Vita Longa Erat

"Ars longa, vita brevis," wrote ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, which can be translated as, "The art is long, life is short." Mastery of a craft takes much time and effort, and in the context of our short lives, achievement is unlikely and commendable. Hippocrates was talking about the art and technique of surgery, but the sentiment holds true for the expressive arts as well.

"Take your patience pills," my grandmother told me more than once. Easy for her to say! She had 58 years on me. "With a shorter past there's a greater hurry," as Alana Davis wrote in her fabulous song Turtle. Thankfully I had my gram to impart such wisdom to me. (My other favorite expression of hers was her eagerness to reassure anyone--particularly children--who broke a glass or stained the large dining room table's cloth, with an "It's ok, it will wash," or "It's ok, it's just a glass.")

Gram, or Sophy Margaret Toppin Koch, died on January 3, 2011 at the age of 90, passing out of the ghost town of my childhood and taking her place at the helm of the guardian-angel-ship in the heaven that all of a sudden I sort of believe in now. She was an organist, choir director, homemaker, mother of three, world traveler, catalog-shopper, thoughtful letter-writer, spitfire, Leo, independent woman, and inspiration. Lion-hearted and with a New York Times crossword puzzle mind, she lavished me with love and correct grammar. She didn't remark when I dyed my hair purple or dressed androgynously, but God forbid I say, "Me and Sarah went to the zoo."

As a pre-teen one year I decided to give Gram a poem of mine as a birthday gift (I don’t think I’ve given anyone else a poem as a birthday gift before or since then). It was a lonely, maudlin poem, but she accepted it with an affirming reverence that I still appreciate. Every young poet should have a reader like her. Though I'm not as young now as I was then, I'm still a young poet in terms of career, and Gram's voice in my head reminds me to take my patience pills and keep working hard at what I love.

I was 30 and Gram had Alzheimer’s before I thought about how she had been an accomplished, lifelong musician, and that this was notable, extraordinary. I had always taken her work for granted, because it was just part of who she always was, in my short-lived experience. But she had not only worked hard to master her craft; she was lucky to have a long life in which to practice and enjoy it.



Gram and Kat in 1995

Calculus Notebooks and Baby Clothes

My grandmother's house has an attic full of memories: boxes of innumerable letters, notebooks, photographs, and baby clothes from three generations. Watching my mother go through these items over the past few months has been an education in memory and attachment. With each box, she relives a moment or a year or a decade. Everything that gets thrown away must first be exclaimed over and/or mourned. Some things, like the letters Gram wrote to my parents before I was born, Mom has passed on to me, so now I've started my own memory collection in my attic.

Going through old things has weird effects on the space/time continuum. It's hard for me to imagine my mother as a teenager struggling through chemistry and calculus, yet there are the notebooks to prove it. Actually, it's not that I can't imagine her as a teenager--I can't really believe she was once a teenager.

It's different for her--she can't imagine not being that teenager anymore, alive in the pages of those old notebooks. As she tears the pages from their spiral bindings and adds them to the recycling bin, she says, "I feel like I'm tearing apart my life." And yet it needs to be done.

My baby clothes--most of which are musty and stained and not worth giving to a thrift store--are still vivid and colorful in her mind as she holds them up, saying, "I loved you in this dress ... you looked so beautiful in this color." Me? She can't be talking about me, 5'10" tall and 31 years old. I was never small enough to fit into that. And how could I have lain on that embroidered blanket or worn that handmade flannel nightgown if I don't remember it? How was that me?

In the boxes of the baby clothes--most of which were either bought at Sears or sewn by my grandmother (who was quite talented, although her designs were essentially practical, and usually made of flannel since as a baby I lived in Maine)--were a few items from an earlier era: finely worked crocheted bibs with colorful decorations, and dresses with lace collars and hems. These, according to my mother, must have been made by my great-grandmother. A professional dressmaker, she took the concept of handmade to an entirely different level.

My idea of a thoughtful baby gift is taking the time to go to Target and pick out something in a color the kid (or parent) likes. Handmade dresses or clothes like the ones my great-grandmother made would probably cost a hundred dollars--more than I'd spend on a dress for myself! So much has shifted in how we spend our time, money, and labors--individually and globally as well. My idea of green or budget conscious involves shopping at a thrift store, recycling someone else's best guess at a good buy from Target.

There were many more baby-girl pink items in the baby clothes boxes than I've worn in the 30 years since then. By the time I was old enough to verbalize my desires, I tended more toward red and blue. We also found among the baby clothes my first-ever pair of shoes (these resulted in many exclamations). For some reason I was relieved that they were cute and maroon. I'd wear them now, if only they were the right size.

In Memoriam

The email this morning
was matter-of-fact. Bad news
travels so easily: quick and clean,
sharp, definite. She died.
Thirty years old, she was riding
her bike. I don't know
the details of helmet or speed
but I do know she was married
holding red flowers with a deep
red sash on an autumn day of leaves
and sun, to my childhood
friend. My question is:
"How can I make sense of this?"
From the Tarot deck, I draw the Magician.
White robe, red sash,
cup and coin and sword and staff,
feminine and masculine, lilies
and roses, the go-between of worlds.
This afternoon a bicyclist
passed my bench. I saw him
bend down, pick up a book -
not sure if he dropped it
or found it. I wonder -
when she fell - who
picked her up?