introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- this side of the blue morning waning - 22 august 2014 "...and i am progressing abominably. and I do not know my own way to the sea but the saltiest sea knows its own way to me."~joanna newsom my heart has so much in it right now. a mix of sad, hopeful, and happy that doesn't quite feel like it makes much sense. my heart never makes much sense, though, i suppose. in a few hours, my mother will arrive. she is staying for about a week and i suspect this will be just the thing to get me through until my trip home next month. oh, i miss those familiar loved faces. while she is here, we'll go find baby clothes and maybe some maternity clothes...it's getting to the point where my normal clothes won't do anymore. i suppose i was in denial...with all the weight i've lost, i thought i could just keep wearing my fat jeans through the end but...that isn't how this is going to play out. for now, i've been wearing mostly dresses which are comfortable and i don't feel so awful in them, either...skirts, dresses. tights when the weather cools off...yeah, i can rock this. i'm still feeling really good despite my rounding belly. it has been a difficult week in some sense. the night before last, i called and spoke with my aunt...i've been calling her every few days to check on her, to talk. my uncle has been in hospice for nearly 6 weeks now. she has been incredibly even about the whole thing. i'm not sure if it's the time, knowing that he has been there to die peacefully...i don't know how she is doing it. they have been together for 31 years. she has been stronger than i ever expected or than i expect i could be. but i don't suppose i could know, could i? i don't know what it is to have so many years with one person. and they've both been so sick for so long....i imagine strange dinner conversations, pledging to care for the other through it. a few hours after i spoke with her, she called again. it was nearly midnight and i knew she was tired and needed sleep so i knew before i answered that he was gone. she was on her way to the hospice to see him, to say goodbye. now, two days later, i'm calling her and i haven't heard the grief i'd expect in her voice...more the peace of it finally being over, perhaps? i'm terrible with these things. all i can do is offer to be there but for now, she doesn't want me to come. so i'll keep calling. and checking. in a strange way, our lots aren't so different now...she with her dog and her walls and i with mine. and further back...on monday night, after a rather difficult shift at work, i came home expecting to spend some time with my dog and call it a night. instead, when i let him out the door, he stopped in his tracks and dove under one of the chairs on my stone patio, scratching and clawing to get at something that wasn't there. suddenly, he stopped, pulled out, ran around the wrought iron table and chairs and dove under another chair. this time i saw, behind a scrap of cardboard i keep for painting projects, a tiny ball of black and white fur looking for a reasonable escape from my curious determined dog. skunk. in the time it took to realize what i was looking at, i backed away quickly (as one does when one sees a skunk) and tried to command sammy to abandon his mission. i was not successful in the latter and, seconds later, the little skunk that i'd seen matter-of-factly turning his backside towards my dog, sprayed. sam dodged back out from under the chair sneezing and shaking his head. the air, fresh and cool in the end of summer night, turned to the most juicy rotten garlic smell. i couldn't tell if the skunk had merely gotten at the house, the cardboard, or had successfully gotten the target: my dog. i checked inside to see if the smell was there--it was. my windows are wide open and i couldn't distinguish whether the sam had been sprayed for a full day afterwards. so he had a skunk bath at petco on wednesday but everything i've heard and read indicates he will smell like skunk lightly for possibly years to come, particularly when he gets wet. i'm thankful that the old hound doesn't like to be wet or in the rain too much. i've spent the last few days getting used to the fact that the old man will probably smell of skunk for the rest of his days. i got him a giant rawhide bone and took him home from the groomer...he has been answering happily to any skunk-nickname i can come up with and prances around very pleased with himself. the scent of skunk was in everything for a day or so. i've washed all the laundry and clothes in my closet and that seems to have helped. my fucking luck. one thing after another, i suppose. i'm plodding through these days and looking forward to the next month-worth of weekends with visiting and hugs and all the love i can immerse myself in during those visits to vermont to see dennis and amy and the girls, new york with stops east and west, and pennsylvania to see my favorite people. and then....the beach. yes, the beach. me and my round pregnant belly perched on the seaside left to my own thoughts for a week. sand and waves and tides and sea glass and sharks! i have a lot in my heart and in my head and i'm not trying to make sense of any of it for the first time in a long time. i'm taking each day as it comes and trying to find something to love or learn from with each thing. all the duality of death and new life, of old loves and new. i'm learning to appreciate all of it for what it is...what did he say? call a thing by it's name and it appears? this is one way to be. xo, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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