This I Believe

New York

This week marked my last creative writing class at Sarah Lawrence. For the second semester, I have made the weekly commute from New York's west side beginning with the M86 crosstown bus to Lex, then the #6 train to 125th Street, and finally the MetroNorth Harlem line to Bronxville. Once in this quintessential college town with its brick streets and cozy main street, I would either walk the mile to campus or, sometimes, one of my classmates would gratiously give me a lift. All tolled, it is about a two hour proposition from my door on the UWS to the Wrexham Road classroom.
There have been times this semester when the sun has set before I got on the first bus, times that I have questioned what I was doing making this trek since there are at least three major universities within 15 minutes of my apartment.
But last night I knew once again why I make this pilgrimage. It's the calibre of the writers. I have been in writing workshops off and on for the past decade or two, and I have never worked with such good writers--or such good faculty. This semester, Steve Lewis, our intrepid leader ( whose work is featured in publications such as the New York Times), prodded, quipped, and cheered as I wrote and wrote about Iowa in the 1950s and 60s. It became a running joke that my mostly Eastern-born and bred colleagues were learning more about threshing and Herefords than they had ever expected. I knew I had them when, in one class not so long ago, after I read a segment of The Red Bicycle, they were guessing where I had landed by plane to begin the trek along Interstate 80 toward Waterloo, Iowa, my childhood home to visit my frail mother.
" Well, she landed in Chicago, of course," declared Mel. "No, I think Des Moines is closest," said Lauren. Finally, Steve ( a Long Island boy who went to the University of Wisconsin at the height of the 60s student movement ) announced: "Iowa City, she landed in Iowa City." Close enough.
As our last assignment, Steve asked us to write an essay on the model of the "This I Believe" contest on public radio--and send it to him a couple of days before class.
We met at Lisa's house in Dobbs Ferry for a party and a little literature on Tuesday night. Steve had made a chapbook entitled Writings from the Edge of all of our essays about our belief systems. I was the first to read.

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Hopscotch

A couple of years ago, I was sitting on the beach with my best friend and her daughter Elizabeth. My friend and I were talking about what we were looking forward to in the next six months. Somehow, the conversation drifted toward our goals for the next decade—our dreams, really. Elizabeth was lying on her back, her lanky, bronzed, 25 year old body shiny with Coppertone deep tanning oil. She turned onto her side to face us, opened her eyes, and declared earnestly: “ I didn’t think people your age still had all of those expectations of the future.”

When I was 25, I probably believed that, too. But I think the amazing thing about growing older is that I don’t feel that old. Surely it must be true that I’m not the same in my sixth decade as my mother was in hers. It’s true that I look in the mirror more fleetingly now than I did at 25—or even 40. But I see the foundation of the same woman I saw in the mirror then. And aside from the paraphernalia of age—reading glasses, a must-take pill or two a day, and the fact that I lean in to hear some conversations---I am 25 in the land of my dreams.

My life and my career have been a working draft. Divorced at 35, (something I never ever dreamt would happen to me) with two pre-adolescent boys, I constructed a life for us from scratch. We moved to a new part of the country, and I set about getting my career back on track by accepting a position on a Ivy League faculty as an instructor (even less rank than a TA). I rented a little white cape near a good school, put a regulation basketball hoop at the top of the driveway, and stocked the refrigerator. It was a second chance.

Ten years later, I was an empty nester-- a term I hate (it always evokes a forlorn and feather-bare blue jay cawing in an oversized, untidy nest in the crook of a lifeless tree). By that time, I had left academia for business, found out what it is like to be fired (my gut said don’t-do-it the minute I walked into that ad agency to interview for the job), and started over once again. Because of career choices that I made during those decades, I have a resume today that is a mix of science and humanities. It looks unfocused to the unwashed who aren’t right brained, I suppose. And has cost me an easy fit into either the world of academia or business.

But recently, I realized that the hopscotch of my career is, in some ways, true to my ambivalence about what I really want to do.

So what do I want to do? My working answer is I want to do something in this coming decade that makes a difference. Maybe it is in healthcare reform. Maybe it is helping promote the little psychiatric center on 34^th Street and 9^th Avenue that counsels homeless clients, shepherding them through their recovery keeping them out of the hospital, out of the cold, and on their medication. Maybe it’s writing one truthful story that resonates with a yet to be found editor who publishes it.

I don’t know if any of those things will happen. But I believe in the timelessness of possibilities. I am just not done yet.

Can Winter Solstice Be Far Away?

New York

It's still dark outside my window at 6am. This time of year as the smack of cold air hits my face, the winter solstice always seems too far away, too hard to hope for. How did people stand it in the days of caves and clubs, wondering if the sun would ever warm their soil and souls again?

Slowly, from my window, I see the sun begin to paint the distant buidlings' windows a shiny orange, basking in its reflected glory.

Below, I've posted a favorite poem of mine. A little morning gift for all of you.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save.

Who Knows Where The Time Goes...

New York  

Dear Reader, 

It has been weeks since my last post. Life right now offers me so many things to write about, it is difficult to stop long enough to comment on any of them. I find myself savoring them and frantically jotting down notes. In gratitude.

I continue to work on my writing at Sarah Lawrence. Every week, I gather with 12 other writers, men and women, and our (ponytailed) writing faculty at a conference table in Bronxville and sometimes read, sometimes write, sometimes

just listen. 

I continue to be dazzled by all that Manhattan's richness: At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vermeer's The Milkmaid, an 18 inch wonder that was loaned by the Dutch museum in Amsterdam to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Henry Hudson's sail down the Hudson River right past my backdoor; Robert Plant's quirky black and white photographs of unvarnished America in the 1950s--not portraiture or Adams' landscapes--but people, just people living our culture from coast to coast. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's performance at the new NYU theater of Othello ( he could read the NY phonebook and I would show up! )

I continue to be dazzled by the importance of the arts in my life: art films like the new wonderfully written and performed An Education; or the new, stunningly written Gates at the Stairs by Lorrie Morris. Both are smart stories about young women who are coming of age and grappling with the universal question---What the ....?

Writing is consuming much of my time right now. So, if I am absent for longer periods, don't' give up on the site! I'll be back with more stories, more insight...maybe even a manuscript or two!

In the meantime, enjoy the abundance of the arts that is at our fingertips wherever we are.

M.C.

From What We Cannot Hold The Stars Are Made

New York

A dear friend in Ireland emailed me yesterday worried that I had not been posting for so long.

It is true, of course. It has been weeks. Weeks spent trying to discern what was wrong, cajole secretaries to let me talk to a physician to discuss what was wrong, and trying to manage the infection that has been a constant since I returned from SE Asia. 

I hit the wall a few days before Labor Day when a specialist told me he wanted to do surgery as soon as possible to do a biopsy to rule out cancer. Stunned, I did the pre-op lab tests, tried to make arrangements for friends to take me to the hospital on the morning of the scheduled

surgery. The surgeon had not given many details about the rationale for ruling out cancer in this way especially since the infection was still raging with very high bacterial counts when I was cultured. I called my sons, listed as next of kin,  in case something untoward happened.

The following day, I changed my mind about surgery and decided to postpone it, and deal with the infection. I wanted to consult another specialist for a second opinion before I moved forward--an infectious disease expert.  That all took nearly two more weeks to arrange and during that time, I began feeling more and more fatigued.

The meeting with the specialist, Leigh Kennedy, was last Monday. After looking at the five sets of lab tests outlining my bacterial count, she ordered a super drug, Merrem, to be administered every 8 hours for 10 days via IV. So one week ago, a home care nurse threaded an 8 inch Midline catheter  from my elbow to my shoulder through one of the brachial veins, brought me syringes filled with heparin and normal saline, dressing change kits to protect against infection, and lots of alcohol swabs.

Now, seven days later, I am still fatigued as the drug tries to stop the virulent bacterial strain that is so smart that it walls itself off from many incoming antibiotics. There are some other strong antibiotics to try if this fails to kill the strain, but not many according to the lab.

So, my time has been spent setting my alarm so that I can keep to the 6am, 2pm, 10pm schedule of infusion which requires taking the medication out of the fridge two hours prior to administration so that it reaches the right viscosity, then infusing for an hour followed by a a heparin flush so that the line does not clot off which would require re-insertion into the other arm. Add contacting Blue Cross every time something changed, or I needed something in New York instead of Pennsylvania, contacting home care agencies who will transfer care in the two locations, lab work, and this has been a challenging time.

I won't know for another week whether or not the bacteria have succumbed to the powerhouse antibiotic. Uncertainty is never the same as possibility. And the question of cancer will have to be addressed after this problem has been resolved. Then, on to the hip surgery that will probably occur next spring--a labrum tear--the scourge of athletes and ballet dancers.

It's too early for me to make many sage comments about what I've learned. But, like my experience in other periods of crisis and need, I have been surprised and moved by the unsolicited, genuine concern and support of people who don't have any family ties to me who consistently come through for me-- friends who have their own issues and concerns to deal with but who had known about the illness, and found a moment to respond just about the time I had reached another hurdle. Without them and their  support, I don't know what I would do with the angst that accompanies being alone and sick without the benefit of someone listening to the options, helping review the potential for what could go wrong. 

It raised the question for me from several years ago when I decided to do patient advocacy for elderly clients. Who can you trust to listen, then to advocate for/with you when you are alone?  I was amazed at how little energy for decision making was available to me in the thick of it. Being sick really is a battle. All of my nursing skills, all of the patients I have cared for, students I have taught to care for patients, still doesn't translate to the  of trying to decide alone what is best, who is trustworthy, what is the smart path to move me forward.

Finally,  I am reminded that being young, something that I do not particularly want to revisit developmentally, has its physiological merits. Three years ago this November, I ran the New York Marathon. Today, that seems impossible. ( I use the lanyard that I had for my ID at the Javits Center registration, to hold the IV bottle for my infusion. I believe that is what we call irony! )

M.C.

Meditation

Nantucket

The same thing happens every year.

Sometimes it's the first day. Sometimes it takes a couple of days. But it always happens.

I waken early to see the dawn's blood orange color grazing the eastern horizon as the blinding sun tries to rise above the low scrub, the boats bobbing in Hither Creek. Flags mark the morning's breeze.

And then a tiny bit of the crust of life just gives way to gratitude; a deep, abiding understanding of why I exist beyond my children, grandchildren, career accomplishments, existential journeys.

Simple. I find myself quieter in this place, happy in my solitude.

This drink of the elemental, the ocean's heart beating right outside my window will have to last, will have to sustain me through the coming months of unknowing, its constancy a good metaphor.

This year, it took until the last day for this place to touch me.

Sitting on my bed listening to the sounds of my son and his wife laughing in the next room, all I needed was a little nudge from Barber's Adagio for Strings, its harmonic journey rising, the volume reaching a crescendo then ending in a whisper.

Can this be all there is? A single morning of beauty seen from my Wedgewood blue and white room with a view of the sea out of every window for as far as I can see?

Probably.

M.C.

Reaching For Heaven

Nantucket

My entire life I have wanted to be in the cockpit of a Cessna or Lear Jet. Whatever. In the perfectly perfect contradictions of life, yesterday was that day.

All I wanted to do when I woke up was get out of the rather creepy hotel that touted a harbor view ( marketing ploy--think views of rusting tankers and eroded pilings ) in East Providence, get some gas for my rental car so I could avoid the $5 a gallon surcharge for refills, and get to the T.F. Greene airport on time for my 35 minute flight to Nantucket. Oh, and to do all of that without getting lost or colliding with notoriously crazy New England drivers. Got the gas. Didn't get hit. Got to the airport. Got in the security line, e-ticket receipt and license in hand, laptop out, sweater off, quart size baggie ready for inspection, proper size Tumi carry on rolling along side of me. There were only 10 people in line. It was Saturday, not even 9am. In Providence.

First bump. "I'm sorry Miss ( why do they call me "Miss"? ), the seated, full bodied guard began." But you'll have to go back, find Cape Air--I'm not sure where they are this year...they move their location alot." She shifted her weight on the high stool where she was holding court, and added. " Can't go through here until she give you a REAL ticket." OK, I'm thinking already irritated. Whatever.

I scour the rest of the check in area for Cape Air amidst Continental , US Airways and Air Canada. In a far corner, I find a counter with the Cape Air logo in the far corner. No agent.

I wait. And wait. Finally, a thirtyish blond woman arrives. There is a family of five ahead of me with at least 10 pieces of luggage ( don't people read the surcharge info about checked bags? ).

I waited, checking my watch, noting the exponential increase in the security line.

Oh, and have I mentioned that Hurricane Bill at the time was careening up the coast line, skies were overcast, and there was a little bit of get the milk and bread it could be a big storm mentality in the northeast?

Victoria, the agent, checks my return flight. It is incorrect. Fifteen minutes later, Victoria gets the Cape Air office ( think 300 sq. ft. space in Hyannis ) on the phone ( can't access it by computer ), makes the change. Back to the line. I set off the security screening device. Please don't stop me for a search, I just want to get on the plane.

The screener pulls my bulging handbag off the conveyor belt and approaches me with it clutched close to her chest."Ma'am, you've got a water bottle in here," she says waving with her latex gloved hand. Damn. She's right.

The 30 people behind me are not happy. Can't blame them. Head for the gate, show my ticket, give her my weight, weight my carry on ( Always comforting to know that these small planes want these calculations to be sure we don't take a nosedive over Nantucket Sound. ) And I wait and watch the clouds thicken, the passengers ( all twelve of us ) arrive. The agent ( no mike ) announces the flight and we follow her like ducklings down a long hall, two flights of steps to the tarmac and our little Cessna. I take one last worried look at the cloud cover hoping that we get off the ground before the Nantucket airport is socked in.

I am first in line to get up the four wobbly steps to the plane. The guy in the orange vest, our escort, looks at me: "Ma'am, we need someone up front today. You wanna be the co-pilot?"

"Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes", I laughed. "I have always, ALWAYS wanted to be in the cockpit of a plane." The captain nodded as I climbed into the right hand front, strapped myself in. I could hardly contain my absolute delight.

I turned to the other passengers now sitting quietly in neat rows behind me. " Does anyone have a camera, " I asked scanning their faces. No answer. " Mine's broken. And I have always, always wanted to do this." The woman in the seat behind me poked her husband. " I'll take it on my Blackberry and send it to your email," he offered.

The man next to me ( he lived on Cliff Road come to find out which overlooks Nantucket Sound with stunning views ) gave me paper and pen to jot down my email address. The wife of the photographer handed it to her husband ( they are in Madaket where the surf is always up and the sunsets are brilliant ). "It's on its way to you," he said with a big grin.

"By the way," the photographer began, "are you serving drinks after takeoff."

Fred, the pilot, took off into a soupy sky talking to air traffic control. Minutes later, we had climbed to our assigned altitude and were heading almost due east, the hum of the motor comforting. From the cockpit, I had an 180 degree vantage point with windows on either side and windows above my head.

Fred stopped talking to the tower, settled back. We were over water now, and coming into the biggest, puffiest cumulus clouds I have ever seen. Certainly that I have ever seen this close. I imagined how it would feel to be able to slide my arm through the thin layer of metal that separated me from thin air in some kind of virtual experience, and touch them as we flew by. Just then, a shard of dazzling sun split the cloud with light. It was just like an old Cecil B. deMille film.

And, yes, I did feel, just for a moment, as if I was able to imagine the infinite.

Isn't that how life works? Just about ready to brace yourself for disappointment--a missed meeting with an old and dear friend, a numbing estrangement from a sibling or child, an injury that turns out to be chronic, possibly a disability. And then, on a dime, a wish come true.

( Note to self: look at the picture above ( thanks to a stranger ) and remember.

So what do I know today that I didn't yesterday?

That it pays to remember the singular moments that move me. Savor them. Store them in my heart for the winter-grim times that are sure to come. Maybe life is really mostly about persistence. Not being willing to give in to disappointment.

Could the quest for meaning be that simple?

Summer Reverie

Philadelphia

The etymology of nostalgia is homecoming. If we didn't believe in homecoming, we wouldn't be able to bear the day.

W.S. Merwin

I have been postponing this post for several days. Up until today, I wasn't sure why.

For the past few weeks, I have had this growing sense that everything that I require in the world is right at my feet. That is not to say that it is everything I want. But whoever said that would happen anyway?

This summer is folding its tent. The cicadas return at dusk signal the beginning of the fall cycle, the end of long days of white light, the return of crisp cool days with brisk winds.

Most summers I am in my best physical shape, running at least a few races, and, for sure doing the NY triathlon in September. Most summers mark my family gathering in Nantucket for a week or two together, and at least one other journey to visit old friends or new ones.

But this summer has been different. I have spent it largely in the country where my days have been spent trying to meet some very specific goals: writing every morning ( 80% ); repairing/preparing the house for winter; taking care of a new set of mostly nuisance physical symptoms to be sure they are not going to become chronic ones; completing a video module on medical ethics for Villanova; pitching and beginning an article on finance for an journal geared toward trustees; submitting a short story manuscript for publication ( my personal deadline is this coming Friday ); and finally, organizing a mini summer book group to read and discuss Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth Strout which occurred on this past Tuesday night.

In the midst of those personal goals, my new granddaughter, Ella, was christened, my old and dear friend whom I have known since we were 13 and I had lunch at the Metropolitan dining room, then strolled across the park so that she could see where I lived, and I planned another journey for the winter--this time to spend two months in Africa to work in a hospital in Tanzania south of Dar es Saleem, then go on safari in the shadow of Kilimanjaro.

But what has been most interesting to me about this summer is the small things that I have seen or heard or felt. Deeply. The turtle who showed up near the deck after a big storm. The

heron standing silently in the stream beneath my bedroom window one morning like a sentry.

The hummingbird's faithful return. The look of my grandson's face at the opening sequence of Lion King as all of the animals parade across the Minskoff Theater's stage singing a thrilling African chant. The night settling into Central Park as the backdrop for the superb staging of Twelfth Night.

Or the touches of strangers. The woman from Continental Airlines who tried desperately to help me change reservations back from Nantucket without incurring a fee so that I could attend my son's birthday party. At the end of the conversation, I told her that our conversation reminded me of Olive, the protagonist in the Pulitzer prizewinning book, who had often meaningful moments ( although she steeled herself from any real connecting with others unlike this stranger and me ). " It's nice you're going to change things so that you can be there for the birthday. How old is he?" I think she thought he might be, say, 19 or something. "Soon to be 38," I answered, chuckling under my breath. " Even better," she began. " I wasn't much of a mother, actually," she continued. " But they're good kids, adults now, in spite of it, I guess."

Regrets. Moments of connection. It is the essence of Olive Kittredge which is its brilliance. It's the essence of life. Strout takes the day to day lives of ordinary people in a tiny town--people who don't go to Africa or Asia. They don't even go to Minnesota. But their stories are real, their heartaches as big as an ocean, and their struggle between hope and despair, palpable.

This summer, for me, has been just that. A chance to try to accomplish goals, meet obligations, prepare for the coming darkness, cold challenging winter. And a chance to take in the early morning light or noticing the dappling of the afternoon's yellow light on the garden as I sit by the stream. Trying to stand in one place. Even when I can't stand it.

All of that is what grownups do. Or what we aspire to do.

To be on our way in the day-to-day while we watch out of the corner of our eyes for the moments that move us, define us. The moments we've been waiting for. The non-showy moments that evoke little, tiny bubbles of silent gratitude.

The moments that whisper, You are alive.

M.C.