*honk*....*snrfl*...$&#@!!

Sick again. I had a few days to enjoy being over the flu and then a cold virus jumped me. Damn. I hate being congested; hate it with a white-hot hate. I don't get to go to the gym. I had to cancel two fun weekend events I'd really been looking forward to. *Sigh*. And I just IM'd with a friend whose dad's lung cancer, I found out this very moment, has spread to his liver and brain. Which makes me feel like an utter loser for complaining about a cold. Errggghgh.

Gave me fever

I came home on Wednesday feeling tired, strung-out really, and with my back tingling in that special way that means I'm probably coming down with something. But I went to 24 Hour Fitness to meet my trainer anyway, because (1) I'm bad-ass, and (2) I thought maybe a workout would kick-start my immune system. I was wrong on the latter count. As I warmed up, I was feeling pretty OK. Almost normal. But then Mr. Evil (my nickname for Mark, my trainer, who I really like) came along and started putting me through my paces. It's a given that at the end of each workout with him, I feel like an overcooked strand of linquini. But on Wednesday night, I thought I was going to either faint or hurl. I'm kind of stubborn when it comes to taking everything that guy can dish out, so I just kept my head down and did my reps on each exercise until my muscles trembled and threatened to fail. Normally I sweat like a dock worker when I exercise, but this night I noticed that no matter how hard I pushed, I didn't perspire. Finally, Mark looked at me and said "We'd better stop. You look kind of green." I crept home and took a long bath, and two hours later found out I was running a temparature. I ached all over and my eyeballs felt like hot marbles. My heart rate was 111 per minute, and it stayed there for hours. Flu bug anyone? Arghgh...I laid off of work for a day, napping and gabbing with friends on the phone. Old pal Ron called me up from Bozeman. He asked if I was feeling sorry for myself, and when I said "no," he said "Oh yeah--it's us guys who feel sorry four ourselves when we get sick. Women just start throwing kleenex all over the house." Ron cracks me up every time we talk. I drank juice and watched bad TV and scanned the 'net for weird news and slept more and let my fiance pamper me a little and I felt better by Friday morning. Whew! Just in time for the weekend.

Silence of the homecomer

I got a check in the mail yesterday. Which, I suppose, is better than having to put a check into the mail. This is a cash disbursement of one-fifth of my late mother's stock holdings. So. Money in the mail. Money I have to start a checking account for. Money I'd rather not have. But I'll bank it, and I'll use some of it, and invest the rest, and I'll work up some gratitude, eventually.

The last few weeks weren't easy. I found myself so deep under the water of grief that my best defense from it was to just try and hold my breath and live my everyday life. But that's about all I could muster. And so whenever most people asked me how I was doing, I'd say "fine" and leave it at that. But "fine" had been redefined. It no longer meant carefree. It simply meant I was still here; I was maintaining. The hunky scientist fiance and I have been watching recorded episodes of Ken Burns's "The War," and after seeing the images and hearing the veterans' stories, I began to understand why so many of them came back and never said much about what they'd experienced. What could those young men say to their relieved mothers, to the wives they'd grown up alongside in those loamy farming towns, to explain the shattering their lives had undergone in the bloody mud of far-off places with names like "Peleliu"? No words could begin to adequately explain, except to others who'd experienced a similar thing, and then no words would be needed.

i've never occupied a world where words have lost their power. But it didn't matter, as motivation for wordworking was in short supply. But I've come back above the surface and am back to writing, to the imperfect striving that at times brings me closer to grace. And I'm back to wedding planning. We moved our wedding date up by three months (no, I'm not pregnant), to late February, so there's a lot to do.

Come again no more

I spent a few days back in my hometown last week, celebrating my brother's 50th birthday and hanging out with family and friends. And though the visit was full of cheer and good times, it was difficult for me to go over to my parents' house (now ours). For starters, without our mom around to remind him of his chores, my brother has let the yard to go hell. The hedges have grown scrubby and skyward and weeds are pushing the bricks in the back walkway apart.

When my mom and dad first bought that house, we lived crowded into an apartment on the same street. The day they got the keys, mom and dad took us kids across the street and we waded into thigh-high weeds and started pulling them out, exposing good damp earth that would one day hold a lawn and flower beds. The place doesn't look as bad as it did that day, but it has never come closer to reminding me of then. That sight, as well as having to go through the garage storage in search of important papers, left me restless and angry, sad and weary. And today, I've been close to tears a number of times. I bought a used CD of appalachian music while I was there. It's called Appalachian Journey and features Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Connor, with guest artists James Taylor and Alison Krauss. Track 3 is perfect for my sentiment today:

Hard Times Come Again No More
(by Stephen C. Foster)
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all swap sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh hard times come again no more.

Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting by the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh hard times come again no more.

Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh hard times come again no more.

Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.

Draft submitted

I finished Draft 2 of the short story I finished over Labor Day weekend, and sent it off to the fiction group for dissection and review. It was the longest stretch I've spent writing in oh, I don't remember how much time. And it was painless. There were no itchy urges to mop, dust, straighten, hem, pluck errant eyebrows, or to do anything other than write, snack, write, browse for facts, and write. Whew.

Trapping myself into writing, with you the unwitting accomplice

I'm going to spend most of my Labor Day weekend writing. I have a short story to turn in before the next time my writer's group meets, mid-month, and I'm way behind. Gah! I'm feeling panicky. So on Saturday I'll work at my church's Greek festival from 11 til 3, come home and write, have a little dinner and resume writing. Then Sunday and Monday will pretty much be all about writing, with breaks to snack and run to the loo, plus two workouts of about an hour and a half each. I have to keep up the momentum on that. I'll report on Monday night or Tuesday about how much I accomplished. There. Now I have to write because otherwise I'm going to have to announce that I didn't. Which would never do.

Sore and exhausted

Tonight I completed the eighth out of 20 sessions with a personal trainer I go to at 24 Hour Fitness. By "completed," I mean I can still walk. The evil monster known as Mark led me through an hour and a half's worth of exercises that were so challenging that my T-shirt was soaked from shoulders to waist. I so wish I were one of those women who glow rather than sweat, but it's never been the case. Sweat actually drips off me when I work out, and my hair sticks to my head like moss on a stone. Oh, so alluring. Anyway, right now I'm so tired I can barely write. And my muscles are protesting in that special way that tells me tomorrow I'm going to be eating aspirin as though it were candy corn. The good part in all this is that I'm getting fit. Another benefit is that I'm sleeping regularly and deeply. The bad part is that my ass is still the size of a bus. I remember a time when the results of exercise didn't take quite this long to show up. Grumble grumble bitch bitch grouse and growl.

In and out of the woods

I've been in the thick of grieving lately: quickly confused, easily upset, unexpectedly depressed, given to morbid mind-wanderings. And just when I wake up expecting to feel the same way I did the day before, behold a different mood. So some days are fine, others are excruciating. It's exhausting. I've taken up beading to keep my mind occupied. I'm trying to write, with limited success. A dear friend and mentor just sent me his manuscript to read, and doing that may give me a much-needed inspirational boost. Meanwhile, wedding planning continues apace. If you're interested in such things, you can read about it at my other blog.

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.

Like the tide

When the hunky scientist and I went to Hawaii last November, there was a tsunami warning midway through our trip. It ruined a day of boogie boarding for us, but we did get a chance to see a remarkable thing: As we sat at a table near the shore, we could watch the sea retreat far past its normal low-tide mark, then come washing back to over-fill the cove. Yesterday I learned grief can be like that. During the night before I felt all emotion ebbing away, sinking into the crevices of my mind and heart and leaving me curiously disquieted and gray. The next morning, it came flooding back in a tide of sadness that seemed to cover everything. Fortunately, the next retreat was to a normal emotional level, and here it remains. For the moment.

Uh oh. A deadline.

I went to my first writer's group meeting last night. At the end, I volunteered to offer up something for the next meeting. This fills me with amusement and dread. Amusement because I have no works of fiction to present. Dread because I have to work something up quickly. But it's not as though my life has been lacking in material. I'd better get busy.
+++
I've been singing again, and that reminds me of my mother. I sing songs she liked, standards like "Cry Me A River" and "The Very Thought of You," and numbers that just make me think of her and our old life, like "This Old Porch" by Lyle Lovette and "Still Crazy After All These Years" by Simon and Garfunkle. I sing songs my father played for me when I was a child, and I sing songs my parents never sang, songs from my madrigal days. I sing with my singer's spirit of a voice that nobody will ever know about because I was too shy a teenager to take it on the road. I sing a memory of my mother and my father, sing a portrait of us, and my singing builds melodies as bright and strong, fragile and brief as the lives we all spend here together.

Completely different news

The hunky scientist proposed marriage to me on Sunday, and I said yes, of course. He's been getting hunkier lately, thanks to increased bike riding and weight lifting, and I figured if I didn't say yes that some other broad would grab him. The only bummer in the thing is that now I have this gorgeous, sparkly symbol of attachment and he's still running around out there lookin' all buff, tan, and single. Maybe I'll invent the first man's engagement ring. It'll be a thick platinum band that's engraved on the outside with the words "Too late, ladies!" All joking aside, I'm thrilled; my heart is content. And I'm happy, too, that neither of us wants a big, showy wedding. We just want to be married and have a nice time with our friends and family.
+++
Next week I'm going to attend a writer's group for the first time. Should be interesting and fun. I'll report back.
+++
On the grief front, I'm sleeping better this week, though work is kicking my butt and stressing me out (that's why I haven't posted in a little while).

Sorting through 70 years

Our home is on the market. It's been cleaned, painted and manicured. One-third of the furniture is still in the rooms, placed just so for staging. And nearly all my mother's framed watercolors are on the walls. Everything else, the contents of two people's 70 years, along with the flotsam of five children's lives, was stashed out in the garage in the rush to get the house ready for the summer market. Our mission this week was to go through everything in the garage and disperse it or label it for sale. It's a large garage. And it had never (seriously. NEVER.) been cleaned out before, and now nearly the entire contents of the house were out there, too.

Everyone told me this was going to be a difficult week. "It'll be so emotional," they said. And it has. But not in the way everyone expected. The main emotion I felt during the whole week was "How could anyone accumulate so much useless STUFF?" Every No. 2 pencil in the county of Santa Barbara seems to have made its way to my mother and father's house, where (it seems) they were certain to find safe harbor. Baskets, too, found shelter at our little East Side home. If you've mailed anything to my parents, chances are good that the box and its packing material were saved for eventual re-use but are, as of this week, reposing in the recycling bin. And in the back of the garage, every can of paint, turpentine, spackel, and cleaning fluid my dad had ever used (partially or fully) sat waiting for us on their shelves under at least a quarter inch of accumulated dust. They're now stacked in a mighty, rusty drift beside the back fence, awaiting transport to the hazmat waste site.

On the bright side, my mother also kept every calendar she ever used. I'll go through those and read the chronicles of her days before I consign them to the recycler. She kept every card, letter, and note we ever wrote her; books we composed in 3rd grade (one grabby title penned by my cousin, then about 8: "The Mouse Who Was Tired of Living in a Hole"); pictures we crayoned or painted. She kept diaries. She saved vital records. She rescued personal memorabilia from my father, whose preference was to erase the evidence of his existence behind himself as he moved forward through his life.

And so we've had surprises as we've opened dusty boxes. There have been many "awwwww" moments, but no tears. All this week I have also kept up working for my day job, which has kept me going until midnight every night and up early every morning to make up for the afternoon hours spent in the garage. Call me stubborn, but I just can't take vacation time to do this work. I'll need real vacation time later. And later I'll linger over the things I have asked to take home, like the red fleece throw I found. I don't really love that throw, but my mother did and I found when I put it next to my cheek that it still smelled like her perfume. When I inhaled, it felt like my mother was standing next to me. Later, when that scent has faded, will I keep that throw? I can't say. But from what I keep I'll compose scrap books. Later, I'll deliver slides to be converted to photo files and photos to be duplicated and mailed. I'll turn in old cassette tapes of my mother's singing to be made into CDs to share with her friends and our family. All those things wait to be done. But tonight I just want to decompress. This week it's been just a long and often gritty slog, punctuated by screaming nieces and sibling politics, and I can't wait to go home.

That weird girl at the gym

I was in the gym yesterday, jogging on the treadmill and wondering when my body was going to relax so I could stop feeling like The Thing, who shakes the ground with every running stride. I was listening to my favorite music on my headphones, probably way too loud for my health, when I started crying. Right there in the aerobic room. Because it occurred to me that I could have played music for my mom as she lay dying in the early morning hours. I read that the last sense to leave is hearing. She loved music. I could have made her last hours a little easier. These are the kinds of thoughts that ambush me when I'm having an otherwise sensible day. I didn't stop running, because the sight of a woman in the gym, standing there on the treadmill crying, would be just way too weird. So I kept running and thinking. Few of us know anything about how to help someone who's dying. We just struggle to do the best we can. If we've called in Hospice, their volunteers seem to us to be pillars of knowledge. I wish I'd volunteered with Hospice while my mom was healthy, because I would have been a much better caregiver in later years if I had. But it never occurred to me to do that. Why would I want to be around dying people? Bad excuse: we are all people who are going to die. And Hospice trains its volunteers. I guess the point is that like Israeli citizens and the army, everyone should do a stint as a Hospice volunteer. Because then we'd be a better-armed nation of citizens.

Baking as therapy

Today is the hunky scientist's birthday. I have robbed the pram; he is eight years younger than I am. So I had no pity the other morning when he looked in the bathroom mirror and commented that he was starting to show his age. I love birthdays. He got his main birthday present a month or so ago (a watch). But I couldn't resist getting some comedy club tickets for tonight. Also, it's understood that I'll bake him whatever kind of birthday cake he wants. To say my boyfriend loves cake would be to call Niagara Falls a brook. My boyfriend adores cake with a passion that is endearing. When he eats cake, icing gets on his face. So I was looking forward to baking something multilayered with filling and a glaze or fluffy icing. But this year, he pointed out a recipe for cherry ricotta strudel in Bon Appetit and said "You can me me that" with hopeful, shiny eyes. Cakes I can do. Strudel I never have. Turns out strudel is a complex project. I started out last night with the dough--it's made with oil rather than butter and has to be refrigerated at least a day. And two pounds of large-curd ricotta cheese had to be drained overnight too, then squeezed out in a kitchen towel this morning.

After breakfast (pancakes with peanut butter and maple syrup for THS; I topped mine with fruit) I pitted 3 pounds of cherries and then set them soaking in a syrup of sugar, lemon juice and cointreau. Then I mixed the ricotta with butter and sugar, eggs and grated citrus peel. After that the recipe called for browning bread crumbs in a skillet with butter and mixing those with a bit more sugar. Finally, it was time to put the whole thing together. Strudel dough is made from oil so you can roll it very thin and stretch the heck out of it. A dough made from only 1.5 cups of flower rolls out to the size of a large kitchen towel! I stretched it until it was very thin, then brushed it with butter, topped that with the bread crumbs, made a log out of the ricotta filling along one side, then put the drained cherries on top of that. When I rolled it up, it looked like a huge banana slug. Now it's in the oven baking and the house smells like a birthday. As I type, I'm watching kids and dogs play in the park across the street. My heart is light.

Talk, write, exercise

Grief can make a person's mind do very strange things. For me, the last few days have been an exercise in keeping it together. I forget nearly everything if I don't write it down. I've resorted to entering calendar items in my phone on the spot if I tell someone I'll meet them or promise anyone anything. If I don't calendar it right away, I forget it. I send myself emails reminding myself to look at my calendar, to be sure I've met deliverables on certain projects at work, water the plants, call my brother, make my boyfriend a dessert for his birthday. I adore celebrating birthdays and ordinarily I'd never forget something like that. But I'm terrified I will. I feel as though I have brain damage. I'm still only getting 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night. I'm trying not to use Ambien and will ask my doctor about a non-addictive sleep aid. Meanwhile I've decided to follow the advice of a friend and start exercising daily in an effort to exhaust myself naturally. I had a visit with my company's very competent EAP guy today and after he listened a while he reminded me that it's early days in my grief process and that it might be helpful to cultivate some patience. "It's only been a month," he said. I looked at him for a minute, counting back and confirming. 32 days. It's really only been a month. I can't sleep, but I keep waiting to wake up. "It feels like it's been forever," I replied. He made me an appointment for short-term counseling with a psych and referred me to a Hospice grief support group. Then he gave me a prescription: "Talk, talk, talk. Write, write, write. And exercise."