Alecto's Ophelia

2010 - Coming Home

The last 90 minutes of 2009 frizzled out while I was sleeping. When my contacts are fogged enough I'm stabbing myself with a needle every third stitch it's time to go to bed. I left the girls in front of the television, gathered up my animals, peeled the contacts off my eyeballs (and I do hope I'm going to find them in solution) and went to bed. I wish I'd brushed my teeth. Sometime in the night a small tribe of Pygmies set up camp and decided to have a rain dance on my tongue. It was dry, dry, dry in there. This morning I staggered to the bathroom,spit them unceremoniously into the sink and proceeded to beat the hell out of my mouth until I looked into the mirror and noticed I was just South of rabid. That's usually a good indicator.

The alarm on the iPod went off at 7:30 like it does every weekday morning. I was dreaming it was something else until I woke up enough to turn it off and then climb back into bed warning the dog that it was technically still the middle of the night. Somewhere. I haven't bothered to turn that alarm off because it makes a good 15 minute warning before Little Girl needs to head out to the bus stop (which is the end of the driveway) and on weekends it doesn't go off at all although Simon will generally put his great slobbery face right up against mine (or the back of my head if I'm lucky) and breathe heavily while moaning pathetically about the fact that he's not going to be able to keep his legs crossed forever. Simon has no trouble getting my attention in the morning. He is 79 inches long snout to tail tip, 31 inches at the whithers and his head is massive. Someday I'll figure out how to weigh it. Maybe I can slide the flat digital kitchen scale under his head while he's sleeping. Remind me to try that. The drop from the top of my mattress to the floor is 36 inches and while that's five inches above his whithers we must consider the length between whithers and snout. Unless I'm sleeping in the middle of the bed there's really no escape and if I don't want St. Bernard slobber ON my sheets I need to respond fairly quickly even if it means telling him to lay the hell back down and go to sleep. If his need is not immanent he will. He's a good boy. 

Little Girl let him out this morning. I was out cold. I have no recollection of the door opening and closing again after my baby boy lumbered across the threshold, made an abrupt 90 degree right turn and galloped down the hall coming to his usual skidding stop at the top of the stairs. When he's got his bearings he tip toes down the six carpeted stairs and stands patiently at the front door followed shortly by the manic Rat Terrier. The only time the Rat Terrier is not manic is when he's overslept and slinks up the stairs from the lower level hoping I won't notice but knowing perfectly well he's been caught sleeping on the couch again. Sometimes he hides until I'm back upstairs. He's sly and has great bladder control.

I nuked a cup of yesterday's coffee and here I sit thinking about what to write while my fingers typed out three paragraphs (which I just read) while I wasn't looking. I was thinking about resolutions.

I have no resolutions. I don't do resolutions. The only time I made a resolution was in the first few minutes of the last year of the twentieth century and that was more of an invocation to the fertility gods (it worked too, I delivered Little Girl on December 11, 2000).

I have nothing to invoke this year except maybe patience, perseverance and the strength to let be the things I have no right to control. I know perfectly well what those are too I just have a really hard time not panicking and grasping a float that has no intention of being grasped. The float does like to be grasped at though. I think it makes him feel wanted and needed. I think that's poison for me.However, invoking a negative does not create a positive. So here they are, my resolutions in spite of not doing resolutions (because God forbid I don't keep them):

1. Bake more bread. We lost that in 2009.
2. Order the seeds and actually start the seedlings.
3. Repair the fence and till the garden hopefully one week after the last hard freeze (sometime in March most years).
4. Compost. Everything that ought to be composted. Lost that in 2009 too.
5. Put the seedlings in just after Mother's Day and protect the tomato plants with plastic bottle hot houses. Pay attention to the weather and don't boil them.
6. This year pull UP all the volunteers from last year. That was fun but unproductive.
7. Cultivate early and often.
8. Order more broiler chicks. Maybe even eggs if I can work out an incubator and commit to turning them every day.
9. Get back on the elliptical in the morning at least until the heavier garden work is in full swing. Bikram is not enough.
10. Walk away from 2009 and don't look back. I can't imagine turning into a pillar of salt particularly pleasant.

That's it. I'm stopping at ten because I'm an over achiever and usually bite off more than I can chew without choking. Those ten are probably a big mouthful but maybe there should be an 11th:

    11. Give myself permission to fall down and get up again. You know, permission to be a bona fide member of he human race. The expectation of perfection is a horrible conceit.

Happy New Year, peoples. I wish you joy, love, passion, strength and surrender.

Peace out - Alecto

 
Borrowed without permission from an artist who's name I can no longer locate.

Bikram - Part 3

Today, easier, today, more ass kicking, today, feel better on the way out and here now at home.

Today I found my toes with precious little effort. Today, laying flat on the floor with my hands on my center which is what I do before I open myself up, I reached down a little and felt these two strange yet oddly familiar bumps.

My hip bones.

How long I wonder before flat tummy. Maybe this is TMI but if you've been reading here for awhile, I tend to do that. So on the subject of flat tummy, here I am rapidly approaching 45 and losing weight at a pretty good pace and what the hell am I supposed to do with all this, um, skin?

Extra skin won't do at all. Have to work on that. I don't do cosmetic surgery (even though I fantasize now and then mostly about a boob job but the older I get the happier I am they're not doing much more than they did when I was twenty). So my skin has generally been pretty elastic and I bet with the right diet and plenty of fluids I can shrink that back too.

Segue back to the hot room. It was 120 in there at some point during the class and he opened the door to cool it down. I had not noticed until he said something. It is also easier to go in there twenty minutes early and just breathe. It no longer makes me want to run out of the room for air.

My lung capacity is increasing dramatically. This, in spite of smoking a pack a day (no lectures, people, it's keeping the top of my head glued on right now and I don't think I'll need it much longer). Anyway, lung capacity increasing fast. Feels good.

Balance was off a little and that is indicative of not eating properly again. Back to basics, three good meals a day and grazing. No more skipping for any reason, even if it's just a little. Need to hydrate more too.

Today is a big day for many reasons. Today I give freely. Love asks for nothing. It just is. (A Course in Miracles)

Happy

There's a lot I can't change in this world. I can do a lot of praying and I can have a boat load of faith and I can be intent as hell on a result but I can only change me. I'm working on that. Hard.

On the other hand, here I am again, back a lot sooner than I expected and I've discovered a couple of remarkable (to me) things.

1. I'm strong. As in Seriously, stupendously amazingly strong.
2. I am resilient to the point that I scratch my head sometimes and say, oh really, Alecto? You don't say.
3. I am persistent as all get out (Ok, I knew that).

And I am really, really happy to be here. In this space, with you.

Bikram notes from the master's trenches

I went online looking for Bikram philosophy and found a blog detailing the nine incredible weeks of instructor training  Bikram Blog.

This is out of context and it comes at the end but I wanted to share it because for me, it landed hard.

Let me end with a few more choice Bikram quotes from this week:

"The darkest place in the world is underneath the lamp."

"The only thing most Americans hear is ‘Take it easy, honey’, ‘Don’t hurt yourself’. Come to my class you hear something completely different."
 

"In America, you don’t say ‘cheat’, you say ‘compensate’."

"My yoga is the most incredible invention in all of civilization. Ask me why. Because people survived without electricity, without antibiotics, without air travel, etc. But yoga helps people survive. It gives you a better life. I can live without music, I can live without all that. I can live happily in a cave in the Himalayas. But we need heath to survive. That’s why this invention is more important than anything else anyone invented. Why am I talking that? Who got me off track??"

"My mother and father fight every 7 minutes. But they know when to stop. In American, no one knows when to stop. They are extremists, in America, they over do it. Yoga teaches balance, moderation."

"Did I clear myself?"

"Yesterday I explained to you why women get fat ass pretty quickly."

"PMS is American bullshit."

"Nobody on this earth knows the women character better than I do! (grunt) You women are bulletproof."

"Men don’t change. They are like used car: buy as it. No change."

"Don’t tell people what they want to hear. Tell them what they need to hear. Tell the truth."

"Which pain is good pain? How do you tell which pain is good from the pain that is bad? When you die."

"People act so weird, especially when they are upside down."

"Make your life and other people’s life better."

Bikram - Part two

Don't let anybody steal your peace. If you do, you are fifty percent responsible.

Much, much better this time. I walked out peaceful instead of nearly falling over. I felt good. I still feel good. He said something about 90 minutes in this room is fifteen days of good health. And I believe that.

I stayed through the end to Namaste which I missed last time or it just didn't happen (regular instructor this week). At Namaste I let go and released, released, released and then stood up and walked out of the space and into, well, into something peaceful at least.

At least. Funny statement.

So that's it for the yoga story today, nothing funny in the changing room (sweats is good to have!)

Now on with the day which is all about mind, body, spirit, soul. And maybe some laundry if the mood strikes me.

Oh yeah - Bikram Yoga - bring it on, baby!

Yeah, I know, this site's on hiatus and all that but I really do have something relevant to share.

Did something called Bikram Yoga today. 90 minutes in a 105 degree room with relative humidity at or about 40%.

Yikes.

I'm 44 and while not out of shape by any means, not so much your super flexible yoga goddess either.

There were moments when I thought I'd pass out. There were moments when I thought all that stuff I've got would just come pouring out of me in this incredible torrent. There were moments when I just could not believe what it felt like to just lay there and breathe. There were moments when I surprised myself and stepped back up into it again.

And then there was the moment when I tried to get my pants back on.

Pause.

We're in the changing room and it's full of half or totally naked women who have just sweat out sixteen tons of water and what have you. I think I have toweled off and I try to pull on a pair of jeans that are too big for me. I've lost about 10 pounds in the last two weeks.

I cannot get them on. There I stand in my itty bitty thong with my 44 year old ass in what I so dearly wished was a breeze and I'm fucking stuck! Halfway up the thighs.

I look desperately at my WORK friend and make whimpering sounds. She is sympathetic but working out her own modesty (I have 14 years on her for God's sake). The woman next to me says, yeah, I never get how people try to put jeans on after this, it's like when we were little kids after swimming trying to pull our pants back up.

I wondered how I was going to get home.

Lets just say they did finally and I did and next week I'll bring something else to change into.

Bikram Yoga, highly recommend it. Seriously. Not just for laughs anymore.

Happy New Year and good morning and all that

This is a quickie, I'll be back later but I have something that probably must be said.

This will only be meaningful to anyone who has been to the other site. The other site is a journal, often moment by moment, of exactly where I am in this journey. Last night at 1:49 AM EST somebody followed the link from there to here (that I've since deleted). What concerns me is that this may not be a perfect stranger. This could be one of my current readers, it could be my mother or it could have been my husband.

If it was a perfect stranger and you're back here reading again, I remind you that the other blog was very raw and bounces all over the place like a crazy out of control roller coaster. That is my private place where I can have those moments and not get them on anyone who isn't prepared to read them. All I ask is that you treat that with the utmost respect.

If it was one of my readers, welcome to the deep dark world and I hope it wasn't too upsetting.

If it was my mother that's perfectly fine because I'm sure you understand, you told me to set up another blog for this purpose anyway. It's not your fault I used a dormant blog.

If it was my husband, I don't know that you ever need to see those things. It is not that they are bad or negative, it's that it would certainly be a very overwhelming thing to read for you at the moment because one of the promises that I made was that you would have none of that from me when you come home, that I would take it elsewhere. And I did. If you found it, I am so very, very sorry and ask that you let that part go. It is mine, not for you to shoulder or even question.

That is all for now. I've had my full cup of coffee, smoked two smokes (this shit gotta stop soon because my asthma is flaring up again) and will now go fun out the early morning anxiety on the elliptical with both knee braces and a good bit of water.

I'll be back and Happy New Year. It was happy for me.

A Love Story - Part 3

Love's got everything to do with it.

I recently made a statement (borrowed shamelessly from Grey's Anatomy) that I lived every day these days at an 8. And that was the truth. What I am discovering is that there are 8s and then there are 8s. The second does not negate the first, it's just of an entire other flavor.

To clarify, my original 8 centered around overwhelm, fear and a probable need to have my freaking meds adjusted as well as some unresolved issues and my stubborn refusal to let anything go until I'd reconciled it to something I could understand and live with. What that really boiled down to was my base line belief that I would be hurt no matter what. I recall telling my husband that the 8 didn't necessarily have a lot to do with him directly, it just was what it was. That's hard to hear if you think you're supposed to do something about it and the truth is nobody can do that nor should they be expected to.

Another flavor of pain at an 8 is the physical kind. Turns out I'm really good at dealing with that. I can sink right into myself and either be with it or ride the waves. I am not a screamer when it comes to physical pain. Unfortunately I tend to seriously under report and that's nearly gotten me dead once or twice.

The third flavor of pain is is the pain of grief. As it turns out, for me at least, this is not a suicidal fear or pain at all. It's purely functional, as in how do I get up, work out (because I think those endorphins are the one thing that kicks me off with a fighting chance), shower, shave (because that's normalcy, right?), dress, apply make up, put in my contacts if I think I can keep the tears to a minimum and my glasses if I believe I cannot.

There are moments when I believe I simply cannot bear it one second longer and will do something rash. Not rash as in hurt myself, that need seems to be gone right out the window (maybe it's self preservation or a final surrender, I'm betting it's surrender and THAT is a very reassuring thought). But rash in terms of causing undo pain or harm to others. Of believing I cannot be functional when in fact I know that is not true. Not for me, it isn't my way.

An event is just that. An event. We make of it what we will. We can choose to be mired or we can choose to let it wash over us leaving us engulphed in the truth of it all. This is not a drowning by any means. It's an acceptance. The more I fight it the worse it gets and the harder it is to move through it.

I think of child birth. I've had three children with large gaps in between (five and nine years). With each labor I learned to let go and wash through the waves sometimes chewing the sheets and sometimes just panting. Sometimes there were tears but never any outright crying and certainly no screaming. At the point of transition when the body called mine becomes something else entirely and I have no control there is only one thing to do - push through it. That's a scary thing because the ring of fire we all hear about is exactly that and the only way through is through.

I think of love that way these days. And by love I don't mean the romantic flowers and puppy dog love. I mean the enduring commitment that has us move mountains. I think that in the letting go of the me creates the space for something infinitely greater and quite honestly, precious beyond belief.

So here is an event. I have it. I am in it and the only way to be is just 'is'.

Try that sometime. I am.

Walking on glass, toe heel, toe, heel all the way across the plains

 

This Christmas my dad showed up with two plastic storage bins from my Aunt Ann with whom I had a conversation some years ago about some family china that I didn't feel I had any right to as the only girl once removed and that surely one of her boys would have gotten married and taken it with him.

Apparently not. Anyway, I think this because my paternal grandmother once compelled me to return an heirloom Christmas ornament to my father because 'our things pass down through the family name' and it didn't much impress her that I'd kept the family name. And that doesn't make a bucket of sense because my Aunt sure didn't keep the family name but I never could keep this stuff straight.

Now the truth of the matter is that I don't think my aunt got her hands on this stuff until her mother was past ninety but I could be wrong about that too (I find myself wrong about many things these days). It is also possible that Grandma Bess finally relented given the circumstances. In any event, here it is.

My mother once had possession of he soup tureen which is a grand affair with a slot for a very ornate ladle which I returned to my father some twenty odd years ago at somebody's request. He's said I can have that as well.

The thing about the china is it's absolutely not my style in the least. It's fussy, ornate, very old and quite breakable. It cannot go anywhere near a dishwasher, microwave or child under the age of 41. And yet here it is in my household, used immediately to serve Christmas dinner and I am smitten and awed. I wanted it the way I want all things old and family because I'm wired that way. I like to hold the ghosts of my ancestors in my hands and feel what's left they might have to say to me. I just wasn't prepared to instantly love them in a whole other way the moment they came out of their wrappings and into my hands.

They belonged to my Great, Great Grandmother Beyer who came with her husband from Germany penniless sometime before the turn of the century, I believe. My Great Great Grandfather Beyer was a barber with a space at the Waldorf Astoria and my Great Great Grandmother Beyer was a dressmaker. They had one child who was my Grandmother Bess's mother and her name was Lilly and that's about all I've got to say at this writing other than I'm stunned the china made it past Lilly and into Bess's hands in the first place.

So Great Great Grandfather Beyer the Barber had some wealthy clients with some tasty little insider tips and the Beyers lives changed just a bit. And if you think about the probable timing, that would have been a miracle in and of itself. This china would have been purchased after the fact and given the markings on the bottom - Theodore Haviland Limoges France in red with no underscore - these pieces are circa 1903 - 1925. Just before the market crashed.

And here it sits today on my dining room table. A thing to be cherished not for it's inherent value (although apparently I can still buy and sell it and I lean toward the buy, not the sell for heaven's sake) but for the fact of it's continuity. A piece of beauty and grace that is meaningful only in talisman of it's being.

Like I said, I am in awe of it's very presence in my home.

Now all I have to do is manage not to break it which brings us to the segue.

Covered vegetable dish sits on a massive glass table reflecting the dish itself and the contents of the room. Something broke this weekend or broke a year or two years ago or who the hell knows but it broke and I found out for sure last night and I don't know quite how bad but there's a reflection of it in the table. Cletus slept with me last night and I had the good fortune to have a friend, a real honest to god friend to call at six in the morning and say I need you, please come now. OK, I was better than that. I sent the text at 6 and the Facebook message at a more reasonable hour of 9ish and she came right over, adjusted my meds a bit, gave me half a pack of cigs (don't worry, this is absolutely medicinal and no more addictive than the Klonopin I seem to require at the moment and its working which is the good news).

I'm debating sleeping with the dogs tonight. I don't know if that will help or make it worse. I guess I'm just going to deal with it one small moment at a time.

Waiting

I'm sitting on the couch in my living room with a cat carrier to my right, door right up against my right thigh because it's the only thing keeping my cat from completely losing her shit. Yep, here we go about a cat again.

This cat turned four in October and belonged to my husband's brother Frank who died horribly and alone in his bathroom at home just two years and ten months ago. The last time anybody talked to Frank was Valentine's Day, 2006 and if you want to read about it go here because it's a pretty powerful post and everybody's names are used so please tread with care (I won't edit this post for any reason). Anyway, Nomans found Frank on March 4 and it was as awful as you might expect. It took some time to sort everything out but the net result was a disaster of an apartment full of hazmat that needed to be emptied, the kind of hazmat that happens with a particular flavor of mental illness, and two cats needing homes. Two cats that spent at least two weeks locked up with a body. I'll leave you to work that out on your own.

Shortly after the funeral (and as Jews we should have done this immediately but for what should be obvious reasons, could not) my husband had to go to Switzerland for a week and I, suddenly jobless at that point, chose to stay home. Staying home was the wrong thing to do but half way through the week I put my girls in the car and drove nearly three hours South to bring home what amounted to two feral cats, not much past kitten hood.

One cat made it and one cat did not. By 'did not' I mean he failed to assimilate into the household in any way and had to be removed. His litter mate, named Wicious (because she's 'wicious and fawocious') eventually settled in and did just fine.

A few weeks ago, just as we were becoming painfully aware that we really were in the end game with Chuck, Homer the Dog started behaving badly. He pooped in our bathroom, peed on the couch, peed on our bed and it just went on and on. We assumed Homer (we were right about the bathroom) because it was nearly odorless and Simon can't get up on the furniture by himself to save his life (he just eats it instead). We forgave Homer because he's had a lot to deal with (like a sixty pound baby) and crated him to avoid further issue for the time being. And then there was another odorless puddle on the bed and another after that. You see, she tried the foot of the bed and that didn't work. Then she tried my side and I still didn't pay attention. And then she tried Noman's side when she was accidentally locked in our room and then we knew our last kitty was pretty sick.

And then we noticed that she was always hungry but stopped eating after a mouthful or two and walked away crying. And then we could pick her up and hold her like a baby and she didn't purr and she didn't struggle, she just laid there all snugged up and motionless.

I didn't waste time. I called the vet today, gave symptoms and was told to come in. So the appointment is at 3 and I didn't want to risk not being able to locate or catch her (not like she's moving very fast but she is wicious and fawocious and wiley too. And I'm sitting on this couch with the carrier right against my leg and she's gone to sleep. If I get up and moves she cries like the world might end.

I don't know how this is going to turn out but it can't be good. I only know we love this cat and I will gladly pay the price of fear and pain and possible loneliness to have the right to love and be loved back by this cat. (and the dogs are in the kitchen eating the table legs and I'll probably get over it).