Facebook spillover

I was writing a status update, but I started to run long, so I decided to move things over here to finish up...

So, like, one week from tomorrow is MARCH. The month of March. WHAAAAAAT??? How is it possible that yesterday was Christmas, and now it's summer and I just want this ride to slow down a little bit because I have too many unread books spilling off my shelves and too many unwritten books spinning around in my head and--mostly I'm just trying not to think about how soon my little tiny (4-pound premie) boys will be starting high school/finishing high school and going away to college and...ok, who has a spare Zanax?? That is FREAKING ME OUT. I have enjoyed the unique ride that is "raising twins," but I do NOT approve of having my oldest and youngest children graduate at the same time. Panic. Big time.

Don't get me wrong--I am looking forward to some aspects of the "empty nest" situation. Like fewer loads of laundry and less general crap to pick up, plus less cooking, and more traveling, but........I guess I just can't believe this part is really almost over. And it makes me sad. I love them so much it hurts, and I always feel like I'm letting them down. Recently I have put my finger on that issue, and I believe it stems from the ultra-high esteem in which I hold my own mother. This causes me to always feel like I'm not doing nearly enough, because she was (and still is) utter perfection: kind, calm, patient, careful, caring--uncomplaining, unruffled. She just seemed to know exactly the right thing to say or do in any and every childrearing situation. She was serenly confident--no hubris or arrogance, just a gentle knowing. And I may be a lot of things, but I am not THAT. I am not HER. I wish, more than anything, that I would have turned out just like her. But I didn't. I am feisty and feminist-y and dreamy and irreverant. I just know how hard life is, how hard it has been for me to always feel loved or happy or whatever, even though I had The Perfect Mother, and it terrifies me to think I'm sending my little boys out into the world with way less armor than I had. But...oh! They're boys, and so maybe, maybe, please-please, MAYBE they will still be ok??? Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh. I guess I just need to focus on being Me and try to whisper to my subconscious that just because I don't match up, like a row of paper dolls, with my own experience of being mothered, that I am still doing a good job.

Nine Lives...or so.

I’m like a cat—I’ve lived three lives so far, or maybe more. I grew up sweet and pure, kind and quiet; then I flew away across the vast country and became a person who had shucked off that religiously heavy (but happy) upbringing, listening to harsh music and seeking hard thrills, I married a man and had twin babies; then I was set free from him and found a soft and welcoming place to land, safe and warm with my True Love. I lived on the rocky, harsh coast of Maine; I felt agoraphobic in the wide-open plains between the hulking, great mountains of Utah; and after a brief respite in the lush green and white-capped blue of my Maine, my Love whisked me off to perch in a little house on Iowa’s prairie. Is that six lives? Maybe four. I just know that it all feels like three lifetimes, or three tracks on an album…three volumes in the Encyclopedia of Me, three colors of my rainbow. I am Me, but that girl from Westbrook Street looks like a stranger from here, and that young woman losing and finding herself amid the mountains and red rock deserts seems like Me, but I can’t quite reach her anymore…this fat and happy matron that I am looks like a stranger, often unwelcome. 

I'm supposed to be studying for finals.

So I jotted that down.

Sundays

I was reading a story by Don DeLillo, and the characters were talking about how Sundays are depressing, their memories of Sundays on Earth, at least.
And it reminded me of the endless string of Sundays of my youth:
such a stale, forced-pleasantness to the day--
too quiet, too rigidly ordered..
Not now. 
Now the only depressing thing about Sundays is how roaringly fast they go by,
thrusting us forward into another work week, 
which turns into Thursdaysofast 
and that's my Friday, so it's alright again...

Well, well, well...

You never can tell...
Or something.

So, here I sit, procrastinating homework.
I don't have a lot, but I also have a choppy, busy day ahead, so I better focus.
I will focus better if I empty my brain of its chatter first.
Right?
Right.

Ah, there's the rubbity-rub of it, eh?
The things that are nibbling around, chewing on the edges of my concentration
are
mundane
worrisome
private
so I don't really want to blog them.
But I miss...
this.

I'm in a Fiction Writing class, and we workshop each other's work, and this week one of the stories is utterly captivating and I am sooooo excited for this girl! Yay!! I hope she writes books, and some publisher is smart enough to buy them and push them and then I feel like, aw, crap, there goes one more person in front of me in line for the 5% acceptance rate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Heh. But, ya know...good for her. Truly. I would rather read what she's written than write, if that tells you anything. I am actually awed by her talent and can't wait to write her "response letter" and tell her so! Ah, but apparently I can wait...cuz I'm here...doing this..........

That's ok. I needed a brain break. Now time for a shower-and-meet-a-friend-for-chai-tea break. Then more homework. Sure.

The post below is something I wrote for one of the short writing exercises we did for that class.

Ode to the Tallest, Lost too Soon

My boys were only 6 when their uncle died. Their Dad’s brother had been living with us for about a year when his motorcycle betrayed him and sent his 6’ 8” frame unbelievably and mortally into a sapling. I was there that night, I heard him come home. A Saturday night in August, 10:30. I was tucked into my desk in the newly finished basement and I heard the garage door open, then paced his long strides across the tile on the main floor, and up the carpeted stairs. I should go say Hi, I thought. Let me just finish this email… And then the front door slammed and I assumed he had left again. Fifteen minutes later the doorbell rang and I assumed he had locked himself out. I sprinted up the stairs and opened the door for four uniformed policemen. I was relaxed and smiling as they asked if this was his residence, and said yes, and they asked if my husband was home (he wasn’t). They kept asking if he had a wife or when my husband would be home. Shifty-eyed; they didn’t want to tell me. What has he done? I asked, assuming he had been at fault somehow, arrested for a fight or something…not because it was characteristic of him, but at that point I still equated police inquiries with broken laws or broken jaws, not broken bodies, not splintered bones and crushed flesh not the end, not the forever gone, not that, not that. And I won’t dip into the well of emotional memory that was created in me like a gash that night, black ink of absence dripping through me, filling veins that ought to have carried blood, but how can someone be gone, someone who was just here, someone whose footsteps still echo, still burn across that floor, the place where I’m standing? How can that be? How do you tell his brothers, his mother, his girlfriend? How did I omit his ex-wife in my haze of shock, how did I not insist they send an officer to wake her, to tell her, to tell her, to tell her that their daughter now had no father? I made them send someone to his mother, even when they floundered because she lived in the next county, Uh…could you send a local cop?? Oh, they said. Oh, yes, I guess we could. And that was all the brilliance my brain could muster, I suppose, but it was almost enough, and then hours later remembering his girlfriend and finding her parents’ house in the morning and asking them where to find her. And her Dad (built like her, like a Finnish bird, with the accent to match, and steel blue eyes) pointing the way, and she knew, she knew she knew when she saw me. She crumpled like a delicate white rose or a house of cards built on hope and desire and she thought he would always be able to protect her, because she could practically fit in the palm of his hand, like a little china doll, and he would save her, he said, but why couldn’t any of us save him?

He was too tall to die, it was an abstract feeling at first, because the words didn’t form, but as they did, they were all that I clung to, in the first hours after the news, those hours between making the horrific phone calls and waiting as brothers trickled in, oh god, now there’s only 5, now there’s only 5, now there’s only 5! How can the tallest be gone so soon? You’re the tallest now, buddy, said one of them to the youngest…it was too soon to hear such a thing, but no one knew what to say, how to keep breathing, how to exist in this disordered universe.

I visit his grave every time I visit Utah, but my boys had never been. Seven years have passed and I felt like it would be good. They were funny; he would have loved it. They couldn’t remember what he looked like, but I assured them there was a picture on his headstone—a beautiful, colored photograph etched into an oval next to his name. Oh yeah, they said. He was so tall…

I blamed myself for a long time. If I had only gone up to say Hello, maybe. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone out at all, to play with the “YOUR SPEED IS___” sign, zooming back and forth on our little suburban street to see the numbers. Maybe I would have said, “Don’t forget your helmet!” Maybe he would have invited me out to watch, and maybe I would have had to see it happen…maybe he would still be here, and they wouldn’t have named the Philosophy Department scholarship in his honor, and his daughter would know his faults, and he would have lost his truck…but maybe he would have graduated, and she would never see his faults, and he would have sold the motorcycle. Maybe. But then, who would I pray to?

The last great adventure in my Great Adventure

The best part of all was the week I spent making my way from Utah to Iowa, with my boys.

We stopped in Idaho for a few days to reconnect with old friends, swimming and laughing,
and laughing
and laughing.

Then we headed north, through the edge of Yellowstone--
connecting with the oldest friend,
the one who was my siamese twin, my spit sister, my muse, my soul mate.

She took us to swim in the Boiling River and laughed at my kids' antics and sarcasm and short tempers.

She sent us off with greens from her garden and eggs from her hens!

We stumbled into a great, wracking thunderstorm just as we passed through Billings, the radio blaring a subtle suggestion to seek shelter immediately in certain counties, 'though we didn't know in which we were...

Darkness descended abruptly, rain obscuring my vision, except for when lightening struck and struck and struckSTRUCKstruck,
the mountains opening out to wide rolling plains, leaving us exposed.

The wind shoved us around, so we slowed to a crawl, seeking shelter under an overpass with other wary travelers.

This wretched storm slowed us down for hours, so our late start turned into a ridiculously late arrival at our hotel--4:30 in the morning.

Late check-out, please...?

We slept until 11, then headed for Mount Rushmore!! Because how often do you get the chance to drive right past Mount Rushmore??

I figured that would only add an hour or so to the 10 hours we had left to drive before reaching home,

but of course not.

The boys enjoyed climbing around on semi-forbidden rocks, and we enjoyed the monument very much,
 but then the day had gotten entirely away from us, and it was time to point eastward...
6:00 p.m., and 10 hours to go! 

Siiiiiiiigh.

Before we reach the worst moment in the whole 9,904 miles of driving, before I describe the look in the deer's eye as it ran toward, and somewhat through my vehicle, let me take a moment to really savor the time that my boys and I spent during that week of travel.

We laughed and talked and listened to comedians and stopped for snacks, and just generally enjoyed the hell out of each other.
It was an oasis in the storm of life, you could say.

And then, just when we were about to pass from South Dakota into Minnesota,
and precisely upon the halfway point in the day's driving--

the aforementioned deer, sweet little confused thing, was suddenly in my peripheral vision--

darting toward me and onto the hood of the minivan, and I was slowing down, and shouting many swear words, to the effect of, "I can't believe I just hit a deer!"

And as I slowed, I realized there was a scraping and my tires felt weird, and there was steam (or smoke???) coming from my hood, and the impact had been minimal--
(the kids would later say they thought I had hit a traffic cone from one of the thousands placed along long stretches of construction we had passed through.)

Everything was still,
and not just because we were envoloped in dark
ness
and corn fields and no city lights and no street lights and no homes/streets/people--
just soft night air and the ticking of a rapidly cooling engine,
and my kids, blinking,
and my door wouldn't open all the way, but enough,
and my gear shift wouldn't land in Park, so I set the emergency brake
(and only now do I realize how LUCKY/fortunate/protected I was that the brake held, and my kids and/or I were not whisked away down the slight incline by a car still running and not in Park...someone later told me I could put it in neutral and turn it off, but not then).
And we waited a moment, but first I called my Sweetest, because he would be calm and clear and would
know
things.
Because I felt rattled and cold and a little shaky, but mostly calm, I guess...
And he said
to call the police and the insurance company
and I did.
And they asked me for details and I gave them,
but then.
There were no hotels with vacancies for at least 50 miles in any direction,
and it was late,
and there was nowhere to sleep.
So the tow truck guy
(you're picturing someone old and scruffy, aren't you? Wrong! Young and clean)
suggested we hang out in Denny's until the car rental place opened in the morning.
Every person I encountered was as nice as could be,
but that still didn't make up for having nowhere to sleep,
especially for my kiddos.
But we made it.
And I am grateful we weren't injured,
and I am grateful we were treated kindly,
and I am grateful we have good insurance,
and I am grateful my car is only a 5-hour drive away, being repaired for 3 weeks*, because all of the above could have been a hell of a lot worse, but that one...we drove 9,904 miles before we lost our vehicle; and most of those miles were a hell of a lot further from home than 5 hours.
Yeah.
Coulda been worse.
And what an amazing summer of travel it was!

*turned into 5 weeks, and we had to fork over more cash than expected, but still OK.
UPDATE:
And on the day we drove to South Dakota to pick up the van,
after nearly completing the 10-hour round trip,
just 10 miles from home--
another deer leapt into our hood
in the exact same spot.
Undoing the work that had taken weeks to accomplish.
Thank goodness my husband was driving.
Thank goodness we were close enough to home to get dropped off by the tow truck
after he dropped our poor crushed vehicle at the dealer's body shop where we bought it.
Two Friday nights at 11 pm.
Two deer (dead).
Two months without my super awesome vehicle.
Two rental cars (the first one was fun; second lame).
Mostly I'm still just glad we weren't hurt.

America's Dead Sea

When I was a little girl, my mother described to me the marvel that is the Great Salt Lake.
"You can't sink in it, even if you try."
I was enthralled, but yet, when I moved to Provo, Utah for college at the age of 18, I didn't ever bother to find my way to the Lake...it may have been a simple matter of not knowing how to reach its shores, compounded by the distractions that engulf a teenager, away from home for the first time, and in an utterly foreign landscape, society, and living arrangement.
Small fishing village on the coast of Maine, meet highly-populated suburban mecca of the intermountain west!
I was overwhelmed, and distracted, soon-to-be utterly heartbroken, and the last thing on my mind was the enormous, heavily salted lake to the north of me.
Several years later, when I had abandoned my reasons for moving to Utah in the first place (think: R.E.M's "Losing My Religion"),
I drove around with Nine Inch Nails blasting, windows down in an attempt to displace some of the hot, thick air that pressed in around me.
I was in search of access to the enormous, visible, but out-of-reach Utah Lake.
I drove for what felt like hours, hurtling down each road that seemed like it might lead to the lake, each time discovering either a dead end or a boat dock.
What I wanted, no, what my soul NEEDED was a beach. A place to swim, damnit!
How hard should that have been??
Growing up on one of the fingers of land on the edge of America that reached out into the Atlantic ocean, amidst lakes and rivers and ponds and quarries had given me a false sense of entitlement to wander into nature and stumble across a place to swim. Even better, the beaches on the ocean offered instant relief from the heat that Maine was burdened with a few days a year.
But this place, this "high desert" was leaving ME high and dry, if you'll pardon the dorky play on words.
I was in tears by the time my search for ingress to Utah Lake had ended, a failure.
And it never really occured to me to try to find my way to the Great Salt Lake.
My one brush with its greatness--a 1996 Silverchair concert at Salt Air, with its boardwalk out into the lake, where we stood in the cooling darkness, flirting with the boy with the seatbelt holding up his pants, and his hot roommate...

I don't remember when it occured to me that a memorable thing to do with my kids (whom I was picking up after having flown them out sevearl weeks before) would be to float in the Great Salt Lake, but it was not long before I arrived there, a few days at the most.
At that point, instead of a hot car and an unwillingness to ask a gas station attendant for directions, I had AC and Google!!
So, together we discovered that Antelope Island State Park has a lovely beach with showers and bathrooms and picnic table pavilions for all your Great Salt Lake needs!!
I was thrilled, and a little amazed that I had lived there for 15 years and never even attempted this wonder of nature--floating in America's Dead Sea!!

And what a beautiful day it was...
It was hot, sure.
(Only outside).
But the sky was that rich, aqua-blue that I've only seen in Utah, contrasting against red rocks or jutting brown mountains.
The water and salt flats stretched out, shimmering on either side of the causeway that leads out to the island, antelopes grazed near the water, as if to say, well, duh? What did you expect?
I was swept off my feet by the place, entranced.
We made our way down the beach, laughing and full of wonder.
We passed through the veil of flies near the water's edge, turned back to leave our shoes on the dry side of the fly barrier, and passed through them again, watching them press away from us in gentle black waves.
With a bit of hesitation from some members of our party, we stepped into the stew of brine shrimp and salt-cloudy water, wading out and out and out--
shallow (ah, yes! That's why I lost interest so many years ago in seeking this experience--a drought caused its levels to lower and I heard it just wasn't interesting/good/worth it anymore!).
But that was years ago, in the lifetime before my last lifetime...I'm like a cat, I guess...I'm onto my 4th, now.
And soon we were chest-deep, and giggling at each other--
Are you ready? Should we try it? Who's first?
Well, me, of course...
And the giggles that erupted from how odd it was to have this familiar substance (water?) behaving so differently...hyper-buoyant, thick and giggling...
And afterward, water rushing through our swim suits, pushing all the ant-sized sea creatures off our sticky skin (well, not ALL), and cooling us back off...
It was everything I had never imagined it would be.
It was perfect.

Back in the USSR, yeah...

"He'll be deported," they said.
"Not only the drugs charge, but because he's an Armenian dissident," they said.
"He'll do his time in the Armenian Army, then straight to jail."
"He won't make it that far, though..." they said, eyes closing briefly.
They were resigned to his fate,
but it was such new news to me that I couldn't dig their vibe.

Driving east across the Salt Flats, California still in my lungs, the song came on from my time with him.
(you remember that song...it was the one that filled you with sadness each time you drove away from him, because you knew you didn't love him, but you couldn't stop ripping holes in the fabric of your life just to be in his bed)
As I looked out across the salt, the desert, the blue sky and mountains--
I wished for his wellness, his safety.
I sent out prayers to the earth and sky for warm arms of love and safety to surround him.

I remembered that feeling of
not loving him,
but needing him.
And the way he couldn't remember the word for "kitten," so he called them, "puppy cats,"
or pronounced pirates, "pie-rats",
or the way he liked to smoke a cigarette after...just like in the movies.
He was sexy and foreign, but his dark eyes were wells of sadness and loss.
This made him seem older than his years (but still not close to mine)
and all my reaching never quite brought him within my grasp.

I've seen him a few more times over the years--
we still share that pair of
(now married)
best friends,
spiralling away from the pivot point where we all once collided,
so far-flung now as to never even be part of the same Venn diagram...
I found him once after my divorce,
for old time's sake,
because I can never resist a good cliche or a good time
(which, to be honest, it maybe wasn't...
it was sort of sad and lonely,
but maybe that was just his anguish
seeping through his skin and filling the air around us,
always a lost boy);
and I saw him once after I remarried
(so thoroughly happy that no one else really mattered for years);
he was happy for my happiness,
and neither of us felt the need for a time machine,
just conversation
out by the pool, under the orange trees,
in the Arizona heat.

His delight at my careless way with him--
"Straight fucked me and leave, she did!"
I can see the delighted wonder on his face, that huge smile -
He marveled that I didn't cling
(I marvel, too, because it wasn't really my style).

A book on psychology or meditation--
something faux-deep,
in which I inscribed "Invictus,"
because I wanted him to know he was the Master of his own destiny...
and now it looks like he could have done with a little more guidance.

An Armenian-English dictionary,
so I could get closer to him,
but my brain couldn't unscramble
the alphabet used to compose those words
or make sense of the phonetic spellings
and we were further apart than ever
as I stared at the pages
of unuseable bridges between our minds.

His roommate, watching from the doorway, unashamedly grinning at us.

The Russians! Remember the Russians?
They were gorgeous, and mildly terrifying.
All the right curves and exquisite cheek bones.
...but with a sharpness that left me speechless.
Those girls were the epitome of intimidating, and maybe in part because they knew the world from which our sexy boys came.

And now, one flimsy immigration hearing stands between him and a brutal end.
It may be fair,
but I don't have to like it.

Road Trip Grieving

I felt so alive this summer, as I drove back and forth across this great, lumbering country of ours.
I felt...connected to everyone, yet complete unto myself.
But when I got to Utah, a thousand miles from my house, and 2500 miles from Home, I had a moment of regret.
Sitting in my brother's dining room, birthday cake frosting melting into a puddle between us, laughter and distant conversations echoing throughout the house as everyone moved inside to escape the sudden thunderstorm--I realized what I had missed.
The thought was suddenly obvious--I couldn't believe it hadn't occured to me when sitting at my other brother's table, on the coast of Maine.
When he carefully brought the urn down to the kitchen so we could sprinkle some of our father's ashes into the roots of the tree we were planting, a tree to memorialize the man we lost just months ago.
(Lost doesn't seem like the right word, though, does it?
As though we had misplaced the man.
It certainly doesn't fit with his sudden, angry departure, nor resonate with the man who chose to skip to the end instead of letting old age destroy his body and mind further, to drag him through the indignities of hospitalizations and whatever else he imagined his 79th year had in store for him that was worse than leaping into the Great Beyond.)
But however you say it, he was gone.
He was reduced to ashes, kept in a jar.
And as I drove away from my beloved Maine--
his country--
and meandered across the continent, I didn't feel like I was on a journey yet.
It was when I arrived in Utah Valley, after starting my day in a dump of a hotel on the western edge of Nebraska, just in time for cake and candles and laughing and warmth and beauty--
talking with my brother
that I realized I was on a coast-to-coast journey,
and I should have brought my roadtrip-lovin' father for one last run.
I could have buckled the urn into the passenger's side and talked to my Dad as I drove.
I could have ordered him a cheeseburger at the drive-thru
(but that would have made me sad).
I could have tucked a bottle of No-Doz and a box of Sunmaid prunes in beside him
(two of his staples from the road trips of my childhood).
It would have changed the texture of my trip, for certain.
And I love the trip I had--
the days and days of driving in solitude,
me and my thoughts, and music, music, music!
But I regret not bringing him along...
he would have loved it.
And I owe him that much, at least.

Home, v 2.0

There was a certain stillness that came from being alone in a car for hours (and miles) on end...
I knew that this machine and I were a team, and that we only had each other to rely on.
Not to be dramatic, of course. ;)
I also had my in-dash navigation and my android with google maps, so we were not exactly two lone soldiers, lost in the wilderness of the American Interstate Highways, haha!
We were...well-equipped.
And from Maine through Iowa there were plentiful rest stops, with food choices, and clean, lovely bathrooms...
(Wyoming westward is another story...and do NOT get me started on Nevada! Eeek!)
I also had my husband on speed dial, who could call hotels in the dark of night, as Nebraska's flatness spread out behind me, Wyoming's mountains approaching on the distant horizon.
He could call, and find out that the closest Holiday Inn with a vacancy was across the border and too many miles away in a Wyoming town I didn't have the energy left to reach.
That was the moment I knew I had driven too far, gotten too tired, because I wanted to cry.
So I would settle for a run-down, musty, dusty place that felt like the opening scene to a B-movie, or a depressing documentary, or maybe even a horror movie.
It was still $89 for this room with its polyester bedspread and crunchy carpet, but I hoped to be tired enough to get some sleep.
Instead, I tossed and turned, waking in a panic at 3 a.m., still caught in the guazey web of a dream about a western-movie version of this same hotel, wherein I had been taken from my room, undressed and redressed, and left in another room; the manager would not listen to my hysterical explanations, and I began to realize he was in on it--whatever "it" was. So I turned on lights and put on my shoes to go pee--shoes, because of the aforementioned crunchy carpet, lights because of the dream, the dream, the dream that wouldn't stop churning through my not-awake-yet brain.
And then I turned on the TV and let "How I Met Your Mother" soothe me back to sleep, and when I woke at 5:00, I was not rested, but it was light out, and that's sometimes close enough.
And Wyoming soon greeted me, looking more like Nebraska than it had any right to.
And then its mountains shoved into view, and billboards announced that Sierra Trading Post had a factory outlet in Cheyenne and I nearly peed my pants! That is my favorite outdoor supply store, online! Oh, to go to the actual store!! But, alas, they would not open for over an hour, and I was only just ahead of schedule, which would turn out to be actually on time--
as I rushed to Utah, to scoop up my little boys and head down to the other valley to celebrate their birthday with my brothers.
I made it, too.
I picked them up, and picked up groceries, and we dropped off an ipod for a repair, and we arrived in time to cook burgers and chop watermelon and they blew out candles and we talked and laughed, and I was Home.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, Part 1

    On June 7, 2013, my family and I drove from Iowa (where we currently live) to the coast of Maine, which we consider "home." We spent two weeks there, then my husband and sons left, and I stayed on for two more weeks before driving to Maryland to visit my sister briefly and back to Iowa to rest and regroup for two days before pushing onward to Utah, where my boys had flown to spend a month with their father. I had originally planned to spend two weeks in Utah, and from there to go on a road trip with a dear friend, but things changed and I rolled with it. I rearranged my exit strategy so that instead of heading back toward Iowa on I-80, which I've used many times to cross this country, I would go north to visit friends in Idaho and Montana, then catch I-90 for my eastern trek, allowing me to pass close enough to Mount Rushmore to visit it--cuz when would I have THAT chance again?? It is very remote!
    Well...you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men, don't you? Yeah. Pretty much Murphy's Law takes over at some point and all the planning in the world isn't going to save you from a CRAZY lightening and wind storm or that midnight run-in with a very determined deer, smack in the middle of the Sturgis Rally route (although, to be fair, I could have avoided I-90 altogether, knowing the rally was starting the day I was driving through, but who would have thought I would need a hotel just 5 hours from home??? But I get ahead of myself.)

So, that is the bare bones of how I spent my summer vacation. 

* 8 weeks and 10,000 miles (including side trips). 

* Crossing through 22 states, visiting 8; 

sleeping in 10 different states and 16 different beds/couches.

* Crossing at least 5 different mountain ranges or passes.

* Through Tahoe, the Salt Flats, Yellowstone, the Badlands,

floating in the Great Salt Lake, swimming in a river in Gold Country (CA), and the Boiling River (MT), visiting Mount Rushmore...

There are so many pieces to this great adventure, that I can only get my head around it all if I write it down.

I just hope I can remember the insights and the best parts of it all...

Missing Piece

Something has been missing from my life, and I am here today to (attempt) to end this misery! Haha, a little drama in an opening line, for good measure, there...
I have missed daily writing, since I let my original blog peter out five years ago or so. I have started several blogs since then, writing a post or two, then losing interest. I know that part of the issue is that I really enjoyed the network of blogs with which I was associated back in the day, and that blogging just didn't feel the same without that community around me. Also, I just didn't have the time and/or feel the need for blogging on the deep, primal level that I did when I first began, as a housewife with two small children. I needed adult interaction, and I got it. Now that I am married to my Soul Mate, I just don't have the same drive to connect with new people or to constantly connect with people outside of my four walls. We are content and engaged with each other most of the time, while also enjoying time with our friends and family, but every waking moment is generally taken up by this life we have together.......even if many of those waking moments have devolved into sitting side-by-side with our noses buried in our respective smart phones.....ugh.
So, here I am, attempting this blog thing again. Perhaps I'll just link it through my facebook account or something, since that is my virtual social circle these days...we'll see.

I have so much to say, so let's see if this blog ends up being where I'll say it.

Ashes to ashes...

So I say, “I have to pick up my Dad,”
and I know it sounds casual
and normal
as though I were picking him up from the airport,
or from some perfectly mundane place across town.
But that’s not where he is.
He is on a windy hilltop,
in a building designed to be comforting in its serene beauty,
its halls plush
meant for hush-
ed tones.
He is not exactly a “he” anymore, or a person at all,
but has been reduced to his essence,
the stuff not eaten by the flames.
There, he awaits his last trip home.
His last flight…
“I don't EVER want to fly again,” he proclaimed
last month
upon returning from far across the ocean,
        from that island
where we thought he was already lost to us.

Home we’ll go.
So that he may,
at long last,
rest with the peace that he has earned--
impatiently sought, in these last days,
but earned, nonetheless.

Tardy

We arrive,
breathless,
on the cusp of being late.
"Run like the wind," I say
and turn to see if their backs will fade
quickly toward the large brick building.
Instead,
they trudge as though moving through ankle-deep sludge.
Slow-motion versions of the lightening-fast boys I pictured when the doors slammed in unison.
I sigh,
turn on NPR and move back out into traffic.

:)

The start of my day was in the still-dark hours as my Love readied himself for work.
I lay, snuggled beneath the down,
stretching and purring, like his favorite pet.
I worked out my life, my future, in those dark, half-awake hours,
and when I finally rose,
I felt renewed and lighter than I have in weeks...months?
You see,
I have been depressed.
I am loathe to admit it...
not because I look down on depressed persons,
but because of my father and his genes.
My father, who slipped through a rip in the fabric of time, or space, really
to live with me--
with no pre-planning,
no asking or even telling.
Just desperately, frantically discarding the life he had begun to build in the Philippines for the past year,
emailing to ask if he could "visit for a while."
Was I stupid to not realize that he had no where else to go, so a visit would be far more permanent than any visit has a right to be?
--any father has a right to be, after deserting one's angelic mother despite the amazingly thorough and kind way she cared for him and his every whim for 38 years???
Oh yes, I have some unresolved anger, did you notice?
Could you see it there, dripping down my sleeve, leaking from the heart I wear there?
His choice to leave her is still nonsensical,
it is discordant,
it is unrhyming, unrhythmed
un
real.
So, not to mention a lifetime of having nothing in common
(except my broken genes and my worst character traits),
I now have unexpressed anger for this cute little man.
And moments before my son went in for BRAIN SURGERY,
I read the words, "I can't stay here any longer. Could I come visit you for a while?"
And I primally screamed,
for my emotions were already entirely used up by the 3 weeks in the pediatric ICU and my baby boy, my tall, lanky, incredibly creative, tough and delicate little (taller-than-me) boy.
I wanted to throw a tantrum, because
IT WASN'T FAIR
that my father was asking me for a bucket full of emotions
when he should have known I had not even a drop to spare.
I was wrung-out, exhausted, worried.
And then I had to shift and worry about all the ways it would suck
to have my father in my house,
desperately trying to conjure positive memories and potential goodness.
Gruffly ignoring the memories of all the self-less, kind things he has done for me.

And he didn't arrive calmly and joyously;
he didn't arrive after careful planning,
and by bringing with him all that he needed.
He arrived broken and whimpering,
as though he had literally dragged himself across the entire Pacific Ocean and fully half of the United States.
Heartless?
Me?
No.
Well, maybe.
But it just wasn't good timing, you know?
And when he was in the sorry state he was in directly due to his own poor choices,
how
how
HOW THE FUCK
could I brim over with pity, or whatever??
I couldn't.
I can't.
I'm still too angry about his desertion of my mother,
and too tired from living in a place I'm resisting,
and too depressed from having had to give up half of my dream in order to keep the other half...
but that's a different rant for a different day,
or maybe not at all,
because today
I feel
like I can breath deeply of the crisp Iowa air
and accept change.
Oh, sure, it has been one whole, entire, complete, extra-long-due-to-leap-year year.
So, giving me any accolades whatsoever for reaching the point where I'm ready to accept that I don't get to live in Maine anymore (oh, god, can I really accept it, when every time I say/think/hear that line, it feels like the winds of a Nor'Easter are churning through me, leaving me hollow and shaky?)
But, yeah. I guess I have to.
I am ready to embrace this place, and the changes that come with it.
But that, apparently, is separate from my clingy love affair with Maine.
I can let go a little...

Because it is
TIME.
Perhaps sliiiiightly past time, you know, technically....
But I'll take it.
I'll get my shit together and go to the gym and the grocery store,
and be home in time to pick up my Boy for his MRI and check-up with the neurosurgeon.
Because life is beautiful and I have a lot to be grateful for.
Thanks to facebook and a former classmate for the random reminder:
Accept Change and Live in Gratitude.
It caught my attention because she's not someone I knew well in school,
but she wasn't very nice most of the time,
and when another classmate linked to something she painted,
I was intrigued and when I read that quote on another painting of hers,
it jarred me.
I didn't see those words as coming from her, so I rejected them and thought of the person I had known, and let the words trickle through as I wrestled with allowing myself to accept the person she has become...you could see the light in her eyes, the calm joy spreading across her face.
So...people do change.
And that gives me hope.
And it was perfectly timed, with my emergence from a shallow, but long-lasting situational depression that has lain over me like a mo(u)rning dew since I arrived here in Iowa...
Time to shuck that shit off, my friends!!!!
Seize the motha-fuckin' day!!!
right????
Yes.
Because this is TWENTY-THIRTEEN, my friends, and it will be a great year, with or without my participation. And I would rather benefit from the awesomeness than sulk in a corner all year, steeped in self-pity and inertia.

So there.

Happy Friday, World!
Time to carpe the hell out of this diem, eh??

Thought train, hurtling down the tracks

I just turned on Bob Dylan.
Well, I can’t be sure…
It might just be a banana in his pocket.
Or a guitar pick??
But seriously…I was in the mood for some soothing tunes and harmonica
Or a dude and his guitar,
Or.
Something.

What happened to me?
When did I tumble from cool/edgy/sexy into frumpy/insecure/static?
Or maybe I was never quite as cool as I thought I was,
And also, it isn't the “when” that I should be pondering,
But the “how”.
How, how, how…?
It’s like I’m the yin to my own yang…
I turned inside out or upside down, but not both, no…
It’s too symmetrical to have been both.
Where once I was surging with need,
Now I am sated, a fat cat smiling with canary feathers floating slowly down through a beam of sunlight as I bask in the warm afternoon sunlight through a bay window overlooking…well, the ocean, because that’s what would make me happy, but probably a cat wouldn't care, so that analogy has broken down.

I’m pretty sure Pandora just threw me some Johnny Cash…a duet?
Indeed! With June Carter…aw…
(“If I Were a Carpenter”)
I smile sweetly because I was dreaming of my Love,
and how his glorious heart has transformed me,
and then a couple started singing.
Profound.
Back to my life ponderings, though…
Because I wasn’t done.
It is like I went from all sharp edges and intensity,
seeking, dreaming, needing, craving
To
Happy, satisfied, fulfilled—
So deeply and thoroughly that my motivation evaporated under the warming light of his love…hehe…cheesy, eh?
But I can’t help but feel a bit lost…
My identity was that woman, the one with a tattoo and a piercing and a sassy, sexy attitude.
The one who was driven to flash her best colors to every pair of eyes to wander across her refraction  hoping to attract The One.
And then she did…er, I did.
And that side of me, that version of me was replaced with a woman so intensely in love with The One that I transformed, oh my….like being bitten by a zombie or a vampire or werewolf or infested with brain bacteria that make me crave him...
I am now his acolyte.
I need to shake free of the haze
that keeps me in this daze
And find a way…
To merge that kick-ass, fun, rebellious little chick
With
This happy, boring, lump.
It’s a puzzle I can’t solve just yet.
Because how do I find a new motivation??
I tend to let life drag me along, tumbling where it takes me.
Where to, next, Universe??
I want to continue to thrive with my True Love…I do not want to go back to that place…where I yearn and keen and claw my way through life,
But I’m just not used to being content.
It feels soooo nice…but it makes me complacent.
So how do I recapture some drive without losing what I have??
I guess I just need to remind myself that he and I will both be happier and even more thoroughly fulfilled if I feel sexy and alive/worthwhile again…
Because I am losing sight of that woman, that person I felt so sure I was.
And, of course, life is not a constant, life is undulating, ever-changing, tortuous in its path, so why do I find myself continually surprised by its dynamic nature?
Ah, well.
Here I am.
Wandering the pathways of my mind again…
Maybe I just need to do this more often.
Well, duh.
I've been saying that for years.
Have I been not blogging for as long as I've been blogging??
Wow…that makes me sad.
Not that I need to blog, per se, but that I don’t write on a regular basis anymore.
And maybe………..
Maybe I will, or maybe I’m chasing an unattainable dream.

Oooh, Neil Young, “Pocahontas.” Nice!

Oh. Duh.
The gym.
The answer is: THE GYM.
I smile, and relax a bit...

Stones, "Paint it Black"...yeah....
I will, dammit! I will paint that gym black!!!
Or my wardrobe...But not my hair.
I love black.
I guess I can't pull of black hair as a chubber.
And yes, I sure am one.
I have hidden within the security of a personalized fat suit for 3 years, 4?
And I am soooooo ready to unzip that fucker and step out of it!!!!!
(If only it were that easy, but oh yes, it really is, because I love a love a love the gym!)

Ok, well.

yeah.

I want to be Toni Morrison.

Bonnie and Clyde

Let’s be the Bonnie and Clyde of authors—

Would that be Bukowski and Sylvia Plath?

Or maybe Hemingway and Virginia Woolfe?

But I’m the orphaned love-child of Bukowski and Plath,

A seed planted in the Bell jar that stood beside the bed

Covered in tangled sheets and sweaty limbs,

Grinding groins and panted meter.

So I guess
we
can’t be them…
because I already am.

Long dark shadow

Life is beautiful
But sometimes,
the long dark shadow that follows me
sweeps around and kicks me—
hard
—in the chest.
And for a little while,
I can’t breathe
(but I do),
And I am filled with the cold
That comes from the toes
Of that dark shadowy beast,
Still lodged in my chest.
I push away,
Push at my Love,
Accusing him of causing this
dark
shadow.
And then
He melts through my lightly icy
Walls of defense,
standing steady and solid,
Warm and unflappable beside me,
Until I sigh and lean into him,
Smiling sheepishly.
And, wordlessly,
I acknowledge
that the long
Dark
Shadow
Sprouts from within
…Me.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig....

Because apparently
Iowa
is home.
For now.

Yup, still in denial! :)

I spent 6 weeks traveling, which is swell,
but just sort of left me feeling more topsy turvy than ever.
Definitely made me crave coming "home,"
which felt good because I need to start considering this home.
I just don't.
And probably never will.
Which is also ok.
No hard feelings, Iowa.
Nothing personal, Midwesterners.
I'll never hate this place like I hated Utah (though I miss it now, for the wonderful chunk of family that I leave there),
and I'll never love anywhere like I love Maine.
It is nice here, pleasant.
I just want to be in Maine.
Duh...are we surprised??
This little housewife has always whined about going Home.

So, apologies.

I had a lovely time in Florida, then flew to Maine where I fell into the river of my sister's vacation and enjoyed the time with her very much, then drove to Utah (4 days in the car with my Mom, and we never ran out of stuff to jabber on about), where I spent some quality time with family and reunited with my kiddos.
That had to be written as one sentence because it felt like a long one...
I didn't really have control of anything on the majority of my trip, which was kind of hard...
but I tried to just let go and enjoy it.
I generally succeeded, but it is nice to be home again, and Master of my own fate again.

It is.
So. Hot.
Here.
It makes me want to stay inside
stay inside
stay
inside.
Grateful for air conditioning
and ice cream.
Grateful for my Love.
Grateful.

Hobbies...

I'm still in Iowa,
for anyone out there keeping score.
I've taken on a hobby--
going to job interviews
just for someone to talk to...
Then turning down the jobs
because they suck.

Lots of travel plans to sort out for the summer...
Nothing set in stone, but I'll keep y'all posted.
Yeah, I just said, "Y'all."
I regret it.

Life is good.

Feels like summer, summertime....

But we still have a few weeks of school left.
Sooooo hot today and yesterday.
Today?
Lake.
With a few great friends from growing up.
Lots of chatting and laughing.
It made me so happy.
It made me want to do that every week.
It was beautiful there...
and I clocked it; only 11 minutes from my house.
Not
too
shabby.
And while we were there,
The Love texted to say he stumbled upon a writing opportunity for me.
That man is my lucky charm.

Then home to gather children and prep dinner and off to a neverending baseball game.
I am so sleepy from the sun and warmth....
it was a good day.

So hot.
And so hungry before dinner that now dinner sits angrily in my belly.
Shouting up at me for making it wait so long.
Sorry, egg rolls.
You know I love making you almost as much as I love eating you...
it was out of my hands...the innings crawled by as the sun refused to set, until finally they both crashed to a close at once.

Maine is not for sissies.