Denying self-denial

A description of a writer, a few weeks ago, has stuck. The author—was he a novelist, or a poet?—went through his self-denial phase as a truck driver, before he turned to writing, which he does now every night for hours on end, in a little cabin behind his home.

I scoured Google looking for this piece about him, like finding it would unlock some door. Do all writers go through a phase of denying the kind of rising, surging desire I have almost daily, to express myself through the written word?

If so, it’s a strange comfort to me. Why, in my own life, do I deny great, teaming pleasures? Not because I fear rejection as a writer anymore than the next person. Because the impulses to create are checked early on. I simply switch them off, or deny them through any number of rationalizations (a favorite: people need me).

(Of course, then these impulses pile up behind the locked door, like so many poor souls trying to escape annihilation by fire, and I get very depressed, but that’s an old story. )


Someone has likened this self-denial to a kind of anorexia; it’s like cutting yourself off from the stuff you love. I can understand the connection, since I’m a food addict. Self-denial kinda runs in my family, and I fear I've passed on this trait to my children, the way it was passed to me.

What is the price of unlocking this heavy old door, and keeping it ajar? I think, looking back, it's a dread that I will be punished, or, in some primeval way, that something--or someone--critical to my survival will be overlooked.

What’s the reward? Playing in the wash of waves at the shoreline, where the sea ebbs and flows, mixing up sticks and rocks and mud and acorns, to make a homemade stew while playing house, racing around the block on my two-wheeler, making piles of paper airplanes, telling untold stories in Rwanda, writing a short story about a young girl whose mother abandons her to a great-aunt and uncle,or a poem about hearing that your first teenage boyfriend died at age 63.

Following pathways

What would life be like without surprise? Encountering something new, moving toward it, then allowing yourself to be swallowed by the encounter, is this not what creativity, and adaptation is all about?
This was my take-away from a bike trip yesterday to a Central Michigan county, with Rob, and here’s what happened. We had tried to mount enthusiasm for a long, rural bike ride starting from Jackson, a medium sized town just West from Ann Arbor, but it was difficult.
Jackson: Jackson State Prison. Jackson: Republicans. Jackson: where small minds are made smaller. We even tried to circumvent the actual town by starting our ride about 3 miles out, and parking in the empty lot of a Greek Orthodox Church, to unload our bikes and so begin a 25 mile loop taking us back toward Ann Arbor, and past some pretty lakes.
My front tire was soft; we didn’t have a pump along. Oh well, I thought, if it goes flat, THAT will be our adventure.
We rode on miles of rural/residential road, past schools, washed out country stories, the occasional mega-home with an algaed pond, a trailer park, small ranches built on 4-5 acres, homes where pick-up trucks, sheds, dogs, and riding mowers were de riguer. It was pleasant, the occasional hill was a riding challenge, and the weather was knock-dead gorgeous. There were enough turns to make navigating a necessity.
A man in a pickup truck pulled astride us to request that we be on the lookout for a lost Yorkshire terrier. Passing an old frame house, we were blasted by rock music, and for a brief instant I fantasized the place as a summer hideaway for Eminem (not).
Another mile, and we encountered a very old farm house, next to a field being plowed by a very old man on a tractor. We waved; he waved back. The house with its old, covered swimming pool and ancient basketball hoop suggested a family had been raised here, in the 50’s. It was sad somehow, this enduring image of a rural family whose children may have run off for Las Vegas, or Orlando. The lack of a flowers garden seemed to signal the loss of the man’s wife too.
As we turned north, there were fewer houses, and more trees, signaling the lake district ahead. I felt lulled into a kind of vague longing for summer icons: a lake, ice cream, picnic tables, a resting spot.
And then we happened upon an odd, weather-beaten sign. Then another one: ‘Parking ahead for viewing area.’ Viewing what? A tree in the shape of Mary Magdelene? A hill-top vista long ago overrun by trees and houses? I braced for the honky-tonk that the Midwest is famous for: “THE WORLD’S LARGEST CROSS.” Or “YOU HAVE NOW CROSSED THE 49TH PARALLEL.”
Sure enough, on our right appeared a dirt parking lot. We steered toward it, my soft front tire sinking into construction sand, and gravel. A bright blue sedan was parked, the only car. There was a wide grass path directly to the left and we eased down it, toward some odd, open space.
What we encountered still boggles my mind, 24 hours later. An enormous bird sanctuary is nestled among 900 acres of forest, marshland, and open prairie. Each year hundreds, sometimes thousands of sand crane stop here. We heard a few in the distance. The sky was flooded with birds flying in and out of hundreds of well-placed bird houses. Purple lupine dotted the landscape. Viewing benches were everywhere, and trails upon trails. And this: no one save ourselves and the owner of the bright blue car, who stood stark still gazing at a tree wherein presumably was a rare bird.
We rode our bikes on the trails, past a lake, into another open area, through some forest, and looped back to our beginnings. Apparently the area is home to many rare birds, including a bald eagle. We were agape in wonderment, to discover such a place, hidden from the road, maintained by the Audubon Society, donated by a man who lost his only daughter, in 1935.
Follow an uncharted pathway, and this is what can happen.

A slave named Bob to have, hold & enjoy

When I'm really busy, I am known to punch family names into Ancestry.com in the oddest hours of the night or morning. It settles me down.

So one jittery night I type 'Edney,'a name from my mother's maternal line in Tennessee. No one knows much about the Edneys; we have relatives named Rainey and Dunnagan. The Edney's, and the Jones's have all but disappeared.

Several hours later, I come across a series of online conversations in a genealogy site, about the Edneys of North Carolina.

I leap into the conversation, which has been going on for about 7 years, and try to reach a couple of people, many of whom may be dead, because genealogy is an old person's hobby. For the record, I'm not old, but I'm obsessed with where I come from, like I'm the silky threads of a blown dandelion, trying to find my way back.

A 76 year-old man named Earl Peeler who lives in Tampa gets right back to me online. We exchange emails. We're like two knights in armour approaching each other on horseback, our lances drawn. Protecting a family line goes way back in evolution, and first we must establish our credentials.

I cite my direct descendants; he cites his. "I am Patricia of Samuel Edney, son Robert Edney and Ann Rensher." He comes right back: "And I am Earl of Asa Edney, son of Robert Edney and Ann Rensher."

Okay, that's over. So we're related. We are something like first cousins, ten times removed. That means our common ancestors were brothers, a long, long, long time ago. And their father was our direct descendant. This tight bond established, he agrees to send me pieces of the Edney genealogy, a 47 year-old project he says will 'probably get dumped in the trash when I'm gone.'

For the record, Robert Edney was born between 1690 and 1710 in England, and settled his family in Pasquotank, North Carolina, buying up land, and slaves.

These are my people. I know this from a two-page typed family history someone passed to me decades ago. Whoever it was found it in a family bible I think. And I have this bible. It's wrapped in blue-and-white-hopsacking material, in a white garbage bag, and lain in a plastic storage bin on the floor of a spare room closet.

It's three days later. I'm nearly finished with my ancestry orgy. What have I got to show for it?

1. Secure knowledge that I have the Edney family bible, written in by Newton Edney, Robert's grandson, born before the Revolutionary War, January 1, 1763 to be exactly. My Uncle Ammon got it for me, from my mother's first cousin, Christine.

2. Reasonable speculation that Newton had a mistress named Parmelia, possibly an African-American woman who bore two children with Newton, named Eliza and Mary. They are listed as Negro births by a man who had quite a few slaves (13). Why else are they listed in the family bible? And why else is Parmelia's marriage to William Bray recorded there? And why else is she listed in Newton's will?

3. Confirmation that my early Edney line is comprised of land-owners who had slaves at every generation up to the Civil War, including 'Bob' who shows up in a will, a piece of property for the bequeathee 'to have, hold and enjoy.'

4. Three locks of hair, carefully bound, one wrapped in a tiny piece of paper labeled 'Eccleses.'

5. Many pressed flowers.

6. A post card from my great great grandfather John Wesley Jones, to his son-in-law, John Dunnagan, asking to be picked up at a train station Christmas Eve in Bon Aqua, Tennessee.

7. Leaflets advertising the new town of Rochester, New York, and Denton County Texas, the new frontiers.

8. A pencil scratched will signed by W. Nelson, my great-grandmother Dolly's brother-in-law.

9. A love poem by Viola Dunnagan, saying 'i love you but thats no youse.'

Fixed points

Now that Spring is just ahead, I linger outside as the edges of day smudge from burnt scarlet to soft purple. I'm awaiting the nighttime sky. With a great, familiar intention, I look for the few childhood constellations I still know. More than once--I remember a dock New Hampshire, and an Hawaii hot tub-- I have laid back against my arms to bask in the vastness of the black universe.

As a young teenager, my private universe was often asunder. Parents fighting, boyfriends coming and going, brothers to help raise, living from my roots, lots of home chores, schoolwork and piano practice always beckoning. It was way too much for one girl.

But. Many summer nights, long after the family was sleep, I propped my chin on a pillow nested in an upstairs bedroom windowsill, and searched for the comfort of constellations. Majestic, confident Orion. The happy, cocky, Big and Little Dippers. The huddled pack of Seven Sisters. The stars, seemingly immovable, were my family, fixed points of reference in a turbulent time. Watching them, charting them, remembering them--them usually eased me to sleep

They still are. And now that I've traveled all around the earth, and searched for roots ancient and ancestral, the stars have new meanings. Imagine the first people on earth migrating out of Africa and looking up: they saw these very same powerful, bright dots that I see tonight. Imagine: in a few hours, my friends in the Philippines, or Rwanda, will see nearly the same star-studded sky.

Younger, blessed and cursed with the gift of imagination, I used to ask the stars how I would survive if my parents got divorced, if my boyfriend stopped liking me, or I couldn't ever find my lost library books.

I still wonder. Standing in the driveway, peering up through our front tree, I ask myself the big, impossible questions of midlife. What will growing old be like? What does it feel like to be without parents? Will I, or my husband, die first? Will I live to see grandchildren? What legacies will I leave behind?

The sky still answers. The stars will always be there, it says. Count on it. Many havee, before you.

This settles me, and sleep comes.

...to ever recover from 9/11.

The 9 AM anniversary of 9/11 has just passed, the point of the first plane to hit the North Tower. Memories jerk me backward. The second plane has already hit the South, and both buildings are ablaze in the top-most floors. Some people trapped there are using the last drop of will they have, and jumping to their deaths. Emergency vehicles are swarming to the spot; crowds are gathering, drawn to the dying buildings. A flight from Boston to California has been hijacked. Another is headed for Washington DC.

Across the United States millions are breathlessly watching, their minds scrolling through the list of people they know in New York City, fingers frantically punching in phone numbers, or email addresses. Parents with grown children in the city are getting in their cars, from as far away as California. Clergy are preparing for vigils. The military and police services are cancelling leaves.

In countries with media access, the news that America has taken a hit sends shockwaves through capitals, newsrooms, and financial markets. A sudden global insecurity grips the guts of government officials.

I am not yet reacting on a clear blue day in Michigan, setting up to do some writing, noting that the house painter has begun to tackle the front, and is up on hisladder. My friend next door calls urgently. "Have you heard from Adam? Is he working on Wall Street? Put on your television right away!"

I do. And I see. After 10 seconds, I rush to the phone to call Adam and Kelly. They are supposed to be on a plane to California! They do not answer, and I leave a message on phone and email: ARE YOU OKAY? I rush to the computer, and type an email to Alexis, Adam's mother-in-law in New Jersey: "Have you heard from them. Are they OKAY?"

I call Rob: 'COME HOME.' I awake Dan in Madison: 'Put on the television right away. There has been an attack on the World Trade Center in NYC. We haven't yet heard from them.' The painter checks in, then leaves.

Adam. Kelly. I feel a rising panic, just as Alexis returns my email: They are ALL RIGHT. Tremendous relief. One by one, we get the all clear from friends and family with children in New York and Washington. We are the lucky ones; many are not.

Something stirs within me. I've just spent 10 days in New York City. I cannot desert this beloved city, my birthplace. I want to help, I want to feel the warm cheeks of Adam and Kelly, and I want to go. Colleagues do not respond to my idea that, as mental health workers, we should rent a van and head for New York. Rob does after a call from Reuters, driving himself there, and helping out a company he just finished training in Ann Arbor. Six weeks later, I join the Red Cross and spend 12 intense days helping families.

It was an unforgettable, transformative experience.

Today, for some reason on this particular anniversary, I am drawn backward, to the families I met, and tried-- in vain--to help.

What do I find on the Internet?

That John Burnside's remains were found 10 days after I finished my work as a Red Cross worker, and visited his widow Sandra on the upper East Side.

That Lucia Crifasi, whose Italian mother could not face me when I came to the house, now has a street named after her in Queens, at 69th Street and Myrtle Avenue

That the parents of Yelena Melnichenko from Lithuania have been denied access to Yelena's young son, Erik, whom I met with his young widowed father.

That only partial remains of Jeanette Menichino were found, but her mother volunteers at the Tribute Museum I visited last year at Ground Zero, and her husband Anthony, so desperately suicidal when I met him, is probably still alive.

That the common-law husband of Ruth Ketler, the poet Robert Dow, seems never to have published again.

That Anthony Luparello's daughter attended the trial of Moussaoui, 2006. I helped her daughter make a trip to Ground Zero to see where her grandfather was killed.

No spaces exist between one moment in time, and the next. For all of these families, 9/11/2001 is right next to 9/11/2008.

...to say good- bye to Ruby

Today, our little Jack Russell Ruby will spend her full last day on earth. I say earth, because when a living thing dies, it's not too clear what happens.

Ruby may live on in some other way, in our memory. Her spirit may blow in on a cloud, or a sudden gust of wind. Or she could reincarnate into another black and white animal, like the zebra I saw in Africa last month.



Ruby doesn't know that we plan to say a final good-bye to her tomorrow at the vets, unless a miracle happens and her boundless, independent spirit returns in the next 24 hours, AND she becomes continent again.

Does she guess this is why yesterday, I pulled a precious t-bone out of the freezer for her to gnaw on, and why last night we took her to the Dairy Queen with our young neighbor girls, and gave Ruby the true love of her life, ice cream? Has she figured out why we are taking her to her beloved park every day, even though she has stopped leading us around, and, like lots of older beings, doesn't want to get too far from the car?

These little treats are part of our good-bye to her. I try to carry her around a lot, nuzzle my nose until her neck, just memorize her woodsy smell, and the feel of her scratchy fur on my cheek. When she ambles into the kitchen I bend down to smooth her back and tickle her behind the ears. She is following me around, like a small puppy, like my elder parents who like to keep track of me, nearly every day.



Memories of Ruby as a puppy are crowding in: the way she slowly walked up to us at the kennel in Tecumseh, not wanting to look too eager, or not trusting that we would love her. See, she was the last to adopted in her litter, because her head was all black. I don't know why people found that unattractive. We loved it, just like we loved her combination of affection-seeking, and independence. We didn't love her fur though. It was unruly and wirey, and she looked like a small, squat sheep if we didn't have her groomed like the runt terrier she was.

Some runt: she ran on three legs when chasing a squirrel, and killed her share of little furry animals. One day she got a squirrel, killed it quick, and when Rob went to the garage for a shovel to bury the victim, Ruby got busy. Rob searched high and low for the dead animal, Ruby following him around all innocent-like. It wasn't until the squirrel's tail gave it away, sticking straight up from the shallow grave Ruby dug in under 30 seconds.

There were more endearing traits: She loved to sleep on the top of bed pillows,



and laid still for nearly an hour if Rob stroked her stomach.

Dan was her favorite: she hoisted herself up on two legs for him when he greeted her, and licked his face when he bent down. She was front and center at Adam and Kelly's wedding, not to be forgotten, depositing a turd right in front of the wedding arch, minutes before the ceremony

When Ruby is scared, she puts one paw on my foot, for security, or tries to climb up my legs. Once she jumped on her high bed as a call for help, her head swollen with a bad sore. This spring, she howled if I went outside and left her indoors, and camped under the computer table while I worked.

These was her only signs of vulnerability. Introduced into a household that already held a large blond Lab, Ruby decided to be top dog.
She dominated Lucy, and our neighbor's Lab Remington, until Lucy herself grew old, and lame. Larger dogs in the park came to avoid her; she had a way of grabbing them by the jowls and hanging on.

People seemed to love her, though. Some begged for a chance to housesit, like our wacky painter and his family who drove her to Grand Rapids and let her swim in a friend's swimming pool. She was cute, like a little toddler.

Some toddler. Ruby was always on the kill, and alert for bushy-tailed animals like the fox. We once had one in the neighborhood; it walked down our road in broad daylight, daring Ruby to find him.

I'm sorry she never chased a fox, and had to settle for squirrels. Now she's very old, she's ill with kidney disease, and the pleasure parts of her life, like a faux-fox chase, are over. It's time we helped her along to wherever she'll land in the universe. I'd like to believe in reincarnation, or heaven, during times like these. I'd like to believe that Ruby will join Lucy, and Al, who loved dogs.


We were never such dog lovers, Rob and I, people being too interesting and compelling and rewarding. But we liked tending, we loved our animals, and I don't know what we'll do about that.

Today I begin to pack away some of our dog things: coat brushes, beds, trimmers, carrying cases. They will go in the attic next to the flattened crib, and broken wagon, and high chair, for the next generation of children, and dogs, if there is one. I don't have a replacement strategy, not yet.

But it won't be a new dog. Maybe when we're in our 80's, and moving around less, and not wanting to think about our inevitable future, we'll need the challenge of a pet. But not now, not yet.

DUMBO

What's it gonna take to spend more time in New York City? I have to, on three counts: Adam and Kelly, my obsession with returning to my ancestors' past, and the sheer excitement of new ideas (like a media company wants a piece of the Rwanda project).

On Reason Number Two: I did not walk to Hudson Avenue yesterday, when Adam and I visited DUMBO. So much of the surrounding area has chi-chi-ed. Amber-lit bars stuffed with vintage chairs and hardware. Sleek, spare storefronts teasing young couples with carefully placed, just-cool-enough furniture and clothes. These are the nouveaux rich, needing pet bakeries, chocolateries, pris fixes restaurants with white tablecloths set inside tall brick warehouses, carefully preserved.

I did not want to see what had happened to Hudson Avenue, our son's grandfather's birthplace, a cobble-stoned street sliding down to the East River. I want to remember it like I saw it in 2006 before the explosion of high-end housing and shops: a simple, nearly dilapidated three-story frame dwelling, next to a row of others looking just like it. Last I checked, they cost $500,000 each. Adam tells me that this area, Vinegar Hill and DUMBO is the priciest part of Brooklyn.

What do the stock analysts and surgeons make of this: On Front Street, a local rich developer has built a large room for a large restored carousel, his wife's pet project. I stood there transfixed. It retains all it its old-world grandeur: the carved seats and horses, painted in pale pastels, even the music playing in the background.

Except, it's a diorama. One stands behind red ropes and the only the play button is fitted inside your imagination. Pale-faced Irish and German-American women in long skirts covering the hind ends of the horses, their straw hats with ribbons whipping about, stout old women with brooches and white handkerchiefs sprouting from their bosoms, sitting in the fixed carriages, their smiles taking them back, back, to when they jumped on and jumped off carousels as children.

I want it to be true that my grandparents take Petra and Theodore and Fred to whirl on this carousel, only blocks from home. Why? What am I hoping for? Everlasting life?