The Gift of the Mundane

When I was thirty-nine, my mother died. This was my first experience with a death that was close.
It was my first experience with watching a person decline and die.

I suffered protracted grief that went on for years. I became angrier, more driven, and much less spontaneous.

Now at nearly sixty-two loss comes knocking more and more often. No amount of barricading will keep it away.

Today I got up and got going. I notice that I welcome my daily chores more and more the older I get.
They serve as a roadmap for my day.

I have come to be grateful for structure. When I was younger, I spend much energy rebelling against it. I guess I feared being swallowed by routine.

As today wore on, I began to feel a sensation as though I were trying to walk through a wall of water.
My chores became more difficult. My body felt unbelievably spent.

I knew I must rest. The best relaxation for me is to lie flat on my back on the floor and stare at the ceiling. The hard surface of the floor serves to ground  me.

If I get lucky, one of my feline familiars rubs its face against mine or bumps its body against me tickling my soul just a tad and reminding me how much delight life still offers.

Five minutes flat on the floor helps to restore me.

I get up and do the next thing on the list.

I have learned to lower my expectations for my day as I age.

Grieving forces that on me.

Moving slowly but steadily has its own rewards.

It allows me to take in the small, sweet bits of my day.

My Love Song to Sue

You were a bit of  a sprite

in those last days.

I lay  at the end of your bed,

and I asked if you knew how much I loved you.

And you said you wanted me to tell you how much.

So I told you that if I were to paint a picture of my love

it would be of a place where the sky is always violet

and proud blue spruces stand tall.

Later I made reference to a Downton Abbey  plot detail

you had not yet watched. You looked me in the eye and said, "Busted!

We giggled a bit. Then you let out a Sueism.

"If I have to die, I will die funny".

Jolly times we surely shared.

We had a little ritual for a spell there in the '90's

in which we would greet one another

by breaking into a silly dance: we never needed music to dance.

Hard times we shared too.

Walks and talks in which tears

and confidences were exchanged.

You were my for better or for worse friend.

You walked your talk, my girl.

And I adored you for that.

You could tune an engine and wield a hack saw

as well as the next guy. And I was in awe of that.

Well, okay there.

You go girl; you go funny

'cause funny is good.

 Zip-A- Dee-Doo- Dah- lady- friend- of -mine

For every dance step I take, I'll do one for you.

For each beach day I have, I'll send you a sun ray.

But if you were to ask me, my sweet girl,

more than dying funny, you died strong.

There will come a day when the skies

will open to hues of purple and aqua and

orange and red.

And we all who loved you shall cast our eyes upward.

If we look real hard, we shall see

a chariot drawing itself across the heavens.

A regal woman rests upon a golden chair.

And her name is Sue, Queen of Serendipity.

                                                     Sue and Paula August, 2012

Weeki Wachee River

 

Sue wheeling me through Lettuce Lake Park

Summer, 2011

Our yard sale at Sue's house

Playing Dress-up sometime in the 80's

At twenty-eight years old when I first met her.

Dancing Crazy

Paula, Sue and June

"Bad Taste In Outer Space"

A Hard Day's Work

There is nothing better for the body
and the head and the soul and the spirit
like a good day of hard physical work.
Hallelujah! I give thanks for the good feeling
I have today.

We spent the weekend scrubbing and rubbing
and sweeping and mopping
and spiffin' up
in order to welcome the advent
of a cooler Florida.

Let us give thanks, my fellow Floridians.
You know how over the hot weather we are.
Only a Floridian can really get this.
We look forward to evenings in which
we might don a light wrap.

We give thanks to days in which
our t-shirts don't end up sticking to our backs
from just hauling the garbage can to the road.
We give thanks that instead of feeling we need three showers per day
we know that one will do.


Dan and I are into beautifying our porch.
It is time to open the whole back house and breath in the outdoor part of life.
It is now time to be out more than to be in.
I am keeping a mattress on the porch,
so that I can sleep out there with Patti and Maggy and lil' Bea.


We are currently installing
a thirty-two jet spa on the porch.
Dan has been changing out 110's to 220's
and digging up my garden- drats!
And I have been happy today because a hard day of work feels great.

All clean and shiny.

 An old screen door insert I found for two bucks. It was rusty and icky, so I spray painted it. Now it is happy again.

 Good-bye my lovely caladiums. See you next spring.

The park that just happens to be our backyard.

October, sweet, sweet October

A Fair Lady Autumn Evening in 1990

The Silver Meteor from an old postcard I have
Click to see larger. It is worth it!

I remember a night,

an autumn night in a small southern town.

I am sitting on a blanket on the grass

listening to an orchestra

perform old show tunes.

Refrains from My Fair Lady fill this crisp

oh- so- welcome October evening air.

The cool night signals a respite

 from the hot and soggy days

of the long Florida summer.

Adjacent to the band shell 

are the  tracks

on which the Silver Meteor

still makes a daily run.

Now the sky is punctuated by a few early stars.

Suddenly loud rumbling accompanied by harsh light

drones out the orchestra.

The musicians continue to play.

But this train not the orchestra has taken command-

of us who wait on the ground in the dark.

 Bearing down hard and casting its thunder,

the train's high beams  catch us unaware

as though to mock our very reverie.

With a pounding hiss the train disappears into the night.

We take pause, and our attention returns to the music.

A few days later  my mother is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

That night I lie in bed beside my husband; I do not sleep.

 I recall the barreling train from the other night.

I wonder if I  rewrite the evening and leave the train part out

if I can make the news about Mom go away too.

Years pass, and losses mount.

I will come to understand that the train and the orchestra

move together in a rather exquisite harmony.

And I will learn that it is best to make peace

with trains that arrive in the night.

When Trouble Comes a Callin'

When Trouble comes a callin',

We must do our proudest best

To tell it to mind its business.

And to remember that we are the ones

Who call the shots!

We should yell 

at the top of our lungs

"SCAT, SHOOSH, GET THEE GONE."

We will remind ourselves

That we have the strength 

to make it through.

We will believe in beauty.

We will believe in love.

We will believe in music, good books and high thoughts.

We will remember that things are always changing.

And we will take comfort in that thought.

One of my fave 50's gals.

"Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams"

Cogi Grant

The view from the bedroom. I have a park that we call a backyard- right in the city!

I play music most of the day.
Music is my drug of choice.
All she wants to do is dance.

And who in the hell said an older woman
can't wear long hair- Bah, me in "I kiss my cat on the mouth t-shirt".

Long Enough to Know

you know i have now lived long i enough to be able to declare publicly that I know that I can be quite a pain in the ass

this is not news to me
this is not some awareness that goes with advancing age
this is simply my opportunity to tell you the truth
this for you folks that have this thing I have
YOU WILL TOTALLY GET IT! Ya, you've come a long way baby.


My truth is that I have enjoyed being a pain in the ass.
The actress in me needs a stage, so being
the practical gal I have always been
i am abstract random sort of person who worked for most of her life in a concrete sequential world
i have developed many personas to keep things interesting to me

one persona is the bookish, tailored pants and oxford button down collar kind of woman
Oh, yes. She IS the real Paula. She is the girl who fell in love with Dick Cavett
when she was sixteen. Yeah, even though he was a man of small physical stature, she realized that
it was his Intelligence that turn her on. This intrigues her because she was not usually attracted to small men.

Why she has been reading since her mother was reading to her.
Mom would run her pointy red fingernail under each word
Making certain to enunciate each one.
Shecaught on fast
The highlight of Friday night was going to the bookmobile where Mom and her and Melanie got new books to read for the week.

another persona is the artistic
this gal has been here all along
this gal is the one who cancelled her marriage to her college sweetheart one month before the wedding
During her student teaching, she fell madly and passionately in love with a thirty-year old real Beatnik
he was her southern Bob Dyan and William Faulkner combined
the marital dress was cancelled at Maas Brothers
Marcia her mom just freaked out. I mean freaked out. Oh my daughter was about to wed
the son of a very prosperous family. And she is what? Calling the whole thing off.
Oh my baby, you know not what you do.

and then there is this basic woman
an average woman who getting happy when her counter are all clean
a woman who loved to look at home design magazines when in line at Publix
a woman who is easily content and happily so
a woman who like the "security" of knowing the woman who rings up your groceries by name
a woman who loves to wander through her room and admire what she sees
a woman who is pretty lucky, and she knows her. Oh yes, she does.


finally there is the one that she does not know yet.
and that prospect is darned well exciting
this life it is just an adventure
she does know one thing about this person
this person does not the ambition she once thought she
and she is happy as a pig in shit about that fact

My Friend Rheba

Last night I talked with Rheba

I have never met her.

We became friends over the phone.

She is eighty-four

I met her last April

when I was frightened about a health issue, and a friend suggested

that I call his Aunt Rheba in Tennessee.

That is how it started

I needed to talk to a woman

who was a lot older than me.

I needed someone to tell me

that everything would be all right.

And  in way she did.

Mainly, she talks, and I listen.

I have listened since that first time

to the story of her life.

When we started up our friendship,

she was living with her little dog Buffy.

She baked pies from her wheelchair,

 and a friend took her to Walmart once a week.

Rheba's condition declined

over the summer months.

One day she told me that she did not think 

she would be going to Walmart anymore.

By August she is in the hospital

She lives there for a few weeks.

Today she is in a nursing home.

She is happy that it does not smell.

A few months back she said that

if she had to give up her Buffy 

and move to a home it would kill her.

But it didn't.

She does not complain, but she does need

to talk.

Last night she asked me if all her talk scared me.

It doesn't. 

Her curiosity about what's coming next is what keeps her going.

She makes little jokes about her circumstances. 

Last night she said that it was kind of scary

not to have an older person to turn to.

I told her I understood.

But right now I have her.

And she has herself.

And maybe that's the most important thing.

At the end of each phone call she tells me she loves me.

I tell her me too.

She says she feels as though she has known me all of her life.
Sometimes friendship occurs in the most unexpected way.

Ilya Schor 1941

Amelin Albin