Childhood revisited

 I continue to work on my memoir. On November 9th I sent it to my sister Maggie to read. (Thank you, Maggie!) She planned to return it before their Thanksgiving trip to North Carolina.

But they cancelled their trip, Thanksgiving came and went, and she didn’t send it back. Then Lincoln was born and Jim and I drove to D.C., stayed ten days, then drove to Chicago and spent a week with his mom.

Without planning it, Maggie gave me an incomparable gift. From November 9th to January 8th, I entered a magical state of childhood. Each break during college: Thanksgiving, Christmas, even summer, I would cart a heavy suitcase of books home to study. I rarely opened any of them, but the psychic weight was heavier than the suitcase. By the time I graduated from college, the mental habit of always feeling underprepared and inadequate was firmly entrenched.

My third psychotic episode was in 2003. Shortly after I returned home from the hospital, I enrolled in a creative writing class. I dreamed of writing a memoir of our 1995 cross-country trip. Some years later, my focus turned to my manic depression (bipolar). My inaction fed a constant undercurrent of anxiety.

But when I clicked send on November 9th, I was suddenly on vacation. A true six-years-old-and-nothing-to-do-but-ride-my-trike freedom. I couldn’t work on it: it was in Maggie's hands. The weeks stretched on, and I basked in the tranquility.

Is this an indication that I really don’t want to do the project? I don’t think so. I needed the breathing space, the luxury of having nothing to do. The ability to pick it back up on my own terms.

Holiday Weekend

 The weekend with Andrew and Victoria went better than I dared hope. They are wonderful houseguests. They told us the next day that they had cried in bed Saturday night, after we had sung them good night. But Victoria’s report Monday evening to her mom was that she didn’t miss her because she was having a great time. It was an immersion experience. I had decided not to fret about undone work and just enjoy creating a wonderful holiday weekend for our grandchildren.

Friday evening, Peter and we met in front of the Town Line Diner in Rocky Hill, just south of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Wethersfield has been a source of romance for me ever since falling in love with The Witch of Blackbird Pond in fifth grade. Back in the 1600s, Rocky Hill was part of Wethersfield.

I’ve been driving up and down I-91 for 36 years, going to New Jersey to visit my parents, D.C. to visit the temple (before the 2000 opening of the Boston Temple, which reduced our temple trip mileage 100-fold, from 450 miles to 4.5.) I’ve seen the highway sign for the historic Wethersfield ferry, but never stopped to investigate. Service began in 1655, making it the oldest continuously-operated ferry in the United States.

When Peter got to the parking lot, where we would ‘exchange prisoners,’ we proposed a birthday supper at the diner. I've loved diners longer than Blackbird Pond. I had moussaka and asked the waitress if she was Greek. No, Albanian. We were nearly the only customers and she treated us royally. On Monday, when we met Xiomara at the same parking lot (it’s within two miles of being halfway between our homes), we talked her into a meal there as well.

The weekend felt so spacious. We planned our last day, Monday, on the white board: playground, fly Andrew's drone, foosball, cotton candy, go home.

As the slogan says, “If I’d known grandkids were so much fun, I would have had them first.”

Pizza and plans

 Jim cleared his closet last week and I put all the discarded shirts and pants into two large black garbage bags and searched the web for a place to take them. Many are quite a bit past the ‘gently used’ stage: I didn’t want to burden a charity with textiles they will lose money recycling.

I found Helpsy. No donation boxes in Lexington or Arlington, but several in adjoining Burlington, including one in the parking lot shared by Blaze, a pizzeria doing for pizza what Qdoba does for Mexican food: all the toppings included for one base price. (My pathologically-frugal self was tempted to ask for every topping, but I forbore.)

Over a year ago, when Blaze first opened, we came, coupon in hand, but the doors were locked, with employees seen through the window. The manager answered our knocking, came to the door, and explained: a food shipment had failed to arrive and they were out of dough for their grand opening.

Last night there was plenty of dough and plenty of seating. (We were the only dine-in customers.) As we enjoyed the delicious pizzas, Xiomara called. Our granddaughter, Victoria, had been cajoling her all day, insisting on calling Oma and JimDad to see if she and Andrew could visit alone during the upcoming holiday weekend. We had offered Peter and Xiomara a reverse get-away: we’d entertain the kids at our home (a.k.a. grandchild magnet) and leave their apartment kid-free.

By the time Victoria got on the phone with us, she had changed her tune. She only wanted to stay two days. But Xiomara was firm: you wanted to call them all day; you’re going.

My parents invited grandchildren to visit for a week, once they turned eight. (At the time, one of my kids proclaimed that he would spend a week with them until he was thirty.) I’ve often thought that they were wise to set that age limit: by eight years old homesickness is often curable, especially when there's ice cream on your cereal every morning.

Andrew is nearly eight, but Victoria is just five. A year and a half ago, she sat, ramrod straight on top bunkbed, refusing to be comforted until her parents came home from their night out with their siblings. I found the show-down exhausting. I didn’t cave and call her mom, but it took a lot out of me. When I expressed my trepidation towards this proposed visit to Jim, he said, “I’ll be alright.”

I suppose I will be also. Check in with me next week.

Ring in the new

I often grumble about New Year’s Eve and pretend to hate the Roman holiday. I try to be asleep before midnight: I actually accomplished that this year: Jim and his mom had to crack open the non-alcoholic sparkling Rosé without me.

But really, I fall for it every year: hook, line, and sinker. Like a lawn covered in a pristine blanket of new snow, the fresh calendar inspires thoughts of and hopes for new beginnings.

Fun trivia fact: Great Britain and its American colonies started their new year on March 25 until 1752. I like that: new beginnings should start in the spring, when the days grow from the spring equinox to summer solstice and spring planting has started (south of New England, at least).

On December 1st, I hired a Nerd Fitness coach and rang in the new year with exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle goals. I even wrote a (bad) haiku:

Awareness increased

Incremental is the key

Open to the world

 

I've written about Nerd Fitness before:

Phyz Ed

Self-help Junkie

Nerd Fitness

My Nerd Fitness ‘Big Why’ (written in May 2020)

I am engaging in Nerd Fitness Academy because I want to have a healthier body with the strength and energy to enjoy life. I want to continue to garden, keep house, enjoy my grandchildren, walk long distances, and serve other people.

I want to be a seventy-year-old woman who seems to be fifty-five. Yes, fifty-five will be my new normal.

I’m not sure this is attainable, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

Welcome, 2021.

 

Nelly Elizabeth Fernandez Johnston (1955-2020)

 Nelly Elizabeth Fernandez Johnston died early in the morning on Friday, November 28. Her daughter, Carla, wrote a tender tribute on Facebook:

After a nearly two-year battle with lung cancer my mother, Nelly Fernandez Johnston, passed away early this morning. She was a vibrant, generous woman, always seeking to better not only her life, but the lives of all those she touched. She made so many courageous leaps throughout her life, including immigrating to Venezuela and later the US, joining the LDS Church, and living the fullest life she could with her friends and family these past two years. She peacefully leapt into Heaven, ready to meet her Savior and start her celestial work. I love you Mom.

The news was not unexpected; stage-four lung cancer is always fatal. But the finality still comes as a shock. She was sixty-five years old, the same age as Jim, a year and a half older than me.

    One day, when I was about fourteen, I lay sprawling on the blue-shag carpet in our living room, reading the local Westfield Leader. For some reason, an obituary caught my eye. How old was he? Mom asked. Old, I said, 62. That’s not old, stated Mom.

My mom was a wise woman, so I made a note, “62 is young to die,” although I didn’t believe it or understand her. As I’ve aged, however, ‘old’ has receeded. Now 62 is quite young to die. Not as young as 5, or 13, or 27, but young.

I think of David, of course. It’s been over five years since his death, August 12, 2015. He was buried exactly a month afterwards, since he had donated his body to the University of Massachusetts Medical School. They used his body to test a lung device. The head researcher told us that the team was very reverent and appreciative. Some of them were around David’s age and seeing his body was sobering.

At the cemetery on September 12, 2015, a small flock of wild turkeys ambled through the morning fog. A few of Jim’s business associates stood a little apart from our family and friends, reverently marking the event with us. An Army bugler played taps.

Incongruously, I was grateful for the large American flag covering the wooden coffin. We had picked the cheapest coffin the funeral home offered. It had always seemed a waste of good money and material to bury a fine piece of furniture in the ground. David didn’t care, did he?

But, suddenly I was intensely ashamed of my frugality. I’m sure no one at the service, all of whom loved us, judged us. But there it was, irrational and potent.

Peter and Xiomara and Andrew had driven up from the Bronx, one-month-old Victoria wrapped in a white blanket. I held her, just like my dad had held little four-month-old Andrew at Mom’s funeral two years before. Her warm little body comforted me, as did the basket of purple flowers our friends brought to the gravesite.

After the burial service, we piled into cars and headed for the Belmont Chapel. There we met the Massachusetts General Hospital bloodmobile for our first annual blood drive in David’s memory.

This year the blood drive attendance was the lowest ever. Because of the pandemic, MGH sent two bloodmobiles to maintain physical distancing. Everyone’s body temperature was taken and the standard covid questions were asked. Fortunately, it didn’t rain, so we were able to meet outside and chat with our friends.

Five years ago, Matt gifted us a photo of David, printed directly on glass. We lay it on the registration table. Our friend, Jen, touched it with her fingers and I realized that she was thinking of David, the little boy she watched grow up. Many young families in our ward come for schooling or first jobs and then move away. David hadn’t lived at home for a long time, before he got sick, so few church members knew him. It touched my heart to see Jen’s simple gesture.

Nelly will be sorely missed, by her husband, Jeff, and children, J.F., Carla, and Paul. She was outgoing, fun-loving, and compassionate and had more good friends than I have acquaintances.

She’s the second of our generation to die. My brother Mike, severely intellectually disabled, never married, so Jeff is the first widower. Is it morbid or just realistic to wonder who is next? That could come tomorrow or in twenty years. But it will come. Am I making the most of the time I’ve been given?

Pruning Christmas cacti

 Perhaps in response to the virus restrictions and more time at home, last summer I tackled my Christmas cactus collection. My mother gave me Christmas cactus clippings over the years: they are easy to grow: a single stem in potting soil will soon root, grow, and eventually bloom. I had one beautiful specimen that cascaded pink blossoms every December in a place of honor on our piano. But when we converted the front room to a library, with floor-to-ceiling shelving, the piano, which was hopelessly out of tune, was removed. I recognized that the cascade had become an awkward, overgrown tenant.

The library is five years old now, so it was high time to take all my cacti in hand. One by one I placed them on an overturned wire-mesh wastebasket on the kitchen island so I could objectively consider their cascading stems (cacti don’t have leaves). To produce a balanced and agreeable effect, I had to prune severely.

The cacti sat on our kitchen porch all summer, shaded from the hot summer sun. With winter approaching, I brought them into my office and David’s room, my adjunct conservatory.

The pruning had its effect: a flower on every last stem.

Slowing time down

 I’ve been studying out in my mind the concept of hypomania. That’s the delicious, intoxicating state below (hypo) mania. In my experience, psychosis is terrifying and not in a good way. Horror stories are fun (for some people, not for me) because they are safe. Whatever horrible thing is happening to the characters, we are safe in our living room or movie theater.

But hypomania isn’t terrifying. Food tastes exquisite; thoughts and ideas flow effortlessly; colors are more vibrant. Everything is breathtaking.

I experienced hypomania this past spring. It never got dangerous. It was seductive.

One of the brilliant ideas I had was that I could slow down time. I found the name of the year, twenty-twenty, enchanting. Until age forty, I had better than twenty-twenty vision: I was far-sighted. (I now have to wear trifocals to see my world sharply.) The possibilities in that name (before the virus) seemed endless and exciting. And suddenly I knew, with certainty, that I could slow down time. Not stop time, but take it very slowly, so that I could enjoy and savor the year and accomplish amazing things.

Describing it now, it reminds me of an experience I had one night in high school. I was at a party my parents didn’t know about, smoking something. As I sat in an unfamiliar kitchen, I looked at the white wall clock with black hands. I looked away and about an hour later glanced back at it. To my amazement, only a minute had passed on the clock face. I did it again and again. Time had slowed for me, how cool was that?

Several years later I realized the truth: whatever the speed of time, I had done nothing but sit. What did it matter if time slowed?

March and April were similar. I thought I had learned the secret to lengthening time, but I had nothing to show for it.

Sadly, November rushes by; time has not slowed. I experience what older people used to tell me: the years are flying faster and faster. The illusion of holding time was just that, an illusion. But it was a pretty thought while it lasted.