Fleeting and elusive

Dragon Mood? -- frustrated

You know, I'll be driving to work or driving home from work. Sometimes, I get these in the bathroom, taking a shower. Sometimes, it's in the middle of the night.

And this incredibly luminescent light bulb will go ON for me, inside the dark, mysterious recesses of my brain, and I think, "By golly, I need to write that down. I should blog about that!" Of course, at the time, in the moment, I'm convinced that I'll be able to retrieve that sparkly whit of insight like the snap of fingers. The sad reality is that I'm not. And then I let out this heavy sigh. Because one more sample of my (~ahem~) brilliance has been lost in the dark netherworld of my memory. Will I ever be able to retrieve it? Who knows?

On a more positive light, I DID remember enough to write this post. Yay for me!

June Twenty-Third

Dragon Mood? -- marking the passage of time in wonder!

Today is a day filled with remarkable events.



Here are the first four that come to mind for me:

• President Obama accepted the resignation of U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, the chief military officer of the war in Afghanistan, after he made unprofessional remarks in an interview with the magazine, Rolling Stone
• A 5.0 earthquake hit in Ontario with shocks felt in Boston, Cleveland and Detroit (lucky or not, I felt nothing)
• Federal investigators handed down a 19-count indictment against former Detroit mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick.  Insiders say this is only the tip of the iceberg in prosecuting his misdeeds.
• On a more personal note, today, June 23rd is the day that my ex-husband and I married. If we were still married, this would be our 37th anniversary. I must admit I'm amazed to think about the passage of that much time!  As a young, brash 20-something, I could never have anticipated the twists and turns of my life as they've occurred.

Warm air, gentle drone

Dragon Mood? -- slighty sweaty and relaxed

As the granddaughter of a farmer, I feel compelled to give a weather report. It's partly cloudy, warm, higher humidity than the past couple of days and almost no breeze to keep us cool. Report done.

I'm sitting in the camper, mid-afternoon, trying to stay cool and taking a 'break' from my sudoku to write. S and her mom are outside at the picnic table, talking. I've experienced this many times before with the two of them, where they are tete-a-tete, head-to-head, conversing intently, me slightly removed but within earshot. There is something profoundly pleasing and comforting listening to the up-and-down pitch of their conversation, the drone of it, if you will. I don't know if it reminds me of my mother and grandmother when I was a little girl or what other emotional dynamic it taps, but I find it oddly comforting -- like all is right with the world.

S called her mom this morning and invited her out for a late breakfast. She cooked thick-sliced bacon in the electric skillet (don't even ask about the saturated fats we ate!) and then a small carton of southwestern-flavored Egg Beaters. Just typing it makes me laugh -- what a meal of nutritional and dietary contradictions! Nevertheless, the eggs and bacon were outstanding, improved only by the fresh air and the lakeside vista. Sally brought some large naval oranges and a ruby-red grapefruit which she cut up and we then happily slurped and sucked up all their sweet juices.

This IS a relaxing vacation. After all the preparation and grunt work required to get ready, I'm starting to think it may have been worth it. Beyond minimal maintenance tasks around the camper, I'm doing as little as possible. My goal? To get bored out of my gourd. :-)

Last hurrah of March

Dragon Mood? -- remembering

Scootching towards mid-morning, today is looking to be such a beautiful day, I put on my gym shoes and hit the sidewalks for a walk around the neighborhood.

The sky is the bluest of blues. Trees are still bare so you can see their every branch and bone. A few clumps of leaves hang on, curled and brown, hardy survivors of winter winds. Hard to see but not difficult to hear are all the birds, singing their little birdy hearts out, celebrating the return of sunshine and warmer temperatures. Hearing their songs reminds me of how wonderful it is to be alive. I remind myself, don't take it for granted, Mary. Be grateful and give thanks.

I focus on feeling as much as I can, opening my sensory windows and letting it all flow in. The air is cool, but not cold. My top and sweatshirt are just the right warmth. I focus on tightening my tummy muscles, my core muscles and aligning my spine. I straighten my posture as I walk. Hmm, that actually seems to help.

This all feels so natural, so familiar. I've walked these blocks so many times before. My ever-present companion, Cisco, is the only missing part of this picture. I imagine her out in front of me, going this way, then that, sniffing, pausing to sniff more intently heaven only knows what. In my arm muscles, I actually feel her leash tugging me here, now there. Oh, it's surreal at how very real it feels.

I look at houses as I pass. Usually tidy ones still look tidy in this nether time between winter and spring. Some look a little worse for wear. A house that was foreclosed last fall has new occupants. Their garage door is open and boxes are lined up right to the edge of the opening. Another house, up the street, on the other side, is for sale. I wonder if this is a voluntary, happy-choice sale or a wolves-at-the-door foreclosure sale? I can't help but wonder.

I'm amazed at how quiet and empty the streets are. Is everyone working but me? Are people immune to the beauty of the day, behind doors closed and locked? I wonder.

Then, across the street, I see a man. He's wearing a winter knit hat, a skull cap I think it's called. I glance down, then back at him. He's still watching me. I raise my hand and wave. He waves back. Now I know what it feels like to be on an island, a castaway, feeling too alone. The strange reassurance of seeing another person, though a stranger. What a curious feeling.

I stop and examine some tiny blue flowers sprung up alongside a slab of concrete. They're so dainty and so intensely blue. Are these snowdrops? I don't know if there is such a thing as intensely blue snowdrops. Nevertheless, they are lovely. Their color is such a marked contrast to the brownness and grayness of all the other foliage.

A woman rounds the block corner, coming towards me, walking two dogs. As she approaches, I say hi. She replies and I ask if I may pet her dogs? They are well-mannered dogs, inquisitive and happy to get a head rub. I tell her about Cisco. She offers her sympathy. I wish her a pleasant day and continue walking. I wish I didn't feel so alone and so vulnerable. I have never been in the habit of chatting up strangers before. Why am I doing it now?

I finish my walk, happy that I have stretched my legs, exercised my core muscles, even to the point of preventing a lower backache, the usual outcome of a long walk. I feel a bit winded, which is good. I congratulate myself.

I return to my laptop, ready to begin working on finding jobs and then it hits me. Today is an anniversary. Yup, it sure is. A year ago, about the same time as my mid-morning walk, I got called into a conference room, told that my job was being eliminated, told that it had nothing to do with my performance, but yes, you are being laid off.

I am thankful. I am thankful for today's March 31st compared to last year's March 31st. I am so thankful to be here and not there.

June weekend recap

Dragon Mood? -- catching up

Much has happened over this past week and curiously, I simply haven't felt like blogging about it. After having received the news of finally, finally securing a job, my mind has been in a whirl and my emotions have been swinging around enough to make my mind look like it's been sitting still.

Here's a recap of this past weekend's events:

• Friday evening, my sister and brother-in-law, Ruth and Paul, as well as their three children, Aaron, Luke and Jess drove up from Chicago to spend the weekend. Friday evening, we drank wine, ate munchies, ordered pizza, exchanged stories, and toasted ME on the occasion of my new job. Jess, Luke and Aaron also surprised their parents with the news of an informal 30th anniversary party.


• Saturday was a day of errands, scurrying around buying cards (belated graduation for Jess, anniversary for Ruth & Paul, Father's Day for Dad, belated birthday card for Joanne) and small gifts, such as they were. While I now have a job, I still don't have any money coming in right now and it felt very odd to allow myself the freedom to spend money. What a curious feeling!


• Ruth & Paul's party began at 5, but I arrived at John & Kari's lovely home in DeWitt around 4. Ruth, in particular, felt a bit discombobulated at not being involved in party and food preparations -- she was told to "get out of the kitchen." Well!
  
  Aaron, Luke and Jess did a great job of putting the party together. I know it's something they're unaccustomed to, but they did a bang-up job! John & Kari are gracious hosts and put everyone at their ease.
  
  It was enjoyable to see people whom I hadn't seen for quite a while. S and I visited with Ruth's good friend, Anne, a retired attorney now living in Birmingham, Michigan. It felt good to be open about our relationship with her. Paul's dad, Roy, was giving away as well as selling copies of his new book, a first volume (of many) on preaching guides based on the church year. If you're not Lutheran, don't worry if you don't understand. It's all very detailed and parochial. Roy was understandably proud of his efforts.
  
  Luke and his Aunt Mary finally had their drinking time! We worked on three bottles of wine through the evening. We did have some help killing off the old soldiers, but I took precautions to drink loads of water and a piece of bread when I got home.


• Sunday morning I was moving slow, but drove into town to meet Aaron at his grandparents' home to pick up some large terra cotta pots that nobody seemed to want and had been languishing there. Aaron did the heavy lifting while I stood by.
  
  Shortly later, everyone else joined us after finishing the church service they had attended. We all said our round of good-byes and I left.
  
  S and I prepared to head up north to attend Dobie's visitation. We took a brief nap, showered, dressed, loaded up the car and the dog and left about 4. We arrived there after six and paid our respects at the funeral home. Surprisingly, mutual friends of ours, Michelle and Sue, had also driven up for the visitation -- people we haven't seen since December -- so we got to visit and catch up with them as well.
  
  We finished the day by arriving at the home of S's sister, Michelle, and her husband, Jim, to spend the night. I showered, said my good-nights and crashed. S and Michelle sat up and visited for a while.


• Monday morning, S and I dressed, left Cisco with Michelle, and headed back down US-27 to attend the funeral. Kevin made some absolutely delicious Bloody Mary's for us to drink later in the day ... but we all got a pre-funeral taste of their spicy, vodka-infused lusciousness!
  
  The funeral was well-attended and many people recounted loving memories of Dobie. As I had feared, there was an incident regarding who constituted family when it came time for seating the family. Thankfully, there were enough people who recognize Joanne as Jeanne's partner and also recognize her significant contributions over these past months, that Joanne sat in the first row, right next to Jeanne through the service -- as she should have.


• We finished up the day by driving back north to change our clothes, visit with Michelle for about an hour, pack up the dog and head back downstate. We first visited our home in the pines, switched bags and clothes and cars, and then drove the second leg of the journey back here to our pied-a-terre in the city. Whew! Such a lot of driving!

And that was just the weekend!

May Day

Dragon Mood? -- awake or dreaming?

Why is it ... some weeks I can't wait to post my thoughts to calypso ... while other weeks, like this one, I feel strangely quiet?

Tuesday was May Day, a day I always feel drawn to. It has some long-ago associations for me of 2nd grade, making brightly-colored construction paper tulips and being one of the children to wrap crepe paper around a tall May pole. Did that really happen or did I just dream it?

Mourning a friend who is gone

Dragon Mood? -- mournful, sad

Finding out that someone you loved and cared about is dead is painful enough. To find out that this person died over 11 months ago and I had no clue only adds to my sense of loss and vulnerability. I had no clue.

I found out this morning. The person that died was our therapist, S and mine, for over four years. Maybe it was even five years; I've forgotten now. His name was Pat Brice and he was an exceptional therapist. He was also a person who made me feel happy about being alive and hopeful about the future.

S and I started seeing Pat in August of 1998. It was a dark and bitter time in our relationship. Without going into gory details, suffice to say that Pat had plenty to address with us, regarding our relationship, as well as our parenting skills and individual mental health.

We saw Pat week after week after week, usually on a weekday evening. Sometimes we were his last clients for the evening. That allowed him to be a bit more relaxed about the length of our session. Many times, we would start the session talking about something other than "therapy." From those "warm-up minutes," I learned about Pat's love of nature, dogs, woodworking, bees, gardening, his wife and his daughters, his extended family in Wisconsin.

During sessions, I heard him speak about his own traumas growing up at the hands of nuns, a failed first marriage, working in mental health clinics, deciding to pursue a Ph.D, politics, working with kids who have ADHD and learning to deal with his own limitations.

Pat was kind of a gentle bear of a man. For most of the time that S and I saw him, he had either a mustache or a mustache and a beard. He was rather rotund; he could have played a perfect Santa Claus, including the twinkle in his eye. I remember us talking about our respective struggles with weight.

He was incredibly kind and gentle. He demonstrated manly, better yet, fatherly tenderness that spoke volumes to the little girl within me. He cried with S and me a couple of times, particularly when talking about children experiencing violence. He told us lots of insightful or instructive stories and theories and even shared a hypothesis or two on the "secrets" of the universe.

Pat drove a Ford Ranger that he loved. When it came time, S bought a Ford Ranger too. He shared a dozen or so pine seedlings with us that he had gotten from a friend. S planted them out in our diminishing pine "forest" while her grandma observed. He brought us a jar filled with honey from his bees. (Delicious!) We brought him cookies at Christmastime because he made no secret of his love for eating. He gave us a beautiful wooden "vase," complete with a snug-fitting top that he cut and turned on his lathe. It sits on our sidetable in the dining room where we can see it with every meal. S bought a beautiful gnarled piece of wood and gave it to him because she knew how much he loved wood.

Because he knew, as designers we love to design things, one night after a session, we spent quite a while strategizing how he could build a gate into his garden. He had a bunch of design constraints (all of which I can't remember) that only added to the fun and challenge of figuring out a workable and buildable solution. He told us about the ponds on his property and the fence to keep their dogs safe and spending time there with his wife.

All three of us enjoyed the outdoors so much, we joked and speculated on what people would think about having our therapy session outside on the clinic lawn. We held back our impulses and stayed inside.

S and I continued to see Pat for over six months after we bought the pied-a-terre here in Motown. That would have been October or November of 2003. I guess we did see him for over five years. Amazing.

We never had an official "last" session. Our lives felt more stable, less chaotic, our relationship more loving, less prone to poor boundaries and "magical" thinking. That fall of 2003, when a series of appointments was completed, I never scheduled more. I never really said "Good-bye" to Pat because there's always a next time, right? Before today, rarely has a week gone by that I don't think of him. And the same can be said regarding S and my relationship. We frequently reference "What would Pat say?" after a particularly difficult exchange or while struggling with a thorny issue. Usually, we can work it out, thanks to his good work with us.

It's nearly impossible to express just how sad I feel, now knowing that Pat is gone. He was such a source of love and care for me in this world. He sure didn't save it for a rainy day. He put it out there, hour after hour, week after week. He gave freely and willingly and lovingly. I suspect that there are many, many other people, clients of his who feel the same. The world ... my world ... feels poorer and drearier and a little less warm for Pat's not being with us here anymore. As a caring therapist, I have made him a part of me. I will always remember him and keep him close in my heart.

from Madison via train and memories

Dragon Mood? -- relaxed, sentimental and remembering

Chillin' out in my PJs, I'm here in Madison, at Caroline's house, enjoying a quiet, lazy day. Lina is finishing up her work week with a "Friday" Wendishday.

This evening, we've got plans to drink a loaded-up Bloody Mary at a local pub. Dinner plans are still evolving.

Tomorrow morning, we have a breakfast date at a local eatery called Lazy Janes and then we're hitting one of Caroline's favorite spots, St. Vinny's. Tomorrow afternoon, we'll grab up the dog and head down to Chicago to join Ruth, Paul, Josh, Aaron and Jess for some serious March Madness basketball watching. Oh yes, and maybe a little drinking and painting and cooking and kitchen-planning thrown in there for variety and amusement.

I thoroughly enjoyed my train ride yesterday ... my FIRST train ride in probably over 20 years! The ride was smoother then I remembered them being. I rode "backwards," ... facing backwards, that is; it was only until we were in Indiana, did I realize that half of the railcar's seats face foward and half face rearward. I had plunked myself into the first available seat, never realizing I had a choice!

Riding in a train, listening to the muted "whoo-whoo" of the whistle as we crossed one road after another, evoked many, many memories, young child memories of my grandmother, Nana, and her traveling on train to visit us. We would drive to Des Moines to pick her up at the train station.

I remember being afraid of the immensity of the train itself, its noisy clanking, the hiss of steam brakes (I presume) and this unfamiliar metallic smell that I disliked. I also remember being totally exhilarated at the prospect of Nana's visit. I can see her being helped down off of the train by a porter, all decked out in a dark suit, her little fox fur capelet draped around her shoulders. She had on a little hat that included some artfully-arranged netting on her permed hair and she wore makeup and lipstick. She exuded the fragrance of Chanel No. 5.

Ruth and I couldn't wait to sit next to her in the backseat of the car on the ride home to Ames. Dad drove while Mom sat next to him, although she spent most of the trip turned around, talking to her mom. They exchanged news and local gossip of LaGrange and the surrounding area. I remember feeling lulled by the rhythms of their conversation, a familiar give-and-take, that gave me a fulfilled sense of joy, safety and "all's right with the world." Nana was here!

Such wonderful child-memories, all from a simple train ride!