Word by Word
June 2005
Thursday, June 2, 2005
12:10 pm
The grey clouds came down over my head the last couple of days. I wonder whether it's a parody of PMS; a holdover from my menstruating days. Part of my funk was because of problems with one of my contact lenses. A speck of something got stuck on one, and I couldn't clean it off, so back to the source, and now I'm waiting for it to come back from the lab. This leaves me wearing glasses, not a vanity problem, but an adjustment problem. I always feel slightly off-key with my glasses, because I don't see things quite as clearly. I feel groggy, not quite awake. More head swivelling required. I've ordered up a backup pair of lenses, though, so I don't get caught like this again. They should be ready today or tomorrow. But the grey mood gobbled up a day where I felt directionless. Transitions I suppose, taking effect.
Menopause (or paused) is one of those transitions. It's over a year since my last period began. It's not a year yet since it stopped, but really, I remember it clearly, as it went on forever, or so it felt. Last gasp or something like that. I would have been more patient had I known the significance. Lit candles.
I only slip into mentioning the unmentionable, because of the marker it makes. Not a specific point, but a process, which fits. My resolve to move, though I'd been thinking about it for a long time, didn't really settle in until after the aforementioned period ended. (Whether that says anything about dithering women, I doubt. It says only that I dither.) What I'm really noting though, as far as passages go, is that the house I lived in all those years was all about raising children, about being mother. With the passing of my menses, I'm ready to put aside the raising stuff. (And really, it's just coincidence, or lucky happenstance, or divine planning? that I reached this stage, the pause, right about the time my last child entered his twenties.)
(This doesn't mean I don't still fret, worry, try to direct my kids, you know, with words of sage advice. I'm trying to wait for them to ask, much more fruitful I've discovered. More importantly, I struggle to listen, and not advise at all. Fight back my sense of responsibility, and accept that it's all in their hands now.)
Next scene, new setting. I think I'm getting with the plot. The grey clouds, brooding, are part of the process I guess, painful as they feel at the time.
Sunday, June 5, 2005
10 am
Ah, I got my new lenses on Friday, and have felt so much better since. It is no simple thing, being able to see, and though I'm completely aware that people live with blindness (one of my readers does) still I am now selfishly very happy to be focusing well again. It upsets my equilibrium quite literally when I wear my glasses all day, though I would be lost without them. Contradictions. I'm wearing my glasses right now, and feel fine, though still a bit as though I just got up. Yeah, yeah, I did just get up, but imagine that groggy feeling staying with you all day.
But enough whinging.
Saturday found me back at the table with only one of my plum friends, but we worked hard enough for all four. I brought along my laptop, and entered in a slew of handwritten bits of my novel. This is quite a wonderful process; as I enter stuff, I revise as well, and add some bits. I find I slip into another zone, where my awareness of my surroundings recedes, much as I do when I'm reading a novel, except that I can change my mind about what's going on. And what's great about working at the Grind coffee shop, is that other distractions don't involve me, except when the urge for another coffee hits, and so I can work steadily. I came away with a renewed belief that I really am writing something. (From my reading I deduce that questions of validity plague many writers, not just me. I put myself in good company.)
Speaking of good writers, last night my firstborn and I went to see As You Like It at the Bard on the Beach. And I liked it. I swear they get better every year. My daughter and I roll our eyes when we try to remember which tale of cross-dressing, disguised lovers we are off to see, and then we settle in and laugh the evening away. I had a thought though about why Shakespeare used this device so often, of dressing his female characters up as men. I suspect (and I doubt I'm the first to come up with this brainwave, but I'll claim it as original anyway) that writing female characters in his time, upper class ones anyway, would be quite boring, given the social strictures of the day, keeping women from speaking freely to men, or being alone with them even. So as soon as he puts them in men's (boy's) clothing, he can let them be as interesting as women can be.
And that's my insight for the day.
Monday, June 6, 2005
9:50 am
Sleep: so necessary and yet at this stage of my life, problematic. I have been thinking lately that my problem is I'm trying to apply old expectations to this new stage. Once upon a time, I got sleepy, went to bed at night, fell asleep and then woke up in the morning. Now I find that often I get sleepy, go to bed, and am awake for hours thinking about all sorts of things, often brilliantly, before I fall asleep.
Yesterday I had a reasonably good day, productive too. In the early evening, I watched the news for awhile, then got out the book I was reading (a pretty good, if gory, space opera) and read some more of it, about a chapter, till I felt sleepy. I was lying down, I admit it, with not one but two cats snuggled up; very comforting, all that purring. So I set the book down and closed my eyes for a short nap. I woke up about ten, and realized that I wasn't going to have a regular night's sleep. So I watched a Harrison Ford movie on tv, that conveniently began at ten. And after I took the space opera to bed and read the rest of it, till after two. Then I think it was only about an hour before I fell asleep again, but possibly two. I had more brilliant thoughts, which I didn't write down, and then fell into dreamland. The radio woke me up; I'd left it set, so I turned it off and thought whether I'd sleep some more, but the delightful sound of one of the cats wretching succeeded in waking me up.
(Is this interesting? besides to me of course.)
I remember my mother doing this when (surprise) she was around the same age. She was living in Agassiz, and I would come out for weekends in the country, where I slept very well. But often I would wake up during the night because I heard her prowling around, making coffee, the tv might turn on. But usually if I came out to see, I'd find her reading. Odd as it sounds, she said the coffee would help her get back to sleep (she was an instant coffee drinker). I think the coffee really did help too; the warm drink aspect. She drank so much of it that I'm sure her body had adapted to the caffeine. She also often slept on the couch, with a cat curled beside her. Hmmm.
Adaptation. When we're young and growing, we sleep a lot, we also eat a lot. Most of us notice and adapt the eating as we enter our adult years, and eat less, or we grow fat. But we keep on expecting the night to be sleeping time, but truth is we don't need as much sleep as we thought. Or perhaps it's something else. Perhaps it's perfectly natural to fall asleep when we're tired, but the usual busy pattern of the days prevents us from napping; we have to save it all for night time. I don't have that problem right now, so I have a choice here. Either I work at getting back a more socially accepted order to my days, or I learn to accomodate, and accept it too, this odd way my body/self seems to function. Nap if I'm tired. Eat if I'm hungry. At night when I can't sleep, accept it, and do something else. Reading's good (I finished the space opera, whew). Make my appoinments for the afternoon, or set two alarms, and nap later. I often get work done in the evenings. Why not the middle of the night?
Thursday, June 9, 2005
10 am
The clouds have gotten my mood again, though they haven't immobilized me. Not completely anyway. I recognize this feeling, and decided on Tuesday to try and walk it off on the Grind. A grey day, but cool under the trees isn't a bad thing when you plan to sweat out a bucket or two. I was thinking before I went about how close the body of the lost man could be to any of the trails without anyone seeing it, as it's extremely wise to keep your eyes on the ground when you are hiking the mountain; lots to trip on, and plenty of places to fall far. But someone could lie right beside the trail and you might not see him/her.
There were several police cars in the parking lot at the base, and helicopters flying close overhead for the first half hour or so. There were two helicopters, so I figured one was for the news, and I wondered whether they'd found the guy that lost himself on the mountain. At one point a helicopter flew right over me, but I could barely see it through the trees. I rather doubt they could see me.
It's sobering thinking about how easy it is to let life slip away; just slip over a waterfall and bang you're gone, as it turns out. So I guess my hiking thoughts weren't all cheery, but they improved as the sound of the helicopters stopped for awhile, and then began again, but farther away this time.
The news cameras were there when I came down the mountain; another ominous sign, and, yes, it turns out another hiker found the body.
Yesterday, still feeling a bit grey, but lightened my mood in the morning spending time with my middle child, and then took myself to the gym to try and sweat myself into staying that way. But I spent a bit of yesterday evening curled up on the couch feeling sorry for myself, with no good reason to feel sorry about anything. It's very peculiar. I put on some music, but it was all melancholy, and I thought, no, not the right choice. So I pulled myself together, and started sorting the mess that has accumulated on my desk since the last time I paid attention to it, and voila, my mood lifted.
Strange dreams last night, which I'll share with my journal, quite gruesome, but I feel better this morning, so I must have worked something out.
I intend to be productive this afternoon, as I suspect that will help keep the up mood, and then tonight I go to hear one of my Plums read her poems. I expect to feel quite cheerful tonight.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
11 am
I'm facing a blinking cursor; have the distinct feeling I'm supposed to have something to say. But my thoughts are all interior, journal fodder. Ever have that feeling?
I've been here, in the new place, for a month plus two days. Time does go by very quickly. Still shuffling stuff around, deciding on keeping or getting rid of, making things fit. It's funny, because I can be quite engrossed with the work, but it doesn't translate into much of a story. For instance, I was at Ikea yesterday, well, how exciting is that? but I felt some satisfaction at getting what I bought into the car, though the back seat doesn't fold down – unpacked the box there. Solved the problem of getting rid of the cardboard too, because I left it in their bin.
Yes, yes, I know, more stuff, but in my defence, I am replacing something, not trying to cram in more things. Not everything from my old life fits into this place, so adjustments are required. It may be that that I'm having down time, grieving in a way. Though I shook the dust of the old place quite happily, there's some residual letting go here; not of the place, but of the history. Maybe. Really, the history goes with me. It's more that now that I've done it, what's next? Like I said, interior thoughts, time to pull out my journal.
Friday, June 17, 2005
noon
Today is my younger brother's birthday, 51. It is quite amazing that I could be old enough to have a younger brother in his fifties. My, my.
He is the only one who remembers.
Home is so Sad
by Philip Larkin
Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theftAnd turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
7:25 pm
It's a good week, this week. Though I've been quiet here in my blog, I've been busy out here in the 'real' world. I finally printed out all I've got so far of the bits of my novel I've written, and it makes a nice pile of paper. I started to organize the bits into some kind of coherence too; rather essential in the end, should the end be a finished story.
I read a book about stories, and was re-convinced that writing stories is what I want to do. And today I went to a writer's festival event, a sneak preview of who is coming next October. This because I have a membership with the festival. I had some wine at the Dockside Pub, a place I've never wandered into before, and I can't imagine why not, as it is so beautiful there. And no, it wasn't just the wine. I met a few people, I think this is called networking. Hit it off with a sales rep from Harper Collins, which may or may not make a difference one day re: publishing, but it made this afternoon/early evening fun.
Talked to a few writers as well, and admitted that I scribble myself. Here I think the wine does help me get past being alone among strangers. Schmoozing is okay. Food was good too.
Wednesday,
June 29, 2005
Twenty-five years ago today, my first child, a daughter, was born.
Today my first beautiful daughter is 25.
Becoming a mother changed my life completely. There is no going back. I used to jokingly call it an apocalypse (my mental state being a bit fragile) but in truth it's more like a revolution. Life is never the same again, but the change is for the better. A good revolution.
My children are my teachers, but the first one was the groundbreaker for the others (the desensitizer). I have learned from them all things about myself I might have blindly stepped around. And of course I've learned about them, and am so grateful for the revolution.
But today is the first one's day. She has grown into a beautiful and complex woman, the best kind. And my goodness, I do love her.
Happy Birthday, my sweet.
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