"Starting with Nothing"

             A few days ago, we ambled into a “remember when” conversation after our son commented that he’s never met a woman from his generation who embraces a view that the partnership of marriage can start from nothing and work slowly forward over many years. The women he knows want a partner established in career with a steady income, vehicles that run, and the promise of eventually becoming “stay at home mothers” instead of remaining in the work force. So different from my own beliefs.

            Our first apartment, in Bryan, Texas, had orange shag carpet. For the first four months of marriage, we sat on the floor, eating off of a large paper box. A friend had given us the foam mattress from a hide-a-bed to use as a bed. Our clothing, folded into neat piles, rested directly on the floor. We didn’t even have a laundry basket at first, and the few wire hangers we had held heavier items like our coats and jackets. The television set, black and white, didn’t have working horizontal hold. It rotated the single channel we tuned through rabbit ears. A wicker chair with matching stool and a white pole lamp, pieces I purchased while in high school, finished the furniture we owned. David entered marriage with one small old suitcase, one paper bag of clothing, his guitar (a gift from a friend), his bass, and cabinet with amplifier. My uncle had given us a partial set of American Airlines silverware. Our pots and pans, mix-matched, barely filled our cooking needs. That was okay. We barely had food for groceries. Those months, before our first paychecks arrived, were our pinto bean days.

            Around September, one of David’s aunts loaned us an old mattress and table. We picked up a couple of folding chair, which graduated us to fine dining! We pooled our wedding gift cash to buy unpainted wood chests. Finally, our clothing had a home. The foam pad shifted to the living room for a “couch”.

           

            Those sparse first months gave us the ability to do sacrifice for later goals. My college loans got payed off at a double rate. Once we moved from College Station to San Antonio, we kept our budget strict. Together, we roamed through department and furniture stores to select the furniture that fit a style we both loved.

            For us, part of the success of our long marriage started in those first months of struggle. It gave us a foundation for working together for long-term goals.

IOUNIO's "Echoes in the Mist"

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Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 

"Rekindling A Love"

 

San Antonio Zoo 1981

            We moved from College Station, Texas to San Antonio in December of 1979, without jobs and on an extremely tight budget. Our finances allowed few luxuries during those first years as an old Honda Civic needed constant repairs, and I still had school loans to repay. We purchased bikes that provided many hours of entertainment. We found a few parks and preserves that offered escapes, all free, from our small apartment. Our favorite splurge, though, became a day at the San Antonio Zoo.

1985

            Eventually, parenthood meant even more frequent trips that included train rides and sky rides.  The zoo provided rides on elephants and camels during the 1980s as well as a petting zoo that our son grew to love dearly. Our traditions over the years included photographs with the lion sculpture. If family or friends came along, they struck poses, too.

1988

            Life took us along different paths that led us away from trips to the zoo as we spent weekends at the family cabin and discovered our love of Renaissance Fairs. Music lessons, art classes along with more demanding careers and aging parents shifted the zoo into an extremely fond memory.

            Then in December 2023, my son started wanting to visit this treasured place once again.  For our 45^th anniversary gift, we decided to purchase new zoo memberships as we found ourselves falling in love once more with all of the changes entwined with our special traditions.

1990

1990

2023

IOUNIO's "Time Traveler" taps into my longing to rekindle parts of my past within my persent. 

I'd love it if you'd listen to this song. 

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Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Comfort Music"

At age two, my son asked for drums. We purchased a cute plastic set that he played like a pro. Paul also latched onto a harmonica at the same age, dancing around his room playing a singsong tune. He asked for a drum kit around age six. Tight on space, we purchased a Yamaha keyboard, found music lessons that combined singing with playing to temporarily satisfy his musical urge. His instructor, during her summer camps, encouraged her students to add another instrument to their playing skills. Paul asked my brother for the forgotten snare drum sitting in his closet. Every year, the subject of a drum kit surfaced. Because of space limitation, Paul ended up with both a bass and electric guitar. Although he enjoyed both, he still longed for a kit. By his fourteenth birthday, we decided to get rid of our guest room and fill it with drums. From the first second Paul held sticks in his hands, he played wonderfully. Before we knew it, he picked up a second kit, filling the smallest room with double bass beats and practicing with Neil Peart on loop. The summer he turned fourteen, Slipknot hit San Antonio with the Tattoo the Earth tour. My son, now thirty-six and an audio engineer, still prefers the music from that one crucial year when he’s looking for “comfort music” during a rough day.

Always curious, Paul dipped into recent brain studies searching for neurological reasons for music and genre preferences, discovering that most men’s “go to” music stems from what they listened to at age fourteen. For women, it’s age thirteen. Over the years, my husband’s purchased everything ever produced by The Beatles and Rush, the two groups he listened to endlessly as he entered his teen years. He picked up both bass and guitar during those years and serenaded his way through high school with “Blackbird” or “Fly by Night.” What did I listen to at age thirteen? The first 8-track I ever purchased was Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection. My comfort music, though, doesn’t center on a single performer or group. My mornings during my early teen years found me listening to KTSA as I dressed for school. Evenings our family played my parent’s records on the stereo, so Pete Foutain, Buddy Rich, or Chet Atkins entertained us. By nightfall, my radio played classical music. When I’m feeling down now, I’m just as likely to listen to Lizzo for a pick-me-up as I am Elton John. However, over the years I’ve rarely purchased my own CDs, and my iTunes is almost empty—except for Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and James Taylor—all favorites from the year 1970.

I leave with the question—What is your “comfort music”?

 

IOUNIO's "Toy Kingdom" is one of my favorite songs. Want to help new musicians and Audio Engineers? It's easy:

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Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman     

"Susie"

Suise, James and Heather 1981

            When I met Susie, forty-seven years ago, her teenager heart saw no one but my future brother-in-law, James. Her eyes followed his every move. She draped herself onto his lap, latching onto him with the purity of young devotion. She attached her life to his goals to be an Air Force pilot, never longing for anything more than the role of wife and mother. The books she read covered with Fabio’s muscled chest, contained characters she longed to imitate. Conversations with her revolved around how James would take care of her for the rest of her life.

            My practical nature cringed whenever I knew Susie and I would be alone, forcing us to talk about her limited hopes and dreams that couldn’t be separated from James’s needs. I reminded myself those first few months that she would soon be a relative that I’d see frequently. We needed to find common ground, but her unplanned pregnancy, total dependency upon my in-laws for financial support, and unwillingness to even look for a part-time job, allowed me to slip into a critical judgement that I later regretted.

            Wherever they lived, I wrote Susie long letters talking about my teaching slots and the authors I liked. She was open to reading new things, and soon we’d exchange books whenever they visited my in-laws. Although their first two children were older than our son by three and six years, their third child trailed ours by fifteen months. My letters, sent within packages of baby clothing and toys for the kids, included paperback novels for Susie, too. I think we both worked hard to find common ground during the first years of becoming Chapmans. When James decided to leave the Air Force, he didn’t tell Susie about his choice. Suddenly, their family of six resided with my in-laws again, where tension and tempers simmered just under boiling almost all the time. For the first time in her life, Susie stopped her unnatural worship of her husband and their relationship never returned to the adoration James needed daily.

            During these troubled years, Susie and I talked often while our kids played together. When James decided to buy a home, they found one walking distance from our house. And then, four months later, he left her and their kids for an older woman. Susie’s grief mixed with anger, spilled into late night phone calls that left me with only a couple of hours of sleep before heading to work. Their brief round of counseling as a couple turned into more appointments for her, and her mantra became “He’ll wake up one day and realize he wants us back.” Instead, James distanced himself from the kids as well as Susie, often canceling out at the last minute on visits with them.

            Eventually, Susie’s mother and siblings helped her go to school to be certified as a massage therapist. Having a job didn’t fill Susie’s loneliness, but it built her confidence. During these years, I’d walk over to Susie’s house to visit. Our kids drifted between the two homes on foot, riding bicycles, or on skateboards. There were sleepovers, birthday celebrations, and a lifetime bond not just between the kids, but also with Susie and me.

            When she remarried, I saw her less. Her new husband came with three young adult children and an open door policy that meant a huge family gathering every Sunday. We still talked books and kids, sometimes heading for a walk around the neighborhood, but our visits became less frequent. My years as Mom’s caregiver meant Susie swung by here. She gave Mom massages, treated me out to Starbucks, and made certain I got away from the house every couple of months. We eased into a wonderful, comfortable friendship that meant weeks could pass without a call, text, or visit without feeling guilty. Whenever we connected, we’d talk about books, adult kids, ailing parents, and whatever movies she’d seen with her repeating dialogue for me. When COVID-19 took her second husband, she relied upon their children and grandchildren to work through her loss, with her next door neighbor filling her life again.

            Right before Christmas, I stopped by Susie’s home while on my morning walk. We sat outside, in her back yard. We talked about kids, her grandchildren, her new beau, and the latest authors we’d discovered. We promised to get together after the holidays for lunch and a longer, more relaxed chat as I needed to finish my trek up the steepest hill in our neighborhood.

            That casual promise to get together soon didn’t happen. A hemorrhagic stroke blindsided all of us, leaving Susie hospitalized with emergency surgery. Her children and siblings stayed with her, and her daughters let us know when we should visit. I chatted with her about our kids and books, and teased that she needed to recover so she could treat me to Starbucks one more time.  

Susie and me 2015

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

             

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“Roses in a Vase”

No one in our household can resist the small roses at HEB. Some weeks, the blooms draw attention to the multicolored petals. Other times, a bright yellow set catches my attention, as my mother, sister and I all carried yellow roses at our simple weddings. A brilliant flaming red or a cool soft pink may tempt one of us. I love capturing their brilliance before they fade away. 

Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman