Category Archives: general musings

Jan19

returning to the scene

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Snowshoe cat gazing at human who loves her

Snow keeps an eye on me when I am ill.

I’ve been off Facebook for a week. I don’t miss it except when I feel compelled to write. There is something in me that needs to share words, even if it’s just with the universe.

Since I was last here, most of my waking hours have been occupied by health professionals and my cat, Snow. She came to me as a rescue the first week of December 2023 with a long list of ailments. I spent hours researching feline dietary needs because she gets bored with her food every 10 days or so.

I am currently being evaluated for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. It is the final great umbrella under which all my symptoms fit. Outlook is pretty bleak since there is no cure for it. I have given up more and more mobility with each passing month. The fatigue at times is crushing. I now have more good days than bad ones.

It’s hard to believe I once built and manicured a flower bed at the corner of the front lawn. Fortunately the last things I planted were irises. They hold their own against the encroaching Bermuda grass. Maybe every 8-12 weeks I feel good enough to spend a few minutes weeding. The ajuga and oxalis thrive in the spring and, for a little while, it actually looks like a tended spot.

So far January has been a month of recovering from Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I am chafing at that. But allowing frustration to build is counter productive and expends precious energy. So I am down to basics, doing what I can when I can and filling my head and heart with pretty things, funny things, peaceful things. Some of these come in the form of my cat. Sometimes I just look at her and think, You are so beautiful. I can’t believe someone threw you away. I want your final years to be so full of love you don’t remember the bad times.

And sometimes I look at myself and say the same thing. While I don’t quite believe it, I think it helps me to ponder it. Amazing how loving a pet reflects the love back on yourself.

Oct11

his name begins with J

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In the twilight between dreaming and waking, he was there. He always is.

His rage is appalling. I can only tolerate his presence for a few seconds. His thoughts are violent, distorted, disgusting, profane. No wonder I split him off years ago: my animus. His name begins with J.

He changes it regularly — Jason, Joseph, Jupiter — but it always begins with J. I do not yet know why. He is the only one of my alters who has a name. The others all have titles.

This morning he had climbed on top of me. He was pushing down on my chest so forcefully I could barely breathe. I thought he would let up if I lay still but he didn’t. Finally I promised to listen if he’d just ease off. He did. And I waited.

What came were scattered bits of memories and dreams, both distant and recent, including last week’s random but powerful encounter. Tiny clips spliced themselves together in my head, a few seconds each, and concluded with the seminal event.

Oh, my God. The tools. It was the tack hammer.

I came fully awake then. I had a splitting headache and could hardly sit up. It was like I’d been blown apart. When I could finally stand, I was wobbly. I stumbled to the kitchen for coffee.

The motion detector on my little Studebaker radio jacked up the volume.

Michael Stipe declared, “It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

I started jotting notes on Post-Its and sticking them to my closet door. There’s a bigger story but I cannot write it today, nor do I want to. I need time to recover and reflect. It’s important and I need not rush the telling of it.

The traumatic seminal event that precipitated J’s split was relatively innocuous. But after years of family dysfunction, it was the last straw. I have since been hostage to the past, manifesting as a history I gave over and over, dialogue that never seemed to change.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness recently published an article by Catherine Klatzker, a memoirist, poet and retired pediatric ICU nurse of 22 years.

She wrote, “The stigma surrounding dissociative identity disorder is formidable and real, and those of us who live with it have an uphill battle in being heard and understood.

“… Many people think … of movies and films about sensational characters with ‘a bunch of different personalities’ … they do not know about the human beings in pain …

“Ultimately, I believe that the only way those of us with DID can eliminate stigma is if our lived experience becomes real to other people.”

I’m hoping the history I recite today is broader, more illuminative, more insightful and forgiving. All I’ve got to say is it’s about damn time.

I’ll bet some of you just said those very words yourselves.

You know what? I’m laughing now. I hope you are, too.

The photo is of a sculpture by Kina Crow titled “Om.” I don’t know if she’s one of us but she certainly gets what DID is like, disorder, distraction and even humor. Mental illness can be funny if you have the right friends.

❤
Feb28

salad

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All I wanted was a salad. I’ve been living on popcorn and bananas for two days while I rebuilt Windows and Microsoft Office. Something green sounded really good. Also the sun was shining.

Back Yard Burger apparently went on break and just left the people in the drive-through to sit and wait on her return.

McDonald’s was stacked up so I tried to go in and order at the counter.

But the door was locked. Also they don’t even have salads anymore.

I somehow drove right past the Wendy’s on Yates.

Is it even still there?

So I ended up in Germantown. They were out of the salad I wanted but the one I ended up with was quite good.

The lettuce was very fresh and the chicken was still hot. The tea was also freshly made but they were out of straws so I’m waiting until I get home to drink it.

I mean, my antivirus software assassinated my laptop last week so I’m not very trusting of the cosmos right now. Gravity could fail at any moment.

The first quiet spot I found to rest and eat lunch happened to be Germantown Cemetery.

I like dead people. They are sometimes surprised to see me but they never turn me away and they don’t bug me too much. I see one guy is a Mason. Another has a plinth but no monument. Maybe that is the monument.

Another has a fine looking obelisk but I will have to return to investigate when it’s not so marshy. The recent storms have left piles of debris in the parking lot that look like giant wads of freshly spat tobacco and I am reluctant to tread there.

Plus I have three more hours of CNN in Ukraine to edit.

The dearly departed glance at one another and, one by one, slowly fade from view. And I know what they’re thinking: extra greeters will be needed in Europe’s corner of Heaven tonight. So that’s where I’m sending all the spare beats of my heart for today, just in case it will help.

❤

Photo by Steve Masler, June 19, 2015.

Dec28

strange times

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I gave up trying to go back to sleep at 4 am and made coffee. I usually only have these wide awake, wandering wee hours in the spring.

To say they are strange times seems kinda duh.

I opened a window in the living room to let in the cool fresh air. Then I wandered out onto the porch in my bare feet, in my summer nightie, and caught the moon backlighting the clouds.

About two miles away, in what used to be a highly desirable residential area, there is gunfire every few days. Yesterday someone on Nextdoor found half a dozen spent casings in their yard. But it’s quiet now.

I’m just about over my cold. But it wasn’t a cold. I don’t know what it was. Fever, chills, headache, yadda. I’m not concerned. I won’t be seeing any of you anytime soon so you shouldn’t be, either.

I can hear a train running alongside Poplar Avenue like I’ve heard a gazillion times. It sort of roots me to the moment, reminding me that some things are still the same. And the moon is still the same, though barefoot photography in December is rather new for me.

I think about some of my younger friends, who are fighting time the way the gangs in Yorkshire are fighting each other, desperately, with no apparent effect other than distress and grief.

Let me tell you, from the winter of my life, I would not trade these quiet moments of wonder and contentment to be 40 again.

Strange times indeed. And I’m glad for them.

Happy Tuesday, y’all ❤

Dec10

booster

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maryoliver.wingsIn a rare moment of clarity I scheduled my booster shot for when I knew I’d be off the next day. My reaction is much milder than from my second shot but I’m going to stay in bed and drink hot tea until it passes.

The beautiful man in the blue scrubs at the Kroger pharmacy was clearly stressed but treated everyone with kindness and joked with staff and customers alike, even the ones who were maskless.

He cleaned the vial as if he was about to vaccinate his own child. I did what I usually do with people and asked him how he was doing.

He said he just wished it was over and things would go back to normal. I told him that, when I dream, no one is wearing masks. He found that really interesting and he seemed to brighten a little bit, reflecting on his own recent dreams.

I felt the bump of the syringe but not the sting of the needle and I complimented him on his technique. He said he had given about 10,000 injections so he had gotten pretty good at it. He probably meant it as hyperbole but I did the math and that’s about 14 a day so he’s probably not too far off.

I wasted a minute of his time by sending him on a search for my vaccination card when I had already pocketed it. I apologized for my mistake and thanked him for his service. I wished everyone a Merry Christmas and the response was what you might expect from people who are just plain worn out.

I see you, cashier with the pink braids. I see you, postal worker with the wire rimmed glasses. I see you, produce clerk, apologizing for the empty bins. I’m grateful for you and I hope your jobs eventually get easier. I think they will if the Kroger guy keeps on giving 14 shots a day. Thank you for your service and stay well.

Happy Friday, y’all ❤ #AngelsEverywhere

Oct14

trust the process (2)

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Queen of Cups

art from biddytarot.com

About once a year, when I’m particularly stuck, depressed or just want to run away, I will do a random Hoyle deck draw of three cards and then do a tarot interpretation using:

hearts : cups
diamonds : pentacles
clubs : wands
spades : swords

So I had drawn the Queen of Cups, who appears to be far and away my totem. In some illustrations she even has a mermaid tail, as do all Capricorns; though in tarot, cups represent the water signs.

But her characteristics are:

emotional receptivity
relational fluidity
intuition
psychic ability

This from nylon.com, a site I’d never seen before.

Nylon.com says Capricorn’s card is The Devil, “driven to succeed but chained by earthy expectations.”

And that rings a bell.

“The Devil, too, wants you to know what is and what isn’t right for you — but he wants you to find out the hard way.”

Well, that pretty much sums up my life.

Turns out nylon.com is a pop culture and fashion site. So IDKAT.

Wasn’t sure what “relational fluidity” meant, so I Googled it. Now Google was convinced I meant “relationship fluidity,” and most of those hits pertained to sex, especially bi/trans sex.

So I pressed for my original query (butt out, Google) and those hits brought up papers on social rhythms, autonomy and identity. Now we’re talking.

I think, for me personally, the attribute of relational fluidity means that I relate to all kinds of people, not just the ones mother liked.

Oxford defines the pros and cons of fluidity:

smooth elegance or grace
vs
unsettled, unstable, changeable

— so presumably the Queen of Cups reversed.

Being naturally wary of things deemed superstitious (but intrigued by them nonetheless), I roll everything around in my head like a ball of dough until it becomes smooth and looks like just one single thing.

I’m reminded of what Colin used to say, that the universe is just one big thing doing one big thing.

Googling that quote takes me nowhere relevant, which is why we need librarians.

Also it’s vintage Colin and we don’t have a lexicon for him yet, as far as I know. Maybe I should build one.

But I digress.

I like to say I trust the process, even when I can’t tell what it is and where it’s taking me. And that’s never been truer than now.

Last night I moved from my bedroom to the guest room because it’s better insulated from the sound of drag racing on I-240. I had the sense of staying in an Airbnb — cozy and impersonal.

So I thought, what if instead of running away, I just pretend I’m already where I want to go?

For one, it would be a lot cheaper.
Two, I’m still not entirely settled from the last move.

So staycay starts today, albeit a working one. Gotta save up for when I truly do run away.

May6

A Tale of Two Lewises

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This morning I was trolling C.S. Lewis memes, looking for reassurance in quotes from “Mere Christianity” and “The Problem of Pain.” But as Google is wont to do, it proffered the words of another Lewis, those of the representative of Georgia’s 5th District.

I myself led a quite sheltered life in my youth. While I quietly protested the war in Vietnam in my own way, I was unaware of much of what was going on in America, largely due to media censorship, but also because I was too busy embroidering my jeans and trying to get a boyfriend.

It’s not like in the past 40-50 years I’d forgotten how truly brutally political and human rights activists were treated.  But earlier this week I watched “Steal This Movie,” about the life of Abbie Hoffman.  I’d been unaware that Hoffman was severely beaten for simply wearing a red, white and blue shirt patterned after our flag.

Wearing our flag was something many of us proudly did in the weeks after 9/11 and I’ll bet not one of us thought we’d risk a beating for it.

By his own count, John Lewis was arrested more than 40 times during his days of civil rights activism.  I don’t like to think about how many of those times he was also battered or beaten.  Yet today he stands before crowds and preaches a message of diligence and courage.

I am afraid. I am worried. I am angry and frustrated that America is still a land of great brutality and violence and political corruption. We’ve forgotten that some of us fled England for relief from religious tyranny. We do not remember how precarious it was for the Founding Fathers to write such a thing as a Constitution.

And we still allow those in power to sacrifice lives overseas for economic and political reasons, spinning war as a necessary exercise in defense of freedom, while they, like so many leeches, suck human rights and civil rights from the lives of ordinary citizens.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”

He also wrote, “We read to know we are not alone.”

So I’m writing this morning as I struggle with understanding. And I will read this morning to find community and comfort, which means taking a break from Facebook and CNN.  And I’ll post this and hope it helps someone else. It surely has helped me.

Jun19

what I did on my Facebook vacation

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My part-time job as TV news editor has been sort of hateful lately.

So on Thursday, when all my assignments were preempted yet again by another assassination, this time in front of Parliament, I opened my Facebook page to a string of hateful posts related to other crises in America.

I’d had enough.  So I started my weekend a little early.  And I took time off from Facebook.

1. On Thursday afternoon, driving down Walnut Grove,  I laughed out loud at a Blue Screen of Death on a digital billboard.  I’ve never seen one that big.  Maybe another media conscript was feeling mutinous.

2. On Friday, I walked to the Art Center to buy origami paper.  I decided to step into Inz and Outz Gift & Cards, thinking I’d shop for Father’s Day.

Y’all should have told me what that place was before I went in there.

I didn’t buy any cards.  I did, however, consider some of the leather thongs.  Bet those zippers get awfully hot in this heat.

3. On Saturday, I perfected an origami envelope for a direct mail project and designed an outdoor sign, a non-digital one.  No BSODs here.

Sidebar:  I used to have a recurring dream, working at my old job as a graphic designer.  Today I’m literally living that dream.  Life is full of surprises.

4. On Sunday, I was grateful, grateful, grateful for so many things.  I’m grateful that I have air conditioning in my entire apartment now and my butter doesn’t melt if I leave it on the table.

I’m even grateful for my part-time job as TV news editor, even if it does make social media unbearably redundant some days.  There’s lots of love at that job.  My co-workers bring it every day.  Otherwise, I just couldn’t cope.

Actually, there’s lots of love at all my jobs, some of which necessitate my using Facebook.  I just have to remember that I have a choice:  I can unfollow people or pages that post stuff I don’t want to read.

I am one lucky girl.  I live in America.  I get to read about it all, the bad and the good.  Life is full of surprises.  It’s also full of choices.

1. Today I choose to be grateful.

2. Today I choose to show up for the love.

Feb1

slamming doors

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When my neighbor goes out, I hear him.  This building has heavy doors that have to be slammed shut.  So last night around 8 pm I felt the familiar vibrations in my room.

Good, I thought.  I hope he’s going someplace fun.  Earlier I had heard him singing downstairs.  His car has been in its spot a lot lately, and I was afraid maybe he was ill.  So I was glad to know he was getting out.

He wasn’t gone long.  Maybe dinner out and a movie in.

I heard him leave again around 10. Time for the bands to start.  I imagined him laughing and dancing in a club downtown.

But he returned in less than an hour.

And then left again.

And came back.

And left again.

During the times I was trying to go back to sleep, I made up a story about this charming and lovely young man.  He simply went to the store for cookies.  Got home, decided he needed milk. Forgot his wallet and had to make another round trip.

I remember someone telling me about buying 8 balls all night long, one at a time, until the money ran out.  I don’t remember the figure, just that it was several months’ rent.

I don’t know if the money ran out for my neighbor.  The last time I heard the door slam it was followed by a loud thud, just the sound a large chair makes when it’s knocked over.  Or just the sound a healthy male body makes when it hits the floor.

I got up this morning and put in my half-day at work. I made lunch, loaded the dishwasher.  I sat by the open window to write.

The rain has begun.  It is the only sound on the street.  There has been no singing downstairs.

Mentally I review Chapter 5 of the Big Book.  I am glad my neighbor is single, that he has no children at home.

I ask God to help him, and me, and all the homes with slamming doors.

Dec29

read the book

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I’ve been to his home, Rowan Oak, in Oxford many times. But before last night I’d never read a William Faulkner novel.

I know, I know; I’m already ashamed.

Maybe it’s because I always tried to start out with “The Sound and the Fury.” By the second page I still hadn’t figured out what the heck was going on. So I always copped to rather more soothing reading.

But James Franco’s “As I Lay Dying” was on Netflix. As it was Christmas weekend and I had a scarf to knit, I figured, what the heck: another California actor trying to play a country boy. Let’s see how bad this is. “The Beverly Hillbillies” has persistently informed Hollywood’s iconic Southerner and we’re still trying to live it down.

As a director, Franco excelled. But it was Tim Blake Nelson who knocked my socks off. I have known people like Anse Bundren and am probably related to one or two. So my impressions of the film were visceral.

In the Delta, you go about your business in the rain. It’s not unusual to see someone on the street without a raincoat. But in Faulkner’s narrative, oldest son Cash works in a downpour, as both tribute and grief.

His sister, Dewey Dell, faces her dilemma with a naivete that speaks to a different time. Her situation, unfortunately, threatens today’s young woman under the yoke of regressive legislation.

An obsessive fatalism ruled the Bundren family. Burdened by such a mission, they tromped on the tender shoots of Providence. The message was not lost on me.

I located a PDF of the novel and downloaded it last night. I did not stop until I read the last page. Today my eyeballs feel blistered and my attention wanders from my work because I have downloaded “The Sound and the Fury.” Now that I have a feel for Faulkner’s cadence and convoluted narrative, I feel empowered to try it again. Also, I’m excited to see if I learn more new words. I had never experienced the term “pussel-gutted,” but I plan to use it in a comment soon.

Franco made “Sound/Fury” into a movie this year. I think this time I’ll read the book first.