Becoming Un-Un-Dead

Things (meaning my brainy neurons) are getting better and better around here. I feel like I should be walking around in a visible cloud of smiley emoticons and exclamation marks.  Each week the gains thrill me.  I am about half way there with the vestibulo-ocular reflex stuff and am gaining on the stamina.  I still have a bit (as in months to a year) to go yet, and still need a large mid-day nap, but the momentum is gaining.  It's like a glorious snowballing effect.  The more gains I make, the more gains I can make off those gains, and so we are charging forward. I will try to ride a bicycle later today, when someone is home who can take me to the ER (later: success!  And now Blue is fully trained on stopping blood gushers and dealing with broken vertebrae, not that she had to use those skills, but I did prepare her for multiple possibilities)

Zombie Poppy

Several people a week are telling me how much better I look, from my complexion and coloring to the clarity in my once cloudy eyes.  Even people I see only once or twice a month are noticing. Apparently what I thought was mostly invisible to the naked eye (that would be failed and partial synapses in my head) was visible to all, especially in my eyes. These noticing people call my eyes clearer, sharper, sparkly, more focused. Boy, it seems like if you take the reverse of these, I must have looked like some sallow zombie with dead, foggy, dull, unfocused eyes wondering the planet: "Brains!  Brains!  BRAINS!!!" Was I really that scary? that gone? Someone said I look like I'm "there" again. And you know what?  I feel like I'm here.  Not all the way, but I've been mostly beamed back to Enterprise, so much so that my particles are actually taking on a Sarajoy-ish look, apparently. It's only been about nine months.  It's like I've been in gestation: Here I am, world! Spank my booty and clear my nose, I'm being born!

failed selfie from the Zombie days

And now I'm looking around the house and noticing that, yes, the house keeper has been out for about nine months.  The kids have kept the bathrooms up and Huck has vacuumed and swept and taken on the kitchen a few times, but the backlog of baseboards, cupboards, light switches, dresser tops, closets, nooks, crannies, desks, cubbies, et cetera, et cetera that need to be scrubbed and re-organized is overwhelming. I expect that it will take at least 6 months to revamp this place. Oh gosh, my brain is overheating just thinking about it. Maybe I'll work on just preventing the current level of disarray from getting any worse for a few months before I start strategizing my plans for victory in the Great Household Entropy War of 2013(-14?!).

They still thought they could win, silly kids!

And there are recent signs and symptoms that the kids are growing up.  In a first stab at re-organization, we cleaned out the craft hoosier and tossed out all of the playdough and plastic beads; we are now officially too old for such things.  And then I started to notice lots of things my kids are too old for now.  For example, no one even tries to get in to the bathroom while I'm using it for my nefarious purposes; and it's been a good six years since anyone tried to nurse on me while I am doing business in there. No one has wet my bed for a very long time.  I haven't picked up any cheerios or noodles off the floors or walls in years.  No one uses a stool to reach the sink, therefore there are no longer any stools to stub my toes on.  Am I supposed to be nostalgic for those days? I'm not feeling it.  Maybe it's just the zombie in me.


With age has also come new viewing pleasures.  Once we were a screen-free family, when the kids were still of toilet-top nursing age.  It was only a year ago that we ventured in to Wii territory.  And only a few years ago that video games (educational only!!) crossed the digital threshold of our home.  But now, with zombie-mom holding court, it's been the Summer of Screens.  It's disturbing for me to watch them watching; I'm squirming.  But I'm really not bringing anyone to a life-guard-free Millfoil Lake where I'm the only person responsible for these precious lives. So what are we doing? Coyote: Mine Craft, like legos online.  And Blue and I: Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

When Buffy came out, someone described it to me in breathless tones of over-excitement: a blond cheer-leader-type highschooler kills vampires in Southern California.  Sounded way too gimicky for me.  And then a few years ago I was listening to Ira Glass (of "This American Life" on NPR) chat with Peter Sagal from NPR's Wait,Wait, Don't Tell Me.  And Ira was saying that his wife liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  And... I remember I was driving and I was near the corner of White and Cedar and I nearly drove off the road because IRA IS NOT GAY! Holy Moley on Stick! My whole world exploded and turned upside down. Anyway, I then began to reconsider Buffy.  And there it is on Netflix.  And so we began the Summer of the Slayer.

just bee!

At first I was very very nervous as it's rated TV-14 and Blue is only 12.  But she is 12, which is not 7.  And then I was nervous because the show addresses all sorts of creepy issues like teachers hitting on students, relationship violence, first sexual experiences and yikes!  At first I would narrate through the show: that's inappropriate, that's not a good idea, oh my she doesn't seem to be thinking clearly.  But then I began to see that that's what the show does, it deals with those issues in an awesome, non-clunky, non-after-school-special way.  I don't have to point out that a teacher's sexual interest in a student is inappropriate because in this show that teacher is going to turn out to be a praying mantis monster, or that ill-advised first sexual encounter is going to have big consequences.  I've learned to trust the show, shut up and let it speak for itself.

I also appreciate that the main characters usually portray great integrity in their interactions, unless they're the one doing the learning in that episode.  Buffy doesn't go to the dance with Xander because she doesn't like him like that.  Willow doesn't go with Xander because she doesn't want to be a Buffy-substitute, even though she does like Xander.

Buffy Blue's last time in my antique debutant dress

But the best part is the kicking and stabbing.  When it gets too mushy, (and it does!) we yell at the screen "More Slaying! Less Smooching!!"  Blue's 12 year old smoochy-squeamishness is a perfect match for my mother-of-a-12-year-old smoochy-squeamishness, so we're in synch with our rants, an anti-cheer squad. I hope that what Blue gets from Buffy is a full entitlement to defend herself in any circumstance.  Yes, girls can kick. Yes, girls can fight back.  The most powerful person on the show is a blond teenage girl.  I want her to see that.  I want her to know she has rights and the power and entitlement to defend them.  If only men, if they turn in to monsters, had facial changes so you could tell when it was time to defend yourself.  Unfortunately, the part about self defense that catches so many women off guard is that two seconds before, that demon supposedly loved you more than any one else. It's not usually the dark parking lot ambush.  It's the vampire you've invited in before. It's hard to go from smoochy to slayer that fast, to recognize the moment play switches to war and respond accordingly.  But Buffy can do it and I hope Blue can too, if ever the need arises.

Solitaire is my Guru

This could be the most embarrassing thing I ever confess (emphasis: that I confess).  It perches atop Shame Mountain, a flashing beacon, an obvious blemish on the landscape.  Red-faced, I dismount the high-horse, to tell you that I, too, waste time. Not with video games, or kitten youtubes, or tanning beds, or shaving my legs. No, I waste time by... by ... playing solitaire, not computer solitaire, (although that played a role once upon a time) no, I need the cards flipping through my hands and shuffling out, arrayed across the table, awaiting their destiny.

"Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red"

It began when I was a child of 7 or 8.  I was wandering around at a Lummi Potlatch and I found this old lady sitting by herself at the end of a long table and playing a card game. Noticing my curiousity, she taught me to play, and I felt very special about it. On the way home, I excitedly described the clock-like game to my parents to which my father (having no idea that spiritual destiny had just struck) sharply commented that Solitaire was a waste of time, time was a precious gift, sacred, and solitaire whittled it away pointlessly.  Okay.  Fascination and curiosity meet Protestant Work Ethic, Protestant Work Ethic meet Fascination and Curiosity, I don't believe you've met before.

And from then on, it was my secret. I would sometimes play on the living room floor, hiding my games, doing "nothing" while I smeared the cards around when anyone came near.

Plath's little hell flames, Poppies in July

When I was 18 and 19, I lived in a small town on an island in Southeast Alaska, a ten hour ferry ride from Juneau. I worked graveyard at an old hotel which would eventually burn to the ground during my shift (due to a faulty boiler and a faulty boiler repair man), taking the whole block with it... and I would save a bunch of people (aw, shucks) and have fire nightmares for years. Prior to that, I had many adventures in the middle of the night at Scandia House, involving drunk guests passed out in the communal bathrooms, or confusedly pissing on the front desk thinking it was the communal bathroom, etc. etc. Between my duties of financial auditing and picking up guests from the ferry terminal, I would NOT sleep the night away like my predecessor (what? And miss all the drunk pissing fun?!). Instead, I would improve myself.  I got a list of classics, which I read taking notes.  I watched Mystery Theater 2000 and Comedy Central on cable (self-improvement galore!). And I played solitaire, the only thing I knew to do on the computer in 1994-5.  And that's how I learned to play that way, the computer way, straight across.

Solitaire has become my dirty secret.  Something like the-picking-of-the-nose, only to be done after looking around and assessing the likelihood of getting caught. Stolen moments, furtive glances, dark corners: this is me on Solitaire.  The pressure to look productive has kept my solitaire habit to a minimum, a few obsessed weeks a year.

Blue captured the F-word on my lips; damn bunny ate my tomato plant

So imagine my glee when my Speech Therapist thought it might be a decent compliment to the Bananagrams, Boggle, Sudoku (a similar obsession, but a smart one I'll readily admit to), and Word Search regime designed to get my brain scanning properly, finding words, and putting things together.  Oh yes, she said, SHE SAID, Solitaire would be a good idea, one game at a time, with breaks in between. It was like a pain killer addict getting a big, bottomless prescription for ... pain killers.  And I followed her advice, however hard it was to limit my activity to one game at a time, and not push beyond the blurring, the waves the rolling over my head when it's been too much.  I had to apply some self control, but I got to bring my addiction in to the light. I am entitled to play and it's no waste of time. It's not merely "permission" it's an edict, it's required. And I play it now at the dining room table, where the children can see me.  It's my good work.  It's part of my temp job called healing.

What is it about Solitaire?  Why the secret love affair?  Why the addiction?  The questions were finally asked.  And you know what I found? I actually like the answers, now that I can look them in the eye in the clear light of day.

Solitaire is an opportunity to watch my mind work, to get to know myself and understand how I approach the world. For instance: I've got a set number of times I like to shuffle so that I know it's enough to confuse the cards but it's not an endless process. I do this because if I win a few times in a row, I'll assume I'm cheating, although I am not a cheater in any part of my life. If I lose, I'll feel like such a good girl for shuffling so well!  Isn't that curious! That's what I mean by watching my mind at work.  So I shuffle my set number of times so that if I win I can remind myself that I didn't cheat.

Over the years, through trial and error, I've developed "best practices." I develop new theories and take risks and watch them pan out in about five minutes. I'll develop some theory that these types of cards are the most important to reveal in order to win, and then the next time I loose it will be because of a seemingly insignificant card, like a 6. And I'm always startled to watch myself not follow the proven successes, through impatience, or thinking my hunch is better, even though I know that in this game (with cards, no people), instincts count for very little.

I like that how a game starts cannot predict how it will end. It could look impossible and then slowly success emerges.  It could go fast at first and then suddenly peter out.  Our it could go fast, start to finish: WIN!  Or slow and slower and slower, loose. It reminds me of a saying Huck remembers from his Hare Krishna days: "Start sweet, end sour; start sour, end sweet; start sweet, end sweet; start sour, end sour." It's so life-like that way.


It requires some creative thinking in that not all wins are just straight forward and often, when it looks like I've lost, there's sometimes something creative I could do, shift things around for an opening.

There's a frantic, compulsive pace of play that brings careless mistakes and I've learned to recognize it and slow it down into a meditative pace that's much more likely to win. The desire to win this game motivates me to be more thoughtful, to move with more intention, and I've learned how to switch the mind to do that, in life as well as solitaire.

Windy and wonderful stop at Maryhill Museum

I like the curiosity/resolution cycle, much like that of a novel.  It's like getting turned on so you can orgasm.  Or getting hungry to you can eat something yummy. When I lay out the cards, I'm immediately curious as to what is beneath them and how the game unfolds.  I love to have my curiosity peak and resolved, and I believe it's a biological urge that's sent us humans around the world and pushed us forward. And here it is, present even in the humble solitaire game.

Solitaire is no mere passing of time. It turns out that for me Solitaire is a meditative practice, revealing myself to myself, and a low-risk action to understand how to work with myself better, to become more the person I want to be. 

And finally, it's more lifelike than many games because it's a game you play alone, like birth and death and all the feelings and decisions you'll make in between. It's you.  Your life.  Your decisions.  We're all playing this game by ourselves. Competition has it's uses, but it's just a tool. The reality is that we're all on our own trip, at our own pace, in our own heads. It's our game and no one else's.
 

Quintessential Sunflower photo op!

Dear Bad Drag Queen: Thank You for Your Service

Spokane's Pride Parade is the best parade we've got.  The St. Patty's Day Parade is cold and just one long long advertisement for cement businesses. The Lilac Parade/Torchlight/Armed Services (it's got an identity issue) isn't about lilacs or light, it's about military military military and it starts after bed time. This leaves the Pride Parade which has little to no audience up until the last block or two and so it's kind of more political march than parade.  I love it because unlike some larger metropolitan area Pride Parades, it's a family friendly and fully covered parade (except for the guy wearing only chaps and a sling last year... my kids still bring it up in a slightly trauma-processing way).  I obviously wasn't going to march/parade in it this year. But I felt that I could maybe observe from the unpopulated early parts of the route. So we set up our lonely lawn chairs and watched.

And they loved us. They showered us with candy and appreciation as nearly the ONLY observers they'd yet observed. They pointed and waved at us and called out "YOU ARE CUTE!!"  Drag Queens and human rainbows posed for my photos. Tralalalala! The closest I've come to fun for some time.  And I posted some photos to Facebook captioning some queens mugging for my camera, "Everyone should be able to wear whatever they want whenever they want." I felt good about everyone.

The next day, the kids and I went to our neighborhood grocery store. I was struggling to function that day and I figured I could pick up what we needed if I brought along my new cane.

Some time ago, I had been prescribed a cane.  I couldn't quite get my mind around it.  A CANE?!  I'm not falling over.  I'm not blind. I'm not crippled.  I'm just off kilter and easily woozy and getting better. But it's because I've recovered some that I need it.  It's now time for me to bring my eyes up off the floor and start seeing the world around me again. Instead of using poor mental substitutes for a crutch to find and keep my balance, I should be using an actual crutch to keep myself up and moving.  It's a cane, not crutches, not a walker, not a wheel chair; just a cane.

I knew at the Pride Parade, if I was going to be able to walk in to the Pride Festival to find my daughter who marched with our church in the parade, I was going to need all the help I could get, so I finally picked up a cane at the drug store and headed in to the rainbow mayhem.  It was a revelation.  Suddenly my head had space. I could see things. I could hear things without going nuts. I felt horribly self conscious, but my mind also felt liberated to do some thing other than try to keep myself vertical... which was walk in and walk right back out.  But still, that's progress!

Back at the grocery store, I was struggling again to find peace with the cane. I felt awkward and conspicuous. And then, in walked our local person of drag. I can't tell if he is sincerely but inexpertly trying to be a she or if he is trying to look like a he sort of being a she; it's not a real thorough transformation. Plus, women who are 6 ft tall usually eschew 8 inch heels, so it's an unrealistic get-up. It is none of my business, I'm simply unsure what pronoun s/he would want me to use here.

On this day, it looked like maybe s/he hadn't changed for a few days.  Her butt pads were lumpy and her boobs were wandering in ways that reminded me of my 6th grade Halloween costume where I was a bubble gum machine with assorted balloon shapes contained in a clear plastic bag around my torso.  Her blond wig was tattered. And his usual cobalt blue mini dress was, as usual, making him/her really noticeable. S/he always stands out, partly because I've never seen a woman go grocery shopping in anything close to that outfit. For me personally, however fascinating and interesting a well done drag queen can be, I find badly executed drag unsettling, as I did on this particular day.

Accidental mother-daughter opposite-matching, with props

Coyote's mouth was completely open in shock (as were pretty much everyone else's).  And his eyes were big as dinner plates.  And I felt it would do no good for me to pretend we weren't all seeing the hot mess we were seeing. I had to say something. But what?! These are the issues we face in provincial little Spokane. What to do? What do say? It didn't seem honest to ignore the spectacle, which normally isn't much of a spectacle, but today she was really amazing.  I had massive internal dissonance.  On the one hand, you know, isn't it okay to hope that some care might be put in to ones appearance?  On the other hand, what was it that I'd posted on Facebook? "Everyone should be able to wear whatever they want whenever they want."  All we legally ask is that privates are covered, and they were.  Um... so who was I really?

I got down at Coyote's level, in front of his eyes, and said, "Remember, Everyone gets to wear whatever they want whenever they want.  And it's impolite to stare." 

I stood up. And I leaned on my cane, suddenly able to handle the store, the noise, the people, the music, the numbers and letters everywhere, for as much time as I needed to pick up the few items on our list, all thanks to my cane. 

And I realized that if S/he can wear slovenly drag, I get to use a cane.  And it's nobody's business if I do.  I can use a cane whenever I need to, or not.  I can use my cane whenever I want to, NEED or not.  I can use my cane for as long as I want, whenever I want, or not. I can use my cane for the rest of my life, if I feel like it, just for kicks.  I don't need to be "bad off enough" to justify it to anyone, even myself.  I love my cane.  It makes space in my brain for other things. And gives me a sense of security as I expand my horizons and test myself against new situations.  And that's the society you and I both want to live in, one where people get to make choices for themselves for what's right for them, and it's none of our damn business.  My brain.  My cane.  My right.

People's reactions to my cane have been almost universally great, probably the bad drag queen can't say that. Not much gawking. Customer service is prompt. People make way for me in a crowd. I feel less need to explain the confused words that sometimes come out of my mouth.  Only once, rounding a corner at the store, was it awkward. This woman and I almost collided and instead of exchanging mumbled "excuse me's" she screamed, "AAAHHH! Oh MY GOD. I'M SO SORRY.  Oh please forgive me. OH MY GOD.  I can't believe myself!!! AUGHH!!!"   I half expected her to thank me for my service.  In such a military town, it's a common enough phrase to anyone in fatigues or with a crutch. But, as a friend recently suggested, perhaps that's what I'll say next time I see our neighborhood drag queen: "Thank you for your service,  and thank you for the sacrifices you have made for my sense of freedom."

Three Little Birds Singin': Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright

It was three minutes.  Three whole glorious minutes.  I was pumping gas.  John Cougar Melencamp was booming over the speakers... and music, damn music has driven me mad.  Music in the grocery store, music at the gas station, just so much noise, so much waste of air space, scratchy, muffled "music" pumped in to every effing second, for what? for why? To clutter my feeble brain? I've had earplugs in for months. Imagine this: every synapse of your brain is like a hiker who crosses an abyss on a bridge.  Many of my bridges got wiped out, so for nearly 7 months, my hiker has had to hike around the entire canyon to complete a thought.  It is exhausting work.  And every sensory addition is like adding 10#s to her backpack.  She may not make it at all.  But over the past several months, with lots of help, we've been building new bridges.  Postmortem dissections show that these new bridges can't go in the same places as the old bridges, but go in next to the old location.  Plus, in some parts, we may not be making new bridges at all, but employing Evel Kneivel type tactics to make it across.  In some places all the walls of the canyon have collapsed and we just need to find a whole new route across.  It's been difficult, grueling work.  And then, this one glorious afternoon, it all came together for three whole goddam, mudder cluckin' minutes.  Holy Holy Holy.

Blue took some lovely photos of her brother's haircut-torture

There was this rush: I will get better. I will be different, but I will be whole again.

And then this deeper rush.  I am alive!  I was never in danger of dying.  But I was in danger, since the beginning of time, of not existing.  Such a long, sacredly random twisting of events has brought me here.  Going back innumerable generations, just the right people getting it on at just the right time.  And the long long evolution of humans, the geological evolution of earth, and planets and suns.  The whole thing, miraculously lucky again and again and again.

It wasn't just the fact of being.  It was the fact of being me, that was the rush.  Throughout this journey, I have gone very deeply, very intensely into the realm of self-worth.  Every day, I faced the fact that I was crappy at every single thing I am and do.  Mother, wife, friend, conversationalist, lunch maker, grocery shopper, driver, all, every single thing, I could either not do it at all or if I tried I did it real shitty-like.  And that is when my Faith kicked in.

The first UU principle: the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  And among them, me.  I understood, and felt, what I intellectually trust: there is nothing I can do or say that could possibly increase my value as a person, or decrease it.  No matter how crappy I am at every single thing I do.  No matter how little I do.  No matter if I'm CEO of some company, or remain a stay-at-home mom for the rest of my life.  No matter what.  No matter if I steal your truck or kill your kid or save your life or give you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it, every single time.  It Matters what I do and what I don't do, yes. But it never will increase my worth as a person.  That is being.  That is our birthright.  Just for being born, I have value. You have value and all the things and recognition we work for could all disappear tomorrow and we would still have value. The universe consciously or unconsciously put in a lot of work to get you and me here. And I respect that work and believe it was worth it.

In over 8 years of cutting his hair, this one turned out the worst, BY FAR

And after this long, scary journey, after fully understanding my worth, what happened in those three moments of healing is that I understood how incredibly awesome it is to be me (you too FYI!).  I felt like I'd been born again and in that moment understood the crazy incredible thing that I have: life and being me.  And here I am again, after all this time.  Here I am!  Being alive!  It's incomprehensibly cool to BE.  I want everyone to feel this, to know this joy of existance.

And these thoughts, these feelings, were beaming through my brain with absolute clarity, like a new pair of glasses, a new prescription, where the forest suddenly has trees and the trees all have leaves.  And that is when I understand some thing else:  I have really been through something.  The thoughts, if completed at all, have been like swimming through molasses.  The losses of self and self-concept and companionship and goals and dreams and the losses of those around me, Huck's loss of his partner, the kids' loss of a competent mother.  I saw that this thing, this head injury, is no trifling matter.  I felt a deep respect for those who have stayed in my life, for those caught up in this tidal wave, for myself and for the work I have done and for looking this all in the face and curiously turning my injury over and over, inspecting the spiritual and physical and psychological aspects from many fuzzy angles.

Blue's Window Comic "Book"

And then I slid back into the mud.  And I kept sliding until I was in a fetal position for nearly a week. It turns out, I had a small rupture on an internal thingy and there was pain and pain medication and scans and all that.  And I was grateful that I did not have chronic pain with my head injury.  But then they told me I might have chronic pain forever.  And then I felt my number was up here.  It was an absurdity of dog-piling ailments and snowballing symptoms, but that's chaos for you ... sometimes you flip 20 tails in a row. That sacred random that made me, can also take me out.  But then the pain abated and I am fine for now, although a recurrence is likely.  And there was backsliding on months of recovery work, as it all got buried under pain and medications.  And I have to work hard on word recall again. But I know that those three minutes are out there. They are there and I will likely me mine again.  But for now, it is enough to remember them, to remember me, to remember being myself with clarity and strength. And to look forward; it's coming.  I'm coming back.  I'm going to be me, a different me, but me nonetheless, and it's going to be epic.