I’m in a mood

I’ve been in a mood the last few days. It’s been hard to not be in a choir and singing. It’s what I know, how I worship, how I’m in community, and I miss it so much, especially during Holy Week. The Episcopal Church is in the liturgical tradition and we have services all week. I’m used to singing all of them, from the celebration and drama of Palm Sunday to foot washing and celebrating the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, ending with the stripping of the altar. Then the quiet agony of Good Friday, often ending with a requiem in the evening after services from 12-3. Saturday’s Great Vigil was always my favorite Easter service, recounting in chant and ritual the history of the Jewish people up to the death of Christ, then bursting out with bells and lights and alleluias of Easter. Easter Sunday is a work day for choir people, often with 2-3 services to sing, and the Vigil gave us a chance to be in the moment and worship ourselves.

This year, though I have a church and followed online services, I’ve not been physically present – and not singing. Most of my neighbors are Baptists who of course celebrate Easter, but do so very differently than the tradition I’m used to. The day is the same, the resurrection is the same, but the way we do it is different, and the music is very different. I miss my friends from choirs past and found myself watching YouTube videos of choirs singing favorites such as Beethoven’s “Hallelujah!” from Christ on the Mount of Olives, Matthias’ “Let the People Praise Thee, O Lord“, which I learned in Virginia, and “We Shall Behold Him” which is newer to me but oh so powerful. And then there are the hymns. It’s not Easter without the eleventy million verses of “Hail Thee, Festival Day” which I think only Episcopalians sing.

On top of that, it’s been a week with lots of people in it, making me realize how much I’m more isolated now than ever before. Having people come over is great and wonderful but really tired me out. But if I don’t ask for help, ask for visitors, I don’t have them. I guess I still expect that other people will reach out to me but they really don’t. It’s out of sight, out of mind – and I can’t complain about it because I recognize that I often behaved that way myself. If someone I knew moved, there was a hole but it quickly filled up with people who were still there and life activities that kept going. I wasn’t good at keeping up with them when they were gone, so why would I think people would keep up with me after I moved? The difference this time for me is that I only moved 12 miles away instead of 1600 miles. I guess I thought it was close enough to stay in touch but it really hasn’t been. But phones work both ways and if I want to talk to/hear from people, I have the responsibility of reaching out myself. Being in a wheelchair doesn’t abrogate that.

So it’s a conflict. I’ve been alone for so much of the last eight months. Sometimes I’ve been achingly lonely, missing people like my right arm and needing their help. Most of the time I’m fine, just adjusting to being alone – tho months and months of Covid isolation actually prepared me for that. I’m figuring out how to do more for myself, partly to prove that I can and partly because there’s no one else to do things. Today I figured out how to reorganize near my bed so I can put my decorative shams back on the bed and have a place to put them when I sleep. I know, that sounds small, but it really isn’t. My bed looks more finished and I’m therefore happier.

Also making me happier is FINALLY having my porch screened in. The cats have hardly been inside since Wednesday, preferring to hang out on their chair cushions supervising the lawn and watching birds and squirrels. I haven’t figured out how to get out on the porch without using the walker and I’m not supposed to be doing that by myself. The chair won’t go through the door so it has to be the walker. I need to ask therapy this week about that.

Physically I’m in discomfort from problems with my shoulders, mostly on the right but some on the left as well. You can’t roll yourself in the chair without reaching backwards in a motion I don’t use for anything else, but the muscles are also essential every time I try to stand up or walk with the walker. This pain is muscular, not nerve (for a change) in the front of the upper arm/pec/inside the armpit. How on earth do you put anything on THAT to help? It hurts and it’s annoying.

Fighting Inertia

When things are going well or I’m doing something interesting, I tend to write. When things are overwhelming me, I have no time and don’t write. When I’m stressed, whether overwhelmed or not, I eat. Guess what I’ve been doing lately?

I worked hard to lost the weight that seemed to come off fairly easily last year. But that was during COVID time, when the world was contracted and I did little more than be home or go to work in the mornings in an almost empty office. I made trips to the store once a week, so my shopping was carefully planned and I bought less random stuff. And since there were no social outings on the schedule – no parties, no lunches, no restaurant visits – I ate more carefully and was more faithful in planning and writing my food.

I’ve gained 8 lbs of that hard-won weight back and I’m not happy about it. But at the same time, I’m not UNhappy that I’m 55 lbs down from where I started. On the other hand (and I have lots of hands to juggle things), I don’t want to stay where I am. I know all the things to do, I just need to do them. Yeah, I say that a lot, don’t I?

But I have a plan. I’m not starting ALL of these at once because that will set me up to fail. So this week I’m working on the first three:

• Re-upped with Noom and asked my Goal Specialist to reset me to the very beginning. I will set aside 20 minutes every morning to read the articles and make notes for myself.
  
• Plan to eat 1450 calories/day and NOT eat any exercise calories. They get out of hand too fast.
  
• Go to the gym three days a week for 30 minutes, twice during the week and once on the weekend.
  
• Emptied the pantry of the snacks, even portion controlled ones, that have snuck in there. — DONE
  
• Plan my weekly food and shop from a detailed list WITHOUT picking up the extra random stuff (unless it’s produce).
  
• Eat at least one meal (lunch or dinner) per week from the club or restaurant. Favorites: Jersey Mike’s #2 mini sub on rosemary parmesan bread, pizza or mini-slider basket from the club, or Chinese food from Liang’s (now open in a new closer location – yayyy!).
  
• Switch my Diet Pepsi to cans from bottles as part of cutting back.

I’ve been acting from inertia for the last months. It’s as though I forgot how to handle social and work stress during COVID time, and I’m finding it hard to make decisions. My world seems to revolve around my cats, going to work in the mornings, eating unplanned things on my own, and not getting enough sleep or exercise. Where do I want to go on vacation? Dunno, and am not motivated to figure it out. When am I going to ask for a few days off? Later, always later. What am I doing about landscape changes? Procrastinating. Have I worked on my big genealogy project of publishing sourced histories for each grandparent? No. Do I have a plan to do it? No.

Sometimes I wonder if my part-time job is helping or hurting. I know I don’t want to be working full-time now, and the “full time part-time” job at the church seems ideal – close to home, easy hours, chance to play with new technology, time with other people, work not that difficult. But at the same time, I really like the few days when I can sleep until I wake up. It’s never LATE, but it’s later than I’m doing now. I have fewer options for doing things with friends who aren’t working and who take day trips or meet for lunch or other outings. I’d have more time to work on genealogy and putter.

But I would be lonely, I think. And as a single retired person living alone, that matters a lot. I might be peopled-out by the time I get home, but at least I have time with other people every day. There’s no pressure for me to change anything and I have the power – and am the only one WITH the power – to decide to do something differently. Like, make a plan for taking time off and then actually doing it.

Right now, though, I’m going to focus on getting myself back on track with eating more carefully. Not dieting, I’m not doing that. But carefully and with intention. I can do this.

Tensions are high in America

Tensions are high in America on this July 4th. The country is polarized politically, economically, racially, socially, and every -ly in the book, and social media and 24/7 news cycles on cable news just escalate words into sound bites that warp and explode as they move through society.

I live in East Texas, a very conservative Republican place that believes in God, guns, white nationalism, President Trump, and that Coronavirus is a hoax blown out of proportion by liberal Democrats and lying media. Although our governor has issued an executive order to wear masks, my neighbors are vowing not do so.

And so I’m hiding at home. I feel like a fish out of water here in this cherry pie red place, or rather, a tiny blueberry in the middle of the endless sea of red. I feel impotent to speak here, to defend myself and beliefs that differ from that of the majority. No one would listen anyway once they know I’m a Democrat. Wait, they would listen and then attack me and talk about me and my stupidity while they polish their guns, eat BBQ, and plan for Trump’s re-election.

I’m afraid for my country. I’m afraid of my neighbors. I’m afraid of getting the virus and giving it to someone else – not of my own risk, which is actually higher because of my age, weight, and recent sinus surgery. I’m afraid the country will tear itself apart. We survived a Civil War but it didn’t solve anything. What will happen this time?

My ancestors fought for the Confederacy – and for the Union. I’ve lived in Virginia, with Confederate statues everywhere. I never really understood why we had statues to people who LOST the war. Germany doesn’t have monuments to Nazis; why should we have them for those who rebelled and lost? Why name schools and military bases and streets for them? I can be proud of my family and my history and NOT proud of what they fought for. I don’t understand why so many are holding on so hard.

But I sit silent because I’m a weenie. I know what I believe but I’m afraid of being overwhelmed and rejected. So I watch “Hamilton” on my own, keeping silent, keeping watch.

I am afraid of what’s coming.

Requiem for my parents

Saturday night I sang the Durufle Requiem in concert with about 80 other people plus orchestra. It’s gorgeous music and is based on chant motifs that move lyrically from voice part to voice part. I sang it once before in Boston with the Trinity Choir, which served me well with this new performance.

I realized on Friday, as I sang along for the eleventy millionth time to a recording, that I could let go of that and just sing it. It’s in my bones now and I barely need the score to know those weird notes to pull out of the air after 8 bars of time signature changes. Being able to just sing it freed me to feel it and realize that I was singing this Requiem for my parents.

Mom’s birthday is this week and Daddy’s was two weeks ago. Mom died in 2014 and Dad passed away last May. We had memorial services for both, of course, but their ashes have been sitting on the dressers at my house waiting to move to their final resting place at Cathedral in the Pines. Dad wanted Mom’s ashes nearby and since it was a comfort to him, that’s where they stayed. He would talk to her sometimes, as would I. Last spring he was finally ready to let her go so we bought the plaques for their “condos” as he and Mom termed their niches in the columbarium, but he passed away before we could actually inter the ashes. And it was too hot and logistically complicated to do it when Daddy died.

We are finally seeing them to their final rest next Friday, and my brother and I have cooked up a service from elements of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Methodist traditions. I mostly just want them to be at rest and not in my closet (I moved them off the dresser when I got my baby kitties, since nothing is safe with them around). But I feel like I’m back in the limbo time between the death and the service. I want to get this done. I want it to be over, for them to be at rest. It’s the last thing I can do for them, other than just live my life well.

So keep them, keep us, in your prayers.

Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord;
And let light perpetual shine upon them.
May their souls, and the souls of all the departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

And from the Durufle Requiem:

IX. In Paradisum
In Paradisum deducant Angeli,
in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres
et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem.

Chorus Angelorum te suscipit
et cum Lazaro quondam paupere
aeternam habeas requiem.

My Life is So Different Now

Three years ago this week I made the decision to retire from Yale and move to Texas to live with and care for my dad. I don’t regret the decision but my life is so totally different; sometimes I feel disconnected, because there is no one here who has any connection to the professional life I led for so many years. Married people, people with children, usually have at least someone who has shared those experiences with them. I don’t even have my cat anymore.

Yale Law Library Reading Room

I worked on college campuses for almost 40 years and there is an energy there that keeps things hopping. I started working in general university libraries right after getting my M.L.S. and moved to law school libraries three years later, never looking back. My career was in Technical Services, which started out as cataloging and evolved into management of all of the specialties under the Tech Services banner: acquisitions, serials, binding, cataloging, electronic resources, integrated library systems. I worked long hours at challenging work – You want a book from Singapore that was published today? And you want it when?  Okay, let me see what I can do. I lived in Virginia, in Maine, in Boston, and Connecticut, sometimes moving without knowing anyone else in the state. Moving was hard but I did it – and by myself.

My organizations allowed me time to be active in my profession, going to national and specialty conference such as the Innovative Users Group for users of the system I worked with for almost 30 years. Of course, that meant working late and on weekends to get my regular work accomplished, but it was a good trade off for keeping my brain stretched and making wonderful contacts across the country and around the world.  I spent five years on the IUG Steering Committee, including being education chair for a national conference, followed immediately by three years on the Executive Board of the American Association of Law Libraries. And three years later, I was education chair for the AALL conference, too. Exhilarating, challenging, hard, creative, fun.

I loved working out the bibliographic puzzles that went with my job. Figuring out what happened to serial publications that stopped coming or morphed into other titles without warning. Finding books requested by colleagues and faculty that came with incomplete or wrong titles. Resolving systems problems. Dreaming up new ways to explain old things to staff.

Ah, staff. I hated supervising. That was the only really hard thing about my job to me. I want to work in a collegial relationship with people who act like adults and pull their weight. Supervising people, and especially those in a tough union shop, made that difficult at times. And it was exhausting. I do not miss that one bit, though I do miss some of the people. Okay, not many of them, but some.

I thoughtfully planned my departure from Yale, working to transition tasks and responsibilites to new people and writing endless documentation to explain how to do it. One week after I retired from Yale, I got in the car with the cat and my sister-in-law and drove to Texas. There was no time to process or grieve because new things were coming. I almost never hear from the people I worked with and it’s as though who I was and what I did there doesn’t matter to anyone except me. I’m forgotten and left behind. Which is appropriate; I don’t want them mourning me, either, but people I thought were friends apparently were just passing in the hallways instead. And that’s hard.

So I have a new life now. Instead of being an experienced, senior person, I’m a youngster in a retirement community. I work part-time as a church secretary, making bulletins, writing documentation, maintaining the website. I sing in the choir, play Mah Jongg, and have friends. I’m also primary caregiver for my 90 year old father, who is increasingly fragile and forgetful. Never having had children, I have one now in many ways, and it’s difficult. It’s hard to know how to take time away when I have to be at the church at 8:00 a.m. six days a week, plus care for my dad. I don’t regret being here but I haven’t adjusted.

I miss my friends and am grateful to Facebook, with all its problems, for helping me stay in touch with people who knew me in my other life. I miss my cat, who died last May. I need a hug.