Some twenty-odd years ago, I grew tired of uprooting my young family every six months or so and dragging them off to a different part of the country to construct yet another power line.
Now, I loved my job. I was good at it, and I made a lot of money doing it. But like a lot of men that work in transient construction, I learned that constantly moving from project to project was simply not compatible with having children in school. Many men in that position settled their families in one town or another and kept working the power line, going home to see them when breaks between jobs allowed. I saw a lot of marriages - and families - end that way.
I eventually had to make a choice between leaving my family for extended periods of time or dumping the construction life - with its attendant cash - in favor of settling down to do something else.
So I abandoned the power line.
It's not as noble as it may sound, and in fact, the choice was a fairly easy one to make. I love my wife and children and missed a lot of "fathering" time when I worked construction. Also, I've never really been driven to make money at the expense of everything else in life (which is probably why I don't have any).
While waiting on my severance pay and profit-sharing disbursement, Karen and I sat in our Colorado townhouse and decided on a future. It came down between Flagstaff, Arizona, where we would labor at whatever work was available while I tried to write books, or Nashville, Tennessee where I would try to write songs.
We chose middle Tennessee and moved into a small house in the country at the end of a mile-long lane in a rural county about an hour west of Nashville.
It took just one walk down that lane beneath the massive hardwoods that towered above it, and across sparkling clear spring-fed streams while breathing air soaked with honeysuckle to see why Daniel Boone declared Tennessee "another Eden". Everything is so green there. And flowers bloom in profusion - on many of the trees, shrubs, and on the ground, down in the shadows and in patches of dappled sunlight along the creeks.
The woodland there is full of life. Birds of all kinds flit through the trees, cardinals, goldfinches, indigo buntings, orioles, nuthatches, bluebirds, wrens, bluejays, and hummingbirds. Squirrels, chipmunks, turtles, rabbits, and foxes abound.
We fell in love with the place.
One day, as we were walking along the stream that ran near our house, I looked down upon hundreds of feathery, delicately-bunched plants that spread across a shady level place.
"Those look like onions," I exclaimed. Reaching down, I pulled up a bunch. And, lo, they were indeed onions, wild and pungent. And numerous.
A few days later, Karen was making either soup or brown noodles and discovered that she didn't have an onion. As I was going out the door on my way to the little grocery at the top of the hill, I remembered the discovery we'd made along the creekside. Standing in the doorway, I looked back at her.
"What about those onions down by the creek?" I asked. "Wouldn't they work?"
She thought for a moment, and I could see the adventurer in her take over. She smiled. "Why not? Let's give them a try."
Well, washed up and trimmed, they worked marvelously. Those wild beauties possess a sweet flavor that is not found in domesticated onions. We used them anytime that we found ourselves lacking in the cultivated variety. Eventually, we used them almost exclusively. And wild onions are just one of the bounties that the Tennessee countryside provides free of charge. There are also morel mushrooms in March, a profusion of sweetly tart wild blackberries in the summer, wild cherries, wild grapes, black walnuts in the autumn, and watercress in every small stream.
For many reasons, I currently live in Texas, and I miss Tennessee. It's autumn there now; the forested hills are brilliant living tapestries of color. The mornings are cool, and all the valleys are filled with hickory smoke. You see, this is the time of year when they harvest and fire burley tobacco, the kind from which cigarettes are made. The plants are hung high up in huge barns and then a fire is started on the floor of the barn. This fire is fed with hickory sawdust. Hickory is so dense that it really doesn't burn; it just smolders, sending forth a thick, pungent smoke that over time turns the enormous leaves of burley that rich golden brown color.
One early morning of the first autumn that we lived there, I was driving to work when I passed a large barn. Thick, prodigious smoke poured from every aperture. Dutifully alarmed, I stopped at the next house, ran to the door, and knocked furiously. An elderly lady answered the door.
Pointing, I blurted, "That barn is on fire!"
She stared. "That's my barn!"
She went to the edge of the porch and looked down the road, panic quickening her steps and widening her eyes.
Then she collapsed into a wicker chair in a paroxysm of laughter. She laughed and laughed and laughed.
And laughed.
It occurred to me that I might be missing some piece of information that was vital to the situation.
Eventually, she regained control, wiped her eyes and grinned up at me. "You're new around here, aren't you, son?"
"Yes, ma'am; we moved here back in May."
She proceeded to enlighten me on that wonderfully aromatic ritual that every farmer in that region engages in every autumn. Then, I'm certain, after I left, she called every one she knew, and every one that she knew had a good laugh at the expense of those new folks living down on the creek.
Yes, I miss Tennessee. I miss the lovely patchwork colors of fall, and the lush aroma of hickory smoke that hangs in the cool air of autumn mornings.
And I miss wild onions.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Happy Halloween! and a break from routine
The next posts here are going to be from two very special guest writers...though, honestly, I don't really think of my dad as a guest writer anymore. His posts are always hugely popular, and he will soon publish the fourth book in his Kelven's Riddle series. I like to think of him as the co-writer and mentor of this blog. The other guest will be a surprise, someone new to you.
At any rate I'm taking a break, and I know you'll enjoy it. I'm leaving you in good hands.
But before I go, I wanted to share this pic:
That was my costume this year for my friend Kim's fabulous annual Halloween party. The dress was clearance, and the beautifully matched mask ($12) and simple gloves ($5) were both from Target. I pulled it all together by sheer luck the day before the party. My husband wore a beer boo t-shirt, something he hopes to do every year forever. Only when someone suggested he should have been the Phantom of the Opera, did I hit my head and bemoan my lack of vision. I probably couldn't have gotten him into that sexy little face mask and nice dress-shirt-plus-cape, but I wish I'd tried.
I also wanted you to know that I have been published again at Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. It's a Halloween post about a 13 year old who wants to give up tricks but not treats and about the wonderful big sis who takes her on her last candy hunt. Get over there and read it before the Jack-o-lanterns are beset by black mold, and your candy-induced guilt (hopefully the mature chocolate variety) has settled in.
To all my brave readers and their little spooks, I wish you a very happy Halloween!
At any rate I'm taking a break, and I know you'll enjoy it. I'm leaving you in good hands.
But before I go, I wanted to share this pic:
That was my costume this year for my friend Kim's fabulous annual Halloween party. The dress was clearance, and the beautifully matched mask ($12) and simple gloves ($5) were both from Target. I pulled it all together by sheer luck the day before the party. My husband wore a beer boo t-shirt, something he hopes to do every year forever. Only when someone suggested he should have been the Phantom of the Opera, did I hit my head and bemoan my lack of vision. I probably couldn't have gotten him into that sexy little face mask and nice dress-shirt-plus-cape, but I wish I'd tried.
I also wanted you to know that I have been published again at Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. It's a Halloween post about a 13 year old who wants to give up tricks but not treats and about the wonderful big sis who takes her on her last candy hunt. Get over there and read it before the Jack-o-lanterns are beset by black mold, and your candy-induced guilt (hopefully the mature chocolate variety) has settled in.
To all my brave readers and their little spooks, I wish you a very happy Halloween!
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Tennessee Home
In Joe Versus the Volcano, Joe (Tom Hanks) walks into his dismal, windowless office, lifts his shoe, and, looking at the separating sole, laments, "I'm losin' my soul."
I feel like that sometimes when I sit to write about my childhood. I have trouble remembering the details. Everything is changing color like leaves in the fall. I fear the dull brown that comes after the dreamlike phase, and I'm afraid of the memories dropping to the ground, bit by bit, brittle slivers of organic matter with which I can do very little. The more I grasp, the more they disintegrate.
So I latch on to whatever incites memory. I love any song that even mentions "Tennessee" in the lyrics, like Dave Loggins Please Come to Boston and Brad Paisley's Southern Comfort Zone. Dixie Land, especially when played by my dad, makes me cry; I've left the land of cotton - it seems like forever.
Since leaving at 15, nearly 19 years ago now, I've never returned to my Tennessee home.
I'm grateful I at least dream about Tennessee every few months, but I want to laugh thinking about my gratitude for these bizarre, sad, or joyful returns to childhood. To examine it no one would understand why I miss life in that little square house on 98 acres where I grew up. It had a dank basement, one tiny bathroom, a woodstove poised, it seemed, to burn the house down on any convenient cold night. We had to battle cockroaches and brown recluses constantly, fumigating the house so often I'm surprised we didn't breed our own X Men. One year the water pump from the spring broke, and we hauled water from the creek in five gallon buckets up half our long lane for bathing and cleaning and spring water in milk jugs for drinking. We usually didn't have a washer or dryer and often hand washed clothes in the tub, ringing them by hand and hanging them outside to dry in warm weather, letting them drip all 'round the woodstove on winter days. Some school mornings, my mom dried our socks or jeans in the oven; they came out stiff but toasty.
Yes, I could just laugh recalling it! Wonder why I'm starting to cry, then?
I recently learned from Dad that my brother, my successful, travels-the-world-to-numerous-exotic-places big brother, misses Tennessee, too, wishes he could buy up that property where we used to fight, play, worry, laugh, love, cry, live. It surprised me. My big brother always seemed made for the ambition, energy and vibrancy of a major city, but he misses a plot of earth in Middle Tennessee.
He misses what I do, perhaps: the simplicity, neighbors who would loan you anything - even their pickup truck for a whole month, swims in the creek when the water warmed just (barely) enough, the walks down the lane to school every morning, the tree over the mailbox where we used to hang by our legs, swing and gaze across Spann Road, our old chicken coup turned fort, races in the cornfield and adventures in the woods, especially those December expeditions to get the tree.
Our humble country childhood made us, nourished us, and relinquished us to the wider world.
And however long I live in this vast city of the American Southwest and wherever I may travel from here, I know I'll be whistling Dixie, guarding the memories, dreaming of my Tennessee home.
I feel like that sometimes when I sit to write about my childhood. I have trouble remembering the details. Everything is changing color like leaves in the fall. I fear the dull brown that comes after the dreamlike phase, and I'm afraid of the memories dropping to the ground, bit by bit, brittle slivers of organic matter with which I can do very little. The more I grasp, the more they disintegrate.
So I latch on to whatever incites memory. I love any song that even mentions "Tennessee" in the lyrics, like Dave Loggins Please Come to Boston and Brad Paisley's Southern Comfort Zone. Dixie Land, especially when played by my dad, makes me cry; I've left the land of cotton - it seems like forever.
Since leaving at 15, nearly 19 years ago now, I've never returned to my Tennessee home.
I'm grateful I at least dream about Tennessee every few months, but I want to laugh thinking about my gratitude for these bizarre, sad, or joyful returns to childhood. To examine it no one would understand why I miss life in that little square house on 98 acres where I grew up. It had a dank basement, one tiny bathroom, a woodstove poised, it seemed, to burn the house down on any convenient cold night. We had to battle cockroaches and brown recluses constantly, fumigating the house so often I'm surprised we didn't breed our own X Men. One year the water pump from the spring broke, and we hauled water from the creek in five gallon buckets up half our long lane for bathing and cleaning and spring water in milk jugs for drinking. We usually didn't have a washer or dryer and often hand washed clothes in the tub, ringing them by hand and hanging them outside to dry in warm weather, letting them drip all 'round the woodstove on winter days. Some school mornings, my mom dried our socks or jeans in the oven; they came out stiff but toasty.
Yes, I could just laugh recalling it! Wonder why I'm starting to cry, then?
I recently learned from Dad that my brother, my successful, travels-the-world-to-numerous-exotic-places big brother, misses Tennessee, too, wishes he could buy up that property where we used to fight, play, worry, laugh, love, cry, live. It surprised me. My big brother always seemed made for the ambition, energy and vibrancy of a major city, but he misses a plot of earth in Middle Tennessee.
He misses what I do, perhaps: the simplicity, neighbors who would loan you anything - even their pickup truck for a whole month, swims in the creek when the water warmed just (barely) enough, the walks down the lane to school every morning, the tree over the mailbox where we used to hang by our legs, swing and gaze across Spann Road, our old chicken coup turned fort, races in the cornfield and adventures in the woods, especially those December expeditions to get the tree.
Our humble country childhood made us, nourished us, and relinquished us to the wider world.
And however long I live in this vast city of the American Southwest and wherever I may travel from here, I know I'll be whistling Dixie, guarding the memories, dreaming of my Tennessee home.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Don't Spoil Christmas
"No kid in this country needs another toy!"
My dad said this to me one year - no, actually two, three years in a row - while asking what my kids might like for Christmas. He told me flatly he would not be giving them toys. I wanted to reach through the phone and pump his hand, kiss his cheek and throw confetti over his head. Amen, brother....or, uh, Dad! That is the true spirit of season, especially to moms who are harassed by constant clutter.
My dad basically said all American kids are spoiled rotten with toys. I heartily agree. I read a Time For Kids article my kids brought from school that spoke specifically to that point: American children have so many toys that they are taking over family homes, stressing out parents with monstrous clutter. And, my friends, imagine the waste of time in managing that clutter, the money expended in acquiring those toys, and the sheer volume of playthings destined for the landfill eventually. It's nuts.
I read this article, I'm Dreaming of a Toyless Christmas, this morning and so thoroughly agreed with it, I had to write my own post about the subject (something I intended to weigh in on last year). Our family of six lives in a nice but limited 1220 sq ft home, and we simply do not need anything more in this house.
Yet, I get it - that idea of the dream Christmas when your kids' faces light up with sheer joy beneath the glow of the tree lights as they gaze in wonder at the fabulous, copious, perfect gifts left for them by a jolly man in red. That vision tortures me every year, too, and if I weren't grounded in memories of my childhood and did not have a husband more frugal than I am to stay my hand sometimes, I might cave to it.
I've been on both sides, feeling that I gathered too much for our kids (at Ikea where most toys are inexpensive) or wishing in that 12th hour when I see the disappointment in their eyes that Santa had gotten them that one (often quite expensive) thing they really wanted. Holiday shopping is stressful, a chore in gauging others' expectations, for just that reason.
Though sorely and perpetually tempted by the consumer frenzy, I can't go overboard on any child - my own or my nephews and nieces - because it wasn't my experience growing up; it is not what it's about to me. I won't compete with others' extravagance, either. I earnestly wish we would all do less and teach our kids by example sound financial sense, an appreciation for countless beautiful things the holidays provide that aren't wrapped in pretty paper and bows, and, most importantly, the spirit of giving generously to those less fortunate.
I understand and remind myself it's not about the gifts, even while I'm still agonizing over them but noting it especially once I see how quickly most gifts are laid aside.
In the article I read today by Erica Marie, she points out that she would like to give and receive more gifts of experience such as gift cards to favorite eateries, bowling packages, and mini golf outings. What a beautiful idea! After all, memories are the best gift; you can play with them for a lifetime and pass them on to your children. Last year my husband and I finally took our kids to the circus as our present to them. They were thrilled by their first circus experience, and it was an amusing, and very memorable, family outing.
Yes, I know aunts and uncles and grandparents (not my dad) will give them toys and gadgets, and I hope they have fun with it. But it brings me joy when I see clothes or books or special ornaments to be kept instead of expensive playthings. I certainly can't ban the giving of toys, but, luckily, the spirit of St. Nick in this house breathes more tradition and moderation than extravagance.
My dad said this to me one year - no, actually two, three years in a row - while asking what my kids might like for Christmas. He told me flatly he would not be giving them toys. I wanted to reach through the phone and pump his hand, kiss his cheek and throw confetti over his head. Amen, brother....or, uh, Dad! That is the true spirit of season, especially to moms who are harassed by constant clutter.
My dad basically said all American kids are spoiled rotten with toys. I heartily agree. I read a Time For Kids article my kids brought from school that spoke specifically to that point: American children have so many toys that they are taking over family homes, stressing out parents with monstrous clutter. And, my friends, imagine the waste of time in managing that clutter, the money expended in acquiring those toys, and the sheer volume of playthings destined for the landfill eventually. It's nuts.
I read this article, I'm Dreaming of a Toyless Christmas, this morning and so thoroughly agreed with it, I had to write my own post about the subject (something I intended to weigh in on last year). Our family of six lives in a nice but limited 1220 sq ft home, and we simply do not need anything more in this house.
Yet, I get it - that idea of the dream Christmas when your kids' faces light up with sheer joy beneath the glow of the tree lights as they gaze in wonder at the fabulous, copious, perfect gifts left for them by a jolly man in red. That vision tortures me every year, too, and if I weren't grounded in memories of my childhood and did not have a husband more frugal than I am to stay my hand sometimes, I might cave to it.
I've been on both sides, feeling that I gathered too much for our kids (at Ikea where most toys are inexpensive) or wishing in that 12th hour when I see the disappointment in their eyes that Santa had gotten them that one (often quite expensive) thing they really wanted. Holiday shopping is stressful, a chore in gauging others' expectations, for just that reason.
Though sorely and perpetually tempted by the consumer frenzy, I can't go overboard on any child - my own or my nephews and nieces - because it wasn't my experience growing up; it is not what it's about to me. I won't compete with others' extravagance, either. I earnestly wish we would all do less and teach our kids by example sound financial sense, an appreciation for countless beautiful things the holidays provide that aren't wrapped in pretty paper and bows, and, most importantly, the spirit of giving generously to those less fortunate.
I understand and remind myself it's not about the gifts, even while I'm still agonizing over them but noting it especially once I see how quickly most gifts are laid aside.
In the article I read today by Erica Marie, she points out that she would like to give and receive more gifts of experience such as gift cards to favorite eateries, bowling packages, and mini golf outings. What a beautiful idea! After all, memories are the best gift; you can play with them for a lifetime and pass them on to your children. Last year my husband and I finally took our kids to the circus as our present to them. They were thrilled by their first circus experience, and it was an amusing, and very memorable, family outing.
Yes, I know aunts and uncles and grandparents (not my dad) will give them toys and gadgets, and I hope they have fun with it. But it brings me joy when I see clothes or books or special ornaments to be kept instead of expensive playthings. I certainly can't ban the giving of toys, but, luckily, the spirit of St. Nick in this house breathes more tradition and moderation than extravagance.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
A Dress For One Day - In Paris (by Daniel Hylton)
Forty years ago last August, for reasons no one understands, a beautiful woman named Karen Asher agreed to marry me. After my initial shock at her acceptance of my proposal wore off and I was capable of speech once again, we set a date, chose our invitations, and she went wedding dress shopping with her father.
She didn't have many options. You see, we lived in a part of the country known in the vernacular as a "backwater". The largest town around was forty-five miles away and was small by the standards of almost any other state in the union.
They found a tiny wedding shop and looked through the meager offerings on display. And, lo and behold, miracle of miracles, she found the perfect dress.
I've heard it described several times through the years: it was very traditional, Spanish in style, with tight-fitting, long sleeves that came to a point at her wrists, and it was small at the waist with layered scallops of lace dropping down the bustled back to a cathedral train. It fit her willowy frame perfectly.
Wait, you say. You've heard it described? Didn't you see it on the wedding day?
No; sadly, I did not see that dress. Ever.
Lacking the proper means of storing the dress, they decided to pay the shopkeeper to keep it safe until the big day two months later. The week of the wedding, Karen and her father went to retrieve the dress. And it was gone. At first, the shopkeeper tried to pass off another dress as the one they'd chosen. When pressed, she finally broke down and admitted that another bride who'd considered that same dress had decided to purchase it. The shopkeeper sold it, intending to replace it before Karen and her father returned. But the dress could not be re-supplied. Karen was devastated. Her lovely dress was gone.
The owner of the shop offered them any dress she had at the price they'd already paid, even if it was her most expensive. Karen, of course, did not take advantage. Still, even with every dress in the shop at her disposal, there were difficulties. The problem was that she was a very slim young woman and few dresses fit her properly. Eventually, she settled for a dress that was two sizes too big for her, but looked nice. It was beautiful, but of course it was not her dress.
Now, I've lived long enough to know what some soon-to-be brides would do in that situation. After an enormous hissy fit was thrown (and justifiably so), the wedding would be postponed until the dress could be properly replaced.
Amazingly, astonishingly, Karen decided that marrying me at the appointed time was more important than wearing her perfect dress on that one day that comes but once in a lifetime.
Through the years, she has never told me this tale, or sought commiseration from me. I've only heard it on those occasions when I've eavesdropped on her conversations with her daughters or her friends when the subject turns, as it so often does between women, to weddings and dresses.
Not being able to wear her chosen dress on her wedding day is but one of the many disappointments my elegant, lovely wife has graciously endured through forty years of marriage to me. Through times both thick and thin, she has been my loving and relentlessly optimistic companion. And the times have been "thin" far more often that they have been "thick".
This year, 2013, was our fortieth wedding anniversary. We decided three years ago that we would save up the money to go to Paris. We scrimped, we saved, we diligently planned. What she didn't know was that I had a separate account into which I slipped a hundred dollars here and a hundred dollars there - every time I found a hundred dollars that wasn't absolutely needed elsewhere. On my birthday this last Spring she gave me five hundred dollars to buy new golf clubs; a new driver perhaps, or new irons.
She drew her own conclusions from the expression of joy that came over my face.
A couple weeks after my birthday, she asked to see my new clubs. "I'm holding onto the money," I told her, "until I see the new Callaways that are coming out in July." She frowned but then nodded. "Okay," she agreed, "just be sure you get those clubs."
By May, our plane tickets for Europe were purchased, our hotel reserved, and our expense money on hand in Euros.
One day in June, I emptied my secret account. "Let's go out for lunch," I suggested. Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot at Glamour Bridal in San Antonio. She looked at me with raised, questioning eyebrows. "I can't replace that dress you lost all those years ago," I told her. "That dress is gone." I pulled the money from my wallet. "But I can buy you a new one."
She cried pretty much all the way through the appointment I'd made with the shop earlier in the week. In the end, we found a dress that really made her cry. With happiness. I even had enough money left to buy her a jeweled hairpiece.
As we left the shop later that day with her beautiful new dress, a form-fitting Maggie Sottero, she wiped her eyes and looked over at me. "What are we going to do with this dress?"
"You're going to wear it," I replied. "In Paris. We'll go to a church and take pictures. We'll take a cab to the Eiffel Tower and take pictures. Then we'll go to Le Procope (the oldest restaurant in continuous business anywhere in the world) and get the waiter to take more pictures. Basically, we're going to take thousands of pictures of you - in that dress."
And we did. First, though, I surprised her with a bouquet from the florist near our hotel. (That was another thing that required "setting right". Someone forgot to give her her bouquet forty years ago, so she walked down the aisle without it.)
First, we took pictures at the church of St. Germain des Pres:
Then, of course, at the Eiffel:
And finally, at dinner at Le Procope:
And here is my lovely bride in her "dress for one day".
As we walked the streets of Paris, young women asked again and again to have their photo taken with my lovely bride, assuming that we were newlyweds. I didn't correct them; I felt like we were, too.
Once, as I was standing to the side while yet another group of young women were having their photo taken with Karen for good luck, an older gentlemen nudged me in the ribs and said, "You have you a young, very pretty one there, don't you?"
As usual, folks assumed that I was a man of means who'd landed a "trophy wife". They couldn't know that this beautiful woman had done without many things for many years just to be with me and raise my children.
She's not a trophy; she's a treasure. My treasure.
She didn't have many options. You see, we lived in a part of the country known in the vernacular as a "backwater". The largest town around was forty-five miles away and was small by the standards of almost any other state in the union.
They found a tiny wedding shop and looked through the meager offerings on display. And, lo and behold, miracle of miracles, she found the perfect dress.
I've heard it described several times through the years: it was very traditional, Spanish in style, with tight-fitting, long sleeves that came to a point at her wrists, and it was small at the waist with layered scallops of lace dropping down the bustled back to a cathedral train. It fit her willowy frame perfectly.
Wait, you say. You've heard it described? Didn't you see it on the wedding day?
No; sadly, I did not see that dress. Ever.
Lacking the proper means of storing the dress, they decided to pay the shopkeeper to keep it safe until the big day two months later. The week of the wedding, Karen and her father went to retrieve the dress. And it was gone. At first, the shopkeeper tried to pass off another dress as the one they'd chosen. When pressed, she finally broke down and admitted that another bride who'd considered that same dress had decided to purchase it. The shopkeeper sold it, intending to replace it before Karen and her father returned. But the dress could not be re-supplied. Karen was devastated. Her lovely dress was gone.
The owner of the shop offered them any dress she had at the price they'd already paid, even if it was her most expensive. Karen, of course, did not take advantage. Still, even with every dress in the shop at her disposal, there were difficulties. The problem was that she was a very slim young woman and few dresses fit her properly. Eventually, she settled for a dress that was two sizes too big for her, but looked nice. It was beautiful, but of course it was not her dress.
Now, I've lived long enough to know what some soon-to-be brides would do in that situation. After an enormous hissy fit was thrown (and justifiably so), the wedding would be postponed until the dress could be properly replaced.
Amazingly, astonishingly, Karen decided that marrying me at the appointed time was more important than wearing her perfect dress on that one day that comes but once in a lifetime.
Through the years, she has never told me this tale, or sought commiseration from me. I've only heard it on those occasions when I've eavesdropped on her conversations with her daughters or her friends when the subject turns, as it so often does between women, to weddings and dresses.
Not being able to wear her chosen dress on her wedding day is but one of the many disappointments my elegant, lovely wife has graciously endured through forty years of marriage to me. Through times both thick and thin, she has been my loving and relentlessly optimistic companion. And the times have been "thin" far more often that they have been "thick".
This year, 2013, was our fortieth wedding anniversary. We decided three years ago that we would save up the money to go to Paris. We scrimped, we saved, we diligently planned. What she didn't know was that I had a separate account into which I slipped a hundred dollars here and a hundred dollars there - every time I found a hundred dollars that wasn't absolutely needed elsewhere. On my birthday this last Spring she gave me five hundred dollars to buy new golf clubs; a new driver perhaps, or new irons.
She drew her own conclusions from the expression of joy that came over my face.
A couple weeks after my birthday, she asked to see my new clubs. "I'm holding onto the money," I told her, "until I see the new Callaways that are coming out in July." She frowned but then nodded. "Okay," she agreed, "just be sure you get those clubs."
By May, our plane tickets for Europe were purchased, our hotel reserved, and our expense money on hand in Euros.
One day in June, I emptied my secret account. "Let's go out for lunch," I suggested. Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot at Glamour Bridal in San Antonio. She looked at me with raised, questioning eyebrows. "I can't replace that dress you lost all those years ago," I told her. "That dress is gone." I pulled the money from my wallet. "But I can buy you a new one."
She cried pretty much all the way through the appointment I'd made with the shop earlier in the week. In the end, we found a dress that really made her cry. With happiness. I even had enough money left to buy her a jeweled hairpiece.
As we left the shop later that day with her beautiful new dress, a form-fitting Maggie Sottero, she wiped her eyes and looked over at me. "What are we going to do with this dress?"
"You're going to wear it," I replied. "In Paris. We'll go to a church and take pictures. We'll take a cab to the Eiffel Tower and take pictures. Then we'll go to Le Procope (the oldest restaurant in continuous business anywhere in the world) and get the waiter to take more pictures. Basically, we're going to take thousands of pictures of you - in that dress."
And we did. First, though, I surprised her with a bouquet from the florist near our hotel. (That was another thing that required "setting right". Someone forgot to give her her bouquet forty years ago, so she walked down the aisle without it.)
First, we took pictures at the church of St. Germain des Pres:
Then, of course, at the Eiffel:
And finally, at dinner at Le Procope:
And here is my lovely bride in her "dress for one day".
As we walked the streets of Paris, young women asked again and again to have their photo taken with my lovely bride, assuming that we were newlyweds. I didn't correct them; I felt like we were, too.
Once, as I was standing to the side while yet another group of young women were having their photo taken with Karen for good luck, an older gentlemen nudged me in the ribs and said, "You have you a young, very pretty one there, don't you?"
As usual, folks assumed that I was a man of means who'd landed a "trophy wife". They couldn't know that this beautiful woman had done without many things for many years just to be with me and raise my children.
She's not a trophy; she's a treasure. My treasure.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Give it a year to laugh a little
I ambulated a fair bit in the hospital the last few days. As I strolled up and down the perpendicular hallways one day, stooped over, carrying my box of blood connected to my left lung by a tube (what my doctor referred to as my "tail"), and grinning at all the docs, nurses, fellow patients and visitors beneath my halo of unwashed, stringy hair like some benevolent bayou witch, my male nurse kindly fetched me a second hospital gown.
"A robe" he offered. But not for my comfort.
Apparently, it's not polite to smile, then turn and flash your backside at others while ambulating.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking to my eldest boy Berto on the phone the day of the car accident, he said, "You broke all your ribs? And you didn't pass out? Wow, Mama..."
I couldn't laugh outright at the time, but I chuckled inwardly. The only thing the trauma doc wrote of my supreme be-in-the-moment spirit was patient denied loss of consciousness. Not all my ribs were broken, actually, but most on my left were fractured. (The doctors wouldn't give us a precise number, simply repeating dismissively, "almost all your ribs", as if to say, what's the difference?) No matter how many exactly, the fact that I didn't lose consciousness won me major points in my son's book.
I probably lost those points, though, when I came home from the hospital, regressed emotionally, and began sleeping with a teddy bear I named Michael nestled against those cracked ribs. I forfeited more, no doubt, when that teddy bear got lost, and, desperate to find my missing friend, I offered five dollars to any kid who could find him for me. The kids tore apart the house in their quest, and Berto found him and demanded his reward, having no mercy for his mother's childish sensibilities.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The head trauma surgeon came in with a whole gaggle of student surgeons. I gazed around at all the new faces crowding my bed.
"Sorry," the jovial, gray-haired doctor said, waving his hand toward his circle of protégés. "Learning experience."
"That's alright," I replied. "I've given birth when it was a learning experience."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My husband has watched Dual Survival on Netflix the past few nights. Ah, the memories! After returning home from the hospital last year, when the recliner was my bed and the bed was impossible, I often fell asleep to Dual Survival. One night after my glorious-and-long-awaited shower, I distinctly remember fiddling with my left ear. A large ball of wax was stuck in it. It caused me some embarrassment, because I was sure others could see it residing there. This particular evening, I finally dislodged the nuisance and extracted, not a buildup of wax as I thought it to be, but a shard of car window that had been lodged in my ear since the wreck. I was vindicated - racoonish eye circles, crooked nose and large, unladylike pours I may have, but waxy ears? Never!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Six weeks post-hospital I called the trauma line, wanting answers to nagging questions before our family ventured on a long road trip through higher altitudes.
I had a lingering fear that my lung could re-collapse at any moment, suddenly saying as we climbed through some mountainous terrain, I've had enough of this carp! and going phhhhuut!
A wonderful physician's assistant assured me that the lung repairs itself quickly, and once repaired, is good as new. Relieved, I had one more question out of curiosity.
I knew which naughty rib had punctured my lung, so I asked, "How did you guys get that sixth rib out of there anyway?"
There was a pause and the beginnings of laughter, hastily repressed.
"We don't do anything," she assured me. "The lung pushes it back as it heals."
Ah....I was picturing a whistling trauma surgeon wielding a tiny crane, carefully looping string and a hook, using a hand crank to haul out the rib, pasting it back into place with super glue - all while working through the tiny chest-tube incision in my side.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I never again worried about my lovely miraculous lungs, but those ribs! For nearly a year I've slept on my back to humor them, and I also have a chronic condition called Pre-Menstrual-Aching-Rib Syndrome. I'd call the trauma line to ask why my ribs have joined forces with my manipulative hormones, but I'm guessing it's a phenomenon no trauma doc, or physician's assistant, could ever explain.
"A robe" he offered. But not for my comfort.
Apparently, it's not polite to smile, then turn and flash your backside at others while ambulating.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking to my eldest boy Berto on the phone the day of the car accident, he said, "You broke all your ribs? And you didn't pass out? Wow, Mama..."
I couldn't laugh outright at the time, but I chuckled inwardly. The only thing the trauma doc wrote of my supreme be-in-the-moment spirit was patient denied loss of consciousness. Not all my ribs were broken, actually, but most on my left were fractured. (The doctors wouldn't give us a precise number, simply repeating dismissively, "almost all your ribs", as if to say, what's the difference?) No matter how many exactly, the fact that I didn't lose consciousness won me major points in my son's book.
I probably lost those points, though, when I came home from the hospital, regressed emotionally, and began sleeping with a teddy bear I named Michael nestled against those cracked ribs. I forfeited more, no doubt, when that teddy bear got lost, and, desperate to find my missing friend, I offered five dollars to any kid who could find him for me. The kids tore apart the house in their quest, and Berto found him and demanded his reward, having no mercy for his mother's childish sensibilities.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The head trauma surgeon came in with a whole gaggle of student surgeons. I gazed around at all the new faces crowding my bed.
"Sorry," the jovial, gray-haired doctor said, waving his hand toward his circle of protégés. "Learning experience."
"That's alright," I replied. "I've given birth when it was a learning experience."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My husband has watched Dual Survival on Netflix the past few nights. Ah, the memories! After returning home from the hospital last year, when the recliner was my bed and the bed was impossible, I often fell asleep to Dual Survival. One night after my glorious-and-long-awaited shower, I distinctly remember fiddling with my left ear. A large ball of wax was stuck in it. It caused me some embarrassment, because I was sure others could see it residing there. This particular evening, I finally dislodged the nuisance and extracted, not a buildup of wax as I thought it to be, but a shard of car window that had been lodged in my ear since the wreck. I was vindicated - racoonish eye circles, crooked nose and large, unladylike pours I may have, but waxy ears? Never!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Six weeks post-hospital I called the trauma line, wanting answers to nagging questions before our family ventured on a long road trip through higher altitudes.
I had a lingering fear that my lung could re-collapse at any moment, suddenly saying as we climbed through some mountainous terrain, I've had enough of this carp! and going phhhhuut!
A wonderful physician's assistant assured me that the lung repairs itself quickly, and once repaired, is good as new. Relieved, I had one more question out of curiosity.
I knew which naughty rib had punctured my lung, so I asked, "How did you guys get that sixth rib out of there anyway?"
There was a pause and the beginnings of laughter, hastily repressed.
"We don't do anything," she assured me. "The lung pushes it back as it heals."
Ah....I was picturing a whistling trauma surgeon wielding a tiny crane, carefully looping string and a hook, using a hand crank to haul out the rib, pasting it back into place with super glue - all while working through the tiny chest-tube incision in my side.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I never again worried about my lovely miraculous lungs, but those ribs! For nearly a year I've slept on my back to humor them, and I also have a chronic condition called Pre-Menstrual-Aching-Rib Syndrome. I'd call the trauma line to ask why my ribs have joined forces with my manipulative hormones, but I'm guessing it's a phenomenon no trauma doc, or physician's assistant, could ever explain.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Give it a year to...
I'm in a slump. My vertigo returned last week. The house is a perpetual disaster. I'm exhausted, and I've been wanting to tackle a subject that's hard enough to write about and makes me vulnerable.
The anniversary of our car accident had been in my thoughts even before it arrived Saturday, sitting on my consciousness, playing with threads of memory and skeins of emotions - difficult to untangle into words. Some might scoff at my use of the term "anniversary", but I'm reminded of those events most days and especially these. I'm reminded when I sit at a red light behind the ghost of a hulking black motorcycle, when I see a white and gray Kia van like our old one at a medical building, when I see someone drive recklessly or feel I've made a mistake and been unsafe myself.
It's a very selfish topic, but I trust my dad when he told me, Sometimes you have to write for you and not care about anybody else.
For a long time before that late September day, I had felt that I was extremely blessed and sheltered, that I had no conception of the sadness, trauma, distress others go through routinely in life. I didn't ask God for our experience, but when it happened, it simply felt like my turn for some adversity and challenge. There was no, Why me? That's folly to some, and I'm explaining it poorly, but it felt like something God could and did use to instruct me. And still the trauma has never seemed as if it could compare with what others live through on a weekly, monthly, daily basis, but it helped me learn compassion, empathy in a radical way for people I would not normally meet at church or a sports practice or within a mom's group.
It taught me about the human kaleidoscope of circumstances, especially while in the county hospital with rotating roommates, across the hall from a room with a sentry to guard the prisoner of the county jail who reclined in its bed, his ankles secured to it by chains.
Nevertheless, I did act like a baby when I got home from the hospital. I felt, particularly, that my husband couldn't comprehend the minefield of my emotions and recollections. The day after I returned home was my birthday. While we were eating an apple pie our friend Vivien had brought me at the hospital (with paper plates and plastic forks, God bless her), Daniel slid off his seat and got his leg momentarily caught between the chair and a bench. He started crying, fearful more than anything. Ella became frightened, and I quickly descended into hysterics. Ella and Daniel, still fragile as well, joined me immediately.
"He's fine," Matthew said, holding our little son and staring in disbelief at my sobs and convulsions.
It was the sound of Daniel crying, that's what Matthew didn't understand. I heard again the sound of his and Ella's terrified cries after the accident, and it made me come apart. Matthew was angry that I upset the children. I tried to explain why I was falling apart, that I had control over nothing. I failed.
I didn't respond to my children in the first several dazed moments after the wreck, you see. I don't ever remember asking if they were okay. They were crying, and Ella was screaming for me to respond, to tell her if I had something stuck in me. I finally forced myself to speak and raise my right hand, but my voice was so faint, they couldn't hear me well....or maybe I sounded so strange, it was no comfort. Later, I tortured myself with what if - what if they had been hurt, too? Would I have forced myself to move, to climb to them regardless of pain? I comforted myself that I knew they were okay by their strong voices, by the point of impact, but it wasn't surprising that I had nightmares for a long time after, bad, bad dreams in which I failed to keep my children safe in one way or another.
I know this is part of the reason why I'm so grateful to the firemen, my friends, and my husband for taking such complete, beautiful care of my children for me.
It was because of Ella and Daniel being in the van with me, unharmed physically by events but very frightened, that my family and friends were baffled by my sadness over the death of the motorcyclist who hit us. But I found the way in which he died horrific, and I was distraught that I was part of the circumstances.
I wanted him to have a second chance, a wake-up call. I knew a tiny bit about his situation - that he hit the rear of a truck two intersections before he hit me, that he fled that scene, that he had suspicious substances on his bike. My dad told me simply that I could not know how many second chances he'd been given. A friend told me that I couldn't know; perhaps God used me to keep him from hurting someone else, that sometimes God chooses us for these experiences. But I cannot discern between time and chance and will and meaning.
But still I was sad. I struggled right into this past summer when I had a breakdown at my sister's house in which I yelled at my husband to pray for those he loves, and I confessed that it bothered me, scared me that I didn't know where this man's soul was who died in our accident.
My sis Vinca calmed me down, talked to me and held me as I sobbed.
At 2 am as I finally got ready for bed and looked sheepishly at my swollen, weary face in the mirror, I felt God's displeasure just as clearly as I felt his approbation months earlier in the hospital when I had no anger against the motorcyclist. This time, though, I knew I had to lay my emotions to rest. It was God telling me, It's none of your business where this man's soul is. It's My business. Let it go. Now.
And apologize to your husband.
And I have, really - apologized and let it go. I'm still sad for a man I know nothing about, but who I will always feel connected to because of the events of a late September day. So I pray for his wife, and I pray for one of my hospital roommates, and I pray that God will shine his light on the path of the doctors and nurses who treated me those five days.
And I hold and rock my littlest ones when something reminds them of our accident, and I pray that God will guide me to be the best mother that I can be and a very safe driver, and I take a deep breath nearly every day and let it go.
The anniversary of our car accident had been in my thoughts even before it arrived Saturday, sitting on my consciousness, playing with threads of memory and skeins of emotions - difficult to untangle into words. Some might scoff at my use of the term "anniversary", but I'm reminded of those events most days and especially these. I'm reminded when I sit at a red light behind the ghost of a hulking black motorcycle, when I see a white and gray Kia van like our old one at a medical building, when I see someone drive recklessly or feel I've made a mistake and been unsafe myself.
It's a very selfish topic, but I trust my dad when he told me, Sometimes you have to write for you and not care about anybody else.
For a long time before that late September day, I had felt that I was extremely blessed and sheltered, that I had no conception of the sadness, trauma, distress others go through routinely in life. I didn't ask God for our experience, but when it happened, it simply felt like my turn for some adversity and challenge. There was no, Why me? That's folly to some, and I'm explaining it poorly, but it felt like something God could and did use to instruct me. And still the trauma has never seemed as if it could compare with what others live through on a weekly, monthly, daily basis, but it helped me learn compassion, empathy in a radical way for people I would not normally meet at church or a sports practice or within a mom's group.
It taught me about the human kaleidoscope of circumstances, especially while in the county hospital with rotating roommates, across the hall from a room with a sentry to guard the prisoner of the county jail who reclined in its bed, his ankles secured to it by chains.
Nevertheless, I did act like a baby when I got home from the hospital. I felt, particularly, that my husband couldn't comprehend the minefield of my emotions and recollections. The day after I returned home was my birthday. While we were eating an apple pie our friend Vivien had brought me at the hospital (with paper plates and plastic forks, God bless her), Daniel slid off his seat and got his leg momentarily caught between the chair and a bench. He started crying, fearful more than anything. Ella became frightened, and I quickly descended into hysterics. Ella and Daniel, still fragile as well, joined me immediately.
"He's fine," Matthew said, holding our little son and staring in disbelief at my sobs and convulsions.
It was the sound of Daniel crying, that's what Matthew didn't understand. I heard again the sound of his and Ella's terrified cries after the accident, and it made me come apart. Matthew was angry that I upset the children. I tried to explain why I was falling apart, that I had control over nothing. I failed.
I didn't respond to my children in the first several dazed moments after the wreck, you see. I don't ever remember asking if they were okay. They were crying, and Ella was screaming for me to respond, to tell her if I had something stuck in me. I finally forced myself to speak and raise my right hand, but my voice was so faint, they couldn't hear me well....or maybe I sounded so strange, it was no comfort. Later, I tortured myself with what if - what if they had been hurt, too? Would I have forced myself to move, to climb to them regardless of pain? I comforted myself that I knew they were okay by their strong voices, by the point of impact, but it wasn't surprising that I had nightmares for a long time after, bad, bad dreams in which I failed to keep my children safe in one way or another.
I know this is part of the reason why I'm so grateful to the firemen, my friends, and my husband for taking such complete, beautiful care of my children for me.
It was because of Ella and Daniel being in the van with me, unharmed physically by events but very frightened, that my family and friends were baffled by my sadness over the death of the motorcyclist who hit us. But I found the way in which he died horrific, and I was distraught that I was part of the circumstances.
I wanted him to have a second chance, a wake-up call. I knew a tiny bit about his situation - that he hit the rear of a truck two intersections before he hit me, that he fled that scene, that he had suspicious substances on his bike. My dad told me simply that I could not know how many second chances he'd been given. A friend told me that I couldn't know; perhaps God used me to keep him from hurting someone else, that sometimes God chooses us for these experiences. But I cannot discern between time and chance and will and meaning.
But still I was sad. I struggled right into this past summer when I had a breakdown at my sister's house in which I yelled at my husband to pray for those he loves, and I confessed that it bothered me, scared me that I didn't know where this man's soul was who died in our accident.
My sis Vinca calmed me down, talked to me and held me as I sobbed.
At 2 am as I finally got ready for bed and looked sheepishly at my swollen, weary face in the mirror, I felt God's displeasure just as clearly as I felt his approbation months earlier in the hospital when I had no anger against the motorcyclist. This time, though, I knew I had to lay my emotions to rest. It was God telling me, It's none of your business where this man's soul is. It's My business. Let it go. Now.
And apologize to your husband.
And I have, really - apologized and let it go. I'm still sad for a man I know nothing about, but who I will always feel connected to because of the events of a late September day. So I pray for his wife, and I pray for one of my hospital roommates, and I pray that God will shine his light on the path of the doctors and nurses who treated me those five days.
And I hold and rock my littlest ones when something reminds them of our accident, and I pray that God will guide me to be the best mother that I can be and a very safe driver, and I take a deep breath nearly every day and let it go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)