Sign, Please

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later." ~ Mitch Hedberg

I have to make a decision about something.  I need a sign, something that will help me know that I'm choosing the right thing.  I wish making choices was easier.  I wish I were wiser, that I had more knowledge or sense, more courage or brains or whatever it is that I apparently am lacking....

Wouldn't it be great it life just came with a map or a manual?  I would settle for a "preview of coming attractions" at this moment.  I'm so scared of running away from something I'm supposed to stay with for the wrong reason.  Ridiculously, I'm also afraid that I'm stubbornly clinging to something I should let go of for reasons that are not sound, either.

So what's the answer?  I wish I knew.  Oh, how profoundly I wish that I knew.....

Run Like Hell

(with apologies to Floyd, the lyrics of whose song have almost nothing to do with this post)

If I could have contrived a way for the marble floors to have opened up and swallowed me, I would have made it happen today.  It started well; I like Thursdays.  I had danish for breakfast.  I had Diet Mountain Dew back in my pantry and fridge.  I was cheerful.  I was listening to the Beatles' blue album.  I got to talk to a friend who, although she's in the same building, I rarely see.

Then it went right straight to hell.

Less and less am I able to put all the pieces back together.  More and more do I believe the bad things.  There's a line in some movie (I have the horrible feeling I'm about to quote Pretty Woman, but I'm not quite sure...) that says something about how people can tell you something good but the bad things are easier to believe.  That's where I am lately.  The bad things keep coming, and even though I'm trying not to gripe and whine (believe it or not, I really am), they keep knocking me to my knees.  It's getting harder and harder to get up.

Today, I didn't even want to.  Staying down seemed both right and good.  If down is where they want me so badly, maybe down is where I am supposed to be. After all, if I get up to fight again, I'm just going to get hit again.  What's the point of that?  It hurts and the effort involved in dragging my bleeding self back to my unsteady feet isn't going to be appreciated by anybody but myself....

When it was over, I sat very still for awhile, just thinking.  A friend came in and we talked.  I gathered my things, and we left, she to her home, I to mine.  I just ran away.  Despite the mountains of things I needed to accomplish, I couldn't do another thing, soul-sick as I am right now.  I'm going to watch a movie, see if there's anything edible in the kitchen, and look for joy in the small things that surround me.  I do know I do have to get myself back up again.  I just don't know how I'm going to do it.

Jester

I'm building probably the best piece I've ever done in pottery right now.  I finished up the handbuild tonight; he is now drying.  Next week, I'll see if I can clean the greenware piece without doing damage.  I'll take a picture when I get it cleaned before it goes into the kiln.  I can't help but be proud of it.  It's worlds away from the little cat I have here on the shelf of my living room, yet they are related. 

I love hand building more every time I sit down to do it.  It is so satisfying to see the whimsies of my mind come to life by the effort of my hands. 

Now We Are 35

Maybe that quote doesn't really work when you're not 10 anymore....

I woke up feeling so cheerful and happy.  I don't know if it's just because it's my birthday or if it's something else altogether.  Whatever it is, I hope it lasts. 

I've had birthday greetings coming in via text and FaceBook since just before midnight last night.  It's meant so much to me that people have taken the time to drop me a note.  Some of my former students have said very sweet things, better really than any gift.  It's nice to know they remember me, that what I gave them is still something they value.

Today itself was a wonderful day.  I slept late, had lunch at Olive Garden with my parents (eggplant Parmesan...yay,yay,yay), and then my Mom and I went junkin'.  I found a beautiful wooden box for my handkerchiefs and a couple of other things as well.  Mom took a picture of me in a silly hat at the antique mall. It has been a thoroughly peaceful day. 

Tomorrow will be a return to "the real world."  I'm going to fight to hold on to this feeling though.  Maybe it's finally mine for keeps.

The Birthday Indulgences, 2011 Edition

In a few hours, I will be 35.  God.  How did that happen?

I'm sort of excited about this birthday.  It's weird.  Usually I get in a grim black funk about them or have a moment of introspection and move on, but for this one, I kind of want to go to a place that does the whole sombrero on the head thing and make them sing to me.  It's odd.

Thirty-five.  Half my life, realistically.  I should be in a navel-gazing cloud of despair over all I haven't done, over where I am now, blah-blah-blah, but instead, for no good reason, I'm sort of giggling and amused.  In four hours, I will quite officially "no longer be young," if ever I was.

Since I instituted the "Week of Senseless Indulgences" a few years ago to fend off birthday blues, I have carefully plotted and planned to make sure I have neat things near my birthday.  This year, I think I outdid myself. Of course, I have my earrings which were my big gift to myself this year, but I also went to the Eudora Welty conference Friday, something I always enjoy, and that intellectual stimulation made me feel like a person with a brain again instead of a dead teacher minion.

After the conference, I went to Target and just wandered up and down the aisles, on nobody's timetable but my own.  I bought myself my favorite type of pencil, the gravity-feed Dr. Grip (if you don't have one, you need one and can get one or at least take a look at the specs on one by clicking on the helpful Amazon box at the left....they're a little hard to find....), and a Beatles t-shirt.  I got a new scented candle for my classroom.  Little things.  Little things.

I finally remembered to return two movies to NetFlix that I've had forever, and I took the time to watch two more that I've wanted to see for a long time.  It's been nice to have something not a rerun to watch in the evenings.  

Today, I went back to Jackson to see my best friend for the first time since school started.  We went to MugShots and had big, unhealthy burgers laden with blue cheese.  We roamed around Pier1 and the Craftsmen's Guild Center.  It was a good day.  More little things.

Tomorrow, on the actual day, I think Mom and Dad are going to take me out to eat, and we'll get to spend time together.  Mom said something about going junkin', and there's a show at the Riley Center I might try to pick up a ticket for if I feel like it and there are any left.

Little things.  Little things.

Maybe I shouldn't keep all these little things bottled up for just this time in February. Maybe I should focus on trying to have every week, every month be filled with Senseless Indulgences.  Life would certainly be a lot more pleasant if I did....  Something to think about as I start the second half of my life, perhaps.

Snow

We may or may not have snow tonight.  Some flakes are falling now, but after all the recent cries of Wolf, I am something of a skeptic.  I will believe in the whiteness when I see the whiteness. 

It would be nice to have.  We haven't had snow in a long time, not a real snowfall.  I'd love to get out and take snow pictures now that I have a good camera.  The last pictures I took were just with my iPhone.
 
I miss the snow from Indiana.  I have crazy memories of a huge mass of graduate students, a bunch of cheap sleds bought at KMart, and a big snowy hill....  Of course, I also have not-so-happy memories of creeping across campus trying not to be the obligatory student-on-his/her-backside on the ice-slicked sidewalks since no salt could be used on IU's campus...  It wasn't funny to see somebody's legs go flying out from under them after you had it happen to you once.

As I listen to the icy drops click against the window, I wonder what my world will look like tomorrow.  I wonder if I'll have to go to work.  I guess all the mysteries will be revealed soon enough.

Heard on the Radio

"Jesus loves you, so I'm gonna, too.  Here's a CD."  ~ DJ on Air1 in reference to the idea that this Valentine's Day we should attempt to focus on loving those around us who get on our nerves or who are generally "unloveable" and find real ways to show it. 

It made me smile.  Then it made me think.

Recipes

We were headed out of my great-aunt's funeral when my aunt asked me if I had my Granny's recipe box.  It's a small wooden card file that she kept handwritten and clipped recipes in.  I do.  It's the source of her homemade macaroni and cheese recipe and the rice pudding recipe I pull when I feel bad and want something not at all healthy but deeply comforting.  My uncle wanted a cake he remembered Granny making, an apricot nectar cake, and she asked me to look for the recipe. 

Today I got around to looking for it.  After a day of cleaning in an attempt to try to bring some order to the neverending landslide of chaos with which I seem to be surrounded at all times, I opened the cabinet, took out the little brown wood box , and sat down in a chair in the living room to look for the requested article.  There are probably more than a hundred recipes in the box, and there is some order, but not a great deal, to them.  Granny's neatly typed cards are in with irregularly sized pieces of yellowed newpaper clipped from the EMEPA newsletter or the local daily paper. 

As I flipped through them with the tips of my finger, I saw recipes from other members of my family, many of them gone now, from members of my community, the august ladies of the church, and I smiled as I thought of those women and those particular dishes.  They were famous for some of those dishes.  Whenever we had a churchwide fellowship or a family reunion, they could always be counted on to bring those specialties. 

I don't cook like that.  Few women of my generation do,  I think.  It's not that I can't cook; I have the skills.  It's that I rarely take the time needed to assemble the ingredients, use the machinery, do all the intermediary steps that produce the glorious final results.  Looking through the box made me sad, and not only for the lost ladies.  I always miss them.  It made me sad for the way I live.  Even though I choose it for its convenience in my hectic and tiring life, sometimes I can't help but think "modern convenience" has lost something in its microwave translation. 

I typed up the recipe for Apricot Nectar Cake, converting the old Underwood print to modern fonts and a Word document, but I also pulled three or four others and typed them up, too, one for the barbeque chicken I remember her making in her crockpot, one for the buttermilk pie I love and can't get anywhere else, and one for the self-crusting fruit cobblers which are the fastest and simplest of all the Southern desserts.  All of the recipes I chose are easy, all should mix up quick, and I think that all of them will yield leftovers for days and days.  I am going to try to blend in a little of what's in that little brown box and see if I can't take some of that pride those ladies had back into the preparation of meals.  It seems too important a thing to leave undone.

Luxuries

This morning, for the first time in more than a week, I feel good.  Really, really good. 

I still have on one of my favorite pair of snuggly flannel pajamas and am buried under a warm fuzzy red blanket on the couch.  Pearl, my big grey cat, is curled up on the back of the couch half-asleep.  TopGear is on TV, and the weather outside is cold and uninviting but the sun is trying to peek out. 

Unintentionally, I slept 12 hours last night.  I sort of dozed off watching TV sometime after nine and woke up about two, went to bed properly and slept until nine again.  I think I woke up around 5:45, just my mind checking to see if it was a school day, but I dozed back off.  Apparently, a feast of sleep is what my body needed. 

I suppose, too, it could have been the good meal I had last night, nothing microwaved or fast food.  Or the chocolate.  I got a box of Belgian chocolate at Tuesday Morning when I was there buying a suitcase yesterday, and it may be the best chocolate I've ever had.  I don't know why this particular batch is so good, but I had some last night, and it made me very happy. 

In a little while, I will get up, take a long hot shower, put on my favorite worn pair of jeans, a tshirt that makes me laugh, some Chucks, eat a chicken salad sandwich, grab my camera, and go junkin.   Or maybe I'll brave the crowds at Wal-Mart to get supplies.  Even that doesn't seem onerous today.

I know these little luxuries don't rate very high on anybody else's list, but they sure are going a long way toward making me feel good just now.

Two Thoughts about History

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." ~ Voltaire

"History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." ~ Edward Gibbon

Cause and effect?

Waxwings

I was grading during my planning period when my colleague from across the hall stuck her head in and told me to open my blinds and look at the tree just outside my window.  She said, "I know you'll want to see them.  They're like Christmas ornaments...."  The cedar waxwings were making their annual stopover in the cherry tree that marks the changing seasons in stately grace within touching distance from my classroom windows.

There were probably more than a hundred of them.  They were busily stripping the tiny berries from the tree, twittering in that squeaky, rusty hinge noise they have, hopping and gliding, and largely taking no notice of anyone, especially me behind my pane of glass.  I stood and watched them for a long time.  I love all birds, but their particular beauty caught me today, their feisty little crest, their charming black mask, the sulfur yellow dipped tip of their long graceful tails, in such sharp contrast to the tranquil colors of their bodies, and there, just at the tip of their wings, a tiny shocking splash of scarlet, almost like random drops from a trailing paintbrush. 

A couple of them seemed to be watching me watch them, tiny heads turning in bemused curiosity as I tried to get my iPhone to focus on them.  I had started to take the Nikon to school this morning as I need to take a photo or two of the National Honor Society for the yearbook, but since the weather was despicable, I decided not to take it out into all that nasty slush.  I was kicking myself for not obeying that impulse as I watched the tiny feathery clowns preen and pose in the water-draped branches of the tree.  Everywhere I looked, there was a picture. 

I will take my camera Monday even though I know they probably will already be gone on their way.  Who knows what else might appear that I will regret not being able to save and share?  At least I have the waxwings in my memory.  I can save them there if nowhere else.

Good Things

School was dismissed about 1:00 because of foul weather. Because the students left early, I got to eat lunch by myself in the privacy of my own room.  I didn't have to go through the ordeal of sitting through the Hell of 3rd Lunch as I've come to think of it counting the minutes until I could run away to freedom.  I turned on some Ella Fitzgerald on iTunes, ate my chicken salad sandwich, and read an article on MentalFloss.com.  It was surprisingly sweet.

After a slickish drive home, I checked the mail early, but there was nothing there.  I waited until near dark, went out to put my car under the shed, and took the opportunity to surreptitiously drive back down to the mailbox.  I had to take my MagLight and use it like a club to break open the rime of ice that was sealing the box shut, but inside was the newsletter from my power company and the package holding my diamond earrings made by Artifactum.

They're lovely.  Really, really lovely.  The diamonds in them may not be worth a lot (or they may, what the hell do I know?), but I love the way they look.  They are the perfect size, and they will easily go with things that are simple or fancy.  I am extremely happy with them.

My fountain pen is here, too.  It came the day of the massive migraine, so I haven't written about it yet.  I've been cheering myself up with it for the past two days.  It's a gorgeous thing, cream with deep purple and hints of chocolate swirling through it.  I find myself just sort of picking it up and absently running it through my fingers, watching the light play on the resin.  It's ridiculously lovely.  Beautiful, well-made, practical things that one can use everyday; there really are not enough of these items in the world.

My other good thing is not an object at all, but rather a long-hoped-for opportunity.  I found out that I'm going to be able to do something I've wanted to do for a very long time, and while I won't talk much about it here right now, it represents a professional step forward for me as well.  It makes me feel valued and valuable, maybe a little bit like the rough diamonds in my ears.

Maybe tonight, then, I won't have nightmares.  I can only think of one thing that would be better than the things I've put here now, and that, unfortunately, is not possible in any way at all.  I will settle for the happinesses I have been blessed with.  They are bountiful enough right now.

Disquiet

I woke up to the sound of strong winds at two a.m from bad dreams.  My grandmother was in the hospital again, and so was I.  Granny was trying to tell me something important, and we kept being wheeled down those horrible anonymous and endless hospital corridors.  I do not remember what it was we said; as always with this dream, I keep thinking that I should remember, that it was important. 

This is probably just the product of my stupid brain trying to cope mixed with the death of my great-aunt, one of Granny's sisters, last Friday.  I don't know.  All I know is that I'm tired. 

Migraine and Rain

It started out as stressful Tuesday.  Everything blew up, got lost, ran out, shut down, and wasn't ready this morning.  My head started hurting before school started, but because it was a low-grade pain, I ignored it thinking that it would loosen up as the day went on. You really would think I'd know better by now, wouldn't you?

A missed planning period kept the pressure twisting, and outside, the weather patterns were shifting into something horrible.  By the time we got to the end of third period, the pain was intense.  I tried using acupressure points, lowering the temperature, and so forth, but nothing did any good. Fourth period came in, got settled, and I took a Maxalt. 

Usually Maxalt will stop migraines for me.  It has been very effective.  Today, however, it did nothing.  It could have been peppermint for all the good it did me.  I was doubled over and crying by the middle of the period.  I've never had that happen in class.  The students in that tiny little class cut the lights off, and I sent one to go get my administrator.  I called somebody to come get me, and I started packing up.  I had to leave.

My advisory class came in and it was terrible.  The lights were cut back on.  One of the kids actually said that he was glad I had a headache so they didn't have to write an essay today.  I know they're young, but really, how insensitive can a person be?  There I was with pain so bad I couldn't see, and then there was that...

I wound up being sort of half-carried downstairs by the nurse and security to sit in the nurse's office and wait for my ride.  I napped until he could get there, and then I finally got home.  I took a phenergan and slept for six hours.  Now I'm up to eat dinner, etc. The pain is finally gone. 

My doctor is finally going to refer me out to another neurologist.  I don't know that there is anything that can be done, really, but after seeing the non-existent thing on the floor last month and this now, I think I need to get the gray matter checked out.  That probably means a wonderful trip into the claustrophobia-inducing MRI hellbox, but I'm just not going to think about that right now.  They can just drug me well and do what they need to.

Landmark

The Fool's Cap Map of the World

This is my one-thousand-and-first post.  The landmark event slipped up on me without my realizing it.  I feel that I should have done something to mark the occasion, swept up the dust in the corners, polished the brass a bit, should have put on my dress motley and my good cap at least.  For six years and a thousand posts now, I've been using this little corner of the electronic universe as a safeguard for my admittedly dubious sanity.  For everyone who comes along on this wild and whirling tour, even if it's only to see what happens when all the wheels finally do come off, I can but say thank you.  It's been a good place to dance.

Buy Your Own Diamonds

When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.  ~Peter Marshall

I approach thirty-five on dainty winged feet.  

Actually, I just wanted to write that.  I don't do anything on dainty winged feet.  I stumble toward thirty-five like somebody running an endurance race who, in full stride, hung a toe on a root they should have seen and avoided....


Got that picture of grace in your head now?  Good, good....


A few years ago, I got tired of waiting for marriage to bring me a KitchenAid mixer, and, so, when February rolled around, I took myself and my pitiful bank account to a local mercantile and I brought home the lovely bright red beast that gleams quietly on my kitchen cabinet, maker of pound cake batter thick enough to use as a mortar for brick.  

That was the same birthday I got tired of waiting for Fiestaware, the dishes I had always wanted, and so I began to collect sets of them on each payday.  I now eat my breakfasts, rare lunches at home, and dinners off the same type of dishes my Nana had, cheerful, sturdy, bright pops of color.  Just opening the cabinet or emptying the dishwasher makes me happy.


This year, I stop waiting for diamonds.


This year, thirty-four fades into thirty-five.  There are no beaux lining up and pining away at my door.  I've watched girls who were literally infants when I was in high school get married recently, and I'm done waiting for the bolt from the blue to strike here.  For whatever reason, although I am blessed with many other good things, that good thing is not going to be mine.  Therefore, I'm buying my own damned diamonds.  


Not a ring.  I don't want that.  It would be a little too much insult added to injury, if you follow the logic there.  There will never be a diamond ring on these hands apparently.  I have, however, always wanted a pair of diamond studs.  You can read my previous post about the ones that Artifactum makes on Etsy, made from uncut diamonds, unusual and lovely.  That is what I've bought myself.  


They are my way of making peace with thirty-five.  If nobody else will give them to me, then I love me enough to give them to myself. 

Absolutely an Exercise in Fiction

Testing out my fiction skills.  Please don't take this to be anything other than a writing exercise.  Obviously, if it were, there would be other bloggage to accompany it....

The sky is a cerulean vault overhead, and we’re inside a paperweight, a snowglobe filled with verdure.  You look like you belong here, but then again, you look like you belong everywhere.  There is no place I cannot imagine you fitting perfectly, no place I can imagine you looking wrong or unnatural.  Just now, you’re here in this green kingdom, though, listening to the wind sing high and soft in the trees, listening to the distant argument of certain raucous crows. You lie on this soft old white feedsack quilt in the middle of a summer-green field, one tanned arm behind your head.  That old t-shirt shows just a little of your stomach, enough to make ripples but not enough actually to incite action; your feet are bare at the end of strong legs, toes curling and uncurling.   We don’t talk.  I don’t need or even want words right now.  I need to watch you watching the world for a little while, absorbing it, breathing it in.  I need to watch the sun run its warm golden fingertips over your face, watch you turn into its touch, see those clever eyes close as you savor the sensation.  

You shift and stir, making a small noise of contentment.  Then you look at me.  All pretense of hiding behind my book is gone, and you know me well enough to know that even though the paperback is open in my hands, the only thing I’ve been reading for quite some time now is the changing expression on your face.  That little smile, the one that comes on slowly and is somehow something feline, curls your lips and your eyes turn a little amused, a little bold.  I return my gaze to my book, try to ignore the way that grin makes my pulse do outrageous things.  Your head tilts, and you idly trace the tip of one finger across the long scar on my foot, move up to the ones on my knee.  Touch.  Touch.  Touch.  Again, again, a message in tactile Morse until I finally lower the book again.  The amusement in your gaze is gone, and when our eyes meet, your hand closes gently on my leg.  I look away, taking my time, slip the little bronze bookmark onto the page, close it, lay it aside, and sink into green, gold, white, and blue.

Happy, D--n It.

If you want to be happy, be.  ~Leo Tolstoy

Yesterday, I decided that I was just going to be happy.  Come hell or high water, I was NOT going to allow the despairing blackness that has been sucking at my soul these past days and weeks to continue to pull me down.   I got up after a good night's rest, had a very decent breakfast courtesy of my trip to Sam's the night before, donned my Kentucky Shakespeare Festival sweatshirt, and went to school.


I listened to the Beatles on the way to school.  It's just about impossible to be upset when you listen to the Beatles.  I had music on at school, too, until class started.  Music always helps.  I made some clear-cut lists to get stuff processed, took care of as many little tasks as I could before school actually got started, and even graded entire classes of multiple choice tests during the class periods they were taken in.  


Most importantly, every time something stupid happened, I reminded myself to get perspective.  Reminded myself about what I am and am not responsible for.  What is and is not my fault, is and is not under my personal control.  I took a step back to consider what was worth the surge of emotion involved in feeling bad or angry, in allowing something to control me through that chain jerk of response.  


By the time late evening arrived, I was listening to the Rolling Stones and finishing up piles of work.  I left with a satisfied feeling.  The day was good because I grabbed it from the teeth of ridiculousness and ran away with it.  I'm going to have to keep doing that, I suppose, if I want any sort of peace at all.

Blackberries

I bought blackberries at Sam's.  I couldn't resist them.  They were little fragments of summer in their plastic box, and I desperately needed some summer right now to combat the cold and grey January days I've been having lately.

Blackberries grow wild in bramble thickets at our place in the country.  The past two years, I've missed them, either because of my knee or the AP reading, but usually, I can walk down the path to our shack and get my fill of them. The flavor of them is amazing.  They're tiny, but tart and sweet, perfection.  I can pick handfuls of them, and they stain everything when they're ripe, my hands, my mouth, the tails of summer t-shirts I use as makeshift collection baskets.  I eat them all and then try to suck the incriminating purple off my fingertips.

These storebought berries don't exactly have the same zing to them, but they're a welcome fruit diversion.  As I was waiting for my rice to cook tonight, I opened the little box and just ate them straight from the container with only a light rinse as a garnish.  Their taste was like a little memory, a reminiscence of the summer I yearn for.  I'm going to keep eating berries and daydreaming about summer days on the porch of my shack with a book and a camera and nothing but a golden afternoon with the sound of wind in the trees and the tall grass rippling before me.  Maybe Time will be merciful, move quickly, and those days will be back here again soon.

Bottom

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.  ~William Shakespeare, Othello

As long as you keep getting born, it's alright to die some times.  ~Orson Scott Card

Yesterday, I hit the hard, rocky bottom.  All my optimism died.  All my hope, all my ability to see good in the situations, all of the deep wells I pull from to keep going dried up on me and left me with nothing.  

It happens sometimes despite my best efforts to the contrary.  I can't always juggle, can't always shuffle step, can't always pretend away all that's making me sad or crazy or tired isn't there.  

I think I used to be better at it than I am now, though.  And that worries me, frankly.  My students see that I'm sad or tired, and they comment on it sometimes.  I don't want them to know it.  I want to hide it better than I am or not be so stressed all the time for them.  Being that person for them is just wrong.  I need to do better, be better for them.  Their mood so often comes from mine, and I have to be very careful about what I'm putting out there.


So I'm trying to pick myself up off the floor.  I got my hair cut.  I bought a silly shirt with Yoda on it at Wal-Mart.  I bought food, real food.  I left school early the last two days rather than stay until the darkness wrapped the building in its fist and crushed it.  I'm watching Firefly, some of my favorite episodes.


I have to get up.  I have to stumble to my feet.  If I don't, then I'm no use to anybody, not to my students, not to myself.