Taking the Plunge

I have to admit that I'm not much of a risk taker. I tried to change that some this weekend, and the results weren't all positive. And yet they were, in a roundabout sort of way. I definitely learned more about myself and about my world.

I decided to have Thai food for dinner. I don't even know when was the last time I ate Thai. Oh, yes. It was a couple of years ago when my aunt Kathy took me to lunch. Mark doesn't "do" exotic, and so for years, I haven't either, allowing myself to be defined by his preferences. I went out on a short limb and ordered something with squid, a food I've never tried. Now I can officially tell you that I don't like squid. Should I have stuck with something safe? A guacamole burger with fries? Fried prawns? Taco salad? I could have. I would have enjoyed any of the above. But no. I am really glad I tried something new. The rest of the dish was fabulous, anyway, and now I know something new about myself.

I also experienced nature in a new way. In the past I would have been far more cautious about my climb over the rocks on the edge of the surf. In the past I would have stayed dry! I slipped and fell into the ocean, not just my leg up to the knees. Not a little "oops! how silly" experience. No, I took the plunge. Thankfully my head didn't go under, but everything else did, including my fanny pack containing my camera, my cell phone, and my money. As I lay there with the surf surging over me, I'm not sure which feeling was more dominate: my embarrassment over the man looking down in concern from atop the rocks or my sudden realization of just how COLD the Pacific is in February. If I hadn't gone out on the rocks, though, I wouldn't have gotten the fabulous pictures that I did. I wouldn't have seen mussels still in the shell, clustered together like some sort of tight knit but armored family. I wouldn't have seen the green anemones waving up from the tide pools. I wouldn't have seen the perfect pink shell, which scuttled beneath a rock when I reached for it! (Apparently someone had already laid claim to it -- a little someone who wasn't thrilled with my presence.) I had a fabulous time and ended up feeling more alive, out on those rocks, than I have in a long time. I would fall in a dozen times if I had to just to hang on to that hour.

A Little Respite

I'm going away. No, no, I haven't cracked and boarded the next bus to Timbuktu. I'm just going to the coast for one night. Twenty-four hours. Well, twenty-one hours if you count the time it takes to get there and back. I was given the money and free childcare and someone is going to be on call to take care of Mark, if need be. I am SO excited. I don't even have words for how excited I am.

I'm not anticipating anything major. I just want to go to dinner and then come back to my room, crack the window so that I can hear the ocean and read all of Amy Bloom's first novel, A Blind Man Could Tell I Love You. Then I'm going to sleep without having to keep an ear out for sick people who could need rushed to the hospital and without being woken up by wandering (and possibly wet) children. I'm going to wake up when I wake up and read some more in bed. Or write. Or whatever floats my bubble at that time. Then after the complimentary breakfast, I'm going to turn in my key and go walk on the beach and take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Then I'm going to go through the shops -- the little ones, not the outlet mall -- and I'm going to look at all the little knick knacks without having to continually pivot to make sure that little hands are not breaking anything. I might, if I'm lucky, even find the perfect Valentine's gift for my honey. I don't know what that would be yet, but I will when I see it. Then ... home by 4:00 and back to my real life.

I have to say, though, that if America is the melting pot of the world, I am right now the melting pot of emotions. I am so excited to have some time to myself, and yet I feel SO guilty. I know I need to do this though. I know what happens to caregivers who don't take care of themselves. Over time, the caregiver herself will wear down. Her health -- mental and physical -- will show the effects of chronic stress and lack of sleep. By the time the sick person gets well or moves on to the next life, the caregiver is often ill herself, sometimes beyond the ability to rebound. So I KNOW I have to do this, and I am so grateful to those who have made it possible. I just wish I could do it without feeling so guilty. But maybe that's asking for a little too much.

A Lonely Road?

Well, I did it. I came out of the closet. Except ... I'm not gay, so I guess I would have to have come out of somewhere else, huh? Like, maybe the pantry??? Anyway, I submitted one of the short stories that I wrote last month to my writer's group, and I got their feedback tonight. Now I should mention that I've worked with these people for over a year now. A year and a half, even? They have read a lot of my work, but I've kind of held myself back some. Well, I didn't hold back tonight. I had a year long conversation with someone last year that left me gutted like a trout in the bottom of rowboat, and I'm afraid I ruined that friendship with my idiotic flailing while under the knife. But the truth of the matter is, I can't go back to pretending anymore. It's not so much that I don't WANT to pretend. It's that I simply can't. So I gave them my story, which was about a family sitting around after Grandpa's funeral, fighting over the family Bible. They don't want to TAKE it, though. They want to pass it off to someone else -- someone who clearly needs it more than them -- and they end up getting into a fight and Grandma ends up dead. (That darn coffee table corner just got in the way ...) The narrator ends up holding the massive volume, thinking of the family tree inside (a discussion of which started the story), and feeling the weight of the blank lines beneath her name ... The End. (Or the beginning, depending on how you look at it.) WELL ... the other Christian gals were just a wee bit uncomfortable. I heard comments like, "Well, you warned me you have a dark side." "She's just a little left of center, isn't she?" "But you're such a good Sunday School teacher..." Excuse me a minute while I go pull out my hair. Okay, I'm back. Just ... can somebody PLEASE tell me why a person cannot be devoted both to teaching children about God's vast love AND to pointing out the way we Christian tend to destroy each other with our religious arrogance? One gal wanted me to redeem the story. "But you ARE a Christian," she said. She wanted me to put one more line, something that showed that the narrator realized the "truth," how in Christ things don't have to be this way. Put some hope in there. Something. "It feels unfinished," she said. "It IS unfinished. You're supposed to feel uneasy." "Well, I did!" "Good," I said.

Some might say I should find a new writers group, a bunch of people more in sync with where I'm at right now. But here's the thing: I took a personality test once that informed me that my key trait is loyalty (perhaps to a fault?). If I have thrown in my dice with yours, I'm in for the long haul. You may make me tear every last hair off my scalp in frustration, but I will find a way to understand you and make something productive of our relationship. I have a feeling though that the others may soon find that themselves "too busy" to make it to writers group. Sigh. I cannot be different. I'm sorry. I just can't anymore. But I have a feeling this could end up being a lonely road.

Claustrophobia

We were in the ER again last night. Mark tried to tough it out, but after about three hours, we knew we were going to have to go in. I had planned to just drop him off and go home to put the kids to bed, but when we got there, his heart was going quite fast. Not enough to call in a crowd of medical personnel, but enough to be mildly worrisome. So I stuck around -- supposedly just long enough for the test results to come back and/or for his heart to slow down enough for me to leave without too much worry. Well, his heart never did slow down much, despite a cocktail of assorted drugs. Also, the doctors (with Mark's go ahead) have been trying to ween him off of narcotics, to give him relaxants and anti-inflammatories instead, just enough to help him ride it out. It didn't work last night. They finally came in with the narcotics -- and then later a second dose -- before we could finally go home.

I wasn't a very happy camper last night. As much as I love the staff at Newberg ER, I'm really getting to despise that place. To make matters worse, I hadn't brought The Bag (complete with reading material and embroidery) since I wasn't planning on staying. Also, after 8:30, they lock up most of the doors so that I was cut off from my usual diversions -- the cafeteria with its wall of windows looking out over the hills, the public computer, etc. I was confined to his stark white, windowless room or the waiting room or a small stretch of hallway.

On one of my walks around the outer limits of my cage, I stood and looked for awhile at a nook in the corner between the two vending machine. The air hummed like the air conditioner that I used to cuddle up next to as a little girl. I had a yearning for a pillow and one of the white blankets from the warmer... I didn't entertain the thought though. If someone found me curled up between the vending machine and the wall, they probably would lock me up -- literally!

I had an old Glimmer Train magazine in the car and a spiral notebook, so I wasn't completely without diversion. I read an excellent story by an author whose name escapes me now. And I wrote poetry. I wrote a haiku about the sapling in the yard and a very deep piece (hah!) about the experience of drinking orange juice. And I wrote the following. It's not good enough to send anywhere, and is too gimmicky anyway, but I thought I'd post it here, just because.

Claustrophobia

by Jenn

Can death Coexist
with Life?
Angels pace this space,
this edge of the Unknown,
where Spirits are born,
and Torn apart,
consumed and Regurgitated,
despair the bastard Offspring of
Pain.

Hope is
Obliterated,
Buried like nuclear waste,
too Incendiary even
to Allow.

Lucky Me

How do people who don’t have sisters manage? I know many people seem to do just that, but for me it feels pretty near unimaginable.

We went to Becca and Jason’s today to watch the Super Bowl. I must admit that I didn’t really watch much of the game even though I was parked in front of it. Between the kids’ antics and my embroidery project that I have to finish for my cousin’s wedding shower next Sunday (and, to be honest, my complete lack of interest in football), I wasn’t really paying much attention to the screen. That wasn’t the point, anyway – not for me, at least. I just like to spend time with my sister and her family.

So much of life is stressful to me these days. And while I am the beneficiary of several sustaining friendships, all but one of these leaves me feeling at least a little tired when I drive away from a get together. With Becca, that is not the case. Some days I can talk and talk about whatever is on my mind; and while I know that she may not always agree, she will always listen. Really listen. And she cares. But other days, like today, I am simply too tired to talk much at all. With most people, I have to reach down inside for a scrap of energy to come up with some sort of conversation material. With my sister, I don’t have to do that. I spent four hours at her house today, perfectly relaxed (i.e. very quiet). We did talk a bit, but not much. Mostly I sat on my corner of the couch, with juvenile bedlam all around, and just … was.

Does this mean that I don’t ever get frustrated with her? No. I do, on occasion (although not often). And I know she gets fed up with me at times. But she is the one person to whom I can open the front door while dressed in my bathrobe, with greasy bed head and five loads of laundry piled on my couch – and not feel, for even a moment, that she is evaluating my “performance.” I am just me, and that is enough for her. Having someone like that in my life makes me richer than any amount of money ever could.

Sweating the Small Stuff

He didn't mean to do it. Mark was groggy tonight, off balance from all the medications he was given at his most recent trip to the ER, when he slammed into my house of miniature figurines and sent them crashing to the floor. It shouldn't matter to me. They're just pieces of glass after all. But they are also so much more.

I don't have much of beauty that is mine. I delight in my burgundy and lace curtains and in my books. Other than that, much of what I have falls heavily under the category of "functional." These figurines are the exception. I started the collection when I was a teenager and have added to it slowly over the years. My favorite piece, however, is one of my earliest one: a blue and white dutch boy and girl. I love it partly because it is so beautiful in its simplicity and partly because my parents bought it for me on a trip to the Netherlands. Gifts from my parents were scarce: birthdays and Christmas. That's it. There's wasn't money for frivolousness. But this was a "just because" gift, and I've cherished it all these years. And now it's broken.

It doesn't matter really. Once I glue it, I'm sure it will be nearly as good as new. But my initial reaction wasn't logical or adultlike. I didn't do what I should have done and told Mark not to worry about it, that it was just a bunch of glass. No, I got to my knees among my trinkets and cried, "Oh! You broke them!" In a flash of sudden anger, I was unable to heed my own advice not to sweat the small stuff. Truly, it's the small stuff that can make one come undone.

Stepping Out

I’m finally realizing the power of failure. I’ve been so afraid all my life of making a mistake that for 35 years, I have barely allowed myself to live. I definitely haven’t been willing to take any significant risks, because … well, if you don’t try, you can’t fail. Lately, however, I’ve felt extremely claustrophobic, closed in by my own self-imposed sterility. I must either go insane or break free. I choose to break free.

I haven’t taken up sky diving or rock climbing. No, the areas I have allowed myself room to fail are so minute that to many they would seem almost inconsequential. I am almost embarrassed to admit that one of them is my kitchen. I have always told myself – and others – that I can’t cook. Oh, don’t get me wrong! I’ve cooked! The same darn things over and over for thirteen years … And if I dared to make something besides baked chicken or spaghetti sauce, I’d always break out the cookbook. That’s changing lately. I’m allowing myself to experiment, to draw on what I know and to improvise. Being at the end of the month right now, our bank account (and pockets and dresser tops) are depleted. We have to make do with what we have on hand. Last night, Brendan and I created some absolutely scrumptious cookies with butter and flour and leftover Christmas chocolates, cut up into little pieces. Mmm! Okay, so they were a little flat. Next time, I’ll add more flour. But they were so good that I ate … well, actually, I don’t think I’ll tell you how many I ate!

This new attitude is affecting my writing, too. I’ve been writing since I was twelve, but I rarely seem to “get around” to sending my work out. Last week, however, I put together a short story and nine poems and submitted them to local publications. To be honest, as I headed for the post office, I had exactly the same feeling that I have when I’m sitting in the waiting room at the gynecologist’s office. But I did it, and yesterday I spent most of the afternoon researching markets for my children’s stories. Tomorrow those will go into the mail, too.

It’s nothing really – tiny things that most people could have managed without flinching. But they are doorways, each one leading to something just a little bigger. Maybe today I am only baking cookies without a recipe and sticking stamps on stacks of poems. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll try sky diving …