Farewell

Your suitcase in hand,
we walked the length of the driveway in silence.

It felt wrong to speak when the neighborhood
was still dark and asleep.
What was there to say anyway?
Good morning?
It wasn't morning yet.

We kissed good-bye
thru the open car window.

My fuzzy blue robe was wet from
leaning against the morning dew on the door.

If I knew that was going to be my last kiss
I would have lingered a moment longer.
Maybe brushed my teeth and combed
thru the knots in my hair.

I smiled, waved and mouthed "see you soon"
when you drove away.

I never saw you again.

Fall

You have arrived again.
Always catching me by surprise.
The air smells different.
The floor is cold.
I need a pair of slippers for my feet.

Instead of slippers I cover myself with a
blanket and leave all the windows open.

The cat and dog watch a squirrel carrying
walnuts back and forth across the yard.

A crow screeches from a nearby tree.
The cat and dog don't seem to hear him.
They are only interested in the squirrel.

A new backpack and pair
of sneakers sit empty by the door.

I see five brown eyed susan
blooms that need to be cut.
They are shriveled and tired.

In two days the school bus will pull up.
My feet will have shoes on.
The dead flowers will be cut.
This crow will probably still be screaming.
And summer will be over.

A moment. Kathy and I at Ryan's wedding.

Reflecting on 47

The worlds softest, sweetest dog is asleep on my feet. The sun is shining. The sky is the perfect shade of blue with puffy white clouds that are drifting by at a snails pace and the humidity is low. Today is July 11^th. My Birthday. It’s always this nice on my birthday. For as long as I can remember I’ve woken up on July 11^th  with a sense of excitement and anticipation. The 48^th time this morning was no different. I ate pancakes and drank an entire cup of coffee before it got cold. I stayed in my pajamas for as long as I wanted to. Today I choose to not wander too far from my yard. Today I want to think about how nice (and sometimes not so nice) 47 was and scheme some dreams for 48.

This one day is all about me. These couple of things happened and are going to shape my dreams for 48:

I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. We had just enough chairs and a perfectly moist turkey. I’d like to do it again. I’d like all my sisters to be here. It seems harder and harder to all be in the same place at the same time for something happy. The older I get, the more I miss the ho hum day to day chit chat with them.

I have the nicest friends who don’t seem to mind if I budge in and dance with them at the Company Christmas party. I’m a solid party of 1 thanks to them and their kind, open hearts.

I had the heater replaced in our cute little house and spent the winter smiling every time it blew hot air on us and warmed our toes. I slept peacefully knowing we were not going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Also, the amount of snow that fell was not at all horrifying. This makes me feel more prepared for next winter. I feel like the only thing I have to do is buy a new furnace filter and we’re ready for anything.

In March, my step sister Kathleen Mary Waffner died. I feel fortunate to have been with my family all day at the hospital. For as awful as it was, it was also beautiful to feel so intertwined. We prayed, cried, laughed, grew tired and hungry. We drank whiskey out of waxed paper cups and watched our sister struggle to breath until she finally let go and shed that broken body. That was it. Just like that. She was gone. She stopped being amongst us living. Sometimes I forget for a minute that it happened and it takes my breath away. I imagine the hospital staff viewed us, her gathered people, as a polite fiasco. That is my family. These are the people I love the most. We are one man down.

I started a vegetable garden. The thought of not reaping the harvest of an asparagus bed for 3 years sent me into a bit of a tail spin tho. In three years Lily will be a freshman at college. Could I make her an asparagus quiche on the weekend? What if she isn’t living close enough to come home on the weekends? How could I eat all that asparagus myself? Does it freeze well? OMG I am going to be 50 by the time I can pick this asparagus. End result = my vegetable garden is doing well. I did not plant asparagus.

My Grandmother, Josephine Patitucci, turned 91 and drove her and a girlfriend over to our house for a Memorial Day parade celebration. I aspire to be that interested in life at 91.

My kid is the opposite of what I believed to be true about teenagers. We certainly have some sassy ass moments together but she continues to be my brightest light and person that makes my heart soar.

I have a job that I like. I love my house and feel safe. I have friends that I can’t imagine my life without. Someone pinch me. How did I ever get to be so lucky?

Abstract Pieces

I had an Uncle. His name was Tom. He died when I was 5. I don’t remember the exact shape of his face or the sound of his voice. I remember him in abstract pieces. His leg sticking out from his black reclining chair, tripping me when I ran by. The silhouette of his profile sitting in his car outside the front of our house. His hand, passing me a book of paper dolls in the front room of my Grandparents house.

I attributed the unexplainable to him being on the other side of what I perceived to be real. I was 5. It was easy to believe in heaven and angels. There was no doubt that what I could not see but could feel was divine.

23 years ago I took my first yoga class at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia. I wasn’t sure about heaven and angels anymore. I had an infinite number of possibilities to explain what I once believed to be magical coincidences. I went to yoga because my Self magazine told me I would get great abs and I needed to learn how to meditate to keep my snowballing anxiety to a dull roar.  

Savasana is the pose that you do at the end of yoga class. The corpse pose. The do nothing and surrender pose and it is not as easy as it sounds not matter how tired you are. That terribly annoying little voice in my head is hard to turn off. “Did I send that email? Is that lady snoring over there? I’m sweaty. I wish I had socks on. I wish I didn’t eat that second piece of pizza. I should stop for gas on the way home.”

The Savasana chatter was nonstop. Thankfully my instructor was a lovely woman who was happy to lead the group through a guided session to help ease the chatter. We were supposed to open our mind and hearts to whatever it is that guides us and surrender to the peace and harmony of the pose. I was skeptical. It sounded flaky. But I was willing to try. I might have fallen asleep. I might have been dreaming but there he was, sitting on a bench at the opening of a garden, my Uncle Tom.

We talked about our experiences afterwards. Some claim to have held the vision of Hindu deities in their third eye. Some spoke of walking with Jesus. I kept my Uncle sitting on a park bench in his t-shirt and jeans to myself. He never said a word. He merely sat there with a mischievous look on his face. This hardly seemed prophetic.

Yet there he is, all these years later, sitting there every time I prepared myself for Savasana. Never saying a word. I guess he doesn’t have to. I guess knowing he is there is all I need. I choose to believe again that what I can not touch and see but can feel in my heart is divine.

My version of an Angel is wearing blue jeans. He is the light that dances playfully in the garden. He is the breeze that blows thru my hair. He is the bird landing on the branch that watches me. He is the glue that fixes our sometimes broken family. He is the unexplainable force that guides me.

I have an Uncle. His name is Tom.

My essay about match.com was published over the weekend. I am shamelessly going to pass it along to you and ask that you read it, share it, pass it along to whom ever you might think will read it too. 

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/07/meeting-my-match/

A Nod to the North

Take a Chance. That was the name of my horse my Grandfather bought for me when I was 12. My Grandfather was dying and I was in midst of a good old fashioned case of family craziness and starting to like boys. Looking back on it now I think it was his attempt to save us both from inevitable heart ache. I wish it had worked.

I had a few months of riding lessons, 4H, and a new best friend, Casey, who had horses at her house, all under my belt. Those credentials made my pea sized pre-adolescent brain think I knew most everything there was to know about horses. Oh my dear Papa. He was so generous with us kids and genuinely took an interest in my new hobby. He rode right along beside me wearing his fedora as I talked my way into owning this little mare.

Turns out taking a chance on Chancey was not a chance I was ready to take. It wasn't so bad getting thrown off almost every time I rode her. I was young and bounceable. I always got right back on. It was more Chancey's random acts of violence that left me paralyzed with fear and afraid to be near her.

I was bit, kicked, chased around, spit at and made a fool of. By the time I admitted I was in over my head and she was sold I had already experienced several anxiety attacks. I didn't know they were anxiety attacks at the time. I just thought I was dying of humiliation. I wrote a last will and testament one night when my heart was pounding and I couldn't breathe. Oh what I would give to stumble upon that piece of tear stained paper today. I am fairly certain I left my prized possessions, an REO Speedwagon album and Honey Suckle Rose t-shirt to my sister Kelly. The rest must have read like a confession - what else did I have? A half dozen different flavors of Maybelline lip gloss and a bottle of Love's Baby Soft?

That was it for me and horses for a while. I dedicated some of the next 25 years to being chased around, spit at and made a fool of by boys instead. Considering that the boys I knew never bit or kicked, it all felt much safer.

Lucky for me Lily showed an interest in horses and over the past few years I have been able to spend a lot of time around them again and I am happy to still feel drawn to what I loved about horses all those years ago. I love to brush them. I love the way they smell. I love that the smell of sweet grain and molasses still reminds me of my friend Casey. I love that I have a healthy respect for how powerful they are. I love that I am around people who are teaching me (and answer all of my seemingly stupid questions) about all of the things that I wished I had learned when I was 12. But most of all, I love that I am not afraid anymore. I have a horse named North to thank for that.

I babysit North once in a while. The only things I have to do are bring him in and out of the pasture, feed him and love him. He is so big. So powerful. So beautiful. So much like a punk teenaged boy with an attention deficit disorder that he frightened me at first and made me wonder if maybe I would be safer being an admirer of horses from the sidelines. Or better yet, watching them on TV. That is not who I want to be though. I don't want to watch from the sidelines. I don't want to be afraid of anything anymore. I want to ride again. So I clip his crazy ass to the lead rope and keep on walking.

I nod to North. He is the best thing that has happened to me in years.
I nod to the therapist who stopped the anxiety attacks.
I nod in the northernly direction of heaven to my Papa with my deepest love. I moved on.

Dear 2013

Dear 2013,

  

I will walk outside during my lunch break just to feel the sun on my face and quiet my mind.

I will slow down and listen better when someone is talking.

I will be the best Mother, Sister, Daughter and Friend that I can be. If I say something stupid or hurt anyones feelings I promise I will say I am sorry. I know my way isn't the right way, it's only the right way for me so i'll keep my heart and mind open to how everyone else takes care of business. 

I will nourish my body with healthy, organic and local food whenever I can. And when I can't, I will accept the fact that I just ate a whole bag of potato chips and french onion dip with as little self loathing as possible and will continue to pray for a cure for the insatiable junk food hunger that comes with my period. Menopause can not be too far away and I'm pretty sure I would rather have a potato chip hangover than rogue facial hair and hot flashes. 

I will try to not be intimidated to be in a stall alone with a horse. 

I will always remember that 2 vodka martini's are my limit. Any more than that requires a babysitter. I am too old for a babysitter and unexplained bruising. 

I will try to remember how crappy eating sugar makes me feel before I eat it.

I will stop trying on jeans and accept the fact that I don't like how they feel or how they make my butt look. I am a skirt person. 

I will write when I feel inspired and hopefully will feel inspired everyday. If not, it's ok. Seriously. 

I will rename this blog. And myself. 

I will try not to revisit things I say good bye to. There is a very good chance that once in a while I am going to have a cup of coffee even tho I parted ways with my dark roasted love in 2012. I know I will hold the cup with both hands and deeply inhale the aroma while I close my eyes and take a sip. And then, in a half hour when my heart starts pounding and my cheeks are flushed I will try not panic, contemplate going to the emergency room or consider the purchase of a defibrillator to carry around in my oversized purse. I will remember remember why we parted ways. We aren't good for each other any more.