I noticed

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” Alice Walker, The Color Purple

And a donor has been found!

I know I've written about Jodi ---Goddess of Midwives and Lord of my Ladybits---here before but I have yet to mention what's been going on with her as of late. While I'll likely update you with news about fundraisers, etc., for now I will just post a couple of articles which have been written in recent months regarding Jodi's need for a liver transplant after over 20 years of living with an autoimmune disease called primary biliary cirrhosis. With ten years of under-the-hood inspections under our belts (my belt; it would be weird if it were both of our belts)---and you can be sure that Jodi is the only mechanic I've ever seen---I learned at my last visit that she is taking the year off from work to build up her strength before the transplant (which will likely happen this spring) and to recuperate afterwards. I feel so much for Jodi and her family but the lot of them seems to be brimming with fortitude and humor and what more could a family need to endure such hardship? A liver donor perhaps? Well, now they've got that too!

The most recent article.

The original story which ran in January.

And here is a link to a Facebook page created by her family to keep all of us---Jodi's concerned public (you know I wanted to write pubic)---posted on her status. Obviously, this latest news means that things are looking way up.

Suffice it to say that Dan and I will not even entertain the thought of baby-making until she gets back to the midwifery bid-ness.

In other words, we're saving ourselves for Jodi.

P.S. Save the date! April 6th will be the first of three Full Moon Madness events at Margaritas Restaurant in Portsmouth, NH from which a percentage of the evening's bar and restaurant sales will go towards Jodi's Liver Team. (The other dates are May 3rd and June 4th.) Margaritas is not only home to the delicious Tomato Garlic Nacho but it's also the site at which Dan and Lola's courtship began. Perhaps you will be enticed by a historic tour of the restaurant, including a viewing of the juke box that a drunken Dan struck with his elbow in an attempt to change the song a la Fonzie. I was defenseless against his charms.

Come join the fun, peeps, because it's basically a party in the bar and we're cooking up a lot of hoo-hoo themed fun. A "Placentarita" has been discussed.

Mwah.

Hanging in my Aunt Gail's kitchen.


Miami by the numbers:

Zero: The number of times I went swimming while I was down there.

Two: The number of Oprah magazines I made it through.

Way too many to count: The number of beers, glasses of wine, margaritas, mojitos, and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and vodkas I drank.

While the drinks were plenty and the food even plenty-er, we were most nourished by each other while down in the Miami sun. My aunt, Dan, two nieces, two bros-in-law and two sisters; it was a holiday without the pressure. Every minute was different---ten days of love and sadness, laughter and sobbing, deeply painful reality and momentary departures from hardship.

“We really are so lucky," my Aunt Gail said during our tearful goodbye, "to love each other so much that it's physically painful to say good bye."

I have never known harder days than these ones but I know what she meant. I've often felt lucky to have loved my mom so much that living without her is so awful. Even as I am fearful lately of loving anyone too much, even as the concept of gratitude isn't always in reach---I know somewhere that we really are lucky.

Still, the post-vacation blues have settled in. I haven't been able to stop crying since we've been back. I know I sound like a spoiled brat---Who mourns a vacation?---but it's the truth. I knew we were coming back to bleak realities and sure enough the sadness has enveloped me. My dad's tumor is back and growing and he has some swelling in his brain. I talked to him yesterday on the phone and he said how strange it is to know he’s dying but to not know how or when it will happen. His illness over the last year---the effects of the tumor, surgery and later the chemo--- brought an intense and often unnavigable tsunami of emotion; particularly due to its occurrence so quickly following my mom's passing. We've all dealt with her death differently---he much differently than any of his daughters---and this, too, has presented much anguish and pain. I've spent weeks in suspended shock due to all that has transpired which is part of why it’s been too difficult to broach here. Still, just as he is understanding now that he is going to die, I am understanding how much I will miss him.

I am trying to thank him for what he has given me; a love of books, an interest in music which spans all genres, limitless curiosity, the solid advice to "choose what is most fun" when faced with a difficult decision. My dad has never been like other dads and I am grateful for this in many ways.

During our phone call we talked about how appreciating the beauty of the snow on the ground---a sight I was grumpy about returning to---is the best way to live a life. Appreciating that damn snow allowed me to kiss my life. My mom had hoped to see one more snow and wasn't able to (though a fresh layer of powder came just a couple of days after she died; an unlikely sight for early November as if she brought it to us). So I know better than to take it for granted. (Though I do reserve the right to boo hoo again should I get cranky. And also, it’s much easier to kiss a life that brings the 60-degree weather that today is.)

I've been thinking about all of this so much lately. How this moment is my life. How who I am now is who I am, period. It doesn't mean there won't be growth and change, it just means that this version of me is not to be cast off as temporary. I look at pictures of my mom at my age---that person was who she was; those moments captured were her life. Sitting here at this table with my laptop is a snapshot of my life, just as a walk later today will be. As will my tears in between.

“I finally figured out that I had a choice: I could suffer a great deal, or not, or for a long time. Or I could have the combo platter: suffer, breathe, pray, play, cry, and try to help people.”---Anne Lamott from Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

I’m all up in that combo platter. Sorrow, anger, laughter, stillness, anguish, loathing, rage. It’s hard to fight to get back up knowing we will be knocked down again, so rather than fighting anymore I’m trying to wait myself out.

Maybe all things are occurring at just their right time. Maybe our trip to Miami was supposed to be in the weeks after my grandmother died rather than before so we could be there for my aunt rather than see my grandmother one last time. Maybe we needed to douse our cells with sunlight and our souls with energy so that we will have the strength for what’s to come.

Maybe it would have been too hard for my dad to have lived a long life after losing my mom.

Yesterday on my walk Ray Bolger’s version of “Once Upon a Time” came on and I cried right there on the sidewalk---grateful not just for the song’s beauty but more so for my dad who taught me to recognize it.

The fruits of the combo platter...

I cancelled today’s lesson too

I didn't want to chum the waters.

Yes, the shoulder is still bugging me. But more than that I had to call in “lady problems.” Just the typical once-a-month situation. Fuh real. This isn’t I-have-cramps-and-want-to-get-out-of-gym-class (an excuse I never used; yet still I managed to fail gym at one point). I was just like, nah, let’s not chance it. I’m sorry to disappoint---and, really, to have provided information that you just don’t need to know---but I gotsta be honest. A Band-Aid at the bottom of a public pool is one thing. A situation involving this is quite another.

Awkward lady talk aside, I also wanted to let you know that I am heading down to Miami tomorrow afternoon. We planned the trip about a month ago to have a visit with my Aunt Gail and also with the hopes of visiting my grandmother, who’s been growing sicker over the last year, one more time. Sadly, we didn't make it in time and she died last Thursday. A couple of my sisters and I were down there last March and she was still her vibrant self then, so I’m glad to to remember her that way. We’ve been going to visit Mavis (and my late grandfather, Poppi) down in Miami since before I could walk and my grandparents’ home has always been a special haven for my sisters and me. Gail took care of Mavis all year so we are looking forward to gathering and creating a little love pocket for her to rest in for a bit.

I bet you feel bad now for wanting to give me shit about skipping my swimming lesson. I hope to write---or at least show you video of wild parrots flying overhead---while I’m down there but we’ll see. The tribe is gathering and I may need to unplug. (And, yes, perhaps work on my swimming.) But I wicked love you all and have had much fun with you over the last couple of weeks. Off to pack---those bombs aren’t going to hide themselves. (I feel very ambivalent about posting that joke, even in my own home.)

We’re coming for you, G.Bird.

Fare thee well, my peeps.

Fare thee well, my Mavis.

March 2011

MELLOW, MAVIS "MAYBELLINE" 87, of Miami, FL passed away Thursday February 16, 2012 at 8:30am. Born in Mississippi, Mavis struck out early for adventure, landing first in Chicago before moving to Miami with her beloved husband, the late Jay "Poppi" Mellow. The two were forever honeymooners, dancing their way through 45 years of marriage, Lucy and Desi style. Mavis was the definition of hot ticket. With her red hair and impeccable style, she was the picture of glamour while her sweet Mississippi accent gave her a great southern warmth. She was beauty and she was love and she will be greatly missed. Mavis leaves behind daughter Gail Urban and grandson Bodhi, son Barry Mellow and granddaughters Tara, Becky, Katie, Cherie and Laura, five great-grandchildren, Molly, Ben, Savannah, Evangeline and Waverly as well as her loyal Basset, Beatrice. Graveside services will be held at Mt. Nebo Kendall Cemetery on Tuesday, February 21st at 11am. In lieu of floral bouquets, please contact Denise of Mt. Nebo at 305-274-0641 to contribute to a casket spray of Mavis' favorite flowers. View this Guest Book at www. MiamiHerald.com/obituaries.

I cancelled tomorrow’s lesson

That's really me.

It's not a stomach ache!  It’s the swimmer’s shoulder, I swear! After practicing yesterday morning (on my own! all by myself! without anyone telling me I had to be there!), I spent the rest of the day icing it and then went to bed with a heating pad (which is, by the way, delightful). I never know if it’s heat or cold that fixes all bodily woes so I opted for both. And still I woke up this morning feeling like I had pitched nine innings and totally wished I had one of those badass ice sleeves to make me feel like a real athlete. (Maybe I should buy one of those.) I think it was racing the water walkers that did it.  They're fast!  They didn’t know I was racing them and I’m sure I was very subtle about it except for the one time when I yelled, “Eat that, blue hairs!”

There was an older woman there yesterday---I know gyms are "judgement free zones" but go with me here---who was water walking a couple of lanes over from me and she was rocking a full face---a very thick, full face---of makeup.  Also, the hair was very high and layered and teased and stiff. She caught me staring---I was just so impressed with the control---and I tried to pull off the I’m-not-staring-I’m-smiling thing, but she wasn’t having any of it. So I splashed her. (Almost. I really almost did.)

That’s me not being judgy.

But in my defense,  I’m sure Ethel and Dottie were laughing it up at my expense last night at Meat Loaf Monday over at the senior center.

“Not only could she not make it the length of the pool,” said Ethel, bits of loaf flying out with each word, “but at one point her little booby came out and homegirl [Ethel calls me homegirl] does not have a rack to be proud of. My Stanley wouldn’t have looked twice at that little she/him.”

That Ethel is such an exaggerator.  Stanley loved my rack.  But there is truth in her tale.  I looked down after an especially vigorous lap yesterday (dog paddle) and, like the world’s smallest lobster buoy, there I was floating on the surface. This is why I’m a writer who hides inside all day. I really do make a fool of myself wherever I go. It’s not a complex. Sweats on backwards and then the jug slip---it’s only a matter of time before I get caught up in a pant leg during my post-shower speed changing and take the curtain with me as I fall ass-up in front of everyone. And I bet I’ll be wearing bad underwear that day. And that Ethel...she would really make shit out of me then.

But my shoulder---this is where I was going---it hurts! I’m sure I’m doing something wrong to be in this kind of pain. I called my instructor and left her a voicemail letting her know that I had to cancel tomorrow’s lesson.

”Hey Coach, it’s me. [She teaches several people but I said just ‘me’ ‘cause she’ll know.] Listen, the shoulder is really wailing today so I think it’s best if I give it a couple of days to rest before hitting Ol’ Blue. [That’s the pool...it’s swimmer talk...she’ll know.] I sure hope I’ll be ready for the big meet Saturday against East Valley. I know you said the scouts are going to be there looking to see if I have what it takes to swim at the college level and finally get out of this podunk town. Remember when you told me about the scouts coming? When we were in the shower that one time?”

That’s an exact transcript of the message I left her.

And she left me one back! And there was concern in her voice. Nobody sleeps when the star athlete is on the fritz. (“On the fritz” is definitely a phrase people use to describe injured athletes and not damaged appliances.) She wondered what was going on ("I wonder what's going on," she said, with what I'm pretty sure was restrained panic in her voice) and she agreed that we should postpone the lesson until Friday so I can take a couple of days to recuperate. I’ll probably do some soup-can-curls to get my strength back. Coach told me we could cancel Friday too if still hurts at the end of the week, so I’ll keep you posted. I’m pretty sure the town is putting together some kind of website so people can know how I’m doing...no big deal.

And I’m in good hands. Dan will be waiting on me hand and foot.

Maybe I should buy a bell.

I have a confession.

"I peed in the pool, Father."

I’m just going to come out with it. I started taking swimming lessons. It’s been over a month and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I mean, is this not why we gather here? To sort through the awkward minutiae of just this type of torture? But I only just decided this week that I am definitely not going to quit. Definitely not. And yet---maybe. Maybe I’ll still quit.

My reasons for engaging in this chlorinated hell span the emotional, physical and mental.

Emotional: My mom was the strongest most beautiful swimmer I ever knew and I want to feel her while I’m in that water.

Physical: I think I’m turning the arthritic corner (and am taking it verrrry slowly). I can’t explain it, but you’d think I just ended my NFL run for how banged up I feel. I figured I’d go low-impact for a while (as opposed to all the triathlons I’ve been up to). But, get this---I think I have swimmer’s shoulder. Or swimmer’s arm. Or swimmer’s wussiness. Whatever it is, I’m gonna put ice on it.

Mental: As we know, exercise helps me stay on the not-so-Black-Swan side of sanity.

These were all my hoped for results. It was supposed to go swimmingly (I’m sorry) and I’d be all---hip, hip, hooray, I found my sport! And it was supposed to be easy.

Not so. Not so!

I know if I had told you I was thinking of doing this, you would have warned me.

You would have said, “Lola, you know it’s the middle of winter, right?”

And I might have said, “Oh, yes, that’s true isn’t it?”

You might have said, “Are you sure you’re going to want to stuff your raw chicken skin into a bathing suit this time of year?”

And I would have said, “Well, you have a point there.”

And you most definitely would have given me a stern “No, Lola. No!” when I told you I scheduled these lessons for 6:30 in the morning.

Dan did not say these things. It’s kind of his fault in that way.

I can’t pinpoint what pisses me off more---setting my alarm for 5:50am or the skinny gym types (those toned-assed sprites!) who are working out at that hour. Did you know that even in this most mild winter, our cars still have frost on them at 6:30 in the morning? My lessons are on Wednesdays and the night before every one---every one---I am like a despondent kid whose parents are trying to discern why their child seems to get a stomach ache every Tuesday evening.

But I push on (because Dan refuses to let me quit since he’s kind of a smiley sadist) and get to the gym locker room for 6:20am. Oh, the naked. SO MUCH NAKED! As always, I am entirely uncomfortable with this and wish people would keep their nakedness to themselves and their dentists. I, of course, have everything on beneath my sweats (which sometimes look remarkably like pajama pants and maybe are). I rock board shorts and a tankini top for the lesson---a mid-winter’s stomach reveal? No suh.

The reason I opted for 6:30 lessons---the only reason---is because I figured nobody else would be there. But, guess what? That’s when the real swimmers show up. So there I am chugging along on my little kick board like a motorized bath tub duck while Greg Louganis is doing the fancy flippy tumbly thing off the wall in the next lane.

Now, I do know how to swim; the kick board is for length strengthening. The floaties? That’s a matter of safety. I’m actually a pretty strong swimmer despite the fact that I inexplicably started to avoid the ocean, pools and clogged tubs at some point in my teenage years. But if there is any sport I can say I’ve done since I was a kid, it’s swimming. Yet this is suuuuuch a stretch. I was a hack, a beach kid---not the goggles and swim cap type. More the you’re-lucky-if-you-get-suntan-lotion type. Saying that swimming was my sport as a kid is a little like saying I was the captain of the Tag Squad or that I was a born Hide and Go Seeker. Still, the fundamentals are there. Though, last week we did work on breathing and floating so apparently I’m not quite gold medal material just yet.

The first thing I have to do once I get there---it’s a gym rule---is rinse off in the poolside shower so that people don’t catch my grossness. The shower water is really hot so I tend to linger because going from the steamy shower to the tepid pool water is entirely unpleasant. They say they keep the pool between 82 and 84 degrees but I’m pretty sure they’re stupid lying liars. I was so reluctant to get in the water at my first lesson that the instructor asked me if I felt safe enough to go in alone.

My instructor---oh, she is so lovely. But sometimes I have to hate her because every time I see her it’s 6:30 in the morning and she’s in the same room as I am. She is nothing but supportive and patient and kind but the moment I first get into that pool I feel such an urge to grab her by the head and dunk her. Thankfully for both of us she stays outside of the pool and stands along the edge for our lessons. This is my favorite part because it makes me feel like an Olympian except she doesn’t have a a stop watch. Maybe I should buy her a stop watch. I like pretending I am a real athlete and she is my coach even though it is nothing like this whatsoever. I keep hoping she’ll do coachly things like lecture me about steroids or ask me to join her in the shower after practice.

We work mostly on my crawl stroke. I am apparently missing some technique. I strain my neck. My breathing is inconsistent. I point my hands down which causes my body to follow therefore making me strain my neck to take inconsistent breaths. Basically I swim like a dying whale with goggles. (Yep, goggles. Cuz I’m fuh real.) My instructor spends much of our lesson trying to figure out new ways to help me understand things she has already explained several times.

“Like you’re climbing a ladder,” she says, trying to reiterate how I should reach and then push through my stroke.

But in my head it’s all--- “I wonder if it would be weird if I said, ‘See ya, Coach,’ at the end of our lesson today.”

I also get to work with all the fun pool tools that I should be too embarrassed to use. In addition to the kick boards, we also work with those foam dumbbells that make me feel like The Rock and rubber flippers which make me feel like a newborn mermaid with cerebral palsy.

And then our half hour is up and I make my way through The Frigid Hall of Doom. This is the hallway which connects the giant, echoey pool area to the locker room. And it is cold. And when you are wet, it is glacial and could make you cry. And then your tears would freeze and weigh down your cheeks and you would look like Droopy. That’s exactly what The Frigid Hall of Doom is like. So it is absolutely necessary after The Frigid Hall of Doom to pop into the sauna. I’ve only ever been in the sauna alone and I pray it stays this way. I’m just not the “let’s take a steam,” type of gal and don’t even get me started on how I would react to a naked infiltration. I go in there because I think it’s supposed to open my pores or or increase my blood flow or just do something that benefits me while all I do is sit there. (This is my favorite type of self care.)

But then it gets ugly. Shower time. There’s no way around it. I am wet and I am cold and a shower is what the circumstance necessitates. Fortunately, we are dealing with a stall situation. It is entirely private and since there is a small changing area before the shower stall, there is a two-curtain barrier between me and any potential passing human. My walls are fortified. I wear flipflops---because my mama raised me right---and I even use their “Luxury Shampoo” which is also body wash, a concept that has always baffled me. I dry off in my private stall and dress in my private stall (because that’s where such things should be done!) as quickly as I can. Last week I was in such a rush to get dressed---lest I be naked for one second more than necessary---that I put my pants on backwards and walked out of the gym with my drawstrings swinging behind me. Lola “so cool it hurts” Mellowsky at your service.

Before I know it, I’m home with a well-earned latte in hand. And like the kid with the belly ache, I roll in to our apartment so enthusiastic and proud of myself for what I’ve done.

And Dan says, “See? Now that wasn’t so bad was it?”

And I say, “No! I was so brave!”

But today is Monday and tomorrow will be Tuesday. And I’m certain I feel a plague moving in.

Dear Mom

I miss you today. So much. I want to know what you’d think of Whitney Houston’s death. Would you have cared? I just want to have a superficial conversation like that. Are you going to watch Idol? Have you had lunch with any of your friends lately? Any run-ins with old classmates of mine at the grocery store? You know, the kind where someone tells you to say hello to me but you can’t for the life of you remember what his or her name was. I want to hear you laugh when I make fun of you for this.

I want to see you at the kitchen table having your coffee. I want to see you with your glasses low on your nose, flipping through cards and receipts stuffed into a too-small wallet. I want to see a purse strap over your shoulder and your uneven gait walking to your car. I want to see your socks scrunched down to your sneakers. I want to see your painted toenails in flip-flops. I want to watch you watch the river. I want to see you lick your finger before turning the pages of a gardening book. I want to see you jotting down notes. I want to see your notes, your handwriting--- “birthday card to Cherie”, “breakfast with Betty.” I want to see you chatting with Dan, the way you guys loved each other. I want you to chat with me, the way you loved me.

I want to tell you your eyes are beautiful. I want to tell you I love your smile. I want to hear you say, “My girl, my Laura.” I want to smell you. I want to see your hair wrapped in a towel after the shower. I want to watch you brush your hair in the bathroom mirror. I want to see you rinse foamy tooth paste down the drain. The way your hand cupped the water before splashing it around the rim. I would watch your hands all day. Then mascara, then lipstick---the way you put on lip stick, the hollowed curve in its middle and thinness at the tip.

I want to see you bend to pick up a sock and sit down to sew a button. I want to see you hose off the deck on a hot day. I want to see you close all the windows before a heavy rain.

I’m waiting for you to tell me the crocuses are popping, the tiny blooms of violets rising through heart-shaped leaves. Where will we do Easter this year? You never did like ham. Remember when you, Dan and I spent the whole day on the newspaper’s Easter word scramble? Wanna do that again this year?

I want to see you on the floor playing with your grandkids.

I dreamt of you the other night. Two nights in a row actually. One night we hugged. The next you asked me what I love so much about you. More than everything, Mom.

I miss you being of this earth. On this earth. I like thinking that you’re out there but I get so scared that you’re not. That you’re gone forever---your face underneath dirt and grass---and I will have to live an entire life without you.

I don’t know why today. Why today is a harder one. Usually it comes at night---it’s early today. I heard someone say that when you think of your lost loved one---when a little thing reminds me; graham crackers and milk---that it’s you putting the thought in my head. Your little,"Hello, my girl. My Laura."

When I cry, like now, I think of you watching me.

“I’m sorry you’ll have to miss me,” you told me once.

Are you standing by me now, sad that I am sad?

“You’ll feel me holding your hand,” you said.

I search my palm for you.