Too Soon Part Deux

 I was chosen to be one of the readers for an online creative writing reading event this afternoon and made it through one of the Sentenced to Venice poems I'd chosen and then broke down during the second one because I had foolishly chosen the one that ended his funeral.  I'd had a good lunch and was actually believing I could do it.  I even made a "Buy My Book" sign to put behind me on the zoom (though I didn't do so). But I made it through the first line and then couldn't continue.  Sigh. 

Only the second time I've ever left the stage in tears.

Once again, harder than I thought it would be.

Ridi.

Another Cancelled Trip

 Back in the day when I was just imagining widowhood, I thought I'd immediately fly to Italy and spend a week in Venice just wandering around.  That imagining occurred way back in 2016, when I didn't know what the Universe or God or what-the-fuck-ever had in store for me.

I thought I wanted to go to New York City next week.  Once again, it turns out I don't.  I'm feeling like I can't manage anymore travel until April.  And it would be too sad to be in NYC without Will, even though I've done it before.  I'm still crying too much everyday.

So once again I cancelled.  I'm sad that I'm cancelling Winston's vacation too, but I think I'll give his carer some money just to say, "Sorry." 

I'm right now stuck in Eugene because the passes are thick with snow.  This morning, after my sister left for work, I went to Les Schwab to buy chains for the rental car and then to Fred Meyers to buy a blanket and a winter car kit.  I was planning to try and drive over today but a quick check of trip check has dissuaded me. I'll stay one more night here and then try tomorrow.

I'm feeling very old and tired and sad. 

Fortunately, the Mitzi and Winston Show is providing some entertainment.

Too Soon

 I thought it would be fun to come up to Portland to visit with my old U of U friend Alexis when she went to the Western States Communication Association convention.

It hasn't been.  

It's been good seeing friends, but I found that all the fresh-faced youngsters in their ill-fitting suits to be discomfitting and maddening.  Seven years as a dementia carer has made the academic race seem like a bunch of bullshit.  I found myself getting angry at the desperation of the young and ennui of the old farts.  I know that I'm only assuming those emotions -- they're my projections.  But I couldn't stop wanting to tell them, like Qoheleth, that all is vanity of vanities.

Nevertheless, it was good to hang out with my friend and her teenage daughter and tell her the story of how my friendship with one of our major professors terminated.

I also saw my wonderful poet friend Judy yesterday and had a fine lunch of homemade Swedish meatballs.  Today I'll see friend Kathy and then, instead of going home over the pass, I'll go back to Eugene because the passes are pretty much closed.  This vacation may be longer than expected.  I may need to call the folks coming on Tuesday to do measuring to back off.

It's been a bit of a challenge traveling with the little dog.  He doesn't eat when he's supposed to and his presence isn't desired in all settings that I would visit.  Nevertheless, he was very good at staying in the car yesterday while I went to see the wonderful Frida Kahlo Exhibit at the Portland Art Museum.  Sadly, yesterday was the opening and the galleries were packed so I didn't bother to read every panel or stare intently at every photograph and painting.  I think what I liked the best were paintings by other Mexican modernists because I hadn't seen any of them before.  

Tears for Fears

 I hear that crying is good for folks.  

Emotional crying, that is.  Seems it releases oxytocin* and endorphins, if you do it long enough.

If so, this has been a healthy few days for me.  I've been pretty sad and then I ran out of my anti-depressant and missed a dose and when that happens, my brain gets released into whatever sorrow it can stand.  Most of the time, my sertraline* prevents tears except the most dramatic.

So, it's good to cry and I do when the tears appear.

Unlike my mom, who died when she was just five years older than I am now.  I never saw her grieving over the tragedy of my older sister.  I've long thought that her lack of public grieving, not just the years of cigarette smoking, was in part responsible for her death.  "Studies have linked repressive coping with a less resilient immune system, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension, as well as with mental health conditions," writes Leo Newhouse at Harvard.

I zoom with my wonderful grief therapist later today and then I'm heading up to Portland.  Right now I'm in Eugene (dear thieves -- please, break into my house and steal all my books!) where Winston and I stayed overnight with my sister and her lovely new kitty, Mitzi.  

Winston has been learning that it's not good to run up to kitties to sniff their butts.  His attempts to make friends have provided some lovely comic relief.

I had to drive a rental car over to Eugene because my Bolt still can't travel from Bend to any-fucking-where outside.  Reminding me of what Ward Tonsfeldt, Humanities chair, told me when I was interviewing at COCC -- "you need to be a claustrophile to live here, because it's locked in in the winter."

But now it's my car that has keeps me stuck so I needed a rental.  At the last minute they told me "no pets in the car".  Well, that's kind of like hotels telling me not to let Winston on the bed.  Hahahahahahaha.

As for Bend being locked in -- our winters grow milder and milder -- it's been absolutely beautiful this February.  Thank you Global Climate Change.

Oh, and sorry if you got to this blog because you're a fan of 80s pop.

 

 

 

 

*Dear Blogger -- please learn some science -- these chemicals are not misspelled.

Fluffy sheep and cute baby goats, part 2

Matthew's version of the Savior is pretty clear about judgement:  "Judge not."  (7:1)

Here Jesus is once again giving us freedom.  Judgement of others and of ourselves can be a burden.  It may require us to do emotional labor.  By telling us to avoid a particular kind of judgement, JC frees us from emotional labor.

Lambs playing football from The Argus

But Paul calls on us to be aware of ourselves, to test our faith. (2 Corinthians 13:5).  This, I think, is discernment, not judgement.  

I don't like the part of me that still judges others.  When I hear that same kind of judgement out of the mouths of those same others, I bridle in such a way that one must assume a nerve has been hit.  

So I am a work in progress. Sometimes feeling sheepish.  Wondering if I'll ever feel goatish again.  (Reminding me of the great play, The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia?)

And today I really miss him.  It's Superbowl  Sunday and the house is quiet until I start livestreaming the movie Dear White People as our February (Black History Month) Second Sunday Cinema selection.  This was a special day every year when I especially valued not being married to someone who enjoyed spectator sports even as the rest of the country watched the ritual.

Side note:  one of the first academic articles in cultural studies I read was about the Super Bowl as national ritual.  Can't remember the writer or the title, sadly.  But I'm sure it's out there somewhere among the dozens of "Buy Your Super Bowl essay" sites.  Just google "cultural studies" "Super Bowl".

Sheeping and Goating

I'm currently working through some judgementalness.

I call it sheeping and goating.  You know, from Matthew's image of Jesus on a throne separating people into sheep and goats, sheep in the right, goats on the left.  " ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³ and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left^."

The sheep are those who take care of others, the goats are those who didn't. "‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’"

The judgements with which I am struggling are of those who said/say they love me or care about me who were not present for me during my seven years of struggle with Will's dementia.  

For example:  A woman I know came up to me at the funeral to hug me.  This woman never helped me.  She isn't even a friend, she's the wife of a former colleague.  Yet she felt she had the right to hug me.  Maybe because she believed the bereaved value every moment of affection.  But as she hugged me I was thinking, "Well, fuck you anyway."

This is the judgementalness I want to get rid of.  I want to stop being angry at people who send me "thoughts and prayers" and who think that I am feeling worse now in my freedom than I did in my confinement as I took care of my sick and dying spouse.  I don't want to be angry with people who of course didn't understand about walking in piss, about cleaning up shit, about the whole struggle that I went through with little to no family help outside of 4 days this most recent September (for which I am eternally grateful to my sister Betz).

And that's another thing.  The way people would say to me, while I was caregiving, "Do you have any family here?" to put off their own discomfort of wanting to help me but being unable to do so.

And then there was the friend who told me, in the midst of my grief, that I lacked perspective.

Of course I lack perspective.  

I am moving through an ontological change.  I miss my non-demented partner every day.  But I even miss my demented partner every day.  Because even in dementia he looked at me with those eyes full of love.

And now he's gone.  Forever.  The sounds in the house are not him.  The tall person I see out of the corner of my eye is not him.  I will never see him again.