"Control What We Can"

 

            

Before

Old faucet

Old paint

            We began a major project the first week of November because I wanted to tackle something that was totally under my control as we moved into receiving election results. For the last few months, I feared our smallest bathroom would need major work like the tub pulled out and swapped with one of those new walk-in shower units. I fretted that the vanity and countertop needed to be removed along with the faucet. However, I spent a few days with a critical eye to refurbish and repair instead of replace.

            Attacking the vanity with Murphy’s Oil soap followed by Old English dark wood stain and a gloss of Orange Oil revitalized the tired cabinet. I discovered applying petroleum jelly to the countertop, and buffing it with a fiber cloth, made it all look new again! Our corroded faucet would be easy to update with something more stylish. Naturally, the instructions promise of a 30 minute installation morphed into two hours wrestling off the old drain.  Examination of our tub with a critical eye revealed nothing terribly wrong except for striping off the caulk and scrubbing the tub itself with a Pumice stone and spiffing up the tile with a tad of TLC. The toilet required the same diligent attention to look new again!

            The bathroom walls wore a wall treatment we tried a million years ago—a tissue paper technique that withstood the test of time. We decided to repaint the room using the same color of our family room, only using semi-gloss for the added protection. The Celestial Glow’s barely there grey freshened the room in one coat. The shower curtain, a temporary selection until the household artists decide on original work, adds color and movement.

            Repair. Reclaim. Refurbish. Salvage what we can with care.

A barely there grey

Revitalized vanity

Temporary color splash

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

                  

             

"Pet Free"

                In recent months, I’ve fielded questions about getting another dog since Bridget’s death. Many people find it puzzling that our family moves toward the idea of becoming pet-free once Koi (now nine) dies. For so many friends and family members, loving an animal brings constancy and happiness into their daily routines. Pets bless them with unconditional, honest love. Their lives would be less without their dogs or cats (and other animals).

            I can only talk about our own heartbreak each time a pet has died. Because we kept our cats indoors, they each lived over fifteen years. Paul’s dog, Dixie, reached fourteen years while Bridget died after her sixteenth year. We simply don’t think we can survive beginning a journey with another pet and survive the inevitable loss. Our Koi will be an only animal. Since someone’s frequently home, he seems to have adjusted to Bridget’s death. He’s a little ditzy, and I sometimes think he believes she’ll be back soon.

            Once Koi’s gone, we’ll slip into a different life pattern. I know my heart will tug because no little dog anticipates my arrival, nor cats nonchalantly ignore my arrivals. I already miss the weight of Bridget on my feet, or Padme’s flicking tale blocking my access to the keyboard, or Sassy’s tender head butt. I don’t think I’ll ever miss the all-enveloping sorrow of their loss.

Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

Dixie

Brindle

Sassy

Padme

Bridget

Koi

"If You Can't Say Somethin' Nice"

           Remember Thumper’s Rule? My parents singsong of “If you can’t say somethin’ nice, say nothin’ at all” resounded through our household enough that the line from Bambi entrenched itself into my personal philosophy. I admit, this life paradigm proved difficult for me to follow. My too quick and sharp tongue often engages in slicing and dicing a victim before my better, gentler brain kicks into gear. If I make it through the day without saying something caustic or sarcastic, it’s a major victory for me.

            Whenever I start a new journal, I move first to the last page. I write down personal goals that I can easily flip to daily if necessary. My current journal’s final page carries this reminder:  Be generous. Be gracious. Be gentle. 

            During the last few years, I’ve begun to wish everyone adopted this mantra, or one similar to it. Wouldn’t it be grand if our culture sought generosity in how we treated our children, elderly, and impoverished? Imagine if all of us embraced kindness and courtesy as easily as we slip into derision and division; and gentleness grew naturally from each family and sprouted from neighborhood to city to country to world.

           Ugliness taints our daily news. A foul stench wafts through our society that makes me ashamed because I don’t know how to change things. If I contribute to the maliciousness, I mire myself in the hate.

          If I follow Thumper’s Rule, and say nothing at all, my silence implies agreement.

         I must balance my words and write my thoughts in ways that dispute what’s evil while not using vileness to defend humanity. The battle plays out daily in my mind. Be generous. Be gracious. Be gentle.

          Perhaps I need to add one more—Be resolute.

Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman  

          

"Kitty Thoughts"

   

            Delving into a kitty brain takes a unique approach. As a child, our Thomas prowled the neighborhood. His reputation as a big game hunter formed with each bird or mouse he laid upon our doorstep. He wore camouflage of tiger stripes that hid him under bushes and within trees. He never showed his prowess with his claws with my sister or with me. He became a limp rag doll whenever we lugged him around the house and never once took a swipe at us when we shoved him into a toy carriage. Thomas broke our hearts when he strayed away from home. Eventually, a battle scarred ruffian turned up on our doorstep. A hunk of flesh missing from his ear, and his right eye tightly closed. Mom fed him, tried to coax him back into our home, but he roamed off again after a few days.

            Cookie and Junior, devilish litter mates, whirled into our household with Dad’s next assignment. These dervishes swung from curtain, knocked down the cookie jar, and terrorized anything that moved. They swiped at our legs whenever we passed by and sprang out from behind furniture with kamikaze recklessness. Their wild antics entertained us constantly, but their combined wild man capers left Mom ragged. My parents decided to take them to a neighboring farm. I remember letting them take off from my clinging embrace to frolic in the hay.

Brindle

            Beautiful, calm Brindle entered my heart and home during the first years of my marriage. She gracefully embraced every change within our home: a child, a dog. Her innate shyness meant people questioned whether or not we had a cat at all. When visitors arrived, she slipped from the room or watched from under the couch. When we first brought her home from the shelter, she would duck away from sudden movement or loud noises. We suspected her early life abounded with hardships. Our promise to her—an unending love.

One of the few pictures of camera shy Sassy!

Our Sassy cat often shunned my attention. She’d jump onto the couch, but the moment I stroked her back or rubbed her chin, she’d move away. She never behaved that way with my husband or son, which left me heartbroken. Sometimes she didn’t avoid me like the plague. I reveled in her gentle head butts and paw taps that directed my pets to her soft fur. Her Jekyll and Hyde interactions with me puzzled me for many years. Then one momentous day, she sneezed—and sneezed, and sneezed before she moved away from my outstretched hand. I dawned on me that she wasn’t avoiding me after all, but my perfume! The experiment to test my hypothesis proved simple. After I took baths, Sassy adored my attention. If I tried to interact with her with any perfume on, she’d duck and dodge my attention. What a relief to discover that my kitty didn’t dislike me!

Padme

We didn’t expect to come home with another cat, but Padme captured my son’s heart the moment he saw her playing at the pet store. She and her twin tangled together in abandon. Only bringing home one kitten of the pair was difficult, but we’d gone to the pet store for an iguana! Padme grew into a passionately opinionated cat with her long whipping tail expressing disapproval with an arrogant flick. Unlike shy Sassy, Padme demanded attention whenever anyone visited. She’d lounge on the kitchen desk to invite back rubs and chin scratches. Padme never presented a puzzle to anyone. She wanted affection and gave it back freely.  

Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

     

"The Litany"

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” 

Frank Herbert--Dune

          When in my twenties, I carried this litany from Dune in my wallet. Faced with living alone for the first time in a new place while attending college, my personal anxieties dogged me. On bad days while riding the shuttle to early morning classes, I would whisper these words. When I worried that I wasn’t as smart as everyone else thought, this recitation calmed my soul.

          When in my thirties, I carried this litany (now worn and faded) as solace whenever I felt I failed as a wife, mother, daughter or sister. The dread of not measuring up to the expectations of my principals or peers wrapped me into doubts that eased if I chanted this invocation. 

          When in my forties, my father died. The world tilted. I faced one of my worst fears and survived. Somehow, carrying the little scrap of paper seem unnecessary. The words, permanently etched in memory, offered comfort and soothed my grief. 

          When in my fifties, my life narrowed down into the nightmares of my mother’s Huntington’s disease. Every day filled with uncertainties as I dealt with the horrific symptoms of this disorder. To be honest, I hid from many of my fears. I wasted energy running away from them. I forgot the power of permitting them “to pass over me and through me.” 

          Now I begin my sixties. And I need to carry these assurances with me once again. I’m printing them out on a crisply new piece of paper and folding them into my wallet. Although committed to memory forty years ago, I need them to be concretely within my grasp. I face a different challenge today as a madman dictates our political reality. I must not let his mental illness paralyze my ability to reason and resist.

Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Cleaning in the Nude"

        

            Now that I have your attention—Yes, I strip down nekked whenever I clean with anything that can destroy my clothing. I don’t know why or how, but as soon as I enter the same room with bleach, it spills and splatters all over my outfit, leaving my shorts pockmarked and my tops tie-died. For years, I’d approach any cleanser with extreme caution only to look down once I tightly screw on the lid to find a patch of orange-white dots doing a polka on my pants.

            I struggle with paint, too. It doesn’t matter what kind of paint I use, half of it ends up on my clothing, covering my hands, and tangling my hair. I have a special outfit I don if my painting takes me outside, or if anyone else is in the house while I roll walls or brush doors.

            The other day, my son proudly purchased a wonderful attachment for me to use while spray painting our outside furniture. Excitement filled me as I pulled pack the trigger and found a steady, smooth stream flowing from the can and effortlessly covering our Bistro table and chairs. I moved swiftly around the furniture and decided to add four plant holders and a small table to my repainting adventure.

            When I finished the job, smugness filled me. I had an itsy-bitsy speck of paint on my right index finger and thumb from when I’d repositioned the furniture a tad. A triumphant “Whoop!” and a fist pump to the air swirled around me. I’d painted nine pieces and walked away without being coated by Hammered Bronze!

            This miracle, though, proved short lived. In my enthusiasm to try out the attachment, I worked with bare feet. My outdoor shoes sat forgotten on the back porch. Now if any of you have ever used spray paint, you know it casts a mist far and wide. Imagine me dancing around the table and chairs, focused upon the clean ease of my new toy, and not noting that I capered and cavorted onto that light coating.

            When my son asked me about the effectiveness of his little device, I reluctantly admitted my foot folly. He laughed. . . and laughed . . . and laughed.

The finished project!

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman