Wednesday, December 16, 2015

In The Bag

Hard to believe he has been gone 24 years. That is nearly half the time I had my older brother Steven in my life. He set the bar high on all kinds of things like fashion, art, activism, and personal integrity. Highly opinionated he held nothing back and apologized infrequently. Didn’t need to. He was either right or the collateral damage was best ignored.

He still has a huge impact on me.

Like yesterday morning when pulling myself together to go out into the world. Got three appointments before noon yet I throw on a pair of Capri sweats, a powwow T-shirt and sneakers. I roll the elastic bottom of the sweat pants to just under my knees for the knicker effect exposing leg scratches I got chasing the dogs through the brush over the weekend. Three long red rips of broken skin are glossed with a coat of Neosporin but there will definitely be scars.

“You got that frumpy, don’t give a shit look down,” his voice in my head tells me.

I ignore him because he is right. I don’t give a shit.

“I tried,” he sighs.

He is right again.

When I was 17 he invited me to the big city for a makeover. With all the confidence of Versace, the flair of a runway model and the determination to climb Mt. Everest (which aptly equated his task) Steven marched his hick sister up the steps at 234 Berkley Street in the Back Bay of Boston. The historic building had been the city’s original Museum of Natural History and a landmark for its architecturally astounding stone and brick features and grandiose windows. The current tenant was the upscale retailer Bonwit Teller. That meant little to me at the time but I will never forget the experience.

I skipped every other step trying desperately to keep up with Steven’s long stride. Lucky for me I was wearing my high top Pro Keds sneakers. Steven insisted I remove the jingle bell looped into the laces, a short lived fad adopted by girls at my high school meant to announce the coming of the cool chicks. It was admittedly pretty annoying and eventually dictated school policy banning the dreaded “jingle bell.”

The sneakers were blue and quite by accident matched my farmer’s style bib overalls under which I wore a brightly colored tube top, a wardrobe staple in the 1970s it was essentially a band of elastic fabric wide enough to contain our lady parts and extended generally down to mid waist level depending on our cup size. Needless to say these garments were highly prone to wardrobe malfunction.

Quite honestly it never occurred to me to feel out of place until we stood inside the great hall of Bonwit Teller. The three story skeletal dinosaur remains that once filled the space would have been far less intimidating than the chicness of the pencil thin, haughty clientele and giddy sales clerks bustling all around us like we were invisible.

I was sure neither my intellect or bank account entitled me to stand in the throng three ladies deep at the make-up counter until my brother raised one hand over his head, snapped his fingers and got the attention of a woman behind the counter who immediately recognized him.

We easily pushed through the half starved socialites and I hopped up onto a padded stool where the woman looked at me and said, “oh my.”

The two of them busied themselves with my face and hair for about half an hour until I looked like a young Lena Horne about to go muck the stalls.

Steven picked this and that, lipstick, foundation, eye shadows, and blush and paid the woman what I thought was more money than all of it was worth but for the bag. Our purchase was neatly packed in a Bonwit Teller paper bag with looped handles at the top and the trademark pink stripes that matched the awnings on the front of the building.

I learned to use the makeup, but I cherished the bag. It became a container for all sorts of things I collected over the years until it finally shredded beyond functionality.

I loved that bag.
I loved my brother.
They are both, sadly, gone.


Friday, November 27, 2015

A year of being Mindy's human

This past year has been full of delightful new experiences despite that at times Mindy scares the hell out of me.  She has such paranoia of city sidewalk grates she will veer into the road and risk a rolling MBTA bus before walking over the grate.  Really.  Now I know to pick her up and carry her safely across.

On a trail walk she seemingly vanishes. But it’s an optical illusion. One second she is right behind me, the next second - gone.  In reality she has stealthily slipped by me on her tiny legs effectively morphing through a low blind spot.  I panic and back track looking for her until I realize she is right in front of me.

A pretty little pooch despite freakishly short legs Mindy is blessed with a permanent smile regardless of her mood that is actually a pretty constant state of “What do you have? I want it.”


She is so irresistibly cute even supermarket employees ignore obvious health code violations when Mindy accompanies me on quick trips for the essentials.

And on trips to the bank she is on a first name basis with the teller at the window where she makes her treat withdrawal.

She is the subject of countless viral You Tube videos (be sure to click the links), social media posts and #MindyMadness memes where she is not shy expressing her liberal political views and social justice agenda. Or some days just being a bit silly.

A corgi is simply a very special kind of dog that can only own a special kind of human.  How lucky am I?!

She is smart, very smart.  And yes, she barks. She barks a lot, loudly.  But she is communicating.  I have learned to understand her every command from the most basic to the complex of her boarder line multiple personality disorder.

“Feed me!”
“Take me out!”
“Throw the ball!”
“Throw the ball again!”
“Throw the ball again damn it to hell!”
“Scratch me behind the ears!”
“What the hell?! Why did you stop? Continue!”
“Don’t you dare rub my belly!”
“Rub my belly again. I dare you!”
“Is that cookie? Give me that cookie!”
“Are those car keys in your hand? Take me for a ride!”

She hates the vacuum but not in the fearful way you might expect from a small animal confronted by a big loud mechanical thing. She runs right toward it barking ferociously and tearing at the beater bar with her gnarly teeth. As counter productive to cleaning as it may be it's pretty damn funny to watch.

It wasn't until spring that I learned about her obsession with the garden hose.  I was attempting to water the plants and Mindy jumped into the blasting stream of water yelping with delight.  I had never seen anything like it, but really she has been amazing me with her antics ever since she got here


Like teaching me  how to throw the ball, an activity other dog humans call “fetch.”  But who’s fooling who?  Mindy brings the ball to me, drops it at my feet, nudges it at me with her nose, then sits back and waits for me to throw it.  She brings it back and repeats the routine till I get it right.

And who knew a dog with legs hardly six inches tall would do the “gimmie your paw” stunt?  It just never occurred to me until a little kid came over and was low enough to the floor to ask Mindy for a paw.  She complied easily and looked at me as if to say, “What the hell have you been waiting for?”

I messaged my amazement to her previous human who suggested I ask for the other paw.  Sure enough Mindy doubled down on that parlor trick and gave up both front paws.

The first time she lowered the passenger window in the car I thought it was a fluke.  But I soon discovered the battle for the wind.  Since the child lock only impedes the rear door control panels and Mindy sits shot gun, my desire to conserve heat or air conditioning competes with Mindy’s desire to hang her head out the window.

I message her pervious human again and she messages me back “ha, ha. Girl knows exactly what she is doing.”

I owe such a debt of gratitude to that human being - Jen Brouillette. She raised this precious girl for eight years until changes in her life forced her to give Mindy up one year ago on the day after Thanksgiving.  Jen was moving - like the next day moving.  And the first family that agreed to take the dog brought her back.  They clearly lacked the intellect to have a dog like Mindy.  If I didn’t come that night the only alternative for Jen would have been to leave Mindy at the animal shelter.

Tipped off by a mutual friend I called Jen and we met for the first time in the darkened driveway of her cottage already packed for the move.  She handed me her beloved pet, a leash and a dog bed.

“She will go with anyone,” Jen said putting on a brave face. But I wasn't just "anyone."

I had to leave quickly. A prolonged good bye wouldn't do. Backing away the last image I saw of Jen was framed in the solitary warm glow of a bare kitchen window. She fell into the arms of her roommate and sobbed.  I’m pretty sure it was among the hardest things she had ever done.

A year later she can be confident it was the right thing to do even while I have neighbors who would argue otherwise.  Mindy is the self-proclaimed queen of the house. She is a companion to my 93-year-old mother who often doesn’t know who I am but calls the dog by her name. 

My daughter who is away at college has me text photos of Mindy on a regular basis to brighten her day. Mindy has become a bit of a celebrity on campus where she is an unofficial mascot of the Dartmouth Rockapellas.  When I brought her to campus on parents weekend I was flocked by a group of giddy sophomore girls I had never seen before in my life but they recognized Mindy instantly and had to pose with her for photos. 

She still has food aggression and despite that Dori is three times her size, Mindy maimed her big lab sister over a piece of broccoli that dropped to the kitchen floor between them. Nothing a little Neosporin couldn’t fix. We are more careful now when cutting vegetables at the counter.

She is otherwise a great friend to Dori who has been gracious and accommodating . The two of them take trail walks and beach walks and play in the yard where they compete for the ball or the Frisbee or what ever is being thrown and after the broccoli experience Dori pretty much lets Mindy win most of the time.


The arrival of a new kitten gave Mindy a chance to engage her herding instincts. Fiona has become a herd of one that Mindy protects from our big gray tabby BooBoo who has no patience for the kitten. But when ever BooBoo hisses or swats at Fiona, Mindy runs to the kitten’s defense.

Mindy is much loved in her new home but far from forgotten by her first human. I send regular updates about her antics and photos of her adventures. And late last summer Jen finally came for a visit. Mindy was ecstatic to see her They played ball in the yard and chilled with me on the porch. I think it made them both feel better. We hope she comes again. 

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

The hypocrisy of the season



You may find it ironic, especially as the nation raises the ghosts of my ancestors and gives thanks for the colonization of our homeland, but you won’t find me rejecting Syrian refugees.

It’s been nearly 400 years since the Wampanoag welcomed the pilgrims to live in our territory. By the time our Massasoit, Oosameequan, made his peace with them more than half of the Mayflower passengers had died. They endured an incredible and harrowing journey packed like sardines in an ill equipped ship to a new frontier thousands of miles from their homeland. They were men, women and children who fled religious persecution. Sound familiar?
When I imagine what Oosameequan might have been thinking looking into the eyes of an English born child staring back at him with wanting wide blue eyes and wispy golden hair blowing over her fair skinned face, her only crime in her faith, his decision had to be easy. And despite what occurred in the next generation, I don’t regret the welcoming tradition that still thrives among the Wampanoag to this day.

As Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, along with more than half of our country’s narrow minded state leaders, paint Syrians and Muslims with a broad stroke of potential threat they achieve exactly what the terrorists want from us - fear.

I have room in my home and my heart for Syrian refugees. Because it isn’t the people that bring hatred, it’s an ideology that consumes them. Historically it was an ideology fueled by Manifest Destiny and endorsed by the Doctrine of Discovery that sanctioned the oppression, wars and genocide perpetrated on Native Americans. An ideology of intolerance to differences.

Turning that boatload of hapless pilgrims away wouldn't have changed that eventual outcome. Change will come when we are consumed by knowledge, respect and tolerance for others. Stripping the ideology of hate in the name of false gods of any integrity. Like the Parisian man who lost his wife in the attack on Paris earlier this month but refused to answer hate with more hate.

Last week I was comforted to hear President Barak Obama offer clarity on the issue of what to do with refugees when he said that our greatest weapon against terrorists is to be fearless. But who was really paying attention?

As you gather together on the holiday inspired by this nation's original refugees feasting on your cornucopia of good fortune will you be serving hypocrisy pie for desert?

Closing our country to fleeing Syrians is not only the wrong thing to do, it will only provide a false sense of security. Our borders, like those around the globe, are eminently porous. Even Donald Trump’s money can’t build a wall high enough to shut us in. And if he could, is that really what we want?

Are our memories so short that we don’t remember how our nation breeds terrorists? From the government sanctioned genocide on Native American reservations to the wholesale lynching of blacks in the south by the KKK? Have we forgotten James Huberty gunned down 21 people in a San Diego McDonalds in 1984? The 1986 shooting in Edmond, Oklahoma when postal worker Patrick Sherrill killed 14 people making the term “going postal” a household phrase? That in 1991 George Hennard killed 22 people in a Luby’s restaurant in Killeen, Texas? In 1995 Timothy McVeigh was far more calculating when he made a 4,800 pound bomb of easily available materials and a truck load of fertilizer killing 168 people including children he knew to be playing in a day care in the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold set out to commit the most heinous and unimaginable school shooting the nation had ever seen killing 13 classmates in Columbine, Colorado. Their vicious act has since trended among mentally unstable teens with access to guns only to be outdone in particularly savage fashion in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut where Adam Lanza killed 20 first graders and six adults before he killed himself.

Carnage from mass shootings in places like Atlanta, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Wakefield, Red Lake Indian Reservation, Blacksburg, Omaha, Dekalb, Binghamton, Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora, Washington, D.C., Charleston, Roseburg and too many other cities and towns across this nation to list have mounting body counts but can hardly be calculated in terms of devastated lives. All acts of terrorism committed here in this country - overwhelmingly by white men who are citizens of this country. The threat to America is already here and it’s called “U.S.”

Syrian civilians face a horrible fate. Trapped between ISIS militants and a corrupt and brutal government they have little choice but to risk their lives crossing dangerous seas in poorly equipped boats to foreign lands hoping to find refuge. Sound familiar?

To deny refuge to the truly disenfranchised and threatened innocents of the world, who are the real terrorists? Opening our boarders to refugees includes risk, but it’s risk far out weighted by the creation of a larger state of common good will toward an objective for world wide peace and understanding. Make that the dominant ideology, and while we are at it spread the word - killing in the name of your god does not make you a martyr and there are no virgins waiting for you in heaven.




Saturday, November 14, 2015

Get the "Message"


There is constantly competition for my undivided attention so whenever I can call something finished and move on to the next project I am relieved.

This week I was grateful to turn the page on the second chapter of “Our”Story: 400 Years of Wampanoag History as we opened “The Messenger” in the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Community
Attaquin Weeden, the Messenger, and I attending the
exhibit opening at the Tribal Government Center
and Government Center.

In November of last year the multi-media traveling display was kicked off with the first of six chapters, “Captured 1614,” the graphic and boldly told story of 27 Wampanoag men kidnapped to be sold as slaves in Spain. Thousands of visitors to the physical exhibit that traveled around Southeastern Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as countless others who checked in online, were fascinated with the critical back-story to colonization, much of it told in the voices of contemporary tribal members portraying the impact such a loss had on our ancestors. Many visitors were people who had become inured to history never questioning why Squanto, the only one of the 27 kidnapped known to have returned, knew how to speak English so well. And it wasn’t as if that truth was buried deep in some unknown archive. It was simply not a priority when told in “his”story books.

After a tremendously successful year with Captured 1614 I really thought it would be difficult to generate that same kind of enthusiasm for the next chapter. But I was wrong. This year’s installment has already made a powerful statement around the globe.

And it could not have been more timely for us tribally. After waiting more than four decades for the return of our ancestral homeland, we installed the exhibit just as the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe deeds were being recorded as official trust land establishing our reservations in Mashpee and Taunton. And it is no coincidence that the Messenger exhibit includes the very same map of the tribe’s 17th century territory used to convince the Bureau of Indian Affairs of our entitlement to these regions. For that I owe a great debt of thanks to my dear friend and fellow tribe member Jessie little doe Baird who shared her scholarly research to make it possible.

Displaying the territory also gave us a perfect opportunity to teach people about the tradition of the messenger in a contemporary way. Historically strong runners who were not only fast and could endure long distances, but also had impeccable memory and could be trusted with important and often sensitive information were chosen as messengers and honored to do the job. They were known to carry messages to villages throughout the vast Wampanoag territory and to neighboring tribes and might travel hundreds of miles before they were done.

The “Our”Story video “The Messenger” is shared on You Tube.

Remarkably “Our”Story designed and developed entirely by Wampanoag people with complete editorial control over its content is funded by Plymouth 400 Inc., the organization responsible for planning the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower in 2020. They are not only fully aware this story cannot be told without the inclusion of the indigenous story, they embrace it for the truths that have been overlooked for centuries. I am grateful for that support and for all the tribal members who contributed to make the exhibit possible.

Each year in November through 2020 you can expect a new chapter to be produced and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.


Sunday, November 1, 2015

A bitter sweet breakfast

Today I am melancholy as the youngest of my children turns 21.

She is away at college but earlier in the week surprised us with a quick visit home and an early celebration with family. I am sure what ever occurred last night among her peers was a far cry from her spaghetti dinner and panda cake affair here. I hope she had an amazing time.

This morning as Savannah awakes an adult in the legal sense it is a milestone for both of us. I have no more “children.”

Apparently neither does my mother. At breakfast I told her it was Savannah’s birthday. She dropped a chunk of her home fries to the dog sitting dutifully to her right and looked back at me with a blank stare.
This moment, these faces, I never want to forget.

“Who has a birthday?” she asked.

“Savannah, my daughter,” I answered.

"Oh," she said seemingly unaware that I had a daughter.

Then I asked her if she had any daughters.

“No,” she said. “I don’t have any children.”

I started to get a little weepy but fought it off as there were others at the table and I didn’t want to make a scene. In reality it was a scene from my daily drama called, The Guiding Darkness, featuring me as the chaperone for my mother slipping deeper and deeper into her dementia. In this episode all of her memories of motherhood have vanished. From giving birth to four children, to losing her first born, to our youth and our school days, watching us struggle and succeed in becoming successful adults with kids of our own. I wonder if the succession of annual traditions and holiday gatherings that make our family so unique and special are still in there somewhere. 

Motherhood for me has not always been easy. There have been a host of challenges but they are far outweighed by the rewards. Like the day my daughter Rhiannon finished the Falmouth Road Race 18-months after major orthopedic surgery, and when my son Steve married his high school sweetheart Jennifer, and the day my grandson Russell was born, and when Savannah skipped down the stairs with news she had been accepted into Dartmouth College and gave me the first spontaneous hug I had received from her since she entered puberty.

Who would I be if I didn’t remember those things?

Days like this are bitter sweet. Celebrating that my baby girl is officially a grown woman at the same time knowing this horrible disease has robbed my mother of all of her memory of raising her family. I know how hard she worked at it. I know how much she loved us. 

That is the real tragedy of Alzheimer's. 


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Never too old to appreciate good dance moves

While for most people it was time to “get ready for some football,” this past Sunday my niece and daughter and GMa and I decided to huddle up on the sectional in our jammies and watch chick flicks. Scrolling through selections of newly available on demand movies we picked Magic Mike XXL.

Mom and Mindy smiling at Magic Mike.
Rhiannon left the room with a groan but was caught sneaking down the stairs to peek when ever Hana and I were screeching with delight.

Meanwhile mom was clapping and singing random, nonsensical lyrics to the beat mocking the half naked rapper with six-pack abs.

It was a perfect moment in our lives lived moment to moment with mom.

I miss her, the mom who loved and nurtured me, who encouraged me, who believed in me. She was a dedicated mom who never said no to any of her children in need. She was a role model for social justice and political advocacy who taught me that caring, whether for an orphaned baby squirrel, a homeless person, or her own mother and son in their dying days was not a burden but a responsibility.

Mom was brilliant in so many ways and I’m sure knew what was happening to her long before we did; weekly games of scrabble and contract bridge at the senior center were her desperate attempt to exercise her brain and stave off the inevitable. The hardest part of witnessing the toll of this illness was seeing mom endure the personal heartbreak of experiencing the loss of her cognitive ability. She had a hard time joining a foursome at bridge games and her scrabble buddy completely stopped coming. She told me she wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.

But then one day she did wake up in another place in time and much to our delight she brought us along. For months we went through a period of learning about her childhood days with her brother and sisters in New Bedford. We even met her high school sweetheart vicariously through mom's time warp.

Then there were the songs, sung out of tune but lyrics as crisp as they were written yesterday. I started Googling the words and discovered a whole new era of music that taught me that a “flat foot floosie” was a hooker and the “foy, foy” was slang for venereal disease. Who knew?

These days she talks far less. She knows far fewer people who come through the door. Casually she asks, “Who is back at your house?” hoping the answers will give her a clue to the familiar face. She repeats the same verse every night before bed, “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

When I see her old friends they ask of her and many are surprised she still lives at home. Quite honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure there are lots of assisted living and nursing home facilities dedicated to elderly patients with dementia but even if she did go to one I would still have to be there every day to make sure she was getting the same care I would giver her. Family and friends that come here would have to go to a sterile facility to visit her where I’m sure having a slick bodied Michael Strahan wearing nothing but a thong and dancing through a shower of dollar bills in high definition on the big screen would not be allowed.

So while there are things I certainly miss about the old mom, I count myself among the most fortunate to have her home and to have such a supportive group of family and friends who pitch in when needed. It makes me a little sad when she knows the dog is Mindy but doesn’t remember my name, but mom still experiences occasions of pure joy like when the cat who is miserable to everyone else in the house curls up on her lap and purrs. She laughs spontaneously at things unexplained and mysterious, and sings out of tune.

This mom has her moments.