peaceful me

It's been a month since my last post, and though much of my absence was due to that lingering blue, some I can honestly blame on the holiday hubbub, parties, presents, and a return of my passions. Historically, I've abhorred Christmastime, feeling Grinchy seems to come naturally to me. But this year the season's been a contrast. Rather than the blues, I've immersed myself in reds and oranges, flaming hot pinks and deep purples. Now I'm feeling really good, happy even, and very relaxed.

Today, Christmas day, our house is so quiet. Two of three boys are still sound asleep. Mark and I have already been out to the pasture to put the horses in their rain jackets (just in time, too, as it's now a deluge out there) and feed the critters. We woke up extra early to beat the storm which was predicted to begin at 7 am and then had a couple quiet hours until Toby arose. Our plans today are simple: hang out for the morning and head down to my sister's for Christmas dinner (she and her family celebrate the holiday) midafternoon.

As for right this minute: coffee, my knitting, a warm house and quiet. Peaceful me.

I think because Chanukah came so early this year I've had more time to relax, contrast my state of being with that of the rest of the US. Chanukah started on December 1st (it's the lunar calendar, leap month thing) and with Ben's birthday in late November and Harry's in early December we were inundated with festivities, but we handled that fine. By mid-December we were essentially done with all that, we'd collected and distributed the loot, and were happily using it all (our family went from a no-video-game-family to an XBox and Wii family in the space of 7 days! ah well, I couldn't hold out forever, I suppose).  And I set my mind to the healing arts: my crafts!

I spent a weekend or two organizing my craft space. What a luxury! To have the spaces in our office for me to set up jewelry, sewing, cutting, ironing and our computers without putting any of it away! We are so buried in our clutter usually, that I hadn't really utilized the space efficiently for the whole five years we've lived here. I felt the clouds lift when I opened up these areas to do my work.

After finishing some holiday items (a scarf for Mike Walsh, the General Manager of the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia, and some hand warmers and earrings for our 4H holiday craft sale/fundraiser), I turned to a few projects I've been waiting and waiting to get started on. First is a blanket out of thrifted and felted wool sweaters. Black and grey backgrounds with red, orange and pink squares on top. It is reminiscent of my favorite of Denyse Schmidt's quilts and should be very warm when finished. I'm about 1/3 of the way there!

Second is a pair of mittens for Harry who is about to head off to his third weeklong meditation retreat over New Year's. His hands have trouble keeping warm, so I've been working like a dog to finish these before he leaves on Monday. I think I'll be able to do it!

My grief process continues to be a learning experience. I'm surprised at the strength of my longing to contact my dad, to talk to him again, to share some of the news (Harry's straight A's in his first semester at the JC, Ben's report from the neurosurgeon: no more MRI's for 5 years!) and just to say hi. I can't believe he's really completely and totally gone. The finality of it is baffling, breath-taking, sometimes overwhelming. I'm overcome with great sadness now and then, but it's for shorter periods. It really is a process and as life has calmed down in other ways (those issues that plagued me at the start of the fall have all ALL resolved themselves...thank god!...) I've had more space to just be. That's been so peaceful.

Peaceful me. That's where I am. Thankfully.

asleep at the wheel

This was a melancholy week. I am still feeling a tide of inertia sweep over me daily. I wake up in good spirits, but as the hours tick by I feel less inclined to move forward into the projects of the day and more like just zoning out, numbing my brain. The computer and the many, many amazing blogs out there in the internet twilight zone lull me into a strange sleeping wakefulness. I am drawn to the blogs and photostreams of some very creative and crafty people and can spend hours and hours gazing at them, being inspired in a way, but can't seem to light the fire in my own hands and eyes to create. I feel asleep at the wheel.

I don't want to cook. I don't want to clean. I don't want to read or knit or sew or paint. I just gaze, and simmer, and stare out the window.

It was difficult to even get up the energy for Thanksgiving at my loving cousin's house. Once there, surrounded by family, I was good. But that morning, that afternoon...it was an effort.

I am trying to be patient with myself. I am giving myself space. I am stunned at the time it is taking to gather myself together and get back to normal. And I wish that the time I spent in my quiet numbness would feel like a valuable expenditure of time. Unfortunately, the perfectionist in me, the overachiever in me feels a loss. At the end of the day I look at the clock, shake my head to clear it and take stock of the time I have wasted, with nothing accomplished, nothing to show for the passage of all those minutes. An emptiness is what is embracing me these days.

I had such anticipation for this period following the celebration of his life, thinking that I would feel lighter with the weight of that event off my shoulders. But I now realize that it will still take time, a march onward of the days and hours, until I begin to notice the sun peeking through the clouds, and a lightness returning to my step.

my father's navy watch cap

It took my dad several months to figure out how to access my blog. I'm not exactly sure what was so elusive about it for him. But after sending him a link numerous times he finally got on it, and read it, this summer. He was pretty surprised, I think, that we both were writers and he loved the stories of my life that he found here. We had a lot in common. More than I realized for most of my life. Our looks, our love of photography and writing, our tempers. Our distractable minds, our cleft chins, and our love of family.

The poem below was my closing for the celebration of Dad's life we held on Sunday. I read it and then we followed it with a communal recitation of the Kaddish, the Jewish mourner's prayer.

My Father's Navy Watch Cap

11-19-10

I wear my father’s navy watch cap these days

when I go down to the pasture

on cold mornings

I knitted it for him early this year

He waited patiently for it

but I was otherwise engaged

-   a sweater for myself

-   a scarf for my sister in England

-   a neck warmer for my mother

taking precedence,

in line before his thick, navy watch cap

He waited patiently,

though I could hear his eyes glitter when we talked about it

a cozy hat

to cover his head

just like the one he had in the navy

When I finally finished it and

sent it down to him,

it was spring

and spring in Los Angeles is barely spring

in other regions

it is more like the long beginning of summer,

temperatures in the 70’s, as you know,

not much need for a thick, navy watch cap

knitted by your oldest daughter,

your biggest-tallest

And yet he wore it

proudly, I suppose,

when the moment required it

when the thermometer dipped

a bit low

and his balding pate felt a chill

He dug around in the basket of his scooter

and pulled out the hat

then tugged it snuggly over his head,

thinking, I hope,

of the love knit into each stitch

It was there waiting for me to take it home

when he died

in the basket of the lonely scooter

not even worn through one winter

his winter

an LA winter of sorts

These days when I don my mud-encrusted boots

and button up my flannel barn coat,

I also grab my father’s navy watch cap

and pull it on over my thick head of graying hair

like a hug

and the memory of our last conversation

and the words “I love you”

I want to tell you I have other hats

but this is the one that calls to me each morning

I open the door, pulling on my gloves

and think about the day’s list

-   what will occupy me

-   what I need to attend to

-   what takes precedence

and what will have to wait

And as winter approaches and fall fast becomes a memory

I tug my father’s navy watch cap down around my ears

and bring him with me to feed the animals

down in the pasture

A celebration of a life

Yesterday was my father's 79th birthday. Today we held his memorial.

Over 70 people came. Family, friends, old and newer. Business associates from 40 years ago. Both of the original partners from his beloved firm Stonefield Josephson. Two of three ex-wives! The tables were full, the flowers beautiful, the food abundant and tasty (from Canter's deli on Fairfax Ave. in LA), and a strong mid-night storm scrubbed the air clean to showcase the LA skyline and mountains covered with snow.

I did my dad proud. And now I can take a deep breath, sit back in my chair and relax.

Here are the words I opened the event with:

I don't know if you knew this, but my dad was a photographer. He absolutely loved pictures and taking pictures and he lined his bedroom walls with photos of all his beloved people, a constant reminder, like a group hug every time he looked at them.

When he was in high school, Dad set up a dark room in his closet and soon became known as the go-to guy for party photos. He often told me how much he loved that. Basically, he attained a certain popularity by being a sought-after photographer and because he was behind the camera he didn't have to navigate the tricky social terrain of the teenager. He got to be at the party without really being at the party. Clever, eh? Not bad for a shy stutterer...And he developed quite the skill with the camera. All these years later some of our most cherished family photos are the ones Dad took.

I knew my dad through the lens of the oldest child. Who he was, or who I thought he was and what I knew about him had much to do with my own lens, my own view of him. He was the man who stood at my door early every morning singing silly made up songs meant to encourage me to rise, he was the man who smoked a stinky cigar, who had a temper that flared unexpectedly and hotly, who listened when I talked but not all that well, who loved to sit next to the keel of a sailboat and breathe the salt air.  He was the man who tagged along quite happily with my high school marching band and who walked me down the aisle on my wedding day.

I knew my father through the lens of his child, even as I moved deep into my own adulthood. I really only could see him through that lens.

As he aged, we aged, however, and our relationship deepened and grew. We did not have a fairytale relationship, it was not trouble-free. But, compassion and acceptance allowed me to appreciate that Dad loved me, us, with his whole heart. So, when he died our connection was whole and clear.

I cannot hope to encapsulate for you the highlights of his life all on my own. I cannot stand here and tell you about the man you knew, perhaps better in some ways and less in others than I.

And so I welcome you here today to share your stories and to hear some of his. For a brief time we can honor that avid photographer by overlapping all of our lenses to put together a picture of who Joel Stonefield was and to celebrate his life.

suspension of disbelief

It occurred to me yesterday as I worked on my father's memorial service, that I can not believe he is dead. I CAN NOT wrap my mind around it. It is positively unbelievable to me. He is in the other room. He is in LA and I'm up here. He's at his computer, grousing about Sarah Palin or the Tea Party movement. He's watching a movie on Netflix with Mildred, his loving caregiver and sweetheart, pictured above. He's not dead, he's not gone, he's not a pile of ashes in a box in my sister's apartment.

He's not. He's NOT, I tell you.

What did Elizabeth Kubler-Ross call this? Denial?

As I put together a program for the service my siblings and I are hosting this coming Sunday, I have looked at many photos of the man who gave me the dimple in my chin and 1/2 my DNA. I read all the stories he wrote for his memoirs. I cried a bunch. And every time I looked into his eyes I felt his presence, not his absence.

It's been almost 3 months and it still feels impossible. How will I talk about him as if he's gone, if I can't wrap my head around that fact? I asked myself. 

And then a thought floated to the surface of my brain. The suspension of disbelief: the willingness on the part of the reader to overlook the implausible or fantastic in order to believe...The suspension of judgment in order to accept the unbelievable (or just swallow it).

I need to do that now. It feels like time. And yet.

I should be packing. I have been attending to so many little details, big details too. The program. The number of people attending. The flowers (deligated). The food and drink (deligated). The paper goods (deligated). The obituary (mine).

I had a brilliant idea the other night to have family and friends read from my dad's stories at the event. I will also be posting some of them here, so that you too, dear reader, can get a sense of my dad's sense of humor. It feels wonderful to laugh with him, to hear his voice (it is so, so clear to me). The melancholy part feels so out of place right now. But as I said in my last post, I am missing him so very much.

So, here's the first one, one of my favorites, The Chaplain:

The Chaplain

by Joel Stonefield

In mid 1955, I was transferred to the USS Gainard, a sleek World War II destroyer, loaded with torpedoes, depth charges, 5 inch (diameter) guns…and me, an eager 23 year old supply officer with a weird sense of humor 

My time aboard the Gainard consisted of an uneventful year at the Naval Base at Newport Rhode Island, BUT THEN….In the Spring of 1956, President Nasser of Egypt took over the Suez Canal from Great Britain.  Gainard was immediately dispatched to the Persian Gulf to look after America’s oil.

First, a very brief story from the peacetime Navy.

While in the States, our squadron was assigned one chaplain for the entire eight-ship group.  He acted as a sort of circuit preacher, moving for brief stays – of two to four weeks -- from one ship to another.  When our ship’s turn came, we welcomed the young fellow to our fold.  He turned out to be rather humorless and over-serious – not a great formula for popularity in the tight quarters of the Destroyer Navy.

Our visit with the Padre included a two-week training exercise – straight time at sea.  Each night at “taps” the chaplain would gravely announce over the ship’s loudspeaker system:

“THIS IS THE CHAPLAIN.  SHALL WE PRAY?”

The officers and crew were constantly grumbling about the Chaplain and his long-winded and boring nightly sermons.

Finally, the brief cruise ended.  What do sailors want as soon as they hit port?  Payday!!  That meant me.

Minutes before the payday was to start, I asked one of my watch-standing buddies to go to the bridge with me.  I asked him “How can I make an announcement to all hands?  After he showed me which lever to pull, I suggested that he “take off”.  Knowing I was up to no good, he did as I asked.

Next came the moment for which I had been waiting …….I pressed the lever and with my best official voice I solemnly intoned:

“THIS IS THE DISBURSING OFFICER.  SHALL WE PAY?”