Favorite Philosopher's Blog

Whoa.  Didn’t really see this comin’, at least not a few months ago.  Al got a job in Orange County (California, not New York).  We will be moving. I will stay behind to get the house ready to sell in Lafayette.  We’ve been in the Bay Area since we arrived here after our honeymoon involved us and a little Subaru from Illinois to here on a road trip.  29 years.

This blog is bound to be very strange for the next few months.  I figure we’ll put the house up for sale in spring when the hills are Ireland green and my garden tends to look nice, although we’ll probably do one of those fake garden makeovers right before the sign goes up.  It will take me at least that long to get it ready to sell.  I have warned Al that although I am 100% behind this move, he will need to understand that when I burst into tears for no apparent reason, that is par for the course and doesn’t mean I don’t want to go.  It just means I will be cleaning up the garden and will find a little plastic Ninja Turtle toy and I will fall apart.

I already feel very similar to after the ’89 earthquake.  My senses are heightened.  Suddenly I am seeing things I had stopped noticing: the trees, for instance.  Not a whole lot of oaks in SoCal.  It seems surreal now driving around town.  It never really was mine, this town, but now it seems less so.  My stomach turns as I pass by the Little League fields where I never really understood why people would push their baby boys to be the best at such a tender age.   I always felt like a bad mother compared to the ones who seemingly reveled in the Saturday morning mayhem of crowded parking lots and juice boxes and whining babies and lost uniform hats.  It’s all behind me now, in theory, but when I pass those fields I think “good riddance.”  There are many other examples of place in this town that make me not sorry to go.  It’s helpful, no?

Before I go any further, I must say this.  There are people I will miss with the depths of my soul.  They know who they are.  I promise I will come back often, it’s a quick plane ride and/or car ride.  I’m not moving to Australia.   I am putting my best faith forward with this new challenge, but my positive attitude does not diminish twinges of grief at leaving you that are already wafting through my day.

Having said that, I am nothing if not someone who likes change.  I lived in Mundelein, Illinois until I went to college in Milwaukee, then moved to New York, then to Vermont, then back to New York, then back to Mundelein, then to Evanston, then to San Francisco, then to Lafayette.  I have always kept in touch with those I wanted to, and the advent of the Internet has added a few people from the past to my list of lifelong friends.

Off to SoCal.  How weird is that?  Very.  Surfin’ USA and all that.  When I first lived in California and went down to LA the first time, I was quite bitchy as Al can tell you.  I never wanted to go there ever again.  I just about went nuts when he missed a freeway turn and we had to get off at an unplanned exit and turn around.  I was sure we were in the likes of South Bronx and I was going to die.  But of course we had to return – to see Al’s brother and his family and my family in San Diego, to go to Disneyland, to see if the Pacific Ocean really did have warm water at some point south.

I remember the day it changed for me.  We were camping somewhere south of Disneyland. I wanted to go to a miniatures store and get away from the guys for awhile.  I got in my car.  I looked at a map.  I found the miniatures store, which required getting off at an exit and travelling on surface streets.  I did not die on a freeway.  I found my way back.  Suddenly LA was not a big scary conglomerate anymore but a big crazy place full of possibilities.

I never thought I wanted to live there, and I’m not sure how it’s all going to shake out, but I know I’m not scared.  I know there is beauty there.  I know there is culture – you just have to dig a little bit.  There are tar pits with prehistoric bones right in the middle of the city for heaven’s sake!  A couple of hours east is Joshua Tree National Park a phenomenal high desert and a wonderful place to be  –  in the spring.

I will live near the ocean.  If all we can afford is a hovel near the ocean, then I will live in that.  I cannot go inland – it is desert, dreadfully hot and dry most of the year.  I need the ocean.  The marine layer, as I know from camping, insists on fogging up the coast just as it does in San Francisco.  Of course, it burns off faster, but I have been cold at Disneyland more often than I’ve been too hot.

The best beach in the world is in the town where I hope to find that hovel.  San Clemente.  It was our favorite camping spot in SoCal and the idea that I will be able to go hang on that beach whenever I want soothes my soul when the waves of grief threaten me.  The boys had so much fun there – some of my favorite photographs are on that beach – a photo of Al flying a kite, then a photo of each of the little boys holding it as he handed it to them, their eyes squinting up at the sky earnestly and with postures of responsibility.  It was not a good thing to be the brother who would let the kite drop, but on that beach Al got it so high in the sky it had not a chance of falling. Another photo is the one of The Coaster commuter train flying by just off the beach – I know that sounds terrible, but the ocean is so delicious for body surfing there and the sand so castle-building perfect it didn’t matter.  I have a classic photo of all the kids on the beach stopping what they are doing and watching the train go by, beach buckets and sand shovels in mid-scoop, nothing in the photograph but little sandy butts and backs of tousled haired heads of every kid within the scope of the camera lens.  What that one photo doesn’t show is that the Coaster went by every hour or half hour and each time the beach full of kids would do the same damn thing, as if they’d never seen a train before.  It was pretty funny.

Here are the questions that cross my mind…

Am I too old to learn to surf?  Yes, I am, don’t even think of encouraging me.

Should I start looking for the plastic surgeon right away?  These twin pendulums just won’t do.

Will I have to succumb to spray tan, since I won’t go out uncovered but I also don’t want to look like Annabel Lee?

Does it rain there AT ALL?

How soon before I decide I want to  figure out how to witness a red carpet Academy Awards dealie-o up close and personal just once in my life?  Better not.  One glimpse of Johnny Depp and I fear I’d make an Illinois Girl Turned Northern California girl damned fool of myself.  He’s so nice though, right, he’d just offer to let me sit at his table?

OK, I’m getting ridiculous now.  What it really all will be about is a place to walk into the next phase of my life.  I’ll keep you posted, but not before you have to hear all about the insanity I will endure as I decide whether to take or leave the box of the boys drawings from when they were six.

It has been a trip and a half here in San Francisco for seven years and then Lafayette for twenty- two.  It’s time to go.  I can’t wait to see what life has in store for me next.  I will not forget, just as I haven’t forgotten Illinois, or New York, or Vermont or Milwaukee.  Each has a special place in my heart.  I leave with the San Francisco Bay Area, the honeymoon days, pregnant days, the elementary school days, the teenage days, tucked away in my heart now too.

I should have known.  My wonderful little home health agency that has been allowing me to create my own job announced yesterday that it is being “acquired” by a monster health care giant.  I knew this would happen, of course, because I have been jumping from one mom-and-pop operation to another for years.  Then when things become unbearably corporate I walk away.  Hopefully this time I will have half a chance.

Of course I have heard the drill many times.  “We are very excited because we think Mom and Pop’s Home Health Care is a great fit and a wonderful addition to our company.”  “This is such a successful and respected company in the community, we are anxious to tap into your experience and learn from you.” (Gag me, please.)  “We are not planning on laying anyone off.” (Yet).

Sigh.  I was so bummed out yesterday I decided to replace the right rear tail light assembly on my Subaru, which had been broken for a year.  The replacement had arrived in the mail yesterday, so I figured it would make me feel better.

It all started out well.  The actual piece which I had purchased on Ebay and had not realized included part of the painted body of the car,  by some miracle actually matched the color of my car.  Unscrew a nut and bolt.  No problem   Unscrew another nut and bolt.  Problem.  I began to learn why, as Andy stated later, he used to throw tools across the carport when he was replacing half the engine on the Eclipse years ago.  We now have something to bond over, he and I.  Yes, indeedy, the socket wrench thingy won’t fit over the nut because the bolt is too long.  OK, here’s a long one the same size.  Oh.  You can’t fit the longer socket wrench into the tight space where the nut is located.  I realized right around this point that I needed to put on some gloves to protect my pretty pink nail polish.

Enter crowbar and sledge hammer that fulfills a double duty of ripping the old tail light assembly off and venting my anger at the company takeover.  It still took me an hour to get the thing off.  The added fun was due to the fact that there was one piece firmly attached to the assembly that needed to be included in the replacement, and I couldn’t just rip that off willy-nilly.

The best part was, of course, the sledge hammer.  When crowbarring stopped working and I still didn’t have enough room to get that nut off from the inside, it was time to just start wailing on it.

Andy said I did a really nice job.  He put the new one back on for me. My car looks less like Jed Clampett’s now, although I am still waiting for the right front headlight assembly to replace that.  I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t all me.  I was responsible for the right front dent when when my Subaru Sport was totaled by a guy side-swiping me – thankfully I wasn’t totaled – and this replacement used Subaru Forester has the exact same dashboard set up – so when I took the sharp turn into the carport that requires gunning it to get up the hill – well, I forgot I was in a bigger version of that dashboard and caught the retaining wall.   The back right tail light Jeff can tell you about.  The back left dent (thankfully no tail light issues) was Andy backing out of the carport and not noticing that there was another car there.  Leave me alone now.  It takes a family.

Today I feel much better about the whole work thing.  I have talked to some friends and advisors and plan to just continue one step at a time.  People at work have loved what I’m doing in each “hat” I am wearing, so for at least the time being I am safe.  In the meantime I am further defining what I will be when I grow up – computer training?  Workplace general trainer?  Public speaking/community liason?  Health professional educator?  I’m just going to let it all fall into place and keep my eyes, ears and heart open.  I will be and do what I’m supposed to be and do.

Maybe auto body repair.

If I am ever taken out of my home in a straightjacket, it won’t be for any other reason than that I have completely lost my mind over a fly in my home.  I hate these flies.  They are big and slow and make an awful buzzing noise that drives me to distraction.  I get out my fly swatter or a rolled up newspaper and go on the hunt.  They fly right past me, taunting me to follow them with my eyes and, go ahead, just try to make contact with my weapon.  Ed the Dog gets involved so I’ve got a barking dog who is as insane as I am over the battle knocking over furniture and banging into glass doors in his attempt to protect me from the little buggers.

Last night, way past midnight, I was in the bathroom doing battle with one of these F-15s.  It hit the mirror, in the same five places, probably twenty times, never stopping to give me a chance to hit it. When it does stop, it is behind a bottle of hand cream or just on the side of the cabinet where I can’t get a good hit.  I swish the fly swatter around to flush it from its hiding spot, and then the routine begins again.  Hit the mirror, arc away, hit the mirror, arc away.  Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.  Catch me if you can.

I have had some luck in the past that when it is flying around, I just start waving the fly swatter madly back and forth in the air and, by chance, make contact and end up with a dead soldier on the floor.  Not last night.  It didn’t help that I was just using a hand towel as my weapon of choice.  He won.  I finally went to bed, closing the bathroom door behind me so he wouldn’t follow me as I went to bed.

Apparently I was not quick enough.  I heard him buzzing through my bedroom.  I put my pillow over my head and felt my blood pressure rise.  This was when I realized that at some point in the future one of my sons may be sitting in the next room, quietly explaining to the doctor what happened. “She always got annoyed by flies, doctor, but this time it was different.  She is older and slower now, and she just couldn’t kill it – it kept evading her best attempts at extermination.  Then she just lost it.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  She started throwing plates trying to hit the fly.  She thought it was on the lamp and knocked over the lamp.  In between she was holding her ears and crying and begging: ‘Make it stop that buzzing! Make it stop that buzzing!’   When I came into the room she was sobbing in a heap in the chair.  The fly was sitting on the arm of the chair but she had not energy nor desire left to try to kill it.  She was just rocking back and forth and crying uncontrollably.  That’s when I decided I’d better call 911.”

I don’t even want to leave the computer.  Right now as near as I can figure there is a corpse somewhere on the property because there are lots of them challenging my sanity. But I will go downstairs and start again.  Ed is my right hand dog ready to help me.  I shall not go down in defeat.  After a good night’s sleep (I am not certain it wasn’t my imagination that it had followed me)  – bring ’em on.

Every time I take off or land in an airplane my prayer goes something like this: “Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen and please don’t let the hour of my death be right now.”  Look I know all about the physics of flight.  My brother has been flying since he was a teen.  My nephew, the same.  I get it.  The terrifying bouncing and dipping and rising is just like waves on the ocean.  Air has mass, more likely to get killed walking across the street blah blah blah.  I’m really not that afraid to fly, I just am more nervous now that I’m older, more aware of…never mind.  I still have one more leg of this journey.

Al flew in for the reunion to Midway airport when we were under tornado watch until 1 a.m.  Had I endured what he did flying in, I probably wouldn’t be here to write this, having had a heart attack or something.   Haven’t I already told you about flying to Alaska and me deciding when the plane suddenly dropped oh, say, a foot and a half, that I really did like him after all and that he would surely save me if I only jumped on his lap?

I’m in the Vegas airport right now.  Oh my goodness, that’s a whole ‘nother blog, isn’t it?  Step away from the slot machines.  Step away from the slot machines.  But…it’s a Wheel of Fortune machine screaming at me.  Just kidding, at least for now.  I have one hour to kill before my next flight.  It might snare me yet.  The smell of cheap perfume and stale alcohol breath and lack of showering (both me and others at this point) is enough to knock you out.

I write, though,  because tonight, both taking off and landing, a three year old little boy behind me was not muttering the above prayer under his breath, he was giggling and saying “wheee!”  over and over again.  Every dip, every bounce, every side-to-side wave of the wings was met with Disneyland delight from this little future aviator.  It made me pause.  What if I change my irrational fear into that childlike joy?  I mean, really, what does my fear accomplish?  Takes a few years off my life I’m sure.  It does not help send vibes of confidence to the pilot, nor does it help her fly the plane better, knowing that I, apparently unlike her and everybody else on board,  would prefer to get to where I’m going safely.

So that’ s my new plan.  My plane leaves in about an hour, we’ll see how it goes.  I probably will still say the Hail Mary, but I’m kinda liking the “wheeee!” idea in general.  It was the cutest little voice you ever heard.

Wheeee!

My first blog about the reunion was decidedly negative, based on emotions that come flowing out of me so readily at any given moment.  Now that those have been chronicled, let me say that the weekend had some moments of redemption.  Riding around south Milwaukee to pick up a birthday cake for Jim – “the best bakery in Milwaukee” according to our driver and tour guide, Hank.  I walked in and immediately began lamenting the lack of such old fashioned bakeries where I live.  Half the baked goods case was cookies of every stripe, and I ended up buying a dozen Holstein cow cookies, as big as Mike Tyson’s fist.  Hey, the sign said “MOO!” – how could I not?  The BBQ at Jim and Peggy’s Friday night was lovely – a hot summer night, no clouds, old friends, including a few who were not expected.  There was a lot of whispering – “who was that guy I just hugged?”  – it is not as easy to recognize people as it was even five years ago.  Jim and Peggy played a set of acoustic music, Peggy’s beautiful voice lulling us all into peace.

Saturday found us in the middle of another blistering hot day – where’s the ocean breeze? oh yeah, I’m not in California anymore – and we walked and lounged around on the grassy mall and tried to get oriented – so many new buildings, it was sometimes hard to figure out where we were Saturday and how that translated into where we went to class 35 years ago.  Saturday night a few threatening clouds rolled in during the outdoor dinner and although they did not rain on us, they ushered in a stiff breeze that tore tablecloths off the tables and turned over the vases of flowers that the planners had lovingly placed there.  The clouds moved on and left behind a cool, delightful evening.

Possibly the worst DJs in the history of DJ-ing provided the music.  OK, we all understand that if you’re playing for reunions from 10 years to fifty years you have to be patient.  However – Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond – not once but TWICE!  That was not the only song that made you want to scoot right back into the 21st century (more Lady GaGa please! please!) that they found it necessary to play twice. Oh well, it cleared out the crowd and they got to go home early.

All in all it was very mellow, I just think waaaay too much and take waaay too much to heart, as usual.  However, until the 30th I never wanted to go to reunions.  I have always made an effort to keep in touch with those I want to keep in touch with.  A few others I have reconnected with through Facebook and Linkd In.   I don’t know that I will find it necessary to push my luck again and attend a reunion only to have my sweet memories marred by the present or have bad memories revived from the depths where they belong.  We’ll see.

In the meantime, summer is almost over.  A few visitors coming to California (now that kids are grown, people are travelling again – c’mon out!) the end of August, then September I begin to change my career focus in earnest.

So.  There.  It’s all good.

Just returned from my 35th reunion from Marquette University.  It was a bit different than the 30th (and my first reunion) for many different reasons. It was not as light-hearted as the 30th, that’s  for sure.   Here are a few things I learned:

I am what I am.  Some people like what I have become, even love what I have become (a guy named Al Sondag comes to mind).  Some people don’t.  It used to be that I cared very deeply about what everybody thought of me, especially people that I admired.  I was insecure.  I would not speak my mind for fear of being judged.  If I was hurt, I would bounce back, cry my tears and stand up to carry on.  If I loved someone I wanted to be loved in return.  I was a faithful friend.  I would be there for you in good times and bad, just as I relied on my close friends for support and love in the good times and bad.

It was good to see people.  However, it was in the context of seeing friends from 35 years ago that I have looked in the mirror and seen the changes in myself.  I don’t give a crap what other people think of me and who I have become.  If you won’t be there for me in good times and bad, then you will need to find someone else to have the favor returned.   If I am hurt, I will still cry my tears, I will stand up and carry on, but I will not “bounce back.”  I don’t put my hand on the stove another time to make sure it really will burn me. Sometimes when people change in such a manner, people who have been comfortable with the “way we were” are not so comfortable with the new.  I understand that as well.

It is unlikely I will be at another group reunion.  The first one was magical.  The second was a stark reality of lives, philosophies, tolerances for certain behaviors all gone in different directions.  It hurt.  I have cried my tears.  I will stand up and carry on.  I truly hope that I some of us will meet again along the road of life.  I hope I have not hurt anyone myself, although the chances of that being true are slim.

Don’t think twice, it’s all right.

I am back in Illinois, with Mom for a few days and then to MU for reunion.  Being back in the house I grew up in, everything is a lullaby.  The train that comes by and blows its horn three block away, the bells of St. Mary of the Lake “Seminary” (no longer a seminary, now a university) that check off time in 15 minute increments.  I even slept through a raging thunderstorm.  It’s home.

I have often taken note of how my Mom writes.  Whenever she is sitting down writing a note of some sort, there is something about the specific way in which she turns the paper to the proper angle and even though her hands are old now, her pen glides across the paper and I am always reminded of her sitting at the desk to write my excuse notes for absence from school.  In those days there were no “absence lines” to call in.  I don’t know, maybe Mom did call in, but more importantly was the note you had to bring from home to let the nun know your mother knew you were not at school.  I can remember standing next to her as she’d quickly write the note before the school bus came.  I remember watching her, just as I do now, perfect penmanship somehow landing on the page every time: Dear Sister Mary Whoever,  Please excuse Mary’s absence as she was ill.  Sincerely, Helen S Horton (Mrs. Donald E. Horton)

Yesterday something happened which trumped that memory.  I was going out for an appointment, and a good old fashioned thunderstorm had started.  As I opened the door to leave, I noticed her at the front door coat closet pulling out a plastic parka – I was about to assure her that I didn’t need it, but then she pulled out her red raincoat and held it towards me.  There was something about that moment – her holding the red jacket, the atmosphere dark with rain, that brought a wave of feeling over me that is difficult to describe.  It was as if I was once again 5 years old and in kindergarten, I had a red raincoat back then (it was clear-ish plastic as I recall).  It was raining.  I didn’t want to leave my mother.  I instantly walked over to her and puckered my lips for a kiss and said “Bye Mom” as I grabbed the red jacket.  For one hundredth of a second, she was my young mother, I was her little girl.  I had not forgotten how much I hated to leave her for school every day, but I had forgotten the feeling of it.  It amazes me how a simple everyday item, combined with a certain outdoor light and perhaps, too,  the door half opened so I could hear the rain and thunder, could evoke a total body memory of not just sight and sound, but of a little girl who didn’t want to leave her mommy and venture into the storm.

Making it easy for Mom to get notification of my blogs via email, so this is a test!

About a year ago I wrote about my friend’s daughter getting married and how they honored me by asking me to sing at the wedding.  The wedding was Saturday and what a wedding it was.  Her father, Joe, was just as emotional as I thought he would be – in our family we call that type of person a “sentimental slob” and we can say that because we all are.  He could barely keep it together walking down the aisle and was dabbing his eyes throughout the ceremony. The bride was gorgeous, the mother of the bride, Thais, displayed where the bride got that beauty, a good time was had by all.  The groom and his family clearly love our Missy.  A classic wedding that went off without a hitch.

What I’d like to write about was something that I did not expect.  I guess I should have, but didn’t think about it too much in my efforts to exercise my voice, practice the song, and compose a tribute to “Nanny” – the bride’s great grandmother who raised the mother of the bride and her five siblings when their mother died tragically in childbirth.  For whom did I think I was writing that tribute?   Turns out it was Thais’ brothers: George, Tom, and Gerard, and her sisters: Allison and Suzanne.  In all the years that have gone by since we were newlyweds and they were still single and visiting California, I had honestly forgotten all those good times – camping, partying, laughing.  Now here they all were, gray haired, some with little children, some with tales of their twenty-somethings, some of their children attending the wedding.  We all hugged and I realized that I did have a family here, at least in the early years.  When Thais’ family started having families of their own, the visits became less frequent.  Now the stories of our good times back in the day came flying out, as well as reconnecting with quick rundowns of raising kids and surviving to tell about it.

I made it through the song without crying, but  – mission accomplished – the whole rest of the congregation was in tears, remembering Nanny and hearing a lovely arrangement of The Irish Blessing sung by yours truly.  It never occurred to me that it was not just Missy and Ryan I would be singing to, but a whole group of people, including Nanny’s 82 year old son and Thais’ childhood friends who had also been “raised” by Nanny. They would all feel her presence in that church.  I know now that my idea to pay tribute to her and to sing a song she would love was not my idea at all, I was merely a conduit for yet another inexplicable spiritual message from beyond.

And that was not all, oh no, that was not all.  In waltzed people we hung out with when the kids were little, before some of the people moved, before the busy time of chasing children to ball practice and piano lessons, before running church carnivals and picking up prom tuxes caused us to lose touch.   They too had aged, and yet…  Here was a string of memories that spanned 25 years, that spilled onto the dance floor last night.  Here were couples who, like Al and I, were once young and newlywed and new parents, slow dancing, gazing into each other’s eyes.  You could tell we were all wondering the same thing – how did we get here?  Did we feel the same way as this starry eyed couple in the middle of the dance floor?  As Joe and Thais made their way down the staircase to be introduced at the dinner, I shed not the first tears of the day.  I have seen that couple through many marriage trials and tribulations.  They, who were fresh off their honeymoon as Al and I were when we moved to California and met within weeks, have seen us through just as many.  And now here we were, watching the little baby girl get married, all together, surrounded by beloved friends and family.

When Al’s mother passed away, we inherited a cross stitch that hangs in my entryway.  It says “The chain of friendship, stretching far, links days that were with days that are.”  I have always loved that and now it has even more meaning to me.

Congratulations Missy and Ryan!