West, First Class
‘Don’t Look’ was conceived at a summer writing conference I attended at Maine Media, a liberal arts college set along the beautiful coastline of Rockport, Maine. My son had passed away in November of 2022, and the shock of that grief sent me traveling anywhere in the country I could go to escape it. I thought if I could just leave my house and my home-town, I could create myself as a new being. In a different surrounding, I wouldn’t have to be this person with this loss.
My first travel adventure would be Colorado in early spring. I wanted to see the Rocky Mountains, rising up from a solid earth into the heavens above. I needed grounding and I needed lifting up. If I was going to reshape myself, I figured I would need to adopt some new behaviors. I had never flown first-class, even though I could afford the higher priced ticket. My past self was very frugal. This was not peak season for the Colorado tourist industry, especially with fluctuating temperatures in the winter months, deterring ski patrons. I was able to find a reasonably priced first-class ticket.
Money does talk. At the airport my bags were handled quickly and efficiently. I was allowed to board early, as comfort and economy classes looked on wistfully. But once on the plane, I instinctively turned to the right and didn’t realize for several rows that I was not in the first-class compartment. I made my way sheepishly back to the proper section, found my seat and settled in.
I had never been a fan of plane travel. I hated the confinement, with exits leading only to air thousands of miles above the earth. I cringed at the fluctuating noises, beginning with taxiing the runway. This interplay seemed to tease you between gently rolling wheels accelerating, then de-accelerating, until the inevitable moment of lift-off. I found the plane’s thrust into the atmosphere excruciating. I held fast to the arms of the chair, never looked towards the window and re-enacted my Lamaze breathing techniques until the aircraft settled into a cruising altitude. The beverage cart was a nuisance with its meager offerings, as it blocked my movement about the cabin. The intrusion of air turbulence didn’t help. Landing was the worst of all. As the pilot told the crew to prepare for landing, I wondered how this massive piece of metal was going to come to a stop. Less nuanced pilots could hit the runway hard, allowing the plane to slightly bounce back up before it finally succumbed to the pavement below. The rush of engines in reverse mimicked the exhale of breath coming from my lungs. All I wanted to do was get out of that entrapment and find the first bathroom.
With the death of my son, reality is altered. First-class is spacious with no meal carts blocking the isle. Everything is individually brought to you. The flight attendant asks me if I will change seats with a mother who wants to be next to her child (currently seated next to me). My mind is forced back to my own son, when he was a child. Though I agree to move, I cannot look at them together. My gaze navigates to look out the window. I turn my palms upward in supplication as the plane taxis the runway and rises. I want to be closer to the heavens. I want to be closer to the spirit of my son. I have my headphones on, attached to my son’s iPod with 800 songs on it. I bury my face in a soft COVID mask, one I wear in close quarters due to my asthma. I also wear it now to hide my grief. My breath catches as the song, ‘When the Night Comes’ by Dan Auerbach uploads.
‘When the night comes and you lay your weary head to rest. No more trials. No tears. Don’t be afraid. You’re only dreaming. When the night comes’.
Tiny moist rivers flow from my eyes and seep into the mask. I contemplate the miniature existence of life below. I wander through the ghost-like cloud cover. I lean into the turbulence. When landing, the engines are once again thrown into reverse as the plane comes to a gentle stop. But I cannot stop the grief. It keeps ploughing forward.
It is a warm day as I navigate the Denver airport. I awkwardly maneuver my luggage and my golf clubs en route to the rental car office. The golf clubs are like a body bag I drag behind me. I navigate to Colorado Springs as the Rocky Mountains come into view. The upper elevations of Pikes Peak are saturated with snow, but the lower levels are wet and muddy. I have not packed climbing boots or appropriate outer wear, so my experience is limited to the lovely vistas from my hotel window. I learn that in July 1893, Katharine Lee Bates penned the words to America the Beautiful, after enjoying the view from Pikes Peak. In 1916, thirty women drove a car up to plant a flagpole, drawing attention to the proposed 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920. I watch as a snowstorm descends to the barren foothills. The entire range becomes invisible.
In my bed, the pain lies mute at my side. I rise to get a drink and find a wedding ring in the bottom of a recycle bin next to the refrigerator. It is a unique design with small diamonds set into a sculptured, round, gold band. Some artistic thought went into this creation. It appears worn down from years of wear. Did a housekeeper lose it? Maybe it slid from her finger when she removed her cleaning gloves, after placing a plastic bag inside the container. Perhaps it was intentionally placed there by a divorcee, come to the room she once inhabited with her young groom on her honeymoon years ago. Better luck to the next sucker. I decide to leave it at the front desk. Let the hotel management decide its fate.
I rarely stay in one place for very long when I travel. I like to take in the landscape and explore the local offerings. Mostly I like to be by myself to write. I am an explorer of human nature. My plan is to leave Colorado Springs, drive to Santa Fe, New Mexico to wander around art galleries, and then progress to Tucson, Arizona to golf. This desire to migrate through various terrains began as a child, when my father planned an elaborate summer vacation throughout Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.
I leave Colorado Springs, inspired by the spirit of those who took to scaling Pikes Peak for exercise and inspiration. I drive south on Interstate 25. The Rocky Mountains are to my right, the desert terrain to my left. I have never seen the desert accentuated by a dusting of snow. There is an abundance of Christian radio programming in this part of the country. Raised on Protestant hymns, my soul melts to the melodies of my youth. The hymn, He Hideth My Soul by Fanny Crosby vibrates through the airwaves.
‘He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths of his love, and covers me there with his hand. And covers me there with his hand.’
I enter New Mexico and head west. I think I am free from winter. The air is warmer, but outside Santa Fe the roads become dangerous. The burnt orange-colored dirt mixes with snow to make a bumpy paste. There is a hitch-hiker on the side of the freeway, his worn baseball cap pulled down over his face. A backpack rests on his hunched shoulders as he braces his body against the elements. In Colorado, I witnessed those living with mental illness huddled on the cement landings outside gas stations, or standing on street corners. My son lived with schizophrenia. Off his medication he could work his way into dangerous situations, living under an overpass for a brief period, until our family intervened to bring him back home safely.
It is St. Patrick’s day. I drive to downtown Santa Fe and wander through the myriad galleries. Native American art is everywhere. My son would have loved it. I buy a silver ring to commemorate the trip, with black onyx and mother-of-pearl inlays. I end the day with a spicy south-western salad with salmon, and tiramisu for dessert. At the hotel I write a poem about the hitch-hiker. It is based on Luke 24:13-32 when Jesus appeared to a few disciples after his resurrection, while they were walking on the road to Emmaus.
‘And they said to one another, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was explaining the scriptures to us.’
The Road to Emmaus
I drive the Interstate to Santa Fe
Admiring the mountain views
Lost in thought
When I spot a stranger walking
Along the shoulder of the highway
Slow, methodical steps
Resigned to the movement forward
A worn green backpack
Garbage bags half full
A dirty baseball cap
Pulled down low so no one will recognize him
But I see you
A mother always sees
Knows when her child is in danger
Except I didn’t know
On the day of your death
I was at home making a Halloween costume
For the evening with the grandchildren
The way I made them for you
A robot out of tin foil and boxes
Man-at-Arms from “Masters of the Universe”
A magician with a painted mustache just above your lip
You slipped away
Unconscious
The autopsy revealing a dangerously low sodium level
A side effect of your anti-psychotic medication
Did the clinic give you an overdose of the bi-weekly injection?
No one could explain how it happened
You were the only witness
And now you are silent
Like the hunched figure
Moving through orange sludge
I see you in strangers begging on street corners
Sitting on the cold pavement outside of gas stations
Living under an overpass
The way you once did during one of your episodes
Your shoes worn from the journey
Blood seeping from a crack in the heel
I sent your brothers and sister to Arizona to get you
But you wouldn’t come
You called instead to ask for money
‘I will send you a ticket home,
Retrievable at the airport.’
So you came back to us
Now I cannot send a ticket home
I cannot bring you back from the dead
So I travel to find
Respite from my grief
When suddenly you appear to me, your disciple for life
Sitting in the passenger seat when you came with me
To Manistee Forest to hike
Or Tahquamenon Falls to camp
Or Caseville to swim the Great Lake
We ride for miles, barely speaking
Only listening to music on the CDs I brought
And a Native American compilation from your collection
Then you vanish
Taken away again
Leaving me with a heart, burning
In Arizona the wet winter has caused the desert to bloom everywhere. Once settled at my VRBO, I venture out to golf a wonderful course surrounded by the Catalina mountains. I meet a group of retired men who live in the condos around the course. It is 9 a.m. and they ask me if I want a beer.
On Sunday I make my way to a Quaker Meeting. The Quakers often have their meetings in homes that are in upscale neighborhoods. They are generous with their wealth, engaging in multiple social activism projects and offering a free meal each Sunday after the service, for visitors. I sit in silence during the Meeting and my son’s spirit joins me. I can feel the lament lifting. But the next day a white mist falls outside and a stricture starts in my chest. The grief has found me. I consider driving to San Diego, then taking a flight to Hawaii. I could fly on to Vancouver, British Columbia, and then take a train back east across Canada. A piece of my being has departed and I cannot find it. I just keep looking.
When the night comes, the words Don’t be afraid float through my mind as I waft in and out of sleep. I see my son. He is twenty-one again. Beautiful. I go to hug him but he pulls away. He does not understand why I am so upset. He feels fresh and new. I talk to him about renewing his disability, finding a new apartment and getting better healthcare. He doesn’t know what I am talking about. Why would he want to return to that limited life? He is free now to travel the universe.
In the morning I am strangely invigorated so I visit the Tucson Botanical Gardens. There are massive Lego structures of various animals throughout the park. There is a crew in the garden setting up for an evening wedding. The bride is there early and is taking pictures in a casual, designer outfit. She is contemplating her last moments of freedom. I go to sit on a bench and see the engraved words, ‘I am not gone. Just out of sight.’
Before leaving Arizona, I stop at an antique market loaded with artifacts. I love wandering the isles. I often look for colored glass or classic hard-covered books. I find a bin full of old post cards. I wonder about the people who sent them and their touching notes. I settle on a Papago Indian Basket by artist Alice Juan. It is an owl made of wicker. The head comes off gently. I will place one of Dan’s memorial stones in it when I get home. It will perch in silence on the fireplace mantle.
In Ann Arbor, I do well for several months, until Mother’s Day approaches. Before the holiday, I decide to visit my younger son in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I have to be with my children who are still alive. See them. Touch them. I need to make sure they will not disappear. It is still difficult to sleep. One way I deal with the insomnia is to continue to think about places to visit. For some reason the thought of Maine enters my mind. I have never been to this state. I think it might be helpful to find a writer’s conference to focus my thoughts, and not wander about alone, the way I did in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.
At 4 a.m. on Mother’s Day I have my computer open. I hit search and come upon the website for Maine Media. This liberal arts college is offering multiple summer courses on photography, film, and writing. I find a week-long entry titled, Memory as Bewilderment. It is being led by poet Nick Flynn. I do not know this author. There is no question, I am going through a period of bewilderment. I look up Nick’s repertory, and am intrigued. This man had a challenging childhood. In his book, This Is The Night Our House Will Catch Fire, Nick deals with the events of his past when his mother set their home on fire, and later when she committed suicide. The film, Being Flynn, is based on his book of poetry, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. It portrays the mental illness of his father, played by Robert DeNiro. I decide this may be the right workshop for my grief. It would also provide the travel I so desperately need. So in July I go east, towards Maine, where the Appalachian mountains plow their way through the center of the state, and historic coastal towns bathe in the ceaseless ebb and flow of the Atlantic ocean.
East, to Maine
‘If I head in this direction, I’ll find my way back.’
Full summer. Bright, intense sunlight. The wind, warm as it massages my tanned arms. I rest above the clouds, traveling 500 miles an hour through my grief to the land of Maine. The airport is easy to maneuver and the ride north on Interstate 95 leads me along the crest of the Appalachian mountains to my left. Maine is like western Michigan, but more lush, more dense. I chose not to take the coastal highway to Rockport, thinking the winding roadway might take too long, but once again I have missed the correct connecting exit. I realize if I just head east I will eventually hit highway 1 and the coast.
I reach my VRBO, a little studio apartment behind a custard cream-colored cottage. Batches of maize Black-eyed Susan and whispy pink astilbe line the path leading to my back porch entry. Inside I make a cup of chai tea and settle into the comfy queen-size bed to explore the conference workshop agenda on my computer. I have brought a sampling of my writing to share, though I have no idea what I will explore this week, other than bewilderment. There are poems about my mid-life meanderings, my father’s fractured existence, a short story about death and one about my mother’s hope chest. My diary entries are full of reflection regarding my son’s death.
As I peruse the conference site, I am shocked to read we are asked to share twenty-five pages of writing. Some attenders have already uploaded portions of the novels they are currently working on. As a retired school teacher my obsessive need to be prepared kicks in and I find myself feverishly reworking my submissions as well as reading the talented writing of other classmates.
Normally, I wouldn’t share a diary entry, but I want the other participants to know about the loss of my son. I am here for a reason. I read for hours, getting an insight into the minds of the other writers. We share a common thread of trauma in our childhoods. Yet, there is a deep sense of self and the power to survive. After several hours I decide to take a break and venture to downtown Camden, wandering in and out of boutiques, and a French pastry shop. I pause to listen to some street musicians play Irish tunes on their fiddle, flute, and hand drum. Cuzzy’s, a classic fisherman’s tavern with a bay view, provides a standard entree’ of scallops, fries, and coleslaw. I have never tasted scallops this fresh, as if they had just been caught. My laptop is open and I type. I have traveled hundreds of miles to find this waterfront with the smell of salt water. The taste of this scallop. The feeling of this freedom for just a little while.
The way back to my car leads past charming Bed & Breakfast homes with more luscious floral gardens. I take a picture of one to keep in my phone, in case I return another year. Maine could be my new home. I look the venue up on-line. The Belmont Inn has rooms named after famous Maine residents, like Edna St. Vincent Millay. For the conference, in addition to uploading writing, we are asked to share a favorite poet and some photographs. I have chosen to share Millay’s poem ‘Recuerdo’. I love the image of the young people riding back and forth, back and forth on the ferry all night. I know about going back and forth. They bring home apples and pears to their mother as ‘the sun rose dripping a bucketful of gold.’ I am also drawn to the photos of Margaret Bourke White, an Ann Arbor, Michigan native. Her stark, isolated photos of parks and city architecture is unique for a woman living in the first half of the 20th century. These samples will tell the class something about our selves but they will also reveal something to us.
It is well past midnight when I finally hit ‘send.’
Mid-life Meandering
When I sit upon the chair
I stare
At the non color on the wall
The call to do a thousand things
Keeps centering upon the need
To paint the plane a deeper shade of hue
No clue
Some day I shall no more implore
My confined spirit to the chore
Of distraction
Sylvia (based on poet Sylvia Plath)
This is the poetry of my life
Calorie counting and invoices to pay
Thoughts of God and how the world should be
My plaid blanket on the green chair
Escaping to these pages
Or into the fog on a small farm
Where the dogs may run free
And family allowed to visit
No suicide for me
I will rather wrestle death to the mat
As in life, nothing done easy
Except this
Visitation
In the woods, within these walls
Your presence lingers in deep stillness
While the sun blazes upon the roof
Of this mobile trailer home
Sunk into the sand, firm at rest
I find myself putting together the pieces of my life
My choices
How relationships have been a movement
From one to another in order to find
You
And understand the power of your being
God-like in its ferocious wonder
Of love and anger
I felt responsible for both
As all children do
I look from face to face
Where your attributes, skill and stature
Are hidden in them
When I find the one who comes the closest
I am terrified all over again and run
To the solace of my bedroom
Your voice booming just outside its frame
Now in death your spirit hovers
Here most of all
In the woods and lakes
Your fortress amidst the storms of life
The chaos of your paranoid thoughts
You were held back from glory by your illness
Now there is no voice, only silence
And the image of a man leaning against an oak
Looking to see if somehow in death
He can be the inspiration he wanted
So much to be in life
A good father
A caring dad
These reflections hold me tonight
The way you once did when I was a child
At the state fair when I was so tired
You carried me on your back while I slept
High in the air
Safe and secure
THE CONFERENCE - DAY 1
I arrive at the workshop and am eager to get lost in my writing. We are asked to give a brief introduction of ourselves and then talk about what our focus may be for the week. I share about my son, the need to travel, and the hope that I will find a way through my own bewilderment.
I have tried to start a novel several times over the last decade. It takes place in the 19th century Italianate farmhouse that I own in Michigan. It is an amazing structure, its field stone base, oak and pine floors, plaster walls and ceilings were all hand built with only the help of animal labor. The original Taylor family owned it for 100 years. The second family included a religious studies professor at the University of Michigan, his wife and their four children. They occupied the house for 20 years and let it fall into disrepair. We stepped in to bring it back to life. There are similarities between the three families. The Taylors dabbled in homeopathic medicines from plants they raised on their farm. One child became a traveling musician and dramatic performer. The wife of the religious studies professor wrote poetry. I discovered a small book she self-published under piles of boxes covered with fiberglass insulation dust in the attic. At the time we purchased the home, my husband was in his final years of a medical fellowship at the University of Michigan. I was teaching music and performing arts in the public schools, and occasionally wrote poetry on summer vacations. We had four children. I could explore this project and see where this thread led.
I have often written poetry about my father. He lived with an untreated mental health condition. My son lived with schizophrenia.
I could also write about death. I once heard novelist Marilynne Robinson speak at a conference. She said if you’re not writing about death, don’t bother writing.
Why did I bring the short story about my mother’s hope chest? I rarely write about my mother.
After introductions and discussion, Nick sets out various colors of clay and asks us to create something. I choose blue and orange. Blue for my deep sadness. Orange for the anger that is my bewilderment. I shape them into two perfectly round balls and hold them gently in my palms. I want the questions in my life to be as compact. Succinct. Understandable. Clear in their resolutions. My 6th grade art teacher would deem my sculptures unimaginative. She once asked us to draw a tree, giving suggestions as to how to approach the assignment. When I handed in my drawing, she held it up to the class and stated, ‘This is exactly what I didn’t want you to do’.
I do not join the class for lunch. The afternoon is for our own private writing time. I retreat to my VRBO and eat alone. I stare at my notebook and attempt a few introductory lines to my novel.
When I return to the class. I see the two balls of clay sitting on the table. I hear my art teacher in my head. I resist the urge to take the clay and twist it together until it is a brown lump of mud. Instead, I take the two pieces and transform them into two snakes. I weave them into a rug.
When we are asked to share our afternoon entries I read my few lines. The participants are silent. They are polite to the mother who has lost her son. I know the entry is sub-par for the caliber of writers in the room.
We have a discussion about bewilderment and some articles Nick has provided for thought. I can hear the tension in my voice. I am not interested in bewilderment as curiosity. I am deeply confused and looking for a way of escape.
Later, we are asked to look at the samples of writing we have brought and pick out the lines that stand out to us. I focus on a line from one of my poems.
’A patch for the ark to finally come to rest’.
Noah’s ark was a temporary home that finally came to rest as the flood waters receded. I realize I want to escape, but I also want to find some rest for my soul. I want to shape the clay into an ark. The blue is easy. It can be the water. But I don’t have a clue about how to shape an ark. My attempt looks deformed and pathetic.
I start to write about the families in the Italianate farmhouse, but somewhere the lines begin to change and instead I write about the home I grew up in on Francis St., in a suburb of Detroit.
I also pull out a line from my short story on death. It is about my mother.
‘Suffocated by regret’.
Why did I write that about her? When I go home for the evening I take out the story of her hope chest.
THE CONFERENCE - DAY 2
We begin the second day of our conference separating more lines from our writing. The Hope Chest comes to mind.
‘Only we her children remained’.
We share our reflections with a partner in the class. This is helpful, as fresh eyes can often see streams of thought where we cannot. I realize my deformed ark is not helpful for me. This ark will never come to rest. I need to shape my project into something that is manageable but also true. I choose to move from suffocating regret to curiosity of my mother’s life and my connection to it. The Hope Chest becomes my format.
I spend the afternoon looking at the span of my mother’s life. I start with her youth growing up in the hills of Appalachia. The writing comes easy.
In the evening I go into Rockport to eat dinner. I sit at the bar, my notebook in hand, recording reflections about my time in Maine. Two of my classmates come in and we end up eating dinner together. This is rare for me. I am a monk, comfortable in my solitude, too comfortable. Oddly, I welcome their presence. This class contains a remarkable group of women, joined by our love of writing, but also our experience with trauma. It is a lovely evening.
THE CONFERENCE - DAY 3
In the morning we are given a new writing assignment. We are to take a line from our work and connect the end of a sentence with the beginning of the next. I remember the fur coat in my mother’s hope chest in the basement, where we often played together as children. With my line - ‘Burying myself under the garment hide’ - I am off.
Burying myself under the garment hide.
Hide and seek we played as children.
Children should be free to run outside, not confined.
Confinement holds in the truth.
Don’t speak the truth, don’t tell anyone.
Anyone is not us, not our tribe.
Tribes hunted animals to make skins.
I don’t know what kind of skin this is.
Is it beaver?
Beavers lived in Appalachia.
Appalachia encompasses much of Maine.
Maine is like Michigan, but more lush, more dense.
Why can’t you get it through your thick, dense head?
If I head in this direction, I will find my way back.
Back to?
To the garment, remember?
Remember the dank basement.
The basement where we all played together as children.
There is so much to write about my mother. Her years as a young woman during the Depression. Her welding job as a Rosie Riveter. Her marriage to my father. Her devotion to our family. It is exhilarating to focus on her life. Usually I can only concentrate on my writing for brief periods of time. But I continue all afternoon and into the evening.
THE CONFERENCE - DAY 4
Today we are asked to write a sonnet using lines and themes we have focused on up to this point. I have not written a sonnet since high school AP English class, a half century ago. Nick says not to worry. If you know the pattern, follow it. Otherwise, just write 14 lines. Usually there is a change of thought halfway through. I do my best using themes from the Hope Chest and make an attempt to rhyme some of the lines. Then something unexpected happens. The story of the Hope Chest ends with our flooded basement and the need to throw out most of the items. As I write the sonnet, somehow the hope chest becomes a coffin and the overwhelming realization that something, someone has been lost. My mother says ‘No one is to blame’.
I stare at the words on the page.
When we are asked to share our entries I tell Nick I cannot. He encourages me to continue, thinking I am embarrassed over not being able to write a sonnet. My writing partner offers to read it for me. I take a breath and begin. I don’t get far before my voice breaks. I weep through the final stanzas. I take my glasses off so the faces around me are no longer clearly visible. Everyone is thoughtful and supportive in their response.
I sleep all afternoon during our private writing time. When we meet, I share an entry I wrote the night before, about the day I found my mother sitting atop the hope chest, weeping and praying for sustenance to make it through another day.
That evening everyone is going to Cuzzy’s, the restaurant I stumbled upon the first day I was in Maine. There is going to be a karaoke night of singing. I am a retired choral music teacher. This should be easy for me, but instead I return to my VRBO. I lay upon the bed and stare at the ceiling. The grief has found me.
THE CONFERENCE - DAY 5
This final day of the workshop we are invited to go to the print shop on the campus and experiment with phrases from our writing. I focus on the line ‘A Patch for the Ark’. Instead of the word for, I decide to use the number 4. ‘A Patch 4 the Ark’. It has been difficult for me to think of myself as only having three children now. I need to find ways to emphasize that I have four.
I say good-bye to my fellow participants and wish them well with their projects. I thank Nick for his leadership during the conference, and especially for his own catalogue of work. He encourages me to keep writing. I am grateful.
On the plane ride home I am placed next to a young man who has a seat reserved just for his cello. He is nervous, as there is a slight mist coming from overhead. The flight attendant tells him it is just condensation and will stop once we are in flight. He is not relieved, and is tense throughout the journey. I am not concerned. If the aircraft tumbled into oblivion it would be fine with me.
Once home, I retrieve my sample pages from the writing workshop. I start feverishly writing short stories about my mother, only now I am adding narratives about the death of my son. I put the stories into a folder on my desk top and after a few moments title the folder, ‘Don’t Look’.
Garden Plot
The rains fell hard last night
In the morning, the painted pole holding the tiny birdhouse staggered
Above the orange tiger lilies
Its worn grey wood and plastic pink flowers, an eyesore
The rotten pole was easy to pry from the earth
With a brittle crack, I lifted it into the air
To place it farther into the woods to further decay
But as it moved, the little house tottered and crashed to the ground
Outside the round opening a small mouse lay
Dazed, glazed brown eyes staring up at me
Paralyzed by the sudden downward sweep of its home
A soft patch of nest still upon the top of the pole
‘No one is to blame’ I said
The rains needed to fall
The wooden pole decayed according to its genetic nature
The mouse needed a house above the dangerous earth
I was working the garden because the ground was soft
No great plot
Don’t look at me so bewildered
MIND THE LIGHT
It has been over a year since the death of my son, and now I am headed south to St. Petersburg, Florida, to attend a family wedding. My flight from Detroit to Tampa Bay reveals a parched Michigan landscape, the jagged mountains of Tennessee, and the manicured swamp of an overdeveloped Florida. Once landed, I reach my VRBO, an inexpensive, but comfortable studio apartment in a slightly dicey neighborhood. I don’t mind. I grew up with the working class and am at home with those who have less.
I golf the par-three course, paired with a mother, father, and son escaping Minnesota for a brief interlude. The next day I try the championship links at Mangrove Bay, in the solid heat of a southern winter. I share the course with a friendly couple from South Africa who live part-time in this active city. I recalled the woman at the pro shop who said, ‘Floridians don’t like people from Michigan’. I’m not sure if this is because there are too many Michiganders overcrowding the state, or because of our political leanings. I want to tell her I am here because of a family wedding, but also because my son passed away and I still need respite from my grief. I want to tell her to just see me as a mother who has lost a child.
A trip to Dunedin and the beach at Indian Rocks includes an amazing mole’ at a Mexican restaurant as well as some charming shops to explore. The coast is saturated with the aroma of the Gulf. The sand is chalky white as I grasp it in my palms. I observe families with their children enjoying a day at the beach. It has taken over a year for me to once again be able to look at parents with their children.
On the weekend it is overcast and cool. It is a great day to museum hop. I am overwhelmed by the diversity of the art scene here. I film the Chihuly glass sculptures on display, and attend a glass-blowing demonstration. There is a young teen glued to his cell phone, oblivious to the magnificence around him. Later, as I enter the James Museum of Western Art, I encounter a bronze statue of a Native American youth playing an instrument. Once again, I am reminded of my son and his love of the Native American culture. There is a wall with cascading water, and an overhead sound system playing a flute composition. The exhibits range from animals in the wild to movie scenes from American westerns. One room is full of spectacularly crafted and polished Native American jewelry.
On Sunday I go to the St. Petersburg Friends Meeting. This Quaker house is set in a beautiful neighborhood. A chilly rain has begun, otherwise I would wander these cobblestone sidewalks all morning. The Meeting is a carbon copy of others I have attended in Ann Arbor, San Diego and Tucson. The majority of attenders resemble early American settlers. Mostly Caucasian. Silver-haired. Simple garb. Well educated. A mix of wealthy retirees and middle-class working folks. This residential house is beautifully maintained. The silky smooth plaster walls, maple woodwork and stained-glass windows are stunning. A lovely place to let your mind focus on the spiritual realm. There is a stone fireplace in the center of the room. ‘Mind the Light’, a plaque says on the mantle.
Worship is mostly silent. A query is read and a quote by George Fox. Let go of the things of this world that keep you from your inner spiritual truth. I think of the homeless man trying to get my attention at the gas station an hour earlier. He slowly rode his bicycle around the cement and kept calling me mother, as I made my way into the store. I bought him a sandwich, but he was gone when I came out. The reality of poverty cannot be perfectly fixed, like the Quaker meetinghouse. It is more complicated, more unpredictable and beyond our reach, no matter how quiet we are, how spiritual our focus.
I contemplate the sounds of the Meeting house, interwoven with our silence. A woman plays a classical piece on the piano before Meeting starts. There is the reading of the query. There are the sounds of elder attenders clearing their lungs. My phone goes off. No one is led to share a personal message. But at the end, many rise to ask for prayers. There is the sound of need in their voices. I think about my niece and her upcoming marriage. I think about her desire to be with a partner, to appear normal, like my mother did when she was thirty-two. She told us she was grateful to be chosen by anyone.
As worship concludes, the majority of sound now comes from announcements. The kitchen is being rebuilt. There is a group coming from the West Bank in Palestine. There is a business meeting after Worship. There will be a reading group to start in a couple weeks. They will be discussing a book that looks at the widening gap between the rich and the poor in America. They don’t need a book. Just drive a mile down the street.
I say hello, and introduce myself as a visitor. I love being autonomous. I love feeling at home with the Meeting environment. But I do not want to get involved. My life is enough to manage. What does it say about me and the Quakers, that I feel so comfortable moving from silence to silence across the country? Anonymous.
After the Meeting I drive down to the water’s edge. There are wind surfers and sailboats on the Gulf, riding the waves. If it were a beautiful day I would be taking in the sunshine. Instead, I am content to sit in my Challenger rental car and write this short entry. The palm trees sway. A few birds flit from limb to limb on the branches of trees planted in the sculptured lawns of the homes along the shore. I love how rain causes us to be still.
Soon I will go to hear the Tampa Bay orchestra performing in the St. Petersburg Palladium Theatre. My ears will be filled with the expert sound of resonating instruments as they perform Liszt, Walker and Brahms. My comfort will continue as I move though life today, while the man with mental illness continues to ride his bike in the cold rain, from gas station to gas station, calling out to anyone who will answer to the name, ‘Mother’.
OMEN
I go to my son’s grave twice a week to water the flowers I planted. It has been almost two years since his unexpected passing. An accident. I usually take devotions along to center my thoughts. Currently I am reading a book on hope, meditative observations by author Maryann McKibben Dana. In one of the chapters the author shares a quote by Barbara Kingsolver. ‘The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for, and the most you can do is live inside that hope’.
Other times I bring Dan’s iPod and listen to his songs. ‘I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you,’ Colin Hay sings. Occasionally, a hymn comes to mind. ‘Leaning on the everlasting arms’.
The vista is picturesque at Dan’s grave. A summer storm has caused one side of the massive, Siamese twin sycamore tree to fall. We feared this might happen when we first surveyed the plot. The two trunks welded together at the base, pulled in opposite directions as it grew. A wire was attached at one point connecting them, but it eventually snapped. The fallen comrade lay across a large swath of the cemetery landscape, miraculously missing marble headstones, and benches like our own, by inches.
I sit, my book of hope in hand, and take in the beauty of a complete August afternoon. There is a rustle behind me, and I glance to look into the woods. Nothing is stirring. I turn my attention back to my son’s marker, a batch of Black-eyed Susan standing guard just above his name. I hear the rustling again and re-examine the patch of trees bordering the University property. Perhaps there are college students, cutting across the stretch that leads to the engineering campus. The patch is empty.
My body is still now, like it is at the Quaker meetings I attend, waiting for the Light to reveal an inner message. The rustling returns. My head swivels across my left shoulder, this time encountering the presence of an adult hawk, two feet from my person, pecking along the trunk of the fallen sycamore. Seeing my attentive gaze, it pauses, lifts its full being, wings still folded, head alert. It stretches upward, planted on its canary-yellow limbs and sharp black talons. I could swear it is close to three feet in height. I am hypnotized by the round glassy eyes, the same yellow-colored irises surrounding chocolate pupils. The brown and white feathered pattern on the bodice unfolds from head to tail like waves upon a sandy shore. I wonder how it would describe me. Boney, naked limbs. Rippling fabric cascading down the torso. A head of hair, varied with streaks of brown and silver. A hard, black, reflective sheath partially covering the face. Its keen sight sees my little eyes behind the glasses, locked in wonder. We stare intently at each other for a few moments. Just a few. I ask softly, ‘Dan, is that you’? Suddenly, it awkwardly skitters away in an ostrich-like scurry, to a dead stump maybe thirty yards away. With one wave of its mighty wingspan it flies up to perch, watching me at a distance, as I continue my vigil.
Hawks are supposed to be spiritual omens. They represent wisdom. Clarity of vision. All signs that better things are coming. I have completed my memoir, including descriptions of Dan’s life and death. Maybe it is time to turn the page. To make a mighty move to a new height in these late decades of my life. I know it is what Dan would want for me. Another account on-line says hawks sneak up on their prey from behind. But there was nothing aggressive in its posture. If anything, it was more afraid of me and my solitary question. Dan has had whole conversations with me in my dreams, wondering why I am so bewildered.
I return to my car and get my phone. From a distance I film the majestic creature. It turns to look into the camera, content to be the star performer on a wooden pedestal. Later, I try to explain the encounter to my family. That extraordinary moment of awe, when I was allowed a glimpse into a reality that normally exists miles out of reach. When I show the remembrance, it does not capture the spiritual impact. It couldn’t. These life moments are only temporary. Like Dan’s first belly laugh. Or his fingers flying across the keys of the piano when he learned to play the theme to ‘Star Wars’. The way he swaggered into the living room as a teen, a Subaru alternator on his shoulder, so proud he had removed it himself. All these recollections and more lie here, beneath the earth, beside the sycamore, half-alive, half-dead. Until they don’t, and wonder sneaks up behind you, catches you in an apparition of hope.
Patricia McLaughlin’s writing may also be found @meteredandfree.substack.com
Trauma
My childhood was full of trauma. Being cared for by a father with an untreated mental health condition often put me in dangerous situations. I remember being surprised when I reached the age of eighteen. Between the teaching that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was eminent, the Russians were targeting us for nuclear annihilation, and my father’s vacillating between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I never thought I would make it to adulthood.
Trauma had an impact on my young person. I did well in school, especially when it came to music, drama and English. At the end of tenth grade, my English teacher recommended I be admitted to Advanced Placement for the eleventh grade. However, the AP teacher told me my I.Q. was not high enough for the Advanced Placement track. Since she knew me, from working on the school paper, she let me in. I went on to complete AP English in eleventh and twelfth grades, was recommended for AP math and graduated in the top ten of my high school class of over 600 students. I went on to achieve a Bachelor and a Master degree, with honors, from the University of Michigan School of Music. With all that accomplishment, my English teacher’s revelation about my I.Q. has stuck with me.
I loved school. It was my haven from the storms of life. I recalled the achievement tests we were given in elementary school. I cried when the results showed I should pursue a career in engineering. In the 1960s, my parents did not see the value in a girl working towards such a major. My father wanted me to get married or be a secretary. My mother wanted me to be a music teacher or a missionary. She missed opportunities to study in these fields, and hoped I would take up the mantle. I have wondered how much the trauma of my life impacted the tests taken. Though my mother was an exceptional cook, my breakfast was a bowl of sugared cereal. Lunch, a peanut butter sandwich on white bread. I picked at dinner, never consuming vegetables, except corn. The pediatrician told my mother I was malnourished and recommended liquid iron supplements. When my mother administered the first tablespoon, I threw up the limited contents of my stomach.
When I became a teacher, administration officials sent letters home weeks in advance of the MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program). Students were encouraged to get lots of rest the night before, and eat a good breakfast. We provided granola bars to any student that needed a supplement. Our district held some of the highest scores in the State of Michigan.
World history is full of trauma. We teach students the events of life war by war. Studies by social scientist Erica Chenoweth (Prof. of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) show the limited gains and unlimited loss of war. Still, highly educated countries, rich in resources, continue to use it as the first line of defense in any conflict. The slogan ‘Arsenal for Democracy’ has become a catchy oxymoronic mantra. The attack by Hamas into Israel was horrific. The Israeli counter-attack was equally destructive and I have wondered if the abuse some groups have experienced can ever be healed. Trauma breeds trauma.
As a child, my experience might have been helped by a public that included brain health as part of general health. If the conversation had begun with my grandfather, who died in a psychiatric hospital, my father might have been approached as one with a medical crisis, rather than a spiritual one. We do a disservice to the mental health community by labeling their symptoms as behavioral, rather than medical. Your behavior is a result of your illness, not the illness itself. My father loved Jesus, but no amount of born again Christianity was going to help his neurological signals to fire correctly.
Access to proper nutrition is key to brain health. In our country we have healthy food choices but we also have diets rich in salt, fat, and sugar. Caffeine can stimulate the brain. It can also inhibit sleep, which allows our brains to rest and recharge. Although cannabis, when administered under medical supervision, can provide significant relief for those living with a brain condition, widespread unsupervised consumption can turn on the gene for mental illness, for those with a genetic history. Dr. Fred Frese, a psychologist who lived with schizophrenia, dedicated his life work to the effects mind-altering drugs could have on those living with a mental health history.
It may be too late for the human race when it comes to war and weapons of mass destruction. The military mechanisms imbedded in the majority of developed countries seems like an impossible dilemma to solve. As a teacher I continue to have hope in the problem-solving abilities of our young people. My heart broke in 2001when a new generation was taught all over again the uselessness of war. I cannot imagine what the future will be for the children of Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Myanmar, and countless migrants who have experienced unspeakable suffering, destruction and death.
Acknowledgement is the beginning. Trauma is real and it has its source in areas that can be changed. Access to proper nutrition and healthcare is a logical avenue. Many individuals I knew during COVID were greatly helped by the stimulus packages that provided additional monetary resources. Eliminating stigma can also aide in recovery. The NIH Brain initiative seeks to map the brain and identify genetic components that run in family histories. I have witnessed four generations of family members living with mental health concerns. Now, as my grandchildren have come on the scene, I am watching them closely for symptoms, the way families with breast cancer or diabetes keep a watchful eye. Thank goodness the conversation has spread, with a cadre of on-line mental health services advertised and offered to the public.
But we also need mental health markers incorporated into our schools, as naturally as we address standardized testing for academic development and achievement.
The 21st century has been called the century of the brain. We’re off to a shaky start in this first quarter. But the first quarter is often characterized by missteps and adjustments, in order to find out what your team needs to improve. I probably won’t live long enough to make it to the half, but I’m hoping my grandchildren and every generation thereafter will experience less trauma and benefit from our concerted focus on total body health.