Operating Instructions

“I heard someone say once that forgiveness
is having given up all hope of having had a better past.”–Anne Lamott

Rainy days always make me feel twelve again, hiding in my room with Vivaldi and another round of reading “The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle,” the window cracked and a comforter, alone but not the least bit lonely. Once, when I was eight, I climbed up on the roof of our shed in a rainstorm just as it was passing and prayed to God that if it would just come back for a few more minutes, I’d never stop believing in something bigger than me. I think those last few returning drops in that sunshower sealed the deal, and I haven’t really ever been able to shake the feeling.

When I was fifteen, I wanted to kill myself. I sat down with intentions, and a blade. Stared it down and then wept and cried until it seemed like someone reached into my brain and said I wasn’t to blame for all the misery and loneliness I felt. Things were going to be ok. I waited for that whisper again so many times. When the loneliness, the regret, wrapped around me again and again. I think sometimes I’m still waiting. I haven’t been to church in so long. I don’t know what I would do there. I sometimes imagine myself sitting silently in the back, reciting the familiar liturgy, saying the same soft prayers I knew as a child, the stained glass of my grandmother’s church, the red velvet cushions, the bibles thick and gilded on the side, paper thin sheets of scripture pressed tightly as our hands, the flickering of candles in a dim corner, the organ music reverberating in the deep ceiling, intricate and wide as the hull of a great vessel gone to sea.

When our baby died earlier this year, it was like those last few ropes that tethered me to my life were splitting, the knot loosened and frayed.  I wondered what it would be like to stop on the bridge on the way to work each day and jump into the oncoming highway traffic. I kept waiting for a wrong turn, or a slippery edge. I haven’t thought about that for a while now. The pain gets easier, as it always does. Things fade a little. Time is good like that. Reliable.

I finished reading “Operating Instructions” today. Lamot always gets her hooks in me with the first few lines of everything. It doesn’t seem to matter what page. I wonder how she can be so astonished by her own faith, and yet so devoted to it. I don’t know if I’ll ever understand. But I think, at least, that I can work on living up to the idea of giving up hope of having had a better past. I’m working on this now, having finally started talking to my mother again. The thing is, all this time, I thought I was waiting for an apology, but when I got it, nothing changed. I was still pissed off. Still righteous and bleeding. I’ve been feeding this anger and resentment for so long, I wasn’t sure I could stop. I’m still not entirely sure. But I’m trying. I’m letting her into my life a little at a time. It feels dangerous, like wading out into the ocean, knowing how to swim but unsure that the sharks have been fed today. I’m doing the best I can. (Please pray for me).

I am supposed to be feeling some kind of mother glow. Some kind of nesting, instinctual excitement. I am supposed to, but I don’t. Not the way most people seem to think I should. People keep asking me how I’m feeling. The best I can do is good, fine. I’m still waiting, in a way, for you to seem real. For you to live. Even though I know that is all I can hope for. Some of us don’t get much time. I keep thinking of Matthew, who died last year, after twelve years getting only to see some of the seventh grade. I wonder if he ever kissed a girl. I try not to think of him, but lately, his face keeps floating back to me. His head swollen and scarred above his beautiful, silent eyes. I asked my students to make a short autobiographical film at the beginning of school that year. I think I still have him on tape, putting on a brave face and telling the camera he gets through life with a smile. He grinned then, trying hard to keep us from seeing how tired, how sick and tired he was, from the cancer in his body. I think maybe I have put the cameras away because I am afraid I will have to delete what I have left of him, of someone else.

A woman at my work lost her husband unexpectedly last year. It happened just after I lost my first pregnancy. She stopped me in the hallway not long ago to ask if she could borrow my cameras. When I said yes, she explained that she had her own, but that it contained a short film of her husband just before he died, and she didn’t want to use it. She walked away then, and I could see the tears starting up behind her eyes.

The mystery of this still leaves me scratching my head, that a baby was made in my body, grew on my milk, and lives here in the house with the kitty and me. It’s too big to comprehend: Pammy said the other day that the thing happening in her body is so bizarre, so unthinkable, that trying to accept it is like being eight years old again with someone explaining to her that the light from the star she is staring at took twenty years to reach her. All she can do is to stand there staring at the star with a kind of fearful wonder, waiting for the information to make sense.–Lamott

In a way, this is how I feel too. I am waiting for the information to make sense. Waiting, as I lie awake in the early morning when I have no earthly need to be awake, for you to make your movements known, for something like prayer to take away the last of the self pity and replace it with something new, something solid and whole and beautiful.

I am still waiting to look up and find myself floating in the wide arc of something–alone but not lonely.

Frost knew this all before

These are always the most beautiful days…
while everything holds its last,
before the stems stiffen and drop their sails,
before the snow drifts build and bury all alike.

The small fruits of shrubs and trees have yet to harden and fall,
a bouquet unwrapped and scattered before the vase.

Already the garden leans,
bearing down
under the weight of the few
we manage to harvest before the frost,
before the flies, the worms, devoted to their tides,
drop dead and sodden,
dampening the darkened loam,
building, beneath the belly of sky,
another grain of sand.

Before the sun, still, breaks their trembling and burns
above a rigid sheet of ice, the silent surface,
the whipping crack of dawn.

But now the earth still splits, still seams.
Now the blooms break open.
Easily as ships cut through rain.

These are always the most beautiful days.
Still promises to keep. Still miles to go before we sleep.

something’s coming. something good. who knows?

Already my heart and mind are wholly devoted to fall. I am hopelessly infatuated with the smells of baked apples, cinnamon, pumpkin, and cloves. With the warm, comforting smells of oven-baked dishes–roasted potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole. It’s not my stomach I want to fill, it’s my senses. The aromas and textures of a home preparing for cold weather. The desire to make things tidy and clean. To smooth down the corners, the linens, the countertops. To wrap myself in blankets while a cool breeze drifts through the open window, a good book and a sleeping cat, a drowsy husband.

These are always the most beautiful days. While everything holds its last for just a few more moments, still strong on the limb before the trembling starts, before the rigid stems crisp and drop their sails.

Already the garden leans under the weight of late season fruit, bearing down to return to the soil. We manage to harvest a few before they begin to rot or house insects who are also making preparations. Also devoted to the tides that will sweep them into the earth dampening the darkened loam, the slowly shifting grains of sand.

These are always the most beautiful days. When the sun still warms the roots. Buds burst open, glazed with an unexpected rain. Close by neighbors are still shrouded in green. The earth still splits, still seams easily enough, a bouquet unwrapped and scattered before the vase. The small fruits of shrubs and trees have yet to harden and fall. Still promises to keep. Still miles to go before they sleep.

ABC News Anchor Gets Stung

This is how you remind me…

innapropriate admissions

Wednesday afternoon, I was admitted to the hospital. Nothing special. Just some palpitations and chest pain. No biggie. My cardiologist said I might be having a heart attack. Nothing to worry about.

They asked me if I wanted them to perform “heroic measures” to save my life if my heart stopped. Just curious. Taking a survey.

They tried three times to get the IV into my right arm. Once on the left. Twice in my right hand. Five times a charm. They told me they usually only have trouble getting IVs into drug addicts. Scarring in the veins. Good information.

They put me in a room with a poor woman who was scheduled to evacuate her bowels. Which she did. For three hours. Boisterously. 7.2 magniturd.

I sat in the lobby until she finished. They finally moved her to another room and de-stinkified the place so I could come back in. Meanwhile, a woman who came to take my blood asked me if I would come into the room so she could (for the third time that evening) draw some blood. I told her either she could do it somewhere else, or get vomited on. She chose the former.

I hadn’t brushed my teeth in two days. I hadn’t showered. I hadn’t washed my face. I hadn’t slept. They said I was lucky to have bathroom privileges (the alternative would have been to shit in a pot next to the bed). They said I was lucky insurance agreed to pay some of the cost. Lucky that I’d met my deductible. Lucky I got a discount and only had to pay $120 a night.

At 11 am on Thursday, the hospital doctor said he thought he might be able to send me home.  Sometime between 11 am and 6pm, when he returned and said I could go, I woke three times to talk to three different doctors about why I’d been admitted to the hospital.

I was served three meals. 1) A ham and croissant sandwich with mayonnaise, two chocolate chip cookies, a bag of potato chips, and sweet tea. 2) Scrambled eggs, a sausage patty, buttered toast, whole milk, and oatmeal. 3) Chicken with gravy, stuffing with gravy, green beans with gravy, a buttered biscuit, a piece of pecan pie, candied fruit, whole milk, sweet tea.

If I wasn’t a cardiac patient going in, I might have been one going out.

I now have seven holes in my arms. I have had to explain the circumstances of my admission into the hospital to six different people. It felt like I was on trial. Accused. Interrogated. It felt like I was part of a herd of cattle. Cart them in. Take their money. Cart them out.

They say that I experienced normal sinus tachycardia. Their way of saying, we don’t know what’s wrong, or possibly, it’s all in your head. I’m starting to think I’d be crazy to believe them.

a bee stung me in the face

So it’s Friday night and the husband and I are out for pizza (eggplant parmesan pizza, I’ll have you), which, as it turned out, was oh so delicious. However, I only got to experience said deliciousness after being stung in the face by an f*ing bee.

Out of nowhere, this enormous, wholly black, raging bee lands on my eye and stings the crap out of me. I saw him coming, and thought, “Oh look, a big bee… nothing to be worried about.” The husband saw him too, and as we both looked on thinking he was a harmless, albeit testy carpenter bee (we’ve seen many of these around our house and they’re all bark and no bite), he suddenly narrowed in on the tender spot just below my eyelid and BAM. Needless to say, I freaked.

Nearby, diners trying to enjoy an evening out, pretended not to notice my hysterics, tears, and flailing arms. “Breathe,” the husband said. I mashed a few ice cubes from my drink into a napkin and onto my eye and tried to breathe.

Afterward, as I rested on the couch and waited for the pain to ease, the husband was kind enough to catalogue the various levels of insect venom and their relativity on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. He cross-referenced this with the Starr sting pain scale and determined the pain to be at level 2. Isn’t that romantic?

The picture we took afterward doesn’t do justice to the red welt and burning flames said “bee” (i.e. Acworth demon) inflicted on my poor aching face. The next morning almost all evidence of the attack, aside from some numbness and a bit of residual discoloration and puffiness, had faded away. F*ing bee. Glorious eggplant parmesan pizza. Just another Friday night out with my spouse in the suburbs.

heartbeats, footsteps

i heard your heartbeat for the first time today. i wonder what you will be and when i’ll start referring to you in the third person.

today was a hard day. i met with the doctor for the first time today. normally i see a midwife, but i guess for the checkups, i’ll see him. he was nice enough, but all these fears keep bubbling up again when i find myself in “the doctor’s office.” anyway. i started crying, and it clearly made him uncomfortable. he turned on the Doppler and told me not to get discouraged if we didn’t hear anything. after a few seconds, we did, and he said it sounded good. it was all over too soon. i could have listened to that sound for an hour and i’m not sure it would have been enough.

i went home and took a nap, and later went to see the cardiologist. a month ago, i experienced some heart palpitations. they lasted pretty much all day and night for about two weeks. they disappeared after that, but the midwife referred me to get checked by a cardiologist to be sure. apparently, he’s concerned, and has referred me to see an endocrinologist tomorrow morning. he wanted me to see her as soon as possible, because at this point the baby is supposed to grow a lot and will place more stress on my heart. he also pretty much took one look at me and saw that my thyroid is enlarged.

before i got pregnant again, i hit my head pretty hard while painting the living room. i thought i was ok. a little tender headed, but ok. after some prodding from my dear co-teacher, i went to a walk-in clinic to make sure i didn’t have a concussion, or something. my head checked out fine, but she noticed my thyroid seemed enlarged. she wasn’t sure, but thought i should see my doctor to have it checked out. i haven’t had a family physician for years. pretty much since i moved out of my parents house after graduating high school. so i got myself a local doc, and he ran some tests. he confirmed that my thyroid was enlarged, but the blood work and the ultrasound that they did on my thyroid didn’t show anything to worry about. “watchful waiting” was the plan, but now, my heart doc doesn’t seem to want to wait. not even one day. and this, to put it bluntly, freaks me out.

thank god for d. i don’t know what i’d do without him. he’s been there for me through everything in the last year–the miscarriage, the fear and grief that still have their hold on me as we cautiously hope for this pregnancy to last–and now, as i worry about my health, how it will affect the baby, and what our lives will be like afterward.

so, tomorrow, will be one more step. i’ll try to keep focusing on that.

the daring kitchen

So, I’ve officially decided to keep a food blog. Originally I was going to make it about bread, since this has been my recent obsession, but there are so many other things that make up my life besides bread-making, like eating everything else, so I re-fashioned the bread blog I’ve been keeping, took down some old kind of ranty, hoity toity posts and put up one on flatbread that I made at Laurien and Will’s over the weekend.

I also joined The Daring Kitchen which hosts a monthly baking and cooking challenge. They have deadlines. They have secrets. They have rules. All requirements for one said English teacher to partake of trying new recipes during the school year. Wish me luck. And for those of you within tasting distance, wish for tastings. I am sure there will be some, since I am in no way planning to eat an entire batch of anything by myself.

They also have flickr groups–one for cooking challenges and one for baking challenges–so this gives me an excuse to take more pictures and perhaps continue drooling over the amazing clarity and beauty coming from Renee’s camera (Christmas gift anyone? Husband?)

It seems like it’s been forever since I posted anything, and with summer rapidly coming to a close (the un-school part of summer anyway) I figured I ought to make myself get back in the habit. There’s been plenty to write about, but I’ve been cocooning, wrapping myself in the warm, dappled porch-shade of summer, a cool glass of water in my hand, the cat napping nearby, cardinals and catbirds and towees navigating the humid airspace among the cicadas and hummingbirds.

I’m looking forward to going back to work. I’ve got that nervous excitement I used to get as a kid before we went to the fair, amusement park, vacation. I love watching them grow, learn, become something better. I look at them and see everything is possible. They give me hope.

And there has been hope growing in my life in other ways, as I work on another waiting to break into the world. Every day it seems you take more space for yourself, announcing without my permission, your presence inside me. I am tentative with hope, waiting for each milestone to see your fluttering heartbeat, the extension of limbs, knowing it will only be months before you make it and lie sleeping in my arms. There is still heartache from the one before, still fear that you too won’t make your way to us. We are only now thinking of names, wondering what we will call out as you run through the grass. I don’t always believe there is someone listening, but it’s nice to pray sometimes. Please arrive safely.

I’m thinking of painting your room. Of watching you fall asleep. Of my own mother, who I haven’t spoken to in over a year. Who I may never speak to again. Of the love I have from all those other women who have mothered me, who still call me baby. I have felt so blessed these past few months. The richness of my life pouring over me in waves, and I look around and count myself lucky, despite everything, because of everything.

moonshine

from a distance the world appears
half illuminated, an asterisk
glancing the unlit shoulder,
a footnote of sun amending unseen
mountains and rivers, restless and hard
to measure without eating the arid
or sinking deep in the shifting
as solid makes its way to sand.

lightning, a lucid ricochet
that splits the sky in an instant,
provoked by the heavens and all
they inhabit, the silt of the unnamed,
veining black into blue and white,
scatters the soft lining of another evening.
the round heel of the moon
glimmers in the dusty pools
of someone’s basement,
gliding across deserts, oceans,
and living room carpets.

we grow tired of learning
to starve without staggering.
we want for what shines, what slides
full and naked, rippling tides,
startling the placid, precipitation
slipping the smile from the somnolent,
smothering the smell of dry facts,
the sad and the sated, science,
the ritual of allowing the other
to analyze the ancient.
even the experts, god,
cannot completely unmask
without turning off the lights.