Timing

Sometimes the timing is juuuust right. Or just, right.  I don’t know if you can feel the subtle difference there, but I can.

Nine years ago, I participated in an art show called the 20/20. Twenty paintings by each of twenty artists, displayed throughout a gallery in Midtown, Sacramento for one month. I was super excited when I got in. The workload was very heavy, but wow, what growth! What a great opportunity to push myself!  Individual artist's pieces were hung together in large grids, and participants were actually required to submit twenty-five paintings so that there would be back-ups in case works sold off the wall.  No gallery wants a big gap up there.

(Paintings from the 2012 show)

But a lot has happened in nine years... Natalie, clots, selling-then-buying a house, moving to a far off land (cuz, yah, an hour can be far), two promotions for Guy with accompanying challenges, two sons moving out, caring for dad and his passing, and good old Hashimoto's.  Art took a big step back. Like, back to the garage part of my brain.

But recently it stepped back up, and said, "hey!  Hey you!  Remember me?  I make you happy.  Move over a skootch and make some room for me."  I began to think about the 20/20 show, and to wonder if it was still going on.  Not three weeks later I received an email from the gallery inviting me to apply again.

Just right.

Do you ever get a little ping in your heart?  Like, a soft little elevator-door-opening-sound that says, yup, or, ooooh, yah, baby...?  It was like that, only less creepy.  The email made that little *ping* in me (I hope you are saying it in your head with the right sound.  Don't you dare just read "ping" like Kevin Costner is narrating your shopping list (he is by far the most boring narrator on the planet, and not just of shopping lists).  Together, now: *ping!*

Just, right.

I printed the application and let it sit around here for a couple of weeks, pondering.  I had to come up with a theme.  

My usual painting theme is, "Because That's What I Felt Like Painting Today.  Duh."  Probably that would not have gone over well with the guest judges.  The application said I needed a theeeeeme to tie all my works together.  I think last time I just made some lame thing up, like "Crap Around My House" without using the word crap.

I started really praying about what I -should, could, would want- to paint TWENTY FIVE paintings about.  I settled on making black and white hand carved s'graffito tiles (yes, that's a real word) and let that be the connective thread.  I did one (if I do say so...) gorgeous tile.  It took a booty-long time and I didn't get it fired in time (teeth stuff, darn it).  I realized there is no way I could make twenty four more in less than two months.  Nuh-uh.

Back to the drawing board (bwaaa-hahahaha, no, stop, I'm killing me) (but it was a painting board so now the joke isn't even funny).  I pondered my life's experiences and wondered if I should tap into some of the darker chapters.  Nope.  Didn't feel right.  Humor?  Figures?  Still-lifes? (that looks funny, and spell check is scolding me, but no, we don't paint 'still-lives', like sedentary old people.  It's still-lifes.  Still looks weird, though).

I finally prayed that God would help me paint something that would honor Him.  In that moment a picture I had seen online popped into my head.  It's of a little black and white bird with a golden breast, a warbler, that is mentioned in the book, "My Side of the Mountain".  Jonah is reading it to me now.  It's slow going, much harder than the last book, but boy - that kid is a trouper.  So I said, "Okay, Lord," and that night I started painting.

I went through the usual agony of my process, which includes plenty of self doubt and a little bit of loathing (why am I doing this?  I suck at this!  Who am I kidding?  Nevermind, I won't apply), and finally got through it.

I drove to Sacramento Friday afternoon.  I was all jittery and shaky, even though I knew I was just dropping the painting off, and probably it would be some employee who took it and set it to the side with an unenthusiastic thank you, and that the judging wouldn't be till at least Monday, and that the worst they could say was that it was trite and kitsch and lacked sophistication (nothing I hadn't already said to myself, and I wouldn't be there to hear them), and then I would get a call Tuesday that said thank-you-for-applying-we-went-a-different-direction-but-please-consider-trying-again-next-year, goodbye.  Why be nervous?

I stepped into the gallery but the front desk was empty, and I could hear voices in the back.  I wandered a little heavy-footed through the space (hello!  I'm here!) and then returned to the front.  Eventually, the muffled conversation lulled and a head popped around the corner.  It was the gallery owner, Misha (or Michael - his card says both, and I'm scared to get it wrong so I just said hi!), who recognized me a little, or is a good faker.  My application sat on top of my small painting, which felt like a little kindness it was doing for me, hiding my probably-shameful painting for a few moments more.  We made chit chat as he looked over my paperwork, then he pulled it aside to see the painting.  He gave a tiny gasp and softly said, "Oh, my God, that's beautiful".  

Instant relief.  I was high.  Just high.  I floated a little, while he said that since he is not on the selection committee, he couldn't say, of course, but that if he were, he would certainly let me in the show, and that he imagined I would have no problem getting in.  

I only have to wait a few more days, and after waiting for cancer test results three times this year, I hardly care.  No. Big. Deal.  Perspective, right?  I let myself have the night off and met my sweetie for dinner and a tootle through Hobby Lobby, which is an awesome date night these days.  But rather than wait to find out if I got in, I am going on a little hope, and last night I started the next few paintings.  After all, if I do get in, I only have 55 days to get it all done.  Timing, you know.

One down, twenty-four to go.

The last 20/20 in 2012 please don’t let her know how much weight she will gain in the next nine years!

  

Of Mountains and Molehills

Gather round, darlings! If I recall correctly, I promised you a boobie story.  I shall not disappoint.  Though you may want to get a snack first, cuz’ this may take a while (haha, that will be funny later). In this story, my dangling participles will be played by themselves.  As for the role of me, please cast a slightly more endowed Julia Roberts in your mind, but don’t tell her.  I couldn’t afford the royalties.

First, Honeybuns, before we begin, you must know a simple fact.  I have lovely chesticles.  I do.  They are not perfect by any anatomical stretch - one looks Southeast, the other Southwest - and they lack the melon-like moundedness of my younger years, but they host a classical cleavage that any Roman statue would envy, and Ms. Barbara Streisand herself, possessor of THE most lovely cleavage on planet earth, might just nod in approval were she to glance my handsome hills and voluptuous valley.

Alas, now that I am no longer breastfeeding, only one human has the routine privilege of viewing my modest maidens (lucky Guy, that lucky guy), if you don’t count the occasional doctor.  That was, until I turned 50.

50 is the magic age at which the medical world collectively agrees that: 1. You will now begin to dismantle and disintegrate, piece by rusty piece, at an ever increasing trajectory, and 2. They will announce said deterioration to you on a semi-annual basis by beginning every sentence with the preamble, “Now that you are over 50...”.  

Cancer screening has become the new pass-time.  There have been many. Usually, they’re pretty straightforward; a simple needle into the neck, the typical swabbing of pink parts, a camera where a camera should never, never go. But this time, when they suspected breast cancer, they got out the big guns. 

First came the industrial mammogram. This isn’t the little cutie they use for the beginners. This one employs giant plates that could crush an old car, run by a severe woman who was raised by the descendants of Gengus Khan, on mountain goat milk she squoze herself.

Starting well above the shoulder and dragging all my skin from the chin down along with it, she began pressing my bucksome blobs into oblivion. But by far the best moment of the entire affair was when, not once, but twice, workMEN walked in during my partially nude photoshoot. Tool belts and all.  Apparently, the exam room had, until recently, been used as a thoroughfare and a storage space. Folks had gotten accustomed to passing through as a shortcut to a parallel hallway. However, on this particular day, it had become an exam room once again, only no one thought to tell Hank and Roy. 

When the first fellow walked in (yes, sweet cheeks, they came in separately), I was, as you can imagine, FLAT OUT shocked. Only, I’m not flat, and my “they” were definitely OUT.  So was he; he dashed out of the room with his clipboard as a face shield like he was taking fire in Nam.  But by the time the second fellow sauntered through (ya’ saw that guy coming, didn’t you?), I was irate. AYE AYE AYE RATE!

 “It’s OK! It’s OK!“ The technician placated in a thick accent from a country where apparently all breasts are the property of the commonwealth. 

“NO!  It is most certainly NOT O-K! It’s not OK with me at all! Look, I am not a shy girl, but I reserve the right to decide to whom I show my Girls, and I did NOT choose them!“ (for the A-types in the audience, formal complaints were made and wimpy apologies given. Of course.)

Later, when the results of this second mammary-mashing were “concerning”, it was decided that one of my poor little lady lobes needed a looksie from the inside. However, because I was on blood thinners, I was prepped three times on three different days for the procedure before I actually was able to go through with it. Risk of internal bleeding and whatnot. Geez. 

Note, if you are the woozy-ish type, this is where you skip down to the last paragraph where we “look back and laugh”. Well, you might laugh. I might not. Too soon. Too soon. 

I sat gowned-up in a waiting nook in the hallway, with all my crap in a bag beside me, pretending I cared about the magazine in my lap, avoiding eye contact with passers-by, and waiting for my turn on what I had been boastfully told was their “New, state of the art, Stereotactic Core Biopsy machine”.

(Cue ominous, suspenseful music…)

Here’s the drill (pun so very intended)… (please read this part in the chipper voice of the the narrator from How Stuff Works):

They lay you down on a funny table with a hole in it, which sounds cozy but is totally not.  They suspend one of your tender twins through a hole in the table with an arm up by your head, with its sweet sibling sort of smashed along side of you. They try to arrange your limbs all akimbo so that you can tolerate being in this position for “just 45 minutes”. Of course, that doesn’t count the time for adjusting, or to identify the biopsy spot, etc.  But let’s pretend it’s 45 minutes. 

(This is where the storyteller starts giggling, because she knows the end of the story, and you do not yet.  Estimated time-frames are cute and super arbitrary.)

Next, they raise you up like a car on a mechanic’s lift so everyone can see under your chassis, then they kick on the booby smasher (yes, the table has one too!).  Your face is pressed into the table blocking your view from your sweet little peach, so you can’t see what is happening, but OH, honey, you know.  You. Know.  Now a random stranger with cold hands and no conscience is down there (maybe the maintenance man? Who knows!?), holding your fleshy friend like a wet rag that they are trying to wring water out of. They twist one way and then another, then close the peach-press, take a picture, twist again, smash, take a picture, twist again, smash, take a picture…

This continues until they believe they have their target lined up juuuust riiiiight. The reason being, they have to avoid major blood vessels while still navigating to the source of the concern to biopsy it, and everybody’s road map is different. Because of the blood thinners, it was particularly important that no major blood vessels get nicked; risk of hemorrhaging, yada yada.  Finally, someone official is satisfied, and then they tighten the vice beyond all human tolerance. I guess this is in case of an earthquake that might somehow jiggle your jello jug loose from the vice.  They know it’s tight enough when your toes curl and your eyes bulge.  You are told NOT TO MOVE as though the earth’s orbit depended on it.  Repeatedly.

A lot of clunking and cold wiping later, and some little voice from somewhere out there in the vastness casually says, “little sting”, while simultaneously unleashing a murder hornet on your pretty pressed pillow.   They numb you up at the point where the tools are to invade your person, and then they begin what can only be described as drilling a core sample to Antarctica.  Picture shoving a drinking straw through a watermelon and pulling out the fleshy section that gets jammed inside the tube. It’s not as big as a drinking straw, of course, more like a pencil lead, but being that I usually keep my fleshy bits on the INSIDE of my body, this process could be defined as FREAKING DISCONCERTING. Most fortunately, you are all numbed up for this part. But not to worry, little chickadees, you will get to feel it aaaaalllll later, when the drugs wear off.

Anyhoo, as they work, they remove a sample, leave you in the vice grip on your face, go into another room, examine the sample under a microscope, make sure they got what they were hoping for, and then perhaps come and get some more (of course, you know that means they came and got some more!). Then, once they have what they were looking for, they drop what is called a “clip” into your Gucci bag; a tiny metal marker that is left behind in the location where they removed the biopsy sample. This is so that, if results come back as cancerous, they know exactly where to head to find the location of the cancer (no, you do not get to set off airport alarms.  Dangit).  No guessing. This is precision machinery, people! 

Pretty smart, of course. That is, if your fancy machine is working on Tuesdays. 

Turns out, on the day that I was there, (do I need to say it?  Can’t you already tell what’s coming?  You can, because YOU my friend, are smart)  their machine suddenly... broke.  Yes, broke, like an elevator stuck between floors with a panicked passenger imprisoned within, only in this scenario our prisoner is my tender torso tuber!

Let’s just say things got pretty dicey from there. The marker wouldn’t drop. Try, and try, and try as they may, (and by “may”, that gentle, passive word that makes it seem like they were only considering it, like a polite British museum tour guide, when the word most certainly is DID, like a New York cab driver) the white coat brigade could not get the marker to drop. Discussion was had.  The new hoped-for solution was trying a part from a different machine. State-of-the-art, my friends. So I layed there whilst they went to rustle up spare parts from the old machine, all the while, the auger remained embedded deeply in my sad little pec sack. 

Alas, alas, my patient reader, Clip Dropper Number Two was faulty as well.  Now, when medical personnel have an idea that they don’t want a patient to know about, they think it is very clever to speak in a code that only edjumacated doctors and nurses can understand.  What they don’t realize, is that it is the same code moms and dads use when talking about waiting till the kids are in bed to have ice cream because there’s not enough for everyone, and parents have first dibs because Darwin said so (look it up).  It sounds like this: “Hey, after they… do you want…?  There’s only enough…” but in doctor talk it goes like this: “Hey, what if we extend the… then maybe it will…”  

Nothin’ makes me sit up and take notice (or lay really still to protect the earth’s gravitational pull on the moon) like someone talkin’ secret mom-code around me.  I then followed the process carefully as I heard and felt them take a third sample, or, in layman’s terms, DRILL OUT MORE OF MY MOMMYGLAND.

Yah.  Didn’t work.  More technical tool talk was had, and the words “manual drop”  floated to the surface of the jargon jar.  Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, nothing instills confidence like the professionals abandoning their precision robots to do it the old fashioned way.

In the meantime, we’ve been going on a couple of hours in the face-down, spine-arched, smashed-face position. My knees and shoulder were aching, my lower back was killing me, my neck was sore from being twisted to the side, and I was repeatedly told to “hold still“ every time I tried to create some modicum of comfort by moving just a millimeter or two.  It felt like they had forgotten that a living person was literally attached to the machine they were fussing over. I began to weep. Quiet tears rolled down my cheek as the white-coats continued to discuss strategy like football coaches on the sidelines.

At some point, a nurse realized that there was a tearful human being growing out of the little white whale they had harpooned.  With a puzzled tone, she simply asked, “What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong?!  I have a javelin through my left labradoodle and you guys can’t get it out! You can’t figure out your marevelous “State of the Art” machine, you won’t let me move, the medicine keeps wearing off and I have no idea when or how I’m going to get out!  OH. AND BY THE WAY.  YOU ARE LOOKING FOR CANCER!!!

Yah, I didn’t say all that then, but now I wish I had. Somewhere in the room, the code-talker asked, “What should we do with...?”

“Throw it away.”

Yah, sample #3, the one they took to try to jog the machine went... in the red bin. They didn’t even offer to let me take it home (what would I do with it??? I don’t know! Bury it, float it down the creek on a raft for a tiny Viking funeral! Anything but the garbage. Grrr).

Finally, the clip was “dropped”. Two and a half hours from the time they put me in the can crusher, I was finally done.

But OH HO HO HO NO!!! Hold the cell phone, sister, I wasn’t! (I’m so sorry. Yes, there’s more.  If you need a break, I understand.  It’s a lot to process).  It turns out that after a breast biopsy, they need to do a follow up mammogram immediately to discern the exact location of that thar’ lil’ marker; sort of a “before” pic for later comparison.  Also, they want to see if you have any unmacerated mammary matter left.  

When it was all well and truly over, they bandaged my little blowhole better, wrapped my chest in ace bandages and ice packs, and sent me out to the waiting room to my poor husband, who was perplexed at how long it had taken. Apparently, no one had bothered to tell him what was going on. Not the first time this has happened (like seriously. One time he thought I died in surgery when it was hours long and no one bothered to come tell him why). 

On the way home, I held my chest tightly over every bump in the road as feeling returned to my little buddy, and felt sorry for everyone who has ever, EVER had any sort of work done on her bosom friends. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like, and blessedly, I didn’t have to.  

Results were negative.  No cancer.  Blessed boobies. No insult to go with their injury. And while I am indeed grateful, it certainly was one of those mountain-out-of-my-molehills situations. 

So, that’s my boobie story. I know it was long, but not as long as the procedure itself, so now you have time to go make a sandwich. Oh, and for those of you who are deeply, I say, DEEPLY offended by the voyeuristic verbiage in this post all about my she-vage, I can only say, Darlings, don’t you know me by now? I always keep my promises. 

Outplant

I gotta admit, even with my history, I never imagined I’d actually lose the implant. 

I went for a quick recheck, since the abscess wasn’t resolving. Before I knew what was happening I was texting my husband that they were doing surgery. Once Dr. A. got in there, the news was grim.  The infection had moved fast and destroyed the bone around the implant. He removed the infected tissue and bone, and my long, long awaited implant. 

There will be no redo. No second chance. The doctor felt a second go would be unwise. He said in his experience, some things happen for a reason. I have to trust him, as I have for 18 years now. But I’m not going to pretend I’m not disappointed. Crushed. I have waited anxiously for 8 years, and I was so excited.  In five minutes it was all gone. 

I’m letting myself be sad today. And maybe tomorrow. 

The OTHER Kind of Implants

I got an implant.  No. Not that kind.  My girls are of ample size, thank you.  Plus, only one implant is a little pointless unless you stand sideways all the time.  My friend, Denise, and I used to joke that we could only afford one surgery between the two of us, so we would each get one side done, and that would be our "show boob".  But I digress.  You should expect nothing less.

Uh oh.  I lost a few of ya there, didn't I? What with all that naughty, boobie talk.  Don't worry.  The rest of this post will be squeaky-clean and somewhat appropriate.  Ish.

My implant was for a tooth.  I have been waiting almost exactly 8 years for it.  When I was preggers with Natalie, one of my close-to-the-front, never-smile-in-public-again teeth broke right off.  It had been a really rough week.  In fact, that day I wrote on Facebook:

"I'm overwhelmed.  In the past 3 weeks I handled the cracked radiator, the broken starter, the crashed dryer, the fried washer, the speeding ticket (I never heard of a Senior Citizen Zone before!), 2-3 doctor or dentist appointments a week since the beginning of December, Ethan's toe surgery complications, gestational diabetes run-amok, a house full of sick people, tests for the mystery "mass" in Tessa's gal bladder, and constant negativity from Kaiser, but tonight when my front tooth broke off I think I may have reached my limit.  I am tryin' real hard to stay positive here, but this is getting old."

BWAAAHAHAHAHA!!!!  Wasn't she cute, that funny, naïve girl that wrote that?!... who, in just five short days, would start crankin' out three foot long blood clots like pancakes on a Saturday morning?  How adorable that she thought a washer, dryer and radiator were things to get upset about.  A broken tooth?  Ha! Child's play, daaaaah'ling.  

Slow-forward 7.92 years, after multitudes of financial, health and covid delays, and here we are, me, with a big lovely hole in my bone, stuffed up all tight with a fine metal screw (that felt quite like it would split my head in half going in).  But wait... have you met me?  Do you know that for some reason x-ray machines break down in my presence?  That not one, not two, but THREE doctors have told me I was "the hardest ____(fill in the blank)____" in their career?  Pleased ta' meet ya' (there's a boob story in there, but I have shocked you quite, yes QUITE enough for one evening.  I'll tell ya later.  Remind me).

Yah, so, "unusual response" were the words used to describe the two weeks of kicked-in-the-face style pain radiating from tooth to nose to cheek to eye socket to temple -and in a southward direction- from tooth through throat and neck from the new implant.  "Most unusual" is how one would lable the abscess that formed on day 14.  Gross is more to the point.  I'll spare you the ewie details.  My family has not been as lucky.  I am a very descriptive girl.

But, as we often say around here, "It's not a blood clot", so it ain't so bad.  Thank the Good Lord above for inspired medicines that I can take (sadly, because there goes my gut biome for a while).  It could be worse.  I'm praying I don't lose the implant.  Yes, we are praying, and it will probably be fine.

Cuz it's not a blood clot.

Ok, so now who wants to hear a boob story...?

The Last Bed

I knew it would come eventually. Dad's had a bad heart since way back when I was in college, when he started having heart attacks, and he’s had two just this year.  Add to that his many other health problems and 85 years of living, and we knew his time was coming.  But I guess things can still sneak up on you.

On a Tuesday, Dad had been upstairs to celebrate Adam‘s birthday with us. It was so sweet, and he had stayed a long time. Thursday he hadn’t felt up to coming upstairs for Thanksgiving. By Monday he was on hospice. 

When the young fellow from the medical supply company came that night to set up the adjustable hospital bed, I couldn’t help but think about it being the last. The last bed Dad would sleep on in this earth life. 

I can’t imagine how many there have been; Montana where he was born, a dozen or so stretching from San Diego to Northern California, and many more around the country used on trips, a few in Mexico even, not to mention Mother Earth, his mattress and pillow for a hundred nights under the stars. 

He didn’t use it long. 

I had been sleeping on a borrowed cot in his room for a few nights to be close for when he needed me. The first few days were a struggle, as we worked on balancing the medication to relieve his pain.  One day in particular had been terrible.  He was in so much pain, and though as a doula I am well trained to physically deal with someone in this state, my words failed me.  Digging deep into my mental tool kit, I came up empty.  When a mama is in labor,  I tell her the pain will be gone in less than a minute, and then she can rest.   I tell her that soon her prize will be here, and the pain will be gone. I remind her the pain is worth it; it's bringing her new joy to her waiting arms.

I had no carrot to dangle, no promise of relief, no light at the end of the tunnel for my dad.  We just rode the waves of his pain together for hours, me trying every position and comfort measure I knew, him tolerating it for 30 seconds or so before needing me to switch it up.  When the hospice meds finally came though, I had collapsed in relief to see him settled and pain free.

On his last night, by 3am I was well worn out.  Guy and I had sat up with him for hours into the night, listening as his breathing became more and more labored, but still he fought on.  He didn't want to go, and he was working hard to stay.  I finally began to fade and longed for my cot, but I couldn't let myself be that far away, so I pushed it up to the side of dad's bed.  I laid my head on his mattress and held my hand on his arm.  I whispered to him, "Dad, I'm so tired.  I am going to take a little nap. I'm sorry if I'm asleep when you need to go."  I drifted, listening to his heavy, rhythmic breaths.

An hour or so later, I suddenly awoke.  Strangely, Guy, who was sleeping in the recliner near by, woke as well.  It was the quiet that had called us out of sleep.  "I think he might be gone," I told Guy, feeling my dad's skin, but noting how warm he was.  I couldn't be sure.  When Mom passed, she would only take a breath or two every minute for a while. He might still be here.  Ellie and Tessa had wanted to be there when Grandpa left, so Guy went to get them.  As he headed out of the room, Dad moved his jaw a few times, and I calmed at the awareness that I had not been asleep when he left.  I sat holding his hand, staring, and waiting for the next breath.  

But there was none.  

That movement had been the last thing he would do in this life.  The hospice nurse told us later that it is quite common.  "The will to live is so strong," she said, "they try to take just one more breath."  By the time the girls came in with Guy, I said simply, "He's gone."  I had tried to feel for a pulse and listen with the stethoscope, but it's hard to know if you are just in the wrong spot, or if the silence is exactly that; silence.

Dad passed away in the hours just before dawn on Friday, barely four days after his bed had come.  There is something so strange in that kind of silence.  And things tricked me in the hours after.  Dad's overweight dog has quite a snore, and it kept fooling me.  I would reach to touch him as I passed his bed. My drive to care for him kept calling me back on duty.  

The sweetest nurse came and tended to my dad before he was taken away, and once he was gone, the silence was one you could actually see.  The beds were empty; his own bed, and the borrowed bed that had been his last.

A few days later, I helped carry that last bed, in separate pieces, out to the equipment truck.  It was the first of many things that have left his little place where he spent the last three and a half years.  For me it marked the moment strangely.  This bed, a harbinger of death, moving on to be used again, a universal wave running through it, connecting us all to that someday-end; that, the last of our many beds.

It's strange having Dad gone.  We moved here to be with him, and our days were structured and run by the clock that was set to his schedule.  Every time I looked at the clock for weeks since he passed, it was with the haunting habit of checking for dad's next need.  

His silence is so strong.

How to Become a Rockstar

I have a pile of partially written posts that never made it to the main page. This is one from before Covid. Maybe someone out there needs it now more than before. 

*****
I replaced a GFI outlet the other day.  I know that's not a big deal for most.  It wouldn't really be for me either (except for a slight fear of death by electrocution), but I have had to really lower my expectations lately, and I'm (trying to be) okay with that.  

Not long ago, I responded to a woman's post on the Hashimoto's Facebook page.  She was so sad, was just barely diagnosed, and feeling guilty about not being enough for her children, not being well enough to take her daughter to the doctor when she got sick, etc.  After I read my response back to myself, I decided I should keep my own copy to read on some future day when I need to hear the same words.  Here they are...

“Sweet, sweet, darling mama. You’re going to be OK. This is hard, no doubt about it. But you can do it.  Don’t  feel guilty for putting yourself first, and taking care of yourself. Try not to use the words like “failure”, or “terrible mom” when describing yourself, because your heart is listening. 

If your sweetest, dearest friend was going through this right now, how would you talk to her? What words would you use? Would you give her permission to be sad? Would you tell her she just got this diagnosis, and it will take time to adjust? Would you tell her that she has to give the medicine time to work, the information time to sink in?  Would you tell her that she is strong, and good, and capable, and that she will get through this?

I promise you will have better days. You will have bad ones too, but not all of them will be bad. One of the things that Hashimoto’s has given me that is really a gift, is to tell me to slow down, bring my babies up onto my lap and snuggle with them.  On days when I feel bad, we read. If I don’t feel up to reading, we watch a nature show together and talk about it. We play little games, sometimes with me laying down and the game resting on my tummy. My daughter has officially labeled me, “the best pony mom in the world” because I play ponies with her. A world title... not so shabby for a sick lady.

Here are my new rules:

If I’m tired I sit down.

If I am sleepy, I cancel plans and take a nap.

I don’t schedule more than one "outside" activity a day if I can help it.

As far as housework goes, if I get ONE thing done a day, I am a rockstar! And if I don’t, I have grace for myself for taking the day to rest.

Three months ago, I spent every waking minute on the couch or in bed. Unless I was absolutely forced to go get groceries or to take a child somewhere, I was on the couch laying down.  I now take two naps a week, instead of two a day. I’m getting my house tidied up little by little. I’m doing more things with my kids outside of the house. I’m starting to work on projects again. I am more cheerful and my anxiety is decreasing. My Hashimoto’s symptoms are less intense, and I’m feeling more hopeful. 

You’re going to be okay.  It’s going to be hard, 

but you’re good at doing hard things!"

*****

I can't think of anyone to whom this simple note does not apply.  We all need to take better care of ourselves.  This world we live in, with it's schedules and expectations, is so hard on us.  We are all suffering from being overbooked, undernourished, sleep-deprived, toxicified and spiritually drained.  If we don't care for ourselves, who will?

So, I am proud of the day I put in the GFI.  It took a long time, in an awkward spot in the hot garage.  I have about twenty more outlets to change out, but hey, one down!

That makes me a Rockstar, baby.

July 2019

Cinderella

She may remember this night for the rest of her life. Maybe not. But it stands out as different from all the other nights in the seven years before it. 

Natalie is a hummingbird on speed, a hopped up rabbit, a spastic housefly. She flutters and dances and chatters non-stop, all the live-long day. She runs everywhere she goes.  You would think with the frenzied energy that drives her through fourteen waking hours, she would collapse in an exhausted little pink heap by 8:00 pm each night, but instead, though she is sent to bed by 8:30, you can hear her running about, playing and talking after 11:00 pm. She has been heard singing in her bed well past midnight (she’s like her mama; the night owl doesn’t fly far from the tree!).  No amount of scolding or timeouts on the stairs have helped.  They say that there are several things you can’t force a child to do; sleep is definitely one of them. 

And, as I’m sure you can imagine, unlike her bunny relatives, she doesn’t hop out of bed in the morning, because she is too bushed from her late night escapades.

When the big kids used to do this, I made them plop down on a hard kitchen chair in the boring ol’ entryway until they were plumb tuckered out. Recently, the big kids were laughing and joking about it. “Do you remember how Mom used to sit us on a wooden chair till we were tired when we wouldn’t go to sleep?”  They talked about all of the ways they would flip and turn in the chair to try to get comfortable. They would soon begin begging to go to bed. “No,” I would say with hesitation, as though I were considering it, “I just don’t think you’re tired enough.”  But eventually I learned that this technique wasn’t quite doing the job.  They were still goofing off after-hours. 

Then, whilst wandering the dark corridors of my diabolical child-rearing chambers, I came upon an almost fool proof method for inducing sleep without Benadryl. And it worked. 

I haven’t had to dust off this particular parenting tactic in a few years, mostly because Jonah tends to just lay the heck down and go to sleep.  But for Natalie, it was time to pull out the big guns. 

“Natalie, come down here.”

She tentatively descended the stairs, and stood on one foot hugging the door jamb.

“You have a lot of energy tonight. Let’s not waste it.  Go get a washcloth and a spray bottle.”

She looked at me suspiciously.

“Go on”, I coaxed. 

When she returned with the rag she held it out to me as though I were the one who would be using it.  I gave her the simple instruction, “Okay, go scrub the spots off the kitchen floor.”

She was shocked, but didn’t protest. How could she? What would she say? “I can’t, Mom, and I have to go to sleep.”  Her shoulders did droop a bit as she dragged her little feet back into the kitchen. 

She disappeared from sight for a while, but I could hear the spray bottle, so I knew she was working. Soon she migrated to the doorway to be sure I could see that she was crying, but she never quit working. I let her go on like that for another ten minutes, and then called her to me. 

“Do you think you’re tired enough to go to sleep now, or do you need a little more scrubbing time?”

“Noooooooooo,” she whimpered. 

“Oh, good,” I said, intentionally sounding very relieved that she chose to be done.  “I’m glad you’re tired. You should sleep really well now.”

I hugged and kissed her, and told her I loved her. The lesson is built in, after all. No need for a lecture. 

*Post scrub script: Some kids are tougher than others. Natalie has gotten the opportunity to scrub the bathroom floor this week, as well.  This time there were no tears. She hummed as she worked. I think she simply knew what to expect this time, and seemed somehow content with the situation. Maybe she was relieved to have something to do with her energy. Some children are a quandary.  

When she was done, she went straight to sleep. 

I imagine she’ll be doing the baseboards sometime later this week.  I picture her, years from now, at a family reunion, telling her older siblings how hard she had it compared to them. 

“You guys got to sit on chairs. I had to scrub the floor!”

The One

So, Adam has Covid. We chose not to tell the Littles until he started feeling better because Natalie is very nervous about it all.  Every time she prays, she asks God to protect “Adam and Ethan and the whole earth-planet-world” from covid. She’s covering all her bases.  Adam is doing much better now, so we decided to tell them, partly because it is getting challenging to talk about it in code, and partly because they might find out by accident, and we didn’t want that. 

Jonah simply said, “I thought he might have it, when you guys said he was sick.”  He’s been paying attention. He was content to know Adam was on the mend, and casually headed out of the room. 

Natalie stood still holding her little white bear and disappeared behind her blue eyes. After a few moments I asked her if she was okay with what we told her, and she said, “I’m not sure”.  She was processing the months of prayers for the world, the masks and hand sanitizer and the closed stores; the fear. And the deaths. We hadn’t been able to protect her from knowing about those. “Will he die?”

After assuring her he was almost as healthy now as she is. I tried to explain, but then I stopped and said, “wait a minute”.

I ran to the studio and grabbed all of our pencil jars, and colored pencils and began counting them out in tens. When I got to 100, Natalie said, “is that all of the people who die?” I told her to wait for a moment and counted out my second hundred. Then I stepped back.

“If each one of these pencils is like one person who got sick with Covid,” then I reached out into the pile and choose a small pencil,  “...this is how many would possibly die.” She took a minute, gave me a critique on the pencil color I had chosen, and then stepped back to let me know she understood. 

It must have been enough for her. She seemed to relax. I again assured her that Adam was doing great, and she trotted away.

I looked at the pile of pencils. It’s an easy thing to explain it to a child that way, overly simplified. No point in upsetting her the way all of the grown-ups have been. She’s going to see enough of the hardships of life soon enough.

I looked at the single pencil in my hand. That pencil represents someone.  Someone’s son or daughter, even if they died at 90.  Hundreds and thousands, hundreds of thousands... of someones.  I’m grateful today it wasn’t our someone. 

 I’m almost not worried anymore. There is still that tiny chance that I’ve heard about, the one of the young, healthy twenty-something who gets a mild case of Covid, and three weeks later dies suddenly of a stroke or heart failure. I stand with a pencil in my hand like someone drawing straws, and say another prayer for Adam. 

“...and the whole earth-planet-world.”