Church Lady

My sister R. texted me the night before Easter that she was going to church the next day. I asked if she wanted company, even though I couldn’t remember the last time I went to church. (We recovering Catholics must be careful about exposure to that gateway drug, lest we backslide and get religious again.)  I even offered to drive, and said I’d pick her up at 9:15 for the 10:00, knowing full well I would be sitting outside her house in my car the next morning, watching the minutes tick by as I waited for her to finish dressing and hustle out to the car, carrying her jacket and earrings to put on as we drove, certain that when we got to St. Joseph’s we’d have to park at the far end of the lot and scurry up to church, late, always late. I am the only early one in my family, and it’s always been a source of embarrassment to me, this inability to plan well enough so that we didn’t call attention to ourselves. We are the ones who would fumble over other people in a theater to get to our places right before a play started, across a sea of irritated, grim-faced seat-people twisting their legs to the side to give us room to squeeze by, all that unsavory stranger-knee-touching marring their perfect night out.

Mass was just starting, the first hymn in process, and the priest and altar boys were standing at attention in the back before their big entrance. We held back, shades of our tardiness for weddings, waiting for the bride to make her way down the aisle before sliding into a pew – only this time the bride was an 80-year-old cleric in a white tunic with a gold embroidered cross overlay, broken red veins latticed across his pale face, and bright-white hair loosely covering his shiny pate. He and his grade-school sidekicks finally started their slow promenade to the altar, and my sister and I followed the prompts of an usher smitten by his own importance, crooking his fingers and jerking his head left to motion us to a couple of seats. As I have in the past, I think about how the parish got screwed by whoever designed this church. The pews stick out about three feet farther than the space where you can get to the kneelers and the wooden pockets that hold the service missals and the songbooks, and of course that’s where we were seated, so we were left without the standard options necessary to behave as the rest of the natives – kneel, stand, sit, sing; rinse and repeat.  

Eventually we were passed a songbook, so we kept that between us, R. holding it with her right hand, me with my left. Since I wasn’t in this for soul-saving or holy favors, and it was Easter, after all, I spent most of my time people-watching, loving the petite red-headed girl in the yellow polka-dot dress, matching hair ribbon, white tights and beige patent-leather shoes, and the little twin boys with coffee-bean eyes and fluffy, static baby-bird black hair; vests and bow-ties over the tiny little long-sleeved shirts that were tucked into elastic-waist pants.  In front of us was a woman, platinum blond mane with dusky roots in in dry clumps. She was dressed all in black, and some of those hairs were like prisoners escaping, traveling down her back separate but aligned, as if they were going to meet up later at a predetermined location. When she got up, her skirt hugged her bottom in an unfortunate sideways grin, and I was reminded of the joke my Irish friend Kevin used to tell, complete with a lovely accent, about Seamus asking Paddy how he got his black eye. 

"You'd never believe it," said Paddy, "but I got it in church." He’d been sitting behind a fat lady when they stood for a hymn, and he noticed her dress was creased into her behind. "All I did was lean forward to pull it out and she hit me,” said Paddy. A week later Seamus sees Paddy again, and he’s got another black eye. He said he found himself behind the same woman, and when they stood for a hymn, her dress was again tucked into her hind parts. “Then,” Paddy said, “My little nephew reached forward and pulled it out. But I knew she didn't like that, so I leaned over and tucked it back in."  When Kevin told that joke, he made a soft karate chop with his hand on the “tucked” part, and I found my hand mimicking that action now as I thought of him.  

Ah. The sermon. Only about 20 minutes more to go. The elderly priest is talking about Googling something last night for his talk today; a term I didn’t expect to hear from the pulpit or from an octogenarian priest. But perhaps I’ve just been gone too long.  I zone out again, playing the game I’ve played in church since I was twelve and just showing signs of the extra weight that would plague me all my life. I scan the congregation and look for skinny people. That guy over there, with the scrawny neck and delicate wrists, gets five pounds. Those teenage girls with the tight dresses that my father would have hit the roof over if me and my sisters ever wore them at all, much less to church, get two each. That mom in the yoga pants looks like she can stand a few – she gets three, and her four kids get one each: that’s sixteen total. I put five each on the altar boys – they aren’t thin, but they’re at that chubby stage, so I don’t feel bad – and I just have to unload four more – ha! They go to the young couple sneaking out during communion. 

Minutes left to the end of the service, and I sing loudly on the only words I know to the processional hymn, loving my sister and ready to suggest we go to Starbucks and have a chat before I take her home. We walk at a zombie pace behind our fellow saintly colleagues leaving the church, but nothing bothers me anymore – not the lateness or the poor seating or the tediousness of this service. I’m feeling so light; so very light – after all, I just unloaded 30 pounds – and I scoot in front of a family, push the lever on the door and walk out, blinking, into the sunshine. 

 © 2018 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

In Praise of Measuring Twice and Cutting Once

When I transitioned from college to a career, I was fortunate to land in the company of people who cared about honest reporting of facts, statistics, financials, actions, and intent.

As a young, promising but inexperienced business writer with a newly-minted English degree, it made a big impression on me when my then-boss picked up on a generalization I made without fact-checking, and introduced me to the phrase "measure twice and cut once." His point: we check, and double-check, and make sure that anything we say or publish is as accurate as possible. I've loved working in that environment all my life. I respect the fact that my colleagues share my commitment to dig down and look at all angles of an issue to make sure we are painting a legitimate picture of what we are communicating; that we are meticulous with details; that we are not misrepresenting information or situations.

I don't know what to make of the current climate. The game seems to have changed, so that persuasion by any means is applied to get to a "win." (Quotation marks intentional.) But I'm old-school on this one, and if you are, too, you're someone I want to know. After all, a house built on faulty angles cannot stand. That's why we measure, and measure again.

© 2018 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Thank You For The Contrast

I've just come through a difficult few weeks where I had an unexpectedly challenging and painful recovery from some surgery that I expected to sail through. All the plans I had about getting back to work quickly or getting ready for Christmas were sacked. I needed to just let myself get well. Today, I'm grateful for those tough moments.

Here's why: this weekend, when I started to feel good - really good - I nearly cried from the relief of it. You've likely heard that joke about the fellow who keeps hitting his thumb with a hammer, and when asked why he's doing it, he replies, “Because it feels so good when I stop!” That's kind of where I was - I had been so miserable, so hopeless, and even though I knew I would get better soon, there were times I couldn't see it. But boy, did it feel good when all those complications ended!

It's the yang to the yin - the contrasts in life - that make us more appreciative. It's the quiet at the end of a hectic day, the smile of a child after the upset, the loveliness of a ladybug against a blade of grass.

It's good to have one's health, to have a comfortable home and clean clothes and the certainty of one's next meal. Many do not. It's good to have friends and family who get you to the other side when you don't have the strength to get there yourself. Many don't have that, either. And it's good to stop and be grateful for the things and the people that keep painting the picture of our lives; that give us the light to the dark; that provide the contrast that makes it all so stunning.

Thank you, my friends, for the light you bring to my world. The happiest of holiday seasons to you.

© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

The Needle Whisperer

I found out tonight that I lost a friend. We didn't see each other a lot, but I always loved it when he was around, and he had a sweetness and grace that touched everyone. 

His name was Alberto. I first met him a number of years ago, when I started giving platelets after a lifetime of donating whole blood. My first platelet donation was pretty painful, and I cried because it hurt so badly when the nurses were setting it up, but I didn't want to fail. Alberto came over to see what was happening, and in a flash he slid the needle in, and I barely felt it. From then on, I requested him whenever I could. He was my Needle Whisperer.

He passed last week, of an apparent heart attack. I don't know much about his personal life, but he was on the young side, and I know that he had such a kindness and quiet competency about him that his was a very lucky family to have had him - and they must be experiencing that gaping space that's left when someone who was pure love and goodness is gone. 

I'm writing because I don't know what to do with all this sudden sadness, and I'm sitting here with a lump in my throat that I cannot seem to melt. Since I didn't know of his passing in time to honor him at his funeral, I'm putting this out to the Universe: Alberto B. was a wonderful, shining, perfect soul, and I hope you will take good care of my Needle Whisperer. 

© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

If I Die Tomorrow, It Was Nice to Know Ya

I don't think I'm the only person who is business as usual in my frontal lobe, working and feeding the cat and running errands, while playing in the background is a horror-filled monologue informing me that we're all going to die.

Now I know what all those people on doomed trains and airplanes feel like, when there's nothing to do but wait and see whether the outcome is a last-minute miracle save, or a Hollywood-worthy crash and burn.  I went to bed last night, as those involved with the North Korean nuclear specter artfully changed the word "threat" to "rhetoric," thinking "What if I wake up just to go to sleep permanently?"

This isn't my usual slice-of-life post. I'm not feeling very cheerful today, and I can't see the humor in this experience. Except that I keep finding myself telling friends and family how much I love them, and then I acknowledge that if nothing catastrophic comes to pass, I'm going to feel awfully stupid about how goopy I got. It goes something like this: "This is why I love you, it was really great to have you in my life, and if nothing happens please forget how passionate this sounded."

I'm scared, because I have so little faith that cool heads will prevail. I'm terrified at the prospect of anyone getting hurt in this fiasco. There are people just as frightened as we are in a few other countries.

I'm ashamed, in advance, because I know that there will be some awful, disgraceful relief if something doesn't happen here, but happens someplace else. If we get to say "whew!" at someone else's expense.

I'm kicking myself for not using my life better, for not loving that one guy when I had the chance, for not letting go of anger when it would have been so easy to, for not apologizing when someone deserved it, for not learning two or three languages, for not volunteering more, for not adding a few more countries to the list of those I've visited, for not always being the person who is my best me, because some days my head and heart and soul are lazy. But this is good to know: when I look at my life from a "what if the worst happens" perspective, I'm pretty comfy in the loving and kind department. No regrets there.

Today I have one foot in a world where family and friends and my house and car are intact, and one foot in a scorched-earth dystopia. I can't jolly myself out of it. This is real. It's possible. And I just want to tell you - if I die tomorrow, it was nice knowing you.

© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Why, Oh WiFi?

My sister and her family were in from the West Coast last week, and I got to have three whole days and nights alone with my teenage nephew and preteen niece. Because they WANTED to be with me. Or so I thought.

While my sister and her husband stayed with our father, J and J happily packed their bags for what was supposed to be one sleepover. We went to the pool, did the mom tasks they were assigned (him: thank-you notes from his recent birthday; her: reading); and went out to dinner at a Japanese steakhouse (complete with open grill and startling flames and flying shrimp sometimes making it into a diner's gaping, expectant mouth). Then home to brush teeth, watch a movie and camp out in the living room, as we have always done; the tent-bedroom I set up when they were small giving way to him on a pull-out couch, her in a chair-plus-hassock bed she likes to cobble together, and me on the big sofa, until they fall asleep and I remove myself to one of the upstairs bedrooms they don't want to use. I love it - love the auntie-ness of it, watching them sleep, making them breakfast, the fact that they are so well-behaved for me even though they act differently with their parents... it's all good.

So I was delighted when they asked their parents if they could spend another night, and then another. Until the sibs started fighting, and the 14-year-old busted his 11-year-old sister: "She wants to be here for your wifi, you know." And then my sister/his mom, told me later: "He wants to be at your home because you have On Demand movies." Sigh. I know they love me. I just didn't know I would be sharing their love with my house.

© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Daddy Dearest

First the short-sleeved ones: yellow Chaps shirt with navy windowpanes. Thin beige-and-white striped. Two black print microfiber shirts. One red, light blue and white one (another Chaps - my favorite). Then the long sleeves: both periwinkle; one plain, one with a muted check. He only wears those on non-dialysis days, because he likes the technicians to have quick access to his fistula - the port midway up his left arm where they attach him to a machine that runs for hours and keeps him alive.

I'm doing my father's laundry, the same shirts every week, the tan chinos, the plaid boxers, white v-neck undershirts and black diabetic socks he prefers that are loosely woven at the ankles so they are both easy to put on and not pinch-y. Shirts on the hangers my departed mother lovingly wound with multicolored wool yarn while she was watching TV a million years ago. Pants, socks, underwear in the laundry basket, then into my car for the drop-off later. This dad-o'-mine, who was movie-star attractive in his youth, who loved suits and great ties and had a gorgeous head of black hair ... he's now resigned, at 91, to a uniform of ordinary fabrics and sensible scuffed brown shoes. His only accessory is a blue and light brown twill belt with a coppery Kodak logo on the clasp, shades of his day job selling equipment at Penn Camera for decades, and his side job as a wedding and bar mitzvah photographer when I was growing up. Occasionally I would go with him and stand, well-behaved and invisible, around the edges of the dancing and laughing and hugging, wearing a Sunday dress on a Saturday. It's how I, Catholic to the core then, learned all the words to Hava Nagila by the time I was seven. ("....hava neranena, venis mecha" and then the more exciting, "Uru achim, belev sameach - hey!")

My dad never expected to live this long - my sisters and I didn't think he would, either, after his cancer and then kidney disease, our mother's death nine years ago, and more cancer - though of course we love having him. My father simply refuses to accept his mortality, and thus defies the odds. He is stubborn and self-sufficient and sharp as a tack. And lonely. Deeply, sadly, consistently lonely.

I'm using this blog post as part late-Father's Day tribute; part confession. Sometimes I resent being the Caretaker Kid. I have spent a lot of time keeping him safe and hanging out with him and picking up groceries and driving to and from dialysis and doing things like laundry and such. Most of the time I do so with great love and selflessness - after all, he did that for us when we were defenseless, and now he is, and he needs this. But there are times I just want to stay home, or go out with friends, or just not have to be responsible... and even though I always do the right thing, make the right choice, I feel guilty when I've had those thoughts, as if he can see that I'd rather be someplace else. Sometimes I'm embarrassed that the conversation starter these days from my friends is often "How's your dad?," as if that is all I do now, even though I'm working and living a life. Still, I realize how kind that is, that people remember him, and maybe they're thinking they wish they had their fathers, too, and I feel awful that I'm making this about me, and not him.

But often following the guilt, I have a moment like I had the other day, when I was leaving my father after having dinner with him. I leaned over to kiss him, and he, with his huge 1980s glasses and thinning grey hair, with age spots dotting his skin and nothing but love on his still-handsome face, held on to both of my arms on the inside, just below my elbows, and looked at me with teary eyes, and said, "Be careful driving home. You're my link to the outside world, you know."

I do know, Dad. I'm your link.


© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie