A Wistful Celebration

When my book, Dueling With Dementia, was published on Wednesday, I felt happy, nervous, excited, vulnerable. This is my first book, and I wanted to celebrate. Alas, each of my children was busy with work, school, or a girlfriend. Mollie, my dog, was happy, but she's always happy. I showed her the book, but she was not impressed. I sent out an email to my friends and received many positive comments in response,  but what I wanted to do was CELEBRATE with someone who cares about me.

Of course, the obvious choice should have been my husband, but he's the subject of my book, and he's no longer able to appreciate my accomplishment because of his dementia. All of a sudden, in the midst of feeling a bit sorry for myself being all alone on publication day, I remembered one of Gordon's first gifts to me. Gordon's preference for gifts was jewelry, though I'm not much of a jewelry person. However, for Christmas 1982, Gordon gave me an IBM Selectric II typewriter so that I could more easily write my plays and stories. While I loved the typewriter, the more important gift was Gordon's belief in me and my writing. 

Sadly, my beloved typewriter was destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. My bricks and board bookcases collapsed on it, crushing it. Out of sentimentality, I kept the twisted machine for years because of what it represented--Gordon's belief in me.

With four young children, I had no time to write, but the idea that one day I would write was always in the back of my mind. I would have to get another typewriter, but that could wait, I thought, until the children were much older.

But Gordon had another idea. On Mother's Day 1993, Gordon bought me my first Apple computer based on the recommendation of our friend, Rob, who worked for Apple. Gordon said that he knew I had no time for writing then, and that the computer would most probably be used for children's school software, but he wanted me to have it in case I found time to write because he was looking forward to seeing my work published, having spent years listening to me read to him the scenes from plays, short stories, and essays that I wrote. Again, while I loved my Apple computer, the greatest treasure was Gordon's belief in me, and I cried tears of joy.

While the gifts of the typewriter and computer were long ago, the memories of those two gifts and Gordon's belief in me are still in my head and heart. 

So, to celebrate my book being published, I took out those two memories from my treasure chest of memories and polished them, while I baked a batch of celebratory cookies and toasted my book with a glass of chilled white wine. A wistful celebration to be sure, but a fitting one too.

Take care,

Kate

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Two Can Be The Loneliest Number

Today I've been musing on the difference between solitude and loneliness. I believe solitude is a positive experience. I have always loved being by myself. I never get lonely or bored. I enjoy my own company. For me, time alone is a time for growth and reflection; my thoughts are free to roam hither and yon with no one putting a kibosh on them. Solitude promotes feelings of joy and serenity. However, because I am a sharer, I do not want to be alone too long or too often, or my brain will explode with all the thoughts I want to share and get some feedback on, but some alone time definitely uplifts my spirits.

Loneliness, on the other hand, crushes my spirit. Loneliness is the flip side of solitude. It is a painful aloneness. I've found that the loneliest place can be, paradoxically, when I am with someone. 

And I think that I've finally figured out why. Our family's current situation results in me spending much too much time at home alone with my husband who has dementia. Dementia destroys the possibility of meaningful interaction; there can be no sharing, no connection, no shared laughter. Yet, because my husband sits in a chair in the living room or at the dinner table, there is the presumption that the possibility of meaningful interaction can occur. So, night after night, I feel a desperate, despairing loneliness when I want to share a thought, or a comment about our children, or a laugh at something on TV, but I can't share because my husband sits in his own world, uninterested in and often oblivious to my world. When it is just the two of us, our house is no longer a home. It is a lonely, empty, hollow shell.

I often feel like running from the house like Edvard Munch's screamer, channeling Conrad's Kurtz's "the horror, the horror." But I don't. Instead, I try valiantly to find slivers of solitude in the unbearable loneliness, slivers that will keep me going until one of my children or friends walks through my door, and all my thoughts, ideas, and feelings that I've been storing up can pour forth and be shared. In that moment of sharing, loneliness is vanquished, and our house once again becomes a home that is full of love and laughter and connection.

Take care,

Kate

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Perhaps Joy Is A Kind Of Defiance

Sunday night I watched one of the most joyous, inspiring stories I've ever seen. 60 Minutes did a segment on the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. If you didn't catch the program, you can watch it here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7404678n&tag=api.

The musicians in the orchestra beam with joy while they play their instruments; similarly, the choir members glow with an inner joy that brings tears to your eyes when they sing. Listening to them, your spirits rise to heights you never knew existed. And when you hear the story of the orchestra, your breath leaves your body. An awe so profound envelops you, and you are speechless.

What takes your breath away? Most of the members of the orchestra and choir live in desperate poverty, but their love for classical music is so great that they find a way to come to rehearsals six days a week, week after week. They learn to play instruments, and they learn how to sing. They have found something larger than themselves, something that wells up,  spills over, and drowns out for a moment their difficult lives outside the music hall. When the musicians and the choir come together, it sounds like what I would imagine angels would sound like--truly a heavenly choir.

While the entire story is inspirational, what moved me most was the story of the two brothers. Six days a week, the boys make the twenty mile round trip from their home to Kinshasa to be part of the orchestra. They walk, run, and take a makeshift bus--all this so that they can make the beautiful music that is their joy and their passion. Music is as necessary to them as air.

Seeing the dedication of the boys makes me wonder how many of us take the time for our greatest joys and passions. How many of us would make a twenty mile, walking-running-bus round trip six days a week to do something that makes us feel whole? Puzzlingly and contradictorily, it seems that when something is easy to do, like is so often the case here in the United States and other first world countries, we make more excuses for not doing it. Perhaps that is why so few of us beam with joy. Perhaps joy comes, in part, from resisting the darkness, the poverty, the hopelessness. Perhaps joy is a kind of defiance.

And while most of us do not have the crushing conditions that so many people in Kinshasa must endure, we do have a constant battle against living meaningless lives. We, who have so many things and so many opportunities, often find ourselves asking, "Is this all there is?" We hunger for meaning. We stare into an abyss, and if we do not want to echo Kurtz's "The horror, the horror" in Conrad's Heart of Darkness at the end of our lives, we must find something that makes us larger than we would be without it, something to fill the abyss, something that makes us beam with joy just as the members of the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra do when they sing "Ode to Joy" in Kinshasa.

Take care,

Kate

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That Pesky Jesus

Whether you believe Jesus is the Son of God or just a character in a book, you have to admit that some of the things he says are pretty annoying. Jesus wants us to give away our goods, feed the poor, help the sick, and turn the other cheek when someone wrongs us. 

Boy, Jesus has his nerve, doesn't he? Where does he get off telling me to do those things? Doesn't he know that I worked hard for my things, so I deserve them? Doesn't he know that I'm busy? Doesn't he know that the poor and the sick got that way because they made bad choices or sinned? Geesh, why should the poor and sick get a free ride while I work for what I get? And turning the other cheek? Why, that's enabling a bully to keep bullying, isn't it? Better I teach him a lesson, so he doesn't hurt me again.

Good points, maybe, or maybe just self-serving points, but the question is, "How well has that self-satisfied, think-of-myself-first worldview worked out?" Not too well, I'd say. The ranks of the homeless, the poor, the sick, and the hungry grow day by day, and we refuse to see them. We use labels, abstractions, or statistics to hide hurting individuals. We pat ourselves on the back when we make a donation to a food bank, and then we go out for a steak dinner in a restaurant and spend enough to feed several families. I'm not saying give up all restaurant meals, but I am saying you should be aware of what that amount of money can do, and maybe cut back on restaurant dining or take a homeless person to dinner.

My son Grant and I did just that-- took a homeless man called "Pops" out for a meal at the Red Lobster. We had befriended him and given him money and things for a couple of years, so one day we asked him to join us for a meal. We picked him up on his street corner. He was visibly nervous. We told him he could order whatever he wanted. He was in shock. No one had told him that in years and years, he said. He chose his meal and dessert. He was especially pleased with the dessert because the money he made on the corner didn't allow for too many treats. He told us stories; we had no idea how many were true because many were contradictory, but they were entertaining. We had a delightful time, and we hugged one another when we dropped him back at his corner. We would have taken him out to eat again, but he disappeared from his corner, and we had no way to find him, knowing him only as "Pops."

The point of sharing that story is that by taking Pops out for a meal and spending time with him, he became an individual, a possible friend, not a label or abstraction. So, if each of us adopted a homeless, poor, hungry, or sick person, perhaps in a short time there would be many fewer people in need. Even though we might be a little poorer monetarily by spending on others, we will be richer in spirit. When the day comes that we face death, we won't care about our money and things; we will wish we had loved more and given more. So, perhaps we should get started now, thereby having fewer regrets later.

That pesky Jesus with his annoying words has given us the keys to a beautiful kingdom--a kingdom that we can make happen only with our loving, open-handed actions. All we have to do is pick up the keys and get going. The homeless, the poor, the sick, and the hungry are waiting for us.

Happy Easter. Blessings to you, your family, and your friends.

Take care,

Kate

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Cheery Midnight Chirping

Lately, the birds around our home have been cheerily chirping at midnight. I can't recall this happening before, but perhaps I just didn't pay attention; though as loud as the birds are chirping these nights, it would be difficult to not notice. What to make of this unexpected, but delightful occurrence? Bird enthusiasts and scientists have several ideas, but I like to think of their midnight chirping as a metaphor for hope.

The first time I remember actually being aware of birds chirping was when I was about four years old. It was Easter morning, and I awoke to find my mother and uncle hiding Easter eggs and baskets. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep so that I wouldn't spoil the surprise, and that's when a chorus of bird songs burst into my consciousness. I was enchanted. They sounded so happy, and ever after when I heard birds chirping during the day, I felt joy and hope like I did on that Easter morning.

In my city days, however, I rarely heard birds chirping at all. The city noises robbed me of that pleasure. But, in my rural days, which thankfully have been my reality for the last thirty years, I have heard birds chirping all day long but not at night. The music of the nights, until recently, has been provided solely by singing frogs looking for mates.

So, what to make of this new (to me) phenomenon of the birds chirping at midnight? The surprisingly cheery and unexpected night time chirping is teaching me to look to the future with anticipation, just as the birds seem to be chirping their anticipation of the approaching day with its promise of light and warmth. Often at night, our burdens seem to overwhelm us, and it is hard to see any positive future. We forget that the sun will rise again in our lives. Yes, there may be rainy days first, but the sun eventually makes an appearance. The birds chirping at midnight remind me of this, and just as their morning chirping did on that long ago Easter morning, their cheery midnight chirping fills me with joy and hope as I nod off to sleep anticipating a new day.

Take care,

Kate

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