The Constancy Waltz

Life is not offering much in the way of fun and encouragement these days, so the thing to do is sing. So here's one of my songs.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, someone said to me, "I'm making a list of people who I want to be in the nursing home with me, and you're on it." I thought this was a high compliment, and in the spirit of that compliment, I wrote this song.
It's as much about friendship as romantic love - it's about marriage, and other challenging relationships.
I made a video last night that I am replacing with a new one. In this one I remember all the words! Yay!

A brief word about my hair: this is how it looks right after I wash it these days. It has taken two years to get it this long. I had the idea that I could be this aging hippie woman with long flying frizzy gray locks. So far, so good. Then I thought I could let it get long, and then cut off the length and donate it to one of those organizations that make wigs for people who have lost their hair for medical reasons. It seemed like the most effortless way of doing good. What could be easier or cheaper than letting your hair grow? Well, for whatever reason, it's long and some days, like this morning, I want to grab hold of it and whack it off, but I haven't yet. One of the cool things about it - people don't recognize me with long hair. Kinda fun to walk through a small town where you've lived for decades and not be recognized.
Song: The Constancy Waltz, copyright 1987, 2010, Mary Litchfield Tuel. All rights reserved.

Why Don't I Get a Job?

This question has been directed to me so many times lately that I thought I would address it.
Yes, we are in dire straits financially. Rick, my husband, who was our sole support, has been unable to work since last October 5. We have lived since then on the incredible kindness and generosity of friends and family, and what savings we had. It is truly mind-blowing, to use the idiom of my youth, how kind and generous people have been. Some have gone so far as to contribute more than once, which at this time, when we are in the gap between our resources and Rick's disability payments and my Social Security, means more than ever.
People who are not in a position to give money have given from their hearts – time and love and art and chocolate, gifts both tangible and intangible, which have carried us through.
The obvious question that occurs to many well-meaning (and perhaps some not so well-meaning, I'm not naming any names here) people, is, why don't I get a job?
The first time I was on the receiving end of this rather sharp question, I was flabbergasted. I muttered about how I couldn't work because of various physical disabilities – my crappy knee, my broken back, nerve damage, chronic fatigue, etc., none of which cut any ice with my interrogator. I should get a job sitting down. I should type envelopes at home.
“There, I fixed it.”
Now that I've been hit with the question a couple more times, I'm starting to get my smart ass together: “Oh, I dunno. I guess I'm just a slacker.”
Another answer might be to slap my head and say, “Why didn't I think of that? A job! Of course!”
Maybe as I get it more together I'll be able to put together a written response which I can print up and hand to people. This is a start on that response.
One friend suggested that I reply thus: “OK, you come over to my house and take over what I do. Fill out and copy and organize the paperwork for Social Security, DSHS, the Kidney Program, the hospital, the IRS, various doctors and utilities and whoever else is standing in line with a hand out for our identity, income, and intentions. Figure out how to pay the bills and balance the check book and buy the groceries on what money we have. Buy the groceries - make sure there's coffee and cheerios and toilet paper and paper towels - and the prescription drugs and other requirements of Rick's illness. Drive Rick to his various appointments, procedures, and surgeries. Wait while he's there, or run errands that need to be done. Cook meals, wash some dishes, keep laundry moving, sweep and vacuum floors now and then, pick up the mail, pay the taxes, licensing fees, insurance premiums, etc. Keep track of the paperwork and dates regarding the lawsuit that has been laid on us by the woman who fell off our porch and wants lots of money. Come on over and do this and whatever else that comes up – cleaning out the perennially clogged storm drain, feeding the dog, making copies and typing dictation for Rick – do all that for me, and by golly, I will go look for a job.”
Of course I am fat and 61 and half crippled and don't have a degree and don't know all the computer programs that are mentioned in the job advertisements, but what the hell, I can get some shit-paying clerical work I suppose. Maybe. I hear it's hard to find a job these days, but it's usually easier to find a shit job.
If all I had to do was go to work and come home, it would be a nice break. Unfortunately, if I had a job, I'd still have to do all that other stuff, and I'm already pretty tired.
So that's pretty much why I don't get a job.

How Can I Keep From Singing?

Women, Women & Song used to sing this song, in three-part harmony. We started our first concert with it, and we ended our last concert with it.
You might say the song resonated with me. I first heard it sung by Pete Seeger, long, long ago, and then by a lot of people, including me. I sang it during labor with my second son; I sang it in the ambulance on the way to the hospital after my car accident ten years ago. The singing seemed to ease the pain.
It's a great song, and I know that I am only one of many who love it.

Happy Birthday, JD

Photos: John Devon at age 6 days, January 11, 1982, and John Devon and his baby, Allysan, last March.
Our older son, John Devon, or JD as he goes, was born 28 years ago tomorrow morning. A friend told me the other day that she had found a 1982 journal which she never used, and hey, guess what? 1982 and 2010 are the same! So she's using her 1982 journal this year.
So it was on a rainy Monday night 28 years ago I was lying on the couch watching a PBS version of “The Elephant Man.” It was a play, I think – it was not the movie of the same name which starred John Hurt and was a big hit at the time. So I was lying on the couch when I felt a “woosh” of water coming out of me.
Oh great, I thought. I've finally lost complete control of my bladder.
So I went to empty out what was left in my bladder, I thought, and was most intrigued to see little white specks of something floating around in the urine. I called my midwife, Susan Anemone, to report this strange turn of events, and she said, “Oh! Your water's broken! You're going to go into labor!” She was very chipper about it. I was stunned.
You'd think that nine months would be enough to prepare for giving birth. That's what nature gives you, more or less, in the usual order of things. I had wallowed in being pregnant. Loved to go around telling people how much I was enjoying pregnancy, I felt great, and that was true. When I was pregnant, my migraines went away, for one thing, and that was like being let out of prison. So I loved it. I read books and waddled around with a big grin and generally acted and felt like I was the only woman who had ever conceived a child. So, hurray, pregnancy.
Of course there was that point about half way through when I sat down and sobbed because of the lonely truth that there was only one way that baby was coming out, and it wasn't going to feel good. I was scared of labor. I was even more scared of how my life would be after the baby came. I would never have a private moment again. My days of puttering around the quiet house with classical music playing in the background were going to be over. These are the fears of a person who had never had much to do with children. I was right about that loss of privacy and solitude, but oh well.
There was a huge storm that night of January 4-5. We were swamped with snow. Down in California the rains were torrential. Mudslides in the Santa Cruz Mountains killed people that night, and elsewhere Highway 101 was closed by slides. I've heard since that many babies are born on stormy nights. Something about the drop in the barometric pressure, or something, sets off labor.
We were snowed in and all the plumbing frozen for days after John Devon was born. I finally begged, nagged, and entreated Rick to make it possible for me to take a bath. He took pity and thawed out the plumbing. I showered and was so happy.
But that night, that snowy stormy night, there I was about to be a mother and not believing it. Could this really be happening? Proof was soon to strike in the form of labor.
The first contraction hit about ten to midnight, and hit is the right word. Holy gazoly. There was no gradual build-up in intensity, it was just bang, hard labor, right now. Contractions that knocked me down and took my wallet.
Rick timed the contractions and breathed with me, and after a while we thought we should call Susan and ask her to come. She lived two or three miles up the Westside Highway from us. She was one of the founders of the Seattle Midwifery School, and the plan was for one of her partners to catch a ferry and come over when I went into labor. Well, it was two in the morning and there was a raging blizzard. She realized that she was going to have to improvise.
Susan woke up her husband, Barry, bundled up their nine-week-old son, Gabriel, and they traveled the two or three miles to our house in the snow. It took them about 45 minutes.
By this time I was completely lost in labor. My leg muscles were quivering like jelly and I really didn't see how I was going to make it through, but somewhere in there I decided that since I'd made it this far, I might as well carry on. Nice when reason decides to defer to reality.
Susan put Gabriel to bed in the crib that was waiting for our baby, and she and Barry and Rick were my team, coaching me, encouraging me, telling me what a good job I was doing. About five in the morning she said I was ready to push, and I did, for about forty minutes, and then, at ten to six in the morning of January 5, 1982, almost exactly six hours after the first contraction, our baby boy came out to meet the outer world.
He was, of course, the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen. We were instantly in love, absolutely mad with adoration for this child. Barry and Rick pulled the labor sheets off the bed, and removed the plastic sheeting that had kept a set of sheets underneath clean, and baby John Devon and I crawled in to have a well-deserved rest, after first calling the relatives, of course. Susan and Barry took Gabriel (who had slept through the whole thing) home.
The world outside was a snowy wonderland, and the world inside was the world of baby love. We were well and truly besotted, as most new parents are, and so taken with this tiny miracle.
Another midwife had given me the lowdown on children when I was pregnant: “This kid is going to give you some knocks.” I'm not sure why she said it; maybe I was so naive that she felt the need to slap me around with a little reality. I was a little shocked, and a little hurt. My baby was an angel, my baby...
Well, 28 years on I'd say she had a good point, but I'm not sure I needed to hear it mid-pregnancy. The dashing of parental dreams happens in its own time, naturally. Babies turn out to be children, and children become teenagers, and teenagers become adults, and by that time a parent's innocent dreams of long ago are a dim memory. I know I had them. They have been overwritten by 28 years of days.
JD, it was a good day when you were born. We were so happy. We had never loved anybody like we loved you, and that memory is not dim at all. It is bright and I can feel that love all over again thinking about that time.
Happy 28th Birthday, kid.

Precious Lord

I meant to get this up last Saturday, for Alice's birthday. A belated happy birthday, Alice.
Today's selection is "Precious Lord," composed by Thomas Andrew Dorsey(born July 1, 1899, Villa Rica, Ga., U.S. — died Jan. 23, 1993, Chicago, Ill.) He was a songwriter, singer, and pianist, known as the "father of gospel music." Born the son of a revivalist preacher, Dorsey was influenced by blues pianists in the Atlanta area. After moving to Chicago in 1916, he appeared under the name of "Georgia Tom," became a pianist with Ma Rainey, and composed secular "hokum" songs (those peppered with risqué double entendres). In 1916 he moved to Chicago, where he attended the College of Composition and Arranging. In the 1920s he toured with Ma Rainey and his own bands, often featuring the slide guitarist Tampa Red.
He wrote his first gospel song in 1919. In 1931, Dorsey experienced great personal tragedy. The death in childbirth of both his wife and newborn son devastated him. As he related in the documentary "Say Amen Somebody," "People tried to tell me things that were soothing to me … none of which have ever been soothing from that day to this." Out of that tragedy he wrote "Precious Lord," the song for which he is best known.
In 1932 he abandoned the blues completely and founded the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago. His more than 1,000 gospel songs include "Precious Lord, Take My Hand," "Peace in the Valley," and "If We Ever Needed the Lord Before." He recorded extensively in the early 1930s. Many of his songs were introduced by Mahalia Jackson. He founded and directed the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses.
Credits : Frank Driggs Collection/© Archive Photos; Brittanica.com]

Mary Sings the Rose of Tralee

Well, dear hearts, this is an experiment.
I'm not writing much of my own these days - too busy running around to all the appointments and other obligations which life has so rudely imposed upon us. So I thought I might start recording some songs here on the blog.
This is my first effort - recorded with the headphone mic, so it's a little over-driven.
Aside from the technical roughness, this old song is a favorite of mine (and Rick's). I learned it to sing at the funeral of Alex Brannon. She asked me years ago to sing it at her funeral - it was her father's favorite song, she said, or at least one of his favorite songs, and that's what she wanted. When someone asks you to sing at their funeral you answer, "Of course! Yes! You bet I will!"
But that was years ago, and you can imagine my astonishment and consternation when Alex died last winter and I was called and told I needed to sing this song for her funeral. I had not learned it, alas.
But I learned it then, and sang it for the funeral, and have sung it a lot since. Once this tune wends its way into your head, you're hooked. It is charming, that's all I can say, and I hope you enjoy it.
And please get back to me with whether you think posting song videos is a good idea, and any suggestions. I'm on track to do it. I don't think I can do any material that is not my own, or public domain, and that's OK because I'm not getting any younger and when I go so will my songs. Except of course for The Way of Sex, which seems to have got up and flown around the world. Not that I get any credit for it, but it's nice to know I was the channel for a song so many people can relate to, and laugh with. Maybe that's the one I'll do next, if this works.
If I can't get it up on the blog, I may have to go to YouTube, but we'll see.

Happy Thanksgiving

Greetings from the Northwest Kidney Center in West Seattle. We are celebrating Thanksgiving with a round of dialysis for Rick. We're feeling good because the urologist found no new cancer yesterday (yay).
I would have to say that this is the strangest or at least more out-of-character Thanksgiving I've ever experienced. Instead of working all day Wednesday and Thursday to put up a meal with all the trimmings, we spent Wednesday going to the urologist, trying to go to Costco but giving up because the parking lot was crammed full and it didn't seem worth the effort, a stop at Daniel Smith's artist supplies to get Rick some non-photo blue pencils and some pencil water colors. He told me that the last time he got some of those was in Germany, almost 50 years ago.
Then we stopped by Staples to get him some pencil-top erasers, because the non-photo blue pencils are eraser-less, and Target so I could get some naproxen sodium, and then we headed to the ferry after our full day in town.
And this morning we got up and caught a ferry back to town so Rick could do dialysis. I have been waiting to talk to someone about scheduling. Yesterday while we were gone we got a call from the scheduler here at the Kidney Center informing us that Rick would change to a Tues-Thurs-Sat schedule next week. Unfortunately, he is already scheduled for surgery next Thursday, so that's a conflict.
His surgery is to have an arterial-venous fistula put in. This is a procedure that ties an artery into a vain in the arm so the vein is made larger by the increased volume of blood, and then the vein is used for plugging in dialysis needles. Aren't you glad you asked?
Sooo...we need to work this out. Rick said yesterday that the hardest part of renal failure may turn out to be scheduling conflicts.
Yeah. That and the fear of DEATH.
It's almost one o'clock and Rick is about halfway through his dialysis. Roy & Becky invited me over to Roy's Aunt Margaret's, so I need to get moving here. I have not been able to get the attention of the charge nurse to talk about the scheduling problem. I need to do that, as well.
More later, as always.