And now, a pause

Today is the 30th of November. It is the last official day of the hurricane season. Breathe a sigh of relief. It is also the last day of NaNoWriMo, but I passed the 50,000 word mark yesterday, and validated my work on the website last night to be declared a WINNER! Of course, with Nano, you don't actually win anything except a certificate you can print out (unless your color cartridge is empty, like mine) and a 20 second video of the Office of Letters and Lights staff cheering and yelling for you. And lots and lots of bragging rights!

My mother moved in the day before I started Nano this year. I have spent the entire month of November getting attuned to her and her many needs, at the same time that half of my brain is immersed in the world of Vanetta and Lou, in the first decade of the last century. It's been a confusing time.

Now, suddenly I have several hours completely free. I had arranged to have Mom go to visit Jack so that I could write, but I already finished. The house is quiet. The critters are calm. No tv. No radio. Coffee at the ready. I don't know what to do with myself.

It's not that I couldn't find something to do. I can always hang out on facebook, which I admit I have been doing. What's missing in this breath is the "have to". For 30 days, I've either been dealing with Mom or writing or both. I love the writing, but it is a challenge, this starting a new novel and getting 50,000 words in a month. It's not my usual pace, though I wish it were.

I have not been paying attention to the rest of the world too much. I was surprised to listen to BBC this morning and find that 2,000,000 public workers, including teachers, are on strike because of budget and pension cuts. I zoomed in on the old news that our "Supercommittee" didn't do it's job, and the chips are going to start falling where they may. Since I've been dwelling in the early twentieth century for a month, I'm extra aware of the cyclical nature of economic and political "news" --- perhaps we should call it "olds".

Labor unions? Class Warfare? Super rich squashing the Middle Class? --- read some history. Nothing new there. Women's rights being legislated against? Women have not even had the vote for a century, and birth control information was outlawed back then. Religion pushing into public policy? Have you heard of the Scopes Monkey Trial?
Reminds me of a song: "Everything old is new again."

I'm always reminded of songs; that's a result of growing up in a musical theater household. And today I've been singing songs, to the consternation of my dogs, who wonder why all the noise, when I'm belting out "Birth of the Blues" or "It had to be You".

I love to have a pause, a day when I can catch up with myself, sing, noodle around reading whatever I want, make a cherry pie, walk in the woods with Buddy, and remember who I am. It's one of those days, and I'm grateful just to be alive.

Who's got my back?

Today I thought I lost my Nano book. For those of you who are not keeping up, and you know who you are, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. About 150,000 of my closest friends and I, are writing 50,000 word novels in 30 days. The deadline is midnight on November 30. Since today is the 25th, I'm pretty far along. When my word count suddenly dropped from 41,000 to 18,000 and the first huge part of my book was missing, I have to admit to some panic.

I'm trying to keep up with the times, here. I got adventurous and started using a web-based writing tool called Yarny that would store my GAN (Great American Novel) in the cloud. You know, THE CLOUD. The only way I can conceive of this, being almost entirely non-technical, is that it's up in heaven with Jesus, who promised, cross his heart, that he'd take care of it and not lose it no matter what, because he's way more reliable than the hard drive on my li'l ol' laptop. So I decided to take a leap of trust. I didn't even back it up, except part of the beginning, when I was trying to see what the "export" button was all about.

Now, I trust Jesus. If my book is up in heaven, I believe implicitly that it will be there, even if I temporarily misplace it through my own lack of know-how. Which is what happened today. I love to sit and write in my little nest at the top of the house. I sit on the old, soft couch in front of the open window, Buddy jumps up and falls asleep beside me, I'm rockin' out to Bach or Chopin on the Pandora and all is well with the world. Trouble is, I keep forgetting that the CLOUD requires a strong internet connection, and up there it's a long ways from the router or whatever that thingy is that makes internet go. Two little bars on my connect-o-meter. Sooner or later I wind up with an error message saying it can't save. I strike my head in a "coulda had a V-8" moment and reluctantly relocate to the lower regions of the house.

But today it wasn't just that it couldn't save --- it ate my book. Gobbled it up with only a few scraps leftover. Five days before the end of month. What could I do? I shot off email to the Yarny Gods and went to buy a Christmas tree with my family.

Now that's the point of this long, sad tale. My usual MO is to freak out, cry, threaten violence on myself and/or the world at large, slide into a hopeless trance and eat a pint of ice cream. I did NOT do that today. It was helpful that Jill was in a good mood, and Mom was stable. In spite of my deep-seated anxiety, we drove to Durham to buy a tree from the drug addicts, like we always do ---- they're in recovery and raising money --- and then stopped to eat lunch outdoors in the warm sunshine. Gradually my tension headache went away, my eye almost stopped twitching and I even started to laugh. I enjoyed being out with these women I love. I was in the moment. I even started thinking, on the way home, that if it was gone, I could still pull it out with a lot of writing time and it would probably be better the second time around.

There are opportunities every day to do things differently. I don't always take advantage of them. I also think I don't notice when I do. But every so often, on a day like today, I get to see the growth that allows me to have deeper, warmer relationships with others, and be kinder to myself in the process.

I got my book back. Tech support is a wonderful thing. My book is back in the cloud, intact and on track. It's also on my hard drive and a flash drive. It's all very well to believe in heaven, and maybe Jesus really is keeping my book in his pocket, but it never hurts to back things up. And back it up again. Lesson learned.

Real life, indeed

Right now, my "real world" is not as in control as I'm used to, which makes the world in my imagination even more important. I've been thinking that doing NaNoWriMo right now, trying to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November, is a silly undertaking with Mom just having moved in. On the other hand, it's a saving grace in much the same way that breastfeeding a young baby was when my first husband and I were in the process of splitting up. Every few hours, I had to sit down and put my feet up and relax so I could properly feed the baby, which helped me keep my perspective.

Writing for at least an hour and a half a day, in the midst of all this change, serves the same purpose. I can't control Alzheimer's Disease. I can't wave a wand and make my mother happy when she's crying, or help her remember where she is and why. I have to be available and alert all the time --- help her find the bathroom, reassure her that she's where she belongs, give her activities to occupy her. With Mom, and everything else that's going on, I can only control so much, mainly my own actions and reactions.

But in Buxton ----- ahhhhh, there, I am God. I decree everything from the weather to who falls in love. I put my characters in sticky situations and either help them get out or watch them squirm. I get to live through their sorrows and their exquisite joys. Last night I put the two main characters, Vanetta and Lou, into their first intimate situation. I'm at the kitchen table with my laptop, headphones drowning me in my Ella Fitzgerald channel on Pandora, while Mom, Jack and Jill were watching a movie in the living room. Little did they know what was transpiring in Vanetta's chamber by kerosene lamp, the night her husband was arrested and hauled off to jail and the children stayed with the neighbors. It reminded me of writing a similar scene for another book while sitting in the rather busy teacher's lounge of some elementary school back when I was doing Travels through Time. There I was in my demure 19th Century clothing, writing a scene that was scorching the  pen and paper, while the teachers around me ate their apples and salads and complained about the school food.

It is always this way, I guess, when I'm in the thick of a book. I straddle two worlds, and the one I made up often seems more real for awhile.  There's an old song that starts out "Imagination is funny, it makes a cloudy day sunny..." That's what I get to experience whenever I'm writing. Regardless of what's happening in "real life", I get to have something else.

Now, is today the day that Elmer has to die? Or is it too soon? Or will he somehow be spared and mend his ways? Imaginative minds want to know.

Signs of the Times

I was filling out a form the other day and came to the question that always stumps me:
Married ____ Single _____ Widowed _____ Divorced ____

I'm married. On the mantle, there is a framed certificate, duly signed and certified, issued by the Division of Vital Statistics, Nova Scotia, Canada.

But on the form, what do I check? Married? Single? It is not, after all, recognized by the State of North Carolina, nor, for that matter, by the United States of America. And this was a Social Security form.

Now, this piece is not a broadside in favor of marriage equality, though I could certainly write one of those. No, this is inspired by a talk I heard yesterday at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh, by our interim minister, Don Rollins. It corresponds with something I've been thinking about a lot more lately ---- worldview, or how we organize the world.

My field of devotion is, and always has been, education. I steeped myself in educational theory, I trained to be a teacher, but really I was more interested in how humans learn. My first ambition in the field was to research infant learning. Instead I went the traditional route and majored in elementary education.

From the beginning, it has seemed to me that the industrial model of education is counter-intuitive. Knowledge is not a commodity, learning is not a static skill set, and children are not identical products to be churned out at the end of a conveyor belt. Humans have the amazing capacity to take in information from many sources, combine it with previous learning, and form new, completely unique ideas from that process. Schools often do everything in their power to deter that.

Yesterday's challenge at UUFR was to think about how the perception of reality is undergoing a shift. I'm a 1950 Baby Boomer, used to being in the leading edge of change. It was my generation that, through sheer force of numbers, brought significant social and political shifts to American society. Some of the arguments still linger, given new life by the new traditionalists. But now, the early Boomers are going into retirement, and soon, retirement homes. The generations that follow don't share the mid-twentieth century worldview of the Baby Boom generation.

Some time ago, I read a book about "Indigo children", kids who seemed to be growing up with a different view of reality, more intuitive, less binary. Not for them, the strict categorizations of old, the black and white world that divides everything into either/or, yes or no. To those imbued with a 20th century worldview, this seems incomprehensible, at best --- unhinged, at worst. Everyone knows that people are either male or female, right? It's self evident. So what in the world is genderqueer? Transgender? Twin-spirited?

In a twentieth-century worldview there is right and wrong, Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, Ford and Chevy, Us and Them. But people growing up today live in a vastly different world from the rose-colored memory of 1950s suburbia, where people knew their places and were By God happy to have a place at all.

Technology that was imaginable only to the visionaries of 70 years ago, has become ubiquitous, and has shattered the divisions that defined the geopolitical world in which today's powerfolks came of age. We still have boundaries and tariffs and wars and race, but make no mistake, the shift has already happened, and we're simply experiencing the after-effects.

It's not comfortable. I've always taken pride in my labels, whatever they currently were. I could define myself through the eyes of a world that understood the boundaries. I was a daughter, a mother, a libertine, an alchoholic, a Socialist, a wife, a lesbian, a Unitarian. It gave me both something to embrace and something to rebel against. But the labels meant something. At the same time, there has been a spark inside of me that yearns for transcendence.

I'm greedy now, for everything. I want to taste the coffee just the way I like it, rich and sweet with sugar and cream. I want to drink in the sky however it shows itself to me, whether it is heavy, leaden clouds or brilliant blue. I want to swim in the strains of Chopin until I find tears running down my cheeks from sheer joy. And I want to listen hard, speak from my heart, seek the soft center of the people I know and those I don't as well. I am no longer willing to cling to outdated labels because they seem to make life more manageable; you are not young, old, black, white, gay straight, ---- worthy or unworthy. You are the unique, amazing individual you are, and if I can't see that, it is a problem in me, not you.

It is the first time in life that I really know that my time is starting to run short. That causes me some consternation, not out of fear but curiosity. I want to stick around and see what happens. I don't want to come to the end of my consciousness chapter and not find out what the next chapter brings. But since I can't, while I'm here I want to keep greedily taking it all in, savoring even the hard and uncomfortable parts. Because even that is a label, you know.

Good, Bad.     Easy, Hard.      I, Thou.

Procrasti-blogging

Right up front I'll tell you I'm behind on my NaNoWriMo word count, so the obvious thing to do is put off writing and do a blog post instead. Of course, I can justify it as priming the creative pump. And thanks to my niece, Emily, for the title. She said she was procrasti-baking ---- an activity that I can certainly get behind ---- instead of doing her homework.

This morning feels like near normal. Jill went to work without waking us up. Jack is at the Heritage. Mom and I both woke up about the same time and had breakfast and did some housekeeping. She's at her best in the morning, so we were able to talk and laugh over blueberry smoothies and English muffins.

As we were tidying up, I started thinking about all the people and animals who are represented in this household. I have to admit that I have the gene for hoarding, though I do all in my power to keep it under control. Sort of. It dovetails my rock-bottom belief that material culture is what tells the story of the past. So you can well imagine who's the first in line with her hand up, when there are family heirlooms up for grabs. We have, in this 1800 sq. ft. house, furniture, books, letters, photographs and clothing that span 5 identifiable generations. And now, with the addition of Lucky Lu on top of the entertainment center in a wonderful little wooden box, the ashes of two loved ones.

That brings up the question for me ---- what's to become of all the ashes? Think about it. Many, many more people are being cremated these days. Now, I know that lots of times the ashes are spread across mountains and oceans and favorite park ponds. But my bet is that there is a growing number of households across the country who have forebears parked along the mantle piece or stashed on the dresser. When my father died, we buried some in the family plot, spread some over the graves of his parents, dusted the "graveyard" in back of the house and still had ashes left over. I have them in a Christmas box on top of the music cabinet that belonged to his mother, along with a couple of pictures of him. I like having him in the house. I like having Lucky here, too.

But one day, Jill and I will expire and we may have an entire shrine of deceased family members, human and otherwise, for somebody else to dispose of. Can you imagine the conversation?

"Who wants Grandma?"
"Well, I suppose I could take both of them, but I don't have room for everybody."
"Uncle Ralph? Anybody taking Uncle Ralph?"
"I'll take half if somebody else will take the rest. I've already got Aunt Barb."
"And what about the dogs?"
Dead silence.

I think about what a task it will be to dismantle our household one day. We have some splendid furniture that's already a century and a half old and probably should not be sat upon any more, though we do. We have mementos from all over Europe that the folks picked up and passed along. And I have quite the collection of my own things, though nothing that's of any dollar value, I don't think. Should I spare the kids the problem of disposing of my things, or leave it up to them? I have the advantage of having spawned a congenital, as well as professional, curator, who shares my archival sensibility. I pity her poor, future spouse, who will get a delightful partner and a houseful of STUFF!

For the moment, though, there is nothing that must be done besides unpacking the last 6 boxes that came with Mom and finding places to put it all. Oh yes, and write 4,000 Nano words.

Or maybe bake a banana bread . . . those bananas are getting mighty spotted.

Petal to the Medal

I have an interesting, somewhat problematic, relationship with compliments. I know I'm not alone in this. Recently, I've been much more aware of it because I'm on the receiving end so much.

I think it's uncomfortable to be praised for something "good" that I do. I was very aware, when I was teaching, that praise can be as destructive as criticism for a child's sense of self. Kids aren't good because they wear pretty clothes, draw pretty pictures, get all the math problems right. They're not bad because they don't understand word problems or they can't catch a ball. Maybe it's my time in the classroom and thinking about self-esteem that makes me hyper-aware of the pitfalls of judgment and the difference between acknowledgement and praise.

That said, this month is chock full of opportunities for the people around me to sing my praises and shower me with acknowledgement. Yup, I'm up for the daughter-of-the-year award and I truly deserve it. Not only that, but I'm the loving, supportive wife of Jill in the loss of Lucky Lu, her best friend ever, the Being who she poured herself into so completely that sometimes they were indistinguishable, at least on a soul level. All that and writing a book, too? Do I hear orchestral music swelling in the background?

You might not be surprised to hear that my reaction, when people lovingly, supportively tell me that I am being saintly or incredibly patient and giving, is to turn up the volume on the harsh parental voice in my head that says WRONG! -- LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!   Because it is taking everything I've got --- all the words of wisdom from years in AA, all the therapy, the books, the conversations with friends, meditation, deep breathing, tea with honey, and self-discipline to keep it going. It feels like a culmination, of sorts. It's like the "overnight success" of an actor who spends 20 years in backwater rep companies and suddenly makes it big in Hollywood.  I have been preparing for these moments my entire life and still don't feel really ready. Each day I wake up with a flutter of fear that something will come up that I can't handle. Each night I sink into the pillow, grateful that the household is still intact and nothing terrible has happened.

Melodramatic? I suppose. If I weren't, how could I write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days? Even with NaNoWriMo this month, now that I'm on day 8, I'm up against the demons of doubt and exhaustion. I haven't missed a day of writing yet this month and I'm on target for my word count. But the story feels bogged down. I need to plunge into a big new part and I'm not feeling it, not quite ready to give the characters their lead and let them take me down the path.

I guess that's the part I keep circling back to in all of this; I'm not the one in control. I have control over my own reactions, my own words and deeds and thoughts, but I am not in charge of life and death and everything in between, for the people and critters I love. A few weeks ago, I abdicated my crown as Queen of the Universe, put down the scepter, walked away from the throne. But old habits die hard. Maybe I don't want to be Queen, but can't I be the trusted adviser, hissing in the ear of the new Monarch?

So it is ok to shower me with rose petals and drape me with service medals. I do like to know That someone notices. At the same time, I'm simply a work in progress, muddling through with strength and patience I didn't know I had, but also with irritation and impatience and exasperation as well.

Here's what worries me ----- what if this is training for something else? Oy!

Yes, you're right

It really is harder than I thought it would be. I'm ready to admit it. No matter how positive I stay, no matter how much I look for the humor and keep my eye on the greater good, it's really friggin' hard. All of it.

When Jill and I got together nine and a half years ago, she had the fiercest dog --- I was afraid of her. Lucky Lu had a reputation for being very protective, loudly so, and Jill took here almost everywhere she went. I was scared to get involved with Jill at first because of her dog. And Jill was a fierce about her companion as Lucky was about Jill.

I knew from the get-go that when the day came for Lucky to leave us, it would be a crisis, and it is. Lucky has given up. She's nearly 15. Everything is failing. Lucky's days are at their end, but the relationship will continue. I've grown accustomed to her outbursts and come to appreciate that after a rocky start, Lucky Lu and I could have our very own relationship. And yes, she's lovely and loyal and warm and sweet.

Since this is happening against the backdrop of Mom's first week living with us, it is all wrapped up in the enormous changes in our household. I've heard people talk about the "emotional roller coaster" for years, and despite my best efforts to shut down every possible emotional disturbance, I'm constantly being whipped around corners and plunged headlong toward the ground.

Not self-pity, I hope, but bewilderment to find myself here so suddenly. I know that compared to millions of other people, my troubles are really high class. It's just a matter of accommodating a new reality. Is there something inherent in humans that makes us think that we'll somehow be spared the misfortunes of others? It's not that I think I should be immune; it just doesn't fit my pictures of what I expected. There is no history of Alzheimers in my mother's family, and most of them live well into their 90s or past 100. I never expected to have to remind her that she shouldn't wear her pajamas under her pants, or that she needs batteries in her hearing aids to make them work.

A month from now it will be better, if only because it will be more familiar. Three months from now it will be even more different, and I choose today to believe I will feel more settled, happier, contented. It will never get perfect, but I really hope I make the adjustment and regain my balance. I think I can.

Act III, or is it IV?

The move is complete and the learning begins. I have discovered a few things about my mom during this process, and no doubt there is much more to come. It's also an initiation by fire into the world of Alzheimer's disease.

I don't know how many people in the US have this disease right now.What's certain is that the Baby Boomers are aging and we ain't seen nothing yet! My father had it, died of it in 2003, and it looked different in him than what I see now. Much of that was probably because my mother, dear heart that she is, shielded us from it as much as she could. Until just before he went into the nursing home, she put a good face on things and made it look manageable. I'm only beginning to see how unmanageable it probably was for her.

Discovery #1, as we were packing for the move: my mother has way more sexy lingerie than I do.

Discovery #2: Even thought she can't remember where she lives or where her room is, she can still crack jokes.

Discovery #3: My love of all things from the office supply store is genetic. She's the only person I know who has more pens, pencils, erasers, paperclips, envelopes, unused greeting cards, markers and post-its than I have. I do have her beat when it comes to hole punchers, though.

Discovery #4: She actually missed some of the housekeeping tasks she had someone else doing for her the last five years. Her housekeeper came once a week to clean the apartment and change the bed. Now it turns out that she likes hanging out clothes and folding them after they're dry, sweeping the floor, washing the table, washing up pots and pans and dusting. Who am I to say no? Actually, we work together.

I think that we will develop some routines over time. There is still a lot of unpacking and putting away to do, and some decision making as well. We weeded out her overstuffed closet to the tune of 5 bags of clothing and shoes for goodwill. Next comes the desk. Does she really need a package of 20 large manila envelopes?

But so far, we do some housework after breakfast, take Buddy to the dog park, run any errands like the grocery store and come home to fix a little lunch. After lunch, she likes to read and nap. That gives me writing time and a chance to catch up with facebook and email. Before you know it, it's time to feed the dogs and fix supper, watch a little tv or look at pictures and we actually all go to bed at a reasonable hour. Regular meals and regular bedtimes. Sounds like there's a mother in the house!

The parts that don't show are the hard ones. I have to direct her to the bathroom, to her bedroom, find her book and her glasses. I hear the beep, beep of the alarm as she opens the garage door looking for her room or for something she can't even tell me. She falls asleep all askew on the couch and I'm afraid she'll get a crick in her neck. She wanders around touching books, photos, furniture, looking puzzled. She sits and watches the leaves flutter, the birds at the feeder, the clouds above. She tells me she's homeless. She's not always sure who Jill is. She worries that Jack needs her then forgets that she saw him only a few hours ago. She cries because she can't think, can't remember, is afraid, worries that she is a burden. I answer every question as though it's the first time. I give her clues about navigation and hold her hand to show her the way. I help her with medicine, showers, dressing, rebutton her clothes, comb her hair, tell her I love her. Soon enough, she'll forget it all.

And yes, sometimes I worry that I'm next in line. But right now I have more important things to do, like taking care of my mother, and staying close to my wife. Like writing 50,000 words of a new novel in the month of November. And watching the birds at the feeder.