Lee Woodruff's Blog, page 3

GIVING THEM THE BIRD

Most folks are eagerly anticipating Thanksgiving, talking nostalgically about family recipes and pumpkin pie. But I just can’t get excited about the turkey.  This is not simply because I have to prepare it.  It’s because I hate turkey.   Frankly, there must be a bunch of us, secret turkey subversives, who just nod and keep our faces even when folks salivate about the big bird on its sacred day.

If Ben Franklin had gotten his way, and the turkey had been selected as our national symbol, gracing coins and crests, maybe it would have been off limits as a food group.  No one I’m aware of eats American eagle. But somehow the turkey has become the edible symbol of our most fundamental American holiday. 

I’m daydreaming of assembling a holiday dinner this week that would be an all-inclusive, anti-turkey Thanksgiving.  What could be more America in the 2000’s than a melting pot meal?  A little sushi appetizer, some Chicken Tiki Masala (now practically the national dish of Great Britain), rice and beans… you get the picture.  Shouldn’t we create something that better reflects the cuisine of our country’s present demographics rather than retreading what some starving immigrants trash picked one late November in Massachusetts?

Sure, go ahead and toss your recipes at me, your turkey deep fryer, your perfectly browned breast draped with bacon, your whole garlic clove in the cavity.  You won’t convince me.   These Band-Aids are the equivalent of throwing a little KY jelly (or better yet Zestra) at the real problem; beneath that sultry skin, turkey is a mostly dry bird.  Even the alleged juicy brown drumstick mostly disappoints.

 

Maybe I dislike turkey because it’s the kissing cousin to chicken, which was forever ruined for me by my mother’s weekly skinless boneless breast dinners, incinerated and dehydrated under the broiler with a dab of margarine.   And then, if I had any hope of reconciliation with chicken as an adult, it has been beaten out of me by the countless frozen breasts with fake tattooed BBQ stripes that rest on lumps of rice or lettuce at every ballroom event lunch, banquet or conference meal.  Chicken is the go-to entre, the little black dress of mass meals.  

But, look, you say, look at all the fab accompaniments there are for turkey!  There are sauces and gravies, herbs and cranberry goop and citrus reductions.  Save your breath.  These only mask the issue, like feminine deodorant spray.  Be honest, a basic slice off the breast is like chewing through gypsum board.  The only possible way I enjoy turkey is a Thanksgiving leftover dark meat sandwich with fresh bread and lots of mayo (my husband would argue here for Miracle Whip.)

I don’t like picturing the farm to table journey of my bird.  We Americans don’t fancy the idea of getting a gander at where our food really comes from.  We’re more comfortable with the concept of shrink-wrap, dry aged, butchered cuts or ground meat.  But with a turkey, you can’t avoid imagining the living animal, even though by the time it gets to you, it more resembles an open casket viewing.  There it is, nude and embarrassed, hunched in forgiveness on your platter, minus a few extremities.  A turkey on the table is so… whole…. so intact. 

We all grew up with illustrations of hatchet-wielding pilgrims clomping around in those buckled shoes after the turkey.  As a child I was scarred by the tale of my mother’s family cook in Arkansas who wrung the chicken’s neck bare handed or chopped it off on a block while the rest of it flopped around a few seconds longer before collapsing.   I think of this image when I pull that old candy-cane neck out of the bird’s body cavity, where its been stuffed like some mafia message from “The Godfather.” And where do the feet go? What the hell happens to the feet?  Do they get shipped to China where they are considered a delicacy? Forget I asked, I don’t want to know.   And I don’t want to contemplate the image of mechanized plucking. Turkey feathers must be the poultry equivalent of a woman’s unwanted facial hair. 

 

Rolling my cart down the grocery aisle during the holidays, I am both repelled and drawn to the jumbled cases of plastic wrapped white skinned turkeys of varying weights, their knees drawn up in a yoga child’s pose. They look like a horror version of those Anne Geddes photographs and greeting cards, the ones with the naked babies in groups or dressed as single flowers and ladybugs.  Unlike the babies, the turkey skin has a mottled, bluish cast, all pimpled and dimpled.  It’s when I reach into the case and see the tiny pool of blood in the packaging that I ask myself what’s wrong with stuffed shells for a change of pace?  Why not honor the contribution of Italian Americans this Thanksgiving season?  Anyone?

By most accounts, the turkey is a mean, ugly bird.  And dumb as a stone.  Maybe anything that dumb deserves to die.  Evolution and natural selection haven’t helped it out any.  We have a pack of wild turkeys in my suburban NY town that claimed the median of a highway strip as their “hang turf” last year.  A hundred yards further and they could have had a nice little stretch of woodland to themselves. But no, these dimwits spent months playing chicken (pardon the pun) with the cars as they exited the interstate.   About every other week there would be a mound of feathery road kill on the off-ramp.   Honestly, any animal whose cry is “gobble gobble” is asking for trouble.

But like the turkey, I’m a big talker.  I dream about a turkey-free Thanksgiving, but I’ll never really take action.  My family wouldn’t allow it.  If it were my call, I’d eliminate the other colorless foods that have become a tradition in our family, my mother-in-law’s corn and oysters casserole, the stuffing and mashed potatoes, which will sit like wallpaper paste in our stomachs, the rutabaga, the white rolls and then the gravy made with parts that have been sitting inside the turkey’s ass in a bag (don’t get me started about the word “gizzards.”)  Once it’s been cooked to perfection it all looks like nursing home steam table food.  No teeth required. 
 

In the end it’s the ritual.  It’s about all of us coming together.  It’s about tradition, no matter how much I might daydream about a more sumptuous menu.  And regardless of the time invested to plan, shop and prep, my loved ones will clean their plates in roughly 20 minutes following the word “Amen.”

They will stand up, groan and stretch and return to their touch football game, their headphones and texting, their X-box war game or their custom couch indentation in front of the flat screen TV.  We sisters will clear and soak, load and dry, and lay out dessert, as unquestioning of the routine as the wives in the Bin Laden complex.
 


 


But none of us complain.  We love one another’s company, the addition of a displaced person at the table, the stray college buddy, the big city boyfriend, the sense of completion that all of our chickees are back in the nest for this long weekend and we get to mother the whole lot.  And for one day, at least, turkey and all, the world feels in its place.
 

Happy Thanksgiving!
 


 

 

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Did you kiss a Vet today?

On Veteran's Day we honored those who have served in all branches, all conflicts and all points in our nation's history.   As the wars wind down in Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of young men and women and their families are working to transition back to the lives they enjoyed before deployment and injury. You can help by texting to donate (Text- BWF to 50555 to donate $10) or going to Remind.org/donate-today.

Enjoy the Live Stream of Stand Up For Heroes, 2012! Here

Lee and Bob at Stand Up For Heroes, 2012.

John Mayer at Stand Up For Heroes, 2012.

The Roger Waters and the Music Corps at Stand Up For Heroes, 2012.

 

 

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My So-Called Glamorous Life

Every week I toggle between two worlds. There’s the “suburban mom” in sweats and the Manhattan me in heels, however, I should mention, they’re often stuffed in my backpack as I hoof around the city. Although I live outside of New York, my work and part of my social life is in Manhattan. I’m an advocate for veterans’ causes (the Bob Woodruff Foundation), a contributor to CBS This Morning, an author, and, always, a mom. This makes the Metro-North bathroom, where I often transform into “City Glam,” the equivalent of my Superman phone booth. 

Here’s how a typical day goes when I’m on the morning show:

I jump into a town car at 5:45am with wet hair and slits for eyes. As soon as I arrive at the studio, the CBS makeup magicians get to work spackling my face (which takes a little extra effort at my age). In order to keep me from looking like a blind lab rat, they add false eyelashes that—once I’ve left the studio and am back in natural light—give me a “tranny” look and cause me to have to explain at every successive meeting why I’m made up like Phyllis Diller. 

After the show, I duck into a deli and order a three-eggs-and-bacon sandwich. The woman at the register doesn’t give my now-melting makeup job a second look—she must see all kinds of crazy pouring out of the various CBS studios. She stifles a yawn, and as I take a bite, the yolk squirts onto my boob like yellow blood. Great. 

Next up: a meeting with the Caroline’s on Broadway folks to discuss our annual “Stand Up for Heroes” fundraiser at the Beacon Theater on November 8.  Andrew Fox, the show’s creator, wants to talk about stacking the night with artists like Bruce Springsteen, Ricky Gervais, Jon Stewart, and Robin Williams. Not bad company for an old lady in sensible footwear. “Nice look,” Andrew mutters wryly, gazing at the sneakers I’ve already abandoned my heels for.  The crotch of my tights has migrated midway to my knees and they are wrinkling at the ankles, like the plastic bags my mom stuck in my childhood winter boots.   There is an occasional obstruction in my peripheral vision. Is one of my lashes coming unglued, or is that just my sagging lid beginning to impair my vision? Note to self: Get the name of any plastic surgeon except the one who embalmed Joan Rivers.

Working with Scott McMahan on our "Stand Up For Heroes" fundraiser.  

 

Noon. It’s time for some grits, and this gal doesn’t like to miss a meal. I walk to Michael’s restaurant on 55th and find myself outside the plate-glass window where the A-listers sit, in a public urination-like crouch as I swap out the Nikes for my city shoes. I remove the Mr. Rodgers cardigan I’m wearing over my dress, swipe on a little lipstick and brush my hair. I’m meeting with a magazine editor to discuss my newly released first work of fiction, Those We Love Most. 

 “So tell me,” she asks, leaning over her untouched salad, “Is this really about you?”  And so, finishing a bite of my dripping burger, I give the standard reply used by most middle-aged mothers of four everywhere, “If this book were a true to life memoir, I’d have to add lots of spicy sex scenes!”

Cut to me and the executive director of our non-profit organization in the conference room of a Midtown investment bank. We’re making a pitch for them to sponsor our “Stand Up for Heroes” night. I’m 50 percent sure they’ve agreed to write a check just to get me out of the room, because by this point in time, the TV makeup looks like it’s applied to a Galapagos turtle and the bankers are staring like geologists studying a topographical map.

With one sponsorship in the bag, we take a Starbucks break. I massage my dogs and wonder how my chicer Manhattan sisters seem to spend all day in heels so effortlessly. I’m the one who gets the stiletto stuck in the subway grate when I try to copy the grown-ups.

It’s now the end of the day and I’ve crisscrossed the city to meet my hubby for a drink near his ABC News offices.  One fake lash is now half unglued and curled off my lid like a shrimp.  The other half refuses to budge when I tug.  I’ve learned the hard way not to mess with any of this industrial make-up until I get home to a hot wash cloth.  Anything short of the right removal tools and my face will resemble a Jackson Pollock painting.

Walking in the rain with Bob. 

 

“What’s wrong with your eye?” my husband asks, squinting, patting himself down to find his reading glasses (I’ve been tempted to duct-tape them to the bridge of his nose). When my pores come into focus, he recoils. I’ve firmly moved into Night of the Living Dead territory, but I’m too tired to care. He shoots me a sympathetic look.

We sip our wine and wait for the traffic to subside so we can head home. Somewhere north of Harlem, my head lolls to the side and I am drooling on my sweater. Next thing I know we’re pulling into our driveway. One of my twins gives me a hug with a skeptical eye while the other is quick to bring me back to reality. 

“What’s with the Halloween makeup Mom? I’m starving.” 

Welcome home.

 

Enjoying a hike with my girls.

 

An original version of this post ran in Oct '12 Manhattan Magazine
http://www.modernluxury.com/manhattan/articles/every-day-exactly-the-same

 

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Remembering a Friend

I cannot fall back asleep.  I am stuck on the dentist, the mechanics of how this works, identifying a person by their dental records.  Does he get a call at 2:00 AM, when family members and loved ones are awaiting an answer?  Or does he come to work at a reasonable hour?

 

I am struck by the term “lost his life,” as if it was simply an object he misplaced and someone will find again. As if you could walk out a door, never to return and then somehow walk back in again.  What an odd and inappropriate turn of phrase.

 

I am thinking about his last minutes and hoping that there was no suffering.  As a wife I would need no suffering.  I would want to know there had been that moment of being there and then suddenly not there, before you could even flicker through the fullness of your life, before you had time to tell yourself that it was abundant and well lived and that you had more than you even deserved.

 

I am remembering what that call feels like—to go from a before to “after” with one piece of news, a few words that ripple out to change the lives of an entire clan.  There is the cool ceramic shock that follows, the membrane that appears over your brain to prevent the truth from sinking in all at once.  The information digests slowly, as you toggle between numbness and disbelief at the oddest times. This is the only way a wife can absorb the enormity of that kind of loss, you cannot otherwise compute the circumference of such a thing. 
 

 

She will still expect to hear his shout out from the front hall, see his lopsided grin and wire glasses askew, his full head of ginger hair.  She will listen for, but not hear, his footfall and the familiar sound of his briefcase being hefted up on the counter where they will eat.  “You’re dragging the dirt of Manhattan onto our table,” she might say and now she smiles to think of it.  Impossible that someone could be there one day, taking up all that space and then simply vanish so fully that the dentist must be called.  “Never” is a difficult word for humans to grasp—we are creatures who crave.

 

In the early days following his death, the kitchen is warm and bustling with covered dishes and deli food. The fireplace crackles, the doorbell rings, flowers arrive and then more food.  In these early days there is way too much food.

 

The household spins with industry, the cluck clucking of the community of women and the spiked laughter of his pals, yes laughter, because this is still unreal.  She will not sleep, at least not without pills and aids, because the images both imagined and real and the questions and “what if’s” will swirl in her mind like a thick pudding.  She will replay the film loops of the past, the time they first saw one another in Manhattan, how he held himself, so sure and confident, a boy from a modest home who was determined to make a mark with his good education.  She sees a freeze frame of them in the maternity ward, holding their daughter, how they thought their hearts would burst with so much love.  And then more children, more love. 
 

She thinks about his passion for all things outdoors, of hiking and biking and being out on the water in the Adirondacks.  She pictures him coaching hockey and wakeboarding with his boyhood friends and their children on the lake.  He was a person always in motion, whose presence bulged, so that he seemed to occupy a larger space, in a way that made the people around him feel more alive.  He had a childlike sense of wonder and enthusiasm that made those of us in his presence smile.  He was the leader, the aggregator, the congregator, the do-er.  He was where the fun was.  He was the “Fun Dad.”


 

 
He always said exactly what he thought and he was forthright, never cruel.  Even when he was goading or teasing you there was something still appropriate, still loveable.  He was loveable.  He jibed and joshed and his self-deprecating manner made us all feel we knew him better than maybe we did.  We smile just remembering it, each of us reviewing our own cache of highlights.

 

But then there will come that period in the house when the activity will slow and sag.  All the plates will stop spinning.  The hugs, the calls and the people dropping by will diminish.  The cars that have occupied the driveway will pull out and friends will go back to their lives because that’s what people do.  And then the real life part begins.  The living with it part.  And this will be the difficult part for the family. 

 

In the quiet of their home, grief will settle around her like an unwelcome arm on the shoulder and she will ache for the sound of that briefcase hitting the counter, the small dog’s incessant bark, rejoicing that her husband is home.  I want to say to her, do not fester over recreating your last moments together, the fact that you might have discussed the credit card bill that last night instead of something more weighty.  Do not worry if you can’t recall exactly when you last embraced him or told him what was in your heart.  Do not punish yourself if the last night you slept together - and how could you know that - you didn’t spoon him or kiss him passionately, but instead poked him when his snores woke you.  None of that matters now.  It was a marriage and he adored you.  I saw it.  We all did.  You made each other stronger and more complete in the weaker places.  And that’s simply what the best of couples do.

 

And when you are ready to feel us, we will all be woven strong.  Each of your varying and diverse communities, all of the places you have lived and worked, played and learned, will be interconnected, like the reeds in a basket.  Although we will never come close to replacing him, we will hold you up, and cradle each one of you.  We will be here to remind you how well you are loved.

 

 

In memory of Tighe Sullivan—devoted father, husband, friend, brother, Colgate University alumnus and lover of Silver Bay on Lake George. 

 

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In Praise of Indies

This is not one of those stories where the supermodel tells you she was home alone with her cat on prom night.  I did go to prom and I kissed a boy. But at the same time, for most of my childhood, I was the kid in the corner of the room curled up with a book, not the one joining organized sports teams or taping up teen idol posters. I can't remember if the term "nerd" was alive in the early 70’s, but you get the picture.  Drawing horses and reading were my two favorite past times.  Let's just say that doesn't set you up for a membership in the Gossip Girl cool club.

 
Many childhood afternoons, I rode my bike to the Delmar Public library in upstate New York. The librarians and I were on a first name basis. They helped me select piles of books that introduced me to imaginary lives, mysteries, history and biography.  Double bonus, Ellen Harris, the cool Mod Squad hippie-ish children’s librarian was also our occasional babysitter.  Checking out books with my own library card had the grown up élan I associated with whipping out a credit card.  And when I devoured those reads at home, I inhabited alternate universes, fed my head and stretched my vocabulary.

 
I married a man whose career took us to many different cities.  In each one I acquired a succession of library cards to match my growing collection of state driver’s licenses.  And eventually, as a mother, I would haunt the children's sections of my town libraries once again, directing my kids toward timeless reads like the Babar series, the Wind in the Willows or The Lonely Doll, a childhood favorite.

 
And while we were regular patrons of our libraries, it was the local bookstores that became my personal sanctuaries, my mental watering holes.  Back when mothering four children could feel like fighting against the undertow, I would have described a perfect day as “being alone in a bookstore.”  I still would.

 
I am drawn to bookstores the way others migrate to clothing boutiques or shoe sales.   Here's what happens. The door opens, the bell tinkles and a beatific look overtakes my face.  I love the absence of a shopping soundtrack. There is no migraine thumping bass in the Abercrombie dressing room, no “Nine Inch Nails” blasting away so as to quicken hand tremors and force premature surrender of the plastic as I plot my exit from mall girl hell.
 



 
Nope.  This is bliss. The hushed interior, the shelved cache of rabbit holes into other worlds and other lives.   Sometimes there is an espresso machine puffing in the back, a worn comfy chair, an invitation to sit and linger.  And the books!  All those crisp hardbacks lined up like soldiers, the distressed pine tables groaning with proven paperbacks, the old faithfuls in the back, arranged by category. And those colorful jackets!  Oh, the books that catch my eye like stained glass.   Even an artfully designed “so-so” read can seduce like a painted whore in soft light.

 
And then I'm jonesing like an addict entering a crack den.  Books are my crystal meth.   Friends and family members have had to literally tug me out of bookstores on occasion.  I can get that gone.

 
Bookstore employees in the towns in which I’ve lived came to learn my tastes and recommend new or unfamiliar titles.  We'd parse reviews like bookies at the track.  There was small talk and gossip, the questions about each other’s children and families or a mutual friend.  At some point in the conversation I'd feel like the party's social climber, making polite conversation while scanning the crowd for bigger game. One eye was always running up and down the shelves looking for the latest read or a book I’d kept meaning to add to my list.

 
When I became a published author in 2007 with the release of In an Instant, I appreciated the value of libraries and bookstores from a different perspective than that of customer.  On my first book tour I had the pleasure of meeting some of the owners at iconic independent stores like Powell’s in Portland, Andersons in Naperville, Politics & Prose in DC and Book Passage in Marin County.  Numerous Barnes & Nobles welcomed me to the back office to sign stock, then un-stacked the chairs and invited people to come meet me on the PA system (always a slightly awkward moment to be a literary blue light special).

 
I learned to grow comfortable with popping unannounced in places like the Concord Bookshop outside of Boston or Bookshelf in Truckee, CA when visiting my brother-in-law, to introduce myself and sign their copies of my books.  That was me, yesterday, in the airport bookstore, bedraggled and puffy-eyed, pointing at the glam-ish author photo in the inside flap to convince the clerk who I was while aggressively offering to “sign some stock."  Ahhh, the joys of self-promotion.

 
Our Indies are the conch-holders, the pulse-takers of their communities.  They are a taproot for the book clubs, schools, the ladies groups and readers in their areas. They are the aggregators, event planners, gatekeepers and bulletin boards for the cultural happenings in their area. 

 
Many bookstore proprietors have put their own personal touches on my tours, driving me to a venue, offering a cup of tea or allowing me to "pick a book for my girls" after a talk (thank you RJ Julia in Madison CT).  How could I ever forget Viv and Roger at Rainy Day Books in Kansas City who demonstrated how they grease the folding table so we could slide and sign all 500 books with assembly line speed?  I’ve kept up with many of these folks personally and I consider my relationships with them a great privilege.  They are book people. That makes them my kind of people.

 



 
On September 11, Hyperion published my first work of fiction.  I was over the moon when Those We Love Most made the New York Times Bestseller list and I was pleased, ok, totally pumped, to read the reviews.   And then my publisher told me that I'd been selected as an “Indie Next Pick” for September.  Reading that list and the insights into the titles continually reminds me why our hometown bookstores are gems, why they really matter.  It's because the owners and staff read the books, they delve deeper, they comment and discuss, they start and advance the conversation.  They get excited.  I like to hang out with people who get excited.

 
As I crisscross the country on a book tour schedule that pals have exclaimed "makes them tired just to read," I'm gearing up to visit with old friends and add some new ones.  I’m eager to meet readers and friends at Big Hat Books in Indianapolis, Common Good Books in St. Paul, Elm Street in New Canaan, and Tattered Cover in Denver, to name a few.  I can’t wait to walk back through the door of the Book Stall in Winnetka, Illinois, the picturesque town in which we lived that formed the basis for the setting of my first novel, Those We Love Most.

 
In the spring I’m determined to get to Just One More Page in Arlington, VA, Brookline Booksmith in Boston, People of the Book in Austin or maybe Bookends in Ridgewood, New Jersey, if they have a spare night.  And Ann Patchett, you Patron Saint of Bookstores and personal She-ro of mine -- just say the word and I'll use my frequent flyer miles to get to your beloved Parnassus Books in Nashville.

 
Arcade in Rye, New York is my hometown store.  We try to buy most of our books from Patrick, who also happens to play in a jazz band.  School-assigned reading, my personal picks, gifts for friends, books on tape all lead me and my family to Arcade.  Shopping local is the only way we roll and the doors are open because many townsfolk feel the same. I hope you shop local too, those of you who are still lucky enough to have bricks and mortar bookstores in your hood.
 


 
These are scary times for bookstores.  Scary times for library funding.  Scary times for reading.  All of us who love to hold books and turn a page, borrow them from the library or read them on tablets (it's OK, really it is) we need to join hands and squeeze tighter.  It’s more important than ever to be a patron or customer, to re-discover the magic of getting lost in the stacks, of finding an unexpected surprise at the suggestion of a bookstore employee or a librarian.

 
And here’s why: I believe books can do good. Lives are made richer by teachers and librarians, by bookstores and the people who love books, recommend reads and encourage reading.  Reading itself may be a solitary endeavor and writing a solo enterprise, but stories have the power to connect us, sometimes in places we didn't know we could.  Stories move us.  Poems and essays, art and conversations, all of it enhances and advances our world. They are as wonderful an elixir as a walk in the woods.

 

Books simply matter.  And so with that, I’m off to pack my suitcase.  Here's hoping I see you on the road.

 



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The Last Summer

My father’s face brightened as the yellow whaler pulled up to the dock with my 14 year-old nephew at the helm.  “That…was… my… boat,” he choked out a full sentence as the mental connections attached and sputtered, like wires in a flashlight, illuminating the memory.

 



 

It was the boat my father had hopped on for years to escape the confines of the shore.  He’d taken us all for rides, including his nine grandchildren, especially when their tired mothers needed a break.  At the wheel of any vessel, out on the blue green waters of the lake, my father always found peace.

 

This is likely the last summer my Dad will be able to come to the mountains, his favorite place in the world. Dementia or Alzheimer’s or whatever corrodes his mind in a slow erasure is scrambling the circuitry.  The predictable routine he endures at his assisted living facility in Boston is lost here at the lake.  There are wide open spaces and wooded paths, vast stretches of time with inactivity, then the sudden flurry of all of us around, conversations swirling like individual eddies that confuse and capsize his cognition.  “All this noise,” he says, looking up at me helplessly.  The frustration and anger, the weepiness of past summers has mostly passed.  In those moments it was painful to watch him, like a drowning victim, capsized by the fear of his mortality.  My father is childlike now, a simple man.

 

Disease, we call it.  And it is a “dis” ease, an uneasiness among us all at bearing witness to this gradual loss, this diminishment.  He can no longer communicate beyond simple phrases.  The hands that once dug in dirt and were callused from chores, are soft now like a babies.  His limbs and extremities are roped with veins that break easily and form angry bruises just under his paper-thin skin.  In the absence of fluid language, his arms swoop through the air like a conductor, fingers flitting a secret sign language, in an attempt to express himself.  His wide, eager smile breaks my heart.

 

My children are the fifth generation to return to this lake each summer.  And it is inconceivable to me that my father has been asking to “go home” to the assisted living facility.  But this IS your home, I think, the home of your heart.  This is the your “sacred” place, the spot where you found joy and sanctuary. Remember when we’d spy the first sliver of lake and burst into song as the station wagon crested over Tongue Mountain? Can’t you feel your roots in this land? I want to ask him. But he would only look perplexed at such a probing, complex question.


 

We three sisters know the family generational lore by heart.  Our nook on the lake is where I was conceived, where my father, hiking alone the year before he met my mother, almost slipped and plunged to death while climbing a rocky cliff.   “If it weren’t for a lone root on that sheer rock, none of you three would be here,” he’d remark solemnly during our annual pilgrimage to that spot by boat.
 

There is nothing at all easy or comforting about being around my father now.  So many of my friends and contemporaries are traveling in this middle place, the valley of mid-life, with aging parents.  We are all at various stops aboard the orphan train.  The details may be different; Alzheimer’s, stroke, cancer, a sudden fall, but the broad-brush strokes are the same.  Losing a parent is tough, primal stuff.  You only think you are prepared.

 


“Don’t ever let me go into a nursing home,” my Dad said repeatedly when he would return from visiting his own mother in an almost vegetative state.  “That’s not living. Just take me out back and shoot me,” he’d exclaim with a pained expression.

 

Humans were built for survival.  We are wired to desire just one more day with the people we love.  We are war-like creatures, spoiling for a fight against death.  But at what point can we truly recognize that the scales have tipped, that there are now more bad days, more days of pain or confusion or difficulty than the good ones?

 

This is heavy stuff, you say. You bet it is, and so let’s tiptoe away to another thought for a moment. This is what I really want to know.  In the end, if you are scared and addled or in pain, does a life well lived mean anything?  Do all of those precious memories, the summer afternoons where you held your grandbabies high over your head on the bright beach, the mornings you woke your young daughters at dawn to fish, the walks down the aisle with each girl, the boat rides with the wind in your hair… does any of that count for us at the end?  I hope to God it does. I hope that it brings comfort and calm and a sense of purpose in some small measure.
 

 

My father sits next to me as I write this, staring out at the lake in which he’ll no longer fish or swim or captain his boat.  I hope that, like muscle memory, those images of a life well lived, of happier moments, are playing in his head like an old time movie, reminding him that even though this hurts like hell, he is loved.

 









Note:  I wrote this piece last summer and the seasonal timing didn’t work out to publish it until this year. I had also wanted to see if Dad would return this summer, giving me a happy reason to revise this post. Sadly, 2013 was the first year of my life that my father didn’t come to the lake.  And he was missed.



 

 
 
 



 

 

Those We Love Most

A few words on my first work of fiction, "Those We Love Most."  

 

THE DODGEBALL TEST

It all started with my nephew at a family dinner.  We were grilling him about a kid his age, someone we vaguely knew.  “He’s an OK guy,” offered Collin, chewing his burger.  “But he cheats at dodgeball.”

 


Instantly, we all got it.  From that moment on, how you played dodgeball became our family’s insider character test.

 

Since my Ked-clad camp days, dodgeball has enjoyed a resurgence in cool.  It’s not quite the same bully’s nirvana it was in my gym class. You don’t try to nail the chubby girl in the back row who eats paste or the nosepicker with knocked knees.  Dodgeball is a process of elimination; a survival of the fittest.  Initially it’s organized chaos, with dozens of balls flying around simultaneously.  Get hit anywhere below the neck and you’re out.  It’s pretty black and white.  And in the craziness of the game’s first few minutes, it can come down to one person’s word against another’s. 

 

There are the people who get hit and deny it.  There are some who challenge the call, and still others who give in and slink off when questioned.  And then there are those who do the right thing.  Even when no one is watching, they pull themselves out of the game and onto the sidelines.

 

I aspire to raise one of those kids, the ones who self-police, no matter who is looking.  It’s hard work to install a moral compass that stays relatively true.  You have to be willing to nag and stay the course and remind and nag again.  But the payoff is huge.

 

A few years ago I rented an R-rated movie with my daughter and two of her friends.  It was mostly inappropriate humor, bad language and some cheesy violence, but when I saw the rating I made sure to ask both kids if this was OK with their parents.  I was impressed when both girls called their mothers to double check.  They could have easily lied.

 

When I complimented my daughter on her friends’ stand up nature, she immediately jumped on me.  “Mom, I’ve never seen an R-rated movie ever.  And I’d check with you first,” she huffed defensively.  She’d passed the dodgeball test on that one.

  
I’m well aware that sneaking R rated movies or cheating at games aren’t gateway activities to cooking meth or serial killing.  But doing the right thing starts with emphasizing the minor stuff.  It’s about being vigilant.

 

By trying to be our kids “buddies” and shying away from boundaries, too often we let the little things slide. And that means we pass up lots of small but precious opportunities to teach good old-fashioned citizenship and manners.  Respect for the elderly, giving up your seat on the train, looking people in the eye, delivering a firm handshake, where else will our children pick these things up? I have a warm spot in my heart for a young man who calls me Ma’am, even though I wasn’t raised anywhere near the south.

 

I want my children to understand that there are consequences for actions. That means we need to follow through with our threats. There is a famous parenting story about a family traveling to Disney World. Exasperated by the dreaded “when will we get there?” question, the parents told the kids if they asked one more time, they wouldn’t be able to go to Disney World.  When little Johnny broke the rule, they stuck to their guns. The miserable parents went to the park sans kids, hiring a sitter for the hotel room. 

 

Yes, I sound like the grannies of a previous generation, cluck-clucking at that hip-swivelin’ rock’ n’ roll music. Or, heaven forbid, I recall how ridiculous Tipper Gore sounded to me in the 80’s calling for music labeling on records, until I had my own kids and really listened to some of the misogynist bondage rap stuff on the radio. I took back everything I’d muttered under my breath about Tipper and freedom of speech that day.

 

When my children were very little, in the span of three weeks I left my wallet on top of our station wagon twice and drove away.  Those were exhausting days with two kids under age four and a home business.  The second time it happened, after I’d just replaced all my credit cards and license, I burst into tears at the realization. I’d just been to the cash machine and withdrawn my weekly budget.

 

The phone rang a few hours later.  A man had found the wallet.  He lived 20 minutes away in what I knew to be a somewhat sketchy neighborhood.  I was making bets that the money was gone. Planning on giving him a reward, I also bought a 12-pack of beer, figuring he could turn the night into a party in his ‘hood. 

 

When I rang the bell, the man who answered the door was in flowing robes, with a top knot of hair.  I quickly reached into my limited knowledge of Eastern beliefs and dimly recognized that he was a Sikh.  As I thrust the beer at him in gratitude, he practically recoiled.  “We don’t drink in our religion,” he said.  And he proceeded to invite me inside for a cup of tea.  My humiliation at my sanctimonious neighborhood profiling was complete.  The wallet was intact, with every dollar untouched.

 


There are basic things we all wish for our kids that include good health, the capacity to love, intelligence and common sense.  But I think about some of the other characteristics I hope we’ve instilled, as they sit on the lip of our nest, poised to fly. My hope is that I’ve raised kids to be considerate and upstanding, to do the right thing on the sidelines, not just on the 50 yard line in the floodlight’s glare. I want them to be the kind of people who would return the wallet with every cent intact.  I want them to defend the underdog and play fair, to be the person who takes himself out when he gets hit in dodgeball because the rules apply to all of us, whether or not anyone else is watching.

 

The Berry Patch

The local berry farm closed a few years ago.  That was a sad day for me.  The farmer’s kids didn’t have the desire to keep up the family land that had for so long produced juicy strawberries in late June and then perfectly honeycombed raspberries (purple and red) right on their tail.  In late July, there’d be blueberries so fat and sweet you could pop them right in you mouth. Sugar would have been redundant.

The closing of the patch was a loss to many of us locals and summer people and anyone who enjoys the ritual of growing or gathering their food understands why. Not only was there something satisfying about serving my family fresh, local grown berries, but there was a sense of accomplishment in picking them myself.

Heading to the berry patch was really more about communing and about companionship.  Bent over or on my knees between the rows of green bushes, dragon flies humming, and crickets chirping, the field was my church at times, the ritual a kind of morning vespers. Berry picking was something I did with my friend Liza (aka “Groove” a nickname from the 70’s, the exact origin of which has been lost).  Liza and I grew up on our little lake bay in the summers. She is the oldest continual friend I have and two of our children were born in the same years.  They have inherited their friendships by birth, an unspoken powerful connection.  Those ties go deep.

In the many years that Liza and I berry-picked, we survived the eye-rolling and the ridicule over our dogged devotion while the short season lasted.  Together and alone we braved hot temperatures, rain and mist, bugs and flies all to find our peace, chatting and picking, talking and advising, finding the rhythm of the row as we filled the little green cardboard boxes and loaded them onto the farm’s hand nailed wooden trays.

It was the conversation that counted, more than anything.  As our hands felt down the stalk, determining the firmness of a berry, our eyes focused on the color and our minds were free to talk.  Picking was also about tending a friendship, sustaining the strong parts and feeling tenderly for the weaker places.  Nothing was off-limits, in that easy way that lifelong friends have with one another.  We covered kids and parenting, picked over our marriages and memories and reinforced summer rituals we’d now instilled in our own children; Monday night square dancing, Friday night s’mores at the campfire. We gossiped and swapped stories.  We ate handfuls of berries straight from the vine.  Being in the patch accomplished many things.

When they were younger, Liza and I would drop our kids at the morning camp and race to the patch to pick and talk.  As they got older and able to join in, we’d occasionally bring them in the afternoons.  Even the most zealous berry picker soon became bored by our itinerant worker staying power.   They soon lost interest.

At home, berries were eaten plain or became ingredients for my annual ritual of jam-making.  I loved jam days; the washing, boiling and canning, ladling the sluggish ruby mixture into the cut glass Ball jars and later affixing the personal labels my artist friend Laura made for me.  The jams were my gift to dear friends at the holiday, a little bit of summer vacuum sealed in a jar.

It hasn’t quite been the same without the patch.  Yes, there are berries aplenty in the farmers markets around.  But it’s not the same.  It’s not like passing the field weekly and noting the height of the bushes, watching the farmer on his tractor and feeling the anticipation of opening day with the fervor of a baseball fan.  I miss the satisfying heft of lifting my pallet on the scale to be weighed, of stashing the boxes of fruit in the back of my car and closing the tailgate.

There’s talk of a new patch opening next year.  The plants are supposedly in the ground now, although I can't see them from the road.  Liza and I have more luxury of time as our children have aged.  In the absence of berry picking, we’ve found other places and ways to commune, on hikes with the dogs, in chairs at the beach with sunhats covering our heads.  Will we still find the same magic in the patch, that moment of release from our homebound selves?  Will our pattern be broken, our devotion lessened by the long break in our ritual?  I’ll let you know next summer.  

            

 

Hand Over Heart

Several thousand of us thundered to our feet for the national anthem at a recent college graduation. Predictably, these types of events are choked with the emotion of life’s passages.  I had been observing parents on the bleachers hugging family members and wincing back tears.  The graduates on the field, roasting in dark caps and gowns, excitedly waved cell phones as they located their families, while others fought sleep and hangovers.

 

Yet the instant the band struck up the anthem, the entire crowd stood and morphed into a stadium of reluctant zombies.  Operating on autopilot I began to sing.  Keep in mind that me – singing -  is not a pretty sound.  God didn’t grant me a set of pipes.  This was made more obvious by the fact that I was seated in a box with strangers, none of whom knew one another well, so it was … um…. really quiet except for me.  My voice tapered off as I panned around the room observing the group.  We looked sheepish, uncomfortable, as if it were uncool to be enthusiastic or patriotic at this moment.  In short order I ended up mouthing the words like everyone else.  I had succumbed to peer pressure.  Why had I suddenly felt foolish? 
 

What happened to the swollen sense of national pride that burst forth like a seed pod after that first Sept 11th?  Flags decorated lawns and overpasses, car bumpers and hats.  Hands were placed firmly over hearts, red white and blue everything sprouted like hives.  More than ten years later, we are tentative patriots.  We gauge our neighbors’ politics, we stick a finger in the air to test the atmosphere before we consider declaring that we love our country, despite its warts and fault lines.
 

Who remembers the needle hitting the record over the classroom loudspeaker in elementary school?  “Oh say can you see…” standing straight, one sock up and one down, chest out, facing the flag hanging from a pine pole in the corner.  It was an accomplishment to have memorized the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance.  Saying the rote words gave me a sense of belonging to a greater whole, a pride in our country and all that it stood for.
 


 

In the 1960s of my single digit years there was much to take pride in.  We had put men on the moon and discovered cures for diseases.  America was a land of  bountiful agriculture and continuous invention.  We produced “things” you could touch and products that took up space and streamlined living.  Detroit churned out shiny cars and bustling cities defined themselves as towns of steel and textiles, paper and shoes, television sets and refrigerators.  We dominated whole business sectors, conjured up Hollywood and all of this while welcoming a labor force to our shores that comprised the muscle and backbone of our manufacturing might.  We were a stew pot of ingenuity and moxie with a meteoric trajectory.  Our forefathers had shed blood in a revolution to gain independence.  That pledge of allegiance and national anthem were sacred stuff back then, they represented hard won freedom.
 

Things got upended in the 70’s.  It was a decade of turmoil, intent on throwing off the shackles of convention and complacency.  Authority figures became “the man,” cops become “pigs” and when the boy next door’s draft number was up, brothers and sons and boyfriends marched off to Vietnam and some of them didn’t come back.  And those that did, forever altered by the act of war, were shown our country’s collective back.  They were challenged, spit on, their sacrifice questioned.  They learned to hide their service like a jagged scar.
 

And as the decades ticked on, wars and conflicts came and went, and civilization progressed in some ways and devolved in others.  We lost a healthy respect for many things: our elders, appropriate discipline, boundaries and manners, sharing, saving, re-using, home-made, hand-me-downs and parenting with consequences, not just blind indulgence.  We downgraded the value of military service, the contribution of teachers and the virtue of stay at home mothers.  Celebrities with sex tapes became our aspirational heroes and we coveted anything bigger and newer: houses, cars, wardrobes and helpings.  Economize became supersize.  Our country settled into a disjointed, somewhat cagey relationship with national pride.   Today, we pull it out when it suits, as convenient as the windshield Police Benefit Association sticker that can help wriggle out of a speeding ticket.  
 

It’s not that we aren’t grateful for living here.  It’s more that we tend to forget just what we have to be thankful for.   Political schisms and the inability to compromise in Washington, the economic flat line, the drain of the wars, we have reasons to feel lackluster about the United States.  There are always things to criticize, that’s the cheap shot.  Thank God we live in a society where we can.  But somehow we’ve arrived at a place where national pride feels shameful, like joining a cult or participating in a skinhead rally.

 



 

Citizens today will tell you they are appreciative of our all-volunteer military.  Most of us will answer that we know war is hell and we understand there is a brutal cost for being free in the land of the brave. We welcome troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan at airports, stuff backpacks and donate dollars and then we head to the mall to pick up the summer swimsuit or buy the hot dogs for the July 4th BBQ. Because that’s simply the business of living.   

 

I know that patriotism isn’t just about standing at attention in front of a flag.  Real national pride is about standing up and acting.  What differentiates a good country from a GREAT country is its ability and desire to take care of its own.  This means not just the less than 1% of our population who volunteered to walk into the crucible in Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times, but the millions who fought in Vietnam, Korea and WW11.  When America needed them they answered the call.

 

While we are busy as a country, a community or as families honoring our veterans this July 4th, there is one thing we can all do.   When you hear the national anthem, or the flag marches past you, take a moment to reflect on all of the things that are right and good about America.  

 

Because I think we’ve lost something by not raising our collective voices at a ball park, a public dinner, a ceremony, wherever we are asked to sing the anthem.  I think that’s precisely the kind of thing that connects us, Black, White, Hispanic, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish, Atheist, whatever -- when we gather together with one unified voice.  Focusing for a moment on national pride allows our crazy quilt of a country to lay down our arms, set aside our anger and reflect how the whole is so much greater and more powerful than the sum of its parts.
 












 

This fourth of July, when I spot Old Glory in our loveable rag tag mountain town parade, I’m going to stand up straight, hand over my heart, no matter how silly that might look to my kids, or how much I may embarrass them.  I’m proud of our country.  And the only way we will go from good to great again is if we all begin to try to feel it too.