To be scared

I've been tagged - The Proust Questionnaire by JoyBringer.  I rather enjoy doing these "tags" but noticed a few people that were put off last time I tagged so I'm not going to do any tagging myself. If you want to "do it" please tag yourself!  Otherwise, read & enjoy my answers - or not, I'll just have some fun with this regardless of views or responses. 

Poust Questionnaire, from Joybringer

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I just don't know if there is such a thing here on earth and maybe that's it, taking happiness where we can find it, enjoying it, taking something less than happiness where we find it, and enjoying that to the best of our ability as well.

What is your greatest fear?
My fear is that my children will not find perfect happiness.  Ha!  It's just fear for them that they won't handle the sorrows of life well.  Or just fear that they will have to handle sorrow and hardship.  Why they shouldn't have to when everyone else does, I'm not sure.  This is an area of my life that is very difficult for me and one that I am actively working on - the whole "letting go" thing. 

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
I am no Mother Theresa but she is the one.  I'm not even Catholic.  She is a woman who I try to emulate.  Not so much for her religious beliefs, certainly not for her ties to the catholic church, but because she believed in good, in doing good, and had no fear of living her life in a way that she felt so profoundly passionate about.

Which living person do you most admire?
Eckert Tolle

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I panic, I give into the panic, I fear the panic. 

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
It's a close tie between cruelty to others (or animals) or people who continually lie, both to themselves and others.

What is your greatest extravagance?
books, reading pretty much whenever I want to

What is your favorite journey?
Growing out of emotional ways of dealing with life that no longer serve a purpose.  Still journeying.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
putting on a happy face

On what occasion do you lie?
card games that require lying such as Liar's Poker & Bullshit.  Otherwise, I'm actually a terrible liar and so don't even try.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
I'll skip this question.  It's depressing.

Which living person do you most despise?
Robin Hill but I try diligently to love her as well.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"I" & "OMG Winston!" (he farts a lot)

What is your greatest regret?
That I didn't go to college.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My children & my husband.  Of course!

Which talent would you most like to have?
I would love to be an artist - either to be able to paint or to sing really well.

What is your current state of mind?
Feeling quite positive today!

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
That we all lived in one town, or at least one state.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My children.  I don't think I've actually had any other achievements other than surviving.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
For some reason I think I would just be a female human again.  I feel very female.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
a bird!  I want to fly

What is your most treasured possession?
My photo albums

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
those who feel helpless & hopeless

Where would you like to live?
Asheville N.C.

What is your favorite occupation?
reading!

What is your most marked characteristic?
I'm smart but I act ditsy sometimes - I'm a playful smart person!

What is the quality you most like in a man?
physcially - I like big fella (and not that way either, dirty minded people) & emotionally I like a man who loves to laugh with me

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
I tend to lean toward very maternal women

What do you most value in your friends?
I love it when my friends just "get me" - no long explanations needed.

Who are your favorite writers?
Lord have mercy!  Too many to mention.  Look at my profile and know that I haven't mentioned many who should be there.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Scout

Who are your heroes in real life?
My Grandma & Grandpa

What are your favorite names?
Derek, Zachary, Jesse (my sons)

What is it that you most dislike?
War, cruelty, cold weather

How would you like to die?
I'd like to be at peace with it when the moment comes.  Of course, I'd also like it to be rather sudden rather than from a lingering and painful illness.

What is your motto?
It will all be fine

I’m four and I’m riding my bike.  No training wheels.  I’m free, I’m free!  I’m following my brother, he is five, and we are riding on the sidewalk made of bricks.  We are allowed to go all the way around our block.  We are laughing.  We are flying! I am having trouble keeping up with him.  I grunt, I push the pedals hard.  I have to catch up with him.  He is leaving me behind.  He turns the corner and disappears from sight.  I feel my bottom lip tremble.  He is leaving me!  I pedal harder, faster.  I round the corner.  I look for him.  He is so far ahead.  Suddenly I am flying through the air.  My beautiful purple bike with no training wheels is bouncing off a red fire hydrant.  Who put that there? My bike and I come crashing down together and my face bounces off the brick sidewalk.  I look up from the sidewalk and see that my lovely banana seat is ripped open.  There is yellow foam poking thru the purple shiny fabric.  I hate my brother.  The bricks are red.  Not brick red, I realize, but blood red. I am suddenly aware that my nose hurts and put a trembling hand to it. It hurts even worse when I touch it so I take my hand away. I see that my hands have turned blood drippy blood red. I am bleeding. I hate blood of any kind.  I especially hate to see my own blood.  A lot of blood is coming out of my nose. It is like a bathroom faucet when I turn it on full blast.  It is pretty likely that all of my blood is going to pour out of my nose. I stand up and start running, mouth open, filling with the taste of pennies. I am only half way home and am not sure if I can make it there in time so I start screaming as I run. My new summer sundress is getting covered with blood.   Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!  Neighbors rush from their front doors and I see the fright on their faces. This scares me even more and I run faster and scream louder for my Mommy. I ignore them as they call out to me.  I am flying to my Mommy.

 I am eight.  My friends and I ride our bikes everywhere.  It is summer and we are free.  We drink gallons of red kool-aide and eat dozens of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on soft white bread that sticks to the roof of our mouth like glue.  We ride our bikes to the park, a parade of girls going single file through town.  I ride at the very end of the parade and admire their hair.  They all have long hair, brown, and gold, and brownish gold.  Their ponytails fly in the wind when we ride fast.  I reach up and feel my shorn head. Mom says it’s not shorn, a word I picked up in one of my books, that I’m exaggerating, too smart for my britches, and that it’s a pixie.  A darling pixie!  My Mom will not let me have long hair, she has never let me have long hair, but this pixie is even shorter than usual and I will never forgive her.  Someday I will have long hair and there will be nothing she can do about it.  My brother has longer hair than I do, because it’s in style. My grandpa says it looks like someone put a bowl on his head and cut it and I laugh even though I would settle for the bowl-cut over the pixie-cut. My grandma says my hair is adorable every time Mom cuts it off even shorter. Puke! I love my Grandma to pieces and I think she looks very nice in her short hair and my Mom looks pretty in her short hair but why can’t they figure out that I am not old like they are?  Someday I will have long hair, just like my friend’s do, and when we ride our bikes fast I will feel the wind blow through it, I will feel it tickle my back when I have a halter-top on, I will have rat’s nests that are tangled and hard to brush so I will have to use that No-Tears stuff that takes the tangles out of hair.

 I am thirteen.  I ride my bike for miles and miles to go visit my best friend.  There is a dog that chases me mid-way.  I hate that dog.  It is a big german shepard mix.  When I near the house where he lives, I start pedaling hard, building up my speed, lifting clouds of dust from the dry country dirt road I am riding on.  I stand and pedal madly as I approach the house.  It’s very important to fly by.  There he is.  He is charging through high green grass to get at me.  His bark is deep and menacing.  I pedal.  He is almost to the road now.  We are going to meet again.  It’s okay.  I am flying.  I sit on the seat of my ten speed, raising my legs from the pedals up onto the frame as high as they will go, as far away from the snapping teeth as they can possibly get, coasting.  Just as I begin to slow, the dog tires.  He turns and lopes back to his post, waiting in the grass for his next victim.  I look over my shoulder, triumphant. “Bastard!” I scream at him, “Slow poke, mangy mutt-fucker!”  He looks at me and I know that he is thinking hard about taking up the chase again.  I decide to shut-up and start pedaling fast again, just in case.

 I am still thirteen.  It is time to go home from my best friend, Norah’s house.  I decide to take the highway because I am too tired to face that dog again. Norah’s Mom makes us do chores all day long. It’s not very fun but at least we are together and I know Norah is happy to have someone to help her out. I am not allowed to ride on the highway because it is too dangerous. I have one mile of country road and then I am on pavement.  Four miles to go.  I ride on the side of the road, in the gravel, as cars and semi’s pass me by, blowing hot fumes in my face.  The skinny wheels of my ten-speed are not designed to ride in thick gravel and the going is tough.  I hear a semi-truck barreling up behind me.  Oh, God, my mom would kill me for this but just one more time and I swear to her that I will never do it again.  Besides, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.  I edge over as close to the road as I can get without being ran over.  I pedal as fast and as hard as I can.  The semi and I are in a race.  He is winning, of course, but that’s not the point.  He passes and I turn my wheel out of the gravel and on to the smooth pavement, the semi gaining distance quickly but still close enough.  I feel the pull and have to take my feet off the pedals because they are moving too fast for my legs to keep up.  For a few crazy ridiculously insanely wonderful seconds I am flying so fast that I can’t even breathe.  It all ends as the semi pulls away; oblivious to the ride he has just given me, free of charge.

 I am sixteen and I have my driver’s license.  My bike sits in a dark corner of the garage covered with dust.  I adore driving.  I am on a road with a three little hills that are spaced pretty close together.  This is the fourth time that I have turned around to drive back over the hills.  I went 80 mph the first time, 85 the second, 95 the third, and now I’m going to see if I can get the car up to 100mph.  I make sure there is no traffic in sight and then I’m off.  I put the pedal to the metal and watch the speedometer climb.  The first hill is getting close.  I go over it and get tickles in my stomach.  I am shouting and laughing. By the time I hit the third hill I am going 102 mph.  The car becomes airborne.  I wasn’t exactly expecting that to happen and feel a rush of fear followed by pure joy as I realize that I am flying!  I am flying!  The landing is a little rough.

 I am still sixteen.  I had to get my bike back out because I had my driver’s license suspended for awhile.  Oh well.  I guess riding bike is good exercise, right?

         This particular "click" has been happening frequently - when I am missing or thinking about one of my sons, or even picking up the phone to call them, my phone rings and there is the one I was thinking about calling me!  I keep asking them if their ear was ringing or something!  It's a very lovely kind of clicking!

My hair!  My husband (who's great love of long hair has created this tangled mess) brushes it out for me when he's home but that leaves me to fight it alone for three weeks at a time. 

We had an earthquake today.  Oh, so okay, it was actually in Wells, Nevada but supposedly we felt it here as well.  I didn't feel a darn thing!  I do remember my dogs going crazy right about the time everyone else claims their house was shaking and rattling but I have four dogs and when one goes off the other three go off, so this is not an uncommon occurrence.  Someday a mad bandit will be breaking into my house and I will be shouting at the dogs to BE QUIET (okay, so I usually say SHUT UP!) (sometimes I add "tardo" "pea brains" and other not so nice things).  Maybe I'll scare the guy away.

I've been sick and just feeling utterly crappy for the last week.  And peculiar as well.  Anxious.  Now today, I'm feeling much better.  No anxiety whatsoever (thank you God). Just feeling wonderful!  I turned on the news this morning, and mind you, I never watch the news, or T.V. at all after I get the kids to school, but this morning I just had an urge to watch the news.  That was when I found out that we had experienced tremors from the earthquake.  People were calling in to the news station (out of Boise) and everyone was making this huge ordeal out of it.  The news ladie's really turned me off with some of their questions.  They seemed frantic for a disaster, buildings down, lives lost, or at least some injuries for heavens sakes!    I remembered why I quit watching the news.

So, even with this strange earthquake thing going on,  I still kept feeling peaceful and even energetic.  Hmmm.  I like this, I thought.  I did some cleaning, some laundry, some reading, some crocheting (I know, such excitement, how can I stand it?).  Picked the kids up from school and headed to Wal-Mart for some much needed supplies after my bout with the flu - and who is walking out the door just as we walk in (what are the chances)?  Robin and Jeremy!   (that's the kid's Mom & her newest boyfriend).  Now, usually when I run into this woman my body goes straight to flight or fight response.  I'm not exaggerating!  My heart tries to jump out of my chest.  My ears burn.  My hands and legs start shaking.  Today, I just muttered, "Oh, shit.  There's your Mom."  and kept on a walking.  She (loudly) said, "Oh there are MY children" and again, we just kept on a walking. I knew what she was saying.  And she was right.  They are the children of her womb.  Maybe one of these days she'll start taking some responsibility for them and try to rebuild some kind of relationship with them.  Maybe call them on their birthday or on Christmas.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But wouldn't it be nice for her to someday realize that I already know that they are her children.  And that I have no qualms whatsoever about admitting to that!  However, I seem to be the one here raising them and she doesn't even see them.  I've quit trying to figure it out and am leaving it up to God.

And maybe that's why I'm still feeling so good! 

Interesting weather today - pure sheets of ice this morning!  Now that I have a 4-wheel drive I just love the ice!  I have so much fun and make the kids giggle and gasp.  Then it got warm and we had mud puddles everywhere!  I actually have a little spot of green on my lawn - ooooh, heaven on earth - a little peek at the promise of spring.  I am just itching to get at my garden.  I know that it's way too early to do more than think about . . . but I'm plotting and planning anyway.

I re-arranged the living room today and did a deep clean (see I do have spring fever).  When Brad called and I told him he said "uh oh, you know what they say about women who are always re-arranging the furniture".  I had to admit that I didn't know and he sheepishly said that women who re-arrange the furniture a lot also "run around a lot".  I reminded him that it's the first time I've re-arranged since we bought the new couch (2 years ago?).  Then I told him maybe he needed to step his game up.  Ha!  NO, just kidding.  I didn't say that. I just thought it.  ha ha Just kidding again. 

So I am rambling on about absolutely nothing at all, aren't I?  I took a Benadryl and it made me a little loopy.  I'm reading Eat Pray Love, borrowed from the Gaia Traveling Library.  I love this book.  I want to go travel for a year all by myself now.  Oooooh, how cool would that be?  I'm full of admiration for this woman and, obviously, a little envious.  She goes to Italy, India, & Indonesia.  She's on a spiritual quest and her journey is endlessly fascinating to me.

Mandi went to a dance after school today and I was pleased to hear about the (dumb) chaperones who made them slow dance at arms length.  I love it!  I had no idea that any schools did that anymore.  My school didn't even do that!  Can you just picture it?  It's so old-fashioned and brings up visions of girls in fancy dresses with bows in their hairs but this was true today with girls in snug hip-hugger jeans and Aeropostle low necked T's.  (anyone else out there having a problem finding a shirt for their tween that isn't ridiculously low cut at the neck-line?) I'm not sure about this girl stuff.  I never had to worry about boobs and such with my boys.  It was all pretty straight forward, just stitches and casts now and then.  She's turning 13 this spring and I suppose it's just going to get worse from there.  I wonder if she will hate me the way most girls hate their mother's or if I will be immune due to my step-mother status?  Before she lived here full-time I thought it would be Robin getting it but now that I have become her full-time mom, I'm afraid I may loose my status as the fun one.  Guess we'll deal with it as it comes.

A Tale of Two Lovers ~ Charlie & Annie

 

I am a Certified Home Health Aide and am working for two different families.  I work at the Smith’s on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s.  I work at the Schultz’s on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.  I wish it were the other way around.  I am madly in love Charlie and Annie Schultz. 

Annie and Charlie live in an assisted living home.  They have their own little apartment crammed full of books and antiques.  I’ve been hired to take care of Charlie.  He’s 91 years old and he is dying.  Most of my patients have some kind of disease but Charlie seems to be just dying of old age; everything is starting to shut down, mainly his heart.  Charlie’s energy is diminishing and he sleeps most of the day.  It’s Annie that I spend the majority of my day with.  She’s only 78 years old but she is exhibiting signs of Alzheimer’s and she gets lonely with Charlie sleeping so much. Annie seems to need me much more than Charlie does.

I came in this morning at 7 a.m. and found them both sleeping peacefully, all curled up together, spooning. I hated to wake them but that is what I am here for.  I wake Annie up first, because she takes the longest to get ready.  I give her a little shake and she looks up at me groggily with large faded blue eyes.  As soon as she recognizes me she smiles and pushes herself up to sitting position, her arms reaching out for a hug.

 “I missed you,” she says, “I’m glad you’re here.”

 “I’m glad I’m here too, Annie.  How’ve you been?”

"Oh, fine.  How have you been?”

 “I’ve been fine except for missing you.  How’s Charlie?”

 She reaches back and pats Charlie’s thigh, “My sweetie.”

 “He sure is a sweetie.  You’re a lucky woman.”

 “I am a lucky woman.”

 “Yep.  Are you ready to get dressed for breakfast?”

 “Okay.  What should I wear today?”

I go to the closet and begin to pick out a few outfits.  We’re supposed to encourage autonomy, not treat our client’s like children.  Sometimes that is easier said than done. 

“This is a pretty dress, Annie.  Would you like to wear this today?”

“Do you think Charlie would like it?”

“Oh, certainly Charlie would like it.  It’s fabulous.”

“Well, I don’t know.  Maybe we should wake him up and ask him.  He’s always picked out my clothes for me you know.  He used to lay them out for me every night before we went to bed.”

“I remember you telling me that.  What do you think about letting him sleep a little longer and surprising him today?”

She looks doubtful about that idea.  I pull out several more dresses until her eyes finally light up on a bright pink dress.  It is not my favorite but she nods her head yes.  “Charlie really likes that one.” 

We begin the challenging task of standing her up.  She is stiff and creaky.  We walk slowly to the bathroom and I help her remove her nightgown and wet diaper.  I sit her on the toilet.  As she is sitting I fill a pink plastic tub with warm water.  I wet a washcloth, squirting a little sweet smelling baby shampoo on it, and then tilt her chin up and gently wash her face.  She closes her eyes trustingly and I hear a tentative tinkle in the toilet.  The warm water always seems to do the trick.  After we are finished with her bath I lead her back to the bedroom and dress her.  She dresses quite formally every day and we work our way through the layers slowly; bra, panties, slip, hose, dress, leather flats, matching leather belt, necklace, bracelet, watch, two rings.  I add a warm cream sweater to the ensemble.  She is very thin and always cold. 

Charlie is starting to stir.  He opens his eyes, notices me, nods hello, and asks, “Where is my Annie?”

“Here she is,” I say, moving her slightly to the right so that she is in his line of vision.

“Good morning, Annie!  My darling! You look beautiful today.”

Annie blushes and beams.  She totters over to the bed on her stick-thin legs and leans down to kiss her husband.  He reaches up and tenderly strokes her cheek. I feel like I should look the other way, maybe even leave the room and give them some privacy, but I am here to do a job and part of that job is to make sure that they don’t miss meals.  I need to get them to breakfast before the dining room quits serving and so I reluctantly  interrupt their good-morning-kisses to begin the arduous task of getting Charlie dressed. 

Charlie’s mind is sharp but his body is weak. He’s a big man even though his muscles have gone soft and slack and moving him strains my back. He does his best to help and I’m quite sure that he would love nothing more than to politely dismiss me and just do it all himself but he cannot. So we huff and puff together until we have him clean, dressed, and situated in his wheelchair.  He pats my hand and thanks me and I kiss his stubbly cheek. He’ll want to shave after breakfast. 

We leave their charming little apartment to enter a long narrow beige hallway.  It smells slightly of stale urine mixed with air freshener.  We begin making our way to the elevator.  I am pushing Charlie’s wheelchair and Annie is walking beside him.  They are holding hands, chatting softly.  When we reach the elevator, Charlie releases Annie’s hand, leaning forward to push the down button.  While we are waiting for the elevator he reaches out and pinches Annie’s bottom.  She jumps, squeals, giggles, blushes, swats at him and exclaims, “Oh, you!”  I burst into delighted laughter. We all enter the elevator laughing and in love.

It's a tie between three things - my Grandma, my Grandpa & my weeping willow tree.  My Grandma was the best cook in all the world.  (at her funeral it was almost embarrassing, every eulogy - even from the preacher himself- involved one food or another!).  Her house always smelled so delicious.  She baked cakes for extra money, wedding, graduation, birthday etc.  I loved helping her make the decorations for her cakes . . . little sugar flowers were my specialty (or perhaps the only thing she trusted me with as all I had to do was press a mixture she had prepared into little molds).  Grandma used to pay me a quarter to play with her hair.  I would get out the curlers and roll her hair, then take them out and tease and puff it until she had a big old messy bouffant.  Grandpa took me fishing and mushrooming and let me sit on his lap while he mowed the lawn with his riding lawnmower.  He was my outdoor buddy.  He called me Suzy-Q (he also named all of his female dogs Suzy, oh well, at least I wasn't a boy, then I'd have been Joe).  I loved the smell of Grandpa's pipe.  Every great once in awhile I'll come across a man smoking a pipe (less and less often these days) and the smell just takes me right back to my Grandpa.  And then there was my tree.  My weeping willow tree that cradled me in it's arms for years and years.  I had my own special spot, way up high in and I loved that tree with all of my heart.  My Grandpa trimmed it too short (for my taste) one year and I actually cried.  Years later, after the house had been sold, the tree was cut down, and again, I weeped.  It still makes me feel sad.  How could someone cut my tree down?  So, all three of the things that gave me the most joy as a child are gone from this earth . . . but not really gone because all I have to do is close my eyes and I'm there again, safe and loved.

In "real" life, grief over the loss of a pet is often dismissed lightly by many (at least in my experience).  Thus, my great surprise and tearful gratitude at finding so many warm, heart-felt messages for Zoe' and for my family and I all over Gaia.  I am stunned and I am so filled with love and thankfulness for each and everyone of you.  I have heard from people that I don't even know and most of my closest friends here have also gathered round to offer comfort and prayers.  I'm also still deeply sorrowful and grieving and so beg your forgiveness if my thoughts are not very coherant this morning.

I found Zoe' in the yard bleeding and panting Monday, late afternoon.  We have a very large, very fenced in backyard but she was an escape artist.  Zoe Zoe loved to run.  The kids and I went into immediate hysterics and it was quite an ordeal to get her lifted into the back of our FJ Cruiser because she is heavy.  It was after-hours for the small town vet so I had to assist him during surgery.  It was pretty gruesome but after he got her spleen out and the major hemmoraging seemed to be controlled, I felt hopeful.  Then came the long process of  repairing terrible damage to her small intestine and then the huge exit hole that a bullet shot from a rifle left.  When the vet stopped sewing and closed her up, I kind of had the feeling that he had given up but she was still alive and for some reason I was just sure she was going to survive.  It was a long night with crying children but I was back at the vet's first thing Tuesday morning with her blankets, planning to spend the day on a kennel floor with her, loving her back to health.  Sadly, she had left us.  I feel so guilty.  I would have brought her home to die if I knew that she was going to go.  She should have been at home, in my arms.

About her being shot.  We have a fella down the road that everyone around here says shoots dogs.  Zoe had been shot with buckshot once before (and was extremely gun shy!).  Mandi's  boxer, Ayla, was poisoned and died several years ago.  It seems it's dangerous to be a dog in these parts.  I went to the guy's house down the road and asked him if he had shot my Zoe'.  He has several rotting corpses of something at the back of his property, which joins ours (I didn't look but Ryan had been complaining about it) and as you know, rotting meat will atttract dogs.  Zoe wasn't a killer but she did have dog instincts for eating meat.  He denied it and then asked his wife if she shot any dogs.  I stood there, shaking.  They were elderly.  I was thinking, what, your wife shoots dogs too? She said no.  I have a feeling they would have told me but really who knows.  People around here shoot dogs because they have cattle or other livestock to protect or just because they feel like it.  There is also the possiblity that someone may have thought she was a coyote.  They are considered pests and are shot routinely.  I'll never know and honestly I guess it doesn't matter.  What's done is done and I think I can forgive an anonymous shooter easier than if I had a face to put it to.   I am working on forgiving the shooter but it is difficult when Ryan can't sleep in his own bed because he can't face it without Zoe.  She was his sleep-mate.  Poor Ry.  His sobbing is endless and heartbreaking.

I feel so blessed with the outpouring of love that this community has showered upon me.  Zoe' was such a good girl and she deserves all of this attention.  When we are sad our hearts open wide with vulnerability.  How wonderful it is to have my wide-open heart filled with such love.  I love each of you.  Ayla