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.

new machines

 

Gluten free banana pancakes with date spread.  I took a number of pictures of the stove and fridge and they looked silly here, but the food is okay.

Dreary early spring in Wisconsin.  Yes, a few brilliant days come our way but lots of cold, damp days.  Is this our British weather?  Julia wants to wear spring clothes, especially light jackets, but relents after opening the morning door and standing on the front porch.  I am no better, putting away hats and gloves and then retrieving them when I find myself shaking outside.  Still, my neighbor’s daffodils, the ones that are in her protected side yard and bloom weeks before mine out front, bloom.  They bud and stall.  They are beaten down by wind and hail.  I pick a few and put them on my kitchen window.  These three will have the benefit of light and warmth.  These three bloom for days.  Almost without end.

Last week, my new appliances were delivered.  They are not perfect—the fridge door is dented and the only fix is a new door to be ordered.  The top of the stove is cracked and there is a question whether there is some part to be changed or a new stove to order.  There is more to this in a paragraph or two but I have given myself over to the glory of fully working machines.

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Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 0

cake

IMG_4527Snow-rain-sleet stopped and the roads are looking better after the morning rush. My day  looks clear and it takes no time to fill it up with the gym, cooking, maybe baking, the wash, reading, and finally sending out a resume for what appears to be a ‘perfect’ job. Julia is in school late today so she can go to the Harry Potter club. The after school club rules require that kids first go to a homework club right after school and so she will come home without her usual math sheet. Reading and cello practice will be all that is on her agenda for the evening. She will rush through both so she can get back to her sewing. Julia is still hand sewing and using felt most of the time. I am determined to give her a good sewing machine lesson during the upcoming long weekend.  She still does not think in terms of what the machine can do for her.  I don’t want to stop her hand sewing but a quick, strong seem is a lovely thing!  And it stays together.  I question if she should learn pattern following right now or whether coming up with her own should just continue.  I am thinking of sewing along side of her, using a pattern.  Will she notice?

Isn’t it still January?  Continue reading →

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macarons

IMG_4467There are all sorts of ‘new year’ experiences and feelings that come and go, some leaving impressions, some not even marked.  Anniversaries with their days before and afterglows can be awful and terrifying and tender and lovely.  Today is my birthday and this year it is marked with visits from two of my favorite people, one of whom braved a winter storm-not really-and a gathering tonight.  It is, will be the most festive birthday I have had in a long time.  It is the first time I have asked for festivities in a long time.

And yet, I waver. Continue reading →

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week of thanks

A week of New York City, Queens, in particular with excursions into Manhattan, the center of  . . .

Julia noticed that the streets of the West Village were “like Torino but in New York.”  She marveled at the windows of Li-Lac Chocolates with dinosaurs, old telephones and a chess set in chocolate.

Julia and I visited Google, as the guest of a cousin.  It is a wonderful, strange, some what disconcerting world.  Huge floors with unusual work spaces– Julia wandered into one, quicker than I could stop her, attracted by the toys on top of a computer–play spaces including a Lego work space that Julia is still talking about.  Honestly, their wall of Lego parts was as big any at the Lego stores.  It is an edgy design, some cool Soho and loft like, some gritty industrial.  Along some halls there are cubbies and hideaways  and the cafeteria, the one that we saw, feeds employees like an upscale restaurant for free.  What would it be like to belong to that club?  Taken care of or shackled?  Or both.  It was fun!  And vaguely scary.  Like dipping into a world apart from the city.  Apart from any life that I have lived.

We spent most of an afternoon at the Guggenheim’s Burri exhibit.  It was all very modern and abstract.  Julia has not been very interested in the abstract but she listened to the commentary (I finally figured out how to download a museum’s app! Yay!) and appreciated many of the pieces.  There was a large canvas that had sheets of metal attached and soldered together on it.  After listening that Burri lived close to a town with notable Renaissance frescos in the churches and how he was influenced by that work, Julia noticed that the solder lines were like a crucifix and the few red splotches are like Jesus’ blood.

Well, I didn’t see that.  All that abstract work, prompted realism and coloring.

Cheshire took us to the Flushing China Town which she claimed was bigger than Manhattan’s.  It was huge, a bit less polished than its Manhattan cousin.  We ate fresh noodles in broth with a few kinds of meat, green veggies and spicy red stuff.  The streets were lit with more signs per building than could possibly be read, reminding me of old pictures of the Lower East Side, long before my tenure in the city.

A few days before we left for NYC, I managed to buy tickets to “Spring Awakening,” a musical revival produced by Deaf West Theater.  It is as splendid as what I have read suggests.  A musical with deaf and hearing actors, one in a wheel chair.  Deaf actors dancing!  An assemble so tight that they seem to breathe as one.  A chilling story of Victorian (?) oppression and teenagers being the fearless explorers that they naturally are.  A wonderful set, incredible lighting-such rich fare for eyes and ears.

I wanted to see this show.

But

It has a limited run and tickets were scarce and expensive.  I didn’t imagine I had a chance of seeing it and these days I suffer more than usual from not seeing theater.

But

I was enamored by the show and joined its website a few months back. Then last week, there was an announcement that in honor of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) 25th anniversary, they would be offering a few $25 tickets for thanksgiving week.  I clicked through and bought two for the Wednesday matinee (the only tickets I could find) before I knew who I would take, so amazed that I really got them!  A friend and I sat in god’s heaven-the ensemble work only enhanced by our bird’s eye view.  It was marvelous!  And I was very grateful for the gift.

We celebrated at Cheshire’s boyfriend’s family with more food and conversation than any one person could take on.  It was delightful with at least one parting comment that someone hadn’t gotten to really talk to me and a hope I would be back before next thanksgiving.  Cheshire surprised me by arranging for an old friend from Woodstock (the town, not the festival) to join us.  We talked our way through the 24 hours of his visit.  Wise friends are truly a gift.

I wished I had taken more pictures.  I am happy I could enjoy the presentness of the moments without the need to record.  And on return, I fit back into my day-to-day, squirm a bit not much, and I feel a growing awareness that I will return.  I do need to live in that city again.

 

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 2

Falling

IMG_4263I want to capture Autumn and Fall in words.  I start over and over again.  And fall short of my expectations and so don’t post.  And Autumn and Fall move on.  Oh, the metaphors.  How many stories put aside in search of better words?

Half of the trees, maybe more, stand naked. There is a brilliant mix of orange and gold in the background interspersed with faded green and divided by the dark bare limbs of the giants who are the first to retire to their long sleep. There are fewer trees that are seemingly lit from within and I stare hard at those that remain, memorizing the effect.  The days have turned warm again which enhances the sweet smell of decomposing leaves that crinkle under my feet by the back door.  Does anything smell as good as fallen leaves?

And I have a little bit of myself back again.

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pain

An old picture from November 2010
An old picture from November 2010

I have been writing.  Lots of crappy, more than the usual self indulgent missives.  Complaints of pain and great bouquets of self pity.  You get the picture.

Enough.

Today, I woke up to great gratitude, however, and wondered if I had something else, better, wiser to say about this latest incursion into this wilderness of pain.

Perhaps.

And I feel wildly, deliciously self indulgent.  Enough so that I can imagine it useful to more than my very singular self.

Pain.  And gratitude.

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low & bitchy

IMG_2276Trough
~ Judy Brown ~

There is a trough in waves,
A low spot
Where horizon disappears
And only sky
And water
Are our company.

And there we lose our way
Unless
We rest, knowing the wave will bring us
To its crest again.

There we may drown
If we let fear
Hold us within its grip and shake us
Side to side,
And leave us flailing, torn, disoriented.

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Apples and honey

 8:21 a.m. My teen is asleep. Slow Sunday morning with a meeting for me at noon and a session for her with her art teacher. We should both enjoy an early fall afternoon.

40 degrees this morning. Aide memoire that seasonal change is relentless. That last heat wave, the one that coincided with the beginning of school in our unairconditioned schools allowed me to slip back into flip flops and hold onto capris. Julia has worn summer skirts and bare legs for two weeks. But I’ve been shutting windows at night, still determined to keep them open during the day to bring fresh air inside. Windows stay closed for such a long time in Wisconsin. I keep the window by my bedside opened at night almost to freezing but the opening shrinks and I need my down comforter much sooner than if I simply closed it. Julia, always cold, is huddled down like a little bear. We need to change out her bedding today and hope for a few more days of throwing off the blankets. We need to see what can be salvaged of last year’s fall wardrobe after summer’s growth spirt.  Continue reading →

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happy new year

First day of First Grade
First day of First Grade

First day of school.  Forgot to take a picture.  Other than that, a good send off.  Julia picked her clothes last night, woke up with a minimum of complaints, did morning routine (a week with printed schedules is paying off) and walked into the playground alone.  I hope she made it to the classroom.

I watched from the car.  A moment.  Julia in the middle of the small middle school playground.  She looks around.  She begins to approach one cluster of girls and then another without making it to either.  What is she thinking?  There is still no friend, no one she can be sure of a greeting from.  No one she recognizes as someone she can be sure of.  I know of at least a few.  If I could, I would mold a friend from clay and breathe life into the form for my girl.  However, realistically, if this approach might be considered realistic, Julia is still not a good friend herself.  It is her inability to do more than greet and exchange non sequiturs with someone that keeps her from developing friendships.  My heart goes out to her — I want to keep her spirit brave until she figures out conversation and friendship.  I want her continue to be willing.  I worry (as if worry would do any good) that she will decide that other people are not worth the work of learning how to communicate with them.

I watch from the car.  A moment.  Julia stands in the middle of the school playground.  Alone.

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anniversary

imageSetting: San Marco Piazza at 6. Definitely late afternoon and not early evening. We sit on the shady side of the square at one of those impossibly expensive cafes. The sitting charge, usually a euro or two at very nice restaurants, is 6€ here. Julia eating a sundae, gelato, whipped cream, chocolate and bananas. She will finish it, I am sure but this is probably super. It is huge.

I have a tanquerai and tonic with ice. Ice! The waiter brings all this on a silver tray that sits on our small table. There is also a small glass bowl full of potato chips and another with olives. Good inducements to drink more.

As romantic as this could be imagined, there are more tourist families here than couples gazing into each other’s eyes. Pure smaltz and packaged dreams but it is where I am today. Five years ago today. Another anniversary of a living I didn’t know I’d have. The birth day of this life. Another year without David. I could toast myself for making it this far. For observing in Venice, not hiding at home or even surrounding myself with friends. A five piece band strikes up, begin the beguine. Julia sways as if she is dancing. There is still a lot of Frank Sinatra played in cafes here and songs from old Broadway musicals. I don’t feel foolish listening at home to Italian pop from 30 years ago.

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Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 1