I Miss Dancing!

Between now and the end of November while I'm working on my book for National Novel Writers Month, I'm going to post a 'Wednesday Flashback' in this blog of things I've written long ago---before my husband died. These will be essays that still have relevance to my life today. So Here's my first Wednesday Flashback:

When I was seven or eight years old, I got the Gene Autry gun and holster set for Christmas and I worn them to bed more than a few times. I was in love. I even crawled up on my daddy’s lap once, sighed deeply, and told him that when I grew up I was going marry Gene Autry and his horse. My dad had the good graces not to laugh. It could be he was trying to figure out which one I was lusting after the most---the horse or the man. I still have that gun and holster and all of my Gene Autry fan club memorabilia. I never did anything half way, even my first crush.

I don’t know where I’m going with this trip down memory lane. Perhaps I’m looking at my life as if its film that I can edit and splice together into a movie titled: How to Grow up in Ten Easy Lessons, Plus One Really Hard One. Until I became a caregiver for my dad---in the five years before my husband’s stroke---I really hadn’t grown up and I was in my fifties at the time. My life was carefree and fun in my pre-caregiver days. Oh, I’d had my share of disappointments and pain. Who could get to be a half a century old without having a few monsters in their closet? But I try to learn my lessons and move on. Always wear the white hat. Mr. Autry would be proud.

Do you know what I miss? Dancing. I was never good on the dance floor. I have no grace, no natural rhythm, even though the Arthur Murray Dance Studios did their best to chance that when I was a kid. Never the less, I miss it all. Especially the tap dancing lessons I took when I so young that I still worn underpants with the days of the week embroidered on the fronts. Light bulb moment! If I were on the board of directors at Hanes, I’d expand that embroidered panties idea into a days-of-the-months set of cotton briefs for seniors. That way, when folks like me are at the store writing a check, and we can’t remember what day it is, we’d always know where to look to find out.

I also miss the square dances of my pre-teen days; my petty coats swinging and swaying with our do-si-dos and falling on the floor in a fit of the giggles. I miss the rock-and-roll record hops that came a few years later. (Those late night Time-Life R&R commercials are aimed at my generation.) I miss the rhythm and blues clubs and slinky dress dancing of my twenties. And disco. Don and I did some serious courting during disco. How could I not fall in love a guy who once told me, as I roller skated by, “You look like a refrigerator on a dolly.” Did I mention he could dance on roller skates far better than without them?

Most of all I miss the dancing that Don and I used to do in the 80s, the western stuff that came straight out of the movie, Urban Cowboy. Oh, we were never like John Travolta and Debra Winger struttin’ their stuff at Mickey Gilley’s. We just watched that fancy stuff from the side of the dance floor. But we had our county-western moments when I felt like there was nothing more fun than belly rubbing around a dance floor, thighs brushing from time to time, words passing back and forth---Gosh, I have to stop typing and go get a few ice cubes!

Don was far from a Gene Kelly or Patricia Swayze, and I was certainly never a Ginger Rogers, but I miss the magic and energy that dancing inspires. I miss the honky-tonk bars out west on vacations. Had I known the last time we danced that it would be the last time we dance, I would have taken a mental snapshot. But the sad fact is I don’t actually remember percisely when that was.

I do have a mental snapshot of the last time my dad danced before he passed away. It happened in the parking lot of a KFC. I had been chauffeuring him and his girlfriend around on a date and the tape deck was playing a song from the 40s when my dad asked Martha to dance. He had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. We all knew he was dying. We all knew it was the last time they’d probably dance together. It was such a bitter-sweet moment, so private and personal---the way they looked at each other---that I had to look away. I’d like to think that if I had a snapshot of Don’s and my last dance, it would be like that---too intense and personal to share with others.

My dad was a special guy. Even in the last years of his life, when our relationship was often more like mother and son, than father and daughter, he could still make me laugh. One time, when he was being tested for cognitive abilities---something that was done frequently because he was in the first wave of people getting a new Alzheimer’s drug---the psychiatrist had asked him what year it was. Dad gave the wrong answer and when the doctor corrected him, Dad said, “My daughter tried to tell me that in the parking lot, but I didn’t believe her.” Caregiver humor, you’ve got to love it. Another time, in a restaurant, my brother asked my dad if he was taking the noodle on his shirt home for a midnight snack. My dad, picked the noodle off his shirt, threw it over his shoulder, and said, “Hell, no!” and kept right on eating.

What is it I read in an old clipping from Ann Landers? “Old folks talk about the past, because they have no futures. Young folks speak of the future, because they have no past.” When did I get old enough to understand the full depth of that statement? Okay, so I’m having a cry-baby moment. But I know how to fix that. Tonight, I’m sleeping with my Gene Autry gun under the pillow!©

 painting by Zille Heinrich

Getting Lost in the Presence, Going Back to the Past

My doctor on Monday ordered a vascular carotid artery duplex scan and before I even got home the scheduler had left a message on my answering machine that I had to go in for the test on Friday, today. I called back insisting that I didn’t do tests in their downtown location “so schedule me at the hospital,” which is located in the suburbs. “We could do that,” the woman said, “but your doctor wants this test done in a timely manner and you’d have to wait three weeks to get in there.” Crap, I thought, by then snow could be flying and I don’t do snow either. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said when I whined about hating downtown driving. “There’s nothing to it. We’re just off the expressway and our parking ramp has very gentle turns.”

What she didn’t say is that the expressway has an S curve in the middle of the downtown area and off the S curve I’d have to take the connection to another expressway before existing again to their location, plus there is construction going on in the area. Under the best conditions, these are the most dangerous pinch points in the whole metro area of over 1,000,000 people. And I got lost. Thankfully, I left early enough so I could get myself turned around and back up north to familiar territory where I could start all over again. This time I routed myself without using the expressways which took my past one pit bull fight in progress and two hookers selling their wares but I got to the medical building in time. The next time some anonymous scheduler tells me to go to that building I’m going to tell her or him that I’d rather die waiting for an appointment at the hospital than to die from the stress of going downtown. On the good side, the woman who did the test said if she had found anything significant they wouldn’t let me leave. That was comforting until I remembered that they told my husband that he had passed his yearly physical with flying colors then two days later he had a massive stroke.

Change of Topic: For four-five years I‘ve wanted to take part in national novel writer’s month which takes place in November. This year I decided to go for it. In case you’ve never heard of NaNoWriMo, this is what their website says: “National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 p.m. on November 30. Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel.” It’s not all online either. Lots of cities, including mine, have meet-ups at local coffee shops and food courts over the month so you can interact in person with others working on a novel.

The website calls people like me ‘rebels’ because we intent to break the rule about only writing fiction and/or the rule about writing all your words in November. I won’t be getting a “merit badge” at the end but I don’t care. I just want the pressure of writing with a deadline. They don’t mind rebels and the website offers a whole section for us to interact with one another. I’ll be working on a memoir/humor book about living with a spouse with severe language disorders, and I’ve actually got seven years of daily note writings that needs to be rewritten and ruthlessly edited down into a cohesive book.

As a widow it might not be easy reviewing what I wrote while watching my husband cope with his post-stroke life but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I have a story to tell about a man who inspired just about everyone he met and thus my widow’s journey will be taking this detour to the past. I might get overwhelmed. I might give up in the first week. Or I might be a glutton for punishment and follow through. My November social calendar is also filling up and I’m beginning to wonder where I’ll find the time to sleep. Still,1,667 words a day is doable to make the word count quota for the ‘”write-athon.” After reading though the posts on the rebel forums I discovered I’m not the only widow doing a memoir which shouldn’t surprise anyone who reads blogs written by women. Whether we are using the book idea to put a period on the past or to keep ourselves attached to the past is a question I’ll let others decide. All I know is I will not be going to the downtown Starbucks in November for one of the local meet-ups of NaNoWriMo. ©

Finding Contentment

Followers of this blog know I’ve been on a two month quest to find friendship out in the big, scary world of widowhood which as it turns out, isn’t so scary after all. I had already been active at the local senior citizen hall this past year so part of my master plan was to add Red Hat Society activities and volunteering at the Historical Society/museum to my social calendar. What I found in the first two aforementioned groups was a whole lot of other widows out there doing their best to keep busy and not wallow in the world of Poor-Widowed-Me, an admirable pursuit and one I fully endorse. Victimhood is not a merit patch I want to wear on my sleeve. I am woman, hear me roar.

Women have always been amazing in our ability to form groups and get involved whether the goal was philanthropic in nature, completely frivolous or hobby related. And we have the ghosts of women like Clara Barton, Dorothea Dix, Susan B. Antony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to make us feel guilty if we haven’t spent at least a few years of our lives devoted to a do-good cause greater than ourselves. In more recent years many of the groups women join could be defined as supportive in nature. We are joiners. We are self-improvers. There are groups out there for divorcees, widows, single mothers, women who have cheating husbands, mothers with addicted family members---you name it there is a group you could join for every life event or circumstance you could name on the face of the earth. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone when a widow sets out find others on the same uncharted path. But the path isn’t really uncharted, is it. It might be the first time we, personally, are widowed but the state of widowhood has been around as long as marriage itself and there are time-tested ways to find a way to being happy---or at least contented---again.

Over the course of my Grand Experiment these past few months I’ve talked to dozens of widows. In all our conversations one reoccurring theme was hard to ignore: widows who were happily married say they still miss their spouses whether they died two or twenty years ago BUT they also say they are content with the single-hood life they’ve built since. It also struck me that I only ran into one woman who said she had a bad marriage before she became widowed. I’m guessing women who fall into this latter category of widows are not attracted to joining the same kinds of groups that I am? They could be out looking for a new, improved spouse, or maybe victim-hood is a comfortable place for them to dwell and they aren’t interested in breaking new ground. They could also be the women you’ll find joining the Purple Thong Society or throwing themselves into the becoming the best damn Church Lady in their congregation. It’s hard to play amateur analyst with someone you’ve never met. I try anyway. Someone has to make broad generalizations with no factual basis what so ever for their assumptions. Then again, things become a cliche` for a reason. Happily married or not, I must also note that some of us are not joiners by nature---I never was before---so I don't know if anything definitive can be drawn by my experiment. All I really know for sure is we can't change our lives for the better by sitting on the couch.

In the past two months five women have asked to exchange contact information and, dumb me, it didn’t occur to me with the first three that there are probably unwritten rules covering who makes the first move after exchanges like this. The ball was in my court. I should have followed through with a call since they were gutsy enough to show interest in becoming friends. These were all lovely women, our conversations were organic and there was no reason to fear rejection. Still, by the time I decided to make a call to invite one of these ladies to an art show, I had lost the number! An accident or was I subconsciously being careless because I thought I’d never follow through?  Bottom line: after two months of trying to find friends I learned two very important things: 1) There are good opportunities for developing friendships out there for those who want to make the effort, and 2) I’m inclined, now, to believe that I really don’t want to achieve that goal as much as I thought I did. I’ve made the opportunities materialize with my master plan. Good opportunities. But my need for human contact seems to be satisfied by the warm acquaintances I’ve developed over the last two months and the fact that I’ll keep seeing those acquaintances at reoccurring events in the future. If something more one-on-one develops over time it will because I’ve become the mouse instead of the cat. For two months I’ve been the cat stalking the mice. ©