When Timmy and I are on a long drive, and he's behind the wheel, he likes to find a "happy place", a place on a major three lane highway, that suddenly has no cars in front of you and no cars in back. You relax, look at the scenery, slow down to the speed limit and enjoy the drive. Without the rush of cars passing on either side you are suddenly tension free, if only for a few minutes or even seconds. I have been kind of in a "happy place" since Cape Cod. It started one morning, early about 7:30 I was on Mayo Beach drinking a hot cup of offee, watching the shellmen about their job. Wellfleet Harbor stretched in front of me like a cinematic screen, land, water, Jeremy Point, more water and vast amounts of blue sky. The moon had been full the night before, so it was a very low tide and the men were so far off they looked like toy soldiers, their trucks pulled to the end of the water looked like Matchbox trucks. They moved slowly, some raking their oyster beds, some pulling rowboats filled with burlap bags of oysters and suddenly I felt a peace, a good feeling watching these workers doing a tedious job in slow motion, in cold water. A happy place. Then last week in my writing class at Bard I read my piece on "I knew I grew up when..." a piece that ended with even Maria's death not accomplishing my growing up. The class applauded me, the teacher said excellent and I went out of the room feeling a "happy place". I hate to read in front of people, I inherited the Murphy shyness and this was something hard for me to do and I thought I would cry, but I wore the scarf Maria had made for me, and I think that helped. My happy place continued.

Right now our country is not in a happy place and the result of next Tuesday is all important. Sabra e-mailed me an essay David Sedaris wrote for the New Yorker on voting. He mentions the voters who are undecided and likens it to being on an airplance. The stewardess approaches with the food cart and asks, do you want the chicken or a platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it and the undecided voter asks "How's the chicken cooked?" Funny, but sad too. We need to get into a happy place and Tuesday means the difference of an over crowded dangerous highway of crazy drivers or a long stretch of calm road ahead. Please, give us the calm road.

Back from a week at the Cape - beaches, Oysterfest and a memorial for a schooltime friend. Something for everyone there. I spoke a few words at Jackie's memorial, about our long time friendship. After the speakers, there was food, snack food and a small boat decoration filled with raw oysters. Her younger sister Sandy told me how she was so angry when Jackie died too early, Sandy thought they would have so many more years to be together. A few days before I had been to a funeral for a friend in Tivoli, who died at 69. The pastor there also kept saying, too young, she died too young. Made me think of Maria at 45 but then I guess they always say too young. Not my Uncle Ed Murphy, he was 96. There they said, "Doesn't he look good?" and he did. I went to Oma's 100 birthday, but was away for her funeral, but they probably didn't say she died too young either.

Anyway, something happened to me at the Cape, something broke free and I can once again do embrodery. I haven't been able to do that since Maria died. Instead I replaced it with Sudoku, the numbers game, placing numbers 1 through 9 in blocks, filling books and books of Sudoku. I even did the ones in the newspaper each day and the one in the AARP magazine, any Sudoku I could get my hands on. I realized in Cape Cod that was because when I embroider, I think. When I do Sudoku, I have to concentrate on the numbers, nothing else, no thinking. I had my bag of assorted projects to embroider and I picked up an apron I had started before Christmas. The needle went in and out and the brain started to wander. But my thoughts weren't scarey thoughts, they weren't awful thoughts, they were just thoughts and the needle kept going until I ran out of thread and then I picked another color and it was like I had never stopped for seven months. One small step.....

I've changed in many ways, I know it. Not long ago Caleb Potter's mother wrote in her blog that Caleb had asked her, "Where's my real Mom?" She was upset and hurt, but Laura wrote to her blog, saying something like "since my sister died, I lost my real mother, the one I had before" and I know what she meant. Tragedy changes you. I told Timmy the above, and he simply said, "I lost my old girlfriend too". I know I am less tolerant, less patient. At the Cape we were in line outside waiting to eat at Moby Dick's the last night of the season it was to be open. A big van drove up and parked next to the line of waiting customers with a bumper sticker NOBAMA. "Where did you get that sticker?" asked the man in front of us."I want to get one". The people behind us piped in, "We want to get one to," That's it, I told Timmy. Let's go. I'm not eating with people that think like that and we left, with the hostess saying, "Won't you reconsider?" I wanted to yell, "You assholes want McCain. Stand in line then, like sheep, waiting to go into a restaurant" , but Timmy (who is never the conservative) said to me, "I wouldn't say anything to that group if I were you" and I didn't. But that's just an example. No patience. I can't even wait for the next two weeks to go by so we don't have to see and hear all the politicians pointing fingers and telling us how much money they are going to save us. Well, I may be impatient now, but I can once again do my embordery.

I heard the geese last night. It was the full harvest moon and they must have been taking advantage of the light to make a few more miles south. It was bright, almost light enough to read by the bedroom window. I love to hear the geese. When I was a kid my father would sing "My heart knows what the wild goose knows, I must go where the wild goose goes" a Frankie Laine hit about a wanderer who leaves the woman he loves for the wild life - a song my father seemed to like a lot more than Bucky did.

The geese have always been a symbol to me of the changing seasons, the onset of fall and the long winter, and in the spring, the promise of warm weather and summer. I love to hear the honks, almost like dogs barking and to search the sky looking for the tell tale V formation. Last March, probably just a week or so before Maria died, I was waiting with Solomon for his bus to come to pick him up. I heard the sound, and sure enough, there they were, coming north, a big V. I pointed them out to Solomon, "Look, Solly, the geese are flying north, they're making a big V in the sky." Then, there were more, several flocks, making the familiar noise, making the familiar formation. "A big V, and another big V", I pointed out to Solomon. His head pointed up, he said nodding, "Yes, just like Darth Vader" - he was and still is big time into Star Wars. After that we yelled "It's Darth Vader, Darth Vader is coming - more Darth Vader", with laughs of joy. After I returned home, I phoned Maria and was telling her about introducing Solomon to the migrating geese and how he related it to Darth Vader. She answered warmly, "Oh, Ma, what a wonderful memory for him." And that's what it is - a memory of all the times I've pointed out the geese - all the years and seasons past and to come.

Today I heard two sisters talking on local tv that they named their farm "Gansvoort" after the old Dutch name which literally means goose crossing. My sister Kathleen lives in Gansvoort and Gansvoort is a name associated with the Huson Valley, which is a real goose crossing, a regular route for the geese to go north and south by. But I had never heard the translation. I like it though, that's what the geese symbolize, crossing, leaving summer, going into winter, and then in reverse. Hoping to still be here to see them come back, but never knowing. I always plant spring bulbs with that same thought, "wonder if I'll be here to see them flowering" - it's a small leap of faith and hope for the future.

The news this morning was all about the anniversary of September 11th. Family members were interviewed and spoke of how that day will never be forgotten. I myself remember it well. The phone rang after 8am and my neighbor Kathy told me to put on the television, a plane had crashed into the Twin Towers. Timmy and I watched in disbelief as the other tower was hit. To get away from the television, Timmy and I decided to do what we did every Tuesday morning, walk to Tivoli and go to the Thrift Shop. A small group was waiting outside the door, whispering in shock, "a plane has crashed in the Pentagon", more planes are attacking, the country is at war". No one knew what to believe and then I saw Maria drive up with Regina in the car. She, too, had felt the need to do a usual, normal activity. I don't even remember going into the shop, but Margaret who lives next door, called down to us to come to her apartment. Timmy said he would walk home, and Maria, Regina and I went upstairs. We talked nervously about the events, second guessing what was coming next, and then Margaret looked at Regina, two years old at that time, and asked "Regina, would you like to hold one of my birds?" Regina nodded yes and Margaret said, "I'll let you hold Retardo, he's very easy going" and Regina stretched out her hand and Margaret took a picture of Regina, wearing a long dress, a solemn look on her young face, with that bird held so gingerly on her finger, with the tv in the background showing the smoking twin towers. Wow! Talk about capturing so much with one picture. Seven years later, the family members still feel the grief, the loss and watching them being interviewed on TV this morning, I said in my head (sometimes I do say these things out loud too), "Yes, I understand. I grieve with you at your lose." That's what grief does to you...it humbles you, it humanizes you. It gives you an understanding of the "human condition" that you can only get when you go through it yourself. Seven years have passed, and I wonder what we learned as a people, meaning the whole country, from this event. I look at the polls with Palin sweeping McCain ahead and I shake my head. Bush used this event to go to war, thousands have died, and we have a chance to elect someone who can bring the soldiers home, help our country get back on its feet, make us feel proud again as Americans, and we would rather have a gun toting, moose killing, pit bull (lipstick wearing) hockey mom leading the way. God Help Us.

Monday morning Timmy and I were cleaning up the Bird's Nest after guests for the long weekend. He was reading from our guest book, but was having a hard time deciphering the handwriting of our latest guest. He does this to me all the time. He will pick up my grocery list and say "brood" for bread or "malt" for milk. He has that perfect handwriting of an artist and no patience for my scribbling. Well, even I couldn't read what the "pleasing sounds of birds and ????" were and suddenly it brought me back to last Christmas in Ria's car heading home from our annual Christmas trek to Beacon. Regina was in the back seat and we were headed a few miles towards home when Regina remembered she hadn't eaten all day..playing with her cousin Katie had made her forget lunch. So she started in the whining about Burger King as we drove through Poughkeepsie. "We''ll stop in Hyde Park," Maria told her, "there's a Burger King there". "Ria," I whispered, "I think that's a MacDonald's". The kid heard me and yelled "I hate MacDonald's-I want Burger King. They have the best fries." "There's one in Hyde Park", screamed Ria back, "I'm pretty sure anyway," she added. But when we got to Hyde Park, there it was, a MacDonald's. Regina had a fit...."you told me it was Burger King,,I hate MacDonald's". "Well," said Ria patiently and firmly, "It's MacDonald's or nothing til we get home." Regina grunted and we turned in and got in line behind several cars for the drive-in. Maria started to giggle and turned to me. "Laura gave me the greatest tape for Christmas, Ma. It's Dane Cook (I had never heard of him) and he's talking about working at Burger King. He was 17 and his brother was manager and got him a job there....but he was embarrassed to be working at Burger King, so he called it the BK Lounge and said he was a bouncer for the BK Lounge. But, Ma, the funiest part was his brother always made him work at the drive thru...which he hated. People yelled at him, I said large fries, MF'er and screamed into the mike. But worse, he said, were the people who whispered, and he goes, extra cheese, extra pickles, all in whispers. He said he thought they were talking dirty to him....like chicken tenders and put extra pussy sauce on the meat. Well, Ria and I got laughing so hard that by the time we got to the window, Ria could hardly put in the order, but she spoke loudly and clearly giving Regina's order. And the kid got her fries and stopped whining and Ria and I laughed the rest of the way home....It was the unreadable guest book that brought that back to me and it gave me a chuckle. I turned to Timmy, and pretended to read from the book, "Thanks for the worst stay of my life...the f... birds woke me up early after the shitty refrigerator ran all night." I think that's what my life is going to be from now on, little snippets of shared times with Maria. Thanks Dane Cook for making me and Maria laugh.

Well, we went to the Rhinebeck Fair, the birds and the beasts were there. The big baboon by the light of the moon was combing his long black hair. The monkey he got drunk, he sat on the elephant's trunk. The elephant sneezed, and fell on his knees and that was the end of the monk...that was the end of the monk. The Rhinebeck Fair has been a part of our lives for the almost 40 years we have lived here. Each year the kids would get a job there and earn their money for back to school clothes. Paul went a few days before the fair opened and he and his friends had the job of assembling the rides. (That's enough to keep me off the ferris wheel.) Maria worked the lemonade stand, in fact that is how she met Kevin. I guess he thought she was cute, and bought a drink from here...see how things can start. She would come home the last day of the fair, with handfuls of one dollar bills, sticky from the lemonade, all bunched together. One of her favorite stories was when the young guy she was working with was cleaning up. The owner yelled to him "Watch out for the wires!" and he heard "wash the wires" and started to do so, while the carny had a fit. Sabra worked different booths, one time in a booth that you had to throw darts and break balloons. She was about 15 and my friend Chrissy and I were in that section of the fair looking for her. I grabbed Chrissy arm, stunned at what I saw, Sabra next to a carny, leaning over the booth, smoking a cigarette!! Her job next year was much better, working in the booth with costumes, where the fair goers would select a certain look and then have their picture taken dressed up. So, the fair has a lot of memories...this was the first year that we went without Maria, so that was a big difference. But it was like she was there is some ways...she had encouraged me to enter my embrodery last year, and I had entered three pieces, winning only a second prize for a pillowcase. This year I asked my sisters Barbara and Diane to loan me back the Christmas presents I had made them, aprons, and I won first prize for each of the aprons. Also, last year Maria had said to me, "Ma, you should enter your postcards...the winner wasn't half as good as yours." So this year I entered four of my Tivoli postcards, and won a blue ribbon for them. Thanks Maria. You just can't get away from that girl. Maria's clothes always had a certain very pleasant smell about them, different than most. Sabra asked Rachael what kind of detergent did your mother use and found out it was Tide, in the purple bottle, with vanilla and lavendar. Sabra started using it and I looked for it on the grocer's shelf and bought it too. So everytime I grab a shirt, or hang up clothes there is Ria's smell. The Fair, the laundry, my birthday. My birthday came and went last week. Last year Maria had a party for me at her house, a pirate party, and we all were dressed like pirates. I have the picture of us all, hanging on the wall, handy to the eye. And the thing I love most about the picture is that Ria and I are the only ones going "Arrrrrrr". That is a wonderful picture, a wonderful day, and a wonderful memory.

Gravestones, that's the latest item on my mind. Actually, it's not that new. We grew up on Falconer Street which ran both ways perpendicular to Washington Avenue. On the other end of our street was a large cemetery, one my mother often took us to on a walk. There we would search the stones for one with our name, or our day of birth, looking for a certain angel or checking out the resident's picture featured on the stone. Yesterday Sabra and I went to Maria's grave with a cardboard cutout of her proposed stone. When I write this, it seems a little bizarre, but actually it makes a lot of sense. The stone so far, will be 36" high, with 12" under the ground, 30" wide and 3" thick. So, we placed the cardboard "stone" up against the wooden cross that's there to see the height and compare it to Patty's stone which is right next to her. Then we went to the old part of the cemetery to see how it used to be done. When we first told the memorial man that we wanted an "old style stone" for Maria, he said, "It's about time to put an old looking stone up there on the hill." And, he's right. They all look about the same. When my father died, my brother looked for an appropriate stone for him. After seeing all the same stones, he asked, "Do you have anything in a sport motif?" and they found him an old book with a skier on a stone. Perfect. Now, the interesting thing is at that time, the skier stood alone in the cemetery as far as a sportsman theme. But, soon a stone with a man fishing appeared and then a golfer. Daddy was a tread setter. Maybe Maria will be one too. Recently a friend of Sabra's was on Martha's Vineyard and found John Belushi's gravestone which is an old style slate with skull and crossbones. I read that the stone is not near his body, for fear of vandals. But anyway, the old style stones are so interesting. Please look at www.capecodgravestones.com to see samples. Years back Maria, Jer and I did stone rubbings in the Wellfleet graveyard. She gave one to Sabra which is the one we selected for her stone. It can be seen on the website above..look for the name George Brown. It is an angel, young, with an hourglass on her head. I was drawing an example to show Timmy and when I drew the stone, putting the angel on the top rounded part, my angel's wings were too large, and the hourglass looked like a little hat. In fact the whole thing looked like Dumbo ready to fly. I laughed out loud, and asked "Hey, Ria how about you have Dumbo on your stone?"
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