Mothers are the Weavers

Mothers are the weavers. As indispensable as water, sunlight or oxygen. Their role is at once concrete and nebulous - undefined, and yet, somewhere, surely, carved in stone.

Here, I think, is the gist of the project: She must begin the weave with the threads from the past -  light and dark alike, gossamer silk as well as good, durable fishing line.  The threads my mother received from her own mother were as varied and colorful as the prairie land birds. Bright strings of flowers, art, and music, shot through with solid browns of practicality and fortitude. The courage thread is surely pink – neither neon nor pastel, but the deep, lovely shade of crab apple blossoms. It is an old thread, handed down from a grandmother who survived a train wreck and a mother who counted green stamps during the Depression.

So - first the fabrics and textures at hand, and then the unique new cloth of her own existence.  My mother wove in a blend of humor that laughs, always, at the inappropriate. A love of all things medical and all things mysterious. She filled our tapestries with cookies and Hail Marys, Band-Aids and hair ribbons. And love, always love.

A mother makes us who we are; only she has the bravery and the skills to shape a life, and never actually credit herself with the accomplishment of that monumental task.

The first lullaby sung to my first child was a gift from my mother, who had received it from her own mother and so on, probably all the way back to Eve. “Hush little baby don’t say a word”  and “Honey tie your shoe”. “Don’t eat an hour before swimming. Or communion” and “Never ask a boy on a date.” Along the way, the child became the mother, the new child the recipient, and the fabric of life brightened yet again. 

Mothers are life.

And so, to all the mothers, and especially to my own, who is the bestest, the brightest of all – happy day!  Joyous day! 

*Art by K. M. Berggren

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The Crux of Childhood Easter

My childhood Easters were all about dressing up, which, for me, made it the less-than-favorite holiday. I was more of a Scout Finch kid, comfortable in over-alls and bare feet; a dress, any dress, could only itch.

My mother, however, delighted in this highest, holiest of Catholic days – and showed her joy in the display of six clean and lovely offspring. Three boys in suits. Three girls in matching dresses, jackets and shiny black Mary Janes. We swore that she pinned the lace head cap right into our skulls.

Mass? By Easter Sunday we had been half a dozen times in as many days, had observed the fasting rules (staying up until midnight on Good Friday in order to eat  M&Ms) and kept our Lent promises. (I give up pop, television, calling my brother bad names.)  Holy Week was at last behind us, and soon, soon, the dress could go back in the closet.

But here is the crux of childhood Easter. We were better people then.  There are days, I think, when I would sell my soul to be the little girl with straight bangs and an itchy dress again – she exists, in my memory, so whole, and in my mind I can trace her Easter route from start to finish.

Church. Latin words that I hadn’t yet prayed for solace, because I had never needed solace. So – just a drone unremarkable as the noise of honey bees.  Sunshine through stained glass windows and incense tickling the nose. My mother’s unmitigated soprano soaring in glorious praise, my father’s occasional cough. (Dear God, let him get hiccups, I would pray my sole Easter prayer. Nobody got hiccups like my dad.)

Mass at last finished, we would go to Grandma’s. Tulips in bloom, and bird’s nests cookies. Gossip at the kitchen table, and the surreptitious teasing of the fat housecat. 

From there to my aunt’s. Uncle Don was probably six feet tall, but he seemed as big as the sky to us; he could lift us all the way to the ceiling. 

Older cousins who teased, aunts who scolded, the smell of peppered roast and mashed potatoes and the lull of adult conversation, and all the while . . .  I think she knew. The restless little girl in the stiff linen knew even then how fast it was all sliding past. 

And while she wanted the hell out of that dress and the day was dull beyond measure . . . Ah, wouldn’t it be good to have it back now? To see us as we were that day? 

But Easter is all about joy, isn’t it? Cleanliness and that simple rock-hard goodness that, in adulthood, is as elusive as the last egg. How did my parents do that? How did they keep hold of that solid, essential all-is-wellness? 

Another Easter. Tulips in bloom and little girls in dresses. Hot, drowsy sunlight through stained glass windows and my daughter’s voice the perfect echo of my mother’s.  Holy holy holy. 

Ah, life is still good, people. Jesus still loves us, and here we are, having straggled whole through another year. Take heart.

In fact, be joyful, people.

Happy, happy Easter.

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Know That This Is Transient

February in Illinois is a splendid and confounding mix, comprised of blizzards and silvery rain showers, northers howling over the prairie and tentative crocus tips peering up through the snow. We’re never quite certain we’re going to make it, are we?

But Lent is already upon us, and to me this is a beacon in the darkness. I’ll tell you why:

“Lazare veni foras.” 

 Lazarus, come forth. Best story ever, people. And the reason for this is not so much that beautiful blaze of glory when the man emerged from the tomb as what proceeded it. Jesus wept.

That sticks in the mind, doesn’t it?

Why? Why would this man - this Jesus who was to become something at once as glorious and mundane as a household name – why would He weep?

Well . . . why do we weep? It’s not so hard, is it, to follow that shitty path of discouragement, despair, loss? If you’re reading this, then you’re alive, and if you’re alive, odds are, you’ve been there. We weep because we’re at the end of our rope. Because winter is eternal, because we are exhausted, or maybe because the worst has happened and we will never hear the beloved voice of a friend, a spouse, a parent, a lover, again. 

We weep because we’re lost, because we can’t find the light. 

We can’t even believe there is a light.

Death doesn’t pick favorites. It’s as random as the smile of a stranger in a crowd, as capricious as March sunshine. It swoops down and plucks one from among us, and there is no recourse. No chance to say “I love you” or to retract a cruel word, no familiar arms to hold us, no warm and lovely voice in our ear.

But there is something to take away from this, and it isn’t despair. Jesus wept that day because he had lost a friend. He was exhausted, discouraged, and ultimately certain of his own impending death. But then He stood up and He shouted.

“Lazarus Come Forth!”  

And Lazarus did. We know that he did.

Your loved one won’t. Not here, not now. But you can’t go forward thinking that this is the end.  The entire purpose of Jesus’s life was to show us that there is no end. Whoever you’re missing, whatever darkness you are traveling in, know that this is transient, that time shuttles us forward, always so rapidly you don’t even know you’re moving. You won’t be in this bad spot forever. 

Because there is another side, okay? There is.

Winter ends, the crocuses bloom and Lazarus heard the voice of his beloved friend calling him. Come forth. Come out into the sunshine and stand tall.

Notebook in Hand, Head in the Clouds

© Irene Owens

“I’m a writer, what’s your superpower?” The tee shirt advertisement screams at me from my Facebook page and I can’t click away from it quickly enough.

Well, it is silly, isn’t it? So much easier to get behind an occupation like firefighting. EMS. Or even motherhood. Writers are the nerds of the universe, let’s face it.

But lately it occurs to me that, at least in the beginning, the purpose of this blog was to promote my novel. (Sugar Man’s Daughter, for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Oh please,  tell me you are here because you have read it and love it!) Anyway - somewhere along the line, the Crowe’s Nest took off and gained a life of its own, and it’s all about things like ambulances and chocolate chip cookies. Matchbox lyrics and Easter.

It’s all good! But today I think I’ll talk about writing.

I don’t remember not doing it.  My mother helped me put words to paper before I could even spell. I was always the kid with the notebook in hand, head in the clouds. I studied landscapes, emotions, and the small, nebulous bits of life that a lot of people don’t give much thought to – what, precisely, does a March wind feel like? How best to describe the scent of August corn? Or burnt brownies? People squirmed beneath my avid stare, never realizing that the silly bespectacled girl was trying to find the right words to describe the mole on their chin.

John Steinbeck was my hero. Still is. Such a beautiful magic, to take mere worlds and create . . .  a whole world. Complete. Every sense engaged, so that the reader sees what the author sees, feels what he feels.

I had to do that. And I say “had to” because there was no choice. The author in my head clamored to be heard day and night, restless, always restless, until the pen was put to paper.

I was never a poet, didn’t like short stories. For me, it was always The Novel. I finished my first one in high school – well over three hundred pages that my mother painstakingly typed on an old-style typewriter. Corrections in white-out. Imagine that for a moment, and you will understand how blessed I am that this woman loves me.

I wrote throughout my time at junior college. I wrote in the early/late hours when I came home from my factory job. I wrote when my kids were small and after they had grown. Through a marriage, a divorce, another marriage. I wrote letters to editors and essays for teachers. Journals for me and books for the world. I created characters out of thin air, and I made them whole, and now I can’t imagine a life without them.

God, I think, loves me as much as my mother does because today I am a published author. This is huge and exciting, and on the days when I am impatient with my publisher or upset over a late royalty check, I only have to remind myself that the miracle has already happened, and I hold my book in my hands.

To the world, this isn’t as exciting as screaming down the road in an ambulance. Or rolling up on a fire with the lights and sirens full bore. It’s not like a first kiss or the laughter of your child.

But it’s close, people, it’s close.

Yep. Remember the nerd factor?

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The Secret Recipe for a Happy 2015

©Mary Engelbreit Studios

Why does the New Year begin in January?

Google blames Julius Caesar, which makes perfect sense to me, because, well, Julius didn’t live in Illinois, did he?  Here in the Heartland we all know that the year actually begins in March – lovely gray tempestuous month, cold and warm and gusty and gentle all at once. Rainy winds and tiny slivers of sunshine, the days at last stretching out until we have an evening again.

But January? Oh dear. Cold and dark, so bleak and . . . well, January.

It’s hard, isn’t it, to get excited for a year beginning with frozen pipes and frostbitten toes? How to set goals when even daylight is confined to just a few precious hours?

Ah, but we persevere, don’t we? Thankfully, perseverance is a huge part of the human make-up.

What does your 2015 look like? Are you a goal-setter, a trend setter, a roll-with-the-tide type?  No matter your inclinations, I’ve got ideas for you, and they are mostly along the lines of feeling better even in January. They look something like this:

1.) Sleep more. Seriously, people, aren’t you tired of being tired? Everyone I know is exhausted – work and run, run and work, and no end in sight. So pull the shades, snuggle your teddy bear, and just lay down. Pure heaven, try it for a few hours once in a while.

Or maybe until March.

2.) Rum. And brownies. All right, maybe not every day, but once in awhile won’t kill you. Think of it as a social thing – a drink with the hubby, a snack with the kids. Lay aside the soul-draining low carb restrictions and taste life now and then. Great stuff, chocolate. Rum, even better.

3.) Exercise, yes. Throw snowballs and build igloos. Wade in the creek, ride your bike, hike up the hill. Drag that old treadmill out of the basement and to local scrapyard – and then do the spider dance when you realize you have cobwebs in your hair. Exercise is good.

4.) Love more. Love everything more – your people, your pets, your bugman, your supper. The thing about love is you have to apply it liberally. Big, sloppy paintbrush, spread that stuff around everywhere. There is no shortage, okay? You can’t run out of it.

Sleep, food, exercise, love. There you have it, the recipe for a simple and lovely 2015. And no more being mean to ourselves, people!

We are, after all, supposed to be happy.

I'm Dreaming of a ....Multicolored Christmas?

I’ve been allergic to white Christmas trees for years. They make me itchy, make my nose sting and my eyes tear up.
Maybe it’s the lack of smell. Or the sparkly paint on the stiff dead branches, more glare than glisten.

My fourth grade teacher had a miniature in a pot on her desk, all trimmed out in tinsel and red glass ornaments. I elbowed it to the floor on my way to the pencil sharpener and sometimes, forty years later, I still wake up in a cold sweat, having dreamed of her face in that critical moment.
Fourth grade was brutal.

In 1986 I worked fourteen hour days as slave labor in a greenhouse that specialized in Christmas décor. We sprayed white snow and shiny lacquer on pine branches until we were dizzy with the fumes. I had hives all over my body and fluid in my lungs, and I swore I would never, ever go white at Christmas.

A dear friend had a “life” sized white Christmas tree. Her fiancé had purchased it for her on a post- holiday sale, and he died, very suddenly of a heart attack, before Christmas came around again. I helped her decorate the wretched thing the following December, and amid tears and scattered branches and way too much rum, we finally reached an accord of sorts with the white tree.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “It won’t bring him back.”
“He would’ve wanted it,” she sobbed. “He loved white at Christmas.”
“One of these days.” – fanning a branch and sighing - “This sort of thing is going to get easier. For now, we'll just decorate the side facing the living room”

White lights, white pines, white snow, bleh. What about a real tree - big gaudy retro lights, red and green and blue? Candy cane stripes and glitter, homemade ornaments? Or . . .

Ah hell, it’s not about color, is it? It’s not about trees, or cookies or candy canes, and we know this because Linus tells us every year.  “ . . . the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, 'Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger . . .' "

Probably the baby wasn’t dressed all in white. The swaddling clothes would have been whatever blankets his mother had managed to tuck away for the journey. Maybe the baby himself wasn’t even white.  But we know, don’t we, that He shone with a brilliance, a beauty, a love that He would carry with him throughout his entire life and even after.

There it is. He is our “white” Christmas, people –  brighter than the Macy’s Christmas tree, shinier than the Chicago Bean. Gorgeous and perfect and wrapped all in love.

And love, after all, is a multi-colored beast, no?

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So you want to be an EMT?

So you want a career in EMS? Both of the rural stations where I work have been hiring. You’ll be called for an interview a week or two after you turn in an app, and then set down in our meeting room amidst four very serious faces and asked a host of enlightening questions. Something like this:

Why do you want to do this job?

Tell us about a moment where your training failed you

Do you consider yourself to have good leadership skills?

Etc etc etc.

Good grief, I say to the hubby (also the fire chief) can you not ask a single question that matters?
Such as . . .

1.) Well, can you lift? And I don’t mean a little. The cot alone weighs a hundred and twenty pounds and the majority of your patients will be something more than petite. They’ll be upstairs, all of them.  Or at least those who aren’t in the basement, under the front deck, on the roof, down a well. What they will never be is standing in the front yard waiting for you.

2.) How do you respond to vomit? Projectile. Large quantities. In your hair, on your shoes, down your shirtfront. You’re no help to anyone if the patient causes you to be the second patient.

3.) Can you back up? I know that sounds simple and I’m sure you’ve backed out of your driveway  a gazillion times. But here – can you back an ambulance? Down a narrow twisty farm lane in a blizzard? Up a hill, down a tow path and – most important of all – into the bay at your station?

The chief cries real tears if you ding the rig.

4.) You’re not afraid to go back to school, are you? A lot of us go for the paramedic, but even those of us who don’t are training on a very consistent basis. So – meetings, meetings, meetings. Classrooms, skills tests, recertifications. Even when you’re beat, even when you’re just off shift or it’s supposed to be your free weekend (ha). Even when, God help us, there is no coffee to be had at the station.

5.) Which brings us to – are you a coffee drinker? Please just nod yes. Dunkins, Starbucks, Peets, plain old Folgers. It is the all-important elixir of life. You must brew a pot immediately upon reaching the station and then you must keep it going all day and most of the night. If, Heaven forbid, you should break the pot, you’ll need to get somebody to cover your shift while you run to Walmart. Pick up some Dunkins on the way home so we don’t have to wait for the next pot to brew.

6.) Oddly enough – but you’ll get used to this, trust me – the next question has to do with sleep. Can you sleep any time of the day or night? More or less at the drop of a hat? Oh, and can you rebound from said sleep and be at the rig in seconds flat?

Lift, wipe up the vomit, back the rig, go to meetings, coffee-coffee-coffee, sleep-sleep-sleep. That’s about it! If you’re still with us, welcome aboard.

*Art by MauserGirl

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