Karen's Journey

I don't remember when my grandmother's macular degeneration began. I do remember her as a seemingly normally sighted person. I have memories of riding in the front seat of her tank of a Ford Fairlane car while she was driving -- I was five, maybe six, sitting in the middle where there was no seatbelt, and she cautioned me that if we were to crash or stop suddenly, I was to keep myself from flying out the front window by bracing my hand and arm against the dashboard. She was a master seamstress -- I'm not quite sure when I got my first store bought dress -- I remember my other grandmother taking me to the Big N and buying me one when I was in first grade or so, probably feeling terribly sorry for me. But Grandma Whitman's sewing skills were second to none, and our dresses were top quality. We had dresses that were hand-smocked. Even in her day, no one did that by hand -- other than her. And her work was exquisite. On my first day of kindergarten, Big Sis and I wore m...

It started on a Thursday afternoon in July. Something didn't seem quite right about how I was seeing my computer screen. I occasionally have ophthalmic migraines, so I thought I must be coming down with one. Usually the first sign is realizing I'm missing a tiny part of my field of vision. I can't quite read a word or a number. It's not that there's a black spot; there's just nothing where something should be. I closed my eyes and looked for the telltale pinprick of light. It wasn't there. I looked at my screen again and tried to find an area of vision that was missing, but I couldn't pick one out. I was busy, so I shrugged it off and went back to work. The next morning I opened my eyes while in the shower washing my hair. Directly across from me was the white fiberglass wall of the tub. And a circular shaped burst of rays of shimmering light, like prisms sparkling in the sun. Great. I hadn't eaten breakfast yet and here was the ophthalmic migr...

Because it's Gorgeous. I know, groan.  But seriously. This trail never disappoints.  The kids had a great time, although Bumblebee was heard to exclaim, "More stairs! I don't want to do any more stairs!" Even though she repeatedly had to be stopped from running up them. She would have done the trail three or four times before we wore her out. This was a spontaneous trip -- a rare chance to meet up with my family in my neck of the woods. These are times when I remind myself it's not all gun-metal gray skies and snow. Reason number two to love Ithaca -- it's a vegetarian's paradise. We were hungry and needed to stop for lunch on our way back home. Yes! On the road and not needing to hit up a Burger King for lunch! I spied the Ithaca Bakery -- where it's hard to limit oneself to fewer than five or six loaves of gourmet bread. A quick left turn and we were in the parking lot where I wanted to dance a jig for joy. Real fo...

I spent ten years in an emotionally and verbally abusive marriage. Here's a small sample of the daily barrage I endured: "As soon as I have enough money, I'm going to divorce you." "You're not a good enough wife to be a mother." "How fucking stupid can you be?" "Nicole Brown Simpson got what she deserved." "If you ever pull that [trying to leave our relationship] I'd do the same to you." (every time a news story broke about a woman assaulted or killed in a domestic violence incident.) "You stupid cunt. You stupid fucking cunt." "We can't have kids until you're a better wife to me." "No one else will want ever want you." "You're the most selfish person I know." (because I went running for 30 minutes three days a week) "If you loved me, you'd spend that time helping me, not doing something for yourself." "Wake up -- I can't get t...

I was blissfully away on workation last week when all hell broke loose on young black men. I stay away from news when I'm on retreat in the mountains, so I have to confess to not having an in-depth knowledge of each case. But, I know enough to be angry and I know enough to be frightened for my son. When we were considering adoption, we knew we wanted to adopt a boy. Then we were asked about race. My initial reaction was to not adopt a child of color -- whether from this country or internationally. "What do I know about raising a black boy in America?" I said to the social worker. But as things happen, we were eventually led to Ethiopia where we brought home with us one of the cutest boys ever. With skin I just want to eat up -- the color of milk chocolate -- but a color that, once he reaches a certain age -- will put him in jeopardy just because it's not white. I was hopeful -- we had an African-American president. My son has never known a president whose skin...

I have a lot to say about the Hobby Lobby case -- piercing the corporate veil, favoring one religion over another and thus de facto establishing religion, entering a minefield, corporations being granted rights that our forefathers intended to be given to flesh and blood humans, our flawed system of obtaining healthcare coverage through our employers -- but I find the reaction of many men to be rather offensive. The comments after various articles and blogs about the topic have included gleeful statements along the lines of: -- Women need to go back to putting their legs together. -- Women will have to do as my grandmother used to say and put an aspirin between their knees. -- Women will have to stop spreading their legs. -- If women don't want to become pregnant, why should I have to pay for it? Let the whores/tramps/sluts buy their own birth control. And the very disturbing: -- "If they want to have sex, women will have to start taking it in the mouth or the butt....

View from our front yard, 1971. The row of trees follows the brook,  from which we were often summoned by the cowbell. My mother is aging and not in the best of health. We have sadly come to the place where she can no longer live by herself in the house we grew up in. She needs to downsize to move into a different situation where she can get the assistance she needs to continue to live as independently as possible. Over the course of the last few years -- at her suggestion - we have been preemptively laying claim to the antiques that have been passed down through the family for generations -- in some instances since the 18th century. It's been very civilized -- oldest to youngest and then youngest to oldest. Rockers, marble top tables, paintings, etc. have been divvied up without any conflict. We decided that since there are four of us and four early 19th century samplers, each one of us gets one.  The piano was always promised to whoever learned to pla...