Thumbs Down

We can all agree a lovely garden is a beautiful thing. As spring blooms around us we drive about and notice. First it’s the tree blossoms, followed by flowering shrubs like azaleas, bougainvillea and spirea. Then come the flowers.

Most of us just appreciate. Then there are those who realize the beauty doesn’t happen all by itself. These folks are willing to dig around in the dirt a few times to throw in some bulbs and maybe a few pansies or snap dragons. That leaves the heavy lifting to the rest of us. The sick ones. Those of us who start planning our gardens in January, weeding the beds in February and laying out designs in March. From there we start watching the forecast, waiting for the first possible declaration that the last frost has passed. When it has, the calendar comes out and we schedule the plantings.

I personally have twelve beds, if you count the herbs and vegetables, thirteen if you count the water lilies in the pond. Ideally they will all be in the ground (or water) by the end of May. That gives me about a month and a half that starts with the realization it is time and ends with a sort of hysteria because it’s getting late and I still have several beds to go. Like I said, it’s a sickness.

This year, my gardening frenzy took on an unfortunate twist. It was a couple weeks into the season. By then, of course, I had my lists: these plants for this bed, laid out just so. I also had my calendar filled in. If I kept to schedule the entire grounds would be planted by the end of May.

So, you can imagine my angst when I woke up to rain last weekend. I opened my eyes around six on Sunday. When I heard the rain I woke Cecil up like the house was on fire. “It’s raining!” I screeched. “So?” he wanted to know. “My gardens. I have to plant the front flower bed today.” He wasn’t all that concerned…until he came downstairs a little later and found me zipping up the rain slicker I’d thrown over my gardening overalls.

“What are you doing?” he wondered as he staggered for the coffee pot. There was no use explaining. He would never understand. It barely made sense to me.

Once outside it wasn’t all that bad. People typically try to avoid the rain. We duck and run for cover. I was going to be out in it…I’d already accepted that. So I walked bravely from the carport into the downpour and didn’t even flinch. In a way, it was kind of exciting, like I was a pioneer or a mountain man, or one of those people who just moved around in weather like it wasn’t even there.

I admit that at first I acted sort of like a girl…trying to dig from a squatting position, taking my muddy gloves off to push my hair back. I hadn’t been out fifteen minutes before I was kneeling in the mud and sometimes stretching out on my stomach to reach a particular spot. The hair was shoved back with gloves that still held a clump of weeds. Sometimes I used the spade itself. My face looked like it was painted up for a war dance around the fire pit. After a while I hardly noticed.

Two hours later I was done, except for the piles of weeds, trimmings and other such debris. I grabbed our trash barrel…the one that goes to the curb each week. It’s got two wheels on the back edge so you have to tilt it back when you’re moving it. I opened the lid, which flipped back and hung between me and the barrel, and I began to roll from spot to spot, picking up my various piles. The rain pounded me and the yard and everything in sight. I was drenched but I was almost done. A hot bath sounded good.

Then it happened. I guess you’d call it a freak accident. The lid to the trash can caught on something as it hung between me and the barrel. Not realizing, I took another step, which landed on the lid. That snapped the whole barrel backward so it flipped off its wheels and came down on its back side, taking me with it. It’s difficult to describe how this whole thing went down. The relevant particulars are that my hands never left the handle, which was under the lid, which in turn was under the full weight of my body.

In the span of three seconds I was head first inside the trash can. Thankfully the dogs hadn’t killed anything yet that week so I wasn’t sharing space with any carcasses. But there was plenty of other nasty stuff in there. Worse though were my hands, especially my thumbs, both of which were still trapped under the lid on which the lower half of my body was lying as it stuck out of the trash can. I could already tell they were in trouble. At a minimum they’d been wrenched into some unnatural position to which no thumb should ever be subjected. There was the distinct possibility they were dangling or snapped in half. I was afraid to look. And before I could, I had to slide out of the trash can, putting more weight on the lid. I was torturing myself.

The thumbs were bad, especially the right one. Cecil wanted to examine them…like that was gonna happen! These thumbs could not be touched. They could not be moved. You couldn’t move anything next to them. I really didn’t even want him to look at them.

Within minutes they had swelled up. My son likened them to sausages. As the week wore on the bruising set in. I kept waiting for things to get better but they did not. Cecil said they were severely sprained, along with my left wrist. Both hands were somewhat strained as well but compared to the thumbs they didn’t deserve, nor did they get, any sympathy.

This brings me to the role of the thumb in life. I’d have to say I never really appreciated my thumbs before. I do now. As I tried to carry on without using them I quickly found there’s very little you can do. I figure I will do a service to others by noting a few key functions of the thumb so you all will be very careful with them from now on:

1. Turning the ignition key: Forget it. It’s easier to call a cab, or walk, or stick the sprained thumb out along the roadside to hitch a ride.

2. Turn a door knob: This is not going to happen. Better to just kick the door in and be done with it.

3. Open any kind of jar: Don’t even try.

4. Hold a pen: This becomes a two-handed bit of excruciating small muscle coordination that unfortunately cannot be entirely avoided. You should keep some pain killers at your desk.

5. Push the clicker to open your car door: You need to throw caution to the wind here and lay yourself open to thieves, rapists and murders. All of that will hurt less.

6. Close a zipper: Just leave it open. People will understand.

7. Brush your teeth: Buy a lot of breath mints and hope your teeth don’t rot before the thumbs get better.

8. Pull up your pants: I’ve been working my way through this one because it really is a must. Be prepared to suffer.

9. Use scissors: You’ll have to tear things with your teeth for a while, assuming they haven’t fallen out from the no brushing.

10. Catch-all: Lift anything, no matter how small or how light. No matter how much you want to pick that thing up and carry it to where you want it to be. You have to accept the fact that you might as well have paws or hooves because your hands are not going to be lifting or holding or moving anything until your darn thumbs have healed.  

As I head into week two I would raise a glass (if I could) in celebration of thumbs. They are an amazing piece of work. Without them I have learned to appreciate countless little things that I have always taken for granted. So, here’s to thumbs up…an icon that has taken on new meaning for me.

Be Careful When You Bitch

 

 People sometimes say you really see the mess around your house when you look at it through other people’s eyes. Like, if you’re having company and you’re cleaning up. You look around as if for the first time and see cobwebs dangling from almost everything, outnumbered only by the collection of stink bugs lying on their backs with legs up like they’ve been there a while. And the dirty fingerprints around the drawer pulls in the kitchen that give the appearance you came straight in from working in the garden without washing your hands before you made dinner. How had you missed those?

Well, I've come to realize the same “through others' eyes” test applies to our behavior as well as to our housekeeping standards.

On Friday I wanted to work in the garden (fully intending to wash my hands before starting dinner later). I normally keep my dirty overalls and muddy tennis shoes in the basement, but they weren’t there when I looked. My husband had cleaned up the basement recently so right away I was suspicious he’d done something with my gardening clothes. I called up the stairs to him. “Cecil, what did you do with my overalls and tennis shoes?” I could have started off by asking if he knew where they were but I went right to what had he done with them.

He came with some trepidation into the basement to help me look, but the clothes simply were not there. Finally Cecil admitted he “might have” thrown them away. I got agitated because these would not be the first of my things Cecil had taken it upon himself to discard. He was getting agitated because this would not be the first time I had gotten after him for such conduct. 

So we started revving each other up. Cecil was giving me a good taste of passive aggression. I would have to admit to a certain escalating bitchiness on my part, laced nicely with sarcasm and snide remarks such as “I hope that filthy jacket you wear everyday doesn’t have itself an accident.” Suffice it to say neither of us was at our best in the exchange.

Then the phone rang in his pocket. For reasons that don’t matter here, it was my cell phone that Cecil had been carrying around. Instead of answering it he kept snotting off at me which, of course, infuriated me because I imagined he was causing me to miss a call of some urgency. Maybe God was trying to reach me to tell me where my muddy tennis shoes were.

“Will you please answer my phone?” I snapped. By the time he got the darn thing out of his pocket the caller had hung up. I dialed the number back and was greeted by a 911 operator.

“Is everything all right?” the woman wanted to know without even saying hello. “Yes it is,” I assured her. 

“We received a 911 call from this number.” 

I paused, trying to understand, and then realized Cecil must have made a pocket call down in the basement. The woman continued. “It sounded like you were looking for something.” She stopped short of asking if I’d found my shoes. OMG, I thought, she heard the whole friggin’ conversation. I cringed as I thought back to the less than attractive tone I’d lent my voice for emphasis. The various jabs at Cecil that had felt good at the time seemed mean when I considered them as they must have sounded to the operator. “So, there’s no emergency?” she confirmed. She probably wanted to ask “Did you find your damn shoes, lady?” 

“No there’s no emergency.” I hoped I sounded convincing so she didn’t decide to send a patrol car to make sure one of us hadn’t taken a screw driver to the other. Naturally I was a tad hesitant to give her my name and address when she requested them but figured it would seem suspicious if I refused. So now she had a bitchy woman and a name to put with it. Great.

After I hung up I remembered that 911 calls are recorded. So somewhere in the call center my less than sweet display is now of record. I pictured the operator shaking her head and calling me a nag and playing the recording for her co-workers. Then I imagined the call somehow making its way to YouTube and wondered if 911 calls have privacy restrictions. Forget that I thought as I flashed on the countless calls I’ve seen replayed on television, the words scrolling along at the bottom of the screen to make sure everyone gets them. Next I’m thinking Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart or someone’s gonna get a hold of my tirade and have some fun with me.

Or maybe the operator will just go home and tell her husband who will repeat the story to his friend who happens to be a radio announcer or a columnist at the paper. The possibilities become endless; it’s only the permutations that vary. The one thing they would all have in common would be me crabbing at my husband when I thought no one else was listening.

Since the pocket call incident I have been more aware of the tone of my voice. I’ve caught myself slipping into accusation when simple inquiry would do. I’ve heard myself snap or quip or chide when I didn’t need to. I hadn’t stopped to consider how I sound from time to time when I indulge myself in the comfort of my primary relationship…the one people so often take for granted. As a divorce attorney you’d think it might have occurred to me before this, but I had not taken the time to sit up and notice myself. 

That awareness came only after I learned someone else had overheard me. I’d felt justified and rightfully put out during the conversation, but when I listened through the operator’s ears I didn’t like what I heard.

So, my new rule—one I might recommend to others—is choose your words and your attitude carefully. Not because a 911 operator might be listening, but because no one likes a bitch, not even the bitch herself.

Riding Time

I’ve been suffering from lack of inspiration lately. You know how when even you find yourself boring? You turn inward to find something meaningful to say or write and you face a blank page, devoid of anything worth sharing. 

          I’ve begun research on a new book…an ambitious project that needs lots of attention. I’ve got this blog, a web site in development and a short story to shop around. There are still some 8,000 POW/MIAs waiting to be found. All of these tasks have sat stewing for weeks, gnashing their teeth and spewing epithets at me. “Get over here and do something with me, you lazy good-for-nothing wretch.” I’ve managed to turn from each of them, stuff away the guilt and put it all off to another day.  

          In retrospect I can see it started when we got ready to put our house on the market…again. This is its third selling season. Each year we cancel the listing for the holidays and manage to thoroughly trash the place by Christmas. So as January rolled around we dragged ourselves into that hideous state of mind known as Staging the House. How the attic got so full in just a few months is beyond me. And when did things in the basement crawl out from their corners? Let’s not mention the damn spices— would it kill them to stay in some kind of order up in their cupboard?

          I will say it feels good to get rid of clothes from high school that make me feel like a fat woman in the circus dressed up as Bette Davis’ Baby Jane. And I guess it was time for the broken VCR and the old bag phone to go. All in all it has been a productive experience, except that it has taken me over and sucked the creativity from me as though I’ve had an IV running in reverse.   

          As I felt myself dissolving into a pasty little blob I cast my listless mind about, wondering what might call to me. What will return me to life beyond clearing out closets and bagging up yesterdays I can barely remember? Ironically, it was death that brought me back.

          In a fit of madness I’d decided to clean up our address book because, God knows, prospective buyers might look in there to see if we secretly keep our affairs in a mess, such that they can infer the whole house is actually ready to fall down. As I turned the pages I came across the name of a friend of mine who had just died. I hadn’t even known she was ill. She was a beautiful, inspirational individual and now she was gone. Her name would need to be deleted. Another friend on the next page. She too must go. Then two colleagues, my aunt and my uncle. All had passed away recently. Delete. Their names disappeared and with them went the space they once filled.

          I took a walk and came upon a cemetery. Row after row of headstones stretched over acres. Space filled with people who are not here anymore. So many lives lived and lives ended. What difference had each of them made before they moved on? An empty trash bag blew in the wind, rambling over the graves, somehow emphasizing the nothingness of life after it has passed.

          There is a greater purpose to which I aspire, though if truth be told I’m not sure what it might be. The collective consciousness is a fine concept, but I would like to rise above the din, at least now and again. I’m not really sure why but I’ve always wanted to be heard above the crowd, maybe just a little. And here I’ve been lately just descending into it. I’m not happy with me.

          As I looked at the contingent of head stones, I thought of the hundreds more waiting to join them each day; people passing through. My day will come around the corner soon enough. I need to consider myself accountable to the time I’ve been given between the womb and the ground that will hold me. Make something of it, Donna. There is none of it to waste. We are all only riding along until we fall away and time passes us by.

          So now I’m ready to jettison myself from the doldrums. There is much to discover and much to do before my name is ready to be deleted from the next guy’s address book.

Simple Things

           I understand the attraction of the standard vacation: a week at the beach; your trip to Paris or Rome; skiing or diving at some exotic resort. I’ve done those things and they’re great. Sometimes, though, it’s good to go off and find smaller experiences, less spectacular in some respects but equally enriching in other ways.

            I decided to visit New England in the winter. My first stop was Boston. It’s always exhilarating to be in Boston, except it’s a little intimidating to drive a car there. I can see why everyone takes the T. There is no grid in Boston, no logical explanation for the layout of its streets. They are one-way. Some of them start out paralleling each other but end up coming together at right angles. And there’s always traffic so a misstep can be costly. People use their GPS to go around the corner to get groceries. And there I was trying to maneuver from Cambridge across the Charles River and then over the harbor to South Boston, a good mile or two away. I must have been out of my mind.

            Samantha’s GPS voice guided me, sometimes, but there were places where even she got confused and just stopped talking. My first inclination was to demonstrate the tiniest bit of road rage, but something eased me away from that into an enjoyment of the city, dressed as it always is in a cloak of vitality and beauty.

           Next I drove to Windsor Loch, Connecticut to visit the New England Air Museum. They have an exhibit of fighter and bomber aircraft. As I stood in the midst of those planes I was struck by how small they are compared to how they look in war shots and movies. At the same time, I got a heavy sense of the power and aggression that the planes embody. I could almost see the canopy flying off and the pilot ejecting from the F-86 after having been hit. From inside the bomb bay of the A-26 Invader, I pictured the doors opening and the load falling out, then the pilot turning sharply left or right to avoid getting caught in the devastating blast that would follow seconds later. Images notched themselves into my memory. I will think of them again.

            Next stop was my mother’s home on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. This cottage has been in my family since Mom was a teenager. It has become the Old Homestead. Most of my trips to the cottage have been during summer months. This time, the lake was frozen and a crop of colorful bob-houses had sprung up off shore. It looked like an odd shanty town sitting out there in the middle of the bay. Between the shacks, children played hockey. Further out snow mobiles raced and spun themselves on the ice. Cars drove around, just because they could, and airplanes came and went using the unclaimed stretches as runways.

            How neat, I thought, as I watched this cluster of life dare nature at the same time it took advantage of her. I wanted some. So I stepped off our dock onto the frozen lake. It was thrilling to walk away from safety out onto a landscape that had the opportunity to crack open and suck me in. Each step was a flirtation with danger. The adventure was small, but it brought something different to me. It was a moment of excitement that formed itself into a memory as colorful as any other.

            During the week at Mom’s I visited my brother in Portsmouth. Every now and then you stumble across something wonderful that, for whatever reason, has been largely overlooked. Maybe the thing is understated or otherwise modest in its trappings. No flash that catches the collective eye, which is probably a good thing. So, there’s Portsmouth, a charming coastal city that sits an hour north of Boston and an hour south of New England’s lake and mountainous regions. The city center is a collection of restored historic buildings inside which you find a variety of coffee houses and book stores, eclectic shops, diverse eateries. The people are on the streets. They are energetic and engaged. I picture throngs of “Remote” workers living there. Portsmouth was a delightful find.

            I left New Hampshire and headed south to the Cambridge side of Boston  to spend a few days with my daughter, Kirstyn, and her boyfriend. I find it harder now to say goodbye to Mom. The visits have that sense of urgency that comes when parents get older. No matter how healthy they seem, they are advancing toward the end zone. There’s nothing we can do but love them, knowing in that bittersweet corner of our hearts that one day, much sooner than we can stand to think about, they will no longer be here to remember the old days with us.

            So I said goodbye and watched her disappear in the distance, like time fading away into itself. I memorized her smile and the love in her eyes and felt a renewed appreciation for having had a great mother.

            In Cambridge I spent a morning at one of Harvard’s libraries researching a photographic depiction of Soviet gulags. Empty eyes looked out from sunken sockets and told of horrors not understood by those of us who did not suffer them. Diagrams of the various camps had several things in common: double rows of barbed wire fence that loomed high above crude barracks; the Forbidden Zone; guard towers; the Punishment Room. Hand scribbled notes spoke of death by starvation or disease or exhaustion, if not by execution for some wrong word uttered. It was a painful and sobering glimpse of unspeakable torment.

            After spending several hours with the collection, I looked up to absorb what I’d been seeing. Out the window Harvard Yard was suddenly white. The snow wasn’t falling from above. It was howling from the side and swirling upward and blowing straight at the windows. The blizzard had begun. Time to hustle.

            Outside, I bent into the wind and felt the coldness of gritty grains slapping my cheeks. Was it snowing or was someone blasting a sand trap nearby? Before I’d cleared the campus I looked like a snowman. My eyelashes were almost too heavy to open up after a blink. In the square people were dashing about to grab a few things at the market, hit the liquor store one last time, and get home. My eyes met those of strangers and we shared a knowing smile.

            Kirstyn, Dave and I hunkered down and watched the storm descend. All day. Then all night. Then all day again on Saturday. Between us we must’ve had a dozen electronic devices charging, just in case. We could do without heat or food or lights but God forbid we should not be able to use our phones or our computers. 

           When it stopped snowing Kirstyn and I took to the streets, to the extent you could find them under the twenty five inches that had fallen in the past twenty four hours. There were no cars—they’d been banned. The T stood still. Store fronts were dark. Everywhere people climbed the smooth white mounds. Some dug tunnels; others built snowmen. Frozen hands held cameras this way and that to capture the beautiful spectacle. Kirstyn and I walked for miles, down the middle of the road; up over drifts; along narrow pathways hurriedly carved by a few ambitious souls. Cambridge was crisply silent except for the muted sounds of trudging boots and buoyant voices. It was lovely.

            On Sunday we drank mimosas and cooked delicious food with some of Dave's family who'd braved the storm's remains to come for brunch. We talked of so many things I can't remember them, except to recall the richness of conversation well spent.

             And then it was time to go home. I moved through security and to the gate like a loaded pack mule. I watched out the window as we sped up and away. Boston retreated first, then the harbor. The New England landscape shrunk below as we climbed through the cloud layer, a dizzying fog that offered nothing until it broke open and delivered us to a painted sky. Shards of gold and orange swept downward into a rim of sleepy red that settled itself into white clouds along the horizon’s rim. The blue sky gradually faded back, the festival of colors muted into night and we flew on.

            It had been a good trip.