Bloom

Block Island magic

2011-09-13T17:52:00.218-04:00

I'm here, which is magical in itself, considering all my anxiety, stopping and craziness lately. The last few years, my aunt Judie rents a house here for 2 weeks each September and invites me along for the second week, when my uncle goes back to the mainland. Last year I missed because of my brother's wedding.

My Dad is buried in the island cemetery and I find it quite wonderful that his birthday almost always falls during the time I am here. He couldn't get me to go to the island with him when I was an adult (my general anxiety and his drinking were not a good mix), so he would be thrilled to find me here ever, never mind on his birthday. This place is my favorite place on earth (spent a huge chunk of my childhood summers here, as my Dad owned and operated a restaurant, Dead Eye Dick's, inherited from his father). But it had been over 15 years since I'd ventured out when I first stayed with my aunt in 2008. Shame on me, I did not even come for his memorial service in 2004. I will always regret that.

I don't have really any connections here, I mean, people don't know me. And I don't know them. I don't have friends and family to see. My Dad's full brother no longer lives here. His step mother is in a nursing home. His half brothers and sister were teens I think, when I was a baby. My Dad foolishly sold off all his property and then I guess, eventually, drank it away. I can't even afford to vacation here (thank you Aunt Judie!/my mom's sister/they worked here in the summer as teens, that's how my mom met my Dad, working at my dad's father's hotel, The Spring House). I cringe when I see the houses listed in the BI Times selling for 4 million dollars.
My last time here though I remember using my debit card to buy souvenirs and, at lots of the stores, getting a pause and then something like, "Are you an Island Mott?"

Visiting the cemetery last night at dusk, just me, my dad and many young deer grazing, I walked around in awe of all the Motts buried there. Studied the names and dates and relations and wished so much I knew more about my family. When did they first come to the island? What did they DO for a living. I felt the lives and stories swirling around me and saw so many names repeated. I kept saying aloud, "Who are you all?" as I twirled around from one headstone to the next and then just "This is my family." Felt pretty raw and new to me. I've been to the cemetery before, even remember taking pictures of the many Mott gravestones when I came back at 20 something, after a long time away.

I drive down to Payne's dock this morning, imagining that wax paper bag of warm sugary donuts my Dad used to let us buy some mornings for ourselves and the early restaurant crew. Find they are only open on weekends in Sept. I notice the empty spot where the house my grandmother lived in burned down 2 years ago(?). We used to stay there before my grandfather died and my Dad built the little lobster shack/cottage behind Dead Eye's. Across is The Narragansett (where as a 5 yr old, I distinctly remember crossing the street with my mom to pick up our dinners. I remember mostly baked potatoes wrapped in tinfoil and the huge hedge running along the property). The hotel is now owned by my grandmother (step-grandmother I guess). She rented it out for years, but just recently I heard the Motts were running it again. Her children. My father's half siblings.

I almost don't venture up there. My anti-social tendencies are strong, especially away from home. But I climb the hill and enter the lobby. The man standing behind the dark wooden reception desk is salt and pepper haired, sporting a trim beard, with kind eyes and a soft weather-worn Block Island t-shirt. I stupidly say, "Are you a Mott?" even though I know right off that he is.
He says, "Yes, I am."
I say, "Hi, I'm Bethany, Alton's daughter."
I roll through my father's brothers names trying to guess which one he is.
Jim gives me such a real, loving hug. I don't think I have seen him since I was maybe 10 yrs old.

I share some of the stories my Dad told me about living there in the winter, how they closed off most of the hotel and kept just parts open for the family. He shows me exactly where this was. Tells me how my father used to scare the daylights out of him and his brothers with stories of ghosts living in the back part of the hotel. I see the love for my Dad in his eyes. He smiles when he talks of him. My Dad was maybe 15 or more years older than they were, but loved to tease and play and take them all on adventures. Jim shows me a tiny room with these huge old cupboards, filled with glasses and odds and ends that haven't been touched in years. Tells me if he comes across anything of my Dad's he will call me. Can you imagine? I wanted to crawl right into that cupboard.

I tell him about my trip to the cemetery, say I wish I knew more about my family, their history here. And he says," Oh, just wait, you are going to LOVE this..."
He walks over to a little old fashioned roll top desk and hands me this big, bound book entitled "The Descendants of Nathaniel Mott of Block Island, Rhode Island."
Are you kidding me? A BOOK (345 pages!), placed in my hands, by my father's brother, the day after I wish such a thing existed.
And I almost didn't climb that hill, didn't step onto the wooden planked porch with its happy, green rocking chairs. Pictures of my Dad are in the book, and his mother Maggie, who died, I think when he was 11. I don't have a photo of her or know even if I've ever seen one.

Goosebumps. My grandmother. I am in awe. What a gift. The man (not a relation) who wrote and compiled it on his own time, with his own money, because he loves genealogy. When he saw an enormous amount of "historical data Alice Mott Huggins had assembled" he said, it took him "a short time to get hooked" and the book turned out to be "a labour of love." Wow. You can say that again.

Seems to me, that sometimes on Block Island, when you wish for things, and then take a few extra steps out of your comfort zone, the magic happens.
My Dad believed in magic. How could he not, growing up in a place with these views and sunsets and salty air? Where crashing waves lull you to sleep and wake you up with their white capped sparkle, fog horns blow their rhythmic safety call, calm blue inlets wait for your dipping oar, ice cream stands appear around every corner, solid, steady, ancient stone walls snake across the land, tall grasses swish and sway, and rows of white Adirondack chairs on high green hills call for your company.

Just after dinner, Dad would drive us around to some of the island landmarks, have us hop out and allow one of us to read aloud say, the Mohegan Bluff marker. And when darkness fell, he'd drive the white Dead Eye's truck up the hill, letting us stand in the back and hold on while the wind whipped our salty hair, then stopping and directing us to look out at all the "sticks" in the harbor, the glowing stars of the sailboat masts suddenly lighting up the night.
"This is living kids" he's say.

The copies are being sold for $95 by author Peter H. Greenman: 401-466-2950. In the Block Island Times article from March (which I can't access without being a BI Times member) he says as soon as he gets his cost back he will donate the proceeds to the BI Historical Society. Pretty amazing. I'm so grateful to this man, and for everyone who contributed their stories and pictures and documents. Thank you.

Don't Stop

2011-06-16T15:42:00.010-04:00

Thanks everyone, for coming by. I was so cheered to hear from you all. Yes, those were beans I was about the plant. Not sure the kind. I planted a bunch of different varieties. I think perhaps these cute, curly Qs:
Heirloom Bean: Green Anellino

So, I read on a blog somewhere very recently, a quote I think, about how if you find yourself experiencing a lot of synchronicity in your life, it means you are on the right path. I liked that.

I'm thinking hard about something as I drive to my cleaning job this morning, so I miss the cut through road and take the next one instead. I'm thinking along the lines of, "Do I let my heart go this way? Is this ridiculous to hope for? What am I doing? etc..." when I come to this stop sign, thinking at first, "Oh, VANDALISM: 'Don't Stop' instead of 'Stop', how clever (not) and funny, ha ha..."

Then, I see the rest.
Of course I smile.
Of course, I think, perhaps it is a sign related to what I was just thinking/obsessing about.
Wait, it literally IS a SIGN!

I should get a photo of it. Maybe after I clean, if there's time before the library.
I listen to my Bee Gees, Earth Wind and Fire station on Pandora on the phone while I clean. Battery dies. I'm barely able to charge the phone enough at the curb to get a quick photo.

Hop back in the car and drive, while the very last song on a CD I borrowed from the library (2011 Grammy nominees) plays. I've had the CD in my car seat for like 3 months. I am naughty, and need to return it. I almost just brought it back on Monday, but thought I'd give it one good listen. Started yesterday, 17 songs, but I haven't heard it the whole way through because I got stuck on this bittersweet Miranda Lambert song "The House that Built Me" and pressed replay about 50 times driving to and from work yesterday.

So the last song is playing and although I'm not really paying attention to it, I feel a little irritation prickling me just because it's not the voice I'm expecting with the words. It's a remake, remix. I don't know who is singing (Glee actors I discover later) and I really don't know whose song it is or what song it is. But it's not the kind of song I'm in the mood for. I almost skip it. Instead I settle in, jump on the highway, trying to get my sweaty hair to dry with the open windows. I find myself singing along and just before it ends I hear myself sing: "Don't stop believing..."

Are you kidding me? How did I not realize this was the song that came on immediately after I took that photo of the stop sign? Do messages really come like this? Clobbering one over the head? On red signs you must stop and read and just to make SURE you got it, belting out the same exact words on your car stereo?
I can't explain really what that moment felt like. A "Wow!" A "Really?" And then just my heart spilling open and crying these hopeful, happy, life affirming tears. Not the kind of tears I usually cry, believe me.
Good stuff.
I won't stop, if you don't...

PS If I move myself over to another blog, would you guys mind coming there instead? Just wondering.

Happy Pills

2011-06-07T17:43:00.001-04:00

and a comforting cat:

I miss you guys.

Nobody is not invited

2011-03-10T20:26:00.004-05:00

You Guys!

Man...

I'm so good at making messes.

I just closed the blog, shut 'er down for now... I didn't make it private. It's just that you can't close it without that dumb private message coming up (unless you delete the whole blog which I'm not ready to do), saying you have to be invited to read this blog. I explained all that in my last post, but my bff, who is super smart and has excellent reading comprehension (what were those SAT scores Kathy?) even emailed me thinking I had not invited her to read Bloom.
When I explained how horrified I was that she actually thought this, after I thought I explained it all very well in my last post, she said, "Well that post was really loooong..."
So I guess I wasn't clear.
I didn't do it right.
I'm sorry.
I guess I won't close Bloom right now, until I figure out something else.
I can't have people thinking I did not invite them (to something that isn't even happening).
So sorry for the confusion and anyone who had a second of feeling left out, please accept this gebera daisy and spider mum I bought myself last week and know I love you and would never be so rude. I mean, I'm amazed that anyone would come here at all and read me. Believe me, you're invited. All y'all. You're not just invited, you're thanked, for stopping by, ever. You're my buds.
Bloom on, spring is coming...
(and I might have something to say about that.)

PS If you don't know what I'm talking about, no worries. I closed the blog about a week ago and if you tried to visit it gave you a message about needing to be invited.

Toast and TV

2011-02-09T18:05:00.004-05:00

Who doesn't love the smell of toast?
It was in the air for some reason at work today, comforting me.
Make me toast and tea and I will love you forever.

Last night when I got home to my dark, chilly house, I plugged in the tiny white lights that snake around the plants, my globe, and flicked the TV on. I don't want to get into the habit of relying on the TV for company, switching it on the minute I get home for background noise. But I am struggling so much lately, with my aloneness, and the raw, roller coaster of dark emotions I can't seem to get off, the heaviness of living, getting up, doing, that should be, if not light, then at least bearable.

My gosh, nothing is WRONG. Why have I lived my whole life in such a deep grieving?

The sound of those friendly, happy, familiar TV voices washed over me like an old favorite song.
I have never felt such a pull of love and gratitude for an electronic device. Oh TV, thank you for being there, for talking to me, for making me feel less crazy and alone. The drone of the TV is home and company and safe. Thank you for your warm glow, your childhood, living room, mom's cooking smells wafting towards us, here comes another Brady Bunch episode, all is well feeling.

For a long while after Susie left, I'd put sports on while I puttered around the house, just to feel like she was still there, in the other room, cheering on her team.

I dreamt I was receiving holy communion. Except I couldn't figure out if I wanted it placed on my tongue or in my hands.
In waking life, my aunt's boyfriend sent me some kind of spiritual/Catholic newsletter. I almost recycled it 3 times. But that felt rude. He went through all the trouble of sending it.
I am not drawn to religion in any way. Lately most talk of Jesus and God all sound like Jehovah's witness, fantasy crap to me. It's not something I thought I'd want to read. But I left it by the toilet just in case. And well yeah, eventually I read it. And it spoke to me. I got goosebumps. I cried. The writer even quoted Mary Oliver. Talk about a hook. Geeze. Or should I say, Jesus?

I just kept thinking, damn it, don't tell me I'm going to have to start praying now. I don't want to be reborn or saved or whatever they call it.
But hell, I am trying so hard to find a way to wake up each day and want to actually be alive. Is this the path?
I don't want it to be. Will it kill me to try? To send a few words up on the wisps of the morning air, before my feet hit the floor, to ask for help and guidance and a peaceful heart? I suppose not. But why am I so resistant? Maybe I just don't want to do the work required to have some kind of relationship with the divine. Hard enough relating with the people down here.

So, my therapist is pissing me off in every way possible.
One thing we talked about a month or so ago was my blog.
Ever since then, I can't figure out what to do. She thinks I should close it. She says this because of the exposed feeling I brought to her.
She says I'm revealing much too much (she doesn't read it, this is just from what I report to her), am too vulnerable and should not be putting myself out there like that.
I get her.
But I don't think she gets me. Gets what the place means to me, how important it's become, how the connections I've made here help carry me through my first time ever living alone.
How it's really been the one creative thing I've actually committed to.

The blog started as a simple, fun place to post my gardening adventures, pictures of my silly pets. And now I'm talking about therapy and anxiety and Lesbianism.
I was so excited to have a home on the Internet when I started blogging that I gave the address to anyone who showed any interest. For a while I even had a link on my Facebook page. But maybe I shouldn't be sharing these things with people who are not sharing similarly with me?
Why am I doing this?

It's all Ms. Moon's fault. ;-)
Ever since I stumbled upon her glorious blog (thanks Kathy), and her readers' wonderful blogs, my writing has changed. I want to be more real, connect in deeper way. And I've never once felt too exposed to my blog readers who comment here, and those who write their own blogs that are so honest and deep and real. It's not about that.
You all are what has kept me going, believing, blooming, or at least not withering away.

I think that's why I started the Facebook gardening page. Move my gardening passion there while I figure out what I want to do here.
So, you might come here and fine the blog is private. It's not really private. I won't bother with the hassle of having people log in to visit me. So please don't feel like you haven't been "invited" to read the blog if that's what the page says. It just means I've stopped blogging, but don't want to give the address up to the spammers. I might just leave Bloom visible too, like a happy terrarium, and plant myself somewhere else. This time not indiscriminately handing out the address. I don't know yet. I don't want to make things too complicated. I have a tendency toward that.

What I do know is, I love the distant friends I've made through blogging and the local friendships that have deepened because of it. I love ALL the people who take the time to visit here and read, whether you comment or not. Of course the commenters have a special place in my heart, even if you've only commented once. So thank you all, for all of it.
I carry you with me, your unique voices and vision, your encouragement, your silliness and teasing.
I'm not ready to give that up.
I'll figure something out.
Thanks for bearing with me, and checking on me too.
I'm still here. I'm just paused. I wish I could fast forward through this part of my life, but I have to just hit the play button again and live it.
Got to stop whining and hiding and wishing it all away.

Dirt Nerds Unite

2011-01-15T14:31:00.000-05:00

Hi friends,
Are you a dirt nerd?
I think you are.
Come make mud pies with me.
Just created this Facebook community for messy, haphazard, but passionate gardners, new and seasoned.
Let's bloom together.
Would love to see you there.
Join me?

Light of the world

2011-01-02T13:24:00.004-05:00

shine on me...
and you all, Happy 2011!
My Dad got me this globe when I was in my teens. He was trying to get me interested in geography, history, the world beyond Seventeen Magazine. Poor guy was so excited about it and hyped it up as my big, special present. I think it cost him 100 bucks from Sharper Image. When I opened it, I was crushed. A globe? Seriously? I had to pretend I liked it.
Hey, look what I found, pictures from that Christmas day. See my less than thrilled smile? And oh, it has a booklet with it! I probably had to pretend to read it. (Check out the 80's hair and nail polish!)

But I came to love this globe. Because of the blue of all that ocean. And because it glowed. I clicked it on for comfort when darkness fell outside. My earth night light. I added a fuzzy turtle sticker, a swimming fish.

It broke somehow, ages ago and has been sitting in my basement. I moved here with it broken. I've been needing it's glow more and more lately, longing for it. I hauled it upstairs a few months ago and tried to fix it. No luck. It's like a puzzle, too complicated. Inside is a light and magnifying glass, and all kinds of parts and contraptions. Because it will point to any place on earth if you dial in the latitude and longitude. I don't need this. I just want the light. But you can't get the bulb to shine in there right if you don't assemble the pieces just so.

I've been thinking I might ask my friend Janet to tinker with it. She is skilled at things like this. Today my best friend from forever (who has lived far away forever) came for a visit and I thought, ah Kathy can help. She's a genius. Good at everything as far as I'm concerned. We took it apart and worked on it together and voila! Light of the world. I'm so happy. Something about it says home to me. My Dad would be pleased, even if I still don't know where Norway is.

Couple pics Kathy took of River with her new iphone. River sat on her lap purring away for a long while as Kathy pet her. River is not normally this cuddly. Was sweet.

I'll tell you what else is sweet, having your childhood friend over who expects nothing from you and is comfortable with silence and just covers herself up with your afghan and watches TV for a bit by the glow of the globe she remembers you getting one Christmas long ago, when your father was alive.

Kathy and me at my 12th birthday party. That's Fleegle the frog, gift from my mom.

At her first apartment.

Dresses! In front of my Dad's house.

On Block Island.

All I Want for Christmas

2010-12-24T14:22:00.001-05:00

This book was returned when I was working last night and I had to get a pic. I love that he is headless, like, nevermind that part. The little blurb says, "The best gifts can't be wrapped..." Oh dear.

Well, Happy, Happy Merry and Bright to all my sweet friends, near and far. I am so blessed to have you in my life. The world is a better place with you in it.

My first wreaths

2010-12-19T22:24:00.008-05:00

I don't decorate much for any holiday and am only now starting to understand the point. It always just felt like too much trouble, and too transient. Put the tree up, take it down. All in the blink of an eye. I don't need the emotional tug it stirs up: seasons passing, my life whipping by. And if I'm going to spend my money on decorative things, I'd rather buy something I can keep up year round.
Though I've always admired folks who do bother with it. I shake my head in wonder and delight at the people stringing lights around their trees and bushes, lining their snowman collection along the window sill, even setting up those crazy huge, float-like,balloon creatures, that they have to keep righting when the wind whips up. Lately I find these little acts moving and generous. We are all so insulated from each other normally. The holidays spill us out beyond our four walls. Because really, you are mostly inside when your house is lit up outside. The display is not really for your enjoyment so much as joining in with a communal decorating. You are sharing the magic, lighting the way for other people, cheering them on through the cold night as they drive by your color and glow.

Tagging, cutting down and decorating the Christmas tree was always a favorite holiday tradition for me as a child. But I have no children to make traditions with, and maybe that too is part of my struggle. I succumbed and put up the fake (horrors) table top tree up that Susie bought years ago. I've gone crazy and added all kinds of colored lights, fat and small, instead of my normal tiny, tasteful white. But I've got no ornaments hanging. No tinsel, no balls.

What I'm trying to say is: I made a wreath! I mean, I made TWO wreaths. I've been noticing wreaths more lately: the happy green, the circle, the bright bow, the welcome they make on a door. First time I've had a hankering for my own wreath. A wreath was always something my mother worried and got excited about. But, you know, I'm 40 now. Time to enter the wreath world. I've been secretly pricing them here and there. They want 15 bucks for a simple evergreen, 20 if it has pine cones. The decent sized, pretty ones are upwards of $40. No way I'm buying a wreath. I don't want one anyway, do I?

I remembered my aunt Liz telling me how simple it was to make a natural wreath. One Fall day a few years ago, we went foraging and were going to make Autumn wreaths. I bought the frames and the twine. But I never made the wreath. Last weekend I took a bag and clippers on my walk, and snipped here and there in wooded areas, thanking the trees and marveling at the different textures, shapes and colors. I fell in love with the bluish, soft needles from a felled tree deep in the woods behind my house. This weekend I just bunched up all that sweet smelling green and made these crazy wreaths.

It's funny, every year at the library we get a pretty wreath donated to us by The Apple Blossom Garden Club and when it's time to get rid of it, Maxine can't bear to throw the bow out. She carefully removes it from the wreath, and sets it in the back office where it usually stays until I say, "Uh, can I throw this out?" She says, "No." and brings it home. She was nice enough to not give me too hard of a time when I said last week, "Do you still have those bows?"

The first one I made turned out to be a monster. Was supposed to be for the front door but it didn't really fit. When I finished tying on the bunches of greens in a circle, I thought it looked ridiculous, too crazy, messy and out of control. I thought I might be wreathless again this year. But once I added the cones and berries and bows, it came alive (Frosty! Happy Birthday wreath!) The smell intoxicated me. And the fact that I actually finished a project and had something to show for it made my entire weekend. Wreath joy. I have tiny, white battery operated lights on it too.

Whipped up the one below for the back door. Ran out of berries and maybe the pine cones are too big and wonky. But so what. Thanks for indulging me.

I'm so thrilled about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Ask! Tell!
Serve your country with all the Pride you deserve to feel.
Sing Hallelujah.

In Treatment

2010-12-04T15:16:00.003-05:00

Watching In Treatment Season 2. Been waiting for it since I finished the first season over a year ago. But it's 2 in the afternoon on a sunny Saturday and I should be outside cleaning up the backyard, taking a walk, or at least working on the rabbit rescue calendar while I've got the laptop in front of me.

My love affair with wine was short lived. I liked it too much, one week I was having a glass every other night. I loved the fuzzy, stumbling, sleepy feeling. I loved the light, sort of, I don't give a fuck feeling. Everything bad or difficult just fell away. So I stopped. I'm smack dab in the middle of a huge shift emotionally and I can't numb it. I've been numbing my emotions/anxiety with food and sleep my whole life. So no more wine for now, but I have a new electric blanket and I feel hedonistic. All I've wanted to do since I put it on the bed two nights ago is crawl in and toast myself. The cold is here to stay and I've got to find a way to enter it.

I think I was a fat, lazy cat in another life where I rolled in cat nip, ate and slept and was called sweet names and loved on whenever I needed. Because that seems to be all I really want out of life. Set the bowl of crunchy kibble down and leave me alone. Fluff my blanket and give me the spot in the sun. Tell me how cute I am, how happy you are to see me, let me rub up against you, but don't try to pick me up, don't try to hold me, and watch out for the claws. I will jump on your lap and dig in, and I don't know how to let go.

Anyhow, I don't think I should be watching a marathon of shows about therapy. All this sadness and desperation. But if I want to waste my day in front of the TV, my other option is the last season of The L Word, and God knows I don't need to get lost in that world right now. It will just confuse me even more.

Hmm. Weird that I brought these two shows home for the weekend. I didn't even realize this till now, but the two things I talked about in therapy last night were my life of therapy and my life of confusion about my sexuality. My therapist left me waiting longer than usual, in her new waiting room, Bonnie Raitt on the stereo, "I can't make you love me if you don't... "one of the saddest song in the universe. And something hit me as I sat there, how I've spent so much of my life sitting in these rooms waiting for some woman to come get me, wanting them to love me and save me and somehow make my life bearable. I wasn't feeling sorry for myself so much as just feeling like I need to stop. I need to be done with it. Not with the waiting rooms or the therapist. But with thinking SHE can give me that love I crave, that she can fix me, or somehow make me feel real.

So we talked about this and that somehow led to the other stuff, the Lesbian confusion since college. Ever since 5th grade when my parent's divorced I'd been seeking something in older women, teachers mostly, but even older girlfriends (in the strictly friend sense of the word). But it never felt sexual or in love. I didn't have a boyfriend throughout high school, but I never worried that I was gay. I just felt fat and weird and removed. But my father used to blindside me at the strangest times by bursting out with, "Are you gay Bethy?"

"No Dad."

"You can tell me."

"But I'm not."

And I meant it.

"It's okay, just tell your father the truth."

On and on barraging me.

I suppose when Susie and I moved in together he finally shut up.

The dogs are here.

Okay you guys talked me into it, I'll go for a walk.

Hope your weekend is merry and bright.

This made me smile, sitting on a table at the house I clean.

I fell in love tonight

2010-11-25T23:32:00.002-05:00

My cousin was dog sitting this 4 month old Bull Terrier. Love is blind. If you'd asked me before I met him which breed of dog I thought was the least attractive, I would've said this one. But oh, he wiggled his way right into my heart. And when you pet his aerodynamic face there's no stopping, snout to back in one fell swoop. Dreamy. He's also got these sly, kind of flirty eyes. He's a Casanova, what can I say. When he came busting out of the crate right to me, wiggling his whole body, I said, "Oh my boyfriend!" Really, it was that fast.

I dug around in my car trunk and found this huge, squeaker, tennis ball material covered bone. He was in HEAVEN. He didn't know what to do with himself, he was so thrilled. He lapped around the inside of the house like 25 times carrying it like a prize. He squeaked and shook it. I love that my family just let him squeak it forever, over and over. It was so loud and no one complained. They were all just happy he was happy.

And I just needed some doggie lovins, some puppy energy, some softness, some silliness, some rest from my crazy mind.

I don't know why I bonded with him so deeply. I don't usually fall so head over heals for other people's dogs. Maybe because he was so new to the world, and not with his family. Maybe because I miss my dogs so much. He also just had that kind of pit bull magnetism. So tough looking but a teddy bear inside. I felt like his mama for that time we were together. I hope whoever he belongs to takes good care of him for the rest of his life. I miss him already.

Oh, here's my brother Adam. I guess the foreheads run in the family. He lives in California. I rarely see him. I heard him telling my cousins he was going to put on a dog costume to get my attention. Lots of Bethany/dog jokes floated by as I romped around with Spike. Did I mind? Hell no. People are alright, but you know, DOGS are pure joy, and you don't have to make conversation. I was at my housekeeping all morning, on top of lots of driving and just wanted to chill. (Plus he licked my ENTIRE face. None of this quick peck on the cheek stuff.) My family is wonderful though. I felt grateful for them all day long.

You can learn a lot about a person by watching them interact with a dog. I loved that my cousin's boyfriend made sure to mop up AND disinfect the area where Spike slobbered water all over. I loved how my aunt Judie and Mom seemed to delight in watching me play with him. And auntie Liz who got bit by a dog when she was a child, and has been terrified of them for years, ended up on the floor with Spike stretched out and fast asleep between her long legs.

I have barely any photos from tonight. My camera phone sucks anyhow, as you can tell. But my young cousins took about a thousand and I'm sure they are being uploaded to Facebook as we speak.

Below Aunt Judie kicking ass in Scrabble.

Oh and guess what? Happy Thanksgiving to me. The woman who fired me was still at her condo when I got there today. We had a talk and she offered me once a month instead of nothing. She said she panicked on Sunday when she got back from her impromptu Mexican vacation and if she cuts out one time with her personal trainer and one of her manicures (!) she can afford me. What a blessing for me to get his news today. I wonder if she would have offered it if I hadn't showed up. I almost didn't go this one last time, I mean it was Thanksgiving. And I am tired. Working tomorrow and Sat. I wanted to say F it. But I showed up. And she seemed like she just thought it all out right then, after seeing me. I've got to remember to show up more.

Hey, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope your blessings felt near.

One less chick to pick up after...

2010-11-21T19:00:00.004-05:00

I get this, how-dare-I-blog feeling, when I haven't yet been able to visit all my blog friends, all the wonderful, thoughtful people who take the time to not only stop here, but comment. I mean how much longer will people understand that I'm harried and unsettled and overwhelmed? Isn't everyone? I feel like I shouldn't show up here if I can't show up anywhere else. But we've all had this conversation before, right? Blogging is really first and foremost just a journal for ourselves and really needs to be guilt free and natural and not all wrapped up in expectations and worries.

Still, I feel somehow like my taking/getting too much and not giving back enough is finally catching up with me. I was in the yard today, after my first walk where I had to wear winter gloves (brrrr), cutting down dead flower stalks and vines, raking little piles of leaves, taking phone photos of the few little gifts nature had hidden away for me, when I thought about my Dear Universe letter. And how it's seven months later and somehow I am still living in my house. I thought, well it's past time to write the Universe a thank you letter isn't it, Bethany? I am HORRIBLE about thank you cards. I think they are important and valuable and necessary. I have lists EVERYWHERE, even on my phone, of people I want to thank with a card. Actually, I think about it so much, that I eventually start to believe I must have sent the person a card. But I barely ever get to it, because it has to be handmade and my God, I can barely get out of bed each morning and feed my pets and myself. I don't make time to create. If I have any energy left over after work and my commute and animal care, I clean the bathroom or rake or go food shopping. I took these pictures in some kind of gratitude to the universe. I have been half awake, stuck in a bad place emotionally for the last few weeks and just today, just then, outside in the cold, started to breathe better than I have in a long while. Started to think maybe I'll be okay.

And THEN, I sat down to catch my breath and received a TEXT (I'm astounded that she texted this to me) from one of the women I clean for, telling me she can "no longer retain my services due to financial difficulties." Oh.
Oh.
Shit.
I depend on this money to pay my mortgage. Well actually to pay for everything else after I pay my mortgage. It's also my easy cleaning job. I think if it was the other woman calling, with 2 bathrooms, 2 dining rooms, 2 living rooms, the dreaded canister vacuum and glass shelving and tables everywhere, I might have been a little relieved. But cleaning for this woman has been mostly a breeze. I know about God opening a window when a door closes (thanks Mom), I believe in that. I do. I do. But I'm a little panicky right now. I have no savings. I live from check to check. As I dumped wheel barrow full of summer, I thought well, I won't have to clean on Thanksgiving at least. But then I got the rest of her text saying she would pay me for that one last time. Okay. Good.

Susie just gave me cat food and half of her toilet paper and paper towel packs. I have at least half a tank of furnace oil.The car is gassed up for the week. Free meals Wed night and Thursday.
I will figure something out. I have to.
I just don't WANT to.
It's hard for me to have faith in myself. This sort of thing just throws me into that, Oh-My-God-what-was-I- thinking place. That I-should-stop-pretending-to-be-an-adult place. I know times are tough for everyone. I hope I don't sound whiny. I'm just stunned. I thought I was set for the winter at least, as long as I could keep getting to my jobs.
That condo was a sweet gig for me. Energy wise, I'm not sure if I can manage another big house (like my other one), and doubt I can get paid as well.

Ugh.
Remember to send out your thank you cards.

Dear Universe,
Thank you for helping me keep my house, so far.
Really. A lot.
I'm open to any new ideas. Preferably ones that don't involve a toilet wand.
Love and gratitude,
Bethany

Coffee break

2010-11-19T11:52:00.001-05:00

at my housecleaning job

thx thx thx

2010-11-10T16:17:00.004-05:00

From this glorious blog, thx thx thx, a thank you note a day by Leah Dieterich. Yesterday, a patron friend asked me how things were going with the house, by myself. Being cranky and tired, I don't know what all I said, if I sounded ungrateful or if she just wanted to cheer me, but she asked if I'd ever read thx thx thx. I checked it out and was instantly smitten. I love everything about this blog: the brilliant but simple concept, the beautiful handwriting, the honesty, the fresh slices of a life, the wit, the kindness, the big love and of course the gratitude... I can't stop reading these fabulous notes. And to think, I get to look forward to a new one each day.

How magical for me really, since I was just thinking about writing a blog post about notes. One of the things I miss terribly are the notes Susie left me regularly, even when we were not "together" anymore. Sometimes I unknowingly leave a piece of paper on the kitchen table in the exact place were we left our notes to each other. In the morning, when I come around the corner, sleepy and grumpy, I spy the paper waiting there and my heart leaps, thinking it's a note for me, from her. No, just a reminder to myself to get cat litter.

I suppose that's one of the reason blog comments are so thrilling and meaningful, they are little love/like notes, encouragement and kindness, wisdom and silliness all wrapped up in a little paragraph just for me.

I'm picking up the dogs tonight. I have tomorrow off. I'm only taking them every other week now. I couldn't stand the roller coaster of emotions every week. I wasn't able to settle into my real life. I felt like all I was doing was making plans with Susie to meet up, to pick up and drop off. Caught up in the excitement of seeing them, but then plunging into the missing and empty quiet when they left. I hope they understand. I know animals have a much different sense of time than we do. I miss my boys. I know it doesn't compare, but this whole experience has given me a much better understanding, empathy and awe for parents who divorce and share children. I can't even imagine the ache and difficulty, the adjustment and tenacity of everyone involved.

Anyhow, thank you dear, friendly, Bloom visitors who make the time and effort to leave me a note and thank you Leah for your lovely blog.

PS I emailed Leah to ask if I could use her images and she was super nice. I wuv her.

Godfather of Brooklyn Pizza

2010-11-06T12:44:00.000-04:00

The blog world is funny, you can get lost (and found) so easily. For me, all things usually start at Bless Our Hearts, I like to go blog hopping from there. I think I went from there to here (how can I not click on a post labeled Gourd Hoarders?) and then to here (blog about spending 30 bucks a week for 2 people on groceries). In any case, I love pizza and I adored this video, especially the shot of the man's shuffling shoes on the old flour strewn floor. It is a dance. And he's right, if you don't like what you do, why do it? Of course it's never that simple for most of us. But good to think on.

The Best Thing I Ever Done HQ from MargaretEmily MacKenzie on Vimeo.

Buzz

2010-11-05T22:17:00.004-04:00

I only just now realized I have a huge forehead. Klingon huge. I noticed it in another photo which I'm too vain to post. Oh well, there are worst things. Like having to wait 90 days, after your partner of 10 years moves out, to drink a damn glass of wine. Okay, that wasn't so bad either, since I've never drank (drunk? drinked? drankeded?) much. But just before she left, I was starting to enjoy that occassional, warm, fuzzy buzz on the weekends, that escape from all the overwhelm, stress, drama, obsessive, scary thoughts/feelings.

Therapist said, "No more wine, wait at least 90 days after Susie moves out." Because I was wanting the escape too much, craving it. This was going to be hard enough without developing an alcohol dependency and dragging out all the processing/grief I needed to do/feel because I was numbing it every weekend. When I joked that I didn't think a person could become an alcoholic at 40, she didn't think it was funny and said, "With your family history, I wouldn't fool around with it."

Well, hell.

I said, "But isn't it okay to have a glass of wine like every couple weeks/months or so on the weekends?"

She said "Yes, sure, but wait 90 days."

Crap.

That seemed so far away. So long to wait for just a little relief, for my new buzz joy.

(Because of my father, I did not touch alcohol for most of my life.)

It would be cold in 90 days. It would be NOVEMBER.

It IS November.

And just the other night we had the first hard frost.

It's 90 days baby.

Since I don't have dinner guests and don't usually drink, I had no real wine glasses, had been using a champagne glass. So I bought myself one big wine goblet at the Salvation Army a couple weekend ago in preparation. I almost bought two, imagining actually having a guest to drink with. Then I thought, nah, not yet. Just one for now. Just me.

It's been a rough week.

It's been a rough 90 days.

Stopped at the liquor store after therapy. I don't even really know what kind of wine I like. I drink it so rarely I can never remember. Bought a bottle of Pinot Noir. Sounds fancy and maybe a little naughty. It's tasty and pretty in my new glass. Do I feel pathetic, home alone on a Friday night sipping a glass of wine, singing to my cats and rabbits, dancing around in my jammies and fuzzy pink socks? Nope. Not tonight. Tonight I feel free.

Orgasmic toothpaste

2010-10-24T14:49:00.005-04:00

"Sherbert Fizz" Calendula, still blooming.

Justin just emailed and said his travel photos in the NYT are postponed until next week. Sorry. That's what I get for bragging before the fact. To make up for it, here's a picture finally of my green room, that you all talked me though painting. I think I was waiting until it looked "more better," until I added wall art, cool throw rugs, funky things on the shelves. Waiting till I could photograph the whole room. I've got an old sewing desk I'd like to paint (or have Elyse paint). I wish I had real end tables, real furniture, a headboard even. But hey, I've got a bed and a green room and my pretty curtains. I like it in there. And so do the cats.

Murph chilling out before I moved the futon. Sorry so dark.

Thank you for all your wonderful, supportive comments from my last blog post. I don't blog about therapy much, even though it's so central to my life. It's too close to the bone for me and I'm super sensitive. When I was 19, a therapist I trusted with my very raw and confused heart, shattered it to pieces. Maybe I'm lucky that I haven't felt a pain worse than that since. But it's made for a strange existence, carrying around this wound that can only be healed by sitting, week after week, across from someone I pay, can only be healed by trusting in the same exact way that broke me. Though now that I write it, that's what any love-gone-wrong does, right? You're heart gets broken and if you don't want to stay in the broken/grieving place, or shut down that part of yourself, you have to trust again. Most people go through this cycle with lovers, I do it with therapists. What's happening though is, I'm finally getting THROUGH it, coming out the other side, 20 years and a hand full of therapists later. No one knew what to do with me. This woman knew exactly what.

I've been wanting to tell you about this toothpaste, you Tom's of Maine lovers can just walk away now, you won't understand. They had trial sizes of Aquafresh toothpaste at the Lake Tahoe Hyatt. I brought the rest of my little tube home with me just to be thrifty. Susie always bought us Colgate for Sensitive Teeth and I was happy enough with that. She made sure we had enough toothpaste and that our toothbrushes were replaced during the recommended interval. If it wasn't for Susie, I'd be using the same toothbrush and probably the same sponge I bought when we moved in here 5 years ago. She stocked the sponges too. I am carrying on her vigilance.

So, I didn't really notice this while I was at the wedding, but this toothpaste is orgasmic. I'm not kidding. Though I may be the only one that has this experience with it. I've since gone out and bought a twin pack. I have a strange addiction to peppermint and menthol. I would huff gasoline, markers and old fashioned Lysol, if it didn't kill brain cells. When I was a kid, after church, we'd stop at the Village Pharmacy for a treat. My brothers chose candy, soda or baseball cards. I got a pack of Halls, an Erasure Mate pen and maybe some grape Hubba Bubba. If I didn't get the Halls, I got peppermint lifesavers or a big bag of white Canada mints. Bliss. I could never just suck on this stuff either, I crunched it all to bits in no time fast. One after the other, chain smoking style.

I've never had a thing for toothpaste though. It's just a chore, not an EXPERIENCE. Until now. Maybe it's the "micro-active foaming action", I don't know. I don't really care what is in that paste. I just know it wakes up my entire mouth and I have to make myself stop brushing. It's not just a clean mouth thing though, it's like how I imagine snorting coke might feel, or like those York Peppermint Patty commercials, "Get the Sensation..." Menthol buzz I guess. Not much thrills me lately, but twice a day you can find me in the bathroom, brushing all my troubles away. Do not disturb.

Photos from yesterday morning. Maury and Murphy.

I made my therapist cry

2010-10-22T21:41:00.006-04:00

If any of you all get the New York Times or pass by one in your travels this weekend, my youngest brother Justin (Mott) did a travel story for the NYT travel section in a remote part of northern Vietnam that should be out sometime this weekend. It's the cover story and he thinks he's going to get a pretty good spread. I taught him everything he knows (okay, not really, but I did make him lots of grilled cheese sandwiches).

I made my therapist cry tonight. Not cry as in, hurt her feelings, but cry as in, moved her. If there were a video game of the client/therapist interaction, this rare happening would give the client double mega bonus points, make them untouchable, invincible for at least the rest of that level, surrounded by a glowing, protective aura. Each therapist tear = a shiny gold coin in your pocket, ching ching ching.

It's probably wrong that I feel happy when I make my therapist cry. But I do. I feel cared about and loved. And too, it's proof that she is a real, live person with her own emotions and they don't cease to exist when she comes to work. Plus, you know, they should cry sometimes, to even it out a little. For god sakes, I've cried an ocean.

She cried because I thanked her. I've thanked her a million times for helping me, for being so brilliant and wise and patient. For giving me so much of her time and energy. For listening to and hearing me in a way no one ever has, for thinking so hard about me, for helping me untangle this impossible knot. I've also told her what an evil, horrible, cold bitch she is. How mean and removed and heartless. How she keeps tricking me into thinking things are going to be okay. How she does not get me AT ALL. So, I don't think she takes any of my wildly fluctuating emotions toward her very seriously, or I should say, very personally. She knows I'm just doing that projection/transference stuff. I'm a pro at that. She is never really herself. She is my mother, my father, all my past therapists, the parts of me I despise, and just the big swirl of confusion, grief and fear I've been carrying around my whole life.

Poor Deb.

But lately, she is more herself. I allow her to be. I SEE her. She feels that. We both do. Something is shifting. After almost 4 years, I am finally letting her in. Usually we are in this ping pong game where I just bounce things back at her. I can't really see or HEAR her (Of course I had no idea I was doing this). When I need her most, I refuse to hear what she's actually saying and misconstrue everything she says/does, so I let my real pain become about her instead of what it's really about. It's all pretty fucked up. But it's exactly what we are trying to fix or heal or redo. Something that got skewed developmentally/relationally a very long time ago.

And so tonight, at the end of a particularly revelatory and honest session, I paused and tried to simply thank her, to tell her how much it meant to me that she knew how to do this so well, to sit with me over and over through all this crazy stuff, to work incredibly hard on my behalf. I didn't know how to say it without sounding syrupy and cliche and clingy (she doesn't like when I do clingy/needy. Which is a shame, because I do it REALLY well). I thought she might just thank me back, kind of stiffly. Brush it off like she does sometimes when I'm over emoting. I barely got out a sentence when I looked up to see if she understood what I was trying to say, and her eyes were filled to the brim. This woman is tough. She is not one of these leaning forward, looking at you with empathy and mommy nurturing softness therapists. She's no nonsense. She works hard and expects you to work hard. She tells it like it is. She doesn't let me get away with anything. I'll never forget when she told me, "Feelings are just feelings, you never make your decisions based on feelings."
Huh?
She worked in the prison system for years, mostly with men, and even published a book about it.

It wasn't just a quick little red eye moment. She let herself just sit there and feel whatever she was feeling. She didn't wipe it away or move to get up or try to say something back. She sat there and showed me with her stillness and tears that she took in and felt what I was saying. That she felt too the power of it, of the work we've done, the relationship we have, the bond. The more I talked, struggling to thank her properly, the more teary she got. Wow.

It was weird.
It was perfect.
It was nice and connecting and real.
Bonus points all around.

Grind and brew, baby

2010-10-11T12:34:00.007-04:00

It's Monday morning, 9:50am and I've settled myself back in bed with CSI on the tube and a cup of steaming hot, chocolate raspberry coffee beside me. Thank you Columbus for this day off. Not feeling well. Horrible headache, cold sore starting, crampy, bleck. I need to mow and rake. The yard is covered in leaves and the gutters are full too. I broke the rake last weekend when I was trimming the hedges, slipped on the sea of pine needles covering the ground and used the rake to catch myself, snapped it in half. These are the things that happen to me when I try to do chores I don't like to do. Saturday, while I was finishing up the hedges (I have crazy, mad hedges on this property), I sliced the extension cord in two with the trimmers and blew a fuse. Whatever. I have to just laugh at it. The universe is always trying to teach me patience and humility. It also tends to reward me when I've tried my best.

For instance: in May of 2008 I wrote a blog post entitled The Gimmies where I was coveting this super cool coffee maker my friend Maureen had: the Cuisinart Grind and Brew Thermal. Programmable coffee maker that grinds your beans right before it makes your coffee. And the carafe is thermal, so the coffee maker shuts off and coffee stays piping hot for hours and hours. Also has a charcoal filter so your water is super clean and fresh tasting. For a while I checked on it every time I went to Kohl's, but even when I got the 30% off coupon, I couldn't justify the price. Started at $150. That's insane for a coffee maker. I finally let the idea of it go. Actually, I've been trying to drink more tea, thinking maybe I need to back off on the coffee a bit.

Well so, what do I spy at the last table I was perusing at the flea market yesterday? Yup, Cuisinart: Grind and Brew THERMAL (my mom has the regular Grind and Brew, everything else the same except no thermal carafe, much less expensive, but of course I wasn't settling for that). I could hardly believe my eyes. Is that REALLY the thermal carafe? Tried not to jump up and down. Tried not to pick up the carafe and cradle it like a baby. I almost blurt out that it's worth over 100 bucks. I casually asked the elderly woman who was now sitting in her van how much she wanted for it. 20 bucks. I know I should not be spending 20 bucks on a coffee maker. In fact, today I also have to sit down and reconfigure my budget because I have it all messed up and am not doing well at all.

I hate haggling. My brother Adam LOVES it. He will haggle for everything and gets amazing prices on all sorts of items you'd never think you could haggle for. But you have to do that at these places, it's expected. I offer her 10. No, she couldn't sell it for that. It even has a new filter, she tells me. It looks brand new. I wonder if it even works. I will never see this person again. I take the risk, offer her 15. I think, even if the grinder doesn't work, I will still have my thermal carafe.

I get it home, clean the parts, run some vinegar through, find the manual online, program for the am. And voila, delicious hot coffee waiting for me when I woke up this morning. Beans! This opens up a whole new world for me. There's nothing quite like the sound and feeling of scooping out whole beans from the little coffee bag, is there? They say the coffee tastes fresher, more like coffee house coffee when you grind your own. The cafe up the road sells their own flavored beans. Remember that old, discrete commercial for feminine deodorizer or douche or something like that? Mom and daughter walking on the beach, daughter says shyly, "Mom, sometimes I just don't feel fresh."

"Filter the coffee water, honey. Grind your own beans."

Ah. Better.

I didn't take many pictures at the flea market. I felt like I was watching an episode of Hoarders. So much STUFF. Junk. And the interactions between buyers and sellers was disturbing sometimes, hostile almost. Though others were casual and fun. I mostly had friendly, good transactions. But I was only spending a quarter here, a dollar there. This one guy though stopped me in my tracks with his artsy, little booth and amazing sea glass jewelry designs.

He was working right there, etching into the sea glass with his diamond cutting tools. I wish I'd taken some closer photos of the actual jewelry. Gorgeous chunks of sea glass, made into necklaces and earrings. Ocean swirls etched into the sea smoothed bottle glass. Right now, I don't see that he's got much of the sea glass up on his Etsy site: Ocean Alchemy: unique jewelry inspired by the Sea. So I can't even show you the detail. The booth was so creative and fun, you can't really get a sense of it by my quick phone photos. The man was super friendly, mellow, sweet. He said the whole structure folds up into a box. Imagine being able to unpack such a place? I could almost smell the ocean brine, feel the sea breeze the minute I stepped into its aura. Took me right to the seaside, walking downtown Block Island, or what I imagine Boardwalks used to feel/look like.

He framed himself in his art, with this magical driftwood, icons of things that made him happy, and lovingly painted letters. What if we all had a little booth we could unpack and set up to represent ourselves? What colors would you paint yours, what would the lettering say, would it be hand drawn, stenciled, printed out from the computer? What sort of trinkets would you hang, what quotes sprinkled here and there, what keepsakes, would you have music playing, would we be able to see YOU through the frame? What would you sell, give away or share? I'd love to see/hear more about your booths. You know what I mean right, a little box, remember Lucy's? That might be a fun project for an art journal, draw out the frame and decorated it (I'm imagining yours already Kim!)

Here, I'll show you my before and after monster hedges. Thankfully, Susie helped me trim them last weekend, but I feel like I've got a grip on it now. I just have to do it over a period of a few days or my arms will fall off. Who knows, maybe I will get buff over the winter with my elastic band workout thingies. If I don't hurt myself with them.

I'm sad to say, I think it's time to bring in the plants I want to overwinter. It's been mild during the day, but I saw on the news that frost is on its way. I rarely watch the news, so knowing me I will miss the warning and lose all my tenders. Look what's blooming again, gebera I found on the "half dead, save me for $1.00" rack at Lowe's a few months back.

Zebra grass.

Tonto pumpkin, seeds from Johnny's.

Still blooming

2010-10-05T10:40:00.002-04:00

When I was emailing with my photographer friend, Babs B., in early September, she noted that most of her flowers had gone by. I stepped outside my house and felt like I was smack dab in the middle of July. Some of these pictures were taken a couple weeks ago, mid September. But most of the flowers are still blooming on this chilly October day. Sometimes being a late bloomer (late seed starter) has it's perks. Glorious, colorful blooms, just when I needed them most.

I really missed most of the summer, lost in my break up drama with Susie, trying to figure out how to keep the house, well, first, even if I wanted to. I'm still not sure it's the right choice. But I'm here. I'm trying. Sorry I've been MIA. Having a difficult time adjusting to this new life. It all hit me head on when I came back from my brother's wedding. It's just me, and the cats and this house, way out in the boonies. I'm starting to come out of the fog though, I think.

Happy October everyone. I am going to visit you soon. I'm trying, little by little. I miss you.

Back to reality

2010-09-16T23:16:00.007-04:00

My magic wand?

"I bought a ticket to the world,

but now I've come back again..."

Cleaning today. Went much better than last time when um, I had to vacuum the condo in my underwear. The toilet leaked as I was sitting my fat ass on it, checking email on my phone. The first time I used the bathroom there, I discovered the toilet did this if you leaned back. The connecting pipe starts dripping and soon you have a puddle. But I forgot. I was exhausted and that's where I was taking my break. I was so out of it, I didn't realize what was happening until the whole bathroom was flooded with water, the bottoms of my pants dripping. I shuffled/rushed into the laundry room for towels, my pants still around my ankles. I panicked, but realized it was just water, I'd caught it. I could just throw my pants in the dryer as I finished up.

Except, this woman has one of those fancy new front loading washers which I assumed was the dryer and so I actually SOAKED my pants. I was cleaning at a later time than usual, because I had my book group in the evening at the library. Her son's football gear was by the door and it was about time for school to let out. I kept thinking, Holy God, what if he comes home while I'm running this obnoxiously loud vacuum cleaner and I don't hear him? What if the grandfather brings him home (this happened once) (and I clean their house too), and he sees me with in my granny undies, with my ass in the air, washing the floor? They will think I have some strange fetish. I will be fired from both jobs and lose my house.

And as I caught glimpses of myself in the mirrors, (these families LOVE glass and mirrors), strangely half naked in someone else's house, and kept turning toward the door, checking, my adrenaline pumping, cleaning as fast as I could, I thought, yikes, I wonder if this is how people develop fetishes? Circumstances makes them do something odd and out of the ordinary and it gives them a rush, in my case making me clean much faster than normal, and sooner than soon, I'm rushing to my house cleaning jobs, shutting the front door behind me, grabbing my feather duster and stripping down to my undies. Woo hoo! Yeah, no. Don't worry. It was awful actually. I couldn't wait to get out of there (avec pants).

This time she had absolutely NO toilet paper or Kleenex in the house anywhere, so no fear of my resting too long on her jon.

I gave Maury a phone book to destroy in his cage today. I have to go clean that. Dishes piled up. I've got the dogs too. I haven't had a chance to breathe really since I've been back. Tomorrow, after work, I hope I can take a walk. Raining now. I love falling asleep to the sound of rain.

How can one be completely transformed and utterly the same?

How can you just fall back into your life when it's been constructed in a way that keeps you hidden and stagnant?

Can the turtle ever stop ducking into his shell?

Feeling very strange, like I was in an unreality, a fog of real life that wasn't really real.

Bethany how she wishes she was.

I got a glimpse. But how do you keep it?

My mind calmed down when I was out there, and it's back to letting in all the nonsense.

In no time flat, I am obsessive and anxious. And so much of the things back here, that were distracting me and making me feel half decent and connected, don't feel right anymore. I don't want to see my therapist, because I don't want to be that person again. I want to be the person who sits with her brother in a bar as he watches football and eats his vegan lunch and shares his french fries. I want to be the person who dances in her bare feet. Who swims under the stars. Who can actually talk to her brothers' cool and beautiful friends. Who wears disco inferno purple on her toes.

Okay, the truth is, I just want to be the person who gets her bed made for her every morning. That was ace.

Damn.

I'm sure I'll figure it out.

But the purple is chipping already.

I was no Cinderella, though I did step out of the soot for the Ball,

for a bit.

I just saw this amazing Cinderella pumpkin on this beautiful local gardening blog: Ledge and Gardens. I think I'll try growing those next year.

The rest of the song I was listening to on Pandora as I cleaned:

With a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue

dissolve the nerves that have just begun.
Listening to Marvin (all night long.)
This is the sound of my soul,
this is the sound.
Always slipping from my hands,
sand's a time of its own.
Take your seaside arms and write the next line.
Oh I want the truth to be known.

Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.
Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.

I bought a ticket to the world,
but now I've come back again.
Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
Oh I want the truth to be said.

Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.
Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.

These sheer curtains fluttered in the breeze around Adam and Nicole as they said their vows.

My kitchen table with two baby pumpkins I grew.

Wedding rehearsal

2010-09-11T04:35:00.002-04:00

Not the best photos, but can't resist sharing these of all of us: mom, brothers and my soon to be sister-in-law. Nicole is as sweet as she is beautiful. Course my brothers still act like they are 8 when being photographed. Mayem. They better behave for the wedding.

Mom, Justin, Nicole, Aam, Andy, Me.

Where's Waldo?

2010-09-10T18:17:00.008-04:00

Well friends, I scored some Xanax (thank you, you know who you are). But even that didn't seem to do much when I gave it a test drive the day before my flight. I was panicking. Emailed therapist. She said, "Yeah, I didn't think it would do much for you." Are you serious? She's the one who told me that, yes going on this trip was WAY out of my range, but she thought I could do it IF I got some anxiety meds. So, what, do I have super power anxiety/craziness? I am immune? None of these special pills can stop/help it? Still, it must've done something, because I somehow got myself on the plane. I doubled up with the Klonopin hoping for the long term effects of that. It mostly worked. I love my brother and his fiance. I love my family. Of course I want to celebrate this special occasion with them. I have 3 siblings, wonderful brothers, and none of us are married or have children, even though the youngest of us is 32. This is a big deal. My brothers and my best friend have lived out in California for over 10 years and I've never come out here. That's right, I said HERE, because I'm HERE! I've never even seen a mountain in real life. I'm not kidding you.

But I could not have done this if it was just for him. I have bowed out of so many functions, adventures, important moments in the lives of people I love deeply because of my fear and anxiety, my physical distress symptoms/agoraphobic stuff. I had to do this for me. Even that has never worked, especially that. I KNOW I don't want to be this way, to live like this, but I haven't been able to help/change it. I've read a million books on feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I know all the quotes. I have been fighting a losing battle with this stuff since I was 17 years old, stuck in this pattern for so so long. My crazy thinking is the rut the wheels of my life fit right into. You think you are going along driving down this old worn path, but you're not really going anywhere. You just get older and the rut gets deeper and you stay exactly where you were emotionally as a messed up teenager. You are sitting still in your comfortable car with your irrational fears, and your provisions. People (thank God for patient friends and family) slide in and out of the passenger seat to keep me company, to say hello, to keep me in this world, buckled in I guess, and my view out the window ain't that bad. I can see my garden and my sweet pets. I even get to drive to the library and be around books and nice (mostly) patrons and sweet workmates. But it's not a life. It's not living. I make some strides, I venture out a bit and then just fall right back into hiding. But hell, I've worked my ass off in therapy for the last 4 years (not counting all the therapy in my 20s) and I needed a damn vacation. I feel so stressed with all the extra duties at home, more hours at work, cleaning jobs, etc... Been feeling super grouchy with the patrons at the library. I feel so demanded upon and overwhelmed, and it's really not a difficult job. I wanted out of my life, and I wanted to show myself that I CAN. I am the queen of baby steps, but I never leap. And sometimes the leap is what you need to really change your perspective, your life, your messy insides, all the nonsense that makes you miserable and stuck and desperate. I'm FORTY. It's time.
I am tired of saying "fuck everything, it doesn't matter, this is just how I am." It does matter. My life matters, my self matters, these people who I love and who love me matter.

You should have seen the smiles and surprise on my brothers' faces when we pulled up at the hotel. And the hugs I got. Amazing. I'm so lucky and blessed in a million ways. So many people helped me get here, you all included. I'm not kidding. It takes a village to get Bethany to move out of her safety zone.

This morning, I got up before my mom and aunt and wrangled my bathing suit back on (spent last night swimming in the heated pool under the stars, and jumping in and out of the hot tub while everyone else went to dinner). Added bonus, my brother Justin (all the way from Vietnam) surprised me, cut me in line for coffee, hugged me, paid for my coffee and banana, and told me everyone was in the lobby getting ready for their bike ride. So I got to see my brother and his crew and wave them off, take some photos. They were all in their mountain biking gear, for the "Mountain Bike Ride with the Groom" morning. My aunt Wendy and Uncles Jon from Maine were there too.

I was desperate to get near the lake. Meandered across the street. No one was in the water. I've been asking around if it's still swimming season. Everyone says, "Oh no, no one swims now." See that last line? It's true. But I'm a New Englander, I used to swim on Block Island in May. I swam. It was ice cold freezing, then just refreshing and glorious. Clearest, cleanest water I have ever been in. Baptismal water. I wanted to come back to the hotel and melt into the hot tub, but my generous auntie Judie had scheduled a pedicure for me at the spa, for my poor garden/dirt weary feet. Oooh, now I get why women do these things. Wow.

This is me waving to you all from across the country. (Teri, I'm in CA, sort of, where's my hug?) Actually I am probably closer to a lot of my wonderful blog friends right now. That makes me smile.

Oh, and I will leave you with this: Disco Inferno shimmer purple baby. I never paint my toes, I never SHOW my toes! Crazy things are happening here in Tahoe. I am even wearing a little heal tonight and jewelry other than my tiny silver hoop earrings. My mom took me shopping before I left, thank goodness. She was an angel. So patient, with butchy (spell check wants to change that word to bitchy, yeah, well so that too), granola Bethany, waving my hand away at anything girly.

I have all the function type, dressy and social things starting in about an hour and into tomorrow (wedding and I have to do some sort of Filipino traditional veil thing with the bride and groom, an honor of course, but I don't know how to walk in heals). I forget that's why I'm here. Not just to swim and take photos and lounge on my super comfy king sized bed. I'm starting to get my hiding out, anxious feeling, but I am doing my best to just go with it. One thing at a time. And Kathy (grasshopper Kathy, bff from childhood) will be here this evening. Yay!

I miss you Auntie Liz.
And shout out to Susie for coming back to the house to take care of the pets for me.

Some pics from the hotel web site (Hyatt Recency: Resort, Spa and Casino), this place is incredible.

imask

2010-09-06T22:37:00.005-04:00

Conversation with my aunt Judie on the phone (bad connection) about the plane ride:

Me: Do you have an eye mask?

J: I have an iPOD.

Me: No, I mean like for my eyes, when we are in our seats.

J: Um, I have an iPHONE, I think you can watch movies on it.

Me: I mean to block things out. So I can rest. And like pretend I'm not there.

J: Oh, I have sound blocking ear phones, that you can put on the minute you get in the airport.

Me: No, no, I mean like you used to have. An EYE mask.

J: Oh well, I had to give my computer back to work, but I have a brand new iMAC. You can watch DVDs on it. That might help.

Me: Okay, but I'm talking about an EYE mask, like for your eye balls, to block out the light, to help you sleep. I remember you used to have those.

J: Oh, oh, right, yes, I have a few. I will bring some, you can choose which one you like.

Me: Okay, thanks auntie.

Sometimes an eye is just an eye or an I, and not an i. Apple has taken over the universe, and my aunt.

Bliss Pumpkin

2010-09-06T21:35:00.004-04:00

I picked my funky, frog skin punkins last night. 3 all together. I bought the seeds from Johnny's where they are decribed as an Asian hybrid introduced last year, "the beautiful, dark yellow to orange flesh is good to eat, but not sweet. It is recommended for savory dishes such as curries because it is not suitable for pies." But the truth is, I chose them for the name, if I can grow Bliss, you bet I'm going to try, and for the molted froggy skin. I like a pumpkin that defies it's orange origins. I'm delighted too by the UFOish shape. I won't be making any curries though.

Indulge me while I show off some of my gourds?

I'm in my new old green room. I moved the bed in late last night. I don't know what I was so afraid of. I like it in here, feels natural and fine. I have end tables! I can get stuff out of my bureau without banging my knees on the bulky futon frame and climbing over my bed. The craft room is a holy mess and I was supposed to work on that tonight. I still might. I'm on drugs though.

I'm trying out an anxiety perscription that I got for an upcoming adventure that I haven't told you about yet, because it's so so out of my safety zone, out of the rhelm of possible for me, but I have to do it. I have to go. My brother is getting married. And it's far far away and I don't travel, EVER. I barely leave my house, just for work and errands. I have panic attacks constantly, in my normal life. I am very limited. I don't even go out to eat with friends or drive in the car with people. Susie was/is the only person I felt safe with. And these fucking drugs, which were supposed to be my saving grace, are doing nothing. I should've gotten Xanex. The doc gave me these (Klonopin) because he said they were longer lasting for the long plane ride. But they are doing nothing to knock my anxiety down.

I just read online that they are more for long term anxiety. That they need to build up in your system. Are you serious? I needed something for the plane, not for my life. I'm trying to work on that stuff without meds. I spent my entire 20's on all kinds of depression/anxiety meds, nothing helped, so I'm doing it a different way now,with very intesne and difficult psychodynamic therapy. But to get myself on that plane, to even consider it, I need big time drugs. I need to be medicated and fogged out, so the crazy voices don't kick in and stop me from even attempting this. Too late to get something else, the doc is on vacation. I wonder if I should try another pill, it's only .5 mil and I swear I remember him telling me to take 2, but the bottle says take one twice a day, as needed. I really was counting on these to get me through. I should've just asked for Lorazipam which is what I took when I had to fly to Florida when my dad died 7 years ago. That seemed to help, but it was a much shorter flight, much more manageable.

Please don't ask me where I'm going or when. I promise to write if I get there. I promise more. Right now I just can't even fathom that this is happening, that I have to do this. Hence, the abundance of pics. I have more too, from today, lots of flowers. I will probably post them tomorrow night when my anxiety will be out the roof. I mowed the lawn finally. Oh and I've got the dogs. They've been a comfort. Will have to post some dog pics soon too.

Thanks for being there everyone. I'd be so lost without you and much less brave. I don't think you all have any idea how much your faith in me and encouragement and courage in your own lives nudges me along. Time to leap though. Ugh....

Above, Zapotec pleated tomatoes from Mexico, grown from seeds sent from the generous, lovely Allegra.

Red noodle beans!

Still waiting for the Tonto pumpkins (below) to ripen. They will have orange and green striped ribs.

Haste

2010-08-29T02:41:00.005-04:00

1:30am streaks of white paint in hair, all over hands

After the popcorn ceiling let its kernels rain down on my head (when I started rolling paint up there, 2 weekends ago), I've been reluctant to go back into the green room -- my new old bedroom that is supposed to be about a fresh start, but so far has only shown me over and over what a pathetic loser I am (alright, when it comes to painting I'll just say). When Susie came to pick up the dogs she was able to finish the ceiling without it falling on HER, and patch it for me.

Today I wanted to paint the doors and around the window sill. I didn't start until 9:30 pm. I made myself go in there, pry open paint cans, finally pull off the blue tape, because tomorrow I have to mow. And because I know I'm avoiding it for bigger reasons, not just because I hate painting.

I'd already hung up my long, sheer, pale lime green curtains. They are my treasure, my joy and delight. I peek at them all the time, open the window so they can flutter and billow in the breeze. I love the way they bathe the room in a leafy light. My first curtains in this house.

I had to take the curtains down to paint the sill. As they rested on the futon mattress, the cats kept coming over and laying smack dab in the middle, like I'd made a silky bed just for them. Shooing worked for 5 minutes, then they'd come back and settled there again. I was anxious to get them back up. When I finished painting, for some reason I thought the curtains would hang out from the window and not touch the sill. I thought too, the paint was mostly dry. But did I really THINK? I was just hasty. Wanting to put things back together, wanting the room to finally be DONE. So, the curtains stuck to the sill, smeared white paint all over the wall and all over them. Big sigh, well, I'll just throw them in the washing machine and the paint will disappear. Nope. Just got them out and voila, white paint still streaked all over my magical curtains.

It's okay. I really am not as bothered as I have been about all this painting nonsense. I finally had a decent day today and I'm not going to let my foolishness ruin it. So I'll have curtains with streaks of white paint. Whatever, you know? It's not RED paint. And my house is just a big jumble of scuffed and imperfect hand me downs anyway. I just wish I could learn to slow down, be more patient, thoughtful and realistic. I make so much trouble for myself by rushing. More messes and aggravation.

But I'm done. I did it. It only took me 3x the amount of time I was hoping. Still have to move everything in there somehow by myself. I will try not to gouge into the newly painted walls as I lug in my bureau, bed, etc...And I like the color, the crazy green. I can't wait to make up the bed with my new sheets and quilt. Thanks for all your lovins and positive feedback. I promise to take a picture.

I'm on my laptop in the living room. I am scrolling through the guide to see what's on TV,
I stop at Desperate House Wives and the title of the episode is:
Live Alone and Like It
I guess that's an order?
I'm trying, really.
Blueberry pancakes in the am. I noticed some blueberries left on one of the bushes today.
The doggies are here, though are going back to their city home tomorrow.
Still, one more night of cuddles.
Summer is ending and I've only just now started to wake up.
Better late than never.

Bug hunters

2010-08-13T22:00:00.005-04:00

I guess I'm now officially a crazy cat lady. I fit the bill: middle aged (40 is middle aged, right? if I'm lucky), work at a library, single, live alone with my pack of cats, always rolling my clothes with a lint brush. But I am a dog person dammit. I've ALWAYS been a dog person. I only have cats because I volunteered at that horrid shelter for 3 years and took home the cats that I was afraid were next for the gas chamber. I'm not kidding you, they had that ancient, torture device when I worked there. Thank God it's banned now.

Well so, except for Murphy. We got him when our first shelter cat Sammy died. I was trying to talk Susie into adopting a bonded pair of old, scared cats and Susie said, why can't we just get a young, healthy, normal animal for once? Hence, our handsome, orange, tiger cat Murphy, who Susie picked out. But who decided right off that he was my long lost lover. Don't worry, the older cats found homes.

It's been almost two whole weeks since Susie moved out.

She has the dogs most of the time. I will have visitations. But this week's was canceled as Roscoe is sick. I come home most nights to my loungy, blase cats, and of course the rabbits, who are even more over me. No excited whining at the door, jumping up on my legs, crazy circles and hopping (Bo), tails frantically wagging, lots of "Yes yes yes, mama's home, thank GOD! we love you we love you we love you." The cats give me a glance and a "Oh you, good, that other one just dirtied the litter box, can you freshen it up for me, and the water dish too while you're at it?"

You know what though? I don't care. I'm crazy anyway. Add cat lady to the list. I'm grateful for these sweet cats. They have been sticking close to me like little sentinals. The first night I slept here alone, just before I shut the light off, I dropped my notebook to the floor and saw all three cats lying in a triangle formation by my bed. They don't usually hang around that close to each other, or to me, all at the same time. Actually they don't usually sleep on the floor like that. They like their cat beds, their perches, the chairs, couch...

They have been good companions, all three of them. Comforting me in their different ways.

Bo on his last night here.

But I miss the doggies' greeting at the door when I first get home. I miss the pitter patter of little chihuahua feet coming down the hall to find me after Susie lets them in from an outside romp. And of course I miss their soft, warm bodies curled up next to me in the evening. I guess I miss mostly their eyes, the way they would watch me, and look for me, and wait for my attention, my voice. The way they loved me so fully and with their whole bodies and hearts.

Cats don't love that way.

But they do love.

It's so quiet here. I don't tend to talk to the cats or rabbits as much as I did the dogs. I suppose if I'm going to be a crazy cat lady, I will learn.

In the meantime, I'm painting my new old room a crazy (the paint store lady told me NO ONE paints their walls this color) green. It's excruciatingly slow and hard. I hate painting more than I hate squash vine borers. I don't know what I was thinking. But I'm going to try to have a more positive attitude this weekend. Really, I am. And I'm aiming to finish by Sunday and move in then. Treated myself to new sheets and new quilt.

Check out the quilt pattern. The paint is a darker version of the big green leaves. It's growing on me. When I first got it on the walls I was horrified.

Living alone is strange, especially in this home Susie and I lived in together for what seems like forever.

I miss her. But that's normal.

I'm lonely. But that's normal.

So far, the things I like most about living alone are leaving my shoes all over the place, my clothes on the hallway floor, and the dishes in the sink.

I can also cry as loud as I want.

I don't have to hide it anymore.

I haven't had a computer for a week or so. Maury rabbit finally chewed all the way through the cord.

No time anyway. Still getting acclimated to new work hours, cleaning jobs, lawn mowing, etc...

I am used to coming home to a clean litter box and a home cooked meal.

I've been eating canned things. But am hoping to get a grip on that soon.

Thank goodness for garden veggies.

I'm used to sharing all the chores. Susie always did the things I disliked.

She babied me.

Welcome to the real world Bethany.

I've missed you guys.

Trumpet Squash

2010-07-25T13:15:00.025-04:00

First bean harvest this morning. I think I'm going to bring them to my mom's today and give them to my aunt Liz. She's an amazing cook and loves fresh veggies. I know I won't get to them right away, and in a day or two I will have another batch for us. Or, for me? Well, Susie is here for 5 more days or so. She always thinks up creative ideas for the beans.

Guess what? The Trumpet squash plant is hanging in there. 3 of the starting trumpets died, but 3 lived. And one I can harvest today. I am not ready to cut it off yet though. It looks so pretty decorating my fence. I've been running out each morning to check on it, before I even have my coffee. It's much prettier in person, beautiful, pale lime green color, with faded stripes. Most of the other squash did not live. So no zukes or patty pan or yellow crookneck. Very disappointing, as I love to share those with my library friends. I've planted some new zukes and squash. So maybe in September? But really, this is the squash that I desperately wanted to live. So, lucky me. Even if I only get these three. They are making me deliriously happy, when nothing else seems to be able to touch me.

So, Susie got the keys to her apartment on Friday, and is going over to clean after work today. I'll be at my mom's for my grandmother's birthday party. I might stop over after, but am not sure if I should. Felt pretty unstable and miserable yesterday. I couldn't get myself out of it. Took a walk, wrote a bit, cleaned some of the house, but mostly watched Jersey Shore all day and baked chocolate chip cookies. One of those days where you can't stand yourself or your life and don't trust yourself to call or see anyone because you know when you open your mouth killer bees will swarm out of it. Not feeling a whole lot different today, but a little. Enough to go to the party and try to act like a person. Will take a swim in mom's pool, and then maybe the hot tub.

I better get going. I think I'm already late.

Gourd trellis

What's that? Baby Bottle Gourd!

White cukes

2010-07-18T15:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, well I did it. I did my best. I was out there on my hands and knees for 3 hours. We'll see what happens. I feel better just for trying. Thanks for the support. It helped, believe me. As did the Bee Gees on Pandora Radio.

I'm about to go out and clear some areas and plant the starter squash.
Just picked these babies. Wanted you to know the cukes are happy. The purple beans are all flowering and Allegra's tomatoes (she sent me the seeds from all the way across the country!) have tons of blooms and little green balls. So all is not lost.

Hope you have something growing in your garden that makes you happy.

Frass

2010-07-17T15:10:00.004-04:00

Oh, you guys... The Squash Vine Borers have gotten into my entire crop of zukes, yellow squash, 5 varieties of pumpkins and my beloved Trumpet Vine Squash. But, I am not giving up. I've read that at this point, you can actually surgically remove the little bastard larvae, slice into the stem and pluck the white worms out, then bury your vines at the injured area, water like crazy and hope for the best.

I read about this Thursday night, after I went slug hunting and noticed the damaged stems of the squash plants covered in this wet, yellowy substance that looked like a big cluster of eggs. I wiped most of it off, thinking I'd caught the problem. Oh, how wrong I was. I researched online and discovered that this substance might be the "frass" or the excrement of the evil Squash Vine Borer, who at this point, is living INSIDE my squash vines, slowly killing them from the inside out.

I went out in the morning to pick some cukes for my workmates. Had the scissors in my hand and thought, what the heck, let me just check if these Borers are actually in my vines. I didn't want to believe it. But oh my holy God, there it was, this horrible, white maggot/worm thing with little pin prick black eyes staring up at me. I had such a mixed reaction: horror, disgust, fear, anger and then, well I felt bad for the damn thing. It can't live outside the vine. I had to kill them if I wanted to keep my plants. When they are done eating your vine, they burrow back into your soil and live until the next year where they hatch as moths and start the cycle all over again (the moths lay their eggs on the base of your squash plants).

I sort of went on this Nip/Tuck killing spree, slicing vines, digging out the maggot, squishing him quickly in my paper towel. I was in my pjs in the garden, saying, "You little mother fucker, get the fuck out of there, partys over..." and then, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" when I had to kill them. Ugh. This is the first year I've killed garden pests. I don't use pesticides and I mostly just relocate bugs. I am the director of the Slug Relocation Protection Program, New England division. FYI, Slugs are my BFF compared to the SVB.

I must've dug out like 10 of those things, some plants had more than one. I had to get to the library though. I was traumatized all day. And I'm not done! I'm in avoidance. I've got to go out today and work on the pumpkins and trumpet squash and the rest of the zukes. It's so disheartening, the plants were healthy and huge, I had cute, little patty pan squash, Gadzukes, and crookneck organic yellow squash all starting to fruit. Last weekend I took this picture (below) of my Trumpet squash that I was so excited to share with you all. But I checked on it yesterday and the one big fruit was dead. The little ones are still hanging in there. So maybe I can save them? I just don't know if I have it in me to see more of those worms, to kill them. And it's so hot out. Whine whine. I have to do it now though, as we are taking care of the rabbit rescue in the evenings for 5 days, and that takes a lot of time and energy.

I called around yesterday to see if anyone had any squash starter plants left to sell. The nice man from Wagon Road Greenhouse had some left over from their own second planting (need to get them started by July1st) and brought them to the local farmer's market for me this morning. So happy. They have blooms already! I will plant those in case this project is not successful.

I'm not going to do the bastards justice by posting photos here, but if you are curious, here's a link to the Squash Vine Borers.

Right now I'm washing my sheets, sitting in front of the AC with coffee and the Hills finale on TIVO. I'm in denial. The lawn also needs mowed, and oh, so many more things. I had a long long list before this even happened. I won't bore you. I won't Squash Vine Borer you.

I feel really out of touch. I haven't had time to read blogs and I miss everyone. I'm in awe that people still come to see me and talk to me when I've been so absent. It gives me the warm fuzzies. But I want so much to get back in the groove. I guess I just have to allow myself this transition time.

So much to share too. Susie was gone Sun-Thurs cat/house sitting for some friends. It was good practice for me, I suppose. But extremely weird and emotional. Started my new hours at work (they were able to give me a couple more a week, Thank GOD) and my full cleaning schedule, well except for my Mom's on Saturday. I'm just not ready to add that yet. Paid my first mortgage payment all by myself. But I'm way over my budget. I've got to sit down and write it all out again and see what's going on.

I suppose I should get outside and uh get to work. Wish Gracie could come help. She'd have no mercy, tough gal that she is.

I was hoping to get a bottle of wine to help out with the garden battle, but therapist says that's not a good idea. I don't really drink, but last two weekends I have. Not to get drunk, just to relax. But I think I like the numbed out, fuzzy feeling a little too much. I don't need to get into a weekend drinking habit. Deb says, wait 90 days after Susie moves out and then if I want a glass or two of wine on the weekend that's okay. I have no sense of what's okay. Dad died of alcoholism, lots of it in my family, both sides, so I don't want to mess with it. That's why I'm checking in with Deb. I'll leave you with a few photos of things that are making me happy.

The double petunias I grew from seed are blooming!

Jurrasic park leaves! HUGE!

Pansy and bunny tail grass, both from seed.

Moon in my room

2010-07-03T21:59:00.004-04:00

When I got to work one day last week, Babs (children's Librarian) was out by her car loading up a bunch of donated toys we can't use for the Salvation Army. I spied a National Geographic name and symbol on a box that said, "Moon in My Room." Babs motioned that I could have it if I liked it. I sort a guffawed, "Ha ha, Moon in My Room," opening the box and peering in at the cratery plastic saucer. I don't need more junk. More silly things. More plastic. I'm 40 now for goodness sakes. I no longer have glowing stars on my ceiling.

Uh, but I took it home anyhow (thanks Babs). Along with 2 constellation projectors. I've always wanted my own mini planetarium. I tried those both out and neither wowed me. I packed em up and dropped at S.A. today.

But the moon. Well, I hung it on an existing nail in my craft room (which has been my bedroom for over a year). Just for fun. Just to see what it looked like, if it worked. It has a remote. I shut off all the lights and clicked it on. Moon in my room! You can cycle through the moon's phases. Click. Click. Click. I like having the moon in my room. I like deciding if it's a full moon or just a crescent. I like having the moon as a nightlight when I get up a million times to pee.

I like thinking I can move this moon with me, back to my old bedroom, where I used to sleep on a king sized bed with Susie. The bed will be gone. Susie will be gone. I'm going to repaint the walls. Hang billowy curtains. Try to make it different and mine. That room is Susie's room now. It's where I find her, taking care of her Farmville crops, ball games or Nascar playing on the TV, drinking her sweet tea. I am always looking and listening for her.

It's the door down the hall that I glance at more often than I care to admit. Is the door open? Can I go say hi? Sometimes, if she doesn't seem to mind, I like to flop on the big bed and talk with her while she sits in her computer chair. Roscoe comes running up his little ramp thinking "YAY, the mommies are together again. Stay here now. Let's all cuddle like the old days. Let's be a family again..." (Project much Bethany?) Really though he gets SO excited when I'm back in that room. Murphy does too, he comes slinking up (Roscoe growls and tries to bite his legs) to his old spot on the pillows, on my "used to be" side of the bed, purring and purring.

Well so, Susie took that apartment. She moves in less than a month. She's taking Roscoe and Bo.
We are doing this.
We are moving on.
And I've got a moon in my room.

Spotty heart

2010-06-23T15:45:00.000-04:00

I heart you all.

Thank you for making me feel so special and... well, hopeful.

I feel like I have this chorus of bright, wise, sweet, silly, witty, soulful angels cheering me along.

Singing me into my 40s.

Watering, tending, weeding,

right by me.

Kindness is one of my favorite words.

And I feel such kindness around me.

Kindness and care.

Hearts are blooming in the strangest places.

Do you see them too?

I should probably stop eating cake now.

Mom's amazing lemon meringue pie I finished before Susie realized it was in the fridge.

It's okay to be selfish about the rest of your birthday pie.

Right?

Happy summer friends.

I hope your gardens are growing and you find a good swimming hole

or at least a hammock to swing in.

Lordy, Lordy...

2010-06-19T23:59:00.006-04:00

The first sign greeted me as I walked from the parking lot to the front door of the library on Friday. Two women from my book group, Penny (!) and Elizabeth, were hiding around the corner with a sheet cake melting in the sun, and a bouquet of blue hydrangeas. I was working alone in the morning. But my workmates from the night before had constructed this sign, see it way up high, above the orange book shelf (so I couldn't rip it down they told me after)? As if I would. It made me smile all day long. Below is a close up.

Later, a gorgeous bouquet (named "ice cream social") and a happy, bobbing balloon from Kelly and her sweet smiling son, Colton. He even sang me a song.

More delights I am too exhausted to list.

I am blessed with generous, thoughtful, super amazing people in my life.

Lunch today with my dear (and patient) friend Lorraine, in which I cried for most of it.

After, I came home and ate a huge hunk of the most delicious yellow cake (with chocolate frosting), that Susie made for me with a decade full of the love we've shared.

I wasn't expecting this birthday to be sad. I wasn't expecting all these tears and anxiety and heartache. I really am looking forward to this new decade. I feel better in so many ways.

But yesterday, Susie finally found an apartment that sounds hopeful. And it made everything suddenly so real.

Susie moved here 10 years ago on the day before my 30th birthday. Drove her little ol' truck from Indiana, packed to dragging with her life's belongings, and sitting up close by her on a pillow, was her little dachshund, Lady, who soon became my dog too. Sweet, loving, soulful Lady, who was 7 then, and 17 when we had to say goodbye to her earlier this year.

How is it that 10 years ago to this very day, I was welcoming them both into my life?

And now, this?

I dreamt a soft, sweet and tender dream last night about Susie. It was a goodbye dream I suppose. I woke today, on my birthday, and felt the dream floating around me. Susie was asleep still in her room, in our old bed. I shuffled out to make my coffee and it all just hit me: the grief, what I'm losing, what I have to give up and say goodbye to in order to grow and be true to myself, to her too. I wailed and sobbed. It just poured out of me and kept coming, in fits and starts all day. I love Susie. I feel so deeply attached to her. I am going to miss her in my bones. We still act like an old married couple, even though we've been "broken up" for over a year. This is the last untangling and the knots are tight and holding.

We can do this though. We have to be brave.

Sorry to sound so maudlin. It's just how it went, last night and today.

Because of the apartment prospect.

And I suppose because I've got most of the practical details in place for myself, I have space to let the emotions in now. To FEEL it, to face it.

To say goodbye to this decade. My 30's, with Susie, with our house full of adopted animals.

We are both panicked and sad and scared out of our wits.

I will be okay.

She will too.

I hope.

I worry about her a lot. I feel guilty and strange.

She is many years older than I am. She wants so much to be settled and loved.

She has to leave her home, again. She's traveled this road before.

I've never lived with anyone but her.

Susie taught me how to garden.

She taught me how to be an adult.

She taught me how to take CARE of so much.

I love her. I just don't love her right.

Right for staying together, like this, I mean.

Tomorrow I swim at my mom's with my mom and two wonderful aunties.

I hope to wash some of this heaviness away.

I want to float for a while and imagine peace for both of us.

Love to you all.

Things that turn me on right now

2010-06-15T00:28:00.003-04:00

Talking to my therapist about budget/money etc... told her I was suddenly feeling like I needed to buy lots of THINGS, because I'm panicking about being on such a tight budget when Susie is gone. I really suck at money (making it/saving it/understanding it/spending it wisely). Well, I have for my entire adult life. But I am trying to be better. I HAVE to be.

But so, my big birthday is coming and I can't help it, I start thinking about things I might like, in case my mom or aunties ask me. I've been thinking about those wagons up top for weeks. I tell my therapist that what I really need is a gas card or grocery gift card, so I can tuck it away for the upcoming crunch. She agrees. But then I tell her that I really would like that yellow cart. Or the green one. I can't decide which. They dump! Look at the big wheels. I could pull it around the yard to my different weeding spots. I could use it for....

She tells me I'm OBSESSING about it.

Oh.

Yeah.

Well.

So?

She's right. She asks me if I really NEED the cart. Okay, no, not exactly, yet. My one wheel barrow, that I got for my 30th birthday, is about to rot out. So I need a wheel barrow too. Can't live without that, for real. But I don't need the cart(s).

I've mostly let the cart fantasies go. I'm onto bushes now.

And the Asparagus fern. Isn't it cool?

No, it's not phallic, it's furry and soft, like a magical, pet octopus.

Or something.

Okay, therapist could probably have a Freudian field day with that last paragraph.

I really did not make any of those connections until I just wrote that.

Sigh.

We all know I'm confused.

Let's just leave it at that.

No sense putting the cart before the horse.

P.S. How many times are you allowed to say my "therapist" in a conversation without being considered crazy? Please don't say, none.

Distractions

2010-06-14T23:49:00.001-04:00

Peas climbing up the fence, on both sides. No blooms yet.

Surprise peas from a dwarf variety I planted in the garden.

Neglected jewelry box tangle of Morning Glories and Moon Flowers.

Untangled.

Red Noodle Beans sprouting.

My poor Zinnia seedlings begging me with their little blooms to get them in the ground.

River on table.

Mean cat in mulch.

Dogs' day out, with plain burgers as a treat.

Pot area I just started. Any ideas (something easy and cheap) for the crab grass, dirt area? Should I just yank it all up and cover in mulch? I did that last year and it made a mess and didn't look much better. I know moss between the stones would look nice but I don't know how to make that happen.

I'm 39 right now, just in case you were wondering. Yup, that's me: 30 something.

For 4 more days.

Thanks for all the blog love.

You guys are ace.

Buddha Penny

2010-06-12T20:27:00.005-04:00

I've been worrying about living here alone, taking care of the house by myself. I've got a long list of things that need tending to. I wanted to be able to have a light on when I get home from work in the dark. Susie always has the front light on for me, and the little, white, twinkling plant lights and often delicious, cooking supper smells wafting toward me when I open the door. I can't imagine never coming home to any of that. I can't imagine coming home to no Susie and no little doggies dancing to greet me. Cold, dark, nobody waiting house. But it will be like that. Soon.

I can at least give myself light. I thought I could. I am not handy. I don't mess with electricity. But my best friend's brother is an electrician. He was nice enough to come out and give me an estimate on getting a timer on the front light, getting a spot light in the back, fixing a few other things. The estimate was much more than I expected. I got his email at work and felt kicked in the gut. Rationally, I understand: this is his job. He has to feed his family. I am not family. Unfortunately I have no family who can help with any of this stuff. My brothers all live far away.

Of course I have one of my reactions where I take this simple incident and feel like it means I cannot keep the house, that I shouldn't try, that the universe is not going to help me, that I can't even help myself, I am always going to be broke, no one loves me, I am utterly alone, what was I thinking, blah blah blah.
My stomach is all twisted and I feel floaty and anxious.
While I'm having this reaction, a woman from my book group walks into the library. She says she has a bunch of pots and yard sale things in her truck and wondered if I wanted any of it. I walk out with her in a fog. She asks me what's wrong. I tell her the basics. Say I'm just being a baby. I shouldn't read my email at work. It's not really a big deal. I'm overreacting.

She doesn't blink an eye and says, "Bob and I will help you."
She tells me they help out his friends all the time. They spent months working on a new house with his buddy and his wife. She says, "He owes me" and she chuckles.
I am taken aback.
I say, I don't want a freebie, just something I can afford.
She gives me a hug. Tells me she will talk to Bob and be in touch.
She emails me that they will do it. Offers dates.
I can't thank her enough.
She says she is glad she walked into the library right at that moment, otherwise she wouldn't have known I needed help.
She is glad!
When I gush more to her, she writes: "This is what we are put on earth to do. Help each other."
This moves me in a way I can't explain. I know it's a simple, beautiful way to live. But you don't often find people actually living it, putting it into practice. I tell her that was a Buddha moment for me. I want to live more like that. Be less selfish and inclusive and stingy with my time and energy.
I mean it.
Something shifted in me when I read those lines from her.
She signs her next email: Buddha Penny.
I love this.
We make a plan.

She comes today with her longtime boyfriend ("my guy" she calls him) in their big truck with ladders and smiles and kindness.
I meet Bob for the first time.
He doesn't know me. But he is here because he loves his girlfriend and she asked him to help me.
He is happy to help. I can see that clearly.
He won't let me pay him. He tells me to use the money to buy the new storm doors he can tell I need
(they won't shut and one has twisted metal that will make you bleed if you're not careful).
He says if I can't get them on, to call him. He will come back.
Whatever I need.
I know I just said this, but this man doesn't even know me.

I give Penny a bunch of flowers from my flats (the Hairy Ball plant was a big hit!)
She asks for some rabbit poop for her compost.
She wants rabbit poop?! I have PLENTY of that.
I happily dig her a big bucket's worth.
Rabbit poop for electrical work.

So, I have a timer and a new front fixture, a back spot light and a hall light.
I am excitedly waiting for night to fall.
I am blessed and illuminated.
I don't ever have to come home to a dark house.

I want to be more like them.

PS I'm sorry I haven't been around. I've got a new cleaning job that kicked my ass the first time. But it was better this week. Got the entire veggie garden in myself. Something I've never done before. Got the work flowers done. Working on the flowers here, but my poor flats are so root bound and earwigged. They need to get in the ground. I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow. Struggling with anxiety and bouts of crazy too. But I'm okay. I'm visiting blogs, just not commenting much. Some days you all are what saves me.
Buddhas everywhere.

Numbers

2010-05-29T19:17:00.005-04:00

It's Saturday. I worked at the library. Rare for me. I'm jumping up now for extra hours, instead of slinking away, hoping they don't ask me.

When I first started therapy with Deb, 4+ years ago, I weighed 253 lbs. I'm a little over 5'6". I was so uncomfortable and stuck. Buried in my own body. Suffocating.

Right away, I started losing weight, eating more normally, exercising, taking better care of myself. It just happened naturally, I suppose because I finally found a safe place to explore some really difficult feelings, instead of stuffing them down with piles of food. Cliche, but true. I lost weight slowly and sensibly, I think over a period of maybe a year and a half. Lost enough so my back stopped aching at work, and I didn't have to buy men's xxl shirts. But I stopped at chubby. I was not ready for a body without a nice thick layer of protection.

That happened naturally too, the stopping. My body knew what felt dangerous and unnatural. I guess it knew what I could handle, was emotionally ready for. I feel very different when my weight drops below 200lbs. I feel suddenly awake and alive and real. I thought I wanted to feel that way. I remember over 2 years ago eyeing the scale, wishing, hoping for 199. I even sang a silly song about it when I weighed myself, "Why can't I be, one ninety nine???" Not realizing I'd be singing that song for 2 more years. I got there, under 200lbs, back then...for about a minute. It scared the living daylights out of me. Guess I wasn't going to just keep dropping until I reached say 170 or so. It wasn't a plateau. It was a wall.

Unconsciously, I ate enough to get myself back in my safety zone. I stayed in that zone for a bit, 206 or so, which was frustrating, but okay. At least I was maintaining a much healthier weight. But then I got crazy again and blew up to 214. I could see how easy it was to let it all come back on. I was feeling raw and vulnerable and needed the protection. But I didn't want to keep gaining. I went to OA for a while and it helped me get a grip.

I don't know if this makes sense to anyone. I mean, I don't look much different at 199 than I do at 206. I still look heavy. I still have my rolls. It's not like all of a sudden I am svelte and skinny and toned. But something shifts when I cross that border, that membrane between being ensconced in the protection of fat and food to moving more fluidly in my body, in my life, allowing some hungers, settling into my body instead of floating outside of it. I reach up and feel my cheek bone, notice my collar bone. I have bones. I have a body and a life inside it, pulsing through it.

This body is mine.

This life.

Oh.

I feel happy and hopeful for a short time. Then I feel naked, exposed. Stripped and scared and somehow abandoned.

My fat layers are my comfort, the way I learned to mother myself.

When your body wakes up and lets you know it's there, it also tells you things you maybe don't want to hear, things you can't know. When I cross below that 200lb border, I automatically start thinking about men, and that has always felt frightening, especially since I'd been living in a committed partnership with a woman for 9 years.

Needless to say, I've kept 199 at bay.

Until today.

Scale read: 199.5

Oh.

Wow.

I don't want 199 to be about men or attractiveness or allowing myself to finally feel like a real, normal person.

I just want it to be me. Right now.

I don't want to have to run from it, erase it, make it go away.

It shouldn't be scary, that number.

I want it to feel okay and safe.

I don't know if all this is preemptive, useless talk. I don't know if I will eat myself into oblivion this weekend, or just slow down my exercising, so I inch back up to my safety zone. I don't know if I will spend 2 more years in the 200lb range. I don't feel in control of it. I can do my best to eat well and keep exercising. But I know, after these last 2 years, that my mind will only let my body enter and stay in this place if it feels safe enough, if my emotions can handle the changes and feelings that flood in when I peel away this important layer.

So, three weeks from today is my 40th birthday, June 19th. I know this because our book borrowing period is three weeks. I was stamping my birthday on all the books I checked out today. I liked finding that 19 at work this morning, right after seeing the 199.5 on the scale.

I have fit in the category of obese for most of my adulthood, the last 20 years. I love all body shapes. I don't think fat is bad or ugly. I don't want to be skinny. I will never be skinny. I just want to feel comfortable in my body. I want to allow my real self to emerge, to show herself, and to stay.

I'm going for a walk.
I'm wishing you all a glorious weekend.

How to be awake and alive

2010-05-22T23:04:00.005-04:00

How many sunrises do you think the average person has witnessed by the time they turn 40? I've maybe seen one. I'm not a morning person. And by that, I mean when I have to get up in the morning, I am not a person. I am a monster. I am an unformed blob of negative energy. I am not born yet. I am a mummy with my dirty, old wrappings falling off. I am mental patient with Einstein hair, one sock missing, dragging myself along the walls of the asylum.

I don't handle transitions well. For instance, the transition from eating to stopping eating. I especially am not good at the sleeping to waking one. So I mostly try to avoid mornings. I don't have to be at work until 10am or later. I never make morning plans. Ever.

On the eve of the one month pre- anniversary of my 40th birthday (Tuesday night), I realized if I was going to become a person and do all these things I need to do to keep my house (work more, take care of the animals and house and ME, by myself), I was going to have to learn how to wake up like a normal person. I'd fallen into a funk, hadn't exercised for three days in a row, was going to bed after 2am and then just sleeping sleeping sleeping until the last possible minute. Sleeping is a drug to me, a kind of death, an escape, my constant comfort, my oldest, best friend. It's so seductive. The pull is overpowering.

I bought the book below when I was maybe 18, along with How to Live in the World and Still be Happy and On Becoming a Person. Hm, do you think I had a problem? I am only just now, almost 20 years later, starting to figure those things out. You really can sleep your whole life away. The waking up issue is huge for me. It's probably too much to untangle here. I'm trying to figure out where it all comes from. Therapist says, "Well, why would you WANT to get up? You've felt so awful for so long. No wonder." We talk about how it has been a coping mechanism, and a way to be dead, without really being dead.

But there's more to it. One thing I realized is that when I wake up and am trying to coax myself out of bed, I never think I'm going to be allowed to get back to bed. Ever. Leaving the bed to me is like being ripped away from your mother as an infant, not understanding you will see her again. This makes no sense, but it's how I feel. It's the same with food, I think every meal is my only and last meal, if I stop eating I will never be presented with food again. I have to remind myself all the time that I can eat again when I'm hungry. That I have a fridge full of food. I can feed myself. I can eat what I want and when I want.

So when I am trying to wake up, I have to tell myself that come evening I can go to bed. I can rest when I'm tired. The day ends and we are expected to go to sleep. It's allowed. It's part of the whole cycle. We get to do this every single day. Why, when I DO this every single day, do I still not believe in it, not trust it? I also never believe the monster feeling I have when I wake up will lift away, dissipate. I feel groggy, grouchy, anxious and vulnerable and I think, "I will always feel this way. I can't go to work feeling like this. I can't have friends. I can't make plans. I can't..." it's much easier to fall back into the soft sheets and plump pillows rather than face that nonsense. The earlier I try to get up, the worse the barrage. Also, the earlier I get up, the longer the space I have to try to "live in the world and still be happy." Or more just, live in the world and not go crazy. I never trust that I can stay stable for that long. Or awake.

But so, this turning 40 in a month (less than now) is driving me to get my act together. I want to enter 40 awake and ready and believing in myself. The best way for me to get that confidence is to just practice every single day. So, since May 19th I've been getting up earlier than I need to, much earlier than I really WANT to (but probably still not as early as most of you get up every morning). Getting up, staying up, living the entire long day the best I can. Going for walks, making plans, working extra. This morning all I wanted to do was sleep in, wake naturally, make a big pot of coffee, and work in the garden all day. But my mother offered for me to clean her house and I need to practice that too, because when Susie moves out I'm going to be doing that every other Saturday to make my budget work. I needed a practice run (her regular house cleaner is on vacation).

I did it. I woke up. I got to my mom's. I cleaned.

But I stopped at the park first where I'd forgotten my water bottle last night. A whole team of women were playing softball. Up and playing softball on a Saturday morning! Wow. The whole world was awake and alive and I just marveled at it. On the way back from finding my bottle, I spied these crazy huge, gorgeous moths sitting together in a tree. Stunning. I have never ever seen anything like that in person. They were BIG and so intricate, these furry patterned wonders, with amazing feather like antennae and fat, Art Deco bellies. Wow.

They looked like they were resting, holding hands. It felt to me like they'd just emerged from their cocoons and were sticking close to each other for comfort, to get their bearings, fluttering their new wings, breathing in the fresh air. Either that or they were mating, in a sort of love trance. I got pulled right in.

They were mirror images of each other and I just couldn't stop staring at them.

They let me take photos with my phone. I felt such peace coming from them, an amazing silence and softness. I was wrapped in it. If I moved too quickly they would flutter their wings a tiny bit, sort of warning me to settle back down. But otherwise they were so still. So still I wasn't sure they were alive at first. Do you think maybe they were just waking up?

The poppies too were a morning gift I would have missed if I hadn't driven to the park for my bottle.

And there's more. But I won't go into it now. More waiting if you wake up. I've missed so much, sleeping.

I loved all your comments on the door/book fiasco. I think blogging again is part of waking up too. Thanks for cheering me on. Morning sunbeams, every one of you.

The red door, the doomed book

2010-05-20T01:00:00.007-04:00

HGTV can kiss my ass. Unless I win the 2010 Green Home Giveaway, then I'll have to delete this. But especially if I don't win. Oh hell, I probably just blew any chance of wining just by thinking that, never mind writing it. I'm putting the wrong energy out there.
I love HGTV. I will win the dream house.

They say not to food shop when you're hungry. And I imagine THEY would also say not to blog when you're in a bitchy, weird mood. But I always shop when I'm hungry. That's the only thing that gets me to the damn grocery store. Why else would I go, you know? Well, okay, really I only ever get to the grocery store when the bunnies are out of carrots. I'm usually hungry by then though and have run out of all my stuff too.

So, I'm in a bad mood. But I'm not hungry and I want to blog and yes, HGTV sucks.
They suck because they made me think I could easily paint my door red. Slip slap, beautiful, gleaming, shiny, wecoming red door. Candy Apple. Gumball. Cherry Pop.
Bring it on. New life. New doors. Claiming this house as my own, inviting new energy with a bold color.
Positive vibe, feng shui babeeee.
Instead, it was a blood bath. I was Lady Macbeth, splatters of red all over my hands, drips on my feet, like one of my old shaving accidents.
Whatever positive energy was represented by painting my doors red was negated with my constant sighing and swearing and "oh you've got to be kidding me" attitude.
I tried, I promise. I tried to be positive. I tried to enter the whole experience. I tried to be patient with myself, with the process. But it was just hell.
I hate painting. I would rather clean an oven. I would rather pick up a yard full of dog poop.
I don't know why I forgot this (oh yeah, HGTV's fault).
I am not good at hanging in there with things I am bad at, things that frustrate and take ALL DAY LONG.

I wanted to doors to make me smile when I drove up to the house, not remind me of the gates of hell.

The red door painting has taken me at least 10 hours and 7 coats. It sucked away my entire Sunday. I've been told, after the fact, that it's because I bought cheap paint. Told painting 2 doors is at most a 2 hour job. I had no idea. I would've paid 200 dollars for the paint to have avoided this disaster. I just picked the color I liked, didn't know I needed to pay attention to the price of the paints, the names. By the way, it is not true that you can bring your big purple dinosaur in to the paint department and they will match the color for you. I brought in a birdhouse the exact color red I wanted and the man at Lowe's just pointed me to the wall of paint chips. All the reds looked the same to me. I was supposed to choose one with more blue than yellow, to match my house (I reasearched all this beforehand of course). But the man thought I was insane when I asked him about this. He hated me for some reason. And did not tint my primer like I paid for (another reason it took so many coats).

I put the last coat on Monday night, so it would have time to dry before I left for work at 1:30 on Tuesday. I ripped a huge chunk of paint off near the knob when I was taking the tape off in the morning. When I got home the doors were all marked up along the edges where the door shut.

I'll figure out a way to fix it this weekend. They look good enough. I know they are not the gates of hell. I know it's still a positive action, even though it was so fraught with difficulty. The point for me is, I guess, that I persevered, didn't give up. Didn't whine to Susie and beg her to take over. She would have. She would've had it looking beautiful in no time flat. She's the only reason they look half decent. She saw how much I was struggling and was nice enough to give me some painting tips. That cheered me for about a half hour, then I fell into hell again. Oh well. It was just a no good, horrible, very bad day. I felt that kind of heavy, ut oh feeling before I even popped open the untinted tintable primer.
I thought somehow working on the door would help knock me out of that place, not drag me under.
I wanted to be out walking, out in the garden. I had a million things to do. It was a gorgeous day. I just had no idea 2 doors could take so long.

I wasn't here to write about the doors though. I just wanted to tell you about the book.
Can I? Will you hang with me for one last bit?
Not only am I a fake Librarian, I am also a fake reader. I don't read anymore. I barely read. I read my book group book, because they pay me to run it. And even that, more times than not, I listen to. Fuck reading. It's a waste of life. I don't have time for that nonsense (sour grapes). I can't sit still. I eat books. I fondle them. I smell them. I love them from afar. Or I hug them to me. But I rarely crack one open. I bring stacks home. I continue to put my favorite authors on hold. But I almost never get to them. I can't read anymore. I've turned into a moron. I used to read stacks and stacks. But I'm talking YEARS ago, before I had a whole house full of shelter animals to take care of. Before I fell into this rabbit hole of a life.

But the library patrons don't know this. All day long they ask me for recommendations, ask me if I've read anything good lately. It's like people asking you all day if you've been exercising, what are your favorite work outs, can you show me how to tighten my abs, etc... such guilt, when you know all you do is watch TV and eat Cheese puffs.
Uh, no, I don't read, I just work here. Do you think the people who work Dunkin Donuts drink coffee and eat donuts all day (Probably. I should be working there)?

They want to tell me of fantastic reads. I scribble down their suggestions. Sometimes I get to one. Most often I don't (but this helps me help other patrons). So, last week a patron she couldn't wait for library copies and went ahead and bought a bunch of new books. She mentioned Sue Miller. I didn't know there was a new Sue Miller book, so I went a little nutty. I love love love her and I ALWAYS read her new books, no matter. She told me the new Anna Quindlen was excellent, Ann Hood too. I thanked her and put them all on hold for myself, thinking maybe by the time they come in, my life will be more settled. I will finally start reading again (because my cable will be turned off!).

The same patron comes in on Monday and hands me the brand, spanking new Anna Quindlen book. Oh no. I hate when this happens. Other people might like having books loaned to them. I DREAD it. First off, I work in a library, I really just don't need to borrow people's books. It's a nice gesture. It's just not necessary. I like to wait my turn.

Secondly, the book will sit sit sit at my house and whisper insults at me every time I walk by it. It's too much PRESSURE. She told me her daughter's mother in law wanted to read it too, but she could wait for me to finish. Does she know who she is talking to? I just found a book on my shelf that my friend L loaned me at least 4 years ago. I thought I'd returned it to her already. I never read it.

Thirdly, this book is a brand new hardcover. I can't be trusted with something like that. I have evil, chewing rabbits. I have paper obsessed and vomiting cats. I have a bathtub. I have red paint. I have leaky markers, spaghetti sauce, coffee, tea, wax from burning candles, dirty chihuahua paws. I will have to try much too hard to keep this book clean and safe. It's just not worth it to me.

Do I say, "No thanks, nice patron. I don't need/want to borrow your book?" No, I act overjoyed, grateful. And I am, that she thought of me, that she made the time and effort to come in and loan me the book.
But from the minute I took the book from her I had a sense of dread.

I left it on my car seat, thinking this was the safest place for now, until I finish this month's book group book. But tonight, as I was taking my work stuff out of the car, I lifted the book up and holey fucking shit, dammit all to hell, it's soaking WET. My water bottle in my bag leaked. TWENTY SIX bucks I am going to have to pay for this damn book I didn't even want.
It makes no sense that I am seething mad at this sweet sweet woman for loaning me this book.
I should be mad at my own dumb self.

Just to keep with the mood of this post, I want you to know I have poison ivy all over my body and a very painful cold sore. Cole slaw.

Today is the one month pre anniversary of my 40th birthday.
I have exactly one more month as a 30 something.
I know I sound super negative, whiney...but it's just because I had a meltdown after finding the book tonight. And because I had to go meet a possible new house cleaning client and that always makes me feel overwhelmed and kind of less than. Cleaning people's toilets isn't really my idea of following my bliss. But I gotta do what I gotta do.

I actually feel good about the way I started my last 30 days of this decade. I walked this morning even though I wanted to sleep sleep sleep. Then I worked my ass off at the library. It was super busy and my Energizer Bunny workmate was out. So I did like triple duty. I did not eat the leftover Easter egg hunt candy in the work freezer. I pushed right through a bad panic attack and did the thing I needed to do. And because of that I got the cleaning job, only 10 bucks less than I was hoping for. Not a bad gig at all. I even stopped at the store after. I have bananas. The bunnies have carrots and kale.
So yipee for me.
40 here I come.

I've missed you all. I still don't have a good grip on blogging and blog reading (or much else). I'm trying though. Thanks for hanging in/out with me.

Me and Roscoe. More Bo pics soon SB, Julie and other Bo fans.

I need goats

2010-05-02T14:24:00.003-04:00

"Worship all you can see, and more will appear."
~Martin Dysart in Equus

Phone pic from my dusk walk yesterday.

Advice to self today:
Mow the lawn when it gets so long the chihuahuas are getting lost in it.

Okay I will. I'm looking forward to staining my sneakers green and inhaling gas fumes for a couple hours.

Thank you for all your wonderful, helpful, positive, sweet responses/wishes to my Universe letter. I love you guys. I am rallying. I'm going crazy working on my budget, trying to figure something out.
No Internet? No TV? Not sure if I can manage that. Especially with no Susie here to talk to.
But we'll see. I will still have electricity, and access to the wonderful world of books, books, books.
I'm going to get a pass to the dump, instead of having garbage picked up.
What else?
Figure out a way to turn rabbit poop into gas for my car.

Just before bed last night, I got this last reply from my childhood friend Kathy:
"I bet your house is asking the universe if it can keep YOU."
I smiled so wide at that, and sighed. It somehow made me feel more connected to this place, more hopeful that I could be okay here alone.
I felt the house holding me, cheering me on, telling me to stay.
Kathy's right. I think the house likes me too.
Well, if I go mow. Got to keep her looking pretty.
I'm thinking of painting the white front door, red.
I am not a red kind of person.
At all. I have hardly any red (or purple) anywhere in my life.
But the idea keeps flashing in my mind.
What do you think?

Worth a try

2010-04-30T09:11:00.000-04:00

All ears

2010-04-30T00:02:00.001-04:00

Bo: "Uh Ma, can we get this strange creature off the bed now?"

Bo is afraid of the bunny. Tulip is bowing for more head petting.

Crunch munch

2010-04-27T14:20:00.003-04:00

Finally got the Sugar Snap Peas planted this weekend. I almost didn't. Because I haven't the energy/time/inclination to dig/weed, pull huge clumps of crab grass and scuffle around on my knees for hours in the spot along the garden fence where I usually plant. But then I saw Ms. Moon's peas, blooming and podding already down in sunny Florida and I thought, oh heck, I must. I love the blossoms. I love the curling tendrils and I especially love the crunch munch of the pea pods themselves, fresh off the vines as I meander around the yard in July.

So while I was out picking up sticks on Saturday, I found another spot, that I think gets enough sun, in the back of the house. It drizzled on me the whole time Sunday as I planted. I tracked mud throughout the house. But I did it. Rows of peas on both sides of the fence. And it's raining, so I didn't even have to water.
All will be well.

Books and seedlings

2010-04-26T21:05:00.001-04:00

Work:

Home:

I am a lucky woman.

Don't let me tell you otherwise.

Body Hair: The Last Frontier

2010-04-24T01:28:00.009-04:00

In case you can't read that it says:

The implication that a woman's underarm and leg hair are superfluous, and therefore unwanted, is but one embodiment of our culture's preoccupation with keeping a woman in a kind of state of innocence, and denying their visceral selves. ~Harries Lyons, "Body Hair: The Last Frontier," Ms., July, 1972

From this kick ass book:

The Decade of Women: A Ms. History of the Seventies in Words and Pictures

It's that time of year again. More skin showing.

Legs, possibly underarms.

Or "pits," if you prefer.

When I was around 12 or so, my parents were newly divorced and I was on Block Island with my father and 3 younger brothers. No Mom. We went to the beach every day on the Island. We went to the Island almost every weekend, and spend at least one whole week there each summer.

I always wanted to wear a t-shirt on the beach and in the water, over my bathing suit.

1. Because I was so fair skinned and my mother warned me about burns. I was a girl who listened to her mother and she TOLD me to keep my shirt on (and to make sure I kept them on my brothers too. I tried. I really did. Oh my gosh, my poor little (4 yrs old) brother Justin, used to get burn BLISTERS. And I would spend the night rubbing Noxema on their little backs in the bunk beds in the Lobster shack/cabin in back of my Dad's restaurant. But that's another story).

2. Because I felt so uncomfortable in my body, with my bright white skin and pudgy belly, especially next to my skinny little brothers and all the tan and slim daughters of my Dad's Block Island friends.

Oh, but my Dad was an Islander. He was not fair skinned like my brothers and me. And he hated the t-shirts. He fought me every single day. "Take that shirt off Bethy. Get some color. Your mother won't know. That's silly. Come on. You're at the beach for Christ sake."

Lots of times I just had to do what he said.

So this one time we are in the water and I am not wearing my heavy, soaking wet shirt and it feels nice and free and okay. My brothers are frolicking with the Styrofoam surf boards. Everyone is trying to get Dad to look their way, because he's in the water with us. A treat.

I come up close to him to show him how I can do handstands now. Before I dip under, he grabs my arm, lifts it in the air and says, "What's this?"

I don't know what he's talking about.

He says, "Jesus Christ Bethy, doesn't your mother teach you about these things?"

I have no idea what he's talking about.

"You're a young woman now. You can't go walking around with hairy underarms. That's disgusting."

I doubt I even knew I HAD hair under my arms.

I was so ashamed and bewildered. I don't remember what I did next.

But you can bet I got my shirt on as fast as I could.

I still wear a t-shirt at the beach.

You won't catch me in a tank top.

Well, until just recently. I've taken to wearing them around the house and I like it: bulging belly, hairy pits and all.

My father is dead now.

I don't think he cares about my underarms.

And honestly, I didn't think my decision to stop shaving any hair on my body had anything to do with him. But I wonder now, because I was not planning on writing that little story. I was going to write this kind of tough ass, feminist post about why I refuse to shave.

How if women stopped wasting their time shaving, they could free up hours and hours to make themselves and the world a happier/better place. Interestingly, I stopped shaving when I was volunteering lots of my time to help animals at the really crappy, horrible, hell hole of an animal shelter in my town.

But really, it all started because I was tired of cutting myself, of my ankles and knees bleeding all over the bathroom, of rashes under my arms. And I had no bathtub and the tiniest bathroom. It was all such a production. I thought, what the heck, I'm a living as a Lesbian, I might as well go dive full force into the stereotype. And so I stopped. That was over 5 years ago. And my hair grew in soft and shiny and for a long time it made me feel happy and empowered and free.

Sometimes though, I just feel hairy.

And different.

And judged.

And the thing is, I'm blond. You can barely see my hair.

(So I'm not a real renegade, like my Dyke friend Kristin who showed up one day at my mom's house, long before I was any kind of Lesbian, on her motorcycle, hair in long dreads, tank top on her strong, tanned body, revealing dark black, very hairy pits that scared the beejesus out of my brothers)

But it's there, my hair.

And this time of year I always have to remember my feminist stance, get my "this is how I am, and if you don't like it you can go shave yourself some more" attitude in place the first day I wear my pedal pusher type pants.

The truth is, people judge, and for lots, hairy on a woman seems unclean or lazy or just plain weird.

I already have stigmas attached to me because I'm heavy.

Because I'm a Lesbian (well let's just stick with that label for now, because that's how many people see me).

I don't want to gross people out with my body. Or I should say, I don't want people judging my person by my body, by the way it looks or what I do with it.

Being hairy I guess is a way for me to stay true to myself, to help me build my inner confidence.

I admit I have moments when I almost just do it, a curiosity about that long ago, smooth, naked feeling.

But I know I don't want to carve out TIME on a regular basis for shaving. The last thing I should be doing is putting a razor anywhere near my body. And I barely get to work on time as it is now. I've got to take care of my body in a way that feels right and comfortable to me. I wish it was more acceptable around these parts.

And I worry a bit (okay a lot) that men will be completely turned off by it, if I so happen to meet one I'd like to date. I've been told by almost everyone I chose to share this with, that not shaving severely limits my choices, that most American men will be horified by this.

My brothers think it's gross. But they are attracted to ultra feminine women.

I can't worry though. I'm not in any position to date anyone right now anyway.

Nevermind the male species.

And I want to stay hairy. I need to.

It's become part of who I am, in a strange way.

I certainly don't want to start shaving for MEN.

God help me.

Maybe I'll find a hairy sister here in blogland?

Oh, and doesn't Lily T. just rock the hairy pits?

Dirt cakes

2010-04-18T00:15:00.006-04:00

Guess what I've been doing?

8 flats done and 4 to go.

I hope I can fit the rest in the 4 flats.

Got to get some more cells at Agway tomorrow.

And labels. I ran out of labels and had to record everything on paper.

I have no idea what anything IS!

Cukes, gourds, pumpkins tomorrow.

Allegra, (Allegra sent me seeds!) I got all your goodies that need to be started early, started.

Thank you, thank you. Your Heirloom tomatos and "pizza my heart" peppers are what got me down in the basement working again tonight. I was having a rough day and didn't think I was ever going to get started.

Finally went down at 8:30 pm and am only just up, washing my dirt caked hands, after midnight.

What a treat that package was. I'm still marveling.

Some seedlings from the set I started Wed night are already up. Giant purple zinnias and cinnamon basil.

Thanks everyone for encourging me. Really. A lot.

I needed to do this. I need it.

Listening to Loving Frank on audio. Book group on Thursday.

I'm not enthralled.

I despise cheating anyway. No matter.

But I do think it would be fun to show some kind of video at the beginning of the book group of Frank Llyod Wright's work. Maybe You Tube will have something?

Writing practice, then off to bed.

Night night.

ETA: I love the internet. I just found an entire video tour made by the author of the book. Yay!

What might be

2010-04-14T21:21:00.003-04:00

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

~Lao-tzu

Be the person you've been afraid to wish for.

~Amelia

Talking to my sweet-as-pie, new friend Amelia the other day, and she comes out with the above line, having no idea I'd copied out that Lao-tzu quote earlier. Loved that.

Tulip from bulbs I planted this past fall.

Tulip, the little bity bunny, after getting her dose of banana flavored, stuffy nose meds.

She's feeling much better since her vet visit.

Veggies I stuffed in a hummus spread wrap for lunch, drizzled with rice vinegar.

Maury, the wonder bunny.

Seeds at my doorstep today. Blue pumpkins and hairy balls included.

(Oh, and red noodle beans!)

Holy girth Batman

2010-04-12T21:35:00.003-04:00

Two GASP moments (nod to Elyse) this weekend. I found this big fat asparagus spear poking up through the weedy bed. Took the photo in the bright sun, sitting on the ground, with my cell phone, so I don't think you can tell how huge it is. I was thrilled. They've mostly all been pencil thin up until now. But it's the much anticipated third year, where you can finally harvest away. Oh the wait! I've got a list of people I want to share with. I hope I have enough to go around. Course, I checked on it this evening after work and it was tall too. So I just broke it off and ate it. I'll share the NEXT one.

And these eyes were staring up at me from the mini daffodils. Pansies I grew from seed last year. Monster sized. At first thought it was a huge, magical butterfly sitting in the daffodil folliage. They surprised me so much.
Sorry if I sound uninspired. Just tired.
And need to get on the treadmill for a bit.

Thanks for all your responses the other day. Each one made me feel the same way those new seedlings popping up did: happy, hopeful, encouraged to grow too.
But you all are so funny. I mean, what did I expect? I've got a bunch of dirt nerd, gardening friends.
I'm so glad for that.
Well heck, I finally hunkered down and placed my seed order last night. Organized last year's leftover seeds to start tonight or tomorrow. I'm soaking the starting mix right now.
I got dirty. It felt wonderful.
So there.
You're all getting your own pots of lemon/lime basil and a huge bunch of peppermint stick zinnias.
And later, sun warmed tomato sandwiches all around with mint iced tea.

(Allegra, yes, please send seeds! I can't wait. You inspire me endlessly.)

Be still my heart

2010-04-10T12:22:00.004-04:00

Oh.
Yesterday, I am upstairs watching the circ desk for Marilyn's lunch break. Walk over to the back office bathroom and spy these on the windowsill (Donna's doing). My heart jumped like I'd seen a lost lover in the grocery store (okay, well how I IMAGINE that would feel). As I got closer and saw the tiny, perfect, homemade labels, and the happily growing sprouts, I almost fell over with joy. I could feel my entire face morph, lift. I felt my body get lighter. Float almost.
This.
I can't help but take note, again. This FEELING.
Always it's connected to planting, seeds, growing.
Blooming.
It won't go away.
I've been sleepwalking, struggling, sometimes barely breathing.
Susie wants to move out. We will have to sell the house.
(Please don't suggest I get a roommate instead. This is not possible for me.)
She bowled me over with this, a month or so ago, just as I was dreaming about seed starting, hording the catalogs, black marker circling my choices, new veggies or flowers to try. Dusting off my gardening journal. I wasn't going to be late like last year. Would start right on time. The full 8 weeks for petunias. Wait until you see my petunias: peach, yellow with pink throats, double bloomed berry colors. I'll order these and these and these. Window boxes and container combinations overflowing in my head. I'm on top of this.

And then she says, "You know what, I can't do this anymore. We both need to move on."
She's right, of course. We've been broken up for over a year, living in separate rooms. It makes healthy sense to move on, to separate for real, to not live together in this kind of comforting stasis indefinitely. But a lot of this year has been about taking care of our elderly dogs, giving them extra care and comfort, carrying them through their last days. It's also been about healing from the shock of losing them and the shock of losing our future, our old ways of being together. We had not talked about selling the house. It wasn't on the table.

Maybe it's silly, maybe I'm avoiding what I really need to feel and think about, but for me, one of the big questions has been, well, if I'm going to be here through the summer (I'm sure I will be, even if she bolts), do I start seeds? Do I want to have a vegetable garden? Do I invest my time and energy and heart in the land here if I am just destined to have to abandon it? Shouldn't I spend my limited energy, cleaning, fixing, packing, throwing out, organizing? Cultivating a feeling of leaving here instead of popping little dirt cupcakes out of their cell pack and setting their roots into this ground?

That seems sensible and right.
And joyless.

I go around and around. When I'm feeling decent, hopeful, I sneak the seed catalogs into my bed like porno mags, flipping through them by lamplight. For weeks I've carried a ripping plastic bag full of them to and from work, thinking maybe on my lunch break I will get an order together. Maybe. Should I? I don't know.
It's past time for petunias.
But there's still time for most of what I like to grow.

It's not a simple decision. A healthy part of me wants to be able to just skip it all. To let a different kind of spring and summer energy enter my life. Gardening can be solitary and isolating. It's also always been a way Susie and I connect and find joy together. I don't know either if I can manage the gardens without her. I hate hoses and watering. She waters.

But I know this in between place is killing me. Sucking up my energy, confusing me. I am circling and circling. Need to settle. Need to decide either way. Running out of time too.

When I saw those two plants on the sunny windowsill, those first little leaves (not really leaves, cotyledons, and I know this!) I felt: I must. I will. I will start. I have to. It's in my blood. Right now it is the only thing that makes my heart leap, my face relax. I remember a couple months ago, just before Susie came to me with this, carrying around my new Johnny's seed catalog at work like a child with a new favorite stuffed animal. I hugged it to me as I scurried off to lunch. By the end of the day, it was wrinkled and torn and marked up. When I spied the blue pumpkin (Jarrahdale) seeds for sale I'd put on my list to find this year, I got all jumpy. I remember thinking, this is the first real happy, real content I've felt in a long while. Felt that zing of energy and life come back. I thought, thank God for seeds. For life. For spring and gardening.

But then I got sidetracked.
I haven't even wanted to look out my window, or walk around the yard. Haven't wanted to notice all the green and buds, especially the green fingers reaching up from the earth, the bulbs we planted in the Fall. It all felt too painful. But even they have started seducing me. And they are blooming anyway, without my encouragment or permission. The hyacinth still wafts its delicious sweetness my way, even if I won't be here next season to smell it. I do not own these beautiful, little wonders popping out all over. The asparagus bed, the lilacs, the tulips are not dying. In fact, they are shouting at me, "Yes yes yes. Here I am. Come over, notice me, smell me, let me love you even if just for now, just for this one moment. Let yourself love me. Let yourself feel this magic.This is all we have anyway." I do not have to mourn them. I have to let them be. I have to let myself be. I have to let this unfold. I have to find my way. My real way.

Well so, this is long. I'm sorry. I am not good at editing (for the same reason I don't think I will be able to follow friends' advice to just have a SMALL garden this year). Two weekend ago, on an upswing, I bought two huge bags of seed starting mix. They still sit in my car. And I haven't ordered any seeds. I was thinking maybe today I'd venture down into the basement and see what is leftover from last year's seeds?
I really still do not know what I should do, what I NEED to do.
I just know that new life on the windowsill at work knocked on my heart:
"Anybody there?
Grow things.
It will be okay."

Tasting Spring

2010-04-04T11:43:00.005-04:00

Scooped Maury (with his hack haircut) up and plopped him in the newly blooming mini daffodils just now. Quick Easter photo. I couldn't see a thing, too bright, just snapped willy nilly. And wouldn't you know, the bugger ate the head off one of them, popped it right off, two nibbles, swallow, gone. He would've had the whole bed of yellow mowed down in less than a minute if I'd let him. Silly rabbit.
Made me think of some favorite last lines of another e.e. poem:

since the thing perhaps is
to eat flowers and not to be afraid.

Nosy neighbor with a rake started talking at me from across the street. I wanted to throw my hand up in a stop signal to him, "Don't come any closer, white t-shirt, no bra, no coffee yet, leave me be."
"Blah blah blah, did your basement flood, etc etc..." Can't you see I'm BUSY with my camera and a live rabbit? I had to grab Maury and hurry inside. He gets NO social cues and kept coming closer, talking as I try to avoid him. Drives me crazy, all summer long.
I said, "Sorry, I'm not dressed." and scrambled in.

Just wanted to say hello from a different place. And show you that I do not REALLY begrudge the Spring. I bowed to all the dazzling forsythia bushes on my walk yesterday. I'm drinking hot coffee with sweet cream and sugar. Got my ipod plugged into the stereo and blasting a sweet, fun mix a friend made me. "Make a wish baby...."
The sun is shining. I will see my family later: mom, aunties, etc... Is there anything more comforting than a perfumed Channel #5 hug from your mom, dressed in her Sunday best? Or a lipsticked kiss on your cheek from your aunt? I know Liz's tables will look lovely, maybe lime greens and blues, table cloths, candles, flowers. Martha Stewart style. White china. Delicious food, lots of veggies, artesian bread, real butter. And black olives to plop on my finger tips like puppets. Oh well no, not anymore. She buys the REAL olives with the pits. No canned black olives from my childhood.

Got to run to grocery store first and at least get some fruits and veggies for the week. Cupboard is bare. Bunnies need their greens and carrots (especially after working so hard to hide all your eggs at the crack of dawn). On the last roll of TP. Ack.
I feel guilty when you all come here to see me, write such amazing, sweet, encouraging things and I have not visited you. Or visited, but not commented. I will see you soon. I miss reading everyone. I just can't keep up, my writerly, wonder friends! Trying not to spend as much time on the computer too. Still got to figure out some big things. Thank you for showing up. It amazes me. I feel so buoyed by you all. Buoyed and blessed.

Happy Sunday. Happy Spring. Happy hop hop.
Eat flowers (but not ALL of them)
and do not be afraid.

Pussy willow sky

2010-04-03T00:54:00.010-04:00

I have been wandering around in my head. I have been lost in my wrong life. And without my permission, the pussy willows have mostly all fluffed out, before I had a chance to cut some branches for their tight, gray, soft nubs. The daffodils are pushing up and I have not said, "Yes, please come now, I am ready for your yellow, your trumpet call, your start." Already I hear the sickening slap of flip flops as people approach the circulation desk. Oh Lord, toes again. Me still in my sweatshirt, my thick socks.

The peepers are singing and shouldn't this make my heart leap happy?

Ah, but this is how it always goes with me. I am never ready for the good stuff, the living, the dance, or, I suppose, the sudden skin revealed. And I always think there is more time. For what? Oh you know, to fall in love, to write a book, to have children, to change my life.

Time runs out. If I do not start certain flower seeds now, they just won't bloom, no matter how much I nurture them. No matter how green and strong their leaves and stems, how healthy their roots, how sunny the summer months are. No matter.

Walk after therapy. Little park near my house. Jumping with teenagers and families. The second nice day after flood damaging rains. When dusk creeped in and the track cleared out, I popped my headphones off and let myself welcome the spring sounds, the peepers. Took some pics with my almost-as-cool-as-an-iphone new cell phone (DROID). Polaroid and Toy camera filter.

And look, the bathrooms are finally unpadlocked. Yippee, yahoo. Now that is cause for rejoicing.

Spring always makes me remember the feel of my mother zipping me up in my pink, rayon jacket. Such a light, slippery, soft feeling, that thin, cotton candy colored shell. Moving with me as I skipped and ran and drank up the day, the smells, the flavors, the fun. I think this must have been the jacket I had before my body felt suddenly wrong. Before I became afraid of everything. My 5 year old skin. Pockets for lollipops and superballs and purple chalk.

Some e.e. cummings for you:

Spring is like a perhaps hand

(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and from moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and
without breaking anything.

Fake Librarian Files

2010-03-22T21:19:00.004-04:00

Disclaimer: I am not a real Librarian (MLS). I just play one at the front desk of a small public library. I only hold a BA in English (and I suck at grammar and can't spell).

So, does anyone else find whistling, especially in a LIBRARY, to be passive aggressive?
I don't find it cheerful, I find it infuriating.
Almost as bad as cell phone use in the library.
We have "Please turn off your cell phone" signs everywhere and people just flat out REFUSE.
It's like we've asked them to stop breathing. They constantly answer and talk while I am checking out to them, sometimes walking a few steps away from me, the more considerate ones, telling whoever called that they are in the LIBRARY (in a fake whisper), as if that makes it better. Then they just go on talking.
And of course it's always so urgent and important. Ex: "No Ma, I'm making PAWK TENDALOIN (Rhode Island accent) for dinnah tanight. We're having chicken palm (parmesan) tamarra."
How bout you just don't answer it? How bout you WAIT 2 seconds until we finish our transaction?
How bout this:
"Uh, excuse me, yeah, you. Please shut your phone off and come back here. See that sign, you are violating library rules. See this stack of books you just picked out? Back on the shelf. Nope. Done. No books for you. Go home and play with your phone apps."

That'll show them, right? They won't be able to live without their Nora Roberts for long.
(Oh, I am not just mean, I am snobby.)

A taste of my grouchy mind ramblings on a Monday. Though mostly I'm smiling and doing whatever the tax paying patrons ask me to do.

We'll talk about the senior citizen who prank phone calls us next time.
Oh and the dirty reference call questions: Do you have any Kama Sutra books?
So fun.

Peek-a-Bo

2010-03-19T22:45:00.001-04:00

Quick check in:
I'm trying hard to figure something out. I'm running out of time.
But I'm okay, mostly.
In the meantime, Bo just wanted you all to know he loves you.
I do too.

life is a verb

2010-03-11T11:35:00.013-05:00

Be careful how you interpret the world: it is like that. ~Erich Heller

Thursday morning. Decided to get back in bed with book, dog and coffee (okay, and peanut butter toast). Lucky me. I don't have work until 1pm. Quote is from this book that came in for me yesterday through interlibrary loan. It's full of fantastic quotes, wonderful stories, funky art journal pages, and great advice. I won't do the end of chapter practices and I'm okay with that. I love books like this, but rarely ever do the assignments. I don't like "exercises." I don't like homework. I don't like people telling me what to do, even if it is supposed to be fun and lead to enlightenment (especially if). I like to just read a book and not have to stop to write or dance or cook or call someone and ask for forgiveness. The only book I've ever been able to follow instructions from is Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. Open notebook, put pen to page, write for 10 minutes. Do this everyday and it will change your life. She's right. It did. It does.

Read my first Deepack Chopra book recently and was surprised how much I liked it. He writes lucidly and well. I don't know why I thought he was full of it. Maybe just because he's so mainstream. He did a fantastic job of explaining a lot of the "Secret" stuff that's so popular right now. He has this whole program for living your right life, which involves meditating and mantras, and the minute it got more confusing than saying "Om" a few times a day, I put the book down and never opened it again. I'd stuck fluorescent pink Post It notes on all pages I wanted to copy and remember. But I got overwhelmed, peeled them off and returned the book.

It's funny though, I believed him. I don't have the book here (can't even remember the title), so can't talk about it properly, or find the quotes. But I felt/knew that if I did follow these suggestions, based on all sorts of ancient spiritual practices, my life would change for the better; I would open that channel for good things to flow to me and out of me; I would find my path. And I thought, well, hell, shouldn't I buckle down and DO this then? It's just a little meditating and chanting. It can't hurt me. How can I just close this book and say, "no thanks, No, too hard," when I've found this path, right here in this book, that can heal and help, bring magic and wellness to my life? But it didn't feel right, or I should say, didn't feel possible, for me. It was too much. One can only do what one can do. Following the intructions in this book might be the most direct way to the sort of life I want, but it's not my path right now. My path is writing practice and therapy and physical exercise. It's trying to hide less and engage more. I knew I couldn't add one more thing without buckling and giving up on all of it. You have to trust your gut. My gut said, Bethany, you're doing the best you can right now with the resources and energy you have. It's okay to step away from the Deepak book.

He said something like, if someone told you you could change your life by just exercising 20 minutes a day, wouldn't you do it? And I thought, wow, do you know who you're talking to? We Americans know what we're supposed to be doing to feel better both physically and mentally, we read and read about it. We copy down advice and quotes and healthy recipes. We go to classes. We could TEACH classes. We just can't seem to DO it.
(My friend at work, Apri, who is from India, asked me one day about losing weight. I'd gained 14 lbs on my already overweight body, so wasn't sure why she was asking me, but I had no problem sharing my ideas. I told her I didn't believe in diets. Explained about moving more and eating when you're hungry, trying to curb mindless eating, sitting down to eat, making better choices, etc... I noticed a month or so later that she was looking slim. I asked if she'd lost weight. She smiled wide and said "YES! 10 lbs." I said, "How'd you do it?" She kind of looked at me like "well duh," then said, "I just did what you told me." Ah!). I don't think it's just because we're lazy either. I can't say what stops other people. For me it's been about staying dead, frozen, hidden, not having the skills or support to face the grief and confusion and anxiety that spills out when you start waking up, allowing yourself to feel better, to be real and alive.

I really love the "just do one thing differently" philosophy.
"You can only step from where you are standing."
Crunch into an apple today, smile up at the cloudy sky and let the rain find your face, walk one extra step, use a pink glitter pen to write out your grocery list, kiss your cat, find some moss and lay your hands on its springy, green softness.
If you're stuck in that place where even little things like this bring no joy and feel impossible, for God's sake, please find a therapist, a real person to sit with and start, not another self-help book you feel guilty about not following or finishing.
No one should have to live like that.
I know. I know. Believe me, I know.
You really can feel better.

Lick me, I'm yours

2010-03-06T15:10:00.008-05:00

Jazzy rolling in grass on farm

Last night I was driving home from therapy, up a dark, winding road, when two four legged beings came charging into my headlights. Wild beasts? Wild dogs! I stopped dead, and they circled the car like hungry lions. A passing car turned around and stopped right behind me, flashing his hazards. I got out amid the jumping, friendly, wagging, confused dogs.
The man and I both say, "Are these your dogs?"
He says "No, I almost hit them though. They're going to get killed."
I say, "Wait, I think I know these dogs. They live way down the hill. They always bark at me on my walks."
I open my car door and tell them to jump in. Black lab happily complies, scruffy dog is unsure.
"Come on buddy. It's okay. Want to go for a ride?"
He follows.
I say, "Oh, but if these are the dogs I think they are, there are three of them, another black one with funny ears."
He says, "Oh no, really? Because I felt like I hit something, like something grazed my car."
We drive back up the road to check for a hurt dog. It's so dark though and woodsy. I tell him I will bring these two back down the hill and if they don't belong to that house, I will bring them to the shelter. Maybe the other dog is at home. He's relieved.

The whole time in the car, the black lab is trying to get as close to me as she can, licking up the side of my face, thumping her tail wildly. I feel this energy oozing off of her, this kind of: "Oh my gosh, it was fun to be free for about 5 seconds, but really, I was so scared and lost and confused. Thank God you came. It was dark and the cars kept whipping by, blinding us with lights. You are human and will take care of things now, and get us home. Thank you, thank you, thank you."
The scruffy dogs is more reserved, mellow, tries to hang his head out my window.

At the house, the owner is inside with TV glowing. Comes padding to the door in his socks. No idea dogs are loose. We get them into the fenced yard. They come right back out. We discover broken slats.
I ask, "Is your other dog here, inside?"
He says no. He is confused. Gets in car to go look for her, still not securing other dogs. Finally decides to get wife (thank goodness). "It's her dog. She will come to her," he says. Comes back out to tell me everything is fine, funny eared dog was sleeping on the porch. Thanks me.
Oh good.
Phew.
Nice distraction from therapy gunk and an easy, happy ending: no dead or injured dogs, no shelter.
(Below, our black lab mix Jazzy, who we adopted from the shelter when she was 9 or so. We had many happy years together.)

Buddha Jazzy

She was happiest outside

I'm thinking now, of the wiggling, trusting black lab from last night, and those happy, grateful kisses in the car and I realize it takes me less than 2 seconds to fall in love with an animal. I miss her already. I want to take her for rides and walks. I want to bring her a squeeky toy and a chew bone. Fill her dishes with fresh water and kibble, fluff a clean blanket for her to nestle down in. I want to make her happy.
I suppose when we help another being too, we feel bonded to them, attached.
Oh, who am I kidding? Lick me, lean against me, breathe heavily in my ear, and I am yours.

The whole encounter made me rethink my, I do not want another dog right now, stance. I do want a big dog (meaning not chihuahua sized) I can walk and wrestle and ride in the car with. But things are too unstable right now. I know I will eventually find a dog who needs me, who I need. But I don't want to put the vibe out there yet, because believe me, animals find me, a dog would be waiting on my door step tomorrow if I just say the word or think the thought (this happened with a little Boston Terrier named Sprocket). I have to focus on taking care of my own self right now. I have neglected so much.
I've been taking care of sickly, elderly and homeless, hopeless, needy animals for over 10 years now, every single day. At one point we had 17 animals living with us. No kidding.

But it felt nice to connect with that young, happy, trusting dog energy. Something about the whole encounter, but specifially that sweet black dog's in-the-moment joy and gratitude, pushed me out of my stupor, back into this glorious, shining world. I washed and dried my sheets. I ate a good dinner. I connected with a new friend. I spent 40 min on the treadmill. I did not eat more chocolate. I slept a kind of deep, content dog sleep.
Amen for that.
Thank God.
Thank Dog.

Jazzy with sunflowers (I fed the leaves to our rabbits). Cottage we rented for 5 years on farm behind her.

Dumb and dumber

2010-03-05T08:23:00.002-05:00

Ah, you guys...

How magical and strengthening to wake to all those word hugs.

I feel protected.

Thank you.

I just have to say, dumb dumb dumb dinner choice last night, in more ways than one. Forgot that chocolate has caffine. I am careful not to drink caffine after 1pm or so. I barely slept a wink last night, felt like not even a full hour. At least no dreams/nightmares.

I'm still jacked from it, which I guess is good, since I need to get to work.

Be thankful you won't be around for the crash and burn.
Lordy.