my anxious colon

In autumn 2016, we went to Ireland. It was a trip I never thought I'd make. I'm not a planner of world travel. Usually the most I plan is a trip to my sister's house or Target. But Dan is a planner, and he planned this vacation. 

It was the first time we traveled internationally, and also for any length of time. I was nervous about all kinds of things, but mostly I was terrified of not knowing where bathrooms are. 

If I go to the Mall of America, I know where the bathrooms are. The good ones are in Nordstrom's. You'd think Macy's bathrooms would be nice, but they're not the greatest. There's usually a weird smell. 

I knew where every restroom was from my house to my office; where to stop if it was an emergency - Target or Walmart, where there were lots of restrooms- and where to stop if I knew I could wait a few minutes - a gas station, for example. Before I went somewhere new, I'd scope out the situation online: the MN State Fair, museums, restaurants.  

Ireland was a mystery. 

Not just because of the miasma of mystery that swirls around the island, but because of the unknown WC. It was like going into a black hole. 

I found enough information online to soothe my anxious colon, and we went. 

To be honest the first few days were not awesome. They were awesome because we were in Ireland, and seeing things that we'd never seen, and drinking Guinness and loving it. But they were not awesome because when we landed, I spent about 2 hours in and out of the airport restrooms before we could head into Dublin itself. 

After my meds got my stomach under control, it was...amazing. 

*

I feel like a lot of my life is like this. There's times that my gut takes over my life, and I have to cancel plans, or leave early from an event. My family and friends know that if I'm in the bathroom for a while, not to worry...just text me, I bring my phone everywhere. 

That was a requirement after a work lunch one day, where I emerged after half an hour, sweating and pale after almost passing out in the loo. "Why didn't you text me?" my coworker asked, horrified. 

Part of me waits every day for the first twinge, the knowledge that I'm going to need to find a throne pretty soon. But part of me is also aware now that I have to leave the house, just go with it. 

*

In Ireland, the weather is drizzle, with some clear spots. In our time there, we had just a few hours of sunshine. It was what we expected. We donned rain coats, popped the hoods up, and pushed through wind to see the beauty of the country. 

In retrospect, that's how I live. It's how I have to live: put on a coat and walk out into the rain, hoping for the best. 

fall

Everything is about returning to the earth. 

Leaves, grass, sticks, stones. They're all drifting closer and closer, gravity pulling and tugging insistently. And people are the same. We struggle in the net: boarding planes, driving cars, riding bicycles. Hot air balloons, trapeze acts, sledding down steep hills. You name it, we're skimming over dirt, until whenever it is that we give in to gravity. 

I've been on a pile of medication for years now. It started out small: lisinopril, for high blood pressure that is apparently genetic, a small round peach colored tablet. Then for a time I added Lexapro and Wellbutrin to the pile; that was a hard time, to be frank. But with therapy for both me and Dan separately, and together, it was the best thing that could have happened. It was a reset button. 

Eventually I stopped taking both Lexapro and Wellbutrin. Why? Because I thought I was fine without them. (Note to self: Don't just stop taking stuff like that because you think it's a good idea. Remember the dizziness? Ugh.) 

Then it was just lisinopril and birth control, another peachy-pink tablet. Which was awesome, as it turns out, because with my PMDD, taking birth control round the clock means you have no menstrual cycle. Late 1990s Kim would have lost her shit over this - it goes against nature, etc - but late 2010s Kim was ELATED. 

We bought our house. I got sick. Really sick. Couldn't stay out of the bathroom sick, blood where it shouldn't be, kind of sick. Eventually after a colonoscopy and CT scan, I was diagnosed with Crohn's, an auto-immune disease in which your body thinks that your intestines are Alan Rickman in a Bruce Willis Christmas movie, and kicks your insides with steel-toed boots. 

Inflammation: it gets the job done.

That was painful; I remember cuddling with heating pads for days on end, hoping for it to just stop. There was more medication: little blue anti-spasmodics, bitter steroids. Those tapered off and I ended up with two new all the time medications: turquoise Imodium tablets and giant flesh-colored Balsalzide caplets. (Think Mike and Ike size.) 

So back up to 4 medications again. 

Last fall, when I had my blood clot, the birth control was nixed, and I started taking Xarelto: tiny, red, triangle shaped. Because of the inflammatory disease, I have to stay on it for life. Yay. New pill. 

And after that, my thyroid got all malignant, and now I'm on levothyroxione, the replacement hormone for what my thyroid no longer kicks out. Another small peach pill. 

I also take colorful gummy multivitamins, and extra vitamin D in small clear gels. And yellow sertraline, for anxiety. 

Needless to say, when we travel anywhere, I have a small backpack of rattling medications. The Balsalzide in particular is a hefty pill that I'm fairly certain is made using Rubbermaid technology, and I'm cut back to 6 a day from 9 a day previously. They have their own little container, since they won't fit in a standard pill box. 

I just refilled my two-weeks' worth of medications this morning. It takes about 20 minutes, and I have two bins of medication, since the Balsalzide caplets are so large. There are so many colors that it could be kind of pretty, in a modern-art kind of way, if they were just hues and tints and not small pieces of machinery. 

I'm forty-two. I have more medications than my parents combined. 

Sometimes I get tired of taking everything, of parsing out my days and weeks into little plastic partitions. Once, when I was seeing a new doctor, I griped about the number of pills I have to take. He replied with a chuckle: "What happens if you don't take the pills?" 

I know what happens. I don't leave the house. I lie down. I give up. I fall, the way October leaves are drifting now, and I become earth again. In their own way, they're keeping me from giving in to gravity and just laying down on the ground, these little stacks and piles of tablets and capsules. I lay on them the way others leap onto motorcycles or horses, and away I go. 

cry havoc...

it's been forever since i posted anything here. so very, very much has happened...

we bought our house. moved in with our cats, henry and emma. traveled to Vegas, DC, Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia, Germany. now have 6 nieces and 4 nephews. dan's changed jobs a bunch. i was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. henry passed, other loved ones passed, friends and family moved about emotionally and physically.

this last year in particular has been crazy. we got back from Ocktoberfest in Munich last fall, i developed a DVT in my left leg; this was accompanied by a pulmonary embolism in each lung, too. will always be in recovery, it feels like, because i have to keep taking xarelto (an anti-coagulant) because having an inflammatory disease makes me more prone to blood clots.

anyway during that process, a CT of my chest revealed nodules on my thyroid. thus, the month of march went as follows:

Week 1: Laid off from work, effective May 7th.
Week 2: After 4 biopsies, confirmation that the nodules are cancer.
Week 3: Our 25th anniversary party at Big Wood Brewery, which has been planned for months. Three days before the party, we organize a wedding, since i'll be unemployed and full of cancer. We get hitched.

april was a month of scheduling: follow ups with various doctors, getting me onto dan's health insurance, counting down the days to surgery. we flew to Mexico City for my beloved Nathan's wedding to his beloved Carlos. my surgery was scheduled for May 7th, which was also the last day of my employment.

my entire thyroid was removed, along with 21 lymph nodes; of these, it was determined that 11 were actual malignant, so following surgery, i immediately went on the low/no iodine diet in preparation for radiation.

thyroid cancer, my endocrinologist maintains, is the easy cancer to have: you take out the thyroid and replace thyroid hormones with a pill. the surgery was not bad; i was out for 5 hours, and woke up to a neat incision that has healed quite nicely. you really have to look to see the scar, to be frank.

radiation consisted of me swallowing a little pill, and then driving home to stay away from Dan for a solid week. i couldn't go into the kitchen, had to use a separate bathroom. dan had to do all my cooking for me. but i'm officially cancer-free. or at least as cancer free as anyone can be, i suppose. i'm sure there's some straggler hanging about just waiting to be found again. who knows.

i started looking for work about a month ago now, when i was finally able to sit upright for any length of time without falling asleep. i'll never know what narcolepsy feels like, but dang, i came close: i could drink 3 cups of coffee and then immediately take a 4 hour nap. wake up, lunch, back to sleep until dinner...and then an early bedtime.

i probably should have started looking for work sooner, but recovery was more exhausting than i had anticipated. and now that i am looking, finally, i am once again in the boat i have always been in, the good ship All Grown Up but No Idea of What to Do With My Life.

i'm sure i'll figure it out. severance only lasts for a bit longer; i have an end date. it's hard to transition, but in reading through what i have written here, just today, i find that this last twelve months has been a lesson in change and acceptance, another in a long and unending line of such lessons.

chaos, i find, is the only constant.

i try to remember

i try to remember
the last time i was this
nervous,
blood humming in my ears, even the
deaf side, so loud
that i remember the atlantic ocean
thrumming
one young summer.
my heart pounds and instead of
considering why
i recall the pow-wow, feet thudding,
color swirling, the steady beat of each drum.
air catches behind my ribs,
an invisible hand tugging it down,
further and further, and
the kite swoops towards tree,
red and light,
caught by tangled green branches,
and i cannot remember
how to breathe.

***

when i was a kid i used to hyperventilate on a semi-regular basis. my mom would hand me a brown paper lunch bag and tell me to breathe in and out, and remind me that my grandpa did the same thing. clearly i recall this on my first day of second grade, so many years ago now.

as an adult i cope better with nerves...but apparently not much better. buying my first home is...terrifying and wonderful. i'm excited to make the house my own, but at the same time, my "what if's" list expands with each minute, spiraling down and out of control, and i'm transported back years to the last time my breath escaped and i worried.

it comes and goes, these nerves, that scratchy feeling of fear, much as seasons whirl around, out of control. i know that it is within my capabilities to snatch it back and make it mine, make it useful, but today i cast my mind back, trying to find that anchor, and i'm adrift.

time to do something--activity always helps, no matter the kind, reminds me that life will continue, regardless of if i am at the helm.

estates that are real. aka, real estate.

so for a long time now i've been looking at houses online. it's been interesting, to see what's out there and also, perversely, to see how other people decorate their homes. *shudders*

at any rate, we've looked at 16 houses so far now--actually walked through with our realtor. saw two that were possibles...both of which had offers that were accepted before we could even formulate questions. i suppose that's to be expected.

where before it was interesting to see the houses online--pry into bedrooms and dens, peek at kitchens, wonder why on earth someone would put forest green carpeting with hot pink walls--now we get to actually go into it. we've seen some really...different places. one had a shrine to jagermeister, one had what appeared to be a flood in the basement, another had a shower that qualified for its own show on The Discovery Channel. nothing, yet, has been "the one."

everyone says you'll know it when you walk into it. i suppose that is true; i think of it in terms of other things i have acquired: shoes, purse, earrings, jeans. i see it and i think: that looks like something i would wear. or: that looks like it belongs in my house.

now i need to find that house that says: this is where i want to live. this is where i want to store all that other stuff that says "me" all over it, in shades of blue and green and pink and whatever other colors seem apropos.

i usually think of myself as going with the flow--accepting life as it comes, whatnot. it's strange to realize that you're exceedingly picky.

i was soothed tonight talking to dan's sister and bro in law; they looked at over thirty houses before finding the right one, and i'm guessing that we'll have to do the same.

years ago when i wanted something hard to find--a book, the right dress--i used to ask it to come to me, and then let go. just ask the universe at large--whatever you call it, spirit, god, jesus--to send that item my way. i haven't done that in a long time, mainly because i haven't needed anything in a long time. i need a house now, a place i can call home, where i can plant flowers and gripe about mowing the lawn and cleaning the gutters.

so here it is: home, find me.

the blog less traveled

when i started blogging it was already on its way out the popularity door; i'm slow that way. there seem to be a lot of people who still do blog, but not nearly as many as previous to myspace or facebook or the ever-present twitter. blogging is becoming, to my mind, something outdated, outmoded and already, in the span of a few electronic years, ancient.

it always awes me to think of a time in my own life when we didn't have access to all of this--and yet i have grown up more connected to technology than i'd ever like to admit. my parents, when they were young, didn't even have private telephones, and tv was a luxury. they adapted to these things just as i have done in my lifetime.

perhaps that is the hallmark of being human and adapting to our environs. then again, dogs seem to have done pretty well, as far as adapting goes. how many thousands of years ago they were wolves--and now we have daschaunds, rottweilers and poodles.

i always wonder if all this technology is slowing us down -- ie, my memory of phone numbers is crappier than it has ever been, simply because i just have to tell my phone who to call. it's fantastic and it's strange.

no one buys a black and white tv any longer; they're not made. i suppose that eventually blogging will go completely out of style, but i've never been on the cutting edge of fashion or whatnot anyway, so i'll just continue plugging away, until the plug is pulled.

in moderation

for the last two weeks i've been sick again. it's probably all hormone-related but sick is sick. i generally feel weak and tired, and a bit afraid to leave the safety of my own home, mainly for restroom purposes.

anyway on friday when i was driving home from work i really allowed the sick to get me down. by the time i got home--after a ten minute drive from work--i was so down in the dumps that dan took one look at me and said, what's wrong?

he cheered me up--brought me to the grocery store, was all around uplifting and after an hour and some food, i felt much, much better.

i suppose the "all in moderation" thing goes for emotional upset just as it does for chocolate consumption.

***

today when i went on facebook i was scrolling through everyone's thoughts and what not. i ran into my post from yesterday, and below that, veronica's note about posting something i remembered from our shared past. i was going to post about the Shred-It guy who came in and was pretty darn hot, and had a thing for veronica even though she was in the beginning stages of a relationship with her now-husband--which i eventually did, after some thought.

the thought was required because serena had posted there too.

i try to avoid thinking about her. she's like a pain, a toothache, that's finally dead and numb. when i saw her picture i did not feel anything but curiosity. which is perhaps what you would feel after this many years have passed. time, they say, heals all wounds -- but that isn't true. it isn't true because the minute i saw her picture and the numb feeling passed, and the curiosity set in--what has she done, what is she like, has she changed as i have?--after all that, all i could think was, would dan be happier if he was with her? would he have had to deal with the histrionics of friday night if she walked in the door? no, he probably wouldn't.

at first it hurts again, that same wound. the one that reminds me i'm not good enough, the one that breaks open every now and again and says, why is he with me, truly? is it because he loves me or because he's comfortable?

it's been many years since we indulged in our first love, our first headlong plunge into passion. what i feel for him now is so very different than what i felt for him then. i can still remember those heady feelings of lust, of adoration, of puppy-love, but they are a memory now.

then again, do i remain because i'm comfortable? i certainly love being around dan -- i do, honestly. he's the first person i want to call when i have seen something new, the first person i want to hug at the end of the day, the first person i want to see in the morning. that part has not dimmed, for me, and as often as i wonder if it has for him, i am reminded that he loves me in the things he does -- the chocolate bar when he knew i was feeling down, the gift of a picture because i know he listens to me.

i do love him, and i don't want to consider the other option--but seeing her face makes me doubt, makes me wonder, makes me a little upset.

***

last night, feeling a bit better, i allowed myself two small squares of the chocolate bar he brought home. they were so good and filled that strange void that is "craving," and so far, my stomach is not unhappy with me.

that said, i need to address the upset i feel with the same handling. i need to allow myself the upset, in moderation, and then i need to set it aside, perhaps to moderately ponder again later...but not now.

the space between my fingers

when dan and i first started seeing each other, we held hands. constantly. i used to hold my hand up to his, to see how much larger it was than mine. for whatever reason that consistently astounded me.

the size, the shape of his hand, so foreign from my own, and yet so well known.

every once in a while i still do that -- measure my hand to his. remind myself of the span of his hands, how he can palm a basketball with ease.

it's been many years since we met. so much shapes you, as you grow--the wind, rain, the cold and the heat, all the various emotions. when we were young we used to argue all the time--sometimes about the most mundane of things, sometimes about simply who was right and who was wrong. as time passed and we grew to know one another better, other things stood in our way and our arguments shifted. then we argued about money, about jealousy, about the things that are so terribly important when you're twenty-two and think that you're All Grown Up.

really, nothing could be further from the truth.

but at that age, you don't know it.

i think that many people, myself included, have a difficult time understanding how to put aside that drama from childhood--the fears of monsters under the bed, of the dark, of things that are unknown to us, the proverbial bump in the night. that drama sustains us, for a time. when dan and i first held hands it was strange and comforting and exciting. of course later we argued about it, i'm sure. if i look in all my old journals i'm certain to find that it was some part or parcel of discussion.

who knows.

it grows easier and easier with time to become mellow--to drift, to float along, to find all the things that bind you together with other people and forget the things that keep you apart. while swimming you forget that you cannot fly; while walking you forget that you can swim. there is space between my fingers--it's always been there, holding them separate. in the womb there was no space, the fingers were paws, webbed and alien.

and then growth--time passes and one is born, and the fingers are their own little entities. did i take the time then to quibble about the why, or question the need for ten digits? was i overwrought with this change? did it consume me?

no--i was too young to remember it. and now i am old enough to see the difference and appreciate it. so very few things separated my fingers three decades ago, so very few things separate me from dan, from my family, from my friends, now. why should i argue? why should i gnash my teeth and suffer? what is the point?

i guess somewhere along the way--in between the fretting and worrying and shouting--i let it go. there was no point to holding onto all of that drama; it was useless. it became a question, each time an issue arose--is this life-altering? if not, then pick another battle. save your strength. wait, this too shall pass.

all the arguments we had ten years ago, all the suffering and agonizing over decisions and opinions--it all falls away. in the end it is his hand in mine, and if it were not for the space between my fingers, i would not know that balm.

lost and found

here's a list of what i found under a tv stand yesterday while assisting with a move:

--child's cap, blue & purple striped tiger with ears and eyes
--batman action figure
--Tony Hawk's something or other disc for Playstation
--red bowl
--one small pink striped sock, rolled into a ball
--neon orange squirt gun, thankfully empty
--sudoku book

and assorted other items. it's always strange when you move -- you pick up one thing and discover an item you'd written off as gone years and years ago sitting there, patiently waiting for you.

moving always hurts; it hurts to lift all the stuff you've accumulated and it hurts to leave a place you've called home. i guess in this case it just hurts because i've got all kinds of muscles, whose location i'd rather not disclose, clamoring in pain, but there's no "why-did-we-have-to-move" pain. just the pain of disuse, which is my own fault.

i remember the last time i cleaned the carpets in the house, before we got the new couch. when i shoved the old one out from the wall, there were items to which i too had said goodbye: a red twenty-sided dice, cat toys galore. this morning i cleaned out a bin that's been in the front closet probably since we moved in. it's where we keep the light bulbs but heaven forbid that you actually lay hands on a light bulb in said bin. it was more of a catch-all for cords, duct tape, those dowel-holders for closet rods, some tiny, tiny light bulb that could only be for a car we no longer own, and a random vacuum cleaner belt for, yes, an appliance that's no longer here, either.

it's so odd to think of all these items lurking in the house -- things that i don't necessarily need on a daily basis, but items that could, at some conceivable point, come in handy. part of me wants to scour the house for these treasure-troves of stuff, while the other half of me would rather write about it and then perhaps take a nap.

i won't even discuss the random bits that end up beneath seats in cars.

anyway, today i'm going to relax and allow my own found treasures--at the moment, my biceps--take a well-deserved break. with some flexing now and again, to reassure myself and my body that everything's still there, and perhaps won't be forgotten again for a while.

dejavu

It seems like every day’s the same/and I’m left to discover on my own -- seether, Fine Again

i get this feeling a lot, that "i've been here/done this before" feeling. today i had it and then i realized that it was just the radio conspiring to make me think that i had just repeated monday.

they're doing this promo giving away a year's worth of gasoline--they see your license plate, they call you, you win, the usual crud. anyway yesterday on my way home i was interested and strangely uplifted to hear someone win this.

it didn't occur to me until today, when on my drive home i heard the same winner again, that it could be recorded.

everything else on the radio is recorded...so why not the winners?

as i waited at the turn signal, however, i had an internal argument. was this the same thing i heard yesterday? or was this actually something that just sounded that familiar? or had i actually heard it but just in a dream or something?

it sounded familiar because it sounded vaguely like my brother, and the guy used the words "dude" and "unbelieveable" and "you have no idea how much this means."

so the question becomes: of all the random shit that piles through my brain during the course of the day, why on earth do i remember this?

i have no idea.

***

anyway the fact of the matter is that every day is different, and every day is the same. the sun comes up, the sun goes down. i go to work, i come home. never-ending cycle. which is fine, because there are so many permutations that can occur that it makes every day different.

until you hear something on the radio and begin to question your sanity, ie, did i just repeat monday all over again, or is it actually tuesday now?

noise

when i was a kid, my parents really didn't curtail my reading habits. i read whatever i pleased, even if there were the unforseen consequences of misunderstanding that i probably couldn't be a leper at the age of 11 in wisconsin. (a gift of james michener's hawaii and an overactive imagination.)

at any rate, i never had much if any restriction on what i read. i was restricted in what i listened to, however, and whether or not i could go to concerts. everything was too late, too out of the norm--which amuses me now, as at the time the music of which i thought so highly was hair bands of the eighties. when my friends were sneaking out of windows to attend metal concerts, i was home, reading--my one escape.

of course as i got older i had the ability to go to live shows, when and where i pleased. in my first few years of college i didn't see much at all, as i was going to bemidji, but i discovered alice in chains, which changed my outlook on music completely.

dark, bleak, rolling over you with the strange melody of layne and jerry--it was auditory beauty.

***

being deaf, i guess i never questioned much the thought that i don't listen to a lot of music. the stuff that other people really enjoy--dave matthews, etc--sounds so bland to me. perhaps it's because of being deaf that i came to this "noise" as my parents would term it--it has to be loud enough and brash enough to snare my attention and keep it held.

who knows. all i know is that my first two tapes (yes, cassette tapes) were janet jackson's rhythm nation and heart's brigade--and janet got tossed aside soon thereafter.

***

one of my first concerts was type o negative--dark and dreary, but ever so crunchy. standing in that small venue, pressed up against so many people, sweating and feeling my very marrow quake, was almost the most relaxed i've ever been.

years afterward i learned about "toning," which is kind of an auditory massage therapy--different sounds and tones that have various affects on your body. it makes sense, if for no other reason that just as a therapist manipulates your muscles, the volume of music can move the fibers of your being--physically and mentally, i suppose.

anyway, last night we went and saw a band that was definitely "noise." had a few beers and felt old among the crowd of twenty-three year old kids who had a penchant for thinking they were goth...or at least costuming themselves as such. i remembered fondly my days of combat boots and dark clothing, the industrial feel of a carbiner filled with jangling keys. i'm generalizing here because i guess as you get older that's what you do, and how you become the old shit sitting on the porch, railing at "those kids" to get off your lawn.

today i have a stamp that is slowly bleeding ink in jagged lines on my hand. i remember how i longed for this twenty years ago--to be one of the cool kids, to sneak out and disobey--and how much better it feels, and how completely relaxed i can be, without the pleasure of guilty window panes, for having heard and felt all that noise.

corey

it's too many yesterdays to count
since you were here. it seems as if
you've just left--
especially these days
when celebration and mourning
wear the same dark mask. if i look at that scar,
the one i've worn for ten years
to this day
to this hour
to this very moment--
the tears well up hot and fresh, just
as they did then.

the grief i feel is small
compared to the one that i see,
when time slows long enough
for his own wounds to show. i believe
they go deeper
than he would ever admit,
even to you.

it all
continues,
despite our best efforts
to call out a halt, to savor, relish and sorrow.

the best we can do all these
yesterdays later
is remember, and in doing so
keep you
here.

***

i cannot miss him near so as much as dan does. april is always such a hard month, no matter what you do to prepare yourself for it. no matter how you celebrate a life missed, you still do that -- you miss it.

after corey died, dan's mom found a stash of his--puzzle pieces, ones that he would steal just before she finished a puzzle, so that the puzzle would never be finished. part of me feels as though he still has one piece with him, somewhere, and is probably grinning about it just now.

simplification, the long route

it's been quite some time since i posted again, which in reality doesn't mean too terribly much as i suppose i'm not posting for my adoring fans but mainly for my own writing needs.

which, sadly, have taken quite the backseat lately.

why, you may ask? because there are so many things going on! every weekend has been busy, every weekday long. in my heart of hearts i know how much i enjoy sitting down and allowing my fingers to play over the keyboard, listen to the tap tap tap of keys as the words appear before me. it's like watching a magic act, or someone playing the piano. i'm no houdini, and certainly no virtuoso with words, but i do so much enjoy the act of vowel creation.

it's basic and plain, and both of those items are close to my heart.

it seems like so many things are not basic or plain any longer. recently i needed a new phone -- mine had no range, anywhere, except for one square of the sofa, part of the stairway landing, and a corner of the upstairs bedroom...and anywhere outside of my own home. so i jumped online and found a phone.

generally speaking i'm reluctant at best to enter the world of electronics or vehicles. to put it mildly, i exist in a state of ever-present "i don't need a different one...mine works fine." but my car has not been working fine, and my phone's hijinx were annoying, to say the least.

(this horrid reluctance does NOT apply to purses or clothing or books, unfortunately...)

online i picked out what looked like a simple phone -- a shiny, satiny pink. it's actually quite easy to use, and it has a calendar in it, so that i can store events, which is completely fabulous when you consider that for that last how many years, despite the advent of palm pilots and i-phones and the myriad other personal oranizers, i've still relied on my little paper day planner. works great provided you have a pen handy--which usually i do not.

thus when i realized what my phone was able to do, i tossed the planner.

there was hesitation, of course, because my heels were dug into the "this is good enough for me" mentality. why shouldn't my found-in-the-dollar-store planner not stay in my purse, taking up residence among my mango-flavored chapstick, my mp3 player, the wad of keychain and keys that only actually has 3 keys on it, a package of kleenex and some burt's bees hand salve. it was good enough for last year; what has changed?

it seemed so strange to replace something so basic with this sparkling pink device, which was only a third of the size of the planner itself--something that could store all of the days of the year AND notes AND phone numbers in one compact place. replacing the simple with something more elaborate--and yet that in and of itself simplified my life some.

at any rate, my simplified organizer is indicating that it's high time i get to the DMV and renew my license.

and as long as i'm at it, perhaps look at a different car. or mule. your choice.

online cat dating: tips and hints

henry's been mopey lately, if a cat can be mopey. he and shiva were never the best of friends, but he keeps looking for her, watching the stairs as if she'll come down, and has become completely obsessed--to the point of self-mutilation--with the end of his tail.

dan and i have done everything we could think of to get him involved with toys and away from the tail, but it's been a losing battle. the other day i realized that a series of spots on the wall was actually blood spatter. it would have made "dexter" proud--little action dots and dashes that soaked in and will not come out without a coat of paint. i felt a little like i was covering up a crime scene when i broke out the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser--but even Mr. Clean cannot take on blood, i learned.

either way, i came to the conclusion that we needed another wee beast in the household. we considered a dog, but at this time of year, with my hours, it would be all on dan, and that did not seem fair to me. also i have to admit i was a bit nervous about him bonding with the theoretical dog whilst i crunched numbers at work.

so it came to a cat. that said, we wanted to adopt a cat around henry's age. he's not a small animal, and needs a companion who is roughly the same size. i looked on petfinder and saw a ton of eight-week-old kittens, and a variety of cats who were quite elderly, and a lot of special needs.

i know my limits.

instead i turned to craigslist.

i know, i know. there was that horrible incident in the good ol' state of mn itself involving a homicide and craigslist. i figured if i stuck to pets i would be safe.

for a few weeks now i've cruised the pet info. first i looked at dogs--but after deciding against a dog, i started surveying the feline choices. there were quite a few, but most of them were either the aforementioned kittens, or a pair of cats who "would prefer not to be separated."

on thursday i saw a post for an orange tabby. the picture reminded me of henry--orange spots on a white cat--and i thought, why not. emailed and today we are now proudly owned by a timid tabby whose name is skitters.

i'm not sure i can live with that moniker, but it remains to be seen what she'd like her name to be.

she's bigger than henry, but just as much a silly cat--terrified of the ceiling fan, even when it's not on.

she wants to meet henry quite badly; henry, for his part, is huddled under our bed, probably wondering why we're putting him through this hell.

either way, he's not chewing on his tail, and i'm hoping that, given his past interest in shiva, and skitters' current interest in him, he'll come around eventually and they will be able to keep one another company.

in whatever way cats do.

rock, meet hard place.

i hate this time of year. not for any of the usual reasons--the cloying muzak about christmas trees, the glittery tinsel that gives me a headache, the ubiquitous travel during a season meant for staying put.

no, i hate this time of year because of where i work.

this year, for some reason, i'm having a much harder time with it than i did last year. perhaps last year it was just the newness of being back in the same position where i started, or the fact that i was on different drugs, or age, or any thousand things.

when i lived up north my days were busy too--but not this sapping, please-god-be-merciful exhaustion that sets in after 10 hours spent trying to help Very Angry People without any support other than from my bra.

this year i have run into the proverbial wall. i'm tired but too stressed to sleep, i feel like i'm getting sick but cannot quite get truly sick, i want to curl up on the sofa and do Nothing, since my days are so full of Something that i cannot keep up.

there's a ton of snow outside for the first time in years, and i have not played in it once. i haven't gone hiking, haven't done anything. perhaps it scares me--if i go out and enjoy myself and recharge, all that recharge will just be squandered on getting up tomorrow morning and heading back to work. by tomorrow night i will be the same husk of a person that i am this morning.

i feel bland and uninteresting--and i know the only way to change that is via action. the mountain will not come to mohammed, etc.

i know these things--logically, i know them all the time--so why is it so difficult to make waves in my own life, when the ocean does so with ease?

half empty, half full

i wear grief like a shroud
like an old familiar shirt
the same one i've worn a thousand days
over time it frays, gets soft, worn
by fingers and arms and tears
and i forget that i wear it, and it falls
away.
then one morning i wake
or one day over lunch it comes
and i find myself wearing that same
dark clothing again.

i wear it like my sister's fine french perfume
lingering, even after i have washed
a scent so strong that it makes
me cry, a bit, but so lovely
that i cannot help but mourn
when i can no longer sense it.

***

yesterday i got a call from the vet, before i could go and pick up shiva. they said that she had been up and around and was doing well, and then she ate some food, and lay down on her side, and was not moving. they said i should come and sit with her, because it looked as though this may be the end.

so i did. my poor little girl was all wrapped up in heating pads, with an iv in her tiny leg. dan got there and we cried together because it is so difficult to watch another being in pain.

and yet she was purring--a loud, rumbling purr.

i know cats purr when they're happy, or when they're in pain. i listened to teresa's cat purr as she gave birth--welcoming her kittens, easing her own discomfort. i had the feeling later that perhaps shiva was purring for both those reasons--because she wanted to comfort herself, but also because she wanted to comfort those around her. for what other reason is a purr so loud?

we sat with her for about half an hour, just petting her little chin and listening to the purr fade down to a low murmur. neither of us could stand to watch her suffer any longer, and my vet said, you have done all you could do.

they asked if we would like to hold her while she passed, but shiva hated being held in life, so we both thought she probably would in death, too. instead we sat and petted her, and then she was gone.

***

dan and i sat up talking that night, discussing the odd string of events that led her to live with us. it all went back to september 11th--which was how cari and i met. and then her mother dying--which led to the pug moving in with cari and tony, and shiva being relocated to our house since they didn't get along.

cari and i cried for a while on the phone, remembering a small gray cat who was tenacious, mellow and social.

i know that logically we did the right things: the vet, the shots and medicine, tempting her with all manner of food. i know that even if we discovered what it was, her life would never be the same--there would be more meds, more shots, more of everything--and that is not how shiva would have wanted to live.

she was so cold the last few weeks--even with all that fur, she had no fat left. i cannot tell you the number of times i could feel her cold little feet through my jeans. closer to the end, she did not care if you covered her when she cuddled close, something she never would have allowed when she was feeling better.

i know all these things, and yet i look around for her when i sit typing, wondering if she is warm. i listen for that bleating meow, asking for food, and when i go into the kitchen, i expect that she will be sitting there, waiting patiently.

my heart just has to catch up to my head.

***
when quinn died six years ago, shiva had just come to live with us. she arrived in may; quinn died on july 4th. i told dan that i did not want to go through that again--that we would keep shiva and that was the only cat we would have.

and then the next thing you know, we have henry.

i can see the future this once and i know that henry will be sick and die before i am ready for him to do so. i know that the same thing will be true for my parents, for uncles and aunts, for family and for friends. death swoops them away in the same manner as the mystical stork dropped them into this world.

every time someone dies--and i mean someone, because cats or dogs or birds, they are all little someones, even if they are not human--it reminds me that i cannot stop loving those around me. that i cannot wall up my world so that i can ignore the pain when they leave. that i must--i must--make an effort to take the opportunities as they come, and love unreservedly. if i did not care so much, i would not hurt right now.

the pain i feel, the sorrow, is only because i knew joy. when i lay down this mantle of grief that i currently hold, i do so with the knowledge that i will wear another, and another after that, until someone picks up what i have left behind and wears one for me.

the responsibility of companions

i'm owned by two cats, one of whom is sleeping happily on the sofa right now.

the other is at the vet's, awaiting a temperature-taking at 8 pm that will determine if she stays where she is or if she gets retrieved and brought to urgent care for observation overnight.

i keep thinking of all the things in life that are important--how it is not just a human life that is important. today at work i suddenly thought of that bible verse about how god knows even when a sparrow dies.

then certainly he knows that shiva is suffering.

part of me feels like a horrible friend to her: forcing meds to make her feel better, electing surgery to see if we can figure out what the problem actually is. she is not quite 15 yet, and still fiesty and sweet and terribly, terribly cuddly. in spite of the fact that she has been having issues with her bladder, and knowing where to poo, she is still my responsibility. maybe she just wants to die--but i am keeping her alive because i am being selfish. i don't know.

today she had the surgery--they biopsied her liver, stomach, intestines and lymph nodes, to see if it's cancer or something else. she had a 50/50 chance of making it and she made it through the surgery. however the vet called me later and said that although she'd made it through surgery, she wet herself, and then punctured the hot water bottle that was in the heated kennel with her. the vet blow dried her fur, but her temperature was still sliding. normal for a cat is 100-102; shiva is at 91. in the last month she's gone from 7.5 pounds to a bit over 3.

i keep wondering if i am doing the right thing--if i am simply prolonging her suffering, if she would prefer just to sleep and not have pain any longer. it's hard to guess, when you're not a cat, and a hard decision to make as her friend.

cari had her from the time she was born until she was nine--that was when her own mother died, and she got her mom's pug. the pug and the cat did not get along, and thus, shiva relocated to my house. shiva's been my companion for six years now; she goes to sleep on my back, and wakes me with a hungry stare. when i read she is on my lap. when i cry she is on my lap. she's sociable and friendly and so mellow.

now she is not herself any longer. i dislike the notion of playing god with her, but i suppose that when one is companion to a being whose lifespan is considerably shorter than your own, that is the path you follow.

mentally i can handle this--i know that it is out of my control, that there is nothing i can do. jed and donna, my sister's loss, and now my shiva--who is really not mine, anyway.

i think of donna's funeral--the pastor quoted a bible saying. you know for someone who's not a fan of the bible i seem to be thinking of it a lot lately--but then again, death does make you think. anyway the quote was akin to "my father's house has many rooms."

when i consider it in that fashion--that death is simply a part of life, that it is not entirely an end, but perhaps a status change, or a change of scenery--then i can handle it.

it is when i focus on how it affects me that it becomes overwhelming. then all the deaths pile up and sit around me, making my fingers cold and my body shiver.

there is nothing i can do now, for shiva, which is the most difficult part. right now i just wait until 8, when they take her temperature and see if her body is ready to continue its small fight, or if it is ready to move on.

either way, i will support her.

addendum: shiva's temp is up to 95.2 and rising, so she is staying overnight at the vet in a heated kennel. go koja go!

long week

monday - wednesday were busy, with work. thursday we had turkey at my sister's house, and friday we drove to brainerd for my cousin's funeral. saturday we lounged about and i performed some retail therapy at my fave thrift store. today we were just hanging around the house when my dad called to let me know that my uncle passed away.

it's not like i did not know this was coming--jed's been bedridden and nearly mute for a long, long time, and he wanted to move on. it still hurts, though. the difference in the wound someone leaves upon your soul is often your own perception of how you were able to interact with that person before they died, and how you were able to say good bye. or at least that is what i've pondered.

when corey died it was sudden--there was no chance to allow time to heal bits and pieces. same with bev--gone, in a blink. with donna there was the gradual understanding that perhaps she might not win her battle--but i clung to the idea that she would, in spite of that.

with jed--with jed it has been a long time coming. he had his first heart attack when he was forty-six--which is always one of my favorite warning tales: once upon a time, jed had a heart attack at home. since he knew what was happening, he popped a beta blocker, and then drove himself to the er, where he was severely chastised for his bad behavior before suffering another heart attack and then actually dying on the table during angioplasty.

not the end.

jed came out of the closet, joined AA, and moved out west. he had a stroke years later and spent a good year rehabbing from that. and then in 2005 he had a series of strokes and has been in the hospital ever since.

and today was finally the end.

jed lived an unconventional life, in comparison with his siblings. dad, my uncles bob and tim, all had families. dan worked and continues to work, a bachelor.

jed was the uncle with matching pillows and a good friend named chuck. he was the one who made a mean beef stew and who partied and sent me emails after he sobered up, talking about feelings and spirituality and past lives. he was different in ways that i cannot describe, since he was always this way--it does not seem terribly unconventional, to my thinking, but to the rest of the world, during my childhood, it was vibrant and so very strange and wonderful.

i know that he was ready to go--i know it, in my bones, that he had come to terms long ago with the demons people face when they battle a long illness--whether it is cancer or some other demon--and i know that when he passed away he was probably thankful.

and in some strange way it is a relief that he is gone, in that he is no longer suffering.

there's been a lot of grief in these past few weeks: my sister losing the baby, my cat wasting away despite treatment, and now, my cousin and uncle passing away. i know that all of these things are natural--that life and death are simply rooms next to one another, doors in a long hallway. trees fall over every day, leaving themselves to nourish the next generation. i know these things, and while i am grateful to whatever it was that finally allowed jed peace, i am still sad that his tale had to end in such a manner.

i will miss you, jed.

cancer and kleenex

a few weeks ago i ran out of my lexapro. i've been struggling with my decision not to refill my perscription, mainly because the withdrawl is horrible: nausea, dizziness, a feeling of complete detachment.

but with this comes a rush of feeling that i didn't realize i was missing.

tonight i almost wish i was back on the lexapro. maybe it wouldn't seem so sad. but it probably still would. my cousin donna passed away tonight after a long battle with cancer. her motto was beleive always -- and she always did, and i guess i did too.

she was this indomitable force, and for some reason in my mind the happy ever after was that she would beat it.

it seemed within reach sometimes -- earlier this year the doctors said if she could make it to fall there was a new drug they wanted to try on her. but fall came and she was not healthy enough so they did not. i suppose you have to keep hoping until you give up hope.

this feels so different from my uncle jed -- he is lingering but has given up already, has surrendered to the idea of death, and looks forward to that release. donna didn't. she wanted to keep going, she wanted to live.

or perhaps at this point she did not, and that was just my hope--that i wanted her to live and keep going.

i know all too well that life isn't fair -- that the world doesn't care whether you live or die, that the earth will continue and time will march onward. it just doesn't seem right to do that without donna's smile and those big blue eyes.

i believed, right until 918 when dad called, that she would triumph, that she would beat cancer at its game. but i don't know why i thought this, because i don't know a lot of success stories when it comes to cancer other than my cousin aaron's new wife, who beat it in childhood.

***

in the oddest of ways i am glad that i can cry again, freely. i'm glad my lips can get all swollen and puffy, and that i can run out of kleenex. the downside to being off that drug is feeling all these things again, more deeply than i have in a few years--but that is the upside, too.

i guess that it is all balances, in the end. the books total out--the ledgers must match--a fact which donna would enjoy, with her accountant background.

cancer brought together donna's entire community. the strange and horrible growth within her created growth without. i guess i just don't like the cost at which such balance is achieved.

jed

how long will he linger
tied to this world with
such small, small threads?
one by one they are unhooked.
from this great distance
i cannot smell your cologne anymore
i cannot remember anything
other than the feel of your chin
brushing my cheek when you hugged me.
i know that this is not
how you'd hoped to live your life--
you, the man who camped in the desert
slept in the back of your pickup
and counted stars until you slept,
the same man who knew nana's secrets
to reading tea leaves
and making stew.
soon enough you'll join them all
so far away
and yet so close.
the only thing holding you here
is pain, and the cage
of your body.
so i ask again
i ask
how long will he linger

***

my uncle jed has been in a care facility since may of 2005. he had a series of strokes at that time. at first it appeared that he would recover, with enough therapy and time, but he has suffered more strokes since then, infections and everything that happens when you are trapped by your own body. he made the difficult decision to begin hospice care--which means that he will receive meds to soothe pain, but nothing further to control his blood sugar or his heart conditions.

when i was a kid jed lived in a townhouse in the cities--we'd visit him and i always loved his house, because it was so neat and tidy and smelled like cologne--which my father didn't wear. when i was a kid i knew my uncle was different from his brothers--he enjoyed colored pillows, matching furniture, and liked to cook and listen to show tunes.

it wasn't terribly different from my dad, or his brothers, i suppose--except my dad had no idea that pillows came in different colors, and i doubt that he notices when and if furniture matches. dad's idea of cooking is a grill and a spatula. jed's was always something tasty prepared in the oven, and a glass of wine. it never seemed odd that my dad and his other three brothers enjoyed cars and hunting, and jed enjoyed movies and line dancing--it was just who he was.

on his fridge he had a picture of his "friend" chuck, a man who i thought for a long time was magnum p.i., standing by a red sports car. it's too late now to ask if he loved that man--if he even remembers that man, i suppose.

jed came out of the closet when i was in college. he sent a letter around thanksgiving explaining that he was coming out and joining AA. my siblings and mom were more shocked that he was actually joining AA, but my dad was shocked that jed was gay. he felt horrible because what if he had insulted jed earlier in life, with jokes or pressing girlfriends on his brother?

i met so many diverse people in college--gay, straight, transsexual, liberal, conservative, wiccan and methodist and catholic. i cannot tell now how much of an impact jed had on me when i was growing up--all i know is that i'm not sure i would be the same person if i hadn't had him in my life. would i have accepted all around me, just as they were, if i had not had someone in my early years who was different and yet completely accepted?

for the past three years jed has struggled, soul trapped on earth, unable to speak or communicate with ease, unable to move himself, reliant on others for everything. in deciding to go into hospice care only, he's finally able to begin letting go, something that i began years ago, i suppose, when he first entered the care facility he's presently in.

jed, i think of you every day. i think of you when i drive past the denny's near my house--the one you knew as a "good denny's" and i know as a "bad denny's." i think of you when i go to the sales just south of town, in the townhomes where we visited you. i think of you when i see a banana cream pie at the grocery store--and i remember popping that into uncle dan's face, while you stood there waiting to serve it, plates and server in hand, shocked.

you used to have a book of naughty limericks in the bathroom, and being the literate child i was, i remember reading them and of course not understanding too terribly much, but thinking that they were so very interesting.

there was one time we visited and you took us to a horse farm, south of the cities, i think. they bred thorobreds and i was in heaven--the rest of my family was in horse manure, and bored after five minutes, i hazard. but you knew how much i loved horses and did that for me.

i always had the feeling that i could tell you anything i wanted to, anything at all, and you would not judge me. now i wonder why i did not tell you more, did not talk more, did not listen better.

i wish you only the best--that you might leave this world and move along to wherever it is the soul journeys. i hope that you can return again to sedona--you loved it there--and perhaps to the northern forests of minnesota. i will wait for you here, wait for that one last hug that i know you will give me.

love, your neice kimberly