Waiting for My Eyes to Adjust

I start my day early--at dark:thirty--to keep on Eastern Time work schedules.

And I have a ritual that gets me started:
1. turn on the light - I can't sleep with the light on, so light helps me know it's time to get out of bed
2. splash water on my face - It has to be cold water to shock my system from the netherworld of semiconsciousness.
3. brush my teeth - now my mouth is awake, even if my eyes aren't
4. take meds - more on that in a later blog - thank God for meds!!
5. deodorant - preventative
6. perfume - a light scent that makes me know I'm getting ready for my Big Girl job
7. get dressed - once I've put my socks on, I'm ready for the day, with one exception:
7. make-up - I'm not fooling anybody at this point. It's just an effort not to scare small children and animals. And it tells me that my business day has begun.

Remember, it's still at least 3 hours before sunrise where I live, so the last thing before going downstairs to my desk is to turn off the bedroom light. It is then that I stand for a few seconds in total darkness until my eyes adjust to the night light in the hall so that I can make my way down the stairs to the first thing of my business day--coffee!

Being a charter member of P.O.E.M. (Professional Organization of English Majors--shout out to Garrison Keillor), the metaphor of waiting for my eyes to adjust resonates in my soul. 

That's what I've been doing since the first week of October! Waiting for the condo to look like home to me. Waiting for my room to be my room. Waiting for the view out the window--breathtaking though it is--to be the look of home. Waiting for the newness to wear off. Waiting to feel a sense of place, a sense of belonging, a sense of "rightness" to it all.

Friends say that it will take time and I know that. And, once things are settled from Back There, and I "have my things around me" (Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man), especially Mother's piano, Here will begin to feel like home. There are many "once"s that may have to happen MORE than once. I get that, both in my head and in my heart.

So, here I stand, in the dark, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Maybe that's why they've been water logged recently.... 

Why? Because!

My grandchildren will never know me as an adult, and that's not fair.

I always wanted to know my grandparents as more than the ones in Texas who shook their shoulders and turned red but did not make a sound when they laughed. They were the ones who snored so loudly I had a hard time going to sleep in the next room. Or the ones closer to us geographically. They were polar opposites: he big, raw-boned and brusque; she tiny and quick with a twinkle in her eye.

I heard recently--by the way, I remember a lot of what I hear so I can appear smart when I repeat it--that it takes only two generations for a person to be forgotten. That bothers me. No one should forget Roy Carroll or Jim Hall or Lois Anderson or Marguerite McCaskill or Hank Greer or Paul Bullington or Helen Maples. And to be perfectly honest and narcissistic, I don't want to be forgotten either.

Because I love my grandchildren (born and yet to be born). Because I've been invisible in many ways for a great deal of my life. And because they may one day wonder why they remember the words to songs that were written before 1950 or why symmetry makes a difference in sentence structure or interior design or why they bite their fingernails or--my goodness, there are so many "becauses" that I want them to know about.

And, I get to give them my version of stuff!

I Became Old....

2/25/11

I became old yesterday. No warning, just the pin pricks of humiliation which let the air of dignity and vitality seep out of my soul silently and unnoticed .

Funny thing is they thought they were helping. Let’s get Mom out of the house. Let’s make her feel special.

So I went to yoga class in my daughter’s place. Great idea! Most of the people are your age, Mom. You wouldn’t believe how agile and flexible they are! I’ll take you, show the baby off, and then you can get a ride home with my friend.

So I went. Because I would like to get out of the house. Because I would like to meet people my age. Because I do need to become more active. And because Daughter sees this as a fix for Mom. See, I couldn’t say I won’t go until I can pay for it myself. I won’t go unless it’s my idea. I won’t go to make you feel better about making me feel better. For some reason I didn’t put the pieces together until we were in the car on the way. Daughter will show the baby off—they were there during her pregnancy and she wants to show off his perfect head, chubby cheeks, exquisite eyes, and maybe even his universe-warming smile. And, oh, by the way, I’m not staying and I’ll ask Friend to give you a ride home.

Hmmm. I have a car, but I don’t know how to get there. I have a purse, but I don’t bring it—I don’t really need it, and what’s more, it’s empty—moths have inhabited the zippered sleeve where the dollar bills once lived. I have a brain, and a will, and a say in how my life will be lived, but I don’t use any of those things, because it’s all been arranged and thought out and decided upon.

Son-in-Law has a late afternoon job, so that’s why Daughter has to deal with the Baby. And she doesn’t want to impose on me to extend my Baby Duty time, because that’s not fair, and she’s all about “fair”. So they figure it out and it’s a foregone conclusion that the evening has been planned and I’m “taken care of”.

The plan works perfectly for Daughter. Class members are astounded by how big, beautiful, calm Baby is. “Can’t be 7 months! Just can’t be! Look at his hair—it lays down beautifully. Look at those cheeks. We are so glad you brought him to let us share in your joy!”  The nonchalant, “Can you give Mom a ride?” to Friend. Friend had already figured this out without having to be told or asked. And off Daughter and Baby go into the night, leaving Mom in the care of Yoga Instructor and Friend. What could be better?

How about a poke in the eye? Bamboo shoots under the fingernails? Liver and onions? Stretched on the rack? Yeah, those could be options.

Daughter and Friend hate it when newcomers hold up class to ask Yoga Instructor about poses or pain or am I getting this or stuff that you should have learned in the first couple of weeks. Well, guess what, this is my second class. And I don’t know what I’m doing. And it hurts like my first love breaking up with me. And I can’t ask questions or get help, because I would become one of them. And, guess what. I am one of them. The old people who rise slowly, who totter, who use the handrails. I just do those things so much better than they do, because I’m not as agile as they are, and because I keep my mouth shut. So an hour in unbearable pain, cold to the point of shaking, and Yoga Instructor checking on me, calling me “Madam” because she’s only met me once before, and I’m not the important one here, remember. Daughter (with Baby, or without Baby) and Friend are her people, not the substitute decrepit, coreless dupe who lies there with silent eye-water streams being absorbed into her hairline, trying not to scream.

Friend is very helpful and on Daughter’s side. In the car on the way home Friend reminds me how much I am loved and how much they (Daughter, Son-in-Law, Baby) need me and want me, so I should accept where I am, how things are. Hmm, I reply, realizing that she doesn’t get it. Daughter and Son-in-Law don’t get it. So why rail out?

Of course, I don’t have my house key—it’s on my key chain in the purse I didn’t bring with me because I wouldn’t need it. Daughter is not home—she harrumphed off to get Baby food. Son-in-Law is caring for Baby, who is screaming in his ear so he can’t hear the doorbell ringing as I stand in the cold wet rain with Friend waiting in the car to make sure Ole Mom is safely in the house. Oh, yeah, did I say I didn’t have my cell phone with me either? You guessed it—in the not-needed purse.

Friend calls Daughter. Daughter calls Son-in-Law. Son-in-Law plods down sixteen flights—no just four—to unlock the door.

The Perfect Evening ends publicly for me with a handful of corn chips, a finger full of peanut butter, and a hot bath and half a sleeping pill. “I have to get up early, so I’ll call it a night….”

Did I mention I’m reading a book entitled The Me I Want to Be? And the key to becoming the person you want to be is surrender. So I’m supposed to surrender to helplessness, to dependence, to being taken care of.  To being “handled” without consultation. And to being happy that I’m being taken care of. Yeah, like that’s going to happen!!

Now I know why people in nursing homes wander the halls nekked and bite their caregivers!

Invisible Tattoo

For those of you who thought I might have lost my mind using this word in the title of my blog, I begin with two definitions:

Tattoo (noun)
1. a rapid rhythmic rapping
2. a: a call sounded shortly before taps as notice to go to quarters
    b: outdoor military exercise given by troops as evening entertainment

Tattoo (noun)
1. the act of tattooing; the fact of being tattooed
2. an indelible mark or figure fixed upon the body by insertion of pigment under the skin   or production of scars

Invisible Tattoo.
The rapid rhythmic rapping that goes on inside my head that sometimes drowns out rational thought and reason.
The call to go to bed--ever a clarion call in my world.
The mild entertainment that I offer to fellow travelers in the last third of my journey. The indelible marks I have left--some not so nice--on others.
The indelible marks that make me who I am, scars-'n'-all.
And, the invisible tattoo that Daughters say is emblazoned on my forehead: "Tell me your life story." For those who could see the message and and who have responded with jaw-dropping stories, thanks!

And, thanks to you who are and will read these ramblings. Let me know what you think--good, bad, indifferent.... I'll begin with some writing I've done in the last couple of months, just to prime the pump.