Letter to My Colleagues [Part 1]

March 7, 2021

Bearing Testimony; Saying Goodbye to What Was; Coming to Terms with Now; Envisioning What Awaits Us 

The stress of living in the contemporary world has been well-documented by many, and worse, thoroughly experienced by every living person. Nonetheless, I feel a need to give testimony to my grief and worry about life at Saint Xavier University.

On one level, SXU’s problems pale in comparison with the multiple crises facing our society: there’s the pandemic, obviously, but the inventory is easy to summon in 2020-2021: our social unrest, our damaged natural environment, our polarized politics, our inability to remedy longstanding injustices, our impulses to hate, and more. On another level, SXU’s problems reflect dynamics in play that threaten higher education in particular and society’s well-being in general—namely, the growing pains, let us call them, of suddenly-rampant “technologized approaches not only to information, but to knowledge, and even social interaction,” all on top of, or underneath evolving notions of work and career. All of this has called into question the essentially medieval conceptions and traditions of a college education.  And on yet another level, SXU’s story is a heartbreaking drama (melodrama? case study?) all its own, with highs and lows of our unique accomplishments and failures–our distinctive dysfunctions, missteps, adjustments, and adaptations.

In bearing testimony, I will try to do so in a way that respects people’s levels of patience and their finite attention spans. I note that the matters in play are of crucial relevance to the SXU community: my contributions to the faculty resistance movement against what many view to be a runaway Administration require respect for the collective enterprise. Specifically, I must ensure accuracy and objectivity in stating (or certainly, attempting to represent) our collective complaints. But there’s also an element of self-pity and emotion in all my commentary on the SXU situation that I have to guard against. Part of me wants to cry out, “Hear my pain”—both because it’s my story and also because intertwined in that story are so many facts and occurrences that need to be part of the more public record for better decisions in the future. Also, on another track, I’ve seen so much heartache of colleagues who have left SXU, so often under psychologically traumatic circumstances. Families have been left broken and careers have ended; so many lives have been damaged by the yearslong turmoil at this institution. The voices of these many—if not silenced per se—are certainly absent. My emotional response to SXU’s transformation in recent years is not unique, and I feel parts of it need to be recorded for the welfare of others trying to make sense of just what has been going on. I’ll be relatively brief.

When I was first hired at SXU 25 years ago, I felt I had won the lottery. I was a graduate of a small liberal arts college, Chicagoland’s archdiocesan seminary, Niles College, which was a campus of Loyola University. So the chance—almost 20 years after graduation—to teach English at Chicago’s oldest Catholic university; the chance to have three of my five children become alumni of this institution; the chance to work with students who were becoming leading English teachers throughout the Southside of Chicago has been a fulfilment and payout far bigger than any lottery.

The breakdown in collective bargaining that I witnessed the past three years as a union leader was difficult for me—not only because it was a failure for me in the stances I had taken, but because the breakdowns were a failure in communication (central to my discipline), and those breakdowns occurred on so many levels, including that of friends and colleagues. The eventual weakened support for the union among some of my colleagues was unexpected, but it was ultimately understandable, given how isolated and essentially over-matched our small faculty group of negotiators were in the face of a deep-pockets campaign to weaken and delegitimize our good faith efforts in negotiation.

With the administration, the hardball tactics that came from a new president and her anti-union lawyer and law firms were not a surprise, or particularly unfair—at first. SXU had financial difficulties that all involved agreed were real (though correct information was not available to all parties). For years I had heard of anti-union rhetoric from Board of Trustees members, administrators, and colleagues alike. So, for the incoming administration to put a hand up to the union with hardline absolutes and preconditions to negotiation was, as colleague Peter Kirstein once said at a faculty meeting, well within the range of expectations for contract negotiations between management and a union.

Even so, SXU had never had such adversarial negotiations. In my 25 years as a faculty member, I had served on FAC for 12 years, and in that time, I acquired a lot of context and history in regards to the committee’s purpose, routines, and strategies. Much of that context involved close work with inspiring colleagues from a broad spectrum—Arunas Dagys, of course, but others too many to list, though I can’t resist summoning some names here: Don Cyze, Bill Peters, Tony Rotatori, Peter Hilton, Suzanne Lee, Richard Fritz, Darlene O’Callaghan, Flo Appel, Ann Fillipski, and of course all the current members of FAC. These colleagues respected the sacred trust given to them to vigorously represent faculty and university interests, and to uphold the confidentiality in working behind the scenes, researching its positions, and following through on principled advocacy. And the administration always made clear their respect of process—to treat the other side as worthy of dialogue and to convey, clearly, a commitment to the goal of reaching, at least eventually, an agreement that worked for both sides.

All this is to say that, even though the hardball tactics of the Joyner administration in regards to FAC were not, essentially, unfair in terms of the larger social context of labor-management modes of engagement, they were hurtful to me, as I looked on incredulously as dialogue not only broke down, but degenerated, on the part of the administration, into what many saw as divisive actions, misrepresentations of facts, stonewalling, inuendo, and even slander, as the university slowly wended its way to the May 28th, 2020 phone call when the Board of Trustees chair, with a quaver in her voice, formally announced its decision to withdraw recognition of SXU’s longstanding union.

“May 28th” is a date that has taken on the significance of a title for SXU faculty, a name for a traumatic moment in our history. For me, it was the biggest setback of my professional life. It’s a failure of Catholic mission. It’s a failure of what higher education should be all about—humane and informed and collaborative problem solving. I still view this setback, however, as something that can be remedied.

There are several other blog posts that need to be written to fill out the memoir started here. Entries on the following topics should be written to flesh out themes, facts, and implications of this posting:

  • The breaking of trust by the Administration [Specifics need to be listed].
  • The attempt to change the character of SXU through Administrative end-arounds of established governance structures.
  • The neglect by the Administration to address issues of bullying by administrators and faculty.
  • What SXU was for me as a beginning professor: Judith Hiltner’s mentorship [offered as an example of professional colleagueship and stewardship that is no longer possible in SXU’s divided, changing, over-worked, and disrespectful climate for faculty].

Additional posts on the SXU Crisis of Governance:

SXU Faculty Vote on Faculty Voice

February 27, 2021

I feel called upon to comment on the proposed bylaws change under consideration for a faculty vote tomorrow (2/28/2021), since the proposed change affects the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC) that I served on, at various points, for 12 of my 25 years at SXU.

Many colleagues lack access to information about FAC and the significance of the proposed change. Many are unaware of the research and advocacy regularly performed by the committee, or the variety of collegial ways the committee has represented faculty concerns to the Administration for so many years. I wish I could convey just how urgent it is for a committee like FAC to exist at this point in our history.

I want to reframe the dynamic that has developed between FAC and the Administration in recent years. It’s become too adversarial—born, in part, no doubt, by the very nature of the labor-management paradigm we’ve operated under. For many years the paradigm was otherwise. Dare I call it collaborative? collegial? cooperative? We were pulling in the same direction. It sounds a bit Pollyanna-ish to say it: both sides sought agreements that best worked for the institution as a whole. Before I go too far in this direction, however, I should state that I remember past negotiations, and I need to be careful not to overly polish a patina of gauzy nostalgia over the “good old days.”  Things back then were essentially adversarial too. But there’s adversarial and there’s adversarial. When the current administration closed the door more or less completely on back channel conversations and other strategic kinds of communications and maneuvers—when every communication had to be processed through a lawyer and only in the context of formal meetings—both sides withdrew and became hardened.

We need to approach one another and soften some of the hardness. Faculty critics like me need to acknowledge that the Administration—and I do believe this—may have good intentions. Those intentions are to pursue a path that they believe in with conviction—if not always with the best information or the soundest premises. Their agenda will best ensure viability for the future—in their view. They are not selling us off for parts, or greedily exploiting crises for advantage. Perhaps we did have some need of re-focusing, of cutting fat, of trimming budgets, of reallocating resources, of upgrading the physical plant, of branding or re-branding our mission. I can grant and respect all that. And I hope the Administration can grant and respect that those of us who have objected, have done so in the name of balance. How much is too much cutting? too much rebranding? too much reallocating?

To both sides: Have we given in to adversarial pressures to such an extent that the goal of balance has been lost and neglected?

Recommendations Toward Balance

Put simply: faculty need a specialized, dedicated group to develop the most salutary approaches to workload, conditions, and benefits. Whatever the committee is called, it needs many of the things FAC had long enjoyed: access to financial information; a seat at the table; allowances for the specialized nature of its work; a collection of colleagues with past knowledge and expertise; a representative structure; and accountability to its members.

Put simply: faculty need an agreement, in writing, that is binding—contractual. We need a CBA. The CBA has been described variously by individuals, depending on which side of the adversarial dynamic you found yourself on. It’s either what has doomed or saved SXU. I would eulogize the CBA—not, I hope, in the sense of a eulogy for something that has died, but rather in the old rhetorical sense of “praise.” There is much to admire in the document, which has been a living, evolving kind of “organism” over the years—pruning excess, growing new limbs when needed, holding onto basic essences, clarifying specific new conditions, codifying new possibilities, and on and on. As a document, the CBA has been responsive to changing circumstances, and it has provided a stable foundation on which to build a work-life at this institution. Though it’s odd to say—there was a kind of “elegance” to this living, evolving document, in that, as a contract stipulating minimums of compensation and basic conditions, it possessed a certain leanness of character. It set out a baseline for how we build our mission and programs and faculty and overall community.

When the pandemic struck, the Faculty Affairs Committee had a lot more power than it currently has. We had a CBA that guaranteed faculty specific and relatively generous compensation for doing the kind of things we all wound up doing without extra compensation—teaching online. Though the union could have insisted on the letter of the contract being followed—and demanded that faculty be compensated according to the provisions of the CBA, the committee never once alluded to or “threatened” (if we’re still locked into the adversarial mode) to require the University to adhere to the online compensation provisions of the then-current CBA. We willingly (and without being asked) proposed to forgo those and other provisions. And the institution survived, as faculty, staff, and administration all worked with flexibility and resolve to find a workable way in a crisis.

I raise this episode simply as an example of how FAC has worked with the Administration—in this case, yes, but really, on multiple crises over the years where either the contract had to be opened to recalibrate promised provisions or to negotiate continuing, anemic provisions in the context of prolonged fiscal precarity. Through it all, the dedicated, specialized, and entrusted committee worked with the Administration as an equal partner—with a shared goal of finding solutions that were balanced, fair, pragmatic, and sustainable.

Given the challenges we have all experienced in the past year—and given the trust the faculty have demonstrated though sustained, flexible, and effective performance of teaching and other duties—now is not the time to weaken faculty voice and shared governance through a dimunition of the Faculty Affairs Committee. Rather, the committee needs to preserve its role, as stipulated in the bylaws long before the formation of the SXU Faculty Union, “to serve as the Faculty’s designated representative for negotiations with the Administration for salary, fringe benefits, and working conditions.”

Thoughts on the release of the Angelo documentary revision and the 10-year anniversary

Gen and Moira’s revised documentary on their brother, Angelo, has been posted! It’s here! And it reminds me:

Angelo was a new entity, the likes of which the universe, in all its miraculous and endless diversity, had never yet experienced prior to his existence.

In combining the genres of home movie and documentary, Genevieve and Moira have given our family a reminder, and the world a fresh glimpse, of that “new entity.” They’ve done so with grace and generosity, and we (his family and friends and yes, the universe) owe them a debt of gratitude.

Angelo had characteristic gestures that were uniquely his. But he also had the most common of all things—a charming smile, for example. Some of his better qualities should have come with a warning label. His smile, for instance, was so expansive and so charming that you had best learn to mistrust it at some point, or he would find some way to put you in an impossible bind (usually involving bungee cords). He was common and unique, but most of all, as one interviewee says (wink), “he was sweet.” His story is compelling and intriguing, as you might imagine when a young, charismatic, socially-conscious, world traveler and raconteur dies unexpectedly.

But this project was done by Gen and Moira as a simple gesture of love—for their brother, for their parents. Over the years since its first release in 2013, Gen stayed with the project, and nurtured it and its possibilities—which have ever been growing, and in different directions, in the background of her evolution as a filmmaker. Her commitment has been gentle—the best kind of long-view living-with her art and memories and care for her family.

I look at the evolution of this documentary and I’m reminded of the value of effort, commitment, process, patience—and yes, grief and love and affection—and sibling privilege, obligation, and commitment, and love of parents….

I look at this documentary, and I think of all the clips—where did they come from? I think of the “new” audio interview with Moira at age 6; of the “new” clips from the original interviews; of the new clips from the new interviews, and yes, from a technical point of view, I think of all the frame-by-frame editing, the color grading, audio normalizing, captioning, and organization and re-organization. I think of a story about a girl named Lucky, and how did that make it in?

Angelo was a new entity that the universe in all its diversity had yet to experience until 1986-2011. But the lesson I learn most from this documentary is that, special as he was, Angelo was but an example of the humanity that is all around us every day—that humanity that is so fragile and evanescent and moved on from, and, worst of all at times, ignored and discarded in our crass and dangerous and neglectful world. Angelo has now been gone 10 years, and also not at all. We’re just lucky enough to have a documentarian, an archivist, a “sweet remembrancer” as the Bard would have it (in the words of one of his more crass tragic heroes), who keeps him coming back at us, in different angles and moments, all with a universe of insight into that new entity that he once was, and still is, in and beyond these fleeting clips, pictures, and comments.

No explanation is needed of Angelo to those who knew him. He’s right there in our memories, animated in the full explosiveness of song and dance and eating and arguing and smiling. But to those who didn’t know him, they can catch glimpses of him through this documentary—and in ways that will make you feel the loss many of us have been struggling with and turning the corner from—with success and failure, and smiles and tears, and hope and love.

Watch—and try not to miss him. Thank you for that, Gen and Moira!

The Day Before February 5 [2021]

[Note:  This entry is an example of two SSW sessions written during workshop with my freshman writing class at the start of Spring Semester, 2021.  SSW stands for “silent sustained writing,” a weekly practice of 40-minute writing sessions conducted throughout the semester where the entire class, including the instructor, “looks at the world as a writer,” selects genres and topics of the author’s interest, and writes.  The weekly sessions build into a “writer’s notebook,” that explores what Nancie Atwell calls an author’s “writing territories,” and that approaches the task of “teaching” writing through a process of “cultivation” of a writer’s identity, rather than through specific instruction in teacher-chosen skills.  Early in each semester, I try to model how the process works for me–and how it has evolved for me as a writer over time.  It’s about writing as a way of being, rather than something learned, mastered, and checked off….]

Clearly, this notebook project is inseparable from my grieving process for Ang, which now approaches that magical mark of 10 years, and the restarting of living. At least my notebook in recent spring semesters has functioned this way. Last year, my first ENGL 120 SSW entry was on Ang’s birthday (January 23), and this year, we’re five days later, and just about dead center between the January 23-February 5 nadir of the year for me. And by a moment of grace the past weekend, I was given a story to write about by Ang’s brother, Terry.

Terry deserves, as do all my kids, his own writing notebook. He’s been impressing me so much this past year, as he wrote both a book (A Wonderful Waste of Time) and an eleven-part pretty massive podcast called “Chicago’s Civil War”—a documentary on a little-known Chicago treasure, the baseball city-series between the Cubs and Sox that ran from the early 1900s to 1940s. We had Terry over for dinner on Saturday the 23rd, when we celebrated Ang’s birthday, and he surprised me—with something I knew, but had forgotten. He told the story so well, it made me laugh and cry—and appreciate in his telling and his memory, just how present Ang is to him. Ang’s spirit is there, and in different ways, in each family member’s little and big stories.

Terry actually told us the story in the morning of Ang’s birthday, when Loretta and I drove over to his apartment to finally deliver his Christmas present, a brand new, leather recliner. Terry needed some moving help to clear space in his apartment. So he and I first had to throw out his very junky blue reclining chair. We carried it to his alley, and looked at it there, and then he sat in it, almost as though to say goodbye, almost as though this were all wrong—this throwing away of that chair that had been in the family since 2000.

Terry, as always, knew the exact date we had gotten the blue recliner. He sat in the chair, and rocked, and we wondered if this would be the last time he or anyone else would sit in it. The weather was nice for January 23rd, with a bright sun, and Terry began his story. It just seemed so right to see him there, in his chair in the alley, with the sun on his face telling the story of Adriana’s chairs—plural, for they started out as two chairs in 2000. I began to wonder if Loretta and I made a mistake in buying him a new recliner for Christmas. Before we delivered it to his apartment, we set it up in our living room, and kept it there for the four weeks between Christmas and Ang’s birthday. And we grew to like it there. We teased him that he wasn’t going to get it—that it seemed to fit our house pretty well. Well, looking at Terry, telling his story in his old chair in the alley in the sun—led me to think, maybe we should have just let well-enough alone, and kept the new chair at our house for Terry to use when he came over, and for him to just hold onto Adriana’s blue chair…

Adriana was a nurse, a co-worker of Loretta’s at NMH. Back in 2000, she offered Loretta two blue rocking recliners that were in really good shape. They were swivel recliners (an important detail to get the full effect of what follows). Adriana had to move cross-country, and so she had to unload lots of possessions. We had a big old Chevy Astro van with removable bench seats, so I said, “Sure, I’ll pick up the chairs.” Thankfully, I could enlist Terry, Age 12, just the right age to be of real use in moving furniture. Terry recalled every detail of the ride to Adriana’s northside condo on that morning 21 years ago. “It was a Monday,” Terry said. He commented that the ride to Adriana’s was uneventful—because he had a seat in the van—the passenger side seat in front. However, his seat was not guaranteed for all the driving we had to do that day. Since the day of the pickup was a Monday, it was my day to pick up my mother, Terry’s grandmother, from her afternoon dialysis treatment. So, Terry and I were, first, an efficient moving team, and then a ride share. And then we had one more stop, even after dropping Grandma off.

We got to Adriana’s condo, made pleasant small talk, and loaded the two chairs into the van, upright, as though they were Captain Kirk’s command chairs from which to control the fate of the universe with placid ease and resolve. They took up the whole back of the van, so there was no question we made the right choice in removing both benches.

Off we went to Howard and Ridge on the north side to pick up my mom. And here’s where Terry’s storytelling kicks into another gear. With Grandma in the car, he couldn’t sit up front. So the only place for him to go was in the back, and the only place to sit was in one of the recliners. His description of that trip to Grandma’s house from dialysis had all the joy and terror of a 12-year-old driving home in a bouncing van, in a recliner, no seatbelt; it was priceless. It was one of those new, weird experiences that becomes memorable when one is at that threshold age. To me, I listened in a mixture of delight and horror at my decision to let him travel in such a dangerous way. I think back now on how I tried to be efficient—pick up chairs, use son’s help, pick up Grandma—and, last on the list, pick up Ang who, in his summer before high school, was at his first cross country practice.

Part of the delight of Terry’s story was the memory of my mother’s reaction upon her first realizing the situation. She was like, “Oh,” and she nodded and got in. That “Oh” spoke of an accepting disposition of the chaos of “life with people”—of a regular ride home with a reckless/responsible son she trusted; who was in the midst of that busy, insane time of raising numerous children, some small; who himself was raised by Italian, voluble, chaotic parents. She said “Oh” acceptingly, got in, and began talking.

There may have been a comment from her, or even a judgment, but all I remember was the typical, water-off-a-duck’s back, opposite of non-plussed reaction of my mother to the antics of, well, just about everyone about her. In her later years, my mother was serene. Accepting, not pushing back. She had been through it—whatever “it” was—the Depression, WWII, emigration and immigration, a difficult marriage, five kids, widowhood—and at the end she exuded grace and gratitude for all she had—her kids, her grandkids, and her health—such as it was. Terry’s story didn’t delve into all that feeling, but his story, as my kids’ stories so often do, brought the memory of the “Oh,” back to me. I heard it. Truth be told, she might not have said “Oh” that way that time—but it was her signature gesture and attitude in that last, blessed phase of her life, about 4 years’ worth of widowhood and weekly, shared pickups and drop-offs for dialysis. In telling the story in the alley, Terry was activating so many memories of our family—my role as beleaguered parent/son, his role of a 12-year old mover/adventurist, and Ang’s role as a cross country novice that summer before high school, dutifully taking on a summer activity, not necessarily the one of his choice, but something that kept him focused and purposeful—a responsible oldest child transitioning to a new phase in his life.

What Terry did tell about Grandma was the way she invited us in when we reached her home, and told us that she had some leftover pizza from the night before. “Did we want any of it?” Of course! So we ate and talked and soon it was time to embark once again on our multi-pronged mission of the day: Leg 3 of our cross country extravaganza, driving to Fenwick to pick up Ang from that first cross country practice, that, by now, had ended quite some time ago.

I think back now, as I must have thought then: it all made sense: Fenwick was on the way home from Grandma’s house, so why wouldn’t we plan it this way? As we were leaving, my mother said, “Do you want to take the rest of the pizza with you?” Of course! This was before the time when Gen would develop the theory of the “pizza clock” and how it resets (or doesn’t need to). But we knew even then, you just don’t say no to a box of pizza you could take home with you.

The ride to Fenwick was uneventful. Terry was back in the front seat, in a seatbelt, and we were just two moving guys driving home, with a short stop to pick up Ang. Ang needed to be picked up, and not just for transportation. His practice was a rough one. While he was never in horrible shape physically, he was not especially conditioned for long distance running either. This was Ang’s introduction to the Fenwick way, the competitive, “we’re distinctive,” we’re special kind of aura of that proud institution. So of course, a first workout was going to be … challenging to the point of being brutal, and brutal it was.

Here’s where we need Terry’s deadpan narrative style. He painted a picture of Ang’s appearance or mood or state at that time. First, Ang wasn’t all that enthused about having to do an activity—any activity—that summer. But as the oldest child, he often got, as is common, the rawest deal in “requirements,” strictness, and toeing the line. He had to get a job in high school, whereas the younger ones didn’t. He had to run errands and give up his time for various family responsibilities. He had to organize his pursuits around the family’s schedule in ways not so focused on in later years. And on it went. So Ang was a little dispirited to “have to” go to cross country in the first place. And on this day, as Terry told it, there were so many compounding factors: the hot temperature, the workout, the lateness of our arrival, to name a few. And so, we arrived to see a completely defeated new member of the Fenwick community—wilted and annoyed, slouching to the car.

Terry got out to greet him. He told him, “Ang, there’s no place for you since the back is filled.”

Pause. Then with the flair of a game show host, he opened the side van door with outstretched hand. And there it was, positioned just right: a reclining chair and a box of pizza waiting for him. And it was one of those moments … when the harp plays, the slant of light glistens, the hand of God touches you, and salvation opens up before you.

I remember such moments with Ang when there’s a turn: things are going so bad, but then not so much anymore. And then the storytelling starts happening (the “best of all breathing,” Faulkner called it), and the smiles start coming, and all the “what happened before” is just part of the setup of the joy and fulfillment that will become a story, years later, told by a guy in the alley with the sun in his face, saying goodbye to a worn-out, over-used recliner.

There’s that. But there’s also Angelo’s way: the way things would work out for him up until the very end. All of that sweat and responsibility and grousing led to a comfortable chair and a pizza. Like the man chased by tigers in Kahn’s story (another family go-to meme), Ang found the strawberry on the mountainside, and “it was the sweetest tasting strawberry he ever had.” Angelo, and I bless him for this, could turn on a dime, and let go of a bad moment and lean into the new thing that was happening and inviting a smile and a different conversation. And Terry’s reaction to it was something of a unique possession of his alone (for it was completely lost to me till he told the story and brought it, and my mother’s “Oh,” back to me). Terry has held on and helped us remember, and on February 4, I couldn’t be more grateful to both sons, to all my children, to Loretta, as we close off, this very day and in SSW, our first ten years of life after—and still with—Ang.

The Day After February 5 [2020]

[ Note:  This entry is a companion SSW (silent sustained writing) to the previous posting two weeks earlier.]

February 6, 2020

Is there such a thing as a grief hangover?  Is the whole thing a hangover?  Two weeks ago, on Ang’s birthday, I wrote that I had to power through to February 5, and then start breathing again.  Today is February 6, and I’m breathing, but it’s a bit labored and troubled.  I was thinking about the “getting through” or “getting to”—but not the “getting beyond.”  What does February 6 and beyond look like?

I think such things because today had such prominent features to it—a mixture of (1) the world in your face (snow day in February) and (2) entrenched defiance on my part not to let the world interrupt who I was, and wanted to be, and what I wanted to do today.  I’ve fallen into a solitary morning routine the past year or so, and, like an old cranky person, I’ve grown protective of it.  I wake up early, stay off the computer (the only time of the day that’s true), and I engage in an increasingly regular ritual of getting ready.  I make lunches;  I brew coffee with the French press;  I leave a full thermos for the girls to have when their day starts hours later;  I clean up the night’s dishes and run the dishwasher, hoping to earn some credit (and to help the kids avoid censure for the mess they left);  I put on WFMT, and find accompaniment in the soft tones of both the music and the through-the-night announcer;  I shower;  I dress, my clothes having been laid out the night before (another old-person tendency creeping up on me—way over-preparedness about trivial things, obsessiveness in procedures);  I look through the house to see what the others will wake up to, and I try to smooth out what could disturb or inconvenience them.

Today was just another one of these mornings, but everything was amped up, all these tendencies put on steroids. First, I woke up way early.  Was it the worry over the weather?  I wish I could say it was, but the truth is I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier—to such an extent that I wonder if I sleep at all at night.  It’s become just another brief nap—that I, of course, need more of, since I’m not sleeping at night.  Is it the January-February grief cycle that’s disturbing my sleep?  Maybe.  I think it’s more the grief I feel over my broken heart of life at SXU—the stress of committee and department work, the inability to hit the stride of making things work, finding the truth, living our mission, bonding with colleagues, transitioning out of past roles, and on and on.

The morning routine has been a kind of retreat for me into my own solitary peace.  I’ve felt so alone—whatever the cause—be it Angelo or the sorrows of SXU—and I’ve found comfort in the quiet and regularity and interiority of computerless/deviceless domestic procedures, followed by the zoned out, but purposeful drive in, with minimal traffic (so important to beat the traffic, and my earlier and earlier start to the day was motivated by a quest to find that time that was early enough to beat the rat race.  I’m not sure I found it, but I know it’s before 4:55 AM.  At some point I’m going to begin hitting up against the prior day’s late traffic rather than this day’s early traffic).

So this morning—out of a desire to protect the routine, which was threatened by the snow, and to increase the psychological medicine of “being of domestic service” to help the family get started on their days, and to lean in a bit hard to the “man of the house” father stereotype (but in a good way?), I woke up an hour early, not planning to do all I did, but just falling into it.  I decided to unbury three cars, get them started and warmed up (not that they’d stay warm, but so that the windows could all be cleared, at least for the time being).  Loretta’s car had a broken scraper, so I switched that out with mine.  That was hard to do, since mine is like the most luxurious, most functional scraper-brush on the market.  But I felt so proud to surprise her, and so proud of my sacrifice, which seemed to say, “I will do anything for you, dear. (Yes, even this.)”

This morning, in some kind of productive frenzy, I even turned on the computer before going out to dig out the cars.  I thought, “I could start the cars, brush them off a bit, leave them on, come back in the house and read a report, then go back out and finish up the cars.”  I was moving—and I wanted to get ready for SSW, about which I had changed my mind several times (write about grief?  write about SXU’s troubles?  write about this afternoon’s committee meeting and our lost way?).

It was later when I got in the car and started driving that I realized what was going on with all my productiveness that morning.  A song came on—as it often does—and a miracle of emotion and utter stopping of what was going on, and a transport to the Other Place (where you needed to be all along) takes place.

I came to realize there might be something wrong with my morning routine, that I might be escaping from life, withdrawing inward, trying to control the uncontrollable, trying to secure some inner peace—but maybe leaning in too far with it.

I have an image from long ago of me wiping the kitchen counter in a circular, repetitive motion, in a Zen-like way, while the kids, all five of them, when they were young, were in the other room, being joyful and crazy and annoying and impossible.  My wiping motion was control:  “I’ve pushed back the forest, and this space is mine, and it’s clean, and it’s regular, and look, it’s clean…and round and round, it’s clean, see…?  Peace.”  There in the kitchen was my little clearing of counter—and the radio or little under-the-cabinet mounted TV with the ballgame on, quietly providing other context, giving me the illusion of not complete escape into the interiority of my own circles and clean space…:  “I am still connected (and how could I not be, with those five dervishes of energy, just in the other room, bursting with so much growth and drama and other reality?).”

So much of my dream in life has been the quest for such peace, and I wonder if my current morning routine—justified in this way, is still just a little too much.  Am I out of balance?  Did the growing of the kids, and their movement into other rooms, farther away, allow me to fixate too much on my circles?

Yesterday we had Ang’s godparents and his cousin Jane and her husband and three dervishes of kids over to have a celebration of Ang.  I’m grateful for the bustle of life in such an event.  Loretta’s day in the setup was nonstop—a full day beginning with a work out, Mass, a trip to the cemetery, shopping at Costco, shopping at Jewel, going to Freddies (yes, Freddies) to pick up the chicken parmesan, gnocchi, lasagna, ravioli, meatballs, and salads.  I am grateful for the way the kids all chipped in, the way everyone came over, the conversation, laughter, storytelling, and reminiscing.  I was a happy and sociable participant in the gathering—but also a little quiet and off to the side.  Was I thinking about my morning routine, that was just a few hours away?  I was a bit.

Was I feeling the grief hangover then?  Was the hangover the result of the social interaction or the intense inner withdrawals and worries over getting things done?

One big lesson I learned from Ang was that “we’re not in control”—and a version of that lesson came home to me when the song came on.  Without planning, without setup, the transport took place.  It was Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly in a duet of “True Love,” from the movie High Society (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl5EPEzukNQ).

When the song came on so many of my prior—and unperceived—anxieties and preparations became apparent.  I had been stressing out about how to honor this 9-year anniversary;  maybe I would write about random and brief Ang memories in SSW (the stoplight at 58th Avenue that starts up a conversation with him every day?);  maybe I would focus on the gratitude I felt for the text message from Lorenzo, “thinking of you today”;  maybe I would write about SXU’s leadership, and how they are pulling the rug from so many supports that have enabled SXU to grow and be strong over the years—i.e., maybe I would not write at all about Ang, because it’s just too hard, too involved—next year will be the year, that ten-year mark, and my “tenure” in grief will have been earned, and then the turning point.

The song brought Bing Crosby’s silky smooth baritone that alone in itself is miraculous.  But the duet is with Grace Kelly, who is more than “royal”—what is Grace Kelly?  Magic is too harsh a word;  there’s something softer, more beautiful, more transient and eternal, hopeful, and absolute about her, or the symbol of her.  Together they sang:

For you and I have a guardian angel
On high with nothing to do
But to give to you
And to give to me
Love forever true.

It’s romantic love they’re singing of—but it’s another kind of love, too.  The love of a protector.  Is Ang the guardian angel?  Or is there a guardian angel unseen keeping him close to me?  The words and feelings of these lyrics swell up and fill me.  Time, leisure, love, protection, generosity, sharing, and eternity:  Bing and Grace sing it, and I drive on snowy streets without a word from Ang these long nine years, but with a guardian angel’s efforts, breaking through, giving me a forever that might be, maybe?, redeemed.