what came first
The memory loss, or the Meat Puppets?
I am forgetting everything. I am forgetting tasks at work. I am forgetting to tell people things. I forgot to leave shaky baby’s car seat at her school so my friend could take her home from school tonight. What an inconvenience for my friend! I pretty much throw my hands up. I never used to forget shit. One of the banners of righteous anger I used to wave in my husband’s face is that I never forget anything. NOTHING. Kids’ lunches, paying bills, social engagements– never. Nothing. So when was someone going to nurture me, remember for me, like I was doing for them?
So, here I am. It’s another message from the universe– just ease up, for Christ’s sake, it will be okay. There’s no way you will ever be able to remember it all, don’t be so hard on yourself. Or, if you can’t bring it to mind on demand, it’s probably because it’s completely fucking unimportant compared to the bigger fish you have to fry.
I used to know every ten digit phone number for every friend and loved one, often more than one per person, and just carry those around in my brain to call up at will. That’s no longer the case, you can bet. I know my mom’s just barely, my marrige counselor’s, my husband’s cell, and the eternal numbers for my best friend in library school and her mom’s. And that is it. Oh and my phone number from very, very early childhood– 229-3397. Right? That’s useful.
And I can’t remember the last names of people I see daily.
Who cares?
I don’t know why I have to quantify myself like this. Why can’t I just have pms, which is what I have?
But I hear those ugly words parents say to their children all around the globe and their children internalize– she’d forget her head if it wasn’t screwed on. I remember the words of friends when I in my preteen/tween/teen years growing up– you’re super smart, but you just don’t have any sense!
Oy, it drives me to drink. Let me go get a glass of wine. And turn on my Meat Puppets playlist.
And before someone who doesn’t know me goes judging… don’t tell me every thinking person doesn’t have these moments, especially every thinking mother. However embarassed I might be to be where I am and being honest about it, I know I’m not alone, so I’m not that embarassed. Sorry.
Where was I?
I also remember a particular epoch in my wine-soaked early twenties. I was telling my girlfriend about this really, really, really cool guy I lived next door to for a time, Dave. I know he thought he hit the jackpot, living next door to these two cute girls who always had a party on their front porch. He was one of the coolest dudes I had ever met and he was a wonderful combination of good values, good engineering student grades, and a little dash of bad boy within reasonable limits. He played guitar a little. He had huge brown eyes with thick black lashes. He was always trying to tell me about fractals, and Foucault’s Pendulum.
And the other day I was telling my friend about Dave, Dave of over fifteen years ago, because our book group is reading Foucault’s Pendulum now. And of course I picked the penniless musician and the redneck pothead mechanic/chef over Dave and never saw him again.
Or maybe Dave had a girlfriend and wasn’t strictly into me, that could be too. He was one of the dear, faceless many who got me home when I was too messed up to get myself home, one of the graces of God– you know, the there but fors go I? Well… all he had to do was carry me down his fire escape and up to the front door of my house. Still, I could have broken my skinny drunk little neck on those stairs, right? Or fallen asleep in my yard and fallen prey to who knew what.
Anyway, I was telling my friend about Dave trying to tell me about fractals and Foucault’s Pendulum. I told her I’m pretty sure I just looked deep between his thick black lashes into his big brown eyes and… glazed over. I probably nodded slowly, and then asked for another mason jar full of wine. The nice way to put it is, I was a party girl. I loved to dress up and entertain — such as entertaining is for impoverished college students with part time jobs.
In every arena of my life, I was coasting on being dumb and pretty and drunk.
Why can’t I do that now?
Because I’m almost forty, that’s why, I weigh 145 not 120, I’m too old for the flowing mane of my college days, I don’t live with my friend Missy any more so I can’t borrow her incredibly chic– I mean CHIC– clothes and pretend I am as wonderful as she is any more. Smoking isn’t something a cute bad girl does any more, it’s just cancer in a stick. I have to take care of my family and go to work each day so I can’t drink, and even if I could I don’t have a host of cool people to get drunk with like I did back then. Outside of a college campus, or over a certain age, people who get drunk regularly are just, well, they must not have anything to lose, you know? Or, the alcoholics in my neck of the woods just aren’t as cool– or just not as good at posing– as others I have encountered over the years. I have a home and a family which, as much as I bitch, I dearly, dearly love.
I guess I could coast again. It took me a while to get into the crisis of guilt and self loathing that led to easing up on the drinking, shacking up, working hard at my job, going back to grad school and getting a life. I could probably get back there, with just a bit of effort and rationalization.
But… if I was drunk all the time, or even very often, I would not have the energy to keep up this elaborate fiction that is my life. It’s not even a very good fiction. The reality– my forgetfulness, my anxiety attacks, my disordered thought patterns and existence and shaggy yard — peers through the thin spots and around the shaggy edges… but I still have to knock myself out to try to keep it together. Nothing but Gymboree clothes for shaky baby… big house and big car payment… smart cool hippie mommy friends… giving too much at work, at home, and to friends (I just accepted a nomination to run for vice presidency of a citywide organization, can you imagine that?)… healing school, vegan, yoga… but what would I be if, at 38, I just decided to revert to dozy, party girl me? I thought that ditzy, irresponsible little cutie was the fiction, that I would grow out of her some day and become successful, responsible and happy. But what if responsible, educated, bright, manager, mentor, mother, hausfrau is the real fiction?
Bears thinking about, I guess. Putting aside the fiction is always a good idea. If one can just figure out which is which.
If you see it closer then the finer points will show…Not too much more, too much more/Not too much more, too much more.
I have some time before bed and I have no idea what I even want to do. What’s my passion? My passion is overeating and smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap merlot.
But it’s time to rescue shaky baby from an evening made up exclusively of watching Noggin– noggin is late night now, isn’t that cool? Now I can ignore her at night as well as all day!
The Meat Puppets helps a lot.
You are my daughter.
Maybe we got something to talk about…
superconnected
My other mania was making brightly colored tissue roses. I couldn’t stop for days after shaky baby’s party. I was working out the trauma of all the crafts we didn’t do at her party because I was so disorganized. But somehow shutup or I’ll stack you, accordion pleat you, wrap you with a chenille pipe cleaner, and fluff you doesn’t sound as funny as shutup or I’ll frost you.
“when you’re finished with the mop then you can stop
and look at what you’ve done the plateau’s clean,
no dirt to be seen and the work it took was fun
well the many hands began to scan around for the next
plateau some said it was greenland some said
mexico others decided it was nowhere except for
where they stood but those were all just guesses,
wouldn’t help you if they could”
Meat Puppets Plateau
I rediscovered the Meat Puppets because I was trying to explain to my husband that he looks like Curt Kirkwood when he just lets his hair get all long and raggy and goes unshaved. He really does, too. Kinda.
Staring at photos of longhaired, five o’clock shadowed Curt Kirkwood, preferably in a pink gingham dress, was my greatest comfort during a particularly uhappy moment in my romantic life twelve or so years ago. And at almost fifty he’s still pretty damn delicious. And he’s in Austin, where all good rockers go when they die (oh or Nashville, not sure which is better, Austin by a hair, though Steely Dan had been working out of Nashville for a while, and Bon Jovi’s there now right???). And lo and behold! They just put out a new album! And Curt is spewing his abrasive, probably aspbergers, nobody’s going to impose their agenda on me language– yum.
Anyway.
Top down is just not me.
For a long time I’ve been trying to get on top of my life by doing the Flylady thing– flylady.net, you know. I have tried so hard to impose easy, one-size-fits-all, brief, doable routines on my life that could be accomplished in a small amount of work each day, as opposed to either major disgusting house or major housework misery all day on a weekend day, which I just refuse to do, routines which would make it all come together with a minimum of misery, angst and resentment.
Don’t get me wrong– it has helped. A lot. I throw away a lot of crap, and then I no longer have to organize, put away, or dust it. I try to go by the handle everything once rule- go ahead and decide if it’s junk mail or important and file it, whether in the circular file or the important file, right away instead of having to touch it once when I get it out of the mail box and again weeks later when I finally get around to organizing the mail pile. I keep certain surfaces clear or easy to clear so that they can be easily and quickly disinfected often so I don’t have to get out the flamethrower because I haven’t cleaned them since last year. My house is in much better shape (at least I think it is???) than it was before Flylady.
But as a general rule, no matter how well it works, no matter how much sense it makes, top down is just not me.
There was a study in the late 70’s-early 80’s about programming styles of boys and girls using logo. In a nutshell, probably the nutshell of warped memory because I haven’t looked at the thing in twelve years, the study differentiated boys and girls like so. The boys decided what they wanted to do and then attempted to cram the reality of the programming language into the desired result– top down. The girls looked at the reality of the programming language and used that as a jumping off point to create from there– bottom up.
I see this in my life every day. Husbands relax after work (imposing desired result, regardless of reality all around them) while wives bust their asses, becoming resentful and too tired for sex, parenting, housecleaning, working full time (embracing external reality and starting at the bottom). As my brother says, men just don’t have that take on too much gene.
Managers strive to bring together reality and top down desired result, attempting to encapsulate and convey the desired outcome to staff, who relax and don’t concern themselves with the desired outcome because they aren’t paid to and they just want to deal with their own little fiefdom. My best friend’s husband keeps putting glass in the city recycle bin because it makes no sense to him that they don’t recycle glass. I don’t guess I’ll ever be a process engineer or computer programmer, but my husband can’t build a fire for shit or string a kite that will actually fly. I can, as I demonstrated beautifully on cold, clear, windy Easter night after his kite kept diving earthward and his knots popped off.
When I load the dishwasher the dishes almost always come out sparkling. My husband loads the dishwasher chock full, even though when he does that half the dishes come out dirty. He says, I refuse to be held hostage by my dishwasher.
Held hostage by your dishwasher?
How about tuned in to reality so that you can be effective, so that your kite will fly and your fire will burn?
Is my friend’s husband’s stubborn refusal to embrace the recycling reality a stupid refusal to see reality, or a thoughtful protest? I mean, it is truly wrong that our city does not recycle glass. I get that.
Some see at what is and ask why. Others see what isn’t and ask why not?
Or something.
This is a very, very basic difference. It would be unproductive to say one approach is better than the other. Even if bottom up is better (and I believe, know, that it is), never, ever the twain shall meet. I can knock my head against my husband’s reality all day long but it will only piss us both off– me because he isn’t doing it ’right’ and him because I am helping him and that pisses dudes off.
Sometimes top down is even useful. I find that at work, dealing with the folks I supervise, top down is sometimes needed or else anarchy will prevail. Anarchy isn’t such a bad thing… unless it is accompanied by people forgetting why we’re there and failing/just not bothering to serve the folks whose tax dollars pay our salaries. So, sometimes I do have to go all top down on ’em.
But at home…
It just came over me Monday when I was off and home alone.
This constant attempt to impose routine, and the consequent unhappiness because I can’t/don’t want to do it and so my life is still in disorder because I failed to tick off the items on my to do list, isn’t helping. It just isn’t.
I’m knocking my head against some basic realities.
I’m struggling to find the right simile or metaphor for this. I haven’t yet, sorry.
These realities are just not going anywhere. We have so much time and so much money. We have certain needs– food, sleep, shelter, transportation, paycheck, emotional and physical and social comforts. My husband sees things a certain way. All of these are realities I can knock my forehead against until it bleeds. I stretch and stretch, trying to manage both ends. At the front end I impose a top down strategy involving lots of proactive things like buying in bulk and routine– and still find myself stuck on the other end, out of money and out of energy, with needs unmet.
I can make running up the slide a way of life if I want to. And I have.
The endless to do list, the daily and weekly attempts to finally game the system, hit the sweet spot, make routine work for me, just wear me out and make me feel like a failure.
So it came to me Monday to try something different.
How about just being where I am and paying tender attention to that particular thing? How about setting down all the balls I am just barely managing to juggle — work, home, my own mental and physical health, parenting, marriage– and giving whatever single thing I am doing my full attention.
Instead of doing fifteen minutes in each room in the house, changing rooms each time the timer goes off, how about cleaning the kitchen for a while, as long as I want, and then going into my room and cleaning there as long as I want?
How about going to bed when I’m tired?
How about being off ADD meds which help me be supermom and just being scattered me for a while?
I gave this a shot Monday. I felt like I was in some kind of superconnected state. I say this because healing school work is the only thing I can compare it to. I was flowing through my day, and it was sweet. It made me nervous, like the first time without training wheels or water wings… but I am convinced of the essential rightness of it.
Those realities were still there… I could stop any time I wanted and try to claw my way up the flinty perpendicular bank of that flow– not enough time, not enough money, day slipping by, have to go back to work tomorrow, must be proactive, must impose routine, must go work on my budget and short and long range forecasts and plans, must accomplish this and this and this in order to create this outcome, must convince husband to save time and aggravation by finally succumbing to the reality of our dishwasher, or our dogs or child or… but why?
I might even make some progress scrambling up the bank. But all those loose ends would still be waving sweetly at me in the breeze– my failure at top down, my reality at bottom up… scrambling up the bank would probably just make my fingers bleed.
I thought, you know, this shit is all going to be there. Why don’t I just do what I want to do right now, and later I’ll probably want to do something else, and it will all get done, or it will still be there.
I didn’t check email. I didn’t budget. I didn’t create a list or calendar of things that must be done on or by certain days in order for my life to work out. I was just … there. I did some dishes. I folded some laundry. I did some writing. I printed some photos. I did some reading. I ate. I just was.
I’m not describing it very well. It really was a moment of zen, though. I haven’t had one this big since I read Haruki Murakami’s Windup Bird Chronicle. Not that I can remember anyway. It’s so funny how a truly useful paradigm shift just sneaks up on you slowly and silently.
One more listen to Plateau… who needs action when you’ve got words?
Good night!
so thankful
I have to post quickly, just because the mood of my last post was so glum. I’ve had so much I wanted to say, but between my thinking of late about the energy I pour out toward others and whether that might be better turned inward, and my activities of the last week or two, I haven’t been able. And I’m still not. I just wanted to say briefly.
I’ve spent the last two weeks and way too much money sweating over trying to have a great birthday party for shaky baby yesterday. I am an extremely ambitious party planner, but I am not a top down person, and my husband figures if you can’t get it done the day before or the day of it’s not worth it so… you can imagine the chaos and mass of half done tasks all through the house and yard. I really need to call up my inner military strategist.
I also really need to be more consistent about all those things most of the time so I don’t have to panic when it’s time to have folks over. Or throw away all my stuff so dusting is not a major project. Or, just get over it. Why can’t I just say, fuck no I don’t dust, ever, why would I? My life would be so much easier.
I can’t believe how much I stress. I just want so badly to have people over, and I forget between times just how badly I can screw it up. I never hit the right stride of preparation and relaxation. Or else, I need a maid/server.
We spent her birthday with a dear friend of hers from school… then I had a cold and stayed home with her Wednesday as well, then our baby sitter had a terribly contagious issue at her place so we didn’t have child care Thursday so I split my day up between having her all day and working the evening 1/2 day… then back to work in earnest Friday, half a day Saturday and that insane party.
I think the kids had a good time, truly, and I hope the parents did too. We did manage the pinata of course, and to decorate cookies. A couple of friends brought very nice additions to help out. The weed flowers which make our back yard look so ragged, but which are so beloved of shaky baby, were a huge hit, they were scattered everywhere like fresh rushes for us to tread upon. Thoughtful parents took all the dangerous implements of destruction or bodily harm that I thought I’d adequately stowed away and truly adequately stowed them away. I am trying not to think about anything except the positive– like, after everyone left, my weekend still had two days left in it.
I took her to get her hair cut Thursday, and washed her hair in real shampoo tonight– we usually do water only, or Tate’s Natural Miracle. Her little curls came right out. They are tighter than botticelli but looser than corkscrew, but cut so close to her head they just tighten right up. When you look at the back of her head you can almost hear ’sproingggg’. I need to get her one of those silky mob caps women used to wear to keep their hairdos pretty as they slept, or just a satin pillow case.
As I kissed her good night I realized I’ve spent most of the last week simply celebrating her existence. That is entirely appropriate. She’s an amazing little girl and she is an amazing blessing. I wished her happy birthday again. She said, am I six now? I said no, 359 more days. And we need to think of something special for when you’re six, like going to New York or Paris like Eloise. She said, will Eloise be there? I said no, but we can go to the same places, right? But we need to save our pennies.
My step daughter is here– my stepson had to stay home so he could be in a robotics competition. Today we went to the park in the morning and ate McDonalds breakfast (I know, not vegan, but a girl’s got to eat) picnic style, flew kites, talked to one of my girlfriends who was there too, went to Lowe’s for garden plants, kept a friend’s children for several hours while she’s in the hospital so her exhausted husband could clean and nap, decorated more cookies, and when he took the little ones home, worked a bit in our raised beds and planted some of what we bought today.
You should have seen my little 1.08 year old out in the four o’clock sun and breeze. She would lay on the beach towel, butt in the air and face to the ground, kicking her legs out– just luxuriating in the fresh air and the loving earth under her cheek. It was a beautiful thing. I love all of the kids but they mostly entertain themselves– the 1.08 year old is usually stuck with me. I did take about ten minutes or more with each child especially to do something with them, though. I’d envisioned their visit as a structured repeat of the birthday party, or actually as a chance to do the birthday party right in all the ways I’d failed yesterday… but they arrived just as we got back from Lowe’s so I couldn’t prepare, so nothin’ doin’. They were a bit bratty, but shoot. Their mom’s in the hospital, I had not sorted anything out for them to do– it was fine. I know that even when one of them (including mine) is crying or tattling every five minutes they’d still rather be together. I sure wish shaky baby had let me play the ’whoever pops their balloon first wins’ game though.
Have most of my herbs planted, the ones I spend a fortune buying at the supermarket anyway, and some flowers… husband working on strawberries, peppers, tomatoes, onions… have no idea whatever what to do with the rest of the yard. I got an extra azalea, some Spanish lavender and a gorgeous blue (really purple) hybrid tea rose. I did not get the hydrangea… I thought about how much space it would need in full sun, which would be exactly the area that I’d prefer to keep open at least until I plan my yard a bit better.
The places I want to fill up with lovely fragrant blooms are in shade to semi shade. For the rest of the yard I have in mind these woodland/cottage/formal gone wild curving vistas stretching away, leaving plenty of lawn for play and leading the eye or the walker back toward a couple of different seating areas among the trees and flowers, plus a butterfly garden… curving vistas really take up a lot of space, and a lot of planning, and a lot of money. Too much is not enough when it comes to putting plants in, and it looks shabby to just put in a bit here and a bit there, especially on that endless east fence line. Trees always look so much more stately in threes or rows, and I don’t know how I’ll work it out and stay within my budget and get much done during each planting season, and the more I think about all we want to do the smaller my yard looks! We can always move our raised beds, of course… We’ll see.
I did realize that I want only green foliage and purple, white, lavendar to gray, and variations on blue and fuchsia that appear purple in my vistas. That was a HUGE step forward. Knocked out the Carolina jasmine (jessamine) I wanted for the scent but… wrong color!! Fringe flower is the right color and it smells lovely… but it was seventeen dollars. Next time. The pale purple hybrid tea smelled delightful so that was my splurge.
And so… off to clean party mess for a time before bed. One more lovely weekend day to go for me before back to work!
Santa brought mommy some xanax
This is not to replace my usual treatise on the real meaning of Christmas. I hope to get around to that some time this season. But this is what’s on my mind right now.
You know, all things considered, my life is pretty darn good.
I was talking with a friend this summer about his longing for a family, and I told him that I am thankful for my misery. It’s really true. We are so blessed, and compassion and gratitude wash in and replace old grudges and convictions of wrongs past and present. I can list a pretty long list of things I have to juggle, and I am reasonably cognizant of the consequences of various actions, mostly actions that make sense like having to choose to support my husband in his travel by taking time off to take care of my child when he is out of town, even if it means losing my own job (which pays less than half as much) because I ran out of leave. These things are unlikely, and while I feel some normal pressure and stress as I try to balance my life and see what it means to be a two income family with children, living paycheck to paycheck, especially at Christmas time, it doesn’t seem like too much and I know it’s a whole lot less than many people face.
So why I was as close to having a nervous breakdown as I have ever been in my life, without having one, I do not know. My stresses are, especially if I take the long view, so much less than they’ve ever been. The Christmas I used food stamps to pay for all sorts of delicacies for a huge party at my scary little Fort Sanders apartment when I didn’t even have rent money comes to mind (well ya can’t pay rent with food stamps, can ya.), the absolute lowest point I hit in my 30th year, the death of loved ones, the abusive environment at my previous job, or various family conflicts and wounds both childhood and marital. I am eating (mostly) vegan, which I believe is outstanding nutritionally, and loving it. My spiritual / healing work brings me so much insight and joy. My child is the best thing that ever happened to me. I love (most of the time) my job. I have really neat friends. I finished three years of healing school this year. We are a little tight due to my husband’s job change, but we still have the means to buy the things our kids want most for Christmas. After having a baby and a miscarriage my weight is lower than it was when I started dating my current (haha, I use the word current as if there was or will be others!) husband. Things are pretty darn good.
Anyway, yesterday I was just falling apart. My whole body hurt. If you grew up around country people at all you’re familiar with ‘it’s my nerves.’ I’ve joked about that before, and in fact it’s been baddish before, but this was BAD.
I just happened to have an appointment for counseling and a psychiatrist visit anyway– I have to go once a month because of the adderall. It had really been coming on since Sunday and probably longer. My nerves were so bad I hurt physically. I have an anxiety disorder and has nothing to do with any reality– it’s like arthritis or something, and it just– flares up.
Thank goodness for health insurance. 90 of those little blue life savers were only five dollars! Thank goodness for the understanding that it is deadly to walk around hurting like this– anxiety, depression and stress cause brain cell loss and worse. Thank goodness that through healing school and work with my dear counselor I’ve figured out that we make choices to nurture ourselves and prescription tranquilizers can be a healthy choice which allows one to finally, simply get some rest. Thank goodness that my addictive personality does not extend itself to prescription drugs (at least I did okay with demerol and oxycontin prescribed at various times for various minor surgeries).
So, I came home last night and took one, watched the final episode of I love New York 2 (so glad she didn’t pick that asshole!), ate a frito pie with vegan chili and vegan cheese, and went to bed and slept like the dead. It was so good to feel all that hurt ebb away, I cannot even describe it. I wish I could take another and go back to bed right now, but I’m home with my baby today and would like to finish up some errands and get out to the park with her.
I still feel it in the wings, like a terrible experience that is now over, but the shadow still hovers. Still, today is so much better. I feel like a human again. I can do normal, human things. Thank you, lord.
