“Find My . . .”

                                                                              

“Where’s my watch?” Panic flooded through me when I noted my naked wrist. I glanced into the clean clothes piled on my bed, lifting and shifting in careless desperation. I backtracked into the bathroom, glancing at the countertop where I place it when bathing. Nothing.

Not too concerned yet, I attacked the mound of sheets in the laundry room, as it would’ve been a possible hiding place. Closing my eyes, I visualized whipping them from the dryer. Finding nothing, I got on my knees to search the floor while listening to the load tossing in the drum. Hearing nothing, I popped open the door, dragged out the nearly dry towels, and searched frantically through them. Nothing. I eyed the washer, hitting the spin on its cycle as I watched, and shot out a silent prayer that it wasn’t in that load. It wasn’t.

By this time, I recruited my husband to help with the search when he asked the obvious question, “Have you checked Find My with your phone?”

Of course, I hadn’t. I grabbed my phone and queried, “Siri, find my watch” with confidence its location would be revealed immediately. Nothing. As I’d never used this app before, I noticed it had a PLAY SOUND option, which I tapped. Still nothing.

Shaken, I convinced myself that I may have lost it outside. I’d watered both yards and rewrapped three hoses. My watch band could have caught on one and slipped off without me noticing. Phone in hand, I retraced my morning routine feeling dread as I found absolutely nothing again.

My anxiety notched up with each silent minute with my phone in hand. With absolute certainty I knew I’d set my watch on pause while at the park doing the weight machines, but maybe it dropped into my KAVU pack when I’d taken out water. Returning inside, I inspected it quickly. Nothing. 

“Could I have lost it on that last stretch of my walk?” I mumbled to myself as I  pulled on sandals and retraced my morning route. 

Eyes scanning the ground before me, I walked all the way to the park. Nothing. Discouraged and defeated, I called my husband to retrieve me there as I could’t muster the energy to climb the final hill near our house. 

Once home, I decided to retrace my movements one more time while my husband insisted on taking my phone with him on another park pass. 

I sat on the bed, reached inside the black bin before me, and lifted out each item.

My watch hid under the final piece I withdrew!

Relief flooded through me, and then a wave of foolishness to realize that the first moment I’d noticed my missing watch was the very place it lay hidden.

But another problem surfaced. Why hadn’t my app revealed my phone immediately as it never left the room? I’d thought that the Find My app had loaded automatically when I’d replaced my watch in December. It hadn’t. At the moment, our attempts to remove the old watch and add the new one have failed although we’ve gone through one step-by-step process after another. I suspect I may have to reset my watch, which I refuse to do as I prefer to leave my watch history alone. I joked that if I misplace it again, I’ll just have to buy a new one!

Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

IOUNIO's "Invisible"! The perfect piece to listen to today!

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“What I Can Control"

 

            My mornings begin with what I can control. An alarm set for 7:15 AM to remind me to take medications. Rain or shine. Summer or winter. Weekday or weekend. I arise with a routine that sets the tone of my life. I write with pen and paper into my journal or sit before the blank page of my computer for the next hour, maybe two. Some days my thoughts get shared through a poem or personal narrative. Sometimes my private words stay tucked away. My choice on what to publish allows me an element of control.

            By 8:30 each morning, my day shifts outdoors. Rain or shine. Sumer or winter. Weekday or weekend. I section the yards and gardens into concrete, manageable goals that I can accomplish on my own. This spring and summer, I am purchasing new plants and flowers on Monday mornings. My tight budget means I hunt for neglected and reduced items in the garden sections of HEB, Walmart and Home Depot. Each morning I check for growth; and I rejoice with a new tendril, bud, or bloom. My care comforts me and lets me feel as though I have control when a plant grows enough to propagate into another pot.

            Yesterday, I trimmed the hedges out front in anticipation of a larger project—repainting the front porch, back porch and hot tub surround. I know the amount of work required as I’ve done this refresh on my own for years. I will tackle a known entity to allow myself a sense of purpose and control when so many other events in our world spin into chaos. My days with paint brush in hand will allow me to focus on what is right before me.

            I worry that I should do more. I should write more. I should shout loud and clear against this administration that destroys with no intention of rebuilding. I published the link to Project 2025 over and over again. I warned friends and family members month after month about the goals of these people to rape and pillage. Some, even now, smile with smugness as they state, “This is what I voted for!” I cannot control their hatred. I cannot contain their maliciousness.

I cannot change who and what they are. This realization wounds me every single day.        

            

        And so, my energy gets spent on the things I can control. My concentration stays on the people I can protect. My mornings begin at 7:15 AM . . .

   Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Summer Morning Rituals"

 

 

            Minutes after the front door clicks signaling David’s exit for the day, both dogs beg for morning cheese. They don’t whine, but instead take on a hard to ignore singsong that my foggy brain processes as “treat, treat, treat.” Persistent and persuasive, their summons pulls me out of bed within fifteen minutes of my husband’s departure. Most mornings I unwrap of slice of American for them, but some days I grate sharp Tillamook over their food. Immediately after scarfing down their cheese, they want me to go outside with them.

            During the summer months, Koi zips over to the hose and viciously tugs on the end. He combats this imagined demonic snake while I fight against his weight to uncoil his adversary. He continues his attack until my heated command, “Leave it!” pulls him away.

            I relax into the sacrament of watering. From potted plants to hanging baskets, to the birdbath and the small pond, I nurture and nourish. The hem of my gown grows wet from castoff and clings around my knees as I meander through the yard. I genuflect to an uncurling new leaf and sprinkle it with blessings. Birdsong and soft morning sunshine waft me into peace.

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

                       

                  

"Budgets and Balance Sheets"

  

            I begin every month with taking a legal sized envelope and folding it into fourths. Each quarter gets a week’s designation, and each week receives a spending limit. I record all expenditures on the virgin exterior of the envelope—whether it be a major outflow like $142.15 for groceries or something as minor as $3.14 for a Sonic Slush. At the end of every week, I total the damage, feeling smugly triumphant if I’ve kept our spending in the green, or vowing to do better if we dip into the red. My obsession with number crunching allows us to indulge at the end of the month if anything extra remains. Most of the time, though, we simply break even. By the end of each month, the overstuffed envelope’s surface is covered with numbers and notes on spending habits. It remains in my upper desk drawer until the credit card statement arrives as a means of double checking the balance for our month’s expenses. 

            My obsession continues into my record keeping. I have ledgers dating back to those first months of our marriage where we stretched $850 a month income across apartment rent, utilities, insurance, school loans and food. The numbers may have changed over the years, but my strategy remains the same. I know exactly where every penny goes, can use one year’s budget to project into the next year, and based on one year’s spending will plan financial goals.

            I rarely set the goal of saving money just to save it. We don’t have some huge balance accruing that hasn’t been assigned an end purpose. The chunk of money accumulating in our Money Market goes to taxes on our home this month and anything left over will stay in place for April’s income taxes and work on the car. All of the budgeting and balance sheets pays off in the long run. We work together as a family to reach very specific spending goals. By watching the outflow carefully, we’ve plugged up leaks and pooled funds into building a secure future.

            Sometimes I wonder if I’d hold onto the monthly envelope and colorful ledgers if our income ever rose. Would I stop tracking that dollar spent here? Or that five spent over there? Then I admit with chagrin that number crunching flows through my veins. It’s part of who I am, how I think. Whether I have only a teacher’s retirement income or a million dollars doesn’t matter. I’d track my spending, set my goals, and record all expenditures.

            Maybe I’d just have a larger envelope! 

 

Copyright 20214 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"But Strong in Will"

  

Edna Thompson in 1931

The little girl stood alone at the train depot. Her eyes cast downward. She noted the rough wooden planks. Self-consciously, her small hands ran across the placard around her neck. “EDNA THOMPSON.” Her name printed in bold black letters. Men and women hurried around her, ignoring the pleading look in her eyes. Her lips trembled as she fought back tears. Eventually, the passengers loaded suitcases and supplies onto wagons and into cars and vanished toward town. No one approached her, so she perched upon her suitcase, a small brown bird. 

     The train pulled noisily from the station, puffing steam and wailing its sad song. Moments after the last car rolled past, a station manager came from the ticket office, a broad smile on his face. He said nothing, just took the girl’s small, cold hand into his own and started to lead her into his office when a wagon turned the corner and approached the station. He paused, still holding the child’s hand, and smiled his greeting to the travel-worn couple. 

     "This package belong to you?” he asked lightly.

     "Sure does,” the tired man nodded. “Had a wheel break. Sorry about being late. She cause any trouble?” He jerked his head toward the little girl.

     "Not a sound out of her yet,” the station manager stiffened at the other man’s stern tone, but he still lifted the girl up into the wagon bed. “No trouble at all,” he continued.

     "Good. Kid belongs to my cousin. Seems my cousin up and died a couple of weeks ago, and her husband can’t keep all the kids. Had eight, ya know,” he paused and looked back at the silent child. “Hope this bundle won’t be too much trouble. Doesn’t look like she’ll be much help on the farm, though.” He gave a quick whip of the reigns and his horse trotted off taking the little girl further away from everything she’d ever known.

     One episode from Mom’s childhood that she revealed to us, her own children, when she was in her seventies, like it was a postscript attached to the end of a misplaced letter. I’d known that she spent nine years living with various foster care families. She’d told the stories of the Walkers treating her like a live-in maid and nanny. 

I spent my childhood ironing sheets, Dad’s square military handkerchiefs, and table cloths because Mrs. Walker punished Mom for pressing the collar of her shirt on the dresser instead of using the ironing board. The punishment was ironing for the family of five until Mom turned seventeen and graduated from high school. She never wanted to touch an iron again, and somehow I thought it was the best household chore to have!

I knew of her eldest sister’s drowning followed a couple of months later with her mother’s illness and death. I knew the stories of Mom’s alcoholic father who lost custody of all the kids. I knew about one brother going off to war and deciding England was more home than the States. About the other brother who went off to war and was shot by the Germans, spending time in a German P.O.W. camp. 

I knew about her losses, and hurts, and insecurities not because she flaunted them, but because they snuck out when some other life event paralleled her childhood.

Unhappy childhoods cast shadows into adult lives. Mom felt lonely and frightened most of her youth. She didn’t understand why her father couldn’t stop drinking and bring her home. Shyness and insecurity became ingrained into Mom’s personality. She worked hard at being the nice neighbor, the mother who volunteered for every school function, and the wife who had dinner on the table fifteen minutes after Dad crossed the threshold. She became the perfect mother for the three of us kids.

With every ounce of her energy, Mom gave us children the childhood she never had. She never took off to visit her family without taking all of us with her. When we moved from state to state, or base to base, she made certain our bedrooms moved with us. We each had our own furniture and decorations that allowed us to feel at home even after a move. If one of us needed something for school or an extracurricular activity, she did without. For years she had enough clothes to get her through the week—one nice dress, a winter coat, and one pair of shoes. 

Her mission to provide for us a safe and secure home focused us as a family. When Dad left for war, potential trauma and conflict became minimized because she provided us a home filled with love and laughter. Any tears she cried, she did behind closed doors and away from us. We never sensed her loneliness, fear, or insecurity because she put our needs ahead of her own. 

Many friends and neighbors worried about how Mom would survive after Dad’s sudden death. She’s seemed a shadow cast by my ebullient father. Yet we, her children, knew the steel hidden beneath her gentle nature, and none of us doubted her resilience. When she decided to move back to San Antonio, rent her own place, and decorate it to her tastes, we weren’t surprised by her independence. 

Today, at eighty-one, Mom fights another hardship—Huntington’s Disease. She’s a first generation carrier of the disease, with an unusually late onset. Nothing about her illness has been text book, but everything about it is heartbreaking. Mom’s years of calm acceptance of life’s tragedies trained her for the strain of her present days. Huntington’s Disease affects all aspects of a person’s life. For Mom, her cognitive functioning remains clear and strong—allowing her to enjoy the irony in The Daily Show and admire the boldness of The Colbert Report. If she’s not stressed and has her anxiety under control, she’s able to enjoy her daily routine.

That routine, though, gradually constricts and confines.  Feeling unbalanced and “askew” when moving, Mom slowly restricted her environment. Mom raised us to be true to ourselves; and her dancing movements caused by chorea didn’t keep us from eating out, going on vacations, or embracing public activities other HD sufferers avoid. After two years in an assisted living facility, we decided to move Mom into our home. She’d slid slowly from utilizing a walker for long distances to shuffling around her small apartment with her walker, but falling frequently. When she moved in with us five months ago, she could manage getting out of bed, to her wheelchair, and into her bathroom on her own. Now she needs assistance with all three of those areas.

     Huntington's Disease has no cure and minimal treatments. Mercifully, Mom’s severe anxiety attacks disappeared a few months ago. Her short and long term memory remain intact, too. Her body, though, betrays her. The chorea that pulled her arms, legs, and torso like a puppeteer controlling a marionette no longer plagues her. Instead, rigidity slips into her life. Her muscles resist movement, and positioning her reminds me of moving a life sized Barbie doll. Already, speaking challenges her, so we’re learning to phrase our conversations to where she can respond with short phrases. Eventually, all of her muscles will refuse to move. 

We measure our future in months now, but we know eventually we’ll count the days or hours. Fortunately, I picked up some of the pragmatism that flows through Mom’s veins. The challenges that remain before us are just another part of life’s adventures. At least this time, Mom won’t stand alone. 

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

Edna Thompson Abrams
August 28, 2010

"Deep Cleaning"

 

At the end of every summer, I tear through every room and clean the house to the military standards of my childhood. My personal war against dirt requires vinegar, bleach, and Orange Oil. I break all of the attachments for the vacuum cleaner, gather my feather duster, and pull out the steam mop. I muster all of my energy as I attack each room for a floor to ceiling assault.
            I don’t simply clean the rooms. Every drawer and closet receives personal scrutiny. I spend hours checking all the pens in the desks, sorting through papers scrunched into drawers, and make the executive decision:  KEEP, GIVE AWAY, THROW-AWAY. As I sweep from room to room, I swap out knickknacks to freshen up an area. My teapot collection migrated from the kitchen into the family room several days ago. That movement means each pot goes through a thorough washing before finding a new perch. This assures everything gets cleaned.
            My closet gets special attention during this offensive against dirt and clutter. I dump all my clothes onto the bed, a seemingly insurmountable mound, and begin the process of KEEP, GIVE AWAY, THROW-AWAY all over again. The clothing I keep, I check for missing buttons or pulled hems and take care of any small mending. I find an excellent movie on television, angle the ironing board in the perfect spot, and iron or press every item of clothing. My obsessive organizational oddities kick into full gear at this point. I don’t simply rehang my outfits into the closet. I decide on my strategy for order for the next few months and regulate my closet to that standard. Some years, my clothing becomes color and fabric coordinated. All red tops and blouses lined up neatly ranging from t-shirts to long sleeve silk. The blues, purples, whites, blacks all grouped neatly together. Following the tops are my skirts, then suits and finally pants. I organize them in this fashion because the floor of my closet has a cubby for organizing my shoes and I want clearance for easy access to that area. My shoes receive similar inspection as I decide to KEEP, GIVE AWAY, THROW-AWAY once again. I rotate summer flip-flops back into boxes, keeping out only one pair as I pull out dress sandals. All white shoes will shift back into boxes by Labor Day—another leftover rule of childhood. My deep cleaning stops only when I complete the garage. Then all of the items I’ve put into the donate pile get loaded into the car and taken to Goodwill.
              Year after year, I’ve run through this drill as the last cleaning spree before I returned to school or work. I do a similar cleaning over the Christmas holidays because I’m redecorating every room, and a smaller raid through the house over Spring Break. This year, however, my cleaning strike appears more hit-n-miss. I started in the kitchen and family rooms instead of my bedroom. I haven’t opened a drawer or assailed my closet. At the end of last summer, the obsession to deep clean even though I wasn’t returning to work nagged me into my routine. The realization that I’m actually retired—and can do this type of cleaning anytime I want sank into my consciousness a few days ago. I don’t have to conquer my entire house within a few days. I know I won’t shake off the deep cleaning bug just because I’m retired, but I can select a different schedule than sweating out the August heat to clean the garage!

Last week's deep clean! 2024

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Groundhog Day"

 

          My life, somehow, warped into a version of that old Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day. The repetitious nature of my daily routine varies slightly from one day to the next. Usually, the sequence of events remains constant. I don’t know if it’s age or disease that requires my mother to follow a strict regimen as her day progresses. All I know is that I’m trapped in a similar scenario that alters in miniscule ways throughout the week, meshing the hours one into the other. If I didn’t cross a huge X on the calendar to mark off dates, I wouldn’t have proof that time passed. Like Phil, I relive events with slight differences and hope fervently that escape comes with the next buzz of the alarm clock. Like Phil, perhaps my new life will lead me to a better appreciation of life if I can simply learn the right combination of compassion and humor. Some days, I find myself sniping at anyone within range. Some days, I use my writing to open an escape hatch and sneak me out of my reality. Some days, though, the routine offers me a chance to examine my role as a daughter. I’m humbled by the courage my mother musters each morning because she needs assistance now in so many ways. Logic tells me that the predictability of each hour allows Mom to focus her energy where she needs it. If I’m lucky, at the end I’ll be a stronger and better person for surviving the monotony and repetition.     

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Rinse and Repeat”

 

Front garden today!

            

            February in San Antonio plays out in a pattern of freezes followed by temperatures nudging close to 80°. Today’s clear day will top out at 83°. Annually, I use President’s Day to mark the first round of fertilizer on the gardens and yards.

            This morning, I’ll check the bin outside that houses the sprayer to see if it contains enough Miracle Grow to cover everything. If I enough, today’s “exercise” will focus on thoroughly watering all the beds with added nourishment. For tomorrow, another projected day of warmth, I’ll determine the best way for me to clear leaves from the front yard as my right knee still pings warnings if I overuse it. I may simply sit in place and use an old, broken rake to clear the areas needing the most work.

On this week's agenda

            The other part of my spring cycle entails checking the nighttime lows for consecutive 60° or above temperatures. Once the warmer nights hit, the plants being green housed inside will move back outside where I’ll assess their need for larger pots. This annual routine signals the return of spring.

            I love the repetition of life as I move from one season to the next. The reprise becomes my ritual now etched into my daily habits.  Rinse and repeat, year after year, brings comfort to me.

 

Waiting for warm nights

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman