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October's Fading Beauty

 

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Is there any more beautiful and lustrous a month as October in its waning days?

 

The mornings are dark when we awake and even the dogs hesitate before we walk out the door in the morning. There is a strange alienation to a morning that brings you into darkness instead of light, yet it feels like a rhythm that we understand, and the leaves turning yellow can pretend to be dawn's light touching the earth.

 

In the hair salon tonight, getting the monthly roots touch up and hair cut, a customer opens the door and a draft of thick, rich woodsmoke sneaks in around her legs and suddenly the white and chrome shop salon with the clean as a table top glass tiled floor is sanctified with memories of winter, incense, woods, pine, campfires, apples, maple syrup, bonfires, and Halloween.  

I teeter a little as my hair dresser empathizes with my loss, asking no real questions, just volunteering her own experience, understanding to well,  loosening my tongue though I feel wrong speaking about it while the lady next to me listens, her hair painted up with a rich brown paste. My voice breaks at one point, and I change the conversation, inquire about her kids. She hugs me for a long time when I leave.

We opened the dining room table for Saturday night dinner. I am happy in the kitchen, feel grounded and comfortable mixing up a bechamel for mac and cheese, but the end result is a mish mash of food, too much, too little, and we are all a bit flummoxed by what is missing, as much as what is present.

 

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The table remains open all week. I spread out watercolor paper, paints, brushes, washi tape, stencils, art paper, ephemera, rules, pens, crayons. I make some layouts, attempt a few sketches. It sits there all week, reproachful, scattered, messy as the mail mixes in with the project and the chairs get piled with bags and jackets and dog collars and CVS bags. I do not even try to straighten it up and find a place deep within that enables me to ignore it, detached, uncaring, and sad.

 

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But then - I find the colors to use, the paper I need, the images I want to paint. I realize it's about the space within, not the ingredients; about the setting, not the flavor; about memory, not recipe. From a chore to epiphant, it transforms into just exactly what I need to be doing today, tonight, and all the moments in between.

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Because, after all, that's all we really have: the moments in between. Sunny afternoons, rainy mornings, long fingers of fog wrapping round the wine red and golden coins of leaves on the mountain, the red teapot whistling, the dogs hesitating before crossing the threshold into a morning dark as night, the lavender leaving a trace of summer on their legs as they rub their snouts into the leaves, the first apple pie and cider donuts, the hollow sickening sound of the pumpkin I drop while trying to shut the car door, the bright bits of construction paper leaves I tape to the window like a first grade classroom, the scented candles, the branch of brussel sprouts that just fits into the vegetable drawer, the drapes pulled against the evening, the Shabbat candles shining on my mother's pictures, the sisters sitting around the table after dessert, my nephew sitting in my mother's usual chair, the hole around the table filling in with the next generation,  the first morning I put on black suede ankle boots, the new calendars filling the shop windows, the joy of Kraft paper and gouache brushstrokes, beef stew, and most of all, greeting cards that gather like winnowed leaves in the corners of my mother's apartment, pretty storage boxes tucked under the bed, in the closet, the cedar chest, her dresser, fileld with bright colored bits of paper and sentimental verse from 50 years of relatives, friends, children, mother, aunt, sisters, brothers, cousins, father, and two notes from beyond the grave, "Enjoy these cards, love you all, Mommy."


Doctor, my eyes have seen the years And the slow parade of fears without crying


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I am watching a Scottishy mystery series on PBS. Or I am trying to because I am not really paying close attention and after an hour in, I'm not even certain who the characters are. To make it more complicated, Mr. Pom came in and started messing around wth his electronic clock. You need a manual just to change the alarm and somehow it came unplugged and needed to be reset.  The he went into The Man Cave to read a magazine and discovered that I'd swiped the lightbulb from the lamp on the bookcase.  I had a defense: my bulb was out and he told me he would get me one and never did. You know the kitchen cabinet is quite a walk downstairs. One flight at least. So much yelling for late in the evening. Consequently: don't have a clue what's going on but someone killed someone and the innocent was charged as the perpetrator and then committed suicide twenty years later. That's all I know.

When it first came on, and I heard a British accent and saw that the frumpy female Inspector was played by Brenda Blethyn,  I immediately thought, I should call mom and tell her to put it on. And then I burst into tears. After I calmed down, I started sewing a little beading on something and in a few minutes, I was calm. Beading and a Scottish mystery series. Thoughts of my mom watching all the different BBC and PBS mystery series and the challenge at Christmas to get her a DVD of one she hasn't seen. After more beading (due to Cucciolo pulling the beads off when I went to the bathroom)  I decided that instead of being upset, I should watch PBS mystery series every night and it would be a solace to the loneliness. A connection between my mother and myself. I could even start watching westerns, which she loved, however, I find them excruciatingly boring, so probably not.  

And then this thought:would watching Rosemary and Thyme be a comforting connection, or am I actually turning into my mother? Will I start going to church regularly again? Will I bug my own kids to go? Will I slowly morph into her and begin playing mah jong? Would that be comforting to me and totally weird out everyone else?

Perhaps I'll just stick to a little sewing and beading and the occasional PBS series. Would y'all mind sending my email on Sunday nights to remind me to watch The Midwife? And tell me for pete's sake when the heck the new British Sherlock Holmes with that guy with the weird eyes is playing?

For now, good night. Check back tomorrow to see if I made lentil soup and froze it in little one serving containers. And if you come over and find post it notes on the kitchen cabinets that say, "Call cousin Marie" and "change oil in Toyota" and find the countertops littered with to do lists and notes to myself written on the back of junk mail (instead of on all the stationery and or in all the pretty notesbooks 5 daughters gave her for 50 years)  call the doctor. Not that I'll go to the doctor. And that will be the last clue that the morphing has taken place.



The Earth Wept

 

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Dear friends,

My family joins me in sending our utmost  gratitude and love to all of you for your condolences, your warm embraces, and your messages of understanding and compassion.  My mom, my sweet, sweet mom, passed peacefully during the night in her own bed. I like to think that the last thing she saw was my Dad's photograph on her dresser. Her death was exactly what she always spoke of wanting and we are happy for her and horribly sad for ourselves. 

 Our  family and friends have been completely amazing and rallied around us during this extremely difficult time.     I want to especially thank my Uncle Richard, my mother's brother  who married my daughter and son in law just 4 months ago, and my brothers in law,  and most of all  my husband, for taking charge of the situation when we daughters were incapable of nothing more than tears.

 

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Today we buried our mother in a soft October rain. On the day of my father's funeral, it also rained, and my mother wrote into the guestbook from the wake, "The Earth Wept"'

I will never be able to adequately  describe the feeling that swelled within me when my mother's casket was carried into the church by my son, my nephews, my son in law, and my brother in law. As our entire family walked down the aisle of the church behind my mother,  I was overwhelmed with the realization that she and my father were responsible for creating all of us and the connections that we shared with aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews and brothers and sisters who walked with us. It was just too bittersweet, to painfully joyful for my heart to bear.

 

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I am sharing with you the eulogy that I wrote for my mom. My beautiful niece Laura read the remembrance for us at my mother's funeral Mass.

 

EULOGY FOR GRANDMA

        The passing of a mother at any age is not something that can be comprehended in a day, or two, or three.  A mother’s passing is not a singular, isolated event, but a rolling percussion of thunder and lightening that threatens to destroy that fragile roof over our heads that we call “family”. The height of the storm will eventually pass, but the sound and fury will echo through the hill and valleys of the rest of our lives. And it will  take the rest of our lives to wrap our arms around her absence and enfold it into the smallest chamber of our hearts.

         For our family, Marietta is the last link with the generation of women who wore hose, white gloves, and pillbox hats whenever they left their house; who worked as homemakers and made do on a dime; who scraped up the money  to send their kids to Catholic schools; and who remained faithfully married until death do they part.

         There is no one left to tell us stories of living on Second Street, in the house where she was born, where her grandmother made her own tomato paste on a screen set in the sun, and where 3 generations lived on separate floors like a layer cake filled with family. She took with her the stories of Uncle Baker and Cousin Dolly, the cottage on Rocky Point, and the moving of the house on Cleveland Court to make room for the construction of the New England Thruway. She is the last one who understood how important it was to know that there are THREE different recipes for the Taralla cookies, and of course, her’s was the best.

        She lived her life by very simple rules and she demanded the same of her children and grandchildren. She went to church every Sunday, even if on vacation. If weather or illness kept her from church, she would not leave the house that day for any reason. If you played cards or Scrabble with her then you best know all the rules because she did not give any slack for age or ignorance.

         The highlight of her week was her mah jong game with Marianne, Ellie, and Lida. These ladies have played mah jong once a week for 45 years. We always knew when it was her turn for mah jong because she told us about it a week in advance, going through the list she had in her head to vacuum, clean the bathroom, and to buy a piece of cake to serve. She was very sad when the New Rochelle Women’s Club disbanded in the spring, and she had framed a picture taken at the last luncheon of all the surviving members.

        Despite her age, she read voraciously, learned how to download books from the library onto her Kindle, sent us email reminders about family birthdays and conversations with relatives, and played Words With Friends on her Ipad with all her grandchildren. Just a few days before she died, she drove to Glen Island because, as she said, she could not stand sitting in the house one more day. On Friday, she went with Alicia to have her hair cut, to the grocery store, and to the bank. She was fiercely independent, and would not even discuss any other living arrangement than in her own apartment, surrounded by all her “stuff”.

        There is no doubt that the single most important event in Marietta’s life was meeting our Grandpa Bill, when they were both worked at Wares Department Store, the site of the old Bloomingdales on Main Street. A few years older and a soldier returning from the war, he scandalized our great grandmother, Mae, which we are sure was part of the attraction. Despite Grandma Molea’s initial reaction, they were married in 1946 and lived with Grandma’s family for 14 years before buying their house on Claire Avenue.

        They loved to spend Sunday afternoons “taking a ride” and they thought nothing of driving for a long weekend to Montreal or to Nova Scotia for a summer vacation. They went to dinner dances, had monthly card games with their friends, and both loved to read and play Scrabble. They took two trips to Italy with their friends and Grandma fulfilled a lifelong wish to visit Sciacca, the town in Sicily where her grandparents were born. She even found the very church where her grandmother was baptized. 

        When our grandfather passed away 22 years ago, they had been married 44 years. Since then, our grandmother never stopped wearing her wedding rings or signing her name was “Mrs. T. W. Benedetto”.  She has been waiting for these 22 years to be reunited with him and his picture has remained on her dresser as the last thing she saw every night before she went to sleep.

         The rings on Grandma’s fingers up to the day of her death are a symbol of the greatest legacy that she left for her family. Their marriage was the model for her daughters that marriage is love and hard work and happiness and tears, and above all, forever. Their parenting was the role model for us that parents set rules and enforce them and that parents love you and deserve your love and respect.

         This legacy was only possible through their great faith in God. They both believed that they would be reunited and spend their lives together in eternity. When my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer and died within only 3 months, neither of them ever expressed a doubt in their faith in God or accused God of abandoning them.    Both were steadfast in their belief that God would support them in their trials; that He would give them solace in their sorrows; and reward them in the next life.

          After she died, we found on her dresser a little box that held a tiny wooden rosary. Under the rosary was a yellow post-it note on which she had written,  “Rosary that we bought in Assisi that Daddy held in his hand when he was dying.” We’ve placed that with her so that she may have it with her for eternity.

         We are quite sure that God has lifted her up in the palm of His hand and that she is dancing on the face of the moon with Grandpa, listening to Frank Sinatra without her hearing aids, and surrounded by all the family that she missed so greatly. We cannot express in any greater way our love for her than to say that we pray that the Holy Spirit raise up in us the great faith that our grandparents had that we will all meet again. We ask that God support us as he did Marietta and Bill with strength to face this life without her presence as mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, cousin, and friend.

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        Rest in peace, my sweet, smart, loving, knowledgeable, curious, strict, and  courageous mom.  I dread tomorrow more than I dreaded today. Because tomorrow, we begin our lives without you.


October-Lust

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Fall is a great time of year. Not as great as summer, of course, and I think that is because I don't take vacation in October. I think if I took vacation in October and I could wander the woods collecting yarrow, crab apple, and sumac blossoms, and dance around a bonfire with cups of mead whilst wearing Vivian Westwood-style suede thigh highs and strangely draped velvet cloaks fastened with huge antique brooches and  pheasant feathers in my hair, I might kick Summer to the curb.  ( A friend  is on vacation and posting magical photos of isolated beach cottages in windswept Northern California.Me want to go there.)

If you take away the no vacation thing, and the getting dark too early thing, I think Fall is the most slammin' season after summer. Here's the thing about Fall: it's transitional, but it's not all wishy washy like Spring. For example, although my head is always filled with Mayday processions to the Virgin Mary Statue in my white dotted swiss cap sleeved dress with baby's breath crown and strawberry festivals where I frolic in vintage Laura Ashley, the reality is usually freezing cold rain and wind until about June 25, when God flips the switch to "HOT" and we all bitch about air conditioning.

No, Fall is Fall. Sure, we may have warm days and cold days, crystalline apple picking days and horribly rainy cold days, but damn, those leaves are changing, the garden is getting all frowsy (love that word) and no matter, I'm going to get one, two, or a dozen pumpkins of various shapes and sizes on my front porch, hang the fake yet tasteful Autumn Wreath with plaster of paris pears and synthetic colored leaves, and I will at some point despite ALL my resolve, eat my weight in cinnamon donuts and drink a little hot apple cider (both of which hit my bloodstream like alcohol and leave me feeling like I have boulders growing in my small intestine).

Fall is Nature's big ol' blow out. Fall is God sticking His tongue out at us: Nah, nah, nana, look at all this pretty eye candy! And then: Woosh -----------Snow.

And it's over.

So, my complaint is this: Why most every single state, region, municipality, city, town, and village have to have their fall festivals in October, specifically over Columbus Day? Because I have many, many prior engagements over Columbus Weekend and the weekend before getting ready for those engagements, so I always miss Ol'Timey Antique Fair, Apple Pickin' at Ye Olde Apple Orchard with Fresh Apple Pies and those Damn Cinnamon Donuts, and Arts and Crafts From Around the World Seen On a Hay Wagon Followed by a Vintage Bonfire Flapjack and Smoked Bacon Breakfast.

Sigh.

There's way too many fattening andmoney-frittering olde timey things in Fall when I am up to my earlobes in heavy court calendars, multiple depositions, and the wild ride called How ManyFiles Can We Close Before the End of the Year Contest.

So while I am alternately obsessively reviewing files in the hopes of finding one I can settle, and writing up endless deposition summaries while prepping for court conferences, furiously writing motions and oppositions to motions, and the added pressure of planning art workshops and taking art workshops, you all go out there and buy lots of quarter sawn oak Morris chairs (or these day, midcentury vintage swedish sofas),  or pick up tons of vintage canning jars that you cleverly transform into your Thanksgiving dessert goblets, paint pumpkins with turquoise acrylic paints (to die for - and not sure why, but must do it very soon), and garland your porch with corn cobs and glycerined leaves, know that in approximately ten days I am going to explode into Fall Craftland and beat you all at it times ten, okay?

Just wait - I have shells, acorn hats (adorably gathered on the Cape!), felted wool, scraps of velvet, gourds drying, tiny, tiny starfish ready to be adorned somewhere, swaths of richly colored paisley scarves waiting to be draped over the back of sofas piled with quilts and pillows adorned with whale cut outs, and fake pumpkins ready to be painted and REAL pumpkins ready to be carved. I do.

Just you wait. Fall, wait for me, k?