room 8 (or, this is four years)

It’s Friday, December 9th, 2016, day two of my five day trip to London and Belgium. This is the first international trip I’ve gone on since my dad got sick in 2010, much less since he passed away in 2012. For months now I have been itching to take off and get some stamps in my passport. I am definitely jetlagged, but so hopped up on vacation you wouldn’t know it. My friend Luca is at work and I’m blissfully roaming around a sunny and stately London by myself for the morning. At the recommendation of a friend, I’m headed to the National Gallery because, a) I haven’t been to the nearby Trafalgar Square yet, b) it seems a shame to come to London without taking in some culture, and c) admission to the gallery is free.

By the time I navigate my way to the National Gallery (via a paper map my dear friend Rachel fortuitously loaned to me as my phone had suddenly died on the way there), I only have got an hour to spend at the museum. However, as someone who is much better at appreciating aesthetics than art history, an hour seems like plenty of time for me. When I go to art museums, I typically engage in a brisk walk by strategy, letting art as a whole wash over me rather than intimately examining specific pieces. I don’t know the stories behind the painters, their techniques, or the significance of the work. Anything I do know about art I learned from patiently walking through famous museums in Italy with my dad when I was fifteen. My dad knew the best stories about paintings: whose mistress was in which paintings, who had secret boyfriends, what biblical and historical references were being made, why the baby Jesus depictions in many paintings are so weird and creepy, etc.

I loved my dad. He passed away four years ago. And I still miss him. Not acutely, not achingly, not crushingly, not anymore. Rather, there’s a constant baseline level of grief in the background of my mind these days, so subtle at this point I sometimes forget it is even there. Until something causes my focus to shift. In the space of a moment, that background can become the foreground and crush my heart to pieces all over again.

Arriving at the National Gallery, I stroll in and pick up a basic map of the museum. I see the word Michelangelo on the map and nonchalantly begin to make my way to the 16th century High Renaissance and Mannerism wing (my dad, as many of you know, was enthralled with Michelangelo). Room by room, I go by dozens of paintings, but no Michelangelo. Halfway through the wing I pick up my pace a bit, barely registering images because I’m so focused on placards. As I round the last room in the wing I begin to panic a bit; still no Michelangelo.

Thank goodness for free Wi-Fi and the National Gallery’s incredibly detailed website. With the help of these two things, I find out that two of their four Michelangelo works are currently on display. Somehow I missed them back in Room 8.

I fast-walk back to Room 8 and quickly zone in on the Michelangelo works. The two paintings, unfinished actually, are hanging side by side. They don’t astound me visually. I’m usually drawn to paintings with more contrast and darkness in their color. But they are Michelangelo pieces and finding them makes me feel connected to my dad. So I stop. I study them. I take (non-flash) pictures of them.

And then my background grief comes zooming up into the foreground.

Unfinished paintings.

By Michelangelo.

There has never been a better metaphor for my dad’s life and death.

Some parts of the paintings are fully fleshed out, arguably complete. Others are just sketched in. Some spaces are just entirely blank.

And then, I’m crying in Room 8 of the National Gallery in London.

Not just tearing up, mind you. Crying. Thankfully not quite sobbing. This visual of my dad’s life, the unfinished Michelangelo work, brings back the roaring, all-encompassing grief with incredible speed. I haven’t been sucker punched by my grief this badly in a long time. After the first couple of years[1] of Father’s Days Facebook posts and father-daughter wedding dances, I have gotten pretty good at anticipating my dead dad triggers. I know when they are coming, and I can either steel myself to face them or go out of my way to avoid them.

I knew walking through the museum would make me miss my dad and wish he was here to give me the grand tour. I knew a Michelangelo painting would evoke feelings and memories of my dad even more. But I hadn’t realized the impact a rather insignificant, unfinished Michelangelo painting would have on me, how painfully it would connect to my dad and my grief again. But in the end, I didn’t mind that ‘The Manchester Madonna’ caught me so off guard. Thanks to its powerful presence, I felt my dad again. My six-hour flight to London was worth it for just this moment alone.

I miss you, Dad. And to this day it is still terribly heart-wrenching to me that your painting will go unfinished. I still look forward to hanging your painting on my wall, though, simultaneously enjoying the beautiful figures you fully fleshed out and mourning the blank spaces that will never be filled in.

‘The Manchester Madonna’ – Michelangelo, approx. 1497

[1] Note that I said after the first couple years, not after the first couple months. Grief has a long timeline, folks.

thanks for the dances dad

(I’ve been working on a graduation blog post for a while now, but Father’s Day crept up on me before I could finish it.  I promise, updates coming soon!)

I dreaded the coming of Father’s Day last year.  It was my first Father’s Day without a father.  This was yet another terrible new milestone to be survived in the difficult first year after he passed away.  Every ad for Father’s Day gifts and every benign Father’s Day Facebook post elicited a zing of pain, reopening wounds that were barely healed over.  I wanted to just crawl into a hole and stay there until it was over.

While I was definitely not unaware of Father’s Day looming off in the distance, this year it feels much different.  Part of it is that I have been swept up in a gloriously giddy post-graduation tide of sunshine and free time.  Spending every weekend outside running, biking, hiking, camping, farmer’s marketing, and generally having a good time serves as a great emotional buffer. I’ve simply been too busy having too much fun to spend time worrying about today.

I think another big part of it though is that I no longer feel quite so alone in my grief.  I tend to be a pretty private person when it comes to emotions and personal struggles, and so for a long time I thought the best way to heal was to keep all my grief and hurt to myself.  While independence and self-sufficiency have their place in life, I eventually realized this was not the best use for them.  Slowly, and painfully at first, I started opening up to people about my dad.  Over the past year I’ve managed to come out of my shell and share my story with a variety of people and have gained so much in return.  It is a beautiful thing when amazing communities and wonderful connections can come from such a dark place.

So this year I find myself actually embracing Father’s Day.  I’m looking forward to taking some time to myself to reminisce and wonder what pieces of my dad’s fatherly advice are relevant to the various questions I’m faced with in my life right now.  I have a nice long run coming up as soon as I hit publish on this blog post, and there is a 50% chance I will bake my first pie of the summer later today as well.

__________

Dear Dad: Whether it was rocking me back and forth in your arms, letting me stand on your toes while we boogied around the living room listening to The Monkees, or swing dancing with me at at your gigs, thanks for all the dances. For passing on your love of dance to me and so much more, Happy Father’s Day.

father-daughter dance from the early years :)

the comfort and catalysis of community

It’s been a long, cold winter folks.  For everyone.  We’re still fighting the occasional snowstorm and ever present chill here in Boston.  As my grad student peers skipped town to go to Florida or California or Guatemala, I held down the fort in New England.  I may have updated my Facebook status to “gee, WHAT WILL I DO WITH MYSELF when I’m not working two jobs and finishing school and applying for jobs and going to conferences and trying to squeeze in a healthy amount of sleep/exercise or dance-induced endorphins/mischief/fun??? #theresnobreakinagradschoolspringbreak”.

I did, however, indulge in a quick spring break trip of my own down to balmy White Plains, New York (she typed sarcastically).  Believe it or not though, I wouldn’t have traded it for any of my friends’ sunny vacation getaways.

who wouldn’t rather go to this than jet off to a sunny island??

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the AFTD Education Conference and Annual Meeting – that is, the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (wait, what is that?).  I had long planned to attend for a variety of reasons: the chance to meet some of my AFTD internship collaborators face to face, the easy four-hour drive from Boston, an excuse to get out of town, and the opportunity to learn more about the current state of FTD research.  All of those things were indeed lovely and informative.  But the most meaningful aspect of the conference by far was the chance to meet and connect with the greater FTD community.

I was greeted with warm, knowing eyes.  Having experience with FTD and some kind of too-soon tragic loss was the norm, not a deep dark secret.  Behavior quirks were understood, as was the necessity for mini-packs of Kleenex.  I talked about my experiences with my dad’s FTD more than I probably have during the entire past year.  Going against all my introverted instincts, I stayed late and socialized with other young-ish folk at the conference.  It took me two whole days to recover.  I’m still exhausted.  And I’m so glad I went.

To be immersed in this sea of FTD caregivers, family members, care providers, researchers, and patients themselves was incredibly moving and inspiring.  Here I saw heart-wrenching experiences transformed into stories of personal triumph and grace.  I saw how our collective losses served as the catalyst for scientific discovery.  Though I am typically more of a behind-the-scenes ‘bake for your friends and family individually when it will be meaningful for them’ instead of an on-display ‘bake sale for charity’ kind of person, I found myself volunteering to help facilitate an online forum for people in their 20’s and 30’s with a family member with FTD, and brainstorming about how best to organize a ‘5.8 for FTD’ run to honor my dad on his 58th birthday this year.

There is an incredible amount of work to be done in the realms of science, advocacy, social policy, and caregiver support to wage an effective war against FTD.  Many passionate, intelligent, and caring people are working on these problems as we speak (or rather, as I type).   My personal involvement is not a make or break factor in the fight against FTD.  But what the last year has taught me and what this conference reinforced was that honoring my dad by working with AFTD to do what I can is incredibly meaningful and rewarding to me.

I look forward to continuing my volunteering with AFTD, possibly reporting from the International Conference on Frontotemporal Dementias in the fall (!!), and I’ll be keeping a look out for that AFTD Public Health Liaison job posting in the coming years.

(In the mean time I’ll actually be keeping my eyes out for just about any public health job posting in the greater Boston area.  Wish me luck finishing up my MPH in May and – hopefully, please cross your fingers and toes! – finding a job to start shortly thereafter.  Otherwise it might be summer road trip time again…)

*****

P. S. You needn’t fret, I have not forgotten that it is St. Patrick’s Day.  The quadruple batch of Irish soda bread with raisins and caraway seeds I made yesterday is proof of that.

*****

P. P. S. TODAY IS THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THIS BLOG!  I never intended to share this project with anyone or thought it would have any sort of longevity.  Cheers to those who have followed me on my roller coaster ride for the past two years.  Wish you were here so we could celebrate with some soda bread and tea (or Irish whiskey).

new stories for a new year

Where in the world did the last four months go?!  Since January I’ve felt as if I were trying to swim through molasses, but come September I finally managed to get moving again – and then some.  This fall was an absolute whirlwind: intense practice-based school work, an amazing program evaluation/quality assurance internship at AFTD (!!), presenting at the American Public Health Association Conference in Boston, perfecting my latte foam and memory for customer names at the coffee shop, shocking myself by continuing to run for 4, 5, 6 or  even 10 miles every once in a while – and genuinely liking it!, a wildly fun and successful Thanksgiving in DC with my friend Rachel, countless snippets of fun at farmer’s markets and festivals and free concerts, and in general feeling like I was, for the first time in a long time, able to truly live life to the fullest and enjoy all that it had to offer.  Whew!  This newfound (or rediscovered) energy and accompanying busyness was exhilarating, intoxicating almost.  I was back, better than ever, ready and able to take on whatever life threw at me!

As long as I didn’t stop moving.

The semester ended.  I came home to my beloved and ever-more-beautiful Montana.  I hurried my way through the anniversary of my dad’s death on December 22nd without incident, occupying myself with work and icy runs. After attending two Christmases, I went for a ‘winterval run’ (what I have semi-affectionately named my cold weather workouts in which I sprint on the patches of clear ground to compensate for tiptoeing slowly over the patches of solid ice).  I finished, ran up to the house, and promptly sat down on the cold concrete of the driveway and began sobbing.  A week into my vacation my world had finally stopped spinning at a breakneck pace.  And somehow that broke the magic spell that I had been living under this fall.

scenes from a happier winterval run

You see, the grief monster had found me again.  He snuck up on me, caught me completely unaware, and knocked me off my feet.  He vaporized my stores of self confidence and joy, told me my pitiful attempts to defeat him were ineffective, and announced that I was still broken and always would be.  I had meant to write a touching anniversary blog post, or an uplifting Christmas or New Year’s Day one.  But with the grief monster back at the helm, I didn’t think that I had anything good to say.  Best not to say anything at all.

But then I read a piece on NPR that reminded why I started blogging in the first place.  Entitled “Editing Your Life’s Stories Can Create Happier Endings”, the article talks about the therapeutic power of storytelling.  More specifically, making small changes in your personal stories can be beneficial to your health and emotional well being.  Structured ‘story editing’ interventions have been shown to increase academic performance, sooth emotional distress, and even improve work attendance.  The effects of story editing are impressive, despite the fact that researchers are still unsure why it works in the first place. The article surmises that repeated telling of a story can help you make sense of an event or feeling, loosening it’s obsessive grip over your mind and emotions.  But I think it goes farther than that.  For me, writing about a troubling event not only helps me make sense of things, but also gives me a springboard that I can jump off of to take back control.

This blog has obviously been an outlet for me to try to make sense of many difficult stories in my life, but it has also been a way for me to pick my battles.  It allows me to choose how and when to tackle the shadows lurking in the corner.  Playing the role of narrator of my own life means I get to dictate the story lines, the ebbs and flows, the twists and turns.  I am the one writing after all.

Often, when I start writing a blog post, I only have a vague sense of where it is going.  It may follow the loose outline that breezed through my head prior to opening up a new tab for WordPress, or it may take me in another direction entirely.  I do always know when I’ve finished though.  I’m done writing when I have won.  When I’ve taken whatever the issue du jour is and textually wrestled it into submission, that is when I’m done.  Having finally managed to get a flight back to Boston despite this silly polar vortex business and beaten the grief monster back, I’m right on schedule to wrap this up soon.

I have never been big on resolutions, but here is a New Year’s wish of sorts: Here’s to 2014 being the year of long runs, wonderful people, beautiful mountains, and gratitude.  And if 2014 doesn’t live up to being quite that rosy, here’s to writing and re-writing my stories until I get the ending right.

already off to a good start on my picturesque mountainscape quota for 2014

the kindness of strangers

I have turned to many people, places, and things throughout my ‘grief journey’ in the past eight months.  Old friends, new friends, and family.  Holed up in my Boston apartment, back home to Montana, and venturing out to Arizona, Connecticut, Utah, and Maine. Wine, chocolate, freshly baked bread, Netflix, Nordstrom Rack, music, writing, yoga, running, cooking, baking, dancing… the list goes on.  Having forgotten how to read my internal compass or just plain gotten lost after my dad passed away in December, I have been blindly groping around in the dark, trying to find what I need to get through the day without hitting my head or stubbing my toe too often.

Perhaps the best thing I found while desperately rummaging around in my life was a grief support group specifically for people in their 20s and 30s.  While everyone at my ‘grief group’ (as I affectionately refer to it) comes from very different walks of life, all of us are adult children who have lost a parent too soon.  I cannot describe how incredible and comforting it is to be surrounded by a group of your peers who have experienced a similar loss.  Grief can be such an isolating experience.  It’s almost empowering, hearing other people voice the thoughts that reside in the deepest and darkest part of your being.  Realizing that although you may feel lost and lonely, you are not alone, and are maybe not as lost as you thought.  I know nothing about these people outside the context of our Wednesday night meetings, but they have given me some of the most kind and insightful support I’ve received in the past eight months.

Last night someone brought in this piece to share with the group.  We were all tearing up by the time he finished reading it.  My own “salt in a weakened broth” and “what you counted and carefully saved” caught in my throat and made my eyes burn.  But the author of the poem does not leave you hanging, suspended in your grief.  She too offers comfort and compassion.

“Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore.”

Here’s to the kindness of strangers, the kindness we can give to others, and a (hopefully) kind fall season ahead.

a pretty picture of a quiet dock I found on a bike ride down the Charles. just because. it was a kind place to me.

kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

– Naomi Shihab Nye
from “The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems“

a birthday celebration in two parts

PART I: happy birthday dad

He would have turned 57 two weeks ago today.  I meant to wrote a post for the occasion, meant to make a pie, and most importantly meant to celebrate his birthday the same way he always did while I was growing up: by ‘running his age’.  My dad always enjoyed running, and throughout the summer would slowly increase his distance so that by the time his birthday came around on August 2nd he could run however old he was turning, e.g. on his 43rd birthday he would run 4.3 miles.  Thus, this year he would have been shooting for 5.7 miles.

I am no born runner.  Running was always a means to an end, a required part of soccer or volleyball practice, but nothing I enjoyed in and of itself.  Since high school I have had short bursts of running here and there, but nothing consistent. But still, I got attached to the notion that this was the best way to celebrate and honor my dad’s life this year.  So I started from being able to run about 1.5 miles comfortably a month ago and have been working my way up from there. I have even actually – gasp! – enjoyed it from time to time.  A few days before his birthday I ran 4.5 miles and survived, big accomplishment! I planned a couple shorter runs for later that week, and then was on track to actually do the birthday run on schedule.

However my plan was just not meant to be.  I moved into my amazing new apartment in Cambridge the day before his birthday (a room bigger than a closet! washer and dryer and dishwasher in our kitchen! a leafy green patio with communal BBQ gear in the back!).  Over the course of moving day I did what felt like 47 stair miles: lugging my stuff down the three flights of stairs at my old apartment, into the Uhaul van, then lugging them back up the two flights of stairs at my new place.  My quads and I were not on speaking terms after I subjected them to this moving trauma. I could barely walk the next day, much less run 5.7 miles after working on my feet at the coffee shop from 6am-2pm.  Baking pie would have required finding and unpacking my kitchen stuff, also not very feasible at the time.

Birthday Plan A was out the window (or packed in a box as it were), but the Birthday Plan B ended up being just what I needed.  At the end of my long and emotionally charged day I dropped off the keys to my old apartment and went to the MFA for one of their “First Fridays“. I got dressed up, rode my bike to the event, had a glass of wine, and wandered the museum by myself.  Just me and my thoughts of my dad in the mostly deserted American and European art wing… well, and the occasional middle aged man wanting to make conversation (including a dark haired bespectacled man named Mark who passionately described the newest installation to me…)

Regardless it was a lovely night.  I ended it with a scoop of Cambridge’s best ice cream on my quiet back patio, feeling as happy and whole as I have in a long time.

my favorite of the night: Van Gogh’s “Ravine”. for an interesting story about it, check out the MFA website.

PART II: the accidental motivation of being lost

Still, I had not given up on my goal of 5.7 miles.  With work and moving and unpacking and my lengthy to-do list, I have not had much time to run since I moved.  Or if I have had the time, the energy has completely escaped me.  Other things like changing my driver’s license, getting a new parking permit, changing my class schedule for the fall, and researching ways to get my employer to start donating their food waste to the BU Student Food Rescue program instead of throwing it away have been eating up my free time. I had my first day completely free of scheduled responsibilities today and decided to go for a run to try to get back into it.  I planned a route of about 3.5 miles and headed out.

I am still getting to know my new neighborhood and the wonderful running trails along the Charles River that are close by.  While I am familiar with the streets, the various bridges that cross over the Charles river are still a bit confusing to me.  I took one wrong turn and ended up going to a bridge further away than I had planned… then the bridge I was planning on turning around on on didn’t connect with the running trail I was on… And at that point I decided to just keep going to the next bridge and make this my 5.7 day.

I was not prepared for 5.7.  I should have had a bigger breakfast, put on sunscreen, and probably run more recently than a week and a half ago.  But I did it anyways.  At the exact halfway point of the run an image of my dad running beside me flashed before my eyes so vividly I was able to test out the theory that it is impossible to run and cry at the same time (something we have debated in my grief group, and yes, you can only do one of those at a time – I kept running).  Despite cycling through phases of my legs aching or my lungs gasping for air or both, I made it.  I actually went a little over, being uncertain of the exact mileage of my unplanned route, and ended up going 6.2 miles. For many people this is not anything to write home about, but this is the longest distance I have ever run. I couldn’t have done it without my dad and my poor knowledge of Cambridge running trail geography.

Would I have decided to press on and run almost double my planned distance if I hadn’t taken a couple of wrong turns along the way that led me astray?  Most likely not.  Would I have searched for and found an amazing apartment with fantastically warm, caring, and intelligent roommates (and lower rent!) if I had been in Alaska or Denver this summer?  No, I would have kept living in my closet with people who were basically strangers.  Would I be planning to continue working part-time at a coffee shop, drop down to a part-time course load, and be doing an internship with the AFTD this fall if any of my other Plans A-Z I hoped for at the beginning of the summer had worked out?  Definitely not.  But somehow being lost in my life and not knowing where to go has led me to this place.  A place where it turns out I actually care about the coffee shop job I thought I would only have for a month, and I want to do what I can to make it a better company.  A place where being lost is now the norm, not the exception, and I am apparently learning to roll with the punches (or wrong turns) and try to take advantage of whatever opportunities I stumble upon in my wanderings.  This takes unplanning to a whole new level.  For now, I think I am ok with that.

Here’s to fresh starts, finding motivation, and being at peace in the most unlikely of all places: being lost.

it’s certainly not trail running with purple mountains majesty in the background, but a jog along the Charles River can still be a thing of beauty.

fourth of july: my family’s culinary legacy

My mom is an amazing baker and chef.  She can walk into a kitchen, any kitchen, and soon enough amazing food starts pouring out of it.  I had no idea how spoiled I was by all of her delicious and healthy homemade meals and treats when I was growing up.  For her, cooking and baking is not just a way of putting food on the table.  It’s a lifestyle.  And making food in your own kitchen to give away, that is love.

The one holiday where my dad took the culinary reins was the Fourth of July.  It didn’t happen all at once, and it wasn’t just because he was stationed at the charcoal grill.  Over the years, slowly and humbly, his homemade barbecue sauce, charred barbecue hot dogs, and to-die-for pies became the expected norm at our large extended family Independence Day celebrations.  These hot dogs and pies became a little bit larger than life, a nearly mythical treat that only happened once a year.

I am my mother’s daughter and my father’s too.  I cook and bake often, with love for both the food and for the people I share it with.  And ever since I stopped spending every summer at home in Montana, on the Fourth of July I have made pie and barbecue sauce and convinced the resident grill master to let me burn some hot dogs to perfection.

While many, many things are different this year, and will always be different… in other ways this year is no different than the last.  I baked.  I will BBQ.  I will think of my mom when I share my food with the people I love. And with each bite of pie and charred hot dog, I will be thinking of my dad.

Dad’s pie, my friend Laura’s crumble, and a caramel bourbon peach experiment of my own. Not pictured here is the Sullivan Family BBQ sauce. All made while listening to bluegrass and taking about life on a hot summer day in Boston. Now THAT is how you celebrate ‘murricah.

Happy fourth everyone :)

(a surprisingly) happy father’s day

I have been dreading today for a while.  For the last month at least.  Every spam email I got telling me to buy this or that for my dad for Father’s Day – sting.  Every person who mentioned going home to spend time with their dads this weekend – zing.  I spent all week exhausted and holed up in my apartment, hiding from the world and its insensitive proliferation of father figures, barely scraping by.  I was also jetlagged and tired from being out west for a friend’s wedding the week before, but still.  I figured the best I could do was wait out the storm of paternal overload in bleak isolation until it had passed.

And then, a friend called on Friday, needing comfort after a dream job  slipped through their fingers; wine and Netflix ensued.  On a whim, I took Subs for a Saturday morning drive and went for gorgeous solo hike.  All of a sudden I couldn’t escape spending time with good friends and eating good food the rest of the weekend: a gourmet homemade pizza party and an exciting Bruins win Saturday night, then an incredible farmer’s market date with my girlfriends and more food trucks than I knew what to do with on Sunday.

I’m still feeling pretty tired, but have to admit that I actually had a good day today and a great weekend overall.  It’s nice when your life manages to take good care of you even when you don’t feel like you are up to taking very good care of yourself.

__________

Dear Dad: You listened to 2-year old me make a racket with pots and pans, my keyboard, and all of your percussion equipment for days on end in order to pass on your love of music to me.  For that and oh so much more, Happy Father’s Day.

rite of spring

I started writing this post in an airport on the afternoon of Monday, April 15th.  I was waiting for my flight to head back to Boston after a long weekend at home in Montana.  Just as boarding was about to start, my phone started going crazy. Five, ten, then twenty text messages all at once. Everyone in Boston was asking me where I was and if I was okay.  Bombs had just exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon not far from my apartment.

A rush of frantic texting followed: checking in and being checked in on by all of my friends and family and acquaintances.  Many of my friends had been at the finish line throughout the day and I’m sure I would have joined them had I been in town. Thankfully everyone in my circle was safe and accounted for.  I only wish I could say the same for the friends and family of the bombing victims.  After an emotional weekend at home, such a shocking event in Boston, and the harrowing week that followed, I wanted nothing to do with a half-written blog post about the infusion of hope and optimism that comes with springtime.

And yet, spring was persistent.  It is hard to remain unshakably dour and immune to at least occasional bits of giddy joy when long bike rides and sunshine have returned to your life, when you can see a light at the end of the finals week tunnel, and when you know that summer is just around the corner.  So here goes.  Spring themed post: Take 2.

______

My visits with friends and family are never long enough, but my impromptu weekend trip back to Montana seemed especially short.  Just a quick afternoon or evening with each of my Montana loved ones, a movie, an emotional concert tribute to my father, and a bit of dancing was all I could squeeze in before my time was up.

post-yoga coffee, hot tub, snow, and beautiful mountains

Despite the picture above, spring really was doing its best to rise up and thaw the bitter cold of winter.  That snow melted completely into a gorgeous green-grass-and-sunshine day by mid afternoon… and then another couple inches of snow had fallen by early evening.  Welcome to spring in Montana: full of lambs and lions and everything in between.  It’s fickle and feisty, alternating between hopeful sunshine and wintery gloom.  You are never entirely sure what each day will have in store, and more often than not you find yourself ill-prepared for the meteorological happenings per diem.  Unless you drive around with spare winter boots/coats/gloves and an extra t-shirt/pair of shorts in your car.  Which I may or may not do when I am home.

At least I think that is what spring is like in Montana.  In the name of full disclosure, my observations maaaaaay be slightly colored by my grieving process. I feel as though I too am in the ‘spring’ of my grief.  It’s proving to be an unpredictable season in which the ups and downs are sometimes more exhausting than the constant dreariness of winter. I don’t know what the emotional equivalent of winter coats and spring clothes are (yoga? chocolate? wine? new shoes?).  Regardless, I’m doing my best to be prepared for whatever comes my way and trying not be too hard on myself when I get my emotional forecast wrong.

And what is coming my way, you might ask?  Great question!  For the first time in a very, very long time I have no idea.  My nerd-a-licious internships out west fell through, but after a month of escapism travels I am actually looking forward to spending my summer in the city. (I also spent weekends in Connecticut and Arizona in April in addition to Montana.  As fun as that was, remind me to never travel three weekends in one month again.)

Although rejection of any kind is unpleasant and I would have loved an excuse to be out west, trying to settle back into my Boston life and make something good out of it is probably exactly what I need right now.  Maybe.  But just in case I’ll keep an eye on the price of flights to Argentina while I check off my finals one by one.

it’s hard to be stressed with chirping birds and budding trees for study partners

wearin o’ the green, one year later

Tis the season and St. Patrick’s Day is nearly upon us.  Here in Boston everyone is prepping for parade day tomorrow, i.e. trying to come up with creative ways to call out of work on Monday.  I have a distinct memory of refusing to eat an entirely green breakfast my dad made for me as a child in honor of St. Patty’s one year, sometime when we were living in the ‘red house’ a block away from Grandma.  The green orange juice in particular didn’t go over so well I believe.  However, that has not deterred my from making plans to host my own ‘green’ brunch tomorrow.  My agenda for today includes: baking Irish soda bread, prepping my ‘green’ eggs with spinach and green onions, debating bacon vs. corned beef, trying out a new recipe for Irish coffee cake with whiskey glaze frosting, attempting to recreate my mom’s delicious homemade “Bailey’s” Irish cream, and painting my fingernails Kelly green.

In the Sullivan clan St. Patrick’s Day was always synonymous with family.  I may be generations removed from my truly Irish relatives, but there is something about a sea of cheesy green t-shirts and plastic shamrocks that means more to me than just another fabricated American holiday.  Maybe it is no coincidence then that, after months away from the blogosphere, I happened to check back in today only to discover that I actually created this blog a year ago – EXACTLY a year ago – today.

How very long and entirely short the past year has been.  I think I truly experienced both the absolute best and worst times of my life in the last year.  And now?  I’m somewhere in between, trying to remember what words like ‘normal’ and ‘balance’ mean.  On both ends of this emotional whiplash though, this last year was about family.

And so, as I peruse recipes for corned beef hash and do a little last minute apartment cleaning today, I’m thinking about my family, here and gone.

I have no idea what I will be doing this summer, although I did hear back yesterday that my application is still in the running for a handful of incredibly nerdy (read: super cool) maternal and child health epidemiology internships out west.  Regardless, here are a few things I am looking forward to: an increasing amount of sunshine, some quality family time, and at least a short jaunt out to my beautiful Montana mountains.  Happy St. Patrick’s Eve everyone.

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May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Traditional Irish blessing

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