A Poem Written Long Ago

 When my hand brushes your nipple,

An electric shock runs between my legs

And surprises me there.

When my hand glides against

The curve of your hip and flows down your thigh,

I must grab you and hold tight –

The light is coming.

When my fingers are deep inside you,

You moan my name and my chest ignites --

radiance and disintegration.

In and out we go in the semi dark

Plush of bed and bone,

Breath and sweat, lips and warm clefts,

Endless stratospheric stars.

When we have touched and touched again

And sighed heavily into the curve of our arms

The delta breeze puffs the curtains and

Sends relief to our incandescent skin.

I float into my dreaming

Knowing you are next to me there,

With dreams of your own.

Happy New Year?

So here we go, 2025.  Many did not come along with us. We persist for now.

I admit to a certain amount of melancholy this season. I spent Christmas morning with my daughter and grandchildren.  Came home to nap and decided not to return.  I felt quiet inside, and wanted to stay that way and not pretend.  

Last night I stayed in as well.  I was invited to an event, but again, I wanted to be on my own.  I was pleased to know that many of my far flung friends were also having a quiet night.  

I woke up to the news that some crazed idiot used his car to mow people down on Bourbon St. in New Orleans.  Much carnage.  It seems dangerous to be in crowds, period.  Luckily, I dislike crowds and crowded places, so I suppose I'm 'safe' that way.  

I was rescued by a fun phone conversation this morning with dear friends.  We always laugh a lot, and we did today as well.  She was doing laundry and I could hear the machine filling with water.  From my seat on the couch, I spied a pile of dog poop.  We laughed about how exciting our lives are!

In the coming days I will mark the 5th anniversary of my husband's passing, and the 3rd anniversary of my dad's.  The passing of time is a very strange thing, especially when you are grieving such losses.  A friend of mine lost her wife earlier in 2024 and these recent holidays were very painful for her.  They were together for thirty years!  

Another close friend has just been diagnosed with cancer, again.  She recovered from breast cancer twenty two years ago, and now it's back. This dear woman has been through a lot in her life.  One would think she'd already 'paid her dues,' so to speak.  She had a massive stroke about a year and a half ago.

What a litany.  Aint I a chipper woman today?

I recently watched the movie with Cillian Murphy called Small Things Like These, based on a novel.  It was an historical telling of the abuses to young pregnant girls in Catholic monasteries. It was so bleak that I almost turned it off.  The grief and sadness on the face of our protagonist was masterful acting.  The shear darkness of it all.  The story probably didn't help with my mood!

I find Cillian Murphy quite compelling as an actor.  I think he is physically gorgeous, too.  I first saw him when the series Peaky Blinders was on television.  Such an evil character he played, and yet that character also had my sympathy.

Time for my nap.  A glorious way to spend an afternoon on the first day of the new year.

Bereft

I have finally received information about my niece Cara's death.  I reached out to a friend of hers and she was good enough to get back to me. Though they were friends, Cara's family notified them with only the barest of details.  No service for her, no obituary in the newspaper, nothing.  It upset her friend so much that she added a memorial to Cara onto her mother's headstone at a local cemetery.  A simple concrete rose.  To those who did not know either the mother or my niece, the rose will signify nothing.  But to us, it is everything.  I am so grateful to her friend for contacting me.  She gave me some reassuring information, and the fact that Cara was living with her parents at the time, and was taken to the hospital where she died of sepsis and multiple organ failure.  We don't know if it was connected to her death, but she had become addicted to opioids prescribed by her doctor.  The doctor cut her off cold turkey and so she managed to get the drugs from a dealer.  I can't help but wonder if her drug use contributed to her death.  I'll never know.

I just sent an email to my sister expressing my condolences and also my dismay that this information was withheld.  Crass?  I don't know. I needed to send it.  The family is oddly silent about this, but then I remember that my sister was a very private person.  Sort of pathological about it.  She didn't want me socialising with her and their friends because she didn't want me to 'spill' any information about her.  I wouldn't have, but there's the point.  There was a paranoia there that I couldn't understand.  She views herself as a very important person in town, an elite, if you will.  Anything that could affect her perceived reputation was to be avoided.

Here I am, dealing with my own grief in stages.  Learning in November the she had passed two years previously.  Learning some new details in December.  Hoping that Cara passed peacefully and knew that she was loved.  Forty years old is too young to die.  She had so much ahead of her.  I held her as a newborn, and loved her through her mischievous younger years.  Attended her high school graduation and cheered her on through many phases of her life.  I feel lost knowing I'll never see her again.  She trusted me with a lot of information about her struggles in life.  Her extreme upset at her family life.  I kept her confidences.  

Life is hard, isn't it?  I feel anger toward my sister for withholding this news.  She obviously had her reasons, but it feels personal.  I'll work on that.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy time with those I love and who love me.  We are not guaranteed anything in this life.

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.

Short But Sweet

I took a very short getaway with my daughter and grandkids.  We flew to our old stomping grounds in Santa Cruz, CA.  It was supposed to be three nights but it turned into two when a huge storm was forecast for Denver, our return destination.  So we bugged out of our lovely vacation rental early.  Good thing, too, for the storm has arrived and it is not pretty. Here are my old friends whom I have not seen in 15 years.  We enjoyed tacos and margaritas at a restaurant on the SC Wharf.  It was one of those get togethers where no time at all seems to have gone by.  They are warm and gracious as ever.

The vacation rental has a hot tub, which we all enjoyed, including some friends of the grandkids.  The house was quite near the yatch harbor, and I fell asleep to the sound of sea lions barking.  An old familiar sound for me.  I haven't been in the area in a decade, and I forgot how much I love the local flora: palm trees, evergreens, succulents, honeysuckle bushes spilling over the fence, Peruvian lilies in abundance.  Oh, and the Acacia trees with their bright yellow flowers filled with pollen populating all the mountain roadways.

Nothing ever stays the same, and Santa Cruz is quite changed.  High rises downtown, houses on the ocean front threatened by erosion and high waves and also huge buildings on Mission Street.  Of course I drove by some of my old houses there, including the one where I lived with my wife before our divorce.  I drove by that one, too, and lo and behold, she was out front unloading groceries from her car.  I didn't stop because I wasn't sure I'd be welcome.  Subsequent texting informed me that I would be most welcome.  We were trying to put something together when the news came that we had to change our flight and leave a day early. So, there you go.  But it was comforting to know that she wouldn't be waiting for me at her front door with a shotgun.  I supposed enough time (twelve. years) has gone by to soften and make fuzzy all the very bad things that happened.

It was fun spending time with the grandkids.  They were lil' champions on this trip!  Upbeat and cooperative.  They had a great time going to the amusement park and the local aquarium.  They loved seeing their cousins and friends.

Despite having to cut short an already short trip, it was indeed a sweet time with everyone.

Obituary, Draft #1

I want to write my own.  Because, you know, I know my life best.  And because I don't want my daughter to have to summarise it all. I'm not near dying, which is the best time to think about these things.

Born in 1957, the heyday of post war America, Tara was born to young and industrious parents, who would go on to provide a good life for their three daughters.  Ann and Patrick Crowley did a pretty good job.

Tara lived throughout California, from San Diego to Sacramento.  Her most memorable years were on the Monterey Peninsula and north in Santa Cruz.  Here she gave birth to her daughter at age 30, a long awaited and most joyous birth.

Tara was a young go-getter, going to college at Monterey Peninsula College while working various part time jobs and volunteering as a DJ at a local Community Radio station, KAZU.  This is where she met her first husband, and father of her child, Kevin Sean Cashen.  They both moved to Santa Cruz for Tara to pursue a degree in Fine Art.

After the birth of her daughter, she worked at UC Santa Cruz for 23 years in various positions within the Student Affairs division.  She survived the political tumult endemic to universities, until she'd had enough and took early retirement at 52 years of age.  She worked briefly as a home health aide before providing care for her mother, who lived with Parkinson's Disease.

In 2020, Tara was predeceased my her husband, Dr. Steve D. Barbour.  Upon his death she moved to northern Colorado to join her daughter and family.

Tara had many interests, including musicianship, writing, fine arts and photography.  She was inspired by her great great Aunt Lou Goodale Bigelow, a pioneering photographer in the early 1900s.  

Tara's life was graced with intimate, lifelong friendships, from a junior high school classmate to friends of her parents.  This was her passion: the friends she made in life who shared values, passions, and their hearts over the decades.

Tara is survived by her daughter, Laurel Cashen Harris (Josh) and two grandchildren, Eden and Dylan.

Garden Song

 Have you heard the song?  

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground

Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
Till the rain comes tumblin' down

Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones
Man is made of dreams and bones
Feel the need to grow my own
'Cause the time is close at hand

I was surprised to hear it was written by John Denver.  I always thought it was Pete Seeger.  Nope.

It's a new year, 2024, and while I don't make resolutions (who needs to be disappointed?) I do like to reflect.  I'll be sixty seven this summer, which is an odd thing, and yet not.  Like most of us, I feel to be much younger in my mind if not my body.

It occurs to be that the years have been teaching me patience and self-love.  I have overcome huge obstacles and know that, no matter what, I am resilient as hell.

I am moving along, reaching out and making new friends; enjoying activities however small.  I don't venture too far from home these days.  Mostly because I have a newish dog and don't want to leave her.  Also because, although I do love people, paradoxically they annoy me no end.  The thought of air travel is daunting.  Have you seen the mess at the airports?  A sea of humanity.  No thanks for now.

I try to get friends from California to come to me.  A couple did, and they contracted Covid while visiting their son before coming north to my place.  Maybe caught it in the airport, we don't know.  It was a miserable "vacation" for them, stuck in a hotel room and not well enough to fly home immediately.  Though the peak of the pandemic is passed, I personally know many people who have been sick with it in the last few months.  It's a miracle I haven't had it (knock on wood).  Perhaps it's my religious adherence to booster shots and the fact that I don't hang out in large crowds of people.

In case you missed it, this is the two year anniversary of the attempted coup in Washington D.C.  45's treachery is well known even though a third of the country refuses to acknowledge it.  Liz Cheney's book, "Oath and Honour" is out but you know that die-hard MAGA folks are not going to read it.  And so it goes.

On a Zoom call this morning, I told my friends that I don't get too exercised over politics these days.  I've been engaged over the decades and I'm laying it aside.  Of course I observe, and talk with friends about it, but it is up to younger folks to step into the fray.  I'm tired and tired of it.

I hope your holidays were what you wished for.  Happy New Year, filled with peace and contentment, from me to you.

Goings On in Northern Colorado

Gosh, but it's been a minute since I posted.

I've been consumed with my move, and adopting a new dog!  The house is coming together - I moved in July 15 - and it's been exciting but exhausting.  Some days just throwing my legs over to get out of bed was a chore.  I'm getting a big return for all my efforts: a house that I love.  Of course I had help from family and friends, for which I am extremely and eternally grateful.  I know I said this when I moved to my condo four years ago, but THIS IS THE LAST TIME.  I'm too old for this shit.

My newest dog, Dori, is bringing great amounts of joy.  I'm also getting used to young energy (she's 1 yr 3 mos) and some potty training issues.  She's getting better, but sometimes I still find a turd (or two) tucked behind a chair or in the laundry room.  Working on that.

How could I possibly get mad at this little girl?  She's adorable.  Lucy is getting along with her, and just in the last couple of days they share the dog bed.  Lucy doesn't look thrilled being squished in there with Dori, but she's a good sport and tolerates it.

They are both sleeping with me, under the covers.  My main bedroom is in the basement, beautifully finished with a lux bathroom.  It's cool down there which is perfect for the summer heat.  I don't run the air conditioning much.  It's fabulously chilly and I crawl into bed and pull the covers over me.  No air required!

It's been fun decorating.  Orange curtains, new rugs, and a couple of pieces of furniture refurbished by a friend of mine.  This is her side business and I love her work.  So far I've purchased two dressers and an ornate antique side table.  

So that's how it has been going.  I don't read blogs much anymore.  I don't expect that people will read mine.  Gone are my days of excited posting that I kept up for over a decade.  I only have so much energy. Only so much space in my brain.

Thanks for stopping by.

Magic and the Passing of Time

Just about a year ago now, I was headed for a fall.  I had my bariatric by-pass surgery and was hoping to shed a lot of unwanted pounds and begin a whole new way of eating and relating to food. Not to mention moving through the world with a lot less weight on my bones.

Despite high hopes, and following doctor's orders, I would suffer from an ulcer in my stomach instead, and after not eating for almost 2 months (seriously) I was rushed to the hospital with a severe bleed in my stomach.  Surgery and a long recovery that seemed endless, I couldn't possibly know that a year after my release from rehab in July, I would be moving to a new house!  Selling my little condo and buying a 2 story home with room for overnight guests.  I hope to fill those guest rooms with, well, guests!  

I truly thought my condo, sweet little space that it has been, would be my last home.  I was hoping the traffic noise out the back, and the train whistle several times a day would fade into the background.  But they did not.  I love my dear neighbours and will be sad not to be a few steps away from them, but the noise is driving me nuts.

I decided to call my former realtor and ask her to work with me.  I wasn't necessarily prepared to buy right away, but I thought I would look around and see what the market was doing.

Suffice it to say we saw a lot of sub-par properties that cost a lot of money.  I had the insane notion of looking at homes near our city's Old Town, which I knew would be pricey but I wanted to look anyway.  It was a great awakening and it led me to look in other areas close to Old Town but not in Old Town.

This lovely 2 story farm style house was by far the best property I saw.  I put in an offer and I knew there would be multiple people vying for the same home.  I didn't hope too much, so I was shocked when my offer was selected!  The big advantage of my offer is that I would assume the mortgage after a fairly quick escrow and let the seller (now my tenant) stay in the home until July.  I'm in no rush to get out of my condo, so I could do this.  I wasn't the highest bidder, but this consideration to the seller was what sealed the deal.

I put my condo on the market last Friday and on Sunday we (Shawna, my realtor and I) were entertaining two offers.  Both cash.  One higher but they wanted to assume the mortgage after closing and have me pay rent.  I didn't like the paying rent part.  So we negotiated on that and they gave me the same deal I gave my seller.  

A good real estate agent is worth their weight in gold.  The financial and legal considerations are many and complex.  Shawna keeps me from doing a primal scream a couple of times a day.  I don't know how she manages this business.  7 days a week, late nights and early mornings.  You've got to love the work because it demands a lot from you.

My daughter is concerned that I'm going from a one-story to a two-story (with a finished basement to boot), especially at my age.  I thought a lot about this, and decided that perhaps going up and down stairs would aid in keeping me fit.  I might be delusional, but time will tell.  It's a lovely house with lots of light and a fenced back yard for Lucy.  After she adjusts to the move, my plan is do adopt another dog.  That's something I couldn't do in my condo neighbourhood due to pet restrictions.  I love the thought of another dog hanging out with us.  An older dog, no puppies for me!

Unbelievably enough, after a year of languishing and feeling pretty damned depressed about it, buying a new home has given me a sense of purpose that I've been lacking.  Another gift from my dearly departed parents, the ability to buy a stand alone single family home all by myself.  I hope they know how happy I am.  I wish I could call them on the phone and tell them all about it.  Perhaps, wherever they are, they do know.

Can You Go Home Again?

In 1977 and 1978, my first husband and I lived in a 560 square foot cottage in a picture perfect beach town in California.  It was a great little cottage, but built for summer use only with no insulation whatsoever.  We left it when I went off to college in Santa Cruz.

I came across our wedding invitation while sorting old paperwork, and there was the address for RSVPs. I looked it up and there it was!  Cleaned up, inside and out.  My mind immediately began trippin' on renting it again for a vacation home.  Nostalgia? A longing for my old life?  A practical solution to my desire to return to the area for parts of the year?  Yes, all.  What would it be like to live there and spend time in the area as my senior self instead of my twenty year old self?  It's still listed as a rental, not for sale.  

The concept of time is a very strange one.  Emotionally, I can be back in 1977 in the blink of an eye.  Naive, frightened of adult life, clinging to a husband who was not a very good match.  I had delusions of grandeur that were never fulfilled.  I could also feel suicidal.  I think I'd like to go back now because I feel stable, and okay, and would like to envelope my old self with compassion and a new appreciation of life.

My last therapy session was about self-compassion, and then I spent several days in a funk.  So much for intentions.  Today, at last, I feel I am coming out of it, ready to join the world again.  

It may be unrealistic to expect this cottage to be available, but I would like it if it were.  I'd like to spend the better part of a year there and seeing it with new eyes.  It might be good therapy.  Old homes can have such poignant memories, and this one does for me.