A TREE GROWS IN HER

A medium sized Bonsai tree was growing off the side of my right low back region. I broke it off, but it left behind a woody stump and I couldn’t stop running my fingers over the transition between my skin and the rough bark of the stump. I was fascinated and disturbed by the feel of my skin shifting from smooth to rough and hard. I didn’t know what to do about this stump and in my indecisiveness, the tree started to grow back. I woke up before I could decide on whether to rip the tree off my body again or to just tend to the tree.

Tend to the tree.

If I’d stayed in the dream just a few more seconds, I would have chosen to tend the tree. My body had created this beautifully perfect little tree. That in itself is extraordinary. The fact that I tried to remove it makes me irritated with myself. But also not surprised. I think most people’s first instinct is to remove the thing that suddenly shows up on their bodies that doesn’t seem normal. Moles. Fat. Warts. Bugs. I could make a decent list of things I don’t want attached or growing from my body. Ticks! Almost forgot about those. Sprouting any kind of plant from the deep base layers of one’s skin would seem alarming. Instead of approaching this in a literal sense which is my go-to analytical approach, I need to be looking at the abstractness of this dream.

I spent Sunday wandering the Nelson with Todd. He had spent his week visiting family in Oklahoma and made Kansas City his last stop before flying back to Portland (and all the terrorists). We haven’t seen each other in years, not since the last time I was in Portland which was in 2018. In that time, we also fell out of the habit of just checking in with each other. A few months ago, it hit me that I had not spoken to Todd in quite a while, so I sent him a postcard. Then he sent me a postcard from Ireland and we were back on track. Except we both agreed it had been a ridiculously too long of time since we’d seen each other’s faces. When I met him at arrivals, we grinned at each other like idiots. Then I dragged him off to do some touristy things because the last time he was here, it was to see Chris, who died four days after Todd’s visit.

As we wandered through the photography section of the Nelson, Todd first said some nice things about my photography practice. Then he asked me how that practice was going and I winced. Other than occasionally printing out new postcards, my photography practice is barely treading water. I carry my big camera with me every day, yet I can’t tell you the last time I took the camera out of my bag. The few times I’ve had it out, I felt like the pictures were not worth processing. I did manage to take some good photos at the OKC zoo in August but I have not been actively pursuing my practice this year. I have not been actively pursuing much of anything this year. I told Todd that there’s nothing in my photo collection that I would want to hang for a showing. This is the truth.

We eventually made our way back to my house and on the way the Bridge started playing my favorite Belly song. I paused our conversation so I could turn it up and we both sang along.

Big red tree grew up and out, Throws up its leaves, Spins round and round.

So take your hat off when you’re talking to me and be there when I feed the tree.

- Tanya Donelly

Someone asked me once what I thought those lyrics meant. My interpretation has always been that this song is about caring for someone or something. Sometimes I think the tree is a gravestone Tanya Donelly is tasked with keeping clean and cared for. We take our hats off out of respect and she’s saying “Show me some respect and be there in support while I care for this thing.” I think in this instance, I’m the one that needs to show a little respect to myself by allowing space on my calendar to tend and care for not just this metaphorical bonsai tree, but for all the little blooms of creativity that sprout from this body. I typed this last part while 10,000 Maniacs crooned into my ears.

To be part of the miracles you see in every hour
You'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky
It's true that you
Are touched by something
That will grow and bloom in you

These are days - 10,000 Maniacs

My music has been nostalgic of late and it’s sending me signals and notes.

THE YEARLY SPIRAL

Last week I had a blood draw for my annual cholesterol and whatever check. I don’t see the doctor to talk about these results until later this week, but I have had the knowledge of the test results since Friday of last week. Of course there were at least two things from the results that sent me spiraling out and doing ridiculous internet searches. I’ve now replaced my usual whole fat greek yogurt that I have for breakfast three times a week with a zero fat greek yogurt. I’m taking a goddamn turmeric/black pepper supplement along with a cinnamon supplement. I’m probably going to also throw in a garlic pill because why not; I still have a little space left in my weekly pill box. I am determined to ride my bicycle to work as many days of the week I can and turn my sporadic yoga practice into something more consistent. This is why I am currently standing at my desk in wet clothes. I did not believe Michael when he said it would rain this morning. I didn’t believe him until I was 1.2 miles from work.

The downpour hit when I was a mile from work.

The whole time I was riding in the rain, I kept thinking about the second to the last episode of One Day where one of the main characters is riding her bicycle in the rain. I won’t completely spoil it for you if haven’t watched this series, but riding a bicycle through the city streets of London in the rain doesn’t go well for her. But it wasn’t the visions of possible doom in an attempt to be more fit that ended my spiral. I really only panicked for a day before my science brain kicked in and reminded me that my test results were normal for a woman my age who was three days away from the start of their period. Minor tweaks to the current maintenance plan is really all that’s required.

Then I ran into someone at work who I hadn’t seen in a while. She’s been out on maternity leave and I asked how she and the family were doing. All is well and they’ve settled into going from a family of three to a family of four with ease and grace. Then she asked me how I’m doing and I went straight on in to telling her about the new microscope that was installed while she was out. She said “That’s great…but I wanted to know how are you doing?” Y’all…I literally sputtered in an attempt to answer this question. I finally just said “I don’t know.” The first time I was asked how I was doing, I answered with job stuff and right now, I might be all job stuff. I mean, I’m not doing much else. My hobbies include keeping up with household chores and sitting on the couch with animals on my lap while I attempt the NY Times crossword or practice a lesson of French.

I am boring.

In my defense, I have always been a little bit boring. But I know this about myself. I have routines for my routines. I try to toss in some sparkle here and there so I am not so so boring. I thought roller skating would make me more interesting and while there’s an adult skate night on the calendar for next week, our skate group floundered a bit during the summer. Adult scheduling around summer vacations and other activities is a challenge. Honestly, I could have used more pool time at Jenn and Wade’s this summer, but I couldn’t even muster the energy to travel one measly mile to sneak into a pool. It seems I have the malaise and since I’m arguing with my doctor to approve a prescription so that I can just get a COVID vaccination for the year, I seriously doubt this doctor can do anything about malaise. Particularly if I’m not even sure that’s what I have or if I am just being a drama queen.

And maybe I’m just avoiding the question of how I’m doing.

How am I doing?

Why do we ask people this question? I can’t even honestly answer myself when I ask it. I’m sure not going to burden anyone else with that answer. Because the answer is complicated. I’m good but I’m in a constant state of worry over the war on science and the drastic decline of a country I used to be proud to call home. I’m doing great but drowning in disappointment over the down right cruelty of ‘fellow’ citizens. My life is perfect except the part where I now know people are not as smart as I once gave them credit to be. No really, I’m doing just fine despite averaging about five hours of sleep a night. Those five hours are good quality sleeping times. I just confirmed dinner reservation for Christmas Day.

IN PARIS!

This is how I am doing: I am great except when I am not.

How are you doing?

WHY PARIS

Often, when I was small, it was just me and Mom left to our own devises. My sister and I were separated just enough in age that made me too little to hang out with. While Janell was off with her friends at the movies or what not, Mom and I would often curl up in her bed and watch old movies together. There was always that one random (we didn’t have cable) channel that Mom could pick up on her little TV that would continuously play old movies and we would sit and watch black and white murder mysteries or musicals or dramatic romances for as long as we could stay awake. Mom’s favorites were the musicals. I loved anything Audrey Hepburn.

So many of those movies we watched took place in Paris.

The movies had a way of casting a dreamy light on the city of Paris, even if the city streets were just a backdrop. It was the playground for the Impressionists and beat poets and philosophers. The amount of art and influence birthed from Paris is delightfully obscene. The paintings and art work from the Impressionists are the first things I seek out in any art museum. The other stuff is fine, but the soft swirly colors of a Monet puts me into my Zen garden of peace. I want a float pod where I am completely surrounded by the Water Lilies. Historically, this city is a treasure trove of richness, revolutions and resistance against tyrants. Yet it’s visions of Audrey Hepburn running down the grand steps at the Louvre or marching along the Seine that fill my head when I think of Paris.

I’ve intended to go for years. I thought maybe about going for my 30th or 40th birthdays, maybe for an anniversary date or for no reason at all. Life has always stepped right on in to block those intentions and dreams. It became wishful thinking, something I’d want to do some day but never getting around to doing. With time, I allowed myself to think of the idea of Paris as overrated. I’ve heard the tales from other Americans about how the French are rude and snobby. Why would I want to subject myself to that? Though, I think it is possible that rude and snobby is a misinterpretation of resilient and reserved. There is something to be said about the power of being polite and unassuming. After all, Americans are often the uninvited guest and we have a way about us that is not always flattering. Any way…as the years passed, I told myself that I didn’t really care if I ever got a chance to see Paris for myself.

But I do.

When Michael asked me where we should go to celebrate our 50s, the word “Paris” popped out of my mouth without any hesitation. We started saving our pennies and practicing a very mindful approach to spending. For months now, we’ve been telling each other “We’re going to Paris!” but even while I was saying it, I didn’t really believe it. I said the words without meaning or feeling and fully expected to add this to the list of things we didn’t do. Remember that year we talked constantly about going to Paris and even taking lessons in French, but then we didn’t actually go anywhere? This is what I was expecting, but last week, one morning while I was in the shower and Michael stood in the bathroom brushing his beard, Michael said “hey…I did a thing last night after you went to bed.” He bought airplane tickets to Paris. This was surprising because he always consults me before making such purchases. In fact, I almost always am expected to be in the same room with him when it is happening. But he told me about doing some online training thing for work and how frustrating it was to just to log in and how he suddenly found himself looking at prices for flights to Paris. For the first time in a long time, the prices were beyond reasonable.

So he bought the tickets.

I booked an Airbnb.

We’ve started making lists.

It seems like this might be something we don’t just talk about doing.

For the past few days, I’ve studied maps and guides. I’ve pinned things. I’ve researched walking shoes. I‘m feeling a bit swoony and overwhelmed. There’s so much to see, to eat, to explore. When I said “Paris.” to answer Michael’s questions, I followed it up with “without major plans of doing anything while we’re there; just being present in Paris.” So today, I’m taking a breath and a pause. I’m setting my list aside and thinking about hiding the maps. In a few weeks, I’ll start sketching together a tentative itinerary. One that will include opportunities for getting lost in the city. Maybe I’ll include a day where I just happen to walk by the Arc de Triomphe with a big bunch of colorful balloons. Maybe I’ll create a macaron trail where we just travel from macaron shop to macaron shop. I could devote a whole day to cheese. Probably more.

We’re going to Paris.

TIKTOC INSTA DOC

For many, this is back-to-school time, but for me it’s yearly-wellness-exam time. This is the time of year I go and have a chat with my gynecologist and schedule my blood work for a cholesterol screen with my (child aged) Intern. This is also the only time I step on a scale. I gave up on weighing myself a few years ago because the number always stressed me out. That stupid scale number fucked with my mental health because I felt like I was doing all the right things. Like eating all of the kale. For heaven’s sake, I forced a lentil loaf on Michael for Sunday dinner this week. It was not my best creation and he was a really good sport about it, but it was straight up health nut food. That scale number would have me questioning why I even bother walking all the steps and standing all day at my desk when my feet hurt. I’m not saying that I live in la la land about my weight. I am very much aware of every fat roll on my body, just like every other woman I know who grew up in a culture of SlimFast and Cabbage Soup diets. Health class wasn’t about feeling good in your own skin. It was about sticking to the food pyramid and avoiding obesity.

We were not allowed fat rolls.

I am not sure things are better or worse. As a tween/teen, I just had verbal body shaming to contend with. The internet gave us the ability to body shame complete strangers on the other side of the country. Have you all seen the internet’s reaction to Nelly Furtado? People are losing their damn minds over how the singer no longer looks like she did twenty five years ago. And they are not nice about it. Right now my Instagram feed is full of ads about turmeric drinks and magnesium oils, things that will help me sleep better or relax. I’m being told that my problem is high cortisol levels, I’m not eating enough protein, I’m eating too much protein and I should probably be wearing a weighted vest. The message is very clear. There is something wrong with my body and this random snake oil is the fix. All of this would have wrecked a teenage Cindy, but almost fifty Cindy gives zero poops about social constructs regarding the female body.

Every once in a while though, I will start to fall for one of these dumb things. Then I ask myself “Cindy, what’s one of those things you do best?” and I know the answer is looking up all the scientific data and research on those dumb things. This NIH review on the Effectiveness of Transdermal Magnesium Absorption kept me from wasting my money on a fancy lotion. I’m still on the fence about the turmeric drink even though there is substantial research that points to it’s benefits. The key active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin and it is not easily absorbed. Black pepper helps with absorption, so incorporating turmeric and black pepper into your meals is the best way to reap the benefits. That’s easy enough for me. I am already cooking with those spices. And while high levels of extended amounts of cortisol (stress hormone) can lead to weight gain and a number of other ailments, there is absolutely no such thing as a “cortisol detox”. Manage you stress with yoga or meditation or staying off the TikTok/Instagram for a bit.

Every time I look up anything about supplements, I get the same results. If you are eating a well balanced diet full of colorful fruits and veggies, you are getting all of the vitamins and nutrients. Those deficient in something tend to have an actual medical condition or they really never eat fruits and veggies. Either way, it is not that hard get the vitamins we need, but we’ve allowed our (what was once) creative spaces to fill up with influencers who are playing at being doctors, handing out their beliefs as medical facts. It’s actually very dangerous because for every one of someone like me who immediately goes to PubMed for answers there are a hundred (if not more) who fall for it hook line and sinker, emptying their bank accounts without getting better.

When my doctor came into the exam room, she asked me all kinds of questions about my health. Am I still mostly a vegetarian? Yes. Am I still doing yoga? Yes. Am I still walking every day? Yes. She never once mentioned or asked me a question about my weight. She didn’t even see it as an issue. BECAUSE IT ISN’T! A few pounds of weight gain is more than expected for a woman of my age, even if I am doing all the “right” things. At the end of our visit, my doctor and I started joking about all the things the internet tells us we should be doing. I asked if she’d had her 600g of protein yet today and she said “Oh God! How do you even do that as a vegetarian?!? You must be full of lentils!” Which made me laugh because I was indeed full of lentils from the lentil loaf the night before. But she also admitted the impossibility of 600g for people who are not vegetarians. My doctor gets it. She knows what she’s doing. She has studied very hard and has had a lot of experience. She has verifiable credentials.

Can you say the same about your TikToc Insta Doc?

WE'VE ALL GOTTA GROW UP SOME TIME...

I got a notice last week that my undergrad was hosting a ‘ceremonial demolishing’ of my old dorm building, Willard Hall. On the day of the demo, I also read a headline about AOL discontinuing their dial-up service. I can remember every single time I listened to computer wind chimes as my Dell computer attempted to sign into AOL. Those computer wind chimes opened the doors of the interwebs, but now most of us don’t even have landlines anymore. It’s all Wifi and fibers and space magic. More than half of those times, it was Chris signing in while I sat on my bed with some science book open in front of me. The news of the end of both of those things felt slightly unfair after spending the weekend with some of the very people I lived with in those dorms. More than unfair, really. It was too much of a kick in the guts for a Monday, particularly when it was the first Monday back after a week of vacation.

I can remember every tiny detail of my first kiss with Chris and how it took place outside the north east double doors right outside my dorm room. The very room they’re tearing down right as I type this. My dreams the last few weeks have been filled with variations of Chris. Which is something I find unsettling, disorienting even. There’s a part of me that wants to whisper “go away” while at the same time begging him to never ever leave. Oh, the duality of the heart, but when I’m not waking up with neck sweats, I’m dreaming of Chris doing typical Chris shenanigans. He’s always just simmering there under the surface of my skin. At some point in our weekend, Deborah pulled out her old photo albums from our time in college. So I sat pouring salt over wounds that will never heal, flipping through pictures of us in our most gloriously ridiculousness.

And that’s the kicker or the meat of it or the everything….

Every time I think about my time as an undergrad, I can honestly say that this was the happiest I had ever been. Even before meeting Chris and becoming friends with a list as long as my arm of people I genuinely like and admire to this day. I spent so many nights sitting in the lobby watching TV with a group of people and hoping with my whole heart that this boy named Alex would notice me. This was before I knew about things like friend zones, which is where I firmly landed with Alex. It took countless ice-cream runs and Taco Bell trips for me to figure it out. Though later, that boy Alex would notice me as more than a friend, but it would be too late. That one conversation over tater-tots and burgers at the snack bar with Chris ended all of that nonsense with Alex.

It is not that I haven’t been happy since my time at school. I just know that I can pinpoint that spot on my timeline where there was no possible way my body could hold any more joy in that moment. The biggest most stressful thing I had to deal with was any Dr. McGrath test, which I miraculously always managed to pass with flying colors. Mom and Dad still paid my bills and made sure I had a working vehicle. I was an adult without having to be an adult and it was the most carefree time of my life. Willard Hall was the center of all of it. I don’t care if it was run down and gross. We all knew it was haunted and there was that summer of hoards of crickets, but it was my home, my world, for three years.

The school is not completely tearing down the building, just demolishing the inside. Amy went to the ceremony and reported back with disappointment. She was hoping for more pomp and circumstance and maybe seeing more people from the old days. I have to agree with her. They missed out on an opportunity to interview those of us who once lived there, to hear and record our stories. I am certain that those present, knew nothing of Nellie the resident ghost or that one time we had a real fire in the boiler room and three of us resident assistants ran back into the building, shoving firemen aside to get to a dorm room where someone’s boyfriend was hiding under a desk. Those stupid fire alarms went off all the dang time and it was usually always a false alarm. Except that one time, but even then it was well contained and only damaged a boiler. I am more than certain that those present know nothing of the hours and hours that were spent just laughing and laughing.

I hope the hallways still echo with our laughs.

I received a note from the Jens last week that said something about how getting old is hard. We’ve all become the age of knee shots and hip replacements and I can’t for the life of me figure out how it happened. I like the idea of being trapped in amber with my head thrown back in unabandoned laughter, all of my people surrounding me and trapped in the very same way. Forever joy and silliness. Chris in the middle of it all like a goddamn bonfire. It’s not aging that is hard. It is the losses because of aging that makes it so difficult. In one of the movie versions of Little Women, a young Amy says “Oh Jo, we all have to grow up sometime. We might as well know what we want.” Maybe that’s the thing. Maybe I never really knew what I wanted with the exception of one thing and I didn’t feel like a grown-up until I lost that one thing.

But I refuse to grow up any more than I am right now. I will continue to share fart jokes with my Insta friends and hide ridiculous things in their homes. I will dance and sing along to the music playing in the grocery store. I will put cartoon figures on my science posters. I can be old. I just don’t have to grow up.

THREE THINGS I OVERHEARD AT THE ZOO

Okay, so first of all, I am the last person to correct or say anything about grammar. My writing is full of typos and run-on sentences. I am a terrible proof reader and often leave out transitional words. I will notice an error after posting and go back and edit. I know that I am about to throw stones while living in a glass house, but phrasing matters and as we walked towards the giraffes, I heard a mom say “Look! They’re eating Sadie.” This of course confused her precious three year old because now that child thinks the giraffes are eating her or are going to eat her. That child, understandably, wanted nothing to do with the giraffes.

Later, I noticed two women dressed like a Ralph Loren ad with their sweaters tied perfectly around their shoulders. There were similarly dressed men with them and one of them parked their child wagon horizontally across the side walk. I was taking pictures of butterflies when I heard one of the women say “Wait, what was I talking about? Oh….day drinking.” Well, this explained the child wagon parking and how perfectly wrapped packages can also contain hot messes.

By far, the very best thing I overheard at the zoo was “My sister has a pet ostrich named Becky.” And for the rest of my time at the zoo, all I could think about was an ostrich named Becky and what her life is like. What kinds of shenanigans does Becky get up too? Why is no one writing a whole series of children’s books about Becky the ostrich? Why am I not writing a whole series of children’s books about Becky the ostrich?! Does she have children? Can I write a whole book about sitting on a giant egg? This also reminds me about a fundraiser that the OKC Zoo does every year for Mother’s Day. Every year they serve up ostrich egg omelettes, though i’ve heard that they’ve stopped using actual ostrich eggs. I’m sure Becky would have a lot of opinions about her egg being taken and turned into an omelette.

Any way…I’m on vacation. I’ve visited two zoos and two states and have spent a majority of my time in the company of women I love and adore. I’ve laughed more in the last few days than I have in months. I’m still laughing at myself from when I confidently and slightly aggressively opened the passenger door of the wrong vehicle and surprised the driver who was sitting there eating on a chicken wing. Part of my vacation is playing ‘nurse’ for Heather as she recovers from her hip replacement, but really that just means driving her around places and sitting on the couch watching garbage TV. We’ve eaten a lot of cheese and french pastries and neither of us are mad about any of it.

I’ve also had a lot of time to ponder some changes I’d like to make for myself. Nothing drastic. Just some simple changes towards a healthier me. It’s nice to have this time to think and plan.

BISCUITS

I dreamt that I was making biscuits, but not the ordinary kind. These biscuits were going to be like the ones that come in the can that are all layered. I believe the process is called lamination, where you roll and layer the dough over and over again. This was the part where I was stuck. I just kept rolling out dough and folding it over, turning and shaping it before more rolling and folding. I never made it to the part where I actually cut out circular bits of dough and when I attempted to pre-heat an oven, there was not an oven to be found. I was working in a kitchen without a working oven.

This is better than the dream I had last week where I was trying to run two different time lapse experiments on the same microscope at the same time.

I am not a baker. I have baked. I can bake. I just don’t bake. It is a task that seems like it always requires more effort than I am willing to spend in my tiny kitchen. I’m not one of those who find it a joyful hobby. Yes, I know I am keeping a sourdough starter alive in my fridge, but this is mostly for pizza and sometimes ciabatta. Both of those things require minimal effort. You stir together some stuff and poke at the dough ever so often before forming it into a shape and placing it into the oven. This for sure doesn’t happen in the summer months when turning on an oven is just irresponsible. So I don’t know why I’m dreaming of baking. The dream was probably sparked by a TikTok I watched recently of nothing but various breads rising and baking in an oven.

It was fairly hypnotic.

My dad was the biscuit maker in our house. My mother has a superstitious streak in her and declared that she had lost the ability to make biscuits the day her mother died. Every attempt yielded a dry crumbling wet puck of dough. Her biscuits became a joke Dad and I would giggle about at breakfast times. Her cornbread, though, was top notch and legit. I learned most of my kitchen skills through osmosis while standing next to Mom in the kitchen, but making a good biscuit was never a lesson. That was a skill learned from countless hours of practicing a demonstration speech for 4-H on the wonders and values of Master Mix, basically homemade Bisquik. It was a team demonstration and we made biscuits and blueberry muffins. Except, now that I think about it, we didn’t bake anything. There wasn’t a portable oven at the speech competitions. We added ingredients together and spooned wet dough into muffin tins, but had pre-baked goods to show at the end. Like TV. Or my dream.

Maybe the biscuit dream is leftover trauma from speech competitions.

I think about calling my mom and asking her for specific recipes. “Hey Mom, I’m trying to make pimento and cheese and I don’t know what I’m doing?” This is true. We bought some ‘homemade’ pimento and cheese from a specific cheese store and I was so disappointed. It most certainly did not taste like my mother’s. In fact, it went straight into the garbage after we all agreed that this did not taste like my mom’s pimento and cheese. Her version has ruined all of us who have eaten it. I did not absorb the knowledge of the pimento and cheese in all the years of standing next to her in the kitchen. There’s a number of things like that. Banana Pudding. The pea-pickin’ cake, a cake that does not have anything to do peas. Her cornbread recipe even if contains lard. But I don’t ask for these recipes because I am afraid of the answers I’ll get from her. Maybe it’s just easier to not know.

I’m thinking of all of this now because I know where I was in that dream. I know the kitchen without the working oven. I know I was in my mother’s kitchen or at least a collaged version of the different kitchens she has had over the years. The one she has now doesn’t have a stove or oven. It is a kitchenette, meaning there’s a small dorm fridge and a microwave. The tiny counter is already cluttered with a coffee maker and kitchen things she has yet to put into the cabinets. The last time I was there, she had a plastic grocery bag filled with the dishes we had gathered for her to take with her. I know we put those away, but Mom is in a constant state of packing and unpacking. This bag was probably a leftover from the last time she packed up all her things and waited for one of us to go get her. It’s fine really. She doesn’t actually need those dishes anyway. I spy on her through the Facebook page for her assisted living place. I notice what activities she’s participating in and when she’s participating. I know she has a regular table group at meal times and that she attends bible study classes held by one of the other people that live there. I know she’s enjoying herself more than she wants to let on to any of us or even herself.

I didn’t know that when I sat down to write about my dream that I’d end up writing about my mother, but this is how the therapy works. It’s why so many of us sit down and put pen to pages, so to speak.

WHAT I'LL LOOK LIKE IN RETIREMENT

After lunch on Saturday, Michael and I had a few non-urgent errands to run. Nothing serious. Michael needed to pick up a prescription. I needed cotton balls. I also wanted a really good tomato to eat with dinner. You know the kind, one of those craggy weird shaped Heirloom tomatoes, chopped and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Really, this and watermelon are the only things I have any interest in eating during the summer. I mix it up by the addition of cheeses. Crumbled feta on watermelon is delicious. Any way, we didn’t need much so we decided to take our scooters. Which for the most part, really made the excursion. I was wearing a billowing summer dress with shorts and at one point the dress blew up dangerously high like it was going to go over my head. I had to pullover and tuck my dress in. I didn’t mind so much the show I was giving as much as I minded the thought of being blinded my own clothing and wrecking. That was the exception.

Note to self: do not wear billowing clothing while driving 45 mph on a Vespa.

The two of us zipped and zagged our way around town and after our final stop Michael suggested ice cream. He told me to lead the way and I headed off towards a place on Troost that we tend to forget about. We had to get through Brookside to get to the ice cream place and all the shops in the area were having a sidewalk sale. I looked longingly at one shop and Michael asked if I wanted to stop. I did and so we pulled a u-turn right into an open parking spot in front of the shop. Baskin Robins happens to be up the street and Michael said “Why don’t we just walk up there?” But as we walked, we passed Bella Napoli’s and I stopped. “Do you think they have gelato?” and the next thing we know we’re sitting at a table in Bella Napoli’s eating giant bowls of gelato.

And it was pretty close to perfect.

We browsed through the sales and rummaged through the cheese bin at Whole Paycheck. Then we scooted home, but I think it was right at the moment we did the u-turn where I thought “This is what my life is going to look like when I retire.” My days will be filled with puttering. Puttering around the house. Puttering around the neighborhood. Puttering around the yard. I will be an expert putterer. I will wear billowy summer things and ride the scooter to all of my puttering errands. I will pause mid-putter for giant bowls of gelato or ice cream. I will make slightly reckless u-turns to browse shops where I have no intention of actually buying anything. I have been thinking about this more and more as I get closer to fifty. Which also feels strange. There was a time when I never thought I’d retire, not because of age, but because of affordability. The more I think about my eventual retirement the more I see myself (and Michael) not staying here. Our puttering will happen around a village in Italy or Portugal. Maybe Spain. We’ve talked about Costa Rica, but I really think Michael would be too uncomfortable with that heat. The vacations we take after Paris will be ones where we travel to the places we may want to retire to someday.

At one point during our travels, we were stopped at a stoplight next to one of those expensive boxy Mercedes SUVs. The young man driving, rolled down his window and said to us “That’s some real relationship goals right there.” Michael looked over and said “I know, right!” The guy had a young woman, presumably his girlfriend, sitting in the passenger seat. I looked at them both and said “This is the best money I have ever spent in my life.” Then this young guy in his ridiculously expensive vehicle said “You two are living the dream.” The light changed and we took off, but I thought about this through out the day because the day itself had a dreamy quality to it.

This is what the weekend is for, turning dreams into practice for the future.

WHO'S THAT GIRL

Our friends, Jenn and Wade, installed a small above-ground pool in their backyard and Friday night was the inaugural pool party. It was a perfectly simple affair, small and intimate. There were five of us in total and two of those were the men we put to work grilling our dinner. Lauren, Jenn and I made the most spectacular whirlpool and then we just floated in circles chatting about all things and no things. Eventually, we made our way to the screened in back porch. I had slathered Jenn’s magic mosquito repelling essential oil lotion on my legs and I mentioned to Lauren, who was sitting next to me, that I couldn’t seem to stop touching my legs after putting that lotion all over them. Then she said “Now say it sultry.” and I opened my mouth to comply, but nothing came out but bubbles of laughter. Then we all proceeded to laugh for a good number of minutes.

I could never pull myself together enough to “say it sultry”.

Later, when it was just Michael and I, he said “You once told me that Chris said your laugh was infectious. I think that I finally heard the infectious laugh tonight.” We’ve been together for twelve years. It feels impossible that in the last twelve years I have not truly laughed, but completely possible that I haven’t done so in his presence or while he was paying attention. I also don’t want to believe that I have not laughed my true infectious laugh since Chris. That possibility is disappointing and more than a bit sad. Without even realizing it, I went from “the girl who knew sadness” to “the girl who is sadness”. Or maybe just “the girl who doesn’t laugh.” I chuckle. I smile at things. I bark out a decent “ha!”. Rarely do I dissolve into the kind of laughing that leaves me breathless.

Those days have passed.

As we sat across the table from one another slurping noodles at one of our favorite Vietnamese places, I took a moment to tell Michael that I really do appreciate the effort he’s been making not just to get us to Paris in December, but in most things. It is his summer break time and he’s taken over all of the grocery shopping. There’s a wall of sticky notes containing tasks that he wants to complete in the summer months. He has been diligently removing those notes. Like every summer break, he has taken on the task of cooking our evening meals and not allowing me to wash the dishes. Though, sometimes I do it anyway. His goal is to make my summer as task free as possible and I let him know that this is appreciated. Then I said “I know that I have not been my best self this year.” but then I was a little surprised by his response. He said “I know that you’ve been really stressed about work.”

This also made me pause. Mostly, he’s not wrong. It’s just that my stress level around work is more complicated than the day to day of running microscopes that cost half a million dollars each and making sure that people feel safe and comfortable using those microscopes. The day to day stress of my job has been compounded by this administration’s war on science and their determination to make this country dumber. But I also know that I can’t blame my lack luster mood solely on what it means for me and my science friends when the budget cuts to the NIH mean less grant money and fewer scientific discoveries. My lack luster mood is more of a layered bean dip and the spiciest layer is probably a result of my changing body. This is the layer that people eat around. The result is that this layer sticks around longer and ferments in spice, just making things hotter…angrier. I tell Michael that I’m trying, but I’m not convinced. Though, in that moment on a porch with friends, I caught a glimpse of “the girl who knew sadness”.

Years ago, there were almost zero fireflies in my backyard. I can remember lamenting over their absence. “What ever happened to fireflies?” I’d ask. Then when I finally saw the blink of light from one, I clapped my hands and squealed like a toddler. I’ve watched each summer as the population of fireflies has increased and it feels like my backyard is nothing but blinking insects. Those glimpses of the girl I used to be, the one who wasn’t sad all the time, are like those fireflies. It might be a rare sighting in this moment. I’m sure that in time, those sightings won’t be so rare. Okay. Maybe I’m not sure, but I know that this is something I want and need. Which is funny because that’s kind of been my shopping mantra lately. I tend to me more likely to say yes to something I want and need or finding a way to get those things.

This time, when I say “I’m trying”, I really truly mean it.

WHERE WE ARE

Last week, there was an incident with Mom at the assisted living center. She’s fine. Everyone is fine. It was just one of those stupid scary moments that had us all going “What the actual Fuck, Mom!” I had already planned to drive down to see her that Friday and of all the things she chatted about, the incident was not on topic. She did say that she was on a ‘bad’ list and can’t go on the outside activities, but she doesn’t know why she’s on the ‘bad’ list. This time, I took Josephine with me and we sat outside for a bit with some of the other people who live there with Mom. Josephine was very popular and drew a bit of crowd. I sat with Mom while she held my hand and we listened to the elder man across from us tell us about his chow dogs. Which he repeated on a loop. I finally declared it to be too hot for Josephine and took us all inside.

I did a lot of head nodding and responding to things with “huh”, “Oh my “, “Is that so?” and “that’s very interesting.” I don’t do the talking on these visits. I let Mom talk about whatever she wants to talk about. My mother thinks she just moved in a couple of weeks ago. She said that she just walked in and people had already moved all of her things in. She said “I’ve been told that this is my home now.” She also told me that my sister starts working there on Monday (she does not). When others ask me about how my mother is, I have to say that she is physically well. This is true. It is her brain that is unwell. There has been some discussions on moving her to a memory care center, but after sitting with her and her cronies, I don’t think she’s any different from them. They’re all on about the same level of dementia.

My mother is just a little more ornery than the others.

We left Mom’s to spend a day or two with my friends Robin and Summer. I hadn’t seen them in a year and we were due for some actual face time. Most of that was spent in the pool and Michael and I came home with sunburns, mine in weird patterns from poorly applied sunscreen. The sky was a blinding blue all weekend with a constant wind that blew away pool floaties and knocked over potted plants. That wind stayed with us as I drove us home through the Flint Hills, struggling to keep the car steady in the lane. I cried while Michael slept in the passenger seat, Josephine sacked out at his feet. Why was I crying? I do this every time I leave that state.

For so many reasons.

My heart and soul are split up into before and afters. Oh, the years I spent plotting and planning my escape from there. I never wanted to stay and yet there is a part of me that never can leave even while everything is so different. Old haunts are now unrecognizable, major streets have even been shifted over in some form or fashion. I built a life there with someone who was truly my best friend and we created our own chosen family there. Nothing came of that plotting and planning for so long. We just settled in and figured that maybe we didn’t truly want to leave. And then we left. We left and it killed part us. Okay, so it wasn’t the move or the transplanting us six hours away from that life we had settled into that killed him. But sometimes it feels like that is the truth.

The wind whispers “if you had stayed, he’d still be alive.”

The hot Oklahoma wind is the devil and it lies.

So I cry as I drive away because I am reluctantly happy in this life and where my planning and plotting has taken me. I cry because of my good fortune. Then the tears fall for the what ifs. What if we had stayed and I no longer had to drive six hours to be with my chosen family? What if staying meant Chris living? If we had stayed, I’d hate my job and be tolerating my daily life, but Chris would still be here. Now, I like my job and I am more than tolerating my daily life, but I’m sharing that life with someone else. When these thoughts come into play, I cry over how stupid I am for thinking such things and for dwelling on the past. I cry for not being strong enough without Chris to hold together the family we created. So I look out the window and cry even more over the stark beauty of the seemingly endless rolling plains. Then just before leaving the Flint Hills, my tears dry up like the sudden downpours that roll through the prairies.

I forgive myself for thinking such ridiculous thoughts. I hold gratitude for the time spent with the chosen family I have managed to hold onto. I let go of my guilt over not spending enough time with every person I could have spent time with, including my mother. I shove away possible regrets and turn my thoughts and focus to the now and my reluctantly happy life.

AVOID

I’m not avoiding you. I am avoiding me. I came back from Woods Hole with a stack of forty-ish pictures to process from my Nikon and every single one of them turned out to be a whole mood. There are many in the stack that I like a lot. They’re the kind of images I’d want to make really large prints of and hang in a minimalist modern house that has more windows than walls. I also came home with four seashells that I hastily threw into my backpack without really cleaning. My backpack now holds all the usual things like wallet, travel Kleenex, Invisalign storage container, a random feather and now four seashells and some sand. Oh…I think I have two protein bars tucked away in an inside pocket for emergencies.

The feather will end up being the thing that saves my life someday.

I also came home to a dead scooter. The battery on Valerie got zapped by our winter. I did put it on a charger and the battery charged. We had a good month of riding in between bad weather. Then she sat for two weeks because of weather and me being out of town. Michael had to push her up the driveway for me on Saturday because I got to the bottom of the drive and the engine would not turnover. I put her back on the charger and rode to work without incident on Monday. I didn’t ride on Tuesday because of tornados (everyone is fine here). Then on Wednesday, I put the key in the ignition and tried starting the scooter in the garage because I have learned my lesson. But nothing. So this summer, not only am I going to learn to do my own oil changes, but I’m also replacing a battery.

So. Exciting.

This is yet another reminder of how somethings can be very much the same while also very different. And I’m doing my best to not make comparisons, but what I want to say is that V (my original Vespa) wouldn’t be having this issue. I also had a magic battery for V that lasted over ten years. I only replaced it because Michael said I needed to replace it. Something about battery lives and blah blah blah. If I sit to long with the thoughts, V becomes more of an identity than a scooter and I feel myself shifting over into a comparison of losses and founds. We all do it some unintentional way. We can’t help ourselves. It’s part of being in a society of too many choices and the disposability of some of those choices.

Chris used to buy up toiletry bags like candy, each one purchased after the previous failed to meet expectations.

This comparison of losses and founds is not delegated to just things. We apply it to people more often then anyone wants to fess up to. I am so over conscientious of doing this, but I gave V a human identity. She was the first scooter, the one that broke open my soul with joy, the one linked to Chris, the one that held all of those memories of scooter rides with Chris. This scooter, Valerie, is just a new scooter model without all of those memories or links. This scooter is an easy target for my angst and pouts over how my life was better when…fill in the blank. I give myself a few moments to wallow in all of that before shaking it off like a dog. The line from that Natalie Merchant song floats through my brain.

Your mamma is a bitter bride. She’ll never be satisfied. - Natalie Merchant, Life is Sweet

I tell myself "You are not that person.” Except…

Sometimes, I am.

I SHOULD WRITE THIS SHIT DOWN

Saturday morning after my usual breakfast sandwich and journal writing time, I was driving to Trader Joe’s along Ward Parkway. Kansas City is a city of boulevards and parkways. Ward Parkway is particularly lovely, lined with tall trees and old mansions. There is a wide lush median with an the occasional fountain (we’re also the city of fountains). At the intersection of Meyer and Ward there is a large roundabout that circles the Meyer Circle Sea Horse Fountain which was just refinished last year. The stones that make up the fountain now shine a bright white. It’s a really pretty fountain. Any hoo…as I made my way half way around the circle, I noticed the sun reflecting off the water and the people jogging up and down the sidewalks and I sighed with the loveliness of the day. Then something entered my brain and I thought “Ooh…I should write about that thing! That would be something not depressing to write about.”

Now I’ve completely forgotten what it was that entered my brain.

You see? Nice things float around inside my head. It is not all doom and gloom in there. I just seem to be misplacing those thoughts at the moment. I seem to be misplacing a number of things at the moment. Thoughts. Appointments in the calendar. Reasons for why I got up from the couch or why I walked with purpose into the kitchen. Did I feed the dog? I think maybe I did? Josephine got two dinners that night. Lucky dog. It’s like I only have a brain for science and as soon as I step out of the work space, someone blows a thick smoke into my ears. This does sort of happen to me when I’m on two wheels. The number of times I end up behind a car containing heavily pot smoking passengers (new band name?) while I am on my scooter has become immeasurable. I’m more likely to pull into the driveway with a contact high than not.

But no. This fog isn’t pot fog. I know that it is the hazy brain of an aging female mixed in with a brain that tends to be the keeper of the locations of all the things. It is a combination of hormones and just asking too much of my brain. I’m learning French (if you can call it that). I’m reading a book that I checked out digitally from the library which means it will be yanked out of my digital reader when the time is up. I’m learning how to build code to run a slide loading robot. That shit is hard. And all of those reasons above are why I might sit in the driveway in my car, scrolling through Instagram for fifteen minutes before taking the groceries inside or forget to sub that yoga class (yeah..that happened). I have things on my work calendar that I only see in when I have Outlook open. I have things on my google calendar that only see when I have my gmail open. I have stuff on my phone calendar that I never really even look at it.

My calendar situation is a mess.

I spent fifteen minutes this morning fixing all of that and combining my calendars into something that makes more sense. At least for now. I went with combining it all to my google calendar because I have everything color coded and I feel like my brain appreciates this. In fact I just moved a red work block activity scheduled for a previous day to an earlier day because of an unexpected opening on the microscope I need to use for this project. I found great pleasure in this action, but also that red work block was wedged into a full column of other work blocks. It was nice to visually clear that space and now I may be able to actually finish a cup of coffee that morning.

Even still, I forgot to take my Tuesday block of pills and Wednesday morning I stared at my pill box for a long time convincing myself that this day is Wednesday.

Not Tuesday.

DIRECTION

I have this superpower that I genetically inherited from dad. It’s nothing major. I can’t fly or shoot lasers out my eyes (yet). It is a relatively simple little superpower. Heather calls it my party trick. The trick or superpower is the ability to point to north or south under any situation. For instance, if I’m inside a building and someone asks “which way is west?”, I can point them in the right direction. There’s only been one exception and that was in Portland OR. Apparently that place is my kryptonite because every time I visit I lose all sense of direction. Someone told me that it was probably because Portland has two norths, a regular compass one and a magnetic one. Anyway, directions and map reading and the ability to know where I am on the planet was something my dad did very well.

This internal compass might also have something do with life trajectories. Though it felt a little stronger in my youth. I was always heading in a particular life direction. Every extra curricular activity was a stepping stone in that life direction. My inner mantra back then was “must get to college.” It was only once I got to college where I finally allowed myself to ignore the straight line of the compass. I was never completely without direction until Chris died. Then, understandably, I spent some time just wandering around the forest of life. It took some time and making some really dumb (and at times dangerous) choices before I finally had my sense of life direction back. I’ve been thinking about this a lot because of my stagnant nature of late.

Is my compass broken?

Someone sent me a cartoon once depicting how someone in science receives information versus others. The non-science person’s bubble read “Yeah, I saw it on TikTok. It must be true.” while the science person is surrounded by a stacks of journal articles researching the validity behind the TikTok video. It would be funny if it were not true. During the pandemic, a number of people contacted me with questions and I spent a lot of time reading articles about what we knew then and what we know now so I could reply with a clear answer that would include what I knew personally at the time. In a way, we are still experiencing a pandemic. This one threatens the validity of our news sources like NPR and PBS, sources for the public (it says so in their names).

The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. - Mon Mothma, Andor

Trying to shrink that abyss is exhausting.

I read something recently about how we change over the years and the author said something about setting down the things she was not ment to carry or had become too heavy to carry. This made me pause. Who the fuck do I think I am?!? Why on earth do I feel like I need to carry the entire weight of a rebellion? I don’t! I can’t! I learned a long time ago that people will only listen to facts and truth if they are open and willing for listening. I no longer waste my time on such people who are not open for listening. I mean, many of them fell for that whole anti-abortion propaganda that was circulated in the early 70s that claims women use abortion as birth control. I can think of four reasons for why a woman would have an abortion. None. Of. Your. Business. Those are the four reasons, but also abortion as birth control is simply not true. Yet there is no reasoning or argument to persuade them otherwise.

I have been attempting to pull myself out of melancholy for months now and get back into the routine of doing things that I enjoy doing. Winter was hard. My country has been turned to garbage. We’ve had one of our grad students all ready denied for a VISA and some of our other grad students terrified of going home to try to renew their VISAS. I am very busy at work, but in that whole ‘hurry up and wait’ busy that usually happens in science. I’ve felt overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy in aiding the rebellion. I realize that my inability to pull myself out of this funk is directly related to my unwillingness to stop carrying the things that are too heavy or not entirely my thing to carry. There’s so much stuff and the enormity of it all is what has me feeling lost. Where do I put my focus? My time? My energy? Perhaps my compass is not broken and I have not lost my direction. Maybe I don’t need to be heading into anything while carrying heavy things. I’ve never been into the idea of pack-in camping.

My compass is telling me to set some things down so I can move in a direction I want to move into.

AT THE CAR WASH

Back in March we had a super horrible cold snap. It was so cold that the windshield washer fluid in my car froze. When I say ‘my car’ I am now referring to the car I inherited from Mom. It came to us from Oklahoma where they can just put any old washer fluid in their vehicles because it never really gets to the level of cold we see here in northern Missouri. So for a week, I drove the car with windows I could barely see out of, occasionally collecting enough thawing snow water from the cars in front to run the wipers and smear the filth across the windshield. What can I say? I like to live dangerously. I had a car once where the windshield washer didn’t work at all. I carried a spray bottle of cleaner with me and would roll down the window while driving. Then I would take the spray bottle and stick my arm out the window and spray my windshield while running the wipers.

I know how to live without fancy things.

By the end of the week, the weather had finally warmed to tolerable and Michael helped me determine that there was nothing wrong with the washer pump. Then he suggested that we go buy new washer blades and get the car washed. The carwash of our choice was too busy to do interiors, but they were offering a special on their monthly pass that included the interior. It was such a good deal, that Michael yelled “Sold!” and handed over his bank card. Now, I was not sold. I had owned my car for over year when I met Michael. The second time we were together in my car, he asked “When’s the last time you washed your car?” I looked at him with my head tilted like a puppy and said “Wash….car?” I had not washed my car since I had purchased it. Car washing is not a thing on my radar. We don’t do that in Oklahoma. I mean, we do but not like people do here. People go once a week to the car wash! Every carwash you drive past is always packed with people and cars. It is one of the craziest things I’d ever seen.

I felt that the carwash membership was unnecessary.

Michael, who currently drives a truck with signs of rust damage from the previous owner, believes that washing your car on the regular saves the car’s life. I get it. There’s a lot of salt that gets thrown around onto our streets. Right now, everything is coated in a thick layer of pollen. I think if I listen closely, I can hear my dad agreeing with Michael. Any way, I agreed to stop at the carwash every Saturday morning after my Trader Joe’s adventures, being sure to include an eye roll while agreeing. The next weekend rolled around and I went through the carwash and then parked in one of the lanes. Then a teenager came over and cleaned the inside of my car while I waited inside with a cup of coffee. They waived me over when they were done and I got into a very clean car to drive home. And something flipped over inside my chest. I honestly am not sure how to describe it other than love.

I love the carwash.

I mean, I love it. I’m a little disgusted with just how much I love it. It feels so wasteful and bougie. It can’t be an environmentally sound action to take and I don’t want to love it. But I love it. The moment I release control of my vehicle and get pulled into the carwash, I drift off into a space of peace and tranquility. I marvel at the psychedelic soap bubbles as they stream down the windows and when I get back into the car after they’ve cleaned the inside, even when I don’t think it’s that dirty, I sigh with pleasure of being inside a clean car. At the end of that month, my carwash subscription was going to double because I’d reached the end of the promotion period. Michael and I had a serious debate about keeping the membership. I argued against it because…Paris. Michael argued for it because of the joy it brought to me. We compromised on keeping a carwash membership but down grading to just the unlimited wash (no extras like interiors). Michael said that once a month I could have the interior cleaned as an add-on.

There was some concern that just going through the automatic carwash would not be enough for me, that I would not experience the same euphoria. On Saturday morning, I released control of the car, picked up my mug of coffee and settled in for the ride. I sipped coffee and drifted off to a lovely Zen garden and when it ended, I just drove off. I was not sad about it, but I do kind of wish I could have stayed inside the carwash a little longer. When I said this to Michael, he reminded me that my membership is unlimited and I could just loop back around and go through again if I wanted to. I gasped at the thought of it. Go through the carwash twice?!? In the same day!?! That’s hedonistic!

I’m totally doing that next week.

DOCTOR, HEAL THYSELF

The New York Times posted an article recently about 10 Simple Ways To Improve Your Brain Health. It was a list compiled by a group of neurologists and I was happy to read that I am already doing most of the things on their list. I always wear my helmet whether it is for the scooter or the bicycle. I floss every day. If I was the one mowing the yard, I’d wear headphones. I take daily walks and mostly stand at my desk. I am doing the things required for managing my cholesterol. Look, I even convinced Michael to eat a tofu meal this week. I am putting so many healthy vegetables and beans into our weekly meal plans. I feel like I’m winning at something. 

There’s like two things on the list that I’m not doing and one of those things is not my fault. The Neurologists recommend masking on smoggy or smoky days. I know I should do this, but I spend so much time inside that it is something that just doesn’t dawn on me to do. But this does bring up a point about how I should be masking when I’m out in public spaces, particularly when tuberculosis cases are increasing in my area. People don’t know this is happening because the government department in charge of public health just got gutted and there’s not one really staying up to speed on daily cases. You have to do an extensive search for the data and since most everyone I know gets their medical advice from TikTok, extensive searching is not happening. Bottom line is that masks save lives and I should be wearing one. 

I’m going to do better.

Number ten on this list is “Sleep Well”. I love how it is so simply stated as if one can just tell another to “sleep well” and it just happens. There are nights when I think I’m sleeping well because I only woke up twice in the middle of it all. I have no idea what it is like to wake up because my alarm clock actually went off and my alarm is set for 5:15 AM. At this point, I set the alarm as a fail safe just in case I don’t wake up in time. On weekends, I sleep in until 6:45. Why 6:45? See me shrug. That just happens to be the time when I look over at the clock and then say to Josephine “Let’s make you breakfast so I can go get my own breakfast.” My Saturday morning breakfast haunt opens at 7:30, so this gives me plenty of time to be there when they are unlocking the door. Is this sleeping well? Maybe, if I’m going to bed at 9 PM on Fridays but I am not. I refuse to go to bed until I have folded the last of the three loads of laundry I start when I get home from work. Doing some basic wine math will tell you that it is well after ten or eleven before I am crawling into bed.

But this is under normal circumstances.

The week before my period should not be considered normal circumstances. During this week, my dreams are vivid and wild. They are cinematic but also make no sense. Rapid hormonal fluctuations are equivalent to tripping on acid. Or what I believe it would be like to trip on acid. I do not know. I did want to try this at some point, but TV has convinced me the fentanyl is in everything and this will kill me. At some point in the night, I get hot and throw off all the blankets only to start shivering two minutes later. I’ll pull the covers back on and in an hour I will wake up because my neck is sweaty. MY NECK. A part of my body that is not even really covered with blankets. Is sweating. 

Finding ways to improve your time spent sleeping, and the quality of that sleep, can go a long way toward helping you stay sharp and fend off dementia, Dr. Feldman said. -Mohana Ravindranath, NY Times

I wonder what my odds are of fending off dementia if I do everything on their list but this one. Because what I’m gathering from the lore of women passed around the witches cauldron on full moon nights is that what is happening to my body in regards to sleep is normal or at least not a unique experience. If anything, these are mild conditions compared to some women's experience. The third witch to the right of the cauldron tells me that I am damn fortunate that my sleeping experiences are not worse. And I will agree with her. I am sleeping and I feel like the times in the night when I am sleeping are quality sleep moments. Just, according to neurologists, I need more of those moments. 

Ugh. Really?!?

The Cabbage and I were having a great discussion on tampons and menstrual flow last weekend. They were complaining about how rough their periods were and how they’re still a bit random. I told them about my nineteen year old self and birth control pills and how modern medicine smoothed out those menstrual wrinkles. Then I told them how they will have years of ‘regular’ cycles and this will lull them into a false sense of reality. Because eventually you will go right back to rough and random. You will look back fondly on all of those years when you could predict to the very hour when the first drop of blood of the month will hit the pad. Those restless nights will come from daily life worries instead of rapidly fluctuating hormones. I tried to end on a positive note, something like it’s great! You’ll be alive to tell the tale and continue passing around the lore of women.

But honest to a god, human bodies are just weird. Actually body weirdness is not limited to humans. I see enough at work to know that structures involved in living any life are just bizarro. Some time maybe I’ll tell you about baby coral and their mucus cells or how I know so much about the planarian manus. Biological life is interesting. We are gross in an interesting way. But I guess the most important takeaway of this ramble is to be a regular flosser of your teeth (not the dance move), always wear a helmet, mask up on smog days, eat your veggies, be little a bit of a social butterfly, take a walk and sit on the floor, have your eyes checked out, make sure you’re getting enough oxygen to your brain. 

And if you do all those things, maybe you can wear yourself out enough to sleep well at night.

MONSTERS

The Guilt Monster showed up on Wednesday. Michael and I had originally planned on staying in Oklahoma until Tuesday morning. I had put down on the work calendar that I would not be back into the office until Thursday. But by Sunday evening, the bagster bags were all full. All that was left was to meet with an estate sales agent on Monday at 3:00 PM. I managed to pawn this meeting off onto my siblings. Turns out the meeting was a waste of time anyway. The agent told my brother and sister that the house had to contain $15,000 worth of stuff to make it worth her time. That was disappointing news, since I was hoping to make things easier on all of us by outsourcing the work. 

Nothing about this is going to be easy.

I spent Tuesday recovering and then sorting through the two bins of photos I had brought home from Mom’s. My mom seemed to have duplicates of every developed roll of film. She had pre-sorted one bin and written my name on the lid, but as I sorted through photos I discovered pictures that my brother would like to have, pictures of him and Pepaw, J’s Eagle Scout ceremony. Then there were old photos of Uncle Russel and his kids and some prom pictures for my sister. I started making piles and have a carefully arranged stack of things to send out to various people. Then Wednesday hit and by 10:30 AM, I had cleaned the whole house and opened up my work email to a number of emails that started with “Cindy, can you…?” I told Michael that I probably should have gone back to work. He disagreed, 

The Guilt Monster did not disagree.

As we pulled out of Mom’s driveway on Monday, I told Michael that I was worried that I didn’t do enough or I am not doing enough. The Guilt Monster was already with me, telling me I was leaving too much for my siblings to take care of. I’m leaning too heavily on the excuse that I don’t live there, that I have to take time off work to make the four hour drive down there. Then the Guilt Monster tells me that my excuses are just excuses, just a way for me to wash over my selfishness. We all want to be done with the albatross that is the contents of our mother’s house. I don’t get a free pass here. And the Guilt Monster will not let me forget it.

So, I spent some time Wednesday virtually working, responding to requests and scheduling microscopes for rescanning some slides for this person and training for that person. I narrowed down some travel dates for MBL. I did all of this thinking that this might appease the Guilt Monster but it did not because there is no appeasing of the Guilt Monster. Even when I have done all the things right, the Guilt Monster will find something I missed or did wrong. This isn’t new. I found three report cards, one from first grade, one from fourth and one from fifth. They all basically said “this child does not fuck around, completes tasks in a timely manner and works independently.” 

The Guilt Monster has been with me since day one. 

Forget the whole ‘step on a crack’ superstition. I have the Guilt Monster to keep me in line, always doing the right thing and whatever is needed. My boss has chided me on a number of occasions for saying ‘yes’ too quickly to an ask. I'm a helper bee. How can I make things better for you, easier for you, happier for you? How can I make your life better? Even if I don’t have time in the schedule that day, I will find time. I have one hundred and fifty something hours of vacation time and the Guilt Monster will not let me use them. Look, I know why I am this way and I know paying homage to the monster will not keep bad things from happening. Yet, it sits in my gut anyway, completely unconcerned about eviction notices. Unlike my mother who on two occasions has been convinced she’s being kicked out of assisted living. 

Do what you can with what you have, where you are. - Theodore Roosevelt

This Teddy quote becomes my mantra every time I get overwhelmed with the guilt that comes with not doing enough. I finally, just a few weeks ago, sat down and wrote out my plans for the year, something I usually do before the new year begins.I know January is a shit time to try to start anything. Winter is the sleeping season. Spring is the season for starting new growth. That’s the time of year when everything wakes up and becomes alive with color. This is also the time of year where my calendar fills up with work tasks and social things and end of school events and doctor appointments and vet appointments. It is the time of year when I look out into my messy backyard and try to figure out when I’m going to have enough time and energy to clean up branches and leaves. Maybe even plant something. This year though, reintegration from hibernating is a struggle. The fog of sleep is not so easily shaken off and I am a groggy bear. What I need is to move past groggy bear and straight onto angry bear.

I have a feeling that my inner angry bear could kick my guilt monster’s ass.

THE ARCHIVES

She asked me if I had gotten married. My mother. She has our names and phone numbers written on a piece of paper, taped to her wall above her phone. My sister took away the smart phone months ago, replacing it with a land line. The smart phone became too much to deal with. Mom was answering spam calls, becoming agitated by the telemarketers telling her she owed money. So the phone went away. I was having breakfast with Mom when she asked me about getting married. She didn’t recognize the last name written on her paper. My mother speaks in random riddles and usually I go along with it. I do my best to live in her world when I am with her, but this one threw me off my game. I explained to her that was indeed my married name, with Chris, but that I had not remarried. She seemed to take it well enough, saying something about how she was sure that I would at least tell her I was getting married. Later, as I was leaving, we passed another resident and Mom introduced me as her granddaughter.

This came at the tail end of a long two days. Michael and I along with my siblings and their spouses spent two days clearing garbage from our mother’s house. We sorted through baskets and piles of papers, taking loads and loads out to the dumpster bags. We sorted through trash looking for treasures and deciding what should stay. We’ll have an estate sale at some point, but my goal for this trip was just get rid of the garbage. Michael and I cleared two rooms the evening we arrived. It feels like garbage was the theme. We slept fitfully on mattresses on the floor and ate meals that consisted of shades of brown. We ended each day dehydrated but too tired to lift cup to our dry lips. One night, Michael found me asleep with my book open. I don’t even remember opening the book in the first place.

I brought home two boxes that are sitting in the living room, waiting for me to sort through. The boxes are filled with old photos and newspaper clippings. Among the treasures discovered was a large scroll with a handwritten family tree of my dad’s side of the family. I know close to nothing about his side, the Graham side. The little I know comes from word of mouth, mostly from a grandmother late in her life. We were not close with Dad’s family. Our visits to Mississippi were always centered around my mother’s family with only short visits any one from Dad’s family. My fingers are itching to open the scroll up and pour over the details. Michael joked about having our very own Finding Your Roots moment where we discover some famous relative. To think that scroll was found in a trash pile previously sorted by my mother as if to erase that side of my genetics. One of the items she took with her to the new home is a card, covered with old buttons and her named scrawled at the bottom. As we sat chatting, she pointed it out and said that my father must have made it. She said “I do things right and that was not made right.” while attempting to tie the ribbon that had come loose from the top of the card. Even now, she still finds faults in my dad.

Complicated feelings.

There is nothing simple about these relationships. I want to be forgiving and forgetful. She is not the mother I spent hours with as a child, watching old black and white movies or baking cookies. She’s not the same woman who would lay on the floor of her sewing room while painstakingly attempted to sew a straight seem. She hasn’t been that woman in years. Someone asked me if we were cleaning out her house because she had passed and I had to bite my tongue because as horrible it is to say it, it would be easier it that were the case. The witnessing of her mental decline is torturous. Not remembering my married name stung me more than I would have thought. What else does she not remember about that part of my life? Does she remember attending my wedding in Vegas or the beautiful reception we had at the old house? Does she remember Chris? These are all things I will never ask her.

She’s never been one for silliness or jokes, always playing the straight man to my dad’s goofball shenanigans. There are glimpses of a hint of silly in her now though. She talks about how they never let her out. She’s a flight risk and you can see the delight in her eyes when she says it. I wouldn’t be surprised to get a phone call from my sister frantic because Mom has escaped and gone missing. Just find the nearest junk sale. That’s where she’ll be, rummaging through someone’s yard sale. Yard sales are her heaven.

ACCOMPLISHED

I have a dear friend who works in DC in a federal capacity and he has been sharing what has been happening in his office since the new administration took over. It’s as if they are intentionally making it a more hostile working environment each day because they would rather people quite than to fire them all. My friend’s most recent post was an email from Elon Musk and the HR department stating that all employees must reply to their email with approximately five bullets of what you accomplished last week. If the email is not sent in by 11:59EST Monday the 24th, you should expect to be fired.

Well…the email address got out into the world and the internet is having a heyday, sending emails of accomplishments to hr@opm.gov. People have been emailing in their own bullet point lists of accomplishments and when I heard this, I laughed out loud at what a delightful form protest this is. IT’s like the very definition of joyful protest. So last night, I sat down and compiled my own email of accomplishments:

In the past week, I have successfully completed an over night time lapse of Zika virus infected Hela cells, troubleshot issues with the Phenix screening microscope and completed laser power checks on all microscopes. I trained a new user on the slide scanner and then imaged a batch of slides on the Nikon spinning disk. Those images were then processed for further analysis.

On a personal note, I maintained the health of my sourdough starter. I also completed section five on French lessons with Duolingo. I swept, vacuumed and mopped. Food was prepped for weeknight meals and I brushed my teeth.

I hope this satisfies the five accomplishments requirement for the week. I look forward to updating this again for the next week.
Thank you,
Cindy Maddera

I sent the email and then realized that I forgot to mention that I had also trimmed my toenails, which feels like a pretty good personal accomplishment. This was my only regret here because the minute I hit the little send button, I felt giddy and elated. First of all, this is such an easy protest against that fascist idiot, but after sitting down and thinking about the things I did accomplish last week, I felt pretty dang good about myself. Far too often, I get to an end of a week (the actual end, like Sunday night knowing I have to start all over again the next day) and I feel like I’ve accomplished very little. Except now I’m realizing that I could have added so much more to that accomplishments email.

I didn’t mention that I troubleshot issues with my windshield washer. I’ve been driving practically blind most of all last week because every time I hit the washer button, nothing would come out. And yes, for the jerk face in the back, I made sure I had windshield washer fluid. What I could not determine on my own was if the pump for the washer was actually running. I couldn’t hear it from inside the vehicle and needed Michael to stick his head under the hood while I engaged the washer. Of course, this is when the washer miraculously started working again. We believe it had something to do with above freezing temps and washer fluid designed for warmer climate. I’m still going to say that we fixed the windshield washer and I learned a whole lot about the inside of my car. Like how the car was low on brake fluid. And that feels a little more important than the windshield washer.

The more I think about it, them more accomplishments I can come up with and I can’t wait to send in my report for this current week. For the first time this year, I feel motivated and this is such a lovely way to start out the week. I spend a lot of time on Sundays preparing for the week ahead. I chop veggies for the week. We start the week with clean floors and organized lunches. Now I feel like I’ve discovered one more thing to add to my list for preparing for a week. Each Sunday evening, I’m going to sit down and compile my five bullet points of accomplishments, maybe even add more than five, and then I’m going to send that email off to Elon.

In case you want to email Elon about your accomplishments, you can do so at hr@opm.gov.

AM I HUNGRY?

Am I the only one around here that’s struggling to keep up with their usual schedule? I’ll have a few days where I feel like I am on track and then there will be a Monday holiday or a snow day, and it al goes to Hell in a hand basket. And any hand basket I own, which is one…I own one actual hand basket, right now is full of fire and brimstone. I take zero advantage of those days when I am not at work. In fact, I’m down right lazy, spending hours on the couch watching nonsense TV (has anyone watched Younger? I have love and hate feelings but I’ve made it to season 5). Then once I’m at work, I am AT WORK, scrambling to catch up on the things I missed while I was out. I’ve read some other musings on struggling to be motivated in tackling New Year resolutions. I’ve writing encouraging comments of having grace and going easy on yourself, which is really easy for me to type out for someone other than myself.

Tuesday morning, I peeled my body out of bed and went through my usual routine of getting ready for work. I did this almost forty five minutes earlier than usual because Michael’s school had declared Tuesday a snow day. This also meant that I had to go out and clean off my car and shovel the driveway. The snow was light and powdery, like sugar which made for easy shoveling. Basically I just pushed the shovel across the driveway from one side to the next while my car warmed up. I slowly drove my car to work on white roads. It wasn’t the worse conditions I’ve driven in, but it wasn’t great. It turned out that only me and one other person in my department had not marked themselves as “working from home” on the calendar. I did not mind. I have been trying to find time to do laser power checks on our microscopes for weeks and I keep having to reschedule because of snow or holiday or the microscope’s schedule is booked. The schedules for the microscopes on Tuesday was wide open. I managed to get a number of things accomplished and even spent an hour on my yoga mat.

The problem would be my drive home.

A steady shower of white sugar fell from the sky all afternoon. Every time I looked out my desk window, the world outside resembled a recently shaken snow globe. Every twenty minutes or so, the groundsmen in two golf cart sized snowplows would plow around the circle drive and the driveway into the parking garage. Traffic remained light to nonexistent. I know I should not have risked the drive into work, but the thought of yet another day stuck inside my tiny house was more than I could bear. One of the things that make my relationship work with Michael is that we don’t spend all day every day together. The pandemic nearly ended us or me in prison for murder. I need brain space or I get twitchy and stabby. There is something to be said about my need for this brain space if I am willing to drive through a blizzard.

I can’t handle another winter.

I say this every year. Chris and I moved here at the end of February but the weather was tolerable. We could see that this was a place that had seen snow. Piles of it were shoved into corners of parking lots, but it did not snow again after our move. The winter Chris died we only saw a dusting of snow, but the winter a year later required shoveling. This was when I was able to barely squeeze my Kia Soul into the garage which left the full length of my long driveway for me to clear all by myself. I did it! And I was so proud of myself! I woke up the next morning sore and achy but ready to go to work. Except the snowplow had blocked the end of my driveway with a two foot tall icy slush wall. And that was the year I started saying that I could not handle another winter. Yet I have. Over and over again. This year in particular feels worse and I keep getting bombarded with things regarding my favorite city where I know it is warmer. Damn the hurricane seasons. I’d take a hurricane over minus degrees. Michael just shakes his head when I mention it because the summers would be unbearable for him. Also, right now is a terrible time for a scientist to find a job (psst…Federal Funding cuts means unemployment rates increase for a whole lot of Americans).

Each day I keep reminding myself that I am not stalled out or spinning wheels going no where. I am doing things. I am no longer waiting for my kitchen sink to look gross before giving it a scrub. I’m mopping the floors once a week instead of twice a year or whenever I could no longer stand the overlaying paw print pattern on the hardwood floors. My house is clean and I have even managed to get oils for the diffuser my brother and sister-in-law gave me for my birthday. My house is clean and smells like springtime mountain air. All this snow shoveling is making me stronger. It combines cardio with weight training. People pay money for those kinds of workouts. Who cares if it took me more than hour this morning for my toes and finger tips to thaw enough to get the feeling back into them?

No, but seriously…I really don’t think I can handle another winter.

I'M LEARNING FRENCH BUT DREAMING IN JAPANESE

Ever since Michael said that we were going to try to make Paris happen this year, I’ve been channeling Yoda and saying “there is no try!” I have committed myself to learning enough French so as not to be the stupide americain in Paris. Michael tried to get through the very first Duolingo lesson and then immediately gave up. He says that he just can’t hear what is being said. I will admit that I struggled through the first three or four lessons for the very same reason, but the more I stick with it, the easier it’s getting. Now I’m trying to use phrases I’ve learned in conversation. I’ve also been listening to a lot of French pop music. I am sure my pronunciation is utter garbage, but I can read French pretty well. 

Sort of.

Meanwhile, I keep waking up at one AM from a recurring dream about a young pregnant Japanese woman who is the only survivor of a bloody assassination attack on her gang lord husband. I think it’s something I’m co-writing with Quentin Terentino because then I lay awake for the next two or so hours mentally writing out what happens to her after she flees the house and all the bloody dead bodies. I have lots of ideas, like this one: Yuri tentatively makes her way into the main living room. Gore and death surrounds her, but she feels a hand grasp her ankle. Yuri struggles to not scream but looks down to see her husband Isamu covered in blood but still gasping for air. She leans down and he draws a bloody finger tip down her cheek, lays his hand on her round full belly before letting the hand drop limply to the floor. Then he rips the chain holding a small silver key from his neck. Isamu places the key in the palm of Yuri’s hand and closes her fingers tight around it. “You are free” Isamu whispers with his last breath.

Then what happens?!?! Who was the assassin? Why was Yuri spared? Is Isamu really the father of the child she’s carrying?

I don’t know! I mean I know, but I don’t know!

Oh, hey…did you know that perimenopausal induced hives are a thing? I do. Also, I’ve been bleeding from my vagina since January 19th. 

The crazy dreaming and sleep habits are partly due to my body, but I have to admit that I’m also doing a lot of worrying. Last week was a doozy. So many things happened! One of those things was that the NIH was told to put a hard pass hold on grant reviews. For those of you who do not know, the NIH funds a lot of basic medical research. Some of you may also not realize that while I am a scientist, research facilities like mine employ a number of nonscience people (maybe even more because it takes a lot to keep a building running). Less, or in this case no grant, money means less jobs for EVERYONE. Putting people out of work doesn’t seem like a smart way to boost an economy, but maybe I just need to be patient and wait it out…

The White House budget office ordered a pause in all federal loans and grants. The directive could upend funding for local governments, disaster relief and education. -The New York Times

Anyway, I’m worried about not having a job in the future and I’m worried about my friends who are in similar situations. I’m worried about the safety of my friends who have been receiving extra amounts of bigotry and just plain hatefulness thrown at them (at times, literally). This administration hit the ground running to make this country more discriminative and are taking off their bigotry filters (if they even had any to begin with). There’s a woman I have followed in the blog community for years. She’s wonderful, writes books on being kind and spreading joy. She’s a beacon of light. Her elderly parents have been accosted multiple times in the last few months. One of those times, her father could have been seriously injured because a man pushed him off his bike. The other time, a white woman angrily yelled the n-word at both of her parents and then threatened to beat them over a parking situation. 

Is this the country that we are now? What does “Make America Great Again” truly mean? Because if this, straight up encouraging hatefulness and taking away funding that supports low and middle class citizens is the way to “make America great”, I’m not sure I want any part of being an American. And I am struggling to understand how anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ can support any of this. Leaving the country, which is something Michael and I have discussed in regards to our retirement, is becoming a more appealing idea. Chris and I, years ago, started doing this thing where we’d take vacations to where we thought we might want to live someday. We’d pretty much settled on Portland,OR and Kansas City wasn’t even on our list, but we ended up very happy with our move. Nine blissfully happy months. Anyway, maybe this is how Michael and I should consider our travel adventures, start vacationing in places we might want to retire to one day. Except Paris. I know Paris is an unsustainable retirement option. 

Especially if my retirement is fucked because I lose my job next year.