So Much to do

I have too much to do to be sitting here blogging. I am still plowing through laundry due to the week long visit from my sis-in-law. Her visit too stirred up unpleasant memories because like most widows who live and breathe it, all she wanted to do was talk about issues and irritations and grudges that surrounded her husband’s death. Unfortunate timing really with the nasty letter from my former mother-in-law arriving on the heels of SIL’s departure and with the 2nd anniversary of Will’s death a mere two weeks away. And about that, the only thing I can say is that I will be glad when it is behind me. My major emotional association with it right now is impatience and the very real sense that I am not like other widows because I don’t miss Will or pine for our life together. I like my here and now too much to look backwards and I resent the intrusion of the day and grief into my life.

So, my to-do list is overwhelming me and my want to do list calls seductively at every opportunity. Write poems for an on-line literary magazine or strip beds? Spend the afternoon writing a short story based on an idea I borrowed from Rob’s memory of Shelley? Or sort through boxes of papers for tax information? Banking? Or wiling away the time before my massage preparing for my writing group? You see my dilemma. I have a house to clean and purge and a novel that is screaming for revision. There are school districts to be researched for job possibilities. A resume and letters of reference to update. Certification issues to deal with and I begin to understand why women decide to remain at home longer than they need to. I was reading an interview in Newsweek with some author of a book for 40+ women on tricks for maintaining a youthful appearance for the sake of their careers mainly because its become such a sin in our society to be an older woman who isn’t playing delusional games with herself about what she looks like. With this looming, housewife looks better and better. Truthfully though, free-lance writing is what is attracting me most simply because I prefer writing to nearly all activities save spending time with Rob these days - and even he will tell you that when I am deep in a book or working on a piece that he has a hard to pulling me back to the now.

Lists. I need lists. And a little bit more ambition. And a household staff. Okay, that last part was a joke. I don’t have money enough to coerce anyone into doing some of the work that needs to be done. It is a good thing we have until June now to do it. I could never be ready by April.

I keep threatening - myself really- with cutting way back or quitting the blog thing all together. At least for a while. I have a lot to do this month. I may have to make good on that.

Texas

Rob got the okay on his transfer. The details have yet to be ironed out but it appears that I may be a Texan by summer. Moving back is not something I much considered when I came here to by with Rob and get married even though I knew that it was a possibility given his job. Now that it is a fact, I am a little sad. I will miss it here. Rob thinks that is a bit crazy (okay, a lot crazy) because we live in the midst of an industrial cluster-fuck on the prairie. And he is right. We went into the city last night and the refineries were spewing god only knows what into the frigid air. Fouls smells and water vapor laced with chemicals. Still, the heart of the city is a forest. A real forest that surrounds the river banks and bluffs. I was noticing the shelter belt around our little town yesterday too. You can’t even see the town for the trees. There was nothing like this back home in the States.

As a midwesterner my opinion of Texas on the whole is rather negative. I turned down teaching jobs there when I was right out of college because I couldn’t imagine living in such a redneck, backward thinking place (and I grew up in a basically lily white, near exclusively Catholic blue-collar town too). Perhaps it will not be the ultra-right wing, pious on the surface only place it portrays itself to be? It doesn’t matter because I will be living there for the next couple of years and I am going to make the very best use of the time.

So, now it is time to make lists and clean and sort and purge. It is also time to think about teaching again and to that end I have a bit of work to do as well. I am thinking that I may just want to sub instead of looking for full or even part time work. But we will see what comes up.

Stuff is Us

One thing I have discovered is that impending guests, whether they be overnight or just for the evening and moving are about the only things that really spur people to action when it comes to cleaning and purging. Christmas brought us multiple overnighters which meant that the main room in the basement had to be cleaned out to make space for another bed. Cleaning out lead to a pile of junk in our backyard which meant a trip to the city dump in Edmonton was now necessary. Because a trip into Edmonton takes time and gas, it made sense to also purge the garage a bit for anything else that might profit us with a good dumping off.

The Edmonton dump is located in a section of town near the river called Clover Bar. No doubt the first pioneers who came west found a verdant expanse that lead up to the water’s edge and entranced them with the smell of clover. I wonder what they would think of it today? It is no longer flat but a huge mini-mountain of refuse hidden by the packed mud and towers over what is left of the river bar. It’s just a guess but I am betting clover doesn’t grow there anymore. More people should have to haul their own waste away because it is an eye-opening experience that I find humbling and not in a good way. Visiting the dump, or the recycling center in town, has the same effect on me that purging and cleaning do. I feel ashamed and angry. Ashamed that I am such a materialistic consumer. Angry that I allowed myself and my life to be laden with crap that I don’t use and shouldn’t have bought in the first place.

I have right now four boxes in my office to sort. Two are photos. Two are full of papers that I was too overwhelmed to sort through before I moved. I wonder sometimes that if I had never met Rob would I be complacently tossing junk into my basement, waiting for the day that sorting through it would be easier? Sorting is never easy. Many things I simply gave away or thew away with little more than a quick glance back in June. There is a box of Will’s collectibles in the basement here that I couldn’t bring myself to pitch or sort and when I think about it all I can do is curse him out for acquiring stuff that has no value to anyone but him. And now I am stuck with it.

I was not much of a materialist before I met Will. My big weaknesses were jean and running shoes and books. Aside from that, I had few major possessions aside from my house, my car and my computer. I was and still am not much on kitchen gadgets, cutlery and cooking apparatus. I could live with just a sofa in my living room, a table and chairs and enough beds for those living with me. Matching accessories? Color coordinating? A rec room with paraphernalia? A decked out deck? These were Will’s ideas of the perfect home that he got from someone or somewhere. I used to think that he thought having these things made him like everyone else and he wanted that more than anything after the kind of upbringing he had, but maybe it was more than that. Aren’t we all raised to equate stuff, or material gain, with substance to one extent or another?

I was admiring my friend Char’s home the other day while we were having tea in her kitchen. The kids had just headed downstairs to play. We’d been out most of the afternoon on a nearby sliding hill and the remains of hot chocolate were still evident. Her home is on the large size as far as livable space goes but unlike many people I have known, hers is not cluttered. The walls are bare for the most part but for a few family pictures and a wall hanging or two. There is a single sectional in the living room off the kitchen. The kitchen has just a dining table. The bedrooms are beds and a dresser each. The family room in the basement has two small sofas facing each other and a tv. It’s simple. And it’s nice. It’s the way I would like to live myself. But right now there is still stuff to be dealt with. Will’s, Shelley’s. The girls - all three of them. I would love to pack up just our clothes and whatever toys we can limit Katy to and take just that to Texas. A bit unrealistic.

In our kitchen cabinets we have no fewer than three sets of dinnerware and a plethora of glassware and cups. Rob was telling his younger daughter recently that we were going to pack all of it away and just use the dinnerware I brought with me from Iowa. A cheap Correll set I got on sale at Kmart to replace the daily ware that Will and I had gotten as a wedding gift. Why? She wanted to know why we would give away perfectly usable stuff. Memories is only partially the answer. I bought the Kmart plate set because I couldn’t stand being reminded of Will every time I ate off a plate or drank from a cup. And I was reminded and not of the good things generally. It was a way to preserve the sweet and my sanity at the same time. But even more important now is that we don’t need a cabinet overflowing with plates and cups and glasses and bowls, and perhaps someone else could use these things. Someone without the resources to buy brand new or at all.

My daughter tends to hang onto everything. There are drawers in her room stuffed with school papers from two years ago. It is a pack rat tendency that is somewhat related to her age and part inheritance from her father. Children, I think, tend to need physical reminders of the past more than their parents do. But I know there are many adults who can’t part with their stuff anymore than Rob and my daughters can.

One of my goals, and this is not a resolution - those are far more mundane and flexible - is to become a minimalist and give up many of the things and trappings that have come to symbolize the middle and upper class lives of North Americans. My gadgets will have to have meaning. My computer obviously does and my iPod but I am seriously rethinking the cell phone - something I have never wanted and have regretted since Will gave me the first one seven years ago. Clothes will need to be purposeful and worn. Styles and trendiest will not be considered. Books can be purchased but should be borrowed first from the library. There is no need to own cd’s or dvd’s as long as one lives near a library too. Furniture should be for using and not decorating or filling up space. As long as we have family and friends to photograph, we haven’t any need of wall decorations. Though I haven’t completely fleshed this all out, someday I want to be able to pack and move without purging.

Will's Mother

Will’s mother was widowed at thirty-three. She chose a much different path to her now than I have chosen to mine. Nevertheless, she has had an impact on the way I view widowhood and grief and it could be said that I have gone the way I have because of her in some small way.

She has never been allowed much of a role in Katy’s life. Despite what she thinks, and tells people, Will and I made this decision together before Katy was even born. Had things turned out differently, she would be just as marginalized today as she in fact is. I remind myself of this when I things like today’s Christmas card arrive that Will knew her very well and though he loved her, he didn’t much approve of her choices past and present.

About eight months after Will died, his mother decided to resume contact with Katy - not me - Katy, who was four. She would send holiday cards and drop the occasional gift off at the door when we were not home. The cards were addressed to Katy and written to me. They were full of venom even though she had professed to have forgiven me for all I did to her during Will’s illness. It’s funny to me that for some people finding Jesus is often at the loss of civility, but that’s another post for another day perhaps.

I ignored her attempts. Katy refused to acknowledge having a second grandmother at that point (though she knew she did) as a result of things that happened during the hospice months, and I wasn’t going to push it. My mother-in-law knew what she had to do in order to gain entry into our lives and wasn’t about to. At this point I think I should point out that when she found out she was going to be a grandmother at last (we’d been trying for two and a half years and she blamed me for our lack of success), her first response was that now she could finally wear a t-shirt that said “grandma” just like all the other women her age that she knew. Katy, like Will before her, was to be an accessory.

Since no one in Will’s family ever called or stopped by or checked up on us in any way past the first two or so months after he died, I didn’t feel obligated to keep them up to date on our life, or my personal life. So, they didn’t know about Rob. When he appeared or when we got serious or the engagement or our plans to move Katy and I to Canada or our marriage. In fact it was mid-August or maybe even September already when I sent out letters informing them of our marriage and our location. Will’s oldest uncle and his aunt on his dad’s side were quite nice. Will’s mother? She didn’t take it very well. At least that is what I heard.

Today her Christmas card arrived. I had asked her not to send cards to Katy with messages intended for me anymore. Her card was just the message printed inside and her signature, and then out dropped a letter for me. It was as cruel as she could make it without directly violating her new-found faith in the Lord. The lord, as we all know, is big on form and light on intent. Her opening line was:

“I could bash you for what you have done to me and Will but I forgave you for all of that and I am at peace.”

Rob told me to just forget about it. Don’t let it have power. What she thinks I did to her is of little import to me. I know what kind of person she is and this is typical of that type of person, but that she implied that I did things to Will that hurt him is a bit harder to put aside. I know she is angry. She feels that life has cheated her time and again and never gives a thought to her part in the misery that defines her life now, but still. I feel often that I failed Will even when I know I didn’t and I hate that she can push this button. I will put this card and the letter away with the others. Katy can have them when she is old enough to read and understand them.