Twenty minutes after I leave home, I pull onto the access road to the hospital. Thinking how routine this already feels. Thinking I don’t want this to be a new normal. I navigate without conscious thought, easily finding my way to patient visitor parking. I park and walk toward the building, eager to see you, wondering how your night was. The doors open automatically as I approach, and I enter, turning left toward the stairs that will take me up to your room.

I’ve been up and down these stairs dozens of times in the past two days. Going to the bathroom. Trying to get cell phone reception. Calling people to give updates. Running to the car to grab something. Bringing your cell phone down so that texts will come through. Moving just to move.

At the bottom of the stairs this morning, I stop and look up, feeling my anxiety ratchet up. How will you be? How was your night? Will we get any answers today? Will they be reassuring or not? What happens next?

The steps stretch up before me. I take a deep breath and mount them slowly.

One.

Two.

Three.

The wall along the stairs is decorated with large paintings, primarily Maine land- and seascapes. I haven’t looked at them closely, but in my many trips up and down, one in particular has drawn my eye again and again. Perhaps it’s because of its location–at the top of the stairs. Or perhaps because of its subject–a single sailboat underway in the midst of a vast expanse of ocean. The waters sometimes appear calm to me, and sometimes seem more turbulent. It must depend on the angle. Always, though, the sailboat looks the same– small and so vulnerable in the midst of so much water. No land in sight.

I climb the stairs slowly, my eyes lingering on that painting. On that small boat. On the blue seas surrounding it. I think of this journey we’re on, and wonder where we’re going. What will our destination be?

Finally, I reach the landing.

It feels selfish and cowardly, but I stand still for just a moment. Just one. I want to exist in this brief space of not knowing anything more. Just for a minute. One, long minute when nothing changes. Even though this minute is fraught, it could be easier than the next one. Or the next one could be easier, I remind myself. Though that’s just not the way I think. I’m so scared.

I take the moment. Stretch it out for a bit longer. Then I step forward, turn the corner, and walk down the hallway to your room.

My husband and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary this past Monday. I wrote him this, my first love poem, in honor of the occasion.

Love Poem

If I wrote a list of my favorite things
owls would perch there
as would the seed heads of dandelions
with their wind-wild confetti parties
I’d jot down twisting wisps of dawn-lit fog
dew-bedecked spider webs and
the first chorus of the spring peepers
along with bloom-laden stalks of hollyhocks
the scents of balsam and cinnamon
and the echoing cry of a loon
Then, above them all,
there’s that spot on your neck
beneath your left ear
and your scent that rises as I lean in
to press my lips there
the constellation of freckles on your shoulders
and the solid warmth of you beside me
at the close of every day

Molly Hogan ©2019

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Mary Lee Hahn at her blog, A Year of Reading . She’s sharing a wonderful original poem entitled “I Am Not”, inspired by a Naomi Shihab Nye prompt. This week many others are also sharing poems with a Naomi Shihab Nye theme. Stop by to check them out!

When I’m looking for inspiration, sometimes I go diving into my drafts, looking for a spark. It’s interesting to do and often I feel like I’m visiting some alternative me. I have to work to get into the mindset or mood I had when I started the post. Often it’s a jumble of sentence fragments, half-finished thoughts and photos, like a puzzle that needs to be solved. What was I thinking? Why had I started writing it? Why had I never finished?

Today, draft diving seemed like a good plan for finding a slice. I found the beginnings of this one. I’m not sure exactly when I started writing it, but it must have been a couple of months ago….although the beginning sentence sounds a bit too familiar! At any rate, here goes:

I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately–or perhaps unsettled. At any rate, yesterday morning was a cold, cold start to the day. I went out to the car to warm it up and pulled my arms close around me. What coat to wear today? I suddenly thought, Oh, I want to wear mom’s coat.  I rarely wear it, as it’s a full length wool coat, but today that extra warmth and comfort of my mom around me felt like a good idea. In more ways than one. I had to go dig it out of the attic and even though it was stiff with cold, I stuck with my plan.

Once in my classroom, I opted to play music. Soon “The Rhythm of Love” by the plain white tees filled the room. I smiled. This song sends me back to the first time I heard it–or at least the first time I remember listening to it. It was December 2017 and Kurt, Lydia and I had traveled to Philadelphia to spend Christmas with Adeline. The four of us were in a neighborhood restaurant eating a delicious breakfast. I remember the song coming on the radio and one of the girls commenting how much she liked it. I listened and the music linked irrevocably to that moment. Now whenever I hear that song, I feel connected to my daughters, to that trip, to that bubble of warmth and companionship in the midst of a cold winter day.

Then I picked up my phone. I can’t get Facebook Messenger at school, but the notifications still pop up. There was an unexpected text from my daughter, Adeline,

and a notification that a photo had also been sent. I couldn’t see the latter until later, but the spontaneous heart was so welcome. Like a hug. I felt myself settling into the day, feeling less at sea.

When I got home after school, I remembered the photo Addie had sent and clicked.

I responded, and Addie answered promptly.

I ended the day feeling so much better, settled and connected, and oh-so-thankful for all the love in my life, past and present.

I have a lot of odds and ends posts in the draft folder on my blog. Some are a few words. Others are a picture or two. Some are prose. Some are poetry. Some are almost complete and many are far from it. With the grandest of new year intentions, I recently decided that I’m going to dig into those drafts (all 100 of them) and trash or publish them. I may not be cleaning my house, but, darn it!, I’m going to try to get my blog in order. With that thought in mind, it felt particularly appropriate to revisit and finish this draft from last spring….

We’ve been cleaning house lately. Well, to be more precise, Kurt has been cleaning house and I’ve been protesting the process. It goes a bit like this:

“Molly, we have way too much crap! We have to get rid of stuff. Who needs all this stuff?”

“But I like this (insert item name here)! I might want it some day.”

What is this some day I’m waiting for?

So, we’ve been going through some closets and drawers and finding all sorts of things. Some pleasant, and some not so much (here). I pick and poke through things and Kurt fills boxes and bags with wild, frightening abandon. (And if you know Kurt, you’ll know that I am NOT exaggerating!)

Adeline has been visiting and she’s cleaning her room out, settling more firmly into her new life in Philadelphia. I watch her sift through her belongings. She tosses out this and that, and I have to stop my hands from grabbing so many things. From pulling them out of the pile.

Is this growing up made visible? Choosing what things have value and casting aside others. So many small items are imbued with so much memory and meaning.

So, while Kurt is wildly throwing out, recycling, reorganizing, I’m dragging my feet. This feels like empty nest on steroids. Stop!!! There’s enough change going on around here!

But then, some of it’s unexpectedly…nice…even rewarding. My son’s room has now been shoveled out and binned up. (“Molly, I don’t think Connor threw away a single paper while he was in high school!”) The totes and boxes still sit in the hallway (update–maybe some of them are still there…) and we’ve moved upstairs into his freshly painted (Thanks, Kurt!) room. It’s lovely. I hadn’t realized…

How much do I miss because I’m allowing clutter to overtake everything? Am I limiting new experiences because I’m clinging to old ones?

But I don’t want to get rid of everything! And even though I know that no one is asking me to do that, that’s what it feels like at times. At the very least I want that special box–the one that holds all the best carefully selected stuff attached to the best memories–the one I can open when some imaginary grandchildren are visiting someday.

I imagine saying, “Here’s Bear. He was your dad’s favorite stuffed animal and traveled all over with us. He used to be white, but he got covered with love.” or

“Your dad used to make us read this dictionary to him over and over. He loved it! We always had to start at “a for abacus” because that was the first picture.” or

“This is John Smith. Your dad had so much fun playing with him. He made up all sorts of adventure stories.”

And in this imagined world, this imagined grandchild picks up the figure, or the stuffed animal, or the book, and completes a circle.

Perhaps my wild grab at all these “things” is an attempt to capture and hold on to the more elusive things–the laughter, the hum of young voices, their childhood years, my “youth.” Perhaps it’s an effort to be prepared for every future eventuality.

But perhaps the letting go is how I make room for more–for unexpected pleasures, for new realizations.  And perhaps it’s also an acknowledgement that I can’t be prepared for every change that lies ahead. So, with all this in mind, I may continue to drag my feet, but I’ll also take another box or two to the recycling barn. And with every item we give away, I will still be aware of that link to the past or the potential link to the future. I’ll still hear those whispers in my mind: I remember when…These were my mother’s … I might want this…. I might need this. I might….But I’ll touch each thing and let it go. Slowly, but surely.

Addendum: Just this past Sunday, Kurt uttered those dreaded words again, “Molly, I’m going to start getting rid of stuff!” And so I cycle through the whole process again…