My Aunty Lou

 

I'm going back in time, once again, to visit my great great aunt, Lou Goodale Bigelow.  I knew "Aunty Lou," and would visit her in her home that adjourned my great grandmother Ada's home in the orange groves of El Cajon, Ca, just outside of San Diego.

Lou was a singular woman, especially for her time, and I love reading about her life of artistry and dedication to her craft.  She was a bit of an eccentric (as many artists are) and I knew this instinctually when I was a child.  Her small studio was set in the sunny and arid countryside. She kept heavy drapes closed during the day to keep out the heat, so her space was a cool oasis in the summertime.  Her studio was across a breezeway from her sister, who lived there with my great grandfather Oscar.

I knew some of our family history because my g-grandmother would pull out boxes of photographs made by Lou and others, and tell me the stories behind the images.  I now have these images, kept stored in an old leather suitcase from the 1940s.  Not only images on paper, but 4x5 inch negatives which are in great shape considering their age.

Lou made this portrait of Wallace Simpson, at the time the wife of a naval officer.  Mrs. Simpson came to Lou's photo studio on Orange Avenue in Coronado, CA and sat.  There's a good description of the session in the article linked above.  When the King of England announced he would abdicate in order to marry his love, Lou's photo was used in newspapers around the world.  It was one of the few contemporary portraits of the woman.  I grew up hearing this story many times, as it was Aunty Lou's most famous photograph.

I get a little thrill at the notion that I have a celebrity in my ancestry.  As a photographer, Lou was in the thick of high society through her association with the Hotel Del Coronado.  Snow birds from old money families, the movie industry and titans of power would often spend vacations there, and while there had their portraits made at her studio.  She also made many family portraits in the outdoor patio at the back.  

Here is my grandmother, Nadine, posing with Lou's dog Lady on the back patio.  Despite all the set designs Lou made for indoor work, the back patio with the giant pepper tree was a favorite of many.

I love remembering Aunty Lou.  I remember that she drove race cars, wore slacks, dove into work that women rarely did.  She had a confidence that came from her father in particular.  He taught her about photography and launched her career.  They were a bohemian bunch except for my great grandmother who was a very proper lady.  My grandmother would tell us some of her peculararities: never say you're full after a meal.  Always say you've had a sufficiency.   The terms of arms and legs were to be called "limbs."  When I knew her, she was a very old lady who always took care with her dress and appearance.  Quite a contrast to her artsy sister who dressed like a man and drove fast cars.

I come from them all.  I love that.

Pre-Existing Conditions

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, before my latest health scare.  I'm tired of it, I tell you. I wound up in the ICU with extremely high blood sugars.  I called 911 because I felt so poorly and knew I could not drive myself to the ER.  After lots of testing and IV drips of various liquids, turns out I had bacterial pneumonia.  This infection is what increased my blood sugars to dangerous levels.  This is one reason why I get all my vaccines and stay away from people who are sick.  I'm home now on oxygen.  No telling when I'll get off of it, but I need it even when I am sitting quietly.  I really need it when I empty the dishwasher or fix a meal.  Speaking of which, I can't use my gas appliances while there's all this oxygen in the house.  I'm getting creative with the microwave, and ordering a lot of delivery.  I've been craving sushi. Perhaps my body is telling me I need more omega-3?

Here is the litany I began before....

I did not win the health lottery.  Born prematurely, I had lung issues from the get go.  Thanks to modern medicine and the good care of my parents, I survived early and critical asthma.  It forced me to sit out various activities. I have memories of being five years old, watching the kids playing outside, knowing that I could not join them.  These were the days before inhaled steroids and albuterol rescue inhalers.  A big bowl of bowling water with Vics Vapo Rub was the treatment.  Nights in the hospital in an oxygen tent.  Miraculously, somewhere around my seventh year my health stabilised for some unknown reason and it wasn't until I was fifteen that my asthma kicked in again.  My parents took me for allergy tests, and I tested positive for just about everything.  I started on shots which lasted for a couple of years.  Despite this, I was active as a teen, and never considered myself 'sickly.' 

My frequent use of albuterol (inhaled) eventually led to heart rhythm problems in my early sixties.  A smart doc put me on an inhaled steroid and that did the trick.  My use of albuterol was reduced by 99 percent. I use it so infrequently now that I don't carry it in my bag when going out.  In the past, I would never be without it.

In my twenties I was chronically and severely depressed.  The medications back then were worse that the illness, so after trying two or three, I gave up.  This made my world exceptionally small and both my husband and I suffered greatly as a result.  I was lacklustre and slept a lot.  I cried a lot.  My illnesses ruined vacations for us.

When I was pregnant and thirty years old, I developed gestational diabetes.  Discovered near the end of my pregnancy, it was treated without insulin.  I watched my carbohydrate intake.  Both the asthma and the diabetes impacted my labor: I had a severe asthma attack and was given drugs to help.  They were essentially speed (adrenaline).  Because of the attack, I went into early labor but the use of stimulants hampered the contractions.  Three days of labor later, I delivered early: a very fat little cherub.  Doc said it was good that I delivered early, as the diabetes was responsible for putting a lot of weight on the baby.  Though born early, she had good lungs (hallelujah).  She also had severe jaundice which almost required a blood transfusion.  We got through it all.

Inserted later, after reviewing.  I can't believe I left out the biggest clunker of all: type 1 diabetes.  What a Freudian slip.  At 35 I got very sick.  Lost a lot of weight, was thirsty all the time and of course peeing all the time.  A trip to the doc and a pee test determined I had diabetes.  At the time we assumed it was type 2 since I was well into adulthood.  I was assigned an endocrinologist who was a pretty sour fellow and we went through the protocols.  It was daunting: so much to learn just to take care of myself daily.  Finger sticks (ouch) and gel pacts for low blood sugar.  I was taking oral medications at the time and my doc was happy with my progress.  At one point he said, "I wish all my patients were as diligent as you."  After a year, however, my sugars went up and again I became very sick.  Testing revealed I had no more insulin at all.  Wasn't making it, wasn't using it.  I was taught how to use and inject insulin several times each day.  This disease impacts everything in my life, and has done so for 32 years.  I am used to the daily care and consideration, and modern devices like a CGM and insulin pump do make life easier.

The health chronicles really kicked into high gear in my late fifties when I was hospitalised multiple times in a short period with completely bizarre and undiagnosed symptoms.  I was never given an explanation, and of course some doctors concluded immediately and without basis that it must be diabetes related.  No doubt this was because my blood sugars shot up to dangerous levels while my blood pressure tanked.  Close to death multiple times, I came to think of death as an inevitable relief from this cycle of illness.  These episodes scared the hell out of all who knew me, but I was too exhausted to feel such fear.

Due to my health, I was able to receive social security disability.  The episodes disappeared as mysteriously as they had come, but I lived with the reality that they could return at any time.

Two years ago, I had gastric by-pass surgery.  I was looking forward to losing weight and improving my health.  Unfortunately, I developed an ulcer at the suture site which went undiagnosed despite my repeated complaints to my surgeon.  I ended up being taken to the hospital, bleeding out, and immediately going into open stomach surgery.  I lost a lot of blood.  A lot.  My by-pass surgery had to be reversed.  I had lost 45 lbs in two months because, for most of that time, I could not eat anything.  Protein drinks made me sick.  It was a brutal way to lose weight. Two years later, all the weight came back on.

I survived the pandemic without coming down with Covid-19. Probably because I was very careful and stayed home except for solitary walks with my dog.  I don't go to crowded places because I can't stand crowds.  I didn't fly anywhere.  I had my vaccines as soon as they were available.  Plain dumb luck or following good protocols?

Ever since that stomach surgery 2.5 years ago,  I've never felt right again.  My doc and I have been working on why this might be so, and she's ordered an array of blood work.  The thing is: I have no energy.  Pushing myself only makes it worse.  She thinks it might be akin to chronic fatigue.  

Despite my lack of energy, I did make several trips since spring this year.  I paced myself and ordered wheelchair service at the airports.  I was able to visit friends, and attend a friend's memorial service in Washington D.C.  It was very taxing, but I did it and I felt proud that I did.  They were slow-moving trips with lots of rest, but I managed it and for that I am grateful.

My adult daughter is inured to my health emergencies, including my stays in ICU. She had to deal with my diabetic emergencies all of her life.  She had to get me juice and make me a sandwich to recover from low blood sugar.  She saw me emotionally snap while in the middle of it.  This didn't occur often, but it did happen.  If the juice wasn't coming fast even.  If my blood sugars were low enough that I was sweating, shaking and running hot and cold like a fever.

Speaking of my daughter, being pregnant with her was one of the healthiest periods of my life.  My body worked well.  I breastfed with no complications and kept it up until she weaned herself around her first birthday.  I love feeding her.  I loved that my body could do this.  I had no postpartum depression - I felt great.

There were many periods of great health: when I was a teenager and into my twenties,  I enjoyed backpacking.  I climbed mountains before dawn to watch the sun rise.  I swam in clear cold rivers and enjoyed the company of friends around camp fires. I built rudimentary furniture when I was too poor to purchase the real thing.  I learned how to repair cars, and fix plumbing problems.  I marched in political protests and had a short but wonderful career on a public radio station.  My voice went out into the world on the airwaves, as did the music I chose to play.

I guess this is all to say that even though I have been beset with various illnesses over the course of my life, I have lived a good one.  I pick myself up, dust myself off and get on with it.  Really, what else is there to do?

Sad News

As if life couldn't get any weirder, I found out today that my niece passed away two years ago.  Her mother, my younger sister, and I have been estranged for about that length of time.  I do occasional internet searches on S.'s children, just see how they are doing since their parents and I aren't speaking.  I was not expecting the news of her death, and it leaves me deeply shocked and sad.  

My niece ghosted me about ten years ago for reasons I have never been able to figure out, and she was not willing to talk with me about it.  When we did meet over family gatherings, she was saccharine to the extreme.  This kind of behaviour drove me up a wall.

I have no idea if she had been ill for awhile, in an accident, or anything. Further searches reveal nothing.  She was only 40 years old.  She had a hard life, relying on her parents for financial support when her home decorating business wasn't doing well.  She was a gifted caterer and party organiser with impeccable taste.

I don't think my older sister knows about this, and I hope to speak with her tomorrow.  I'm glad my parents aren't around to see this.  It would have devastated them.  She ghosted them as well, but my mother in particular hoped for a happy reunion at some point. 

 Maybe they've had it now.

The Day After

I feel like shit.  I am so disappointed in our country.  I can't say anything that would shed light on this insanity.  I am in the minority in the United States, but I usually am.
I can't even get the formatting right on my blog right now.  Do I care? No.
The great Langston Hughes speaks for me today.

• 

 Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

Heaven's Coffee Shop

I had a dream last night that my mom was in.  I went into a cafe for a pastry and coffee and there she was, looking like she did in her last days except that she was walking and not in a wheelchair.  She was a trainee at the shop, and she didn't recognise me due to her dementia.  I placed my order, and she got several things wrong, so I walked her through it again.  She was doing her best.  The other staff there were very kind to her and helped her too. 

I very much wanted to take her out of the shop and take her home.  She had been essentially helpless for a decade, relying on my dad and me for her every need.  What was she doing working in this place?  But I looked harder: she seemed happy.  She was slow, but doing the job with a smile on her face, really connecting with me as a customer.

She walked through the swinging doors into the kitchen, out of my sight.  She was functioning and she was productive.  I should stay out of it.  She wasn't really my mother anymore, she was her own person on her own path. I felt both profoundly sad but also glad for her.  She wasn't on death's door anymore.  I knew I had to let go.  Let her go.

I woke up feeling as if I were on the brink of death myself.  A bit of a panic in my chest.  I felt pulled to join her in the afterlife.  I miss her so much.  I love her still, I always will.  I do, in most cases, enjoy when she comes to me in dreams.  Often as a young healthy woman, sometimes in middle age and still vigorous.  Rarely as her old self, suffering from Parkinson's disease and dementia.  It's been three years now and I still get the notion to call her on the phone and tell her about my grandchildren, her great grandchildren, or the new couch I bought for the living room.

Instead, I speak to her from this side of the veil, and invite her in to see me whenever she wishes.  

Oh What a Night

No, not like that Night by the Dells.  I only wish.

No, my night was full of tossing and turning, fitful non-sleep interrupted by one of my dogs have poopy runs on my bedroom rug.  I decamped to another bedroom and ordered a rug shampooer on Amazon.  The smell.  Oh, Lord.  I've been contemplating a shampooer, as I have three dogs and these things are bound to happen.  But I've been putting it off.  No more.  This was the final straw, so to speak.

It was supposed to be here early afternoon.  Crickets.  

I took a break in my housework today to call a good friend in North Carolina. She's well out of the way of Helene.  A California transplant, she moved to Mt. Airy a decade ago, tired of the floods and mudslides of Big Sur and Carmel Valley.  This woman is prepared. Her neighbours, shocked by Helene, are asking her advice for emergency supplies.  She has a well stocked pantry, plenty of bottled water, and a Coleman propane camp stove.  This was an essential in California where we lived through earthquakes, fires, floods and mudslides.  As western NC is showing us, it can happen anywhere.

Our conversation was a balm to my horribilis noctis. We attended high school together, and though we go years between visits, we always pick up where we left off.  The very best kind of friendship.

Thanks, friend.

Hiding Out

I've been ensconced in my house for a couple of days, after a long day of travel and friendship that was great but really wore me out!  I start thinking about the negatives of hiding out, and do beat myself up a bit about it.  However, as I am seeing the devastation across the east from hurricane Helene, I snap out of my funk and feel pretty danged grateful.

Insomnia and a heavy lethargy are bearable.  Surviving the flooding and wind damage from this storm - not so much.  I have a nephew who attended Warren Wilson college in Asheville, NC, so I was curious as to how the campus faired.  They are doing better than areas around them, but they are cut off by mudslides and have no electricity.  No electricity means NO WATER.  No wifi and spotty cell service so frantic parents are having a difficult time finding out the status of their children.  It reminds me of the Loma Prieta earthquake in California when I was working at the university in Santa Cruz.  

One of the things I've been doing these past 2 days is looking back at family history.  This handsome fellow is my great grandfather Oscar Tilley in 1907.  I knew him as an old man; he died when I was six years old.  He was still strong, and tall, and tolerated us little ones invading his house. His wife, my great grandmother, was a tiny woman (like Nancy Reagan).  She was his physical opposite - delicate and small. I had the pleasure of knowing her as well.  Her sister, my great great Aunt Lou, lived in a studio across the breezeway.  I count myself lucky indeed to have known these ancestors.

The maternal line in my family boasts early California settlers.  My grandparents were a part of my childhood, but not as much as my paternal grandmother.  They owned land in the Sierra foothills and operated a Christmas tree farm that was wildly popular with people as far away as the San Francisco Bay Area.  Upon my grandparents deaths, the farm was sold and two of their children used that money to buy their own farms, closer to town.  

The earliest ancestors I know of were operator/owners of a stage coach inn in Siskiyou County, California.  They gave it the family name, and Cole's Station was born.  I remember meeting my great grandmother Cole once, as she lay in a hospital bed in a nursing home.  I was quite young, and her visage was a little scary to my young mind.  She was a great friend to my parents, however, and helped them purchase their first home.  My mother's parents were not keen on her marrying my father, but grandmother Cole was, and helped out the young couple.

As a grandmother (Bubbie) myself now, I think a lot about the generational knowledge we are able to pass on.  Keeping the stories alive and honouring the past seem very important to me now.  I am a fan of the PBS show "Finding Your Roots" and how astounded people are to discover their ancestors' past.  People's stories are forgotten along the way, until we are older and more reflective.

I feel my ancestors around me from time to time.  Even the one who caused a family scandal and absconded with family money and left his pregnant wife with his parents.  He was found decades later by my grandmother, living in a sleepy mountain town in Northern California, having formed an entirely new family.  My grandmother felt the call of her long lost uncle, who was never mentioned after his abandonment.  His name never appeared in any writings by my great grandfather. It was as if he never existed.

So, this is what I've been up to. Lost in the past and dreaming about the enormity of life.

Steve

 

A friend is grieving the loss of her long time love and life partner.  It is wrenching, but she is remembering the good times, their travels, and the love they shared.

It brings back to me the grief I experienced at the loss of my husband, Steve, almost five years ago now.  We were together a short amount of time but we packed a lot of living into those six years.  We didn't know our time would be so short but we had a real 'carpe diem' attitude about our meeting, falling in love, and marrying.

The ending was complicated by the dementia that took over his brain.  So much bitterness, anger and confusion.  Truly harrowing.  Only healed in the last week of his life in the nursing care wing of our retirement community. He had moments of clarity where deep connection was allowed between us.  His daughter said he was calm when I was around.  

My friend is writing about her amazing travels with her partner, and that brings up very fond memories I have of my travels with Steve. This photo was taken in Paris, with two friends of ours who happened to be in Paris at the same time!  What a nice surprise.

Our travels were always an adventure.  I had never been to Europe, nor Cuba, and we went several times over the years.  Steve was fluent in French, and my Spanish was passable, so together we worked it out.  I will be forever grateful for his enthusiasm and willingness to share an adventure with me. 

What I've discovered, anew, about grief is that the sting of loss never goes away.  Not a day goes by where I do not think of Steve.  The good and the bad. As time moves on, however, I find most of my memories are good ones and my gratitude around finding him continues.  An accomplished man, intelligent and creative.  He adored me and I felt that.  The sharp pain of loss softens while the sweet memories bloom easily.  For that, I can be entirely at peace.

Yellow Cottage, Part 2

I have a dear friend who I met in my Creative Writing class my freshman year in college.  I sent the poem to her for her comments and edits because I knew she would make it better, and she did! Most of her adult life after college, she was an editor.  Not that it matters, but she knows this cottage that I write about, and the man who lived with me in it.

The Yellow Cottage

Nestled between two imposing stories,

Squat, hunkered down,

Protected by a white picket fence,

Two blocks from the deep blue bay,

Where sea lions bark and gulls squawk,

And the foghorn sounds.

I stood outside the fence,

Camera raised and clicking,

Trying to capture a time 

When I entered, with groceries and textbooks,

To find comfort on the couch.

My love and I lived within these cottage walls --

    one bedroom,

    a serviceable kitchen,

    no laundry.

The years to come, just a dream --

Two hapless youths on our way.

Hope lived within us.

I stand before the cottage, decades on,

And he is gone, far too young.

I wonder at the life within those walls,

And yearn, once more, to enter that space

and absorb whatever energy and insight

The yellow cottage has to give.

Țară Crowley, 2024

The Yellow Cottage

The Yellow Cottage

Nestled between imposing two stories

A miniature home bathed in yellow

Squat, hunkered down

protected by a white picket fence

two blocks from the deep blue bay 

 barking sea lions and squawking gulls

the lighthouse fog horn calling out 

I stood outside the fence

camera raised and clicking

trying to capture a time

when I entered carrying groceries and text books,

to find my comfy spot on the couch

My love and I lived in those four walls

a single bedroom

a serviceable kitchen

no garage

no laundry

spare

the years to come, just a dream

two hapless youths on our way

hope lived within us

I now stand before it, decades away

and he is gone too young

I wonder at the life within those walls

and yearn to enter that space once more

absorbing any residual energy and insights 

the yellow cottage has to give

5/25/24

You Can Go Home Again

 I took a vacation in the first week of May.  I went back to my high school and college stomping grounds, still populated by many friends of the time.  I needed to get away to refresh my spirit, and I wanted to go somewhere fairly close and manageable.  My physical energy has been low for a long while, so this was also a bit of test to see how I could do with travel.  Lucky me, United flys direct from Denver to Monterey.  Monterey airport is a teeny tiny place that hasn't changed in decades.  They welcome you at the door when you enter from the tarmac.

My first stop in town was to the cemetery where my parents are buried.  It was my first visit since we buried their ashes.  The flat headstone was littered with new mown lawn and dirt.  It looked so insignificant there.  Sigh.

I headed off to visit with my college friend in the condo where she has lived for thirty years.  In the evening we went to dinner on the wharf.  Delicious sand dabs, cooked perfectly, with sautéed peppers and a nice crisp sauv blanc.  We wandered around afterward.

This pink gem is located at the top of the wharf.

As a teen, the wharf was someplace I avoided because of the tourists, but this trip it was a fun place to visit.  Not only did I have dinner there with my old chum, I had lunch a few days later with my ex-wife.  It's been thirteen years and the ending was ugly back then.  Time and tragedy, however, have softened us both and we spent a couple of hours catching each other up on our lives and our children. It was healing and left me feeling peaceful.  Never say never.  People do change.  Not radically, but in meaningful ways.

The great thing about this trip was the connections with my friends that I've known for 45 years.  My dance card was full with them.  It was like a farewell tour, but I hope it's not!

Remember that little house I mentioned a few posts ago?  I went by and took some photos.  I think I could live there again.  If somebody laid 800k on me.

So many memories walking down that street, standing at the gate.  That's where I lived when I married in 1978.  I could listen to the sea lines on the rocks two blocks away as I fell asleep.  The fog horn and the seagulls.  A lovely existence.  I was too young to really appreciate it and now these decades later I wish I could have it back.  It's nothing special, and yet it is.

I stayed at my favorite hotel in downtown Monterey for three nights, then moved out to Carmel Valley to stay at The Lodge.  The valley is a completely different ecosystem - arid, sunny, vineyards and sprawling oak trees.  Very much like the south of France.  Everywhere, even at the coast, the Mediterranean plants: cactus, the spiky Pride of Madera, artichokes, lavender and citrus trees.  The scent from all of these darlings is heady.

More on my wonderful valley stay later.