Allyson Johnson

Pieces of my Mind

Archive for the category “Memoir”

13 Jul 2012
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To Russia with Mom – Prelude

My mother has traveled to over 30 countries on 6 continents, about half with my father in the adventurous years after children and before infirmity, the other half on her own or with a friend or family member.

My mother is 91 years old.  She has no vision in one eye and very limited vision in the other.  Her hearing is ok if you are seated across from her directly at a distance of no more than 6 feet.  She wears hearing aids which seem to vary in their usefulness.  She frequently repeats questions which have just been answered. Occasionally she Is afflicted with digestion troubles.

My mother lives next door to me and has become my best friend.   I think I am hers also, as almost all potential rivals for that title are deceased already.

My mother declared on her 91st birthday that she wanted one more trip. I had quit my salaried job 9 months previously and my other siblings have work, children at home, and other impediments.  We began trying to figure out where and how to go.

At first we leaned toward a trip within the US – no long plane flights, no issues if medical help was required.  Mom thought a boat would be nice so that she would not have to pack and unpack often. We looked at a cruise of the Great Lakes, but Mom was put off by the need to pay extra for any alcohol, and by the unglamorous posts of call (Embark from Detroit? Stop at Cleveland?  Sorry – those names just didn’t sing.)

Then the European economic bubble burst, and  the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia  ran aground in Sardinia – suddenly the cost of high-end cruises in Europe tumbled.  Even including the plane fare, we could go by 6-star cruise line from St. Petersburg to Copenhagen, stopping at Helsinki and Stockholm along the way, for less than the cost of an Elder Hostel cruise from Detroit to Quebec City. Wow! Four countries on one trip which Mom had not visited before!  And I have business friends in St. Petersburg who could show us around a bit.  We cast aside our fears and signed on.

We committed to the cruise in April, which gave us two months to anticipate everything that might go wrong:

Mom might lose the batteries for her hearing aids.  We bought three times the number that would normally be needed;  I carried a supply, Mom carries a double supply.

Mom might fall on the boat.  She hates to use a cane because “it makes me look old and feeble”.  My husband  bought a specially sturdy foldable cane in a fetching shade of pink. My sister bought a not-as-sturdy foldable cane in a pink paisley pattern.  Mom promised to try.

Mom might get lost on the boat, since it is hard for her to distinguish signs and numbers at any distance.  I bought a set of walkie-talkies which I hoped we could use on the boat and on sight-seeing trips in case we got separated, assuming she can figure out the buttons.

Mom might be cold in those Northern latitudes, even though we were traveling just after the summer solstice.  We exhumed thermal underwear from long-ago ski trips and discovered the elastic had disintegrated.  I had two sets of silk long underwear  – Mom is borrowing one.  At the last minute Mom packed the old thermal underwear anyway, just in case.

Mom might have one of her infrequent bouts with spastic colon.  At the last minute we stuffed every cranny with adult diapers.

Mom has a hard time these days with check lists.  It is hard for her to remember what she intended to pack vs. what she has actually  packed.  My sister and niece came down for a weekend  armed with a detailed checklist provided by my cousin, a cruise veteran.  It took six hours of making decisions, but the suitcase and carry-on were packed to perfection except for the hearing aids,  medications, and glasses.

Mom has a hard time juggling documents.  I took charge of the passports, cruise documents, luggage tags.

Mom might be uncomfortable sleeping on the plane.  My husband found an easy- to- inflate neck pillow and a pair of shocking pink eye-shades.

My husband, sister, older brother and I walked ourselves through every possible scenario.  We packed backups for everything that could be used up or exhausted.  I have never travelled with such a full suitcase on the outgoing flight (coming back, stuffed with souvenir and presents, is another matter).

With fingers crossed for luck, we set out.

For a nonagenarian, a 20-step loading staircase is a challenge. Will we meet it?

Posted in Baltic cruise, Elderly travellers, Memoir, Russia, St. Peterburg, Travel and tagged , ,
20 Jun 2012
2 Comments

Intermission – New adventure begins tomorrow

I’ll be off on another exploration tomorrow -I expect this will be as much internal as external.  I will be escorting my nonagenarian mother on a deluxe cruise around the Baltic Sea.  This will be Something Completely Different, as

1. I have never taken a cruise longer than three days

2. I have never taken a deluxe cruise

3. I have always done ACTIVE travel – hiking, trekking, camping, biking… this will not be possible with my travel companion, who is socially and spiritually vibrant but also visually, audially, and mobility impaired.

I expect that my eyes, mind, and heart will be opened – travel does that, no matter where or how – and in ways that I cannot predict.  I’m not sure how soon I will be able to post again – thanks to all my followers who  stay tuned!

Posted in Memoir, Travel and tagged
05 Apr 2012
3 Comments

Triumph of the Garage (Los Altos Town Crier, April 4, 2012)

My mother told me awhile ago about my great-great-grandfather’s workshop, where every nut, bolt, and screw had its own special compartment, every tool had its own particular hook.
This awoke a hunger in me. Unlike many of my neighbors, we have always been able to park two cars in our two-car garage, but negotiating the way from the car to the hall door was hazardous – successive layers of cleaning out the trunk in order to go to the car wash, unloading from a camping trip, shifting material from an old office to a new one, and miscellaneous craft supplies had gradually encroached upon the shelving and floor and sink to the point where we could barely exit the cars once parked.
Once I started to work at home, “organize the garage” made it onto my weekly todo list. And there it sat, for week after week. “We’ll do it on the next rainy weekend” I told myself. It has been one of the driest winters on record. “We’ll do it when it’s warm enough to leave the door open so we can see what we are doing”. It has been colder than normal for weeks on end..
Finally something snapped. I went out and measured the space. Then I drew a plan, with height and depth and width of shelves needed. (Turned out not to be completely accurate, but that’s another story).
Having a diagram in hand seemed to trigger a switch in my husband’s brain: “Aha! A reason to cruise all the home improvement sites on the Internet! Awesome!” Before I knew it he had checked out wire,, wood, aluminum, PCV , and pre-formed plastic shelving at OSH, Loew’s, Home Depot, etc., and was presenting me with options: “Do you want any cupboards? Do you really need a 22” inch wide counter – that’s an odd dimension. You want 24” deep shelves, but comments on the Internet say things tend to get lost at the back – if we get taller units we could get by with 18” deep, don’t you think?”
Wow! What had I unleashed? Next thing I was swept into the car for a trip to the nearest home improvement mecca, where the most recommended shelving was in stock.
The chosen shelving was the prefabricated plastic kind where you tap the pieces in place with a rubber mallet and a block of wood – my husband set to with gusto. There must be something atavistically thrilling about pounding things into submission – the shelving was assembled in no time.
Now the hard part – emptying out the existing storage, purging what was not needed. and reloading.
The”existing storage” consisted of two rough units knocked together from planks and covered with peeling contact shelf liner – I had salvaged it from a curbside when we first moved into the house. I optimistically put it out on the curb again for free-cycling along with an extra soldering iron, out-moded hot glue gun, macramé flower pot holder with ceiling hook, totally unused paint roller and pan, furniture gliders, wall shelving hardware and support (with shelves) and other redundant or outmoded items. All disappeared within hours except for the storage units, which my husband eventually had to whack apart and deliver to the local landfill.
After a weekend of merging and purging ,we’re done. The garage is still not up to my great-great-grandfather’s standard: we don’t have a container for every nut and bolt or a hook for every tool, but at least we have dedicated shelves. (Who knew we had so many different kinds of lightbulbs?)
And finally – a floor! We can drive into our garage and get to the hall door without danger of tripping over anything!
Could the attic be next?

(Published in Los AltosTown Crierpril 4, 2012

http://www.losaltosonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42739&Itemid=55

Posted in Memoir, TOWN CRIER and tagged
07 Mar 2012

A Community of Kindness

A community is more than streets, stores, schools, and the people who occupy and use them.  A community is built from countless threads of connection, woven of myriad small and large gestures of kindness and caring.  Here are some recent examples of how a community is constantly being renewed in our own town:

At a concert being presented by a group of local high school students, the director of the group took time in his introduction to acknowledge the presence in the audience of two people who had helped him early on – one a volunteer who chaperoned one of the early trips made by the group in its first day, another a former school administrator who had worked with him early in his career at the high school.

Why was this important? Of course, the pleasure given to the two audience members was considerable.  More importantly, the young people who are now part of the singing group  were made to think about the past  history  of the group, and the people who had contributed to its success.   Moreover, they could see that those early supporters are still in their audience, still supporting them.  Community comes from continuity.

An octogenarian friend of mine parked her car at the Ranch lot and walked across the Foothill expressway to attend an event at the church on the opposite corner.  This section of road has no sidewalk, and she slipped and fell on the gravel aggregate.  (Our pretensions of being a rural community do have their drawbacks.)   A young man whose truck was stopped at the light saw her fall. Rather than continuing on his way, he went through the light, made a U-turn in the Rancho lot, and came back through the light to  stop and make sure my friend was all right and able to continue on her way.   He didn’t know her, but he went out of his way to make sure.  Community comes from caring.

Another friend is a student in a painting class for cancer survivors, taught by a local artist who volunteers her time.  This teacher went to see the production of “The Pitmen Painters” which appeared recently in Mountain View and thought it would inspire her students.  She  wrote to the producer,  told him about her class and asked whether a group discount could be arranged for her students.  The producer responded by sending her 20 free tickets for the class.  Community comes from kindness.

There are many areas where we disagree with our neighbors, many topics which are contentious, and unfortunately many harsh words said. Fortunately, for every one of these stresses which frays the fabric of community, there are actions like those above which strengthen and reweave the fabric which supports us all.

(Published in Los Altos Town Crier March 7, 2012)

Posted in Memoir, TOWN CRIER | Leave a comment
11 Feb 2012

The Power of Yes

Years ago, living with my family in California after completing  my master’s degree, I received a call inviting me to fly east for an  interview for a job on the East Coast.  I was already in the final stages of negotiating a job down in San Diego, so I turned down the invitation. My mother, a very positive force, scolded me for turning down the invitation and the free ride to New York – what harm could it do to check it out?  I ended up accepting the East Coast job.  In the first few days on the job I met a colleague in my new department who eventually became my husband.  What would my life have been if I hadn’t said “Yes”?

Much later, now living with my husband and children in Oakland CA, I received another job interview invitation, this time to work for a small software company across the bay in Mountain View.  Although we were considering moving, the Peninsula was not on our short list, being too expensive.  However, my then job was clearly going nowhere, so I accepted the invitation to interview just for the practice.

At the same time, my parents were discussing subdividing their acre of land, and invited  my husband and I to buy half the parcel and build a house next to them.

I ended up accepting the job, we agreed to the land purchase offer,  and I commuted for a year while we built a house on the land where I had grown up.   Where would we have ended up if I had not said “Yes” to that job interview and land buy?

Once established in our new home, I resolved to say “Yes” to any friendly overtures from my new neighbors.  My mother took me to a friend’s annual Mother – Daughter Tea, where I met a woman about my age.  She mentioned that she loved to exercise every weekend at the local community college, and gave me her business card in case I would like to join her.  To her surprise, I called her up, and she became one of my closest friends over years of regular exercise together.

Last year I was visiting a friend who teaches at Monterey Peninsula College.  One of the many foreign students in her class had invited her to come visit and perhaps do a training course for her business: training  women to lead trekkers in Nepal.   My friend was planning to do a two-week trek as part of the visit and said in the casual way friends do, “Why don’t you come with me?”  To our mutual astonishment I said “Why not?” and because I said “yes” I enjoyed one of the most enthralling adventures of my life.

So I’m giving you fair warning: If you make me an offer, extend a casual invitation, suggest some joint activity – watch out!   I’m very likely to say “yes” – just to find out what will happen next.

Posted in Memoir, TOWN CRIER and tagged | Leave a comment

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