Home Again

I got home Wed eve at about 6:30 p.m. I knew I was tired but I had no idea how tired I was until after dinner. I brought home Panera salads, so neither I nor F had to prepare a meal. Afterwards I found myself closing my eyes and listening to the news. My mind kept going, but my body was really tired. Before long I fell into a deep sleep and slept for almost 3 hours. F was very kind in allowing me to stay a sleep even though she hates when I do that, especially after I have been away for a week. I woke up and stayed up about 1 1/2 hours and then fell into bed and immediately went into a deep sleep again until 7 a.m.!!! That is a lot of sleep for me. About 10 hours. A rare occurrence.

Yesterday I was in a fog for most of my day at work. It wasn't until after lunch that I actually got a real boost of energy and went through my backed-up work like crazy. I went shopping afterwards and F did meal prep. Lovely. We had a quiet evening and I went to bed at 11. Again I slept well. Woke up at 5:30, back in the groove. And now, it's Friday!

Michael Jackson. How many blogs will have that name on it. It's sad that he died so young. But what is more sad is that he lived in so much pain - all his life, I think. In a sense, it is a good thing for him that it is over. I think he has been a defeated man for quite a while. Sad for his children, his family. He was a very, very talented entertainer. Brilliant. I think the news will be filled with the same Elvis story. Self destruction, enabled and encourage by those closest to him. Sad, sad...

Another sad story, but not unexpected, was Farrah Fawcett passing. She is not a celebrity that loomed large in my life at all. Actually, the role I remember her most for is the pretty girl she played in Myra Breckinridge with Raquel Welch. They actually had a love scene together. I remember her on Charlie's Angels, but vaguely. I saw the documentary that she made about her battle with cancer. It aired a couple of months ago. It was very honest and she was open. I left that feeling a lot of empathy for her and tremendous respect for her courage in allowing herself to be seen dealing with such an awful disease. I thought she would die sooner than she did. In fact, I thought it was unfortunate that she did, she was clearly in so much pain. She is out of that body now.

Time for me to go to work. Latah!

Neda Agha-Soltan

Savannah

This past weekend Frankye, her sister, Barbara, and I went to Savannah. Barbara and I had never been there before. It was hot and humid, and drizzled a few times. I've always thought of the deep south as the cradle of the civil war. Savannah is an exception. Not much of the war was fought there. That surprised me. I'm not a civil war buff but I am a colonial-revolutionary war period buff. I had no idea that Savannah had such a rich history from that time period and had spent a good part of the past century preserving many of the buildings and original squares that dot the historic district in the city.

We took a trolly tour of the city and I saw at least a dozen places I would like to visit close up. The old homes, live oaks, city parks, and even the colonial park cemetery, were all beautiful with a southern quietness to them. Many tourists around. Lots of girl scout troops visiting the home of the founder of the GSA. It was a fun visit. Good food. Good company. Exercize.

My brother is better, back to his life. Taking it slow. Sunday my mother fell and broke her shoulder. She is suffering. Very painful. My father is a saint. Burning karma at a rapid pace, he is. I will be going down next Friday, earlier if my mother needs surgery. We will know on Monday.

Onward and upward...

fryday

Finally made it to Fryday, and it's past 5 pm. Still at work but getting ready to leave soon. This week feels as though it has been packed with stuff:

• work as always. And that was ok
• Tot's accident and all the emotion of that
• Barbara arrived for her much anticipated visit and that has been very, very nice
• my brother's emergency hospitalization, and he is doing better tho still in the hospital
• came to work today and found that I had received a bonus, and I thought we weren't getting one this year - a nice surprise.
• heard that a co-worker who had been having complications gave birth to a healthy preemie last night - all is well with both

Other stuff is:

• a planned trip to Savannah for this weekend, that we can now afford to enjoy what the city has to offer a little more.
• re-exploring and rediscovering Bob Dylan's music, after reading his book Chronicles 1 and loving it.
• reading The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet and wishing I could sit in a chair and read it through in one sitting. (An aside to my friend josh - I think you would love this book - it's about a very smart 12 year old boy - kinda like somone I know).
• having it be Friday evening and Barb and Frankye are coming home from St. Augustine with dinner take out
• reconnecting with Mo on-line through facebook, and missing her and her family very much
• having Richard back home and talking on the phone with him and doing email together

So it has been a week of weeks rolled into one week. I am ready:

• to go home
• to rest and relax
• to enjoy the sound of the rain
• to sleep well tonight
• to have my feet up
• to play word whomp on my computer
• to chat with Barb and Frankye
• to watch the telly
• to have dinner
• to smile and feel good about my friends, even though they are not with me
• to forget that my parents are nuts and love them anyway (oy!)
• to start all over tomorrow!

Oh yeah...I forgot...I have a 4 day weekend!

Smooth

I wish my life would go smoothly sometimes. I would like to have a period of time in my life where there was no ripples in the water. I’d love a long (not eons…weeks would be nice) period of no outside interruptions, or near misses for people I care about, no trauma, drama, or adversity. Just quiet. I crave quiet.

My life is too busy. Busy and chaotic. Chaotic because I am not deaf and I hear sounds and talking all day, every day, and I can’t get away from it. Living things in the world are constantly communicating with one another, or with no one in particular.

I often wonder what it would be to live in a little cabin in the woods, ala Thoreau or Merton. Getting up, doing chores, cooking, eating, reading, writing, watching, walking, sleeping; all the basic tasks of life without all the noise of the contemporary world. No tv, radio, phones, computers; news from newspapers, family news from letters. I feel a silent retreat at Marywood coming on!

The biggest intrusion of them all: the telephone. The telephone rings and I, or someone else in the house answers, and you never know if it is going to be idle chatter, pleasant news, or news that strikes fear into the very depths of your heart. Last night we received the latter.

A little after 7 pm last night, someone we know and love, someone often referred to as “Tots,” was driving his motorcycle over 100 MPH on I-95 north and hit a car. I could write a long description of the accident and damage that ensued, but I don’t want to remember it to even retell it. What is the most horrendous part of this story is the knowledge that if just one thing did not go in his favor, I would not be writing this right now. I’d be too distraught and caring for someone who was even more distraught than I.

Tots is alive, with no broken bones, no head or spine injury and no organ damage. Because of the quick thinking and unselfish bravery of the car he hit, he was spared being run over after he catapulted into the lane in front of the car he hit. The driver veered his own car into the median divider, rather than hit Tots’ body lying in the lane ahead of him. The driver and his passenger are unhurt.

Because of the unselfish bravery of another driver, coming behind, who stopped his car before he got to Tots, and jumped up on the hood of his car and directed traffic out of the lane so Tots could be brought to safety to the side of the road, he was not hit by many cars that would have not seen him lying in the road in time to swerve or stop. Because of the many cars that stopped to attend to him, and called for help, Tots was safely brought to the side of the road, removed from harm’s way, and attended to by EMT, who arrived within 2 ½ minutes.

Tots spent hours in the ER getting CT scans, x-rays, IV morphine, antibiotics, and wound cleaning and dressing. Then he went home to his apt with his gf to rest. I was told the bike was cut in two and so mangled that his brother broke down when he saw it. Tots is suffering today. He has massive and extreme road rash over many parts of his body. Today he feels like he was run over by a truck. I think he does not understand yet how close he came to that being his reality. Why is he alive after such a horrendous accident? Who knows. I just know that every thing that needed to go right for him to survive without life debilitating injury did go right. I am so grateful (to what, I wonder?). And I am exhausted from it. I’m not even his mother, or brother, or father, or grandmother. I can only imagine how they feel.

I started this blog by complaining about the intrusion of life. Life can only intrude in such a way when you care for others. I have for so long wished I didn’t give a shit about anyone. It would make it easier to be aloof, unimpassioned, quietly sympathetic but unaffected. It is so not my nature, I would be fighting against myself always to accomplish that.

When I was a child I use to swim in the ocean in the summers. I would spend long periods of time riding the waves, or sitting on the beach watching the gulls go up and down on the waves, steady, always afloat, not getting dunked. The Buddhist goal is to sit on the waves, be they tidal waves or ripples, just as a gull would sit on the water. Smooth. Steady. Undisturbed. I am so not there yet.