Falling faintly through the universe

This might seem an odd choice for Christmas Eve, but as fate would have it this year has become the time for a rather different sort of Christmas.  I'm happy to be home, once again surrounded by the simple things that heal and soothe me, but am all too constantly aware that this wound that has been wrenched across our family will take more than a glass of mulled wine in front of a wood fire to cure.  This Christmas, death and loss have laid down their burdensome cargo just a little too close to the door.  I listen to Christmas carols, light candles, cook food, and pour an extra slug of rum into eggnog on the sly.  I laugh at Ralphie, I change the station when "Santa Baby" comes on, I finish the last of my wrapping, and I look into the eyes of the people I love and see the happiness tinged with hollowness that I feel reflected back at me.  I am happy to be home, happy to be in my favorite place surrounded by two of my favorite people on one of my favorite days of the year.  But even as I laugh, stick tape, sing along, or stir vanilla into eggs and cream, a touch of sadness is just over my left shoulder.  I see it all the time, just out of the corner of my eye, coloring my vision of everything.

This morning, my Mom, Dad, and I skyped with Eve and Bradley in Okinawa and we read "A Christmas Memory."  All three of us stateside took turns passing the book around when a particular sentence or passage made us choke up.  It must seem so weird to outsiders that one of our most precious Christmas traditions is one where we all end up in tears.  I guess it's cathartic in a way.  "A Christmas Memory" is not supposed to be read in the morning, but we made allowances for the 14-hour time difference all the way over in Japan.  And after that, the folks and I made breakfast, cleaned up, took naps, made dinner, cleaned up, opened our stocking gifts (another Christmas Eve tradition), and then had neighbors over for drinks.  It went pretty well; we all had a good time and lots of laughs.

I just finished making our Baked French Toast for tomorrow morning, the fire is burning, a glass of malbec is at my elbow, and I'm about to look through our "Christmas in America" coffee table book, which happens to be one of my own private little Christmas Eve traditions once everyone else has settled down for their winter's nap.

As always, I am happy to be here.  Not everything is how I would wish it, but then again life never is.

Wherever you are, whatever your situation, I say truly that I hope this holiday is a happy one for you.  Filled with family, friends, devotion, gaiety, vodka crans, whatever it takes.  Merry Christmas.

For my last (or maybe next-to-last) Christmas Post, I give you a piece that remains very close to my heart.  One that has very happy memories for me despite its sad subject matter.  It's a Christmas story, although maybe not of the type you're used to.  I'd like to take this moment to say Thank You to Dr. Coilin Owens, my grad school James Joyce professor, whose enthusiasm and boundless knowledge of Joyce was completely infectious.

Because it really needs no preamble, here is a link to the complete text of The Dead, by James Joyce.

And because it's long and I know most of you won't read it, or at least won't read all the way to the end, here are the last two paragraphs which are my favorite passages from the whole piece.  Read it aloud.  It doesn't matter if you don't know the context.  Just listen to how the words roll against each other, how the images spill out over themselves.  Pay attention to what happens inside your chest when you do.  This is how language is shaped and honed to create the most perfect beauty.

(And yes, this passage is one half of my inspiration for the title of this blog.)
__________________________

"Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

-- James Joyce, "The Dead"

Elegy

This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to write.  Part of me says I should maybe wait a little longer, when it isn't so raw and maybe I'm able to process things a bit better.  But then the other part tells me that I should do it now, exactly because it is raw, and that is the way these things are supposed to feel.

My amazing, woman-of-steel Grandma passed away this past week.

When my Grandpa passed, two Septembers ago, I was half a world away.  My family wasn't even able to tell me until a day after it happened.  This time was different.

My Mom called me out of bed shortly before 7:00 AM.  My Grandma was suffering from another "heart spasm", as we called them.  She'd had them before, and I settled in to wait this one out for a few hours until it passed and she was willing and able to rest again.  That isn't what happened this time.  And around 9:00 I started making calls.  The hospice nurse arrived.  She made Grandma comfortable.  The family began to arrive in ones and twos.

There is nothing I can say that even comes close to trying to explain that morning.  How I had to step out into the hallway for a minute after Grandma called out for Bob, her husband and my Grandpa, to come and help her.  How she prayed.  I know she was afraid.  I know she wasn't ready to accept that this was the end, because when the nurse and my Mom and I reminded her that she would be going to a place where she would see her husband and loved ones again, she looked at us all with a flash of her old fire and said quite clearly: "Well I'm not going anyplace."

It was only three hours later that my Aunt Diane told us all waiting outside that Grandma's breathing had changed.  And around noon Grandma finally decided that she had fought against this for long enough.  I consider it a blessing beyond count or price that I was able to be there.

What happens at that moment?  Where do we go?  What happens when that spark winks out, that invisible, unfindable bit that makes each of us ever so much more than protein and carbon?  And travels somewhere... else.  I don't know where that place is.  But my Grandma did.  She believed that she knew exactly where she was going.  And I guess I can believe in her belief, if nothing else.

The next few days are kind of a blur.  It is a sad dark joke that honestly only minutes after it happens, before anyone even really has a chance to process, that events must immediately be set into motion.  Work must be done.  In your head and heart the world might be collapsing, but there are arrangements to make, flowers to order, people to be called.  Dinners to make.  Lawyers to be notified.  Airport pickups to be arranged and mattresses brought up from the garage to create an appropriate number of sleeping spaces.

But finally things are winding down.  I leave with my mother and father to go back to Nova tomorrow.  Once again HOME has become a sort of Camelot, a Buddhist mountian top, the Sanctum Sanctorum.  I'm looking forward to quietness, even if it won't be for long.  Lots of things have changed in my world, on several different fronts.  But this post is only about one thing.  Or one person.

This is the part where I remember her.

I remember her indefatigable strength.  I remember my Mom telling me about how she would feed lunch to five children with one can of tuna.  I remember how she used to make Thanksgiving dinner for 30 people in a hostel-sized kitchen.  I remember she told my sister and me that "A woman can have secrets.", with a glint in her eye, and how we always wanted to ask her what that glint was for, but never did.  I remember how she held my hands and would not let them go when I first came to see her the day before she left the nursing home.

The day before she died she wanted to set her hair in rollers, because that's what she had always done, for the past 80 or 85 years most likely.  And even though her hands shook and her arms were too weak to reach up to the top of her head, she was determined to do it herself.  My Mom put a helping hand under her elbow and helped her those extra crucial inches.

The most simultaneously incredible and heartbreaking thing about my Grandma was that she had a side to her that so few people saw.  She was a wife and mother, a seamstress, a cook, a mediator, a nurse, and a fearsome housekeeper.  She was also a painter and a poet, and while she permitted her beautiful artworks to be displayed in local shows and competitions, hung around her home, and gifted to  her children, her poetry she kept largely hidden away.  I'm sure she had a good reason for doing so, even if she never told any of us what that reason was.  Or hell, maybe she did confide in someone once, and that person is keeping her secret.  As well he should.

So I hope my Grandma does not mind, but I'm going to close this elegy by sharing one of my favorite poems by Elizabeth Alice O'Connor.  I think it speaks well of the legacy she left behind.

"A Mother in Retirement"

I don't get up early anymore,
(Not having to do a loving chore).

No need to clean walls as much,
No smudges at the height little hands can touch.

I don't have to look through the oven door.
No need for fancy cakes to store.

No noise to hush, or quiet a hassle.
All have gone to their own little castle.

There's time to sit around and read.
I'd rather have five mouths to feed.

Time drags by -- I look out the door.
How did I do so much before?

I've not forgotten how to sew.
Just don't have many places to go.

I feel fine.  My health is good.
Still can do the things I should.

Days don't have such joy in store.
I don't get up early, anymore.

-- by: Elizabeth O'Connor 

And the thing is, even after she "retired", I never saw that woman rest.

Grandma, rest now.  Your children, their children, and their children carry the love and the strength they all learned from you.  And I believe I'll be seeing you again, to ask those questions I always wanted to, and didn't.

Trust your heart, and trust your story.

I know, I know.  Home for nearly two weeks, yet the blog is still stuck back in Rome.  Haven't even touched Greece which may have been my favorite part of the whole adventure, and certainly a utterly perfect way to end it.

My blog-slacking is not entirely pure jet lag and laziness.  For one thing, do you have any idea now many leaves can fill up a quarter-acre shade garden?  I do.  Intimately.  Also, due to circumstances beyond my control I found myself as Head Decorator for my house when it came time to Christmas it up.  I've been cooking a ton, both for fun and by necessity, everything from homemade mac and cheese (my first attempt and stunning success!) to white chocolate almond cranberry cookies.

And then this past Friday I came up to New Jersey.  My Grandma's health is failing, and my Mom has been up here taking care of her.  It meant that Friday was the first time I got to see my Mommy since I've been back!  And after I did see her, and assess the situation and all, I decided that I needed to make myself useful up here for longer than just a weekend.  So here I am, at least for another week or so.  If I need to stay longer I certainly will, but everyone is just kind of taking it a day at a time right now.

I'd kind of thought I'd have scads of time while up here to blog and read and what not, but that has turned out to be not the case.  And tonight I'm just too darn tired to tackle Rome.  Sorry.  Maybe tomorrow.

(I knew there was a reason I made myself keep both a hardcopy personal journal and a blog, even though that got damn tedious at times.  With my journal entries and photos I should be able to recreate my last days in Europe even if it does end up being three weeks late.)

Instead, you get another Christmas Post!

Remember how I said that some of my Christmas Memories would have a lot to do with the actual holiday, and some would not have anything to do with the holiday?  This is one of the latter.

I read it to my family one Christmas Eve several years ago, because I just love the way this poem sounds when read aloud.  It's Neil Gaiman's "Instructions".  I think I actually linked to this once before, when I blogged about using it for an ESL lesson.  Well, whatevs.  It's on the Christmas List so you get it again.  Hopefully you love it even a tiny bit as much as I do, and won't mind reading and/or hearing it a second time!  Enjoy.

Reading this poem now, after just having come back from the most marvelous adventure, and finding myself having to once again face the cold shower of life's harsh uncertainties, on several fronts, I find that my favorite passage takes on new relevance.  The fact is that, at this moment, I have no idea what is going to come next.  If ever I needed a reminder of these things, it is right now.

Remember your name.
Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found.
Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped
to help you in their turn
Trust dreams.
Trust your heart, and trust your story.

Rome: Coming of Age in the Eternal City

As many of you know, hobbits come of age when they are 33.  Before then, they are considered to be in the "tweens", an awkward and irresponsible age where young hobbits can get away with acting much like Peregrin Took.

I can tell you right now that I make absolutely no promises to change or curtail my behavior or grow up even a little no matter what birthday I've just had, but the fact remains that I had my hobbit's Coming Of Age Birthday on my first full day in Rome, November 13.

When planning this Europe trip, I had so wanted to somehow have my birthday in my very favorite place in the world, and half by accident, half by design it ended up working out just that way.  But what do you do for your 33rd birthday when you are alone in Bella Roma?  Despite being exactly where I wanted to be, I found myself feeling just the smallest bit of melancholy at reaching my mid-thirties, and all alone.  So I decided that the perfect birthday activity would be to do one of the things I had most regretting missing the first time I was here:  touring the Keats/Shelley house next to the Spanish Steps, and then visiting their graves in the Protestant Cemetery.

Back in college, and then in grad school, I majored in English and concentrated heavily on the Romantic poets, particularly the younger generation of Keats, Shelley, and Byron.  That was a long time ago and sadly I have forgotten almost everything I once knew, but these gentlemen were an important part of my existence for many years and I thought it fitting to celebrate another year of life by paying my respects to two of those men that so enriched my days (and nights.  Many, many long, quotation-filled, one-inch margin-obsessed nights).

The Keats/Shelley House is located just to the right of the Spanish Steps, yet another Roman landmark completely and utterly overrun with tourists and sharks.  To be honest, I'm not exactly sure why it is the Keats/Shelley House and not just the Keats House, as to my knowledge the house had nothing to do with Shelley but Keats died here of tuberculosis when he was 24.  And even though it's the Keats/Shelley house and not the Keats/Shelley/Byron house, most of it is equally dedicated to all three of them.  It's quite small really, just four rooms on one floor, with walls lined with books by the these tortured geniuses and glass cases filled with early editions, painted cameos, and letters written either by or about the three young men.

In the far back corner is a small room where Keats spent his last days and finally passed away.  All the furniture is a reconstruction, because everything in the room was burned after his death.

Keats' death mask in the background.

I have always found it so sad that Keats' final months and weeks of life were spent in such an angry black depression.  He had convinced himself that nothing of his work would remain, and was inconsolably bitter about his illness.  I suppose that is completely understandable; I too would be pissed at the idea of dying at 24, but I've always wished he could have found some peace and contentment before the end.

It is a long way from the north end of Rome where the Spanish Steps are, all the way down outside the city walls to the south, where the Protestant Cemetery is.  My love for Rome is such that I take great pride and pleasure in walking everywhere, but this particular trek would have taken forever and I had my unfortunate Achilles tendons to consider.  So my birthday included one maiden voyage upon Rome's metro.  Seemed the most practical course.

The Protestant Cemetery is actually quite easily accessible from the Pyramide metro stop.  Despite being off the edge of my hostel map, I was able to find it with no trouble.  Every old graveyard image and feel seems to have been captured in this one quiet, beautifully somber place.

They had signs directing you to the graves of both Keats and Shelley.  I found Shelley's first.  Just a very simple white marble slab set into the ground.

And here I kicked myself a little, because it was only now that I finally realized a good use for a couple of those roses that all the hawkers kept shoving into my face back at the Spanish Steps.  I would have liked to leave something beautiful here, even if it would have only lasted a few hours.  Instead I had to content myself with pressing my fingertips onto the stone, imagining a distraught Lord Byron standing by a century and a half ago.

Keats is buried in a different, much sparser section of the cemetery.  I found him next to his good friend Joseph Severn, who took care of him in their Rome house right up until the end.

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

So bitter was he at the end of his days, that Keats forbade his name to go on his tombstone at all.  "Here lies one whose name was writ in water" was to be the extend of his epitaph, but after he died some doubtlessly well-meaning folks decided that was too sparse and added the rest.  To the right, there is a small memorial with that includes both his name and bust in profile.

There's a bench just opposite here, and I sat for a little while, sipping birthday Powerade and letting my mind wander.  I was very conscious of any possible irony or metaphor implied that comes with visiting a graveyard on one's birthday, but it fit the mood I was in exactly.  Did yet more reflecting on then versus now, and thought that maybe I could do with reading some more poetry again.

When I started to do some more exploring, I found one thing that lifted my spirits immediately.  I've been searching this whole trip to find an actual Weeping Angel.  You know (or you should!), an angel statue that legit is covering her eyes in some way.  I've photographed dozens of angels but never came across one covering her face.  In the Protestant Cemetery, I finally found one!

Still not perfect, but it works!

I wandered around the cemetery for a little while longer and eventually said my farewells.  Took the metro back up to the Colosseum for more photos and tourist-dodging, and surprised myself by remembering the way to an Irish bar that I had stopped in during my epic first night in Rome three years ago.

This trip's budget does not really allow for cocktails, but on my birthday I allowed myself two excellent gin and tonics.  I sat for a long time at the bar and caught up on my journaling.  Earlier that day I had bought myself a present of a new journal, as my current one was almost out of pages!  It's been a very noteworthy adventure.

And then I found my way back to the Sodium Light Bar.  Even without Monya, without the sodium lights, this place had just became so important to me the last time I was here and I wanted to say a proper goodbye one last time.  I know that's stupid because it is just a bar, but it was here that I swore to come back.  Some people throw a coin in the Trevi, and some people make promises to sexy bartenders over shots of vodka.  The bar had taken on significance in my brain that went far beyond its literal role as a crowded local drinking establishment.

Real quick -- another story of Rome and memories... back three years ago, before I left I went for a haircut and my stylist (who had been to Rome about ten times), told me I needed to try a kind of wine called Amarone while I was there.  So I did.  The wine was of course awesome, and I ended up bringing a very expensive bottle back home with me, which then was the wine I opened for my father and me the night before I left for Georgia.

So when I sat down at the Sodium Light Bar, I checked out the wine list (on a chalkboard) and saw they had an Amarone.  Of course that's what I had.  One more tiny splurge on my Coming of Age Day!

Nostalgia Amarone at Nostalgia Bar

Three years ago while sitting in almost this exact same spot, I wrote that I felt like the eye of a cat. 5 hurricane.  It was kind of like that again, but of course something was missing.  It was more than just Monya.  One of the things I finally realized about my time in the Eternal City was that Rome felt so different because I was different.  And all things considered, I was grateful I'd had the chance to experience Rome with the eyes of three years ago.

Wine finished, it was time for the most important part of the day:  Dinner!  My whole trip I'd been looking forward to my one no-holds-barred birthday dinner, where I'd actually eat at one of those amazing-looking restaurants I was always passing by.  I wandered with no real direction, looking for the perfect place (and you know me and how long finding "perfect" can take!) when suddenly I realized I was walking towards the Trevi.

It was almost like I panicked.  "The Trevi!" I shouted to myself.  "That's the last place you want to be!  It'll be full of tourists and overpriced and probably not that good anyway!"  In almost-desperation, I took a sharp right turn down an alley and ended up looking at a place so adorable, so tucked-away, so utterly perfect that I could not believe my luck.

I went in and sat down, having been greeted by a very friendly waiter.  I ordered fried zucchini blossoms, something I'd always wanted to try in Rome, and swordfish prepared Sicilian-style with tomatoes, olives, and capers.  Also a half-bottle of Italian white wine.

Sicilian swordfish, wine, new journal!

Much like pizza in Naples, I'd been kind of afraid that this birthday dinner, when it finally happened, would not live up to my very exacting expectations.  But once again I should not have worried.  This was exactly what I'd hoped it would be.  The food was fresh and delicious, the service excellent, and I was able to take as much time as I wanted to enjoy every minute!

After dinner I ordered limoncello and a dessert which turned out to be rather like a caramel flan (delicious!), then lingered over the last of my wine.  I didn't want to leave but could not put another morsel of food or drink in me so finally it was time to go.

I walked home, and then back at the Rome hostel I ran into Arity and Brian, the friends I'd met from Naples.  We'd done Vesuvius and then Pompeii together.  I was so surprised and happy to actually see people I knew!  We toasted my birthday and they introduced me to Beth, a girl staying in their dorm.  We agreed to meet tomorrow morning and go over to St. Peter's together.  Such a pleasant surprise to close out my birthday -- laughter and the company of friends had been the only thing that could have possibly been missing!

From start to finish, an incredible day.  I simply could not have asked for anything more.  Cheers, Bella Roma.

In which David Sedaris gets rather possessive of Santa

Well, my last Christmas Memory post was a real tear-jerker, so here's a little bit of merriment and jolliness (and a fair dose of healthy irreverence).  I first discovered David Sedaris when I was in Georgia, which was way later than I should have because I missed out on years of hilarity.

Last December found me sitting in my borrowed bed in Vashlijvari, wrapped up in 47 blankets, gloves, a wool hat, and every winter thing I owned.  Far away from family, friends, and my Christmas Spirit, I read this essay and felt a twinge of holiday glow for the first time that season.

For your consideration, David Sedaris reads his essay to an appreciative audience -- his own take on the Dutch version of Christmas and Santa Claus.

Yeah, it's 15 minutes but what the hell else are you going to do with your day?  If you're in a rush, the Christmas stuff starts about three minutes in, but you'll be missing out.