Fall, literally and figuratively

I woke up at 2:48am, then tossed and turned until 4:40, when i decided to get up and make use of the time I was burning up in bed not sleeping. I was ‘rehearsing’ my day over and over in my mind, as if that would prove my day to be productive. I ate late snacks after a healthy dinner. I stretched my limbs for several minutes, and tried to get off the floor without using my arms. This move was one I had read would be one predictive of longevity. I rocked back and forth as if that would work to hoist my stiff joints into action.

“This is magical thinking,” I murmured to myself. Goal 1: Get off the floor without using arms. Maybe today I will drink water throughout the day like the acupuncturist recommended. Maybe. Or, I’ll make coffee and savor it all day, switching to tea for my evening therapy sessions.

Story is so present for me currently. My home/personal life, work life, and caregiver life are wrought with tangled stories. I am always writing in my mind, but only in my work life do the stories get their proper attention. Goal 2: Write. For myself. For healing, joy, humor, or for no reason. I aim to record the mundane things I notice along the way each day, and write to get myself out of the funks.

My mother fell Monday afternoon, as she was walking out of the bathroom. I was there, and watched her body descend in slow motion, like an ice skater in a distorted horizontal twist. She fell into the hallway, her head hitting the molding of the door across the hall. “OW MY HEAD!” She lamented. I froze for seconds, whipping through the rolodex of options for elderly people when they fall. Memories arose from my father’s horrific hospital experiences. Shall I call EMS and risk the same outcome? Send her out of her comfort zone to have to quell her anxiety and consistently reorient her? She had a large goose egg on the back of her head, but otherwise seemed okay. I helped her sit up, and she sat splatted on the hallway floor to weigh in on what to do next. She initially balked when I mentioned calling EMS, but eventually said, “this is a big bump. I guess somebody should look at it.” Inasmuch as taking her out of her familiar zone is risky, I thought of Natasha Richardson, the beautiful actress who took a fall when skiing, and died of an epidural hematoma two days later. I called EMS, and the ambulance arrived in short order. They looked mom over, gently and stated because she was on a blood thinner, it would be good to have her evaluated. We decided to send her to the closest hospital, which does not have a trauma department. My father had triple bypass there in 1995, my mother had hips and knees replaced in the early 2000’s, and even Bentz had been for pneumonia a couple of times. The fire department was summoned to help her up, as mom’s lower leg edema impacts her mobility. She favored one hip, and I took note to share with the physician. I grabbed a few snacks, including her ‘circle sandwiches’ (pinwheel sandwiches from Publix) and she was off.

I arrived first, and checked in with the desk. “They’ll call you back when she gets here,” the admin informed. Since one can see the ambulance bay from the tiny ED waiting room, I saw them pull up and her little gray head go by the window. Less than a minute later, the door opened, and I thought they were coming to get me. No, they had actually popped mom into a wheelchair and were opening the door to roll her into the waiting room with me. “There are no rooms right now, the attendant remarked. I could not make sense of this. It’s an emergent situation, why would I have sent her in an ambulance, then? Eventually we were called into the triage room, not much bigger than our galley kitchen. Mom in her wheelchair, me, nurse and doctor were ‘too many cooks’. They asked a few pertinent questions, and I shared what happened, including the leg weakness upon standing. The doctor took a less than 60 second cursory look, and wagged her legs back and forth in the chair. “If something were broken, this would be painful, and she would be yelling.” Ok, I buy that, and we were sent back out to the waiting room to be called for a head CT.

We sat and we sat in the waiting room. SInce MSNBC wasn’t playing on the tv, mom wasn’t able to fix her focus, so she developed a few catch phrases for orientation. “we have a great view! It’s a beautiful day out there”. As the time stretched, the cycles started.

Mom: “Now is my car in the parking lot?”

Me: “No, I drove here. You came in the ambulance. My car is parked way over there- you can’t see it from here”

Mom: “Oh okay. Well I’m about ready to go back home. I don’t think anyone knows we’re out here.”

Me: “Yes, it seems like that, but they’re very crowded today.”

Mom: “I’m going to go up to the desk and ask them how long it’s going to be.’

Me: “Well, they don’t really know. They just get messages from the nurses and doctors.”

Mom: “It’s been a long time. We’ve been here a long time. I might just go up and ask them how long it’s going to be.”

Finally, she was summoned to the CT scan, and then another wait and wait after for results and discharge. All was clear, thank goodness, so we gingerly squeezed her into my Honda Civic for the ride back home.

Of course that’s not the end of the story! The leg pain continued, and she became fearful of falling again. I called her orthopedist, who scheduled an MRI for the following Tuesday, but in the meantime, she had to slowly eek her way around the house.

The beauty of dementia: she has no recall of the event, and after a few days became more confident in her mobility. We’re going for the MRI, which will set her back, but again she’ll hopefully return to her baseline, or close to it.

On my way to and from the prison, I listened to Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. I was awed by her writing and found myself lost in the story of her dear Quintana Roo. Her humble evaluation of her parenting, the accurate account of her adopted child’s sagacity even as young as four or five years of age. I found this book as enveloping as “The Year of Magical Thinking” and the stories in “Slouching Toward Bethlehem.” Oh to convey my stories a la Didion!

I’m not sure why I thought of it, but I began sifting through memories of my father during the drive. The picture of me in my diaper, standing in his cowboy boots came to mind first, and the slideshow of memories started. How he ‘walked off’ distances with his feet quite accurately, having measured office space for decades. How he always had a better way for my mother, my brother and me to conduct ourselves. When my brother was an infant, he made “A Schedule for Mom”, typewritten and placed in a folder with the words traced through the ruler template. Inside was an amazingly organized schedule for my mother on how to maximize her time during the day. He frequently wrote letters to us all, sometimes typewritten, sometimes handwritten, but always signed, because he loved to sign things. When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I had to do an interview with someone in my family, so I went to dad’s office upstairs. “Sure, he said, and turned to his typewriter. I thought I hadn’t clarified that I needed to INTERVIEW him. He knew, he just wanted to do it his way, and presently handed me a typewritten brief autobiography. Well, then I had to figure out how to make it look like I had actually done the project, so I wrote it out by hand and turned it in. I got an A plus, which of course he loved, and signed it right away.

He had a quick temper, the kind you don’t realize where you’ve veered off until it’s too late. That was confusing and scary at times. All we could really figure out is how to be mindful of going about things with him pretty gently. I don’t know what set him off, but when it did, everyone knew to step aside until it was over. My mother was so patient when he decided he was sick and tired of all the clutter in the garage and tore out there slinging things to and fro, sweeping and hosing out the place until he felt satisfied. We didn’t know about stress, or that he might just have shame from his childhood that re-enacted itself when he thought of how spotless his mother kept things.

He always loved cars, so that was a connection point for us. Sundays were good car-looking days because there wouldn’t be car salesmen to bother us as we worked the lot. At some point in my adult life, he created a document called “Cars of My Life”, listing every car he ever had. I had a great idea to illustrate it, so I went through and found pictures on the internet of the 40-50 cars and had them printed out. I’m sure I still have them somewhere, but I never created the full effect.

During my formative years, my dad was the general manager of an office park near our house. The company has since folded, and office parks are passe, but in the 70’s and 80’s, they were a collective, and he was, as I have said before, Sheriff Andy Taylor 2.0. He was well revered and easy going with the tenants, although he could be firm, too. He had one nice young secretary, but the one we liked most was Tillie, the sweet ‘Aunt Bea’ character in the village. (although we know in real life those two never got along). There were so many characters in the mix it was as though he had cast them in a series. The janitor/custodian, who spoke unintelligibiy due to the lit cig tenuously sticking to his lips. The maintenance man and his boys, a scraggly bearded fellow in a low hung tool belt. He called his wife ‘the drag line’ The wild-mod single mother of teens who loved Marty Robbins and had his pictures in a photo cube on her desk. There were more I didn’t know, but Dad created an after hours hangout called “The Pit”, which was just a regular (probably nightly) after work gathering to drink off the day’s stress. I’m sure it lasted until late at night sometimes, and I’m sure my mother got sick and tired of it. When leisure suits were popular, Dad got one, and the shirt had naked ladies on it, which I was ashamed of and hoped he would never wear when we were somewhere together. Little did I know in later years, I had a date show up to pick me up and my mother ran upstairs to catch me and tell me HE was wearing a leisure suit. in 1984.

How Important is it?

Since Bentz had a meeting this morning, I got Chik Fil A for a hurried breakfast. When I ordered my favorite chicken egg and cheese bagel, I was told matter of factly that was no longer a menu item. I recall squinting my eyes at the poor young girl, chiding her in my mind for not having the menu memorized. But it was NOT on the menu, and I had to quickly decide what to order instead. “Ugh, I said, I guess a chicken biscuit then.” Deflated, I ate the salty thing and drank my coffee, musing at myself for my early morning elitism.

Bentz’s birthday dinner this evening. Five gyoza instead of six now, at our favorite Sushi restaurant. We used to get three each, and here we are, faced with another change. It was an easy default tonight, so the birthday boy got three.

Be here now! I hear Baba Ram Dass saying in my head. I find myself stalled in moments like these, mainly because this minutiae is ridiculous and unimportant, yet it can rise up and feel unwieldy in the moment.

How important is it? I swiped this line from one of my dear ladies who gleaned it from someone else to manage overthinking. It is actually quite helpful along with the other three- is it true, is it helpful, and is it kind? If the issue can’t make it past those, well then let’s just leave it. It’s not worth the time.

My mother just called to let me know she found some keys. Her keys, I imagine, but you never know. Interesting how stressed she got recently when we had some plumbing work done at her house. The folks were very polite and did a thorough and quick job, but nonetheless I think it shook her up a bit and took her the weekend to recover. I use her as an example for myself quite often- on one hand, she’s very calm and trusting, moving through her day as her loop shrinks smaller and smaller. Then something happens, and she begins to feel untethered. She is able to share she feels ‘like a space cadet’.

Looks like this essay is turning into musings, as I neglected to write down all the cool things i thought of last week. I did enjoy reading “Dwellings”, and found it very soothing. I escaped to it frequently during the week, and gave myself a chapter to disconnect from the daily din. Her description of even just sinking into the water was spectacular, and I hope this week I will make time to notice the fall gifts arriving daily. The last of the figs are ripening and I found the furry culprit who ate my lone baby squash. Oh well, he/she must have needed it more than me. I felt sad for the dead mole on our sidewalk, and scolded the cat for his natural behavior. “Cat food, schmat food, he must say- look what I got!” Mom and I found a dead snake in her driveway. We stared at it together, and then she scooped it with her cane into the leaves.

On my rural rides to the prisons, I am scanning for interesting things. One trip yielded a “wake” of vultures all across the country road near a church. My usual habit is to stop and take a photo, but this time I just slowed down and got just a very blurry take on the scene I wanted to remember. I DID, however, read when I got home that a flying group of vultures is called a “ketlle”, and a sitting and resting group of vultures is a “committee”. The “wake” is a group of feeding vultures. These creatures are incredible to me because of their bold agenda. How do they select the houses or property where they line up and judge? I am in awe of their tenacity in recycling- my daughter and I stood by one early morning watching a vulture work on a dead opossum in the middle of the street for almost thirty minutes. We were rapt, and the vulture was impartial to our presence and kept picking and pulling to take care of the body.

Opossums are another favorite, poor things can’t seem to avoid cars in the night. Banjo the dog had a standoff with one in the yard years ago when he was much younger, and the possum was stuck in the fence unable to escape. He hissed and showed all his little pointy teeth to Banjo, who just barked and barked, but knew better than to get any closer. Once in a while now, one will be eating the cat food on the front porch when I step outside to put more out. Funny, the cats stand by and let the little guy devour their food, both looking up at me to remedy the situation.

I will take Linda Hogan’s work, and hopefully develop my own way of reminding myself “humankind is not separate from nature.”

Highlights and lowlights

Last week’s maelstrom gave me fodder for this week’s writing. Events, realizations, applications unfolded after the full moon pulled her covers over herself.

Several times I spoke out loud to myself, “now this is really becoming unbelievable.” My typically stable clients appeared in crisis throughout the week, citing mania or hopelessness as their theme. How unusual for these folks, who present at our sessions quite well to seemingly suddenly take such a swift turn. What caused it? I’m a zebra hunter, so I’m looking for clues- is it the seasonal change? Barometric Pressure drop? (cue Toots and The Maytals). Did they just have a night or two of poor sleep which devolved into thought distortions from the fear of previous episodes of increased symptoms?

Friday I lost the key to our company vehicle. I disregarded my thought of putting the key up before I left in my own car, thinking I could just do it later. Upon my return, they key was missing, which sent me into a cycle of checking and rechecking my purse, emptying its contents to see if I somehow it magically reappeared. I checked the parking lot where I parked my car, in case it fell out of my hand. I checked my house, in case I happened to put it down when I came by to let the dogs out. I briefly looked up a mindfulness video on manifesting lost objects. After going through the meditation, I finally decided to follow the recommendation I would have given one of my folks if this were happening to them. Stop. Have you done everything in your control? Yes? Then let it rest. No? Let it rest. Return to the project with fresh eyes later.

Sunday I went back to the office first thing in the morning to do one more comprehensive search and then move on with my day. Next stop, Liz’s house to feed her cats while she was out of town. They were pleased I had stopped by, and ate heartily. I headed back home, only to turn on to the main road and hear the flap flap flap flap of my right rear tire, dammit, needing air again. Only this time, air wasn’t enough. I wrestled with the hose, spraying the two dollar air everywhere but my tire. I noticed another car pulled up while I hopelessly attempted to fill my tire. I stood up. “Oh well. I guess I’ll call a tow truck.” The man with the other car asked my for the air hose, and made good use of the air for his tire. “Don’t do that- I’ll change it for you as soon as I get this filled up.” I hastily rearranged the trunk so I could access the spare, and he got right to work. Kenneth had just got off work this morning, and was heading back to Barnwell to sit with his parents, mainly his mother, who required more care at this point. He works in Columbia, and was commenting about the rent being so high, he actually lived in a camper outside his parents’ house and commuted in. He’d spent time in jail. He had two brothers and a sister, two of which lived out of town, and one was a nurse who was unable to help as much with their parents. Kenneth said that was okay, because as long as he got to see his mother smile, it was worth being there.

I wondered if I had actually manifested Kenneth in my pursuit of the lost key- is that how it works? Maybe the universe just gives us what we need and manifesting is not necessary. Despite his resistance to take any money for the work he did, I force-cash-apped him anyway. I thought about widening my scope of rewarding good deeds or good service in the future, and made a plan to hone in on what’s REALLY important and what’s really here and now, and it’s not the kay. Expensive, sure, but fairly quickly replaceable. The encounter with Kenneth was much more valuable that day, and not only for the tire change.

The Hidden Story

In talk of narrative development, the connection and relationships are paramount in gleaning the richness of the story behind the presentation. Since I am able to work with individuals for an unlimited period of time, I am often honored to be present for the hidden treasures my folks allow me in on.

One: A middle aged male with a history of complex trauma, which has impacted social interactions and interpersonal relationships. Upon one of our first meetings, he declared he would probably have to get a ‘real therapist’. He presents rigid and argumentative, gruff and standoffish. Over the years, he has allowed me to know at one time, he called the NICU to see if they would take volunteers in the nursery to rock preemies. I have watched him care for his neighbors when he didn’t know I was looking. He is now at the point where he is flexible enough to try some of the skills he has balked at previously, and continues to have success. We have gone from meeting twice a week to once every two weeks.

Two: A senior male, who entered the program from psychiatric hospitalization following the loss of his mother, father, his sister, and his partner of 32 years in close succession. He often shared he ‘wasn’t like the other clients’ in that he didn’t have a severe mental health problem. He presents prideful and aloof, friendly but looking for opportunities to project. Since he was a retail manager during his working years, he uses high expectations of others and his former work ethic to shield him from revealing his story. We have worked together for five years, and from time to time he will break down in heaving sobs, still grieving the loss of his love. He has revealed how he continues to live a double life, as he was unable to come out to his coworkers and mangers in the 80’s and 90’s. The sadness still exists he would not be accepted by his neighbors if they knew. His family revered their mother and disregarded their father, (“Not once in my life did the man ever hug me or tell me he loved me. One year for Christmas he build me a little workbench- why would he think I would want that? I feel like he didn’t even know me.”) Despite his disconnection from his father, he cared for him and his mother at the end of their lives and they died within five days of each other. I took him to their graves several years ago, and gave him time with them. I wasn’t close enough to hear everything, but he spoke to his father in a heartfelt way.

Three: Another middle aged male, heavily depressed since the day I met him in 2012. I eventually became his point of contact about four years ago. He had other case mangers and remained highly anxious outside his apartment. He experienced a panic attack in the office one day, and was whisked home immediately. He remains socially avoidant, with little or no contact with neighbors or outside entities. For the time I’d known him, He spoke mainly about things he used to do before he became depressed. He did not speak of his family, so when we began to meet regularly, it was right about the time he had decided to pick up writing he started in high school which became a series of nine books. He later shared the writing had helped him heal from the betrayal he felt from his family, and was able to go more into detail. About two years ago, he all of a sudden shared he had been married previously and had a daughter who was headed into adolescence. He expressed deep sadness he was unable to make contact with her because the mother would not allow it and kept him blocked. He is moving into hoping they will connect when she is an adult.

Four: An agitated female, exactly my age (57), with a horrific history of trauma, abuse, substance use, self-harm, and severe mental illness. She is a spitfire, and has ‘gone off’ on her neighbors and others from time to time when things feel unfair. She has showed up to appointments with positive drug screens and been through the mental health probate court for substance use. She threatens to fight people and cut people if they do her wrong, and has evidence of past fights on her arms and legs. She is honest about her drug use, and reports she is only uses crack a couple of times a week, so she feels it is unfair for people to judge her because others are using consistently. Inside, her apartment is immaculate, with small stuffed animals tacked to the entry wall. She has a ‘WIPE YOUR FEET’ and a cat sticker on her door. She worries to me about her neighbor’s infant, hoping its mother knows how to care for it, and offering her own advice. She looks out for the stray cats in the community, and has asked me to help take a mama cat and her litter to the humane society so they would get adopted. I gave her a snake plant earlier in the year. She had intermittent rows with her neighbors, and one night she called me unintelligibly yelling and crying, and I finally discerned someone had broken off several leaves of her snake plant. Friday she told me she was going to make a lasagne, but didn’t have a dish/pan to cook it in. Luckily I had quick access to several, and dropped one off to her. She later texted, “love you”.

There is so much beauty in being the spaceholder for someone while they find their way to a contented life. I don’t say ‘find their way back’, because most came from situations where they have never even had the opportunity to BE. A life on alert and in the throes of mental illness, unsafe and unsheltered, their self-care and decision making is immature or nonexistent. I hope someday they will be able to tell their stories fully and proudly.

September 89

YAY! We got released from work at 1:00pm today due to inclement weather! I was excited for a little administrative time this morning, but while I’m working, I know my mother is glued to the storm coverage on MSNBC, the only channel she watches. I wonder if she understands the storm is actually somewhere else, but we are going to have some residual winds and rain (hopefully not tornadoes).

I reminded her about their living on James Island when Hurricane Hugo hit. Because my husband at the time was on a submarine in the Navy, he had to stay on the sub. That left me to figure out how to say a potential goodbye to all our belongings- I pushed all the furniture into the center of the living room, and left the apartment and evacuated Charleston with everyone else. Mom, Dad and brother, me and my cat loaded our cars and headed to Greenville to stay overnight (or until the storm passed).

We had breakfast the next day, and I decided to come back to town to see if I could get into the apartment. I had driven my husband’s Honda Civic for the trip. Pulling into the parking lot, I found my sweet Hyundai crushed under the weight of a fallen tree. (Crushed but not totaled, I would later find out, learning the outrageousness of auto body work). My apartment building was intact, save for a tree which crashed into my neighbor’s unit. There were trees and debris scattered around the complex as if a giant child had been playing and slinging things haphazardly. The pool was black and full of branches and leaves as well. People described the area as a ‘war zone’ on TV. It did seem like something lost in time, like the old Logan’s Run scene of Washington, DC, obsolete and overgrown. I drove over to my parents’ house with the cooler, assuming correctly they had no power. I absconded with the contents of their refrigerator, and surveyed the property to report any immediate concerns to my parents. They lived on a tidal creek, in just the right spot for their sea wall to become consistently stressed. The storm made haste with the wall and tore it from its rebar, making a twisted mess on the land to which it was formerly attached. Other than that, there was some light flooding and damage to the screened porch, but amazingly nothing else. The journey there and back, on the other hand, was treacherous. Downed trees and unexpected debris in the roadway compromised a safe route to and from the place. I was glad to be home and pulled the furniture pile back into position. My husband and his crew entered into shiftwork, so they were able to take turns coming home over the next week or so. We combined forces with our two neighbors who lived in the complex and worked with my husband. The boys dubbed themselves the “Hurricane Rapid Response Team”, scouring the neighborhood for folks needing help with downed trees or light yardwork. We ate together at our rudimentary campfire in our neighbor’s grill. We felt like pioneers, and enjoyed the lack of electricity and responsibility in our lives at that moment.

Many people, during the height of a natural disaster, fear things getting out of control to the degree they assemble themselves into a vigilante force. My husband noted this concept on his way off the boat when several of his fellow petty officers were discussing the distribution of firearms amongst themselves. “Hey man, do you need a gun?” one guy asked my husband, who thankfully refused. Our neighbor, Richard, had appointed himself deputy of our apartment building, I suppose, and let me know he was keeping everything safe for all of us by having his gun. What he actually did was terrify me, as I envisioned myself making my way back across the complex only to be shot to death by my neighbor the ‘protector’.

Our power was restored about ten days later, and over the weeks things started to return to ‘normal’. I got a temporary job cleaning up shingles and other debris around town. We spent days at various apartment complexes and business, shoving shingles into trashbags while avoiding the prolific fire ant hills which cropped up immediately after the storm. Our job also entailed cleaning the gunk out of computers and other electronic equipment. Looking back, I’m sure we made very little headway with our solvents and q-tips and would have been better off trashing everything, but no one asked me.

My mother and I resumed our walking routine in the downtown area. We usually walked around Colonial Lake, near the marina where boats were tossed like toys out of their slips and thrown into the center of Lockwood Drive. We had been walking prior to the hurricane, as we were both trying to keep ourselves in shape (she had been a participant in a study of Prozac, when they discovered it had side effects of weight loss. Probably a pretty good time in her life, as I remember it.) After the storm, there were days we got sidetracked from our walking to look at the huge piles of items heaped on the curbs outside homes in the historic district. Rugs, lamps, furniture, art, clothing and other items were discarded in the cleanup, and my mother was there to rescue what she could. I recall helping her pull things apart to evaluate the roadside treasures.

It’s interesting how quickly we can unite and collaborate (see the gun club above) in times of difficulty. We are so willing to help others, share our resources, and combine efforts. What happens after the ‘thrill is gone’? How long does it take to slide slowly back into our comfort zones and retreat into our own lives with less connection that before?

Cut to Saturday, after wind and rain came. Leafblowers out, folks were intent on ridding their property of the storm’s evidence. Back and forth to my mother’s house (12 miles round trip), I counted 11 people blowing leaves and debris onto the street or into a pile. I guess that’s one of the stages of storm processing.

Seattle’s Best

I

 was reminiscing about living in Washington state yesterday, which prompted some lovely memories to come up. First off, no bugs or poisonous snakes, and not nearly as much rain as people go on about. Oh, and even if it does rain, people go anyway. From 1995 to 1997, we lived at the Jackson Park Navy Base housing, which I later learned was a Superfund site. It had been used as a munitions depot between 1904 and 1959, and although the buildings and activities are no longer active, cleanup is ongoing.

Aside from that shocking reality, life in the neighborhood was as good as it could be- we lived on a short street in a three bedroom duplex overlooking Ostrich Bay (please don’t eat the shellfish). in the eight units on our street, there were sixteen children, all in and around the same age range. My next door neighbor was a beautiful Italian woman with two children not much older than mine. I was in awe of her because she cooked amazing meals, even for LUNCH. She shared how much she missed Rome, and the concept of the open areas where children would play and the parents would be able to see them, talk to each other, hang out laundry, cook meals, and know the children were safe and enjoying themselves. We had that vibe going on our street for the most part, or maybe I am misremembering some of the light neighbor drama that went on periodically. (I am a no-drama mama, and avoid sticky situations at all costs).

Since the children were not school age (Brian was eligible for kindergarten, but it was half-day, so I kept him out due to the exposure to other children he had, as well as opportunities for us to do our own little field trips). We could get on the city bus at the top of the hill and ride to the ferry terminal in down town Bremerton, where we accessed the ferry to make the trip across the Puget Sound to Seattle. What a breathtaking experience it was to simply stand at the side and watch the water lap the sides of the boat. Once we saw an orca, and there were always some kind of fish jumping around in the water below. Of course there were snacks on board, so the 55 minute trip was as much of an adventure as our good times in Seattle. We spent a great deal of time at the Pacific Science Center (Knex-ibtion was an impressive exhibit, with ferris wheels and roller coasters all constructed from the little plastic sticks I could never fit together quite right) and the Children’s Museum. Once or twice we went up in the Space Needle, once we ate brunch. The trip was never complete until we stopped into the See’s Candy store near the city center!

One of my favorite pictures is my mother standing beside the gaping mouth of a monkfish at the Pike Place Market. We loved watching the boys throw the fish back and forth, shouting peoples’ orders. “SOCKEYE!” one would yell, and the front man would throw the fish over to the guys at the counter to wrap and ring it up. Pike Place was always a good destination with its giant farmer’s market and crafts galore. It was easy to manage with children and a double stroller in tow.

We figured out the bus ride over to the locks, and took a brief tour to watch boats travel through. In a creek near our house, we found the salmon running, and they really do go! Up they would jump, gaining momentum to move against the current.  When my aunt and uncle brought their two boys over from the east coast, we caravanned the entire circumference of Olympic National Forest! I know it was physically exhausting, but what an amazing trip- being able to stop enough to do short treks in the forest and then navigate our way over the rocky cliffs of Pacific Beach to take in a scene similar to the crashing waves in the movie “Rebecca”

I was hoping to have one more baby at some point, and it seemed to me Bremerton would be a great place to have one! My husband at the time was not convinced, but since we did nothing to prevent a pregnancy, luck prevailed and I found out I was pregnant after he left for a six month deployment. I was nervous to have to reveal the news over the phone, but I was ecstatic, so I went with that. I could walk to Bremerton Naval Hospital for my prenatal visits, and the pregnancy went along well. My ex husband arrived back home that June before my August due date to find me in much different shape than when he left. I felt so lucky to have my neighbor up the hill be on duty as the delivery nurse the night I went in the hospital. Funny how I can’t even recall her name twenty six years later, but her presence was so necessary and comforting to me. Little Anna Lloyd arrived on her great grandmother’s birthday, August 18, 1996 weighing 9 pounds 11 ounces.

The children and I kept up our day trips after the baby was born, we just had the oldest walk, and put the baby in the stroller with her sister while little brother rode in the backpack. We were a pretty streamlined team as I remember, and, and as Anna grew she did her best to keep up with her brothers and sister. We found our way to Victoria, BC to look around at the town, and loved their museum and botanical garden, but the double decker bus tour was probably the biggest hit. As Anna got older, she and I would sit outside with a couple of other babies her age and their moms. By the time she was about 5 1/2 months old, she was dragging herself around with a one armed soldier crawl, making sure she didn’t miss a beat. We had a major snowstorm that winter, and the main road provided a perfect sled slope for everyone. 

We left in the summer of 1997, and headed back across the country to Groton, Connecticut for another adventure. I am still able to tell the stories to the children, now grown, of the things we did they don’t remember, knowing that somewhere it is imprinted in their psyches.

Happenstance

During our vacation to Nashville last week, I suddenly became aware of my tendency to want to make long term connections with people. The topic showed up because we were presented with numerous brief encounters, and my thoughts at the outset were, “HEY! We should be friends! Pen pals! Facebook friends! We should keep in touch!” I found myself looking for the reason behind this behavior of mine, and after wondering about any fears of abandonment, or attachment issues, I chalked it up to my sense of wanting to stay connected to interesting people. My parents (actually more my father) did it, and continued to correspond with folks from their past over the years.

I wondered, too, if my intense focus on connections was a product of Covid, where we were limited to meetups and chance casual conversations. Did we lose the need somehow for extended or long term friendships? I really paid close attention to myself during interactions on the trip, and coached myself down from trying to force connection after our first encounter of the trip- a lovely trans woman called Eleanor who ended up sitting with us during a music event on our first night at one of the festival venues. She was visiting from the west coast, and I heard her comment to someone else later in the evening, “I have to be careful about where I visit, because there are people in certain places who don’t like people like me.” I was crushed thinking how freely we move around and go places, without having to gauge the tone of the community citizens. Saddened, I went back into my head to wonder why I thought it was so important we keep up with Eleanor. I ultimately talked myself into a new mindset or just allowing things to be. Just having brief, meaningful encounters can be important to us as much as development and maintenance of long-term relationships.

I kept this event in mind as we moved through the week. How frequently we ran into people, talked for a bit, and then moved on. I charted these encounters to use as my reinforcement to relax and enjoy the moment, rather than launching ahead to the good times we would be having the next time we saw each other. On our morning walk one day, we ran into some visitors from Atlanta, and had a quick chat with them about their visit and their production company. The topic arose as we intersected at a street corner where a crew was filming a commercial or a video or some sort.

That evening, we went to see James McMurtry performing in a venue which was a former church. The nave was brimming with standing fans, who were chatting and making connections to their favorite songs before the show. Somewhere halfway through the show, I decided to move out and sit on a bench with several others who couldn’t stand through the whole event. There were three or four of us on the bench at that time, and Kurt came along wondering if we were all related. Not sure how he would draw such a conclusion, but all of us were friendly to him, and he sat down. Next, he was showing his phone to the lady next to me and pointing out his three boys. “This was a long time ago- they’re all grown now…that was before my mother died.” Awkward silence. She and I looked at each other, and back at him, because now he was fixated on his phone with tears in his eyes. Okay. what are these type things about? Was I too open that night, and allowed ALL the things in? I have grown better with my boundaries over the years, but I must have slipped up for this one to squeak by.

Cut to after lunch with an old friend on Friday, when I decided to take the city bus back to our Air BnB to avoid the exorbitant cost of Lyft. The bus arrived shortly after I got to the bus stop, and I hopped on and sat next to a sweet character rocking in his seat. “Queen…96…King Charles, 73…” he reported, wondering if I had seen any updates on the upcoming funeral. He then showed me his ziploc bag of items he had received from a local church, and passed the potato chips to the fellow sitting across from him. The guy started talking to the couple seated next to him, and my little rocker leaned in and quietly said, “drunk…he’s drunk.” Shortly thereafter, he shared he had been an over-the-road truckdriver for years. And that’s about all I could process before we had to change buses and he and his friend went off together. I remembered my day job just then, and wondered about the services available to unsheltered and homeless individuals in Nashville.

So many snapshots of humans and their stories happened last week- I am humbled by these and many others, but continue to wonder why these events occur. Are they simply synchronistic (how about that for a new band name), or is each of these a lesson in itself – no matter, I am grateful for them all, and hopefully less neurotic as well!

Bach to the Future

I was heading to see a client Tuesday, when the announcer on our local NPR station said they would be playing a series of Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze”. When it didn’t come right on, I stopped into Publix to get more cookies and milk for my mother, who seems to make them disappear as quickly as I get them. I popped back into the car and it was playing. I forgot to foreshadow what that piece does to me- I immediately flooded with tears, overcome with emotions from here, there, and everywhere. “What in the world happened to that woman in the rattletrap Honda Civic? She must have just received bad news or something”, they might guess.

No, it’s just me having an irregular cry, and dredging up a torrent of amazing memories along with it. This piece, for example, had me pull up a memory of my mother and me riding in the car, on the way back to their house in James Island when I was in my early twenties. We were stopped on the Wappoo Creek bridge as she was telling me a story their minister shared, something about a man and a dying sheep, and when the man held him, the sheep looked at him with ‘the peace that passed all understanding’. Enough said. I was losing it before she finished the story. My mother and father both had a way of sharing their faith which would melt me right down to a puddle. I really don’t know what it was or is. As an adult, I’ve been moved to tears in most every church service I’ve attended. So much so, I finally avoided going because I didn’t want to have to explain it’s just me- I’m not sick, no one is dead, everything is pretty much okay- there are just certain things, hymns and music, mostly, which move me to become engulfed in an emotional abyss. For example, I might remember a time I looked out of the corner of my supposed- to-be-praying eyes to see my father in tears. There is no antecedent for my ’emotional collapse’, as it were, and anything can cause it to happen. Once I attended a service where the minister stopped his sermon, stood for a moment, and started singing, “Precious Lord”. Good grief. I sneaked back to the narthex to find some tissue, only to be followed by a nice church lady wondering if she could help. My children at the time would look at me, knowing what was coming up, and hoping it wouldn’t.

I’m not even sure I have a faith- I was curious how my parents could be so fully invested in the goings on at church, and not have questions about why our little Episcopal church was so complete with actual realistic individuals and how the giant church next door catered mostly to the families all dressed up and seemingly doing very well, but the crowd wasn’t the least bit diverse. I guess that’s why they chose it. It had a soup kitchen, and a focus on the community at large. Yes. Can that concept be a religion?

My ex husband and I did not attend church, but suddenly when we moved to Washington state, it seemed like a good time to ‘get the children into church’, my father would say often, as an elixir to have an amazing family life. “Those children need to go to Sunday School”, was common advice delivered at times when he had no other available resources for making his grandchildren into little saints. We did end up finding what I would constitute a most fitting little Methodist church in Tracyton, Washington. It seemed we were all taken with it, and went ‘religiously’ to services and gatherings. I felt the minister was a gifted man who could sense our need for valuable connection, and it worked. He would greet my then-husband with, “John, you are a rich man!” and I would secretly applaud inside for his recognition of the awesomeness we had created. I never knew if he believed our family was incredible, but he found ways to help out with some building projects that did seem to provide intrinsic reward. That time was so special to me as a sort of actualization, or accomplishment of something that was important to my family of origin. For that time, in that place, I ‘got it’. I could see the attraction, as well as the connection to whatever it was that felt accepting and nurturing to us.

I haven’t experienced that level of attachment to a church since then, but I do still get that feeling (heaving sobbing) when I stumble upon a memory of my parents or just the beauty of a hymn. I fell apart at the farmers market once, because they had a representative from the opera company singing on the street. I blubbered in the theatre at the close of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” when the child actor came out and the audience regaled him with such applause he began crying. My father singing various hymns in an exaggerated baritone voice. “I SING A SONG OF THE SAINTS OF GOD, Patient and brave and true, who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew..AND ONE WAS A DOCTOR AND ONE WAS A QUEEN AND ONE WAS A SHEPHERDESS ON THE GREEN, they were all the saints of God and I mean, God helping to be one too.”

I think my father would approve this message.

Synchronicity or something like it

I ordered all the books for the semester, except Jung’s Memories, Reflections, and Dreams, because we already have a copy- or so I thought. I searched all the bookcases in the house, as well as the random stacks teetering in most every room. It was nowhere to be found. Yesterday, I broke down and ordered another copy. This morning I came to work, went to our office closet to get something for a client, and it was there, mocking me from the second shelf. 

Almost every day last week, I managed to check my phone at 11:11. Before the pandemic, we attended a meeting of the Charleston Jungian Society, and the topic that night was synchronicity. I was immediately taken by the concept, and readily searched for more opportunities to encounter these important symbols in my daily life.

These days, I’m ‘casually alert’ to events and issues that appear in my workday. Often times, my clients express their synchronistic thoughts as ideas of reference or delusions. Is there a difference? I read a few internet articles, and the last one’s conclusion was one I could resonate with, which was simply this: No matter how we label them, our stories inform our reality.

I recently finished another book called “The Mind and The Moon”, by Daniel Bergner. This book was a beautiful memoir nestled in the sweet spot of a scientific tug of war on the effective treatment of mental illness. The author’s brother was hospitalized numerous times due to his diagnosis of Schizophrenia. Mr. Bergner shares the narrative of a family member who must grapple with supporting decisions for their loved one, and navigating the still-horrific system of mental health treatment as a whole. I found myself questioning some of the beliefs I had gleaned from my years in our intensive outpatient program. ‘ We have to work toward medicating the individual as close as possible to their first psychotic break to prevent loss of brain matter’ was along the lines of what I’ve heard over time, and embraced this line of thinking instead of questioning or evaluating my own opinion of forced treatment and long term side effects of antipsychotic medication. The book provides the reader with alternative perspectives on managing hallucinations and delusions through utilizing more patient centered encounters and group techniques which empower the individual to work toward their own idea of stability rather than ours.

Today, I went to the prison to visit an inmate I work with on occasion. His beliefs are centered in his faith, and he provides linear thoughts on his current position based on his veering away from his faith for periods of time. At times he reports feeling a presence or ‘spirit’ nearby. He identifies them as demons. 
I heard a podcast with regard to psychiatric assessments of individuals, and this topic in particular was discussed – would this be classified as a severe mental illness? Or would we, could we, say it is a manifestation of this client’s  cultural belief system? And furthermore, for the purpose of our sessions, does it really matter?

In other news, I’m trying to ramp up my mindfulness and observational skills so I can be in tune to the nuances and potential synchronicities that may be lying in wait for me. Friday I was driving and saw an individual pushing a wheelchair with a person in it. About 100 feet down the road there was another another individual pushing a wheelchair, but this time, it contains a dog. 

I saw a hawk hanging out in the median of a very busy intersection near target and pulled the car over so I could watch it walk around and then fly up to a pillar near the shopping center. I pull over for vultures, too.  I’ve started snapping photos of our single hummingbird showing up to the feeder each morning, and the monarch butterfly darting around the purple flowers out front. 

Last week was an odd week all around-I had a dream of finding an amazing kiddie pool at Wal Mart – the children hopped in and we imagined playing in it on a hot summer day.  In addition, a rabbit had found its way into the dream, and regaled in the imaginary summer fun. We went to another department, only to return and see someone else making off with our dream pool. What a gut punch it was to watch it go away with someone else.

The acupuncturist put dots in my ears to help my vagus nerve, she says. I hope they are working, but I can’t tell so far. She suggests we let my psoriasis ‘sleep’ for now while we work on balance in other areas. Why is it so easy for me to trust her? What is different about her approach than the providers I’ve tried in recent years? I wonder if it’s the concept of the meridians or my fascination with her being able to decide how to give me a tune up by looking at my tongue.