Plan of Action

Inspirational song: Brother 52 (Fish)

Oh, mother, forgive me for starting off in this fashion, but... Shit is getting real now. I made one suggestion for a place I would like to travel when we throw our whole clan on wheels next year, and I was greeted in response with a set of Google turn-by-turn directions that covered a five thousand or so mile trek from here northward, and then going crossways from New Brunswick to Alaska. That made it suddenly more real to me, to see an actual route. I didn't know whether we had planned to pop into Canada at all, but here is a map stating outright that the man wants to spend months going from one end to the other of it. I have to admit, I find this quite intimidating. It's not like I've never left the country. I've lived abroad as a child, and I've made quick excursions to Canada, Mexico, France, and Great Britain since then. Nevertheless, I feel like I've allowed my horizons to shrink, and this really did frighten me to see at first. I thought about arguing with my man, trying to scale it down a bit. I've spent the last hour or so letting myself dither and panic just a little, and now I'm starting to breathe again. I find that I'm glad I didn't immediately write that email pushing back on the plan. If I let my fear of the unknown rule me, then this year of travel will be doomed from the start. Canada is not some lawless minefield, just waiting to chew me up and spit me out. There will be rugged countryside along the way, sure. But it will be gorgeous, with wonderful people, and I will be absolutely fine the whole trip. I'm not going to starve, I'm not going to freeze. In my defense, with my man behind the wheel, there will be several times when I'm hyperventilating at the driving conditions. In almost three decades together, there have been more terrifying mountain car trips than I can possibly count, with steep drop-offs that start right at the edge of the car, and roads that just crumble into rocky slopes of nothingness. I have lost my acrophobic shit sitting in the passenger seat, wishing I could jump out and run away from the motorized death box, so many times, it amazes me that I am still married to this man. But it will be to my advantage that we will be in a school bus turned RV, and most of the awful four-wheeling foolishness will be relegated to that silly jeep we will be towing, when I can bow out of being a passenger. I've come to terms with most of this plan in a very short time. Now, I need someone to reassure me that the part of this route that involves putting a school bus on a ferry will be okay. Because right now, I am not seeing it.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about thinking over the last few months. I figured out the right path to turn this blog into a long-format book, but I didn't just start writing it front to back. I designated a spiral notebook to be the secret keeper, and for two months I have been jotting down references to scenes I'd like to tell in detail. One or two sentences, or even just a catchphrase, and I made a list pages and pages long, that tells the whole story. I have been promising myself I would start soon to write it all out, but I still struggled with where to start. I finally figured out how to tackle it, where to start unraveling, and tonight, I grabbed a pen and got to work. Even after telling myself that it doesn't have to go in order, much as this blog jumps around from the present to the past to the future and back, I still thought I had to organize before I composed. What utter nonsense. I scanned the list of notes, and I told myself just pick one, put a number by it, and start writing. So finally I did. I chose something that looked small and easy, like the day in fifth grade when I debated with my social studies teacher in front of the class whether the death penalty was an appropriate punishment (at nine I already wasn't a fan of it, but that didn't mean he cut me any slack for being a sensitive little girl), and I thought I'd write a short paragraph, maybe six or seven sentences. I ended up writing all around it too, and in my scratchy, condensed note-taking handwriting (I have different styles for different purposes), I got a good page and a half. It felt almost too easy. So I went digging for another short memory, like the day my grandfather tried to prevent my boyfriend (now the guy I married) from going up to our cabin because of how his long hair offended my grandfather's old fashioned ideas about gender and fashion. The same thing happened, although I felt like that scene is a little abbreviated. I can't decide whether to attempt a third one tonight, but it felt good to finally start making my dreams become real that I might stay up late and do it. The cats are used to me leaving the lights on until three in the morning most nights, so they just deal with it. I've been thinking about doing this for so long. Now I'm actually doing it. I can't let my laziness or self-doubt stop me, even though I know it's going to be an uphill climb. I'm in motion now. I have to keep moving.

Looming in My Living Room

Inspirational song: Too Much of Anything (The Who)

It's not often that I quote other people directly in this space, but I do it occasionally. Today, for the first time, I am resorting to copy and paste to make my point. Last night, in a conversation about the caravan, which happens very often now between the man and me, I suggested that it would be a crucial investment to finally get our own espresso machine to take with us. My way of thinking is that it pays for itself in the first ten trips to Starbucks that we can skip, so while traveling, let's call that three weeks. I was told, and this is the pasted quote: "I don't think you're grasping the power/weight/space issues correctly." The same guy who is very excited to go on a minimally-salaried sabbatical from all of our obligations is telling me it's more efficient to get our latte fixes (which neither of us is ever really going to give up, let's be honest with ourselves and each other) from a retail establishment? Okay, sure, I will have to stock up lots more coffee beans and half and half to make up for what isn't coming from a barista, but it's not like I was going to go without in the first place. There are a lot of tradeoffs I'm willing to make. I can store all of my family heirloom furniture and dishes. I can donate half of my wardrobe to the consignment shop that my club runs, and live in a handful of jeans, t-shirts, and sweatpants for a year. I'm pricing out what I thought would be a cheap set of Corelle dishes, that will be lighter and harder to break on bumpy roads (and which were far more expensive than I would ever have predicted, as I learned tonight), and I looked at enough lightweight stick vacuums on Amazon that a picture of one appears on the top of my Facebook feed every single time I check it. But to imagine that I couldn't find a square foot of storage space for an espresso maker, for when we are camping in some mountainous backcountry is foolish. He wants to be far away from the madding crowd, as the saying goes, so that means one of us is going to be responsible for all the cooking. I think she who will be the master chef will get to select her own tools. (Besides, this is the only way I can guarantee that my kitchen is kept gluten free, and I am safe from cross contamination. I was thinking today, what happens when he cheats and has a piece of pizza when he goes back to his office here, and then unsuspecting, I kiss his mustachioed face? I worry about this.)

It is the story of our lives, whenever one of us points a finger at the other's foibles, we forget about the giant stack of corresponding weaknesses we have lurking in our own closets. Here is the man exposing my unwillingness to travel super lightly, or to forgo every one of my modern conveniences. I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I can trim off lately, and I think he'd be surprised at what I'm ready to give up, at least for a year. But I'm very curious... He has talked about selling a few of these rugs he sent home, as if doing so on the road would be preferable than creating a brick and mortar store, as one of my BFFs and I would like to do. At this moment, I'm staring at eight full eighteen gallon tubs of rugs, five full thirty gallon tubs, and two twenty-seven gallon tubs with one monstrously large rug each, plus one nylon duffel bag with the Broncos-colored rug in it. And I have the choice of emptying and re-sorting every single tub, risking contamination with dog and cat hair, in order to fit in the one undyed wool rug that is left over, or heading back to Target for a ninth purple tub. If I am not mistaken, there are three more rugs heading this way, to add to the Great Wall of Carpeting that is taking over my living room. So the question becomes, where exactly on the bus will all of these rugs fit? Does he plan on pulling out all fifteen (or more) tubs every time someone wants to see what we've got? Somehow, that doesn't sound like a workable plan. So let's talk for a little while about power, weight, and space issues, Mr Man.

When I look at these rugs, I think a brick and mortar store sounds so much easier to wrap my head around. That way, they can be displayed flat, in an environment free of pet hair, well lit and with a pleasing ambiance for shopping. But then every time I think about a store, I wonder, do we have enough inventory to support a shop? Should I have him hurry up and buy twice as much, so that we have time to factor into our retail price the cost of his follow up plane ticket to fly back and restock us? It's a perpetual motion problem. And I don't know at what point it all becomes too much. At some point it might cross the line from business venture to hoarding nightmare, and I hope that someone stops me before my toes touch that line.

Pandora

Inspirational song: Just Remember I Love You (Firefall)

Several times this summer, and most especially this week, I let external and internal forces swamp me. The news has been dreadful for months, and it keeps coming in giant waves of badness. I've been locked in an epic battle with the man, that really looks more like negotiations based on us emailing Zillow links, over what our next two to five years will hold. My emotions have been thrown in a tumble dryer, and my heart feels concussed and overheated. So how is it, when life is the most frightening, when I'm sitting with a dying cat on my lap, watching television coverage of a militarized police over-reaction in the heartland, or pondering a dramatic shift in lifestyle and income looming on the horizon, that I feel like just as soon as this crap finishes shaking out, my life is about to get significantly better? Where does this hope come from? I feel like I'm three big steps across a bed of coals, and I just have two more to reach the other side, stronger and freer than ever. Bring it.

I've generally been able to accept the bad times as a necessary corollary to the good. Most of the time, I'm not stuck in a why-me mindset, and instead I look for the lessons in the failures and the redeeming qualities in the situations or even people who disappoint me. I still love my friends, even when they are jerks. I still consider myself an incredibly fortunate person, even when I'm going through long losing streaks. And I believe that there is a great deal of positive energy on the horizon, if we can just survive the horrible news cycle.

I caught an episode of The Sixties on CNN, and watched and listened to a group of counter-culture icons describe how they had so many people wanting to travel from California to a certain gathering in New York, so they took an old school bus, and painted it in psychedelic colors and roamed the country in it. Of course I watched that segment of the show intently, comparing it to our own plans for converting a school bus into a temporary caravan for the Smith Park clan (well, the man and I plus the quadrupeds - Carlotta is not invited). My man has said more than once that he wants to paint the outside of the bus in elaborate, vivid designs, echoing the buses he has seen on his travels around the world. I'm less enthusiastic about that idea. I don't need to recreate the Acid Test during my year on wheels. I'm not out to "unsettle America," but rather to put my own mind and heart at peace. I have suggested I would prefer to design a caravan that is pure American Arts and Crafts movement, as if Gustav Stickley and William Morris designed a Pullman Car. (Yes, technically, Morris was English Arts & Crafts, but go with me on this.) My man is more excited about finding the beauty in the great outdoors, but as an avowed indoor cat myself, I'm determined to bring what I find beautiful with me as my private spaceship.

I don't know when I switched from being upset and terrified that the man wanted to go on the road for a year, to being excited at the freedom, potential for spiritual growth, and danger of it all. But somewhere very recently, no more than a week or two now, I have totally committed to this. I realize that getting my heart set on it means that I risk great disappointment if unforeseen circumstances rip it back away from us. But that is the calculus of opening Pandora's box. There is no telling what will come flying out. Over the course of my lifetime, I have flipped open that lid so many times I've lost count. But never, not once, have I lost hope.

Where Is It?

Inspirational song: That Smell (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

I debated for a couple hours whether to risk the utter mortification that will come with stripping away the facade of Park perfection and revealing the true horror of inhabiting my home right now. Then the professional eater dog came up to where I sat, chin resting on hands, elbows on knees, and she put her mouth within sniffing distance of my face. I released a burst of curse words and loud moaning, and immediately got up to toss both dogs out in the back yard, and I got over myself. It's time to get real.

First, a little backstory. I've always had an incredibly sensitive nose. It makes me a great cook, used to get me teased by my parents and brother when I was little, and once it actually saved my family's lives. The same kid who my dad swore could sniff out the McDonald's when we drove into Munich every time (I still get mad and humiliated when I think of that), woke in the wee hours of the morning in our hundred year old house in Oklahoma, smelling burning rubber. I came downstairs and flipped on the lights, to find a small bath mat had been kicked onto a lit floor furnace, and it had started to smolder. When I tell you I smell something, it's there. It just has to be found.

When we lived in California the last time, I swore there was something awful in our house. For weeks, I swore I could smell something that had gone bad, but the kitchen was clean, the catboxes were scooped often, and all the animals were accounted for. But where my computer was located, at a desk near the kitchen and the back door, kept smelling worse and worse. It started to give me headaches. It hurt the inside of my sinuses, and it made my eyes water. But no matter how much I complained, the response from the rest of the family was always, "No, Anne, just you." One day, my desperate searching turned up something. I had ignored the Little Playmate cooler that had been set just inside the kitchen, leading from the back door, for weeks. My house was generally tidy, but there were a few things lying around, and I just didn't think it was important to run it back to the garage. The closer I got to it, the more pungent the smell, and I gathered my courage and opened it. It literally knocked me to the floor. I picked myself back up and shut the thing, and yelled to the man and the kids, "I TOLD YOU THERE WAS SOMETHING BAD!" On a big grocery trip, more than a month earlier, someone (I'm guessing the man) slipped a bag holding ground beef into the cooler to get it home, and brought it inside. It was skipped when we put everything away. It was the worst, most violently astringent smell I've ever encountered. It was worse than a run of the mill dead animal body, which is bad enough. You never forget something that awful.

I mentioned a couple days ago that I'm building up an immunity to some smells, as I constantly clean up after Cricket on the floor. I still notice when she's left me a mess, but my gag reflex is greatly reduced. I have been noticing something building in the house, and I keep checking to make sure all of the plastic grocery bags of stinky paper towels and barely digested cat food have made it to the outside trash. I'm good on that score. I have been taking the regular trash out even when the bags aren't full, and today I scrubbed the can with the peroxide-based cleaner. I have been moving furniture, making sure there wasn't something under the couch or behind a chair that a cat dragged over and lost interest in. I put my face next to both drains in the sink and sniffed. I looked for a rotten potato or onion in the pantry. I got a coat hanger and tried to fish out anything that might be stuck under the stove. (The big kitty boy is thrilled at the six mousie toys that came out, covered in dust bunnies.) There is nothing in this house that I can find, but I can smell it. No amount of candles, incense, or Febreeze is killing the stink. I am on my last nerve here.

While I wrote, I heard a noise from the chimney, like a shift in temperatures made the metal in the flue expand or contract. I think I need to get a flashlight. I might be on to something. Stay tuned.

Feeling It

Inspirational song: Blowin' Like a Bandit (Asleep at the Wheel)

After a full day to absorb it, no, I still can't help feeling like I've lost a family member in Robin Williams. I think no celebrity death has affected me like this since I was an adolescent and John Lennon was murdered. I may not be howling like I did that night, but I have shed far more than one tear, and I'm still slightly sick at my stomach. Pictures and video of him have covered my television and internet for more than 24 hours, and in every single image, I look back and all I can see in his vulnerable face is the sadness that never left his eyes, even during his manic comedy. I can't see a single smile reaching all the way to his eyes, and that makes it that much worse. I can only hope in death he has found the peace and self-acceptance he never seemed to have in life.

I pushed myself today, and I'm glad I did. After today, I have one visit left with Bones, and I don't expect to see him again after that unless I have a fall or an accident (which I'd prefer to skip, thank you very much). I did more exercises, with heavier weights and higher intensities than I have been doing this round. He was more aggressive with me as well, but his efforts gained me more flexibility than I've had in years. Funny, if you always tuck your legs to one side when you sit on the floor, you tend to stick that way. Maybe generations of mothers were correct after all. But he pushed and twisted and worked out some of the kinks. Now I'm sore, and every time I stand up to clean house, I make it about five minutes before I find myself sitting down again for a little break. I think I'm finally to the point where I can step it up and get back into a more serious weight lifting routine again. I took the last 10 months off, because of everything that happened. I consider it a promising sign that I'm starting to think fondly of the gym, instead of shuddering at the idea of setting foot in that torture chamber again.

Maybe a month ago, one of our closest friends from college remarked that the rains where he lives now are nothing like the violent, dramatic storms of the Rocky Mountains. He's on the opposite coast from me, but I have to agree with him. Most of the storms that come through here are quiet (if often heavy and windy), compared to the electrical storms that would light up Boulder when we lived there (and assumably still do). Tonight was an exception to that rule. Just past full dark, the flashes started, and my giant kitty boy took off for a dark cubby hole somewhere the lightning couldn't see him. They were close and they were loud, and they came one on top of another. I paused my noise-making machine, turned off most of the lights, and listened to the fury of the storm as it rolled over. My skin felt like it was floating off my body every time the ions in the air buzzed in time to the flashes. I probably should have moved away from the windows, like they say to do, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I tried to get a picture of Athena staring outside, or of the round-eyed look of alarm on her face, but as soon as she saw me move my hands, she jumped under my chin to be comforted. I couldn't help but wonder what it will be like, the first time (or the first fifty times) a storm rolls over the top of the bus, with all of us on it, much closer to the sounds of the rain on the metal roof. The cats are going to poo themselves. But if they don't, that storm is going to be a hell of an exciting experience.

I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well

Inspirational song: Flagpole Sitta (Harvey Danger)

I spent the day feeling heavy and spent after my primal scream last night. The blog might not have sounded like a scream as I unburdened myself, but trust me, on the inside my voice was as raspy and desperate as the Gregg Allman I referenced, or as frantic as Janis Joplin screaming in Piece of My Heart, but still as choked and tearful as Ian Axel crying Say Something. Once I unburdened myself, I went to bed early (1 am is early for me), and stayed in bed as late as I could get away with it this morning. I felt hung over and feverish. I carried the heaviness with me most of the day, and admitted to myself that I felt broken. I can't believe I'm going through this a second time this summer, a second time by myself with no family members to lean on in the house. The stress of dealing with another terminally ill pet has combined with the stress of living alone for so much longer than I bargained for, and the last week has been a major drag.

And then I read the internet. I got the news first from my younger daughter's status, that our beloved actor, comedian, and wild card Robin Williams died in an apparent suicide. I am absolutely crushed, but at the same time, his horrible action makes me realize, I have a lot more coping mechanisms than I was giving myself credit for all day. Yes, this situation I'm in makes me feel legitimately depressed. But I do believe it is situational. I am cognizant that I will not be alone forever. My man will come home, and I will feel much less lonely. Cricket will pass, but I will have had weeks to say goodbye and prepare myself emotionally, entirely different than if she had perished in an accident. Next year will be difficult and frightening for me, if we cut loose our moorings and go full gypsy wanderers, but at the same time, it will be an adventure with the man I love, and that will make it all possible. No matter how lonely, anxious, or even depressed I think I am, I am no where near as desperate as Robin Williams was last night. I'm heartbroken that he felt there was nothing left for him anymore. I don't think a single one of us who read the news a few hours ago wouldn't have been there for him if he could have asked us.

Maybe feeling trapped inside the house was adding to my funk. It poured rain yet again today. I can't believe how hard it has rained, nor how many days in a row. I lived in arid states for so many years, I really never learned how to process this much precipitation. It's humid and stinky and oppressive out there. I am so grateful to my neighbor's son for coming over again today with his riding lawn mower, before the rains came in the afternoon. With everything on my plate right now, having that little act of kindness to help pull away the stress made him my hero of the day. It took him about fifteen minutes to knock out what would have taken me well over an hour, not counting the cool-down break in the middle. If autumn arrived tomorrow, I'd happily wave goodbye to summer. August just makes me ill. A certain soap and candle shop in the mall had all of their fall line out yesterday, when my friend and I went in for a sniff. There might be a couple pumpkin-scented things in a bag on my right, just waiting for the nights to cool down, and my mood to improve. Come this autumn, everything will be all right again.

Palliative Care

Inspirational song: Whipping Post (Allman Brothers)

Oh, Cricket. How did we arrive at this place? With me watching helplessly as your body turns against you, and nothing I have tried is bringing you back from the edge? We tried steroids; we tried antibiotics. We separated you from the younger cats who picked on you, and fed you wet food four and five times day. We even tried an herbal extract and supplementing your food intake with high calorie nutrient pastes. You are disappearing in front of my eyes, and I can't stand it.

You were such a beautiful kitten, and I told you the truth when I said your arrival on the planet saved me. On a Good Friday, a dozen years ago, I said goodbye to my beloved cat Berkeley, who was my baby for fifteen years. On that Easter Sunday, you were born, and a day later you and your siblings were abandoned at the door of the pound, a litter of kittens in a brown paper bag, in the chill of an early April morning. We were so lucky you lived. The day your eyes opened, the first human face you saw was mine, at the very moment I first saw your perfect little face, and we fell instantly in love. While the girls were fawning over your sister, whose gray fuzzy self reminded them of Berkeley, I knew that you, you multi-colored little egg roll, belonged to me and me alone. Of course we immediately adopted you and your sister, and you were so impatient to come home with me. Every day I visited you, every day the shelter was open, you turned your back on your foster mama cat, and climbed the wire of your cage to get to me. They thought we were so funny, sitting on the concrete floor of the shelter, playing together, until it was time for me to go home without you. I was so happy when they relented when you weren't quite six weeks old, and let me take you and your sister home, finally. You were so tiny, and you had me wrapped around your little opposable thumbs. I could be sound asleep, and I could feel you staring at me from the floor, willing me to wake up and lift you to the top of the bed. I should never have started that, because you made me lift you onto the food counter for years afterward.

As a young cat, you were so chubby. You got as round as a bowling ball those first few years, and we thought of you as a soft little dumpling for most of your life. You lived as a pampered concubine for over a decade, your only job to sit on mommy's lap and make faces at the girls when you told them that they couldn't sit on my lap like you because they were poopyheads. As a senior, you started to slim down, but I just thought that you were just getting to a healthy weight. It never occurred to me that you were starting to lose too much weight until a few months ago. I thought your bad attitude was just driven by those other cats who picked on you. How could I have missed all the clues until it was too late? Now you are so frail, freakishly thin, and no food sticks in your body. Neither of us is happy anymore. At least you are willing to come out in the rest of the house again, and not hide in your sanctuary in my bathroom. I spend at least a full hour out of every day cleaning up your messes from the floor. I think I've lost all gag reflexes and I think my sense of smell is destroyed. I get so sad when I pet you and all I feel is your spine and ribs. It breaks my heart to see your fur starting to fall out. I know you are miserable, and I am too. I don't want you to suffer, but I just can't make that irreversible decision. I can't do it, Crickie. I have to wait this out until the bitter end. I think it's going to be soon, but you keep finding the strength to hang in. I don't know where it's coming from. I think you need to come to terms with what is happening. You need to stop putting yourself through this. It's time for us to say goodbye. I will love you forever, Mouse Face. But all good things must end, and the end is coming very soon. Good lord, I feel like I'm dying too.