Beauty

The challenge:   to see beauty in the world when it’s gone dark.  To get outside your own head when you’re stuck in it.   Try looking.  See if you can find it.

So I posed the challenge to Emily as we drove up to Bethy’s on Thanksgiving Day, as gray and dull a day as they’ve all been for the last few months:  it had rained most of October;  I think the sun came out only twice this month, or I wasn’t paying attention.  My head has been up my ass now since the end of summer; I was lost in one of my deepest, darkest depressions.

Shades of gray can be beautiful, Emily suggested.   But I saw few shades, only the even dull grey, even as we swung around the S curve to get out of Grand Rapids, all the buildings and bridges the same gray, though when the sun shines, Grand Rapids can be beautiful, and at night the lights look beautiful.

We kept looking, heading out of town and up 131, trees bare, grass dull, a light rain, nothing for us to notice.  “We’ll never find it if we look,”  Emily said.  “It just happens.”  My brilliant daughter.

It reminded me of Bob Root’s essay; I think it was “Canoeing the Sky” which ended up in his book Recovering Ruth.  I think he’d gone to Isle Royal, or maybe it was somewhere else, as an artist-in-residence.   He was determined to find insight while hiking (If I get this all wrong, Bob, forgive me).  A park ranger might have even asked him:  “Out looking for insight?”  (Okay, I just went looking for the essay:  the link is dead).   He looked, tripped over sticks and twigs watching his own feet.  No insight to be found.  It was only after he stopped looking things appeared:   while he paddled his canoe on another occassion, he noticed the sky reflected in the water as he paddled through clouds, and then creatures appeared: a blue heron, I can’t recall what else.    I wish I could quote something.  The over-all message was:  you can’t find insight by looking for it; you have to be open, receptive, perhaps emptied.  And  it will find you.

Emily and I didn’t entirely give up looking.  I did notice waves of grass, maybe hay, and it did look soft and feathery.  But offered no great insight.  Then, near Cadillac, it started to snow.  Or we drove into the snow.  Everything was covered:  the ground, the pine trees, out of nowhere it was winter, coming down in huge flakes and covering everything.   Sure, it was beautiful, but then I was too worried about driving.  No insight.  Still trying too hard.

As fast as we drove into it, we turned up 115 and drove right out of it.  Snow gone, back to bleak gray and nothing beautiful.  At that point, I gave up, went to my sister’s and cracked open a beer in despair.

No lesson learned here.  Not yet.   But I do recall my deepest despair one summer:   bored out of my skull and miserably depressed,  I sat on my front porch and watched a blue jay and cat at a stand off, then a kid burning rubber at every stop sign down Kinney street in an old Oldsmobile.  I decided that was beautiful.   It did produce the essay “Hometown” (see link).

I guess I have to stop looking.

Another Sunday

Still trying to snap out of the end of summer blues.  I’m getting there, but still grieving.   Emily and I took a walk down a trail in the woods that we heard lead to a creek farther in.  Not bad, but the dog got covered in burrs, which I chopped out of his fur with scissors.  Now he’s all choppy looking.  Could not find the creek:  we ended up coming out into an open field near the used car lot just down the highway from us.

I can at least say I got myself out of the house.  Later I read on the swing in my back yard.  Earlier this summer, even though it has a canopy overhead, I parked the swing under an apple tree for some added shade.  It was nice reading outside today, warm and breezy, and I’m loving the book I’m reading:  Plainsong.   But the apples are ripening and crashing down on the canopy just above my head, occasionally scaring the shit out of me.  They crash down hard.   And now rotting apples are collecting on the ground, and if I walk out with bare feet, they squash underfoot.  I may have to move the swing.

This winter, the deer will come and eat the apples out from under the snow.  Cola will try to chase them because he is too dumb to understand he can’t catch a deer.

There are five stages of grief, and I can’t remember them all for sure.   Denial, acceptance, bargaining. . what else?   So, I jumped right into acceptance today, or maybe yesterday, and realized I must have been in denial because I kept working my way back toward bargaining.  I’m such a pussy.   My guess is that means I’m somewhere between stage one and five.

But everything will be alright (rockabye), as long as the sun shines once in a while and you have a swing in your back yard.  And a good book.  I’ll grieve when that’s over.

Fall Semester

Transitioning from summer to fall was derailed by a stomach bug.  Had to cancel classes the first week.  I feel like I need to start over, but must pick up where I left off.

Transitioning from summer to the start of a fall semester has always been difficult, but this one particularly bumpy.  With the exception of my ten year marriage, my life has always been dictated by the academic calander.  Summer ends a year, fall semester begins it.  This particularly summer was crazy fun, exciting, care-free, romantic.   Still, I was anxious to get going, get back to work, and the tail end of summer was dull, a let down, a whole week or two of Sunday before Monday.  I was grieving the summer’s end.   I came down hard from the high I was on most of the summer.   Bam.  And then after the first week of classes, came down farther and harder.   Stomach bug got me wrapped up in my physical and emotional self, could hardly look out to see the light of day, the end of the summer like the end of the world.   Spent most of my labor day weekend feeling sick at heart and sick to my stomach.  Poor, poor me.

Felt well enough to go to Mt. Pleasant on Sunday evening, and my dad and I took my mother out of the nursing home to a back yard party of former art faculty and bridge club members.   It started out rough:  the “taxi” to load the wheel chair was late and lost.  We watched the driver circle around the Isabella County Care Facility while we waved our arms over our heads and yelled.  She was lost.  Finally, a half hour after pick up time, my dad was frustrated and vowed to never try to take Mom out again.  A young woman got out and started to load mom into the back of the van with a chair lift, and took another 20 minutes to strap the chair in place.  Slow.  My mother was quiet and seemed sad and depressed.  Dad was beside himself.  Finally, we got her in, and I followed Mom and Dad over in Dad’s car, getting there a full fifteen minutes before the taxi/van does.  I warn the hostess that my dad’s already in a foul mood and exhausted.

Finally we wheeled mom in through the house, and lifted the chair down a step to the back patio.  We pulled her up to a card table, and she began to cheer up a bit, smiling at those who greeted her, but puzzled about where she was, or who anyone was.  We got her a Sprite, which she liked and she tried some guacamole and chips, which I dipped and handed to her (later, she put her fingers right into the dip.  Hand wiping time.  I didn’t tell anyone her fingers went in.   Vitold K greeted Mom, patting her hand, and said,  “Remember me?  I’m the Polack!” and Mom laughed out loud.  a beautiful moment.   Good one (I had a very nice visit with Vitold myself:  a very nice man).   A younger couple showed up with a puppy and a little girl and Mom seemed to enjoy watching both.  Dad got loopy on wine.  Me too.   And Mom’s face looked a little brighter and she smiled more.

We fixed mom a small plate of food and she ate quite a bit, without any major messes, and Dad and I managed to eat a plate of food ourselves before the van/taxi returned to pick us up.  The poor girl spent another 20 minutes loading mom in, and as she was unloading confessed that this was her first time lifting a wheel chair into the van and that she was quite nervous about it.  I told Dad, who had since softened a little and was quite pleased with how lively mom was at the party.  She’d been asleep and seemingly depressed for a few days before hand, so we considered it a successful outing.

Not sure when Dad will get the energy to try again.  And we may go with another service (Isabella’s service was not running on Labor day).   Still, I think it was worth the trouble, and the young taxi driver got her lesson in loading wheel chairs.

Dream House

My Dream House! What are the chances?

Another New Day

Enough of sentimentality. But even a little of that helps. The underwear and T-shirt have been burned. I saved the logo from the Michcon T-shirt as a memento. Why not. I’ll add it my box of junk, along with the Valentine card I got from my 13 year old boyfriend (when I was almost 16!. .or was it almost 17!), and a few of Hugh’s sketches and poems, a few wedding pictures.

Today, I took the dog for a walk down 14th Avenue and down Lover’s Lane, a lovely country road. I could get used to living in the country. There’s a little wooden house beside a picturesque babbling brook for sale. I’ve decided I want it. Two bedrooms, 800 some odd square footage, a deck all around, and in the woods. It has two bedrooms, one bath, and a fireplace. Looks like it has some picture windows all around as well. The creek is beautiful! On the other side of the road, I let Cola go down and play in the water. He loves creeks!

I looked up the price and it’s 119,000. Maybe I’ll keep an eye on the price as I work on my credit history. Just for fun. I haven’t seen the inside yet. A week or so ago, I took a walk over to this little house, and since it seemed no one was home, I decided to walk down (the driveway appears to be a level above the home, with steps down the the deck above the creek). So, I snuck around to the side of this little house with Cola, and two enormous white dogs banged with their paws on the window and barked like mad. Scared the piss out of me. I booked out of there. Today, there were two cars in the parking lot.

I guess I’ll have to wait for a realtor to show me.

Read Andy Douglas’s essay on Celibacy in the City. A great essay, one I could identify with. I’m excited about going to the work shop in Iowa next weekend with some great writer friends who I’ve not seen in years. I’ve been dicking around with sentences in my own essay to be workshopped while I’m there. Looking forward to having an intelligent audience to share it with, especially Judy, who I haven’t talked to in ages.

Plenty to look forward to. I quit smoking again today. The days I smoke, I feel terrible and get high blood pressure readings. At 46 and 160 lbs, I need to let that go too.

I must take 12 points worth of walks before the Weight Watchers meeting on Tuesday. I went over my extra 35 points. 12 points of moderate walks will take me 6 hours. Two one hour walks a day. How hard can that be. I did it all the time for the last five years.

Sentimentality

A moment of sentimentality. Here’s 3 quotes/poems.

This is part of letting go too isn’t it? Ah, it’s a process.

There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west -
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand. ~Emily Kimbrough

Some people come into our lives
and leave footprints on our hearts
and we are never ever the same.
~Flavia Weedn

Okay, back to letting go later: tonight, we burn the underwear!!

Letting go!

Letting go of my addictions, the worst of them being men and cigarettes, is hard. I can do it, no problem, but I tend to take them back again. I’ve quit smoking about 6 times in the last month. I quit again today. There’s no question about it, addictions can make you SICK!! (perhaps why I didn’t feel well for six weeks a while back?). I feel confident that I’m done with the cigarettes. I also quit the AH, and I’m 100 percent confident I’m done with him too. Just to make sure, I’ve decided to ceremoniously bury him: I have his t-shirt and underwear, I threw the flowers and condoms away last week. . .that’s it, no other mementos, not even a picture. So, Emma is coming over and we will burn the T-shirt and undies in the backyard tomorrow. Maybe I’ll throw in a pack of cigarettes. Maybe this blog entry.

I’ve also let go of the AH about 17 times. This time, I’m trying to figure out what I have to do differently to make sure I don’t look back. So, the ceremony. I’m also reading up on Letting Go: Here’s what I’ve learned:

–Dr. Phil says you can’t just say no, you must say hell no! So, I’ll work on that.
–don’t beat yourself up. Ok
–Focus on yourself. I have no problem doing that.
–life is not a “success only” journey. Okay, but if it weren’t such a series of failures it’d be easier.
–Trust in the nature of time. That’s a hard one.
–Make connections with new people. So is that.
–holding on is a drain. Letting go is effortless.

Oh, there’s a lot more: take care of myself, make plans, move forward, all that stuff. There’s a ton of stuff on the internet about letting go. The biggest one I read somewhere is not to listen to the noise in my head, which can get pretty noisy. I can’t necessarily stop it, but I can ignore it. Noise, noise, noise.

Not sure what else to do different: self-help books? therapy? I’m not sure the situation deserves all this attention, but if it helps me to STAY let go, then. . .

So, today, the asshole is dead . . . tomorrow buried (or burned). It won’t be quite the funeral Hugh had, but it’ll be appropriate. Funny, I used to have so much trouble letting go of Hugh. I stopped drinking and stopped Hugh. Now, Hugh is REALLY dead. No danger of taking him back.

I’ll work on forgiving the AH later, though for the most part, there is nothing to forgive. Time to give myself break.

Above all else, I must remember: Time wounds all heals.

Here’s a good one:

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
– Lao Tzu
–

Memorial Weekend

Lovely weekend up north, but a little chilly. We spent most of our time next door at Rogers. He cooked for us, let me use his shower, provided many other goodies. Without him, our weekend would have been cold and dreary in our own, now miserable cottage. The place is falling apart, still. The furniture has been pretty much cleared out, except for a few pieces in the living room and the beds. The kitchen is full of mouse shit, and there are nests in Mom’s old desk in the bedroom. When we weren’t at Rogers, enjoying a fire in his fire place, we were in Mankers’ front yard, enjoying the view from there (it was warmer in the sun down there). Later, we broke into their garage, and helped ourselves to the horse shoes. We couldn’t find the darts for the dart board. Roger decided to light a tent worm thing on fire. When it wouldn’t go, he grabbed the Mankers lighter fluid and burned the baby out of the tree. We figured we’d have a forest fire.

On that same day, a man came down the lane in an Amish carriage pulled by a retired harness racing horse, a beautiful chestnut horse named Chester. We all ran out of Roger’s cottage and asked if he could stop. He did, and handed Bethy’s girls and I pieces of carrots to feed him. His name is Russel, and we talked to him for a while, and found out he was a caretaker for some horses down the Flat Road somewhere, and staying weekends, or something, in the tiny cabin at the end of Simmon’s Bluff Rd. We told him we’d love to see the other horses and go for a ride sometime. He was in a small carriage, so he took the girls for a ride down the end of the lane and back. (we joked while he was gone about whether or not this strange man would bring the girls back; somehow we knew he would). On the way back, Melanie had the reigns! Very exciting. This horse could trot a mile a minute. Very fast, very graceful! The girls loved it and so did we. I hope we see him again.

We spent a lot of time laughing this weekend. Very fun, very relaxing. But somehow, we missed Lindy, Rose and Madelynn.

May

Beautiful May weather. Rose out of my wiggies and feel 100%. Almost as if someone hit the reset button one day.

No smokes in a week (I’m done!).

I’m debating whether or not to do Weight Watchers at work again. Or, I could do it online. Or, I could eat.

Up north this weekend, but won’t stay at the cottage. To Iowa June 12 for a reunion of the Travel Writers Group. Need to get some pages prepped and sent. Reading Ann Bauer’s ms and enjoying the hell out of it. Fun to read others’ works in progress. Finished, for now, revising Candle Stars. Maybe I’ll try The Sun, though I don’t know if that’s their bag for sure. I’ll go journal shopping to see where it fits. I looked at my bulletin board with my book outlined on it, and I can almost see it again. About once a year, I can see the book.

Time for a walk. Thank God for walking again.

Quit smoking

Okay, okay, one thing at a time: I quit smoking. I feel better already. Storms last night, rained like hell, today it is bright and cool and springy. I went outside, swept up butts, and feel like a new woman. Now, dog poop.