The Barbie Coat

My mother made a little pink coat for my Barbie doll when I was about ten years old. She made dresses and pants too. I rescued them from a basement purging Mom conducted the summer before last. She sold many of our old Fisher-Price toys, collectors items that she could have made real money off of on eBay were she not a complete Luddite when it comes to the Internet. The clothes were in an old play suitcase that I used to us when we would take little trips. They were musty from years under the basement steps and Katy eyed them dubiously when I told her enthusiastically that they would fit her dolls. She clearly had reservations about allowing these smelly old rags anywhere near her dolls, forget about on them. But, I took them back to Des Moines with us and washed them a time or two and though a bit tattered, they served.

The dolls’ clothing was a mixture of regular size dolls and Barbie clothes. Some of the doll clothing was for baby dolls and some were made especially for the Crissy and Velvet dolls that my sister and I had gotten for Christmas one year. Do you remember those dolls? The ones with the I Dream of Jeannie knots on the tops of their heads that you could pull the pony tail out for long hair and wind back up inside them with a round knob on the back? My father didn’t understand why any of our dolls needed more clothing than what came on their backs, so my mother ended up finding patterns and buying material, snaps, buttons and ribbons to make doll clothing for us. If my father had known how much the materials cost or the amount of time Mom put into the creation of these tiny wardrobes, he might have just let her take us out to buy the extra clothing for which we were clamoring.

I was reminded of just how much went into each piece when one of the buttons came off the pink coat and needed to be sewn back on. Rob took the tiny pearl-like thing from Katy and immediately handed it off to me, pronouncing it to microscopic for him, and it was very, very small. The head of a pencil eraser is bigger than those buttons. As I worked on replacing and subsequently tightening up the hold on the other buttons, I marveled at what close and intricate work this was with a needle and thread and how skilled a seamstress one would have to be to cobble together such tiny garments on a sewing machine. My mom had a Singer machine in a stand alone desk that she could fold the sewer into before closing the lid atop it. It was rarely every put away when I was young. Mom sewed, it seemed to me, all the time. She made clothes for our dolls, us, and herself. I think there was even one point when darn near everything she wore, she had cut from a McCalls or Butterick pattern and sewed together herself.

The two (miserable) years I spent in 4H, I learned to sew as well, but I never loved it. I found it tedious and thought the clothing made me look frumpier than I knew I was. No one wore homemade clothing when I was 12, except for the halter tops that nearly every girl I knew, younger and older, were wearing but which I was not allowed. I don’t know if it was because I was wearing a bra by then (a training one but according to my parents - that counted) or because I was fat and neither of my parents could stomach the idea of my pudgy (not little - I was already 5’ 6”) self’s rolly flesh showing (and in case you think I might be putting thoughts into their heads, my younger sister was allowed to prance about the neighborhood in halters and bikini tops until we were both well into our high school years). But, I just didn’t see the point of sewing your own clothes unless you were good enough at it that no one could discern your homemade from the store bought. That is just a gift. Mom had it sort of but I didn’t and still don’t.

Mom got her sewing gene from her mother. My grandmother’s doll clothes and tiny quilts still survive and Katy has several of them today among her play things. She likes the blankets especially and I have to admit that I love the fact that they have survived and she is playing with them. Same goes for the Barbie ward robe and doll clothes. There are many kinds of heirlooms but the ones I like best are the things that a person uses and then passes to the next generation for their use too.

Being an Expert

Of all the experiences in the world that a person might covet for his/her resume being looked to as an expert on anything widowed is probably not one many would want. But, in the last few weeks I have begun to realize that I do know a lot of things about widowhood that other people - fresh or isolated in their grief - could use. Not benefit from mind you because I think you benefit or not from advice or resources or whatever depending on something inside you (it’s what you do with the time as it passes as Alicia reminded me the other day).

I had already decided to include a blog roll of all those blogs being written by widowed people I either know through the YWBB or their blog or learned of through blog links I found at various blogs. I have included it on my new WordPress site along with the links to a few message sites for the widowed. And I decided to do this for two reasons. First having to do with a woman I met at hospice group named Julie. She is just a year out this last weekend, having lost her husband in a car accident. She has two children in the expressive arts program with Katy though they are older. The first time I met her I was struck by the anger inside, but this last time I was able to talk with her at some length and realized that like me, she is just terribly isolated. She hasn’t anyone to share her feelings with who will understand what they are and where they come from. The second reason was an email I received yesterday from a fellow blogger at NaBloMo who had started reading me and found the link to my first blog at Spaces and requested access to it as it is no longer open to the public. When I denied it, she sent me an email explaining that her request was in order to help a good friend who’d lost her husband a year ago and had asked her if she knew of any blogs written by widows because she was feeling alone.

Feeling alone. The over-riding theme of being widowed young.

I wrote the woman back to give her the link to my new space, and some information about the widow bloggers I read and the sites I have/do visit. I didn’t allow her access to the Spaces site. That site is closed permanently and only I have access. When I first started writing here, I provided and active link to it but the animosity and curiosity at the YWBB surrounding Rob and I brought too many people here and to the Spaces site. It made me uncomfortable. My first blog is raw and confused and very in the moment. I never self-edited and used it more to think my way through things as they arose. While some people might relate, others could easily take things way out of the original context (because I often didn’t share that) and not realize that much more of what I was going through was actually being written on the YWBB through my posts (though oddly - out of 1600+ posts I only started about twenty and after the first anniversary of Will’s death I mainly posted to share concrete experiences with people and offer advice in the guise of what I learned and what I would do. When I did share my own thoughts - it only caused trouble, so I rarely did.). My posts at YWBB are gone. It’s a good thing too. Although I often got PM’s from people thanking me for things I posted (one woman overseas told me she cut and pasted my “Annie-isms” in a folder because she found them so useful), I don’t think much of what I wrote was original or profound or even helpful but on an individual scale.

So, for anyone who is reading to discover the hidden meaning in widowhood or the possibility of finding Zen within the experience, or anything else, I offer you The Widow Blogs. There are as many approaches to traversing grief as there are snowflakes. I have found many women, and a few men, out there who have much to share and say - and more eloquently than I.

-36.8C

I was up early this morning. Like quarter to three early. And though I tried to get back to sleep, it eluded me completely to the point that I woke Rob with all my tossing and when I decided to allow him to rest by retreating from our bedroom to the office downstairs for some mindless blog surfing - he wasn’t far behind because he can’t sleep if I am not there (he tried the pillow thing first but found it inferior - to my tossing and turning, I guess). So, why was I up? I have been sleeping really well, but between the yoga instructor who decided we need to “pop” our hip flexors yesterday and the fact that I had to drive into town uber early this morning to go to the hospital for labs (all that fun blood-work doctors like us old folk to do with increasing frequency once you hit that “old people” demographic) - my mind just couldn’t find a slow enough frequency for sleep.

Rob convinced me (or I convinced him) to head back to bed about 5:30 to try for another hour of sleep. The hospital lab opened at 7:30AM and I wanted to be there then to avoid waiting. Waiting be the common denominator of all things medical here in Canada. As it turned out, I didn’t get back to sleep until nearly 6 and then overslept, getting up finally at 7:20. I vaguely remember a dream that was mostly me crying but I don’t remember why and both things bothered me for a while as I hurriedly dressed and scampered out into the frigid air. There is something about deadly cold that implies hurry even when the air itself seems to hold you motionless and suspended in the moment. After much frustration, Rob had found the heater block plug and cable on my Equinox, which was undoubtedly built for Soccer moms in Texas, and I wrestled with the connection because the last thing Rob reminded me of as I left was to not forget to unplug the car before driving off. My vehicle only reluctantly gave up its warming charge and I nearly had to be frostbitten in the process. The interior wasn’t exactly warm but it wasn’t the outside either. Cold like this hurts. It stings the skin and slices the lungs. I tired to warm my bum up at least but the seat heater refused to stay engaged. Like the dvd player, it doesn’t work in icy temps (to be fair to the seat, the dvd player is a wuss at even warmer temperatures).

The plants were spewing heavily and the fog that wasn’t too think in our little hamlet was a curtain over the town. I guessed at the location of intersections and exits which isn’t too dangerous in the evening when the workers have gone back to Edmonton and the truck traffic has thinned but during what constitutes morning rush here is more than chancey. I couldn’t even see the hospital as I drove by trying to divine the entrance to the parking lot. A lucky guess and I found a near deserted lot. The front doors were closed due to the cold, so I was let in through the ambulance bay by a patient who was having a smoke, standing outside the door in his jammies and robe - tethered to an IV pole.

I survived the blood draw. The trick is not to look. But, I couldn’t pee into the cup. I hate when that happens. So now I have a cup of pee to deliver after I take Katy into school today and it will be another afternoon of hanging around in town because the school buses aren’t running again. Katy rather enjoys this because first of all, her class is unbelievably small. Seven kids yesterday and that was because three of the all day kids showed up. Today it will be just her afternoon group. On days when the buses don’t run, school is open but parents are allowed to decide whether or not to send their kids. A neat way to avoid having to make up missed school days at the end of the year. Of course the year here ends on June 28th. Not a bad thing because kids then begin the new school year after Labor Day and it makes more sense when the warm weather really only arrives with July. Canada Day is the second of July and I am pretty sure I was in long pants and sleeves that day.

Frosty weather is interesting up here. The trees are white with crystals and the wood beneath the siding cracks like trees. All night long I could here the the house popping in protest. The padding on my fingertips is tender from exposure and I have dry skin itch for the first time this winter. The forecast for the week puts us back up into the minus teens by the weekend which you wouldn’t think would be an improvement until its -40C with wind chills even lower. I am glad to have had the opportunity to experience a real Canadian winter in terms of cold but I would have settled for just the Northern Lights - which haven’t materialized as of yet.

A Clean Fridge is a Sign

The fridge back in Iowa was almost empty. I remember Rob being appalled at the lack of just about everything when he came to stay for the first time before our trip to Arkansas. The fridge in our home here was stuffed and mostly with items of questionable edibility. Vintage describes a lot of things and many of them were in our fridge. But today all that changed because a very affable Hindu repairman arrived at our home just before lunch and fixed our broken down refrigerator, scoffing at the very idea that his phone diagnosis was incorrect. By the time I returned home later that afternoon, not only was there a chilling freezer and fridge but a clean one. Really clean and not just empty as Rob had returned home from his only afternoon meeting (hand holding as he put it) to finish up the job he began yesterday. All foods and condiments and no longer identifiable were disposed of and all surfaces within scrubbed.

So now the fridge looks like the one back in Iowa but for the fact it is way cleaner. What could this mean? First, it means we don’t eat much by way of variety anymore. Allergy- induced semi-veganism has really limited the products purchased and consumed by all of us. Second, it means we are really moving. Really. No one cleans a nasty fridge without an intervention by the universe and when the move wasn’t seeming real enough for us, destiny stepped in. But, that is not all that a clean and newly repaired fridge means. It also means that I have a pretty great husband.