March Madness

I never played sports growing up. I surfed and played beach volleyball, but just for fun.   I now live in a household filled with athletes.  Very, very competitve, driven, focused people.  Did I mention competitive?

Martha played basketball in High School. When I met her she coached a girls’ High School varsity team. She still coaches a 5th grade travel team, is the director of a travel club, and is on the board of directors for an AAU travel club. She loves basketball. That is actually too small a word. She lives basketball.

When our girls were born, she filled the house with Fisher Price hoops and balls of all sorts. Our girls started playing competitively in third grade and played right through to the varsity level. They were both three sport athletes, but basketball was their main sport, played year round.

Beanie was recruited to play at the college level but opted out and went for a better education at a Division I school (much to Martha’s consternation). She plays club ball there and has a job as a basketball referee. Her school’s womens’ team is nationally ranked in the top 25. Beanie never misses a game.

Peachie, who unfortunately stopped growing at about 5' 4", realized her basketball days were over but will be playing field hockey in college.

We have two outdoor basketball courts, one in the driveway one in the backyard. There is an additional hoop next to the pool. I don’t think there is a room in our house that doesn’t have a basketball, trophy, or some other bball related item.

Seriously. This is the rubber duck in our bathroom.

This week started March Madness. Two weeks of non-stop college basketball.  Men and women.

I came home yesterday afternoon to find every television tuned in to a game, and Martha, Beanie and Peachie sitting with three laptops open on the coffee table.

“Really?” I said when I saw it.

“What?” Martha said.. “You can watch games on-line that aren't being televised.”

So, for the next couple of weeks I will be a basketball widow. And I’m okay with that. After spending thousands of hours watching my own daughters play, I am just very grateful to be planting my butt in a recliner in my home and not on some hard bleachers in a smelly gym.

And as long as Martha is yelling at the refs, she is not nagging at me.

On being a Slug

The last few weeks have been a blur of too many commitments, too much travel, and way too many emotional jolts. An exhausting school and work schedule, some serious issues with Martha yet to be addressed, a horrendous lunch with Daphne’s mother, Daphne’s extremely emotional journal, my mother’s health concerns, and the seemingly endless grind of therapy.

This past weekend I put on the brakes. I announced to friends and family that I would be doing nothing. All weekend. Nothing. And to make it almost perfect, I had the house to myself. Beanie is in Florida with her ‘girls gone wild’ friends for spring break. Peachie’s social calendar was filled, and Martha was involved with a basketball tournament.

Saturday morning Martha asked if I wanted to go a bball game with her.

Me: No thanks.

Her: Want me to leave you a list of things that need to be done around the house?

Me: Absolutely not.

I laid in bed most of the day, not really sleeping but not really awake either. I would get up to get some eat junk food, flop on the couch for while, nap, take a sauna, read a little, wonder aimlessly around the house.

When the phone rang I checked the caller ID before picking up. Once Beanie called: “The weather is beautiful here. We party all night and sleep on the beach all day. You should see my tan line.”

Well, I guess I should be happy that she is at least wearing something that is giving her a tan line.

Once a friend called: “You want to go get something to eat?”

Me: Hmmm. No thanks.

Her: Are you okay? You never turn down food?

Me: Yeah but I haven't even showered and I don’t feel like getting dressed. 

Sunday evening my mom called: “your cousin Anna is fine. They felt the earthquake but no damage.”

Really? I didn’t even know my cousin was living in Japan.  And I couldn’t rouse myself to watch the news. It was just too damn real. There was nothing in the outside world that appealed to me.


But this morning, still in the same PJs from Saturday,  I woke with a start realizing there was no real food in the house. Ran out for groceries at 5:30 so I could make Peachie’s lunch before she left for school. Got her out the door and started the laundry which had mysteriously multiplied over the weekend. Opened the computer to start answering emails. Took out the garbage and then on to work.

Sometimes I think I would like to be a hermit - live a solitary life, me and 57 cats, pad around the house in my PJs, never going out, not caring what day it is, eating nothing but chips and chocolate and ice cream.

But then I think its probably a good thing that I have obligations and people who depend on me. I really could be a total slug. And it is not pretty.

Blog Bullets

I have started quite a few blog posts in January and February, yet never found the time to finish them. Now it is March. So here is a summary of some of those posts and a quick catch up of what’s been going on in my life:

- I wangled an invitation to see President Obama speak locally. He is the first sitting president I’ve ever seen. It was required to show up at least 3 hours early to clear security and then wait and wait. But it was worth it. He is a very dynamic speaker and has quite a stage presence.

- I am team teaching a graduate course at the local university for the first time. I thought the idea of team teaching would lessen the time required to do the job. Not. This is the reason I have had no time for anything else. I don’t know how teachers do it. But I am enjoying the naive idealism of the students. Plenty of time for the political realities of the job to beat them down.

- Relationships needing a lot of work. Still patching.

- Empty nest preview. Peachie had the opportunity to go to Florida on her winter break. She was supposed to be gone for 6 days, but because of a northeast storm she wound up staying for 12. Martha and I alone together for 12 days. And it was good. Mostly, because, due to our other commitments, we still rarely see each other, which I think is the secret to our longevity. But we did redo our bathroom, manage one dinner out, one movie, and even a little “don’t have to be quiet” sex. We have worried about how we will make the transition from constant kid’s activities back to ‘just us’ and have begun to talk about it. I think it will be okay.

- Therapy. I returned to therapy in January bound and determined to overcome what felt like just one last major hurdle. Unfortunately, that got sidelined by needing to pick apart a series debilitating physical flashbacks, relationship setbacks and Daphne’s journal. Strangely, as painful as that journal has been to read, I also sense it is also going to be the thing allows me to stop grieving. I am beginning to feel a definite change for the better.

- And lastly, my mom has been quite ill and in a lot of pain. I am leaving to go visit with her for a few days while she has some exploratory surgery and tests. Any positive thoughts and prayers sent her way would be much appreciated.

I am so looking forward to spring.

Enough

This is a picture taken from my driveway.

This is a snowman in my neighborhood

I love the snow and don't mind the cold.  I ski and snowshoe and love to be outside in it.  But really, this is enough.

More snow predicted for tonight.

The Notebook

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from Daphne’s mother. I was almost too scared to open it. Inside was a handwritten note. Short, but certainly much more cordial than her last curt response to me - she simply and politely said there were some things she would like to discuss with me if I would be so kind as to call her, then listed her number. So kind? This woman who was so inhuman to her daughter and so rude to me was asking for my kindness?

It took me two days to summon the courage to call her. Two days and two sleepless nights wondering what this woman wanted from me and wondering if I would be able to get past my hurt feelings and pride to even talk to her. My hands were shaking and my voice trembling when I finally called.

She was polite but reserved and requested if we might be able to meet in person. Why? I asked. Again she said that there were things we should discuss and she had something she thought was mine. Something? They stole everything I owned. Every personal memento, every piece of clothing, every thing Daphne and I owned together. I could feel my anger rising.

I asked if Daphne’s father would also be there. She told me that he had passed away last fall. Last fall? My mind started to calculate, that would have been right around the time I sent that first letter to them asking for forgiveness. Yet Daph and her father are not buried together. As my brain was going through the endless things that could mean, I heard my voice saying, “I am so sorry for your loss and yes of course I will meet with you.” What?

I had to be in NYC and so we made arrangements to meet at a restaurant there. I knew her as soon as she walked in - I was looking right into Daphne’s eyes. She was cordial in her introduction. I was stammering. What the hell did this woman want from me?

She began to talk but I really didn’t hear a word. What kind of a mother disowns her own and only child? I couldn’t get past my disdain. I couldn’t get past her eyes. Something about mistakes. Something about the pain. Was she looking to me for forgiveness? Something about her being sorry it took her so long to do this. Do what?

And then she asked me a few questions. Mostly about the work Daphne was doing, something about a friend of hers. Nothing about our relationship. And then about how Daph felt about their separation. Separation? You threw her out of her home when she was 17. How do you think she felt? I think I may have been cruel in my responses. Worse, I think I wanted to be.

And then she reached into her bag and handed me a notebook. A simple, spiral notebook. What is it? I asked. "A diary," she said. "It was obviously written to you." Holy fuck. I opened it and flipped through the pages looking at her handwritten words, tears welling up and quickly spilling over. And then without further words, she said thank you, stood up and walked out, leaving me sitting there with this little piece of Daph.

I read the first entry. It was a note asking me to get in touch with her academic advisor and give him her research notes. Very hopeful. Very much looking toward the future.

I read the rest of it when I got home and could read it privately. The book is not filled. Only 15 pages. Eight weeks from the time she left the hospital until the end. A journal, filled with so much love, yet documenting an unmistakable descent into depression.

I now have many of the answers to questions that have haunted me for so long. Some answers that have lifted a measure of the debilitating weight of guilt. (Yes, she knew I tried to see her) But also some very painful realities. So hard to read how much pain she was in and know she was all alone in it. Unbearable for me to think about really.

I’m sure it will take me a very long time to digest. But I can forever hold in my hand a very real piece of her. The joy and the pain. It is both eerie and comforting at the same time. I am bursting with too many feelings.

Freeping the Church

A few weeks ago I talked to a resident, Sandra, looking for some affordable housing. Our conversation extended over a couple of days and revealed that she, and her son, were victims of some very serious domestic abuse - her ex serving 5 years for felony assault.    I invited her to lunch in the hopes of getting to know her better.

When I picked her up she invited me into her house. The outside was lovely, but inside the entire home was gutted: no stove, no real furniture, plywood floors, sheets hanging instead of curtains, etc. She lives entirely from meals she can make in an old microwave and sleeps on a pad on the floor. Obviously the financial need is great.

The first thing I noticed was that she lived across the street from one of the founding women of my former church, JD. My first thought was that I should call JD and try to get the church folk involved in some fund raising/furniture collecting venture. And so I asked Sandra she knew JD? She looked at me and asked “Do you like her?” And my honest answer was ‘I do not trust her. Although she was always nice to me, I know she did a lot of crap to other folk she did not like.’ Sandra then went on to tell me that JD had told her that “the police coming to her house so often looked bad for the neighborhood; why couldn’t she replace the window sheet with some drapes as it was bringing down the property values; and if she couldn’t live with her husband, why didn’t she just pitch a tent in the back yard?”

Okay, maybe the fund-raising thing was out. Gotta love those christian folk.

We continued onto lunch, chatting and getting to know each other.

One story she has telling me was how she had befriended an elderly woman (also a member of my church) years ago, who had once gotten stuck in a snow bank near her house. Sandra made her some tea and drove her home. They became friends. The elderly woman is now in a nursing home, and Sandra continues to call and visit her. At one point, the elderly woman had invited Sandra to attend the church and Sandra mentioned this to her neighbor, JD. And JD responded to Sandra, “why would you go to our church? You are not our kind.”

I asked “what’s not our kind?” And Sandra responded that she wasn’t sure. “Being a victim of domestic abuse or being Jewish.” Which made my eyes water. And then I told her my story with that church and how one interim pastor imagined I was obsessed with her, she complained to the elders, who wrote me a letter stating they would expel me from the church, never told me the reasons why, and refused to ever meet with me to discuss it.

Sandra shook her head through this whole story - with equal parts of belief and disbelief. And then she said “let’s go to the church and sit together. Right up front.” Again I laughed and said that I would never walk into that church again. When I dropped her back home she again asked me if I wanted to go to the church. When I said no thanks, she laughed and said “chicken.”

But I have been thinking about all the stories I have heard about people who have been rejected by this church. A woman I work with told me she attended once and was told she was not properly dressed. A gay person left when the interim pastor circulated a flyer about a discussion whether gay folks should have a role in the church. Another friend left just in disgust with what happened to me. The secretary who is a single mother was fired just weeks before xmas because apparently after years of doing her job, she was no longer qualified.

5 years ago the average weekly attendance at this church was almost 200 people. Last year it was barely over 100. Obviously there are a lot of stories out there.

How cool would it be to gather these folks and freep the church? Just assemble all the misfits who didn’t quite make the grade, who were made to feel unwanted and less than. We could walk in together, spread ourselves across the pews and just take back the church.




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Still Standing

I realize that I have not written here in quite awhile. I am doing what I need to do, moving through my days, just trying to avoid the mine fields. January in a nutshell -


I have returned to therapy to face my final darkness. It is hard and scary work and difficult to write about here.

Work has become a nightmare with a major project about to die because they can no longer get financing for all the bullshit conditions that were imposed of them by the politicians. It has now become my job to go to all the people/groups who had their hands out and ask them for concessions. Some of these people are the scum of the earth, know they have the upper hand, and are just jerking me around. It is my responsibility to negotiate this project back on track but I’m really tired of falling on the sword for it.

Hormones have once again taken over my house. I never know if I’m coming home to my best friend or her evil twin. Every day is an adventure there.

To date Peachie has been accepted into the highly competitive physical therapy programs at 10 colleges, including her top two choices. With those acceptances began the calls from hockey coaches doing their recruiting thing. Unfortunately these are mostly Division III schools so no athletic scholarship money and her grades were not quite good enough for those impressive presidential scholarships her sister got. Average yearly tuition: $45 - $50 grand. With every acceptance my head is spinning.


So January passed, one shell shocked day after the other. But I’m still standing. I’ll consider that a win.