Mad Mad Mad

Last night I dreamed that I was losing my mind.

It was one of those heavy, wet-blanket dreams: the kind that seem simultaneously too, too real and very, very unreal. The kind that makes me feel as if I have hundreds of lead fishing weights hanging from every part of my body, weighting me down in the dark water of Dream.

It was completely believable, completely immersive. I was having a nervous breakdown.  I was in a gym or spa in a shopping center, and I kept misplacing things: my clothes, my soap, my purse... I would put the things down and then turn around and there were other things there... not the things I had put down, but someone else's things.  A pile of new clothes where my jacket and t shirt should have been, a dust-covered bar of hand-made soap where my shampoo bottle was.  Then I couldn't find my socks, so I got some other socks, then I couldn't find them.

I began to feel panicky.  I realized something very bad was happening to me, and it was happening inside my head.  I didn't know if the things I was picking up-- which I believed had replaced my things-- were actually mine and I just didn't recognize them anymore.  I couldn't find my way out of the spa.  I  kept coming back around to the same place. People were looking at me.

I ended up on the phone, calling my mother, telling her to come get me, I was having a nervous breakdown. I was desperately trying to hold on to everything at once because I knew if it left my hands, I wouldn't be able to find it. I was picking up objects one by one and looking at them very carefully so I would remember them, trying to hold all the objects so none could get away.

It was horrifying.

When I woke I realized that it had scared and upset me so because I sometimes feel as if just that thing is on the verge of happening to me. My memory fails me. I no longer try to keep things in sequence any more. I no longer sit with my brow furrowed, trying to remember the end of the book or movie I just read or saw. I know I won't remember it. And if I try, I'll only prove to myself that my memory... my mind ... is going. The terror of the unfamiliar seems all too near already.

I realize that people... women, perhaps, especially... experience memory lapses as they get older. Mine seem a little more ... pervasive. I joke at work about not remembering anything I've done. I try to get projects cranked through quickly because I know if I don't do them right away, I won't remember that they have to be done at all.  This morning, I told someone here at the museum that I had not received any copy for a project yet. She laughed and told me I'd sent her the final edited copy more than a week ago.  It was funny... and slightly disturbing.  Especially after the dream.

I've often thought that Alzheimers would be a horrifying disease to suffer from:  to feel your own memories, your own grip on the world, weakening and fading away.  To know where the empty spots were would be one thing... but then to begin to not realize the places were empty, but to keep stumbling across them... rediscovering your own losses over and over... terrifying .

Lately I have been thinking a lot about aging.  I'm "a woman of a certain age," after all... just turned 47, which means I'm on the down-hill run to menopause for sure now. I get hot flashes, night sweats. My memory plays tricks on me.  I always imagined that I would age gracefully, just taking the changes as they came with a sort of matter-of-fact attitude.  But I'm finding that it's harder than that... much harder than I expected, to be growing older than the youthful person I have always imagined myself to be.  The woman I see in the mirror shocks me. She has crepey skin on her neck, a roll around her middle, sagging flesh around the knees, and strange little down-turned lines at the corners of her mouth. How did this happen so quickly?

I don't think I ever considered myself a great beauty.  I knew I was lucky to be a "pretty" girl... in a nice, not-drop-dead, girl-next-door way.  Now I am discovering how very much I have always relied upon and identified myself with the way I look. If my inside was unstable and felt unlovable, well, I knew I could count on my outside to give that frightened, fragile person something to hide behind. Now, more and more, I fear that my insecurities--my teetering self-worth and mounting self-doubt--are becoming manifest on the outside, as well.  It's all there for everyone to see.  The whole crumbling edifice.  The Empress has no clothes... and nobody needs to see that.

My mother assures me that growing older is liberating:  that it gets better and better, I'll become more comfortable in my own skin.  But right now that skin feels like an alien.  It's bulgy and and saggy and bears a web of fine lines. Inside I feel no more self-assured or confident than I ever have been, which is to say, not at all.  And I cringe at the idea of trying any sort of desperate measures to stop the clock or reverse the downward drag of time. Am I going to suddenly become obsessed with how I look?  With upkeep and maintenance and damage repair?  I don't know what's worse: fighting back in a losing war of attrition, or just letting everything go to hell.  Both ways seem unbearable:  embarrassing and uncomfortable.

Perhaps I'll just go back to bed and wait until the transformation is complete.  I'll arise at 60, wrinkled, gray... but wholly reborn!  An aging butterfly.

Me and Sherlock Holmes

"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession,—or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world."

                       --Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

I have been thinking about these words of the immortal and inimitable Sherlock Holmes lately.  I have come to realize that boredom is at the core of most, if not all, my psychic and spiritual unrest.  Ennui.  Tedium.  I am, in short... bored by life. 

I realize that of course life is essentially boring. We all have to go through our daily round of required, repetitive activities.  We get up, brush our teeth, make coffee, feed the dog, tidy up, go to work, buy groceries. Life is dull. But lately I've realized that my mind is spinning... looking for something to catch its attention... a thread to follow, a puzzle to decipher, a project to create. I'm not only bored when I'm inactive.  I'm depressed. 

Like Sherlock, I self-medicate.  Fortunately, I'm unable to indulge in Holmes's "seven per cent solution" of cocaine.  I hate to think what consequences that might bring... but I do drink more than is good for me, and I have come to realize that by doing so, I'm trying to quiet my mind. 

I'm like Roxy, our so-called "foster dog" who has now lived with us for three years in two states. Roxy is anxious.  She squeaks and fusses when she doesn't have something to do or enough attention. Often I am able to comfort her by rubbing her head or sitting next to her and just focusing attention on her for a few minutes. But sometimes I resort to benadryl or tramadol to just make her STOP.  My brain is like that. It's happy when it's doing something: researching, solving problems, writing or editing,  whatever. But when it's left to its own devices it begins to squeak.  And though I try tossing different activities at it as a distraction, they don't seem to last long. 

I have a host of busy-hands things I can go to:  knitting in the winter, mosaic building, and recently I've taken up basket weaving again. But I find that after a flurry of intense activity, I'm bored with those projects, as well.  It's time for something else, or I just need something more engrossing, more meaningful. 

You'd think I would write. And for awhile there, I did. But then I Finished My Book:  a momentous occasion that sort of left me feeling empty. I haven't had the inclination or focus in the past few weeks to begin properly editing the book.  Maybe I'm a little afraid it won't be any good when I read it again, or else it will need massive surgery to make it worth reading. It was such a relief to get it all out on paper, I'm afraid it will disappoint me, as so many projects do in the end. 

So I must find a way to occupy and satisfy my busy, distractable, dissatisfied Monkey Mind. Maybe it's a series of busy-hands projects, one after another, maybe I'll burst into blog-flower. But I must now begin to investigate the possibilities. I can not allow that dangerous busy mind to keep spinning in idle the way I have lately with television and wine. It's like a lively dog in a small kennel. It needs to be put to work!

In which I take poor construction as a personal sign from the universe

So a few weeks ago at work I made an internet impulse purchase of two hanging "hammock chairs."  They look like this:

It took weeks to get around to hanging them on the back porch.  I tried right away, of course, but couldn't get enough torque on the hook while holding it over my head to get it to bite into the wood while I turned to get it started. I drilled a starter hole and everything, still couldn't do it. Finally, this Sunday, John was over and he got the hooks installed for me and so at last my wonderful hammock chairs are up.  I'm elated. I feel like I've somehow arrived.  I can sit in my gently swaying hammock chair, cupped in comfy fabric like a little nest, with my feet up, sipping cold wine, watching the birds and enjoying life.

This, I thought, was living.

I wanted to post a picture of me doing just that here, but unfortunately, last night as I was sitting in my swing with my wine, the hook snapped out of the roof beam overhead and dropped me on my butt on the patio. The ice-cold wine in my glass was as surprised as I was, as it was temporarily left behind, up in the air as I and my glass dropped away beneath it.  Then it came down too:  on my head.  All very quickly, of course.

I felt as if the universe had personally taken a crap on me.  My feelings were deeply wounded.  I had loved this chair, lovingly installed it and praised it, spent time with it. Only to be betrayed so brutally and coldly dropped on my ass on the hard concrete.

It will be awhile before my spirit recovers from this rejection. Meanwhile, I guess I will have to call my dad and find out what I did wrong.

What we choose to do with the rest of our lives

I've been through too much in the past few years to even consider having a mid-life crisis.  BUT...

Recently I got the word that a couple of my old high school pals... who are already doing amazing things out in the world... are taking part this summer in the Mongol Rally.  If you have not heard of it, it's an annual 8500-mile race from London to the capitol of Mongolia in a teeny tiny car to raise money for charities. It's sure to be the adventure of a lifetime.

It's not one I will ever enjoy.

My friend Ben talked about it to the students at Quartz Mountain this summer, and posted this great video of his talk:  http://vimeo.com/69668154.  It reminded me of what an amazing guy he already is and always has been, and I was both proud to be his friend and a little sad that I didn't grow up to be as cool as he is or do any of the super cool things he has done.

I have many friends from high school who went on to do and be cool things and people. And I'm fortunate to have had them in my life. There's my high school best friend Wendi who's practicing psychology in San Francisco, friend and another former Quartz Mountain student Amy who's a minister in Washington DC, my dearly beloved Chris, who's a computer genius of some sort that I'm not quite smart enough to understand in Raleigh, NC (he's going with Ben on the Mongol Rally, by the way), and my best friend from junior high school, Amy in Norman Oklahoma who works with kids who are abused and neglected. All from my high school years.

Since then I've been fortunate enough to make other amazing friends:  Mary, a former nun my mother's age who shoots photographs and greets life with a warm smile every day. Jin, a woman made from grit and glory who simply won't take no as an answer from life and reminds me every time I see her what it means to be a friend; Nick, a paleontologist and gentle man in every true sense of the word, and Michael, a dear friend who's a gifted singer-songwriter, one of the most genuine and caring individuals I have ever met, and all around fabulous positive person.

I'm proud to be in their company, even though most of the time I'm not, as they all live elsewhere.  Even so, it's good to know that all of these great people call me friend, and would be glad to see me if I showed up at their door.

I was feeling low about not being the sort of person who will ever go on the Mongol Rally.  And then I realized that these friends of mine are amazing people whom I love... not because of what they DO... but because of who they ARE.  They are good-natured, humorous, humble and devoutly human people. If they were all puffed-up jackasses, it wouldn't matter WHAT they were doing.  I wouldn't admire or care for them. If all any of them ever did was tend their garden and bird-watch... I would STILL be wowed by their points of view, their insight, and their gift for caring about people and making things make sense.

Perhaps it's not too late for me to have global adventures. But even if I never do, I hope I can approach my life with the same amount of dedication and passion that these folks do.  We make choices as we go along, and sometimes choices are made for us and we have to adapt. It has taken me more than 40 years, but I'm finally writing for a living... something everyone around me always said I would do, since before my own days as a student at Quartz Mountain. I live and work in a beautiful place. I raise my wonderful son with as much love and wisdom as I can muster, and apologize when I get it wrong.

I'll watch every bit of information I can get from Ben and Chris as they make their journey across the world. It will be full of humor and character and great photographs and cool experiences... because that's the sort of people they are.

I'll be there in spirit.

In Which I Sleep on the Floor with the Dog

I am a bad Dog Mom.

I didn't mean to be.  I was trying to be a Good Dog Mom.  But it backfired on me.

Sunday we took two out of three dogs to the river for a romp.  The two big dogs (Flower and Roxy) get to go because they A) love water, B) need the exercise, and C) don't disappear over the horizon the second they are off the leash, or else run barking at small children and large dogs or else plow right into the middle of a riverside baptism, like SOME dogs do.

The little dog stays home.

The two dogs have very different ideas of what constitutes a good time at the river.  Flower thinks a good time is running through the tall grass in the nearby field, exploring the woods, and rolling on dead things. Roxy thinks a good time is leaping into the water and swimming after whatever stick, frisbee, or ball you (or anybody, for that matter) have thrown... over and over and over.  Roxy will chase the stick, frisbee, or ball until she drops dead or your arm falls off, whichever comes first.  I know this.  I know that I have to monitor how much time we spend playing, because she won't stop... ever.

Sunday, we sort of lost track of time.

Now, when Flower gets tired, she plops down somewhere and rests.  When her feet get sore and tired of walking on river rocks, she stands in the grass and refuses to come down to the bank. This is because Flower is not a crazy.

When Roxy gets tired, she barks at you to throw it again, throw it again, throw it again.  She simply refuses to acknowledge or admit fatigue and spends pretty much the entire time in motion:  swimming, running, or jumping. She also doesn't show that she's tired and sore (I honestly don't think she even knows she is) until you get her home.  This is because Roxy is crazy.

Last night she was so sore and tired that, once she had limped into the house and lay down on the floor, she wouldn't get up, even to eat.  I had to set her bowl down between her paws.  She growled at John when he tried to lift her onto the sofa. By 8:00 she was whining continually, so I gave her a tramadol, and was then obliged to give her another every 4 hours all night long.  When the pills wore off, she would cry and wake me up.  Then she'd cry until the pills took hold again.  She was so pitiful that I finally got out of bed and lay down on the floor next to her and rubbed her belly while we waited for the medicine to kick in.  It was the only thing that kept her quiet.

I felt terrible. Now I'm worried that she may have damaged her ACL like she did once before.  This means another $200 in dog drugs, if not surgery.  So, like I said, I've been a really baaaad Dog Mom. For my penance, I suppose I will wake up every four hours and lay on the floor with the dog.

Speaking of Frogs...

It's funny that frogs keep turning up in my life right now.


Think about frogs.  Frogs are transformational animals.  They begin life as one thing and wind up as something else entirely.  It may not be as dramatic as the change that butterflies go through, but it's not insignificant.  Growing legs, learning to breathe air, and hopping out of the nice safe water into the big wide world is no small feat.

Lately I've been trying to initiate my own transformation.  Seems like I'm always doing that, actually, but in the past few weeks in particular, I've been making a conscious effort to come out of my cocoon.

I had a sort of wake-up call when my 12-year-old son looked at me one day and said "Mom, you need some friends."

Um.  Okay.

It's true, though.  I've become pretty isolated.  I didn't mean to, and I didn't even realize it was happening until recently. John has a new buddy:  a fellow restaurant-business-guy whom he plays music and frisbee golf with. He brought said guy over to meet the dogs, hoping to recruit him to dog-sit for us while we're on vacation in August.  We had an enjoyable evening of hanging out, and after everyone was gone, that's when the bomb dropped.  I need some friends.

I've never been very good at making friends. Not that I'm unlikable or weird or creepy or anything. I don't think I'm too bossy or annoying or anything like that. I just get awkward making that step from "hey howya doin'" to "Hey you want to have coffee."  Thank god I was born a woman.  I'm sure if I was a guy I'd never have the courage to ask a woman out.

I tend to keep things light and surfacey.  I make jokes, I'm "entertaining," but it's all just on the surface:  like a water-skater bug, skimming along, never getting wet. The problem with that is, that all the good stuff is below the surface, and while sometimes I can see it from up here in water-skater land, I'm not part of it. And the longer I'm up here by myself, the more the folks down below in the party forget I was ever there.  I recede.


So I'm trying to become more of a frog.  Frogs, being creatures of both land and water, are comfortable in both elements. They can swim below the surface and be part of what's happening; they can dip in and out whenever they please; or they can climb out on a nice warm lilly pad and mind their own business.  Surface tension keeps them neither out nor in.

So, I'm trying to be consciously less "entertaining" and more "present" in my daily dealings with the creatures both above and below the surface. When I greet someone on the surface, I leave my hat and cane behind and I'm trying to be still and listen, then respond honestly and genuinely.  Likewise when I dip into the actual social realm, I must try not to be the dancing frog... just the frog swimming among other frogs:  listening, and responding. Not just talking and waiting for my chance to talk again.

This is challenging for me, and will require cracking open my shell a bit more than I have been lately, as well as resisting the urge to hide behind my jokes and small talk.  I have to Be the Frog. Dip in, climb out.  Dip in, climb out.

Ribbit.  Also, some frogs can be completely frozen and come back to life.  So that's encouraging.
Watch this video to see for yourself:  http://videos.howstuffworks.com/tlc/28588-understanding-frozen-wood-frogs-video.htm

More Toads

I went home at lunch today to take my boy a sandwich (I have found that when I don't go home to feed him, Grayson eats nothing but Cheezits and orange Fanta all day). When I opened the back door to let the dogs out, this fat toad was sitting on the lintel, as if it was waiting to be let in.  

I of course picked him up, because that's what I do when I see a toad.  And Grayson and I passed him back and forth for a minute or two before he hopped out of our hands and began bouncing around the kitchen floor. We hustled him out into the garden and I refilled the little toad swimming pool I've set up out there for the tiny toadlets. Looks like I'll need a larger pool!

The Herps of Arkansas website tells me that, since this guy's glands on the back of his head are kidney shaped and separated from his eye ridges, he (or she, I have no idea how one sexes a toad) is an American Dwarf Toad. 

I like to know my toads. 

First Toads

Got my boy back on Saturday.  Summer is always a weird time for us.  Grayson spends time in El Paso with one set of grandparents; in Ruidoso, NM with another set; and in Norman, OK with a third set. He also spends a week in Scout Camp.  The rest of the time is divvied up between his dad's house and our house, most of it going to his dad. When it all shakes down I get him for a total of four weeks.

I'm glad his dad wants to spend long chunks of time with our son in the summer, and I'm glad Grayson enjoys going there. I'm sure it's fun for him to spend a couple of weeks at a stretch with his baby brother. I'm also glad that his grandparents arrange to spend time with him, and that he enjoys that time. But it's hard to lose him for so much of the summer.  There are so many things I want to do with him here that we just don't have time to do in the short time we have together.  If I could just take those weeks off work, we could do all kinds of things, but of course, that's not an option.

It's okay, I'm not complaining. It gets a little easier each time we do it.  But when he's home, I'm really ready for him to be home, and I want to cram as much good stuff into that time as I possibly can, while still allowing him his necessary teenaged-boy-sitting-in-front-of-the-computer time... which equals basically all the hours I"m at work.  I come home at work and watch and make lunch and small talk.  I'm happy just sitting on the sofa watching him be there.

This weekend we spent Saturday doing nothing at all.  He had been at Scout Camp for a week, living rough in tents without air conditioning, so he was reveling in the A.C. and electronic devices. Yesterday, we spent all day at the new water park. I think I have a water park hangover, in fact. My eyes still feel scorched from the sun, and I'm a bit pink around the forehead.  But I'm grateful for the time we spend together, and the fact that he wants me to be with him. I know the time is coming when he'll be off with his friends and won't want his old mom to join in.

John has made some new friends that came along, as well:  two twenty-somethings who work in the restaurant biz in town. Grayson thinks they're about the coolest things on legs. It's fun to watch him light up and join in the conversation when they're around. I'm sure it's good for him to have the chance to hang out with cool dudes, instead of just with us old farts who doze off on the sofa at 9:30. They all seem like kids to me, I admit it. I find myself wanting to mother these "boys:" reminding them to put on sunscreen and ordering pizza to feed everyone. I realize they're 15 years old than Grayson, but to me they just look like big, hungry boys, and my instinct is to feed them. They don't seem to mind.

I wonder what G will be like at that age?

I'm working, of course, for the rest of the week, so we'll have to slip in our fun times together in the evenings as best we can. Last night we went out at 9:30 and walked around the block under the big orange "Super Moon," looking for toads under the streetlights. A favorite activity of ours. John came along, sort of padding along behind us wondering why on earth he was doing this when he could be sitting on the sofa in the air conditioning. We only found one full-grown toad, but it was good-sized and easy to catch... peed on us both liberally and was then released. Lots of teeny juvenile toads, though, hopping around the damp concrete walkway at our front door, snacking on bugs.

Think we'll get headlamps and go to the Crystal Bridges Trail later this week: it's illuminated AND close to the stream, so we may get better toad sightings there, and maybe even a salamander if we go down by the water. We'll take a camera when we go.

Wild wildlife

I'm kind of geeky about animals:  I'm always watching for animals on the roadside when I drive, and any time I'm in any natural setting I'm walking with my eyes on the ground or up in the trees hoping to spot something. So I'm already predisposed to have more critter encounters than your average Joe.  Spending 12 years working in a natural history museum probably has something to do with it, as well.  I rescued two turtles from the road lately, and John and I surprised a six-foot bull-snake on a pile of rocks at the river a few weeks ago.  That was exciting.

But none of that explains why there has been a catbird throwing itself against my windows for the past few weeks.  I'd say that was the start of the recent spate of animal adventures, but really it started when the mama robin took up residence in the Boston fern outside our dining room windows and raised a nest of three babies, right before our eyes.  It was like having the National Geographic Channel on all the time. My family came to visit from Oklahoma and we spent hours just sitting at the dining room table, chatting and watching the robin parents feed their scrawny, funny-looking little dinosaur babies.

But back to the catbird.  It started about 6:00 one morning, maybe a month ago:  this bird was throwing itself repeatedly at my bedroom window from the nearby lilac bush.  Thump, thump, thump.  Then it moved to another window and kept it up over there:  thump thump.  And back to the lilac.  I left that morning just after 8 a.m. and got home at 6 that evening to find the poor thing still at it.  Everyone said he was fighting with his reflection in the window, so I closed the blinds, hoping to cut back on the window's reflectivity. Worked like a charm:  the bird moved to the dining room windows and took up the fight anew, from a perch on the other Boston fern (not the one that had previously housed the robin family).

Now his attacks had a different tenor, however. Instead of thumping the window, he was just sort of flying at it and perching briefly with his claws gripping the cross-piece in the pane (there's a word for that, but I've no idea what it is). It clings there, then flaps back to the fern, or the back of a chair, or the crepe myrtle bush nearby, only to sally forth again:  flap and cling, flap and cling.

I began to wonder if the bird was trying to get my attention.  What would happen if in between flaps one time I just opened the window?  (I didn't, though)

This went on for two weeks, with gradually less and less frequency.  Now he just turns up once every few days for a few desultory flap attacks, then he goes away.

Now it's tiny toads, though.

About a week ago I was working in the garden and noticed a teeny tiny toadlet clambering about in the grass.  Soon I saw another one, and another, and when I went to the front yard to water the flower bed, they were hopping in every direction!  Toads.  Dozens of itsy bitsy toads.

And you know what I think they're eating?  Itsy bitsy grasshoppers.  I didn't even know you could get grasshoppers this small, but I've seen a few that are about the size of  (I shit you not) a grain of rice. I had to really squint to even see what they were!

Anyway, I have toads.  I can't mow close to the flowerbeds because I'm paranoid about killing some of them.  And I have to really watch where I'm putting my feet along the front sidewalk.  I can't imagine how awful I'd feel if I squished one.  I realize that there are a lot of them for a reason:  prey animals breed like, well, rabbits, because they are needed to feed other animals.  So I know the toads are being snapped up left and right by everything from robins to garter snakes.  But I hope as many of them as possible will make it to adulthood, because I would love to have a garden full of toads.  They're cute, they have soft little bellies, and they eat bugs.

There's another wildlife oddity happening that I haven't quite worked out yet. Something is digging up out of my lawn.  A gopher or mole, I'm sure, though I'd love it if it was some big ole' spadefoot toad.  I've seen the dirt coming up, even seen it move a bit once, but have yet to identify the digger.  Just hoping the dogs don't identify it first by digging it up and devouring it.

Chakra Kahn

I'm feeling really low. I haven't been sick, but I've just been off a bit.  Primarily because I've been in pain.  I'm not really a very Big Girl about pain.  I suffer. I whine.  I share my pain.  A week ago I did something unpleasant to my shoulder.  It happened like this:

The weathermen had been frantically predicting icy armageddon all afternoon and evening:  freezing rain on its way, with an estimated 1 - 2 inch accumulation by morning.  So Grayson and I went to bed fully expecting a snow day in the morning.  I think the whole of NW Arkansas did.

We woke up to no snow, not even any ice to speak, so they did NOT close schools. So already we're pre-disposed to negative vibes.  It was at this point that I discovered I had failed to put Grayson's jeans into the drier the night before, so we have to wait an hour for them to dry so he didn't have to go to school in pajamas.  He's down to three pairs of pants.  Don't judge me. He started out the school year with about six pairs of pants, but the kid won't stop growing, and now half of them are too small for him.

The extra hour of course meant that he missed the bus, so then I was obliged to take him to school.  I manage to get myself dressed and prepared and out the door, only to discover that there is, indeed, ice.  But it has accumulated in only two places:  the grass in the yard and  MY CAR, which I absent-mindedly left out in the driveway overnight. (despite the fact that I have a perfectly functional garage) In a short 10 hours, my car had become completely encapsulated in a quarter-inch shroud of solid ice.  Awesome.

Our drier hour completed, G put on his nice warm, freshly dried pants, I put G in the car (after forcibly breaking the ice over the door handle and then yanking repeatedly on it to break the ice seal around the door) and turned on my heater and defrost (which my dad had paid a sick sum of money to have fixed for me just about a month ago.  Thanks Dad).  I waited a full ten minutes, watching water droplets form on the underside of the glacier on the windshield, and then went out with my ice chipper to attempt to get the ice off the car.

I was hacking away at the solid sheet of ice on the window, when I felt something decidedly unpleasant happen in my right shoulder.  It wasn't a snap or anything.  Just a feeling like "I think my shoulder hates me right now." Just as I was registering the pain, and feebly sweeping the last broken shards of ice off the window with my now partially paralyzed right arm, it began to pour down rain.  As I jumped into the car, the rain turned to hail.

Grayson looked at me and said "Seriously?  Mom?  Hail?"  And then indicated the front door and said "we still can..."

No, by god.  I'm dressed, I've been out in the cold chipping ice off my windows, and I've been hailed on. No, we're doing this day. I've gone through too much to stop now.

That was all very well, except as the day wore on, the shoulder got worse, despite me dosing myself with my dog's steroids and painkillers, left over from her knee injury.  What?  She wasn't using them.

This week I finally broke down and went to the doctor to get my own steroids and painkillers.

The dull ache of my neck and shoulder this week, plus lack of funds due to paying for doctor's visit, steroids and painkillers, have made me fairly grumpy. And sleepy, pitiful, distracted, and resentful.

So I've been feeling a bit low.  And this morning I stumbled across some Carol Tuttle thing about "Take our Three-Minute Quiz to test your chakras."  So, thinking maybe this would give me some insight into what it is that is making me feel so uninspired and low-spirited, I took the three-minute test.  Twice.  Both times the results informed me that every single one of my chakras was either weak or closed altogether.

ah HA!

So not helpful.  Now I feel even worse. I have blocked chakras.  No wonder I'm such a loser.

So Many Books...

Once upon a time when I was young ... I hadn't yet developed a book addiction. Oh, I read books, of course. Voraciously.  But like a sane person, I went to the library to get my book fix. I would check out five or six at a time and take them home: smell them, fondle their covers, flip through them, and ponder them until I chose which one to actually begin reading first.  I'd read two or three of them maybe, then I'd return them all to the library and start the process over.  At that point in my life it had never occurred to me to buy books and bring them home forever.  I hadn't yet been introduced to the cause of my current addiction.

The first "real" book I remember purchasing (i.e. not a cheap paperback) was Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, in a new hardcover edition, sometime in the 80s. It felt so decadent to purchase a brand new hardback.  I pondered over the decision for hours, browsing around the bookstore, anxious to choose well.

Even then my addiction didn't kick into full gear for several years. I didn't feel right spending money on a book I would read once and then shelve. I had to have a special reason to buy a book, particularly a hardback book.  Even when I was in graduate school, I didn't amass many books. I dated a guy who worked in a used book store, and he would buy books all the time, books he didn't even have time to read. Books he'd already read. Books he didn't intend to read right away.  When I asked him why, he said he dreamed of someday having a library so well stocked with books that when he felt like reading something new, he could just go choose something from his own shelves.  At the time, I found that extravagant, peculiar, decadent.

Then my dear friend Charlie sent me a $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble for Christmas one year.

And that, my friends, was that.  They had me.

For the first time in my life I was able to go hog wild in the book store: snapping up not only books I felt a real commitment to, but books that looked interesting, books I liked the cover of, books I'd heard of but knew nothing about. I bought six or eight books in one rapturous day, and it was all over.

Since then I've bought new hardbacks and rumpled old paperbacks. I come to a screeching stop at garage sales featuring used books. I've joined no fewer than five book clubs. I have acquired so many books that by this time in my life I've actually been obliged to sell or give away several times as many books as I currently own, due to lack of space or inability to afford moving them all. I once actually, I'm not kidding, dropped off a huge box of books in the parking lot of a Walmart just to get rid of them.  I feel terrible about it now, as if I'd dumped a puppy in a sleet storm. But I had way more than I could house, and they were multiplying like gerbils.

I hate getting rid of books, but it's a necessity.  I sold or gave away some six or eight boxes of books before making the move to Arkansas a year and a half ago, and yet even so, I found it necessary to buy extra bookcases when I got here so that I could finally have a dedicated library space with floor to ceiling books all along one wall.  But already they are overflowing, with books stuffed in on top of books, books piled on the floor. In my bedroom there's a stack of new books two feet high on my bedside table.  There are three books on the dresser, ad two on the coffee table.

And there are so many more books on the way!  I just ordered a signed copy of Neil Gaiman's new book The Ocean at the End of the Lane, coming out in June. Robin Hobb's new Dragon Blood is due out in April.  The next in the "Fall of Giants" series is out in hardback now and it's all I can do to keep myself from buying it now and adding it to the stack. (I've sworn I'd wait for the trade paperback, at least)

Think of all the books!  All the worlds and stories and adventures waiting for me! I read hungrily, wanting simultaneously to savor the story and to hurry up and get to the next one. Sometimes I read several at once, alternating according to my mood, though I prefer not to do this. Sometimes I don't finish them, which to a book purist would be sacrilege, but I lose interest before I get to the end... there are so many others waiting in line!

Someday I hope to write and publish one... just one... just to be on someone else's reading list.  Wouldn't that be lovely?  Someday.  I hope.

Be True to Your Nature

I knew I needed to publish a more upbeat post hard on the heels of the last one, lest folks worry about me.  So here you go:

Monday, as I was walking to my car after work, I heard the tree frogs.  Yes, it's February.  I think they were Spring Peepers.  It might have been this Cajun Chorus frog, though.  Maybe both!  You can hear their calls (as well as the call of a bunch of other frogs) at this awesome Arkansas herpetology site:  http://www.herpsofarkansas.com/Frog/HomePage

I love the sound of tree frogs. Especially these that start so absurdly early in the year.  It's like a promise of spring to come.  And you just can't feel sad when you realize there are a million little frogs up in the trees, singing their little hearts out.  Even in the cold and damp, they just gotta sing!

If I was as true to my nature as these little frogs were to theirs, what would I be doing?  I like to think I'd be reading books, writing, planting things, playing with puppies and other small animals, making big pots of stew, walking in the forest, watching birds, snuggling, telling stories, sipping wine, listening to music, laughing, drinking coffee, helping turtles across the road, turning over rocks to look for salamanders, catching toads, smelling flowers, loving.

I should practice being true to my nature.

drowning

Lately it seems I've been sinking gradually into darkness.  I can't shake the feeling of exhaustion, of giving up, of giving in, of not giving a damn. I have a headache every day by about 2:00, and never any money, and all I want is to curl up small and read books, or worse, watch TV.

I'm getting tired of bailing. I'm tempted to just let the boat fill up with water and go down. Down down down into the dark, lovely quiet deep.

Sigh.

But I can't, of course.  I won't.  I'll keep bailing and paddling and trying to believe there's the hope of land just beyond the horizon. But it's hard to live life fully in the moment when you're constantly struggling just to keep your snout above the waterline.

Saturday I told myself I was going to make a day of quiet and stillness:  no worrying forward or obsessing backward, no doubt or self-recrimination, no fear.  I just focused on being here now and letting everything else go. I had middling success, but I admit that the shadows crowded around just out of my peripheral vision.  I'm all too aware they are there. They're the old familiar demons:  Money is the ringleader, of course, accompanied by its neurotic sibling Worry.  Doubt stands with a long face and slowly shakes its head.  Despair buries her face in her hands. Frustration stands and grinds its teeth:  they're ground away incessantly, but never get any shorter.  Yeah, the whole gang was there.

I fear that I am failing, and I can't throw it off, I can't get my head up high enough to see the light or breathe. I don't know what else to do, frankly. And just staying the course seems to just keep me in the same place.

Tonight I will read books, sleep, remain still.  Tomorrow might be better.

Motivation Needed

School started again today.  Thank god. I enjoy the holidays, but I begin to spiral down into a glob of inert goo without enough structure in my life.  If left to my own devices, I'm sure I would just lie on the sofa and watch Dr. Who and never do anything at all.

No, actually, I'd alternate episodes of Dr. Who with chapters from the big ol' pile of books waiting to be read. No housekeeping or shopping would get done, that's for sure.  And my child-rearing would go all to hell.

Case in Point:

Last weekend G was with his dad, who got him a Ripstik for Christmas.  That's the skateboard-like thingy with two wheels that you mogate by moving your feet back and forth.  It looks like a lot of fun, but clearly takes some practice to get the hang of.  G had requested one for Christmas, and I can't really blame his dad for being skeptical.  My son's not a real go-getter physically.  He's bright, funny, charming, mature, articulate, creative, etc.  But he'll never be captain of any sports team. Anyway... his dad got it for him, which was nice, that he didn't pre-judge and just write it off as something the kid would never actually DO. He gave him the benefit of the doubt. And, like me, he was thinking maybe it would be something that would encourage him to get outside, unplug, and do something physical.

After Christmas, G and I went out one afternoon for him to try it out, and he met with some modicum of success:  enough to make me believe he could eventually learn to ride the thing.  But that was just one day, and after that one attempt, he didn't go out with it again.  The call of the computer, new games, and long lazy afternoons of watching Youtube videos was just too great.  And frankly, I was ill inclined to make him go.  Screw it.

But his dad asked that G bring the ripstik to his place for the weekend, and he actually made the kid go outside and practice.  I don't know how long they spent at it, but he sent me some video of G on the stik, having success, wiggling his way into view from down the street.

I was proud of my boy, and glad his dad had taken the initiative and gotten him out there.  But I still felt like a crappy mom.

I have to admit that I'm a type B Minus personality.  I let things slide. I procrastinate. I make do.

When my parents came to visit over Christmas, my poor dad, who's a type A Plus, bustled around DOING things for a week.  Buying lightbulbs, fixing doors, tinkering with things. I appreciate his kindness and his effort, and his desire to help me, to make things better for me. But it wears me out.

I get my motivation is brief bursts, I can't maintain it. I might suddenly get a spark of inspiration and bathe all the dogs, or clean out a closet, or wash and wax the car.  But I don't keep that part of my brain juiced up to operate all the time.  I don't go "Hey, this lock is sticky, I'll go get some WD 40 and fix it."  I go: "Damned lock sticks."  and that's it. It's not really bothering me.

Then one day I look up and I realize that ALL my locks are sticky, all my lightbulbs are out, there are no clean socks or jeans, the trash and recycling haven't been taken out in three weeks and I just threw this year's discarded Christmas tree onto the brown, brittle corpse of last year's tree. In the front yard no less.

Then I feel bad about it.

This is how I roll. I'd like to be the kind of woman who keeps her house clean, maintains a strict television and computer-time schedule for her kid, has a designated time and place for homework, maintains up to date veterinary and pediatric records on everyone, and always knows where her keys are.  But I'm the sort of woman who can't find last year's tax return, starts each Monday morning by being out of bread, milk, and eggs, has a bag of clothes that have needed to be taken to the dry-cleaners for two years, and can't remember what I had for dinner last night, much less which immunizations my kid has had. In fact, right now, I can't remember the name of my kid's pediatrician, which is why I haven't scheduled his annual check-up yet.

(Though to be fair to myself, when we moved to Arkansas, I was obliged to find a new pediatrician for G, a new primary care physician for me, an optometrist for both of us, a dentist, an allergist, an ear-nose-and-throat specialist and an OB-GYN in one year.  I think I can be forgiven for forgetting the name of at least ONE of those.)

All this talk of motivation makes me want to put my head down and have a nap.

Maybe it's seasonal. Everything seems easier to put off in the winter because it's cold.  However, in the spring I put things off because I'd rather be outside planting my garden, or potting flowers, or puttering about. In the summer, it's too hot, and I'd rather be at the river. I don't know what my excuse is for the fall.

Here's a story to illustrate my problem.
A year ago, I found out that my car title was still in my ex husband's name.  So about six months ago, when he was unable (or unwilling) to find the original title, I filed for a replacement title in Oklahoma and got all the paperwork ready. It took me weeks, but I finally got it all signed and notarized and sent it off to the Oklahoma DMV.  They sent it back saying I needed to register the title in Arkansas.

In the meantime, my drivers license and car tags have expired.  Well, to get the license, I will have to take the written and eye exams again. I will also have to supply my birth certificate and all the documentation to prove that I am who I say I am, which in my case will include my marriage license which changed my name from Linda Carole DeBerry to Linda DeBerry Coldwell...my divorce decree, and the court order changing my name from Linda deberry Coldwell to Linda McConnell DeBerry, to explain why my social security card doesn't jibe with my birth certificate.

To get the tag, I have to first get the car appraised for property taxes. Oh, and I have to have a title.  I don't know yet what I have to do to get the title.  I got confused.  And all of it is way past the 30-days deadline that I just this week found out was in place.  So I'm a year and a half into my life in Arkansas, driving without a license, tag, or title.  And I'm confused about what I have to do first.  I think I'll just gather up every piece of documentation I can find and go set up a tent at the DMV.  I know it will likely take one full day, at least, to get everything done.

It wears me out.

Of Changes and the Lack Thereof

New Year.
I always fall victim to the resolution thing.  I know I won't keep them.  I know I never have.  I can look back through 43 volumes of journals and find the very same damned resolutions year after year after year.

Therefore, I hearby resolve NOT to resolve.  I'll make no promises of betterment, of changes in my behavior, of lofty goals to attain.

Okay, just one:  I'll finish my book this year.  As god is my witness.  I'll finish that book.


Resolutions aside, the year ahead looks promising, with no major obstacles to overcome, no great impending changes ahead, and no problems or situations I wish desperately to change.  I need to just take a deep breath, relax, and resist the urge to muck about with things.

Despite my terrible housekeeping skills, my propensity for procrastination, and my general ability to ignore a state of chaos, I am something of a woman of action.  No really.  I like to be able to be DOING something:  moving forward, as it were.  I'm not good at standing still.  I'm not, as my ex-husband was, chronically disappointed, but I am always willing to believe that there's something better, and perhaps some way to attain it.

Restless, that's what I am.  And impatient.  I want things, and I want them now.  If my situation is not to my liking, I want it to be changed right away.  I want to be able to go DO something that will change it, and I get very frustrated when I can't.  As Inigo Montoya said:  "I hate waiting."

So I rush things.  I push.  I try to make things happen before they logically can or should, or I get the steps out of order, because I just want to be making progress.  Doing something.

So now I am trying to chill out, and let things unfold.  I want to take advantage of this calm, quiet place I've entered and surround myself with peace for awhile: Don't rush to do better, don't ask a lot of questions about what comes next.  Just enjoy where I am.

It's harder than it sounds.  Just sitting still and enjoying life should be so easy, shouldn't it?  But there are all these little things that clutter it up.  Sometimes it's worry, which I excel at.  I worry about all kinds of unnecessary things, and project those worries into future realities.  I then compound the interest on those (un)realities and worry about what will happen next.  Worst-case scenario onto worst-case scenario, or fear of the unknowable unknown.  It's exhausting just to watch the squirrel in my brain run, sometimes.

Lately I worry over balancing my wants and needs with my son's wants and needs. Since he appeared in the world, twelve years ago, G has been the center of my universe.  I swear that my heart left my body and took up residence in his on the day he was born, and my heart has never been wholly my own since that moment.

We've been through a lot together, and often he has had the grace, maturity, and hopefulness, to say nothing of the patience, to help me through things I didn't know how to get through. I wish I had a dollar for every time my young son took my hand and told me "It's going to be okay, Mom."  I wish I had that kind of faith.

Of course, it always was okay, eventually, and he gracefully handled whatever came his way, without complaint, without sulking, without making it too hard on me to make the decisions I had to make.  He adapted, as needed, and I tried to make it as easy on him as possible.

Out of love and gratitude to him, I have vowed not to impose more changes on him without his being wholly on board with them. There is no further need for survival mode or escape. I don't need to make changes in my life right now.  And he is now entering a period of great personal change himself, for which I need to be here and focused and stable.  I'm glad that I'm entering a place of peace just in time for him to really need me to be there.

But I want things for myself, too. Lately G has been putting up some barriers to the time we spend with John.  I don't know why, because I know he likes John and wants me to stay with John.  He seems genuinely happy for me.  But he's been standing firm on his need for more time for just the two of us.  I have to acquiesce, on policy.   I don't ever, ever, ever want to force John's presence on my boy, and I will never choose John over my son on any level. But there is a line there, somewhere, between what's good for me and what's preferable to my son. I will never choose my wants over his needs. I want to spend time with John.  But G needs me to continue to demonstrate to him that he's my main man, the one I love best.

I'm treading very lightly here, because G is changing. He's entering adolescence, and his moods are becoming more changeable than ever before.  He never loses his temper, but he does get sad, and he does get needy.  One minute he's all plugged into his computer, checked out; the next, he's in my lap, touching my face and snuggling me, telling me he feels sad, but doesn't know why.

I fear, of course. I fear the legacy of my depression. How horrible it would be to see my bright, beautiful boy descend into those depths, with me helpless to make any change.  I pray, if praying is the right word, that he has not gotten that from me. But I also know that adolescence brings its own periods of unexplainable melancholy.  At least my own experience with the blues have made it possible for me to help him deal with that when it happens.

Recently he was upset and came to me crying, but couldn't tell me why. He just said "things are changing so fast for me right now I don't think I can take it."

In some ways, I understand that:  he has a new step-mother (sort of) on his dad's side, and a new baby brother who's doubtless getting the lion's share of his dad's attention right now. And here at home, there's John showing up a couple of times a week, hanging around the house like family, and stepping in to do some of the things I used to do, like taking him for his shots every week.  But on the other hand, these are nowhere near the changes he went through in the four years prior.  So I think it has more to do with new, more grown-up and worrisome ways of understanding these things than the things themselves.

I told him recently that some of what he is beginning to feel now is purely chemical, and not necessarily caused by or attached to any outside thing at all.  I told him, too, that sometimes he's just going to feel weird.  He's going to feel all grown up one day and feel like playing with toys and snuggling his mom the next.

"That explains a lot," he told me.  And the incident was over.  For now.

I have so much to learn.  So much to help him through in the next few years.  And for once, I don't want to take action.  I want to just sit on my hands, heart in my throat,  and pray for the best.