Feels Like

It's raining.
And even though more water is the last thing we need right now, it still feels like a blessing.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

So I just posted that last rant and checked the lastest news to find this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my-daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html

Ooh boy.

Add another stick to the home fires of what all Ms. Palin has to deal with.

Perhaps I should say, "Bless their hearts."

Blood And Water, Toil and Breastmilk

You'd think that by the age of fifty-four, a woman would be sure about how she feels concerning certain things, but as I age, I realize, as did Bob Dylan a long time ago, that the concept of life being black and white is a lie.
Sometimes it is not clear whether a thing is good or bad and sometimes that isn't the point anyway.
And what has me muddling about in the word-pond here today is something I am sort of obsessively thinking about, which is this whole Sarah Palin thing. I do not think, no matter what anyone says, that she is by any stretch of the imagination the most qualified candidate for vice president John McCain could have found.
I'm imagining he and his cronies sat around with a computer, putting in data like, "Must be female, must be right-leaning, must be Christian, must be...hot!" and the name Sarah Palin came out.
"Boys! I think we've found our gal!" they said when her picture showed up on the screen.
"Yeah," I can hear McCain saying. "I think I met her once. Smart little filly! She'll be great!"
I'm hearing Republicans trying to rationalize the decision to choose her by saying things like, she's media savvy (well, so is Paris Hilton), she's real (and all the rest of us are imaginary?), she's had executive experience (so has the president of any business) and they really like the fact that she's such a strong pro-family supporter and right-to-lifer who not only talked-the-talk, but walked-the-walk when she decided not to abort her Down's syndrome baby.
And this is what's really shaking me up and making me wonder what I really do believe.
Because I have always truly believed that a women are as capable as men in almost any situation. We're hopeless when it comes to sperm donation and personally, when there's a dead or injured animal in the house I want a man around to deal with it, but that's because of my own personal weakness and not really a gender issue.
I even wrote a post last December saying I thought it would be a good thing to let the midwives of the world take charge and try to figure out the problems plaguing humanity here in the twenty-first century. And I meant it. I wasn't being facetious or sarcastic, I truly meant it.
So what's my problem with watching Sarah Palin running for vice-president?
It's the fact that she has a four-month old baby.
Does that make me incredibly politically incorrect?
I think it does and I shudder at the thought.
But dammit! She does. She has a four-month old baby and any woman who has given birth, whether she goes back to work or stays home with that child, can tell you that having a baby of that age (not to mention one with special needs) is a full time job. Throw in four other kids and the job of running the state of Alaska and frankly, I don't know how she does it.
And NOW she's on the campaign trail, 24/7?
I've read that she doesn't sleep much and I am sure that's true, whether she's wired not to need as much sleep as the rest of us or not.
But the woman is forty-four years old, which is young for a vice-presidential candidate but old for a mother. I had my first child at the age of 21 and the fourth at the age of 34 and let me tell you- there was a huge difference in the amount of time it took me to get my energy back, my mind together enough to get the laundry done and the kids all where they needed to be and dinner on the table.
Of course, I did it all by myself, which is what most women have to do. I suppose that if you have round-the-clock child care, which Ms. Palin ABSOLUTELY must have, then it's not quite as difficult to get back into the power suit and run the world.
But this is my point- it's so damn easy to be pro-family and pro-life (Ms. Palin doesn't even believe in abortion when the pregnancy is the product of rape or incest) when you have health insurance, child care, and someone else to run the house. Obviously, you can give birth, jump up, ignore the post-partum bleeding and breast milk leaks and get your ass back to work in three days. I suppose.
But if you're a single woman trying to support the kids you already have with a low-paying job that doesn't offer paid maternity care, or a very young woman with no ability to support yourself and your baby, it's a completely different situation when it comes to an unplanned pregnancy.
And, this is the part that's hard for me to admit, but I think that every baby deserves his or her mother's attention and care for at least a year. Even if the mother has to go back to work, she can be there at night for the child. She can be there on weekends. The child can be in childcare or home with Dad or a relative while Mom's at work, but a baby needs a mom and her love and her time and her attention.
I'm sorry. That's just how I see it.
And I know I feel this way because I was perhaps obsessively attached to my babies. When they were four months old, I never even went to the grocery store without them. I just could not let them out of my sight. When they were four months old, I was still nursing them approximately eighteen times a day. And six times a night. I was bleary-eyed, exhausted, still extremely chunky around the middle and my ass was as big as it was tired. But it was okay because I wanted those babies desperately and I loved being around them and I wanted to be the very best mother for them that I could be.
Bonded? You could not have separated me and one of my babies with a stick of dynamite.
Which is extreme. But not abnormal.
I think it is, however, abnormal to give birth to a baby and then go off to campaign for a job that you're not in any way, shape, or form, qualified for.
And maybe this isn't my business. I'm sure it isn't. But it strikes me as being...weird.
Just as it strikes me as weird that after Ms. Palin's amniotic fluid began to leak in her thirty-fifth week of pregnancy, she remained in Texas where she was, gave a speech, flew eight hours back to Alaska, and then drove fifty miles to the small hospital in her hometown to give birth when it would have been far more appropriate to give birth in a hospital more prepared for a premature delivery with the risk of infection from a ruptured amniotic sac.
Something is just not right about all of this.
And you can damn well believe that if Obama had chosen a female running mate with a four-month old baby the Republican Christian All-About-The-Family-Right would have been slicing into her with every knife at their disposal.
Instead, they're shaking their heads in private and in public are saying things like, "She's just like me!"
As if I, or even you, is qualified to run the country.
I know I'm not. And being a mother didn't make me one. Being a mother made me qualified to be...a mother.
One who did not leave her infant in the care of others, who made huge sacrifices in order not to do that, and whose family supported her in making that decision and making it possible.
I know that not every mother wants to be a stay-at-home mother. I understand that. And it's okay and not always even remotely possible anyway. But every mother worth her salt wants to do the very best for the children she's chosen to bring into the world.
But how in the world is it possible to do that AND run for the office of vice-president?
I don't know. Maybe I'm completely off base here.
Call me out if you want. Maybe I need educating on this point.
I, like Bob Dylan, have a pathway ruled by confusion boats.
Especially when it comes to mothering.
Tell me what you think.
Because maybe it would be insane for Ms. Palin to give up the chance to be vice president of the United States simply because she has an infant at home. That seems mighty unfair.
To her, yes.
But to the baby?
I don't know.
I just do not know.

And Blah, Blah

Okay. It's Labor Day weekend and so Mr. Moon and I will be going to the beach, sipping gin and tonics, lazing around the pool, having good ol' fried chicken and potato salad picnics, shopping for antiques and gazing into each other's eyes while sitting under the stars on the balcony of our room at a romantic B&B.
Ha-ha-HA!
No. Instead, we'll be digging out the foundation around a building we own that leaked during the torrential rains of Tropical Storm Fay. In the heat. In the humidity. Gulping warm water from a hose. Wearing gloves and sunscreen which will drip into my eyes and burn the crap out of them.
Yep. That's the glamorous life here in North Florida.

Okay. On to the next subject.
I can't stop thinking about this Sarah Palin woman. I hear there's a rumor going around that her Down Syndrome child is actually not HER child but the illegitimate child of her teenaged daughter. Right. Whatever. I don't care who actually gave birth to the child. Ms. Palin claims it as her own and what sort of a mother goes back to work when her premature, special needs baby is three days old? Maybe it's completely un-PC to say such a thing but really- is that the action of a woman who is adamantely pro-family? Who the hell is raising her kids? I don't think it's her husband, Todd. He has a job with the BP corporation.
I could go on but I won't.
At this moment, anyway.

Have all you heterosexually-inclined married couples started feeling the urge to get a divorce? If so, it's because Ellen Degeneris married Portia de Rossi. I just thought I'd point that out. So if you and your spouse are having problems, don't blame yourselves! It's those damn gay people getting married and threatening our legitimate, God-blessed unions. Heterosexual marriage was doing JUST FINE until the gays started getting married. Really.

Perhaps anyone contemplating marriage, whether gay or straight or whatever, should, as a test of their committment, shovel out the foundation of a building in North Florida on Labor Day Weekend. Any couple can feel good about a relationship if they're on vacation, lazing around a pool or on the damn beach sipping gin and tonics. But if you can survive hard labor fueled by hose water together, then you've got a good thing goin'.

Has anyone in the entire history of the universe ever been influenced to vote for someone based on seeing either that person or a representative of him/her waving a sign on a street corner during five o'clock traffic?
Please report in if you know the answer to this question.

Why, in my rural county, did Tropical Storm Fay manage to topple over giant trees but leave all the damn political signs made of paper and cardboard and flimsy wooden stakes standing intact?
And when are the candidates going to go around and collect these pieces of trash? The election is OVER, people.

And now I must end this and get to town because Mr. Moon is stranded at Home Depot with a locked truck and I must take him a key. After I put on my overalls and sunscreen.

Have a great weekend!

You're Kidding Me, Right?

An avid right-to-lifer, a woman with no foreign policy experience, she was runner up in a beauty contest and she has a degree in journalism.
Yeah. That's the best McCain could come up with.
And if he thinks that women who supported Hillary are going to vote for him because of HER, he is sadly underestimating women, which does not surprise me in the least.
This woman is not in any way, shape or form fit for the office of the vice president of the United States which proves that McCain is not either.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

I Think He Can

Last night during Obama's speech I suddenly blurted out loud, "He's going to win!"

That man can talk like no one I've heard in years. His words were measured, they were powerful, they were inspiring, they were strong. He looked planted on this earth, he looked like a leader. He was not angry. He was certain and sure.

Can he do it? Can he pull this off?

My God, I hope so.

I have even more optimism after attending yoga class this morning. All during class I wanted to ask my teacher if she'd seen the speech and if so, what she thought. But she's such a strong believer in the Republican ideals, whatever that means, and knowing for a fact she voted for Bush twice, I just didn't want to start anything while we were trying to focus on our breath and our bodies.

BUT, after class, she asked me if I'd seen the speech and what I'd thought.

I told her I had and that I'd been impressed.

And then she said that she hadn't voted for a Democrat in over thirty years but that she's pretty sure she's going to vote for Obama.

Wow.

The contrast between Obama and his beautiful family and McCain and his old, gnarly self and overly blond wife is so huge. And not just physically, not just appearance-wise. Every thing about them is so vastly different.

There is nothing McCain can say about Obama that can undermine the true miracle of strength and belief on the part of his mother and himself that got him to this place where he is today. He deserves it because he's earned it, working against insane odds.

And that's just the truth.

Truth is a funny word to use in the context of a political campaign and I remain a cynic at heart. I don't believe that anyone could keep all the promises that Obama made last night, but that's okay. I liked the promises he made. They showed that his heart was in the right place. I think he wimped out on the rights of our GLBT citizens and I'm not happy about that.
But we gotta start somewhere.

Obama may not be Superman, but he has the power of speech, he has the power of inspiration.

I'm hoping with all my heart he has the power to move the undecided, the unhappy, the disgusted to get up off their asses and cast a vote for him. Because we need him. At least he sure sounds like what we need.

A man who was raised by a struggling single mother. A man who was born of two races. A man who knows the constitution so well that he taught it. A man who can say with personal knowledge that the government MUST help those who cannot raise themselves by their boot straps if they don't have boots. A man who has a crazy name, big ears, and the wrong color skin and yet somehow manages to look presidential in a country where being president means being white. A man who seems earnest and in control of himself.

I'm holding my breath. I'm watching him burst out of the phone booth of racism and seemingly unwinnable odds.

I'm watching him fly.

Blogging Through The Fog

I am having a hard time writing these days and have been, ever since the anxiety came to visit and even though I'm (mostly) feeling so much better, I'm still finding it hard to have coherent thoughts about anything I feel anyone would be interested in.
Which makes me very anxious.
But ah, it's late summer and the hurricane lilies are sending up their skinny green stalks, soon to open into other-worldly blossoms of red while we watch the hurricanes' cones of doom change and reform every six hours on the wunderground website and here in North Florida we are still driving around, looking at pine trees seemingly growing out of lakes and being very, very amazed because we haven't ever seen water like this before, poured out in such an amount and so quickly that five days later, it still sits, nowhere to go, no hurry to leave anyway.
And it's hot and it's humid. I spent about an hour and a half this afternoon in the yard, picking up branches tiny and large that broke free during Fay's visit and trundled them over to the burn pile and I sweated and I wiped my brow and finally had to call it a day and came in and passed out.
I had lunch the other day with the film commissioner of the state of Florida who happens to be my ex-husband's wife and also my Lis, who was here for a short visit, and I sat at the table, trying to pay attention to the conversation, lettuce occasionally falling from my mouth (especially every time my ex's wife looked at me while making a point about her job), making me feel even duncier than I felt already. These two women, good friends from way back, are women I love and with whom I'm friends and both of them are ambitious and incredibly talented and know everyone in the S.E. who is anyone in certain worlds of music and art.
I felt so strange then, sitting at that table at a downtown restaurant, trying to keep up with the words they were speaking. I felt like I was on one planet, and they another, a loftier one, one more rich with possibility and purpose, one filled with people like them, talented and driven and strong and creative and smart who know what to wear and what to say.
And that's how I'm feeling these days, overwhelmed by underachievment, overtaken by a miasma of sweating through long, hot days of mosquitoes and snakes, chores that are essentially meaningless and struggling with words that don't begin to say what I need to say, even if I knew what that was.
I cook the fish, I sweep the floor, I listen to my husband, I try to understand.
I try to understand.
I try to see through the fog that seems to engulf every landmark, every detail, every hint of the path that lies before me, searching and squinting for something to come up out of that grayness that will point me in the direction I need to go now that the kids are grown, now that my world has shifted so dramatically and suddenly.
I'm like all of us who knew a storm was coming last weekend, who thought we were prepared, and who, when it really happened, sat with mouths agape, watching water pour down with a force we couldn't have imagined.
For thirty-two years I was so involved in the one-task-after-another days that I lived that I didn't give a thought to the certainty of the time when those tasks would not be needed to be done, when the children grew up.
I didn't know the time would pour down upon me like this, so suddenly and so unexpectedly, even though I surely must have known it would.
I always thought I'd write and here I am, the time to do it, and nothing comes.
Forget the fiction, I can't even write a blog. I say the same things over and over.
I just have to believe that the time will come when the fog will blow away, when the slender stalks of the hurricane lily will shock me again with color and form, and I'll know a little better where I'm going, what I'm doing, and have the strength to go there and do that.
Until then, I'm just floundering in the floodwaters, trying to keep my head above it, trying not to lose hope, trying to remember that although I don't have the vision now, I will.
I hope.

Question Salad

Do they give presidential candidates psychological evaluation tests? Don't you have to get one of those things to work at oh, say...McDonald's? Because if they don't, WHY NOT? I'm pretty sure McCain wouldn't pass one. And don't tell me that anyone who spent five years in a box might not do so well on certain portions of such a test. I understand that. And I also understand that this is a good reason NOT to elect someone to run the country, instead of it being a good reason to think he could handle the job. If Bush had been given one of those tests every year I think we'd be in a different situation right now than we are.

"So, you think God talks to you and tells you to create democracy in the Middle East by going to war? Really? Huh."
And so forth.

Why does nature have to be so damn cruel? My husband was sitting on the back porch two days ago and witnessed a large oak snake and a squirrel fall from a tree together. The squirrel proceeded to bite the snake repeatedly and then run back up the tree. The snake proceeded to finish off his tasty snack of fresh baby squirrel, ending with the tiny tail of the poor creature. He then crawled up under my office to digest in peace.
Disconcerting for the humans watching. Fine dining for the snake. Tragedy for the mama squirrel who cried from the tree for a good long while. And where is that snake now?

Why do I have dogs? Four dogs?

Why didn't Hillary get the nomination? And don't tell me it's because not enough people voted for her in the primaries. I know that. But why didn't they? Don't get me wrong. It's WAY overdue for us to have a black family in the White House and I'm going to get behind Obama like his mama but, but, BUT, dammit! Ms. Clinton would have made such a fine president.

And speaking of- I'm wondering what the effect of having a black man as president will be when it comes to the hopes and aspirations of little kids who have skin darker than paper? Will it give the nerdy studious ones a fresh new dream that maybe they didn't have before? Will they now believe that even if they can't play basketball and don't have a talent for rapping they can still be someone important when they grow up? Maybe? Is it even possible for a white person to begin to realize the full impact that having a man of color as president will have on the many, many non-white people of this country?

Will I ever feel truly normal again? Will I ever wake up and just be okay? How is that possible when these stupid storms keep forming and churning and building and twisting and blowing themselves into land where they cause flooding and devastation? And why do I feel so guilty wishing the storms to head anywhere but here? No matter what piece of land they crash into, they are going to create havoc and homelessness, death and destruction. Why is my house, my peace of mind, my community any more deserving of escape than any other? It's not, of course, but I'm human and I wish those damn things to travel as far from me as possible, meanwhile REALLY wishing they'd just churn themselves out in the Gulf, which they never do. Or better yet, just not form to begin with.

Where WILL Gustav hit?

And what, oh what, should I cook for dinner?

These and many more questions are what I am pondering today.

What are you walking around wondering about?

Tropical Storm Fay, Where Are You Today?

Well, the sun is actually shining, the rooster next door is crowing his red little heart out and the crickets are taking it to church. It's eleven o'clock on a Monday morning and the sound of the generator is no longer heard across the land but I can hear a chain saw and I expect I'll be hearing more of that as the day goes on.
That was some weekend. It had its ups and downs, I have to say.
We went to bed fairly early on Friday night with the storm starting to settle in with some pretty good gusty wind and rain. The electricity went off around eleven thirty and we knew what that meant which was: WE SHOULD HAVE FIXED THE GENERATOR!
Oh boy.
We slept through the night, got up and I made a huge breakfast because I knew things were going to go bad in the refrigerator before it was all over and more importantly- what else did I have to do? Raining outside, no paper, no internet. Just hungry people and worried dogs. Jessie had spent the night but she was eager to get back to town to get ready for school and do more settling into her apartment. When things seemed to have settled down some, she packed up the car and took off, leaving me in a state of near-panic until she called to say she'd made it just fine.
Since the rain had slacked off some, Mr. Moon and I decided to go take a little walk and it felt great to get out of the house, even if we were the only people in Lloyd who were deliberately outside in the wet. I wanted to see how full the little sinkhole where I walk was and what we found was a rushing waterfall across a road into it with a current so strong I didn't want to cross it. I was, quite frankly, amazed.
The rain picked up but we were already drenched so we walked up to the bridge over a part of Lloyd Creek. The water was high but the amazing thing was the sound of the frogs who live in the swamps on both side of the creek. They were screaming in fits of what I can only assume was sexual frenzy. A few were hopping across the road, in search of more fetching partners, I guess, and although I could not see the activity going on in the swamp, I imagined millions of small, gray slick frogs in an orgy of egg-laying and fertilization, the likes of which has not been seen since the Woodstock festival back in 1969. It was a frightening visual image and one I fought all night long as every time I awoke I could hear the continued roaring of ecstatic amphibians.
By the time we got home from our walk, the rain was pouring down harder than I'd ever seen it in my life and I have seen some rain. Around five there was a radio alert that a tornado had formed about five miles south of here and was heading north. This was not good news.
Mr. Moon and I sat on the back porch and watched the torrential rains and kept our eyes on the tops of the trees to watch for any tornado-like movement and to listen for the sound of a train.
We did not hear one and after about an hour, we figured we were safe and proceeded to drink and play cards and grill meat with the vast relief that only escaping death can bring.
By Sunday morning most of the storm had passed although we got a few more rain bands which brought the total of rainfall up to over twenty-something inches. We kept dumping the rain gauge but it kept overfilling so I'm not sure what it really was. It was a lot.
The local creek is not a creek anymore but a lake with tributaries of rivers that at the peak flowed over the railroad trestle and flooded the road. My neighbor across the street who has lived here in Lloyd for most of life said he'd never seen anything like it and his mother, who has lived here since she was a child and who is over eighty, agreed. The post office flooded and lots of trees, hydrated beyond tolerance, gave up the fight with gravity and toppled over, many of them taking electric lines with them. Hundreds of miles of roads in this county were not passable and I figured it would be a miracle if we got our power back on in a week.
But, the miracle occurred and it did come back on yesterday in the early evening and so now, I suppose, life will return to normal, whatever the hell that is.
I thought a lot about the folks who lived in this house all the years before electricity and I caught myself thinking smugly several times that I, too, could do that, but of course the difference being that I had running water, indoor plumbing, a phone line (and why do the phone lines never seem to go out?), a gas stove, ice, and ice chests. Not to mention a car to get in and drive to a store or a restaurant or even a motel if it all just got too hard.
So I remain in awe of those people who were hardier and more determined than I'll ever be and again, I have to thank them for building a house that that has remained solid and strong for all these years.
And it is time to get that generator fixed because life does go on and so does hurricane season and although we were more than lucky this time, we were reminded quite graphically that we need to keep our guard up, our batteries stocked, and the option of having a fan at night should this all happen again.

Mama Nature Sure Can Be Bitchy

As the dearly departed James Brown might have said, "Good God, Y'all!"

Tropical Storm Fay came and squatted over us for two days, pissing over twenty inches of water. As much as I bitch about the lack of rain, I was overcome and in awe of the amount of it I saw coming from the sky in the last two days.

But we're still standing and our power's back on. I have to say that if you have water, gas, and a good camp light, life is not so bad without electricity. This is not to say that I'm not incredibly glad to have the prospect of sleeping with air conditioning before me tonight.

I raise a glass to John Gorrie, that crazy man who made AC possible.

I raise a glass to the people who built this house this house so strong and true.

And mostly, I raise a glass to the trees in my yard which are standing upright and tall.

Happy Birthday, My Love

This is a picture that was taken of Lynn on her birthday one year ago today.

Her sister made cupcakes, went to the nursing home and dressed Lynn, loaded her into the car and took her to a tiny park in Tallahassee where that beautiful oak tree lives.

Her mama, her brother, her son, her sister, me, and a couple of my kids gathered to celebrate Lynn's birthday for what we did not know, but suspected, might be her last.

Lynn seemed dreamy, and otherworldly, happy enough to be there, outside and with people she loved, but she was so obviously getting ready to cross that border into another place. The cupcakes confused her, she drifted from here to there and she really only engaged when my daughter started playing her mandolin.

And then Lynn danced.

On Lynn's fortieth birthday, which she celebrated in Houston, Texas where she was living then on a boat, she threw a huge party. I wasn't there, but I heard about it. I know there was rum and plenty of music and the dancing must have gone on all night.

Or almost all night.

That was the night Lynn got pregnant with her only child. The child she had yearned for her entire life.

Birthdays were always special to Lynn. She believed in birthdays and she believed in celebrating them with joy. There was always rum, there was always music, there were always lots and lots and lots of friends to dance with. So her birthday last year was a sort of subdued and pale imitation of all the ones that had come before, but at least there was music and a little bit of dancing and at least there was that oak tree, it's branches so old and spread they touched the ground. That tree seemed to call to Lynn because she kept heading for it and I'm mighty glad her sister got that picture.

Yesterday when I took my youngest shopping for food for her new apartment, we ran into Lynn's mama, which was a surprise because I never go to that Publix and really, what are the odds? She was shopping for storm supplies and also wine and Cheese Nips for the bridge club that was coming to her house today. We chatted about Lynn and how it was just about to be her birthday and how much we missed her and then I gave her a huge big hug and she hugged me back, far more strongly than you could imagine a woman in her eighties could hug. I could see Lynn in her mother and I could feel Lynn in her mother too and I think we were both comforted.
It was nice of the Universe to deliver us to each other so conveniently.

And that's what I'm thinking about today, sitting on my back porch as the rain comes down and the wind picks up as Tropical Storm Fay, a tricky storm if there ever was one (it's already hit Florida in three different places) drifts our way. The trees are rustling their petticoats, dancing with the wind, and I'm writing, dancing with the words, and I'm loving Lynn, wherever she is.

I sort of feel like she's sitting right here with me, and I like that. It's a peaceful feeling.
I see her smile, I see her twitch her skirt, I see her close her eyes so that she can listen to the music of the wind better. I think about the day I took her to Lake Ella for a walk and a sudden breeze sprang up and she closed her eyes and lifted both arm to the sky and swayed with it.
Then she opened her eyes and smiled at me.

I'm opening my eyes and I'm smiling with you.
Let's dance.
It's Lynn's birthday.
Let's dance. Whether with the wind or the Beatles or whatever music the universe is supplying to you right now, let's just dance.
Because it would make Lynn smile
And it's her birthday.

Another Perspective

Miss HoneyLuna (my baby daughter) has posted on her blog about what her first evening in her first apartment was like.
You may find that here if you wish:
http://findingthosedulcettones.blogspot.com/

I'm Tellin' You

I can't take this girl moving out ONE MORE TIME. She's ripping my heart out.

And these two? They already did.



How much of this coming and going can my old heart take?

When I was a young mother with four kids around me every moment with the chaos and the laundry and the meals and the lessons and the crying and the laughing and the ten thousandth viewing of Lady And The Tramp, I just thought I'd die if I didn't get some peace and quiet. Some time to myself.

And guess what?

That's not how it works.

That's not how it works at all.

Because all that chaos and cooking and mess and washing and worry and coming and going and work and noise- that was life.

The only one I've known for over thirty years.

I think it might be the quiet that kills me and wouldn't that just be ridiculous? Wouldn't that just be the way?

I need to find a new way. A new dance, a new reason to get up and get on with it.
And it's a struggle.
I feel like I'm going through another birth process.

Uh, Nurse, can I get my epidural now?

Home

I'm feeling a lot better, although some days are better than others.
Yesterday was a fine day. My daughter and I went to town and shopped for a few things for the new apartment she's about to move into and we had lunch and I was just generally in a good mood and found myself smiling and laughing and just generally being happy, which feels at once "normal" and a miracle, both at the same time.
And today? Not so great. I just remembered that I hadn't taken my antidepressant yet today and I suppose that could be the reason, but I think not. I think it has more to do with my daughter and the fact that she's moving out again, taking a few bigger steps into her real, own life and it makes me think of myself when I was her age.
I moved away from my home in central Florida to go to college in Denver when I was eighteen and except for a few vacations, I essentially never returned. Home for me wasn't a place where love washed the corners, if you know what I mean. It was a place where the corners were dark and the secrets were many and too big to confront and I wanted nothing more to do with that place, although I missed my baby brothers so much that it was painful.
I used to dream that my parents would be killed in some freak accident and I would be given custody of those boys. I wanted to bring them into the light and raise them. I wanted to feed them good food and pour love all over them like golden honey and rock them to sleep at night and let them become little hippie boys and learn to grin from the heart and play in the woods and I wanted to teach them to trust and let them grow and become who they were meant to be, instead of scared little shadows slipping along the walls, hoping not to be noticed by their father.
But no one died and they, too, left that house as soon as they could and never went back. None of my siblings ever returned home to live after leaving. It just never occurred to us to do that.
On the other hand, all of my kids have returned home, at one time or another. I'm sure it wasn't exactly what they wanted to do, but I don't think it was too painful for them. People may bitch and moan about "yo-yo" children, but honestly, home is a good place to be if you need a good place to be and life has thrown a monkey wrench into the game plan. Things happen. Break-ups and marriages, problems that require a haven, a harbor, a temporary place to go where there's always a place at the table and clean sheets and people who love you, no matter what.
People who love you. No matter what.
And I think my kids know, no, I am certain that they know that wherever I am, that place will be there for them.
A place to be when feet need to be gotten back underneath them, when hearts need to be mended, when souls need to be tended.
I wish I had had that.
And perhaps that's where my sadness comes from today.
I never had that.
And I think I've spent my entire life regretting that, longing for it, and trying to create it.
Somehow, through some miracle, I believe I have and although I never want my children to suffer heartbreak or hardship, I know those are part of life. And I am so grateful that they have brought themselves home when those things occurred in their lives. I am more than grateful that they knew they could.
That they know they can.
Perhaps if I had had such a place, I wouldn't have to just blindly blunder down so many wrong paths by myself. If I had had a place to go for a time-out, to get my thoughts together, my head on straight, I wouldn't have made some of the mistakes I've made.
Or maybe I would have. Or made different ones. Who knows? It's all moot at this point.
But as my daughter leaves again, trying out those sweet damp wings, I can't help but grow a little teary; I can't help but confuse her leaving with my own so long ago.
I was fleeing, when I left and I went as far away as I could and I hoped never to have to return.
She is taking a short hop down the interstate and into town and I know she'll be back, over and over again because she loves this place that her daddy and I have made. This nest that we've created for her, for her sisters and her brother. She is not fleeing. She is flying towards her life and that girl? She is not afraid. Oh, she has her moments when she doesn't know what she wants to do, exactly and despairs that already, at nineteen, she isn't on the path she needs to be, doesn't know what her life plan should be.
"Oh honey," I tell her. "Who does?"
Only the lucky few, I think. The rest of us go along, falling into this or that, making our way as best we can.
And usually, it all works out.
And when the times come when it isn't, there's always home.
And each of them are in the process of learning to make their own homes. The ones they will perhaps raise their own children in. And I'm sure that those homes will be filled with love because my children know about love.

I bought a rocking chair the other day. It's not a great rocking chair and I already have quite a few rocking chairs, but this one called to me. It's upholstered and it's so comfortable. When you sit in it, you just feel comforted.
I showed it to my husband, that sweet wise man, and he sat in it and agreed that it was indeed, a most comfortable chair with a good rock. He patted the arms and said, "This is a grandmama chair."
My eyes opened wide and I realized- he was completely right. I'd bought a grandmama chair.
As far as I know, I have no immediate need for such a thing, but someday, someday.
Someday my kids will come home, not because there's a problem or a need for retreat, but because there's a baby and they'll want to visit and share the miracle that baby will be. They'll want that baby to learn what grandmama's house smells like and looks like and feels like.
And I will sit in my grandmama chair and I will rock that miracle, that baby and I'll lean over and whisper in that tiny, pink, tender seashell of an ear, "Welcome home, baby."
And I'll know that somehow, some way, I have traveled all the way from being that girl who fled a house where she never wanted to return, to this place where returning is a joy.
Because I have a home. And when I think about that, I can't help but feel the sadness lift and maybe, that feeling my chest is the rustling of tiny wings of hope, the tiny wings of satisfaction that no matter what, I have done something right. I have made some wonderful decisions in my life (Mr. Moon!) despite some very bad ones.
The chair is patient, it is waiting.
Me too.
And I'm home.

Look At Those Lines Carefully

And you will understand why these storms drive us mad!
It doesn't appear, at this moment, that Fay is going to be a major threat, although someone is going to get some bad weather off her. And others already have.
I was talking to a friend who lives in Nebraska after Katrina hit and she couldn't understand, with all the warnings that we get before a hurricane, why everyone didn't evacuate.
I tried to explain about hurricane forecasting and how people get complacent and how so very few New Orleans residents had personal vehicles but I still don't think she got it.
And we're definitely not looking at a situation like that here. I hope.
But still, it's maddening and I check the tropical weather web sites obsessively and I feel certain I am not the only one.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I've been thinking a bit lately about the whole mommy-blogger phenomenon and although I think it's a great thing in many ways, I am beginning to wonder what's going to happen when the children of these mommies (and daddies) grow up to become teenagers.

I know I'm not the only person to wonder about this and I'm sure that a lot of the bloggers themselves have at least a few dark moments of the soul in the early morning hours, pondering what's going to happen when the kids are old enough to actually read and understand that their entire lives have been documented and discussed in forums the whole world can view.

At least I hope they ponder that question.

It's one thing to talk about a baby. Babies are fair game for anyone's discussion, it seems to me. They're all adorable and they're all unbelievably frustrating and they can't talk yet and they all do the same basic things, which is eat, sleep, pee, poop, and learn major life tasks like how to get their fists in their mouth, how to turn over, and how to crawl.

And having had four babies and remembering the incredible isolation of young motherhood, I think that the blog is probably a wonderful outlet and way to connect with others for parents.

BUT, as children get older it seems unfair to me that their parents can use them as constant grist for the blog. I think of the pain and embarrassment a teenager suffers just at the thought of having real, actual parents who sometimes do horrible and torturous things like show potential boy-or-girlfriends baby pictures of them or kiss them in public, and then I think about how these kids will feel when they realize that it's quite possible for anyone, anyone in the world, to go online and read all about their potty-training, not to mention all the stories about the tantrums they threw, the cute things they did and said, and the developmental problems they may have suffered.

You know what?

I don't think it's going to be pretty.

And here's the bottom line for me- if you wouldn't post a blog about certain personal or private things that your boss or your mother or your spouse or your best friend did or said out of concern and consideration for them, what gives you the right to blog about these things when it comes to your kids? Even your little kids?

I can tell that some of the parent bloggers keep this in mind, or at least they seem to try. They do write about their children and tell stories about them but the line of respect doesn't get crossed. Because isn't that what this is really about?

Our children are not just little creatures we've brought into this world for the amusement of ourselves and others. They are actual, real human beings whose lives have been entrusted to us. They are deserving of our time, our energy, our concern, and our respect. Yes, we're the parents and they're the children, but they have lives which are not our lives. And until they're old enough to give their permission about what others may or may not write about them, it seems to me to be unfair and a bit cheap to blithely report on what, if written about a fellow adult, would be a blatant invasion of privacy.

All of us have done things in our childhoods that we would just as soon forget (and in fact, have blessedly forgotten in many instances), but for these children of the parent bloggers, there is nothing they will EVER be able to forget, no matter how much they wish, because it's all going to be right there, forever, in their mom or dad's web site. Including embarrassing pictures.

So here's what I'm saying- if you're writing something about your child that you wouldn't write about your spouse- think again. Believe me, that cute little toddler you have is not going to love you for describing his or her antics in the bathtub to THE ENTIRE WORLD when he or she is fifteen.

Sound ridiculous? Well, so are teenagers. And if you can't remember the humiliation that your own parents could bestow on you with nothing but their presence, let me remind you. And no, you, of course, are nothing like your own parents were. YOU ARE COOL, right? And your kids know it!

But I'll tell you something- what a five-year old or even a ten or eleven-year old thinks is cool is NOT what a fifteen year old thinks is cool.

Don't take my word for it. Just try and remember. Negotiating the teen years with kids is difficult enough. Giving them fodder for everlasting hostility is really not something anyone needs to do.

I think folks should just be respectful of the small people we are (usually) blessed to share our lives with.

And one other thing: When these children grow up and we're in our doddering old age, they're going to be writing about US. In the nursing home. Wearing Depends. Losing our teeth and our minds.

And payback? It's gonna be hell.

Powerful

My daughter, Miss Maybelle, has posted an extremely powerful piece at
http://rolluptherugs.blogspot.com/
I suggest you stop by and read it.

Yeah. Well. It is hurricane season. Here in North Florida in the panhandle, we're used to being the target of every durn model of the path of whatever tropical disturbance/soon-to-be-a-hurricane that gets projected.
It's...anxiety producing.
The first hurricane I remember was one named Donna back in 1960. I was living on the east coast of Florida then, was a small child, and can remember watching trees bending over in ways I had no clue, up until then, that trees could bend.
They are far more flexible than you can imagine.
But as I learned in 1985 during Hurricane Kate, they are not as flexible as you would like. That gal hit us with a force which knew no bounds and every yard in Tallahassee had trees downed and cars hit and roofs staved in and we were without power for weeks. The roads were covered in branches and debris to the point where you couldn't drive on them to get to a store that might have food and ice if you wanted to and your car wasn't smashed. It was a big, fat lesson in how dependent we are on things like roads and electricity. Our phones still somehow worked and friends from out of town would call after viewing the resulting mess on TV and ask how we were doing and what was going on. It was eye-opening to realize that they knew more than we did, being limited as we were for information to battery-operated radios and the places we could walk, crawling over fallen trees and downed power lines.
Don't get me wrong- I've never suffered through anything like Katrina or Andrew, but I'll be completely happy if I never do. I remember during Hurricane Kate, sitting in the hallway of our house with the kids and the radio, my youngest then being only two months old, as the wind outside howled and trees cracked and then came the sound of a train, knowing we were nowhere near a train track. Little tornado spinners were flung off from the winds and we held our breath as the rain slashed and we hoped the roof would remain intact, the walls would stand.
We were lucky and they did, but what I realized is that being a hurricane is not unlike being in labor- once it's begun, there is no way out and there is no way to stop it. There is only hunkering down and acceptance.
And here comes, quite possibly, another. The thing is, you never know exactly what the circumstances are going to be until the last moment, and even then, not exactly. All those model paths that show Fay coming our way are just that- computer models. And they don't forecast what the storm's strength will be. Will the storm linger over the warm waters of the Gulf, gathering power and fury and then aiming itself our way to spend it on top of our heads?
Don't know.
And of course we're not ready. The generator isn't working. I have no idea if I have the batteries I need. Water in jugs? Nah. Canned food? Sure. If you like fat-free evaporated milk.
I think of all the grouper and venison in the freezer. I think with even more dread of the water oak in the front yard that is going to pitch itself onto my roof one of these days, dammit, given the right circumstances and I hope the right circumstances don't present themselves next week.
We have these giant sacred live oaks with branches extending over the house that are bigger than most entire trees. My house has been here for almost 150 years and has obviously weathered more than a few storms, but it's still vulnerable.
As are we all.
Which is what these storms and other forces of nature remind us of in graphic and sometimes terrifying ways.
When it's just you and your family and all the panting, terrified dogs, sitting in what you perceive to the be safest spot of your house with a smokey kerosene lantern throwing ghostly shadows up on the walls and the winds roaring outside and the yard washing itself away in the flooding waters, you know in no uncertain terms what the nature of nature is.
She can be cruel, y'all.
I think I'll go buy some canned goods and batteries.
I think I'll round up some candles and make sure I have lamp oil.
And the waiting begins.

All Is Well

Got through this day and all is well. I even reached out and grabbed that nurse practitioner's hand and thanked her. She looked surprised. Think how surprised she would have been if I'd actually hugged her.

And my mother? Here's the really good news and something for us all to look forward to: after you're eighty, no more colonoscopies unless there's a really good reason. I don't know who's happier about this, my mother or me, but either way, I'm about to celebrate.

Thanks for all the support. Somehow I'm not sure I would have made it through the last month without every one of you.
Is that weird?
Oh well.
I love the Weird Wide Web.

Proof This Shit Is Working

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment at 9:20 a.m. AND I have to take my mother to get a colonoscopy AT THE HOSPITAL (when you're over eighty you have to get these procedures done where they can bring you back to life if you die, I guess) and despite my terror of dealing with all things medical AND my incredibly bad relationship with my mother, I am only thinking about how much I dread tomorrow about once every two minutes and it's after 9 a.m. and I AM NOT DRINKING YET!
(That's a little joke, okay?)
But still.
Time for a walk.
(Please forgive all the caps. I guess I am feeling a teeny bit anxious.)