Uncategorized – Page 2 – "ARE YOU THERE, ERMA? IT'S ME, SYLVIA."

Learning to Fly Solo

I remember thinking that I wouldn’t survive without her. A minute, an hour, a day, a month, a year. Now, it’s fifteen years, and there are so many times when I still have to convince myself that her absence is real.

What do I miss most about her? God, so many things. Her wisdom. Her caring, blue eyes. Her voice, quite often the voice of reason and pragmatism. Her quiet strength coupled with an endless supply of empathy and compassion. Her fierce instinct to protect those she loved.

Mom was selfless to a fault, though. She forgave quickly and reserved judgment even when someone deserved a bit (or a lot) of criticism or antipathy. She didn’t hold a grudge, most likely because her energies were needed and valued elsewhere. I truly wish she had saved more of everything for herself, especially as she neared death. Instead, she dug in deeper. All that made Mom a great mother, wife, grandmother, sister, and friend endured until her last breath.

She was perfectly imperfect. In the nearly forty-seven years I had the privilege of her presence and love, one of the things I came to admire most about my mother is that she would listen to everyone else’s opinions of how she should act, react, and deal with others, and then she would follow her heart (especially when it came to anything or anyone she believed in or cared for deeply). A woman of conviction and depth.

Fifteen years since that May Day when she left so many of us to figure it out for ourselves. Perhaps that was the greatest lesson she taught – each of us has to figure it out on his/her/their own. Yes, it takes a village to get through this life; to confront death, however, we must accept that we are on a solo journey. In the end, we must make peace with ourselves.

Mom, I know it now. I have learned it the hard way. Perhaps we all must learn it that way. The “it”? Happiness is fleeting, but peace– real inner peace– that feeling of calm when yearning and desire take a backseat to an unyielding acceptance of self, that’s what allows us to say goodbye.

Until we meet again, Mom. I’ll see you in my dreams, hear your voice in my head, and look at Chandler and see all that was good, kind, and loving in you. Always in my heart.

Sam’s Lesson: The Value of a Good “Sole”

He didn’t wear dress shoes often, but when he did, he wore a good pair of Bass Weejuns or cordovans. He preferred quality to quantity when it came to shoes and life. I’m thinking so much about that today, five years since he left this world, five years since he let go of my hand to rejoin Donna, my mom and the love of his life.

This year, though not nearly as piercing, the pain (which some know as grief but I refer to as an abiding love) endures. My thoughts and memories are more abundant for some reason and in many ways clearer. That may or may not be true, and I’m certain that many will take issue with my claim that the passing of time brings stability and comfort to one who suffers tremendous loss, but I’m sticking with it. I’m clearer. After five years, I am finally breathing a bit easier, inhaling and exhaling regularly without holding my breath in-between; am more forgiving of myself and others (at least I’m trying); and the internal video in my mind’s eye of Dad has been edited to project more pictures of him talking, laughing, engaging and living than of him sitting in the wheelchair smiling and merely surviving as a semblance of the man who lived and loved so actively before Alzheimer’s. Oddly, today as the reel played in my mind, it became more colorful; lo and behold, there was Sam –front and center, at my induction into National Honor Society, at my college graduation, at my rehearsal dinner, and so many other events – wearing his Weejuns.

Of course, over the years, Dad’s original Weejuns (otherwise known as penny loafers) have disappeared. (He likely had two or three more pairs, soled and re-soled) over the course of his fifty-one years of marriage to Mom.) The originals are seen here in this photo of him and his beloved canine companion, Shiner. Oh, how he cared fully and deeply for anything and anyone he loved. He held himself responsible for and accountable to their care. He took it very seriously, as evidenced by thirteen-year-old Sam’s expression – the countenance of a Jewish boy who had just been burdened and blessed with the job of being a man. This photo of that young man wearing those well-worn weejuns has left me smiling and crying and so very grateful. My dad, one of the most humble and kind-hearted men, knew the value of a good sole… and a good soul.

His memory– all of the memories he shared with me through his storytelling and through the creation of those we made together over more than five decades as father and daughter– is an eternal blessing. I am still learning so very much about love, life, and the unquantifiable value of a good soul.

All of us should be as aware as he was of the good fortune of living a life so fully that we wear out only our soles and not our souls!

Peace and Play

I grew up in a New England shoreline town, so the assumption of many who meet me is that I’ve always been a beach lover and sun worshipper. Not true. In fact, I avoided the beach for years, especially when I hit the awkwardness of adolescence. That young girl grew up hating her body and trying to get people to like and love her for being smart and hardworking. I was that girl who avoided pool parties, beach dates with the cool kids (who seemed to like me), and any and all outdoor activities that required exposure of anything more than my smile, mind, and veiled confidence. After all, my sisters –both several years older– had by virtue of birth order and the endowment of petite frames thanks to our mom’s DNA, earned the coveted positions of the cute and perky one and the tiny and tenacious one. This girl, I was the fair-skinned, bigger-boned, studious one. Needless to say, the beach and bathing suits were quite far removed from my wheelhouse.

I often say and think that time and maturity are the great equalizers in life. (I say maturity rather than age because I no longer think wisdom derives solely from the number of years lived; there is a marked difference between growing older and growing wiser.) Those great equalizers are finally forcing me to realize that I’m the one who often stands in my own way. Giving in to those feelings of body loathing and shame and obsessing over how others, namely my peers, “viewed” me prevented me from experiencing two of the most important elements that the beach and ocean offer: peace and play.

As I walked the beach of Siesta a couple of weeks ago, sand in between my toes and a slight ocean breeze caressing my 61-year-old sun-kissed cheeks, I thought about that girl who missed out on so much peace and play in her youth. As I sat down at the base of one of the intricately crafted sand sculptures, I leaned into the moment. I had become the agent of change in my own world. Peace and play were present. How lovely to realize that it was not too late for me to welcome both into my life!

Time & Love: Gifts to Myself

61?! I spent yesterday crying on and off about how little I had accomplished in these six-plus decades. However, in the middle of the night, I began to receive birthday greetings from friends across the globe, and I decided to stop beating myself up with my own expectations and sense of failure. Good thing because what a waste of an extra hour as we set the clocks back! I’d like to attribute that extra hour on MY DAY as divine intervention and a dire reminder.

The greatest gift ever given to me has been time. My mom was the ultimate purveyor, especially to her family. So, it was bittersweet that as she neared death, she shared with me something that weighed on her –neither a resentment nor a regret-but rather a missed opportunity. As we discussed every little and big meaningful moment in her life, she admitted that she wished she had been kinder to herself. She wished she had taken time to love herself.

“Don’t always put yourself last,” she warned. “If you always show others that they come first and that what they need or want matters more, then in the end, you will be put last and come last. You will take a back seat in your own life.” I remember how my heart sank and how I hoped that I had made my mother feel important and loved. I always saw my mom as the driver and the conductor in her (our) family until that moment. I thought then and still ruminate to this day about how I treated my mother, my best friend, and my confidante. And now, more than a decade after her passing, I realize what she was trying to tell me: Don’t seek validation from others. It was not until she stared death in the face that she realized she wanted to live –not for everyone else for she had ‘willingly’ put herself last – but for herself. She had waited to show others that she was important and that she valued herself first. And alas, how she chose to experience her death– the where, the how long, and in whose presence and absence- that was her way of saying, “This last chapter of life is about me. I come first now.”

So, as my birthday comes to a close, I’m gifting myself time and love. After all, isn’t that all we ever have? One is running out, and one is finally growing.

❤

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The Inner Voice

I talk. I talk a lot. To strangers. To friends and loved ones. To service workers. To children. To the older and the wiser. To the naive and unlearned. To the refined and educated. To men and women from around the globe. To people of all races, creeds, colors, religions, and sexual identities. To those who are powerful and those who need empowering. To those who use their voices freely. To those who have just begun to find their voices. Most of all, I talk to myself. Listening all the while.

The voices – all of them at times creating a cacophony in desperate need of silencing – provide depth, meaning, love, and laughter; they are the essence of life’s purpose. And then…

I write.

“I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be still.”
~Sylvia Plath, Letters Home

The Storyteller

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBWbMUNxkJg/?igsh=MXFiMTAzOGwxNG9kdg==

Such a Challenge

One of my favorite people in the world is another Scorpio sister; she and I met nearly two decades ago when I was teaching middle school English at a small private school. I had the pleasure of having her son, a quick-witted and vibrant young man who has since made his way in the world fearlessly and whom I am proud to call friend. Both my soul sister and her son –actually, the entire family including her husband (the “punniest” man I know), their fur baby Lua, as well as their eclectic and completely welcoming groups of friends – have expanded my world in myriad ways, but no way greater than sharing their deeply-seated love of exploration and their zest for living and loving fully.

While my friend and her husband have been in Europe on another adventure, they graciously offered me their home in the Pacific northwest (dog, plants, and roses galore). “Work” never feels like work when I’m on an adventure of sorts. From learning to use an electric mower to visiting Williamette wine country to outings where food, beverage, and above all else laughter were abundant, the months of September and October to this point have been full. My soul is lighter. My heart is fuller. My mind is clearer. And for more times lately than I can remember, I have felt like I – just me – am enough. If truth be told, I might even be too much in the very best ways.

I’m making memories, satisfying curiosities, and challenging myself most days. Those days, these days, are indeed sublime. Life itself has been challenging most of the past six decades. I’m going to challenge it back!

Going solo, I’ve learned to enjoy my own company.

From the Mountaintop

No matter where I am, I AM the mountain. Although sometimes cloud-covered, the mountain endures. I abide. I hold on through life changes, always ready for the sun to poke through timidly or shine brazenly, each time rendering a different perspective. That optimistic anticipation? That unrelenting readiness? That’s called hope.
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“These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence, my optimism.”

(~Virginia Woolf)

“The Mountain is You”
by Chance Peña

Remembering My Wings

All day yesterday, I thought about my father and the unexpected nature of life. As he declined cognitively due to Alzheimer’s, my days seemed to pass too quickly, and there was never enough time with him. As I became more conscious of the limitations and deadlines imposed by his illness and by what it means to live this one mortal life, moments grew longer and more meaningful. Just a moment. A split second. A smile. A laugh. A tear. A memory. My recall now of those moments tends to be in slow motion. Thankfully. I’ve learned that when I become acutely aware of how fleeting life is, I have the power to slow down and take in the present moment.

Not all experiences are meant to become deeply embedded in the memory, but those times when I’m happiest – and right now that means the days, hours, and minutes when I want nothing but peace and I find it and feel it simply – become the salve I need to soothe my soul. The anticipation of meeting up with a new “old” friend (and the resulting pep in my step). Heading out for coffee in a newly discovered café. Sitting and swinging in an unknown spot. All in slow motion the past few days. I remember all of it vividly…today. And maybe, just maybe, that’s all there is, but it is enough.

I’ll just keep using these wings each day.

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A Wildflower

“Like wildflowers, you must allow yourself to grow in all the places people thought you never would.”~E.V. Thompson

“Hello there, my truest friend,”Sylvia says as she looks at herself in the bathroom mirror. She walks away and then turns around quickly to catch another peek. Not satisfied with a quick glimpse, she leans in over the bathroom sink and takes a closer look. “Yep, it’s me, not still me or the same me,” she assures herself, breathing a sigh of relief. She exhales forcefully directly on the mirror, and as it fogs, she embraces the prospect of not knowing who she is becoming and points to her reflection, “Let’s just keep you and everyone else guessing. After all, who doesn’t love a good surprise?!”