What Are You Wearing?

He stood in the lobby just steps away from the tropical fish tank, betas and Nemos darting about in complete ignorance of what was about to happen on the other side of the glass. Shortly after his wife passed, he’d dropped off four of her blouses to be reimagined as soft teddy bears for the grandchildren. Today they were ready and waiting to be gathered in, squeezed and sniffed all over for that familiar scent of lavender soap and cookie dust. On the human side of the fish tank glass, memories pushed against the corners of his eyes, a bittersweet mix of relief and aching loss.

The bears, or any items our volunteer staff members make from a loved one’s clothing, came packaged in large clear plastic bags, the kind used to wrap baskets filled with Easter candy or themed collections of gifts for charity auctions. I picked them up by their bow-tied tops and pushed through the door to the lobby. As I held them out to him, he dissolved in a shaking of tears.

I wasn’t two days into my new job as volunteer coordinator when one of the social workers approached my cubicle dragging a large lidded tote full of sweatshirts.

“The family would like these made into twelve quilts. I told them I didn’t think they’d be quite right but we’d see what we could do. Any ideas? Hi, you must be Liz, the new coordinator. I’m Ruth, one of the social workers. Welcome to hospice!”. I returned her smile and shook her hand. We both looked down at the tote, at the pilled and colorful contents, confident that creativity would win this one. “Pillows, perhaps?”, I offered, knowing our sewing team of volunteers would be able to turn a dozen of those around a lot faster than twelve full-size bed quilts, and they’d look much neater. Thick knit fabric doesn’t lend itself to the precision that most quilts require.

Ruth left me to consider the possibilities and I started unpacking a lifetime of sweatshirt memories, sorting by size and color. When I came to the last three at the bottom of the tote, I spied a large patchwork vest hugging the inside corner and unfolded it. Made up of squares held together by a simple blanket stitch, I touched each patch, counting. There were twelve, exactly.

I called the local fabric store and placed an order for twelve 14” square pillow inserts.

We’re accustomed to the starkness of firsts and lasts in our end-of-life setting, yet these moments, these sacred encounters never fail to slow us down and I consider the deep impact of finality the families feel as they hand over that flannel shirt dad was wearing when he passed or a sister’s favorite apron, worn especially for the Thanksgiving meal she’d prepare every year (cranberry sauce stains and all). Bags of clothing always come with backstories tucked in and among the fabric like invisible sentries guarding the cotton and buttons that will soon take on a different shape. In that tender moment of hand-off, we hold them as carefully as an Emile Galle glass sculpture and register the responsibility we’ve just accepted. In hospice, you don’t get a second chance to do it right.

In my own closet are too many unemployed business-casual outfits hanging patiently until I return to working at the office full time. Pandemic restrictions and a home office setting for four of the five work days have loosened my wardrobe habits, making me grateful for the “stop video” option on virtual meetings. I haven’t totally abandoned personal hygiene (I feel it necessary to make that clear) but a daily shower isn’t as necessary as it was when I worked in close proximity to others; last night’s leggings and long-sleeved shirt work just fine as today’s uniform. I still know what’s appropriate to wear and when it’s ok to relax the dress code. “Pandemic Super-casual” will give way to “Back in the Office” soon enough. For now, I’m getting away with wearing pretty much the same pants, shirt and sweater on Mondays without anyone asking if that’s the only outfit I own.

But I think other people notice what we wear more than we do. I’m grateful for clothes that fit and even come close to flattering me, and then I get about the business of the day. It still surprises me when someone says “that’s my favorite jacket you wear” because it means they noticed. Eventually it may come to mean something more when my time is short and those “lasts” settle into a family member’s memory of holiday gatherings and the shirt I always wore. It’s easy to forget that in the social convention of getting dressed for the occasion at hand.

Dad had a few cotton button-down shirts he’d wear when he went fishing, and after he passed in hospice, I handed them over to one of the volunteer team members to make into fish (with no disrespect at all, we just aren’t teddy bear people). I looked for a pattern that was more artsy than juvenile and left it in her capable hands. She delivered in less than two weeks and the results still rest on the bed in the downstairs guestroom. Each time I run my fingers across the soft plaid strip-pieced shape of the fish’s fins and body, my mind settles on those images of dad in his boat, cutting a silent seam in the water of Marble Lake as a setting sun pulled him to the places where the large-mouth bass gathered among the weeds. He probably didn’t even know we were watching from the cottage windows.

In the rhythm of our days, I suspect these moments of clothing awareness come and go. Add a humble spirit to that mix and it’s likely we go about our business with barely a thought given to the fabric hanging easily on our shoulders and sheathing our legs. Of course that’s fine and normal. But perhaps one day, for someone we know, the last thing they remember us wearing will indeed be the last thing we were wearing, and everything will change. Be it unsettling or not, people who love you are paying attention and collecting memories with you at the center, moving about comfortably in your favorite togs.

Might wanna take that extra look in the mirror before heading out the door.

Energy

I’m trying to do too much at once today.

Ever have moments (or hours) like that?

There are at least two reflection ideas vying for my attention while I’m also working to get caught up on content for the online course I’m taking on how to be a kinder human being so I’m ready for our Zoom class this afternoon. I’m two chapters into a book recommended by a fellow writer that’s twisting my brain into wonderful new learning knots and I want to send a quick message to thank him and let him know what I’m processing so far. It doesn’t help that even with today’s steady rain, I want to head down the path to the sweat lodge to do a better job of rearranging its covers after last Friday’s windstorm undressed it down to its sycamore branch ribs.

Pick one, right? That’s the sensible approach to all these options, and most of the time, my organized mind would have these prioritized and scheduled so that when I wake up tomorrow, I’ve got “accomplishment” written all over my hands. But today’s agenda is as scrambled as my eggs were this morning (they were tasty, topped with everything bagel seasoning and melting white cheddar) and there’s just no fighting it. I feel like, as dad used to say, a “fart in a skillet”, which gets me laughing and sends some helpful endorphins through my central nervous system, though trying to visualize what a fart in a skillet looks like is an unhelpful distraction. Sigh. Some of you might say “switch to decaf” but I’m not a coffee drinker, so we’re just gonna go with this flow and see how it plays out.

Maybe it’s just me getting caught up in the larger context and energy of spring, where last autumn’s matted down and decaying leaves are already nourishing this year’s tender shoots of wild onion and pungent ramps on the meadow path. I swear I can see the new grass growing and hear this season’s weeds laughing at our planned attempts to yank them out Once and For All. The Russian red kale seeds in those packets on the hutch in the kitchen wait patiently to be scattered and pressed into the newly roughed-up rich soil of the raised beds and where are we going to put the sunflowers this year? Everything around me is in motion simultaneously—“linear” is decidedly NOT the rhythm of this season—so, everybody on the dance floor NOW! For just a moment, I miss the illusion of winter’s stillness.

But only for a moment, because I just can’t sit quietly with all this going on around me. One way or another, the reflection ideas will take shape, and I will become a kinder human being, and send Matt a quick text about that book he suggested, and pull the soggy canvas from the ribs of that sweat lodge and re-layer them a little more neatly than the wind did. Somewhere hidden in all this activity will be a moment to rest on the couch, holding Patrick’s hand and listening to his steady breathing as he naps, a kitten for each of us sleeping sprawled across our legs. And I’ll still be mentally adding tasks to an endlessly squirming to-do list because this is what a season of new life does to a soul.

Spring is only a week old, my friends. Yikes.

Remembering How

Dusting off my debit card, I insert it in the slot below the keypad and wait to be told what to do next.

“Enter PIN”.

My brain begins the internal scanning process through the stacks of saved login codes, passwords and other access data stored in what I know is an overloaded hippocampus.

Nothing.

I keep sifting, hovering my left hand over the buttons on the reader’s keypad, hoping that some muscle memory will kick in to get me out of this one. The woman six feet behind me in line shifts her weight impatiently onto her other leg and tightens her grip on the handles of the basket holding her soup cans and salsa. Still nothing. I hit the red “cancel/override” key and the transaction moves forward. Mastercard doesn’t always allow this, so I’m grateful and eager to get out of there and on my way.

It was an emergency that led me into a retail setting for the first time in eight months (the details don’t matter, but I will say that it was sociologically interesting to find the laxatives section nearly cleaned out in a rural dollar store. Must be something in the water we’re drinking ‘round here, or the pandemic’s impact has moved some of our neighbors in this tiny community to a different level…or will eventually “move” them. I’m trying to be delicate here). For the lion’s share of these past thirteen months, Patrick has been our household’s canary in the coalmine, running errands, masking up and stepping across diverse retail thresholds to fetch the item or two we forgot to add to our curbside order. I’ve been tending the home fires with a limited orbit to and from the office one day a week, not taking on the burden of talking through fabric and plexiglass barriers to buy a can of crushed tomatoes or vodka. I’m not accustomed to the new way of doing business from a physical and logistics perspective. “Weird” doesn’t begin to articulate it.

But on that Saturday morning, forced back into the face-to-face consumer dynamic, I was playing out a scene from “Awakenings” with a modified plot twist that sent my mind reeling in the direction of a post-lockdown reality. What else have I forgotten how to do and be in the company of others? We don’t shake hands or lick our thumbs to turn a page in a book or leave the house without our vanilla-scented hand sanitizer for after we’ve touched a door handle. I’m sure I’ll be just awful at re-engaging. You should know that I tend to learn life’s most important lessons in the presence of strangers and have come to keep an apology of some sort rehearsed and ready to go in my pocket. That strategy has kept most of my interactions with others pleasant or at least civil. But in what new ways will I test their patience when I self-release back into the wild of a more communal existence? I can’t be the only one who feels a bit rusty on the basics of social convention. Right? (uh-oh…crickets).

I’ve leaned heavily on those once-weekly office-based contacts with my coworkers, though we rarely see each other, spending the bulk of our workdays behind the closed doors of our respective offices. We venture out to use the restroom, retrieve copies from the printer and maybe get hot water from the common kitchen area. Other than that, we’re compartmentalized bees in a sparsely populated hive. When we do meet, making eye contact is required rather than preferred as we’ve all learned to shift the bulk of our nonverbals to above the mask line. I pour as much expression as I can into that narrow strip of facial space and still feel my lips shaping into familiar expressions of surprise or disgust or concern. Remember when we didn’t have to work that hard to be understood? Will our mouths move the way they always have when we can at last reveal our faces in full to one another? When was the last time you effectively wrinkled your nose to emphasize disapproval or when registering an unpleasant odor without having to put words behind it? The meaning in a raised eyebrow still lands well, thank heaven, and brings the message home with it. So, I won’t have to re-learn everything.

I’ve got one dose of Pfizer’s best making tracks through my immune system and have almost taken to crossing off the days till the second one. Wednesday, April 21 has been marked as my own Pandemic Independence Day (the two week anniversary of that second shot) and comes with a list of “hey, not so fast” recommendations for navigating my way back into a physically gathered society. After all the effort I put into making those cloth masks, I’m still rather invested in wearing them until…until it’s even safer not to. I am willing to embrace more than a bit of awkward engagement as that orbit of mine gradually widens to include my fellow human beings in public settings. Soon, maybe I’ll be the one to pick up the pizza after work, walk right in and up to the counter with that debit card of mine, hoping that override key works. Patrick has more than earned a break.

Of course, some of you have been circulating throughout this strange time far more than I have and I’m grateful for your nonjudgmental acceptance of my experience. Can we continue to be kind and patient with one another during the next iteration of our shared pandemic adjustment period? I sense that collectively we’re sitting on a submerged mountain of unaddressed anxiety, delayed grieving, frustration and who knows what other unfinished business. To be real, we’ve probably been managing that for the better part of our adult lifetimes, but…not like this. Not with this much volume and intensity. I think of the families in our hospice care who visited through glass and didn’t get to hold their loved one’s hands in those final moments of living. Remote graduation ceremonies and weddings, pushing the pause button on so many life events that hinged on being together and laughing in one place. Hugging and touching the people in our lives with unscheduled and unencumbered regularity. For many of us, it will be strange and wonderful and bittersweet to move forward. Remember…kindness.

Yesterday, in the cool bright sun of a most-anticipated day, my sister-in-law Molly and I watched as fully-vaccinated Patrick hugged his fully-vaccinated mom for the first time in thirteen months. Joanne is a nearly a foot shorter than he, and she folded right into his broad chest as if no time had passed at all. No awkward engagement, just blessed reunion and a sneak preview for Molly and me of what awaits when that second dose gives us the green light into a different but familiar world.

I may not remember my debit card’s PIN number anytime soon, but I will certainly know how to throw my arms open for that first-in-a-long-time hug. The rest will take care of itself in time.

Getting Ready

Strong southwestern winds from Arizona and Utah made their way across the Kansas plains and rearranged the lawn furniture in the sitting area behind the house yesterday before pushing east to sway the dangling birdfeeders in the suburban yards of Pittsburgh and Vermont. Our cushion-less chairs tipped over, coming to rest in the leavings of last summer’s mulch, waiting for me to right them again. I thanked the sky for a reason to move my limbs and the ground below for holding me fast.

Just yesterday, in a pass around the west side of the house, I saw the tightly-packed leaves of this year’s daffodils standing hopeful and eager to please in their gravel-topped bed below the kitchen window. I swear to you, they hadn’t been up a few hours earlier. Now I’ll keep an eye out for the singular red-streaked yellow parrot tulip that grows on the steep hill above the meadow—she’s in there somewhere, I know. And who turned loose the flocks of wrens and redwing blackbirds and one magnificent pileated woodpecker knocking on the bark of a fallen black walnut down by the bridge? Two days ago, cardinals and tiny black-capped chickadees and laughing crows were the main event, as they have been for the past three months. When the shadow of a blue heron’s wingspan fully stretched out in flight slides across the still-brown grass and the hypnotic cheerful droning of hidden chorus frogs in the creek pulls you forward in a walking trance, you know that winter is getting ready to close the door behind itself (please, don’t slam it…) and leave you to revel wildly in this next season’s affairs. In an unexpected “not to be left out” moment, two of the three indoor Christmas cacti have each produced three blooms. I’m surrounded by the miracles of life.

Spring does this every time, and I chuckle inwardly at my fresh amazement. The crocuses and first bright green tips of wild garlic chives, the sun’s glowing generosity at both ends of the day, the trees along the ridge looking forward to getting dressed soon—all of it surprises me even though I’ve collected nearly sixty of these seasons in my bones (it’s so inspiring that in the middle of writing this reflection, I got up off the couch to make a batch of strawberry coconut almond birthday cake granola, assembled and in the oven in less than 20 minutes. Want some? Message me and we’ll work it out).

After the year we’ve had, individually and in common, this spring feels deeply and forever different from the others. I am wide awake in a technicolor dream (anyone else out there dream in color?) cherishing each view, my eyes stinging with grateful tears that I’m still here and survivor guilt tears that I’m, well, still here while others’ eyes uncomfortably register the empty chair at the table. Late last week, I’d just hung up after scheduling my two vaccine appointments (I don’t need to specify which vaccine now, do I?) and cued up on YouTube The Lion King’s opening “Circle of Life”, a hymn to all things sacred. I didn’t make it past the first refrain before I was sobbing at my home office desk in a face-drenched storm of release and mourning. This too is spring in all it’s glory—cleansing rains to wash away winter’s untended sorrows and repurpose them as life-giving tonic for every new leaf and sprout that calls this place home (It’s probably best that I ration my viewing of the fully vaccinated hug reunions that will flood social media in the weeks to come, if I’m ever to get the garden planted). With the last fragments of winter’s browns and grays as evidence to the contrary, spring, the Great Game-Changer, is about to unfurl its best on us again, and it will catch us happily off-guard. We’ll notice things we hadn’t seen the day before and convince ourselves that magic is real (yes, Hogwarts exists) and find all manner of reasons to be outside more than inside.

My daily walks will bear the weight of a new attentive spirit as I gather for the first time this year fresh images of a sleeping earth waking up to herself. In a sweet mix of new and familiar, she will once again lay at my feet her tender offspring in all forms—the spotted fawns and garlic mustard and morels and blue fragments of a robin’s egg at the base of the mulberry sapling off the front deck. I’ll do what I always do each spring. Drop to my knees, rise to my feet in a standing ovation of one and dance like everyone’s watching.