Waiting for a Story

It’s one of those days.  I’ve started five stories and can’t finish a single one as a Hump Day Short.  One is kind of funny but going to be too long.  One is too emotional.  One I can’t find words to describe.  So, I’m beckoning you… help. Across the river from the house on the Annisquam in Gloucester lies a simple island with several houses of similar design.  It’s a private island and, we were told, it has no electricity and no indoor plumbing.  In the evening, lanterns moving through the house resemble the glow from within Amish houses.  A few small boats are tied up at the wooden dock throughout the week.  On the weekends, kids run and play on the sand flats when the tide is out.  Although less than 100 yards away, my boys never met up to play with them as their privacy was protected by the deep river channel.

It's a setting ripe for a story.  Now we need a plot and the details.  Don’t be shy.

Scroll down.  Pretend “Leave a Comment” really reads “Next Paragraph” and add to the story.

Can the Great Hump Day Diversion be built in a day?  A week?

In Which Boat Will You Float?

Two paddlers are side by side on the Annisquam River as I write this early Tuesday morning. One is in a hard plastic blue kayak paddling with one long double-bladed oar alternating side to side. The boat is on a calm, steady glide. The kayaker sits inches away from the water on a seat nestled in the cockpit.

The other paddler is in a beautiful custom-made wooden row boat with the oars anchored to the sides. With both oars being pulled simultaneously, the boat creates powerful strides reflected in the wake. The rower sits apart from the water on a seat inside the boat.

The kayaker faces the bow controlling the boat's direction.

The rower faces the stern and constantly looks behind, over the bow, to see where the boat is headed.

Today, I’m kayaking.

Cupboard Doors

Do you ever get delightful, welcoming, calming diversions unexpectedly? In the house renovation, we are installing new cupboards in the new kitchen.  Bill is not going to miss my noisy parade of doors in the kitchen: all of the doors slammed shut regardless of how delicately I tried to close them.  (I must admit “delicate” is stretching it a bit… particularly in the Morning Kitchen while flying through to make breakfast and lunches.) Even the felt I attached to every seam hardly deafened the sharpness of the closings.   The doors under my sink had other issues.  Not only did they slam, they also fell downward over the course of the week.  I kept a Philips screwdriver under the sink and taught Liam how to tighten the hinges.  That would last only a few days before the doors would bang out, “Hey, would ya tighten me up here??”  They had a strong Bostonian accent.

Before we went to England at the end of May, I needed to run to the kitchen design store to finalize our cupboard layout.  I squeezed the trip in between packing and picking up the boys from school.  I was haphazardly packing suitcases for England, packing boxes to take with us for the summer, and packing the contents of the entire house into four rooms.

Haphazard = putting four pairs and 15 single socks in the boys' suitcase for England; sending bookcases for the summer rental house with the movers, minus a few book shelves, minus ALL pegs that they sit on; throwing ski pants on the floor next to the basement door prone to leaking water.  (Yes, it did...)  I must have looked like a wild woman when I walked into the kitchen store.

My designer was wrapping up with another customer, so I went to my favorite spot in the very non-haphazard showroom: next to a drawer and a cupboard door that self-close.  I opened the cupboard door and gave it a push shut.  The door caught about three inches from the cabinet; then silently, smoothly the hinge pulled the door shut.  I opened a drawer and gave it a little push.  It caught about three inches from the cabinet and closed itself too.  I got in at least 10 good opens and closes on each before the designer appeared at my side -- a little mystified by my cupboard meditation.

That episode still makes me smile.  Cupboards whispering, “Let me help you with that.”  “I’ll finish this for you.”  “Go ahead do something else.  I've got this covered.”

Wishing you simple diversions…  Happy Hump Day.

(During construction, this was a summer of numbers.)

Sea Glass

Glass.

How long will it take for this new Bath Aqua Glass in Bath, England to become sea glass?

Will it ever make its way to an ocean to be tumbled and rubbed, eventually lodging on a beach and then landing in a beachcomber's pocket?

In Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, there is a brilliant short quote something to the effect of "if it's glass, it will break; it's only a matter of when." If you can get your mind around this, then the shock is lessened when something breakable -- perhaps even considered valuable -- meets its demise.

When it happens, how long before the swept up sharp bits and chards become someone else's treasure? Say at low tide on the Annisquam River or the beach at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, MA?

A part of me wants to know the history of this beautiful, broken, buffed yet cloudy sea glass. But most of me wants to hold on to the romance of it. No history lesson. Just let the sea glass be. After all, what if it wasn't on a transatlantic ship in the 1700's? Do I really want to know that?

Not today.

Crack of Dawn

I can hardly type.  I need both hands to scratch the bites from the greenhead flies and the no-see-ems.  A bit of ice, together with some Cortizone, will calm them down for a few minutes. Beyond the bites...

Isn't it remarkable how She saves just enough paint from Sunset to create Crack of Dawn?

Happy hump day...

Sunset

Do you love a good sunset?  The Malcolms do. Although it’s arguable on Bill’s side of the family when that beautiful sunset actually occurs.  What part of it is the most spellbinding.

Years ago while vacationing with Bill’s family in Florida, we dropped towels on a beach just in time to watch the sunset.  The ball of fire was brilliant and we had to shield our eyes to look west.  We could only hazard a quick glance at it – the silhouette of which momentarily burned onto our retinas.  A rather painful endeavor.

The ball dropped behind the horizon as if a string from below gave it a final tug to make it disappear so quickly.  Then, the other four Malcolms started folding up there towels to leave the beach.  I sat anchored tight on mine looking at them in disbelief.  Sunset was just beginning!  They acquiesced, but I could tell for them it was like staring at the ball in Times Square after it had hit bottom.  Party over.

Ingredients for my perfect sunset: the sun, a wide horizon, and clouds in the sky.  Bonus: All of these, plus a body of water.  When that powerful, bright ball sinks and the range of pinks, oranges, reds, and purples are strewn over the massive cloud-canvas, changing in hue and darkening in richnes by the second...

This is sunset you can watch full-on.  Sometimes for more than an hour, until true dusk wins the battle.  As for the bonus of water, it doubles what you get from the sky.  Magnificent.

This is near the moment of the Malcolm family sunset... intense.

(This shot was taken by the owner of the Lobster Pool.)

This is my perfect sunset… calming.

(Taken over the Annisquam River, Gloucester, MA.)

Of course, whatever your definition of sunset, the beauty of Sunset is that it happens every day.

Remember?

Perhaps, walk outside your door and see yours tonight.  Go here, plug in your zip code, and see what time the ball drops over your horizon.

Happy Hump Day…

The Eye of the Storm

I am over three years out from breast cancer diagnosis, cancer-free, and well into the swing of alternating MRI's and mammograms every six months.  These don't seem to get any easier as time goes on. After my mammograms in July, all is good.  The Eye of the Storm reflects on that day.  Please forward this to a woman you know who is living with or beyond breast cancer.  And please, let her know she's not alone.

...

One of the loneliest places on earth is the mammogram room on a call-back “just to check some calcification that wasn’t on the last mammogram.  We’ll book time for an ultrasound, just in case.”

That’s where I stood July 19th, six days after my Friday the 13th birthday mammogram.

First trip into the chamber.  “If the calcification appears scattered then we check again in 6 months.  If it appears to be bunched together, then we would want to look at it more closely.”

After four initial compressions, the radiologist wanted to take a few more.

Second trip into the chamber.  “OK, hold your breath.”  I can’t hold any breath.  I can’t work out why.  Four or five more tight squeezes.

“Just have a seat and I’ll be back in a few minutes after the radiologist reads these.”

This is a new breast care center, so I get to wear a light salmon pink johnny.  The blue johnnies are still in the dressing rooms but under the salmon johnnies.  Should all of the salmon ones get worn, well, thank goodness for the blue ones.  Fucking things.  I must get a Hug Wrap for myself.  “Don’t forget!”  I scream to my subconscious.

“OK, Linda.  We need to take a couple more.”

Third trip into the chamber.  “This time we need to take the images while remaining compressed for 10 minutes.”  “Are you kidding me?” my cancerous snarkiness raises its protective head.  “More like five actually.  We need to work out where the calcification is.  This is the calcification.”

Bunched together... shit.  “The mammogram shows it but doesn’t clearly identify where it is within the breast.”

I realize why I can’t hold my breath.  I can’t breathe in to fill my lungs.  The compression keeps my breathing shallow.  I’m holding my breath on the exhale with no air in my lungs.  I pick a spot on the wall; hyperfocus on it; tell my brain more oxygen will come soon.  So that it doesn’t panic.

“Let me look at these before you go back to the waiting room.”

I stood in the middle of the quiet, dimly-lit room with the whole world spiraling around me.  Which path do I walk on out of here?  The room is calm.  Peaceful.  In the eye of the storm.  A storm of normal life and responsibilities is what I walked in with.  Will I walk out with the same or in the middle of another storm that makes the first one look like an April shower?

“Looks good.  You can wait outside.”  Minutes pass.  Have I done everything I should?  What are my priorities?  Do I need to focus more on family, less on volunteering?  Liam’s life book isn’t done.  Do I even pray any more?  Do I over react to things that I really shouldn’t?

“Sorry, Linda.  We need to take a few more.”

Fourth trip into the chamber.  “So the radiologist thinks the calcification may actually be on your skin.  In that case it is 110% NOT cancerous.”  Well, that’s good news.  Perhaps my blood pressure dips a few points.  More exhaled breath-holding.  More compressions.  “That should do it.  Go ahead and get dressed and just sit in the waiting area until he reads these.”  Ahh… the power returns as the salmon johnny is dispensed into the dirty laundry.

“Linda, come on back.” Oh, for fuck’s sake, I need a “Linda-go-home.”

Fifth trip into the chamber.  “Don’t worry about changing into a johnny again.  Let’s just take this.  He wants me to roll you so we get a horizontal shot proving the calcification is on your skin.  He just wants to be very careful given your history.”

Back to the waiting room.  Ten minutes later, I’m sweating.  I sent a message via a passing nurse saying, “I’ve got to go get my kids.  I can’t stay any longer.”  My kids are at a short play date that should have ended a half hour ago.

After checking in with the technician or radiologist, the nurse came back with a smiling reply, “We’ll see you in a year.”  I’m pretty sure the technician forgot about me as I sat wanting to crawl out of my skin in the waiting room.  After nearly two hours, five visits to the mammogram room, and 20 compressions, I flee to pick up my boys.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  And tired.  And teary.  Next time I’ll stand in the middle of that room with a Tuscan red and yellow Hugwrap about me.  I’ll arrange for a friend to meet me afterwards for a class of wine.  Then perhaps dinner with Bill.  Could I give myself the day rather than a tight two hours to sail through the next one?

That eerie calm standing in the eye of a storm.  Exhausting.