Widow Update

It seems like I’ve spent the first year since Steve died either in a daze, taking care of the business of being a widow, or running around frantically doing my best to avoid the reality of being alone. Now I’m home, no trips or adventures on the horizon, and I’m feeling newly overwhelmed by the loss. It’s as if I’ve woken up to my real life. I'm standing at the edge of a great big hole where my husband stood. How do I fill that up.

Tossing and Turning

To sleep can be a challenge and last night was exemplary. I read myself to bed at midnight, burrowed into my covers and dived down into sleep like a rock. And then at 4 in the morning, I rose back to the surface only it was still dark and there were hours to go before I had to wake up. There is nothing more anxiety producing than looking at the clock and calculating how much time I have left to try to sleep. Should I just turn on the light and pick up my book? Or shut my eyes and my brain and will myself back to the deep?

I can barely remember those long ago days of sleeping coast to coast. Getting up past noon and not even feeling guilty about it. Waking up to a bright midday sun, feeling lazy and loving it.

A Former Life

In a former life some 10 years ago, I was an executive or at least an executive director. I woke up every morning and put on my uniform--a suit with big shoulders and a short skirt and high heeled shoes. I put on makeup, gelled my hair and walked to my office where I had a soft pretzel and diet coke at my desk for breakfast. Ugh.

Tonight I went to a reception for a friend and colleague that I knew from those days. I couldn’t put on a suit—I’ve given them all away—but I did wear something other than jeans or yoga pants and I did put on make up. I felt like an alien. I knew no one. And no one knew me. The room was full of men in full corporate regalia—ill-fitting suits, dress shirts and shiny ties. The women were dressed in pencil skirts or pants with bright colored jackets, this era’s uniform. Everyone looked old, even the young people.

I had a drink, listened to the speeches, congratulated my friend and came back home to my current life where no uniforms are required.

Dental Logic

I still have a baby tooth. It’s never fallen out, never been under my pillow, because there’s no adult tooth underneath my gums pushing it out. Only now it’s loose, really loose, and my dentist insists it has to go. I’ll be sorry to lose it, the sole vestige of my much younger self. I’m a little nervous, almost superstitious, about getting rid of this tooth. I’ve had it for over 60 years. (Notice I don’t say for exactly how long I’ve had it.) When it goes, will that mean I am irrevocably an adult, no chance at ever being young again?

I felt like a child at the dentist today. He said a weird thing to me today after peering into my mouth and passing final judgment on my baby tooth. “How are you managing?” he asked. And then as if answering his own question, he said, “You look great. You’re a real cutie pie. Have you started dating yet?” I’m still puzzling over that equation. And I still have all my teeth.

The War Against Women Continues

Years ago when I was Executive Director of Pennsylvania's Campaign for Choice, a state wide, bipartisan pro-choice political action committee, we tried valiantly to unseat Joe Pitts, a leader of the anti-choice faction in the state legislator. Unfortunately, our efforts to defeat him failed and now he has moved on to bigger and better things in the US House of Representatives as sponsor of HR 358, otherwise known as the "Protect Life Act," but basically a bill that would allow hospitals to let women die rather than perform a life-saving abortion.

Please read this article for a recap of what went down. And then get angry.

Wake up women of America! Congress wants to kill you.

Money Ball

I have made a decision. I am no longer making any political contributions. That means no money to Obama, to Elizabeth Warren, to Allyson Schwartz and to any other Democrats running for state or federal office no matter how much I like them personally or support their positions. I’ll vote for them and I’ll urge others to do so but I can no longer participate in a system that allows people like the Koch brothers and other like minded plutocrats to buy elections. I don’t know what put me over the edge. Maybe it was the article I just read in this week’s New Yorker by Jane Mayer. She writes about Art Pope, a conservative multimillionaire in North Carolina, who has used his cash to virtually buy the state and subvert the democratic process. This is nothing new, I know, but suddenly I’ve had it and I don’t want to part of it.

I’m going to give my money to issues I support and organizations I feel strongly about like Women’s Medical Fund.

I keep thinking how we ran out to Broad Street to celebrate the night Obama was elected. We couldn't believe our good fortune. What a difference he was going to make. Oh well.

Yom Kippur

Yesterday was Yom Kippur and for the first time in years I fasted. Not from any religious conviction I must admit but largely because I had spent the last five days in London, doing copious amounts of eating and drinking. I’ve been to London many times but this visit it really struck me what serious boozers the English are. Maybe it was because the weather was unseasonably warm and dry but every night at every pub there were crowds of people jamming the sidewalks drinking and smoking. (Do they not believe in cancer in London?) Maybe it was because I stayed in Soho but it seemed to me that every other storefront on so many streets was a restaurant, café or bar and all of them doing a good business. Anyway, the net result was when I wasn’t being a good cultural tourist, I, too was indulging in the national pastime. Somehow fasting on Yom Kippur seemed like a good transition back into normal life.

The Biddies Do Iceland

Iceland. They should it call it Waterland. I have never been so wet in my life. Everywhere you look there is water: Waterfalls large and small cascading down the mountains, lava fields dotted with geysers sending up plumes of steam and thermal pools filled with bubbling hot water rich in minerals. Jane and I have done it all. We've oohed and aahed at the waterfalls; we've filled our water bottles with "happy water" from a naturally carbonated pool where the water is high in lithium; we've bathed in a thermal pool with supposedly healing powers. And we've done all this and more in monsoon conditions--pouring rain and gale force winds. The only thing we haven't done is seen the northern lights. The skies have been dark and cloudy for our entire visit.

Somehow we have had the best of times, laughing as we walked on the beach in search of seals and the rain turned to sleet and hail pelting us with ice cold water. The seals were smart. They stayed away. A real plus has been the fantastic food we have eaten every night. Who knew that Iceland would turn out to be a foodie paradise especially for two avowed pescatarians. Thanks most of all to Ymir and Heppa, our new best friends in Iceland, for a truly magical experience.