February | 2014 | mulberryshoots

It’s almost a week (tomorrow) since I took that fateful step off the stairs, thinking that I was nearer terra firma than I actually was. Instead, I fell on my right ankle which dislocated the tibia and broke a bunch of bones (what they call a compound fracture.)

Today, surrounded by beautiful flowers from well-wishers, I am biding my time until the surgeon operates on my foot next week (week by week it seems to go.) After lunch, I managed to use a walker to stand at the kitchen sink and wash my hair. It’s getting long, I keep telling myself as I comb it out and twist it securely on top of my head to dry in the sun while I sit and rest my leg.

Here’s a story that has been in the front of my mind: thirty years ago, a neighbor family who lived up the hill from us in Lexington were friends with my family. They had three girls and so did we. The girls were all classmates with one another. Their father taught at MIT and the mother was a well-known and well-liked activist in the education system in our town. First, we heard she was in the local hospital (Symmes Hospital in Arlington which is no longer there) for knee surgery. Then she went home. Then, she had a clot. And suddenly, she died, leaving the family on its own. We were so shocked that a seemingly innocuous operation could lead so quickly to such a sad end. Just so you know, though, the father raised the three girls by himself. Two of them studied at MIT, including graduate school. A. started a lab there which invented easy-to-use tools that helped people in Third World countries to purify water. I heard that she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (“genius grant”) a couple of years later. What an amazing story of an amazing family who made its way in the absence of their vibrant mother all those years. Their father was well known at MIT for fifty years, during which time he taught electrical engineering, and then afterwards served as MIT’s head of undergraduate education and student affairs from 1990-1995.

You know where this is going, right? I described that sudden death from knee surgery situation to the orthopedic surgeon we met with on Monday. I said there seemed to be situations, rare perhaps but even so, times when someone may go in for a tonsillectomy, lapse into a coma and then die. Since my personality is proactive and organized, I reflected about what I wanted to have happen in my absence (if I died unexpectedly.) It’s taken a couple of days to learn there’s nothing like transparency to help align people you love.

Now, it’s time to plan what to make for dinner: roasted sweet potatoes and thin-sliced pork chops in a mustard-apple cider vinegar glaze, fresh spinach on the side. There’s even a half of a peach cobbler to warm up and eat with Haagen Daz vanilla bean ice cream after dinner. Yum!

Postscript: The week-by-week paradigm has kicked in: when the ER cast was opened up on Friday, there were skin blisters, a condition that required antiseptic applied to them and then a new cast closing the ankle up for another ten days. To avoid post-operative infection, the blisters should heal first. The next peek is scheduled for the week of March 10th.

In the meantime, my daughter C. helped me position pillows while resting on the couch, so that the cast is elevated higher than my heart–thereby promoting a less congested ankle area, helping it to heal sufficient to have surgery. One week at a time. . .

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February 24, 2014

an accident . . .

“get well” flowers from my daughters and granddaughters . . .

Well, my horoscope indicated that 2014 would/should be a quiet year for me even though it’s the Year of the Horse and that’s my sign. Both Western and Eastern signs I read about in January indicated that I should “take a back seat” kind of approach for the year. At first, I was kind of nonplussed and mystified. Now, I am beginning to understand what might have been behind those predictions.

On Thursday evening, as I prepared to drive down to a meeting at City Hall for a Citizens Advisory Committee of which I’m on the board, I mistook where I was on the stairs going down, thinking the next step was the floor. It was not. I was up higher and I fell, landing on my right ankle with a loud cracking sound. I was afraid to look at my ankle because I thought maybe the break in the bone might be visible on the outside. It was not, but the swelling became elephantine.

G. took me to the Emergency Room, where they took one look at the ankle and hustled me through the various processors who have to look at you before someone orders an X-Ray. Then, the shaking of heads by all the nurses who said, “hm, lots of breaks.” Not a good sign. They moved me to the larger emergency room pod and got me into a room where two orthopedic residents set about realigning the tibia which had dislocated from my ankle socket. They were kind, gentle and amazingly competent. They kept asking me if I was in pain, and one of them said I was the most stoical patient he’s ever had.

Wearing lead aprons, they used a portable X-ray machine that showed them my ankle while they put it back together using the x-ray photos as a guide. Under lidocaine anesthetic injected into my ankle area and an IV painkiller, they worked on it awhile, looked at it, then decided they needed to cut the cast they had just put on to realign it better. After that, they sent me to radiology to have X-Rays taken again. On the computer back in the room, I was shown the X-Rays of the injury “before” and “after.” An amazing difference! One of the orthopedic residents was the spitting image of Christian Slater, I thought, although he said nobody had ever told him that before. I chatted on about how “Bed of Roses” with Christian Slater and Mary Stuart Masterson was one of my favorite movies –which he hadn’t seen. It also turned out when he told me his last name, that his father was the cardiologist that my mother-in-law goes to (she’s ninety-five and the sweetest words he says to her at her checkups is “see you in six months!”)

Anyhow, I got home around 1:30 in the morning and after awkwardly pulling myself up three flights of stairs to where we live, we were ready for bed. The cast weighed a lot and I hadn’t gotten around to getting the painkiller medication partly because I don’t have prescription insurance (no one could believe that I didn’t take ANY medications and that I wasn’t twenty years younger–very flattering and did wonders for me while my adrenalin was pumping along overtime in the ER. The prescription turned out not to cost $80 as I had imagined, but actually cost just over $11.00. That was a good sign, I thought.

My daughter, M. flew down from Minneapolis the next night and spent the weekend with us. She helped us find a medical supply place and came home with arm cuff crutches and other supplies that helped a lot. For our dinner, she made lasagna with zucchini and fresh spinach, layered with brown rice, whole wheat lasagna noodles, sauce, ricotta and parmesan cheese. We had it again for supper last night. My granddaughter, A. and I were going to have lunch together on Saturday prior to my accident and she drove down instead and we had a nice lunch visit together with M. (I had made homemade wontons with pork and shrimp in a napa cabbage and spinach soup broth.)

On Sunday, G. and I went to have a CAT scan of my ankle so that the orthopedic surgeon would be able to look at it before my visit with him for a consultation this morning: whether I will need to have surgery or not (probably yes) and what the recovery process and prognosis might be.

All in all, I feel that it could have been a lot worse for me: I could have broken my hip, injured my spine or neck, fallen on my head with greater injury and more dire consequences. Our cup is still more than half full and we will get through this by streamlining our needs and being patient with each other during this highly impactive timeframe. My daughter, C., sent me a link for free grocery delivery from our local Stop and Shop which we might try out. And after we learn what’s in front of us today, we’ll know better what to expect. More later . . .

Later: G. and I had a good visit with the orthopedic surgeon. He agreed with me that the two orthopedic residents had done a “fabulous job” putting my bones back together in the ER Thursday night, so that my foot could heal sufficiently before having surgery. He’ll take off my cast this Friday to examine how the bones are holding together (or not!) and right now, he said surgery might take place next Wednesday. After the surgery, a weekly checkup, then removing the sutures, then recovery casts for a period of about six weeks. This sounded a lot easier than what I had read about online (12 weeks or up to a year!) so I’m really encouraged about possibly having a shorter recovery time required after surgery. And it’s also good to know that the surgery will take place next week.

Back home again, G. and I managed to get me up the 29-30 stairs that bring me up to the third floor where we live. The stairs are original to our Queen Ann Victorian house, built in 1899 and are made of curly cherry wood; there are four landings that separate the rows of stairs. Each time we navigate them, we get better at it.

After a lunch of bologna sandwiches (Boar’s Head!), potato chips and drinks later, I’m now resting on the leather couch in front of the TV, my cast leg slightly cramping from the exertion of getting up the stairs.

So, that’s it for now. This break (in my ankle and in our lives) has taught us how much we mean to each other, how fortunate we are to be together and that really. . . truly. . . honestly . . . , it’s not worth sweating the small stuff. . . and in the context of things, almost everything is small.

Except family, love. . . and yes, gorgeous flowers!

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February 23, 2014

three years old . . .

I can hardly believe that this blog is three years old today! I wrote about how we turned two last year and thought it might be interesting to see where we are today, still a toddler in writing years. . .

When people sometimes ask me what my blog is about, I hesitate, not knowing how to describe it. It’s about my adventure in life, I guess, according to Mary Oliver’s poem in the place of honor on my blog page:

“tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Well, what are we doing with our wild and precious lives? For me since I now have the luxury of time to read, reflect, listen to music, play the piano, knit, cook and take care of my family and my home, that’s what I’m doing with my own “only one trip!” as Iris Apfel is wont to say. The days of stirring the pot during my thirty year project management career with biotech start-ups are thankfully over.

2013 posts were an interesting year where I’ve backed away from the intensity of wanting to understand everything in my life, to “take care of business” and to wonder about what I will do for the rest of it. That answer came just a few days ago in my post, “a revelation” and from a Woody Allen movie quotation no less: “that life is to be enjoyed, not understood.”

And so now I lay me down the never-ending struggle of wanting to understand things before I can let them go. Because, honestly, they’re disproportionately unfathomable, aren’t they? Or maybe I’ll finally unroll them all into a book that I’ve wanted to write for a long time rather than wishing it were written already.

I watched, fascinated, as the blog views turned the 20,000 mark around the holidays, then to 21,546 views over 353 posts, which is what it is today. Viewing takes place from the most amazing places too: 124 countries at last count. During that time, I have met friends from far-away places who visit the blog, like cardinals who come and feed, their bright colors and good spirits permeating my life at the most unexpected times. They harken from as far away as Australia, Singapore, California, Texas, Mississippi and Alaska. The internet provides a global umbrella for making friends, sharing life stories and recipes. And they express their own thoughts with such sweet sincerity. I am touched by them all.

Click on this link if you’d like to see dozens of cardinals feeding alongside a very calm squirrel on Valentine’s Day! :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C4MMuF-LVk

I wanted to include in this post a highlight of 2013 called “mums” in case you haven’t seen it. It’s of an extraordinary exhibition of Japanese chrysanthemums at the New York Botanical Gardens that I visited by myself one fine October day.

I am lucky to have a loving family and to be able to provide photos of them, our environs, both physical and spiritual on the blog. The Helpers of the Universe seem to be unusually active in positive ways as my letting go widens with each new day.

G. at the piano. . .

threesome of me with daughters, C. & M.

Thank you for reading and following this little blog. I appreciate your presence and interest, taking the time to read my posts about life.

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February 16, 2014

buddha weighs in . . .

M., my daughter, sent me this message today as a follow-on to the revelation post yesterday: “life is to be enjoyed, not understood.”

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February 15, 2014

a revelation . . .

I just realized that I grew up in a household in which science and truth were important. My father was a research scientist in geology that led him to discover minerals from asteroid impact on the earth at a time when astronauts gathered specimens from the moon. That seems like so long ago.

Being the eldest, I think the search for truth that permeated our household was something I absorbed under my skin, and which has both helped and haunted me all my life. Being rational and wanting to be the smartest brain in the room has both helped me in a late-blooming biotech career to, well, being avoided in order for me not to pronounce some direct “truth” that people may have preferred not hearing.

Be that as it may, I realized today that my bias, if you could call it that, was to reflect and ponder things in order to understand in my own way, what’s happened in my life. Little did I know that sometimes I’m right and often, I’m not and furthermore, that some things are just unfathomable: like why family dynamics were what they were without the benefit of being able to ask and having the departed weigh in from the grave.

Today, by chance, while surfing channels to see what was playing live from the Olympics, I came across Woody Allen’s movie, “Hannah and Her Sisters.” I’m not a Woody Allen fan as I tire of listening to his nostalgic jazz soundtracks and even more, dislike hearing about his personality quirks and life history that seem to have to be included in every one of his movies ad nauseum.

The reason I’m talking about him, though, is a scene in which Allen accidently shoots a mirror while contemplating killing himself in a low moment and in which he then realizes that “life is to be enjoyed, not to be understood.”

EUREKA!

Okay, so you mean I don’t have to understand things in order to move on? I no longer have to ferret out what accounted for something happening and why people behaved the way that they have in order to live? This may sound like an exaggeration but honestly, it never occurred to me that I didn’t have to understand things in order to process them in my life. That’s a lot of hours, days, weeks, months and years spent pondering things when I could have been doing something else!

Now, because of a dumb Woody Allen phrase, I can give myself permission to enjoy life rather than understand it? Who knew?

I didn’t. And today I’m glad to begin experimenting with an alternative reality. Better late than never!

P.S. There’s nothing like puttering around in the kitchen on a snowy day. Here’s a photo of the peach crostata that I just took out of the oven for tonight’s dessert. Threw together some thawed peaches I had in the freezer for smoothies with a little flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, dotted with butter–combined with a Pillsbury pie crust, unrolled and patted into a small springform pan sprayed with Pam. Fold crust over peaches, sprinkle with coarse sugar and cinnamon. Bake at 400 degrees until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Leave in heated oven and serve warm pie with vanilla ice cream.

hijiki & carrots; teriyaki tofu and cucumber salad for dinner. . .

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February 14, 2014

valentines . . .

It’s a very snowy, slushy, icy Valentine’s Day outdoors today, here in central Massachusetts.

Inside, there’s an armful of fresh flowers that G. brought me after a visit to our neighborhood florist early this morning.

flowers, cards, red felt heart and my father’s calligraphy . . .

I have a couple of surprises for him to open up tonight with his card too!

Hope you are all enjoying the day!

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February 9, 2014

a “yarn” . . .

Noro Yarn, “Cyochin”

Remember when the “New Age” was upon us? Around the time of the millenium or some years back before that? When did the new “Age of Aquarius” really begin anyhow (in the 1960’s and 70’s?) And is it still going on? Some of my favorite CDs to play in the car are piano compositions recorded by Windham Hill, a label that epitomized new age music for me with work by composers like Liz Story, William Ackermann and Michael Jones. The music itself brings back memories of an easier time in the world, if not in my own at the time. Maybe that’s why I enjoy listening to it now: things are so much better in my life compared to then.

Outside, things feel bleak due to the frustratingly protracted political gridlock in Washington, D.C.; to the shock waves due to mass shootings, global spying, hacking, identity-theft, you name it: everyday it hits us on the news, in the newspapers and on the radio while driving around doing errands. The age we live in now is also pre-empted by an ever increasing social media frenzy whipped up by the press along with random ads that pop up everywhere you look on the internet: a dizzying melange of unasked-for opinions and cyberspace junk mail.

In quieter times past, I, for one, used to rely on “signs”, reading the Tarot spreads on occasion, writing down intentions, visualizing goals and so on. Lately, not so much.

Even so, I was thinking the other day about certain events that have occurred in our little world that have made a big difference, a turn of events outside of our own control. I recognized that almost everything important in my life has unfolded that way: moving down here for a new job over twenty years ago, and meeting my second husband (a piano tuner) because the movers didn’t put the lyre back on my Steinway properly.

You can call it synchronicity or serendipity. Or we could just acknowledge that the Universe, and God, have plans for us that we know nothing about until it is revealed to us. It almost makes me think that we should just live and let live, and mostly get out of our own way so that the Universe can do its thing more easily than having us try to fix things ourselves. Do you ever find that to be true in your life too?

I am writing about this nebulous topic today because of what happened to me this weekend. I had been unsuccessful in three attempts to order yarn online from WEBS, a yarn warehouse about an hour’s drive away from me in Northampton. The appearance of the three lots of yarn in my hands was very different in gauge, weight and color from what I had seen (or imagined) on my computer screen.

instead of mailing it back a third time, I got in the car and decided the only way that I might find yarn I wanted to make something for myself with, was to go and take a look in person.

I was right because there was only one yarn in the entire warehouse that drew me in, a gorgeous new Noro yarn.

It was multi-colored and a swatch had been knitted up that hung beside the yarn on the shelves so that you could see what the colors looked like knitted up. I’ve worked with many multi-colored yarns before this, most of which surprised in a negative way, the colors not blending or looking right, which can result in omitting some colors and being surrounded by lots of little balls of various color lots to choose from when finishing a garment. I’ve been there lots of times, so I was glad to see the swatch that showed the beauty of how the colors played out together.

It was very expensive, but with the credit of the returned yarn, and a discount based on the dollar amount of the yarn, I could almost justify going for it. I thought maybe I could afford just six skeins and knit a vest with a kimono look. At the last minute, I asked for four additional skeins which brought the discount up to 25% off. With ten skeins of this unusually beautiful yarn tucked safely in my car, I found a parking place in town after a few tries and had a quick lunch at Osaka, my favorite Japanese restaurant. Over soft-shell crab tempura, I sketched out designs on index cards while I ate to see how the ten skeins of yarn could be used in an unconventional manner but didn’t come up with anything novel or exciting.

On the way home, as I was thirsty from the saltiness of my lunch, I decided to swing by Barnes and Noble to have an iced tea and look at their yarn books, not having found anything earlier in Northampton. The book section didn’t yield anything, but then, my eye fell on a magazine by Noro, the manufacturer of the yarn I had just bought with a patchwork sweater on the cover made out of the same exact colorway of the new Noro yarn that was sitting in my car.

The pattern was perfect: a loose-fitting tunic with dolman sleeves and interesting patches knitted in various cable designs on the asymmetric tunic front. I couldn’t believe it. It was as though I led myself (or was led) to look for and find the yarn in one place, and then find the pattern in a second, three hours later, a third of the state of Massachusetts apart.

Noro pattern of a tunic sweater with patchwork

Oh, and that’s not even to mention that while I was browsing in one of my favorite stores called “Irrisistibles” in Hamp that has books and household whimseys, I saw a display of metal hanging placards, one of which said, “Everything Will Be All Right.” It was $30 and I thought, I can just print that out myself when I get home and put it on the fridge. It was definitely the right message for me at the right time. New age or not, that familiar twinge of recognition, seeing a message meant for me was unmistakeable. I was buoyed up by it on the way home having forgotten that maybe I wasn’t struggling along alone after all.

So, how “new age” is that for a day filled with coincidences? You’ve heard of the phrase, “there are no accidents,” right? Well, what I take away from this little yarn saga is that the Helpers are definitely out and about and that even when I don’t think I need help, their generous handiwork is very apparent. They must be laughing their heads off up there!

I hadn’t wanted to make the drive out to return the yarn, and when I did, the only yarn I liked appeared to be prohibitively expensive. With the credit and an additional discount, I unwittingly purchased ten skeins, the exact amount of yarn required by the pattern on the cover of Noro magazine to make an unusual patchwork tunic sweater.

Plus, the real gift of the day was coming across and being reassured by the comforting admonition that “everything will be all right.” If you believe it, maybe it will happen.

Priceless.

so far, so good. . .

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February 6, 2014

“counting the ways” . . .

A few days ago, a literary friend of mine who has started a thread on her Facebook page to read various poets assigned me one to read and quote from: Sharon Olds. I was surprised to receive a poet I was not familiar with. Reading about her online, it turns out there are interesting turns of events about her poems.

In the 1990’s, her doctor/psychiatrist husband told her he was leaving her after 32 years of marriage to be with a doctor/colleague. Sharon Olds wrote poetry about her reactions, love, and sense of loss during this time and for years thereafter. She promised her son and daughter that she would wait at least ten years before publishing these poems from a period of time that was full of pain for them all.

Last year in 2012, she culled out a selection of poems from the hundreds she had written more than a decade earlier and Jonathon Cape published them in the U.K., a book entitled, “Stag’s Leap.” In April, the book was awarded the T.S. Eliot poetry prize, a U.K. poetry award of 15,000 British pounds. She said she bought herself a cashmere cardigan when she won the prize. Since her painful divorce, she rebounded with a younger man who was not the right guy for her; and after nine of years alone, she still teaches at NYU and lives the rest of the time with a former cattle breeder named Carl, whom she calls her “sweetheart.” Carl owns cabins up in New Hampshire which are rented out and also serve as a locus for poetry workshops. So it seems, all’s well that has ended well–which also makes the poems about the marriage breaking up easier to read.

The piece de resistance, though, is that after all those years of loss, being alone and growing older (she’s now 71,) Sharon Olds’s book, “Stag’s Leap” was recently awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. If he hadn’t left her, she wouldn’t have written these poems and would also not have won a Pulitzer prize. Such irony here. . .

Here’s an excerpt from the poem, “Last Look”:

” and I saw again how blessed my life had been,

first, to have been able to love,

then, to have the parting now behind me,

and not to have lost him when the kids were young,

and the kids now not at all to have lost him,

and not to have lost him when he loved me, and not to have

lost someone who could have loved me for life.”

Well, it turns out he didn’t love her for life. In fact, her poems convey the sad truth that he was a very closed person who hardly let her in during all those years. I also felt that she was keening for the loss of him a little too much, given that he deserted her, especially when he said, “it’s not about her, it’s about you.” Ouch!

So I’ve been thinking about different kinds of love: those that inspire poems that are Pulitzer-worthy, and love that’s more commonplace, like my husband, cleaning up snowdrifts from the blizzard and coming in to a steaming bowl of Lipton’s noodle soup and a sandwich.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” said Robert Browning.

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February 3, 2014

“berceuse” . . .

A Berceuse is a “musical composition that resembles a lullaby.”

Somehow, after reading and hearing so much about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s untimely death yesterday, I thought about playing Chopin’s “Berceuse” on the piano this morning in his memory.

Here is a rendition that expresses the sadness of Hoffman’s passing, an elegy of sorts, played by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

May Philip Seymour Hoffman’s family survive his absence.

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mulberryshoots

Month: February, 2014

February 26, 2014

so far, so good . . .

February 24, 2014

an accident . . .

February 23, 2014

three years old . . .

February 16, 2014

buddha weighs in . . .

February 15, 2014

a revelation . . .

February 14, 2014

valentines . . .

February 9, 2014

a “yarn” . . .

February 6, 2014

“counting the ways” . . .

February 3, 2014

“berceuse” . . .