notyourpreacherswife Reflections of a life

She lay there quietly,  sliding her teeth across the top of her lip to release the final strand of skin clinging to the rest. It is a delicate process in the winter, removing the cumbersome shred without drawing blood. It’s like picking scabs from skinned knees in the summer, you go too early or too deep and new blood is drawn. I have never known my grandmother to do this. She tends to figit with her hands, rubbing the thumb along the first knuckle of her forefinger as if keeping time to a graceful waltz. Mimi would sit in a club chair in her living room, under the painting of a Bermuda beach scene. A small tray of crackers and cheese rest on the table with a small bowl of nuts beside. Ice cubes clink against her waterford highball containing the nightly scotch and soda. Cocktails float over gentle conversation about the horses or dogs while I wait, anxiously looking for the right time to ask for a memory, a snippet into her life which seems from a long ago time, one closer to literature than present day. One of my earliest memories of Mimi is from the movie On Golden Pond.  I watched Katherine Hepburn love and push a grumpy Henry Fonda as she belted out “You old poop” and thought to myself, I bet that is what Mimi is like. Until her seventies and the move to Charlottesville, Mimi seemed more like a movie star than grandmother, always keeping the distance but drifting into our lives for a brief visit between horse races in Europe and her pink sand home. Grandmother was not on her list of things to do, mothering wasn’t really either. So we took what we could get, a story about her parakeet she trained to talk or pictures of her jumping Chitter, the horse who stood 18 hands high.

Mimi and I had become close in the late 80s. My teacher had the foresight to assign a term paper in which we would write about a woman in our family to show one did not have to be famous to be a part of history. We were spending Thanksgiving on the farm and I brought a tape recorder and microphone to record the voice and story of a person whose blood travels my body yet I barely knew. I sat on her dressing room floor as she reclined in her chaise recalling a life long lived. The loss of her father at age 4, growing up in Switzerland, Radcliffe, New York City, children, divorce, new life. When asked of her first husband, the one who left her on Christmas Eve 35 years before, she simply said I do not want to talk about it. She skipped over the midlife crisis and stay in Silver Hill mental hospital. While she could not choose what happened in life, Mimi could edit the facts however she wanted.

I had driven to the hospital all morning, leaving my own children behind. It was to be the final trip to visit this 97 1/2 year-old fighter. I made the same drive three years ago at Christmas to say goodbye as her body was shutting down, lungs and heart too sad from watching her 16th dog be put to sleep. It was time. Her husband Bob was blind and hunched, his once strong body crippled by sciatica. We were insisting on selling the farm and moving everyone to where they could be cared for by trained professionals. I was a day late, having been trapped by two inches of snow on Christmas night. Having nursed my own grief with cocktails, I decided my reflexes and the roads were too slippery to set out on the 26th. But she was waiting for me, hanging on, for our final goodbye.

I had never seen her lying down. Unlike my maternal grandparents who had us in their room every morning for snuggles and stories when they visited, Mimi simply came down stairs dressed, ready to be served breakfast. It was a surprise to see her with tubes coming out of her ears and arms, looking frail. But I had been prepared by my uncle and the medical staff who were simply trying to make her comfortable. As the door closed she turned her head towards me and in an affectionate drawl she said “Hello Darling, I am so glad you came. And don’t you look fabulous, not quite so fat anymore.” I knew she was back. Despite the charts and  levels and machines, my grandmother was 100% present and living. We talked for 30 minutes and I listened as she told me the nurses were trying to make her fat. I told the staff and my uncle they were wrong, Mimi would be just fine. And 12 days later she checked out of the hospital and into her own apartment. While her cardiologist could not explain why or how she is living, Mimi got a dog.

But surely this was the end. Now 97 1/2, Mimi had broken her hip, getting out of bed in the middle of the night, for reasons no one can explain. The 17th dog had been put to sleep the week before, having died of cancer. Surely it was a sign and she was choosing her time to go. The animals, the farm, her husband -all gone. The house was sold, turned into a winery, and the possessions divided on paper and sitting in cartons on my parent’s basement floor. I was okay with it, we had already cheated death and said our goodbyes. She was in bed, sitting up in a wool sweater from Trimmingham’s. The wood buttons showed it was an old favorite, the varnish smoothed shiny from years of being pinched through the grosgrain ribbon hole. She and her companion Jamaica were talking quietly. Waiting. The same drawl greeted me: “Hello Darling, I am so glad you came.” (No commentary on the waistline this time. )

It is an odd sensation to sit with a loved one when both know the purpose of the visit. The quintessential elephant in the room. She was frustrated and thirsty, having to deny herself any liquids in case the surgery was coming. The lip dangled as she tried to shred the skin. She looked at me and said: “That tacky woman Helen bites her lip at dinner all the time and now I am doing it. Dammit.” I offered her my lip balm and she cherished each circle around the mouth. As I returned the container to my purse I realized I probably just gave my grandmother the worst cold I have ever had in my life. But what would it matter? She was insisting on the surgery and no one said she could survive.

Mimi and I signed her life away 29 times that day. Each doctor came in, asking questions about how she felt. She was fine, wanted the surgery, didn’t want to be a cripple the rest of her life. When one nurse asked for her birthday as S.O.P she said: “well it was so long ago and I can’t really remember.” The nurse agreed and smiled. With each new medical visitor Mimi worked harder, answering the questions saying I am between a rock and a hard place and I choose the rock. Like me, Mimi will always die trying rather than wondering what if. We talked about life, more mine than hers, and the great-grands -one of whom is her namesake. In a moment of levity, Mimi asked: “If I can, do you want me to come back and haunt you?” Only with advice I assured her.

The doctors came in and said they were refusing to do the surgery. The cardiologists could not recommend it, the anesthesiologist would not do it.  Mimi insisted on going ahead anyway, knowing this was it. She looked at the doctors and said: “what are you scared of? I am fine with going to meet my maker and frankly a bit curious.” As I watched the exchange we both seemed to wonder, will there be trumpets?

We still don’t know. Mimi came through surgery, spent less than 36 hours in the ICU and returned home four days later. A week ago she got her stitches out. Over the weekend, the nursing home tried to give her pneumonia, taking x-rays and putting us all on alert. I am not sure what the obsession is. When she goes, she goes. But in the mean time she will live.

Ahhh is it any surprise I turn to writing on a day like today? I have been to the news and facebook,and the phone and my kids beds while they are sleeping and even church this morning to hear what could possibly be said about Friday in Connecticut.  I have found a bit of comfort in all those places and tons of grief and pain an anger. It is a senseless act of violence with such enormity of pain and waste of human life and potential it seems silly and belittling to the lives lost to talk about anything other than their sweet little faces and their favorite colors and what was on their Christmas list. It seems callous to focus on anything other than the heroics of the teachers -people we pay $41.38 and hour if we assume they don’t do any work outside of the actual school day- who lied to the shooter while hiding the children in a closet. To focus on those lives is to focus on the light and the good. It is to remain hopeful. And that glimmer of light is exactly what the victims families need. Because right now it seems too hard to even breath.

Do you remember the show Hill Street Blues? I was on the edge of the appropriate age to watch an evening police drama but with an older brother, who was sometimes my babysitter, I managed to see more than my fair share of this great show. The theme song itself  starts with a slow simple piano, making way for a  70s Gerry Rafferty sort of jingly synthesizer, the 80s instrument which was everywhere from Cats to Hooked on Classics volumes 1-19. The hook before the theme was always in the briefing room, officers filing in for a day of work with talk about the day’s cases. In the first 5 years of the show, Sergeant Esterhaus would dismiss his cops and then grab their attention again with: “Hey, let’s be careful out there.” In 1984 a new sergeant put his own mark on the squad. After 4 years of Reaganomics, the opening quote for Sergeant Stan Jablonski became: “Let’s do it to them before they do it to us.” Not a surprising shift for the most “me” focused decade in our country’s history.

Today, we seem to be living more of the Jablonski’s way of life. Thoughts like: the world has become so crazy we better stock up and protect ourselves. Adam Lanza’s mother was supposedly a “preparer,” living with three weapons because she was a single woman who needed to be prepared to protect herself and for the end of the world. Ironically, her son used those exact “preparations” to kill her and many others. If we aren’t practicing two wrongs make a right, we have digressed back to an eye for an eye. It will never work, just ask the Romans. We need to take a stance, to demand reform. We need words on paper that change into laws. Stop with the semi-automatics weapons and the concealed weapons or the denial that mental health is a very real and very powerful problem in our country with hidden symptoms and an even more elusive path for getting help. Will this stop tragedy? Nope but if it saves the life of just one 6 year old it is worth it. Just like changing drunk driving laws has cut down vehicular deaths. As my brother  wrote last  Friday “Remember, now is not the time to talk about gun violence. Later is too soon too. After that is too late. Then it’s too soon again.”

What are we waiting for?   For enough time to work for social justice or gun reform or mental health coverage?  For someone else to say sorry first? To admit I have a problem and I need help? To touch your child again.. or not? Advent is the season of waiting. As Christians we wait with bated breath for a tiny baby born in a manger. But the good news is already here so why aren’t we spreading it more readily? We are the difference in this world. We are the light. We are  the shepherds and the wise men and the inn keeper. We are the ones who come as we are, tired and stinky and quirky, traveling great ways on a hunch that one day if we huddle together in a small space, bringing what little we have to offer, that will be enough to change the world. We have to be because we know the whole story from beginning to end. And we know that without it, darkness and sadness win.

If you aren’t Episcopalian, you might not know we have the best church music of any denomination. This is a fact. The word of God is spoken in the lyrics and the tunes created by those such as Handel and Bach are evidence of the genius in God’s creation. Today we sang one of my favorite hymns, #67, Comfort, Ye My People. It is sung in staccato which makes it some what challenging if you aren’t familiar with the tune because you have to arrive on top of each note, bouncing on it like a trampoline rather than sliding thru it. This device makes the music joyous, moving it forward with energy. How fitting for Advent. It seemed a bit happy for today but when I read the words, there could be no more fitting message. I have translated it below but included the real words after.

GOD SAYS: Comfort my people. Comfort those who sit in mourning beneath their sorrow’s load. Speak to them about Jerusalem and peace that is waiting for them. Tell them God covers their sins and warfare is over. Hear the voice of those crying in the desert, calling to us about repenting since the kingdom of God is now here. Obey the warning and do whatever you can to get there. Shape Up! Make straight what was crooked, make the rough places soft. Be true and humble as if you were living with a king (or celebrity idol). Because the Glory of the Lord is everywhere and all of us can see: nothing will break the power of God.

*Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness,
mourning ‘neath their sorrow’s load;
speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.

For the herald’s voice is crying
in the desert far and near,
bidding all men to repentance,
since the kingdom now is here.
O that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way!
Let the valleys rise to meet him,
and the hills bow down to greet him.

Make ye straight what long was crooked,
make the rougher places plain:
let your hearts be true and humble,
as befits his holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord
now o’er the earth is shed abroad,
and all flesh shall see the token
that his word is never broken.

I found a photo between the refrigerator and cabinet. It is curled on the edges and the colors are slightly faded. The scene is from 11 eleven years ago, our large family gathered on the side lawn of my cousin’s house where we gathered for Thanksgiving. It should be blown up, in a fancy frame next to the one from last year, where my grandmother the matriarch sat front and center with half the family. The finding is fortuitous as we get ready for this holiday weekend. The dining room table is stacked high to over flowing. Homemade crostini, wine, Jezebel, nuts&blots made the old-fashioned way, in the oven (with margarine). Parkas, Sunday dresses, and Christmas presents: a step stool, a Jake and the Never Land Pirates boat, a bracelet. The refrigerator downstairs is stocked with dip, cream cheese, sour cream and more wine. We are preparing for a journey, up 95 with the rest of the country. Our “guest” room belongs to our youngest daughter and thus the other unused room in the house serves as the staging area for our trek to Connecticut to see The Cousins. We were a young married couple, from Richmond, the last time we did this in 2001. The last cousin had married the summer before and then the world blew up that September and we were all a bit sentimental to form new family traditions and cement old memories. The Kids Table was taking over, hosting in a younger generation house and all contributing to the meal. We were 17 3/4 strong that Thanksgiving -our hostess giving birth 4 days after the guests left.

I made this same journey every year of my childhood for both Thanksgiving and Christmas to see The Cousins. My mother would lay everything out in the guest room (there were just 2 kids in my family) starting the day after Halloween. Ice skates always went in as my grandfather lived on a pond in backwoods Greenwich and it usually iced over before the turkey was cooked. The adults would don skates in formal Thanksgiving meal attire, ties, blazers, and long overcoats. One year my mother was sure it would be too warm for the pond to freeze so she saved herself the effort of finding our skates in the attic. Mistake: a Nor’easter blew in the night we got there and skating happened the day after. Skates were found for everyone but me, my age 7 sized foot too small. But you can skate in sneakers, especially if they are Zips. They are just a lot more slippery and you have to fall to stop. I have a photo of my grandfather standing in his fur-lined Chesterfield,  holding my hand, letting me glide around him in circles. My engineer father would do major projects on his Dad’s property, getting out the electric chain saw and loving an excuse to chop things down in the woods. Then a photographer would come and capture the moment. Those large groups of people I love, standing amidst fallen crunchy leaves hang on my parents’ walls.

These memories of people, MY people, are strong and rich like a good gravy stirred from the drippings of a well roasted bird. By no means are they perfect. I remember the time my cousin and I punched each other during a game of Ghost in the Graveyard. I was bragging, having evaded her  for a third trip around the house and she was pissed. She punched me and I tattled. We were both sent to her room while the Moms were told by their mother how terrible the parenting was. (My cousin and I were, by that point, upstairs giggling at how silly grownups are). There were the annual money conversations where my grandfather would ask my Dad and uncle into his office, close the doors, and discuss the economic status. I have always wondered what truly was discussed and whether it was straight dictation or a true conversation. The doors would open 30 minutes later and the meeting would adjourn, no details shared with the rest of us. It seemed very grown up too. One year I was admonished from Christmas Eve dinner for giggling, uncontrollably, during the grace. No idea what was so funny I just know the more I bit my tongue to try and stop the more my gut rolled and tears streamed down my face. I didn’t even care I had to skip spaghetti but I was devastated to be allowed out of captivity only to find all the new fangled ice cream treats called a Klondike bars had been eaten by the other kids and the Dads.
And there are the funny stories too like eleven years ago when my husband had so many Dark and Stormy’s on Turkey eve with my cousin Perry, he could barely keep down the stuffing the next day. Last year half of the family gathered in Charlottesville with my 95-year-old grandmother. She is still with us but too weak to make any journey. I feel a bit guilty thinking of her in the nursing home, eating a mooshy bland meal with jarred cranberry jelly. Her mind is still with it at points but I hope she sleeps through the Turkey buffet. She would find it tacky. My oldest daughter and her cousin made a fabulous puppet show and dance. The production was proof, sometimes two chiefs can work together.

Traditions. Why do we do it? It takes a hell of a lot of effort, money, and patience to gather. But I have a theory. I think we keep recreating snippets of our childhood, hoping to modify it a bit, keep the good and toss out the bad. It’s a great big “Do-Over” if you will, the chance to be a better self while still sharing our own imperfections with those who have been added to the clan. It is our glue, the thread, weaving different patterns and fabrics together to fortify us from the dailiness of a crazy spinning world. I think there are some guidelines to a happy holiday so here my suggestions:

1. Spend a lot of time outdoors. Grown-ups and kids. Most towns have turkey trots now. Six of us signed up to run this year. Nothing like 5 miles before a big meal. But if running isn’t your thing, take a walk, kick the season’s colorful foliage, sit in a rocking chair on a porch. Breath in crisp air.

2. Make the effort. To get there. To be Happy. To be Kind. To snap the family photo (not everyone has to be looking at the camera). To make a fancy cocktail, signature dish or whole meal. Get the good stuff out. There are probably enough people around to help with the cleanup. Besides when else are you going to use all the stuff you had to write wedding thank you notes for?

3. Surround yourself with people. Even if you are an introvert. It doesn’t have to be all day. You can curl up with a book for most of the afternoon. But sharing is part of being alive. If you don’t have family and are not a cook, go to a soup kitchen or nursing home and serve food. Find a church service. Share the gift of yourself.

4. Stop to be thankful. For what you have. For what you don’t. If it isn’t what you want, vow to change it by next Thanksgiving.

5. Tired is not an emotion. I have stolen this idea from Glennon Melton and am obsessed. Tired is often a mask for hiding emotions. Emotions are tiring but when we name them and share them -with our selves, our God, or our partner- we have a lot more energy to feel. And that allows us to be open to new, happy memories

Tomorrow morning I will drop the kids at school, fill the car with gas, and pack the trunk. I will assure the dog he is coming with us. Load the ipod, pack the dvd player (it is a ten hour drive y’all). I will fill the cooler with my southern recipes shared by my new peeps: pimento cheese, yeast rolls, pickled okra, and stuffed jalapenos. Swing by Cooper’s for some barbecue because Yankees think barbecue means burgers on July 4. I will check the glove-box 4 times for the E-Z Pass since there are seven tolls between here and Southport. I will remind myself not to yell at the drivers or the traffic. I will triple check the camera is packed. Our crew has changed a bit since the one I just found on the kitchen floor. We have added NINE to the new generation, topping at ten cousins. Bob, my grandmother’s husband is gone and she of course will be alone in Virginia. Greg’s parents will be in Pinehurst. We have added Guy and Lisa. The backyard has changed but my hair is surprisingly similar though there have been many renditions between then and now. I see us on the slate patio with the Long Island Sound in the background. Inevitably someone will not look at the camera. A few will have half-mast eyes. Someone may be fuming from some comment about where to put the gravy boat or water goblets. But we will be together and it will create a new memory for me and my kids. Happy Thanksgiving.

Click. Whirl. Click. Whirl. Click. Whirl. Around and around it goes keeping time better than a seasoned drummer. There must be something in the dryer hiding in a pocket. A coin, a clergy collar stay; a piece of sea glass. Hopefully it is not a melty thing like the blue crayon that turned my dryer into an aquarium diorama  last year. It is the sound of an unscheduled morning, all kids in school, husband at work and the dog lounging on the bed, thankful to have quiet. He seems to like the new temperpedic pillow as much as I do, if only he knew it cost $60 on sale. The weather is cooperating with my mood, a sunrise of orange and gold stripes giving way to heavy gray clouds which threaten rain. A day to stay at home, if not in bed, dreaming of soup and comfort.

The luxury of this time. I was in a meeting last week where we started speaking of the need for quiet and how our crazy busy lives had no time for it. Really I thought…whose fault is that? My first job at a boarding school required morning chapel every day. Assigned seats, coat and tie attire. I think it was no coincidence my seat was directly behind the headmaster’s so he could monitor any snickering or tardiness from me. Once a week the chaplain would conduct a meditation service. All 500 of us were required to sit silently and ponder. For FOUR minutes. It was an eternity. At times I would count to 60 4 times, others 30 8 times. Occasionally I would be transported asking my mind to blank and let myself drift. My point is not that meditation had a profound affect on me. Rather, 4 minutes can be enough. Turn off the car radio. Lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. Sit. 4 minutes. See what happens.

I have been traveling through the valley of the shadow of death lately and it’s not the Halloween decorations around town either. Things that once seemed concrete and known appear more like ghosts wafting in the breeze.  There is a metallic taste in my mouth, a feeling of nausea and hunger rolled into one. Demons of doubt wrestling with dreams and visions I had for my future. Jealousy, fatigue, permanence, cold seep into my brain like a leaky roof allowing the rain to drizzle down, rotting the wood and core of strength. It is an all out gory horror film, this doubting future I am fighting down. With hatchets, and swamp creatures and shrill screams coming from victims as they trip over the stick in the woods. I hate horror movies, gratuitous gore with no plot, predictable to say the least. But sometimes my life feels the same way -fill the calendar up with so many activities and places and things we end up running from place to place screaming at one another. It’s as if Jason and his hockey mask are lurking around the next corner, ready to wrestle us to the ground with a machete. Well maybe not as cliched but the pattern is predictable. Kids too tired to go, insist on going in a rushed fashion. Fight over car seats. Parent one intervenes, parent two sits”quietly” critiquing terrible parenting skills of other parent. Kids continue to act up. Parent two tries “better” tactics, equally ineffective. Parent one proclaims “you just undermined what I was saying”. Kids sense discord among the ranks, ratchet up bad behavior to next level. Arrive at destination, head in opposite directions so as to not interact with cast of horror film.

Have you ever had that? A moment in time when you realize you are not on the right track? That you are really not headed anywhere at all? Just swirling around, things moving through you. And at you. It feels ghostly, as if I am watching my life on a movie screen, unable to stop the unfolding scene. My first reaction is to quit. To get up and walk out, turn the movie off. But then what? This isn’t a movie, it’s life and it keeps going. The three little lives I am helping to build keep progressing forward and they need me, not just as a robot marching through the day. I need myself to have days that coincide more with the voice in my head.

I just read an article about the editor of Food & Wine Magazine. She says all her time is split between work and family; she does not need me time because those two areas are “me.” They are her fulfillment and joy:  sounds like success to me. I do not have my answers, let alone “the” answers but I am finding a dimly lit path. It starts with stillness and conversations with God. It has strong, wise friends who are good counsel and ask hard questions. There is sleep and hugs and warm soup. And a lot less running from scary monsters.

I was supposed to write this blog five days ago when we were all focused on remembering. But I haven’t taken this year’s “first day of school” photo either so let’s just say I am working on my time. At my wedding 13 years ago, we somehow missed the all important Christmas card photo, the one with my family plus Greg. My Mother was crushed and so I said let’s redo it. Redo what? her pragmatic self asked. The shot; when Greg and I come home for Thanksgiving. Let’s get dressed up again and stage the photo in the church courtyard. We did and it was fabulously fun. We got to admire one another and how good we still looked. We laughed at the the funny stories from the reception that had not happened when we were supposed to be taking this shot for real. There was no stress about getting grandparents safely to their pew or checking to make sure all the groomsmen were present and accounted for. We relived the day and the pictures show it. Big grins. And in a way more realistic since the wedding was over but the marriage was just starting.

People have been asking me lately how do I have time to write a blog. Answer is I don’t. But you don’t have time to read one either so that makes us even. But only sort of because I am constantly writing a million blog entries in my head, it only takes effort to sit down and spew them out. But afterwards I feel lighter and more right with myself and the world. Perhaps that is why write and right sound the same. So the week got away from me and I was going to skip writing about September 11 all together because I missed it. But that’s not true. Each summer, when we drive back and forth to Maine I suffer through the traffic of the George Washington Bridge and toll just so the girls can look out their windows and see the skyline of the Great Big Apple, like I did as a girl. IT LOOKS SO DIFFERENT without the twin towers. Do I dare say it looks less impressive? Each year on September 11, I think about when Greg and I lived in Manhattan almost under the shadows of the towers. He gave his first sermon in English in St. Paul’s Chapel, the one a friend from seminary turned into a first aid station because it was in the midst of ground zero, yet miraculously unharmed. I read stories about a man trapped underneath in the subway station, the same one I used to walk Sunday mornings when it was dark and quiet and empty. I thought about my cousin whom I love like a sister and worked for a company whose people were wiped out on that day. She was home, on bed-rest waiting for her first baby to come and watching the news in her hormonal state and losing it. About her brother in a meeting in midtown who saw the plane hit and slammed his notebook and abruptly said (with a few swear words thrown in) I am out of here and ran to Grand Central and got the last train out to Connecticut.

But what has been nagging me about September 11 is my Dad. A man who spent 29 years serving the country in the Navy. A preppy New England boy who wound up in NROTC at Auburn after being stuck at St. Paul’s, an all boy boarding school for eight years. Needless to say co-eds far outweighed the hassle of basic training and he was happy to be in the south although it was a VERY different world from the one in which he grew up. Imagine going from the woods of New Hampshire surrounded only by boys and male teachers from elite families to civil-rights-angry-alabama. My father’s NROTC unit was put on “stand-by” when James Meredith was attempting to enter the University of Mississippi. While Dad’s fraternity brothers talked about that annoying nigger, he was learning how to help the National Guard if the same thing happened in Alabama. I remember him telling this story when I was learning about the civil rights movement in high school and thought how cool my Dad was part of history. When I asked if he was scared or worried or mad or what was he feeling, he shrugged and said, I was just doing what I was told. Doing his duty.

So it should not be surprising to learn he volunteered to help when the plane crashed into the Pentagon. His office was across the six lanes of 395 and he could see the hole from his office window. What many don’t think about is the papers at the Pentagon are not for everyone’s viewing. Whether you agree with that or not is not the point. The area could not simply be opened  to any and all volunteers. Think about how spooked everyone was: we had just been attacked by 4 planes. So my Dad, with a full time job and top level security clearance, took on a midnight shift of cleaning and sorting through the rubble. Many did. Showing up and doing what they could. He did not wear a uniform or end up in People magazine. Most people don’t know he even did it. But he does. And I do.

I remember exactly where I was when the second plane hit. I had eaten toasted pumpkin bread with Greg, Joe, and Sarah at Betsy’s in Carytown Richmond. Greg had dropped me at The Martin Agency and as I walked in our atrium, the three story high tv was showing the second plane slice through the World Trade Center. I remember thinking it went it but didn’t come out which must mean the whole thing must have blown up. I was terrified thinking of my cousins and college friends living in the city and wondering if they were ok. But today a week and eleven year later, I remember peoples lives were changed or ended just for showing up. And for those of us lucky enough to still be here, we could be changed too. By showing up and doing what we can.

The first day of school pictures flood my facebook account. Perfectly brushed ponytails and grins the size of orange peels convey a sense of independence and confidence better than words. The bottoms of our backpacks have traces of sand and salt water fishing in the bottom, now mixing with permission slips and classroom supply lists. The excitement is almost measurable in my girls and the photos of their friends as we embark on another year. Somehow these kids seem to start fresh each August, like squash and zucchini pushing through the late August dirt of a garden. No memory of the scorching July sun or the doldrums of a cold February without outdoor recess.  A sense of wonder and creativity oozes through the toothless grin of my 7 year old as she tries to spread grape jelly on to the bread for a sandwich. “Mommy they should make a spoon-knife combo because the jelly is so slippery.” I agree and explain how the spork was invented for salad bars so why not a spife for jelly? My 9 year old reminded me to sign her agenda -my daily homework- after she turned the lights out in her bedroom, and thank God because I had completely forgotten…already. It is intoxicating to watch their enthusiasm and realize a summer outdoors has created stronger, more independent, and energetic kids.

Beginnings marked with official calendar dates are easy to jump in to -even if I still believe it is un-American to start school before Labor Day. We are participating in a nostalgic tradition marked by supply shopping, perfect-first-day-outfit picking, and jitters as we go to sleep on the last night of summer vacation. I can still remember the crocheted tank top sweater I wore on the first day of 8th grade. I had found the directions in the back of my September issue of Seventeen magazine, the one that weighed over two pounds and came to the beach everyday of the August of 1985. I ripped it out and showed my Mom, the most can-do, hand-crafty person I know. As we walked to the beach with baby oil and chairs, I brought my summer reading assignments (school and magazines) and she brought her needles and cotton thread. Needless to say, I looked incredible with my Esprit turquoise capris, an aqua tank top and my freshly knit sweater, that looked somewhat like a shrunken hammock hanging over my lithe 85 pound frame. The first day outfit was probably the highlight of a school year marked by a lot of lows as I straddled the bridge between big kid and young adult, fighting authority every step of the way. I suppose that too is a ritual, growing too big for an old skin.

I wonder if I can shed some old skin during this upcoming year. The more blogs I read or people I meet, it seems we are all at a crossroads, a shifting from home and babies and chaos to self. Not in a centered, selfish way but in a more exploratory way of: what is my passion, my role, my calling- in this next phase of life. It seems we have just gotten out of the making meals for new Moms vortex and jumped right into bringing cheese straws for a funeral phase. What happened to the middle place? The one where everything is really really good and easy and happy? Did I miss it? Was I too tired or too busy or too angry to notice the nirvana next to me?

The mood in Raleigh is somewhat subdued on the beginning of this school year. There was a bad car accident involving 4 girls, seniors in high school, coming home from a weekend at the lake. Instead of matching folders and spirals to each subject, or passing notes in the back of calculus class, one of the girls is in a coma, fighting for her life. And while it seems almost cliche because this seems to happen every year, either at the beginning or the night before graduation, it breaks my heart open. At 18 I drove around all the time without a seatbelt, it wasn’t a law and the cars didn’t beep to remind you back then. I bet we even swerved off the road and over corrected a few times but still I am here, safe and sound, plodding around wondering what I am supposed to be doing with my life. What a luxury to be able to ask the question! To not have the assignment of sitting in a dark hospital room praying for the life of my teenager. To not be exploring new cancer treatments with my 9 year old or visiting a grave side wondering what my 4th grader would have worn to school had she made it past third grade. To not be starting 10th grade without a Mom who lost her battle to ovarian cancer.

It is all in the perspective isn’t it?

When people ask me where I am from, I answer in paragraph form. I moved a lot. This 8 year stint in Raleigh is the longest I have lived anywhere. So I am not sure why I keep wanting the big question -what will I be when I grow up and what will I do with my life?- to be such a short answer. I will be lots of things, some good and some bad.

What will I do with my life? Live it, because I can.