I had a conversation with the current owner this past weekend when I got to see the inside of the house on Little Street in Streator that my parents owned from 1963-1979. We were piecing together the history of the house. I mentioned that when my parents saw the house for the first time, the husband of the couple who owned it was in a hospital bed in what would become our breakfast room. The current owner snapped to attention and asked if that man died in the house. I told him no, but that the previous owner had. According to my research, he had a stroke and was in a coma for ten weeks before passing away in the home.
The current owner said, “We think the house is haunted.” He told a story of viewing the house prior to buying it. He sat down on a bed and the lights went off. He stood up and they went on again. He sat down. The lights went off. He stood up and they went back on. I asked which bedroom he was in at the time. It was the bedroom that I shared with my sister. One night when we lived there, the doors covering the compartments of a built-in in the closet started banging even though they were latched tight. The current owner’s wife said she was in the closet once and one of those doors dropped open hitting her on the head.
She said that when she is cooking, she often feels like someone is standing behind her. I laughed and said, “That could be my dad. He always thought he could cook better than most people.” Her husband told another story. They had a wooden clock on the wall in the kitchen. One morning they came downstairs and found that the clock had been wedged behind the oven door handle. He said it was such a tight fit that it took all his strength to wrestle it free.
I was texting a friend after the visit to the house and telling her the ghost stories. She said her brother-in-law also lives in a haunted house in Streator. She said that he has seen two young children, a boy and a girl, who are wearing old fashioned clothes. She’s in a gingham dress and he’s wearing knickers. One time he was sitting in his chair reading and the radio on the table next to him came on full blast. It’s the kind that you have to turn the knob. One of his sons was coming down the stairs one time and a thick piece of blue glass hit him in the back. There’s no source of blue glass upstairs. More recently he said he woke up and there was a woman in his bedroom. And he said she wasn’t even good looking! Also there is a noose in the basement. It wasn’t there before and it is made of new rope that he didn’t own. His neighbor told him that when the house was vacant, before he and his wife bought it, they would sometimes see lights going off and on at night.
I read a recent article—no doubt timed to coincide with Halloween—written by a scientist who said there is no hard evidence that ghosts exist. I wanted to write back to the author and ask if it’s possible that no instruments exist yet that can record the evidence. I’m a naturally skeptical person and tend to discount things that an individual sees when no one else is around, but I’m not sure what I think when the evidence is collaborative. I also think that physical evidence like the wedged clock, the blue glass and the noose are hard to dismiss.
People believe in things they can’t see or measure—God, angels—why not ghosts? I don’t necessarily buy-in to the myth of ghosts being tortured souls who are dead but trapped in the world, but I think we are naive to think that our current map of reality is the Truth. I welcome visits from my departed family members and would find comfort knowing they were near. Strangers and trickster ghosts, not so much!
I’m hoping for treats this Halloween night and no visits from ghosts unless they are neighbor kids donning a sheet and braving our first snowfall of the season. I’m confident that there will be evidence of footprints.
We were early. We ate up time putting gas in the car and leisurely driving around town, one more loop around Main Street. We parked a block away and waited. At 10:58 we pulled in front of the Little Street house where I’d finally get to go in to see how the house had changed since my parents sold it in 1979. I heard that the doctor and his wife who bought it then had done extensive restoration to the house built in 1905. I was excited and grateful that the current owners were welcoming our visit.
My parents were the fourth owners of the house when they bought it in 1963. They bought the old Victorian that backed up to the river bottoms from an elderly woman and her ailing husband. The old couple had divided the house into two apartments during World War II. It was a single family home again in 1963, but it needed a lot of work.
My parents did most of the work themselves. They left me most evenings to do the dinner dishes, bathe my younger siblings and get them to bed while they went over to the house to clean, paint and wallpaper. They had sculpted gold carpet installed over the hardwood floors and my mom went crazy with flocked wallpaper in the foyer, parlor and dining room. She painted white the dark oak door frames and ceiling molding upstairs. They gutted the kitchen and installed new maple cabinets and copper-colored appliances. The former apartment kitchen upstairs became a full bath. The house felt grand and huge compared to the tiny ranch house we were leaving. My parents lived in that house for 15 years before downsizing to an apartment and then retiring in Arizona.
The current owners, a husband and wife who are retired dentists, welcomed us into the house at 11. I was eager to see if they or the previous owners had erased all my mom’s Sixties-style decorating. I hoped for gleaming hardwood floors, sedate wall colors and refinished wood trim.
The radiators were gone. The original dark green subway tile on the fireplace in the parlor had been replaced with mottled gold tiles in a brick weave pattern. The tile on the dining room fireplace had been sponge painted in shades of light blue. The grout lines were painted dark blue. The floors in the foyer, parlor and dining room were covered in different colors of carpet. The current owners had renovated the kitchen for the second time since my parent’s attempt. Beautiful cabinets, a granite-topped island and an industrial stove filled the room. The kitchen was tiled in dark blue floor tile that led to our old breakfast room now tiled in white tile. The half bath with its little corner sink off the breakfast room remained unchanged. Two large additions expanded the back of the house: a long tiled family room overlooking the woods and a carpeted exercise room with an indoor hot tub. The current owners said they mostly live in the kitchen and family room, both modern and very inviting rooms.
The trim that my mom painted white upstairs had been replaced with narrower brown wood. Two of the bedrooms were carpeted in different colors. The hardwood floors had been beautifully refinished in the third bedroom and sun porch, which was once my parent’s bedroom. There was pink and white wallpaper in that bedroom now with a border printed with tiny hearts—leftovers from when the room belonged to two little girls. The large bathroom that was once the apartment kitchen was reduced by five feet to make a hallway leading to an attic man cave. All the rooms seemed so much smaller than I remembered.
The current owners are in the process of building a house on a lake in Indiana and are slowly moving things in that direction. They apologized repeatedly for the boxes and clutter stored in the basically unused front rooms. I looked past all that and was grateful for the chance to see the house. There were a lot of changes to register and I wasn’t sure how I felt.
I’d hoped to see the old house restored like an episode on HGTV. What I saw was the evolution of a house based on decorating trends over 45 years and the personal preferences of two owners since my parents.
I was flooded with memories in the 48 hours that I spent in my hometown. What became clear as we drove back to Wisconsin yesterday was that so much has changed—people, the town, the houses I lived in. Thomas Wolfe says at the conclusion of his famous novel You Can’t Go Home Again: “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”
You can’t return to what was before—we aren’t meant to live in the past—but you can visit familiar places with an appreciation for how they shaped your life. I will always be a small-town girl.
On an average day you could shoot a cannon down our Main Street and not hit anyone. Parking spots are readily available. We were surprised yesterday to find the downtown area overrun by ghosts and goblins toting trick-or-treat bags. Local merchants were handing out treats and the downtown was as busy as an old time Saturday when the farmers came to town to shop.
We eventually found a parking spot and went to the Good Morning Good Day cafe run by the proprietor of our VRBO. The restaurant serves Slovak/Croatian food. The decor made me feel like I had just slipped into a cozy Eastern European Cafe. We heard that their crepes were amazing, but opted for protein to start the day. Our server, who was dressed like a witch, took my husband’s order for a chorizo strudel and my order of eggs over grits—not exactly Slovak fare—but an interesting step up from a typical American breakfast. Both were served with a side yogurt and fruit parfait. It was delicious!
Our proprietor came to the table and we talked about the recent rejuvenation of the downtown area. She shared news about all the women-owned businesses along Main Street and the innovative high school program that encourages female entrepreneurship. Her attitude was so positive and hopeful that I could feel the new energy for my hometown.
Breakfast was filling. We would need it for our next task. Every time I visit home, I go to the cemetery to tend my sister’s grave. Occasionally, I wander around unsuccessfully, trying to find the graves of the six generations of my family who are buried there. I came prepared this time with a map of the cemetery sections and the section location of each ancestor. A helpful local florist provided the map and locations. We also brought along a bucketful of gardening tools to clean around the tombstones, if needed. The task wasn’t as straightforward as I hoped. There’s no apparent rhyme or reason to how each section is laid out, nor are the sections or rows marked. The gravel road winds through the cemetery following the contours of the land. Several times we weren’t sure if we were in the right sections. Grave plots are also subject to the typography. My husband and I logged over 3 miles yesterday as we walked up and down each section looking for specific graves. At one point, we were stumped. We walked a section looking for my great grandparents—my paternal grandmother’s parents. I was ready to give up when a pickup truck pulled alongside my car. I immediately recognized the driver and his wife and knew how they got there. My brother, who lives in Arizona, stalked me on Find My Friends and sent his childhood friend and his wife to say hello. They helped. It was great to see them and even better when his wife found the grave we were looking for. I now having pictures of the tombstones of all of my grandparents, great grandparents, my uncle, sister and her daughter. I noted the locations on the map that I have and took a photo of a nearby landmark to orient the location of each grave. The photos will go in my genealogy records.
I finished the task visiting my sister’s grave last. It was the first time I didn’t cry visiting her grave. For one, I was tired from the trek, but I also had a realization of the randomness of life, the inevitability of death and the stories that connect us all. When I got back in the car I found a text from the current owner of “The Little Street House”— the old Victorian that holds a special place in my history here. Their plans changed. They are in town and she hoped we would be able to come by the house this morning before leaving for Wisconsin. Suddenly, I wasn’t tired anymore! I suggested to my husband that we drop into a local tavern for a drink and an appetizer to celebrate a productive day.
The finale of our day was the celebration of my uncle’s 90th birthday at Mona’s in Toluca—another landmark from my childhood. My husband and I set out a little early so I could stop at the IGA in Toluca with our cooler to buy several boxes of the frozen meat sauce that is produced by Mona’s for commercial and limited distribution. Twenty one people gathered for my uncle’s party: his wife, their sons, grandkids, great grandchildren and significant others. He and his wife are moving into assisted living next week. He brought a box of old photos for me to look at that they had unearthed in preparation for the move—some early photos of my mom who was his sister. I hadn’t seen some of his family in decades. It was a great celebration and we were happy to be included.
I’m finishing my morning coffee now and getting ready to pack up before we stop at the Little Street house and then head home. I’ve managed to accomplish a lot in 48 hours.
Our sons and my brother have been texting frequently over the trip. I sent pictures and kept them up on our travels. I love that they share the interest in the place that I will always consider home.
While most of my peers played with dolls, I was content to fiddle with my metal doll house. I didn’t even care if I had dolls to place in there. I was fascinated with making and remaking the spaces with furniture and improvised decorations. I taped homemade drapes to the windows and fashioned throw rugs out of fabric scraps from my grandmother’s sewing basket. Is it any wonder, then, that the focus of my pilgrimage back to my hometown would focus first on buildings?
My husband and I left Wisconsin around 9 yesterday morning and after an unexpected detour on Route 23 on a gravel road that left our car filthy, we crossed the line into LaSalle County (ta-da!) and on into Streator Illinois, my hometown. Our first stop was a local tavern serving iconic pork tenderloin sandwiches. After a quick lunch we went to the Streatorland Museum, which is a trove of donated memorabilia depicting key characteristics of my small town. We wandered there for almost an hour as I called my husband’s attention to objects that reflected my history—coal mines, glass, the planet Pluto! (Do not denounce that discovery by a local boy! To Streatorites, it will always be a planet! )
Next stop was the Streator Public Library—a beautiful building funded by Andrew Carnegie and built in 1903. The great dome of the library was recently restored. The murals, painted on leather by a local artist and installed originally in 1905, were cleaned and reinstalled. The intricate honeycomb dome was repainted. I rushed from one area to the other telling my husband how many hours I once logged there. I showed him the children’s section donated by a woman who was one of the early occupants of a house I lived in as a teen.
It started to drizzle, but we still had ground to cover. We walked aimlessly around our downtown taking pictures of the various Walldog murals depicting local history. I pointed out recently renovated storefronts and new boutiques lining Main Street.
We still had daylight hours so I drove us by personal landmarks: the church where we were married in 1968, my (and my dad’s) elementary school now boarded up, the first house that I went home to, which was a converted one car garage. I parked on the street, trespassed and braved the rain to take a picture. Right next door was my grandparent’s house. Behind that was the small house I lived in from 4 months old to 3 years old. I was happy to see that these last two houses seemed to be under reconstruction. Last time I saw them they were boarded up, the siding covered in green mold. Next to them was the house of my childhood friend. I snapped a picture for her too.
I drove by the house I lived in from ages 3-16, a house my dad and grandpa built. The house is a caricature of itself—the yard framed in tiny picket fence corners, the front a collection of outdoor brick-a-brack and chintzy Halloween decorations. Even though I lived there for the majority of my childhood years, that house doesn’t draw me.
I’ve been in communication with the woman who owns the house on Little Street that I think of as my childhood home even though, technically, I only lived there for two years before leaving for college. I lived there when I got married and it’s where our sons spent summers with my parents. The house was built before 1911 and sits at a dead end on the Vermillion River bottoms. The current owners are in the process of moving. I boldly asked if I could see the inside of the house before they left. We exchanged texts but they, unfortunately, were going to be out of town this weekend. I resigned myself to not seeing the house and did a half-hearted drive by instead. The rain was heavier then and I didn’t even stop for a picture.
We met the proprietor of our VRBO at the appointed time for check-in and she oriented us to the house built in 1880 that borders the city park. The house is simple, but homey—a perfect place to live for our 48-hour stay. The radiators and woodwork all remind me of the house on Little Street.
We did a quick clean up and headed to the Pines, a supper club, where my parents spent many Saturday nights. My husband and I have memories there too. We held our wedding rehearsal dinner there. The hostess sat us at a window table and brought us a relish tray and cheddar cheese spread. We each ordered a glass of wine. I opted for the first course of tomato juice just because it was a throwback to my youth. My husband had the German cabbage soup. We each had a salad. I ordered the broiled salmon served with drawn butter kept warm over a candle. He had chicken Parmesan.
We drove home in rain and fell asleep in the old house to the swoosh of local traffic near our VRBO. I dreamed of simple times past when I could create a comfortable future with just a quick rearrangement of furniture in my dollhouse.
My son, daughter-in-law and grandson were just here for the weekend. It took five of us several trips to unload their car when they arrived. In addition to clothes and several pair of shoes each, my grandson brought his gaming console and my son and daughter-in-law brought health food and supplements. I’m usually just the opposite when I travel. I anguish over what to pack, throw a few things in a single suitcase and expect that I will have packed the wrong things.
I’m prepping today for my long-anticipated trip to my hometown. I’m deliberating about what to pack, but not because I am worried that I won’t have the right shoes. I won’t. That’s a given. My primary concern is whether or not I will make the best use of the 48 hours there to pack in everything I want to do. My secondary concern is whether I’ve considered what I’ll need to make the time memorable.
In 48 hours I hope to: visit the local historical museum, walk the downtown area taking pictures of the wall murals that depict the town’s history, visit the local Carnegie library that was my home away from home growing up, take pictures of personal landmarks including the homes I lived in, attend my uncle’s 90th birthday party, eat in three favorite restaurants, try a new one, browse a Filipino grocery that is new to town, buy a frozen pasta sauce only distributed locally and traipse through the local cemetery locating the graves of six generations and taking pictures of the gravestones. There are a few wild cards—rain is predicted on Friday, which may make walking around harder and the cemetery trip sloppy. I’m taking a raincoat and boots. I’m not sure what condition the graves will be in since many haven’t been tended in decades. I’m taking gardening tools, water and a scrub brush. I need a cooler for bringing the pasta sauce home. I still haven’t heard if the current owner of our family home will be around this weekend so I can see inside the house. We’re staying in a VRBO so we’re taking our pillows.
I was talking to my son last night and admitted that I have an itinerary to manage my time there. He laughed and asked, “what makes this visit different from ones in the past?” I thought for a while and then I answered. “For one, your dad will be with me and I’m excited to have him see things he hasn’t seen in a long time. Past solo trips were quick and focused on an event like a funeral or a reunion. My schedule was full of things I needed to do with no time for what I might want to see. I also think that writing the memoir of my childhood this summer has a lot of memories stirred up that need to be connected to their physical places.” That made sense to both of us, and then I added with a lump in my throat, “And, I don’t know how many more chances I have left to go home.”
I’m packing the car, packing the 48 hours and packing my soul with nostalgia.
I have a young friend, who is in a different stage in her life than I am. We talk periodically. Our conversations are all over the place. Topics connect haphazardly like words on a Scrabble board. She called me recently and we bounced from subject to subject until she got quiet. The reason for her call surfaced then.
“You know how we’ve talked before about the frustrations I have with Peter? How I can’t get him to understand what I need from him in our marriage? And how you’ve been encouraging me to turn to my women friends and to find interests beyond Peter? And how I resisted saying that I didn’t want to have to supplement my marriage?”
She took an audible deep breath and I wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh or cry, but I knew enough to just keep listening.
“Well, I was reading an old classic the other day and a quote jumped off the page and I heard your voice. Suddenly, I got it.”
Then she read me the quote:
“When a couple has an argument nowadays they may think it s about money or power or sex or how to raise the kids or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though without realizing it, is this: “You are not enough people!”
Kurt Vonnegut in A Man Without a Country
“Not enough people.” Somewhere in the course of growing up female, we are given the message that our spouses should be the source of everything we need. What a crock! Even if our spouses wanted to fulfill our every need—and I think many do, especially in the early years of a marriage—it’s an impossible task. One person cannot be everything to another.
Unfortunately, what often happens, is that they try to do the impossible and ultimately fail, which causes hurt feelings on both sides. It’s a destructive cycle that leaves each person feeling lousy about who they are. The wife often feels too needy and the husband feels inadequate. They wonder if they chose the wrong spouse.
The other part of the ineffective message women are often given growing up, is that it is somehow disloyal to turn to friends and/or outside interests to complete our lives. It’s another negative piece of the frustrating cycle.
I’d been trying to help my friend see that we all need a large network of friends and interests and that this need is not a reflection on what is missing in our primary relationships. What I forgot to realize, however, is that, despite our friendship, we really speak two languages that reflect our age gap. Some insight can only come with time. Advice from the perspective of old age is like the gift of a crocheted afghan my grandmother once gave me. I knew she put a lot of work into that afghan, but it belonged in her living room, not mine.
The quote that my friend read that suddenly made sense to her, wasn’t really an epiphany. She’d been chewing on the issue for a long time. She had to do her own questioning in her own time to reach a place where things finally made sense.
When she was done talking, I asked, “So, what will you do differently now?”
She laughed. “I suspect that will be our topic of future conversations.”
Aren’t we all a work-in-progress no matter where we are on our timeline?
I come from common, small town roots. My mom thought that any kind of pampering was hedonistic, although she would never have used that word. It was a form of selfish indulgence that women in my family just didn’t do. Getting your hair professionally permed was a questionable extravagance when I was growing up. I’m wondering if her spirit jinxed my attempts to spoil myself as an adult.
My BFF catalogs my strange choices and questions my common sense when it comes to seeking comfort in a spa environment. There was my first hot stone massage that resulted in second-degree burns when an inexperienced masseuse had me lie on the heated rocks in Colorado Springs. I once (okay, maybe twice) had a seated massage in an airport before boarding a flight. It took me a while to realize that the normal dehydration from flying traps the lactic acid in recently kneaded muscles resulting in severe in-flight muscle cramps. There have been facial treatments that resulted in skin reactions, many haircuts gone awry and too many hair color disasters to report. I’ve even had bad experiences with manicures and pedicures.
My sister-in-law loves to tell the story about the time we went to Tubac Arizona together. We arrived at the Tubac Golf Resort around noon and checked into our room. We had a light lunch overlooking the golf course. The cuisine around there features Mexican, of course. I did have the sense to pass on the refried beans since we had spa treatments scheduled mid-afternoon. We were given locker keys, robes and slippers when we checked in to the rustic spa. The sleeves of my robe came down to my knees, but I couldn’t squeeze my feet into the slippers. I felt like a cross between one of the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella’s step sister. My SIL did a Swedish massage and loved it. I opted for something different. Of course, I did. My Wisconsin winter skin begged for the “Turquoise Sage Body Polish” — a salt scrub followed by a Vichy shower and a jojoba lotion massage. Sounds luxurious, right?
Wrong. I was escorted to a brightly lit room. It looked like a morgue. The aesthetician nodded toward the table. It was covered with a rubber sheet and the table height was level with my collarbone. I asked for a stool. “A stool?” she asked incredulously. I stared at the height of the table. Several minutes later she came back with a black plastic stool and instructed me to “hop up on the table, lie face down and cover your backside with a towel. I will wait outside.” I was 70, overweight. I didn’t hop anywhere. I did manage to roll onto the table and get on my stomach and then made several feeble attempts to fling the towel behind me to cover my butt. When the aesthetician returned, she found me on the table with a corner of the towel thrown over my left shoulder. It was the best I could do.
The treatment started with the salt rub that felt like she was rubbing my legs with coarse sandpaper. I laid there while she adjusted the temperature on the Vichy shower — a five foot long arm with five shower heads that hovered over the table. Suddenly, I was being sprayed with five nozzles simultaneously. I felt like I was in a car wash. The warm water sprayed my entire back and ran between my cheeks. (Not my face cheeks.) I hadn’t had that sensation in years. I truly hoped that I hadn’t embarrassed myself. She moved to my back, repeated the process, then instructed me to roll over. After some back and forth rolling, I managed to heave myself over. She repeated the scraping and rinsing on my front side. I felt scrubbed raw.
Then she told me to sit up. My first thought was, “That move would require abdominal muscles. And I have a heavy, wet towel on my chest and stomach!” I flailed my arms and somehow managed to sit up. She then rolled up the wet rubber sheet. I laid back down and hiked up my hips while she rolled up the bottom part of the sheet and whisked it out from underneath me. We repeated the rolling over process two more times while she slathered me with the lotion. My skin felt as soft as a baby’s bottom and smelled wonderful, but I’m not sure I would call that process pampering. I was exhausted.
One of the worst examples of an attempt to indulge myself happened just prior to my breast cancer surgery five years ago. I was in dire need of comforting and decided to book a massage not far from where I live. The night before the massage appointment, we were in a thin line of thunderstorms that reached all the way from Nebraska. We had tons of rain. It rained all night and even into the morning. When I reached the small spa, I was greeted at the door by a flustered therapist who announced, “We may need to cancel!” It seems that she didn’t check to see if the sump pump was running before she closed up the previous night. The concrete floor was slick with water and more was coming in. The handyman arrived a few minutes after me and switched on the sump pump. The water started to slowly recede. I told the therapist that I was scheduled for surgery in a few days and really wanted/needed that massage.
She agreed to go ahead, but was clearly distracted. She asked why I was having surgery. When I told her that I had breast cancer, she said, “I took the class.” I thought may be that was code for “I’ve been there.” Nope. She took a class in oncology massage, so I was initially hopeful for a healing experience in spite of the wet floor. Then she launched into what she thought was an empathic response to my diagnosis. She told me about her neighbor who just died from breast cancer and said how beautiful she looked in the final days. I refrained from asking her what grade she got in her oncology massage class. It obviously didn’t include a unit on “what not to say.” She slid around the wet floor during the massage, occasionally slamming into the table and swearing. That massage didn’t qualify as pampering either. I suggested to my BFF that she add it to her list of my hair-brained attempts in self-indulgence.
On another occasion, I was in Munich on business and feeling sorry for myself being away from family on a milestone birthday. I had arrived about 36 hours before my meeting to be able to adjust to the time change. I decided a spa treatment might just be the thing to cure jet lag and assuage my self-pity. I consulted the concierge, who gave me several brochures to leaf through. One ad for a float tank caught my eye. In large red letters it claimed, “cures jet lag.” I’d never had one, but the brochure seemed to be speaking directly to me. I made an appointment through the concierge, who encouraged me to walk the mile or so to the spa. “The valk vill help wit the jet lag,” she barked. The closer I got to the spa, the seedier the neighborhood became. The “spa”—if it could be called that—was wedged between a small casino and a strip club. I told myself that I’d go in, and if I didn’t like the place, I’d walk out and pretend I was just looking for information. The attendant spoke passable English and assured me that the experience would be just what I needed. In minutes I was floating naked in ten inches of super-saturated salty water that was heated to body temperature. The water was in a coffin-like container with a lid that closed to create a completely dark and soundless environment. The coffin-like comparison wasn’t lost on me. No one in Munich, except the hotel concierge, knew where I was and I was pretty sure she couldn’t identify my body in a morgue. My anxiety ratcheted. I questioned whether the water was changed between clients and worried about what might be floating in there with me…for about 30 seconds before I fell into the best sleep I’d had since leaving the womb. An hour later I woke to soft lights and John Lennon singing Imagine.
I can imagine. And, that’s what keeps me on the quest for a truly pampering experience. Now all I have to do is convince the spirit of my late mom that I deserve a little creature comfort once in a while.
I joined several private writer’s groups on Facebook at the suggestion of my writing instructor on Madeline Island this summer. Every day there’s an avalanche of posts. (Last week there were 7,500 new members on one site alone!) I don’t relate to a lot of the posts because they concern themselves with finding agents or querying publishers. I’m content to post here, self-publish on Amazon Kindle or just share with family like I will do with my recent memoir, but occasionally I respond to a post by another member.
This morning a young woman, who wants to write but doesn’t have an English degree or an MFA, asked the group what it takes to be a writer. There were predictable responses like: desire; reading and analyzing how good writers do it; daily practice; joining a writing group and seeking feedback. Nobody mentioned three qualities that I think are important, so I did.
In my opinion, the best writers are keen observers of human nature. They watch and listen, drawing material for future characters from the appearance, behaviors, quirks, mannerisms, speech and personality traits of the people they know or see during their daily interactions.
Good writers are also reflective. They don’t just catalog what happens to them and others within their sphere, but take time to think about the meaning in those events.
The best writers are empathic—able to see the perspective of another person and describe on the page what that person’s world is like both externally from observation and internally from speculation. They are curious about what motivates behavior and drives beliefs. They have open minds capable of multiple points of view.
I’m glad that I live in an age where credentials like MFAs aren’t required and expressing yourself in your natural voice trumps the rigid grammatical rules of my youth. We have tools like Grammarly that take care of the latter. All that is essential, I think, is that a budding writer has a story inside himself that wants to be expressed.
I know a lot of people who have all the qualities that I think would make a good writer, yet they don’t take the time to put words on paper. It makes me sad to think that their stories will be lost because they don’t believe they have what it takes to be a “real” writer. To me, there’s a bottom line: writers are simply people who write. We all have potential. Our stories connect us. I think that the world is in dire need of our stories right now. Write on! Please.
Do you remember that old minstrel song titled Dem Bones? You know the one that went:
“Toe bone connected to the foot bone Foot bone connected to the heel bone Heel bone connected to the ankle bone Ankle bone connected to the leg bone Leg bone connected to the knee bone Knee bone connected to the thigh bone Thigh bone connected to the hip bone Hip bone connected to the back bone Back bone connected to the shoulder bone Shoulder bone connected to the neck bone Neck bone connected to the head bone Now hear the word of the Lord.”
They should make that song mandatory for graduating from med school. I’m so tired of trying to connect the dots for my various doctors so that they treat me as a whole individual. I shouldn’t have to do the research or pose the questions, but I do. Some of my questions are dumb, but I’m afraid if I don’t ask them, something important will be overlooked because an individual doctor is focused on one body part or one disease or one med instead of seeing the big picture.
I had breast cancer five years ago. After surgery my oncologist put me on an estrogen-suppressing drug, which I was to take for five years. A common side effect of the drug is that it leaches calcium from your bones. Because of that side effect, she put me on a hefty dose of a calcium supplement and vitamin D. My bone density tests indicate that I am right on the edge leaning toward osteoporosis. I resisted treatment for osteopenia because the current treatment is loaded with side effects. I discontinued the estrogen-suppressing drug recently as scheduled. We will do another bone density test next summer and if my bone density score hasn’t improved in the absence of the cancer drug, I told my doctor that I would reconsider treatment for osteopenia.
I had blood work done a few months ago and my calcium levels were high, indicating that my body is not absorbing the calcium as hoped. My doctor told me to reduce the amount of the supplement that I was taking as the excess calcium could cause kidney stones. There wasn’t any mention of risks to other organs.
A few weeks ago I started having heart palpitations. They were annoying enough that I finally asked to see a cardiologist. I’ve been on blood pressure meds for decades. A GP in Arizona recently added a diuretic and a potassium supplement because my blood pressure was high. I wondered if that change in my meds might be responsible for the arrhythmias and wanted to check with a cardiologist to see if I’m on the right meds in the right dosage.
I had to wear a heart monitor for three days before I could even schedule an appointment with a cardiologist near me. I won’t recount the long back story leading me to the appointment yesterday with the cardiologist. I filled out the multiple page questionnaire listing my health history and that of my ancestors prior to the appointment. I liked the new doc. He was personable and seemed caring. He spent several minutes in small talk asking me about my family and current life style. He ran an EKG in the office and it was abnormal. He said I MAY have calcification of my aortic valve and scheduled a stress test and electrocardiogram for November 13. In the meantime I am to monitor my blood pressure.
To the doctor’s credit, he did ask if I had questions, but I was too stunned by the abnormal EKG and order for additional tests—when I was just expecting a med tweak—to ask questions. Of course, I came home and consulted Dr. Google and read that calcium supplements and vitamin D are contraindicated with aortic stenosis. I have a question in to my oncologist about continuing the supplementation in light of the issues with my heart.
The rub is that I try my best to take care of myself—diet, exercise, following doctor’s orders, staying current with required tests and treatment. Do we all reach an age where we have to choose which ailment to attend to and which to ignore, if someone doesn’t help us decipher the connections? Human physiology is complex. I need a professional, who isn’t looking through the narrow lens of his or her specialty, to look at how everything might be related and suggest a sensible way forward.
Instead of the time spent talking about my grandkids, I wish the new doctor had read my questionnaire and looked at my chart to see my whole history. I expect to be my own advocate these days, but I worry about my lack of knowledge and what I might fail to ask or the connections I might miss.
The best I can tell from Internet research is that the calcification of the aortic valve is caused by the breakdown of protein collagen on the valve leaflets that results in calcium deposits due to aging and not from lifestyle choices like the calcium deposits in the coronary arteries that lead to a heart attack, but I’d like a medical professional to reassure me that what I am currently doing at least won’t hurt me.
Remember when the slang term for a doctors was “bones”? Dem bones!
The single winner of the 1.75 billion dollar Powerball drawing this week was an individual who bought the ticket in a liquor store in north LA. I hope that person’s life will change in amazing ways.
My husband and I seldom play, but did buy tickets for the last three drawings as the jackpot grew. We have the same conversation each time we buy a ticket. We ask each other what we would do with the winnings and the answer is always the same—“we could change a lot of lives.” There really isn’t anything we are lacking or need for ourselves. I can’t fathom that level of wealth, which is probably why the Universe decided to give it to someone with more imagination.
I have a friend and ex-colleague who always says, “I won the lottery” when he speaks of his wife. Our older son, who many people see as having a hard life, said last night, “I won the lottery when it comes to family.” It made me think of all the ways that I “won the lottery” during my life time—my family, friends, opportunities, places I’ve seen, even the talents I’ve been given.
“Winning the lottery” for me never points to material things. A week ago we took a lake cruise with my husband’s brother and his wife. As we circled the lake and all the mansions built around the edge, I thought about the people who own those homes. The tour guide said that only 10 percent of the homes are actually occupied all year. Most serve as a summer getaway for a few weekends a year.
I think most people my age realized long ago that once you have the basics for survival, the rest just becomes something to maintain. I hope that the winner of this week’s Powerball jackpot, has the important things in life and the imagination to do some good for others with the winnings.
Crows Feet Chronicles 