On Repeat

Inspirational song: Any Major Dude Will Tell You (Steely Dan)

Another day, another park. I had to run an errand before we went walking this evening, so we tried a random park on the way home. It had some nice trails, a disc golf course, and almost nothing for the game my roommate plays. We walked in circles for about half an hour before I knew I'd had enough. I was so happy to have the increase in energy yesterday to double all of my goals, yet this morning when I woke I could barely move because I was so sore. Today it was all I could do to total a little over 50 minutes all day. It's frustrating, this constant back and forth between health and disability. No matter how many times I have proof to the contrary, I want to think of myself as a whole, healthy, and capable person. I can't yet wrap my head around how far that is from my current truth.

I thought I had been sleeping better lately. I started having noise in the bedroom at night, and I found it helped me stay asleep for longer stretches at a time. At first I had lectures by that philosopher playing, but it was problematic because the screen wouldn't go dark while YouTube was playing, so there was light in my room all night. So I switched to the "yacht rock" station on internet radio, that will keep playing with the screen off. It has been mellow, but the playlist is so small, I get tired of hearing the same Steely Dan, 10cc, Rupert Homes, and Eagles songs over and over. Even when I'm asleep, I think I am aware that songs are repeating in a short time span. The problem I am finding, is that while I'm staying waking fewer times during the night, I don't seem to be slipping into the deepest levels of sleep. I don't always dream. I'm not sure I'm really getting the healing aspects of sleep. Several times today, I felt myself nodding off, even in the middle of conversations. Is the trade off worth it? I hated waking up every ten minutes to adjust my temperature, either pulling blankets over myself or throwing them off and pointing the fan at whichever part of me was roasting the most. Maybe it's worth continuing the experiment for a while.

I wish I had more to write. I feel like there is a lot brewing under the surface, but I'm stuck just letting it simmer. I don't know what will happen when it bubbles to the top. Will it be profound? Will a cesspool of bitterness spill out? Will I have an inspirational epiphany? I have to wait it out and wonder. I hope it's interesting, whatever it is.

Step by Step

Inspirational song: I Will Follow (U2)

I wasn't imagining it. I really am getting closer to my happy place. Things I had been dreading are completed now, and sandbags full of stress are falling off of me. It's like being in a hot air balloon and shedding ballast. This evening, the roommate and I went for our normal walk at the park with the little lake, for him to catch Pokemon and for me to follow along for the exercise and entertainment, and it was a glorious night. There were giant thunderheads to the south, and the electrical storm inside of them never stopped, not for a minute. I told him it felt special to me, like we'd won a prize or were in the bonus round somehow, getting to be out with that light show. The cloud formation reminded us of the scene in Fantasia where Zeus was throwing out copious thunderbolts. We were both in excellent moods, walking quickly and joking the whole way around. We even did two full loops of the lake and park trails, because we felt so electrified by the looming storm. A mere month ago, I was getting tired and my knees were aching over traveling twenty minutes around a few city blocks. Tonight we walked briskly for closer to fifty minutes, and it wasn't until well past mile two that my hips, knees, and feet started to complain to me. The progress is going so much faster than I ever imagined. This is definitely the path to my happy place.

For the record, I know I have trouble posting videos on this blog, mostly because I'm not as tech savvy as I pretend to be. So I put a short video of the lightning on the Scenes From Smith Park Facebook page, if you are interested in seeing the show we saw.

I'm not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I have been outed as an artist for the Rotary group. After the pie plates and the work I did on the signs for the parade float, they have a small idea what I'm capable of. So today, after the meeting, the current president came up to me and asked me to make signs to put up for our other fundraiser, selling Palisade peaches from a parking lot not all that far from this house. The former mayor was standing right next to us when I got the assignment, and she heard my question about whether he wanted me to affix signs to the streetlight posts or what. She put her hand on my arm and said, "Please don't do that. That's actually illegal." So it looks like it may be time for me to invest in my first sandwich board, which I ought to have available for open houses anyway. I wonder where to buy them.

My paperwork that I dreaded for months is complete, notarized, and ready to be submitted in the morning. That was the biggest sandbag full of stress to fall away. I am so relieved that my friend took me under her wing and led me through this process. After all that she did for me, I would follow her through hell and back if she asked me to. As it is, I am taking all of her advice to heart, and doing exactly as she instructs me to do. I don't need to start improvising now. I'll take the well-worn path.

Taffeta, Darling

Inspirational song: Pure Imagination (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

I've tried not to dwell on celebrity news, either in this blog or in life in general, but today was one of those times when it was too much not to pause and reflect. My daughter wrote me in the middle of the day to warn me that I wouldn't like the news, and she was mostly correct. I was not happy to hear that Gene Wilder passed away today, but I was not surprised. The last few times I had seen pictures of him, candid paparazzi type shots, he looked like time had ravaged him. I found myself accepting that his end had come, and I was able to let go with a whispered thank you to him for all of the years of entertainment he has provided to me specifically and to the world at large. He was always one of my special favorites, one of my biggest crushes, and one of my heart's treasures. I've been quoting him and copying him for as long as I can remember. When I was a child, I thought it was terrific fun to act like Willy Wonka from when you first see him in the movie, hobbling along on a cane until you suddenly pitch forward into a somersault. That became one of my signature moves, for as long as my body allowed me to do it. (It didn't survive my teen years.) By the time I'd lost the roll, I was old enough to notice how my heart would flutter whenever the camera focused on that intense blue gaze of his. That move never went away. I know a lot of us feel like our childhoods have died a little today, but I am comforted that I still have every bit of him that I ever did. I have my memories, and I have copies of his movies. He'll be with me forever. I can let him go.

I feel like I've survived a big test of my strengths lately. The fundraiser is over except for the after action reports (both for how well Rotary did, and the report to my volunteer coordinator about how many hours were contributed by my team, and photos for the company website). I went to my play yesterday. I had a meeting this morning with an advisor. And tomorrow I will have my disclosures completed and notarized, and one of my big stressors will be gone. I've spent the afternoon and evening feeling practically giddy. I made it through the other side of the gauntlet with only a few bumps and bruises, plus the one gaping wound (you know the one). Now I can start to look at the things I've put off for weeks, like cleaning and organizing the house, addressing the yard and gardens, and learning how to be an independent adult again. Plus, football. It's time for that again, and that makes me very happy.

I did do far more in the yard than I really had the physicality to handle, but I kept going anyway. I finally wound more string on the weed eater, and tried attacking the rings around the feature plants in the front yard with it. I made it around one and three quarter rings before the battery died, so while that charged, I tried my new claw tiller to try to dig up weeds around the patio. I did that for over an hour, while my roommate mowed, and then I popped the battery back into the weed eater and finished more of that task. I had just gotten to my stopping place when the skies opened and drenched the city for the next hour. By the time I came inside I was profoundly sore and tired, but in the weirdest good mood. We giggled like kids over the idea of having pizza (GF) for dinner and then kicking back in the hot tub, like we were getting away with something. I'm not sure what changed, other than surviving the things that were dragging me down. But as I run headlong into the next manic phase, I find that I can't regret it, or even dig up the slightest bit of guilt for feeling it. It's a day to be at peace.

Gentrified

Inspirational song: Masquerade (Phantom of the Opera)

I've been thinking about the person I was in the 1980s a lot today. By the mid-80s, I had moved to Colorado, and was spending a lot of time in downtown Denver, mostly on the weekends. My brother lived in a condo right in the heart of downtown, steps from the pedestrian mall on 16th St and fancy shopping center located there (back in the heyday of shopping malls, when that was the ultimate place for teenagers to want to spend time). The Tabor Center mall is still there, but I'm not sure in what capacity. I haven't set foot in it in so many years I can't remember my last trip there. Same with the condo building. Whenever I find myself on that mall, I remember those halcyon days, living like a yuppie and sneaking into bars and clubs with my older brother, rarely being carded when I ought to have been. I used to imagine I'd be able to afford a condo across the street from my brother, in Writers Square. I loved being down there. By the time I graduated college and started a family, I'd fallen out of love with the idea of living downtown in a big city like that, but it's still fun to remember when it seemed cool.

This afternoon we made an enjoyable trip downtown, my BFF and I, to see another play at the DCPA. This weekend's offering was the Phantom of the Opera. I have never seen it live before. I've only seen the movie once, if I am not mistaken. I don't know why, but I missed out on the Phantom craze when I was a teenager. There were some musicals I really loved in the 80s, but that one and Les Mis went right past me. It has only been in the last ten years that I started really paying attention to the songs, and realizing that they were pretty cool. I have a few issues with the plot of the play (and apparently so does my daughter, I have learned), but I could not find even a single tiny flaw with the singing, instrumentation, costumes, dancing, or set design today. I was riveted. I believe the proper term for how my BFF and I reacted was "Squee!" I tried to sneak a photo of the chandelier at the end, before we filed out of the theater (and when it was too late to get kicked out if they caught me taking a picture inside). I just flicked the camera up, tapped the button, and closed the phone. I didn't look and see how the photo came out until later. It was absolutely unusable. Just a blur.

We have been wanting to take the new train into downtown for a while. We intended to do it for the last play, Beautiful, the Carole King Musical, but I arrived too late to catch it from the new station. My friends have been eagerly awaiting the opening of this particular train station. They had invested in rental property very near this station, and have been monitoring progress, knowing that it was going to raise their property values. They bought on the assumption that gentrification was coming and that the neighborhood was going to be totally revitalized. They just had to hang on and survive the bumpy ride at the beginning. It was a scary, stressful process for them, but they are finally seeing the return on their investment of blood, sweat, and tears. And as I rode the train for the first time, I saw how close this area is to its gentrified goal. The station is still under construction, getting new street access and parks and fountains all around it, but it's running and functional. New homes were being built along the route. It took us straight to Union Station in about 10 minutes, as smooth and easy as you could want. I couldn't stop saying how pleased I was to see all the progress Denver has made toward efficient, pleasant public transportation. Now if the light rail would only come to Boulder county, like it has been promised for years and years. Instead, Boulder got an expensive new toll lane on the highway leading up to it, gobbling up all of the right of way where a train ought to have gone. Such progress on one side, such money grubbing BS on the other.

The Grand Melee

Inspirational song: Fugazi (Marillion)

Did you know that heavy cream, as it sours in the warm sun, gets really stinky and really slippery? Now hundreds of people in my adopted hometown know it, in intimate detail. But all that aside, today was a good day. Long, tiring, and hot, but good.

When I decided to make this my mandatory agent volunteer project for my brokerage, there were two people signed up on the pie-making list, one person signed up for set-up, and no one signed up for cleanup. We kept sending around volunteer sign-up sheets at Rotary meetings, and they came back without a single new pen mark, for weeks in a row. So I thought I was going to come in like a hero with my team. And then a couple of days ago, the sign up sheets were completely full, and they were talking about people coming as early as 6 am to set up tables and build pies. By the time we arrived at 9 as planned, the other crews had gone through all of the whipped cream pie making, and there was little to do except go get coffee and wait for the next wave of tasks. We did as we were bade, and had breakfast, and then came back to help set up the scene and check in people who had tickets or needed to buy them. I was back on duty with the credit card register on my phone, and my volunteers were scattered around the block, giving ponchos to arriving participants, hosing whipped cream off of teams after each heat, and filling in as needed. It wasn't quite the organized feat I'd hoped to pull off, but it was greatly appreciated as the contest got underway and hundreds of people filed past us.

The lessons we learned were many. This sort of thing takes months more planning that we gave it. The team competition went on way too long. We should have made more pies, or had fewer team heats. It would be better done when the weather is a little cooler, although I had thought an 83 degree day would have been sufficiently cool. (I was wrong.) We needed to have a clear presentation of the needs and processes to all volunteers. And we needed to make sure the public understood that the cream we used was not wasting food. It was at its expiration date, and thus unsellable, and donated by the local dairy. It still wouldn't have helped the guy last night who asked me whether they would be vegan pies, and who declined to buy a ticket because they weren't. Ah, Boulder county.

While I have my opinions about how the team competition can be improved, it did prove very popular with the participants. There were three teams for kids 10 and under, and I caught up with the winning team at the end. They had my favorite pie-themed name of all the teams, adult or child: The Rhubarbarians. They liked the trophy I made, and all of the kids signed it in Sharpie so it would be a memento for them all. It made me so happy. In fact, both of my trophies were well-received. I got pictures of the presentation of the other one too, and a team of teenagers took the top prize. I also snapped a photo of the mayor as he was checking in and being interviewed. He won his face-off with the superintendent of schools by a vote of the crowd. There were several people in themed costumes, some of whom I managed to capture in digital imagery as well.

I had one pie to throw in the grand melee at the end. They were running out of pies and ended up asking people to throw one instead of two, and to hand off one to people who had none if they had already picked up their two. I had been fairly well covered with my plastic poncho, and was starting to collect plates off the ground to throw away when what I assume was a total stranger looked at my clean (ish) hair and asked, "How did you remain unscathed?" She then plunked a nearly-full pie directly on my hairline. I just laughed. It was the whole point of the day. By the time I came home, completely exhausted, crawling into bed, the cream had dried in my hair and started to sour significantly. I had to lie in bed for more than an hour before I just couldn't tolerate it and went to shower it out. I'm pretty sure the smell has lingered in my room, though. Not the best souvenir from the day. There were many others that were much better.

Walking the Streets

Inspirational song: Tarzan Boy (Baltimora)

Oh, sweet raisin danish, there is not a single inch of my body that doesn't hurt right now. It's a little flashback to what life was like before I started treatment this year. Any day I want to complain about having to take 15 or so pills every single day of my life, I can think about how it feels to forget the morning set, and then go do pretty much anything. Once upon a time, I made a habit of sewing clothes. I rarely used patterns. Instead I spread fabric out on the largest open surface (the floor) and I sat next to it for hours designing free-form shapes on the fabric from which three dimensional works of art would appear. I always felt a hundred years old after one of those floor sessions, even while I was in my twenties and thirties. My hips and legs would hurt, my back would ache, and my arms would be sore and weak. Obviously now I understand why sitting on the floor was so particularly rough on me, but back then I had to listen to all sorts of people tell me I just needed to toughen up and do it more to train myself, or some such nonsense. Between the three days this week that I've been doing floor work, making the vinyl signs for the pie throw down tomorrow, I have reminded myself one of the biggest reasons I gave up sewing. It freaking hurts.

I'm really not sure anyone actually saw the sign I had done for tonight, the one for ticket sales and check-in. The check-in part is for tomorrow, but it seemed convenient to have it all on one sign. It was hanging in the back of our tent for the Festival on Main all night, and I don't think anyone looked that far back. They were too distracted by the activities in the front. One of our committee leaders brought two copies of the pie in the face game, the one where you put your face in a cutout, chin on a platform, and turn a handle a varying number of clicks until the lever springs and throws whipped cream in your face. I'm pretty sure we had at least a third of the youth population in town come through to try it out. It was quite popular. It was a great lure to bring over families so we could tell them about the activities tomorrow. Unfortunately, for the scores of people who were interested and said they wanted to do it, maybe twenty went ahead and bought their tickets tonight from me. Maybe the other folks sold more with cash that I didn't see, but that's as many times as I scanned cards on the Square for my phone. And most of those were the discounted kids' tickets. I had better see a lot of the folks who swore they'd come tomorrow turn back up in the morning. Otherwise we are going to be a couple hundred shy of the world record we claimed to be breaking. (Again, just randomly throwing out numbers. I have no idea how many tickets are sold overall.) We know for sure that we've made our costs back, and are operating in the black, but I don't know if we will hit the fundraising goal for youth programs that we set.

The chaos of the street festival was every bit as overwhelming to me as these things always are. It's all well and good to see the crowds go by, with people in costumes and kids playing with the little lighted toys that always come out for these events. But when I am responsible for trying to hail passers-by and convince them to part with money, it's incredibly exhausting. I was at our booth for five hours, with my happy, approachable face on, and it wore me out. And I have to be up super early tomorrow to pick up food for my volunteers and be there before they show up. And somewhere before bedtime I have to put the finishing touches on the kids' team trophy and clear coat it and the adult one, and finish coloring in one more sign. Ouch. At least once I got home I took a whole day's worth of pills at once. Is it too late to expect them to help?

Nothing

Inspirational song: What a Fool Believes (Doobie Brothers)

The immersion in the recorded works of Alan Watts continues. I have tried to listen to him at bedtime, but that has proved troublesome. I bring his recordings up on YouTube on my iPad, and try to focus on his words more than his voice. Then I wake up an hour or so later, my iPad steadily draining battery because the screen was on the whole time, and I turn it off. Then I find I'm wide awake, and can't sleep until I start the whole process over again. His lectures are frighteningly soothing in a dark room at midnight, let me tell you. So instead, this morning I tried setting it up on the laptop while I went about my business, and was finally able to stay awake and pay attention for more than ten minutes. In some respects, he is very reflective of the times in which he taught. There is a lot of interest in zen, a lot of discussion of sexuality as if it were scandalously progressive, and repeated odes to the glory of LSD. Ah, the Sixties. Regardless, he is still very interesting and relevant to a lot of the things I'm going through and thinking of these days.

Today's passages, in between the suggestions that LSD was A-OK (I'll have to take his word for that--never tried and probably never will), frequently dealt with the contrasts of something versus nothing. Of the bright white hotness of the stars and of the vast near-nothingness in between. Of the pulsing rhythm of matter. Of the constant cycle of existing and not existing. These are topics that gave me headaches as a child, trying to understand what existed before time began and what lay beyond the edge of the universe. I want to relisten to these lectures, so that I really absorb what he says. I might even pull out a spiral notebook (of my weird collection of dozens of them), and take notes like a college student. I enjoy when he speaks of things that sound like early string theory, of the pulsations of energy that form matter, and the illusion of solidity. It's all about things that exist and are empty at the very same time. Fun stuff.

When I was trying to lead the spouses group in Charleston while simultaneously trying to recover from diverticulitis and adjust to Mr X being gone for the year and a half that changed my world, I pretended that I wanted to run for the office of president (of the club, mind you) a second time. I had convinced myself that I was having fun, even as I knew I was overwhelming myself physically and emotionally. At one point, I'd caught wind of the fact that someone else had thrown her name into the ring to run against me, and after a brief flash of betrayal (the sensation went away quickly), I realized it was one of the most liberating things that had happened to me all year. I didn't have to continue on with the job, and I had permission to let go. When I announced to the board that I was withdrawing my name from contention, I truthfully explained that I wasn't getting better from the illness, and by letting go of that big source of stress, I could finally heal. It worked to some extent. I spent a lot of quiet time alone in the Original Park, learning how to cope and how to write. I was proud of a lot of my early blog posts, even though most of them were ever read by maybe eight or nine people at that time. I needed the time to do nothing.

I'm faced with a little of that feeling again. I tried drowning my anger and pain over Mr X leaving, this time forever, by taking on too many projects. I didn't let myself say no to anyone. I agreed to go out to socialize, I worked showing multiple houses in different cities on what was my anniversary, I went to real estate training sessions, and I agreed to work on committees and fundraisers. I even started an exercise regimen that I've continued even when I thought I had too much pain to make progress. I've done too much, and it's time to pare down again. I have to survive the next week, and then I'm clear. Most of what I have to complete is fun. The fundraiser will be play as well as work. I'm going to see another musical with my friend, which will be great. And then I have to meet the extended deadline to turn in my legal separation paperwork. But in a week or so, I will have the opportunity to do nothing for a while. But at the same time my head will be saying I am doing nothing, my body may be quite busy. The illusion of stillness. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," as the Bard says.