burned

i'm a fair-skinned person. i don't tan well at all; usually i just burn. i can tell when i'm going to burn by looking at the number of freckles that appear underneath my nose. when i'm going to burn, suddenly i have a lot more freckles there, regardless of where on my body i'm burned.

in the summer, i shun the sunlight. i'll venture out in early, early morning, or dusk--but midday is poisonous. my mother's italian skin just didn't make it to me. i often wish, especially in summer, that i could have inherited her skin tone--that soft olive that tans instantly in sun, and rarely, if ever, burns.

saturday i went garage saling. i should have known better--i remembered to wear a hat, and my sunglasses, since my eyes are very light sensitive as well. (dan calls me the "movie star" because i'm always wearing my sunglasses, rain or shine.) anyway, i forgot to put on sunscreen.

this usually happens at least once at the outset of summer, before i've slapped the coppertone 60 on the counter as a reminder. and inevitably, after i burn, i get sick.

i don't know what it's called--sun poisoning? heat stroke? heat exhaustion? all i know is that i'm sick, and the burn aches. this time i've burned just the back of my neck, and part of my shoulders. it makes turning my head agony--the burn is tight across my skin, and everything that comes in contact with it feels huge and painfully scratchy.

my hair has been up since saturday; i haven't been able to take it out of a pony tail, because each little strand is like a teeny, tiny brand. yesterday i wore a tank top all day--just to avoid the agony of a collar--but today i need to take a short jaunt to walgreens for something to help with the pain, and so i am sitting uncomfortably straight in my chair, trying not to look sideways at my cats, my neck frozen as i type.

why is it that, as a child, if you stick your hand in fire and you are burned, you remember not to do it again...but if you are burned by the sun, a much further-from-you flame, you forget? from year to year, month to month? is it because it is so much farther away than a campfire?

today i'm staying home from work. my stomach is still upset with me, and my neck hurts so badly that i cannot imagine sitting at my desk and looking about. this is the last time this will happen. at least this year.

attack of the overzealous cleaning fairy

every month i go through a week of ups and downs. it's generally the week prior to my period, so i should have an idea of when this will occur. however, i have selective amnesia, which is a boon to my existence.

this week kicked off with the usual suspects: insomnia, a ravenous appetite, and the activation of my genetic "clean the freaking house" gene.

my mom's mom is known as "the white tornado," since she's super fast and kept her house immaculately clean, when she was still living at home. my own mom cleans every saturday morning; my sister cleans on mondays. i generally stick to the saturday or sunday morning routine--clean, clean, clean, then shower and nap, and then start the day. i know, makes your heart race, doesn't it?

anyway, thursday night i slept for shit--par for the course. after four or five hours, my brain pokes me awake and i have to get up and start the day. which i did--i was at work by 630, and home by 1230. at that point, i thought i should take a nap. but there was a cat vomit stain next to the entertainment center, and i couldn't slumber in good conscience until it was clean.

as usual, this turned into an hour-long marathon, in which i vacuumed and steam-cleaned the whole living room, took out all garbage and recycling, cleaned the cat restroom area and the human bathroom, and got the dishwasher loaded and running. by the time i was done i had to shower, but all i could think was, what else can i get done?

this will wear off shortly. but for this last week, my kitchen has been clean, and now the carpet in the living room is not covered with fine layer of shiva.

i suppose i should look on the bright side: if i do this once a month, the house will stay clean.

but it does get me thinking about cycles--the earth has a cycle, which dictates to humanity how we shape our lives. for the most part, the modern primate can live however they want to--regardless of weather, your house can be filled with light and cool, or dim and warm: it's your choice.

i think this gives humanity the false sense that they are more in control of their existence than they really are. i also think it separates us from our direct environs, which in turn can be confusing to the system in general.

anyway, this morning i woke up smelling the leftover linen refresher spray that i'd doused the bedroom drapes in yesterday, during the scouring spasm. i lay there, listening to the world wake up--the birds chirping, the random hum of a vehicle. i remembered when i was a kid, waking up in the summertime, cool air on my face, and the smell of roses blooming below the window, warm beneath my blankets, the soft snores and rustlings of my sisters melting into the coo of fifty doves on the line outside. i thought of five years ago, waking up in the little cabin and hearing my cat purr on my chest, and the loons on the lake sharing their eerie music.

i am in a different place now, a different part of the world. and yet the cycles of life--seasons, genes, my very own pair of X-chromosomes--still control the memories that are triggered, the scent of my comforter, and the cleanliness of my linoleum.

the anatomy of pancake syrup

we have this place that we love to go to breakfast. i say "we" because it's usually me and dan. but the collective "we" also encompasses our friends with the new baby, and corpse, and eero too. pretty much anyone who sips of their delectable syrup is inducted into a select group of people who then crave said liquid from time to time in the future. we haven't indoctrinated devin yet, but judging by her enthusiastic five-month-old response and the resulting amount of drool, i'd say she's well on her way. excellent choice, little one. excellent choice.

the reason for meeting this morning was dan's big three-one birthday. we all pretty much had our usual fare: scrambled eggs, thick pepper bacon, breakfast potatoes, and something porous to sop up the syrup.

the syrup isn't sold in the cafe itself. we tried to break down the ingredients and came close to what the waitress said it was, but in reality, i doubt we'll ever replicate that same jarred bliss at home. sweet with a hint of salty; maple with a hint of praline and cream. there's just nothing like it.

they also have good coffee, which is an added bonus, and the staff is always quite friendly.

we're not there every day because then we'd get tired of the syrup. i'm sure of it. this way, imbibed infrequently, it's a treat, and stays just as miraculous with each forkful.

***

this last week has been nice to have off. we got to attend the only wild hockey game that they won in their series against anaheim--and had the best seats in the house. i'm not kidding, either--third tier, first row. the view was fantastic.

then on thursday we met a friend for a big-screen showing of "ghostbusters." it came complete with a new rendition of Ecto-1, this time in a ford crown victoria station wagon, outfitted with all the requisite flashing lights and details. the movie itself was just fun to see; i cannot count the number of times i've seen the stay-puft marshmallow man, but never that size! it made me feel like i was eight again.

then yesterday we met friends to see "hot fuzz." i probably won't be the first to say that it was brilliant, nor the last, but quite possibly the most vehement. (with the exception of dan, i'm sure...he's taller and has a deeper voice and just more resonant all around.) there were guns. there were one-liners. it's british humor; what's not to love?

i got my car cleaned out, and the garage straightened up. not swept yet, but that can wait until the wind dies down some.

i also did a TON of reading this week. i think in all i read 6 books, and just one more on the docket. today we're heading into minneapolis and braving the Big City to hit Uncle Hugo's, a used sci-fi/fantasy book store. it smells just like a book store should: fibrous.

so despite the fact that i didn't do all the things i thought i would get accomplished--mopping the kitchen floor, watching the three chick flicks that have been collecting dust on the entertainment unit, getting a haircut and a massage, steamcleaning the living room carpets, and going through the boxes of childhood memorabilia that's been stuffed into the storage unit for almost two years now--despite avoiding all that like the plague, i had a good week off.

my only gripe right now is that now that i've had a week off, i feel rested enough to actually HAVE a vacation. i'm finally unwinding, only to get all wound up again by tomorrow morning.

***

it's times like these that i dream of a day when i win the powerball and can relax for a good solid month before i get bored and have to find a job, just to keep myself occupied and out of the trap of becoming one with my computer.

or becoming one with a book. that was my biggest splurge this week: i hit half price books, unique thrift store, and the library, and i've read everything i got, already, and then some. when i read books i feel compelled to devour them, in the same two-gulp manner that my sister's dog wolfs her dinner. i sit down, i read the book, i finish and then i'm onto the next one.

during the week, when i'm back at the grind, i don't have the time or energy to devote simply to falling into the pages of a book. it's a reprieve to find that i can sit with my feet propped on the coffee table, one cat curled at my left side and one purring like a muscle car on my stomach, sipping pulpy, cold orange juice, and flipping idly through the pages.

i have another vacation coming up in july. another week off. i suppose that in the end my vacations are dispersed throughout the year much like our syrup-tastings--something to keep me moving forward through the sludge of day-to-day cubeland.

so despite the strong urge to call in tomorrow and say, "i'm taking another week off, now," i'll resist the siren song and wade back into the fray. which will make my next vacation all the lovelier.

i hope. (;

scattered

yesterday there was a shooting; the biggest massacre in our country's history. (at least by the standards of school shootings--i am reasonably sure that other massacres have happened, undocumented and off of school grounds, perhaps even prior to the founding fathers setting foot on north american soil.)

it's something that catches people off guard. and well it should; i would hate to be so numb to these things that i didn't care. part of me is reminded of columbine; it's that time of year, so on and so forth. part of me is reminded of corey; today is the day he passed. and part of me is reminded of my own youth, spent hating school.

yes, hating. i hated school--grade school and high school, to a lesser degree. i hated it because i was one of the kids who was always bullied and teased. it bit.

i continually find it of interest the way that kids group together; is it some leftover herding instinct? like finds like, and blends in? who knows. there is inevitably a group of children in any yard at recess who are the cast-offs: for whatever reason available, the other children cut them off, don't pick them in gym, you name it. everyone in the "in" crowd is just that: in. everyone in the group to which i consistently belong was out. out of fashion, out of sorts, out of the picture. we were a solid group, a group held together by the fact that all of us were ignored for some different reason. that was what made us alike--not the same jeans, or the shirt with a certain logo on it--a feeling, an emotion.

i was always a member of this group, due to my red hair and hand-me-down clothing. i could go on and on about the hair issue--when you're older, everyone wants it, when you're a kid, it's nothing but trouble, etc--but that's another story for another day.

being part of the cast away portion of the recess crowd meant that i learned certain lessons quite early. my dad would repeat the time-old mantra: "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me." and over time, you try to ignore the slurs and insults. you learn to be innocuous in other ways--you are quiet, you blend into a crowd, you could be anybody.

dan was one of those kids too, at our high school. his boys ran around wearing black and playing roleplaying games, and being scoffed at for those reasons. they were the "nerds"; my group of girls were just the ones who didn't wear guess jeans and couldn't afford anything from ralph lauren unless it came from a thrift store.

you make your own group, you make your own rules. but you are separated from the whole; you are scattered about, and have to take the time to come together. some people never do find that niche, even if it is the group of forgotten and teased. they prefer the army of one mentality that comes with the solidarity of self.

those kids are the scary ones, nowdays--the ones who are pushed to the side for being too intelligent, too off-mark, the ones who never find people that allow them to be who they are and allow them the acceptance they seek. they're the ones termed "loners."

a song that we sang in grade school comes to mind. it's to the tune of "glory, glory hallelujah."

glory, glory hallelujah
teacher hit me with a ruler
standing behind the door
with a loaded forty-four
and there ain't no teacher no more.

there's more on this at wikipedia, of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_of_the_School

school violence is nothing new, i guess is what i'm saying. it's nothing to be forgotten, either. i loved kindergarten; it was the grades between then and graduation that i despised. when i got to college i fell in love with school again, because it was a place where everyone was forgotten, and your clothing ignored. everyone was on a level playing field, at least at my university.

i fear for my sister, who teaches middle school. i fear for her because no amount of protection or security can ensure that someone, somewhere, isn't hating and feeling alienated, by their peers or teachers, parents, siblings. there are any number of reasons why people do what they do, and hindsight is 20/20, and makes it seem as though these things could be prevented.

but it starts earlier than anyone remembers--it starts when you are walking to school at the age of six with your twelve year old neighbors, and suddenly you are the target.

twenty five years down the line, i can see it for what it was--children being cruel. but at that time, it was painful. it was abhorrent. it shaped the person i am now, in ways that i cannot fully explain. i'm one of the lucky ones; my father had guns in his house, but i never got to the point where i thought that was even the remotest option.

my struggles, my violence--was aimed solely at me. i can see it in the suicidal poems i wrote, and the books into which i disappeared for days.

yesterday the first footage that we saw was of people, running away, and police, closing in, on great stone-gray buildings. bodies in motion, united in a common cause.

is it only then, at those times, that the divisions of thought and action are forgotten? that you cling to whoever is closest, for support? that you forget about the barriers that have been erected, and just accept others for the sheer need of it?

it annoys me that it has to come to that; and it terrifies me that more and more often, it does.

cousin

all around me, you falter,
you fall
leaves in autumn, drifting
in winter wind.
in the spring you are heavy
leftover snowflakes,
gathering in april descent.
i have fallen, too--many, many times,
perhaps not nearly so far. but
i know what it is like to feel
the ache in your knees, your hip
where it connected with bruised pavement.
i find as time runs hand over hand
that it is harder
to watch as
all around me, you falter.

***

my cousin donna was diagnosed with cancer about six months ago. it was right as my friends darin & cathy welcomed their new little daughter into the world. donna was being treated for a bladder infection, and when the pain got to be too much, she was flown south to larger hospitals, where it was determined that she was far gone with colon cancer. they took her uterus, part of her stomach, part of her intestines. 90% of the cancer was actually removed; she is now going through chemo.

since i seem to have either allergies or a cold that's been coming and going, i've been afraid to visit her, for fear that i'll pass along bacteria or virus. she has a caring bridge site, just like my uncle jed's, where she updates from time to time; i try to read whenever i can, as she chronicles her path.

this last round of chemo was particularly rough. she says she knows it is working. when i read what she has written i see the demoralizing aspect of medicine, how low you must go.

when you're young they don't tell you these things. how could anyone draw a map of suffering, or of comprehension? there is no outline for how to be compassionate, no directions on what joy or fear or loss feel like.

donna wrote that she could not believe the sounds that were coming out of her body, when she sobbed during treatment. there is no describing them--they are the unholy side of your self, the darker half that is hidden with makeup and a smartly matched outfit. but to each there is a balance.

sometimes it is just hard to see that balance.

i forget that the trees must lose their leaves, in order to withstand winter. i forget that fire sometimes scours the earth, burning back life only to allow room for the new. i get mired in the here and the now, the suffering of those around me, their pain. it is more difficult, i think, to watch your friends and loved ones in agony, than it is to undertake that pain yourself.

unbidden my throat tightens; if i speak now, my voice will be harsh and rough. my eyes are warm, ready to weep. the line is so fine between weeping for joy--that the chemo is working--and weeping in sorrow--that she must go through this process in the first place.

under the weather

yesterday i think i had a fever. (i think i had a fever because i was all hot and cold, but when i got home i just went to sleep...and was too tired to rummage around for the thermometer.) anyway, after sleeping the afternoon away and spending the night tossing and turning, i feel better. not "i'm Wonder Woman!" better. but better.

as far as the title goes--aren't we ALL under the weather? it's it kind of...above us? around us? out of our immediate control?

easter in minnesota is usually warmer; it's when you see kids running around in their easter clothes. this year it's sunny, the skys are a washed-out blue, and it's freezing cold; so over the lacy yellow dresses and little sailor outfits, i'm sure that parents will be zipping up coats and squashing hats onto heads.

ah, the frigid north. i love it. (:

april is always a touchy month, a weird time. it's a month of memory and some silent times, and also a lot of laughter. to paraphrase khalil gibran, the same thing that makes you cry, makes you smile.

april is when i remember dan's brother, corey--his birthday and his death. it's when i celebrate dan's birthday--on earth day--even though he's never been much into it, and since it's only 4 days off from when corey passed, it's hard to celebrate. i celebrate because his mom decided to have him, and raised him into the guy who made sure i ate dinner last night, when i was still feverish.

april is also the month that my uncle, jed, suffered his last stroke, the one that has incapacitated him. he clings to life with a tenacity that i cannot help but admire, even two years later.

a year ago this month, dan got his job.

happy and sad; sweet and sour.

***
i drive using things to navigate. by things, i mean points of interest--a gas station, a church spire, a strange house. my dad long ago gave up writing down directions in terms of milage, since my mom drives the same way i do. they say that it's a female tic, to navigate this way.

when i think back on my life, i have a hard time remembering what year something occurred. i have to think about what was going on at that time--where did we live, for whom did we cook dinner, what happened that year. even then, it gets blurred. memory is faulty; the memory of traumatic times, even worse.

it is strange how clear your mind can be, when remembering certain parts--but then other parts are a dream-memory, slipping out of your fingers. i remember corey's sly smile; i remember driving back to bemidji with all the leftover after-funeral cake, a box sliding around the back seat, bumping into a rubbermaid container of cold lasagna. but i cannot remember the sound of his voice.

in duluth you live under the thumb of the weather--you get lake effect snow, strange twists of temperature, and fog, thick and soft. that is what i picture, overlaid on my own mind--that heavy, touchable mist, coalesced into clouds, drifting over the ground.

***

two years ago on easter my sister and i took my grandmother to church. at the time, her meds made her lose most of her hair. beth and i found a very cute denim cap for her to wear, one that went with her outfit and brought out the blue in her eyes, so vivid. she was terrified that it would fall off during mass; we kept reassuring her that it would not. she argued that she had no hair to pin the hat down; we replied that it fit just right, she did not need pins.

all through mass i watched the dome of her head, watched her long, slender fingers fiddle with the brim. she had trouble moving it; her joints were knobby with arthritis. the church was cold and warm at the same time--the heat of bodies pressed into pews, and the breeze on ankles of a door, opened somewhere to alleviate the heat.

i remember walking outside after mass that day, and the sun beating down, hot on my skin. i remember grandma saying that she was glad for the hat, all of a sudden.

grandma didn't pass away until thanksgiving, that same year. her hair had grown back in by then, shining silver and white. but i remember her in april, when i remember all things that have lived and passed, when the weather reminds me that i am small and insignificant, and my memories, ephemeral as time.