Blown Away

Having spent the last 42 years of my life living in South Florida, I’ve gotten used to certain weather patterns.  The winters are mild, and we are lucky if we get to wear a sweater three or four days a year.  The onset of spring brings high temperatures and unbearable humidity.  Summer heralds hurricane season.  Over the years, I’ve learned how to prepare, and how not to panic.  I’ve seen a lot of terrible storms hit.  I’ve been lucky.  I’m grateful.

The latest storm in my life has nothing to do with weather, however.  High angry winds have blown the empty nest blog apart, and I am forced, for very personal reasons, to discontinue this particular venture.

I thank my followers for your loyalty, your comments and your criticisms.  You have all made me a better writer.  It is time, though, to redirect my energies in a different direction, one in which I will have total freedom to write what I want, and not be censored or edited.

The storm is over.  The weather is calm.  I’m grateful.  Its my turn to blow off a little steam!

 

 

 

I’ve Gone to Pieces

It wasn’t intentional, the pun, I mean.  It just so happens that my new hobby developed right around the time when I was going through an emotional crisis.  Or the beginning of one, anyway.  Actually, it was the middle of one, but I wouldn’t discover that until much later.

 Sitting around the dinner table one night, as we did as a family every night, I had what some may call an epiphany.  We were dining on yet another lovingly prepared, carefully selected fresh menu.  We were chattering about the day’s events when suddenly I had the striking realization that my days as a full time mom were numbered. 

 Don’t misunderstand.  My son was in high school and my daughter was in middle school.  It’s just that like at every other time in my life, I was already projecting into the future, worrying, and fearing the worst.  I was already having symptoms of the empty nest syndrome, and nobody had even dragged out a dusty old suitcase yet.

 That weekend, I dove into my first “pieces” project.  I gathered photographs of my kids from birth through the most recent, and began work on my first collage, which would later morph into mosaics.  I worked feverishly and continually for over a week, carefully cutting and placing pictures from birthdays to baseball, from rafting to rites of passage, from bowling to Bar Mitzvahs, from cross-country to camp. 

 When the dust settled, or I should say, the fumes from the spraying of a glossy polymer finish, I had officially begun my descent into a chapter of my life that has forever changed me.  I sought solace for my emptiness in unhealthy ways.

 I had literally gone to pieces.

 

But, with the help of friends, a resilient and dedicated therapist, two amazing and forgiving children, and a loving and patient husband, I have emerged, reinvented, put-together, and the only thing that goes to pieces are my tiles and glass chards.  And they are supposed to!

One Door Closes

The bedroom doors on the south side of the house used to be open.  All the time. That’s the only way I could hear if they were crying, or awake and playing.  When they were in grade school, I could jump on their beds to wake them up, or plop on the floor to help with a project.

When they hit their teens, the doors closed. They wanted privacy. They didn’t want me or their Dad to interrupt them with their friends. They wanted to blast their music without being asked to turn it down. They were probably doing other things that I didn’t want to know about.

The doors remain closed now, except on the rare occasion when the dog pushes them open to find a comfortable, quiet place to sleep. And it’s quiet. There is no longer any music blasting. The sound of teenaged girls giggling is gone. The thumping and thudding of an occasional wrestling or weightlifting episode has died down.  The silence is clamorous.

When they first left, I kept the doors open. Often, I would walk in and inhale deeply, trying desperately to get a sense of their presence in a lingering aftershave or scented candle. I would walk by my son’s room almost expecting to see him sitting at the computer with his guitar on his lap, laboring over tabs for the latest song he was learning. But he wasn’t there.

Two steps further and I would be in front of my daughter’s bedroom door, forever adorned with pictures, quotes and flowers. That door now reminds me of just one more household project that my new best friend, my husband, and I can complete together. We have to remove the old, sticky tape, sand and paint it.  It’s barren.

Keeping the doors closed now is my way of separating myself from that chapter in my life when the machinery of parenting required so many more adjustments and tune-ups. Today, a little oil on the hinges and they swing open and closed for a quick visit, once in a while, and I go back to opening new doors on the north side of the house.

Sooner or Later

Sooner or later, I will have to come to terms with the purpose of this blog. For those who have enjoyed the vignettes of parenting, the reflections of my life with my children, I’m glad. That has been the most enjoyable part of this project. I think I was able to impart the fact that I absolutely love being a mom. (Thank heavens for word-processors… I first wrote that in the past tense. I’m still a mom, and I realize that now, but when my kids left for college, I went through some crazy stuff to have the strength and the wisdom to take the d off of the word love in that sentence.)

Sooner or later, I will have to be able to write about the changes that occur when a woman has to “reinvent herself” during that awkward time often referred to in many ways: “the empty nest,” “pre-menopause,” “menopause,” “post-menopause,” “middle-age,” or in my case, all of the above!

When I first started writing, it was simply to serve as “therapy.” …to give me something to do to pass the time, as I had not only suffered an empty nest, but had also lost a job after thirteen years. While I was looking for employment earnestly, I still had a lot of idle time, and that is dangerous for someone like me.

Besides having lost the “identity” as a mother, I had also lost my “identity” as an employee. These were two of the roles that took up most of my waking hours. So when I talk about reinventing myself, it was an overwhelming proposition. While I was still a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend, these are roles that seemed less dominant at the time, and for reasons that will unfold as I write were neglected and/or excluded in the recent past.

Sooner or later is now. I say that because I feel strong enough to face my past and embrace my present, without fear of my future. Here’s why.

Both of my children have taken beautiful paths. As of today, my daughter has found a new spiritual life that fills her with joy, while at the same time she is pursuing a career that fits her personality… one that will help others along the way. My son is doing the same. He has found the love of his life and is about to embark on a life with her, with such joy and happiness. That is all I ever wanted for them.

I have a renewed relationship with my husband, and after 30 years of marriage, we are in love all over again. I have found employment doing the work I enjoy to benefit the people I love (with the right attitude about it).

And I have begun to find me, and this has been the greatest journey of all. Sooner or later, you’ll get to know me too!

Necessity- the Child of Invention???

We knew our son was smart, and resourceful. He had given us many indications thereof early on. He walked early; he mastered coordination of simple tasks early; he was even speaking in short sentences as early as ten months of age. When I say short sentences, I mean three words. He was not a great orator then, but he did surprise some adults along the way.

Our surprise at his cognitive ability came when he was around fourteen months old, battling a double ear infection that was coupled with a high fever and the gastric symptoms that generally came along with it. He could keep nothing in his stomach. Not even clear fluids. We were instructed, by his pediatrician, (and not his grandmothers), to give him one ounce of Gatorade every hour, until he could keep that down, and then gradually increase the amount.

Our efforts were simply to keep him from getting dehydrated. For him, apparently, it wasn’t enough. We were trying everything we could to divert his attention to other things. Videos, storybooks and games didn’t work. Finally, Daniel decided he wanted to take a shower.

At the precise moment my husband stepped into the lukewarm spray, my son on his shoulder, Daniel turned around, strained his neck toward the water and opened his mouth to drink. He was thirsty. He had a drink. He was satisfied. He kept it down, and he felt better!

What do we know???

My Grandmother’s Hands

My Grandmother! She seemed so unapproachable, yet I had been able to get under her skin just enough to develop a delightful relationship, which I cherished during her life and remember with great fondness since her passing. I remember that she was stand-offish when we tried to show affection, turning her cheek when we tried to zero in with a kiss. My cousin, Sally, had given her the ultimate challenge when she said, “Nanny, if you really loved me, you’d kiss me on the lips.” She would give in, because she loved us— all of us, each one in her own way. There were many sides to her.

The one thing I remember vividly about my grandmother was her hands. She always kept them neatly manicured, yet I used to marvel at her past and wonder about the millions of things those hands had done in her lifetime. Did she scrape her palms when she fell while roller-skating down her street? Had she ever held a butterfly in her palm or had she pointed to the sky to count the stars? What was she thinking when my grandfather slipped a wedding band on her ring finger?

I know she had a love for things that grew, and I can still picture her with dirt under her fingernails, having just repotted a philodendron. Had she ever felt compelled to make a fist and strike someone in anger? I couldn’t imagine that. I recall watching when she would knead yeast dough for her cinnamon bunds, or roll the kifflin cookies in the powdered sugar.

My grandmother loved to work the daily crossword puzzle, and I can see her tapping her pencil in thought. She would very carefully calculate the numbers on her purchase orders for the kitchen at the family’s summer camp. My grandmother did a lot of needlework. One piece hangs in my dining room, a constant reminder of her. Nanny also painted.

I can just imagine her wringing out a cool wash cloth to lay across the fevered brow of any of her three children, eight grandchildren and fourteen great-grandchildren. I heard stories of how she would carefully tear off just the right amount of toilet paper for everyone during the depression.

Though she tried to appear tough, there was always evident a distinguished tenderness when she would wipe away a tear. I remember the way she held my face in her hands on my wedding day, noting how soft her skin was against mine.

When my children were born, I typically counted their fingers and toes. I watched their chubby little hands grasp a pencil or crayon that was just fat enough to enable them to handle it gracefully. I’ve noticed, as they’ve gotten older, how they have lost their baby fat and have grown slender, right down to their fingers. And I’ve wondered what magnificent things they will do with their hands, and will their grandchildren marvel at them?

Q and A

How Would You Answer That?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? What is the meaning of life? “Why do fools fall in love?” These are great questions that have no answers, or at best debatable ones. It reminds me of the kinds of questions that would silence a room full of adults, because nobody knew what to say, and it would ultimately result in someone blurting out, “You better go ask your mother.” The only problem was, that in those days, even your mom didn’t talk about that stuff.

In today’s world, we are much freer with the flow of information to our children. We’ve learned that ignorance may be bliss but it is also irresponsible. Consequently, I never had a problem answering the question, “where do babies come from?” I usually countered with a question, to see what my son or daughter really wanted to know. It often led to interesting conversations that skirted the specifics, thankfully.

In fact, the only question ever posed to us by either of our kids was when our son asked “What’s a chemical?” Now try to explain that in terms a three year old would understand… He heard the word on a television commercial. We couldn’t come up with a good way to explain it. Nobody could.

I think I’m just glad there were no commercials for Viagra twenty five years ago. Imagine his questions then~