Look good or feel good

Like so many people over the past few years, I've lost the will to groom. The Covid era has bludgeoned all desire to look good right out of me. When all anyone sees of me is my Zoom image, they might suspect I'm chronically disheveled, but they don't actually have to see the frayed cuffs, the tattered underwear, or the lack of proper pants. As a rabid introvert, I'm okay with that. These days, I'd rather feel good than look good. 

Truthfully, I've never been big on grooming for the sheer joy of looking good. I've always had an ulterior motive, which, of course, is that I wanted people to notice me and accept me. When I was younger, I used to dress for everyone around me, so that I could be loved, accepted, or admired. Sometimes that meant dressing the opposite of what they might have wished—that is how I tested the depth of their love (sorry, Pop). Either way, I dressed for others. 

Now I don't care what other people think, so it doesn't matter what I look like. Because I don't care (and because of Covid), I opt for comfort. That means wearing pajamas, essentially. I wear butter-soft long-sleeve XL cotton/polyester scrub tops on top and men's cotton jersey pajama pants on the bottom. I have six tops and three pairs of pants.

If I really cared, I could do something about it. The mall is right across the Rillito River, only a short hike away. I can see the Forever 21 sign from the bike path. Walmart is equally close, if I am looking to save pennies and don't care what I buy. Target is nearby as well, if I'm looking for something in the middle. There is no lack of places selling clothing for me to buy. 

The reason this issue is on my mind is because I'm going to be doing some traveling soon. I will be seeing old friends in California and family in Oregon. That means people will judge me by my appearance. That is what people do, it's normal. I don't really care to please, but I also don't want to offend. 

I used to be able to make just about any garment you could imagine. Even though I've hated to sew since I was nine years old, I always liked designing in three dimensions. However, the only time I would make clothes for myself was when there was an occasion with a deadline. I'd buy the cheapest fabric I could get away with, eyeball the pattern, cut corners on the cutting, stitch it together as fast as possible, wear it once to great fanfare, and then throw it away when it faded, tore, shrank, failed to fit, served its single purpose, or went out of style. I'm not proud of my contribution to the wastestream. And don't get me started on the many acrylic paintings I have dumped in the trash. Oh, well. At least I recycled the stretcher bars and frames. 

My distaste for sewing and my desire to wear a certain garment is like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. The battle has been going for years. When I was younger and I could still see, the force was stronger. I would begrudgingly make myself things to wear, as infrequently as possible, mainly because I was ostensibly in the fashion business. Dressmaker, dress thyself! But if I needed a strapless black velvet gown with a mermaid tail, lime-green vintage chiffon sleeves, and a built-in push-up bra, I could deliver. Now, however, the mmovable object is very set in her ways. Bras of any kind are not on the radar, nor are dresses, mermaid or otherwise. 

Even though I have a crummy old plastic sewing machine that still works, the idea of using it to sew clothes for myself makes me want to head for Walmart. It took massive amounts of willpower to sew seat covers for my Dodge Caravan out of the cotton dropcloths that used to be my curtains at the Love Shack. I was almost proud of the job, until I realized I hadn't allowed room for the airbags built into the sides of the front seats. R-i-p-p-p, went the seamripper. Oh, well. Story of my sewing "career."

Speak of which, career is not a word I would apply to my worklife. My former job as a seamstress-slash-dressmaker-slash-failed-fashion designer was one of my least favorite mistakes. On the family Zoom today, my sister reminded me that I'm a volunteer, not a victim. In other words, I chose my path, a fact I cannot deny. Of course, I thanked her. It's so helpful to be reminded that I will never find bread at the hardware store, no matter how many times I try. 

Meanwhile, the problem remains. This is how I know I'm an artist. I want to wear certain designs, and I cannot find them in stores because they don't exist except in my mind. I want them, but not enough to make them. And so I wear pajamas. 

Who cares to admit complete defeat?

Dumb question, right? You would say, gosh, Carol, nobody, if you put it like that. But what are we talking about? Defeat is the flipside of success, and both defy definition. After you've seen both sides and all points in between, what does winning or losing, defeat or success, have to do with anything?  

Speaking of winning and losing, yesterday I stood outside the chain link fence at the Rillito Race Track, twenty feet from thundering hooves. What a unique way to spend a Saturday afternoon, standing in the blazing sun trying to get my phone camera to focus through a chain link fence. A big dude in a sweatshirt trotted by just inside the track as the horses were going down to the gate. He saw me and yelled, "Miss, no cameras." As if I were a person who knew how to use a smartphone camera. Jeez. I should be so lucky.

Each thirty-second quarter-mile race is followed by thirty minutes of track grooming by a fleet of noisy trucks towing farm implements, so it's a long wait between races. I wilted after one race. As I baked and tried to get my camera to focus, I wondered how many of the racegoers were betting? I had no idea. I never heard loud cheers or groans from the stands, and leisurely racegoers in blue jeans and cowboy boots seemed to arrive and depart at all points during the half hour I stood there, as if winning or losing or even watching the track didn't matter. Maybe they came for the hotdogs, popcorn, and Mariachi music. 

The race track published the results of the first race day on their website. March 12. Temperature: 75°F. Track condition: Fast. Two horses were in the doghouse: Izanami veered in sharply after the start, jumping the inner rail and losing its rider, and Zinmagic shot the backside gap and unseated its rider. The stalwart stewards of the track reviewed the race and decided each horse caused its own problem and placed both horses on the Stewards’ List. Not sure what that meant. Probation, probably. One step from pony detention.

Today I walked 2.5 miles along the bike path to the sun circle. It's a Stone Henge kind of structure, surrounded by scrubby desert trees, prairie dog holes, and housing developments. There was no sun at the sun circle. We seem to be stuck in a cloudy, cool, windy pattern. However, to make up for the lack of sunshine, there was a man named Ken, who was resting on one of the brick seats next to his fat-wheeled bicycle. He saw me and launched into a story about the soltices and how the light comes through openings in the standing brick columns and shines across the circle onto columns on the opposite side. I rested my legs and listened to my new friend natter about sunlight, wishing we had a little more sun and a little less wind, and when he started telling me about his parents and their high school yearbook picture, I took my leave and walked the 2.5 miles back to the trailer.

Is it really complete defeat? I think just continuing to publish this blog means I have not given up. This blog is my Kilroy was here, my lifted leg, as it were. This blog is my modest contribution to the zeitgeist of existential angst over bank meltdowns, too much snow, and not enough civility. Yes, I read the news. If I had more money, I might actually care. Meaning if I had more to lose, if I had more skin in the game. However, I rarely rant about anything beyond my all-encompassing preoccupation with self. I'm in a closed loop of fretfulness. My main fear these days is that my brain is permanently broken and nowhere on the planet will the barometric pressure be stable enough restore balance to my inner ears. 

Am I winning or losing or somewhere in between? Is it possible to know? 

On a geological scale, we are all losers. Blip, and we're gone. Who cares? People in the future will not know most of us existed, except in aggregate, nor will they care. They won't know you, they won't know me. They won't miss us at all. However, on a spermatozoamaniacal scale, we are all winners. After all, we are here. The proof is in the pudding. And there's no denying somebody is pooping in the bed, and I'm pretty sure it's all of us. 

Now is it time to admit complete defeat?

Failing to plan might not be so bad

It might be spring. It's hard to tell, weather is a variable phenomenon here in the desert. Last week it snowed. Today it was 75F. Wet or dry, it's a great relief to feel warm. However, humidity is low, as you can tell from the artist's self-portrait. I need to drink more water. 

One sign that it might be spring is the changeable Rillito River. I walk along the river bike path almost daily. Yesterday, to my surprise, the Rillito deadended in dry sand at Oracle Road. I mean, it simply disappeared, just soaked straight down into the dirt, leaving plastic bottles, tents, and shopping carts high and dry in the channel. I'm not used to seeing rivers just vanish into the riverbed. If the Willamette did that, Stumptown would go insane.

Speaking of going insane, once again, I find myself in plan-and-wait mode. This seems to be a recurring life pattern for me. Always waiting for something to end so something new can begin. It's clear I have a hard time being in the here and now.

Didn't some old-timey dude say something like failing to plan means planning to fail? Old Dude, that is not helpful, even if we all agreed on a definition of failure. The ultimate "failure" is death, but all the planning in the world won't save us from death. What about the things that can't be anticipated? What if I get dementia and can no longer make decisions, as seems to be happening to a college friend? Or what if I keel over from a blood clot, which happened to my childhood friend when she was 51. Or remember cousin Dave, who succumbed to a heart attack at 61? Or my father, who met his end because of a heart problem at 77. 

I used to think my odds of living to 100 were pretty good, considering I've never smoked, I don't drink, and I don't eat meat. I don't think that any longer. I think it will be a miracle if I make it to 75. 

On the bright side, the one who lets go of the most possessions by the time death comes knocking is the winner. I fully intend to win that contest. You can donate the trophy to the thriftstore on my behalf. Thanks.

Speaking of useless trophies, I've learned some new words in relation to my vertigo issues. Peripheral versus central. Peripheral pertains to my inner ears. Central encompasses the brain, the spinal column, the eyes, and the ears. Peripheral problems turn into central problems if they go untreated. It is possible to have problems with both at the same time. I've consulted Dr. Web, M.D., and their colleague, Dr. Google. I'm pretty sure I have both.

Even though I'm doing the next logical thing (heading toward the coast to see if my head will settle), I don't have much hope, honestly. I'm afraid my brain is broken. The good news, brains can be retrained. The bad news, it takes time. My vestibular system might be out of whack for while, even when I'm living in my car on the beach at Leo Carillo State Park. Maybe Death Valley is my next option. Warm, dry, and 282 feet below sea level. 

I'm tired of planning. At some point, you just have to take a chance and go.

Fear of freedom

During the several years I was waiting for my mother to die, I daydreamed about what life would be like when I was finally "free." Free of obligation, free to come and go, free to pick up and leave, free to say no. I had contingency plans for contingency plans, trying to manage and control how it would all go down. Of course, that is always a futile quest, but it relieved my anxiety to plan in excruciating detail for the day when I would finally be free, when I could pack up my meager belongings, and drive away from all my problems.

Well, wherever we go, there we are, so you probably aren't surprised to hear that all my problems came along with me, dragging behind my minivan like a scuzzy half-deflated parachute. I thought Tucson would be a place where my creativity could finally flourish. Find a little apartment, enjoy the endless summer, and make good use of my time to write and volunteer . . . perfect, a lovely idyllic dream. 

Tucson didn't turn out to be paradise. You've heard it all before, so I won't bore you with the recap. You remember it all much better than I do, I'm sure. I have to write it out all over again just to remember it, as if I'm watching someone else's biopic. Suffice it to say, rents are too high, summer is sizzling, and after two years, my inner ears have still not settled. This week the ENT admitted she hasn't a clue, which means she thinks I'm crazy. 

Two friends I've recently met in real life (who do not know each other) have looked at me with envy, saying things like "You could go anywhere, you could do anything, you're free." These are friends who have some or all of the elements of modern life: money, family, property, obligations, routines, and commitments. They are not free, or they don't perceive they are free. They have security, safety, resources, a home, and they feel trapped. They would trade all that for freedom. So they say. I wonder how the stars in their eyes might dim the first time they had to poop in a bucket. 

I felt trapped while I was waiting for Mom to die. And let me just say, I didn't want her to die. I wanted her to be my mother forever, because I never grew up, and I still could really use a mother. However, the hungry baby bird she turned into toward the end needed a lot of care and feeding. I knew the moment would come eventually. She was 91 when she finally kicked off. But she could have lived to 100. I would have been there, right to the end, no matter what, still dreaming of freedom and planning my escape.

Be careful what you wish for. In my irritable chafed wizened life, I didn't really imagine that unlimited freedom could have a downside. I just wanted out. Maybe if I had unlimited resources, total big-ass freedom would be heaven. Maybe someday I'll find out. In this incarnation, however, my freedom is not absolute. I have three big constraints: my health, my car, and my bank account. It's the king hell bummer trifecta of puny-ass freedom. Poor man's freedom. Freedom to drive as long as there is gas in the car and I remember to take my blood pressure pills.

In Tucson, I traded my freedom for a series of ledges on which I could wipe my brow and catch my breath. I fought off roaches and ducked bullets at the Bat Cave. Now I hunker inside a safe but stultifying gated community and dream of my next launch into the stratosphere. At this time I have no ledge to land on. All I know is, I'm headed west. As I my heart pounds and my ear crackles, I am organizing my few possessions. I'm breathing each moment, ignoring the washing machine in my head, wishing I had half the energy of my dynamo housemate, and wondering what the hell I am doing.

I just got off the phone with a friend. Maybe a ledge in the San Fernando Valley has found me, I don't know. More to be revealed. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I whine, but I'm getting things done. I pulled up my britches and bought my own ISBNs. I learned how to format an epub book (for the second time) and uploaded it to a place where librarians might see it. I paid cash for two crowns (and had them installed). I defeated the check engine light with a bottle of mechanic in a can. I walked two miles without falling down once. I started my taxes. I ignored the one inch of snow and celebrated the return of 70F and blue sky. Life happens in the moment, I know. I have to stop trying to run ahead, but old habits die hard.

Your turn will come

I'd like to focus on the victory of the week, whch was that I figured out how to format an epub book that passed muster with IngramSpark—but all I can do is obsess over an ingrown hair on my upper lip. Dermotillomania strikes again. When I'm cold, skin imperfections are magnets for my roaming fingers. Every hangnail is an invitation to pull hard. My cuticles are bloody meat. It's a wonder I haven't died of flesh-eating strep. Does that sound familiar? Sorry if I repeat myself.

There's nothing new in my brain. The ruts are deep. I rehash the same tired complaints week to week, month to month. Usually people are kind enough to ignore the fact that I repeat myself. I'd like to apologize but actually I feel a bit smug. They don't yet know the frustration that awaits them when they reach for a memory and come up empty. Meanwhile, I keep picking at my lip, rubbing that hair the wrong way. 

I am regressing to my cultural mean. That is to say, like a narrow-minded person with trash roots, I'm circling the wagons on my willingness to be open-minded. I don't want to stress my brain cells with new things. The idea of learning for learning's sake sailed out the window when I got laid off from my teaching job in 2013. I have no more curiosity. This is partly why mastering the epub was such a victory. I use the word mastering hoping nobody will actually ask me to explain what I did to succeed. I went in circles for several days, punching holes in html and css with little knowledge and a lot of desperation. I kept telling myself failure is not an option, but of course failure is always an option. One day it will be the only option. I just hope it doesn't hurt much.

Meanwhile, it's the little things. Like hairs sprouting on my upper lip. 

The dark ones don't last long. If I see one, I pluck it. I'm not afraid to go in after it. If the hair is white, I can't see it. That makes me crazy. As I sit here picking at my cuticles, I contemplate the nuclear option.

Yesterday I had to thread a needle. I threaded needles for many years in my former life as a garment maker. I can thread a needle by feel, which is lucky, because my eyes no longer work right. I can't see things far away, and I can't see things up close. That means I can't see the thread or the eye of the needle. Muscle memory is the only kind of memory I have left. What's more, lately my right eye has occasionally been blocked by what looks like a round thumbprint. You could call it a flower. I guess it's a thing that happens sometimes. Oh, it hasn't happened to you? Well, your turn will come. Meanwhile, if you want to talk to me, stand about twenty feet away. 

I try not to think much. Thinking is over-rated. I do as little as possible. I used to admire people with robust intellects, you know those smartasses who read lots of nonfiction books. Not anymore. I think they are wasting brain cells in the pursuit of something that can't be retained. Sort of like Arizona uses water. 

I peaked in my twenties. It's been downhill ever since. This is ironic, because I was emotionally stunted when I was in my twenties. All those brain cells with so much capacity, like a high-powered nuclear reactor generating power to illuminate and solve all problems, and all I could do was apply them toward chasing codependent relationships. Now, forty-plus years later, I have so much more emotional intelligence and no brainpower left to use it. The nuclear power plant has imploded into dust. My weary thoughts sit mumbling around a campfire, singing kumbaya and trying to remember how to make s'mores.

In fairness to me, my capacity to think has been reduced somewhat by the washing machine in my head. Being off balance saps my will to care about anything. I'm going to the ENT for a follow-up this week. Maybe she will be able to tell me what particular brand of inner ear washing machine I have. I'm skeptical. Last year it was "Vestibular Migraines." That brand works for some people, but me, I give it zero stars. This year, the new fad is "PPPD," which stands for persistent postural perceptural dizziness. It's the brand of the week. As vestibular specialists do more research, they come up with more brands of vestibular insanity. We'll see what the ENT has to say about PPPD. She might tell me I'm really insane, like, Carol, it's all in your head. Duh. Doctors tend to blame the patient when they are too embarrassed to admit they don't know what is going on. Who could blame them? All those years in medical school, right? It's gotta hurt.

Let's keep it simple. Instead of adding up my victories and defeats to arrive at my value as a going human concern, let's just give me an attaboy for managing to cross something off my daily to-do list. As I'm going to do after I upload this blogpost.  

 

Things that don't heal by themselves

I've heard time heals all wounds. That sounds nice, but time doesn't heal everything. A few things come to mind. Cars. Teeth. Hearts. Money can heal some things, though. Cars, for example. If you have enough money to throw at the problem, you can definitely get that dreaded check engine light to go off. For a while. 

A business person once said something like, "I know half my advertising is wasted; I just don't know which half." I feel that way about car repair. When Charlie the mechanic says things like "Well, first we'll replace the coil, and if that doesn't work, we'll replace the fuel injector," it makes me suspect I just got a new coil for nothing. Not that you can't always use a new coil, but generally, I try to wait until I really need a new thing before tossing out the old one. It's the guess-and-by-golly approach. You guess, and if it works, you say, well, by golly! If it fails, you say, golly, sure screwed that up. The approach works, either way. After $2,300 worth of new everything, my car is running great. 

Another thing that doesn't heal by itself is teeth. Repairing teeth chews up a lot of money (ha, see what I did there). As I lay stiff as a board in the chair, with a drill, a water pick, a suction hose, and four hands in my mouth and the whine of the drill blasting my eardrums as it ground #3 and #26 to smithereens, I had a solid two hours to really savor the feeling of money being siphoned out of my bank account. I kept picturing the moment when I would be sitting at the receptionist's desk, pulling out my debit card. While I suffered in the chair, I couldn't wait for that moment. Once I survived the grinding and was actually pulling out my debit card, I felt somewhat less enthused. However, my deal is, I pay as I go for services rendered, even if they render me impoverished. How could I refuse? I got two new crowns for the bargain (Medicare) price of only $1,500. Such a deal. 

Speaking of dental deals, I hear that my insurance company has denied the $1,550 cost of last month's root canal re-do. I'm going to call them and weep into the phone, but I don't have a lot of hope. You can't petition the insurance company, not with prayer or anything else. The root canal had to be done, though, to save the tooth. So they say. Do we have to save teeth? I'm starting to think I'd look pretty good with dentures. I wonder if the dentist would let me customize them. Could I get them sharpened to points, maybe? That might come in handy in the upcoming zombie apocalypse, when I might be called upon to bite the throats out of water thieves. 

My bank account is starting to resemble Lake Mead—that is to say, a lot going out and not much coming in. I am not good at math, but even I know that is not sustainable. 

I knew this was going to happen. I was mentally prepared. Cars and teeth do not repair themselves. As long as I have the money, I will pay to maintain them. After that, it's baby food and bicycle. 

The other thing I'm thinking of that doesn't heal on its own is my heart. I don't mean that I'm grieving the losses of the past three years, although I am, and I probably always will miss my mother, my cat, and my sense of "home." I am actually referring to the actual meatball beating in my chest. Taking up yoga and jogging won't fix the valve that is gradually calcifying. My father used to lift weights to "muscle" his way through his maladies. It seems likely that I have inherited his genetic heart condition. I doubt if lifting weights is going to save me, any more than it saved him. But I understand his motivation. After a long walk, I feel a sense of sweaty accomplishment, like, yeah, take that, you stupid meatball. I'll outlive you yet, you just wait.

Speaking of dead, I'm pretending there will be a tomorrow, and I'm making plans accordingly. In a couple months, I'm going out in the world to seek my new home. Am I too old to go on a quest? I haven't heard that there is an age limit. This might be the adventure of my mediocre mundane lifetime. Or it might be the stupidest thing I've ever done. It's so hard to know ahead of time. Most of my bright ideas fall into the second category, but I've been lucky a few times before. It could happen again.

The path is less-traveled for a good reason

 

I'm blogging tonight because it is a task on my calendar. That is the only reason. My brain is a stinky pile of pudding. I've spent the past few hours formatting a dissertation that refuses to conform. 

It happens. Not all Word documents are built to my liking. No use complaining. It's far too late to do anything about it. The dissertation is done. The dissertator is defending in a few weeks. 

I can imagine the desperation she felt when her reviewers said, clean this thing up or you don't graduate!

Word is not a user-friendly program. I know it pretty well, but sometimes it is hard to figure out the quirks of a new template. There are a hundred styles in this thing. I picture bored academics sitting in offices drinking beer and gloating over their next creative ploy to make dissertators insane. And editors. Although I doubt if they are thinking of us. Me. No, they don't care.

They probably think they are making the formatting task easier for their dissertators. And if they knew what they were doing, I would say, right on. But it's just stupid to set a style to all caps and then assume the dissertator will figure out what to do when their page numbers suddenly appear in the Table of Contents in uppercase Roman numerals. I mean, I ask you. It's a travesty.

My brain is mush. I think there was some big game today? Did your team win? I hope you are fully recovered from whatever happened. I'd rather stay immersed in my resentment against Microsoft Word. It's easier to gripe than to see the news and be reminded that so many people around the world are suffering. 

Today as I walked along the bike path, enjoying the sun as I dodged the bikers, I thought about a crossroads moment in my young adult life. It was more than a moment, I guess. Maybe you could classify it as a three-year-long crossroads moment. I was in college (the first time around). It was around 1975 when my life forked into two distinct paths. One path headed toward the practical world of business, probably accounting (can you imagine?). The other path headed toward the mystical realm of art and creativity. It was never a real choice to me, but looking back, I wish someone had pointed out to me that I did have a choice. I didn't see it. I only saw one path, and so I took that path. 

It would not have taken a crystal ball to show me the possible outcomes of the two paths. One path would likely have led to a decent income, probably a house, a nice car, a growing bank account, and a retirement fund. In other words, wealth. The other path, the one I chose, has given me an interesting life of creativity, magical thinking, and constant struggle. 

Other crossroads presented themselves over the years. I took a few of them, in my quest to be a normal person. I went to school multiple times to reinvent myself. The editing skills I have now are a direct result of one of those detours. My detours have led me in some pointless directions, mostly because I let others persuade me it was the right choice. I wonder what sort of life I would have had if I'd ignored them, settled on one art form, and stuck to it. Painting, maybe. Or writing. I might have actually had a career. On the other hand, I wonder what my life would look like now had I chose to become an accountant. I can guess. Safe. Secure. Predictable. Now that I'm old and tired, it doesn't sound too bad.

I suppose it's not too late to look for another crossroad. As long as my brain still works, I'm probably employable somewhere. However, my best years, physically and mentally, are behind me. Barring a miracle, I fear my best earning time has come and gone. I should be living on my wealth now, and instead, I am still chasing the dream. Or it is still chasing me. 

Taking life at thinking speed

Today as I walked at thinking speed on the Huckelberry Loop, baking under 77°F sunshine, I reflected on the almost two years since I moved from Portland to Tucson. I realize now I had some expectations about what life would be like when I got here. For example, I thought I'd finally have time to write and publish. I thought I would be enjoying endless summer. I thought I'd have a cute little apartment somewhere, where my creativity could flourish, and I'd finally lose ten pounds and get into the best shape of my over-55 life.

Well. Some of those expectations did come true, but not in the way I'd hoped. For instance, I found that cute little apartment, but it turned out to be infested with roaches and located in a neighborhood prone to homicides. That nearly endless summer turned out to be a brutal phenomenon that could kill me. Nevertheless, my creativity did flourish. In spite of roaches, bullets, blazing hot sun, and drenching monsoon rains, I managed to crank out two books. It hasn't been all bad.

Thinking speed is the speed at which I don't have to pay attention to my swollen ankles and laboring lungs. Today I was thinking in particular about this past year, my first Medicare year. Before Medicare started, I remember being cranky that Medicare would start docking my tiny social security income, like, come on, Medicare, how did you expect me to live? I didn't think living itself might be in question. I mean, I knew I had high cholesterol, but I didn't know all the other things that turned out to be wrong with me. If I'd had a choice, would I rather have kept the money and eschewed Medicare? Would I rather not have known about the osteoporosis, the aortic stenosis, and the undiagnosed blood disorder? Possibly. 

In the space of one year, I went from being a healthy person to a person who could drop dead of a heart attack or stroke at any moment. Probably the only thing saving me from a real chest-clutcher is the fact that I haven't eaten red meat in twenty years. I thought I'd be able to gloat a little—look at me, the amazing vegetarian! Instead, I have earned a big fat fail. My so-called exemplary lifestyle (i.e., no meat, no processed food, no sugar, no alcohol, no cigarettes) has not earned me the coveted gold star of perfect health. It is starting to look like I missed out on some of the finer things in life, and I'm thinking specifically of the food groups I have avoided, mainly ice cream and potato chips. Mmm. Ice cream. Now I wish I'd pounded down a few more cheeseburgers and chocolate milkshakes. Well, it's not over til this fat lady drops dead. 

I don't feel like myself. I used to feel invincible, or as invincible as a slightly overweight, out-of-shape older gal can feel. If you subtract the vertigo, I was doing really well. So I thought. That is why this year has been such a shock. I used to be strong, and now I'm not. 

Realizing I am running out of road has changed the way I see myself. I'm not confident of my ability to do simple things, like climb a ladder, reach a high cupboard, or walk in a straight line without falling over. I can't trust my body anymore. 

Of course, I know everyone is one breath away from death, but it doesn't feel real when your heart is ticking along at an even pace, or when you don't worry about what will happen if you fall off the curb. It's some abstract unhappy fate that will happen sometime far in the future. 

Thanks for listening, Dr. Blog. I feel ashamed for whining about my tiny parched life. Many people have it much worse than I do. I'm just taking a long while to come to terms with my own mortality. 

I think my next road trip is going to help me with that. Instead of planning everything, I'm going to intentionally be a "pantser," that is, I'm going to travel by the seat of my pants. Instead of choosing my destination, I'm going to let the destination choose me. Over and over. I don't know if I can do it without panicking. I'm not used to the rock star roadie lifestyle, where you park in a different city every night. This is either going to kill me, or it's going to make me sick, and then it's going to kill me. 

The only interesting question is, how long before life kills me, and what will I do with that time?

You face the same question, too. 

Finding the thank-you-god ledges along the journey

My friend E told me about the Thank You God Ledge in Yosemite. I looked it up and saw photos. No thanks. It's a long narrow ledge almost 2,000 feet up the face of Half Dome. Just looking at the photos makes me want to cower in the closet. However, the concept of a ledge providentially placed when one needs a respite is useful for describing my double stint at Trailer Tesserae. That's one of the names for this mobile home I'm currently living in, in case you have forgotten. Art Trailer. Artmobile. Art Box. 

I've been in Arizona almost two years. April 24 will be the two-year anniversary. After a three day 1,500 mile help-me-god trip through the desert, I landed on the ledge of Trailer Tesserae. That was before it had that name. For three months, this mobile home was a safe spot from which to learn the neighborhood and find my next perch, which turned out to be the roach-infested Bat Cave. After a year in the Bat Cave, I landed back in the Trailer, to regroup, to reconsider, to plot my next move. The plotting is starting to take shape. Last week, I told you about the shakedown cruise I took with E, who showed me how to live in my car. Camp in my car, excuse me. Let me not get ahead of myself.

For my next help-me-god trip, scheduled for mid-April, I'm driving to California and then north to Oregon to meet my siblings at the end of the month. We plan to find a nice cozy beach somewhere near the confluence of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean where we can scatter Mom, who for two years has been peacefully resting in ash form in a cardboard box on my brother's shelf. Sorry if I've told you all this before. I'm sure your memory is much better than mine.

I have this vague idea that along the way, my next perch (home) will manifest, and I will no longer be destination-less. I can hope. I found the Love Shack in Portland by driving and looking. Most of the great apartments are never advertised. One must troll the desirable neighborhoods looking for red handwritten for-rent signs. Miracles do happen. After successfully using a mechanic-in-a-can product last week to remedy my check engine light, I am now a believer. I just have to figure out in what general area I want to live, go there, and look for vacancies. Easy. I feel a tiny bit giddy, like a kid in an ice cream store. Do I want the Rocky Road or the Chocolate Chips Ahoy?

It's possible I'm deluding myself. Housing costs in California are far beyond my meager means. It's not likely I will have many options. Still, I'm not the boss of outcomes. It might seem exceedingly unlikely I will find affordable housing (I only need one place), but it's not impossible. I'm holding onto hope.

Meanwhile I've discovered mal de debarquement syndrome (MDDS), which is easily the most fun diagnosis I have entertained for my inner ear disturbances, just for the name alone. You have to say it with a French accent, to really get the most enjoyment from it. I give myself a new diagnosis weekly, just for the hell of it, because why not? The ENT took the easy way out by slapping vestibular migraines on my chart before she offered to poke a hole in my eardrum. I'm not saying I don't have vestibular migraines, but I also have symptoms that align with other vestibular maladies, of which there are many. While I'm thinking of it, riddle me this: How come there are so many vestibular illnesses identified and named but not studied and treated? Do researchers get paid by the name? Where's their incentive to actual find the cures? Just asking for a friend.

Another fun diagnosis I entertained last week was called persistent oscillating vertigo. I mean, what's not to love? It's chronic, it's energetic, and it's mysterious. Just the word oscillating itself conjures images of egg beaters inside my inner ears, whipping up an ocotonia omelet. Before that I was into another interesting diagnosis, known as Triple P D. PPPD. Persistent postural perceptual dizziness. That's a mouthful. It's elegantly all-encompassing. I like theories that really pull everything together. PPPD is like the theory of relativity for vestibular malfunctions. So fun.

I still don't understand the mechanisms that make my right ear crackle when the waves of whatever the hell this is roll through my head. It feels mechanical, but I have a hunch my ENT, whom I will visit in early March, will tell me it truly is all in my head and I should start seeing a therapist. And taking a benzodiazapine of some kind. Not going to happen, but thanks for the suggestion, Doc.

Guess what I've been doing in my spare moments? Since yesterday, I've been staring at a video of vertical black strips rolling slowly from right to left across a white computer screen. The instructions are simple. Make the image big, get close to the screen, stare into it, and slowly bend my head from right to left and back to center, six times per minute for five minutes. Do this eight times a day for five days, and relief is all but guaranteed. I feel as if I'm in an old episode of the Avengers and any minute now, Mrs. Peel and Mr. Steed will be swooping in through the skylight to rescue me from the Hypnosis Crime Syndicate, who seek to control humanity by altering our brain waves while we think we are watching reruns of Welcome Back, Kotter. 

When I say relief is guaranteed, that assumes I actually have MDDS, which is far from certain. I don't care. To cure myself with moving vertical stripes is free, painless, and kind of cool. I find my eyes crossing, like they do when you stare into one of those 3-D Magic Eye pictures trying to find the chipmunk in all the multicolored dots. Just when you think, man, this is totally bogus, there it is, the squirrel suddenly appears, so real you could almost pick him right off the page. After you let your eyes go back to normal, for the rest of the day you feel just the slightest bit high. 

These vertical stripes are sort of like that. Eventually my eyes cross and I can see into infinity below the edge of my screen. When I move my head to follow the instructions, the lines seem to slow and stop briefly before starting again, even though I know they maintain a steady pace for the entire video. This is evidence of how my brain is messing with my eyes, and vice versa. Throw in my inner ears, my Eustachian tube . . . and apparently my spinal column, too, and no wonder I'm on a wild ride. 

I'm so over it, but I guess it is not yet done with me. The adventure continues.

My aching back

You'd think I'd be used to change by now, after sixty-six years on the planet. Nope. Still not used to it. Still cranky when things change. Is it masochistic that I keep putting myself into situations that produce massive change? Maybe it's not masochistic. Maybe it's courageous. Did you ever think of that?

Speaking of cranky, I have a bone to pick with Microsoft. They had this nice little program called Picture Manager, really great for editing my drawings. Along with good old Paint, I can take my crummy illustrations drawn on lined journal paper and erase the blue lines, tidy them up, reduce the gray, and deepen the midtones. A few iterations ago, Microsoft stopped offering Picture Manager as part of Office. I have happily used Picture Manager for years on my old desktop but I don't have it on my laptop. 

Picture Manager came installed with MS Office 2010, which is what my desktop system was running, up until yesterday when the graphics card fizzled from dust, decay, cat hair, and old age. In fact, pretty much what has happened to me the past fifteen years just happened to my desktop computer system. Kaput. 

I'm grieving today for my desktop system. I'm also really grateful to the computer gods who kept the graphics card running long enough to finish a massive editing job with a serious deadline. I finished the job at 1:00 a.m. last night, went to bed, and woke up to a dead computer. Talk about miraculous timing. Bummer, my computer is dead, but hallelujah, it picked the right moment to die. Maybe there is a god.

I went to Dr. Google, who has all the explanations for everything, including the answer to the question What are these weird splotches on my arms and legs? and discovered that 2010 Sharepoint has Picture Manager, and I can download it for free. The kind people on the internet showed me what to do, and it worked, and now I have Picture Manager on my laptop. Yay. My laptop is to my desktop as the tortoise is to the hare, so it took quite a while to download (yes, yes, I agree, take my first born), install, customize just for Picture Manager, search for the folders with pictures in them, and then find the image I wanted to use. You can see I didn't get all the blue lines out, but I never do. Now that my desktop system is gunnysack, my printer/scanner will no longer work either. That means no more scanning of my drawings. Now I must use my smartphone to photograph my drawings. No more easy peasy. Everything creativity related now is slower, harder, and grimmer.

Change. You'd think after all this time.

Speaking of aching backs, car camping! When E called it a shakedown cruise, truer words never spilled over the epiglottis. My bed platform was sturdy but hard as only a plastic shelf with a one-inch camping pad and a pile of fleece blankets can be. That is to say, many long moments of wondering, what weird kind of frozen hell is this? Sleeping in a minivan in the middle of a freezing desert? I win the Amana Freezer for insane choices. I was saved by technology in the form of a dinky powerbank, my new boyfriend, Jackery, a 240 watt battery that powered my 70 watt heating pad that kept my feet warm during the night. I would not have made it without that heating pad. I would have been crying long before dawn. 

As it was, dawn was a long time coming. Do you know how dark and cold the desert gets when the sun goes down in the winter? Yeah, you probably do. You probably do your research before you go camping and wisely decide not to camp in the desert during the winter. Not me. I have to learn it all the long dark stupid cold hard way. Darkness comes fast and goes away reluctantly. Those three nights seemed to last forever, with a little bit of daylight in between. A watched sunrise never rises, isn't that how it goes? Something like that. You would make sure you have proper lighting in your car after dark, wouldn't you, you expert camper you. So you could do something productive, like, I don't know, blow on your freezing fingers or something.

I was shaken up good and proper on this shakedown cruise, and now I know I can survive in my car if I have to. I hope I don't have to live a long time in my car, but now I know I can do it. I can sleep (fitfully), cook, eat, bathe (sort of), poop in a bucket (an experience you should not miss for yourself), and stay warm (more or less, with my Jackery) in my car. And it requires much less paraphernalia than I thought. It was strange to wake up, fix coffee, and wonder, where the hell am I? And keep on drinking my coffee.

I understand the difference between low desert and high desert, but I guess I have to experience the difference in order to really get it, if you know what I mean. I whined last week about elevation. I kept trying to pay attention to my head during my road trip around Southern Arizona and into California. My head wasn't perfectly balanced in the low desert, but it went crazy when I got back to the high desert. That should tell me something. 

Okay, enough palaver. My head is reeling, my ear is crackling. That means we are expecting snow flurries tomorrow. 
 

Elevation is not the same as transcendence

Who knew elevation matters? Maybe you know all about elevation and air pressure. I'm a slow science learner. The experts tell me air pressure decreases the closer one gets to sea level. I associate low air pressure with S.A.D., clouds, wind, and rain. In most places I've been (which isn't all that many), air pressure drops when crappy weather moves in, which is why I prefer not to stay in places with crappy weather (like Portland). So should I head to sea level or not?

I don't understand the mechanics of vestibular disturbance. When the air pressure decreases, subjectively my inner ears sometimes feel more stable. However, when clouds roll in and rain starts pouring, my emotional health tumbles. (I think probably Hawaii is the place for me, but where would I park my home on wheels?) 

Last night around 11 p.m. a strange thing happened. I had a five minute respite. It took me a couple minutes to realize what was happening, so I missed enjoying the entire five minutes. Five minutes of not being off balance, of not hearing the crackling in my Eustachian Tube. It was a surprising phenomenon, to be set free. I felt normal. I couldn't believe it. I had to test it, of course. I bent over. I moved around. My head behaved normally, that is to say, I was not dizzy or off balance, and my crackling ear was silent.

Ah, blessed silence. 

I could hardly believe it was while it was happening, and I knew it wouldn't last, because why would it suddenly resolve after all this time? I hadn't done anything to warrant a miracle. That would definitely be evidence of god, and I'm not going there. Thus I was not surprised or disappointed when a few minutes later, as soon as I went to bed (which means getting horizontal), the pressure and noise were back, my old nemesis, the recurrent chronic oscillating freight train in my head. 

Oscillating is a new word I found to describe the intermittent recurring pattern of this chronic affliction. There is a thing called persistent oscillating vertigo. It is associated with mal de debarquement syndrome, which is a vestibular malady some people get after traveling by plane or boat. I don't have that, because I haven't traveled for years except by car, but apparently it's possible to have POV without having traveled, so maybe I've diagnosed myself. Kudos to me. According to Dr. Google, ETD and MDD are both rare and poorly understood disorders that ENTs would rather ignore. Which is probably why my ENTs proposed solution was to poke a hole in my eardrum. 

The remedies for almost all the vestibular maladies are the same. Drugs, therapy, and vestibular rehabilitation. For now, I'm choosing to soldier through on my own, doing my best to ignore the whole annoying mess.

You might say, well, Carol, you clearly aren't ignoring it, because you write about it every damn week in this stupid blog. Well, you would be right. I complain here in this blog because I'm not taking drugs, getting therapy, or doing physical rehab. I think if I were doing any or all of those things, I might be a happier (but poorer) person and therefore less inclined to complain here (about vestibular issues, there's always more to whine about). 

Speaking of complaining, the road trip to Quartzite has been delayed a day due to inclement weather. The storms destroying California are moving into Arizona, bringing high winds, rain, and chilly temps. I'll get there eventually. I have to find out for myself what it looks and feels like in other places. Quartzite is about 1,000 feet lower in elevation than Tucson, so it is possible my head will be happier there. I doubt it. I don't want to assume anything. However, the five minutes of respite I had last night gives me reason to hope.

One way out

As I walked along the bike path next to the Rillito River this afternoon, dodging bicyclists and enjoying the winter sun baking the back of my neck, a bicyclist rode by and said, "I saw a prairie dog." He could have been talking on the phone using invisible Blue Tooth earbuds, but I assumed he was talking to me, so I said, "Prairie dog?" He was long gone but I looked around to see if I could spot something poking its head up out of a hole in the ground. The dry riverbed was wide, full of sand and scrubby trees, probably good habitat for a critter who burrows, at least until monsoon floods sweep it into the next county. 

Not five minutes later, another bicyclist rode by me and asked, "Did you see the pigs?" She sped on by before I could ask, "Do you mean javelinas?" I assumed she wasn't from around here, maybe a newbie to Tucson, unlike me, the almost two-year resident to whom javelinas are as common as possums. Ho-hum. A couple days ago, I saw a dead one on the side of the road as I was driving by. If you see one dead javelina, you'll probably see more. They travel in squadrons. After the bicyclist had gone by, I thought, there is a possibility the woman was talking about pigs on the phone with someone in Nebraska, not addressing me at all. 

I always make everything about me.

Speaking about making everything about me, yesterday was the second anniversary of the death of my maternal parental unit. The whole day had a bit of a gray tinge to it. I try not to think of her last hours. I try to remember her from before 2016, but it's as if I'm conjuring two different people. Before she moved into the retirement home, she was strong, independent, and opinionated. Dementia was chipping at her brain, though, and soon the foundation of her independence crumbled. Now the mother I remember is the one I moved into the care home at the end of October 2020, the one I saw every evening after dinner, the one I bundled up in fleece so we could sit outside six feet apart, the one I tried to keep alive even though we were both trapped with only one way out.

I went to the care home every evening, thinking to myself, someday I won't be doing this, also thinking, god, I hope I don't have to do this for the rest of my life. 

And then it was done, and now I'm here, and I need to be someplace else, but I don't know where yet.

I used to welcome the new year, but not anymore. Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the death of my beloved cat Eddie. That day scrapes a hole in my heart every time I think of it. I guess I should be thankful Mom and Eddie didn't die the same year. That would have been the end of me.

No wonder my heart stutters. No wonder I can't get my balance.

After the latest heart scan, I'm ignoring my heart, even when it swoops and pounds. I don't want to fret about it anymore. I'm not imminently dying so what else is there to do but pretend like it isn't happening? Works for me. As far as the balance problem goes, the remedies seem to be the same, no matter the diagnosis. Do I have BPPV, PPPD, MD, VM, or something else? Who knows, who cares (not the ENT, that's for sure). The usual treatments are changes in diet (for migraines), medications (for migraines, seizures, depression, and anxiety), vestibular rehabilitation therapy (to retrain the brain, eyes, and ears), and cognitive behavioral therapy (for depression and anxiety).

Adjusting my diet seems to have no effect on my disequilibrium, unless I eat processed food, which gives me migraines but doesn't affect the vertigo. As for the second option, I'm not willing to add to my meds list, period. I already feel like a drug addict. Third option: Am I depressed? I don't think so. Am I anxious? Sort of, but not to the point of panic attacks. I think anyone contemplating moving everything without knowing their destination would be entitled to feel some anxiety. As for therapy, I'm always happy to dump my problems on someone who gets paid to listen to them, but it seems like a lot of work, and I don't think it would be all that productive. What would they tell me? It's okay to feel anxious, your life is a mess? Thanks, I already knew that. The only option worth pursuing in my inexpert but essential opinion is vestibular rehabilitation. I might try to get a referral but each session with a vestibular therapist will cost me, so I'll probably stick with Dr. Google. You can bet I've been reviewing all the videos I can find, and there are thousands. 

Meanwhile, I didn't think I was much of a gambler, but maybe I was wrong. I'm putting all my money on location, location, location. I recognize that packing up and heading west might not produce the desired outcome. What I mean is, doing a geographical might not make my spinning head feel better. What is Plan B? Thanks for asking. I have some ideas, but for now, let's stay out of the wreckage of the future. 

Making it visible

 

Happy new year, Blogbots. I've had this drawing ready to go since 2016. How are you doing so far on your resolutions for the new year? Great, glad to hear it. Me neither. I don't see the point. I don't know if I will get out of bed tomorrow. 

My computer has been warning me all day of sleet and rain, starting and stopping. Sleet! It's chilly here in Tucson, but not that chilly. Now the widget is cautioning me about wind. Heavy rain moved in, taking my head down with it. The sound of rain on the metal awnings at the Trailer de Tesserae is alternately soothing and unsettling. Rain here is rare enough that when it happens, it comes as a shock.

I grew up in rain, probably was born while it was raining (3 a.m. on a mid-October morning in Portland, Oregon), so rain is not a stranger to me. For some reason, though, I missed out on the downy feathers and webbed feet. I got S.A.D. and a desire to head for drier climes. 

I did not factor in this stupid inner ear problem. When the clouds roll in and the air pressure drops, I know the washing machine in my head is going to go full-spin cycle. 

I'm tired of having an invisible disability. Nobody knows I'm suffering unless I complain. From the outside, I look pretty normal, not counting the occasional nystagmus and faltering gait. The noise in my ear is not audible to anyone else, including the ENT, which is why her suggested remedies were for me to stop drinking coffee and allow her to poke a hole in my eardrum. I said no to both suggestions. 

To get the sympathy I seek, I've been working on a facial expression I can use when the symptoms take over my head. This is so you will know I'm suffering. I'm dabbling with a gritted-teeth, squint-eyed sort of look. If I do it right, every 45 to 90 seconds, a look will come over my face. I'll hold it for 10 or 15 seconds and then relax when the ear crackling subsides. I guess I could just wear a sign around my neck. One side would say malfunction in progress, please stand by. The other side would say, talk now and make it snappy.

It probably won't work. Anyone who sees me with that expression will just assume I'm passing gas. That means to avoid social humiliation, I will still have to explain that the model freight train in my inner ear has just roared into the station. It's on a track. It just keeps going in circles, pulling in every 45 to 90 seconds, hissing for 10 to 15 seconds, and then pulling out again, whoo whoo, round and round and round. 

I've trained myself to ignore the hissing and rattling in my ear, mostly. However, it's like those parents you see sometimes in the grocery store checkout line, ignoring their child as the child yells repeatedly and increasingly loudly that they must have candy now. The parent can hold a long conversation with another person while tuning out their child's moans and pleas. The child knows there is a risk in keeping up the demands. Sooner or later, the tone of the child's voice will penetrate the carefully constructed dam protecting the parent's tenuous internal calm. When the dam is breached, all that pent-up fury comes boiling out. It's not a happy sight to see a parental meltdown in a public place. Those things are best left to the privacy of the home, which is how my mother handled it.

This malady is a slow-drip faucet from hell, wearing a hole in my skull. Every now and then, the carefully constructed barrier protecting me from awareness of this incessant ear rattling and pounding vertigo breaks down. That is when I'd like to shove a pencil in my ear while driving my car off a cliff. 

Speaking of driving my car off a cliff, road trip! Coming soon.

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.

Free falling in slow motion

Remember when Alice fell down the rabbit hole, and she fell for such a long time, she got bored and fell asleep? The lesson of that story is that waiting for any impending disaster gets tedious after a while when the disaster fails to manifest. I've been in free fall almost from the moment I arrived in Arizona. In April it will be two years. I'm still free falling. 

The descent into the unknown is shaped partly by the imbalance in my inner ears and partly by the declining balance in my bank account. I don't know what the trajectory of my inner ears is going to be, but it's not hard to do the math on the money. I need to go someplace easier on the head and cheaper on the wallet.

I'm planning a reconnaissance road trip in April. Meanwhile, I'm using my free fall time to prepare. I don't know what I'm preparing for, exactly. 

I used to scoff at the preppers. I had an acquaintance who was sure the banking system was disintegrating. Now that I think back, it might have been around 2008. Dang it, she was right! Well, I had another friend who was prepping for the end of the world in the year 2000. Remember Y2K? No? Well, I do, sort of. I have a hazy recollection that I bought a couple extra gallons of water. I did not purchase bins of food to last me twenty years and a gun with plenty of ammo. People did, I heard. I guess their bins of food are nearing their expiration dates.  

In 2021, When I was packing for my move to Tucson, I ordered some camping gear from a survival company. Now I get emails reminding me to prepare for impending doom. After January 6 of last year, I am no longer a skeptic. This survivalist prepper lifestyle thing is somewhat associated with the van life movement, which has a certain appeal to me these days given I might be doing some "car camping" of my own soon. 

I've watched enough Walking Dead episodes to know how to take down a zombie but rioting humans are a different kind of mindless monster. Would I fight to stay alive? I'm not sure. You want my house? You want my identity? It's so important to you to destroy it? Okay. Go ahead. I'm nearing my sell-by date anyway. I had my fun. I grew up in the 1960s! No polio! It doesn't get much better than that for a little lower middle-class white girl. 

I want to shift my perception. It's going to take daily practice. Instead of seeing free fall as a scary negative experience, I want to reframe it as a grand exciting adventure. The trajectory of my life has never been linear. This is just more of that. Instead of criticizing nonlinearity as a failure, why not celebrate the organic nature of creativity? I don't have much linearity in my life but I have buttloads of creativity. 

If I can achieve the spartan lifestyle I am seeking, I'll be able to pursue my creativity and do it within my means. There won't be pressure to "get a job," the single most fatal phrase an artist can hear. I hear the voices of my parents clamoring in my head right now: You can't do that! What if you get sick? How will you live? 

Begone, all you voices. I've done my job caring for others. I've spent enough time and energy trying to fulfill someone else's idea of abundance, prosperity, and success. I'm old enough to make my choices and accept the outcomes. Hi ho hi ho, live or die, it's the creative life for me. 

It looks like the end, but it's not

I am compelled to evaluate everything. I come by it naturally. My ancestors survived by constantly evaluating their environment for threats. Is that a snake or a stick? Is that a tiger or is that just the pattern of dappled shadows among the trees? My compulsion to evaluate everything is hardwired into my DNA. I can’t not. That is what a compulsion is.

Evaluation leads to judgment. Judgment almost always leads to resentment or despair. Rarely does it lead to self-administered attaboys. Whatever happens to me, in me, around me, or by me, I have a continuous stream of chatter in my head: this is pretty good, this isn’t so bad, this is bad, this is really bad, this is the worst. 

My scale is a little skewed. I'm missing the points on the positive end of the scale, the ones that might be marked this is fabulous, this is fantastic, this is the best. I can’t bring myself to type exclamation marks. Consider them implied.

I’m so used to settling for mild resentment, I can’t let myself feel anything above that point on the scale. A good day for me is when I achieve neutrality. When my brain turns off the evaluation wheel and just listens to the wind.

What is success?

The question of the day: What is success? Go ahead, take your time. I'll let you ponder the question for a minute. It's not a trick question, but answering it could be tricky. Maybe write a list. Okay, time's up. What did you come up with? More important, whose version of success did you channel? 

 

Was it the definition of a long-dead ancestor? I pose the question because someone tried to impose their version of success on me today. After the conversation concluded, I realized it wasn't even their own definition. It was really a dead person's version of success. May they rest in pieces. 

The supposed implication was that if I aspired to that definition of success, I would be happy. Or safe, which some might say is more important than being happy.  

Did you make a list? What do you need to have in order to feel successful? Safe, secure, affordable housing and a good job? Maybe a committed relationship, a pet or two, a reliable car, a big-screen TV? Good health insurance, money in the bank, and a 401K? A predictable present and a future with no surprises?

Occasionally, I've allowed someone else's definition of success to influence my decisions. I've discovered the more I pursue someone else's dreams, the less I know who I am. Sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not measuring up to another person's definition of success. I feel ashamed for wanting to succeed on my own terms. That doesn't stop me, though, not for long. 

Success for me is living a healthy creative life of service on my own terms within my means. It's a construct of moving parts. I've had to flex at times. Rarely have I been able to accomplish all parts at the same time. Some parts can flex temporarily but other parts are not negotiable. 

I don't think I was meant to walk the well-trodden path. Sometimes the riskier road calls.

Searching for a feeling

As I was shuffling along the bike path by the dry Rillito River riverbed, I came to a realization that has helped me put another piece of the puzzle of my life into place. Let me set the scene. The riverbed is an energetic entity in this desert town. Its dry sand, green trees, scrubby bushes, and plastic garbage are home to all kinds of wildlife. For instance, last night at 1:25 a.m. I heard a coyote howling close by. It was probably in the wash out back of the trailer but it sounded like it was outside my window. Four husky cough-like barks followed by a perfect-pitch howl, five times in a row. I almost got up to go outside. Then I thought, are you nuts? I did that last time a dog barked in the wash. Do you know how cold it is in the desert in the middle of the night? I don't either, but it's not warm.  

Anyway, the riverbed is an amazing landscape. I enjoy walking on the bike path, dodging bike riders, skateboarders, and runners. During the day, the sun is warm for about two hours. The air feels great, especially if the wind is calm. Toward sundown the temperature starts dropping back toward the upper-30s, so I'm learning to walk while the sun is still high in the sky. The downside is, UV rays. The upside is, warm. I will always seek warmth. I'm somewhat like a lizard in that respect.

So, what did I figure out? Thanks for asking. 

First, let me insert this funny drawing that sums up the week. I drew this in 1998, as if I knew that today would be the day I would need it. 

There you go. Yeah, that seems about right.  

So, okay, thanks for waiting. I am going to tell you my little epiphany. 

But first, a little back story.

When I left home in 1977, I knew my destination. My friend Jenny had preceded me to Los Angeles, and there was no place else I wanted to be. So off I went to L.A. I stayed there for twenty years. 

In 1997, I moved back to Portland. Again, I knew my destination. Where else would I have gone? My family was there. It made sense to return home to clean up the mess of my young adulthood. After some time, I was recruited to be my mother's caregiver. You know the story. 

When I was set free in 2021, once again, I had a destination in mind: Tucson. I'd visited this city once thirty-some-odd years ago. I had a friend here. Actually more than one friend, it turned out, which was a good thing for me, because the first friend died. The second friend gave me a place to land, and now as luck would have it, we are housemates. Pure miraculous divine chance. (Is that a thing?)

Unfortunately for me, my inner ears aren't happy with the desert climate. The relentless fluctuations in air pressure keep me constantly unbalanced. I'm very careful, but I recognize that out here in the desert, I'm a perpetual fall risk. I don't care where I die, but this is not where I want to break a hip. There are other reasons Tucson is not the ideal home for me, but the air pressure variations are the main culprit. I've been researching almost since the day I arrived, trying to figure out where I should go next.

So, here I am, walking along the path, wondering where my next destination will be, and it occurs to me that what I seek is not a destination. What I seek is a feeling. Two feelings in one, really: A physical feeling (inner ear equilibrium) and an emotional feeling (call it . . . serenity). I can't choose a city on a map and move there, hoping that the city will give me the feelings I desire. I need to go out into the world in search of the feelings and then look around and see where I landed.

I'm not starting from total scratch, in case you are wondering. I mean, I could just hang a map on the wall, close my eyes, and throw some darts. I've heard of people doing that. It sounds like fun, but what if, once again, I end up in a place that upsets my inner ears and doesn't make me happy? I'm too old to waste time moving the possessions I still possess from place to place, as if affordable housing were hanging on trees. 

Darts on a map won't work but I do have some data, as I've shared in this blog before. Sea level is least likely to have huge changes in air pressure (except for Florida hurricanes, East coast nor'easters, and Pacific Northwest wind storms). My best bet is Florida (sans hurricanes) and southern California. I bet you can tell which way I will let the wind blow me. 

There's no predicting where exactly I will end up. It's very tempting to look at a map, study the housing opportunities in a city, and say, there, that place, that is where I will go. It worked out when I moved to L.A., but it didn't work when I moved to Tucson. I can't know how my inner ears will react until I go to a place, so choosing a place without visiting first would be . . .  I was going to say nuts, but let's just say, it would be inadvisable. 

I can hear you saying, Carol, nobody in their right mind would choose a city and move there without checking it out first. You are no doubt correct. I never claimed to be in my right mind. I'm getting nuttier by the minute. As a person who up till now has planned long, pondered hard, and taken action much much much later with great caution, I can barely fathom the idea of packing up and leaving without a destination. Who does that? Me, apparently. 

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.  

Stop making sense

If I could sum up my primary problem in one sentence, it would be this: I can't stop trying to make sense. Sense of my life, sense of others, sense of life in general. In other words, I keep trying to figure it all out. If I would just stop trying to make sense of everything, if I could stop trying to manage and control everything, maybe I could relax, maybe I could take things as they come. 

Do I want to relax? Thanks for asking. Apparently not, otherwise I would stop trying to make sense of everything.

The gentle yet brutal vacuum known as Swedish death cleaning appears to be sucking up the last dregs of my past. In my ongoing quest to make sense of my current so-called life, I spent part of the day purging a few more of my possessions. I persevered, even though I felt a little short of breath today. Either my heart is not pumping right or the air here in Minimal Town is growing more rarified. Am I rising in elevation as I jettison unneeded ballast, like a human hot air balloon? No wonder my inner ears are going crazy.

Today the item on the death-cleaning chopping block was my old mailbox. You might think, Carol, really? You dragged a mailbox with you all the way from Oregon? What kind of nut are you? 

Thanks for asking. I'm the kind of nut who paints mailboxes and then enjoys receiving mail in them for eighteen years and then decides when it is time to move away, that maybe there will be a place in my future life for my hand-painted mailbox. 

That kind of nut.

When I got to Tucson, it was pretty clear there was no place here in the desert for my hand-painted mailbox. Most apartments already have mailboxes. Even if I had needed a new mailbox, the colors definitely reflect a Northwest vibe—no Southwest desert colors on this thing. It's mostly orange blobs on a green-blue background, with some purple in there to make it pop, somewhat faded after eighteen years weathering Portland weather. I don't actually remember painting the mailbox, although they are definitely my colors, but I remember building the hand-painted wooden base with which I installed it on the metal railing outside my door at the Love Shack. It was a cantilevered contraption built of wood and bolts (also painted purple, orange, and greenish blue). The base kept my mailbox in an upright position until the day I dismantled it. I threw away the base and packed up the mailbox. Yes, I dragged it with me all the way from Oregon to Arizona. 

Today was the day I decided to let it go. I took a photo of the mailbox and put it into the give-away pile. 

As it turns out, there might be a place here for that mailbox after all. My housemate rescued the mailbox from the give-away box. With a stencil and a little green or blue spray paint, the number on the front can be revised to reflect the address of the Art Trailer. The Love Shack mailbox will live on.

I can't really express how happy and relieved I feel about the repurposing (I call it the resurrection) of my old mailbox. I have berated myself multiple times for bringing so many ridiculous and useless possessions with me from Oregon. Looking back, I realize I was out of my mind with panic, grief, and fear. It's no wonder I made some foolish choices. Some of the possessions have been easy to let go. The mailbox was one of the last pieces that had no purpose here, other than to remind me of what I've lost. 

I think the mailbox represents a time in my life when I had things more or less figured out. I wasn't exactly thrilled with my life in Portland, but I knew my place in it, and things made sense to me. I knew whose daughter I was. I knew whose employee I was. I had plans, and I was getting things done. 

I always knew that time of my life would eventually end. Employers go bankrupt, cats go to heaven, mold infects apartments, and old people get dementia and then die of an aneurysm. Life (and death) happen. I guess that is the only sort of sense I can derive from my experience. Life and death happen. I experience things, but I do not control them. For reasons I can't explain, it gives me hope that my old mailbox will live on after I'm gone.