A Chance Gardner kind of week

So, today was interesting. Actually, there have been a few interesting things this week. I know that Kathy Howe is a big fan of when I use bullet points, so Kathy? This is for you.

1. Twice in the past ten days or so, I have gotten to sit in the co-pilot's seat of the little eight-seater Cessna that flies between Kirksville and St. Louis. Actually, I lie. I am not sure it's a Cessna.

It was a pretty fun experience. The first time I realized the seat was open and went scrambling into it, I said, breathlessly excited, to the very bored young pilot next to me, "I mean, how often do you get to do this?" (The answer, of course, being: Six times every day. Erego: bored).

I took some pictures. (You are hereby forewarned that this post is the result of insomnia. Therefore, there are massive amounts of pictures* here. But not a lot of words! Enjoy.)

*The pics were supposed to be larger. But I spent too much time inserting the pics into the code that organizes them a little bit neatly [read: When I first wrote this post, the amount of bandwidth it chewed up rivaled Finnegan's Wake in length.] to change that for this post. Fear not! If you suspect that any might strike your fancy, pop me a message and I will be happy to send you a larger one.

I have come to realize that my favorite thing to photograph is the sky. That is what most of my pictures end up being of:

But I don't want you to go thinking I'm a one-trick pony or anything. And I have completely neglected to tell you what was interesting about today. I had just gone running (4 miles) and showered and dressed when Christian sprung on me told me that he had an art open house he had to attend for school. 

"When?" Said I.

"Right now."

So, being the good sport I am (and having mostly jimbalaya in the dinner plans), without further ado, we hopped into the car and drove up to the local arts center. 

It was amazing. It will be up for two weeks. You should go check it out. Christian and I already want to go back. 

Portrait of a Young Artist

Himself's. He has inherited his mother's abilities in the visual arts. You may draw your own conclusions about that.

Finally (and, yes, I realize that I have abandoned all pretense of bullet points. Deal.), I had the surreal experience of walking past ayoung woman with no makeup and ponytail, very pretty, in Lambert airport Sunday. I thought, "Wow, that looks a lot like Elizabeth Smart." Turns out there was a good reason for that.

Me being me, I couldn't help approach her and say hello. I remembered at that moment that she was actually coming to Kirksville to speak at the Catholic student Newman Center. I did not realize that I needed to buy tickets ahead of time (because I am a moron), so I didn't get to hear her speak. But I know her story.

After meeting her, I sort of nodded to myself, because for all of the tragedy she has undergone, she strikes me as a very typical Utah, LDS young woman. I do not know if I can really explain what that means, except that even if I hadn't known her exact identity, if I had met and spoken with her, I could have told you that she was a Mormon girl from Salt Lake City. Something about  her accent, her clothes, the hair color (blonde on top, brown underneath), the clothes (casual, but very nice). She reminded me of some of my cousins. 

I never imagined, when I was walking into the grocery store near my parents' house about ten years ago, and saw signs about a missing teenager, that she would ever be safely recovered... let alone that I would meet her a decade later and speak with her.

Life? Is funny.

What, dear Reader, is funny with you?

Don't read anything into the date of this post.

Whether or not I blog seems to be related to what I feel comfortable revealing about my life; ultimately this is the story of me. The raw nature of this blog not withstanding, I am becoming more and more private as I get older. Therefore it is appropriate that I am staring down another birthday next week.
My big birthday plans include a friend-filled spring-cleaning party. It was their idea.

Really.

So, we are going to replace some light fixtures, throw out all the papers (or, more likely, have a huge bonfire) I haven't touched in a year, pack up some shit that has exceeded its expiration date, and change some rooms around. I am going to move into what is now the TV room (disadvantage: Near the street and noise/traffic. Advantage: fireplace). Sam can keep his room, and Thomas can move into my old room, giving the boys each their own room for the first time. I want to replace the ratty linoleum in my kitchen and the god-forsaken carpet in my studio. The breakfast nook in the kitchen has long housed computer stations/desks. This is going to be transformed into our eating area. The dining room will become the computer station area. I haven't yet figured out what to do with the television. Thomas is the only one who really watches it or uses it for the X-Box. I hate to have a television dominate my living room, but I also don't want it in my bedroom. I need another room! For all the stuff! Apologies to George Carlin.



What else? I haven't been going out in Kirksville very much this year. Sometimes I grab an early dinner at The Dukum with friends on Taco Tuesday night. Unfortunately, I have also been cocooning to the extent that there are friends (I'm looking at YOU, Renuncia, and YOU, Doug Steward) whom I haven't connected with when they've been in town (or in Renuncia's case, in yours). And some other friends who live on my very street and whom I do not see. I feel badly for this, and I will try to remedy this in the summer. I always have more energy when it stays light out, and I am at least more inclined to be sitting outside, where it is harder to hide.

I have just been processing the last year and simultaneously avoiding processing it by distracting myself with the Internets. It's not a perfect plan, but I think it's working. People, when they do see me, tell me I look good. I feel good. I go running. I need to get back to lifting weights. I know that what I need most of all is time. Time and time and time.

Sam is going to Truman in the fall. He is going to be living in the dorms. I postponed completing his housing application because I think I was hoping if I dropped the ball, he would have to live at home with me next year. Man-child picked up the ball and filled that damn thing out himself. Good for him.

Thomas has grown tall, quiet, and mature. He's really a joy. He has friends in the neighborhood he looks after and spends time with-- we call them "The ladies."

Christian is stumbling a bit. He really dislikes school, so I find myself taking him on a lot of walks and drives and checking in. He'll be fine, but things are a bit rocky for him right now.

And how, you ask, is Pat? Why, Jen, you have not complained about your mother once during this post. She must be out of town.

She is, in fact, out of town. But I miss her and I talk to her every day. That's right. I said I miss her. I know that seems impossible. But during the time that I have not been blogging, Pat has been changing slowly back into the self that I love. Her physician has done a remarkable job in towing the line with cutting out narcotics from her regimen nearly completely. She will be done completely in June. I have seen a remarkable change in personality and increase in her ability to manage some situations and entertain herself. She has been bored and depressed at times this winter. So have I. But I have, to my joy and surprise, a mother once again. I have walked into her apartment more than once only to immediately collapse in a puddle of tears, and she has comforted me.

Wow, I just made myself cry. Excellent good luck.

Last week, I went down to St. Louis to visit friends and go see William Shatner's one-man Broadway show.  I took Pat down and put her on a plane to go see her siblings in Zion Utah (What? How is that mean?). All she had to do was sit on the plane and then receive assistance in Denver changing planes. I felt some distress at saying goodbye to her, but thought I was just being sentimental. Well, she had an episode on the plane that was interpreted by those around her as a stroke. This landed her (completely alone) in a Denver Hospital. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???

She called to tell me this herself. She was slurring her words a bit and more confused than usual (which is really saying something, eh?). In spite of this, she was remarkably calm and in good spirits. The hospital nurses liked her. Matt and Heather drove down and took her to lunch and then got her onto a place to Salt Lake City after she was released from the hospital. She was gracious and remarkably lacking in drama in a situation that she otherwise would have used to a) get narcotics; b) milk the attention focused on her for all it was worth. Instead, she wanted to get out of the hospital and on her way. She was mildly irritated. But this is all a very big change for Pat.

She disagrees, but I still think she is beautiful.

What a strange week this has been. I*


I just found this in my saved drafts, from January. I wish I could remember what it was about.

Free time

I was walking down to my mother's apartment this morning to put her fentanyl patch on her, and I suddenly had an acute memory of last summer, during the week my father started going downhill so fast-- he was... evacuating his last meal, and we were waiting for the hospital bed to get set up, and I was sitting behind my father, propping him up so he wouldn't aspirate, getting his shirt off him and cleaning him up-- and I started to cry. So, I was in tears when my mother opened the door to me, and she hugged me, which was nice. Even though her moods are not completely predictable, she has offered me comfort during the time she has lived here-- and that is a great improvement, both in her condition and in our relationship.

I went home and my friend Chris had the day off, so he had come over and made some coffee and was surfing the net. I came in and poured a cup of coffee and cried some more, so Chris offered to take me for a drive to cheer me up. I have had some work done on the car recently, too, but it still doesn't feel completely right, so I wanted Chris to drive my car and try to diagnose it. We ended up going to the carwash, too. Then I ran Pat to to her doctor's appointment (naturally) and dropped her off (she did not need me to stay for this appointment). I came home and started working on my grant again-- a big grant that has been weighing on me. With an encroaching deadline.

And here's where the day started to get a little odd. I received an email from a contact at my client's site describing an insurmountable obstacle to submission. I called them immediately, everyone pretty much at the same time determining that there is no point in moving forward with the proposal. I unexpectedly now have more free time now. I was supposed to go to Hartford this weekend, and my mind keeps rubbing at the trip and preparations like a canker-- until again and again I conclude that that is no longer happening. I have been thinking about this for so long that my brain can't yet catch up with the change.

It would have been nice to get away for the weekend, even a working weekend. But it is even nicer to have this pressure off my plate.

Some friends and I have been talking about going shooting for the past three weeks, because the weather has been amazing. And every time, I have said, "No, I can't. I have to work on the grant." So, today, with temperatures in the low 70s, we got into the car with the windows down and drove out to the conservation area and shot 300 rounds of ammunition at these fun targets we have. And I didn't really think about much at all, just took in the landscape, with the sun glinting off wheat grass and turning it gold, the rare blue-ness of the Missouri winter sky, a few clouds, and hitting my targets.

It's hard for me to quiet the thinking that way. I don't hear voices-- but I am a wool gatherer and a ruminator, and it's rarely quiet in my own head. I said to Chris this morning, as I removed my glasses, speckled with the salt from my tears, blew on them and cleaned them on the bottom of my shirt (I know, I know), "I need a vacation. I just want to get out of my own head." The head that remembers sitting behind my father, the head that remembers the moment I realized that he was not going to take another breath, all of the images and moments from last year. I said, "I really didn't count on this shit coming bubbling up SIX MONTHS LATER."

Chris just gave me a look that said, "REALLY?" Like he has seen it coming for awhile, and that's probably the case.

It bubbles up, I cry it out a little, get on with my day. And so it goes.

Well, I didn't get a vacation, but I did get a peaceful, beautiful, sunny afternoon. I'll take it.

Getting to Nowhere

So, Jen, How is Pat adjusting?

That is an excellent question.

Sometimes, when I think of what she has lost this past year-- her companion of 50 years, her home, a LOT of the possessions and furnishings she had treasured for years, her proximity to her siblings, her friends-- my heart breaks for her. I feel such sadness that I don't know how she can bear it. And then I remember psychology textbooks I have read about projection, and I wonder who I am actually sad for.

But what Pat has gained has been, in my opinion, valuable. I know that for her it doesn't compensate her for her losses; it certainly doesn't help with her [perceived] physical pain. And what Pat has gained is more of Pat. She can be kind now. She calls all of the other ladies over at St. Andrews, "Honey," and "Sweetie." They call her when she isn't out in the hallway, sitting in the lobby, or when they are going downstairs to make a pot of coffee, which they drink with powdered creamer.

She tells me almost all the time how depressed she is. She is seeing a psychiatrist-- at her physician's and her behest. But she has a community here. When I call her and she is with her friends, she gets off the phone with me faster than a teenage girl gets off the phone with her mother when she is at the mall pizzeria with her posse.

And why has she made these gains I mentioned? Because her considerate and intelligent physician is slowly weaning her off all of her narcotics. Boy, she may not remember whether I am leaving town for Hartford on Tuesday or Wednesday, but she remembers the word "loritab." Hydrocodone. House's favorite, and also Pat's. Perhaps that speaks to her good taste...?

Last summer, when she returned from Utah, she ran out of her loritab shortly after she got back, a full ten days before she could get her prescription refilled. Those were not good days. She would call me about every 15 minutes begging me to get her some loritab, asking me when she could get some. There was nothing I could do. The doctor and I discussed it, and how it affected her behavior, and he took her off it shortly thereafter. He put her on a longer acting painkiller, not a narcotic, that she takes 900mg of over the course of the day. That is the maximum dose. She doesn't think it does anything. Both the doctor and I have explained to her multiple times that the loritab didn't help with the pain-- it helped with her loritab addiction. It was a fix. And she insists that she was better when she was on it-- and of course, she has no recollection of those ten days.

I think I am portraying her and the situation more negatively than I intend, though. I am trying to set a stage by showing some of the things we've encountered this year-- but I have noticed a tremendous difference in her every time the doctor decreases her fentanyl dose. She becomes nicer, gentler, more thoughtful and considerate. She can conduct conversations with my friends that they enjoy (and not just at her expense). She scribbles down notes about the news so she can talk to people about it later. She remembers her grandchildren's names and things they are interested in. Unfortunately for Pat, she is not really on that list.

She also becomes more independent. She has gotten to the point where she can separate from her weekly medications (I set out seven days' worth every Saturday and call for refills when she needs them-- usually two or three a week) her medications for that day and the next morning, so there are days when I'm really busy and she tells me, "You don't need to come by today."

But I am distracted. I am so distracted, by work, by life, by the appointments I need to keep track of and drive her to, the children I need to feed-- and nourish. My dear friends. So, sometimes I am not very good at attending to her emotional needs. She hasn't been out of the house for a few days now, and today she wanted a new crochet hook. She wanted to run into Walmart to get it. However, Dash took the van and the kids had taken the car to their D&D game. So, Chris drove me to Farm & Home to get a snow shovel (Dash borrowed the other one, but we are going to need two anyway), these awesome spikes the kids and I put on the bottoms of our shoes (being absolute chickens on the ice), and to Walmart to grab a crochet hook.

Pat called me while I was at Walmart. "Be sure to get the ones with the flat tops-- you use the round ones."

"Mom, I'm standing here looking at all the crochet hooks, and they are all identical."

"I think it's a brand name. Let me go see if I can find it."

There was only one kind of crochet hook at Walmart. I almost sent her a picture of the display with my phone, but there is no way she would have known what it was or how to access it on her own. And I've seen the old ladies sitting in the lobby, trying to figure out how my mother's new Timex works. I'm not entirely confident they can figure out texting or picture messaging for that matter.

ANYHOO.

I grab crochet hooks. She calls me while I am at the checkout line, and I tell her I have to go. We get to her apartment, and I asked Chris to come in because I had to set out her pills for the week. She greets us at the door with, "I don't suppose it has ever occurred to you that I might want to get out of here once in awhile?"

And it sort of went downhill from there. She has also gotten out every single medication from the cabinet (including two she doesn't take anymore, but I kept on hand because they were just different doses, so could be used if she ran out). They were all out on the counter. She had a year-old list of her medications that she was consulting.

I said, "Mom, what are you doing?"

"Well, I put them out in alphabetical order."

"This list is outdated! And you don't put them out in alphabetical order. Did you read the labels to see what time of day and how many you're supposed to take?"

"We always put them out in alphabetical order in Utah."

. . .

She wants more independence-- but what she fails to comprehend is that as long as she keeps waiting for me to hand responsibilities over to her, she *can't* be independent. And it frightens me when she thinks she is capable of something-- like putting out her own medications-- when she isn't.

Winter is hard on both of us. I know I'm bluer when the skies are always overcast. I need the sun. I need to remember to use the lamp I bought to combat this. But the gloominess outside makes it harder to remember what I need to do inside to combat it.

I think of Pat and I limping along, going for our long country drives, both of us newly single and trying to make our way in a town neither of us has ties to-- a place neither of us can entirely understand ending up. We drive out on empty, twisty roads, taking in the barren landscape that is so stark that it fills me with the same pain and longing that I described above. We drive, talking sometimes, sometimes in silence. I take music with us. Sometimes I play ABBA, which she likes, and sing. Sometimes I play Josh Groban, because nobody else would tolerate me playing it in their presence. But no matter how long and far we drive, we always end up back at St. Andrew's. That disturbs me literally and metaphorically.

I'm back

It's been slightly over six months now since my father died. If I had to account for how I am doing, I would have to say that I don't think I have even begun really to process the last year. It's too important to me to stay upright and functional right now.

Some of you know, some of you don't, that Dereck moved out over Halloween weekend. However, that is all I am going to say about that here. It is between the two of us.

So, my mother and I have found ourselves both newly single, and in some ways, I think that has bonded us. We are both navigating the waters of living alone (well, I live with the boys, of course), and I think that has actually brought us closer together. Pat lives here in town now. She lives just a little over a mile from my house, but I confess that I drive over to see her most days. Even though, this winter has been [perilously for the planet] exquisitely warm and mild until today. Today we got our first crispy bite of bitter temperatures and crunchy snow. No, scratch that: We had a little snow before  Christmas. I remember being nervous to let Sam drive to school, but I let him, and he was fine. This morning, I worried less. However, I am still not comfortable with it.

Yes, Sam is driving now. Life marches on, doesn't it? He is now eighteen. He nailed his ACTs and has already been accepted to Truman for the Fall. Christian is 15, and had an amazing experience at the Joseph Baldwin Academy last summer that has sparked a philosophy, politics, and religion reading frenzy. Thomas, as he prefers to be called, has adopted the task of drawing a neighbor girl from Australia out of her shell, jollying the younger sister (who is facing the fact at age 13 that her mother is terminally ill) and taking both girls to Kum & Go and buying them snacks with his allowance. He is very tall, and he takes a lot of pride in his personal appearance.

The kids had a tough year last year too. Their mother was largely absent in Utah for the six months. Then, I was devastated over the summer. Then in the fall, their stepfather moved out.

My children have had to endure hardships, all of them, that I would never in my wildest dreams wanted them to have to experience. And they have emerged tall, supportive, brilliant, creative, loving, generous, empathic, funny, and strong.

For the past couple of years-- perhaps longer, I have struggled with my career. It has been a great blessing and I have been incredibly fortunate to have had the time to devote to my family. I am grateful to work from home and to have had the flexibility last year that I had. I have been privately griping, though, about the sacrifices to my career that I've made. However, I am now, unexpectedly, in a position where I might be able to return my thoughts to building a satisfying career. And that possibility has allowed me to see with clearer eyes the fact that all of the time and commitment I have given to my kids has yielded greater dividends than any supposedly great career could have. It's true that I have barely been published (except for copious amounts of blogging); it's true that I cannot, now, have a full academic career. I will never be a reknown scholar. I may never be able to teach at a university level full time. I passed up opportunities to perform in Community Theatre, because it was important to me to be home with my kids in the evening, to have family dinner, and to tuck them in. Some of the experiences I haven't had feel more like sacrifices than others. But no regrets. None at all.

The summer was strange and intense. Right around Thanksgiving, melancholy started to rear its ugly head. I find it very difficult to concentrate on work, and I think that last year's tribulations are starting to bubble up in spite of my best attempts to tuck them back down. I find myself listening to Pandora stations I create that play Don Fogelberg, Christopher Cross, James Taylor, Steely Dan-- a lot of stuff from the seventies. A LOT. I can tell that I am reverting a lot in my mind to the safer time in my life this music conjures. I am cocooning myself, with the music, in my last real period of innocence and happiness.

My days, these days, usually begin earlier than they ever have (voluntarily) in my life. I get up, I turn on Pandora, I lift weights or do the dishes. I actually enjoy cleaning and taking care of my home now. Sometimes, in the midst of these things, I take my coffee out to the studio and have a cigarette and a cry. I tell my friends that I feel like one of those punching bags you have when you're a kid. You can punch it for awhile, and it will fall back, then spring up. It does this over and over until it's a little deflated and then its ability to bounce back is inhibited until you blow it back up.

I'm back. I'm trying to blow myself back up. One word at a time.