One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

I am so pleased that it is beginning to look, feel and smell like spring. Last week, when it was still somewhat cold, there was one day where the sun was out and I sat on the porch. It was too cold to stay long and I eventually retreated to the deck (on the other side of the house, where the wind was blocked but the sunshine wasn't). But while I was there, I noticed that a flock of doves had taken their places among the branches of the biggest tree in our front yard. There was the smell of rain and all the snow (which has completely vanished) was just beginning to melt. So suffice to say, I saw this weather coming and was really happy, anticipating it. But I wasn't sure it would come so fast.


It's so strange how I experience the seasons and how they affect me. Winter drains me until I feel useless and unmotivated, but spring is a pretty impressive drug, making me feel fully charged. I know I have probably mentioned it before, but this time of year makes me want to go exploring. I especially find myself interested in wandering nature trails and forests – anything green fills me with this urgency. Which makes sense, considering what long winters we have here (versus our very short period of warmth and sunshine). I remember a time when I liked the cold more, but here, it lasts so long and it's so dark that life is often undermined by depression for me. Or maybe it just seems that way. I did have a semi-productive winter; I was probably in brighter spirits and more energetic than I think I was. It's not always easy to recall the positive things, is it?

Last year, I went online looking for forest preserves or parks with trails. I daydreamed about owning a bike. But all this other stuff came up and there were the issues at the office where my boss was delayed in paying me. Money was too scarce to buy a bike and the reason for never making it to the park trails escapes me now, but it just never happened.

Back when I lived in Skokie, my then-roommate and I (when we were still on friendly terms) used to leave early in the morning on weekends. She'd park near a train station and then we'd walk around the city. There was no real purpose – we weren't always going somewhere. We would wander in and out of stores that looked interesting and occasionally, when we got really hungry, we might grab a bite to eat. But mostly, we just explored neighborhoods, watched people. I'm sure we talked, too, but nothing planted itself in my memory so much as just the walks – taking in the city sounds and views and scents. Just seeing everything. Pretty rad.
I miss seeing things. I miss being in love with this city so much that I need to know every street, every corner. Now I find myself fantasizing about being somewhere else and I think part of that has to do with me not making the most of what I have here. I am even poorer this year, but I could make a real effort to get out there, go for hikes, take in the trees. All that stuff is free.

It's springtime again and I want to do so much. I want to never slow down. I am a little manic today with a bundle of spun nerves and I can't stop thinking of the things I want to do. I want to give my heart to Chicago again, explore it until I am running on empty and then maybe I can coast on that for at least one more winter.

Enjoy the sun while it's out!

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow/creeps in this petty pace from day to day

Approaching the first death anniversary of this year, I've been giving a lot of thought to how we remember people and how to write about things that are difficult. On March 2nd, 1998, my mother died in our living room. That's rather blunt, yes. That's the facts down to the barest essentials, though, which is usually as far as I delve into the subject. I barely discuss this with anyone - not even the therapists I have had or my own siblings, whose loss this is, too. A recent Psychology Today article related news of a study in which writing about death produced reduced levels of depression in participants, but I'm not sure that's totally reliable. I discuss the circumstances surrounding my father's death only slightly more. But for some reason, when the anniversaries come around (one in March, one in August), I feel almost guilty not even acknowledging them.

On the flip side, however, writing about it also makes me feel incredibly bare, like I am flaunting something I shouldn't be. I really don't want it to seem like that. I'm ashamed of it, but I know that in my younger days I used tragedy to gain attention to some degree. I'd like to think I am more mature than that now. I may not know better how to express pain, but I know a little better how not to.

Yet on days like today - the twelve year anniversary of my mother's passing - I feel overwhelmed by the memories that I am often trying to piece together because I never want to forget. Some of them are extremely painful - like those of the day she died - and some are funny, silly things that I just don't want to forget about her.

After my mom died, I remember feeling shrouded in a way. I felt distant from the world, like there was a layer of fog between me and everyone. I remember finding all these little things. I connected and attached meaning to everything, realizing that everything had meaning. A shopping list she'd written. A box of cake mix she'd bought but never had the chance to make (I presumed she'd planned to save it for the April birthdays of me and my father, but she died in March). And some things felt like they had no meaning at all: being in school, listening to small talk, sleeping, eating.

The morning she died, I remember my father's frantic voice coming through my sleep, calling for help. And I remember my brother's pleading voice asking me if I knew CPR, him asking the EMT questions through his tears. He was only 17. That EMT was the first person whose shoulder I cried on. I wasn't thinking about her being a stranger - I was unable to think at all, really. She patiently let me do so and I never even knew her name.

In the last years of her life, my mother's health problems had increased and with them came a heavy depression. She stopped bathing, claiming that she felt claustrophobic in the shower/bathroom. She stopped taking care of herself at all, so that she developed a somewhat gritty scent. She lost some of her teeth. She lay in bed for most of the day, until an hour or so before my dad was due home from work. Her respiratory ailments had finally come to a head and she was put on oxygen by her doctor. She was so sad, and I was an angry brat, a young adult coming off a difficult adolescence. I didn't really talk to her and when I did, it was in mocking tones and sarcastic retorts. At the time of her death, I believed that her depression must have been partly my fault and partly my dad's, because we were such difficult people (I have always said that I am very much my father's daughter). 

I don't really believe that anymore, though I do regret that our relationship wasn't a closer one. I have a great deal of really wonderful memories about my mom, too. I invoke her in conversation regularly - she had many strange sayings that my siblings and I picked up and now jokingly refer to as "mom-isms." She'd say, "I'm hungry enough to eat fried doorknobs!" or "Oh, horse feathers!" My best friend from high school got such a kick out of my mom's exclamation, "sugarfoot!" that she adopted it as her own replacement for cursing.

She also recited verse regularly, especially the few lines from Macbeth that is the subject line of this entry and the following from Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" :


"Water, water, everywhere,
     And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
     Nor any drop to drink."

She did this so often that I knew these lines long before I knew the poem or had ever read Shakespeare. 

She also sang songs - I believe she spent some time in the church choir in her youth - and the one I remember most was the old Sinatra song "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter." And she loved movies. She could talk about old movies and movie stars like they were old friends. She was actually a really great storyteller and had, at one point in her life, wanted to be a writer. She'd considered taking a newspaper writing course in Connecticut in her younger days, but had "chickened out" at the last minute. She used to tell me how my dad was going to drive her up there and knowing my dad, I always imagined that he'd talked her out of it. 

But she is the person I credit as the reason I began dreaming of a writing career. She got me addicted to books when I was a kid and praised me for reading and writing. One Christmas, she bought me the entire series of The Sweet Valley Twins (along with several other books, like Behind The Attic Wall, Daphne's Book and several Sweet Valley High and The Baby-sitter's Club books). She got me and my brother library cards and she bragged to all my teachers (and occasional family members, nurses, etc.) that I was going to be a writer. As if I was, no matter if I liked it or not. In the early days, I beamed proudly along with her. In my teenage years, I was embarrassed and annoyed by it and took to dead-panning that "No, actually, I'm gonna be an undertaker."

After giving up on dreams of her own writing career, my mom seemed to have developed a dream to have a writer in the family and despite my arguments, I knew that I really wanted to be that writer. 

By the end of my life, perhaps I will have managed to tell the story of hers in some way that does her justice.