right course to follow.

And that, I suppose, is what bothers me about these stories: these people are stupid and arrogant...and they are the ones we choose to put in positions of power....

A quick lament on the fact that life gets so complicated we don't find the time to write a few words, to stick our noses in a good book, to dig our fingers into the warm earth, to tread our toes in the shallow waves as the water washes in and out just above the soft sand....

If anyone is taking the time to do that...I admire you and will strive to emulate your behavior....I am, I'm afraid, failing miserably at that...and instead stop only briefly to look out my office window at the occasional green hummingbird...and it's been much too long since I've stretched out in my yard, with a book or the watering hose....

Sadly...on Guns Again....

Guns and more guns. Last Wednesday I came in from a good run and opened my email. Still hot and sweaty and filled with endorphins. There in bold, unopened, was an email from Wesleyan entitled "Security Alert" and it was my first notice of the shooting of Johanna Justin-Jinich, though it didn't name her at first. Subsequent email notices followed. First the campus was shut down while they hunted for the killer. Then the doors were re-opened. Shortly after, another email warned that the police had recommended closing the campus again -- which isn't actually accurate since the campus, by deliberate design, is very open. The email said the kids were to stay inside their locked dorms.

I went to sleep with a bad headache and in a nervous state. It wasn't only the beautiful Ms. Justin-Jinich that concerned me....

First thing the next morning, another email warned that the killer's journal targeted Jews. Apparently he wanted to 'make Wesleyan the next Jewish Columbine.' Apparently the day before he had just walked into the campus bookstore, Czech-made gun in hand, and shot his victim dead. Execution style.

This weekend I read an issue of "The Economist." There was a short review of a book written about the Virginia Tech killings. The author, a teacher who had met with the killer a couple years before and who had great concerns over his mental health, posited that in the end, there may be nothing we can do. This violence is not actually predictable.

Yesterday I read the first reports about the soldier in Iraq who shot and killed five of his comrades. The article noted that this type of thing has happened before.

I have to wonder: do we have to accept so much violence? Would it make a difference if we worked to slow the rising tide of aggression and violent mental health? What if guns were not so available and accepted?

I don't know the answers...but I have to wonder....