Day Eleven

A perfect day. Birdsong drifting through the lazy summer air, china blue skies that smell faintly of rain and the color green, the drone of a distant lawnmower blends with the bumble bees that loop from flower to flower like tipsy lovers. My heart is sore today. I feel a strange splinter occurs when nature contradicts the heart, an incongruence in the universe. Weddings amidst torrential rain, blizzards on birthdays, funerals when the sun is uninvited but arrives cheerful and brightly dressed.

On certain days, perfection can be hard.

Day Ten

Some days just fall off the calendar, blown away like autumn leaves and scattered into memories.

Day Nine

It was a hard liquor kind of day. There were no bubbles, no fruit, no ‘hint of blackberry with a plum finish.’ This day will not end with Chablis or Merlot. There will be an ice-cube and two fingers poured. I might sip the second one. 

This morning, thanks to the deluge that hovered over Pittsburgh for damn near three hours with thunder roaring as if the earth were breaking apart, the basement flooded. The boys had both already left for work so I was attempting to sop up water with one arm, moving furniture, and pulling out the dehumidifier. Brilliant way to begin the day.

The rest of this day included cracking the top of my head into the corner of a cabinet hard enough to make me almost pass out (and later Brennan parted my hair and said, “aw hell mom”), getting locked out of my own house, one of our vehicles overheating and not even making it home, the strap of my sundress snapping right when I bent over and I gave a full on breast shot to a really nice fellow, and I forgot to eat dinner. 

On the plus side, I spent the majority of the day with that really nice fellow who has found himself confined to a wheelchair and unable to feed himself much sooner than expected. His heart is gold and his mind still sharp and it makes my soul ache at the unfairness of life. His disease renders my arm issues unnotable; there isn’t a comparison in the universe. I am damn lucky and a wench to complain for a single moment.

Thank you, Life, for the lessons we don’t ask for - but desperately need.

Day Eight

The heat has been agonizing. I'm waiting for the ash to settle before venturing out to water the withered sprigs of what used to be the plants in the front yard. Even Frank, the assassin cat, has given up the mole hunt and clawed at the door till I let him in and he collapsed across the tiles, quite the drama queen. The boys have left on their own adventures for the evening and I'm planning on taking in the holiday snap and crackle from the comfort of a porch cushion with a glass of wine.

I found myself mulling over the dirt in life this afternoon. As I massaged the oxyclean paste into the stains on Sawyer's work shirts, I thought of the story they tell. The paint on my dresses, Brennan's ink-spattered pants, the grease on Jason's shorts from last weekend when he changed the breaks. If you unwound the stains, you'd likely know the how and perhaps the why of the day. And so I started working on an idea that I've been considering for over a year now. Here is how it begins....

 The world can be a dirty place. Life is a disheveled attempt at writing a novel; a series of chapters that despite a valiant endeavor to choose wisely, often end up unkempt, the edges stained, corners in disarray. These lives have closets. Darkness behind doors locked tight with chains woven from the expectations of others and the albatross of our own unfulfilled dreams. However, there is a place of absolution. Where the grime of life can be exonerated, the sullied cleansed, the defiled disinfected. Kneeling is often involved and money exchanged in return for untidy forgiveness. Music echoes through metallic speakers and baskets are passed; lives splayed out for the prying eyes of strangers to consume, a foul feast. Welcome to the laundromat.

Day Seven

Have you ever had a day in which you really had this vague feeling that you were not supposed to have gotten out of bed? This day included several hours at the DMV and a 19 minute traffic standstill in 93* heat in a vehicle that doesn't have air conditioning. (the vast amount of time, this doesn't bother me in the least....today I wanted to pull my hair out) My arm itches and aches like hell. Damn difficult day.

Thankfully the world includes friends and good liquor and laughter. Thankfully the sun sets. I watched odd fireworks from the porch and drank whiskey with my dog.

Tomorrow (it's after midnight, so - today?) is the day we celebrate the fact we have a DMV and road crews and whiskey - which is spectacular.

Happy 4th my friends.

Day Six

The rain sluiced over the world and washed the heat from the day as if magic, leaving the scent of bruised leaves and wet grass behind. I spent some time with a good friend tonight, both of us raising teenagers, and talked about responsibility. How you raise a child today with this enigma of an idea that everyone talks about but our headlines are full of the blatant missing of such. There is a vacuum. However, earlier today another friend posted a video which literally caused my heart to pause. It's about the difference between fault and responsibility. I did try valiantly (with my limited chicken pecking skills) but could not isolate it to post a link to it (outside of fb which I know many of my readers do not partake in) but I actually listened to it six times and transcribed it so I could print it out...I kept trying to brush the tears away while I typed. This was what it said:

It doesn’t matter whose fault it is if something is broken – if it’s your responsibility to fix it. It’s not your fault if your father was an abusive alcoholic, but it’s your responsibility to figure out what to do with the trauma and make a life out of it. It’s not your fault if your partner cheated on you – but it’s for damn sure your responsibility to find a way to overcome that pain and build a happy life for yourself. Fault and responsibility do not go together.

It sucks; when something is somebody's fault, we want them to suffer, to pay, we want it to be their responsibility to fix it – but that’s not how it works. Your heart, your life, your happiness is your responsibility and your responsibility alone. As long as you are stuck in pointing the finger and stuck in whose fault something is, you are trapped in victim mode. Power is taking responsibility.  

Your heart, your life, your happiness is your responsibility

 and your responsibility alone.

Wrongs are done. Tragedy comes dished out in this life right alongside breathtaking joy. You will be hurt. I have been hurt. But the result, the end of that chapter, the what-we-do-with-it and how-we-choose and intention above instinct...this is our marrow. 

I am responsible. 


(video credit to Will Smith & NewYou)

Day Five

Do you know that wives tale where you can put a frog in cold water and slowly raise the temperature and he will never jump, just quietly die? Two fold here - first, there was a brief moment this afternoon when I wondered if we were being cooked. But secondly, as I sit here on the front porch, the sun setting with a passionate tangerine and lavender tryst spilling across the sky, having turned off the air in the house and opened the windows to let the smell of summer waft through the rooms again...I'm rather comfortable. The breeze is marvelous but the weather page says it's still 93*.

Hence, I'm left wondering if I'm a frog.

Today wasn't an easy day. The best laid plans and mother nature plus the two percent and things went a bit sideways. They do. It was resolved. But my watch e-mailed me that my 'resting heartrate' rose over 11 points this weekend. Amazing how in the midst of the thing, it can unravel you despite 45 years of it 'working out.' You'd think I'd be better at this by now; not take it so personally. Damn watch.

I worked on 3 Words today. This is a creative endeavor thought up by a mad genius who brought a bunch of clever people together for unexpected fun. We each contributed a list of 'people, places, & things' and every two months three words (one of each) is pulled out of a jar and we are left with 60 days to do something creative. There have been songs posted to youtube, masterpiece paintings and works of 3D awesomeness; poetry, short stories, recipes, letters, a graphic novella, and a brief script. I am truly honored to be part of such a thing - and today spent a while trying to get my characters gracefully out of the cursed basement while the Tree of Life's dead roots thrashed under the Chinese restaurant next door. (it does make sense, you'd just have to read the last three submissions....)

Moral of the story? Create. Every day. Tomorrow, when you get up - ask yourself, what can YOU change or do or make or sing or cook or dance to make the day different than the one before. Do you live next door to a Chinese restaurant?