Book ‘Em

I come from a family of book readers and writers. My mother often read the dictionary for fun. We had seven: American Heritage, Oxford, Webster’s. You get the idea.

“Daddy always told us to look it up if we didn’t know how to spell a word,” my mother said last week, my grandfather suddenly cast as my father in the tangled branches of her Alzheimer’s family tree. “In that book with all the words.”

As an only child, books served as surrogate siblings. My childhood was filled with an eclectic mix of books, from Nancy Drew to Narnia, Little Women, Little House, and edgier titles as I approached adolescence:  Harriet the Spy, The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, The Stand. The books are still in my childhood home, relegated to a distant corner of the attic.

This summer, as we readied my father’s house to be sold and I waded through the stacks and shelves and boxes of his books — 3,000-plus dusty, stinky, moldy hardbacks unwanted by anyone but him — I was motivated to declutter my own collection. Like newspapers and postage stamps, books felt like relics of half-dead generations.

Kondo inspired, I pruned the shelves. Weeded through overgrown piles of books on nightstands and coffee tables. And kept the ones that bring me joy.

As for the rest? They’re not far away. “They’ll be happy in their new home!” the librarian chirped, as I unloaded the boxes of my past life on the metal library cart. “Thank you for thinking of us!”

In keeping with my primary intention this year, I am creating more space in my life, in the figurative sense of being open and present and this literal tidying up, creating a wide-open yin to the musty mothball clutter of my parents’ homes.

And I have not lost my passion to read.  

Sacred Sundays

“Never on a Monday,” says the text from a childhood buddy, in response to my question about her work schedule. “Mondays are sacred.”

And for a while, they were. Even 3,000 miles apart, we experienced Sacred Mondays together, texting each other photos of coffee mugs and couches. Having a day of rest was as mandatory as the weekends we filled with family obligations.

Yet, as it has since I quit my career five years ago, life changed radically this summer. Having proved my ability to somewhat successfully meet the endless demands of elderly parents, the Universe has now designated me caregiver to an injured husband, the most difficult job I’ve had so far.

Every day is Groundhog Day, my husband reminds me from his perch on the recliner; it’s true for both of us. And somewhere in the daily drudgery of living through the chronic stabbing pain of an injured hip, tending to medical needs and a household filled with pets and chores, my Sacred Mondays vanished.

I found myself missing that soothing relief of a day in which I allowed myself to do nothing. Never fully able to embrace self-care—even the term is as cringe-worthy for me as self-love—Sacred Mondays were at least a stab at putting myself first. Yet spousal caregiving is a far more emotionally draining experience than I ever imagined. Something had to change.

One Sunday not too long ago, I had coffee with a friend whose mother is now in hospice care, after an agonizingly slow trudge through the twisted maze of Alzheimer’s. “I disconnect on Sundays,” said my friend. “No workouts, no errands, no housework, no parents. A whole day off from my shitshow of a life.”

In my not-sober past, Sundays were spent nursing profound hangovers with brunch-filled mimosas and afternoons of beachfront reggae music. In sobriety, I find peace at Sunday morning 12-step meetings. But for the past three years, I’ve dreaded Sundays: taking my mother to church in an effort to maintain the routine so necessary for a person living in Alzheimer’s World. And when my new caregiving responsibilities took priority, she never noticed we’d stopped going to church, just one more of the merciful yet bittersweet paradoxes of dementia.

Sketch by my mother, c. 1988

Now, Sunday is the day I look forward to all week; the portrait my friend/dementia mentor painted has come to life. Sacred Sundays give me freedom from my shitshow of a life. Write. Read. Nap. Watch football. Or none of the above.

And serenity returns to our household, if only for a day. 

Vision, Bored

“Write an intention for yourself on the postcard at your place setting,” says Meagan, the effervescent executive director at a recent fundraiser for Girls on the Run, a nonprofit I volunteer with. “Address it to yourself and we’ll mail them to you.”

At first, I cringe. Life has been so heavy lately—an injured husband, moving another parent to assisted living—the only intention I can manage is to wake up and make it through another demanding day of caregiving.

I tuck the card in my purse, then take it out moments later as I watch everyone around me—four hundred-plus women full of brunch and inspiration from the empowering keynote speaker, a filmmaker telling the stories of successful women you’ve never heard of making it in a man’s world—every woman was scribbling on her card.

My husband will see this and laugh, I think. He’s not one for self-analysis or emotions and often pokes fun at my endless soul-searching quest.

I decide to write an intention anyway. A mailbox overflowing with inspiration might spill into my life, right?

“Share it on your Insta feed!” Meagan says. “Tack it on your vision board!”

Vision boards have never been my thing, but in a sense, my notebook, a scribbled mind meld of morning pages serves as one: hastily jotted ideas for my blog; a flash story written from a one-word prompt; a poem clipped from a literary journal; an outline for a novel written on a scrap of paper and taped to the notebook’s back cover; my mother’s college graduation photo.

A week later, the card arrives. “WRITE FEARLESSLY,” it says. I paste it in my journal.

And I am.