saying goodbye

When I was 10 years old, after Dillon and I begged Mom and Dad for a dog and wrote multiple essays to prove we were old enough to take care of one, we finally brought Bella home. She wasn't bigger than a teacup and Susie and I spent the first year squeezing her into my American Girl doll dresses (particularly the tutu so that we could practice ballet together). Growing up, Bella slept on the foot of my bed every night and when I sat down in front of the piano she would curl up underneath to listen. Just last week I was working on a new song and she encouragingly sat at my feet, looking up at me with her big brown eyes.

Today, after saying goodbye to the pup that was also my best friend, I took a walk down to the barn at the end of the road. I used to go there on humid days like today and pick the wildflowers that grew along the fence while Bella and the cows stared curiously at each other.  The fence is gone now and so are the cows, but standing there I could feel those magical summer days with my sweet puppy by my side. Life rolls on, time passes, yet some moments never really do.

Love you forever, Bells.

thoughts on gratitude

      
          Gratitude. Originally my resolution for this year was to consider the power of gratitude and to harness it in my own life: a simple-enough goal, and a positive one. The benefits of counting your blessings have been philosophized, scientifically proven, and recorded in movies, books, songs and poems. Yet, even as I improve in gratitude, I find myself falling back on a self-centered perception of those around me.

It is so easy to convince myself that I am better than the person in front of me. Actually, it hardly takes any convincing; we are egocentric creatures, after all. My world revolves around me. Your world revolves around you. With a little practice we can withhold reacting nastily to someone by reminding ourselves of our greatness: "Oh I can be nice to this person to her face because when it comes down to it, I know she is wrong and I am right". I am grateful for this situation because I am right. I am grateful because I am smarter, wiser, more loving, more cultured, more experienced, more open-minded, more empathetic than the person in front of me. But this isn't really encapsulating the meaning of gratitude, is it? Are we grateful for this person, or merely finding pleasure in a situation where we can give ourselves another pat on the back?

What happens if I fight against this egotistical outlook that surfaces when confronted with someone frustrating, and stop to consider the person from outside myself? It takes more time to be self-aware. It is a process. It isn't easy.

"I just heard that guy make such an ignorant comment about people using welfare. What a lot of hatred for those worse off than him. How closed-minded he is. Good thing I am here to teach him a lesson."

Instead, of jumping to conclusions about the guy in front of me, maybe I can discipline myself to look at the situation differently. Maybe this guy has had an experience that shaped this statement. Maybe he had a terrible morning, he just got off the phone with his alcoholic brother who abuses the welfare system and refuses to seek help. Maybe this guy has such an overwhelming love for his brother but he can't seem to reconcile it with his hatred for his brother's self-destructive actions. Maybe his unwarranted ridicule actually comes from a place of pain and heartache.

This is only a very mere possibility of course, but there are so many possibilities. Endless possibilities. So why do I so quickly jump to a possibility that leaves no room for mutual growth, no room for a connection? When I say something nasty, I know the reason behind it. So I may beat myself up about it, and then forgive myself for a bad reaction. When someone else says something nasty (especially someone who has yet to benefit me), I either assume I know the reason behind it, or even worse, assume there is no reason. I assume I know them better than they know themselves, and oh, what a terrible trap that is to fall into. We can lecture the world or we can step back and realize that every person we meet has lived a life we will never live, experienced a situation we can never experience.

We can break people down and for a moment seem more powerful, but in the end, perhaps we have crushed the only people who can break down the deluded bits inside ourselves. Every other person knows something we do not. For this, let's be grateful.

of my father, for my father

I turn another year older on Thursday. Birthdays tend to fill me with nostalgia and this nostalgia is amplified by my birthday falling in the middle of autumn. I kick up maple leaves as I walk home from the library and even the air seems to whisper of the unrelenting passing of time.

Today for whatever reason, the memories beating through my head all relate to time spent with my dad, so I will write about him. Three memories in particular come to mind when I think of the past 24 years and my father. The first one is more a series of memories than a particular occurrence, the second one is a day I can’t think of without smiling, and the third is a moment that completely transformed my attitude about life.

Throughout my childhood, my dad spent one Tuesday each month driving to the state capitol to meet with a state board representing home education. My parents cared so much about giving my siblings and me an ample and enjoyable education, and it made me proud that my dad cared about the other kids too. I don’t remember when it began, but at some point Dad decided to bring me along with him to sit in on the meeting, and I remember feeling so important and special and I pitied my brothers who had to stay home. Simply attending the council was not the full extent of these adventures. Dad would also bring me to Borders. THE BIGGEST BOOK STORE IN THE WHOLE WORLD (in my eyes, at least). I would run to the kids section in the back of the store, and look for the latest Saddle Club book or pull out my list of Newberry Award winners that I was working my way through. Dad would always let me get a book, or maybe two, and then we’d go to the meeting and I’d read my books and listen to the important people talk and then Dad and I would get dinner before we went home.  If someone told me to conjure up a happy image from my childhood, I would picture myself sitting in the back of the Concord Borders surrounded by books with my dad a few aisles over. I reveled in that time together, just me and him.

The second memory is from when I was 15 years old and my family took a road trip through the southwest. My brother and I were teenagers and thought sleeping in the back of the car with our Walkmans was the only acceptable way to travel through one of the most geologically rich areas of our country. (Yes, all teenagers are stupid.)  It was a week into our trip and my dad excitedly shook my brother and me awake at Bryce Canyon National Park. He begged us to get out of the car and “Just loooook at this place, guys! You won’t see this every day! This is reaaally something incredible!” My indifference directly opposed my dad’s excitement as I sulked out of the car and walked over to the trail head. But whoa, he was right, it really was pretty cool. The rocks towered up like the dribble towers we would make at the beach and glowed a near fluorescent orange in the late afternoon sun. I showed just enough enthusiasm as I deemed acceptable, but when Dad tried to convince me to hike down into the canyon, I asked myself if I too would be so crazy when I was old. He besought and beseeched and before I knew it we were at the bottom of the canyon looking up at scenery like something straight out of an HG Wells novel. I was tired, the sun was setting, and we still had to hike up a pretty hairy looking switchback. By now, I knew my father was regretting taking on such an ambitious hike so late in the day, and I exploited his uncertainty for all it was worth. I told him Mom was going to be pissed at him when we got to the top. I told him she probably thought we were dead and he was going to be in big trouble.  I told him I was feeling weak and probably wouldn’t make it. I demanded multiple apologies. And so we trucked along, one foot in front of another. The sky grew darker and the path cleared of hikers. I cursed myself for being so easily convinced, “Why do I ever listen to you, Dad? Seriously, do you ever think before you make us do these things?!” I stopped to catch my breath on the trail and Dad put his arm around me, and smiled. He pointed at the moon that took up half the sky and said, “I might not always think through these things, Bird, but you know what? You’ll never forget this moment as long as you live. Just look around you. You’ll never ever forget this.” And you know what? I don’t think I ever will. I guess Dad is right about some things.

The last of the memories is harder for me to write about. It was my 20^th birthday and I was falling apart in my parents’ living room. After a few years of feeling happy and in control of things and believing myself to be a “real adult”, I was depressed. It had been months since I felt like myself. My head had started to replay anxious thoughts from years ago. I couldn’t sleep. My mind was racing. I would have a day where I thought maybe the shadows were beginning to lift and then they’d come again, darker than before. I cried a lot for no reason, but never in front of my family. I didn’t want them to know I was weak enough to have reverted back to the helpless little girl I had been before. I would take my anger and my moods out on my little sister because I knew she couldn’t abandon me.

                  And then it was my 20^th birthday, and my mom gave me a new coat. And the coat was too big, and I fell apart in my parents’ living room. I don’t remember everything they said that day. I’m sure they were all the right things you should say when your daughter sits helpless in the living room on a day meant for celebrating. They told me I needed to talk to someone when I felt like this, and not keep it bottled in. They apologized for not being more aware and my mom cried and I cried and my Dad looked so sad. That day was a turning point for my depression, and I did feel better again and there were many people that I’m grateful to for helping me out of the hole I was in. But above all, I thank my dad. He sat in that living room and told me that I was not alone- in fact, I was just like him, and he didn’t sugarcoat anything. By no means was this the first time Dad helped me through a rough patch, but it was the first time we spoke so candidly together as adults, and something really clicked. Dad told me that people like him and I were as strong as the rest, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t ask for help sometimes. He told me about times he had felt just like I was feeling (periods I was blissfully unaware of because I was just a little girl going on adventures with her daddy). He told me that my moods were something that would always be there, and would follow me through life and into whatever relationships I end up in, and that was something I needed to accept or I would be their slave. And you know what? Those words changed everything because they helped me to acknowledge myself and my mind for what it is and to begin the steps towards managing it. And really, this story isn’t about my experiences with depression or my father’s, but more about that first conversation where I saw my father as someone more than just my dad. He was a compadre, a like-mind, someone who understood… And he helped me to understand the importance of speaking up and relying on one other. We weren’t meant to do this alone.

                  So I turn 24 on Thursday. And I’m not really sure what the next year will bring but I know it will be OK. (How couldn’t it be, with a dad like that?) Every time someone tells me I look and act just like my father, I roll my eyes, but in reality I couldn’t be more proud of the comparison. Isn’t it funny how your relationship with your parents evolves along like everything else in life? In many ways, it grows richer as the years goes by. The memories build one on top of another, and I see my father change, and I see myself change, but yet in some ways I am still the little girl in the bookstore. I sit here wide-eyed and grateful for the time I get to spend with such a humble and loving man, and I smile when I catch myself doing something so much like him.  

So thanks, Dad. Your Bird loves you even more each year.  

*ends radio silence*

Sometimes I have a hard time balancing motivation with contentment. I want to have a game plan, and I believe in having goals to work towards and accomplish. I want to get my doctorate one day. I want to have a child one day. I want to visit all seven continents. I want to be my own boss. I have lists of goals scribbled in notebooks and saved to my documents and pinned to my bulletin board. I believe in goals, I believe in lifelong learning and I believe that self-motivation and embracing your individuality are keys to success. But what are these goals if not for each other? When a few weeks have gone by and I’m overwhelmed by my to-do list, I know I’ve lost sight of why I’m busy and instead I’ve just been. I don’t want to be someone who is so involved with where I’m going that I don’t appreciate where I am.

There is a passage in Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince where the prince comes across a railway switchman: a man who spends his days sorting out travelers as they rush back and forth between their destinations. As a train rushes by the Little Prince questions the switchman about the passengers inside:

"Were they not satisfied where they were?" asked the little prince. 

"No one is ever satisfied where he is," said the switchman. 

And they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express. 

"Are they pursuing the first travelers?" demanded the little prince. 

"They are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman.  "They are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. Only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes." 

It is easy to grow weary of traveling if we avoid responding to the diurnal beauty of where we currently are, and the originality of each interaction. I was driving to the post office this morning and I stopped to let a pedestrian cross the road.  He had cumulus-cloud hair and friendly eyes and he held his coat tight around him in protection from the cold. We watched eight other cars pass by before someone in the other lane stopped for him, and as the old man gave me a big wave and a thankful smile I felt instantly guilty. So often I am one of the eight cars- so determined to get to where I’m going that I miss the person right beside me...

Where are we going to so fast?

white magic

I smelled spring today. Whenever I smell spring I think of the crocuses that so suddenly appeared in the flowerbeds outside of the dance studio each March. Robins and crocuses are a much better promise than anything from a groundhog. This never-ending New England winter has finally begun to drip off the trees and patter through the drainpipes and the parking lot is an archipelego that requires careful footwork. I look forward to the rainy season but admit there is something significant about the city the morning after a blizzard--when I half expect to hear the bells of the White Witch's sleigh as I hold my breath to keep from polluting the silence. 

 More Than One Home

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if they had stayed in one spot. If my grandfather hadn’t moved to Vermont for Famolare Shoes, and my parents hadn't followed him there. If my great-grandparents hadn’t boarded a ship to raise their children in New York City. If nobody had ever left Madunice.
               When my brother and I stepped off the train in Bratislava, the first time I visited Slovakia, he turned to me and said, "Callie, these people look like us." And he was right, they did. I saw chins that looked like my chin, and cheekbones that looked like my cheekbones, and there was dusty brown hair and eyes set back enough to make them look a little sad. 
               When I stepped off the train in Bratislava for the second time, I had my grandparents with me. I had my parents with me and my sister too and we had planned this trip because Poppi wanted to see where his parents came from. He wanted to walk on the dusty, rust-colored earth that his brothers and sisters had worked with. In the months leading up to the trip Poppi would speak more than four sentences in a row, and this is how I knew he was excited- normally Poppi is very quiet. In the months leading up to our depature, Poppi began to remember words. One Tuesday I went in to say good morning, and Poppi and Dad were talking about the night before.  The night before Poppi had lay in bed thinking about our trip and he was thinking about living in that small apartment in Manhattan and he was thinking of his mother and he started to remember her words. The first words he remembered were something about toast. Every morning leading up to our trip Poppi remembered more Slovak and Mom bought him a little dictionary and I could see how happy he was because in those pages were his parents. His parents were born in Slovakia, in a little town named Madunice, but Poppi was American and in America not everyone speaks Slovak so these words had been pushed away. Words pushed away in the back of his mind like the note I received from my parents on my high school graduation. Stuck in the back of a drawer but not completely forgotten.

               When I stepped off the train in Bratislava for the second time, there was a plan. Dad rented a minivan and we all loaded in and we drove to Madunice to find Josef. Poppi knew his cousin Josef had stayed there, and Poppi remembered the letters that Josef used to write Aunt Agnes before she died.  Madunice was dusty and small and there was a lot of construction going on in the street that lay between the store and the post office. There was a pub next to the post office and we sat down. We pointed at what we wanted as we meekly tried our best to say please and thank you. But not Poppi. Poppi was proud of what he remembered and he ordered in Slovak with confidence and a smirk. We ate Rezeň and drank RC cola and Dad showed the waitress his license and he pointed at “Benik” and I looked at my sister and she looked at me. We thought Dad was crazy but the waitress laughed and smiled and ran to get her niece. Her niece drew a map and in her broken English she told us we should go to see Josef Benik and then I wondered how we could call such a beautiful woman's English broken.
               We found Josef in his garden. He grew grapes on a trellis and the trellis looked over a big field that looked over another big field. The fields and the sky are layered like trifle in Slovakia, and the fields are sprinkled yellow with rapeseed. At first, Josef wrinkled his forehead at the van full of Americans, but we waved our hands and we smiled a lot and with Poppi's help and the dictionary, Josef understood. He smiled back and he brought us inside and he sat us at his little table in the room that had pastel-papered walls and a pretty tablecloth and lace curtains. It was crowded and cozy and reminded me of my family. Josef’s home reminded all of us of our family and of each other. Josef poured cognac and gave us three different types of crackers and we sat there and sometimes we tried to talk but mostly we just smiled and ate crackers and clanged our glasses of cognac together. And in that moment I knew I was home.
               Afterwards we went to the cemetery and we found the stones that marked where my great-great grandparents were buried, and where Josef's brothers were buried. One of his brothers was named Michal Benik and that is my name. I saw my name on the headstone and it was eerie at first, but as I kneeled down in front of it, the wind murmured and the soft grass tapped at my bare knees and again I knew I was home. It was an old home- this land that created my ancestors. 
               Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if they had stayed in one spot, in that town with the pub and the post office and the people who have the same eyes as me.
But then I look in the mirror and stop. The girl looking back through the glass is tied to the mountains of New Hampshire and the softened granite of the Ashuelot River and the wildflowers that grow by the barn at the end of County Road in Walpole.  She has the sidewalks of the Upper East Side and the dust of Madunice inside of her. This woman is made up of many stories, and many people, and she is made up of earth that's on two sides of one ocean. I smile back at her and start breathing again- I breathe deep, even breathes. I know who I am and I am proud of the land that’s inside me. Proud of the land that lets me be two places at once.

Just Nearly Asleep

Autumn Landscape, Vincent Van Gogh, November 1885

              I feigned sleep in the booth in the back of the restaurant on top of a pile of coats. My parents bantered with my aunts and uncles and their laughter filtered through a blanket of cigarette smoke and came to rest on my nose and ears and eyelids. When it was time to go home I fell into the warmth of Dad’s arms as he lifted me out into the sweet brisk November air that graces New England at the same time the frost paints landscapes on the windowpanes. On the ride home my brothers and I snuggled like puppies in the backseat of the minivan and by the time the tires rolled onto the gravel driveway my sleep was no longer artificial. We were thankful for each other that night and many nights after that.
              Now we are older, and many things have changed. Cigarettes aren’t allowed in the restaurant anymore and the booth was replaced a few years ago. We don’t all go home to the same place each evening and my little sister who was too young for this memory is old enough to live on her own with an ocean between us. Not everyone will be together for the holiday and I will miss them, but through change the important things remain constant. My parents’ arms are still warm and my family’s laughter is still comforting and the November air is still sweet and brisk, and today we are blessed and tonight we will fall asleep thankful for each other. I sit here and write, and write each word with thanksgiving, and my smiles remain as I remember a little girl just nearly asleep on a pile of coats.