I’m not complaining about getting old, nor about being nearly sixty and having a son in his early twenties.  It’s grand.  Before I had Patrick, I experienced two or three miscarriages, and by the time I found out that I was pregnant with Patrick, I was 35 and convinced that I’d never be a parent.  Patrick changed that, as well as everything else about my life.

He came into the world laughing and has evoked laughter from me in some of my darkest hours.  He’s climbed mountains with me, journeyed to the back of caves holding my hand so I wouldn’t stumble, and taught me more about life than any ten other people whom I know combined.  He’s accepted everything thrown his way by life — not always with grace, but always with tenacity or at least, endurance.  From Patrick, I’ve learned about the practice of nonviolent communication which I’m trying to espouse.  From him, too, I got this notion, which I have not yet internalized but which resonates with me:  That the comments of others about me are not true just because they are said.  And, that those comments say more about the speaker than they do about the subject of the speech.

Patrick turns 23 at 1:50 p.m. today.  He’s flown from home for good now, living in Evanston, Illinois, starting the next phase of his life as a graduate student at Northwestern.  I’ve got pictures  and papers and plaques on the walls to remind me of how lucky I was to bear him.  And on a shelf in the basement there still sits a broken street light which he plans to repair some day.  It takes up a lot of space, but I’m not complaining.

Some people just make my day rock.

Tonight one of them, my friend Penny Thieme, brought her shining eyes to sit in my living room and twinkle at me, to drink coffee from a blue ceramic mug, and drive her gorgeous convertible up and down my street and scandalize the neighborhood.  What a gift she has for bringing me up from depths which look like being bottomless.

And last Saturday, in the mail, I received a gift from another person whose timing couldn’t have been more perfect.  That gift came in a brown envelope, addressed to “M. C. Corley”, from my former spouse, Dennis Lisenby.  Inside, a book written and illustrated by my very own son, Patrick, about 15 years ago.  Saved, since we split up in 2008, by Dennis, and retrieved from a box of pictures and miscellaneous papers, from the basement of his home in Killbuck, Ohio.

Just in time to send me right when it could do the most good.

And my friend Jane Williams reached out to me today, with kindness, with compassion, with empathy, and with love.

For them, and others who have helped me, I offer this poem, by Robert Frost:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
A dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has lightened the weight
Of a heavy mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

I had a difficult day today, I’m going to just step right  up and admit that.  I tried something new and it didn’t work.  I had an asthma attack. I had to pick up the debris of a bat that my dog killed.  I had an asthma attack last evening, too. Then I let myself wallow in self-pity, lashed out at someone whom I knew didn’t deserve to be the victim of my lashing-out, and then I tried calling around to a bunch of people looking for someone to calm me down, and nobody answered.

Shew.  That’s a whole lot of mess for somebody who has been trying not to complain.

One of the ways I’ve tried to change myself this year has been through nonviolent communication. Today I created a few examples of violent communication.  Marshall Rosenberg teaches “nonviolent screaming”, where we tell another person how much pain we’re in at a given moment, rather than telling the other person they are hurting us.  I did just the opposite today:  I screamed violently.  I regressed to blame-placing and self-pity, and got a big fat negative result as a consequence of it, exactly what I know happens when I scream violently.

I acknowledge that I chose behavior from a place of pain that I would prefer not to choose. My need for comfort did not get met, and I drew someone else into the quagmire of my pain in the process.  I guess the only thing good about the experience is that  I learned from it.  My regression to violent communication underscored for me that my prior choice to communicate nonviolently is still my preference.

I’m going to pull out my cheat sheet and practice.  Til then, I’ve got an R. D. Wingfield book to distract me.  Tomorrow is another day.  Stay tuned for updates.

My oldest sister, Ann, was born in 1947.  My son and I spent her birthday with her in 2008, the year she turned 61.  I asked her if she had felt any particular angst the prior year, when she hit the big 6-0.  She gazed past me for a few minutes, reflecting. Then she said, with a very simple air, “No, I got up that morning, looked in the mirror, and said, ‘Okay, Ann, this is what sixty looks like.’ ”  We fell silent, and I thought about her “sixty” — with its white-water rafting, its bicycling, and its medical missionary trips to South America.

I’m turning 59 in September.  I’ve looked in my own mirror, in anticipation of 2015 when I will attain that six-decade milestone.  Many years, many mirrors, have found me complaining about something that I see there:  Too pug-nosed, too crooked-teethed, too freckled, too frizzy.  I feel less dissatisfied these days.  I smile into the lenses aimed at me more often, my friend Penny tells me.  I squint less.  Perhaps I am learning to accept myself, if not to feel actual, full-fledged self-love.  In the very least, I’m beginning to think there might be hope that one day when I stand in front of the bathroom mirror to minister to the deleterious effects of aging, I might see myself smile.  “This is what sixty looks like, girl.  Deal with it.”  And perhaps I shall.

I had difficulty teaching my son to ride a bike without training wheels.

He did well in the tricycle, Big Wheels, and training wheels phases, but when it came time to take off those side bars, I couldn’t conceptualize an instructional process that I, a disabled person, could utilize.  We tried the walking-backwards-around-the-block method, but we both got hot, sweaty and cranky.  He didn’t want the neighbors to see him earnestly striving, a grimace on his face, fear bubbling from his six- or seven-year old heart.

We needed a new venue.  We tried a bike trail in a nearby park, but the foot traffic and the zippy, accomplished cyclists discouraged both of us. After a while, I hit upon a plan.  I loaded child, bike and helmet into my car and drove to the top of a parking garage on a Sunday afternoon when the associated business was closed.

I parked  and pulled him and his gear from the vehicle.  He scowled and trudged to the far wall, peering down.  I watched him, trying to refrain from snatching him back from a certain three-story plunge.  “Can anyone see me up here,” he asked, finally.  I assured him that no one could.  I had no idea if they could or not but figured my small lie would never be revealed.

I coaxed him to the far end and onto the seat,  He solemnly adjusted his helmet strap and then gripped the handles.  We tried a few pedals, me doing that walking backward thing, holding onto the handle bars.  He commanded me not to let go, he wasn’t ready.  I kept at it. So did he.

After thirty minutes, I finally stopped and told him to get off.  He did so and we stood facing one another, the child stubbornly determined he couldn’t do it and the mother just as adamant that he could.  He so wanted to succeed; and I so wanted him to have this first taste of independence.  I knew my job:  Grow him to be a man, then let him fly.  Pedalling without training wheels seemed to me to be the first tangible step towards the ultimate accomplishment of my duties as  mother.

A few minutes passed with the two of us glaring at each other.  He folded his little arms and I lodged my hands on my hips.  The wind blew and nearby, on Troost Avenue, cars honked, and screeched their brakes, and pulled over for passing emergency vehicles.  Up on the rooftop, my son and I paid no attention to the traffic.

Finally, I made him an offer.  “I tell you what.  I’m old, and crippled, and getting a little fat.  I’ll make you a deal.  I’ll ride first, and if I can do it, you can do it.  So if I try, you’ll try, okay?”

He considered this.  I could see the calculations flitting across his face.  He assessed my body, my awkward legs, my clunky shoes.  He decided that I could not possibly succeed so the risk of his having to try again were minimal.  He nodded.  I took a hold of the little bike and swung one leg — the least incapable one — over its small frame and settled my Doc Martens on the miniature pedals, my knees just under the short handle bars.

I started the bike in motion.  The greatest danger to my success seemed to be the potential that I might capsize in laughter, at the thought of what I must resemble:  A clown, I supposed, one who had just been disgorged from a tiny car and now crossed the ring on a miniscule bike.  But I rode; I rode about fifty feet, and then slid  off the bike.

“Your turn,” I said.  He looked betrayed.

But one thing I had taught him:  A deal is a deal; and he had made a deal.  We aren’t welchers.  He got on the bike, I turned to face him, and we both held onto the handle bars, his hand on the grips and mine between.  I started walking, backwards, from the outer edge of the blacktop westerly, towards the building.  “Pedal, Patrick; pedal. . . ” I repeated  over, and over, and over and after a dozen paces, I let go and stepped aside.

And he rode. Standing at his starting point, I held my breath; and then, when I saw him riding, without training wheels, a smile dawned across my face and I let myself exhale while my son rode and the breeze raised itself around us.  He made it all the way across the rooftop, turned, and started back towards me, grinning and pedalling.  I stood and watched my little boy, and I swear, I’m sure that I saw him flying.

In  the crowded, chilly restaurant, I sat across from an old curmudgeon last evening, talking about history and socialism.  I leaned closer, not to miss anything he said.  How many have the chance to hear the observations of someone who has lived through a Great Depression, a world war, at least three more wars, the Civil Rights movement, the invention of the computer and the rise and fall of two generations of politicians?  I didn’t want to miss a single world.

He’s my favorite old curmudgeon, my father-in-law, even though we have only a half-dozen things in common.  We both love his children and grandchildren.  We spent a lot of time together nursing his wife in her last illness.  We both like red wine, properly cooked sea food, and books — although he reads nonfiction in German, and I read European Crime Fiction, which shows the difference between us.  He reads to learn; I read to escape.  But we both read.

A  long pleasant time drifted by, between our order and the arrival of our food.  In that gap, the temperature in the restaurant dropped by 5 or more degrees and his thin, aging and increasingly frail frame began to shrink as well, away from the cold.  I cajoled him into letting me go to the car to get his jacket, and when I returned, he pulled it over his arms with grace and remained standing until I sat.  He apologized for needing me to run that errand; then sat back down again himself.  We continued talking over our food — scallops for him; salmon for me.  We raised our glasses to toast Joanna, his wife, who would order anything at all off any menu, as long as it was grilled salmon with asparagus.

A scant hour and a half after I arrived at his house, he was ready to go home, to rest, to sleep.  And to rise again today, to live his life, bravely, quietly, sometimes sternly, sometimes with the love light keenly shining from his knowing eyes.  I drove home in a quiet mood myself, thinking about curmudgeons and the children of curmudgeons, of whom he voiced his pride and pleasure this evening.  As I parked my car, it occurred to me that they might not know how much he loves them and how proud he is of both his children.  And so, here, in my own way, now I’ve told them.

My father-in-law turns 85 this month.  I’m praying that he sees his 86th birthday; but I’m also grateful that I’ve known him these five years.  Had I never met his son, I would never have met the father; and so I realize that I am indeed a very blessed woman.

I’d had a difficult day but a promise is a promise, and I had promised.

Two months ago, I got the wild idea of taking a fifteen-year-old appointed client shopping.  A mother of one adorable child born in August of 2013, this lovely teenager now lives in a foster home because of the struggles of her own mother.  She stands against a wall after each of our court appearances with silent tears streaming down her face, dripping on her T-shirt.  At our April review date, I noticed the slight shabbiness of her clothing.  I’d had a flush month so I blurted out, “Do you need clothes?”  She raised her eyes and a glimmer of excitement eminated from her.  I checked with her caseworker; she had not yet gotten a clothing allotment for 2014.  This sealed my resolve.

I’ve put the trip off twice.  May was not as flush as April; June even less so.  That’s the way of self-employment.  Feast or famine.  Save for a rainy day; save for the month when clients put their other obligations before you.  But a promise is a promise, and to a foster child, a promise can be the difference between lying in bed sobbing at the failings of yet another adult, and the thrill of being surrounded by a group of admiring girls, also in care, also in old and worn clothing waiting for their semi-annual allotment.

My client had in mind a store with colorful, modern clothing but low  prices.  She sorted through the sale racks first — a child after my own heart.  Then we found the buy-one-get-the-second-for-$5 section and we both crowed.  Armed with eight or nine items, we snagged a dressing room.  I wondered if she would want my input, but that question settled itself when the door opened and she gestured, asking me to see.  Oh, honey.  Oh, my dear.  A vision she was, with her beautiful brown skin, her bright face, her small young woman’s body.  She had chosen to try first a little denim skirt, flared and femine; and a blue jean jacket with a colorful top underneath. She could have been anybody, any teenager, anywhere, rather than an unwed mother in the state’s care and custody.

All told, I spent under $150 and she got two dresses, two pairs of shorts, four tops, the denim jacket and skirt, and an absolutely adorable pair of pants.  And me? What did I get?  Joy.  I got joy.  And i think I got the better deal.

I got a letter from a company of which I never heard, but on letterhead of my insurance company.  The letter purported to claim that my doctor had requested testing for XYZ condition, and that the test was not approved for persons with XYZ condition unless they had first done eight or ten other things.

Putting aside the fact that my doctor had never reported to me that he suspected me of having XYZ condition, and putting aside the fact that if his suspicions lay in that direction, that was a hell of a way to learn about it, there was my nagging concern as to why this unknown company would deny coverage for the test.  Oh, I realize that for at least a decade, insurance companies have contracted out this type of review, but I’ve never liked the fact that my doctor isn’t the final arbitrar of what I need and therefore, what the company should cover.  I’m told by anti-Affordable Health Care Act folks that this proclivity will worsen, but I think it has been bad enough for years.

I called the 800# and drilled through three levels of obstinate “customer care” persons.  I asked for  a supervisor any time I felt my hackles rise.  I’m trying not to complain, remember?  I finally got someone with a grown-up’s voice, a last name, and a quick inclination to address the substance of my concern.  He ordered a Peer-to-Peer consult — their doc to my doc.  We’ll see what happens.

But I am left with an age-old question, sung so beautifully by Julie Andrews:  “What do the simple folk do?”  I mean no insult by this.  What I mean is:  Suppose I had been an hourly-wage worker, on the clock from nine to five, unable to leave my duties for the 45 minutes that this phone call took.  Suppose I had only a high school education, no computer, no secretary, no law degree.  Would I have challenged this determination?  Or would I just put the letter in the kitchen drawer, next to the utility bills, and shrug with hopelessness?  How do people without my opportunities and resources combat the grinding machinations of the big corporations which rule our world?  I’ve alluded to these issues in a prior blog entry, but my chagrin on behalf of the faceless worker at the mercy of the system increases exponentially each time I have another such encounter.

Maybe, instead of abandoning the process of complaining, I should just re-direct it.  Maybe I should become a PROFESSIONAL complainer — complaining about the mistreatment of everyone in our society who cannot effectively complain on their own behalves.  It’s something about which I might be giving some very, very serious thought.

Right after I get that test approved.

Ut