An Auspicious Day

I am driving her to a nursing home today--my Mother and a suitcase of clothes and a painting of her childhood home in Canada.

This is a sad day. She will leave the rest home where she has lived for the last five years, where her dignity and imagined independence have been nurtured at every chance. She can't stay there any longer. She requires two people to help her stand and yet at night she somehow gets herself up and uses the commode in poor fashion. She has fallen. She is not safe there. 

Her bed at the nursing home will sound an alarm when she tries to get up by herself and I know that will both frighten and upset her. 

She will not thrive there.

My Mother is 97 years old. Her memory has not worked for almost a decade but in the present moment she has been bright and lucid and always as sweet as a honey bee. She has elegant hands, long beautiful fingers. Lately she has started to bite her nails down. I know that is a bad sign. More of the time now she has periods where she calls for her sisters and her mother, where she determined to get in her car and drive herself where she is supposed to be.

I had hoped she would have no need for a nursing home. 

I am driving her today and my emotions are thick. Most of this is the substance of love but some is concern for myself. I do not want to see her decline. I do not want to be on edge for her, worrying that she will be frightened or harmed, knowing I am the most important link in her well being. I do not want to be exhausted from it.

I am pushing myself to hope for the best. 

I know that is a wise thing to do.

love

kj

What?!

I don't get to choose when I can rest? Is that true?

Do you?

love

kj

Just an Update

I should not be writing. It's after midnight and I have a long day of work tomorrow. After tomorrow, I will have three weeks left of the job I have had for five years. I am saying goodbye to clients and colleagues with mixed emotions. I'm so glad to leave--no more hours of writing reports and so much paperwork and no more having to be reliable, but my heart will hurt to say goodbye. It's been great work.

I am currently in the midst of swirling high winds. So much wonderful news: my Jessica will soon give birth; she and Mike and the boys are moving into a forever dream house; JB and I are over the moon with our own dream house. Want to see it again? Oh, of course, certainly :^)

All of this is a clear transition for me. I won't move from my present house to this one, but someday I think JB and I will live here. Someday I think JB and I will be super duper happy here.

Boy do I have reasons to be happy. But I am also in the swirling winds of stress. JB's been sick, I tore a ligament in my knee (too much weight; there, I admitted it). To afford this house we have to sell our condo (very stressful, no bites yet). Pressure. 

And my Mother.....Today I learned she will have to leave the rest home that has cared for her with such love and dignity. They cannot take care of her needs. She no longer walks but forgets so she tries to walk and falls. She is not always in reality now, sometimes looking for her deceased sisters and Mother. 

I worry for my Mother. I have tried for the last five years to be present for her and I've made decisions to stay nearby for that reason. But sometimes, more so now when so much is going on, I feel trapped. No trip to Alaska with JB. No staying in this new house for more than a few days at a time. No looking ahead to a daily life that is about writing and gardening and spending time with my grandchildren and fixing up this new house. Learning new thing. Having a small boat. Writing my books. 

My Mother can't live with us. I know that. Her needs are too great. I wouldn't sleep. I can't handle the personal care required. I look in her eyes and I know I will sacrifice so she is not alone and not afraid. But I feel bad for myself. There's not time to soak in the blessings. A confusing transition so far. That much I know.

Am I whining? No. Just putting words down here. Which is what I want to do. Even this blog may have to change. If it's not authentically about me and what I know and see and feel and hope for, it's not  worth the effort. That much I also know.

love

kj

Untitled

I've been vaguely unhappy with my blog. Not enough colors and words. Not enough poetry and not enough honest writing. So this will hopefully change. Here goes.

love
kj

I stopped writing poems
When the light changed
that third time, in '08.
What first exalted became charcoal
and what came then
immobilized me,
banished to a room with no words.
Then in time, cast from a firmer grain,
I glimpsed the shine again,
a beam teasing me with future hope.

It's six decades before I admit
that one rock from destiny
can imprison.
I'll say it now: life is hard.
Too hard. Too much.
Still,
light brings warmth,
every sunrise proves that true.
But there's an important rub:
light from the past can only dim.
There is no forward
until you look ahead,
until you let the darkness
lose.

Slice of Life

 Things are humming. The hum has been bad but now it's better. JB and I are selling the modest sweet condo in Provincetown we've owned for 20 years and miracle upon miracle, we have just spent our first weekend in the barely furnished very lovely little single family house built in 1910 we unfathomably managed to afford.  Am I moving to Provincetown now? No. Is the house an important puzzle piece of the future. Maybe. Probably. 

These photos span a few weeks. But in them, at least to me, is a transition happening. These photos do not include the view of the bay one block away, the front porch that will be so cool once we decorate, the space for Jess & Mike and the boys and the almost arrived new baby, and the yard--a tiny yard with a brick walkway probably 50 years old and a trellis 8 inches thick with I'm not sure what--maybe roses. It hangs over the back gate. I love it already.

Enough words. Here's a slice of Provincetown, old and new.  

Would you believe that to many 'buyers' this spiral staircase is a negative?
Not to JB and me!

The assembly and decoration of an old little house with character has begun. JB and I will rent the house for some weeks this summer, so we have to furnish and supply it in the coming weeks. Translation: go out and shop and don't feel guilty. We're buying comforters and dishes and end tables and floor lamps; some from Homegoods (discount home furnishings), some from the Provincetown Soup Kitchen and Thrift Store; some from the local auction where I nabbed three floor lamps in good condition for $ 5.00. 

 There is more to say but tonight I will let this slice of life be just that.

Two more things: this house is really fine. And I think my Jessica will love it too.

Love
kj

A Place to Be Free by the Sea for Me

I have to show you again!

After weeks of one problem two obstacles and three reasons to cry JB and I closed on this house yesterday, in Provincetown, one block from the bay and beach, with a tiny teeny yard and a furnace in a dirt hole under the living room floor. 

Buying this house required more financial juggling than I will ever do in my life. The deal was on off on off. At times it seems like a shell game, or Ms. Pacman, the pieces moving no matter how hard or how much I tried to stay calm and take each problem one at a time. 

But yesterday....

The house is perfect for us. In time maybe we will end up here, in Provincetown. 

The house has room for little children--soon to be four of them--and their parents.

This is probably the ONLY single family house in Provincetown we could ever afford and I do believe we got it at a bargain price that I will beam about for a long time.

And here, if I may, is a glimpse of Provincetown:

A new chapter begins.

Of that, I'm sure.

love
kj

My Boston

I should show you pictures. I looked for one of Boston that would show the reason it is such a lovely city and why I am so proud it has always been my home town. I want you to know what a quaint and historic and hip a city Boston is.

But I couldn't find any pictures I liked enough, so I will use my words.

I also wanted to show you the Boston Marathon, this 26 mile race that starts in a two lane small town called Hopkinton and runs through Newton and Heartbreak Hill, where I and my family and friends have stood two or three people deep near the the corner of Commonwealth Ave (Comm Ave to most) and Chestnut Street. 

I wanted to show you what Copley Square looks like, where the finish line is; and the majestic Boston Public Library and Boylston Street and all its good stores and bars and restaurants and the Copley Plaza Hotel that oozes history.

But I couldn't find a picture to show you that either.

Boston took a horrific hit yesterday. Two bombs at the finish line, three people killed, blood everywhere in a crowd where many many people, some children, had their lower limbs blown apart. The news today is about trauma and amputations. 

My god, I live in a violent country. Violence is part of the United States. There, I've said it. Bombs and guns and last week knives plus a nuclear threat from a creepy kid in North Korea. Make that we live in a violent world. Things are bad.

I lived ten short miles outside of Boston for a lot of years. I've seen probably ten Marathons from that corner on Comm Ave. I've had the thrill of holding out orange slices for some runner who may grab one and nod thanks while he's flying by me. I've cheered on the Wheelchair athletes and marveled at how cool the whole Marathon is. It's always held on a state holiday: Patriot's Day and some people have the day off and some don't. Even if you work, you know it's still a holiday.And you keep an eye on the Marathon. The 26 mile stretch from Hopkinton to Copley Squared is lined with fans and their lawn chairs the whole route; lawn chairs and coolers and straw hats and huge signs like "Go Daddy!"

The Boston Marathon is as great an event as it gets.

I am only going to say one more thing. In my Boston yesterday, many many first responders and  runners and spectators ran toward the explosions, not away from it. They ran to help. Their concern for so many so very injured is what I've heard emphasized on the news today. What happened at the Boston Marathon yesterday was horrible and horrific. I mourn the loss and impact. But holy shit am I proud to be a Bostonian. 

I knew it all along: that special way I carry competence and kindness when needed and that twinkle in my eye is because I am from Boston.

Love

kj