Pity is a four letter word

There are some days that my pain refuses to cooperate and ease down to a managable level, despite all my efforts.  Today was one of those days.  It is so disheartening to be doing everything right and still not find any relief.  I hope to outgrow the childish "this is so unfair!" thought that sets up shop in my brain every time I have a day like this. 

I knew I was in for a rough one right of the bat.  I woke up limping, barely able to put weight on my right foot.  So I declared a self-care day & set about making myself the healthiest nutriblast in all the land--spinach, kale, carrots, raspberries, walnuts, almonds, flax meal, fresh mint, unsweetened cocoa & coconut milk.  Blend.  Then I kept moving with some light housework to work the stiffness out of my arthritic joints.  Then I did 45 minutes of yoga.  I even treated myself to a tofu burrito at Outpost. 

But as I struggled to carry my groceries upstairs early this evening, I could feel my fatigue rising & my muscle strength & control waning.  Almost as soon as I walked in the house I began crying.  Dion recognized how exhausted I looked and urged me to sit down & rest.  He asked me why I didn't call him to help bring up the groceries.  I couldn't answer that because I knew I'd only cry harder.  The truth is that he always goes far above & beyond the call of duty for me.  He is kind and understanding and generous and so very patient.  After working a 12 hour day it is not at all uncommon for him to see that I am in pain and offer to give me a massage.  On my good days, I try to do as much as I can to make life a little easier and more pleasant for him-cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping.  On my bad days, feeding the cats is a small victory.  I know I shouldn't compare his contribution to the relationship to my own.  I know it's not a competition.  I know I'm doing my best.  I know my health problems are not my fault and that he feels no resentment toward me whatsoever.  But I harbor resentment toward myself, on his behalf- on everyone's behalf, really.  All of the plans I've had to cancel with friends or family due to pain, all of the things I wish I could do with and for people, if I only had the strength and the energy....I cannot seem to let myself off the hook for this. As much as I understand that ehlers-danlos syndrome is not my fault, I still blame myself for all the things it prevents me from doing.  I need to find a way to let go of this toxic and irrational thinking.

I was able to teach my evening water aerobics class in spite of the pain, & when I got home, more achey and tired than ever, a cheerful Dion called me into the bedroom to look at what he had just ordered online: a couple of books on organic beekeeping & a pump for a large mouthwash bottle.  I don't know if I can convey how goddamn sweet both of these things are, but I will try.  Dion really listens to me & respects my opinions about things, which is sort of novel for me in a relationship.  He may tease me about how much I spend on organic produce, but he knows how much I value health & the environment, so for him to look into a non-toxic, sustainable method of beekeeping really meant a lot to me.  As for the mouth wash pump, I had mentioned how hard lifting and tilting the 1.5 liter mouthwash is on my dumb ehlers-danlos wrists.  So he found a pump on amazon.com and ordered it for me. 

Writing this is helping me to see how very lucky I am.  I may have a chronic & difficult to manage condition, but also I have someone who is happy to stand by me through all of it.  If I can find a way to stop beating myself up for not being able to do more, to do as much as I want to & as much as a "normal" person seems to be capable of doing, I will be in a better place & I will be a better partner.

If this post is unbearably maudlin I'm going to blame the sleeping pill I took 15 minutes ago.

G'nite!

Some Happy Places

It's possible that I'm learning how to take life's stressful, but relatively minor fiascos in stride--the same ones that used to send me into a panicky tailspin.  I was scheduled to teach to back-to-back water aerobics classes this morning, & I pressed snooze just enough times to make my morning uncomfortably rushed.  On these self-inflicted frazzled mornings, I invariably encounter something that will test my patience and rationality.  Umm....where the fuck are my car keys??

I charged from room to room checking & rechecking all the obvious places.  I was just about ready to call my boss to cancel classes & disappoint 40-60 darling elderly people when I decided to mentally retrace my steps from the night before.  Somehow I arrived at the strange & correct spot: laundry basket!

The anxious residue that usually sticks to me for some time after a harried morning washed off easily today. I can thank my brigade sweet &/or sassy old broads for helping me take a break from worrying about troubles, large and small.  During my second class, one lady was teasing another lady about having a crush on a man half her age who was swimming laps.  "You'd need your heart pill with that one, Mary."  Mary quipped back with exaggerated weariness in her voice, "I don't take a heart pill.  I'd need a motivation pill, though."  There's nothing quite like good-natured banter amongst elderly women about flagging sex drives, ya know?

After class I picked up subs & headed over to my folks' place to watch a movie--Seven Psychopaths. (LOVED IT!)  Mom & Dad shook their heads and marveled at its weirdness when they weren't laughing really hard.  Mom said, "True to form, Tracy introduces us to another weird thing."  To me, this is the ultimate compliment.  I love taking my parents to restaurants or plays or comedy shows that they wouldn't otherwise know about or go see.  That's a really lovely thing about hanging out with people from different generations.  I'm certainly glad that my dad exposed me to The Andy Griffith Show & Columbo when I was little, & that my mom had my brother & I color popsicle sticks with a marker so we could race them down the creek in south milwaukee from one bridge to another, like she and her siblings had done when she was a little girl, & that both of my parents had really great records for me to sift through as a kid.

As I write this I keep reaching for my glass of water on the end table, but then stopping myself because I remember just in time that I witnessed Millie drinking from it and dipping her little gray paw in there a few times.  I know we all know this, but goddamn it animals are just so happy-making.  While Pops was eating his sub sandwich today, Boomer came over and sat as close to him as possible, staring up at my dad with a dead-serious look on his face.  And then, without having been asked to shake, he began lifting & extending his paw over and over to my dad, hoping for a nice morsel.  Dad laughed & looked at his giant dog with great affection.  A bit later Boomer & Daisy leapt at the chance to take the short ride from street to garage to park the car for the night with my mom, & although this is pretty much an every day thing, my mom looked overjoyed to have their company for the 45 second trip.  ANIMALS!!!!

Tonight's final notable lovely-thing was Dion's reaction, or non-reaction, to my frantic, ravenous dinner--a can of organic refried beans & a piece of chocolate cake, eaten standing over the pan (there was no time for knives or plates, I tell ya!).  I still feel a bit of shame over eating like a very peculiar wild animal, but Dion didn't raise an eyebrow.  God bless him.   

     

The Intoxication Proclamation (3 Strong Beers & The History Channel!)

Happy President's Day! How did you celebrate?  By going to work?!!

My favorite president may sound unoriginal until you know why he's my favorite.  Lincoln: Because he was depressed and hilarious.  Kindred spirit, bitches! 

I read a book called Lincoln's Melancholy that revealed the depths of Honest Abe's clinical depression, & I developed something of a crush on the gaunt sonofabitch.  What is most inspiring to me is how much he was able to accomplish in spite of, or perhaps in part because of, his profound sadness.  Depression is a genetic thing, I suppose.  I mean, I believe that it is a medical issue,& that there is a genetic predisposition to it.  I've got the damn thing, after all.  But there is some emotional intelligence at work there, I think.  In a lot of cases, I think depression is a valid reaction to life; it means you have been paying attention.  The biggest problem is getting snagged there-- marooned on that island of despondency without seeing any resources to improve your own situation, much less anyone else's.  Although if a second, unclouded look were possible to the depressed person, he or she would probably see coconuts galore & a cruise ship docking 10 yards away. 

Lincoln was able to see human suffering acutely through the lense of depression.  But there was something inside of him that was able to push past the horror & pain to a place where he could work toward making things better. 

Also, Lincoln was goddamn funny.  Are you familiar with this man's quotes?  Holy shit, they're fantastic!  And even more so if you picture the lanky, morose man uttering them. "When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees."  "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."  Just one deadpan zinger after another! 

Also, he freed the slaves, which is rad.

It's difficult to know when to relax with your sorrow for a bit, to listen to what it has to say.  And it is even more difficult know when to extricate yourself from that sorrow after you have learned whatever lesson is had to teach you--when it can, from that point on, only provide you with useless pain.

And it is difficult to know when joy is useful in the face of sorrow, suffering, & anxiety.  I spent a little time with my dad today.  He is putting on a brave face, but I know he is scared that he could suffer another stroke.  I know that he is upset that he cannot walk without concentrating and holding on to things.  To counter the unbearable gravity of it all, I behaved much more cheerfully than I felt.  Perhaps it even pained my dad to be in the presence of such obnoxious cheer.  I sang ridiculous songs to the family dogs & parakeet.  I made jokes and laughed at them too loudly.  Then again, perhaps he saw through my own facade of joy, right down to my pit of deep sadness, & that was what really pained him. 

The evening was was an obstacle course, or a balance beam, or a minefield.  An emotionally impossible-to-navigate terrain.
 
But I blundered my way through it with an offer to help & a dumb joke & a sob held tightly in my chest.Which is pretty much a blueprint for any halfway decent political speech.  Nailed it! Medek 2016.          

          

Death & Writer's Block

There is a restless ache inside of me.  The intensity varies, but the feeling is always present.  When I am busy & distracted enough, I'm able to keep it somewhat at bay--small and muted, suppressed.  But more often than not the feeling wells up into something large & uncontainable.  But contain it I must, because it's not the sort of thing that can be squelched or doused or smothered or extinguished by any method.  It's mine.  I've created it and I carry it with me.  When I examine the feeling, it is clear that the feeling is fear.  And while I wrestle with countless anxieties, when I take the time to trace the fear back to its source, the common thread of every last worry I have is death. 

Right at this moment, I am forcing myself to write.  It is one of the last things I want to do right now, & if I'm being entirely honest, ever.  I'm always glad that I've written after I have done it.  There is catharsis there, & at times, a sense of pride or satisfaction at having articulated something particularly challenging.  But for me there is dread at discovering that I have nothing worthwhile to say.  That none of my thoughts, feelings, or experiences are particularly profound or interesting.  And if that is the case, what do I have to offer this tender, precarious, precious life?  The age-old question: Why am I here?

And looming even larger is the terror of confronting the dark & the painful.  Writing is an exercise in controlled suffering much of the time.  I want to tell it all & to tell it authentically.  To give voice to everything I see that deserves attention.  To tell it unflinchingly.  Of course there is joy & compassion & mercy & magic in life--and I want to talk about that too.  But I cannot ignore the dark stuff; to do so would be dishonest. And I don't seem to have the constitution to tackle suffering & death head-on too terribly often.  So for an embarrassingly long time, I've written almost nothing.  I'm just so afraid of looking death in the eye.  And I'm afraid to write because it forces me to do just that.  But I'm also afraid to not write, because I don't want to spurn any gift I may have been given or to risk not telling a story that desperately deserves to be told. 

I don't even want to think about the fact that my dad just suffered a stroke. It triggers this fight or flight panic inside of me, but I don't have the power to do either thing, really.  I can't fight his blood clot or flee from the reality of his & everyone's mortality.  And coping with my fear in a healthy manner (whatever that means) doesn't seem to be an available option for me either.  I'm incapacitated.  I just hope I can begin to make some headway with these fears that paralyze me.  I'd love to find some wellspring of steadfast courage inside of me, but for now I may have to settle for being propelled by anger. 

I'm fucking pissed off about death.  Truly & completely furious about this human condition.  So I may have to be livid & contemptuous about the whole thing for a little while.  I suspect that this may be a degree or two healthier than incapacitated.  At least there's a driving force, some spirit fueling the fire.  And I hope I can rage my way to the other side, to a place that where I can find some measure of peace & acceptance.  Because this shit is exhausting.

Thank-you to whoever or whatever kept my dad alive.  And as I used to say during my terror-stricken childhood bedtime prayers: "Dear God, Please keep everyone I know & love alive, healthy, & safe for 100 years."  I prayed the same prayer every night for hundreds of nights, and I never amended the timeline; it was always 100 years.  Perhaps I thought God wouldn't notice & would continue to honor my prayer forever, in effect making me & my loved ones immortal.  I really wish I could give little kid Tracy a big hug sometimes.  She had so many scared, tearful nights worrying about losing the people she loved.  Not that much has changed, I guess.  Only now I have a precription for a sleeping pill so I can turn off that pesky, scared, bursting-with-love-and-sorrow brain of mine. 

     

Microcosms

There was certainly no time for music & dance this morning.  I was awoken around 4 a.m. by a phone call from my mom informing me that my dad was in the hospital.  She told me he had woken up an hour or so earlier with a tingling feeling throughout his body & had been unable to move his legs.  Initially he thought maybe his limbs had fallen asleep, but it became clear that something more serious was going on, so my mom called the ambulance. 

Dion & I headed to St. Luke's in Cudahy soon thereafter.  I suppose had I not been running on two hours of sleep & had been in my right mind learning that he had suffered a stroke (a mild one, thankfully) would not have been quite so surprising, considering his symptoms.  But it was & still is shocking to me.  He is 59 years old.  And he's my dad, so he's not allowed to die, or to even come close to dealth.  Ever.

It was a huge relief to see that he appeared intact cognitively.  He seemed frustrated with the prospect of having to be transferred to a different hospital that had an MRI machince & more stroke treatment expertise, & he was downright irritated that he was still unable to move his ankle.  Still, his sense of humor was strong as ever, & his proclivity toward practical joking as unshakable.  He old the following tale with a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. My mom was down the hall using the bathroom when someone came into dad's room to bring him to radiology for a CT scan.  They decided to head past the bathroom toward radiology to intercept my mom & let her know where they were headed.  My dad asked the nurse if he should put the blanket over his head like he was a corpse when they wheeled him past my mom.  A morbid & cruel idea? Absolutely.  But it was a wonderful to hear he was still planning pranks & making strangers uncomfortable. 

On the ride over to the hospital this morning at the crack of dawn, Dion asked me if I thought it was kind of strange that my brother and I had talked about how worried we were about dad last evening, & then that he & I had talked about death for about 20 minutes before bed.  Oh darling, Dion.  Have you met me? Of course that had not escaped my notice.  And yes, it seems weird to say the least.  I imbued those exchanges with something I can only term as psychic foreshadowing as I worriedly brushed my teeth & dressed this morning.  People are always looking for ways to make sense of life, & I am no different.  Or, I am different only in the creative, far-fetched ways I make myself feel responsible for life's tragedies. A sneak-peek into my mind:  "If I could have somehow convinced my dad to quit smoking......If I had only bought healthy groceries & cooked healthy meals for him & mom for breakfast, lunch & dinner.  I could have done this; I've been unemployed for months now.  I should have done this. How selfish am I for not devoting myself to being his live-in chef & health consultant?"  I take myself to task over all of this & much, much more, realizing full well how ludicrous it is.  I don't really think I should martyr myself to care of everyone I love.  Insinuating myself into every aspect of my dad's life in an effort to keep him healthy is an impossible, absurd, & highly officious undertaking.   But when I feel helpless, I suddenly have the need to control everything.  And when this invariably proves impossible I take it very personally.  So I'm in the throes of that insane loop right now. 

I'm going to sign off for now.  Dion just tested the water in his aquarium & the ammonia levels are quite high.  He's heading to the store for purified water & is going to do another 10 gallon water change shortly.  We are worried about a little clown fish named Eric who is not looking so good right now.  I'm going to coo to him until Dion gets back.  Because I can't control his entire ecosystem for him.  But maybe I can bring him some comfort.    

Tangential Love

Today's abbreviated morning dance party was to some krautrock from Neu! (many thanks for introducing me to them, Matt Meeks)  Wikipedia taught me a thing or two about them today.  Their music seems to have influenced some pretty amazing artists--Bowie, Iggy Pop, & Stereolab, to name a few. I had to cut dance time short this morning to make an acupunture appointment, but I got a solid 10 minutes in to a tune called 'Hallogallo'.  As repetitive as the song was, I never really grew bored of it.  I liked the how the driving rock beat served as an anchor that allowed the guitar to kind of wander off & find its way back, & then stray again.  The beat felt solid & confident, Rolling Stones-ian.  My hips snapped back & forth, & my shoulders followed suit.  I did a lot of rockin' out rythmic nodding, as well; & I'm usually not that agreeable in the morning.  My hips grew more adventurous as the song went on, with some circles & a little thrust action--ala Garth in Wayne's World to Hendrix.  Perhaps a little sexier, as I called on some tips from my Cardio Burlesque exercise video.

All in all, I headed out the door in a pretty good mood.  And acupuncture helped solidify that.  I loved my acupunturist gal today, even though she & I had no flow to our whispered dialogue whatsoever.  She would ask me a question & I'd begin to answer, & then she's pipe in, thinking I was done, realizing--nope, not quite.  Then there would be a three-mississippi pause, when neither of us was sure who should speak.  Then we'd start talking at the same time.  Luckily, both of us seemed to be amused by our graceless conversation skills.  It sort of felt like learning to kiss, minus the angst. 

My  very favorite part of the appointment was about 20 minutes after the needles had been put in.  Generally, I become very relaxed during acupuncture & travel to some zen place where I'm not asleep, but I'm not awake either.  Or I actually doze off.  Today I felt calm, but undeniably awake and alert, so I was looking around the room at paintings, ceiling fans, & pillows.  Suddenly the acupuncturist appeared from across the room & I instinctively snapped my eyes shut, as if frightened that she would find me anything less than in a tranquil coma.  I immediately realized how idiotic this was & opened my eyes.  Then the whole thing seemed extraordinarily hilarious, so I closed my eyes tightly & concentrated really hard on not laughing out loud & disturbing my fellow acupunturees.   

After acupuncture, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting my best friend for lunch at Outpost, & I was thoroughly delighted by her sleep-deprived silliness & the urban slang she has consciously picked up from a new friend.  Uber lovely afternoon, all in all.

I briefly descended into some PMSy, achey jointy, oh-the-hopelessness-of-it-all state around 4:00, but was lifted out of it easily by this guy named Dion.  The greatest thing in the world to do on Valentine's Day is to mercilessly tickle Dion, I've decided. I love that he sees us as the sort of couple who will not stoop to celebrate Valentine's Day because it's so trite & commercial.  But I think he wanted to make sure I was on the same page (I was) because he did some hilarious thinking out loud.  Some of it was on-purpose funny, & I think a bit of it may have been accidentally funny.  You sort it out.  Here are a few separate, loose quotes I decided to make into a single Dion monologue: "Baby, do you want to do anything for Valentine's Day? We're not Valentine's Day people, are we?  It's not a real holiday. How about I make guacamole for Valentine's Day?  Let's have sex tonight.  Or wait....should we not do it on principle, because it's Valentine's Day.  We'll do it, but we won't tell anyone!!!"  End scene.

Holy shit I love that guy.

Later on I taught a water aerobics class that only one gal showed up for.  It was laidback & fun.

After class I stopped by my parents' house for a visit.  My mom had a little Valentine's Day care package for me: a little vase with a single red rose & a bag of chocolates.  My mom is about the sweetest person in the world, I'd wager.  She told me she had bought a dozen roses for my dad, but didn't sign the card.  She just put them in a vase & when he asked who they were from she shrugged & said there wasn't a name on the card.  So far Pops hasn't figured out that the flowers were for him & from mom.  I wish this were a cute little story about my mom lovingly teasing my dad & my dad being adorably clueless. But it's more a story of a marriage that is far from perfect, & a wife who knew that this was the only way there would be flowers in the house on valentine's day.  The dynamics of a marriage, of a family, are complicated to say the least.  But in some ways, everything is sort of simple.  People need to know they are loved & appreciated.  Whatever heavy burden you are carrying, from time to time, set it down.  The weight will be waiting for you when you're done showing the person you love how much they mean to you.  I have plenty of my own demons that I battle every fucking day.  But I know that I'm not going to let the bullshit raging in my head keep me from showing the people I love that they are loved.  That is never going to be something those close to me have to guess at.  And I think that's a decent first step to.....something.  Happiness?  
        

        

The First Flail

Well, I did half of my strange little experiement/resolution this morning.  I woke up, had a little something to eat, & then I queued up my music & danced!  My plan to blog about the experience immediately thereafter didn't quite pan out, but I'm doing it now....that's something.

Today's musical selection was the album Reptilians by Starfucker. Tracks 1 through 10 added up to approximatedly 30 minutes of dance-stuff for this drowsy gal.  My schedule of late has been: wake up around 10:30 a.m. & fall asleep around 2 a.m.  So it was something of a miracle that I woke up around 6:45 this morning and stayed up to dance around. 

I thought that I'd have jostled myself out of my sleep-transe 10 minutes into dancing, but that was not the case today.  My brain fog didn't lift until much later in the day--midway through teaching water aerobics this afternoon.  My dancing was begrudging and heavy-footed, not the joyful, bouyant celebration I had hoped for.  Granted, it takes my joints longer than most to loosen up when I get out of bed, thanks to ehlers-danlos syndrome.  Feel free to look the condition up yourself, as I am not in the mood to expound upon it this evening.  Or stay tuned to future posts, as I'm sure the topic with be a recurring one & that I will delve at some point.  Suffice it to say, this morning's pain levels were quite high, & my dancing certainly reflected this.  Dancing is a generous way of putting what I was doing;  more accurately I was performing a slow, surly trudge around the apartment.  Eventually it became, if not dancing, at least rhythmic movement--side steps with cautious hip-dips & sweeping arms, occasionally weaving through the air in some wannabe tribal exaltation.

There were a few strange pockets of time while dancing to Starfucker that I felt a sort of percussive emptiness in my temples and in the pit of my stomach.  I could feel my pulse as finite, beating toward an end.  These valleys seemed to happen during the songs that were not sung. A man antiseptically recited sad, existential spoken-word pieces over music.  It's really no surprise that I fell into this melancholy, surreal landscape. I looked up some of the lyrics later....they weren't, uh, cheerful:

 "If you are aware of a state which you call 'is,'
Or reality, or life, this implies another state called 'isn't.'
or illusion, or unreality, or nothingness, or death.

There it is, you can't know one without the other.
And so, as to make life poignant,
It's always got to come to an end.
That is exactly, don't you see, what makes it lively.
Liveliness is change, is motion.
And motion is going 'nnnnnnneeeeeaaw!,' like this,
See, they fall out.
You can see you are always at the place where you always are,
Only, it keeps appearing to change"  

The lyrics were apt on a lot of levels-- some obvious (dance=motion) & some slightly more subtle & supremely uncomfortable.  All of the things I'm striving to set into motion here: waking earlier & with dance & then writing about the experience- each of those things I seek to change in myself represents some kind of fear that I carry inside me. 1) Getting out of bed and facing a host of life's problems with an uncooperative body, which is at it's most stubborn upon waking. It's certainly easy to sink deeper into my blankets & postpone life/pain. 2) Dancing is a conversation with my body, & it's going to be a different one every day.  The pain increases and it decreases.  And it moves around.  Yesterday it may have been in my neck and shoulders, predominantly.  Today, my feet are giant knots and my wrist is throbbing.  I want to scream at my body, to MAKE it work.  Or I want to ignore it, because I know it will not function the way I want it to, & it is too frustrating & overwhelming to even begin to address.  Dancing is a way to check-in with where I'm at at to coax a little healing into the places that need it.  I can zero in on the stiff, painful areas & try to move them in a way that feels okay, & then I can zoom out again and try to enjoy & expereince my body as a whole, to feel the amazing elaborate concert of it, working together & doing not-so-bad, considering.  3) The writing is the most difficult part of it all, because my impulse is to keep a tight clamp on all the pain & wild emotions, lest they spill out & refuse to obediently go back IN!  The invariable onslaught of raw emotion is acutely painful to me, & I need to find ways to let it out in manageable rivulets.  The flood of it hurts like fire, & is destructive like fire.  It is difficult to make writing a productive & restorative thing for me.  But I'm hoping to learn.  And I think I will if I stay with it.

This is nothing like what I expected to write.  I thought I would  talk about how when I began dancing today, I was in the living room, directly in front of the picture window, & when I looked out, I saw that my boyfriend's ex had just pulled up in front of the house (duplex.  she lives downstairs.  that is a tale for another day), & I was clearly visible to her.  I dance-shuffled into the bedroom & awkwardly boogied there for a bit.  I thought I'd remark on how foolhardy beginning this dance-blog untertaking while in the throes of major weepy PMS. 

I will talk about all sorts of stuff in this blog.  I'm not going to plan, censor, or edit it in any way.  Some days it will probably be funny & amusing, & other days, it will undoubtedly be a place to cry & rage & hopefully find some meaning & humor mixed in with the pain as I document it.  If you've made it this far, I'm truly impressed.  Stop by again some time.