100 Facts About My Mom

I was sitting with my mom the other evening, while she was doing the hard work of transitioning.  To pass the time, I began compiling a list of 100 facts about Sally Raglin Marshall, in no particular order.  It turned out to  be a nice activity for us to share, although she laid there silently while I spoke them to her.  My mom died last night, at the age of 89.  Below, is the list we shared.

100 Things About My Mom, in No Particular Order

1.  You have nice ears.  I hadn't realized that before.  They are big, but nice.

2.  Is it possible you have no grey hair?  I still don't know.

3.  You have nice teeth.

4.  Your smile is wonderful.

5.  So's your laugh.

6.  You love jazz, which means your kids love jazz.

7.  You did the crossword puzzles, when I thought it was dad who did.  You corrected me, finally, telling me he would simply swoop in at the end and write down an answer or two. In pen, for God's sake!

8.  You are a bad driver.  But you never killed anyone.  So maybe you aren't the worst.

9. You are statuesque.

10. You were a disinterested Catholic.

11. You weren't a great cook but you could stretch a meal admirably.

12. . . . I didn't have to feed 7 people, so maybe I should shut up.

13. You took us swimming, and stayed.

14. You picked me up when I got caught shoplifting and didn't yell at me.

15. You and dad were a really handsome couple.

16. So were you and Dick.

17. You have nice bone structure.

18. You became adorable to me this year.

19. You love a good joke.

20. You can tell good jokes, too.

21. You appreciate puns.

22. Apparently, you were a secret smoker.  I once saw you smoke at the Joliff's on the 4th of July and could not believe my eyes.

23. Your hair reminds me of Doris Day.

24. You know your jazz artists, inside and out.

25. You have a great younger brother, Burley.

26. Your sister, Weedie, was a spirited rascal who you ended up loving very much.

27. You made good kids.

28. You were proud of your grandchildren.

29. You had a daughter who died shortly after birth.

30.  . . . maybe her death made room for me, your youngest.  I do not take that lightly.

31. Your feet aren't your best feature but I never minded rubbing them.

32. You have incredible strength.

33. You once mentioned in passing that you'd had a heart attack the week before.

34. You seldom complained.

35. You had tinitus.

36. You had neuropathy.

37. You had breast cancer when I was a young kid.  I remember Dad pulling up in the station wagon and all of us waving to you from the car when you were in the hospital then.

38. You planned some great vacations and often made us learn some history before we went.

39. Jack once threw a firecracker in your direction.  It blew up underneath your skirt.

40. You hid Russell Stover candy on Easter, even when we were adults.

41. You were smart enough to hire a cleaning lady.

42. You're a great artist.

43. You've sketched our children's portraits.

44. You've sketched many other people's children, as well.  And some of the staff at Tabitha, too.

45. You sketched two men on trial for murder, including Starkweather.

46. You let us eat really awful sugar cereal.

47. You could eat half a package of Ruth's Oatmeal Cookies between the store and our house.

48. You once left your groceries at the grocery store.

49. You once forgot me at the grocery store. I had to jump in the back of the station wagon as you were passing. 

50. You were a docent at the Sheldon Art Gallery.

51. You let dad have loud, smoky poker parties at our house.  

52. You have great taste in jewelry.

53. You didn't get mad at me when I threw up in your bed that one time.

54. You let Steve get a pet skunk.

55. You would sometimes appear in my brothers' films. Your cameo in "Creature from Planet Zero" was Oscar-worthy.

56. You bought me an electric guitar.

57. You and dad served dinner to my friends and me, in my bedroom, on my 16th birthday.

58. You--perhaps foolishly--got me a room at the Holiday Inn for my 18th birthday.

59. You made Ann's wedding dress.  Which became my wedding dress.

60. You made all my bridesmaids' dresses, too.  For only $25 each!

61. You helped design our house.

62. You let me put Wacky Pack stickers all over my closet doors.

63. More than once, you tucked your skirt into your hose

64. You and Mark painted Dr. Seuss characters all over our bathroom walls.

65. When I announced that I was pregnant, you asked "Would anyone like more coffee?"

66. You grabbed my shirt when I opened the car door on the highway, heading to Colorado. I had to know if a locked car door kept people in.  It doesn't.  Thank you for grabbing me.

67. You aren't particularly sentimental.

68. You got out of the way so that we could find ourselves and make our own paths.

69. You once told me to eat with a little more "casual indifference."

70. Allison wears your clothes--she loves telling people they are her grandmother's.

71. Your hairstyle was classic.  It never changed and it always looked good.

72. You once washed my hair with mayo and made me put a baggie over it for an hour.  Something about swimmer's hair. .  .

73. You often played Boggle and Scrabble with me.

74. You are poised.

75. You shrunk this year so that I might, just once, be taller than you.

76. A pet toad once died in one of your shoes in your closet. It took me a long time to find it.

77. You were always nice to my friends, and called them by name.

78. You were a little obsessed with Publisher's Clearinghouse for awhile.  Okay, a lot obsessed.

79. You made good party signs.

80. You made mix tapes, a passion you shared with your children.

81. You were tolerant of my taste in clothes, mostly.

82. You once made Mark and me change before taking us to the Sheldon.

83. You let us sit on the roof to watch the fireworks at Holmes Lake.

84. You came to my parties!

85. You and Dick backed into Jennifer's van after one of my parties and just drove away. Molly saw it all happen.

86. You and dad always cleaned the kitchen after a party so it would look tidy in the morning.

87. You are aloof, but in a good, artistic way.

88. You aren't high drama.

89. You occasionally picked up Ann from the bars, even though she wasn't of age yet.

90. You once said "Damn it!" in front of Eric and Allison, after hitting another car in the McDonald's drive-through (see no. 8).  They couldn't quit talking about it.

91. My friends all liked you.

92. You once gave Mark a Happy 50th card, even though he wasn't 50.  You might have called him "Wayne" in it, too.

93. You have very nice friends who have always been nice to your kids.

94. You and dad liked to dance.

95. You and dad were in the dance group called "Gay Nighters."  They changed their name in the 2000s.

96. You illustrated a book that Dale wrote for Eric, called Eric's Little Alligator.

97. You are a sugar fiend. Pretty sure it's genetic.

98. You were cool headed.

99. You ran a red light a few years ago (48th and O!) in front of a cop, who let you go.

100. You were a swell mom, for a thousand different reasons.  

My Antebellum Cerebellum

The bulk of the human brain--the cerebrum--is divided into two hemispheres and four lobes, putting it somewhere between "tiny house" and "50s ranch."  My brain, though, is more stately, like a McMansion with a dozen and a half rooms and growing.

I'm not bragging.  I'm simply stating a fact.  

In the past year and a half, I've become quite handy with dry wall and putty knife, slapping together new brain rooms with ease, if not with an eye for detail.  The more dire the circumstances, the more walls I put up.  Sick friend?  Wall.  Another sick friend?  Another wall.  Dying step father, heart palpitations, hospice?  Wall, wall, wall!

But I don't discriminate.  I've also constructed rooms for good things--for work, for home, for family, for the out-of-doors (walling in nature--really!?).

From afar, all that slap-dash construction probably seems a bit unhealthy.  Yet, I would argue that those walls and rooms have kept me from losing myself this past year.  Indeed, they have grounded me when the ground beneath me has felt like it was slipping away.  Build a room for joy, after all, and I have. . . a room filled with joy. Which is why, despite all the loss of last school year, I also ended that year with a deep well of happiness.

So I started a new room last month, just after dinner on August 16.  By far the most expensive room I've ever built, and the one with the least-interesting name,  this has been a challenging room for me.  The experts call this room "invasive ductal carcinoma."  Better known by the name "breast cancer," the room--like a museum--is filled with priceless furnishings, not one of which is comfortable to sit on.

Here, in this room, I have been x-rayed and scanned, probed and prodded.  I haven't been in the room alone, though.  Here, too, are experts clothed in competence and compassion, loving friends who have known similar rooms, many good folks sitting on the bench, cheering me on.   On Sept. 9, I had surgery in this room.  And on Sept. 13, I got a call while I was resting in this place.  The call was a good one.  Very good, in fact.  The experts would tell you that my lymph nodes and my margins are clear.  I'd tell you that my journey from this point on is about prevention, and nothing more.

Turns out, I might be building my first window in this brain house of mine, a view to some place that is not here.  In fact, as I was driving to school this morning, awash in tears and gratitude, I started to re-think my brain house and all of its hodge-podgy rooms.  Maybe it's time to change things up.  Time to tear down the walls that have kept me safe and sane this past year, and let life--warts and all--come rushing in again.

This tiny house that is my life, it turns out, is as full and beautiful and as messy and mine as I could ever want it to be.  Walls be damned, I plan on living it.

Of Caterpillars and Chrysalises

Two weeks into the school year and I find myself surrounded by teenaged souls in various stages of formation.  Already, I've worked with more than 20 classes of these kids, and, while it has at times felt like running downhill, I've really enjoyed the hubbub. Yesterday, as the big hand of the clock inched towards 3, I turned to Helen and said "The library feels really happy this year, doesn't it?"  She agreed.

East is as full as it has been in many, many years, with 1,900 young caterpillars, chrysalises and butterflies slogging,  sitting and flying through this space each weekday.  We adults in the building--ourselves in various stages of transformation--are expected to meet the kids where they are.  As I've said many times before, working in a school is not for sissies.

Earlier this week, an English class was sitting before me, in the library to choose personal-reading books.  I shared my recipe for finding a good book, pointed them to our collections, and wandered with them as they decided which ones to choose.    One girl, lovely and olive-skinned, quietly asked if we had any books about Syria.  When I pulled out the one fiction book set in Syria that we had, she teared up and said 'That's Arabic on the cover."  Nodding, I was feeling pretty good about myself, until she followed up with "I don't want anyone to know that I speak Arabic."

Sometimes, caterpillars feed on hatred.

Helen and I quickly conferred in my office, deciding to tear the cover off the book.  I handed her a plain, red book and she left.  And then, we got to work looking for other fiction books we could buy that were set in a country so far away from my own.

The next afternoon, the girl returned.  I had no idea what to expect.  She smiled shyly, held up the book and said "I love it!  I have been to many of these places!"

Sometimes, butterflies emerge from desolation.

Wednesday morning, this same student came into the library before school.  She printed a poem she'd written and handed me a copy.  There, in those sparse words, was her own arc, a timeline filled with bullets and fear, hope and heaps of courage.

Sometimes, young butterflies inspire 54-year-old caterpillars to be transformed once again.

Four Little Words By My Doorstep

Beloved.
Be loved.
Be. 
Love.

Those words--just four in all--landed on my shoulders during my walk the other morning.  I found myself playing with them for the rest of that walk, chewing on them, moving the emphasis from one syllable to another,  applying them to what I was seeing and feeling.

I don't know why this meditation found me, but I'm mighty glad that it did.

Turns out that those four unique words--ingredients, if you will--are just about everything I need to live well in this world.  They are the perfect recipe for a grateful, grounded life.

Beloved.
A lifelong lover of lists, I'm glad that this was the first word to alight on my shoulders.  It is a word that pulls me out of myself and shines a warm light on everything and everyone else.  Beloved dog. Beloved neighbor.  Beloved tree.  Beloved sky.

Be loved.
I am taken aback when I realize just how many people have my back.  And when I open myself up to their love, I am a better version of me.

Be.
Of all the crazy summers in life, this one has felt like the wildest.  Unbearable heat, ridiculous news, heartbreaking violence, dwindling lives.  The what ifs too often nudged out the moment.  Be reminds me that being present is a sacred duty that can help us manage or put aside all those what ifs.

Love.
Boy, this one is the silver lining, the ultimate transformative ingredient.  A verb that requires repeating.  As Lin-Manuel Miranda uttered at the Grammys, "Love is love is love is love is love."

For someone who is a lousy pray-er and whose memory bottoms out more and more these days, these four little words that landed on my doorstep seem like a tonic. A mantra.  A meditation for me and a mediation for living in this world.  And I will do my best to lean into them each day and see what it is that they have to show me.

Pretty in Pink

Last night before bed, I told Mark that I was going to sleep until 9. I have never in my life slept until 9, but because I made the claim with some forcefulness, I was a little disappointed when the clock read 5:34 this morning.  My disappointment evaporated 45 minutes later, though, when the eastern sky oozed pink.

I'm not a runner, but Finn and I nearly ran out the door when I saw that sky, bolting to Woods Park for a clearer view of a beautiful start to a new day.  --Isn't that what we all crave--a clearer view of a beautiful start to a new day?

As we entered Woods Park, just in front of the cowboy statue, we were given a bonus--half a rainbow arcing its way downward to meet us.  I don't use the word blessed very often, but that's how I felt.  Blessed and grateful that I didn't sleep until 9, because, as any sky-gawking Nebraskan knows, rainbows and pink clouds and perfect lighting are all so fleeting.

We wended our way through the park twice this morning, filling up on everything, imagining that the churr of crickets was actually the sound of satellites whizzing through the universe above our heads.  Or at least that's what I was imagining.  Finn was probably thinking about bunnies lurking in the uncut grass along the perimeter.    And by the time we found ourselves at the cowboy statue again, I realized that the half rainbow had grown into two rainbows,  giddy cousins trying to show each other up.

My morning walks feel like air to me--utterly necessary to my continuation upon this earth.  They center and calm and fill and energize me.  These walks jolt stories and concerns, joy and to-do lists out of me and remind me that--despite all the hard news of this life--there is always a softness to this world, a gentleness and rhythm that are immensely comforting.

I feel bad for all those folks still slumbering this morning.  Already, they have missed so much--the call of the great-horned owl that woke me, the pretty-in-pink sky, the rainbows, the sprinkles that were like gold flecks falling through the morning light.

All that goodness, and it's only 7:21.

Two Truths and At Least One Lie

No one has ever asked me what it's like to be white.  Or a woman.  Like anyone would expect me to speak for someone else.

True, several people have asked me how it is I can be 54 and yet have never carried a purse. But I think their curiosity rests more in where I put things rather than in what I am.

Believe me when I say that, in the past couple of weeks, I've had to practically sit on my hands to resist the urge to ask a black person to guide or inform me, even though I know the absurdity of asking someone to somehow be a larger group.  Thank God I've got a place for those fidgety hands of mine.

These are choppy waters we find ourselves in these days.  But I am encouraged that so many of us are still wading in them.  There are, I think, all kinds of people right now who really want to know how to do things differently.  Sure, many of us, like first-time surfers, will lose our footing, fall into the waves and make fools of ourselves, over and over and over again.  This learning process--or un-learning process, as it may be--is a messy business.  But we need to keep getting back on the boards, because the waves are not going away.

Maybe I should have been carrying a purse all these years.  Now, when I really need to open up and see what it is I have been lugging along with me,  I don't have the convenience of rifling through my Kate Spade to get to the truth of things.  Instead, I have to hunt down scraps of paper, tarnished mementos and handfuls of loose change, each tucked away in various pockets or atop my desk or in the console of my car, and lay them out like pieces of a treasure map, and try to make sense of it all.

I know I've used too many metaphors in this post, moving from purses to surfboards with seemingly no regard for good taste or readability.  It's probably just another delay tactic, offering up a few more distractions to keep me from starting to do the hard work of learning and unlearning.  Or maybe they represent something more substantive,  like clunky signs of my dis-ease.

For today, at least, they'll have to do.  And I'll have to trust that by putting them down here, by writing them out for others to see, I will be held accountable.  I will be asked to share what I know and what I've learned about what it means to be a human living on this earth right now.

As the World Turns

1,040 miles per hour.  That's how fast the earth is spinning right now.  And you wondered why you're feeling a little dizzy these days.  I think it's worth reminding ourselves that the earth has always been spinning at an astounding clip, yet, thanks to gravity, we've seldom taken notice.    

So why is it that we feel like our feet have left the ground these days?  Certainly, there's no shortage of gravitas.  And maybe--ironically--that's part of the reason we feel imbalanced.  Shootings. Politics.  Oppressive heat.  So much heavy stuff to take in. No wonder we are disoriented.

On Christmas Eve in 1968, I was poking at gifts under the tree, unable to contain my seven-year-old enthusiasm for the what ifs that lay under wraps.  At that same time, the Apollo 8 astronauts were getting their first look (actually, anyone's first look) at Earth from the surface of the Moon.   Pilot Jim Lovell, upon taking it all in, said this about the sight: "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth."

Neil Degrasse Tyson talks about the transmission of that first image of earth as being the very moment when the environmental movement was born.  Taken aback by the beauty of their planet, humans were overwhelmed by a deep desire to tend to that lovely home.

And so, I stare at the image above.  Look at it long and hard.  And my heart softens again, its pace slowing down.  I stare at that image and let my head fill with wonder, amazed that so many beautiful things--people and plants and animals and micro-organisms and, yes, I realize I'm starting to sound like a song by that cheesy 70s band, America--are held together upon its surface by equal and equally invisible forces of gravity and love and hope and desire.

The more I stare at this image, the more ground I feel below my feet.  I notice a sloughing of both fear and its unwelcomed cousin, hopelessness. Hidden in this image, I start to realize, is a powerful antidote to a summer filled with so many hard and furious things.  I stare at my home, this single thing holding a trillion other things in its wide and capable arms, whispering to us that our feet are, in fact, on the ground, and we are, in fact, still together, holding fast against the odds.

And I realize, once again, "just what I have back here on Earth."And that it's most certainly worth fighting for.