Turning Point

I am behind on nearly everything, including my reading here... I must feel confoundedly stunted by my own bummed-out-edness. That includes the way I feel when looking at my own blog! It doesn't matter that I swing wildly between laughing freely and all it's opposite alternatives.

Though I've been in the midst of my own personal grief, here we all are this week struck by the loss of so many: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays, and most of all Michael Jackson. While I do believe that the world has changed this week, that these losses speak to us all, that reflection is certainly in order, I am also left feeling something else. It's hard to pinpoint, but I know that life is here for us all, here for as long as we are able to embrace it. I feel a little levity is in order. I know I need it. I'm not sure how much should be prescribed to offset the heft of my heaviness. Fizzy Lifting Drinks would not be turned down. I'll sanitize the ceiling. I'm good at that. ;) Hey, gotta love that stainless steel!

Announcing the return of

TWILIGHT TUESDAYS

Be well, all.

Love. Peace. Life.

xo

HOSPICE

Hospice Care

Definition: A model of care that focuses on relieving symptoms and supporting patients with a life expectancy of six months or less. Hospice involves an interdisciplinary approach to provide medical care, pain management and emotional and spiritual support. The emphasis is on comfort, not curing. It can be provided in the patients home as well as freestanding hospice facilities, hospitals, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

I got the call early Sunday morning. To come. Come when we could. The end is very near. Hospice has been called, Dad goes home tomorrow. It was his wish to be at home. I only wish somehow that he knew what was happening. I don't even know if that is the right thing to wish. The one perpetually in control, directing all things (my Dad, not God) is now in the most opposite of positions. Things are changing so quickly inside him. So many struggles, risks, battles lost, losing battles. Failing systems... failing understanding.

We drove 5 hours, spent 3. Dad slept for over 2, then our visit. Through his difficult speech he expressed frustration that he hadn't been awake for the first part of our visit. He hadn't slept in over 2 days. I was glad to let him rest, to just be with him. But like him, when he woke and his bright blue eyes found me there, when his face lit like a light bulb, I did have regret. I have it now.

I did not say "goodbye". I could not; not because I couldn't bring myself to due to my own pain. I don't want to cause him pain. I don't think he is now able to understand, though I'm told it's been explained to him, what is happening to him. That his mind and body are both failing. That he has had another stroke. That the pneumonia is not clearing. That his throat function is nonfunctioning, and that the months of struggling to eat, spending 4 hours to find a way to chew and swallow a tiny meal, is a cake walk compared to now. That his stroke risk and aspiration risk and choking risk and pneumonia and heart risk coincide with the, I'm told, inevitable shutting down of his systems, with his daily increasing dementia, which in conjunction daily decreases his ability to speak, or to swallow saliva, or ice chips. That his throat is nearly closed due to collagen break down from his leukemia treatment 20 years ago.
He is the strongest person I know, in so many ways. A less strong person would not have survived the amazing life he's had, would not have survived the past year, the past week. The doctors have said that the only reason he is able to speak, to form sentences, to converse and relate to us at all is due the fact that his brain is so developed, so many neural connections strong, so very brilliant for so very very many years.


I am certainly walking a fine line at every moment, in denial most times-- I must be, and living in the moment the rest of the time. Is it a sign of maturity, or a free and clear blessing that I am able to exist this way? That I am not superimposing past losses, fears, fear of loss at this time-- am able to think somewhat clearly, and yet still not feel a desperate need to over analyze and find a way out of this, to control it? I feel blessed. I don't feel mature. I do feel old. I am suddenly very tired. I break down more and more. I find myself looking for distractions, a few minutes here, a few there.

Thank you. Thank you. For being there. A few minutes here. A few there.

Stop the world, please...? And rewind?

The public house (Pub) operated since 1927 in Ireland by my father's cousin's family, seems to be gone. I can find no trace of the family I lost touch with... I sent email, but it came back returned. As of 1 year ago, the darts match results were still being posted there according to the newspaper... They are still listed in an online tourism guide, but that was last copyrighted in 2003! How can I have let so much time slip by without contacting them? I am just one of many American cousins who have likely visited them over the years with my now ailing Father and otherwise... But they are rare and special to me. So kind and warm and generous... I thought there would be time, that they would remain, be there...

The "Land Owner's House" where we stayed is no longer operating either-- has become a private residence...

I am so completely crushed, flattened, bereft...

Never a more magical time to me than that trip, and nothing so miraculous than the time spent there, on the seaside, stepping briefly, welcomed, into the life of that family, that town...

I am so ashamed of all the times I planned to write, to send a tin of Christmas treats, to return, to visit... and did not.

Too many things to grieve right now, things lost, and things soon to be lost...

How can one heart be so full and yet so empty, sinking and yet floating... soaring above the things I grasp for, to say goodbye, and yet pull them back to me once more.

ne sutor ultra crepidam

It has all become over-proofed. Like the dough, too long, the yeast extended to it's greatest, and it's product, co2, has run out of space to expand-- poof... there is nothing else to contain it. Odd that what has been experienced as joy, and potential joy, life changing energy, loosed for the common good, imperceptibly perceived by all, for weeks, even months, should escape as grief...

After all, joy is not happiness. They are not interchangeable. My heart has been inexplicably full, and I have been grateful. It has been evidenced in real (however transitory) changes in my life, my relationships, my perspective.

And yet, here I am, in grief.

My father is slipping away... I need to see him, to talk to him, to be with him, and yet am not able. Obstacles, which I allow, and obstacles outside anyone's control, get in the way. I experience him alone, without him here. Yet, he is not gone. Not yet, but slipping, slipping...

My teenager no longer needs me like once upon a time-- I never imagined how painful that could be. I embrace it in theory, yet my heart... it does not. Not yet. I know the person he needs to become, but transition is difficult; letting go of a connection, even relatively little by little, to a heart that was once so completely bound up in your own, is painful. It tears at me, causes me to behave outside of the love that I feel, and I am ashamed.

My hoped for friend, friendship offered, gently proffered, is not. I can no longer. How strange that I should feel so real a connection to one who claims their heart is closed, that life is trivial, that no real human connection can ever be made. How strange that our conversations awakened in me a recognition of the freeing nature of sublime beauty, of tragedy, of interconnectedness. How strange that their words should be cosmically moving to me, through no intent of their own, nor any recognition. Perhaps it is my own unwitting perception of this human tragedy that made our brief acquaintanceship so poignant. Yet I believe, I know there is more to it than that.

I am an adult, not some teen with grand illusions, nor hoped for allusions... I am not naive. So often cynical in the past, I now strive to intentionally create my own life's reality, with that which is within my power, and yet. And yet.

There are things I am powerless to control. Such a balance to be struck.

Soon, the door will open-- less than 5 minutes. The time for peace, for pure, shoulder shaking grief will rapidly wither, the pile of spent snowman napkins will be thrown away.

And I will go on with the duties in front of me, grateful for this pain-- that it should find an appropriate time, that it should be released. For now. I will go on with my day.


William Shakespeare:
Go to your bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

Carl Jung:
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

Warming... PRETENDERS

Well, the weather here is winter weather today, but California winter, which I LOVE... After highs of 18 F several days last week, and waking at 6 am to a wind chill factor of 6 F... Today's 55 degree high had me HIGH... (Sorry Tutta!) I love snow, but for me, these respites in the weather, severe or not, are lovely punctuation to my days... Driving with the windows down, in a cotton shirt and tank top, my faded Levi's and short boots take on a different connotation... I won't say it's warm, but comfortable, refreshing, enlivening... Blasting The Pretenders, I am taken back, to a different decade, a different coast... My cynical East Coast Cave Dwelling ways have been replaced by my alter ego: California Girl... I'm body and soul walking back from the Oaks, with my oh so individual haircut; shoulder length with bangs, with bright yellow cellophane die job on the side where it is shaved... earphones blasting... could have been The Pretenders... my little lace up boots, brand new, clicking on the sidewalk, my oversized men's blazer getting warm, Wayfarers on, SPECIAL BEAT SERVICE t-shirt, turquoise overdied pencil jeans that day... oh no, I did NOT look like Debbie Gibson, but that is what it sounds like, from way back here, I guess. No head bands for me-- I'm too tough, too chic, too unique... boy, what was I thinking? it's farther than I thought...

Today, it's an SUV, and one handed air guitar while I drive... but that's ok. Because my feet don't hurt, my heart doesn't hurt... very much... and the lyrics all have meaning for me now, though I wish they didn't

MY BABY

I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME
THAT'S ALL I WANT FROM YOU
I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME
ONE DAY


I KNOW I'M A PEASANT
DRESSED AS A PRINCESS
BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE
TO TAKE MY CLOTHES AWAY


IF I COULD SHOW YOU
SOME HAPPINESS
THEN I WOULD FEEL
LIKE A REAL PRINCESS
THAT TO ME WOULD BE SUCCESS
MY BABY


I SEEN YOU DANCIN'
A NATURAL BEAUTY
YOU MAKE THIS DIVE
SEEM SUBLIME

YOU REALLY GET TO THE HEART OF THE MUSIC
YOU'RE THE POETRY OF TIME


IF THERE'S A METHOD
TO WRITING A SONG
HOW COME I'M GETTING IT WRONG
YOU WRITE THE BEAUTIFUL SONGS
BABY


C'MON, C'MON, C'MON BABY
TAKE MY HAND
C'MON, C'MON, C'MON SHOW ME
TO THE LOVE LAND


CAN THIS REALLY HAPPEN
IN THIS DAY AND AGE
SUDDENLY

TO JUST TURN THE PAGE
LIKE WALKING ON STAGE
MY BABY

by The Pretenders

You've Got Mail; from Me

"The time at our disposal each day is elastic; the passions we feel dilate it, those that inspire us shrink it, and habit fills it."
Marcel Proust



When I found I would be the only adult in our home for four days last week, I thought: "I'll write and write and write!" But actually, instead, I read and read and read. And caught a cold. (Isn't it always the way?) I found myself reading some moving poetry by Amanda, "I'm Here" which can be read here: http://paperstarlings.blogspot.com/2009/01/im-here.html and I found myself grieving. The number of decades that pass do not dull or nullify the memories or poignant sense of loss that may appear at any time. Their subscription never expires. So, since I have not (I tell myself) watched the film, You've Got Mail for several years now (disputable) and there would be no-one to argue this or add this view to the tally, I indulged myself. I don't know this, but I would not be surprised to learn that I am one of very few who cries without fail when they watch this movie. Nearly an example of reflexivity, I am the film and the film is me. (Was this always the case or did it become so?) A mirror within a mirror. The main character states, "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?" And, "Confession: I have read Pride and Prejudice about 200 times. I get lost in the language; words like thither... mischance... I'm always in agony over whether Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are really going to get together! Read it, I know you'll love it!" I get lost in the rhythm journey emotion of this film. I have watched it untold times! I have played it in the background as if a record album to keep me company while I do the dreaded dishes. The language and pacing are musical to me. The light and setting a warm and evocative rendering of quotidian life. I can go to it in Filofax fashion and call up whichever identification suits.

This time, it was to grieve my Mother. When Kathleen Kelly confesses, after acknowledging defeat in the losing of her store, her Mother's store, "Soon we'll just be a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person will probably think it's a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know, because that's the sort of thing I'm always saying. But the truth is, I'm heartbroken. I feel as if part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right. " She sees before her, a vision, ghostly and luminescent, of herself and her Mother from another time, happy, unsuspecting, secure. This has always brought me to tears, cut right to the quick of me. The funny thing is, the trigger's effect has scarcely changed, and those who know me best can not comprehend in the least why this should be so. I never questioned it, merely accepted it. But now, in looking at the way I perceive memory, and experience nostalgia on the whole, I can see that my perceptions and experiences are likely to be different than those others with whom I share my life, whether or not I understand or comprehend or apprehend them myself.

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.
Marcel Proust