March 22, 2018
My
Nomad Life. A flash in time. I believe we all look
back through our rear view mirrors and marvel at how quickly time has passed as
we examine our life events that are tagged liked a marker in a book. It is but
just a flash of memory when we reminisce and touch those emotions we experienced
when we were looking forward at what once seemed the daunting tasks that lay
ahead. I often jokingly say my life is a shit show when I really mean to say that
my life is so busy and full I need to take a moment to stop for a brief second to
shake my head in amazement that I can move forward at all. I take time to
ponder some random article I read that people who multitask lose pieces of
their brain capacity. Can this be real? Will I succumb to delirium or dementia
because I choose to live my life this way? I laugh at myself and at the
prospects. I then become dismissive and obstinate when I list all the things I
have yet to do. The more girl in me, the energizer bunny, is compelled to run.
My Nomad life is coming to a close. Romance has grown
roots and it has resulted in clothing hanging in a closet, although the bags on
the floor have yet to find their own resting place. I feel half in as I imagine
containers with some of my things, the carbon pieces that hold special meaning,
or treasures I have packed away that rest elsewhere. I have been nesting and as
well I am finding new creative renovation projects to tackle. I have to admit my compulsion
to imagine redesigns throughout my day be it a billion dollar neighborhood
rebuild as I am driving or a small wall tear down and closet bump out. I am the
willing passenger of my own imagination and talents to make it real. Well….perhaps
not the billion dollar neighborhood, but as my children say…I dream big.
There are certain constants that remain like sleeping
at the hospital dorm as my work schedule demands. My mother has affectionately and
relentlessly nudged me to set down roots somewhere…anywhere really. Loving
parents find comfort and their own happiness when they are reassured that their
children are settled and happy. Although my parents feel a sense of loss
because I am not spending so much of my time at the farm with them, they are the
consummate example of loving parents that are happy that I have found that established
more normal life. Gone is the lighthearted teasing by my family and friends that
were taking advantage of what was a unique lifestyle…punch lines here and there
to give everyone a laugh usually centering about what I should try to fit in my
car…holiday decorations, a small Christmas tree, and other comforts that a
tangible home would provide.
Much has happened in my life since I last wrote. The
renovations that consumed time and monies are largely complete. We started and
completed a whole condo renovation. Of course there are plans for other things
this year….2 kitchens, whole house re-wiring, new master bedroom with on-suite,
and one tub shower. It never stops…at least not yet.
I formally adopted my wonderful daughter from my
second failed marriage. She was 30 years old at the time of adoption. Many may
find that sort of queer, unusual, misunderstood perhaps by some and natural and
expected by others who are closer and understand more. My own boys ran a
similar spectrum of feelings, but when it is all said and done, it feels right,
I am happy, I tear up just writing about it. It reminds me of couples who live
together saying it is the same as being married, but after marriage concede how
different it feels. It feels different now that it is formalized and I ask
myself…what took us so long? It provokes a different unexplainable feeling now when
she calls me “Mom”.
I purchased new car. It was yet another example of my
random impulsiveness that is laced with my traditional pragmatism and
decisiveness. I had been preparing to purchase a new car when I went to get an
oil change. I felt dismay when I looked at the gas mileage on what was to be my
ideal grandmother ride….a hatchback for baby stuff and more space for more
babies. I began to look around at other options on the display floor,
eyeballing the Honda Accord Hybrid. I fell in love the sticker boasting 48 mpg!
I examined the trunk…ample space for baby goods. I glanced back to the CRV and
got a tinge of “minivan” illusions and determined the Accord Hybrid was my car.
The sales rep showed me the pimped out leftover 2017 that had a price slash
that suited me even more. After a brief conversation, “does it have heated
seats? Power windows? Blue tooth?” I was sold. He inquired if I wanted to sit
in the car or learn anything further, I replied “no” and I confidently sat down
to fill out the necessary paperwork. I felt a sense of poetic significance, a
new life…a new car.
Looking back I could not imagine this new life I now
enjoy. My Nomad life suited me for a seemingly small piece of time. My
personality lends itself to different life choices than most would make because
my happiness firmly lies in the people that fill my life not in the permanence
of location or circumstance. I always say I live a privileged life. Adding to
the fullness and happiness factor are my expanded family that include his four
lovely and inspiring daughters. Bonus! My previous mobile “home” sits in the
driveway finding new purpose as a commuter vehicle for Haley. It remains a good
dependable ride that will act as an instrument to create other memories of a
different sort. Big sigh….moving forward. This will be my look back someday….a
flash in time.
November 16, 2016
Toe
grabbers and Pussy grabbers. There have been a few
times where I find myself sitting in my car, my hands resting like the weight
of dumbbells on the steering wheel as I ask myself, “where do I go?” The comfort of
company waits at the end of all the lines, but there are times when this Nomad
has to take a moment to sort out my plans for the free time I do not know what
to do with. The mother is sick with the flu, the youngest is out of town, MMM
(Matt the Mouth in the Middle) just had a visit from me, the sibs and daughter are too far
away, and the oldest is out of town. Keys get me in, but it is company I seek.
Sometimes seemingly limitless options become the greatest barrier like the
mountain you don’t wish to climb. Damn! It could kill me!! I take a deep breath
and choose the empty dwelling of my oldest son’s and exploit my alone time to
veg a bit while I long for their return home in the morning.
I arrive, tossing my bags to the floor as I seek out a
glass of wine and something to munch on. My search is quickly satisfied as I
locate the TV remote and my frustration begins. Remotes, arrgg!!! Each dwelling
has a different system and with no one there to take control of the controller
I am left crawling on the floor to examine the system that is failing to feed
me my mindless sensory stimulation needs. I fight against the fatigue, but
surrender and make my way up the stairs to the bed I know is waiting for my
used up and seemingly beaten body.
It was only an hour after I slipped off into the black
abyss of REM sleep, that I was startled awake with a squeal! My toe was peeking
out of the covers in the cool air and a rogue sugar glider’s claws clutched onto
it as I bolted upward shaking my leg wildly to get it free!! I listened for a
moment as I felt the frenzied activity of it flying overhead, running up the
back of the bed and on the floor, and at times stopping to scratch into my hair
and scalp. My fatigue took hold of me despite the raucous and I slipped back
into slumber imagining a contrail of birdlike shit landing onto the carpet
until the carpet lay covered with no clear path to walk without stepping in it.
I slipped in and out of dream state, but could not untangle reality from my
dreams.
I wake in the morning as I pull the covers from over
my head and think about recent events. The Presidential election is over, but I
am still trying to wrap my mind around 25% of the population delivering #PussyGabberInChief as leader of the “free”
world!!!!??? Our country picked the one with little basic knowledge of the
functions of government on the hopes of “change” while ignoring glaring
personality deficits and character flaws. I had a problem with us electing Bush
Jr…recovering alcoholic, Born Again, who failed at every business venture he
initiated. And still, I gave him a chance and then he delivered 9/11, the Iraq
War, and a collapsed economy. I guess I had good reason to be concerned. This
one??? It is frightening what he could do and I refuse to dismiss his sexual
predator behavior that emanates from his sense of entitlement and ownership of
others.
It has been a difficult process to deal with family or
now unfriended friends that source fake news sites, put up ugly memes, and lash
out at us “liberals” who should be “embarrassed” for our beliefs that cause us
to care about the environment and others in our world. We “liberals” embrace
diversity and tolerance so if that is something others feel I should be embarrassed
by, guess again. I am a proud liberal! I will give the #PussyGrabberInChief as much support as they gave Obama for the
last 8 years. I believe the allegations about his sexual deviance used against young girls and
women are true. I will never dismiss his vulgarity no matter what good he may do. An
abuser who buys his woman flowers does not make him less of an abuser any more
than a bully who is nice to their friends is any less of a bully. I hope our
country will survive this next disaster waiting to happen. Our futures depend
on it.
September 24, 2016
One
door closes and another opens. My nomad lifestyle has
its peculiarities. I have discovered over the last three years that it’s
something that is best avoided in discussions with casual contacts. You get
queer looks…you know, the one they are trying to hide, but fail and a sense of alienation
on the fringes of the innate “you must be crazy” curiosity. It is challenging
enough for my family and closest friends to witness me blazing my own paths and
beating to my own drum, but to any newcomer….I can be very much misunderstood.
I believe my age and my life experiences are changing
my attitudes about the new people that will be transient, with very little interest
or caring about what my life is. Why share? I don’t have that sort of time or
energy any more to share so much of me with strangers. I am better served
investing in only the relationships that matter. It could be that I will be perceived
as more aloof or a common first impression…. intimidation! Must be that
confident woman complex. Strong women are often met with resistance or
misinterpretation. Really…I have a reputation for being quite funny and silly
as well as passionate and intense.
I came home to the farm this weekend and I came as a
single woman again. I have my newest discovery that even a years long
friendship does not determine long term success in an intimate relationship. In
fact, there was a false assumption that we knew each other as time peeled away
the layers we presented as the face we want others to see. I thought it was an
emotionally safe haven with the arms of friendship to protect those tender vulnerabilities.
I believe we were both left a bit surprised as we work to piece the friendship back together and try to understand. Nothing is a sure thing.
My mother wants me to unpack my car. She wants me to
have a home base. She doesn’t want me to have to give up the freedom of travel
and finding my soft landings wherever I chose, but she wants more stability for
me. She is asking me to think about it as any concerned mother would. I think
she is sensing a window of opportunity to persuade me, but she forgets that she
taught me never to make any big decisions when you are emotionally stressed and
the idea of making a permanent place to call home is HUGE! I do have to admit
though, that after my recent retail therapy, I need to purge my vehicle. It is
PACKED!
I look at the positives in my life. I will have more
time to do more projects and more time to spend with friends and family. The
sibs are already chatting about more time for them. I have my first grandchild
due in March! Yiiippppyyyy!!!! You know I am going to spoil that child if it’s
possible. I spoil all the people in my life as much as I can. I am privileged
to have so much and so many good people to share it with. As this day closes I remember what my wise mother tells
me, with every end…there is a new beginning.
August 7, 2016
Evolution. As in all
things life….we evolve.
My nomad life is no different. I have had little time to collect sufficient
time to gather my thoughts, even though they are ongoing throughout my day. I
often perform a pulse check. How am I doing? How is my nomad life fitting into
what, at times feels like, chaos and uncertainty or growth?
What is a
key really? A key, if it is the right one, let’s you in. You belong beyond the
door it opens. My car, my key chain, holds certain privileges to entry and
always a bed to rest on. I have keys to enter the homes of both friends and
family. I find it interesting the trust and the welcome mat that those around
me give allowance to. I had been building my Nomad Life as the role dictates….a
single woman. I imagined short visits, cooking dinner, child care, or projects
to take care of on my days off if my social calendar lay empty.
A simple act of cooking dinner enters my mind as my parents and I are going through a
bit of separation anxiety. The separation is palpable. Watching the news
together, chatting about politics, discussing life and the people we share in
it. Simple daily tasks that create the low hum of the wheels of life moving
forward. Time does have a way of pulling us along no matter our mood or life’s
events.
I had a
great moment this week. I was able to clean out my car, aka closet/ utility
vehicle. It has been troubling me since the renovations began last August. Sawdust,
dings and scratches, dust and disarray. Messiness always gives me a sense of
low level distraction and I have to admit to my own OCD tendencies despite my dominant
abstract random personality inclinations. A perfect circle as I admire the
clean car mats, and everything in its place. The concrete sequential
personality that grounds my free spirit.
I have
been working lots of OT. Nothing new for those who have known me for decades,
but today….I got a reprieve. My bonus shift was canceled. I have to wait for
the second four hours to be canceled and then the day is mine. I feel as if I
had won the lottery with time that is so precious to me. I always tell myself,
my compulsory organizing is born from the lack of time to be spent looking for
anything. Everything must be in its place! Time is a luxury I do not take for
granted.
Because I
have been working more, hard to imagine I know, I have to park my car in a
place I do not have to force myself to remember some 10 days later when I
emerge from the planet I call “my second home”. I prefer not to walk outside
for fear I may run as if I have escaped! The warm air and sunlight hit my skin
and my senses are turned on. My friends coerce me to go outside and walk with
them at the end of our shifts, when I, prefer to make my way thru the dusty
tunnels with pipes exposed and the hiss of the machine keeps my spirit in
check. I don’t want to know what the weather is like. I work. I sleep. I don’t
want to think about the world out there, only that it will be there when I get
out.
I am
cleaning up loose ends while slowly evolving. The idea I had of being alone and
staying here and there has found itself in conflict with a new life I am
imaging. I am clearly not there yet, but my wheels are turning. A successful
relationship has a way of creating that turn in the road that breathes new life
into the idea that maybe, just maybe, the life I fantasized about as a young
woman, could really materialize.
It is both
amusing and sad in ways really. My parents and I are going through withdrawal.
I do not believe I have gotten my fill. I felt emotionally empty and tired when
I started spending so much time at the farm. I felt much like a wounded bird.
Full of great successes, but feeling as if I had missed so much. Time slipped
away from me as my commitments consumed much of me. They are my greatest
cheerleaders and soothers. Tenderness and love that wraps around me like a warm
soft blanket. We are all adjusting.
I am investing my time in my new relationship, and the other relationships that are an added
bonus. It is a delicate balance because of my lack of time, to find time to continue nurturing
my other significant relationships. My life is turning towards the cross in the road. My Nomad Life and what I imagined to be a new and eclectic lifestyle, has shown it may have an inevitable end as I venture on to what I had imagined in my best daydreams. This is
that moment when we jump. Take that risk. I can do anything and my life can be
anything. I am evolving.
How
can I keep from singing? Enya dances around the
room echoing in the breeze as I sit perched upright tapping on my laptop. Words
to the page as my mood fashions itself to the tone and temper of the days gifts
I play in my head like the melodies that keep me true and steadfast. Birds
chirp outside the screen door as the leaves dance lightly against the gentle
shoreline winds. Large branches loom over the side porch where chairs rest
under the cool shade of the large oak tree whose age has become its liability as
branches have weakened, but still deliver comfort under the heat of the sun.
Early summer has been delivered to the Northeast as the chill of our cool
spring has now dissipated.
I have been scratching back bits and pieces of my life
that existed before the house and duplex renovations of my younger two sons took
hold and consumed my everyday life experience. Either working 60 to 70 hours to
help finance them or spending most every spare hour working to help keep things
moving forward, marching on like the armies of foot soldiers that marched to
unfamiliar places. The light at our tunnels ends is shining brighter as the
check lists becomes smaller.
I retrofitted a door to the closet. Repurpose, reuse, and
recycle. It was a challenge and doors….well…I really would prefer not to. Level
and plumb, and it was slow work as I shimmed and measured again and again
still. I was relieved when it closed properly as I felt sufficiently secure to
put up the trim to finish the job. One more door, but the next one will require
a table saw to cut down the 30 inch door to a 28 inch door as well as retro
fitting casing for a 30 inch door. Part of me wants to just buy a new door and
then I am gripped by the scent of challenge as it dictates and whipsers softly
to me… I must conquer. I must meet this new challenge. I can do it. Everyone
tells me I can do anything….or ask “is there anything you cannot do???”
I feel quite emotional lately. I am working less….sort
of (yes I know my friends and family will laugh at that idea). Sometimes it is
difficult to sort my emotions as they replicate my life….more! The more girl!
Do I ever have a plate that is not spilling over? Should I first confirm that
my nomad life remains a strong force in my life? It is as if I have to reassure
myself, “it is not over”. I have to ask
myself… “How did I come to create such a unique life experience?” It fit my free
spirit that I was born with and the keen sensation and fantasy that I was born
Indian, a natural nomad. So it is with great amusement to those around me to
witness me find a man who threatens the very life I have created and cherish. A
permanent home again? Really? Marriage? Are you nuts!!?
We have come to the Rhode Island beach home for the
weekend. After dinner the girls and I were hanging around in the kitchen island.
His girls asked in curiosity last night, “what is it about our Dad you like?”
My response was easy as it fell out of my mouth, “He is fuckin adorable!” (yes…
the “F” bomb…I did have wine??!!!). They all laughed. My response was real and
they understood, because they too, know what I see. He is a passionate
intelligent man. Suzanne, my friend and co-worker, tells everyone, “He is the
male version of CJ”. How wonderfully happy the people around us are to witness
the ease and natural fit of two individuals that for many, felt impossible to
adequately match with anyone. Always the wrong person and now….the pressure is
on.
My family seems tickled. Is it that they were never
comfortable with my Nomad life? Just as they were adjusting and comfortable
taking advantage of no real obligations to any man, they want this for me. How
annoying (yes…those close to me understand the meaning of this most valued word
as they wait in anticipation for the predictable spillage of any verb tense to
use it!!!)….is it to find that they are both amused and while at the same time loving
my current discomfort in trying to keep my Nomad life intact. I am fighting the
currents of cultural assimilation and my very own emotional integrity.
I wanted to give it one last attempt to build a life
with a man. I have been single for many years. Controlling…or wanting to be in
control? I believe there is a difference. And acute sensitivity to young and
impressionable women who have a void to fill. I think of my daughter Rachel and
the cautious line I had to walk as she entered my life. I often thought and
believed that my relationship with her father was secondary to how destiny delivered
her to me. So much turmoil and now long after the dust has settled, we are
intact. She is in as we move forward. It was my responsibility to keep her head
above the water line as we bobbed in the oceans waves. And still emotions
dictate that there be unresolved and yet unanswered questions. Where do we
place are deepest vulnerabilities to keep safe from harm?
The Matriarch of the family has given cautious warning….”he
has young girls, be sensitive to how you involve yourself”. And he and I have
both understood, we are all in. How does one gauge exuberant joy?? Only that
when found, we cling to living in the moment and hope life delivers sufficient
time to embrace all that can be delivered with such a gift. And how can I keep from singing??
January 14, 2016
Walking the thin lines. I was assessing the contents
of my vital backpack recently. I was amusing myself as I pulled things out
thinking about their value and asking myself if I thought it was worth lugging
around everywhere. “What people must think of me”, danced in my head. I care
less, not that I cared much to begin with. I only grow more attached to my
nomad life as the days and years roll on. I felt pinched for space when I
decided to start adding to my traveling wardrobe. I was getting out more, of
course that was before our staffing crisis and bonus pay! But it is time to
purge again as I prepare for the car detailing gift my oldest son and his wife
gave me. Everyone loves having a maid clean their home to dust and clean things
they don’t have time for right??
January is quickly slipping away as the reno-house
(renovation!!) that Geoff picked out and the reno-duplex that Matt the Mouth
bought as 203k renovation loans are closing in on their completion. The
reno-house is going to push the 6 month renovation bank allowance because it is
essentially a new build and Matt’s reno-duplex is quick on his heels. Stress
from renovating has permeated our team. It brings back the memories of my three
sons and myself sitting in our old living room conducting a “team meeting”. We
would discuss what was working and what needed to change as I struggled as single
mom to hold the mega house together while I worked outrageous hours at my job. This
is how we roll, as I smile at what I believe to be my greatest success….a team.
As I walk to my dorm room after my shift ends, I start
to list what needs to be done. Contractors, supplies, cash on hand, and what to
do first toss around my head as I feel the comfort of the walk to my small quiet
room. I like the familiarity of the halls and the faces that pass by me. “Good
Morning”, is all I know what to say day or night. This and the people I have
worked with over the decades are my second home. Some would argue it is my
first since I spend so much more time here than anywhere else it seems. I cannot
deny it is a very large part of my life and my identity. A critical pillar. I
don’t know that I could ever leave and why would I when I love it?!
My phone vibrates, ring tones, and rings throughout my
sleep hours. I cannot afford to be offline for very long as decisions,
connections, and there are problems have to be resolved requiring my attention.
Geoff and Matt are both feeling the stress from both financial and time
constraints. I have done all I can do to relieve as much of that stress as I
can. My parents are distressed over my schedule and financial extension to
front monies needed to complete the jobs. Banks only care when the job is done,
not what it takes to finish it! They are doing everything they can to help ease
some of my workload. As much as I have pushed to unload the burden from my
children, they are trying to do the same for me.
January 2, 2016
Holidays
and .all the trimmings With this year coming to a close, I
could never have imagined the amount of productivity that has been generated
from this now tremendously tired body and soul. No really, this “more girl” and
“energizer bunny” is in unimaginable overdrive! The renovation house is near
completion and the renovation duplex is fast on its heels. Meanwhile, I have
been working more than I have in seventeen years. I feel numb. Flo tells me, “I
don’t know how you are doing it.” My only reply is, “I can’t think about it. I
just have to keep pushing forward as hard as I can.” I have to keep a positive
attitude to do what I am doing because there won’t be a pity party at the end
of this trip…..it will be a celebration!
I am enormously grateful I lack fear of trying and
failing when I know success can be found around every corner and sometimes even
within a failure itself. Pride. I feel pride in what I can do, and what is even
better, is that my boys work alongside me as we laugh at our mistakes, and
joust with our achievements. Ed, my boys paternal grandfather, and I have
remained close through the post-divorce years and I am grateful to be greeted
each day with our mutual respect and admiration. A “hello” and kiss and warm
hug is what helps keep my soul centered and speaks to what I have taught my
children…..divorce the person not the family.
We meet glitches in our day head on with an attitude
of we can fix it and more than that, we can make it better. We will make it
right. Ed struggles with arthritic back pain and a botched disk surgery so his availability
is limited to how much pain he can take in one day. He has Rye by his side to
troubleshoot all electrical dilemmas. We are all very grateful that Rye is in between
jobs and is learning all the fine minutia of 3-way wiring and homeruns.
My most steady consult and adviser on all things renovation, remains my Dad. He is "Mr.Secretary". He oversees all decisions, talks to me into the late hours of the evening, gives me my best advice, and loses many hours of sleep wresting with my seemingly unsolvable issues of the day. He works like a relief valve and safety net meeting both my strategic mechanical needs and soothes my heartaches as he catches my tender spirit that is wrapped in the cloth of a seemingly impenetrable vision of strength and confidence. He knows my greatest vulnerabilities as well as "the mother", but can offer the paternal perspective.
My most steady consult and adviser on all things renovation, remains my Dad. He is "Mr.Secretary". He oversees all decisions, talks to me into the late hours of the evening, gives me my best advice, and loses many hours of sleep wresting with my seemingly unsolvable issues of the day. He works like a relief valve and safety net meeting both my strategic mechanical needs and soothes my heartaches as he catches my tender spirit that is wrapped in the cloth of a seemingly impenetrable vision of strength and confidence. He knows my greatest vulnerabilities as well as "the mother", but can offer the paternal perspective.
My co-workers listen to the progress and perform the
oohh’s and aahhh’s at the most recent photos. A catalog of achievements. I look
around at the white tree lit up with colored lights in the corner by room 9. We
have decorated our ICU for the holidays and JoT starts in with how I am going
to celebrate the holidays. She quips, “Are you going to decorate your car?”
Caitlin chimes in, “Yeah, you can take that 2 foot tree”, pointing to the tree
at the desk. “It will fit! Or have some lights go around your license plate!!~”
as the laughter roars. Three years into my nomad life and my lifestyle choice still
provides an easy butt for jokes and sarcasm.
It is an odd year for me as my new romance fizzled as
red flags consumed it like a necrotizing fasciitis. I made my big move to bring
an end to my decade’s long single life… and really, sacrifice my treasured nomad
life to build a life with someone. It was a difficult decision and carried many
sleepless nights torturing myself with the idea of taking such a big leap. It
is near impossible to allow myself to go to that place….the place of deep emotional
vulnerability, but I considered my age and said to myself, “I owe to myself to
try at least one more time.” It all centered, for me, around Christmas. What
man wouldn’t want to spend any part of Christmas with his new romantic
interest? Apparently mine.
I began to hate the idea of celebrating the best time
for our family gathering. It was eating away at me until I finally broke and
decided it was a deal breaker. As most things go when hurts consume the moment,
it becomes marred with “I wish I could have said it different and I wish I
could have understood what was never said.” It was really only a symptom of the
real problem…he just wasn’t that into me. He was not recovered from his
divorce, but really, “who cares why?” Isn’t the end result the same?
Timing. Many talk of the happenstance of timing. And as
timing would have it, there was someone waiting in the wings. A patient man who
knows most of all my secrets and who has waited years to find his moment of opportunity.
He has been kind enough to give me allowance to recover from my recent hurts,
but is looking forward to our first date. My wise mother has always said I
needed a man to be crazy about me. I am a handful. Crazy gives gracious allowance
to my “more” personality. It falls into the “we will see” category, but honesty
tells me that the idea of building a life with someone was something I once
fancied. My recent disappointments dashed that dream at its infancy. It will be
an uphill battle for any man if building a life together is a consideration. I
don’t feel as if I am hardened, but I am 54 and I haven’t found “that” man yet…..the
one who would rock my world…or perhaps I have and only time will tell.
Falling down. I can only dream about the day when I can reclaim my car, aka “my traveling home” as my own. I have been in renovation reality since August and my car is laden with saw dust, tools, empty diet coke and water bottles, and miscellaneous construction materials that need to be returned to my new bff “Lowes”. She…(yes “Lowes” is a “she”!) sets perched high up on the hill. It seems appropriate, as many cultures believe that all good comes from above, not from below. Hell….really don’t all bad things come from down there??? Silly people. I am glancing at my catalog of Lowe’s receipts that will assist in summing up the actual costs of this pancake endeavor. I say pancake because it spills over until it is about cooked. That’s a renovation! It is the essence of spill over!
As my life shifts into high gear….well perhaps it is better described as over drive! This is when vacations morph into a week of overtime, you are juggling at minimum five different contractors, you come home dirty and exhausted, and sleep becomes a distant memory. I am doing things that even make me shake my head, but really…my mother recently told me, “We do what we have to when life demands it.” She is right and I am the “machine” that has extreme difficulty in recognizing traditional limits of the human body. I just keep my lists and keep on task, but the greatest problem are those things that do not occupy a space on the list. There is no recoup time unless things like ‘paying my bills’ or ‘make that colonoscopy appointment’ make their way onto the list and I have an itchy spot on my clavicle that needs to be seen by my dermatologist!
I at least take a hot shower thank God! I was drying off the other day and looked down. I rarely pay attention during routine tasks when my mind is running on petrol as I move through my projects in my mind like a rolodex at lightning speed. I gasped!! The skin above my knees has lost some of its elasticity and is falling! I stood up abruptly and started to gaze at my naked body in the mirror. My wet hair dripped down my chest as I turned to the side. I froze in horror! My ass is falling too!
My hand instinctively reached back against the soft skin and I became lost in a moment of flicking my falling ass in a mesmerized state of disbelief. I leaned forward to examine my face and that too is showing evidence of falling. I found my hands reaching upwards mechanically and pulling back against my cheeks for a quickie face life. OMG! I am 54. It has started or perhaps it started long ago and only in this moment was I paying attention. A pause. A long look. This is me. Gasp! Age has happened to me! Is this the moment when a woman says, “I’ll get on top, but don’t bend forward for fear that my cheeks will hit before my lips!!”
I am busy. I have been too busy to notice. I am still running hard…harder than those half my age. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not because it begs the question, “am I running too fast to enjoy the ride?” My mother suggested that perhaps, I do not know how to create a different life experience. Why does that sound so fatalistic and depressing? I could take a moment and bask in the arena of accomplishment, but it feels as if I am missing something. I am falling, but am I failing?
October 11, 2015
Lost and Found. Three years into my nomad life, I continue to
encounter a steady flow of interesting experiences that are unique to my chosen
lifestyle. Of course I receive repeated echoes of “What??? You don’t really
live out of your car??” “Can you please explain it??” as I hold the curiosity
factor in my capable hands! But don’t let my confidence fool you though, it has
its downfalls when acceptance is on the menu. Most people remain in the
unimportant or insignificant category, but there are moments when life delivers
that mountain that needs to be climbed.
I have to first…concede that I have had a bit much on
my plate these past few months. For me, my friends and family would say, “and
multiply that times ten!” I stepped up to the plate for my youngest son and
took on a full house rehab gut to the studs renovation! Work has been in crisis
mode for the past several weeks with both high acuity and historic staffing shortages
that have pushed all of us to the limit. My oldest son and his first love just
got married yesterday for which I had the responsibility of gathering tasty
deserts for the desert bar as well as make
my Chocolate Chip Oreo Cheesecake with sour cream and caramel gnash because
every good mother fulfills her son’s wedding day requests. Add to that
beginning a new romantic relationship and I have overload on steroids!
So is it any wonder how I could have forgotten my most
important backpack in the cafeteria after dining with Flo before our shift
started???!!! What was worse was the incredibly logistical challenge of
incoming critical admissions and the creation of the beds to put them in! Huge
ugghhhh! After the dust started to settle, I went to locate my backpack and
became paralyzed by its absence. Understand, ALL of my financial papers were in
there, as well as other vital items including my new laptop. I believe my
already stressed out night fell into dismay and disbelief.
My friends help me walk through my last several hours.
I was unsure if I left it in the café, but no one had turned any backpacks into
security. I sat numb and helpless as I cataloged all of my sensitive
information contained in the Under Armor grey backpack. I had to sit with
security to see if I could see myself through the grainy video and identify if
I had it when I left the cafeteria and although it was appreciated, it was a
futile effort. My brain was spent and I could come to the only conclusion,
whether I left in in the cafeteria of it was taken from our lounge, it was
gone. Lucky for me, my youngest son who seems to keep all financial tabs on me
could access and change all passwords to the life’s list of accounts.
Everything else could be replaced.
My friends at times appeared to be more sickened at my
loss than I was. I was in shock at different points, but knowing my son could
take care of some of the more vital information containment, I felt I could
start to move on from the loss. This was the consequence of my nomad life. It
has its risks when you keep everything in your car or carry it with you. I have
refused to keep anything in any one location. I have been very
stubborn…obstinate really, about “moving in” anywhere. Could have, should have,
would have.
My friends made calls I couldn’t think to make in my
post loss delirium. They did all they could to help me get my life back again.
Messages to security and Patient Relations where lost items could be turned in
were placed on my behalf. Three days later, I received a call, “Hi, we have
your backpack. It was in the cafeteria. They were waiting for someone to come
back and claim it, but now it is here in Patient Relations. When do you want to
come and pick it up?” Really and truly I felt as I did when I lost my steering
on the highway. Lucky and still believing that what goes around comes around.
All my good deeds came home.
Some have asked about the risks of this nomad
lifestyle with the potential loss of all my possessions being one of them. What
I have come to understand is, that possessions can be replaced while the time
and freedom that I have gained cannot. What was lost is found and I can
continue to grow and move on my merry way with the freedom under my wings
carrying me as effortlessly as the wind.
August 9, 2015
Reconnecting
with a catalyst. We all have people in our lives that
imprint our memory banks and among them, rest the rare catalysts whose
influence is pivotal in the direction our minds and lives take. This is my year
to take time out of my very busy schedule to meet up with the people I feel I
have neglected, but love and miss dearly. After more than a decade, I was
overjoyed to visit an old college friend that helped me make sense of me. I always felt like a foreigner in my
world of “friends” as I partied on my merry way. Marcia is one of two of my
catalysts, with the second being my dear friend, Rick Rome. I hold her responsible
for turning up the volume in my head for critical thinking and the verbal
expression of the bucket of ideas that floated about effortlessly and without
focus.
I felt much like a stone skipping on the still lake
waters awaiting the threshold of the inevitable final plunge. My day dreaming
free spirited self was in need of a clearer intellectual path. She introduced
me to her clan of thinkers as we chatted about big ideas while perched on
different branches eating watermelon in a tree in the dark of night. She
provided books to read that offered the foundation of thought provoking social
concepts and altered how I received messages and how I interpreted them. I was flourishing
in ways that stay with me today as I develop my communication skills to help
share my world view with really, pretty much anyone who will listen!! Yup…my
friends are all laughing at that one!! I am the queen of persuasion. Relentless
to open the door or outright convert you to my way of thinking!
I arrived by plane, this time with my first car rental
experience. I am growing…. as I was
smiling at the counter captivated by my small achievement! Discovery of a new
means to freedom of movement. I feel empowered over such small silly things and
stepping into a foreign car made me feel as if I was floating effortlessly
exploring my great life experience. I am engaged and there are no obstacles
standing in my way!
As I grow closer to my destination,
my eyes start to well up as I imagine my dear friend in front of me. I explore
my capacity to compartmentalize so much in my life that has conveniently allowed
for so much time to pass, while my sheltered emotions were finding new air as I
opened the jar I have kept them in for so long. The vacuum and hiss caused a
wave of raw emotion stunning me as I drove numb and blind for a moment as I
struggled to catch a deep long breath to gain back restraint of my sudden and
overwhelming loss of control.
Life holds still for the
beginnings and ends that hold some friendships together. We never left each
other, as if no time has passed and we move together never skipping a beat. Rick
has a keen interest in my Nomad Life as he simplifies his life and ventures
into the minimalist arena. Less is more! He is an avid follower of my blog
while feeding his own life experience. Rich talks often, opinionated and amused
with the stupidity of the electorate voting against their best interests as the
ruling class basks in the spoils of social and economic wars. Marcia
contemplates many of her thoughts as if censoring them for their potency on
both the intimate and world arenas. She is not wasteful in her words.
I feel her touch the most
personal spaces of my identity and am impressed by her understanding of it. She
speaks my language. I feel starved as we dialog back and forth sensing that the
messages I am sending are received. My nagging desire to be heard and
understood senses no impediments as the words flow between us. It was small,
some were big, and all messages delivered and recognized. The time for goodbyes
inevitably felt uncomfortable and awkward as I sat and watched her walk out the
door as her commitments demanded. I sat and talked with the men before I too,
had to leave.
I find my way back to the
airport and a seat at the Columbus Brewing Company while I wait for my flight
home. Wine flows as well as the tears I held onto as I try to put all the
emotions into a jar for safe keeping. I lose all barriers of image presentation
as my nose runs and the tissue pile accumulates in front of me. “I love you” I
send in a text. “You must be drinking?” flashes back to me. “Of course”, and it
changes little as I am in a semi controlled fountain of tears as I ride the
roller coaster as the waves of loss and joy consume me.
I am leaving for home and
I am taking with me fortified determination. I am not alone. I have my life’s
catalyst to thank for this emboldened vigor and resolve.
Looking
into the mirror, I see her reflection in me. It is July and
our Cape Cod family vacation is in full swing. My parents, my sister’s Cheri
and Michelle, my brother’s daughter, and all of the various offspring fill the
largest home we could find to accommodate the body count of family members.
This year there has been a more deliberate scheduling of the young adults to make
time to get here which is causing the noise level to rise as the night
progresses. I nestle into a warm bath of satisfaction watching my young men
joke and play with their aunts, uncles and cousins and I whisper in my head….I
am privileged and I am grateful.
The morning starts with early risers like myself,
starting prep for breakfast. Ken, Michelle’s fiancé, zips off for his daily
ritual of getting the newspaper and milk for the thirsty group. The Kerig
stands at the ready as cups of fresh coffee brew with each new the arrival to
the kitchen as they begin their slow march out onto the deck. The laughter and play
are not hindered by the yawning or those recovering from the night’s heavy
consumption of beer and wine accompanied with game playing and loud robust singing. Everyone has their
own ideas of what makes it their vacation, but we all understand the common thread is that we intend
to spend much of it with each other.
The music is on beginning early in the day with
scattered showers of dancing and singing as favorite tunes call out for vocal
attention. Sometimes, all rooms are belting out to the tunes, sometimes in
unison and often out of tune. House rules are, sing what you know and make up
the rest by adding your own words are all fair game if that is what it takes to
keep the rhythm going. No harm, no foul as we keep the mood light, but tight. Moments
inevitably present themselves for deeper discussions in a quiet clutch or group
discussion will be witnessed as we explore resolution of the snags in life that
can be sorted out by fresh ears and dialog.
My mother, the matriarch of the family, carries her
own snags. She is hooked onto what is known as a mother’s guilt. We, as mother's, always
feel we could have done some things differently, we made mistakes and really, it
is all the mother’s fault! We carry the greatest power and all the influence
right???!! She has mentioned to me many times about how she feels my brothers perceive
her success as a mother, or really more to the point, her perceived failures.
It is her burden that no amount of discussion can quell. It brings me to the
symbolism in her newest marker in life….her tattoo!
We all waited until dinner to address the evidence of
the pink horseshoe imprinted on the outside of her lower leg. Her tan Capris
have made for easy visibility, as her silence about it was taunting and
challenging us all to say something. But, we, as the females in the family,
conspired to out the tattoo as a group. Nina, my 10 year old niece was selected
to provide the voice for us all. She stood at the end of the table as we all
signaled this was to be the moment.
Nina begins with a verbal stumble and then recovery, “Grandma,
we have all been noticing something you have not talked about. Nice INK Grandma!!”
The room erupted with cajoling and laughter as Mother focused on who told us
about the tattoo as if we didn’t notice ourselves. She gave the incredulous
look of “you told them didn’t you?” in my Dad’s direction. No amount of his denying
would satisfy her belief that we were not paying attention.
The tattoo has much significance for her. It is pink and 3-demensional with the pink being her symbol as a cancer survivor. The horseshoe she researched to discover its root meaning, not just good luck, but as a symbol of survival.The lettering within the design is ‘West Ridge Farm’ and ‘WRP’ for West Ridge Publishing to carry the heart of her two of her loves, her horse farm and her publishing company she created to provide easy access to getting her novels into print. She is, by every definition, a spectacular woman.
The tattoo has much significance for her. It is pink and 3-demensional with the pink being her symbol as a cancer survivor. The horseshoe she researched to discover its root meaning, not just good luck, but as a symbol of survival.The lettering within the design is ‘West Ridge Farm’ and ‘WRP’ for West Ridge Publishing to carry the heart of her two of her loves, her horse farm and her publishing company she created to provide easy access to getting her novels into print. She is, by every definition, a spectacular woman.
My mother is afflicted with the notion that she
somehow held all the influence in her relationships with her children. She
feels a close connection with her daughters, but feels less so with my
brothers. It is the burden of a mother’s guilt. She fails to embrace all that
she taught us about learning to forgive ourselves for all the mistakes we were
about to make as we stumble through life’s sometimes tortured trails. She
instead is hanging onto, ‘it’s always the mother’s fault’.
It would be a challenge to understand except that I
too, am a mother of young men. I do not feel distance from my children, but I
am certainly sensitive to any of my actions (past, present and future) causing
long term affect in their lives, good or bad, because really the notion of
being the ‘all powerful’ influence has its attractions as well! As we say
though, “for those who have been given much, much is expected” and therein lies
that nut called responsibility!
I am most like my mother. My siblings say not only am
I a clone, but they have also entertained the idea that there is some purpose
to my assimilation of every facet of my mother’s personality to gain an edge on
having the closest bond with her. Some may say, as well, that my actions are
also targeting my Dad, and quite possibly there may be some truth in what they
say! I want to spend as much time with my parents as possible, not because they
“are close to the end” as my Mom may quip, but more because they
feed my soul and I am a hungry girl! I need them more than they need
me.
My mother is spectacular. She is a rare find to all
that know her. She is my mentor, my friend, my confidant, my spiritual advisor,
and no less than….my mother. When I look into the mirror it is her reflection I
see and as I grow, it is her wisdom and love I seek as I undeniably wish to
become as spectacular as she is!!
In
the rhythm of the night. It has been yet another long
stretch at work and I wake from my quick nap to tackle the day’s list of things
to do. I make fast work in packing up…only two trips from dorm room to car this
time and I feel emboldened by my last purge of unessentials and worn out
memories. Everything, fits neatly as
it should. I lament briefly, so much time in wasted in a single lifetime looking for something….and I have no
time to waste!
I find my way, albeit lost at first on the Silas Deane
Highway only to realize I needed instead, to be on the Berlin Turnpike! I had
to scroll back on my texting from Nick, where exactly was the location of the weeks supply of necessary liqueurs and organic condiments to make for a
very merry time at the Cape??
I finally arrive and pack no less than 2 cases of
wine, boxed wine and a bit of tequila and Jack Daniel’s. Nick and I chat
lightly as we complete our transaction and I giggle at the anticipation of a
weeks’ worth of family time and other stories of the day. My car is loaded with
the back seat covered. I am starting to assess…how will I pack in my next stop?
I leave confident that somehow, Target and all the paper goods will fit as I
make my way back to the farm.
I text the OP’s and let them know I am on my way and
if needed, I can stop to pick up supplies or dinner if needed. Stop
lights and stop signs and I finally land their response that everything is all set. We are ordering out. My head is slightly pounding from lack of sleep, but I
refuse to waste any time in this beautiful summer day. My cache of music on my
CD plays out to carry me along the winding roads with the sun casting its rays
along the way as shadows dance in the road before me. I feel joyous
today….excited and optimistic about what the future holds for me.
I arrive to find my sister’s white Ford truck parked
in the yard. My excitement begins to intensify as I am anticipating the warm
embrace both the OP’s and my sister while at the same time I start to feel a transient sense of
deprivation of the time I have not had with them. Why is it that so many
intense emotions carry with it that moment of confliction?? Is that why we cry
in the most of happiest of times? I scan the landscape to assess the flower
beds, monitoring for potential need of attention. I walk slow and paced as my
head turns left and right. Check, check and check. Even as I approach the porch and I glance to the porch where I can see that they are relaxing and sharing time, I can’t stop
myself from going ooohhhh “I didn’t know
what that was”….as I see blooms amidst the perennial bed along the brick
walkway. I reach in to hold the delicate lavender bloom in my hand and admire
it for a time and let it loose to fall back into the fold of other greens and
blooms in the bed.
With a sufficient fill of getting a full visual report of the most
updated current status of years of work in the making, I start to ascend the
stairs to the porch. Coming home. I am here. All is good. Let the joy in the
day begin. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…….. Now where is my glass of wine???!!!
Hugs and greetings ensue as we all start sharing what
is most important in our day. Dad flips over to me, “did you hear what the
latest poll was with Trump at the top of the heap?” My sister Caryn sounds out,
“and what sort of chips did you think you were buying? Utz are not Ruffles!!” and my mother, “will you
be able to give up your nomad life for a more permanent relationship?” All have
equal importance as I field the bevy of first questions followed up by a series
of steady firing of follow-ups. I quickly excuse myself to head into the
kitchen to find a bottle of red zin to bring me down from a very long stretch
and a head that is fluffed with fatigue.
I make my way back out to the porch as we continue
completing multiple conversations. I scan the ridge where the horses are grazing
and I observe the sun setting in the distance. It prompts the image of the
truck full of bundles of wood shavings that rest in its bed waiting to be
stacked in the second stall of the barn. My Mom alerts Dad of the job that
requires his attention and Caryn and I are quick on our feet. Dad swears us off
as we scoff and protest and we all make our way down to the barn in unison. We
bark at each other as we walk to make certain Dad understands…yeah……we are
going to do this together.
We move like ants…no necessary verbal communication,
but each movement is greeted with a symbiotic response as we transfer bags of
shavings from the truck to the second stall. We impart various verbal exchanges
as we pass, laugh, smile and share unspoken gestures of appreciation and those loving
moments that words lack full expression of. We love it all. Being together,
loving one another, sharing the work of the day, and our love of horses. We set
out the grain, the hay, and bring in the horses waiting at the gate and close
up the barn as we dust off and head up to the porch. The sun set as we worked,
and I reflect on the ease and the rhythm of the night. I want to capture the
moment….it moves like a favorite dance…..and wishing I could repeat it over and
over yet again.
Good
to go…..’out of the
mouths of babes’. My baby sister has been in the process of moving into the
bigger, badder, better home and as all things moving goes…..let’s all just accept the enormous stress and
emotional mess that it creates!! I receive the frantic call from V, who
has now taking on an authoritative roll (like the ‘queen’ she purports to be)
of problem resolver extraordinaire, reciting her findings of one baby sis
trembling in tears. She was waked by the pressure of the overwhelming stress of
moving on a clock determined by some abstruse legal entity. Flailing!! Or so it
was reported, as we dialoged about the potential resolutions and immediate
interventions required to resolve the transient emotional disaster train wreck
that has consumed our favored kemp controlled private sibling.
I assess my scheduling obligations and relay my
intentions to shift north asap to
assist with whatever I can offer as a means of alleviating the chaos that baby
sis has now become engulfed in. Work is the transient obstacle that does not
obstruct the logical process that provides easily obtainable pragmatic solutions.
It only acts as a time barrier……the delay to resolution.
I arrive to find what is determined to be a normal
presentation of moving one’s shit from one place to another. BOXES….EVERYWHERE!
As I make my way through the house in the early morning hours, I assess as I
move from room to room and turn up the grand staircase to find my nieces and
nephews in their designated rooms. I peek in to find Nina sleepy eyed tapping
at her I phone. She tells me in her sleepy voice, “when Mom leaves, I can’t
sleep” so we chat lightly and I tell her I am here to help as she drifts off
again into a quiet slumber.
I make my way back to the kitchen that resonates an
intense disturbance that shakes me to my compulsive organizational core. Paint
the closets as requested, or take a few moments to capture a place of sanctuary?
One thing I have learned by my half-life mile marker…SANCTUARY! Find peace, calm…..the
place to lay our hat. So I make fast work to make the heart of any home the place
of comfort. One by one, the children arrive to find their toasted bagel with cream
cheese awaiting their arrival as auntie delivers boxes to their appropriate
locations and empty’s those needing a resting place. I make quick work of
completing my assessment of kitchen functionality and start to close all the
cabinet doors now filled to perform with utmost functionality and practicality.
The closets at the entry are in need of attention for
sure. A coat of paint? Hmmmm….seems to me I have developed other ideas and a
process that exceeds my siblings expectations. I hate her shelving liner that
slips and sticks to the glasses as I point out the annoyances via text messages.
I will take care of such things, as she is busy getting through her day and I
am Mini Mom….busy playing the role of super hero to solve all such problems.
Nina finds her usual seat at the table and beckons my attention.
She is looking to chat. She is very sensitive, soulful and perceptive like
myself. I am certain it has been a mixed emotional response with her parents to
see the striking similarities between us. Very passionate souls….or old souls as many would insinuate. We start on our sometimes flat
topics, and then go deeper as if our natural drive is to penetrate to the core
of all topics…this is how the story goes with passionate personalities. It
leads me to talk of the moment when I lost my steering on the highway at 70 miles
per hour. My rusted K frame fractured… dropping the engine resting on it and
cracked my steering column as the wheel slipped and went limp under my grip.
I continue to tell the story to my attentive audience
and explain my lack of fear and curiosity of how it would feel to die as I felt
death could be the inevitable consequence in such a circumstance. She sat captivated
and listening, as I explained how my car drifted to a safe escape and how I
felt about life…how I finished the sentence, finished business by letting those
I love know how much I love them and did the right things, was kind
and lived my life to complete each moment as if it were my last. At the end…she
chirped up and stated.... as if all great logic would determine the outcome….”you
were good to go”.
June 11, 2015
Just
lie.
I have a moment to catch my breath with a much needed break from work. I have
to be honest….I have been pushing it again and hard. A couple of light errands
and I make my way back to the farm. I am daydreaming and thinking about whether
the top soil for the new bed I am working on has been delivered. I give quick
thoughts to my Dad and I am hoping if the delivery has arrived, that he isn’t
out there moving heavy soil. He always worries about what I am doing as much as
I worry about what he is doing. My Mom concedes, as if she deflates, and
relinquishes control with submission, “no matter what you do it is always
beautiful.”
I make one of my usual stops at the local Village
Market because I am in the mood for some red meat. What better place than the
Village and their attentive butchers to get some great cuts for dinner? New
York strip steak. I glance through the glass leaning in as I imagine how I will
cook them. I eye the sirloin tips and remember the last batch was unusually
tough. The tenderloins look ready to go, but then I say, “why not try something
different?” and order three NY strips. I load up a few fresh vegetables and I
am on my way.
I turn the corner and make my way up the driveway and
see in the distance a pile of freshly dumped top soil. Yaaaayyyyy!!! I start
immediately creating my schedule to accommodate building another berm for
flowered plantings. I see my Dad near the porch as I carry the day’s purchases
in with me. A storm is brewing and my Dad has already moved the horses into the
barn. He flutters about with his phone and his weather page at his fingertips
as I unload the bags with dinner sensations! I open the paper package with the
NY strips in their plastic bag and add garlic and teriyaki to marinate for a
bit in the frig. My Dad is feeling a sense of urgency as he leans his phone
into me to show me the storm traveling our way. He is on high alert because of the
possibility of tornadoes. As they say….once bitten….
The house darkens from the storm clouds covering us as
I start dinner and the winds pick up shaking the trees to and fro. Everyone is
getting excited and my Mom and I decide…hell…if this could be the end, we may
as well go out with a drink in our belly’s to make the air travel a bit more
accommodating! She reaches into the frig for a Stella and I pour a glass of
wine and we toast to the potential end of days! The power flickers and the
clocks start to flash and we grin at each other mischievously. I go about the
business of swaying to the tunes and finishing dinner. With the steaks cooked
to perfection we sit and start our dinner conversation.
Weekend plans start to enter the conversation and
since I am ready to embark on dating again, it all centers on me. Mom perks up
and starts to giggle, “you can’t tell them right away that you are a nomad.” “I
mean, I would find that scary…what would you do if a man said they were a nomad
to you?” “I want you to lie and tell them you are helping out your frail and
disabled parents. That sounds more noble and sympathetic.” She can’t get a
single word out without laughing and trying hard to swallow. Dad is of no
support as he tosses in, “he can walk you home…hey ‘my car is parked right over
here’ how easy is that???” The room is filled with fits of laughter and
certainly they are concerned and protective of my sensitive self. All parent
wish to protect their offspring, but my parents take it onto the stage where
classic comics live and I am a deliciously easy target.
My imagination runs as my body sways to Lena Del Ray
and I think of the man that will embrace my love of life and embrace this
spirited unusual soul. Covet and protect. Isn’t that written somewhere? How to
find someone normal that a strong capable woman can depend on. Does he even
exist? Strong women fight the image of lack of emotional vulnerability. It is fear….’she
intimidates me, she de-masculinizes me, she is too good for me, or maybe… she just
would be a good fuck’ and all have poor outcomes. That emotional availability,
even if there, can get mired in the selfishness of man. That was my last hard
lesson when discovering I didn’t fit into someone else’s dreams.
So should I give up? Should I concede defeat? Should I
“just lie” and keep my secrets of what is intrinsically unique about me? What
part of me do I have to sell out and pretend I am not to find all that I am
looking for? Acceptance….what a precious word. What lies have to be told to be
accepted for who we are? And really….if I am cherished by those closest to me,
why lie? I would rather something real, than rely on the chameleon that becomes
something I, myself, cannot recognize? Why resort to bait and switch? Why just lie?
June 6, 2015
Restoration
retail therapy. I own the day! It’s bright with a light warm
breeze in late spring and I have my mission set out before me. Time to both
symbolically and constructively throw out some of the old and welcome the new. “Purge”
should be my middle name…let the name fall from my lips “Cheryl Purge Stewart”.
Hhhhmmm….yeah, can’t give up the “Jean” in the middle, but, hey, it fits this
particular moment when I am moving forward and leaving the past behind me. What
better way to define a new beginning than with new things to wear?
I have made this year the year I reconnect with friends and family that I feel I have
neglected. I want to exploit the highest commodity any of us could possibly
possess….time, time to share and enjoy with them. Of course it seemingly defies
the current demands from my second home called “work” as we struggle to staff
the vacuum left behind as able bodies have moved up and on. Somehow, I will succeed as I always have and being
productive in my world has never recognized the constraints of a lack of time.
I am willing to venture out and even meet new people.
It is sort awkward for me as the inevitably of where I live always enters into
the getting to know you phase. Just how simply complicated my lifestyle of
nomadic living can make a conversation with someone who lacks the benefit of
endearment and already having embraced a bit of a unique personality. Friends
and family have had their own “evolution” of understanding on how anyone can
live like I do, so how challenging can it be for one to imagine how it is to be
new on the scene to “get it”? “Yeah, I live out of my car.” Doesn’t that sound
harsh to you? Does it make virgin ears feel pity for me or does it tickle a
sense of curiosity? Guess it’s all in the mind of the beholder.
It is a triumphant venture with bags full of new
fabrics and colors that I toss into my traveling suitcase. Empowering endeavor
that leaves me driving with confidence and sassiness as I drive north to the
farm belting out lyrics with the songs on the radio. I am going somewhere! I
arrive to find the “men” hard at work painting the old, but well maintained
barn. My youngest is perched on the 40 foot ladder up at the peak, brushing new
color into the dry wood. My Dad stands on the bottom rung of the ladder leaning
into it to give Geoff stability high above. Geoff begins lamenting that it
looks farther down from up there. The horses stir and shuffle in their stalls
and start to whinny with my arrival and chattering. I look through the barn and see my Mom entering from the other
door asking if the horses have had any hay. Perking up his ears, my Dad leans to his right as if it will carry his voice better, shouting out that they only got
grain. On cue, Mom starts the process of delivering a small portions of hay to their
stalls as I make my way back to the house.
We have a hay truck due to arrive with first cuttings.
It seems in the distant past when we used to go into the fields to collect the
freshly bailed hay when really, it was just last summer. My parents are 75 and
have no business in the fields engaging in heavy labor. My Mom continues to
poke the skunk as the added cost of delivery and stacking it into the loft
comes with additional fees. Still, hay, and all the commotion it brings is
comforting. Life is a series of transactions of moving things from point “A” to
point “B”. Rituals and routines makes us feel as if we belong to something and
hay is big! It carries with it a sense of survival and the seasons that play
into the variety we bask in here in the Northeast.
April 28, 2015
Picking
up stones. I have found that some projects take
years to complete and some continue to transform throughout the years. It has
been decades of time I have spent here on the farm working on the landscape,
building and repairing stone walls, and completing various house renovations
with my Dad. Most people understand that homes are a work in progress. My Dad
and I like to sit at the table and list the year’s accomplishments and ooh and
ahh at our success stories.
I have decided to kill two birds with one stone, and
literally it’s about the stones! Hampden is a town build on the mountain of
ledge and rocks. Quintessential New England with roadways lined with old stone
walls. Some falling from years of weather and wear and other new ones constructed
by homeowner’s who prefer the neater appearance. In the fields over the ridge beyond the large
brown barn, lies a bounty of unearthed stones awaiting a new resting place. They
pop up with the frost heaves during winter. Some people grow gardens. Here on
the farm we sprout stones. Large ones, small ones, round ones, and flat ones in
a variety of gray and earth tone colors speckle the fields that cascade down
the mountain pastures. I have decided I can get a great workout while at the
same time move the scattered stones out of the way of the horses that graze and
run through these fields.Picking up stones generously offers
plenty of time to think. It is yet another warm sunny breezy day with the budding trees swaying softly and sunlight bursting through the tips of the trees on this fresh spring morning. The horses are quietly grazing on their hay at top of the ridge as I move the wheel barrel through the field collecting stones. Every now and again, Kahasi becomes overwhelmed with curiosity and has to come over and investigate what all the racket is as the stones sound out against the inside of the wheel barrel as they land. He sniffs and noses the sides and once satisfied with his findings, meanders back to the task of eating hay.
The air fills with the sound of jets flying overhead as I look up to watch a pack of four jets dancing in and out of formation. It makes me emotional to watch them. I feel American and patriotic as well as comforted by those who would risk their lives to save mine. I cannot help but go political in my mind and scoff at those conservatives that wish to privatize our government are the same people who have the greatest fear of government, but can’t stop waiving the American flag as they do their bibles. What do they think will happen if some private company controls our fate? Will they want to protect us if it does not enhance their bottom line? I continue to scoff….stupid people. I shake it off as I strategize how best to use the smaller stones and I see the mud pit my Dad has to drive the Yellow Beast through to move the manure pile from the paddock to the lower field. I will give the Beast some grip on the incline by creating a cobble stone path to ride on. I love my pragmatism and problem solving skills, but love it more that my efforts are much appreciated by my Dad.
I finish up in the field for the day’s workout and walk back to the house. My Mom is getting coffee in the kitchen as we sit at the small table and start to chat. We get on the subject of aging, potentially losing our minds or control of our bodies and we start to share our exit plan options. She tells me about the refrigerator as I get a queer look on my face. She tells me, “In Alaska when their elders get to the end of their road, they put them on a piece of ice and push them offshore. They die from hypothermia”. I look at her as if I believe she is joking as she goes on with her story. “Hypothermia makes you delirious, but it’s a quiet way to end your life. So when it starts to look bad for me, stop buying food and empty the shelves and just put me in the frig!” Oh my God! I tell her it is much easier to just stop eating and drinking because renal failure is even more painless as you become too lethargic to feel a thing. A quick two weeks. I could even put a body bag on the bed to make it easier still! We both become amused with our rousing and fantasy deaths.
I think back to the stones in the fields. No one is going to come to the ridge and say, “Wow, Cheryl worked so many hours to move these stones”. They will probably come in with dozers someday to build new houses and what I thought was so important, is not even considered as life moves on without me. Life has a way of making it all so simple doesn’t it? And here I am, picking up stones.
January 23, 2015
Let’s talk about Tom…and that’s his last name. A
great part of my nomad life is supported by the fact that I can sleep in the
old School of Nursing dorms when I work. This luxury comes wrapped in a sparse
package of basic essentials of a firm bed, a bureau, and a desk all resting
within the decades of the old time period of its hay day. The sliding doors to the
balcony sometimes open and sometimes can be locked and all resist, jump, and
generate several octaves of squeaks when opening. Employees use this much appreciated
asset when there are storms that make travel difficult or impossible. This is a
part of the well-oiled machine that requires employees of a 24/7 service to
keep the organization of healthcare humming. We are busy saving lives! There is no “Gee, the roads are treacherous and
I can’t make it” allowed.
Being a “regular” resident on the women’s side, even
though it leaves the option open for “co-ed” potential, allows me to get to know
the other regulars such as the cleaning staff, the master of operations- Tina,
and security. We know the routines of the IT guys that love to take advantage
of the convenient location of the men’s bathrooms to their office around the
corner, the timely arrivals of the housekeeping staff to clean the newly
vacated rooms and keep our bathrooms tidy, or the long term stayers like
Singapore Pauline or Aida from Barcelona in town for their various internships.
The dorm corridor gives an air of abandonment because you often feel very
alone, but the quiet makes for easy sleeping anytime of the day.
I had noticed a variation in routine. There are
three women’s bathroom’s with one door screwed shut and one door that offers a
lock that displays “vacant” or “occupied” when empty or in use. The variation
was in two of three the bathrooms where the stationary door was now held open
with a plastic coated clothes hanger to hold it open. It was normal to have the
locking door held open with an old wire coat hanger when not in use, but not
the drilled closed ones. I was waiting to run into Maria to ask her who had
changed the doors. I ran it in my head that perhaps a new long term resident
wanted an easier access to the bathrooms. The problem with this arrangement was
that you could no longer lock yourself in when taking a shower. Part of me
dismissed this, when I said to myself “we are all adults here and its women on
this side” and part of me was on high alert. It was different. It was a recent
change. It made the bathrooms accessible to anyone at any time.
I was working a stretch over the holidays and had
settled in to my dorm room. I had a longer time period between shifts and decided
to get up early to shower. Since the breach on the bathrooms doors, I had my
suspicious hairs all in a rise. I looked for shadows, took extra time to walk
the corridor, and surveyed the premises more intently keeping my senses sharp
and aware. Sometimes I feel I have watched too much TV, but I believe I must be
a bit paranoid by nature about the probability of things going sour while
always holding on tight to believing in the good in people.
I started my shower routine and I always enjoy the
high pressure water volume that old shower heads provide. When I was done, I
remained in the tub and grabbed one of two towels I had hanging on the shower
rod. I bent over and wrapped my hair up and grabbed the second towel to start
to dry. I started my security scan around the closed stall door to look for
shadows or anything unusual. My eyes traveled the seams of the door moving left
to right and abruptly stopped on the two eyes pressed up against the gap in the
door. There he was, on his knees getting a glimpse of my naked dripping wet 53
year old body!! I felt no fear only shock and anger as I felt my body move into
action as I uttered “what the fuck!!” He started to move as well heading for
his door of escape as I unlocked the stall door to stick my head out and store
as many details about my Peeping Tom in my memory. I got a full side view of
him and even remember seeing the pupil of his eye leaving me to conclude that he
knew I could see him. I was sure I knew where to find him.
I dried enough to dress and returned to my room to
get my shoes and my phone and headed down to the security desk to report the
incident. I remembered a couple strange incidences of what I believe to have
been the same guy who ever so slowly pushed open my door when I had had my door
slightly ajar for air ventilation. I was sitting on my bed facing the door
working on my laptop when I noticed the door started to move. I sat quietly
watching the slow progress. I knew it wasn’t the wind. Then, there he was and I
asked with irritation in my voice “Hello??” He stopped stunned and quickly closed the door
saying nothing. I jumped to my feet and ran to the corridor to see him exiting
in the distance. Jason said I should be concerned, but really, what could be
done? I talked with Maria about it and described him. She recognized who I was
talking about by my description. She said he worked in the IT office around the
corner near the elevators.
I remembered another strange incident when I was in
a room just outside the men’s bathroom. I woke with my distended bladder at my
usual time. Because the men’s room was so close, I took advantage at sat down
for what was one of my everlasting pee’s. I left my door half open and could
see it from where I was perched under the stall door. I saw a shadow and bent
down to observe a pair of men’s casual dress shoes and beige khaki pants pacing
outside in the hallway. I wished I could finish quicker, but really when I say
an everlasting pee….it takes seemingly forever! I found myself feeling annoyed
because there were two other bathrooms he could have used and yet he was pacing
outside my door. He walked away for a moment and returned to pace again and yes…I
was still going! I felt it was the same guy because it was the same room where
the door opening had occurred. Again, I talked to Maria and she noted it
probably was him again because he is very particular about using only that bathroom.
“Obsessive compulsive behavior”, I said.
I report my incident to the regular security guard
and begin the process of making a report, calling the Hartford PD at the insistence
of my supervisor, looking through a thousand pictures of employees who work in
that building, and meeting with various security managers and VP’s completed
the initial hurdle to resolve this assault on my personal privacy. It was the
big story on the unit requiring frequent recitals of all the creepy details. I
wished I had chased him down and punched him in the nose. Every replay I had
required a bloody nose and me screaming naked trying to beat him!! We couldn’t
identify him as I was fixed on the burnt orange sweater he was wearing and after
a walk through with security, no one in that office had one and only one guy
face stayed fixed in my mind. He was wear a dark blue top and I admit to
feeling hesitant to keep my eyes fixed on him in an accusatory way. If someone
could get fired over this, you would want to be very sure about a complaint.
A few weeks passed and I have remained vigilant in
observing any changes in the dorm environment. I remain convinced he works in
that office and that he is the same guy who opened my door and the same guy
that was pacing outside the bathroom. I
have talked with some of the other regulars and maintenance has been busy
fixing the bathroom security. Other than increased awareness, there has been little
visible progress on finding my Peeping Tom and really, I am not certain I could
pick him up out of a line up. My anger is less palpable, and I am not so
preoccupied with punching him in the nose, but I think about it every day I
walk into the dorm corridor. My friends get a good laugh at the image I created
by talking of chasing him down naked and screaming. They are all convinced of
my capacity to do just that.
I was packing to leave for the weekend to the Fat
Farm (my parents place) and making my final run to the car with my rolling
carryon in tow. I exited the corridor and made my way around the corner to the
elevators. I heard the elevator doors open and a man exited and turned away
from me to badge in the office that resides near there. I froze as I watched
him. The head tilt, the glasses, the body movement. I froze and started to tear
up. I wiped my eyes repeatedly, still standing there frozen. I wasn’t sure if
it was him, but I marked the time by opening my phone to check it was 1:52pm. I
thought to myself, it can be matched up to the badge swipe. It can be a person
of interest. Security can connect the dots to see if he badged in around the
time of my Peeping Tom incident. They can look back to the incident in the
summer. They can watch him now that we have a name. I suspect there can be no
firm conclusions made, but we can watch and someday we will discover who my
Peeping Tom is. I just wish I could punch him in the nose. That would make me
happy when after all it’s the simple things in life that give us the most
satisfaction.
Cleaning
the horse stalls connects me to my real world. The gray
morning light filling the room gently wakes me as the day begins. I feel as if
I am wrapped in a blanket of satisfaction as the coolness of the room has relieved
me of the restless in and out of the bed linens throughout the night. My legs
reach out to find the cool spots on the crisp new Pima cotton sheets and I feel
the ahhhh of contentment as I stretch
and rub my eyes. My mind wanders to the conversation with my Mom attempting to
bait me with making space for my “things” in the dresser that finds its home by
the side of the bed. “You can put some of your things in the top drawer when
you are here”, she says as persuasively as she can. I sense more coming with that
suggestion and I can feel the amusement building behind it and she cannot
resist, “it can be your new non-room” she says with a grin. I dig in with a sigh and say, “I am quite
happy living with everything in my car so I can go or sleep wherever I please”.
I remember one of my greatest frustrations with never being in the home I did
have, was forgetting to pack something I needed.
I rise up to the side of the bed and the cold floor
gives its morning welcome to my feet. I slip on my slippers and make my way
into the kitchen and start a cup of hot chocolate at the Keurig station. I peer
out to the back lawn making note of the brown and gray colored landscape with stagnant
air holding the trees into a quiet still frame. It creates a picture of a late
fall morning, but only it’s December. “Global warming” I whisper to myself.
It’s sweatshirt weather at a comfortable 40 degrees. This old house gives way
and creaks beneath me as I walk about the kitchen. I can hear the light
rustling in my parents’ room above me. The house is coming alive. My parents
have to run out for early appointments and cleaning the barn and letting out
the horses will be my task to complete.
My Dad is first to arrive in the kitchen and
comments on my early start in the day. I tell him I am going to make my way to
clean the horse stalls and let the horses out so he and my Mom can leave
without having to hurry. Of course he protests and tells me he will help and we
go back and forth a bit as I walk out onto the porch and start to make my down
the brick path towards the barn. I find it as difficult to argue it out with
him as he does with me. It is the typical father daughter concessions we make. I
can see both wheel barrels already full from the previous cleaning in the
distance. As I grow closer, I look to my left and see that the bucket on the
Yellow Beast is full as well.
I can hear Will stomping at the gate as I pull the
barn door open. Everyone starts to get excited as they can sense fresh hay is
coming. I drag a bale of hay to the top of the ridge where there is less mud
and make four piles with sufficient distance between them to prevent an early
morning battle. One by one and in routine order I put on the halters and walk
them out. Only Free resists. She is spoiled and expects I will enter her stall
and put on her halter. I refuse to pamper her and call her to the gate and when
she is the last one out and sees I will not give in she comes over and lets me
conduct the business of getting on with the day.
I secure the red wheel barrel and make my way
through the barn and exit into the mud outside the door. I slosh around
confidently in my boots and find the whole experience pleasing as I make my way
to the top of the ridge and down the hill to the new pile of horse manure. I
look to the recent works of my Dad and the Yellow Beast with all the old manure
graded and seeded earlier in the fall. No grass yet and I believe we may have
to re-seed it in the spring. I bring out the second load take a moment to watch
the horses eating in what seems to be a contest of who will finish first. Free
still wishes to eat with her mother Sunny instead of her own pile. She feels
safer there since coming back to the farm as the pecking order still has not
been firmly determined. Will and Kahasi have chased her, cornered her and have
left scars on her well groomed coat to vouch for the harsh reception. It has
been a steady series of wound care since she came home. After making my way
back to the barn I start to clean Will’s stall when my Dad arrives. We work a
bit in tandem as I start to verbally push him out explaining that he will be
late for their first appointment. He finally concedes and leaves me alone and I
find my quiet time.
A perfect day is laying itself out for me as I busy
myself with the finishing touches in the barn. It is a cool and bright day. I
always feel so much more alive working outside. I find myself procrastinating
going back to the house and start to canvas the property and think of the
projects I will do in the spring. I stop in the shed and survey what remains
there. Certainly I can fit in another few purges by early next year?? I slosh
back to the house and start the work of stomping off the mud from my boots as
the OP’s begin loading into the car as we exchange the traditional goodbyes. It
seems so small an event, but I cannot help feeling a sense of separation
anxiety and start to watch the clock for their expected return. I am a grown
adult and those kinds of feelings have only grown stronger as I feel the years
are moving too quickly. I am always saying I am on the downslide and I am
digging in my heels trying to slow my speed as I try to catalog all these moments
where I feel most happy and connected to the real world.
November 30,2014
My
grounding rods in my nomadic life. Riding home to the
farm, my mind lulls me into my day dreamy auto pilot. I feel my Honda Civic accelerate
and slow with the hum of the motor as it carries me to the different facets of
my life while delivering a sense of security and empowerment. I am grateful to indulge
in the spoils of a nomadic lifestyle. I own the ease and freedom to move throughout
the world I have created and I call ‘my life experience’.
I attended a goodbye party for a long time co-worker
friend. A couple of decades of time I believe we spent together through career
path changes, weddings, divorces, child birth, loss of family members, and the
life that happens throughout the years. Spending social time with a group of
people you have worked with for so many life changes gives us all a moment to
reflect how much we all have made one of our main pillars a comforting
experience. I love my job because I love the people I work with. They are my
friends and when I am away on vacations…..I miss them. The world can spin on
around us, and we create laughter, silliness, and sharing amongst an often
intense life and death backdrop.
What is in a name? We have created silly endearing
nick names like Caramel, Crazy Legs, Short Stack, Lemon, Lizard, Angry Bird,
Captain, Super, AC (Asian Chick), Blondie, The Black Man, ABK (angry black
child), KP, LJ, MK, Mini, CJ, CC, Siege to the J, CAM, “your peoples” anything
Indian looking, Big Sexy, Patty Cake, Singapore Pauline, Barbie No No, and the
list goes on. We could be chastised for improper potentially racially charged tags,
but many were created by their owners, and others affirmed by them. It’s how we
roll to lightening our daily burdens under the pressures of bedside open chests
and more life sustaining technologies that you can shake a stick at.
I am here at the farm for a visit as I consume
myself with my next big project. My children tell me often, “You don’t know how
to do anything small”. I am fortunate that my parents are much like me…both
passionate individuals. I have ample resources to offer necessary editing and criticisms
on my newest endeavor. My Mom sits on the large brown leather sofa draped in
her new shawl looking spectacular as always as I tap away on my laptop. We both
become distracted by an elderly woman commenting on a commercial for assisted
living facilities. My Mom quips my way, “I wouldn’t mind to go to an assisted
living place”. I glance her way as our eyes meet with my head titled with the
look of ‘really?? Not on my watch’.
She
goes on to say “I don’t want to be bored just watching TV. At least there you
would have other old people to hang out with.”
I start to speak with tone of course, “You can be
like Great Grandma Mini or Nanna. Live into your 90’s and fail the last year
and then you can suffer”.
She won’t let it goes as she has a bite grip on it, “Just
think of it this way, in an assisted living you get to watch others die disappearing
one by one and then you say to yourself, ‘hey, if they can do it so can I’.” “It’s
almost inspirational.”
September
16, 2014
Indulging
in the fat farm. Driving north along the winding rolling
countryside to the farm strokes and soothes my restless soul with each turn of
the road. We all have our rocks or anchors in life and coming home to the farm
is mine. These feeling are shared by many of both family and friends alike as
you are greeted by a sense of arrival, familiarity and ease. It is at the top
of the mountain and nestled behind the trees as it opens to its own island of
visual enchantment. The ridge near the barn gives way to other mountain peaks
that crest in the distance as the horses feed on the low grass. It seems there
is always a light breeze that dances around you like a million caresses there
to greet you.
Like a beautiful rose, there is a downside to my
visits to the farm and hence the name “the fat farm”. My parents indulge in
carbohydrate concoctions of doughnuts, ice cream, cookies and other fine
treats. What do I say to my father when he runs out “special” to get fresh
blueberry muffins for his daughter to enjoy?? Only 700 calories that will find
their way to my hips in an instant! EFFORTLESS POUNDS!! When I complain to my
mother who is lamenting about her weight gain she quips to me, “I am getting
fat from the chemo drugs I have to take for my breast cancer”. She conducts a
replay of her conversation with her doctor when she asked to stop them earlier
than recommended. She starts, “I asked my doctor if I could stop early and she
said that if I did, it could kill me. So then I say to her ‘so what you are
saying to me is I can either die fat or die young?’ and my doctor confirmed
this sad truth”. My mother goes on to disregard my concerns about the food
stuffs at the farm and concludes, “So if I am going to be fat, why should I
care?”
Sitting on the porch swing with the mother I convey
my distress at their sabotage. We gently rock on the swing watching the family
of hummingbirds racing after each other with moments of stationary suspension
near the feeder and the butterfly bush. I receive no sympathy as I chatter on
about the jeans I want to fit in to..... only her amusement at my discontent. My sister
arrives for a visit and as I am discussing project plans with my Mom and Dad
and she jumps out of her chair and announces to Mother, “I have something in
the car for you” and directs a ‘so there’ look my way. We compete regularly and
openly in my family for favorite daughter status and my projects plans were
about to be trumped by a new scarf for the mother! My mom wraps it around her
as she gleams a look my way, “these are perfect colors and it’s so soft” she
exclaims. My dad shares in the theater and proclaims, “It looks beautiful”. I
roll my eyes and my sister and I exchange looks as she glows and I sigh.
It is coming into fall and the bees are more
aggressive this time of year and I grab the green fly swatter off of the table.
A persistent bugger comes buzzing within range and I swat it making a direct
hit as it converts to a projectile landing right in my sister’s lap! She jumps
up and I flash a look of satisfaction her way. All is fair in love and war!
August 2, 2014
Baby you can drive my car. I reflect often on how
much my nomad life offers me more time to give to helping others. Either it is
conducting my projects that are driven by my renovation passions or giving a
friend an opportunity to move forward. A couple of my co-workers didn’t have
their licenses and were trapped in the cycle of not enough disposable income to
afford a full course of driver’s education. I guess you can say that I am now a
seasoned driving instructor. I think of my sister Cheri when we discuss social
issues and we both advocate for giving someone the tools to create their own opportunities….a
driver’s license is one of them. Women can be especially trapped if made
dependent on their partner to make a living when it comes to transportation to
their job. It keeps us in often unhealthy relationships because of our need for
child care or mobility. I believe in empowerment. I am a strong feminist believing
in the capacity for women to make sound choices unencumbered by dependency and I
would surmise my friends can testify how strongly independent I am!
I seem to be cycling through various stages of
evolution with my new lifestyle. I have had to adjust and have gone through
multiple purging of things I am just carry from place to place without any real
use in my daily routines. I am surprised I have not nested and settled in any
one spot, but it seems to be taking on the flavor of my diet coke aversion…just
not one sip shall touch these lips or I could be doomed!! I have sifted through
multiple purge and organize projects for members of my family, cleaned up time
sensitive renovation projects, and now I am moving on to oil painting, graphite
drawings and music to calm the creative juices that simmer in my veins. I am
not certain how writing will fit into my grand scheme, but it seems I always
have a lot to say!
So I think of the Beatles tune as I navigate the
roadways with my adult driving students….and sing cheerfully as I sway from
side to side….baby you can drive my car, yes I’m gonna be a star, and baby I
love you…un do do yeah!
June 30, 2014
I
come with baggage. There is always something new around
the corner relating to my nomad life. I sometimes ask myself “what new
challenges could possibly be discovered?” since so much time has passed and I
have settled in nicely with the rhythm of routine. The cashier’s office greet
me by name now when I pay for my night’s stay at the dorm as I have achieved
frequent flyer status. Tina, who controls the reservations, is always pleasantly
accommodating. Security guard regular Mr. Grant and Maria from housekeeping
offer familiarity and personal conversation and make me feel as if I am coming
home.
I went to my car to make an excursion to work on a
long term project. I clicked my key fob as I approached my car and it looked
dead. I had to manually unlock my door. “It must need a new battery” I was
saying to myself. I took my place in the front seat and I turned the key and
big-fat-nothing. I sat for a moment quietly playing over the options in my mind
about what I could do. I had left my interior light on when I was frantically searching
for something as I gathered my things going into the dorm. Dead. My battery was
dead and I needed a jump start. Then I remembered that security had a portable
jumper and I hoped, being that I have a hybrid, that a jump was all I needed.
They arrived within 10 minutes, but for that 10 minutes I sat and thought about
getting a tow and then I thought of all the contents in my car. Anyone picking
me up would have to cart much of it with me. Quite simply….I come with baggage!
Luckily, the car turned on the first twist of the key with the jumper connected. Varooommmm! I am off!
I have given up my big vice since I finished school.
We all understand the energy it takes to sacrifice a security blanket, an
addiction, or pursue the grander dreams of being healthy and all that it takes.
How is it that we can’t sell letting that brownie find its way into someone
else’s stomach and not ours so easily?? Especially when it’s our best interest!
Of course you have heard me talk of my diet coke addiction. I made a clean
break, but there are vending machines located in obscure places or a quick stop
convenience store that calls out to me and even my own father put a 20 ouncer
in the frig on the farm! For Pete’s sake! Give me strength! I was in the
cafeteria picking up some munchies for the crew and I reached for the Hot BBQ
Pretzel Pieces and my mind starts to play out the flavors in my mouth and as I
swallow I think….ahhhhhhh and I imagine following that up with a cold Diet Coke
and as eagerly as I reached for the goodies, I retract as if I just burned my
hands on the stove. OMG….it’s suicide!
While at the farm, my mom tells me of an estate sale
of a neighbor who recently died. He was a grumpy mean old man that came from a
family of meanness. We walk across the street to the neighbor’s estate sale. Curiosity
pushes us up the hill to the home hidden beyond the hills peak and shade trees
lightly wooding the view. A light breeze comes across from the valley below as
my eyes scan through the tools table. I am caught by a narrow shovel and my
mind tools through ideas of how I could use it. I laugh as I determine I could
live without it. I am not a collector of things even though the shovel has
functionality. I make my way through the garage from one end of the house and
am joined with my mother in the sitting room where I am admiring a $30 solid
wood bureau with a nice light finish. My mom remarks, “that’s a nice one”. I
snark back, “it is, but I have no need since I live out of my car”. Mother
comes back at me, “well you could buy it for someone else. Who do you know that
needs one?” I think about it and have someone in mind, but the need is in the
future and I sense my weariness from projecting enthusiast extraordinaire. I
walk past and allow my mind to rest.
The next morning, I am performing the usual undertaking
of transportation of supplies to from here to there. I have the box for my new
wet saw loaded in the back seat of my civic with other project supplies and the
regular tapestry of my life’s possessions piled on top of each other. My mother
approaches on this beautiful sunny day with a light breeze dancing around us.
She looks into my back seat as I am struggling slightly to pull out the box and
other contents resting inside it. She rests her hand on the roof of my car and
I start to read her before she even starts to speak. She grins and her voice
carries a small laughter, “I don’t know if I can ever get used to your nomad
life.” I understand her, but I remain amused by her. She gets so much more of
me this way and I am both more relaxed and excited with each passing day. If I
have said it once, I have said it a thousand times, “how did I ever get so
lucky in life?” I am doing all the things I love to do. All of the things I
have dreamed of doing….but I come with baggage.
May 15, 2014
So
what is in a piece of paper?? I have reached a moment of
success with the completion of my bachelor’s degree and am priming myself up
for the next quest. I am a 3 year diploma graduate of nursing and it has
provided me with a rewarding 30 year career as an open heart ICU nurse. What to
do next now that I have my BS? More of the same of course! I love my job, it
pays the bills, but what will be different is I will have more free time than I
have had in the last 35 years. Between working insane over time, a single mom
raising three boys, then school and work, I have had little available time for
other things. I have been busy with
“busy” being one of my favorite words besides every verb tense of the word annoyed. I will thank my mother for that
one.
One thing I convinced myself to do when I finished
school is to give up my personal poison. I am on day 3 of my diet coke
withdrawal and I can feel my bones growing stronger as I speak and I surmise
that perhaps I have disarmed the toxic cancer causing agents that were destined
to chew up my body into a gelatinous lump called an ameba. Creative genetics
allow me to play out that video in my mind as it delivers cold, wet, and limp
sensations. We all hold different markers in life to give us incentives to do
the right thing when the right thing or healthier choices portray themselves as
a sacrifice of some sort and the end of school was my marker signaling to me that
I could survive without the DC eating my bones and doing untold other nastiness
to my general wellbeing.
I am loving dorm life. I like packing up and moving
from place to place. I have discovered new pathways in the bowels of the
building where most people do not travel. I enjoy the moments of solitude as
pipes hiss and clunk odd sounds as I emerge from the underground corridors to
my destination points and then disappear again.
I have found that I require a ready mental check list to keep my things
in order for easy retrieval to minimize potential frustration in searching for
essentials. I mean how far can it go?? From my car…to my car right? And
everything in my car is essential.
Can’t imagine what I would do if someone stole my car. Yeah, that could be
traumatic.
Projects are what will be consuming me for the next
year as many of them have been on my list for some time. They are not really my
projects since my nomad life limits me to only cleaning and reorganizing my car
with the inevitable purging of yet more perceived useless things. My mom is
still calling my room at the farm the “non-room” as she continues to try and
eke out “space” for me as she tries to settle me in there. The OP’s even did a
bathroom remodel and have pointed out even more space to put my things. I have
so many projects on my list I have decided to add a “Project” page to my blog.
I just love HGTV before and after shots.
Now that school has finished, I ask myself… what’s
in a piece of paper? For me, it really is only a key to further educational
opportunities, but do I want them? Do I need them? I figure I have 20 good
years left. This is my mom teaching me how to map out my life with life
expectancy and usefulness factored in. Can I get by without further education?
And then there is the big question….what do I want to do when I grow up?? Right
now…I’m busy.
December 23, 2013
Taking a breather with a sigh of
relief. I have been
pushing to complete my BS degree by spring 2014. It has demanded full time
school with full time work. This is the same song I played some 30 years ago
when I worked full time nights while in nursing school. I expected to carry a
heavy workload and succeed, but I found differences between my earlier
educational experiences and my current encounter as a student. Thirty years ago
I was as pragmatic and goal driven as I am today, but I am enjoying the luxury
of learning what excites me more than what I need to know. There is more value
placed on getting an “A” because of my desire to excel. Nothing was more annoying than a largely absent professor
while I worked to achieve the perfect paper in my Capstone class.
My nomad
life has delivered on my expectations of a largely stress free life style
choice that allows for premium time to spend on the farm or sharing time with
other people in my life. I am feeling as if I still have too much stuff and will look for
another purge by late spring. I get a warm happy feeling every time I pack up
and move along to another destination. Freedom delivers an endorphin release each
time I load up my car and it is equally uplifting when I reflect on how
resource rich I am. I am to prepare the two pans of lasagna, one Oreo cheese cake with sour cream and caramel gnash, and four dishes of party potatoes for the Christmas Eve celebration at the farm. We expect some 70 or so family and friends, loud robust conversation and laughter, and belting out our favorite “Feliz Navidad” as we bounce around the kitchen. We are a tight family and we gather often with some of sibs getting primo daily contact hours with the parents that makes the rest of us envious! We are a family that vies for the most favorite status with humor and adoration.
This has been
a year of change in my life; change that I have been dreaming about for several
years. But all great dreamers look forward to more on the next horizon and I am
a consummate dreamer! Can’t wait!
November 20, 2013
Closing of chapters.
The end of my medical leave is coming to a close. I am both happy and
satisfied. Happy to be going back to work because life moves forward and I want
to get on the train and of course I love my job; and satisfied because my down
time has accommodated the completion of several papers I had to finish as well
as attending to the OP’s (remember…’Old People’)and their needs.
I topped off my recovery with stacking and splitting several cords of wood. My parents were overwhelmed with trees down from the massive storm of October 2011 as well as the devastating tornado of 2011. The pile of wood sat partially remedied until yours truly needed necessary rehab on my dominant arm. I had to create productive ways to strengthen my arm to ready it for the heavy labor and wear and tear that accompanies the life of an ICU nurse. The bounty of wood has facilitated nightly fires while watching The Voice, Blacklist and other shows and I believe I will sorely miss this luxury of time that has been a gift.
My Dad starts to chat about sitting down to discuss Christmas gifts and I bark out that I should be deserving of some special gift..but wait! I am a Nomad and any gift becomes a burden to carry! I need nothing! My mother starts in, “I’m going to buy you an expensive gift; one that I want so that when you leave it behind, I get to enjoy it”. There is nothing like the understanding of how one is valued as this chapter is closed.
October 21, 2013
September 24, 2013
September 13, 2013
The cost of being famous! As I drive north to my parents’ farm my eyes fill up with landscape eye candy. It is beautiful winding country roads with mountain peaks creeping out randomly around the curve then gently disappearing as my car descends and then climbs again. The smell of fall waifs through the air as peaches and apples ripen on the trees. I am looking forward to some fall horseback riding even if my schedule remains tight with my school work load. Live in the moment. Enjoy the day. It won’t be the day’s school assignment that I will remember. It will be feeling the light cool fall breeze, hearing the crunch of red, yellow and orange leaves under hoof and smelling the air that defines the change of season that will be banked in my memory.
My dad has been boasting of his single pumpkin seed in the manure pile that produced a mass of monster vine and giant pumpkins growing more orange with each day. Pictures have been posted on Facebook and there is one with my mom sitting perched atop a giant pumpkin smiling with pride. She grumbles, “I had just cleaned the barn, I have my boots on and my work clothes….ahhh but who cares?! We can focus on the pride of the patch..the massive pumpkin I am sitting on!”
I am here for a parent visit and have the intentions of utilizing the intellectual wisdom and skills of my mother to help me with my Capstone paper for school. I am narrowing it to successful women and how far we have come in our countries history. My mother is one of them with a list difficult to compile because she is really as modest as much as she is silly about both her personal and professional achievements. My dad complains she throws away evidence of awards and he has to dig them out of the trash. No one ever created a grant under the disabilities act to purchase a studio home for a ward of the state until she did. As far as I know, it is still the only one in existence. She was motivated by the circumstance of my high functioning schizophrenic autistic cerebral palsy brother and the uncertainly and difficulty with finding him a stable residence. She is bar none, my finest greatest mentor.
Nomad, “Let me just touch you” as I reach out my hand to hers and we giggle.
September 5, 2013
I am heading south for a couple days and I make my call to the mother. She is sounding good and I hear a bit of perkiness in her voice, but I express my concern about all the visitors and the recent flu like sickness going around. After all, her immune system is not fully recovered and this makes her vulnerable to incoming infectious people. There is a moment of mutual resignation between us as we understand that she is a popular girl and the end of radiation has sent signals to the masses that she is open for company. I continue to harbor reserve and apprehension.
With my favorite ear bud secure in my ear, I start to rattle on about the cost of child care and my desire to provide daycare for my grandchildren that are yet to be born. I want them to be bilingual and I inform my mother I will speak only Spanish to them.
Mom, “You are out of control!”
Mom, “You are going to have to decide what kind of life you want. You can’t have this idea of taking care of your someday grandchildren; get your masters and move on to new job when you are 60. No one will hire you and it’s especially hard because you are a woman.”
All my dreams of what my best options are in my future. Mother burst my bubble and baby sister gives me a pass from responsibility. And I have to ask myself how am I going to get it all done in the 20 good years I have left?? Somehow, this nomad life has its contributions to that sweet idea of options. Doesn’t that sound sweet?
August 8, 2013
Nomad, “No that’s mine. Remember my computer crashed?”
Mom, “I wasn’t sure that was a portable flusher for a Nomad’s port-a-potty in your car since you live out of your car… may as well be able to pee or poop in it” she quips and giggles.
Nomad, “I don’t need a toilet for my car!”
Mom, “well can you imagine? What could he say? You could say you are suffering from a head injury and memory loss. Say ‘what? I did what?? I have no memory. Then you could get a lot of sympathy and a big settlement because really…who would believe any sane person would poop in their own car??”
At this point her body is shaking and she laughing as the tears flow. Dad throws it in “Instead you wait until you get home and we wait for the white smoke to rise!” My parents…they are one kind of special people. Sigh.
I finish adjusting my “room” aka car with all my essentials in it. I am still tweaking it to make it more efficient such as how I zip up and store my carry on suitcase to make access easier. Dad starts to mount my bike rack onto my hitch and I am off to take to task my list of things to do while I am “in town”. It’s all about the logistics and planning with my portable freewheeling nomad lifestyle.
August 6, 2013
August 3, 2013
July 26, 2013
Family and Vacations at the Cape. My sisters, my parents and I started to do our summer vacations together on the Cape a few years back. We wanted time to have more time to reconnect amidst our busy lives and allow for the personal one on ones that are often rushed at the usual gatherings. We didn’t exclude or include our brothers. They seem more entrenched in their own circle of friends and are not as needy for spending time together as we sisters are. We are more intertwined in each other’s lives, homes and children as we are good friends not just sisters.
We have changed vacation homes each summer in search of the most perfect house to meet our collective needs. Mom wants the ocean, I want activities, Michelle wants shopping and Cheri wants ample space and entertainment for her young brood. We seem to have hit our first repeater as it hits all the right spots! Of course we all have been hearing strange noises while prompting Cheri and her husband from their bed to investigate in the middle of the night. Mom and Michelle were in the kitchen laughing about there being a ghost and as my mom calls out and introduces herself to whatever alien being may exist wouldn’t you know the toaster oven rings out at the same time the ceiling light turns on! Confirmed! We have concluded it’s a friendly being and our decision to pursue retaining this home next year goes undeterred.
As all good vacations go food and alcohol are in ample supply. I am particularly thrilled that my eldest son and his girlfriend have found time to spend with us. It’s been an open door policy with bed space arraigned as needed. I take the lead on groceries and preparing meals. I am the organizer with the dominant personality. Cheri asserts her culinary skills whenever I give her space to perform and Michelle is good at staying out of the way. As for my parents…this is their time to relax and take it all in watching the entertaining activities and conversations.
Dinner brings drinks, laughter and tunes streaming in to set the mood. We game up after dinner. Cards Against Humanity keeps us bursting at the seams, while others migrate to the pool table or ping pong table. It’s fun time! My nephew shares his music with his guitar giving us all down time to enjoy a relaxing moment before heading to bed. We have no schedule to confine our biking, beaching or exploring. Tradition demands Dad leads building puzzles and this year we completed two! It’s all vacation moments.
Cheri and I have been running to the shore in the mornings to give us our cardio workout. There are only a few Cape Cod homes along the way with a few beyond the vast fields of reeds near the shore. It is quiet and all we hear is the local nature, a light breeze stirring the trees and our rhythmic breathing as we jog along. I love the bay side sandy beaches best. Its warm water carries you effortlessly as you float on the ripples of light waves. We keep our family bonds strong sharing a home while joking, jabbing, singing, dancing and appreciating the privilege of time together.
July 15, 2013
July 14, 2013
We cross the bridge over the protected areas and stop to watch nesting Osprey in the distance. We move on through the wooded path and I find a pile left behind by a dog whose owner neglected to respect consideration for other hikers. I pick up a stick from the ground and flick the poop off into the woods. I say to Mike “If not me then who?” It’s my mantra. I will pick up trash left behind by others, because if not me…then who?
Nomad responds “Of course darling.” And Mike descends to dismay at the thought of being deprived of any food for any period of time. “Please tell me you will hook up an IV of bourbon and let me die drunk or even stoned, but I have to eat!” I reassure him I won’t starve him and will put in a feeding tube for the Jack Daniels and coke. He tosses me a warm smile. Did I say dreams of the future?
June 6, 2013
June 4, 2013
Mother “you can’t have all that red meat!”
Dad “it wasn’t cardiac so the cardiologist said”
Nomads “leave him alone for God’s sake…he just got home. Can’t you see he is just happy to be with his family?”
Dad smiles this I love you smile at my mom and I say “look at him…he looks soooooo amorous…love those steroids.” Mom brushes it off as Dad goes on to talk about the expanded weather app he has and he can watch the weather around the world if he likes.
Mother seizes her moment like the pit bull she is and shouts out “you are becoming obsessed with the weather and I can’t take it!” My Dad laughs as I reach over smirking and open the top drawer to the Hoosier cabinet and display the uncountable number of glasses. Sun glasses, reading glasses, glass cases, glass holders, glass ropes and wrapped replacement lenses and I say “who is obsessed???” We all laugh as we continue our sparing jabs looking to see who will garner the biggest laugh.
Dad starts getting all solemn and down in his expression “I think I am going through withdrawal already” as he starts to march out the days I will be gone.
May 28, 2013
My aversion to chachkies. What are chachkies really?? Chachkies is the yiddish word for trinkets and collectables, AKA "dusk collectors". I have long dispensed with collecting ‘things’, these little cherishables that people collect. I just have no room for things when I feel my time is short and I want to fill it with time with the people I care about.
I have asked myself why it is so easy for me to give up a home and possessions and my answer is simple and comes as easy as inhaling a single breath. I have sacrificed so much of my time to provide for my children, others and those who have entered my life that my home was a place I rarely had time to enjoy. It was a place I slept and exhaustedly maintained for stolen moments while creating a place for others to enjoy. I took a great sense of pride in my achievements as a single mom, but such achievements come with a cost. Sometimes I feel desperate to recapture time I have lost creating the seemingly perfect world that time forced me to steal moments from as if they were newfound treasures.
I am grateful, so grateful to have so much time to spend with my mom and dad. I feel blessed for such an opportunity as if someone waved their wand and I get to live in the moment and create silly time and some form of vegetative benign reception of just watching TV…the Voice or God help me….The Bachelorette as I scream and make quick assessments of character! I can enjoy a dinner at the table and share my often passionate loudly expressed thoughts and my dreams with my two biggest cheerleaders. Someone gave me a gift.
Cleaning up loose ends. My nomad life as ideal as it may seem, is like most things in life, I have a few loose ends to clean up. A friend of mine has expressed a keen interest in the inner workings of my nomad experience. Questions about where I will sleep and how it will work as daily living encroaches on this loftly concept. First let me say, I would never be able to embark on such a venture without the enormous support system that is at my disposal.
Seriously, I would never be able to realize this nomad life I have embraced without a significant support system. My mom lives an hour away from work as well does by boyfriend. Why…. at 52 does boyfriend sound so high school?? Shaking that one off…..My work place offers an inexpensive option for me to rest, recover and even workout when I am on a stretch to work. Have I said it yet…I love my job?? Almost 30 years and it’s true.
I am left with loose ends. Closing accounts, changing addresses, readjusting what I believe I need to keep, and still yet to 'go live' with work when my medical leave comes to an end next week. I said to my friend that it was like finding out your pregnant. You get all excited when you get the news, but it’s not over until you deliver. I said I still had a bunch of things on my list to take care of and my boyfriend reminds me that I always have a list….it only changes from day to day.
May 11, 2013
May 10, 2013
The laughter is on me.
May 6, 2013
My car will do fine thank you and it makes her crazy as she pinches my cheek saying “I will have none of this missy!” Then we all laugh hysterically. She nestles into the concept by calling me “Minnie Cheryl” or “MC” for short after my great grandma Minnie who sold her home and rotated sharing space with her children for a couple of decades until the day she died. It seems to fit since I am her namesake “Stewart.” I still remember the judge laughing as her body shook lightly on the bench while I explained how I came to choose the name Stewart instead of my birth name, my adopted name or my married name. Seems fitting to me…all of it. It is my own life experience and I choose to be a nomad. I will have mobility and freedom all will envy.
The four week adventure has been chock full of great
moments. It begins with my mother forgetting where she had put her phone and
swearing it was….might I say…where it wasn’t! There was ample conversation
about what sense of loss one might appreciate when your self-imposed ‘life line’
has been extricated from your possession. It seems that the victim experiences
the same phases of loss that real loss people experience.
My mother takes on the task of replacing her “I” phone and
finds her special connection with her
new phone. It speaks to her. God help me. She asks her phone….”what do you call
me?” It replies in the male voice of her choosing, “your name is San, but since
I am your friend I can call you Queen.” She giggles and laughs at near hysteria
because of course…she finds herself enormously funny. She is, I will admit, contagious
as much as she is silly and you can’t help but be sucked into her world. When she
is finished with the fun she stands up abruptly and pointedly announces she
needs to get busy with cleaning. She tosses off a quick remark as she smirks
delivering her mischievous look and disappears into the laundry room, “I’m so
perfect I’m sick of myself”.
Needless to say, she found her missing “I” phone in the old
soft and worn bathrobe my Dad wishes her to depart with. Multiple conversations
surround his exacerbation with her refusal to discard her comfortable robe and
embrace the new one he bought for her. He takes it as a personal rejection.
Since my leave, I have experienced my mother’s new most
favorite word…it is “annoy” and every tense possible related to the verb. “I’m
annoyed”, “you’re annoying me” and “that’s annoying” has been the flavor of the
month. She looks at the double stuff Oreo’s and she shoots out, “that’s too
much chocolate. I’m annoyed!” She had to
deal with the Verizon guy when she lost her phone. She is a smart…no really...a
brilliant woman and was asking questions. She is also perceptive and called the
salesman on his disinterest in her query by announcing, “look, I know I am
annoying you because I am old and asking questions” and he perks up defensive
and all and becomes reluctantly responsive to her inquiries.
While here on the farm, I took the opportunity to share some
time with my friends. My most generous parents and I hosted a faux Thanksgiving Day dinner with Kayla, AC
(Asian Chick/ Karen) with her husband and Flo. Of course AC brought my pure
Asian perfection named KaMi. She is as blissful and as sweet as when I babysat
for her. Her disposition has to be something that parents around the world
dream of and I can’t wait to get her on the back of a horse! What was so
captivating was her shuttering response to the horses when we went down to the
barn. She just quivered when facing the physical mass of such a great and
powerful mammal.
I topped off my recovery with stacking and splitting several cords of wood. My parents were overwhelmed with trees down from the massive storm of October 2011 as well as the devastating tornado of 2011. The pile of wood sat partially remedied until yours truly needed necessary rehab on my dominant arm. I had to create productive ways to strengthen my arm to ready it for the heavy labor and wear and tear that accompanies the life of an ICU nurse. The bounty of wood has facilitated nightly fires while watching The Voice, Blacklist and other shows and I believe I will sorely miss this luxury of time that has been a gift.
My Dad starts to chat about sitting down to discuss Christmas gifts and I bark out that I should be deserving of some special gift..but wait! I am a Nomad and any gift becomes a burden to carry! I need nothing! My mother starts in, “I’m going to buy you an expensive gift; one that I want so that when you leave it behind, I get to enjoy it”. There is nothing like the understanding of how one is valued as this chapter is closed.
October 27, 2013
Who talks about this
shit? I am on recovery from my second surgery, but this time it’s my
dominant right arm. Cubital tunnel release they tell me. I was hesitant,
apprehensive and guarded about venturing into allowing a surgeon’s knife cut into
the arm…my artist’s arm when I consented to this. It is a leap of faith and
trust in my destiny; confidence that life takes a turn and that I will be able
and ready to navigate it. I’m busy….after all. I have multiple pots on the
stove and I am cooking and building and creating and living the life I am
destined to live. Call it God sent or call it delivery or call it self-induced providence.
I am at the wheel for as long as I am able to drive it. It’s that simple.
I get a call from one of my oldest friends. We have let time
slip pass between us as my life is indeed busy. She is traveling to
Woodstock, Vermont and she is looking for her best companion to travel with and
who of course is not needy. She is going to an anesthesia conference there and I
fit the bill of travel companion perfectly
(sound that out like a cat purring and you will get the right inflection!). Of
course! Without hesitation! I may not be
needy, but I value my need to spend time with a lifelong treasured friend.
We arrive in a quintessential New England small town USA.
The mountains rise up reaching into the clear blue sky and even though prime
time fall color has past, the view is chock full of browns, golds, reds and yellows
as we make our way along the mountain passes. We exit the car and the air holds
a crisp smell of fall and I take a deep relaxing breath to fill my lungs. Savor it... I say to myself. I do so love New England and its seasons. We
gather our things from the car and head into the Woodstock Inn, both timeless
and reminiscent of the decades past. It is history that wraps around us as we step into the lobby. We are greeted by the fire that crackles and hisses as it warmly welcomes us to rustic and luxurious comforts. It is here where we will rest our bodies and our minds for the weekend. There are no malls here,
just streets lined with old shops with single pane windows dressed with their wares.
Local restaurants deliver like aromatic candles of a cooks scent. Come in it begs us.
The weekend slips away after red wine, fine food and a long hike up Faulkner's mountain trail. We embark on our last day and start to pack up. I notice the
Milk of Magnesia blue bottle tucked into my back pack and I announce “OMG, here
it is!”.
“No. Not now”, protests my friend. Understand, she was a bit bound up and
uncomfortable at the beginning of our stay. We start to indulge in what nurses
often talk about. After all, it’s part of our assessments. ‘When was your last
bowel movement, how often???’ etcetera, etcetera…You get the feel right?? My
friend tells me, “It won’t work for a week if I am lucky”.
I share my story with her and tell her of the morning that
two of my co-workers and I shared a shot of the MOM. Marty was whining about
not being able to fit into her bikini for her trip back home. Flo and I were
sympathetic to her distress and said just kills five pounds of weight with one
simple clean out. Why not?? We were her cheerleaders who demonstrated our camaraderie.
We all shared a toss of the white chalky substance just before rounds. No biggy right?? At least
not until we struggled to get home fast enough for a complete, emergent and immediate evacuation that is! Good God!
What were we thinking?!! Eight hours??? How about insta relief for those with
normal bowel function?! As I shared this story with my good friend, we were in
hysterical giggles. She leaned back into her seat and tried to control her
laughter. I went on to ask her if she ever tried the Activia yogurt? Now
really, I sing just like the commercial when I say it.
She tells me no. I go on to say something so personal…should
I really say it?? Of course; I have no filters and no embarrassment over such
common small bodily function things. I go on to tell her that after three or
four days of Activia I go to urinate and surprise! Didn’t know that was coming!
And then I panic because oh my God what if…what if I shart??!! No control. Didn’t
know it was coming? Can’t have such uncertainty in my life! We are full of uncontrolled
robust laughter at this point. I move to the comment, “We must be getting old
when we start fixating on our shit”.
We head off for some last day shopping and enter into the “Unicorn”
shop. It is an eclectic shop full of stuff. Chachkie alert! I roam aimlessly
through the store taking in colors and the artist wares. My friend meanders
along the narrow path and looks down and points, “That’s for you.” I glance
down to the booklet titled “What Is Your Poo Telling You?” You have got to be
kidding me. I could not bring myself to pick it up or open it. What could it
tell me that I didn’t already know? I had had my fill of talking shit for the
day.
October 21, 2013
It’s time to hibernate.
I live by my lists. As I always say “I’m busy!” With an unconventional lifestyle,
life demands lists. Of course I would be lying if I said I was not always a
list maker with some things remaining on my list for years to remind me of the
big dreams dancing in my head. I can say with confidence….there is little that
I do not complete even if it does take years. My “Idea Binder” captures all
projects in development with things added and modified as life moves along.
Dreaming big demands not only discipline, energy and enthusiasm, but little written
reminders as well. Over all, I am pleased with my long list of accomplishments.
Twenty good years left with cash, good health and freedom at hand give this
girl the impression “all is attainable” and my legacy will be something a mere
lifetime can be proud of.
I packed carefully while at the shore…frozen fluke, sea bass
and Alaskan cod caught and processed by my hunter gatherer and as well I pack up my long winter
coat. I can’t forget the OP’s chainsaws I brought for repairs and fine tuning
as the boyfriend is a handy man with anything mechanical. I do not expect a return
to Old Lyme as the cold weather wraps the Northeast in its arms as boyfriend
whines and complains. He is heading south to the warm Florida coast and I am going
north to the farm. Feels good. I’m busy! I take a small detour heading north to
stop at Johnny Appleseed’s and pick up a few bags of Jonagold apples. They are my
most favorite apple and with four bags sitting beside me in the passenger seat,
I zone out on the familiar drive north. I must be drugged with satisfaction.
I arrive early on a fall afternoon and clean “my room” aka car
reorganizing the disarray I have created in the last few weeks. It’s an easy
job because of limited goods, but there are some excesses with my bike rack
stuffed in the back seat and several bags of basics I bought as my thank you
contribution for my parent’s generosity. The simple life includes a minimalist
attitude. I get to sit by warm crackling fires as I work on classwork, sip wine
and watch OP TV favorite shows. It’s the back and forth we get to enjoy with
each other as I sit with my lap top, Dad plays Word with Friends and Mom commands
the DVR.
After a comfortable nights rest, Mom and I head up for a
visit to my sister Caryn’s on the bright cool fall afternoon. Leaves blow
gently skipping along the roads and crunch under our wheels as we make our way
along the country back roads. Caryn is feeling needy and damn it! I have my own
needs to satisfy! My new friend, Aide from Barcelona is leaving in a few short
weeks. I want my sister to make a unique bracelet for her as a good bye slash
friendship gift. Shortly after we arrive, I tend to her embers in the fireplace
after I gather aged firewood from the vast pile outside and we head upstairs to
her crafting room where I sift through her massive collection of beads. I pick
a few blue green glass beads with silver laced metals and leave the finishing
to the expert. We walk downstairs to marvel at the high flames now enveloping
the fireplace. Warm weather leaves the fires vacant, but the crispness of fall
invites the flames to dance as they warm us and calm the restlessness of the
day.
On the return home Mom and I lightly chat. We pass the old town
cemetery on the hill lined with a traditional white picket fence. Mom comments,
“Dad’s parents are buried there”. As the memory of that day fills my mind she
goes on to talk about the plots she has already purchased for her big day. She
tells me, “I bought three plots.” I developed a queer look on my face and
quipped back, “What? Was it a buy 2 get 1 free sale??” She laughs and follows
it up with, “Noooooo. When I bought our plots the caretaker said there were
three and I thought, hey, I don’t want to feel closed in!” I am left speechless
and can only manage to smirk to myself at that rationale.
The evening winds down with dinner and The Voice, my lap
top, a glass of wine, my parents sparring back and forth and my sis Caryn and
me sharing pics of our fires. Life can’t get more perfect. Boyfriend is
enjoying the heat in the south and I am here settling in for winter hibernation
at the farm.
October
6, 2013
Steady
flow of adjustments and advanced planning. The novelty of my nomad life has
not worn off on my friends who second as my coworkers. Have I ever expressed
how much I love my job and the people I work with? They are still asking me if
I am happy and curious about the dynamics of having no permanent home. They
continue to generously offer a comfortable bed for me to sleep in or share a
laugh or an affable joke about the inconceivability of this particular lifestyle
choice. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving, but who can resist a good
laugh between friends??
I made my way across the hospital
campus walking between the great oak trees that line the front lawn. I like the
landscape improvements we have witnessed throughout the years. The artist
in me appreciates the flowers that bloom in the spring and the mums that
replace summer show as fall fills the air. I am on my way to the local pharmacy
in the medical office building to move my prescriptions to a more convenient
location. I spend the majority of my time here and my advanced planning
requires streamlining travel stops. I like this part of my settling in and
exploring my new neighborhoods and accessing the resources I will be using with
regularity. I feel happy and satisfied with each new adjustment and often say
to myself that I want to remember this moment. Who would have thought going to
the pharmacy or local fruit stand could give me a new sense of home I have not
felt for some time?
I make a quick stop into the
optical shop along the way for a needed repair with my eyeglasses. The young
woman there was responsive and welcoming to my small requests as we chatted
lightly making small talk. My eyes gaze through the glass doors as I explore
the tiled floors as people walk by. Home to me is not just a structure we eat
and sleep in; it includes my community. Guess that is consistent with an
outside the box personality.
I am spending a few days north with
my parents. I have a new friend I met in the dorms, Aide and she is coming to
the farm for a visit. I have a natural attraction to foreigners because of my long
history with the bevy of foreign exchange students we have hosted through the
years. They are enduring friendships even though we live on different
continents. Aide is from Barcelona and I feel compelled to share with her an
American family experience that she may miss due to the limited exposure of
living the dorm life. Anyone who has ever come to the farm feels the warmth and
embrace of the feelings of home. It is only right to share it with the friends
in our lives.
The morning has started and I get
up from bed in my yoga pants and top that are suitable as both pajamas and lounging
day clothes. I walk downstairs and my dad makes note that I am dressed and
ready for the day and he quips to my mom, “You are the only one not dressed.”
My mom gets sparky and takes aim at me, “Well how can I compete with the nomad
when she can wear the same things from day to day and can even sleep in her
clothes. She’s always dressed!” The
rockets start to fire across the room as I shoot back, “You just envy me.” I
head out the door to my closet, slash car, slash storage room. Mom follows me
hanging out the door, “I’m going to call the local entertainment news to get
them to interview you on how to dress for all occasions!” as she cannot keep
herself from laughing. I get to my car and peer in through the windows. I think
I need to purge more. Just saying.
I grab clean clothes and make my
way back to the kitchen. Mom is in her pre-meeting craze of preparing for the “Authors
Selling Books” gathering that will begin within the hour. I quickly shower
before the first members start to arrive. I work in the kitchen cutting a bowl
of fresh watermelon and cutting the bagels for easy toasting. I peer into the
living room and take a listen to the agenda being laid out. I see all these
published authors discussing marketing strategies and I find myself feeling
like I am waiting for my right of passage. I am so itchy to do more with my
creative threads and my goal to complete my degree is hindering my capacity to
realize my other long term goals. I think of my laptop and my ability to transport
my work where ever I go. Home. I keep thinking of what it means as it
transforms itself in my mind.
September 24, 2013
Dramamine,
the drug of the Gods. My work days were separated by a gulf of days off
this week and I headed into Hartford for a single night stay. As with most
first nights on, there is rarely a solid nap before I start. It is a topsy
turvy time schedule working the night shift where your sleep patterns are
anything but normal. It must be the reason why night workers chip off a decade
of life from the trauma regularly executed on our bodies as we struggle to find
sleep where we can and fight to stay awake when the rest of the world is
sleeping. We do our best because really…lives depend on it and we take it
seriously.
I assess my potential for adequate
sleep and determine that my finest sleep aid will be needed. It’s Dramamine the
original sleepy formula. Dramamine always
compels me reminisce about the vacation to Saint Lucia I brought my mom on to
celebrate her successful completion of her master’s degree. We had rented a
taxi to explore the island and because I did not wish to be throwing up in the
back seat from the motion sickness which I am very vulnerable to, I took a half
a tablet of Dramamine. My mother has still not let go of the distress of having
to make conversation with the taxi driver as my body would limp up in the back
seat every time I sat down. At each point of the oohh and aahh of breathtaking
scenery, she would poke me to look and as fast as I would awaken, I would fall back
into slumber at the simple closing of my eyes. I am a light weight. I admit it.
I was drugged and she will never let me forget it.
I look into my bag to confirm what
I already know. I am out of Dramamine. I give myself a moment to assess what
strategy’s I have at 8am in downtown Hartford. Surely a walk to the Mobile station
will produce the goods to put me into a coma. I walk back to my room and drop
off my bags and as tired as I am, I make my way out to the largely quiet and
abandoned street. There is a slight drizzle of rain lightly coating the walkway
and I am finding the grayness of the sky comforting as I walk the short block
to my destination. The cashier is patient and generous with his time searching
under his cabinet of drugs….Motrin, Tylenol and a variety of other things, but
no Dramamine.
I sigh in resignation. Time to make
my way farther down the street to the Park Street Walgreens; it’s open 24 hours
a day. I pass a single man walking towards me as ‘hellos’ are exchanged. Park
Street is the bad part of Hartford. I think it is where that man got hit by a
car and was on national TV now that we could show the exciting video to cause
people to gasp because no one at the scene reacted to it. There is nothing like
video to show the common man’s everyday reality or American apathy or disengagement.
I find the cashier at Walgreens to be helpful and friendly as I secured my
stash of drugs. “This should hold me over for a bit”, I say to myself as I
marvel at the 12 tablets in their container. I shake them and I find the sound
and the weight of it strangely reassuring.
I begin the return to my transient home
and I feel the sense of relief knowing I will sleep through until my alarm awakes
me from my…coma. Love that word and the way it falls from my lips. I especially
like saying it out loud and giving it special inflection as it rolls off my
tongue. It’s like eating a Friendlies banana royal with extra toppings and
double almonds. It always guarantees a delivery of satisfaction! There are
several observations I make along my trip back to my room. Every person I
walked by greeted me with a ‘hello’ or even a ‘hola’ from the man who stopped
talking to himself to greet me. The streets show evidence of investments to
beautify the neighborhood. There were cobblestone walkways, new trees and freshly
paved parking lots. The area, although reputed to be sketchy or dangerous, had
an air of renewal and pleasantry during the early morning hours of the day.
I felt refreshed by the cool air and
exploration of my structural surroundings. It was an unhurried comfortable walk
through one of my neighborhoods as I
have several to claim, but there is no escape from 24 hours of no sleep and the
fatigue begins its torture of every fiber of my body. The low hum of my body’s
vibration is palpable. I slip into bed and am comforted by the Dramamine coma
that grips me before my head hits the pillow. It is the drug of the Gods or at
least my God of sleep that is.
September 13, 2013
The cost of being famous! As I drive north to my parents’ farm my eyes fill up with landscape eye candy. It is beautiful winding country roads with mountain peaks creeping out randomly around the curve then gently disappearing as my car descends and then climbs again. The smell of fall waifs through the air as peaches and apples ripen on the trees. I am looking forward to some fall horseback riding even if my schedule remains tight with my school work load. Live in the moment. Enjoy the day. It won’t be the day’s school assignment that I will remember. It will be feeling the light cool fall breeze, hearing the crunch of red, yellow and orange leaves under hoof and smelling the air that defines the change of season that will be banked in my memory.
My dad has been boasting of his single pumpkin seed in the manure pile that produced a mass of monster vine and giant pumpkins growing more orange with each day. Pictures have been posted on Facebook and there is one with my mom sitting perched atop a giant pumpkin smiling with pride. She grumbles, “I had just cleaned the barn, I have my boots on and my work clothes….ahhh but who cares?! We can focus on the pride of the patch..the massive pumpkin I am sitting on!”
I am here for a parent visit and have the intentions of utilizing the intellectual wisdom and skills of my mother to help me with my Capstone paper for school. I am narrowing it to successful women and how far we have come in our countries history. My mother is one of them with a list difficult to compile because she is really as modest as much as she is silly about both her personal and professional achievements. My dad complains she throws away evidence of awards and he has to dig them out of the trash. No one ever created a grant under the disabilities act to purchase a studio home for a ward of the state until she did. As far as I know, it is still the only one in existence. She was motivated by the circumstance of my high functioning schizophrenic autistic cerebral palsy brother and the uncertainly and difficulty with finding him a stable residence. She is bar none, my finest greatest mentor.
My mom has been receiving great reviews on her second novel “Saving
Gigi”. Sales are brisk and she is fascinated by the interest and positive feed.
A call comes in from a reader, “I loved your book. I read it in two days
because I couldn't put it down”.
I am sitting in the living room that is filled with colored glass objects sitting on the windows at half mast. There are vases of silk flowers on every table and stand as there are more tables than furniture to sit on. What does not have flowers, hold a place for horse art from the fantastic painting on fieldstone mantel to the black metal horse in the window to my left. My parent's home has every room chock full of chachkies and even after having been in and out of this home over the past twenty five years, there are things you could swear were never there because you just don't remember them. The visual interest delivers a newness to each and every visit.
Mother, “I’m getting famous!”I am sitting in the living room that is filled with colored glass objects sitting on the windows at half mast. There are vases of silk flowers on every table and stand as there are more tables than furniture to sit on. What does not have flowers, hold a place for horse art from the fantastic painting on fieldstone mantel to the black metal horse in the window to my left. My parent's home has every room chock full of chachkies and even after having been in and out of this home over the past twenty five years, there are things you could swear were never there because you just don't remember them. The visual interest delivers a newness to each and every visit.
Nomad, “Let me just touch you” as I reach out my hand to hers and we giggle.
Mother, “I’ll give you my autograph or maybe a signed
photograph.” I say nothing but smile and listen as she rises out of her chair
with laughter tear filled eyes and starts to move towards the kitchen.
Mother scoffs, “I don’t have time for this being famous!”
My dad comes in from an inspection and starts to chat with
my mom when mom announces “I offered her my autograph and she didn’t want it”
as she looks at me. “That really annoys me”, and she keeps giggling.
She gathers her things and heads out the door as my dad
shouts out to her “Putin wants your book!” as I hear the dance of her laugh echoing all the way
to her car.
It is not long before her short trip to the Post Office is
done and she sits next to me on the soft brown sofa with leftovers from last night’s dinner. She turns
and grins with that silly look and asks, “Do you want to touch my hand???” I
reach over a grab it tightly as we both laugh. I am seriously hoping that fame
is contagious!
September 5, 2013
I am heading south for a couple days and I make my call to the mother. She is sounding good and I hear a bit of perkiness in her voice, but I express my concern about all the visitors and the recent flu like sickness going around. After all, her immune system is not fully recovered and this makes her vulnerable to incoming infectious people. There is a moment of mutual resignation between us as we understand that she is a popular girl and the end of radiation has sent signals to the masses that she is open for company. I continue to harbor reserve and apprehension.
With my favorite ear bud secure in my ear, I start to rattle on about the cost of child care and my desire to provide daycare for my grandchildren that are yet to be born. I want them to be bilingual and I inform my mother I will speak only Spanish to them.
Mom, “You are out of control!”
Nomad, “You know Spanish is one of my passions and I want to
give my grandchildren a foot up.”
Mom, “They are going to be able to speak a different language that their parents won’t understand.”
Nomad, “That’s their problem.”
Mom, “Well, if that’s your dream then I think you should run with it.”
We move on to my plans on education and school. She talks
about opportunity at my age. Oh God…I am a woman and I am getting old!! Too old
to employ?? I am only 52 and I have 20 good years left at least! I know she has
a point, but I find myself fighting against the same things I have always
fought against….everyone else’s expectations about what I can, or should I say…cannot
do. Damn! It has never mattered to me what people think about what I can accomplish
because I always prove them wrong and my resistance to her argument reflects
that confidence or perhaps over confidence I have because I always deliver the
goods and I never disappoint. Mom, “They are going to be able to speak a different language that their parents won’t understand.”
Nomad, “That’s their problem.”
Mom, “Well, if that’s your dream then I think you should run with it.”
Mom, “You are going to have to decide what kind of life you want. You can’t have this idea of taking care of your someday grandchildren; get your masters and move on to new job when you are 60. No one will hire you and it’s especially hard because you are a woman.”
Can I tell you this is not what I want to hear? I know she
has a point, but even harder to wrap my arms around that she is always right. I
am not kidding. Her advice has always been spot on. She tells me that it is
because she made all the mistakes and has learned from them. It is why I have always
said she is perfect in her imperfections. She felt a bit taken back when she
first heard me say that, but in reality, who wants perfectly done when I get so
much wisdom from her experiences? There is brilliance in her layers of texture!
I am communicating with my sister at the same time working
out details of our vacation at the Cape. She gives me a choice of weeks and I
send back a quick “ you pick and then I can blame you if anything goes a miss.”
She responds “Ha. I feel your love ;-).”All my dreams of what my best options are in my future. Mother burst my bubble and baby sister gives me a pass from responsibility. And I have to ask myself how am I going to get it all done in the 20 good years I have left?? Somehow, this nomad life has its contributions to that sweet idea of options. Doesn’t that sound sweet?
August
25, 2013
Frenzy
of activity. I have been migrating north sleeping at the farm for the
majority of my time off to be available
help in my mom’s recovery. She is on her feet and on the cutting edge of her
stand out humor and timeless wisdom about life and the world of all
relationships, but remains easily fatigued as I had anticipated. She declares
her head free of her post anesthesia fog and she will take the fatigue over the
fog any day. She feels time has been lost and can only remember spurts of memory over the
last few months. She calls it her lost summer because the ordeal of her breast
cancer has consumed all the warm summer filled days. I have felt compelled to
provide a frenzy of activity and productivity to demonstrate that time has not stood still and
that things are still moving forward…life is still moving forward.
I look at the oak hutch I had
designed and had built for my mom some 25 years ago. It bears the scars of an
essential well used element in the kitchen, but its structure has remained
solid through the years of wear and tear. It has been nagging at me for some
time to refinish it and bring back the beauty of the woods oak grains. Its
color and sheen has long faded and the trash bin cabinet has been crying out
for a cabinet pull that could be reached at a more comfortable level. Off to
the porch I dragged it and let my new hand sander whisk away the evidence of
age and I feel a quiet sense of pride that I could have created something so
functional and strong. The new “honey” stain accentuates the swirls of oak grain and
after a couple of healthy coats of poly and new black hardware…voila! Check! One more project
done.
The next morning it’s time for
power washing the deck. I ask Mike to show me how to use the washer and instead
he proceeds to power wash the deck for me. I silently struggle to stand by idle
and act as an observer. I am only a step away from a type A personality and I
am itchy to take control of the wand. One day of drying and my dad and I make
slow steady work of applying the special grey deck paint to give it the nice ah
hah finish we have seen in magazines. We are both anxious to get my mom’s porch
swing back into position for her to sit and enjoy the day swaying gently back
and forth. In between coats I make my way to the shed with my variety of
plastic bins to exact my purge and organize routine on it. I perform the typical
bomb explosion with items strewn out on the lawn as I determine bin size and
how it will be organized and put back together.
By long weekends end, the deck redo
is complete, the oak hutch is returned to its place in the kitchen, the shed
shows off its new look and I start to gather old paint cans waiting for the cat
litter to dry them out for disposal. It has been a frenzy of activity for this peripatetic
nomad. The calls are coming in from other family to book my services and
expertise and the line is stretching well into next year! Aide, a new friend from
Barcelona who is staying at the dorms while she finishes her PhD internship, asked
curiously why I did not book a permanent room. I explained to her that it would
infringe on my sense of freedom. I like getting in my car with my belongings
and know I can go where ever I wish and have everything I need. I like the
temporary feel of location, but bask in the luxury of my resources.
August 8, 2013
Logistics and portability. Having a nomad lifestyle requires
efficient planning when executing simple things like dropping off bikes at the
bike shop or moving ‘things’ such as the blowup bed I took to the Cape that is
stored at my sons because he uses it more. I had to drop off my son’s bike for
repairs after I took it to the Cape and I have to pick it up today while doing
light shopping and then a hair appointment. Everything
has to be adjusted for when I am “in town” or where I may be when I am not. I
can’t drag my bikes with me where ever I go as I do my essentials. Again, I rely on my support system to make all of this work.
My mom and I were on the porch swing and even though her head is
not on straight yet, she has revived her silly sense of humor. Even the effects of anesthesia
could not keep that puppy down for very long. Dad comes out showing us the new
back up external hard drive I bought after suffering from losing 2 years of
work on my computer when it “crash and dumped” as I stood helplessly watching
the war of programing and slash and burn before my very eyes.” Is this yours?” he
asks my mom.Nomad, “No that’s mine. Remember my computer crashed?”
Mom, “I wasn’t sure that was a portable flusher for a Nomad’s port-a-potty in your car since you live out of your car… may as well be able to pee or poop in it” she quips and giggles.
Nomad, “I don’t need a toilet for my car!”
Mom, “Just think, if you had an accident or got stopped and
you had to pee…you know how you always have to pee if you get stressed or
nervous…you could say ‘hey! Wait a minute’ and take a quick trip on your own
special toilet”.
Nomad, “Then what would the officer say as my ass moons him?”Mom, “well can you imagine? What could he say? You could say you are suffering from a head injury and memory loss. Say ‘what? I did what?? I have no memory. Then you could get a lot of sympathy and a big settlement because really…who would believe any sane person would poop in their own car??”
At this point her body is shaking and she laughing as the tears flow. Dad throws it in “Instead you wait until you get home and we wait for the white smoke to rise!” My parents…they are one kind of special people. Sigh.
I finish adjusting my “room” aka car with all my essentials in it. I am still tweaking it to make it more efficient such as how I zip up and store my carry on suitcase to make access easier. Dad starts to mount my bike rack onto my hitch and I am off to take to task my list of things to do while I am “in town”. It’s all about the logistics and planning with my portable freewheeling nomad lifestyle.
August 6, 2013
Impact and outcomes. I was making the drive from the farm to
work. I was mulling over the reflections shared with my mom about when I was 18
and leaving for college. She wanted me to go and spread my wings, but at the
same time she worried that this free spirited daughter would disappear to lands
unknown exploring the world. It is no wonder the nomad life fits so well. I
have the freedoms I crave and yet I have the shelter and comforts that only
family can deliver. The more I live this life style; the more satisfied I feel.
I am drifting in and out of my thoughts and navigating the
highway when a series of brake lights catches my attention. It’s too late for a
work zone and the fire engine lights that peer above the horizon tells all
there is an accident ahead. In quiet orderly fashion we merge to the right as
traffic slows to a crawl. I approach the scene and like most people, curiosity
draws my eye to the vehicle whose front end is smashed into the Jersey barrier.
The driver’s door is open as the firemen are talking near the front of the car.
No one is attending to the young girl I see bent over with her face falling
still into the steering wheel. Her arm falls to her side lifeless and limp. She is
wearing a light flowing summer dress that flutters softly as a light breeze lifts and drops it randomly against the seat. I see no movement as I am driving by as
it becomes clear to me that no one is attending to her because there is nothing
they can do for her. The car had no air bag deployed. It was an older model and
probably all she could afford and probably her first car. I start to cry.
I remember my own son who was picking up his date and
heading south across the West Springfield bridge. He was struck head on by a
drunk driver so hard the car he was driving was rammed backwards into the bridge
rail crushing the rear of the car as well. I remember arriving on the scene not
knowing what to expect. My son was bleeding from the left side of his face
where the side air bag had deployed. He was in shock, as was his date, but both
suffered survivable injuries in large part because of the air bags of a new
car. I am grateful for fate and how it played its hand for my son and I felt
sorrow for the family who would not share such an outcome for their young
daughter. It’s small things that can change your life from survival to tragedy.
I regret looking.
August 3, 2013
Things that make or break. I had dedicated the day to do a
purge and reorganize a couple of wayward closets at my parent’s farm home after
our vacation on the Cape. I had emptied all the contents throughout several
rooms and emptied the sitting room Hoosier cabinet as well. It becomes barely
passable throughout and I have to appreciate my parent’s tolerance of me
setting off a bomb in their tidy home. I take inventory and assess what my
storage needs are and head off to the department store. I am deep into
purchasing a variety of containers to create a magazine perfect picture of an organizer’s
dream when I get the text from my youngest “are you busy”? Every parent knows
that translates into ‘I have a problem I need you to help fix’.
He was smart. He had been drinking on a party night and a
friend drove him home. Only problem…his car got towed and I am the registered
owner. He needs me. Yup. Smack dab in the middle of a war with ‘stuff’ strewn
across the floor in several rooms with limited time to wrap it all up. I am
relieved that he did the right thing and I do not hesitate to tell him that I
am on my way as priorities dictate calm and reinforcement of all the things I
taught my children about making smart choices. Expressing my discontent over
the inconvenience sort of would defeat the purpose of all my indoctrination. So
I decided to make it double as a lunch date and a catch up bonding moment.
We are slightly frustrated coordinating the pickup time on a
beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon. We weren’t the only ones. A Hispanic mother
and her son were also in the same boat. While the boys share their stories of
how their cars were towed, the mothers share several smiles and do the work of
wrapping up the inconvenience to our days. Cash only. No credit cards. I had a
suspicion which I shared with my son so we were prepared, but the other family
was scrambling for cash and came up short. I asked “what do you need”? It was
three dollars. Three dollars was the difference of finishing business or
starting the process all over. I handed them the cash and they expressed their gratitude.
It could have been fifty dollars and I
would have done the same. It’s an understanding of shared experience that
extends the line of generosity. I believe in paying it forward.
I reminisced about Maureen. Maureen was my sister Michelle’s
save. I received a call from Michelle that Maureen and her three boys needed
help. She wasn’t sure what the problem was exactly, but that help was needed as
Maureen was largely incapacitated. We thought a catastrophic disease process,
but it didn’t matter to us what it was because it was clear the family needed
help. I made several trips to Maureen’s with my car full to the brim with
groceries, paper goods, batteries and other essentials. My co-workers even
contributed to help as Christmas was close at hand. They were our adopted
family. Maureen was gracious and thoughtful and long story short….she consented
for her children to live with another family in town while she went into rehab
after we peeled away the subterfuge and uncovered the root issues of the problem.
Today, Maureen is recovered, working, active and healthy with her
children back at home. Sometimes it takes a village. I am proud of my sister.
She never wavered in her dedication or became judgmental of the situation. She
was kind and gracious even when we were concerned it may have been a self-inflicted
wound. I am proud of Maureen as well. She saw her way through her personal
struggle and the random acts of the individuals in a community are what can produce
the make or break events in our lives.
July 26, 2013
Family and Vacations at the Cape. My sisters, my parents and I started to do our summer vacations together on the Cape a few years back. We wanted time to have more time to reconnect amidst our busy lives and allow for the personal one on ones that are often rushed at the usual gatherings. We didn’t exclude or include our brothers. They seem more entrenched in their own circle of friends and are not as needy for spending time together as we sisters are. We are more intertwined in each other’s lives, homes and children as we are good friends not just sisters.
We have changed vacation homes each summer in search of the most perfect house to meet our collective needs. Mom wants the ocean, I want activities, Michelle wants shopping and Cheri wants ample space and entertainment for her young brood. We seem to have hit our first repeater as it hits all the right spots! Of course we all have been hearing strange noises while prompting Cheri and her husband from their bed to investigate in the middle of the night. Mom and Michelle were in the kitchen laughing about there being a ghost and as my mom calls out and introduces herself to whatever alien being may exist wouldn’t you know the toaster oven rings out at the same time the ceiling light turns on! Confirmed! We have concluded it’s a friendly being and our decision to pursue retaining this home next year goes undeterred.
As all good vacations go food and alcohol are in ample supply. I am particularly thrilled that my eldest son and his girlfriend have found time to spend with us. It’s been an open door policy with bed space arraigned as needed. I take the lead on groceries and preparing meals. I am the organizer with the dominant personality. Cheri asserts her culinary skills whenever I give her space to perform and Michelle is good at staying out of the way. As for my parents…this is their time to relax and take it all in watching the entertaining activities and conversations.
Dinner brings drinks, laughter and tunes streaming in to set the mood. We game up after dinner. Cards Against Humanity keeps us bursting at the seams, while others migrate to the pool table or ping pong table. It’s fun time! My nephew shares his music with his guitar giving us all down time to enjoy a relaxing moment before heading to bed. We have no schedule to confine our biking, beaching or exploring. Tradition demands Dad leads building puzzles and this year we completed two! It’s all vacation moments.
Cheri and I have been running to the shore in the mornings to give us our cardio workout. There are only a few Cape Cod homes along the way with a few beyond the vast fields of reeds near the shore. It is quiet and all we hear is the local nature, a light breeze stirring the trees and our rhythmic breathing as we jog along. I love the bay side sandy beaches best. Its warm water carries you effortlessly as you float on the ripples of light waves. We keep our family bonds strong sharing a home while joking, jabbing, singing, dancing and appreciating the privilege of time together.
July 15, 2013
On the way I announce I expect I will continue this nomad
life until the coming home to the farm option is off the table. My dad tells
me, “it will be quite a few years before we leave here”. I respond by letting
them know, “it’s all about me and my needs Dad”. My mom makes some sort of
sarcastic remark as we are always vying for top dog in the all about me status.
I do my best to familiarize them with the routine and area they will become all
too familiar with as we expect surgery, radiation and a far less likely
possibility of chemo therapy as potential options. The unknown is what drags us
unwillingly to the worst case scenarios that highlight our sense of
vulnerability and powerlessness.
We arrive early. OP’s (old people) require early arrival as
they become occupied with navigating traffic and driving particularly slow and
since I was the driver capable of using the HOV lane, we arrived with a
comfortable time cushion. The environment at the Gray Cancer Center is modern
airy and welcoming and as I look around at the people seated around us I
speculate to their condition. Cancer is what brings them here. We are all along
for the ride whatever our destination.
We enter into the patient’s room while we wait for the
doctor to arrive to discuss what are the results and what are the options. My
mom is still smarting from a botched biopsy from that “breast cancer center up
north” with swelling and inflammation a month later and with no clip to guide
the surgeon to boot. I am quietly angry. I should have known better to bring
her to my facility from the start. Needless suffering…and I am angry. We can’t
stop ourselves from bantering and joking about the obvious and it forces my mom
to comment “be serious when the doctor comes in. This is serious” as if I
didn’t understand. She is anxious. Her eyes meet mine and I can read her
concern and I see all the emotions bundled there. Apprehension, fear of the
unknown, vulnerability and even anger. This is not her moment, I say to myself.
I am not feeling it and I know I am not going to be denied the time with her
that I sacrificed with my busy life. Now that my nomad life makes the best
accommodations for time with the OP’s….it’s all about me right?
My mom makes her take on this reluctant adventure. “It’s
like when you get on a plane. You can’t get off midair. You have to stay on it
until you land. You are captive until the ride is over”. She looks down as my
Dad expresses his wishes for a mastectomy to end the problem and further risk.
She tells us she has no loyalty to the breast she bought nice bras for, treated
to scented lotions and dressed in fine clothes. “It has betrayed me and I don’t
wish to keep it if it has declared itself not worthy of keeping”. We discuss
the side effects of a mastectomy and conclude that our surgeon Dr.Lori Fritts,
is whose hands we will put my mother’s health and wellbeing in to. I have known
her since she was an Intensive Care fellow. She is not only brilliant; she is
one of the most compassionate doctors I know. I trust her with deciding the
best therapy to give me the time both my mom and I desire. I need years more to
extract wisdom from the matriarch of our family. She does not rule with an iron
fist. She expands our minds and shares the best advice you can get so much so
that everyone seeks her out. This lump is only a bump in her road.
It is several days later and we have made our way to the
Cape for our annual family vacation. Mom and Dad come bouncing in from their afternoon
shopping excursion. She grabs my arms bursting with a smile. “Lori called. It’s
good news. The last biopsy was good.” We tear up a bit as I start to rant about
those idiots that bungled her first biopsy and did all that damage that lit up
in the first MRI that threw us all over the cliff. My Mom starts to joke “I am
happy I have cancer….the good one that is. I qualify for the localized
radiation that takes a week to complete”. My Dad shares with me how they were
sitting at lunch when they got the news and couldn’t stop from crying with
relief. I send out the word….good news! It is
only a bump in the road!
July 14, 2013
Lake Sunapee and new sensations. Mike and I planned our trip
to Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire to say happy birthday to his mom. It was expected
to be a quick overnight weekend visit; in on Saturday to go out for a birthday
dinner celebration and back on Sunday evening. Mike had wanted to take the
Harley for a ride on the rolling mountain back roads to soak in quintessential
New England scenic views, but weather and a bout with picnic food poisoning
from Friday made car transportation the practical safer option. He was counting
off how many trips to the bathroom he had made and it was 15 and counting! I
really felt bad, but I was in tears laughing. Why is it that such things gives
us a serious case of the giggles??
I prepare my bags for the trip north and throw in a small
load of wash. I have been adapting and making little adjustments to how I
store, pack and migrate from my various way stations to promote smoother transitions
from one destination to another. I decided on repurposing and using my small
coach wristlet and admitted defeat on the fanny pack idea to hold my keys,
cards and phone. My Swedish daughter Cecilia got it for me on one of her return
trips back to the US and I had previously used it exclusively for a night out
and easy securement of my essentials. People often look at me kind of curious
or queer when I say “my Swedish daughter" or "my German daughter” which is
understandable if they don’t know all of my history.
I am fortunate to have three wonderful grown sons, but I was
never blessed with a daughter. So frustrated was I, that I started to import ‘daughters’ adopted from
generous families participating in a foreign student exchange program. I considered the
experience to be a bridge for myself and my children to enhance our international
cultural understanding and to do what I could do prevent both arrogance and
ignorance that I felt was too prevalent in our culture. We hosted for a year at
a clip and integrated these wonderful girls into the fold of our family and our
community. The East Windsor community was a gracious host and we really were a
mixed bunch with few racial barriers. There were seven in all from Sweden,
Germany, Finland, Colombia and France and we are fortunate that the internet
and social forums like Facebook keep us connected. They are gifts and I feel privileged.
Mike and I finished our packing the Volkswagen diesel Jetta
that Mike likes to boast his 40mpg as much as I like to boast mine from my
Civic hybrid and we are on our way. Mike is still under the weather suffering
from a queasy stomach and fatigue. He comments on how glad he is that we are taking
the car because the Harley requires attention and quick reflexes and he remarks
about his promise to my mom to keep me safe. We make the three hour drive to
Lake Sunapee arriving by midafternoon to his parents’ lakeside home. It was a
beautiful ride, but even my stoic man cannot make much more than a quick hello as
he nestles into the couch for a rest.
His mom, sister and I decide on a quick kayak venture around
part the coastline of the crystal clear lake to catch the afternoon sun and
warm air. This lake is so large I do not imagine we could ever complete the
entire shoreline rim in its entirety. The mountains jut around its edges and
the ski trails at Mount Sunapee can be seen in the distance. As I make the turn
around one of the islands, I stop and pause to take a slow breath in. I get
this sensation that is new to me. I am living so much more in the moment because
I am unsaddled from responsibility, especially the responsibility of maintaining
a home I barely lived in. A wave of satisfaction and joy covers me. This is the
life. This is my life.
July 5, 2013
Nesting…Nomad style. Perfecting living my nomad life with
comfort and ease has required some degree of nesting. Moving things around,
buying my new essentials and identifying rhythm, are the natural activities any
successful nomad has to exercise. I started with my mobile room….my Honda Civic
Hybrid. How to pack it in a way that allows easy access to my everyday
essentials as well as accommodating the not often used, but socially necessary
items for special occasions. The Home Goods store has great semi formed
decorator bags with handles in a variety of sizes to sort out my clothes. I got
that banging backpack I just love so much for carrying heavier items like my
school supplies. I have purged my car of items that declared themselves dispensable
and have moved things around to create some sense out of most all my worlds
possessions that are stored in my car.
I hit a glitch when it came to moving around in my pajamas
aka yoga pants and top aka workout clothes that are so very versatile, but lack
pockets. I have to carry 2 sets of keys, my ID badge, phone and money on short excursions
like say to the cafeteria to get something to eat as I do have cooks at my
leisurely life disposal. I tried the small purse thing and it feels cumbersome
and falls off my shoulder or into my way as it swings too freely. I thought…I
hate to think I wanted one…but a small fanny pack would work. I know…I was
saying to myself NO WAY. Not a fanny pack, but yes…the simpler streamlined don’t
give a crap what it looks like me said …yes. I can do this. I went online to
investigate and it seems there has been a significant comeback in the fanny
pack realm by the adventurous active health conscious crowd; who like me, need
to carry things when they are active, but have no storage capacity.
I searched through pages of items on Amazon looking for the
right color, neutral not flashy and the right size. No, I don’t want to carry a
water bottle on my hip or carry a year’s supply of granola bars. Camo...are you kidding me?? I didn’t find
the perfect one, but I surmised I would find something either at Eastern
Mountain Sports or REI. I stop to mention this to KP and Butts who are starting
report on their patient. I share my desire to purchase a fanny pack and they
melt and laugh in disbelief. There are times when you say something and you
want to take it back, well this could have been one of those moments. Butts is
a 20 something super body builder type and KP is a bit younger than me as well
and they uniformly complain that I have to do anything but get a fanny pack.
They inform me it’s an age statement. I tell them that when they get to be my
age they will think practicality and convenience over style someday too, but KP
tells me no one can guess my age and if I do this…the cat will be out of the
bag. They continue to laugh, badger and offer up multiple kinds of solutions to
keep me from making such a style statement. Now, I am rethinking my possible
dive over the age defined style cliff.
My one good purchase is my pillow top for my dorm bed. A
solid investment for sleeping comfort. I thought about renting here month to
month, but I concluded that it felt too much like moving in. It feels like at my
mom’s where she has those empty drawers she wants me to fill. I refuse to
belong anywhere that gives the air of permanence. Strings become ropes from
which I may hang myself. I am not ready to settle anywhere because freedom is
my most cherished asset at this turn in my life. I am comfortable with nesting
into a nomad’s life with flexible schedule and a bevy of unpredictability. If
not for work, I would simply like to forget what day it is.
July 2, 2013
Routines and the
comfort of familiar places. I cannot understand how many times I got my
schedule wrong this week. Simons (nicknames…I just love them!) pointed out that
I was on the schedule when there were several times I thought I was…then I wasn’t…and
then I was. I could be fair to myself and say that indeed, last week had been a
blistering one with waves of emotional consumption that left me weeping and
emotionally tender in ways even I found curious. I am the rock. If I let out a
cry, I make it one good pity party and let it go, but this week the pain and
turmoil landed on those close to me. They say things come in threes, but all
evolving simultaneously has been a bit much even for me and I feel I have been
taken to the cleaners. I think of the good fortune of impenetrable support
systems that carry us through difficult times and I for one, am blessed to have
them.
I bought a new calendar to pick up after June had ended. In
my haste, I bought one of those backwards calendars that starts with Monday and
I placed my hair apt on Wednesday’s slot. Lucky for me I thought it meant
Tuesday because I showed up at the right time! All women know, when you find a
good hairdresser….she owns you. You will make accommodations to keep the rhythm
of your individually tailored style no matter how you have to make it fit into
your busy schedule. I feel the same way about my personal trainer who has been
strengthening this tired piece of carbon and both are located in my old apartment
town of Manchester. Eleni asks if I want to keep the same color blonde
highlights and I respond “my mom tells me I should stay blonde because it
reminds me of my toe head days”. It could be that remembering my youth makes
her remember hers… and I hope she misses this post just for saying that! I get
the nice head massage with my shampoo and who doesn’t enjoy someone else
fiddling with their hair? When she is done, I feel the best I can on no sleep
and I grumble that I wish I could cut off the pounds as easily as I have cut
off the hair. Just a trim will do, but alas…my mouth always gets in the way.
I make my way to my next stomping ground and look to enhance
my skin tone a touch at my favorite tanning salon. I have had many
conversations with Simons about my skin tone envy when I made her pull up her
leg pants so we could compare my progress at the salon to her natural coloring.
There were many times I declared she didn’t shave to give her darker shading or
that because she knew I was going to be darker than her…she went out and sunned
that day. She always shakes her head amused and tells me there is something
wrong with me. She tries to explain she has black skin and she doesn’t need to
tan and I stomp around saying how close I was this time. Why my friends indulge
me in this way always makes me grateful.
They have my butterscotch candy waiting for me on the
counter as the owner and I make some idle conversations before I make my way to
room 5 where the bed awaits me. I have included small things to my life as
little gifts to me. First it was a commitment to getting my hair done
regularly, then tanning once or twice a month and topped it off with my
personal trainer. These are the things that pamper me and give me the attention
I neglected for many years. They are all in Manchester where everything was at
my fingertips. It still holds me with all its comforts and I expect to keep it
on my list as it remains the center to meeting my pampering needs.
June 23, 2013
Hiking at Rocky Neck
Beach. My itchy and scratchy boyfriend requires daily walks or hikes to sooth
his restlessness. I am a willing partner as it sets the stage for hand holding
and the sharing of recent events, passionate opinions and dreams of the future.
The warm wind is steady and Mike comments that if it were not for the winds, we
would not have come. It is summertime and peak season for gnats, mosquitos,
deer flies and horse flies that will feast on the passersby as we make our way
through the woods. It’s a spectacular hike that combines small fields and tree
umbrella sheltered paths as the heat from the sun would steal all the fun out
of the march to the shore.
We make our way to the stone hall with slate tiled rooftop
that has tall barren trees holding the rustic structure up. Wood craftsmanship can
be seen throughout its interior as we peer through the windows. It was once a
regular gathering place for big events, but sits mostly idle in its majestic
setting as history plays on our curiosity. You can see the shoreline cascade
out before you and the symphony of voices echo up the hill and the smell of
barbeque fills the air. I can feel the heat of the sun as we navigate down to
the path below on the massive boulders that strike out of the landscape as it
rolls up and down along the shore. Rocky Neck has pretty white sand on its
beachfronts. Colored umbrellas sit perched to block the sun’s rays and please
the eyes with a rainbow of vibrant colors.
Mike grumbles a bit about his expectation that people be
courteous and clean up after themselves when they pack to leave. I have to
comment that it’s always the few bad apples that give the whole experience a
bad rap. We make our way through the grassed parking lot and pass more
picnickers lining the way. Music sounds out as people are seen relaxing and
soaking up the beautiful day. We cross the bridge over the protected areas and stop to watch nesting Osprey in the distance. We move on through the wooded path and I find a pile left behind by a dog whose owner neglected to respect consideration for other hikers. I pick up a stick from the ground and flick the poop off into the woods. I say to Mike “If not me then who?” It’s my mantra. I will pick up trash left behind by others, because if not me…then who?
Mike asks, “Do you know what your Indian name is?”
Nomad, “No. What?”
Mike
giggles as he tells me, “Poop Flicker”. We both laugh.
In my esteemed opinion, I feel it is a respectable name. I
would not want to be captivated and distracted by the mysteries of the woods
and step into a fresh pile of dog poop. For all I know, perhaps there was
someone before me doing just the same thing and I was spared trying to clean
off dog crap from the creases in my shoe. Someone maintains the trails and I am
appreciative of it and am happy to do my part and eliminate the careless acts
of others. And besides, it provides a good laugh for us both and strengthens
what we say we value.
The conversation moves on as we make our way along the
trail.
Mike asks, “Will you scratch my back until I die babe?”
Nomad replies, “Yes darling.”
Mike
relaxes and asks, “That’s what I wanted to hear”. “Will you wipe my ass or let
me die?”
Nomad answers, “I’ll Let you die.”
Mike relieved says, “That’s what I hoped you’d say”. He follows it with
“Will you stop feeding me and watering me?”
Mind you this is what I tell my own children all the
time….stop feeding me and watering me and I will slip into a comfortable coma
and it will all be over in a couple weeks. Healthcare workers can be so blunt
about life and death. I think they call it jaded. Nomad responds “Of course darling.” And Mike descends to dismay at the thought of being deprived of any food for any period of time. “Please tell me you will hook up an IV of bourbon and let me die drunk or even stoned, but I have to eat!” I reassure him I won’t starve him and will put in a feeding tube for the Jack Daniels and coke. He tosses me a warm smile. Did I say dreams of the future?
June 23, 2013
Going north to help with the hay. We had been waiting for a
break in the weather to perform the ritual of bringing in the hay from the
local fields of farmer John’s. Finally, the day had come and the scramble to
gather able and available bodies to help with the harvest ensued. Calls went
out to see what options there were for the always last minute crew. It worked
well for the Nomad because my work schedule ended on cue and I contacted my
personal trainer to cancel my regular session to take the physical beating in the
fields.
I arrived early to the farm and I had time to bring my bags
in. I had purchased a new backpack for my books to make transportation easier.
It’s perfect. Right color, right size, durable and comfortable with the perk of
swaying gently across the top of my ass as I walk….and quite frankly…I find it pleasing.
I show case and model it for the OP’s (Old People) and they giggle as I explain
all the advantages and specifically the enjoyable soft caressing part. In this
house, we seek to hit the tickle spot in every conversation. Sass. My family
has sass. My sister Caryn arrives and she starts chatting about new sunglasses with
my mom. What??More sunglasses??? Apparently they went shopping and they toss their new glasses
back and forth and tease me how they share the same sense of style and
therefore their glasses are interchangeable. They pose for me flauntingly as
they swap out glasses as I grunt and roll my eyes.
The time for hay has come and we load up in the trucks for
the drive to the fields. Off in the distance the tractor is moving across the
east field with the bailer sounding out in steady rhythm. Alice is at the wheel
in the monster blue truck with long hay trailer attached. We don our gloves and
look to the sky and give thanks for the cloudy overcast. After a quick strategy
session with Alice, Caryn heads off to move the bails to make way for the
truck to pass through as we flank the trailer on both sides. Den and Cote mount
the trailer to catch the bails and stack them as the rest of the crew retrieves
the bails lying in the field. It is not
long before we are all sweating and the prickle of the hay against our exposed
arms starts to sting. The moisture dripping from my face and chest catches
flicks of hay and I scream out to Alice “aaahhhh...I have a fungal disease” and
she laughs at the wheel amused by my antics. As well, the bugs are swarming
looking for their opportunity to eat any exposed flesh and I let my hair fly to
try and give cover to my face and eyes.
We fill the trailer and make our way back to the barn. Caryn
and I ride behind the trailer to collect any bails that decide to jump to the
road below and we toss them into the back of her truck. We make quick decision
about who will unload from below and who will stack hay in the barn loft. I am
a stacker. I put on my mask to keep out all the hay dust and the conveyor belt
lets out the grinding clicking as the bails climb upwards and fall to the barn
floor. We set up the line and at times I struggled to keep up. My breathing was
heavy and I did what I could to catch my it as the barn was filled to the
rafters. It took three trips to the fields and 389 bails later….our work was
complete. We head to the house exhausted, dirty, smelly and itchy. My arms are
speckled with red dots like a rash and give off a slight burn. I reach up to my
face and feel small lumps where the bugs have feasted. I felt I had reasonable
success in my deer fly kills, but I can see welts rising up on my arms.
The grill is hissing and the smell of hotdogs and hamburgs fill
the air. Mom brings out foodstuff from the kitchen as well as the chili I had
made when I first arrived. Caryn and I crack a cool beer and stall on food as
we sit swaying on the porch swing. These are the moments. Quick hard work, cold
beer, fun conversation and an appetite well earned. Hard labor can be
worn as a badge of pride. We sit satisfied at the bail count and are relieved we won’t have to do it again in the
morning.
June 10, 2013
Am I doing it to save
money?? This was the question posed most earnestly by my friend and
coworker AC…my pen name for “Asian Chick”. Guess what?? She is a pure Chinese
American beauty and….she just had the most beautiful
pure “Asian baby” girl and I fondly call her my pure Asian baby. Of course some could assert I need cultural sensitivity
training, but somehow nicknames are a part of the fabric in our acutely intense
Intensive Care Unit and we love to play as a part of our team and friendship
building. AC gives me a patiently attentive yet curious, gentle and baffled look as she
asks me to help her understand what has happened to me as if I have been
afflicted with this disease called terminal
nomad disorder.
The answer is easy. It’s not about money. It’s about freedom
and the capacity to spend my time more generously with the important people in my
life and more time to explore all those interests I have simmering on the
burner. I would be lying if I did not acknowledge the reality of financial recovery
necessary from being the single working mom who enthusiastically supports her three
son’s path to success. I cannot impress how my lifestyle and work
habits left me homeless a long time ago. Now gone are the frustrations
of packing up on my days off and missing items I neglected to pack up. Now,
everything is already neatly tucked into their designated place in my travel case aka my car. I am the quintessential get in my car and go girl.
I enjoy doing projects for others. I am talented enough to
take down walls, paint a room, organize the clutter or plant your flowers. I am
a renaissance woman and these are the things that make me happy. I believe this
is going to work as long as I am in school and my time is at a premium. My
boyfriend tells his friends “yeah, she might marry me someday, but she won’t
live with me”. And there is truth in that statement! He lives on the shore over
50 miles from work and the center of my family. My friend who duals as my
manager told me something yesterday. She said this is the national trend to
have multiple residences due to work location limitations and other commitments.
I believe this nomad life is unique and I have all the ingredients to make it a
novel success. I am single, I am employed, I have something to offer, I am stress
free company and I am loved. I spend my money on the people in my life anyway
so the savings will be minimal, but the return on my investments will be
immeasurable.
June 6, 2013
Dorm life. This
week brings my nomad life into real time live action as I have returned back to
work from my medical leave. I look back on the last five weeks and wonder what
in the world happened to the time I had estimated would offer opportunities to
advance my progress on my drawings and oil painting? I have to ask myself why I
choose to load my plate with ideas and often unrealistic expectations regarding
my capacity to produce tangible creations. Am I destined to be a compulsive doer
with an imposing imagination and insatiable desire to be a change agent?? I
thank my lucky stars I am not a type A personality and have a calm disposition
under the pressure of all the things I put on my list. Friends who know me
understand the humor in my binder called “Book of Ideas” that I keep notes in as
I develop my long term lists and as well do not underestimate that I will actualize anything I put my mind
to whether I can do it in a day or if it takes years of development. School, as
much as I love my curriculum, is exhausting all my spare time, but I did
complete the Pulitzer Prize book review for publication. Check!
The return to work is settling. I have worked here for three
decades and it is hard to imagine that most of my waking hours have been spent
here with my decades old friends and some new ones. Besides caring for my
family, it is here that my social calendar has found its home. My hands are
full as I walk through the corridors pulling my rolling computer case topped
with my essentials bag and my book bag swung over my shoulder. Not moving in…just
packed for a short stay. I made my way through the bowels of the hospital in
the basement that are often empty of signs of life with its hissing monster
pipes intermittently sounding off. The air is dry today as there is no evidence
of recent rains puddled on the concrete floors. Up through the stairs of
century old abandoned building that served as office space at one time in its
history. The wooden warped and worn stairs creek as I climb to the empty
connecting corridor to the overpass to the educational building that will
deliver me to the dorms. A maze it is. It is a series of empty spaces serving
as my path to my destination with the abandoned areas appearing as a potential backdrop
for a great suspense horror movie.
I check in at the front security desk and take my key to
find my room. It is this moment when I am full of curiosity as well as the
sense of completing the design in my head of what my nomad future holds in
store for me. How will my daily life form and move to complete this experience?
I enter through a series of doors searching for my room number. I feel warmth
on my skin and feel my first sense of apprehension. My hormones serve as my
greatest obstacle for comfort especially when trying to sleep. In goes my key
and I open the door and feel the coolness of the room and all of my
apprehension dissipates until I hit the solid and stiff texture of the mattress!
The room is clean, neat and accommodating for my needs. I even have a balcony
with a door opening to it with chairs I can sit on. I feel for a moment like a
city girl….an urbanite. The bathroom is around the corner from my room and
there are a couple of other residents actively chatting with their guests in
their rooms with doors open. Signs of life….sigh. I deliberate options for bed
comfort and I will have to access will the Dramamine I take as an occasional
sleep aid mask the firmness of the bed or will I have to consider the options
of transporting a softening buffer to use when I am here? It is something to
consider, but I don’t feel pressed in making a decision when I did sleep well
and long. This kind of living suits me. Adventure and freedom are icing on my
cake and I will eat it too!
June 4, 2013
Fulfilling my role expectations. Working on purging and
reorganizing at mom’s house knowing I will be gone for a couple weeks as my
work schedule and social calendar is full until then. I tore apart the bathroom
closet and emptied the contents of no less than SEVEN junk drawers! Good God….there
should be a law against such things. My mom has collectables…chachkies did I
say?? Well she has this beautiful Hoosier cabinet chock full of crap and I did
the most invasive cleansing and re-organizing that would make the reality shows
cry out and declare it something close to an apocalyptical event. Trash can was
at the ready as well as one of my most favored essentials of zip lock bags in
assorted sizes. Uh huh. So thrilled am I.... that I continue to marvel at the
accomplishments of the day as I keep revisiting and re-opening the drawers and
sending out a sigh of satisfaction each time no matter how many times I do it.
I cooked dinner as the good daughter should. Mind you…the
mother has clearly made it known she wants me to cook when I am on one of my
visits aka sleepovers. We sat down for dinner and the shots were being fired
across the bow as softly swaying tunes injected intermittent gyrations from
both my mom and I as we ate filet and vegis and chatted about our days events.
My dad, having spent the night in Wing Memorial for exacerbation of his asthma,
sat there looking all so perky with his bounty of steroids making him glow with
a giddy look of mischievousness as the banter continued back and forth across
the table. Mother “you can’t have all that red meat!”
Dad “it wasn’t cardiac so the cardiologist said”
Nomads “leave him alone for God’s sake…he just got home. Can’t you see he is just happy to be with his family?”
Dad smiles this I love you smile at my mom and I say “look at him…he looks soooooo amorous…love those steroids.” Mom brushes it off as Dad goes on to talk about the expanded weather app he has and he can watch the weather around the world if he likes.
Mother seizes her moment like the pit bull she is and shouts out “you are becoming obsessed with the weather and I can’t take it!” My Dad laughs as I reach over smirking and open the top drawer to the Hoosier cabinet and display the uncountable number of glasses. Sun glasses, reading glasses, glass cases, glass holders, glass ropes and wrapped replacement lenses and I say “who is obsessed???” We all laugh as we continue our sparing jabs looking to see who will garner the biggest laugh.
Dad starts getting all solemn and down in his expression “I think I am going through withdrawal already” as he starts to march out the days I will be gone.
June 2, 2013
Nesting into my nomadic
life. Seems to me a contradiction of sorts, but that is exactly what I am
doing. My car has undergone a few small adjustments to shorten my time harvesting
items from my pleasantly colored mix of bags. As well, I have been devising places
to store the bags of books, my computer bag and my essentials bag when I am
visiting my destination locations. I have a keen need to be as unimposing as
possible even though the welcome mat is evident. I believe my mom would like me
to take over all cooking when I am with her and she has expressed it more than
a few times. I call my mom and dad affectionately the “old people” or as she
prefers OP for brevity and it makes it a secret code word special to our inner
circle. We laugh often at our incessant plays on humor and our shared cynicism.
True to my peripatetic nomad character, I enlisted my eldest
son to partake in the spring ritual of spreading mulch at grandma’s. After all,
I am still quasi disabled and should I consider over 50 a disability or parental
authority to have my strong and able offspring handle the heavy stuff? Hhhmm. As
I look around the yard, I study the stone walls that decorate my parents’
property that I have built or rebuilt over the last 25 years. Their farm is
nestled deep beyond the trees and hidden from the view of the road. It gives
you the feeling you have reached a place of unexpected calm as many of your
worries deflate on arrival as easily as if you were removing a light coat. I
walk around the property surveying the progress of the perennial beds and
marvel at the majesty of what we call “the mountain”. It is positioned out
beyond the white picket fence and sits before the crest of stone on the ridge
where the trees mark the edge of the horse fields. The mountain has a display
of vigorously growing perennials and creeping mounded roses and acts as a
magnet for the eye as it drifts around the property.
All the annual color has found their comfort in the mix even
though the New England weather tripped from near winter to summer within a day’s
transition. Blistering heavy heat demanded breaks to rest and rehydrate to
avoid physical collapse. It took an extra morning to finish up so I could be on
my way to the shore to my other nesting place. I am finding driving with everything
I need to be both comforting and empowering as I amble along with music
streaming in. This nomad life is settling in nicely.
May 28, 2013
My aversion to chachkies. What are chachkies really?? Chachkies is the yiddish word for trinkets and collectables, AKA "dusk collectors". I have long dispensed with collecting ‘things’, these little cherishables that people collect. I just have no room for things when I feel my time is short and I want to fill it with time with the people I care about.
I have asked myself why it is so easy for me to give up a home and possessions and my answer is simple and comes as easy as inhaling a single breath. I have sacrificed so much of my time to provide for my children, others and those who have entered my life that my home was a place I rarely had time to enjoy. It was a place I slept and exhaustedly maintained for stolen moments while creating a place for others to enjoy. I took a great sense of pride in my achievements as a single mom, but such achievements come with a cost. Sometimes I feel desperate to recapture time I have lost creating the seemingly perfect world that time forced me to steal moments from as if they were newfound treasures.
I am grateful, so grateful to have so much time to spend with my mom and dad. I feel blessed for such an opportunity as if someone waved their wand and I get to live in the moment and create silly time and some form of vegetative benign reception of just watching TV…the Voice or God help me….The Bachelorette as I scream and make quick assessments of character! I can enjoy a dinner at the table and share my often passionate loudly expressed thoughts and my dreams with my two biggest cheerleaders. Someone gave me a gift.
I look around my parents’ home chuck full of chachkies. Drawers
full of junk and small treasures. I arrived today with plastic containers of
all sorts as I announce I intend to purge and organize them too. My feelings
are I will be delegated to do it sooner or later….so why not now to make it easier
for me to find things. I say something disparaging about the array of chachkies
and my mom yells out “ I want my chachkies, I’m keeping my chachkies and I’m
not letting go!” There is a moment of silence and then she resigns her position
and says “So there. I’ve said it.” I sigh and reassure her they are the protected
things, but the other ‘stuff’, especially the paper stuff must find a home that
extends beyond boxes and drawers full to the brim. I want to do nothing to
disrupt the character of all the artful objects all of us love about coming home as
everyone feels warmth and welcoming be it family or stranger. This home exudes the
sense of coming home. Bigger sigh….but there are some things that can be
clearly improved upon not just the closets my mom would like me to crawl into
to drag out stuff that has long gotten lost in our collective memories.
May 27, 2013Cleaning up loose ends. My nomad life as ideal as it may seem, is like most things in life, I have a few loose ends to clean up. A friend of mine has expressed a keen interest in the inner workings of my nomad experience. Questions about where I will sleep and how it will work as daily living encroaches on this loftly concept. First let me say, I would never be able to embark on such a venture without the enormous support system that is at my disposal.
Seriously, I would never be able to realize this nomad life I have embraced without a significant support system. My mom lives an hour away from work as well does by boyfriend. Why…. at 52 does boyfriend sound so high school?? Shaking that one off…..My work place offers an inexpensive option for me to rest, recover and even workout when I am on a stretch to work. Have I said it yet…I love my job?? Almost 30 years and it’s true.
I am left with loose ends. Closing accounts, changing addresses, readjusting what I believe I need to keep, and still yet to 'go live' with work when my medical leave comes to an end next week. I said to my friend that it was like finding out your pregnant. You get all excited when you get the news, but it’s not over until you deliver. I said I still had a bunch of things on my list to take care of and my boyfriend reminds me that I always have a list….it only changes from day to day.
May 21, 2013
The lease comes to an end. It’s the last gasps on our
apartment lease as we scurry to pack and clean and get the heck out of dodge! I
gave my son three weeks to finish up and move into his new apartment that
opened on the first. Sighhhhh. Deep breathe in. I moved out just before my surgery for obvious
reasons with most being linked to the expected incapacity of my left surgical
arm. It remains weak and I can’t use it for things like shampooing my hair,
scratching my eyes and even getting dressed remains a task. And here I am in
the throes of wanting to strangle my youngest for his short sightedness and inability
to estimate the amount of work that lay before us.
I glance over at the beast of a shredder and remember sitting
on the floor as I fed that insatiable animal most of my paper past. I remember
feeling the sensation as if I were erasing evidence of my own existence. I sat ‘numbified’
as my mind wondered through the past I was willfully expunging. There was a
quiet sense of relief. Again….liabilities. Why carry all these things from
place to place occupying a space we soon forget exists?
I handed over the keys while I amused the staff with my
obvious excitement as my mouth was running like a pimped out Maserati. I
thought of fast high end cars when drawing parallels to my mouth as I drove off
in my fuel efficient Honda Civic Hybrid brimming with a pile of my sons clothes
that would make any GQ male envious. Macy’s has him hooked on super saving ‘sales’,
although I suspect he isn’t saving much given the volume of cotton and rayon
blends obstructing my view. On my front seat rests a potted evergreen that will
find its new residence in my mom’s galaxy of colors painting her landscape. Off
I go.
I take a moment to think about what I want to satisfy a
possible thirst or hunger, but I can’t identify which it is. Thirst or hunger? I peer over to the
Wendy’s and I find my ah ha moment as a chocolate frosty declares itself as my most wanted most
necessary must have need! A small size is more than I usually require, but I
have been stressed, my headache is screaming and what if a small runs short on
the satisfaction scale?? I decide better to be over satisfied in this most desperate
of moments and I dig in while driving under the speed limit in the slow lane as
I have no where I have to be. I am a nomad. I think of a few things I brought
with me and decide there is still more purging to go as I continue on my road
of organizing my mobile life. Less is more! My kind of freedom begs to be unburdened
by things.
May 11, 2013
The bumps that trigger pause. I am often consumed by pure
excitement over my decision to live small and actualizing a seemingly extreme stance
on my less is more mantra, but now that it has become a life style in action, it
has experienced its first bump. I had a choice to go back to the apartment I no
longer live in, but still hold the lease on and change into my dress for my
night out at a hospital function. I decided to take my nomad lifestyle live and pull my clothes
out of my car and get dressed at the event location. This was not completely
unusual as many were leaving from work and had to change in alternate
locations. My bump came in a rather comical form. Locating my dress was easy and
retrieving it, just as easy. However, I got lost somewhere in the shoe department when I
failed to recognize my own shoes! I had good advanced planning and put the
shoes I knew I would need in a location easily found, but I didn’t recognize
them and tore my car apart in a sweat of frustration.
Complicating this misadventure were obstacles of kitchen
appliances I had yet to deliver to their new homes as well as my disabled arm
standing useless by my side as I struggled to move things in my search. I was starting
to sweat as a passerby looked on curiously as I rumbled through my goods with items flying from one congested space to another. I
took a moment to do a sniff test which conveyed the need to locate my deodorant.
This was the moment when I felt the impulse to get in my car and just leave and
as I slipped into the driver’s seat and turned the key. I sat with the door
ajar taking a moment to feel the cool breeze being delivered from the ac. What
was I doing? At that moment I turned and took a second look at the black
strapped shoes lying on the seat beside me. There they were. All that frantic
frustrated searching and there they were. One big cleansing breath, turned the
car off, gathered my things and off I went to the party. I was in love once
again with renewed conviction.
May 10, 2013
The laughter is on me.
My youngest son Geoff came to visit me during my surgical recovery
at my mom's. We made spaghetti and meatballs with my mom's special sauce, but
more than the dinner is the routine slap stick sarcastic comedy that even small
family gatherings inspire. I knew I would be the target as my family settles
into my unusual lifestyle choice and we all fumble through the logistics of how
it will all fall into place and really….how long will it last?? My mother finds
her giggle machine working overtime as we make our way through the meal. I make
attempts to divert the conversation, but no…she is like a pit bull with a piece
of meat between its teeth and won’t let go. Tears are streaming down her cheeks
as she becomes consumed with amusement and there is my son jumping in the pool with her! I
take a swat at him as I send the message of “stop feeding the animal mom” across
the table to my mother who is wiping her tears with her napkin. Of course
controlling my own giggles is near impossible as there is no barrier against
the contagion of laughter. Geoff throws
in his offerings of “hey mom, this could be the title of your new book…’where
the bins may take me’!” I should be used to such things as I possess some quirkiness
throughout my personality that has dubbed me the ‘polish princess’ when my clothing
panache matches more of comfort than fashion sense or if I play outside planting
flowers in the warm rain.
Through it all, I still believe I have too many things
overflowing the seats in my car. This nomad life still requires some perfecting
as I accommodate not just my clothing needs…but those of Sunday dinners. What,
you may ask, is Sunday dinner?? I started a social routine of providing dinner
on the Sunday nights that I work. Several pots of roasted chicken corn chowder,
chili or salads and invite others to join us. It has taken on its own life and
it was one of the greatest concerns expressed by my co-workers as to how I
would do it with no base to cook from. I expect to sleep bare bones at a rented
room at the hospital with no access to cook anything. But alas!! I have it
figured out! I will leave all my cooking goods at Geoff’s apartment and will
sleep there on those Sunday’s I have to cook. He is only a couple miles from the
hospital. It amazes me how the solutions, although not always clear in the
beginning, will arrive at your doorstep like a delivery of fresh flowers.
May 6, 2013
When I have said I was becoming a nomad, the general
response is amusement and laughter which only deepens with bellicose laughter
as I begin to share my plan. This amusement transitions to disbelief, then genuine
concern for my mental and emotional well-being. What’s wrong with having no ”home”
to settle into? I wanted to do this after I sold my mega house. That was the “home”
with unlocked doors that acted more like a community center open 24 hours a day.
I believe my boys left me traumatized as they swore they weren’t having parties
when I was working the night shift as a single parent. I was relieved every
morning when I came home and saw my “home” still standing with no outward signs
of anything amiss.
It was all in the timing. First, trying to hold it together
long enough to get the last one graduated. Second, getting the house ready for
sale...only to end with the youngest protesting and refusing to leave his
girlfriend who had moved in at the end of high school. Seems I had opted in for
another quasi adoption of sorts only I was arriving late in the game. It quickly
became a non-issue to me to keep her on my hip because she was my right hand.
She had become someone I depended on for so many things. So my plan to be a
nomad was delayed five years while they finished college and found jobs. No
regrets.
So here I am. Not feeling like my life is on hold anymore.
Gave away what I did not dispense with on the first move. I call it all
liabilities. Things that occupy space. My plan is not restricted to any
timeframe. I have places to sleep and it’s not for lack of my mom trying to get
me to settle in with her by creating “space” I refused to occupy with my things.My car will do fine thank you and it makes her crazy as she pinches my cheek saying “I will have none of this missy!” Then we all laugh hysterically. She nestles into the concept by calling me “Minnie Cheryl” or “MC” for short after my great grandma Minnie who sold her home and rotated sharing space with her children for a couple of decades until the day she died. It seems to fit since I am her namesake “Stewart.” I still remember the judge laughing as her body shook lightly on the bench while I explained how I came to choose the name Stewart instead of my birth name, my adopted name or my married name. Seems fitting to me…all of it. It is my own life experience and I choose to be a nomad. I will have mobility and freedom all will envy.
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