andy, through cindy-shaped glasses

Today we went to the Chicago funeral of Andrew Wierzba, husband of Cindy Bastounes Wierzba, my dear friend and also Esme's godmother. Here they are together at Esme's baptism, just a short while ago in November 2006. It was a beautiful day of cold air and sharp shadows, a day of autumn-almost-but-not-quite-turned-to-winter. I remember that this photo was taken at the very end of the lengthy baptismal event, yet Cindy, in her usual mode of tireless joy and contagious enthusiasm, was drawing out her expressions of devotion for her new godbaby by insisting on a final photo shoot outdoors before we all got wearily into our warm cars to leave. Cindy began issuing urgent instructions to her husband: "Get one with Julia and Esme, then me, Julia, and Esme, then Jeff and Julia...," and on and on. In the midst of these proceedings in which we were all unsure of where to stand, Andy cut in: "How many permutations are we going to do here? Take a picture and let's go already." This comment brought comic relief to everyone in the immediate area, including Cindy, who had to admit she was being a bit, well, overly thorough in her gushing. A hearty dose of Andy's personable bluntness diffused the moment and sent me home smiling and knowing that a memorable day was in fact over, and that was o.k.

I met Cindy in 1999 when we started a master's program together at St Vladimir's Seminary. We were totally different in age and background. I was straight out of college and a convert to Orthodoxy while she was a seasoned career woman born into the Greek-American Orthodoxy of Chicago. I remember standing in the hall of the women's dormitory with her when she made a remark about my shabby skirt (clearly, she didn't understand my shabby-chic, 90s influenced aesthetic). I pretended to give her a karate kick and the seam of my skirt ripped loudly in the process. "That's o.k.," she said, "it completes your look." Later she told me that she was retaliating for a comment I had made about her Swatch watch when I first met her. I was excited to see the Swatch because it was the same one I had worn in third grade, 1986, with red, yellow, and blue geometric designs, and I told her so. I hadn't meant it as a commentary on her age or outdated style, but she took it that way. In any case, she was apparently pleased with herself for coming up with the perfect retort, and actually put her hand over her mouth to hide her guffawing at my expense. I couldn't watch her laugh and not laugh with her, and in this mutual appreciation for a certain goofiness and permission to tease the other, I found relief from the seriousness of seminary. From then on, against the backdrop of studious males in black cassocks, our friendship felt innocently conspiratorial and fun in a necessary way. This was confirmed during a certain class in which Father Paul Lazor was telling us a story about a pastoral visit he made in his early years of being a priest, in which things went badly, comically awry. Although he told it with a deadpan narrative style, it was clearly intended, at least in part, to be entertaining and not merely educational. Cindy and I both caught the intended humor and convulsed with laughter, bending over in our desks, torso's hurting, looking at each other through streaming tears. However, no one else in the classroom seemed to share our mirth. We thought that was pretty strange, and concluded that we had better stick together from there on out or else we might die of sobriety.

It is really through the lens of Cindy, if I can put it that way, that I came to know Andy, whom she married in 2001. She told me all about him during their lengthy and winding, mostly long-distance relationship that led to their marriage. Cindy was, as a single woman, strong brew, and I knew that it would take a certain kind of man, secure in himself, to marry Cindy. Andy was obviously that man, capable of fighting fire--that particular fire of Cindy's--with a fire of his own. Most importantly, it was clear that he was decisive in his love for Cindy. That, more than anything, told me it was a true and good match, no matter what other concerns or complications. He was devoted, and would confidently tell her so, even in the face of her doubts and wavering. Anyone with any ounce of perception could have perceived, even from meeting Andy once, that any commitment of his could be backed by gold. He just had that characteristic, and it showed in his everyday mannerisms.

It occurred to me today at the funeral that even though I've spent a good amount of time with Andy, I really think of him primarily as Cindy's husband, his personality in balance with hers. I knew him, for the most part, as though one degree removed-- that degree being Cindy. But one time, when I was at their Bronxville condominium on a visit, he took me down to the basement of the building in order to show me his bicycle-- the one he had basically hand-fashioned and tweaked to perfection. He explained its details and workings with child-like enthusiasm, and I remember feeling flattered that he thought me a worthy audience for a private showing of his bicycle, and tried my best to rise to the occasion by concentrating on the impressiveness of the way he had rigged a way to store a small, hidden tool under the narrow saddle. It really was impressive. But as usual, my mind was more interested in character analysis, and I was more occupied with taking in the scene of Andy himself, in that instant, being who he was: energetic, grounded, innocent, child-like, tactile, quick, tall, bright-eyed, good-natured. Even though I felt somewhat an impostor there in the basement with the bike, and even though a part of me felt shy in the face of so much tactile maleness, and wanted to run back to the familiar territory of Cindy, who was upstairs, I was still struck with the vividness of Andy's personhood in that moment.

Today at the funeral, I still could not believe that Andy was dead. I saw his body in the casket, but it did not, somehow, look like him at all. Or, rather, he was nowhere to be found there in the casket, and I think I was wanting to find him-- his personality--somewhere at the funeral. I realized tonight, only in retrospect, that I was unconsciously hoping to hear stories about Andy, and through stories, remember him with that same vividness I saw in the basement. What I would have loved is for everyone who knew Andy to stand up and simply tell an anecdote, many of which would surely be funny, but not necessarily. Perhaps I forgot that this is the type of thing that happens mostly at weddings. How appropriate that the funeral was in the same church where Cindy and Andy got married just a few years ago. I have no doubt that, on that occasion, Andy was quite vividly present.

I'm writing this far too late at night, with only one more day to finish packing before our move on Saturday, which means I should be getting sleep and not pushing myself to think, write, reflect, and connect every loose thread. Jenny Schroedel, who was also at the funeral, called me at 11:00 p.m. wanting to talk and process the day's events and impressions together. She too met and knew Cindy the same year I did. There is just so much to say about Cindy and her story over the past eight years, and Andy is such a part of that story. Jenny reminded me that Andy actually drove her from Chicago to seminary in New York for the first time when she enrolled in 1999 and that they argued "about God" the entire way. Cindy showed up at the womens' dormitory with far too many boxes to fit into her assigned room; Andy pointed out how ridiculous this was and asked if now wasn't the time in her life when she was supposed to be giving stuff away; Cindy said no and proceeded to overload and break a shelf in her room, which Andy had to repair. Besides this story being so comedic and typical of their relationship antics, it reminds me that Andy was there from the beginning of Cindy's great seminary journey, and he saw her through to the end of it. It's no wonder that Cindy buried her diploma, freshly earned, in the casket with Andy. There is a sense that God really did gather Andy to himself at this specific, humanly peculiar, time, so close to Cindy's graduation. It seems that Andy's task on earth was closely bound with Cindy, and yet he was also simply Andy-- Andrew Wierzba-- himself, who did many things. He was fluent in Polish and serious about cycling, to name a few. He loved Philp K. Dick, the novelist, and movies like Blade Runner, and could tell you all about it.

Like I said, it's late, and any more reflection on this will surely meander, as it already has. Jeff found an online guest book hosted by the Chicago Tribune where friends can write a note to honor Andy. I'm posting a link here so that more people will visit and sign it, and maybe share a story about Andy:

http://legacy.com/ChicagoTribune/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=89659137

Finally, here's a picture of Cindy, loving as ever, holding Esme at the funeral reception. Esme is playing with Andy's gold wedding band, which was hanging on the gold chain on Cindy's neck.

acquisition happens

lantern waste
Originally uploaded by Julia Wickes

In preparation for our move on June 30, I'm trying to go through things and let go of what I don't truly need, things I've been holding onto for reasons that look shabby under the light of scrutiny. The problem is, the logic of detachment from admittedly useless belongings does not come naturally to me. I think perhaps the particular synapse is missing in my brain and my thoughts have to take the long way around before arriving at a decision about the worth of objects. Sorting and scrutinizing my things is so laborious. Perhaps, deep down, I believe that objects, no matter how plastic or cheap, unusable or trinkety, and without a place in my life, have an inherent value beyond what I can assign to them. It seems unfair to throw something away when there might be someone, somewhere who might value it. That's one sentiment that prevents me from purging. Another is that I cringe in the act of creating trash. I picture everything I put in the trash traveling the path to destination landfill, and despise the predicament. Another hurdle to purging is the delusion that someday I will come back to these dormant things I'm storing and make use of them. Hence, the box of old Biblical Greek flash cards, all hand-written from my time at seminary, containing forgotten verb tenses and the grammatical entrails from the Prologue of John's Gospel, once necessary for passing a final, now utterly forgotten. One day, the me that doesn't really exist but which I'd like to think exists, will go back and re-learn all that Greek, carrying on from where I left off. This is the same me that will go back and finish all of the half-finished knitting patterns I've begun, making use of balls of yarn purchased but never used. The same me that collects scraps of fabric which I plan to make a quilt of some day, and lots of other arts and crafts supplies for future projects. This is also the part of me that keeps a long outdated calendar with the intention of framing an interesting art print.

I finally faced a heavy file box of papers from seminary that I've been lugging around now for six years-- totally embarrassing considering that I've moved four times. What was in this box? Every mid-term and final examination blue book; almost all photo-copied articles distributed by professors as course packs; a copy of a thesis of a friend I intended to read but didn't; all of my own papers, the majority of which are not worth a re-read. Even still, while going through articles entitled "The Creator and Creaturehood," and "Moscow as Third Rome," that little indefatigable voice in me was still trying to convince me that I might come back and read some of these one day. What a liar! I managed to overturn the box into the recycling dumpster without changing my mind, thank goodness.

I've been thinking a lot about life in the richest country in the world, in which we consume the majority of the world's resources, and have so much extra stuff floating around that anyone could furnish an entire home, equip a kitchen, and cloth a large family with second-hand items easily. This really hit home after I had a baby. I've barely purchased anything for Esme, and yet her closet is bursting with clothes, toys, and gear, and I'm constantly taking things to Goodwill, yet acquiring more unasked for items. Honestly, the real challenge as an American is saying no to things, keeping your home free of clutter, being vigilantly committed to not acquiring things you don't need. Otherwise, acquisition just happens to you. But all of this energy required to make decisions about the physical world, whether you'll keep something or not, is daunting. If you don't keep it, you bag it and take it to Goodwill or throw it away. If you keep it, you must care for it. It's one or the other, and binding.

I have a personality that would almost prefer to live in the realm of ideas, thoughts, and dreams, and not engage with stuff, and yet stuff is always infringing on my life. Maybe it is trying to lead me to enlightenment, act as a corrective to that dreamer in me that thinks I might go back and study Greek again. Believing that may help me get through this move.

brideshead revisited...and revisited

Jeff and I watched the film version of Brideshead Revisited together over the course of two weeks, in many sittings. It came to us via our friend Dawn who recommended it and lent us her DVD set. After so much time spent with the movie, my mind still flits back to its scenes, which progressed at such a measured, soothing pace, even while leading up to a climax of deterioration and calm tragedy. In the midst of our many sessions of popping in the next DVD, I couldn't see the depth of the story, and began to think that it did not contain terribly complex themes. I've now decided that the complexity is there throughout, but dispersed very thinly, in both carefully framed images and dialogues, and in the gradual evolution of the main characters, who have plenty of time and space to develop subtly into different people than they are at the beginning. This movie experience was so unlike a typical, breakneck movie night for me, that I'm still having insights every now and then, like this morning while shampooing my hair, thinking suddenly: "Julia's willingness to sacrifice Charles was not just rooted in religious conviction, as it appears at face value, but in a nostalgia for her Catholic childhood. Charles didn't understand her upbringing, and instead of just leaving it alone, or treating it with sympathy, he attacks it with aggression at her father's deathbed. This is what made it easy for her to emotionally detach herself from him. So, was her sacrifice based on a pure faith, or on nostalgia and loyalty to the familiar, and was it really that much of a sacrifice?" Hmm.


I'll refrain from going further into all of my keen theme-oriented insights. I am really just writing this to rave about the very fact of a movie existing in eleven parts, totaling roughly eleven extravagant hours. Rather than seeming exceptional for its length, it seemed quite normal and necessary to the proper telling of the story. What did seem exceptional to me is a story, as movie, being given such a generous forum for the telling. I still think that the Brideshead story is a relatively simple one about the entanglement of people in relationship-- family, friends, lovers-- nothing unheard of. But the depth was allowed to emerge through quality and time spent that never emerges in the movies that mess with your mind and drag you in a dozen twists of plot complexity, all intended to impress (I suppose, to be more specific, I'm thinking of films like Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine, or The Hours, to name a few of the dozens that could be cited). It brought to my attention the fact that film making is generally limited as an art by its commercial constraints, which force artificial time limits upon storytelling. The story itself, then, has to be a certain kind of story-- the kind that can be told in such a short time and still leave an impression. It has to become more than ordinary, and therefore less human because it has contorted itself into something outrageous enough to have half a chance of getting snagged in the brain of the audience in two hours. Brideshead was given the breathing space necessary to be an ordinary human story, in all its true impressiveness and range, without force. I actually think that this is what makes the film special, more than its particular themes. But conversely, because it succeeds so well, it gets me thinking about its themes in spite of myself-- themes that I can't claim to have a personal affinity for, such as the nature of male friendship and the lifelong hold of a Catholic upbringing.

Jeff and I started wondering about the novel Brideshead Revisited, thought about getting a copy to read, and assumed it would be quite long. But we found out that it's actually relatively slim. I don't know why this surprised me. Shouldn't a two-hundred page story about the entanglement of a few lives over the course of several years, in a unique context, take at least eleven hours to show properly? Hooray for eleven hour movies. I wish there were more of them.

pacing, not prooving, myself

elderly gentleman burning leaves
Originally uploaded by Julia Wickes

Last Thursday when I had the weird asthmatic episode, I was convinced that overexerting myself on my new bike was what pushed me over the edge. Not only has it been a long time since I've really gotten on a bike, but I went out in the heat of the afternoon that day, and in a punishing wind as well. I felt like the Wicked Witch of the West riding through a stormy Kansas, never able to quit peddling if I was to maintain the feeblest momentum.

I asked the doctor how long I should wait before biking or doing any cardiovascular exercise, and she said just to listen to my body and have common sense. I wanted less ambiguous perimeters, but thinking for myself, testing my lungs, looking at my pristine new bike, I decided to go ahead this morning because I really wanted to, and I was still scared enough to behave myself by staying in a low gear and coasting often. I rode slowly over to the Notre Dame campus, peddling through neighborhoods still dewy in the morning coolness. I passed this elderly man with his back facing the road, watching his leaves burn, no doubt resting from whatever exertion it took to make that pile. It was so quiet, I thought he would sense me and turn around, but whether he sensed my presence at his back or not, he didn't look, and I got my picture, and rode away. It was after rush hour, so the roads were unclogged, and I was grateful for the clarity of roads and lungs.

I passed another white-haired retiree on my way back home, working in his open garage, bending rigidly over a table, working a smallish paintbrush dipped in white paint. His yard was tidy, and the residential peace surrounding the man in the folding chair was also around the painting man. I was still taking care to peddle slowly and not fight my way up the occasional Midwestern gradient as I did last time, and I allowed myself to stare at whatever I wanted to.

It was an analogy for something: exemption from the Monday morning work day, yet alternatively industrious, in a personal, residential way. I remember working so very hard on my resumes and cover letters when we first arrived here, when I was looking for jobs, and unconsciously, I was seeking for that next entry on my resume which would keep it current, decent, presentable. It was like a game of Frogger: I was standing on an alligator back waiting for the next log to float by. If I waited too long, stayed out of work for too long, I was going to lose the credibility of any work experience I had gained and sink into the water with the alligator-- into the river of white paper where my resume met its end. (Please excuse the Atari analogy if you never owned an Atari.) But then it wasn't really like Frogger, because I had a baby who I'm staying at home with, and I now occupy that white space on my resume, where there are no beginning and end dates or skills sets or achievements or responsibilities to be listed, and I don't feel as if I'm drowning in a river. The old men reminded me that, God willing, there is always work to do, whether private or public, and a definite lifespan to do it in, even if you die tomorrow. Occupying the residential section of the phone book also allows for folding chairs and Monday morning bike rides at odd hours while everyone else is at work.

breast, bottle, bike, and breathing being a b____

This has been a very strange week, which began with an earnest search for a new bicycle. The good news is that after the headache of window shopping both online and at four different local bicycle shops, I found a beautiful bike that fits me perfectly and will hopefully be paid off by the end of the summer, but hopefully provide a decade or more of good riding. The bad news is that after one vigorous ride my lungs went into a red-hot, fist-brandishing rebellion, throwing me into a restless night of wheezing, followed by a full day of struggle for proper doses of oxygen, that stuff that the body requires in order to function. I've had mild, inconvenient bouts of respiratory struggle on and off for several years now, but as they seem to flare up on random nights, then go away by morning, I never seriously considered the possibility that I had asthma. I tend to be a poor sleeper anyway, so what's one more nighttime disturbance, after all. Also, asthma means going to the doctor, being able to pay for a doctor, which means having health insurance, which I don't at the moment, and taking prescription medication. This is a path I not only have no wish to go down, but which I've never thought I would need to go down, which is why I foolishly think I can get by without health insurance. Even during the years that I was working full-time and had perfectly upstanding health insurance, I never went to the doctor, and never felt I needed to, and even felt that health insurance, for me, was almost a waste of a very decent percentage of my salary. But yesterday, I came to a place where I desperately wished I could have some of that insurance back to visit a real allergy and asthma specialist, who could fix me fast. When my lungs were still struggling by mid-day, and I could feel that my whole body was getting tired, and my brain feeling lighter because my cells weren't getting enough oxygen, I got scared enough to start looking for a walk-in clinic, whatever amount of money I had to plunk down.

This led me to an afternoon of getting the run-around. I called a friend who was at the library with her children, and she agreed to watch Esme while I went to a clinic (I wasn't keen on the idea of taking her into a waiting room full of sneezes and fevers). The first clinic I tried was overrun with patients, and the wait was three hours. They sent me to Wal-Mart, of all places, where they said I could see a nurse practitioner who might be able to write a prescription. Well, that turned out to be quite false. The nurse had no one waiting and plenty of time to chat with me, and he told me that he couldn't do a thing about diagnosing asthma, that it took extensive tests, possibly x-rays, to diagnose, and I needed a doctor. I started to feel rather shut out and despairing at this point: was there an over-the-counter medicine that I could at least take for temporary relief? Each half-capacity lung-full of air was disabling me from even conversing normally without getting out of breath and it was slowly starting to feel like a crisis, because, I could tell that something was different about this run-in with asthma (I was now, for the first time, calling it that by name), and I knew it wasn't going to go away on its own this time.

The story ends well, because Jeff came home to watch Esme by five o' clock, and I found yet another clinic that was open with no waiting, where I got two breathing treatments, which un-clinched my lungs, and left with a prescription for an inhaler and pills to take for the next five days to calm my lungs down. The no-nonsense doctor told me that she highly suspected I had asthma, but that she would not make an official diagnosis, and that I needed to find a way to get a regular doctor, because this disease is chronic, and isn't going to go away. I feel so medicated right now, and as the daughter of a chiropractor who has been lecturing me since the age of five about the benefits of alternative medicine, herbs, vitamins, and preventative health measures like diet and exercise, and who still to this day sends me photocopied articles and books about things like omega three fish oil and the healing power of mega-doses of vitamin C, I'm just naturally disdainful of being on three medicines at one time (I was also instructed to take Clariton on top of the two prescribed medications). But I realized that when you're suffering, you really just want relief in whatever form it comes in. I knew that no homeopathic remedy was going to get me breathing normally within the space of an hour.

The weird thing about this asthma attack is the timing of it, because lately I've given a lot of thought to health, as it goes back over the course of one's life. I'm still breastfeeding Esme, and it's gone relatively well, with only a few small snags along the way for which I had to call a lactation consultant. But it's still very demanding nonetheless, and I can't pretend that I haven't occasionally dreamed of weaning before one year is up, even though I don't really want to lose this connection to her just yet. I was not breastfed, and I've learned that lots of babies born in the 1970s weren't. In fact, I was born jaundiced and separated from my mother to be put in an incubator, so that even though she had considered breastfeeding me, it was dismissed by the hospital staff and she was sent home without me, which, she said, was awful and made her cry. Then, because I didn't do well on formula (though I'm not sure what that means, exactly) my pediatrician put me on-- drum roll-- evaporated milk and karo syrup. I didn't find this out until Esme was born and my mom told me, conversationally, much to my horror. I don't know how early feeding is connected to adult health, but I've been speculating quite a bit about it. I made a comment on The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog, about this, and the author's response was really well-put:

I was just thinking recently about how the connection between adult health problems and infant feeding is something we think about a lot when our babies are little, but that once they're adults it's not really part of the equation. What I mean is that I'd be really surprised if a doctor ever said, "You have cancer - were you breastfed as a baby?" There are so many other factors at play once we're adults (diet, exercise, exposure to bad stuff), and we'll never know if one thing caused the other, only that we're in the "increased risk" category. That's why I think I hear the "well, they all turned out okay" argument so much - no one ever stops to consider that infant feeding and an adult health condition are related (and of course no one could ever prove it).

Let me just say now that I'm not a breastfeeding fanatic who plans on shouting its benefits from the rooftop from now on or guilt-tripping moms who don't do it, and I know it's also a touchy subject, because a lot of moms either can't do it at all or can't maintain it for very long, and usually for understandable reasons. But I can't help but wonder how connected my own allergies and asthma are, now, to the first year of my life, missing out on the mom's milk that, I imagine, over the course of centuries, has formulated itself perfectly to helping a new human being adapt optimally to the toxic world. Because I'm not a big believer on the whole idea of the world we inhabit being so very "natural" and therefore all good. The world's wiring is busted, and the average human body has crossed wires as well, and all of this wiring in attempted symbiosis is bound to have some patchy spots at cross purpose. I've always considered myself so healthy, and strong, but now I'm thinking that I was just confusing "health," with "youth." Thus, nearing thirty, an inhaler is going to become a permanent part of my life, just like, a year ago, shoes with good arch support became a necessity, even though I spent so many years running around barefoot in Florida. I guess I should just be glad that I still don't need glasses.

Lastly, we're giving our cat away. I've known for some time that I was allergic to Effie's dander, but again, didn't take it seriously enough to do anything about it, beyond vacuuming a lot. We're moving into the student housing at Notre Dame, and besides the fact that they do not allow pets, I simply do not want to move with Effie again. I want, instead, to wash all of our throws and blankets in hot water, vacuum our furniture, and start over in a pet-free home. The very natural desire to have a pet will have to be trumped by my body's inability to cope. I'll keep taking my medicine, and just hope that, as the doctor assured me, it has no ill affects as it passes through the breastmilk onto Esme. But I don't really think that anyone, except perhaps the fictional and far-fetched Gregory House, can really untangle the threads of our health and all the reasons for why it goes awry.