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Posts Tagged ‘Family’

Still Crazy

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on June 2, 2013| 3 Comments »

Well folks, 34 years ago tomorrow I was busily sweeping up around the swimming pool and hoping the sky would clear up for my wedding day. Bob was trying to find the rabbi, in an age before cell phones, and got lost in Livingston.

We did everything wrong. We were not only co-habiting before the wedding, we bought a house, got pregnant and moved all in that same year – the trifecta of stress inducing change. Oh, and Bob started his first job as an Assistant Director of an ER; it was 1979.

The Deer Hunter won an Academy Award; Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” won the Grammy’s Record of the Year; the Iranian Hostage Crisis happened while Carter was in the White House; Mother Theresa won the Nobel Peace prize for her work in India, and in PA, a nuclear reactor had a meltdown on Three Mile Island.

We, surprisingly, survived after all these years. Through shoulder and back surgeries, through deaths of parents and our siblings, through 3 miscarriages, through 2 more monumental moves. One back to NJ from the Berkshires, and this last (I hope) to the Blue Ridge Mountains. What, you may ask, are we doing right?

Well for one thing, we talk A LOT. We can easily be quiet together, don’t get me wrong, but there’s always something that needs discussing. I will say, “Did you hear that author speak about her book “Gulp” on NPR?” He will say, “Yeah she was fascinating.” Then I’ll ask him why my shoulder still hurts, and he will say, “Your problem is ‘ballistic movement’ with your AC joint.” I will say “What?” And usually this will lead to a long explanation, so I will interject, “What should we do for dinner?” And usually we end up with, “Don’t get me started on health care in this country…” Full disclosure, we both think Obamacare didn’t go far enough to effect real change.

And for another thing, we still LAUGH. We can still kid around together, we can call each other out on things, maybe because that time when we went to the Prom together feels like yesterday. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/05/19/us/20110519_PROM_USERGEN-5.html I forgave him for going to Woodstock without me, and he forgave me for setting up housekeeping in Westchester first. We’re on the same side in this game they call marriage, and that’s maybe one of the most important lessons I’ve had to learn.

The truth is, we made a pact to renegotiate the marriage contract every 5 years. Here’s a news alert for newlyweds, gay and straight:

It’s never equal you know, never a 50/50 split. Some days it’s 70/30 and others it’s 51/49.

I wanted to be closer to family once the Rocker arrived, he wanted to open an Urgent Care. Every anniversary we’d celebrate at a fine French restaurant, but this year L’Etoile is closed on Monday. Mon Dieu, what to do? Maybe we’ll just use the Maps App to find a new favorite restaurant. Man, look at those bat sleeves Robin!

Wedding Cake 1979 20130602

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Tchin Tchin

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

Let’s raise our glasses, or our coffee cups, to the French! Today Marriage Equality is de rigeur in this predominantly Catholic country. Legalizing same-sex unions wasn’t easy, even though the mayor of Paris is openly gay. In fact it’s the biggest shift in policy since abolishing the death penalty in 1981…I wonder if SCOTUS is listening? I am ecstatic, and hoping for a complete overhaul of the wedding industry, which could use a touch of LGBT creativity.

But it’s not just the business of getting married that may be overhauled as state after state grants gays the right to marry. A recent article in The Atlantic posits that we heteros may learn a thing or two from gay marriage.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-gay-guide-to-wedded-bliss/309317/

“Same-sex spouses, who cannot divide their labor based on preexisting gender norms, must approach marriage differently than their heterosexual peers.”

Liza Mundy has gathered most of the data from around the world on the sociological complications of straight vs gay marriage. Who will pay the mortgage? Who will run the kids from school to tennis? Who cooks and who will do the laundry? There is even a study where researchers threw a bunch of toys out on the floor with a child and its parents to see how parents interact during play…sure enough, it was the hetero dads who played lincoln logs in the corner by themselves.

I was in a bank line that wasn’t moving the other day, so I struck up a conversation with the dad and a stroller directly in front of me. I told him about my Love Bug, and he told me all about the same age baby girl he was caring for, his daughter, who was happily smiling at me whenever I looked at her. By way of explanation he said she was getting fussy so he thought he’d venture out. Then he volunteered that his wife was finishing a fellowship at UVA and they were moving to Seattle in just a few weeks. I said that must be exciting, and told him about my son-in-law’s fellowship in Nashville. But he didn’t seem very excited about moving cross country, and then the line started to move and he was gone.

I didn’t ask him “What do you do,” as I know some others might have done to try and pigeonhole his motives for staying at home to care for his daughter. I could see very well what he did, he had a clean, smiling, happy baby with him. I love to see young men caring for their children, during the week, when it is obvious this is their role for now, while the wife earns the money. Religious zealots, who fear gay marriage for whatever reasons, should take heart to learn that gay men are just as likely to denote one partner to stay-at-home (“specialize”) in their marriage as heterosexual partners. According to the latest Census:

“32 percent of married heterosexual couples with children have only one parent in the labor force, compared with 33 percent of gay-male couples with children. (Lesbians also specialize, but not at such high rates, perhaps because they are so devoted to equality, or perhaps because their earnings are lower—women’s median wage is 81 percent that of men—and not working is an unaffordable luxury.)”

Maybe this fact alone should put an end to the “mommy wars?” My friend Lee was an assistant DA in MA, a high powered attorney. She found a wonderful nanny, from France in fact, and had a very supportive husband with more reasonable working hours. It never occurred to us, both feminists, that we might be at war because I chose to stay at home!

So look out all you newly married heterosexual couples. Gay marriage just may have a profound effect on our culture, in a very good way. The old playing field is getting some brand new sod, and everything you may have once thought was traditionally your duty in marriage, is up for debate. Now, Bob, about that cooking class in Italy…

First French gay couple wed

Meet the first French couple – Vincent Autin, left, and his partner Bruno Boileau sign a document during their marriage in Montpellier, southern France, on May 29, 2013

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/05/29/meet-frances-first-married-gay-couple/#ixzz2UmudbzoC

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A Tale of Two Sisters

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on May 5, 2013| 7 Comments »

I found out yesterday that my half-sister Shirley died. My sister Kay called to tell me. It was peaceful enough, she died in her sleep after refusing to be hospitalized for “low sodium.” I asked Bob what that means, and he said basically your system is shutting down. I have absolutely no memories of Shirley; she was 24 years older, she was having a baby at the same time I was born which I guess happened frequently back then. So, just as soon as I was born I became an aunt. She was out of the house long before our Year of Living Dangerously.

Shirley was the Flapper’s first child. The product of a dare, yes my mother married Shirley’s father on a dare. They met at a wedding in PA, and got along so well their friends dared them to get married. She was 16 years old, and I assume that kind of thing happened all the time too – the getting married at 16 part. Gi Closeup 20130505 Web

Before the Flapper’s first husband died, she had a son, Brian. At 21 she was widowed with 2 children. At first I thought their father died in the Great War, later I learned he died of a ruptured appendix, before penicillin was discovered. The Flapper moved to NYC with her sister in order to work, and left her children with their grandmother, my Nana.

And this is when the troubles started with Shirley. After awhile my beautiful mother moved back to PA and caught the eye of a young pharmacist at her street car stop. Enter my father, who promptly married her and insisted on adopting her 2 children…although maybe he didn’t since they never took his name. He raised them just like his own – the 4 who followed, Kay, Mike, Jimmy and then me. I told you this is all third hand knowledge.

The family folk tale is that Shirley never forgave the Flapper for taking her away from Nana, the woman she loved and considered her true mother. Certainly holding a grudge was a time honored tradition in our family. The result of this grudge fest is the eternal rift between Mother and Shirley. Show me a family that hasn’t experienced years of ‘not talking’ between relatives; still this mother/daughter feud was stellar in its length and complexity.

Recently I found out that Shirley contracted TB as a young, new mother. She was sent away to a sanitorium and her baby boy, the one who is my nephew, came to live with the Flapper after her accident. It was while looking through old pictures with Kay that I wondered who the baby was, the one who wasn’t me. The Flapper never told me – which is telling in itself – that after giving me up to foster care, while she was still in the hospital, she ended up caring for my nephew at home. Even Kay has no explanation for how this happened.

I was always told that I was never taken from my foster parents, Nell and Jim, because Mother was afraid of losing another daughter to a grudge fest. I have to think, considering our level of poverty, that we were lucky in avoiding placement in an orphanage, all of us. So maybe it was just the Flapper’s pride, which was fierce, that kept her from placing her first grandson in an orphanage. And even though she was bed-bound, crippled by that drunk driver, she would fight to keep him. Kay was 15, so she not only helped Mother with her physical rehab, she helped care for her younger brothers and her nephew. Without Kay, the middle of this family would not hold.

In this picture Shirley is on the far left, and Kay is on the far right standing. I wasn’t born yet.

Lynn Siblings 20130505 Web

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Poetic Vision

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on April 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

On my long drive home this past weekend, I listened on and off, between mountain ranges shrouded in fog, to an interview on NPR with New York’s Poet Laureate, Marie Howe. It turns out April is Poetry month and this was a repeat of Terry Gross’ Fresh Air program from last year. Somehow I knew she was a kindred spirit. Howe grew up in a large Irish Catholic family, and attended the Convent of the Sacred of the Heart. As my BFF Lee from the Berkshires likes to say, we went to different schools together.

“Poetry holds the knowledge that we are alive and that we know we’re going to die,” says Howe. “The most mysterious aspect of being alive might be that — and poetry knows that.”

Howe has written 3 books of poetry: What the Living Do, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time and The Good Thief. She talked about teaching poetry, about describing the way water looks in a glass that has filtered sunlight streaming through it. About getting her students to bring their focus into the world of everyday things without using metaphor. Saving metaphor for much later, like a gift left under the Christmas tree. Yes, I realize I didn’t wait.

Howe’s father was an alcoholic, which she states as if this is the most common thing for a family, which of course it is. How many fathers in the 50s functioned fine enough by day, only to return home to drink and brutalize their family? There is, “A sense of retroactive dread…so many of us are afflicted with addictions,” she says. One of her brothers, Johnny, died of AIDs in the late 80s, and she memorialized him with this poem:
What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do.

Johnny, who ran away from his father but found his own demons, finally found AA and used to tell her that, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice.” She loved him dearly and said sometimes he would just stand in the middle of her kitchen and say, “This is it.” And she would say, “What?” He would just raise his arms, look around with a smile, and say, “This.” I was reminded of my brother Michael, who died last year. Every time I would see him, he would smile and tell me, “This is the good life.”

The Flapper would read poems aloud to my brothers and sisters from an old anthology, “101 Famous Poems.” First written in 1929, I remember its well worn blue binding, and managed to find a revised edition from 1958. Shirley, Brian, Kay, Michael, and Jimmy heard about the sea, and a cautionary tale about a spider and a fly while doing household chores. Poetry was the music that accompanied everyday life while the Flapper could only sit and read, her legs broken in so many places. As Marie Howe said, art allows the heart to break open.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/13/150495862/poet-marie-howe-reflects-on-the-living-after-loss
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This Night is Different

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on March 24, 2013| 5 Comments »

Why is tonight different from all other nights? This is one of the questions we must ponder at Great Grandma Ada’s Seder. Jewish people everywhere will recall their exodus from bondage in Egypt while eating matzoh and other ritualistic food. This holiday is equivalent to Christmas in terms of importance, only without all the gifts.

Since the dinner begins at sundown Monday night, we are traveling back to NJ today. In the past, I would drive up to help out early, being a kind of kosher sous chef to Ada and cousin Sue. We’d dice and slice, polish silver and set the tables. There were usually 30 odd family and friends expected.

I remember the first Seder with my baby Bride. It was her introduction to cousins that felt more like sisters over the years. Now it’s the Love Bug’s turn. She’ll meet her NY and CT family. Can we all sing The Circle of Life.

So tonight (Monday) will be different. Chopped chicken liver will probably be on your list of new foods to try baby girl. And Nana will make haroses just like I’ve been doing for 33 years. Maybe it won’t be so different after all.

20130324-055059.jpg

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Hanging On

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

There’s snow on the ridgeline this morning. I’m back in my mountain home after 10 hours on the road with my 4 month old Bug and her parents. She did well for about 7 hours with many stops, which is 1 hour more than my limit in a car. And yesterday I did the hand off to the other set of grandparents for their New Year’s week visit. In the midst of this transition, after my long stretch of babysitting, I had a nightmare.

The Bride was leaning back on the balcony of a large white iconic building (hospital?) and she fell slowly over the edge. I watched incredulously but could not reach her in time. When I looked over, she was hanging on by her fingertips. “Help her!” I yelled at Bob and then promptly woke up in a sweat. She had worked 5 straight nights in a row (including Christmas Eve and Christmas) and before that, 4 daytime shifts. Shift work takes its toll on a body, just ask any nurse or police officer.

“Society is oriented toward traditional daytime work hours and work at night will often intensify fatigue and reduce alertness. Workers generally will not acclimate to night work, and sleep patterns will generally be disrupted so the non-work periods do not provide full recovery, resulting in sleep deprivation. Studies suggest that it can take up to 10 days to adapt to a night time work schedule.” http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_Hurricane_Facts/faq_longhours.html

When I was writing about normal holiday stress, I didn’t factor in having to change your circadian rhythm or nursing a 4 month old baby. I always joked that Bob became a director because he didn’t want to work nights; only it’s not a joke. He won’t do nights, he sleeps…at night. If he met a doc who wanted to work nights, he would hire him/her immediately. Keep this in mind future EM residents, if you are a night owl, you have an advantage.

Naturally, the Love Bug is off her schedule. Babies will change it up just when you figure it out, but this little nugget has been in 2 different homes the last few days and her mama was away many nights and sleeping-in many mornings. I tried to explain it all to her, I told her that she can be very proud of her mommy for saving lives. I told her that things will get better in the New Year. Her daddy and I did our best to play guitar and sing her to sleep at night. Hang on baby girl. Our country may sail over a cliff, but your mama is on solid ground.

My big news of Christmas week is the birth of 2 brand new baby girls! Congratulations and welcome to the world Great Nieces’ Francesca Lynn and Evan Margot. Have a very happy and healthy New Year everyone!
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Home

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on December 25, 2012| 4 Comments »

Someone once told me that you have to live in a place for at least 10 years before it becomes home. When I was young, I called Victory Gardens home. It was a development in NJ for the support staff that worked at an arsenal during WWII. It was meant to be temporary; four rooms and one bath made out of concrete. We lived on Washington Avenue, all the streets were named after presidents. I would dream about this house for years, because this is where I learned what love is.

When you marry an Emergency Physician, you also learn to love moving. It was never easy. I’ve made friends in other states that will never be replaced, the kinds of friends who know where the spoons are in your kitchen. Women who would supply all the flowers and food for the Rocker’s bris without ever asking or saying a word about it. Women who would show up to escort an au pair to the train station, thereby saving her from physical harm and me from an arrest record.

And I learned to love each place. The snowy farmhouse at the edge of a bird sanctuary in the Berkshires. The brick, mid-century modern between two rivers on the Jersey Shore. And I’m learning to love my view of the Blue Ridge, on the cusp of Mr Jefferson’s Monticello and his Academical Village. This is the place where the Bride met her Groom and now the next generation is just beginning. They are making their home in the Music City and the Rocker and Ms Cait are feathering a new nest after super storm Sandy.

“Home” is the best gift we can give our children. That feeling that we belong, that we are loved unconditionally. It doesn’t matter where we find ourselves today. We were all tucked in our beds, in TN, VA and NJ. Well except for the Bride. Santa found her anyway. Wishing you all a warm and lovely Christmas.
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Seasonal Stress

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 13, 2012| 4 Comments »

We’ve all heard of seasonal workers, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) when you live, say in England, and rarely see the sun. Well seasonal stress disorder (SSD) should get its very own ICD9 code. For the non-medical reader, these are the letters and numbers that correspond to a diagnosis your doctor provides you and your health insurance system with – then someone at a desk decides if the doctor (or NP or PA) gets paid. Simple as that. I imagine that depression gets its own ICD9 code, with all its reasoning and corresponding symptoms, but the stress of everyday life? Probably not so much.

Starting with the Thanksgiving day bird that needs stuffing, and quickly moving on to the next day…the Blackest of Shopping Fridays…the push is on to get going:
Deck the halls and drag out or cut down a tree;
Find our buy ornaments;
Decorate the tree and serve eggnog;
Bake cookies;
Mail holiday cards:
Attend parties;
Act happy.

And it’s the “acting happy” part if you’re feeling blue that can hurt. I don’t want to be all Scrooge about it, but even if you’re a reasonably sane person for most of the year, the stress of added or forced jubilation coupled with going into debt to serve a consumer-driven culture during the last six weeks of the year can squeeze the joy out of a season that’s truly all about giving. According to this article, 90% of doctor visits are due to stress-related problems. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/29/reduce-stress-real-life-tips-that-really-work_n_2204938.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009#slide=1814158 So how to avoid burn-out in a nutshell when we’re getting down to the wire? Easy. Put on the brakes and give yourself permission to relax:
Take a walk, preferably with your dog; EXERCISE
Take a bath, or better yet, jump into a hot tub; STAY WARM
Write down 3 things you are grateful for; THINK POSITIVELY
Help someone else who needs help; ACT KINDLY
Watch a funny movie LAUGH
Learn to love chaos ACCEPT YOURSELF
(ie give up perfection or trying to live a “clutter-free” life)

Where have you gone Betsy Ford? OK, maybe that last part is more mine than yours, but studies show that putting a smile on your face makes the brain trick the mind into feeling happy. Most moms today are working AND trying to do all of the above Christmas-related chores which would drive anyone nuts, IMHO (which I just learned means “in my humble opinion”) but if you use this too much are you really humble? Just heard Deepak Chopra say that babies learn very early on whether life is going to be “Yummy or Yucky.” So I’m starting my NEW New Year’s List
and it’s not about the good the bad and the ugly with resolutions galore to add up to more stress. It’s simply a reading list and Chopra’s new book “Super Brain” will be on it. Here’s a little brain test – can you tell which card doesn’t belong? I forgot, along with keeping Santa, I also do “Merry Everything” cards, which is much easier with Shutterfly. There’s Betsy upper left, my Rumson Clutter Counselor.
photo copy

Answer key: The new 2013 card of the Love Bug is nestled in last year’s display. Don’t worry, I’m archiving the old to make way for the new. Make it a perfectly yummy holiday and Happy Hanukka to all my Jewish friends and family…is it easier or harder when Hanukka comes so early? Answer key: Easier!

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Chillin Beach-Style

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on November 21, 2012| 2 Comments »

It’s morning by the beach and we’re all up. Scratch that. The Love Bug is taking her morning nap. She was a trooper on the plane. Wide eyed and taking it all in until it was dinner time, then she slept until wheels down. Today she gets to see her Rocker Uncle and Ms Cait again, and meet her extended Big Chill family. Do you know about the Big Chill?

“I’ve got sunshine, on a cloudy day.” We all met in high school, a nerd squad with Broadway ambitions. People laugh, because most only know that the boys went to Woodstock together (remember I went to Catholic school). But we were all in the Drama Club in the late 60s and could run through Guys and Dolls with little provocation. Only one couple has divorced, leaving our old friend an expatriate in Viet Nam. Another couple is absent, closing on a new house in VA, so we’ll be closer in the near future. But this trip is historic in a way, the 3rd generation of Chillers has met – 18 month old Carter from Atlanta and the Love Bug, aka “Bout du Chou” have finally been introduced. We also have two grandbaby girls in upstate NY waiting in the wings. And we have another Big Chill wedding planned for next year, the daughter of our soon-to-be VA neighbors. It seems lately we see each other more than once a year!

There should be a name for that type of friend. One you may see only once in awhile, but just as soon as you do, it’s old home week. It’s like they know your innards, you can almost never surprise them – well, except when I learned that Bernie was an ace accordion player. And laughing is inevitable, jokes are known almost before they fall from your mouth, almost as soon as you make eye contact. They are the opposite of “fair weather” friends. Because you know they would be there, in a heartbeat, in a crisis. “Foul weather” friends? That doesn’t do it justice!

I have decided to take a sabbatical from the news this week. If somebody wants to start a war, so be it. What if they made a war, and nobody came? One person can make a difference, and I’m starting right here, right now. Tell me 3 things you are grateful for this Thanksgiving. I am grateful for old friends…for sunny, happy days, and for my family.

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Fifty and Fab

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on November 10, 2012| 1 Comment »

What do Mick Jagger and Bond, James Bond have in common? The passage of time. This year is their Golden Anniversary. Yes folks, my generation has brought you the two most consistently successful entertainment franchises in the history of the universe. The Stones are set to tour the world, post Keith Richard’s head injury in Fiji; and Keith and Mick Jagger are the only original members left standing. Once the symbol of rebellion for me and mine, today they play for big bucks and family outings. Believe me, I loved the Beatles, just not as much as the Stones. I was a teenager on the banks of Lake St Joseph when my conversion began.

“And a band that was once synonymous with a riotous volatility has become — despite all commercial, cultural and chemical odds — a symbol of stability. Members now describe the band with an unexpected word for the Rolling Stones: discipline. ‘It requires quite a bit of discipline to be a Rolling Stone,’ Mr. Richards said. ‘Although it seems to be shambolic, it’s a very disciplined bunch.'”

As a young teen, my brother Dr Jim, always brought me to the Baker Theatre for a Bond double feature. Remember when you could see 2 movies for the price of 1, and get a good half an hour of Wylie Coyote cartoons as a prelude? Sounds like I’m dating myself, and I guess I am. But Bond hasn’t grown old. The Ian Fleming template began with the best, Sean Connery, and now only continues to get better with Daniel Craig. We have a new movie theatre in town, an Imax, and I’ve got a date with Bob on the calendar to see “Skyfall.” Here’s a little walk down memory lane http://www.eonline.com/photos/5837/23-best-and-worst-james-bond-movies/208602

Funny thing is, I saw the Stones at the Meadowlands for my 50th birthday and I’ve really no need to see them again. Unless, maybe someday, when the pre-teen Love Bug wants to see them? Let’s see, Mick will be about 80 by that time. I’ll be holding on so long!

Here is the octogenarian Great Grandma Ada holding our Sweet Thing – 4 generations of fabulous Rose-Lynn Girls. Bond Girls, move over!

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