It’s hard to watch someone slowly fade into death. But it’s not that slow because you have time to notice how thin their face is and yellow their skin looks and confused their eyes look, when they’re open. Hospice is just the cruel cousin of assisted suicide. You hope the drugs are at all the right doses so that your loved one can’t feel death pull and twist their insides.

It’s miserable watching someone lose their parent, child, spouse, friend. Not able to touch them. Not able to hold them in their arms. Not able to squeeze their hand or whisper in their ear. Someone covered in plastic, praying they make it home to their own families, holds your loved one in their arms. I semi quarantined myself with my parents. I go there to work & eat and then I go home to my house. So I was there when she couldn’t hug her grandchildren. I was there when she couldn’t fly to her father’s side. I took the hugs and the hand holding and the concerns and ran the meetings so she could say, “Dad, remember when” and share her stories. Remember when you walked into the ocean. Remember when. The hardest was always, “Dad, open your eyes.”

But never having the chance to say goodbye, that would be gut wrenching.

I want to march. I want to be out there. It’s not the time to sit still. It’s not the time to use my words. At the same time, I can’t bring a virus to my still grieving family. So I go out in the world and try to be a force for good. Petition. Call. Vote. Send love.

I’m a sunflower standing tall, leaning, looking for the light to spread my leaves. Stay in the light. Then radiate the light. Glow. Lift up. Support. Stand strong.

And after listening to Neutral Milk Hotel, we must stare.  We must sing.  We must run.  We must plunge.

And then we'll get down there
Way down to the very bottom of everything
And then we'll see it, we'll see it, we'll see it

Labels: At the Bottom of Everything, be positive, be present, be the good, Bright Eyes, Neutral Milk Hotel, Turn Back Into You

I've been playing Arcade Fire's first EP on repeat at work this week.  It has such a dream like, magical quality to it.  Great music to de-stress with or to just keep yourself calm as situations become more stressful.

It's fitting, I kinda feel like I'm living in a dream state.  For me, I guess I dream a lot about love.  About having a connection with someone.  Sometimes it's an adventure.  Sometime it's just me fighting for someone else.  But that feeling of giddiness, like the butterflies before a first date and the excitement when you're first talking and flirting and the connection is made, that feeling is transferable for me. Not from person to person, nothing like that.  More like from dreaming in your sleep to making your dreams come true.

I guess that could be confusing.  It's a feeling and they don't always follow logic.

I just feel like I've woken up and that giddiness hasn't gone away.  I check my email and there's progress on the next step and I squeal before I even read it. And then I start to prepare my response and it's like that fear of rejection, fear that you won't be heard, but it's also not a real fear.  It's something keeping me in check from getting wishy washy and not staying logical and practical.

Then at the same time it is a dream. An American dream.  A dream for grown-ups and families and independent ladies and determined men.

You wanna be set apart?
Burn all of your art
repair the wasteful part.

Labels: Arcade Fire, be positive, be present, be the good, dreams, I feel it everywhere even in my red hair, start anew

Surprise!  I am very wordy today.  I am blazing through my reading list, and yes I'm sure it's gotten old how much I talk about it.  But I love it and this is my blog, so deal with it or skip over it.

I am currently reading A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle, and I feel like this is the first paper back I've read in months.  I didn't realize how often I find hardback copies at the library.  So being a lightweight, I decided to pack it in my bag for the Shaky Knees festival.  Both friend groups didn't have plans to show up until later in the day, so after I watched the sets I wanted, if I wasn't sure about what to listen to next, I would go to my next stage, set up my blanket in the shade, hydrate, read, enjoy the breeze and listen to the music from neighboring stages.  It is not so awful to do things by yourself.

The book is great, the weather is great, the music is great.  It definitely beats standing around in a crowd, sweating, waiting for a band you like to come on stage.  It really beats standing in a crowd with nothing to say, sweating profusely, waiting for a band you don't really care about to come on stage.  I met a lot more nice people hanging out by themselves than I ever did in groups in crowds.  A real sweet girl offered me her spray SPF when she saw me trying to work in my thick white SPF 50 Baby and not get any on my brace*. (Ha!) A few nice ladies asked me where I bought my blanket.  (From a Thirty-one party, cotton/fleece on one side, water resistant nylon on the other, folds up and closes with velcro, has a handle and a pocket!)  I just felt a lot more kindness from others when I was by myself than I ever felt in a large group or as part of a couple.

A lot of older folks at this festival.  It feels like some strange societal reversal when the younger generation is the majority and more dominant, and the older generation is so sparsely represented and submissive to a younger generation.

*On a side note, I need advice on how to clean my brace.  Dirt is everywhere at the festival, coating shoes, feet, ankles, bags, phones, and yes, braces (but not the type in your mouth).  My brace is coated in sweat, dirt, sunscreen lotion, and a little garlic aioli sauce from my tots.

Labels: be positive, be present, be the good, books, find the good, library books, live shows, reading, reading challenge, reading list, Shaky Knees

Last week I saw Stars at the Variety Playhouse and I am still living on a high from the show. The venue starts off so empty that I actually sat in the second row through the opener and had a great experience. Sitting during a show makes me feel old, but the crowd was already on the older side, enough to make me look young. And then the Stars came out.

I have to say, this was the most sober I've ever seen them perform. And I LOVED that! I didn't recognize the first two songs, but I felt them all in my shoulders and my hair flying all around. They make great music, but when they perform they can make it all transform to the next level, the in your veins, in your dance step level. Like they performed Calendar Girl, which I love for deep personal reasons, but it's a song about depression and not killing yourself and they performed it like a rock anthem. Well not really. Kind of like a dance anthem? All I know is I've never heard the song like that before. Instead of ticking off the months she made it through, they rejoiced those months of struggling, because she survived! She made it through! January, February, March, April, May - she's still here, she's still fighting, she's loving, she's living. I loved that so much.

The whole show was just so special. It was the last stop in their tour and they made these comments about the audience, about how they could see the spirit of their music in our hearts and faces. That we were a bunch of cuties. I mean, my friends and I were adorably consumed and delighted and glowing from the music. It's damn good music.

We didn't get a set list, but the night was so memorable that I made a playlist to micmick their set list anyway.

Labels: be the good, find the good, live shows, music appreciation, Stars

The weather was nice for a short time today so I went for a walk around the duck pond at work today.  There were no ducks, but the turtles have been populating.  I saw at least 30 turtles sunbathing peacefully, except for two who were in the mud among trash.  There were so many bottles and pieces of trash strewn on the water's edge, in the surrounding bushes, and even up in the grass past the sidewalk.  It's so disgusting, I don't know how people can just throw their trash on the ground and not walk the extra ten steps to a trash can.  What's worse is that this place is home to so  much wildlife, and these idiots have put those animals in danger.

My family is too lazy to trek to our old suburb on the weekend, and my hometown friends don't live out there anymore, but I am going to start asking around for someone to help me with a clean-up project.  One, because it will look a lot weirder if it's just me out there in my rain boots, kitchen gloves, and a trash bag.  Second, I want to sort it into recyclables and garbage and I don't want to get stuck carrying both garbage bags.

When I see stuff like that, garbage on the side of the road, bottles overflowing trash cans with no recycling bins in sight, it just doesn't make sense.  It is so easy to fix those situations.  Sometimes I get compulsive about it, mostly recycling, because I can do it at home.  I have access to recycling bins in so many places.  So I don't see why it's so hard to hold on to a recyclable item until you get to a recycling bin.   I wish more people thought this way.  I even bought a book about recycling for my niece when she gets older.  Books are the best.

Labels: be the good, recycling

There's been a lot on my mind lately.  Best way to start the new year is to take my own advice and get a mental health "check-up."  I went to my friend with the sunshine disposition and got the information for her therapist.  The practice offers evening hours that are perfect for going after work, so I don't have to miss work or go on my lunch hour.

I've been processing something these past few weeks that's been weighing on me, other than my grandmother's health struggles.  

After my accident and the first surgery, I felt so numb.  I had just lost my other grandmother.  I waked away from someone I really loved.  I left a job that I had come to hate.  I had money problems.  I was going to be an aunt.  -   I wasn't depressed in a way I could recognize.  All of my reactions were muted and discolored.  Then they all came flooding back and I was absolutely paralyzed in fear.  The anxiety was so bad that I had to leave my new job.  The job was not what I had expected, and there were several signs that I wouldn't want to stay there for too long.  But that wasn't my main reason for quitting.  All the colors and emotions came back to me and I could not hold them, could not hold myself together in front of those people, could not go a day without feeling the anxieties swell in my chest.

This time loop thing, I don't understand it.  Same surgery. I'm going to be an aunt again.  My grandmother is dying of cancer.  I don't have money problems, but most of my savings have been sucked into my surgery.  I just started a new job, and it does feel right for me and it makes me happy.  There is no correlation for the love part. I am just me right now.

My life surrounding these surgeries is so similar and so different.  I have this feeling now that's hard to explain.  It's not necessarily a "I feel so alive" feeling, but maybe a cousin of it.  It's more like, I am doing so much living right now.  I don't know if that makes sense.  That's where the "I am just me right now" comes in.  I would rather be in a relationship, sure, but that's not what I had been focusing on this past year.  I spent it finding my way back to happiness. I was happy with myself, with what I was doing and what I was creating.  Then I came out of the surgery and I was so lonely.

I don't want to be passive anymore.  I don't want to watch love pass me by.  I want love back in my life.

Love is the light I want to be in.  Be more positive.  Be the good.  Be the light for someone else. 

Labels: anxiety, be more positive, be the good, find the good, love, stay in the light, therapy, time loop

2018 is going to be a magical mystery tour year of my life, I can feel it. Not like the movie with the drugs and the weird shenanigans. This year is going to bring a lot of change for me. Loss of one of my favorite loved ones, birth of one of my new favorite loved ones, the final phase of my twenties, a year of firsts for my green initiative, and (God willing) a time for love to come back into my life.

I am writing small pieces for my new site, hoping to launch it later this month. I hate naming my writing. There is so much in a name - so much value, meaning, artistry. With Libby I pair my posts to the music that's playing, the song that replays in my heart and on my speakers. I don't like to do that with my poetry and fiction work though. So I'm going to struggle through it and make each piece, and then share my mood playlists separately.

I would not be surprised if a third of it included songs by The Beatles.

Labels: be more positive, be the good, find the good, new year, The Beatles, writing

I thought all of my childhood-high school files had been deleted when my parents got their new desktop five plus years ago, but this past week I was searching for something and there were all my old photos. (Like most teenage girls I saved my photos with really obnoxious, obvious names. "Sleepy Jennifer." "A star is born." Seriously, I was once fifteen.)

I ran across these photos from a Paolo Nutini show I went to with Red. The one where he was so drunk that he took forever to come on stage & was pretty belligerent through his performance. I mean, he is Irish, and that is not an easy accent to follow when someone's talking fast, but still. We all knew. Sixteen and never had a drop and I still knew.

It was my first digital camera. My baby. I bought it my sophomore year, before my friends had one. Carried it around like a cell phone I was so attached. But the lighting wasn't great, and it wasn't what digital cameras are now. Those photos are all blurry, even if just a little. We met Paolo & his band after the show. I still had that awful uncool haircut where it was like a very thick, long bob. Love donating to Locks of Love, but I really don't like short hair on me. Plus that was a pre-straightener era when my hair was frizzy & big all of the time because of the humidity. Totally not one of the reasons guys never approached me.

Anyway, Paolo has some beautiful songs on his first album, but his performance that night was a sad mess. His big issue with performing in the US was being 19 & not a legal age to drink on stage. So he protested with a mean pre-game & broke our hearts instead.

Million Faces played on shuffle today when I was driving home. It turns out it is one of the few songs I can sing at my normal register and not butcher. So I now officially have two songs I am willing to sing in front of people. The other is When I'm Sixty Four. Paul and I do a nice melody, no biggie.

Paolo used to talk about his grandfather a lot. His family is Italian, so I felt a connection with his music and my own grandparents. This weekend is going to be hard. How fast can a disease wipe a person out? How big can a heart stretch with love? Where will this take me? I am here Lord.

Labels: be the good, concerts, live shows, Paolo Nutini, photography, stay in the light

There is a girl from my church who is at least ten years younger than me, maybe 10-13, and as a small kid she looked so much like I did at her age.  My family, of course, nicknamed her mini-me.  Though Mini-J might have made more sense, we were living in a post-Austin Powers world.

Her family was at church for the Christmas Eve service tonight and she was there all made up in a short lacy dress and jean jacket.  You see, somewhere around puberty our gene patterns changed drastically.  Her hair never dulled, it is a saucy bright red.  She is still as pale as I am and she has long, long legs like me, but otherwise she looks like a fantasy.  She is skinny, but not gaunt, with  a slender face, a cute slightly pixie nose, small chin, long wavy full hair.  Kind of exactly how I wanted puberty to treat me.  No wide hips, no round face, no intense breakouts that only birth control could stop.

Whenever I see her, and it's at church mind you, I think mean, cruel thoughts.  Mostly about myself.  I don't see her and want to pay her a compliment.  I see her and I see what I'll never be.  Or something like that.  There is just a lot of sudden self doubt and often self hate.

It reminds me of how much evil still lives in me, no matter how often I try to be good.  I was such a good kid, or I tried to be, and I tried to do the right thing and not be bad.  Kid logic, so simple, so often so spot on.  But I think there is something about being a teenage girl that just twists you up inside and brings out your worst.  It's not easy for a girl to go through puberty and stay pure, hold on to all that goodness, and not end up a little evil in the process.

I used to apply this logic to my relationship with my ex.  I kept seeing myself as the villain.  Like I could only do things to hurt him and I wasn't a good influence or a good enough person for him or like he was bound to hate me because, get this, because he did in my dreams and so that obviously meant I was a bad person and he felt like that in real life too.  I was a little too evil to be good.  I used to beat myself down real bad, and I can't explain why.  I tried in therapy, but there was no peaceful resolution to that feeling for me.  It's just, I did do crappy things.  There are several aspects I needed to work on.  No one's perfect.  And I don't want to forget the mistakes I made, because I don't want to make them again.

Emotions really are so damn overwhelming in dreams.  The fact that these false memories have the ability to haunt me in my waking life drives me crazy.  My imagination is not as pure and good as it used to be.  I think I definitely soiled that as a teenager.  My imagination doesn't run out though.  If you're worried about the bad that can come, my imagination can calculate all the ways it could be worse. 

So at church I'm praying on how to be better, how to tame down my evil, sinful self, and be a better person to others and myself and what can I say?  God doesn't talk to me.  My prayers aren't that powerful.  I just know that I can't stop trying.  That happiness is key.  I need to figure out if what I think will make me happy will be worth everything else it could set off.

Find the good.  Be  the good.  Do good.

Labels: be the good, find the good, how many secrets can you keep

I tried to shut my head down, but there's too much on my mind. I want to spend more time with my grandma, to soak up as much of her as I can.  It's too late for chemo.  Stage 4.  Cancer everywhere.  It's not a genetic kind, so that's the one positive that she's grateful for.  They are giving her the really powerful pain medication instead.  The stuff that takes away your appetite and makes you really tired all of the time.

So I want to visit her as much as I can, but I know her health is going to deteriorate quickly and she might not be awake much or lucid much in the later months.  I want to be there for my PapPap too, so I don't mind showing up to clean and cook or popping in with groceries and new pictures of the family.

For my grandmother, I am going to go back to writing her letters.  She's never owned a computer, doesn't keep up with anyone online, and she doesn't keep mementos or clutter, but she's kept all of her letters.  So I am going to tell her all about the good that is going to come and all that keeps my wheels turning at night.

I am going to write about my recovery process, my dream garden, my trip to St. Augustine, the perfect woods to camp in, the names of my future cats, my niece and new nephew, the new environmental awareness & recycling program at work that I get to grow, the funny shapes of my scars, my successes and failures with her recipes, the good I get to do with my job, the seed garden at the library, my problems growing soy beans, beehives and composting, my writing dreams, discovering Cuban food, and the plot lines to all of the crazy books I read.

Labels: be the good, cancer, family, stay in the light

I thought next year would be this year of better things.  No resolutions, fuck resolutions, but better energy, more hope, more kindness, more good.  I'm not a child anymore though, so I don't know why my dreams are made with the unstructured, come what may mentality of youth.  Next year is a year that will test my strength, my goodness, and my heart.

I'm in this time loop from two years ago.  New job, new baby, new surgery, new loss.  I was in such a broken place when I went through this the first time.  I have to pray that the good that's come will keep me in the light.

Four to six months is all we have left.  I have to plan and structure the next six months of my life to love and cherish and adore this woman who I owe so much to. I have to prepare for all of it - the good, the bad, the ugly, the loss.

My sister is due with her second child at the beginning of that time frame.  One goes out. One comes in.  I know better than to doubt God's plan, it's not for me to know.  I'm grateful for the gifts He gives to help us through.  A new soul to love and hold and shape.

The thing is, I have to be strong.  The woman who holds me up is weakened and I will not be the one that makes her sad or drains her strength.  I have to be strong enough to weaken her fears.  I'm not going to go so far as force love into my life and lead her to believe I've found the person to take her place.  She could very well haunt me if I lied to her sweet face.

I think one way to start this process is to identify who will hold my hand.  My good hand, mind you.  If I'm going to be strong at the end of this I need to stay in the light.

Labels: be the good, cancer, family, find the good, stay in the light, time loop