The Battlefields of Marriage

I am on vacation. Vacation from what would be the question. Not being retired like my husband, who is retired but still works part time, I am not really working in the traditional sense of the word, yet I am always working. Being an artist and a migrant worker all of my life I didn't really have a job from which to retire, so I guess I will never really be retired unless I enter a home or until I die. So it is difficult for me to call what I am doing a vacation.

Certainly we have taken a vacation from our homes and the daily upkeep inherent in those dwellings.  And we are taking a vacation from our dogs; although I don't think Al would ever want our dogs to hear those words. Also we have taken a vacation from grandparenting, although that is not really work and something from which I would need a vacation as some grandparents might.  What we have done is stepped outside of our normal, everyday life in an attempt to gain a different perspective. My definition.

We are currently in Richmond, Virginia.  Not exactly the vacation capitol of the United States. Al and I are here because of his desire to tour confederate battlegrounds with two of his cousins. Several years ago, having been invited to a wedding on Long Island, we decided to take a road trip and visit battlegrounds along the way. As I had never visited any sites of the Civil War in my trips up and down the east coast, being more of a yankee than a southerner, I was all in.

Beginning in Georgia we popped the book Killer Angels into the cd player and began our trek towards Pennsylvania and Gettysburg, the main subject of our interest.  I cannot remember the exact chronology  of the trip now, but the first battlefield we stopped at was Antietam. It was the second day; we were fresh from a night's sleep and a day of Killer Angels, and we were eager to bond through this experience.

Quickly I learned, however, whatever I had expected from this trip, it would not be about bonding. Antietam, also called the Battle of Sharpsburg, was the bloodiest, single day battle in American history. Sobering to think about, beyond sobering to walk the small fields where over twenty thousand men died, were wounded, or just went missing.

Getting back in the car, continuing to listen to the events at Gettysburg in great detail, we stopped at another battlefield along the way. Even as I look at maps I cannot remember the name of that battle, nor the details of the fighting that occurred there. I can remember talking to a park ranger who described how the soldiers would move from ditch to ditch and ridge to ridge in the pursuit of their ideals. But what I most remember is the feeling of shutting down.

Late in the afternoon we pulled into Gettysburg and checked into our hotel. Two days of driving, two days of listening to The Killer Angels, and two battlefields into our vacation I felt what I can only describe as shell shocked. My husband was eager to go out and get the lay of the town so we did a quick car tour planning our assault the following day. Returning to the hotel we passed a theater wherein a movie about Gettysburg was ongoing; a must see. After some discussion and disbelief on my husband's part, Al went to the movie I went to a nearby restaurant and had a glass of wine.

Bright and early the next day we began at the park center which included a marvelous museum, a diorama and a film to provide background to the driving tour we would embark on after lunch. Lots and lots of information for the historian we carry within, if we are to be well educated.

I am, if not well educated, interestingly educated. With both nursing and fine arts degrees, my childhood included living in the very disparate cultures of France and Japan.  And like many children I had a love of reading, particularly biographies and historic novels; but I did not enjoy history. It was in my first art history class, as an adult, that I developed a real interest in, and genuine love of, history. Nothing in any of my myriad art history courses, however, prepared  me for Gettysburg.

Driving around the town and the surrounding battlefields, where somewhere between forty-six and fifty-one thousand soldiers were wounded or killed in a three day battle, I completely lost my enthusiasm for both the trip and my husband. His curiosity, while normally very attractive to me, nearly resulted in him being abandoned along Cemetery Ridge. And while I very aware of my propensity to shift into overload in times of stress and places of over stimulation, I had never, at any time, experienced such complete disdain for another human being. Fortunately for him, when pressed, he climbed into the car and we continued on our way to Long Island in silence.

I think we did finish Killer Angels on that trip. Maybe on our return home after some lovely visits to other cultural attractions and family gatherings. I honestly don't remember. But as I sit here today my husband is out with his cousins visiting yet another battlefield and I am getting ready to spend the day with my friend Rosie. Perhaps we'll poke around Richmond and enjoy another incredible fall day. Whatever we do I will be remembering what vacations are all about; compromise arising out of understanding and negotiation. No battles in this marriage this trip. The vacation is not over, however; tomorrow we head to Washington DC.

Gardening or Yardwork?

Today Ace Hardware sends me a message reminding me that it is time for fall clean-up. This morning it feels like fall. Cool breezes accompany us on our walk about town and the dogs have a spring in their step. Yesterday I began cleaning out the flowerbed and, overcome with heat, dreaded the mountains of tree trimming and weed pulling that waited in the wings. Then unexpectedly there is this gift of cool air and suddenly this morning feels like a good time to work.

Saturday we are leaving for a ten day trip. Garbage pick-up is tomorrow, which here in Augusta includes yard waste. So whatever I do after tomorrow will sit in a pile, out front, until next week. Anything I don't get done will be waiting when we get back. For me that is the greatest motivator of all; I will have a much better time knowing that I am not coming home to this jungle.

Like most of the southeast, Augusta has been inundated with rain this summer. Many of our drought tolerant plantings of the past few years have been drowned by the incessant rain; they need to be pulled up. The more tropical plants have grown unlike anything I have seen in the near thirty years I have lived here. However now that the daily torrent has stopped many of those plants are dying for lack of water. It is not feasible to continue watering to the degree that they have become accustomed. So more dead things to pull up or cut down, prune or just pray over.

The first order of business, after getting tools out of the garage, is to clean up dog poop. With two dogs, that can take thirty minutes, invariably piles will be missed and I will step in them. My husband doesn't believe in cleaning up after our dogs, he thinks the nutrients are good for the soil. I think it is just an excuse not to do it.

This morning, like any time we walk the dogs, Snook immediately has to poop. Snook is Al's dog and being under good voice control, she walks without a tether. My dog is Ginger; she is more rambunctious so on city streets I keep her leashed. I also carry clean-up bags. Usually Al ignores the dog's business and walks on, but this morning an owner pulls out of his driveway just as Snook is doing her thing and confronts Al with the clean-up question. It is the first time that I have seen Al pick up after the dog, with my bag.  Today I decide to forego the clean-up process and ignore the well fertilized yard. I am on poop patrol strike. If he can pick it at the request of a stranger Al should be able to pick up poop in his own yard. Enough on that subject.

It is my understanding that years ago, upon completing construction, the backyard was pretty much laid bare with the exception of some trees that ringed the small property. In the intervening years Al has added an assortment of trees and shrubs, and a small lawn with little design in mind. In the time since we have been married I have had a couple of different gardeners draw designs which will give shape to the area but they all tell us to remove the very old, dying wax myrtles. This is where my husband draws a line in the sand. No tree will be cut down unless it falls first.

This is my second marriage and although I don't have a lot of experience with men and yards, I find it unusual that both men I married have an inordinate attachment to anything growing in the ground; volunteer or otherwise. For example we have two vitex that Al planted in the corner of the yard. They are essentially trashy trees. There is nothing attractive about them, they are scrubby and awkward looking with limbs growing at odd angles; for some reason Al loves them. The wax myrtles, while also somewhat trashy, have very sculptural trunks that add depth and interest as well as shade. I could make a case for saving them if they weren't already dying and loosing limbs on a regular basis.

So, like my ex-husband, Al never wants to get rid of anything. But unlike my first husband who loved yard work and really could not bear to pull even the most pitiful volunteer tree or shrub out of the ground, I surmise Al's reluctance may stem from his dislike of yard work. Al does not believe in yard work, or at least any that requires his participation. He is a gentleman gardener.

Every year Al turns the earth and amends the soil to make ready for the planting of tomatoes. And peppers. And eggplant. He spends days getting ready, sometimes getting the soil analyzed to determine the necessary ingredients to nurture the little seedlings. And every year we have a bumper crop of peppers, nobody could eat the amount of peppers we harvest, and very few tomatoes. And by this time of year, as the plants are dying, he eyes them longingly, hopefully, refusing to pull them up..

It is important to explain why the tomatoes need to go. When you walk in the front door of our house there is a view straight through the living room and dining room to the kitchen, wherein the ceiling is vaulted two stories with eight foot long windows framing the view. Through those windows one can see three old, graceful ligustrum behind which grows lush, very dense, bamboo. In front of the ligustrum, in a brick raised bed are tomato plants. Old, gnarly, yellowing tomato plants. And they will stay there through the first freeze, which comes sometimes in late October, or late November or even into December. This means we will be looking at those nasty plants unless I sneak around and pull them out one at a time. Which should be easy, because at some point Al starts avoiding the garden and I am the only one out there working; however our driveway is off an alley behind the house. Every day we enter through a gate and walk past the vegetable garden to get in the house.

Lest I sound ungrateful or complaining I must say that Al hires yard workers who tend the grass and edge occasionally and even blow the leaves away. Today as I write someone is outside blowing the first layer of leaves that have fallen from the tulip poplars that tower over the front of our house. However, despite the fact that my husband is willing, it is almost impossible to find someone to prune trees, pull weeds, trim shrubs; in other words to garden. If you do find this mythical worker the cost will either be exorbitant or you will have to direct their every move because your worker will have less knowledge of gardening than you do. So, I am by default the gardener and it is with this authority that I called in yet one more landscaper to discuss our back yard.

The plan was drawn up this spring but it needs some tweaking. I think it may be too formal but at least it has good bones design-wise. There is variation in shape, color and form; repetition in species and size. There is movement, drawing the eye around the landscape, inviting investigation. There is attention to detail in every bed and walkway. And finally, there is a husband willing to concede the loss of the wax myrtle and the vitex.

So as I sit here writing the vitex is no longer. The two trees were cut down limb by limb and the remains dragged to the street for tomorrow's trash run. The bamboo is thinned and offerings made to friends in need of water loving plants. The oak leaf hydrangea, that has been clinging creepily to the windows on the west side of the house, has been pruned letting in light once more. There is still work to do but there is space in the yard that wasn't there yesterday and I can breathe a little easily just knowing that. Now to clean my shoes.

The Road to Home

Home is a word which historically sparks little emotion for me. Growing up in the military, as an "army brat" we had no home. We lived in a lot of places, and in a lot of houses, but none that ever felt like home.

The closest I ever came to having those feelings was returning 'home' to visit my in-laws after I was married. They lived in New Jersey in the same town where I went to high school and held every intention of making home someday, so I allowed myself an attachment I had never experienced before. But even my in-laws sold that house and moved to Florida.

Growing up without grandparents, my parents had no home base. Of course we would go 'home' to West Virginia where my uncles lived, and to Illinois at times where other family lived, when we were stationed somewhere close by. Never did those houses feel like home to me. Never was there one house where whenever I crossed the threshold I knew this was it, home.

More than a few years back I went to Italy with a group of friends. We rented a house outside of Florence for two weeks and used that as home base. After traveling around the countryside, to both small towns and large, we finished our trip with four days in Rome. Walking the streets of that city, along the banks of the Arno I had a sense of belonging. But the feeling that was most striking to me, that I remember very clearly all these years later, is getting off the plane in Rome when we first arrived. The plane was parked on the tarmac and it was necessary to walk to a trolley that would take us to the terminal. The moment my foot hit the ground, early in the morning after an all night flight, I had the strangest sensation. Home. I felt as if I had come home. I have held that as evidence of the longing for, and recognition of, what I am missing.

My husband bought this house twelve years ago, before I knew him. Stumbling upon it after graduating from law school and moving to Augusta, before he was married, before he had children, he told me how, when he first drove past this house he thought 'I'd like to live there someday.' It was an unusual aspiration for a young lawyer; a small bungalow on a nondescript street, with none of the glamour one might expect would engender that kind of yearning.

Almost thirty years, and two marriages later, my again single husband drove by this same house. Finding it sporting a 'For Sale by Owner' sign he jumped from the car, knocked on the door, and began the process of ownership and renovation. A small two bedroom bungalow is now a three bedroom stunner, with three fireplaces, a 'cook's kitchen', a library and a garage-bungalow out back. The garden is a work in progress but holding its own in the neighborhood. And yet from the street it still has an understated, hundred year old, curb appeal. Still it is not home.

I wish it was because it so home for my husband. So much so that he never plans on moving again. After a lifetime of moving, first with my father's career and then with my first husband, I cannot imagine that kind of loyalty. Although I do believe houses deserve loving ownership and think they respond to it. How that relationship, between home and owner is measured I do not know, but I believe it is a fact. And while I do love this house, an outer manifestation of my husband's creative self, and I do take care of it, it is not home. Not yet.

I don't really expect to feel at home, I realize. Two of my favorite childhood books were Black Beauty and Heidi. Reading them both repeatedly, I lingered over every word. The theme they have in common is constant displacement and uprooting. Only late in life does Black Beauty come home; Heidi is luckier and returns home to her grandfather when she is still young. I identified with both; hopefully, with longing, finding comfort in the idea that one could survive such upheaval.

Four years ago, after looking at houses for three summers, we purchased a small cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. It is technically my house; my name is on the mortgage and I pay the bills. But we found it together, chose it together and love it together. And suddenly, surprisingly, I feel like I have come home at last.

I am not sure I would have found it by myself. I am not sure I would have bought it by myself. I don't even know if I would have been looking for it by myself. But for my husband I might not even have come to the realization that I could have a home. But I have, and I do, and it has started me down the path of finding the mountain woman in me. The roots of my tree revealing themselves perhaps. Time will tell, but it is a good beginning as beginnings go.

Roots and Trees

Years ago I kept a journal. Writing almost daily I kept track of my dreams and thoughts filling on the average three books a year.  I am not sure when I quit that practice, I could go back and look, but at some point it fell by the wayside. Today those journals sit on a shelf in my mountain home, rarely read, never shared.

Journaling became a way of life after my mother died; returning from her funeral I sought therapy to deal with the panic attacks that began the summer before and again at the funeral. Writing was not the suggestion of the therapist, but a natural outflow of having kept sketchbooks while getting my fine arts degree. Very quickly, upon entering therapy, the sketching turned to the recording of dreams which followed the panic attacks. And the recording of dreams led to a recording of thoughts.

I have always been a thinker. For the longest time I assumed everyone had an interior life like mine, just like as I kid I assumed everyone could draw. Growing older I have developed close friendships, people with whom I share my private thoughts; at times I am met with blank stares and the changing of subjects but occasionally the response is just a straight forward "I don't think about things like you do." And occasionally there are the kindred spirits who welcome the exchange.

As I begin writing again I am not sure of my motivation; I do wonder if it is egotistical. But I think there is some obligation to pass on observations and experiences we find meaningful. A blog is easier than keeping a journal for sure, but wanting to share my thoughts, it is a vehicle providing access to those who desire to read them both now and in the future. I have been wanting to have a ceremony to burn my journals but have been reluctant because they seem so much a part of me, my process, and what I have to leave my children. And now grandchildren. With a new writing tool I find it easier to imagine that bonfire.

I don't know those who preceded me. I know where my father was born and lived until he joined the military in WWII, but I know very little about the people who raised him. My father was a fifth generation member of a family hailing from Raleigh County Virginia, now West Virginia. Thanks to a distant cousin I learned that my great, great, great, grandfather Thomas Dickens was born in 1785 in Montgomery County Virginia. He had one brother, Ephraim, two years older who was also born in Virginia. No one has yet determined the names and birth places of the parents. There isa book listing every known descendant of those two men, but very little detail of their lives or interests. No stories.

My mother was Hungarian, also born in West Virginia. Her father, my grandfather, Stephen Gyovai came from Csongrad, Hungary sometime in the early 1900's seeking a new life after his wife died. Leaving a family of children behind he brought his new wife, my grandmother Ethel Papai, to live with him in America. Together they had thirteen children, eight of whom survived childhood. The reason he left Hungary or what happened to the children he left behind, is a mystery to me. I don't know if they were grown or just left with relatives. Thanks to the internet I know the name Gyovai is popular in and around Budapest.

The circumstances surrounding our family history never mattered to me until I had a family of my own, and even then I was too busy to seek answers to the questions. It was when my grandchildren began to be born that I wanted to know about their family, to share those stories and facts with them when the time came.

As a child, like many children I imagine, I did not like my parents. More than that I had a deep dislike of them and the choices they made. At some point I remember making the decision to not be like them, to not need them, in fact to not need anyone. It was the way I propelled myself out of the bog in which they seemed mired; education, marriage to an educated person, was the vehicle I used to move away from my family. Interest in where they came from seemed like so many tethers keeping me down.

Over time my perspective of family has changed. I better understand my parents' dreams and the obstacles they encountered. I know that my family will always be part of me. And I have forgiven them, and myself, for that shameful fact. Currently I am reading the book Stiffed, The Betrayal of the American Man by Susan Faludi. My son offered it to me thinking it might lend some perspective on my father, but also on the men I married. It is certainly interesting in that regard but at one point the author discusses a conversation with the leader of Promise Keepers wherein he, the leader, is talking about his son:

" I didn't understand that then." Referring to his relationship to his own father. "I do now as a father. There's something of me in that boy, a mystery beyond all mysteries. As a father, I am the root, the trunk, upon which my boy is the branch. My history is his history.Who I have been is who he is. My heart is the boy's heart."

Reading it, the passage burned in my brain. Because isn't it something that we all feel as parents, and again as grandparents? And don't our children, and grandchildren, deserve the opportunity to know the tree, or trees, from which they spring? We can deny them, as I did, or we can embrace parts and deny others, which is also tempting, but the truth is that we come from all of it. And it is a mystery, and mystical. And while we are all different there are times when children are so different from their birth parents, or even grandparents, that knowing something about those who came before might be enlightening and comforting to the little oddball that seems to come out of nowhere.

I am a bit of an oddball. Taking hold of myself as a child I determined my own path with little assistance from my parents. Making mistakes along the way I was still able to move into a world unrecognizable by the family left behind in West Virginia. I have become an educated person, vital and interested in the world with great empathy for the people who reside in it. Some of that curiosity comes from the way I was raised, as a child tagging along as my parents moved around the world, and some of it probably comes from ancestors of which I have no knowledge. I know it did not reside in my parents. For them I am deeply saddened at times, but no longer angry or hurt. They did the best they could.

So I too endeavor to do the best I can. At every stage along the way I have struggled with my fears and desires to be someone worthy of being called mother, wife, teacher, but most importantly human. I have hoped to create an imprint that inspires and energizes those who know me, or who will know of me in the future. But most importantly I want to find meaning and joy in the daily comings and goings of my life. Writing is, and always has been, part of that endeavor. More now than ever.

Communion

Writing is a chore; truly. It is like counting calories. You make a pledge to do it every day, and very quickly you fall off the wagon and find yourself in the dust and dirt of some road you didn't even know existed. Straying onto random roads seems to be my life right now.

Yesterday we drove to Birmingham to have lunch with Al's cousin, his wife and daughter.  The very same daughter who lost her husband to cancer last Saturday. A week ago today. Which would all be fine if I knew the daughter, but other than saying "Hi" when we met at one family reunion or another in the last seven years, I am not sure we have ever spoken.

It is a strange feeling sharing a meal with someone you barely know, but it is particularly strange when the other person is in obvious emotional distress. In the southern way she was polite and made us comfortable but I could tell it was not easy. And because I did not know her husband it should have felt even more awkward. Except it didn't.

The daughter was incredibly gracious, asking questions throughout the meal, questions that helped her get to know me, giving me permission to do the same.  In the midst of three other people we focused to this task and a couple of hours later when we got in our car to leave I felt a kinship that was, and is, not really explainable.

I meet people in all kinds of circumstances. Rarely these days do I feel a connection. It is an odd thing but it seems to me that as people get older they close in the walls surrounding their psyche and admit fewer and fewer new players. So meeting this woman and finding her wide open, maybe because of her recent loss, her new grief or her gentle nature, I was surprised. I was even more surprised at my willingness to step in. Because I too am more closed off than I used to be.

I read a book recently by a Canadian author entitled The Impostor Bride. Late in the book two tangential characters, older women who share a grandchild, meet for the first time. They fall into polite talk but at one point one says to the other "What were you like when you were a girl?" and a dialogue opens. Later, in thinking back over the exchange, one of the two muses about how surprised she was by the connection. She knows she is loved, but very few people really care who she is or what she thinks anymore, and certainly she didn't expect to meet someone new who would care.  But here it was; a surprise. That is how I felt yesterday. Not only by the other's genuine interest, but by my genuine response.

I wonder if in the presence of grief, or any raw emotion, it is easier to cut through the societal boundaries to real discourse. If at those times we recognize, or admit, the unseen in the form of a stranger who genuinely cares. Because my caring was genuine; that my caring was welcome was what I found surprising.

I believe I am someone who is comfortable with death, and perhaps that is unusual. My grandparents were all dead and buried before I was born; I wasn't around older people until I went to nursing school and was confronted with elderly patients. That was short lived because my subsequent work as a nurse, and as an art teacher, centered around women and children and families. It was where my wounding occurred and thus it would be where my healing would commence. I did not recognize that at the time but certainly at some unconscious level I was seeking a safe, somewhat remote, place to nurture myself.

Not many people die in the areas I chose to work but occasionally, as a NICU nurse, I would deal with the death of an infant and thus the emotions of the bereft parents. Those instances were few and brief however; the deaths were often expected and the parents were often absent. The process of saving some and loosing other sick infants awakened me to the randomness of life and death. It was this awareness that helped me cope when I was confronted with my mother's death at the age of thirty-eight, a year older than the current age of my eldest son, and the passing of my father a year and a half later.

It was in the presence of my father that I had my first experience of not just death, but dying.  He was an alcoholic, a veteran of three wars, and courted death throughout his life. But it wasn't until my mother unexpectedly passed away that my father seriously begin moving toward his own demise, as only an alcoholic can do. It took him a year and a half. We had moved to West Point the summer before the winter of my mother's passing so I wasn't present for much of that time, nor was I aware of how lost he had become; the short visits home after my mother died did not allow much of a window into his intent.

A year and some months after we lost my mother, as we were on the road moving back to Augusta, I was tracked down by a sibling asking for my consent to a DNR for my just hospitalized father. Do not resuscitate. The joy of moving back 'home', which was Augusta, where not only had I lived for five years but where my parents and two of my siblings resided, was quickly extinguished.

My father did not die immediately, the call came in July and he died on September tenth, twenty-three years ago this past week.  That summer was horrendous; moving into a new house, transferring children into new schools once again, daily visits to the VA hospital, all contributed to a sense of displacement. There were times when he recognized me and times when he didn't. Times when he was kind and times when he was incredibly cruel. There were moments of hope that he would recover enough to return home and the moment when we knew that was no longer possible. And then there was the movement to a nursing home and, one week later, the call informing us that he was on his way back to the hospital in an ambulance.

Three of his four children gathered at the hospital that morning and stood by his bedside as he struggled to breathe. My father was a son of a bitch, a brutal abusive alcoholic much of our growing up years, but he was still my father and I had to play this out.  I had been at many births in my years as a nurse, and I am now aware how that work formed my thinking about death. We do not come into the world alone and I was determined my father would not go out alone. I stayed by his side as he drew his last breath.

Later I would have the honor of helping my father-in-law, a kinder man, as he lay dying. I was able to use my nursing to ease his pain and open the passage to his death.  My mother-in-law died seven years later and I was with her almost to the end, singing hymns as we waited for her son, by then my ex-husband, to return from out of town. But it was my older brother who taught me the most about dying.

Three years ago my brother Michael died shortly after his sixty-second birthday. He was only two and a half years older but he was my big brother in every sense of the word and deserves a whole post to do justice to the relationship we shared. But it was in his last few months that he was most excellent. Having recovered from throat cancer only two years earlier, his thoughts about living and dying were greatly formed by the time he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he was generous in sharing them with anyone who cared to hear.

A month before Michael died I was able to visit him in Texas where he lived. Unlike previous visits we didn't do much, although at that time he was still trying to live so we walked a little and even went to a movie; but he was coming to terms with his death and he shared a lot of his thoughts. It was a mystical time for me and returning home I felt a sense of peace. Still, when I got the call telling me the end was near, I hopped a plane and returned to Texas.

Michael, thinking he had more time, had asked me to return after giving my other brother and sister a chance to visit. He asked it in person as I departed from my previous visit and on the phone a week before he died. When I arrived at his home at three in the morning I was not sure what to expect but was certain it was the right place to be.

My brother died that evening after a pain filled day. Hospice failed him. We were all very distressed by that failure. But when the help finally came, and he was at last able to rest, he died within moments. And I was able to be there with him and for him. And for me.

Being in the presence of death, of a human dying to this physical reality, is an experience of sadness but also of wonder and awe. And because I have been able to do that I think I was able to be with this new widow, a relative stranger, in her fresh, raw, grief. I don't know what that means for any future relationship but I know we connected on the physical plane we found ourselves yesterday, and that we held each other in love and regard. It was a wonder-filled experience and one for which I will always be thankful.

Life is a miracle. Death is something onto itself. I am sure it is part of the life experience and that if we shy away from it, remain afraid of death, we are missing out on some aspect of living that makes us fully human. After all, life may be about many things but most importantly shouldn't it be about becoming human? Within the human community? Communion is what I think about when I think about death; a communion of saints, a communion of angels, a communion of brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren. Communion in its purest form.  And if we fail to enter into communion with death I am not sure we are ever fully alive.

Life is a gift we are often told. It was in the presence of my brother as he died three years ago and, again yesterday, with my husband's cousin's daughter and her grief, that I was reminded of that truth.

A Longing for Wide Open Spaces

This morning's coffee has come and gone in a flurry of unforeseen activity.

It is Thursday.  We returned home yesterday from spending the previous night in Atlanta babysitting three of our grandchildren while their parents went to a Mumford and Sons concert.  Racing home, my husband packed up to go hunting and I got ready for my bridge group (I am only in the loosest sense of the word a member of this group) to play at my house for a change.  Later, after the break-up of the bridge game, I totally collapsed. Luckily dinner was leftover eggplant parmigiana, better for being leftover, and my husband contributed bounty from his afternoon hunt for an appetizer. The remainder of the evening was a blur.

After a hard night's sleep I was looking forward this morning to my leisurely coffee. Al was off to work and my intention was to head to my studio to sew. But in life plans often go askew. Expect the unexpected has become my recent mantra.  "What are you doing tomorrow?" queries my husband as he dresses for work.  "Nothing specific. What did you have in mind?" I reply, imagining an outdoor cafe and lunch for just the two of us.

"Well, I thought we might head over to Birmingham to visit my cousin Calvin and his wife Shirley."  he responds casually while tying his tie.  "Could you call Calvin and work that out? I wish I had more time but I gotta run to this mediation, And maybe you could check and see if we can get tickets to Carole's new play for tomorrow night."  Carole is another cousin's wife, and well worth whatever effort it takes to watch her in a performance. But this truly ends my leisurely morning.

My husband is a retired judge who still sits on the bench from time to time and also has a solo mediation practice. With the same secretary for over thirty years, one who did everything for him in the way of secretaries of the past, Al is very spoiled.  When he retired eight years ago he lost his secretary and with our marriage coming a year later he quietly began trying to shoehorn me into that vacant seat.  I chafe at playing that role; sometimes quite violently.  But today is not one of those days.

In the way of our rather nomadic life we are going to Montgomery this weekend to visit my son and his family, and admire the latest addition, four week old Andrew. Originally we had planned on spending two nights but knowing how exhausting a new baby can be, not to mention the three other children who make up the family, I had changed the plans to just one night.  Changed the house sitter. Opened my mind to another day and night at home, in my own bed.

It seems like lately we sleep in a lot of hotels. With four children in four different cities and ten fairly new grandchildren we stay on the road. And who ever sleeps well in hotels?  Strange sounds, smells, and lights all interrupt sleep patterns. And then there are the beds. Too soft, too hard, too scratchy, too, too. For the last four years there have been the additional transitions between our Augusta house and our mountain house. The change between the two totally different sleep experiences always causes at least one bad night, if not more. It seems I am always catching up on my sleep. I sigh in response to my husband's request, suggestion, inquiry. But today it is an inward sigh.

One of the many things that attracted me to my husband is his love of family. Being raised in the military, always in transit, never close to family, it is something I sorely missed growing up; even though I didn't identify that longing until I met people who had those close connections. And it was something I wanted for my children. My first marriage was to another army brat who never really felt the emptiness that seemed to define my life. Al is my second husband and his love of place and people has helped me to understand that deep void in myself and how to begin to fill it. So how could I say no.

Several of the relations that define Al are cousins; a handful of cousins who live, or have lived until recently, in Birmingham. Initially, with my son living in Montgomery, we delighted in the convenience and thought we would spend a lot of time visiting them; that was before the nomadic lifestyle set in. Even though Birmingham is only ninety miles from Montgomery it still requires another day to spend any quality time visiting there. Another day in a different bed.

This past week we got news that one of Al's cousins lost his son-in-law to cancer. It was unexpected.  The memorial service is planned for the end of September, a time when we are going to Virginia and Washington DC, with two other cousins, on a history tour. The son-in-law is not someone to whom my husband was close, a cousin's child's husband stretches even his familial bonds, but there is a need in him to attend the memorial service, to share in their sorrow. Hence the solution of this visit. And also the loosening of my restraints in tending to my husband's seemingly ever constant requests.

As I sit here writing I am not sure quite what I want to say. It is necessary to have boundaries. Mine are formed in reaction to childhood experiences, as are most peoples I think, and they got stronger as I got older. But it is also important to know when to let down those walls and fences that keep us from joining others in their experience. My husband's attempts to mold me into the void left by his secretary are annoying. At times I cannot separate what a secretary would do from what a wife and partner can and should do. I am getting better but it is still a struggle. But I do love this marriage for providing me with the opportunity to grow beyond my boundaries, to open myself to the wide open spaces of a partnership where boundaries are not necessary. Even if only for an instant.

Now I need to text the house sitter; like many people of his generation he does not answer his phone.

Quilting in a storm....

Sitting in the library my husband built I drink my coffee and ponder my day. Having returned from the mountains a few days ago I have visited friends by phone and in person, gone to several movies, and caught up with the laundry. I have picked out fabrics to begin a new quilt, cut and laid out the pieces. Today is the day I start sewing.

My first experience with quilts was through a gift my father gave me when I graduated from high school. I think it was to make up for his not coming to my graduation. It was a small quilt made by his Aunt Nancy, my great aunt. I don't remember her, I am sure I met her at some point, but she was my dad's favorite. With his mother dying when he was seventeen, my father spent much time at Nancy's house and always visited her when he went home to West Virginia. So on one of those visits he returned with two quilts and I got my pick. A black and white twin size blanket that I would take to nursing school and around which I decorated my room.

I don't know what happened to that quilt. I did not value its worth, I am sorry to say. Having no idea of the labor that went into making that simple covering, it passed out of my hands. I am the opposite of a hoarder, so it is not surprising, but that is a discussion for another time.

Many years later while working on my art degree I was invited to attend a sewing group. They met once a week and many of the women had children my sons ages so I went whenever I could. I did not sew at that time, although I had sewn since I was a child, so I would take my sketch book and work to fulfill the requirements of whatever class I was taking at the time. Sometimes it was painting, sometimes figure drawing, sometimes wood carving or metalwork; all required keeping a sketchbook.

Periodically the group would halt whatever individual work they were doing and gather to create a quilt. It was usually a going away present, as many of the attendees were temporary residents; the military and the medical college brought many transients to town. At those times I would stop drawing and join in sewing. The quilt would be framed at my across the street neighbor's and we would come and go throughout the weeks adding our stitches to the project. It was through this effort that I was introduced to the art of quilt making and understood what I had so lightly let pass through my hands many years before.

That sewing group was almost thirty years ago.  All the children we shared stories and concerns about are now adults with children of their own.  My oldest is thirty-seven with three of his own, my younger son and his wife just had their fourth child. From that time I remembered the desire to make quilts of my own and began when our first grandchild was born.  Now there are ten and while I have not made ten quilts, as some were made by other grandmothers, I have made six. The last stitch was put in place in a hotel room not so many weeks ago. Now I endeavor to explore my own art of quilt making.

Quilts are significant on so many levels but to me they speak to process. The process of selecting the fabics new and old; the process of selecting the pattern, traditional or free form or some variation in between; the process of cutting the fabric, laying out the top and slowing piecing it together. Then there is the making of the 'sandwich' which consists of the top, some filling and the backing. It is at that point that one begins the long hours of sewing that sandwich together.

I am somewhat of a traditionalist. I piece by machine but I sew the quilt together by hand. I don't have a frame; I want my work to be portable to take it back and forth to the mountains so I use a hoop. I gather old fabrics and new and try a different design with each quilt I make. I am a process person. I love the process involved in art and have always engaged in forms that require a lot of process over time. Sometimes I forgo the product in favor of the process; once the process is achieved, mastered, I may move on to the next endeavor. It drives others crazy at times.

What I love about quilt making, and functional art in general, is the rich history behind the various forms. All art was initially functional; whether it served in the function of daily living or for ceremonial purposes it had a specific purpose. Rugs, blankets, dinnerware, clothing, over time all became more and more decorated as we had time to pursue that ideal. With the industrial age many handicrafts have been lost, replaced by machine work, their value minimized. For me, the problem with machines is that they are cold, coming between the creator and the creation; they tell no story.

Handmade artworks, whether they be functional or purely decorative, carry the energy of the maker.  The many hours that went into creating the object required love, attention, concern and care.  Laughter accompanied the groups that came together, whether to fire clay or create a quilt, laughter was woven into the fabric. And oftentimes tears accompanied the laughter.

Life is a process. We are conceived and carried to fruition in the bodies of our mothers wherein her laughter, tears, joy and fears are woven into our very being. We are born, live and die in a process laden culture. And we often fail to notice it is the process, not the product, that makes life worthwhile. If we valued the process, we would value the product so much more, that life that we let pass through our fingers as easily as the quilt my great aunt made for me, if not with me in mind, so many years ago.