Not An Easy Sunday
November 7, 2022
Sunday mornings I start my day, sometimes in my pajamas, at 750 am. I go to the gym down the street for a 8 o’clock Pilates class. I reserve a space three days in advance; it’s popular because it’s ridiculously hard but eighty percent of the time, we’re lying down, on our backs or our bellies, so it suits the lazy, the hungover, and the people that want to look good in a bikini. The classes are never the same, but I can count on a Joni Mitchell, Taylor Swift, James Taylor, type music, on the playlist.
It is hard, it is not so hard. If I chose. I can do pushups from my knees and use light weights. I like staying low to the ground when I’m just waking up.
Today, there was someone new. The music was soft. The moves were hard; ten minutes of side planks on a Sunday? There was stretching, and then more work. It was lovely. It was different. It ended at 849 am, four minutes over.
Church is at 1030. I’d signed up to teach religious education, or Sunday School, which means I spent half the service with eight 7th graders, helping the lead teacher with the lesson of the week. I’ve been out of the loop for a while, so I didn’t know the kids or the teacher, at all.
I made friends with Leona, the artist, and Sebastian, the shy one. The lesson had an African theme, my husband volunteered to fry the plaintains, (a job assigned to me,) so I could join everyone out to the yard and watch our group play a game.
It is November in New England and this morning the temperature was over sixty degrees. There is something delicious about spinning around in the leaves and the wind on a November morning in very short sleeves.
I can’t remember the name of our activity, but it came from Africa and hiding, then finding stones, was the point. The leaves have mostly fallen, so there were breaks to hang on naked branches, examine seeed pods, and discuss whose turn was next. No one slipped on the wet grass, or broke a limb, the human or the tree kind. At the end, we lost about half the stones, and the lead teacher said that was impressive.
We all tried the fried plaintains, and I don’t think they were that good, but some of the kids liked them or were polite.
I raced home afterewards to get ready for a funeral for a friend. This was a woman I worked with a long time ago at Quincy College. I can’t sum her up in a few words. She smiled with her eyes, adored sparkly eye shadow, spoke her mind without lowering her voice, and was someone I would call a friend today, even though it’s been four years, because she was loyal and fierce and…
I will think of her often. I wish I’d seen her before she died and after Covid.
There was dinner with friends and two glasses of Chardonnay. There was a walk around the block, Sophie sniffed, and Chanel sniffed and pulled.
And now, I am home. I am thinking about church and faith. I am thinking about my kids when they were young, and if the dogs will need another walk. The windows are open, so I’m thinking about global warming. I hear Colin’s voice upstairs, I wonder if I should remind him to bring his trash down tonight; tomorrow is Monday.
I am thinking about my friend Pat- years ago, she told me my boots were too beat up to wear to work, I gave them away the next week.
I am thinking about how two weeks ago, my friend and I talked about visiting Pat at a home and how she was a little confused. Both of us knew we didn’t have the time to make the trip.
So many people were there to say goodbye today. I hope she was watching.
We toasted at her when we got our drinks, and then conversation moved on- to classes, work, flight plans, holidays, kids and conversations.
That’s the way it goes, I guess. One day isn’t ever one day, really, it’s a million tiny days sandwiched between waking up and sliding in between the sheets.
May peace be with you, Pat.
May peace be with all of you,
Julie
The dog who couldn’t get up and did.
October 14, 2022
I don’t want to go back and read what I wrote about three weeks ago. I’m pretty sure it was a softspoken couple of lines about the impending death of my Sweetest of Dogs, Sophie, also known as Mrs. Blackburn.
Maybe, I talked about carrying her down the stairs to a final cookie party, or our trip to the pond so she could move in the water. On land, she could only stagger, or lurch, or sigh, sit, and rearrange her paws around her body to look up at me as if I had inflicted her with aging joints and rapidly advancing kidney disease.
Let’s be clear. It’s been three years since she started dying. I’ve written similar elegies. I’ve had my minister mention her name at church and more than one drink put on someone else’s tab after I spilled the sad story of Sophie the Magnificent, aka Mrs. Blackburn.
But three weeks ago, well- I’ve never had to carry her to and from the car before. I’ve never had to lift her onto the sofa, the low one, where we forcefeed her meds, my husband prying open her jaws with two hands, and me dropping the crushed up powder in, sliding in down a folded square of cardboard. I gave up all pretense of healthy dog food, gave her Sheldon’s leftover steak, with a smear of catfood on top, and a little bit of buffalo chicken for bedtime snack.
That was three weeks ago. And for those of you who know just how bad it was, I gotta tell you now-
She’s fine again.
She’s climbs up and down the stairs three times a night, because sometimes at three am, Mrs. Blackburn likes to look at the stars, take a drink from the toilet, or chase Michael the cat. She is still fussy as hell, but is starting to realize we’ve noticed she eats the healthy dog food when we’re not looking.
I sent Sheldon to the store yesterday for another case of the damn stuff, I think it’s four bucks a can. I didn’t want to send him to the store until I was sure, well, you know.
She had a fight with the neighbor’s dog this morning, which translates to when the tiny grey poodle walked by, owner following behind on the phone, Sophia the Fierce, tore out the back door to the fence, where she alternated fierce, ear splitting barks with deep throated, impressive growls.
She’s fine again, though that dog from this morning might disagree.
I was going to say, I’m looking forward to taking her for granted again, but I don’t think I will.
Winter’s close, and it’s time to stay close to those that we love.
Sophia, The Kindest Of Queens will keep us warm and safe until spring. We need her this year more than ever.
The season of the big ouch
October 2, 2022
About three years ago, Sophie the Sweet, was diagnosed with liver and kidney failure. We were warned she didn’t have much longer to live.
I jumped on the internet and started making recipes for low protein low fat meals, most of them ended up greyish brown or brownish grey. Sophie the Stubborn never ate a bite.
We found her a ‘healthy” dog food that I would eat after I covered it with slabs of bacon, shredded mozzerella cheese, meatloaf, chicken skin, and catfood. We would place her bowl at the top of the basement stairs, behind the door, and stand on the other side to listen for slurping or toenails on cement heading downstairs.
For months after the first visit to the vet, tears would spring at random. Was this our last walk at Houghton’s? The final cookie party? The final glimpse of her gobbling a rabbit smeared on the driveway left by Michael, the cat?
But she went on. So we did.
Just last week, she started limping. My husband diagnosed her as needing a day at the spa. The pawdicure didn’t work.
For the past three days, I’ve been carrying her inside and out of the house. The healthy dog food is going to my son’s puppy, Nell.
Tonight, I fed Sophie a chicken enchilada, tore every morsel into tiny bites, and left out the bits with tomato, in the middle of the living room while Nellie tried vigorously to climb my right leg. I’m not sure what exactly Nel was trying to accomplish, but when she stopped, she looked like she wanted a cigarette.
Tomorrow, I’m thinking Peking Duck for lunch. It will be Sunday, and Chinese food tastes best on Sunday. We’ll take her to the vet on Monday. Maybe there will be another miracle.
Right now, there is a miracle dog in my living room. I”m going to go read a book and hope that she can read my heart as I sit on the couch, near her, in her bed, on the floor.
Tomorrow we’ll visit Houghton’s so that she can swim before the weather turns cold.
Winter is promises to be bitter this year.
Mixed Emotions/ I’m going to my high school reunion in two weeks.
September 19, 2021
I live in Massachusetts and I grew up, mostly, in Jersey.
But Facebook means that even though it’s been years, I know that Jim is a doctor and just got divorced. Laurie just had a grandchild, Emma is a professor and Allan is killing it in real estate.
Facebook means there is a place where everyone from Mountain Lakes shares memories, obits, updates and asks for help- tracking down an old friend, prayers during a battle with cancer, supporting a business, a page, or a cause.
This is the thing, and I’m being careful because the reunion is next week, and I love my hometown. I have connected with people on social media who I didn’t know when I saw them every damn day in the hallways at the high school or in the parking lot at Del’s Village.
When people reminisce about Mountain Lakes, many talk about the town, and their youth, as if it was a spectacular aberration.
Yes, we had parties, and people played guitar. Yes, the parties were really good parties, and the Stanfield’s were the coolest family in the world, they had a fire pit, an open door policy, and their kids were and are some of the best, smartest, funniest, and most amazing people I know, as well as you can know someone years after you shared a beer with them in their backyard.
The football team won all their games. We skated all winter and swam all summer. We went to the Market for sandwiches and Roma for pizza, and the pizza was better than any pizza I’ve had since, including New York. Well, maybe NY pizza was a little bit better, I’m in Massachusetts. I’m deprived.
Mr. Fox was a magical art teacher. I remember what Mrs. Smith taught me in freshman English. Mr. Hoke recited Shakespeare in a baritone that I can still hear. There were bluegrass festivals two towns over, New York City was a bus ride away, I wrote poems on scraps of paper and people read them and said nice things, even though I don’t think they were that good.
I have pictures of me smiling in a black tuxedo and fishnets during something called GAA. a competition between two teams, Blue and the Orange, that happened each spring after months of preparation. Each team would pick a story, and perform it, like a musical with the songs being used as vehicles for different dances and gymnastics. I was excited when I made the the modern dance team, even though I was picked as second substitute. There’s a photo in the yearbook, I had thick thighs and a huge smile. (I didn’t smile between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, or so I’m told, but in that picture, I’m grinning.
Yes, it was a magical wonderful time. But it wasn’t all bonfires and pancake breakfasts.
It was being picked last at gym. Starting to drink beer because it made me a little less shy. Getting crappy grades because I always forgot my textbooks in my rush to be on time to watch General Hospital, bumming cigarettes during lunch, people getting sick of me bumming cigarettes during lunch, getting pinkeye every summer from swimming at Island Beach, not eating much and lying on the floor to put on my jeans because I’d had cereal for breakfast. Smoking pot and feeling dumb. Taking up beer and Marlboro lights with the enthusiasm some reserved for field hockey and making the honor roll. Not ever having a clue about what was coming next or where I wanted to land.
These memories aren’t specific to being a young person in Mountain Lakes. They aren’t specific to being young in the 80’s, young and privileged, young and female.
They are just some of the things I think of when I look back.
For many people, in Mountain Lakes, NJ, and Milton, Massachusetts, our memories are where we like to linger because now is so damned hard.
We tell ourselves and our children about life back then, and it all sounds glorious.
But I’m pretty sure we leave stuff out, or forget the worst. I do.
Because the now, with the sore hip and the Covid, the retirement looming and the dental bills mounting- it’s nice to look back to anything other than what I see in the mirror before I’m ready to look.
I just wanted to say Mountain Lakes was a great place to grow up. So is Milton. So are a million other places.
But, it was’t perfect. For me anyway. I still can’t wait to go back.
It will be nice to walk down the Boulevard and stand on the beach by Birchwood Lake.
It will be good to see people in three dimensions, especially after this past year. It will be nice to look back on all of the hard parts, the stuff I’d never talk about on Facebook, or with anyone. For me, growing up was one quarter bliss and Bruce Springsteen and three quarters braces and diets, wondering what to say next and wishing I’d said something else or nothing at all.
I’m grown, and I’m in pretty good place right now.
It’ll be nice to take a weekend to remember how I got here.
Thanksgiving. Covid. Colin.
November 27, 2020
My son is twenty years old.
I lost him about the time he was halfway through his sophomore year in high school. I’m not going into details here, except to say that was the point where I began to realize I could ground him, shriek, take away his phone, and nothing worked.
I made threats and he offered intense promises on the ride home from the police station. My husband and I shared nervous trips to the court house, endured discussions with parents on the courthouse steps, searches on google for an air freshener that eliminates the smell of pot, searches on google for a place for kids like him, conversations with friends that ended quickly because I didn’t know how to spin any of it.
Colin is twenty now.
There is my baby boy who wouldn’t fall asleep without plastic zoo animals, couch pillows, his favorite pot holder and a special blue blue blanket in his crib.
There is Colin of elementary school, who tried karate, loved his bunk beds, and wanted a dog more than anything.
There is Colin, the teenager. He played football, partied in the woods, set the table, had friends over on school nights and hid them in the closet, woke up for basketball practice without an alarm, asked for a waffle maker for Christmas, and was a genius at making his sister do his chores.
There is Colin, the young man on house arrest. A picture with him in the driveway was part of the senior scavenger hunt.
We fought with his probation officer to let him play basketball in the driveway, and sometimes he’d shoot hoops when the weather was nice, but mostly, he’d sit outside the back door and look at his phone.
And there is Colin now.
Tonight, I sat next to my son during dinner. It’s Thanksgiving, 2020. We were at a restaurant, and our masks were all placed in front of our silverware.
He lives five minutes away, but he took an Uber to the restaurant.
It’s been six months since we shared a meal.
I don’t know what he watches on Netflix, who he’s sleeping with, if he still eats Lucky Charms for breakfast, takes thirty minutes in the shower, and twenty minutes to dry off and drop his towels on the floor.
I don’t even know why he came to dinner.
I don’t care if Colin smells like 1969, is twenty minutes late, or wears a jacket that costs more than what I spend on groceries.
I love him more than spring, Springsteen, or the little boy he was, when it was easy. (Maybe it wasn’t easy, but looking back it seems like it was easier than now.)
If you offered me a million dollars, I couldn’t tell you Colin’s favorite color, how to make him laugh, or the first thing he remembered.
I know he is amazing, and will do amazing things. Not sure why or when, but there is such a thing as unconditional love and faith.
That is pretty big, I think.
This is Us
October 30, 2020
I write a lot about my family, so I thought I should introduce them by telling you a little bit about what they love. If I included an accurate list of what they don’t like, (considering that these days we are kind of cranky, given the pandemic, and everything,) you would have to skip dinner to finish. Afterwards, you would be depressed; reading about stranger’s complaints is irritating and you might have more things to your list of what makes you unhappy.
Katy, my seventeen year old, loves data. She wants a scale for Christmas. She writes everything that she eats and tracks all physical activity on an app. She would like a thermometer for Christmas, but that’s just probably because she’s a bit of a hypochondriac. She loves “Call of The Midwife” and “Gray’s Anatomy”. When people ask me what she plans to do with her life, I tell them she wants to go into medicine, which I feel is accurate, given her viewing choices. When I ask her, she says she has no idea. I like my answer better.
Colin loves clothes, sneakers with resale value, cologne that is not sold at CVS, matching socks, and hoodies that cost $200, (I don’t think he calls them hoodies, but it’s too early to ask him, and you know what I mean). When we take a family picture, he looks like a model who we paid to sit with us to make the photo look better.
Sheldon, my husband, loves watching the weather channel. He likes cleaning out the refrigerator while announcing to all within a ten mile radius that he is cleaning out the refrigerator. He regards being stuck at red light as his own personal hell and he loves driving at 2 am when all the red lights change over to blinking yellow, but he also. likes being in bed by 10 so that he can watch the weather channel.
He also loves back rubs, and is sad that one of the casualties of being married for twenty years is I no longer give him thirty minute back rubs using expensive moisturizer. I need the moisturizer for my neck. On special occasions, I will scratch his shoulders if the angle from my hand to his itch doesn’t require I move or disturb Sophie.
Sophie is our dog. She has liver and kidney disease, so her passions these days are simple. She loves sleeping on the sofa on top of Sheldon’s bathrobe. She loves barking at other dogs, small children, teenagers, adults, and trucks from our back yard. If the weather is bad, she will stand in our living room and bark at our cat. Maybe what Sophie loves is the sound of her own voice.
She loves sniffing bushes, grass, and tiny corpses of dead animals, I think. If I sense she’s spotted a dead animal, I do not investigate, but pull on her leash until she follows.
Michael and Maurice, our cats, do not love each other at all, but since I spend so much time on everyone else, I don’t have much to say about them. Both like to have their bellies scratched, and will bite you when they have had enough.
Maurice only has three legs, and has a very large appetite. This probably won’t work out well for him, since he limited support for his expanding belly.
Michael likes to join Sophie and I on walks around the block. He doesn’t actually follow, he usually manages to stay about twenty steps ahead, and moves like he has somewhere to go, and we just happened to be out at the same time.
I love Megan Roup, from The Sculpt Society, and dance cardio workouts in my living room with Sophie watching. I love eating too much one day, and finding out the next that I lost two pounds. (This is rare, and I don’t have an affiliated link). I love the woods, stupid comedies, going somewhere with someone else driving, loud music, Spotify, buttery chardonnay, and my friends. I love being home and thankful we have a home, and enough to pay the mortgage each month.
I’m starting a job next week and working from my dining room. I love shade of blue on the walls of my dining room, which will hopefully inspire me to do great things. I’ve missed work, and I hope I love this job as much as working with students at Quincy College.
I love my family. This whole pandemic thing has allowed me to get to know them really well. After eight months with these people, it is a tiny miracle that my daughter talks to me, even when she isn’t building up to “Can you get me Chipotle”, my son doesn’t squirm when I hug him, and I am considering the possibility that maybe I should give my husband a damn back rub with moisturizer when he gets home.
Tell me what you love.
On day Fifty-Six at 7:30 pm, I am lonely.
May 10, 2020
At 7 pm, I was curled on a recliner watching a new show on Netflix with Kate.
By 8, I’ll be working out, Sophie watching from the sofa. When the music gets loud, she goes outside. I hope the rain holds off.
Sofie is still confused by all the activity in the living room, and wishes we would eliminate this part of our new daily routine.
At 9, I might be on zoom with friends, trying to figure about what I can add to the conversation- does anyone really need to know about my chicken meatballs?, on the phone with family, (who actually might like to hear about the damned meatballs,) or talking about payment plans with Sheldon.
This lonely feeling comes and goes, like an ice cream craving, or bliss during the drive to work on a beautiful Monday morning.
I am not alone. I have family here, and a touchscreen away, friends send texts, call, and we promise to see each other soon. Then there is a quiet moment, when we wonder how long it will really be. It’s not uncomfortable, anymore, it’s the way things are.
Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s the world. Maybe it’s just the way I need to be right now.
If you’re feeling lonely too, you have company.
Stay strong, and amazing.
Love,
Julie
On Day Fifty-Six, I am lonely
May 10, 2020
At 7 pm, I was curled on a recliner watching a new show on Netflix with Kate.
By 8, I’ll be working out, Sophie watching from the sofa. When the music gets loud, she goes outside. I hope the rain holds off.
Sofie is still confused by all the activity in the living room, and wishes we would eliminate this part of our new daily routine.
At 9, I might be on zoom with friends, trying to figure about what I can add to the conversation- does anyone really need to know about my chicken meatballs?, on the phone with family, (who actually might like to hear about the damned meatballs,) or talking about payment plans with Sheldon.
This lonely feeling comes and goes, like an ice cream craving, or bliss during the drive to work on a beautiful Monday morning.
I am not alone. I have family here, and a touchscreen away, friends send texts, call, and we promise to see each other soon. Then there is a quiet moment, when we wonder how long it will really be. It’s not uncomfortable, anymore, it’s the way things are.
Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s the world. Maybe it’s just the way I need to be right now.
If you’re feeling lonely too, you have company.
Stay strong, and amazing.
Love,
Julie
Forty-one days- Not the best of them. (My daughter’s flute recital, which should have been mentioned, was not. It was amazing.)
April 24, 2020
Today, I was part of a conversation with some amazing women who do amazing things. My mom even said, when I told her about them, “you’re lucky they have chosen you to be part of their lives.”
I am blessed to know so many amazing people, and that these amazing people return my calls, laugh at my jokes, include me to their zoom meetings, and will invite me into their homes, for holidays, dinners, games, and just because. They have good wine, better snacks, and we get each other, in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
But, sometimes, it’s hard to know where I fit in.
I’m currently not working at Quincy College, currently unsure what my next steps are going to be, or where I want them to take me.
I bring to the table funny stories about life with Colin, and heartwarming anecdotes about Katy still letting me into her room, even flop on her bed, and sometimes, talk to me, (this morning, she told me I needed a shower. I’d just hiked the Blue Hills.) I bring to the table good table manners, excellent taste in music, a sometimes irritating and occasionally helpful cheerful demeanor, muted first thing in the morning for most of my friends, and I’m willing to be the one who decides which restaurant and what time- Not critical skills at the moment.
I know it’s not good to compare yourself to others, the doors that have closed will open to amazing opportunities, I have a house, a husband, beautiful kids and the very best dog.
I know all of us have been pretty close to where I am now, at one point or another.
I know this, in my head.
But in my heart, I feel like I”m running the Boston Marathon and, somehow, find myself alone, lost in Cleveland. Everyone’s talking about Boston, and I’m wandering around Cleveland hoping to get home for the
byForty-One Days- and not the best of them.
(The flute recital, not mentioned, which should have been mentioned, was amazing.)
Today, I was part of a conversation with some amazing women who do amazing things. My mom even said, when I told her about them, “you’re lucky they have chosen you to be part of their lives.”
I am blessed to know so many amazing people, and that these amazing people return my calls, laugh at my jokes, include me to their zoom meetings, and will invite me into their homes, for holidays, dinners, games, and just because. They have good wine, better snacks, and we get each other, in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.
But, sometimes, it’s hard to know where I fit in.
I’m currently not working at Quincy College, currently unsure what my next steps are going to be, or where I want them to take me.
I bring to the table funny stories about life with Colin, and heartwarming anecdotes about Katy still letting me into her room, even flop on her bed, and sometimes, talk to me, (this morning, she told me I needed a shower. I’d just hiked the Blue Hills.) I bring to the table good table manners, excellent taste in music, a sometimes irritating and occasionally helpful cheerful demeanor, muted first thing in the morning for most of my friends, and I’m willing to be the one who decides which restaurant and what time- Not critical skills at the moment.
I know it’s not good to compare yourself to others, the doors that have closed will open to amazing opportunities, I have a house, a husband, beautiful kids and the very best dog.
I know all of us have been pretty close to where I am now, at one point or another.
I know this, in my head.
But in my heart, I feel like I”m running the Boston Marathon and, somehow, find myself alone, lost in Cleveland. Everyone’s talking about Boston, and I’m wandering around Cleveland hoping to get home for the afterparty.
I have the sense of direction of a ninety year old drunk from Medford, waking up alone in Los Angeles, who lost his glasses on the flight.
But I am determined as hell, so I’ll get there.
And if I don’t, I’ll jump on Katy’s bed until she makes me laugh or figures out how to throw me off.
Love,
Jules
julierichmond 