entertaining infinity

5

About this time 5 years ago, I was standing in a hospital room holding my mom's hand, waiting.  The doc said it was only a matter of time ... an hour, maybe less.  When he came downstairs to the surgical waiting room he'd told us: We can't put her back together, and I remember thinking he was talking about Humpty Dumpty, only he was talking about my mother. I know the docs busted their humps to make things right, going to great lengths to save her, but she was tired and there had been one complication on top of another, and meanwhile, the cancer was still quietly doin' its thing. 

One of the interns cried when he saw me come upstairs to the room where they'd moved her; he'd fallen in love with my mom (as many did) and like so many others who loved her - he was clinging to that slim bit of hope, even though he later told me I shouldn't have; I knew better. 

I was alone with her when she died; my father and brother had gone downstairs to wait for my sister to arrive, and even though Mom wasn't awake, I talked to her, just in case she could hear.

That morning she asked me to come to the hospital early; she wanted me there before Dad and Bean arrived because she knew she might not make it out of surgery and she wanted to talk.  We'd always talked a lot, and there had been lots of conversations about what might come after we'd shuffle off this mortal coil, even before she got sick.  That morning she told me that she wasn't concerned for herself: If I wake up dead, I wake up dead, she laughed; it's all of you that I'm worried about.

But we'd be OK I told her; not that we would like it, but we'd be OK.  I said it that morning, and I said it again in that room with the curtains drawn.  And we are OK.  We miss her; her absence is always felt, but we have done OK. We keep on keepin' on; what else are you going to do?   

And while I thought about it today (hard not to on the anniversary), I wasn't overcome with huge waves of sadness just because it's the day.  Sometimes I get sad about it for no particular reason, but today it just hung around like a mist.  It's there, but you can see through it.

And I guess it helps that I get something in a way I've only fully gotten since the sun rose on March 31, 2004: That until the day when you wake up dead, you wake up alive, and you get on with it. 

 

solstice (ahhh)

I still hate the winter, but I love the winter solstice.  Now we start to get get a little more light each day ... yee ha. 

And speaking of which, I promised an update on the SAD light didn't I? (and you're all waiting with baited breath, aren't you?) 

I didn't use it last Saturday or Sunday (my routine tends to go out the window on weekends ...), but otherwise I've been using it pretty regularly every morning for the prescribed 25 - 30 minutes.  I sit at the kitchen table and do my morning writing there; you have to sit directly in front of it - your face about a foot away so your eyes are kinda level with the center of the light box - it's not the coziest of positions (i prefer writing in bed, on my stomach, under the covers), but still I do it.  I do it cause hope is not just "the thing with feathers" ... it's that little bit of light and warmth that stays in my chest even when the chill of winter is doing its damnest to freeze up everything around it.

I sit there and bask in the fluorescent glow and hope that it's having some effect; its been 2 weeks since it arrived, and while I am not feeling spring-like in spirit, the dreaded winter bum-out may be slightly lessened: I am not entirely slugged out (i don't feel like i have lead in my bones every morning, don't need to be in bed almost every night by 9:30), and carbohydrates have not become the only foods in my diet.  So yes, I suppose you could say it's helping.  Let's keep our fingers crossed for still more ...

And knowing that today was the darkest day? Well, that means tomorrow will be a little lighter.  And the day after that, lighter still.  The earth is working its way closer to the sun and we have something to celebrate my friends.

So in keeping with the spirit of celebration, I hope you'll enjoy this wonderful mash-up version of Winter Wonderland as much as I did.  With contributions from The Partridge Family, James Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Eurythmics, Neil Diamond, and so many more, it is simply warped and brilliant.  (and i do so love that warped and brilliant stuff.

Happy Solstice.

weekend, no plans

How does this happen?  The weekend comes and I have no specific plans.  Nothing last night and nothing tonight or tomorrow night ... just big blank space on my calendar today and tomorrow.

I love it.

So often the weekend comes and I've booked dinner with friends on Friday evening right after work and I get home late and then have someplace I need to be Saturday and it's another day of going here/going there and then Sunday rolls around and there are errands to do and Beaners to see and then suddenly it's 8pm and I still haven't done laundry.  Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration ... my weekends are usually a mix of SOME social stuff and SOME down-time, but every now and then, finding myself with no obligations - with the opportunity to spend an evening on the couch watching a DVD and sleeping late and puttering around in my robe on a Saturday morning - is an incredibly restorative thing.

Now, I will go see Beaners tomorrow morning (have not seen them in a while - we've had vacations back-to-back: i was enjoying my "adult camp" experience last week, and they left for disney world the day i got back and they're returning this afternoon ...), but other than that, I'm free to let these two days take me where they will.  Feels particularly good now, since I'm gearing up for a big change (more on that in another post when i'm feeling a bit more motivated to get the story down ...).

So here it is, almost 1:30 pm on a Saturday and I'm still in my robe sipping coffee (i'm such a wild woman!).  Might go for a walk now ... maybe run a few errands.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll have another cup of coffee before I decide.  What fun, what fun.

hope i die before i get old

Have you seen this video?  Or read any stories about this band? 

The Zimmers are a group with 40 members whose average age is 78.  And they rock out while making The Who's My Generation into a shake of the shoulders anthem to anyone who might be ready to let them f-f-fade away.  (and there's a bit of that "carpe diem" stuff creeping around at the edges too ...)

Brilliant.

December 31, 2006

2006 ...

... days go by, we meet people, we buy groceries.  We work, we sleep, we eat, we drink coffee, we wish for more, we strive to do better.  We wonder why some things are so damn hard, and other times we think about people who are really, really suffering and struggling and we feel lucky, soft and grateful.  And we are grateful.  (and sometimes we still forget.)

We wish we'd said something when we had the chance, and other times we wish we hadn't said it when we did.  People get sick and people get well; some don't.  Fear is sold on the news and there is plenty to go around. 

We do laundry, we hang out with our family and friends, we procrastinate.  We can't get that stupid song out of our head.  We triumph, we fail, we let people go.  We rise to challenges and we hide our heads in the sand.  We get the mail, we pay the bills, we bitch about the price of gas.  We dream, we stretch, we take out the garbage, check email, laugh and cry.  We hug the people we love. 

Deadlines loom, deadlines pass, and new ones grow in their place.  The weather's gone crazy and the ice caps are melting.  We come home at the end of a long day and get into comfy clothes, light candles, listen to music, and have a glass of wine.  We wrestle our demons, we wrestle each other.  (sometimes that wrestling stuff is fun.) 

We choose, we second guess, we choose some more, we plow forward hopefully.  We dance with the unknown even if we don't ever think about it.

Tomorrow the calendar flips and it will say 2007 but nothing else is really different.  Still, there's much to celebrate: it's the same world ... and never the same river twice. 

(happy new year)

various musings

A few random blurts from the last week or so...

New Year, Squared

Right on the heels of the turn of the year is the turn of MY year (january 2nd).

As a little kid, I didn't think it was possible for this timing to suck more.  My 'big day' came during the winter - which was (and still is) my least favorite season - and it also came right after the gift-giving-frenzy of December, so birthday prezzies were often an afterthought (a sweater for b-day loot? suck-a-rama!).  And besides that, more often than not, January 2nd was the first day back to school after a long break -- not what a kid wanted at all.

As a bigger kid/adult, I've actually enjoyed the timing.  When the world sheds its yearly skin and so many people are rethinking their lives, taking stock and looking forward with optimism and delicious intention ... I get all that great energy swirling around as I finish up one age and move into another.  Yum.  It makes the b-day seem doubly profound/doubly opportunistic. 

And then there's the celebration aspect.  I love that.  Parties? Fireworks? A long weekend?  Count me in!  To have my birthday folded into a time of celebration is delightfulness x 2.  I'm not a big fan of having the Happy Birthday song sung to me (give me the beatles version any day), but any time that's 'sanctioned' for people to make a fuss over me?  Well, that's the way (uh huh uh huh) I like it (uh huh uh huh).  And if people are too caught up in the hoopla of the holidays to remember my day?  No problem, I've extended the time to make a fuss; January is now officially The Birthday Month in Debland. 

Let the celebrations continue.

(i'm only sort of joking here...)

(worship me!)

... other birthday-ish stuff ...

This year is a particularly interesting one for me.  This year I turned 45. 

There's nothing overly significant about 45 to me - I reckon that any day above ground is a good day, and even though the changes in my face and body over the last couple of years have taken a little getting used to, I'm not freaking out and thinking about botox or microdermabrasion or anything like that.  (i'd rather look like an older version of me than a caricatures of my former self like america's sweetheart...)

But it's not the wrinkles around my eyes or the little spots that are showing up on my hands that makes 45 particularly significant...it's because I'm the same age now as my mother was in this, my favorite photo of the two of us together, and that kinda wigs me out.  Not sure why. 

The photo was taken during an 'official' family portrait session in 1985. I must have been a little tired of trying to look casually familial so I started goofing off; the photographer kept shooting, and this shot came out of it.

Why I like it/what I see in it: Mom's playful goofiness and how I could always bring it out in her.  I also remember of all the times she held herself in ... kept her mouth shut because of how it might look/because of my father's position (he was a big fish in his pond) or some made-up idea of how she was supposed to be.  And I think about how she was both proud of me and afraid for me for being outspoken, bodacious and for walking a different path.  The older I got, the more she made peace with my bodaciaity, and the more I made peace with how challenging it was for her to break her habit of containing herself. Sometimes this photo of her whispers to me (kinda like those photos in dead poet's society) - "DON'T keep your mouth shut ... time passes ... laugh a lot ... don't keep it in ... keep on seizing the day Baboo* ..." 

(*yet another of my nicknames; her favorite for me ...)

... and then related to that ...

Since I left home, every year on the morning of my birthday Mom would call me without fail around 9am and say: "I wanted to call you at 6:20 and wake you up, but I decided to let you sleep," referring to the hour that I was born.

The first January after she died, I woke up just a few minutes after 6:20am (6:29, actually) and figured she just couldn't resist waking me up that year.  And then, this year (b-day #2 w/out her), I woke up at 6:21.  She can't call, but I like to think that she's found a way to wake me up and continue her special birthday greeting anyway.

... totally unrelated to any of that birthday/new year/mom stuff ...

I'm so frustrated I could SCREAM.  Due to something that I (and the folks at typepad's help desk) have not been able to get to the bottom of - I can't leave comments on TypePad blogs these days.  It's been going on for over two weeks (no my blog friends, i have not stopped visiting - and with many of you, i have been aching to comment on your luminescent posts!) and it's driving me batty.  Every time I get a note from the TypePad folks, I am hopeful that THIS suggestion may provide a solution, but so far ... nada, zip, zilch. I am comment-less.  For me, the blogging experience is as much about how I interact with other bloggers (who have become such a delicious addition to my community/life) as it is what I post on here.  And to not be able to communicate?  It just sucks.  (and not in a good way!)

... crossing my fingers that the next suggestion that comes works.  Cross yours too, would'ja?

it's official...

A couple of years ago I noticed that my eyes were having trouble focusing while I was reading one of the Harry Potter books (a kids book for godsake...oh the irony-ish-ness of it!), so now I wear reading glasses. 

But that didn't make me feel old. 

I used to be able to put my legs over my head without warming up (no kidding)  (a move that was very popular with the boys...), but not any more. 

And that doesn't make me feel old either.

Wrinkles around the eyes?  Nah; as Linda Evans said on the old Ultress commercials (before she started getting way too much lip collagen and selling scary 'face lifting masks' on infomercials) "Forty isn't fatal." 

I had no problem with the crows feet. I convinced myself that they looked kinda cool.  And they do, I like them.  (so far...)

The occasional gray hair?  Nope, not even those made me feel old.

But I heard some news the other day that made me sure that no matter how I young I feel, I'm actually rounding the corner towards old.

Donny Osmond is a grandfather.

That's right.  Donny Osmond - the boy who I (and thousands of other pre-pubescent girls) swooned over when he sang "Go Away Little Girl" back in the early 70s is a grandfather.  Oh help.

OK, so he had his first kid when he was 22, (and he's a few years older than i am), but still...if HE can be a grandfather, that makes it official doesn't it?  I might not be old, but I'm not young anymore either.

Time sure does fly, doesn't it?

A few years ago I said "time flies" in the presence of my (fabulous ice skating prodigy) niece - to which she replied: "Oh Uncle Debbie, only old people say 'time flies'." (yes, uncle debbie - i'll tell that story in a later post...). 

She was probably around 11 or 12 at the time - so that would've put me around 39 or 40 - and I should have told her that I hoped she would remember this moment.  Because someday she would be this age, and I'll bet it wouldn't feel that old then. 

I think this is what's so freaky about kids: if you used to change their diapers and now they're 16 (or 18...or...), then that means that these gray hairs aren't a fluke - they're the precursor to my future.  Maybe I AM getting up there.

And I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up?  Damn.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Time sure does fly, doesn't it?