Tuesday, January 22, 2013

More Brain Detritus, Labile Edition

It's fucking cold here and it's going to get colder tonight. Damn. I do not like cold weather. When the Canadians were here they were talking a lot about how cold it gets in Canada and I, freshly orphaned and not in my right mind and not being polite said quite bluntly, "Yes, well I live in Florida for a reason."
Of course this is true but the main reason is that I was brought here at an early age and have mostly stayed here. I lived in Denver for a year and a half and hated it and high-tailed it back to Florida as soon as I found a good excuse to do so which turned out to be a fella, of course, since I was nineteen years old and here I have been ever since. But I love Florida and I love to be a tourist in Florida and Florida offers about three different geographical areas to visit and I enjoy them all. I could be wrong about that three different areas but I will say that North Florida is far more like Southern Georgia than it is like South Florida and we have definite seasons and it does get cold and although I love the fact that this allows me to grow camellias I don't like the cold.
So there.

I hate the dreams I am having. They make me feel all disturbed and are shot through with fucked-upedness and I could definitely live without them. Having experienced more than my share of different mental states of unhealth I fear being stuck in one.

I guess what I'm saying here is that I hope I'm not going crazy. I don't feel depressed especially but I do feel jangled and unmoored as if my soul is traveling a bit too far from my body at night with completely different dreamscapes and dream-fears and dream-scenarios and they are not soothing or pleasant and I wake up from them with my neurons upset and jangling. I suppose this is completely normal but I do not like it. Quite frankly it's all been a little too much since the end of November when the Season Of Insanity began and there was Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then New Years and I got sick and then Mother fell and then died.
I mean. Really.
Add to all of that the many, many pictures I've gone through in the last few days from my childhood on to the weird things I've found in her files to the newspaper clippings to the jewelry to the constant reminders that nothing, nothing is the same and never will be again since Mother died in that hospital room, one slow breath coming after another, pausing, halting, beginning again, slowing more, then finally and at last ceasing, those swirling molecules of change and I guess it's not a big mystery why my moods and emotions are a bit...labile...shall we say?
I just looked that word up to make sure I was using it correctly and I am told that it comes from "late Latin labilis, from labi ‘to fall.’"

Yeah. That sounds about right and I suppose I can feel the ground beneath me shift and threaten to go out completely and I do not care to fall, not one bit.

Well. I am doing my best.

Part of me wants nothing more than to resume "normalcy" whatever that may be and part of me wants to flee like a scurrying rat and head to Cozumel where nothing is normal nor expected to be and no street I walk down can remind me of any damn thing except for the other times I have walked down it and have always, without fail, been happy and the water of so many colors is at the end of all of the streets if you just keep walking long enough and the bats boil out of the jungle at night to eat mosquitoes and the swallows dart and soar and the iguanas bask in the sun with their sternly sour look of disapproval and little children smile at you from behind their hands with their merry eyes dancing.

Or something like that.

No trips are planned, however, and not likely to be. Therefore I am taking comfort where I can find it although the ham and the chocolate cake no longer seem to be working. I told my darling Lis a week or so ago that my greatest comforts are my chickens and Keith Richards and I was only half-joking. I cherish the idea that Keith (as Hank pointed out) is my spiritual totem animal and perhaps the chickens are my earthly totem animals and if this is so, there is nothing wrong with that.

Of course my grandsons bring me great joy and my children and my brothers and my husband too but they necessarily bring up all sorts of genetic and heart-connections and these things do have a tendency to lead directly back to The Mother and now that I think of it, I am now The Mother and there you go.
Neither the chickens nor Keith Richards are related to me in any way and like the streets of Cozumel, lead only to pleasant places or at least humorous ones or dancing ones or eggs.
Which reminds me of the way Keith bestows blessing/thanks on his audiences and on other musicians which is hands to head, heart and balls and I guess that's a rasta thing, I don't know but it sort of sums it all up.
Also? I am not the chickens' mother nor am I Keith Richard's mother and the egg fits in the palm perfectly as if they were made for each other and huevos is the Spanish word for egg and also Mexican slang for balls and honey, all things are connected I guess and there is nothing for it but to call Mother's eye doctor and inform them that Mother will not be needing any more shots in her eyeballs which are not unlike eggs in shape and the shots, the shots and I think of how they gave Mother a shot of morphine when she was dying and I thought of the Rolling Stones song Sister Morphine which was, perhaps not quite appropriate as a dying song but which, perhaps was in fact as appropriate as anything.

I do not know.

It is cold.

I am going to go let my chickens out and then take a walk. Things, I feel, will go from there.

9 comments:

  1. Mary, I still have flash backs to so much concerning the death of my parents. And for both of them, I had to be with them, was drawn to them by some kind of energy, even though I had no signs that they were dying. Yet, I knew they were. That powerful intuitiveness haunts me and yet also comforts me because it was the first time that I knew with certainly, we were so connected by a great something. I think the labile emotions are normal. I will feel them again when the parents in law go. But perhaps I will realize that I am not crazy, simply feeling a loss, a space, a void. I think that it takes a good while to move on. And I am an orphan just as you are. That takes time to process.

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  2. Yes, you've had a hard time. You need something different to look forward to. For me, that always means getting away, a short or long trip. Is there any way you can plan something? I feel silly saying this because I know you already know it. Perhaps this is just a time to get through, one step forward.

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  3. Oh Ms. Moon, I've been away from your blog and everyone's blog - even my blog - and I'm so so sorry to hear about your mother, your dreams and everything the two are brining up in you.
    You will find the way again. It will get warm and I'll try as hard as I can to send the desert to you.
    Take care and be kind to yourself.
    Thinking of you.
    xo

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  4. I am sorry that you hate the cold. Me too. Please take comfort from the fact that you live in Florida, no matter how cold it is.
    Being Canadian and living up here in Canada, let me tell you the forecast for my house tonight. With the wind chill (you probably don't have that weather phenomenon), the temperature tonight will go down to -41, yes that is fahrenheit (it's actually the almost the same in celsius)
    Like I keep saying every winter, I don't think I will leave my house again until some time in April. HA!

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  5. Dear Mary-those dreams, yes. I guess I'm just listening to you and not offering advice. What advice could I give? You're not going crazy. You are walking the hard road through the pain and joy, the all of it, the full catastrophe.

    And we're here with you.

    XX BEth

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  6. This post was a swirl of existential goodness and a sort of paganish profundity! Or at least that was my experience. I loved reading it... well, except for the part where you think you are going crazy.

    You are not. You are grieving and it is bringing up a lot of stuff for you... maybe stuff that you did not even really expect along with the expected. It will hurt you more to be hard on yourself about it all. In times like these I take a half a Xanie before bed... just sayin... a good night sleep may help you feel more refreshed and less out of body.

    In any case, I am the last person who should be dolling out mental health tips! But hey, it's all I got and I have to feel as though Im contributing something. If only expressing how much I care in my classic dysfunctional style. ("Here, try this... I'm sure you have never thought of it yourself!") Ok, I'm babbling.

    Please hug yourself for me.
    xo

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  7. Breath taking lost and breathless you are teaching me how to do it when it's my turn.
    Love
    rebecca

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  8. Wow, so much going on!

    First of all, and I say this without having any knowledge whatsoever of your financial state -- why NOT plan another trip to Cozumel? It seems to me that after recent events you've earned it. Maybe when this executor thing is finished.

    I can attest to the fact that Florida is far more variable and seasonal than anyone gives it credit for. Miami may as well be on another planet from Tallahassee.

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  9. Syd- It is so good to know that what I am going through isn't necessarily "crazy" but simply a process and a difficult one at times. Thank you, always, for your input and your kindness.

    Elizabeth- I keep telling Mr. Moon- I want to go away with you! We will. Somehow. Some way. Somewhere. Maybe not Cozumel right now. But maybe someday...

    Kelly M- I wouldn't/couldn't live in such conditions. Trust me.

    Beth- I am SO grateful for you. You have no idea.

    Ms. Fleur- Thanks, honey. Mostly I'm just letting myself feel what I need to feel. Thank you for everything.

    Madame King- It's a bit of a trip. I'm holding on and reporting the storm from the beach. As it were.
    Thank you, sweet woman.

    Steve- You are right about Florida. We're no more like Miami than we are like Ohio here in North Florida. Like I told Elizabeth, maybe sometime this year we'll get away to my sweet, favorite place. I think of that possibility and I feel soothed.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.