Lost: All Semblance of a Sense of Humor. Reward, if Found: Air Fryer Food and No Questions Asked.

Warning: If you’ve ever referred to the Spring of 2020 as the darkest of times or the workers at the Urgent Care as first responders, you really just shouldn’t read further. Save yourself the 3 minutes. We all have opinions based on our own minds, experiences, and knowledge (though knowledge is harder to come by, what with the twists and turns of information). It’s never been easier to just move on. We don’t even have to disagree anymore, we can just erase! What a wonderful world, right?

——-

I don’t feel funny anymore. Not that I was ever hilarious or stand-up comedian level humorous, but I could usually make people laugh, or at least make one of those little noises like something’s stuck in a nostril, most of the time. I’m just not funny anymore. I wonder if it’s a phase, like post-single motherhood was or the ‘pause that I can’t use “was” for, because as soon as I do, it’ll slap me around again. (Fool me twelve times, ‘pause, shame on you.) This has nothing to do with the CV. My search for my own funny has gone back some years now. I’ve also noticed that things I used to think were hilarious and loved to make fun of, like The Bachelor, now just get my dander up. Have I changed? Have they changed? Both, I know.

The CV hasn’t changed my lifestyle that much. I’ve worked, not worked, and worked part-time from home for a couple of years now. I haven’t enjoyed my Raytheon-esque neighbors spending their stimulus bonanzas on home improvement projects, but I get it. Before the shutdown, I was in the camp of skepticism, but now I’m just in the camp of utter defeat. “They” have proven what they can do to us. I won’t say what we allow them to do to us, because we’ve always been a police state (ask the indigenous folk) and most of us are just too pretty for jail. 95% (I’m making up numbers now; it IS the thing to do in 2020!) of us are middle class and working poor, just trying to get through the day without it ending in financial disaster. We’re all scared, panicked, tired, on edge, and pissed off. All that gets so misdirected, but the steam has to escape somewhere. They know all this and depend on it. And frankly, they just couldn’t care less. Not that Nancy Pelosi is the end all and be all of the evil that is this world now, but her filming a CV segment on the James Corden At-Home show about her million-dollar commercial kitchen and favorite $25 ice cream cone and not giving a flying fuck about what you think is just the epitome of what’s wrong.

See? Goddamn Covid. At this point, I don’t know if I’d know my funny if it came up and shook my hand. Not that it can do that, it’s against the orders. Whatever that means, my fuhrers. My conclusions about everything now are either sell the panic, sell the pill or follow the money. Seriously, try it; if one doesn’t fit, the other will. All that blowfishing to say that The CV is just the latest. Remember when the extremists in Afghanistan attacked us and we bombed Iraq? The majority of us stood by that until we couldn’t anymore, mostly because we were repeatedly told the right way to think about it. Don’t feel the right way? Shame on you. Every administration since the beginning of the country has had its evils, of course. Every single one. And every year has passed with a little more us vs. them, but the wins keep getting bigger and bigger. Or so it feels, anyway. There’s an expression about good men doing nothing and evil. We just need one good man or woman to start the revolution. But they’re too busy just trying to get through the day.

See? Still not funny.

I went to the store this morning. I used to set my alarm to shop at 6am no matter where I lived, just to avoid people. I can’t do that anymore, because hours have changed and people are everywhere by the opening bell. This morning, I saw a pregnant woman in her mid-thirties, with two kids of elementary school age. They were all wearing masks. Don’t get me started on the mask issue. Bicyclists, walkers, people driving in their cars wearing masks in a holier-than-thou, I care about people and you don’t glare from the top of their Bugs Bunny print. How can there be this many stupid people? Anyway, she yelled at her eldest because he wasn’t moving fast enough to get her a scooter from the scooter corral. Once he panicked and was able to get his mom a scooter, the three of them stopped at the entrance so she could FaceTime her husband about the boy’s behavior. Screamed at him, too. “I HAD TO YELL AT YOUR SON FOUR TIMES TO GET MY SCOOTER.” I’m really trying to make a conscious effort to realize we’re all walking, or scootering, wounded. Maybe her husband is a lazy dickweed who sits at home while she takes the kids and her belly to the store to buy him Milk Duds. It’s 7am and maybe she’s already worn down. But apparently, my compassion is hiding out with my funny, because I really just wanted to grab her phone and find a YouTube video that would teach me how to tie her fucking tubes right there by the avocado bin. And FaceTime it.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to another store I had never been to. They had lectures streaming over the PA system about how to sneeze into a tissue and throw it away. How to wash your hands. How to not touch your face. For the love of God, the audience can’t be saved, dude.

Obviously, I’ve been busy. Eating. Really, my only ventures out of the house have been to search for food. Or to have wrecks. I remember years ago, seeing an elderly woman standing by her car that was straddling a median curb and thinking how the hell could that even happen to a person. Now I know. In April, it happened to me. (How’s that for not taking responsibility?) Really, though, it was all my fault. Well, me and The Covid. I was using one of those alcohol wipes some restaurants (eating theme again) give you to wipe your hands after you eat (imagine? hygiene? and no loud-speaker instructions telling me not to use while driving? how could I know better?) to clean my steering wheel. Yes, while I was driving. I think my reflexes must be preoccupied, because I wiped left and my car went real left and ended up on a median. Wrecked the entire left side of my car. Twenty six hundred and thirteen dollars and forty seven cents. Goddamn Covid.

The real tragedy of The CV is that there are even less reasons to leave the house than normal for me, resulting in even more braless hours inside the house and heat rashes due to boobs of a certain age. Speaking of heat, I got an air fryer. (Eating.) Believe the hype. I’ve made chicken wings I think I could sell in a restaurant. Or better yet, a food truck. It’s really not safe for others to be around me until my funny comes home.

I’ve been learning some new things about astrology and studying how the nodes affect us. We just exited 18 months of the North Node in Cancer, which felt like the purge for this Cancer. I felt like I was constantly defending or trying to explain myself. But I ended the shift standing up for myself and speaking my truth and just getting rid of the things that don’t serve, as they say. I think I’ve gained twenty pounds in that process even before The CV nonsense, but that’s okay, because now we’re in the North Node in Gemini, May 6, 2020 – January 18, 2022, when the shit will probably hit the fan anyway. I’ve read that we’re to think of what happened in our lives between  Dec 14, 1945 – Aug 2, 1947, Aug 26, 1964 – Feb 19, 1966, Mar 17, 1983 – Sep 11, 1984, and Oct 14, 2001 – Apr 14, 2003 for a glimpse into what could be in store. If so, I’m in big trouble. These were major growth spurts for me, trajectories toward independence and a new ferocity, but oh, the fear. I can’t live in that kind of fear again. I just hope I’m calmer now, more responsible for myself and less responsible for anyone else, but I admit that I’m concerned just looking at those dates. Luckily, I’m going to make crab rangoon in the air fryer this afternoon. They’ll calm my nerves.

We’ve had beautiful weather here in Tucson this spring. The snowbirds have been stuck here due to The CV, but they’re leaving as we speak, thank God. I always look forward to the summer solstice here, because it means that the steady climb to the longest day is over, and days will start to shorten, monsoons will come, and another fall and winter are soon to follow.

Oh! Unrelated. Did you know that May is the month of prosperity. It’s to do with the number 5, apparently. So, on the New Moon in April, I’ve been doing daily ritualizing and visualizing and meditating and acting as if around prosperity manifestations. Getting specific with my Universal requests. I know what I want, I do. I’m a pretty good mainfester (is that a word? If George W can say decider, I can say manifester), if I do say so myself, but for me, I’ve learned that the keys are to 1) be specific, and 2) just know. So, I’ve been consistent and specific – devoted to my monetary cause. And do you know what happened? The company I’m working for forgot to pay me this month. Maybe I’ll make turnovers in the air fryer, too.

I’ve since been paid, I’ve eaten my crab rangoon, I’ve had a lovely visit from my Spawn - he brought the funny with a lotta laughs making fun of Bob, the every Tucson bike rider click-clacking around Safeway in his cleats and Spandex shorts, junk way too close to the lettuce heads, picking up a ready made sprout salad to eat at the store cafe where he’ll wait for Jim, then they’ll saddle up and head to the micro-brewery for a half-pint (full-pint is just a little too much), and it’s just been a perfectly sweet day. I’m on a mission to find my funny, though. I don’t even know where to look anymore. Everything feels so serious, which is ludicrous considering I only have so many good years left on this planet. Why can’t I lighten up? And just like that, we’re back to the eating theme again.

Anyhoo, if you run across my funny, please tell it I miss it and that nothing makes sense since it’s been gone and I wish it would come home and I got an air fryer.

I Did That, So This is Nothing

I tend to catastrophize. I call it going to the dark side, and I do it at mach speeds. If it rains, I expect a flood. If I hear a new noise in the house, I know it will explode. Things like that. I don’t want to do it, I don’t like that I do it, but it's just part of who I am. I don’t know if it’s innate or learned. I’m pretty sure it’s learned, this distrust, but I also know I’m a born realist. As I age and get a little more fed up with each passing day, I see my line between realism and pessimism getting fuzzier. Could be old eyes, though. (Optimistic?)

Words cannot express how much gratitude I feel about my new freelance gig. I took a year off from technical writing and am actually enjoying it again. I have always known that it suits me – this organizing other people’s words, this doing what nobody else wants to do, this fitting together of techie puzzle pieces – but this job came at a time when so many people have been laid off and is remote and 30 hours a week and just grand. The first two weeks started like that 8 seconds in bull riding – just GO and hang the hell on – but then last week, my third week, felt like the bull was over it and just sat down for me to get off. Of course, I just knew the project was over. On hold. Virus, you know. We’ll call you when we pick back up (which never happens). For two days, I was so sad. I’m typically fine in this job hand I’ve been dealt – always looking for my next contract, gig, job (I’ve recently learned that this suits me well, too), but this opportunity was just too good not to grieve for. The Program Manager scheduled a catch-up call, and I steeled myself for the news. But it was all fine. She had been busy on another project and thought she was a bottleneck, so we reworked the pipeline process and all was good again. It was never not good, but I took it there.

One thing I do now when I feel like things are hitting bottom, like I just can’t rise to the occasion again, I think back to two times in my life that never fail to turn my funk into “This is nothing. I did that”.

First is the memory of a particular, but typical, weeknight after The Devil Neighbors moved in and destroyed my lovely little home life in 2013. They moved in, but they lived outside. Homes were older and close together, and their driveway, where they liked to hang out, was the distance of a ruler from the side of my house. This night’s picture: the meth-addled mother holding her newborn, playing basketball, and talking on the phone, two relatively small children dancing in the driveway to music blaring from the detached garage that the father had converted into an outdoor funhouse, the father and another man playing pool and very much enjoying some sort of game on the mounted television in said garage– and all this? At 1:30 AM. The father posted this picture to his Facebook page when they went to the park for a picnic one day. (I kept an eye online for any party announcements, but every day was a party, really.) I had a full year of this, but for some reason, this one particular Tuesday night stands out as my rock bottom.

And second is the memory of the Halloween 2014 week I spent in a 9,000-year-old, Reynoldsburg, Ohio, LaQuinta Inn with nothing but my purse, my phone, and what I had on (which did not include a coat). I was asked to vacate the house I had shared with a human - I use the term loosely - at about 8 o’clock one night, and by ask I mean, “Get the fuck out”. My mother had done something similar to me when I was five, so I’ve always been a “leaver”. I must leave first, don’t ask me twice, I couldn’t care less, good riddance, you’re not the boss of me, etc. So, rather than wait around for the 2-day cooldown, I left. Childish, but I was a little mixed up at the time for reasons I would understand later. This picture: sitting in my car on a 40-degree day, steeling myself to walk across the Walmart parking lot in a t-shirt, sweatpants, and slippers to start my new life from a motel.

Those two images come swiftly now, and now, I’m grateful for both. They have given me a courage of sorts. A new level of self-reliance, of confidence. And even a laissez-faire. I still feel all the feels of defeat and dark sides, but I rally, because I know: I did that. This is nothing.

It has, however, had a darker side, too. The yin and yang, eh? Rock bottom moments affect one’s ability to find joy. I have zero motivation to connect, to try, to experience, to explore, to see. I often put my trust in good things ending horribly. I read a sweet book called Sarah, written by a lovely friend, Dannie Woodard. Sarah lost her husband back in the homestead and prairie days and had no choice but to return with her young son to the city, to her parents’ home, to begin anew. She thought she’d try to make a living from her sewing. Dannie wrote, “She had no more dreams, but she had a goal.” I also read this online recently: The currents of time have altered the path that lays before you. The ripples on the waters still move along the wind oblivious to the turmoil left in its wake. No longer will this path take you to the dreams you once thought would be yours.

I do still have a dream, but I’m old enough now to know it’s just that. I definitely have a goal or two or twenty. The paths have definitely changed and will continue to change for all of us, because we change. I want to remember how lucky I am to have had rock bottom moments that have given me inner security and strength, and that goals are enough, and that paths are negotiable and often liquid, and that I did that so this is nothing. I want to remember how to just have a nice day.

March 17, 2020

And another month has come and gone. I cannot believe it’s been almost 30 days since I took my little day trip to the Tohono O’odham Cultural Center and wrote here. No wonder I felt due for another excursion. I drove to Cascabel, Arizona, a ghost town in neighboring Cochise County. Wildflowers. Dirt roads. Solitude. A Tucson friend takes stunning pictures of things and turns them into notecards and the like. He brought me a sampling to rifle through and pick what I wanted. I was smitten by a picture of a majestic eucalyptus tree shading a dirt and empty road. He had taken the shot in Cascabel on a trip to nowhere (like-minded people), so I retraced his steps. Come to find out, a fight for the land around the area has been brewing for six years now and is set to be settled this year. Developers. Humans. We’re just horrible people.

Nature and only nature always helps me. A Library Associate at a community college in New Mexico? I didn’t get the job. A digital content associate at a monastery outside Portland, Oregon? I didn’t get the job. An Adult Education Administrator for the Pascua Yaqui tribe? I didn’t get the job. An Associate at an Essential Oil Aromatherapy shop here in Tucson? I didn’t get the job. An Assistant to the President at the Tohono O’odham Community College? I didn’t get the job. A Program Administrator at my beloved Oldenburg Franciscan Retreat Center? I didn’t get the job.

But I’m recognizing what excites me (excite is too strong a word, for now), and I’m trying. I’m also throwing my resume in the ring for other things, the more practical and sensible things, so there’s that, too. My Desert House of Prayer part-time work is coming to a close because Father Tom is leaving at the end of this retreat year (June). I have been very sad about this, but it’s been a year of unfortunate changes, and I won’t work there without him. So it’s official; there’s been a purge. The path is still unclear, and I’m on it alone. But Aries season is coming, so I do have hope. I mean, Amazon and Safeway are hiring. If there’s anybody who could enjoy turning the green bean labels to face the same way, it’s me!

I am already thinking of this time between as a blessing. I’m a smidge less angry, less suspicious, and less anticipatory of unacceptable things. I’ve created only a little, but my thoughts about creating have been a lot. I posted my first online video (Instagram @postsinglemotherhood), and I’m about to submit another one to PBS’ American Portrait. I’ve organized my unfinished ramblings into one short story collection - and I do use the term loosely – and have started digging into the one that’s haunted me the most. We’ll see. I don’t want to look back on this time as ungratefully unproductive, even though I know I will.

I’ve heard from folks that what I’m experiencing isn’t unique. Things are changing, yet they’re unclear. Someone reminded me that the Universe always lights the path eventually. I can’t imagine what my path will be, but I hope it will support my 2020 Word of the Year: Freedom. I’m not sure what that looks like either, but I think the Universe does. For now, I can watch the sun set on the mountains from my window and as day becomes dark, I can see the little flickers of city lights for miles around me, as well as the even tinier flickers of headlights as the cars drive down the mountain road after watching the sun set from the top. A few years back, I proclaimed that all I wanted was a little adobe house at the end of a dirt road to live out my days, and that’s where I am. I am so lucky and so grateful for this rest. The desert, despite its professional prickliness, has truly spoken to my heart. Maybe, I’m just learning how to truly listen?

February 20, 2020

Disclaimer: I’ve written once here each year for the last few, and this is my first attempt at any quantifiable personal writing in over a year, so you may encounter rogue sentence structure and punctuation. And ramblings.

I watch YouTube videos about things. Astrological and metaphysical things, mostly. I’m fascinated by it all, and I like the learning and the company of it. Thus far in 2020, I’ve noticed a recurring theme: This is a period of gathering information and having no idea what to do with it, of requesting clarity about it, of finding some footing. (It’s like a cruel joke. I mean 2020. Vision. Clear. Have we all been misled?)

On February 20th, I got a calendar notification on my phone reminding me that I drove to Tucson on February 20, 2017. I forget that time sometimes, and I shouldn’t. I took a risk – I can count on one hand the big risks I’ve taken in life, which will probably be a life’s regret on my death bed – and had nothing but hope and a knowing that got me in the car.

But three years later, I have neither. I’d take a risk again if I had one in mind, but I don’t. I typically chalk my chaotic thoughts and feelings up to being at a difficult age (edging out of the middle of the fifties, for the love of God), but this feels heavier, more important, like I’m in some critical place in life and have no idea what I’m supposed to do.

I’ve read some things that make me think I have company, so I think this might be a Universal energy issue. Fine, whatever, I’m glad for the company, but back to me. Am I just in-between? I’ve lately thought more about the new year being March 21st, spring solstice and the astrological new year, rather than January 1st, so perhaps this time is as it should be. Of course it is.

I think back to a year ago. February 2019. I was between projects, as I’ve liked to say when I was a full-time contract Tech Writer. Frankly, I was just unemployed. And I needed a break from the work I’d done in one way or another since 2002. I had no idea what I wanted to do during my days, but I knew that it had to be different. By June 2019, I got my wish. Different. I went in like barefoot girl I used to be on the first day of summer vacation. By January 2020, I had quit three jobs. One after two weeks, another after four months, and the last after two months.

I’ve never quit a job without another job in my pocket. Never. But I’d also never felt worse about myself, so I just couldn’t get out of the bed. I don’t yet know the lesson I am to learn from those experiences, but I imagine it’s what I’m supposed to be reflecting on now. I don’t entirely understand karma, but I think this has something to do with that. We shall see.

I want to work. In fact, I am working part-time at the Desert House, but I need a little more than that. I would feel more useful. I just need to know what I’m supposed to be used for. I apply to things and get no response. (Believe me when I say that no response sticks more than a no thank you.) I’m paying my bills for now. I officially know how little I can live on. I know now that I don’t have to earn the right to be on the planet. I don’t have to earn my keep every minute of every day. I’m worth more dead than alive anyway, and I’m not confident that will change in the twenty good years I might have left.

Anyway, a friend I met at a creativity workshop in Boulder in 2011 contacted me out of the blue (to some extent – it seems that when you’re connected on social media, nothing feels completely out of the blue anymore) to give me some bad news about a mutual friend a few weeks ago. We’ve talked every week since, as it seems we have similar concerns about life. Last week, I told her that I was planning to drive to Sells, Arizona, to the Tohono O’odham Cultural Center.

I told her that when I moved here, I was in the midst of a class in Federal Law and Indian Policy. I had become interested in Native American history in the years prior and I had hopes of doing something with that interest after settling in. I didn’t. Life. Work. Work. Work. Driving. Driving. Driving. (Tucson has a lot of great qualities, but there are just no options on the critically congested roads.) So three years later, I wanted to drive a native road to nowhere and everywhere for a possible change in perspective. She told me she sensed some…not jazz, we don’t use that word…twitches around the time of death.

Baboquivari Peak, where the Creator and Center of the TO Universe lives.

So, I took my journal, my charoite, my Nova essential oil, and my pink agate, I set the Corolla’s sail to Topawa, and four things happened:

1.  I stopped at every station in the museum and made notes at the Man in the Maze (I’itoi Ki). I’ve had this symbol on my altar table for years, but it meant more this time. “The complicated and difficult way a person must walk to find happiness and peace at the center”. The center can mean one’s death, but it can also mean one’s soul.

2.  I talked to two TO natives who couldn’t be happier people. I was the only car in the parking lot, save one van that had more than a few pieces held together with wire. They carpooled. He was in charge of grounds maintenance, and she was at the front desk, but sometimes, they giggled, “We switch”. They told stories and laughed the entire time I was there.

3.  I turned both coming and going onto Indian 35, an empty reservation road with a perfect view of Kitts Peak Observatory (link). Horses and cattle roamed free. I had yet to see another car when I got to the six-mile marker, and I was in heaven. I turned off my car, got my little beach chair from the trunk, sat in the middle of that road, and made more notes, mostly about, “How the hell do I get this?” I’d still be out there if it weren’t for the torrid relationship between my skin and desert sun.

4. And the fourth thing? I came back home and after a day catching up on things at my part-time job, I updated my website’s mechanics, started a new short story collection (I have so many unfinished projects that aren’t novels, I mean really, me a novelist, there’s just no way), and wrote this post.

I have to deal with all my feelings being fleeting . *See chaotic talk above. And yet, I feel happier and more at peace today than I have since those first months in Tucson. I think I forgot the why. The how escapes me, but I don’t think we’re supposed to ask about that anyway. We’re just supposed to take steps, knowing they’re directed. This is hard. Steps with no direction? That’s nutty.

One You Tuber I particularly like thought a whole lot about February 20, 2020. It would be a significant day, he said, as a sign or message from the Spirit world would come through that day and would mean everything to us, that would set us free in some way. We just needed to listen. To be open, be quiet, be still. So what if my February 20, 2020 happened on the 19th (I’m ahead of my time?). I believe close counts in horseshoes and magic.

But remember…fleeting. Expectations are at an all time low. Plus I’m currently in the throes of an addiction to Homicide Hunter on the Hulu.

No. Thank you. No.

For the past few years, I have been working on my NO. And I’ve learned that, in reality, I’ve been working on this my entire life. I’ve always struggled to say no to things. I don’t know if this is a byproduct of being raised in the ‘60s and ‘70s (even Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign had no effect) or if it’s just something with which a lot of us struggle. Probably the latter; I’ve learned I am rarely alone in matters such as these. For me, it’s in my father’s voice, “If you’re asked to dance, by god, you better dance”.

As a child, I always felt like my parents were doing me a favor by letting me live with them. (Adopted and a few other things.) So, if someone asked me for something or invited me to something, they were also doing me a favor, and saying no would imply that I was somebody. Who do you think you are? Who are you to turn that down? Nobody else will ever ask you, you know.

As an adult and then single mom, I worked as a contractor for a lot of those years and never turned down an inquiry call, a job interview, or a job offer. I always took the call, even when contracting became chock full of phone scammers. They were calling me, so who was I to not answer. This was mostly out of necessity, of course, but it was also because I felt like it was the wrong message to put out there. If I said no, I could potentially never be asked again. Fear. Lack. Insecurity. Less than. Unworthiness. You know, the usual. The things most of us spend lifetimes trying to overcome.

So, I have to tell my writer self (the only person who will see this these days – I really need to do something about that this year!) about my week. To honor it, to be grateful for it, to learn from it, and, most importantly, remember it.

Tuesday, I walked out of my job. Quietly. No fanfare. Put my badge on my desk, looked around the open workspace room just to make sure, picked up my purse, and walked out. Down the stairs, through the lobby, across the parking lot, into my car - I felt nothing but calm. A few times I heard the speech in my head start, “Who do you think…”, but it was drowned out by the steadier, “Nooooo”. There were many things wrong with this job (including being humiliated for two weeks), but really the reason boiled down to one thing: I said yes AGAIN, when I should’ve said no.

Wednesday, I spent doing things on my creative projects list. I felt unstuck. I wrote two things, sent an inquiry I’d meant to send for months, arranged a creative coffee date with someone I met at a recent workshop, signed up for a new workshop, and had a revelation of sorts about how to weave together some things I’ve worked on.

Thursday, I went to my part-time job at the Desert House, where I was asked to work on a new website in June and July. Whaaa? I love creating websites. It takes me back to my pink bedroom as a girl, where I’d draw and arrange little cities on poster boards and use my brother’s army men and hot wheels to create small town days and stories. Not to mention that this website project would be juuuussst enough money to pay my bills for the months.

While I was in the kitchen filling my cup with ice and before heading to my library office, two large and fully red (we get the gray with redhead kind mostly) cardinals landed on the birdbath outside the window. Silent oohs and ahhs. Typically, they’re shy, Sister Deb whispered. Someone’s clearly trying to tell us something, I responded. Messages. (I believe it was my mom and dad, together again finally, just the two of them before they thought they wanted kids, and back in love. I like to think they had a long talk with each other about how things turned out, and that they’re cool with all the reasons we let each other go. If I have to throw science on this moment, I think the red ones are only males, but whatevah.)

Then Friday, while running an errand, I got the call I had been hoping for all month. The pieces aren’t together yet, but I know. I feel like I did when I came to Tucson in 2017. I got in my car and just drove. There was no doubt in my mind at the time about what I was doing. And there’s no doubt now.

See, I have been trying to get out of the tech writing business for years. It’s a job I’ve done for 17 years, and it served me and my son so well. I’m so grateful for it, and so grateful that I was able to do it and was good at it. But working as a contractor and in the corporate world isn’t me anymore. It’s not what I wanted or envisioned when I moved to the desert. I’m not unique, I know. As all of us age, we want something new, something purposeful, something that means something to us. This year, though, for me has felt more serious. Almost crisis level. Like I’d rather work at Walmart or any drive-thru (and I am NOT good with the unwashed masses). Like if I had sharp, expensive knives in the house, my Sunday nights might end a little differently and a lot messier.

A few months ago, I received some resume advice that I thought had finally worked: Publish two. Spotlight retreat center work in one and use it to apply to new things. Spotlight technical writing work in the other and apply to the usual, just in case. (That just in case bit? I guess it made me feel better, I don’t know.)

In late April, I had an appointment to speak to a career counselor, but when I arrived, she wasn’t in the office. The young lady at the front desk and I talked for, at most, five minutes about life and work and looking for work and wanting something new, etc. She said, “Hang on. I saw something the other day. I’ll print it out for you.” And she did. And the angels sang. I heard ‘em, really I did. I came home, perused the organization’s website for a bit, wrote a half-professional, half-personal cover letter, like I did when moving to Tucson, attached my new retreat center resume, said a little prayer, and pushed SEND on the email. Two days later, I was asked to interview, and the following week, we met and the word “offer” was used. But there would be a process, of course. And in the meantime, I got the offer for the evil job that I, of course, felt like I had to take. Asked to dance, after all.

Saturday, I bought a new mattress. And no, I do not have a job. I also cleaned out the “save boxes” under my bed of all the things I can better picture in my head. I donated some clothes and closet what-nots. I outgrew. I made room. For empty space. Blank slate. The white page. Last week, I drew the Death card from my tarot deck. This week, it was the Nine of Cups. Any more connected and I’ll be dead.

And today, Sunday, I’m writing this. As practice for more to come, I hope. It’s who I am, and I’m feeling a lot more like me now, a lot more like the me, now. Me. Now. Unstuck.

If we all do put ink to this deal, I will seal it with my own dragonfly ink and buy cards and gift cards for the two women at the career counseling office. How that one knew me after five minutes, why I never. I will write more about what I get to do. I’ll be broke, but I think I’ll be happy. Frankly, I’ve always been broke, just with a few more “things”.

I hope this gives me an opportunity to be more compassionate and connected, to remember how much I like learning about the individual, rather than judging the collective. I want to be nicer, to think more, to consider more, to feel more.

If this doesn’t come to pass, will I say yes to something else that isn’t mine? No, I say. NO. I’ll be that annoying voice you hear as soon as the door slides open: Welcome to Walgreens! Until what is mine comes along. But I will not be a technical writer again. No.

An Imaginary Thank-You Note to President Trump

Hi, Mr. Trump -

This letter won’t win me a seat at the popular Facebook table of kindness and compassion and tolerance (funny, right?), but I take that as a compliment. I should say that the title won’t win me a seat, because the kids won’t read the letter anyway. The title is all they need for the hatred.

Anyway, sir, I admit that I didn’t vote for you. I didn’t vote at all. I will never vote for a Clinton, and I just wasn’t sure enough about you to go to the poll. I think all presidents over hundreds of years have done and said both bad and good things. People act like these are new and desperate times, but really, nothing is new, except that now it seems to be super cool to be unkind and intolerant online. The unkind and intolerant don’t see it that way, of course. They see anybody standing up for the shrinking middle class or above as an evil enemy that must be destroyed - physically, mentally, emotionally, you name it - while we pay their bills. I’ve always thought that the primary way you could show kindness and compassion was to show respect and civility, but people don’t seem to want to understand or admit that. I’m also convinced that all the nastiness on social media could be curbed if people were working and otherwise occupied. I think this would give them the opportunity to see what it’s like to be middle class in 2018. As you know, it’s no picnic.

I’m on the fence about a lot of issues, but I have landed on the side of the fiscal conservatives since I was young. My father always said that if folks were working, things were better, so in spite of all the tax credit woes these days, we need businesses to stay in business. Well, those of us who work do. Which leads me to the crux of this tiny letter of gratitude.

I have worked just about every weekday, and some weekends, since 1983. I have paid my taxes (including a few cases of penalties and interest) to my government to help those who cannot help themselves and to make our American lives more comfortable. The only forms of assistance I have ever received are three short stints with unemployment while I looked for work. Since 2002, I have worked as a contractor. I paid cash for some things due to a higher contracted salary for which I am grateful, and I made payments on others. This single mother qualified for no assistance for her son’s college education, and, again, paid for that in cash when possible and in payments when it wasn’t. Working as a contractor also means that I have paid for my own health insurance (until last year when I started working as an employee at a job I just left to return to contracting).

All was fine until this week when I went online to purchase a new medical insurance policy and discovered that the insurance I knew is no more. Now policies are either “medical packages” or “major medical plans”. The Affordable Care Act Marketplace also offers major medical plans that anyone can purchase, as you know. If you’re middle class, you are so lucky, so you get to pay full retail price. Since 2014, there’s a tax penalty for anyone who doesn’t have the full retail price version of insurance. Not just one of the more affordable “medical packages”, but full major medical plans. I doubt President Obama saw the effects coming, or maybe he just knew he could pass the problems onto the next guy (like all presidents do, I get it, when I left my job, I left some work for the next gal), but while the ACA is wonderful for some, it is an impossibility for those of us with middle-class incomes. The real winners here are the poor, forlorn, down-on-their-luck insurance companies who said, “You’re allowing people to pay to be uninsured? We’ll see this loss, and raise our prices four-fold.”

So, what I learned was that for me to be insured in this country in 2018, I would now have to pay for a major medical plan costing ~$700 a month. Me. One person. Not a family. Just me.

I worked through Clinton’s NAFTA, but I think this ACA Tax Penalty repercussion is the biggest fuck you to middle-class working people of my lifetime, thus far. Companies are going to do what they’re going to do, always have and always will, but the middle-class’s collective voice is shrinking. We’ve kept and continue to keep this country afloat and now add this to our load?

Then, a friend gave me the news that this tax penalty goes away in 2019. (I’m late, I know, I’m sorry, I’ve been working.) You repealed it. Now, I can purchase one of the more affordable “medical packages” and avoid the penalty!! You are responsible for the skip in my step today thinking about this example of common sense and sanity.

So, sir, I thank you.

And, might I add that while I do sometimes think you are a little loopy, I say what president hasn’t been? I admire your “damn the torpedoes” approach to life, and I’m sorry for all the nastiness your family has to deal with every day from the social media and news outlet (remember those? when news was actually news? ah, good times) lunchroom tables of tolerance and kindness and compassion.

I appreciate you today. Again, thank you, sir. Carry on.

Sincerely,

Karen Rutherford

...hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things...

This post was posted in 2017 to another now retired site that was about spiritual retreats, places, and tools, but I’m bringing it here to my personal site, because I am in a 2020 period of complete unknown (wouldn’t you think this year would be about perfect vision already?), I thought i might need to paint a picture for myself. I’m writing and organizing and posting just for me, so if someone sees this who has seen it before, just ignore it.

The Temple of Janus in Autun, Saône-et-Loire, France.

About a month after I started working at the new job in Tucson last year, a buddy called to tell me how proud of me he was. He likened me to Andy in the Shawshank Redemption, and I didn’t mind that at all. Honestly, it made me feel a little badass. I admit, it’s easier to do anything when you’ve lost everything, but it truly did require some gumption to move here jobless, homeless, lifeless, and of a certain age. 

Mostly, though, it took hope. As Andy said to Red, “…hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things…”

So, I told my friend about the moment I got my new computer at work just a few days before. A fancy Windows Surface Pro with all the fixins’. (I think they still expect something in return.) It sounds like such a small event, but I retell it here because, for some reason, this was the big confirmation I had hoped for: The gods weren't mad at me anymore.

IT Guy (who I just met this day): What do you want your computer name to be? 

Me: I get to choose? 

IT Guy: Yea, you do. But it has to fit with the theme. All the computers are named for planets or galaxies. 

Me: Then, I’m out. I have no idea.

IT Guy: Want me to pick for you? 

Me: Yes, please.

That afternoon, he returned with my fully-functioning and newly named, fancy pants computer that he had named Janus. 

Me: What is Janus? 

IT Guy: Look it up. 

I learned that Janus is an inner satellite (whatever that means) of Saturn, also known as Saturn X (a favorite number of mine symbolizing both beginning and completion). This satellite (whatever that means) discovered in 1966 is named after the Roman god, Janus. 

According to ancient religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, doorways, passages, and endings. He has two faces, looking to the future and to the past. He presides over the beginning and ending of conflict. He is the god of motion and transitions, especially pertaining to birth and journeys. Janus frequently symbolizes change - the progress of past to future, from one condition to another. 

Me: I cannot believe you picked that name! It’s just so perfect for how I got here.

IT Guy: <shrug and a smile>

My Shawshank buddy said, “Your computer is Janus, and you're Janess. You did it, kid. You can relax.”

I don't know about all that, but I know a little: I've been scared a lot of my life. I do know why, but I don't know of what. I had to learn about my own intuition. I had to learn about Divine flow and alignment. I had to spend more time listening than fearing. I had to honor my heart, my Spirit. All these things gave hope a little more room to breathe. I'll never be optimistic (see?), but I have found my hopeful. And that really is the best of things.

If you've never seen the movie, this ending about hope might make you want to. 

More From The Abbey: The Critters

Saturday morning, I spotted animal poop outside the kitchen door and near the top of the hill that leads to the church. Sister Nettie, who’s only been at the Abbey just over two years (from the Abbey of Our Lady of the Mississippi in Iowa!), told me about the time a rattlesnake slithered and coiled in front of her on the path to the hummingbird feeders. And then about the time a mountain lion killed a deer and “consumed” it for two days in the wash below the retreat house. “But they’re nocturnal, you know.”

Yes, I understand that there are mountain lions and coyotes and open-grazing cattle and angry sheep and lizards and scorpions and killer ants (think fire ants with a lot of added Tucsonian drama) and mice and, yes, even gila monsters. I know to be careful bringing food or drink in the room and disposing of trash. I know to watch where I step. I know to listen for strange noises in tall grass. I know to carry a big stick to make anything think twice. Lucky for me, I can’t be outside for long anyway, what with my lily white skin made of all that is pure and holy. So yes, thank you, I know.

Dad's Last Stand

I’ve also seen jackrabbits and baby squirrels and roadrunners (try to see one of those and not hear the beep-beep in your head) and dragonflies and butterflies.

Dejected Dad

And this morning, my last morning at the Abbey for the weekend, I heard two birds having somewhat of a heated discussion outside. Upon investigation, the bird with the fancy red hairdo was in a tree just up ahead squawking at the bird with no fancy hairdo on the ground just in front of my doors. If I’m not mistaken, the fancy hairdos on birds are reserved for the males. Assuming that’s correct, apparently, he was telling her to do something, and she wasn’t having it. Slowly, so she wouldn’t notice as much, he flew to the ground and started walking haphazardly towards her. Then and only then did she start walking towards him. And I was able to see that she had two babies following close behind her. She didn’t walk straight to him; she and her babies meandered. They stopped to smell some flowers, they stopped in the taller grasses to window shop for things (I imagine back-to-school supplies), and they stopped to dig in this dirt and that dirt, most likely for snacks. And mom and dad stopped squawking at each other. YES, she was coming! And so they toddled off, he ten birds or so ahead, stopping regularly to make sure she was still relatively behind him. He stopped at the next tree, looked back for her, and waited a little more. She chirped at him to come look at something, probably new shoes for the oldest, so he hung his head and trudged back to her*, reminding me of all the dads at the mall.

*Come to find out, these were Arizona quail. I suppose they’re named Arizona quail because they’re in Arizona? As opposed to Nevada quail or New Mexico quail? All under the watchful eye of the Border Bird Patrol!  

I have an abnormally large...

Patio.

It didn’t start out this way. When I moved in to my apartment on April 1st, the patio was much more normal in size. It was long, but not wide. Fit for a chaise and table and a few plants, but not much else. But now?! I think I could host volleyball playoffs. Do they have volleyball playoffs? I played volleyball in high school for a minute before I switched teams to tennis and was asked to quit. After that, I pretty much stuck to babysitting. I was good at that.

Anyway, my adobe (apartment) (almost) at the end of my dirt road dream has come to fruition, I realize. I don’t have as much, if any, neighbor fodder this year. I could talk about the wackadoodle that was my last landlord in Indianapolis, but I honestly don’t want to think about him. I have an office now at work, so I don’t even have a cubicle neighbor to whine about. In a writing way, it’s all very disappointing, but in a contentment way, it’s overwhelming. Gratitude makes me cry. And for this opportunity to experience the desert, and for this room to breathe like I have never known, I am both grateful and weepy.

I write this from the Santa Rita Abbey in Gardner Canyon, at the edge of the Coronado Forest of the Santa Rita Mountains. Silence is the rule, there is no Internet nor phone service (I’ve already played eight games of backgammon and three of solitaire), I am the only retreater, and the thunder from a quick-passing monsoon rain is rolling through my screen doors that give me a view of the summer green mountains. When I arrived at the office to get my key from Sister Pam, two happy and orange dragonflies welcomed me. I don’t know if you know this, but I am obsessed with dragonflies, to the point of an appointment for a new wrist tattoo before month’s end. They need to be near water just like this Cancer, they enjoy a good reed (get it? I also enjoy a good read!), they are wise and strong enough to go with the flow and fly in any direction, and they follow their dreams. I made up that last one. I don’t know that dragonflies have dreams, but I think they do.

Anyway, again. Not that long ago, the apartment management company expanding my patio to five times its original size would have irked me. It’s absurd. Plus, they gave us no notice, and workers begin their days at 5am to avoid the midday sun and heat. And it’s just screaming for outside activity, which, around me, usually leads to bad behavior, as you know if you know me. But when I came home to the beginnings of the new brick wall in the distance, I was just in disbelief. Then, I was confused. And when the last brick was in its place, it was just so ridiculous looking, I had to laugh. It’s funny, my abnormally large patio. But, it’s not as funny as the new tree.

Cordelia By Day

I sent a picture to Spawn who said, “That’ll be really nice in about 20 years.” I sent a picture to my friend, Pamela, who said, “Oh my God, it’s the Charlie Brown tree”. We pictured it with tiny Christmas presents around it. Tiny lights and tiny tinsel. Tiny candy canes and a tiny star on top. I recently bought a ring that came in the cutest and smallest box ever, and I can’t wait to put it underneath. I think I can make a decent tree skirt with a couple of Kleenexes.

Cordelia's Shadow

Then, the sun moved, and my little tree cast a little shadow onto my abnormally large patio. But, looking at the picture, I’m sure you get the same feeling I do. She’s proud. She’s trying so hard to be big. She. She needed a name. So I pulled a Goddess card, asking the powers-that-be to help me name her.

Cordelia. Of course, Cordelia!

Cordelia, with her message to go outside, her nudge to get some fresh air, her independence, her fierceness, her shade, her holiday magic, her strength in these storms of late, and her ability to make me laugh until I cried. I couldn’t love her more.

The sun has set on the Abbey while I've been writing this. I stopped between paragraphs to take some pictures and a video of the view from my porch. It may take me the rest of my life to figure out how to upload the video to this, but below are some of the pictures. That's newfangled enough for now. Not having seen much of one for 14 years in Indiana, I wasn’t sure at first, but I think that’s the moon in one or two of them! 

Tomorrow, I am fasting and writing. I am releasing, as they say we should, on this special lunar eclipse full moon. I still check his Facebook page almost every day from an anonymous account. I check hers too, hoping to witness the inevitable and dramatic end that must come when we chosen ones must walk away from the mental illness. I can’t see much, and yet, I check.* So, just like I did with my post-single motherhood angst, I would like to get this out of me. The gal who writes the Elephant Journal says, “When you tell your story, you heal your story”. I hope so. I could use the space in my head for all these new desert blessings.

*Disclaimer: It is from a place of curiosity, not pitifulness. Really.

Anyway, for the last time. Come to find out, my abnormally large patio is just the right size for me and lil’ Cordelia. I don’t expect that I’ll live much beyond her teenage years, and I’m sure I will move in the next year or two, but I am happy to be a part of her life. For now, I like to think of us as in this together. I throw more shade, but she is a strong and giant breath of fresh air.

Cordelia In the Evening

Subject: Diane Keaton is Coming on Saturday

As of today, I have been in Tucson, Arizona, for three weeks. It's my second attempt at a great escape, but this time there is no penis involved. Well, Spawn is here and he is the primary reason for my compass pointed in this direction (seems a lot of us old-timers are doing this to our kids), and he has a penis, I’m sure, but last I thought about that was some 22 or 23 years ago when it was a “winkie” and before I started forking over extra rent money for separate bathrooms. So, there’s a penis, but not one I’ve thought about until typing this just now. I’m also here to work on my Native American Studies project for school and to find out if that might lead me down a new, more useful path someday. And to look at stuff, of course.

I’m “airbnbing” (the whole world’s a verb!) in one of a series of nine adobe townhomes originally built in the 1880s and refurbished in the early 2000s. It is on South Convent Avenue. My first week, I had a next door neighbor named Olga. These were, of course, the most comforting signs the Universe could offer me: a Convent and an Olga.

Originally, I was to be here for a couple of weeks, but the owner has the complex up for sale and made me an offer to stay through the first week of April that I couldn’t refuse, as they say. This is also a comfort, because I get to give the town a fighting chance to hire me.

When I first arrived, the owner took me on a tour of all the adobes, each unique and with a story to tell. He was very proud to tell me that, a few months ago, Diane Keaton had made an offer that he turned down, because he had too much money (and, I suspect, heart) invested in the project. Then, today, three weeks later, I opened my email to a message from him that said:

Subject: Diane Keaton is coming on Saturday

Apparently, Ms. Keaton is coming back for a second look-see. And, in particular, she wants to tour my little adobe. One of her requirements is that the owner and his agent be nowhere nearby. For some reason, he assumes this rule applies to me too, so he has very politely asked me to skedaddle. But Ms. Keaton made absolutely no mention of not wanting to meet me. Soooo………………

I’m going to tidy it up a little and hide my unmentionables, but I think, when she arrives, I’ll either be reading on the couch and pretending that I completely forgot Diane Keaton was coming on Saturday, or I’ll sit in my car and watch from the street, but leave something (I haven’t decided what) that might catch her eye, so I can always think Diane Keaton took notice of it. Perhaps, a resume. She’ll look at it and hire me on the spot to be her Tucson personal assistant or Adobe Manager. I can end my days fetching wine and ice and hats and irons and movie scripts.

One of my favorite movies that I think I’ve watched one time less than I’ve watched Pride and Prejudice is Something’s Gotta Give. Big fan, I am. The thought of her near my stuff is a lot. If I weren’t set on cremation, I would want “Diane Keaton is coming on Saturday” on my tombstone. Well, that’s not a good outcome for her, so I take that back. Cremation is still best.

I have a few more weeks here before I give up and return to what, I don’t know. The weather has been incredible. The people have been warm and welcoming and refreshingly lacking any sense of real urgency. The sunsets are, of course, transcendental. There are no words for the full moon rising between the mountains, the spring desert flowers, the saguaro, the Texas Mountain Laurels that smell like grape soda, the Mesquite trees full of hummingbirds, the Mission, the Reservations, the parks, the University, and all the new things to learn. But most of all, there are no words for the room to breathe.

Now, I know if I get to stay, there is a heat to come. I’m asked, “Have you been here in the summer?” I say, “No, but I’ve heard it’s a dry heat.” And people laugh. So I know it’s not messing around. Arizona doesn’t change the clocks for Daylight Saving Time because, and I quote, “It’s too damn hot for any more daylight.” But the way I see it, I’d rather be inside with sun streaming through the windows for a few months a year, than inside fighting for happiness with the Indiana Grays or the Georgia Humidity.

I’ve been quiet about this escape attempt, because I was loud about the one in 2014 and we all know how well that turned out. Speaking of, I thought the trip here would rid me of the haunting thoughts, but it hasn’t. My life is still divided into two parts: The Before and The After, and I now think it might always be. I’m determined more than ever to find my funny, though. I’ve noticed that in interviews here, I’ve been much lighter, less draining, and maybe a little more fun, for lack of a better word. It has helped too, especially when I’ve been across a conference room table from three interviewers whose combined age is about 8 years older than mine, asking about my 5-year plan and the reasons I think they should hire me. I really don’t know how to take millennials with this kind of power over me seriously. Typically, we just look at each other until I smile a little and give the Mom look of “Seriously? You’re not going to use a coaster?” And they smile and move on to the next question or thank me for coming in today.

No matter what happens, it has felt right to be here. Spawn checks on me almost every day, he has texted twice for unplanned dinners, he still laughs at my jokes and I still laugh at his, and I now know he still likes me, whether he likes it or not. So, even though I’m in an Airbnb waiting on a job and Diane Keaton, I feel like I’ve been at home. It may be temporary, but I hope not.

Because Diane Keaton is coming on Saturday, and something’s still seriously gotta give.

I Told Y'all My Throat Chakra Was Busy

I don’t usually write a farewell letter to a year, although I have, for the past five years, done Susannah Conway’s Unraveling the Year and Find Your Word workbooks during the holidays. But 2016 contributed so to my already sunny disposition that I felt the need to give it a final kick in the ass on its way out my door.

I really don’t know where to begin. There is the obvious: the country’s political division, which we’ve turned into a contest of morals and ethics, as if those things even belong in the same conversation. It astonishes me that people think so black and white in this area. One side is so good. One side is so bad. I don’t understand it. I see gray in deciding what I’m going to wear to work every day.

Then, there are all the deaths of folks I grew up watching, listening to, and reading. And a person can’t forget the steady stream of new stories about the scams, the thefts, the new ways people have thought of to screw each other over. The violence in cops killing people, people killing cops, men killing women, women killing men, mothers killing their children. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.

But, 2016 got personal.

In March, I had to let go of the majority of my possessions. I thought I was doing pretty well at this, until that time of the night when you lay your head on the pillow to sleep. It was at that moment each night that the inventory checklist in my head started at the beginning, as though it hadn’t been gone through the night before. The furniture I had loved, my grandmother’s chair, an autographed book, just the right lamp. And the pictures! I had the forethought to get important papers and anything related to Spawn when I escaped in January of 2015, but I had left the rest so it wouldn’t be noticeable to him. Near as I can tell, there are now three pieces of evidence that I existed before age 27.

The plan all along was that I would get everything in 2016. But when the time came:

Him: What do you plan to get?
Me: Well, X and Y and Z.
Him: Those aren’t here anymore.
Me: Where are they?
Him: Donated. Given away. Sold. Thrown out.
Me: WHAT? What about the stuff in my mother's cedar chest? The photo albums, the…
Him: That stuff has all been gone for months.
Me: Where did it go? You told me everything was there.
Him: You need to get your story straight. I told you time and time again that I got rid of this stuff long time ago. I got tired of looking at it.
Me: You got tired of looking at stuff INSIDE a cedar chest?
Him: Yup.
Me: What am I going to tell Spawn? I wanted him to have some of that when I die.
Him: Tell him his mother didn’t care enough about him to get it.

I could write a book.

Come to find out, he had thrown everything out a year before during a rage when I caught him in his 3,987th lie. (He raged to punish me for his behavior. It’s too much to write in this note to 2016, but it’s a mental illness that I’ve forgiven him for. I’m still working on forgiving myself.) But I never had a chance to get my things. And he lied for all of 2015 that I did. I cut my losses on anything that remained just to avoid any further contact. I couldn’t get a straight story about what was left, and I was convinced that had I arranged storage and gone there with a truck, he would’ve called the police claiming that I was stealing his stuff just to fuck with me. (In this situation, he would’ve won because he’s a firefighter and unless a person knows him as anything else, he is considered to be among the pillars of Pennsylvania.)

I had to choose my own peace. It was the right decision. I only second guess myself when I lay my head on the pillow every other night now. And I have come to think of my life as before and after. It’s weird how this seemingly tiny blip in time had such an effect on me. I’ve seen stories, of course, of people who have lost everything in fires or floods, and I feel that. Though, I also feel like I participated. Though, I also know I never stood a chance. Though.... When I think of it in my mind now, I think of it as “the big fire”. Before and after “the big fire”. It helps. Some nights. Tylenol PM helps on the others.

Soon after, the friendships started to dissolve.

A person I considered to be a pretty good local friend seemed to find a lot of humor in this situation and liked to bring it up for discussion every time we saw each other, to a point of berating me in front of others. I even got a birthday card about it.

In August, came the Kessler Boulevard storm that knocked out power to my little house for five days. The coolest day that week was 97 degrees.

I lost two friends, and my landlord lost his mind.

First, the more casual friend. We used to watch The Bachelor together each week over the text lines. The storm came through on Thursday, I believe. That Monday night:

Her: You watching tonight?
Me: No, the storms wiped me out. I still don’t have power.
Her: Oh, no! I drove through there on Friday. It looked bad.

<crickets>

The following Monday:
Her: You watching tonight?

What is up with the people I know?

Next, the better friend. We spent time together. We liked each other. We supported each other. We knew things about each other. You know, friends. In a Facebook message:

Her: How are you doing?
Me: Not so good. I’ve been without power since Thursday.
Her: Oh no! Is your landlord helping you?  
Me: No. What could he do? He has no power either. It got all of Kessler.
Her: Oh, no! I haven’t watched the news. I didn’t know.
Me: Yea, it’s pretty bad and no word about when power will even be restored.

<crickets>

The next NIGHT (32 hours later):

Her: Shoot. I went into a movie and forgot to message you back yesterday.

I didn’t reply and unfriended her to prevent further messages. So, she blocked me. I’m sure she thinks I was mad that she didn't watch the news.

With friends like these, as they say…..

And then, the landlord. It took all of September for him to replace my refrigerator. It was declared dead by the insurance company at the first of the month, but I can only assume he was waiting on a check before he spent the money. He had a lot of things to take care of as a result of the storm, and I am his first experience with renting part of his property. This house came in the perfect timing for me and I am grateful, but he has no idea how lucky he is to have me here. I am da renting bomb.

In October, the contractors came. Part of my little house damage included the power lines being ripped off. The roof needed to be repaired and the lines more firmly secured. The landlord notified me via text on a Tuesday evening that the workers would come the next morning and need to turn off power for the next couple of days while they worked. I, of course, mentioned the lack of notice and that I worked from home and had no time to make any arrangements for a place to go. I asked for consideration and time. His response, in a text:

Him: Nope. It’s happening in the morning.

Nope? Seriously, NOPE. Exact word. (This repair took 3 days. 3 more days with no power.)

And he’s been mad ever since. For the remainder of the year, this 66-year-old man has been in retaliation mode. I can’t quite figure it out, but I think it’s because he thinks of me as an employee and himself as my boss, and I dared to question his authority? But since October, unless it’s cold or rainy, he is outside of my little house most weekends. Scraping this, hammering that, painting the other. Not only is there no advance notice, there’s no notice at all. If I were a gun-totin’ gal, he’d be dead, because I’ve been especially jittery this year, and it’s a scary thing to see a man’s unexpected shadow or hear him puttering about your periphery.

Also, this year, they tore down Memphis’ Poplar Avenue Sears, the site of the best memories of my mother and brother. Money.

And they closed the retreat center at my beloved convent in Oldenburg. Money.

On a positive note, I suppose, I worked all year. Money.

During my Unraveling ceremony last week, I was hard pressed to answer one of the questions. It asked, “Write about your favorite day in 2016”. I racked my brain for hours and couldn’t come up with one. Not one.

Until, this….

I took a weekend farewell trip to the convent. It was sad, and I was sad. Sister Olga was sad, too, but had the same thing to say about it to everyone who mentioned it: “It won’t be the same, and that’s okay”. She led a class that Saturday called Transitions that focused on liminality, Jung's word for the stuck feeling in those between times when you know change is inevitable but can’t quite cross the threshold. The room was filled with women in their fifties, as one would expect. But sitting next to me was a girl in her thirties, obviously wise beyond her years. I actually initiated a conversation and we were fast friends all day.

At some point, a woman across the room shared a story about not knowing what to do since her mother passed away. It had been a year, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything with her things. There was an entire house full of stuff. Should she save the dishes for her own daughter? Should she donate her clothes? What should she keep? What was okay to give away? She was stuck in indecision. She had been her mother’s caretaker for her final few years and had looked forward, relatively speaking, to the day when she could do things she wanted again. But she just didn't know what to do.

Sister Olga told her a story about her own aunt who had dealt with a similar situation years ago. Her aunt was ruminating about a turkey platter in a box she’d held onto for years. She was saving it for her daughter, but her daughter didn’t want it. And Olga couldn’t understand it. As a nun living in a small, communal space, part of the life is to not live in a world of possessions. Olga made it funny, of course. Shook her head at the absurdity. “She was saving it for her daughter who didn’t even know what a turkey platter was. She didn’t want that thing. It meant nothing to her. Why not give the turkey platter to someone who wants it and who might even take it out of the box!”

I chimed in (and in front of the whole group):

“I’ve had a recent loss of a lot of my things. My grandmother’s this and my mother’s that. And I feel grief, like she said. These are things I’ve carried around from house to house since I was 18 years old, when my mother died and I was the only one to take them. And now they’re gone and there’s grief, but there’s also guilt. I feel such guilt.” To which Olga immediately responded:

“Oh, but the freedom!!”

2016 has led me to a more spiritual, more metaphysical way of life. I’m learning new things, and I’ve enjoyed that a lot. In fact, as I'm typing this, I realize there was another good day in 2016. The day I took a leap of faith into the world of Reiki. The guilt and shame caused constant tears, and I needed help. I needed an energy release. I need a lifting of the curse. I cried and cried during that first session. And I was told that my throat chakra was busy. Thus, the title of this note. My new Reiki master said that I had so much to say, but that I wasn't expressing it. So my throat chakra was spinning and blocked. I needed to express it. Free it. To dissolve the clogged drain in my throat, I needed to reconnect with my creative outlet: writing. (I haven't done that much, though, because it feels a little like reliving things and being whiny, but I may try. It may be the only way out. Speak it to heal it, so they say.)

I'm calmer now. I don't get riled like I used to. I pick my battles for my own advantage. I walk away faster. I have a feeling of knowing that I don’t think I’ve had as strongly before. I am my own security, my own soft place to land. God and I have worked things out. He fucks with me and I yell and yell and He laughs and laughs and says, "Yes! There ya go. More of that." I do the right thing, and if I don’t, I know how to apologize. If you don’t make me feel better about myself, then you don’t belong here. In the always exquisite words of poet Warsan Shire, “My alone feels so good. I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude”. I like me. I dig me. In fact, I love me. I am good. I am well. I have limbs and working organs and flesh and bones and ears and eyes. And I have a heart and a peace of mind, and I'm not afraid to use 'em.

So, I call, 2016. I see your bullshit, and I call. I have no choice but to play the rest of this game with your hand in it, but as long as somebody keeps fillin' up the pretzel bowl, I'm still in.

A Vagabond August

To recap: August 2014. A vagabond wandering around Louisville, Colorado.

My original plan upon arrival in Denver was to spend a few days getting acclimated and hunting the usual online places for potential projects before the Man came for a week-long visit. Then, we would be happy-go-lucky tourists in Colorado for a spell, while I waited for the job callbacks to come pouring in. He would then fly back to Atlanta, gather his belongings, and move to Pittsburgh to close on his house on August 26th. I would spend more time in Denver, job-hunting and whatnot, and then I would go to Moab, Utah, to visit with Spawn for a few days. After that, I would think about October and beyond.

But after this happened, I had to come up with a new plan. And, unfortunately, my mind was cluttered with panic. $100 a day for a hotel wasn’t something I had factored into this adventure at all. $300 a week for an extended-stay hotel amongst a rainbow of ne’er do wells would kill me. So what to do, what to do?

“Just wait until I get there. We’ll figure it out.”

“I can’t afford to pay for a hotel for two months while I look for a job.”

“I know.”

“I can’t afford to pay for a hotel for two months while I look for a job.”

“I know.”

Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat.

Almost immediately, something wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t seem to focus and he moved a little – I don’t know - aimlessly. If I had to explain it to someone in the airport parking lot, I’d say that in the few minutes since landing, he just seemed like a fish out of water.

I drove him around a little. First through downtown Denver and then, after a quick stop by the home (Quality Inn), to Boulder. We parked to walk around downtown a bit and stopped at a kiosk full of various tourist maps and pamphlets. He found one that said BOULDER in big block orange letters and handed me his phone.

“Take a picture of me?”

“If you move a few feet to the left, I could take a picture of you with the actual city in the background.”

“I want a picture with this.”

(That would be the only picture he would want in all of Colorado. And he’s a picture guy!)

Of all the places we could have gone to for dinner on Pearl Street, he chose The Cheesecake Factory. He got the shrimp with angel hair because “that’s what I always get at home” and barely ate.

“Do you want a box to take it home?”

“No, thank you.”

“Do you want to split a piece of cheesecake?”

“No, I’m full. Get a piece if you want one, though.”

It just felt like another disappointment. First, the neighbors, then Iowa and the apartment, and now this. And I couldn’t make sense of it. Just before he boarded the plane, he had been so excited to come.

Maybe he was just tired? Maybe it was the altitude?

“Did something weird happen on the plane?”

“No, why would you ask that?”

“No reason.”

After dinner, I tried to get him to walk along Pearl Street with me.

“Let’s go in the bookstore.”

“I’ve been to bookstores.”

“After dark, we can watch the hippies.”

“I’ve seen hippies.”

“What do you want to do?

“Just go back to the hotel.”

(And it would turn out not to be for the obvious reason.)

It was almost dusk when we drove from Boulder to Louisville. It was just beautiful to see the sun setting behind the mountains along the way.

“Look at that. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

“What? What am I supposed to be looking at?”

I tried over the next day or two to find something that he wanted to do. No, to the Rocky Mountain National Park. No, to a hike in Chautauqua Park. No, to the Denver Botanic Gardens. No, to Estes Park. No, even to a simple walk along Boulder Creek. I’d suggest, like a good, albeit accidental and MIND YOU HOMELESS, hostess, and he’d reject and change the subject.

“Well, what do you want to do?"

“Just be with you.”

Made no sense at all.

But trying to figure out what was wrong with him took my mind off my own troubles. I had no room in my brain to regroup for my new and improved Denver plan.**

So, we headed to Moab, Utah, to see Spawn. I changed plans with my son at the last minute, because visiting him was priority, second only to my job search, and I needed to make sure that got done. Unfortunately, Spawn knew nothing about the Man, because he was supposed to fly home before my originally scheduled visit. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to discuss any love-life nonsense with Spawn. We don’t do that.

It was a really nice drive. We stopped in Dillon, Colorado, where the pizza and haze of pot smoke over the pretty little town were just what the doctor ordered for both of us. Even working things out with a Toyota Corolla at Vail’s elevation wasn’t enough to worry us. We spent the drive playing old-fashioned car games and passing love notes when we were stopped in traffic, which was a lot of the time.

Our only mistake was driving from Denver to Moab on a Friday afternoon. There are a few electronic signs along I-70 that basically tell you, “Yes, your drive sucks today, and it will suck again on Sunday when all you crazy weekenders return to the city.” Lesson learned. Beautiful drive, though, until I realized that what should have been a six-hour drive turned out to be a Friday eleven.

Well, there was the added mistake of my choice of footwear in the desert. Don’t wear flip-flops around cacti. I got stabbed by an evil that gave me something akin to poison oak with a 102-degree fever for days.

It came as a shock that I wasn’t alone on the trip, but Spawn understood my predicament after some explanation.

“I thought I’d show you Canyonlands, Arches, my work, and a cool restaurant in town. On the way back to Denver, you should take Highway 128, because it runs along the Colorado River, and it's really pretty.”

The visit was a little awkward but a lot of fun. The Man and Spawn had mad respect for each other in an arm’s distance sort of way, and oddly enough, I think the Man just wanted to make the visit easy on all of us. We took lots of pictures, had nice meals, and learned a lot about the area.

Then, on the last morning...

“My mother died.”

“Huh?”

“My sister just sent a message on Facebook.”

“Do we need to get you to Pittsburgh?”

“No.”

I knew of her advanced cancer stage and that she had rejected suggestions of any surgeries that might prolong her inevitable. I also knew of her desire to die quietly and uneventfully. She wanted no fanfare, not even an announcement. And I knew that she and the Man had not been in touch for a while. Having my own parental communication issues, that was a familiar situation, and I didn’t question it.

The drive back to Denver was a lot shorter but no less unusual. We were driving back to a hotel where neither of us knew what to do next. I tried my best to ignore reality for a little while longer.

“We’re supposed to take 128, the scenic route, remember? The turn should be right along here somewhere.”

He started talking about something else, and I didn’t see the sign.

“We must have missed it. Can we turn back?”

“We’ve gone too far now." 

Next, more what the hell have I done, but east of the Mississippi.

**(in hindsight) Well played, my friend. Well played.

Say It Ain't So

It’s been nine months since I’ve posted here?? How is that possible? I’d take the time to talk about how fast time is just flying by, but apparently I don’t have time.

Spring must be unthawing my frozen bits, because I updated some links and posted last Fall’s Lake Tahoe/San Francisco trip pictures, and, well, I’m also writing this sentence on this little patch of my online real estate.

The last year or so of loss apparently stalled me. Too many friendships ended, too many friends passed, my 17-year-old dog died, and my son left this side of the Mississippi and is no longer a dependent. I’m nobody’s head of household. I’m just me with not much left to deduct.

This all means I’m currently seeing myself as pretty screwed. But hey, on the bright side, I’ll turn 50 in a few months. Wait. Let me restate that in a play pretend way before I hurl. I’ll turn 50 in a few months!! WooT WooT!! So exciting, says Oprah.

I do have the perfect gift to myself in mind, though. You may remember something about my post-single mom plans. If not, just know there were plans. Anyway, by my July birthday, I will have its book in not so shitty draft form.

That’s my gift to me. Closure. Clearance to advance to the other side. Just in time for the night sweats and hot flashes. And then the Social Security and hip replacements. And then hospice sponge baths and death.

It’s also my gift back to the Universe for gifting me with motherhood and some love and support through its slow, painful demise. So, I hope you’ll hang in there with me, readers, friends, stoppers by, because I do have other stories to tell. Between 50 and death. If there’s time.

(April 2nd: Pages 93 – 60% too shitty to be considered shitty)

Fred Solo

You know how God or the Universe or whatever you may call it puts things in your path repeatedly, most likely for no other purpose than his or her own amusement? I'm convinced God gifts me with putterers and finds it hilarious. Yes, I know, it could be a whole lot worse. And it's hard to believe, but I'm not really complaining either, because this one is pretty darn entertaining. I've named him Fred Solo, because he looks a lot like a younger Fred Sanford of '70s sitcom fame, and he is never without a red solo cup in his hand.

Fred is at least in his mid-fifties and lives across the street in his mother's house. He was born and will die in that house. He doesn't work but is very busy. He makes a slew of trips to places nearby all day long. Never gone for more than a few minutes at a time, I never worry, because if his truck isn't in the driveway, it soon will be.  He does have a boat, but if he leaves with it in the morning, he's always home by 5pm. He works tirelessly in his yard, on the boat, and on his truck, and everything looks shiny and new all the time. 

But Fred is a horrible time manager. Let's say he needs Windex and a paper towel to clean a truck window. Fred makes one trip in the house for the Windex, another for the paper towel (I might be exaggerating but it feels like one trip for each square), and because washing a truck window is thirsty work, a few trips are required for solo cup fill-ups. All in all, this one job could very well eat up the better part of an hour and make Fred a tad slower and wonkier than when he started.

You're right, I can close my curtains and my door any time, I am well aware. But like it was for Gladys Kravitz, things are a little slow right now, and, for some odd and probably new reason, I'm not only not bothered by him, I'm apparently a little mesmerized by him. I mean, of course I want to make him a list and find him a job and see what's in the cup, but I also wouldn't mind an explanation for him. 

One thing that does cause me some concern, though, is my dying in this house. See, a few weeks back, an ambulance and fire truck were called to a house about three doors down. I did what anyone would do - watched from my kitchen window to see what was going on. Solo? He, cup in hand, walked down there and stood at the ambulance's back door. At the BACK door. He was going to strike up a conversation with the EMTs as they hoisted the victim inside. The thought of this gives me heart palpitations. If my last breath is taken from a gurney looking up into ol' Solo's bloodshot eyes, breathing in his solo cup breath, listening to him quiz an inevitably adorable EMT about what's wrong with me.......dear Lord, just take me now.

Okay, there IS just one other thing that concerns me. When I moved in six months ago, he, his mother, a woman, and three kids lived there. My landlord and I tried to figure the family situation out, but I'm not sure how accurate we were. The woman, we were thinking, was his girlfriend and the kids belonged to her? But she moved out in the dead of night about a month later (I'm not on watch 24/7, but, luckily, Sabrina woke me up to go outside), and the kids stayed. I thought then that the kids belonged to a Solo sibling who lived elsewhere but wanted the kids to live with Grandma for whatever reason. Now, though, a different woman lives there with Solo and there is no sign of Grandma or the kids. It's all so confusing. Oh, but back to what concerns me.....

One day last month, I turned the corner and saw Grandma sitting in my driveway in her seen-better-days red truck. I honked and startled her into action and she backed out. We rolled down our windows to talk, and she said that she had started her truck in her driveway, ran back into the house for something, and came out to it rolling slowly towards my house. She, well into her 70s or 80s, was somehow able to stop it, but it left her flustered, to say the least. We were both just glad it didn't hurt her or hit the house! The truck must have been taken to the home or the cemetery, because it's not there anymore. But what worried me is that Grandma seemed to have gone with it. Then, on Friday, I saw her leaving her house on foot and with her purse! She had been dropped off by two ladies in a maroon car just a few minutes earlier. Both Solo and his woman were home as usual, yet there went Grandma, hobbling down the street in orthopedic shoes, carrying her purse. With all the places Solo has to go, couldn't he have given her a ride? What the heck is going on over there? Could it be that Solo and this new gal forced her out of her own house and now she has no car and is staying somewhere within walking distance? Please, God, don't tell me she was walking to the bus stop - that's a mile away!

I don't know how I find the time, but I was perusing a magazine this week and learned a couple of things westward where it seems wide open spaces still exist. Carrizizo, New Mexico, is having a huge sale on land and Wyoming has the lowest tax burden in the country. Knowing God like I do though, I'd probably just end up within eyeshot of a 4-legged dysfunctional putterer.

A Big Event and A Little Conversation

Well, it seems that nothing much is going on lately. While I think this is probably a good thing for my personal growth, it doesn't give me much material to work with. And I do so love material.

So, I'll post this little exchange here to show just how uninteresting my life is right now. My 21-year-old son recently moved to Lake Tahoe for a year-long project and had to shop for the basics to equip his new apartment. (I have to tell you that just the other day I was driving along the highway, looking around, and spotted a Red Roof Inn that I would think of as being in the middle of nowhere if I didn't know what was just beyond the exit ramps and thought about how this kid road-tripped across the country alone with a GPS and no hotel reservations. He was stressed the week before he left, and I could tell he was nervous when he got to town before he found his apartment. But he did it. He saw the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, FLagstaff, Las Vegas on a Saturday night, Death Valley, Hoover Dam, and some others I know I'm forgetting. (I was texted all of two pictures along the way.) He did it a lot excited but a little afraid. What a lesson he taught me. At 21, I couldn't have written a check. So as much as I diss on the Spawn - and will continue to do so because it's a lot of how we express love - I couldn't be more happy about him. My life's joy, I tell ya, my life's joy. But you probably knew that.)

Anyway, back to the exchange. Boyz. Ugh.

“I bought all kinds of stuff for the bathroom. Shower curtain....”

“Ooo, what color?”

“Shower curtain color.”

“Seriously?”

“I think it’s a tan color.”

“K, what else?”

“A trash can.”

“Ooo, what color?”

“Trash can color.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s white.”

“K, what else?”

“A bath mat.”

“Ooo, what color?”

“I don’t really remember.”

“Does it match the shower curtain? Complement it?”

“Uhhh.”

“How could you not remember what color it is? You just bought it 4 hours ago.”

“Uhhh.”

“Well, what’s your theme in there?”

“My theme is BATHROOM."

“Fine, I guess we should change the subject now?”

“Good idea.”

“What about the kitchen?”

“I’ll just save us some time here. The theme in there is KITCHEN.”