somnia

Word: somnia
Part of Speech: n.
Other Forms: somniac
Etymology: Logical opposite of insomnia.
Definition: The ability to fall asleep.

that's the part i don't have trouble with. the part i have trouble with is this:

insomnia: inability to sleep or to remain asleep throughout the night.

usually my target is 6 hours. after about 5, i think my brain gives up and gets restless. i read a theory that the reason people are insomniacs is that they're hyperaroused--and not in a sexy, i'm-wearing-lingerie type of aroused. it makes me wonder if other ADHD people have the same problem. ie, our brains get bored with sleeping patterns so we wake up and search for bright, shiny objects.

which reminds me of my favorite ADD joke:

q: how many ADD kids does it take to change a light bulb?
a: let's ride bikes!

last night my mind was wandering. dan and i were cuddling; he was thinking in a wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more direction, i was thinking in the same direction except i was cold. as i laid there in the circle of his arms, my mind relaxed, my body warm and comfortable...even if i didn't think it, i was probably bored. wandering mind. dan got up and said, "your mind isn't even in the room."

oh, but it was. i was thinking about the dresser and how old it was. thinking about my lanterns, and how the little star shapes don't make big star shapes on the ceiling and walls when the lanterns are lit. thinking about the sound of cat feet, padding quietly into the room. thinking about when i was going to be able to neuter said animal. thinking about the breathing of the person with whom i was cuddling. then i heard these three little beeps--not from my cell phone or a fire detector. me hearing the beeps indicates, to me, that they have to be loud, because usually i can't hear a thing. dan didn't hear them and felt that it was a symbol of our larger relationship issues that i'm never paying full attention to him.

dan felt a bit slighted because i was worried about the beeps, which was probably something from the neighbors' townhome, and not concerned about him.

i tried to explain, i think successfully, that i wasn't rejecting him. my mind is ALWAYS in fifteen places at once. and the only way it's not going to be, the only way to curtail it, is for someone to say something so that i'm not thinking about finding the water bottle to spray the cat who's terrorizing my curtains. i'll probably still want to do two things at once--it's in my nature--but the only way that i can break the habit of focusing like a microscopic kaleidescope is to be called on the carpet when i do it.

this led to a discussion, fairly heated, about what i felt was important and what dan felt was important, and how he was feeling rejected and how i wasn't meaning to reject him. my whole point centered around trying to get him to understand that i wasn't. it felt like losing battle, because all the evidence points to me not paying attention, and my family at large is the same way. it has to feel like you're being neglected, when in reality, you're not--we're not ignoring, we're not rejecting, we're simply distracted. there's just too much world that falls into the openings on our heads--too many sights, sounds, tastes. the thoughts run wild, a ferris wheel with no stops.

i used to chew my nails all the time when i was a kid. one lent, instead of giving up chocolate the way that i usually did, i decided to give up nail biting. it was difficult because as a worrier, i need some way to work off nervous energy. after four weeks, i did it. i had no desire to put my fingertips in my mouth and worry the nails shorter. to this day, i don't nibble. but now i chew gum.

lesser of two evils? who the hell knows. it looks nicer to chew gum quietly than it does to chew on your own poor flesh, but in the same sentence, it's just a replacement.

i probably could pare down my brain in the same way. but this is coming from a girl who has trouble developing the habit of brushing her teeth every night. they say after 21 days, you can develop a habit, good or bad. i tried taking vitamins at one point during college, convinced i needed the nutrients and crap. i took them at the same time, every day. after two months i ran out. i didn't feel an urge to get another bottle. i didn't feel sad about missing my daily dose of Centrum. i just stopped.

good habits or bad. my good habit of late is comminicating--i'm wanting to dissect and discuss things that previously i didn't want to consider. but i want to make sure that we're doing it in a more open manner--i feel i had to dig to get to the bottom of why dan was feeling rejected. perhaps i should have just known...but if i had known, i never would have done it. does that follow?

my bad habit of late is coffee, and lack of exercise, and stress. probably what's curtailing my sleeping habits. if i stopped with the coffee after say, two in the afternoon, and maybe started walking after work, i might be in a better place. but i get bored with walking. i feel like i need the coffee to stay afloat. it does clear my brain some, to drink it. it clears my brain to walk. i could probably try replacing coffee with walking. it'd be healthier. it'd be safer for my blood pressure. i could try walking the cats, because that would never get boring... (;

whenever i don't get enough sleep, i feel like i'm an accident waiting to happen. and i know that the next week is going to be a busy one, filled with all kinds of ups and downs--picking little sara up at the airport on tuesday around 5 am. the memorial service thursday, funeral friday. hopefully some spygame on friday night. i feel like this was the weekend during which i was supposed to bank up my sleep, so that i felt rested later.

the snow is melting outside. i can see big chunks of ice forming on the patio, where i walked on friday to fill the birdfeeder, aka kitty cable. the cats are sleeping at exact opposite ends of the couch; shiva, who stared me into wakefulness this morning, is keeping one eye on henry, who doesn't seem to care and is sprawled out, eyes half-shut. i wonder if cats ever feel they've slept enough.

the last day of margaret k.

they say your hearing is the last thing to go.

on tuesday at 3:27 pm the girl on the other side of the wall said something about her nails--which reminded me that i was going to see grandma that night and file her nails, maybe even buff them if she was open to that and not agitated. silence fell in my corner of the office. the coworker behind me was taking a payroll, and in the silence, she pretty much shouted to the person on the phone: MARGARET.

and i had this weird feeling--like either i was hearing my grandma's name to remind me that she was needing my thoughts, or i was hearing my grandma's name because someone was calling her into the house for dinner.

i tried to leave work early, but i just couldn't seem to get out. at 520, on my way out the door, i checked my cell, and found the message: grandma had passed earlier, around 3:30.

it's strange the way these things happen. i'm glad she's gone because i know what kind of agony she was in, trying to get away from her own body, trying to escape from the pain, and finding no safe corners. i know what agony my father and his brothers were in, watching her suffer and trying to plan a funeral for someone who was still struggling for breath.

monday and tuesday she was calm. the hospice staff stopped moving her to her side, which made her more and more agitated despite any morphine she was administered. it was as if she knew, and just settled down to wait for the right train to come on by.

i'm sad she's gone because she is my grandma. sad to see my family standing in that small room, weeping silently.

i drove up there anyway, on tuesday. cried a little on the way there. found a box of kleenex in the car. when i got to the room everyone was very grateful for the kleenex because the stuff in the room was, as my uncle tim put it, like a fine grade of sandpaper. the home had put out coffee, pink lemonade that was like liquid sugar, and some cider that was a step down from the lemonade. they had a plate of cookies that i figured no one would touch, but eventually people ate a little off the plate. it was around 615 or so and i'm sure no one had eaten dinner.

her body was in the bed; a lot less of her body than she used to command. legs thinner than my wrist, her mouth open and empty without dentures. when she first went from the assisted living facility to the hospice, my parents searched her room for her cane and her lower denture set, to no avail. the staff searched a few other rooms that grandma frequented, but they had no luck either.

without life in her face, her wrinkles were gone. she looked like a young child, head full of hair, sleeping with her mouth hanging open. the covers were pulled up to her chin, white sheets and cornflower-blue blanket. across the pillow on one side of her head, someone had laid a blue rosary. she looked so peaceful. i commented that this was the most peaceful i had ever seen her. the perpetual furrow in her brow--the one that she got when she was annoyed, which lately had been often--was smoothed out by some great hand.

it reminded me of making the bed, and smoothing the sheets so the comforter lies flat.

everyone was weeping when i walked in; tim's family had just arrived, and my uncle bob and aunt, roz. it was like a strange reception line, walking around in my bulky navy pea-coat, holding my gray box of tissues and trying to hug people with both arms. i put the tissues down, shed layers, found a seat. there were a total of this many people in the room: dad, bob and roz, tim and anita and their girls, kelsey and ericka, myself, my sister sara, my uncle dan. eventually my mother arrived, but that was not for a while as she had a longer drive.

the room got quiet. and then in the manner of my family, we chatted about things remembered, and the laughter was contagious. i doubt grandma could have asked for a better tribute than that--tears followed by giggles and guffaws, remembering her when she was vibrant and alive. one of their favorites was how she didn't always know who was visiting her, but she could sing along with any old song on the radio. the boys remembered her writing down songs to sing around the campfire, asking my grandpa if he could play it on his harmonica. grandpa used to say, "let me see if i can find it, margo."

the one they laughed about was "heart of my heart," which grandma had accidentally penned, "heart of my deart." the boys, being contrary, sang it as she wrote it: "heart of my deeeee-rt."

after a few hours, the crowd dispersed. the call was made to come and take her body away. she's going to be cremated, which is kind of against the "rules" in catholocism. but grandpa was cremated too; they were just such practical people that i doubt they'd want to take up more space than needed.

they talked about her obituary, what it should say. grandma's middle name wasn't katherine or kate or anything--it is just "k". they had to discuss how her father's name, hugh, was spelled. still unsettling when tim sent out the email of the obit on friday.

uncle dan found a red oak urn for her ashes--fitting, as my grandfather's nickname was the Red Oak. tomorrow we clean out her room; they've gone through it already, a few times, since she was moved. apparently the facility will do a silent auction on items in her room, instead of the family lugging it all out, and her clothing can be donated. dad said that we should stop and see if there is anything we would like.

the only thing i want is that perfume bottle, empty or full. that is all.

i drove home; had to stop to pick up a perscription on the way. when i came out of the store, it was snowing--light and airy snow, silver in the streetlight. i stood there for a minute before getting into my car, feeling like a benediction had been passed on my self, that my grandma was now saying good bye, in a way i would comprehend. none of those flakes stayed on the ground. and in the end, i'm sure i'm reading into some natural phenomenon and giving it personality when i needed it, and that the falling snow was not really a gift from grandma.

then again, i'm not sure i could call myself a poet if i didn't read emotions and signs everywhere i turned. (;

next thursday is the family memorial service. friday is the actual funeral, at which i'll be reading the intercessions.

yesterday we drove up to my sister's house, to have birthday gathering for my mom, who turned 62. today we meet again at her house for thanksgiving dinner. i have food to prepare--green bean casserole, banana cream pie, stuffing. this year will be disjointed, because of the new setting and the empty chair.

but i have so very much for which to be thankful that the darker aspects of this year should be in shadow.

i'm thankful for my relationship with dan, who i thought i had lost.
i'm thankful for the opportunity to find myself in therapy--who knew i was missing? (;
i'm thankful for having known the woman i called grandma, thankful for the lessons she taught me and the time i spent with her, and thankful that her passing was peaceful.
i'm thankful for my uncle, jed, because he has taught me that when the odds are against you, you can still smile and persevere and keep going.
i'm thankful that my parents are retired.
i'm thankful that i have this opportunity to write, in the warmth of my own home, from under a green fleece blanket, with two cats curled up in my living room.
i'm thankful that the sky is peerless blue, and the sun is rising, and it's windy and chilly outside.

right now, after this year of unexpected doors closing, i am thankful for the ones that have opened. i know that the things for which i am thankful are all things that have caused me grief--if i did not know my grandmother, i would not grieve. etc.

henry is looking for leaves outside the patio door. they've been swirling around dry for the past few days. last week, he kept butting his head up against the glass. this week he just sits and watches leaves and sparrows swirl in and out, like breath.

colors

yesterday was a gray sky day--cloudy and overcast. that always changes the colors of the world--the lighting, i mean. if it's sunny, the grass is a brilliant green and the sky, a bottomless blue.

on overcast days, it seems as if everything takes on a layer of fog, mutes the bright hues.

the annointing was moved to saturday at 1130, as the priest had prior engagements on friday evening. dan and i met my parents for breakfast a few blocks from the homes in which grandma presently resides. sara and her husband, brett, met us there as well. and for any of you out there who are familiar with my late habits, i got there before my sister. (;

the perkins was the same perkins where, when i was about 10 or so, we had breakfast...and came out to our suburban and found that everything in it had been stolen. at the time we lived 8 hours away from the Cities, and we'd stayed for a week at my aunt's house. with four kids and holiday pictures looming, mom had packed everything--all our good clothes, etc. all the luggage was gone, with the exception of a blue hardcase of our play dolls. the area behind the restaurant used to be a junkyard of some kind. now it's an industrial park, complete with parking lots and brick buildings. i remember dad wanted to walk through the junkyard, to see if he could see anyone or any thing, and mom didn't want him to go through it. she kept saying that it was something the police would handle.

the kids--my siblings and cousins, all under the age of 10--were convinced that the brightly colored birthday clown inside the restaurant had been in on the luggage-napping.

after breakfast, always fun with my family, we drove over to presbyterian homes, where grandma is staying until she passes. no one has any idea of when that might be. her lungs are clearer now, but they can't reinsert the IV because whenever they do, her lungs fill up. she's on morphine for pain, another drug to calm her, and another drug to help dry up the fluid left over. when she breathes, she sounds like an old coffee percolater--gurgling, rasping, wheezing. she's too weak to cough at all.

her skin, which two or three weeks ago was pale but rosy, has morphed to that pallor that people get when they're at That Point before Death--fleshy yellow, nearly jaundiced, stretched thin across her poor head. she just grew most of her hair back, and it's thick, dark gray and white curls topping her head, her last bodily luxury.

we took turns at first rubbing her arms--she does not like to have her legs or feet touched, which is a pity because her feet and calves are so dry. i can't imagine she's aware of this; her internal agonies have got to override the rest of the external distress, and i'm sure the morphine takes the edge off of dry skin. i talked to her nurse, mohammed, and he found some unscented lotion that i was able to massage into her right arm--that's the one without the fifteen medical bracelets--and both hands. her skin is like frail parchment, the epidermis so thinned that it's like looking into the ocean with jacques cousteau--clear, you can see sand and fish darting and orange anemones, opening and closing, beneath the surface.

but it was painful to watch her, agitated and trying to talk, mouth moving like a baby bird, grasping at air and words. her apnea has gotten worse; she stops breathing sometimes for more than 22 seconds at a time, but her clinging spirit nags lungs into action.

she kept trying to put her feet on the floor. mostly, she'd get her heels to the edge and then her legs would just slide off the bed.

simultaneous to watching my grandmother suffer is the more active suffering of my father and his brothers. it's watching them suffer her pain that hurts me ever so much more than my grandmother's pain.

there are so many things that run through your head, seeing this all happening. i think of coming into the house in winter, shutting the door behind you, being enveloped in the warmth of the house. you shut the door to keep the cold at bay. i think of death in the same way--you're slipping into the Whatever that happens after your spirit leaves, and you hurry into the heat of Beyond, shutting the door behind you.

that is a quick death--that is a hurried, unknown death.

my grandmother's death is a slow death. unhurried. it reminds me of being warm in summer, the heat clinging to your skin. the slow settle of dusk outside, and then the windows dropping, slowly, slowly, in autumn, until your house is warm for gusty snow.

your spirit is still sneaking away. it's still closing the door on this life, and scurrying into the next. but this death, it's leisurely. it allows you to say goodbye--sometimes on numerous occasions. it's the minnesota good-bye of dying.

the spirit lingers. grandma is trying to go somewhere, with her feeble legs. she's trying to get up and leave. it feels like she has to realize somewhere in her head that she needs to leave her body behind. that after eighty-some years of being constricted to moving in a heavy coat of bone and blood, she's going to get up and walk into the house, and shut the windows, in time for winter.

***

i think too of the tarot card for death. about how you explain it not by saying that physical death is imminent, but that it is a change.

death is not the end of being. it's not the end of existence, not to my mind. the spirit weighs something; your body is lighter when the colors have deserted the shell. where does that invisible soul go? it has to find somewhere. it's displacement--you get in the tub and the water spills over the sides.

it's change for my grandmother--she's not going to wink at me any more, or ask for another glass of watery black label whiskey. she's moving out and moving on. she's changing the nature of her relationship with the planet.

the change is for us, as well. the chapter in which we can have question and answer sessions with her is ending. the next chapter is a mystery to me; her path leads off into the woods. in anne of green gables, the chapter in which anne's foster father dies is called "the bend in the road." you can't see around that corner; it's a blind spot until you reach it yourself.

i was doing okay yesterday. through the service, mumbling the Our Father. family gathered, piled on top of one another in the small room. even while i rubbed white lotion into her skin, i did not weep. a few tears crept in, but that was at the end of the service, when i came to the realization that the priest was putting as much feeling as he could into the service, but for him, the book has been read many times; he is familiar with this chapter, as familiar as i am to putting on a jacket or washing my hair. it's rote. he wasn't inhuman, he was just doing the service as required.

i have a hard time crying or showing emotion in front of other people, even people i hold as dear as my friends and family. at home with dan i just sobbed. i don't want to lose my parents some day. i don't want to see them, colorless on the palette of death. i want to understand why we're put here, if it's just to die eventually.

i know that my grandma's life had meaning; if the only meaning that exists in it was raising my father, that is enough for me. i know for my parents the greatest meaning they can have is in raising their own children.

the thought of being this side of soil without my parents is just plain painful, even if i am not yet experiencing it.

we sat up talking for a while, until i wasn't incoherent anymore. dan said that you'd think after being here for as long as humans have, we'd have figured it all out--life, death, the time between, the destination after life. humanity figured out a gasoline powered automobile, we've conceived of and achieved flight, skipped on the moon and found it inedible puce rock--but we haven't quite got this life-business all figured out. do we die just because that's the way nature is? are we recycled, like my empty plastic milk jug, or my sister's compost pile?

yesterday, he was wearing an old white t-shirt as an undershirt, frayed and rubbed thin in dime-size holes. it's been washed so many times that the colors are not their vibrant store-bought brilliance any more, but i remember when it was new.

the advertising on the shirt is from an old television commercial, in which a Barbie doll ditches her molded boyfriend, Ken, to run off with a GI Joe figure; the three characters are on the back of the shirt. On the front of the shirt, up on the left where perhaps Hanes would apply a pocket, is a little logo. Barbie and GI Joe are in some kind of red convertible, and below them is a little saying that was just too close to the truth of yesterday:

Life is a journey.
Enjoy the ride.

that is all there is to it. at least, that's my truth for today.

last rites

tomorrow night they're performing the Annointing of the Sick, one of the seven catholic sacraments, on my grandma. it used to be known by a much longer name: Last Rites of Extreme Unction. sounds nasty, but it's just a way to say a spiritual farewell. it's something that is done not just for the old, either, but for the very ill, both mentally and physically.

in grandma's case, time has crept into her body.

i was telling dan today in email about how it felt like suddenly my dad's side of the family was going to be rudderless--the matriarch, soon gone. saturating all my memories of grandma is that smell, her parfum of choice. it's going to drift off into the air, smudged free of its rootless bonds.

and yet i think of a family tree--the lines remain, even if the person is no longer there.

i'm tired of this waiting line in which i have queued my life. wait for a job. wait until i feel ready to move. wait until i feel ready to marry. wait, wait, wait. i waited to get to know my own grandparents, waited to open myself up to them, until it was far, far too late. i honestly can say that by the time i was ready to know my grandmothers, by the time their wisdom and tales became something for which i could no longer wait, they were done waiting for me.

am i just waiting to be annointed one last time?

i will stand in a room tomorrow and say good bye again to my grandmother, before she "gives herself permission to die," as my uncle put it. the last time i remember actually visiting with the woman i consider my grandmother--feisty, whiskey-drinking, opinionated--was more than 10 years ago, when my family lived in hermantown. ten years later, she is a woman whose acquaintance i make anew every time we meet.

tomorrow i'll meet her again. i'll be another person in the room, another body praying, another spirit wishing hers well on its journey.

this has been a difficult year for my dad's family. my uncle, jed, is still in rehab for a massive stroke. no one knows what the outcome of that will be. he's got a strong spirit, a positive outlook despite all that life has dealt him. he will not be able to come back from the west coast and say good bye to his mother--i remember when he was back last summer, he hugged us before he left. it almost felt as if i said good bye to him then, too.

i feel as though i am waiting for the phone to ring, and tell me she is gone. i don't want to hear that. i don't want to see it in an email. i'm waiting in a line in which i never want to wait.

all of my body is tense--my neck and shoulders are the worst. my eyes feel as though they are waiting, too, for the tears to come free. i feel like i don't want to cry too much, and i feel like i'm going to cry a lot.

i crave dan right now, crave being held, the touch of another person's flesh on mine. it reassures me that i am here, now. that i can still care--that i don't have to give in to my overwhelming desire to fall into apathy. i can feel myself trying hard to push the emotions away, when in reality i should be working through them--finding ways to understand and comprehend them.

i find myself tallying up the number of things that have gone on this year, find myself numbering and listing. this mental list is all made up of bodies--my uncle, made physically infirm. losing serena. finding dan, whose body is as familiar to me as mine, but whose soul i had to locate among the midden of our long relationship. my father's surgery, cleaning out the detrius of my grandparents' house, the frayed edges of my own unknown body finally pointed out by doctors. and now my grandma, who is ready to leave this adam-and-eve house.

how dear others' bodies are to us, how dear their spirit. my grandma margaret always smells elegant and lovely, elizabeth claiborne's red door perfume. on grandma's skin it becomes something ephemeral.

i think of this in terms of the blessed oil that will be dipped onto her head tomorrow by a stranger's fingers. i think of my grandmother, turning the bottle of champagne-colored water on her wrist, rubbing parchment thin skin together, dabbing it onto her slender neck.

all these memories coalesce like dusk. just as she annointed herself for years with that perfume, so i annoint myself and bless myself with memory.

it's been a long week.

and it's only the end of monday.

this morning started early, long before the sun was up, and prior to lights being turned on in the office. busy day, which is nice because it goes quickly.

got word from my dad that my mom put in notice at work today. talked to her tonight and she said she felt she'd been pushed to this. she worked at a small company, at which the husband and wife fought on a regular basis. mom was accused by boss' wife on friday of having alzheimer's, after missing a few notes for her boss IN NINE YEARS. nine years? a few notes? good gravy. i miss a few notes every day. she was also accused of not doing her job--a difficult task when your job involves a system out of which your boss' wife has locked you. mom didn't know that she'd been locked out so she spoke to her boss, who called the computer folks, who came in and asked her boss' wife if she knew that she'd locked my mom out of the system. the boss' wife said, yes, i locked her out.

what a bunch of honky. so mom did something she has never done: put in two weeks' notice because she was so fed up.

that was the first weird part of the day.

the second occurred about three hours later, give or take. dad emailed a deer hunting forward about one of his friends from high school who was a founding member of the minnesota deer hunter's association, and was featured in a newspaper from somewhere up north. five minutes after that he sent an update on my grandma, his mom, who's been hospitalized since friday.

(my uncle took her to the dr on friday because she was weak. he found that she was malnourished and dehydrated due to her own decision not to eat, and that she had a bladder infection.)

today the dr said she had fluid in her lungs, and they took some for a sample. the dr determined that grandma will probably be discharged soon, into a different nursing facility. they won't force her to eat, and grandma does not want a food shunt. if they keep her on the iv, her lungs will fill with more fluid.

so at this point it's a matter of days, or weeks, depending on my grandma.

as stabbing westward says, i'm feeling the weight of the world/and it's crushing me.

this has been a long year. samhain came and went, the celtic new year. i felt refreshed the other day, limitless future, learning material in my past. i feel i am learning every day--how to be, how to cope, how to heal, how to live. perhaps i simply was not aware, before this year. perhaps i was, and just lived in denial of reality.

perhaps this is the year my eyes are opened.

in the bible, jesus spits in mud and the blind see.

in the endless cauldron, cerwidden renews her warriors.

rebirth. being recycled--being renewed. i think of the babylon 5 quote, about how pain sometimes comes, because that is the process of constantly being born.

i don't want to cause pain. eero is in dilemma right now--he feels he needs to make a decision about with whom he is friends.

do as thou wilt, an it harm none. this includes your self. this includes your belongings. this includes your friends, your family. there is only one decision in life--the other has been predetermined. death is the constant. life is the chaos.

the only decision i have had to make this year is this: to live. the only decision i have to make in reference to that decision is HOW to live. i've only got a limited amount of time left on the planet. that's been shown to me this year. how i spend that time is up to me, and none other.

yeah, it's been a long week.

i am a cauliflower racist.

i don't like cauliflower unless you add stuff to it.

you know, you have one of those foods too. mine is cauliflower. if it's breaded and deep fried, yum. if it's smothered in cheese, yum. plain cooked or raw cauliflower = disgusting.

i'll admit, i've been kind of angry lately. apologies if i've been short with anyone. sometimes things you're dragging around behind you creep up when you least expect it, tap on your shoulder, and elbow you in the face.

kind of reminds me of those beer cans people tie onto cars after weddings and crap--they're banging around behind the car but woe to the driver who brakes quickly.

anyway, i have a ton of good friends on the planet who support me and are there for me, regardless of my attitudes towards naked cauliflower, cooked celery, and overripe bananas. i guess in retrospect i've been a bit of a hypocrite in comprehending dan's problems with "letting go" of serena.

i'm tooling along, quiet as can be, fairly content with the vehicle i'm in. there's my usual fog of apathy roaming about, but i'm moving in some direction. at least it feels like i am. and then, out of the blue, BOOM crash bang--there's those fucking cans fastened to the bumper.

it's been there behind me, all along: anger.

i forgave dan and serena for what happened back in may. i'm not so angry with dan anymore, because he's been here and been willing to work through issues, answer questions, understand why i'm angry, and be my friend again.

it's much more difficult with serena. for someone who professed to consider me a sister, her current actions are saying that she really never gave a damn.

for a long time, my apathetic fog allowed her some wiggle room. her parents' admonishment to allow her breathing space allowed me to hope that perhaps we'd be able to work through this, that perhaps she'd be willing to work through this with dan, too. i thought that we were valuable enough friends for her to consider it.

as time passes and the fog clears, so too does any hope i had that we can move beyond childish actions and into the realm of adults, working and ironing out an issue.

and that, my friends, pisses me off.

it's deflating to think that someone you valued doesn't give a shit about you.

more specifically, that if serena really, honestly cared about any relationship she had with me, she'd be willing to work through it.

i almost wish that when i'd emailed her parents, concerned after a few weeks of her silence and no answers from mutual friends, that they'd all told me to give up.

it's exhausting, holding out hope.

hell, i give everything a second chance. look at cauliflower. just because i hate the taste of it on a regular basis, i always feel that perhaps, somehow, some way, it'll be better. it can be palatable. i can like cauliflower, with some addendums to its flavor.

is that making it into something it really isn't? to me: nope. it's improving what already exists.

the cliff notes version is this: i thought serena cared. i thought dan cared. serena is showing me she didn't care. dan's showing me he does. i've been willing to give them both the benefit of the doubt because if i can deep fry cauliflower and call it tasty, then i can be adaptable to what goes on with people i hold dear.

i'm angry because someone i held dear apparently doesn't care about me. i'm angry because coworkers ask, all the time: "how's serena doing?" and i have no freaking clue what the hell to say. i have some options, though:

a) am i abrasively honest: "well, after she admitted to an affair with my boyfriend, i forgave her and she ran away anyhow, apparently i don't exist in her world anymore."

b) am i elusive: "not sure. we haven't talked in a while."

c) am i confused, version 1: "serena? i don't know who that is."

d) am i confused, version 2: "she talks to friends she always said she wasn't sure she liked, but she won't talk to me anymore."

usually i go with option b, and then have to field the follow-up question:

"i thought you two were such good friends. what happened?"

to which i don't have any answers at all.

deep down, i'd like answers. i forgave her behavior in reference to may. i forgave her lack of honesty at the time. but what i'm having trouble forgiving is the deception in her actions now. if she really, really wanted to be my friend--if she really ever was my friend--do i hold onto the hope that at her core, she is a good person? that she is still redeemable, in my eyes? that there is friendship worth saving?

or that the person i thought existed, under all my apparently illusory cheese, is not there?

if the first value is true, then by all means, continue being her friend. support her for all she's worth.

if the second value is true, if she was my friend and is now choosing to expose herself as a fake--beware, others who call her friend. at any time, you may fall into a hole and be abandoned for her better self interests.

do i really believe that's possible? back in july, i would have said no. i would have said that serena was one of my friends. i would have said that she was a good friend to those around her.

months down the line, as the beer cans hit me in the proverbial ass, i am coming to realize that perhaps it is possible. perhaps i was just so fucking naive that i allowed myself to be snowballed into thinking that she was my friend, when in reality she wasn't.

the point of this whole monologue is that i really wanted to believe in friendship. dan's held up his end of the bargain; slowly, we're building something all over again. the fact that i can build it again with dan fostered hope that i could build again with serena, too.

but she doesn't want to build anything. as dan said earlier today, it's like she took her blocks and went home.

sure, that works.

if you're eight years old.

want to be an adult? i'll give you a crash course: you don't get to take your blocks and go home. you shared them; that means you have some of mine, and i have some of yours.

the cauliflower version of life works up until you share the cauliflower. someone goes home with the cheese, and you're fucked.

and there you have it. perhaps that's not the intellectual version of things as i see them, but that's the view from my plate.

short

i'm average in height, not short, per se.

but this post has to be short.

first things first: i'm awol this weekend. driving to my grandma's house four hours north to help out my mom and aunt with the estate sale. no, grandma's still kicking, but she doesn't remember she has kids or a house, and the nice folks at the assisted living facility are helping her out now...so the house is kind of extra.

i just know it's going to be difficult for my mom and aunt, saying goodbye to a house that they grew up in. it will stay in the family; from what i hear, my cousin is buying it.

that house is infused with my grandma's spirit--or perhaps it's my memories of her. perhaps that is what we think is spirit--that which is immortal, our memories. i give spirit to the house by remembering family meals there, remembering squeezing in at the table, remembering grandpa slipping me marshmallow pinwheel cookies under the table at breakfast.

i have to meet my mom and sister, so again, why am i blogging?

because my friend dilshad lost her father today, and i need to get this off my chest before i get in the car and drive somewhere.

i know it's samhain, i know that the veil is thin. it's closing--like a curtain at the end of a play, it's closing. but it's slow. the person operating the drapery pulls in the otherworld is taking their own sweet time.

there are so many things that are dying. so many.

i keep the picture in my head of yellowstone, after the fires: ashy stumps, blackened ground, and the green shoots, poking through. i understand the concept of life giving back to death and death nourishing life. but it's difficult to watch it happen.

there are so many things being born--multitudes.

the balance between everything is kept by some objective accountant, with worldly pencil in hand. it's getting close to tax time--the endof the year--and i'm picturing some god showing up to audit your life.

what have you done, who have you influenced, what good do you have to show of your hands? i'm a child, caught playing in the dirt: show me your hands, kim, you've got dirt under your nails. and me, denying i know that dirt exists.

perhaps it's that childlike denial of death that makes it all the more difficult to understand. i feel pride that i have a plant that is ten years old. it just keeps growing. i've killed off others--or perhaps donated them to time is a nicer way of putting it!--but this one plant continues.

however, the only reason it continues is because i prune it back. i transplant it. i take half away and repot strands, give them to friends. peices of this plant are all over--in dirt up north, in dirt here, you name it. my plant has gone and done things that a short, season-lived plant from outside the patio door would never consider.

but only because it survives change, even if it's an unwilling accessory.

whenever someone dies i feel like i do a minute inventory of my own life. small, short. i keep my list tiny, and then i lose the list again until i am faced with the inevitability of living: dying.

and taxes.

i work in payroll...tax season IS just around the corner. check your moneymaking papers. make sure you're in order. you never know when april 15th will crop up.

off to the races, folks. have a good weekend.

***

for dil, even tho she doesn't know this blog exists:

from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.