Please, No More Deaths of Rock Stars and Quilting on a Deadline

This is what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks:  Rushing to finish two quilt tops so that I can meet the Friday deadline for submitting entries to the Voices in Cloth quilt show in March.

Today I picked up photos of the quilts and sat out in front of CVS at Rose and Shattuck, sorting through the pictures, stapling them to entry forms, making sure I had all the papers in order, and then wandering down to the post office to slide the envelope through the slot.  That triumph called for a stop at the Cheeseboard to buy a Spicy Carrot Muffin, thick with raisins, to eat with a wedge of cheese and a cup of  hot tea.  Bliss.

I still have to make backs for each quilt, cut bindings, and hand it all off to Angie Woolman to be quilted.  But the paperwork is DONE!  (Yes, I could have entered online, but I tried to, lost everything I wrote, and assumed my usual techo-peasant stance: paper is more reliable.)

* * * * *

Way too many people in their sixties--notably rock stars, but also others--have been dying. Awful!  My God, what are we supposed to do with this information?  Seize the moment? (How?)  Drink ourselves silly?  Say what we need to say to certain people?  Make another trip to Europe to see every last bucket-list locale?  In my own case,  get the hokey calico wallpaper off the walls of my studio (came with the house in 1984)?

Recently, I came across a  "List of Possible Things to Do in Retirement, Before Death, With Rest of Life" (taken from an AARP book).  I must have done this about 1994:

1. Books to read: "Middlemarch"--have not done.  Shameful for an English major.

Highly recommend

2. Letter I want to write: to Sandra Albertson (author of  the best book on death and dying that I've ever found: "Endings and Beginnings: A Young Family's Experience with Death and Renewal")--yes, and she sent a gracious response.  I've given away several copies of this book.

3. Foods to try: Go to Green's restaurant in San Francisco--done!  Also, try caviar--yes.  (Found both to be overrated.)

4. Things to learn to do: 

      To weave--no, and I've lost the urge.

      To overcome my fear of driving over bridges--yes, but it was damned scary.

5. Activities to try: 

      Boating--no, ditto re lost urge

      Having a facial--yes and liked it.   

      Rafting the Colorado River--no and don't plan to since I heard you have to poop in a box.

This day trip on the Colorado River in 1993 whetted my appetite for a longer one--until I found out about the poop box.

 6. Trips to take:  London, Paris, and New York--yes to all; several times to New York and London. 

2008

7. Three gifts for myself:  a CD player, a new sewing machine, and more classical CD's--yes to all, and they've enriched my life.

8. The one physical change I want to make in my appearance:  Learn to stand up straight--yes! I'm in the process of learning with the help of a physical therapist.  A long road.

This list made me feel so much better, some 20 years after I wrote it, that I think I might to update it.  Anyone know of a large-print edition of "Middlemarch"?

* * * * *

Voices in Cloth quilt show will be held March 19-20 at the Craneway Pavillion in Pt. Richmond.  For more information,  try this link

Whoever Invented Stretch Jeans Should Get a Nobel Prize

Senator Chew Toy

So the Republicans triumphed; Mitch McConnell, who my friend Val thinks looks like a chew toy, trumpeted; and the horrible conservative columnist for the SF Chronicle, Debra Saunders, said, "it was a beauteous night."

Wretched

Oh, to hell with her.  It's just one more election.  There will be another one in two years, and Hillary might even win.

I don't think I'm in denial about the election--I just went micro.  There are definitely some things to be glad about around here, such as the new cabinet that just got installed in my studio closet:

 Even without drawers, it's thrilling.

And a rose bloomed on a plant I thought had had it:

 Of course, we still have a toilet in the hall.

* * * * *

This morning in the dressing room at the pool, I overheard a couple of women talking. The first said that her mother died two weeks ago.  Then she said some things I couldn't hear, and the other woman responded, "Oh, you mean she chose to leave."

She chose to leave.  Which is how I've been thinking about Brittany Maynard, who ended her life last weekend at the age of 29,  because she had terminal brain cancer.

I went over and asked the woman who'd said that, a regal African American lady (I wondered if it was a  very wise cultural saying) if I'd heard her correctly.

"Yes," she said.  "My mother chose to leave a few years ago."

"Did she use drugs to do it?"  I asked.

"No," said the woman.  "She just gave up.  Too much cancer pain.  She didn't want to live anymore."

"I like that saying," I said.

"People can choose to leave, however they do it," she said.  "It's fine."  She said this in such a deeply grounded, gentle way that I felt she was giving all of us permission to choose to leave, if we find ourselves in the state her mother or Brittany Maynard were in.

(Of course, Debra Saunders railed against Brittany Maynard.)

* * * * *



 Yeah, right

 Claudia M. and I went to buy some clothes in Walnut Creek.  She's employed, so she needed some outfits that look pulled together, and she found a couple of shirts, blouses, and sweaters.  I bought two pairs of jeans and a t-shirt.

What on earth did we do before stretch jeans?  That's about as foreign to me now as wearing a garter belt every day of high school (or rolling my hair each night, for that matter.  Every. Single. Night.  From 1964 to 1968.).  So uncomfortable.

Clothes sizes now are so insane that I'm wearing a size or two smaller than I did in high school, and I weigh 15 pounds more (or 20,  let's be honest). When I pointed this out, the saleswoman nodded and said "It's American sizing."   I said, "What do you mean, obese?"  She said, "You're funny."  Politely.


She kept urging us into smaller sizes, because--guess what?--stretch fabric stretches out.  I thought, So what? They'll be comfortable.

Afterward, we went to Starbuck's for a drink and a couple of chocolate-coated graham crackers, since we were we were smaller than we thought.  Why not?

Remembering Marian

2013

Yesterday I duded up (a dress, no pearls) and went to a memorial service for my friend Marian.  She died at the age of 90  on May 20,  after four months of being tethered to oxygen in hospitals.

I love the part of memorial services where people talk about the person who died: the talents, foibles, idiosyncrasies.  Whether the speakers are scheduled or impromptu, it works for me.  Let's share! But yesterday there were no speakers, no chance to offer memories of Marian, so the sheet with the notes I'd jotted down remained folded up in my purse.  I felt a bit cheated by this, although heaven knows, it's a choice left up to the family.

So here are my notes:

When Marian hired me as a part-typist in Entomology in 1974, and I don’t think either of us anticipated it would lead to a 40-year friendship.  

 

Marian and me at my farewell party in Entomology, 1981

 

I worked for her for only seven years, but during that time I married one of “the men” as she used to refer to the professors because there were no women professors at that time,  and the fact of the marriage continued to mildly blow her mind right up until my last visit with her, two weeks before she died.

 

I made this list of the things that said “Marian” to me:

1.  Saying “My dear!” with a raised eyebrow

2.  Exclaiming “Sartorial splendor!” to any professor wearing a tie

3.  How she saved every postage stamp she came across to add to her collection “later.”  (Did "later" ever happen?)

4.  Peppery

5. Indefatigable

6.  Fun!

7. Devoted to her job.  Jerry said to say there was no one before or after who was so conscientious.

8.  How she’d run downstairs to the vending machines to get a Snickers bar if the workday got too  hairy and then feel guilty about her diet.

9.  The time I went with her to choose a 1977 Ford Granada

10.   How she told me was nothing better than sitting under a tree taking alternating bites of banana and orange.

11. She was adventurous in retirement--traveled often,  especially to see gardens.

12. Her scarves and her Ferragamos

13. Her garden club

14. Her Desert Rose dishes:

Prized

15. Devotion to Cal football and the Cal Band

16. She was a role model for growing old gracefully, yet actively

17. I will miss her.   

Talking to my dad at my wedding, 1977

 

 

 

If You're Aging, You've Probably Wondered About This

Last night I watched a moving documentary I came across on Netflix called, "How To Die in Oregon."  (Are people bailing from this post right and left?  Don't blame you. )

I'd noticed it for a few days among the offerings and thought, oh, hell, why would I want to watch THAT?  I want entertainment!

But during those two weeks of vacation in Inverness, I'd gotten respite from the demands of the to-do list and the clutter of life and traffic (don't get me started), and I felt less like indulging in escape and eager to grapple with something more meaty.

This is a wonderful documentary.  Not easy to watch, but oddly reassuring.

Since 1997,  Oregon residents can choose to use doctor-prescribed medications to end their lives.  The film follows a few patients as they buy the drugs at a pharmacy and eventually use them.  Most have terminal cancer; one has ALS. They all seem sane, thoughtful, and very grateful for life and for the option of a peaceful, pain-free death.  None made an impulsive decision.  All had endured bad days so they could claim the few good ones, until there were no good ones left for them.

This is how it worked:

A volunteer with an organization called "Compassion and Choices" emptied the powder of Seconal capsules into a glass, mixed the powder with water, and handed them to the patient, who could back out at any time.  Their families were with them and supported them.  Drinking the liquid took about a minute.  The patient had time to speak and soon drifted into a coma..

Both patients who agreed to be filmed or audiotaped as they accepted the glass and drank the contents, said, after they swallowed the drug and began to feel sleepy, "It's so easy!"   And "thank you!"  

One, Cody Curtis, a 54-year old woman whom we watch as she struggles with liver cancer, is so dignified, gracious, and articulate, that I felt like weeping right along with her family as she slipped away.  She embraced every day she had, wrung every enjoyment she could find, until the very end.

Cody Curtis

Curtis with her family, who was with her when she died

Only three states--Vermont, Oregon, and Washington--permit assisted death, and in Oregon, the closest to California, you have to be a resident of the state, which requires a year of living there.  Oh, please, let everyone have this choice.

After that, readers--if there are any left--I went to bed and slept easily.  If Jerry were here (he's off counting butterflies), he'd think I was nuts, but I was really glad I'd watched this.

What Would You Do With Only Six Months to Live?

Or  5, 20, or 30 years? 

I think about this a lot. 

By the time you're in your sixties, you know your time is limited.   My dear sister-in-law Delilah died at 51.  My lifelong friend Rob died at 60.

I watched them, and I tried to learn.  But I was still left the problem of what the hell to do with this information on a daily basis?   Another day slips by, used up by making phone calls about bills, changing the sheets on the bed, grocery shopping,  researching cooktops.

Nora Ephron wrote after she'd been diagnosed with cancer but before the rest of the world knew:

"The realization that I may have only a few good years remaining has hit me with real force, and I have done a lot of thinking as a result.  I would like to have come up with something profound, but I haven't.  I try to say to myself, If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing?"  (I Remember Nothing, 2010,  p. 129)

It's a burden, all this questioning and evaluating.  It nags at me.


A week ago I found this in the San Francisco Chronicle:

I grabbed this page  and pored over it.  It's a list of 50 things to do if you've been told you're going to die (which we all have been, one way or another, some more specifically than others).   It  was put together by Hospice by the Bay, with some content provided by the Singapore Hospice Council, and the list starts out like this:

1. First things first, remember you're not dead yet.  [I find this empowering, even though it's perfectly obvious.]

Here are my favorites:

5.   Laugh
8.   Find joy in the mundane. Sit by the window and pay attention to the song of birds.
11. Gobble up food samples in grocery stores.  [I'm always in too much of a hurry.]
16. Talk openly about your illness...Don't shut out other people.  Don't isolate yourself.
24.  Seek out and attend to what is divine, holy or sacred to you. [To me, this means thinking about my strongest values and honoring them by acting on them, which always makes me feel better.]
30.  Share your grief. Witnessing grief gives others permission to grieve.
31.  Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details. [my favorite favorite]
39.  Forgive yourself.
46.  Fall asleep under the stars. [Camping is good if you can manage it.]
50. Take a clean sheet of paper and write down another 50 things to do.

You can find the entire list at www.LivingBeforeLeaving.org

What did Nora Ephron do?

"I aim low.  My idea of a perfect day is a frozen custard at Shake Shack and a walk in the park. (Followed by a Lactaid).  My idea of a perfect night is a good play and dinner at Orso.  The other day I found a bakery that bakes my favorite childhood cake, and it was everything I remembers; it made my week.  The other night we were coming up the FDR Drive and Manhattan was doing its fabulous, magical, twinkling thing, and all I could think about was how lucky I've been to spend my adult life in New York City."  (I Remember Nothing, p. 129).

My sister-in-law painted watercolors.  Rob cooked.

Seeking Solace

This week has delivered two batches of bad, sad news. 

One left Jerry and me stunned:  The young father of the child I mentioned in an earlier post, died suddenly of massive cardiac arrest on Sunday morning. The little boy had just come home from a stay in the hospital, where he is being treated for a rare childhood cancer, Stage IV.  The news about his father seems unbelievable.  I had to read the Caring Bridge post several times to absorb it.  I'm still not sure I have.

The other sad news came from a friend in my quilt mini-group who's been diagnosed with an incurable illness.  In an eloquent e-mail, she informed her friends so gracefully, with such care and gratitude for a good life, that I was awed. I responded to her e-mail right away,  and I was so moved and saddened that words were not hard to find.  She's been on my mind a lot.



Quilt mini-group, banding together now to help our friend

Everyone, everything, seems vulnerable.  Jerry went off for routine blood work--would they find something when they drew blood?  No.  Preposterous.  I waved good-by to my friend Claudia M. after we took a walk this morning, and I worried about her getting over a lingering cold.  My sister, other friends.   Worry, worry, worry. 

Yesterday afternoon, tired of myself and my fears and my house, having done what I could to help or respond to the people involved, I wandered down to Fourth Street in Berkeley for a break. 

 

 

I went into Peet's, and there on the counter was a stack of  salted caramel milk-chocolate bars. 

Before I knew it, I had one in my hand.  Why not?  I'd had some bad news!   Chocolate has always been my go-to when I feel sad.   (Or glad.  When my sister's thyroid tumor turned out to be benign, we went straight to bags of peanut M&Ms).

I put the chocolate back on the counter, possibly for the first time in history.  I'm not sure why.

But what to do with all this sadness?   A glass of sherry?  Work on my bucket list?  Just sit with it, often the best option if I can get myself to do it?   Or--this came to me last night--read some poetry?

I opened Jane Kenyon's collection, Otherwise.  

I felt as though I'd entered an alternate universe,  a quiet, contemplative one, away from noisy distractions (Roku!), focusing on what I thought I wanted to escape.   My shoulders dropped, and I took a deep breath.

Here's one of my favorites, which  Kenyon wrote  before she was diagnosed with leukemia.

Otherwise

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise.  I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach.  It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
To the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate.  It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

Jane Kenyon, 1947-1995

The Kind of News that Stops You Cold

A friend posted a notice on Facebook yesterday that made me drop everything and call her (no sacrifice because if I spend on more day readying this quilt for the quilter, I'm going to leave the damned thing at the bottom of the driveway with a "Free" sign).

Here's the gist of what she posted:  Close friends of hers--whom I know--have learned that their four-year-old grandson has been diagnosed with a rare cancer.  He is in the hospital in Oakland getting chemotherapy.  His mother has moved into his room there.  His father has taken off work.

There's a website where you can give money (this young family has health insurance but a very high deductible), which I did right away.   I told my friend to offer our fold-out bed to the grandparents in case they need a place to sleep, because they live 40 miles from the hospital.

Several times since I learned about this, I've felt close to weeping, always for the grandparents, who are wonderful people and pillars of their West Marin community.  When I told Jerry, he immediately felt empathy for the parents.

"Devastating," he said.  "The thing you most worry about when you're a parent."  He looked stunned.  He's a parent, and his mind (heart) goes straight to that, even though his children are in their fifties.

I went to bed with this on my mind, and I woke up thinking about them.  Haunting.

Frass, etc.

Last week I picked a few flowers from the garden to put on the kitchen windowsill, kind of a cheery-homey thing.

Soon tiny black balls littered the windowsill.  I knew what this was:  bug poop, otherwise known as frass.  I learned this years ago from Jerry-the-entomologist. 

Note the tiny black balls

I wiped away the disgusting black balls, searched the flowers for the defecating worms, found none, and left the flowers on the windowsill.

Next day, more frass.

I complained.  Jerry examined the flowers and found a worm.  Then he explained that the reason the black balls were some distance from the vase is because the worm possesses something called an "anal comb," which enables the worm to fling frass.

Then he coaxed the worm into a vial because he's going to raise it and identify it.  He's pretty sure it's a tortricid, a group of moths he specializes in.  The frass-shooting behavior is diagnostic.

                                                                                2.



A few years ago, I took a drawing class at the local adult school.  It was a revelation.  Drawing turns out to be something you can learn.  I always thought it was something art majors were born with.

Very hard

We drew eggs, oranges, ladders (tricky).  I found it was very meditative.  It's almost as good as swimming for taking me out of my dreary, worry-obsessed self.  True, it's time-consuming, but it's also engaging, and if you can give yourself over to it, it's very relaxing.

Drawing makes me look at the world more carefully.
 

This took ages and let's face it, it's crooked.  Don't care...

                                                                               3.

Yesterday, I got into the car with my friend Anne to drive to the pool, and she told me that her nephew, in his fifties and recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, is not doing well.  He's had surgery and radiation, but the tumor is growing again.  Anne's preparing to drop everything and fly to Chicago, if necessary.

Damn it!  And an acquaintance from high school--Pat Monahan to Del Martians--just found out that the chemo she's been on for advanced breast cancer hasn't worked.  She's switching to another one, per her doctor's recommendation.  She quotes a fellow cancer patient's doctor:

"You can wake up each morning and worry about dying, or you can wake up each morning and celebrate living.  Before you know it, several years may have passed.  Do you want to waste that time with mourning, or use your time to celebrate?"

Brave, brave, brave.  She's celebrating--zip-lining, cruising, working on her bucket list--but I can't help thinking that I'd take more of a Woody Allen-depressive approach if I were in her shoes.


                                                                          3.

Also yesterday:  the pair of sisters who bail us out every two weeks by cleaning the house--God knows how much clutter would accumulate if they didn't come--appeared promptly at 1 pm.  They're always cheerful and kind.

The older one, Sonia, told me that she's 56, much older than she looks, and that she recently took a 10-1/2 hour Greyhound bus ride to Tijuana for medical treatment that she can't afford in the U.S. because she has no health insurance. She's looking forward to buying insurance under Obamacare. 

She rarely goes to the doctor, even though she has high blood pressure.

                                                                           4.

We have new neighbors, a family of five who moved here from San Francisco.  They're renting the house next door.  The boy, an eighth-grader,  is a fan of insects and spiders, and Jerry's already supplied him with a vial to collect things for identification.  The kid is very polite.

There's a spider in there from one of our new neighbors

One of his sisters plays soccer and practices in their backyard.  The other day while I was unloading groceries, a missile of some sort shot past me.  A soccer ball.  I tossed it back to the girl, who was peering over the fence and apologizing profusely.

                                                                         5.

Jerry and I watched a documentary we loved: "Undefeated" (2012 and an Oscar-winner).    It's about a poor high school in Memphis with a losing football team that's  taken under the wing of a volunteer coach, who inspires, preaches, and whips them into shape.  Even if you don't like football, it's moving and instructive.

Most of the players don't have their father in their lives and virtually all have a relative who's in or has been in prison.  College is a far-away dream, accessible only if they manage to win an athletic scholarship.

                                                                           6.

A friend wants me to talk to her  daughter today about insomnia and what I've learned about it. No reading in bed, same bedtime every night, no TV or computer within an hour of bed, limited caffeine.  It works.

Also, drawing, pool time, and walks in the Berkeley summer fog.  It's been one of those summers.

                                                                        

Lawns, Limits, and Quilt Bid Update

The Quilt:  The highest  bid stands at $250.  Bids accepted until April 1.  Thank you for the supportive and enthusiastic response! 


I read a few blogs written by women in their thirties and forties, almost all of them stay-at-home moms (SAHMs).

They're very big on practical advice: how to organize children's closets,  how to design a mud room, where to find a good spice rack, and--this was helpful--the best  and cheapest mascara (see below, Define-A-Lash by Maybelline, really good).

A good tip for any age

It's sort of soothing reading these blogs because no one's talking about having enough money for retirement,  or needing to move to a house with no stairs, or whether to spend money on trips while they can still travel or to save it for when they need help down the line.

These people are still buying stuff, gadgets for their kitchens, Martha Stewart organizers from Target to keep track of busy lives,  color-coded plastic boxes for kids' toys.

Most people I know are all about getting rid of stuff.  They cleaned out their parents' houses, and they've vowed never to leave that much stuff for their own heirs to deal with.

Another difference:  The SAHMs never mention knee replacements or cataract surgery. 

My demographic,  although not exactly falling apart, is starting to show wear around the edges.  Some have been less lucky, like my friend Rob and my sister-in-law, Delilah, who've died in the last decade.  

The SAHMs are still putting in lawns.  They're all about expanding--more stuff, more children, bigger house--while my group is retracting: smaller houses, smaller gardens  (less height, less hair, lighter bones).

We have less time ahead of us, less energy.   To some degree, The End  (you know, death) informs our most important choices and decisions.  We've learned, in a profound way, about limits.

Which is a bummer.  Which may be why I read blogs by SAHMs.

Cemeteries: Do I Have To?

Yesterday I went to graveside services for a close friend of a friend, more in a support role, really, which is how funerals are sometimes.

I'd forgotten how sanitized it all is.  The deferential funeral director who knows the drill and moves everything along.   Everyone else, humbled by the momentousness--after all, someone has died--gratefully ushered through it all.   The hearse appears, people line up, you drive to the grave site, which is draped in astroturf so you can't see the dirt.

The last graveside event I went to--not exactly a service--was eight years ago.  My sister-in-law, Delilah, died.  T here was no undertaker because she had a home burial.  Jerry's brother  Peter had dug the grave over a period of weeks.

When Peter called to ask us to come, he wanted us to run a couple of errands:  We were to pick up a cardboard coffin from the hospice in the small  town near where they lived in  Humboldt County and then go to the grocery store and buy butter and beer.

We did as we were told.  Then we drove out to Peter's and wrestled the knocked-down coffin out of the car.  Peter and Jerry set it up, and Peter measured it to make sure it would fit in the grave.  His daughter arrived from Oregon, and the two of them settled Delilah in the coffin.  Then Peter tied it with a rope and slid it down a plank from a second-storey bedroom window to the ground, where we received it.  The four of us carried Delilah in her coffin, her head resting on her beloved and ancient jean jacket,  to the grave.

Which turned out to be too small.  The coffin wouldn't fit.  Peter sprinted back to his workshop for a shovel and dug out some more dirt.  Finally, the grave was big enough, and the three of them painstakingly lowered the coffin into it while I guided it.   The coffin got hung up on one corner, and I had to push on it with my foot to make it fit. 

It took a lot of dirt to fill the hole.    We shoveled like mad.  The sun was slipping lower in the sky. Two dogs frolicked nearby. Finally, when the grave was full and I was just about to initiate a little service, starting with the words to "Now the Day Is Over," the dogs began yelping.  They'd been stung by swarm of wasps. We threw down our shovels and ran for the house. I got stung on the midriff. 



Delilah's grave, partly covered by heart-shaped rocks

 

 

 

I was traumatized by this experience.  I had never buried anyone personally, and I hope never to again.

I began to wonder, yesterday,  standing in the damp manicured grass, if there was something between the sanitized mortuary burial and the hands-on, horrifyingly real burial of Delilah.  Maybe not.

I resolved to be cremated.  For sure.

Good-by, Nora

From the dust jacket of "I Feel Bad About My Neck,"  2006

Nora Ephron died yesterday, and we are all reeling.  The news came out of the blue, but she'd known for six years that she had myelodysplastic syndrome, a pre-leukemic condition, according to the New York Times obituary. 

No one else can write those movies ("When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle," "You've Got Mail," among others).  No one else can write so eloquently of aging ("I Feel Bad About My Neck").  And certainly no one can ever achieve the payback she did by writing "Heartburn," about her philandering ex-husband, Carl Bernstein.

Oh, Nora.  We will miss you.

Addendum:  I wrote a post about Nora Ephron last August 11 ("Go, Nora").  If I were advanced enough, I'd provide a link to it here.  But I'm not.  She probably wrote about technology and aging,  maybe in "I Feel Bad About My Neck."  I'll have to check.

The Essence of Summer

What am I doing wrong?

I love basil.  I think its fragrance is the essence of summer, but I can't seem to grow it.  Year after year, I try--full sun, water-- but it never flourishes.  

Basil always reminds me of my sister-in-law, Delilah.  She was an avid gardener and grew vegetables and flowers on a cultivated section of the 40 acres Jerry's brother owns in Humboldt County.

In the summer of 2004, we drove up to visit them several times. Delilah was seriously ill, and we wanted to do anything we could to help. They had no refrigeration, so I took all the food, packed into ice chests, including a cherry pie at Delilah's special request.  She was the kind of person you had to force to make a special request. 

On our first visit,  I mentioned that I loved basil and bought a bunch every week for 89 cents at the Monterey Market in Berkeley.  She looked startled and led me out the back door to a flourishing basil plant.

"When I want basil, I just come out here and pick it," she said.  There was no judgment in her voice, just wonder. But  I felt very wanton, spending 89 cents a week on something I could grow myself. 

So I've tried to grow it.  Yesterday I read in Sunset that a gardener's task in June was to "plant basil seedlings every three to four weeks for a steady supply all summer."   Ha! In my dreams!  I'm back to buying bunches at the market, and it gets slimey in plastic bags in the fridge, and then I have to buy more.

Here's a picture taken during our first visit to Delilah and Peter in July 2004,  when she pointed out the basil in her garden.  She died two-and-a-half months later.  In fact, the day we arrived  she'd woken up feeling puffy, she said, the first sign that her remission was over.  I will never forget how brave and graceful she was, or weeding her zinnia beds with her, or massaging her hands on later visits, when she lay in the very hot loft bedroom they shared.

Delilah and Peter, July 2004

 

See It Before You Leave It

I'm always glad I went on a trip.  Past tense. Leafing through my trip journals and blogs in the comforting familiarity of my own home is wonderful. Going through the actual process of the trip isn't always wonderful, and I have to take medication at night to pull it off.  See photo at left.

Last fall, when my dear friend Rob was dying and I went to LA to say good-by,  he told me that one of the reasons he could almost accept the end of his life was that he could no longer travel.  What was the point of living, he said, if he were confined to his bedroom and couldn't even take a car ride?   Five months earlier, he'd taken his last trip, to Europe to meet up with his partner.  To do this, he paid full-fare Business Class and took a machine with him that fed him a special liquid diet through a port in his side.

On our recent trip to Chicago, I found myself thinking often of Rob and saying to him, "Look, I'm traveling!  I'm out seeing the world!"  I like to think he would have approved, maybe even applauded, even though it was only Chicago and I didn't have to take a special machine with me in order to eat.  His bravery far outstrips mine.

But for a long time I wouldn't travel because I was too scared.   Now I go,  but  I try to control for every possible variable by planning way ahead,   researching like mad, and sometimes paying more.   It doesn't always work.

Last year, Italian air traffic controllers went on strike and left us stranded in Verona for 10 hours.  On the same trip, our favorite hotel in New York City gave us a terrible room.  On the trip to Chicago, United Airlines sold my seat and reassigned me to one in the last row, middle seat.  There's only so much you can do.

Despite all that, I feel as though I have to step up, to see it before I leave it.   Next trip: Glacier National Park in August.

The Woody Allen Moment: Shocked, Terrified, and Then What?

Nightmare scenario:  You're sitting across the desk from your doctor, who is telling you that the news is bad, that you have incurable cancer (or heart disease or Alzheimer's).   Maybe she follows up right away with Things That Can Be Done, but your mind is reeling.  You're stunned, shocked,  sad, terrified.

Twice I've been present when bad news like that was announced.  Once when a neurologist told my sister and me that our mother had Alzheimer's Disease (inexplicably, she was kept waiting in another room).  The second time was when my sister and I sat with our aunt while she was told that her uterine cancer had not been cured by surgery.  These were very difficult experiences, but neither was about my own personal mortality.  Or my sister's, thank God.

But I've wondered how I'd feel.  And how on earth I'd go on.

Through a loose network of high school classmates, I just came across a blog written by a woman in my class who's been diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, a recurrence of cancer treated four years ago.  I read the first few entries with trepidation--did I really want to put myself through this,  reading about biopsies and surgery and chemo?   But then I got engaged and read through her 2011 blog and on into her current account. 

Although Pat, my classmate,  recounts awful experiences (a  liver biopsy) and new worries (lung nodules),  she  is uncommonly resilient and upbeat, bouyed by her strong Mormon faith.  She includes pictures of having herself getting her head shaved when her hair falls out and then modeling a wig.  There are photos of her undergoing scans and getting chemotherapy and being hugged by her various specialists.   Her account left me--Mrs. Anxious--actually feeling less scared of what may lie ahead, even though I can't imagine following her example of staging a theme party for each chemo infusion (yes, she does).

She turns on a light in a dark and scary room.

Loss of a Big Tall Daddy

Got sad news last night about the ex-husband of a close friend:  He died of alcohol poisoning  on Saturday after years of estrangement from his wife and two daughters.  That rattled around in my head last night while I was trying to get to sleep.  My friend and her daughters deserved much better from him than he was able to give, and it is just enormously sad.  He loved his tiny daughters and they him, and there are moving photographs today on both girls' Facebook pages of them with their big daddy years ago.

The sleep doctor told me no lighted screens before bedtime, no computer, no TV.  Last night, I cheated and checked my e-mail and learned this sad news.   I wanted to say to the sleep doctor:  "Lady, sometimes life interferes."  Sometimes it shakes you up all over and takes command of your heart. 

Love to D.,  L.,  and A.

Where Will It All Go?

Inheritances are handy, no doubt about it, although I never expected much from my parents.  My dad always said, "It'll all be spent on enema bags," referring to what my sister and I might inherit.  Turned out to be more than either of us expected, although not a whole lot.

Now I'm pondering what's going to happen to my stuff when I'm no longer around.  I look around my studio: quilts, CDs, eccentric book collections, non-eccentric book collections, sewing machines, fabric, paintings I've bought.  Where will it all go?  Bigger things, family items like my piano and some furniture, will go to my sister, but what about my art books and my camera, things that don't seem particularly significant to me now but might be a way of honoring the bond with a friend?  I would like people I love to feel recognized.  At the same time, I don't want to be too much of a micromanager. (Do I?)

My godmother left her sterling silver flatware to me in her will.  She was going to leave me her persian rugs but I didn't visit her enough, so I got cut back to just the sterling.  That was fine with me, no sting to it; inheritances are nothing you're owed or should count on.  At the same time, as a general principle,  I don't think writing your will is a time to get even over the petty stuff.

Maybe it's a New Year kind of thing.  Maybe I'll think about it later.

Looking Micro

 I was all set to outline My Recent Social Whirl, dinners and gifts and generosity (and also some weariness at quite so many dinners out on consecutive nights), but today I came across a slew of posts on my Facebook page about the death of Christopher Hitchens.  He died yesterday of esophageal cancer at 62.   For months, he's been writing about his decline in Vanity Fair, clear-eyed and brutally honest.

 Hitchens's brother Peter wrote a heart-breaking tribute to his brother ("In Memoriam, My Courageous Brother Christopher, 1949-2011" at www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2075133).    I read it and felt  such a resonance with the recent death of my friend Rob.  Both of them, too soon.  So sad, so  unfair.  My God, is this what lies ahead for one after another of us?  I could feel myself sliding into a global funk, beyond sadness into what Jerry calls  "doooom."

When they were small, my adoptive nieces next door could instantly transport me out of these funks. One day when Leah was eight, she and I counted all the lavender plants in about a six-block radius, which takes a lot of careful looking. I couldn't believe how quickly I shed my worries. And it wasn't about distraction or denial: her world was very real.  Is very real.  Today  I'm trying to figure out the equivalent of counting lavender bushes. Just thinking about it makes me feel on more solid ground.  Doooom is quicksand.

Blocks

My friend Rob is  much on my mind these days.  It's been two months since he died, a  dear friend of 49 years lost to  cancer.   Even though I didn't see Rob often after we graduated from college,  I feel haunted by the loss of  him.   Laura, my good friend who's also a therapist, says that each death stirs up memories of other deaths.  This feels right to me.  I'm preoccupied not only with Rob but with my mother, who died 19 years ago.

I'm a quilter, and I've been working on a quilt that is all about green vines.  Apparently.   It's going nowhere.  The other day, I suddenly had an image in my mind of a new quilt block, completely unrelated to vines. I thought, what the hell, and rummaged around in my fabric collection. Then I sewed what I saw in my mind's eye:

  I felt better.  After I stared at that block for a few days and tried to figure out how to incorporate it into a "real" quilt, a bed quilt, I gave up. My hand reached for other fabrics:

The hand-dyed fabric in the center has the suggestion of a horizon.  I can't tell you what this block means exactly, but I can tell you it's in synch with how I feel about Rob right now, that he's just off-shore, in the amorphous blue. When my mother died, I collected pictures of rowboats, and sewed paper xerox copies of them onto plain gray fabric.  I was comforted by the image of her rowing to heaven.

Memorial for Rob

Yesterday morning I got up at 7:30, flew to Los Angeles for Rob's memorial gathering, and returned to Oakland Airport at  7:40 pm. A very long day.

Chris Yee, another friend of Rob's, went with me, and thank God he did, because this involved  renting a car and making our way to a house in Laurel Canyon.  During the drive from Burbank Airport,  I told Chris that I bet there'd be valet parking, and sure enough, when we arrived at the house,  there was a squad of women done up in black pants, bowties,  white shirts inscribed with "Valet of the Dolls."  They disappeared our silver Kia.   We got lost trying to find the front door. 

Several male guests getting out of cars wore dark suits and ties, and Chris momentarily freaked out because he was wearing jeans and a North Face jacket.  I said, Rob was in the entertainment industry!  The business types will wear suits and the creative ones will wear jeans.  I was right.  It was about half and half, if you count black t-shirts and jackets in the suit category. Overheard snippets of conversation re scripts and nominations.

The house was built up the side of a steep hill, four levels, the second of which was devoted to the party.  A sumptuous buffet, a bar, photos of Rob and his sister in 1950's Roy-and-Dale cowboy outfits,  pictures of Rob and his partner Emanuel  in European sidewalk cafes, and  a framed cover of the New York Times magazine that featured Rob when he was a dancer with Merce Cunningham.  Elegant bouquets of yellow roses and white hydrangeas.  An poster-sized photograph of Rob, the one that appeared with his  obituary in Variety.  Outside, the back garden was terraced, the main level a worn astroturf lawn with tables and more bouquets and another bar, another poster of Rob.  The sun shone, the eucalpytus swayed in a light breeze.

The most touching moments:  Meeting four of the "Six Saints," as Emanuel called them, close women friends of Rob's who brought food to him, called 911, spent nights in hospital rooms, and kept him company when Emanuel was traveling.  Each wore a tiny silver wishbone pinned to her sweater.   And talking to Rob's stepmother, Mary, whom he adored and who had traveled from San Jose, with her sister, who lives with her in the house where Rob grew up. 

Meeting Mary was both moving and instructive.  In her eighties, having lost both her stepchildren to cancer this year, she is grieving but lively,  deeply empathic but accepting of death in a way that I can imagine was a great comfort to Rob.   As Chris said, she is a role model.

And then, very soon, it was over, and we stood on the front steps of the house waiting while the lady valets  rushed around retrieving and delivering cars.  People chatted about all sorts of things, plans for getting together for lunch next week.  And I thought, is this it?  It's over?  The way I always do after a memorial service or funeral.  We reclaimed our Kia and drove back  to Burbank.

R&R in PR

We're near the end of a ten-day visit to Pt. Reyes,  really to the nearby town of Inverness, and I'm feel refreshed.  I almost cancelled the trip because I couldn't face the hassle of packing up for it--we don't travel light--but sitting in a small cottage surrounded by oak and bay trees turned out to be a good idea. 

My friend Rob died ten days after I said good-by to him, and five days before we were scheduled to come here.  He's been  much on my mind.  At first I felt heavy with sadness, discouraged by the way life works out sometimes (hell, ALL the time; it ALWAYS ends in death).   Soon after we arrived in Inverness, rain started and went on for three days.  I wondered why we'd bothered to come.

Now the weather's cleared up, no rain, less fog.  We've taken some good hikes. I've visited with a couple of Inverness friends.  Jerry and I walked all the way out to the Pt.  Reyes Lighthouse (300+ steps), and we  also visited the historical Coast Guard Cemetery, both  firsts in 15 years of vacationing here.   I feel better. 

Still sad, though.