“We are unusual and tragic and alive.” ~ Dave Eggers, from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Untitled (1990, acrylic on unknown medium)
by Cy Twombly

                   

“Sometimes she seemed like a woman without skin. She felt everything so intensely, had so little capacity to filter out pain that everyday events often seemed unbearable to her . . . Her eyes were astoundingly blue and astoundingly sharp. Nothing escaped her. She saw everything, and since most of what there is to see in the world is painful, she often lived in pain.” ~ Erica Jong, from Remembering Anne Sexton

Wednesday afternoon. Sunny and hot, 89 degrees.

So, long time, no real post. In the meantime, it went from early spring to blazing hot early summer temperatures. I guess this post is going to be a mostly good news/bad news kind of thing as so much has happened in the last week or so.

“Iris” (1990)
by Cy Twombly

The bad news is that last Friday my mother went to the ER because she was having bad stomach pain. Turns out she has growths inside her colon and a mass on her kidneys. Please understand my frustration in that my mother has cancelled two appointments to have a colonoscopy and to go to a liver specialist. She complains, gets appointments, feels better, cancels appointments.

I did my best not to freak over the words “mass on her kidneys.” I made her promise to call her PCP’s office to get an appointment as soon as possible and not to be put off for a month or two.

Today she saw her PCP who says that once she finishes the course of antibiotics the ER doc put her on for the diverticulitis that was causing some of the pain, then they will have to do a colonoscopy. And he’s going to find out who he should send her to for the mass on her kidneys. So I guess we are now in wait mode.

Great…………………..

“Afraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there.” ~ Mikhail Lermontov, from A Hero of Our Time

Also last week Mike closed on the house on Friday morning. They began moving on Friday afternoon. I took Olivia for Friday and Saturday nights, and it turned into Sunday night also. Their house is smaller than ours with three bedrooms and one bath but no dining room, but the hardwood floors have been refinished, and they look beautiful. The kitchen cabinets look like the originals, and they, too, have been refinished. There is a small detached garage, which is also nice.

“Wilder Shores of Love” (1985, oil-based house paint, paint stick, coloured pencil and lead pencil on wooden panel)
by Cy Twombly

The good news is that I got to spend lots of time with Olivia. The bad news is that I was completely stressed about my mother. Then I was completely stressed by the move. And by Monday, Olivia was really out of sorts because she’s not used to being away from her parents. She’s also teething, so between the two, there was more crying and fussing than usual as she is a really happy baby, happier than any of mine ever were. It’s distressing when she gets distressed. I’ve forgotten a lot of baby interpretation.

Other good news is that my mother gave Mike and Lex a queen mattress and bed, both of which are in great shape with the mattress set looking almost new; the bad news is that my mother felt that I was the only one who could take down the old bed. Why she thought this I will never know. The bad news is that I took down the old bed while my mother complained that I would hurt my back. The good news is that I only hit my head once on the old iron bed . . .

Then, of course, there was the new bed to be put together. The bad news is that I ended up putting together this bed by myself. The worse news is that I also ended up putting the mattress and box springs onto this new bed frame by myself. I have no real idea as to how I managed to do this.

The worst news is that I was unable to move the following morning, which was not at all unexpected or surprising.

“It’s like this . . . All your life you’re yellow. Then one day you brush up against something blue, the barest touch, and voila, the rest of your life you’re green.” ~ Tess Callahan

The good news is that I had another appointment with my new pain management group, and I really like them. We are finessing my dosages on the new drugs, and I have an appointment scheduled for my Botox injections next Monday, the same day that Corey is due in port—which is good news and bad news all together.

“Note III” (2005-7, acrylic on wood panel)
bu Cy Twombly

In between all of this stuff I’ve had to deal with eldest son’s shenanigans. He’s watching his dad’s house for the week while the ex is in Aruba at his time share. Such a hard life. I had asked both sons if they could help Mike with the moving. Eldest son got all bent out of shape assuming I was only asking him. Brett helped me with the moving of the old mattress and box springs to the new house and moving the very old mattress and box springs from the apartment for disposal. He (Brett) was planning to help me with the assembly of new bed Sunday night, but I was just too exhausted.

While I’m stripped down to my t-shirt working with piles of washers, screws, and Allen wrenches, eldest son sticks his head in the door to see what’s going on then leaves. No assistance offered or given. Who is this child? Why does none of my DNA rear its head when needed? How does this even work? I mean, everything is score-keeping for him, as in “I helped them move on Saturday, and Brett didn’t do anything, so it’s his turn, even though I’m here, and he’s not because he’s at school.”

The logic, or complete lack of it, mystifies and stymies me. So I guess that’s bad news, eh?

“Writing, painting, singing — it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.” ~ Ally Condie, from  Reached

Monday night after the exercise in power-lifting a queen-sized mattress, I came home and consumed mass quantities of junk food: cheese puffs, kettle corn, a beer, some chocolate, and pretty much anything else I could shove into my mouth without the benefit of cooking. Yesterday I felt a need to scrape my tongue and cleanse my body, so I stuck to yogurt and fresh fruit.

“Hero and Leandro (A painting in Four Parts) Part I” (1984, oil, house paint, paint stick on canvas)
by Cy Twombly

Add to this entire bad news Monday is that I was just too exhausted to go to a poetry reading that Brett had told me about. It was open mic, and I was actually thinking of reading something, which I haven’t done in years, a reading, that is. Apparently this place has open mic night every Monday, so I’m going to try very hard to get my lazy ass there soon.

Oh, and also on the eldest son bad news-related front: He called at something like 8 in the morning to tell me that the phones had been turned off, which made no sense to me as I paid the bill last Friday. I was in an exhaustion stupor and really don’t remember what I said to him other than I would take care of it, ya da ya da ya da. Boy, if he wants something, it needs to be pronto, as in this very second, or his world is going to collapse. Must be nice to have a world in which everything runs on your schedule. I wouldn’t know about that.

Anyway, every time I sat down here to write, I just kind of zoned out because I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say. Did I want to gripe about X? Did I want to cry about Y? Better not to do anything, that is until I finally lost it and sent Corey an e-mail in which I lambasted the state of affairs on the home front, which actually made me feel better.

Today, I’m still pretty puny physically, but not in as much pain. Mostly just feeling weak, but after finishing my latest Kathy Reichs’ novel, I thought I might be able to tap out some cogent words and phrases, and so far, it seems to be working.

“There are some people who could hear you speak a thousand words, and still not understand you. And there are others who will understand—without you even speaking a word.” ~ Yasmin Mogahed

The stress and exhaustion have led to some very weird dreams. In one, my ex was trying to kill me with a butcher knife. This was while I was part of some kind of spy group that was on a mission. In this dream I stabbed someone else. Don’t like stabbing dreams. Last night I dreamed I was in a museum, and I ran into the artist whose work was being exhibited. At first I didn’t realize he was the artist, and I was going on and on about how much I loved the works, and then when I realized that he had created them, I was so embarrassed.

“Untitled Part VIII (a painting in 9 parts)” (1988, acrylic on wood panel)
by Cy Twombly

He was cool though and handed me one of two ferret like animals that he was carrying. He asked me if I had done any art research, and I told him that I had. He offered me a ferret; I told him my dogs would say no. He was signing autographs. I got something autographed but then I had to leave because my shopping cart was missing, and it had a bunch of family antiques in it, and I had left my kids on bleachers watching a movie. Do not ask me how the two are related as I have no idea.

Oh, another thing on the good news front: Brett introduced me to a wonderful new treat: Mochi ice cream. Mochi (Japanese) is a kind of sweet glutinous rice cake. Insert ice cream and serve frozen. Oh such good thrills. Only 80 calories a piece, about the size of a small cupcake and very refreshing. I’ve had mochi filled with red bean paste and with green tea ice cream. I’m loving the green tea flavor.

So, to sum up: New beds all around, new house looking good, major changes for everyone, new refreshing treat. Conversely, worrisome news regarding my mother’s health, troublesome attitude from eldest son, and I haven’t even touched on Lex’s disposition during all of this.

Is it too soon to say that I need a vacation, mostly from myself?

All images by American artist Cy Twombly, 1928-2011

“Untitled (Peony Blossom Paintings)” (2007, acrylic, wax crayon, pencil on wood”
by Cy Twombly

Music by Aidan Hawken and Carina Round, “Walking Blind”

                   

The Starry Night

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist

except where one black-haired tree slips

up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.

The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.

Even the moon bulges in its orange irons

to push children, like a god, from its eye.

The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,

sucked up by that great dragon, to split

from my life with no flag,

no belly,

no cry.

~ Anne Sexton

“In the morning, you tear up the pages of your fever, but every word naturally leads you back to its color, its night.” ~ Edmond Jabès, from The Book of Questions II, trans. Rosmarie Waldrop

Pasea Sailing by crlbvi (FCC)

                   

“That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.” ~ Haruki Murakami, from 1Q84

Saturday afternoon. Partly cloudy, 51 degrees.

I should finish my cleaning, but I don’t want to. Last night I had really horrible dreams, two involving bad things happening to dogs. In one dream I had a puppy (not one of my real ones) who was attacked by a pit bull owned by a neighbor. The neighbor didn’t stop the attack and told me not to make such a big deal out of it, and I was vacillating between heartbreak and seething anger at the dog’s owner. My puppy was mauled and bloody and looking at me with such unbelievable hurt in his eyes. There was blood everywhere

Sailing on Cayuga Lake by solarnu (FCC)

In the second dog dream I had taken one of my dogs to work with me at the big department store where I used to be a manager. The store manager brought his puppy to work also. Both dogs managed to get outside, and this one woman who was leaning against the building kicked the puppy. I saw it happen through the glass and went to rescue the puppy, but then I got lost inside the store, and I was also trying to page the manager to let him know, but I couldn’t remember how to work the paging system, and my dog was lost, too.

The only good part was when I was looking at the night sky in my dream and I saw a meteor, and I was trying to point it out so that everyone could see how beautiful it was.

I woke up with a headache again.

“There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.” ~ John Steinbeck, from Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Corey is due in port on the 25th now. Apparently they’ve hit some bad weather and aren’t making good time. It will be so good to see him. Tillie will be ecstatic, and she’ll probably lie and say that no one has paid any attention to her, no one has played with her, her life has been bereft. Dogs do lie you know, especially when it comes to treats.

Sailing Across the Blue Ocean by eyesplash mikul (FCC)

Anyway, I think they’re supposed to be in port for a few days, so I hope we actually get to spend a bit of time together. One time the captain didn’t change to in-port watches, so Corey spent most of his time sleeping and going back and forth to the ship. We’ll just have to see. Of course, now that he’s almost here I’m going into panic mode and thinking about doing stupid things like cleaning the ceiling fans. This always happens. I have to force myself to use restraint so that my back isn’t acting up when he arrives.

I’ll try to sate my OCD need to clean with scrubbing the floors and normal stuff. Brett will help because dusting and vacuuming are his household chores. Eamonn will not help because he’s not even here. Lucky for him, his father took him to Florida for a fishing trip for his birthday. I won’t even get started on how blatantly my ex shows favoritism among his children. What’s the point? Nothing will change.

“Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.” ~ Michel de Montaigne

Yesterday, Brett, Em, and I went to a new thrift store in downtown Norfolk. It’s a great place for books, so I was thrilled. What was especially nice was that they have a bag policy, as in for $4 you can fill a bag with books. I brought in one of my shopping bags and asked if I could use it, and the woman in charge said yes, but since it was a bigger bag she would have to charge me $5. Then when I checked out she said that I hadn’t filled my bag, so she only charged me $4. Such cheap thrills.

Sailing in the Bahamas by SkinnedMink (FCC)

Truth is I could have filled the bag twice, but my arms were tired, as was my back from sitting on the floor to look at the bottom shelves. I have absolutely no shame when it comes to searching for books: I will bend, stoop, pull things off shelves, whatever it takes. I found an old HBJ English grammar book and an old encyclopedia, which I grabbed just because they were in great shape. Then I got several board books for Olivia, and about seven hard bound books for myself. I also found this odd-looking mariner’s head mug that was carved out of wood, and the handle is a whale. It’s really wild looking, so I bought it for Corey.

We decided that we’ll have to go back there during their Happy Hour as everything except furniture is 50 percent off. The store uses its profits for abused and neglected children, so all-in-all, it’s a great find for a great cause. Now with the influx of new reading material, I can stop fretting because my reading pile was down to just five books.

Then we went to the international market where we all picked out our various favorites from around the world. I’ll have to take Corey there as he can get squid and stuff like that.

“Unless I write a few sentences here from time to time I shall, as they say, forget the use of my pen.” ~ Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry dated 13 May 1931

Another thing that I need to take care of before Corey gets home is the pile on the left side of my desk. I’ve been doing bills and correspondence, and I need to organize because I’ve just thrown everything into a pile. Of course, the pile is nothing like the pile that used to exist on my old dining room table when I was with my ex.

Asail on a Wooden Boat by tiarescott (FCC)

I have never liked going through mail, junk mail, flyers, bills, so I used to just grab everything out of the mailbox and then throw it on the table, which of course, was problematic with my ex. It was also during a time in which I was dealing with my grief via a shopping addiction, so the mail represented real life, and who wants that? However, that being said, did the ex ever take it upon himself to remedy the situation by opening and sorting? Enough said on that.

My ex showed up in a dream a few nights ago, and I know that it’s because I’m torqued out of shape about the Florida trip. It just wouldn’t occur to this man that perhaps his youngest son would like to go on a fishing trip out of state. The only compensation is that Brett just had his NYC trip, during which he had a great time. I suppose we must take our pleasures where we can get them and not rely on others to provide them for us.

Still torqued, though. Bâtard grandes.

Anyway, I saw a beautiful picture of a sailboat on my tumblr dash, which is what prompted my image theme for today. I haven’t been on a sailboat in years; I travel the water vicariously through my love.

More later. Peace.

Music by Sara Jackson-Holman, “Freight Train”

                   

Flour and Ash

“Make flour into dough,” she answers,
“and fire will turn it into food.
Ash is the final abstraction of matter.
You can just brush it away.”

She tacks a sheet of paper to the wall,
dips her hand in a palette of flour and ash,
applies the fine soft powders with a fingertip,
highlighting in chalk and graphite,
blending, blurring with her thumb.
Today she is working in seven shades of gray.

Outside the door, day lilies
in the high flush of summer-
about-to-be-fall. Her garden burns
red and yellow in the dry August air
and is not consumed.

Inside, on the studio wall, a heavy
particulate smoke
thickens and rises. Footsteps grime the snow.
The about-to-be-dead line up on the ramp
with their boxy suitcases,
ashen shoes.

When I get too close she yanks me back.
She hovers over her creation
though she too has a mind
to brush against that world
and wipe it out.

~ Chana Bloch

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“I am interested in impossible embodiments. I wish to write; I wish to write about certain things that cannot be held. I want to create a sea of freely-flowing words of no definite form and shape waves of fluent exactness.” ~ Virginia Woolf, from Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897-1909

                   

“First of the Light” (nd, oil on canvas)
by Peter Wileman

“I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It’s not the best way to live. But it’s the way I am.” ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, from Middlesex

Early Wednesday evening. Cloudy, 56 degrees.

Last night I had a cousin dream again. At first, we were in a high school, and we heard shooting, so two of us hid in a classroom beneath a science fair project. I thought it was a stupid place to hide. The gunman came into the room and just stood there. I tried not to breathe.

“Dawn over the Estuary” (nd, oil on canvas)
by Peter Wileman

Then somehow we got away, and then we were on a ship, and the ship was constructed so that all of the decks opened onto the middle of the ship, which was a swimming pool, and I thought about jumping from the third deck down into the pool but then decided against it, especially after these figures in white robes began to round up all of the people in the pool. The robed people didn’t have faces. Then it was time to eat, but there wasn’t any food except for pears.

Then the scene changed and Corey and I were on some wildlife preserve on an island, and we had no idea how big the preserve was, and we were walking on these trails, and suddenly I was attacked by a giant frog that was the size of a small dog, and Corey was running from frogs and foxes. I finally found a map of the island and realized that we were never going to find our way back.

Make of it what you will, I only know that too much was going on, and I was so tired afterwards.

“I’m writing against my own blankness, to record
this life that I’m living mostly lonely
or hopeful.” ~ Nate Pritts, from “All Those Sweet Things”

I’ve had a hard time focusing lately. When I sit down to write, nothing comes. I’m thinking about a million different things: the situation in Steubenville, Ohio, the prevalence of rape culture throughout the world, whether or not what I write here is writing, the idea of privacy in a world filled with technological gadgets that wash away any veneer of privacy to which we might aspire, and how I’m so tired that there actually exists a school of thought that the concept of feminism is just another word for lesbianism.

“Red Horizon” (nd, oil on canvas)
by Peter Wileman

Can you understand why I cannot focus? I have so very much to say, so many thoughts bouncing around in my head, but I am as yet unable to focus enough to write intelligently about any of it. Not to mention the whole thing about me having to take care of the bills and make the telephone calls and straighten out why my health insurance was cancelled once again and how that affected my upcoming doctor’s appointments and my medication refills . . . in other words—blech, double blech.

I did get a bit of a boost when I read selected sections of Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Reading these published writers when they talk about how they write always affects me in two ways: At first I am excited, and then I’m depressed, first because what they have to say makes so much sense, then the downside of realizing that the perch from which they speak is one share by that group of writers of which I hold no membership—the published writer who is selling his/her work.

“Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant;  once they’ve cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin.  The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never got the chance to happen.” ~ Tana French, from Broken Harbor

I also fear that one of my new medications is messing with my head as well as my body. Since I don’t know a lot about Verelan, I looked it up, and of course, I have a host of the side effects, but mostly the ones dealing with stomach upset and pain.

“Blue Horizon” (nd, oil on canvas)
by Peter Wileman

Have I mentioned lately how very much I hate medications, doctors, medical tests, the medical industry in general, the medical treatment we receive, ya da ya da ya da? My neighbor’s elderly mother fell a few weeks ago and hit her head. She suffered from dementia. When when she got to the hospital, she must have told them she didn’t have insurance. She did. But the hospital was quick to do a CT scan and then send her home. Her son did not think she should be sent home. Then he noticed that her  discharge papers said self-pay. He called to straighten out the insurance problem. Meanwhile, she got very sick at home, wouldn’t eat, and ended up having a fatal stroke.

The MRI was not done on her until the second time she was taken in, and by then, it was really too late. She was 95. I would see her out in her yard pulling weeds. She talked to anyone who would listen. When her son tried to tell the hospital people that his mother was definitely not acting normally, they told him that they found no problems with the CT scan and insisted on discharging her.

I suppose I am lucky. I am still cogent and ornery enough that I insist on knowing what’s going on with my treatment. I won’t be ignored. But the stress of fighting for inherent rights as a patient certainly does not add to overall well-being.

“It is this backward motion toward the source,
Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,
The tribute of the current to the source.
It is from this in nature we are from.
It is most us.” ~ Robert Frost, from “West Running Brook”

And then there are the raccoons. I know that I’ve mentioned them before, how Corey thought they were cute. Well . . . they are not huge, and they are doing terribly non-cute things like eating bags of dry dog food and opening the tubs in which we store chips and bread. Not cute, definitely not cute. These things are so fat that it sounds as if they are going to come crashing through the ceiling. Something has to be done. I have a solution but not the means by which to implement it.

“Evening Falls over the Estuary” (nd, oil on canvas)
by Peter Wileman

And then there is the dry rot. I know in my heart of hearts we have dry rot forming beneath our bathroom because of the leaky tub. Corey doesn’t like to go beneath the house, and I don’t blame him, but if we don’t do some shoring up soon, one day I’m going to be in the shower and the whole bathtub is going to fall through the floor. Of course I will be the one in the tub when it happens because that is my own personal Murphy’s Law at work.

I know. I know. Bitch, bitch, bitch, but really, my head feels as if it’s going to explode from all of the worrying that I’m doing over these things—large and small. Add to this, of course, my ongoing worries about eldest son and his total and complete lack of direction in life as well as his significant drinking, my worries about youngest son and what he’s going to do with his life, worries about daughter and her continued withdrawal, worries about my mother who seems to be in the initial throes of Alzheimer’s.

It’s too much, I tell you. Too much.

“I am the shore and the ocean, awaiting myself on both sides.” ~ Dejan Stojanovic, from The Shape

And at times such as these I think longingly of that other generation of writers, the ones who subsisted on booze and cigarettes, the ones who never seemed to care how much or how little money they had, and still they pressed on, putting their words down on paper, sending them out, getting published, being read. I think of Carson McCullers and her penchant for drinking bourbon for breakfast, and a wee small part of me wishes that I could live with such abandon, but of course, I cannot because, well because that’s just not a healthy way to live, and I know that I couldn’t do that to myself.

“Violet Horizon” (nd, oil on canvas)
by Peter Wileman

Two weird memories came to me in the car on the way home from taking Brett to campus today (will he ever learn to drive???). I heard the song “Closing Time,” which I heard for the first time many years ago when I was on a blind date with a firefighter. A teacher with whom I taught at the public school was married to a firefighter, and he had a friend who was looking for someone to date. Natch, a blind date was arranged. He was a very nice man, soft-spoken, attractive, and I felt absolutely no attraction to him whatsoever. I couldn’t wait for the night to be over, and I didn’t give him my telephone number. Of course, my automatic guilt mechanism kicked in and I wondered if I should have given him a chance, but I held firm.

The second memory came immediately after when the song “Come My Lady” came on the radio, and it was one of the first songs to which Corey and I danced, and he has always called me his butterfly. If I had gone on a second date with the firefighter, would I have ever made it to the point at which another man would call me his butterfly? Thankfully, I don’t really have to worry about that one.

More later. Peace.

All images by British painter Peter Wileman, President of the Royal Institute of Oil Pointers.

Music by Erin McCarley, “What I Needed”

                   

Words

Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
For the miraculous we do our best,
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be as good as fingers.
They can be as trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.

Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren’t good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.

But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

~ Anne Sexton

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