Embrace The Suck

Lately it seems as if Sweetie and I are competing to see who is getting older faster. It's not a conscious race, yet both of us have run up against some aging roadblocks. Memory loss and back pain being the biggest bugaboos.  Trying to get to the bottom of both these conditions has forced us to accompany each other from one doctor to another. In every office it is the same … check in, wait, fill out paperwork, wait, get on the scale, wait, have your blood pressure taken, and wait until the doc du jour walks in with a fake smile and sits down facing his computer, not you. A few months ago Sweetie came to me with deep concern and mounting fears that his memory loss was more than just forgetting where he put his keys or glasses. He'd read the symptoms of dementia online, and deduced that he had all of them. There are times in a relationship when you can laugh at your partner's hypochondria, (it takes one to know one) but this was not one of those times. I jumped on board a...

[Note: This post is kind of long. Grab a cup of tea and read on. me] At the end of May when my writing group, Le Chat Noir Writers Circle, broke for summer vacation, our leader gave us an assignment. She had us make a list of things we'd like to do or have happen over the summer. From there she had us revise the list to include sensory details. For example, one of the things on my list was "take Gracie to the beach," which could be dressed up by saying, I want to "feel the sand between my toes as Gracie and I walk into the shallow waves." Instead of just "reading a book I can't put down" I wrote I want to lose myself in the words, the time and place of the story." Rather than say, "I want to float in the pool." I wrote, I want to let the cool water caress my body on a hot afternoon, or I want to be lost in the womblike silence under the water. You get the idea. When we meet again in September, we are to bring our lists re...

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, not so much writing. WHen I sit down to write, I have a hard time making sense of my "random thoughts." More than random, they are like a big ball of different colored rubberbands. You know how when you have too many rubberbands lying around, so you just start wrapping them around a tennis ball and before you know it you've got this gigantic ball of bands going this way and that. Sometimes I want to write about the blue one, down there under the green, behind the red, on top of the brown. It's hard to get to just the right thought. All the thoughts (rubberbands) are not necessarily connected but are intertwined enough that I have to be really in the mood to write, or I don't write at all. My writing coach, Carol O'Dell, told us in the very beginning of our group get togethers, that a) we are writers and b) even if we're not typing.  I think Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones - Freeing the Writer Within)...

A few years ago, I was introduced to a friend of a friend. To paraphrase a much used saying,  any friend of Terri's is a friend of mine. I haven't figured out yet about online friendships. It seems odd that relationships can grow and flourish when people have never met in person. Never having met … could it that be the reason online friends are friend? Because the obscurity of the Internet prevents people from getting to know the "real" person.  But the opposite could be true also, don't you think? The fact that you many never meet an online friend may give you more freedom to be the "real" person you are without fear of judgement. From the start my friendship with Terri St. Cloud was special. A petite woman in a "woo woo" store told me about bonesigh arts. She also told me about Tibetan bell massages. She didn't steer me wrong in either case. Bella was the fairy's name.  I call her that because after that day, she kind of disappeared...

I woke up this morning with thoughts of Dad dancing in my head. To be more precise with thoughts of Dad and the neighborhood 4th of July parade of a few years ago. I remember rushing Dad to get dressed, and how that rushing only slowed down the process. As the fire engine came up the hill, John Philip Sousa blared from a loud speaker. We managed to get Dad to a presentable state of dress and hurried him down the hall. He made it to the front stoop as the first parade dogs passed by. Seeing Dad, kind of wobbly on his walker,  the fire engine stopped to make sure he didn't miss anything. The local politicians came across the yard to shake Dad's hand. He may not have been the oldest patriot in the neighborhood, but he was near the top. I know politicians shake hands for a living, but I saw more than politics. I saw respect in the eyes of the shakers. I saw pride and joy in the eyes of my Dad. He never failed to stand a little taller and a tad straighter when a flag passed b...

I hope no one was holding their breath waiting for my next post. I can't believe I lost all track of time and June flew by.  Seeing the Belchers again was like walking in the back door after a long time away. All of us have aged some. Our bodies a little plumper, hair a little grayer. Six months cancer free, Laura looked happier than I've ever seen her. Long, tall Robert is not too demonstrative, but I got my hug, and several smiles. At one point I apologized for sharing so many baby photos and stories but I couldn't help it cause that's all I had. He said, I've grown up a lot since then!" Yes, I had to give him that.   As graduations go, I think this one could be categorized as short and sweet. No long speeches. Just enough pomp and circumstance. Robert's graduation gave me a reason to list all the things I learned from him. Such as: I learned to look at the world through the eyes of a curious little boy.  I learned to stand still so others might ha...