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Chicago - City of grit and hope

When the maple leaves start to turn orange and drop to the wet ground when the rains turn cold, I always think of my favorite city, Chicago. The perfume of wet, freshly fallen maple leaves takes me back to the mid-80s, when  I spent all my weekends in Chicago to escape the quirky college I attended in my least favorite town,Kankakee

My best friend lived on the South Side and she married a guy from housing projects on the Near North Side. She dropped out of college when she got pregnant and moved in with her in-laws. I was a farm girl and ate up all that urban grit. The knife fights, the make-out sessions with my friend's brother-in-law in the bedroom upstairs with the radio turn low, the showers with no water pressure, the pick-up basketball games, the gigantic blocks of WIC cheese, the problem of not being able to get a job because even your address wasn't good enough. My friends' joy of living, the passion for trying to make a decent life, a safe life, and their intense loyalty to a city that challenged and nurtured them was unlike anything I had known in anyone in the flat corn country where I grew up.

Back in those college days, we prowled the waterfront parks at night, haunted the cheapest diners, maybe went roller-skating or out for pizza at Gino's East when one of us got paid. As the lake crusted over with ice and the need for me to study and my friends to make money, we moved on and lost touch.

My life brought me to Chicago in an October 20 years later for one of the city's cursed marathons, I enjoyed the city even when I had money to go to restaurants, stay at hotels in the Loop downtown, and to take an architecture tour to gawk at the first skyscrapers ever built and the new ones being built. Chicago was like me! (Or at least I like to think so.) Chicago had succeeded just as I had. It felt like we reached a comfortable, prosperous middle age at the same time. The Millenium Park expresses for me the city's joy about being prosperous and talented and, let's face it, fun. That fountain with the faces that spit waterfalls? Who couldn't love that? The Bean, the highly polished stainless steel mass, reflects the entire skyline or your own face depending on where you stand. And let's not forget the night Obama won when thousands gathered in hope that Chicago's mojo would rub off on the world

With all the attention focused on Chicago in the past year, I started a novel based on my experience. Thinking of my friends made me long to try to make contact yet again and, once again, I search on Facebook. This time - about 20,000 words in, I found them!

We met again this year after twenty years and more apart. We spent time together as soon as I could fly to O'Hare and we spent the day sailing on Lake Michigan in their sailboat on a glorious summer day.The years slipped away and the joy returns when we talked of how much we meant to each other and how often we thought of each other and I try to stay only a little jealous that they never left Chicago at all. I was delighted they fulfilled their dreams, they have prospered and that my book could yet have a happy ending!

Death and all her relatives

Death has been on my mind, and I haven't even been riding my motorcycle lately. My first and foremost sad news is that my close female relative died suddenly about three and a half weeks ago. My father and I just finished a weekend visit. I arrived on a Friday night. By Saturday afternoon, we drove the sixty miles to her nursing home and set up residence in the facility's guest cottage. My father had not seen her since before Christmas and he spent all the time he could spare sitting in her room and chatting with her. She had had a rough winter, with many changes, a loss of freedom and no very clear memory of why she had lost her apartment and was strong-armed into a one-bedroom apartment without so much as a refrigerator or even a door that locks. While my father and I read or worked crossword puzzles or asked her about the old birthday book we found, she lay on her bed in a fetal position sleeping. On Sunday, we spent time the same way, except that she made to the church service down the hall with us. On Monday, she napped less and even wanted me to wander the halls with her to see he she knew who might be visiting their relatives in the parlor. I went with her and we found a lady wearing green for St. Patrick's day who smiled at her. My aunt said “Hello. I saw you smiling at me, so I we must know each other.” I found it very sweet of her to think that people who smile at her are her friends and to have every expectation that she would find a friend where ever she goes.
We said good-bye Monday morning. We spoke by phone Monday evening. By dawn Tuesday morning, she was dead.
She fell during the night on Monday, hit her head against the concrete floor covered with a thin carpet and no padding, and died of a cerebral hemorrhage seven hours later. The blood-thinners that kept her blood from clotting in the veins in her head caused the blood to fill her brain cavity very quickly once it started seeping out there. Instead of going to the airport, I went to the hospital and the funeral home that day, St. Patrick's day.
Several weeks before my close relative died, I found that my godson, who I had not seen since 1984, died in a fire as a teenager, ten years ago.
Last night, I saw Leonard Cohen perform in concert. To say that death is a theme in his songs is an understatement. Many of his songs and poems address death and loss in at least some form. One of his songs, “Who By Fire?” is a variation of a prayer recited on the Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Atonement. It lists the various circumstances around which a person can die. As I sat not too far from the stage, enjoying Leonard's gravel-voice and the bright blue glow of the theater's argon lights, when the litany of fates overcame me and I wept right there for the first time that night.
Today, we went to the Page Museum to pay tribute to the animals that had died in the La Brea tar pits. Oddly, no raccoon bones have been found, but the tar pits were especially dangerous for the scavenging dire wolf. The wolves, seeing easy prey in the pit, would attack and become victims themselves. One wall of the museum was lined with hundreds of skulls from all the dire wolves who had died and been found millennia later. The skulls, mounted backlit in orange, all faced the same way as if the wolves saluted death and reported for reassignment.
Only one person so far has been found in the pits, a woman, who received only a couple mentions in the museum. She found herself stuck and sinking, waiting to die. The pits are still there, all potentially deadly, but their threats mitigated by eight-foot iron fences. We all can and do anticipate our own deaths, but we do not feel the weight of our fate until we are mired in the circumstance we feel will be fatal and that uncertainty saves us. It leaves us space for our tears, our hope, and our joy and sadness.

The plot thickens

Almost as soon as I told my friends and family I had signed up for NaNoWriMo 2008, a family emergency came up.  My close female relative was found wandering confused after dark one night near her home. She said someone locked her out of her apartment and she couldn't get back in. She didn't realize the keys she had were her keys and that she could have gotten back in.

The administrators at the retirement community where she lives want to take steps to protect people who can't remember where they are and what they are doing. So, they moved her to the nursing facility for a week to make sure she's taking her medication. Tuesday, she moved to an assisted-living facility. She is quite upset. Not only does she have to get rid of 80% of her things, she is not allowed to leave the facility unattended.

 

(photo from er1danus on Flickr)

To make things even more unsettling, I live 2,000 miles away. She doesn't remember that I spent two complete days with her. Instead, in her mind, we spent hardly any time at all with her, but instead were plotting about her behind her back.

My November will be spent on airplanes, which is not bad for writing. But, I'll also be moving my close female relative's items to storage or prepping them for auction. My 50,000 goal just became a lot more difficult. Also, a colleague told me there is already a book told from the viewpoint of a man in a nursing home, Water for Elephants.

New economy, new country, new name, old TV show

I finished my first session as a coach in a Dale Carnegie class several weeks ago. There's something I like about the unfettered optimism of the training philosophy. The Dale Carnegie program came out of the 1910s when scientific progress and business progress and the economy were all still tied together quite neatly. (I like that era's mindset also because I was in a church denomination that started at the same time. The denomination was progressive for its time by allowing the ordination of women without hesitation, something that more established churches still have trouble allowing. The confidence that humanity is redeemable always appeals to me, especially when I don't believe it. I'm charmed by the idea that it some people believe it even when I don't.)

But, I digress.

Last night, the instructor treated his coaching team to a dinner at a Thai restaurant. He shared with us all the Olympic stories from Dale Carnegie courses he taught. (The other thing I like about Dale Carnegie is that it's all about stories.) We talked about different customs between the U.S. and Asia, and the Middle East. Driving in the U.S. ruined our Taiwanese colleague for driving in Taiwan. He said that he failed his U.S. driving test three times because he was driving too aggressively, Taiwanese style.

The topic turned to interesting Western names Asian people choose for themselves. I shared my favorites (Blues, More, Tiger, Sygnet, Weapon)

The Taiwanese coach, told us he hated the Western name his father picked for him (John), and so he picked his own name. He liked Family Ties and he liked Michael J. Fox's character so much that he named himself Alex.

Ever since then, I've been thinking happily about the prospect of picking my own name from my favorite characters in television, literature, or the world stage. Too bad we didn't pick up the tradition of choosing our own names (or letting a trusted spiritual leader help us find one).

Hmmmmm... What would my name be? Margaret? No. Jane? No. Thursday? No. Friday? No.

Still working on that. It could take a while. It took Alex quite a few years to decide.

Romantic coincidence

W. and I celebrated Valentine's day quietly at home.  He got me a book I wanted, and I got him some fancy French-style chocolates and chocolate-making lessons at a nearby chocolatier.

He watched a movie I selected because I thought he would enjoy it, namely The Illusionist. I haven't told him yet that I actually fell asleep between the time he started in with the show with the apparitions and the time Paul Giamatti's character figures things out in the final scene. (Usually W. is the one to fall asleep and the one to pick the movies.)

We shared some chocolates and gave each other the exact same card with the exact same sentiment.  Awwww.

Driving all your cars away...

My so-called vacation last month was less than restful. We spent a lot of time sitting in an action to buy the occasional quilt we liked.  Waiting for items to come up at auction is excruciating. I'm not cut out for that sort of waiting game because I have to pay close enough attention not to miss things. The auctioneer's chants drone on and on.  The "Hup! Hup!" of the crowd watchers becomes about as soothing as the sound of waves crashing on the shore. Before long, someone next to you pokes you and tells you your item is coming up and you realize that you've been way too obvious about what you plan to bid on. The mixture of boredom, anxiety and desire does not make for a quiet, satisfied mood.

The other reason our trip lacked in restful was that we spent a lot of time working on our relatives' technology (computers, cameras, printers, and so on), installing DSL here, setting up a Kodak EasyShare printer there.  Interesting, but not calming.

Mostly, the "vacation" was not restful because I wanted to broach the subject of driving cessation with my close female relative. She really, really shouldn't be driving. (I've mentioned her before in my blog.) I even did my homework by reading a book called The Driving Dilemma: The Complete Resource Guide for Older Drivers and Their Families by Elizabeth Dugan. On our drive to my close female relative's house, I practiced the interview techniques with W.

Finally, on day four or five, I overcame my trepidation and broached the subject. Close female relative, it seems, has realized that her driving talents are not optimal. Given her propensity to lose consciousness, she knows she should not get behind the wheel any more.  Yet, she hasn't quite come to grips with the local transit situation.

The good news is, there are people near her who could help her come to grips with her new situation.  The good news also is we contact each other more regularly to use Microsoft's Remote Assistance feature (I can take over her computer from 2,000 miles away to help her fix issues). The bad news is that I'm 2,000 away and cannot do as much as I would if I lived closer.

As for the book, it's a light-weight read (most of it describes the laws in each state.) It's been helpful and so far, I've bought three copies.  I consider it a small price to pay for a family member's dignity and possibly some stranger's life.

Happy Anniversary, W!

So, I took down my photo a while back, mostly for reasons of paranoia.  I've added back in something sort of graphical largely to please my most faithful reader, W. 

Hi, W!  <waves>

Sweetie, today is our twentieth anniversary and you'll notice I added something for you.  I hope that, occassionally, a Japanese word turns up that you don't already know. At any rate, I look forward to hearing how you agree or disagree with the translations.

Anyway, happy anniversary! Hope you like it this little token of my esteem and affection (and love)!

Studio envy

Week of April 2, 2006. My friend, E., and I stopped by Beverly's Fabrics and Crafts on our way out for an evening on the town. While we were there, I bought diaper pins for W. He wanted the ones with the blue ends, not yellow or white.  It's not that odd, buying diaper pins for one's grown spouse. He needed something to pin his keys to his running/triathlon shorts. Regular saftey pins are too flimsy. They came in pakages of four, so I took one for myself, too. In a fit of remembering the great calligraphy studio I enjoyed in January, I bought myself a calligraphy pen. E. was looking for roses for her mixed media collage project.  I don't think she found any.  After we went out for drinks and conversation, she showed me the studio she set up for herself in the shed in her back yard. As a consolation, she let me pick some ribbon her sister's friend had sent her. We also swapped books. She didn't take Soiled Doves, but she did take A Country Doctor. E. loaned me some Octavia Butler and Ann Taylor.

After that night, I didn't hear a word from her for at least two months and counting (I'm posting about this more than two months after the fact).  I guess that's not a very long time, really, except in blog-land.  I haven't seen much of F. either since our trip to NYC in March. 

Many many times I've thought of calling E. to come over and do something artistic in her studio. Instead, I've been stewing in my own juices and not feeling very sociable or creatively productive. E. also has a cool job in marketingland.  She told me once she could see me as a creative director (trust me, my blog doesn't show the whole story), so I also envy her her job, too. You see, I'm about to change jobs. I don't know which job I will change to and even my boss doesn't know it yet.  That whole internal drama of waiting waiting waiting to hear from interested parties is taking a lot more of my energy than I usually realize.  My friends must feel that I've flaked out, like a true Californian. 

I've assimilated!  Woohoo! 

Next time I call my friends will be when I am looking for job, also a very California thing to do.

Is listening ... radical?

I've been reading a book called called Radical Presence: Teaching as a Contemplative Practice by Mary Rose O'Reilley. It has been giving me ideas about an "experiment in friendship." I'll quote a bit from the book:

"In order to practice radial presence -- to come home to your heart and listen deeply to others who look for your there -- someone must first listen to you. Celtic spirituality calls this person the Anam Chara, or soul friend. For years I had wished for a true spiritual teacher ... What I fond instead was a buddy.

"... As we became friends, we decided to spend two hours a week in a process we called 'deep listening.' We developed a simple formula: you talk for an hour and then I talk for an hour. We didn't plan to ask a lot of questions or interrupt much beyond a few clarifications, or give advice. At various times, we broke most of those rules.

"How does this listening work, and what's deep about it? Don't all of us know how to listen? On the contrary, I think we know how to shut down. Self-preservation compels it. ... There is much to hear, but little worth listening to."

That passage got me to thinking (I heard it in a woman's writer's workshop in January). Even though the author started the practice of meeting for two hours a week with someone "radical listening" for spiritual reasons, I thought it would be very helpful for the process of writing. In my job day-to-day, I work on my own and I spend very little time interacting and talking with other people. By the time I sit down to by myself write, I feel anxious to go talk to someone, to socialize. To me, it would be enormously helpful just to articulate my problems and difficulties with creating a story, with the frustration of the writing life, with just anything that comes up. I think it would speed up my growth and development as a writer.

I certainly would not rule out reading and discussing my work with another writer, however, I want a bit different focus.  In the book, the author goes on to relate moments where people's lives are transformed just because someone listened to them. For me, as for the author, the talking for an hour was the hard part. If I can't even talk for an hour with my friends, how can I write from my heart for the hours on end it would take to finish my novel?

I have in mind that if, after listening to me for a while, that if someone offered to read my stuff, that would be great, but that I wouldn't necessarily ask or expect the other person to do so. I'm lucky in that I already have a lot of people willing to critique my writing. What I don't have is someone to talk to the doubts, the struggle with finding a voice, my fuzziness about technique, frustration with not finding or making the time to writer, about the whole process of writing and being a writer.

All these fantasies are moot, because I can find no one interested in experimenting.  Is listening to each other really so radical?  Really?

Bitterness or pleasing astringency?

Later this year, my spouse and I will have known each other twenty years and three months after that, we will have been married for twenty years. Yes, it was a whirlwind romance and no, it was not because I had a bun in the oven.

My spouse, W., occasionally expresses amazement that I have stayed around. He suspects I harbor bitterness toward him, and he sometimes tries to catch me in the act of expressing it or feeling it. The last time he probed me was last night as I watched another rousing syndicated episode of Sex and the City.  I had just watched in disbelief as Carrie turned away from an open casket viewing of a young man Miranda met but never quite dated, claiming primly that she'd never seen a dead person. Come on!  Really?  I just don't keep my disbelief suspended during moments like that.

Just then, W. asked me how I liked watching the show and I replied that it is like watching a train wreck. The women seem outrageously distanced from basic human experiences or sheltered or clueless or something or all. It's fascinating.

My spouse then asked me, "Do you ever resent me for keeping you from an exciting life in New York, like in the show?"

I turned to stare at him, "Are you serious?"

He really wanted to know, saying perhaps I would have wound up in NYC if we had not met, maybe having the adventures like the ones depicted in the show. Clearly, he has never actually watched the show, but I said without pause, "First, I'm not neurotic and second, I've never been single and in my thirties. Why would I want to be single and thirty in New York?"

I realized today that I will never have been single and thirty-something. What a relief!Time will only tell if the same will be true of my forties, but so far so good.

One thing that has led to our success as a couple is that we change enough to keep each other's interest, but not enough to be too scary. In some cases, all that needs to change is our perceptions of each other.

Recently, W., who hates coffee, has taken up an interest in Starbucks. He doesn't so much like the coffee, he like the wireless hot spots. While he's there, he happens to buy a cafe mocha and puts about five saccharin packets in it till it tastes so vile I could never drink it.

It just dawned on me that he cannot stand bitter foods. Maybe he is a supertaster, someone with extra taste buds, someone especially sensitive to bitter tastes. I eat just about anything. I don't mind strong black coffee, one of the most bitter foods imaginable. I want to buy bitters for making the occasional mixed drink. I don't mind endive or broccoli, or foods with plenty of alkaloids. I buy bittersweet chocolate. No problem.

W., on the other hand, avoids such foods. It these sorts of revelations that keep things interesting. They snowball. I realized W.'s preference for sweetness and avoidance of bitterness carries over into our relationship.

He has accused me on occasion of not being very romantic. It is true that my tolerance for treacly foods and treacly relationships is not high. On the other hand, my "pleasing astringency" stretches his norm for what he finds pleasant, especially where reactions to movies are concerned. He allows me my bitterness and I allow him his rosy disposition, especially that a.m. energy thing he has.

Every year at our anniversary, we used to go out for dinner and "sign up" for for double the number of years we just completed.  When we got to about year seven, we stopped that and discussed just signing up for another year. Maybe this year, because it is such a special accomplishment to be married 20 years, to honor the occasion, we will sign up for another 20 years.

If I propose this, it may seem too sweet and romantic, though, not astringent at all.