A humor series on navigating this difficult time
I’m sharing another installment of a humor series from my friend Pam Goldman, centering on a woman named Ramona, who tries to help… in her own way. If you’re new to this series: Here’s the previous installment.
Things don’t have to be worse because there are 24 inches of snow on the ground. They can even be better, more beautiful with pure white crystals blanketing everything in sight.
K. is upstairs in his office taking a break from work. He’s on the Peloton cycling through the Tuileries Gardens in Paris on a perfect Spring day. I have cabin fever and am antsy for fresh air.
I must go outside. But where to go? I still don’t go into stores. It wouldn’t be worth the risk after keeping my distance for nearly a year.
I think back to my childhood and all the times I complained to my mother “There’s nothing to do,” as she stood at the kitchen sink, her back to me, washing dishes. (I saw a lot of her back; we were a family of five. There were a lot of dishes).
“Go play outside,” she’d say, not turning around for eye contact.
She passed away 13 years ago at age 90. You may have read in previous essays that she comes to visit me in the form of a bright red cardinal (indulge me), even in the cold.
“Ramona! Your mother’s here,” K. yelled when he spotted her from his office window last week. “Top of the Crabapple tree.”
I ran to the kitchen window; she had alighted high up on a snow-laden branch. I grabbed my iPhone and took a photo of her, striking as ever in her red finery against the pure white snow.
Half a century later I still hear her in my head. “Go play outside,” she tells me, a grandmother!
I feel a pang in my chest. She never knew my granddaughters.
The sky is cloudless and blue, the sun is shining brightly. I listen to my mother and put on my L.L.Bean snow boots, warm navy puffy jacket, gloves and a wool hat. I zip up and am ready to go play outside. I am determined to have a blast.
I walk up the hill that is our driveway, up and down, up and down, up and down, convinced the cardio benefit is enormous and life-extending. I’m a little breathless after the sixth ascent but nothing to call 911 about. The thought crosses my mind that our next door neighbors might see me and think I have early onset dementia but I keep going anyway, stopping to lean on the mailbox at the top of the hill to catch my breath. I listen to the exquisite quiet.
I do some lunge-like moves on the flat surface at the bottom of the driveway. It’s close to noon and while the sun is at its hottest, I face it, close my eyes and sunbathe, soaking in the warmth on my cheeks. I am delighted with myself for fifteen minutes, as I absorb natural Vitamin D, which absorbs calcium, which builds and maintains healthy bones and gives me confidence I won’t break them. Fun times.
I use bad judgement and decide to make a snow angel so I can take a selfie and send it to my granddaughters. I lay down gingerly on my bad back where the snow is not too deep. I flap my arms and legs three times, fanning them out semi-vigorously to be sure I make a respectable indentation. Then, try as I might, I cannot get myself up off the ground but luckily I have my phone in the pocket of my puffy jacket. I call K. immediately, who is not thrilled to hear from me. “You must leave Paris and get me up.”
In moments, K. appears. He is in his biking shorts. It is 23 degrees and he is not smiling. He extends both hands and with one good hoist I’m good. I turn to thank K. but he has already hightailed it to the house. I take a selfie with the snow angel in the background and text it to my daughter to show to my granddaughters with the caption, “Gaga playing outside.”
I deeply inhale the pure cold air. It almost stings in my nostrils. It’s just me and Mother Nature. I listen to the quiet, not even a bird tweeting. I feel somehow saintly. In the next moment I feel deprived and lonely. I will FaceTime with the girls after their naps.
I go inside where it’s toasty. I remove my outerwear and take off my boots. I think back to when I was a child…coming in from the cold, sitting on a dinette chair after playing outside for hours, my red nose running, my father, with his signature pencil-thin mustache, bending over me, tugging at my squeaky rubber boots until they pop off, removing my socks and rubbing my frost-bitten feet with his big warm hands. He’s been gone 35 years. Where did all the winters since then go?!
You don’t mind if I muse and ramble, do you? I have 2 aunts left, one in her late 80s and one who is 95. And there’s one friend of my mom’s who’s going to be 99. I have two second cousins on my father’s side, brother and sister, one in her late 70’s and the other in his mid-80’s. I remember visiting them as a child and wishing time would fly so I could be a teenager just like them. Now my thoughts are more like…”Oh life, slow down! What’s the rush?!”
My favorite play is Our Town because it takes life seriously and reminds us how miraculous, how sweet, how exhausting and how invisible life is to most of us as we live it. Emily laments in a monologue before returning to her grave….
“Goodbye Grover’s Corners. Goodbye to clocks ticking…. And Mama’s sunflower…. And food and coffee…. And new ironed dresses and hot baths…. And sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you! I didn’t realize all that was going on and we never noticed.”
I would give anything to have one more day with my mother and father. Only now, when they are unreachable, am I finally brave enough and wise enough to tell them all they would have liked me to say when they were here.
Today I would give anything to build a snowman with my granddaughters, then come in out of the cold and rub their frozen feet, make them hot chocolate, read them a book, smell their hair.
Oh Earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you!
Love is all that really matters when you compare it to everything else. Right?
Soon, I tell myself. Soon life will return.
Hang in there all you Gagas.
