quieter new year's eve than planned

As I mentioned over on my other blog, we had plans to attend a fancy dinner party tonight. A rather driving snow storm was also planned for today, so our hostess canceled. Alas, we were all dug out by about 5pm, but without plans we decided to stay home. I didn't want to drive too far (it was still snowing, though not particularly effectively). And going out to eat on New Year's Eve is usually a disappointment if not a downright bad idea.

So I made an impromptu dinner which worked out well. We've been sitting by the fire and reading. After dinner, we broke out the sparkling wine and started work on a jigsaw puzzle, a truly nasty one given to us by my ordinarily considerate in-laws. (It's a fine tradition to curse them when working on a difficult puzzle that they've given to us.) We had an able assistant in the form of Theo, but I don't think he ever made it up onto the table where the puzzle lies in pieces. I've pretty much given up for the evening; Robert might be at it for a few more hours.

Not a bad New Year's Eve. About as peaceful and peaceable as they come, surrounded by my family of one husband and two cats. We're warm and toasty and safe. I think my hope for the year is that this state continues for a while to come.

Be kinder than necessary

With much gratitude to RoasterBoy, I think I'll adopt this one as my New Year's resolution, a tall order indeed. Does anyone else make resolutions? Do you stick to them?

a year ago today

On this ultimate day of the year, I'm thinking back to one year ago. It was a Monday. Several weeks earlier, I had received a job offer contingent on my starting the new position before the end of 2007. I had very much wanted some time off between jobs and between Christmas and New Year's. Little did I know how much time I'd end up getting. Just a few days after I resigned, my previous company closed its doors a week before Christmas.

In any case, my new boss and I worked out a deal whereby I could start work on the 31st, ensuring that the no one would take away her job requisition. Then I could take the rest of the week off, and make up the time later. Except that there was a huge snow storm predicted for that Monday. On Saturday, my new boss emailed to ask if we could meet for the next day. I really didn't have anything better to do, so we spent about four hours together and my first day on the job was on a Sunday.

Of course, the huge snow storm absolutely fizzled. I ended up going into the office on my official first day for a few hours, at least. On that second day on the job, the place was totally emptied out. Had I been paranoid, I would have thought I'd been hired into a ghost town.

And today, exactly a year later, we start the morning awaiting snow. It's all supposed to be over by late afternoon, ensuring that tonight's "amateurs" will be only partially handicapped as they leave their New Year's Eve parties. (Hmm -- best time to leave one of those parties? Probably at 11:58.) Alas, our New Year's Eve event is apparently canceled; we'll have to celebrate tomorrow at a day-time party.

Happy New Year, everyone!

All the dirt that's fit to print - memes!

Two memes have attracted my attention of late, so here come the answers!

Addictions
From Jen, a meme about one's top five addictions. I don't know if I have five because I'm limiting myself to needs that feel physical:

#1 (and I'm not ashamed to admit it) coffee
Good strong French or Italian roast. My favorite brand is Peet's. My sister-in-law, who for four years had access to great coffee in Costa Rica, tasted my coffee and said "Finally. Someone who likes coffee stronger than I do." I usually drink one cup a day, sometimes two, on weekdays, and (when diluted by decaf), two cups on non-work days.

#2 (weird, but I'm going with it) cats
When my beloved Juliet died, I realized just how hard it was to live without cats. I yearned for them and was making all sorts of excuses to visit cats. We had our next cat within a month.

#3 (weird if you know me) physical activity
Every morning for the past 25 years, I've done a series of strengthing and stretching exercises. I repeat a couple of them each night. I try to swim twice a week, a mile each time. We try to contra dance, walk, or both on weekends. I'm not terribly fond of physical activity, but I'm less fond of the aches and pains that quickly knock me off my balance when I get too slug-like.

#4 (kind of) chocolate
I love chocolate, preferably very dark, preferably with nuts. I could probably stop eating it any time -- really, I could, but so far have chosen not to. I eat a couple of squares a day.

OK, now that I've gotten that off my chest,


Where I slept in 2008 (at least that I'll admit to)
#1 Home, a lot. I like being home.
#2 Carpe Diem guest house, Provincetown, mid-February
#3 Cabin at dance camp, Woodstock CT, early May
#4 Sunset Farm Inn, Tyringham MA (Berkshires), mid-July
#5 Hawk Meadow Farm, Lee MA (Berkshires), early August
#6 Mountainview Grand Resort, Whitefield NH, mid-August
#7 Casa del Toro, Santa Fe NM, late September
#8 Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos NM, early October
#9 Airport La Quinta, Albuquerque NM, early October
#10 Becket Motel, Becket MA for late October dance camp

Robert did not accompany me to #3, spring dance camp. Then again, I did not accompany him when he visited his sister in New Jersey and his grandfather in Albuquerque. Compared to other years, we were home a lot this year. Still, we had great adventures together, as I'm sure we'll continue to do for a long time to come.

good dance

At our dance last night, we had a cast of seeming thousands -- well over 50 people, at least. There were a lot of newbies, so our Queen Mum started very slowly and gently, first with a "circle mixer" and then with a dance involving two couples each, where you switched either couples or partners at the end of each chorus. Then he eased us into contra dances. The new folks stuck with it and were amazingly successful, even with some tricky moves thrown in. QM gets a lot of credit for creating an evening that was successful and fun. I hope we see at least some of the new folks again.

We also had some cross-over from other area dances and one set of parents there to support their daughter. I danced with both the mom and the dad and reassured them that they were doing fine and could come back.

The music was great fun with a lot of traditional tunes woven through bits and pieces of Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years' tunes. The musicians looked like they were having a swell time too.

I danced most of the first part with new folks, then towards the middle of the second part I broke down and danced with a couple of friends. I kept thinking we were going to go home but then I would be asked to dance, so we actually stayed through the last contra dance and left during the last waltz.

There's another dance in two weeks, then a very fun all-day 20th anniversary event in four weeks. Should be a good month for dancing.

my brother, again

My brother called the other night. This after a small flurry of emails about which he instantly felt regretful, hence the call. This is a pattern. Fortunately, or not, the call came on a night when Robert was coming home at 8pm and was being fed about as soon as he walked in the door, so I had a good excuse to get off the phone.

I can't tell if my brother is drunk when he calls. He's told me he has a problem with alcohol. He rambles (a good sign). He's emotional. He talks about our father as a Nazi and mental caretakers as The Rapist (therapist, get it?, he said). In the next sentence, he talks about how "he loves the guy" (our father).

He's grief-stricken that his relationship with our father is seemingly destroyed, that he may never see our father again, yet seems to have no understanding that he's played a big role in the state of things. He hates our stepmother for pushing him away and calls her all sorts of unspeakable names, and yet I think she's really protecting our father from further hurt.

This brother is not subtle. He's not gentle. He's a raw, open gaping wound, and an expressive and literate one at that.

He seems to admire my having found some measure of peace in my life. Yeah, partly by learning not to obsess about it. Partly by putting it out of my mind a good deal of the time. Partly by having done a lot of hard work to get to a peaceful place.

He is so stirred up, so unpeaceful, that I feel riled up, sometimes for days afterwards. Not peaceful at all.

I certainly haven't asked to have all this old stuff brought to the surface. I don't like the tone our conversations (or, occasionally, our monologues) take. In my experience, there's a certain value in neatly folding up the memories and putting them in a drawer. You don't have to take them out every day and try them on so you can continue to re-experience the pain. The pain is still there, just not necessarily a part of every day experience. Does that sound cold? It's meant to sound practical. It's my coping mechanism that allows me to get through the day, keep my job, keep relationships going.

And of course, he always ends each conversation with "I love you." What the heck does that mean? He doesn't know who I am. It's very sweet of course, but always leaves me feeling puzzled.

I don't think he's going to go away. That means I'll need to strategize about how to set limits but in a loving way. Regardless of how I express them, it's quite possible that my message will be received negatively. The forecast calls for pain, followed by more of same.

Minor complaint

This has been bugging me for days and I finally decided I had to write about it.

I have this friend S, a member of the dance community. Really, when you talk to him, you visualize the cigarette holder, the fur-trimmed bathrobe, the mule slippers. He can be funny, but also quite awful sometimes.

Recently, his boyfriend C posted a series of facebook blurbs about his grandmother -- that she was in the hospital, that she was not expected to live, that he was traveling back and forth to visit her, that she had died, that he was planning her service. This seemed like an important loss.

I found the obituary in the paper and asked Robert if he could possibly go to the wake without me. He was lovely and gracious and went. C seemed happy to see him, and I *think* appreciated his presence. Robert said he felt awkward, but who wouldn't in a room full of mostly strangers? Yup, it's awkward.

A few days later, I talked to S and mentioned that Robert had gone to the wake. He launched into a diatribe. First of all, this was an awful grandmother whom no one liked. Second of all, many of C's friends had asked S whether they should attend the wake. S's reply? That C's father wouldn't want a bunch of homos showing up at his mother's wake, so no, they shouldn't go. Then some more about how awful this grandmother was. No mention (and perhaps no insight) of C's loss, of his possible need for support, of anything sad associated with this event.

I have no regrets asking Robert to go. I'm so appreciative that he did go. And I wish that for once, S could have just shut up and said thank you. I'm hoping that C said it. A friend to whom I told this story said it on C's behalf.

And S? Every time I think I'm being too hard on him, he reminds me of exactly why I am this way.

OK, I'll stop. Everyone back to Christmas cheer now.

news and cards, some cheerful, some harder.

One of my December activities is to write cards. I think I've sent about 75 so far this year, with a few more to go. I try to write a personal note in each one, so it takes me a few weekends to work through my list. I get a lot of great cards in return with pictures and fun newsy updates. Some people stay in touch with their "list" by sending out dumb jokes -- I take this route, which feels a lot more personal to me.

Amongst all the funny and fun news were some sad bits and pieces. My aunt wrote that her mother died this August. This was just a few months after her husband's mother -- my grandmother -- died in June. Lida, my aunt's mother, was feisty and brilliant. She did medical research alongside her husband, and then after she was widowed, alone, until they took her lab away. She wrote a book about cell-wall deficiency. She was so delighted that Robert could actually converse knowledgeably about the subject and was interested in it that she gave him a copy. She researched Lyme disease and had some wild ideas about it -- I'm not sure whether she was proved right or wrong eventually. But her lab was taken away when she was accused of practicing medicine without a license, basically diagnosing people whose doctors weren't helping.

A few years ago, she was invited to Australia to give a talk. She took one of her granddaughters but insisted to everyone that the lovely young lady was her niece -- she did not want to be perceived as old. After her forced retirement, she moved out of her Detroit mansion into a community where she spent her days playing bridge with her friends. Eventually, her mind went and then her body. She lived into her mid-90s.

The other piece of very tough news is that a friend of the family, M, has been diagnosed with acute leukemia. The family friendship goes way back -- there are pictures of her grandfather riding a horse with my great uncle's law partner in Central Park. My great uncle was her father's best friend. And I met her cousin, A, as a child in Washington and again at early dances in Boston. M and I have met as adults a few times, initially when her mother was ill and she was caretaker, then at my family's gatherings (including at my great uncle's memorial service) and at A's house near Boston.

A is a talented artist and makes a living gold-leafing. I now have a very sweet piece that she created for my great aunt and uncle's 25th wedding anniversary. It comes about as close to religious expression as I can get. I am very proud to be its keeper for now.

This family has known so much tragedy. There has been a huge split between the women and the men of the family. A's sister disappeared (or, as is suspected, was disappeared) on a trip to Maritime Canada. M, herself, had a sister who died of AIDS years ago.

In recent years, M has found a wonderful lifemate and husband. And A has also found a life partner. They both seem so much at peace. And now this news.

I am grateful to be informed. And as always, sadness creeps in and takes its place next to joy and gratitude. onward.

party in the snow

We went to a nice party last night at the home of my current boss. The centerpiece of the house is a giant room (what we call a "Great Room") containing a large pipe organ, one that a small-to-medium sized church would be proud to own. A smaller side room contains the "son of" -- a smaller mini-me organ perhaps made up of leftover or duplicate pipes. I knew there'd be a concert somewhere in there, but I didn't realize it involved singing. Someone passed out words and music to about 25 songs. Two pipe organs, a couple of French horns, a violin, and a few flutes accompanied us in an hour's worth of caroling.

I ran into an old colleague from 13 years ago, whom I introduced myself to, and an old noter from Digital who I hoped would still be so self-absorbed that she wouldn't recognize me. I was right, fortunately. A couple of co-workers showed up, as did some famous old names from Digital.

It was great fun.

d'oh! That wasn't too smart.

I had lunch with a friend today and for some reason started telling her about that stuck finger problem I have. I held up my hand and said "Sometimes, when I go like this" (making a fist), "my middle finger gets stu-damn". I spent most of lunch with my middle finger in its down position. At some point, I was able to wiggle it free, but hours later, my hand is still sore. I'll try not to be so -er- demonstrative next time I mention that particular problem to someone.

glimpses of humanity at the bank

I had to do some paperwork at the bank this morning and get something notarized. Basically, you show up, whoever's available authorizes your signature, and there's no charge. It's easy. Today, there was no line and the woman who helped me seemed really nice. I asked her if she had nice plans for the holidays. She told me that she's taking her entire family on a Disney cruise, which she sounded really excited about. (yawn, I know).

But she kept talking. She said that her husband died last year of pancreatic cancer on Dec 30. She wanted to be somewhere "safe and warm and loving" and thought up the cruise idea, which her children (all grown, with children of their own) were enthusiastic about. We talked about what a sneaky beast grief is and how she worries about whether she let her husband know how much she appreciated him and wonders whether she said and did all the right things. I told her she seemed like a very warm person and I suspected she did let him know how much she appreciated him.

It's so odd to dash off for an annoying errand, only to have things turn suddenly human. That woman made my day; I hope I was able to add some warmth to hers.

Toss. Turn. Repeat.

4:00 am last night. I was awake. After disturbing the cats and returning to bed, I couldn't get back to sleep.

First, I thought about my brother who sweetly sent a card, then a few days later sent an email asking if I'd gotten card. He said he hadn't intended to ask me to be a messenger between him and our father and then asked me to do just that. So I lay awake for a while grumbling to myself and wondering what part of NO he failed to understand the first time around.

Next, I thought about my aunt who ranges from sweet and innocent to manipulative and enraging. She actually was lovely enough to give my brother my number so that he would stop calling her. Lovely. At the time, she said "I know you two had a little tiff a while back," forgetting that the break came when my brother turned to me in front of a huge audience, said "You know, I've never liked you," and then things went downhill from there.

Then I thought about a friend who started driving toward Florida late last night and spent some perhaps unnecessary time worrying about her safety. (Storms, crazy drivers, the usual.)

I tried my usual falling-asleep trick several times -- counting backwards by sevens from 1000 -- but kept getting distracted by another worry and another. Then I thought about how I've been warned that insomnia is a side effect of being female and my age. Fun.

Somewhere in there, I did fall back to sleep but I'm wiped out. I was so afraid I'd snap at someone today but I don't *think* I did. Now I'm home, safe and sound and I can try to head to bed early tonight.

I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

Today I received an invitation from a friend, which included the instructions "bring an instrument (your voice counts, or anything that makes noise when you hit it--well, almost anything)." What was I thinking? I responded that "I won't bring my cat, who does make noise when I hit her, but only because she likes being spanked (gently). I'll have to think of another percussion instrument ."

My poor young innocent friend seemed a little -er- surprised? I then went on to elaborate that said cat is a slight fan of S&M and truly does enjoy being spanked.

I think the Christmas crazies have started.

fire & water... & popcorn?

We have a new domestic goddess at the pool. There I was this morning, paddling away, off in my own world. I heard a weird noise but thought little of it until it persisted. When I got to one end of the pool, I poked my head up and had a look around. Yup, the fire alarm was going off. Lights were flashing. The lifeguard was yelling at everyone to get out of the water.

He had us stand at one end of the pool near the exits until we were given the all-clear to get back in the water. The whole thing lasted about 20 lengths but because I could hear it under the surface, it felt like it went on a lot longer.

When I finally got out, I discovered that (a) the firemen couldn't find the control panel to turn off the alarm, which is why it went on for so long, and (b) the whole problem was started by overcooked popcorn. What an embarrassment all around.

It did make me wonder whether in a real emergency I would have been allowed to go back to my locker to retrieve my car keys. One can hope that I don't have to find out, especially in the middle of the winter.

Mousie cried out "oh"

In the midst of all the stirring up of less-than-pleasant thoughts of family, my sister sent me a link to a song that our grandfather used to sing to us as we were going to sleep. He'd sing to us nearly every night of our visits but this was a favorite for both of us.

Our grandfather was reputed to me mean and wily in his younger years, but by the time we came along, he had mellowed into a sweet guy. He tried his best to bond with us, sometimes with little success (I'm thinking of a failed fishing expedition that was just too gross for me) and sometimes with more (singing at bedtime).

The page containing the lyrics also links to a recording of the song. It's sung sweetly, but with absolutely no emotion on the line containing the mousie's exclamation. Our grandfather used to work up to that line, practically squealing out a little "oh" just as a mouse would squeak it, spurring us to imagine just why the little kitty with pearly teeth would actually drop its prey.

What a comfort to hear this song again and to remember those sacred moments just before sleep, summer breezes blowing, occasionally a cat at the end of the bed. Those were cherished moments.

My dear brother

No, not the one who lives in interesting places. Not the one I've never met. The other one, whom I mentioned several months ago. He was feeling fairly awful last night, so called me.

I think that one of his concerns is that he's so cut off from our family (with very good reason on both sides) that I'm one of the last thin threads he has. He seems obsessed that our father is old and is about to die with no resolution to their tortured relationship. ("I hate him, but I also love him.") Given that our father is in his mere mid-70s and that his self-abusing parents lived to much riper and older ages, I think that scenario is unlikely to play out anytime soon. It is however, possible that, as my brother fears, he will never see our father again.

In this crazy paternal family of mine, I've learned that our tribe consists of very good story tellers. They can horrify you, push all your buttons, get you all riled up, and then when you talk to the next person you are horrified all over again. There aren't just two sides to every story, more like three, four, a thousand, all the sides of a well-cut diamond.

My brother is tortured by his past. And I imagine that many of the things he remembers happened. Actually, my father has told me some of the same things, but seen from the other side of that diamond, filtered by different light. And they are horrifying in both tellings. My brother kept saying things like "I know you just ate dinner and I don't want to sicken you, so I won't tell you any details." And then he'd tell me another story. I don't think you can make any of these things up.

I do know from my father, though my step-mother was always way too polite to say so, that he was not a nice man back then. He was not gentle, he was not kind, and he was in fact, quite the opposite. His rages were so ferocious, and he was so well (or badly) matched to his second wife that he sent her original children to live with their father because he could not stand to see them live their lives cringing and hiding. I suspect things got much worse before they started to get better, just as my brother came onto the scene and started to develop memories.

The problem is that I can't fix this for anyone. I know that. I can make peace with myself and with those around me, or at least make motions in that direction. That's all. I can't carry messages to our father. (As I said last night, "you know who gets hurt when messages are carried back and forth? the messenger."). I can encourage my brother to continue writing and to continue making art. I've seen only small smatterings of his writing, and it is very good. And if his ability to make art is half as good as his mother's, he is a very fine artist indeed.

Some of the art work he's described, though, is filled with such awful images that I'm not sure I want to *see* it, exactly, though I can imagine that it is a very healing process to make it.

In some ways, I feel very lucky that my parents broke up when I was so young, allowing me to escape my father's worst years. Or if I didn't escape them, I at least have no memory of them. For all the horrors of my own early life, they pale next to those of my brother.

I somehow had the resources and help to pull myself out where I mostly function, or at least play a functioning adult on TV. I've come to believe, perhaps unfairly, that no matter what you've been handed, it is up to you as an adult to find a path through. You can find helpers along the way, certainly, preferably professional ones. You probably can't go back to the source for validation or reconciliation, especially when there's a good chance that the source has no memory of the awful past.

And so, one of the many painful parts of all this is hearing how much my brother needs validation and reconciliation from our father, something that is so unlikely to ever happen. And really, I think that's why he's been in touch after all these years -- both to see if I have any memories that match up and to see if I can act as a bridge to our father. I can't. And I don't want to.

After we hung up, Robert came into the room and said "There now. Was it easier to talk to him this time?" No, I replied. "Oh, well, then you have immense patience." I don't know about that. I know that I have some amount of compassion and a lot of sadness and exhaustion. After a conversation like this, I feel like the chalkboard against which fingernails have been scraped. And yet, I did not live through the horrors or the torture, so have very little to complain about in comparison.

moi

A friend passed along this picture via facebook. It's one of the nicest pictures of me I've seen in a while, and it sure doesn't hurt that I'm sitting next to an extraordinarily handsome man (the photographer's honey). This was taken at dance camp during high tea. Looking at it now, I remember how happy and relaxed I felt at that moment. Good impetus to sign up for the next dance camp.