Vulnerability | Telling the Truth

August 1, 2019

Another clean-out marathon

I love water. Well, most of the time. As you can see, the water fountain above is gorgeous, doing exactly what it’s meant to do. Overflowing in abundance as planned. Which is exactly what didn’t happen here at home on Monday.

As some of you know, we’re the happy owners of a waterbed. So…on Monday evening, just as we were going to bed, I looked over at D’s pillow. It was wet….as were the sheets on his side of the bed.

Our trusty waterbed had just that day sprung a leak–not a tiny, slow leak, but a medium-sized mess now overflowing on D’s side of the bed. Contained, but slowly turning his side into a swamp!

Happily, we decided it’s time to have our bedroom refurbished. Ordering the new waterbed mattress was a cinch. The other stuff isn’t. So now we’re in the middle of divesting ourselves of yet more accumulated stuff, and dealing with the sudden disorientation of it all.

Thankfully, this clean-out isn’t as huge as last year’s attic renovation. In case you don’t remember, here are before and after photos. As I recall, we had about 6500 books in the attic, plus years of accumulated files and piles. At least we’re not dealing with that again….

That’s the news for today! Back to sorting and moving stuff around. And, hopefully, posting a few things from time to time.

With cheers for good change and sneers for leaky waterbeds,
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 1 August 2019
Photos taken by DAFraser at Longwood Gardens Conservatory (24 July 2019), and in our attic (Summer 2018)

6 Comments

July 23, 2019

Think again!

If you think retirement
Is a piece of cake
Think again!

If you think the medical world
Is ready for you in your wild and precious young or old age
Think again!

If you think the good old USofA
Has the best medical system in the whole wide world
Think again!

If you think you don’t need a palliative care doctor
Maybe you do and maybe you don’t
And please, Think again!

It feels overwhelming to begin planning for the unlikely and the inevitable.

However, if I don’t, I won’t be ready for what might come on this side of death. Our national medical institutions are NOT, for the most part, prepared to help us die with or without dignity. Many still operate with the imperative of keeping the patient alive at all costs.

Thankfully, the picture is changing. Nonetheless, it isn’t keeping up with our aging population. In addition, waiting and hoping for the best isn’t a viable option. Especially if we have serious health issues that won’t reverse, and will end in death.

Yesterday D and I met with Dr. Amy, my new palliative care doctor. We had a long, sometimes teary (for me), often lively conversation about my health. It focused on my top five concerns, and how I might make my current situation more tolerable.

Dr. Amy gave each of us a bright pink (yes PINK!) form to fill out at home and sign. After my doctor signs it, I’ll show it to my other doctors. They’ll make copies for their files. Then I’ll post the Pink Document on our refrigerator door.

In case of a medical emergency, the Pink Form will travel with me. It’s an official Pennsylvania Department of Health document with its own twist. Instead of Physician’s Orders, it says Pennsylvania Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment. Don’t ask me why–it’s all politics, and complicates things a bit as described above. Nonetheless….

The form includes explanations, and options for the treatment I wish to have (or not) depending on my preferences and situation. I can make changes later if I so wish.

I’m relieved to have begun this process. It isn’t about dying today or tomorrow. It’s about recording my decisions now to help avoid being caught up in endless attempts to keep me alive at all costs.

Thanks for visiting, reading and Thinking Again!
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 23 July 2019
Cartoon found at pinterest.com

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July 20, 2019

Crossing the border

Crossing the border between
then and now my mind seems
intent on rehearsing who I am
and what I have or have not done
with my one “wild and precious life”

Endless rehearsals pace back
and forth through my head repeating
and expanding a long list of reasons
why I should exist as this woman
living on an overcrowded earth

I watch from the sidelines as
unquiet thoughts spin out of
control restless and insistent
saturating the air with reasons
that will convince my interrogator
and calm my agitated spirit

This past week I worked on documents for my new palliative care doctor. I also spent more time walking in the attic than usual, thanks to our latest round of high heat and humidity.

Walking without the radio or other distractions, I found myself rehearsing much of my past history. Sometimes I resorted to singing out loud in order to stop the endless cycle of data and explanations about who I am and who I am not. And why things were the way they were.

Beginning palliative care is is about what happens next. Much of my personal work has been about looking back, making sense of what sometimes seemed to be nonsense. To that I’m now adding learning to number my days. Concretely, not just in the abstract. How will I value each remaining day for the gift it will be?

On Monday afternoon D and I will meet for the first time with my new palliative care doctor. And I’ll begin making concrete this last chapter of my life. I’m excited and a bit on edge. And yes, I’ll definitely have a report or a poem.

In case you wondered, I have Mary Oliver to thank for her wonderful question to each of us.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

©Mary Oliver, final lines of “The Summer Day,” p. 94
New and Selected Poems, Volume One
Published by Beacon Press 1992

Thanks for listening!
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 July 2019
Photo found at pixabay.com

July 14, 2019

Four Sisters in Waiting

This is one of my favorite old photos. There aren’t many that have the four of us looking so spiffy! I think we were at a summer conference in North Carolina. If so, this was 1954. I was 11 1/2; Sister #2 was 9; Sister #3 (Diane) was 5; and Sister #4 was 1 1/2 years old.

Judging by our outfits, this was probably taken on a Sunday morning. White socks, shiny shoes, clean dresses, and curled hair. Obediently looking into the camera whether we wanted to or not. We were the daughters of a preacher. Surely life was a piece of cake. Not.

Even so, I love this photo, and am grateful for every opportunity I’ve had to spend time with my sisters. Especially since the late 1990s. They’ve been mirrors for me–telling me more about myself and about themselves and our parents than I remembered.

As some already know, Diane died of ALS in 2006. So now we’re down to three. Even though we don’t always see eye to eye, I find great solace in connecting with them, mostly via the phone.

Back to the photo. If I’m correct, this was the year I played afternoon babysitter to Sister #4. Each day, immediately after lunch in the large conference dining hall, Mom (known as Mother back then) took a much-needed nap and left Sister #4 in my care.

To my great chagrin, more than one conference attendee assumed I was my sister’s mother. I don’t think Sister #4 was keen on the optics, either. I was distressed. How was I going to meet good-looking young men if I had to play momma to my sister?!

One other memory. Sister #4 loved nothing better than lively music to which she could dance. Informally, of course, since dancing itself was a Huge No-No in our family and church.

At this conference, all guests stood at their assigned tables for a hymn or two and a prayer before sitting down to eat. Sister #4 was in a high chair, and broke out into a little sitting jig every time we sang a hymn! I’ll never forget a grumpy old man telling my father he’d better keep his eye on this little girl because she was going to be big trouble!

Little did he know that this docile, obedient Sister #1 was going to be big trouble, too. It takes guts to become a Disobedient Daughter of Eve. A lesson I didn’t learn until I was an adult. Which is why I began this blog in the first place, and why I keep writing. Not to sort things out, but to document what my big trouble looked like, and what it took to break decades of destructive Good Girl habits and beliefs.

Thanks for the visit!
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 July 2019
Photo taken by JERenich, Summer 1954

2 Comments

July 11, 2019

The Ponds

Here’s a thought-provoking poem from Mary Oliver, followed by my comments.

The Ponds

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them—

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided—
and that one wears an orange blight—
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away—
and that one is a lumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

©Mary Oliver, in New and Selected Poems, Vol. One., pp. 92-93
Beacon Press, Boston, 1992

Of course imperfections aren’t necessarily nothing. Sometimes they’re distress calls. Or signs of neglect.

Still, like Mary Oliver, I also want and need to see big picture beauty in a water lily pond, garden or meadow. Because, as she puts it, “I want to believe [And I do!] I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery.”

The mystery, it seems to me, isn’t simply about water lilies. It’s also about us. Especially now. Not simply because each of us is beautiful, but because taken together, we reflect the light of a mystery beyond ourselves. Something beyond our beauty, our flaws, and our “unstoppable decay.” To say nothing of the muskrats (whose days are also numbered) looking to take us down one by one.

Especially now.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 July 2019
Photo found at pixabay.com

7 Comments

July 6, 2019

Death and The Kookaburras

First, a poem from me, a few comments, and a poem from Mary Oliver.

One loss at a time
The challenge is laid down
So transparently
The message cannot
Be mistaken

It’s time to let go
To hold each day lightly
To give up great expectations
And the hope of getting
To the top of Mt. Everest
Or even within its foothills

Yet my body and soul
Cry out for more –
More time
More energy
More beauty
More music
As greed sets in
Along with hunger
For what I think
I’ve lost
Or never had

I’ve been unusually restless this past week. It was wonderful to connect with my new palliative care doctor on the phone. Now I’m waiting for my first face-to-face conversation, and find I’m uneasy.

Is this really what my life has come to? Something in me wants to hang on just a bit more, even though I know it’s time to begin letting go and shifting my attention and energy to what’s yet possible. On the other hand, who knows what Mt. Everest I’ll yet climb or even fly above in ways I never dreamed of.

Mary Oliver’s poem “The Kookaburras” has haunted me for the past week.

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator
In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting
to come out of its cloud and lift its wings.
The kookaburras, kingfishers, pressed against the edge of
their cage, they asked me to open the door.
Years later I wake in the night and remember how I said to them,
no, and walked away.
They had the brown eyes of soft-hearted dogs.
They didn’t want to do anything so extraordinary, only to fly
home to their river.
By now I suppose the great darkness has covered them.
As for myself, I am not yet a god of even the palest flowers.
Nothing else has changed either.
Someone tosses their white bones to the dung-heap.
The sun shines on the latch of their cage.
I lie in the dark, my heart pounding.

©Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Vol. One, p. 87
Published by Beacon Press , Boston, 1992

That’s the challenge, isn’t it? The struggle between hanging on and letting go of what we were never meant to imprison. Not ourselves, not other people, and not kookaburras who just want to fly home to their river.

I want to let my spirit, my soul fly home. I also recognize the coward and procrastinator in me, wanting to say no, and walking away without unlatching the cage.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 July 2019
Photo found at australianmuseum.net.au

6 Comments

July 2, 2019

The way from here

The way from here
Grows narrow
A finely chiseled path
From this life
To a world as unknown
As life beyond
The womb

When did birthing begin
And when will it end?

Wondering out loud
I search for midwives
To encourage me now
As in the past
How many and for how long
I cannot say
As I set out on another adventure
Another letting go
Another arrival
Somewhere
Into the waiting hands
And hearts of those
Who love me in life
And in death

How do we learn to die? How do we learn to give birth? How do we learn to say enough is enough? Or no, thank you, I’m not going to opt into our reigning medical model of trying whatever can be tried in order to live a bit longer. Comfort care is one thing; unrealistic hope for healing is something else.

My waking dream this morning led to the poem above. The dream suggested I need help, a midwife or two, to get through the last pieces of my journey on this earth. I might even need to become a midwife to myself. Not just by reading books, but by seeking out professionals to help me navigate what lies ahead.

I anticipate writing and talking about how this works out for me, and commenting on books I’ve been reading. My major guide will be a palliative care doctor I spoke with today. She won’t replace my other wonderful doctors. Instead, she’ll help me work with medical personnel, family members and others. I’m not willing to stay alive at all costs. So how will I get from here to there?

Today has been an up and down day. Lots of emotion about making the telephone call, and huge relief when the doctor said she would take me on. I know this isn’t a very popular topic. So I’m especially grateful if you’ve read to this point.

With hope, gratitude and a teeny tiny sense of adventure for what lies ahead,

Elouise♥

13 Comments

June 30, 2019

Great Aunt Eva’s topaz ring

Great Aunt Eva’s topaz ring
Aunt Margie’s wooden jewelry box with drawers
Mother’s dainty embroidered handkerchiefs
Faded photos from years long gone
Fragile connections to my past and present
Links to times and people I knew
Reminders that I’m not alone

And what will remain of me –
What left-behind bits and pieces carry
Hints of the woman I was and now am
Woven into lives of family, friends and strangers
Lives that touched mine giving and taking
Hints of pasts we scarcely remember
Reminders that we are not alone

With gratitude for all who have left marks on my life. Memories, greeting cards, notes, photos, comments on academic papers and blog postings, my piano teacher’s pencil notes in my piano books, a small Celtic cross from a friend when a family member died, and on and on. Each a gem and reminder that we’re not alone.

7 Comments

June 29, 2019

Staring at a blank page

Staring at a blank page
Wondering what lies within
This relentless transition
From life on earth to whatever
Comes next

This morning’s air is heavy
With unanswered questions
More waiting in the wings
And the invisible fog of
Not knowing

I hear the clock chiming out
The hour of the day and wonder
What day and hour it is in the
Brief picture of my life
On this earth

Surely this isn’t what You meant
By numbering my days
Though I do sometimes long
To return to the womb and
Start over

Today is already half gone
Never to be relived and likely
Never grieved just forgotten
A small yet significant piece of
Your great puzzle

June 27, 2019

Loose ends

At loose ends with myself
Weary after a week of pain
Strangely connected to my
Healed yet still broken jaw

Struggling a bit with morning
Light now arriving so early
That my body rebels when I
Try to sing it back to sleep

Heat is piling on this week
Heavy eyelids insist on falling
Down when I want them to
Stand up and fight for me

My attic chair beckons
High above the noise of
Everyday traffic and business
As usual in these strange times

I think it’s time for another
Little catnap from the ups and
Downs of this week perhaps
With my eyes closed snoozing

What a bizarre few weeks. Sharp pains in my left front side—triggered, it seemed, by lifting items or bending over and then standing up. It made sense to me.

Wrong! My doctor says the pain is triggered by tight muscles in my upper body. It seems they’re trying to protect me from the pain of chewing anything too hard or crunchy. Along with some muscles in my face, they’ve become stiff, inflamed and painful.

As of yesterday, I began exercises that seem to invite pain. Not in huge amounts, but as much as I can tolerate. This is followed by smearing my favorite inflammation remedy (arnica cream) on my back. I’ve also signed up for clinic sessions to work on my rib cage and scapula. Though I won’t be as loose and relaxed as Smudge or his distant cousin at the top, I can’t wait to get there.

That’s all for now. Thanks for listening! The attic beckons. Life is good.

Elouise♥

3 Comments

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