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She hung her “Judi” key on this hook, lay down in this bed, showered and dried herself with these towels in this bathroom. It’s impossible not to feel her in this place.

Her tics and habits are ground into this apartment, layered like a collage. In this kitchen she insisted on wiping a glass table with a dirty paper towel. At this computer she printed out boarding passes days before she had to. On this beach she devoured her book club books, took walks with her grandchildren and chatted up every yenta from here to Montreal.

Her things are mostly gone from the Florida apartment, parceled out to a daughter or a cousin or thrown away. But a random drawer can still reveal an oversized brown silk button, incased in plastic like a secret. It belonged to a blazer or a sweater that once hung in this closet. A pair of size five flip flops poking out beneath a pile of sand toys, the impression of her bunion-ed feet worn in to the rubber.

Each plastic toy she bought for the kids they loved with a fervor that now seems prescient. The crayon shaped menorah she bought one Hannukah from one of the kosher stores down the street. Sunhats and knickknacks in turquoise, her very favorite color. The “cookies for sale” sign that she and Zoe made the last time we were all here together.

Objects are so curious. Completely static, and yet poignant with meaning. It’s a wonder we’re not all hoarders, trying to hold on to a person.

walk it off

Mom was no good at self-pity. From the time she was diagnosed until the time she died, she faced some overwhelming and deeply frustrating circumstances that most people would not tolerate well, few with the grace she managed. There was the physical discomfort of her illness through all of its soul sucking phases: the itching of her skin, the crappy side effects of each drug and therapy that never seemed to work as the cancer continued to spread. The depression she wouldn’t admit to, and the underlying stress of having a rare chronic disease with no known cure that worsened as it morphed. But though she may have lost a touch of the sunnyness and became perhaps more sarcastic and less patient towards the end, never once did she feel sorry for herself.

When I was growing up, Mom’s and my styles would often clash. I’m a crier, a prober, sometimes a cynic and always an over thinker, and it was challenging to have a mother who didn’t get a lot of that. Things just didn’t affect her emotionally. I’m not saying being who I am always works for me. I have trouble making decisions. I’m sensitive and can take things personally. Mom was the opposite. She would act, feel confident in those actions, and never look back. She had strong convictions, and didn’t second-guess. So she wasted a lot less time dithering and worrying, being anxious. When I reflect on her style of living, doing, and parenting, we are mostly opposites, and it’s even a bit comedic that I would come from her.

But fuck, I’d give anything to be annoyed with her positivity right this minute. To have her tell me to stop complaining about how much I miss her and how hard it is to not her around.

Almost 10 months after her death, there’s this low-grade constant awareness of her lack, and many reminders of how discombobulated things are as my family resets. I get the deep sads more randomly now, but when it comes on, it is still the rawest, achiest, saddest sadness I have ever known. It’s a longing for something I know I won’t get. Out of reach. Off limits. And ugh, I just miss her messages and her texts and her replies and opinions on things so damn much.

I wanted so badly yesterday to send her a picture of Zoe posing in front of the diorama she made as a part of her city planning unit. I want her so much to ichat with Miles while he lounges around our place like a pre-schoolin’ Hugh Heffner in his socks and nothing else. I want to show her the cover of my book or my author photo proofs, just to hear her take on it. I’m dying to talk to her about movies and books. It’s such an uncharted emptiness that I just cannot fill.

I heard this 20ish/30ish girl the other day at the coffee place on the phone. She was talking to her mom in a really sour and insouciant way – she sounded like a teenager with a bad attitude. Who knows what her mom was saying to her on the other line. Who knows their history or their dynamic or what’s come up between them, what their conflicts have been. I’ll never know. But I wanted to shake her. And tell her to buck up. Whatever was going on, she needed to be nice to her mom. It couldn’t be that bad. As Judi would say, walk it off sister.

matryoshka

The grief is morphing. Spreading out. Not lessening exactly, but some of these calcified parts of my heart are opening to something. Softening. I still miss her every hour, every time I strike up a conversation with a stranger or call someone sweetie. Every yoga practice I feel like I’m breathing her in and out. I want to Sykpe with her every time the kids do something Zoe or Mileslike and every time I finish a book or watch a movie or some asshole Republican Senator does something appalling.

But there is a change in the quality of my loss that feels measurable, like the temperature or humidity in a room. Life without her at seven months is still my same life. I think about the same concepts. I loop and worry roughly the same amount that I always have. I find things funny, moving, annoying, fascinating, beautiful, depressing, maybe in that order. Falling asleep and waking up in the morning is easier now. Food is good. And the chaos of the racing mind and impossibly heavy heart I had when she died in June and for that six month period following is dissipating.

Milestones have inevitably come and gone. I went back to my parents’ house for the first time since she died there and began trying to conceive of it as my dad’s place. I sat and drank coffee at the kitchen table and noticed that all of her calendars and date books, reading glasses and theater tickets were no longer a part of the kitchen desk drawer. I tried to get used to not seeing her at her desk in her office or watching Downton Abbey and Scandal on the couch or napping in her room. I had to deal, in such an initial and basic kind of way, with the physical and spiritual changes in my childhood home. I tried out the words: dad’s house.

I went to see her at the cemetery. Weirdly, it was not altogether impactful. Though her final home conceptually, it felt generic being there. Lovely and peaceful, close by where she lived her whole life, but not sad exactly. More vague than anything else. Which has more to do with the I work I need to do in terms of understanding where she is now. Where we all go.

I’ve had to accept how each member of my family is folding her death into their own lives. I’ve come to terms with a change in the narrative: a sad ending to a golden tale of a happy and healthy family doing it right and getting by with luck for so long. What is the next chapter? Knowing is a process, but I’m feeling hopeful.

For my own family of four, they have absorbed much of my pain and allowed me a focus. Lately I’ve been feeling that my mother-ness supercedes my other-ness. It’s the identity that makes me feel most alive and competent right now. Which doesn’t mean that I’m doing it well necessarily. But the way that my kids need me is so primal, so deeply dependent that I feel confusedly comforted by some of the very same tasks that otherwise make me feel like a literal valet/chauffuer/butler.

It must be because I feel so connected to my mom when I’m driving them somewhere, or watching a performance, or researching a camp, or navigating some emotional drama between Zoe and myself or shouting for the eightieth time that Miles must get in the tub. I’m reminded of the beautiful hectic heydey of the Kasdan family and all that we did, and all that mom did for us. It’s a way to bring her in, and to thank her I guess.

My days are getting easier to move through and enjoy even, especially when I’m busy and productive and my household is happy, but its the forever-ness part of this whole business that stings. And answering the questions about the why. That is hard. A spike of pain breaking through the subtle, dull throbbing. When Zoe asks, or I allow myself to ask or just feel sorry for myself because I miss her — when that comes over me, I just let them watch the iPad for hours and just cuddle them and squeeze them and nuzzle their arms and legs and cheeks. It helps.

Lately, Zoe has been sleeping with the Matryoshka doll my mom bought her on a trip to Russia. She holds it tenderly with her orange security blanket, which is funny because the doll is made of wood and is totally not cuddly in any way. This feels symbolic of Judi somehow, she wasn’t cuddly, and she was enigmatic and intricately designed. A multi-layered person within a person within a person within a person, who held my sisters and I inside of her all of her life.

My job now is to embody her, and to never forget the moments and objects and stories and values that made up that life, and to share it.

threads

I’ve been wearing a piece of mom’s clothing most days. Like her stretchy AG teal and black polka dot Petite cords, white drawstring pajama pants with frogs on them (she collected frogs – a seemingly random collection decision with no real story behind it that I can uncover), and crisp white and pink cropped cotton pajamas from the Petites department at Saks. Colorful striped knee-highs. Pashminas. Jeggings. Clothes I would never have chosen, but I find myself weaving into my wardrobe now with a certain amount of urgency.

I look down at my legs, my arms, or my feet shorn in these totally familiar fabrics and patterns and they remind me of her doggedly upbeat approach to life and how she embraced color up until the end. Let’s just say the woman loved her some salmon and turquoise.

Each season, as I gather the clothes the kids have grown out of and figure out the best place to donate them, I don’t usually think of the pants and dresses and shirts with much sentimentality. But if, years later, I see something worn by a friend’s daughter or son I’ve passed them on to, I acutely remember all the moments that Z or M rocked those outfits. I think about when I bought the pieces, how many times I washed them, and all the places we went when Z wore those purple clogs or M that striped blue and white sweater.

And so now these mundane items of mom’s feel precious and crucial. They are mostly comfy clothes, which add a layer of poignancy. Because of her illness, which initially manifested itself as a skin disease, the last few years she would only wear the softest cottons that didn’t irritate her skin. She favored leggings and turtlenecks and soft wrappy sweaters. Her style adjusted to her sickness.

Mom had this amazing attitude that we used to make fun of. She had an obsessive need to see the positive in any situation and to spin every story to a good outcome. She would not tolerate self-pity or delving in the negative. She was not interested in being depressed or anxious. She was able to shrug. A lot. But she always knew who she was. I admired this in her, but never truly understood the amount of strength it took to undertake.

That’s why now, wearing these clothes, these Judi-like pieces she wore next to her skin, imaging her choosing them from a store or later, when shopping wasn’t something she wanted to do, from the internet, sitting at her desk or lying on her bed, feels so important. Like she is trying to encase me in love and show me how to be strong and how to go on without her guidance and be there for those who need me. I am taking her in while she hugs me in lycra and modal cotton.

Wearing her clothes feels like a mantra is making itself known to me. It’s not quite her mantra: “Don’t worry, Be Happy.” Mine is still cloudy, but the words are building from a feeling I get each day when I put on her scarf or her socks or her t-shirt. The words are not obvious, but the fabrics and the memories are there to fold into while the intention makes itself clear.

seven

My daughter’s recent birthday has ignited my memory of being her age. Her intonations, tics and tricks are so familiar to me. The pouting, the scary emotions that overpower her sometimes, her otherwise infectious enthusiasm and mostly good nature that result from a happy home and mostly good natured parents who try their best. I remember trying all on all of those moods and attitudes I see her working through myself, like outfits, or hats.

Besides being my daughter, Zoe is this dimension of my own childhood self, just as I, as a mother, am a dimension of my mom’s mothering self.

I have my baby book that my mom made. The title on the cover is “Your Baby Age 0 – 7.” I look at it a lot lately, in sadness and in wonder, because the idea of the book is such a contradiction to what I thought was her lack of sentimentality in later years. It’s filled with details about my lost teeth, my doctor’s visits, my first words, and upbeat descriptions about each of my birthday parties. I was glancing through it yesterday, looking at a photograph of my mom at 26 holding me in the front seat of the car coming home from the hospital, searching her eyes for clues about what it felt like to be her, holding me in her arms. Ready for the adventure and not knowing what the future would bring.

And today, as I look through pictures of myself bringing Zoe home from the hospital on my computer, with my hopeful and much less worried looking eyes, I simply can’t believe Zoe is the age I was when I was no longer my mom’s baby. This loop of life, moving through it sometimes seems truly miraculous.

Seven was also the age I turned when my youngest sister was born. I remember what our house on Linden Lane felt like physically, the light in the downstairs hall and the smell of concrete and Tide in the basement and how the house was changing. Rules, once rigid, were becoming less so. I imagine my mom was tired, maybe overwhelmed? Sugar cereal, once outlawed, began creeping in.

The office with the yellow, brown and green wallpaper was peeled down and painted, yellow I think it was. Or pink? There was a gilder. A slide. A changing table. We were intrigued, but after a bit, bored and ready for the next thing. Nine months seemed an interminable amount of time to wait.

I remember going to the hospital at the end of the summer to meet her, and it all seeming unreal to me, how tiny my sister was, and like, where the hell did she even come from? I remember we got to go to Sea World with my dad the week right after she came. I know it happened because there’s a picture of Lanie and I on my dad’s lap holding twin Shamus, pink faced and white-blonde haired. And I remember too that it was my birthday five days after Lex was born, and I was extremely pre-occupied with what I would get when we returned from Sea World. Because that’s seven.

words

I haven’t written since mom died, which has been just over 3 months. And that’s mostly because of the fog in my head, which creates confusion and informs me when I have free time to sit at the computer I’m instead supposed to be reading books about stages of grief or else staring into space for hours. Or checking Facebook and email compulsively.

At first it was just surreal when she became very ill, even though we knew the ramping up was imminent. The disease was everywhere. Then we had to make decisions. Watch her body and mind completely surrender. Feel empowered in this one way because we were finally able to DO something for her, which was to give her a dignified death. The action of this experience felt like a reprieve after having so little recourse and only bad news during her illness. We watched her breath leave her body and then she was gone.

Then the funeral and shiva, which together were an overwhelming outpouring. People from every stage of my mom’s life were lined up to offer condolences to me and my sisters and my dad. They needed to see us, to cry with us and for us. And we needed to be there for them to process their own grief. Those days were agonizing, draining, and yet wonderful, as they enabled me to see all my best girlfriends from all over the place in one place, which happened to be the place I had my bat mitzvah.

Once that crazy amalgamation of party, food orgy, reunion, waterfall of support and love was over, we roadtripped home to Brooklyn and attempted the normalcy of ending school and starting summer. I tried to not make people feel awkward about seeing me for the first time and got better at saying the words “I just lost my mom. Yes, cancer. Thank you.”

One surprise was my physical reaction to the loss. My nerves were literally afire in the month following her death. I had pain shooting into my hands and feet. I felt bursts of panic and anxiety. There was that fog, which was punctuated by acute anger and rage. Then, moments of normalcy. Laughing at something I read, feeling cognizant of being entertained by a movie, dealing with poop or sunscreen or waterwings and forgetting for a second. And then deep, throbbing, sadness and loneliness.

The weirdest thing about losing mom is that I had no idea all the mom space my mom filled. She cared about all that bullshit minutae that meanders into my day. She wanted news about percentiles for height and weight and pictures of the kids not looking at the camera. She wanted boring details about their teachers and the precocious things they say and do. All the stuff of life that you don’t know someone is absorbing until that person is gone.

And yet, how lucky I am to have her within me. What a fine and loving life she led. I am aware how much I need her spirit and all the memories I can muster to help me rebuild myself. I only wish I could call or text her to talk to her about it.

mom

She wanted you to be your best self. She wanted you to get moving, get off the couch, get outside and make something happen. Read a book, take a class, be in a play, volunteer, call your sisters. Just do something! Take the credit card and buy yourself a nice suit. And please stop feeling sorry for yourself. You have it pretty good you know.

Mom had impact. She loved to laugh and kibbitz, but not for too long because there was stuff to do. She was chatty and interested in you. Sarcastic when it was called for. She oozed warmth. Everyone wanted to be around her.

Mom was sparkly. She shone. She was present. Her love was steadfast and strong. She listened and talked in just the right combination. She had opinions but let you make your own mistakes. She was tenacious and fiercely loyal.

Mom tried to teach me to be confident in my decisions, not to over-analyze or let my emotions guide me … still working on that. She unconditionally supported my path as she pretended to understand my unusual career, and I know she was proud of me for cultivating a life in a place so different than where she and I grew up.

Growing up she was constantly reading. She took us to the ballet and signed us up for classes and took us on trips and to camps and nurtured all of our talents. I credit her with giving me the confidence and the curiosity to live a creative life.

I always knew she was an exceptional mother, but only now that I have my own kids do I realize just how confident and instinctual she was as a parent. When I have successes now with my kids – when I think of a good craft project, when I effectively follow through and discipline one of them, or when I see humor, creativity or empathy in them, my mom is pulsing through me in those moments. And in my failures and my frustrations with my children or with myself, I always hear her practical voice telling me not to be so hard on myself.

Mom loved her grandkids fervently and had a beautiful relationship with my daughter Zoe, who worshipped her and reminds me of her. She loved my husband Evan, which I know for sure because she would argue constantly with him about politics even when I knew she agreed with him completely.

Moving forward towards a life without my mom is deeply daunting. She inspired me, she loved me and she was everything to me. I can only hope to channel a fraction of the grace and strength in my own life that she showed all the way up to the end of hers.

20s/40s

I’ve been listening to this Taylor Swift song on repeat.

Listening to “22” is a four minute jolt of infectious auto-tuney happy earnestness which bleeds into intense nostalgic yearning. The soundtrack to trying on outfits while wearing a clay facemask. Sitting shotgun driving to get frozen yogurt. Laying out at the pool and not worrying someone will make you get them a graham cracker.

It’s pretty sweet to go inward in that particular way a pop song can free you from your present, even if that present is not exactly unpleasant and you’re cool with where you are in your life. Plus, I get a tiny thrill listening to it on my phone on the train between some skinny hot girl with librarian glasses and a tough thug with his legs spread maximally.

Factors that contribute to happiness in your 20’s are sharply different than those that please you in your 40’s according to an interesting article my husband pointed out to me while constantly reading his iPad. It’s about what motivates you at those specific times of life.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/how-happiness-changes-with-age/276274/

The author of the article, Heidi Grant Halvorson, who is on the cusp of 40, writes:

“Happiness becomes less the high-energy, totally-psyched experience of a teenager partying while his parents are out of town, and more the peaceful, relaxing experience of an overworked mom who’s been dreaming of that hot bath all day. The latter isn’t less “happy” than the former — it’s a different way of understanding what happiness is.

Social psychologists describe this change as a consequence of a gradual shifting from promotion motivation — seeing our goals in terms of what we can gain, or how we can end up better off, to prevention motivation — seeing our goals in terms of avoiding loss and keeping things running smoothly. Everyone, of course, has both motivations. But the relative amounts of each differ from person to person, and can shift with experience as we age.”

I suspect that the place of calm and complacency the author is writing from reflects that she is NOT having a midlife crisis, feeling the need to challenge herself physically by juice cleansing or running a marathon. Or becoming depressed and thinking a drastic career or spousal change will be the answer, or having another kid. This writer, in a vague, non-type A personality kind of way, seems to have what so many of my contemporaries are striving for: some peace and contentment for five minutes. It can be enough that everyone is healthy and safe and playing Junior Monopoly on Saturday nights. So good for her! This is great news and I appreciate the reminder that not everyone is out there being groovy all the time and that as parents we are occasionally allowed to breathe a sigh of relief that things are dull and unremarkable.

I listened to Terry Gross interview Greta Gerwig, 20 something actress and co-writer of “Frances Ha,” where Greta is talking about the moment, shown so beautifully in the film, where a person is a post collegiate mess a bit too long to be charming, and how some people seem to move more gracefully into adulthood than others. This film was excellent at probing that side of being youngish and flailing around, and how murky the experience of driving your life forward can feel. I loved it because it showed a character who couldn’t not be who she was, until she found her unique path, which most of us eventually do.

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/14/183648078/gerwig-baumbach-poke-at-post-college-pangs

I guess these pieces of art, this pop song and this film, are two halves of a whole. The Taylor Swift song paints a condensed and uncomplicated version of events, feeling free and happy because things are in front of you and who knows where the night will take you? And the film, “Frances Ha,” is a more lengthy, more intellectual take on this exciting and awkward time of life, more probing, more squeamish and more mortifying in its execution. Both young, female protagonists are searching for answers, hoping vaguely for the future and trying to find the joy in the journey.

I do love when a study in a magazine validates a feeling I’ve been having, which is that getting older, raising kids while watching parents age, and feeling overwhelmed with responsibility at times, can and does have its moments of relaxation and self acceptance, where your happiness can be found in staring into space and listening/watching/saying/doing whatever you want.

We need to congratulate ourselves for the work we’ve done to get to this boring-ish place.

Cue Taylor Swift, and whoever the hell else I want to listen to.

blah blah blah

It’s funny, but not funny. How when things are moving along for me creatively, finally starting to coalesce, when I have some linkage between the hundreds of tabs open in my brain, and I’m about to sit down to tap into those ideas and stories blending and blooming like food coloring in the bathtub, that’s when another crazy fucking tragedy explodes and I’m paralyzed looking at my news feed with an open mouth and tearing eyes.

This feeling: this creeping, seeping, horribleness. It keeps HAPPENING.

This is my 40th year. And things have gotten way adult. The last six months have begat one situation after another, a whole assortment of hurt from every category: Crazy Storms. Gun Violence. A sick parent. And now, an act of terrorism that feels, in its intense personal carnage, like a massive, evil, kick in the kidneys. Because it could happen to any of us, anywhere we go, and we kind of forgot about that for a bit didn’t we?

First I try not to look at the images and read the stories. Then I indulge. And then, I don’t know how to be normal for a few days. I can’t explain these tragic things to myself, why this person, how that person, what if that person ….. so I just smother it out by literally inhaling the innocence of my kids, breathing them in as we cuddle and play and dance to Beyonce.

I have my version of prayer and meditation when things are tough. I have my people I turn to for guidance and to crack open my thoughts: writers and comedians and people I love and all of that helps me grow and laugh and think.

But I am really scared. Times just seem so chaotic. I never know what news my New York Times alert app thing will alert me to when I get off of the train.

I want normalcy. I want my struggles to be about doing best by my loved ones and being happy and productive. But it seems that this fear and this sort of “what now?” is our reality. What will be the next scary thing? How will we adjust to the next one?

I know this is what it felt like for my parents too, as they went through scary times and tried to keep us safe and relatively free from suffering. And I guess that’s the true shift, because now I know they can’t make anything better. And I am in charge of making sure my small underlings are ok and protected by pretending its all going to be ok. I have been passed that particular torch.

I know this feeling will pass, soften, minimize. But the fear/anxiety/anger/sadness combo — it comes on hard, fast, and lately, all too frequently.

stay gold

Today I went to 47th Street to sell some gold for cash. Which sounds so pawn shop, so drug addict, so hawking the sax to pay for a fix. Really, I just went to sell some of mom’s jewelry, which she gave me last week and urged me to get rid of. It felt unsettling to sell it but she was so emphatic “with the high price of gold and all.” Plus she’s notoriously unsentimental, claimed she never wore any of it, and we could use the money to pay the deposit for next years preschool.

So I rolled up to 47th between 5th and 6th, one of those world within a world New York City blocks. Lit by neon signs and florescent window displays during the day, the overall vibe is nonetheless SHADY. I swerved to avoid packs of roaming Orthodox Jews, homeboys handing out cards, and swarthy men smoking cigarettes and muttering, gold silver platinum we buy everything, under their breath.

I had the name of a “guy” from a jeweler friend, but as I walked in the front door of the huge room divided into kiosks, I was instantly schmoozed by a cute young man in a kippah with the counter right by the door. Real estate is everything.

I’m here to sell gold for cash I said. We can do that he said.

Their father and son outfit was straight out of Central Casting: the father spoke in brusque Hebrew inflected English as he looked through his jeweler’s loupe suspiciously at another customer’s treasures. A little sleazy, definitely the bad cop, dad looked like he knew his way around a karat, while the son, quite obviously the greener, good-er cop, looked me in the eye and smiled with his big white teeth while he tested my gold to make sure it was real with this little scrapey chalk board thing and various liquids. The two of them ducked heads, whispered under their breaths, and gathered around the calculator, doing their dance for me and the hopeful customers from Westchester, with their silverware and gold plated charms.

Boychick told me how he studied journalism and couldn’t quite believe he ended up in the family business. I could see the whole situation in a flashback – graduation day from Columbia, the fights, dad yelling that writers are losers and drunks and cajoling him to come to 47th street, it’s what WE DO! And now, son smiles at me confidently, salesman like, he really loves it.

Here’s what we can do for you said the son, and showed me the number on the calculator. Sorry there’s nothing we can do for you, said the father to Westchester. But we thought you were the experts, Westchester said as they slunk out the door.

I felt like I had won – my stuff was good. And as I readied myself to take the money and walk away from this Neil Diamond song come to life, I glanced at mom’s pieces of jewelry, sitting there innocently on the velvet tray after being analyzed and violated, not knowing what was in store for it. And I had another twinge: should I be doing this and will I regret this?

Because no matter how little this stuff means to my mom now, at one point it was on another velvet tray, housed in some other incarnation of a jewelry business, probably chosen for her as a gift from my dad. And it likely meant something. There was desire behind it or hope that she would like it. Plans for when she’d wear it.

Now it’s headed for the basement gold melting factory where some old bearded guy (probably the Grandpa!) cracks the stones with a hammer and melts everything into a giant cauldron of liquid gold soup, which is then somehow turned into a form (bars? sheets?) that some banker can buy and sell on a trading floor, and then after more travels and formations and incarnations I can’t even imagine eventually maybe finding its way back some day into a jeweler’s hand or factory and onto another velvet tray somewhere. For someone else to desire and dream about wearing or give as a gift.

Um, Happy Valentines Day?