3:30 am. I lie in bed unable to sleep. The wind outside is strong, and I am worried. I think wrestling thoughts about bills, weatherstripping, the website I maintain, but mostly about my mother.

She called me earlier in the evening, agitated, to insist that I write her obituary. She wants to make sure I don't say too much--a concern readers of this blog will understand--or things she wouldn't want said.

 Her death is not imminent. But she's tired of days filled with doctor visits, eyedrops, pain, and loneliness. Her life often feels meaningless. The obituary is one thing she can control, if she does it now. And it will be a summary of the meaning of her life. She seems satisfied with what I've written, but I weep as I read it to her.

Back to later sleeplessness. The dog, sensing something, comes in, turns one-and-a-half times, and lies down on my bed. She's young. When she's older, it will take her more turns to settle.

 When you can't sleep, read a book, they say. I pick up the book I'm reading, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Author Chris Hedges says that we are addicted to war because it makes our lives seem to have meaning, even though most of the meanings we give it are false.

We see defeat as signposts on the road to ultimate victory. We demonize the enemy so that our opponent is no longer human. We view ourselves, our people, as the embodiment of absolute goodness.

Liz, seeing the light in my room, comes in. "Why are you awake?"

"Can't sleep. Why are you awake?"

She is finishing her essay. "Will you read it, Mom?" Of course. Now the bed contains a dog, a girl, a mom, and a glowing laptop. We huddle together to parse the meaning of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

When we have come to an end, the girl and the computer leave. The dog stays behind, snoring gently. It's 4:30 now, and the girl and I will soon sleep.

 Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl said that “Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”  I know that my responsibility, my meaning, is in what has just transpired. And I know that meaning is a higher meaning than any ideology can offer.

Before I doze off, I think about the twins leaving for college soon, and I wonder what will give my life meaning then.

Nothing to lose sleep over: there's so much in life to live. 

 

I spent Sunday going through my mother’s closets, helping her decide what goes and what stays. She’s always been a clothes horse, and I say that in the nicest possible way. So this was a big job.

We filled five large garbage bags to be given to some charity or other that moves clothes from one person to another. I sometimes wonder if my Goodwill-shopping daughters will end up buying Mom’s clothes back some day without knowing it.

Even so, 20 pair of pants and two entire closets full of blouses remain. Do not ask me about the shoes.

We made most of our inroads in the skirts, seldom worn. A woman with beautiful legs most of her life notices when her ankles swell and doesn’t want to show it.

Of course it wasn’t easy. Some things just have too much history to part with. There’s the sweater with the leopard collar, just as hot now as it was in the late 50s when the collar (and matching hat) were legal.

And there’s the good Pendleton trenchcoat with zip-out lining. “Daddy and I always wore these to church,” she said. I don’t know if it’s in style or not, but that coat went home with me.

The other “keep it” factor is Depression era training. “Oh, that’s a nice suit. I wonder if (insert grandma generation name here) might want it,” Mom said more than once.

“Ma. She’s probably trying to clean out her closets too. You’ll never get the job done if you keep passing your old stuff back and forth like that.” Most of the clothing recycled this way doesn’t get worn but gets put into someone else's closet, too good to toss.

There's no net gain of space until a middle-aged daughter shows up and is invited to be bossy.

At 86, Mom lives in senior apartments in Oshkosh. Although the place is not as posh as some of the Tosa senior communities now coming under the “where can we find tax revenue” search light, it’s the same sort of place.

The ladies there aren’t rich, but they all have enough to go shopping. And they do, bless them.

Never too old for one more great cut white silk blouse, especially now that there's room in the closet.

There’s never been a better night than last night to spend along the lakefront in the company of thousands of well-behaved, happy strangers. Tonight (Sunday) might be just like it, so you have a chance, too, to enjoy Festa Italiana.

I had free tickets courtesy the Italian Community Center, so friend Linda and I paid $6 each to hop the bus from the Watertown Plank Road Park ‘n Ride. The bus was about half full, and we disembarked practically at the gate around 7 pm.

First up was food. You can’t help it, really, when you’re hit by all those wonderful smells of Italian cooking: garlic and sausages roasting, sweet peppers and onions, eggplant and tomato sauce. The food was better in the olden days, when it was still prepared in the kitchens of women who competed for pride of place at the church festivals. But this wasn’t half bad.

An old guy, his hair dyed as black as it must have been when he was a young buck in Chicago, hit on me at the ATM-- until his son-in-law reminded him that he was married. It was benign and funny, and probably a routine the two perform often.

We sat at a picnic table at the Miller stage listening to bad jokes, great accordion riffs, and good crooning in frank (or is that Frank?) Rat Pack style. A beautiful young woman in a red dress sang “Where the Boys Are” even more melodramatically than Connie Francis, and an almost middle-aged woman across from us lip- synched the words to her man seductively. Their three kids did not flee from the table in embarrassment but indulged the old folks. That’s the way it is at Festa.

Italian Idol was great fun. In a small venue, local singers compete for the title. If you go tonight, you’ll hear the finalists. We sat with welcoming strangers as a young woman sang "Someone to Watch Over Me."

“Oh, I love that!” one exclaimed. “It’s a Katharine McPhee song, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no: it’s a really old song,” we said.

“Who sang it first?” they asked.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I actually wasn’t around when George Gershwin was writing all that great music. “Ella Fitzgerald, maybe, or Sinatra,” someone else offered. Ah, and how well they sang it.

A very brave guy who looks like an accountant became a popular favorite when he dared to take on Young MC’s “Bust a Move.” And when someone sang John Lennon’s “Imagine,” a group of women pulled out their opened and lit cell phones, held them on high, and waved them with mock solemnity.

The air was clear and cool, no bugs or bad lake smells. It wasn’t hard to find a place on the rocks to watch the fireworks. Afterward, there was dancing—people your age and mine, moving joyfully to the music.

It didn’t really matter what kind of music.

Summers were slow when I was a kid. Seems like we spent most of our time lying on a hillside in the cool grass watching clouds.

That was when parents and children had separate lives most of the time. Back then, parents believed in the value of boredom as an incentive for building character and initiative. That is, if they thought boredom was a problem at all.

When you couldn’t stand yourself any more, you’d come up with something to do. You’d get on your bike or grab a book, wander around the neighborhood to find someone else who was also bored—or whose mother stocked popsicles.

But more often than not, like the divining rods in every cowboy movie of the time, we’d seek water.

In that regard kids in my eastside neighborhood were lucky. The Milwaukee River, various swamps and creeks, and Lake Michigan were within our range. That means we could get there under our own power. So much did we love the water life that on the rare days our parents (okay: our moms) drove us somewhere, the destination always involved swimsuits and parks.

When my own kids were little, some of our best times were spent with other moms, babysitters, and kids at Hoyt Park pool. We had the best part of “country club” life there. Lazy hours alternating between nearly dozing and playing, between the heat of the sun and cool of the water.

Okay: the cold of the water, since they didn’t heat the pool. We were tougher back in the day.

Where was I? Lazy conversations. Soggy peanut butter sandwiches. The coconut smell and sticky feel of suntan lotion. Rough concrete and wet towels. Squeals of baby laughter--then squalls when tiredness or hunger set in.

To hear some people talk, you’d think the pool was gang central. It wasn’t. There were some problems, and there will be again. But let’s remember what things were—and are--like most of the time.

I can’t wait for the present generation of parents and kids—and older kids and teens, seniors, people just taking a day off to breathe—to get back to relaxing at the Hoyt Park pool.

Something about being beside the water that just restores our souls.

It’s not the crocuses and hyacinths. Not the warming air or the yellowing willows or the buds waiting to pop.

It’s the big orange striped barrels lining eastern Bluemound Road in Tosa and marking the start of Wisconsin’s second season: road construction. Some already marshal us into single lanes, while others stand at attention waiting to be placed into active duty.

And so it begins.

Then there’s the rush to finish the old 1040s. You’d think someone who has money coming back would get her taxes done early, but no.

Instead, I flew to Colorado to spend some time with Annie. The visit involved hikes in the mountains and an evening with a doctor from Transylvania who breeds Arabian horses and raises pickles in Fort Collins. I am not making this up: magical things happen when you are with a beautiful young woman in the Rockies.

The weather there was just like it was here—cold—but 25 degrees feels different when you’re closer to the sun.

Back home, it was time to get back to the taxes I’d started. Since I no longer have last year’s e-mail address, I had to run a gauntlet to get last year’s data dumped into this year’s TurboTax forms. To change your e-mail address, you need to know your ID, which I’d forgotten. To get your ID, you need to have your old e-mail address. So it’s one of those endless loop things. I couldn’t break thorough it, despite all my “chats” with guys in Nepal who have a limited assortment of standard responses to give.

Fortunately I finally found my ID, changed the address, and less than two hours later Uncle Sam and I were squared away.

Spring is here. I think I've said that before. But this evidence is irrefutable.

I left work early today. Slogged through the slush, the wind, the white-out. Spun out on Highway 100: fortunately, no one was behind me. No point contributing to the evening traffic mess. And a keyboard being a keyboard, I can do much of my work from anywhere.

Besides, the kids are home on spring break, and this seems like a perfect day for what they call a "forest dinner:" pot roast with mashed potatoes and broccoli. Something about the rich dark gravy with the green “trees” led to that name. It’s always guaranteed to comfort.

It should be time for the strawberries and asparagus that are around all year now but don’t really make sense until spring.

The roast, browned and covered with all the substances that lead miraculously to gravy, is cooking slowly, while I am rat-tat-ta-tat-tattating out a report. Oprah inveighs about happiness in the background, and I know what she means. Wildness at bay outside; inside safe and warm with good smells, work getting done. Kids safe nearby; it’s all very fine.

Suddenly, something feels different. I don’t know whether the light has shifted, or the sound of the wind has stopped, but the air feels still. Before I look I know the storm has stopped. Just stopped.

Winter will, too. Soon. This will be the last pot roast of winter, or the last pot roast of spring. I'm not sure which to call it.