“Things don’t change, but by and by our wishes change.” ~ Marcel Proust

San Carlos Wildflowers (Wikimedia Commons)

                   

“We must talk now. I am no longer sure of the words,
The clockwork of the world” ~ George Oppen, from “Leviathan”

Wednesday, late afternoon. Sunny and mild. Beautiful outside.

California Wildflowers by Kevin Cole (FCC)

Pollen, pollen everywhere. Yellow dust on the cars, everything. Lots of sneezing.

The boys and I are sort of settling into a routine. We’re taking turns making dinner. Everyone has his or her assigned tasks. Somehow, I still have dishes, all day, every day. One of these days, we’ll replace the broken dishwasher, probably when we rip out everything in the kitchen to remodel. One day.

I’m actually not feeling to terribly awful emotionally. Might be because it’s too beautiful outside to feel awful. Beautiful, that is, except for the pollen. All of the trees that bloom are bursts of color, especially the cherry trees and red buds. So gorgeous. I thought about visiting the cemetery, but didn’t. Something is stopping me.

Corey got everything straightened out with our cellular carrier, and now he can text, which is definitely cheaper than calling. It costs about $.40 for him to text me, and $.20 for me to text him, as opposed to $3 or $4/minute for a call. Anyway, it looks like the ship is going to be headed to Florida sometime next week, that is if the Coast Guard signs off on Fridays inspection. Who knows how that will go.

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large—I contain multitudes.” ~ Walt Whitman

Actually now that I’ve started this post, I’m not sure that I’m actually in the right frame of mind to write. My mind is kind of blank. I’m sitting here at Brett’s computer, for a change. Eamonn is off work today, and he’s in his room and would prefer some privacy. So I’m sitting here at Brett’s small desk, and all I can think is that it really needs to be dusted, not just the desk, but everything.

Barbed Wire and Wildflowers, Gorman, CA

It has only been in the last year or so that Brett has actually taken an interest in making this room his, by that I mean adding posters and things. So I’m looking around, and there are two Shawshank Redemption posters, a Fight Club poster and a Star Wars poster, a framed old map that Alexis got him. an old Chinese paint on wood  picture from the thrift store, and several other things. It’s definitely his room, dust and all.

It’s funny how different my sons are: Eamonn is very particular about keeping his room neat; he puts away his clean laundry in a timely manner and changes his sheets regularly. With Brett, not so much. I see cobwebs and Chinese fortunes laying about. I don’t know why I’m really going into detail here except that it is yet one more way in which my two sons differ as individuals.

At one time, when they were toddlers, the whole point was for them to try to be like each other. People thought that they were twins as they were so close in age, and definitely looked like they could be fraternal twins. I think the real separation began in middle school, that bastion of emerging hormones and attempts to establish oneself as a person by trying to look like everyone else.

Oh the agony of puberty.

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” ~ Wendell Berry

I’ve set some goals for myself while Corey is gone: I want to try to give up sugar completely (or nearly completely), which means no more regular sodas, no more chocolate. I’m already doing quite well, believe it or not in that I am using only Splenda in my coffee and tea. I’m weaning myself from Pepsi and trying to drink more water with Mio, which is quite tasty and has no calories.

Seattle Wildflowers

I also want to begin to walk on a regular basis with a goal towards getting my body ready to go back into a yoga class. With the warmer weather, I feel the need for oxygen and sunshine, and this is definitely a good sign, a sign that I may be willing to leave the house again. My other goal is that I want to get something written while he’s gone.

I have a concept that I’m mulling over, and the more that I ponder it, the more that I like it. It’s completely doable; it’s something that I would enjoy doing, and it would be a great starting point for me to begin to write with goals in mind, you know, goals like getting published, or at least noticed.

Lately, I’ve been having these dreams in which I’m writing things. The other night I wrote a complete short story in a dream. I came up with a concept; I created character names, and I developed the story. I mean, I literally wrote this thing in a dream, and the horrible part is that I dreamt that I was actually writing it down, so I didn’t know that I wasn’t writing it down, which meant that when I finally awakened, there was no story, just the memory of one. It’s still there somewhere, just beyond my grasp. I keep getting glimpses of what it may have been, but not quite.

Another recent dream involved writing a poem. Same basic situation. Sleeping = creating, but Waking ≠ product. I have absolutely no memory of the poem’s theme, contents, development. Nothing.

“The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.” ~ Paul Coehlo, from The Devil and Miss Prym

But surely this is a sign? Why would my mind be moving in creative hyperdrive unless it was filled to the brimming with something? Anything?

Mountain Wildflowers by Andrea Schafthuizen (Public Domain)

I do believe in signs. I do believe that the universe gives us hints and nudges us in directions. I believe that if I see something repeatedly, then I am meant to pay attention to it, whether it’s a type of bird, or a word or phrase, or a color. Just as I believe, however falsely, that hearing a crow caw when I first get out of bed is an augury of a bad day. The only problem with believing in signs is interpreting said signs.

Crow equals bad day is fairly straightforward for me. Everything after that becomes sort of blurry and undefined. My dreams, which tend to be on the vivid side, don’t necessarily mean anything. I might have eaten something too spicy. I might be too tired. Who knows . . . But sometimes, now and then, I get the feeling that my dreams are trying to tell me something, and this is one of those times.

So I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how these signs evolve over the next few weeks.

That’s about all for now. So . . .

More later. Peace.

Music by Sleeping at Last, “Chandeliers”

                   

The Ghazal of What Hurt

Pain froze you, for years—and fear—leaving scars.
But now, as though miraculously, it seems, here you are

walking easily across the ground, and into town
as though you were floating on air, which in part you are,

or riding a wave of what feels like the world’s good will—
though helped along by something foreign and older than you are

and yet much younger too, inside you, and so palpable
an X-ray, you’re sure, would show it, within the body you are,

not all that far beneath the skin, and even in
some bones. Making you wonder: Are you what you are—

with all that isn’t actually you having flowed
through and settled in you, and made you what you are?

The pain was never replaced, nor was it quite erased.
It’s memory now—so you know just how lucky you are.

You didn’t always. Were you then? And where’s the fear?
Inside your words, like an engine? The car you are?!

Face it, friend, you most exist when you’re driven
away, or on—by forms and forces greater than you are.

~ Peter Cole

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“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is far worse than the suffering itself—and no heart has ever suffered when it’s gone in search of its dreams.” ~ Paul Coelho

Morning Mist on Lake Mapourika, New Zealand by Richard Palmer (2008)

 

“Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live . . . the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.” ~ Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Well, we made it through the November nor’easter all right: no tree damage, no water damage, no loss of power. We were luckier than many people, for a change, and for that, I am truly thankful. I am also truly thankful that I no longer feel as if I am existing in a wind tunnel. One day is intriguing. Two days is numbing. Three days is irritating. Moving into the fourth day is like the waking dead: I can no longer tell if I am hearing the wind or if it is a constant buzzing in my ears. Oh well.

Port of La Rochelle, France in Morning Fog

Many, many strange dreams in the past few nights: my father appeared in at least two, and that is always disconcerting. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel that I did not disappoint my father terribly before he died, but that is not the subject for tonight. Much too hard of a subject, and always leaves me depleted for a long time, and since I am beginning the post in an already depleted state, I will not even attempt to tackle something as weighty as that.

The other night I had this dream about being on a sinking boat. The dream was a complete metaphor for my life: the boat was cluttered and dirty and badly in need of a complete cleaning. And there was one other problem: there was no bottom in the boat. At some point, the boat fell (?) off the support beams on which it had been resting and flew through the air, landing atop the bottom of an old military vessel. The top of the boat and the bottom of the military vessel came together, and both pieces rushed forward into the ocean.

I thought to myself that some remedy had to be found other than the makeshift coupling of the two halves, otherwise, the ocean would be able to dislodge the two pieces, and we would surely sink. In the meantime, someone was complaining about washing the windows of the boat, which were not portholes, but panes of glass like a house, and no one could clean because there was too much clutter—boxes and storage bins and whatever else. I awoke from the dream crying because it was a fast-sinking ship, and I knew that, and just as certainly I knew that the boat in my dream was my life.

Last night I dreamed that I worked at Dillard’s again, and asked to have the home store back because that was always my favorite department. But instead of a home store, there were lawn mowers. Very strange. The weirdest part was that I had all of these great marketing ideas for different departments, and I decided that I should be the store’s roving marketing manager, going from department to department coming up with selling ideas. Also very strange as my marketing background is my least favorite part of my skill set.

So I’m still not sleeping well, even more so since the drop-off for trees and limbs that were felled by the storm is right behind the house in the parking lot of the community park that our house abuts. After Hurricane Isabel in 2003, the City set up a similar drop-off in the parking lot, but is was on the other side of the park, so the sound of the wood chipper and large trucks backing up with their beeping alarms was more removed; now, it is jarringly loud, and it seems to be right outside the bedroom window. It’s not, but that’s how it seems to my head. Lovely.

“The weight of the world is love, under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.” ~ Allen Ginsburg

Foggy View from Oberfallenberg Towards Swiss Mountains, by Friedrich Bohringer

Anyway . . . I have had the following quote on my mind for days, but for the life of me, I cannot find out who said it originally (if anyone knows, please pass along the information): Do what you love, and the rest will follow.

Now, I know that there is a book entitled Do what you love and the money will follow, but that is not the sentiment that I am pondering.

Do what you love . . .

What do I love, exactly? I thought that I loved to write, more than anything else in the world. But lately, I have come to question that belief, especially since I am having such a hard time piecing together a coherent blog post. What kind of writer is that? I sit down at these keys everyday, but I do not write everyday. More often than not, I open a computer game and play mindlessly for hours, attempting to lull myself into fatigue. I feel more often than not that I am existing in an endless fog.

Let me pause here. I know that I am depressed, considerably so. That I am not taking my usual dose of antidepressant is not helping matters. Granted. However, I am depending upon samples from my doctor, and I am trying to stretch those as far as they go. No one needs to tell me that this is not how you take a medication that needs to be maintained at a constant level in order to fight the chemical imbalances that lead to clinical depression. I know all of this.

I also know that my particular antidepressant costs over $200 without prescription coverage, which I still don’t have because of the ongoing battle with my health insurance. Not even worth going into that old scenario.

And even though I know that not having my medication is affecting me, and November is affecting me, and being just above poverty level is affecting me, and the upcoming anniversary of my dad’s death is affecting me, and the upcoming holidays are affecting me . . . wait, I lost the subject of that sentence. In other words—everything in the world is affecting me.

“A fierce unrest seethes at the core, of all existing things: it was the eager wish to soar, that gave the gods their wings.” ~ Don Marquis

Last night I was standing at the sink doing dishes (because the dishwasher no longer works because this is the best possible time for yet another appliance to break), anyway, I was doing dishes and crying. Weeping, actually, and no, it wasn’t because I was washing dishes. Why so sad, joker asks?

Let’s see, other than the litany mentioned above, Corey burned his arm two nights ago, bad burn with scalding water, but he has no health insurance.  As I applied antibiotic ointment and dressing, all I could think of was that burns get infected so easily. Corey shrugged it off, but I’ve been watching it carefully. It seems to be healing well, but still . . .

Fog in Winter, Valley of Upa, Czech Republic

And then, the dryer isn’t working right. The dishwasher is now broken. The house as a whole is in horrible shape, cluttered, dirty, depressingly in disrepair. I used to be so anal about cleaning, every weekend, top to bottom. Now, I cannot run the vacuum for the clutter. Did I mention that I cannot write? My phone has been turned off, and basically, I hate life. To be more specific, my life. I hate my life.

Don’t misunderstand. I do not hate the people in my life. I love the people in my life. They are probably the one thing that sustains me at the moment. But my life, per se? The circumstances of my life? I hate, h-a-t-e it. I want to go back to work. I want to have a career again. I don’t want to feel like a burden for which Corey must bear the full weight. I don’t want my spouse to feel that he is a caretaker. That gets old, fast.

I want to sleep through the night, wake up in the morning, get dressed, and go to work.

That I should be happy that I awaken each morning with a roof over my head and some food in my fridge . . . yes, I know that. We’re talking emotions here. Logically, I know that I have so much for which to be grateful. Logically, I know that millions upon millions of people have it so much worse. Logically, I know that in the big scheme of things, my problems are a tiny little puddle in comparison to the monsoons that invade so may people’s lives.

Yes, I know that. Does it makes me seem ungrateful to say that knowing that, I still feel as if I am slowly losing my mind? Losing patience with everything? Losing the ability to cope? Probably, yes, I probably seem ungrateful.

But damn, it just feels as if I am existing, counting days, not living. That’s it. It took me all of these words to get to the heart of it: existing, not living. I want to enjoy life again. I want to be the woman I used to be, the woman who took pleasure in small things, who thrived on stress and pressure, who laughed more, bantered frequently, and bemoaned fate less.

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.” ~ Sylvia Plath

Do what I love and the rest will follow . . . such a seemingly innocuous platitude. Perhaps even good advice. But how do I do what I love when I can no longer identify what I love? And what is it that will follow? What is the rest?

Fog, Baden-Weurttemberg, Germany

How did I get to this place in my life, this place at which life is a calendar filled with numbers but not with days? How does anyone get here? What scares me the most is the fear that perhaps I have lost hope.

Lost my way?  Is my path occluded? Have I forgotten to pay attention to the journey in my single-minded pursuit to survive? Yes, maybe that’s it. Maybe I have allowed myself to get so caught up in counting the days until our situation changes that I have completely forgotten that life is to be lived, not endured.

What do I love? I love to write, to read, to engage my mind, to watch the sun set, to walk along the shore, to find a shell, to smell the rain, to discourse, to converse, to contemplate, to cherish, to embrace. I love the smell of a baby’s skin and the scent on the air after I have a bath. I love a cup of tea and a good movie. I love freshly cut herbs and spring blossoms. I love the sound of water and the blue of the deep ocean. I love the wind in my face and the touch of the first snow on my lashes.  I love the company of good friends and the peace of the mountains in the fall. I love to listen to good music on a Sunday afternoon, and I love the freedom to sing at the top of my lungs in the shower.

I love to be loved, to feel love, to exude love, to share love.

“Life is too short, or too long, for me to allow myself the luxury of living it so badly.” ~ Paul Coehlo

Do what I love? That is so much harder than it seems. Life is so much harder than it should be. Please don’t think me small-minded, and yet, why do I take the time in my stream-of-consciousness to apologize, to care what other people think? Isn’t that always the way?

I have some pondering to do, some searching. Perhaps, though, my search has already brought me to this place of realization: I must get back to myself somehow, before the bottom of the boat falls out and I find myself at sea, a castaway along with the scattered debris that is my life.

I am reminded of a poem by Raymond Carver, one of my favorites:

Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth

Yes. To feel beloved and to love. Perhaps that is truly all that is necessary.

More later. Peace.

Damien Rice’s “Delicate”