Unexpected

Backward Glance by Angelina Mosley

The Chicago marathon is in full swing. The El whirs above a mass of runners and the crowd roars. They round the corner and the camera moves in on a brunette woman as she makes the turn. She glances to her left where her family is cheering. The camera cuts to her exuberant 9-year-old daughter yelling, "Mom! Mom!" – a huge smile on her face.

I shut my eyes.

A singer stands on a stage and the lights go down. Anxious family members watch from the sidelines. They grab hands in excitement, anxiousness and pride. The lights go up, the music starts and the singer sings. A judge hits a button and their red chair swings around. The family goes nuts. Shouting, crying, laughing, hugging.

My throat clenches.

Both of these scenes quietly remind me that I will never experience the pride of a daughter cheering me on, or a family yelling from the sidelines because they believe in me and want to be where my dreams might come true.

Something I didn't expect about infertility was that it carries its burden into middle age. I did not realize the pain would intensify and shift. As I move through my 50's, my friends are starting to have grandchildren. Their beautiful expressions feel like a blade in me. I long to be comforted inside a family who knows me. But most of my siblings live on the opposite coast and have families of their own. My husband's siblings also live far away with their own children and grandchildren. We have dear, sweet, wonderful friends and we are loved, but there are unexpected moments I cannot dodge. Like the marathon commercial and the singing contest.

I admit it's not hard to wallow in self-pity, which is why I escape in front of the television, but it seems even there, I am not safe.

----------------------

{As waves of anger take my breath, I gasp. I wail. I shake my fist. And then I reach...my fingers stretched. And He is here, holding me tight and whispering, "I know."}

Loss

When my best friend's mother died, I watched her go through the tunnel of loss. It's a helpless feeling, to watch. But having lived through it myself, I could look her in the eye. People often call you brave when you're in the tunnel, as if you had a choice.

The day my dad died was the strangest day of my life, and it broke me. I was only 29. Years later, when I lost my mom, the dark cloud of her followed me for a year.  Now, I’ve lost my brother—my gifted, frustrating, inspiring, angry and passionate brother. 

Loss is isolating and surreal. You wander through days, out of body. As in an Escher drawing, you are the figure repeating into itself. You're a body in the Matrix. You rise each day, you move, and it really does feel as if you could jump off a building and live. 

Reminders are everywhere—as nebulous as a scent or as tangible as the shoes you're wearing. Denial burns in your throat and in your stomach. Tears don't come and you want to cry. You want to feel. You cling to the grief because somehow, it keeps them near.

My dad Jack

My dad was a no nonsense guy with a tremendous sense of humor. He had an answer for everything.
Me: "Hey, we're out of milk!"
Dad: "We have milk we haven't even used yet."

Dad: "Hey get down here."
Me: "Wait..."
Dad: "Weight broke the wagon down."

My personal favorite, when leaving a party or somewhere else...
"Don't think it ain't been nice...cuz it ain't!"
He would drop off the end part because after a while, everyone knew it so well.

What I really appreciated about him was his willingness to sit down and reason out a thing instead of yelling or getting mad or punishing.

Once, when I was in college, he sat me down and told me my mom had been reading my journal. I was incensed! He said my mom thought I was going to kill myself and couldn't I write something positive in there. How dare she! was all I could think. I eventually did write something in there, but not without a statement about invading one's privacy.

The thing I love about that story is that despite my mom's reaction, and despite whatever it was I wrote, he knew I wasn't going to kill myself. He knew it was just teenage angst. He was so practical and straight to the point. I loved him. Now, I adore him. And miss him.

Common Courtesy Series: The Elevator Man

Once upon a time elevators had captains.  The Captain sat on a stool by the number panel. "Floor?" he'd say, as you stepped aboard and pressed the number for your floor. He always held the door for his passengers to step out before the ones waiting got on.

Without the Elevator Man, common courtesy has gone down the shaft. These days, getting on and off elevators is a free-for-all. When an elevator door opens, it's a rush to get to the other side, bodies dodging and pushing and rushing, pushing buttons to close the door. Are we in that big of a hurry? Another elevator is seconds away. Step aside people.

Dear Otis, please bring back the Elevator Man.

Love,

Claustrophic Passenger

Creative Style Inventory

1. When did your creative awakening or re-awakening occur?

The first time was seeing a play when I was six. The reawakening has been recent, tapping into other creative talents and desires and actually being in them.

2. What talents do you have naturally?
Acting, writing, graphic design, art (mixed media, collage, oil pastels), singing, expressing.

3. Which elements draw you toward them? (Fire, Air, Wood, Water)
Wood and water.

4. Where and when do you create?
In my home studio/office.

Where and when do you wish to create?
Write at home and create at the Loft, spread out on tables.

5. What activates your creative energy? And what drains it?
I get inspired by other artists, talking with them, seeing their work, going to galleries and museums, the ocean, being outdoors, water, visiting artisan shops, movies, reading great books & great articles in great magazines.
Drains: Medication changes.


6. What creative rituals do you have?
Open the window next to my desk, light a candle and/or lavender incense. Corny, but true.

7. Does nature influence your creativity?
Yes, everything about it. Colors, textures, movement, all of it.

8. Biggest creative hurdle so far?
Being not enough in the process & too focused on the end result. Can paralyze you.

9. What time of day are you most receptive to inspiration?
Late at night!

Risk:
To sail around a cliff.

Sarah

How could you be a mother?
I am not a mother.

You were 12 when I met you, looking out at the snow-filled forest,
up to the mountains, full of confidence.
You never seemed to waver, stood strong like the trees before you.
I envied that.

Now you mother two beautiful girls, you engage
in it, you breathe it.

It is strange at once for me, but fascinating,
riveting. I read your elegant stories about your daily
challenges. I see the strong hand and soft heart.

I long for the experience, but knowing it's
behind me, I embrace yours.

Take My Hair

At
the
end
of
the
day,
wine swings
in its clear
bell
glass.

My head is flung back,
letting the breeze take my hair.

The Burgundy is perfect,
warm.

Necco Wafers

I once participated in a “Walk for Life” at a crisis pregnancy clinic. Since I went alone  I decided I would just walk to the one mile marker (there were three, one mile, five miles or 10). Before I knew it an older man caught up with me and struck up a conversation. He regaled me with stories of his childhood growing up in rural California. He spoke with the melancholy of a simpler time that I could see he loved and missed very much. He was curious and full of questions for me and I felt he was the last of his ilk. Like my dad; he was a real gentleman. He shared many stories that day but there was one that has stayed with me.

"One day when I was a child,” he began, “I was walking a road I'd walked down every day of my life. These were dirt roads back then and I was talking to Jesus, just as easy as you and I are talking now. I was nine years old and I was eating Necco Wafers candy. Do you know what Necco Wafers are?"

"Yes," I said, "I do know Necco Wafers! My parents gave them to us on long drives. ‘Hold them on your tongues,’ they'd say, ‘and see who can keep them there the longest without biting.’ This was, of course, their way of keeping us quiet in the car.”

“Ah, yes,” my friend continued, "a good trick.”

He continued. “So, like you, I’m eating my Neccos, but I am biting them, picking them out of their delicate paper one by one and crunching them, if you please, as happy as can be, walking and talking to Jesus. All of a sudden—just that quick..." he snapped his fingers, "I felt this huge burst of love and wanted to share my candy with Jesus, so I impulsively tossed all my Neccos up in the air!

Well, almost immediately I realized how foolish that was and that I was going to have to pick them all up. That's how my parents had raised me so I knew I couldn't just leave them out there littering the road. But when I went to pick them up, they weren't there. I thought I must have hurled them farther than I thought so I walked around and around looking for them, scratching my head. All I could see was the dirt road I'd been walking on all of my life, not a single candy in sight." I guess God liked Necco Wafers too.

We walked the full 10 miles without even noticing.

This Photograph

Who is this woman with the movie-star lips
and raven hair, leaning confidently,
a newspaper in her lap?

Is she waiting impatiently for someone?
Or could she be napping behind those hip shades?

What did the camera capture?
What did the camera miss?

My mother is a stranger to me here,
mysterious.

The Heat of a Real Friend

Some friends grow cold like winter,
rain frozen on eaves,
I easily reach up and snap it
and feel the ache as it melts in my hand.

We risk a cold wind in our bones
every time we share a smile
or a cry, for the warmth created
by the heat of a real friend.

Slow

A tree in stillness,
bowing over me, fatherly
The hairs on the back of my neck 
stand in worship.

Waiting, instead of
expecting. 

{There's a difference.}

A bed of warm grass
beneath these redwoods 
tickles my back.

The birds lift their voices for me,
and then the rocks,
and then the sky.

Phone Calls with My Mom

When I got older and we lived on opposite coasts, phone calls with my mom were fun.
We giggled like girls, and clung to the receiver.

Until the day she put the phone down and got lost.
I heard her in the background searching for me,
searching for me 2000 miles away,
praying she would find the receiver
and pick it up.

Love

Lying in a hospital bed a world away from reality,
I whisper my mother’s life into her ear.
I fold like a child against her frail body
and silently inhale her love back into me.
I comb her white hair with my fingers,
memorizing her delicate features.
She moans.

Her voice, my cocoon.

Hope

Born with a lily white thumb,
I wasn’t drawn organically to the garden.
Housewarming plants have been given to me
with sideward glances and strained expressions,
as if sacrificing something to the altar.

Yet, as I've aged and grown into my own home,
I've filled the yard with new ambition.
I held my breath all season, turning corners
in hopes of finding a bright white bloom
on my sweet gardenia bush.
But it's not bloomed a single flower.

"Why would it?" I thought.
I know nothing more about calling a blossom forth
than I know about raising children.
And there—as they say—is the rub.

I raised my fist, my voice, my lily white womb
and sank back into the couch staring restlessly at my hands,
grief rising in my throat, and looked out the window for an exit.

And out there
on my gardenia bush
was its first
white
blossom,
shining at me

like hope.

The Growth

You couldn’t see it from across the street
where she waved you over from the porch.
Inside was lunch and everything delicious.
We all laughed at the sounds our sticky summer skin made
moving on her plastic covered furniture

It was when she leaned in to kiss you that you saw it,
coming for you like a radish upon her rumpled
red
mouth.

Middle-aged and Bountiful

I can see how radiant their skin is,
how smooth the bodies they call fat.
I watch as they wriggle themselves into a pretzel,
without a single moan.

And I, middle-aged and bountiful—
can’t squat at the Crisper anymore, digging for veggies,
without great pains to rise, and sometimes softly falling back
onto the kitchen floor, cats sniffing at me.

I used to be a pretzel, wriggled,
salty and crisp,
but now I sit twisted
and a little doughy.

All the Pretty Kisses

When my husband and I were falling in love,
I would see images whenever he kissed me. He kissed my cheek at a wedding and I saw pink clouds of cotton candy.

Lying on a blanket at the park, my head in his lap, I saw a whole forest of wildflowers. In a coffeehouse where we stared at each other forever—honeysuckle bears; blue ribbon floating in candlelight; stars twinkling in a dark blue sea over the earth. I loved it. I miss it.

He's still amazing to me,
but I miss that magical swoon that comes with fresh love.

(right now,
I can hear him snoring in the other room
through two
closed doors)

thunderclaps on pretty, rainy nights.

Surrender

"Childhood scenes rushed back at me out of the night, strangely close and urgent. Today, I know that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do." - Corrie Ten Boom

After returning home from a family wedding and reunion, I broke down. I cried endlessly one night into the next morning and all the way to work. I'd just spent wonderful quality time with my great-nephews, all of whom are charming, loving and well-behaved. I absorbed them and loved each and every minute of it. I met my new great-niece, Iley, who is and will become a great beauty, inside and out, because of her parents, grandparents, and family. So what was this breakdown? Why the grief? (And it was that deep, penetrating, pulsating-through-and-down-into-the-toes sort of grief.)

I was mourning again for the children I don't have.

(But I thought I had gotten to "the other side" of that. I thought I had "come to terms.")

Ha.

As if it's something you ever get past. Despite that knowledge I am surprised at this involuntary emotional meltdown. I'm rethinking adoption. Foster adoption. I go back and forth. How does one ever really know?

And then, while amidst all the brothers, again, always feeling alone and separate, I know that they are men, plain and simple. They're not ignoring me. It, in fact, has nothing to do with me. Yet as I look around and find myself in the company of males, continually being the only girl, I am baffled by God's plan; the timing, the dynamics, the choices. And while sitting there amongst my siblings...

"Childhood scenes rushed back at me out of the night, strangely close and urgent."

And my life back home seemed far away and chaotic. Though I'd recently come to terms about my future and had been elated with my new decisions, my enthusiasm fell flat here, where I grew up. Because I know God, I know that He has a plan, and every time I think I've figured it out, I find myself in a cocktail of my past and my future, shaken—as well as stirred.

"Today I know that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future."

So I surrender again, give it all to Him and realize for the umpteenth time that I need to stop running around doing all the things that keep me stressed and tired and which, ironically, keep me from spending my time in His presence and just breathing in His spirit. I find my excuses in dustbunnies under the table and in computer software that keeps breaking down. Lunches, exercise, classes, meetings, shopping, repairs, decisions.

"I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do."

He keeps pushing me toward the white flag.

Every Tuesday Night

I can never never never say goodbye.
Dying to leave and longing to stay,
and hold her hand just a little longer.

Mom can't say my name anymore
or see me with recognition.
Just hum a Yes or a No and say Thank You
to my I Love You's
in her familiar deep voice.

Walking away in silence,
I carry her sweet expression
in my mind
all the way down the hall
through the smell
out to my car
two lights
four freeways
and fifty
minutes

home.

Jewel

I met you one night

after your show at the Greek.
Ushered in with a backstage pass
I waited.
Finally, finally
you appeared
– a blazing red dress –
as if you needed to steal the room.

Watching you sway and twinkle through
the melange, wanting to touch you
(because I knew your words),
I reached out to you in introduction.
And while our small hands fit, I wished
I had stayed in the corner and remained
a fly on the wall.