On Shifting and Sloughing and Rowing

What’s that thing? I said.

O, that’s an oar, he said,

in case we hit a calm stretch & we decide

we need more excitement

-Brian Andres, from his collection Mostly True

A gecko’s been hanging out in my kitchen lately. He seems partial to the area nearest the coffeemaker. I don’t blame him. He appears to be molting, in the process of sloughing off his old skin for new. Most of his body seems to have already shed. His tail is still in process.

I’ve been surrounded by a lot of endings of late. 2011 - the year - for one. Dear friends’ relationships have recently closed chapters, or epilogues, or sequels. H, in her most recent Heffalump musings, commemorated the 20-year anniversary last Monday of our father’s death by wanting, once and for all, to bid farewell to the longings for what ­could have been; she’s building a beautiful cupboard in her mind for all the colorful, good memories and all that longing, too. I asked her if I could build one in my mind, as well. She said of course. So I will.

The winds here on Maui, though they have not ended, have changed. Kona winds are blowing from the south meaning that everything around me is blowing in a different direction. Palm fronds wave this way, not that. Bushes and shrubs stretch this way, not that. The grasses, too, sway in reverse. It’s discombobulating, yet inspiriting to have my surroundings shift.

Some evenings at twilight, Petey and I walk the nearby beach. Usually the planes take-off above my head appearing suddenly from behind the trees with a roar before heading steeply up into the clouds. But these days, they land toward this side of the island instead. I can see them coming, at first just a pinprick of light; then a beam growing wider as the silhouette looms close until, loudly, they swoop down over this wild, narrow strip of sand. Even sound has changed with the wind, amplifying the jets, the traffic, the rain.

But before the winds shifted and sound was magnified, all was quiet. My mind, my heart, my home.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s, I flew to California to see a man, the same man of this summer’s and fall's playing and being and loving. I thought we might be beginning a new chapter. And I suppose we did, just not together.

As I flew back across hours of the Pacific, as I walked back into my home in Maui and stood in the kitchen waiting for…something…there was only silence.

In the silence, I charged forth. I chopped bright orange carrots into rounds and grated frozen ginger for a soup. I swam, carried my yoga mat back into class, went paddling and visited with the turtles. All around me, the Kindergartners dyed macaroni and strung patterned necklaces. They oohed and ahhed in delight as our caterpillars grew and ate and pooped (OOOH! AAAHH!) on the milkweed plants. My friend’s baby turned one and there was cake and mingling and chatting at the party. Even as the pundits hashed and thrashed about on the news, there was somehow quiet all around me. Quiet and space.

Two weeks into my charging forth, my wheels fell off – as a dear friend calls it - and I collapsed into bed for days with fever, flu, cold. I gave in until I felt better.

Me and the geicko. Side by side. Watching the wind. Sitting in the quiet. Adjusting. Molting.

Oar in hand, just in case.

You may not be able to control the winds of change, but you certainly can adjust the sails.

-Lani & Pomei Weigert, TedXMaui 2012 presenters

Spring Cleaning

I was on the phone with my sister a few days ago. The topic of our blog came up, and S joked wryly that we didn’t have to think too hard about the subject of our next entries. Today is the 20th anniversary of our father’s death, you see. But I rankled at her suggestion that of course we would be marking two decades of his absence. In fact, I thought, hadn’t we said plenty already about our loss? How much more was there to write about his early and sudden disappearance from our lives? We have already acknowledged how quickly our worldview changed, and how at the same time we also, unfairly, lost our mother to her grief. Our blog posts have been studded regularly with childhood memories, nostalgia for what was and ruminations of what might have been.
“I don’t want to write about it,” I said to her, warming up to my indignation, “I’m tired of it. I’m tired of wondering how different my life would have been if he hadn’t died. I’m tired of being sad at every milestone that he, once again, isn’t around for. I’m tired of spending my energy wondering about all the things we don’t and never will know about him. I don’t want to spend any more time stuck in the past.”
Quietly, my sister replied, “Maybe that’s what you should write about.”
Avoidance comes naturally to me. Maybe I’ll just play websudoku instead of writing, I think to myself. As I type this, I am cringing with discomfort. Which is how I know I have something I should probably try to express.
I want to move on.
I will never be able to say goodbye to my father. I don’t expect to move forward without taking note of what he might have thought. But I want to find a comfortable nook in my brain where I can place the feelings of sadness and loss that will never go away. I am ready to give them a space where they don’t have to rattle around and catch me off-guard.
Let me build a little cupboard in my head. No, I need to be more specific. I am picturing an antique Swedish cabinet with glass doors. It will be so pretty I will want to look at it regularly, but it will keep everything contained so things aren’t loose to roam, unwelcome. When a thought or memory pops into my head, I can put it on a shelf and shut the door. There, I’ll say, this is your home now. The funny bits and humorous pieces will live side by side with the shards of wishes and preserved regrets. It will make an amazing and beautiful assortment, worthy of the man my father was.
Maybe then, with his corner in my head newly tidied, I’ll feel freed up to look around me with a fresh, unburdened perspective and ask,”Now what?”