Monsoon

We had rain. Lots and lots of rain. Marcus saw a rainbow but no lightning and his parched ground has not received a drop of water all month. This is what it is like to live in Tucson in the summer.

You don't call Tucson your year-round home if you hate the heat.

Upon typing that, I thought of the one exception I know - my manicurist, who loves her husband who lives here with his extended family, but that's as far as she'll go. Along with the heat, she's not that crazy about his family, either. For some reason, she prefers the humidity and marginally lower temperatures of her native Viet Nam. Her OB gave her pills because she's not drinking enough water to keep her and her fetus well hydrated. I brought her a Camelback. Along with our purple Christina-Taylor bracelets and our turquoise Gabby bracelets Tucsonans sport another accessory - bottled water.

It's a different kind of dryness when the temperatures are well into the triple digits and the nearest body of water is at least a state away. You don't perspire, let alone sweat. You become one with the air as you feel your flesh begin to sizzle. Just a little. Unless you are G'ma, whose 88 years on this planet have depleted her body's supply of collagen and left her with the thinnest skin either she or I have ever seen. It's soft and transparent. We keep her out of the direct sun as much as possible. No one wants to watch her spontaneously combust.

There's absolutely no walking barefoot outside. Beyond the usual desert detritus of cactus spines and sharp stones, the ground itself, be it pavement or dirt, is hot. Egg frying hot. Make you dance on your tip-toes hot. Hot enough that a person with a gimpy leg does a very funny dance as she makes her way back from the mailbox. It's hard to skip when your psoas is stuck and your acetabula (the socket where the hip and the leg bone connect which lives beneath that psoas) is in no mood to cooperate, either.

It would have been funny if it hadn't hurt so much.

Strange things happen if you are foolish enough to venture outside for any length of time at all. I was ennervated after retrieving the newspaper this morning. Watering my pots must wait until the sun is out of the frame. I know they'll be happier if I douse them in the morning, but the thought of lugging the hose from the bib to the flowers is just overwhelming. I have the physical strength by now; it's the emotional piece that sends me scurrying to the air conditioned splendor beyond my front door. Sorry, vinca. Your time will come when the sun goes behind the house.

The Schnozz told me that it was 101⁰ outside his frame - and this was in the garage at 9am. The drive to physical therapy wasn't long enough to cool the interior; by the time I returned after my appointment the air was un-breathe-able..... I was just gasping as I typed it and remembered.

thanks for the image to cafepress.com

The ubiquitous cartoon is right - it is a dry heat and it sucks the flesh right off you.

A friend once wrote that she could feel the moisture being sucked right through her pores as she walked between classes at the UofA here in downtown Tucson. Dessicating was the word she used, and doesn't that even sound like the right word?

We slather on sunscreen, and no one complains, not even the kids. We become cranky when there are clouds in the sky, on those 10 or 15 days a year when the weather is not perfectly clear. We wonder when the monsoon will begin.*

It may not be perfect, but it's home.

*****
*Here's my original rant on NWS and the monsoon:

The National Weather Service has decided to take charge of our monsoon season.  Up until 2008, the monsoon season began after 3 consecutive days with the dew point over 54.  In 2008, the National Weather Service decided that that was too much to deal with, and they set June 15th as the official start date.  Too bad that it's still dry as a bone.  Too bad that their own data shows that the average time for the start of the monsoon by the old standard, the one based on actual facts and science instead of bureaucratic comfort, was sometime in July.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/twc/monsoon/dewpoint_tracker.php

It's just another example of our government at work.  The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and they are trying to control the weather.

Aiming is Crucial

It was 0-0 at the half. By our count, the US had taken at least 12 shots on goal, a dozen or more opportunities to score over the shorter Japanese team.  Yet the score was 0-0.

There were set pieces unconverted and headers hitting the poles.  I hear Little Cuter's Hungarian coach shouting banana as he cued them to line up in front of the corner kicks, just as the US team was doing on the small screen before me. She shoots, they move, and the score is still 0-0.

This just should not be. Scoring opportunities are rare in soccer; to have had so many and completed so few boggles the minds of spectators and commentators alike.

Perhaps it was due to the ice on Lauren Cheney's ankle as she hobbled out for the start of the second half. When one of your strikers is playing on a bum wheel you might be less likely to score. Perhaps there's no need to worry. Alex Morgan ran onto the field with her fresh young legs beneath her but even then the ball refused to go into the net.

Soccer is a physical game as Little Cuter used to tell her opponents as she ran, sharp elbows akimbo, dribbling the ball down the field. The US is not shy about fighting for every ball, and we were watching a fair amount of pushing and shoving when we began sitting closer and yelling louder as the US took another shot .... and missed.

That's one of the fun things about soccer. Your mind can wander as you watch the players fly over the field and then all of a sudden you are riveted to the screen. It's a beautiful game. The ball is big enough to see - unlike golf - while it's in play. The announcers add to the fun, "wondering what is afoot here" as the balls react like wood to flubber, recoiling from the goal without the help of a keeper.

Following a series of corner kicks from both sides, all of which went astray, the obdurate Japanese defense (I do love the announcer) was weakened when their coach replaced two of them with the team's top strikers. The US raced down the field with a big kick which was picked up by 22 year old Alex Morgan and G-O-A-L !!.

Unfortunately for the US, there was still time to play in the game. Playing keep-away in front of our own goal proved to be a less than stellar strategy as Japan put one past Hope Solo and tied the score with 11 or so minutes to go. Corner kicks were denied, the Japanese increased their shots on goal and it was a good thing that they couldn't aim any better than could the US. Both teams made runs at the goal and each time the ball ignored the net.

President Obama and his girls sent the team a real-time picture of them watching the game. It's funny that I don't miss Little Cuter more right now, but maybe that's because we have no history of watching televised soccer together. She was always on the field; I watched her. Seeing Abby Wambach head an assist into the goal took me right back to the McKegney Green, looking at the mother of the girl who'd just scored off a similar header for our traveling team, both of us shaking our head and ruefully smiling as we agreed that there go some more brain cells. Those balls are hard.

Unable to hold on to their lead in the OT, the US gave up the tying goal and the match went into the Penalty Kick phase. This name has disturbed me since I first encountered it. It has nothing to do with penalties. It describes a location rather than an event - the shots on goal are fired from the PK lines. It needs new nomenclature. It also needed a better performance by the US women, because they were outscored and out blocked and the Japanese went on to become the world champions after 3 Americans missed their penalty kicks.

Was this match uncharacteristic as the announcer had it? Or was the outcome in the hands of the gods? I'm going for the latter explanation. I'm seeing Hera and Zeus and Apollo and Aphrodite playing with the outcomes of those balls which should have gone in but didn't. The US was Hope-less (blame TBG for that one, please) and the Japanese were ecstatic and though I felt sorry for the American players, I really wasn't all that upset.

The Japanese were rubbing faces and hugging shoulders and laughing and grinning and I was glad for them and for their country. I know all too well how much something like this helps. I know how the big gestures and the unexpected happiness can turn an awful day of dealing with tragedy into a time where the bad stuff just doesn't seem so awful. After the tsunami and the nuclear disaster, after such loss and such trauma, it seems like the gods grew tired of testing Japan and sent some joy their way.

That's got to be a good thing, and I'm happy.

Random Thoughts

Baseball is a sport which should be played outside.  Watching the All Star Game (or The ASG as the cognoscenti would have it) at Chase Field was cool and comfortable and weird.  There was a small city under that roof, with chairs for everyone who lived in my hometown.  There was grass and there was dirt and there were birds and we were inside and comfortable and it felt very strange.

Of course, I'm not sure that we'd have been at the game at all had it been outside; the temperature hit triple digits when we entered and was not much cooler when we left
*****
I haven't seen G'ma in a while; I forgot that she was my destination yesterday afternoon and ended up at the grocery store instead.  

I think I'm avoiding dealing with her electric chair.  The caregivers are amused by the fact that she forgets about the footrest and the reclining back.  They find her sitting upright with her feet propped on her walker.  She says she's comfortable.  She doesn't want to disturb herself and practice with the controller.  They are at a loss.  I now have something new over which to obsess: I gave away my mother's couch and now she's even more confused than before.  

Sigh.
*****
I'm wondering when the Democrats will stop eating their young.  President Obama has had 2 years to clean up a mess which took 8 years to build (okay.... 16 if you want to blame Bill Clinton for thinking that everybody should own a home).  Sure it's a jobless recovery.  Sure people are out of work; I am related to many of them.  But think about the alternative:



Not only does she think that the Founding Fathers abhorred slavery, she demonstrates an epic fail here in her attempt to tell Fox News that President Obama is audacious.  Of course, any New Yorker - Jewish or not - could pronounce chutzpah with the appropriate throat gargle, but listening to Michele Bachmann choo choo choo her way through it shows that she certainly can't.  
*****
Betty Ford was laid to rest in the Gerald R. Ford Museum.

I do not want to spend eternity in a museum, and I am surprised that my favorite-until-I-met-Michelle Obama-first-lady-of-all-time thought she'd be comfortable there.  Perhaps she liked the  idea of being around people on a regular basis.  I always imagined that she'd be a great girlfriend. I know that besides demystifying addictions and breast cancer and being comfortable with the fact that her kids smoked weed, she gave the best marital advice I've ever heard:

Give 70%.  Expect 30%.  

*****

I Won't Go There

I could write about crying on television.... once again.... with feeling... or about the loss of Christina and the strength of her family.  I could write about ripping band aids off slowly healing emotional wounds.  I could.


But I'm refusing to walk down that path today.  The sun is out, the road construction crews are still letting us leave the neighborhood, my Art History and The Cinema class was outstanding and the USA has advanced to the final round of the Women's World Cup.


Life is good.


I walked all around Chase Field yesterday, from the player's parking lot through the rotunda and down to our seats and then back up for snacks, and that was after Imelda gave us the grand tour of her work place, and I showed nary a limp at all.  My hip was an after-thought, not the center of attention.  That's something new since the 8th of January.


I don't need my left leg to lift my right leg onto the bed anymore.  I can do squats and I can balance on one leg and Kyria says I can join a group pilates class in the Fall because I am recovering more rapidly than she had imagined I would.  Marcus the Master Manipulator is still convinced that he can lengthen my leg, and I'm putting that thought on the happy side of the ledger, too.


Little Cuter and SIR ironed their CTG memorial patches onto their softball team jerseys and then went on to win for the first time this season.  Big Cuter is in the middle of reading A Dance with Dragons, the latest of a series and for which he has been waiting 6 years.  I have a shelf full of novels of my own choosing, having finished all the paid reviews in my queue.  


With all this good stuff going on, I have to wonder why I was appalled by the classmate who asked me how I was doing, emotionally, with all this stuff, today.  What was her problem?  Was the fact that I wasn't lurching or carrying an assistive device indicative of inner joy?  I had just met her; did that give her permission to inquire about my mental health?  Luckily, the elevator arrived and whisked her up to her car.  I didn't have a chance to respond.


But "Rotten" was my reply to the closing door.  "Absolutely rotten."  I can't get over the loss of my little friend.  I won't get over it.  I don't want to get over it.  I do want to find a place to store it with fewer jagged edges than its current resting space.  I'm still conflicted about avoiding the anniversary celebrations last week.  The shoulds are hard to ignore.


And then I remember the words which accompanied a big hug last night at the All Star Game.  One of the heroes of January 8th was seated behind us.  As always when we meet, she enveloped me in her arms and held me and we sniffled a bit and then I began apologizing for not attending the events and she interrupted me, looked around to be sure we were not overheard, and then told me that she was glad I had not gone.


She said that the yellow caution tape the promoters had used reminded them of the crime scene tape of that Saturday morning.  She said the bagpipes and the memories were more than she could bear.  She was delighted that I had protected myself and stayed away.


And that's when I knew that this funk will not last forever.  My instincts are leading me down the right path.... if I can remember to follow them and to forgive myself for not being everything to everybody.  I cannot stay stuck here because the people who love me will not allow it.  They will gently turn me toward the sunshine, holding my heart in their hands until I can move away from the gloom.


I could write about the sad.  Today, I am choosing not to do so.


It's a step.  A small step, but a step nonetheless.  One foot in front of the other..... I'll get there .... eventually..... with time.


Sigh.

The American Spirit

(Written Tuesday morning, on the way to the All Star Game.)


The last time I felt this down, this overwhelmed, this burdened by events, the President hugged me and urged me to look for our better angels.  When I cried that I couldn't imagine how anyone could be so angry, could perpetrate such a horror, Mr. Obama encouraged me to turn my back on that fury and rage and hate and to look for the America which Christina saw.  

Then he went to McKale Center and said the same thing to the rest of the world.

I began to realize that I was at the center of something really big.  The American spirit was center stage.  Who we are, how we cope, what our actions say about us ... the events of January 8th brought all of that into focus.  

I don't have a need to consider the shooter.  He is who he is and what will be will be.  Vengeance gets me no place, that I know.  It can't be pleasant to be him right now.  I don't wish anyone ill, even he who should be slapped.  I just want to be kept safe from further harm, and that seems to be happening.  There must be punishment and restitution and judgment will be passed, but none of that will help me to recover.  None of that will bring CT back to join her parents at the All Star Game tonight.  All of that is necessary but irrelevant.  My life goes on, regardless.

But my life goes on in a truncated fashion.  I can't really trim the lantana which is overgrowing the pool patio; bending hurts and I'm making mistakes.  My neighbors are walking the subdivision with their dog and, though I am invited, I can't join them; I don't think I have the endurance.  I'd like to be in Ithaca today, learning about Zionism and sleeping in the dorms for a week while I attend Cornell Adult University, but, once again, the need to cover long distances on foot precluded my attendance.  Yet all these things exist in my world - the flowers and the friends and the learning - and, though I might not be able to enjoy them the way I'd like to right now, they are there, waiting for me when I am ready.

But sometimes it's hard to stay happy.  Sometimes an anniversary will spark an internal discussion and the world begins to look dark and gloomy.  Sometimes I feel like bad things happen all the time and no one seems to care.  

And then I get a great email from Bud Selig and Major League Baseball and I feel good about America all over again.  Look forward, celebrate your strength and resilience - these are American qualities which stand me in good stead as I move along.  

I had that all in mind on Sunday morning as TBG and I plopped down on Douglas and watched the Women's World Cup match.... another boost for the American spirit.

As the male talking heads on the sports channels agreed, it was a game worth watching.  Period. Paragraph.  It didn't matter that the players were female or that the game was soccer.  It was great sports.  Team USA never gave up.  No matter how much the referees screwed them, no matter how far down nor how late in the game, they never lost their cool  Ever.  They tied the score in the 122nd minute of a 124 minute game.  That is playing til the final whistle blows.  

To me, it was the American spirit writ large. Big Cuter may call it jingoistic nationalism as he writes USA USA USA on his Facebook page, but I prefer Pia Sundhage's take on it.  She is the Swedish born coach of the US team.  Interviewed after her team won the game, she called her players' performance the best of what it means to be an American.

As we draw down our troops abroad, as our embassies are attacked and our government inches closer and closer to default, it's nice to have something to admire.  Sure, there will be pitching and certainly there was passing but in amongst the outstanding athleticism and the patriotic whooping and hollering on these very big stages, there is a larger lesson, I think.

Perhaps we should all find our gloves and our bats and our balls.  Perhaps we should all head out to the playground or the ball field or the backyard or the quiet summer street.  Perhaps, in playing America's pasttime we can rediscover the fact that we are all in this together.  Perhaps we can heal ourselves and one another by looking to that which we share instead of focusing on that which divides us.

All I know is that I am loving the band aid that MLB put on my aching heart.  It's going to be great to be a part of the All-Star Game tonight.... even if all I do is wave.  I will be waving to all of you, to Christina-Taylor and Gabe and Dory and Judge Roll and Gabby, and to everyone who has sent me a prayer or a wish for recovery.  This is who we are.  This is what we do.

MLB - Almost a Wedding Planner

We had a fine morning, Little Cuter and I, laughing and planning for her wedding.


How odd it is to type that sentence.  The big event has been a headache as venues and expenses and dresses and menus are considered and rejected and fretted over and wondered about.   She's not looking to be the center of attention.... which is a problem when you are the bride.... and he wants everyone they love to be there and celebrate with them.... and everything costs more money than is reasonable to spend for one evening's entertainment when there's a house to be purchased and a life to be planned.  


But this morning was different.  This morning was fun.  Thanks to Major League Baseball the subject was exciting and giggle-filled and, for a moment, until it wasn't, it was solving a problem in a way that would put a smile on everyone's face.


I'm getting ahead of myself, though.  I haven't told you how MLB became involved in party planning.  


My inbox is filled with emails from the Department of Justice and the Pima County Attorney's Office.  Usually they are telling me of a rescheduled hearing, or reminding me where to send my uncovered bills for payment.  The events to which I am invited are usually memorials or ceremonies or medal bestowings.  They honor the worthy souls who did good deeds.  They make me sad.


But Friday's inbox had a different kind of message.  Forwarded from The Office of The Commissioner, TBG and I received an invitation to MLB's All-Star Game.   For me, it was a perfectly worded note:

Like all Americans, I have been touched by the manner in which you have valiantly responded to the tragedy in Tucson last January.  You have embodied the American spirit with courage and dignity in the face of such trying hardships, and you have my utmost admiration.

Well, now.... Bud Selig thinks I am special.  I've never been admired by a Commissioner before.  I'm thrilled that he thinks that I have been valiant and courageous and dignified, because those are the things that I've wanted to be.  I've wanted to avoid self-pity and ungainly falls and to show strength and determination and I guess if a total stranger can see it I must be demonstrating it somehow.  Still, it's nice - very very nice - to see it in print.  


Mr. Selig goes on to talk about the spirit of America, and his

great hope that the American way will echo at Chase Field in Phoenix on July 12th...

when TBG and I will be sitting in the seats next to the National League dugout.


And this is where my notoriety and wedding planning and MLB collide.  Little Cuter and SIR are die-hard Cubs fans.  They are the only couple on Facebook whose mothers both displayed profile picture of themselves clad in Cubbie's gear, I am sure.  They each brought a life-time's obsession with the team to their relationship, and the confluence of these two streams of familial loyalty and a lover to share in it have only fueled their passion.


My brain went into overdrive - could she kidnap him and marry him in public?  Was I overstepping my good-mother-in-law-ness boundaries by suggesting this as an option?  Would it seem heavy handed?  Would they be thrilled?  I brought up the subject of our invitation in my first email of the day and within 3 seconds the phone rang.  


"Jealous!!!" was her only comment and then we three shook our heads once again at the amazing consequences of my getting shot.  The President and First Lady are still at the top of our list, but being introduced at the All Star Game is pretty impressive, too.  Rocking out with musicians from my past impressed me more than it did her, apparently.  The fact of this game and our proximity to the NL dugout and potential autographs and being up-close and personal to the field, sitting on the first base line, well, it was just more than her heart could contain.


Given her receptive mood, I seized the moment and wondered aloud if she thought SIR would enjoy having his ceremony on the roof of that dugout.  After reiterating the fact that starting her marriage with a ruse might not be the way to insure future bliss, she got into the swing of things as we imagined and planned and TBG rolled his eyes.  


The National League dugout - where the Cubbies' players chosen for the team will be resting between at bats and fielding.  How perfect would that be?  And, we would be rid of all the planning and worrying and searching and agreeing that would be needed if the wedding were anything more normal than this.  


We weren't being serious as we discussed outfits and the obtaining of rings and whether they would be back at work on Wednesday morning and then suddenly we were quite serious and I was deputized to contact MLB and see what might be done.


TBG thought we were nuts, but she and I knew we'd kick ourselves forever if the question were not asked.  So, I left a  much-too-long message on the answering machine of MLB's Senior VP for Special Events (no regular ordinary VP for me, it seems!) and followed up with an email asking if the kids could fly down and tie the knot in front of the zillions of baseball fans who've tuned in to see their favorite players vie for home field advantage at the World Series.  


No pressure.  I knew it was last minute.  Eloping to the All Star Game appeals to the groom and the bride will, as I said, do just about anything to avoid being the center of attention just for being pretty in white. She would 

allow a worldwide audience to demonstrate its solidarity and support,

as Commissioner Selig promises, and I can't think of a better way to start off a marriage than with an international audience wishing you well.  After all, the engagement was announced on national television (fast forward to minute 4:06); why shouldn't the wedding be an even bigger event?


TBG went off to the gym and I was alone when, 20 minutes after I'd hit Send, my Senior VP was back in my inbox, apologizing for the fact that we couldn't use their venue to hold our event but that the kids were welcome to come to the game.  "Just let me know" she said, and I felt that familiar rush of warmth enveloping my heart as I felt the love.  


She didn't know me until yesterday.  She offered me a gift and I responded by trying to grab for more.  I was outrageous and presumptuous and a mother in love with her daughter and my Senior VP knew it and understood it and let me down gently.  Yes, she was demonstrating (her) solidarity and support, even if she couldn't let the kids walk down the aisle... okay, jump up on the dugout..... and get hitched.


Commissioner Selig wrote that

the All-Star game is a celebration not only of our national pasttime, but - far more importantly - of the American spirit, which has risen up in the wake of this tragedy

and  I couldn't agree with him more.  There's a generosity in the American psyche that seems to need to do good, to share the things we have with those who might enjoy them, to celebrate resilience and love and civic engagement.  


It's nice to have MLB in my corner, too.

Anniversaries

Anniversaries are strange things. Sometimes I wish I didn't notice them, but then I realize that fence posts give us boundaries in this fertile life field that we can safely stay within, or vault with gleeful defiance.

Thank you, Nerthus, for that epigram.  It's exactly where I am right now.


I could not go.  I just couldn't make myself get in the car and drive there.  


Others were there; I saw them on tv.  I love them and I know they would have hugged me and comforted me and made me feel strong and powerful and happy to be alive.  But I could not go.


The 9/11 flag is in Tucson as I sit here at my desk.  I could have been in the Safeway parking lot at 6:30 this morning to watch it fly from a hook-and-ladder.  Pat and Colonel Bill and Faith and Roger were caught by the cameras and the reporter mentioned that Pam was in the crowd but I couldn't do it. I couldn't get in the car.  


There was a private, no media invited, flag folding ceremony near Christina-Taylor's statue up in Oro Valley after the fire truck was finished with the fabric.  It was designed to honor the first responders.  I really should have been there but I couldn't make myself go.  It was my plan to attend.  I'd told my personal heroes that I'd be there. I was dressing and preparing and I stopped.  I couldn't do it.


Right now, at this very moment, heroes are stitching the proper fabric onto the remnants of Old Glory.  I ought to be here, smiling at the woman who staunched my bleeding and called my husband and kept me calm and smiling and alive..... alive....


(Pause.... I'm too teary to type right now.)


.... but I can't make myself drive down to the University and meet her.


"Your job is to heal."  That was the advice from the social worker at UMC.  Nothing else was to rise to that level of priority, he instructed me.  "You have one job and one job only"  he said, and that's been the backbone of my recovery over these last 6 months.  I give myself permission to leave early from parties and dinners to protect my aching hip.  I sit when others are standing.  I have scaled back my expectations as I wait for my body to catch up with my mind.  And today, I allowed myself to say "No."


I have never had the big cry, though I have certainly had my teary moments.  I've never held my head in my hands and wept for C-T, my favorite 9 year old.  I've not wailed and ranted and screeched at the heavens for the tragedy that fell on my short-but-sturdy shoulders.  I've not allowed the slightest crack in the wall I've constructed around the sorrow that I know is lurking inside.  I don't know why, but I haven't.  I'm safely within Nerthus's boundaries, I guess.


I don't want to go back to the scene of the crime.  I won't learn from it.  It won't teach me anything.  It will not enhance my healing.


I don't want to go backwards.  The legal wranglings over medications and prison policies will go on and on and on.  Reporters will call and ask questions and want me to turn my thoughts back to January.


I just don't want to do that any more.  I want to let the tears flow and then I want to move on.  My yogi was quite stern with me this morning,  exhorting me to move forward and don't do it if I don't want to.  My classmates were hugging me and giving me permission and my guilt was overwhelming but I listened and I learned and I relaxed into the healing.


I'm going to stop typing now and find a comfy chair and feel sorry.... for Christina-Taylor and Gabe and Gabby and Dory and for me.  I am going to wallow and let a therapist hold my hand.  And then I am going to follow all those fingers pointing forward and I am going to walk.... not lumber or limp ... I am going to walk, one foot in front of another.....into the future.... without CTG or an unperforated body or a sitting Congresswoman.... but with grand expectations and an open heart.  


That is, after I go through a box or two of tissues.

What I Know... 6 Months Later

I know that the sun comes up each and every day. It pays no attention to how I feel. It's there, daring me to do something other than participate in the world around me.

I know that progress is never as fast as I want it to be. Worse, over time it is measured in smaller and smaller increments.

I know that other people are much more impressed with my abilities than I am. It's fortunate that three of them are as invested in my recovery as I am : Marcus the Master Manipulator and world's best physical therapist; Kirya Sabin, who learned from the master who learned from Joseph Pilates himself; and TBG, husband extraordinaire. Not one of them is inclined toward false compliments. 

I know that I wish it were easier to believe them

I know that the people who told me that “in 6 months you'll be fine” were right.... as far as they went. I am not great, but I am fine. I can do anything I want to do, albeit slowly and cautiously. 

Of course, I also know that my wants have adjusted to my capabilities.

I know that over the course of 6 months the sun continues to move in a northerly direction, hitting the pillars outside in a gradually turning arc that makes you notice the world on its axis. I have a special relationship with the late afternoon and this living room and Douglas and Nellie the Netbook and you who are reading these words right now.

I know that you've helped me heal by letting me vent and sending your love and your strength when I needed it along the way.

I know that TBG is right when he says that writing organizes my thoughts in a way that talking to me does not approximate. I'd take him at his word, denizens; he's been listening to me for 41 years. 

I know that publicly sharing my words has been cathartic in a way that having others write or speak about me has not been. Not at all. Sometimes the media is accurate, sometimes it captures the moment, but all too often it's a little bit off. Not that anyone would notice, but I do. It's about me after all.

I know that while it's fun to notice Mike Taibbi on NBC's Nightly News and think about the fact that he's been in my living room, it's weird to have another station's anchor refer to me as someone close to Congressman Giffords. Unless he was speaking literally – I was 10' away from her when the shooting began – it's just not true. I'm still waiting to shake her hand for the first time. But it's out there, forever and ever, uncorrectable and false. It's a good thing that

I know

• not to sweat the small stuff anymore.
• that I will heal
• that the justice system cannot give me what I have lost
• that crime does not pay and vengeance serves no earthly purpose

And I know that I'm glad to be here to enjoy the sunrise..... each and every day.

Being Needed

"I need you to come over right now," she said and I turned off the flame under the pot on the cooktop, said goodbye to TBG and The Schnozz and I were on our way.

I did what needed to be done and stayed as long as I necessary and I reassured and comforted and then I came home to Douglas and a turkey sandwich and a warm feeling in my heart.  It's nice to be needed.

I've spent the last 6 months being tended.  I've been fed and driven and hugged and sheltered and cosseted and today I was able to do the same for a friend.  It's nice to be on the other side of the equation.

It wasn't particularly convenient for me to leave when she called.  I was in the middle of cooking dinner and I hadn't written this post and Big Cuter was going to call and none of it mattered because she needed me and I was able to respond.  Had this happened two months ago I'd have been useless.  I'd have listened and offered advice and a shoulder to sob on but getting up and actually helping would have been out of the question.

Tonight my body didn't get in the way of my desire.  I was able to do what needed to be done.  I could help a friend.

I'm well on my way to being fine.

You'll Be Fine

Fine.  It's an interesting concept, the notion of fine.  I am fine right now, ensconced on the bed with comfy pillows supporting me and the fan stirring the over-heated air above me.  I don't hurt too much and I have a post all ready to write for you and the dinner ingredients are in the 'fridge and I feel fine.

Of course, I didn't go to Pilates Mat class today because I can't get down on the ground without grunting.  I didn't take the shovel and scratch out the beginnings of an irrigation trench outside the pony wall early this morning because digging is still beyond my abilities.  I didn't run in to see how G'ma is doing with her new electric chair because getting into and out of the car was more than I was interested in doing after running an errand or two.  None of that is fine.


I'm not invited on hiking trips I couldn't manage anyway - I suppose it's fine that I wasn't asked along, I suppose they were trying to spare my feelings by not tantalizing me with something just out of reach, but it's not fine to feel excluded.  I walk past my hiking poles as I enter the garage and I sigh.  I'm fine if it means going to the grocery store; anything more strenuous is a mental struggle.  My definition of fine includes more than errands.  The fact that I am upright at all is wonderful, but it's not fine.

Just being alive isn't enough any more.  I am still grateful, thankful, surprised and amazed that I am here to see the sunrise - no way that feeling is ever going to dissipate.  But I am not obsessed with the fact of my survival anymore.  In that sense, then, I am certainly fine.  But accepting that I am alive seems to have given me permission to consider the quality of the body I am bringing back to this life and for some reason I want it to be perfect. Just the way I remember it was before I became perforated.

Was it really perfect before January 8th? Hardly.  But both my legs were the same length.  I could clamber up and down and over and through just about anything.  I was always ready to go another mile, to lift another set, to keep going.  I was fine.

I know that I'm on my way back there. I am more motivated to try harder as my pain lessens and my progress becomes more obvious. I can do a small squat standing on my damaged leg - a very small squat and only one of them at that but a squat nonetheless.  I can turn around while cooking dinner and open the oven door without thinking about the body mechanics and whether I am up to it.  I'm fine in the kitchen these days.

But the pantry is still suffering from the effects of 10 different women putting things away while they were Suzi-Sitting.  My desk top is messier than ever and my closet has three baskets of items which need to be carried elsewhere and dealt with appropriately. I have neither the energy nor the stamina nor the tolerance for the pain I'll feel when I tackle that project, or the desk, or the pantry.  Fine?  Sure.  Back to normal?  Not hardly.

But one day last week I realized that I was gliding across the living room, pain-free and shoulders perfectly parallel to the floor.  I'd gotten up from the couch and maneuvered around the coffee table and there I was, walking like a regular person, in my own house, not even 6 months after being shot... 3 times... and then, right then and there, I did feel fine.  Very fine, indeed.

Generation Y

The blogosphere was here when I needed a friend.  It's time for me to repay the favor.  This is a new issue for me, and there may be pieces I'm not considering, but from what I've seen so far, it's pretty much a no-brainer.


Except for the piece about the Y's.... but I'll get to that later.


BlogHer is having a conference in San Diego next month.  There will be presentations and parties and performances and speeches and socializing and some bestowing of awards.  It's one of these awards which is prompting this post.


Seems that a recipient of the BlogHer International Activist Scholarship won't be able to attend.  Yoani Sanchez lives and writes in Cuba.  She's not that thrilled with the way things are going in the Caribbean Communist paradise, and she's not shy about sharing her thoughts.  Listen: 

The reality makes a mockery of the slogans.

Her subject matter in that post would be familiar to any American parent of a college-bound student: private tutoring for entrance exams.  


Somehow, I never thought of that as an issue in Cuba. Apparently,  I was missing the obvious.  Parents are parents the world over and each and every one of them will look for any edge possible to give that precious being, that child of their loins, that kid who didn't pay attention in class just a little bit of an advantage, a little help, a leg up in the application process.  


Here in the USofA, hiring a tutor is hardly antithetical to our national ethos.  If you have it there is no shame in spending it.  But in Cuba, where everyone is supposed to have what everyone else has, 

The reality makes a mockery of the slogans.

Yoani is a lyrical writer rather than a strident polemicist.  Leaving the visiting room at Combinado del Este prison, a scene of heartbreaking chaos, 

 I discover in this moment that something sad has established itself in me, like the weight of the bars which, since then, I carry everywhere.

She brings me along with her, she opens her soul to me, and she takes a personal risk with each keystroke.


The Cuban government is refusing to let Yoani Sanchez take a puddle-jumper-plane to San Diego in August to receive her Award in person.  There's not much that one small person can do about this, at least not while sitting at a computer trying to heal.  


But, BlogHer suggests that we blog her out of Cuba, and I'm all over it.  This is my first mention of her situation.  Why don't you click on over here to her site, and read her beautifully translated work.  I'm sure you could find it in the original Spanish if you are as talented as Niece, the Younger and would like to read it in its unadulterated form. 


The site is called Generation Y, which brings me back to the question I posed at the start of this post: what's with those Y's?  Yoani explains it in her blog's header, and once again I am stunned by how little I know of the realities of the countries closest to my own.  While we were busy with Jennifer's and Jessica's and Michael's and Christopher's, loyal Cubans seemed obsessed with Y's.  Listen:

Generation Y is a Blog inspired by people like me, with names that start with or contain a "Y". Born in Cuba in the '70s and '80s, marked by schools in the countryside, Russian cartoons, illegal emigration and frustration. So I invite, especially, Yanisleidi, Yoandri, Yusimí, Yuniesky and others who carry their "Y's" to read me and to write to me.

I would really like to meet her, to shake her hand, to ask more about those Y's. Too bad Raul Castro is standing in my way.

 

Happy 4th of July

I'm sitting outside, under the portico, watching the clouds roll by.  I'm trying to decide whether this weather system is moving east to west or south to north.  Whatever, whichever, it's brought lovely delicious rain to my parched landscape and for that I am most grateful.


There was dry lightning this afternoon, but it had the grace to wait until long after Mr. 8 and GrandFarkle #7 had finished cavorting in the pool.  JannyLou and I sat in the shade and gossiped until I gasped and realized that I'd become one of the old ladies sitting in the lounge chairs warning the kids to be careful as they jumped.... were they trying to leave brain matter on the pool deck?  It wasn't that long ago that the old ladies were hollering at my Cuters.  


In fact, it was probably exactly 20 years ago today, the Fourth of July, because where else but in the pool would we be on a hot and sunny afternoon in July in Chicago?  We'd be watching the fireworks from TBG's office way near the top of the Sears Tower later that night. We'd have carry-in pizza, blankets and a portable radio to hear the Grant Park Symphony play the William Tell Overture to the synchronized fireworks above the lake.  We were so high up that they burst at our eye level.  


It was magical, denizens. simply magical.


As a little girl I went to the boardwalk in Long Beach with my cousins and siblings, all of us in the care of various combinations of adults from the neighborhood and our extended families.  We played skeeball and had our fortunes read by the mechanical gypsy lady and squeezed the Love-O-Meter while we waited for the sun to set, and then for it to get really dark, and then for that first whooooooooooshhhhhhh signaling that it was time to rush to the ocean-side railing and look up and out, over the ocean, where red white and blue starbursts were crowding the sky.  


The show had no musical accompaniment save the oooh's and aaaah's as we, not content to be spectators, became participants as we tried to out-do one another in our enthusiasm. There was cotton candy in my hair and someone was standing on my toe but it didn't matter at all because KAPOW there was another one, the kind with the white drops trickling down from the center of the explosion and I knew I just didn't want to be anyplace else but right there right then.


A high school friend ended an email like this

Our ages really don't seem to matter.  We still feel a little bit like lottery winners... y'know?  

Be well (and a very happy birthday, America) with love to all.

That about sums it up for me, too, today.  It doesn't matter if I'm 5 or 9 or 59, if I am in the desert Southwest or at the eastern edge of America, it doesn't matter at all.  I still feel like a lottery winner, living in a great country.... living..... not the same as I was but then what or who is?  Our country put off the discussion of slavery for 20 years in order to get the compact signed and now we have a president who is much more than 3/5ths of a man.  I have the handshake and conversation to prove it.

America is about growth and change and it's never easy or painless.  Sometimes it feels like recovery, and I am here to affirm that rehab is hard.  Sometimes it feels frustrating - imagine wanting to vote for someone other than President Obama .... do you have a viable option right now?  Sometimes it is maddening - the Arizona State Gun, anyone?

But sometimes it's just wonderful.  Sometimes we put aside our annoyances and grievances and break out the red white and blue and make our own bombs bursting in air and we recognize, we celebrate, we applaud, even if just for one fleeting moment, the fact that we can agree to disagree without tanks in the streets or the army keeping the peace.

I do feel like a lottery winner, living here in the USofA.

Happy Birthday, America!

G'ma and the Electric Chair, part deux

As  I began typing my responses to yesterday's comments I realized that I was writing today's post.   Once again, you are there when I need you, denizens.  Thanks for the prompts.


It all began when I  MS said...

Those chairs are amazing, aren't they? My MIL has problems with her back and sits in a Lazy Boy, but thinking she might have to get one of the new electric ones---and you've just given me an idea for Christmas. 

I flashed back to shopping for Nannie in her last years.  Sweaters and jewelry and activities were no longer useful.  Flannel nightgowns with large armholes were searched for and wrapped with love.  They were practical because she would get pleasure from something new in her every day routine.  I think a new Lazy-Boy is a great holiday gift.

Megan goes on to 

Hope G'ma likes her new toy. :)

and that is exactly what she is doing.  I tried to give her directions but she was having too much fun to listen. I suggested - okay, I scrunched my face and said in a firm tone of voice - that she keep pushing the toggle switch so that she could.... and I never got to finish my sentence because she interrupted me with a beaming smile on her face asking

Why???  I'm having such a good time!

Yes, as Happy Days said...

Perfection, sometimes, comes at a high price...
but...as they say...the chair is priceless...

Ever practical, Nance wondered

Where did I hear that Medicare would pay for one?

and my mind has already moved on to asking the doctor for a prescription.  With her fragile shoulders and lack of lower body or core strength, getting up by pushing down on her palms was the only way she could arise.  This wizardly thing, in Nance's words, gives her enough assistance that she need only hold the toggle switch until her feet touch the ground.


Of course, the rising foot rest pushes her walker just out of reach.  Once again, a solution has created another problem.  I'll have to put the grabber within sight this afternoon.  She can use that toy to grab her wheeled device and if it doesn't sound to you that I am describing the behavior of a pre-schooler then please tell me how you got there.  


I'm sitting here fretting about where my mother naps and then I remember the rest of Nance's comment

My mother, who had terrible insomnia, took her catnaps in her chair and, eventually, just couldn't abide a bed (so to speak). Now, why on earth would I think that a bad thing? "What's actually wrong with it?" I wonder today. Oh, brother.

Oh, brother, indeed.  G'ma makes no decisions, deferring her menu choices, her physician choices, her care to me.  Why would I presume to undercut  acted independently?And why on earth do I get to have an opinion on where my mother rests her head, anyway?  At a certain point, I have to step back.

OO

Nerthus reminded me that 

Humor helps in so many ways.

and like her, I wonder 

What do people without a sense of it do? :-)

If I didn't laugh, I'd cry.  


But, like Karina, 

I want one of those!

before I indulge in a great big cry.


Am I happy?  Sad?  Worried?  Thrilled? 


Yes.