Looking for Joy, Finding Trouble

Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, Photoshops her Havanese dog's eye in a landscape of fields and dark clouds.I’m trying to find joy here. In the remnants of a record breaking winter, I will embrace almost anything nonthreatening, as joy. Like my dog that tiptoes to each of the last little islands of ice in the driveway, preferring to potty on leftover snow rather than contend with the mud. Rallying my brightest spirits, I carry Suki from one patch of icy snow to another, cheering her on, “Yes, Suki, you can do this.” And I scan the clouded sky wondering, where’s the joy?
Because it’s for sure not going to be joyful when all this snow melts. The huge avalanche slowly slipping off my roof, the high peaks plowed right and left along the length of the driveway, the packed-down path to the front door, … I mean, where is all this melting snow gonna go? Where else but flooding into the house? Thunderbeckon.

Thunderbeckon. THUNder-beck-n. The name tumbles in my head. I did not create this; it was in a book I read 20 years ago. Beneath the dark depths of some ocean there was a shipwreck or some deep-sea topographical protrusion that, in a storm, could dash a ship to shards. Thunderbeckon became the name for the cumulus cloud lumbering in my head during the journey with my daughter through the wilds of cancer. “Your cancer is my cancer,” I’d told Marika when my breath got stuck in my gut. Thunderbeckon meant Trouble. Major, big-time, high stakes Trouble.

“Everybody’s Got Something,” Robin Roberts, anchor on ABC’s Good Morning America, titled her memoir in which she tells about overcoming cancer and other challenges. Another anchorwoman, Erika Castillo of KFOX14, who I keep up with on Facebook, now gears up for her own fight. My list of chemo warriors grows. But as memories of cancer get farther from home, my own nightmares have shrunk in gravity.

These days I allow myself to get headaches over smaller stuff or over things that worry others: The smoke alarm going off at 4:30AM two nights in a row. Skunks in my garage. Snakes under the deck. The computer that keeps quitting on me. Friends’ daughters who have been sick or arrested or are leaving home for good. And then there’s my own son who is packing up his gear again. His duffel lies stuffed on the laundry room floor.
“Mom, I’m going to El Paso,” he says. “Remember the friends I stayed with last time? Well, Erika was diagnosed with cancer.”
Thunderbeckon.

 

What Thunderbeckons keep you awake nights?

 

 

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Grief Changes Us

Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, wearing cactus and thanking her lucky stars she's not roadkill.“What kind of progress do you feel you’ve made?” This was the question posed after each member of the small group checked in with a brief personal status report. For various reasons, people were uncomfortable with the question. “Have you experienced any movement?” it was rephrased. They went around the table twice before it became obvious I had not contributed.

Progress implies a destination or goal. Progress is what I am making with my manuscript. But I do not have a direction for my grieving. I don’t believe grief is something to get over or through.
Movement, yes; grief changes. I have changed.
Last week marks four years since my daughter died and I am not the same person I was before. I am no longer stuck like a bled-dry carcass getting pummeled on the highway.

Realizing I would have to say something to the group, I quickly came up with an idea: “People,” I said, as in, “people became more important to me since my daughter’s death.” The first thing that flies out of my mouth is often the closest I can get to the truth:

When my daughter died, I thought I was alone. I couldn’t see beyond my wretched self. Marika had left behind a heartbroken brother and father, aunts and grandparents. Friends. But I was too deep into my own misery. It took time to discover other parents in pain and people struggling with all kinds of loss. Later still, I began to hope I could offer comfort to others who grieve:

I want to tell those who are new to grief that it does change; it gets lighter, especially when you share with other people.

I want to thank all the people who hugged, wrote, called, emailed, responded to me on my site and on Facebook. If it weren’t for you I might still be roadkill.

 

How have you been changed by loss?

 

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Senior Moments?

Senior Moments? - After seeing the movie Still Alice, Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, worries about having Alzheimer's.I entered the gym thinking about the movie, Still Alice, wondering if I had early Alzheimer’s since I misplaced my wallet and had more than my regular share of senior moments the past week. Forgetfulness, memory loss, slowed thinking, difficulty concentrating, losing track of time, anxiety, depression, feeling detached and isolating oneself are symptoms common to both Alzheimer’s and grief. It’s been almost four years since my daughter died but lately I’ve been losing and forgetting everything, all over the place. And after seeing Still Alice, I dreaded getting Alzheimer’s as much as I dreaded getting cancer.

“Robin?” A voice grabbed me from my thoughts. “Shoshanna, Marika’s friend,” said a beautiful young woman who did not look familiar. I thought, Shoshanna? I only know one Shoshanna, my daughter’s friend. But this isn’t Shoshanna. The stranger hugged me. I was aware she was warm from her workout while I was cold from outside.

“Oh hi. How are you? What are you doing these days?” I asked, searching her eyes for some connection. For a full minute I listened and hoped my face did not reveal my confusion. It felt like the scene from the movie where Alice stands, lost, staring at a spot she’d frequented most of her life.
Slowly, as this vibrant young woman spoke, it came back to me: Shoshanna as a kid sitting on a staircase outside her mother’s house, her father snapping pictures at a prom, Shoshanna at the house, visiting Marika at the hospital. Wild, unpredictable. Loyal. The breathy awkwardness of the younger Shoshanna was now replaced by a smooth confidence radiating from the adult before me.

Showering after my exercise class, I wondered how different Marika would have looked as a twenty-six year old. I thought of Shoshanna. This was someone who will remember my daughter long after I die or if I sink into Alzheimer’s and can no longer remember what I have or have lost. I wished I had recognized her sooner and greeted her more warmly. She would have left the gym by the time I dressed. “Visiting my parents for the break, … DC, … Michigan,” she’d said. Maybe I’d never see her again. Maybe if I did, I would not recognize her at all next time. And perhaps, if I slid down the slopes of dementia, she would not recognize me. It’s probably a good thing that what I worry about is heavier than what I can hang onto.

 

Does anyone else ever fret about getting Alzheimer’s? What keeps you up at night?

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Wearable Landscape

Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, wears a landscape she Photoshopped from her pictures of hiking in Tucson.“You have to go this year: the Oscars 2015 Gala at Cinemapolis, great food and film. You just have to go.” My friends convinced me. But what would I wear? I spent the rest of the week rummaging through the house, looking for the right clothes.

All my life I’ve been looking for my clothes. Even in my dreams I am endlessly looking for a lost sock, a special dress I’m sure is somewhere nearby, an outfit I need as in REALLY NEED and will spend a whole dream tearing the house apart for. And much of my waking time, I search for what I will wear or for some extremely significant piece of apparel like my father’s ancient sweatshirt from his army days that I tucked away in a safe place. In the end I usually opt to wear my default black sweater over jeans. But I almost always go through the commotion of the hunt first.

In trying to solve the mystery of what to wear for the gala, I mourned the half-dozen gowns I’d given away that belonged to my daughter. The daughter who, before she died, loved to dress up for parties and proms, always accessorized with sparkling heels. I was hoping to find something of hers, just one little shiny thing to feel fancy in. But all I found was old baby clothes.

I can do this without going shopping, I told myself. And finally, in the bottom of a storage bin shoved high into a remote closet, I found my mother’s mink stole from before I was born. It was elegant and had a warm sheen that was perfect over my black sweater and jeans.

The assignment in the Digital Photography Studies class this week was to create a self-portrait in a landscape we’d presented earlier in class. Here was something else to stress about. But in the middle of the night, after dreaming about missing a plane because I couldn’t find a black sweater to match my jeans, I decided that for the assignment I would dress myself in a landscape.

 

What is your special piece of clothing and is it in your closet or in your dreams?

 

 

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Cooking Up a Storm

In Ithaca, New York, Robin Botie photoshops landscapes from tabouleh and salmon.“Send me a picture of snow-laden trees,” my friend in Paris pleaded. But I was tired of seeing snow, of freezing my fingers as I traipsed through snowdrifts to photograph more snow. And another storm was coming. It was due on Valentines Day, a holiday I was trying hard to forget.

When a storm collides with a holiday it is impossible for me to override the urge to hunt-and-gather at Wegmans, hunker down at home, and cook huge quantities of comfort food. Shopping at Wegmans  erases any nervous commotion in my head, and all the miserable things going on in the world fade. It’s like coming home to mom. Wegmans is my go-to at the first flash of a Winter Storm Watch.

On Saturday, Wegmans looked like a Valentines Day theme park with huge displays of flowers and shiny red boxes of chocolates. The aisles were packed with people loading up for the minus 12 degrees and 4 to 8 inches of snow predicted for the Finger Lakes. The 5 things I came in for turned into 20 as I considered what else I might need to survive the holiday/storm combo. In the wilds of winter, I had a desperate longing for berries, tabouleh with fresh mint, and baked salmon. I picked up a bright bouquet of daisies and red carnations thinking I should get over my Valentines funk and buy myself a gift. But I put it down quickly; it had no scent and I couldn’t eat it.

So I came home and cooked up a storm.

When the scene outside my window whited out in a snowsquall, I found a fresh landscape in my refrigerator.

 

What do you do to pamper yourself in a storm?

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Surrounding Beauty

beautiful“You are so smart. And beautiful.” a woman in the locker room at the gym said, after admiring my knit arm-warmers. I stood there half-dressed, pink from showering. My hair was still dripping, uncombed and unruly. I looked like a drowned rat. But I thanked the stranger anyway like I was thrilled she’d noticed. Maybe I appeared needy, like I could use a compliment, some attention, a hug, or a gift. Even my sister had recently sent me, for no apparent reason, a Heated-Seat Cushion tushie-warmer to put in my car.

That evening, when I couldn’t find anyone to go to a restaurant or movie with, I ended up at the mall, at the BonTon Department Store’s cosmetics department.
“I need iridescent white eye shadow, please. On Facebook, someone suggested dabbing a bit of white eye shadow on inner lids for lovelier, livelier eyes,” I said, not able to remember when I’d last worn makeup. With kids there had never been enough time to put on makeup. And makeup seemed senseless during the almost three years in and out of hospitals with my daughter’s cancer. After that, hardly a day went by that I didn’t cry my eyes bloodshot. Now, almost four years since my daughter’s death, my eyes looked worn out and red.
“That’s not white enough. It has to be shiny, opalescent, silvery like a pearl. You know. EER-uh-DES-int,” I said.
“Can we give you a makeover?” the Clinique and Lancome counter managers begged. I asked for a rain check. More snow was coming and I didn’t intend to stay long. But there were few shoppers and the managers all knew my son. So I got a lot of attention. Soon my upper lids glimmered with sparks of lustrous Grandest Gold and frosty Bit O’Honey. For contrast we penciled my lower lids with tiny dashes of distressed Moss.

I walked out into the cold, smiling with shimmering eyes, Super Strawberry Chubby-Stick glossed lips, and a free Gift Bag of tiny cosmetics samples. Why do I get excited about these things, I wondered? And how come I finally feel beautiful now?
I took my lively eyes to Wegmans to buy storm food. And then there was nowhere to go but home. Pulling into the driveway, I noticed the almost-full moon dazzling its way through the haze of a snowy sky. For ten minutes or more I sat on the tushie-warmer in my car, in the driveway, with my iridescent eyes glued on the moon beyond the towering piles of snow, in a blissful appreciation of all the surrounding beauty.

 

In these cold dark days what do you find beautiful?

 

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