Hillary, You’re Pissing Me Off! February 28, 2008

Dear Hill,

Re: Your performance in the debate with Obama Monday night.

WTF were you thinking???

Here’s the thing, girlfriend.

I really admired you as First Lady, for your brains, your passion for universal health care, even for your poise when dealing with Bill’s retarded self - and I even liked Bill too.

You were my Great Female Hope, Hill. And, as a woman, the thought of possibly having a female president made me proud.

To put it bluntly, darling, you’re blowing it big time.

Your policies and plans are totally getting lost in the fact that you’re playing into every mysogenistic fear and rant ever voiced by every ignorant, woman-bashing idiot out there.

Maybe you had debating skills at one point, but Monday night you came across as unable to handle your emotions, rude and ill-mannered.

Yeah - can you hear it now? “Can’t put a woman in the White House - you’d have to keep her away from that Red Button when she had PMS.” (Please read the previous sentence with a hillbilly twang in your voice.)

You don’t build yourself up by putting other people down!

Isn’t that something you taught Chelsea when she was little? I know I taught that to my children - and I never had any hopes of running for public office. Although, jeez, how bad could my shady past look, now, compared to - um - well, no, I won’t go there.

The reason we all hope for a woman in the highest office is NOT so she can be a man in drag! It’s because some of us believe that there needs to be a new way of thinking in the seats of power - what is typically a woman’s more fluid and win-win kind of thinking.

Jesus, Hill - have you considered HRT, because you’re coming across like some menopausal bitch! Here’s the thing, honey. I can come across like some menopausal bitch. Only my man, my kids, and my co-workers have to deal with that.

You can’t afford to!

May I suggest a long Caribbean vacation or something - you know. Kind of like “How Hillary Got Her Groove Back?”

I promise - none of us will tell.

The Bravest Women I’ll Ever Know February 27, 2008

I work as a registered nurse in a “care center” - a nursing home - whatever the PC term for such a facility is. And no - it is not a depressing, horrible place. It is a truly wonderful place to work and visit, and I love it for a lot of reasons - not the least of which are the subject of today’s post.

There are people I encounter every day - more often women than men, but men too. The most unselfish and amazing people that I’ve ever met in my life.

They are The Forgotten Wives (and, to a lesser degree, Husbands).

You see, Alzheimer’s and dementia is a horrible, terrible disease. Caregivers sometimes make morbid jokes about it because sometimes that’s the only way to deal with its ravages without losing our own cool. Like, “Well, at least everyday they get to make new friends”, etc.

But I want you to imagine this scene.

A woman walks through our days in the late morning. She’s come from home, where she’s finished up her normal morning chores, including laundry for one. Breakfast for one and cleaning up afterward the dishes for one.

She’s not a young woman - she’s in her 70’s or 80’s typically. So it’s not like she bounces through the doors with a spring in her step and an iPod dangling from her waist. If it’s winter, she might have a hitch in her giddyup from the stiffness in her own joints.

But every day, faithfully, she comes.

She comes to sit with her husband at lunch. Her husband, whom she can’t take care of at home anymore - and God knows, not because she didn’t try. For months and months, if not years - being his ears and eyes, driving them in their car. Staying awake for nights on end, sometimes, because when he was at home, he had his days and nights mixed up and would be obsessed, at 2 a.m., with getting up to go complete some chore he did in his younger years that hasn’t been his chore for decades.

She has picked him up off the floor countless times - she has fallen more than once herself in the process. She has sat in the doctor’s office more than she can count listening to bigger words than she can remember as some young white coated expert tries to explain to her where her husband has gone, if there’s anything that can being him back.

So, finally, she comes to us. She snaps a clothing protector around his neck and she feeds him as tenderly and patiently as she fed their children when they were babies. She feeds him with dignity, chatting about her day as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

What strikes me when I watch these women - as I go about my own duties - is that, for all practical purposes, her husband is gone.

And the life they shared together, with its treasure trove of memories of friends and things the kids did when they were little - that’s gone too.

She is a widow, but not. When the car starts doing something wonky or the roof starts leaking, she has to figure it out on her own. When she gets sick, she lays in the hospital without her husband of fifty years to sit at her bedside.

Sometimes, horribly, he doesn’t even remember who she is when she comes to visit.

She has endured her own guilt when he cries and wants to “go home” - and sometimes when he says that, he has skipped all the way back to his childhood and wants to go home to his mom and dad. She has pummelled herself privately for not being stronger, more patient, better able to do without sleep.

I’ve seen women so run down they end up in hospitals themselves, dehydrated, exhausted.

And still she comes, faithfully, every single day, rain or shine. She chats with us - the extended family that’s been forced upon her, who talks about her husband with an intimacy she thought was hers with him alone.

She smiles and talks about her day, and the grandchildren, and the upcoming plans for “Dad’s” birthday - stopping now and then to smile at her beloved and say, “Right, Dad?”

When I have a chance to sit and just talk with these women - and their children - I always tell them that I am so much more fortunate than they. That they look at “Dad” and see the loss personified - all the ways in which he isn’t the man they remembered.

I and my co-workers, however, meet their husbands “as is”. No memories to cloud me, no losses to color my perceptions. I see their sense of humor now and their interests and conversations now. I come to love them now for who they are now.

I can’t imagine having the dignity and grace these women have. I’ve become close to so many of them, and I have, I am ashamed to admit, felt such a profound sense of relief for them when their husbands finally died.

Standing beside them in those final hours, I have wondered, sometimes, what will these women do when the disease finally claims their husband’s body as it already has his mind?

Talking to them afterward, I have been struck by their sadness and wistfulness as they describe getting into their beds at night, all alone, and looked at the photo on the nightstand before turning off the light, saying “Good night, Bob. I love you.”

I don’t mean this post to be sad, because honest to God, the incredible thing is that these women are not sad - not day to day, anyway.

They laugh and giggle and gossip with us. They are in every sense of the word sisters like all sisters - interested in their families, in us as friends, in their communities.

The weird weird thing is that they are rarely sad themselves.

I grieve for them, though. I grieve the loss of their protectors and soul mates, the ones with which they shared a history - which now they share with no one.

And I love them. And I admire them. And I tell them so, frankly. I tell them to go home and get some rest, and have they seen the doctor, are they drinking enough fluids? Don’t let that cold get out of hand, now, and don’t worry, we’ll take care of Dad, and I promise, I promise I’ll call if there’s any change whatsoever.

God grant me that kind of dignity and courage when I’m called upon to need them.

And bless them, please, these wives.

A Tale of a (Sorta) Wise Mommy February 26, 2008

There once was a very wise mommy and a young boy, who, living the life of young boys, occasionally got very very angry. At such times, the boy’s little face would turn beet red and a carefully trained eye could almost see the smoke coming from his ears, and his head about to start spinning on his neck, a la “The Excorcist”

One day, said little boy came running into the kitchen where his mommy was, madder than a sack of wet hens and ready to kill. No one remembers what the trouble was now - perhaps it was his little brother, who could irritate him as only little brothers can. No matter.

His mommy, after listening to him fuss and fume for awhile, took her young son by the hand and led him out to the garage and fetched a hammer and a bag of two penny nails. She then escorted him out to the back fence, handed him the hammer and nails, and said, “Here you go, son. I know you’re angry, so I want you to take this hammer and pound nails into the fence as hard and as fast as you can until you aren’t so angry anymore.”

“GOD! MOM!” the little boy cried. “You’re so DUMB!”

“I know,” his mommy replied. “Just do it. I promise - you’ll feel better.”

His mommy went back into the house, keeping a watchful eye out the kitchen window and smiled as she heard the hammer start ringing out. POW! BLAM! With every blow, the little boy vented his fury and ferocity. They rang out fast and heavy for quite a while. And then - imperceptibly at first and then decisively - the blows started coming more slowly. Not quite as viciously. It wasn’t long before her little boy was standing in the kitchen doorway with a half-assed sheepish grin on his face.

“OK Mom,” he said grudgingly. “I’m done.”

She kissed him on the top of his curly little head and sent him off to play, not saying another word.

Later that afternoon, the little boy came to his mommy, sidling up with just a smidge of apprehension because he half believed - as all kids do - that his mom was a little off her rocker.

“Mom,” he said finally. “I’m really sorry about losing my temper earlier.”

His mommy stopped what she was doing, wiping her hands on her apron, and smiled at her mercurial son. “Thank you,” she said. “Now come with me please.” Taking him by the hand again, she led him out to the back fence and handed him the hammer again.

“I want you to take the back end of this hammer - see? The claw end? I want you to start removing all those nails you hammered in earlier.”

“Whaaaaa?” cried the boy? “But that will take forever!”

“Even so,” she responded calmly. “You hammered them in when you were angry. Now that you’re sorry, I want you to take them all out.”

She left him out there mumbling something about how he should have hammered one or two into her head and been done with it. But he knew his mommy, so he started in. Tugging here, twisting and pulling here. It wasn’t very long before he got the hang of it, and it wasn’t very long at all that he came back into the house with a triumphant grin and said, “There! All the nails are out of the fence! Sorry, Mom!”

His mommy accepted the hammer and the bag of nails, and everyone had dinner and went to bed.

But things weren’t the same after that. A day or two later, the little boy noticed his mommy out by the back fence, running her worn fingers gently over the weathered boards, now riddled with nail holes. He noticed that every day, although she went about her normal mommy business, he would spy her, now and then, out back by the fence, leaning against it wistfully maybe. Or just looking at with a sad expression.

His mommy grew her flowers up against that back fence. And she had painted it a snowy white and hung her little garden froo froo’s on it. And even he had to admit - though he hadn[t really thought much about that stupid old fence before - it didn’t look so nice anymore.

One day, when she was enjoying a rare moment in a lawn chair, he wandered outside and watched her a moment, just kind of looking at that fence with a sort of faraway look in her eyes.

“Mommy?” he finally dared to say. “Why do you look so sad?”

“Oh,” she sighed. “I was just thinking about how much I really like that fence - and how it just doesn’t feel the same anymore.”

“But Mom!” her son cried, stung. “I pulled out all the nails!”

“That you did,” she smiled sadly. “You pulled out all the nails that you hammered into it in anger, and you said you were sorry. But look, my son. Do you see the holes? There are still holes left in my fence.”

The little boy felt a surge of guilt, followed by a frantic impulse to make things right. “Well, I’ll paint over the fence with some shiny new paint - any color you want, Mom! That’ll make it all better.”

His mommy smiled sadly. “Thank you, son, for thinking of it. But it will still have all the holes in it.” And she went back to her faraway gaze.

Now, this little boy really loved his mommy. I mean, sure, she was lame, as all mothers are. But she was still his mommy. And he thought about his mommy and her fence - and the fury with which he had pounded those nails in - funny. He couldn’t even remember what he had been so mad about that day.

So one day the little boy woke up, jumped on his little bike with his allowance and rode himself down to the hardware store in town, where he had a very grown-up question and answer session with the man who ran the store. Small bag in hand, he pedalled on home, stationed himself at the back fence, and got to work.

For some reason, his mommy never came out all that morning to ask him what he was doing. (Remember I said in the beginning that she was a wise mommy?) So he labored away, first putting putty in all the holes he had made, just like the man at the hardware store had told him.

When he came in for lunch, he and his mommy had their favorite red beans and rice, and talked about this and that, but his mommy was busy with whatever it is mommies do, and so after he ate, the little boy went back out to the fence.

The putty he had put into the holes had dried - just like the man had told him it would. So he took out the sandpaper he had bought and started rubbing away. Scratching and rubbing, putty dust flying. By the time he was done, not a whole remained. But instead, there were a bunch of bare spots stark against his mommy’s shiny white paint.

But the man at the store had told him about this too. So he took out his little can of paint, and his little brush, and carefully, precisely, painted over all those spts, until - by late afternoon - the fence looked brand new.

And his mommy came outside - miraculously, just as he was done - with a big pitcher of Kool-Aid and some Mission tortilla chips with guacamole (because that was his and his mommy’s favorite snack) and together they sat down in chairs to enjoy some.

The smile was back on his mommy’s face, and she ran her fingers happily over the fence, exclaiming on what an amazing job he had done, and how no one would ever know there were holes in there.

Sitting there together, she finally said to him, “Son, when you get angry and lose your temper, sometimes it’s like pounding those nails into the fence like you did that day. And it feels so good at the time to pound away at something, doesn’t it?”

Her son grinned. “You bet it does,” he answered, around a mouthful of chips.

“And you’re a good boy - and you came up later and told me you were sorry, and I really appreciated it,” she said. “And that’s like when you pulled the nails back out of the fence.”

Here his mommy put down her Kool-Aid and leaned forward, taking her little boy’s hand. “But honey, saying sorry isn’t enough. Anger like that leaves holes, just like those nails did in that fence. And you can paint over it, or act like it never happened, but those holes are still there. And it’s just not the same.”

She looked back at the fence, now perfect and white, and smiled. “That was a lot of work today, wasn’t it?” When her son nodded, she said, “That’s what it takes, son. If you want to really fix the damage your anger caused, it takes a lot of time and effort to fill those holes you caused back in.” And then she leaned forward and pulled her little boy against her in a warm embrace that both of them sorely needed. “And I love you to death for loving me enough to want to do that.”

The two sat there like that for a while, enjoying each other’s warmth, until finally the little boy looked up at his mommy with a sweet little voice and said, “Mommy?”

“Yes, darling.”

“Next time I get that angry, I think you should just let me kill my little brother.”

Letter to My Body - Hello, Gorgeous! February 25, 2008

I’m in love with BlogHer’s Body Image initiative called A Letter To My Body and the different perspectives I’ve read from different women. So I thought I’d add my own take.

Dear Body,

Hello, Gorgeous!

Even though we spend every minute together, I think it’s been awhile since we sat down and chatted.

I think I haven’t told you in a while how much I truly adore you.

I treasure your rosy fair skin and your curly red hair - all clearly identifying me as a Daughter of the Isles. I love your fierce musculature, and the way it mixes with those soft spots - the mushy ones - the ones my grandbabies snuggle into when we’re together.

We’ve spent 47 years together - far far longer than any other relationship in my life - and what a rocket ride it’s been, eh?

Remember the dark night my first child was born? When the doctors and nurses told us she wouldn’t be born until late the next day at the very earliest? Heh. Guess we know who knew better, don’t we? Thanks for pulling me into that mystery in your own time and rhythm - for knowing on your own what to do and how to do it when my 19 year old brain was too fuzzy to remember the lessons from Lamaze class.

I’ll never forget the sensation of raw power - of connected-ness with every woman around the globe for eons who had lain in that position before me - almost as if they were all there, mopping our brow, holding our hand.

You were magnificent. And, I must say, with your help, I didn’t do too bad either.

And then feeding that little girl - and her two brothers after her? How smart you are, my lovely body! Like a chemist - like an alchemist - providing warm, liquid gold, fit for princes and princesses. I remember thinking at the time how self contained we were - that together you and I and they could be dropped down in the middle of a dessert somewhere - that we didn’t need anybody or anything - we could still feed these lovely little miracle babies all on our own.

I think about the times we have made love, you and I - the total synchronization between you and me when love was absolutely right, and I could feel every single cell of you singing out, full throated and jubilant.

And hey - we’ve had our disagreements too, right?

The night of my 26th birthday, when I decided maybe I should smoke pot to “fit in”.

Heh. You said no to that shit and puked my guts out for hours.

Oh well. That’s how I learned I can have a dope smoker’s personality without the dope. Thanks for that. That alone has probably saved me tons of money over the years.

Remember when the boys were little and into wrestling? And together you and I would hie ourselves down onto the mats and wrestle with them at tournaments, warming them up? Ha ha ha ha ha - the looks we got. Just goes to show we can learn take downs and - eh - whatever else we did then.

And you willingly trooped outside to play ball with Creed. Poor Creed - he didn’t mean to thwack you in the knee cap with that pitch. And we survived, right?

Together, you and I have been in some amazing places, both warm and cold.

And the thing I’m most sorry about are the times I’ve shared you with those who didn’t adore you. Oh - sure. They enjoyed your curves and your capacity to love. But they didn’t really get you, and the treasure you house. I’m sorry about that. Pearls before swine, and all that.

Listen, my lovely - neither of us knows how long we’ll be together. I’d say, as a guess, that we’re only about half way through the trip so far, and I promise you one thing, it’s you and me, baby, for as long as we have.

I promise you long tramps through wooded places, sucking in fresh air to the accompaniment of bird song.

I promise you naps - your favorite thing and mine - cocooned in warm blankets or swaying in mesh hammocks.

I promise you adornments and embellishments fit for your accomplishments and beauty.

I promise you yummy fresh food - and a little cake now and then just because it tastes so damn good. And we’ve earned it, you and I.

Thanks, my lovely body. Thanks for always being there - for having the wisdom encoded into you from my mother and hers before her. I’ve needed that wisdom lots of times in my life - and I promise to try to listen to it more, now that we’re a little older.

Thanks for the amazing children you gave me. Thanks for getting out of bed and standing when sometimes that was the most empowered thing I could do - to stand.

Thanks for giving voice and expression to the symphonies within me.

Thanks for looking like my own mother so that she’s never far away from me.

And later? When you’re much older, and more feeble?

I promise - I’ll be OK with that. Surely there’ll be some handome muscular nurse aide on whose arm we can lean as we shuffle off to Bingo or whatever diversion they’ve devised by then. And together we’ll smile - and reminisce.

Love,
Me

Sing, Baby! February 22, 2008

Sigh. I went to see my beloved middle son yesterday, and we hung out together, went to the natural foods store and to Wal-Mart.

During said hanging out, he mentioned that someone with a camera/video phone had done a video the last time his little band had played in a bar near us, and uploaded it to You Tube.

If you can’t seen the above, you can watch it here.

Needless to say, I could watch this over and over and over. Actually, I have.

He’s the front man you can’t see very well, but you can hear him.

He’s also the one that sang at his sister’s wedding.

Kids are very very cool - even when they’re constantly hitting you up for money.

Go Jay!

Blush - here’s another one of him singing a song they wrote. Jesus, I’m giddy!!

Things you Should Know About Me February 21, 2008

I Don’t Give A Shit About “Stuff”
You know, as in big houses, fancy cars. I am thrilled beyond belief that my daughter and her hubby were able to buy a beautiful house, and a cute little car that suits her right down to the ground. But honestly? I can’t be lured. My all time favorite fantasy is to live in a teepee and drive an old Jeep Wrangler.

I’m Not Big on Dieting
because all it does is make me think about food. And because, at 47, I don’t think I need to have a “hardbody” anymore. And because if what you love about me is my face, my body, etc. - boy, are you ever missing out on the best parts of me.

I Follow, As Much as I Can, a Vegan Diet
because it makes sense to me health wise and environmentally. And because, damn it, it’s my own personal stand against cruelty of every brand and color and ilk. And I don’t really care if “it doesn’t really do any good in the big picture”. I’m reminded of the story of the little kid who was throwing stranded starfish back into the water, and the idiot who said, “There are thousands - you can’t get them all.” Her response? She throws one more back and says “Made a difference to that one, didn’t I?”

People Interest Me -
- the way they think, the way they live, and the journey they’ve taken to arrive at this particular spot in their lives and opinions and beliefs. I don’t agree with all of them - Osama bin Laden, for instance. Not at all. But they intrigue me. If I were to take myself and my three kids to a movie, the happiest outcome would be for my daughter and the baby boy to go in and watch the movie, and leave my oldest son and myself out in the food court watching the people around us. We would all four end the day mesmerized by the stories we’d seen.

I Had the Two Best Fathers in the World
My birth father died of cancer when I was 25 and pregnant with my middle son, skidding into the grave with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other after a lifetime of curiosity and laughter and shenanigans - and he loved me so deeply that he innoculated me against hatred for the rest of my life. My Poppi was my hero, a gentleman’s gentleman in the truest sense of the world, who taught me first hand about gentle honor and dignity and selfless love. They are two of the things I am most grateful for in my whole life.

I Have a Million Kids
Much to my “real kids’” disgust - most of their closest friends became my kids too over the years. Like my little Kristin, and my stepsons, who will always be my sons, regardless of the fact that their dad and I are no longer married and regardless of the fact that they do the stupidest things sometimes.

I’ve Done Missions Work In Another Country
and by that I mean, the kind where you actually go out and feed people who don’t have food. People who live around a big garbage dumb and derive their sustenance from whatever they can scroungs. And I loved it. I felt more alive during those days than I do in any given week, and I would kill to go back there again. I would have joined the Peace Corps when I was younger but at the time, I didn’t have any usable skills.

I Write.
I write - and therefore I blog - because I need a voice. I need to put out there what I think, what I feel. The whole world is full of people who need a voice - and I think one of the coolest things we can do is to listen, and read, and get to know other people and what their lives are like.

The More I Love… February 20, 2008

Hope is in my DNA.

And after a lifetime of trying to live the alternatives, forgiveness is my lifeblood.

I speak in a different language than many people I know, using words and phrases like “Ah, give them a break, they’re doing the best they can.” And, “there but for the grace of God go I.”

I remember when I made a startling revelation about the Biblical admonistion to “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” For decades of my life, I thought it meant not to judge, or God would judge me.

Duh. God IS going to judge me, I AM going to come up short, which is why I am profoundly grateful every day that I have a Savior.

In my life, those words have come to be a reminder that I can go ahead and smugly judge someone else, but sooner or later I’m going to find myself in the embarrassing situation of having done the exact same thing I was judging someone else about.

And that’s a little uncomfortable.

I know - it’s happened way too many times for me.

Judge the barflies and middle aged drunks? Go ahead - until life throws you a curve and you find yourself in the bar most nights clinging to the friendships that only develop among other people who have found themselves in the same bars every night. We aren’t all losers - we just got stuck on the detour. There’s lots of detours on the road, I’ve found.

Abortion? Go ahead and judge the weak women - until you find yourself young and scared and trapped and in such darkness that murder actually becomes a viable option in your head. It happens. I promise.

I don’t hate my ex-husbands and ex-lovers. To do so would not only deny the validity of every deep feeling I ever had for them (”Oh, yeah, well I was wrong - and stupid apparently.”) but it spreads an inky poison through my veins that clogs me up worse than pure palm and coconut oil.

I’d rather die from a heart attack from clogged arties and high cholesterol than from a clogged heart and bitterness.

I don’t eat meat (I don’t want to anyway) because I don’t support cruelty in any fashion anymore - not to animals, not to starving little children who starve because they didn’t have the good fortune to be born in a country where Mommy and Daddy can buy meat, and my “meat” has eaten their share of grains they could survive on. And not to the environment, especially my own Iowa environment, which is being raped and ruined by the impact of factory farming menthods.

Cruelty of every kind has to stop somewhere - let it begin with me.

I believe with all my heart that there can be friendships between men and women, as long as both parties are aware of the dangers ingerent because we’re not all as highly evolved as we’d like to be - and can get confused. I have male friends who have been generous with their time and help with - honest to God - no thought of getting into my britches - and I’m not going to cloister myself from their friendship just because they’re male.

I also think that sometimes, after a shitty hard night at work, there is nothing nicer than going to the local tap with my co-workers, kicking up my poor tired feet, cramming my quarters into the juke box and relaxing, bitching, laughing and unwinding.

Furthermore, if a woman is in an abusive situation, I will answer when she calls and offer what help she asks for - even knowing the statistics, even having been there myself and knowing that, in so many cases and for so many times, “it won’t do any good.”

And finally, I vote. Early and often. Women were not granted the right to vote in the United States until 50 years after freed slaves were given the privilege. I vote for the women who suffered to give me the right. I vote for the men and women who died today to ensure that right for me.

This is who I am.

I’m 47 years old and I’ve come to these conclusions about myself and about my life through experience.

I’m not an idiot.

And I will no longer let people close to me put me down for what I believe. You go ahead and believe what you want to believe - that’s what works for you. I might not agree. But don’t berate me, mock me, threaten me, or, God forbid, pillory me (look it up!)

I LOVE. That’s what I do. My profession and my career is to get paid to love with skill. My heritage is to love. I love. I hug, I encourage and exhort, I am interested, I speak out, I defend, I forgive.

I fall down.

But the more I love, the more I love. Loving A does not in anyway diminish my capacity to love B - it increases it!

The more I love, the more I love.

February - You’re Fired February 19, 2008

Typically, I love February.

It’s the shortest month, there’s Valentine’s Day thrown in as an excuse to celebrate something, and spring time is peeking over the horizon. The next month is March - and I clearly remember my daughter getting married on March 11 and standing outside in a strapless dress and not freezing. So we have to be getting close, right?

Not this year.

This year we’ve been bomabarded with snow after snow after below zero temps after snow - to the point where I’m just slogging through sludge, physically and mentally.

I vividly recall saying to my garden last fall, “Die, bastards!” because I was so sick of watering and “pinching back” and teenage mutant ninja tomatoes.

Oh, what a fool I was.

Then I go look at Amy’s photo of a beautiful geranium, obviously soaking up the California sunshine, and I don’t even want to cry. More like…kill.

I want to go out and walk with my puppy. But it’s below zero. And so, said puppy contents herself with chewing up my books.

I try to console myself with looking at seed catalogs and pictures - but it feels kind of like looking at pictures of a transvestite ball and all the pretty clothes I’ll never look as good in.

I want to golf - not because I’m good at it, because I am not - to comic proportions. But I want to be out on that great green expanse in shorts.

I want to see green.

Our wonderful weekend away ended with my beloved driving home with his hands welded to the steering wheel at 30 miles an hour on the Interstate, commenting on the variety of vehicles in the ditches beside us.

I drove to work yesterday willy nilly with my foot on the gas and my faith in God because I couldn’t see a damn thing in front of me.

February - you’re not working for me anymore.

You’re fired.

Peeling Back the Layers February 18, 2008

Ahhhhhhhhh….. (Read that as a looooonnnnnnggggg much-contented sigh.)

My darling and I went away for the weekend - a much anticipated, long overdue weekend away together. And there were so many cool, wonderful, funny and touching things that happened, but one thing leaps out at me in thinking about it.

You know how, when two adults live together, “life” can interfere with the very best of intentions?

Like, it is very clearly and passionately my intention to live authentically, to communicate honestly, and to really listen, not only to my beloved but to other people.

But time gets rushed sometimes, and I am “multi-tasking”, the very antithesis of “living in the moment” (unless you have multiple personalities to help handle the load). Little things irritate, things not big enough to really comment on, and you roll your eyes, let it go, and move on.

One thing I’ve discovered, though, is that what is happening during those times is that one is piling on very thin transulcent little layers over oneself - over one’s feelings, one’s thoughts. They’re necessary, actually - one really can’t go out and meet the world emotionally naked most days.

Well…..wait. I think “one” can. Cool-er people than me do it. Ammend that to “I can’t.”)

Let’s just say, a person doesn’t. normally.

OK - now we take off for the weekend together, just me and my beloved. Alone in a car together, driving 100 miles…

…And something’s wrong.

Something is just a little off kilter, out of sync. We aren’t fighting, no one is mad, everyone is behaving perfectly. But I can just feel that I can’t feel him.

Disclaimer: Now, if that sounds bizarre to you, I’m betting you’re not a woman. Because it’s my experience that women gather a lot of their information about people but what they feel coming off of them. I can always, always, always tell when one of my kids is closed off from me for whatever reason, because what I “feel” from them is a brick wall.

Now, the problem, when I can’t “feel” him and what’s going on with him, is that I mentally try to fill in the blanks myself. I guess, and I make assumptions, which 99% of the time are wrong.

So, instead of just letting it go, being patient and waiting for us both to relax and unwind and disarm, I bring up the subject.

Which frustrates the hell out of a man - any man - even mine.

But bless his heart, he speaks my language enough to know what I’m talking about without mocking me. And he tries.

I realize, from doing this with him, that daily life can pile on all these little dusty layers that act like, I don’t know, force fields. Condoms over our whatever-it-is-that-we-can-feel-in each other. And sometimes it takes a conscious effort to peel back those layers.

We did - my beloved and I. It felt a little like ripping off scabs, at some points. But we did, and in rather short order. And we savored the weekend, knowing how badly we had needed this time away and alone together. We explored, we goofed, we ate, we talked, we laughed, we teased, we slept like babies.

Last night, after we had navigated the damn blizzard to come home - after the laundry had been sorted and thrown in the tub and the dogs had been snuggled and cuddled and dealt with - after all that, we sat together just kind of looking at each other, grinning like little kids.

It was such a relief to be able to “feel” each other again.

Will those layers accumulate upon and between us again? Probably so, yes.

But maybe we’ll be better at seeing it and catching it sooner. Maybe I’ll be a little less fearful, and a little more faith-filled that they can be dissolved, and that what-I-believe-in still exists beneath the layers.

Thanks for everything I needed, sweetheart.

Choosing to be Someone I Like February 15, 2008

OK - so.

Of course, I was talking to my daughter today - my sounding board, and my best friend. Also my most reliable bullshit detector. (My darling generally keeps a very very straight face and just nods when I’m full of it - bless his generous heart.)

I told her I had been thinking about how she moved 1400 miles away and, with a few fits and starts, set immediately about making a real-life life for herself. As in, friends, places to go, things to do.

I moved to this small town 15 miles south of where I used to live a year ago this month, and haven’t done as well.

The irony is that this small town is one I used to really like when I lived “up north”. It’s a unique little place among small town Iowa towns in that it has a movie theater, a coffee house, an aquatic center (OK, that’s being built but before that, there was a nice pool) and even - be still my soul - an organic foods store. Which is unheard of here unless you’re in a college town.

In short, it’s a very cool little town - with even a recycling program, a “tree dump” where people can go dump their yard waste and the city actually composts it, a nice nice nature trail, lots of neat little shops, a bowling alley, several restaurants. In short, a very cool small town.

And for some reason, when I moved here, I immediately turned my head backward with some contrived longing for “home”.

I’m not sure why I did that - that’s delving for another day - but I have decided that I don’t like people who bitch all the time and I don’t like acting like one myself.

I have decided to get out (assuming the arctic blast ever gives a little) and enjoy this cool little town - my town - the way it deserves to be enjoyed.

In short, I have decided to be tickled to live in this particular town by choice. I live in a wonderful home built with my beloved’s very own two hands, with a very cool and funny man who treats me like an angel (uh…usually). I’ve got the world by the tail.

I’ve also decided to choose to be the kind of friend I’d like to have, the kind of partner I’d like to have, and the kind of employee I’d like to employ.

Not all at once, of course, and not all in one day. Cuz, jeez, you know - I might knock the earth off its axis if I give up all my bitchiness at once.

*insert evil grin*