Category Archives: Journal – Vol. II

November 10, 2012 — Moriarty is my name. I am The Phantom of the Blog. Samantha’s out promoting her book, Begins the Night Music, so she assigned me to writing this one. Uh-only you-u-u—u … O-o-o …. I found a playlist Samantha left here in her computer – “Love Songs We Used to Sing.” Cool. It’s mostly ‘50s songs. I didn’t know she was that old. Did you? Uh-only you-u-u—u … O-o-o…. When I turn the music up it resounds off the walls of the blog. I like to go up to the mezzanine. The acoustics up there are great. I like to stand at the rail and sing. Then, I’m the Phantom of the Opera. It’s like being onstage. Yesterday I was singing and gesticulating and I nearly fell over the rail. I dropped the blog keys. I don’t know where they went. I lost them again, the extra set. They fell down over the rail into some story backdrops. I can’t find which story they are in. I didn’t tell Samantha.

Oh, what was that? Let me spin around in the chair here. Was that the doorbell? I don’t know. Maybe it was the phone. The music’s so loud. Maybe it’s Samantha. She’s probably calling to find out where the keys are. She can leave a message. Uh-oh yes, I’m the great pretender…. Just laughing and gay like a clown. I seem to be what I’m not, you see. I’m wearing my heart like a clown—uh, crown, pre-eetending that you’re still around.

Ihhhhh-hihchoooooo!! [Sniffle.] Bless me, I sneeze. Hhhhh-hhhh-hihcheeoooo!! This blog is so dusty. Samantha hasn’t been around much and I don’t dust. I’ve told her that. I vacuum and I tidy up. I mow the lawn. I will even write a chapter. But I don’t dust. I don’t even like dust. Hhhhhh-chiiiiihhh!! I need a hanky. Excuse me a minute.

* * *

OK. Here we are. I’m back. Come with me to the sea of love. Hhhhh-chiiiiihhhoh!! [Snort.] I want to tell you how much I love you. Simple words. Life must have been simple back then. I wasn’t around then, trust me. Do you remember whe-e-en-n we met? Mmm-mmm….

I’ve met some of Samantha’s friends when they come pad around in the blog. Not a bad group. Just the other day I was talking to her friend R about her. We were saying that, you know, she’s— well, I won’t say.

I should say she’s m-m-m— ihhhhhh-chooooooo!! Bless me. She’s mu-u-u-ch – hhhhhh-chihhoooooo!! I have to go blow my nose.

I’m going up to the cupola. C’mon.

No one could ever sneak up on you up here – creaking stairs.

Whew. It’s stuffy up here. How do you like the rug? It’s that worn, red Persian she bought. It has a fringe only on one end. See? Let me open a window. [Grunt.] Uhh, it kind of sticks. There. Ahh, the scent of drying leaves and tall grass. Soon she’s gonna want me to rake leaves. Today it’s beautiful out there across the meadow, isn’t it?

So, before the light, hold me again with all of your might, in the still of the night… shoo-doot-shoobie-doo-shoo-doot-shoobie-doo-ooo-OOO-ooo—

And there’s this song. What is it? “Unhinged Melody”? Oh, “Unchained Melody”. Good song. Samantha has it woven throughout her playlist. Dum-dum-dumdummm….

What the— What’s that? A water spout? It’s cruising just above the stream. Holy— It’s floating on air. It looks like a— a monk, dressed in black, arms folded across his chest, nothing on his gray head, and bare feet. Uh-oh. He’s coming this way, floating across the meadow, fast. Geez. He’s headed right for me. He’s getting smaller and more distinct as he gets closer.

Whoa! I gotta step back. Through the window. “Oh, hello. Who are you?”

“Greetings. I am the Black Monk.” His smile is friendly, but sly.

“Well, that seems rather obvious. Where did you come from?”

“I have always been around. I am Anton Chekhov’s legendary Black Monk. Once there were many of us and we all floated around together. Now there’s just one. I am a phantom.”

“No you’re not. I’m the Phantom. Moriarty’s my name.”

“I am a phantom, too.” [He digs into a pocket inside his robe.] “These yours?” [He holds up something jangling and sits down in the plain, white, wooden chair at the edge of the rug.]

“My keys. Where did you find them?”

“Down by the stream.”

“I dropped them inside the blog, from the mezzanine. How’d they get all the way out there? Did they float?”

“The mauve and black raccoon handed them to me. Didn’t you know you had a raccoon around here?”

“Where? Down there at the stream by that brown herd of deer?”

“That’s a common herd.”

“Well, no. I didn’t know we had a raccoon. Anyway, mauve’s a synthetic color. Therefore the raccoon must not be real.”

“Nothing’s real; it’s all in our minds, an illusion. It’s the scenes of the play you create on the stage of your mind. You’re the writer and director. You can play out the scenes any way you want. Your ultimate awareness that it’s an illusion will separate you from the Common Herd, the ones so attached to their illusory realities, the greedy ones who judge others by their own fantasies whirling around in their little heads like a herd of dervishes.”

“But I’m the real Phantom.”

“We are both phantoms.”

“Well, then, if we are both phantoms, we are having a phantom dialog. That’s uncommon.”

As I say this, the Black Monk starts to dissipate; little by little he is disappearing until all I see is his black robe and – uh – that’s gone. I, Moriarty, the Phantom of the Blog, am standing here talking to a plain white chair, like a silly fool.

But wait— over there. Do you see that? Look. No, not there. No, it’s not just in my mind. Over there, a little to the right. Over there in the tall, gold meadow grass: The Blue Deer. The Blue Deer has a fawn. It’s blue with white spots. Wait’ll I tell Samantha! A blue and white polka-dotted fawn: the color of the sky with white, fluffy clouds on a crisp autumn day.

Oh, she ends the playlist with Buffy Sainte-Marie … And here I’ll stay until it’s time for you to go.

I’ve gotta go down and get the rake out of the shed now. Watch— don’t trip over that chair.

—Moriarty, The Phantom of the Blog
Samantha Mozart, editor

October 31, 2012 — My granddaughter, 12, got in trouble at school the other day for defacing her social studies book. She came home and told her mom. She wrote in the margin, “They COULD make this more interesting.”

Kellie, my daughter, called me.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I laughed,” she said. “And then I told her I would call her teacher.”

The next day Kellie emailed me: “I had a meeting with the teachers, all of them, including the principle [sic] it was like knights at the round table.”

The teachers said many positive things about my granddaughter including that they all overhear the boys saying she’s pretty hot (she’s a cheerleader).

A day or two later, Kellie phoned me to complain that after a full day of work, in a 40-hour work week, she would have to go home, cook dinner and clean up around the house. She had done the laundry in the morning.

“The girls are eight and twelve,” I told her. “Get them to help you. They’re old enough and it will give them a sense of purpose. And, after all, S——- [the younger granddaughter] is a Girl Scout. Let her utilize her Girl Scouting around the house.”

“But, [the older one], especially, complains and doesn’t do the job thoroughly,” she said.

“Then, discipline them to do it over until they do it right,” I told her. “In the long run, it will conserve your energy once they know they can’t slack off, and it’ll relieve much of your stress.

“Remember,” I went on, “how when I worked and you were that age, I gave you specific chores to do after school, and—- I could always tell when Julie did the dishes; they were all clean.”

“Vicki got water all over the floor when she did them,” said Kellie.

“Oh. And who vacuumed…?” I asked.

“I don’t remember,” said Kellie. “I think it was … no— I’m not sure.”

“Was it Nancy?”

“I don’t think so,” said Kellie. “Maybe.”

“Was it Dawn? What did Dawn do?”

“I don’t know,” Kellie said. “I used to tell them all, ‘help me get these chores done so I can come out and play.’”

While the neighborhood kids no longer clean my house and my caregiving chores for Emma are done, as you know I have written and published Volume I, Begins the Night Music, my book based on my blog, journaling Emma’s and my experiences. Now my neighborhood adult friends and worldwide Linkedin network friends help. A caregiver herself in more ways than one, my New Zealand sociologist/researcher/writer friend, Beatrice, who does make social studies more interesting, has written a review of my book to be published in different periodicals; she tells me she is aiming at “INsite, the magazine for elderly care in New Zealand, as well as a slightly different version for Carers NZ newsletter, and Carers World Radio*,” if she can get in.

Currently she is visiting England and on November 1 will meet in London, in the House of Lords, with Baroness Pitkeathley, “baronessed for her work for carers,” Beatrice emailed me. “Jill Pitkeathley is behind the whole global carers’ movement,” said Beatrice, “and am taking your book with me, to hand over to Carers’ UK as she will.” How very kind and thoughtful of Beatrice. One of the major organizations Baroness Pitkeathley founded is the National Organisation for Distressed Gentlewomen.

“But I shall mention your name in the Hallowed Halls,” Beatrice added.

Beatrice thought I, as an American, might not be impressed. I am impressed, and we still have in New York city and state, and elsewhere, a brand of Edith Wharton women, the lives of some of whom overlapped with hers; some of late may have fallen on hard times, even; thus no longer able to pay the rent or the upkeep on the brownstone or the country house, and have become distressed gentlewomen.

Beatrice’s review of my book carries a refrain: “Caregivers are people, too.”

This gracious promotion of caregivers and of my book could only but help alleviate a distressed situation.

—Samantha Mozart

*Their site states: “Carers World Radio is a monthly radio programme produced for carers. Based in the UK the show reaches a global audience. Carers UK is a long established supporter of the show.”

http://www.carersuk.org/community/carers-world-radio: “The show features the latest news and developments on topics relating to caring from around the world. Carers World Radio has also pioneered innovative live broadcasts from events such as conferences where carers at home are able to interact with presenters and the live audience with a chat room. This was sucessfully [sic] used at Carers UK events such as the International Carers Conference and our Carers’ Summits in London and Wales in 2010.”

Friday, October 26, 2012 — I went to our big, local senior center the other day.  I arrived at lunchtime.  The vast hall, reminiscent of an elementary school cafetorium, was filled with large round tables and had come to a rolling boil of seniors dining and chattering over clashing dishware and jangling flatware.  I was there to meet with the various women who would help me set up my two December book presentations (one for the caregivers’ morning group and one for their evening group). I also filled out the form about income and how many meals I eat a day, wrote them a check for $15.00 and joined the center. This is the Modern Maturity Center in Dover, Delaware. It is a multi-tasking, rambling, substantially funded affair: “Oh, we just built that additional building last year.”

I walked to the desk to ask directions to the women’s offices. The woman behind the desk said, “Aoshgjk uioepws.” I thought maybe she was Turkish. “What?” I asked.  My left ear has been closed for two weeks, and with all those people in the room chattering …, I fit right in; I couldn’t hear any better than any of those geezers.  I looked around at all of them.  They’re all so old, I thought.  I will tell you this, though, if you, a woman my age, want to get looks from every man in the room, go to a senior center.

I met with the women to set up my presentations. I learned that there are caregivers centers funded by our state and this Modern Maturity Center hosts one. Through this caregivers organization which has existed since 2002, I could have gotten respite care for Emma, payable based on income, the balance paid with state Medicaid grant funds, before I got standard Medicaid respite care through the state; in other words, they could have provided me with help before I got help – right away rather than my waiting months for our state Division of Aging to get up out of their rocking chairs and away from their computers. Although this caregivers center has been announced and promoted via the media, I think I was so busy and stressed simply taking care of Emma I didn’t notice this availability or didn’t know where to look. So, be aware when you become a caregiver – and chances are good that you will – that you must look beyond the obvious. Go to your senior center first; they can give you the best direction. I didn’t do this. Why? Probably because I didn’t want to get involved with a lot of old people.

Of interest, the center has just initiated, on their enclosed porch, a group called “Front Porch,” for Alzheimer’s/dementia beginners. (Doesn’t that sound awful? – “Oh, I’m just an Alzheimer’s beginner.”) Front Porch is for those in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s and dementia, those who don’t quite get the whole discussion or who cannot remember small things. The sessions are geared to their level.

Before I left the center, I made plans to give a writers workshop starting after the first of the year; that is, if anyone signs up.  I understand that at first only a few sign up, and then for the next session, more, as word spreads. I should expect $10 per person per six-week session, they tell me.  That’s my 60 percent cut; the center keeps the remaining 40 percent. So let’s hope I’m a success.  Oh, and I should offer the workshop attendees some sort of premium for signing up – like cookies or note pads from the dollar store, I’m told.

When I got home, my friend Jackie came and candled my ears.  My left ear is still closed, but better.  It will take about a dozen candles to clear, I think.  Hopefully I exaggerate. Jackie is coming back another day.  We have Hurricane Sandy coming Monday and Jackie had to go get her mother-in-law, who has dementia, out of Cape May, New Jersey, supposed to receive a direct hit from the storm, to nearby Maryland here. What a pleasant, relaxing experience the ear candling is.  Jackie is expert.

I primed myself the night before I went to the center by watching one of the best ever movies for old people – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – poignant, humorous, and perfect for us young old-agers – those of us in our 60s and 70s.  It is insightful, honest and very well done – the British return to India, as one reviewer put it – with Dev Patel and a cast of venerable British actors – Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton – the list goes on.

Up until a few years ago, I thought old people just got old and tired and didn’t want to do much, didn’t fall in love, weren’t interested in sex. When I was in my 40s I was amazed that Emma and my stepfather, in their 70s, got divorced. Why would they do that when they’re already so old? I wondered. The truth is, as demonstrated by this movie, that maybe your body gets old but your mind doesn’t; it still thinks like that of a 10 year old, and you still have those desires, feelings and feistiness; you want to be useful in life.

I cite myself as an example. All of my neighbors are out riding bikes in the nice weather. I wanted to go out bike riding, too, so I got a bike, a used one, a cruiser.

I’m a swinger. I attended a potluck near home this past Sunday, when after eating we went to the local elementary school grounds and played a ball game where one-by-one, team members get eliminated, like chess pieces. I was the first eliminated, wouldn’t you know. So being old and tired I walked over and sat on a swing. And then I began to swing. And I swung higher and higher, and higher and higher. How free I was, and felt my exercising muscles massaging my organs. I haven’t swung since I was, oh, I don’t know, maybe 10. What intrigued me was that my mindset that got me on the swing matched my mindset at 10; as does that of my bike riding. I think hereafter I will ride my bike over to the school and go swing.

Orhan Pamuk in his novel The Museum of Innocence has his protagonist, who is counting the days and weeks and months until he rendezvous with his lover again, bundle the time; that way the time goes faster, or seems less expansive. So, six is a small number: it was only six decades ago that I was 10, a bike-riding swinger eyed by the boys.

—Samantha Mozart

October 15, 2011 — “Thanks for the kisses for us,” I emailed my friend who had sent cyberkisses to our Linkedin women writers caregivers group members. “We always need them; at least I do,” I told her. Somewhere along the line very early in my adult life, I effected my moving to Southern California where I was fortunate to meet guides who led me to a room with a big window where I could get a clear picture of my erroneous views. I flung those views into a flaming hearth, and assumed responsibility for my thoughts and actions. But the hearth must be big and ever tended. These phenomena arrive on my doorstep without ringing the bell, often are unwieldy and I struggle with them daily.

I don’t mean to sound overstuffed here; I am humbly offering a view of my cauldron of experiences as I understand them. That understanding could become tomorrow morning’s ashes swept out of the hearth to be replaced with fresh kindling. Sometimes I feel like I’m swimming in porridge.

I am receptive to what comes, think it’s the right way to go, later learn it was the wrong way – or was it? It led me to where I am today. Could I have chosen a smoother path? Maybe. Still, 30 years since reading it, my favorite book on this subject is a little book by Richard Bach, called Illusions. He presents it as “the messiah’s handbook,” and for me it is, no matter how reluctantly I accept the gift it places into my hands.

This is what steams from the brew of thoughts sparking in my awakening head early this morning as I roll out of bed and stumble straight to my computer. My hands are cold and my fingers can barely move to type to keep up with my unedited thoughts that pour out onto this page.

I lean back in my chair. I ruminate.

I take a break from my writing, exit my blog and amble out across the meadow to the broad brook at the edge of the woods. I pick up a long stick and poke at the ground as I wander. The shimmering water rippling over the stones recalls Franz Schubert’s lied “Auf dem Wasser zu singen” (D. 774, transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt; currently no. 22 on my “The Dream” playlist, here performed by Evgeny Kissin).

I find a boulder and sit down to rest. I think of the journeyman who upon his wanderings comes to a brook which he follows to a mill. There he encounters the miller’s beautiful daughter – “Der Müller und der Bach.” I look across the brook to the woods. Which is the better side? To contemplate alone in the deep woods or to go out into the bustle of humanity and exchange information and ideas? Which is the better way to achieve enlightenment and ultimately liberation?

Someone said to me of her man friend whom she has met only a few years ago: “I feel like we were stuck together in a past life, and then someone in this life peeled us apart and sent us out into the world separately. Only now have we come together again, yet we remain separate.”

I seem to have reached the end of my path. I don’t know where to turn next. My question becomes Faustian. Do I continue putting one foot in front of the other along the bank of this brook, do I ford the stream, or do I wander into the water, deep into the center until it rises up over my head? How do I bring this together?

The sun warms me here by the brook. I haven’t seen The Blue Deer. I wonder where she is?

My friend who emailed us the cyberkisses sent me a copy of the September 3, 2012, People magazine story about singer Amy Grant’s caregiving for her dad who has dementia. Her mom suffered from dementia and passed away last year. Ms. Grant said that in the beginning she felt angry and overwhelmed because it wasn’t like it used to be. No, it isn’t.

For me, so much of her story rings true, especially the parts where early on her dad asks, “How do I do this?” Or his smiling when she points out nipping the dead buds off the daffodils to encourage fresh blooms and he smiles uncomprehending and says, “I guess.” Emma used to do that. And the look in his eyes: it’s the same as Emma’s. You can see in the eyes an intelligent person (he was a prominent radiation oncologist in Nashville) and the vacuity or opacity at the same time. It is heartrending and frightening, because you know you may be next. As Amy Grant says, she sees him as the person he was; I see Emma as she was – that the one with dementia is not really she. She simply got sick. I find it intriguing that Amy Grant’s mom’s and dad’s dementia showed up in brain scans. Emma’s did not. Odd that there was no history of dementia in Amy Grant’s family – none in ours, either – yet both her parents got dementia so young, in their 70s. I wonder what caused that? Emma was much older, 90.

It’s not only hard to let go of your loved one; it’s hard to let go of the life that used to be or could be.

I glance at last summer’s irises here in the meadow. The long leaves flow lushly and gracefully from the rhizomes, their tips now turning yellow, like elderly hands. Dead buds remain. Maybe I need to stay where I am and pick off the dead buds to encourage fresh blooms.

—Samantha Mozart

September 28, 2012 — The colors of the leaves on the dogwood outside my window have turned from brick to burgundy to vermillion, while within their burnoose of intimate color, the red berries wait. Soon the speckled birds will come find them and eat them on their migration south. Close behind the dogwood stands the tall loblolly pine, its green, lush appendages heavy with cones carrying its seed. Just to the right of the pine the high leaves on the verdant maples are tinged with gold.

Where the sun rises in the east this morning the sky turns orange, while outside my window raindrops fall drooping the vermillion leaves, like scarves ready to drop to the green lawn below, and in the north and west the sky is gray.

The turn of a season awaits none. Today is the day. The plump berries reveal themselves as ripe. The birds have come, just now, in the rain, as I watch. Thrushes and finches, some are speckled, some are blackbirds and the proverbial sparrow, all vying for the best branch, the sweetest fruit.

The turn of the wheels of government grind slowly to pulp those who wait. It will take up to three months for the Medicaid grant to pay my Medicare Part B premium normally deducted from my Social Security benefit: “That’s the way the system works,” they tell me. “But I need the money now,” I say. That’s an extra $105 a month for me. “Oh, you’ll be reimbursed,” they reassure me. But in three months I may be a millionaire from the royalties of my best-selling book, Begins the Night Music.” My book’s not a best seller – yet. Were it not for food stamps, frankly, I would not be able to eat. Not that I wouldn’t benefit by losing a few pounds. I know people, women very close to me, who can’t seem to put on weight; they are as thin as waifs, on their way to becoming as emaciated as Emma before she died. I offer to give them some of my weight, just like I offer to package up and send our humidity to friends who live in states where they have a dry heat. But none accept.

Yes, I received my food stamps days after I applied; I also received free, for the most part, medical care. This is good. Had I not cared for Emma this past decade, when there was no other caregiver nor caregiver pay available, but rather deposited her in a nursing home, I would not be in this predicament now. Family and friends have graciously given me money and goods to cover the mortgage and immediate needs, yet I received the final available means to cover the mortgage payment and will have none for October or future months.

The books I read a year ago, as I have written about and published on this blog and in Begins the Night Music (“What Am I Reading?” and “What Am I Reading? II”) led me through my dark night of the soul. Nevertheless, I do not like leading the life of a mendicant. My purpose in writing my blog, my book Begins the Night Music and more books to come, and in speaking to groups on caregiving, is to help others, because I know others are or will endure a similar situation, experiences of which often will be shooting in the dark. Yes, here I am. It is what it is for now, while I continue to seek additional means, and teeter on the razor’s edge.

In the end, it was the Medicaid grant that paid me to care for Emma and paid Daphne, our extraordinary attendant who came faithfully and compassionately 30 hours a week. It was Medicaid that paid for Emma’s care over the years. As I have stated previously, Emma thought she was going to die like her mother at 72 of a stroke, so she spent all her money. Emma lived another quarter century. How we two would have survived without that Medicaid grant, I don’t know. I do know that a change in our American presidential administration this November would seek to eliminate that Medicaid grant, and then I’d have to buy private health insurance. With what? If I could afford that, I would have done it already.

I’m going to have to live at least another quarter century to pay off the expense of my recent $99 call to Alberta, Canada. I thought AT&T had made a mistake when I looked at my phone bill. The rep, named Johnny, who happened to be in India, told me international calls are $1.52 a minute because I do not have an international calling plan. “Just across the border into Canada?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “That’s unacceptable,” I replied. “Let me get you a supervisor,” he said.

The supervisor, Jason, who sounded like he was in the Philippines, said, “Well, now, as a one-time courtesy I can give you that call for fifty percent off if you sign up for our five-cent a minute international plan for five dollars a month.”

“Fine,” I said, “but why not simply re-price my Canadian call at five cents a minute when I agree to sign up for the International plan.”

“Oh, we can’t do that,” he said. He went on to tell me that should I quit AT&T within two months that half-priced call would revert to $99.

To reduce a long story by 50 percent, I will tell you I have signed up for a Comcast “triple play” package whereby in addition to my present Internet and TV cable service with them, I will get flat-rate, land-line phone service saving myself $20 a month and thus eliminate AT&T, my long-distance carrier, and Verizon, my local phone line carrier. When my phone line went dead recently due to a loose connection in the overhead wires and I used my emergency-only cell phone to call for repair, the woman customer care representative at Verizon replied to my complaint of being on hold for a half hour at 30 cents a minute, that I should not have used my cell phone but rather used a neighbor’s phone.

I went bike riding this morning.  I asked my friend R to find me a pre-owned 26-inch girls’ cruiser, the kind with the foot brakes and fat tires.  He did, for $20.  The bike is blue. He pumped up the tires and lowered the seat and I was off.  I didn’t go far; I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to walk when I de-biked – my first ride in about eight years.  A good way to shed, not pounds maybe, but years: riding with the wind in one’s hair is exhilarating.  Had our mailman looked at me when I rode past him, I would have suggested he get a bike, too.  I felt like I was 10 again.  Now I can go father than on my walks, and ride over by the lake; that will be pleasant, especially in the autumn with all the leaves turning red and gold.

—Samantha Mozart

It is said this house served as a Revolutionary War infirmary and a stop on the Underground Railroad.
At least 3 ghosts live here. Look closely at the 3rd floor windows.

September 21, 2012— A friend blogger commented on my “Our Town” blog post that I should have included some pictures. Why not? She writes a humor blog, “Lame Adventures” (http://lameadventures.wordpress.com/) about her town, New York City, with lots of pictures – iPad boxes of pens left on an apartment house lobby radiator, bags in trees, pigeons on office windowsills; so I wondered why I didn’t think of posting pictures to go with my blog about my town. (You don’t have to answer why I didn’t think. Moriarty, The Phantom of My Blog, goes around mumbling under his breath about that frequently enough. But, look, he’s the one who lost the keys and locked himself out on the blog balcony during a thunderstorm, not I.)

Anyway, here I have reissued this post now with pictures, so you can see what our charming town looks like – or used to before they chopped down the trees.

Pear Blossoms

September 15, 2012 — On a recent Sunday morning I started my day deadheading the roses and geraniums out front. My next-door neighbor was edging her sidewalk. The day was warm and sunny. Mike, the guy who lives up the street in the purple Victorian with the beautiful yard, walked by with his little grandson, now walking, when another neighbor, Brian, rode by hunched over on his son’s 20-inch bike.

“Hey Brian,” Mike called, “they make bigger bikes.”

All my neighbors out playing: it reminded me of junior high.

Restored 19th century opera house. Frederick Douglass spoke here.

Before deciding to buy this historic home in our central Delaware small town ten years ago, Emma and I drove down from Wilmington to see it a second time. We got to the historic district and then couldn’t find the house. We pulled up to ask directions of a guy raking his lawn. He smiled, leaned on his rake, and casually spent ten minutes describing the layout of the town and providing a choice of routes to get to the house. The house, it turned out, was just around the corner.

Our House, Emma & Jetta
Built 1894

I was drawn to the town by the historic charm of the red bricks, brackets, gargoyles and lace of the Colonials, Federals, Italianates and Queen Annes. I like to walk the historic brick sidewalks in the shade of grand old maples, walnuts, lindens and ginkos, smell the aroma of a boxwood garden behind a wrought iron fence or of sun baking well-seasoned wood on the side of an old red barn; I like to see vegetables springing up on a plot of land or flowers frolicking in a bed lining a wrap-around porch, while from porch rafters up and down the street wind chimes toll, ring, and titter in the breeze like a consortium of angels.

Italianate mansion with flying staircase and cupola.

We had no sooner moved in and just sat down at the dinner table that early September evening when a band paraded up the street playing a John Philip Sousa march. I leaped from the dinner table and raced out onto the porch. I was nine again.

“Oh, what a nice, family-oriented town,” I thought as they paraded by. “They have a marching band play for us at dinnertime.”

This 3-story mansion has a cupola, flying staircase, a library and stained glass.

Bearing flags, drums and horns, led by the drum major strutting with his baton, they were a troop of pied pipers drawing families onto their porches and sidewalks and followed by a host of helmeted kids on bikes. It turned out they are our Citizens’ Hose Company marching unit and band practicing for the annual Delaware Firemen’s Conference parade and competition held every September in our state capital, Dover. (That day is today.) The fire company has had a winning history of marching since their founding in 1886. The Citizens’ Hose Company band, founded in 1947, “have won more Governor’s Cups, for the best appearing fire company with music and 25 or more men in the line of march, than any other company in this state,” according to their website. They hold the record for the most consecutive wins – 10 in a row. They march in Dublin, Ireland and numerous cities and small towns along the East Coast. They won the Governor’s cup again this year.

Main Street

Our street.

After the parade, our volunteer firefighters cavalcade home commanding their amazing array of equipment – emergency vehicles and trucks, the hook and ladder, a water tanker, a vehicle for each imaginable emergency, it seems – up the highway from Dover, sirens wailing, big horns blaring. Then they celebrate all evening at the firehall with food, beer and dancing.

Sometimes bands from other countries, often Ireland, come to play and march, too.

Colonial-era building formerly housing the town newspaper. Kids set the building on fire. What they could salvage of the building has since been restored.

Well, the other night I was sitting on the front porch when, on the next street near the firehouse where the band was practicing marching, bagpipes started to play. The player was nimble fingered, too. I sat out on the porch under the guise of reading the town newspaper so I could hear the bagpipes. A new neighbor pulled up in his white and gray pickup and parked at the curb, a young guy. He rolled down the window, and instead of getting out, sat there. Coolly, I continued to read the paper, turning the pages, glancing over the top edge.

Gates designed by local architect Van Gaskin.

I was intrigued that this guy whom you’d expect to be listening to country or rock music or checking his text messages, sat there quietly.

I waited.

He looked over at me. “Do you hear that? What’s that? BAGPIPES?”

18th century St. Peter’s Church belfry may well house bats. Many townspeople have bats in their attics….

“Yep,” I said casually, smiling. Then I explained to him that they were practicing for the parade. “Pretty cool, huh,” I said.

“I’ve gotta go over there and see them,” he said and drove around the block.

***

There are plenty of family events year round in our town. In October there’s our autumn event celebrating our history, when kids paint pumpkins, play games and families enjoy fun festivities. In December our Main Street association has held a Holiday Candlelight Walking Tour of Historic Homes. I took the tour. In one home I settled into a warm 18th-century kitchen, engaged in camaraderie while sampling savory five-bean soup simmered in a kettle over a fire in a brick fireplace nearly big enough to convene the Continental Congress. The homeowner said, “They come back every year and the first thing they ask us is ‘Where’s the bean soup?’”

My friend Jackie’s store, “The Gathering Place.”

My first Christmas Eve in our town I stepped out onto our Victorian porch. The air was fresh and crisp and cold. Snowflakes began to fall, lacing the night sky and fastening to the brick sidewalks. Carolers came by in an old wagon, kindling hearts with song. Santa rode up the street in the back of a pickup, waving and calling “Me-r-r-y Christmas!” The sky wore whiskers of wood smoke curling from old chimney pots above the tall rooftops. “What a magical little town,” I thought, smiling, probably looking like an extra in the final scene of It’s a Wonderful Life.”

—Samantha Mozart

Blue Blizzard 2003

September 18, 2012 — You know, it is important to note for us Americans, that yesterday, September 17, marked important anniversaries of two significant moments in our history: The 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam (The bloodiest battle in our history – blood splashed everywhere, even on children, so many bodies it changed the way we buried people – in public cemeteries for the first time; the Sanitary Commission were beside themselves until they encountered all the dead horses, an even worse debacle.) Those conditions led to citizens dying of typhoid, as you might imagine. This bloodbath led to President Lincoln’s issuing the Emancipation Proclamation that year, 1862. In 1865, a sufficient number of states ratified the 13th amendment abolishing slavery; while Mississippi might have been fixin’ to ratify that amendment, they didn’t get around to it until March 16, 1995.

The other significant date is the 225th anniversary of the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1787.

I saw author and social historian Kathleen A. Ernst give a book presentation (on C-Span Book TV) at Sharpsburg/Antietam on her book, researched and written with Ted Alexander, Too Afraid to Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign. Enlightening. Unimaginable what those people endured. People who were children at the time later recounted many of the stories.

During the course of the Civil War 2.5 percent of Americans died. If they died today, that percentage would total 7 million people, one million fewer than the population of New York City.

Tonight PBS is airing a new Ric Burns documentary, “Death and the Civil War” (for “American Experience”), based on the book by Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust, coincidentally born Sepember 18, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.

And you thought my book titles were long, to wit: Begins the Night Music: A Dementia Caregiver’s Journal.

The essence here is suffering and the nature of the human condition.

And our social condition, as a friend put it: “The legal niceties of blame.”

We need to think much more about this, we humans; it is enough that there is so much suffering and not enough research funding and knowledge, but then to haul off and bomb embassies and wage wars … I don’t know. I prefer to read a good book.

—Samantha Mozart

September 15, 2012 — On a recent Sunday morning I started my day deadheading the roses and geraniums out front. My next-door neighbor was edging her sidewalk. The day was warm and sunny. Mike, the guy who lives up the street in the purple Victorian with the beautiful yard, walked by with his little grandson, now walking, when another neighbor, Brian, rode by hunched over on his son’s 20-inch bike.

“Hey Brian,” Mike called, “they make bigger bikes.”

All my neighbors out playing: it reminded me of junior high.

Before deciding to buy this historic home in our central Delaware small town ten years ago, Emma and I drove down from Wilmington to see it a second time. We got to the historic district and then couldn’t find the house. We pulled up to ask directions of a guy raking his lawn. He smiled, leaned on his rake, and casually spent ten minutes describing the layout of the town and providing a choice of routes to get to the house. The house, it turned out, was just around the corner.

I was drawn to the town by the historic charm of the red bricks, brackets, gargoyles and lace of the Colonials, Federals, Italianates and Queen Annes. I like to walk the historic brick sidewalks in the shade of grand old maples, walnuts, lindens and ginkos, smell the aroma of a boxwood garden behind a wrought iron fence or of sun baking well-seasoned wood on the side of an old red barn; I like to see vegetables springing up on a plot of land or flowers frolicking in a bed lining a wrap-around porch, while from porch rafters up and down the street wind chimes toll, ring, and titter in the breeze like a consortium of angels.

We had no sooner moved in and just sat down at the dinner table that early September evening when a band paraded up the street playing a John Philip Sousa march. I leaped from the dinner table and raced out onto the porch. I was nine again.

“Oh, what a nice, family-oriented town,” I thought as they paraded by. “They have a marching band play for us at dinnertime.”

Bearing flags, drums and horns, led by the drum major strutting with his baton, they were a troop of pied pipers drawing families onto their porches and sidewalks and followed by a host of helmeted kids on bikes. It turned out they are our Citizens’ Hose Company marching unit and band practicing for the annual Delaware Firemen’s Conference parade and competition held every September in our state capital, Dover. (That day is today.) The fire company has had a winning history of marching since their founding in 1886. The Citizens’ Hose Company band, founded in 1947, “have won more Governor’s Cups, for the best appearing fire company with music and 25 or more men in the line of march, than any other company in this state,” according to their website. They hold the record for the most consecutive wins – 10 in a row. They march in Dublin, Ireland and numerous cities and small towns along the East Coast. They won the Governor’s Cup again this year.

After the parade, our volunteer firefighters cavalcade home commanding their amazing array of equipment – emergency vehicles and trucks, the hook and ladder, a water tanker, a vehicle for each imaginable emergency, it seems – up the highway from Dover, sirens wailing, big horns blaring. Then they celebrate all evening at the firehall with food, beer and dancing.

Sometimes bands from other countries, often Ireland, come to play and march, too.

Well, the other night I was sitting on the front porch when, on the next street near the firehouse where the band was practicing marching, bagpipes started to play. The player was nimble fingered, too. I sat out on the porch under the guise of reading the town newspaper so I could hear the bagpipes. A new neighbor pulled up in his white and gray pickup and parked at the curb, a young guy. He rolled down the window, and instead of getting out, sat there. Coolly, I continued to read the paper, turning the pages, glancing over the top edge.

I was intrigued that this guy whom you’d expect to be listening to country or rock music or checking his text messages, sat there quietly.

I waited.

He looked over at me. “Do you hear that? What’s that? BAGPIPES?”

“Yep,” I said casually, smiling. Then I explained to him that they were practicing for the parade. “Pretty cool, huh,” I said.

“I’ve gotta go over there and see them,” he said and drove around the block.

***

There are plenty of family events year round in our town. In October there’s our autumn event celebrating our history, when kids paint pumpkins, play games and families enjoy fun festivities. In December our Main Street association has held a Holiday Candlelight Walking Tour of Historic Homes. I took the tour. In one home I settled into a warm 18th-century kitchen, engaged in camaraderie while sampling savory five-bean soup simmered in a kettle over a fire in a brick fireplace nearly big enough to convene the Continental Congress. The homeowner said, “They come back every year and the first thing they ask us is ‘Where’s the bean soup?’”

My first Christmas Eve in our town I stepped out onto our Victorian porch. The air was fresh and crisp and cold. Snowflakes began to fall, lacing the night sky and fastening to the brick sidewalks. Carolers came by in an old wagon, kindling hearts with song. Santa rode up the street in the back of a pickup, waving and calling “Me-r-r-y Christmas!” The sky wore whiskers of wood smoke curling from old chimney pots above the tall rooftops. “What a magical little town,” I thought, smiling, probably looking like an extra in the final scene of It’s a Wonderful Life.”

—Samantha Mozart

September 8, 2012 — Monday evening, September 3, at the top of the six o’clock hour, “The Robin’s Return,” a piano caprice, began to play on the radio. This was the piano piece Emma played by which I remember her at our black Steinway baby grand when I was a child. For three minutes Emma had returned to sit at the piano and play my favorite piece. This was an awakening moment, in a way I cannot explain. It was fitting that Steve Curylo, my newfound friend from Linkedin’s “Aficionados of Classical Music,” should air it on his radio show, Monday Evening Classics on Valley Free Radio, nine days before Emma’s September 12 birthday. She would have turned 98.

As he promised, Steve accessed the YouTube link on my blog home page with J. J. Sheridan performing Leander Fisher’s spirited arpeggio piece.

When the music ended, Steve, in his rich baritone, identified the composition and said that the link to that music had been sent to him by his friend Samantha Mozart: “Yes, that’s her name, Samantha Mozart,” because Samantha’s mother used to play it. He then announced, “Samantha Mozart has written a book titled Begins the Night Music, a book for caregivers about her caring for her mother who had dementia. He also recited a duo of reader comments about the book “lyrical and hard to put down,” said the book was based on my website, “Salmon Salad and Mozart dot com; that’s Salmon Salad and Mozart dot com.”

I was sitting in the kitchen eating my chicken breast and shiitake mushrooms in sherry listening to Steve’s radio show online at http://www.valleyfreeradio.org (non-profit, listener-supported radio, at 103.3 FM out of Northampton, Mass.) when it occurred to me that I was becoming known worldwide and I was the only one listening who knew me.

Steve deftly segued from Mozart, Samantha Mozart, to Chopin, Frederic Chopin. And, I, the book author, immediately thought of Kate Chopin, the book author, and, of course, the composer’s lover, George Sand, the book author. To me, Steve subliminally planted the connection in the minds of the listeners so they’d remember. This popular Chopin composition for piano and orchestra, “Grande Polonaise,” Steve said, took Chopin four years to compose. Ultimately Chopin added a piano part to the front, “Andante Spianato,” when he received a long-awaited invitation to perform in one of violinist François-Antoine Habeneck’s Conservatoire Concerts in Paris. Often when I am writing, something new will stir me — a piece of music, something someone said or I have read, an occurrence, and I will attach that story to my composition.

“Radio has long been known as a theater of the mind and it’s still that way whether you are listening to Led Zeppelin or a symphony,” said Steve Curylo in an interview for an August 30 Chicopee (Mass.) Register profile. “Something happens and people get an image in their mind.” (http://www.chicopeeregisteronline.com/pdfs/cr08.30.12.pdf)

Later in his radio show, Steve played a composition by Mozart, the Bassoon Concerto in Bb, K.191, which Mozart “put together,” Steve termed it, in 1774. Steve didn’t say “composed.” Again, as a writer, I relate to the term “put together.” Often I “put together” my compositions, especially within my blog posts (you may have noticed), paragraphs blended in rubato, such as in my previous chapter “Potato Chips.” (At least Chopin didn’t write an étude called “Potato Chips.” His “Grande Polonaise” of the potato chip genre would have to have been called “Party Size.”) Before the last half hour of his show, he (Steve, not Chopin) again announced my book. Wow.

While this promotion hopefully will fatten my purse sufficient to appease my mortgage holder, the root significance of the book promotion is the subject matter: More of us will live longer, possibly, thereby in review, making Emma’s age seem as tender as a spring chicken in her last days; presently, fifty percent of people over 90 have some form of dementia, states Nobel laureate neuropsychiatrist Dr. Eric Kandel; more boomers will be caring for loved ones with dementia; and, in fact, as a friend pointed out to me, younger boomers will be caring for older boomers; plus we need more funding for Alzheimer’s research.

While a prevalence of websites and books exist providing information on the stages of dementia and how-to information, significant to the subject of Begins the Night Music is how-not-to. The truth is that when you encounter a loved one in his or her incipient stages of dementia, while you may be annoyed at that person’s occasional behavior, you may not notice that behavior as signs of dementia. And as the mind subtly deteriorates, you, as most caregivers do, will fall backwards into caring for this person; you won’t realize you need help until you are in the deep end and you won’t know until you begin hiring how very long it takes to find good help, whether in-home or in a nursing home. By this time your own health is in jeopardy. Often, even with the best intentions, you will become frustrated and angry with the person for whom you are caring.

And, now … Lights Out, to quote American radio and television personality Frank Gallop from the ‘50s TV program taken from the ‘30s and ‘40s radio show. Blow out the candle. Yes, the night music begins. It is a dark song. It is a song to capture the attention of the curious, the scholarly, the enlightened. What more significant place for Steve Curylo to announce my book than in Northampton, Massachusetts, home of Smith, Amherst, and Mount Holyoke colleges, the University of Massachusetts Amherst as well as other schools of higher learning, and on Valley Free Radio across the Internet.

Steve Curylo loves classical music as do I. He is a classically trained baritone, having majored in opera. I may not have a radio show, but I have a blog: on how many blogs can you listen to selections of classical music? I leave you with Steve Curylo singing “It Is Enough” from Mendelssohn’s “Elijah”, an mp3 recording Steve sent me, from a recital he did on March 11, 2006, in Amherst. Jerry Noble, his accompanist is a staff pianist at Smith College.

Steve emailed me the story of Elijah; I’ve placed it below.

—Samantha Mozart

The story is found in I Kings 19. Elijah just won a great victory over the priests of the false god Baal on Mt. Carmel, and now he’s heard that the evil Queen Jezebel has a contract out on his life. So he flees into the wilderness and begs God to take his life rather than be killed by evil people. This is all in the music, it’s a great oratorio, for chorus, orchestra and four soloists, and Elijah is the baritone soloist!

August 28, 2012 — Looking at the length of the Roman numerals required to document this chapter title makes me wonder if these days Roman numerals become confused with text messaging shorthand; i.e., LMAOROTF. For example, the Roman numerals MDCCCLXXXVIII could mean “My darn creepy computer control left xenophobic Xavier’s xylophone vegetating in India ink” or 1888. This shorthand rolls a paragraph into one word, rendering the paragraph small. If I could write and communicate to your comprehension this way, my posts would be five words long, my books two pages – quick reads.

I had a catering business 25 (XXV) years ago. The predominant part of that was running executive lunch routes, meaning running around with a lunch cart – coolers and plastic storage trays stacked and affixed with a bungee cord to a luggage cart – selling sandwiches and salads to office workers.

I learned that by selling the little things, the snacks, I could achieve the biggest sales; i.e., potato chips, cookies, muffins, candy bars.

I became aware that it was the little things I did for my customers that reaped the biggest rewards – like extending IOUs until payday, taking an interest in the people, learning about their families, their jobs, that they grew up in some exotic place – like on Fiji picking pears from the king’s trees –, asking their opinions on current events, engaging in witty repartee: the exchange of information and ideas; this is what is most important. However I could, I gave them love, concern and support. It was easier that way; it came naturally to me. It is the support and love that yielded me the greatest return. I became wealthy in friendship, compassion and laughing out loud. I could not believe I was getting paid to have so much fun. In turn, on a day when I felt under the weather, my customers bolstered me. Sometimes I literally was under the weather when a rare Los Angeles downpour rendered me looking as if I’d just found their sandwiches and snacks while I was in the bathtub showering.

Now, years later, by posing a simple question this March to women writer caregivers on a Linkedin discussion board, I have discovered a cornucopian treasure of the most beautiful women friends. There exists a core group of us from around the world – South Africa, New Zealand, Germany, Canada, and across the United States. We are open to all, whoever wants to tell her story, and we listen and support unconditionally.

We are blown away by our phenomenal friendship. We are all of a certain age, old enough to be or have been caregivers. Some of us find ourselves in Act III of our lives, over 60. We have reached the age where we’ve come to realize that it is the little things that give life meaning, like cutting cabbages from a kitchen garden, a beloved dog curled up in a basket in front of a log fire, a warm kitty curled up on a tummy, having tea (read wine) with a friend, giving a talk to an Alzheimer’s group about our caregiving experiences, volunteering to help kids, listening to a beautiful classical music composition while scrubbing the kitchen floor or being inspired to write, as I do this story, by an extraordinary performance of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” with violins played by Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Shlomo Mintz, with Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic.

You haven’t heard “The Four Seasons” until you have heard this performance. This is not your usual marching along interpretation, but rather is played with rich sensitivity and expression. These musicians make you stop and listen. I find myself imagining Antonio Vivaldi sitting at his desk or with his violin under his chin, pen poised to paper, saying, “OK, it’s gonna sound like this.” Although, he’d be saying it in Italian, because I don’t think he spoke English. Nonetheless, music is written in Italian, so he was probably speaking Italian, if only to make it compatible. You’ll hear bits in this performance you haven’t heard before. It’s not listening to the same short passage over and over again, looped tight as a garrotte, as I have while waiting 20 minutes for a customer care representative to come on the line, and then witnessing that person randomly pulling cue cards from a small hat. The little things these musicians do make a big difference.

We women writer caregivers discuss everything from writing and caregiving, families and relatives, to the weather – temperature, Fahrenheit vs. Celsius – gardening and recipes. I have a computer application that converts Fahrenheit to Celsius, so I can accurately tell them how hot it is here today – 29.444 degrees Celsius. Recently, I offered to package up some of our Delaware humidity and ship it to my friend in Washington state. She said that while it was most generous of me to think of her, I need not go to all that trouble.

I follow a blog called Lame Adventures, as I have mentioned in previous chapters, written by a woman who lives in New York City and goes to her job every day to earn her “health insurance and a potato.” I credit her recent post and that of her fellow Canadian blogger LeClown for their exchange of ideas on smiley faces and emoticons inspiring my thought on little things and aging for this chapter: http://lameadventures.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/lame-adventure-333-a-brief-history-of-hollow/. She also emailed me a link to a TED talk Jane Fonda gave on aging and our third act, on women and their personal power. You can watch the video, download a podcast or download the text. I highly recommend it. In computer years, my computer is nearly as aged as I, hence does not have an Intel processor, so I could not download the latest Flash version to watch the video. I downloaded the latter two options. Jane Fonda also writes this text in her recent book, Prime Time. Here is the link to her talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_fonda_life_s_third_act.html#649000.

Before you think TED refers to Turner, I learned that TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to “ideas worth spreading.” TED started in 1984 as “a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design”. Conferences are held annually in Palm Springs and Long Beach, Calif., and Edinburgh, Scotland: http://www.ted.com/pages/about.

Jane Fonda states that females are born with personal power. We’re “feisty,” we have “agency,” she says. Then as we get older, we start worrying about fitting in and being popular, and later we become the subjects and objects of other people’s lives. Ultimately, if we live long enough, we reach our third acts. “Older women are the largest demographic in the world,” Fonda says. And I, personally, can vouch for some of them from around the world as my good friends. Each one of these women has realized her own personal power, each one is highly accomplished in her own right, and each one is overflowing with compassion.

I agree with Jane Fonda and with my women writer caregiver friends that one’s third act is the most fun – much to our surprise – and we think that is due largely to having learned we need not sweat the big stuff; whatever the obstacle is, we trust it soon will be resolved and we will get through one more thing one more time. This time is the most fun of my life, equivalent to when I was selling sandwiches; I am surrounded and supported by an abundance of good things, foremost among them richer, deeper friendships.

Therefore, I trust that my current financial dearth soon will be resolved, through my efforts and my friends’ moral and book-promoting support, that I will continue to find myself laughing out loud, and that I not find myself laughing beneath a bridge with the trolls.

Recently I joined a group on Linkedin called “Aficionados of Classical Music” and through a post that caught my attention, commented. The man who replied, Steve Curylo, lives in western Massachusetts, is an opera singer, a baritone, and has a classical music radio show every Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern time called Monday Evening Classics, on Valley Free Radio, at 103.3 FM in the Northampton area or online at http://www.valleyfreeradio.org. He is the one who recommended this Four Seasons performance I am listening to.

I listened Monday night to Steve’s radio show while eating dinner. It turns out Steve’s Uncle Walter had dementia, and music, as with Emma, was the last thing he recognized before he died.

Steve visited my blog. “I’m going to get something on the air next week about your new book, Begins the [Night] Music, on next week’s show,” he emailed me, “and thereafter, as an ongoing [Public Service Announcement] for your book. You deserve to be known and appreciated. And people around here in the Valley Free Radio listening area, especially the Five Colleges, and Northampton in particular, are very interested in such literature, and would probably react very favorably.” He’s going to announce Begins the Night Music next Monday and will continue through December 31, “which will bring it into the spotlight for the Holidays.”

He also really likes “The Robin’s Return,” he continued, and will open his program with it next week. “The Robin’s Return” piano piece was my favorite that Emma played, and that I feature here on the home page of my blog.

Am I blown away or what?!

Friends are planning to promote my book in many ways: at special events promoting themselves, to Alzheimer’s groups, donating copies to Alzheimer’s libraries; and my friend in New Zealand will write a review to be published in a New Zealand and an Australian magazine. Our Hospice chaplain emailed me a link today to a site Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, started for caregivers after caring for her mother: http://theconversationproject.org/. I submitted Emma’s and my story there today, promoting my book, too; hopefully the editors will publish it.

This is a most amazing time for me. Thank you, my friends, for the potato chips.

—Samantha Mozart

August 21, 2012 — This is a story difficult to write, because I find the situation humiliating. Nevertheless, I believe it must be told; it is the coda of caregiving for many caregivers, the ones who have sacrificed their lifestyles, their means of producing an income; indeed, everything that has gone before, to care for the one in need. It’s like you’re in a dark cave for the duration of your loved one’s suffering. You don’t get to go out into the world often, to socialize or shop, and you don’t have time to follow world and local news details. Moreover you’re old and getting older, most likely a senior citizen yourself.

Caregiving is a lonely business. When your loved one dies, caregiving does not end; your loved one goes away leaving you to clean up the fallout. Just as in the succeeding states of an illness, there exist succeeding states of caregiving. First there are the details of the funeral to attend to, then the death notifications, then the family feud over the deceased’s estate — in my case the quart bucket of money. Now there is the house, it’s mortgage. Emma left a life insurance policy, which paid her funeral expenses. That is all. Her Social Security and pension have ceased, meaning that I have lost two-thirds of the income required to pay the mortgage and the other household expenses. The house was in both our names, joint tenancy. Right outside my window inky, burping bank vultures hover, their wings arched, their red eyes glowering through the panes at me. The caregiving fallout must be dealt with alone. A solo performance is this coda.

While I was preoccupied working with the bank, I hadn’t noticed that the red berries are starting to appear on the North American dogwood outside my window. As I write this I watch a squirrel feasting on them, bouncing on the thin branches, as if on a seesaw.

The bank refuses to work with me. They blew me off. I tried a federal government Housing and Urban Development recommended nonprofit advocacy through which a very kind young man advocated for me with the bank. My only hope was to get reduced mortgage payments for six months (a forbearance) until my Begins the Night Music book sales plus other endeavors I implement – writing tutoring, writing workshops — produce enough income. Should I still fall short income at the end of the six months, then the plan would be to institute a mortgage modification, meaning a refinancing. No cigar.  My income wasn’t high enough.

I made the mistake of paying every cent I had towards the mortgage, leaving enough for food, heating oil and utilities; that payment equaled half the monthly mortgage installment. In one of a series of letters the bank has sent me, they stated that they cannot credit my account with a partial payment. I really needed that money. Did they return it? Of course not. They’re using it. I suspect it will be deposited into the escrow. Nonetheless, I am now a month behind. Someone suggested I skip one month and pay the next—too late now, then I’d be only one month behind rather than the two months I will be two weeks from now. The bank will begin foreclosure proceedings once two consecutive months of mortgage are not paid. Their stinky breath is smoking down the back of my neck.

I was able to through the state Department of Health and Social Services qualify for food stamps. Less humiliating than in the old days with all those coupons you had to tear out of books, these days you are issued a debit card. This one has a pretty photograph of the Delaware Bay marshes on it; it looks like one of the photos I have taken.

I also qualified to have my $105 Medicare Part B deduction from my monthly Social Security check paid for by Medicaid, as well as the $250 deductible.

But these benefits are not just dropped in your lap. You have to deal with the Social Services petty tyrants who cloud you with confused information and are required to undergo bully training as part of their hiring process. For example, the DHSS supervisor informed me that under no circumstances was I to refer to the two young women behind the reception area window – no doubt bullet proof – as girls. I was to refer to them as ladies. As for this supervisor, I was not to call her by her first name, rather to call her Ms. – Ms. Pretentious: “I am calling you Ms.,” she pointed out. I wanted to tell her that it was OK that she call me by my first name; I was not so lacking in self-esteem. But I stopped short: they’d put me in one of the state institutions and then I wouldn’t have to worry about keeping this house.

It’s a shame. This is a nice old Victorian house. It is a happy, friendly, kind, sheltering house. It has good vibrations, quartering friendly spirits. It has been good to me.

I love sitting out on the front porch in the summer beneath the walnut tree growing in my flowerbed there. This is the fourth walnut tree that has grown in that bed. The squirrels exchange my tulip bulbs for walnuts. I have planted one of those trees in my backyard; it is happy, graceful and beautiful back there. I gave another to our Hospice nurse, Tess, for she owns a large property with a woods. The third tree I donated last year to St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Delaware, the setting of the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society. If they make another movie there, you’ll see my tree. This year’s tree I don’t know what to do with yet, but come November when it goes dormant it is going to have to find another home; and I am not going to destroy it: it is a beautiful tree, about 10 feet tall, reaching above the rain gutter. Hopefully it will leave this house before I do.

—Samantha Mozart

August 12, 2012  — I have published my book Begins the Night Music in paperback. It has been a difficult birth suffering prolonged labor; but my offspring is out on the world market now.

You can buy it by clicking right here on my blog or through amazon.com. Begins the Night Music: A Dementia Caregiver’s Journal, Volume I, was published in paperback August 2 – a Leo, for those of you so inclined astrologically – and is available in paperback and Kindle e-book format. It is also available at Barnes & Noble.

Now I must get to work on Volume II: To What Green Altar.

I apologize for the long delay between posts here. You probably think I was on a cultural tour of Italy, gazing upon gondolas gliding along a canal from some Venetian loggia; visiting Dante Alighieri’s house in Florence; ingesting culinary lessons in Tuscany and Umbria; dining on olives, tomatoes, prosciutto and provolone garnished with sprigs of basil, while idly swirling red wine to coat the insides of my glass and watching white sails hobnobbing among sparkling blue Mediterranean swells; or had dropped by to visit George Clooney for a fortnight.

Alas, this has not been the scenario. Moriarty, the Phantom of My Blog, went out to water the geraniums hanging on our blog third-story balcony and the glass door slid shut behind him and locked. The keys were inside. He called me from his cell phone, which, fortunately, he carried in his pocket; but I couldn’t get in because I had given him my keys to go water the plants. He had his own set but he lost them, so if any plagiarism of my blog’s work appears elsewhere on the Internet, it is because someone picked up the Phantom’s keys – and that was the only other set.

Ultimately I had to call the fire company to come get him down, but not before the thunderstorm came and dumped buckets of water everywhere. I then had to show the authorities all kinds of ID to prove that I, in fact, wasn’t breaking into my own blog, so that they could let me in and I could rescue my keys. This took several days because I don’t have a passport and when they tried to identify me by matching me with the size of the clothes hanging in my closet, they didn’t believe me when I told them the clothes shrank right there on the hangers; and the fire fighters were elsewhere putting out fires. Anyway, I’ve had a second set of keys made.

Begins the Night Music tells the first part of Emma’s and my journey into the darkening of her mind. The book also includes a few recipes (not learned in Tuscany) and some humorous essays to lighten the atmosphere.

So, if you haven’t seen my baby, it has arrived. I humbly thank my dear friends and family for purchasing not only copies for themselves but also for friends, libraries and Alzheimer’s groups. I am truly heartened and touched by these gestures.

Thank you.

—Samantha Mozart

July 29, 2012  — I entered my blog. The metal security door clanged shut behind me. Loud music blared throughout, reverberating off the walls, catwalks and even down from the cupola: Puccini’s “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta,” “The beautiful dream of Doretta” from La Rondine, “The Sparrow.” Someone was singing – the Phantom: “Come eat salad under an umbrella,” he sang off-key, at the top of his lungs, his interpretation of the Italian.

I found him. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Why is the music so loud?

“I salute the insincerity of others,” he proclaimed, thrusting his half-opened hand into the air, as if in effort to remix his plight. “So much for trust and a dream.”

And, then, unexpectedly, he sobbed a shuddering sob.

“Ohhh, what happened?” I asked, and I reached to put my arm around him, but he stepped away, in a kind of a cowering move.

He lifted his head. “I had a friend,” he replied. “We have a rapport, like kindred spirits,” he began. “Or so I thought. We have engaged in a few deep and meaningful discussions recently on matters regarding the human spirit, the human condition. She gave me some reading and told me to contact her when I finished and we’d talk. I did and she never responded to my email.

“Even people like that can be insincere,” he went on. “Superficial. Like a Valley girl. Was she on mood elevators, do you think, or what?”

“Come. Sit,” I said. “I’ve just prepared dinner. Share it with me. We can’t let you become a hungry ghost.” I poured us some wine, a red velvety blend that held a hint of chocolate.

I set our plates before us. We sat opposite each other at the table.

“Not only that,” he said, flaking off a piece of baked wild salmon and lifting it on his fork. He held it midair, as if loaded on a cherry picker. “There are your long-time friends who said they would create the graphics for your paperback book cover, the story of our work here, and after a month, put new, higher-paying jobs first, and then had the gall to say, ‘You didn’t expect your book to sell that many copies, did you? It’s not like you have anybody waiting for it, have you?’

“And then your brother when Emma’s life insurance money came in, divided between you two as beneficiaries — after her former employer’s contracted human resources company dropped the ball for a month, finally telling you it got lost in cyberspace — your brother telling you, then, that he was keeping his half, even though you had told him that the life insurance funds were designated to pay Emma’s funeral expenses.

“I don’t know how you do it,” he said. “What keeps you going?” He swung the fork to his waiting mouth.

“I was stunned,” I replied. “How could my brother, of all people do this? Well, my brother thought about it overnight and decided to pay. It wasn’t his money; it was Emma’s and she paid into it all her life, from the time she was hired by that company in the nineteen fifties until the day she died, just to pay her funeral expenses. Had my brother not reconsidered, at my age I would have been in debt for that five thousand dollars, his half, for the rest of my life.

“I couldn’t be angry,” I went on. “I could only wonder what I had done somewhere in my lifetimes to accrue this karma. I thought, ‘This may have been the last conversation I will ever have with my brother.’”

I reached for another leaf off my artichoke. The artichoke resembled an ottoman. I had whittled the leaves off of it, dipped in olive oil, lemon juice, butter and garlic, and it was low and cushy with a high, pointy center. The tips of some of the leaves were tinted a rich purple, so my artichoke ottoman was multicolored.

“I thought of my friends’ karma and my brother’s karma, and I thought woe are they.”

“Good for you,” he said. With his knife he bulldozed the basmati rice into a heap on his fork, swishing it upwards with a flourish and into his mouth. He grabbed the stem of his wine glass with his other hand and inhaled as he took a draft of the mellow stuff. He looked into my eyes as I spoke.

“But, then I thought, what about my karma? How does this affect me? How am I supposed to work together with my friends and my brother to grow yet again spiritually, after all these years of caring for Emma and all the rope ends I dropped from.”

“Yes, and what did you come up with?” he asked, reaching for the wine bottle and filling his glass halfway.

“Patience,” I said. “I could not allow myself to be angry. I just had to accept the situation, love them for who they are and where they are in their own evolution and go on my way with mine. If I had to deal with creditors and bill collectors and judgments for the rest of my life, then I must, I thought. I didn’t know what else to think at that point. It was like letting go of the end of yet another rope.”

He took a deep draft from his glass. He emptied it and poured himself more. I was glad I had an extra bottle on hand.

“And, then, fortunately, the next day, after my sleepless night, my brother came through.”

“For you, good, he came through,” he said. He peeled off two leaves from the artichoke, scooped them through the liquid dip, lifted them to his mouth and pulled off the meat, leaving teeth marks, like tire tracks across a tender lawn, on the green and tossed them into the bowl I had placed in the center of the table for spent leaves.

“And, for me?”

“Well, maybe as I have thought for my two friends,” I said. “Should they contact me again, I will tell them they need contact others whom they hold in higher esteem than they do me, and bid them go well, with love. Unless your friend comes through with a viable reason for not responding sooner, if I were you, I should do the same.”

He pushed his chair back, laying his napkin on the table. “Come,” he said.

I got up and followed him. We climbed to the upper levels of my blog and from there up the winding staircase with the peeling painted walls to the cupola.

We stood side by side before the windows. “You have to assume you may never hear from her again,” I told him. “Cut the ties of the attachment. It’s liberating, like a breath of fresh air.” I opened a window. The aroma of the sweet summer grass wafted up to us.

“Look,” he said, and pointed.

There across the meadow stood the blue deer. The deer’s head was down, submerged in the tall reeds down by the stream. It was foraging for food, it’s dinner. It did not look up.

“It’s doing what deer do,” said the Phantom, and he began to hum.

Twilight came, wrapping us in a mantle of indigo. A near full moon rose in a gauzy haze above the trees lining the far side of the stream. A distant airplane, its landing lights yellow in the haze, cut across the moon’s path, just beneath it.

Then he sang softly the words, “Sing for me. Sing for me. In the beautiful dream of Moriarty, I sing for myself.”

—Samantha Mozart

July 14, 2012 — You have not loved someone until you make love all night to “Nights in White Satin,” the Moody Blues’ song; until you read pages of lyric prose to each other from the great classic novels; until you spontaneously drink long and deep from each other’s eyes; until you awaken in the middle of the night, lips wet from a dream kiss. This passage is an ode to a friend.

I saw the leaves beginning to change color as I gazed upon the trees lining the road stretching ahead, when at my age I began caring for Emma. I faced then my barren chances to encounter amid the fallen leaves of my life this kind of love again.

Other kinds of love exist. That of caregiving is one.

The most stressful aspect of caregiving is that of dealing with the healthcare agencies and the healthcare aides they send out. I have said this before. So often, in caring for Emma, I was groping around in the dark. I stumbled often. Emma simply fell: I ran and got neighbors to help pick her up. I, the unpaid sole caregiver, often found no response of help from state and healthcare agencies. There were days when I told healthcare aides to leave and never come back, days when the aides left Emma alone for hours without telling me.

Today what I did then seems like a dream. I reflected on this with my Hospice chaplain when she visited two days ago. At the same time a friend in my Linkedin women writers caregivers discussion group told us that presently her problems taking care of her momma were compounded by the healthcare agency and the caregiver they sent to work with her.

My Hospice chaplain reminded me of the role I have played throughout my lost decade: “You are the Lion at the Gate,” she said. Right. As caregiver you don’t think of that all the time when you are in the middle of it, but you are. There is no time to relax, you are constantly on guard, constantly deflecting, correcting, reorganizing, constantly on the phone sharing pieces of your mind; I constantly had to listen to the sing-songy, “Well, now, Samantha … you have to understand that — blah, blah, blah.”

I told this to my discussion group. I was overwhelmed with their response.

One, a social worker who just completed a book with three colleagues on the history of caregiving, said, “We’ve put in every chapter of our book that professionals MUST listen to carers, they are the experts. And you’ve just put that in a nutshell. I think that is a brilliant piece of reflection and a real teaching tool.”

Another, in Canada, said, “Like wow! That’s the kind of thing needed everywhere. We caregivers are always expected to do it all for free and yet other people were paid pretty good money to look after my parents.”

The social worker, who lives in New Zealand, is collaborating on a new book with a woman who united two major movements in the United Kingdom thirty years ago, one of which is The National Association for Distressed Gentlewomen. Don’t you just love that one?! A story on the history of the carers’ movement in the UK tells of a woman forced to give up work to care for her father, finding herself in financial straits because of it. She began to connect with other women and local members of parliament. Is this not I, my history? I have been thinking lately of how to connect here with our United States Congress in the capacity of caregiver advocate.

Another story, coming via my social worker friend quoting Tim Cook tells of The Reverend Mary Webster who gave up her work as a Congregational minister in 1954 when she was 31: “In January 1963 she burst upon the public with her proposal for helping unmarried women with dependants. The charity she was to found, The National Council for the Single Woman and her Dependants, was not formally instituted until 18th November 1965. What is breathtaking,” my social worker friend continues, “is the sheer amount of publicity she generated in the early months of 1963,” she and her cause being heretofore unknown. She recognized the value of a sound bite “describing a single woman caring at home as ‘under house arrest’”. Tim Cook published this history of carers on Carers UK in October 2007.

My social worker friend suggested ways to found and publicize advocacies: “Join local and national Carers’ Associations, for one answer. Set up own group through local hospital? which is what we did in the late 1980s. Blog, as we are doing? Advertise, local newspaper. BUT all these things take energy, which caregivers don’t have!” Just exactly. So, now that Emma is gone, she enables me to continue my caregiving through advocacy.

My New Zealand social worker friend referred us women caregivers in our discussion group to Carers UK, a caregivers’ advocacy [many such organizations exist here in the U.S. and worldwide], who reported on their website on a caregiver income bill introduced before parliament, stating “Significant proportions of disabled people feel they can work and analysis in 2010 found that supporting social care users to access paid employment could generate earnings of up to £800 million [$1.246 million] each year, a reduction in benefits spending of £300 million [$467 million] (as well as extra income from tax and National Insurance). Research last month from Age UK showed that the cost to the Government of carers being forced to give up work to care had reached £5.3 billion [$8.253 billion] in lost tax revenues, lost earnings and increased benefit payments.” –Got that? Lost tax revenues. Plus, of course, these unpaid, unemployed caregivers can’t go shopping: they can’t get out of the house, most likely (under house arrest), and even if they could they’d have no money to spend to bolster the economy.

Also, Carers UK report that it is known that carers take a long time to identify themselves —I did: it took a friend to tell me that I was a caregiver and I needed to find help —25 percent took five or more years to recognize themselves. “By placing duties on health and education bodies,” Carers UK states, “the Bill would speed up the identification of carers and allow help and support to be made available earlier.”

“Plan B” Carers UK reports, “—a private pension plan — because you can deduct half of all pension savings from your earnings too.” Wow! Just look at all the benefits my daughter will receive when she cares for me if we enact such a law here in the U.S. I’m just sayin’.

I step down off my soapbox this time without Oscar Wilde stepping in to polish my expoundings. But, then, I turn and there he is.

“Oh, it’s you,” I say.

“I cannot deny it,” he replies. And then he points out my use of too many adjectives.

Declares our Canadian discussion group member, “Whut! I didn’t know that a woman could have too many adjectives, too much chocolate or too many shoes.”

—Samantha Mozart

Here She Comes
The Maggie at the End of the Workday

The Maggie S. Myers Coming Through the Cut from the Delaware Bay to the Murderkill River Where She Is Berthed.

July 7, 2012 — I spent the evening of July Fourth out on my friends’ 119-year-old oyster schooner, the Maggie S. Myers, under sail on the Delaware Bay off Bowers Beach, Del., eating, listening to acoustic guitar music and watching the fireworks along the coast.

Maggie Coming Through the Cut

Our friends Jean Friend and Frank “Thumper” Eicherly IV, who own the Maggie, invite a group of us out each year to enjoy the camaraderie and celebrate our nation’s independence. Last year someone on shore ended the evening by setting off Chinese lanterns, hundreds of them, that floated in the dark over the bay like spirit flames.

Freedom Flag Unfurled

My friend Robert Price, http://www.etsy.com/shop/assemblage333 shot these photos of our event this year. With his camera he created a beautiful documentation of the night.

Along Bowers Beach — Anticipation of the Show

Jean and Thumper bought the Maggie fourteen years ago, rescuing her when her former owner was about to beach her, and since have sunk tens of thousands of dollars into her each year, maintaining her and lovingly restoring her, in 2004 restoring one of her masts.

Maggie Moored Before the Cruise with the Flag Atop Her High Mast

The Maggie S. Myers was built as a two-masted Delaware Bay oyster-dredge schooner in Bridgeton, N.J., and commissioned in 1893. She is 50 feet long and 18 feet wide. The 24.62 ton schooner can carry her weight in oysters. She is listed on the National Historic Register.

Maggie Unmoored on the Murderkill
Coming to Get Us at the Public Dock

The Maggie has never been out of commission. Thumper and crew work her nearly daily on the bay dredging for conch, blue crabs and oysters. She is believed to be the oldest, continuously-working oyster schooner under sail in the United States. She is living history.

Freshly Painted Lady

“She’s low to the water and dredges by hand,” Thumper rhapsodizes. “She turns on a song, like a snow goose flying around in the air.” I can tell you his claim is true; I piloted her briefly up the serpentine Cohansey River in New Jersey that early morning in 2004 on the way to the boatyard to restore her mast.

At Dock Ready for Boarding

This July Fourth night it was hot out on the boat, but far more pleasant on the water than on land, with a light breeze, the water like glass. A guy with a house on the beach, and apparently money to burn, buys and shoots off fireworks every year. They go on for over an hour. Simultaneously, someone nearby again this year set off Chinese lanterns. The fireworks go on longer than displays in local cities. They are beautiful, too. Deep blues and golds and some purple along with the standard colors. People build big bonfires all along the beach. Someone on shore set off a couple of red rocket type fireworks that sailed right over the boat — over, thankfully. We were getting ready to jump. Awestruck on seeing them, I stepped back from the gunwale, stood between Jean and Thumper and said, “‘The rockets’ red glare’ springs to mind.”

Flower Child Captain Frank Eicherly IV

We had been out on the water in the dark for a couple of hours, when a swimmer was spotted swimming the distance from shore to the boat. “Did we forget someone?” asked Jean.

Holiday Decorated Wheelhouse.
Work Table Laid with Holiday Fare.

“Throw me the ring!” he yelled. He was yet about 25 feet from the boat.

Sailing into the Sun

“He’s nuts!” said Jean in her deep, raspy voice.

Landlubbers Party Hearty

Thumper tossed out the life preserver. The crew hauled the swimmer aboard. He was J.T., another crewmember. He had hurt himself somehow and was in pain.

Marker 7
At the Mouth of the Murderkill

He ate, said “See ya later,” then jumped back overboard and swam to shore wearing a life jacket — hard to swim that way, but at least he wouldn’t tire and drown.

As the Earth Spins

The Maggie’s deck was laid with two Oriental rugs. Tables were laid with food. Jean supplies some of it and guests bring some. Thumper pilots the Maggie from her berth up the creek and brings her to the public dock for us to board.

Crew Looks to the West

At dock in the creek, we have to climb down a ladder (just a household four-step ladder that you would stand on to paint the walls or hang the flag from the porch roof beam) folded and leaning steeply against the gunwale and dock piling — you climb down frontwards, placing your feet on the back edge of the treads of the closed ladder, with two crew members, one on each side of you, firmly holding your hands, supporting you over the foot of black water space between the dock and the boat.

“Sing for Me”
Lonnie Fields, Delmarva Friends of Folk Member
Host of the Annual October Delmarva Folk Festival on His Farm

In order for Maggie’s five-foot draft to make it through the cut from the creek to the bay, we have to start as the tide is coming in and then return at high tide. The cut is silted in because new high-roller residents have built houses and dumped more sand on the beach.

Wheelhouse Paraphernalia

After we ate and watched the fireworks two of the guys, members of Delmarva Friends of Folk, sat at the bow, played their guitars and sang the blues for us. There in the dark, a light breeze came up and a shoal of black mackerel clouds etched in silver light traveled across the full moon.

At the Helm: Captain Frank “Thumper” Eicherly

We were under sail much of the time, but barely moved since there was little breeze. Thumper used the engine to move us around.

“Masthead” — Jean Friend, Captain Thumper’s Wife

At the end of the evening, back at dock, we jumped down about three feet onto land. Crewmembers once again held both our hands to steady us.

“Garden of Jean” — Jean’s & Thumper’s House

What a wonderful, very special time. A very special annual event Jean and Thumper provide for us.

The Conch Chimney That Thumper Built

We never did find the apple pie, however, that the friends I rode with brought and carried aboard.

—Samantha Mozart

High Tide at Bowers

At the End of the Day
Working Maggie Unloading Blue Crabs