Fuzzy Writing from Fuzzy Memoires for a Fuzzy Period
A friend from Marine-on-St. Croix, Jimmy Johnson, pointed out to me one spring about twenty-eight years ago, that this is a fuzzy time of year. Well, not exactly fuzzy! Maybe, he said blurry!
Everyone knows my memory is not so great today as it was three decades ago. What I do remember is that we were standing on the steps of the Lutheran Church (what else) in the nearby town of Scandia on an April morning. Neither of our families belonged to that church. It being Minnesota, we had our own perfectly good Lutheran Church in our own Scandinavian community of Marine just three miles down river. I think the Johnson's were Catholic anyway. I can only guess that we were in Scandia for a wedding, a funeral, or a Minnesota cultural exchange program for our children. Ya, you betcha, let's show the kids how those northern Lutherans do things.
Jim pointed towards the trees in the park. He said he loved the particular shade of green that occurred for only a few days in spring as the trees start to bud. Then, he said it gives everything a blurred quality, as though you had slightly crossed your eyes. It was a passing comment to a neighbor. It stuck with me, maybe because there was joy and passion in the observation, or maybe because the poetry of it took me by surprise. I thought of Jim as a jock, with interesting political views, who liked to joke. However, for most of three decades, I've watched for those days every spring, where ever I am, but not this one.
I've been doing one of the hardest jobs of my life for most of two years; caring for my elderly mother who has multiple health issues, the primary two being cancer and dementia. I never expected the job to go this many months, nor would my mother have wanted to live to the debilitated state her diseases have brought her. Unfortunately, her mind did not survive in tact long enough for her to make the deal of surrender with her spirit. Now it is out of her hands and ours. I say of her physical survival, "she is a mean little Irish machine." No, not Scandinavian.
The last two months have been the most demanding and, as things progress naturally, the next weeks will each be harder than the previous. Some time early in March, with spring approaching, my vision went fuzzy, figuratively. I've spent the two months since plodding through the damp, smelly, sticky, silent tasks of care giving, fuzzy day after day, wondering each morning if it would be the last. Days have blurred into weeks and the weeks into two months.
Suddenly, this morning I see that the leaves of the Maple tree in the front yard are wide, approaching jade green. They're defined, identifiable by several sharp points on each as descended from the Maple leaves of last year. I've missed that crossed eyed lime-hued blur of spring, two months of positive writing and two months of writing this blog! I have been writing, as I must, whiney poor me bits, and the basic stuff to make my deadlines. I have taught a couple of workshops. But, this morning's message for me is that it is time to sharpen my focus, emerge from the fuzziness of a spring unobserved and keep living. My mother would want that.
Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse
Everyone knows my memory is not so great today as it was three decades ago. What I do remember is that we were standing on the steps of the Lutheran Church (what else) in the nearby town of Scandia on an April morning. Neither of our families belonged to that church. It being Minnesota, we had our own perfectly good Lutheran Church in our own Scandinavian community of Marine just three miles down river. I think the Johnson's were Catholic anyway. I can only guess that we were in Scandia for a wedding, a funeral, or a Minnesota cultural exchange program for our children. Ya, you betcha, let's show the kids how those northern Lutherans do things.
Jim pointed towards the trees in the park. He said he loved the particular shade of green that occurred for only a few days in spring as the trees start to bud. Then, he said it gives everything a blurred quality, as though you had slightly crossed your eyes. It was a passing comment to a neighbor. It stuck with me, maybe because there was joy and passion in the observation, or maybe because the poetry of it took me by surprise. I thought of Jim as a jock, with interesting political views, who liked to joke. However, for most of three decades, I've watched for those days every spring, where ever I am, but not this one.
I've been doing one of the hardest jobs of my life for most of two years; caring for my elderly mother who has multiple health issues, the primary two being cancer and dementia. I never expected the job to go this many months, nor would my mother have wanted to live to the debilitated state her diseases have brought her. Unfortunately, her mind did not survive in tact long enough for her to make the deal of surrender with her spirit. Now it is out of her hands and ours. I say of her physical survival, "she is a mean little Irish machine." No, not Scandinavian.
The last two months have been the most demanding and, as things progress naturally, the next weeks will each be harder than the previous. Some time early in March, with spring approaching, my vision went fuzzy, figuratively. I've spent the two months since plodding through the damp, smelly, sticky, silent tasks of care giving, fuzzy day after day, wondering each morning if it would be the last. Days have blurred into weeks and the weeks into two months.
Suddenly, this morning I see that the leaves of the Maple tree in the front yard are wide, approaching jade green. They're defined, identifiable by several sharp points on each as descended from the Maple leaves of last year. I've missed that crossed eyed lime-hued blur of spring, two months of positive writing and two months of writing this blog! I have been writing, as I must, whiney poor me bits, and the basic stuff to make my deadlines. I have taught a couple of workshops. But, this morning's message for me is that it is time to sharpen my focus, emerge from the fuzziness of a spring unobserved and keep living. My mother would want that.
Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse
Labels: Alzheimers, Cancer, Caregiving, Dimentia, Elderly, Lutheran, Minnesota, Spring, writing
posted by Martie | 9:04 AM
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