#amwriting, #STOP, Healing, Health, Memoir

STOP!

On January 10 2024 I shot out of the gate full of fire and resolve, the fabulous holidays behind me, a mighty suitcase full of essentials headed down the baggage carousel. Workshops and writing groups were ahead in Seattle. Two hours: that was all it took for my suitcase to destroy my left arm, deltoid and neck while pushing the heavy bag up the Bainbridge Island ferry ramp. Unbelievably I was faced with a change of plan.

I spent a long time setting up this particular winter/spring; dates in the calendar written in pen, submissions, sign-ups, advance emails for groups meetings. The Orthopedic took a picture a day later, stated there were no tears and I needed rest, massage and muscle relaxants. I had planned to be in a two-day immersive that first week, join a gym, walk five miles a day. I could not get dressed, lift my arms to brush/wash/clip my hair or look at a screen. Full stop.

I don’t do “change of plan” well in any condition so I persevered/struggled; propped books and my iPad on a large pillow. Slept upright. Took less meds be clear of mind. Tried walking smaller walks more often. Every had neck spasms? I do not wish them on anyone. Until my cousin in her ultimate wisdom, hearing me whimper getting out of a chair, put her hands out and barked “STOP!”

I stayed in my pajamas that day. Got refunds for the workshops. Called for a cortisone shot and advice. Sat in the steam room every day. Lifted nothing but a teacup. Who stops in January? Prior to leaving I had cleaned the garage for five days, lifting everything, tirelessly making room for the new. That was just the first five days. It never occurred to me to stop until my body spoke up, something like hey girl, hair on fire, enough.

It worked.

For a tangle of reasons I am moving fast, for one my goal to have the memoir collection outlined soon. I was crushed that I simply could not function. But here is what happened, mostly during the sleepless and uncomfortable nights; my mind engaged. I wrote some great lines. Solved some tricky transitions. Fleshed out some characters. And not a letter was written down. The big picture was just that — a picture that I actually needed to have in this process.

Here I sit typing (yeah) and thinking and finally back online with some update on my silences. Have I learned anything? Hopefully.

How do you stop? Did you know we need to?

*Richard Stine, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.*

Alexandra Dane writes what lies deep in the marrow of our bones: life, disease, memory and hope — always hope. Winner of the Annie Dillard Creative Non Fiction award from The Bellingham Review this year, Alexandra Dane is also published in River Teeth and San Fedele Press’s American Writers Review. Her manuscript-in-progress explores coming of age, twice, at the mercy of cancer; once as a young caregiver for her mother and then as a patient herself. Her blog, http://www.alexandradanewrites.com explores the tiny big things that happen. She knits to think.

#amreading, Books 2023, Personal opinion

My 2023 Reading List.

Here is the list of the books I read, in paper form, in 2023. This is not a book blog as you know, but today these titles, posted on @alexandradanewriter each time I pick one up to read, deserve a list. Sometimes I post a thought, but mostly I just document them. My process for choosing varies: the cover, the title, culled from online bookstore recommendations, book group choices, friend suggestions, ones poached from a hostess’s bedside table, indie bookstore purchases, required reading from a workshop.

If you make it to the end, read my short short evaluation list. Happy New Year!

Foster — Claire Keegan

Journey of The Heart — Daily (started) Melody Beattie

A Glove Shop in Vienna + Other Stories — Eva Ibbotson

Book lovers — Emily Henry

The Comfort Food Diaries — Emily Nunn

Wintering — Katherine May

Things I Don’t Want to Know — Deborah Levy

In Five Years — Rebecca Serle

The Cost of Living — Deborah Levy

Real Estate — Deborah Levy

Women Holding Things — Maira Kalman

No Baggage — Clara Bensen

The Best American Food Writing 2022 — Edited by Sola El-Waylly

Red Paint — Sasha taq sablu LaPointe

Blow Your House Down — Gina Frangello

Stone blind — Natalie Haynes

Just A Mother — Roy Jacobsen

Miss Bunting — Angela Thirkell

Milk Blood Heat — Daniel W. Moniz

Enchantment — Katherine May

Artful Sentences: Virginia Tufte

The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

Poet Warrior — Joy Harjo

Dear Edward — Ann Napolitano

Ma and Me — Putsata Reang

Hang The Moon — Jeannette Walls

Walk the Blue Fields — Claire Keegan

Unraveling — Peggy Orenstein

Fellowship Point — Alice Elliot Dark

In The Distance — Hernan Diaz

Go As A River — Shelley Read

The Hand That First Held Mine — Maggie O’Farrell

The Feather Thief — Kirk Wallace Johnson

The Covenant of Water — Abraham Verghese

Yours Truly, The Obituary Writer’s Guide — James R. Hagerty

When A Crocodile Eats the Sun — Peter Godwin

Books + Island in Ojibwa Country — Louise Erdrich

Small Mercies — Dennis Lehane

Good Eggs — Rebecca Hardiman

You Could Make This Place Beautiful — Maggie Smith Memoir

Antartica — Claire Keegan

Demon Copperhead — Barbara Kingsolver

Flash Nonfiction — Dirty W. Moore

Meet Me in Atlantic City — Jane Wong

Shrines of Gaiety — Kate Atkinson

Second Star and Other Reasons for Lingering — Jody Gladding

The Bookbinder — Pip Williams

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur — Alka Joshi

The Librarianist — Patrick deWitt

The Perfumist — Alka Joshi

Lilac Girls — Martha Hall Kelly

Landslide — Susan Conley

Reinventing the Enemy’s Language — Joy Harjo

Tom Lake — Ann Patchett

Birnam Wood — Eleanor Catton

Midnight at The Blackbird Café — Heather Webber

The Women in Black — Madeleine St John

Trust — Hernan Diaz

beyond that, the sea — Laura Spence-Ash

Study for Obedience — Saish Bernstein

The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly — Margareta Magnusson

So Late in the Day — Claire Keegan

No Two Persons — Erica Bauermeister

The Lioness of Boston — Emily Franklin

Finding Muchness — Kobi Yamada

A Bird in Winter — Louise Doughty

Mad Honey — Jennifer Finney Boylan

The Abundance — Annie Dillard

the wren, the wren — anne Enright

The Reluctant Caregiver — Devon Ervin

Returning Light — Robert L. Harris

Stolen — Ann-Helén Laestadius

Big Heart, Little Stove, cookbook — Erin French

How To Walk — Tech That Hand

A Philosophy of Walking — Frédérick Gros

The Best American Food Writing 2023 — Mark Bittman

When Death Takes Something From you Give it Back — Maja Marie Aidt

Spark Birds — from Orion

Moon of the Crusted Snow — Waubgeshig Rice

The Land of Lost Things — John Connelly

When I sing, Mountains Dance — Irene Solà

Terrace Story — Hilary Leichter

Absolution — Alice McDermott

North Woods —Daniel Mason

Note: The following are solely based on my personal evaluations. All of the books are worthy. All books are worthy. I close each one at the end wiser, smarter and healthier.

Best book, Fiction: Tie between Go Like a River (L. Doughty) and A Bird in Winter (S. Read).

Best book, NonFiction: You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Maggie Smith

Worst book: The Lioness of Boston, Emily Franklin — too many liberties with the concept “historical fiction” about Isabella Stewart Gardener.

Need to read again: When Death Takes Something From you Give it Back — Maja Marie Aidt

Thought provoking: Moon of the Crusted Snow — Waubgeshig Rice. Dystopian yet close to home.

Moo.

I interrupted my Seattle trip to fly to a friend’s memorial and to hug his wife and son as many times as permissible. This morning, red-eyed, I am back at the airport, the man behind me in line saying ‘moo’ over and over again under his breath as we sort out our queues. I hoped he wasn’t setting an ominous tone for this leg of the journey. But it turns out the opposite was true.

After security, putting all my removables back on and accounting for my technology (yes, once I walked away without my laptop) I discovered that Starbuck’s had turned off the mobile order feature in Terminal A. Resigned to the line ahead I walked in and read my phone. To say the line was moving slowly would be to give it credit for moving at all. I struck up a conversation with a man in a badge ahead of me, turned out he had been in charge of Logan Airport Delta plane maintenance for thirty years, which led to the woman in front and myself letting him know we only flew Delta, so I thanked him, which led to a lot of talk about the new planes. We all had time. He was charming.

Behind me, I heard a Delta flight attendant ask if she could move ahead in line and I leaned over and waved her in front of me, which led the people ahead to wave her all the way to the registers. Not a single ‘moo’ to be heard. A team of giraffe-like volleyball women sparkled and laughed in spectacular nails behind me. Are we all just getting used to the travel curveballs?

When we finally reached the head of the line my Delta friend stepped forward and bought us all breakfast. He thanked us for our loyalty to Delta. We shook hands.

It was a good line kind of day.

To date: five, going on six memorials in 2023. This moment was a stamp of humanity I needed. Yesterday held tears and a deep feeling of mortality. Today I feel vulnerable and very, very alive. Maybe because of all the loss. Maybe I am overtired. Maybe because I am searching for the positive now everywhere I go, this morning was life affirming — though I have a handkerchief on the ready in my coat pocket.

A bunch of people being human who help each other. I will take it.

Thanks for reading, friend.

Chestnut season, Funerals, Kindness, weddings

Chestnuts

I read this morning it is chestnut season in Tuscany. I concentrated on the beauty of that sentence; there has been nothing but horror to visualize recently. I closed my eyes, saw fat brown nuts, the fingertips of broad leaves curling in the sun, woven baskets, my daughter’s favorite dessert marrons glacé — a feast of candied chestnuts, vanilla, whipped cream — piled on a china plate. A short respite.

To date in 2023: five memorials, a wedding and my niece expecting. I told the bride a few weeks ago she had no idea how bright and hopeful her wedding felt to me. I have already purchased and patterned a multitude of baby gifts months before the shower and due date. How do we find light when the world seems so dark, the bombs so thick, the death so unrelenting, the anger so hot?

I find I am very conscious of being alive.

I have mourned the lives of friends over and over this year, the next chapter feeling close and urgent and more worthy than before. How to spend it?

I would like more time with my family that makes us laugh. Books. Martinis. Published pieces. Walks in new green spaces. To see you all in person, face-to-face, and talk. To share meals and stories and ideas. A chance to practice kindness every day.

I waited an inordinately long time to curbside check a bag at the airport today, then let a woman go ahead of me as she arrived late and in a lather about her flight to LA. I had the time. I had the breath in my body. Letting her line hop just didn’t seem that big of a deal.

She explained she had been in the hospital for a week with her mother and it was hard to leave her. Her two bags turned out to be over-sized, each weighing more than fifty pounds. The baggage handler waived the fee.

Kindness feels good.

Pass it on.

care giving, Healing, self-care, Turnovers, Vermont

Under the sugarloaf.

Yesterday, as the sun kissed the fields good morning, a slender heron waited still and unblinking on the edge of the pond below my window, right where the long grass meets the water. For the first time since we arrived in the heart of Vermont ten days ago the deep green mountains were flecked with red and green. This is late August in Mad River Valley, a magical turnover season when sultry summer yields to fall, the high sun beginning to cast low shadow. Where I retreat to give care to my family member who has had surgery, grateful to a friend who has lent this sprawling house tucked between hills. While I wrap ice packs and count pills, make meals, load laundry and begin again, I am surrounded by unsurpassed beauty that has almost (almost!) made the long days of mending secondary.

A care giver is only as good as their own mental and physical health: I make lists, rise around the clock to check vitals and hunger and pain scale but I also take care of myself. Ten unread books stack on the dining room table — not so much thinking I would have spare time to read them all only to ensure I had just the right genre for the mood and fatigue roller coaster that comes with doing this for another person. There is a fresh dress or two in the closet for the down days. I take showers, grab long walks during nap time. There are digestive biscuits in the pantry. We are in the land of Ben + Jerry after all, so the freezer is stocked. We are lucky a daughter and husband can stop in with a dog to cuddle and make meals with me, distracting us from the tedium of healing and surgical trauma, the countdown until the cast comes off and the boot lightens the load.

Yellow finches sweep through the evergreens and snack on the coneflowers as the garden rests. There are short excursions this second week, a coffee shop where we can sit by a stream, a store up the road bursting with produce. The experience these weeks is not un-similar to the feeling of quarantine during covid — seclusion (for wound health), non-weight bearing slowing the days to a crawl, nothing on the calendar but shifting from couch to chaise to bed. Early bedtime. Early rising.

I fill my social media with photos of my walks. I choose the book with 715 pages and lug it to the stream. I rise at 4am and read, make notes and gaze out the window. Self-care goes hand-in-hand with giving care; be wary, if you are needed, of the Florence Nightingale myth. These days are work, there can be anger and misunderstanding. All of this is the reality of getting well, understandable and human. We get by it.

A mountain of trees rises over the pond, called by the locals ‘sugarloaf,’ the conical shape evoking the century-old method of storing sugar before cubes or bags. There is one in every valley, distinctive and hike-able. This morning, as the sun swept over dew so heavy it looked like frost, a doe and her fawn stepped out from underneath the sugarloaf shadow to drink from the pond, white tails flicking as I slid the door open to watch them watch me. The coffee machine splutters. The tea kettle steams. We turn over our bodies to what is in store for us.

Another day begins.

Carcinoid tumor, Changes, PMC, wellness

And.

I have been taking a breather in the Pacific Northwest, saying ‘yes’ to any and all invitations, seeing some beautiful country, reading voraciously, submitting, doodling. If I am honest, I am processing a lot of changes that happened in the month of June. I wrote about my son’s marriage and my creative nonfiction award but I had one more milestone; for the last six years since my carcinoid cancer diagnosis my routine has been MRI-bloodwork-exam; the first three years/every three months, the next three years/every six months. This changed on June 5th, when my oncologist smiled and proclaimed “see you in a year.” My reaction was unexpected.

First of all, this is a ten year tumor watch. So for the last six years I have had to work on managing what seemed like a very long exposure to fear, expectation, pre and post anxiety, some months better than others, because those appointments seemed to run together with hardly time to take a breath and be well in between. I have had good IV nurses and ones that had to be replaced after the fifth try. I have been hot, cold and sick from the dye tests. I have learned to ask questions even if I piss people off and wait patiently for answers to be found, shivering in a paper gown. Eighteen times buckled into the older, tighter MRI technology that took 45 minutes to scan until this spring when I was surprised to walk into the room and see a shiny new machine sporting a big blue ribbon. Turns out I was one of the first to slide into the newest state-of-the-art MRI machine — roomier, lighter, noisier — that cuts the scan time in half. “Proactive” has been a journey of both faith, acceptance and perseverance.

My reaction that I would be released for twelve months from this routine was visceral.

First, my whole body went cold. Then my face got hot. The tears — yes, ugly-cry ones — sprang. I laughed and apologized then said “that feels scary.” Because until that second I hadn’t realized all those appointments — no matter the sleepless nights and fearful days awaiting results — were my safety net. They were all I had, while I waited to see if more tumors were growing. Seeing him more often, I had the advantage of frequent information to take immediate action. One year?

There was a silence. “Your numbers are good,” he repeated. He sat back in his swivel chair but what I saw as clear as it was real; my oncologist sitting forward and throwing his arms high, opening his hands to release something folded tight in his palms. I watched wings explode and beat the air, a bird flying free and upwards into the sky. Whatever you want to think about this moment of drama I can tell you; that was my heart, friend.

One month down and not counting. That is the freedom. That is the fear. That, reader, is the new reality of wellness for me.

My family rides for the PanMass Challenge in a few weeks, raising money for cancer research on team Crus11Tour. Friends, family and I have directly benefitted from the money raised. I will be ringing a cowbell extra hard at the rest stops for all that cannot be with us and my new timeline, thanks to efforts like this.

Stay cool, treat yourself to good things, take time out. Life is short, good and full of blackberry milkshakes.

*Bainbridge Island 7:05 Ferry July 2023*

Graduating, wedding, writing

Graduations.

June has so far been a month of unexpected and utterly amazing graduations.

Last weekend my son was married; a beautiful, relaxed and sunny wedding north of Boston, their dearest friends and family surrounding them on a bluff that hung over a salty estuary dotted with lobster boats. There were serious tears from our first row, waterworks of happiness, love and gratitude. We gained a wonderful daughter and sister that day. He is my married son. When they slid the rings on and said ” I do” my status — in an instant — changed to “mother of two married children.”

I now will take any and all suggestions on how to be a good mother-in-law.

That same weekend I received an email that I had won the Anne Dillard Creative Non Fiction award at the Bellingham Review with my essay “The Language of Flowers.” A piece I submitted last February when the sleet and snow were pelting the windows on Bainbridge Island, about planting a garden while my mother was dying. Utterly surprised, utterly honored, I have now graduated to ‘award-winning writer.”

Mic drop.

I took graduations with a grain of salt in my early years: I didn’t even attend my college graduation despite being notified of several distinctions. I was too busy getting on a plane to hike the Inner Hebrides of Scotland with my mother. And there was too much champagne at the pre-game for my Masters graduation that admittedly the day is a bit of a blur and the photos too. Both were rites of passage I expected when the educations ended. I never gave them much thought again.

But marrying a son, well, we all hope it will happen but did we know that it will rearrange our hearts — tear out little bits and at the same time fill us with happiness until our chests feel twice bigger? That we will be forever changed by both loss and love? In a good way. Growth, in one day, that has changed me.

Writers, we just keep submitting, keep writing, keep waiting for the right reader to be changed by our words and inch us further out into the world. In my case, a published and extraordinary Native writer, Sasha LaPointe, chose me. My heart is so big right right now I could burst.

I will let the newlyweds share their photos of the excellent day. And until notified how and where Bellingham Review will publish my piece they own the rights for a little while. So it’s only Tuesday — two days since this special weekend — and I have a sore arm from tossing my mortar board in the air.

These graduations will stay with me for my lifetime. May I honor their lessons well.

Until then, you get me as a sign-off; the Matron, complete with some false eyelashes that also, may I note, was it’s own noted and enjoyable graduation experience.

Easter, friends, Jelly Beans

Pull Over.

This morning, at 5:21AM to be exact, the jelly beans got pulled over.

SeaTac airport was quiet, people were orderly, I went to the correct scanner with my fake hip. All was well until I saw my bag drop-kicked out of the conveyer belt and sent to detention. Knitting needles? Never happens. Food? A tidy legitimate turkey wrap in my handbag. Hand cream? Always check that I am under 3oz.

A very serious, perhaps end-of-shift TSA agent was slamming bins into a cart when he saw my small roller and marched — ominously — to my bag, looking neither left or right, while I hopped into my shoes and scuttled to his kiosk.

“Unzipping” he said, not looking at me. I had an urge to laugh.

I tend to run from snow and ice and skiing every year, at least for February and March, to the Pacific Northwest. To each their own and enjoy, but I prefer rain, early daffodils and the cascade of time change that has the migrating song birds shouting outside my window by mid-March at 4:45AM.

Today I head back, for an exciting spring of family events and my late garden, friends and catchups. My bags have less clothes and more thrift finds this time, secured curbside. I am as always sad and excited at the same time.

“Anything sharp’ he continued — not a question.

“I am a knitter” has proven to be the best way to answer this. “Beware of needles” is more informative, but that cheeky humor once incurred a more extensive search than was necessary in a small regional airport. So I keep it simple.

He pulled on blue rubber gloves and began to rummage. Immediately yarn teetered precariously on the edge, an eye crayon threatened to bolt, magazines commenced to slip. Then he pulled out the offender: an unopened, brand new bag of Brach’s black jelly beans.

A tender memory: every spring for the last uncountable years I have returned to the frozen land before Easter and my dear friend across the street has placed a bag on my kitchen island for me, sometimes in a bunny-themed bowl from Marshall’s. After she passed in 2020 I skipped them for a couple of years: as grief goes. When my cousin brought a bag home for me this week I savored the amazing that somehow the memo had been passed on. Thanks, Lou.

So I packed them, in my carry-on no less because jeez, no thanks a sniffer dog grabs and runs with it while inspecting downstairs in baggage transfer.

The agent, not a smile or a chuckle, meticulously massaged the bag — every last jelly bean — through the packaging. He replaced it, zipped (stuffed) the bag together and pushed it across the counter.

I thought: my friend is laughing her pants off somewhere.

What is the simplest, most pleasurable act you can do today, for you and for another?

It’s the tiny big things.

National Women's Day, Success, Surge, Women

Surge.

Early this morning I waited outside in a wintery mix for the doors to open at Apple. Through the glass walls the tech teams got ready for the day in a meeting that began with an International Women’s Day video played on the big screen; Michelle, Hillary, Malala, Maya Angelou flashed across the vast room. The employees clapped through the clips. I didn’t need to hear the audio to feel inspired.

At the end, this sentence hung on the screen until the doors opened:

WHO IS THE WOMAN THAT MOST INFLUENCED YOU IN YOUR LIFE?

I was a half hour early in panic mode so gratefully this focused my attention on something besides my blank, un-chargeable brand new iPhone 14. Who indeed?

Whether I go backwards or forwards in time, women have been the indelible, invincible marks on my life. From a grandmother who endured health challenges while holding up households, to one who became a Senator. To a mother who chose art over secretarial school. To my daughters who have strong careers and choose their lives, their way. To my future daughter-in-law who is the backbone of her job.

And my women friends and family: Writers, lawyers, negotiators, mothers, doctors, influencers, curators, designers — to name just a few of their remarkable talents.

Do I have to pick one? I am surrounded and always have been. And by men like my son who supports us all with grace and honor. My mother once said to me, when I balked at a PHD: “What did I burn my bra for?” We argued, for years, that I got where I did because of that bonfire that was her, and now I had to do my own blaze.

My phone had experienced a ‘surge’ and I learned how to reboot from a nice techie who took thirty seconds to identify and fix the problem. We conquer, one step at a time, in our surge of failures and successes. Cheers to you all, past, present and future.

Proud of them all.

MOG, Silence, Sparkle

February.

This morning I was sewing a button onto my oldest most favorite peacoat listening to the water strike the hull while the ferry cut through Puget Sound.

In, out, cross over, cross under, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.

Fully aware that I only had navy thread in my little sewing packet which was not ideal as the coat was black. Fully aware that my fingers were seizing up with cold. I persevered; in, out, under, over. Here is what struck me — I loved this thirty minute suspension of time, when I unclenched my teeth and listened. Focused on the minute. Not one need to move.

I miss suspended time, like the period of quarantine during covid when not a car was on the road and the earth was flooded with silence. My ears and mind opened to all the possibilities. So sue me; I loved spooling myself back onto my core being when it was mandated to stay still.

This month I am in Seattle, meeting deadlines and sitting in small spaces with my fellow memoirists, drafting and charting and prompting our stories into more layers of words and story. I feed off their energy, squirrel it back with me to my desk, run it through my head on walks, wrestle with new format on paper. But this February, 2023 I feel hustled; hustled to do things fast, run from one moment to the next, cram it all in again; do more, try harder, go back to the way you used to be!

Because I have a better template, one that savors not squanders. One that understands only so much walking feels good, so many errands are important, too many workshops are just — well — confusing.

That said, I went MOG shopping yesterday with two patient women. As the Mother of the Groom I feel more pressure than MOB because I have trouble being neutral. I pulled on dress after dress (this is another blog that involves Nordstroms, sizing on the racks, and real bodies), tossing colors and deep necklines and contour fits to the floor alongside mountains of tulle, rushing in and out of the room for consultation. By the end of the first hour my hair was standing on end and my patience and composure ragged. I took them to lunch and had a very uncharacteristic glass of wine. Then I found the one, only to worry the next ten hours that it was a little too sparkly. TBD on whether I order the dress that made me feel marvelous. Read: not so neutral.

All of this swirled around my head in the tub last night, soaking my tired dress-shopped-out feet. The urge to keep shopping, try more stores, do it all over again made me jittery. Then I thought this exact thought: you don’t have to do this, didn’t you learn anything?

I did indeed. So I ordered it.

What did you keep from the time of covid lockdown that you actually love?

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