Sloane, Author at The STUFF Sisters

Hearing Voices

On Monday, World AIDS Day, I accepted an award from the AIDS Service Foundation of Greater Kansas City – the Mark Dreiling Community Leadership Award – for twenty years of passion for the cause. In the days since, I have been asked by five people to publish my remarks. I can’t promise that these words were spoken verbatim, because I only wrote down “bones” for my comments, not a complete script.

On Monday, World AIDS Day, I accepted an award from the AIDS Service Foundation of Greater Kansas City – the Mark Dreiling Community Leadership Award – for twenty years of passion for the cause. It was named after my friend Mark who died several years ago from cancer and who was a fierce believer in eradicating AIDS from this planet – or at least from our town. This award humbled me, as I was the first to receive it after it was given to Mark last year posthumously.

In the days since, I have been asked by five people to publish my remarks – two people I know well, and three I don’t really know but who were at the luncheon and sought me out later that day either in person or via e-mail. Again, I am humbled.

I can’t promise that the words below were spoken verbatim, because I only wrote down “bones” for my comments, not a complete script. I also spoke with a voice quivering with passion partnered with eyes brimming with tears. Here are the remarks.

Thank you very much. When I stand here and think about what I have given to the fight against AIDS, I can honestly say that today I have been involved in the delinquency of minors. There are three young people in the audience who could be at school – I don’t know, maybe learning something! – and instead they are here, and I am deeply touched. To you, Dakota and Sawyer and Zach, I say that you saw the numbers and the facts on screen, and I am looking to you to finish what we’ve all started.

I don’t really know when I began hearing voices – not the bad kinds that tell you to do bad things, but the kind that stick with you and become part of who you are. I can clearly remember my parents saying to me that I could be and do anything. The power of those words has fueled me to almost fifty years of age. To you both, I say thanks.

This particular journey actually started with a phone call from Steve Metzler way back in 2000 asking me to serve on the board of the AIDS Service Foundation. You told me, “There really is no time for orientation. You’ll catch on quick and will like this. You can call me anytime.” And I did all of those things. But not without drive by meetings on our street about things I didn’t understand or that I was questioning. Since then, your voice on the phone and in person as I have considered other commitments and board positions has been priceless. I treasure your friendship and your wisdom.

Which leads me to the next voice. A little boy’s voice at bath time. There isn’t a partner, spouse, parent or child in this room who hasn’t lived through what I call the “Litany of Leaving”. It goes like this: “I am heading out to a meeting. I have done these things before I go, I need you to do these things while I am gone, and when I get back we can accomplish these things.” That is the Litany of Leaving.

On this particular night, my son Dakota was maybe three years old. He was splashing in the tub with my husband dutifully near him because you really don’t want the baby to drown because by three you’ve got so much invested. The dog was on the rug looking at me, the room was moist and damp and happy, and I was leaving. I stepped around the dog, and, as I touched the wet blonde head, his little voice said, “Mom? Is it AIDS again?”

Greater than the sound of the splashes and the rubber toys hitting the side of the tub was this voice that has stuck with me since. “Yes,” I said. It was “AIDS again” that was pulling me away from my family, and I told him – to the point where he probably glazed over but I felt better – that we needed to fight to end AIDS so no one suffered anymore…that what I was doing was important for all of us. I had lost him at the word “yes”, and I knew it.

In the silences and the noise, I hear all of you. All of you who taught me the way of beer busts and garage sales at Missy B’s. Standing with you in darkened theaters waiting for performances to end so that we could greet people with buckets after they had been prevailed upon to give. Standing with the same buckets on 47th and any old street asking for more money. With tiles and glaze and high school students. Through walks and runs and rides and golf games, I have heard you all, and you are with me.

And finally, I hear Mark. I will not stand here and pretend that we were close friends. We were not. But we were friends, and I miss him. We served on two boards together, and I felt I had finally joined an elite club when he let me in on his quiet, biting humor. His deep passion for this cause wore off on me, and we ended up sharing much more than either intended.

The first time he called me “Madame President”, I winced, and then I smiled. I hear his voice every time I speak those words to Missy – and, for that matter, most of the other past presidents with which I share the title.

I am deeply touched that the committee chose me only one year after Mark. Thank you. I will not let Mark’s memory fade.

I have worked with all of you in one way or another for the people in our city who struggle with the stigma and the disease. I have said it a million times – and Michael Lintecum is sick of hearing it! – we are all in this together, and none of us accomplishes great things alone.

I firmly believe that when one of us has AIDS, all of us have AIDS. I promised that little boy in the bathtub a world without AIDS in his lifetime.

Thank you for helping me keep that promise.

p.s. Thank you to Theresa Van Ackeren for taking this photo on Monday and to Tom Styrkowicz for sharing his abilities by capturing that image in the first place…and for charity to boot!

The Thick and The Thin

I have lived the last week with my eyes and my hands. My eyes and the hands of others. My hands holding the hands of others. In silence and in noise.

Yesterday I attended the funeral for a friend’s mother. I had a seat that afforded me the view of my friend’s right hand. I could see no faces, having only a limited view from several rows back. Her hand rarely left her father’s right shoulder. It gripped him to hold him up, with every muscle in her forearm defined. It caressed his back gently and then returned to its grasp. Nails polished a burnished steel, her hand told a story that left me in tears. The quiet kind that slips out while your eyes are wide open and you are unaware until you swipe them back.

Not a week before that, I was standing in the living room of a friend in the company of many. I was listening intently to the quick speeches of two other friends when I realized one of them was veering into speaking about me. I reached immediately for the arm of a dear friend to my right, and his hand found mine and never left. Having been summoned, I left him to walk into the realm of the speakers. I can still feel the comfort of his grip. The knowledge that he was there for me and would have held on through thick and thin was transforming.

I know that my friend’s dad felt that from his daughter. The thick and the thin. Through the liturgy, the Eucharist, and the final hymn.

The gentle power of the human hand has been a wonder for me to behold.

Sloane

Dancing

I watched as the leaves truly curled their way to the limestone steps, the vine, the hosta leaves. They came down slowly in light that was just beginning to brighten.

I can’t dance. Never really been able to. Tried. Failed. Tried again.

The word, however, holds me in its grace. Dance. Begins strong and ends softly. Two days ago I used “dance” in a small speech at a charity luncheon. I used it to draw a picture of my involvement with this charity. A slow, almost cautious interchange that grew rich over time.

Today I spoke it silently in my mind when I walked outside and our maple tree was beginning her fall. The leaves have been tipped with yellow for about a week – the cooler temperatures and rain usually bring it on – but very few had fallen. Now light brown was waltzing into the yellow ever so slightly.

I stood there entranced, again, at the majesty of this tree in our front yard. It is over three stories tall and shades us brilliantly all spring and summer from the western sun. She is older and lovely, shapely and arching.

I watched as the leaves truly curled their way to the limestone steps, the vine, the hosta leaves. They came down slowly in light that was just beginning to brighten.

They danced through the air in no great rush before landing silently. I was held in their sway until I just had to go to work. I was late. I believe I would have sat there all day watching. Yearning to fall into a dance that gorgeous.

Someday. Someday I will dance.

Quote Me

Sometimes, you just gotta put words together until they fit perfectly to your environment, emotions and life.

This week was a whirlwind. Casey and I kept many meetings outside the store. We volunteered, dined and visited with many people beyond the limits of our store. At each event, I found myself mesmerized by what people said when describing their work world and lives.

“penalty kick shoot out”

“swells & riptides”

“warm, white box”

“work & turn”

“own a niche”

“blow smoke up myself”

I know Casey and I speak a language unique to our industry, yet I can’t think of one phrase as I write this. When we were political consultants, everything was an acronym: RON (rest over night), PDQ (pretty damn quick), FYI (for your information). Some were even more specific to clients and jobs. Again, they escape me.

But one quote I will never forget – spoken just between Casey and me in private until right now – and that makes me laugh all these years later is “monumental crap shit fest”.

Sometimes, you just gotta put words together until they fit perfectly to your environment, emotions and life.

You can quote me on that.

Photo: My desk today. I surround myself with quotes and images at work. Not surprisingly, my most packed board on Pinterest is called “Saying Something”. Quote, quote and more quotes.

Watery Silence

True silence was visited upon me that night. A slowly darkening night sky was mine to behold each time I smoothly crested the surface. Long, quiet minutes. An hour perhaps.

My desire for quiet is occasionally overwhelming. Our store plays lovely and fun music – which I sign and dance to! – but there are days when I sigh deeply when we turn it off. And mornings when I groan when we start it up.

This summer a friend invited me to swim at a lake. My initial delight was in spending time together. Then my mind latched onto memory of the silence that follows me into water. Both were thrilling and ultimately rewarding.

A few weeks later I was invited back, and I was so forward as to ask if we could swim in the dark, a secret pleasure I remember from my childhood spent in fresh and chlorinated water. My sisters, my parents, and my friends were muted while I explored the capacity of my lungs. The depths never scared me.

True silence was visited upon me that night. A slowly darkening night sky was mine to behold each time I smoothly crested the surface. Long, quiet minutes. An hour perhaps. The magic of friendship that night was when my friend retreated to the house and left me truly alone. I could have wept, and no one would have been the wiser.

Upon his return, we swam into the evening – two voices meeting each other in the dark. I treaded water until my legs were rubbery when I made it back to the dock.

My lungs have a diminishing volume with age, but my love of occasional and deep quiet is met in the embrace of silky, warm water.

– sloane

p.s. Original painting by Philip Robl. Titled: “The Distance”.

It’s Our Differences

She says the card area would drive her crazy if she were in charge of it. Duh. I knew that before she ever said it.

In the last year, we – the Sloane & Casey “we” – have worked on making our store physically different. New vintage display cabinets, entire re-designs of artist displays, wider aisles, cleaner lines, and wider spaces. All while constantly bringing in new and more.

This has truly taken a year. We never went about it to be a shocking change for our customers. Like most things we do, it was gradual and organic in its completion. So much so that customers can’t quite put their fingers on it when they tell us “something’s different.”

Casey has abilities and strengths I do not harbor when it comes to displays in our store. This is fine with me, and I hold no grudges. Truly. She can “see” a new display before she even starts it. She relies on me to help her pull the larger pieces together and to remind her what is lurking and hidden in the display room at STUFF, and then she’s off to the races.

However, she has given me the one area of the store where I am allowed to do the displays that she knows will suit my analytical, spacial driven, and nerdy mind…the card section.

I love it.

Straight lines, themes, groupings. All the challenges are there for me. The fact that we order more cards than usually will fit in the area reserved for cards just makes me more determined.

I seldom ask for help. (If I ever need it, goddess help me.) I am sure I impress my sister with my competence and creativity, as she impresses me with hers.

We get new cards about once a week, and they are never the same design or artist. I look forward to putting the new things out. It takes me away from my other work and sets me free just a little bit from my regularly scheduled programming.

She says the card area would drive her crazy if she were in charge of it. Duh. I knew that before she ever said it. It’s our differences that make us so alike.

The Truth Hurts. Really.

Last week my son made me cry. One sentence, spoken in jest. A teenager taking a chance at pointed humor. It hit hard, I blinked back tears and left the kitchen. A whole flight of stairs and a retreat to my bed didn’t save me from feeling bad.

OK. It was the second time he had made me cry, but the first time he won’t remember and it really doesn’t count. He was only a baby. After he had learned to stand – but not steadily! – I was holding him on my lap facing outwards and as he bucked his head flew backwards he cracked his head right into my lip. Much blood, substantially more tears.

Last week he was standing steadily in our kitchen. We had just finished a meal as a family. We were all joking around, and I was going down the list of things to still accomplish that evening. I had seen from the outset that the week we were standing in was going to be a bear. I had planned just about every waking moment and could easily, through my years of event planning and project management, stack the tasks in such a way that no duplicate effort would have to take place. For four people, over six days. I had experience behind me.

Personal objectives, professional challenges, HR meetings, details to finalize for a fundraiser for a treasured charity, preparations for the first floor of our home to be on tour, the yard and garden to make presentable for those who decided to tour, two dozen desserts to make. The list was endless, and I had made it so.

Where we chose to have breakfast together. A place he had never been. . — Where we chose to have breakfast together. A place he had never been. An adventure of sorts.

I was partway through that evening’s litany – one phrase included the statement, “we don’t have a lot of time this week” – when he said something along the lines of, “Yeah. That’s a lot, but I only have one summer to be seventeen.”

Silence.

He was right. I had crammed so much into a week in preparation for the busy weekend that I had forgotten what was important. A touch of fun. A relaxed schedule. Freedom. You know, summer. As a teenager lives it.

His comment slapped me hard. I welled up, mumbled something, and took off. I wasn’t wanting him to follow me and apologize, which he did later. I just wanted to be alone.

When he found me in my room, he quickly said he was sorry for making me cry. His voice betrayed his sadness. I never made eye contact with him but told him that I was OK and would be downstairs later. He accepted that quietly, stated again that he was sorry, stood there a while longer, tapped the bed with his hand and left the room.

We didn’t see each other much the next day due to his work schedule and mine. Time passed, and I stewed in the guilt of not ever really accepting his apology for making me cry.

Two days later, while the two of us were at breakfast alone, I told him I was sorry for upsetting him the other night but not for crying. I believed he needed to see my tears. He tried to apologize again, and I touched his arm and he stopped. I told him he had been correct. That time was flying by and that I had been – at that time – focused on things that were calling to be finished. I told him that the truth hurts sometimes.

To speak it and to hear it.

To Each Their Own

I remember the day my grandmother asked me to take her to New York City. By the end of our second abbreviated conversation that day, she all but said she wanted me and my husband to join her in “the biggest city I’ll ever set foot in.”

I’m not a fool. We went to New York.

Towards the middle of my grandmother’s second battle with breast cancer, she realized she was never going to see Europe. My grandfather had recently died, she was weakened by treatments, but her urge to travel kicked in again on a morning in September. She had, for all my life, always been a woman in constant and focused motion.

I remember the day she asked me to take her to New York City. She called me and immediately upon my answering started in. “What does a room actually cost at the Waldorf-Astoria?” This query had to have been founded from my sister Casey and me telling her about our discounted adventures during a market we had attended a month before at the hotel she was asking about.

I didn’t really know where she was heading with this line of questioning, I figured she might just be nosy. But whenever she started with a question and not a “hello”, I knew she had been chewing on an idea for hours or days. I was intrigued and willing to play along. I didn’t really know what the room rate was, but I jumped online after hanging up and found out. By the end of our second abbreviated conversation that day, she all but said she wanted me and my husband to join her in “the biggest city I’ll ever set foot in.”

I’m not a fool. We went to New York.

We ended up sharing a room – her in one double bed and us in another. I think she wanted us close – and, if I remember correctly, the room rate was steep. She never intended on staying in any other hotel. Without ever having been to New York, the Waldorf was “her New York”. The hotel of queens and presidents and movie stars. Fancy balls, galas, and weddings. And her dreams.

I let her choose our agenda, but, seeing my once-vibrant grandmother lessened by disease, I knew we would need to hit the highlights and see the breadth and width of the city in ways that impacted the body softly. Looking back, the only thing we didn’t get done was a subway ride. Taxi rides, tour boats to Staten Island and around Lady Liberty, top-level seats on a double-decker tourist bus, three Broadway shows, a hot dog from a street vendor, and one special dinner after a show near Times Square. We accomplished a great deal. We went in early October, and the weather was delightful. Blue sky days and crisp nights.

The greatest memory from the trip happened in our room. She was in her bed, the one closest to the bathroom. She was on her right side facing away from me and the bedside light. I had seen her in this position every time I ever entered her bedroom as a child. My husband was sitting beside me reading in our bed, and we were both still dressed from our afternoon matinee. She had already declared herself “in for the night” an hour or so earlier.

Many minutes passed in the city that never sleeps, and night darkened outside our single window facing Lexington Avenue. I thought she was sleeping because her hand-knitted cap – to cover chemo-ruined hair – was firmly in place and she was still.

Out of the blue, I heard, “We need pizza.”

She was right, and my husband was delighted. It is his favorite food in any city, but “street pizza” in NY is the delicious pinnacle. I forged ahead with questions about specifics – toppings and sauces – and she said, “Get five pieces, all different, and we’ll share.”

We loved every bite, and she marveled at the size of the slices – each in its own box – and wondered how we would ever finish them. It really wasn’t a problem any of us spent much time contemplating.

Pizza may not have been the wisest decision for late night food for a survivor over 70 years of age – or for her descendent and her husband. Ours was the smallest room the Waldorf offers, and we filled it with the wonderful smell of pizza. And probably the hall as well.

Today I walked alone from a borrowed apartment in New Jersey. I traipsed to the ferry and made my daily move into Manhattan. Every day before this one on this trip, I have been in motion with a member of my family – husband, sister or friend. I was never alone. Until today. It didn’t last, the alone part. Somewhere in the watery region between New Jersey and New York, I was with my grandmother again. She joined me on the ferry, and the memories of five days spent in this city ten years ago overwhelmed me. It was the last trip she ever took.

I believe we all have our own New York, whether we live there full time or live in it as visitors. Places we must visit every time we can. Neighborhoods we move through because they take us back to the first time we were there. Routes considered and re-considered depending upon the time of day.

My son’s New York continues to hold awe and discovery.

My sister’s New York has the Twin Towers in it.

My mother’s New York gifted us fancy truffles every time she returned to her children.

And her mother’s New York was the Waldorf-Astoria.

My New York? I’m still trying to figure it out. But I’m willing to come as often as it takes to solve the mystery. It’s probably all of their New Yorks combined with mine.

p.s. All of these photographs were taken on my daily walks to and from the ferry on this most recent trip to New York. On the last day, there was a parade. You can’t beat that with a stick.

Boxed In

There are certain times of the year when the days move so fast and every day is so crammed full that a calendar – on paper or screen – can’t contain or corral it. Each and every day has a little extra task in it brought to me by my child.

There are certain times of the year when the days move so fast and every day is so crammed full that a calendar – on paper or screen – can’t contain or corral it.

In my job, that’s every day from about Halloween to New Year’s.

As a mother, it’s the month before school ends.

Each and every day has a little extra task in it brought to me by my child. Over the weekend, it was potato salad for 75 people at a volunteer gig. Four dozen cookies for the teacher’s lounge. Nineteen gifts for a national youth exchange. Brownies for math class. None of this makes us a unique family, because every family I talk to is on the verge of having their neatly paced lives run amuck.

In early March, our family went to my youngest niece’s school to view the rainforest that had been crafted by her entire grade. I wrote about that magical day then. It was the camera shot I took afterward during “snack time” that hit home. I was already – two months out from the end of school! – talking to others about how “we’ll get to it this summer” and “that would be the perfect thing to do this summer.”

We were in the multi-purpose room of her school, and I saw physical proof of what I was already doing…packing the proverbial boxes on my calendar full for every day and every thing that needed to get done so that we could all arrive alive at summer. Unscathed. Whole. Ready for a slower pace.

Just a few more dozen cookies, many tests, a child’s three-plus-day trip to a science contest overlaid with his parents’ seven-plus-day business trip. Then the junior year of my son’s high school year will be behind him.

We’re almost there.

Crying Mercy

Two days ago, I cried mercy. This blog has started a little more dramatically than I intended. It was two days ago when I realized that my dual-self-employed-only-child-in-his-junior-year household was not going to get its spring yard work done.

Two days ago, I cried mercy.

This blog has started a little more dramatically than I intended. It was two days ago when I realized that my dual-self-employed-only-child-in-his-junior-year household was not going to get its spring yard work done. My husband and I don’t have green thumbs, and, with the side-effects of three very large old growth trees on our little patch of heaven, hostas, perennial vines and plantings are our friends. These choices we made twenty-plus years ago make for very little annual yard work. We had spent hours here and there over the past three weeks doing the very small amount of things that needed to be done in the warming weather, but there was about three hours of work left to do on one side of the house that was languishing. Undone. Messy.

And for the first time ever – besides lawn mowing – I called in a professional to finish our yardwork. I had never hired anyone to remove the winter’s leaves from all they were protecting. That is actually a job I adore, because I can say hello to my green friends that have been resting over the long winter. Their little, pale, white-ish shoots are usually found reaching for the sun and fresh air. And my gentle words of welcome.

harl & scotty — My husband and our friend Scotty last year. Obviously not in the yard….

Today, my friend – and professional self-employed yard genius – stepped in and took us to the finish line. I really struggled with reaching out for help this time. Not that I am opposed to hiring people – plumbers, electricians, painters – who know exactly what they are doing, like that Oakland County’s best plumbing service our neighbours using on the regular basis. I stand in awe of their capabilities and knowledge. I think my problem with reaching out was about me, not her. I like to be the one to take the spring projects to the end. I like to stand back and see the fresh rake marks and the tender buds. It is the final nail in winter’s coffin.

Today I handed the hammer to Scotty and I couldn’t be happier.