The Boots Aren't The Woman - Part One

"It's my nurse!" I recognize her voice before I turned around, even though she is stuffing a donut into her mouth with fingers red from exposure to the cold.

"I'm living in an apartment with this guy near -------- .," she tells me after I asked.
"Is it safe?" is my first question.
"No," she says without pausing. "Not really, but it's what I've got for now."

Her voice lowers to whisper and she reminds me of the health condition combo that currently excludes her from staying in any shelter. "It's not their fault," she says with resignation in her voice, "but it's not my fault either. Either way, I can't sleep in the cold so I'm in with him for the winter."

She adds, "we're not having sex or anything like that. He's just a loser."

I nod to assure her that I'm hearing her, wondering what she is editing for my benefit.

"I went to [a shelter] cuz they say I got mail. I thought it was from my Mom, but it's just bills."
I shake my head sadly, but she laughs and repeats the line like a punchline to a great joke, "just bills!"

"She did by me these boots though. My Mom did," she points down and I see that she is wearing North Face Boots. I am relieved. Two fewer frostbitten feet in the ER this winter.

"My family that's how they buy me. Clothes. They buy my love with clothes," she is half joking but her lip trembles.

"No. That's how they protect you from freezing to death out here," I point out. "They do love you." Her face breaks into a smile, although her mouth is still shaking. "Yeah, I know," she answers, and busies herself with the donut wrapper, which needs to be folded up.

She looks good, better than she did when I saw her last. Sober, I think to myself, with a bit of surprise. She has a little bit of makeup on, just foundation and some mascara. She got glasses somewhere and they frame her face well.  She's wearing a wool coat, a knit cap and the boots. All, I imagine, gifts from her mother and brother.

On the way home I am struck thinking about her coat and boots. I have really similar boots, just as new as hers, actually.  My mother bought them for me for Christmas. Incidentally, my mother also bought my new puffy down coat because she was sick of watching me layer sweatshirts underneath my denim jacket all winter long.

I wonder about her mother, whom I have never met and probably will never meet. I can not begin to imagine how different her situation must be from my own. Her mother sends her checks to the shelter. I take my mother out for lunch on Fridays.  And yet...I can't get the image of boots and coats out of my head.
Boots and coats, carefully chosen and paid for. Laid into boxes, or folded into bags. Gifts from women who otherwise might have nothing in common except that they can't stand the thought of their daughters being cold or wet if they have anything to do about it.

Encore! Encore!

When I was growing up my parents would often have friends over for dinner.
If the guests brought their own children it meant hours of adventures, ghost stories and pranks. But even when my friends were home with babysitters, these were special nights.

For dinner we'd eat steak tips, or prime rib or some other treat. Sometimes a few of Dad's friends would come over all on one night with their wives and they'd all buy lobsters. But often it was just Dad and Mom and Lenny and Mal, (or Chris and John, or Martha and Marcus, or Sue and George) and we'd eat until no one could eat anymore. When their friends were over there was usually a real dessert.  We'd have a pie or monkey bread as though it were Christmastime and not just another Sunday night in July.

After dinner everyone would sit and drink and tell funny stories about when Dad and his friends were younger. Sometimes they'd play poker for nickels and quarters and Mom would say to me and Brian, "Go brush your teeth and we'll be up to tuck you in." Those nights I went without much fuss because card games bored me. Mom and Dad would each slip into my room to kiss me goodnight and I would drift off to sleep to the sounds of Oldies 103.3 on the radio and the grownups laughing as they bet small change in the kitchen.

But some nights after dinner Dad would go to the den and open the closet. That's when I knew to start begging permission to stay up. They were going to play a board game.

I knew how to play every game in that closet: Jenga, Go to The Head of the Class, Battleship, Trivial Pursuit, Trivial Pursuit: Disney Edition, Trivial Pursuit: Genius Edition, Trivial Pursuit: Silver Screen Edition, Scrabble and Taboo. For years, I was never my own player, I was always someone's "helper," but I didn't mind. I'd stay, wearing my Little Mermaid pajamas, sitting on my knees for added height next to Mom or Dad as moths flew against the screen door and the stove clock logged minutes past my forgotten bedtime.
The very best game in the closet was called Encore.

In Encore, when a card is drawn and a word is read off, you need to sing songs that contain the word in the lyrics. You have to sing a seven word phrase at least, thank you very much. Then the other team does the same thing. Both teams battle back and forth until they run out of songs, or time.

For a child, I was pretty good at Encore because even then I had a memory for lyrics above all other things.  Mom was even better because she knew more songs than I did.

One night Mom and I were a team together. The word on the card was "brown"; we had already sung one song, the other team countered with a song, and it was our turn again. The other team was happy because no one could think of another song with the color brown in it. The tiny white sand grains in the chintzy hourglass were running out. Then, quietly, almost inaudibly, Mom began to sing, "the old brown mare, she ain't what she used to be..."  The other team sighed and shook their heads, now they would have to come up with yet another song to beat us. Mom had sung past seven words but I was so excited at our obvious victory that I joined in at the top of my lungs, "-AIN'T WHAT SHE USED TO BE! AIN'T WHAT SHE USED TO BE!  THE OLD BROWN MARE SHE-"

Mom grimaced. Right. Brian was sleeping after all.

"Wait a minute," Mal rejoined, "isn't it 'the old grey mare?'"

Mom smiled pointedly at me, sideways. "That's why I was trying to sing it quietly."

"Oh. I thought it really was a brown mare. It sounded good as a brown mare."

Mom and I probably won anyway. At least that's how I remember it.

A Mother's Day Post

My mother is my inspiration, my personal super hero, my teacher, and my safety blanket.
She lets me cry when I need to cry and kicks my butt when my butt needs to be kicked.

The song "Baby of Mine" from Dumbo reminds me of my mother.
...so does anything by Billy Joel or Josh Groban
...so does Kill Bill 2.

 Mom has worked as an EMT, a radiology tech and a mammographer.
She is also a gifted writer, a poet and taught me everything I know about staged "gore" makeup.

Mom once helped a half-dead kitten drink water off her gloved fingertips until the Animal Rescue league showed up - even though she doesn't like cats very much.

 Mom has presided at several funerals for both hamsters and parakeets.

 Mom has made it clear on several occasions that she brought us into this world and she can take us out.

I have danced with my mother in the living room at the end of a long hard week.
I have never turned down her cookies.

I have watched Mom as she battles MS and wins every day.

I watched her pick up all our broken pieces and keep our family together when her husband, my father, passed away.

My Mom is the strongest woman I know.

In this photo, she is about to strap herself to a zip line and jump off the edge, out of her comfort zone. She thought we were going for a hike that morning. But she didn't get mad at me, even when they started handing the helmets out.

I love you, Mom. Here's to all our adventures.. and many more to come.

Horseback Riding, or Why Mom doesn't say No

Mom and I walked around Jamaica Pond the other day until I had to leave for a show at IA. "It's just as well," Mom said, pausing to stretch her leg, "my knee's been bothering me since the horse incident."

Mom, Jack and I had a leisurely lunch and got on a van that brought us to a reservation of sorts across the street from one of the entrances to the Arenal Volcano National Park. Once we had all mounted horses and gotten a quick orientation to riding them, we were off.

Cantor, I thought humorously as the guide explained how to make the horse cantor, yeah, I'll be needing that a ton.

My experience with horseback riding is nonexistent save a trip up a mountain in Vermont when I was nine. My horse was tied to the back of an experienced rider and all I had to do was hold on.

The way to the top of the mountain was a mix of open rolling hills with staggeringly beautiful panoramic views and steep rocky trails through a primary rain forest. We started off walking, but soon we were trotting and cantering over the gorgeous landscape. The guide surprised us by signaling vocally to all four horses to just make a run for it. At first this caused a lot of chaos (Mom and I almost ran into each other), but then I got hooked on the cantering, finding it easier than trotting and more practical for long stretches than walking.

As a result I rode up front with the guide a lot, and occasionally even went on ahead with his permission.
This freedom combined with the guide's praise at my "quick learning," as you might imagine made it even easier to fuel some ridiculous fantasies about a small cowgirl, a faithful horse and a rain forest.

(Photographic evidence , courtesy of our guide, indicates that I in fact resembled a cowgirl in almost no way).

I wasn't the only one with the romantic visions, Jack lit a cigarette and asked us if he looked like the Marlboro man. Then he added, "Man, I tell you, cowboys have little balls." He readjusted in his saddle and smiled uneasily at the guide unsure if he had offended him.

The guide spoke mainly Spanish but tried his best to point things out in English. Occasionally he would speak Spanish and I would struggle to translate for Mom and Jack, the improviser in me not willing to give up without a try.

We saw wild pigs, a deer, turkeys, toucans, parakeets (an entire flock of them), and a family of howler monkeys (with whom we stopped to communicate). We rode right into a stream (my cowgirl delusions multiplied), and passed a sulfur lake covered in lilies.

At the summit of the climb we let the horses drink and eat while we did the same. There, at the top of the mountain, was this open air stone chapel. I was fascinated. It had no walls, and where the pulpit and altar would be was only empty space overlooking Lake Arenal and rising above the lake, the Volcano itself. Like the Volcano is going to sermonize, I thought. Like the Volcano might try to break Bread with us.

The day was so cloudy the top of the volcano was lost, but the peace and magnificence was not. In my journal I wrote: How can you see something like this and not acknowledge the existence of God? It was impossible to sit, surrounded by so much beauty and not be overcome with humility and thanksgiving. And also to not feel like a cowgirl.

When we got back on the horses, something happened to Mom's knee. She's not sure what, but it was a Bad Thing. This made her trip downhill less pleasant. Still, we all laughed when Jack hit a particularly hard part of the road and quipped to his horse, "It's okay, Tonca, I didn't want any more kids anyway."

I mentioned that the guide flattered my fast learning, and he even gave me a small lesson in galloping, which was exhilarating. And although I'm sure my form was nonexistent, he complimented me anyway.

As Mom dismounted at the end her knee took a turn for the worse. As the guide helped her down her foot missed the bale of hay and she fell.

She recently recounted this tale to her aunt, my great Auntie Mame. "I'll bet you never do something like that again," Mame clicked.

My Mom told me she responded resolutely that she absolutely would do it again and in a heartbeat.
"You see," she said, "I know what it's like to not be able to walk at all."
I nodded grimly. My mother has Multiple Sclerosis and the time she is referring to in 1996. She woke up one morning unable to walk. The paralysis was temporary, limited to a few days, but after that she was on Canadian crutches for a while.

"I didn't know if I'd ever be the same again," she says now. "And with MS, I never know if that's going to happen again. Or if it will be for good." She paused, "so, no I wouldn't say no to horseback riding again, or anything else."
"That's also what made me try the zipline*."

There are only a few things more spirit lifting than rising a fast and fleet footed horse through a rain forest and up a mountain with sky all around.

Equally spirit lifting is knowing that my mother is the great person she is. It's incredible to me that I get to be her daughter. Here is a woman who refuses to give up, give in, or quit living her life despite any obstacle that gets in her way.
All I have to do is think of that and the journey becomes easier, the sky becomes clearer and everything is more beautiful.

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*Story coming soon to a blog near you.

Stories from Costa Rica: Jack's house

I couldn't see the second lizard. I think I was looking at the first one, and Mom said she saw it too, but I  was beginning to think there was no second lizard.

"It's RIGHT there," David insisted. 

We were standing on a small foot bridge at the base of a set of steps that led back up to the yard shared by Jack, David  and several other people. All around us giant green plants screened the sunshine but I could still feel it on my shoulders. I had seen the parade of ants carrying leaves, but for the life of me couldn't see the basilisk David was pointing to.

Suddenly it jumped off the rock and ran down the small ravine, it's feet stepping lightly on the surface of the water. Mom and I laughed with delight and David just shook his head. After all, this is where he lives.

After exploring a bit more, I climbed back up into direct sunlight.  The smell of flowers greeted me with a small breeze. David swam around the pool, occasionally doing a flip off the edge. Jack was arranging breakfast on the table, a plethora of fruits we had purchased from "the melon man," on our way over this morning.  Jack and Mom stared at me as I tried to cut up a mango and finally Jack burst out laughing. "Give me that," he demanded.

He skillfully served up the rest of my battered fruit. 

"This is why I live here," Jack said, gesturing at everything we could see. Mango ran off my fingers, and another breeze moved the big white canopy just slightly. I've rarely seen my mother so relaxed.  I began to wonder about the nursing job market. 

Costa Rica Update

Mom and I arrived finally, and safely after a delay in Houston. I am writing this from my cousin Jack´s computer. The keyboard is a bit different, so I struggled to get into my account for five minutes trying to find the @ symbol. One combination of buttons I pushed made the cursor arrow turn into a rainbow. That´s part of why this will be short. The other part is because every minute I spend here is a minute I am not sitting by the pool eating a(nother) mango.

For lunch today we went to "the melon man" and we bought scores of fresh fruit for about two dollars. I can have all the avacados I want.

Jack met us at the airport with his friend Abus, and we took a quick ride up long and narrow roads scattered with pedestrians, dogs and bicyclists to get to Villa Antigua where Mom and I are staying. The owner of Villa Antigua is Denis. Right now we are the only guests there. Denis told us to make ourselves at home because his house is our house. And it´s a nice house. Denis made us breakfast this morning, gallo pinto, and black coffee.

Denis has two dogs, and one of them has taken to following me around. He waited for me this morning at the door of my room, and even followed me to the bathroom. He laid by my feet during breakfast, not begging... just waiting. Yes, I´ve been here two days and already adopted a pet. His name is close to ¨"bobby" but I call him perrocito.

Last night Jack took us to his favorite hang out, Bar Amigo. There we met an amazing cast of characters including the owner, ¨"Weymouth Pete" and a man named Jerry who convinced me to go to the Festival de Cebolla which was going on down the street. We also met Jack´s next door neighbor who is about my age. David is originally from California and teaches English here. He came with us to the Festival later, and then to dinner and karaoke. At the Festival, which reminded me of the stalls and stalls outside of the temples in Japan, I lost myself in the smells and lights and music. I bought a CD of pan flute music. Read this as: I might have been drinking a little bit. We capped the night off back at Bar Amigo where Jack and Mom made me step dance for everyone. You know, because I don´t look Irish enough.

Oh! Did I mention, I also saw a horse tap dancing? It´s just something they do here apparently.

I could go on and on and on but I want to go back outside because David (who called in sick today) showed me some baby basilisks running down the river a little while ago and then he saw an big adult one, but I didn´t. And I won´t if I stay inside.

Packing

The prospect of traveling to another country always brings up some new issues to think about. Yesterday Mom and I checked out a local sporting goods store to buy "hiking shoes," which are recommended for our horseback ride up the volcano in Arenal.

"These are just super expensive ugly sneakers."
"Do you think we could just wear our normal sneakers?"
"I guess so. I mean, as long as you're comfortable walking with them."
"My leg brace doesn't fit into anything else anyway."
"I think we'll be fine."
"Do you think we should buy backpacks with water reservoirs?"
"They have those?"

Clearly, we are ready to fly to Central America for a week.

Stories About my Dad: he flies through the air with the greatest of ease...

"Dad taught me the words to the Our Father, or at least taught me what they all meant." This is one my earliest memories. We were in the kitchen. There were Peppermint Patties involved, I'm certain of it.

My brother and mother had a hard time believing this today, when I mentioned it casually over lunch. "Are you sure?" asked Mom carefully, "your father wasn't... a very religious man."

"I'm sure," I replied. "He at least wanted me to know what I was saying if I was going to be saying it."

Six years ago today, March 15th, my entire life was turned upside down when I lost my father. He died after only being sick a few months; he was young and the entire thing was completely unexpected. There are no words to explain what losing him did to me or to my family, so I won't try that. This is the first time I've tried to address his death in public writing at all, so bear with me.

Even when Dad was alive there was legend about him. He was a firefighter in Boston, and he had done everything from fighting fires, to driving the chief, to doing fire inspections for buildings all over the city. Dropping his name got me parking places, got me hugs, invited stories, and even made creeps stay away from me on the dance floor at local pubs. I was Warren Whitaker's daughter, and everyone knew it.

More than just being known for the quality of his work, my Dad was even better known for his kindness, generosity, sense of humor, intelligence, loyalty and fun loving nature. It felt like everyone in Boston had a great story to tell me about my Dad. People he lent money to, people whose computers he fixed, whose houses or decks he helped build, locks he had changed for free. Guys who thought of him like a brother. Women who took his advice about their boyfriends. I followed attentively as he led by example.

My father was my hero. Except for a brief period of time when I was 14 to 17 years old or so, he could do no wrong. To this day I regret every single time my teenaged head butted his about vegetarianism or the merits of being allowed to wear mascara to school. Deep down he had to have known he was just helping me learn how to stand up for what I believed. Luckily for both of us, by the time I went off to college I believed the sun rose and set over him all over again.

I get my sense of humor from my Dad. For him, laughter was the center of any good friendship. He would riff on jokes with us in the car, or plan elaborate pranks on his friends for weeks. My mother would laugh so had she cried sometimes, and those were the best times. Sometimes when we're all together I catch my brother and myself vying for the same reward of cracking Mom up so hard we all forget why we were laughing.

When I expressed the tiniest bit of interest in Monty Python he went out and bought me the DVD of Holy Grail that night. I said it on the way to a rehearsal, and when he picked me up he handed it to me with two other movies we had talked about. He was just so excited that we could start to share a similar sense of humor. I know that if he were alive today we'd send each other YouTube videos all the time, he would have been at IB all last spring helping to build the theater, and he'd be bringing friends every weekend to see me at Improv Asylum.

He never did get to see me do improv. When he was in the hospital I had just debuted in Mission:Improvable. I brought my shirt to show him and he told me how proud he was. I looked at my head shot hanging in the lobby this weekend and thought of how wide he'd smile if he could see that too.

He'd be just as proud of my day job. This isn't widely known, but I became a nurse because of my Dad. When he was in the hospital he told me in passing, "you'd make a good nurse." I thought it over and switched majors within a month of his death.
Both he and Mom had already set me up for a life of service in a much less direct way. Mom and Dad met in EMT school. My Mom worked as a radiologist. My Dad became a firefighter. Caring for strangers was second nature to them, and they passed that on to me quietly, intuitively. I had never considered a career in the medical field but when I was exposed to it something deep within me responded clearly. There was no way I would quit. And today, because of him I have a job that fulfills that part of me as well as pays the bills.

There are plenty of things in my life I've done that I imagine might not elicit his pride. But his forgiveness taught me how to forgive others, and how to forgive myself.

It was a sweltering hot day in July when I accidentally drove my mother's car - backwards - into our kitchen. I tore the electrical boxes and doodads straight off the house. The sparks and noise alone would have gotten the neighbor's attention, but the subsequent shutting down of the power for the entire street is what really brought people outside. I slumped over the wheel, wishing I had been at least knocked unconscious by the error so I wouldn't feel so terrible. Inevitably, I had to exit the wreck.

I turned to face him. He was standing at the end of the driveway, dressed for work. He was chewing on a cigar. (This was during his Sopranos phase). He took the cigar out of his mouth, held out his arms for me, smiled and said, "Hey. Stuff happens."

I think of my Dad in some way almost every day. Some days more than others. I am apparently even more like him than I can know. "Have you always put vinegar on your french fries?" Mom asked at the beach last year, "your father did that." "I had no idea." I munched, a little happier knowing that parts of him were tucked away unbeknownst even to me.

I have his nose and his love of jazz. He taught me that it's almost always worth it to give someone a ride home if you have the means to do it. He taught me that even low brow humor has a time and place, but he also taught me what "deliver us from evil," means. When I'm feeling good I can feel him right there with me. And when I'm not feeling so good... I can still see his smile and hear him say "stuff happens," and know that I'm strong enough to get through whatever it is. Because through and through, I'm still his daughter, and always will be.

The NCLEX-RN

Within the past two weeks Boston College nursing students have been joining us at work as part of their community rotation. Because student nurses in their fourth year are focused on the ultimate task of nursing school: passing the NCLEX-RN, I have recently been talking a lot about study tips, testing strategies and of course, my own experience with the NCLEX.

The NCLEX is a terrifying thing. Questions are asked in literally every category of nursing, even though no nurse will ever have to have quite such a broad span of knowledge once he or she starts work. This is, of course, because nursing school isn't actually a training to be a nurse so much as it's the training for the skills needed to learn to be a nurse. Once a nurse enters a specialty he or she draws upon this broad base of knowledge while going about the business of transitioning from a student to a professional. Medical/surgical, maternity, neonatal, pediatrics, mental health, and of course fundamentals (physical assessment, psychosocial development, general med or I.V administration, etc), it's all on there. And of course pharmacology, my exam weakness.

The day before my exam I did a "dry run" in the afternoon. I was staying at my family's house in W.Roxbury so I parked at Forest Hills and took the train to Downtown Crossing. I went to the building where the test would be held and even went inside. I made sure there was no way I could get lost or be late. Amy and Scott came with me and double checked my plans. I felt assured. I chose a comfortable and attractive outfit to wear and even made a mix CD full of pump-up music to listen to for the train ride. I was READY.

The morning of the test I drove to Jamaica Plain two hours early as planned. But I had neglected to take into account time of day during my dry run. There was no where to park. I kept my cool, having left time in the schedule for glitches. I drove to Green Street. No parking. As I waited to turn the corner a woman walking started screaming at me because "I know you were going to run that red light if I didn't stop you." (I wasn't.) Shaken by the unpleasant encounter, I drove to Centre Street. Nothing. I circled back around to the Park and Lock, which was full. I tried to squeeze my car in the corner, by the fence which the manager had allowed me to do in the past. But this time an angry man I had never seen approached my car yelling at the top of his lungs, "No! No No! You can NOT park there!" I tried to explain, "Sir, I really need to get downtown for this exam," but he just kept yelling. Back in the car I took a deep breath.
I had lost an entire hour so far, but still had a half hour margin to work with.

I found some on street parking with a two hour limit and decided I'd just eat the ticket. Considering that just signing up for the NCLEX-RN costs over $200 it was better than rescheduling. Congratulating myself on getting back on track, I parked with ease and grace. As I left the car I realized I had left my CD in the player. I had to turn the car back on to get it out. Trying not to get hit by oncoming traffic I extracted the CD and put it in my disc man. That was when I realized I had shut the door. With the keys in the car. And the car running.

I lost all composure and called my mother up on the brink of a compete melt down. She asked for the location of my car, told me to get on the train and not to think about it anymore. While I was in the test she found my spare keys and enlisted my aunt to drive her to the car. In case anyone was wondering, my mother is My Hero.

I arrived about 15 minutes early to the test and collected myself in the waiting room. The exam itself is a different length for every prospective nurse, but the total allotted time is six hours total. The test can be anywhere from 75 questions to 265 questions. It's a computer adaptive test (CAT). The questions get progressively harder as long as they are answered correctly. They get easier if you answer incorrectly but then get harder again as you begin to answer correctly. The machine shuts off at the point where you would stay above the minimum level of competency no matter how many more questions you got, or conversely, when no matter how many more questions you answered you could not rise above the minimum level of competency. Because of that, there is no way to know if you passed or failed based on when the computer shuts off.

Many nurses can tell you how many questions they had. I can not. They told us not to look at the numbers. I looked once, and it was past 75 and I started getting sick to my stomach, and I looked away. It felt as though over 70% of my exam was made up of obscure pharmacology questions about specific antidepressants having to do with whether or not a med should be taken with grapefruit juice and things of that nature.

When my machine shut off I was thankful and depressed. I walked outside, sat down on a brick wall amongst a flock of pigeons and began to cry. If only I hadn't had such a stressful morning, I thought, I wouldn't have failed.

Three days later I decided to make it official, and I checked the status of my exam online. The word "Pass," next to my name seemed impossible. I made a noise, "like an animal," according to my brother, who walked into the room, saw the screen and immediately began pounding me with a pillow and then his fist. "Do you know what you put us through?" he screamed, "we thought you actually failed. We felt so bad for you!" This attracted Mom's attention and she joined in the pummeling.

When I tell this story to the SNs at work the take aways are these:
-Plan as much as you can for how you want your day to go, but realize it still might not be perfect so leave room for error.
-Study as hard you want, but realize that at the end of four years, you know what you know.
- Everyone thinks they've failed. I haven't met anyone who thought he or she passed. The test is designed to make you feel horrible. Wait the three days out and be good to yourself. Your family and friends will appreciate it.

I try not to think too hard.

My Mom doesn't watch the news. This was a direct result of being the wife of a fire fighter. My Mom says that as soon as she and Dad got married she started hating the news. When Dad was home the scanner would be on constantly, telling us about every emergency in Boston. But when Dad was out the scanner was silent. "I didn't want to be thinking too hard about it," Mom says. These days, the habit sticks.

Last night though, Mom called me panicking because my aunt had called her to tell her about the fire truck that crashed. She knows one of the guys from that station, and was sick to her stomach thinking about it.

This morning my heart and prayers go out to Kevin M. Kelley's family, knowing that nothing will ever be the same.

Three Snapshots of my Weekend

Friday.
He's pacing in the basement room of the theater. His suit is spotless and impeccable, and his eyes are wide, and brimming with excitement and joy. He is sweating and antsy. He doesn't stop moving. All around us people are smiling because they know why he's come all the way from L.A. Upstairs there is a young lady marking the turn of another year in her life. She believes he's in Las Vegas but has been secretly hoping he'd find a way to get to her for her special day. He's planned his entrance to the second. I leave him there and run upstairs just in time to see her eyes light up at all the friends gathered in her name. But nothing compares to that moment when he approaches her from behind, and whispers in her ear. The room applauds, but around them time and place slip away and the rest of us get a small view into heaven.

Saturday.
My mother puts down her tea as the second song on the CD begins to play. "I can't NOT dance to this song," she says. And so we spend the next hour of her birthday dancing around the living room laughing like children. We kick off our socks for better traction. We sing, we tell stories. We plan the Christmas menu. But the whole time, we are dancing and dancing.

Sunday.
"I'm really worried about her," the nurse says, " I can't find her anywhere in the building." I take the elevator to the atrium. The scene that greets me makes me forget why I am there for a moment. The sky outside the huge glass panes is completely dark. Headlights sweep the glass as cars go by, but the beams never make it inside. Instead, the glow of low lit lamps give the large community room a homey warm feeling. On all of the couches, patients are gathered. Some are reading, others play chess. One man is hunched over a table using colored pencils to design a card for his little daughter. A woman in the corner picks up scratchy Christmas carols on a tinny radio. On the porch several men huddle together sharing cigarettes and stories of the street.
By the windows there is a Christmas tree. The lights on it burn steady in rainbow colors, and at the top an angel shines brightly. She seems to be guarding the men and women all around her.

I find the missing patient in a rocking chair across the room. She smiles weakly and says, "I know they must be worried, Shell, but I was hurting too much to get up. I'll go with you now."

As we slowly walk to the doors, I turn around for one last look. I notice a detail I hadn't seen. Beneath the tree is a small creche. The perfect wooden figures stand posed in a scene thousands of years old. Mary, Joseph and their baby boy- once cold and homeless, found respite.

My world, it's so small I can touch every corner and so large there's no ceiling.

Yesterday I left my unit to go find a patient who needed a medication before lunch. I passed through the activity room on the second floor and walked in on some patients watching a video on Hep C. I paused to watch and quickly realized the narrator was an old friend of mine from Riverside Theaterworks in Boston. He is also the cantor at my church.

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I saw this note on my fridge this morning. It was written on a meter reading receipt, with two carbons attached:

Hello Michelle and Liz. It's been a very long time. Kinda weird that I'm your oil guy. Whatsup? Come check out my band if you can next Friday Nov. 21, at the Cask n' Flagon. Our band's called Manakin Cicada. Check out our myspace.
- Jon the sixie.


Seriously, folks. Jon was a "sixie," or seventh grader at Boston Latin School. We kind of adopted him because we all took the 35 bus. You know, the reverse of what happened to us when we were sixies. (We used to get spit on and lit on fire). Now he's my oil guy.

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My Mom came over today to look at photos from my trip and hear stories. She also brought a huge bag full of my favorite foods like cheesecake muffins and pasta. " I figured you hadn't had time to shop or cook yet." I told my Mom she's the only reason I didn't stay in Tokyo.

Day Off

Yesterday I worked a 16 hour shift, so today I slept in. I moved my bed more towards the window.
That means that when I do find myself in my bed, which is not often, I can breathe in and taste autumn and see the leaves red against a blue sky. It makes leaving the bed easier to do, like a promise of what I can have if I just move my bones a bit.

Mom came over and brought pumpkin muffins and chai, so I had an even better reason to get up today. Then we went for a walk around Jamaica Pond. It was so lovely out that life felt a bit like a movie. We saw fish jumping out of the water, and everywhere people were smiling and laughing.
My favorite part was that we just kept seeing turtles. And I do so much love turtles. You can find the rest of the pictures on my web album.


Then I went downtown for a meeting. I can not tell you the details of this meeting other than it confirmed completely that this might be my year after all. But I will not count my turtles before they hatch.

Then Steph came over and we teleconferenced with the others who are going on the trip to Tokyo. That was time consuming and boring.


Then, despite being exhausted I went out to watch the Sox game with Danny because he is only in town for one week. Sox won, I got cake and I am able to take a nap before work at 7am. Yay!

Quarter of a Century

Today I am 25 years old. That is to say, I am a quarter of a century on this earth. I am beginning my 26th year of life. I am a year older (wiser?) than I was when I turned 24. I am finally old enough to rent a car.

To celebrate my birthday my supervisor let me out of work early today. I met up with Quinn and we went to Toro, which is a tapas place not far from BMC. Our waitress spoke mainly Spanish, and so Quinn did all the talking, although I could understand enough to pick out him telling her it was my birthday. She brought us a cookie at the end of the meal, and held two burning candles in her hands while she, beaming, sang Feliz Cumpleanos.

Then I met my Mom and we went for a walk in Forest Hills Cemetery. I know that seems like a weird thing to do for my birthday but you have to go there and then you will know why it's one of my favorite places to go in Boston. It is also right at the end of my street.

So Mom and I have been trying to find e.e. cumming's grave armed with only a crappy map for a few months. We set out determined rain or shine to find it and after an hour and a half we did exactly that. The grave is hard to locate because it is amongst a different family plot, the stone is flush with the ground, and the name is written out "Edwin Estlin Cummings." It is set on a bit of an incline, and we looked around for a landmark so I could easily return. Then, straight across from us, and down the hill I saw my favorite tree in the cemetery.

It's my favorite tree because it's hollowed out and the inside has been bronzed and inscribed with this e.e. cumming's poem:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

I took Mom down to the tree and climbed inside because something caught my eye. Since I had last been inside the tree someone had wrapped a book of cumming's poems in plastic to keep in a nook inside. I opened it and read out loud a bit. Even further back in the nook, which I had never once noticed was a journal and a pen. The journal was full of poems and messages from different visitors to the tree. Mom and I wrote our own message, and the sky opened up and began to pour.

I think this is going to be my year.