My grandparents moved down to Vero Beach, Fla. years ago, leaving behind their lives as New Englanders to become Floridians. My grandmother’s tanned wrinkly knees, breezy summer shifts with a Kleenex tucked in one sleeve, and her wide brimmed straw beach hat are as clear to me today as they were each year we visited. She and my grandfather walked the beach many Sunday mornings after their strong and stout black coffee, sectioned Indian River grapefruit halves and English muffins spread with butter and apple jelly, and of course after breakfast was cleared and the dishwasher loaded. I don’t know if they chose to walk left or right, left toward the big pier that extended way out into the water or right toward the swimming hole with the big step down that rose up to a sandbar where the water suddenly was ankle deep. Either way, they found their rhythm of how they wanted their Sundays to go and they kept to it religiously.
Some days I don’t know what I’ll get, what mood I’ll be in, how I’ll perceive the day ahead, but as my sister and I mused, you just wake up and walk into whatever is waiting. Yesterday was a collision of too much: a toxic mix of worry, restlessness and overwhelm, and the only fix was to get out of the house. These days nowhere feels safe, not even home.
You just wake up and walk into whatever is waiting
My son who today was supposed to move into his college dorm recently tested positive for Covid. He’d spent some time with a friend who later learned he had it, and so my son got it too. Thankfully he had just three days of mild headaches after which his symptoms disappeared. His doctor said per CDC Guidelines he can end his quarantine ten days after his first symptoms appeared, which will be Thursday of next week, so thankfully he can move into his dorm then in time for classes, two thirds of them virtual, which begin the following Monday. On Friday, my husband and I drove in separate cars the 45-60 minute drive to Newnan, Ga. where we both took drive-by rapid Covid tests and learned we’re each negative. Despite these positive negative results, you can still analyze symptoms, phantom and otherwise, to death and believe me, we have. Joe thought maybe his throat felt heavy and I decided my sense of smell was fading, waking each morning to sniff the vanilla extract, perfume spray bottle or jar of peanut butter, the latter rather unpleasant pre-coffee. In reality, we don’t have symptoms and each day we wake up without them is in anyone’s book a small victory.
Thank God for large drafty houses. We are living in separate rooms and I’ve chosen to be on an air mattress in our parlor, and am noticing that the early light breaking through these 1880s bay windows is heavenly. I’ve taken over the downstairs bathroom and after eleven years here have finally broken in its enormous claw foot tub. Those quiet morning baths, that southwest facing bathroom, with dappled light streaming through its two windows, has become church for me. There’s a fireplace opposite the tub and when we’re through renovating this glorious place, when these miserable Covid times are behind us, we’ll enjoy decadent fireside soaks.
The early light breaking through these 1880s bay windows is heavenly.
For months now the world has been consumed with this virus, and knowing it’s here in my house walking around inside in the form of my son has left me itching to stay away, unnatural for a mother to self-assign to home’s far recesses or even further, outside them. It’s both ironic and unfortunate that these last few days with him home I’m having to stay more separate than ever. Maybe like quickly ripping off a Band-aid in lieu of its slow painful removal, the universe is making our separation easier by having it abruptly start now? Certainly not intending to make him feel like a leper – and he doesn’t – I can’t cut any corners, not when doctors look at me with their knowing eyes and tell me that early results show that cancer survivors don’t seem to fare well with Covid. Excuse me? Not even trying to define “well,” just trying to stay alive. We all are.
It’s unnatural for a mother to self-assign to home’s far recesses.
No circle in these concentric circles in my inside world and outside it feels exactly safe, yet home I am realizing is where I am. I feel strong and can move and walk miles and miles. Yesterday I left and with mask in hand and on face whenever there was anyone in sight, and with no particular destination in mind, wandered all around Decatur – through the cemetery, residential neighborhoods and downtown. Walked four miles and some change and with AirPods tucked inside my ears, strutted straight out of a ‘70s music video, moving through the entire Billy Joel’s Turnstiles album and on into ELO’s greatest hits, finding comfort in something familiar from a simpler more predictable time.
Joel’s Summer, Highland Falls is one of my favorites. Fast flitting piano juxtaposed with a ribbon of melodic rambling vocals felt perfect. He wrote it after he’d returned to New York after many years away when he was living outside the city near, you guessed it, Highland Falls. The song speaks to the highs and lows of life, it’s either sadness or euphoria. We are always what our situations hand us. Perhaps we don’t fulfill each other’s fantasies. We stand upon the ledges of our lives with our respective similarities.
It’s Sunday and as I lie here on my air mattress, now slightly lumpy from hours of air slowly seeping out, I clutch my Target mug, strangely comforting albeit mass-produced, with its colorful floral “S” initial and shiny gold handle, filled with that sacred first and only cup of coffee. I’m soaking it all in, this day, this life, the changes that are coming. This moment feels like my church, and it’s offering lessons and bringing comfort. With so many unable to return to their own churches, I am wondering where or how are you finding your church, your soothing Sundays?
I’m soaking it all in, this day, this life, the changes that are coming.
Growing up, we were required to attend church every Sunday, and unlike my grandparents, my parents didn’t stray from that traditional script and wander into nature on Sundays for nourishment. I think we need to wander there in order to return right back home, back to ourselves.
Stay safe and look for love and comfort wherever you can. It’s still there under all the rubble, which increasingly will clear away. I’m leaving you with music from a Sunday I will always keep close to my heart. I was in New York with a dear girlfriend and as we walked through Central Park, this haunting celestial music pulled us in, blanketing us all and moving me to tears. Amazing Grace.
Friday I did my big bell ringing victory lap after chemo and was feeling all high and mighty. And then Tuesday hit. Right on time after the 72 hour coverage of anti-nausea meds from Friday’s treatment. I’ve never had it hit before three days post treatment, so why now? I’ll tell you why. These nasty chemicals want you to experience every ounce of this crazy ride, and despite being on your last treatment when you’d think it’s finally time for a break, they will hold good on that promise. So Tuesday was nausea day. As in vomiting 12+ times. All day I focused on trying to feel better. Then the next day I forgot to swish and the famous chemo mouth sores you’ve probably heard about started to happen. Oh, no you don’t, and I swished multiple times and now I think I’ve staved off those from coming. It’s a crazy game where you are trying to outrun these little annoyances and get the skin you live in to stop aggravating you. You have to wait it out and let time do its thing, yet you want it over with. Good luck.
Isn’t all of life a waiting game? Not much you can do really except maybe distract yourself and hope the calendar moves along, which it always does. But in between there is time with people and pets and work and play and delicious food. My sister and niece flew from Chicago to be with me during my last treatment. Such a treat to have the house full of girls and constant random conversation. We ate out and then ate leftovers and out again and more leftovers. Lingered over our morning coffee and laughed and shared and walked and shopped.
In a robe for two days with my Pedialyte cocktail, I couldn’t decide today what foods would taste good. So with no planning and few groceries, I grazed. Oatmeal and banana, frozen Whole Foods bean and cheese burrito, bone broth with vegetables that the same angelic Pedialyte-delivering friend made, and then it went downhill from there. I glanced in the refrigerator door and there they were: Keebler fudge sticks. I’ll just grab one of those. What’s the harm? Then I had another. Those flesh colored chocolate dunked cream filled innocent sticks. Divine. Like I used to eat at my grandmother’s at her apartment off Peachtree Street. Always kept in the refrigerator. Later my husband came home and as I hadn’t shopped we had breakfast for dinner. He made bacon. I haven’t had a slice since November and I pinched a little off one. They were well done and cooked in the oven. Crispy, no fat, the no nitrite kind. Innocent, right? So good. Then I had a whole piece. Oh my, the food of the gods. I can’t love stuff like this but then I remembered my oncology nurse said once, if during treatment you want mac ‘n cheese, just have it. She didn’t mention what to do when the urge for fudge sticks or bacon strikes. I’ve decided no more fudge sticks and as for the bacon thing, maybe once a month I might have a slice. Surely that frequency can’t kill me? I just didn’t want to love it so much, but it was the best I’ve had. Like ever.
I’m in the thick of it. No, not suddenly showered with the thick tresses I’ve wanted my whole life, but rather I’m in the thick of chemo. The twitching eyes, the mouth threatening to develop a sore if I don’t swish with mouthwash thrice daily, and then there’s the hair, which now resembles a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. With each step around my house, its needles fall, and it seems the tree’s trunk has weakened and bent over.
Why does our hair have to be such a thing? I was born bald and by all accounts a plenty cute and happy baby. Yet as my hair grew in as full sheets of cornsilk and as I grew, like many girls, I don’t think I appreciated what I had. My hair was whisper thin, though to its credit a bright natural blond, and over the years I grew to love it, especially since I didn’t need to color it, but for the two times I did foils just for fun. All my life, my hair’s sleek softness, shine and spirit has wrapped my head and shoulders in health and bounce and in some ways, I suppose I took that for granted, assumed it would always be there, a pretty veil covering the nape of my neck.
I feel a tad guilty about this vanity realizing I am lucky I’m even alive since my jarring discovery just three months ago. Still, I can’t wait until these drugs are done doing their thing and my hair and body can return to doing theirs, return to how they were, but that much stronger and better. Good hair days sure can carry you, help out a shabby wardrobe, dulling makeup, a bad mood. But good health, like a tall towering tree trunk, has the power to lift you like nothing else.