Horizons

"Now, bring me that horizon"- Johnny Depp

I remember photo albums when I was little...that's the joke "photo albums"... no-one does photo albums anymore. I asked my sister in law to see my nieces' 'baby books' and she held up her phone. "There ya have it", she said; "It's all in there". It's all in the imaginary 'cloud'. There is something about holding a photo album and holding a piece of history in your hands; the touch; the ability to stick it on the fridge; the 'realness' of it. I have closets full of albums. They ARE slightly a hassle, as designated linen closets become filled with memory books. Hoarder status activated. 

I remember, when I was young, seeing books filled with women, and eventually learned were my Aunt and Grandmother, in far away lands...in row boats or fishing or glamorously laying on a beach chair... I would look at these photos and think how strange it was that my Aunt and Grandmother had a 'previous life' before the one filled with, well, 'grandma things'...like cooking and sewing and babysitting. The black and white images were magical and I am sure were much more, so much more, when experienced in color. Need to interject a funny story here: my son, when he was little, told me that he thought the world was in black and white back then. Well, 'back then' wasn't that long ago. I remember black and white tv, and I also remember when I received my AARP card in the mail...insert sad face emoji.

Times change and people age and the world evolves around us. The 'black and white world', as my son said it best, becomes brightly colored within a 4D or 5D atmosphere that changes in a nanosecond. If you blink you may miss it. Literally, IF YOU BLINK you WILL miss it. Often I will talk to one of my children about a 'breaking news story' and they will casually, and boredly (if that is not a word then I am going to Trademark it for our new generation) say that they already saw it on Instagram or TikTok. I'm like, "It just broke!!! They just announced it". A nano second I must have missed. 

Cut to March 2020 and a worldwide pandemic. The world changed. People became prisoners in their homes.  Our worlds became instantly smaller; four walls to be exact... and it lasted foreverrrrrrr. I don't think it's really over yet. I think we just said FUCK IT and give us a booster shot and let us be human again. The four walls melted away and we stepped back out into our world...one foot at a time. Like a child learning to walk, we started 'learning' how to live again and socialize and mask up and unmask and stand closer than 6 feet apart again. I think we may actually be shaking hands again when we meet people, although I still have a slight fear when it happens...but baby steps...we are getting there; wherever our new 'there' is.

Our priorities may have changed somewhat from our covid prisons. Perhaps we appreciate our time on this earth as healthy human beings because we were all faced with the fear of our own mortalities. Daily, healthy people, and even babies, were, well, dying...out of nowhere...from a virus. We lost family and friends, and those that we didn't lose aren't healthy anymore, and may never be again. If that doesn't make one appreciate life, then I have a therapist's number you can use. Offices became Zooms; doctor visits became Teledocs;  kitchen tables became classrooms; dining out became curbside pickup; garages became gyms; and hospitals became morgues; we became sanitized; and Kleenex became toilet paper. 

Then, we stepped outside again. Charles Bukowski wrote,“I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.” This got me thinking...

Summer of 2019 changed me...it changed everyone in my family. It was the month that I became a brand new person. I would navigate this big blue ball, floating in space, alone. Not alone physically... I have my friends and family...but, alone as in a new identity: single.  I wrote in my journal, "I wonder who I will be in a year". Well, ironically, we were all living in our own little worlds with quarantine and isolation from the bigger world that was out there. I started this new life by collecting my thoughts...and then my belongings...and built  a home, safe behind the comfort of four walls and a closed door. 

Then, that egg cracked and we could all move around this planet once again. 

I evaluated what I want my memories to look like to others...it's that sense of mortality talking...what do you want your life to look like when others look back at your life? What will it be that shows that you truly lived? What will it be that shows you were loved and lived? This perspective has become increasingly important to me lately. I don't want to be the mom that became a widow; that raised her children; that went back to work; that paid the bills and went to bed every night in perfect routine. I want to be remembered for much more than that. I didn't come this far to only come this far. 

I made a conscious decision, and discussed it with my children, to make more memories that matter...more memories that add to quality over quantity. Now that I COULD move around this world, I SHOULD. I WOULD. I AM.

There's something about being in a place where no-one knows your name. Thornton Wilder wrote,"It seems to me that once in your life, before you die, you ought to see a country where they don't talk in English and don't even want to”. I want to move with no purpose, in lands that I have never experienced. I want my children to not just 'expect' a summer vacation, but experience core memories that shape who they are. Travel rarely starts when you step foot on an airplane and rarely ends when you arrive safely back home. It should involve research and education and profound intellectual curiosity about people and places and cultures unknown. It should educate and refine you. I want travel to become our family's new uncurable epidemic for which there is no antidote. By seeing the world I want to discover how I fit into it...how WE fit into it. It is about leaving the familiar. It's been a long time since I have been ME...I've decided to say 'NO' to everything that doesn't fit into the life that I want to live.

Cut to summer 2022. Summer of travel. I spent a week in Paris with my daughters. I selfishly taught them French culture as a disguise to 'have them all to myself' for a week. Empty nest moms rarely get to HAVE their children on a daily basis.  They learned about history and culture and art and the importance of all of these things in their lives. They learned to continuously be wanting to know more, feel more, see more. Core memories activated!

Italy is next on the books this summer. I started saying, "Yes" to things in my life that I otherwise may have second thoughts about doing. In an world where everything has changed, I am becoming more ME than I have ever been. I am going to start romanticizing my life. It was easy for me to say yes to this trip. I said to myself, "When else in your life will you be able to say that you sailed the Amalfi coast of Italy in a catamaran for 10 days". It was a hell fucking yes. So, I plan on diving off of more boats, eating more pizza, and drinking more wine at sunset, unapologetically. I am going to document more memories of what heals me. I am going to print off more of these pictures, so that somewhere, in the maybe not so far future, a little girl is sitting cross-legged in her bedroom, asking about the smiling woman on a sherbet colored beach in the photo in their hand. 

Horizons. I don't know where I am going from here, but I promise it won't be boring...and in the end, I will just be happy I was there and lived to see it.

“Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.” Ryu Murakami

Ciao

Are you THERE God, It's me Amy?

I learned of a new place that exists. A place called “There”. “We’ll get there”…”You’ll get there”…wherever ‘THERE’ is….. what does ‘THERE’ look like? What will ‘THERE’ feel  like? Sometimes I think, “Oh, I’m getting THERE”, only to realize I am so, soooo far from being THERE. Who has time to get THERE anyway? And why is it such a great place to be, anyway? And why do we want to arrive at it at all, ever? THERE must be this magical place of amnesia. A beautiful blank slate. Does that sound like a place I want to get to? I realized this morning, as I got ready for work, that the road to THERE means change, big change, and it sucks big time. THERE means you have to go through all the steps to dig out of holes, and climb mountains, and swim from beneath a valley of tears. THERE knocks you to the ground when you don’t even realize it is about to happen. THERE sounds like a place so far away from where I started. I was strolling through my life, beginning the next 50 years of my existence, in the life that was so known and expecting. THERE pulled the rug out from under my feet. Just this morning, as I prepared for work, THERE left me standing with tears streaming down my face, with a sucker punch to the face. That’s what THERE does. Just when you think ok ok ok I’m making progress, it shows up and makes you realize how much you are NOT getting THERE. I realize much about getting THERE. I realize that THERE and I are NOT friends, not even acquaintances. No Map Quest in the world would direct me to it…any time soon. I don’t know about this place called THERE, but I do know the path to getting THERE, quite well, and what it looks like. I’ve memorized its dark alley s and side streets like the lines on on my own palms. Getting there means that instead of the “Honey, I’m leaving” hugs in the morning, you will stick your face into the stiff and unwashed shirts hanging in the closet for a deep inhale, just to take a piece of them with you when you start your day…and everyday you think (no, you know) that the smell is getting lighter and less ‘him’ than before. Getting THERE looks like a tap on the side of his photo as a virtual ‘hug’ before leaving your home. Sometimes getting THERE means realizing the many things that AREN’T THERE…and won’t ever be THERE again. I don’t know how quickly people are supposed to get THERE. My mother has been gone 30 years and sometimes I don’t think that my family is THERE yet. Or a flow of memories flash through the day and then you realize well maybe you aren’t ever going to get THERE. But people will tell you not to worry that you will get THERE. How do they know that? Have they arrived safely THERE before?  I would ask them why it was such a coveted destination. Or maybe they don’t know that getting THERE is a place that we really don’t want to get to because we don’t know what THERE will look like, or feel like.  However and truthfully, nobody said it was an easy road to get to. Right now I don’t  know if I want to get THERE. So I continue to find ways to getting THERE, and many more ways to avoid it,  as I navigate through this place that I never wanted to get to. For now, it just sounds like a place that I wouldn’t like very much. I would like a refund on that ticket.

Wilted Lettuce

I threw away the last of the flowers today… and the wilted shredded lettuce that I told him to grab the night before. My blue nail polish is faded and chipped from the July 4^th vacation. The house resembles an ordinary life. The laundry is still in baskets in the laundry room. The open toothpaste container is still next to the sink. The phone charger is still on his side of the bed. A single lottery ticket is propped in his car’s cup holder. His phone will occasionally ring. I can put the television on now. I moved his ‘important papers’ pile. I am moving within a space we called ‘ours’. I left the house last week. I left the house last week to go to the mall. I left the house last week to go to the mall to buy a funeral dress. It’s a time like no other when the living world touches the grief world. It’s as though you can almost hear the crash. Eye contact is non-existent. Things need to be accomplished but you only want to retreat back to your safety net. If you have ever lost someone very special to you, then you already know how it hurts, and if you haven’t, then you cannot possibly imagine it. But, unfortunately, someday you will. You see, there is a club that you never want to join. But you will one day. When just one person is missing, the entire world feels empty. We will all feel it at one time in our lives. It’s God’s funny way of reminding you what is important. “Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be”. And you move, even when moving is all that you can do. Moving without a plan and moving within a stillness that has no description. When you look at the world through tears, you see things that dry-eyes cannot see or feel. Immediately nothing matters; not the bills; not the laundry; not the workouts; not the vacuuming. Nothing. So you take a step forward…and then another step…and the next thing you know you have another day coming to a close. But you count them, much like a new mother counts the days of her newborn. Two weeks. We are at two weeks. Our loss is two weeks old. In 16 years I have never gone two weeks without seeing him. I have never gone more than 24 hours without talking to him. So I listen to the one text message from months ago saved in my voicemail just to remember what my past sounded like. It’s amazing what people can accomplish when tears are streaming down their faces.

I spent 8 hours, without sleep, writing the hardest story I have ever written. I had to write the most important story of all true stories. All the English classes in the entire world do not teach you how to write the obituary of your husband. The story of a man who left us years and years before he should have. I wanted to simple say: “Wally Christopher Kelly left this world on the night of July 11, 2019 and this is complete BULLSHIT!”. He always said I never listened to him. He always rambled on and on about things he had accomplished in his life. I have rolled many an eye to the stories he so loved to tell. Well, guess what honey, I listened. I remembered. I remembered the stories through a foggy brain and a shattered heart. It’s odd when your ‘co--rememberer’ is gone. Sixteen years of ‘inside stories’, kindergarten graduations, little league championships, family vacations, nights dancing in a Hawaiian hurricane, new business ventures together, room service in bed, our favorite restaurant in New York, our secretly despising the same people, the snowstorm of 2008 when we felt like the only people in the city, knowing exactly how each day begins and ends, and then… dissecting it. And then you realize you are the only one left that has that memory bank. I didn’t plan on doing this thing called  life without him. Muhammad Ali said that every fighter has a plan until they get hit. We got a one-two punch smack in the face.

There are images of Jackie Kennedy standing on the tarmac when her husband was assassinated. Pillbox hat. Blank state. Deflated. Unless you’ve known sudden and devastating loss I do not think that you can relate to that image. A picture says a thousand words and that photo says what words cannot describe. Deflated. Crushed. I read the funeral program today. Two weeks later. I am sure that I read it that day. I don’t remember. A gauntlet of grace from friends and family surrounded me, but my only thought was inhaling and exhaling. I have never experienced this in my life. The ability to be present but not. I remember thinking that it hurt to smile. I could hear myself breathing in and out and not much more than that. I wanted soft places like bed, pillows, arms, or laps, not the sterile reality of a wooden church pew.  I remember not having the strength to wipe the tears rolling down my face.

I know the sound that a heart makes when it breaks. It does not simply hurt inside one’s chest. It crumbles and thrashes. It wells up inside. It explodes with ferociousness. It is felt to the ends of your fingertips. It shakes. It wipes away worries and thoughts and plans and steals you of your strength. It leaves you lying on the floor begging God to wake you up from your horrible dream. It makes you remember and forget all at the same time. It makes your brain race through every memory both good and bad. It makes you replay and replay every word said to each other that last time together. It makes you retrace their steps in hopes of feeling them again. It makes you light candles. It makes you sit in silence. It makes you scream and curse at them for making you do the rest of life’s crap alone. It makes you look directly into the face of the ugliest giant there ever was. It makes you mad that the world is moving forward but you are stuck. See, when great hearts break they make a sound that you will never forget; a sound that feels like silence mixed with commotion. They say when you die your entire life flashes before your eyes; a broken heart causes the same results. It makes you see yourself from the outside looking inward. It makes you want to comfort the person that you see. It makes you watch this person that you know to be you but do not recognize. It has brought many a great man to their knees. It makes you pray to a greater God for the ability to stand when your knees are giving out. When a heart breaks it gets confused with what to do with the empty space within it. They say that the chemicals in tears when a loved one dies are not the same chemicals as in other tears. I tasted one (lots actually). They are different. They drip in my mouth sometimes when I am just too numb to grab a tissue.

I can’t begin to describe the feeling of the funeral. I sat among hundreds and hundreds of friends and family representing a life well lived. The service conducted around me, but I only heard myself talking to my husband. I watched him as he was placed in the front of the aisle of the church. I told him that this room was filled with all of his connections he made for the last 62.11 years. I have never felt more loved and alone; of which these words have no space within the same thought. I asked him why. I cursed him. I thanked him.

One-week prior we were on the streets of Coronado, California watching the Fourth of July parade. I watched the videos last night. I listened to him talking in the background. It was our tradition. It was part of ‘what we did’ every year. Little did I know that one week later I would be sitting in a church back office picking out psalms for his funeral. I heard it. I replayed it. Over and over. There in the background I hear his voice. My phone is recording the bagpipes marching down the street. I don’t remember the conversation at all, but it is there as my witness. I say, “Honey, we could have bagpipes at your funeral” (another inside banter we had following the death of his mother). “Now that would really hit the ball out of the park” he replied. One week later four pipers marched my husband out of the church…son holding his urn…blessed by our priest. You see, life does not fucking prepare you for this bullshit. Goddamnit!!!! Why the fuck? I don’t want or need these lessons in my life, God!

As I sit here and write this I know that he is still with us, although he is placed behind me in a beautiful blue urn, surrounded by mementos of his life. A life well lived. We feel him move around the house. I haven’t been able to let anyone in my/our bedroom. I told my Ashley that I feel like he is in there. An energy. I laughed when I told her that I am keeping him trapped in there and not letting him out. She replied that he would hate that. “I know”, I said. I know. God dammit, I KNOW! I know too much about this person. I hear him. I feel him guiding me. CS Lewis wrote, “As if God said, “Good; you have mastered that exercise. I am very pleased with it. And now you are ready to go on to the rest…”. But God, I needed him here. HERE! My only comfort is thinking about why God reached down and pulled him from us. I can only imagine that a man with so much power and drive and larger than life personality down here with us would only be just as strong of a powerful force up there…as he watches over us…and writes the next chapter of our lives under his direction.

Mother's Day Guilt

I think there’s a reason why I finally developed those videos sitting in a dusty box labeled “To Do” in my linen closet. I think there’s a reason Parker asked where the videos were, of him as a baby. I believe greater forces are pulling us in directions in which we are unaware. I know my mom and grandmother are directing my life from somewhere above the clouds… directing events to occur at just the right time. I clicked the envelope on the screen from the online memory company, which developed my memories. They say you can never go back, so enjoy the times while you live them. Bullshit, I pressed the cursor and immediately was sitting in a living room at 29 years old, in a home somewhere in Plano, Texas, surrounded by the theme of motherhood. They say when people die they get a birds eye view of their body from above and can watch their loved ones surrounding them in their final moments. I felt the bird’s eye view as I inspected every inch of my surroundings in the video on the screen. What was I wearing? What are the kids doing? How did I decorate? Was the house clean? Who was I? What was I thinking? Was I overwhelmed or tired? Was dinner on the stove? I spent hours watching my life. I spent hours watching what I forgot for the last 20 years. Did the girl on the screen know the adventure she was about to embark on? Was she even worried about that at all? I have read many ‘Letters To Self’ that people create in their blogs. I have read stories from older women and what they would tell their younger self if they could. I was overwhelmed with thoughts as I watched our long lost home videos. I wanted to tell the young mom in the video so many things that she had no idea were occurring or going to occur at the time of filming. Was my younger self just being a new mom and focused on the present or was she too tired to think past each day? I can only imagine how I felt when I hear myself say on the video to the kids, “Grandma left today” following her helping me with my new baby. There I was on a couch somewhere in Plano, Texas with a 4 year old, a one year old, and a three-day-old baby.  Now what? I watch with anxiety but I didn’t appear anxious at the time. I watch with worry although there was no worry in sight on the video. As I view the tape I am filled with more anxiety and worry than I had at the time. Was she going to do it the right way? Would everyone feel loved? Will she not fuck this up? “Why isn’t she worried”, I say to the screen. “Why isn’t she hugging them harder or picking up her two year old when she asks”. Goddamnit Amy! They want things from you and you didn’t hear the request…. It’s hard to watch your younger self maneuver an ordinary day. My father used to say, “If I knew then, what I know now…”. True! If she only knew what I know now! If she only knew then she would know that there would be a day some 20 years later when she is watching herself on a screen in a kitchen that she will cry. If she only knew that she would be alone with three dogs and children either at work, on vacation, or in college while she watches her younger life. If she only knew that the laundry would be done because the loads are practically nonexistent since she became an empty nester. She would know that her older self would gladly trade places with her younger self, sitting on the floor with a newborn, a one year old, and a 4 year old, while still with a hospital bracelet on her wrist. She would know that she should have listened more intently to the stories her 4 year old was telling her about the days her mother was in the hospital for the delivery, and what she missed at home. She would know that she should hold onto that 1 year old that climbed into her lap a little tighter, because those days are short lived. She would have known that she should have stopped time. I want another chance. I want another chance at it. I want it all, again. I want to say to her that ‘You got this’. I want to tell her how beautiful her babies were going to grow up to be. I want to tell her about the soccer games and the football games, and the dance lessons, and the horse back riding. I want her to know that the children loved the proms she chaperoned. I want to tell her that the girls will someday call you their best friend. I want to tell her that she got her wish for some peace and quiet, or even a ‘break’, and that she would hate it. I want to feel the feeling of being a human jungle gym again. I want to tell her to smell the babies and feel the babies and kiss their little foreheads. Again and again and again. I want her to know that she will be turning the big 50 this year and let her know not to worry about aging because it only means that she lived. I see her gently hold her babies. I see her wipe their tears and change their diapers and strategically maneuver herself through her new little world with so much grace. I want to tell her that she looked beautiful even though I know she didn’t feel it at the time. I want to tell her that she is doing a great job. I want to tell her that when the children are older they will tell their friends stories about their childhood, and that she will hear them say it and smile. I want to tell her that the next 20 some years were successful because of what was happening in that little home in Plano, Texas; the one I was watching on the videos. I want to tell her that we are all who we are today because of all those sleepless nights she had…all those days when she thought it would never end…all those days that she wished she could get a minute to herself. I want to tell her that, well, you will get a minute to yourself…actually you will have minutes that turn into hours that turn into days by yourself. I want to tell her that she will spend those hours wishing she was on a floor somewhere in Plano, Texas, with a diaper in her hand and a toddler on her waist. You see, 20 something year old Amy, all your hard work got us to where we are today as we embark on this next chapter of your life. So if I have to tell my 20-year-old self anything it would simply be, “Thank You, we got this”.

Happy Birthday

I can’t believe it’s already been 9 years! 

Up In Smoke

I wrote this post when visiting Paris and the beautiful cathedral known as Notre Dame...

My Last Day as a Parisian:
I debated about going to the Notre Dame cathedral because I could see it from afar the entire trip, and quite frankly, I was getting a little 'churched out'. But Ranco (my driver who became my friend and historian) picked me up and so my history lesson began. Did you know that little gypsy boys will spit on your ATM so that you get grossed out and they can steal your money... Notre Dame took 110 years to build! It started in 1293! When someone is being a 'slow poke' the French say, "what is it gonna take you 110 years to finish?" because of the church. The first thing you notice are the gargoyles perched on every corner. To the French, everything has meaning to it, even architecture. The gargoyles are perched above all the carved stone sculptures on the building to "protect" them, in more than one way. The top of the gargoyles are actually gutters that carry water away from the sculptures. There's a little coin in the front entrance from which all points in Paris are measured. The cathedral is gothic and huge and feels slightly cold inside. The church was built soooo massive so that the pope could see how good and Catholic Paris was. He agreed, so they decided to move the capital from Lyon to Paris. And it is the center of the city. Mass was going on and it said 'No Cameras Please' (see attached photos). And there was a huge smoking incense tub that filled the church with smoke. I told Ranco that the gargoyles look like crap and need to be fixed and he said that they can NEVER fix them because they are historic and someday they will just disappear. A man was playing an accordion outside. Across from the church is the island of Saint Louis (ill St. Louis). He was a King but they called him Saint because he ripped his jacket in half and gave it to a poor, cold guy. Now the island is tres tres expensive. The King of Qatar just bought a house there and it cost $20 million and he's remodeling it for $100 million. Anyways, the island used to be called Vache Island, or Cow Island cause they used to keep cows on it. Speaking of cows, when u order a steak they say "blood or no blood." Ummm ewww! I also went into the worlds oldest bar from 1526. I bet they didn't serve mojitos back then. Who knew mojitos were such a popular drink in Paris. A week in Paris goes by quickly. With every step I took in the city I thought about things my children would have loved about the trip. Hannah would have loved the desserts. Ashley would have definitely Instagrammed the Eiffel Tower. Parker would have loved the boats. Beau would have liked the skyline. They all would have tried to speak the language. And we all would have been together making memories. That's how you know you love someone, I guess, when you can't experience anything without wishing the other person were there to see it, too. I watched my last sunset from this side of the world. The most beautiful things in the world are waiting for me on a little street, in a different country, and they call me 'Mom'!