The Late Arrival

Almost every tchotchke in my house has a story. Here is one of those tchotckes and this is its story. We were out shopping in a pseudo-fancy store selecting fancy cheeses, meats, crackers and fruit for a New Year's charcuterie board. I grabbed some kind of goat cheese in the round and clumsily bumped the one next to it. It rolled and rolled. I laughed and a told my daughter to catch it before it got too far away, even as a another customer nearly crossed its path. I kept laughing as my eyes met with his. His gaze had an icy, somber and hostile demeanor that told me I, nor my daughter didn't belong at the pseudo-fancy discount store. I steeled myself and kept laughing almost out of spite as much as I laughed at the site of my kid racing the cheese wheel. She caught it and returned it to its place. That was 2016. A little over a month after the election. My daughter knew something was off, so realizing she'd follow my lead, I suppressed my eye-roll and shrugged...

So I usually fall asleep by one or two o’clock, and then I wake up around three-thirty. My then-therapist nods his head and lets out an Ohhhhh…mmmmm. Then, I stay awake long enough to see the sun rise and then drift off for what feels like ten minutes maybe, and then wake up groggy. It's a beautiful thing when you actually want to see it. Ohhhh…mmmm. *blank stare from me* You’ve got EMA’s. At last, a diagnosis. Wait. What are EMA's? Am I dying? I knew I was dying. *heavy sigh from the therapist* EMA's are Early Morning Awakenings. Well, no %$@&$! Sherlock! Look, I’ve never been a good sleeper, unlike my husband who can literally say goodn—and be snoring before his head hits the pillow. It’s some weirdo parlor trick that we probably oughta take on the road. Even now, it takes at least a week for me to fall asleep and then the dreaded EMAs hit. I was in my late-twenties at the time of my thirty-dollar-copay EMA “diagnosis.”...

The waiting is the hardest part. Every day you see one more card. You take it on faith. You take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part. So what do the lyrics to one of my favorite Tom Petty songs have to do with yesterday’s sermon? The sermon on this First Sunday After Christmas centered on people in the Bible who were celebrating Jesus’ birthday even though they weren’t circled around the manger when He was born on that December 25 silent night. (Yes, I know He wasn’t born on December 25. I’m just checking to see if you’re still with me here) Here’s the story in a nutshell Simeon was a guy who was close to God. I’m thinking Simeon prayed daily and in one of those prayers, God told him that Jesus was coming, and even though Simeon was really old, he’d get to see baby Jesus before he died. Sure enough, the Baby is born, His parents take him to temple, Simeon actually holds the Baby and sings a big ol’ long song of praise and thanksgiving. The End. But maybe ...

And there we were, traveling a private, winding road up through a mountain forest. At times, the car was at a 70 degree angle as we whizzed along at 80MPH. I sat buckled in, tense and frustrated at my dad's reckless driving and at myself for taking a first-time road trip with him and my step-mom to his birthplace. This Milwaukee born and raised girl was now in Alabama. Rural Alabama. For the first time. Now before we began the journey on the endless upward winding road, I was scoping out the little southern town's idea of hotels. Since there wasn't a diamond star rated hotel within the vicinity, I decided the motel with a blinking neon VACANCY sign would have to suffice. I'll take it! It'd be enough for me to retire on my own to someplace solitary after meeting this side of the family, giving hugs and recognizing traces of myself and my dad in their faces. After endless, winding and climbing, the car slowed, entered a thicket and there it was, my aunt...

At a sneeze away from fifty, I’ve been thinking about my teen daughter muddling through college or career, relationships, student debt and just figuring out who she is. She’s not too far off from nineteen -- the age I was when my mom died. I remember having to discover so much -- too much -- through bumps on the head instead of through her guidance. Now, I figure if can tee my daughter up to be okay by shuffling in all of life’s instructions in the next couple years, AND guidance to learn to be at peace when I’m gone, I will have done my job. We talk about how although I may, but do not plan to make an early exit, there is that reality. The cool thing thing is that the more she grows in her faith, the more she understands that no one’s spirit ever dies. That while we do miss the person’s “container” for awhile, we will eventually be reunited with their spirit. She gets it. And I feel good about that. Except she’s a little zealous in her comfort sometimes. Like, she’s g...

1.) Making béarnaise sauce. Truth is, I never know what was in béarnaise sauce. I just knew I liked it on poached eggs. One day, I looked up a recipe, made it and was like omg, I just did something I never did before! That was one of the many “firsts” that keep on coming even as I inch toward the half-century mark. 2.) Traveling 600 miles on Route 66. It’s a really long drive that carries passengers through endless fields of grass at various degrees of greens and browns, through backsides of forgotten townships, through cattle standing witness to torrential rain and weather patterns that change on a dime. And billboards, endless billboards that invite you to pull over and visit Uranus Fudge Factory.  Yes. It's a real thing. 3.) That Time I Thought I Was Dying I had my menstrual period for three weeks. THREE WEEKS. I thought I was dying, and with each passing day, I regretted all the junk I’ve accumulated over a lifetime only to leave it all to someone else to sift t...

Every night, a million words hover and swirl around my head before my eyes close. They blink in and out, alternating in bold whites and varying shades of gray -- as if in competition against one another. The competition goes on for what seems like hours, and by the time my lids fall like lead, I can never tell which word finally prevails. I guess that's why people who can pick out one single word to encompass New Year's resolutions, hopes, dreams and themes amaze me. There are just too many words. At least for me there are. The last Thursday of the year, I went through the usual morning motions: made the bed, brushed my teeth, refreshed the dog's water dish and poured a cup of coffee with just enough cream so the color matched my skin. I sneaked a cigarette and, coffee in one hand, phone in the other, sat on the porch despite a biting wind that came with morning rain. Words, in list form, blew in and out with cold blasts of air, and I fanned them away in favor of th...

It's a girl, mom. We had a girl. my husband sniffled as he told his mom the good news. She replied Are you gonna call her Pearl?  My mother-in-law is an educated woman with a wicked sense of humor. She knew it was the 61st anniversary of Pearl Harbor, so yeah: pretty funny. I giggled at that and felt joyous...and also empty. As I was hooked up to monitors and watched the nurses wash and clean this new life, I wished that somehow, someway in the middle of all the celebrating and praise that goes on in Heaven, that my mom got the memo about the birth of her granddaughter. But that's not what this is about. We didn't name our daughter Pearl. Instead, we named her after an aunt who after her presence was a fact, was named, and died shortly after. Our kiddo's middle name is her grandmother's -- my mom. I like to think that's from whom her wisdom-beyond-her-years and discernment comes. As I celebrate and weep and get teary over the person I see my kid become;...

I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down I get knocked down -- We get it Chumbawumba, we get it. Even as you read this, you're someplace on your way up again and prepping to get knocked down. Again. Good for you. But that ain't me. I'm trying to get up again and flinching at everything that might possibly could maybe, who knows, knock me down. Again. It's been a long November, a month in which I had planned posts on daily affirmations of thankfulness, perhaps a countdown to my daughter's birthday / my mothering day and maybe a post about the minutes I've been missing my parents since all the way back to 1987. But I got knocked down by a lot of things. The knowing that so many friends of mine were newly missing loved ones in the season of giving thanks that leads into the season of celebrating family and friends. It'...

In my brain, I've got folders in which I file stuff. Some are memories that need to be tucked away for safe keeping. Others are within reach for easy retrieval: what meeting is when, what activities my daughter's got going on or when which bills are due. Still, there is another folder that holds memories or experiences that pack too much punch to process immediately, like the few years around my mom's sickness and subsequent death, and more recently, our family's trip to Missouri to retrace the steps of tragedy that eventually led to my great-grandparents' resettling to here in Milwaukee. The most recent addition to that folder is the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's performance of In The Heights. When I went, all I knew is that I needed distance from our bonkers reality as well as its effect on my emotional health. Given that the musical centered on residents of The Heights who are mostly Hispanic/LatinX -- many immigrants or first generation -- the...

I'm used to this stretch of rush hour traffic. It takes me along a busy city thoroughfare where you see people who are easily labeled. The Bum: He's the man dressed in two coats, one black out the outside, a purple hoodie on the inside of that, pants that are too loose, stuffed down into boots even as an autumn sun beats down. He peers into the faces of passersby, probably not wanting a handout but just an acknowledgement of his personhood. The Trafficked Woman: She walks slowly up the street, always with a glance behind her. Peering, looking for something or someone. She isn't necessarily scantily clad. But I know her when I see her. The Dude-Bros: These are the fresh-faced college boys who've got the world by the tail. They're usually laughing, entering or exiting a seedy dive bar. Maybe on their way to a baseball game, maybe back to campus, but they're never looking back. Always ahead with chins tilted upward. The Factory Guys: Steel-toed sho...

We don't deserve dogs.   I need this tee-shirt. This simple meme really says more about us than it does about Man's Best Friend. Just read the daily news, scan Facebook or Twitter timelines or watch the nightly news, it's clear: we can be awful to each other, to the environment, to animals. Given time and opportunity, we can be pretty much awful to anything. Rather than leave it at people are awful beings, I think its time to go further than saying we don't deserve dogs to  What we need to learn from dogs . 1.     Savor the awkward and the smelly, and roll around in it.   I'm pretty sure Mister Charley has no idea when he and/or his breath is stinky. Beauty thing is that he does not care a whit. He's here, he's stinky, he's sleepy and he ain't going anywhere. And guess what? His comfort in all of the above makes me forget about all of the above, and before you know it, this happens. It was a smelly time, my f...

Even though my ears couldn't pick up the buzz, I assume in Bug World the panicked hornet's buzzing thundered like a storm as he hovered at a window trying to escape. I, on the other hand, was soaking in the sun while waiting for my friend to arrive for a an all-too rare lunch. She arrived and we hugged. It'd been way too long since we had gotten together. She settled in and soon noticed the panicky hornet buzzing at our floor length window. I saw a look in her eye. Leave him alone and he'll leave us alone  I advised. I can now confess this was an untruth, as a beekeeper friend once said honeybees will only sting if provoked. Yellow-jackets and hornets, on the other hand... We continued chatting unbothered. Until our frustrated hornet friend hovered and lit upon my index finger, and then flitted over to my friend's shoulder. She jumped up and I was like Oooooh...you done messed with the wrong person. Next thing, the hornet's on the gro...

Taking a twist today on Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol : I am legally blind. If anything is to be taken from this story, the reader must understand that. Rochelle, have a seat over here. Now what kind of contacts do you wear? I'm prepared for an overdue visit to the optometrist and have brought the boxes for my extended wear contacts with me. I take them out of my purse and proudly hand them to the optician. She sees the prescription, her eyes widen and she scribbles something down. Do you have your glasses with you, because you'll need to take contacts out of your eyes now. Dangit. I left my glasses at home. The glasses I should've brought with me. I take out my contacts anyway and prepare myself for the little puff of air in each eye...with full expectation of putting my contacts back in once it's over. To my surprise, the optician orders: Have a seat over there and the doctor will be right out. Uh...without my contacts? And, over where ? A...

At around 10:00 Sunday morning, I'm sitting on the porch half-broiling in Milwaukee's special brand of humidity while relaxing away the time before we have to pack up and head back to church for volunteering at the church picnic. *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * In between wiping beads of sweat from my upper lip, my thoughts drift back to seven days before when we were tackling that last pain-staking two hours from St. Louis to Joplin and then later, Pierce City. I can still feel the silent fatigue hanging over my husband, my daughter and me as we drove those 200 hundred miles. We finally arrived, settled in, had dinner and then worried whether that we'd have to take cover from an impending tornado as National Weather Service suggested. But life in Joplin went on, as it was going on in Pierce City. In fact, the sun was shining. So we went. Back in 2012, I serendipitously found Editor of the Monnet Times, Murray Bishoff on the internet. He had re...

The endless countryside is dotted with hay bales in random, yet organized rows. Then more hay bales, then meadows grasping on to the last greens of summers, then signs for rest stops, lodging and gas. Maybe a few cows and horses. Then more random hay bales. We're probably at mile 175 of a 600 mile road trip to Pierce City, Missouri. As rest/gas signs become fewer and fewer, my mind does what it always does: What would happen if we needed gas before the next exit? I imagine my daughter and I waiting roadside as my husband grows tinier in the distance, a lone figure walking into the sunrise with a telltale red gas container toward the next truck stop exit.  In this imagined reality, I will myself into not complaining or being passive-aggressive (my specialty) even in the face of being stranded gas-less on some abandoned stretch of beat-up road in Wisconsin...even though my husband could've just stopped for gas when we were at a half tank, and he does have  I am Capt...

The most I know about my grandmother on my mother's side is that she was born in Missouri, had a short temper and that she didn't suffer fools gladly. Mom said that on Saturdays, my grandmother would take mom and her siblings on the streetcar to Milwaukee's Central Library. On one of those trips my mom, who was short, was struggling to keep up with my tall grandmother's long strides. Evidently the sidewalk was bustling with people and mom was holding my grandmother's hand for dear life. Mom ultimately tripped up a curb and ran smack dab into the stomach of a tall man going in the opposite direction. All she heard upon impact was OOF . My grandmother impatiently stopped, looked down at my mom and and said Geneva, you oughta sue the city for building the sidewalk so close to your a$$. Yeah, she's smiling here but I still wouldn't mess with her  and I'm her granddaughter. Mom said the extended family gathered every summer someplace in Missour...

It's my favorite cuisine: German. Give me sauer braten, knackwurst and strawberry schaum torte. It's a Dr. Watts hymn sung by earnest deacons at Sunday devotionals before service starts. It's a Mighty Fortress sung at the right tempo at Reformation and Gott Ist De Liebe on Christmas. It's sweet potato pie spiced to perfection on Thanksgiving. All of that is home to me. I asked my daughter what home was to her. Insightful enough to realize that home can be a place or a state of mind, she asked, exactly how I defined home. I told her that her definition was up to her. She called upon memories of when she was young. She said she saw them as sunny faded Polaroids flecked with orange shimmers. She giggled and remembered the time when she believed she led her preschool class in a Happy Feet dance on the playground. Then her face grew dark when she recalled awkward situations at summer camp in the years that followed. Home is different for everyone --...

What brings you joy? Like, actual joy? Somehow, the question came up in conversation with friends. I didn't want to put myself out there, so I sat back and listened: My relationship with friends. When I accomplish [insert accomplishment here] When people really get what I do all day. When I... When I... When I ... From my judgey perch, something uncharacteristically pushy inside me added Okay. But what brings us joy outside of ourselves? I'm pretty sure that's probably the last time I'll be invited anywhere. But anyway. There was a long pause and people (including me) began shifting uncomfortably. I mean, what in my definition of joy is not exclusively and inextricably linked to some benefit to me? How self-centered and self-serving am I anyway? We kept shifting and soon changed the topic. But I kept thinking: what brings me joy that isn't about me at its core? I came up with a few. And by a few, I mean few : Watching the lightbulb moment. Thes...