Thursday, October 30, 2008

knit 5, purl 5, but the opposite when you go the other direction.

Just a couple minutes ago I ripped a couple years' worth of knitting off the bamboo circular needles. Not a big deal, seriously. I'm using rumply purplish yarn with bluish/greenish/grayish flecks, and the basketweave I'd created was only 5 inches deep and far too many stitches across to make a reasonable neck scarf. (You always knit a neck scarf if you're just doing it as a nervous habit, have a pile of leftover yarn, AND don't like counting stitches. At all.) I will start it again. Scarf-width this time.

Wow--it's 10 p.m. I gotta go to bed.

Do not read this. It is Sappy and Too Personal. You'll be sorry. TMI! TMI!

I am attacking the dirty dishes. There are many. Jeff wanders in. Do you ever have any...emotions? he says, in the usual somewhat flat and tentative tone.

I have all the normal human emotions, I reply. Anger, sadness, happiness...

What makes you angry? he asks.

Humans acting like dumb, mean troglodytes, I say.

What makes you happy? he says.

My children, I say. They make me very happy.

He does not know what to make of my stoicism, because--while a guarded nature is and always has been my default mode--he knows that he used to experience a more open and communicative version of me. He does not realize that when the receiver broke, the transmission could not be completed. Or, to try another inadequate analogy, it takes a warm hand on the surface of the plasma globe to focus the current.


If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be? he asks.

I deliberate momentarily. I decide not to answer that I would change him to who he was 10 years ago, because I seek to not pin any of my angst on him, at least not in such a way as he would notice. Instead I answer, truthfully, that I would be a contributor to life in a way that helped other people.

He thinks about this, and more or less understands, since he did not choose nor does he appreciate his own lack of employment.

But that is the end of the discussion, because now he has done what he intellectually knows he should do--that is, see how I’m doing. And he does care about the answer, I don’t mean to make it sound otherwise, but his ability to respond or connect empathically is a seriously compromised function, along with spacial orientation and following a multi-person conversation. And counting backwards by 7’s. (Yeah, there was another mini-mental at Georgetown Tuesday.)

The problem with the conversation for me, is that--even as I hold firm to the stoic façade--unwelcome emotions are burbling to the surface and I forcibly suppress them via diligent attention to the task of unloading and reloading the dishwasher. I can let them out when Jeff goes to ride the elliptical, because he will never notice--his tuner no longer detects that frequency.

Naturally, I question my lack of openness and unwillingness to be vulnerable. Is it fair? Is there any way I could try to be a warmer person? My demeanor is, for the most part, kind, but it’s a therapeutic kind of kind--not the sort that flows naturally from the joy of a fulfilling two-way relationship.

I might liken a mutually satisfying relationship to a pair of bunsen burners, each burning a unique gas. One emits a turquoise flame, the other orange. But put them together and you get something remarkable and unexpected, like a smokeless magenta flame with a purple aura. The orange burner’s pipeline breaks--its gas is inaccessible, and it feebly burns only oxygen--turquoise in partnership with the turquoise burner. And it wonders what happened to the magenta flame. But the turquoise burner cannot burn magenta by itself. It tries to fake the magenta flame, but can’t. (Yes, weird, I know. Who else would anthropomorphize bunsen burners?)

It’s like if someone took your soul mate and turned him into Teddy Ruxpin. You can (and should) hug him--it’s good for both your healths--but he will not understand you when you tell him about your day, or explain how it feels to be the “dumb one” in your family, or share any other of your stupid neuroses because he does not have that microchip. So, you will be disappointed if you try. He will merely grin back and say “Let’s read a story!”

What you should do then is hug him and read a story.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Lumps and Dirt

Today, while Jeff endured the usual poking and prodding as a guinea pig in the Merck vaccine trial at Georgetown U., I read AARP Magazine.

This is not anywhere near the dreary pastime it sounds like. Apart from a long-running subscription to Reader’s Digest (which I’m finally inclined to let lapse,) I don’t seek out magazines. But, the monthly AARP one comes with a membership and is almost invariably worth a look.

I have never read Rabbit, Run, or The Widows (or Witches) of Eastwick, or anything else by John Updike for that matter, but I surely appreciated his essay in the Nov-Dec AARP, “The Writer in Winter.” Now, in addition to the fact that I have not read the above-mentioned Updike works, I have also not written anything of consequence, so I must allow that it’s a leap of vanity, or at least presumptuousness, to claim that I can relate in any way to his words, but I can.

Particularly these ones (in which he laments that his greatest rival may be his younger, nimbler self):

...the same brain gropes through its diminishing neurons for images and narratives that will lift lumps out of the earth and put them under the glass case of published print...

...[a writer] should have in hand a provocative beginning and an ending that will feel inevitable. Instead, he may arrive at his ending nonplused...The threads have failed to knit. The leap of faith with which every narrative begins has landed him not on a far safe shore but in the middle of the drink...

Anyway, I loved the imagery. Whether or not I still have a full complement of neurons, undiminished, I can viscerally feel that sense of groping for anything that might turn lumps of earth to publishable display pieces. Threads do fail to knit. Nowadays they fail even to turn from fuzz to threads. Ok...so we’re still waiting for those fibers, and there may be no brain left to knit them, should they form.

So anyway, perhaps I should stick to journaling for now, as recommended by another article in the same AARP issue, this one entitled “Find Purpose, Live Longer.” The author is Gregory Plotnikoff, M.D., medical director for Abbott Northwestern’s Institute for Health and Healing in Minneapolis. Especially effective, says he, after “a major life change that leaves you feeling lost [such as] when a spouse dies, you retire, or your kids leave home, [i.e.] you interrupt your personal story.” Hmmm. The task, so he says, is to “figure out how this episode fits into the plot of your life.”

Well, geesh. I thought I had given up on plot. But let’s suppose I can take a giant step sideways and revisit that discarded assumption. It might be a better choice than eating too much chocolate and revisiting chocolate headaches. (I am bound and determined to have one tomorrow.)

Actually, there are several things I need to revisit tomorrow which are a good deal more solid than assumptions, including A.A. Medical to see how the dad’s doing, AACC to get the Gabe registered for Japanese, and Whole Foods to restock the supplement drawer. If I encounter any promising lumps of dirt in the meantime, t’will be a bonus.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

What would Flower say?

I’ve got a pretty powerful chocolate notion today. Unsated, sadly, but at least I won’t be giving myself a headache. Now there’s a rotten deal--headaches from too much chocolate.

Remarkably, Ellen and Fred are moved in (unpacked boxes notwithstanding) and we did nothing more strenuous than transport a tupperware of baked apples. Ellen does not, she has suggested, appreciate her 70’s era kitchen cabinetry. Or is it 80’s? At any rate, whether the cabinet-chooser’s mind was numbed by The Brady Bunch or Three’s Company, I say just be grateful that Greg Brady’s coat (with cigarettes in the pocket) was not left hanging in your closet, and at least all four of you don’t have to sit on the same side of the dining room table. Imagine how your children might turn out if that were the case. Like Johnny Bravo or something. Not pretty. Indiana Jones, as Austin demonstrated for me, seems a much less dorky option. (Not that I’d be your go-to consultant if avoiding dorkiness were the goal.)

I’m having a funny, wistful sensation every time a bright and clever therapist (PT, Speech, Occupational, Nurse,) works on my dad during his current hospitalization. I admire people who do intelligent and useful things. I really do.

Here is cool discovery of the week: With Ultralingua Spanish-English and French-English dictionaries installed on your Palm Centro, you can not only read Les Mis more easily (well, the Spanish doesn't help here,) you can also conjugate verbs on demand. I'm so geeking out on this.

So, kitties are more likely to be allergic to fish than venison and rabbit, the vet tells me. Now she tells me, that is. Chessie, the tubby old diva, will be the beneficiary of the herring and mackerel food surplus when we go back to Crunchies pet food store tomorrow and seek out Thumper kibbles and Bambi-in-a-can for Little Itch, aka Hazel.

Friday, October 17, 2008

eerrrrrk

What I meant to say was that it’s plain that I cannot squeeze a good story out by dint (merely) of determination and persistence. Tried that.(several times actually.) Hence, I am willing to carry my current working notebook around for the length of time required (1 year, 7 years, 11 years) for the thoughts which I jot at unpredictable and infrequent moments to begin to relate to each other and--eventually--form the bones of a dang good idea. I cannot assume such a matrix will ever materialize, but it will be a creditable effort.

These are cute kids at the Maryland Renaissance Faire. Someday--maybe next year--I’ll get the lady who throws and interprets stones outside the little gypsy hut to do a reading for me. I think pecan pie might not be an entirely bad idea either that day.

Could there be a more boring manner of improving one’s Spanish than Rosetta Stone? Well, yes...you could read a grammar book. I suppose it beats that.

My working notebook, by the way, has 3 phrases in it so far. I hope at least 5 by Christmas. I’m thinking it’ll take at least 30 or 40 before the first filament of an idea coalesces. In the meantime, I can be irked. Irk is a strange word. The built-in Mac dashboard dictionary is telling me that it may come from the Old Norse yrkja meaning “to work,” which is an interesting irony in that the source of my irkedness is the sense of not being a contributor, workwise. This is why I used to want to be a pioneer. Because there would be no time for existential angst. You’d be way too busy making soap out of lye,

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

C'est la vie

Gabe took PSATs today. This will be a curiosity. I could not imagine how it would go. His report: He finished an hour before most of the class then took a nap. As to how he thinks he did: He thinks he did fine. No scholarship, he predicts...he thinks he performed averagely. We’ll see. I’ve been wondering for years how these standardized test experiences would turn out.

I’m back to trudging through a bit of Rosetta Stone Latin American Español. It’s a boring program, really, but I need to keep my Spanish synapses in balance in that I’m also presently reading Les Misérables en français. ‘Tis true that the version is abridged. I mean to check Cliff notes online and see just how much I’m missing. Aggravating it is to leave any out at all, but...en français...the struggle is enough and the pace slow as it is.

I like bags. I like reusable grocery bags, IKEA shopping bags, Gecko Traders rice and fish feed bags. I just like bags.


Walking through life with you, ma'am, has been a very gracious thing. (Errol Flynn as General Custer to Olivia DeHavilland as Mrs. Custer in They Died With Their Boots On.)

How could you not do right by anyone upon whose heart that sentiment is etched for you?

Friday, October 10, 2008

maybe

I’m going to reenter, slow as a snake, slow as a seep, and with tedious, but flecked sparsely with sparkles, amounts of careful consideration.

As for politics...there’s only so much you can take before you begin to feel that your adrenals have been sucked dry and your previously piqued interest turned inside-out and hung from a clothes line.

As for grocery shopping...trying to hand someone the zip-top cooler bag, weighted down with a ½ gallon each of soymilk, orange juice, and apple cider plus an assortment of dog treats and frozen berries, can be a trick indeed. Just because it needs to be held by two handles. It takes two fully available hands to position those two handles in such a way that someone will grasp them both, and if you do not position them properly, he almost certainly will grab only one, or try to stick his hand through sideways--missing them both altogether. But you want him to help, so you have to down that last ounce of Trader Joe’s coffee sample and stuff the cup in your pocket so you can attend to the grocery bag handles. It is strange what things are hard and what things are not so.

I spent all day yesterday trying to think of the word “escapement,” as in the inner workings of a mechanical clock. And I didn’t. Think of the word. I had to flip back a few chapters in the book The Discoverers, and just find it, because it was completely eluding me, the silly word.

Green porch rockers, a glass of wine, and a Bill Bryson book on a cool October afternoon make a fine combination of things.