A Message from Mr. Sedd

As you have noticed, Mrs. Sedd hasn’t written her blog for several months. Her absence was occasioned by her loss of both parents, within less than two months of each other. She has let me, Mr.Sedd, use this space to express gratitude for those who have thought of her and to offer some of my own thoughts on loss.

My own parents passed away several years ago. I had my own time of sadness, and would like to share something that gives me comfort – a way to accept those events that are unacceptable, but true nonetheless.  It comes from Gustav Mahler, an Austrian composer, whose Resurrection Symphony draws from German folk songs to narrate the journeys taken by our dear departed loved ones.

In the symphony, the departing sings:

“There I came upon a broad path when came a little angel and wanted to turn me away.

Ah no! I would not let myself be turned away!

I am from God and shall return to God!

The loving God will grant me a little light,

Which will light me into that eternal blissful life!

…

With wings which I have won for myself,

in love’s fierce striving,

I soar upwards, to the light which no eye has penetrated!

Its wing that I won is expanded, and I fly up.

Die shall I in order to live.

Rise again, yes, rise again, will you, my heart, in an instant!

That for which you suffered,

To God will it lead you!

 

For believers, there is great comfort in the ideas of God and of resurrection. I also think there is wisdom and peace in accepting that these journeys belong to the ones we have lost. Even though we, as the ‘little angels’, desperately want to turn them away from their paths – to keep them present – we cannot, and anyway, they are too determined to let us.

Also, as the lyrics say, “with wings which I have won for myself, in love’s fierce striving…” I’ve come to a new appreciation for those I have lost. Their lives have new meaning to me. I see, daily, what their love accomplished. I am grateful.

Mrs. Sedd will return to her blog when the time is right. Meanwhile, I thank her for sharing her space with me, and wish all who have suffered loss, peace.

Reflections on Summer Past

Summer vacation is over and the reality of a busy fall work season is staring me in the face, but I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the good, the bad, and the boring of the past few months.

1.       Washington, D.C. is the new San Francisco.  Ok, that may be overstating things just a bit, but the D.C. weather this summer has been positively pleasant, not at all the typical hot-and-humid horror that makes me want to curl up into a ball on the sofa in my air conditioned family room.  No, not at all.

2.       I survived the Bay Bridge.  Really.  And I drove over that sucker 4 times in a 2-week period.  Screwed my courage to the sticking place, I did, just like Lady MacBeth told her husband to do…although it didn’t turn out so well for MacBeth, did it?  Anyway….

3.       Summer movies suck.  There, I said it.  I am officially over the summer movie season – but thank god the fall movie season is around the corner, making it safe for grown-ups to go back to the theatres again.  ‘Bout time.

4.       I didn’t lose the 50 pounds.  But then again, I never do….

5.       I didn’t gain the 20 pounds.  So, there is a little bit of good news….

6.       Looks like I’ll live another year.  At least, that’s according to my doctor who pronounced that I am in reasonably good health based on my annual physical.

7.       But I do have a lung CT tomorrow.  Just to be on the safe side, former smoker that I am.

8.       And I still have foot pain.  I think my hurting heel is something I’ll have to get used to.

9.       I’m getting a new bathroom!  I’m getting a new bathroom!  Isn’t that great?  It’s the little things in life…

10.   It’s almost Thanksgiving.  It’s my favorite holiday.  And it’s only 3 months away!!

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend.  We’ll be in touch soon.

 

The Bay Bridge Blues

It started about a year ago, shortly after the news of a night-time car accident that sent a woman and her car over the side of the bridge and into the waters of the Chesapeake below. 

I developed a phobia about driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that links the Eastern shore of Maryland and Delaware Beaches to the North with the urban Western shore and the D.C. metro area.

I can handle just about any bridge you throw at me with little complaint, but not this bridge.  And when I say it’s a phobia, that’s being generous.  My heart races, my adrenalin surges, and my fingers lock around the steering wheel.  Holding my head in locked position as well (fear of heights, doncha know), it takes all of my will and concentration on the car directly in front of me to get me across.

I also talk to myself and sometimes shout obscenities as I drive the bridge’s 4.3 mile length that is considered one of the scariest in the world “because of its height, narrowness of the spans, low guardrails and the frequency of high winds.” (I must duly acknowledge Wikipedia for this description, but I knew it all intuitively based on the level of anxiety experienced in transit.)

Last weekend, I had to traverse the bridge twice in order to retrieve my daughter and her friend from their beautiful YMCA summer camp on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  (I won’t offer a geography lesson, but to get to the Eastern Shore of Virginia from Northern Virginia in the shortest amount of time, you have to go up and over then down from the Eastern Shore of Maryland -- a real hike that requires the Bay Bridge route.)  Because I had two kids in the car, I tried to keep the panic relatively low-key – muttering to myself rather than, say, shouting out the f-bomb – all the while praying for god to be my co-pilot. 

Once we climb to the top of the bridge span and begin our descent to the “other side,” I start to relax a little, confident that I will live another day.  And so it was last weekend, although we were almost killed by a big black Chrysler sedan that cut us off as lanes narrowed on Route 50 just outside of D.C. – well beyond the Bay Bridge – but that story is off topic today, so I won’t bore you with it.

Anyway, I’m starting to get anxious in advance of this week’s journey across that bloody awful bridge as we head north for some beach time.  I’m sweating already just thinking about it.

I wish I could say that writing this post was a way of exercising my demons but it really isn’t.  I know what lies ahead and there’s very little you can do to help me.  

Wait, I’m wrong about that.  Just say a little prayer.

 

Ohm

I was talking with a dear friend this morning about the power of meditation and how it helps her navigate a demanding professional life.    Somehow she has learned to make the time to quiet her mind enough so that she can occupy a spiritual space of contemplation and, dare I say it, calm and contentment.

Damn.  Wish I knew how to do that.

Whenever I’ve tried to meditate, I find that within 60 seconds my brain-junk is busily disruptive and making noise, noise, noise.

I try deep breathing.  I try counting backwards.  I try focusing on a single word or thought.  I work on visualizing the ocean, let’s say, or a flower-filled garden.

And the chatter begins.  What will I make for dinner?  What did I forget to do today?  Why did I say what I said to so-and-so…and why did so-and-so say that to me?

You get the picture.

But today, my more enlightened friend intrigued me by describing the value of her meditations in a manner that was compelling:   It provides the perspective and empowerment of detachment.  

To paraphrase that scene from When Harry Met Sally:  I want what she's having.

I’m in a place in life right now where that power of detachment, as well as the calm and empathy it can bring, feels very right to me. ...a way of acknowledging the need to prepare for many life changes ahead as my parents pass, my daughter grows up and into her own life, and my wonderful husband and I look for one last adventure in ours.

I'm really not trying to be grim here; rather, I think it's wonderful to be intentional about emotional investments. As the swirl of change gathers force in my life, I'd rather face it with a feeling of steadiness and serenity rather than fear of the unknown or a compulsive urge to act.

Sign me up for that! 

So maybe it's time to give meditation another go. Now if only I can get my unquiet mind to shut the f-up....

Happy Thursday.

 

 

A World of Woe

For many, many years now – really since Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August of 1990 – I’ve associated the end of summer (through Labor Day) as a time when bad stuff happens.  So far, this year, my theory about summer disasters (real ones, not just crappy movies for overgrown boys) seems to be holding firm.  Let’s see now….

n   Ebola.  Steven Soderbergh’s film “Contagion” isn't theoretical; Ebola is on the move and the question is whether or not it can be largely contained to West Africa or, because of the miracle of air travel and our truly global society, become more geographically dispersed.  Scary stuff…and for those students of scary stuff, you might want to read The Hot Zone¸  a true story about some monkeys in Reston, VA and the danger posed by this deadly virus.

n  Russia.  Putin’s past and present seem to be catching up with him:  A European Court has found in favor of Yukos, the former oil company that he destroyed because it’s founder called him out as the neo-Stalinist he is (and ordered Russia to pay $50B in damages). Even energy-dependent Europe can’t deny that Putin’s Russia is a pretty rogue state.  But punishment and its resulting disruption (Russia is on verge of a major recession) often encourage dangerous people to do even more dangerous things (remember Hitler?) so here’s hoping Putin “blinks” and soon.

n  Gaza.  This is a tragedy that never seems to come to any kind of conclusion.  It would seem so again.  Israel, beware:  Hard to believe when your enemy is Hamas, but you seem very, very close to losing the PR war.

n  Southern California water.  Shades of things to come. Everything you need to know about our country’s aging infrastructure was on view the other day in L.A.  Tens of millions of gallons of water went down the drain in a very thirsty part of our country.  Not good.

n  The U.S. economy and our stock market.  Roaring in the 2^nd Quarter.  But will our troubled world thrown “cold water” on us in Q3?

n  Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife.  Looks like staying in a bad marriage constitutes a felony, among other things.  Oy.

Let’s just say that things this summer are proceeding down the same perilous path as in summers past. 

Time for a vacation, people.

 

July

It will be August in 9 days.  I find that hard to believe because our Washington, D.C. summer weather has been so temperate.  Additionally, I haven’t yet had a real vacation because my daughter has been away from home more than she’s been here, requiring her father and I to work rather than loaf around the house or on a beach.  

Boy, the house has been quiet. 

Due to the fact we’re not navigating the omnipresent needs of our 13-year-old “queen,” my husband and I have time on our hands to:

·         See a lot of doctors

·         Go for regular physical therapy treatments for various aches and pains on the recommendation of those doctors

·         Sleep until 6:30 in the morning

·         Stay up until 11 at night (whoopee!)

·         Watch whatever we want, including some really bad old movies with great actors – like Tommy Lee Jones in a terrible (but compelling) disaster film about a volcano in LA

·         Eat what our daughter would find unacceptable as dinner fare, like a really yummy chicken salad or omelet

·         Practice guitar (me) and complete crossword puzzles (him) without interruption

·         Go to the neighborhood pool (but not enough to justify our membership this summer)

·         Solicit bids on a bathroom remodel (which we’ve scaled back to basically re-tiling the shower)

·         Eat all the delicious Cadbury chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bars in the freezer (and not have to negotiate the next evening over who get the last one…because there isn't one)

When our daughter returns from her latest jaunt – her trip with friends to Niagara Falls – she’ll have a week home to focus on summer school work that she’s behind on because she’s been doing important things like growing up and just having some fun.  And then she’ll go off to camp again for a week in August.

In the meantime, my better half and I will cycle through the tasks of life listed above (in addition to going to work, of course) and enjoy this sneak preview of what our empty nest will look like 5 years from now.

I definitely think we need to cultivate a few hobbies.

 

 

My Left Foot

After nearly 2 months of moaning about how it hurts to walk on my left heel, I finally limped to an orthopedist yesterday.  Nearly $300  later, I learned from an x-ray that my heel bone (a.k.a. the calcaneous) looks like a sharp-angled ski-jump instead of a smooth slope – forcing my Achilles tendon and plantar fascia, the ligament that runs along the bottom of the foot, to react rather negatively to the stress of walking. 

Isn’t it nice when you can learn something new?

But back to me:  Long ago I gave up wearing anything with a significant heel, and in recent years have migrated completely to flats.  In the summer I am especially fond of wearing Tom’s brand shoes – flat-as-a pancake, slipper-like nothings.  They are pretty comfortable until something like this heel pain happens, and then they are not. 

So off I go tomorrow to begin 6 weeks of twice-weekly physical therapy.  And for the next 6 days, I’ll be taking a lot of steroids to calm my inflamed fascia. Steroids usually make me pretty crabby and borderline paranoid so it should be good times around my house in the coming week.

But the truth is that I will likely have this for the rest of my life because my heel bone is what it is; my feet are flat-as-a-pancake, too – another chronic condition contributor! 

Thank god it’s worse in the morning, and actually gets better the more walking you do during the day.  That said, the late middle-aged onset of this condition does mean:

1.       I will likely have to give up passion for Tom’s flats -- at minimum; I won’t be wearing them on the treadmill anymore!  And in one unintended consequence, some child in the third world won’t be getting a free pair of shoes from Tom as I will no longer be a customer.  Sigh.  (For those of you unfamiliar with this wonderful brand, Tom’s gives away a pair of shoes for every pair purchased -- which makes one feel better for paying a little too much for shoes that actually, on the face of it, aren’t really that special but are trendy).

2.       Dr. Scholl’s heel jellies will become an annoying necessity for cushioning my heel, but they aren’t super comfortable either as they shift around in your shoe when you walk.

3.       Hello, old grandma cushiony sneakers -- I’ll have to start wearing you with some frequency. Ugh.

4.       I will have to spend money on physical therapy when I’d rather spend it on some expensive shoes.

In any event, feet are a highly desirable attribute of most Homo sapiens so I will do what I am told in an effort to reclaim a tiny bit of quality of life for my aging body.

Foot, don’t fail me now.