Category: Journaling My Days

I journaled for years on paper and I expect to be doing it in some form until my last days. In short summary, I teach mindfulness to parents of kids with challenges; I garden as often and as much as I can in Wisconsin and I am working through the threads of grief six years after my husband’s death. I am very grateful for finding and chasing the joy in this unexpected life.

pointing towards a new season

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It has taken the entire summer to get Julia journaling on paper.  Previously and for a number of years, she journaled during the school year on her iPad.  My aim for this summer was to get her to write and draw on a page and although there was a lot to write about and draw during our Australian travels, she was not always very happy about doing any of it.  Finally, finally, finally, this week writing and drawing have been done with minimal reminders.  Sometimes it is even choice work. Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 3

beach day

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Time is crazy.  I’ve been chatting with Cheshire and some friends back home.  I think it is last night.  I look at the dates on this blog and they are not necessarily reflective of when I posted.  Not exactly.  I acknowledge how tied I am to clock and calendar.  How would I do in a Star Trek universe? Jumping galaxies, condensing and expanding time. I’m overthinking.  I am inclined to hold the time differences in my head—it doesn’t work.  I write, I post, I text.  I just hope I haven’t woken anyone up. Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 4

liturgical year

It is Thursday and we’ve been out of internet range except for select minutes for days. I have many pictures to post from our incredible hikes in the outback, the center of Australia. There is no way they will upload on hotel internet but I will have access to better soon.

Today is the eighth anniversary of David’s death. I wrote what comes next earlier today.

I never understood the church year and as a kid I wondered why from year to year the stories did not change because some of the repetition bored me. Now I have my own liturgical year, March to July, transplant to expiration. I can relive it in an instant, scenes with vivid recall like yesterday, clearer than yesterday. Eight journeys around the sun so far. Those early ones when the best I could do was to find care for Julia while I allowed for a good long wallow in pain. Then, the years of Miyazaki movies and Chinese takeout. First just the two of us and then with friends (Bless them for their indulgence).Then sitting in piazza San Marco with gin and gelato and observing in NYC with Cheshire and Indian food. Today, waking up in a cold tent, cuddling with Julia for warmth under heavy blankets. Traveling the Australian outback with a group of people we didn’t know three days ago. Last night, arriving at a camp site not set up for us, we made up beds and cooked a noodle dinner together, eating so late that Julia’s eyes were closing. No way I could have imagined today eight years ago. No way could I have imagined the company we would keep this day. Grieving, observing, and one day, not quite yet, celebrating the years and the life I/we share with David. Continue reading →

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the calm before

“How quiet, how quiet the chamber is . . .”

A line from one of my favorite songs (“Is Anybody There?”) in one of my favorite musicals (1776).  It is running over and over in my head, the voice I hear is, of course, William Daniels, the original John Adams.  

We leave for Sydney tomorrow evening.  I have a list, albeit short, to accomplish and two therapy appointments today.  If I finish what needs to be finished before the middle of the day, we could see a movie tonight but I am not depending on that extravagance. Continue reading →

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quiet

E5A05415-9239-4230-AA79-BC1EF0ADF90FQuiet.

Not much of that the last two weeks.  The city is tearing up my street, both streets on my corner.  The crew port-o-potty adorns my terrace garden bed. From 6:45 a.am to 6:00 p.m., 6 days a week—scrapers scrape, diggers dig and hit stuff in the ground, pounders, earth movers, buriers of huge pieces of metal and all of it beeps mercilessly when they back up.  I complained to whoever listened and grumped to myself often for days. Then I stopped insisting that my daily round remain the same and got out of the house as much as possible.  After awhile the persistence to hold fast to my daily round and the desire to escape as much as possible settled into some middle space—I stopped complaining and reclaimed the house when I needed it, mindful of my tolerance.  I needed to open windows and turn on fans and welcome (almost) the road dust.  I started greeting the crew outside my windows and they’ve been helpful making some space for me to get my car out of the driveway and out of my street.  I am on the verge of baking them muffins. Continue reading →

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self-pity

9DD6D52A-8C94-4DDF-BC20-243AFE0DDD5D“Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self-pity.”
                         ~Joan Didion

With a very big sigh of relief, I count another mother’s day over.  My feelings about the holiday remain the same as they were four years ago and I am still not proud of them.  Of course, I am not proud. The feelings are still all about self-pity.  Which is ugly and such a damm nuisance. 

When I first read Joan Didion’s “The year of magical thinking,” I did not understand those first  lines quoted above.  I rather shamefacedly admit that I didn’t understand them for a very long time.  What was so bad about some very well deserved self-pity? Continue reading →

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coming of age

AE0CBD2F-5AED-4BE1-BC55-3651153B147EIt is spring!  Tulip are on parade.  I’ve changed to capris and flip-flops. Around town the Redbud trees are in bloom.  They are my favorite spring trees. I “saw” them for the first time as I drove from Bloomington to Indianapolis for my first post-law school job which (as a classmates reminds me on Facebook today) was 26 years ago.  I planted a Redbud in my Indianapolis garden and though there is no room to plant one now, I eagerly await their blooming every year.   Continue reading →

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dystopian gardening 

7822C7DC-92EE-42E4-86EC-B71B7E2D7C69Has no one else noticed?  There are very few daffodils blooming.  This unnerving phenomenon is particularly apparent in my garden.  I have planted shit loads of daffs and narcissus over the years and I anticipate enough blooms to cut  several dozen inside. “A host of golden daffodils.”  This year’s crop, front and back garden is a handful, maybe 7. No, not even 7.  My next neighbor usually has a drift on the side of her house facing my side door.  It is a micro climate that blooms in full glory at least a week before mine.  This year, she has less than a dozen. Continue reading →

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reclaiming passover

73294681-8865-471C-BD31-9183956D91C9It seems like a long time ago now that we, make that I, reclaimed Christmas.  I don’t expect that the winter holidays will always be perfectly smooth but our last Christmas and then New Years cruise seemed to reset my holiday clock better than anything else.  Distinct differences and concrete plans worked miracles.  Prior to last year, I was not only missing our pre-death holiday ‘routine’ but also missing the friends with whom we shared many thanksgivings and a few Christmases—people and plans I thought would never change.  Then there was change.  Ah, embracing those Noble Truths.

Last Friday, another holiday clock ‘got’ reset— Passover.  David and I enjoyed hosting seders since before we were living together.  How many years ago was that? (Only Jan knows.)  Our seders evolved and sometimes disappeared while we were in school or traveling.  When we lived on Washington Boulevard in Indy, we had room for big parties and we indulged.  I don’t remember when David started writing our Haggadahs or when we began expecting Cheshire to play or write something for the celebration.  We cooked, many times for days.  I think it was the only time I’d take a day off work to get ready. Continue reading →

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first drafting and of course, cheer

650E3845-351D-46D9-A4FB-20D4AC733C3BThe cleaners were here this morning.  When they come to clean, I retreat to a coffee shop, indulge in breakfast and latte, and plan a day.  Then, I library-ed, paying a fine before taking out paper books and books on CD.  Two travel books on Australia, another Percy Jackson for Julia, an Annie Lamont and some memoir for me.  Then, home again for my regular round.

The near-daily round was instituted to get me writing daily—Italian practice, fiction and spiritual reading, meditation, gratitude journal.  I give myself credit for house work and Julia related email.  All in warm up for some pretty awful first draft fiction. <Gulp> I accept the awfulness and keep going.  Day after day.  Every so often I look back and find a word, a phrase, once a sentence that could be included in a second draft.  Oh, I have so much ability to produce dreck. Continue reading →

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