Post Script

My new niece Reese Nicole Andrews was born January 30.

The Circle of Life

I write this having just returned last night from my Aunt Judy’s funeral. My mother, husband and I traveled to Wichita for this sad occasion, and we plowed back through snow-covered roads for more than three hours until the weather broke as we headed into Nebraska.

As often happens at this most mournful of occasions, families reconnect. I hadn’t see my cousin Chris in years since we had lived on opposite sides of the country until recently. It was really good to see him, meet his vivacious lovely bride of just over six months and his charming sons. Thanks to Facebook, we’re going to keep in touch.

As we were headed home, my mom got a call from my youngest brother. His wife was in the hospital getting ready to give birth. So as hokey and Disney-esque as it sounds, there really is a circle of life.

My aunt’s sudden death after her stroke and heart attack two weeks previous felt like a blow to the solar plexus. My heart went out to my cousin and his family and to my mom, who lost her ‘baby’ sister.

After the service, I heard two stories about my aunt’s ‘baby mojo’ quilts. One woman had been trying to conceive for 15 years when she became the recipient of one of Judy’s special quilts. She has a three-year-old now. Another friend of my aunt’s was there with her daughter, four months pregnant with her third child. She too had been gifted with one of Judy’s quilts.

My aunt had nearly been finished with a beautiful white quilt for her new daughter-in-law, Paula, when she died. Paula’s grandmother will finish that piece.

As we continue to mourn the loss of Judy, we listen for the cell phone ring from my youngest brother announcing the birth of his new child.

In a week from today, Erik, my mom’s first grandchild and my first ‘baby,’ will be home from his second sojourn in Germany. It can’t come soon enough.

Lists

In the summer of 2003, I went with my late great friend Mary Rodd Furbee (sister of my dear friend Susan) to my first West Virginia Writers, Inc. Conference in the little burg of Ripley, WV. The gathering has met for more than 30 years now and boasts a line-up of past presenters that includes novelists Lee Maynard, Gretchen Moran Laskas, Brad Barkley, essayist/poet Jim Minick and children’s author Cheryl Ware to name just a few.

I’m looking forward to making the trek from the prairie to the hills again this summer to attend what will be my eighth conference. Humorist and novelist Terry McNemar, the organization’s president, is planning another stellar line-up.

This conference is like a big family reunion, welcoming old members and new alike into the fold. It’s a wonderful way for writers at all stages to jumpstart their creativity and feel energized about their craft. It’s also a good introduction to new genres.

Warning: I digress.

My aforementioned friend Susan says she likes to see where my train of thought ‘wends’ and eventually leads. Susan is too kind. I like to start at Point Q, detour back to B, and end up nice and neatly at Z.

My main introduction to poetry before WVW was Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, with a little Charge of the Light Brigade thrown in. Sure I loved Poe, but his short stories, not the gloomy Lenore.

Then I started going to the conference, some years as a presenter, some as a pupil.

I learned about spoken word poetry, prose poetry (and flash fiction), list poems…and was educated and illuminated. Probably my favorite poem of all is Eliot’s The Wasteland, but it was nice to be exposed to some new things.

At this point, even if I were Susan, I’d wonder where I was going with this.

But I know exactly where I’m going because I know exactly where I started. At 5:45 this morning I was in a YMCA exercise room dropping and giving the substitute ‘drill sergeant’ ‘50’ in a toning class.

I recounted my day in an email to a friend. Reading over it, it occurred to me that I had written a ‘list poem.’

Lately I’ve been all about trying new things to embrace the lifestyle change I’ve experienced over the last year and a half. I’ve gone from an über stressed, overworked (my own fault), frantic lifestyle to the following:

i went to 5:45 a.m. 'toning' class run by substitute 'drill sergeant' instructor

came home, went back to walk

thought about yoga tonight but stomach muscles (or lack thereof) have had enuf

ordered flowers for funeral

worked on writing-related stuff, but not writing per se

laundry

feel fragmented, need more sleep

need to revive 'ancient' multi tasking skills that used to allow me to teach/advise fulltime

write, be 'super volunteer mom'

or not

Bad poetry and pathetic pushups…it’s a start.

A Death in the Family

We were getting ready for church this morning when the call came from my cousin Chris. Aunt Judy had stopped breathing during the night and died. Two weeks ago she had a stroke and heart attack, and I wrote about my mom’s ‘baby’ sister and all she meant. None of us expected this news so soon, though. The all-around concern was that she’d have to go into a long-term care facility.

Instead my mom has lost her sister, my cousin has lost his mother and his children have lost their loving, doting grandmother.

And a niece has lost an effervescent aunt who enriched her life beyond what words can describe.

The Modern Age

As I sit and write this on my iMac, I have Skype running so Erik can call me back from Germany. The first time I ever used a ‘VDT’ (video display terminal) was my junior year of college in the newsroom of the Iowa State Daily.

Previously I’d been a broadcasting major at Central Michigan University. And this week a friend of mine here on the prairie, Ann, got another Michigan ‘girl’ and I together for lunch. Carol, a Michigan State grad, is a local radio talk show host.

We sat and reminisced about splicing audio tape with a razor blade and scotch taping it back together. That long-ago production class was my first inkling that anything that involved even ‘rudimentary’ technology was probably not for me.

My mother runs all the remotes for the TV/Blu-ray/Netflix box/streaming. I turn the television off and manage to shut the whole system down.

However, I’m pretty handy at navigating search engines so it all evens out.

Hours ago when I started this, I maybe had a point. But it’s long-forgotten.

Thanks to ‘modern’ technology, I can chat with my older son – for free – as long as I want. We can talk books, writing, and whether we should lock younger brother Andrew out of my office when he leaves for a minute.

Erik will be home in two weeks from his study abroad trip.

It can’t come soon enough for any of us.

All About Me….

When Erik went to Germany the first time, as a high school foreign exchange student, my husband and I told his younger brother that life was going to be ‘all about him.’ We said this to help him cope with the fact his only sibling would be gone for a year. Despite the fact that Erik once stuffed a sock in Andrew’s mouth (the jury’s still out on the deservedness of the action), they get along pretty well.

And, whereas pre-schooler Erik once said to us in a mournful tone “I liked it better when it was just the three of us” regarding his new baby brother, Andrew wasn’t really prepared to live like an only child.

This spawned a little ‘ditty’ called, appropriately enough, “All About Me” (think “Pants on the Ground,” only not nearly as catchy).

I thought about the title of this tuneless little tune this week, but not for reasons that originally had anything to do with my sons.

The old post entitled “All About Me” started this way:

Day 8.5 of no stress-related/recreational sugar products, ready to gnaw on the landline phone...but other than that...okay...I think?

Ever since the night I dove into a Ziploc bag of leftover holiday M&Ms when Erik and Morgan called to say they were stranded in Denmark by “Storm Daisy,” I’ve gone cold turkey on sweets.

It’s time to cut out the stress munching and crunching so I’m being “All About Me.”

Only writing about eschewing sweets and upping the exercise bores even me.

To quote my dear mom, “You’re not going to write about fat again are you?”

Now posting diet/exercise related Facebook statuses and talking about it with friends who commiserate is okay.

But writing a blog post called “All About Me’ and making it all about ME is, in the end, not me.

Ever since I held that first tiny six-pound ‘monkey’ baby in my arms and later his more-than-eight pounds sibling, it’s been wondrously, gloriously about them.

No reason to change that now.

Back to the drawing board….

I spent all morning writing a blog post about a defining moment in my life, and Martin Luther King Day seemed the day to articulate these thoughts. We’ve come a long way since Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but we still need to keep the dream alive.

I then spent less, but more frustrating, time scouring the house for my 1978 Lake Michigan Catholic High School Yearbook. Before doing so, I even logged onto a classmates website for the ‘free’ membership in hopes of finding the photo I was looking for.

Even tho a picture of an old cute neighbor boy of mine popped up as the ‘newest’ member of the site, I still wasn’t tempted to pay the $9.95 not-so-free fee to gain access.

One of the reasons I started blogging was to find my individual, as opposed to collaborative, voice as a writer. Since my writing partner is also my mother, she’s highly supportive of the whole endeavor. Also, I wanted to finally write about things I’ve mulled for years. Like defining moments from my older son’s younger days that have helped shape me into the ‘holding on and letting go’ mom I am.

We spoke yesterday after he returned from the Berlin airport where he saw his girlfriend off on her return trip to the States. Even though Erik flies back in three weeks, he said it was really hard to go to the airport and not be getting on a plane to come home.

So I have a lot on my mind, the words need visuals, and the dishwasher needs unloading.

All I ever wanted was to be a mom and a writer. And some days I just struggle to do either well enough.