Day 10: It Takes a Village ... and a Soup Pot

by Zinta Aistars

Tossing socks and towels into the washing machine, rinsing dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher, scratching Jig behind her old cat ear in passing, it occurs to me that I am very much behaving as if I am right at home. And I am—at home in someone else’s house. Into my second week of house sitting, I’ve received interesting items of news to contemplate:

1. The home owner has purchased a cooking pan in Sarajevo.

2. My daughter’s car requires a new electrical system to run, and my helping to get her back on the road will effectively wipe out the last of my “dream stash” that was to pave my road north.

3. Said home owner has cheerily offered to toss in the piano at no cost if I wish to buy the house.

Cleaning machines whirring away in their cleaning duties, I stir a pot of soup on the stove. I love soup. Toss in whatever, and it just gets better. I rummage through my groceries and find a lush green patch of kale and a box of red quinoa. I chop up the kale and toss it in. I shake out some red quinoa from the box into the simmering pot. I still have some frozen peas in the freezer, too.

Laundry done, dried and folded; dishes dry and put away; soup in belly, I settle into the corner of the couch and watch the dance of bright flames in the wood stove in the living room. I don’t have to wait long—my daughter calls for our weekly Monday night chat.

Excitement is palpable in her voice. A job offer is taking shape. No small potatoes. My girl is somewhere in the midst of a career change. Her master’s is in social work, but for many reasons, she has now switched to real estate, completing classes and passing the test for her license over the summer. Madness? In this housing market? Maybe, but what following of bliss isn’t?

My favorite author, Annie Dillard, is quoted as saying: “If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be too cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

I’ll confess: my cynicism by now about love affairs and some friendships has won upperhand. Even as I encourage others to take those thrilling cliff leaps, even as I still believe in that occasional moment of brilliance in the human condition gone deliciously mad, I have for some time now chosen to expend my energies in other pursuits. Setting aside some dreams, throwing others on the funeral pyre, I’d chosen one last dream to pursue. Those who read my blog on a regular basis will have already read about my grieving that last dream—to live in a remote cabin far north in wilderness.

I hear myself encouraging my daughter to follow her bliss (nod to Joseph Campbell) and to know that I am behind her. All the way. Dream with your heart, dream big, work hard, I tell her, and I will be the village offering support if you should need it.

I have never known anyone who works harder than my girl. I stand in awe. If now and then life trips her up, as in the form of a faulty electrical system that effectively leaves her stranded in her work to show housing to clients, well, by golly, I will toss whatever fuel I have left on the pyre and give her a step up.

Isn’t that what family is all about?

When I wrote about my last dream waning, receding into the fog, I received many compassionate notes and calls and e-mails, from strangers as well as from friends. I was moved by the response. Goodness knows I hesitated in posting about my moment of weakness. Grown woman blubbering like a child, I hardly felt at my strongest and best. I hesitated, but then I thought about the writer’s journey I’d begun. If I was going to write about the high points, I should just as faithfully write about the lows. I respect my readers, whoever they might be, and I believe they sense authenticity. I had to be honest about my struggle.

One response, however, questioned whether I was right to support an adult child when life sent her on a spin. Wasn’t my parenting done at age 18?

When I drove back to Kalamazoo this past Saturday to help my father transport his paintings for an upcoming art exhibit, was I enabling my elderly parent, bent and in chronic pain from four back surgeries, to rely on me instead of himself? Lord, I hope so. I want him to know that I am here for him, as he so many times has been for me, just as I want my daughter—and my son—to know that I will always be here for them. If my helping my elderly parent is a show of respect, which it is, then how is my helping my adult children anything less? Both have earned my respect, my admiration, and my love.

There were times that I, too, fell to my knees during adulthood. Divorce, poverty, health emergencies when I had no health insurance … there were many critical moments that I ran out of strength and resources on my own. My village—my family, my friends, even my colleagues—gathered in a protective circle around me and helped me stand again. I am forever grateful.

There was the time that I had started a new job with an anorexic salary, a young and single mom with two small children, and I was too new on the job to have yet earned any paid time off. My doctor said the surgery couldn’t wait. There was suspicion of a malignancy. The surgery would be major enough that I was to miss work for six weeks, but I would receive no pay. I reeled at the news. Meanwhile, my brand new colleagues, all of whom were virtual strangers to me, passed the hat and collected enough to pay my rent for one month.

I will never forget.

There was the time I lost a job because an accident had so damaged my eye that I had to wear a bandage across half of my face for weeks. When the surgeon spoke of corneal transplant, I shrugged, said no. I had no health insurance. I had no income. My job then was temporary and they let me go because my bandaged appearance wasn’t suitable for front desk work. As a temp, they had no obligaton to me. A friend showed up at my door, pushed me aside when I opened it, and brought in bag after bag of groceries.

I will never forget.

There was the time I returned from living overseas after making a heartrending decision about where I was needed most. My marriage in one country … my children in the other. I made a decision that broke my heart but that I would never regret. Becoming a parent means making sacrifices. May we never have to choose between those we love, but when pressed to the wall, my children will always, always win out. I returned to the United States with no money, no housing, no vehicle, no job, no belongings. I had to start my life over from nothing and build it up again. My parents opened their door to me and to my children. We lived with them for a month while I found work, found an apartment, bought a clunker to get us around.

I will never forget.

I could list such times that my Village stood me back on my feet until the day runs dark, and another, and the year turns into another. Every day, I experience random kindness from strangers. Every day, I remember the blessing of family, my parents, my sister, my children. Every day, I think of my friends, those who have held true through thick and thin.

Whenever possible, I try to be that stranger. I try to be that blessing. I try to be that friend.

We all get a turn.

We all have in us untapped reserves of strength, courage and kindness. When we receive these gifts from others, I believe with all my heart that we are given a blessing that we are meant to pass along, not clutch to our own chests.

I grieve a lost dream. Even as I wonder what will take its place. A house with a piano? The house awaiting me back in Kalamazoo? A quiet place far up north that somehow, in some mysterious way, is still meant for me and awaits my finding the right path? If I can’t get there on my own, perhaps a village will point me in the right direction with its beacon of enduring light.

While I am waiting to figure that one out, I do what I can to pass the blessing along. And trust, just trust, that when I teeter back on my heels, something, someone, will catch me before I fall. We all fall. That Chinese proverb stands beside Annie Dillard’s quote—it’s not how many times we fall. It’s how many times we get back up.

In a time when so many families are breaking apart, when collecting more “stuff” seems to have greater importance than the concept of sharing, when being “tough” is understood as being hardened and without emotion rather than being tough enough to cry, when social networking has connected us to so many even while leaving us isolated in our own little lives … I wonder: What happened to the Village?

As for me, as much as I enjoy a life of quiet solitude, I know my Village is out there. Just beyond the edge of the night, in the shadows and ready to step out of them at moment’s notice. I, too, am part of a Village, and ready to step through the shadows when needed. My Village, and being part of one, gives me the courage to find a new dream.

I always did love the Fable of Stone Soup, about a pot of water three hungry men were boiling in the middle of a village. They had nothing but three stones out of which to make soup. The villagers came around, and they were all poor, too. But each villager had a little something to contribute. Each one tossed something in, a carrot, a chunk of meat, a bit of potato, a wedge of cabbage, a dash of salt, until the water turned to a delicious soup that fed the entire village.


I am thinking about buying a new cooking pan, or maybe a big soup pot. I will have to trust that I will find the right home where I can use it, and that the soup I boil in it will be delicious and nutritious. I would like to invite my Village to dinner. A little dinner music would be nice, too.




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Day 8: Art is Therapy and So Is a Sweet-Faced Dog

by Zinta Aistars

Blue Friday … would the weekend heal? Waking to snow is a hopeful start. The flakes are falling slow and thick and lazy, and I stop for a moment just to watch the snowfall from the kitchen window. I wish I didn’t have to go … drive that long hour home from my temporary home … but I’ve made a promise to help my father, artist Viestarts Aistars, deliver 15 paintings to the Portage District Library, and I don’t break promises. Especially because I know he would pay in pain if he were left to lift the paintings himself. After four back surgeries, in chronic pain, any lifting costs him days of immobility. The art exhibit begins on Wednesday, January 19. This is our last and only chance to deliver.

My son calls, still sleepy voiced, and warns me, “Sure about this, Mom? Lots of snow. Could be tricky driving. Be careful?”

“I’ll be careful.”

Always touching when roles are reversed. Child watching out for Mama. But it’s not long before I am pulling out of the barn and down the long driveway to the snowy road, and on my way. 

Was this drive always so long? How quickly we adapt to ease. House sitting at a location just minutes from work, one week and I have already gotten myself un-adapted to this hour-long trek, and in snow, it will take longer. 

I don’t mind the snow. Just a matter of slowing down. Gradually, I am back in my old groove. The road mesmerizes a bit, and my mind begins to wander. The day before still weighs heavy on me. It was a day of harsh realization. Straw on this camel’s back. One more financial hit, a hefty one, that drove the point home to me—my reserves are wiped out. My retirement plans aren’t going to happen. I had started too late and had been in a hole too deep to dig out in time. My finest dream is crumbling to dust before my eyes.

The miles wrap into my tires. I can feel the back two shimmy and vibrate, and the vibration is increasing. I need two new tires, and had put that aside week after week. With a shorter daily drive to work, it matters less. The tires could wait. 

I wanted to stay put this morning, stay in my warm, worn out sweats, stoke the fire in the wood stove, pull out those paints, paintbrushes, stones and pads of paper waiting for me. They would have to wait for Sunday.

I drive, thinking about the art projects I want to work on. I am preparing a portfolio to send in with a package of materials to apply for an artist residency up north. It involves living in a rustic cabin in the mountains for two weeks. With my dream of living in a cabin in northern wilderness waning, this residency is fast gaining importance to me. Two weeks couldn’t compare to being permanent resident there, but if bread crumbs are all that are left, I will search for every last one with appetite. 

The house where I am “sitting” is perfect for artwork. Quiet, with a large picture window for long hours of daylight, table beneath, it is ideal for writing and painting. I am eager to begin. And by now, I need to. When my heart is aching, nothing heals better than being immersed in something creative. 

So I muse, and so remember how it was that I had become more or less accustomed to this long daily drive. It gives me time to dream. I need a new dream. A much smaller one, in far less bright colors, but it is impossible to keep putting one foot in front of the other without a dream to pull me forward. 

And then I am home. My home. Blue house with white shutters, set up on an incline, and I find myself smiling as I drive up. Good to see the old place. I open the garage, and there is my son, covered in grease, working on a stack of car parts and unidentifiable machinery, dissected beyond recognition. 

“Hey,” he grins.

“Hey!”

That hug, grease and all, is sweet medicine. Needed that. 

He follows me in and I tromp up the stairs to the kitchen, looking for the old chow pup. 

“Outside,” my son detects my mission.

“Guinnie Pig!” I shout, opening the sliding door to the snowy back yard, where my old chow pup, Guinnez, is leaping around in the snow, up past his red-furred belly. His eyes get wide, he stops in his tracks, then comes leaping over like a cross between rabbit and deer and fox. I stand shin-deep in snow with an armload of red fur and a well-licked face, laughing.

“Has he been good?” I call back to my son, standing in the door.

“Course not.”

I don’t visit for long. My father is waiting. But I skim through the stack of mail, then hoot with cheer. A check! I had thought that freelance assignment already cashed in, but had apparently forgotten… it isn’t much, but every bit coming in will mean less borrowed. Then there is a retirement fund update. I tear that one open with less enthusiasm. Not so good. Not even half good. My last dream rolls over and dies. 

Sometimes all you can do is put one foot in front of the other, even when you’ve lost the focal point on the horizon. I don’t know where I am going anymore, but I do know I have to stop by and help my father. For now, that would do. That would be my focus. When you don't quite know how to help yourself, help someone else. I give him a quick call that I am on my way, and I am on my way. 

Portage District Library, Portage, Michigan

Fifteen paintings, delivered to the busy library. Marsha, kind and attentive librarian who had planned the event, meets us there. I stack the paintings on a cart and wheel them in, five trips and done, and my father sits on a bench, head down. 

We have lunch together afterward, and I don’t argue this time when he picks up the tab. I tell him about the quiet place where I am living for a few weeks, the silence of country surroundings, the herds of deer I have seen, the evenings of reading by the fire. He smiles. I tell him about my upcoming Sunday and the ideas I have in mind, what I want to paint, and he leans forward, listening with interest. 

“I’ll warm up by painting on some of my gathered stones,” I say. “That’s what I know. Then I’ll gather courage to try something on paper. Something that will be image to my words. They’re called broadsides.”

I tell him about the artist residency, the rustic cabin in the northern mountains, and that if my submission is judged worthy, I might earn myself two weeks there. He understands. It was my father that introduced me to the northern woods, planted that dream in the heart of a little girl.

I hadn’t expected to get homesick from such a quick visit, but when I turn back onto the country road leading to my borrowed home, I feel the sadness return. Wish that old chow pup was here to grin at me. Wish I’d gotten an extra hug from my son, or three. Wish I could show my father a new painted stone.  

Then I am greeted again. So many of them, so many deer! How many this time? I stop in the road again, and count: 22. A new record. The deer walk peacefully across the white fields, calm. I sit and watch them, soaking up their calm. 

***

Sunday … and I wake too early. Haven’t slept well. Should sleep more, the night is still edging the morning, but my mind reels with thoughts, dark dreams, fading visions, the grief of a lifelong dream. I drag myself out of bed, feeling stupid with fatigue. 

Coffee. 

I blink when I switch on the kitchen lights. 

The kitchen table is covered with my art supplies. Pads of paper, palettes of paint with rows of tiny paint tubes, and neat little brushes with fine points. Books with favorite images to inspire me. And the day—the day is all open, with no obligations, no promises to keep but the one to myself. 

Jiggy, my 15-year-old tortoiseshell cat, along for the stay, winds around my ankles, crying for breakfast, and I feed her. 

“Well, old girl, let’s get to it. Sunday. Our day. All day. Yes?”

She purrs and stays close on my heels, watching to see what I’ll do next. 

The kitchen window is dark with pre-dawn, then turns deep blue, and I can see the shadows of the pines and the evergreens outside emerge. Slowly, the light seeps into sky and sweeps away the last of the shadows. 

Somewhere the time slips, like silk, smoothly, away. I don’t notice it. Even my cup of coffee grows cold. 

I paint a fish, a large bass with plump fish lips, smoking a pipe. It’s a larger stone than most that I paint. I had started it a long time ago, put it aside, and on this Sunday, at long last, I finish it. 

Sitting by the fire late afternoon, I cradle the stone in my hands, pondering last touches. My fish has solved nothing for me. Nothing has changed between morning and oncoming evening. My heart still feels like it is carrying a stone. Letting go takes time. But dipping a paintbrush in a dab of color, walking outside in the snow to gather more wood for the fire, tickling my old cat’s caramel belly, and listening to the deep silence of a Sunday in the country—it all moves me one step, two steps forward. Toward someplace, toward something, perhaps even to a yet unseen solution, yet unknown. 

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Day 6: Not a Pretty Sight

by Zinta Aistars

Not even babies are cute when they blubber. Who wants to see a grown woman whimper and whine? I don’t. I am looping around any mirror, any reflective surface tonight, don’t want to see it. Put the shiny cover of that pan away.

Just money, I keep telling myself. It’s just money. Know what they say. Even if you don’t have it, if it’s a problem that could be cured by throwing money at it, it’s not really a problem. 

Tell that to the homeless mother and child.

Hey, I’ve been there. Have lived that scenario, and it did feel like a real problem. But yes, yes, I get the idea, and even between whimpers, I have to agree. Even without a television in the house this week, I have glimpsed enough news online to sense the depth of tragedy in Tucson. Many deaths, many horrible injuries, and a sweet-faced little girl was just buried there …

I get that, and I am more than a bit shamed by it. What kind of a person whimpers at the loss of a dream, torn to pieces bit by bit, bill by bill, and whisked away, when my children breath and stand up to the day, alive and well? Have I given up? Is this all the fight left in me?

It’s going on the third month in a row, after a year of such, that unexpected wallet-eaters have befallen me. If not me, my children. Both adults, but as any mother will tell you, that doesn’t mean they sit on your heart any lighter. 

I have been paying off debt, whittling away the numbers, car payments, mortgages, working on buying my freedom, dollar by dollar, cent by cent. Making wonderful progress. Every payday a celebration. Not because I had money to spend, but because I had money to pay into that debt, and that was exhilarating. My northern dream, that secret cabin in the woods, was moving out of the fog and taking shape. Even as financial advisers and a few others, too, have rolled their eyes at me. Starting a bit late in life, aren’t I? 

Yes. 

But what’s an old girl to do. Children raised on my own, finally my turn. Could scent that dream in the air, the sweetest perfume. Do whatever I can. 

The economy has hit many of us hard. My son was laid off work almost a year ago, and my daughter lost her job, too. Hard working kids, do a mama proud, and I was glad to help. At least I finally could. Their childhoods had been very lean, and my heart ached over that. Family, three musketeers, we would lean on each other, and sometimes one was stronger while another needed more. 

I get cranky when I hear those who talk about health insurance being only for those who work and pay in. Most of this past year my girl has worked hard, scrambling from part time job to another part time, doing the temporary, doing what she can, and always without benefits. Something hurts, she ignores it. My son would fix cars in our garage, install stereos for barter, change the oil, change the brakes, tune an engine. Back aching, muscle in spasm, let it go. Neither one of mine have health insurance, and both are too old now for me to cover. A doctor who had cared for my son since childhood now refuses to see him, won’t let him in the door. No insurance card. 

Cars break down, bodies break down, bills roll in. I pay. And we all feel bad. Plan best you can, and the surprises still come. This, that and the other. So today when news came in that my girl’s car stalled in Chicago traffic and the electrical system gave out, the mechanic spoke of nearly a grand to get her on the road again.

Head in my hands, I fought back tears. Can’t catch a break. My numbers are not going down. Spinning wheels. Dancing in place. Numbers that refuse to shrink, only escalate, spinning out of control and up over my head. 

Work day over, I race home, home to my temporary house-sitting home, house in the country. Good to close the door behind me, close out the day. Stoke up the fire in the wood stove. Brew up a cup of hot, steaming tea. Curl up inside my softest robe and hunker down, small enough for the world not to notice me. I want to hide. 

I want to whimper and whine. I want to blubber like a spoiled child, tears big enough for a crocodile. I think about that sweet cabin up north and watch it recede back into an ever thickening fog. 

“I’m too old,” I blurt out at my old cat, jumping up into my robed lap. “I’m too old to ever retire.” One has to start planning for such things when young as my daughter, looking far ahead. Careful to avoid lean years, single mothers raising children and not catching a break. Now that I can finally afford to plan, it’s too late.

Is it? Too late?

In a perfect life, all stars aligned, I could do this. Out of sheer spite, I could. 

Last I checked, life is anything but perfect. Things bust and break, accidents happen, economies slide, injustices rule, luck spatters, good and deserving people go without. Machines bust and health fails. There’s the thing, there’s the crux. Stuff happens. And numbers grow fat again instead of fasting thin. 

I toss another log on the fire. It burns. It crackles, sparks, flames up, pops. I watch it burn. One dream left in life, and I am watching it go up in flames. 

Oh, whimper. Oh, whine.

My daughter sends a text. I love you. 

My son calls. Waiting to see you tomorrow.

And suddenly, even as my dream goes up in smoke, I am wealthy again.