23 from 55

This morning I was enjoying my morning ritual of coffee in front of the fire when, after thinking of my dad for a moment, I briefly did some mental calculations and realized that by the time Dad was my age (55), he'd already been dead for five months. 

Not that you continue aging after your death, but you get the point.  I realized I had outlived the lifespan of one of my parents. (Mom's alive and kicking at 85, so I guess that's the next milestone to beat.)

My dad has been gone now for 32 years, which is more years than I was old when he died (I was 23). The significant thing about that is that as of the time of this writing, he's been out of my life for far longer than he was ever in it. 

With that kind of time and distance comes a certain acceptance of how things went down, which in turn allows you to pick up the whole tragic situation like a long-carried talisman, turning it over and examining exactly how it was made and what exactly it's made of. 

With some people in our lives, especially our parents, it's only with the passage of time that we can really understand what their life has meant to ours -- how it shaped, conformed or deformed it, and how that's played out over the decades. And you sure as hell can't learn or know that at 23.

That's because 23 is far too young to lose a parent, even though on paper it looks OK because legally you're an adult. It's too young to lose a parent even if that parent was not a particularly good one. But in our society, adulthood is probably more accurately measured in terms of life experiences rather than our actual years, so as the saying goes, at 23, you ain't seen nothin' yet, kiddo.

The other thing that makes it complicated is that my dad died in no small part due to his own actions. He was an intelligent, complex and depressed man, a diabetic who became an alcoholic (basicially an engraved invitation to Mr. Death to come on in). He was also a chain smoker, and it was that which got him in the end. A cough that had been with him so long it was how I used to locate him in a crowd or in the grocery store turned out to be a harbinger of lung cancer. It was diagnosed in the summer of 1983, and the doctors gave him six months to a year to live. 

They offered him chemo; he tried it once and gave up, saying it made him feel too sick to want to live that way. And then he spent his last few months visiting the bars he so loved, laying on the sofa, and telling me he had nothing to live for and therefore had no regrets about dying. 

At 23 I may not have had a lot of life experience, but by the time 24 rolled around, I was mentally 40.

But of course I was not, really. And in the years after my father's early departure, I made one impulsive, stupid life choice after another. Sometimes a death close to you kick starts your survival instinct, and sometimes the ways in which that instinct plays out looks like a years-long manic episode, filled with partying, traveling, screwing around and making/breaking vows to everything and everyone, including yourself. 

Of course I wasn't completely dysfunctional; I'd finished my college degree and had a career, an apartment, and paid all my bills on time. But my personal life is where the chaos was, and that's what part looks certifiably insane when viewed from the rear-view mirror of the calm present.

Somewhere around age 30, or seven years after my father's death, I settled down and had my son. And straightening up and flying right became more than about fixing me; it was about being fixed for somebody else, someone who totally depended on me. Having a child was a good enough reason for me to want to live well and live long.

And now here I am at roughly the age my own father died, with a son roughly the age I was when I was left fatherless. Seeing him at that age has made me more forgiving of myself for The Crazy Years, because 23 is just too young to be on your own completely, no matter how you think you feel about your parents and what you think you know about life. I see that in my son in a way I was never able to see it in myself at the time.

I'm more forgiving of my father, too, but still sad that he didn't stick around long enough to see how it all turned out. Perhaps I'll never know all the reasons why he gave up. But likewise, he'll also never know all the reasons I won't, or experience all the wonderful things he could have lived to see, but chose not to.

 At 55 years old, I feel like I've just started the third act of a four-act play. So much can still be started, be seen, and be felt. There's just so much more to life than what my father couldn't see when he was my age. 

That is, more than anything else, the talisman I've kept with me, even in the crazy years, but especially now. The secret is this: sometimes you live on not only because of the value you see in yourself and in the world around you, but most importantly, in the value others see in you.

Your heart beats for more than just you. 

This Year

Summery.

Well, the holidays are almost over and it's back to regular life for now. I received many lovely prezzies but one of my favorites is this tablecloth, which I asked my son for. I have no summer tablecloths and I thought this one would fit the bill well.  Only it was so pretty I had to use it right away. So it's July in December here at the homestead. Put on a t-shirt and have some lemonade.

Death of a Princess.

One of the reasons I was looking for cheerful decor was a bit of sadness over the too-early loss of Carrie Fisher.  "Who'll be my role model now that my role model is gone?" sang her ex-husband Paul Simon on a song called "Call Me Al." Indeed. Carrie Fisher was, in fact my role model when I was a teenager and I saw her in "Star Wars." She inspired a generation of girls to be more than just someone's husband or daughter. Be a senator. Be a freaking star pilot. And be a princess, but not the kind of pastel pink, glittered, pouting and preening model we hold up to girls today...once again, sadly. (Feminism is one step forward and a couple back, it seems sometimes.) Perhaps her death will spurn a revival in being more of a kick-ass kind of princess, who wears a dress she doesn't mind getting covered in dung when she hops into the garbage chute to escape The Evil Empire. I hope so, anyway.

Anyway, 2016 certainly seems to have generated a lot of hostility from the world. I know people who are staying up late this year just to watch it die. In many ways, on a personal level, for me it was good. But in others, it was more like that Facebook friend you have no intimate disagreements with but realize from their posts that they have some serious, off the wall cray-cray going on inside their cray-cray craniums. I don't think many would argue that 2016 was a rollercoaster in many ways.

Tide's coming in to wash another year out to sea.

Maybe in some ways I kept 2016's craziness at a distance. But I will miss Carrie Fisher's wit, guts and humor. I'll miss David Bowie's and Prince's music. And I'll miss having a President who did not make me quite so nervous as this incoming one does. We will see. That's all any of us can say at the year's end, and it's no different this year.

Because either way, it's over and we're marching into 2017. Big Ag and I will be at our favorite Italian restaurant -- early -- where we have a standing New Year's Eve reservation. And we'll sleep through midnight like children who didn't manage to stay up late enough. Nothing wrong with Second Childhood if it lets you sleep well. By the time we wake up we'll have at least seven hours of a successful New Year already behind us.

Happy New Year one and all. Hope you are exactly where you want to be at midnight, even if it's just tucked in and dreaming in your own comfortable bed.

Use/enjoy it. Nothing lasts forever.

Use it! Enjoy it! Because it's beautiful, and because...

This is the time of year when we all start breaking out our winter/holiday finery, including tablecloths, decorations and even special furniture.  This last weekend I bid in another online auction and got this gorgeous mahogany dining room table for $200. (Thanksgiving on my mind! It has TWO leaves and can expand to 120 inches!) 

I know many people who have dining room tables like this in their formal dining room, and rarely use them. Which seems like a shame to me. I think the things we buy should be used and enjoyed. That's why we don't have a breakfast area, and instead eat all our meals at the one dining room table, thereby visiting with it almost every day. It's gorgeous, so why not look at it every time we sit down to a meal?

I remember going to an antique store several years ago which featured toys for sale -- in their original boxes, unopened. Apparently that is the gold standard for buying these kinds of things -- toys like Barbie dolls and stuffed animals are highest priced in their original wrappings, unused.

How sad that we relegate such things to uselessness in order to keep their value. It's one thing to take care of what you own to make sure it lasts a long time, but entirely another to never enjoy it or never use it for the purpose for which it was intended...gee, and I thought formal dining rooms people rarely went into was sad.

About 18 years ago, my mother found an antique sideboard at a junk store, liked it and purchased it for me at the bargain basement price of $100. Upon doing a little online research, we discovered that it was a one-of-a-kind Brown-Saltman piece from the 1930's and was probably worth between $4,000 - $10,000. She was thrilled. I was dismayed. The insurance company was helpful in putting together a policy for it. Which meant, as a struggling single mom and beginning teacher, I was now in possession of a piece of furniture that needed its own insurance policy. I felt a little sick.

For months I worried about the piece, not putting anything on it, not allowing the kids within a mile of it. I was almost afraid of it, yet at the same time resentful -- how had I unluckily come into possession of something which clearly demanded so much respect as to not be touched or used?

And then my best friend visited and told me I needed to use it and enjoy it. She said that was what it was created for. And if an accident happened -- it got scuffed, dented or scratched -- well, nothing lasts for ever, she said.  

because....

The message is the same, whether it's home furnishings or something even more intricate yet also temporary: the sand mandalas the Buddhist monks spend months creating, only to to pause for one moment at it's completion and behold its beauty before sweeping it away, forever gone. The message is clear: Use it!  Enjoy it! Because nothing lasts forever. And an unused toy wrapped in a box is worth nothing, because it's never fulfilled it's purpose of being played with and loved by a child. I don't care what the auction house says.  

The fact is, if it's a creation made by man or even in nature, it has a life expectancy. Give it a life worth living by using it, for heaven's sake.

Nothing lasts forever.

Portia passed

It happened this morning. She basically got up when I came into her isolation coop, stretched, arched her back ... and fell over dead.  Upon getting a closer chance to examine her, I determined that what I thought were roundworms were, most likely, some kind of early-stage maggot, starting to breed around her back end due to her diarrhea, which she's had for a week or so, ever since she became ill. 

So while I now know it's not internal parasites that killed, her, I'm not exactly sure what did. She was on the older side, and so it's possible some opportunistic disease got to her.  This is the only explanation that I can come up with, since the rest of the flock is parasite-free and healthy. Often worms, maggots or other opportunistic parasites will flourish in a sick bird, which is what I think happened here.

One thing I have realized though, is that when you have a hen who goes into decline this way, the kindest thing to do it cull them, rather than let whatever it is that's ailing them take them to their grave. If you keep chickens as livestock as we do (not pets), a vet call is just not among the treatment options. Portia looked a bit bedraggled at the weekend but I  elected to take a wait-and-see attitude.  Taking into account her age and general state of heath, Big Ag and I should have dispatched her quickly and ended her suffering...and by doing so, also removed a potentially contagious animal from the property. An ailing animal attracts parasites, including those mentioned above, as well as mites, and so keeping a sick animal around helps no one -- not even the animal itself.

Lesson learned.  And now, we have five hens who, God willing, will remain healthy and untouched by whatever got old Portia.  Rest in peace, old girl. You will be missed.

Life Goes On

Hmm ... eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini -- and herbs too.  Such delicious possibilities!  Ratatouille?  Farmer's Market sandwiches? Veggie lasagna?

It all sounds good. Now is the time when we pick up the pieces, dry our tears and go on.  Hard to feel bereft with so much edible bounty surrounding us, and so much of creation's beauty at our fingertips.

I did not make my friend's Celebration of Life service, which was several hours away by plane, but while working yesterday I did get a visit from this beautiful creature, who flitted and danced around me (not my image, but the same kind of butterfly).  

She reminded me that we are all just caterpillars, waiting to become eternal butterflies. And in the meantime....life goes on.

Peeking up

I find happiness peeking up from the most simple places on the homestead these days.  There is happiness in the near-ripe tomatoes I find on the tomato plants that seem to have taken forever to grow and produce.  Happiness in the strong, green new stalks on the olallieberry vines.  Happiness in the feel of the wind and sunshine on my bare arms as I hang the wash out to dry on the morning's breeze.

My friend in the coma finally passed, one day before her 55th birthday.  I think she lingered in the coma for a week to give her family and everyone else who loved her time to come to terms with her passing.

A couple of years ago, she and I had a frank talk about her upcoming death.  She told me (she was a registered nurse and therefore had some medical-level knowledge about her condition) that it would be "an event" that led to her passing, not the slow lingering of a hospice death.  In a way, she was correct. She fell into a coma rapidly, just an hour or so after feeling fine, fixing herself a meal and settling into her apartment for a night of quiet TV watching. And one week later, she was gone.

When I think about what she valued, it was the simple things, and it's what allowed her to be happy despite living with essentially a death sentence.  She loved nature, she loved people, and she loved God.  Although her life was relatively short and far from perfect, she always seemed to be able to find joy in the simple things of life.  Not the drama, debauchery, or angst this world is so known for. She was about as far from those things as anyone could get.

In honoring her memory, I am trying to do the same, and to live more mindfully. Too often around here the chores can just be chores, instead of opportunities to mindfully appreciate all that's been placed here for our enjoyment. Too many times, I complain about the heat instead of being thankful for the small breeze.  Or I focus on one unpleasant customer at the winery instead of rejoicing in the hundreds who come in and enrich our day with their lively stories, interesting ideas, or funny jokes.

Today, and for as many days after this as I can manage it, I'm going to try and be more conscious of the simple happiness that surrounds almost all of us, if we only have the eyes to see them.

The Hour of Separation

As I write this, my friend Lori is laying in a hospice in Nashville, TN, dying from invasive ovarian cancer, unresponsive and asleep to the world around her.  Her life will probably come to an end sometime in the next few days.  

When I got the news of her sudden decline (she'd been battling cancer for the last 20 years, with many ups and downs, but was in the midst of a long "up" spell for the last few years) my first impulse was to cry.  After all, Lori and I have been friends for 48 years, ever since my family moved in next to hers back in 1966.  Crying is what you do when you are faced with the loss of someone who has been a fixture in your life for such a long time.  We'd gone through bicycles, boyfriends, beaus and babies together.  The calm and normalcy of her grandparents' house (where she lived with her brother) stood in stark contrast to how I saw mine.  Lori and her life were a refuge and a role model for my future adult life.

And, to me, Lori always seemed to have led a charmed life, up until the point where, at 35 years of age, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. That, of course led to chemotherapy, radiation, multiple surgeries, and all the assorted troubles that come with those things.  

While the length of her bout with cancer was truly unfair, I can't honestly say that cancer is a bad way to make your exit from this life, however.  On a Facebook page remembering former students from our high school who have died over the years, far too many seem to have been taken young, and suddenly:  The automobile accidents.  The gang shootings.  The car wrecks.  The overdoses.

What I've come to realize is what cancer provides is the gift of time -- for the victim as well as their friends and family. There is, usually, time to do some of the things you still have on your "bucket list" that are important to you. Lori saw a grandchild born, traveled frequently with friends and family, and saw her youngest graduate from college just a couple of years ago.

Cancer also lets you know, approximately, how much time you probably have left in the world, which can also be a gift. You can say the things you need to, forgive those who need or want your forgiveness, and do what you feel you need to before moving on. Almost no one will be too busy for you if you're dying of terminal cancer, as they know they'd better see you now, because "later" is not a guarantee. Lori spent true quality time with many friends (including me).  She lived long enough that her first grandchild will remember her, and saw her own children off into their own secure adulthoods, with jobs and happy relationships.

The last gift cancer gives is not to the one suffering, but to those around them.  To know that each "I love you" could be the last, that every Christmas might be the last one you share, makes the true importance of those things apparent.  In "The Prophet," Kahil Gibran says, "Love knows not its depth until the hour of separation," and he is right.  But having that hour of separation stretch for a few years, with all parties aware and living in mindfulness of that fact, is in fact a gift that many who have passed suddenly would probably wish for, if they could. God knows their families would probably want it.

Lori and I said our goodbyes the last time she came to visit.  We knew we would probably never see each other again, and all the good that could be said was said. I will be grateful for that until it's time for me to leave this world.

So as Lori prepares to make her greatest journey yet, I am thankful to her cancer -- not for the suffering she had to endure, but for the fact that because of it, Lori knew her time here was a finite thing, and she made the most of it, which made all of us aware that our lives are also not infinite in their scope and breadth. Her life was truly an inspiration and a reminder that few of us know just how much time as have left on the clock.  Lori did, and she made it count for something.

There is not much of this life left for Lori to live now, but I hope it's filled with comfort, peace and perhaps even satisfaction, in that slow, winding-down sleep she's in now.  I hope in what she knew was a limited time, she said what she needed to say and did what she wanted to do. I think she did.

Safe travels to that which comes next, my old, dear, and very loved friend. 



  

Red's Near-Death Experience

The thing about animals is that they live totally in the present, meaning what happened to them today, yesterday, or what's going to happen to them tomorrow is of no concern for them.  A few days ago, Red, our Rhode Island Red hen (and my best layer) went too far with me, and it nearly cost her her life.

She's always been prone to attacking Big Ag, Groceries and myself, rooster-style, meaning she gets all puffy and indignant and strikes out at us as we're passing by.  She has drawn blood on shins, ankles, bare toes and arms.  She is truly one of the most miserable creatures I've ever met, and for no apparent reason.  She was held and treated gently as a chick the same as our other chicks were, but whereas they ended up docile and sweet, she's ended up possessed.

But the other day I brought in the two new chicks, Cleo and Chloe, to introduce them slowly to the flock.  While my Buff Orpingtons provided warning pecks when the two little ones got too curious, Red actually made one of her rooster-style runs at Chloe, our sweet and very docile new Barred Rock.

She did this right before I was going into the winery, and so I put the little hens back into their separate enclosure, drove to work and immediately had a heart-to-heart talk with our chef Ben, who is also a homesteader and butcher.

The verdict was unanimous.  Red would meet her end via Ben at the end of the day.  There would be a chicken killing and dressing, followed by some wine and fellowship. I would be sad to see Red's life end, but be happy that she couldn't threaten Chloe's since aggressive hens have been known to kill young chickens, and Red is the very definition of an aggressive hen.

Red's day had come.  Or so I thought. 

As we were discussing it, Ben said something that bothered me.  When I mentioned she was my best layer, he explained to me that she would probably have an egg inside her, which we would find after butchering her.  And that bothered me.  Because although Red is a despicable creature, she is a very good producer of eggs.  And I hate to put a good food source out of business.

So I "hatched" another plan.  When the owner of the winery came in, I asked him if he'd be willing to try her out in his flock.  There's very little human interaction there, and with the distraction of many more hens than we have, I thought Red might be better suited alive and laying, but with the other winery chickens instead of ours.  She has never shown aggressions towards other grown hens, so I know his flock is safe.  And I even think that without so much human interaction, she will settle down a bit.

But if she doesn't, Ben and his ax will be waiting.  Red lives in the present, so she doesn't know this.  She also doesn't know that the people she's been attacking have been willing to go to a Plan B to save her life, nor that she will be moving to a new home as a last ditch effort to keep her in this world.

I don't expect a thank you from her, or even a reprieve from her terrible behavior over her very narrowly missed appointment with death.  That would be asking too much from a chicken. 

 But if she could just behave herself in her new home, I'd consider us even-steven.

Preoccupied with the vanishing celluloid crowds

I see dead people

OK, some people might feel like this post is a downer, but I have to be honest about where I'm at, which is somewhat reflective right now.

For those of you not there yet, I will tell you something:  Your 40th birthday is no big deal.  You're still good-looking, fit, and if you've taken care of yourself, still part of the "young" half of the planet.  You're a little (or a lot) wiser than you were at 20, and maybe you have a few gray hairs or a permanent slight mini-pouch from your pregnancies, but all in all, things still look pretty good.

50 is another story.

50 is different not because you necessarily feel any differently than you did at, say, 49, but because the number is significant.  It's half a freaking century, for heaven's sake.  And unless you are someone special (like my Uncle Earl, who passed peacefully in his sleep at the ripe old age of 104) there is every chance in the world that you are well past the halfway point of your life by the time the big 5-0 comes to call.

Your fifties are also the age when the generation that came right before you is on its way out.  My mother is still with us and still healthy, but she's 80 years old and is losing siblings and friends right, left and center.  My godmother has dementia and can no longer remember her grandchildren or what she had for breakfast today. My father's ashes were scattered at sea 25 years ago, and my grandparents are also long gone, relics from the bronze age at this point.

It's a sobering thing.

So here's how it hits me:  I watch old movies on television, and they get to me because, lets face it, if it's from the 1940's or even 1950's, almost everyone in them is dead.  That's right, while others see crowd scenes filled with hundreds of costumed extras and crowds of background performers, I see a crowd of....well....dead people.  Plus, depending on the film, dead horses, long dead dogs, and a way of life that is completely changed.  

Now lest you think I'm a total downer, I'm not.  In some ways, it's kind of fun seeing the phones that plug into the wall, the old automobiles, the bullet bras and the odd kitchen gadgets.  But the faces haunt me, because I know they're either gone or so old as to be unrecognizable. And I'm conscious that the things I remember from my own childhood are getting to the same obsolete place -- fast.

My friend Rod's mother, for instance, was a dancer on the stage and in film.  She was in the first stage company of "Oklahoma," was featured on the cover of "Life" magazine, and was a principal dancer in both the film of "Oklahoma" and the movie "Carousel."

My friend's mom, roof dancer on the far right

 I saw her on TCM last weekend and there she was, fresh, young and lovely, dancing her way across the locations and movie set of the Rogers and Hammerstein classic film.  In today's world, she is very old and stricken with dementia if I remember correctly.  But on my television screen she is young and vibrant, once again and forever.

And that's the thing about those of us who were born in the 20th century.  We are among the first generations who have ever been archived, documented and preserved so well for posterity -- on celluloid, on Kodak, and on readable disc.  But while the images of us that flicker across our screens will never change, we most certainly will.  And seeing the generation before mine begin to pass out of existence is a hugely sobering thing.

I try not to dwell on it in a depressed way, but rather to take note of it in a way that gives my life more meaning and makes the days more important.  When I realize that my entire generation is going to pass away along with me, I feel better, because I realize I have comrades in arms as we get ready to shoot the rapids into whatever comes next.  But to realize that we're next generation into the boats, it certainly gives me pause to reflect.  I see it in the mirror.  I see it in the faces of the crowds in the films, the crowds of people who are all gone now.  

And I see it in the world around me, which is now centered around the young adults of the next generation, as it should be.  As it was when I was their age.  And I turn my face towards those rapids, those most certain and unavoidable rapids where the generation before me is passing, and where we're headed next.  

And sometimes I look backward to what was with a little nostalgia, some sadness, and the realization that someday, my generation will be just like the crowds in the old movies I watch now -- long gone, us and our horses and our dogs and our gadgets. And it's a strange feeling, a feeling I wish someone would coin a term for, but they won't, ever, because we never coin terms for things we're too uncomfortable to acknowledge, however universal and inevitable they may be.