Surreality on the fourteenth floor

What was I saying last week about suffering being optional? Oh, brother. I stand corrected. Suffering is mandatory. It's the human condition. If it's not an atmospheric firehose, it's a check engine light. If it's not prunes for breakfast because cheese has ripped you a new one, it's dementia welcoming you to hell. Check your expectations at the door, get in, fasten your seatbelt, and keep your head and arms inside the ride at all times, if you can.

I whined about cold dark nights in the desert, but you don't know cold and dark until you've seen your college friend and former business partner being eaten alive by the worst form of dementia labeled by modern medicine. How come we can get stains out of clothes with a spritz from a spray bottle but we can't clean out the crap that infiltrates our neurons and causes us to lose our personhood? It's unfair, wah wah, but then again, what's unfair for the human is a triumphant heyday for the virus or bacteria or whatever the hell it is eating up my friend's brain in great big noisy gulps. 

Last week was one of the most surreal experiences I can remember. My friend's husband paid for me to stay in a guest room at the memory care facility. In some ways the guest room resembled a posh hotel room: a bathroom bigger than my studio apartment, with a huge shower; a fully functional kitchenette with a two-burner stove, dishes, and a full-size refrigerator for my full-size pizza; a queen size bed in front of a king-size flat screen TV; and a sitting room with a loveseat and a round wooden table with two chairs. The only things I lacked were a hook for my bathrobe and functional WiFi. Did I mention it was on the fourteenth floor? It was on the fourteenth floor. The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over Westwood Village, and in the far distance, yes, I had a view of the Pacific Ocean, glittering in the sun. 

After each visit with my friend, I retreated to this sanctuary to cry, to moan, to berate God for turning my friend into someone I didn't know, and to beg God for mercy, that if this disease should infiltrate my brain that I be given the grace to accept it and the means to locate some fentanyl, stat. 

I've been back in Tucson for two days, and I'm still gobsmacked by the horror of what happens when we lose our capacity to think. 

There were some macabre moments of levity. She managed to tie her shoelaces to each other. Fortunately I fixed it before she stood up. On her birthday, she put a red plaid flannel shirt on inside out, so the chest pockets hung like flacid bags. It looked great on her rail-thin figure—I predict we'll all be wearing our flannel shirts inside out soon. My teariest chuckles came when her old-fashioned red bat phone rang and she answered the TV remote. The TV came on, and the phone kept ringing. 

Another time she tried to answer a flat long paintbox set. In her defense, it did resemble a really big cell phone. The phone kept ringing, so I picked up the telephone receiver and held it out to her. She started mumbling into it. I tried to take the paintbox out of her other hand, but she pulled it away and stood there with a "phone" at each ear, muttering word salad. My brilliant funny friend.

My friend is still in there somewhere—I can see it in the art she makes—but her personality has shattered. She knows something is very wrong, and she's frustrated and scared. She has a minder every morning until her husband comes to do the afternoon-evening shift. She often locks the minder out of her room, paranoid to the point of tears, complaining nobody there likes her. Almost every morning, she packs a bag, determined to escape the prison. In fact, she got out a couple times. The airtag in her purse led to her rescue. She keeps trying. The first day I was there, she'd packed all her shoes into a big yellow bag, along with a couple mismatched socks, two cashmere scarves, and a toothbrush. Whatever it takes. 

Maybe it's some weird kind of blessing that the slow-motion car crash my friend is experiencing is taking so long. The pace of the disease gives us time to accept it, to say goodbye slowly, to grieve in smaller doses that aren't as painful or shocking as they would be if she'd died in an actual car crash. If I had cancer, I would want time to say goodbye. The problem is, her body lives on while her brain is dying. She could live on for several more years before her brain forgets how to tell her throat to swallow. Is it better to be aware or unaware that you are disintegrating? 

This week I got the news that another friend, an older man I served on a nonprofit board with, has decided to have his doctor remove the medical device that keeps his heart going. He's chosen the day and time. Day after tomorrow, 10:00 a.m. ET. He's said his goodbyes. A few hours after they unplug him, he will die. He's running to meet death. How badass is that? The medical system is geared to help us survive at all costs. We compassionately euthanize our pets but we pull out all the stops to keep the hopelessly ill people alive a few months longer, even if they aren't considered "terminally" ill. It's so uncivilized to usher our decrepits off the mortal coil "before their time." 

It's all just random, a slurry of genes, lifestyle, income, and social connections that determine our lifespan. Unless we opt out. Ha. Take that, fate, God, or whatever the hell you are.

As the week went on, stopped trying to understand. I learned to respond to my demented friend with compassion and encouragement, even though I had no idea most of the time what she was saying. I looked for the nuggets of joy. She lit up at the sight of her birthday cake, and for a few moments, I caught a glimpse of the person I used to know. 

I was grateful she knew me. I hated to leave, and yet I could not leave fast enough. On the morning I checked out, I kissed her cheek, told her I could not take her with me (she had packed all her socks), and got someone to let me out the lockdown door into the elevator lobby. I took my broken, raging heart down to the parking structure, got into my musty car, and drove out of that tomb into the California sunshine. Will I see my friend again? Maybe in another year she won't know me. 

That's a problem for another day. 

Today, I live.

Change is coming

I miss my stuff. Almost all my possessions are ensconced in a 5' x 5' storage unit over by the mall. The cubicle is 8 feet tall, otherwise no way could I have stacked my shelves, bins, and boxes into that small of a footprint. I marvel at how many possessions I still have, given all the moving and downsizing I have done in the past three or so years. Swedish death cleaning may be a thing, but in my case, it has not resulted in total cleaning . . . or death, I might add, so there's that.

Speaking of death, I'm feeling transparent these days, uprooted, barely clinging to something I don't recognize anymore. I just want to get away from everything, but of course, that is not possible, because as we know, wherever we go, there we are. However, I can live with myself in my own brain. What I cannot live with for long is the clamoring of well-meaning people who think they can save me. Or the criticisms of confounded people who can't understand why this is happening to me, given how white and well-educated I am. Or the judgments of fearful people who subconsciously realize their lives are one wildfire or flood or divorce away from being in the same predicament. 

I can live with my own fears, but I can't manage the fears and criticisms of others. 

Meanwhile, my dear friend from college is sinking fast into some terrible form of dementia. I don't know what the diagnosis is, but who cares what it is called when it's obvious her brain cells are exiting stage right, like rats from a sinking ship. Folding, perforating, evaporating, no idea what is happening in that head, but it is total disaster. Nothing is firing right in her brain anymore. It's utterly terrifying to witness. I could hardly sleep last night, and I'm not the one experiencing the inexorable disintegration of my executive functions. It's one thing when it happens to your 90-year-old mother. It's another thing entirely when it happens to your same-age friend. Death is staring her in the face, and she can't even find the words to express her despair. 

I'd rather have cancer, to be honest, than dementia. I can only pray to the gods of young drug addicts at the U of A campus that there will be a handful of fentanyl tabs left for me when it's time to go to the great art school in the sky. And that I remember what they are for and why I should quickly take them, before someone else does. I do not want to go gently into that big state-run memory care tenement, where I will be ignored by underpaid medical assistants and abandoned by distant family to overloaded social workers. I'm pretty sure there will be no internet. I mean, I ask you! No internet. If that happens, if I have a brain cell left in my head to make a decision, I will make a run for it, somehow, I will find a last shred of freedom. I'm not ashamed to be a silver alert. 

It's monsoon in southern AZ. It sucks, but no more than any other season here. I feel so out of place. I thought I would love this place . . . warm, dry, what's not to love? I used to chase the sun. In Portland, even as a kid, I would perk up whenever the sun came out. Clouds were my enemy. I craved blue skies. In Los Angeles, the sun was a gentle presence, filtered by fog and smog. Skies were pale robin's egg blue, like a fine china teacup. Not so in the desert. When the sky is blue, the sun is my enemy. Clouds are my shelter, even when winds are whipping up the dust and I'm dodging rain drops. I'd rather be struck by lightning than let the sun touch my skin.

The first monsoon was exciting. So energetic and raw, who knew! The novelty quickly wore off. If you've seen one spectacular desert sunset, you've truly seen them all. I have grown to hate this place. And this place hates me right back. No matter how many knuckles they have, or how gnarled their fingers, all the cactuses on all the hillsides everywhere I go have their middle fingers raised. Every last cactus in this dirty, noisy, unholy town is flipping me off. I ask you, have you ever been so aggressively dismissed by nature? I know. It seems impossible, and yet, everywhere I go, there they are, these angry bitter saguaros, telling me, You don't like it here? Go back to where you came from, gringa blanca. 

I don't want to go back to where I came from, but I know I can't stay here. I seem to have a habit of moving first and regretting later. Maybe this time I will try a new strategy. Maybe this time I will look first before I leap. Regret might follow, but at least I can say I tried my best to keep my eyes open. 

The wind in the shore pines

Day 22 of my epic road trip started as a typical spring day in Portland. That is to say, cloudy, damp, chilly, and depressing. I just dropped my sister off at the airport. Checkout time is noon. I’m hurrying to write and upload this blogpost before I lose internet access. I’m happy to report one of the main purposes of my trip has been fulfilled. Soon I will be free to move on from the city of my birth.

Speaking of free to move on, yesterday was the culmination of a family event long in the planning: the disposition of my mother’s ashes, which have been resting peacefully in a box for more than two years. My sister and I drove to the Oregon coast, met our two brothers at the South Jetty of Fort Stevens State Park, and braved a chilly ocean breeze to empty that box. You can probably imagine what happened.

First, it’s not legal to dispose of human ashes in the ocean at the shoreline. You are supposed to go three miles out before you dump the loved one overboard. We didn’t have a boat, and given the wind and high waves, you can imagine boating was not going to happen. In addition, partly because of beach construction and partly because of weariness and hunger, we did not seek out the Columbia River beach where we sent Dad off over the river bar to the Pacific, back in 2006. Now we are all a lot older. I have chronic vertigo, and my older brother is healing from a hip operation. My younger brother got lost trying to find us, so everyone was ready to take the easier, softer way. Next to the parking lot was a dense thicket of scrubby shore pines.

“She’d probably like being in there,” I said, thinking to myself, she’s dead, she won’t care where her ashes end up. Dirt, water, it’s all the same.

My older brother led the way. Instead of entering the thicket right from the parking lot, he chose a sandy path to the jetty. We stumbled after him, fighting the loose sand, buffeted by frigid wind. My pajama pants flapped around my legs. I put my hood up, a futile gesture. Soon I was miserable. Giving up was not an option, so I forged after my sister, who seemed impervious to the chill. Maybe my tolerance level is lower because I’ve been in Arizona for two years.

From the jetty, we backtracked into the scrubby bushes and found a little clearing.

“This looks good,” said my older brother. I’m not sure what criteria he was using, but nobody argued.

My younger brother’s knife was frustratingly dull, so breaking Mom free from the box and the plastic bag within took some doing. Finally, the bag was open. My brother held out the bag to us. One by one, we took handfuls of Mom’s earthly remains, now looking a lot like cement sand with a few little bits of white stuff and started flinging them on the ground.

“Don’t put them on the path,” my sister admonished.

The clearing was sheltered, but the wind was capricious. Within moments, we were all covered with white dust. I had a quick flash of Mom standing nearby, laughing, with a cigarette in her hand.

I said, “Miss you, Mom,” as I flung handfuls of Mom on a nearby bush. As soon as I said the words, I felt my throat close up, so that is all I managed to say as my special remarks on the moment. My younger brother was near tears and trying to hide it. I averted my eyes, knowing how much we desperately seek to hide strong emotions. Mom wouldn’t mind if we cried, I’m sure, but we wouldn’t be able to look into each others’ eyes over lunch at the Chinese restaurant, which is where I know we were all anxious to be without delay. If we could have beamed ourselves there, we would have.

I was too cold to appreciate the humor of the moment. I was aware of how silly we must have looked, skulking in the bushes to dump some ashes on the ground. Anyone walking their dog nearby would have thought we were doing drugs, or perhaps burying a body. Hm.

It took quite a few handfuls to empty the plastic bag. Finally, the job was finished. I took a photo of a leafless bush that used to be gray and now was white, covered with bits of my mother. Then we were ready to head back to our cars.

Back at the parking lot, we asked my younger brother’s wife to take our photo with my camera. I held up a small poorly printed photo of Mom that I always carry with me in my journal. My sister-in-law quickly took three photos. In the pictures, we look like tired, hungry escapees from a nursing home. Then, we caravanned to the Chinese restaurant and ate lunch as if we hadn’t just done what we did. I ordered vegetables and tofu. It wasn’t great. I tried to reach for a feeling of relief, and there was some of that, mainly a feeling that I was done with my personal caregiving obligation to my maternal parental unit. I don’t know how my siblings felt. Of course, we don’t talk about such things. But I felt some sense of satisfaction that I’d seen the job through. Whether she can be at peace in a scrubby grove of shore pines is beyond my ability to know. Short of renting a skiff and sending her out over the Columbia River bar or renting a plane and dropping her from the sky, we did what we could to put things right. You can’t leave your mother in a box forever. Eventually, you have to let her go.

A couple more days in Portland, a few more people to see, and then the epic road trip continues.

Happy holidays from the Hellish Hand-basket

Another year plods to a close. How do individual moments seem to drag when days, months, and years speed by so fast? The moments of 2022 blend together into a big blur of terror and boredom. 

I'd recap but memory fails.

My friend asked me if I was depressed. I said, I don't think so. After our call, I looked up the symptoms of depression. While I was at it, I looked up the symptoms of anxiety. You'll be relieved to know, I don't have either one. I might have signs of dementia, but it's too soon to know for sure. 

I'm pretty sure, though, that I am still grieving.

Just plain old garden variety grief, not so much for what I’ve lost, although that lingers, but more like grief for the idea of home that didn’t manifest for me since coming to Tucson. I sought a safe affordable home in the desert, and I got a temporary fix, which is grand, but long-term, Tucson did not turn out to be the answer for me, and that makes me sad.

As long as I'm grieving, I might as well add other losses to the list. I’m sad that suddenly I have to take so many meds. I’m sad that my heart is glitchy. I’m sad that my ears won’t settle. I’m sad I will end up joining the vast numbers of "car camping" nomads while I look for my new home. It's going to take a miracle. In other words, luck and persistence.

As long as I'm sad for myself, I might as well add my tears to the universal mix. I’m sad that so many people around the world are suffering. Near and far, life is hard and people suffer. Life has always been hard. People have always suffered. On a suffering scale, is it better or worse now, compared to decades past? I have no idea. How do you define and measure suffering? Can I say I suffer more than you suffer? To me, being cold is suffering. Hothouse flower.

Today is Christmas day. Two of my siblings got on the Zoom today with their respective significant others to do the obligatory monthly family Zoom, which just happened to fall on Christmas day. One sibling was absent. He has always blazed his own trail. Even as I send him texts (where are you? Family Zoom happening now!), I envy him his detachment. There's freedom in remaining unattached.

My family detached from Christmas years ago. When the parents were alive, we'd go out to eat. No cooking, no cleaning. Then we detached from the season by adopting a round-robin secret Santa gift-giving exchange among the immediate family members. Before long, we stopped giving gifts all together. Dad died, Mom became demented, I was broke, my younger brother was busy, and my older brother didn't care. 

Only my sister seems interested in carrying on any sort of family tradition or ritual. Channeling Mom, she sent me a toothbrush for Xmas 2021. This year I asked her not to. I can buy my own toothbrushes. But I think she was trying to hold family tradition together. As we get older, traditions have tattered. Memories have faded. We are widely scattered with no parent to glue the family dregs together. Interest and energy are circling the drain. 

Speaking of family rituals, next spring I'm planning to take a road trip to Oregon. If all goes according to plan, my sister will fly out from Boston. We will drive down to the coast and scatter Mom's ashes on the Columbia River at the same place we scattered my father's ashes, if we can find the place. It might have been washed away by time and tide since 2005 or whenever we did that ritual. Mom's been in a box for almost two years. It's time we set her free. Not that she would care—Elf on a Shelf, Mom in a Box—but I suppose my brother could use the shelf space.

It's possible that I will discover my next home somewhere on that road trip. Fingers crossed.

Destined for greatness

Howdy Blogbots. I'm happy to announce, my glitchy heart keeps chugging along, dragging the rest of me with it. I guess I follow where the heart leads me—haven't I always done that, isn't that what making art is all about, following our bliss? Who knew I was supposed to take it literally. Like, my heart is pounding out the beat of my life. When it stops, I stop.

The good news (according to my cardiologist) is my heart is misfiring but not so often or so badly that there's anything to be done about it yet. The other good news is that my upcoming CT scan was postponed until after Christmas because the machine was broken. I'm over it, this whole IV needle in the arm thing, this let's shoot you full of iodine dye thing. Probably I'll be fine.

Now that I'm probably going to live a while longer, I have had the luxury of thinking about other things.

I was thinking the other day that I have paid a high premium for the privilege of eschewing a "normal" working life for a life of creativity. At each major crossroads I encountered, I said no to money and yes to creativity. I never found a road that led to both at the same time. For me, it was always one or the other. 

Oh, sure, I had jobs, as do we all. I've had many. Among my many jobs, I've been a waitress, an administrative assistant, a gardener, a bus driver, a graphic designer, a seamstress, a warehouse worker, an activities assistant in a nursing home, and a teacher. Any one of those jobs could have been a career. But nope, not for me, I was born retired, which is to say, when a career opportunity crossed my path, I ran in the opposite direction. I said no, not to be stubborn, but because I knew I was destined for something else. I could have gone into marketing or marketing research. I could have pursued a teaching career. I could have worked my way into nursing home administration. I could have been an executive secretary for some dude in a suit. Crossroads that would have most likely led to a much different life: nicer cars, maybe a house, some money in the bank, and a healthy retirement fund.

Back at those crossroads, I would have said I was destined for a life of fulfilling creativity, as a painter, most likely, or as a famous fashion illustrator or clothing designer. Now, years later, with not much road left in front of me, I can say all those refusals have produced a life of poverty and struggle. I admit, I am a little sad. I can't say I regret my choices. I would probably do it again, if I had a do-over. I chose it, it chose me, who knows? They aren't kidding when they say do what you love and you'll probably starve. 

I can't tell if I'm simply addicted to poverty or if this is just what happens to some creative people in a society that doesn't value or support creative low-income earners. I've never made the kind of art that sells, and I wasn't willing to adapt my art to suit someone else's esthetic. I guess you can say I chose this life because my brain made me do it. That makes as much sense as anything else people have diagnosed me with. I always wondered if my brain was trying to kill me, but maybe it's just life with a thousand tiny knives making a thousand tiny cuts.

I'm too old and tired to whine about it (except here, sorry). There's nothing to be done. When I find myself wading into a pity puddle, I stop and get busy writing. It beats all the alternatives.  

Organizing my dog house

I vacuumed the two lime green shag rugs and rolled them up in preparation for giving them away on Freecycle. The bedroom rug departed to a new home today. With bare walls and floors, I'm now living in an echo chamber. However, I'm appreciating seeing the hardwood floors again. 

Overall, this place is a well-loved, tired old apartment—well, let's call it what it is: it's a dump. The generic off-white walls are pockmarked, peeling, and scraped; the sinks are rusty, chipped, and partly nonfunctional; toxic black mold grows behind the toilet, along the cracks in the kitchen ceiling, and in all the cupboards. The kitchen is unheated. All the metal hinges are rusted and frozen; the wooden cutting board is so swollen it can neither move into nor out of its slot. My landlord will need to do some serious renovation to make this place inhabitable (and worth charging market-rate rent). On the bright side, the floors were covered with area rugs for the past seventeen years, which means they still look great. Chip and Joanna Gaines would drool over these 1930s-style authentic wood planks.

Today I tried to calculate the cubic cargo space on the model of minivan I think I want to buy. The number of cubic feet I calculated doesn't match the number of cubic feet claimed by the car manufacturer. Should I blame the company's marketers or blame my brain? Math doesn't lie, if you do it correctly, but marketers lie all the time. I know. I am one. I used to call myself the anti-Christ of marketing, back when I used to teach it. 

Therefore, because I don't trust math, marketers, or my brain, I used masking tape to outline the dimensions on my newly revealed hardwood floor. The letter-sized boxes are already stacked along the wall. It was pretty easy to see that my cargo space is five boxes long by three boxes wide by three boxes tall. I believe that means I can transport forty-five boxes. I'll wait while you find your calculator and double-check. 

I have an excess of some possessions and a dearth of others, compared to most of my friends. For example, how much scrap wood do you have leaning against the wall in your living room? I bet you don't have an IBICO machine (I'll let you look that one up). I make up for having lots of some odd things by having very few clothes (most of which I plan to trash when I walk out the door of this place). I also have a mostly vacant refrigerator. I buy fresh food for one week at a time. By Sunday evening, the box is almost empty. A friend texted me some photos of what her refrigerator looked like after a can exploded and destroyed several of the glass shelves. I was astounded at the amount of glass, and I was even more astounded at the amount of condiments that somehow came through the ordeal intact. I am really lacking in the condiments department. Sometimes it is helpful to see how others live to see how I am failing. 

Speaking of failing, yesterday I discovered I put the mushrooms in the cupboard instead of in the refrigerator. They were looking somewhat ancient by the time I realized my error, but they tasted fine. I buy twenty-one mushrooms per week, and I sauté and eat three per day. The morning eggs and veggies don't taste right without mushrooms.  

After last week's blogpost, I'm in the doghouse with my sister. She thinks I hold her in low regard because I don't care if she thinks I'm socially unacceptable for bathing with my laundry. Of course, I don't know what she really thinks about my behavior. I was just making a lame joke, based on my family experiences. She didn't find it funny. Now we are taking a break.

She has no idea how she held me together while our mother declined. She helped me find the care home for Mom last summer. She was my patient and rational sounding board. For several years, our weekly video calls were my lifeline to sanity. She was the only one who listened, who understood the situation, and who remembered our mother as she used to be. I will always treasure those calls. Now that Mom is gone, the dynamic in the family is shifting. The siblings no longer orbit the maternal parental unit. We are free now to find new paths. 

I shaved my upper lip to see what that would feel like. It's a little numb. I ask you, why has the hair on my legs migrated to my nose and upper lip? I despair. That question is right up there with what to do about Google following me wherever I go on the Internet. Jeez, all I did was look at some pictures of ancient Greece on Pinterest and now every website I visit thinks I'm in the market for a vacation to the Mediterranean. This is why I hate marketing. Although I admit, sunny Greece looks pretty good right now while the Love Shack is enduring a hailstorm. Portland is still cleaning up from the ice storm. I'm just thrilled to have electricity and temperatures over 50°F.

I found out last week that I will need to visit an endodontist to fix a twenty-year-old root canal that has gone bad. What is an endodontist? It's a special kind of dentist. Endo plus dentist equals endodontist: a dentist that inspires you to say, when you look at your bank account, well, that's the end of that. I'm not stupid. I know teeth don't heal themselves, and having a dental emergency on the road between here and somewhere else is not part of my plan. I'm not worried. I'll be okay. It's tax return season, and stimulus checks are on the horizon (thanks, half of Congress!), and don't forget the pot of gold if I can catch that dang leprechaun. Rainbows were everywhere today but I wasn't fast enough. It's spring in Portland, though, so I'll try again tomorrow.

Mom was home and home is gone

I decided that packing up all the clutter would make me feel better so I dug my flattened spider-infested boxes out of my basement storage cupboard and started with my books. Including the few academic books I would like to keep, I managed to fill three boxes. You might think, wow, that is a lot of books, Carol. If you think that, however, you clearly never knew me. Books were kind of like my thing. 

I don't know where I'm going. I just know that as soon as is reasonably possible with a minimum of impulsive insanity, I am leaving Portland. Home was Mom, and Mom is gone, so this is no longer home. I need a new conception of home. Maybe something with blue sky above it. 

My friend the astrologer would credit the arrangement of the planets with this upheaval that sends me on a new trajectory. I don't want to make this entirely about me. I would guess Mars is retrograding in Uranus for most of the world right now. I know I'm not the only one reeling from events. 

Sometimes radical upheaval brings blessings. It depends on how I decide to frame my experience. Lately I'm just going with it. Trying to figure things out so I can finally manage and control circumstances has never worked for me. 

For the past five years, I watched dementia constrain my mother's world into a narrowing circle. She shed interests, activities, possessions, friends, and even family, until after five years, all that was left was her couch, her clothes, and me. I learned the lesson: Nothing is permanent, everyone dies, and all I have is the present moment. Mom was the Zen master of being present—I'm nowhere near her level, but in my defense, she had the advantage of being demented and I only have my self-centered determination, which is the antithesis of being present in the moment. Well, I'm trying. 

So back to packing. 

Mom left behind her blue plaid wool blanket, a scratchy old ugly thing. I don't want it but I made the mistake of smelling it. It smelled like laundry detergent and Mom. My mother had a smell. After she stopped smoking, her smell was a combination of old lady and Tide Fresh. Not something I'd want in a bottle, but the scent of her brought me to my knees. I'll see if my brother wants that blanket. Maybe he needs a good cry.

Blood on the keyboard

Oregon gave away free money earlier this month. I didn't find out I qualified for some until a couple days ago, long after the funds ran out. I don't care. My main concern is laundry. I haven't been able to get near the bank to replenish my stash of quarters for two weeks because of that free money giveaway. Long lines of unsocially distant desperate people wrapped around the bank every time I trolled through the parking lot. No way am I going to stand in line for quarters. So I'm doing my laundry by hand in the tub.

I guess in a pandemic I need to make some allowances for comfort. Wearing cardboard underpants is one of those allowances. My skivvies are stiff and ripply like crepe paper but I'm getting used to it. Once I've broken them in, it's really not much like wearing hair shirts. I'm not suffering. It's like being back in college. Back then I was oblivious because of substance abuse. Washing clothes in the sink was part of the adventure. Now I'm oblivious because of exhaustion and old age.

Speaking of self-flagellation, I am hopeful that my family and I have found a new facility to receive our maternal parental unit. With the expert help of a placement advisor, we have located a care home in my neighborhood. We haven't signed anything yet. We have some questions to ask. But I'm hopeful that the search is successfully ended and in about thirty days, the chore of moving the old lady and her stuff can begin. I wish I could just put her into storage. I wonder if my vertigo will ease up when this task is finally done. 

Speaking of exhaustion, Portland is coming undone. It is unsettling to see Portland in the national news for so many weeks. My first thought is, ha, the joke is on you, to all the people who moved to Portland for its mellow laid-back vibe. Then I remember violence is a tragic expression of an unmet need, and I feel sad. I can't unravel all the needs entangled in the nightly riots I see on the news. I can't stop picking at my cuticles. Yesterday I felt something weird while I was typing and saw blood on my keyboard. 

I'm starting to create conspiracy theories in my head to explain the madness. Unsubstantiated theories comfort in times of distress. Maybe liberals are a little behind in the production of creative conspiracy theories, but I'm sure if we do a little brainstorming, we could catch up. Like, for instance, what if the rioters who are looting and breaking things are really minions of Mordor out to make the peaceful protesters look bad? Yeesh! Would humans actually do something so cunning and cruel? Today my brain wandered into the bizarre possibility that they sacrificed one of their own for the cause. How insane is that? But, I ask you, is there evidence to the contrary? I mean, can you prove the moon isn't made of green cheese? 

My protection is to hide in my burrow, keep my head down, and attract as little attention as possible. I wash a few pairs of socks and a couple t-shirts every night, marveling at how everything I wear is some shade of gray, even when it started out white or black. After I wring out the water and hang things to dry on hangers from the window sill over the tub, I watch the news and cringe when the Eye of Sauron looks our way. I feel sick when I realize how many wackjobs live in this city, possibly just yards away from my doorstep. My illusory bubble is evaporating. I wear my pastel plaid face mask and imagine I have a target on my back.

Summer is ending and I haven't properly sweated yet. I've cried some, though. I miss my cat. I miss my mom. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss being around people. 

Don't cry, it's just the end of civilization, not the end of the world

Today was a lovely spring Wednesday in Mt. Tabor Park. With all this extra time on our hands, and all this lovely sunshine after last week's bizarre snow storm, a walk in the park seemed like the thing to do. On Wednesdays, no cars are allowed to drive in the park. Thus, one day a week, the roads are filled with bicyclists, pedestrians, runners, and skateboarders. I walked diffidently along the park roads, rather than along the foot trails where I usually walk, making sure not to spew germs. As I walked, I watched to see if others were maintaining proper social distance.

I wasn't surprised to see families clustered together, walking dogs, riding miniature pink bikes, skipping and singing. I smiled at the little vectors of disease as they pedaled by, giving me sidelong glances. School has been cancelled for what, a week, now? Any moment, some of those little vermin will start to whine and cough. Wonder how that will work out. I have visions of virus sheriffs nailing doors shut, guns at the ready. These families walked near me, not three feet away in some cases, apparently not caring that I myself could be a vector of disease, a carrier, a spreader, a Typhoid Mary.

Lots of couples walked close together, some actually arm in arm! I can't look at television images of people shaking hands or kissing now without feeling queasy. It's the same feeling I have when I see old movies in which people drove without seat belts, smoked like chimneys, and littered without thinking. Eeewww. How could they have done that? I predict in only a few months, movies showing people snuggling and kissing will be X-rated. Images of men shaking hands will elicit groans from the audiences now too freaked out to watch movies with anyone else but still remembering how great it felt, sort of, to be touched by another person. No big surprise, the couples in the park ignored me as if I weren't there. Nobody notices old women.

In fact, the only park goers who stopped, stepped off the trail, or made wide detours near me were old women like me. We came close enough to make eye contact, but just a wary glance, as if we were assessing the risk of a rabid rush, a bite on the leg, a cough in the face. I smiled the thin-lipped smile I reserve for times when I am anxious but determined to acknowledge another person's presence despite my discomfort. I tried not to feel rejected or disappointed that my airspace was no longer tolerable.

The desire to make others feel okay is strong in me. My codependent nature wants everyone to feel safe and happy so they won't kill me. That used to mean smiling, waving, moving closer, patting, touching, shaking hands. Now taking care of others means avoiding them, shunning them, keeping my hands, voice, and breath to myself.

I'm finding some comfort in the stories of earth's ability to bounce back now that we have quit polluting the air and water. We thought it couldn't be done, that pie-in-the-sky climate agreement in which we cut our consumption so the earth can survive. Look at us now, cutting our consumption in half, at least. It's a sad but delicious irony that this pandemic will reduce the world's population and pollution load to the point at which some of humanity might survive.

Mom didn't have a great day today, I heard. She was asleep on the couch when I peered in her window this evening. Her eyes were closed; her mouth was open. Her dinner was untouched on the coffee table. I taped a little photo of a bouquet of daisies to the outside of her window, adding to the growing collection of clippings: flowers, a leprechaun, and my siblings faces taped to pink hearts. Then I just stood there and watched my mother breathe, as if I were watching a movie of a quiet peaceful moment in someone else's life.

Take me with you

The death of my cat smashed a hole in my life last week, leaving me a shattered mess. I've done my best to ride the waves of grief as I clean up and reclaim my space. It's not easy.

Thank you to all who reached out to sympathize and console me. Thank you to my sister-in-law who carted off the leftover cat food and cat litter. And the toys, fleastop, and fur grooming devices. I hope she will come with a truck and take up the six-foot tall cat tree occupying five square feet of my living room.

This week, I've coped by staying busy. I felt compelled to move furniture around, to take down the cat perches in every room, to do all the noisy home projects I postponed to avoid disturbing sacred nap time. I washed four loads of cat bedding. I vacuumed cat hair tumbleweeds. Even so, tiny balls of fur remain, stuck like burrs to blankets and rugs and all my fleece pants.

A thirteen year relationship ended in the space of two fraught days. I still can't believe he is gone. That cat was my parent, my child, my spouse, my business partner, my interior decorator, my personal trainer, my meditation coach, and my best friend. He filled more roles than any human could, and he did it with something as close to unconditional love as you will ever find in a living creature. I would gladly trade a lifetime of cat litter in my bed to have that cat back again.

People who are not cat people have asked me when I will get another cat. As if cats are interchangeable. As if any random bundle of fur will do. I can't imagine another cat taking Eddie's place. Cats are no more interchangeable than are spouses or children. Maybe someday I will welcome a new cat, but it won't be to replace Eddie. He was one of a kind.

Grief has its pace and tone. I don't need to defend or justify my sorrow. Let me put it like this. I don't care if you think I should be over it by now. I try not to burden others with my sorrow. However, sometimes grief takes me down. Not for long. I can't breathe when I start keening. My congested sinuses don't allow much wallowing. Still, I feel what I feel. I can't be your Little Mary Sunshine. I can't get my face to fight gravity right now. Every part of me sags. If you spent thirteen years with something you loved, you'd miss it if it suddenly disappeared. The pain of loss is physical. I would gladly trade my mother to hold my cat in my arms again.

I dread coming home to an empty house. My heart tears open that moment when I enter and smell only mold and cooked onions. The place smells unoccupied now, like no one lives here. The absence of his presence is profound. For a small creature, he commanded a lot of space. He was sixteen pounds of energy, even when he was sleeping. That was never more clear than when the vet gave him a sedative. My weary sick cat sank into my arms, all sixteen pounds, nose in my jacket, finally at rest, finally out of pain, while I stroked his fur and dripped tears. I wish I could forget that moment. I wish I could freeze that moment in time. Stop time, right there, when he was alive but not in pain. Twenty seconds later, he was dead.

Maybe if I had had more time to let him go, this wouldn't be so hard. You know, months or years of pumping him full of treatments to keep him going so I could postpone this awful moment. We had thirteen wonderful years together, just us. He suffered two days and exited, stage right, leaving me in free fall. I don't know what comes next, but now I'm closer to finding out.

The Chronic Malcontent endures a moment of world sorrow

I rarely cry. I'm not prone to sobbing. When I do cry, though, to avoid prolonged sinus congestion, I try to get all my angst and sorrow out during one session. I weep over every tragedy that comes to mind, large and small, from a pancaked squirrel in the road to the slow demise of my mother. I don't cry so much over abused children, because they can eventually overcome their trauma with therapy and the Twelve Steps. But I wail over dogs left in hot cars. I really lose it over sea turtles with plastic straws up their noses.

My editing agency jobs have all but dried up. The agency guy decided he needs to spend more time with his growing children and his full-time job. Who knew this editing agency was his side gig! He could have said he was tired of wrangling unhappy dissertators complaining about paying four cents per word before I cut out half their content. I wouldn't have blamed him. In response to his long list of reasons (excuses) why he's stepping back from the agency, I wrote, “Family comes first.” That is my standard response when someone chooses family over meeting my needs. I really believe it.

Last night, in a bid to stave off homelessness, I applied online to work part-time at a local home improvement store. I like to build things; maybe I could sell lumber to older gals who aspire to build their own bookshelves. I was cruising efficiently through the web application when I encountered a date field that would not accept a date earlier than 1993. I laughed and took a screen clip of this reminder that I am old. As if I would forget.

I will be very surprised if I get an interview request, even though I'm an employer's dream. They couldn't pay to buy the qualities I bring in the door for free: I will show up, work hard, and never steal. The Universe will have to decide this outcome. I don't really want to work at a home improvement store, but since when have my intentions produced results. I'd much prefer to earn money writing and making art. At my advanced age, here's what I've learned: It's easy to say I want something but much harder to take action to get it.

I am frequently reminded that the people who seem to make money are the ones who tell the rest of us how to make money. There's something wrong with that picture but I can't quite figure out what. You've heard the conversation, no doubt, which goes like this: Person 1 says to Person 2, “Give me a dollar and I'll share with you my secret strategy for making money.” Person 2 hands Person 1 a dollar. Person 1 says (while walking away), “That, my friend, is how you do it.” The winners: PayPal, Etsy, Udemy, and all the (former) artists and writers who figured out their path to success was telling people how to find their own path to success. Who are the losers? The hopeful, gullible dreamers who don't know what to do with the “secret” when they get it. Or are too scared to try. Or who keep trying in spite of failure. Talent is highly over-rated. Success depends more on persistence and luck. That is why I don't give up.

I can't seem to generate much enthusiasm about anything these days. I waver between derisive humor, self-deprecating chagrin, and debilitating despair. On the days my mother is too sleepy (tired, weary, depressed, exhausted) to walk me to the back door of the retirement home, I walk myself, humming our favorite tune (She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain). I walk myself out the back door to my car. As I drive away, I always look back at the window where she stands to wave me good-bye with the peace sign and a big grin. When she's not there I feel sad, relieved, fearful, and bereft. I don't know what to do with all these feelings.

From day to day, I attempt to do the things on my to-do list. Hence, this blog post. It's on my list. Sometimes I avoid blogging because writing means feeling. Other times, I'm anxious to get all my angst onto the page but my brain is too fogged to focus. Spring is my S.A.D. fog time. Later I will go out for a walk in the sunshine. It's on my to-do list. Walking always makes me feel better, eventually, although sometimes I prefer the oblivion of napping. Sometimes I find it difficult to be awake. However, on my last stroll through the park, I had four satisfyingly creative ideas. I arrived home sweaty but so happy to know I have not lost my creative spark.