i've had a good week. i didn't get to see as much as i had hoped in new york...but for good reason. we were having such a good time that we didn't bend over backwards to keep any kind of schedule. but we didn't manage to get to all of the things that i really wanted to do, so i'll go back up on sunday morning.
i had a great d.c. day on wednesday. i set off to see the annie leibovitz show at the corcoran and to wander around downtown. on the way down, i was missing mummy so much. before her hip started giving her trouble, she and i used to run downtown often. our last museum trip was to see the calder/miro exhibit at the phillips collection. we have a particular fondness for calder, an artist/engineer and master of whimsy. we used to go see his circus at the whitney whenever we were in new york at the same time. (i'll see it again this sunday)
i was remembering so much about those times while i was driving to the corcoran. so i decided to pretend that she was with me. (strange, yes. but that's what i decided.) and with the exception of the faster pace i was able to keep, i tried to look at everything as if she were there. she and i liked the same things, but had very different perspectives. i tried to look at things both ways.
i was doing pretty well, until i came to the part where annie leibovitz was documenting susan sontag's battle with cancer. and that is where i came undone. wandering from picture to picture with tears streaming down my face.
i am a photographer. that is how i see myself. after daughter, sister, aunt, niece, cousin and friend, that is my next descriptor.
and, when mom was dying, i remember watching everything and not taking pictures. if it were me dying, i'd have had a camera in my hand the whole time. but she is very private. so i only took a few photos. and most did not show her face. they were just visual clues. the bicycle bell from her wheelchair (i loved that when she was pushed into an elevator, looking gaunt, on her way up to chemo, the sad worried look of strangers would change when she rang her bell. that bell helped them see that there was a whimsical woman in that chair.) there's the x-ray sign that takes me back to the day we had her x-rayed to make sure she didn't have a bowel obstruction. (i like that one because it reminds me that, while i was sitting in the hallway waiting, magee was in there holding her up. that picture is very sweet to me.) the hand on her dog was taken with my phone when i though that mom was just about to die. i just wanted something. some kind of picture. and watching mummy on the monitor is how i spent my nights after we brought her home. the pictures are not spectacular in and of themselves...but they bring me right back to those moments.
there are pictures that i will take this week. pictures of "evidence." evidence that she was here. there's legal pad that says "evidence" at the top. on it, there is her handwriting. something cryptic. she was always doing puzzles. and we haven't moved it. we have left so much of the evidence alone. eventually we will have to move on...but not yet.
but i digress. i wandered around d.c. pretending that she was with me. after the leibovitz show, i ended up at the edward hopper retrospective at the east wing. afterwards, i went down to the subterranean museum café where we used to grab a snack and then i went through the gift shop in search of stocking stuffers. when i saw a scarf with a william morris pattern that she loved, i cried. when i came across an umbrella that i thought she would love for christmas, i bought it for myself.
i am so tired of being so sad. and i am getting a little bit sick of listening to myself when i talk about it or reading my words when i write about it. i fugure getting through christmas is going to be even harder than yesterday. but i am not going to put off fighting to be happy until that has passed.
this morning i was watching this week's episode of "pushing daisies." it's a lovely show with beautiful cinematography, delightful characters and wonderful storylines. among the characters are two sisters, vivian and lily, who are mourning the death of their niece, charlotte. they have stopped doing the thing that they love: synchronized swimming. in this episode, vivian is trying to convince lily that they need to work on being happy again. she says "i think it's brave to try to be happy. you've gotten so comfortable being unhappy. wouldn't it be wonderful to wake up in the morning and choose to be happy?" later in the show, the housebound vivian and lily are sitting in the parlor on a rainy afternoon and vivian begins to sing. she sings "morning has broken." (when we were little, magee and i used to lie in our beds at the beach house and listen to the teenage girl in the house next door play her acoustic guitar and sing "morning has broken" on warm summer nights.)
vivian sings the song, and as we listen, we watch the sisters choose to be happy again.
today, i am going to eat chocolate and stay in my pajamas. tomorrow, i am going downtown again with my sisters, my niece and all of my favorite boys.
