Looking for something more
Family Photo 1961
Is death the only thing
That pulls this family
Together?
Death and old photos?
Moments interrupted by
Years of absence…. Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth
connecting the dots of my life
Category: Writing
May 14, 2015
May 13, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 9
~~View from our kitchen window, 1966-67
It’s bleak midwinter, 1965-66. No signs yet of early spring. Wrecks are still being towed into the auto shop across the street, day and night. The photo above was taken at night. If things look murky, it’s because they were. Read the rest of this entry »
May 12, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 8
View behind our Cambridge apartment 1967
Cambridge, winter 1965-early spring 1966. I’m driving without a manual or a map. The noisy 24/7 auto shop across the street captures my imagination, especially in the evenings Read the rest of this entry »
May 10, 2015
Dear Mom | Missing You
Dear Mom,
I’m sitting here trying to put together a really nice letter for Mother’s Day. So far I’m getting nowhere. It isn’t because I don’t have ideas. It’s because I’m feeling a little lost today, and my ideas seem to be falling flat on their faces.
Last week was sad. Sister #2’s husband died, leaving us all gaping at the huge hole this left in our family. Sort of like the huge hole left when you died. Like yours, his death was relatively peaceful. Though he was in pain, his caregivers found a way to manage it so that his children and his nine grandchildren could be with him and Sister #2 when he died.
Some deaths are difficult. I’ve been reading a small book by Henri Nouwen called In Memoriam. It’s about his mother’s death. He talks about how many deaths he witnessed as a priest. Most were peaceful; some were difficult.
His mother’s death turned out to be difficult. This surprised him, though not totally. She often told him she feared death because she didn’t believe she’d been a very upstanding person. Maybe she didn’t feel ready.
I wonder how it will be for me? There have been times in my life when I know I didn’t feel ready. My worst nightmare was that my own fears would be proven true. That is, that I’ve lived a life unworthy of anything but judgment. Which is, of course, true.
Nonetheless, I don’t have this nightmare anymore. I know that whatever happens, I’m in the hands of a gracious God. Yet I do wonder what will be the manner and spirit of my death. And who will be with me.
Last week, the day after D and I heard the news about Sister #2’s husband, we spent the day at Longwood Gardens. It was a gorgeous day, with spring leaves and flowers bursting their seams. Lots of reminders about the way life and death are distinct and closely related. Here are more photos. This time we focused on the Meadow and the Flower Walk. That’s a tree swallow below.
The Meadow Garden had been trimmed for spring and summer, leaving some ground cover for birds and small animals. This is only a fraction of the meadow. Great for hiking.
Near the pond we saw several varieties of fern just beginning to unfurl. To me, this is more beautiful than their adult incarnations. Sort of like children–sweet and fresh. Newly minted!
Finally, the flower walk. Here are some beauties, beginning with a look at one end of the walk. Colors are arranged with warm colors at one end, cool colors at the other. Here’s a sampling: tulips, lilies of the valley, lily tulips and coreopsis.
Thanks for listening to my sadness about last week. It’s exactly what I needed right now. Have a happy day!
Love and hugs,
Elouise
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 10 May 2015
Photo credit: DAFraser, 29 April 2015
May 9, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 7
Kitchen Curtains by Elouise
It’s late fall/early winter, 1965-66. I don’t know it then, but I’m slipping into depression. I have long periods of silence, unmotivated, disconnected and withdrawn. It’s like being in a trance. Sitting and staring into space for hours at a time. Especially in the evenings. At work I’m doing just fine.
Besides anguish about sex, I have a shadow identity (I’m D’s shadow), especially at church and in social settings with D. It seems people aren’t interested in me, except my colleagues at the law school and a small number of others who include me in conversation.
Now I have another anguish. Spirituality.
Not long after we arrive in Cambridge, D suggests we begin reading the Bible and praying together. He knows my family did this together when I was a child. He wants us to do this, too.
It sounds like a good idea, especially since I’ve left home. That means the weight of childhood experience around the dinner table and elsewhere is behind me. I’m a bit hesitant, but willing to give it a try.
At the beginning I feel slightly uncomfortable. I’m not wired for routine like this (with one other person). As a child, I had no choice. In Bible college this was required at a certain time every day, with bells to regulate the beginning and end of ‘quiet time.’ But that was by myself, not with a partner. This feels different.
I want to please D, and I’m still not sure about my status in this marriage. I don’t refuse or complain. I just grow increasingly withdrawn and uneasy.
For one thing, we often have this Bible reading and prayer time when we’re sitting in bed. From my perspective, sharing like this is deeply personal—somewhat like sex. This doesn’t sit well with me.
We talk about whatever we’re reading together in the Bible. I quickly discover that D processes what he reads differently than I do.
It isn’t that he’s wrong and I’m right, or vice versa. It’s about how we process and interpret what we’re reading. I like leaving things open, and ‘trying on’ different ways of looking at things. D does a bit of this, but not as much as I do.
Gradually I stop talking about what I hear and am wondering about in what we’re reading. It takes too much effort to describe it. D already has clear ideas and is verbally adept at expressing them. It’s easier to listen to him than to go through the agony of finding ways to express what I see, feel or think.
Each of us is highly verbal. Sometimes I’ve jokingly described D as having ‘verbal diarrhea.’ All that means is that once he gets going on an idea, he develops it fully, and the words just keep pouring out.
I also develop my ideas fully. I prefer talking them out on a listener. Looking at them various ways, trying them on to see whether they fit a larger picture. It makes sense to me, but I see D isn’t interested in this verbal avalanche called trying things on.
So I go into my ‘verbal constipation’ mode. I think about it on and off all day, but I don’t try to talk about it with D. I’m not sure he understands me.
Instead, I yield the floor to D. Sort of like swallowing my anguish about sex. This time, however, I’m swallowing my voice. My contribution to conversation about things that matter.
As for praying together, I pray, but I also feel painfully self-conscious. My mind is on alert–as though I’m watching myself. Voices make a ruckus in my head:
- Don’t do it! This isn’t safe!
- You’re being judged by how you pray!
- There’s no way you can pray the way D prays!
- You should be ashamed of not knowing how to pray with your own husband!
- Are you trying to hide something?
- Don’t you know that couples who pray together stay together?
As with sex, I didn’t have a clue how deep these roots went. I thought it was all about D and me.
To be continued. . . .
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 May 2015
Photo credit: DAFraser, August 1966
May 8, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 6
My side of the bed, 1965
I’ve taken a deep breath and a break. It’s time to say more about early marriage and my anguish about sex. Here it is in a nutshell: Read the rest of this entry »
May 7, 2015
the mother’s hand
This sonnet captured my heart last Friday. In my comments I’m imagining what George MacDonald might have heard and seen in his mind’s eye as he wrote. Read the rest of this entry »
May 6, 2015
Getting back to normal?
~~~Weeping Willow, Longwood Gardens
My heart and body wouldn’t cooperate with my mind today. So I’m following their lead to see what happens. Though I’ve felt this resistance in me before, each time it’s a bit different.
It’s about ‘moving on’ with my life. Getting back to ‘normal,’ whatever that is. With regard to the blog, Read the rest of this entry »
April 30, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 5
~~Elouise, Diane, Sister #2
Today I’m taking a short break and a deep breath. When I began this series on Early Marriage, I wasn’t sure I would survive writing these posts. That may be a bit over the top. Nonetheless….
Writing about Courtship and Engagement was a lark. Fun, with hardly any anxiety. But this is different. It’s more difficult to find the right words, partly because I’ve kept the truth hidden for so long. But also because words convey more than facts.
When I think about my past, there are any number of Elouises in my life. Each has a different age and outlook on life and what it means to be who I am. In a way, writing these posts means getting to know myself again. Almost as though I were a stranger to myself.
For years I was hard on myself. Even harsh. My self-talk was along the lines of “You stupid so-and-so (fill in the blank)!” I didn’t know what it meant to be an ally. Not just for other people, but for myself over against my inner critic.
Writing about my past is about more than simply ‘telling the truth’ about myself. It’s also about how I now perceive myself back then. Am I still my own worst critic? Or might I be changing into my own best ally, or at least making progress in that direction.
It seems this is connected to the way I write about my past self. Am I writing in a way that welcomes and has compassion on myself back then? I don’t need to justify myself; I do, however, need and want to empathize with myself in the past.
Is it possible for me to become the ally I didn’t have back then? Can I talk with that girl or that young married woman and let her know I’m standing with her?
I’m not talking about a general ‘wouldn’t-it-be-nice’ need to become my own ally. I’m talking about immersing myself in the specifics of each post and actually empathizing with the child or young woman I was then. What would I say and do if I saw her today? And what tone of voice would I use?
This is already happening. How do I know? I don’t feel the shame and embarrassment I used to feel when I write. I still struggle with some of it, but I also feel empathy and compassion for the woman, teenager or child I was then. Sometimes I have conversations with myself in my head, telling myself what I desperately needed to hear back then.
I’m not saying this makes everything wonderful and OK. It doesn’t. Instead, it puts me at ease, no matter what age I might be remembering. It’s OK. I can tell that girl or young married woman that I’m present, and I’m on her side.
This includes standing up for myself right now. It’s strange to describe an inner world that only I experienced, while my outer world often seemed to be totally functional. I can’t point to readily visible damage that would ‘explain’ or make acceptable the level of dysfunction within me.
I can, however, stand calmly and confidently with myself, even when others don’t understand what I’m pointing to, or why it was disruptive and damaging in my life. I don’t need to prove anything. I need to find the best words I can to describe my inner world, and to comfort the young woman or small child who already lived through it all.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to write in this way, especially at this time of my life. Somewhere back there and in ‘here’ a little girl or young married woman is laughing and crying a bit. I think she’s overjoyed because I finally found and acknowledged her.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 April 2015
April 30, 2015
Dear Readers | A Family Death
Dear Readers,
We’ve had a death in my family–Sister #2’s husband. The sister with whom we had a double wedding nearly 50 years ago. I’ll be checking in from time to time, but don’t know when I’ll resume regular postings. Probably not for several days.
If you haven’t already, Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth 