Pressed between the pages....

Lately I have been going through boxes in my attic that are full of things that I've carried from place to place over the span of my life.  They are mementos of times gone by and include everything from greeting cards and scrawly art projects to tiny clothing I once wore and ticket stubs with fading ink.  Next to the tub from which I am pulling things is an empty one where I put things I want to keep holding on to.  Some things go in there automatically - tiny shoes, my first doll, cards and letters from grandparents who are no longer here with us.  Some things I dwell on...touching the past in a tangible way and reveling in the memories once more.  Not all the memories are good, but they are all significant in some meaningful way and are part of the mosaic of who I am.  Products of my past.

A sampling...

A card given to my grandfather from my grandmother.  Inside she expressed her love for him in her elegant script and touching it brought tears to my eyes that turned to laughter.  She closed her inscription with the phrase "have a nice day" and that adorable innocence is how I remember her. I may never know if she was really cheating at Yahtzee or just forgot how many times she rolled...

Piles of letters written by my mother whenever I was away - summer camp, school trips, college, student teaching abroad.  She wrote of all the things that were happening in her world, leavings with a splash of home in the midst of whatever strange experiences in which I found myself immersed.  She signed every single one of them "Love ya, Mom" in her familiar hand.

A program for a Meatloaf concert and numerous ticket stubs.  My brother was my concert buddy - still is on a smaller scale.  We would go, for instance, to the Downtown Festival Tent every year to see REO  Speedwagon...even the year that I had just gotten out of the hospital following surgery on my jaw.  So many other concerts that it seemed only fitting that when I graduated from college, he gave me two tickets to see Boston's Walk On tour.  The Meatloaf concert was a deal - I'd go see Steve Miller with him if he'd go see Meatloaf with me. We both loved both concerts.

An envelop full of high school graduation documents showing various accomplishments in the face of what I have increasingly come to see as a very difficult time in my life.  People sometimes say that high school was the best time of their lives.  Not me.  I never felt I fit in anywhere and yet it was a formative time that laid the groundwork for all the successes that came after.  In the face of adversity (of, honestly, a very mundane kind), I made it.  That envelop represents that to me.

A book of early poems.  Oh, they are so wonderful in their juvenile awfulness. The childish scrawl, the teddy bear cover...all of it.  Painful rhymes, choppy rhythms....but there are nuggets there that, again, laid the groundwork for what I think is better, wiser, stronger poetry of which I can be proud.

These things are all special to me - and there is so much more.  I am thinning the collection some.  There are things whose importance has been lost in time and the fog of the past.  There are things of which I am ready to let go.  There are things that just seem silly now.  But all of it begs the question of what will it all mean someday when I am gone?  I think of this sometimes when I find myself shifting through a box lot at an auction with my dad.  Old letters and postcards in flowing script describing someone else's faraway home in a faraway time.  And I'm not sure we value the paper of now as we value the paper of old.  So perhaps it will all someday be recycled and pass out of time and space.   For now, though, they will stay close to me and mine, weaved into the person I am, the person I was, and the person I will someday be.

Unofficiant...

This is the ceremony I wrote for my brother and his wife's vow renewal.  I thought I would share.

***

Welcome.

Before we bear witness to this renewed pledge of love and companionship, we must first pause for a moment and reflect on just what it is we are celebrating.  Joined hand in hand, these two represent a confluence of wonder and joy.  For those who do not know, a confluence is the place where two rivers come together to make a new river – one whose renown and power are oft more pronounced than the two from which it was born.  So formed is the Amazon River, the Ohio River, the Ganges – each of these finds their source in the joining of other rivers, the swirling of waters that soon become inseparable from one another.

At the point of the joining, cities thrive and grow – tying their fates to the new river, a river strong and alive from the moment of its waking.

So, too, are Jim and Marie a confluence.  Behind them, in the years of their lives before they met, they carved out their paths, tumbling over obstacles or finding ways around them. They have brought with them, rolling along in the current of their existence, their experiences and their dreams, their hopes and fears, their families and their friends.  And into the headwaters of the new life they are building together, all of these things combine to form a powerful force – one that can carry them wherever they need to go.  From these moments onward, they will share their lives and face whatever the world lays before them.

And we, who are gathered here to celebrate the strength of what they have found together, will thrive in their abundance of love and joy.  For no matter which tributary we aligned ourselves with, we are now all part of the same river – and their love and joy will be ever stronger because we, too, have joined it, adding our own.

So, I stand here to officiate something that is already official and to give voice to that which we all already know and feel.  For my brother, I have pride and not a little relief.  I always knew you were a good man with a big heart, but I was never quite sure if you would ever find someone who could draw you out of your private world and, to return to the river metaphor, open the locks so you could show the world just how special you are.  I cannot express how pleased and honored I am to be here in this place with you.  For my new sister, I welcome you warmly into our circle of family and friends.  You’ve already been welcomed, and as you are still here, I know that you belong here.  I did not know if I would ever get the chance to welcome a sister in this way, and now that I am, I could not have asked for a better woman and friend.  I cannot express how pleased and honored I am to be here in this place with you.

To you both, I offer love and gifts in my words that I have no doubt echo, in some way, the hearts of all of those who have gathered here – and even those who could not be with us today.  I cannot truly express how pleased and honored we are to be here in this place with you both.

Each of us should well know that Jim and Marie have asked us to be here today to witness this celebration because each of us plays a vital part in their lives.  The friendship, guidance, support, encouragement, and love have made them who they are and have brought them to this place; truly, if we close our eyes and listen closely, we can even hear the heartbeats and laughter of those who are no longer with us.  Jim and Marie have already begun their lives together with hearts full of gratitude for the past, joy for the present, and hope for the future and now they wish to share it with those most dear to them.

They have already come through sickness and health, through richness and poorness, for better and for worse.  On a Sunday afternoon in May, over one year ago, they pledged themselves to one another.  And now, I ask if they  are ready to affirm, to their gathered friends and family, their commitment to one another.  Jim and Marie, are you ready to once again make the pledges to which you commit yourselves to each other in love?

Exchange of Vows

“I take you
to be no other than yourself
loving what I know of you
trusting what I do not yet know
with respect for who you are
and faith in your love for me
through all our years
and in all that life may bring us
with my earnest and complete devotion
I give you my love.”

Exchange of Rings

A circle is the symbol of the sun and of the earth, of life and of the universe. It is a symbol of wholeness and renewal, permanence and peace. The rings you gave, received, and now give again are symbols of the circle of shared love into which you entered together as husband and wife.

“With all that I am, and all that I have, I once more offer this ring as a sign of my renewed vow and a symbol of a love which knows no end.”

Pronouncement

May you bless each other in your marriage tomorrow as you did yesterday; may you comfort each other when comfort is needed, share in each other’s joys and laughter, help each other in all challenges and endeavors, and find fulfillment in all your married days together.  May you, today and every day,  be the living embodiment of these words:

The way is long -- let us go together
The way is difficult -- let us help each other
The way is joyful -- let us share it
The way is ours alone -- let us go in love
The way grows before us -- let us begin

You may now share the kiss that will begin your lives together from this day forward and begin the joint celebration of all your gathered loved ones.

Pipes, Pumps, and Poetry...

When I was in college, I continued the family tradition of working for my father. He had, at the time, partnership in several companies and was acting CEO of one of them. I did a myriad of jobs there – from special projects involving the photocopier, to sorting mail, creating asbestos abatement jobs, maintaining files, doing data entry and just generally helping out wherever I was needed. I think I even did landscaping once. It was an interesting place to work in that I was the 'boss's daughter' but really didn't receive special treatment in terms of the job. I started at minimum wage just like everyone else and I didn't get to slack off just because my dad was the head honcho. If anything, I was held to higher standards. If I got to go to lunch now and then with the boss, well, then, I guess I did get special treatment.

One summer they found themselves without an Accounts Receivable clerk, and so it seemed a logical (?) choice to make the Secondary Education / English major college student do it. After all, it only involved a lot of math. I did billings, sorted checks, applied payments to accounts, balanced books, ran month end reports, sent collection notices, and just generally got to play with the incoming (or lack of incoming) money. The part of the company structure for which I worked sold construction materials and abatement supplies to various other companies in the greater Rochester, Erie, Buffalo, and Syracuse areas. It was such a memorable part of my life that I still see random box vans around from companies I used to bill and my mind immediately reduces their names to their six-character account code. It was an interesting time, to be sure. I never would have been able to do it without the help of the Controller Donna and my big brother – who was office manager at the time. We had strange conversations in that office – him, me, and the Accounts Payable guy. I used to banter with the warehouse staff, too. That's really the only office job I've ever had and while I liked it – I can't imagine going back to an 8 – 5 schedule. Then again, leaving my work AT work might be nice now and then.

Anyway, the reason I'm sharing all of this is to explain a weird correlation in what I did there and a medical thing, for lack of a better word, that I have. One of the industries we served was HVAC and there was a lot of pipe and pipe related paraphernalia that was part of that. So, there are abbreviations and items that I still remember – one of them being PVC. Not that this stuff doesn't exist elsewhere and in other contexts, but because of this time in my life, when I hear PVC, I immediately think of white tubing. Polyvinyl Chloride. All kinds of lengths and thicknesses and shapes, like elbows. I had to look at part number after part number with what looked like gibberish strings of letters and numbers – but PVC was common enough that I understood it and it stuck.

This brings us to today – 15 years or so later. I have, as I said above, a heart condition where occasionally my heart (for no apparent reason) beats…well…wrong. Normally, one's ventricles contract AFTER the atria have helped to fill them. That way, the ventricles can pump the most amount of blood to the lungs and elsewhere. In this condition, however, from time to time it does it in the reverse order. The ventricles contract first, which results in inefficient circulation. Before anyone worries, this is not really a cause for concern unless it starts happening noticeably more often. I'm only aware of happening a few times a week, really, though it might happen more and I'm just too busy to notice it. There are a number of causes which are completely out of the realm of possibility for me – drugs, alcohol, and various medical conditions. It can be caused by too much caffeine, but I've recently cut a lot of caffeine out of my diet and I still have it. So…I'm guessing that it is stress related. Or it's just a thing. Either way, my doctor isn't worried, so I'm not either. He said if it starts bothering me, I can go on blood pressure meds and get some tests done – but I see no reason to do so. It's just a weird feeling.

When it happens, it usually feels like my heart has skipped a few beats…I can put my fingers on my pulse and feel it sort of hiccup. It's a very strange feeling, but I don't feel light-headed or anything. I've made a friend feel it because he was there at the time – he also said it felt weird. My husband, who has a thing against feeling blood moving around in the body, saw evidence of it when I had surgery last year – he could see my heartbeat on the heart monitor trundle along normally, and then plummet for a few beats, then go back to normal. It's an interesting sensation; and odd that something so weird and scary-sounding can be going on in the body and really be no cause for concern. As I keep saying, it's just a thing.

My heart is already special…now it's just a little more special, right?

So, to tie these two things together, you may have already guessed that the heart thing is called PVC. This time, however, it's not polyvinyl chloride – but, instead, premature ventricular contraction. It's funny to me that the time I spent in an industry that is so far removed from my current career and my passions is now linked, in a strange way, to something that is part of the very core of what makes me who I am. Not just the physical heart, but the heart as a symbol for the things that a heart is symbolic of. Somehow, specialized industry and medical science have joined together to remind me that everything is connected and there is poetry everywhere.

Happy Birthday, Bimmie

Today is my brother’s birthday.  This is for him.

A month ago, I wrote about the relationship I had with my sister and how special it was to me.  What I have with my brother is no less important to me and has had no less influence on who I am today.  But that influence is very, very different.

I made mention in that blog of how I spent more of my time with him and as I think back to those years, it amazes me to think about how much of who I am I owe to him.  I’m not sure I can entirely blame the tomboy part of myself on him, but he certainly had a big hand in it.  I don’t know if he ever really thinks about it, but I am who I am because of him. I read fantasy novels and mysteries, I’m a gamer, I love computers and technology.  All of these are such an integral part of who I am and they all came from him in some way or another.

I may have been socially awkward, but when I borrowed books from my brother, I could get lost in Pern or Xanth or Middle Earth.  I don’t have a conscious memory of wanting to read those books because he did – I don’t recall looking up to him that actively.  It may have simply been a case of there not being any other books around that looked interesting to me.   But, it didn’t matter.  What mattered is that I started reading them and was hooked.  Fast forward a couple of decades and I wrote doctoral field exams on contemporary fantasy fiction and wrote a dissertation on Harry Potter.    Those moments in my career had their seeds in him.

I may have had no idea how to keep white clothes even remotely clean, but I could explore the world of computer games pretty well.  I remember sitting in a brown comfy chair that my brother had in his room and playing Nethack on a monochrome monitor in the times I had when he was at school and I was not.  I remember playing Gauntlet on a split screen as we sat side by side in his room.  I would drag my desk chair into his room and we played for hours.  I may have gotten yelled at for not being very good at them, but in those hours together a gamer was born and from those roots as a gamer, a love of technology was born.  Fast forward a couple of decades and find me firmly established as the Humanities professor whose niche is technology:  I sit on technology committees, I use technology in my classrooms, I go to conferences centered on its use.  I married a gamer whom I met in a game, some of my friends are gamers, I still play games.  These moments in my life and career had their seeds in him.

In short, when I say I am proud to be a geek -- it's because my brother helped make me one.

There are so many little things we shared growing up – from the nickname he gave me to Monty Python and Sherlock Holmes.  My brother was no less socially awkward than I was, but we had such fun times regardless of that.  We hung out and watched movies, listened to music, played games.  We worked together, even, when we got older.  We used to go to the mall all the time, and it was a very different trip than with my sister.  In fact, I can’t even remember anything we did there – I just remember walking around relatively quickly and having a great time.  We went to concerts, too.  We used to go see REO Speedwagon every year, including the year I was in the hospital until just a few days before the concert.  I always felt safe with him, despite the noise and the crowds.

Even when I went away to college, he would come up and spend the weekend in my dorm room and we’d do all the same kinds of things.  He joined a group of us who went up to Toronto to see The Phantom of the Opera.  I think he drove entirely around Lake Ontario that weekend.  When I went on to my Masters and my Doctorate, he’d do the same thing.  We may not have talked much on the phone or wrote letters, but we got together often enough that it didn’t matter.   A perfect example of this kind of unspoken relationship we have happened in the early days of electronic communication.  It was birthday season in my family and, being a college student, I was running low on cash.  I wrote to my brother and asked him if he could help out -- just a little something to help me get by.  My parents were coming up that weekend and they brought with them some new CDs that I had ordered through his CD club (back when Columbia House was cool).  It wasn’t until after mom and dad left and I was opening the CDs that I noticed one of them was slit along the side.  When I opened it the rest of the way, there was a $20 bill inside.   This is the kind of thing he does – he may not be demonstrative of his affection for his little sisters, but it’s always there.

I owe a good portion of who I am to the influence my brother had on me growing up -- he is goofy and fun and weird and a little crazy.  I can’t even really express how ecstatic I am that he has found someone who loves him for who he is and makes him happy.  He deserves it; though, I will admit that sometimes I miss the dedicated time we used to have to hang out at the mall, eat fast food and stay up too late playing games before I crashed on his couch.  I love my brother and I admire the personal strength he has had to get through the tough times and I’m so proud of where he is now.  He will always be my big brother and I will always treasure the memories we have made and the ones I’m sure we will keep making.

So, big brother, want to go to the mall?

Happy Birthday, MBS

Today is my sister’s birthday.  This is for her.

My sister and I have not always been close.  Because I was a seemingly incurable tomboy, I spent far more time with my brother than with my sister.  This is not the blog about him, however, so suffice it to say that my tastes were much more in line with his than with hers.  In those years, I was more likely to be tagging along with him, picking on her, the middle child.  When I wasn’t the target as the youngest, that is.  One of the lasting memories from this time was when we took her huge stuffed panda and hung it from the ceiling.   I don’t think she was amused; in fact, she still complains about it from time to time.

As we grew older, things didn’t really change that much.  The timeline of our lives was such that we didn’t really cross paths very often.  I have only been half-joking when anyone has heard me say that while she was at the mall, I was climbing trees.  Despite these differences, or perhaps because of them, I know part of me always looked up to her, though I called it jealousy at the time.  My memory is not always the best when it comes to my childhood, but I do remember playing in her room when she was out; the shag orange carpet hiding a bee one afternoon, as I recall.  It was sunny that day and I don’t remember where she was or even what childhood game I was playing – I just know I wanted to be in her room.  It was special and somewhat off-limits, generally.  My big sister’s room.

I think at some level, part of me wanted to be like her because she was, in many ways, quintessentially feminine in ways that I was not and had no conscious desire to be.  I never thought I could live up to her anyway – she was popular and beautiful and socially skilled.  I have no delusions that her life was perfect by any stretch, but it looked a lot more perfect than mine.  Around her, I felt even more awkward and weird.  I enjoyed computers and poetry more than nail polish and make up; I lost myself in books and in melodramatic writing that makes me laugh today at the dire seriousness of my middle-school self.  In short, I was nothing like her; we didn’t really feel like we could be sisters and as I grew older, I found myself wishing more and more often that I was like her.  I was tired of being bookish and clumsy.

So, I slowly became aware of a need to become more outwardly feminine at least some of the time.  It surprised me that I wanted to be a girl, sort of, but what did not surprise me is where I turned for help with that.  I remember afternoons with curling irons mishaps and smeared mascara; I remember trying on her clothes and being told I could keep some of them.  Basically, I remember laughing and tentatively starting the friendship that I’ve come to value more than I can easily express.  I wore her senior prom dress to my junior prom.  I borrowed her make-up and experimented.  In short, I tried to figure out how to be less awkward and a little bit more graceful – and she was one of the best role models around.  I still hung out with my brother, but now there was another facet of myself to explore.

When she left to go to college, part of me was heartbroken.  I was just beginning to find a friend in her, and she went away.  I retreated back into my old loves, but I was not the same tomboy anymore.  When she came home, we would sometimes hang out and it was fun, but still a little awkward.   As my own high school graduation approached, I ended up applying to only one school – the one where she was.  I don’t remember how that came about, but I know that I was excited about having my RA sister close by as I got used to being a college student.  I had her there with me for a year before she graduated and moved on, and in that year we spent time together now and then.  I loved those times.  Though they were somewhat sparse as we moved in different circles, it was often enough to know that if I needed her, she was no longer far away.

From those days onward, her and I have done nothing but grow closer.  She is my best friend above all best friends – and there are so many memories that I cherish.  We’ve gone through heartaches and happiness, laughter and tears, heart-to-hearts and meaningful silences.  I remember reading at her wedding and making everyone cry – including myself.   I remember shopping trips and closet cleanings that felt like shopping.  I remember her with her infant sons and knowing that she was going to be a better mother than I could ever be and that she was doing yet another thing that I don’t think I could do.  But now there was no jealousy, there was just pride and admiration.

One of the most important moments for me over the last few years was my wedding and how I could finally ask her to be my maid of honor.  There were times when that awkward little girl inside me thought I would never find the right someone because there was still so much of that stubborn tomboy around.  So when I did find him, there was no hesitation about who to ask to stand with me.  I never really pointed this out at the time, but having her do my makeup was so beautifully surreal – suddenly I was 14 again and my big sister was helping me look as beautiful as I could for the high school dance.  This, though, was so much more – and what we have, now, is so much more.  I cherish those memories, but the memories I am making with her now, I would not trade for anything.  She is strong and beautiful, kind and funny, smart and accomplished.  It is women like her that inspire women like me to be more than perhaps they would have.

I may be a doctor and a professor, a wife and a daughter, a poet and a thinker…and there are countless whys and ways I have become those things; but, I can honestly say, I am the woman I am because of the woman she is…

Love you.

-T