they say we need to speak it out loud

i didn't realize it, but the signs were already there two years ago. my mother's obsession with the notion that someone would steal her purse was a sign. i remember how utterly bewildered i felt. here was my mother, who drove me and my horses on threadbare tires all over a 7-state region, by herself, walking a mile once in the dark beside a pitch black interstate to get help when something broke down, leaving her sleeping children in the back of the pickup and the horses stomping in the trailer, munching on hay as she set off into the starlit night, semi trailers lumbering past, shaking the whole vehicle. and she came back with help and we were on our merry way, none the wiser to the stop in the night. that fearless, fierce woman, suddenly afraid the aggressively perfect (and quite attractive) danish father, leaning on his volvo in his mads nørgaard clothes, waiting for his 12-year-old and her friends to leave the one direction concert, was going to reach in the window and steal her over-stuffed with snacks and kleenex bulging no-brand midwestern purse. um, what? i was confused. frustrated. and a little bit pissy.

the way she kept getting lost in our house. seriously. it's one story, it's the shape of an H and we're honestly only using the middle and the right half of it, it's not difficult. the way she wandered away in the middle of the party, missing all of the toasts and speeches. i thought she was just badly-indoctrinated into the social mores i had taken to me like water to a sponge. or perhaps that she had just been badly raised and i never noticed. (watching americans eat, all fork and no knife, can make you think that.)

i don't know why i didn't realize it then. her mother had alzheimer's as well. but it didn't really occur to me at the time. i chalked it up to the ridiculousness of the morning news in the us...click-bait headlines about the latest scams and calamities that make you tune in again after the commercial. that could make anyone fearful.

and i felt sad that the woman who i felt taught me my very fearlessness (which is one of my biggest sources of pride) had become some inexplicably fearful. how could this happen? and seriously, who thinks that someone will steal their purse on a plane? where would they go with it, honestly? but i know now that it was a sign. it was the big a, the scarlet letter, of a much more sinister sort. she will eventually be stripped of everything she once was...fearless, funny, active. she, who got her motorcycle driver's license at 60, and began pistol shooting lessons at 70, will lose everything of who she was.

and i don't know what to do or think or feel. the whole gamut of emotions courses through me...sadness, impatience, anger, and yes, fear...what if it happens to me? can i do anything to prevent it. i'm terrible at names, is that a sign? i occasionally struggle to find a word...is that a sign? i switch subjects and can be moody...are they signs? is it all downhill from here for me as well? will i recognize it, if it is? she doesn't, which is both a source of frustration and a blessing. but how can you not? when you are a navel gazer like me, don't you know? is she really hiding from herself at that level?

i fear that maybe she is. i don't know where i got it, but my notion that an unexamined life is not worth living clearly did not come from my mother. i fear i may have actually gotten it from madonna. which is surely the stuff of a separate blog post.

does she know deep down? does she feel the fog descending? does she understand? or is she really blissfully unaware? is that one of the symptoms? so many questions. and we are only just beginning to look for answers.

happy would-have-been-83rd birthday, dad

my dad would have been 83 today if he hadn't left us a little over two years ago. there's still a big ralph-sized hole in our lives. i would love to have talked to him about the recent election. i would love for him to be there for the child to get to know better as she spends what seems to be a rocky year in a poisoned trump-infested atmosphere in my little hometown. i would like to discuss the changing seasons in the garden with him. and i would like to consult him about the road we are facing ahead with mom. i feel a little bit abandoned by him, if i'm honest. and i kind of would like to yell at him about that.

he would be glad mom sold her horses and has gotten rid of all those cats. but he wouldn't be happy about the signs of her decline and they probably started even before he was gone. and i suppose there's nothing he could do about it, any more than than there's anything we can do about it, aside from watch it happen.

i'd like to think he would approve of the solution we've arrived at for christmas - renting a cabin (that's really more of a huge house) in the black hills, to gather together, no internet, and try to have a last, good christmas together. one with plenty of good food, games and laughter. hopefully also some sledding and snowboarding and skiing. and plenty of cocktails and wine. i suspect we're going to need the cocktails and wine.

and speaking of cocktails, here's to dad's birthday. we miss you, dad, more than we can say.

peak cuteness

we've had a lot of cute kittens around here, but this batch is exceptional. charlie has really outdone herself. i'm doing my best to enjoy every second with them. especially that little miniature polar bear there guarding my iPad. he's a real corker.

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this gives me hope.

tho' i still find twitter pretty unbearable these days.

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and this less so.

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still thinking about memory.

african violets

as the fog began to descend on my grandmother, she began to hoard kleenex and african violets. she bought boxes in every shape, color, pattern and size. and the african violets bloomed their little hearts out under special lamps in her basement apartment. and i don't think i really noticed that her mind was slipping, even though i should have been old enough to realize. she still made tea when i came over and 15 kinds of christmas cookies during december and a sunday roast that was so tender it fell apart and didn't need to be cut with a knife. she was still my grandma and i don't recall any of the adults around me ever talking about her plight in my presence. maybe it was just seen as a normal part of the aging process in those days. i do remember her in the nursing home towards the end. how childlike she seemed, how innocent somehow. but how hard it was to visit her and know she didn't recognize me. and what a relief it was in a sense when her time finally came, and she was released from the bondage of the fog. from a life that was no longer a life.

months later, i had a vivid dream of her. we had tea together, using her chinese tea set, that we had used so many times for tea parties in my childhood - dragons on the small cups and saucers, ombre grey to black color on the pot. we laughed and played tea party, just as we always had. and she told me, looking straight into my eyes, that she was ok. and i always felt it as the goodbye i didn't have the chance to have with her fogged-in self. it felt so vivid and real and vital and warm. it really was goodbye and i really think that she was there in my dream - the real, whole essence of her. 

i think i need an african violet.

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a tragic ending to a unusual and artistic life.

still not over it

a week ago, i was in paris for the first time. believe it or not, i'd never been. it was a bit like how long it took me to visit new york. maybe i just don't do big, famous western cities. rome is still on the list as well. it was a quick visit, for work, so i didn't get to wander around that much, tho' i did walk down to the eiffel tower on my first night there, and we were shooting a night video here, at the place de la concorde and i got a few shots.  i'd like to go back to paris and visit museums and stroll around a bit more at a more leisurely pace, but i know already now that i'm not a paris person. it didn't make my molecules hum in alignment like say moscow or london do. you walk around there, feeling the history and you can understand a little bit why the french don't realize that they're not a significant player on the world stage anymore. there is a grandeur and a beauty that must be quite unsurpassed, but i didn't fall in love. 

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i found myself still weepy today over the election. i heard tales of the nastiness of one of my cousins, who delighted in spreading white nationalist bigotry around a post-thanksgiving gathering yesterday. and reading about the recount that will happen in wisconsin thanks to jill stein (who knew we would thank her for anything?), and the slim chances it has in keeping that monster from the white house. and encountering issues myself over sailing on a freight ship to the uk on my american passport makes me more resolved than ever to seek danish citizenship. the day after the election, i downloaded the forms, now i just need to get them filled out and jump the last of the necessary hoops. 

i attended a cultural café today at the library, held by some of the good souls in my community, to welcome the refugee families who are in town. i met a lovely and brave young woman from syria and she and her children would like to have one of our kittens when they (the kittens) are old enough. those kittens bring me a lot of joy and it would be wonderful if they also brought joy to a family who has fled from war. that gives me happy tears. but i also had sad tears in my eyes as a couple of these sweet families told me a tale of a mentally unbalanced young woman in the community who is harassing them, loudly shouting racist statements at their children as they walk to school and accosting the families on the street and in the local grocery stores, publicly screaming at them to go back where they came from. she's a person with problems of her own, but it's so distressing to hear. and the police have been contacted, but unfortunately can't do anything about her unless she actually physically attacks them. as if the verbal attacks aren't bad in and of themselves. it seems these days, such people think they can spread their racism and bigotry without consequence. and it seems that they actually can. 

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if any of you have any recommendations for fiction or non-fiction on the topic of alzheimer's,
i would be most grateful to hear them.

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winter is coming, make your own tonic syrups.

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a very interesting map to ponder.

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how to get just the figs you want from the new batman movie set.

giving thanks

it's thanksgiving and it feels like 2016 hasn't given us a lot to be thankful for. the death of david bowie, prince, leonard cohen, as well as brexit and trump -  it's been a rather brutal year. at least for the world.  personally, it's been pretty good. so i think i'll focus on that.

first, i'm thankful for husband. and for the amazing young woman that the child is becoming. i'm thankful that my job has taken me new places - poland, latvia, estonia, belgium and paris. i'm thankful for the fun and creative people i've had the chance to work with all year.  i'm thankful that my back is better. i'm thankful for yoga - for it bringing me in touch with my body again. i'm thankful that i get to spend the week in copenhagen and retreat to the countryside to husband and the garden and the cats on the weekend. i'm grateful for friends - both virtual and irl. i'm thankful for podcasts, the pantsuit nation facebook group, for my cousin who is letting the child stay for her year of high school, for seeing my hometown through her eyes (good and bad (and honestly, it's mostly bad)).

i'm thankful for late nights with friends, drinking wine and solving the world's problems (and also a few wardrobe-related problems). and great food (that sushi in gdansk, a seriously good ramen in london and foie gras in paris). and amazing projects. and the opportunity to be in a london bell tower, both listening to and watching the bells being rung. and for what happens when you share your ideas and are willing to let go of them and let them become what they are meant to be, which is so much more than you imagined. and by you, i mean me.

and i'm grateful for being seen. for unfolding. for transformation and becoming. and finally finding out what i can do.

and i'm also thankful for kittens. and laughter. and candles. and mac highlighter, and benefits mascara and urban decay eyeshadow. and for a day when we think about it all and are thankful. despite all of the other stuff that's going on.

happy thanksgiving, one and all.

we'll always have paris

my throat is raw. i was walking across paris, back to my hotel in the 6th arrondissement, from the eiffel tower, talking to my mother, who finally actually answered the phone after weeks of trying her and never getting her. mom started in on how it was good that hillary didn't win the election because she had received a letter from her, in which hillary threatened to take away my mother's right to be a good christian. she went on to say that it was because hillary had spent too much time with barack obama, so she had become evil. and i was outraged. i screamed at her that those were fucking outrageous lies and she should stop saying them. and she said she sure wished she hadn't thrown it away, because she'd show me that it was true. and i screamed some more about outrageous lies and that it must have been the first piece of mail she'd thrown away in years, which seemed ironic. (not to mention, who sends these things?) and i was shaking so badly, i almost had to sit down right there on a paris street. and i thought, "this is it, this is the last conversation i will ever have with my mother and i always remember that it took place in paris." and i didn't know whether to be jubilant or devastated. life is like that right now. emotions run so close to the surface it's hard to grab onto what you really feel. and i was a little surprised at the heat of my own reaction. my throat is so sore - i must have really screamed. and then i calmed down and mom admitted that she didn't like trump either and that she didn't want to vote for either of them. but she didn't remember who she had voted for, but she did vote early. and she would have to ask her friend who she voted for. i asked her to lie to me if it was trump and she said, cheerfully, and perhaps a bit too readily, "i can do that."

and we ended up ok and she said, "i love you, honey" before we hung up and i said, "i wuv," which is our family way of ducking the real words.

and i have to wonder if my yelling at her didn't scare her lucid, for just a few minutes. because she seemed ok after i did it. and i told her that i was sure that dad would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what she said about hillary and obama. and i almost hung up. and i thought for a minute that she hung up on me. and i was shaking in anger, throat raw, heart pounding, livid.

and now this is what i have imprinted on my first trip to paris. and i don't know what i think about that.  but my throat sure is sore.