Friday, December 5, 2008

No Theme Today

Mr. Moon took the camera to Tennessee and so I am left with the little camera on the MacBook and that picture above was taken with it behind the screen of the back porch, thus presenting an even worse photo than I usually manage. It's raining so I couldn't take the MacBook outside and so there you go. It's a poor representation of the bright oranges and yellows and golds in my backyard, but it's the best I can do.

It's raining that slow drizzle that tells you to crawl back in bed, or at least onto the couch, and even the dogs are affected. They are doing some serious napping and Zeke, the smallest dog and the one who sleeps with me, didn't stir all night and I overslept this morning, which is something I NEVER do and awoke in a mild panic, one half hour before I was supposed to be at yoga.
Oh well. I called my yoga teacher and since it was just going to be the two of us, it would be no catastrophe for me to be fifteen minutes late, which I was.

I finished up rereading and checking the novel yesterday and sent it on where it was received and put into the reading queue. This publishing company is so small that I believe they only put out one book of fiction a year so my odds are more than slim and I am told that I'll get no response for 6-9 months so let's not hold our breaths. Who knows, though? I may be buoyed up enough to search out other small regional houses and send it out to some of them. Why not? What can it hurt?

It's been a pretty good week being here on my own in Lloyd. I haven't been lonely for a second and I've had no more dreams about losing babies or dogs although I have had some other ones so strange that I will keep them between me and my god, and last night it was the old hair-falling-out-in-great-hanks dream which, as sucky as that is, is far better than the teeth-all-falling-out-dream.

Hey! I know I'm getting old, brain! No need to remind me.

I was talking about that to my yoga teacher today. It seems to me that we've been sold a bill of goods on the old age-is-just-a-number crap. You're only as old as you feel, say the advertisements for the miracle creams and fiber-rich cereals and I have to say hell, yes, and some days I must be ninety-seven. I am most certainly NOT thirty-four and every day seems to bring a new ache or pain and I have to wonder whether it will be one of those things which mysteriously appears and then just as mysteriously disappears or whether it will become part of the whole bag of stuff that I suppose I am just going to have to put up with for the rest of my life.
One never knows.

And I often wonder what it would be like to suddenly be able to switch bodies with someone else, to feel what they are feeling, and then to switch back. I think we'd all have more compassion for what others are going through. One of my daughters was hit by a car at the age of fifteen and will always carry the pain of those shattered bones, no matter how long they have been mended. She doesn't complain much but I think it must take an awful lot out of her and I feel guilty when I complain to her about my little bullshit aches. I would probably be seriously shocked if I could feel what her leg feels like all the time, or especially when the weather is like this, so damp and chilly.

I am a whiner and a complainer and I know that. I have no idea what my pain tolerance level is. How could I? I have nothing to compare it to. But I suspect it's rather low. This is one of the reasons that when I talk to other women about childbirth I always say, "Look, if I could do it without drugs, so can you," but then I hasten to add that if I had been in a hospital situation while giving birth, I would have been SCREAMING for drugs so take that into consideration as well. I mean, I did instruct my husband to go get the big knife and kill me with it while I was in labor with my third child and I was deadly serious and was disturbed and angry that he did not do what I had said, but allowed me to go on, having one contraction after another.
Compassion? I don't think so. He did say that he would gladly take over for me if he could have, but what a cheap offer that one is.

Anyway, I have no real theme here today. It's gray and it's rainy and the venison jerky is drying in its little plastic tanning bed and I need to find the seam ripper so I can rip out the last bit of embroidery I did on the Levi jacket I've been desultorily working on for months. I've last the little bastard which leads me to what I should really do, which is clean the house and try and create some order but I do not feel motivated for that sort of work.

I'm going to get a massage this afternoon- something I do about twice a year. Maybe. As much as I love it, it of course makes me feel guilty on so many levels. Paying good money for such an exquisite selfish pleasure just seems to go against everything in my genes. My puritan grandfather probably rolls in his grave every time I lay my body on a massage table and give myself up to the blessed hands of a healing woman. I always think of the people who touch us who are not loved ones or friends. The nurses, the hair stylists (ah- the soothing shampoo with the warm water and busy fingertips on our scalp) the manicurist, the massage therapist. It feels so strange to pay money for pleasure and I am not insinuating anything here. I think all of the people who touch us in their work, literally touch us, are blessed and I celebrate them and their touch and truly believe they're doing god's work, especially for the people who get no other human touch in their lives.

Anyway, I am going to go lay my body on that table and it's going to be so good that it will overwhelm the guilt I have and be worth it in every way. Perhaps it will even help with the small but tenacious achy problems I have that cause me to reach for the Ibuprofen far more than I should.

And I'm happy. My life is rolling along fairly well right now. I am doing things with friends, I have lines to learn for the play, I sent the book in, and for the moment, at least, I am completely ignoring Christmas.

How are you doing? What do the leaves look like where you live? Are there leaves at all on your trees or are they bare and covered with snow? What is making you happy and who has touched you lately on the back of the neck, on the tight muscles of the shoulders, or on your heart or your soul?

Tell me if you'd like because you know I'd love to know.

13 comments:

  1. Having just written on my own blog about the transient nature of being happy, I'm really happy to hear that you are happy. I guess I think of it as a fickle friend -- one I can't really count on -- but it's good to know that it's real to somebody.

    And here in West "By God" Virginia, it is sunny and cold, and the trees are all bare, allowing me to see things I haven't seen for all the months of green.

    While you are having your massage guilt, I'm having birdseed guilt, because I haven't yet filled my feeders, and I know those birds are hungry and disappointed in me.

    Enjoy your lazy day. And definitely send your manuscript to more than one place. You could create conditions for a bidding war and become filthy rich.

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  2. Leaves have all fallen from the invasive trees and the Live Oak is doing it's annual part of filling my yard with acorns.

    I can't afford a massage, so I just touch myself; it's free and easy. Ba dump, tink.

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  3. It looks beautiful in spit of the camera and rain. I say this as in my area most of the trees are now completely bare. We had only a week or so snippet of color this year.

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  4. Nannygoat- yes, it is rare that I can say honestly that I'm happy. Which means, when I can, I really appreciate it more.

    Magnum- I KNEW someone was going to go there and it had to be you.
    Bless you.

    Marsha- I think our trees have more color this year than I can remember seeing. It's sort of amazing.

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  5. I didn't know that the trees even lost their leaves in Florida, let alone turned beautiful colors.
    I realized this week that I have to pay people to touch me. Occasionally, I'll meet someone new and we'll shake hands, or one of my grandchildren will hug me. But, I pretty much have to pay people to touch me.
    Where is Richard Gere from American Gigolo when I need him?

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  6. The search for happiness is internal and impossible to obtain. Therefore, it is up to us to create our own happiness. It's up to us to create a life filled with joy rather than sorrow.
    I think we just have to accept that we deserve to be happy. Being happy today means being comfortable where you are in the present, not where you would like to be in the future. It's about being in awe for the opportunity to learn something new each day.
    We don't know what our life will bring tomorrow, so we might as well enjoy where we are today.

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  7. I had a busy week. It was also a happy week. Our trees are bare of leaves and it hasn't ( knock knock) snowed enough to even stick on the ground. Jake touches me all the time, holds my hand as we drive to work and helps me up when I have been sitting for a while and the joints don't want to unhinge.
    I did get a great hug from our neighbor K. We bought a log splitter. I got a holiday card from my son--inside was a photo of Matty, it was wonderful. I been kissing it all evening. I read a report today that said to be happy you must have happy friends. I am trying. I think basically I am a happy friend, too.

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  8. MOB- yes, we have trees that color up and we have trees that drop their leaves but many of them do it in a slow process which lasts all winter long and doesn't entirely end until the new ones push the old ones out of their way. Raking is an exercise in futility.
    You know, I think if I were in your position with touch, I would be one of those volunteers who goes into hospital nurseries to hold the new babies who need holding. Crack babies? I don't know. Whatever. I would hold them and rock them. I've thought about that a lot. We all need to be touched and to touch.
    Or, yes, find Richard Gere. I imagine he touches quite nicely...

    Blue Butterfly- I think you're right but I think some people are wired in such a way to be able to not only intellectually BELIEVE in that philosophy but also to follow it. And some of us are chemically inclined to have to fight our way there. But you are perfectly correct.

    Sally- I imagine you are the kind of friend who always makes others feel better. I wish we lived closer so that I could know that for sure.

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  9. Days without themes are like books without words, or plays without actors and songs without melodies. They only exist when you find and fill them. Until then they hide furtively in the damp, dark places of reality where nothing moves, and no one goes.

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  10. Brian- are you saying this post sucks?

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  11. I was surprised to see the bright colors of your leaves. Ours peaked weeks ago and have since turned brown, mostly blown to the ground and are currently lightly frosted with a tiny bit of snow. And of course where I lived in Florida, we had very little leave change at all. Very little in the way of seasons, and going up to the panhandle for the holidays always meant the excitement of a bit of actual cold. But besides that it makes me think I should send you one of my Autumn cards, if I could ever get around to doing it. There are still multiple babies without new baby cards, so odds are rather weak shall we say. But those brilliant and varied colors in your photo are exactly what I was trying to capture, and still trying.

    Have you gotten feedback from other readers. Not that I have the time to do so-tho I wish I did- but our academic drafts are always ideally passed around to get feedback on what was confusing, too long, too short, should be expanded on, could be cut- all of that stuff. This stuff makes are drafts stronger by the time we send them in to be officially evaluated. I'm sure the same process could apply to your work... I think we know the book is meant to be. Now it just needs the polish and persistence to get it to the point that the publishers recognize that too. Don't you think? I wouldn't put it too much in their hands I guess is what I'm saying.

    Have a lovely day Ms. Moon. :)

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  12. Quiet Girl- others have read my book but for the most part they have been loving friends who probably couldn't bring themselves to say anything negative about it.
    Interestingly, one of the most ardent supporters of the novel in its early days was an eighty-something year old former English professor. Male. I think he just fell in love with my main character.

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  13. It seems that we are getting a bolder change of color this year than usual? Is it the colder weather or is it always like this and I am just terribly unobservant?

    My mom used to have this dream that her teeth were made of Sweettarts and if she got them wet at all they would dissolve. At least you haven't had that one, yet anyway. What a nightmare that would be!

    I think that you should absolutely send your book into as many publishing houses as you can. If not for yourself, then do it for your readers! We want to know Rose too!

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.