Author: Suzanne Buchko

enemy from within

Julia jacket this year.

The “enemy from within.” That’s what he has called us and I rather like that title today. And I am telling my disappointed daughter that she needs to be part of the change, part of the fight for what we as a family, as well as a community, want to see in our country.

We support and defend the rights of women and workers and immigrants and transgender people and unhomed people and people with disabilities and our elders. We believe in diversity, equity and inclusion. We believe in climate change and that our world and its environment needs protection.

Julia’s jacket in 2016

We stand for healthcare for all, for public schools, for an end to book banning, for the separation of church and state, for the rights of students and teachers to demonstrate against any and all wars, for strict gun control, for taxing the rich their fair share, for subsidized housing, social security, medicare. We fight against racism and sexism and homophobia and christian nationalism and facism.

In my gut I feel that the party of our choice did not strongly stand for what we believe in nor did it fight against what is abhorant to us. That needs to change. We all need to attend to the change to be worthy of the title “enemy from within.”

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counting joy

The blur of the busy, the full plate, and the inability to see what is missing or left out or left behind until I trip over the very necessity that I proclaim I steadfastly chase and hold onto dearly . . . 

Joy.

In the darkness that I allowed to blossom last week, I saw the glories of fall—the orange and gold leaves of the massive tree I can see from my kitchen window!  I have observed this tree washing dishes and cooking and watering plants and wondering how I am going to close my two kitchen windows tight. The tree is a few doors down the block in another backyard.  Green all summer, it has slowly been turning into a mighty blaze of autumn color. Last Monday, it was glorious as if lit from deep within, as if ablaze of yellows and oranges. I was almost unable to take in so much color. As the week moved forward and the wind picked up, topmost leaves fell in a rain of gold. By Wednesday, some of the orange was fading into brown and some of the brown joined the rain. By Friday, the gold had almost vanished and the tree top was almost bare, and the weekend saw more of the same.  Today, much more than half the tree is all branches, a skeleton of its summer self.

The noticing filled me with something that I had lost to exhaustion and frustration.

I can admit to missing the necessity of raking leaves.  I know I used to complain when my Madison gardens were filled over and over with the leaves of big trees for what felt like months.  And I miss the Julia as a little girl who raked and jumped in piles and enjoyed it all. Now, I look in yards full of leaves with a bit of longing, but not enough longing to volunteer to help rake.  Maybe some year soon?

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back to a drawing board

Disappointing email on Friday morning came in as Julia and I arrived at an anime convention in Westford.  

Nice thing about Another Anime Convention, yes, that is its name, is that there is a special ticket rate for those, parent or caregiver, who are there only for a kid. “Parent in Tow” is on my badge and I didn’t even have to explain why I wanted the rate accompanying an adult. The badge had some limitations but it was plenty for us.  I went to the “game shows” and the panels, including one very interesting one about women writers and performers in ancient Japan. Julia most enjoyed the hand sewing workshop that was pretty useful and very well done. The “Parent in tow” badge was about a third of the cost of Julia’s day badge. Convention tickets are expensive and I appreciate the break. So good on them!

Back to the email.  It was from The Price Center. The day center that I toured in August and was so excited to hear that there were openings in the program that I was most interested in for Julia. Back in August, it took more than a week to get Julia’s DDS referral packet to them. I don’t know whether that delay was the cause of the disappointing email. Really, may have or maybe not, but if it was, it is pretty rediculous to think Julia lost out because her referral packet was delayed by days.

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morning walk on the beach 

Ferry Beach, Saco, Maine

Impressions in wet sand. Sneekers and boots, sandles and a few bare and naked feet. Just a few bare feet, it is october afterall.  Round impressions from walking sticks and baby feet every so often. But regularly, those baby feet. And I wonder why. I imagine a parent, scooping up a toddler into a piggy back ride and then letting the wiggling wee one down after a short riding respite. Dog prints in wild archs going in and out of the ends of waves, the line where the tide erases everything. 

And I imagine how sooner or later, tonight and tomorrow early morning, a tide will come in and take away all traces of our shod and unshod animal prints. Flood the prints with the waves coming ashore, leaving the sand smooth and pristine again. 

What if the bits of sadnesses, stresses, worries and longings of our lived days were left in the prints we leave during our walkings. Left to be swollowed up by the lapping water. As if by intention, as if what we could not carry any longer could be returned to some universe. As if by returning to the sea what we could not bear, we might be comforted and even healed by the rhythmn of the to and fro, in and out, of the salty waves. 

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ducks

There is the possibility of a longer description of our month coming soon, but this . . .  I’ve been saying for awhile now, weeks or month, I think, that Julia is in a good place these day.  Still unsatisfied with Bay Cove, but more willing to look beyond her current feelings, more accepting of small transitions, more able to regulate over small mishaps and much more comfortable in herself and her surroundings.  Not all the time, mind you, but more regularly.  And this, even though, we have/are weekend traveling 4 out of 5 weekends last and this month.

This weekend was our weekend home.  We vegged out a bit, watched British Bake Off, etc.,  We made a list of what Julia would not do and what she would/could do. Julia usually hates lists. On that list was using clay, something she has always been creative with but hasn’t touched in more than a year.  It has been almost two years since Julia stopped making art every day. For a while she was willing to do something once a week with her art mentor, but when her mentor became ill, Julia was not even willing to do that. Julia was a child who made some art every day. If anything, keeping her from sketching in text books, on binders, on homework, on programs, on any piece of paper was next to impossible. She she played with clayed, figured out sewing a stuffed cat character; Julia could do any art she put her mind to.

And I have stormed the heavens these last two years that her impulse to create would return, afraid that it would not. And carrying the very sad idea that I contributed to the dying of that impulse.

So, yesterday, after church, she went with someone who is spending some time with her, to Michael’s and they bought some sculpty.

And she made this:

And I was close to crying.  I am trying not to cheer or optimistically predict a return to art making.  No, not yet.  I’ll just take pictures and share.

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beginnings again

It is a beginning of September and my traditional time to return to what fuels my creativity and thus, my soul.  Cool weather, the first sight of the un-greening of leaves, and children back to school.  And a morning ritual that I have abandoned during a summer because who in their right mind can be disciplined during the hot, sun drenched days with a demanding offspring. But right now, the house is quiet, I am sitting at my desk and the only thing to do is to look for and return to how work happens. It is a return and it is always new.

I seem to have many loose threads that go together fine in my living them but don’t make for a cohesive blog post.  And I haven’t spent enough time writing this summer to keep them all going.

Baby Alfie is two weeks old. He has presented himself as a child who needs to be held to sleep which is tough on his parents during the night, but as the visiting grandma of the day to sit and hold a little baby who is happily sleeping in my arms is such delight.  He who I did not expect continues to surprise me. There is no doubt that I have loved my children and Wilbur, but I have never been drawn to infants.  This one has opened a new place for me.

And it is worth noting.

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alfie ray borick

Our newest little person made his debut very, very early this morning.  After going to the hospital around midnight and being sent home, Cheshire and Justin headed back only a few hours later. Alfie Ray Borick was born at 4:15 a.m. weighing in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces. 

I got to visit around lunch time and hold Alfie and watch his face and hands move.  He is such a sweet bundle. He is an old soul.

I don’t have pictures of mama or daddy — what was I thinking?  But just look at that face!

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muta

Muta died last night right after Julia left for the movies.  I was glad that she wasn’t home.  It wasn’t a bad death but it happened right in front of me.  I don’t know how Julia would have handled it.

Muta hadn’t eat at all yesterday. In the last week, even on appetite enhancers, anti-nausea meds and steroids, his eating has been sporadic and he has thrown up nearly everything I’ve given him. There was nothing more the vet could do for him. He had slept on my bed just three nights ago, jumping up as always. The last two days, he stayed mostly in the bathroom on the rug which he liked and under the kitchen table.

Julia left for the movies around 5:20; I was cutting tomatoes to roast.  Muta threw up under the kitchen table.  He laid back down and some of his fur was in the vomit although by this point, vomit was mostly a clear liquid.  I wanted to get the tomatoes in the oven and so didn’t immediately clean up the floor.  A few minutes later, Muta got up and walked to the back door.  He meowed very loudly.  He usually asked to go outside but not in this voice which had a strident sound.  Since he has been sick, I’ve kept him inside but during this last week, I had been letting him out. Sometimes he went into the backyard, but mostly he kept to the porch, finding a bit of sun and stretching out.  

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