Two steps forward, one step back

 

I'm getting productive- or trying to become more productive. I had a productive day yesterday: 

I caught up with grading for my class.

I made appointments: two medical appointments, two insurance appointments, car care appointment, legal appointment, home care appointment, and an appointment THAT AFTERNOON for tree clearing in my yard.

Understand: all these appointments required PHONE CALLS, which I detest.

I got all the documentation arranged for an upcoming BIG PURCHASE.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

The tree clearing was supposed to happen yesterday afternoon. When the guys hadn't showed up by 5:00, I was getting worried. Sundown is happening earlier, you know?

Ultimately, they didn't show, the sun went down, and I texted them we'd have to reschedule for Monday or Tuesday, since today (Thursday) and tomorrow I was booked out of the house a lot.

So I was disappointed- this tree clearing is weighing me down, and I really wanted it DONE already!

So as I am returning from my early morning appointment, I get a text that the tree guy is on his way!

I texted back, when will you be here? Because I have to leave by noon!

He texted, 5 minutes.

He came. He assured me he could get it all cleared before I had to leave.

He's cutting now.

I'm about to jump online for a scheduled meeting with a student. Then head out the door to Ann Arbor for an oil change and checking in with grandkids for Halloween!

Hoping that all times out well!

*UPDATE: All timed out well. Plus, Tree Guy bought 2 items I was about to post to Facebook Marketplace and took them with him!

Full moon musical

I was having trouble sleeping last night. I got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. There was a full moon, and the moonlight was pouring in through the sliding glass door to my deck.

I stepped out on the deck to see the full moon. It was beautiful; hiding in the trees. I never have any success in photographing the moon. I didn't even try- just enjoyed the peaceful moment and the beauty.

Then I heard a yip, then a howl. It took me a moment to get my phone recording- but this is the chorus I heard:

Coyote Chorus

I am trying to upload the video here. I missed the first solo howl, that came from the southeast. The clip above has the choral part of the coyote cantata. I heard later, and I'm not sure you can hear it in the video, a solo howl from the west- that was later answered by the original coyote chorus.

At least, I think it was the original chorus. It was from the same general area, with the same general volume.

I think. My hearing and placing what I hear in the right physical area is not what it once was!

I will miss this. I like seeing the deer (when I'm not driving) and the turkeys meandering through the fields or across the road. I loved the time a charm of finches arose in my backyard, startled from their feasting on thistle down.

Yesterday, a hawk circled and circled around the pond or marsh that is beyond my fenced in yard. It was so close.

I love the birds around the bird feeder in winter. I love the hummingbirds around flowers in summer. 

I looked at a house today, a condominium that could possibly be it. It's closer to all my kids. Closer by an hour to the kids in Illinois and the kid in South Carolina. Closer by almost an hour to the kid in Michigan- which means it's two minutes away instead of 60! I am asking my child to ask their partner if it would be okay for me to be that close. I don't want to crowd anyone.

It's town living, not country living. It's a big change. Human neighbors sharing walls and common green space. Fewer four footed neighbors serenading me at midnight.

I want community. I also want agency. I want natural beauty, and I also want some order. 

I don't know what the future holds. I don't even know who I will be. 

I've posted a fair amount in the past year or so, much of it navigating my grief at the death of my beloved.

I want to begin to post about my life, going forward. 

These are, again, meandering thoughts. Maybe I will come back and revise. Maybe I will delete entirely.

For now I will publish- partly to see if the video worked!

Change is gonna come

 I am beyond stressed. With my work for Byzantine U, my prep for the High Holidays, my need to declutter and repair and clean and paint my house to sell, my need to find a new house home, my need to care for my family and friends, my worries about the looming election and the national and world events- I am beyond stressed.

Something must change. Change will come, is coming. Some of the change I can choose, direct, guide, and some I cannot. 

I am sometimes having difficulty knowing which changes I can direct, and which changes are outside of my control.

I know that I need changes in my life. I feel stalled. What used to bring me joy finds me indifferent now. Most of my life is flat and stale.

Maybe I need a complete change of direction, purpose, career, focus. 

I could become a cycologist, right? 

I have been an actor, director, producer, educator, waitress, program coordinator, journalist. I've been on so many boards as president, VP, chair, secretary, and more. 

I know I'm good at my work as an educator, and I enjoy working with my students- but I have to force myself to make the connections, do the grading, post the assignments.

I'm good at organizing programs and designing and coordinating events- but here too I find I lack interest, initiative, motivation.

I am stalled. Not drifting, exactly- I'm still getting the necessary tasks done, although at the 11th hour and the 59th minute.

Gotta love deadlines.

Tonight is Kol Nidre, the evening that we enter into the Day of Atonement. The Kol Nidre prayer itself is a petition to the Eternal to be excused from oaths that were made under duress, obligations that we took on or promises that we made against our heart's desire or our own truth.

We ask that, as the New Year begins, we can enter freely to a future that is not controlled by our past.

My past has influenced me, and much of that is good. However I cannot stay in the past; I have to move forward.

May this New Year have tender and sustaining memories of the good of the past- and also beginnings and discoveries.

I am a different person now. 

My clock

 

This is my clock. It's one of the clocks my mom had. She collected old clocks- or clocks made to look old! This one actually is old. Here's the back panel.

You can see the 1928 date. The fainter date seems to be 1940, and would be a later repair.

This is a wind up clock. I'm not sure how often it should be wound. Daily seems too often, and once a week usually means that the clock starts to lose a minute a day. Sometimes it loses more than a minute a day. Sometimes it springs ahead. Usually it's within a minute or two.

The clock has a single chime on the half hour. It chimes on the hour, too, but I don't know that I have ever heard it chime the correct number of chimes for the hour. I've heard it bong more than 24 times! I've heard it bong four careful chimes for 11:00!

I'd like to take it in for examination and repair. Maybe.

At the same time, I'm not sure I should. It's working, in its own way, with its eccentricities. It's quirky, not all together accurate. I worry that if I open it up for repair, it could stop working entirely.

We had another wind up clock, a wall clock that Ken and I received as a wedding gift. For more than 30 years, the clock worked beautifully. We wound it about once a month, and it kept accurate time. The chimes sounded at the correct time, with the correct number of chimes.

 

Then it slowed and finally stopped. We took it in to be repaired. The jeweler said the works could not be repaired, but could be replaced with battery powered works. It would keep accurate time again.

We would lose the chimes, though. 

It would look the same even though everything on the inside was changed.

We had the clock repaired and for another decade the clock kept time. The clock is in my car now, waiting for me to take it to the jewelers to have the battery replaced.

I will replace the battery. I still love the clock, even if it is different on the inside. 

But my new favorite may be the antique clock with eccentric timing and chiming.

Learning from loss: The first half of the 2020s.

Paging through this blog, I found the draft of the post I started about my mom's death, in October of 2021.

Since that time, two close friends from our temple family died- one expected (RG, octogenarian), the other a shock (mid 60s). 

My dad's brother-in-law died in April 2023.

My aunt died in April 2023. 

Ken died in October of 2023.

A year before my mom's death, my dad had a stroke. His recovery was amazing: no cognitive loss, no speech loss. He wasn't able to drive anymore- his navigational sense was gone. In the years after his stroke, he has gradually lost strength and mobility.

At this moment, my dad is not doing well; he has pulmonary fibrosis. This will be what ends his life, almost certainly: in months or maybe a year or two. 

Another friend has been diagnosed with an invasive breast cancer.

There is war in Europe, war in the Mideast.

We have not recovered from the pandemic. 

The recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene are ongoing- or suspended in some areas, as Hurricane Milton approaches.

The 2020s have not been kind thus far; I pray that personally and globally we are able to mourn, let go, and find some positive paths forward. 

There has been joy, too; I am hoping to visit joyful memories and plans soon. Today, though, I found this post.

My mother died on Monday, October 4, 2021.  She died on the 11th anniversary of my daughter's miraculous survival of a terrifying accident.

Death is both expected and unexpected. My mom had been in declining health for some time. Yet she had rallied so many times from so many close calls that we almost expected another recovery. She had breast cancer in 2005. A heart attack, complicated by an allergic reaction and renal failure, in 2010. She was in the hospital every other month in 2011 with spinal surgeries, pulmonary embolism, pneumonia. She had a partial hip replacement.

The Covid pandemic was hard on everyone; my mom had to deal with radiation and chemo treatment for lung cancer in the summer of 2021. 

Every illness and its treatment, every surgery and recovery, was harder than the last. There were so many losses. Mom lost her ability to drive. She lost mobility. She lost so much agency- she lived sometimes with me, sometimes with my sister. 

She was bitter, often, and angry at the cards she'd been dealt. 

I can't really blame her; how could I? Her losses were undeniable. 

I'm trying to learn from my mom, learn from my dad, learn from my dad's wife. How do we move forward from these losses and find satisfaction in later life?

I compare my mom's aging with my dad's aging. Until my dad had his stroke, he and his wife DE were active- physically, socially. They had friends and outings and made regular trips to the library.

It was different with my mom. Once she stopped driving, and even more when she moved out of My mom didn't want to go anywhere. She didn't want to see anyone- her social circle grew smaller and smaller.

She just wanted me, or my sister, to hang out with her, or take her places. Not my brother as much- she didn't want to "impose" on him.

She was angry at her failing body. She was saying "NO" to any suggestion that might make life more enjoyable. Join a book club! Go to senior center for lunch! Pick up a hobby! Visit a friend!

No, no, no.

Partly it was vanity. She didn't want anyone seeing her "like this." She would refuse to use her walker or cane going in to the doctor's office, using my arm instead.

Until she had to use a wheelchair.

My mom was angry and bitter and, in my view, didn't take advantage of the opportunities she did have. She had friends, she was close to a senior center and could make more friends! 

I try not to judge. I don't know what her pain level was, or how much she worried about falling, getting bumped by kids or others in crowded spaces.

I do think about what *I* would want for myself in that situation. I try to see what the difference is between my mom and my dad.

Until this past year, my dad was positive and kept as active as he could, post stroke. Even now, with his mobility severely compromised, he doesn't complain much. You can see on his face his grief about his current limitations, his dependence on others; yet he expresses gratitude.

His hearing loss is profound, and it is harder now for him to stay engaged. He's ready to let go, I think. I am not ready for this; selfishly, I hope he will hang on for a while longer.

I'm writing around and around what I want to say.

One difference between my mom and dad is that my dad has an active and positive partner. His wife DE remains upbeat and keeps moving forward.

I had that, until Ken died.

I'm trying to learn from my parents, from the world. 

I want to stay active. I want to do my part to heal the world, and heal myself. I want to be able to acknowledge that I can only do what I can do, and be at peace that I am doing my part, and my part is not all the healing that is needed, it is not all the work that is needed.

There are others to do the work, too; or not. 

I can only do my part.

I am also trying to keep my social network strong. My mom's world shrank to needy dependence on her kids. I don't want that for my kids and I don't want that for myself.

Maybe I will return to this and make it more coherent. Maybe as we move into a new year- we are now in the first week of the Jewish New Year of 5785- I will find a clearer path forward.

For now, I will try to stay open to what new possibilities there are. I will try to say "Yes, and" to life, rather than "No, but."

Missing you

 

I missed you today.

(I miss you every day. I miss you every night.)

I was putting on the pearl necklace you gave me. It's difficult to do those clasps by yourself.

I remember you helping put on my necklace, gentle fingers lifting my hair, finding the clasp, fastening.

The feel of your breath on my neck, your lips grazing the nape of my neck, a surprise kiss as the necklace is fastened.

I miss you.