Retool

Apr 042024
 

Well. March went out like a lion and so far, April hasn’t changed her stripes. Rain and wind have kept me mostly inside with my bored dog. Low evening temperatures have stopped buds in their tracks like deer caught in the headlights.

The weather hasn’t helped my mood. Neither has the long (by my standards) recovery period following my ankle replacement at the beginning of December. The process has been physically and emotionally draining. My entire body was affected. Being off my feet for six weeks was isolating. I couldn’t even play with my puppy. Pepper seemed happy with her assortment of caregivers. Still, I’ve wondered about all the chewed shoes, socks, towels, pants pockets, blankets, pillows, furniture…the list goes on.

Four months out, I’m up on my feet and walking, albeit with a lot less energy than I’d like. I do see green growth here and there, along with plenty of daffodils and forsythia. Despite grey skies, blustery winds, and flooded streets, April will eventually deliver the goods, along with my birthday. I’m now old enough to be firmly planted into the demographic journalists, script writers, and healthcare marketers describe as elderly. No way around it. To most people, age is not just a number.

By the way, it almost always rains on my birthday.

One early March morning that falsely promised an early spring, I decided I had to yank myself out of my post-surgery, pre-birthday slump. I started small, making the bed, doing the laundry, putting out the garbage, and walking the dog. A quick ride on the bike ended in ten minutes (it takes a fair amount of foot strength to pedal). One day I brought the back porch furniture up from the basement. My spine paid for that. I stained two wooden planters and earned several cramped fingers. Even a simple repair to my floor moldings (did I mention my dog chewed the moldings?) did me in.

At some point, I sat in my recliner with the heating pad at my back and an ice pack on my shoulder and decided I needed to retool. In a literal sense, that meant throwing out anything that was too heavy, too cumbersome or too challenging for me to use. Who uses a screwdriver anymore when there are lightweight power drills, not to mention fairly efficient electric can openers? Time for a quick trip to the hardware store.

It’s also meant retooling my attitude. I don’t need to become a fixer-upper at my age (there, I said it). I do, however, need to get back to the writing I’ve let slide. Future staining, painting, drilling, hammering, or lifting projects will have to be grouped together and offered to a handy person whose hands work better than mine.

Nor do I need to become the elite athlete I never was. I want to continue to walk my dog, throw her a ball, wrestle with her, ride my bike however far I can, take trips on occasion, and get back to Pilates. I want to eat, drink, and socialize in moderation and savor my alone time. I want to get better at meditating and better at both resisting and forgiving my nutritional transgressions. I’d like to wrestle my rage to the ground or at least push it into a sturdier container.

I’d also like to sharpen my skill set and add to it. Get back to writing, of course, maybe switch up the genres. Improve my French and my rudimentary Spanish. Start a couple of projects and see them through without worrying about their cost or chance of success in the wide world. Be more helpful to people who need help.

While I’m at it, I’m going to learn the Texas two-step. Beyoncé has a new song that’s got everyone kicking up their heels. All I need is some patience, some focus, and a hat.

The First Halloween

Oct 252021
 

I receive requests for this original short story every year at this time. I happily comply.

The all-purpose table had been cleared of dinner dishes and now held four pumpkins, two knives, six magic markers, and several squat orange candles. Claire had switched off the harsh overhead fluorescent and dragged two lamps in from the living room, hoping to create the right atmosphere.

“Mom, Becca’s doing it wrong.” Sadie’s whiny voice cut through the stuffy kitchen air like a dentist’s drill. She glared at her older sister.

“Shut up, brat. I’m making art.” Becca had carved out a single baleful orb and was assessing her work. Her own eyes, heavily lined and shadowed, cut to her mother.

“What? All the 7th grade girls are doing it.”

Guilt is surely a child’s most potent weapon, thought Claire, rubbing a spot between her eyebrows. She exhaled slowly, maneuvered the knife away from her youngest son’s exploratory little hands and forced a smile.

“Let Becca do her thing, Sadie. How’s your pumpkin coming along?”

“Wanna cut, Momma.” Robby was leaning out of his high chair, reaching for the knife. Claire slapped a marker and a smaller pumpkin in front of him.

“Draw a face.”

“It’s not right, Becca,” Sadie persisted.

“I’ll do this dumb pumpkin any way I want, cretin.” Becca waved her hand in dismissal. “I can’t help it if you lack imagination.”

“Mom!”

“Girls . . .”

“Becca’s not doing it the way Daddy showed us!”

“Duh, he’s gone, idiot!”

“You’re the idiot!”

Robby, alert to any discord between his two sisters, chimed in with a plaintive wail. “I wanna Dadda punkin! Want Dadda punkin now!”

“QUIET!” Claire pounded the table, sending knives and markers flying. The children froze, stunned into silence by her outburst and by the single tear that hung precariously from the corner of her eye. She regarded them bleakly: restless older daughter, resentful middle child, and a small boy suddenly marooned among so many injured women.

“Here’s how we’ll do it,” she said firmly. Picking up a knife, she made a series of shallow cuts on the remaining pumpkin to indicate a face. She worked quickly, her labors informed by years of medical training and months of suppressed grief. Within a few minutes, she had the outlines of an expressive-looking face whose sad eyes belied its wide smile. She stood back, feeling oddly satisfied. Robby clapped his hands.

“Good punkin.”

They laughed.

“I like your pumpkin idea, Mom,” Becca ventured.

“Me, too,” her sister added.

“Our pumpkin,” Claire told them. “We’re in this together.”

all-purpose table had been cleared of dinner dishes and now held four pumpkins, two knives, six magic markers, and several squat orange candles. Claire had switched off the harsh overhead fluorescent and dragged two lamps in from the living room, hoping to create the right atmosphere.

“Mom, Becca’s doing it wrong.” Sadie’s whiny voice cut through the stuffy kitchen air like a dentist’s drill. She glared at her older sister.

“Shut up, brat. I’m making art.” Becca had carved out a single baleful orb and was assessing her work. Her own eyes, heavily lined and shadowed, cut to her mother.

“What? All the 7th grade girls are doing it.”

Guilt is surely a child’s most potent weapon, thought Claire, rubbing a spot between her eyebrows. She exhaled slowly, maneuvered the knife away from her youngest son’s exploratory little hands and forced a smile.

“Let Becca do her thing, Sadie. How’s your pumpkin coming along?”

“Wanna cut, Momma.” Robby was leaning out of his high chair, reaching for the knife. Claire slapped a marker and a smaller pumpkin in front of him.

“Draw a face.”

“It’s not right, Becca,” Sadie persisted.

“I’ll do this dumb pumpkin any way I want, cretin.” Becca waved her hand in dismissal. “I can’t help it if you lack imagination.”

“Mom!”

“Girls . . .”

“Becca’s not doing it the way Daddy showed us!”

“Duh, he’s gone, idiot!”

“You’re the idiot!”

Robby, alert to any discord between his two sisters, chimed in with a plaintive wail. “I wanna Dadda punkin! Want Dadda punkin now!”

“QUIET!” Claire pounded the table, sending knives and markers flying. The children froze, stunned into silence by her outburst and by the single tear that hung precariously from the corner of her eye. She regarded them bleakly: restless older daughter, resentful middle child, and a small boy suddenly marooned among so many injured women.

“Here’s how we’ll do it,” she said firmly. Picking up a knife, she made a series of shallow cuts on the remaining pumpkin to indicate a face. She worked quickly, her labors informed by years of medical training and months of suppressed grief. Within a few minutes, she had the outlines of an expressive-looking face whose sad eyes belied its wide smile. She stood back, feeling oddly satisfied. Robby clapped his hands.

“Good punkin.”

They laughed.

“I like your pumpkin idea, Mom,” Becca ventured.

“Me, too,” her sister added.

“Our pumpkin,” Claire told them. “We’re in this together.”

Reaching Inside Out

May 032021
 

Four years ago, I came upon an opportunity to “mentor” an incarcerated individual by becoming a pen pal. The offer came on Facebook via an established and well-recognized journalist friend. That was smart; it got me to notice. What got me to sign up was the chance to do something positive, to get me outside myself.

My pen pal is serving time at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, NY. One year into our correspondence, I visited. We met in a large open space with long tables and chairs separated by low plastic. No, we didn’t talk by phone through glass. I was in the company of maybe two dozen inmates and their visitors, including children. I was by far the oldest there and palest person there.

Our scheduled forty-five minutes turned into three hours because of an unscheduled lockdown which the prison institutes from time to time. I expected to be nervous, and I was, but not for the reasons you might imagine. My guy treated me like royalty. He was easy to talk with. I just wasn’t sure how we could fill three hours.

I needn’t have worried. We talked, mostly about writing, some about his life inside the prison and his family, a little about my experiences as a widow. He brought a lot of his work, some of which I scanned. I bought lunch at the vending machines and we ate companionably. And then I left.

Driving home took three hours and I realized how much the visit had drained me. Nothing like a visit to a prison to understand how debilitating (as opposed to rehabilitating) life in prison must be for the inmates.

The program that connected us allows selected inmates to express themselves creatively. Many of them keep journals. Others write short stories. One is working on a novel. My pen pal writes essays, stories, and plays. One of his pieces made it into a book called Scrolls From a Forgotten World: Prisoners’ Writings and Reflections. His play was produced a couple of years back and a segment of it aired on CNN.

Sometimes I edit his work, mostly not. For one thing, he is improving with practice. For another, his work is authentic and from the heart. You can’t teach that, but you can inadvertently stifle it, and that I never want to do.

He takes great pride in his acquaintance with a “real” author. He claims it’s enhanced his status. All I know is I’ve sent him all my books and he’s gotten them all into the prison library. I can’t tell you how much I love that.

There are rules of engagement, limits imposed by the program, by the logistics of his situation, and by my determination not to promise more than I can deliver. Sometimes all I can do is listen. Mostly, I have to believe that’s as helpful as anything else.

We had a fallow period last year. Like most everyone else, we were both accosted by feelings of despair. I came off my sister’s death and went almost directly into COVID lockdown. In my pen pal’s case, lockdown was that much more onerous. Prisons have been hotspots for virus outbreaks. Visitors were restricted and prisoners lived with the very real danger of living in close quarters within an aging structure with questionable ventilation. Our correspondence faltered.

We’re back to communicating. He has a new play he’s excited to send me. I have a book I want to send him. The prison now allows for paid emails, which he says is what most of the inmates use. I suggested we use email for “emergencies” and stick to letters the rest of the time. They allow for a more personal kind of interaction. The more he writes, the better writer he becomes. I only hope the more I write to him, the better human I become.

For more information on the program, please visit: https://www.transforminglivesny.org/

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