Powerful Music

I heard Shankar Vedantam's Hidden Brain podcast last week, "Fresh Starts". In 2006, Derek Amato struck his head after diving into the shallow end of a swimming pool and woke up to discover that he could compose music at the piano. An acquired savant. He can’t pick out “Twinkle, Twinkle”, but he can spontaneously create intricate pieces and play them fluidly.

I don’t watch television, so maybe I’m the last person in America to hear about Derek. He’s teamed up with a jazz singer, Mandy Harvey, who totally lost her hearing in college. Derek wrote a song for her, "The Script".

As I listened to Derek play on the "Fresh Starts" podcast, I remembered a George Winston album: Winter (1980). Winston was creating beautiful albums at the same time Jim and I were creating of our marriage and family. I listened to that tape countless times in the 80s, in southern Indiana and New Hampshire. We chose to have no television, so radio and tapes were my window on the world.

I love classical music: Bach, Mozart, Brahms. But there is something in George Winston and Derek Amato that touches me deeply as well.

Snow covered the ground this morning, brilliant white and light as feathers. Massachusetts is in a George Winston mood.

Freezing Rain

I was first aware of the freezing rain on the top step of my kitchen porch. Balancing a black plastic bag of clothes to donate to Goodwill on top of a box bound for the same destination, I sensed the sole of my shoe slide, just a quarter inch, enough to wish I had a free hand to grab the bannister. Leaning on my elbow, I was able to balance the load and inch my way down to the sidewalk.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen freezing rain. More often, in winter, it either snows, sleets, or just straight-out rains.

A layer of ice coated my blue car. As I scraped the windshield, it broke into large, ragged pieces the size of dessert-plates, like impossibly thin, delicate sugar candy.

On Mass. Ave. I had a sweet David moment. A pedestrian with a large blue umbrella crossed the street ahead of me. I stopped, as is Commonwealth law, and waited until he arrived safely at the opposite curb. I could hear David telling me, disparagingly, that the law said you had to stop until the walker’s foot touched the opposite curb. “I guess that’s in case he decides to turn around and go back across.”

As part of his end-of-year accounting, Jim wrote to each of our kids, reporting the balance in their ‘HeirBanks’, where we keep track of their loans and debts. His email to me was brief:
            "I’m missing David..."

The Little Green Guestroom

I woke up this morning in the small guest room in Riverdale (the Bronx). at Peter's and Xiomara's. The last time I slept in that room was March 18, 2014. How do I know with such certainty, without consulting a calendar? Because the following morning I was lying in bed, waking up luxuriously slowly, when my cell phone rang. It was David, calling from Korea, where his Army unit was stationed. Only, he wasn’t on base; he was in St. Mary’s Hospital in Seoul, where he had just been diagnosed with leukemia.

I must have driven home that day; but I don’t remember it. A week later we picked him up at Dulles Airport and drove to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, which I dubbed WReNMiMiC. (I wanted an acronym and Matt found one: a real word, wrenmimic, that fit perfectly.)

My thoughts last night weren’t morbid; there was just an awareness of the significance of the moment. I also had in mind an old friend of mine, who is suffering from a rare and very aggressive cancer. I had just read the latest CaringBridge post from her daughter. The highlight of the post was that she'd taken a shower after days of excruciating pain.

My friend Kimberly, whose husband died of pancreatic cancer much too young, remarked once that cancer steals a person’s dignity. That’s true. The autonomy we so cherish, or would cherish if we didn’t take it for granted, evaporates. We lose the ability to get dressed and go out to the grocery store, watch a movie without pain, enjoy the pleasure of taking a shower independently, cook a meal, and eat raw fish at a sushi restaurant (if you like that sort of thing. I do.).

The memories last night haven’t sent me down into the abyss of grief. I’m feeling quite calm.  Life goes on: there are meals to cook, sushi to eat, grandchildren to play with.

Although I returned to my near-monthly routine of driving down to New Jersey and New York City about a year ago, I hadn’t sleep in the guest room again until last night. Peter and Xiomara have been trying to close on an apartment for over a year, and had filled the little green room with furniture and appliances destined for the new apartment in North Riverdale. On earlier trips, I've slept on their couch.

But yesterday, the bed had returned to a horizontal position, with a lovely comforter on top. The extra furniture and appliances are in the new apartment, which is being painted.

I was worried about sleeping in that little room, haunted by the ghosts of the past, but I've developed a little stratagem. After lights out,  I count by threes. I’ve always had some dyscalculia, so its a challenge to  get past 39. The concept is to focus on the task of counting and let other thoughts and worries drift through my relaxed mind. I start playing with the numbers, noticing when familiar numbers come up: 54, 60, 81 and checking that the digits always add up to a multiple of three. I know, it’s elementary stuff, but it works. The concept is to keep enough focus to let go of agitation and let my mind drift in and out of consciousness. I don’t know if this will work long-term, but right now it’s a useful tool in my mental toolbox.

The Clean Plate Club

Red-letter day: I left a quarter-cup of rice on my plate at Thai E-Sarn restaurant in Arlington Heights at lunchtime.

I am a pathological member of the ‘Clean Plate Club’. It is painful for me to throw away food. I work hard to serve myself no more than I want to eat, but when there’s too much on my plate, I sometimes eat it all.

For years, our family budget was tight. We were raising six kids on one income and hoping to help each of them financially through college. I was conscious of the cost of every calorie.

One wintery February, in about 2005, I accompanied my dad to St. Croix. He always flew first class. The flight attendants brought us heated washcloths before take-off and served dinner on real crockery with metal flatware. Dad and I were seated in different rows, with a stranger sitting next to me. As is my wont, I ate every speck of food, even wiping the dish clean with a bit of bread I’d saved for that purpose. The man glanced over at my plate and said disdainfully, “Well, you must have liked that”. I felt like a unsophisticated yokel. I’m sure he’d never seen someone consume all the calories available  in-flight.

I still work really hard at serving myself modest amounts of food, consuming all the calories on my plate, or bringing home restaurant left-overs, but I’m trying not to be obsessive about it.

Did you know the Clean Plate Club was an actual, federally-sponsored organization? In 1917, Woodrow Wilson appointed Herbert Hoover to address World War I food shortages. Food rationing was implemented and voluntary 'meatless Mondays' and 'wheatless Wednesdays' were promoted.Hoover developed a pledge for schoolchildren:

“At table I’ll not leave a scrap of food upon my plate. And I’ll not eat between meals, but for supper time I’ll wait.”

The club was terminated after the war, but revived in 1947,  to address post-World War II food shortages. Elementary schools established local clubs and encouraged children to join. I remember my parents encouraging me to be part of my own Clean Plate Club. We certainly didn't throw much food away. It takes discipline to limit both waste and consumption. "Waste not, want not" combined with what my dad used to say, "Don't make your body a garbage can."

I feel a little sheepish admitting to the uneaten rice. Perhaps next time I'll ask specifically for a smaller portion.

Godt nytt år!

Godt nytt år!!! greeted me Sunday evening, 8 hours before midnight in Provo, Utah. My sister was in Norway.

We’ve been goofing off, attending a nephew’s wedding in Salt Lake City, hanging out with our daughter and son-in-law.

Yesterday we hiked up to the white concrete letter “Y” about 1650 feet above the Brigham Young campus. The actual trail ascends a thousand feet on a wide unpaved trail, and was dotted with young families. The four o’clock sun was strong and I soon regretted wearing my long fuchsia coat. I shifted it from one arm to the other, letting the perspiration evaporate. As we started to descend, however, the sun was setting behind the western mountains and I gratefully put it on.

The letter "Y" is taller than the Hollywood sign is wide: 380 feet. It's also taller than Whipple Hill, the highest point in Lexington. We'll be returning to the lower lands tomorrow: lower and more trees.