Grief Almanac

The Persians start their new year on the vernal equinox.  This pleases me.  What better time to begin again than when the earth reawakens? The pandemic followed this calendar, too.  It was announced in March 2020.  Now that we’ve cycled through a full year, it’s striking how much the natural world keeps me in check of what happened when.

For me, my memory of coronavirus will always be colored by my second and third miscarriages. The first I rarely count anymore– it was a chemical pregnancy, gone within a week of finding out. The second miscarriage felt doomed from the start.  I took a pregnancy test the day before the WHO announced that the disease had reached pandemic level, and I thought to myself, “Well, that’s just my luck.”

This spring, when the first plants started to re-emerge in the woods behind our house, I was taken back to the same time last year when Brian furtively, almost obsessively, would go and weed out the garlic mustard that was already threatening to choke out the jack-in-the-pulpits, wild ginger, and other early plants. He needed a task that took his mind elsewhere and pulling weeds is good meditation.  

I doubt if the woods are worth the work it’d take to reclaim it for native species.  There’s debris that suggests it’s a former dump site, but it sits on a drumlin that boasts a grove of oak trees.  Rabbits, woodchucks, and owls call it home, foxes pass through.  It’s also surrounded by development.  Kids forge paths and make forts.  A couple of neighbors use its cover to smoke. It’s not a perfect place in terms of ecological restoration, and it’s certainly not how it was when settlers first arrived in our former cow town, but it’s made itself a useful place.

This spring, I got into the habit of making nettle and mint tea in the evenings. The nettles grow in the woods, and if you pluck them just right they don’t sting much. I was about two months post-op from the pregnancy that took out my right Fallopian tube in February 2021, and then I saw the violets.

The violets were just blooming in 2020 when I had the MVA that removed the empty sac from my uterus. I should have been 10 weeks along. I was sick, so sick, this time around that it shocked me to find an empty womb during the ultrasound.  I suspect I had gestational diabetes that time around – even water tasted sweet – and I felt so good physically after the procedure that it was hard to feel bad about losing the pregnancy. The utter joy of my health restored buoyed me for some time.

A year later, I’m still shooting daggers at women who have six, seven month old babies. That could have been me.  A year later, I’ve lost another chance and I’m not sure whether I have it in me to try again.  I used to think I’d have three (maybe four, five!) children, and now it’s becoming clear that I won’t, at least not with this body.

The oaks in our woods have seen many changes since they were saplings.  They’re no longer in the oak savanna, but they avoided being cut down when the sawmill was here some hundred years ago, and again when they built houses all around the drumlin.  Their landscape changed, and with it their use, and yet they’re here, still useful, still enjoyed. The wood violets still grow around them. They’ll be here next year.

Hidden Valley Road

I was frightened by my grandfather when I was young. He wasn't prone to outbursts or mean -- he was a very quiet man who bribed me to come near him with dollar bills. He was often in his chair in front of the TV, watching baseball or Mass. When he stood, he was tall but hunched. He moved slowly and his right hand had a tremor. His expression was often unreadable, somewhere between vacant and haunted. Later in life, more than 15 years after he passed away, I would learn that he had received shock treatments for a "psychotic condition." I once asked an aunt if he had schizophrenia and she almost slapped me. The pain, fear, and shame of what had happened to him was, and continues to be, too much for his children to bear.

This weekend I tore through Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker. In one of the early chapters, he describes the "Thorazine Shuffle", a long-term side effect of a power anti-psychotic drug. I had to stop reading and set down the book -- Grandpa immediately came to mind. I thought about how annoyed I could be with his 8 children for not talking with us about what had happened and our genetic legacy. By the time I finished reading, I understood better that asking them to talk about it was probably one of the most difficult things I could ask them to do.

My family is one of many out there similar to the Galvins. This book is an honest look at what severe mental illness can do to a family. Schizophrenic conditions do not affect just the individual experiencing the hallucinations -- the rifts and conflicts that arise are fractal, and since they're often genetic, pop up in subsequent generations. It's a lousy inheritance. Hidden Valley Road always keeps in mind that these things are happening to humans who are loved and who, in spite of the things their illness has caused them to do and say, are still part of a family who loves them and fights for their right to live in peace and health.

Little Spirits Everywhere

I avoided Mother's Day this year. Easy to do in a pandemic.

My grief is avoidance. I retreat from the world. I seek some of my old ways -- or they seek me. I find myself reading favorite passages from beloved books, the ones whose spines are cracked and failing. Music I loved as a teen hits in a particular way that I can't explain.

I am a mother to a living child and to two ethereal spirits. In this world their time was brief but their presence is far from fleeting.

The day before the WHO announced a pandemic I suspected I was pregnant. A week later a test confirmed it. I put my head down through the lockdown to get through it, out of sheer necessity. The first trimester is not kind to me.

This spirit passed sometime in the 6th or 7th week -- hard to say. An unscheduled ultrasound ("just to make sure things are going well") at 8 weeks found an empty sac and no heartbeat.

At 10 weeks a kind doctor did what my uterus was refusing to do, and removed the tissue the spirit was supposed to inhabit.

The loss is hitting me in subtle ways.

I drove past the hospital where I should have delivered and my heart dropped.

I looked out in our backyard to the swing set and remembered I had planned to replace the rings, which no kid uses, with a baby swing.

Brian and I read to Reed at bedtime and my heart fluttered, "How sweet this is, all four of us together," before I remembered that we are only three.

No baby. No baby. No baby.

Just spirits.

The essentials

I had it in my mind that I needed a griddle. I keep seeing English muffin recipes and thinking of tortillas, dosas, and other fried flatbreads and know that making these things will just annoy me if I keep using my big stainless steel frying pan. Oil sticks to it and is a bitch to clean off.

So I went to Target.

In any other month of my life, this is not a story. But the day was March 21, 2020. Pandemic!

My husband's jobs are both at reduced hours and I have concerns about my job lasting through the year if an economic depression sets in. (And it will, loves. We'll get through that, too.) Do you think that prevented me from sticking to my list? My list of ONE item.

I found the griddle. Cast iron, fits perfectly on my stove's burner. Also in my cart: wipes and overnight pull-ups and more underwear for the preschooler who refuses to potty train. Stickers to send to friends near and far. Fruit punch for me. (I love fruit punch.) Kit-kats, which I stashed away for a later treat. Lots and lots of fancy sparkling water. Foam paint brushes for the art projects I know we're about to get to. Deli ham, pickles, cheese. A bunch of other stuff I can't remember at the moment.  

Nothing I bought was necessary or essential to our survival, but they'll all help us cope or will ease us into what lies ahead.

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Counterpoint: maybe wait a few months? https://t.co/mZduMr022L

— Emily St. J. Mandel (@EmilyMandel) March 11, 2020

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I can't stop thinking about Station Eleven. Not just the plot, but the little details. When the world really starts to fall apart, one character keeps working on an article he knows no one will ever read. But it's important to him and it keeps his mind off what's happening outside his apartment. Another character realizes he'll never have another cappuccino again.

It probably wasn't my last Target run. But it was hard not to feel like it could be.  

What am doing?

That is how my son asks questions right now. He's eight days shy of two years old, and pronouns aren't his strong suit. "Pick you up?" he asks. "Give you kiss?" He's on the receiving end of these things, of course. I'm usually game to oblige. He's much better at commands, such as "HUG!" or "WASH HANDS!"

I keep thinking of my resolutions . Are the things on there really want I want to be spending my spare time doing? Now that the main goal of my year -- pass my professional exam -- is completed and through, I find myself a little aimless. I'm not above changing things up when it's clear it's not working, or it's no longer a priority. 

In the very least, I am noticing what's preventing me from working on some of these resolutions. My tendency to browse Instagram or other mindless things in the evening? I do that because I'm tired. I don't have enough energy to read or I'm not in the middle of reading something engaging. I don't want to tackle projects at 8pm because there's usually still chores to do -- picking up, laundry, dishes -- and by the time I wrap those up it's time to get ready for bed, if I know what's good for me. (I don't, often.)

I really should get on the ball concerning photos. I like having a record of what we've been up to when I remember to take photos, but it's not a priority. I want to do this because it'd be nice to send my mother and mother-in-law regular photos of my kid. But I don't really want to do this. (This realization -- that the motivation behind an idea is still not my own motivation -- was a big revelation I got while reading Better Than Before.) 

The other undone items on my list are things I think will lead to something else, in one way or the other. Those are the items I feel like I need to really look into. I'll get there. Maybe.

Five For Friday - 3/9/18

It is March. In multiple Native American tongues, this time of year is known as "the starving time." This is a time of year where I both crave the sunlight and get annoyed if it taunts me too much.  A friend reminded me last night that January through March is for surviving. I needed that reminder.

Here's what's been getting me through: Not drinking. Reading fiction. Putting my phone away when I play with my kid. Washing down 5,000 IUs of vitamin D with orange juice as I make breakfast. Pilates.

And in the evenings, zapped of energy but unwilling to go to bed at 8pm, I watch comedy on the Internet until I memorize it, and then quote it to my husband when the occasion presents itself.

1. Maria Bamford

Way back in the early aughts, I remember catching her stand-up routines on Comedy Central.  Like the Bammer herself, her routines have aged well, like a hilarious and funky wine that does voice impersonations.

Her genius is subtle. On "Lady Dynamite", her flashbacks to Minnesota are accompanied by the lighting adjusting to a perfect shade of "Duluth Blue" -- the exact grey, sad-sack hue that I associate with weekend afternoons in February.

Don't ask her, Ask Her Mom! 

2. Chris Fleming

Maybe you know him as Gayle.

Maybe you've seen Paint Nite. (And then watched it over and over again.)

I want to live inside his head.

3. NOT A WOLF

Twitter is a cesspool, which is why clever minds flourish there if they don't take themselves too seriously. I wish I could explain why I love this account.

4. McSweeney's Internet Tendency

It's hard to find fault with a website who publishes articles titled "Hello, I'm the Internet, and You're Parenting All Wrong." And with that came the realization that there's a giant arm of media that seems to resonate with my experience because lo! My peers are now in charge of producing the media. Just wait until we get our hands on the governments.

5. Wizard People, Dear Reader

I'm at the point in my life where I enjoy this more than the actual Harry Potter series. 

Resolutions - Updated

Originally published on 1/2/18; updated 1/15/2018; updated again on 6/4/2018. 

I recall a New Year's list I made back in 2003.  I was 16 and had lofty goals. Among the goals I accomplished on that list were: eat more exciting cheeses, learn to drink tea properly, learn my prayers in Latin. A goal I did not master were becoming ambidextrous and getting into a yoga routine, although the attempt at both did set up some good habits overall.

I tend to do well on my resolutions when I mix serious with fun and throw in things I know I need to do anyway. Unless there's an outside deadline, I don't really make deadlines. This is how a Rebel does resolutions.

Here's to 2018:

• Pass the AICP Exam (Deadline: May) PASSED. Thanks be to God. 
• Need to carve out study time. 
• Switch from browsing Instagram to reading books in the quiet part of the evening when Reed goes to sleep.
• Rearrange the house to get my office space back + combine sleeping spaces to the big bedroom DONE! 1/8/18
• Get into my long-sought after Friday Habit Still want to do this, but I need to figure out how to get me to do it. I hate sorting photos.
• Organize my digital photos, files, and links each Friday
• Clear off my desk and follow up on any paperwork
• Then have a screen-less evening
• Learn 3 new, everyday hairstyles. Still working on it. 
• Don't take on new debt Fail. Car repairs, plus a wedding I agreed to be before in set me back. 
• Do InCoWriMo in February Still 14 letters in the whole. Will reply and finish, but letters take time and I don't like sending out crap. 
• 100 Species Project (April - October)
• This takes care of less specific "get outside"
• Go mushrooming (May, post AICP)  Overlapped with AICP studying; poor mushrooming year anyway, due to weather.
• Do an overnight trip by myself. Bachelorette party night from March does not count.
• Get to Aire Ancient Baths This might be bumped, due to costs. I did do a float tank, thought, which was close but not the same. 
• Get to a place where I'm consistently doing 3 cardio workouts per week Still doing poorly
• Get a good morning routine established Holding steady, need to work on getting up (and going to bed) at a consistent time. 
• Goals: make and clean up from breakfast (don't leave dishes for Brian), do a 10-15 minute Pilates or yoga routine