Rachael

 

Had a rough dream about Mom yesterday afternoon. This is why I do not take naps normally. Dreams are always scarier, more visceral. Something about grabbing that time to rest — it just throws me off.

I dreamed that Mom was healthy and fine, and in the dream my sisters and I were remembering that time with her when she was so sick we thought she might die. We were so happy in the dream, knowing she didn’t die, laughing that we’d thought she might. Then, at the very end of the dream, I’m outside smoking (!) in front of the library, and I remember her death. I remember specifics about her dying. It’s so awful that I wake myself up, and then I lie there. What a horrible dream. I’ve repeatedly dreamed ever since I was very small that someone I love dies, and it’s always a great relief to lie there in bed and slowly make the connections, No, I talked to her yesterday and she’s going to Target today, that was just a dream. But I couldn’t do that. Instead, I had to walk myself through the memories of her dying because the dream of her being alive was so fucking real. That was pleasant.

I had a seventeen-minute long CPR call the other day. It was that long because they lived so far out in the country. It was the first thing she said when she called, "We’re so far away! They’ll never make it in time." So this elderly farm wife did CPR on her husband for seventeen minutes, and while I coached her through every minute, I heard the grief set in. I never have to hear that. Normally I only hear the fear. No one, no outside party should hear that private grief that happens moments after death. The call, the woman’s love for her husband, and the way she worked on him even though we both knew it wouldn’t help (she would not give UP! I’ve never heard anything stronger), affected me more than any other call I’ve ever had. I went outside to cry. Within three minutes I walked back in, back in control (mostly). I apologized to my coworkers for failing the dispatcher code of no crying.

A coworker said, "No, I think you passed the human code, that’s all." That helped.

And that call, I think, is what’s brought up some extra grief about Mom. Extra slice! Another helping! Great! Just when I thought I was pulling it together.

The world gives you a set time to grieve. A friend of ours told my sister that we’d get about a month, and then the world would assume we were pretty much done with it. I’m not done. I’m better, and I’m happy again, and I can sing and write and live without constant pain, but I’m still so sad over here, in this pocket of myself. I can almost point to to where the pocket of sad is, deep in my chest, the core of my body.

It was funny — I woke from that dream, and I found a message on my cell phone. My sisters were having a funky day, and were headed for a Friday happy hour. So I got to meet them there in a little dive bar in Oakland. We don’t know why it was such a crappy day, particularly. But it was, and it was good to be with them. We’re lucky to have each other.

Today, I’m going to write. And maybe cook something for my work week. And clean the house. And go to Costco for Roomba 4.0 (the latest one just died — must exchange again). And somewhere in there, I just want to sit and knit and laugh with Lala. It’s good. It’s rough sometimes, but it’s good.

(That’s Bethany’s new tattoo up top, a New Zealand Tui bird gracing it. We’re not bugging Christy yet to join our ranks, but if she wanted to THAT WOULD BE OKAY. No pressure, though.)

Things not to do when getting a migraine:

1. Go for a run for the first time in three months. (It was a great run, strangely. But I’ve done this in the past — the first run is great. It’s the second one that hurts.)

2. Eat sliced turkey luncheon meat and four of those little red wrapped cheeses (you know the ones) for dinner because it’s eight at night now and you’ve been up since four in the morning, and you can’t wait for food even long enough to heat up pasta water.

3. Bake brownies for next-door neighbor Sam (with the grill the size of a Buick bumper and a heart even bigger) who’s having a party for his 29th birthday. Embrace the if-you-can’t-beat-em-join-em philosophy, and take the shot of Patron you’re offered.

Lord have mercy. I’m dying today. I have to work, though; we’re short-staffed and I have no sick time left over from being with Mom. Wearing sunglasses at work is terrifying when you walk in the bathroom and don’t recognize the person looking at you in the mirror. Ow.

My office is just about done. Even before I was given the surprise desk, I spent a full day cleaning out the yarn/writing room. I wanted more writing, less yarn. After hours and hours of crawling around and swearing, I got rid of four garbage bags of trash. Not even donate-able stuff, just junk. Where did it come from? I was ruthless this time, throwing out broken-down memorabilia and ugly picture frames. I even got rid of the love letters. I’d always saved them, thinking, awwww, it’ll be nice to reread these someday. Nope. Not so much. I glanced at some and got all wooodgy and squirmy about it. Fifty years from now, I bet I’d feel the way. I’m not in those relationships for good reasons, and while love is a great thing to find and have, once it’s gone, there’s no reason to revisit it, except in memory. And if I personally didn’t write it down, I won’t remember it. Someone else’s writing, even directed to me, doesn’t prompt anything in my memory, I’ve found.

[Speaking of memory-lapses: I argued with Lala last night. She said I’d been to Yoshi’s for dinner. I said I hadn’t, not ever, but I wanted to go. She said I was just plain wrong. I stuck to my guns until she called my sister-in-law, who was at this alleged dinner. She agreed with Lala! She said I was there! I gave up and ate my ice cream in sullen defeat, but I still wonder if they’re just thinking of someone who looked like me.]

During the cleaning-spree, I went through paperwork. Now, people. I haven’t filed in two and a half years, not since before we moved to this house. I’d just been stacking paper horizontally in boxes. And I had a very full filing cabinet that moved along with me that hadn’t even been looked at for more years than I care to remember. So I cleaned it all out, only saving the important stuff, the taxes, house paperwork, and the like. I’m down to one small filing box from Ikea which is only half-full. Oh, the feeling of power!

I shredded a garbage bag full of paper (which creates a LOT of shredded paper, I tell ya). That was fun. I like to shred things, especially papers from the 90s. Found a three-dollar BART card. Whoopee!

This paper dilemma won’t happen again, and I actually mean this (I’m really pretty darn sure. Mostly). I’ve had great success this year with a new filing system. I know I read about it on a GTD site somewhere: I got an expandable file folder (like THIS one), with 13 pockets. I labeled each pocket with a month, and I have one pocket for miscellaneous stuff that needs to be dealt with soon, but not immediately. Once I pay a bill or process something, it goes into the relevant month’s pocket.

So far so good, right? The REALLY fun part happens when you’ve been using this system for a year (I’m almost there! Come on, October!). Then you pull out everything in that pocket from last year and get rid of almost all of it. Shred it all. Keep tax stuff and health stuff, obviously. Anything you might actually need again. But a year later, you’re probably never going to need to reference your water bill again. You know? I can’t wait for that part. Then you perma-file the long-term stuff, and keep on rolling along. This actually gives me a thrill to think about.

This all might be really boring if you’re not one of THOSE people. But I’m one of those people. I can read for days about what pen people think is best. Me, I’m a Pilot G-2 .5 kind of girl, to the point that I carry my pen to work and take it home with me at night.

Oh, and by the way, I AM NEVER ALLOWED TO BUY FIBER AGAIN. Yarn, maybe. But no fiber, until I spin at least half of the obscene amount I now have tucked away in the bedroom closet (tucked away sounds so cute. Like I just popped it in there and closed the door, instead of the truth: that I forced it all into an enormous contractor bag and then used all my strength to push it in and then shut the door by dint of sheer brute force). Must spin more. And must read more. Really, I have no need to buy any more yarn/fiber/books for a very long time. While I’m sure I’ll forget this (and quickly), it makes me feel good to know. When the revolution comes, I’ll have enough to read and knit and spin.

Lala is making bacon and eggs in the kitchen. She’s wearing her pink flannel pajama bottoms with the horseshoes on them and a Boudin sourdough tee-shirt. I’m in my nightgown with yoga pants underneath. Hott.

I’ve been writing in my room. Trying to, anyway, around the myriad animals who keep lolloping through the room.

Clara just ate a stick of butter. Paper still on.

I have a new desk that beloved friends ganged up to buy for me. (Actually, they just gave me the money and ordered me to go get something good, something solid. A real desk.)

Isn’t is GORGEOUS? It’s solid oak, and will last forever. The kind of desk you want to get under in an earthquake. That left drawer is actually a slide-out keyboard tray, and I have a new wireless Mac keyboard and mouse (SO GREAT) also paid for by my friends, so I’m mostly ergo! At home! Unreal. I have a real office now. I look out at the pink house across the street, and I hear the next-door neighbor kids helping their dad Sam build a skate-board ramp. A very good start to the day.

Except for the missing butter.

Did I tell you I got an Amazon Kindle? I don’t think I did. I can tell you without reservation that I love it. I worried — I thought it would be too bulky (it’s not), or too first-generation (I don’t think so). I know that’s it’s too expensive, but it was my post-fire overtime-money splurge, and at no other time would we have been able to afford it, so I got one. I’m an early adopter, you know. Love to adopt early and often.

For those three of you who don’t know what a Kindle is — it’s an electronic reader. What I love about it is this: say you’re flipping through People magazine (Yes, People. If you read People and The New Yorker every week, you can speak to anyone at any party. And People’s book reviews are better than TNY, I swear), and say you see a book you want to read. You can either roll to your computer and send it to your Kindle and be reading it around thirty seconds, or you can go online wirelessly (for no charge) to search for and buy the book. That’s the kind of instant gratification I’ve been looking for for YEARS. You can even use it to go online, for free, no internet charge of any kind. But honestly, I haven’t really used it for that. It’s dial-up slow and black and white. What I love about it is always having a choice of reading in my purse. I’m a five book at a time kinda gal, and that gets heavy.

I’ve read four or five books now on the Kindle, and it’s awesome, particularly for knitters. No pages to fly open! Prop it up on your knee or make the font bigger and prop it a little further away, on the table, and you’ve got knitting nirvana. Sure, you have to punch the button to turn the page, but you’d have to turn the page anyway, right? It’s easy to read, low-glare, and I adore it. Seems somehow easier to read in bed (I lie on my side), also.

Reading now: The Lace Reader, Brunonia Barry (link to right). Lovely book so far. Echoes of Alice Hoffman, with an earthier feel. It’s feather-light on the romance — I’m enjoying watching which direction it will go. Also, the lace references are just made for us fiber-folk.

Read last: Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen. Oh, TRES Alice Hoffman. I’ll have to watch my own writing to keep magical-realism that I’ve been absorbing at bay. This is the younger, frothier, frappuccino niece of Practical Magic. Sister witches, a run from a bad man, finally using the power for good. But for all I raised my eyebrows at the similarities and its silliness, I kept reading, and I ended up liking it. I bought into the apple tree that threw its apples at people. Light and sweet.

Reading next: Who knows? Could be anything! (But will probably be Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Love his writing, and REALLY need to get back into running.)