This weekend I accompanied the Youngest and his girl on their move to New York City- the land of Law and Order's crimes against humanity and Midnight Cowboys.  I know...and Breakfast at Tiffany's and a host of other wonderful places and people...but this is my baby we're talking about.  I wasn't just watching him leave the nest to fly gracefully around the tree...he did that in college. Now he's soaring like a hummingbird heading to South America for the winter of my discontentedly anxious, watching-from-afar, ever-changing motherhood.  And as I must realize, over and over again, he will be fine because he is one of the most competent, savvy human beings I know.

So, his place wasn't surrounded by junkies and homeless people. It was even better than my first apartment in Philly.  A colorful fruit and flower stand marks the corner where he now lives.  We set his belongings out onto the sidewalk and no one rushed up to steal them. A couple pushing a stroller did stop but only to argue about the state of their relationship.

"No," she said, stopping to face her young husband. "I want to talk about this...You always brush it off but this time we're going to talk it out."  I carry a box into the building and return to hear her say, "Fine then, I'll just call a lawyer! Is that what you want?"

By the time I came back for the next box, they were gone.

The neighbor across the hall had to open his apartment so we could get the new, not huge couch into the boy's studio loft.  It's that small but cozy and inviting, with a lovely view.

My brother's family came up, seasoned New York visitors and residents.  My brother and I spent the day making up the backstories of every interesting person we saw, including their current dilemmas and hopes for the future...The biker bouncer with the long beard stuck guarding a Porky the Pig-esque figure outside the bar. He makes no secret of his disgust for the Pig but like people and their dogs, he favors the porcine mascot.  His wife taunts him about this late at night when he comes home drunk and wakes her up. She once told him his performance and accompanying body parts made it difficult for her to tell him apart from the fiberglass oinker.

Two transvestites worked the corner, their feet swollen and painful from the unaccustomed height of their new heels.  "You know, Nance, it only takes one minute and 32 seconds to be in agony in heels that high."

"You should buy better shoes, John," I tell him.

It's Happened Again!

Five minutes ago we were here...

And now, suddenly, we're here?!

How is it this keeps happening? First the oldest gets married and now, not a month later, the youngest graduates from college...with two majors and a minor, a successful comedian, a boy becoming a man...

I know, this is how life's supposed to go. One moment you're feathering the nest and trying to wrap your mind around this fragile, new creature that is your baby- the next second- they've flown the coup and the sudden silence is deafening.

A few minutes ago I was in charge of their well-being- now I must watch nervously from the sidelines.  I know only as much as they share but I feel and imagine so much more.

They don't need me like they did and this is a good thing, I remind myself. It means they are launching, soaring into their futures with strong wings and brave hearts. I am so proud of the men they're becoming...etc, etc, etc...And yet- I miss my babies with all my heart.

Selfish, but true, and all a part of the process...Dammit.

Ophthalmologists See Straight Through You in Randolph County

This quote was taken directly from a Randolph County, NC Commissioners Meeting.  I am a fiction writer and I can only aspire to invent a character as wonderfully quirky as Evangeline James.

"Evangeline James spoke, saying that she was currently a notary public and doesn’t charge because she is “for the underdog.” She said that she believes that before anyone is issued any type of firearm, there should be an international background check performed. Ms. James also said 'the eyes are the windows to the soul, meaning that ophthalmologists can look into our eyes and see every single thing that is wrong with us. So cut the crap and get everyone an eye check.'"

When writers gather and someone tells a story that is simply too wonderful, the highest compliment the others can pay is to ask "Are you gonna use that? Cause if you aren't, can I have it?" That is how I feel about Evangeline. I just have to use that somewhere...

What Happened?

When did this happen?

When did he grow from a little boy who loved his yellow raincoat and his pacifier

Into this man?

Weren't we just lying on the family room floor playing with his "little guys?" How did this happen? What happened to the baby who didn't sleep through the night for years? Or my little boy who cried because he turned 5 and I told him he was a "Big Boy" now?  Where's the boy who stood by my side at book signings, arms crossed, unsmiling because he was on duty as my "bodyguard"?

I know, things change.  My boys have grown up and I have grown older.

But no matter what- the more things change...

The more they stay exactly the same...

Even Though I Now Live in Town...

I still manage to live down an unpaved country road...

Things Worth Writing About...

Forgotten people...Like Bobby the man who sits in a corner of his room at the nursing home, so slumped with defeat his body has grown into the shape of a fat comma. Behind him, on his bedside table, is an 8 x 10 portrait of himself back in the days when he still had hope.  In that picture he's leaning in toward the viewer, smiling all the way up to his eyes. When I look at the man he's become, all I get is a quirked eyebrow, a short, sarcastic nod toward the young boy in the photograph and a shrug.

Or Annie, pulling herself around the nursing home in a wheelchair, muttering to herself words I can't understand and moaning softly. But when I come up behind her, slip my arms around her neck and lean in to hug her, she laughs like a delighted five-year-old. "Let's blow this popstand," I whisper. "Uh-huh, let's do that!" She says, knowing neither one of us is going anywhere.

Or Faye, Belle's former roommate. She's got six kids, all frequent visitors, all promising she'll be going home soon, then telling the social worker they just can't tell her the truth...that no one's coming, that revisions to her home aren't so it will be wheelchair friendly but more livable for the members of the family hoping to move in.  Somewhere down inside her ample soul, Faye knows this. The weight of their betrayal pulls her sideways in her chair and pins the stroke-paralyzed side of her body against the uncomfortable metal armrest.  "Hey, Baby Girl," she says. "I been lookin' for you all day. How you doin'?"

I like the losers, the disenfranchised, the hurt and angry underdogs.  Maybe because I've always felt just a little out of place and uncomfortable in my own skin.

That's why I like the Pirate who lives down the alley from me. Mad as hell at the Historical Commission, angry with the cops and college students, gentle with his five year old daughter, mouthing the obscene words he hurls so she won't hear him spouting his irate truths.

I like the crack whore and her boyfriend, the way she tries to hard to befriend my dogs, trying to reassure them when she and her man suddenly spring out into the alleyway fresh from using or whatever it is they've been doing behind the dumpster.

And I dislike the moralistic, self-righteous do-gooders who claim they're only in it for peace, harmony and justice.  I dislike them intensely.  It's easy to hide behind the shield of piety.  It's easy to preach forgiveness.  It's rolling around in the trenches and having your ass handed to you a few times that teaches life's true lessons.  But as usual, I digress...

Writing Blocked

I'm blocked. Have been for too long to say. But I'm trying.  A few measly paragraphs.  Does it hook? Feedback anyone?

            I used to be normal, just like you.  Then one day I woke up and realized my kids had left home, my husband had traded me in on a newer model and I was now standing on the edge of a cliff called “The Rest of Your Life.”  

Shortly after that, due to a misprint on Craigslist and short bidding window, I became the proud new owner of a house on Tate Street.  A sweet, yellow, Dutch Colonial overlooking the college campus, right in the heart of the funky, downtown district.  I felt like I’d rediscovered the hippy girl I used to be-only a bit older and wiser.  Or so I thought.

            That was before I arrived home one day and found the Pirate’s dog leering at me through a gap in my own privacy fence.  I didn’t know it then but Fate was about to teach me a very valuable lesson-there are no U-turns on Life’s Highway.  

Goodbye, Belle

Today I said goodbye to Belle, my patient from the nursing home.  For the past 4 years I've spent a portion of almost every Tuesday with her but her funeral made me realize something- I knew a very small part of her.  In fact, it's that way with all of my patients.  I come in right before they go out.

I get to know and love people who most often no longer resemble the person their families and friends knew and loved...or in some cases, despised.  I walk in when almost everyone else has walked out.

Is this the carcass of life then? The last dregs? Or is it, as I've come to view it, the reduction of a person down to their very most basic essence? It is hard to be funny and wise when you're in pain, or suffering from dementia, but I find this in almost every single person I meet.

Belle was spoiled by her husband and when he died, I learned, became clingy and needy but also feisty and full of ribald jokes.  When I came along, she was going deaf.  She grieved for her home and husband. Couldn't understand why her friends and family had seemed to desert her. And eventually, she invented two new friends who stood by her until the end.

I miss the woman I never knew and treasure the friend I made during Belle's last few years. I will miss her.