I’m off visiting at your places tonight; but thought I should at least give you something to laugh at here. Have a happy tomorrow!
Despite what I love to tell people to the contrary, I do sometimes wish I had a mother to tell me what to do.
I lost my mom when I was just 11, so it was up to my dad and big brothers to look after my growing up. I’ve had to make do with snippets of female wisdom garnered wherever possible, be it from a neighbor or one of my brother’s girlfriends, for most of my life. A lot of the people I might have expected to be there for me as a kid without a mother never were. I like to think of that as a testament to their confidence in my father, rather than proof of their indifference to me.
I figure I turned out to be a pretty good person, but wish someone had taught me to cook and iron and manage laundry properly. My mom must have done those things for my dad, so he had to fend for himself, too, when she passed away. He did his best to learn quickly and even managed to cook for us and was quite inventive in the kitchen. I remember just one occasion that might be considered a *cooking lesson* and it involved pie dough and a rolling pin, and a lot of yelling and cursing. Can anyone make a pie crust without cursing? Anyway, I sometimes feel that I lack a certain finesse for things feminine as a result. Shopping, decorating, hair and makeup – I’m clueless.
The older I get, the more I see the influence of my father in my personality and way of being. I blame him for my obstinacy and tetchiness. These I consider good, strong traits in myself, but I never thought of them that way in my dad. Oh he was stubborn and could hold a grudge for ages! I may be the picture of my mother, but underneath I am all my father, like it or not.
I’ve been blessed since adulthood by a few older women friends who’ve taken me under their wing when I needed help or guidance, or just needed help in learning how to do something that comes *naturally* to other women. Carol who taught me to tie pretty ribbons on packages and how to crochet, Joan who listened to me bawl and complain as a first-year teacher, Merry who modeled a life of quiet wisdom and acceptance, Kathy with her urgings to be independent and carefree in my love for the outdoors, Linda who shares recipes and beauty tips.
These may be little things in the making of a woman, but are important to the sense of self and to fitting in among other women. That’s not ever been easy for me and for the most part, I won’t be bothered with it. (There’s that obstinacy, again!) I often wonder though what women cherish about their relationships with other women and with their mothers. I wonder if it’s the same things that the tomboy in me as a child saw with such wonder.
I’m sharing another of what my brother calls *cheesecake* shots of my mom. Looking at her there, I’m reminded of something else I never learned: confidence in a bathing suit!
If spring is born at the river’s edge and the burning summer in the dust of the highway, then where do we discover fall?
Is it in the mothball-scented chests where the blankets are kept? In the hedgerow that vibrates with migrating birds? Or do you find it, like me, in the darkening sea and the immense sky of an October afternoon. Or in the dunes, scattered among the quick sweep of goldenrod.
I find fall when my shadow reaches out over the waves to meet the moon. In days that shrink before I’m done with them. In this time of anticipation, relaxing and enjoying the change, and the wait.
Yes…I’m still pondering fall while all the neighbors are perfecting their Christmas decorations!
LABRADOR RETRIEVER
ALIASES: THE CLOWN, SNEAKERS, CHECKERS, HI-JINX, STINKER, SMOOCHER…
CRIME: STEALING THE HEARTS OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND AN OCCASIONAL TABLE SCRAP OR TWO.
APPROACH WITH CAUTION: LOOKING INTO EYES MAY MELT YOUR HEART AND CAUSE ADDICTION. WATCH FOR TILTING HEAD (“THE LOOK”) YOU MUST LOOK AWAY!
ANYONE WITH INFORMATION PLEASE CALL THE PROPER AUTHORITIES
LAST SEEN CHEWING MY SHOES
$1,000 CASH REWARD
Boomer and I have a mutually agreeable arrangement on chilly evenings; he keeps my lap warm and I massage his ears and neck until he reaches something like bunny nirvana and rolls softly aside onto the carpet. Then I can go back to whatever it was that I was trying to do with him stretched out beside me. Boomer is a big boy and takes up all of my lap and stretches almost to my ankles if the massage is good. Sometimes if we’re in a groove, I’ll look up to notice that my feet and his ears are pointing in the same direction.
I’m missing the days when I could let the bunnies 
roam around the house for play. Buddy was mostly scared of getting in trouble for being too near to them; little Luka is all mouth and danger to a bunny. So the bunnies have been kept in their separate room and I haven’t had much chance to take pics of them; hence the lack of mid-week bunny fixes lately. Finding the time to exercise a pup is challenging; finding time to exercise 5 rabbits also is impossible! Boomer and Sunshine get lots of time out (though they hardly exercise – the big lugs!) – it’s the little bunnies here that aren’t getting the attention lately that they’re used to.
A gift from the spring garden.
Cathy explains that the gift needn’t be of any real value, but should instead be motivated by the beauty of sharing some small part of yourself, or something you make with your hands, or grow in your garden.
I noticed the sad smiles of the nurses and the way they left us finally alone with him; the discarded socks; the empty lobby; the absence of any doctors.
I heard the silence of the useless machines; Sinatra singing about easy street; sirens wailing somewhere off in the darkness; the phone ringing too early, my brother apologizing for the hour, but “Come” he said; the rush of hot water on my heavy head.
I admired his grace and final acceptance; making it easy for us, for me, by not coming home to die; his concern always for someone else, someone worse off than he.
I was astonished by the snow in mid-November; by my brothers surprised faces that I should take my time in getting there; astonished that our last real talking had been about that damned car just a week earlier; that we would end this day scrutinizing his tuxedo and its cigarette burns.
I’d like to see that sunrise again, over the ocean, with the snow falling outside the window; him at the coffee pot or brooding over his computer; that light he kept in his eyes for me; his feet stamping and anger that used to frighten me so.
Most tender was Brian holding his hand and our laughter with the funeral director that afternoon writing his obituary; my friend Cathy standing off in the back, uncomfortable.
His quiet sleep was most wonderful, most deserved; seeing the men from his lodge that came out for him, so many that do this as routine; an end to the pills and eating cardboard; an end to the slow deterioration and loss of him.
I thought it was another setback, not the end. Really, I should have seen what was happening; his tears the day he left here; his fear at being alone in the world; his confusion of my life with another’s; his quietness; his surrender.
Mary Oliver fans probably recognize the format of her poem, “Gratitude”, borrowed here without any poetry. I had wanted to write something for my dad yesterday and couldn’t, but this poem helped me today to examine my memories of the day he died. Last year I had a little more fun remembering.
“Or you could be the one who takes the long way home
Roll down your window, turn off your phone
See your life as a gift from the great unknown
And your task is to receive it
Tell your kid a story, hold your lover tight
Make a joyful noise, swim naked at night
Read a poem a day, call in well sometimes and
Laugh when they believe it”
–Mary Chapin Carpenter from “The Long Way Home”
I’m calling in well tonight.
Yes, my friends were surprised to see me at 7 on a Sunday morning. I’ve birded with these two for years, but lately have been very lazy about getting up early enough to do it. Of course I got to Sandy Hook late and missed seeing the day’s kestral at Plum Island, but the nice color the early sun brought to the marsh and their faces was enough.
It still looks like summer on the beach side of the Hook; the only giveaway to the morning chill was the fishermen in their wet suits. We pulled a few gannets from the ocean, but no loons yet.
We walked all morning, to North Pond and South Pond, Horseshoe Cove and the Fishing Beach. Off Gunnison (the nude beach,in case Susan is paying attention) we found a nice flock of sanderling and two black-bellied plovers. I should have known them by their size, but it was their fluting toor-a-lee, like a melancholy sea bluebird, that gave them away.
I don’t think I could ever tire of watching sanderlings and was glad to see such a large group huddled together against the wind. Have you ever seen sanderlings hop on one foot before the surf, rather than running like they normally do? Funny – that sight was my delight this morning!
I apologize for the odd shaped pics, but I had lens issues and had to do some serious cropping. Please do click on the pics for a (somewhat) better view.
