wrenching the heart loose

I’ve tried to start this post countless times, and feel like a dog turning around trying to find the perfect position before settling down for a nap.  Haven’t found it, so just need to wade in …

Since Michael’s last post, we’ve spent 5-ish weeks in the Chicago area working for several families while staying with my parents, 2 nights camping near the Indiana Dunes, a week at Gary and Peggy’s place in Holland Michigan (building a fountain/waterfall feature in one of their gardens), one night at a rest area, one brief but glorious night in our old stomping grounds in Lackawaxen PA with friends, 2 hours in a parking lot catching up with adored old friends we hadn’t seen in over 10 years, and the last 5 days settling into our 3-week digs at a campground in Clinton CT, while Michael works in New Haven doing a Sol LeWitt install.   Whew.  That’s the framework … now to try and fill in a few of the holes!

Chicago was my home for 23 years, and it’s more familiar to me than almost anywhere.  Faces, streets, names, the exact speed at which you can turn left onto 2nd Avenue, where mom keeps her measuring cups, and the back of Helen Maurer’s head on Sunday morning … all pretty much unchanged.  Some folks still steady as a rock, and some wearing at the edges, as you’d expect.  We moved away 14 years ago, and despite the quick visits here and there, I didn’t feel much of the more subtle changes going on.  Until this trip.  Five weeks is long enough to be less guest, and more resident.  Less hurry, more soaking up the minutes and feeling like they didn’t need to be squeezed quite as tightly. 

Except the longer we were there, the more I felt like they did.  The more I realized what needed to be done, and how big the changes were … both what had happened quietly over time, and what was cropping up on the horizon.  The thing is, (so very sorry Dad but I’m about to ruin your ability to share this post with Mom), my mom has Alzheimers*.   She’s had the visible signs for several years now, and things are progressing pretty much as expected.  And what is now, and what’s expected, sucks in many many ways.  She’s still independent and drives to familiar places, but that window will close before too terribly long, and her sense of time is irreconcilably twisted.  She’s lost many of the abilities that have defined her character for most of her life … like being able to run an ever-changing house full of guests, feed crowds on a moment’s notice, finish the crossword puzzle for you when you get stuck, and remember to send dozens of birthday cards every month.

The tide is eating away the definition of who she’s always been, and her edges are getting soft.  The guilt is gone, her worry (about everything except time) is gone, and her epic sense of responsibility is eroded down to a nubbin.  It makes me bawl, and I want to build her back up.  Now.  Put her back together, find the pieces and stitch them into something familiar.  Push up against the beautiful castle that’s always been my Mom, and I can’t.  I have to take her hand, hold her heart, and listen for what she’s saying in between the lines.  Which I can still (now at least) see in her eyes some of the time.  

There is beauty there, achingly lovely beauty, in seeing her happy, mostly content, and depending entirely on Dad and God.  Her pleasures are simple … Reminisce magazines, going to meeting, being with Dad, watching her loved ones interact and chiming in sometimes, food in general (and more specifically yogurt before bed), and feeling useful.  She is still my Mom.  But she’s fading.  It’s a maddening thing to feel, and while Dad is accepting it completely, and slowly trading roles with her, it’s a heartbreaking dance to watch. 

So I spent a lot of time cleaning cupboards, organizing the garage and shed, making lists and calls and suggestions for the future, and furthering the work that some others had already started.  This was all woven into the things that Dad had asked to be done, but made it hard to be fully focused on the named projects, when the needs and soon-to-be-needs became so apparent.  I did what was foremost in my mind and heart most of the time, and that sometimes left Michael and the boys waiting patiently because I decided that the rest of the garage just HAD to be sorted before we left for Home Depot. 

Which brings me to a side note … we appear to be collecting loyalty cards at an almost alarming rate.  Might as well sign up if we’re going to be in and out of the local grocery/drugstore/building supply place repeatedly, and the default choices change often.  I’m also becoming rather opinionated as to who’s got the smartest layout, most knowledgeable staff, and best selection … I’ll take a True Value or Ace Hardware any day over the bigger places, if I have a problem to solve and don’t happen to need stone or lumber or pond forms.  And the fact that we all equally love going in such places is a huge bonus … just look at all the possibilities!  Power tools, new kinds of spack, funny odd little tubes and connectors, carts to ride, shelves to climb, aisles to run in, camper gadgets to check out, and Weapons of all sorts!  This is becoming a rabbit hole more than a side note …

So we built some things in Chicago, fixed some things, organized stuff, and cut down a lot of trees, and hauled a lot of things.  My folks had some landscaping to do … leftover dirt from a sewer pipe fix last year that needed moving, grass to plant, rampant groundcover to tame, mulch to spread, and an “oh there’s a pond next to the foundation!” moment after some heavy rain that resulted in some back-breaking work.  After several days of rain, we took the first dryish day and went to a building site that was offering free clay fill, and slipped and slid our way around a massive mound of clay trying to “shovel” it into the back of the truck.  Hah!  Nothing like doing the dig and twist/heave/grunt that launches what’s on your shovel far enough to land it in the back of the truck (while attempting not to slide backwards down the mound), and have every last bit of the load stay firmly attached to the shovel.  Pitchforks helped a bit, and Michael’s crazy determination basically finished the job. 

Have I mentioned how much we’re enjoying working together?  I was asked a few days ago what the best part about this trip was for me, and the first thing that popped into my head was working with Michael.  There’s something utterly delightful about working shoulder to shoulder, taking turns doing the what-do-you-need-next dance, and tackling rafter angle problems with Google (me) and analog methods (Michael) and arriving simultaneously at the same answer.  Building stuff is lovely.  Problem solving is actually fun when it’s done together.  It gets a little hairy when the boys join in, but honestly their ideas are very helpful in most cases, and sometimes downright brilliant.  Their work habits are slowly improving too, and their abilities.  Douglas has shot up in the last few months, and (shhh) appears to have just nudged past Michael in height.  He’s all leg and angles and falling hair, but has enough oomph now to truly make a difference in the hard stuff … as long as I keep him fed.  Which is more challenging that it looks, as his favorite foods are all carb based, but I’m learning to read both boys’ moods as if they have their blood sugar level tattooed on their foreheads, and so find myself buying snacks constantly. 

After the bulk of the stuff at my folks was taken care of, we moved on to Jon and Kara’s place, though we kept the camper parked in my parents’ side yard.  Jon had a summer to-do-list that included some fun stuff for me on it (outlet and fixture swaps and some rearranging of wires), a bit of yard work, and some caulking and vent work … nothing too major.  The boys came along, and were more reluctant to assist than usual as their place is a kid/teen paradise when it comes to games, toys, and entertainment options.  A lot of my work was in the basement rec room/bar area, and I had more trouble than usual keeping them at the ready.  Douglas managed to be a big help in getting the wires rearranged though, drawing me a most lovely diagram to keep it all straight. 

We stayed over one night after getting their work done, and had the most delightful and decadent Saturday morning I can remember in a very long time.  Grilled breakfast (yes those piles of bacon arejust as big as they look!) and enough laughter and conversation to take my mind completely off the pain of things at my folks for a bit, and pour in some healing salve.  Complete and utter delight, and hard to leave.  Oh, and did I mention Jon is Tina’s sister, of the Ken and Tina chapter?  Yup, we go just as far back with them too.   Deep roots, a lot of water, and a lot of laughs.  Thanks you two!

The last main project in the area was the biggest one … building a cupola, complete with bell and weather vane, on John and Olive Kaiser’s garage … but that will have to be its own post I think.  It was hot, fun, a lovely learning curve, and interspersed with therapeutic bouts of chain sawing down a pile of junk trees and clearing out overgrown brush.  Though I’ve known John and Olive almost my whole life, spending a week in and out of their home (and on their roof) I learned to appreciate them both a lot more.  Several of their kids have spent countless hours in my home and heart over the last 20 years, but in all my interactions I’d never spent much time with their parents.  It was a treat.

There’s something about being folded into other people’s households that’s starting to be a very interesting part of this trip.  We’re working for folks, but we’re kind of guests too, but not entirely … there’s no defining it neatly.   We’ve started to call the work we’re doing Busking, as in the play-your-guitar and open-the-case-at-your-feet scenario.  We ask that supplies be covered (if possible) and beyond that, there are no expectations of payment.  No fees, no hourly rates, no bills.  We do it because we love to, and if we’re paid something more than the supplies cost, that’s lovely, and if we’re not, that’s equally lovely.  Expectations seem to be a killer in many arenas, and this is one of them.  What we do expect is to work hard, finish projects well, and enjoy most of the process.  We expect to have some meals together, get to know you better, and find out what makes you tick.  We expect to get filthy, learn a heck of a lot, and probably take a little longer than we originally estimated.  (We both suck at estimating, period.)  I’m learning to expect problems to crop up, boys to need breaks, and us all to need downtime between cities. 

Speaking of breaks, we did have a few lovely ones while in Chicago.  We took the boys to the Bristol Renaissance Faire for Fynn’s birthday, where he rather obsessively hunted for weapons to buy … he’s working on a post about it so I’ll leave the details to him!  We also were invited to several delicious barbecues, loaned (and given!) stacks of books for Douglas to devour (thanks Sue!), taken to awesome fireworks, found kindred spirits for our boys to hang out with, haunted Starbucks, were treated to dinner by Mom and Dad many times, shipped the boys off with the lovely Su for a day, and to my brother’s family for couple other days (thanks Rene!).  I also snuck away for a couple evenings with friends, catching up after way too long, but picking up right where we left off. 

We ended up staying an extra day longer than our (already revised) plan, and took the boys to the Museum of Science and Industry, which delighted me just as much as it did 30 years ago when I first went.  Michael spent a crazy long time in one of the stairwells, where a little exhibit of working gears (that likely was already there 30 years ago) gave him a bunch of ideas for his birdwing project.

Every evening we could stay home was spent curled up on the couch in my parent’s living room, reminiscing over popsicles and yogurt, and staying up past everyone’s bedtime to the point that one night Mom and I ended up in giggle fits over the retelling of some trip debacle that happened in Bolivia when I was a kid, involving well-filled airsick bags and crabby customs officials … the memories are golden, and the sharing of them at this point even sweeter.  I’ll suck the marrow out of every evening that I can, and even when I’m not there physically, a part of my heart is still parked in that living room, waiting for the turn of a page, the delight of a comment or shared glance, and the chance to say “Goodnight Mom, I love you.”

* ps … please respect that if you know my Mom personally, at Dad’s request she’s never been told her diagnosis, and he wishes it to remain that way. 

bits and pieces

been awhile since i posted, and i don't have too much to say as we're still chewing on things and pondering things and piecing bits of work and study and conversation and projects together into a week and then another week and then i realize that it's been a month and ... the days do march, don't they?  so here's a small wander through my pics since i last posted.

we visited this lovely couple in march, after first meeting them at a health expo in january.  don and patty run a place called the Well Being Conference Center up in Tazewell TN.  they've built it entirely themselves in the last 6 years or so, and as their vision of having a place in the woods where people can get together and talk and learn and play is somewhat related to our goal (and they're actually doing it!) we thought we'd pay them a visit and get a tour and a reality check and maybe some wisdom, along with the views. 

they delivered all that, and more, and were most delightfully gracious hosts who gave thoughtful answers to my many questions, and asked some great questions of their own.  a great day out.

more recently, we spent Easter with friends at their family's lake house, and had a delightful day playing with boats and bows and arrows and jelly-bean laying chickens, and chatting in the sun.  another welcome break.

spring has hit fully and properly here, with storms (ahhh i've missed thunder and lightning!), dogwoods, azaleas, irises, and even an 80 degree day or two.  we were back to three wool blankets in the camper two nights ago though, so it's not all that consistently warm yet.

a few times lately i've been up near sunrise ... shocker to many, i know ...  and after trotting in the house to the bathroom i've grabbed my camera and gone prowling.  it's a magical hour, and almost enough to make me get up earlier on a consistent basis.  the key word being almost.

i've had some pretty depressed days, which somewhat accounts for the lack of words.  i miss being creative in my own right, honestly.  all the work of starting a new venture and working on documenting it, making it happen, and figuring out how to finance it while on the road via freelancing and creating new stuff to sell ... i haven't prioritized making stuff that i just plain like to make, that has nothing to do with heartLOOSE.  not sure where or how to make that happen, but taking pics helps, and talking to cool new people helps too.

which i got to do a couple weekends ago, when the boys put on a lemonade stand during the neighborhood-wide yard sale. 

keren made cookies, the boys made lemonade ... and actually sold more than they drank ... a surprisingly successful venture!  fynn's "lemonade dance", performed while running alongside approaching vehicles, likely had something to do with that.  so did Douglas' steadiness in sitting in the back of the truck for hours while Fynn ran around shopping at the yard sales and hanging with his friend C down the road. 

i went on a long wander with Fynn at one point, and found, to my great delight, a trio of lovely rotten kids selling their odds-and-ends while chatting and eating their breakfast in the sun.  two were sisters, two were neighbors, and all were my kind of ladies.  i bought a candle holder just to have an excuse to hang around, and could have sat there all afternoon.  full of delight and wonder and questions and happiness ... they reminded me much of my Grambie and how much i've missed her and her voice and hands and very warm lap.  i was so glad to find them.  cool new people for sure.

earlier this week we had a two-evening long event which was designed and orchestrated by Fynn, and as he's tasked with blogging about it, I won't do more than share the pic above of one team's prep area.  it was way more fun than i expected it to be :).

today we went downtown hoping to catch the farmer's market before it closed up for the day, and after wondering why the parking was so scarce and some roads were closed off ... we found that it was the Rossini festival with food carts and vendors galore, opera being sung, swords being swung, and nary a green vegetable or fresh flower in sight.  oops.

we spent part of the market budget on street food (ugh) but had a jolly time and got to talk to some interesting folks, and see some cool sights.  fynn even got to try on some real chain mail!

we spent a long time at one glassworks place, and michael modeled one of their eyeball pendants quite handsomely, don't you think?

we found Art Alley, which was a block-long stretch of graffiti/art work, and a great way to avoid a stretch of food tents and crowds when i got a little tired of them.

when we walked back to the car at the end of the afternoon, i laughed to myself ...

... the arch we'd come under 3 hours earlier was now struggling at half-mast, dragged down by deflated balloon tails and the ravages of increasingly gusty winds.  i felt a kinship with it, like it was a rather silly but apt expression of my recent moods.  afloat, but tattered.  i'll take it. 

as my SIL called to remind me the other day, we did get a truck, and we did get a camper, and we are on the road, even if it's not going the way we expected.  true, that.  and a welcome reminder. 

onward ...

photos galore, words-a-few ...

a lot of words spoken lately, though not many written.  many thoughts, many ideas, many late nights (and late mornings).  lots of beauty found, but not much shared, yet ...

today's ice storm provided plenty of choices though ...

and lots of fun ...

shh ... they're actually working together ...

as did valentines day ...

(I really DO get the best cards)

and the plates were licked clean ...

after a valentine's breakfast, the next 2.5 hours were taken up with the treasure hunt that keren masterminded, and had worked on for several nights in a row.  11 clues, 2 boys, many puzzles, one stumper of a stereogram, the earning of clues by solving rebus word puzzles ...

... and finished up by finding the treasure of coconut chocolate fudge buried in the freezer.  a most welcome treat :).

we've also managed a few outings, to the sun sphere from Knoxville's hosting of the World's Fair in 1982 ...

knoxville's art museum ...

I loved this one ...

... and multiple visits to the local park. 

we also finished up some stonework.

re-edging the circular drive

there's been a lot of beauty, despite the frequent thrashing of ideas and plans and desires.  learning to find the fun, no matter what.  finding out what really matters, by digging in the corners of our hearts that we haven't been able to see for all the clutter of life-as-we-knew-it.  it appears that emptying is necessary, before there can be a re-filling ... and the finding of new patterns and new places.  a redefining of who we are, and what we really want, before we move on from here.  very very thankful to have a peaceful, warm, happy home in which to do it.

onward.

Fire up the Winnebago and let's get out of here!

it's been a rough week.  things we didn't address in our last few weeks in PA are now perched immovably in the middle of the room, getting tripped over every time we turn around.  they're very nice elephants, but they're taking up a lot of space.  head space, heart space, conversation space.  it's getting tiresome.  and Michael's elephants appear to be distant cousins of mine (or entirely schizophrenic), and I thought we knew the same ones. 

it's all a product of getting out like we did, which involved head-down slugging though boxes and lists, cranking the music, and avoiding the big conversations because if we didn't, we'd never get out the door.  the door that was swinging shut thanks to weather and rent and the knowledge that if we didn't hang on tight and JUMP the trip would never happen.  we jumped :).

one month later, we're still in Knoxville, staying with Michael's sister Keren and her husband Bobby, and not able yet to move on.  the finances aren't quite there, the plans not unearthed that will give us the feeling that we've got enough figured out to make the next jump.  it's a big tangle of faith and work, and the desire to work without being forced to pick jobs that can pay over jobs that can't.  i can't articulate much more than that right now, the words aren't there yet, we just need to figure out the money stuff.  every time we look at it head-on, talk about it, and try to tackle it, it seems to squeeze itself just out of the picture and into peripheral vision before we can pin it down.  everything we run at is getting tugged just out of reach.  not giving up whatsoever, just changing tactics and tackling the things we CAN do right now, like finishing up the laundry-room-to-sewing-room transformation, installing stuff in the camper, tracking down water pump issues, and getting out and about to see stuff around here and learn about TN. 

onward ...

... and you are perhaps still wondering what the title means? well, not everything this week has been hard and there are a few stories to tell.

first off, we went to the Ijams Nature Center on Wednesday, taking advantage of a rare non-rainy day that stayed well above freezing.  it's just outside of downtown Knoxville, and has a couple old limestone quarries as well as lots of trails, river access, and a cute little visitor's center with pretty things like this lovely creature ... 

A mostly-buried albino Eastern Spiny Softshell turtle, native to TN.

we hiked, snacked, rambled, talked to a salty old fisherman who had the thickest TN accent we've yet encountered, realized that explaining who we are and where we're from/what we're doing is going to take some practice, took a 'shortcut' between two marked trails that involved scrambling up the nearly vertical end of one old abandoned quarry while following Douglas' lead, took lots of pics, and had a grand old time exploring together, without any agenda.  it was a free day that was long overdue.

another delightful (to me!) bit of the week is Keren's ongoing battle with the boys over their use of the words "Duh!" and "Doody!", which is nearly incessant.  i'm DELIGHTED to have help in this arena, I've been waging war on it for over a year now.  they came up with the creature (with their cousin's help), and it apparently has a negative IQ,  fights with green apples as its only weapon, and does everything wrong.

Keren's idea was to award kisses to the boys for each time she heard either word, and of course they were climbing all over her to get them each time they were promised.  or not.  then the other day fynn asked to have his nails painted, and she cheerfully obliged.  douglas was watching, and she offered him the option of having his nails painted also, with the understanding that if he left it on for 24 hours, she'd considere it payment for the Doody talk, in lieu of the kissing bit.  he chose the polish :). 

another delightful interlude started thursday morning, with a frantic pounding on the front door at 7:30 am.  (that's Keren/Bobby's front door, we've been sleeping in the house almost every night.)  Keren went to the door and i could hear a man's insistent voice shouting something, and then the slam of the door of our truck.  i got up, threw on clothes, and went out to see what was up.  keren was trying to talk a half-naked man (seemingly wearing nothing but a bright pink towel around his waist) into getting out of Matilda's front seat, while he fiddled with buttons and frantically looked for a key, hollering about the need to "Hurry up and get out of here!!"  i was fully awake by now.  

i've had my moments in the last week of hurry-up-and-get-out-of-here-we-need-to-keep-moving-or-everything-will-fall-apart panic, but it never involved a pink towel, a delightfully earnest but entirely-tripping-out-big-time neighbor, or quite so much urgency and drama.  and so it became a morning of the most entertaining sort. 

he was convinced that a plane had landed somewhere nearby, and its wings were gone and the roof ripped open.  he wanted the cops called, and insisted on it.  he was seeing things either very sped up or slowed down, depending on the moment, and was deeply disturbed by it all.  we all had to "Get Out!  Don't you see that?  Don't you believe me?  The roof is ripped open!"  i really should let Michael tell the story, as he ended up talking the man out of the truck, taking him home and talking to him, and chasing the three hyper little dogs back into the house every time the guy opened the door to ask "Why aren't they (the cops) here yet??", or better yet, to try to show Michael that when the door was opened, there were four doors instead of one. 

the story kept changing.  the downed plane was in the local park, and then it was his house  instead, so we should "Fire up the Winnebago" (pointing at our camper) "and all get out of here!  It's going to blow!"  Keren and i watched from the sidelines, while Michael kept him occupied and we all waited for the patrol car to show.  one finally did, and after asking if the guy was violent (Keren assured her not at all) she went in and took over.  a 2nd squad car arrived, and then an ambulance, and they eventually escorted him (and his towel) into the waiting ambulance, and that was the end of the morning show. 

it's been a rough week, but certainly not a boring one!

onward ...