Family – Page 8 – Grace Mattern

October 9, 2014

Yom Kippur #9

Life has been full of dailiness since my return home from our European travels. There was mail to sort, arriving in piles for days after we got back — hardly a personal piece in any of it — plants to water, laundry, shopping and cooking, driving to visit all the family we’d missed, spending time with friends we’d missed, watching the trees turn and turn again to bare, meetings to attend, dump runs, doing dishes, running and recovering from running.

Staying present to all this dailiness, in the way I was to the unfolding amazement of traveling in beautiful places, when my only occupation was to see and think and absorb, has been easier than I’d expected.

I’d actually been surprised I was able to be so present during our trip — there was hardly a moment of overthinking about the luxury and privilege of comfortable travel or worry about someone back home. Not that I didn’t think about how lucky I was to have the time and resources to enjoy Europe for weeks, or worry about friends and family back home. But those thoughts didn’t turn into feelings of unworthiness and my worries, mostly, didn’t get in the way. I let myself sink in to the experiences: drinking wine on a leaf-shadowed patio in France, hiking in the Alps, sitting around a breakfast table in a garden in Italy, drinking coffee and chatting with European friends.

Really, what I’m saying is that I haven’t been anxious, the most common reason for me to lose track of my connection to each moment. Was it the magic of travel that kept my anxiety at bay? Meditation? Medication? Whatever the reason, I’m thankful my ability to be present to myself and what’s before me hasn’t shifted, even now that much more of what’s before me is the routine maintenance of life.

This is a long way of explaining why I’m several days behind in my annual Yom Kippur post. Services were lovely — good sermons and outstanding music — and connecting with friends was sweet. As usual I thought a lot about forgiveness and the knot of unforgiven hurt that still comes up for me every year. I thought a lot about Eric — this is Yom Kippur #9 without him — and could picture him beside me through both services. David and I told each other what our intentions were for behaving closer to the ideals we pray about on Yom Kippur.

Now it’s a bright autumn afternoon and I’m enjoying the light gleaming on the leaves of the plants in my study’s tall windows. I know time is passing because otherwise nine years couldn’t have gone by. But I also know there is stillness in the center of time, in the center of everything, and somehow I’m getting better at living in that stillness. Centered. Maybe it’s just a function of slowing down as I get older. No matter. It’s a pleasure to be here.

August 21, 2014

A Normandy Birthday

Today started with a long (only needed to do 6 but ended up doing over 7 miles) training run through the pastures of Normandy, green fields full of cows or apple trees rolling up and down small, sharp hills. Normandy is famous for its dairy products — Camembert cheese probably being the best known, but there are innumerable local cheeses, excellent butter and some kind of yogurty delicacy that Anny gave us for dessert last night, topped with a dollop of creme fraiche and blackberries from her garden, all sprinkled with fair trade golden sugar from Britain.

Yes, we’re eating well on this trip, so I’m happy to be running a lot, working off some of the extra richness in my diet right now. After running I helped Anny weed her gardens, which are abundant and amazing. Then a trip to a small local museum for an exhibit on the history of childhood in this area of France. Now a few moments at a cafe in Vimoutiers, the nearest wifi to Anny’s house.

And wow, lots of birthday greetings once I got online and opened up Facebook. But the best was the message from Sam. Look in the upper right hand corner. Essential learning for any students in that classroom today, wouldn’t you say?

August 11, 2014

Hope and Weariness

Waking up is a gamble. Some days I open my eyes to a surge of excitement, my mind spinning with anticipation for what I’m going to do that day. I get up and get moving. Other days I wake to a coil of anxiety in my gut. Those days I try to stay in bed and breath relaxation into my body. That doesn’t always work and if it doesn’t, I get up and get moving, as if it was a morning when I’m looking forward to what the day will bring. Moving always makes me feel better, but those dreary mornings can get wearing.

My sister Chris, whose blog I introduced you to over a month ago, has recently posted two new essays that speak to those alternating days of hope and weariness. The essays are terrific. I hope you’ll click over to A Cancer Journey With Chris and read them.

July 25, 2014July 25, 2014

Puppy Love

At the end of the first week that David and I began seeing each other in 2008, I called him on Friday night. We talked about the upcoming weekend when Adrienne and Matt, and Matt’s parents, were coming to see Church Landing on Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’d booked their wedding reception. Matt’s parents were bringing their two West Highland terriers.

“They’re nice dogs,” I said. “I like having dogs in the house.”

“Do you want a dog?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” I answered. “I’m done with pets. But you’d be astonished at how many people, close friends even, told me I should get a pet after Eric died. They’d call and say, ‘I know what you need. You need a dog.’ Or they’d tell me to get a cat, or something. When I’d answer, ‘You do realize, don’t you, that even if I get a dog or a cat Eric is still going to be dead?’ that usually shut them up. No, no more pets for me. I travel too much for one thing.”

“Well that’s settled,” David said.

“What’s settled?”

“The question of whether we’ll have pets. I’m done with having pets too.”

I was surprised he was already talking about whether we’d have pets, but I liked it. It was a comfort to think there was a future where I’d be making decisions with someone else about how I lived.

I haven’t changed my mind at all about having a pet. But this week, being a grandparent to a puppy has been a delight. Quinoa is lively, spunky, affectionate and adorable. His unbridled joy at seeing me when I take him out of his crate after being out doing errands, is so gratifying. I’ve had dogs, and understand the attraction of having such a devoted companion. But experiencing the devotion this week has made me feel the attraction again, not just understand it.

But it’s only puppy love. When Quinoa goes back to Tennessee with Sam this weekend, I’ll be fine going back to my petless state.

July 20, 2014

Home Alone

Emilio prepared for saying good-bye to everyone by crying. “I don’t want to go. It’s been too short.” Then he got dressed, ate breakfast, and pitched in to help us all get out of our vacation rental by 10:00, after a late night for all of us.

There were more tears this morning, but not Emilio’s. He’d left with Adrienne and Matt on Friday to go back to Long Island. David and I were lucky — we got to extend our family vacation into the weekend, with Melia and Michael, Mackenzie and Sam all at the house until this morning.

This was our first family vacation with this iteration of family. Our week together at a big, comfortable house on Squam Lake was terrific — fun, sweet, funny, scenic, serious, tasty, refreshing, relaxed and energy packed. There were constant conversations among the family and flow of guests, so many people visiting from so many spokes of the family at one point that a visitor said good-bye to Adrienne as she was going out the door, thinking she was a guest leaving.

There were quiet evenings with only the core nine of us, Emilio asleep and the rest of us reading or talking over a game. There were late nights with a crowd for dinner and numerous stunner sunsets. The World Cup final was streamed on three different computers set on tables facing a semi-circle of chairs. At one point the streaming feed of one computer was 3 seconds behind, creating sequential squealing and groaning across the room, as those watching the on time screens reacted and the rest of the room caught up. Emilio climbed his first mountain (West Rattlesnake) and he and I together picked every accessible ripe blueberry on our corner of the lake, out in the morning to get what had ripened overnight and eat it before the birds.

Now I’m home alone for the first time in 10 days. “Transitions are hard,” I said last night, thinking about how just now would feel, everyone gone, the house only holding David and me today and for many days to come. But as I listened to the kids talk about their own transitions, back to our usual geographically scattered state, I thought maybe I have it easiest. I’m already home.

And actually, I’m not home alone. Long story, but Sam ended up flying back to Tennessee today and will be back up next weekend to get his car. That meant his puppy Quinoa will be here with me for the week, a particularly adorable part of the family left to make the house seem a bit less empty.

June 30, 2014

Sisters

I feel lucky to have three sisters, and even luckier to have just spent three days at the beach with them. The one day of clouds didn’t seem to matter in balance with the glorious sunshine and clear air of the other days. The cottage Chris was renting looks over the marshes of the South River and it’s a short walk to the beach. We were surrounded by the best of being on the water — the snaking blue of a tidal river contrasted by green marsh grass, and the hiss and tumble of waves breaking white on the sand.

Spending time with my sisters walking along the beach and the river, sitting on the deck or the porch talking, cooking and eating and cleaning up, playing Catch Phrase and talking about books and movies and memories and writing, I experience only the blessings of having sisters I’m close to and can connect with.

But I guess I didn’t always feel this way, or was willing to explore other experiences of my sisters, or was just expressing the usual adolescent angst when I wrote the poem below. It was among the treasures in the album and box of old photos and papers my parents gave me last weekend. If I remember correctly, I wrote this in junior high school. Maybe I’ll write an update today.

To My Lovely Sisters

Down by the telephone
Lovely and fair
Sits Chrisie my sister
Covered with hair

From the tip of her nose
To the crown of her head
It hides all her beauty
And makes her look dead

And up in the bedroom
As fair as the first
Sits my next sister
Jeanne the cursed

She yells and she screams
Til her throat must be sore
And continues to prove
She’s an obstinate bore

And then there’s dear Meggie
As fair as the rest
Who’ll run from her work
At that she is best

She cherishes her candy
Which she eats all alone
And if someone takes some
She lets forth her loud groan

And then there is me, too
Of all I’m the best
I’m kind and I’m loving
And never a pest

So now you have met
All my great sisters three
But kindest and loveliest
Is the great me.

June 24, 2014

Whipped Cream

Coming up on the porch of the cottage my sister Chris is renting on the beach this week, I noticed there were four gift-wrapped packages, sitting on top of boxes, on a bench. My parents were both sitting in porch chairs, and smiled at my sister Meg and me when they saw us.

“Those are for you,” my mother said, and Meg and I saw there was a gift for each of us four sisters. Jeanne is visiting for the week, and we were all together over the weekend to celebrate both of my parents turning 90 this summer. It had already been a great weekend, with all of my sisters and their husbands and most of the next generation there too. Now we had gifts to open?

Meg opened hers first, and I could see it was an album with old photos and papers from her childhood. I opened mine eagerly. There was my birth certificate. There was a photo of my mother holding me as a baby, Jeanne and Chris, both older than me, standing next to her. There were photos of my grandparents on both sides, photos of great grandparents I never met, photos of my sisters and me dressed up as young children and photos of us all goofing for the camera as teenagers.

Best of all were the pieces of writing my parents had chosen to include, from when I was a child. In the boxes under the albums were more papers for us all to sort through and decide what to keep. There are blank pages at the end of each album, so we can fill in with what we want from the boxes — report cards (my grades in high school weren’t as good as I’d remembered), newspaper articles, award documents, SAT scores? I went through the box this morning, and there are treasures there, especially the writing I did in grade school.

But my parents had already picked out the best piece for the album. It’s dated March 2, 1962 (I would have been nine years old), and was obviously written as a school assignment.

“Whipped Cream” is the title. “Last Monday night we had whipped cream on our dessert. My mother told my sister and father not to use much whipped cream. After all that talk my mother took the most.”

June 9, 2014

Telling Our Own Stories

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m quite open about the struggles I face that arise from my own direct experiences. If anxiety or grief or sadness comes from something that’s happened to me I’ll reveal what that something is. It’s my story. But sometimes I reference having a hard time without being specific about what exactly is going on, because what’s going on isn’t my story to tell — I’m reacting to something that’s happening to someone I care about. If it’s not my story, I don’t feel entitled to tell it.

One thing that’s been hard for me (and many others) for the past several years, and even more so the last 18 months, has been my sister Chris’ journey through a recurrence of breast cancer, and a spread of the metastatic disease. Now it feels exactly right to write about it so I can direct you to Chris’ own story. Over the past 10 months Chris has been writing a remarkable collection of essays about what it’s like to live with metastatic cancer and she’s eager to get these essays out into the world for others to read. Today she launched a blog as way to share her story and her essays with as many readers as possible, so head to A Cancer Journey With Chris. She has the first of the essays up and background of her cancer journey. There’s more to come from her, so bookmark her blog, pass on the link, and stay tuned.

April 21, 2014

The Train of Memory

Passover is over, the train of memory that carried me into this year’s observance has moved on. Working on the memoir I’m writing has meant living in the present moment (or as close to being present to the present as I can get) while on some level reliving the turbulent years that are at the center of the book. Part of the book’s story is Eric’s illness and death. Eric’s metastatic disease was first diagnosed just before Passover in 2006, and Passover this year was almost exactly the same time as that year. It makes sense that the overlay of date and season, along with significant immersion in my experience of that period of my life, would make this Passover carry an extra weight of memory and grief.

One thing I’ve discovered in working on the memoir is how much of the story of Eric’s illness I was telling David two years later, shortly after we met. Many days in April of 2008 I was writing emails and letters to David, telling him what had been happening on that day two years before — this is the weekend Eric first slept all weekend and hardly ate, this is the day he went back to the doctor and ended up at the hospital, and on and on. I couldn’t help reliving everything and writing it down helped make it easier to carry. Having David to write it to made it easier still.

I’m having another one of those years. Because I’m writing about and reading about remembering each day as if overlaid with that day in 2006, I found myself back on the train of memory. Here is a letter I wrote to David on April 13, 2008:
Eric’s diagnosis came just before Passover, the Jewish calendar is lunar so the dates float across the Roman calendar. Two years ago tonight was the night we were going to host a Seder here with our NH Jewish friends, a Seder tradition dating back to when we first moved to NH. I was so delusional in the face of Eric’s mounting illness I’d shopped for the big Seder the weekend before even while knowing on some level it would never happen. So two years ago Eric was just home from the hospital and we did a little Seder with just the family. Eric told the Passover story, gave a short history on the tradition of the Seder, and Matt told Adrienne later that it had been great to listen to Eric, he’d learned so much, he wished he’d have more Passovers with Eric. Adrienne told Eric Matt had said that, then Eric said to me (so much circular conversation!) “Well, that’s a reason to stay alive for another year. To teach Matt more.” And Eric was dead in three weeks. Yikes. I’ve been crying a lot tonight.

But time is on its constant track, so even as I remember sad times from eight years ago, or remember remembering six years ago, today is today and we had a wonderful Seder last week with some of those same friends.

January 20, 2014

Small Stone #20

Tears welled up as I moved into child’s pose this morning, at the beginning of yoga class. “I wonder what this is about,” I thought, and then in another pose when the tears were right there again. Then during shavasana, the lying relaxation pose at the end of yoga class, I remembered. Natalie died a year ago. I’ll light a candle for her at sunset and let the small glow it creates dance in the kitchen as it grows dark. The candle will still be burning when I get up in the morning. Another day.