And My Mind Is As Placid As This Beautiful Pink Sweater

Let me tell you something.
I don't deal with stress very well. I never really was much good at dealing with stress, but since the madness descended upon me last year, it's been really bad.

And when I say stress, I mean anything and everything that happens. Or is going to happen. Or might happen.

Or is happening.

Such as- right now the gas guy is here to deposit gas in our tank for the heater. Should this be stressful? Not really. And yet, for me? I'm stressed.

My cell phone's battery is useless and I need a new one. As in, it'll be fully charged and one short conversation later it will power off due to low battery. Now I'm no cell phone technologist, but I'd say there's a problem there. This means I have to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Which really is my problem. Having to do something about anything. Especially if it involves making decisions. Any decisions at all. They all, from minuscule (should we have rice or couscous with supper?) to um, less than minuscule (what am I going to BE when I grow up?) throw me into a tailspin of anxiety and panic. But a situation doesn't even have to involve decision-making to cause me to want to crawl into bed and pull the covers up over my head.

For instance: my dogs are so shaggy they can't see out of their own eyeballs due to the bangs they've developed. And the woman who grooms my dogs is the nicest, most laid-back, easy going woman in the world and the dogs love going to see her and my lord, but how stressful can it be to take them in to see her?

Well, first off, I have to CALL her. And I'm still having problems with that aspect of modern life so really, why do I need a phone battery anyway?

Okay. Because I'm going out of town on Friday and although women used to cross the entire country, pregnant and with seven children all loaded up into a wagon being drawn by oxen quite possibly never to be heard from again, it is unthinkable these days to drive ALL THE WAY TO PENSACOLA, FLORIDA without a working cell phone. Right? Am I right or what?

You know I'm right.

And here I am, fifty-four years old and not only have I never crossed the country (okay, I did once but it was with my family in a Vista Cruiser Station wagon and the memory, even after forty years, is so sharp and horrific that I am TRYING to block it so let's quit talking about that) I have never gone in and gotten my own cell phone. Mr. Moon always handles that. Because there's the PLAN. The cell phone plan which no one on earth understands and I think they make that shit up right there on the spot because one plan comes with NOTHING but oh, fifteen minutes a month and you have to pay for the phone and it costs ten thousand dollars and then with another plan you get free texting, unlimited minutes, a free phone that'll do everything in the world except sexually gratify you (that app is a tiny bit extra) and for that plan you pay fifty cents a month.

Or something like that.

And god knows I can't be the one to make decisions about cell phones or their plans and I have no idea what sort of plan we're on now- family, unlimited, circle-of-friends, whatever.

Personally, I would base my whole decision on those incredibly annoying commercials with Chad in them and I would NEVER, EVER buy his plan, even if it was free. I hate CHAD. I want to kill Chad, starting with his hair.

Anyway, to make a short story of madness interminable, the idea of going-out-of-town is also worrying me to pieces. Not so much the going-out-of-town part. That will be fun. Kathleen and I and another friend in the play are driving over to Pensacola on Friday and then we'll be doing the play on Saturday. Twice. As I said before. And we have no idea how many tickets have been sold or how we're going to set up the stage and dressing area situation and if we'll have anyone to help us. And so forth.

This, to me, is stressful to the nth degree, although I trust our directors and somehow everything always works out. Yes. Breathe. It will all be fine in Milton, Florida. All will be fine.

I'll have a phone that works. I'll take my medication. There will be gas in the tank so that when I return, the house will be warm for my well-groomed dogs because I have actually called the dog groomer. I am taking them in tomorrow.

And this Saturday I will wear that pink sweater you see above and my mind will be like a clear lake of peaceful and calm thoughts as I go onstage and become Marion who screams at her husband with all the frustration and anger of fifty years of bad marriage behind her.

And someday, some way, I am going to quit being a person whose equanimity is upset by the need for a new phone battery, the need to make a phone call, the need to write a check to the gas guy or call Miss Beverly, the dog groomer whom I have known for thirty years.

I am going to be the calm and namaste-blessing old woman of my dreams, the one who smiles placidly at all life throws her, who reaches out her gnarled and liver-spotted hand to her grandchild or to her husband, who sweeps her front yard, who wears softly-faded dresses she's made from flour-sacks of printed blue cotton, who can face fire and flood and storm and the running-out of toilet paper with perfect tranquility and control. A woman who can as easily pick up a non-poisonous snake which has found its way into her house and deposit it gently in the azalea bushes as she can dispatch a rattler threatening her grandchildren with the hoe she uses in her tomato garden. A woman whose house always smells of lemon furniture polish and oatmeal cookies. A woman who always has a crystal bowl filled with flowers she's grown sitting on a gleaming oak table atop a lacy doily she's crocheted. A woman who is strong and wiry, calm, and level-headed. A woman who loves her face in the mirror, even as it ages into the sort of wrinkles you could lose a chihuahua in. A woman who one day fixes a nice meal for her family and then goes to lay down for a nap and is discovered an hour later, her white hair braided and nicely arranged beside her peaceful and serene face, her hands folded on her dear old bosom, completely and utterly dead and gone on to her reward, the quilt she made tucked sweetly around her.

Yes. That will be me.

In the meantime, it's not. That is not me at all. I'm still alive, still kicking, and still freaking out about every dadgummed thing in the goddam world.

So please, try to be understanding. Try to be compassionate.

And perhaps more importantly- keep those chihuahuas out of here because one might get lost.

And one more thing- OH GOD! I HATE TO THINK OF SOMETHING TO COOK FOR SUPPER!

I think I need a nap. Don't worry. I plan to get up from this one.