Horribly Remiss

I've let this journal go for a while. Rather than blame myself (so distasteful), I'll blame a demanding workload, the need to make a birthday present for my friend The Wench, and wedding planning. This is not to say that I've been distracted. I've just been lazy about posting. I've been having a terrible time writing, also. This is likely because of the fact that (a) I have not assigned myself a set writing schedule, and (b) writing involves emotion and I've had enough of emotional processing for a while. It tires me out quickly. Still, those are just excuses. I have a story to turn in to my writing group, and so tomorrow I will write. Mid-day I plan to visit my nearly-99-year-old buddy at a retirement home a little south of where I live. This year has not been kind to her; she's complained of losing more vision, more balance, more bladder control, and her hands are getting shakier. That makes table manners a bit of a challenge. My friend is proud, so it's tough for her to "join the merry throng" in the dining room. She was reared in Britain, my friend, and so she says things like "join the merry throng." Betty calls herself "a pusher." That means she struggles on, despite her hardships. In the very first week we met, about five years ago, she taught me the words she lives by. I recently learned they come from a poem by Edmund Vance Cooke:

"Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce
Or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?
You're beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there--that's disgrace."

Lately Betty has been determined to get outside the assisted-living place and go do her shopping. This takes a lot of grit on her part, as getting around (even with her walker) is a very slow process. I'll take her to Walgreens so she can buy "biscuits" (cookies) to go with her afternoon tea, and any sundries she may need. And then we'll have lunch, and after a little while I'll come back here and fall again to my writing. In the evening, the Hunky Scientist and I will make some wild mushroom lasagne. It'll be a satisfying Saturday.

Another blog!

I decided to blog about wedding preparations and the insane weirdness of the wedding industry. You'll find the link to that blog, called 1+1, below right in my links listing.

A light for the pathway through

Yesterday I went to see a peer counselor at a place called Kara, located in Palo Alto. It's a non-profit whose focus is on supporting those who grieve. I'd been harboring a grim reluctance to go to this appointment. But afterward, I felt a measure of peace. The counselor Kara paired me with is a woman in her 50s who turned out to be a deeply empathetic listener. I told her about the flashbacks I have of my mom, movies that play in my head of scenes from when she was so gravely ill. I told her about how I try to ignore them, or push them away--and how doing so creates conflict because having a memory of my mom (even a distressing one) is better than not having anything of her at all. She asked me to tell her what it was like to care for my mom, and I didn't know where to begin. "Ask me some questions," I said. She did and in answering her, I found a way to start.

I told her about the 18-20 hour days, the days when every minute was taken up with medical appointments; meal planning and preparation; medicine fetching or dosing or planning; linen changing; laundry; sibling politics; housekeeping; working when my mom was sleeping; trying in the midst of it all to stay connected with my sweetheart and sometimes failing that. About praying to a God I didn't believe could even hear me and praying the next night anyway. I told her about the inexorable diminution of my mother; the terrible intimacy of knowing better than my siblings what my dying parent needed to soothe her pain or anxiety or breathlessness; the exhausting disorienting daily battery of new symptoms and new measures to keep those symptoms at bay; the tiny rejuvenating oases of normalcy that love and friendship brought; the terror and helplessness of being an untrained nurse in the home of a desperately sick person whom I loved and who was never going to get better. As I talked, I felt a familiar tug. It was part of my psyche taking the injured part of me by the hand and quietly saying "Come on. Let's go where it's safer." I know that place. It's a realm just a hair's breadth from now, a place just slightly removed from the actual present, a safe buffer away from the immediate; a damper of pain. But I resisted that old call and I stayed right there in the present and I told and I felt what I was going to feel. It was exhausting all over again and it left me dizzy. I had to sit in the car for a while afterward and let the color seep back into the landscape of my life. I'm supposed to meet with this counselor again this coming Monday, and the Monday after that, and every Monday to come until there comes a day when I realize I won't need to meet with her again. A part of me looks forward to this. The rest of me does not.

Independence Day

It's a little after 9 p.m. and instead of standing outside watching fireworks, I'm sitting at the dining room table eating frozen cherries and surfing the net. I was looking forward to 4th of July, until it got here. It's always been my favorite holiday. I love fireworks displays and small-town Independence Day parades with their cheesy floats and marching baton twirlers and banner carriers and convertibles full of waving vets. But it's always also been a family holiday for me some of my happiest memories of home involve being at the fireworks shows with my mom and dad. When I was little, they always got boxes of Cracker Jack for me and my siblings. I ate the popcorn and gave the peanuts to whoever wanted them. We noted over the years that the prizes inside got cheaper and smaller until they were made only of paper. When we were older, we'd take turns driving the family down somewhere near the beach and we'd walk the last several blocks with our blankets. Sometimes we got close enough to feel the soft tickle of ash falling from the starburst explosions. After I left home, I nearly always went back for this holiday. Now, I no longer have a choice. Everyone's doing their own thing: Frank decided he would stay in; Lisa and David said they'd catch the show in their little town; John's grumbling about traffic and lack of parking and undercover cops and no room at his favorite bar; Christine and her family are staying at their home. Their kids are too little to appreciate a fireworks display and so the parents are saving themselves the drive. And I remain here with my fiance, having decided I can't bear the idea of crowds and traffic, the bustle of other peoples' families out on this summer night with somewhere to go and somewhere to get back to. Outside, the finale is happening and the local peanut gallery adds its little chorus of screamers and fizzlers and plain old loud bangers. In the middle distance police sirens call, and out over the water huge burts of light crack into bloom. The overlapping booming reverberates amid the towers of this city and echoes down the memories that lie in the chambers of my heart.

Orphan in a bridal boutique

Today I went for the first time to try on wedding dresses. With me went two friends from church. We went to a small, cramped little store located in a small, mid-Peninsula town and started combing the racks (my instructions: No sequins, no strapless dresses, no overblown use of lace or beads. Simpler is better"). We dragged 15 dresses from the rack and into a dressing room, and I started trying them on. Or, rather, the girls took turns putting me into them. I haven't been dressed by someone else since I was a toddler. But it's nearly impossible to get into a wedding dress by one's self. I quickly discovered that both boat necklines and basque waists make me look as wide as a barn, and that halter necklines and empire waists transform me into someone who has a much nicer figure than mine. I also discovered that ivory looks better on me than stark white, but silvery white is also very complimentary. As I expected, I found that I felt silly in dresses with long trains (I kept saying "I could have this taken off and make a nice little jacket out of it!") And I found that nearly every time I came out of the dressing room there was another bride-to-be there, turning to see her dress from all angles in the mirrors. She looked to be about 24, and her mother was with her, straightening out hemlines, pulling bodice lacings tight, offering opinions. No matter how many girlfriends you have along with you, and no matter how much fun you're having, when you're 10 to 20 years older than most of a boutique's clientele and your mother isn't with you, shopping for a wedding gown takes on a bittersweet, lonely aspect. Still, I came out of there with two gorgeous, elegant, understated gowns in mind. I'm going to go back on a Tuesday when the owner is there and see what kind of savings I can negotiate with her. I don't plan to spend any more for my wedding gown than I would for any other nice evening dress. I'm not naive; I'm determined. If she won't cut me the deal I'm looking for, I'll just go somewhere else until I get what I want for the price I'm willing to pay. My mother would be proud.