I Am a Mammal

I am back from my vacation in Colorado.  What a great time I had.  My good friend Diana made sure I was fed, got plenty of sleep, got plenty of hugs, and took me on adventures!  So from Sunday until I got to the airport on Thursday, she and husband Warren allowed me to make no decisions except to let them know when I needed to power down.  It was great!

And it was, sadly, so much better than cards, letters, phone calls, or zoom.  Why?  Because I'm a mammal.  "Hairy, viviparous and diaphragmatic."   Long distance and zoomed support just isn't enough for me.  I need to be with bodies. My limbic brain requires it.

As for our adventures, on Monday we went to see Red Rocks (pretty dang groovy space) and the town of Boulder.  Then Wednesday, we visited the wild and wonderful Meow Wolf.  And Wednesday, Ikea and the Mall!  Yay!  Not that I bought much, but it was fun looking at Ikea's rooms to get ideas for my remodel.  As for the Mall, did I really need that Hot Topic Ramones shirt?  No, but I bought it anyway.

 

Denver!

 My therapist told me that while I’m “on vacation” visiting my good friend Diana here in Colorado, I should lock up my grief in a box and leave it at home, knowing that I can return to attending to it when I get back.  So I’m hear having a great time looking at art.

I spent Friday and Saturday just wandering through the Denver Art Museum and the other galleries and museums in its neighborhood.  Because I didn’t have access to a vehicle (taxis are rare and I won’t use Uber or Lyft) and hadn’t done my research into the free scooters and bikes and because the blocks are looooong, I didn’t venture out of the museum district.

At the amazing Kirkland Museum, I talked to the lobby ticket takers on my way out, telling them how tempted I was to sit in many of the amazing chairs (and yes, I fear I wiggled my butt a bit).  

As I write this morning I’m seated in my friend Diana’s house where I’ll be until I face the mess at the Denver airport Thursday morning.  It’s a beautiful house, spacious and well designed and clean.  

But I was sad to leave the Art Hotel, an amazing place with “real” art (ie, not hotel decorations), including an “Ocean View” on the wall of a building across from the hotel.

The Reality / AND Happy Synchronicities

 

Written at 12:50

Right as I was sobbing after writing the whine below, my graduate school friend Sue G. called me from Cody, Wyoming, to tell me I'm wonderful, that she deeply values how much love I had and have for Will, and to admire the journey I'm on because I've "decided" to feel it all.  

I told her that wasn't really a decision.

She also said that in Wyoming, the custom is to sit with people who are going through a hard time.  I wish that were the custom here. 

Once again, my Holy playfellow interrupts my journey with It's message of love and survival.  

I will make it through this liminal time.  Eventually I'll figure out why I'm still alive even after my life partner is dead.

-------------------

 Written at Noon.

I'm alone most of the time.  People have stopped calling.  

The pain in my chest is untouchable.

Everybody has their own issues.

I am doing things that are pointless because that's what I can do.

I am so lonely.  The loneliness is like  a weight on my chest.  

The silence around me proves that Will was the only person who could love me as I am.  

 Why am I alive?

 

Writing and Paint

“Writing is simple, Muffy,” says Jeff MacNelly’s Perfesser in the comic strip Shoe. “First, you have to make sure you have plenty of paper. . . sharp pencils. . . typewriter ribbon. Then put your belly up to your desk. . . roll a sheet of paper into the typewriter. . . and stare at it until beads of blood appear on your forehead.”

 

So I've been sitting in front of the screen at my office, dog on a chair beside me, trying to restart my memoir.  But I can't get a handle on it right now.  Who cares?  What makes it interesting?  What do I even want to say? 

There are the sexual adventures which might be fun to read about but as a professed Christian, do I want to celebrate my misdeeds?

And should somebody who doesn't like being yelled at even attempt a public opening of her mind in our censorious age? Of their mind?

What's there to say about the moment that College Hunks Hauling Junk came to whisk away Will's rocking chair, the chair I bought him in Pocatello from a young man I later met up with in San Francisco for one night when I seduced him out of his Mormon garments?

What's there to say about his silences when I tried to negotiate our relationship openly and honestly and he would either turn away from me and remain silent or say, "Let's talk about that some other time," a time which never came?

He never explained to me why he thought an 18 year old who would follow a 41 year old home (two blocks) from a party and have sex with him (after two meetings) and who said she believed in free love would be faithful after that.

When did I start feeling sad about my lack of faithfulness?  Was it near to the time I stopped feeling angry about his inability to understand a female body?

What he angry at or proud of my affair with the New Yorker writer?  Both?  Neither?

Was he sad about or excited about being married to a confessional poet?  Both?  Neither?

And what about the fucking Almighty?  Clearly, QED, It wanted me to take care of Will.  But what the fuck does It want with me now?

Whatever It wants, over the next two days I'm going to paint two walls in the other upstairs bedroom Heritage Red.

 

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1851005-gene-fowler-writing-is-easy-all-you-do-is-stare-at-a-blank-sh/

„Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.“

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1851005-gene-fowler-writing-is-easy-all-you-do-is-stare-at-a-blank-sh/

The Medium is the Massage

 So I had a phone call with an "intuitive" on the East Coast.  A friend of a friend had recommended her as helpful.

What do I think of Mediums?  Is there truly any connection between some minds and the invisible world?  

I don't know.

Mediums could be charlatans who are just high skilled readers of people -- skilled cold readers who are either conscious of their skill as a skill or who believe their own stories of the other side.

What the fuck ever.  All I know is that I heard two very important things I needed to hear.

Jeoren Krabbeas the Psychic in Midsomer Murders, S11:E7

First, she said that an older woman was butting in and needed to send me a message.  "Has your mother passed over?"  So after naming this my mother, the Intuitive said, "She apologizes for the abuses."  Now, lucky guess?  Is there anyone who wasn't at some time abused by a parent?  Whether "authentic" or good cold reading, it was something I needed to hear.

Second, during her "interaction" with my late spouse ("remember, he is now just energy") she said that he said that he was "Very grateful" for all the care at the end, and very grateful that I never institutionalized him.  She also shared a few other things that sounded like Will but could have been good guesses.

She clearly has a particular theology/ideology that I may/may not share.  I too, as revealed by a previous post, am a magical thinker, but one who leans into the Trinity.  

Happily enough, before the phone call I'd watched the episode of Midsomer Murders in which a crazy conservative Anglican priest (played by the always excellent Anton Lesser) does battle with a self-believing psychic.

Great Blessings

 One of the greatest blessings I received in the past 4 years of care-giving was the answered prayer of September 4, 2020.

by thoughtcatalog on Unsplash

I was at the end of my rope that morning.  I don't remember why.  Perhaps because I'd stepped in human shit on my way to the bathroom that morning.  Perhaps because he had wakened in the night and wandered around the house while I tried to convince him that it was early in the morning and he should be in bed.  Perhaps I'd seen evidence on social media that morning of friends having fun without me which led me to immediate thoughts of how terrible I am and how other people, friendlier, better people, would have had so much more support from their friends and family than I have had.  

For whatever reason, I prayed to God that morning, while standing up in front of the office windows that overlooks a bend in the squiggly Deschutes River, and told the Divine, "I'm just done.  I cannot do this anymore."

And later that morning, as I've related  in a previous blogpost, Will locked me out of the house one more time (on top of everything else) and I freaked out - had an emotional overload of rage.  Maybe it was the sound of the door being closed and locked behind me while I was raking needles and picking up deer shit in the backyard.  Maybe, maybe, maybe whatever.  I wound up pounding on the front door and putting my hand through an old, wavy yellow glass panel.  I looked down at my wrist to see it geysering blood.

In that moment, God answered my prayer -- gave me a way out.  I mean, all other ways out were already at my disposal, weren't they?  And in my experience, the Holy offers mundane responses before sighing and bringing out a miracle.  I could have placed Will, as my grief therapist has said, "a million different times."  I had the money to relieve my rage and despair and give it to somebody else.  That money came to me through Will, and through my choice to stay with him and make a functional and largely happy marriage from 1990 - around 2018, when the dementia fully dashed our equality.  

When I became Will's caretaker, I committed to the work and believe I did a good, A-/B+ job, as I do at most things.  I gave myself breaks, at the insistence of therapists and the great Teepa Snow.  I stepped into his world and smiled when he forgot who I was or called me by a different name.  I made everything okay. 

So on September 4th I was very tired.  But it turned out that I wasn't as tired as I thought I was.  As soon as I saw the blood spurting and realized I could die, I slammed my right hand down on my wrist and ran into the street screaming for help.  Because it was Friday before the Labor Day Weekend, people were home and came running out.  My cross the street neighbor helped keep pressure on the wound by wrapping it super tightly (he is a mountain rescuer).  His wife called my Senior Care person.  Other neighbors called 911.  My next door dude watched Will for awhile.  I was rescued.

And since that day I have not had suicidal ideations or cutting ideations.*  I fully believe the Holy stepped into my life and offered me death and then rescued me back into a life.  A life in which I would do the hardest, most heartbreaking work I've ever done.  But it was my work -- to be present with my life partner through mental and physical dissolution to his death.  

The whole experience, in my understanding, was a burst of Divinity into my life, offering me the really, really, real choices - easy death or hard life.  I chose life.

And it was a blessing.

-----------------------------

*  It should be noted that I started cutting myself purposefully in 7th grade and started having suicidal ideations when I was a freshman in high school.  When I was a junior I asked my parents if I could see a psychiatrist because I knew there was something wrong with my thinking and they said "no, no member of our family has ever gone to a psychiatrist."  Within a year my sister Sally had murdered her child and tried to kill herself.  "Always look on the bright side of life."

Synchronicity

 Love me some synchronicity.

Dear Abby this morning answered a letter from a widow with a sorrow similar to mine (but with worse health than I).  Abby said, roughly, "Get off your butt and call people.  And get a dog!"  (Lots of arguments in the comments about that suggestion.)

Well, I agree my dog is essential right now.  He provides another warmth in the bed and a companion.  

AND I should will start calling people to set up dates and meetings.

But first, I need to prepare for this evening's movie, Au Hasard, Balthazar, considered one of the greatest of "Christian" films. In it, the role of Jesus is taken by a donkey. 

And then I need to SORT MY FUCKING TAX FILE.  Shee-it.  I'm gonna be late, I'm gonna pay fines.  Whatever.

Ironies

 

Irony 1:  The grief and suffering I experienced during my care-taking was prolonged by loving decision to care for him at home.  I've been told by professionals that if I'd institutionalized him, he would have died sooner.  I do not write this to condemn institutionalization.  I had my own plan that if he ever became violent or started to wander, I would have placed him.  But that never happened.  So I made the decision to continue caring for him in place, thus prolonging his life and my broken-heartedness.

Irony 2:  My caring for our household for 7 years and then for Will for four, two of which, like everyone else's COVID years, majorly sucked, proved to my heart that I loved him more than my own life or any other relationship.  I loved him more when he died than I did when we started living together afresh in 1990.  I volunteered with the Bend Hospice in the mid nineties in part as a way to prepare for Will's death. If he had actually died at that time, I would not have been prepared in any practical way (having little financial management experience at that time) but I don't think my heart would feel as mushy and pulverized as it does now.  And I had a job, then, and a different focus.

Later that same day . . .

Alan Cuming and Miz Elizabeth(of the Hot Sardines) pay tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.

Self-protective questions

 that I've asked of others and are now revealed for their true purpose:

1.  Do you have a support system?

2.  Are you still seeing your therapist?

3.  Do you still have your dog?

4.  Being financially secure sure helps, doesn't it? 

and the eternal Bend clerk questions:

Doing anything fun this weekend?

What are you going to do on this beautiful day?

What hasn't been said but what I hear in my head every day:

1.  Aren't you over it yet?

2.  Everybody goes through this, what makes you so special?

Other things I hear in my head are right from the Better Help Depression Commercial.  

Enneagram Type 4

 From the Enneagram Institue, a brief explanation:

 

Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.

Type Four in Brief

• Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance
• Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an
     identity)
• Enneagram Four with a Three-Wing: "The Aristocrat"
• Enneagram Four with a Five-Wing: "The Bohemian"

Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer."

The Meaning of the Arrows (in brief)

When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), aloof Fours suddenly become over-involved and clinging at Two. However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), envious, emotionally turbulent Fours become more objective and principled, like healthy Ones. Learn more about the arrows.

Examples: Rumi, Frédéric Chopin, Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky, Gustav Mahler, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Edgar Allen Poe, Yukio Mishima, Virginia Woolf, Anne Frank, Karen Blixen / Isak Dinesen, Anaîs Nin, Tennessee Williams, J.D. Salinger, Anne Rice, Frida Kahlo, Diane Arbus, Martha Graham, Rudolf Nureyev, Cindy Sherman, Hank Williams, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Maria Callas, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Ferron, Cher, Stevie Nicks, Annie Lennox, Prince, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrisette, Feist, Florence ( + the Machine) Welch, Amy Winehouse, Ingmar Bergman, Lars von Trier, Marlon Brando, Jeremy Irons, Angelina Jolie, Winona Ryder, Kate Winslet, Nicolas Cage, Johnny Depp, Tattoo Artist Kat Von D., Magician Criss Angel, Streetcar Named Desire's “Blanche duBois”

 

As Don Williams sang, "And those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me, Hank and Tennessee."