Celebrating a blogaversary. Next month marks the tenth year of publishing this blog. Like me, it has shape-shifted over the past decade. The titles – or lack thereof –  tell the tale. When I first launched the blog in June 2008, it was a nameless, online repository for a column I wrote for a parenting newspaper. A year later — with my daughters in high school and college and mother-mode still fairly front and center — it became PERSONAL SPACE, which reflected what I needed at the time. When the girls were fully on their own seven years later, the blog became fused with my writerly identity and writing process and became what you are reading now — EBB & FLOW.

Your summer reading. The Summer Issue of Thread, the tenth issue, will bloom in June. Six essays on six threads in the patchwork of life. A Facebook friendship. The swing of a baseball bat. A Mexican blessing. Strip teasing in the car. No shoes and twenty-five dollars. A hawk’s stare. Like EBB & FLOW, Thread has grown into a harmoniously diverse chorus of voices which now includes the publication’s first editorial/production intern, Alexandra Yetter. Her keen eye and inquiring mind are already bringing a fresh energy to the issue under construction. A smart someone to run things by is a divine gift for the solo editorpreneur. For more about Alexandra, see the Contributor’s page.

A hometown horn toot. When I learned that I would be receiving Skokie’s 2018 Individual Award for Artistic Excellence, I had to read the email three times to fully digest it. Apparently, I am the first literary-type to receive this award —  voted on by members of the village board, including Mayor George W. Van Dusen — which I now share with some incredibly gifted visual, performing and musical artists. I’ll be receiving a certificate on June 4 and my name will be added to a permanent plaque on display at one of my favorite theaters in the Chicago area:  North Shore Center for Performing Arts. I am honored and awestruck that my community recognizes artists in this way. Stay tuned to hear about my future plans to give some of that love back.

And a dedication. To Tom Wolferman — writer, reluctant storyteller and friend — who died, far too young, earlier this month. Tom was among a handful of writers to whom I reached out when I was launching Thread, asking for essays. When I first emailed him, he responded with this: “The potential not to squint in front of a mic with a death grip on five pages printed in 60-point font? Sounds intriguing.” The piece he sent, which ultimately became “The Paper Trail,” was about his copywriting exploits at a local newspaper in the 80s. In it, he refers to an “unsettling photo” that was taken of him in a corduroy bomber jacket, bell bottoms and a Walkman. When he sent the photo over, he wrote: “This pic is wrong on every level, but at least it validates that I am truthful in my nonfiction descriptives. Funk it up. Size it down. Add some red eye. Put it through 300 sepia filters that don’t make me look like a flunkie from ‘Welcome Back Kotter.’ I’m agreeing to this for the sake of art, right? Tell me it’s for art, Ellen. Regards, The artist formerly known as Tom.” His writerly voice was so sparkling, it ignited an email inbox. It’s dark right now where Tom used to be, but remembering him and reading his work keeps that light ignited. For those of us who deal in words, it’s a reminder that in addition to our lives, losses and loves, our work is our legacy.

We’re three-quarters of the way through April in the Midwest, but it’s the calendar’s spring. Winter clings on. I woke yesterday morning to the sound of ice being scraped off a car.

For me, it’s a serious spring. A sad spring. A green-brown-white, dry-moist, aromatic season of birth and death.

The first spring without my mother in it.

The spring proceeding the completion of my memoir in which spring plays a title role.

It’s my epilogue spring.

Mothers leave the world first. That’s the design. It’s expected. I knew grief before but this is something different. The earth feels a little less steady under my feet.

Our mothers are our origin stories: We enter the world together. We walk this world together. If we’re lucky, like I was, we even enjoy one another’s company along the way. Mothers and their children are bound together forever, no matter what their relationship.

However, life keeps moving so I am learning how to trudge on through the grief. Some things help. Conversations with close friends, especially ones who have lost their mothers. Texts from my daughters. Sharing memories and reflections about my mom with my brother. Dinner and a movie at home with my husband. Sixties and seventies rock oldies. A good Netflix series. A walk. Taking photos.

What’s anchoring me most, however, is taking this amusement park ride of feelings to the page.

There, grief is welcome. As it is on the canvas, potter’s wheel, sewing machine, ivory keys, strings or microphone. Where it’s safe. Turning our feelings into something that can help us heal. To make art from chaos. So that our pain might offer us some meaning. Maybe a gift to someone else.

One Hundred Words on Grief

Your world may feel upside down, but you are getting a crash course in New Normal.

You aren’t alone in your grief, but no two people feel it the same way.

Grief wants to be in charge – and sometimes is – but it comes and goes.

You can successfully push grief aside, but it will show up later in some unexpected form.

Grief offers experience with end-of-life issues but demands that you think about yours.

You become aware of how fast time goes, but also of its preciousness.

Grief can bring intense sorrow, but intense joy can be experienced within it.

Memoir update: I thought it was a journey just getting the words onto the page. Turns out, finding representation for a book is like crossing the border to another country. The process is slow. Far slower than journalistic deadlines or literary publishing. It demands patience, which I’m not very good at. I promise to keep you posted.

Photo by Ellen Blum Barish. Copyright 2018.