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The Man of My Dreams

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A song from the past floats into my head as I’m falling asleep.  I’m a teenager, listening to one of the first albums I bought with my own money.  Barbra Streisand: A Star is Born.  It’s the end of the story.  Esther Hoffman Howard is a widow, taking the stage for the first time since the accident.  “With one more look at you…” she begins.  “I want one more look at you.”  I want one more chance to put it all together and make it make sense.

My husband Jim is in my dreams again.  But I don’t know I’m dreaming.  I can touch him.  I feel his hair, strangely coarse, actually, compared to the thick, loosely curled, soft stuff I remember.  But he’s there, in the flesh, inexplicably, and so am I.  I want answers.  How is it you’re here again, and so often?  Was I wrong when I thought you’d died?  Has there been a mistake?  Are you back for good?  Where, exactly, have you been?  Speak to me.

He begins to talk, and I hang on every word.  He is telling me the secrets of the Universe, of life and death, and I had better remember this accurately later, when I wake up.  When I wake up…does that mean that this is just a dream?  Logic gets all loose and wiggly again, and consciousness creeps back into my head.   Suddenly, I’m awake and sweating hot.  I’m in a room by an open window on a street in suburban Milwaukee.  And this doesn’t seem to make much sense, either. 

Anger. Denial. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.  What are the emotions driving these dreams?  What is my subconscious trying so hard to reconcile? I keep struggling for meaning.  I am angry, I suppose.  I deny that Jim died at the age of 47.  That was too soon.  It doesn’t fit into my perception of How Things Ought To Be.  I do not accept it.  Even now, more than four years later.  Although, even in my dreams, I know that he is dead, and that is Real. 

Enlightenment is, roughly, when you accept all that is…without the ‘you’.  Ego is inconsequential.  Acceptance, peace, wholeness.  All Is.  I guess I’m not at that point yet.  I work on it through the night.  I imagine Jim trying to help me out, but his input just confuses me.  And I’m still too involved, trying too hard to wrap my little brain around the incomprehensible.  How can I simply let it go?  Accept ambiguity.  Accept mystery.  Accept it all.  Accept.      Accept.

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I Love My Mom

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My mother makes a very satisfactory leader of my Fan Club.  She is, undoubtedly, First Fan, as many mothers are.  The hallmark of her grace is in the way she embodies this position, not simply as a role, but as a genuine expression.  I never get the feeling that she encourages me out of obligation.  I believe she really likes me.  What a stroke of good fortune!

This morning I got an e-mail from her titled “catching up on the blogs”.  I felt her heart bubbling over like she had just emerged from an afternoon reading a favorite novel.  She had associations, appreciations, memories, connections to share, like her synapses were fireworks going off.  From a reader to a writer, this has got to be the highest praise.  She started off by remarking, in all caps, that there has to be a book in this somewhere and that she wants an autographed first edition.  Aw, Mom!

My mom is not a literary push over.  She has a degree in English from Radcliffe (now coed with Harvard).  She devours books regularly and always has.  Her typical posture these days is sitting in her high-backed rocker with knitting in hand, book strapped in on her reading stand, mind and fingers flying.  She used to hide away in her bedroom with a bag of snacks and emerge an hour or so later with renewed energy to tackle her household obligations, sporting a kind of secret glow.  Get her talking about one of her recent historical sagas, and she will enthusiastically engage for hours!  I love seeing her pull thoughts that have been carefully laid aside like unmatched socks and bundle them together with a flourish of discovery and pride. 

She recently told me that her doctor mentioned her good prospects for living another 20 years.  That would make her 97; she wasn’t sure she’d want to live that long.  But think of all the books you could still read!  Or that could be read to you, if the cataracts cause the eyes to fail.  I can still hear my father’s voice reading to her behind the bedroom door.  His partnership to her intellectually was so rich, until Alzheimer’s whittled his brain away.  I wonder if she feels the same phantom guilt I have in enjoying a healthy body and a sound mind after our husbands’ deaths.  Well, I suppose consciousness is a responsibility to approach with reverence.  We live, we feel, we think, we read, we make connections still.  May we both bring life and light to the world like fireworks, Mom, as long as we are able. 

Mom (photo credit: DKK)

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Baseball & Brides

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Ah, June!  Yesterday’s weather was picture perfect for Wisconsin summer.  Life at Old World Wisconsin was happily busy.  Sorry I didn’t post last night, but I was just too tired.  We had the first Vintage Baseball game of the summer, so families were treated to an exciting and genteel sporting event, and our team won (Wullah, wullah, wullay!).  No baseball mitts, no walks, and different terminology were the biggest differences one guest reported.  I didn’t get to see the action in the baseball field because I was working at the church, and briefly, at the Irish washer-woman’s house.  I finally had a visitor willing to join me in singing a round of “Dona Nobis Pacem” a capella in the church.  The acoustics are terrific, and we really did a lovely job, I think.  I thanked her enthusiastically for the privilege.  I had a Brownie troop who filled the front pews like a classroom and stayed a good half hour, I think, asking questions about everything.  It was nice not to feel rushed like I do during a scheduled school tour, but just to let the conversation flow.  They were a great group.  Finally, about an hour before closing, a wedding party came by from the Clausing Barn area where they had their service to take pictures by the church.  They didn’t come inside, but the groomsmen invited me into a picture with them on the front steps.  I think they were attracted to my bustle.  They then staged the same shot with the bride in my place.  Perhaps I’ll be comic relief in their wedding album some day soon.  The men all wore different hats: the groom’s was a black cowboy hat which he wore with dark sunglasses.  He smoked a cigar throughout the photo session.  The bride and several of the bridesmaids were sporting elaborate tattoos.  The bride’s covered her upper back and was quite colorful.  Another guest saw them leaving and asked if they had been dressed in period costume.  “Oh, no.  Those weren’t period tattoos, either,”  I replied, and she laughed.

 

Today’s game is described on the Old World Wisconsin website like this:

“On Sunday the girls of summer, from the World War II Girls Baseball Living History League, will play their brand of 1943 ball. Joining the team on Sunday will be Milwaukee Public Radio coordinating producer Stephanie Lecci. Original girls-league players will be invited as our special guests, including Joyce Westerman who will be available after the game to sign copies of the Wisconsin Historical Society Press book about her life and sporting career, Joyce Westerman: Baseball Hero.”

Our costumer, Rachel, plays on this team.  I wish I could see them.  It reminds me of my days in the church softball league.  I played second base. 

For more information on 1860s baseball, visit the Old World Wisconsin website here.  Rules, schedule, photos and more are included.

photo courtesy of OWW website

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Sale Season

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Happy First of June!  It’s Garage/Yard/Rummage/Estate Sale season, and Steve is prowling the streets looking for used books and anything else that strikes his fancy.  He came home today excited by a “find” he had made and eager to get my reaction.  It wasn’t what he hoped for.  He dug a little deeper, and I burst into tears.  Poor guy!  It must be tough living with a hormonal woman after all those years as a bachelor.

  So, what exactly were my emotions?  That’s always an interesting question to ask when the gates are down and everything is flowing, so to speak.  I recognize that my typical posture is self-denial.  I defer, I sacrifice, I put others before me.  I was taught that was how “good Christian women” behave.  So I’ve been living with Steve for a year and a half now, in his duplex, with all his stuff, his book business and collections and whatnot, without so much as a closet for my own things.  He promised me a closet a year ago.  “My” closet is stacked 6 rows deep in his books.  Still.  My photographs, in albums and framed pictures, are in his storage unit because there’s no room for them here.  I miss having them available to look at when I’m feeling sentimental.  That’s one angle.  Here’s another.  My late husband was a lot more materialistic than I am, too.  He liked to spend his earnings on toys and gadgets and things that struck his fancy.  The stuff he brought home was not second-hand, garage sale-priced stuff.  It was usually the latest thing.  I rarely saw the need for these purchases or agreed to the justifications, but I practiced swallowing my opinions because, hey, it was his money.

  What do I really care about?  It’s not about stuff, really.  It’s about identity.  Who am I when my environment is being shaped by someone else?  I am the lady who loves baby pictures of her grown-up kids.  I am the lady with a collection of elephant-shaped things.  I am the lady with a few very sentimental pieces of jewelry.  I have a million stories illustrated by artifacts which are now hidden away.  I would like to tell my stories, display my pictures, showcase my collections and clear away the stuff that overpowers them.  Or at least blend them with my partner’s.  Equally.  Fortunately, equality is really important to Steve, and he loved putting together “our museum case”, and he loves it when I stop deferring and actually tell him how I feel.  So I told him.

   Here are some photos I took last Friday of the Dodge Antique store in Algoma, owned by “Tom”.

There’s a sausage press just like this one in the Schottler Summer Kitchen at Old World Wisconsin, where I work.

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Bee-bop-a-Ree-bop!

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Guess what I made today in the wood stove at Old World Wisconsin?  Rhubarb pie!  First time I’ve ever made it and first time I’ve ever used a wood burning oven.  It’s a display pie, meaning no one is going to eat it.  The crust was a tad dark on one side, but it looked pretty good.  I have no idea how runny or crunchy the inside is.  Maybe someone will cut into it tomorrow.  It was lovely just sitting by the wood-burning stove, keeping toasty in the 50 degree rainy weather, smelling the pie bake and hemming handmade linen towels.  We didn’t have many visitors, so I felt like I was having a cozy day in my own little corner of the 19th century, by myself.  Nice work, if you can get it, I think.

So now that I’m back home, I’ve got to figure out if there’s something I can whip up for dinner in this century.  Plus, I’ve got 3 days of dirty dishes in the sink to wash. Domestic bliss.  For your entertainment, let me showcase a guest photographer: Steve.  He took this shot while we were hiking on the Ice Age Trail on Monday.  

Infinity pines

 

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Memorial Day

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Steve and I are headed for adventure again today, an opportunity to make more memories!  This time, we have to remember to feed Steve before he gets all ornery.  This was taken on Friday when we finally found a restaurant.  Food was ordered, but hadn’t arrived at table when I caught his listless expression.

Keeping family members in mind today: Alice, Jim, and Dad; and Steve’s Dad, too.  Blue skies and wispy clouds remind me of the great unknown adventure they are having today.

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Lake Effect

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Memorial Day weekend.  Boats wind their way down suburban streets in search of water.  Summertime’s officially opened.  Here in Wisconsin, there are lots of little lakes and one Big Lake, Lake Michigan.  Steve and I found our way to the shore on Friday, where we were taken for the first of the summer traffic.  We stopped south of Door County (which is way too commercialized) and met some of the locals in Algoma.  Two guys named Tom told us their stories: one owns an antique store, the other is handicapped and zips around town in an electric car that looks like a mini Smart Car with a yellow caution siren on top.  Both of them invited us to go visit their barns and have a beer with them later.  Unfortunately, we had to drive back to Milwaukee right after our early supper.   I can picture us becoming a pair of “colorful locals” some place.  Steve, with his long ponytail, and me “au naturale” (meaning without makeup or coif) — we look like aging hippies, I guess.  Tom of the electric car has renovated his barn and made part of it a stage for storytelling.  He shares this space with local artists.  It’s the greatest discovery, he tells us, this “sharing”.  It makes his life fulfilling.  Here are some photos I have to share:

 

St. Agnes-by-the-Lake Episcopal Church

Boardwalk…or birdwalk?

Enjoy your local color, everyone!

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Growing Up Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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Life never ceases to enthrall me.   The will to take hold and thrive is powerful.  Poor soil can take its toll on some plants, but others seem to do just fine clinging to nothing but rock.  I admire the adaptability and tenacity of plant life.  No excuses.  Grow where you are, or become soil for someone else.

But even tough cedars get sappy sometimes.