I actually took a class called Marriage 101 at MSU. I don't remember what I learned. My cousin’s now ex-husband was in the class and we would go to Baskin's and Robbins’ after class. I always had a single scoop German chocolate cake ice cream cone. It was delicious, especially the bits of pecan and coconut. I married before my final paper was due. I think my grade was a B+.
It has been thirty-five years since that class since we promised our church, our state and each other to honor and respect as long as we both may love. I must have attained some degree of matrimonial skills.
Romantically envisioning a heart beating as one is obliterated as I sit alone in the waiting room of a jail, clutching my child’s antidepressants in a haze of blame-filled tears. In an emergency room begging my sister not to call, not ready to hear the frustrated voice calculating the expense of more normal tests. It is learning a spouse is not everything. We may share, children, possessions, interests, but when I miss my mom I call my sister, when I am depressed I wrap myself around my big dogs, when I am sick I call the doctor and hope it passes quickly. It does not diminish the significance of our union, but grants freedom. Freedom, from the impossibility of being everything to each other and the failure that follows.
Marriage is listening to the same story a hundred times and listening to it again. It's screaming and being screamed at, lost remotes, forgotten bills, barking dogs, dirty dishes, on and on and on through a mundane mountain. The ordinary is comforting.
It is the unexpected, where there is no internal GPS, that is when the illusions of partner collide with reality. Together through the dark rides, a team of two, pushing through, holding the flashlight, keeping guard while one sleeps. Celebrating triumphant, third grade basketball, jobs not lost, the sun shining.
Life is messy,loud, and complicated. To share this adventure of the unknown with someone a precious gift.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Hospital Holiday
I feel my head tilting forward and my eyes blur. Sleep is fighting with me, unconcerned that I sit in this small public restroom, footsteps away from a large contingent of shoppers. I start to dream, leaving is what I call it, as I sit on the porcelain chair. I awaken minutes, seconds, later with subtracted time and the bright dream,forgotten. I smile at the absurdity, still peeing a weak yellow stream. I'm glad I haven't urinated on myself, also glad I keep a complete change of clothes with me if I do. It is the irony of having a mostly invisible disorder. I am not climactic in my episodes, unless you equate bodily functions with drama. Sleeping and clenching my mouth like a self-involved bovine is just uninteresting. I struggle with the thought that I have invented this neurological handbag of symptoms. I imagine the doctors assigned to my neurosis are not amused. Their child-like faces scowling at the wasted resources on middle-age mediocrity.
I hope my self-deprecating personality will placate them as they scribble blandly in a virtual notebook: Diagnosis - Slight neurological irregularities, unknown origin, mild to moderate brain atrophy, probable congenital or birth trauma. More tests needed to assign physiological or psychological manifestations of symptoms.
TOO MUCH STOP!
I can't bear the quiet and my voice charges in."Did I tell you about the bear, red birds, smoking children on a rug?" Did I mention the auditory ghosts, phones ringing, cats yowling, and when I think babies are crying I lactate, but only on one side. I really don't know if I'm sleeping or it is a seizure, seems like sleeping...they stop writing and look up. "I'll refer you."
The beginning of my summer vacation will be a hypochondriac's dream, inpatient at the University of Michigan EEG/Video Monitoring Unit. My biggest fear is nothing will show up, Thankfully,I will still be a narcoleptic. I did great on the sleeping test! What makes me grateful that I have a name for my Rip Van Winkle tendencies, validation? I have had a positive EEG, that sent me on a schizophrenic journey of anti-seizure drugs, but my normal tests are overwhelming, taxing the computer system, contrast brain and occipital lobe MRI's, heart monitors, heart catherization, gastric ultrasounds, colonoscopies, blood work, an entire episode of House recorded in my file.
I am excited for this medical mecca, constrained to a single room with wires attached to my head. My books are piled waiting to be read, multicolor yarn whispering, take me with you, whole seasons of uninterrupted TV to watch, sweet bliss.
I hope my self-deprecating personality will placate them as they scribble blandly in a virtual notebook: Diagnosis - Slight neurological irregularities, unknown origin, mild to moderate brain atrophy, probable congenital or birth trauma. More tests needed to assign physiological or psychological manifestations of symptoms.
TOO MUCH STOP!
I can't bear the quiet and my voice charges in."Did I tell you about the bear, red birds, smoking children on a rug?" Did I mention the auditory ghosts, phones ringing, cats yowling, and when I think babies are crying I lactate, but only on one side. I really don't know if I'm sleeping or it is a seizure, seems like sleeping...they stop writing and look up. "I'll refer you."
The beginning of my summer vacation will be a hypochondriac's dream, inpatient at the University of Michigan EEG/Video Monitoring Unit. My biggest fear is nothing will show up, Thankfully,I will still be a narcoleptic. I did great on the sleeping test! What makes me grateful that I have a name for my Rip Van Winkle tendencies, validation? I have had a positive EEG, that sent me on a schizophrenic journey of anti-seizure drugs, but my normal tests are overwhelming, taxing the computer system, contrast brain and occipital lobe MRI's, heart monitors, heart catherization, gastric ultrasounds, colonoscopies, blood work, an entire episode of House recorded in my file.
I am excited for this medical mecca, constrained to a single room with wires attached to my head. My books are piled waiting to be read, multicolor yarn whispering, take me with you, whole seasons of uninterrupted TV to watch, sweet bliss.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sigh
Just when I think I have successfully organized my brain into calculating the inner workings of income tax, banking, bill paying,and paperwork mazes, I am met again with another costly failure. I want to believe that I can aspire to these tasks, but distraction and the sleepiness that overtakes me negates my good intentions. I know I am somewhere else between the awake and sleeping. I wish it was like drifting away by a field of red poppies, traveling with a singing trio, who find my company fascinating. It is not, no kindly Tin man for me. Frustrating and annoying those around me, who say they wish they could sleep like me.
I must face the reality of my choppy brain. I also must somehow communicate this effectively, beyond the pleading, whining, and obvious errors. I need help with these sequential tasks, not explosive tirades about files and putting things away. Impatience is my enemy, waiting for help, repetitively asking for oversight, closing my ears to the terse responses, compels me to hastily do it myself. Maybe that is why my soul prefers to sleep, dreaming of kind witches, emerald cities and a wizard who will know the answer.
I must face the reality of my choppy brain. I also must somehow communicate this effectively, beyond the pleading, whining, and obvious errors. I need help with these sequential tasks, not explosive tirades about files and putting things away. Impatience is my enemy, waiting for help, repetitively asking for oversight, closing my ears to the terse responses, compels me to hastily do it myself. Maybe that is why my soul prefers to sleep, dreaming of kind witches, emerald cities and a wizard who will know the answer.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Paper Hoarders
Simplify, organize, de-clutter, recycle, become a minimalist. I do want order and space, no closet doors, or drawers shoved shut like the suitcase I sit on to close. It eludes me as I deny the resolutions, pleas, promises made when viewing disgusting, but compelling hoarding reality shows.
I am sorting through my mother's life, my mother's treasures. It overwhelms me. The floor carpeted in papers,recipes, yellowed scraps about , her lawyer, relatives, classmates, her dentist who won the lotto. Obituaries overflow their metal coffin, the dead box . Pictures tucked into envelopes, books, letters, a scavenger hunt into the belly of the endless bags. Hours escape as I meet this woman, this girl, my mother. She's funny and feisty. She fights with boys and has a secret detective club, where she of course is the president. She has many pictures and letters of boys in military uniforms, who ask her to write and think she's swell. There is her senior writing project with all her dreams and aspirations inked on lined paper in 1945. How I miss my mother and now I miss this other mother, who was gone before I was born.
I am sorting through my mother's life, my mother's treasures. It overwhelms me. The floor carpeted in papers,recipes, yellowed scraps about , her lawyer, relatives, classmates, her dentist who won the lotto. Obituaries overflow their metal coffin, the dead box . Pictures tucked into envelopes, books, letters, a scavenger hunt into the belly of the endless bags. Hours escape as I meet this woman, this girl, my mother. She's funny and feisty. She fights with boys and has a secret detective club, where she of course is the president. She has many pictures and letters of boys in military uniforms, who ask her to write and think she's swell. There is her senior writing project with all her dreams and aspirations inked on lined paper in 1945. How I miss my mother and now I miss this other mother, who was gone before I was born.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
The Promise
“They’ll take the farm. You’ve got to keep them from taking it all.”
As long as my father, who had been condemned to his own circular prison was alive, I heard his woe-filled voice repeat those words. I knew from an early age I never wanted to be a farmer, marry a farmer or have any association with agriculture. There were too many variables, the weather, the prices, the government, the broken equipment, and the inconsistant laborers. Time was always the most vicious terrorist. My father could only farm part-time. He spent his days with the sounds of the refrigerator factory taunting him, plotting to fulfill his own prophecy of failure. .
Life on the farm was a roller coaster controlled by my father’s emotional state. He left the world with his farm still firmly planted in the souls of his eight children. I did not know if it was a curse or a gift. Before my mother’s death we made the farm a small corporation owned by, his mostly dysfunctional dynasty. I did keep my promise ill- advised or not. And in return I became the reluctant manager.
I walk the fields with my dogs giddy with their leashless freedom. In the summer I pick baskets of black-purple elderberries. My sister and I plant a garden of heirloom tomatoes and neon leaved kale. Whatever grows is because of the rich soil and its steely determination. We did not learn how to garden as children, but how to avoid the servitude of field work. The rows of sunflowers are brilliant, living bird feeders. The bee man leaves his hives. In the heat of summer the intoxicating aroma of sweet, clover honey hangs in the air.
I know I am falling in love, futily resisting my cruel suitor. When spring arrives I am resigned to this unsolicited love. The hunt for morels consumes me, addicted to the search and the exhilaration of the find. The woods are a fluorescent green, carpeted with purple and yellow violets, trilliums shaded by umbrella plants and amongst the fallen trees perhaps a mushroom jewel, its brainy cap, a beacon of gourmet riches.
I raise my head and arms to the sky, standing on the family dirt. I'm king of the world! Thank you dad.
As long as my father, who had been condemned to his own circular prison was alive, I heard his woe-filled voice repeat those words. I knew from an early age I never wanted to be a farmer, marry a farmer or have any association with agriculture. There were too many variables, the weather, the prices, the government, the broken equipment, and the inconsistant laborers. Time was always the most vicious terrorist. My father could only farm part-time. He spent his days with the sounds of the refrigerator factory taunting him, plotting to fulfill his own prophecy of failure. .
Life on the farm was a roller coaster controlled by my father’s emotional state. He left the world with his farm still firmly planted in the souls of his eight children. I did not know if it was a curse or a gift. Before my mother’s death we made the farm a small corporation owned by, his mostly dysfunctional dynasty. I did keep my promise ill- advised or not. And in return I became the reluctant manager.
I walk the fields with my dogs giddy with their leashless freedom. In the summer I pick baskets of black-purple elderberries. My sister and I plant a garden of heirloom tomatoes and neon leaved kale. Whatever grows is because of the rich soil and its steely determination. We did not learn how to garden as children, but how to avoid the servitude of field work. The rows of sunflowers are brilliant, living bird feeders. The bee man leaves his hives. In the heat of summer the intoxicating aroma of sweet, clover honey hangs in the air.
I know I am falling in love, futily resisting my cruel suitor. When spring arrives I am resigned to this unsolicited love. The hunt for morels consumes me, addicted to the search and the exhilaration of the find. The woods are a fluorescent green, carpeted with purple and yellow violets, trilliums shaded by umbrella plants and amongst the fallen trees perhaps a mushroom jewel, its brainy cap, a beacon of gourmet riches.
I raise my head and arms to the sky, standing on the family dirt. I'm king of the world! Thank you dad.
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