Today, she called it Alzheimer’s

I just went on a walk with Trevor and the dog. I thought walking outside in the Spring air and colors would be healthy, helpful. But as soon as we got outside my eyes welled up and my heart got full and I tried to keep from crying. Deep breath. Another one. We walked.

At the end of our street I saw an older woman, in her mid-sixties with white hair and a blue apron, walk her family to their car. They were all dressed up; maybe they came over for an early supper with their mom/grandmother. They were smiling and happy and hugging and kissing. The white haired woman hugged her family, and her family hugged her back. They were piling into the car after the nice time they just shared with her, heading back into the life they left in their own home, maybe a few miles away, maybe a hundred miles away. Maybe they had just spent the whole week with her, building memories they will all remember fondly.

They will talk about this trip, this late lunch, for years to come. When the kids are older and grown up, the brother and sister will smile when their grandmother tells them they used to have nice visits and late lunches together, and that they would put on their best clothes and she would put on her blue apron and make them their favorite foods, ham and cheesy potatoes, just for them. They will one day smile at these memories of her cooking making them happy with food, with love. Food and love is what they will remember, and she will remember giving it to them and feeling love back.

I saw them, this nice family, all dressed up and heading home, and I was jealous. I, too, have a nice family, and we go to my Mom’s house for nice meals, and it’s true that she doesn’t cook and instead orders in, but the times are just as nice and she is just as happy to see us and we are all just as full with love when we go. And for now we can remember these good times, but I just spent the afternoon reading about what Alzheimer’s does to a brain, and what it will do to her brain, and instead of ham and cheesey potatoes, it will eat her brain and her memories of our late lunches and someday it will eat us right out of her memory all together.

I hope she gets her memories back in Heaven, but I can’t even go there right now.

We walked by this family and the woman’s white hair and apron and all their smiles and I realized the one thing I’m going to have to do to get through this is find my own way of coping. Spring colors and Spring air and the promise of birth and life starting fresh reminded me of all the Spring times I spent with my Mom, who nursed all my broken hearts, damaged by stupid boys or by some other disappointment, and I thought about how every time I’ve ever felt sad the one thing that could always make me better was my Mom. I realized that I am going to have to learn a whole new way to take care of my heart that is breaking because my Mom’s brain is dying.

Her training in bereavement counseling, and her experience losing her own mother, father, and brother, have taught her how to grieve gracefully. She is grieving gracefully now, and she is trying to help me do the same. She spoke with strength today, from a stronger place than I’d heard her recently, and with 100 percent clarity. When she started losing her memory she became fearful about the uncertainty. We never said it, that word. We never called it Alzheimer’s. Now she uses it frequently, claiming it as her own. She says that she’s done with the fear part and she’s tired of it and now it’s time to start living, damn it. She and her new husband have always wanted to take the train across Canada, and now they’ll move it up to next year.

She apologized for having to tell me on the phone, and that she didn’t want to have to tell me at all. I know this was the hardest thing she’s ever had to tell me. She knows that I love her more than anything, and that I know she loves me more than anything, and no one wants to tell someone they love that much that something horrible is about to happen, something horrible is happening. But she’s doing it the best way that she can, and it’s actually the sweetest way I could imagine, and I get the feeling that we will both be in it together until she doesn’t realize that I’m there, and then, when I can’t reach her anymore, I’ll be beside her in case she looks for me and wants me to be there and then I will be.

But while she’s here, while she’s still Mom and fighting the best she can, and while she’s trying to not to panic each time she can’t remember something and worry that it’s getting closer, closer, I am going to have to learn how to cope with this. I have never had to cope with losing my Mom. I don’t know how to do this, or where my heart will go when it needs soothing, because it has always sought her for that same purpose. I can send it out to her now, but where will it go as she goes, leaves, moves slowly away from me?

Walking in the Spring air tonight, I felt like a baby bird pushed out of the nest for the first time. She needs me to go because she needs to go. She needs me to learn, and to know that I will learn. And that is just like my Mom, to prepare for what’s coming by nudging me in the right direction, showing me what to do while she still can, letting me know she will be there when I look back for her as long as she can be. I know we both hope my tiny wings will resemble hers, strong and unswerving, by the time we both need them to be.

Favorite part

Sometimes, one part of a song really, really digs deep into who you are.

If you’re lucky, the whole song can send you into transcendence.

But usually, for me, only one line of an occasional song moves me.

Actually, it’s the combination of the words and music that get me:  Poetry is great, music is wonderful, but if you put the right words and music together, they add up to more than the sum of their parts.  Music and lyrics together can change a mood, a moment, the world.

I sometimes wonder about the people who make the music.  Do they have a favorite part too?  And, if so, how do they honor the time signature, keep tempo, and wait patiently until their favorite part unfolds?

Maybe it’s because they know it’s coming; undoubtedly, no question.

Maybe it’s this certainty that keeps them faithful to the song’s true rhythm and pacing, allowing them to savor the measures paving their way to perfection.

Maybe, if I had the patience of a musician, I could also endure the wait until what I am certain is coming.

Back in the chair

Ahhh, that luxurious half hour of peace following therapy.

You walk out of the office 100 pounds lighter than when you went in. You can hardly feel your baggage. Instead, you’re carrying an overwhelming sense that everything will be okay because, after all, you’re in therapy and that’s what therapy does: it makes things okay.

Not every exit from the office can be brimming with peace and joy and little blue birds swooping with happy songs in and out of trees. If you’re in the chair because of a drama or trauma, you can leave feeling more like the parts of road kill still stuck to the tires. But as of last Wednesday, my third time back in the chair after a two year break, I definitely heard the blue birds, and felt mighty fine.

And also self-congratulatory for going while I’m not in a crisis. I have some fine tuning to do, not heavy lifting. I give myself extra kudos for that

A dark and exquisitely sordid past

I competed in that heavy lifting test of endurance three years ago, almost to the month. I had started going (again, to my fifth therapist) because my emotionally unavailable boyfriend was pulling away from me, and it was so clearly my fault. I knew he was a hurting puppy/lost soul/dark-and-broody type who didn’t like to talk emotion or about much else for that matter, but that’s what I was there for. To fix him. To save him.

When I saw that I couldn’t, and also that every one of his “friends” was a woman who happened to be in love with him, I turned into Psychogirl — a needy, clingy, demanding, jealous bundle of joy. I loved him desperately but hated who I was turning into, and it felt eerily like the last time I was so intensely in love. I knew I had to get back in the chair and sort things out.

Sadly, by “sorting,” I meant to somehow “fix myself” to be more patient, kind, and loving with that insufferable fuckwit. Dumping him was not an option: I had to turn myself into something more lovable, so he would marry me, dammit. (This situation has always reminded me of the joke about the crappy restaurant that serves crappy food, and the portions are too small!)

Snowshoeing: mild pass-time, or xtreme danger?

Today The Mister is in the mountains, snowshoeing. I am concentrating on the fact that he will most certainly come back alive.

To distract myself, I watched Silkwood, an ’80′s flick, starring Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell.

The movie had a scene where Meryl had just had a lovely evening with Kurt, and he was showing her out the next day. He looked all lovey-dovey at her while she asked him to do some chores before she returned that night. She said something goofy, they both laughed, she waved good bye, got into her car, and drove off.

I thought, this scene smacks of foreshadow. She’ll get into a car accident and die. Cutting away from the car wreckage, they’re going to replay this scene, only it will be in slow motion, with sappy music.

And that’s exactly what they did.

And that’s why it’s Hollywood’s fault I always think The Mister is going to unwittingly snowshoe himself off a cliff–because each time we have a tender moment, I think about how heart wrenching it would be to rewatch it in slow motion to a bittersweet soundtrack.

This charming quirk of mine takes many forms. He likes to travel, and I’m convinced his plane will crash every time. He loves to camp, and I’ve imagined him getting struck by lightening. The first time I said “I love you” was the night before he was going to foray into the woods, and I was traveling overseas to visit a friend. I had to say it then or never, because it was so obvious that if I managed to survive my plane ride, he would most certainly be eaten by bears.

I like to think of this irrational fear as the last bit of housekeeping I should tend to before I procreate. I can imagine it translating into a desperate need to keep my child safe, at the expense of not letting him do outrageous things like ride a bike, go to school, or eat peanuts.

Me Again Beasley, Take II

It didn’t take long for me to realize that my story didn’t belong under the blog title “Me Again, Beasley,” so I’ve moved to this new, more comfortable location.

“Me Again, Beasley” appeared as the subject line in a spam message once, and I always thought it would make a great band name. Given that I will never have a band, I thought it would also make a great blog name.

I was wrong.

In the process of writing one of my usual neurotic emails to a friend, she paid me what I instantly realized was the ultimate compliment for someone like me: “I love your crazy.”

She really does.

And while holding myself to the challenge of writing honestly and from the heart, I have decided that I need to, too.

It’s not such a stretch. I’ve always enjoyed my crazy. I’ve always laughed about it. Telling stories about it keeps me humble and entertained. But it’s not until my friend gave it a big, wet kiss that I realized that, more than almost anything else about me, I love my crazy the most.

The only part I love more is its diligent guardian angel — the one that swoops in to clean up the messes my crazy makes when it knocks things over, obsesses about something silly, or says something in public that would have been best not to mention.

This newly-named blog will be told from the point of view of this angel, who realizes it would not be nearly as wise, insightful, or compassionate if not for the thing we both look after as we would a small, adorable child: my crazy.

Père Sartre

There are 75 ways my Dad can break his daughter’s heart. The top five, not in any particular order, are when he:

1. finds no good reason, in any of the 31 days of a month, to leave his house.
2. delights in hot dog sandwiches made with dissected hot dogs, because English muffins are cheaper than buns.
3. pauses to put his teeth in, mid-phone conversation.
4. has no money for Christmas presents, therefore redeems five bazillion Marlboro Miles for tote bags, leather jackets, and road side repair kits.
5. refuses to hold out for the Marlboro logo-emblazoned iron lung he could have redeemed at six bazillion miles.

A phone call with a manic-depressive, alcoholic father can leave a girl in a big puddle of co-dependent muck, even on good days. On the bad ones, it can feel like Hitler marched through her psychic safety zone, leaving clippings of his tidy mustache all over her sticky heart.

Today was a good day, but it wasn’t all that bad.

I can usually tell within the first 3 seconds of our conversation how he is doing. When he answers, he already knows it’s me because he’s screened the call and heard my voice on his answering machine. Being his only daughter, and that his phone service restricts long distance calling, I have the power to pick him up even if he’s feeling blue.

But if he’s feeling black, his voice is thick and slow, like cold molasses refusing to leave its jar. I have learned that no amount of love from me can warm him up enough to let go and slide on out.

Today he was was a delicious shade of aqua, and he was running freely.

He spoke joyfully of a project that has lured him into the light, at least for the last three months. He has ceased spending his days asleep on his couch, and has pulled himself into a seated position to read lots of books. He remembers his glory days as a graduate student, studying philosophy and the works of dark existentialist authors, in their original French.

He left school after he passed his doctoral exams, but before he finished his dissertation, and the letters “ABD” (All But Dissertation), have haunted him for 35 years. Three months ago he decided that, at 65 years old, he had better get cracking if he ever wants to be Dr. Dad.

And so he stopped watching TV. He stopped snoozing all day. He made himself a couple of hot dog sandwiches, dug out his dusty old books, and started to read.

The Internet has lent an entirely new facet to his learning and, without stepping into a single academic library, my father validated that no literary critic has examined the prose through the same lens he wishes to. He has paged through the notes he left in margins, and has laughed at his youthful naiveté. He is suddenly full of big, important, French ideas, and he’s finally ready to think them.

His jar runneth over with sweet inspiration. And last week it spilled out onto five passionate, type-written pages, addressed to the president of his former university, explaining his journey and why he would now like to resume his studies.

His whole journey.  I don’t even know you, and I’m hesitant to tell you about even one third of that journey.

Oh yes, the president sure has a “situation” hurtling right towards him, and I hope he’s learned how to duck. And I hope he can look past what is undoubtedly a socially uncomfortable missive from a lonely man with lost dreams. If he can, he will find a workaholic who has been unemployed for so long that a small sip of academe will reawaken a scholar who will make his university proud.

But first, he has to be jiggy with reading five pages of a confessional, not unlike step four in any of your basic 12-step programs.

Maybe we’ll luck out, and the Prez will be an AA veteran, looking for a new special someone to sponsor. Maybe we won’t, and the Prez will hand off my Dad’s letter to the provost, who will hand it off to a dean, who will hand it off to Mildred, who doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this sort of shit, so maybe my Dad will never hear back from any of them.

Maybe, instead of letting a lack of response validate his insecurities, my Dad will overcome six decades of low self-esteem and try again. Maybe, after having sent the same letter to every Dean, Dick, and Mildred at the University, my Dad will become “that guy,” who everyone talks about at holiday parties, their elbows cozy in tweed and cheeks rosy with punch.

Then again, maybe he’ll eventually hear back from someone.

My Dad seems to be prepared for either outcome, and I have been marveling over four miraculous things that happened today:

1. He wrote and mailed the letter.
2. His Plan B involves writing the dissertation anyway, perhaps in the form of a book.
3. I did not once, in a 45-minute phone call, try to save him from what might become a devastating blow to his extremely fragile well being.
4. Instead, I congratulated him on taking initiative, and wished him well in his pursuit.

For someone who has spent her entire life trying to save her father from himself, items three and four are akin to winning the free books at an Alanon meeting, or screwing the diet and supersizing your meal anyway. It’s an outrageous and unthinkable scenario, and one that certainly can’t feature little ol’ me as the protagonist.

But it’s true. I’m ready to watch my Dad dig his own way out of his decades-long pit, and let him do it his own way. It’s not my job to criticize, or suggest, or recommend; especially if he doesn’t ask for my help. But it is my job to stand by him, and encourage him, and believe in him, even if my instinct is to cringe at his methodology.

He was never good at making wise decisions, and I was never good at manipulating him away from making them. So maybe this time around we can both learn a thing or two about taking care of ourselves by believing, for once, that something really good can happen for him.

Is this thing on?

For one year, I blogged.

It was an amazing thing: I wrote, I clicked “Publish.” I posted. Instantly, I received feedback.

It would appear as though I thrive on instant feedback.

People liked what I wrote. And by “people,” I mean friends I’d given the stealthy URL to. They’d read, they’d laugh, they’d add me to their bookmarks. They’d check me out along with their other online haunts every day. Sometimes they’d comment, and I’d be elated.

Acknowledgment: for a writer, is there anything more to life than that?

That’s an interesting question, and it’s why I haven’t written publicly since I stopped posting over two years ago. Because there is more to it than that for me. The more I wrote, and the more I handed out the URL to my friends, the more I realized that what made a compelling story was honesty.But who wants to be honest when everyone you know is reading your blog?

And who wants to read a blog that’s less than honest?

I’m not like my most admired writers. I’m not David Sedaris who, with every lispy turn of phrase, throws his dysfunctional family under the bus. And I’m not Anne Lamott who, with painfully sharp and witty insight, offers up her vulnerabilities to be examined, ridiculed, and loved. I’m Madeline, a pseudonym with stories to tell — and a need for people to read them — while safely behind a firewall of privacy.

When I’m blogging, or wishing I was blogging, I notice profound things every day. And, for reasons that are beyond me, I am overwhelmed with the desperate need to tell you about these things. Why? I have. No. Idea. I don’t even know you! But I think that’s something innate in all writers: we can’t not write things down. For me, it’s a matter of recording before forgetting. Creating for others’ relating. Marking indelibly, before perishing. I record in pixels what the ancients carved in stone, only to remember and be remembered.

So there’s my first nugget of honesty. I don’t generally wear my narcissism on my sleeve.

And yet, here I am to spill my guts to you, and the rest of the English speaking world. In a way, I’m brave to bare my soul. And in another, I’m a coward to do it anonymously. Why can’t I just own my stories? Stand by them like any good friend would do, sling my arm around them, and pose for pictures?

Because then everyone would know I’m nuts. Clearly, unequivocally, gonzo-bonzo.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my neuroses like an old maid loves her cats. I celebrate them every chance I get and tell stories about them incessantly, especially while tipsy at dinner parties. Oh yes, I know how to captivate an audience while completely lacking a filter. It’s a gift.

So let’s see how this goes. This honesty in storytelling. Filters and firewalls begone! Let’s see what it feels like to say thing things that can’t be said. Let’s tell stories that need telling, without the chance of recognition, for better or worse. Let’s see if I can dig far enough, and keep quiet enough about posting, to write the way a writer should.

Openly, honestly, and in stone.