Shortly before my mother died last year, I joined the YMCA. This ended my decade-long cold war with that institution, a battle of which it was unaware. I’d taught classes there for years, swam in its pool, and lifted weights. But toward the end, an older man would follow me in the weight room. By “follow me,” I really mean that he would trap me on machines, stand too closely, maneuver to stare down my shirt, and watch my butt. He’d ask my name and whether I was married. This made me say things to him like: You are really bothering me. And: You are giving me the creeps. And: Leave me alone.

When these things didn’t work, I tried to enlist the Y staff, who assured me that he wasn’t bothering anyone. What about me? I replied. The response, delivered with a shrug and upturned palms, was that he was old. The implicit assurance that I could outrun him or fend him off in a fight was not particularly comforting, so I voted with my feet and vowed not to return. When he passed away a few years ago, several Y friends emailed me his obituary and told me to come home.

While the emails were kind, it was dance that brought me back. I am a sucker for dance. Even fifty years later, I remember that I could not stand still the first time I heard “Delta Dawn.” At age four, I had music, moves, and the distinct feeling that if I could combine music and moves for the rest of my life, I would be happy.

But dance at that time required enlisting my mother, who was not nearly as enthusiastic about a Broadway career as I’d hoped. She was not swayed by my dream of a square pink vinyl ballet box that had a separate space for shoes. Tap was out of the question; shuffle-ball-changing would ruin the hardwood floors. Yet I persisted. In the summer of 1976, I won a nearly Pyrrhic victory: I joined a pom-pom squad, which would appear in our small town’s July 4 parade. Since the parade was only a few days before my family’s move to Moultrie, my mother balked at buying the required orange sequined leotard, the Holy Grail of the entire endeavor. Someone who just happened to have an extra size 6x leotard saved the day. And there I am, with the unfortunate haircut, the pompoms in motion, and the biggest smile of anyone in the photograph.

The fates were not so kind that Christmas, when Santa delivered a piano and a life sentence of piano lessons. (To say that I was indifferent insults indifferent pianists everywhere.) I was left to dance when and where I could — usually in my room, sometimes at PE, at “To the Max!,” a short-lived Moultrie nightclub for teens started by a well-meaning doctor’s wife, and for four years in saddle shoes, which my arthritic knees curse every cold morning.

Then I left home. I took tap, ballet, and ballroom for college PE credits and even as an adult. I adore tap, although my mom was right about the floors. I can pretend to shag, enjoy anything that includes a twirl, and usually remember that I have to follow, not lead. When I rejoined the Y in September 2021 for its dance fitness offerings, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to dance, clueless about the year ahead.

If you know me, you know it’s been a difficult year. I have seriously considered quitting the practice of law. I have found myself crying at odd times and in odd places. I have retreated inward and often felt paralyzed by fear and indecision. My doctor has suggested anti-anxiety medication. As I have navigated this tense time, I have wondered: Who is this person? And: Why is she so scared and so overwhelmed? And: Why am I struggling?

But through it all, I showed up. I showed up at least twice a week in hip hop and Zumba classes, usually in shorts, a cut up T-shirt, a bandana, knee socks, and high-top dunks. At some point I decided that I simply did not care. And then I really danced. It’s hard to remember pain, uncertainty, and feeling overwhelmed when the music is loud and you’re working to remember an eight-count. Just like it was 50 years ago, I had music, and moves, and the distinct realization that if I could combine the two, I would be happy.

I have worked to bring that feeling into the rest of my life. The freedom, the expression, the normalization of strange clothes. That you can’t dance while you’re holding heavy things. That you feed off the energy and presence of others. That when you miss a step, the only solution is to improvise and keep going. Am I a good dancer? I think so, even though I really have no idea. But that’s beside the point. It is something I love to do, something I make time to do, and something that I have sought out, in my own way and in my own time, for as long as I can remember.

So I show up. I have done it faithfully. This evening, with bright clothes and all smiles, I will join my fellow dancers, and we will throw down.

ALC

Chris and I began coming to the small wooden house on Beachview Drive ten summers ago. I have since gained a decade and ten pounds, enjoyed a front-row seat in my hair’s changing from red to grey, lost a particularly nasty part of my colon, said goodbye to the ease and generosity of Buddy, and said hello to the charming neuroticism of Emmet. I have discovered painting, learned how to knit, and started making my own clothes. I have helped my children pack to leave the house, shutting our yellow front door behind them with a mixture of profound sadness and some relief.

It has been an eventful decade, almost to the point that my 44 year-old self feels like a stranger. But it was that person who insisted on that first trip to Beachview, just Chris and me, to talk about the unhappiness and sadness that had wormed its way into our marriage and nearly strangled it. The first summer held tears and painful silences and conversations about what a life going forward needed to look like. A house that is barely 500 square feet is a perfect place for difficult talks. You cannot ignore one another. You have to share a bathroom, space, air. You feel like you are in a foxhole, the two of you against the world. That trip ended with the Beachview Peace Accord that continues to inform my view of us.

Every year has gotten better, and this week has become my favorite week of the entire year. There are rules (if you can call them that). Sleep when you want to, even if you last slept only a few hours before. Walk on the beach at least three times a day. Ride bikes whenever possible. Buy Italian ice from the umbrella cart selling it on the beach. Check work email sporadically or not at all, which is what I started doing, or not doing, four years ago. Read. Make art. Indulge in small pleasures. (I bought four magazines, wasabi peas, and bottled Coca-Colas at Publix on our way in yesterday, and it felt positively lawless.) Pack light.

This year’s week came suddenly. It has been a difficult year, and recent weeks have found me working like a dog. The attendant lack of sleep had left me with temporary cognitive lapses, struggling to remember words, forgetting even recent conversations, having difficulty pinpointing exactly where I was in space and time. I finally remembered this week a few weeks ago, only to find myself texting the house’s owner about whether we were to arrive Saturday or Sunday.

(Saturday.)

Chris and I packed yesterday, having ten years of knowing the space we could fill and exactly what we needed. It took us no time to unpack, and an even shorter time before we were walking on the beach. He held my hand, bear-paw style, and the two of us, attired in a way that would make our dermatologist happy, set out. We have to enjoy this time.

This is the last year for Beachview. The current owners live next door. A few years ago they bought the house and saved it from being razed to build a massive condominium. A few months ago they decided to move this house into town, build themselves a new house on this lot, and turn their current, much larger, and older cottage into a rental. As much as I would like to blame them or be angry about their decision, I cannot. I live in a 96 year-old home, meaning that I spend my fair share of time fantasizing about what it would feel like to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. There’s a lot to be said for charm. There’s even more to be said for comfort, especially as one grows old.

There are no other little houses on the beach, and the expense of renting the larger cottage may be a powerful deterrent. I am not sure that we will be back or what the future holds. Whatever our decision, nothing will be the same.

But everything ends. Take the unhappiness and the discomfort of my decade-ago self. Something felt really wrong then, and something had to change. It was, and it did. Ten years later in a little wooden shack that sits on the Atlantic Ocean, I will finish writing and join Chris and eat half of the watermelon he has before him in a bowl. We will walk again, hands held like bear paws, and I will wonder if there will ever be enough time to do all of the kind things that I want to do for him.

We took this photo last night, two people with the unbelievable good fortune of growing up and growing older together, visiting for the last time a dear, dear place. I am no longer the piece of glowing ripe fruit that I was in that picture in the last story, but I feel more beautiful and loved than that girl could ever imagine.

ALC

Since my mother’s death, my brother, sister, and I have been dealing with her possessions. This is no simple task. It has not been merely the distribution of a treasured ring, family china, a little jar that sat on a desk. No. It has been like signing up for something billed as a nature walk and discovering instead that one is to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. The three of us made one heroic effort, and then we have engaged in several feeble efforts, and finally we have agreed to leave it to the professionals. We are rank amateurs.

I have been helpless as a kitten in the face of my mother’s things, but there is still time for me. I have not placed my belongings in pyre and struck a match. I have thought a lot about what I want, what I need, and what I intend to leave behind. Perhaps in an attempt to piece together my life, I have made things from scraps.

I have walked the dog for countless miles. I have cried, although perhaps less than you would think and in response to things that surprise even me. I have been unable to paint. I have been unable to write. I have been bone tired. I have looked at life through dirty windows.

I have not been myself.

I have cleaned house. In that endeavor I have forsaken the bespoke environmental cleaners in twee glass jars for a jug of lavender-scented Fabuloso. It is cheap. It is multi-purpose. It can be used almost everywhere. It smells pleasing, in the sense that it odorously announces in an outside voice I HAVE CLEANED.

We all have things we like to do. Cleaning-wise, I am a champ when it comes to vacuuming, sweeping, cleaning sinks and toilets, and emptying trash. I find dusting odious. But dust I must, and in early March — almost 30 years to the day after it was taken — I picked up this framed photograph on Chris’ bedside table.

As a woman closing in rapidly on 54 years old, I view my 23 year-old self with wonder. It is a photograph of me at the peak of my beauty: My skin is flawless, my hair is auburn, my waist is trim. The photograph embarrassed me, though, because I distinctly remember feeling at that time of my life that I was fat and ugly. What was I thinking?

It has occurred to me that I have often been a hard and wrathful judge of myself. After a lifetime of attempts to convince myself not to care about what people think, I have decided to give my friends their due credit. I felt terrible about my last conversation with my mother: an unworthy child, a bad daughter, a miserable human being. When I wrote about it, I received a stream of private messages, texts, and letters from friends who have had difficult relationships with their own parents. One of those people told me that complicated relationships lead to complicated grieving. Another person gently reminded me that being a mother is hard, and that we all do what we can. Someone else vowed to make sure his own children know of his intense love for him. Others talked about grief and bewilderment and acceptance. As I read their words, I stood in the company of people I love — none of whom I would ever describe as unworthy, bad, or miserable.

While dealing with my mother’s decline and death, I was called upon at work to do something very difficult and very isolating. In moments when I wondered whether I was up to the task, my friends had no doubt that I was. Their support overwhelmed me and formed what often felt like a protective bubble around me.

I visited a long-time friend a few weeks ago. I invited myself to see her, which is a patented move of mine. The weekend meant so much to me, and the many small kindnesses of decades of friendship gave me so much to think about. My friend, an excellent cook, made dinner. Like all the greats, she made it look easy. When I made a comment to that effect, she assured me that it was. You set the oven, she said, and you switch out what is in it. There is no magic. After dinner, my friend, her husband, and I were talking, and I told a story from — I’m not kidding — 1984. Her husband said very kindly that he heard that story, which made me think: Why I am mired in something that happened 38 years ago? And: isn’t it time to let it go? As my friend and I were driving the next day, she told me that the freedom of being in your 50s felt a lot like the freedom of being in your 20s.

I have considered what it means to be me and how I can be myself. I do not think I will discover the answers, but I can try. I can do the small things that make myself more peaceable: eat right, meditate, exercise, pick up a paintbrush, garden, clean the house, walk the dog endlessly. I can go to dance classes, one of the few places where I am not riddled with imposter syndrome, and where half the class admires my enthusiasm and the other half secretly hopes that I break an ankle. I can write a love letter to my friends, because without them, I would not have made it through this year with any semblance of grace and sanity. I can return the favor, and I can assure you that you can do hard things. I can clean house, and I can let go, and I can embrace the freedom that unfolds.

ALC

My mother died. My brother, sister, and I don’t know exactly when, but we know exactly where: in her favorite chair, while watching TV. I like to imagine a juicy episode of Murder, She Wrote, or a particularly compelling case on Perry Mason – both favorites – followed by her nodding off and then something far more. She turned 76 last month.

It was not entirely unexpected. Still, I did not expect the call from my sister on that beautiful Saturday evening, while Chris and I were eating paella with friends. The gathering felt like a celebration: fall, college football, a giant platter of food. We were so loud that I barely heard the phone ring. I took the call and walked into a corner of the yard. The women watched my body language and grew alarmed. The men remained oblivious. Chris was laughing and gesturing with a beer bottle as I alternated waving to him and pointing to the ground beside me.

When I ended the call, it was clear that something was wrong. I had no choice but to tell my friends that my mother had died. Because my mother raised me to be unfailingly polite, I deflected and apologized profusely for ruining the evening. Only one person touched me, for I looked so brittle that they feared that I was about to shatter. I ran out and ran home.

In my life as a lawyer, there is a constant in court opinions: They maintain that death is different. The opinions are right. Normally I stay busy, plot a course, and move forward. But on Saturday night, I sat at my computer and sent a series of emails terminating all obligations for the week. My mother died, they said, and I just cannot. These emails ended up being the sum total of the decisions I could make. When I could not decide whether to fly or drive, the inability to make that decision counseled that I should not drive. An announcement on the flight on Sunday said that in the event of an emergency, we should leave everything in its place, not look back, and quickly move out. I felt like the flight attendant spoke directly to me.

I have not even been here 48 hours, and it feels like 48 days, 48 weeks, 48 years. My siblings and I went to the funeral home, organized the service, and spent $8,000 in under an hour. We ordered flowers, thanked the neighbors, found the will, met the minister. He asked us to describe her legacy. My brother and sister gave beautiful, heartfelt answers. I had no answer, for I have been struggling with this question for the last six months.

There are things I know. My mother loved to cook, teach, watch television, and eat large tubs of popcorn at matinee movies. When I was a child, she thought that a home permanent was the answer to all my problems. (It was not. In fact, I found that having awful-looking hair only exacerbated them.) She was never wrong, and incredibly stubborn, and she apologized to me only once in my 53 years. She typically gave me awful advice. Learning to take that advice with a grain of salt was one of the most peaceable achievements of my adult life.

Since Mom liked to talk, I listened. Thanks to Mom, I learned to read at a young age, took up sewing, religiously write thank you notes, and set a mean table, because a meal is always better with cloth napkins and candles. Also thanks to Mom, but perhaps in a different way, I discovered the importance of good health, a clean home, and a well-tended bank account.

Among her things – and there were many of them – we found her Bible. There was a joyous photograph of my son, then a two year-old and now nearing 24, tucked in at Psalm 77. This psalm has not achieved the marquee status of Psalm 23 or Psalm 100 for a reason: The psalmist feels like he has fallen out of favor with the Lord, and he prays to regain his health and happiness. He begs for perhaps a modicum of understanding of his situation.

It was not an accidental bookmark. During my relationship with her, she was often the unhappiest person I knew, and I would have given anything to change that. The unhappiness led to a lack of care, and that lack of care led to her death.

She stepped on a broken bowl in March, almost exactly six months before her death, and refused to seek treatment until she described a red-hot rash to my sister. She spent a week in the hospital and escaped without losing her leg.

Given the severity of the wound, the doctor recommended a lengthy stay in a rehabilitation facility. She wanted to return home immediately. The state of her house would have killed her.

As the oldest child, I intervened. I laid down the law in a telephone call. I told her she had to stay in a rehabilitation facility for wound care or she would lose her leg, perhaps even die. Her ire was immense, and the tenor of this call made even Chris shake. It ended with me telling her I loved her very much, and with her replying that she never wanted to speak to me again. She then hung up the phone.

This was the last time I spoke to her, although of course I wrote her a thank you note for a birthday gift.

She checked out of the rehabilitation facility early and returned home. A nurse tended to her wound for a few weeks, and then she was on her own. Her foot never healed. She called my sister last Wednesday and said she did not want to do this anymore. By Saturday she was at peace. My English degree suspects that she died of septic shock. My years of experience with her let me know how satisfying it was for her to die on her own terms.

I got a head start on my grieving. It began with our last phone call. She called me a few times after that, and I did not answer. I knew that I ran the risk of never speaking with her again, but I needed to marshal my strength to remember the mother I needed to remember.

She was not even 23 when I was born. She was young and beautiful and smelled like cherry and almonds. She sang constantly. She dressed me in clothes she made herself, and she once selected a fabulous red fake fur coat that I wish I still had. She had a blue bike with a seat on the back. I would ride behind her with the wind in our hair, my limbs reaching to her and her strong legs propelling us into the great adventure and mystery of the future. When I had children of my own, I called her, crying, to tell her that I finally understood.

She loved me completely and abundantly. I have doubted many things, but I have never doubted that.

ALC

Time travel

While walking Emmet a few mornings ago, I listened to a podcast that discussed time travel. I was surprised to find that someone had bothered to research how people felt about it. I was even more surprised to find that several themes emerged. Going back was more appealing than going forward. Younger people welcomed a chance to change history, especially if they could right colossal wrongs like the Holocaust. Older people were less receptive to time travel, realizing the permanent ripples that a single past change could make. Despite being largely anti-time travel, older people made an exception for moving backwards to have a final meaningful conversation or to avoid an argument on the cusp of a loved one’s death.

I had never really thought about time travel, much less my personal stance on the issue. At the same moment I had this realization, I looked across the street. A woman was carrying a child that was too big to be carried regularly. He looked like a four or five year-old boy. His legs wrapped around her waist as his arms embraced her neck. She cooed and kissed the top of his head. He looked perfectly content. She looked at me and smiled.

My children are 22 and 23 years old. They are way too big to be carried at all, yet I can still imagine the smell of their sweet and sour childhood tang and the smooth, heavy warmth of their small and rubbery limbs. With that, I knew exactly where I stood on time travel.

School picture day

My husband — my law partner — is updating our firm’s website. As with all past upgrades, he kept this one a secret until the very moment he decided that it was time to take photographs. This morning, he cleared off his desk and asked me to take some action shots. The use of “action shots” amused me. What could be more action-packed than Chris sitting at his desk, looking at papers, holding a pen, and consulting a book? A few hours later he asked me to take some head shots of him. Other than the one where I made him make a duck face, this is my favorite.

Since Chris knew it was picture day, he could dress the part. He wore his favorite bow tie and a starched shirt. But me? When I dressed this morning, I was under the impression that it was a lazy Friday before a long weekend. I wore a very colorful cotton dress that I made, some yellow beads, and an armful of painted wooden bracelets. When he told me that it was my turn for head shots, I declined. I would like to look formidable and fearsome, I said, and this is not that. Chris looked at me for a moment and replied softly, “I have just thought all day about how pretty you look.” Chris does not say things just for the sake of saying things. So I relented. Other than the one where Chris told me to look like I couldn’t believe what my opponent was arguing, this is my favorite:

There is more to life than looking formidable and fearsome.

(But I still want a different picture on my law firm’s website.)

730

In the months following my cancer diagnosis, I tested the limits of Google to become the premier internet researcher on colon cancer. I found an obscure paper out of Australia suggesting that people who internalized their anger and their feelings seemed more likely to suffer. (Takeaway: If you felt that something was eating you inside, perhaps it was.) My oncologist listened politely to my inquiries about this paper. While she gently pooh-poohed its hypothesis, she allowed that a calmer, less anxious life was always a health benefit.

So I began meditating in early 2019. I chose the Headspace app because its founder had training as both a Buddhist monk and a circus performer, which seemed like an enviable balance to achieve. I immediately learned that I was terrible at meditation. My mind wandered. I would not sit to meditate, and while lying in bed, I would often fall asleep during the exercise. Some nights I could only muster a minute.

To compensate for my lousiness, I decided that I could at least be consistent. My app tells me that I have now meditated for 730 consecutive nights — two solid years. Some nights are better than others, but I still struggle. I will never shave my head and wear a saffron robe; I am more likely to learn how to juggle. But when confronted with troubling thoughts, I am now better able to view them as cars on the road: They pass, and I do not engage.

My daughter moved into a house recently. While she had plenty to do, she simply could not begin. She told a friend that she needed her mother there to give her instructions. I have been overwhelmed lately with too much to do — work, family, home, all that *&$% driving. Her idea of having instructions really resonated. I had strayed from the good routines of my life — regular times to go to bed and wake, homemade lunches, a time carved out to create, 20 minutes of exercise in the morning. There is nothing spectacular in this list, although it tells you the type of person I want to be: healthy, well-nourished, well-rested, creative. With a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, I have returned to these small things, and I have begun to feel better.

ALC

On a single day last week, three people asked if I’d quit writing. The answer is no, I have just been working a lot. This is no standard dodge, for it is true. I have been working a lot. Malpractice insurers like lawyer-types to keep two calendars, so my assistant keeps my computer one while I keep a handwritten one, a red-covered, spiral bound “At-A-Glance” model. (While the word “malpractice” strikes fear in my professional heart, I wish there were some sort of malpractice insurance for my personal life, ready to step in and remedy the things that go wrong.) The computer calendar dispassionately displays notification after notification on my screen, while my handwritten calendar sits open demurely on my desk, a giant tangle of multi-colored inks. There are circled notations. There are a few things marked out with a giant X. Alarmingly, there is the occasional employment of a red Sharpie, a harbinger of calendar doom if ever there were one. I have taken calls, gone to court, and Zoomed to superstardom, to be sure, but mostly I have driven.

We replaced Lucky with a new-to-us car on May 5. My only wish was for another red car. But we compromised and purchased the car of Chris’ monochromatic and automotive dreams. Yes, it is grey, but it has abundant giddy-up, plentiful factory-installed options, and a pleasing rumble. To sweeten the deal, its prior owner engaged in a certain amount of customization: tinted windows, carbon fiber muffler tips, a carbon fiber spoiler, a blacked-out grill, and ground effects. This owner was apparently both an enthusiast and a preservationist, so he kept the original equipment and placed it for us to find in a box the trunk of the car. The address label on that box bears the name “Scott.”

In his honor, we refer to the new car as ScottWheels.

Over the last 55 days, I have driven ScottWheels 3,448 miles. My buttocks have conformed to the shape of its bucket seat. My hands resemble claws that have been prized from its steering wheel. When I’m not in the car, my middle-aged self longs for a button close at hand that will automatically result in the appearance of 72 degree conditioned air. I have rambled, and ScottWheels has rumbled, to Charleston, Brunswick, Waycross, Swainsboro, Hinesville, Thomasville, Atlanta, and even Albany. The Albany trip — a five-day affair — filled me with dread, but I ended up really enjoying it. I grew up both there and around there, and despite the passage of several decades, remnants of my past still floated along Old Dawson Road and Slappey Boulevard. Perhaps you can’t go home again, but you can drive past the first place you had a Krystal.

One of ScottWheels’ many options is satellite radio. Chris — in a display of husbandly affection and an inability to resist a rock-bottom introductory rate — bought six months of Siruis XM for the low, low price of $1.99 per month. Chris is an “80s on 8” and “First Wave” kind of listener, while I tend to gravitate toward “70s on 7” and “Soul Town.” Despite its impressive music catalog, Sirius XM is still a radio station, so there is some repetition. (It’s nothing like the summer of 1983, when “There’s Always Something There to Remind Me” played twice an hour on Albany’s 97Rock.) But if you listen to the 70s on 7, you will listen to “You’re So Vain” at least a few times a week.

I know all the words to “You’re So Vain.” An assurance that I know all the words to a song prompts my family to roll their collective eyes, for when they hear me say that, they know that I actually mean that I know about 65% of the words. This time is different, because this time it is true.

Son of a gun.

Driving home from Albany, when I was eastbound on Georgia 257 through small counties in middle Georgia on a beautiful late spring day, “You’re So Vain” came on. Move over Carly Simon, for I nailed a perfect rendition. I never came in too early (a frequent foible of mine). I got all the words (even gavotte!). I sang exuberantly and on-pitch (and stayed out of Mick Jagger’s way). I managed all of this despite nearly choking up during “You threw away the things you loved/And one of them was me.” Rather than being dismayed by the line “I had some dreams/They were clouds in my coffee/Clouds in my coffee,” I pounded my palm on the steering wheel to punctuate it. After such a great triumph, there was only one natural thing to do: I called my sister.

I wish I could say I called my sister to catch up, and while we eventually did just that, I had more pressing matters to attend to — namely, demanding that she do some internet research about the song itself. It was not a wasted endeavor (especially since she did all the work).

Did you know that the three verses of the song were written about three different men? We all have types, yes, but if I were to consistently gravitate toward men who inspired a song called “You’re So Vain,” I would ask you all to step in. Who has time for someone wearing a hat that partially obscures his vision and an apricot scarf, all while watching himself in a mirror as he dances? (Now that I ask that question, I am forced to answer that it may have described me at a few parties.) As if three vain men were not enough, there are rumors of a fourth, secret verse.

Carly Simon has identified only one of the subjects: The second verse is about Warren Beatty. He once told an interviewer, “I think that song is about me,” which alone makes me a fan for life.

It is the Warren Beatty verse that contains the line that always gets me: You threw away the things you loved/And one of them was me. Why does it nearly make my cry every single time? Since all of these miles have given me plenty of time to think, I have mentally composed a response and many other stories. But I have written nothing, for I have struggled with this particular story.

I mentioned a few months ago that I love someone who has a mental illness. It is an increasingly worse variant of hoarding disease, a form of OCD and a disorder popularized on A&E’s “Hoarders” and various documentaries. Those shows put out for public consumption people who cannot throw away things. They live in houses that are jam-packed with junk, often lack working plumbing, and frequently have a feral animal running loose in the mess. You can tell on the TV screen that the house smells terrible. The hoarders explain on-screen why they need to keep (for instance) a Crock-Pot of rotten meat, hundreds of reusable shopping bags, or thousands of back issues of People magazine. These shows often interview family and friends, most of whom have simply walked away. In the days where hoarding was someone else’s problem, I would ask of the hoarder, “How do you live like that?,” and I would ask of the family and friends, “How can you walk away?”

Now that I find myself an off-screen player in a Hoarders episode, I tell myself that the question “How do you live like that?” is not the right one, for my loved one is ill. I have learned that stepping in goes nowhere. (I have been told it feels like a betrayal.) I have found that throwing away things causes a certain doubling-down on the other end. So frustrated, dismayed, and set adrift, I have walked away.

I am not proud of this. But I am not strong enough to step back in, at least not for now.

Here is where it stands: A person I love drowns in a sea of possessions. Here is the effect: If every single thing is important, then nothing really is.

A few weekends ago, I spent spent Friday with one of my dearest and oldest friends. We walked around Charleston. We talked non-stop. We saw art. We ate ice cream for lunch. On Saturday, I went to a friend’s surprise birthday party. (An unexpected perk of being a lawyer: Keeping it secret was a piece of cake for me.) Chris and I had dinner with friends that night. On Sunday — like most Sundays these days — I worked hard to get a little bored. I walked the dog. I read a book. I watched too much Great British Baking Show while I knitted an endless shawl. I tidied up. And in a fit to take care of my things, I dusted the houseplants:

Perhaps it was extreme and unnecessary, but it felt good. A guarantee that I will not lose control, that I will prioritize what’s important, that I will not make the people I love feel discarded. That is a lot to place on the fronds of a single dust-free fern, I get it, but when you don’t know what to do, you have to do something.

ALC

Since the beginning of the year I have felt myself slide from fine to pandemic fine to not fine at all. Just like everyone else, I have grown tired of wearing masks and standing in circles at the grocery store and not seeing the inside of the homes of my friends and families. And perhaps like everyone else, I have felt my anxiety become nearly all-consuming, a life lived at perpetual DEF-CON 1. I have found myself giving the same emotional shrift to a wide range of mostly insignificant issues, all to the end that I have stewed. A lot. I have even taken full advantage of the fact that there is no better time to stew than at 3 a.m., and if there is a better chaser to anxiety than insomnia, I don’t want to know it.

And then — lucky me! — the really bad things started happening. I nearly lost two loved ones to raging infections, and I watched the fallout of untreated mental illness on someone I love. These are not my stories to tell. But I will allow that there was stretch of weeks in February and March when it seemed certain that there would be fewer places to set at the table at Christmas.

It was during the first of the infection-related hospitalizations that the car got totaled. Chris and I were slowly driving in the parking lot next to the office when a giant SUV, driven by a notorious daredevil of a driver — a woman known to my entire office for her whipping into parking spaces with reckless abandon — backed into our red car from a distance of 6 to 8 feet. Her demolition skills were impressive: She hit both passenger side doors , the rear quarter panel, and the back bumper. The driver’s side remained intact. What was left is the sedan version of Two-Face, the Batman villain who began as Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent.

Before its transformation, this car began as Lucky. For nearly five years, Lucky transported us safely from Point A to Point B, but owning Lucky often felt like that episode of The Brady Bunch where Peter and Bobby discover the washed-up Tiki idol. Chris found the car used on Craigslist for an amazingly good price, and we suspect we know why. As a parting shot to the former owner, Lucky retained his wallet safely in a side compartment while we took a 10-day family vacation and Lucky stayed in airport parking.

With this car we have been through (in no particular order):

1. A dollar sign scratched into the hood.
2. A front bumper pierced by a driver who backed up and drove off.
3. A rear bumper scraped by a driver in a white car who backed up and drove off.
4. A new windshield occasioned by a roof tile that flew off in a hurricane. (Fortunately, the cost of the new windshield was below both our homeowners and car insurance deductibles.)
5. A failed timing chain following a 3-second message to drive the car moderately to safety — and then poof! Destroyed engine! (Fortunately, we were a few thousand miles out of the timing chain/engine recall period when this happened.)
6. The near-constant continuation of those 3-second messages even after the replacement of the timing chain and engine, messages that enjoy lighting up the car like Christmas lights — usually in the dark on the interstate in desolate stretches while I am driving alone.
7. Countless tires, which seem to succumb not just to road hazards, but also to piercing glances.

It is not a lemon. It is a car populated by a mischievous spirit. Is it any wonder then that it met its end, new tires and all, in a close-quarter backup only feet from its intended destination?

The bright side of a few terrible months has been an anxiety reset, or barring that, at least an anxiety triage. Not everything requires the same level of emotion and reaction. In fact, very few things warrant a DEF-CON 1 response. When confronted with the question, “Does this really matter?,” the overwhelming response is “Probably not.” Or, to draw from my recent experiences: Sepsis is a real problem. The need to replace a car is not.

I have enjoyed the sleep.

And I have enjoyed a few things that would not have happened absent the pandemic. A few weeks ago on a Thursday, my son called. Graduating from college and assuming a first job is always difficult. With COVID-related shutdowns, cold and wet weather, and social distance requirements, it has been difficult times a million. (There is apparently nothing like the journey of self-discovery that occurs in a 400 square foot apartment in a blizzard.) He sounded really lonely in that phone call, and when I called him around 8 p.m. that night under the pretense of forgetting something, he sounded even lonelier. After the second call, I texted that I could be in Philadelphia the next afternoon to spend the weekend with him.

It was a well-intentioned mother text that I figured would be promptly ignored or, at most, politely declined. Imagine my surprise when he accepted my invitation. I bought a plane ticket, packed a bag, and sourced an all-night purveyor of a COVID rapid test to comply with Pennsylvania’s entry requirements. (Pennsylvania did not enforce its entry requirements — just like Chris, my son, and the Urgent Care worker from Philly told me that they would not. But I could hardly ignore a lifetime of rule-abiding, even if my ever-widening cheap streak balked at paying $149 for the rapid test.)

What ensued was a weekend that will easily make my lifetime highlight reel. Friday night started with a walk downtown to Rittenhouse Square, past all sorts of public art, to find a band (Snack Time!) populated only with brass and drums and performing “Wanna Be Starting Something” on the street to a dancing crowd. At the Italian restaurant around the corner, I ordered the pizza bearing the restaurant’s name instead of the sensible salad that prudence advocated.

The next day — Saturday — we walked 13 miles around the city, and if there is anything left to see, it’s probably nothing good. It rained at first, and then the weather cleared, and by the time we stopped for cheesesteaks, it was perfect. There was a small Ferris wheel by the river, and as I faced Philly and my son faced Camden, I was so incredibly glad to be in that moment.

Of all the things we saw that day, the best was The Barnes, a museum I had never heard of. (In fact, I had demanded to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, home of the steps from Rocky, but my son told me that I would like this other place better. He was right.) Dr. Barnes made a fortune in infection control in the early 1900s. He sent a childhood friend (an amateur painter) to Paris in 1912 with $20,000 with which to buy art. The friend then bought 30 paintings by a cadre of largely unknown and upcoming artists, like Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, and Renoir. Dr. Barnes sold his company in the spring of 1929, refused stock options, and demanded cash, which he did not place in a bank. He weathered the financial storm spectacularly and added to his collection. Dr. Barnes bought what he liked, whether that was Impressionistic masterpieces, folk art, Pennsylvania Dutch furniture, hand-forged hardware, or simply an eye-catching gewgaw. When Dr. Barnes died in 1951, his will left his art to a foundation, which was required to display everything in exactly the manner that he displayed it at the time of his death.

Here is a typical (and partial) wall in the museum:

There are no placards, for Dr. Barnes wanted the viewer to connect color, shape, and texture. There is no hierarchy of art; a Matisse sketch is under a Pennsylvania Dutch bowl. The place had either 121 or 151 Renoirs, more Matisse paintings than I had ever seen in a single place, and a Van Gogh collection of works that I had only seen in art history books. I wanted to cry. I wanted to move in. I completely got it.

Here was a rare gift of the pandemic: a mother’s last-minute offer accepted by a lonely child and a spur-of-the-moment trip resulting in unexpected sunshine, priceless art, good food, Snack Time!, and a whole lot of companionable walking. It made me realize what I had missed over the last year.

To that end, and to try to avoid missing even more over the next year, Chris and I got our first vaccinations today through a local hospital. The process was so ruthlessly efficient that I longed for that hospital to take over the postal service. But what really surprised me was the joy. There were so many happy people there that the place sounded like a cocktail party, with a steady buzz of conversation and punctuations of laughter. I drew a pediatric nurse, a fantastic choice for the administration of a shot, and despite the absence of juice and Danish ring cookies afterwards, it was largely painless and completely fine. I had a moment of community where I realized how much I love this city and the people who live in it, and there came a point when I was nearly overcome with emotion by the hope that this would one day be behind us.

And isn’t it about time?

ALC

When I was talking to Chris this morning, I meant to describe someone as “self-deprecating.” I said instead that that person was “self-defecating.” I suppose that is true — for really, isn’t the human factory standard set at self-defecating? — but still, it was a malaprop with a meaning: If my brain is this addled, then clearly I need to write.

I blame the chair in our bedroom. It is a perfectly fine chair, obtained from an estate sale held a few blocks from our house about 15 years ago. Although it was a long time ago, I was surrounded by bargain-hungry Savannahians with Velcro mitts for hands, and I have been to an embarrassing number of estate sales, I well remember walking into that particular house. It was comfortable and cozy. It had a lot of books. And it looked like the occupant would return at any moment (no doubt wondering why a host of strangers were fondling his possessions).

Being perpetually nosy (or perhaps just southern), I inquired. The owner and his fine German Shepherd had died in a gas explosion at his river house. At the time, I was in my late 30s, which means everything was more or less going my way, and I remember the first nudge of that feeling that I have grown to know all too well: Things can turn on a dime.

So I bought a desktop lectern, which has wandered through four different offices with me, and the chair that sits in my bedroom, which has remained the same. I recovered the chair in a black and white toile, and rather than sitting on it to tie my shoes or put on my tights, I found instead that it has become That Chair. You know, the dirty-little-secret chair in everyone’s bedroom that plays host to the flotsam and jetsam of one’s life that has no other place. It recently held a framed self-portrait of my daughter done in marker; four socks with no mates; a red weld file containing notes that I carried to court in Atlanta 53 weeks ago; a purse that had been switched out; two sweaters that needed repair; a small red rectangular package of screws that affix God only knows what; and the nightly stack of three decorative pillows removed from our bed before going to sleep.

It was not an overflowing mess or anything resembling an enormous mound. But it was enough to get my attention. Chris and I live in comfortable home that nears 3,000 square feet. Our children have largely moved out. As I surveyed the chair, I asked myself this question: Why did I have so much space and so little room?

Thus begun a domestic fruit basket turnover of epic proportions. Shelves have gone up. Toiletries, cleaning supplies, purses, and sweaters have been on a circular march upstairs to new and more hospitable climes. Trash bags have been deployed. Donation piles have arisen from the ashes. (While these things will be donated, I must confess an itch to assemble an enormous pile for a backyard bonfire and to cheer the lapping flames.) No closet is safe.

Now the armoire holds sweaters and linens. The laundry closet now has an additional shelf to hold cleaning supplies. A small pink chest in the bathroom houses toiletries. And at the risk of sounding completely immodest, a stroke of genius led me to convert the old linen closet into a purse closet, complete with fresh paint bright orange racing stripes on the front of the shelves:

Alas, I have miles to go before I sleep. There remains the guest closet, the downstairs coat closet, the attic. I have begun to tackle my sewing room — site of my fabric and yarn holdings — a task that has led to this question in some form or another, over and over: Exactly what possessed me? And this: Have I been trying to corner the elusive yarn and fabric markets?

Actions have consequences, I tell myself. We are all the products of our decisions, I say. Why did I think I could make a dress from a yard of fabric or a sweater from a single skein of yarn?, I wonder.

But I have dug in. I have been confronted with remnants, and I have elected to cobble together what I can. Bags. Placemats. Napkins. Clothing made out of pieces. A sweater that may not exactly match, but certainly uses a lot of bits and pieces.

This is how I have elected to go forward: Take what I have. Use it all (even the good stuff) and enjoy it. Remove my own Velcro mitts of retail. Keep moving forward.

My sister turned 40 the other day. I feel tenderness for her akin to the tenderness I feel for my children — a tenderness that can perhaps be generated only by repeatedly changing the diapers of one who is self-defecating. As she approaches her 40s, I thought about mine, and how they felt like a downward flaming spiral, with white-knuckled hands on the control shaft, until I crash-landed in my 50s. I think often of this Victor Hugo quote: Forty is the old age of youth. Fifty is the youth of old age.

Alas, it is not a youth bounded by college and adulthood and independence. But I still feel that I have been presented with something new, that the future — while no longer seeming unlimited — is mine to make it. As I have been cleaning and sewing and knitting and painting and generally making room, I have thought about the changes of the last few years:

1. I have taught myself to cook and I make our lunches every day. (I had been convinced that I was simply unable to cook, and then I realized that if you can read, you can cook. Note: I can read.)
2. For the month of January, I wore something that I made every day, and I have never felt more like myself. (Did I look ridiculous at times? Possibly. Did it concern me? Not really.)
3. I meditate nightly, and I have a run streak of 540 consecutive days. (Yes, I realize that that makes me sound competitive, which is the antithesis of meditation. Recall, however, the name of this blog.)
4. I no longer drink. (Do I miss it? Sure, especially with really good meals. And when I smell really good bourbon.)
5. I exercise only in ways that make me feel happy, so I walk a whole lot, do Pilates, and lift weights a few nights a week. (If my body has grown softer — well — so have I.)

As I was painting the orange racing stripes on my new purse closet, I felt like I owed myself an apology, although I wasn’t exactly sure what I should apologize for. There seemed to be a lot — bad perms, uncomfortable shoes, the many times I should have kept my mouth shut. I finally settled on this: I have, at times, made it unnecessarily hard on myself. Perfection is a sucker’s game, and I often opted for space without the room. I am remedying the situation in my home. I am working on it in my life. And when I knit every bit of yarn and sew every little piece of cloth that I have gathered, no doubt I will be fabulously arrayed in fabric that I have created.

I hope to have many years, with so much color and with plenty of time to create. Youth may be wasted on the young, but I am no longer young. I know better than to fritter away what I now have. My knees may grumble and make terrible noises, but still I dance. While my children are mortified, I am delighted.

ALC

The holidays are here, and one casualty of the pandemic is our children’s willingness to return home. Thanks to several months of forced isolation within its very walls, they have come to view our house as The Place Where Dreams Go to Die. While an unfair reputation, it is an understandable one, born of months of reverting back to the old parent-child ways with increasingly older participants. On one hand: Adult children who have their own routines, preferences, and secrets. On the other: Middle-aged parents who worry aloud about sufficient fiber consumption and who refer to “Wheel of Fortune” simply as “Wheel.”

We housed our daughter for five months, and our son for nearly three, until she returned to college and he left to start his first real job. This job is in Philadelphia, a place he visited and loved on a 2020 spring break trip that just avoided COVID-related shutdowns by the skin of its teeth. I have always talked a big game about moving to cities I have fallen quickly and madly in love with during brief visits — San Francisco, Manhattan, Austin, Asheville, Charlottesville — but the only move I have made in the last 28 years is two doors down.

But not my son. He applied for a job in Philly, and he got it, and despite every desire to keep him within a reasonable drive, we financed the expedition. By the time he left, it was TIME — time to say farewell to the enormous grocery bills, the job-seeking anxiety, the feeling that he was willing to gnaw off his leg to escape the trap — and I thought that I would dance in the middle of 45th Street when that time came.

But then I saw this sight —

— and I sobbed. As the man married to a woman who cries at everything, Chris sighed, pulled me into a hug, and assured me that our son would call needing something soon. Sure enough, my phone rang seven minutes later: He had forgotten his pillow. I clutched it on the sidewalk as I waited for him to return.

He likes his job, and while he likes the city, it surprises him. On the trolley one day, he caught an older woman looking at him; when he smiled and waved, she yelled at him and got off at the next stop. He has seen a large fistfight erupt on the steps of City Hall and a man hit by a train. The weather is cold, and things are expensive. But it is a walkable place, and in Rittenhouse Square, he saw a young woman — a law student, it turns out — reading The Great Gatsby. He introduced himself.

Meanwhile, our daughter has transferred to school in Athens, something she swore she would never do. I told her for years that she would love it there, and she told me for years that I had no idea of what I was talking about. The older I get, the more I realize the truth of this statement, but I was pretty sure I was right about Athens. And I was. When she finally admitted it, it took every ounce of self-control I had not to gloat.

If you are only as happy as your unhappiest child, the last few months have been some of my best. There was a Sunday morning driving home on I-95 from Florida when I talked to each child in succession, their contentment apparent over the car’s Bluetooth-enabled speakers. I have read that child-rearing on a day-to-day basis brings about as much happiness as cleaning house; its real benefit comes from the moments of transcendent joy. As the second call ended, I pulled into a BP station, sat at the pump, and wept. This is what they meant.

My cancer diagnosis was two years ago on November 15. It was (to put it mildly) a life-changing event, one that seems in both my immediate and far distant past. I think about having had cancer every single day. I planned to celebrate this November 15 with a trip to Saint Simons for a walk on the beach. It was on that beach a few days after the diagnosis that I walked with Emmet, then a months-old puppy, and planned for my future, or at least whatever was left of it. I remember not praying to get well, for that seemed to be far too much to ask, but for the strength to handle what came my way with grace and humor. The weather on that walk was perfect, and the waves scared Emmet, and because it is the story of my life, a woman who looked normal but was completely crazy accosted me to ask me to weigh in on her ex-husband’s gaining custody of their children. I looked like a lawyer, she said, to which I responded, I have cancer. She was not expecting that, and to be fair, neither was I.

I thought a reprise of this walk was in order — albeit without the crazy lady — on November 15, 2020, but when it looked like I had court in Brunswick only a few days later, I decided to take the walk then. Chris was 100% on board with this plan, for what better way to conduct pleasure than with a little business thrown in? (As I tell everyone: Chris intends to work a half day, and then attend his own funeral.) Those plans fell through, and so did later plans, and then even more plans disappeared into the mist, leaving me with both the simplest and greatest celebration possible: I am alive. If, as a 52 year-old adult, you ever doubt your parents’ continuing love for you, know that my father texted me that he thanked God every day for the blessing of my still being here.

As do I.

My bar is so low these days: It does not take much for me to be happy. When the bird feeder needs to be refilled, the birds congregate outside the windows of my house and follow me through the downstairs as I throw open the blinds. Feed me, they chirp, feed me. The chorus began in earnest this morning, and when I opened the back door, they sat on the rear fence, lined in a row. I fed them and watched the giant male cardinal — the one so large that I wonder how he still flies — eat first, followed by his mate. An hour later, as I walked Emmet into work, a runner called me “young lady” and the garbage men waved. Chris and I ate lunch out, a rare treat these days, and when we returned, we told our staff to leave. I have found time to write. I have allowed myself an unprecedented three cans of orange LaCroix. It is only 3:12 p.m., and I cannot imagine a better day.

And to my delight, the children have relaxed their anti-home bias. Our son asked yesterday if we could fly him home for Christmas, and before he could change his mind, I made those arrangements, cheerfully reminding him that the fare was non-refundable. My daughter — always the stubborn one — stuck to her staying-in-Athens guns. So I set a trap. Would her dog like a trip to the groomer? Would she like to use my $20 Michaels rewards certificate for a whole lot of embroidery floss? Could she perhaps benefit from the $50 gas card that Publix had on sale for $40? (Yes, dear reader, the skinflintedness is real, and passed along to my children, both of whom would appreciate that this prize package contemplated THIRTY FREE DOLLARS.) After exacting a concession that we would put up the Christmas tree on Friday, she agreed to come home. I cannot wait to have her here.

But first, there is a pandemic celebration: Chris and I will drive for hours tomorrow to sit in his brother’s backyard and eat turkey from paper plates. We will bump elbows, not hug, and blow kisses. We will work hard to keep Emmet from helping himself to any bowl of ice cream held tantalizingly at nose level. We will leave early and drive back home and complain about back pain and feel terrible that we are part of the reason gas station workers have to work on a holiday.

Is this the table I would have set for myself if I had a choice? Absolutely not. Fortunately, the thanksgiving itself is real.

With love and gratitude,

ALC