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Kids got back last night. We got Indian take-out, our dear fat Indian lady, standing in the dark in her restaurant holding two big brown bags of food. She looked grumpy, then saw us.
"Oh it's for you!" she said, and smiled. It was freezing outside. This cold place feels like a dream to me sometimes. I wish I'd stayed where it was warm, but I didn't have the money to really give the kids what they needed.
I had a meltdown in the airport when we got back to the U.S. The minute the plane touched down Jay called his ex girlfriend to talk to her daughter. I got pissed. I used to really lose it when I got pissed, now I just sort of freeze up. The whole time, I'm having this dialogue inside myself--shutup, just shutup now, stop talking. You've been too close. He had to pull something. We did get close, riding around on the moped, the sea to the left, bellies on the sand, eating ceviche and drinking la negra. I actually got happy for an hour or two. Then we got home, and the old traps close.
"You had to call her now? It couldn't wait til tomorrow?"
"Fine, I'll just keep all my private calls secret, since you're so jealous. I'll never call any of my friends ever in front of you again"
He always pushes me out on a limb like this-attaches some extreme generalization to what I've said.
So of course, I came back with the brilliant, pithy rejoinder: "You're such a moron." And then I cried.
"I'll give you period points." He said at last. I am in the middle of the usual torrent.
"Moron!"

So the next day, I was supposed to go to work, but I got called off, and he was going to go visit his children in Arkansas, which is about a 3 hour drive away from where we live. He had told me he wouldn't be home til 10. I felt bad about the fight and decided to suprise him with Thai food and build up the fire in the stove before he got there--went downtown--and guess whose car was parked across from the restaurant?
I picked up the food and drove out anyways. The house was cold and dark. I figured he'd probably gotten in a little early and was having a drink with Hunter or something.
I get a call: "Hey baby,"
"How was Arkansas?" I ask. I've been thinking about him all day, feeling bad, because the situation down there is so bad, and it's sad that his children and his family are so fragmented at Christmas.
"I didn't go." He says. "I just went out drinking with Hunter. The time just got away from me."
I just decided not to react to this. This was a test.
So appropriate guilty reactions followed--phone calls and apologies, but as I'm writing this, I'm still kind of disappointed and hurt by the whole thing. The weird thing about people not being straightforward with me is that I just turn off.
I don't think I'm going to go to Madurai with him. I think I'll travel alone next time. We'll see. Maybe this is just stupid couple shit. I think it's just stupid couple shit.
This year my resolution is to 1)Take refuge in my own good nature as frequently as I can
2)Not get any parking tickets. I spent something like $500 dollars on parking tickets. 3)Not have habits that are traps--like weighing myself every day, or playing bejeweled compulsively, or reading tabloids, you know--the things that are designed to fritter time and sap your life away. Make you wish you were someone else
4)Be sweeter.

Cozumel

I'm in Mexico. In Cozumel, sitting in the white washed kitchenette of the Tamarindo bed and breakfast. The computer is french as is the proprietress, so the keys are just slightly different. It's an object lesson about habit and attitude, the unconscious physicalities that shape our communication with the world. I finally gave up and started sitting around Jay. I feel self-conscious doing it, but oh well. There is a tiny blue balcony overlooking the mexican street outside. Every day, the same man has ridden by, whistling, early in the morning, on a red bicycle. The cars are a little noisier here, and as I sit on the ledge and breathe, I can hear them coming from a long way off, then they pass in a rush and I keep returning to my breath, and I think, that's just like any thought, any emotion, you can hear the smoke and rattle and then they pass and fade and you keep breathing.
I have not felt entirely easy here, for one thing, Jay came here a lot, not to this specific hotel, but here, to Cozumel, with his ex, Hali, and I think there must be a lot of memories here for him, he is really so decent and quiet about these things. He has tried so hard. We've made sweet but slightly uneasy love here twice--I'm having my period and I bled through onto the sheets, which was sort of shameful in a way, although I know that it shouldn't be.
Wheww. Wherever you go there you are. I also think he is uneasy about the money, that he came here mainly for me, and that he's worried about things, as am I, but you know as you get older, there are always things that crowd and hound you and you just have to push them away from your clearing and live and love your life as best you can in spite of the shadows and the rats running across the floor. Boo! Light a fire, grab the broom and keep breathing and dancing. We went to mass on Christmas day and I watched all the people around me and even though I didn't know the language, I knew the story by heart and I thought, we're all in this together aren't we?
That's all the time I'm going to take away from Cozumel for now on this. We're flying out this afternoon, back to the snow and ice.

Fog

So, it's foggy outside. Spent the night out at the farm. Didn't make it in to H'okukuan this morning. Seido probably thinks I've dropped off the face of the earth. But honestly, does it matter whether I sit in my basement or his? Pebbles is sitting across from me on one of the dining room chairs, twitching her tail and hissing. Who knows why? Now she has jumped up on the table and is nuzzling me and purring.
Psycho.
Driving back to the house from the farm was like driving on another planet--the whole town is covered in mist, cars and buildings suddenly appearing, as if conjured. Got up after being naked belly to belly with Jay all night long, I sleep so much better with him than I do by myself. It's this very basic thing with him--not overwhelming emotionally, although it sometimes can be and has been, but my body just physically feels complete when I am with him. Sort of like--oh, that's where that bony knob on my wrist fits, and that's what my hip is for--okay--got it.
I'm still all revved up though, in "mom" mode. It's hard to divest myself of it. I feel all wired and capable. Got up this morning and made breakfast. "I don't eat breakfast" Jay says.
"Yes you do."
He sat down and ate.
This is sort of new for me, this voice. The "do this now it's good for you and don't piss me off" voice. It works like a charm on patients with head injuries, cuts right through the cerebral edema and brain fog:"Stop that. Stop playing with your poop. Put your legs back in the bed." They do it! Try it sometime. Channel your inner harridan, it's one of the secret pleasures of losing your looks, you get to boss people around.
Today I'm going to babysit Hali's daughter with Jay--we're going to the library. I'm going to dip early so I don't have to deal with La Loca. I've decided I'm not participating in unhealthy situations unless I actually have to. I guess I have to give the little baggage a present. I actually really like her, we have a lot of fun. We put on fairy wings and fly around the house and jump on furniture and she loves to come over to my house. My house has a lot of things your average 3 year old finds fascinating--funny carved and painted furniture, ottomans shaped like turtles, a rocking horse, rugs with pictures in them, mobiles. I didn't realize how much it was like this until she came over and I saw it through her eyes. I never thought about decorating the house, really, but I think I never evolved much beyond 7 or 8 in terms of aesthetics. Lilly agrees. "It's like a little kid picked out all the furniture, you didn't realize that?"
I hadn't. "Will your house be different?"
"Yes." she says. "This wouldn't work in an Italian Villa..although.." she mused "I guess the rugs could stay"
That's my 1/2 hour.

Refuge

Christmas, for me, is officially over.
Just packed the kids off with my parents. Down to Florida they go.
Even though I've been sitting, my equanimity is pretty much out the window.
My father kept tromping in and out of the house, all over my persian rugs. "Why are there wet spots on my Qashqai?" I screeched.
"Because I'm not a frickin muslim and I'm not going to take my shoes off in your house!"
Lilly decided she didn't want to eat at MacDonald's, so she made herself a mug full of Ramen noodles and was sort of drifting around, shoving big dripping glops of them in her mouth, as she sat at the computer, this computer, my computer, in the brand new chair in the living room. My mother was right, I have to hand it to her---Jay has dropped by a few times (something he never ever used to do)...and he plops right down in the chair. The Man Chair.
"Stop eating in the living room! That's a rule that's been extant since you were three. What's wrong with you."
Eye rolling. She goes into the dining room. Not so much a room really, in this little house, more like an area.
Last night, in two hours flat, I bought a tree after going 3 different places to find one--I tried to buy a fake, pre-lit tree, but I couldn't bring myself to do it--set it up, decorated it, finished my christmas shopping, wrapped the presents and dressed for dinner. Two hours. Only a trauma nurse would be able to accomplish that. We even put Christmas music on and had fun. My folks came over and we all went to Macaroni Grill for Christmas dinner--my mother will only eat in chains. She doesn't trust local restaurants. Then we came home and opened presents I got the usual assortment of horrible clothing I will never ever wear--except she did buy me a black satin trench coat which is actually pretty cool--but I did get Yoga money--hooray!
We gave her a gift that really silenced her: diamond earrings. Okay, diamond chip earrings. But still. The good mood and the peaceful dinner was worth the money. No sniping, no nasty swipes, no fussing at the waiter, no complaining about the pets or our facial expressions. She just sat there and gleamed.
This morning it all began again--I have these cute velvet boxes I picked up for 50 cents each after Christmas last year and I planned to fill them with candy--this wonderful candy I found at this little store in town--really good stuff and wrapped in foil and shaped as fishes and stars and coins and hearts and presents. Not that terrible crumbly stale Christmas chocolate you get at the grocery store that tastes like it's been sitting on someone's back shelf for the last 10 years. But I underestimated the size of the boxes, and when I went to fill them with the candy I found I could only fill 3 of them. For 10 teachers. So I had to go to Hobby Lobby, where they're having a 50% off sale on ornaments, and buy $40 bucks worth of ornaments. I guess that's not bad. It adds up, though, and I don't think we go as over the top as some people do. I've probably spent at least 800 dollars on Christmas. $800 I don't have--but there's work, and there's the doctor and the orthodontist and the hairdresser and the postman, and the garbage man(I've lived through a major natural disaster--garbage got piled in the streets 10 feet high--your garbage men are just about the most important people in your world, even if you don't realize it. Dirty nasty job. Don't forget them). You know though, it doesn't average out to too much per person. About 200/person for the main people, and then $200 total for all the extraneous people. But you have to think--what if we as a society gave up Christmas, just for one year, and gave all the money instead to people who have nothing--how many of the problems would go away? Or would we compound them since the world functions on waste now. Would the economy crash? My shrink says it would.
And as I was handing out my little velvet boxes to people, my heart got happy and the pain in the ass aspect faded away. Jay came by last night with presents for the kids, something else he has never done, wearing a Santa hat and the scarf I knit him last year. So things were happy and good. And I was thinking that this is really the time of year we say "thank you" to everyone around us who is nice and keeps our community going, or just makes life a little more pleasant, and that, in spite of all the commercialism/social obligation--it's good that we've institutionalized a time as a society where we do this--we give cookies to the teachers and cards to our friends. I think most every one's hassled and harried and poor, but overall, however imperfect, setting aside a time to be grateful (and, happy unrepentant Americans as we all are--a time to make money!) is a good thing.
So be grateful. Be grateful for the dishes and the mess and the obligations. Be grateful for the social web that holds you in, holds you together. People are hassled, but they're largely kind. Be grateful for the driver at the mall who lets you turn left and the clerk who's still good tempered. I was reading an article by Sylvia Boorstein in Shambala Sun today. She said "I take refuge in my own good nature." What a great idea! Me, too. Blessings to all and stay warm.
That's my 1/2 hour.

Rough Grace

On-call again today. It's 13 degrees outside. I'm sitting in the coffee shop, the Dakota lonely hearts club. "Time it was and what a time it was/a time of innocence/a time of confidences..."is playing. Lilly has a biology final today. She studied so hard--I hope she does well. She was listening to Enya on the ipod on the way to school today, as Margaret, the Mercury swung and slid on the ice to school--she does okay in the snow as long as you never apply the breaks, so we pray for green lights and just pretty much barrel through the stop signs. Elka, my 89 Saab turbo convertible does pretty well in the snow, but the windshield wipers quit working--so that's a problem. I told Lilly it was funny she listened to so much of the stuff I listened to in college (although, to be truthful, I never liked Enya very much) because I didn't like my parents' stuff...but here's Simon and Garfunkel at the Dakota proving me wrong, because I know every word.
This morning, it was Postal Service around the house. I swear, if our lives had a soundtrack, it would be that album. Swimming in November. Last week I had the strangest dream/that everything was exactly how it seemed...
What a relief that would be!
Making it up. Pretending things are okay. There's a strength in that, as long as you don't fool yourself.
My patient yesterday was an 85 year-old man. Severe abdominal pain, respiratory distress, pancreas had a pseudocyst--massively enlarged. He dumped 2 liters of bile out of his stomach once we got an NG down him. He helped us put the NG down. He was so good-humored and stoic. His brother had died last year of pancreatic cancer, so he knew what was up. I was working with our new nurse, Lela, the one from South Beach. I've been kind of avoiding her, because she seems to know a lot of the same places I knew, and you know...I just don't want to go there. We always end up talking about Miami, and I am so different from the person I was then...but I end up remembering things. I loved Miami. I loved my life there. But it was pretty seedy and carny for Little Dixie. I feel that I'm barely hanging on to middle-class and respectable by my bloody bitten fingernails--and I want to keep it that way. No more strangled cats for me. That's a story for another time.
So anyways, we're taking care of this man, and he's crouching on the commode after his second enema (he hasn't had a stool in nine days) shitting blood, his massive, distended cancerous abdomen hanging between his knees, like the devil's in his belly, and I'm squatting beside him, patting his back, like I would with Nick or Lilly, Lela is in front of him, holding his hands which he is squeezing tight, because he is in so much pain. He's vagal-ing, so the right side of his heart is saying "hola jesus" and throwing PVC's, and desatting, and in the midst of all this, he looks at me and says, "You know, even though I'm 85, I can still have sex. I had sex 2 weeks ago."
"With your wife?"
He starts laughing.
Lela says: "No wonder she drives seven hours every day to see you."
"Next time," he says, between cramps, "we're just going to pull the curtains and lock the door."
"We'll leave you two alone." I say.
"No--we'll lock the door so she can't get in! Just be us."
"Conno" Lela says. Christ, I think. Haven't heard that out of anybody's mouth except mine in almost ten years--well, Lilly used to say it, but I made her stop. I can't do the n right on this blog--it's pronounced "connyo" and it's a very bad word.
"I can dream, can't I?"
Rough grace, but grace nonetheless.
Had a dream about Wiz. Ugly old Wiz, with his worn yellow teeth and wrinkled carp-like face, of all people. I astonish myself. Nothing happened in it. He tried to kiss me in the dream. It was summer and we were walking down North Boulevard in our town. He was carrying a paper sack with condoms and chocolate. For some reason there was a beach at the end of the street, even though in real life, it ends at the freeway. "Aren't you married?" I asked him.
"Yeah--is that a deal breaker?"
"yeah."
" I thought it might be." he said. We were sitting on the beach. It was the beach near my first apartment in Miami, the one where the old woman in the Sari would come to feed the gulls at sunset. A small, wild, empty part of the beach. Kind of blighted in its way. The woman was standing with her hands raised up, the sun was setting and the birds were swirling around.
In the dream I started tenderly stroking Wiz's close cropped fish head, patting his cheeks, tracing his wrinkles. 'I'll just pat you." I told him. "that's okay, I think."
Then I woke up.
It's 13 degrees outside. Quiet nights with Quiet Stars is playing now. Another song of my parents I forgot I used to listen to.
That's my 1/2 hour and the phone just rang--calling me in back to the twilight ship.

Christmas Band Concerts

I'm exhausted. Had staff meetings last night, then Lilly's jazz concert. She sang Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. She did a good job. Got a little nervous and lost some of her fluidity--but that's to be expected. Her friends all came to hear her sing, even though they're not in band. Some of them even live 40 miles away. We've got some nice people around us. I hope I can live up to them.
Last year's concert was better overall, I think. They combined everybody this year, and it was terrible. The only decent music they're making at Lilly's school is in the jazz band. The orchestra and choir just stink. This year they decided to combine all the recitals, so I had to sit through all this terrible stuff. They also changed the venue. Last year's was in Senior Hall. Lilly's school is held at a small local girl's private college My grandmother went there and my aunt (but she got kicked out for inappropriate behavior), and one of my best friends. Senior hall is a big, beautiful old house and one of the meeting rooms has a little platform in it. The feeling was a lot cozier, and I liked sitting there thinking about my grandmother being there in the twenties. This year they held the event in a regular auditorium, one of those cold institutional creations they made in the 60's. I gave Jay a pass on this event, which he took greatfully. My parents were coming, and they can be a little difficult. They arrived late, after the concert had started. Nick and I had saved seats for them, but a woman came and sat in one of them, just simply moved my coat out of it and sat down. I thought that was a little weird, since there were plenty of seats, but I didn't want to say anything. Sometimes people do things that are so rude I am just flummoxed. So my folks got in and sat 2 rows down from us. I was glad of this later, because during the orchestra performance, my dad started tittering and my mom started saying nasty things about them in this stage whisper which can frankly be heard to the far end of creation. The problem with my parents having known each other since they were eleven is that they act eleven with each other. My dad has this laugh, "hoohoohoohoohoohoohoo" that just sort of goes on and on quietly. The headmaster was sitting on the other side of Nick. I didn't know what to do. I mean, the auditorium wasn't that big, and at every wincing screeching note, his giggle would sort of rev up. He was the only person doing this. I mean, we're all adults right? We all know that what's going on is just terrible. Everybody in there is holding on to the edge of their seat and gritting their teeth to get through this nicely. Can't they behave? All the zen meditation really helps in situations like these--I just focus on my breath, or I internally watch the laughter, but I don't let it out. I think about other things, like how nice it is that we're all alive and here together on this snowy night and how sweet and young the screeching children look as the stage lights shine on their gleaming hair. I try to think--well--this isn't an experience about sound--it's about everybody dressing up, it's about supporting our kids. But then they launched into pachabel's canon, and I really had a hard time. "Oh, boy," Nick breathed. "I wish grandfather would stop giggling, I think people are noticing."
The words to the canon go 'In the silence of our souls oh Lord we contemplate thy peace...' what better opportunity to meditate on those words...what better way to fortify the soul than to find your soul's peace even in the midst of those awful violins. Breathe in, breathe out. Hunter was there with Sybil. They looked like they were about to be shot.
Then it ended, and my mother turns around and looks at me and makes this crazy face, sticking out her tongue, and my father doubles over, shaking with silent glee.
Nick and I just sit there, stoically. I am very proud of Nick, sometimes. I mean, how did the parents of those kids feel watching my parents act like that?
Oh, god...
That's my 1/2 hour.

Bangs

I'm hungry.
I haven't been hungry in 3 weeks.
I got my hair cut today. It's been over 6 months. Embarrassing. My hairdresser, Shirin, went overboard, because she knows she won't see me for another season. I hate it. She gave me bangs. I told her that I just wanted little wispy tendrils to escape from my braid and soften my features, and she gave me these full-on bangs that I hate. I look like a wrinkly seventh grader. That's probably why I'm hungry--I need to eat to take away the pain. Maybe I'll drink instead.
Shirin is getting married. It's been a long haul.
I met Shirin 9 years ago. At that time, I had a beautiful little 3 color process blonde bob that needed care about every six weeks. This Japanese girl was cutting my hair--sort of. I never thought she was that great, but in this town she was the best I could find. I had to cancel appointments occasionally--something was always coming up--my kids were young and and I was newly single. One day, as I was making my next appointment, she came up to me and said that if I canceled this appointment she would charge me the full amount and she would never schedule another appointment with me again. I thought this was a little grandiose--I just laughed "what are you, a shrink?" I handed her $150 (a lot for a haircut in Little Dixie) and said, "please consider my next cut and color canceled. Here's some cash in advance for your trouble. " Then I looked at the receptionist, a fat queen staring at me open-mouthed, and said "Harold, please make an appointment for me with someone who understands single-motherhood."
He gave me to Shirin. Harold, by the way, became a good friend--he ended up working at the nursing school. He still talks about that incident. "Oh my god, it was like a movie or something. You just slapped that cash down. You should have seen her face. She was so arrogant..."
So I got Shirin who was a single mom herself. Of course, I have been left in the chair with foils half in and wet hair as she ran out of the shop to go pick up a sick kid--but all in all, the relationship has worked out. And the hair has been generally good--except today. I mean, I guess I suppose it is good, I just haven't learned to appreciate it. Sometimes Shirin takes my appearance into her own hands.
Shirin has been dating her guy 5 years. He's very sweet and boring, but they did have one terrible break-up over a coffee maker. About 3 years ago, she thought the relationship was moving steadily toward marriage. He was staying over at her house 5 nights out of seven and she thought it was just a matter of time. She had a very expensive coffee maker--some sort of beautiful $1000 brass Italian thingy. He just loved it.
Well, around Christmastime, they were shopping in St. Louis, and he bought the exact same coffee-maker. "Why are you buying a coffee maker?" she asked. "We already have one."
"You have one." He told her. "I don't. I want my own."
Oops.
She thought that was a bad sign and dumped him.
They got back together.
I'm glad. She has had kind of a nose for bad guys--like future denizens of the federal penitentiary.
One guy turned out to be a bank robber. A very charming bank robber, one who had had leads in all the high school plays around here. "I kept wondering why he kept all his money in cash in a gym bag!" she said.
Ah. Bad sign.
He was dating another friend of mine at the same time, Lark, a former beauty queen. Lark and Shirin would both tell me stories about this terrific new guy they were seeing--and I'd think--'wow, that sounds exactly like something Shirin's guy would do' or vice versa--and I was even kind of jealous. They were both dating this terrific, charming guy. Then they told me his name and I realized they were seeing the same person. I didn't know what to do.
So one day, I just casually said, "Wow, that sounds exactly like the guy Lark is dating. Does he have a brother or something?"
Shirin stopped cutting my hair. "Lark is obsessed with him. She calls him constantly and follows him around. You can't believe anything she says. She's crazy."
And then Lark would say, "Shirin is so desperate. He wants to break up with her, but she calls him all the time and follows him around. She's crazy. He doesn't want to hurt her feelings, so he hasn't officially broken it off--but they're not having sex."
Women. We're all so desperate.
But they got wise eventually. Sometimes I'm glad I'm kind of plain--I escape the notice of these lotharios.
"I don't understand how you could have fallen for him..." I said to Shirin, once.
She shrugged.
Then to change the subject, I started talking about movies. The Royal Tennenbaums was just out, and we started talking about that.
"I like Rushmore better, "I offered. If you recall, Rushmore is my favorite movie. I've watched it probably 200 times.
Shirin got sad. "That was his favorite movie. He had it on tape. He would watch it over and over again."
I gasped. "I do that."
Shirin put my head between her hands, leaned over me, face next to mine, side by side in the mirror. "You would have fallen in love with him, too, Haley Patton."

Near miss, I guess.

That's my 1/2 hour.