Words from The Crone

I just had a “Maxine” moment this morning. I was naked in front of the sink brushing my teeth after my shower. I stood up and looked at myself, naked, in the mirror. You know, I thought, from the front view my body isn’t so bad for an almost 73 year-old crone. Not really fat, not really skinny. Not bad. Then, I turned sideways and well, my body turned into ho-ho-ho Santa Claus. Not the red suit, red nose, or white beard Santa, but definitely the big, pot-belly Santa. It was at that Maxine moment that I vowed never to look at my naked body sideways ever again

Then I looked at my face which, somehow magically, looked a lot thinner than I remember. I even recalled that lately a couple of people has asked me if I had lost weight. Ha! I wish. But, you know, my face, arms, and legs, did look like I had lost weight. Hmmmmmm.

Then, like a lightning bolt in the sky during a summer storm, I realized what was happening. My fat, all 20-30 pounds of it had shifted. Not only were my boobs going south, but my fat was migrating to my mid-section. Indeed, I was losing weight in my face and extremities because my fat cells had sent out a call to attend the “Fat Cells Annual Conference” in the middle of my torso. AND, this wasn’t some week-long conference, it was a forever conference. Once you attended there was no going home.

Yes, after all these years of my fat being spread throughout my body, it has finally decided to take up permanent resident somewhere between my waist and my pubic bone, and also in my butt. Sigh. It is almost like being pregnant, but without the expectations that in nine months it would be gone.

So, if I wear long, flowing dresses, or wear slacks with a top that isn’t tucked in, I think I may just settle for having all of my fat in one place. AND, I promise that I will only look at myself, naked, from the front on view and the side-view be damned. I’m on too many meds and too old to put in the time and effort to get rid of my fat. Besides, over the years I’ve become quite accustomed to having it, and who knows, it might come in handy someday should I need some extra nutrition in a time of illness.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it – just like my fat is sticking to me.

I’ve often heard the expression, “I love you,” followed by “I Love you more.” It is almost as if loving someone is a contest of who loves who more or better or longer or something. My R and I have a couple of rituals that keep us connected in a mystical sort of way. Each morning we give each other a kiss and hug with the words, “I love you.” We are not in a contest and so the other never says, “I love you more.” Nice.

Our other ritual is what we like to call “Bus Insurance.” Bus insurance is a kiss, a hug, and an “I love you,” when either of us leaves the other, particularly if we are out and about driving somewhere. Bus insurance is our quirky way of saying, “If you get hit by a bus and die, I want the last thing you remember is that “I love you.”

This particular ritual is so important to us that I have been known to run out the front door after the car yelling, “Wait, wait, you forgot your bus insurance.” We even invoke this ritual if I am going to stay in the car when R dashes into the grocery store for milk or bread. I mean, really, there may be bread buses or dairy buses in there. Over the years we have conjured up a whole host of different “buses” that might just smack us out and send us into the eternal whatever. Who knows? Our answer: Bus Insurance.

My R loves the spring season better than almost anything else. As soon as the first hint of a bud or a leaf pokes its head out of a barren twig, my R will say, “Look, spring is here.” This is not a weekly proclamation, but a several times daily one. As each flower pops out his spring enthusiasm mounts in a fury of ohs and ahs and he enters into what I like to call his spring ecstasy syndrome.

As the trees begin to green out in that most delicate and delightful pale green, R is known to mention how beautiful spring is and how much he loves the season minute by minute. He can do this five times as we drive about three blocks from the house. I get the message I’ve told him and I know how much spring means to him. He has retorted from time to time that since he never grumbles about the barren winter twigs and trunks he is entitled to rave about the blooming forth of spring. Sigh, I’ll give him that.

As we were driving home the other day however, I mentioned that I had forgotten to tell him “I love you,” that morning and I wanted him to know that. He nodded and we drove on. As he commented on another willow tree bursting forth in green, I commented on how deeply he really did love springtime. He smiled, looked at me and said, “Yes, I do love spring, but I love you more than green trees.” How can you not love a guy who loves you more than green trees when green trees give him so much joy?

The other day we received an email about dogs and the unconditional love they give to us humble humans. R and I talked about how much we loved our little dog and came to the conclusion that if he died before us we would simply have to get another dog. I said to R, you know “I love you more than our dog.” He said, “I love you too more than our dog, but he’s right up there!” Of course, we both cracked up laughing, and so I guess our previously simple “I love you” may always have to include the dog and green trees, at the very least!

Our family entered the 21st century last December 9th. We acquired our first robot and life hasn’t been the same since. After several friends demonstrated the absolute necessity for our very own robot, we purchased the next to the top of the line irobot. Our irobot is one of those vacuum cleaners that sucks up every scrap and ort of dust and dirt in any given room. AND, it is WONDERFUL!

Robbie Roomba as we call him (I decided my vacuum would not be a “her”), was a Christmas gift to the house, but he arrived on December 9th. When I read that we could return him for lack of performance in 30-days, I mused that if we waited until December 25th to begin using him, we would only have about a week to return him. Thus, his servant-robo life began way before that.

The days of paper instructions or manuals are long gone, and in its stead was a DVD. Oooookay. Popped it into our player and the three of sat through one hour of instructions, half of which were repeats from a previous module. It was actually kind of nice seeing it in living movement and vivid colors. But, it was frustrating that we couldn’t look up an instruction in the index and go to page whatever. Like, how do I change the filters. We had to pop in that sucker DVD again and cruise through the modules until we found those instructions. Not really efficient.

At any rate, we powered Robbie up and decided that we needed to see what he would be doing before we programmed him to clean automatically. So, we hit the “Clean” button and off he went. For over an hour we watched him slowly traverse our great room and entrance hall, bumping and banging along as he encountered objects like chairs, walls, table legs, etc. We giggled and laughed as it took him minutes to figure out how to get out from under a dining room chair. We tiptoed behind and around him, wondering when he thought he was done.

Finally, he moved slowly toward his docking station to be recharged for the next go-round. As he moved onto the dock, he tootled like a flute, a fanfare of notes ta-da-da-ta-da-da! Oh, he talks too! We gently lifted him from his “home,” re-ran the DVD, and figured out how to program him to run in the middle of the night when we were all asleep. We thought 1am would be good and so we programmed him for every night at 1am to make his cleaning rounds.

Since it was Christmas and we had our tree up, we didn’t want him moseying off into that area, so we used the two “Towers” that came with him to send a beam of light across the space which prevented him from crossing over into tinsel, lights, and glass ornament land. They worked, TBTG. We just loved having our very own robot.

Over the months we have found that there are dangers lurking in our home that give Robbie a modicum of distress. For example, one day I hung my fringed cape on the doorknob in the hall. Of course, it hung on the floor. Of course, the next morning we found Robbie’s cleaning brush tangled up in the fringe and him lying dead beside the cape. We lovingly picked him up and returned him to his charging dock. Poor baby.

Another night he got stuck on the small rug in the bathroom and circled himself to battery death right next to the toilet. We have also found him dead under the rocking chair, unable it seems to figure out how to get out and thus drained himself of all his life giving juice in the effort. We try now to anticipate such dangers, but somehow a new one pops up every so often.

Finally, there is the bumping and banging. It doesn’t often disturb my R and I because we sleep upstairs, but often it wakes up K who sleeps on the first floor. Early on in our robot adventure, she went out one night to investigate the noise, forgetting we had Robbie. As she opened her bedroom door, Robbie scared the living bejesus out of her as he rounded the hall corner and headed for her room through the open door.

We do love him though, and our cleaning peeps tell us it makes a difference when they come to do the heavy stuff. We did forget to change his clock to daylight saving time so now he bumps and bangs at 2am, but hey, he does a great job and we are even thinking of getting Roger Robot for upstairs! Welcome to the 21st century. I wonder what kind of robot they will think of next? Maybe one that cooks? Writes sermons? Goes grocery shopping? Oh, the possibilities are endless.

I have been reading obituaries since I was a young girl. I have been reading obituaries long before most people even think of reading them with any regularity. I remember when I first got my real estate license back in the dark ages and the broker handed me the newspaper and told me to read the obituaries to see if there were any recent widows who might be interested in selling the family home. Eeew. How macabre, I thought. Something about that kind of tactic even struck me as being unethical. The broker did, however, tell me to wait a few weeks after the funeral before calling the widow. I never did.

I am not obsessed with death and dying although at my age that reality is getting closer and closer. But, reading the obituaries is like reading a story-book of biographies for me. I read about all of those interesting people and all that they have accomplished or enjoyed in life. Of course, people only put the good stuff in obits, never any of the bad stuff, which helps.

I’ve never read an obit that went something like this: “Jayne was a wonderful homemaker, beloved by all in spite of the fact that she was a hurtful gossip, cheated on her husband, and regularly belittled her children and used foul language behind closed doors.” Or, this: “Jonathan was an upstanding citizen who served his church as leading elder, sang in the choir, and was Rotarian of the year. Jonathan was also known to beat his wife and children unmercifully, and could be found dead drunk most Saturday nights as he staggered home from O’Brien’s Saloon.”

Sadly, every family has dark shadows, but they also know that they can’t hang the family’s dirty laundry out in the obituary. This carries over to the pastor’s homily, the family eulogies, and the memories we hold in our hearts for our deceased loved ones. And, so I love to read the good parts of life’s stories. The parts about how they are loved. The parts about the variety of activities people choose to live. The parts about all the family they have and doted on when they were vibrant and alive. The parts about the good they did for others, the awards they won, and the challenges they met and conquered. And oh, how I wish I had met and been friends with all of these fabulous folks. And so, I read the obits. Almost daily.

I’ve often thought about writing my own obituary. My children have even told me that I should because they are sure to forget something. But, you know, I’m not going there. Obituaries are written by the living, the survivors. Obituaries are the way they want to remember us and the parts of us that they remember the most and best. Obituaries are not really about the dead, but about all the collective memories the living have of the one who is no more.

I don’t have a clue what my children will write about me. I guess we all hope it will be good stuff. And you know, it will. It will be good stuff because the bad stuff isn’t worth writing about or remembering. It hurts. It will be good stuff because, in the final analysis, those left behind want the rest of the world to believe that the life of their dear departed was beautiful and grand and positive. They want to believe it too. In death the darkness of our life is left in the closet and only the light and good is put out there for the public in our obituaries. I like that, and so I read the obituaries because it is all good stuff.

It has been 23 days since my last post and I feel as though I have been on Mars, no Venus. Yes, I like Venus better. At any rate, on March 6th I entered the nether world of germs and bacteria called the “hospital” for more surgery. Being as how it was my 27th surgery I guess that is my treatment of preference for whatever ails me. Of course, it was the scheduled by-pass surgery on my right leg that I knew was coming and so, I was ready. I had even rehearsed my request “would you please wash your hands here in my room so I can see you,” speech so the germs would be held at bay. The nice nurses finally put a sign on my door to save my vocal chords.

Although I managed to have the surgery and get home in good time, I did in fact also manage to get myself re-admitted back into the hospital with a minor infection for another two days. It was monotonous, but necessary, and now I am back at home resting and recuperating. I am not going back to work for several weeks and so, I have a lot of time on my hands.

Prior to the surgery folks were saying things like, “With all this time on your hands you can…..” One or the other of us filled in the blanks with things like get a lot of reading done, write my memoirs, clean out my office files (actually after a year or two I just toss them), or as one friend said, “you can teach me how to cook.” I even believed all of this. I mean, what else would I be doing staying at home just taking pain meds, napping, and healing.

The doctor had told me that it would take all of six weeks for me to recover from the surgery. It wasn’t the incision healing, nor the interior arteries that had been cut open, by-passed, cleaned out, and sewn up. No, it was the loss of energy, or fatigue I would experience as the body recovered from the trauma of two incisions totaling 16” inches. Oh, okay, it should wear off in a couple of weeks methinks to myself, and I would have “all this time to…..”

Hah! My thoughts were that when I got tired I would nap and then I could get many things accomplished with “all this time.” Seems it doesn’t work that way. Rather than the take a nap from fatigue it is more like a huge lack of energy. I would simply walk around without the motivation to do almost anything. I wasn’t even that interested in food or reading. I love to eat and I love read even more. I used to hide a flashlight in my bedroom as a child and read under my pillow after lights out so my mom wouldn’t discover me. But now, I would read a few sentences and then go into this trance-like state where I just wouldn’t do anything. Nor, would I want to do anything. A little television is about all I seem to be able to handle. I’ve been wanting to blog for lo these many days, but it just hasn’t happened. My checkbook is unbalanced. I haven’t even visited Facebook much and it is an effort just to manage my email. Oh my, this isn’t at all like I imagined it.

It has now been almost three weeks since my surgery and it isn’t getting any better. I keep thinking today might be the day I’ll feel awake, motivated, alive, energetic again. So far, nope. And, so I wait. I do a bit here and a bit there, but nothing of any significance and most assuredly nothing like all of those things I could do “with all this time” on my hands. Maybe tomorrow.

The Doctor’s Visit

I like to believe that I am a patient woman. Most of the time. Well, almost most of the time. But, my visit to the vascular surgeon for a final check on my right arm surgery tested not only my patience, but R’s patience, and probably several dozen other people in the waiting area. It was, in a word, unconscionable!

My appointment was upstate which meant for starters a two hour drive. Okay, that was my choice, well sort of (see my blog “Twas the Crisis Before Christmas” posted 12/20/2011). No matter, that is in the past. My appointment was scheduled for 11:00 am and when I was called to jog my memory and remind me of said time, I was told to come in 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork. OK, I can do that. And, so it was.

Actually, we – R came with me as we had plans to have lunch with a friend and then go to Longwood Gardens for the Orchid display – arrived a half hour early for the fifteen minute early. So, we had a cup of coffee and waited. Promptly, at 10:45am we checked into the imaging department for my pre-doctor visit ultrasound. As expected, we filled out the “paperwork” which took exactly 7 minutes.

Then, we waited and waited and waited. At 11:50am I was whisked back for the ultrasound on my arm as well as a blood pressure check. At 12:15pm we were done and the nice technician said that the doctor would come through a second door in the exam room to go over the results with me. She was kind enough to get R and let him join me.

Then, we waited and waited and waited. At 12:45pm the nurse came in, re-took my blood pressure and said the doctor would be right in. Ten minutes later she came in again and said she had paged the doctor and he would be right in. At that point we had been “waiting” a total of one hour and 35 minutes. Waiting. More waiting.

It was at this point, 12:55pm that I lost my patience. I think it is still there in the office somewhere, but it wasn’t with me. With a nice smile on my face I informed the nice nurse that if the doctor did not appear in five minutes we were leaving. He didn’t, we left. As we passed the nurse in the hall we told her good-bye, suggested that if there was a problem the doctor had our phone number, and R added, “We don’t expect to get a bill from the doctor for this visit.” Nice nurse, apologized as if it was all her fault and said, “Of course not.” I really felt sorry for her because it was definitely NOT her doing.

Out in the lobby as I waited for R to bring the car up, I was talking to my friend saying we would meet her for lunch in a few minutes, I saw the doctor saunter down the hall, cup of coffee in hand, and disappear into the office. It was 1:12pm by this time. Nice, sweet, I wanted to do something quite unseemly to him. (Read grit teeth, suppress scream).

If I have the time I plan to send this inconsiderate doctor a bill for my waiting time. At $300/hour (I figure my time is worth as much as his time) that should come to $475. He’ll probably ignore it, but I hope that our walking out and sending him said bill might make him a bit more aware of the unconscionable practice of bad scheduling and keeping people waiting way beyond a reasonable time. And, maybe I’ll throw in a letter to the Chairman of the Hospital board since it was hospital-based practice located within the hospital.

I firmly believe if more people complained about such treatment we wouldn’t have to go around feeling as if we were just, oh what is that expression, yes, “chopped liver.” Oh, by the way, due to all this waiting it was too late to get to Longwood Gardens for the orchid display, which of course, pissed me off too! There. I‘ve had my rant. Thanks for listening.

In the past several months there have been a plethora (if that’s a good word to use) of deaths among my friends and colleagues. I have been to some of their funerals, but others not, depending on my closeness to the deceased and the family. Over the years I have conducted many funerals, but lately I’ve been thinking about my first funeral.

I was in seminary and was not yet ordained. However, as a member of the Capital Yacht Club, I was designated their Chaplain and said many prayers and held several yachting related services for them such as at Thanksgiving. So, I guess it was natural that they asked me to conduct a funeral service for one of the members.

The deceased had been missing for perhaps about a week before the body was found floating under one of the docks. The family was quite upset, as one would expect, at such a completely unexpected sort of death. Drowning, that is. No one considered it suicide or homicide, just a very unfortunate accident. Alcohol was not involved it seemed, just a fall into the water off a dock, hitting the head and then the subsequent drowning. The deceased was a live-aboard at the Yacht club.

The burial was to be “at sea,” or at least in the Potomac River. The body was prepared for burial in a proper container. The owner of a boat volunteered to take the grieving family, the body, and myself out on the river for the committal service. It was a gray and misty day. One of those days you see in the movies, very suitable for a funeral.

Being as how this was my first burial, and one at sea at that, I was rather nervous. I put on my surplice and cassock (which I used at my field education church), grabbed my prayer book, and boarded the boat. The Rite for Burial was in the prayer book, so it was really just a matter of reading the service. The family boarded the boat with a large pack of rose petals to scatter as the body was committed to the sea.

We reached an appropriate cove for the service and committal. I opened my prayer book and recited the burial office with appropriate prayers and committed the body to the sea. The captain of the boat ceremoniously and reverently threw the container containing the body overboard and, presumably down into the deep. The family in tears began throwing rose petals into the water. Well, the box floated and did not sink. Oh, my, God, I thought, now what should we do? The captain retrieved the box while I conferred with the family.

It was decided that we should open the box and throw the remains overboard since it was obvious the box, even though weighted with concrete blocks, was not going to sink. And, so that is what we did. We opened the box, took out the remains which were in a plastic bag, and after saying an additional prayer, committed them one more time into the river. The family wept some more and threw the remaining rose petals into the water. I was relieved that the remains sunk immediately!

With the empty box and a weeping family we motored back to the Yacht Club, and I prayed that I would never again have to deal with such as disaster of a burial again. Who knew that the damn container would float? Really. However, as we docked and headed our ways, the family thanked me profusely for giving their beloved cat, Casper, a proper burial at sea.

Messenger. That’s what Apostolous means in Greek and what the later church patriarchs called those first 12 men (no ladies please) Jesus called to follow him. I think we missed the message of the messenger. Our sermons are filled with images of following Jesus. Crowds followed him around the countryside, parables talked of sheep following the shepherd, men and women followed him seeking healing. Following, following.

Messenger however, is not about following. It is about delivering. Here’s a letter, go deliver it to the lady down the street. Here’s my Fedex package, please deliver it to the store in the next town. Amazon.com delivers the goods we purchase. Our President delivers his State of the Union address. People deliver sermons or gifts or help. Jesus delivered his message and those 12 men he called were not asked to follow him around like little puppy dogs or sheep. No, they were asked to listen to him and then deliver his message to others. Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” Sheep being his peeps. Sheep being those peeps who were out there needing help. Those on the edge, the marginalized, the shunned, the forsaken, you might even know them as “Those people.” And, we all know what that means. Feed my peeps the message. Be my messengers.

The message we are missing, and the messengers we are not, is that there are a lot of peeps out there in a whole lot of hurt. The hurt of homelessness, the hurt of joblessness, the hurt of grief, the hurt of depression, the hurt of poverty, the hurt of hunger, the hurt of torture, the hurt of only God knows what. Jesus’ message is simply this: Help them. Feed them. Visit them. Heal them. Find them justice. Forgive them. Give them mercy. Love them. Bring them peace.

The National Geographic Magazine just featured a story on the Apostle’s journeys. It was a great article and traced the steps of those Apostles as they carried the message to places far flung from Nazareth. They got it, finally. Many of us haven’t. We sit in the pews Sunday after Sunday looking for some elusive spiritual experience and it never comes. Or we meditate in candlelit churches or corners or nooks and wait for that spiritual presence of God to wash over us and bring us into some ethereal experience. Ain’t gonna happen. Oh, sure meditation and silence is good to “Listen” for the message from God. But, most folks aren’t listening, they are just waiting for some mystical physical feeling to take hold. Better to study the scriptures and let those words soak into your psyche until you know how to deliver Jesus message.

If we are truly messengers, we won’t simply go around mouthing those words, we will BE those words. We will walk the walk of Jesus. We won’t just sit in church or go to a potluck supper or chair a fundraiser thinking we are following Jesus. We will BE Jesus in the world, we will deliver his message in person, face-to-face, get our hands dirty, speak up, speak out, be an advocate, be a voice for those who have no voice, and really BE the messenger who IS the message. Then we can truly call ourselves, Apostolous!

I have a very blessed life, but the one thing I am missing is a fireplace. I love fireplaces and I haven’t had one in seven years and, well, I just can’t stand it any longer. So, God help me, we are getting quotes to install a fireplace in our little townhome.

My darling daughter number two, K, decided that before we put in a big boxy fireplace, we needed a mock-up of one made out of cardboard boxes. That way we could see how much bulk our great room could handle, and if, in fact, we wanted to go forth into the realm of fireplacehood.

We gathered a big box and a couple of little boxes and set off to make our mock fireplace. Working with those boxes got me to pondering. Pondering about the boxes women have been put into, and suffered through, for years. No, not just years, forever of years going back to our beginnings. And, boxes that many of us have dragged ourselves out of into some semblance of sanity.

There are numerous notable women who either grew up and crawled out of her box, or were never in a box to begin with. Those women are the ones we hear about in the media, in books, and on TV talk shows. But in comparison to the vast number of women in boxes over the eons of time humans have walked this earth, those notable women are but a drop of water on the outside corner of a box. Millions upon millions of young, young girls, up through women gray of hair, long of tooth, and full of wisdom are still in a box. Some boxes we make for ourselves out of our fears or insecurities. Other folks often put us in boxes we’d rather not inhabit, like when women couldn’t vote, or women could only be nurses or teachers. But more often than we wish to imagine in our wildest dreams, it is a box of longing and suffering. Longing to be out of the box, and suffering within the box without hope of ever getting out. And, in my humble opinion, the worst box for any woman is the box of domestic or partner abuse.

Some may say the box of rape is worse, or the box of discrimination in the workplace, or the box of lower salaries. I say it is the box of domestic or partner abuse because it is a box we can’t easily walk away from into some utopian world in our mind. Often we can’t walk away because our partner is stronger and bigger than we and intimidates us at every turn. They beat us when we displease them. They sexually rape us sometimes daily, surely several times weekly. Saying no to these partners only seems to fuel the fire of abuse in their belly. They verbally abuse us, denigrating us with terms such as “Bitch,” “Whore,” “Stupid,” “Idiot,” and a litany of other such abusive names. They take away our dignity and self-esteem until we often believe all of it is true and worse yet, we are to blame. It is a big box we are in with steep sides and no ladders to climb out on.

The statistics are staggering. Did you know that every day four women die as a result of physical abuse? In real numbers that is 1,460 women a year. In 2008 the Bureau of Justice statistics report that females aged 12 or older experienced about 552,000 non-fatal violent victimization? On average, according to the Center for Disease Control survey on domestic and sexual violence, “24 people per minute are the victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States.” That’s 12.6 million people a year! Furthermore, over 1 million women are raped in a year and 6 million women and men are the victims of stalking. Staggering numbers by anyone’s count.

This is one helluva big box and those are only the ones we know about and the ones in the United States. Those are only the ones reported. I know my abuse was never reported nor was the abuse my mother-in-law suffered for almost 50 years. How many millions more women are in this box of domestic or partner abuse, screaming on the inside, bearing it on the outside, longing for the fresh freedom of sanity and safety. A world where there is no more pain or suffering. Remember, those numbers are only our United States statistics and only for partner violence. There is a much larger world of violence and abuse against women out there.

What about the rest of the world? A world where we know that women are devalued to a greater extent than here in America and suffer unbelievable pain at the hands of men and their laws. A world in which women are stoned to death for adultery or suffer genital mutilation where girls, babies actually, often die from the procedure. A place like Kabul where a young woman who was serving a sentence for adultery after being raped by a relative was forced to marry her rapist in order to get out of jail. Shameful. I imagine those broader geographic numbers and crimes against women would be so overwhelmingly unimaginable that they would turn our stomachs inside out until we vomited blood.

There is a glimmer of hope, however, here in the states. The Bureau of Justice statistics states that the rate of intimate partner victimization against females declined 53 percent between 1993 and 2008. That is a significant decline. What this says to me is that either less women are reporting abuse, which I doubt, or there is a real decline due to education and outlets/programs for women to turn to when they finally crawl over the edge of that box and seek help. We need more of these avenues of help because 47 percent is still too high a number and too high a price for a woman to pay just for being born female.

Boxes are not all cardboard in which to make fake fireplaces, but intangible walls around women strangling and killing them. They need to be torn down, broken up, and thrown away so that women never have to fear for their life or lose themselves in the sewage of a raging partner ever again.

Oh, where to begin, it is such a long and intricate story. I guess starting at the beginning makes the most sense. But, what beginning? Mine? Rip’s? Ours? I think I’ll start when I met Rip. The attic was huge and dark, as are most respectable attics. This particular attic however was located above a 3-story, 7 or 8-car garage with several apartments on the Belvedere Estate owned, at that time, by the Samuel Bronfman family of Seagram fame. The estate was located in the heart of the Sleepy Hollow region of New York. Ordinary folks didn’t have access to the estate, much less the attic, but my first husband’s parents were the resident housekeeper and grounds superintendent. Furthermore, the Bronfmans were only in residence six weeks of the year in the summer. So, for 46 weeks of the year, I pretty much had the run of the place.

In this attic were the left over relics of the “big house” as the 35-room mansion was informally called. The estate, built by a Dr. Philip Gillette Cole in about 1928 and was sold in the early 1950’s to the Bronfmans, completely furnished, without of course, Dr. Cole’s vast art western art collection including many Remingtons. The attic contained those items the Bronfmans found unsuitable to grace their new home. When my husband and I moved into the historic farmhouse across the street from the estate, we were given some of that furniture which, being of an early American style suited our taste.

On occasion, just for the fun of it, I would go into that attic and see what little treasures I might find. A lamp here, a small table there. One day, way, way back in a dark, dark corner I found this small statue of a very old man. He had this ethereal sense of longing on his face as if he were looking somewhere far away for a special place. An almost, “I’m coming home, I’ll be there soon” countenance. Well, I dragged this old man out and dusted him off. He was holding a very long rifle, and his right hand was held up close to his mouth as if he was about ready to shout to someone, “Hello, I’m coming home.”

Once out in the sunlight and dusted off, I recognized that this statue, about twenty inches high, had to be Rip Van Winkle because here I found him in Rip Van Winkle country. I was so excited to have found him because I had graduated from Irvington High School in New York, the home of Washington Irving, author of Rip Van Winkle and the most famous, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I lived in that region for over 14 years and both of my children were born there. In a sense I felt as if I were holding a piece of local history in my hands.

I dragged Rip downstairs into my in-laws’ apartment and asked them to ask the Bronfmans if I could have this little man. Well, they very willingly said yes, and Rip became a fixture in my home. Now I have to confess that my husband, Bob, was not thrilled. He thought the statue rather ugly and in fact, did not even want me to bring him home. I insisted but, only under the condition that Rip would be put in some out-of-the-way place. Okay, Rip, you can’t be in the living room, but the corner near the fireplace in the family room downstairs should be okay. At least it’s warm. And so began my love affair with this little old man, my Rip as he became known.

Being a stay-at-home wife and mother I enjoyed being with Rip and I would often have long conversations with his as I ironed in front of the fireplace. I kept him dusted and sometimes moved him from one corner to the next just to give him a change of scenery. In the mid 1970’s we had an appraiser come in to appraise our growing collection of fine arts. He commented that Rip was cast at the Roman Bronze Works in New York and had the #20 engraved at the base. (He said this was important because that was where Remington had all his bronzes cast. This didn’t really mean much to me at the time.) At the end of the day the appraiser handed us a bill for $300 and said that he would take the statue of Rip as payment for his fee. Bob was ready and willing and said, “Yes.” I quickly said “No. He’s mine and I’m not letting him go.” The appraiser was not pleased nor was Bob. I, however, was very happy, thank you very much, to keep Rip nearby.

As the years passed I divorced my first husband, hater of Rip, and eventually married my soulmate, Ralph. To my dismay he too was not especially fond of my Rip. He said he was not particularly attractive artistically. He said, “It wasn’t something I could look at every day and say that was a beautiful piece.” Humph, what did he know. Well, Rip wasn’t going anywhere, but he did stay in the family room until we moved a few years later. We moved to a 3-story townhome and Rip was relegated to the third floor loft. Sigh. I didn’t get to see him as often, but I would be sure that every time I went to the third floor I would stop and have a chat with him. Good soul, he never complained.

In the summer of 1989 we went up to Massachusetts for a Tanglewood concert and an “inn weekend” in Stockbridge. With a free afternoon we took a ride in the country and happened upon a museum called “Chesterwood.” We love museums and so it was that we decided to go in and take the tour of this house on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was the summer residence and studio of Daniel Chester French, a sculptor of some renown having done the statue of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial and the Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts. It was a beautiful colonial and very comfortable. After the house tour the docent took us down the path to the artist’s studio. It was a fascinating place where I learned so much about sculpting and casting bronze statues. Many of French’s smaller plaster models were there including a small plaster of the statue of Lincoln.

At the end of the tour we were left to roam about and take our time looking here and there. Ralph wandered over to the other side of the studio and was engaging another docent in conversation. As I looked around there was a large floor to ceiling bookcase full of plaster casts. My gaze went up to the very top shelf near the ceiling and there, to my utter astonishment, was a plaster casting of my Rip. MY RIP, HERE! Oh, my, God. I turned and motioned to Ralph wildly pointing my right hand up at Rip while waving him over with my left hand. I could barely speak as I sputtered out, “Raaa, raall, raaalllph. Coomme heerrre, lllook.” Both Ralph and the docent hustled over to look at the object to which I was pointing. I told the docent that I had a bronze statue just like that. She said, “Oh, you mean like this one here?” as she pointed to another one of my little man sitting on the mantle.

And so it came to be that I learned that my much disdained Rip was actually sculpted by the famous artist, Daniel Chester French. The docent got out the record books of all French’s works and here is what we know of the provenance. Rip was cast in 1927 as a limited edition of 25 or 29 (it was hard to read his handwriting). These miniatures were exact replicas of a bas relief statute including Rip found on a work honoring Washington Irving located at the corner of Sunnyside Lane and Broadway in Irvington, New York and dedicated on June 6, 1927. I saw that bas relief every day as I lived right across the street from it for two years. After I married, I returned to the area and lived one block from it for almost nine years. How could I have not connected the two? I contribute my lack of knowledge to youthful ignorance.

At any rate, the docent informed us that these little statutes were cast in 1927 to be sold as a sort of “party favor” to help fund the bas relief as the sponsers were apparently having financial difficulties raising money. DC French agreed to help out and sold the entire lot at cost to a Jennie Prince Black (Mrs. H.D.V.). Mrs. Black was a major benefactress of the bas relief going back to her considerable efforts in 1909 to have an Irving Memorial erected. Mrs. Black then sold these statues to patrons for $200, (a substantial sum in 1927) which more than likely is how Rip made his way to Dr. Cole and, eventually to the attic. As I inspected the statue of Rip at the studio I discovered that it was signed, while mine was not. I asked the docent about this and she informed us that the original casting of 25-29 were not signed. Some time after French’s death in 1931 his daughter, Margaret French Cresson (d. 1973) had the work recast and signed them with her father’s name as she sometimes did. None of the original 25-29 original castings done before French’s death were signed. Later, we contacted the museum curator, Linda Wesselman Jackson, and received written documentation of what the docent had told us so that we have documented provenance.

Well, when we arrived home after our discovery of Rip’s creator, Ralph marched up to the third floor and brought Rip down to a place of honor on the first floor. He says he hasn’t changed his mind, but now he has more respect for him seeing as how his creator is so famous. Years later when telling this story to friends of ours, one of the women remarked, “There’s a moral to this story, husbands come and husbands go, but Rip stays!” Amen to that I say.

I have had possession of my little man for over forty years now. He sits on the shelf above my desk and I see him every day. I still have little conversations with him. Both Ralph and Bob still think he is ugly, but he’s my little man Rip and that’s the way it’s going to be until I meet my maker. And, I say Amen to that too.