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And That’s the Way it Was

/ Picking My Battles


The home internet isn’t great, but, in truth, it’s been worse. Still, at 8:55 AM, I pack my up my laptop and head for the country store five minutes away.

I know I’m really after something more than WiFi.

Saturday morning is sunny, the cool air a reminder of a vicious storm the night before. Our south-facing, earth-sheltered house escapes the effects of even the worst winds. If not for last night’s pink lightning and intensifying winds following me and Thing1 home from the Tux shop, seemingly targeting us for annihilation, I would only note a few left-over rain drops minimizing the late spring fire hazard that threatens after the snow melts and the trees are still naked.

I hit the radio button but promptly turn down the volume as I head out our long, rocky driveway. A grouse family now lives at the top of the driveway. The territorial ‘dad’ often tries to flutter inside or attack the car, so I listened for him instead of for news .

The county store is quiet when I arrive. The first round of coffee-klatchers has already been by, sharing farming and turkey hunting gossip before abandoning the gingham oilcloth covered roundtable behind the register. I grab a seat by the deli so I can enjoy the smells of frying and baking and enjoy a view of the giant antique roll top desk and the window.

“I’m operating on four hours of sleep.” The store’s matriarch sits at the desk going through bills. She stops to prop her elbow on the desk and her head with its crown of silver-white hair on her hand. I rarely see her sit, let alone sit without moving. Normally she’s brightly chatting with coffee-breakers while answering questions about where the restroom is and if she carries a certain kind of ammo as she manages the paperwork.

“Tommy has a tree on his house, so I switched with him today,” she says.

It’s my first news of the day. Coming from the Midwest where tornado warnings regularly accompany summer storms, I’d rushed to get us home Friday night. The storm moved over our mountain and river so quickly that I’d laughed at my fears. Last night fears were realized for other people, however.

Another store regular strides past the register and round table to the hunting license counter to use the phone.

“Are you out, Margie?” the owner asks.

“We are and so’s the Pipers.” The new arrival’s sweatshirt is wet down the front, her hair is wild. “Mark had to chainsaw a tree across the drive so I could get out. Have you seen any power trucks yet?”

“A few went by, but I think they were headed up into Sandgate,” the owner answers. She looks at me. “Are you out on your road?”

“No,” I answered. “I thought the town had power.”

“The east side does apparently, but everything’s out above the notch,” she says. “Cambridge is even worse.” Cambridge, NY, the next town over from Arlington, VT is where Tommy lives.

Margie dials the power company and reports outages for herself and for neighbors she’s already checked in on before driving down her mountain. The store owner asks if they need any other help, but Margie smiled and shook her head no.

She heads out the door as the red-headed son of our plow guy saunters in. Not too long out of high school, he already has his own landscaping business. He also asks Margie if anyone on her road needs any chainsawing, and I think how unfairly the popular culture maligns kids of his generation.

Margie left. The young man grabs a coffee and a chair, telling us which neighbors have power or trees down on houses or cars. A store employee, a student at the local community college, comes from behind the deli to sit and nervously tell us about a tree on her grandfather’s car. The young man offers his help and leaves.

A few customers from Cambridge filter in. They tell us they think they were hit by a tornado, rapidly recounting moments spent huddling in mobile home bathrooms and later chainsawing trees to get out front doorways. Their voices pitch higher as they remember the panic, illustrating the magnitude of the storm more fully than any news reel.

Over the next hours, more regulars file in and out, making their calls to power and phone companies. The store owner always asks do they need help. They regularly answer with inquiries about her house. Other self-employed landscaping guys stop by for coffee breaks.

This morning customers are simply friends and neighbors who need to be safe. Later in the day, my Facebook feed features photos from friends and of New York’s governor stopping by to survey damage and make what are hopefully not empty promises.

The visit and a confirmation that at least one microburst caused the extensive damage may make the local news. What likely won’t make the news are the reports of people sending pizza to homeowners and power crews working to clear trees from a local street. I doubt I’ll hear on the radio about our plow guy helping someone out of a house or the countless offers of help and favors done — big and small — made by the country store employees.

But that’s the way it was this afternoon, and that news was just what I’d gone looking for, even if I didn’t know it.

Curating Memory

/ Picking My Battles

Between skipping dinners at fancy restaurants and driving themselves rather than the limos featured in every movie about proms in ‘middle class’ America, Thing1’s and SuperGal/SeriousGirlfriend’s prom expenses hover far below the $1000+ average we hear about on the news.

Even the least expensive tux rental, however is a budget buster for us. Last year Thing 1 was tall and broad enough that we altered his dad’s tux down to fit him. This year he’s 60 pounds lighter but still has his prom and hers to go to.

I finally break down and buy him a suit that can go to prom and beyond, but it isn’t just about the money.

The two of them haven’t seen each other much this winter. She was under the weather in April. He’s been trying to have a complete week of school since two days after Christmas. The last week or two, we’ve juggled his medications a few more times. Tonight he has enough energy to drive the two of them in our 20-year-old Volvo wagon.

Her mom and I are feeling unusually normal. We snap as many pictures as we can fit in our phone and camera. The kids smile at us and each other the entire time, exchanging tolerant glances as their moms and dads laugh and cry and wonder aloud where the time went.

SuperGal playfully pretend-jabs Thing1 in the chest when he makes a joke intended to provoke the females.

“Careful,” he laughs. “That’s near my bleeding intestine.”

My antennae go up.

“I thought we were done with this,” I want to say.

He was done with this morning. Now, apparently, it’s back.

I don’t go to bed early on any prom night. Until the key turns in the door, I’ll be mentally replaying every news story of every kid that’s been in a prom-related car accident (even though I’ve been comparatively calm when he drives to work at night through most of the Nor-Easters we had this winter).

This prom night when he walks in the door, I’ll ask him if they had fun. Who did they see? Was the music good? Did you have snacks?

The question that has to come, that has become part of our new normal, will have to wait until morning. Whatever the answer will be, it will not become part of his memory of this night.

Attached with Love

/ Picking My Battles

“Oh, I realized he was an alcoholic almost 30 years ago,” my friend told me in a moment of candor. I was gobsmacked. He, her husband, always seemed a personification control, but I also knew only the people in it know what goes on in a marriage.

I asked how his disease of addiction had affected their marriage, but I really wanted to ask, “How did you hold it together?”

“I had to just detach,” she answered without any hesitation. “I detached with love.”

I’ve thought about that phrase a lot recently.

As my friend explained and I later learned, detaching with love meant not allowing the addict’s behavior to govern her own actions or emotions.

My friend’s life had been chaotic before she began detaching with love. She explained that when he wasn’t drinking, their marriage was good. When he was drinking, he was manic and she was angry. Detaching meant finding an even path next to his.

Thing2’s illlness has been the proverbial emotional rollercoaster ride.. Just when we think we see the top of the hill, the bottom drops out with no clue where it will stop.

I generally hate rollercoasters. My stomach stays tense for days after. The current ride relaxes it’s grip on my heart for just long enough to let it relax before clenching again.

When Thing1’s symptoms start wrapping their tentacles around our hearts, it’s tempting to try to detach emotionally, but it’s also impossible. To detach means to experience the lows and lower lows of the disease through a filter, but it cannot occur without a cost.

Thing1 is not his disease, but it is part of him, and he is part of me. Anesthitizing my feelings to gain the illusion of calm, detaching enough to pretend the disease doesn’t cause emotional turmoil would require detaching part of my heart from him. That’s a price that I’m not willing to pay.

One Fine Day

/ Picking My Battles

Monday night we sent in Thing1’s enrollment fee to UMass Amherst. It was a huge moment but not just because he had finally decided which direction the next step in his future.

He had been back on steroids for a week to give his newest drug a chance to kick in. For four days his energy and resulting mood had been on the upswing. We stopped wondering if he’d need a medical deferral for school.

Thing1’s doctor has told us numerous times that Ulcerative Colitis is a permanent diagnosis, but it seemed as if the drugs and new diet were finally starting to control it. We bypassed hope and moved directly planning for the next few months.

Tuesday he took the last dose. After work we drove an hour to Clifton Park, NY to get a suit on sale for prom. As I drove, he talked about his plans for the prom at his school and the one at hers. A week earlier the long drive and fitting would have drained any energy and interest in conversation, let alone planning.

Wednesday was glorious. I used my day off to fax forms to schools and take care of car inspections. I listened to radio talk shows and reveled in the sunny first day that truly felt like spring. We closed out the day with burgers and silliness around the table at a local haunt. It was a celebration of normal.

It was a celebration of a new journey.

We got home while it was still light out. Thing1 claimed the coveted corner section of the sectional. I got out my laptop to follow up on a few issues at work. Thing2 channel surfed as he worked on his Star Wars fan video script. Chris stretched out on the other sofa for a well-deserved post-burger nap. Thing1 went to bed earlier than the night before. All of us chalked his exhaustion up to his busy day, refusing to entertain any possibility that the glorious string of days was an anomaly.

This morning when he came downstairs, his complexion was paler again. He silently made his diet-friendly breakfast and went to sit on the sectional. I hated the question I had to ask.

“Yes,” he answered. “One step forward, two steps back.”

“I’m sorry, Buddy,” I said, trying not to call a 6’3” gentle growing giant, ‘Baby’ as I’m often tempted to do when his mind or body is hurting.

Thing2 was almost ready for school, and I ducked into the mud room and angrily kicked off my slippers.

“I give up,” Thing1’s voice echoed around the corner. I wanted to swear at something on his behalf, but instead I slid into my clogs and yelled to Thing2 to get his shoes on.

I know parenthood doesn’t come with a finish line. It’s journey. You stay with it — sometimes a little slower — for as long as there’s breath and love in you. I keep wondering, though, if you get to a point where you automatically have a useful answer for the difficult moments.

“It’s a half step back,” was what I finally came up with. I don’t tell him everything’s going to be okay anymore. I know it will, but he’s been looking for real hope and not just flashes of it for a while now. Predicting a rosy future without knowing the solution isn’t optimism. It’s dismissive of his perspective which, while often hampered by youth, is his and which his experiences validates. “I’ll call DHMC,” I said.

Together we wondered if we needed to find a new strategy. Should we talk with our doctor(s) about alternatives such as Cannabis Oil that has been recommended by other people with UC? Should we try the next drug with a 40% success rate on the list? Thing1 finished his breakfast and got up to put his dishes in the sink where they will stay until Thing2 remembers to empty the dishwasher so discussion of staying up later on a school night can ensue.

The only strategy I could devise does not include swearing at the heavens or doctors or my life or Thing1’s. It does not allow giving into tears of frustration once I dropped off Thing2.

“I’ll call and keep calling, Buddy,” I told him, peeking around the mud room. “You call me if you start to spiral or need to come home during the day.” He nodded and started packing his bag for school.

As we have been reminded so often this winter, chronic disease, like life, is a journey. We’ve travel together for a while now. We do have our own paths, and there will be more time in our lives that we’ll navigate them independently than as a team. In these rough stretches, however, I’m sticking close. I making sure that he knows we’re working for answer and that, even with all the steps backwards, we won’t let him give up on the journey.

Great Escape

/ Picking My Battles

Painting mode turns everything I see into a painting to be dissected and reassembled on paper. Lately, I’ve been in writing mode, which usually lends itself more to doodles. This time around, however, it’s also been driving a different rebirth.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and before the evolution of digital devices, I was a book addict. When my parents said lights out, I heard the cue to walk to the light switch by the door and read by the light from the hall. Footsteps coming up the stairs sent me and my book under the covers with a flashlight until my parents caught me and let me have it. I’d get scolded in grade school for reading ahead in class because I needed to know what happened next.

Even then I knew that diving into the fantasy on a page was a socially acceptable and effective retreat from signs of depression that had only just begun to make themselves known.

Over the last few months, pictures that often require meditation to be seen have failed to form against the backdrop of the chaos that is life. That same noise has whipped up inner dialogues in a flight of ideas have brought me back to reading for pleasure.

Our kids are growing up watching me read mostly reference materials and magazines, which while vital are inherently functional. They don’t see me reading books as a primary source of entertainment, and, too often, my failed example is reflected back in their lack of interest in reading for its own sake. To be sure, Thing2’s Harry Potter obsession began with the series, but his second grade teacher deserves full credit for sparking it.

As I have resumed reading for reading’s sake, it has not only been the escape but a grounding force. Now, preoccupied with work and necessities, usually sitting near if not completely with the kids, reading wards away life’s frustrations and fears.  I’m not escaping my boys, however. I hope, instead, I’m leading them toward something that may be only entertaining now but, maybe someday when they really need it, so much more.

A Birthday Oddity

/ Picking My Battles


I honestly wanted to do nothing more than absolutely nothing yesterday. 

Yesterday, I woke up as a square.  An odd square.  A product of two odd primes. It’s the fourth time I’ve been the square of primes, and, in all probability the last, as I’ll have to be 121 to celebrate the next truly odd birthday.  For this birthday oddity I’d planned a trip to the University of New Hampshire for the last college visit before my first son has to figure out which dotted line he’ll sign. 

But that wasn’t what made it odd — or wonderful.

For the past two weeks Thing1 has been dealing with anemia brought on by his disease. He could not tolerate a drive of any length, so we had postponed the UNH visit already.  The newest drug, however, seemed to hit pause on his symptoms, and his affable nature had re-emerged over the last day or two. We knew this was the last best chance to go.

We got Thing2 to school and then headed down to the hospital. Thing1 needed bloodwork to check trough levels for one of the five drugs trying to control his auto-immune disorder.  It was already 9 by then, and Thing1 was ready for Breakfast Number 2 — a side effect and a sign he was starting to feel more himself. 

Treating the day like a field trip day (if it were run by an really over-indulgent teacher), I took him to our favorite diner in Bennington (my next blog will be titled ‘Diners I have Known’). We’ve been going there since Thing1 was in a car seat carrier, and my eyes started sweating as I watched my gentle giant pick out two entrees for a ‘snack’ (although it could have been tears brought on by the impending dent in my wallet). 

“Mom,” he said in that tone that said other people could see me getting emotional as my baby prepared to leave the nest.  There would be a few more warnings.

After breakfast we headed east toward the other side of Vermont and then to the east side of New Hampshire.  

We stopped for a break during the three and a half hour drive. A girl playing scratch tickets, reminded me of a failed lesson in probability from another road trip a decade ago.  On a whim, I bought a ticket, thinking he’d be my good luck charm again. Ten years ago, I’d told him we’d paid a tax on people who are bad at math and wound up winning on three $50 scratch tickets in a row. I’d chalked it up to some ‘magic’ which had everything to do with being with my seven-year-old and nothing to do with Math.  Yesterday I lost, of course.  Thing1 is too old and skeptical to channel that kind of magic anymore, but we were both laughing as I scraped the silver goo off the losing numbers. He’s still my good luck charm.

It had been a long time since I’ve heard Thing1 really laugh. 

We got UNH and asked our questions before walking around.  Thing1 loved it and was even more undecided about his future. A few more drives around the bucolic campus, we headed back to meet the Big Guy and Thing2 in Vermont for dinner. 

It poured most of the time until we got near the Vermont border.  It rained from Bellows Falls to Londonderry and got foggy as we headed over Bromley mountain to Manchester. 

My body was getting weary from the travel and from the constant travel and worry of the last few months. It was as if a day of not worrying — of seeing Thing1 happy and debating over pleasant aspects of his future —  had let my muscles relax too much for a moment. 

When we got the the restaurant, Thing1 mentioned a worrying symptom that had appeared, and we knew the tension release was temporary.  In reality it’s always temporary, but it is always welcome.  

When we got home, I got my sketchbook, planning to doodle and promptly passed out on the sofa with Thing1 next to me and eleven year old Thing2 draped over the cats that came to sit on my legs.  I woke up long enough to send Thing2 and myself to bed for the dreamless, satisfying sleep that only an exhaustingly perfect day can produce. 

And the oddest thing was that it was the best present I hadn’t even thought to ask for.

And You Still Don’t Need to

/ Picking My Battles

I said it to my kids last year, and I’ll say it to them this year. I’ll bet you say it to yours, and I’m pretty sure your mom has said it to you, but no matter how sappy it sounds each time, it’s true.

“You don’t need to get me (insert image of your mom talking here) anything for Mother’s Day (or any other day).”

But just in case you feel like getting your mom a little something, signed copies of A is for All-Nighter can be ordered from Battenkill Books in Cambridge, NY.

What’s Hers

/ Picking My Battles

Last week, Princess Calamity Jane (whose name evolves as we learn more of her personality) decided to switch up her routine.

Monday morning I let her and our orange tabby, Gentleman Jim-Bob, along with Katie the wonder dog, out through the sliding door as soon as I got up. As usual, Jane was the first to confirm that no new mice need to be stalked near the house and demanded re-entry two minute after she’d gone out.

I padded back to my studio office and Jane padded behind me.

I settled into my purple easy chair and pulled my tray table close. I’d been illustrating with good old fashion watercolor again — the iPad still isn’t quite as efficient and doesn’t provide the tactile pleasure of putting a brush on paper.

Calamity Jane jumped up on the table as I dipped a brush in my fifty-cent plastic water tumbler. She sniffed my forehead and then gave me a silent meow as she gracefully inspected the tumbler and the pan of paints. Then she bent over the illustration as if she was evaluating it.

Gentleman Jim-Bob had already put his stamp of disapproval on a painting the week before, so I readied my swooping hand to swoop her back to the floor.

I dipped the wet brush in a pool of paint, and she made a high pitched purring sound before wedging her head in the tumbler. She drank and then looked up at me and purred again. She walked around the perimeter of the painting and paint tin, daintily avoiding my work and looking regal as all cats do.

Then she came back to the tumbler and wedged her head for another drink. I finished coloring in a shirt and went to rinse my brush. I tried scratching Jane’s head to distract her from the colored water, but she wrapped her paw around the tumbler and pulled it closer to her.

It was a not-so-subtle reminder of why we added the title ‘Princess’ and that, as with kids and every other cat a human thinks they own, what’s mine is hers.

The Good, The Bad and The Pointlessly Angry

/ Picking My Battles

Things to do in the ER, Pen and Ink


<<There’s more blood again,>> Thing1 texted. And suddenly I was trying not to cry at the country store.

 I had left the house about 9 to work because our internet sucks on the weekend. Thing1 had been sleeping, the Big Guy was still in bed on the iPad, and Thing2 had been watching TV when I left.

The country store’s round table had been crowded with a few farmers and the family of one of the store’s teenaged employees discussing frustration with regulations on moving firewood from the NY border 3 miles away to VT and then moved on to haying and who needs new layers this spring taking me out of my troubles for the moment. The others left for chores, and I got online to handle support tickets.

Nothing is working. Not a second, drastic change in diet. Not any of the four pills or the biweekly injection. The four month “acute” flareup that initially responded to in-patient treatment has fully regrouped.

But giving up is not an option, so Sunday after work, we went shopping for food for the doctor’s recommended diet. Thing1 insisted on making the first recipe. As he mixed the gluten and sugar-blueberry muffins, symptoms forced him to take breaks. When the muffins were in the oven he casually told me that he had lost over 10 pounds this weekend, and I could see he wanted to cry — and didn’t want to as well.

Knowing from experience that the ER would only give him IV fluids and a referral and that we had to wait to call the doctor until Monday, I gave him a hug and kiss goodnight as he headed up to his room. His groans of pain echoed down the stairwell as he got into bed, and I felt like kicking something.

“He’s a good guy,” I whispered angrily as I got into bed.

“He is,” The Big Guy murmured.

“Why am I so angry?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Chris answered in a tone that told me he was just as frustrated.

“He’s done everything right,” I said.

He has. He has educated himself and taken responsibility for his diet. He’s taken every prescription as instructed. He’s kept up with his school and work responsibilities and still retained the kind, affable demeanor that defines him for us.

“I don’t even know who to be angry at,” I said as I punched the pillow into a comfortable shape. I set the alarm on my phone and, knowing if I even glanced at a single social media app, I would get even angrier, put it facedown on the nightstand.

I’m not religious at all, so I don’t get angry at a creator or even at the force. As I tried to force sleep to come, however I tried to think who there was I could blame. Had I had too many Diet Cokes before I was pregnant? Had Chris ‘inhaled’ when his sperm was forming?

I got angry at him and then at myself for all the things we could have done to cause this and then stopped. What did it matter?

There’s a part of me that wants to believe that being good creates more good that will ultimately find its way back to you, hopefully in this lifetime. I’m deeply flawed, but Thing1’s only flaws are youth and inexperience, and they haven’t had enough time to send anything out into the universe.

It’s easy to lie in the dark, believing some cosmic force is out there punishing him for my mistakes, but it changes nothing. Every moment spend raging at the fates in the ceiling will only make it harder to stop hitting the snooze button in six hours, and he’ll still be sick in the morning.

So Sunday night I made my choice. I forced my eyes closed and turned over on my side with the blankets high enough to block out sleep-stealing anger and frustration.

Monday morning, I called the doctor. We still don’t have the right answer, but banishing last night’s anger — even if I have to do it again tonight — makes it easier to remember that not having control over the situation doesn’t mean we’re completely helpless to help him unless we start to believe we are.

Giving Voice

/ Picking My Battles

Let me start by saying that I am unequivocally not insane. Well, mostly not insane.

See, taking a few courses online in the fall got me woke, and, in the recent absence of an academic goal I’ve been listening to podcasted lectures and language lessons. I had dropped off Thing2, putting his soundtrack of choice out of my misery so I could listening to the teacher from the German immersion course talk about the weather as I drove to my favorite Wednesday diner for breakfast (yes, I have a different diner for different days of the week).

I was listening to the course mainly to hear a normal pace rather than to learn weather terms again and missed a few repetitions. Then,a sentence about the temperature climbing to 18 degrees Celsius for the third time, a voice in my head that sounded a bit like a recently departed and dearly beloved uncle reminded me (in German) that it was Celsius, not Fahrenheit.

Suddenly another, decidedly British voice mentioned how one of the still quaint but somehow multimillion dollar houses along the country road near Manchester looked suspiciously empty and wouldn’t it be nice to have a normal house. Still another voice with an old-timey Vermont accent answered that there couldn’t possibly be any abandoned (affordable) houses in this neck of the woods, and suddenly I’d missed the first two repetitions of the next sentence on snow.

My working theory is that the voices in my head are an occupational hazard of working alone. One of the voices has mentioned that it’s more of a quirk than a hazard. They may even be advantageous, especially since they come up with tons of great ideas for books and paintings (the bad ideas – like buying the smaller dress size to get motivated to lose the weight — I get to keep the credit for).

At some point, I do need to call a meeting of the minds — someplace nice and outside — and ask if we could please, pretty please bring up our suggestions one at a time because some days the flood of ideas is just noise.