Something about the Trees or perhaps Grave Grass
We were driving with the top down which I hate but I happened to look over at the car next to us and saw the man with the trees. He had a small dark gray car and it was loaded to the gill all around him with plants—large, leafy plants.
And something about the vacant look or all the plants made me think of dad. Planting all those trees around the house. I can’t even tell you if it was before or after mom died. Dad just always seemed to be putting trees in.
I guess the most vivid image of dad planting was not even trees. It was long after mom had died. I was 30, divorced already, a tv news reporter in Dallas of all places, living with my then 4 year old son in a wonderful old house with a huge garden. And this day was a hot, muggy Dallas day. Maybe 90 degrees with complete humidity. I had bought the gardenia plants earlier in the week and when dad got there he planted them for me. He had on his regular slacks and a white undershirt and he kneeled down in the ground and may have not even had a spade. But he got my gardenias planted. And his shirt was soaked. Just beyond soaked.
And then there were the pines Lynne and I helped dad plant next to the house on Lone Pine Court. He got dozens and dozens of the scrawny pines to put in a natural screen and after he planted each tree we said a jewish prayer. Baruch atah ….
And the last tree was the cherry tree that Lynne and I climbed when we were kids and picked cherries and watched the blossoms in the spring. That was at our childhood house on Pinehurst in Detroit. Dad said when he bought the tree and first put it in his father, grandpa Harry kidded him and said he should put a sign up on the little skinny thing that said, “I am a tree.”
But the tree was huge when I came to know it.
These images make me ache. Knowing how dad planted these trees with such energy—I was going to say fervor—and in the case of the cherry tree at least how it was at least 60 years ago, when mom was still alive and they were wildly in love before even I was born. The pine trees mom was already dead, 45 years ago when we had first moved to Lone Pine Court and I was 15. The gardenias 30 years ago when I was all grown up with a child of my own. And today it is I planting whatever I can get into the ground. (And that the groundhog doesn’t eat.) Dad is dead. Has been for 3 years and I am 60 years old.
I cry now thinking of this. That both parents are dead. I miss them. Though I am surrounded by my family on the wall. I have pictures. Mom and dad from a million years ago. Wiley in all stages of life. He looks out at me with his belly button showing and a green and white striped t-shirt under a corduroy jacket, open and un-zipped.
Above that the picture of Wiley all grown up with his beautiful wife Caroline sitting behind him on a boat. Off to the dad on a bike with Wiley in a tiny kid bike seat at the back.
Not sure what any of this means.
I have gone with my companion Jeff to the cemetery where his wife is buried and it was impossibly hot today just like that gardenia day in Dallas. Jeff was so sad and we took stones to put on her grave. It is a jewish thing I am told. And there were other graves with the stones. Not flowers. I am Jewish though I had only heard once of stones around a grave in the book by Harriet Doer, Stones From Ibarra. We Detroit Jews bring flowers. I suppose we would plant trees or at least plants if we could. I used to go visit mom and would dig up the grass that crowded around her headstone or footstone--not sure which they have where she is buried—and would take it home to Chicago and try to grow it in my garden. One wonderful batch of grave grass sprouted unexpected flowers the next year. But we sold that house 11 years ago when I took the job at CNN in NY.
So I hate to jump around but going back to Jeff’s wife’s grave: The cemetery was completely Jewish. Goldberger, Stein, Cohen, Gottlieb. One after the next. Jeff explained patiently. He is very patient with me. A saint really. The cemetery is huge. And off to the right are non-Jews. And on the other side, only Jews.
Where my own Jewish parents are buried outside Detroit is mostly non-Jews. But non-sectarian. White Chapel it is called. No headstones. OK now I remember. That’s right there are no headstones allowed so no ornamentation stands up from the ground. Only the small footstones. And the flowers. We bring flowers. But now that I know I will bring stones too.
So I am back to that. So incredibly sad to think of dad dead. He was so much a part of my life. He guided my every move. Patiently. And with great wisdom. Kindness and Humor. So I was thinking that all that was left of dad are all the trees he planted. But there is the vast body of legal work he produced. And there is us. Flawed—sometimes deeply flawed—little girls who perhaps never grew up. But sensitive and loving just the same. And our children, three between us. Wiley, my son and Andy and Kate, Lynnie’s daughters. We 5 were with dad the day he died in 2007. And Wiley remarked that it didn’t matter who we were with in the way of husbands and wives—I had a rather odd fiancé at the time who I did not marry—the 5 of us would always have each other. And so we do sort of. I hear from Wiley and Andy. Katie too. But Lynnie has completely left my life. Hates me. Which is my hardest cross to bare. But I have some wonderful loving female friends today who I guess step in and take her place. Can they ever really? Perhaps till Lynnie gets her senses back and realizes she hates me for something I did not do. Just the luck of the draw really that dad hated her so.
We are a family of planters now that I think of Lynnie. She was always putting in stuff. Plants with enormous purple flowers whose names I cannot even spell let alone say. And the Rhodadendrhoms.
And all those Pine trees Lynnie and Mike planted in between our beach houses in Michigan. Lynnie said it was because Mike was so territorial and wanted to make clear where the boundaries were. Let him I say. Wiley and I had the blueberry stand which was amazing on our side. And the huge patch that I planted with tomatoes and potatoes. God I loved that beach house. That was me if I am ever rooting around again trying to find a time in my life. I was dating Dan at the time but even without Dan that place was me.
Riding on our wide tired bicycles down to the lake. And the swimming was perfect. And the beach. Even summers when the beach was just a sliver. I wrote there, found my voice, raised Wiley and lived. The second place I had there near the beach in Michigan I bought with Cornelius and it just wasn’t the same. It was good to get there. Good to have a place but there was something missing. The only time I remember at that second place that was lovely was I had gone without Con—perhaps I had already left him—and was taking pictures with Lynnie and Katie to help me sell the place. Katie had arranged all these wonderful pots of flowers and eggs. I remember a bowl full of eggs—can that be possible? In the kitchen.
I met Walter there too. At dinner one night with Lynnie and the Shaws at Miller’s old country Inn. And we were walking out as he and his wife were walking in. It was just a glance but then back in Chicago we kept running into each other. And that was quite an affair. Perhaps he was my love. No Jeff is my best love. Certainly my most perfect relationship. Honest, handsome and funny. And so loving. He is a perfect companion. I think Jeff gets me. Perhaps. Do I get me? And he has kissed me passionately. I know he could be very passionate but right now he is probably still too much in love with his late wife to really have sex with me. I am old now and perhaps it doesn’t matter. There are times I would have killed for it and felt so frustrated but not now. We have settled into this sweet, even love. Best friends really. And we hug and hold and hold hands. (and the tenderness….god can he be tender)
That’s enough. Something I would never have believed even 5 years ago.
But I am sober now. Something I couldn’t do before. I just couldn’t face my feelings about mom dying. So now I feel my feelings. Which is better? I am certainly alive now. Like a raw nerve sometimes. Like driving in the car today and the man reminded me of dad surrounded by all those plants. And it was more. Knowing then that dad was dead. And all the doing and the taking (Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway?) that had seemed so important. The frenzy to get the trees in. And they are all dead. The fights between dad and grandma mignon. And all the bad blood. And Don Barris and my step mother hating me and Lynnie because we dared want something different than they wanted. We wanted dad to die at home in dignity and in the house where he had planted all the trees but they wanted him in a nursing home and so we fought. And now dad and Don and even our step mother they are all dead. The trees are likely even getting gunned or bull dozed down to make way for a giant house. I am left with the memory of the things that were planted and uprooted.
I can’t get to what it is that drives me here. Something about that man in the car with all the plants. Crowding in on him. Dad in his heat drenched undershirt putting in my gardenias and all the pines and all the planting and then that he is gone. The work time spent. I can’t get it. Oh well. Vanderstoep always said, Don’t chase it. When I would try to bring a word up …it will come to you. #
The Next Night
We have gone to Jeff’s older son’s (Robbie) to baby sit. Robbie and Julie have 3 little girls. Molly and Sophie, 7 year old twins and darling Lily, the 2 almost 3 year old. I adore the twins but Lily I love as much as I love Wiley. It is such a surprise to love that much. Such a little person too. I mean she is only 2! But we talk and she says amazing things and she is forever smiling. The happiest little kid on the planet. Maybe it is something about the way she loves her father and the way he loves her that brings me back to my own father and me. We walked Scout tonight and she is doing so much better. I mean at 2 the child intuitively knows to curl up the leash to make it more manageable. And she is paying attention to Scout too. But then at some point during the walk as little children do she dropped the leash and just twirled! It made me dizzy I was so happy. Lily twirling. Thrilled with her lot in life. Enthusiastic. She came outside when Scout and I arrived well behind Jeff tonight and she had already had her bath and was bare footed in a night gown. Her hair all freshly washed and dried. Magical Lily sort of floated out from the garage smiling. She is not a loud child. Quiet with great enthusiasm. Perhaps she is really an angel. I will check for wings the next time we are there.
Lily and I read 3 or 4 books in her bed and then I went down to get her more milk and she was up in bed singing happy birthday to herself for a long time. So Jeff stayed in the house downstairs and this time I took Molly and Sophie out to walk Scout. (Poor thing was jealous over my time with Lily) and the twins were sharing nicely. Sophie walked Scout out and Molly walked her back. They are champs those two. And both so sweet with Scout. The girls (all 3 of them) are so articulate and funny and beautiful. What amazing children. It was nice to be with Molly and Sophie too. Really nice. They could articulate (and did) how it isn’t fair that I spend so much time with Lily. But I explained that I adore Lily for one and that sometimes I feel badly for Lily. I explained that they have each other. And they are always together giggling and playing. (Tonight they made hula skirts and tops, pasting the tops on!) and danced the hula for us. But Lily is all alone. She doesn’t have a twin. So I guess I just naturally gravitate towards Lily. I think we are grateful to have each other Lily and I if that makes sense. We like each other. A lot. Once when I was mad at Jeff I thought that I would stay with him no matter what for Lily. But that’s not true. Though I love Lily beyond my wildest ….Jeff is my forever man. Like I am Scout’s forever home as opposed to her foster home.
I know that Julie and Robbie don’t really like me. Julie is better able to be nice and present. Robbie not so much. Though I have to point out he is never not nice. It’s just that we don’t speak. I actually love Robbie and Julie. Julie we will start with. She is brilliant and fair and funny. And she is a great mother. God knows what voo doo she can be doing all day at work. A lawyer for the National Hockey League she must really have to slug it out all day. But she is apparently incredibly focused at work. Once she gets home which is where I see her she is a mother. Mother perfect with her girls. She kisses them and gives them special treats and reads to them and talks to them and I guess you would say she is the picture of humility. She walks with grace. Floating really. Is that what Lily has? Her mother?
And then there is Robbie. More complicated our relationship. I have been on the other side. How weird and hard it must be to see me with his father. A constant reminder that his mother is dead. She was (his mother, Jeff’s wife Lois) by all accounts a wonderful mother. Loving beyond the pale. Oh, like Julie. Lois did amazing things in her work life. Set up programs for the less gifted students and really made a difference. But never spoke of herself and was the perfect mother. So Robbie comes home and does not speak to me. He doesn’t not speak if that makes any sense. I would love to talk to him and have a relationship. I miss my own son so. But its not there. And just like a word I can’t quite bring to the surface and Vanderstoep tells me not to chase it. Same with Robbie. If he can ever have a relationship with me he will. The only last thing I will say about Robbie. Jeff tells me that Robbie had the twins over before Lily was born when his mom was still alive but just barely. And she lived for the twins while she was dying. She must have been a very natural mother like my own mother was and me? I think that’s fair…anyway the twins were very young and Robbie had brought them over to this house…Jeff and lois’s house that I now share with Jeff, and the twins were loud ….maybe crying. Not sure what. Only that Lois didn’t want them there. It was too hard for her lying in bed and sick and dying to hear the girls and to know she couldn’t play with them and perhaps it weighed on her just then that she had to die and would not see the girls grown up—but she asked Robbie to take them home and Jeff says Robbie just lost it. Crying. I ache for Robbie.
I ache for me. But it has been an eternity since my own mother died. Since that saddest of all nights when mom sick and near death came into my little girl room with her walker and laid down on my bed next to me and told me she was dying. We were so naïve then. And even though the doctors hacked mom apart and she kept getting worse we didn’t really know she would die. We kept thinking they would find a cure. But they didn’t. And that night knowing at last that mom would soon be dead the two of us cried till I thought we would both burst. She hugged me to her and we cried that night.
Miller and I cried like that the day Chloe died. Same thing. On our bed we just hugged and cried. But of course it wasn’t the same thing. Though we adored Chloe she was yellow lab. Mom was mom. Isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think of mom. She used to float into the room and just sort of appear. Quietly but with great enthusiasm. Gently and with love and always smiling. Oh, now I see the love for Lily. They are the same. I feel mom’s presence when I am with Lily. Two little angels. Filled with grace and impish humor. I will have to buy Lily some new play dough. Will she be a sculptor like mom? She adores play dough that’s for sure. And the girls all call me Lelley which is my childhood name. Lynnie couldn’t say her s’s and so Lesley became Lelly.
It’s so good to be Lelley again. The girls accept me as part of Pa Pa which is what they call Jeff.
Jeff hit Lily on the wrist tonight after she hit him. And I got mad at him and told him to tell her he was sorry. And to never do that again. I understand the instinct to hit back. But really! A grown man hitting a tiny child. Sophie was frustrated about something. Anyway she said she was sorry first. Bless her heart. And then Pa Pa apologized and Sophie and Molly and Scout and I all walked. The night was saved.
I keep wanting to say something more but keep on getting lost. Something about Lily and how she is so articulate and funny and loving. Tonight when I had gone back downstairs to get her more milk and then ended up walking the dog with the twins first before going back upstairs and she was up in bed singing happy birthday to herself then when I got back and we were all (except Lily who was still singing to herself up in bed) at the table the girls eating strawberries that Jeff was patiently cutting at the big cutting board, Lily called out for Lelley and I had gone running up with the milk. She just calmly looked at me with no recrimination in her eyes—it had been over an hour since I had gone downstairs—and said “I saved your place.” She had very sweetly given me one of her dolls to lay my head on. Showing me the ropes as it were of using the soft spot on a dolly for a pillow just like she was doing. And I would rather read to Lily or swing with Lily or walk the dog with Lily even eat ice cream with Lily than anything else in the world.
Tonight when we came home after the girls Jeff got himself a bowl and put in a donut and then the ice cream. Lately he is into Hagen Daz French vanilla almond ice cream and scooped out quite a bit into the bowl on top of the donut and I told him how happy I was to be with him and that instead of slugging down bourbon on ice he was ladling out ice cream. He thought the bourbon option was gross and wondered that people did that. I guess I am grossed out now that I did that for so long. Just whenever I felt a feeling—good or bad—had to numb it out for fear that I would actually feel it and as a consequence I have the feeling that much of the time I lived only half a life. I certainly wasn’t in there living my life. It is as though I lived my life while I was still drinking from a distance. A distance that now I can only part way get to. That’s it with dad and the trees and that feeling. I can only partially get to what it is. But the amazing thing is that finally I do not drink. Ever. And it has been 3 years, 4 months and 29 days since my last drink. And now I feel much. Many of my feelings. Would I have felt this love for Wiley that I am now feeling for Lily? Of course. I adore my son. I ache for him and I am still in the glow of his last visit. Which was only a week ago. He came in and I am still smiling. Lucky lucky me.#
So it is the last day of June now and again I am up. Last night was lovely. Jeff took me out to dinner. I like the place a lot but their food is dreadful. Much much cream and butter. Also Jeff had dessert with chocolate and I ate some. Not a good plan. Chocolate. I am clearing my throat every 2 seconds of so. My nose is all bulbous and dotted like a clown, and my eyes and cheeks are puffy. (I suppose some of the puffiness has to do with the creamed corn base under the salmon. Jeff’s scallops looked great but there were only 3 of them! 3 scallops for $25.00!!! I am headed to the market tomorrow.
And I have work. Very part time. 16 hours a week working for Rob Knoebel, my second favorite lawyer in town. Afternoons. I am glad. It will give me an extra $1,000 a month which I can really use. Perhaps it can count for my estimated taxes and my auto insurance. Then my RISMedia money ($600 a month) can go towards health insurance and ez pass and part of my therapist bill. So little by little I am getting a life. This month has been incredibly uncomfortable money-wise. I ran out when Mary and Gary were here. Being a big shot and paying for things I should not have paid for. My car alone hauling them around cost a fortune. Maybe $150.00 and the tolls back and forth to JFK add in another $65 for EZ pass. The food bill just for me was another $400 which I did not have. And for the first time in perhaps a year I bounced. Not cool. Plus the banks charge $34 per bounce. So as soon as my check comes from RISMedia (it is late and I run to the mailbox at 5:00 every day to see if it is finally here. And of course it is spoken for. Jeff $400. (He loaned me $200 and I will give him another $200 for dinner’s he shelled out for Mary and Gary.) We still don’t have our finances perfectly in tune together as a couple but we are pretty good.
I have to get right sized though telling Wiley that I could not afford to pay him $1,000 a month right now was a huge painful step but a step in the right direction none the less. (Is that how it is spelled?)
So it is a little freaky but I am learning. I mean there Mary and I were sitting at dinner at Café Portofino (another horrible creamed salmon dish…I have to start asking if it is dry grilled….!) and I paid for both of us. Here is Mary with 2 houses, her father was the treasurer of Gulf oil and all she talked about all weekend was how old her family way how they go back to the 1600’s or something and how she is a Boston Brahmin and big shot me I pay. By check because the restaurant does not take Visa or Mastercard. Only AmEX. And I need to point out when they told me they did not take VISA she offered to use her AMEX and I said no that I would pay.
One day I will know that I am a grown up when I can just say great. Thank you. Money issues are very hard. And my nerves jangle when I don’t even have enough money for gas for my car. Though it is better now that my knee is healing from the torn meniscus surgery. Just after the surgery when I couldn’t walk I was frantic because I was so dependent on my car. But now that I can walk if I cant use my car I wont be quite as desperate. Even to my new job is only a 2 mile walk which I can do in a pinch and I don’t have to be there till 1:00 in the afternoon so if my car breaks down I can still get there. Either by bike or on foot.
Was the surgery worth it? Not sure. I do not have full range of motion again and I still have some pain. But I guess it was. Perhaps I will be pain free. And I love the physical therapy.
I am off dieting now I think for good. Something about realizing that dad was dead and that I need to live a little. Also that the best way to stay at a good weight is to do what Dr. Lodge says and that is just don’t eat any junk (my dinner tonight would definitely count as junk) and walk an hour a day. Which I can now do. And if I write at least an hour or two a day my brain will be clear. And that’s that.
It was good to talk to Edna today. Though I burst into tears when she told me she had had a pacemaker put in. I have this strange relationship with her. I really love her a lot and identified with her but also was afraid to love her because Daddy hated her so much. It was odd.
But the one thing Edna said that is just now sinking in is that Dad was probably an alcoholic. She said it happened to him in the Navy. For everything I remember him giving me wine, or Williams Pear Brandy. As a kid. And making him his drinks. The four fingers of Scotch when he got home from work.
It makes sense today. How he didn’t do anything more than work. Which of course he did well. very well. And he read all the time. But I think had he not had alcohol he would have done more with his life. Continued taking thee piano for instance. Or been on boards. Or done things outside. Sports. Anything. He went out to dinner. And drank wine. Every night. Any picture you see he has a drink in his hand. I have this wonderful picture of dad on the wall holding Wiley, kissing the top of his head and behind him the fabulous liquor bar with the bottles standing tall behind him in the shot.
Alcohol was our hero growing up. It was very all purpose. For mom first and foremost who was in terrible pain when the cancer spread to her spine and her brain. And they were afraid in those days to give too much morphine because they didn’t want mom to get addicted to it !!! Can you imagine? She was in hideous pain and they only gave her a little morphine. So dad smuggled in a black cane that unscrewed at the end and put brandy into bottles that fit neatly throughout the cane and mom drank brandy with the morphine and that killed the pain.
And our pain. When mom died I was 13 and dad started serving us wine with dinner. I did not eat all day long and then had lean broiled chiken or steak at dinner when dad came home. (We had a cook), salad with diet salad dressing, a steamed vegetable and red wine. Usually I could have 2 glasses from the time I was 13 and that filled me up.
I remember coming home to dad from a job interview in Shreveport which I really wanted and dad gave me Williams Pear brandy which he had in the deep freeze. And the two of us got absolutely drunk. It’s a little like drinking anti-freeze on ice. So when the news director called to tell me I had the job I was soused.
That was my life. Wine at dinner unless I was on a diet and could not drink which I hated for the first few days and then loved. Until it bit me in the ass and I was becoming a full fledged alcoholic. The last three months I drank a ton. A bottle of wine with dinner and then single malt scotch after dinner until I fell asleep. (Passed out really.) and there was always wine. Red wine. I would have a glass next to my bed while I was reading, writing, you name it. It was present. Vacations were all drinking. I just stayed drunk. At the pool, at the beach you name it I drank it. even for hikes I wanted to be French and had wine and bread and cheese. Crazy now that I think of it. It is incredible how much more life I live without wine or booze.
I am finally sleepy so I will take my bloated face (which I hate when that happens…I am vain enough to forego cream for good.) and hit the bed. But I am happy to have work and to know that I can still write and work on furniture and read and hike and have a little extra money.
Night. (6/29 or 6/30/10 technically it is 4:10 in the morning on the 30th) ***
July 1, 2010
I am thinking that I should try to write all those things I think –those running monologues about what I will share in the AA meeting I am going to—write them down. I mean what I am hearing is my voice. Working through whatever I am working through. Sometimes funny. Sad. Thrilling. Boring. You name it. Profound. But mostly pretty random.
Today I did my hour walk…strictly speaking it was only 45 minutes into town and back but I figure because I walk Scout 2 or 3 times a day that I fit in another fifteen minutes at least. I also shopped during my walk. Went to Eileen Fisher (outlet) and tried on a ton of stuff and have my favorite salesperson holding a bunch of them. I couldn’t buy them today because I am still living hand to mouth. And it is July 1st and the money I inherited from my father will come in by wire transfer from Merrill Lynch either tomorrow, Saturday or the following Tuesday. I personally am hoping against all hope that it comes Saturday. (I know it will never come tomorrow.)
All of this waiting should change because I have finally taken a paying job of sorts. Its not a whole lot of money..about $1,000 a month but it is only 4 afternoons a week working for a really nice lawyer. Should give me some good structure as my sponsor correctly points out as well as some extra money. You can’t believe all the stuff I need. A trip to the dentists office way up there at the top, new underwear, a mammogram, ultrasound, ob appointment and a physical to name a few. New cartridges for my printer, and I need to decide whether or not I am going to pay the money for E&O insurance to stay with my present real estate firm. I don’t do real estate anymore but I can make a good case for staying connected to them. First of all I get my health insurance through the National Association of Realtors and I don’t know what hell would break loose if I were to let this office slide. So I am practicing a very AA thing. I am doing nothing about it today. Just thinking about it. I will talk to my sponsor and try to act like a dignified sober woman and do the right thing. And right sure I am not sure what that is. Scout needs a bath and a hair cut too. And I will need to get my hair color done and these new clothes I need to pay for. I have gotten very shabby looking though so I need to do it. Also I need a new nightgown or 3. Jeff has seen me in the same 2 nightgowns night after night for the last 2 years. It would be nice for him to see me in new ones. Nice for me to see me in new ones too!
I am writing at the kitchen table today and Scout is outside just in view eating away at her new frozen lamb bone, something that brings untold delight to my poor little rescue dog.
Jeff has gone to take care of Lily, Molly and Sophie, his 3 wonderful grand daughters who I adore!!!
I carry with me in my purse a lovely stone that Lily picked up on a walk we were taking 2 or 3 days ago and very generously gave to me as a gift. I treasure it.
