Cracklin' Anny Pays Paula a Visit

Was eight in the morning on my birthday

Voice inside said you hang in the hole today

In the hole I don't bathe or brush my teeth

In the hole I don't try to make nice

The hole don't have no Warm Fuzzies or Smiley Faces

It got no course in compulsive positive thinking.

Here what it do got:

It got my real

The walls are plastered with icky gold-veined mirror panels

Keep me starin' back at myself everywhere

I stare so long that I see behind myself

Seein' behind myself

Hole is scary

Hole is about my Edge

Hole is about following my gut

I flash on the old lady

Who runs down Florida Avenue

She got pigtails and a backpack on

I see the guy who boogie woogies

In the median

At Florida and East Fowler

I figure it is about time

To get out of the place

I am afraid about what may happen

If I step over the Edge

Cracklin' Anny she shows up

She backs me up hard

Against the gold-veined mirrored wall

She is mad

And she has a good

Tongue-lashing for me

Let us listen to what she has to say:

"You push me back

Say I ain't nice to look at

Say I don't act right

Say you embarrassed of me"

"You treat me like refugee

But I been here whole time

Anny on your side

She got your back"

"I got some things to say

But you never listen

This time you listen

Time runnin' out"

"Your house too clean

You used to sleep in bed with kitty fur, cookie crumbs and paper piles

You happier then"

"You been thinkin' moresn' good for you

Been thinking all you life

You stop now"

"You hoop- dee- do girl

You kick it up more, you hear

You ain't nice girl"

"Nice girl smiles when she wants to cry

Nice girl agrees when she really mean fuck off

Nice girl goes along when she really want to go away"

"That ain't you

Don't mean you bad

Mean you grown-up

You sixty now"

Hoop-Dee-Doo
Doris Day

Bathing Suit Gals

Paula and Marcia in their Twenties

Mom and I sit on her sexy white wraparound couch talking about everything and nothing. She has her hands folded and her fingers are laced. As she speaks she twirls her thumbs. I know what this movement portends- sad news. Rotating our thumbs is what we do when bad stuff is coming down. Mom tells me her father has cancer. She cries.

Our conversation totters a bit on the subject, and then takes a strong right turn. Perhaps we discuss the new polka dot pillows I have brought for her sofa. Perhaps we talk some nonsense about the latest in celebrity news.

Mom stands up and lifts the leg of her trousers to mid thigh. She points to the zig zaggy purple lines on legs. She tells me that she is paying $350.00 to have these spider veins removed. I detect a hint of hopeful triumph in her voice.

"Good, Mom”, I say.

But my thirty-something mind wonders why. Mom is a woman in her late fifties. Age is bursting out everywhere on her body. Visions of the little Dutch boy who tried to stop a flood by sticking a finger in the hole of a dike cross my mind. Certainly this spider vein procedure cannot stop the inevitable fallout of age, I think to myself.

Later we go for dinner at the clubhouse. Two men my mother's age offer to buy us drinks. I hate this. I am a woman who does not let men buy me drinks. I am an “I will pay my own way thank-you very much “ type, but Mom is different that way. I give way to a cocktail. We drink, chat and leave.

Back at the condo, she models the yellow linen dress she has bought for her next blind date She has high hopes, for her vein procedure will be completed by then she reminds me. She has been actively seeking men for a few months now. Three marriages under her belt and a string of love affairs later, she still believes that she needs a man to be complete. The fluorescent light of the bathroom vanity accentuates every line in her fifty-something face.

“It’s real pretty, Mom. You look good,” I encourage her. Inside I pray that I won’t be this desperate at her age. "Hey, you will find a man if that is what you want. Look at those two men who just bought drinks for us."

She turns away from the unkind light, looks me straight in the eye, and says, "Paula, those men were interested in you- not me."

My heart breaks for her. She is probably correct, but I play dumb. My stomach squeezes in on me.

Mom grew up believing that her appearance was her most valuable currency. She had been able to trade on it for most of her life. She feared losing its spending power.

Oh, Mom, why did you not see that your raucous sense of humor, your keen intellect and your willingness to share your deepest feelings were your special gifts? They could have carried you gracefully over the threshold of aging.

A Young Sarah

Now Aunt Sarah, well, she did aging differently. Her body had its fair share of pooches, droops, and discolorations. But Sarah trusted who she was. And if she did feel a bit wistful at times about the loss of her youthful looks- and I am certain she did because I knew my aunt-she was not going to dignify it with any dialogue.

In the eye of memory I visit her. Today she is wearing old shorts and a paint spattered shirt. She gardens now as I look on, and as she does she sings:

"White coral bells

Upon a slender stalk

Lily of the Valley

Deck my garden walk

Oh, don't you wish

That you could

Hear them ring?

That will happen

Only when the fairies sing"

She has a joy in her heart that will not pay duty to the boundaries of age. She pauses to admire her flowers before heading to her studio, for while she was gardening she got an idea about how to solve a problem in her current painting. This has been gnawing at her for several days now, and she cannot wait to get started.

Today she will work in her studio in the woods until the late July heat beckons her to pull on one of her stretched-out swimsuits for a delicious swim in the bay. She rejoices that her heart still beats, her legs still carry her and that her eyes continue to seek out beauty.

The water of Grand Traverse Bay is just cold enough to be refreshing this evening. The geese cry as they fly in formation overhead. She is glad and give thanks for yet another day as she enters her eighty-second year.

Sarah in her 70's

Age has made me naked. It has shucked me right down to my stalk- raw and exposed. Pretending does not work any more. I catch myself lying to myself too fast these days. I have blown my own cover.

I put on my new blue bathing suit. I am the fattest I have ever been compliments of the broken leg.

I stare at the woman who looks back at me in the mirror.

If I, but for a moment, hear myself pass judgment on that woman, I shall stop. I will hold myself tight in my own arms until I find her- my own true blue gal.

The Fertile Void

what I know about myself is that the farther away I get from my truth the more obsessed I become with trying to control the small stuff- the stuff that shouldn't matter- the stuff they say you won't remember when you are dying- the stuff that we do to keep us from really facing the important stuff

I was always messy. I started one project before putting away the materials of another. I draped my clothes over chairs and beds. I slept in a bed with kitty fur, cookie crumbs and piles of papers.

i was okay with this until one day when i got the idea that external order trumped all else.
Staying busy straightening and cleaning is a way that I have avoided answering the questions that need to be answered.
Stay busy with repetitive chores is a way that I have kept myself in sort of a anesthetized state. repetitive chores give me an artificial sense of rightness about the way in which I am living my life.
And even as I participate in them the truer part of me knows that I am not getting away with anything. All I am doing is filling up time and space, so that I do not have to deal with what writer Suzaane Braun Levine calls "the fertile void"

I have lived a long time. I had a thirty-four year long career. When I left teaching, at first I felt as though I was a kid with a pockerful of nickels in a candy store.




I am borrowing the term "the fertile void" from writer Suzanne Braun Levine. Ms. Levine, a former editor of Ms. magazine has written a couple of books on aging. I read them both and connected with much of what she had to say.

She describes this fertile void as that space in a woman's life when what she has been doing for the majority of her life is finished. In my case, my retirement from thirty-four of classroom teaching brought about many interesting changes- many of which caused me to feel awkward and uncomfortable.

Routines and roles often serve the purpose of providing a woman with a sense of connection, identity and purpose.

I was absolutely clear that I was finished with teaching. I loved my students, and I loved my job. It was absolutely the right career choice for me, but it was time to stop.

for the first few years after leaving my career, I was like a kid with a pockerful of nickels in a candyshop.. I was running here and there. I still spent a large amount of my time making money. I was not in great need of adding to my income, but making money was what I knew to do. It was comfortable, and it took up a lot of my time. This past year I decided to take a year off from making money.

The fertile void is a scary place to hang out. You know that the way in which you are spending your time is not totally satifying, but you are afraid to let your mind wander there too often because then you must face your thoughts.

Like many, I can do a pretty darned good job at playing pretend with myself. But I always know when I am doing this, and after a point the thundering in my ears about the lying I am doing is too much to bear, and I must listen to my gut.

The problem is that I am not sure what it is that I really want to do. I feel like a hen that has been sitting on eggs too long. Nothing has hatched , but I still keep sitting- waiting for for a signal of some sort.

I am also aware that I have allowed myself to be led around by life itself . I wonder how many really conscious choices I have made about the direction of my life. I sometimes think that I have been a person who rather than take the bull by the horn has been one who has lived much of her life in reaction mode.

I admire greatly woman who put themselves really out there. I have many ideas of things I would like to try. but I am not doing any of them yet.

The broken leg deal has not only been physically uncomfortable, but it has forced me to spend hours on end just sitting. I think about what I will do once I can be up and about again.

My greatest fear is that I will keep replaying the same tune. I want more. I need more. I aim to create more.

I am afraid.

Control vs. Letting Go

what I know about myself is that the farther away I get from my truth the more obsessed I become with trying to control the small stuff- the stuff that shouldn't matter- the stuff they say you won't remember when you are dying- the stuff that we do to keep us from really facing the important stuff

I was always messy. I started one project before putting away the materials of another. I draped my clothes over chairs and beds. I slept in a bed with kitty fur, cookie crumbs and piles of papers.

i was okay with this until one day when i got the idea that external order trumped all else.
Staying busy straightening and cleaning is a way that I have avoided answering the questions that need to be answered.
Stay busy with repetitive chores is a way that I have kept myself in sort of a anesthetized state. repetitive chores give me an artificial sense of rightness about the way in which I am living my life.
And even as I participate in them the truer part of me knows that I am not getting away with anything. All I am doing is filling up time and space, so that I do not have to deal with what writer Suzaane Braun Levine calls "the fertile void"

I have lived a long time. I had a thirty-four year long career. When I left teaching, at first I felt as though I was a kid with a pockerful of nickels in a candy store.

Her Blue Kitchen

if for one half hour I can
I go back to my grandmother's kitchen


she stands behind her sink in her low-heeled shoes
her feet are long and slender
her legs go forever

one day when I am in my teens
my grandfather will take me aside and point to my grandmother as she stands at that sink
He will say, "Did you ever see legs like that on a seventy year old woman?

He calls her Queenie, and she called him Father.

They are the parents in my dream book.

She appreciates her things. When I arrive at her home I run in to the kitchen first for a glass of water. She will serve it to me in one of her colorful aluminum tumblers. She will explain with pride that her water tastes so good because she has an artesian well.

there will be Beulah bakery bread with fresh butter, and for breakfast we will have pancakes which she makes on her long griddle. She will make mine Mickey Mouse.

Everything is special. The approach to the backdoor can be had by walking betwwen two huge cedars that have been allowed to grow together. They make a darkened little play forest for my little girl self. I will serve my dolls tea inside.




I am sitting in the built-in banquette

I feel so safe
sitting there
chatting about nothing and everything
with my Mamie

who will guide me through the day
make certain that I am clean and fed
and rested

I close my eyes, and I can feel her cheek again my little girl face. She smells of talcum powder and

Hers is a house in which the beds are always made.





and now I think of all she gave to me
she gave me her time
lots of it

she was almost fifty when I was born
she had already raised her own children

but she tended me and my sister
when my mother could not

Sing Me a Lullaby

Me
Summer of 1952

My eyes, my nose, my ears and my skin do not lie to me. They yield the truth of any given moment. And it is to the moments that I turn more and more as the years pass.

Days are swallowed into weeks, and a month no longer seems a large measure of time. And, of course, I find this awareness to be more than unsettling. It is downright frightening at times.

My earliest memory takes place in the backyard of the LaCrosse Street house.

Mama has placed me on the lawn atop the old fringed bedspread.

My eyes widen with wonder as I watch an ant climb a blade of grass up one side and down the other until it disappears into the tiny forest of the lawn. The late June sun feels good, and I feel safe because Mama is nearby.

I forget the ants, and I look toward her. She is hanging laundry on the twirly gig clothes line. She wears madras plaid short shorts and pointed red flats. Her legs are long and tan.

Mom is only twenty-one . She has married young not because she was ready, but because she was pregnant with me. She and my dad won't make it, but she does not know this as she hangs her laundry while keeping an eye on me.

Flap. Flap. The sheets snap in the wind.

Off and on, Mama comes over to me and dances a bit of a jig as she sings "Chicky Boom Chicky Boom. Chicky Boom Chicky Boom."

Her words send a carnival of joy up and down my spine. I can only gurgle in response, for it will be some time before words will become a part of my world. And with those words I will start to analyze experience. I will use language to separate myself from myself. I will often trust my thoughts more than I trust my feelings.


The laundry basket is empty. Mama scoops me off to the bed with the high sides, her lips to my ear as she sings:

"Sleepy time in the pastureland
Dreaming. Dreaming.
Here we come with our pails in hand.
Mary, Molly and I."

I close my eyes and I see the girls with the pails of milk coming over the hill. They will be there for me when I allow myself to close my eyes and remember. They will calm me during the scary times when sleep eludes me.

They will be there to bring me back to a sunny day in which clean sheets and ants and Mama were all I needed.

I Will Be a Pine Tree

The swiftness at which change sweeps into my life these days still surprises me. I have observed that the older I get the greater is my ability to take things in stride. What might have seemed to be a major drama in my thirties becomes a matter of course as I approach sixty.

Loss may mound as I age, but I am always grateful when I remember to see the gifts inherent in the loss.

The older I get the less it takes to make me glad. Glad means getting to experience a big string of regular predictable days in which nothing momentous occurs good or bad.

What I might once have called a boring day is the very kind of day I now give thanks for. I call these days my Smooth Days.

Smooth Days are days in which I get to set the tempo; I live free form.

Smooth Days are days in which I can wander about inside and out taking the time to play with my cats and to nuzzle my face in their sun-warmed furry tummies.

Smooth Days are day in which I take the time to peel and chop mounds of different vegetables so that I can have a ready made salad bar in my refrig.

Smooth Days happen when I let myself trust my gut about what to do next.
Shall I continue working on a project?
Shall I garden?
Shall I read? Shall I just lie flat on my back on my bed looking through the skylight at my longleaf pine tree.


I lie on my back on my bed as I write.
I see the huge old pine from my skylight.

I feel a connection to this tree.

It stands tall and proud, for it has braved hurricane force winds, frosty Florida winter nights and searing summer Florida suns.

I will be a pine tree.
I will live three hundred years of life in this life I have left.