Moody Meow

I spoke with Mom yesterday as she left the plane. She sounded tired, worn, blue, and uneasy. But I made her laugh (it’s what us kids do), and she promised to call with any news. It’s nearly noon on the East coast, and no word. But my phone is still on.

And things keep rolling. Although Lex and I are making our preperations to head east, I still have school in 2 weeks. I still have plans to make for that, writing to do, editing to work on, and I have to figure out how to ship wine to the hotel for Calie and me.  You can’t take wine on a plane. The terrorists love wine.

I finally bought my bag for school. I  borrowed Amandapant’s suitcases for my last trip to Seton Hill, and had my vintage bags busted open during my first trip. After Amanda was kind enough to let me borrow hers, Pip decided that my toothpaste needded to be freed from the bag, and ripped a hole in the mesh pocket. So I don’t want to borrow her bags again for fear of beagle destruction. Being that I’m still sad, I’m attempting to relieve my depression and feelings of insigificance with retail therapy, kittens. I’m turning into my mother…ugh.

I’ve been a fan of Tom Bihn since about 2004 or so. My first purchase  was a laptop bag, then D and I shelled out a few clams for the Cafe Bags. I’ve had my eye on the Imago for since they developed it, but I’m really happy with my Timbuk2 bag for the day to day stuff. This bag should force me to pack lighter, which is good. For some reason I’m always compelled to bring huge bottles of shampoo and spare towels. If I was staying in the dorm, that would be understandable, but I’m in a hotel room. They have shampoo. They have towels. I should just chill.

I also went on a mini shopping spree at Threadless.com - I blame my mother again. She made me love sales, and threadless was haveing a killer sale, so I bought shirts. And I love this one. Because it’s true. Okay, it’s not true, but it still makes me laugh. And laughter, my friends, is the cure for what ails you. So is alphabet soup, at least, that’s what I hear.

Dark headed, with the mysterious house, back end of the cul-de-sac. You laughed when I fell off my bike, I laughed when one of you smashed your nose on the concrete.

Don’s little sister, Shirley, the best, fiercest tomboy around. We melted Barbie heads and beat the boys at tag and climbing trees. I looked up to you, both figuratively and literally.

When I was 7, I was convinced we would marry. I didn’t see the bruises from your father’s beatings, nor really understand your tone as you took it out on your mother.

I’m relatively intellectual these days when it comes to the inevitable, such as death. It’s easy to say that she left years ago, with a brain damaged by experimental drugs to curb the pain from her rheumatoid arthritis, and the subsequent damage from the meningitis and the stroke. She wasn’t what I remembered as a kid - proud, fiercely proper, always wearing perfectly pressed clothes, hair coiffed, with impeccable makeup and earrings that always matched her flip flops. Age, pain, endless medical issues, they stole away pieces of Grannie over the years, and before I knew it, the woman that argued with Gramps was no longer the one who danced with me to Frank Sinatra or who gave me a Thesaurus and Dictionary as a high school graduation present (I still have them both).

Grannie’s been gone for a long, long time. And it’s best for her that she goes. It’s the kindest thing to wish for her because there is nothing that dulls the pain, and there are machines breathing for her and she, if she still possessed the faculties she had 10 years ago, would be horrified by her current situation. A woman who can’t dress herself? Shocking. But I’m human, and I’m selfish. I want one more conversation with the woman who cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner after I moved to Miami. I want to eavesdrop on her conversations with my Grandfather where she says that she’s so proud that I’m making on my own, but won’t tell me to my face because my head might get too big. I want to steal a moment at her jewelry box, where she plied me with pink plastic, but because I loved her so completely, I let her hold the shiny baubles to my ears.

She always wanted a girly granddaughter. Thank god Lex is around.

It’s not something I talk about regularly, but I lived with my grandparents after my parents divorced. My mother had reconnected with the man that would eventually be my stepfather, and for reasons I only am beginning to understand, Mom left me in Tampa with Grannie and Gramps while she secured our home and livelihood in Alabama. I’d already moved through one school that semester, she was trying to keep me from shifting again. Grannie and Gramp’s neighbors took care of me in the early afternoon while Grannie and Gramps worked. And when they came home it was “E, how was your day at school.”

She held me when I was incapable of saying the word “father.” I had a hard time articulating my emotions back then, and I think I still have that problem. But I always felt like Grannie had that space, that energy, that made being angry okay, or being sad, or hurt, or whatever - it was all justifiable. When I lived with them, she made sure I had a safe space in which to heal, room to cry, and rage, and laugh. And I spent that time in a kind of emotional bubble, which would burst in the most spectacular way when I moved back home with Mom and my siblings.

Grannie is my only grandmother. My stepfather’s mother died several years ago, and due to my problems with him, I never allowed a real relationship with blossom with her. My father’s mother is somewhere in California, but I haven’t spoken to her since I was a teenager. But Grannie’s seen the drug addict, the pierced-face, the tattoos, the boyfriends (only 1 - but she loved D), the best friends, the goth girl in big boots, the raver in big pants, and the adult I would learn to be.

She walked during my wedding. I joke that I had to have that whole goofy thing for her, and honestly, she was one of the main reasons D and I did that. But she walked, for the first time in months, that night. I don’t think she’s walked since. And it was beautiful seeing her, dressed in yellow, smiling, exhausted by the chaos. She couldn’t go to Lex’s wedding because of the altitude, and the fact that she couldn’t fly anymore, but she was more than ready to go to Orlando. And she didn’t blink at the fact that I wore a black dress and carried a bouquet with a peacock feather. For all her judgments, I like to think she accepted who I am.

I don’t really know where this post is going. I guess I am just walking through the blue, trying to find her smile in my memories, and the sound of her voice as she hummed, rocking me into a blissful sleep, after wiping my tears and my worry away.

She is the matriarch I will never be.

How hard it must be to make that decision - life support, or death.

Mom is flying east tomorrow to help the family make the decision. Lex and I will fly out soon. Our family needs us. And while I know when she passes it wil be a blessing for her, and while I know that I’ve been preparing for the possibility for years, it’s just hard. I hate goodbyes.

• slept through the rose parade.
• woke up after 1 on Saturday.
• feel strangely guilty for sleeping most of the day away.
• played Halo twice.
• made a pact with D regarding drinking.
• am making preparations for my Grannie’s passing. It’s imminent now.
• not sad that she’s going to die, just sad that we couldn’t have been closer.
• am proud of myself because we finally got all the shades up in the house. It opens everything up.
• drank too much again this weekend.
• will not be drinking until my trip to school.
• interested in new coffees and teas.
• strangely tired.
• getting a grill today (hellooooooo asparagus).
• going to write and plant flowers.
• happy that D is so supportive.
• am sure I’ll get pissy with him this week when he reminds me that I need to do my cardio.
• need to paint my nails.
• need to fold laundry.
• am breaking out more as an adult than I did as a teenager.
• am pissed because I found a yellow-gray. Just gray is fine, silver is better, but I will not go yellow-gray.
• am vain.
• am thinking that a nap is in order.

Hati colored your accent - you spoke with a lyrical beauty. Unintentionally graceful, gracious, kind. I miss your smile and your giggle. I always felt bad when I cursed around you.

Not pretty, but funny. Not white, but looked it. Not prone to tantrums, but you kicked me when I was being an ass. The Food Court wasn’t the same when you left.

In my sad attempts to try and eat healthier, I went to Subway for lunch the other day. Chill. I wasn’t anywhere near Portland, otherwise I would have stopped in on one of my favorite restaurants. Every Wednesday I drive to Battle Ground for a meeting, during the lunch hour, and they don’t have much up there for vegetarians. Hence, Subway. The Veggie Sandwich thingy isn’t half bad, considering my pallet has grown up a little and now allows for a lot more vegetables.

What it still doesn’t allow for is any part of anything that used to have eyes.

Mmm k. With sandwich in hand, and a bag of Lay’s Baked Mesquite BBQ chips (and a glass of water because their iced tea was awful), I sat down to inhale my glorified cheese sandwich. I like to read when I eat, so for the first time ever, I read the ingredients on the Baked Lays bag. Down at the bottom, in wee little letters: chicken fat.

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Wearing scrubs, a smile, and carrying cigarettes, you rescued me and Miggy from our boring beds, with IVs dripping, & took us to a hidden balcony for smoky dominoes. How we laughed.

Two years of fucking in church parking lots, back seats, swinging, cameras, fumbling hands, and pretending we were just friends while our partners were around. The one time I said no, it ended

You told me to breathe, wiped the sweat from my brow, heard her first cry, and sewed up my bleeding womanhood. You were an adoptive mother too, you said, as I cried.

We worked at the record store.  I fell in love with your Mustang. I called it a crayon, because it was THAT green. You always gave me a ride home anyway.

Beautiful, delicate, we imagined heaven was in the branches, and then the drugs wore off. I broke off a relationship for you, but you were too high to notice. So sad.

You charged us a boatload for the contraband beagle. You bitched about the lawn. You refused to pay for the faucet. Then, you tell us we were the best tenants ever?

Let this be a warning…I’m on my “I can’t fucking stand self-important Christians who tread on hypocritical moral high ground” soapbox… Why? Because it’s pre-coffee time, I forgot my breakfast and I pissed at the world that I had to get out of bed this morning.

Only someone who is painfully idiotic or completly unaware would hand me a card that had “congrats to your new spawnling - it was a present from god” or some such shite on it, and actually expect me to sign it. Getting preggers isn’t that much of a miracle, at least not in my mind. It doesn’t take intelligence, and for many it’s not even a choice. For this mother it was, and so I signed the card, but the person who handed me the card irks me daily, and she, with her bible-loving heart, picked the fucking thing. No one in the office is religious, only this woman. Even the new mom is not a church goer, and I felt very uncomfortable signing a card that indicated something in which I don’t belive.

And the fucking thing was pink.

Someone please, just stab me in the eyeballs with the broad end of an umbrella.

—- Post Lunch —

Lunch: the rest of my morning coffee, funky pasta with vodka cream sauce, and some Depeche Mode. I almost like humans again.

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There’s a space in all of us where we really find ourselves. It’s not the bombastic self, or the one who deals with shitty traffic and stupid working relationships. It’s the self that we keep for the quiet moments of deep examination, and I have to say, I missed her. I haven’t seen her since we moved. She’s been lost in a sea of fear, acceptance, and laziness.

I went to class last night, although I must say I almost didn’t go. For someone with big balls, I’m painfully shy when out of my element. When I got home, I realized I’d left my wallet at work, had no cash at the house, and Puck shit on the floor (the squirrel feeder = solid fiber). That is usually enough to derail me and send me right back to the couch where I can wallow in my pity party. It’s stupid, and weak, I admit. But instead of just giving up because the Fates decided not to make my day blissfully easy, I said fuck it, put on my favorite sports bra (it makes my boobies look verrrrry nice), put up my hair, put in my earrings, and grabbed the directions. I think I saw D smile as I left.

Of course, because I’m me, I got fucking lost. Only I could get lost in a grid-system city. I expect that now. I didn’t let it derail me, instead I just drove around like a lunatic with Bungle blaring from my radio, singing at the top of my lungs, determined to make it to class.

And I did. There were 4 of us. Sensei Linda welcomed me with a smile. There were 3 other students, and thankfully, one of them was new. The structure was loose, and she guided us through medataiton, long (see: holyshitI’moutofshape) yoga poses, some very challenging balancing moves, punches, kicks, and tried to keep us breathing the entire time. I started to sweat. And it felt good. And I felt my muscles protest when we went into Warrior II, and it felt lovely. And when I finished the class I was on cloud 9.

Between moving my body, and stilling my mind, I found myself again. That self woke with me. It didn’t need guidance to the forefront with mediation, she was just there. Peaceful, blissful, fearless. The easiest, healthiest cure for my type II manic depression is moving my ass. I’ve known this for a long time, but there’s something in Budokon that allows both the ferocity and stillness to exist in the same space. Without trying to sound cheesy, that’s me -  I’m joyous and ferocious.

I can’t wait for class again. I will be back there on Tuesday, with an open mind and an open heart, just waiting for that fearless self to take hold again, and find a permanent place in the now.

I did you wrong as a roommate and a friend. We were young, and I never apologized. I learned to  never let a man ruin a friendship. He wasn’t worth it.

My birthday isn’t for another few months. July 24th, if you were curious. I’ve had parties, dinners, gatherings at the house, but this year we are going for different. Why ? Because we don’t have AC and I will need the fucking breeze.

Instead of having the party at my house, I want to go on a dinner cruise.  My BIL will be back from his trip, and I will have had 1 solid month home from school. Lex’s kids are going to be dispersed throughout the country with relatives, and she can dump Monkey off with a neighbor. I love Monkey, I really do. She’s restored my faith in children, but there are no kids on this trip. And I am giving notice to all now, because it is a little pricey - 68 per person. But just consider that my b-day present and come along!

D and I went on a dinner cruise while we were in Florida. It was hot, but I remember hearing the ospreys and the birds screaching in the night air. And there were fireworks for some reason. It felt lovely, meandering on a lazy river, surrounded by strangers who wanted the same thing as we did - to stop for an evening and take stock of what’s really important ——— life preservers.

Yes, I know, I will be on open water. I think it will be okay. As soon as it feels like we are getting to where I know I have NO chance of swimming to shore, either because of Jaws,  a rabies infected Shamu or just because I’m not young and I can’t swim as far as I used to …well then I get nervous. So rivers are mostly okay. If I am in a big boat.

Kayaking - hell no.

Dinner cruise - why yes, that would be lovely.

And that’s enough rambling for one day.