Today I am 51

Today is my birthday.

(Also, Jordan's head is not actually twice as big as India's or mine.)

Friends have asked if I'm doing anything special.

I mean, not as such? I have a gynecological appointment.

Nick asked what I wanted for my birthday, and I said a cordless vacuum cleaner. And I was not kidding. 

So I asked friends on FB if any of them had a vacuum they loved. Let me tell you: people have strong feelings about their vacuums.

The consensus seemed to be Dyson or Miele, with numbers leaning to Dyson. But there are a lot of different models.

Really, I wanted one person to say, "This is exactly what you need." But it got narrowed down to like three, which is better than 27.

And then! Then Nick looked at Consumer Reports, because he is a man who researches stuff.

Whereas I tend to ask my friends and then be like, ooh, and they have a pink one!

For cordless stick vacuums, Consumer Reports rates a brand called Tineco (which I'd never heard of) as its top three. So there I was, looking back and forth between my saved FB recommendations and Consumer Reports, reading about vacuums.

Honestly, my dad must be laughing with delight about this. Thorough product research and vacuum cleaners were two of his favorite things.

Anyway, we still haven't gotten one.

My mom asked if I wanted cake, and I said we should probably have cake. And then she offered to make brownies, and as we're all rather indifferent to cake, I jumped on this idea.

But now India is insisting on cake. 

The truth is, I don't care. 

It's not that I feel sorry for myself and I don't think I'm depressed, but I don't feel a lot about this birthday. 

Or maybe I just don't feel much lately.

Spring was such an emotional wallop. I felt so much of everything, all the time. My children's anguish seeped into me, when I was already close to saturated. I felt like I was drowning.

The kids and I cried a great deal. Every day at least once per day I had at least one person in my lap sobbing.

I slept a lot. I felt guilty about all the sleeping. I felt guilty about everything. 

I was functioning at a fairly low level. 

Out of the blue, in May, I got a text from our friend Jordan, who invited us to come spend time on his farm in Michigan. 

I thought about it. I couldn't just pack up the kids and my mom and drive to Michigan...could I? I mean, why couldn't I?

We did it. And it turned our whole year around.

We had our own two bedroom house--the former caretaker's house. 

The kids ran around in the yard and played with the dogs and cats. They swam in the pond multiple times per day. I went for runs in the woods and jumped in the pond and jumped right out because cold!

Betty weeded for hours. She picked asparagus. We went to nearby beaches and swam and collected rocks and just generally enjoyed being outdoors without masks and without so many people.

We sat on Jordan's porch and read and reminisced about long ago days in Dhaka and Delhi, about dear friends and family.

It was perfect.

We returned to the hellishly oppressive heat and humidity of DC with emotional reserves.

I am a person who loves heat, whose favorite season is summer. But holy cow, this summer has been brutal. We spend all our time inside, except for the hour that I force my kids to go for a hot, complain-y walk in Rock Creek. 

We were wading (which my kids pronounce wadding, which to me means they learned it by reading) in the river but then this article came out reminding people that it is a) illegal; and b) a feces-filled waterway.

As someone who has had a variety of fecal-borne illnesses, I'm fairly cavalier about that but it is a disgusting thought. So now we make sure it hasn't rained for a number of days prior. Because that's when all the poop washes in.

Oh! I have a poop story! But maybe I will save it for not my birthday. That's probably better.

Anyway, it has been HOT. Relentlessly, cruelly hot.

The kind of hot where you leave the house and your glasses immediately fog up and your dog, who, despite six weeks of online training, typically pulls on her leash, just ambles resignedly, panting next to you.

When you return home, you rip off your mask and collapse limply on the nearest surface, moaning, "Water...water..."

Today, however, is dark and rainy. I would ordinarily be sad not to have sunshine for my birthday, but this is a welcome respite. And as my son said, it's perfect weather for having a low-key birthday.

I like to document what I look like on my birthday, and my kids came over to hug me and I suggested we take a photo. So as we were about to take the selfie above, I had an urge to run upstairs and put on makeup. (Full disclosure:  I'm wearing is lip gloss, but only because I couldn't find my lip balm earlier.)

So I was going to be like, wait, I'll be right back. And then I thought, no, this is real life right now. I can't remember the last time I wore makeup.

And! Most of this is my real, actual hair color! I honestly hadn't seen this much of my real hair since I was maybe 30. 

I kind of like it.

A few days ago I ran into a neighbor. We were talking about life in Covid, and the conversation eventually turned to hair. I've pinked my hair twice this year, and each time it's washed out after a couple months.

We were talking about salons, and she said for now she's just letting her grey grow out. I said I was thinking about putting the pink back into my hair. She asked if this was my real hair color.

I said, "At this point, it's mostly my real color. Only my bottom hair is bleached."

I paused, happy she couldn't see me grinning maniacally beneath my mask. I said, "I mean the bottom of my head hair."

I don't think she really noticed, and I stopped myself before being all, "Bottom hair! Hahahahaha!"

I like this neighbor. I don't want her to think I'm a complete weirdo.

Anyway, I don't have bottom hair, and if I did I wouldn't dye it pink. Particularly before a birthday gynecological checkup.

So there you have it. I am a complete weirdo. And it's my birthday.

When time no longer matters, all that matters is time...So I put all the pieces together where they belonged.

 Dear Patti Jo,

Thank you for being my cousin, for being the loving, kind, beautifully gentle soul you are.

You've been such a gift.

I want to tell you now, while there is time.

I can't remember how we started talking about a visit and family reunion in 2018, but I will always be grateful that we did.

You opened your heart and your world to us. I was searching for peace with my dad, peace and understanding with our family's past, and comfort in my childhood memories of Duluth.

You gave those to me and more.

You've been a bridge to my dad in the world beyond. You've shared his messages and comforted both him and me. To you he has always been Uncle Mickey, which I always thought sounded funny as a kid.

With you and through you, I've started to understand our family.

I feel so connected to you, though we've not been back in each other's lives for all that long. I mean, you've been in my life since I was born, but I didn't really know you.

When I was a kid, you and Johnny and Stevie were teenagers, which in my eyes meant all grown up.

By the time I was old enough to have memories of visiting Duluth, you were all out of the house. We'd stay with your parents every summer, but I didn't know you so much as know about you.

We spent so much time with Auntie Jo and Uncle Howard. So many of my childhood memories take place with your parents.

Hanging out on Jo's houseboat, and eventually growing out of being small enough to sleep under the table. On the beach looking for agates and staring out at what I believed was your mom's island--the beach you took us back to that first summer.

Or just running around on their property, sitting on the rusted out tractor, admiring Jo's paintings, spray painting gravel in the driveway to look like gold nuggets.

And in your voice, your cadence, your accent, I hear your mom. You're uniquely yourself, but I also love the occasional flashes of Aunt Jo that shine through.

You are a memory keeper. And you happily opened your box of memories for me. That's my Lake Superior childhood painted on Aunt Jo's wall.

I know, through you, that I look like our great grandmother.

I now have a better understanding the generational trauma that pressed down on our parents, and with you have the goal of living and parenting differently, such that we might break patterns.

I treasure the fact that you know and love my kids. They each immediately felt close and safe and at ease with you.

An enchanted connection

You have a youthful twinkle in your eye, and endless creativity. You set up outside tables and chairs with goodies and art supplies.

You have an adventurous spirit, a house of treasures, of personal art, of interesting wonders.

Your sense of humor is the same as ours, and we revel in it.

I am overjoyed that my kids have been agate hunting, and that they know what snot agates are, and that they, too, have waded into the cold waters of Lake Superior, and dug in the rocks, and giggled in joy with the golden sun at their backs.

They've run towards the lift bridge to see it going up, to watch the amazing spectacle of a massive boat going underneath.

You've endured so much trauma and pain in this life, and still, you are kind, gentle, and seek the good in humanity. You're positive and good, and make it a point not to harm anyone or anything.

You save animals. You work, in ways small and large, to bring light and joy to others.

You introduced us to your kids and their kids, and now we have so much more family than I did a few years ago.

I love that you still have Aunt Jo's rolling pin. I don't know why it looms so large in my memory, except  maybe that it took me so many years to actually get from one side of the room to the other on it, and to proudly be allowed to add my name.

At some point, I needed so badly to make peace with my dad on the shores of Lake Superior. I needed to return to my Duluth family, though the people I grew up visiting were gone.

But connecting with you was, in a sense, like coming home. I have family there, stretching back generations and leaning forward into new generations. My kids are now part of this.

Watching you talk to my mom, hearing your exchange of stories, I understood that you had a whole relationship before I was ever in the picture. You remembered me as a baby being dangled in my mom's skirt.

My parents knew you and loved you long before I was born.

I remember when my dad and I visited your mom in Florida during what was to be her last winter. She made him red Jell-o with bananas in it, because she knew he loved it. I had no idea.

And it struck me then that she was his big sister. She knew a lot about him that I didn't, and she nurtured him as her baby brother. They were family.

My first thought when I read Jen's news was selfish. I love you so much. Betty loves you so much. We only recently got you back.

What a blessing and a privilege to have someone such as you in my life.

That love doesn't dissipate, but thinking about goodbye really hurts.

We were supposed to be together a week from today, heading into a third delightful family reunion weekend. Covid canceled our plans.

You're one of this world's kindest, most beautiful souls. I see who you are, and I love you for it. All of it.

I know you're in pain, and I wish I could ease it.

You've given me the gifts of your love, your friendship, family.

I love you now in this world, and I love you into the next, my dear cousin.

Love,

Lisa

Eleven year anniversary

Eleven years ago today, May 15, my dad disappeared.

It was a Friday, like today.

Other years the anniversary has fallen on other days. I do understand that's how the calendar works.

But this anniversary is Friday-Saturday. Just like it was when my dad left us.

Beautiful and sunny, lush and glorious, with the rich promise of summer, also like today in DC.

Too beautiful a day to die.

I have written this post annually. It's not even like there are new facts.

I like to use this photo of my brother and me standing as my dad plays piano in Bangladesh.

But I think about his death sometimes. Not all the time, like I used to. Just sometimes. And particularly today.

With all the news about intubation lately, I think about signing a paper in the ER saying we understood the risk of death when they switched the emergency tube inserted by the EMTs to a longer-term one that would keep him breathing in the ICU.

I think about the repeated terror of knowing Dad had slipped off with the intent to die, and of not being able to find him. I think about the times that either we or the police found him.

I think about begging and hoping and praying that he would live.

I think about holding his hand, watching him carefully while he was hooked up to machines that made sure he breathed, that monitored his vital signs, that did whatever else one does to keep a body alive.

And then I think about the last time, about knowing in my heart he was gone, but hoping and praying I was wrong.

I think about waking up to no news on Saturday. About Nick driving and me calling hospitals as he drove, because we needed to be doing something, not just sitting, waiting for a phone call.

I think about the sun streaming through the windshield, and how big and uncomfortable my belly was in my lap.

When Nick suggested we call the morgue, I made him talk. I think about listening to Nick, on speakerphone, persuade the man at the morgue to tell us whether or not they had my dad.

I remember not being able the breathe, and the kick in the gut feeling when he said yes, they did.

I remember wishing I could tuck my knees up and curl into a ball, and knowing that would be impossible even if we weren't in the car.

Typing this, I feel my breath quicken and my tears sting.

Everyone says time helps. You get so tired of hearing time helps when you are stuck in the moment, and the moment hurts so much, and you can't do anything to speed up time.

Yes, yes, time, time, I know, I know. Time. Thanks.

You get tired of people moving on before you have. You get bitter when people you love think you have grieved long enough.

But here, eleven years out, time has helped tremendously.

Now I can think more about good times and funny stories. I try to share with my kids stories that show my dad as a whole, real person.

One day I'll tell them the story of Nick and my dad bringing Nick's boat across the Chesapeake. The photo above is from their lucky safe arrival.

It's not that we had all dark times. We had a lot of fun, and uproariously funny, times. We just didn't have a lot of calm in between times.

I am like him in this regard. I work on this.

This year for the first time, Dad has started appearing in my dreams. Really it's been since Covid19 hit. I don't know what this is about, but he's alive and my dreams, while chaotic, are not tragic.

He's still a very complicated figure for me, but I take this as a sign that I've moved into a better place with all of it.

He left us on a Friday. They called the time of death on Saturday, but we don't actually know which day it was. So for me, it's a two-day anniversary.

I knew he was gone.

And still, when we called the morgue and they said yes, yes we have him, it was still somehow a huge shock.

Because it is one thing to know in your heart, and another thing to know for sure.

And here we are now, eleven years later.

My friend Vik just texted me *hugs*, the way he does every year on this date. And every year, I feel hugged and loved.

It's a spectacular, sunny day. I'm going to train my dog. My kids are doing their distance learning lessons, and then this afternoon we'll go on a walk. They'll run and fling themselves to the ground among the buttercups.

The azaleas are glorious. The dogwood are blooming. Roses are so fragrant you can smell them even through a mask.

It's a beautiful day for an anniversary.

Sit stay

Put on your jeans, they said. It'll keep you honest, they said.

Honestly, I need to be able to breathe when I sit down.

It's no mystery how this happened.

A few weeks ago I started eating a lot of bread. Like, a lot.

We all did.

I know many people are baking. We are not. We are supporting the local farmer's market bread stand. We have purchased a great deal of bread.

Seriously. I don't even want to tell you how much. We have been all, support the community!

Generally, in normal life day-to-day, I don't eat much bread or pasta or really any simple carbs except for like, chocolate or sugar injected directly into my veins.

But those would be balanced out with the amount of walking I did.

Now I eat bread and do a lot of bottom sitting.

Oh, and I train my dog. Every day.

We are all distance learning up close and personal. The kids, Wanda and I, all together and separately till death us do part.

Wanda failed the week two test, which was to walk next to me in a straight line for 15 steps and then sit on her butt of her own volition.

Wanda was like, I do not want to sit on my butt, thank you very much.

To which I was all, here, let me help you.

But by that point she should've been doing it with no help. Just, you know, me saying, "Sit!"

I tried Jedi mind tricks. One time we went for the sit and she looked like she was going to do a perfect sit. And then she continued until she was lying flat all comfortable on the warm pavement.

She is not a large dog but I am not a large human and I will tell you that when she doesn't want to get up it is not the easiest thing to get her up.

You have to submit videos a couple times a week and then one of the end of the week test so that Mark, the trainer, knows that you are ready to move on.

Wanda and I were stuck in week two for a few days into week three.

But now we've almost caught up, and she does some good sitting and staying. We even impressed people in the park the other day.

Today's our meeting for week four. We haven't yet done the week three test, which I hope to submit tonight.

One of the challenges, as I believe I mentioned, is getting a child to cooperate enough to video. And to focus on us rather than the adult humans clad head to toe in tie-dye performing skateboarding tricks.

When Mark said we needed to train around distractions, I cannot imagine he meant clowns on skateboards. My kids were certainly distracted.

So Wanda and I might actually do the exercise correctly but the video shows...the skateboarders, the very interesting crack in the sidewalk, and a close-up of my butt.

Honestly, I know, I do, that it's fucking tedious to stand there while I back up to five feet and then count to 50 Mississippi (which to spell I always have to do the M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I, but is fortunately not Massachusetts, which I find impossible to spell on my own).

But look at that good sit stay!

Anyway. I now have watched my butt walking away from the camera and bending over to do the two-handed presentation to get my dog to sit and honestly if I never watch a video of my butt again that would be just fine.

Oh! And as it turns out, when Nick does these videos for me, there is also a focus on my butt. But clearly this is a choice and not a height issue. I'm...flattered?

In sum:

I don't want to grow out of my real jeans. Not my spandex jeans that make me feel better.

So I am trying to rectify this.

More in-home workouts. Less bread and butter.

But honestly, who wants to eat salad when the world is going straight to hell?

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

Clearly I just needed to have a big tantrum and feel sorry for myself and get a lot of the mad out.

I have it much, much easier than so many people. I know this. I feel guilty about this.

And I'm grateful. I'm just not grateful every moment and sometimes I need to verbally lie on the floor and pound my fists and stomp my feet.

So thank you for letting me do that and being sympathetic instead of telling me to stop being a solipsistic, privileged turd.

So now where are we?

It's Friday Saturday Monday.

Wanda has been doing online dog training.

I mean, we meet with the trainer online, and then we do the training in person.

Wanda's computer skills aren't strong enough. Also, I'm not so sure about her commitment to education.

Our Wanda has many positive attributes. She is a lovely, kind, patient dog who puts up with a lot of shenanigans, particularly from India.

We weren't sure if she knew her name in the beginning. Now we are 100% certain she knows her name. She just pauses to decide whether or not she wants to come.

She also pulls on the leash. And she's strong.

She pulls extra hard when there is some highly suspect rotting pizza crust that she desperately wants to snarf before we can manage to stop her.

I would like these things to improve.

My friend Jen has this amazing dog trainer, but he's in North Carolina. Jen was offering me training tips, and sent me videos, and her dog that went through training is just beautifully trained.

So when she told me they were doing online courses, I was delighted.

One, we need to train Wanda. Two, it's very nice to have something concrete, with measurable goals, to focus on.

It's still the first week. We meet online every Wednesday to go over the next week's assignments.

In the past week, I've spent a whole lot of time walking and running a triangle in the park. You choose points 50 feet away from each other, and then walk the dog on a long line, but with different parameters every two days.

Most people seem to have yards. I was like, well, let's see how our local park goes.

The first day, two affable drunk men wanted my attention every time I was near their bench, which was close to Triangle Point B.

It's DC, and I'm used to drunks in the park, so I just said hi back (each time) and then focused on the task at hand.

Today and tomorrow the goals are to get her to stay within two feet while walking. She gets farther than that and you run in the other direction and go back to the starting point.

I have done a lot lot lot of running back and forth in the park. A lot.

The trainer wants us to submit videos so he can see how we are doing. India has been my videographer, and as such, there are a lot of minutes of sky or grass.

Yesterday I was really bummed, wondering if Wanda was ever going to be willing to follow. I was panting as I counted off the 15 seconds at each point before resuming.

She is stubborn. But so am I.

Today I could see progress, and feel much more heartened.

As it turns out, the photos and videos are aimed at my butt half the time, and I mean, whatever, we all have butts. I just don't spend so much time watching mine run the other direction.

Also, I am on the verge of getting Nick to cut my hair. It is making me crazy.

If you've ever had short hair and tried to grow it out, you know that it inevitably gets a poof somewhere that you don't want. And it's flat where a poof might be nice.

Or maybe this is just me.

And if you're growing out your hair and also dye it with semipermanent pink, because you felt like that would be a good distraction, then there is the added je ne sais quoi of roots and half-pinkness as well as the poofing and sticking to your head as you run back and forth from lamppost to tree like a maniac.

It's all going pretty well, is what I'm saying.