When I assigned “Spirits” as a writing prompt over the Halloween weekend, I expected the writers in my memoir classes to come back with stories of living in houses that were haunted, going to psychics, reading Tarot Cards, seeing ghosts or visits from the “other side.” Instead, I heard essays about team spirit, kindred spirits, vodka, Christmas spirit, you name it. This one, called “My Spirits Restored,” was particularly moving, and the writer has generously agreed to let us publish it here.

by Maggy Fouché

In 1994, three years after we got married, my husband and I became homeowners. Claude and I had acquired a collection of artworks while we were both single, and our new home transformed into an art gallery. Paintings and carvings of all sizes and colors filled every room in the house. Fortunately, our taste in art was similar, with only a few exceptions. Pieces I didn’t like ended up in the unfinished basement. Throughout our life together we acquired more art from travels abroad and visits to local art fairs and galleries.

Djenane and her husband Jacob with their Aunty Maggy

When Claude died, I had to sell my house. The paintings became a casualty of the real estate agent’s dictates. “Put all that away,” she said. “Prospective homebuyers don’t want to see any of your personal effects.”

Everything got wrapped in brown paper and put in the basement, and I prepared to transition from a three-bedroom house to something smaller. Trips to Goodwill and the city’s recycling center on Goose Island became a routine part of my life, and the art collection became just another thing to get rid of.

Unfortunately, my attempts to sell art on line went nowhere. My home’s antiseptic makeover worked, though, and the house was sold.

On moving day all the paintings got put in various boxes simply labeled “Art.” Without knowing which box contained the pieces I really liked, I put them all into the storage unit in my new apartment complex. I’d dispose of them later.

My opportunity came just a few months ago when my niece Djenane was getting married. “Aunty Maggy,” she said one day, “Jacob and I need some art to decorate our new home. I love the place, but the walls are so bare!” I gave her one of the paintings I had tried to sell on Craigslist. She was thrilled.

So was I.

I told her I had more pieces and she could come and take whatever she wanted. To prepare for her visit, I spent a weekend unpacking all those boxes marked”Art.” Removing the brown paper wrapping and seeing my favorite pictures emerge was like being reunited with old friends. Something inside me was being restored.

Now Maggy looks at her favorite paintings every day.

I’d discarded much more than I thought in those four years of purging, and now I found something I didn’t even know I’d lost. I separated the pictures I wanted to keep and showed Djenane the rest. She took two paintings and four carvings – Hurray! A major dent in the inventory.

Now my focus was on reuniting with my old friends and making up for the years of neglect. I took advantage of a 60% off frame sale from Michael’s to get two of them properly mounted and framed. Then I called my handyman to come help me hang them in the living room.

Now, as I read, write, or just sit in my new art gallery, I feel their warm embrace. “Hi, Maggy!” the paintings seem to say. “It’s good to be back.”

We just got back from a visit to Gus in his new home. Ordinarily, the term new home triggers anticipation and excitement—in this case, Gus’ move to new digs was more about anxiety.

I’ve posted about Gus before—short story: He was born with a rare genetic disorder that left him with severe developmental and physical disabilities. He’s 31 years old now, and has always needed help with bathing, toileting, dressing, grooming—with about everything.

Gus seemed happy in his new digs.

Until 2002, he got that help from mom and dad. Then he moved to a newish facility in Watertown, Wisconsin operated by Bethesda Lutheran Communities. He lived in what was essentially a really nice single dorm room—each building had sixteen such rooms, and they shared a large, open, sunny lounge and dining area and a specially equipped bathroom and shower area.

When Gus moved away, he and we had a hard few months of separation. But he eventually adapted and had a lot of fun propelling his wheelchair up and down the long hallways. He even managed to open a door and get out of his unit once, the little stinker. (OK, I confess, I wasn’t alarmed. Truth is, hearing that news made me a proud papa.) The facility was purpose built, it was accessible by design, and was equipped with devices that made it as easy as possible for staff to help residents with daily living. There was also a nurse on hand.

Gus’ home building was situated among others like it, as well as an older building, on a green patch of land next to a river. It was a pretty little setting.

But, it was, in a real sense, segregated from the broader community. The residents got out on special field trips from time to time, but just going outside for a walk could be problematic depending on staff.

And there was the rub. For decades now, there has been a movement away from institutional settings—ones that separate people from the general community—toward group homes. That movement advanced, in a hurry, after the landmark Olmstead Supreme Court decision in 1999. In brief, that decision led to a mandate that citizens who relied on Medicaid—which includes pretty much anyone with severe disabilities or requiring a nursing home—be placed in the least restrictive, most average environment possible.

For so many, many people, the decision was a Godsend. Lots of people had unnecessarily been warehoused in the kinds of places that gave the term institution its odious reputation. Many of these people were capable of living much fuller lives in the community.

But, as is often the case, there were unintended consequences. Namely, there were lots of people—and their families—who were completely happy in their institutional setting. Some of these people were very medically needy, and their guardians believed they were much safer if left where they were. And they put up their own fight.

The advocates for community settings were pretty dogged—they believed it was good for everyone. And many adopted the position that group homes in community settings were more economical than larger facilities. In addition, in our case, there would be better staff to resident rations. Essentially, in a group home, there’d be one staff per two residents, where on campus there might be a handful for 16.

I believe in certain situations, community settings can be more economical—but in general, they’re not. It seemed counterintuitive to Beth and me even back then. For example, certain equipment has to be made available at dozens of locations instead of just one. (Vans, lifts, etc.)

It was an attractive–if fundamentally faulty–idea to think there would be financial savings across the board.

A couple years after Gus moved to Bethesda, we learned that the wind was blowing strongly toward group homes in local neighborhoods, and away from Gus’ campus setting. We were told a new home was opening nearby, there was space for Gus with three other guys who lived on campus, and he was a good candidate for a group home. They weren’t going to force us to take the opportunity, but it was clear that he was going to have to leave the institutional setting eventually, and waiting too long would limit our choices.

So we took the opportunity. We were relieved when the transition went smoothly—there were some hiccups but not the gut wrenching few months we experienced when Gus moved away in the first place.

And Gus has lived happily ever after with the same three roommates ever since.

Until last Friday.

We got a call about a month ago informing us that his little home was being phased out. In 30 days. A lot of stomach acid and a few phone calls later, we ascertained that he could move to another nearby group home, also operated by Bethesda. And that’s where we visited Gus this past Saturday.

In some ways, it’s a better situation: The new home was purpose-built with accessible features, where his old home had been retrofitted. But it’s a duplex arrangement with four bedrooms on two sides, connected by hallways. There are eight residents, and there were two staff while we visited. The previous house was across from a cute little park where we walked Gus to watch Little League games. The new one is across the street from a construction equipment storage lot.

If this sounds like a complaint, it’s not. To start, we’re lucky that Gus isn’t terribly medically  needy, and that he has done well in both his settings. Bethesda has stuck with Gus and us through this difficult situation, which has mightily strained the organization’s resources. The people who work in the homes are the salt of the earth. Beth, Gus, and I count ourselves as remarkably fortunate.

But it’s hard not to feel a little wistful. After all, in a real sense, Gus’ new situation kind of splits the difference between his original home on campus and his previous group home.

I think we’d have been happy sticking to the first, and skipping the angst—and cost to Bethesda—of two moves. I hope it’s the last move for a good while. I can only take so much antacid.

That’s Astros, not ….

When I fell a couple winters ago and broke some fingers in my left hand, I started
toying around with a dictation feature on the iPhone. The microphone next to the space bar on the keyboard is far more accurate than Siri, and last

month I showed an 80-year-old writer in one of the memoir-writing classes I lead how to use it:

1. Go to Settings.
2. Swipe until you get to “General.”
3. Swipe to Siri, and then turn Siri on. (Even if you don’t want to use Siri at all, you need to turn it on for any speech recognition to work.)
4. Tap on the spot of the screen where you usually type.
5. When the qwerty keyboard appears, look for the microphone icon by the space bar on your keyboard and tap it. When you’re done, tap the screen twice to end dictation.

I explained that she could include punctuation by just saying “exclamation mark” or “period” or “comma” and so on. She mastered it so quickly that she’s already using the microphone dictation method to write her essays.

One thing I still need to tell my octogenarian writer (and remind myself) is how easy it is to go back to the QWERTY keyboard to fix typos or edit a message  before sending it. I texted more than usual during the World Series this past week and was so excited by all the action on the field that I didn’t use the qwerty fix-it method as much as I should have. Some examples:

• Friends texted to let me know South Loop Club had the music down, the TV broadcast sound was on, did I want to meet there for a beer and be able to hear the game? I dictated a text that said, well, “I am feeling thirsty.” The message they got said I was feeling 30.
• In the game where the Astros fell behind by four in the early innings, I dictated a text encouraging a fellow Astros fan to stay positive. “Eyebrows up!” I said. The message he received read, I grows up!
• When back-and-forth extra-inning games left me drinking  later than usual, I dictated a text to a friend and said I needed to practice “moderation.” The message my friend received said I needed to practice mortification.
• After the Astros won Game Five, I dictated a note to a friend that if the Astros clinched the next night, I’d be free on Wednesday to go with her to a poetry slam. The message she got said I’d go with her to a piety slam.
• I stayed home for Game Seven to listen to it on the radio, but Mike headed to Kasey’s Tavern across the street. Somewhere in the second or third inning I texted him by dictating, “I love these Astros!” the text he received said I love these assholes!

So take a lesson from me. Let’s be careful out there, fellow dictators.

Baseball fans are in the midst of a dramatic, entertaining, gut wrenching World Series. I’ve been enjoying it immensely. But then, I always enjoy the World Series. Which is why this headline and story from FiveThirtyEight drives me nuts:

This Astros-Dodgers World Series Is Already One Of The Best Ever

It’s not even over yet. And besides, how do you pretend to make subjective judgments objective? And why?

Bill Mazeroski brings home the winning run in game 7 of the 1960 World Series.

I think I know why. It’s playing to our vanity. What we are watching now is the best ever! What we are doing right now is more important than ever!

A few years ago, the term future-hall-of-famer was coined. And it won’t go away, and it never ceases to annoy the hell out of me. We’re watching a good player. Maybe a great player. Right now. And we’re talking about whether, five years after the player’s retirement, the player will be considered worthy of the MLB Hall of Fame.

Why? Isn’t watching the player perform enough? We have to borrow from the future to make ourselves feel even better?

Last year, when the first of two autumn tragedies occurred as the Cubs beat the Indians in the World Series, we were treated to statements like, “The best game 7 ever.”

It actually was a messy, badly managed baseball game. I’m 60 years old. It wasn’t even the best game 7 I’ve watched on live TV. That would be 1991, Twins-Braves, Jack Morris. You can look it up.

Or how about 1960. Pittsburgh Pirates vs. NY Yankees. Bill Mazeroski hit a walk off home run to give the Bucs the championship. This, despite the Pirates being outscored for the Series by more than 2-1.

So yeah. This 2017 World Series is wildly entertaining. On its own merits.

Just enjoy it.

Whitney and I gave a presentation at Bethany Retirement Community yesterday. Bethany sponsors a weekly memoir-writing class for residents there, and yesterday’s event began with a lovely reading of short pieces six of the writers in their class had written. Each participant had provided photos. While staff members read the essays aloud, the photos that went with that particular essay appeared on a big screen so audience members could see what the characters in each story looked like. What a great idea!

My short presentation came afterwards, and during the Q&A portion I was asked, “You’ve been leading your memoir classes all these years, of all the stories you’ve heard, is there one that is your favorite?”

I was stumped. No one had ever asked that question before. The room fell silent. Oodles of stories started swimming around my head, so, so many good stories. Which one to pick? And then, of all things, I remembered reading in Writer’s Almanac that yesterday was the birthday of famous poet and novelist Sylvia Plath. She would have been 85, and a writer in one of my memoir-writing classes knew her in college.

“I get a kick out of hearing about some of the famous people the writers knew way back when,” I said, finally breaking the silence. ”It kills me how nonchalant they can be about knowing famous people.” I’ve talked about some of those writers here on the Safe & Sound blog:

• 80-year-old hair stylist Bob Eisenberg shared a cocktail (or two, or three) with Vidal Sassoon.
• At an Antioch College reunion, Judy Spock reunited with her friend Corrie Scott, whose married name was Coretta Scott King.
• Regan Burke moved to Little Rock to work as Bill Clinton’s scheduler during the 1992 campaign and moved to D.C. to work there after he won.
• And of course Wanda Bridgeforth sang in high school musicals with Nat King Cole and Dinah Washington.

Haven House at Smith College.

And then there’s Giovanna Breu. She worked for Life Magazine after graduating from Columbia University’s School of Journalism and, before that, from Smith College. “I did not pick my college. My mother did,” Giovanna wrote when I assigned “Choosing a College” as a writing prompt. Her essay pointed out that back then prestigious colleges like Harvard, Yale and Princeton did not admit women. “The argument was that women would lower their academic standards.”

Her mother had attended Smith, a women’s college, and loved her time there so much she wanted both daughters, Giovanna and Diana, to go there. “I suppose I could have objected and headed in a different direction, but I was young, only 16 when I was graduated from high school, the first of my siblings to go away to college.”

Giovanna lived at Smith’s Haven House all four years. “My mother said I should pick Haven House because it was where she lived, and she loved it.” A three-story frame house built in 1865, Haven House was painted bright yellow on the first two floors, white across the top, with windows flanked by black shutters. “A porch, held up by slim columns, enlivened the front of the house,” Giovanna wrote, describing other side porches stretching back into the college’s grassy campus as well. “On sunny days we’d dress in our shortest shorts and stretch out on the porches trying to get a tan.” The last paragraph of Giovanna’s essay is a perfect example of how nonchalant these writers can be about the famous people they hung out with when they were younger:

The rooms at Haven were different configurations. I lived on the first floor with a roommate my freshman year, and then in a single room, part of a suite, for the next three years. When I was a senior my room was directly across from a freshman named Sylvia Plath. That is another story.

I shared Giovanna and Sylvia Plath’s story with my audience at Bethany, they asked a few more questions about memoir, and when the event was over we gave each of the six writers whose work had been featured at the beginning of the talk a copy of my book Writing Out Loud as a gift. Four more copies were given to Bethany’s library for other residents — and their visitors — to read. As I put on my coat to leave, Bethany staff members told me a lot more residents were already talking about joining Bethany’s memoir-writing class now. I call that an unqualified success!