Looking Back: 2019 Top Stories

January 5, 2020January 10, 2020 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

My personal Top 3 and favorite Top 3 from others

In response to Daryl Bruce’s Top 3 prompt, I took on the challenge of picking three of my own stories that I’m proudest of and selecting three favorites from among many by my fellow writers. After much consideration, here’s what stood out to me in 2019.

My Personal Top 3

Smokescreen

An essay about moving past my strained relationship with my father, Smokescreen was my first piece to be accepted by a literary journal outside of Medium and opened the door to publishing regularly on Medium. I shared Smokescreen in a creative nonfiction Facebook group and was invited to publish it in Indelible Ink on Medium.

The essay was curated in Family, and I received numerous comments about how the piece resonated with readers. Its publication was the permission I’d been waiting for to embrace my identity as a creative writer. It boosted my self-confidence and is the piece I come back to when my confidence begins to wane.

Altered Perceptions

After Smokescreen’s positive reception on Medium, I began to comb through writing exercises completed for various classes and workshops I’ve taken. Altered Perceptions, about my husband’s humorous first kayaking experience, began as an exercise in description. While the story itself is fine — my husband gets disoriented and thinks he’s floating downriver when he’s twenty yards in front of the dock where I stand — it needed something more. There was a lesson in there somewhere, and thus Altered Perceptions was born.

What’s special to me about this piece is that it showed me how I can take existing material and weave a bigger story around it. As I learned in a recent course on story structure, there should always be a top story (my husband’s experience) and a bottom story (perceptions can be misleading).

When Loss Becomes Part of Us

I’ve always used writing to work through my feelings, but When Loss Becomes Part of Us was the first time I had written about how I process emotions, specifically grief. I was shocked by the reception this essay received. It was curated in Family and Mental Health, and many readers commented about their own experiences with grief.

Like Smokescreen, this essay resonated with readers, and a few thanked me for sharing the concept of absorbing grief into our emotional tapestry as an alternative to the idea of “moving on” from grief. Both essays showed me how being vulnerable on the page is a form of therapy and a way to foster deeper connections with readers.

My Top 3 by Other Writers

It’s Okay to Have Multiple Identities

I wrote about this one in my November Top 3 article. Because understanding this concept is important to our self-esteem and sense of well-being, I wanted to share it again. Niklas Göke discusses the theory of identity negotiation, proposed by sociologist Erving Goffman. In each of our various relationships, we adopt a slightly different identity, one shaped by the roles we play in each relationship.

When we understand it’s natural to feel like a different person in different situations, that we actually should feel a little different depending on the relationship, we stop trying to be all things to all people. If we are comfortable with these roles, fulfilling them can enhance our connections with others.

You Are Who You Think You Are: How Your Identity Shapes Your Life

I’m always inspired by Ayodeji Awosika’s advice for living authentically. Keeping with the theme of identity, this article explores how the negative stories we tell ourselves about ourselves keep us stuck. He draws on Carol Dweck’s work on mindset to describe how he used personal narrative, the things we say and believe about ourselves, to transform his perception of himself from lazy to motivated and productive.

Awosika invites readers to challenge the stories we tell ourselves and literally re-write them through a series of steps that first identify such stories and then turn them around from “I am” statements, such as “I’m lazy,” to “I’m working on” statements, such as “I’m working on being more productive.” This article has the potential for profound transformation if you find yourself mired in negative self-perception.

I Watched My Husband Die and Come to Life in a Single Day

This stunning personal essay by Karie Fugett had me in tears by the end. Fugett takes us through the nightmare of watching her husband’s escalating addiction to opioids. A young war veteran, he suffered an injury on the battlefield that led to an amputated leg, an onslaught of pain medications, a near overdose, and the fatal overdose of a friend.

Fugett’s essay is both an indictment of health care for veterans, highlighting the growing rates of veterans addicted to prescribed opioids and their elevated risk of overdose, and a deeply personal journey that brings the reader into her world. This is an important essay for understanding the severity of the opioid epidemic among veterans and is a piece worth studying for the craft of creative nonfiction.

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Watergate Salad

December 18, 2019December 29, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

Green, sugary goodness that memories are made of

As I pull the mixing blade from the bowl, a white peak covers the top like the final upward swirl of a soft-serve ice cream cone. The mixture of heavy cream, sugar, and dash of vanilla is whipped to perfection. My husband suggested this modification to my mother’s recipe, and he was right. Cool Whip pales in comparison to homemade.

The thing I remember most about childhood holiday dinners isn’t the pumpkin pie or the leftover turkey sandwiches we ate later in the evening or anything else you might expect. What has stayed with me over the years is an odd, fluffy green “salad” with a mysterious name.

Watergate salad. It’s not a salad at all, but my family ate it with our dinner, and my mother and I scooped more of the green goodness alongside our pumpkin pie.

I tear open a packet of instant pistachio pudding mix and watch the powder spill like a waterfall into the bowl. The mixing blade transforms the snowy white landscape of whipped cream into a mint-green wonderland. The cats come running when they hear the tab pop on a can of crushed pineapple and scatter when greeted by the spray bottle.

Peeling back the lid, I inhale the fruit’s sweet tropical smell and for a moment, I’m back in Mexico where my husband and I vacationed last year. Four years after my mother’s unexpected death.

To say my mom could be difficult is an understatement, especially during my childhood when her undiagnosed mental illness was at its worst. But we survived it, our relationship growing stronger as the years went by, and I expected to have many more years to make up for the problems of the past.

I shake my head and come back to the kitchen, dumping the pineapple, nectar and all, into the bowl. Stirring, dashes of yellow peek through the green fluff like Christmas lights strung through winter’s bare branches. I remember the fit my mother threw one year when the Christmas tree shed a particularly dense trail of needles as my father and brother dragged it inside.

A bag of chopped pecans crinkles like tinsel when I remove the rubber band holding it closed, attracting the cats once again. Another squirt of the spray bottle before adding the nuts and miniature marshmallows to the bowl. A few turns of the spatula complete the concoction, and I slide it onto the refrigerator shelf to chill.

Growing up with Watergate salad at holiday dinners made me think it was something everyone ate. But as an adult, when I showed up at potlucks and revealed my fluffy green concoction, people were amazed. They didn’t want to like it after I told them the ingredients.

Once considered a “fun food” with its space-agey instant gelatin (developed at the turn of the century) and exotic instant pistachio pudding (introduced by Jell-O in the mid-’70s), Watergate salad’s status plummeted thanks to modern-day concerns over sugar and fats. Susan Benjamin, a sugar and sweets historian, says it’s now considered a “lower-class food,” a dish those with more refined tastes and close attention to diet would snub their noses at.

After my friends tried it, though, they couldn’t get enough, not of the green goop on their spoon nor of speculation as to where it got its name. We conjured theories of its origins but were never certain.

Since no one in Oklahoma seemed to know of Watergate salad, I thought it was a Midwestern thing, my mother bringing the recipe with her when my family moved from Iowa to Oklahoma before I was born. But I’m the one who pre-dates Watergate salad by a few years.

The recipe, known officially as Pineapple Pistachio Delight and more affectionately as Pistachio Fluff, Green Fluff, and Green Goop, was printed in newspapers across the country after its creation in 1976 (or 1975 depending on the source). The name change is believed, at least by the recipe’s creator Kraft Kitchens, to have emerged from a Chicago food editor as a snazzier, attention-grabbing name given the Watergate scandal was still a hot topic of conversation.

Others believe the name came from the recipe’s predecessor, Watergate cake, an oddly green-tinted cake with pistachio pudding and a heaping pile of pecans mixed in with the batter and frosting. As to where the cake got its name, theories abound.

Some believe the name came from the sheer amount of nuts in the cake, reflecting the “nuts” in D.C. at the time of Watergate, or that the cake, like the salad, had a cover-up. The whipped cream in the salad hides most of the ingredients. As far as a connection to the Watergate hotel, which has been proposed, there is no evidence of the cake or the salad ever gracing the plates of hotel guests.

I envision my mother finding the recipe in the newspaper or maybe printed on the side of a box of instant pistachio pudding. Her mouth waters as she imagines what it tastes like, a dish to satisfy her sweet tooth during holiday dinners. And in that moment, a tradition was born.

I insist on making Watergate salad every Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s something good and sweet that I enjoyed as a child. A connection to happier moments with my mother, watching her reach for the green fluff before anything else on her plate. Watching my child self do the same.

For me, Watergate salad is more than a dish from a bygone era. It’s a memory I will always hold on to. A ritual I will always honor.

Recipe for Watergate Salad —
Whipped cream (9 oz. Cool Whip or make your own*)
1 (3.4-ounce) box instant pistachio pudding
1 (20-ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained
1 cup miniature marshmallows
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Mix pudding into whipped cream. Add remaining ingredients.
Chill before serving. *I use 1 pint of heavy cream.

Thank you for reading. If you liked this, you might enjoy –

View at Medium.com

Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on December 18, 2019.

Who Are You, Really?

November 4, 2019November 4, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

Three writers on identity and the challenges of being yourself

“In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.” — Erik Erikson

Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered who that person was staring back at you? If so, you’re not alone. As three writers on Medium discuss, discovering who we are is more complex than looking in the mirror.

It’s Okay to Have Multiple Identities

I am a wife, sister, aunt, daughter, niece, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, friend, dog-and-cat mom, therapy dog handler, employee, consultant, instructor, and possibly a few others I’m forgetting. In each of these roles, I am a slightly different person. In essence, these roles are constructed through an implicit agreement with the people on the other side, whether they be parents, siblings, spouses, friends, bosses or any number of other people with whom we share some type of relationship.

As Niklas Göke explains, this construction is known as “identity negotiation,” a theory developed by sociologist Erving Goffman. Goffman proposed that we adopt particular identities in response to our various relationships, as each comes with its own “mutually agreed-upon, identity-based code of conduct.”

Through this process of identity negotiation, we can feel like different people in different situations. This is natural given that it’s impossible to be all things to all people. Göke shares research pointing to the protective factor of identity negotiation. By fulfilling certain roles in certain situations, we may feel more connected to others and experience a greater sense of meaning in our lives. But first, we must be comfortable in our roles.

When we try to change who we are to please other people, to take on the identity they’d prefer we have, the protective factor gives way to potential conflict, namely within ourselves. Identity negotiation doesn’t imply willing participation in a role that violates who we perceive ourselves to be at our core.

The Lifelong Struggle To Be Yourself

Who we are beneath all the roles we play can be difficult to discern. As Larry G. Maguire explains, the question of what it means to be ourselves can be difficult to answer given the familial and social pressures to be a certain way. For example, Maguire asks us to consider the clothes and toys parents buy for their children or the TV shows they allow them to watch. Those small choices can influence how individual identities form.

The effect spills over into school and society at large. Think about school kids and the pressure to “fit in,” which doesn’t end with high school. We’re barraged with advertisements selling products designed to make us somehow better than we are now. Whether it’s a luxury car or shampoo that removes the gray, we are led to believe that using these products will change us and how others see us.

We are shaped by forces external to us, but as Maguire writes —

“…beneath these outer layers of personal identity, there is something subtle, quiet, and unidentifiable.”

What he calls the “creative self” is juxtaposed against the “ideological self,” the person we try to be to please others. Quoting George Bernard Shaw, Maguire encourages us to focus less on the search to find ourselves and more on the opportunity to create ourselves.

The Masks We Wear (Or Should)

How do we go about creating ourselves when we’re not sure who we really are? Alecia Kennedy asks us to consider how masks can help us both find and express who we are at our core.

While the idea of wearing a mask is often associated with trying to be someone we’re not, Kennedy presents a different way of looking at masks, ala the TV show, “The Masked Singer.” Contestants are celebrities dressed in outrageous costumes that cover them completely. The judges must guess the identity of these cloaked celebrities based on nothing more than what they choose to say or sing.

Since not all contestants are expert singers, the show is less about the best singer and more about the fun of figuring out who is behind the mask. As Kennedy writes, the mask eliminates presumptions that may have arisen had we known who was behind the mask. She notes the irony of being able to “…see the singers more clearly by not seeing them.”

Without the benefit of knowing who’s in front of us, all expectations fall away. This works in our favor by allowing us to be freer in our interactions with others. The fears we may have about being judged by others for what we say or what we wear, for example, disappear behind a mask.

As Kennedy notes, it’s unlikely we’re all going to don giant goofy masks to remake ourselves or feel comfortable with who we are, but we can adopt our own costume that’s invisible to others — the costume of ourselves, whoever that might be.

We might even create different costumes for the different roles we play. Or a costume that deflects the pressures of society to be a certain way.

Somewhere beneath the roles and the pressures and the ill-fitting masks we may force ourselves to wear, there is an essence that belongs to only us. But don’t kill yourself trying to figure out exactly who and what that essence is. Instead, try on a new mask and see how it feels.

Only you can create you. But the more you force an “authentic” version of yourself, the further from yourself you may become.

Originally published in Top 3 on Medium on November 4, 2019.

Rewriting the Narrative of My Writing Self

October 23, 2019October 24, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

Harnessing the wisdom of other writers

One of my favorite things about Medium is the inspiration I find to keep writing no matter how stuck I feel. These three articles prompted me to consider what my writing self looks like and whether I’m on track to get there.

Moving Beyond Inferiority

Why You’re Attached to Being an Inferior Version of Yourself

Brianna Wiest maintains most of us are short-changing ourselves by placing our validation in the hands of others. So what’s to be done? If we’re to push ourselves beyond the self we’ve settled for, we have to rewrite our story.

“Every day of your life, you must wake up and completely embody the person you want to be. That is the only way you will become them.”

It is a “process of self-validation,” Wiest writes, that helps us break down “the tension, the resistance, the unhappiness.” Like the resistance I feel with finishing my memoir, the tension of reliving painful times until it’s finished.

Who is the person I want to be? Since being a writer is part of my identity, then being the kind of person I want to be means being the kind of writer I want to be, which is one who puts herself out there and isn’t afraid of what people might think, who doesn’t run from the possibility of criticism and rejection.

I want to be the kind of writer who doesn’t doubt every word, who doesn’t succumb to her inner critic, to its incessant question of what I could possibly have to offer. This is the kind of person who’s confident in her thoughts and opinions, who believes she’s worthy of contributing to the larger story of humanity.

Finishing What I Start

How to Become a Person Who Finishes What You Start

It’s a miracle I ever finished a dissertation. I wouldn’t have without my advisor urging me along but not without pointing out my biggest challenge: “You have a lot of good ideas, just no follow-through.”

In her piece on the importance of finishing what we start, Shaunta Grimes reminds us that successful people are finishers. Among the tips she shares for becoming a finisher —

“Muzzle your inner editor.”

Grimes has named her inner editor, which I imagine gives her some control over it. Mine has no name but takes the form of a monster lurking over my bed. No physical appearance beyond a shadow on the walls, on the ceiling, hovering over my face. Something out of the movie The Babadook. Perhaps I need to name it.

Killing My Perfectionism

It’s Better to Do Something Imperfectly

Finishing what I start means returning to my memoir, which means doing the work required to see it through to the end. Joe Pregadio reminds us how the quest for perfection can lead to paralysis, to doing nothing. My inner critic, my Babadook, is mired in perfection. It’s drilled into my brain, growing up with a mother who cleaned obsessively, running the vacuum at midnight because we’d left footprints on the carpet.

My quest for perfection is an excuse like the false narrative of myself I’ve created. In that story, I’m not good enough to “make it” as a writer, although I haven’t considered what making it as a writer means to me.

Shaping My Course

In response to my piece about struggling with “writer’s block,” Christina Ward 🍁🌲 encouraged me to submit to the process of writing. Not writing isn’t an option for me, but to fully release the tension and submit to the process, I have to rewrite my narrative.

It’s time to be a higher version of my writing self, one strong enough to defeat my Babadook — the Boogie Man standing over me — and his sidekick, Perfection. It’s time to be the version brave enough to finish what I start no matter how painful. And bold enough to share it with the world.

Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on October 23, 2019.

It Might Be a Myth, but the Boogie Man Is Standing Over Me

October 10, 2019November 4, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

My latest battle with “writer’s block”

I’ve struggled with writing this past month. Every day the same thought: I need to write something for Medium. But no matter how much I wrote in my journal, I couldn’t get anything to gel. As the hours ticked off into days and days rolled into weeks, my writing angst deepened.

Like many on Medium, I dislike the term “writer’s block.” What does it even mean? Christina Ward calls it “a big fat myth…the writer’s Boogie Man.”

But what if I’m scared of the Boogie Man? When he comes to visit, he terrorizes not just my creative writing but my ability to compose even the simplest of emails. It takes minutes to draft something I should have dashed off in a few seconds. The doubt over every word is paralyzing.

It’s not the first time I’ve been here. Being paralyzed by my own self-doubts is a routine I know well. Every time it strikes, I tell myself I’m not aiming for perfection. But my subconscious doesn’t care; it will find a way to open the door to the Boogie Man.

In the music video for Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in The Wall, Part Two, an animated scene shows a tiny human figure huddled next to a wall of white bricks stretching up to the night sky. The wall wraps around the figure and forms an impenetrable tower; the figure merely a speck on the ground with no way out.

I feel like that speck. And spray painted inside the tower, as if some cruel joke, is the question repeating ad nauseam throughout my journals going back to my early twenties —

“What holds me back?”

I thought I had moved past this question in 2015 when I finished my Ph.D. Surely, that achievement would silence the question once and for all. It might have lowered the volume, but it didn’t mute it altogether.

In January 2017, I wrote in my journal, “Every year I commit to writing throughout the year, and every year I fail.” My wall would become a tower, and I’d be trapped inside with my self-doubts and insecurities — the bricks in my wall.

Maybe I struggle because I’m drawn to memoir writing, baring my soul for the world to see and judge. When I was 10, I hand-copied words from a novel about a dog to practice my penmanship, but truthfully, I did it because I loved seeing the words come to life beneath my fingers. I was telling a story. But the idea of telling my own story terrifies me. My calling in writing seems like some ironic twist of fate.

I’ve felt compelled to write for most of my life, and my well-being depends on it. When I don’t write, not even in my journal, my mood sinks. By denying my writing, I’m denying a part of myself. It’s as if I was given this need to write for a reason, to examine my past and come to terms with it.

When I started writing a memoir about a painful experience as a teen, I discovered what made me abruptly stop writing in my journal and ignore it for long stretches. The more I wrote, the more I felt I was inching closer to the shadowy corners of my mind where part of my childhood exists in hidden memories.

The mind, especially one of a child, has an amazing ability to protect us from things we never should have seen or experienced.

Is it possible that my brain became so accustomed to blocking out memories of bad experiences that the switch got stuck, creating a block to my creative side? Is it this switch that makes writing feel like I’m slogging through thick mud, the slurp-slurp sound of my shoes peeling away from the slop marking my slow progress to nowhere?

Perhaps that’s the answer I’ve been looking for. What holds me back is not fear of rejection or fear that I’ll look stupid. Rather, the more I write, the closer I get to myself, to the truth of my life.

And I’m scared of what I may find there.

It might be more than I bargained for.

Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on October 10, 2019.

What My Dogs Have Taught Me

September 5, 2019November 4, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

Life is not an all-or-nothing game

Small black dog in a bucket swing with tongue sticking out — Photo by Marion Michele on Unsplash

Our dog Roxie stands at the back door with the rest of the dogs, eager to go out after breakfast. She’s the only one whining, and I know what she wants. I chug the rest of my protein drink, slap my army green Castro cap on my head, and order the dogs away from the door so I can reach it.

We have seven dogs. This makes us crazy people, I know, but they all needed rescuing, and we have room. They run around on two acres, nap on dedicated dog couches, and have claimed their respective beds in the bedroom except for the two who sleep with us, snuggled between us and our cats. Our dogs are not without luxuries.

I reach for the handle to open the back door, and out they race. The “pups,” the four between the ages of two and three, nearly run over each other in their frenzy. Roxie, one of the three “old guard” between eight and ten years old, rushes to the yard, squats, and then trots back to the deck where I stand. Her rottweiler body, oversized relative to her small head courtesy of whatever breed, wiggles uncontrollably while she barks at me, insistent. By this time, the other dogs have gathered around, jumping and barking and eager for what comes next.

“Let’s go!” I say and begin to walk around the side of the house, swinging my arms back and forth like one of those boat rides at a carnival, a pendulum suspended in flight. It’s the only way I can keep the pups from jumping on me as we start. It’s exciting, our walk.

A Walk in the Park…Or Rather Our Yard

We walk as a pack, the pups running ahead of me with Roxie on my heels. The other two old guards linger behind, deciding whether to join us. The pups have already bounded up the thirteen concrete steps leading to the driveway. Roxie and I follow them while Shep, our gentle giant of a Golden Pyrenees, circles back to me and attempts to occupy every molecule of space that I do.

We continue on our path, three of the pups up ahead, Shep by my side, Roxie a foot behind me, and the other two old guards still trying to decide if it’s worth the effort. We walk west on the dirt path the dogs have made through patches of grass and rocks, around the back of the shed, east on another dog-made dirt path bordering our own mini forest leading to the lake below, and back to the deck. Six times around is a half-mile.

It wasn’t always like this. Back when we had three dogs, I walked them around a three-mile loop in our country neighborhood, with half the time spent fending off threatening dogs left to run loose. I purchased walking poles to aid in bad-dog fending and started Nordic walking with three leashes attached to my fanny pack. Think of cross-country skiing with tennis shoes for skis and concrete for snow.

Then three became seven. Because I can’t wrangle 370 pounds of dogs on a walk, I stopped. They have plenty of room to chase each other, I thought. Opportunities for exercise abound unless you’re a lazy, spoiled, middle-aged dog who seems to have a single memory: long walks around the block.

A woman with hiking poles is walking three dogs on leashes. — Nordic walking three dogs…predecessors to our current seven. (Author’s photo)

A New Daily Treat

It took a long time for me to figure out that all it took to satisfy Roxie’s need for a walk was our property. I discovered it on accident while walking back and forth to our shed one day. The dogs followed me at every step. Two acres to explore, yet a trip to the shed was exhilarating.

I decided to see what would happen if I walked a loop around our yard. I expected the dogs might follow me a little way before getting bored, sidetracked by a squirrel in a tree or a grasshopper leaping in the afternoon sun.

Instead, they followed me at every step, the pups occasionally veering off to inspect something in the grass, but always returning to the walk, running ahead, circling back to make sure I was following them, and then off again. Roxie eternally at my heels. She thought this was the greatest thing ever. No leash. No scolding to stop pulling. Freedom in our yard, one loop after another.

Our dogs aren’t the only ones who like our new routine. It’s become a daily treat for me as well. I’ve taken walks nearly all my life, first with my mother as a kid and then to exercise my dogs and myself. After I stopped walking the dogs around the neighborhood, I bought an under-desk elliptical. Despite peddling one to two miles a day while sitting at my desk, something was missing. Sunshine. Fresh air. Bonding with our dogs.

I feel silly, and a little guilty, that Roxie has gone a couple of years since our regular walks. I’ve taken her to the park a few times to walk the loop there, but I never made it a habit given the extra effort of driving somewhere for a walk.

Now, when we do our daily walk around the yard, I challenge myself to jog two or three loops. I’ve never been a runner, but I like getting my heart rate up, feeling sweat bead on my forehead, thinking to myself, “Just a few more steps and you’ll have made it,” whatever the goal of “it” happens to be that day.

Adaptation

In my years of being a pet mama, I’ve learned many things from my dogs. Perhaps I should call this Lesson 1, with more to come. It’s a foundational lesson, the one upon which all others build. If my dogs could talk, they would say…

Life is not an all or nothing game.

But they don’t need to talk. They showed me. All I have to say is, “Who’s ready for a walk?” and they jump around like we’re about to do the most tremendous thing ever.

I agree. It’s exciting to realize that life is not a binary string of ones and zeroes. Rather, life is about adapting. It’s a game of seeing what you can do with what you’ve got.

If my dogs can do it, I can, too.

Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on September 5, 2019.

When Loss Becomes Part of Us

August 15, 2019August 15, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

Weaving grief into my emotional tapestry

Grief visits every year during what I call “grief week,” stretching from the first to second Mondays in August. I’ve absorbed this week into my calendar of events just as I’ve absorbed grief into my emotional tapestry.

On the first Monday in August five years ago, we found our mother unresponsive and barely breathing on her bedroom floor. On the following Monday, my sister, brother, and I made the decision to remove her from life support.

Although half a decade has passed, I still grieve for my mom. I wake up from a dream, her image shimmering at the edges of my mind, and think I need to call her, how it’s been too long since we talked.

I feel her absence acutely during grief week, along with her birthday and Mother’s Day and life’s big events like my nephew’s college graduation in May. I struggled to get through it without sobbing, envisioning my mother sitting next to me, dabbing proud tears from her eyes.

Three years ago, we lost my father-in-law, and this year, grief week doubled down. On the first Monday in August, my sister’s mother-in-law, a woman I also loved, lost her battle with cancer. My tapestry grows.

Various models of grief exist, including grief as an emotional trajectory following five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Known as the Kubler-Ross model, the stages are not meant to be linear but instead to help us name our feelings.

While these stages helped me after my mother died, it seemed as if something was missing. The acceptance stage means accepting the loss along with creating space for a new normal. Life will never be as it was, divided by a before and after. At this stage, “we have given grief its time,” opening us to our new lives.

But what if grief never leaves?

It felt like my grief over my mother had become a permanent part of me. I told myself I needed to move on. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do with grief and loss — move on? When I found the Tonkin model of growing around grief, I realized my feelings were normal.

In essence, I had drawn a circle to symbolize myself and shaded it entirely with grief. At first, my grief consumed me, but as I began to embrace life again and sadness didn’t devour me, my circle expanded. Although my grief remained the same size, it no longer occupied as much space. It had lost its relative strength.

I will never move past grief completely, no matter how much I accept loss. At times, like the anniversary of my mother’s death and my nephew’s graduation, I feel the full force of the shaded part of my circle. Sitting with my grief when at its most intense honors my emotions. It gives my grief space to breathe.

By suffocating my grief, pushing it down no matter when it shows itself, gives it strength, keeps it at the same aspect ratio as when I first shaded in the circle.

Grief will come, sometimes when it’s least expected. It’s woven into the story my tapestry tells. But now I understand. Grief is only part of my story.

Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on August 15, 2019.

How to Make Your Marriage the Best Ever

July 25, 2019July 27, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

The power of patience in a relationship

The other day I attended a wedding by myself. The daughter of one of my husband’s best friends was getting married, and I didn’t find out until the night before that my husband couldn’t go. Instead of dwelling on my irritation, I opted for patience. I’ve come to believe it’s a hallmark of a successful marriage.

Beware of Disappointments

I’d been looking forward to the wedding, an opportunity for my husband and I to have some fun on the dance floor. The last time we did that was for a friend’s wedding five years ago. I bought a new dress, new shoes, even an underwire strapless bra, all of which felt like a violation of my tomboy self.

The night before the wedding, when I said that the weather looked promising for an outdoor ceremony in Oklahoma in July, meaning it would be 85 degrees instead of 95, he broke the news.

“That’s tomorrow?” he said. “I can’t go.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “We’ve known about this for months.”

His IT job required that he work the late shift. They were low on manpower, they said. The project wasn’t going well, they said. Sorry, no memory-making for you, they said.

My husband would miss an important moment in a friend’s life. We would miss the opportunity to dance together, to celebrate our six years of marriage and the start of the newlyweds’ journey together.

Even as I write this, a twinge of anger rises. At first, I directed it toward my husband. Why didn’t he take the day off? They wouldn’t have let him, he said, not for a wedding. Now, I direct it at the appropriate source — his crappy job.

Cherish Your Wedding Day

After accepting my dateless status, I thought about words of wisdom to write on the wedding card I bought. The first thing that came to mind: patience.

I’m not talking about being patient with a bad marriage. Life is too short to stay in a negative situation. I’m referring to the little things — dirty dishes, strewn socks, forgotten weddings— the small stuff that we can either keep small or blow up into exaggerated proportions.

No one’s perfect. We all have our quirks, which may stay hidden until well after the last piece of wedding cake is gone. What remains when the honeymoon phase wears off and we’ve removed the rose-colored glasses?

The card I picked out popped up into a scene of a couple on a bridge over a stream meandering next to a willow tree. It made me think of the wedding venue — a lush landscape of thick oak and hickory trees, a lawn like carpet, a low waterfall built from native stone surrounded by the pinks and purples and yellows of wildflowers, a view of a lake sparkling in the summer sun.

“Cherish this day,” I wrote inside the card.

I didn’t write anything about patience or how their love will change over time. They’ll figure these things out on their own. They don’t need me to tell them.

But in those words, I hope they get my meaning. When the going gets tough, when your spouse does something that makes you want to throw up your hands and walk away, remember your wedding day. It happened for a reason.

Return to the Beginning

When I get frustrated, I think about what made me fall in love with my husband — the way he makes me laugh every day, the way he cooks me meals better than what most restaurants offer, the way he supported me through my Ph.D. and supports me in my writing, the way he makes me feel important.

I remember the way he loves me unconditionally. He does the same for me when I’ve done some boneheaded thing.

Patience isn’t the only trait necessary for a lasting marriage. Love, of course, and open communication, honesty, fidelity. They’re all crucial. But patience is up there on the importance scale.

In something of a bonus prize, I’ve found that practicing patience with my husband has made me more patient overall, including being patient with myself. I’m my own worst critic, and patience is the way I’ve found to lower the volume of my inner critic’s voice.

The next time you find yourself getting impatient with your spouse, try remembering what made you fall in love in the first place. Then ask yourself who suffers from your impatience. Likely, it’s both of you, which means the marriage suffers as well.

I think where any relationship is concerned, a Greek proverb says it all —

“One minute of patience, ten years of peace.”

Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on July 25, 2019.

Altered Perceptions

July 17, 2019July 24, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

What kayaking taught me about the nature of illusions and the power of perspective

Reflections on the water (photo by the author)

How often do we find ourselves perceiving one thing, convincing ourselves that our perception is the way things are, only to discover that we’re looking at things the wrong way? What if we turned the lens? What might we see differently, and would we accept it? My husband and I were faced with these questions one summer day a few years ago when we first tried kayaking.

Feyodi Park on the Arkansas River, Northeastern Oklahoma

The wind catches the brim of my turquoise sun hat as I get out of the car. If not for the strap dangling beneath my chin, it would already be in the river.

“It might be too much to go out today,” I shout to my husband over the gale. “What if the boat flips or something?”

One moment the water is an orangey brown, the river’s bed of clay and sand churned to the surface by the wind and reflecting the sun’s rays, a muted sister to the red dirt that defines Oklahoma. The next, it’s the gray of an artist’s putty rubber, yellow light of day absorbed by graphite clouds moving in and out of each other in a rhythmic dance. A shocking crest of white appears on the water with every gust, waves propelled down the low valley of the river’s path as if rushing to catch the last train to some nameless haven.

“The boat won’t flip,” Derek says. “It’s practically impossible given how it sits in the water.”

My husband’s demeanor betrays the nonchalance in his voice. Wind whips his long hair in a frenetic dance around his shoulders, protected from sunburn by a red and yellow tie-dyed T-shirt. He grips the brim of his Detroit Red Wings ball cap, eyes squinting against the sun, lips pursed against the grit of blowing sand.

Our kayak arrived yesterday, and we are like children on Christmas morning with their favorite toy, unwrapped and ready for play. Derek inserts the nozzle of the plastic bellows into the valve and steps repeatedly until the boat begins to resemble an oversized Pillsbury Doughboy, limbs swelling and curling into a protective fold with each successive rush of air.

“Ready?” I ask when the boat appears seaworthy, although I’m nervous about Derek paddling for the first time in this wind.

“Think so,” he says as he slides on his life jacket, cinching the straps tight before situating himself in the boat’s only seat.

Between growing up with hydrophobic parents and living in the countryside with the closest body of water a small roadside creek, Derek never learned to swim. Given the stability of the boat, his life jacket, and the narrow stretch of river, its sandy bottom a few feet below the surface, I’m not concerned. Not too much, anyway.

I grab the front handle of the kayak and lead it and my husband into the river. The boat’s rhythmic bobbing becomes more exaggerated with each step. When we’re far enough out, Derek starts paddling toward the opposite bank, there and back again according to our plan. I watch him glide away from me and think he’s doing okay despite a bit of wobbling with the waves.

Suddenly, mixed with wind’s shrieks, I hear shouts and barely make out the words: “We shouldn’t have done this! This was a bad idea!”

Confused since he’s directly in front of me, I yell at him to turn around.

“How?!”

Dang, I think. We should have gone over this before we started. Not everyone was on the crew team in college. I yell out strokes as fast as I did when I was a coxswain and steered my team away from a dam we didn’t expect, but the wind snatches my words. After several minutes of fighting to keep the paddle from flying away, Derek manages to turn the boat around. He sees me straight in front of him, twenty yards away, and I hear wisps of laughter float to shore.

My husband experienced an illusion of self-motion. The waves created by wind blowing across the water’s surface at an angle to the opposite shore gave him the impression that he was drifting downriver, a branch separated from its trunk floating anchorless to destinations unknown. He perceived himself in danger, but once he refocused the lens, he saw the reality of the situation.

When we attempt something for the first time, it’s easy to perceive it as daunting, as something larger than it really is. Moving out of our safety zone, becoming open to the idea that things are not always as they seem, is a risk we must all take at times. Otherwise, how would we know who we are and what we’re capable of?

If my husband had been so shaken by his fear that he vowed to end kayaking right then, we never would have experienced the quiet of the water when no one else is around, the sudden burst of pelicans from a tributary tucked around a bend, the silky feel of the paddle as it slips beneath the surface, the soft lub lub of the boat bouncing on gentle waves.

If my husband had let his perception color that day, we would have lost these shared experiences, these moments that we treasure.

Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on July 17, 2019.

The Road Home: An Essay in Photos

July 2, 2019July 24, 2019 / kschumacher / Leave a comment

When the journey away leads back to where it all began

Untitled oil painting purchased by the author’s parents in 1975 (author’s photo)

ONE. Start here with a crystalline blue river, quaking aspens along its banks, the water’s edge a reflecting pool for the murky greens and rusted yellows of fall. Follow the river streaming from the mouth of a mountain to its end, the wall of your family’s living room, hung there when you were four. Authenticated by World Art in Oklahoma City on September 17th, 1975, an original oil painting by a man named Monte. Start here in a house in the suburbs of middle America.

Author’s car ready to leave Oklahoma City for Oregon (author’s photo)

TWO. Continue to here, April 2nd, 1995, a Sunday like any other except you are headed west. Say farewell to your family. Your mother and sister wipe their tears, your brother-in-law hands you money after a hug. Load your rescued black lab mix into the passenger seat and wave goodbye.

Highway through Flagstaff, Arizona (author’s photo)

THREE. You’ve traveled far by now, Flagstaff to be exact, over halfway through the second day with only your dog for company. But you like it this way. It’s what you wanted, and you’re nearly there. One more day. Push away the doubts that creep like ghosts, haunting you since leaving Albuquerque this morning. Yesterday, too ebullient to care.

Turnoff for Death Valley (author’s photo)

FOUR. Rest for the night in a Nevada town called Beatty near the southern California border. Dine at the truck stop attached to the motel, your dog asleep in your room. Semis roar past on the highway, mountains on one side, barren landscape on yours. One wrong turn away from the valley of death, the ghosts on high alert.

Mountains of northern California (author’s photo)

FIVE. Daylight peering through the gap in pilled and faded polyester drapes awakens you. The third and final day. Drink weak coffee and eat burnt bacon and watery eggs in the diner. Walk your dog to the car and notice the air smells different here, fresher, even if by the side of a road. The ghosts from yesterday hold their tongues as the highway leads you past northern California’s snowy foothills and closer to the towering white peaks of your dreams.

Road to Black Cap Butte, Lakeview, Oregon (author’s photo)

SIX. Arrive at a town 15 miles north of California, 45 miles from the Three Corners Monument — Lakeview. Only there’s no lake to see at midnight when you park your car at the town’s only motel. Receive a key to a room arranged by your employer, a person you’ve never met, in a place you’ve never been. The next morning, the butte that hugs the town calls your name. Although the day is gray and heavy and rain turns to snow as you drive, you persist on dirt roads that wind up and up to where the ground meets the sky.

Road out of Lakeview toward central Oregon (author’s photo)

SEVEN. Months later, as winter’s haze gives way to open sky, the road out of town beckons. Four hours to the northwest, glacier-capped mountains cascade through your mind, your reason for being here. Lakeview closer than Oklahoma. A mantra repeated each day that you look upon scrubby sage and barren slopes, the foothills of your dreams.

Road through Lava Lands near Newberry National Volcanic Monument, central Oregon (author’s photo)

EIGHT. Find yourself gaining altitude, hillsides reaching higher, trees growing taller, mountain peaks drawing closer as you climb until, abruptly, you discover a landscape like Mars, the reddish tint of volcanic remains, the aged blacks and browns of hardened lava, trapped by its birth into a world it was never meant to know.

Author and her dog exploring a road in Deschutes National Forest, Oregon (author’s photo)

NINE. Although the road winds back to present day, your mind lingers on a time when the world churned with fire of its own making. But then you see a sign for a hiking trail and turn in the direction it points. When the road disappears into dirt, you decide to walk, your dog at your side, to points unknown.

Hiking trail in Deschutes National Forest, Oregon (author’s photo)

TEN. The trail appears and you are here, at last, walking among the trees, towering Douglas firs and western hemlocks. Refracted rays of sunlight glimmer between branches, and their perfume scents the air, clean and crisp and exactly what you hoped for.

Metolius River with Mt. Jefferson in the distance, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon (author’s photo)

ELEVEN. Emerge into a clearing that leads to a river. It’s hard to see, in the piercing light of mid-day, but it’s there if you look, a mountain peak glimmering in the distance. Experience déjà vu, a tickling in your brain that confuses you. Until you remember an oil painting by a man name Monte. End here with a crystalline blue river, coniferous pines and black cottonwoods along its banks, the water’s edge a reflecting pool for wild grass browned by the white-hot light of summer. Follow the river streaming from the mouth of a mountain to a painting. End here in a house in the suburbs of middle America.

Originally published in Indelible Ink on Medium on July 2, 2019.