I had a very quiet, rather small breakdown this afternoon in The World Market. Lily, Owen and I had gone there in search of Disco Ducks which are bath duckies with light up when they hit the water. I have bought them there before but it appears that they no longer carry them and I was a bit pissed- I've been meaning to go get him some since he was born and now he's ready for such big boy things as Disco Ducks and they didn't have them and I'll have to find them on the internet and you know how that goes- I still haven't bought myself a multi-colored disco ball, dammit.
But that isn't why I had a breakdown. Lord, no. Disco Ducks are hardly worth breaking down over.
No, no. I think it was at least partly a hot flash which was to blame. At least that's what I blamed it on. I just started quietly weeping and Lily of course was upset. "What's wrong?" she asked and I said, "Oh nothing. I'm just getting another fucking hot flash and I am SO tired of this."
I've been saying this for over ten years now. And no, the Evening Primrose did not help AT ALL and in fact, may have made them worse but yes, I've tried that now too.
See- the thing about hot flashes for me is that in the seconds before the skin begins to burn and the core begins to melt, I get a feeling of complete despair and anxiety. It's like a month's worth of PMS rolled up into one tiny moment. And then there's the urge to pee, my stomach clenches and I am desperately thirsty.
And then the burning begins and the melting and this happens many times a day and night. Many times.
But that few seconds of despair and anxiety may be the worst part of all of it. And honestly- I've not heard of other women experiencing this. So maybe I'm the lucky one or maybe women just don't talk about menopause enough. And this is where I usually say what I'm about to say now- Fuck if I know.
But honestly, I think my little breakdown today was more about the fact that I'd just bought a new book by Connie May Fowler than anything else. For those of you who do not know, Ms. Fowler is an author who writes mostly fiction set in Florida and who had one novel made into a TV movie by the Queen Empress Ruler Of The World- Oprah Winfrey- who played a role in the movie. And Ms. Fowler used to live in this house. In fact, we bought it from her and her ex-husband. And I call my beautiful bathroom The Room Oprah Built and that's probably true.
God, I just cannot make a long story short, can I?
A few years ago, CMF wrote me an e-mail asking if I thought this house had spirits in it. I wrote her back saying that no, not really, unless you counted the spirits of the trees the wood of it was made of. Its bones. Beyond that, I had never experienced much of what you would call paranormal activity here. Maybe a little. But a little ain't proof.
Now the house on Dog Island? That place has a poltergeist who hates the shit out of me but that's another story.
But Ms. Fowler said she was writing a book in which this house played a role and for some reason that just pissed me off and I had no right to be pissed off at all- it was her house at one time, and really, a house this old never truly has an owner any more than the ancient oaks on the property do. It has caretakers, of which Mr. Moon and I now two of.
But that e-mail inspired me to start writing a novel about a novelist who was writing a book about a house that an aspiring novelist was living in and there you go. I did finish that novel but it sucks and would need so much rewriting that it would hardly be worth it and I only wrote it out of spite, anyway.
Spite because some people have the gumption to actually write novels, do it correctly, get an agent and get published. Some people. Not me. I am bitter. I admit it. I did write a novel, I did get an agent and she was full of the promises of getting it published which she did not and I haven't heard from her in years and oh my god, rejection sucks and so, well, here I am. Unpublished and spiteful and bitter.
But that novel she wrote with the house as a character in it has come out and I had to buy it, of course, due to my extreme nosiness. I have read about a page and a half and it would seem that yes, the house is in it, fictionalized of course, her ex-husband is in it, also fictionalized, and Lloyd, too, although in the book it is called Hope.
And there is that feeling in me of This Could Have Been My Book, although of course my book would have been completely different than Connie May Fowler's and there is no question of that. And she did the work and she did the rewrites and she has the agent and she got it published and I bought that book today and I held it in my hands and as much as I love this blog with all my heart and the very honest way it provides communication with the people who actually read what I write, there is just something about holding that book in your hands. The physicality of it. The hardback, the paper, the ink, the picture on the cover and the name of the author on the front.
And it makes me so sad somehow. Like- I've given up on myself. I've let rejection rule me and given it too much control. And I hate that in myself.
So that's actually why I had that little breakdown and you know how it is when you have PMS and the things that yes, bother you when you're not PMS'ing, suddenly take on huge meaning and portent and make you rage or cry or whatever (and it's always negative, isn't it?) and that's just the way it was when I was about to have that hot flash.
So. There.
But here I am back home in Lloyd (Hope) and I have clothes on the line and the roses that Ms. Fowler herself planted are blooming and oh yes, I ran into a guy I know who grew up in Lloyd, today in town and I asked him if he had heard about yesterday's shooting. He had not but he got on his cell phone and called his kin and the story going around is that it was NOT Walking Man, but possibly his brother or maybe another guy's brother who only has one leg and that he was very fucked up and may have shot himself. Which would explain why the cops weren't that concerned after their initial assessment of the incident.
And honestly and obviously, there is more than one book to be written about Lloyd or this house and I have done my share of planting and tending here too and no one in this whole world is stopping me if I want to write about it.
In fact, I do write about it, every day of my life.
I suppose what I'm feeling is a little bit like what a woman would feel if her husband's former wife or girlfriend wrote a book about him. Maybe.
Jealous? Yes. Pissed. Probably. Curious to read it? Oh. You betcha.
So that's my story.
Perhaps I should do a give-away with some of the books left behind here in the library when the Fowlers moved out. They are signed copies of the book Connie May wrote set on a mythical island which is based on the real and actual Dog Island.
They are signed.
Hmmm. I'll think about that.
But for now, I need to get the sheets off the line and make up the bed and cook a deer tenderloin because Mr. Moon is coming home from the very real island of Dog where he has been working his ass off replacing all the plumbing. I need to turn the sprinkler on the garden and I need to go collect eggs and I need to remember that (and this is related to the post I did this morning) there ARE some things I can control and whether or not I write more books and try to get them published is one of them.
Fuckin' A.
And honestly, I hope this is a good book that Connie May has written and that I enjoy it for more than the less-than-upright reasons I bought it. I hope she has success with it. Hey- if it's hugely successful, maybe I could charge for tours, right? That wouldn't suck.
Of course, I'd have to clean it more often. There is that.
I'll let you now what I think. Of that you can be certain.
Happy Friday, y'all.
Love...Ms. Moon
P.S. Please do not send suggestions about self-publishing. I just cannot bring myself to do that. I do not know why but probably because it just seems so VAIN. They don't call it vanity publishing for nothing. Plus, it costs money. I want to do it, if I ever do it, the old-fashioned, respectful way. I want someone to buy something I have written and edit it and print it and ship it to bookstores.
And that may be stupid, but that's the way I feel.
And I'm about to have another hot flash so do not fuck with me.
Thank-you.
I love you!
Mary
P.P.S. The hot flash is over and I just want to say that in reality, I would not trade having fifty books published AND the Pulitzer Prize or any amount of literary awards in the world for my life just as it is now in this house with MY husband, where my grandson comes to visit me. Where my beloved children gather on holidays. Where I plant and tend and live and eat and sleep. And there is no amount of paper and ink which could be better than that.
And I know it.
Every day I write about how much I know it.
And that is not fiction. That is simply the truth.
