Rain filled my garage floor last night but had drained by this morning.  I should be used to these temporary swamps; they come and go each spring and fall.  Numerous solutions have been proposed, attempted and failed over the years.  It would take a jackhammer and a French drain to cure.

A different, solvable problem sent me to the text function of my phone, with a note to the repair person about water in the basement room which I had thought he was going to fix.  I didn’t realize that the hour had grown as late as it had; had I done so, I would have waited until morning.  But he assured me that it was just a malfunction of the dehumidfier.  I implemented his suggestion and it worked.  I like it when a plan comes together.

I set my alarm much earlier than I intended but dragged myself upward anyway.  I shook out my curls, dusted off my boots, threw on as much color as my body could stand, and barreled to Westport for coffee with Jane.  Thank Goodness it’s Friday; the week has been over-stimulating; and I am ready for some peace and relaxation.

I left CVS as the downpour renewed, thinking of Audrey Hepburn and wondering if a handsome young man would come around the corner with my bedraggled cat.  Probably not, I told myself.  No Breakfast at Tiffany’s morning for me.

My umbrella safe in my car, I faced a further drenching if I didn’t quickly develop Plan B.  So I skirted up the sidewalk under the awnings and eaves, ducking into any open store, idly looking for a consumer purchase that met my criteria:  Something I could afford, something that would liven my day, and something that I would not later regret purchasing.

I settled on a hat.

I ended up in World’s Window, trying on soft hats with one of my favorite clerks in attendance.  I finally picked one and moved to the counter.  You ladies need to cheer me, I told the two young women at the counter, including the clerk who had patiently given her opinion on four or five hats.  I need an attitude adjustment.  Just then, I turned, and spied a rack of necklaces labeled JOY NECKLACES.

What makes them “Joy” necklaces, I asked.  A twenty-something with amazingly curly blonde hair told me that a studio had donated the materials and store employees had made the necklaces out on the sidewalk this past summer, with random passers-by, and that the proceeds would be donated to Rose Brooks Shelter.

Instant connection.  I purchased four:  One for myself, and one for each of the three ladies in my suite.  My mood lightened.  In fact, it soared through the ceiling, drifting through the rain, penetrating the clouds, and into the clear atmosphere and out further, to the stars, to the moon, the planets and beyond.  All the way to heaven.

So this is my ode to joy.  What a wondrous thing, is joy; and how lucky I was to encounter a way to reclaim it this morning, on a grey day, in Brookside, in Kansas City, among store clerks who don’t know me but cheerfully succumbed to my High Five’s as I exited their establishment.

Joy; displayed by the lovely Jessica. You might not be able to see this, but the drawing etched into the pendant is a rose.

My friends,

I have early court tomorrow and a day of appointments thereafter.  I will not have a chance to post until late tomorrow, so I’m sharing with you all now.

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the death of my mother-in-law, Joanna Mitchell MacLaughlin.  She powerfully impact me.  The time that I spent with her during her last illness provided me with an experience that propelled me forward on this journey.  The words spoken by the priest who conducted her service awakened in me the desire to live as she had lived:  Without complaint.

I have not succeeded.  Admittedly, unforeseen challenges have pushed me a bit back from the path, storms against which I struggled, wrapping my scarf around my thin neck, huddling into my coat, bending, pushing.  But, too, I have found unexpected support.  Many who have always cheered my efforts to improve continued to do so this year.  I also have met and made some  amazing new friends during this, my year without complaining.

After court today, I barreled down Troost, made it to Fiddly Figg before it closed, and to Mount Moriah before the clanging of the iron gates at dusk.  While I would normally have gotten her flowers from Roses Only or, on a regular Sunday, at the local HyVee, my obligations precluded either.  The ladies at Fiddly Figg created a lovely bouquet such as I truly think Joanna would have enjoyed.  When I told them where I intended to take it, they asked questions about the colors she preferred, and provided a cemetery vase with a metal spike for anchoring it to the ground.

I took the vase to Joanna’s resting place, and cleaned away the flowers which I had left on my last visit.  With what my mother would call ‘spit polish’, I wiped away as much of the accumulated dirt as I could, vowing to bring Windex and a rag next visit.  Joanna, from her spot on the banks of the river in Paradise, smiled on me.  I stood, talking with her, delivering the message of love from her beloved Jabez, and telling her that I missed her.

Standing, I gazed across the lake, with its cheerful fountain.  A pale, cloudless sky rose above me.  I phoned Jay, telling him that the flowers had been delivered and photographed.  I told him that I had tendered his message of love to Joanna.

While I miss my own mother, at the time of her death I had not yet gotten to a place from which I could undertaken any fundamental change in my outlook or my attitude.  All the demons which clutched my soul still blinded me, and would for many years.  That it took Joanna’s kindness and our loss of her to begin the melting of six decades of steely obstinance should not be read as a condemnation of my mother’s parenting.  “Mama tried; mama tried.”  I remember them both, though lamentably, I have never visited my mother’s grave, except for the two times when we laid others to rest beside her.

I post every day in memory of Joanna, and of Lucille, my mother; and of Johanna, my maternal grandmother.  These three women gave me so much, each in their own way.  My mother gave me life and a faith, which I have sometimes lost, in my own potential, as well as an abiding understanding that some things must just be endured.  My grandmother provided a quiet example of strength against immeasurable odds as well as demonstrating a delicious sauciness — she felt entitled to sit in the dark on the patio out back clad only in her slip and house shoes after a long, difficult day at the office.

In the four years that I knew her, Joanna reminded me that one could be both strong and tender, both self-assured and gentle.  Perhaps I could have learned those lessons from my own mother, and from her mother.  But I was not ready.  In the quiet of those days that Joanna and I spent together during her last illness, my heart opened, and she who had planted so many gardens, sowed the seeds of recovery in the wilderness of my heart.

I miss Joanna.  I miss being her daughter-in-law, and I miss hearing her greet me.  I miss everything about her, from her Talbot wardrobe to her Finn sandals and every smile bestowed on me from under her elegant eyebrows, on her lively face.  I am my mother’s daughter.  I look like her; I have her hair and I have her tenacity.  But I hope, some day, I can say that from Joanna, I acquired a certain sweetness that somehow I had never previously found in myself.  She gave that to me.  I am forever in her debt.

I’m sitting in a courtroom, an hour early as is my custom for purposes of getting one of the very few handicapped parking spaces available on the curb.  I’m particularly lucky this date, as a space opens just as I cruise by, though I have to nip through a luke-warm red light to get it.  I avoid those on the north side of 12th Street, since the city, in its infinite wisdom and continually mysterious obliviousness, has situated them butt-up against humongous immovable concrete planters.  I cannot disembark if I am parked by those spaces, so the south spaces are really the only ones I can use.

I tool up the elevator, chatting with a stunned prospective juror. He’s suffering from the mind-numbing process of voir dire, which he calls “being interviewed”.  I had no idea it would be like this, he admits.  He shakes his head.  I don’t think he feels particularly civic.

I’ve answered email, checked Facebook, and meditated.  Now I’m glancing around at the men gathered for the Fathering docket, Jackson County’s answer to the high incident of noncustodial parents failing to support their children.   Two prosecutors, one of whom dates back to my days with the County, speak to one father after another, and one or two mothers.  I think about my son, and the small but steady child support check that arrived in my mailbox every month for nearly eighteen years.  It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.  It bought shoes, birthday presents, 1.5 weeks of daycare, and winter coats.  I told my son every month that his father’s check had arrived.  I don’t know if it meant anything to him.  I can only hope.

The day is lovely.  My hearing occurs at 3:00 p.m. and with any hope, it will be over in an hour.  I plan to take the rest of the day off.  I’ve one or two personal tasks that I want to accomplish, and I feel the need of some blessed downtime.  My legs hurt; and my soul feels a little weary.  But I’ve no complaints.  In the immortal words of Leonard Hughes, Sr., I woke up today, which is more than a lot of people can say.  So let’s get the show started.

My neuro-opthalmologist and her staff spent three hours with me this morning.  As doctor visits go, I found this one hopeful and enlightening.  Many of the problems I am having will be solved by stronger and properly made and fitted glasses.  Not all; but many.  Yes, my eyes have worsened; yes, my cataracts have grown; but no, I’m not as bad off as we feared.  Part of my problems arise from the fact that last year’s glasses do not have the proper amount of prism in them; and part of the problems relate to the improper location of the tri-focal lens in those glasses and the frames which don’t fit my face!

Once I have the proper correction, appropriate prisms, well-made in “petite” model frames (I like that!) I am hopeful that I will be able to drive earlier in the day and later in the evening.  This news thrills me!  My doctor seems to think that the impact of the virus which presumably ails my cerebellum has not yet begun to materially affect my eyes.  Yes, the virus rampages, but it seems that it has not yet trampled on my vision as much as I feared.  Getting stronger and properly made glasses will keep this Energizer bunny going a bit longer!

As for seeing clearly — well, it takes more than eyes to see.  My heart grows stronger and my insights more sure every day.  Case in point:  I’ve worried and fretted that the decline in my vision could not be corrected because it was wholly the result of the reactivation of my virus.  While there might well be a connection, in point of fact, much of the situation can be addressed with proper eyewear.  Which goes to show: sometimes you just need to look at things from a new  perspective .

The sight of a friend coming towards me bearing flowers never fails to thrill me.  Last evening, Paula Kenyon-Vogt ascended the steps of the Holmes house behind a lovely posy of roses.  With her husband Sheldon Vogt behind her, Paula folded me in her arms and presented the bouquet which came from Whole Foods where she works.

In the kitchen, Paula reached for a suitable vessel in which to arrange the flowers while I finished dinner.  Over gluten-free pasta and jicama slaw, we talked of everything from Burma to Bruce Hornsby.  We shared about our children, our jobs, our pets and our feelings.  I read a few sentences from All Over But the Shoutin’, a memoir by Rick Braggs that my friend Sir Robert Officer sent me this summer, which I’ve only just steeled myself to read.  They patiently listened, with Paula K-V patting my hand when my voice cracked.  Mr. Braggs’ story of his parents’ lives cuts close to home for me.

The three of us have known each other for 18 years, since their daughter and my son were Purple Dragoners (students at Purple Dragon Pre-School).  Our connection never falters, even if sometimes weeks or even months pass between good visits.  They fall into the category of family-by-choice without the need for any of us to tout our virtues to each other.  We simply step forward to assist when need arises, sit by to mourn when grief clutches one of us, and when life allows, spend hours of respite talking and enjoying.

We’re all simple folk, in a way.  Though we clean up rather nicely if occasion warrants — a graduation, a funeral, a wedding — mostly we aren’t the stand-around-with-cocktails sort of people.  We’re more the throw-ourselves-down-on-a-comfy-sofa, curl-up-in-a-rocker, kick-your-shoes-off bunch.

Paula, a nurse, has worked for years in the Health & Wellness Department of a health food store, first Wild Oats, then Whole Foods after the buy-out.  Sheldon is a carpenter and a damned fine one.  Both read, follow current events, attend church, and nurture their children and grandchildren.  They also love, without reservation, me and my son.  They came to me on the wings of an angel years ago and have never strayed, even when my own crazy orbit took me on a route that passed far from them for days on end.

They left last night around ten, when my drooping eyes and headache began to assert themselves across my face.  I’m not a late-night person.  Before leaving, they snapped a photo of the flowers quaintly arranged in my purloined DePauw Inaugural Farm Dinner mug and texted it to my son Patrick, the rightful owner of the make-shift vase.  Recognize this? said the caption typed by Sheldon.  We cracked ourselves up with this antic, in the absurd way of adults acting like kids without concern for how it might look to their actual children.  None of the three of us minds a little parent shame.  We’re used to it.

On the way out, Sheldon stopped to admire the railing of the deck.  Paula gave me a third hug and we both promised to call.  I watched them walk to their car and then turned back to the house.  I’m blessed with some marvelous friends, I thought.  I rubbed my temple a little, to ease the pain of the headache, and set the alarm.  For one brief moment, I felt my mother’s presence in the room and smiled.  My mother would have liked Paula K-V.  And wherever she dwells, my mother who has gone home, I’ll bet she likes her from afar.    They  have a lot in common, including a simple, unabashed affection for a certain stubborn lady lawyer from Jennings.

The headache reasserted itself this morning, but as I sip my French Market coffee, I’m feeling blessed.  I feel energized despite my aches, my pains, and those nagging worries that still crowd the front porch waiting for me to emerge.  I might even rise to the day and finish my laundry.  Stranger things have happened.

I didn’t hear the news until late last evening and it’s ironical: I saw it first on Facebook.

The Honorable J. Dale Youngs, a judge in whose presence I quake a bit but would always gladly trod, found that Missouri must recognize same-gender marriages lawfully performed elsewhere.

“The undisputed facts before the Court show that, to the extent these laws prohibit plaintiffs’ legally contracted marriages from other states being recognized here, they are wholly irrational, do not rest upon any reasonable basis, and are purely arbitrary,” Youngs wrote. “All they do is treat one segment of the population — gay men and lesbians — differently than their same-sex counterparts, for no logical reason.”

The case in which Judge Youngs ruled did not ask the Court to find that Missouri’s ban on same-gender marriage violates the U. S. Constitution.  That ruling awaits another case, another day.  And his decision will be appealed.  But this step takes Missouri in the direction that I, as a lawyer, a person, and an American citizen residing here in the Show Me State, believe that we should travel.

I learned in law school that, “a marriage valid where celebrated is valid everywhere”.  Our Conflicts of Law professor cautioned that absurd and sometimes offensive results could flow from this principle.  Nonetheless, he said, the firm conviction of our nation’s state members called for honoring the decisions of each neighboring jurisdiction.

I recalled his lesson when Missouri voters approved the constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.  I felt then that we couldn’t refuse to acknowledge valid marriages from other jurisdiction.  I researched this issue once, when a woman came to me wanting a divorce from a wife whom she lawfully married in Iowa.  I can’t do that, I reluctantly told her.  But if it’s any consolation, she can’t enforce any marital rights in Missouri.  It wasn’t — a consolation, that is — but it was the answer that I had to give her.

Now Judge Youngs has confirmed what I believed, and done so with the strength and elegance that I have seen him levy across his bench time and time again.   We lawyers often take a beating in the press, around the barroom and at the dinner table.  But today, one of ours has shown that we are, indeed, the guardians of the people’s right to be free from unreasonable actions by the government.  Though we still await a Court’s ruling on the Constitutional amendment which set our freedom back a hundred years, yesterday’s decision starts what I pray will be a crumbling of the barriers to equality for the men and women of Missouri whose sexual orientation has long stood between them and equal treatment under our law.

A tip of my law-license to Judge Youngs.  He makes me proud to be a member of the Missouri bar.  Another day I might grumble about the difficulty of my profession, the grueling workload, or ungrateful clients who refuse to pay even when I do my best or get the outcome they desire.

But today, I have no complaints about the practice of law.  Judge Youngs reminds me of the true purpose of our profession, and renews my resolve to tirelessly work to fulfill that noble end.

I’m at the table at Chai Shai for the second time this week. My companion is drinking Coca Cola that comes from Mexico.  It’s got real sugar, he explains.  Coca Cola made in America uses corn syrup.  I didn’t know.  I sip my hot chai.  My companion says, Not my cup of tea, and we laugh.  I look down at the brown liquid.  I never liked hot chai before this place, I say.  Then I had this.  It’s warm and comforting.  It’s like love in a cup.

He chuckles.  He tells me that should be the title of my blog tonight.  I smile; he smiles.  Then we go on eating, talking, sharing.  When we leave the restaurant, the air has cooled.  We stroll down to the car, still talking idly about nothing earth-shattering but with a genuineness that can rarely be replicated or forced.  We say goodnight in my driveway and I climb the steps to my porch, still thinking about the cup of chai.

I’m remembering hot cups of coffee and tea over the years.  Heavy mugs bought at funky little stores in St. Louis decades ago; mismatched Haviland tea cups from my mother’s kitchen filled with hot Earl Grey.  Cooled coffee poured from a Melamine cup and sipped from a saucer, at the table in the breakfast room during my childhood.  Warmth; comfort; an escape from the presses of life; four ounces of kindness; love in a cup.

I lock the front door, and set down my bag.  The worries linger behind on the porch, and will be waiting when I come out in the morning.  But I am safe inside; and sheltered; and that will do for tonight.

Zen tea served in a cup from my mother’s kitchen on a matching saucer found at a thrift store by my sister Joyce.

So I’m in the car with Jessica, taking her and her bike back to Penny’s house where she is staying.  It’s September 30th, and it seems as though a perfect storm of life’s events has brought us to this point.  A couple of years ago, I met Jessica at the short-lived Uptown branch of Prospero’s Bookstore; now she’s employed by our LLC as the receptionist at Suite 100 and we’ve become genuine friends.

We talk about complicated and difficult circumstances in which people find themselves.  We’re being a bit philosophical as we navigate around the rush hour traffic from Westport to Roeland Park.  Jessica thinks that we make choices which define and dictate everything we encounter.  She speculates that we can make choices which get us through and out of every dilemma.  I ponder that.  I’m not sure.

After I drop Jessica at the house, I go to the building which has been the most recent home of the VALA Gallery and Community over on Johnson Drive.  I think about the convergence of choice and chance.  Penny Thieme, founder and director of the VALA, chose to move across the street to the larger space but chance caused the loss of a string of scheduled, paying events.  The city of Mission started a major construction project which stripped the facility of parking, easy access, the quiet needed for most of its functions, and the desirability of its location.  Now it’s closing at that location but Penny is looking for a space in another, nearby city which seems receptive to her vision.

I started my Wednesday Writers’ Workshop at the VALA with Penny’s encouragement.  I taught three cycles and have raised money to begin a youth project, the location of which is momentarily uncertain.  But I’m working with several folks to start the project as part of another program which already serves youth.  Did the chance which now forces the VALA to find a different home drive me to the juncture at which we conceived of an even more impacting configuration for the Wednesday Writers’ Workshop?

I’m walking around the upper floor of the mammoth building where VALA has been, remembering long conversations with Chester, mostly about his daughter — his daughter who is my shared daughter, Tshandra; beloved daughter born to another woman but still mine — and Kim, her sister, who is also dear to me.  During the newest days of VALA’s existence in this building, Chester had just begun, in earnest, his quest to reforge his relationship with Tshandra and Kim.  I would stand watching him work on his art, listening to his hopes for their reunion, quiet while he talked, sharing his hope.

It’s dusty upstairs and my breathing begins to labor.  I’m moving among the boxes, looking for any number of things that I’ve brought to the Gallery over the years, wondering if they are still here, whether I should reclaim them.  I don’t see a little step and sprawl head-first in the dirt.  Of course I’m wearing dry-clean only black dress pants.  Chance?

I go get dinner for Penny and Tom Messerole, one of the VALA’s most faithful supporters.  He’s tirelessly helping her pack the place into a POD and will be there to unpack at the new location when it is secured.  Tom holds forth about the NSA while Penny flits back and forth, doing one small task after another, fretting about what should be packed and what might still be retrieved by one or the other of the VALA artists.

Penny loans me a bookcase and Tom carries it to my car.  I drive Penny home, where she’ll get her own car and go back to the Gallery.  A few minutes later, I’m teasing the cute young pharmacist at CVS who chides me for letting my heart medicine run out; and then I am in my own driveway.  I knock on the neighbors’ door, to ask for help getting the shelf out of the vehicle.  George tells me, Sure, let me get Scott and put some shoes on, and I go back to the car, lift the back hatch, and am suddenly struck by a dizzy spell.  I fall backwards.  My head smacks the asphalt, followed by my hip and the hand that I broke last year.

Scott, George, and Debbie and Jimmy from across the street come barreling over and haul my skinny little body up from the ground.  I swipe at my now filthy slacks and give thanks and smiles all around.  I’m pretty sure nothing is broken.

An hour later, one of my fingers has swollen and the back of my head feels like it’s been pummeled with the proverbial blunt instrument.  I post a whiny question about trauma treatment on Facebook and get a flood of advice about ice, the length of time to place it, and what signs should send me to the ER.  Tshandra sends several messages with love and cautionary instructions.  I wonder:  Chance? Chance gave me the opportunity to have another moment of connection with a woman who lived in my home a couple of lightyears ago, and with whom I have always felt a kinship?  I certainly did not choose to fall.

In the middle of the night I awaken with chills and tremors.  At first I think it’s something to do with the two falls. Then I recall that my doctor’s nurse gave me a flu shot yesterday, for the first time since 1979 when I badly reacted to one.  My doctor has recommended that I get the shot this year.  He says that the newest shots don’t pose a risk for me, because they don’t have a live virus.  I took his advice.  But at 3:00 a.m. shivering under my thin summer quilt, I am not so sure, and I wonder if I made the right choice.

I think back, to riding in the car with Jessica.  I think about making choices which bring you out of difficult situations and into places and spaces where you want to be.  I fall asleep wondering what choices I will encounter in the morning, and whether I am ready to embrace a course of action that will take me all the way to joy.

Tshandra White, whom I keep in my heart, along with the son born to me and my other shared children.