Pandemic Netflix

As we are rapidly approaching the two year marker of this never ending 

pandemic, two years of isolation, interruption, and fear, some in our family experienced a positive side effect during the pre-vaccination, stay-in-your-own-house phase: Pandemic Netflix.

All through this tense period of time, with the exception of one month when everything was closed down, my daughter continued in her job as shift supervisor at Starbucks. Armed with a face shield and double mask, Jenny had to confront customers who, through either defiance or confusion, did not comply with safety protocols. (You need a mask to enter the store! Once you have your order, you must leave!) It was a very stressful situation and although she felt relatively safe, she wasn’t going to take any chances by visiting us even though she lives just seven miles away. Both my husband and I are considered high risk (he had open heart surgery in the middle of this craziness) so Jenny stayed away for 14 months. We texted and talked often, but it was difficult to be physically apart for so long.

Our favorite shared activity pre-pandemic was watching movies and binging TV shows. She would come over to the house on her day off and we would scroll through Netflix or HBO or Amazon and choose something to watch or rewatch. “Arrested Development” again? OK. “Bad Moms” looks silly but Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn are in it. Let’s do it.  Jenny pulled me into true crime dramas, something I had no interest in previously. She grew to love the Meg Ryan movies of the 1990’s. During a trip to London a few years ago, after days spent wandering the city and exploring museums and historical sites, we spent evenings in our rental apartment engrossed in “Killing Eve.”

This mother-daughter shared passion did not always exist. She is now in her early 30’s and quite delightful, but Jenny’s teenage years were not a lot of fun. We had a particularly tumultuous year when she was a sophomore in high school; lots of door slamming, silent treatment (on both of our parts) and even a middle-of-the-night sneak out, complete with pillows lined up under the covers to simulate a sleeping body. But amidst the scowls and growls, rolled eyes and tension-filled drama, there was one little glimmer of light: Monday nights with “Gilmore Girls.” In the pre-bingeing era, this weekly TV series, which ran for seven seasons, is a comedy/drama that centers on the relationship between Lorelei, a single mother who becomes pregnant at the age of sixteen and her now teenage daughter, Rory. The show follows the day-to-day lives of the two main characters, as they tackle issues both large and small. It is quirky and funny and fast-paced. The banality of it all was soothing for us at the time.

Jenny and I drank it up.

We were cocooned for one peaceful hour per week, thanks to “Gilmore Girls.” For that one hour, she seemed just as eager to communicate with me as I was with her. Even though our conversation was limited to the episode at hand, it was enough at the time and we both knew not to bring up anything more impactful. Yes, I wished our relationship was smoother on a day-to-day basis and yes, I wished I knew how to fix it, but I was willing to take what was offered. For one hour a week Jenny and I sat in harmony, sometimes laughing, sometimes questioning the plot lines or characters’ motivations, sometimes yelling at the TV screen. 

We did it together. 

The years that followed were far more harmonious and less dramatic but we still looked forward to our Monday nights together. The series ended the year Jenny went off to college. 

This “Gilmore” experience set the groundwork for our TV watching enjoyment as adults. As well as choosing what to watch together, we became adept at warning each other off shows that we considered watching on our own. 

“Oh, but I love Ricky Gervais,” she said when I told her to stay away from “Afterlife.” “He’s really good and it’s very funny but it’s way too dark for you,” I told her.

“Dexter????” Jenny squealed. “Don’t do it, Mom. Just don’t.”

Then the pandemic hit and we had to figure some stuff out. Once we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn’t see each other in person for a while (like everyone else, we had no idea just how long that would be), we hopped on the Zoom bandwagon. After a few family chats, it hit me. We could binge watch with each other on video. We set our phones up beside us with the What’sApp video open, and pull the chosen show up on our laptop or TV.

“Are you ready, Jen? Press play!”

It wasn’t the same, but it was pretty good. We continued with our true crime dramas by watching two seasons of “Mindhunter.” Who knew tracking serial killers could be so entertaining? We loved the campy performance of a wigged and eyeliner-wearing John Travolta as Robert Shapiro in “The People vs. O.J. Simpson.” I enjoyed offering up my color commentary on the events of the trial as I remembered them in the early 1990s.

We simultaneously paused as we took bathroom breaks or needed a drinks refill.

Another favorite was “Dead to Me.”  We stayed up late at night binging many episodes of this series’ two seasons, alternating between howling with laughter and gasping in surprise. “Is James Marsden too old for me?” Jenny deadpanned. “Absolutely not,” I reassured her. “We’ll work on that post-Pandemic.”

This weekly ritual helped to keep us in contact and updated on what was happening in each other’s lives. We would sometimes have to rewind when one of us went off topic, such as Jenny telling me her Zoom Trivia team could have used me last week when one of the categories was 1970s music and some band called Chicago was a topic. “Couldn’t you phone a friend?” I asked. Blank stare. We laughed and complained and gossipped. These evenings helped make the pandemic bearable for both of us.

Fully vaccinated, Jenny came to our house for the first time in 14 months mid-July 2021. After many hugs and multiple servings of BBQ salmon, we headed to the sofa to continue our re-watch of “Schitt’s Creek.” As I handed her a glass of chardonnay, Jenny looked at me and said, “Watching this way is better.”

I couldn’t agree more. 

Visiting Ulli

 Visiting Ulli 

I boarded the train at the Santa Lucia station in Venice and headed north, towards the city of Trieste, to visit Ulli. We met a few years ago in an on-line forum on Italy and, in particular, the Italian language. She was learning English; I was studying Italian. We wrote long emails to each other in the languages we were learning; she would correct my Italian, and I her English. Through these communications, we shared our love of art and architecture, good books, and tagliatelle with wild boar sauce. Ulli was just as interested in the U.S. as I was in Italy, and traced her curiosity and enthusiasm to recent European cruises where she befriended “chatty” Americans. I told her how I was hooked on Italian culture and language during my first trip to Tuscany years ago, and because of my own Italian heritage through my maternal grandparents.

I had been traveling to different parts of Italy annually for a few years and when Ulli learned I was headed to Venice, she urged me to take the two hour train ride to visit her in Trieste. 

“Let me get this straight,” my daughter stared at me, wide-eyed. “You’re getting on a train alone and traveling to a city you don’t know to meet some stranger you met on the internet. If I told you I was doing that, you would kill me.”

It was hard to disagree with her.

As promised, Ulli was waiting for me at theTrieste train platform, smartly dressed in a slim skirt and blouse, black pumps and stockings. I felt extremely American in my comfy Ugg boots, jeans, and t-shirt. After a warm embrace, she declared, “We’ve lots to do in a short amount of time!” She marched me out of the station and into central Trieste. As we walked, I conveyed to Ulli what my daughter said about this visit; she threw her head back and laughed. 

In that moment, I felt like I had known her forever.

Because Ulli’s English was so much better than my Italian, she pointed out the highlights of Trieste in her excellent English: the beautiful, shining Adriatic Sea, sweeping public piazze, the rather stark architecture which seemed, to me, so different from the flourishes of the Baroque and Rococo buildings and churches that I knew from Venice and Rome.

            She challenged me to order for us when we arrived for lunch at Trieste’s well known cafe, Buffet da Pepi. I consider restaurant Italian to be my specialty so I was happy to oblige. We dined on prosciutto, mozzarella, and melon, along with the obligatory prosecco. Despite the chilly October weather, we enjoyed our lunch outside at the sidewalk cafe where the people watching of the passers-by added to our enjoyment of the day.

            Afterwards, we sat on a bench overlooking the lovely Adriatic, discussing the details of our lives: our families, our passions, our plans. “There’s one more place I want you to see,” Ulli told me. We hopped into her little Fiat and drove south along the coast to visit the grounds of Castle Miramare.

      

            The castle itself is stunning in both its location, overlooking the Bay of Trieste, and its bright white exterior. We didn’t have time to go inside but were able to enjoy the extensive gardens, filled with exotic plants and flowers. Relatively new for Italy, Miramare was built in the mid-19th century by Archduke Ferdinand of Austria for his wife as a summer home. Ulli claimed the castle is haunted by the Archduke’s wife, Charlotte, who roams the rooms at night.

             After enjoying a gelato on the terrace (stracciatella for me; limone for her) we drove back into Trieste and Ulli dropped me off at the train station for my return trip to Venice. Trieste had not been on my radar for places I need to visit; I was so glad Ulli changed that for me, and I promised to return when I could.

            About four years after my visit to Trieste, I was able to return the favor when Ulli came to Boston. I met her at the MBTA stop in front of the Museum of Fine Arts. This time, we were both in t-shirts and jeans. “I wore my most American outfit!” Ulli exclaimed as we exchanged so-good-to-see-you hugs. I took her right away to the new American wing; she is a huge John Singer Sargent fan and I wanted her to see the MFA’s extensive collection. As she oohed and ahhed her way through the gallery, she told me that Sargent had been born in Florence. I had no idea. Even when visiting the U.S., Ulli is full of information. She’s visited places I have not (the Pacific Northwest and the Grand Canyon, to name a few) and her English continues to improve while my Italian falters.

            After admiring the towering Chihuly sculpture on the museum’s first floor, we headed over to Newbury Street for lunch, then to the Boston Public Library, built at about the same time as Trieste’s Castle Miramare. We browsed the art collections and the murals lining the grand staircase, and ended our visit with cappuccino in the sunny courtyard.

            “When can we do this again?” we asked each other as I walked her to the T stop for her return to her AirBnB apartment in South Boston.

             Sometime soon, I hope, Ulli. 

My Extremely Privileged Pandemic Point of View

     I have a home. I have food. I have toilet paper. A new season of "The Medici" is out on Netflix. I'm good.

     If I'm washing my hands every 5 minutes for 20 seconds, then it only makes sense to shake my martini for 20 seconds.

     Dressing every day is a no brainer. I have 5 Gap t-shirts. All black, all long sleeve, all the flattering v-neck style. I rotate through them during the week, then start over. It will be an exciting day when I switch to my 5 Gap t-shirts with short sleeves.

     I miss my going-out-to-dinner/meeting-friends-for-cocktails/going-to-the-movies clothes. The ones that require the "gentle" cycle, or dry cleaning. The ones that actually require putting some thought into an "outfit." With shoes.

     I am a guilt tipper. I am normally a good tipper, but I am embarrassed by my privilege, and SO appreciate the delivery folks who bring me my groceries and take out dinners and Tito's vodka that I way over tip to assuage my guilt. Actually, I don't think one CAN over tip during a pandemic.

     I haven't even looked at my make up bag for 2 months. I can't decide if this is a good thing or if I'm just being lazy. A little eyeliner and concealer would probably cheer me up on bad days.

     I am lucky that I have one of my kids living with me. I miss the other two like crazy. One is across the ocean and another is just a few miles away. The distance doesn't matter. Zoom doesn't really cut it.

     However, the cat videos have to stop. I am not a cat person, my husband is very allergic, yet still the videos continue from these same 2 kids that I miss so much. I don't need to see another cat in a blanket or a cat batting a bottle cap around on the floor or a cat stretching on a windowsill.

     Some days, the anxiety of living with someone who is considered high risk can be intense. Our history of rushing to the ER over the past few years adds to this anxiety. Some days, meditation and deep breathing helps. Some days, long walks (wearing a mask) help. Some days, nothing helps.

     I am surprised that my screaming gray roots are not bothering me. Instead, I am focusing on all the money I am saving while staying away from the salon. Then guilt sets in again and I feel bad for my sweet hair salon.

     I have learned to limit my news watching/listening. My media access day revolves around MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace at 4PM. TV news goes off right after she signs off. It's helping to save my sanity.

     I am annoyed at social media postings of cooked meals and baked goods, then find myself proudly doing the same with my Almond Anise Biscotti and Vegetarian Chili. Next up: Gnocchi with Tomatoes and Olives.

     I have been writing more letters and sending more cards. Before this pandemic, I can't remember the last time I actually wrote a letter on stationery, instead of inan email or text. My handwriting is improving. Maybe this will continue.

     I am mightily impressed by and grateful for the creativity of all of the artists out there and been been lucky to attend virtual concerts, like Keb' Mo'; author readings through local bookstores and writing centers; and art shows shared on artists' websites.

     The health care workers and first responders. I can't even. No words. I remind myself of them when I start to complain about putting on a mask to walk down the street to the mailbox. Then I shut the fuck up.

Semi Colon

Fall 2018

There are days, sometimes weeks, when you don’t even think about it. Then, one morning,
in front of the full-length bathroom mirror, you face the glaring reminders. Three scars:

First one: Portacatheter, just below the right collarbone, which was used to administer the two
rounds of chemotherapy.

Second one: Colon surgery, J-shaped and six inches long,  from stomach to abdomen.

Third one: Liver surgery, three inches long and straight through the navel.

Winter 2007

They say the worst part of a colonoscopy is the prep, when you are virtually tethered to your
bathroom, so your colon clears out for optimum viewing.

It’s not the worst part.

The worst part is when you wake up to a sea of white coats at the foot of the hospital bed telling
you that the polyp in your colon was so large, the scope couldn’t fit around it and you are being
wheeled down immediately for an emergency CT scan.

The worst part is when 2 days later you learn the diagnosis is Stage 4 colon cancer. The cancer
has spread to the liver.

The worst part is when you realize there is no Stage 5 colon cancer.

You know you have a good match in your oncologist when he compliments your boots and your
silver hoop earrings, and actually makes you laugh while you can still taste the panic in the back
of your throat. He warns you and your family to stay off the internet. Don’t research this because
it will scare the shit out of you, he says. You’re young and we’re going to hit this hard.

You feel a bit better when there is a plan: colon surgery, twelve weeks of chemotherapy. Liver
surgery, twelve weeks of chemotherapy.

You realize this plan is your 2007.

All 12 months.

Late Winter 2007

During your week long stay in the gastrointestinal surgical wing, you realize you are one of the
few female patients, and definitely the youngest by at least twenty five years.

The parade of interns and residents that invade your space daily claim they love your room
because it is full of gorgeous flowers and an array of lavender moisturizers. That’s how you know
you’re winning the hospital room competition.

You know, the one you just invented to keep your sanity and avoid thinking too much.

Spring 2007

Chemotherapy every other week for twelve weeks. Three hour sessions.

You quickly conclude that if the nurse in the infusion room cannot access your portacatheter by
inserting a needle just above your collarbone on the first try, you need to demand another nurse.
You’re more than willing to be considered a bitch for doing so. Actually, you kinda revel in it.

About half way through your treatments, a fellow chemo patient leans over in his chair and says,
“What are you doing here? You don’t look sick.” You stare at him for a few seconds, then reply,
“I’m not. I’m just here for the drugs and the chocolate cookies.” You grab your infusion pole and
move to a chair across the room.

You realize that some cancer patients can be real assholes but in this case you’re not sure if it’s
him or it’s you.

You celebrate your 50th birthday on one of your “off” chemotherapy weeks with a braised short
rib ravioli dinner in the North End.

Maya Angelou comes to Boston during one of your “on” chemotherapy weeks. You’re exhausted
and frustrated and scared of everything but drag your chemo ass to the Opera House because,
well, it’s Maya Angelou. You listen to that mesmerizing voice reading her poetry and weep while
sitting in your chair.

Your “New Yorker” subscription expires. You wonder if you should renew it for the year or wait.

Your MFA membership expires. You wonder if you should renew it for the year or wait.

You decide to wait.

Summer 2007

You receive the good news that, after the first surgery and round of chemo, there is no visible
sign of cancer in your colon and the two tumors on the liver have shrunk. Continued aggression
is still strongly recommended.

Your liver surgery is scheduled for August.

Your surgeon removes one third of your liver.

2007 is more than half over.

Fall 2007

Round two of chemotherapy begins.

You receive gifts of blue colored pins and beaded bracelets that are supposed to be offers of
support for colon cancer patients. They are not. They piss you off in their banality. Seriously
people: don’t buy the cancer merch. They’re annoying and ugly.

You make a list of movies that you’ve never seen but feel an urgent need to, and rent stacks of
DVDs. Anything with Alan Rickman rises to the top of the list.

You give yourself permission to stop reading a book if you don’t love it.

You develop neuropathy in your fingers, toes and throat. You can’t drink anything too hor or too
cold because if you do it feels like daggers running up and down your throat. You keep gloves
next to the refrigerator to protect from the cold. You wear thick woolen socks under your Uggs
and hope this goes away before winter.

On your last day of chemo, you arrive at your car to find it festooned with balloons, and chalk on
the windows declaring “Congratulations!” and “Fuck Cancer!” You know which friends decorated
it, even though none of them would admit doing so.

Late Fall 2007

Your CT scan shows No Visible Sign of Disease. Your oncologist hugs you with joy and sets up
another scan in three months.

You have a recurring nightmare that everyone is lying to you: your doctors, your husband, your
children. None of the treatment worked; you’re still really sick but they decided not to tell you.
You keep this nightmare to yourself.

Fall 2018

You learn that the median life expectancy for Stage 4 colon cancer is 2.5 years.

You’re relieved you stayed off the internet and didn’t know this statistic in 2007.

You now have CT scans annually. Your oncologist tells you the odds of getting cancer are now
no more than anyone else.

You realize a lot of life is just plain luck. You’ve lost three friends, all close to you in age, to
cancer.  Why them and not you? You CAN be a nice person but often times you are anything but
Why NOT you? Luck.

You still have days when you feel something really bad is bound to happen. There’s a cloud over
your head.

No one with all of your faults can be this lucky, to live this life.

So: You meditate. You practice yoga. You write. You take long walks. You scarf down
family-sized bags of Lays.

It all helps.

Most days.

The Waiting Room

I arrived well-stocked: water, Kind nut and protein bars, notebook, pens, cell phone charger, laptop, Kindle. I settled into a chair in the corner, a bit out of the way, and opened up the People magazine I bought in the gift shop as a further distraction, determined to block the image of Steve being wheeled into the operating room out of my mind. Not much luck there.

What had begun seven years ago as a once a year or so event had become, over the past year, monthly occurrences which resulted in visits to the Emergency Room. Steve’s heart would go into A-Fib, causing it to beat wildly, quickly and irregularly. This first started happening when he was riding his bike on one of his routine twenty-five mile or more routes over the hills and back roads further north and west of our house.

He called me while sitting on the side of the road, bicycle resting on the pavement, to let me know he had just summoned an ambulance and they were taking him to the hospital. He felt faint and his heart was beating out of his chest. After administering a beta blocker and determining he was not having a heart attack, the Emergency Room cardiologist monitored Steve closely and we watched as his heart returned to a normal rhythm on its own, over a period of eight hours. “Often we have to shock the heart to get it back into rhythm,” the doctor told us. When Steve was released the next day, after being kept overnight as a precaution, he was reassured that this was probably a once only occurrence, and he needed to be sure to stay hydrated on bike rides. A follow up visit to a recommended cardiologist confirmed this.

But then it happened again the following year. And the year after that. And annually for a few years, often unrelated to his bike rides or any other strenuous activity. His heart recovered on its own but he was always uncomfortable enough that we headed to the Emergency Room every time.

This past year, the incidents escalated. Steve’s heart was going into A-Fib monthly, and I would race home from the gym or Italian class or wherever I was to take him to the ER or, in one particularly scary incident, call an ambulance.

Steve is one of the healthiest people I know. He hasn’t eaten meat in fifteen years. He pays close attention to his diet, ensuring he gets enough leafy greens and lycopene, not too much dairy. He considers a handful of walnuts to be an adequate snack. Two glasses of wine is a lot for him. He was biking regularly, even participating in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute’s Pan Mass Challenge. “I could have ridden further,” he declared at the end of the 84 mile ride.

This A-Fib stuff was confounding. It was easy to understand why the 300 pound guy in the cardiologist’s office had heart issues, but Steve? This made no sense.

“So, is this just going to be what happens now?” I asked him. “Do I have to make sure my hair is done and I have mascara on just in case we have to run to the Emergency Room?” “Maybe,” he said.

We wondered if this was, for him, part of the aging process. He turned sixty-five this summer. Was having a heart that we were told was healthy, but beat irregularly and quickly sometimes, part of Steve’s old man issues, like having difficulty sleeping or thinning hair or being grumpy?

And now, I sit in Beth Israel’s Cardiac Surgery Waiting Room. After consultation with a surgeon, we decide to go ahead with an ablation, a procedure that will shake up the nerves in the heart, and, hopefully, stop the A-Fib episodes.  It’s not open heart surgery since they are using catheters, but still. Shaking up one’s heart is serious stuff.

I try to concentrate and read. I pull out my notebook and jot a few sentences, then cross them out because they are stupid and trite, tearing the page with my fervent strokes. The clock on the pale blue wall next to me counts down the minutes loudly and slowly and the glare from the overhead lights hurts my eyes. I glance up every time a doctor comes in to update others who wait alongside me and overhear phrases. “He’s in recovery.” “Everything went well.” “You can see him shortly.” A short, blond woman about my age, along with what appeared to be two daughters, is lead into a small, private room off the waiting room. That can’t be good. I go for a walk to avoid seeing the trio when they emerge. I pace up and down Longwood Avenue, not noticing the heat and humidity on this early July day, wishing I could have a cocktail and maybe a smoke.

My phone buzzes. It’s the surgeon. “Hi Cheryl, he’s fine and in recovery. The procedure went very well. We’ll come out to get you soon.”

So, now we wait and see. There’s no test to determine if the ablation eradicated the A-Fib. If he doesn’t have another incident, things look good.

We had to adjust some plans for the remainder of the summer: Cancel the Sting and Peter Gabriel concert, and the one with Hall and Oates. Change Steve’s 65th birthday celebration from a gathering in Boston’s Seaport District for dinner, to a quiet family barbecue.  Postpone dinner invitations from friends because he grew tired more easily post-surgery, and was more comfortable being at home.

Six months later, the effects of last summer are still profound, but fading. We’re back in the swing of concerts and theater. He’s almost finished with the last large project of the house renovation, installing wooden slats, which he is individually painting, to cover the storage area underneath the kitchen addition. We walk to the center of town for dinner. He’s even back on the bike occasionally. Cautious optimism is our mantra.

“Can we plan that trip to Spain now?” I ask the other day.  He pauses. “Um, let’s wait a bit.” If I don’t hear from him for a few hours during the day, I trudge up to his third floor office and peer in. “Just making sure you’re still alive,” I tell him. “So far, so good,” he says, not even glancing up from his desk. We both walk a line between caution and the desire to return to what was our normalcy.

For now, and maybe for just a little bit longer. we are both in the waiting room.

Senior Citizen Discount

When my husband Steve turned sixty, a milestone age which makes many of us who are younger than that squirm, he was no fun. The teasing and old age jokes did not bother him one bit. He shrugged off all references to creaky joints, ignored admonishments that he should stop climbing ladders “because you could fall and break a hip!” and refused the offer to have dinner at 5 o’clock. “I think it’s the law once you turn sixty,” I told him. No reaction. When our daughter started calling him “Gramps,” he found it amusing.  “Well, I feel like a Gramps,” he reasoned. “Nothing wrong with that.”

He did not want a big birthday bash, despite my frequent pleadings. Instead, we rented a house on the Cape for the week, with family and friends wandering in and out, and he happily ate mussels and steamers with our kids and biked the fifty two miles to Provincetown and back. “Turning sixty is way better than the alternative,” he told anyone who would listen.

His real joy kicked in a couple of years later when he discovered the Senior Citizen discount.  “Seniors over 62 get a discount on Amtrak tickets,” he bellowed from the other room. “This is fantastic!”

“So, now you’re calling yourself a senior citizen?” I was horrified.

“You’re just jealous you’re not as old as me. And did you know I can get discounts at Applebee’s and The Olive Garden?”

“Have fun with that.”

“It also looks like I can get a free coffee at Dunkin Donuts. I’ll find out which day,” the Senior Citizen coffee snob informed me. “I can learn to like Dunkin one day a week.”

To celebrate Steve’s next milestone birthday, sixty-five, we took a 12-day road trip through the states of Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. We mapped out a route to include stops along the “Blues Trail,” which featured juke joints now run down and shuttered that were alive and hopping decades ago. We stopped by the birthplaces of musicians like Buddy Guy and B.B. King, and lots of others I had never heard of but Steve was an expert on. Most of these spots were noted by markers on the side of southern, dusty back roads, and took some searching to find.

We also visited historical and musical museums that had admission fees. That’s when Senior Citizen Steve stepped in. We went to so many places in such a compressed period of time that the request for a discount was, to me, constant and loud.

“Do you have Senior discounts?” He asked the clerk at The Johnny Cash Museum.

“Yes, sir, 62 and older.

Steve beamed as he saved his two dollars.

It was the same at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, and Sun Studio and Graceland in Memphis and various sites throughout the Mississippi River Delta.

“One senior and one adult ticket, please.” I heard it over and over again as I sighed and rolled my eyes.

On our last day in Memphis, we walked to the south side of town to visit The Civil Rights Museum, set in The Lorraine Motel, site of Martin Luther King’s assassination. As we crossed the parking lot, we stopped to gaze up at the balcony where Dr. King was shot. It was a somber moment in what had otherwise been an exuberant road trip. It happened to be Easter weekend, and church choirs gathered to sing and commemorate. Steve reminded me that Dr. King was 39 years old when he was killed.  Deep breaths.

As we went through the front doors of the museum and approached the ticket counter, Steve nudged me and pointed to the Admission Prices posted on the wall.

Adults: $15.00

Senior Citizens (55 and older): $14.00

I gulped. “That’s me,” I whispered.

“Go ahead,” he smiled, a little too broadly.

I walked ahead of him up to the ticket counter.

“Two senior citizen tickets. And, please, please ask for my ID.”

Moving a Lifetime

We found it on a dreary, icy February Sunday. Close to the city we loved and wanted to frequent more, it was an ugly, dirty brown stucco house, listing to the left, with sad dandelions and other unidentifiable weeds disguised as a front lawn.

We wanted it the minute we stepped out of the car.

Taking an estimated five months to make the new-to-us house habitable gave us time to sort through twenty years of stuff in our current house. Stuff that was shoved into the attic, basement, kids’ closets, under beds.

We assumed our clean out tasks would be a breeze. A cinch. A snap.

Older son’s closet belched out dozens of boxes of baseball cards, little league awards, and speech and debate trophies, along with stacks of high school math and political science notebooks. “I don’t want anything,” he claimed. “Throw it all out.” I made judgment calls, donated or threw out a bunch of stuff and boxed up items that I deemed important.

Our daughter deigned to travel to the suburbs one more time to peruse her childhood belongings. She packed up some letters, books, old CDs. We reminisced about summer camp and quizzed each other with “Gilmore Girls” quotes. “What do we do with the Beanie Babies?” she asked, pulling out green garbage bags filled with the stuffed animals. She chose two to take with her, and tossed the rest.

Younger son, the one still living at home when not at school, was not a tosser. He wanted to keep everything. Everything. The Thomas the Tank Engine trains and tracks. The Legos. Pokeman cards. I relented: “Pack everything up. We’ll shove it into the new basement.”

Many carloads of filled-to-the-brim moving boxes later, with a new basement fuller than anticipated, we trekked to our newly renovated home, excited for this next phase to begin.



Previously published in Silver Birch Press