Monday, March 25, 2024

URBAN BEAUTY

I will never not miss walking in my former neighborhoods--the relatively rural suburbs of Bothell and Lake Forest Park. During the daytime I was always aware of animal life--there was always something to listen to, from hawks, robins, and eagles to crows, geese, and sparrows. Squirrels, both gray and red, could be heard scolding during the day and owls hooted or cayotes howled at night. 

It was impossible to forget we shared the earth with all God's critters. Not infrequently I'd stop to admire a spider's astonishingly symmetrical web or the teeth marks of active beavers working along the Sammamish River. 

Now that I live in a densely cemented urban neighborhood, I hear sirens more than any other sound, with seagulls, pigeons and an occasional crow being mostly the only birds sounds.  I still stop to admire and investigate interesting sights when I'm walking, however. This scene stopped me cold in my tracks! Had the feet of a monster been cast into this pipe?  Five toes each on what looked like two claws were sticking out of the middle of this pipe stacked at a construction site.

On the same day, I noticed other things, too--more natural, perhaps, but especially evident because of the location. The light and shadow on the vertical surface of a building in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood caught my eye. I paused to take in the contrast of light and shadows on the side of the structure. It was a lovely momentary gift of visual delight in a world of concrete. Just seeing it made me feel calm.
And then I looked up. Pure blue sky with a hint of contrail diagonally slashing across it was stunning.

There is beauty everywhere, if only we can see it. Sometimes I am absorbed by my own thoughts, my own dilemmas, problems, and busy-ness that I don't see anything but the figurative 'do list' that I carry around with me everywhere. When I meditate, I think of the people in my life who bring me joy and delight, but can easily forget to look up and around . . .  beyond the cracks and detritus of urban sidewalks to see the majesty (and even monster feet!) hiding out in plain sight. Note to self: LOOK UP! 

Monday, March 18, 2024

From the ARCHIVES: 2004 (before FaceTime)

At last I have what I’ve been coveting—a long distance relationship. My love, an almost three-year-old named Katie, lives in Minneapolis, and I am 1,700 miles away. Today on the telephone she asked, “Grandma, when are you coming over to my house.”  And I, hard-pressed in March to put my anticipated June visit into a timeframe she could understand, felt my heart leap with gladness. While I don’t wish even a smidgen of sadness in her life, I was thrilled to know she was pining for me. Oh, the joy of reciprocated love!

I have had just a handful of visits with Katie, many of them short. I compensate, as most grandparents do, by surrounding myself with pictures, so she prances across my computer screen at home, and grins from my tack-board at work. From the comments my cubicle-visitors make, her dimpled, contagious smile is a good antidote to taking our corporate business too seriously.

Challenged to build a relationship over the miles, I’ve done all the standard “grandma things.” I even made her a picture-book for her first birthday depicting our daily lives in Seattle. (My favorite is the posed shot of her grandpa taking out the garbage.)  But how does a grandmother bond with her grandchild when the grandma’s squeezy hugs and cushiony lap are so far away?

When Katie was just two, we had our shortest visit ever—just hours long—on the occasion of her baby sister’s christening. We spent much of our visit chasing each other in the reception area of the luncheon place. First Katie tried to catch me as I pretended to run as fast as my big, thick-wasted grandma-body could. Then I pretended to try catching her while she ran as fast as her little, diapered, toddler-body could. I don’t know who was more tired when we were done, but we both had a wonderful time.

A week later when her father took her out to a neighborhood restaurant for breakfast, an older woman with short gray hair similar to mine walked past their table. “Grandma, come back here!” she called out, and when the woman didn’t respond she called out again with urgency. Her father tried to explain that the woman wasn’t Grandma, but Katie wasn’t convinced. I thought my heart would break when I heard that, but oddly, within the same week a small boy in a supermarket cart called out to me, “Grammy,” as I passed him. His mother embarrassedly shushed him. “Does his grandma look a little bit like me?” I asked.  His mother nodded. I surmised that he probably didn’t see his grandma very often, either.

Only recently has Katie wanted to come to the phone when I call her parents. We have brief but deeply satisfying conversations in which we continue a game we’ve developed over several visits. I put on my silly voice and say “Egg, egg, egg,” just like the finger-puppet bunny says when it’s on my finger, and she laughs. It’s as cause-and-effect predictable as the moon and the tide. Grandma says “Egg, egg, egg,” and Katie laughs. I have to take what’s mine.

During my January visit this year I noticed how much she enjoyed the occasional cookie that her parents allow her, so I shipped homemade Valentine’s cookies to Minneapolis. Because I was worried that the postal trip would turn heart-shapes into crumb-shapes, I folded each cookie in its own waxed-paper wrap. A few days after the cookies were all eaten, Katie opened a kitchen drawer, took out the roll of waxed paper and laid it on the kitchen table. When her parents asked her what she was doing, she told them she put it there “because Grandma needs waxed paper.“

That anecdote probably makes me the only person in Seattle who gets teary-eyed at the sight of a roll of waxed paper. But we have made such progress! Tonight, after a round of “Egg, egg, egg,” on the telephone, when Katie asked me when I was coming to her house, I realized we’d reached a new level of our relationship.  Dear little girl, I’ll be there as soon as I can, and I can hardly wait.

Copyright © 2024 Sara J. Glerum


Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Once again, how looking up can lift us up

It had been a gray morning--sky wrapped in in its typical for Seattle gray-toned, February shroud. After six or seven errands in North Seattle, I was finally ready to head back home. On a whim, I stopped at my favorite Seattle iconic fast-food hamburger joint, Dick's Drive-in, to get one of my favorite foods, the strawberry milkshake (made with REAL milk and ice cream). After all, it was lunchtime.

As I sat in the car, sucking the deliciously thick drink through a biodegradable straw, I realized the sky now was partly sunny with a lot of blue sky appearing. The huge pine tree that was growing on the other side of the fence where I was parked loomed with such gorgeous contrast, I was compelled to take this photo.

An ordinary day made special by sitting still and looking up. Sometimes it takes a strawberry milkshake, or something comparable, to slow us down and realize beauty so often overlooked.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

PARTY TIME! Archives from fifty-plus years ago

My sister saved a lot of correspondence from me over the years, and returned a bundle last year while downsizing from her home to a retirement community. I've just began to look through the folded papers, and this one took me back to a memorable event: Jay's surprise birthday party in August of 1968.

Before I explain the circumstances, I must apologize to myself (and my readers) for some of the fifty-year-old insensitivities expressed in this invitation. I am appalled to realize how unaware I was (as was the era) of outdated and demeaning language, inappropriate assumptions, and careless use of words that would be far more carefully appropriated nowadays! In a sense, the invitation is a time capsule encompassing more than just one person's life and memory.

 . . . and now to the story . . .  

Jay was not happy as his twenty-ninth birthday approached. He told me he was feeling old--as if his life were not materializing the way he'd hoped it would. I could have taken it personally, but instead decided to cheer him up with a surprise party. I created invitations with my typewriter and carbon paper, then wrote what I hoped would look like a form that a doctor might complete when writing a prescription. Knowing this, you'll find the photo of the invite self explanatory.

The reason for the late start-time was bedtime. I wanted all four (ages 4-1/2 , 3, 2, and 3-mo.) to be sound asleep by the time the doorbell rang. Once asleep, all of them were generally good for the night, even the 3-month-old. It was a good bet; they slept through most of the party, and the several who did wake up got to meet and see the costumed "visiting doctors."

Our guests rose to the occasion, as well. We had a wide variety of medicine-related practitioners show up, including Dr. Scholl (my sister had created a way to wear a plastic foot on her head with a nametag), ranch veterinaries (a couple dressed like cowboys), butchers (another couple armed with cleavers and blood-stained aprons) who claimed to be able to cut out anything bad. We had a guy friend who came in drag as a nurse, and a female friend who came as herself when she got off her nursing shift from a nearby hospital, Sigmund Freud complete with notebook and pen, Dr. Quack (dressed like Donald Duck) and lots of others imaginative healthcare characters. Several friends showed up as themselves, but fortunately, they were not the first to arrive. The man who rang the doorbell as the first 'surprise' guest was an esteemed ex-professor who had retired and was costumed in such a way that Jay, answering the door, thought the man had truly lost his sensibility and was exhibiting signs of dementia.

Was Jay surprised? Totally. He had never had a surprise party thrown in his honor before. He had not expected anything, either. (I'd hidden away food at a neighbor's house, as well as having several friends bring food/drink/cups/plates, etc. with them, so there was nothing in our home to give away the party-planning.) Did it help Jay feel better about turning 29? Yes, I think it did. There's nothing like the affirmation of friends to realize that being one day older isn't anything to worry about.

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Hope and Love for Tig as Transformation Begins

At ten o'clock this morning, I stood outside in a heavy rainfall, contemplating what was simultaneously happening across town at Recompose.life. There the bodily remains of my firstborn, Tig, were beginning their transformation to human compost, the oldest and most earth friendly method of body disposal.

This morning at 10:00 Pacific Time, Tig's brothers and I took a few minutes to honor the beginning of the process that takes an average of two months. We were together emotionally, not physically, present as each of us honored Tig from afar with a few minutes of contemplative silence. 

Tig's wishes were explicit regarding what they wanted after death. They extracted a promise from me to choose composting for them instead of cremation. As willing as I was to make the promise and commit to fulfilling their last wishes in this regard, I had no idea how I would feel when the time came. Now I can say that, in addition to being eye-opening, it is an oddly comforting process, too. Realizing that Tig will be replenishing soil in southwestern Washington to nurture the rebirth of forestland is an oddly satisfying reality. It doesn't seem final or finite when there's a plan in place for physical rejuvenation of life forms.

After a few minutes of silence, I chose to play the original orchestration of Pachelbel's Canon in D from my phone to my blue-tooth hearing aids. I stood in the rain with the magnificent music flooding in, looking at the greenery within proximity and imagining this sixty-year-old person, my firstborn, becoming soil to nourish new life and help it flourish.

My blog post from December 8, 2010  (which can be accessed by clicking over the link) explains why I chose that particular piece of music. Canon in D still triggers all the hopes and dreams of motherhood held in that moment of first hearing it in 1979, as well as the intervening forty-five years.

May you rest in peace, dear Tig, aka Andrea Grace Glerum. I will always love you.


Tuesday, January 2, 2024

My dear firstborn

Andrea G. ("Tig") Glerum 
October 18, 1963 - December 25, 2023

With heavy heart I am sharing our sad family news: my firstborn offspring, Andrea (aka Tig), died on Christmas Day at home in Everett, Washington. I invite my friends and readers to click on the following link to learn more. Tig's Obituary at Ever Loved.com. 

Friday, December 22, 2023

A rainy reflection

For me, the word reflection conjures up perception of a quiet time. A peaceful mindset and intentional desire to understand meanings and feelings resulting from a personal experience. Sometimes I reflect on a book I've just read, or a poem. Sometimes it's what I see or hear from my window, and sometimes I reflect on why I'm feeling am angry, sad, or lonely. 

Today as I walked the city sidewalk near my home, I came across a puddle leftover from rain that had fallen steadily all morning. 

The sky was blue-ing up and the outdoor light felt bright and hopeful. As I approached the low spot in the sidewalk, I was struct by the physical reflection of the tree directly overhead. It was stunning. I'm not sure I had ever even noticed the trees on this particular block. As trees go, they express the stress of urban living as it dares anything natural to thrive. In looking down (to avoid stumbling on the uneven sidewalk), I saw something above me, and that realization made me consider a new dimension of personal reflection. This pooling on the ground of liquid that fell from the sky and the glasslike mirroring it provided on this temporary basis was an invitation to look up. And that is exactly what I try for with intentional interior reflection. Thank you, rain, for this wonderfully direct reminder.