Tag: health

Humanity

so much

Lovelovemotherexpletive

bob made it through an open heart episode. A surgery in which he was laid bare. Incredible things. He lived here for a month, poor babe. My former father in law died. I spent a lot of time with that family as they moved through the days. I had to stop doing that. My friend told me that i wasn’t grounded because i was a faerie, and what about that. and i went to quaker meeting today because my son led me back. there is earth and spirit everywhere you look.

i’ve been thinking in posts and wounding myself because i don’t write anymore, so here i am, while ducking another responsibility. I don’t know, maybe i’ll just never figure it all out. its birthday/holiday/too much time right now and i’m buckling in and down and hiding behind bob’s right arm pretty regularly. just get through it. dirt and air.

its very windy. i have brussels sprouts waiting for me in the fridge. i am making hamburger helper tonight, poor children. (your mother needs comfort food.) i’ve stopped eating bags and bags of candy and it is so good, but i am full of craven craves. Also, the whole heart thing means a whole never ever approach to cigarettes, which are a very bad but enjoyable reprieve from clean air and responsibility.

things are stirred up, dust and ash, and I’m glancing out, with my hair in Viking braids, either waiting to kill something, or maybe just yell into the wind. but there is blood in my mouth, and i don’t know what that means.

see? so much.

love you, and have missed you.

kate

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Humanity

its sunday. books and bob.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

i’m home. all of my kids are here. my man bob is here, and he is recovering. (Everything went as expected and the crisis is just now losing its bubbling simmer.) There is a fire going and i have two days off in a row, plus more to come. recovery will be slow, and then leap, and then slow again. i’m glad the week of hospital is over, and he and i will have the opportunity to out-stubborn each other over and over again in the next weeks. how many times per hour do you think i can ask what his pain level is? or offer him drinks? food? we will see. i’m overly skilled at obsequiousness.

but also this:

i’ve had more time off in the past week than i usually do, because i have asked for it, and needed it, sometimes to go to the ICU, sometimes to get gift cards for nurses, and I think i’ve fallen into the woolf-y world of recognizing how much my creative brain needs more space. just having some mornings to myself this week has sent me to books, to writing. just two mornings, and the space – the space has been full, and my heart and anxiety fully engaged in another, but really, deeply, I have appreciated it. (only the space, not one other aspect. not one.) the ability to dither, to think, to idly spin in the kitchen.

I listened to Pride and Prejudice in my drives this past two weeks. I’ve also hit up a bunch of Agatha Christie. I listened to one audio detective type series which took place in the US, with an American protagonist, but it was read by a British reader, and the words were pronounced in British format and it made me insane. INSANE. Also, the Grass Harp. so beautiful, and a tree in a house and an escape. You’ll see. I set myself the task of fifty books this year, my fiftieth, and there is no way I will make it. But I’m still reading much more than I have been, so I’m thankful for the impulse.

and this:

One of the things on my list for my fiftieth year was a getaway for myself, and I booked it before all this stuff with Bob, and now I know how much I will need it. See? February, four days in a cabin stoking a woodstove and using an outhouse. There is electricity and a tiny kitchenette. Me and me. four days.

In some ways I do think I will come back different. less tied to my device, more settled in ways that are from my past, i’ll be so happy to see everyone when I get back. I’m moderately thrilled about it. I’ll add some more books to my list, I am sure. And I’ll bring plenty of socks and sweaters.

But that is not until February. And there is a whole lot that will happen between now and then, and I’m here for it, and glad of it.

love you guys,

me.

Humanity

List 1,2,3 (all things plumbing)

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Sigh.

1.i’ve got a colonoscopy tomorrow morning. I overreacted in planning, because it is my first one, and i took two days off, and now i have nothing to do except think about how hungry i am, and how much pooping I am going to do this afternoon. I’ve already cleaned out the fridge and wiped down the baseboards in the bathroom. These are the things I am doing to avoid stuffing my face with sweet bread. If you know any portuguese people, you know this bread is the most ridiculously fantastic thing to be offered to the world. But I’m avoiding food, and the basement today. So, avoidance leads me to very weird and intense spot-cleaning.

2.my basement flooded this past week, along with everyone else’s, (so much rain, in a wet winter) but because my floor is partially dirt, the wetness of the world is continuing to enter in. upwards seepage, i say, against all odds. it has knocked out my water heater for almost a week, which is just fantastic. there are two fans down there, and two pumps (thank you neighbor) and if i can get it dry enough to relight, then perhaps i will not have to buy a new one. thoughts and prayers. otherwise… tears, so many tears.

3. there was a leak in the supply hose to my toilet. a tiny, pinhole prick of a thing, which did not make enough noise for me to hear, and all that water went under the wall and was only noticed when the floor buckled up under the rug on the other side of that wall. so that is a thing. and now i wait for insurance people to tell me they’ll give me back some of the money i’ve paid them over the past decade to get it fixed. i can’t tell you how awful it feels to have my ability to fix a problem in someone else’s hands. i can’t tell you, because i am sure you know the feeling.

when it rains, it pours. (into my basement) 🙂

love you guys, hope i don’t have to add a donate button to my blog. lets all spend time hoping that, okay?

also, send love and money to gaza.

-love, me.

Humanity

Airport 2: the return

Lovelovemotherexpletive

The return always sucks. It does. Firstly you have ‘the leaving’ which is a punch in the gut.

What? I have to leave? This doesn’t go on for ever and ever? I can’t just sit and reminisce every night while the fireflies dance? No? HOW DARE YOU interject reality and flight delays into my idyll?! How fucking daaaaaare you.

But I’m here again, I’ve done this before, the leaving. It doesn’t get better and I find myself looking for ways of escaping the mundane and the daily. Its only 24 hours later. One of the ways I tried to shake it up was going to the ER for six hours last night. This was not a good idea, but my brain spent a hell of a lot of time convincing itself that I was going to go septic from an infection and die without seeing my kids again. (they are at their dad’s this whole week for their once a year ‘whole week’ with their dad.)

This is most definitely not a good way to escape, and I would not suggest this to anyone, for any reason. Between the airport and the ER, I have seen the tops and bottoms of humanity. Literally. ALthough I suppose the 1 percent at both ends don’t use public airports. true. My brain, i think, leapt on the opportunity that having the kids all tucked away provides. All of a sudden, she did the math, realized she was working every other day this week and the timesuck could only be squeezed in to the one spot, directly after disembarking. One must schedule these emergencies, you see.

you can take the kids away from the mother, but you cannot take the mother out of the mother.

Its only been a little over 24 hours since I left and I’m bumming. I spent more time with a lot of Wisconsin nurses than you’d ever believe, and it was lovely, and I have a new appreciation for how different cultures can be within a group that looks ‘just like the other one’. Nope. Not the same. I ate cheese curds and learned how to make a mojito. Very delicious, I might add. My suggestion is white rum. Or leave it out and just have the rest. Very delicious.

I miss my best friend and wish I could see her more than once a year. But I think we are lucky we can both swing that, so I guess I’ll rest there, in the morass of humanity crawling and flying at all the different stages.

And maybe I’ll get caught up on the laundry. or that book I’m supposed to be writing.

man in blue crew neck shirt wearing black framed eyeglasses
Yeah, you know this guy had to hold this pose *just too long. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
Humanity

Trigger-happy

Lovelovemotherexpletive

So I spent a handful of hours in a freefall of being triggered by old stuff this week. I’m trying to distance myself from the actual person involved, and just talk about the sensations. Its not easy, frankly, as there are so many parts of me that place blame squarely at his plate. And while it is true that he is unsufferably certain of my unimportance, or irrelevance, it is up to me to see that as a problem he has, not proof that I am those things.

You get this?

Man, am I a work in progress…. shit, man. I keep thinking I’m done, I’m through being crippled by my own thoughts, and then whamm-o, a sinkhole. I know I’m a thousand times better, I am. I’m not carrying the anxiety on my shoulders, I’m not afraid all the time. I’m lucky enough to have a sister who is a social worker with years of therapy under her belt who can call me out of a spiral so well. Very lucky.

I’ve planted hundreds of seeds guys, and the metaphor is with me. There is so much growth happening, in the tiniest of ways and the germination rate is 93%. Get that? All these tiny things, 93% of them grow into something. So keep planting. Keep on keeping on.

On a side note, I’m going to have a shit ton of habanada pepper plants. A shit ton.

Let me know if you have need of a habanada pepper plant. I’ve got a SHIT TON.

love you, and that’s where I’m at. Love. I’m resting on that laurel, baby.

  • kate
woman in white shirt and brown hat sitting on purple flower field
THIS IS NOT ME< THIS IS NOT WHAT I HAVE GOING ON, believe me very very much.
Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva on Pexels.com