Month: December 2010

Wrapping up the old year

Rain started last weekend and continues unabated, accompanied by winds that rattle the chimes out back and threaten to sail the hot tub cover and garden furniture all the way to the beach. Annie pokes her head through the doggie door and decides she doesn’t need to go potty yet. At church Sunday, the hail pounded on the roof so loudly that Father Brian had to pause in his sermon. He looked up at the ceiling and said, “Oh, great.” But that’s the Oregon coast in winter.

It was a good Christmas, although I have been sick the whole time, with lots of coughing and achiness. I’m feeling better today. I am grateful for the many friends who invited me into their homes for the holiday. I was blessed with wonderful presents, receiving far more than I gave. Now it’s my favorite time of year, when the pressures of Christmas are over, but we still have the lights and the leftovers and a little time off.

I have begun a list of things that happened in 2010. I thought I didn’t do much this year, but when you add it up, it was quite a full 12 months. For example, I played music for more than 100 church services, attended nearly 100 yoga classes, walked Annie nearly 300 times, filled two binders with new writing and finished two books that I hope to see in print next year, I gave up my sweet dog Chico, attended three writing conferences, made two trips to California, drank more than 700 cups of Red Zinger tea, ate more than 300 muffins, joined Oregon Coast Therapy Animals, got new tires on the car and a new garage door opener, drank over a thousand glasses of iced tea, drove to Albany to see Fred at least once a week all year, ate at least 25 turkey-avocado club sandwiches at the Red Door–and yet kept off the weight I lost in 2009. 

What about you? I’ll bet if you start making a list, you’ll find this year was more eventful than you thought. You’ll also discover that even if the bad things stick out in your mind, there were good things, too. Try it.

Happy New Year!

A special Christmas gift: sight

It’s three days before Christmas. The rain has stopped, replaced by blue sky and white clouds. Small branches litter the lawn, and my beloved blue hydrangea is nearly naked, its leaves blackened and shriveled from last month’s snow and blown off by recent windstorms. It’s cold and wintry, but it’s still so pretty here I could just look at the view out my window forever. One of the great blessings of living here on the Oregon coast is that we have four distinct seasons, and they are all beautiful.

Earlier this month, I had surgery on my left eye to deal with a cataract and remove a growth that had sat on the edge of my iris for ages. It went well, with some pain afterward but nothing dramatic. After two weeks of dealing with unmatched eyes–the fixed left one and the nearsighted right one– I picked up my new glasses yesterday. I can see better than I remember ever seeing before. Last night, as I looked up at the bright moon and the trees silhouetted against the sky, I saw my first stars since the surgery. What a blessing. I felt like I could just stand around looking at things forever.

Out my window, a tiny brown bird perches at the tip of a leafless alder branch then zips across the yard and over the roof. From the next block, I hear a neighbor hammering. Across the street, another neighbor has hung out his orange slicker to dry.

Today, the day after the winter solstice, we will have slightly more daylight than we had yesterday. As dusk falls, Christmas lights will appear all around. I have lights on my little tree and around my windows. I can look out at the neighbor’s multi-colored lights wrapped around his roof and bushes. Down the road, two families have gone all out, with inflated snowmen and Santas and sheets of lights everywhere. When I make my treks down Highway 20 to visit my husband in Albany, I see lights hanging from mansions and rustic cabins, brightening the way through the rain and snow.

A sad note: My husband is not doing well this Christmas. He has had several worrisome events lately. He is pulling more and more inward as his abilities fail. Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease. Unfortunately, most of us seem to have someone in our family with this illness. They may forget you, but don’t forget them or their loved ones this holiday season.

Meanwhile, as I sit here typing, the clouds have thinned, revealing more blue sky. Two bright blue Stellar’s jays soar from my Sitka spruce to the Douglas fir next door. My dog Annie sits gazing out, eager to go for her walk.

There is so much to see!

Whatever your situation, look up. Find the blessings and be thankful. I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a blessed new year.

When in doubt, sing

Fred and I are alone in the TV room at the nursing home. I can’t get the television to work—too many buttons and accessories. I have run out of stories, and no activities are scheduled for another hour. The other residents are still in the dining room finishing lunch.

Before I left home, I prayed, asking whether I should bring the dog to help me entertain my husband or my guitar to play some songs. But the message I kept getting was “neither.” Now here, I know the dog would have been too disruptive during today’s early lunch, and putting on a performance would have kept me from focusing on Fred. I have made this extra trip because Fred was in a bad way yesterday. He started the day hollering and hitting people, then spent the rest of the day weeping. I didn’t know what I would find today, but God told me, “Just bring yourself.”

So now I sat with Fred on the plasticized sofa staring at a blank TV. I stroked his age-mottled hand, rubbed his white-stubbled cheek. He was in a good mood, but I feared he might start to cry in this long silence. I took a deep breath and began to sing “Dashing through the snow . . . ” Immediately this man who can’t form a sentence started singing a perfect bass accompaniment to my soprano melody. We went from “Jingle Bells” to “Jingle Bell Rock” to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” I went through every lively Christmas song I could think of. With no sheet music to rely on, I occasionally mangled the words, but it didn’t matter. Our two voices connected us in a way that nothing else could. We both felt the magic.

At last an aide came to make the TV work, and we settled in to watch an old episode of “Gunsmoke.” But the music lingered in the air.

On the night we met 27 years ago, I was singing. Music remains the shining thread that holds us together in spite of Alzheimer’s Disease. God gave me a voice. When in doubt, I must sing.

Seeing Stars

I studied the stars Thursday night, trying to memorize how they looked that night. I knew I would never see them quite the same way again. Not the stars, not the clouds, not the book I was reading or my own face in the mirror. In the morning, Dr. Haines would operate on my left eye, replacing my cloudy, cataracted lens with a new one and removing a growth on the front of my eye. After 42 years of counting on my glasses to give me 20-20 vision, I didn’t know what I’d be seeing.

Melodramatic? Yes, I know people go through the cataract surgery all the time and come out happy. But this was MY EYE, and this was happening about 20 years sooner than expected.

The adventure had begun last spring when I went in expecting to get new glasses and found out my nascent cataract had advanced to the point that it was ready for surgery. I’m too young, I protested. It turns out you can get cataracts at any age, although most people are in their 70s and 80s. The doctor suggested we wait six months to see if the other eye would catch up. It hasn’t yet, but the left one had to be done. While he was in there, he would remove the pterigium, a fatty growth that had been hugging up against the brown of my eye for 20 years.

Multiple doctor’s appointments, a slide show at the hospital, days of eye drops, eyelid scrubs, stop wearing makeup, no food after midnight, and there I was at the hospital, IV in my hand, numbing drops in my eye, rolling into surgery, staring at the lights above me, three deep breaths . . . waking up in recovery with a humongous patch over my eye.

The scratchy-sore pain didn’t start for a few hours, and the pupil stayed dilated until well into the next day, but I started getting surprising glimmers of vision. Saturday morning, I could see the clock on my nightstand without glasses. I could see farther with my “operative eye” than I could with the other. I could even see the computer sometimes without glasses. As predicted, I could also see new wrinkles on my face and dust in my house.

The eye still hurts and it’s blood red in places. My vision fluctuates, and of course my other eye is still super nearsighted, so I won’t be seeing 20-20 till I get new glasses in a couple weeks. I’ll probably be inserting eye drops until Christmas.

In the old days, folks who had cataract surgery had to lie perfectly still for weeks, but things have changed. I asked the doctor when I could go back to yoga class. Tomorrow, he said. But no headstands. I nodded, as if I could actually do a headstand.

Annie, my dog, keeps staring at my face, apparently wondering what’s up with the glasses on/glasses off business. I stare back, naked brown eyes to naked brown eyes.

As for the stars, they were a bit muted last night, but coming out of the doctor’s office Friday afternoon, I saw the most beautiful sunset I ever saw. With two eyes.