Still warm. Still sunny. Still dry.
Still not sleeping well, or rather -- waking up too early, then settling into thoughts rather than another round of sleep.
And so you get one more day of more serious posting as a result. But just one more.
I had gone through a folder of letters from my mom yesterday. I hadn't exactly kept those letters in the years she'd written them (these were from just prior to my divorce), but she made copies of them all, maybe anticipating that I would have tossed the originals, and she handed these copies to me, along with my brief and indifferent responses a few years ago. She wasn't cleaning out her stuff. So was this for emphasis? In case I missed her insults the first time around?
As you know, recently I had wondered whether I should have pushed back against her wild darts directed at me, though watching the recent American political scene, I'm pretty sure I was right to just stay silent. You cannot tell people who believe their stories that what they hold as gospel truth is one big fabrication. You cannot fact check for them, you cannot bring witnesses, evidence. It doesn't work and just raises the temperature in the room.
Ed and I have breakfast. Tentatively I bring up the subject again. Of her. Ed is quiet this morning. Maybe he's had enough. I ask him -- what would you have done if your mom had got it into her head that you were a terrible person and insisted on telling you this? Hung up on her.
I see that this was the wrong question. My mother didn't say this, she wrote it. And I did trash it, which is the equivalent of hanging up, but then, as if on repeat dial, she put it all in that folder and sent it to me again. I kept it this time. Why, you ask? To remind myself that this is who I'm dealing with -- a person who makes up stories about those who do not give her what she thinks ought to be hers.
My mom never retracted any of the stuff she wrote about me (pages and pages of it!). I'm quite sure she never wavered in her belief that I was totally crazy to want to end my marriage. It drove her nuts that I did not want to talk to her about it and so she walked out, then dug in her heals. Talk about the elephant in the room! But, as her needs increased and her calls to me for help multiplied each day, I became the "angel child" and we became her "beloved family," "the most important thing in life," -- this is the idea she wanted to leave behind. And with this directive to me: you have to stay well! We all need you! Lucky break for her, I outlived her.
In between breakfast and bagging tomatoes for the freezer -- both with Ed by my side -- I read the essays of David Sedaris once again. Now that my mother is gone, I can smile overtime at his brand of humor, with double compassion for his swirl of emotion as he navigated the last days of his father's life.
A week has passed since I had my last half sensible conversation with my mom. Six days since her death. Papers sorted, phone calls made, emails written, clothing donated to Goodwill. All that remains is a family memorial meeting which the kids want and I'm willing to facilitate. I suppose to the great grandkids, it would be strange not to have some form of remembrance. When their cat died, the young family held a funeral for him. Weird not to do something for someone who, after all, gave life to us all. In a few weeks we'll gather. Words will be spoken, ashes will be scattered. (Unlike in Poland, it's not illegal to do this in America on public lands.) I have a small gift for each daughter, we'll eat a meal together and I'm hoping I'll return to sleeping well thereafter. No more elephants in the room.
And no more reflection on this! I've filled in the backstory, I've explained the difficulties. Time to really hang up the phone finally and return to the tranquility and warmth of my farmette days.
This afternoon, Ed and I go for a brief walk. It's amazingly lovely out by the turtle pond in our county park. The colors are muted of course, the grasses are drying up quickly, the water level in the pond is terribly low, and yet...
Ed reminds me that there is no better place to be right now and I do agree. On this day, at this time, in this place. But I know I'll be itching to travel again soon. The author Habib suggests in her book on "...an irreverent history of travel" that we should go places with wonder, not with opinion, expectation, not to view with our biased eyes, to pat ourselves at our superior ways of avoiding the appearance of tourism, not to test ourselves, or to measure their way against our way, but simply to experience wonder.
I love that image, even though I agree with Ed that wonder comes at you with equal strength even if you just stay home. Our walk in the county park this afternoon is filled with moments of wonder! Look around you! In Flushing Meadows Park (see yesterday's post), in Farm Lake Park (where we walk today) there are people filling the place with their joyous presence. Amidst fields of prairie flowers and sprawling canopies of oaks. Out on the waters of the lake...
Travel has to deliver more to make it worth my while, my resources, my getting on that plane that I know does our planet no favors. And travel does deliver more: it opens up closed spaces within you. And it brings you down to size. There is so much more to life than just your petty grumbles and self indulgent whimpers and cravings. So much more... Entering that other world keeps you humble. And happy to be alive. And very happy to come back to the turtle pond, the prairie grasses, and of course all the beloved people here.
Speaking of beloved people here, guess who comes over for dinner on the porch!
And it is the perfect evening for it.
(play first, eat later!)
September really does have the best weather for being out there, around a table as the dusk sets in. Fills you with wonder indeed!
and love...
