tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10594654731404481082023-11-29T05:26:06.381-07:00this is ishMailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07706949747053530994noreply@blogger.comBlogger569125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-49607689952405412982023-04-02T22:47:00.007-06:002023-04-05T08:48:57.515-06:00Moving on up<p>I've moved! It took a long time to align my professional work with these ramblings, which are true to my heart. Everything is still accessible below but <a href="https://www.amymaillet.com/thisisish">this content now also now lives here on my website</a>.</p><p>Moving forward, new posts will be in my new space. It's been a good ride on Blogger but I feel more aligned now. </p><p>Come visit my new home: <a href="https://www.amymaillet.com/thisisish">https://www.amymaillet.com/thisisish</a>.</p>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-66526806215574720312023-03-30T17:53:00.001-06:002023-03-30T17:53:58.409-06:00Small DetailsI am out there silently in my head, wondering what sign, moment, dam break, will let loose the creative flow. Yet truly it is a trickle; an almost dismissible stream that I ignore in my quest for something much larger. If I only paid attention to the whispers of hope, I believe they would lead me to something much larger than I could ever imagine.Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-12772145777474956492023-03-13T08:10:00.017-06:002023-03-30T16:20:44.171-06:00SprungWe have sprung forward with the time change. I was getting used to the light early in the morning. It was inspiring me to get up and do more. Today already feels fast in my mind because we have lost an hour. In that way, it feels like today is the first day of spring. <div><br /></div><div>Funny isn’t it, how some people control even time in this great game? I’d rather not have it change. I prefer to have it tic along at the same rate, always background music. Not something that calls our attention twice a year, that commands we shift to its ever present counting. </div><div><br /></div><div>I emptied my office yesterday so Andy can bust through the wall this week and give us a sense of what we’re working with when the middle wall is cut away and we can see through the center room of this house. </div><div><br /></div><div>I can’t wait to feel the flow changing here. It feels as if a blockage is getting released. I don’t dare talk about it until I get started.</div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-7673009174039743132023-03-08T08:10:00.024-07:002023-03-30T16:19:05.793-06:00Jungle of ThoughtsMy mind runs wild through the jungle of memories and new stories I build about the past. It overtakes me.<br /><br />I feel lost from my ancestors, an afterthought to the world. Alone now looking back over the years and seeing how disconnected I was from the group. My parents knew. Perhaps my existence was more about being a way for my mother to hold on. A curse, not a blessing; rather an inconvenience. With it a call to duty to continue moving along the same worn path: to raise and pay for a child to adulthood. <div><br /></div><div>Yet they were weathered and tired from their own life traverse. They were likely different people crumbling into new form as one does when they reach middle age. Looking toward the future, toward the second part of their life, releasing the expectations of the first half trying to earn their way to some promised utopia. Resolved; continuing to put one step in front of the other weerily.</div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-69130505627621245782023-03-03T07:58:00.000-07:002023-03-31T08:09:44.141-06:00VisionI fear I have no vision for how to traverse this wilderness but I have been caught in an eddy and must trust my instincts to survive in the flow. No longer stuck on the island of my mind, movement has come for me. I can't sit still. I feel compelled to flex to the whims of the environment.<br /><br />I am ready to leave behind the fear-based thinking that stifled me so many times in the past. It is a true task to embrace myself, to believe in my potential, to forgive myself for not being perfect. I am no longer scared of myself, and trust I can handle so much more than I imagined. <div><div><br /></div><div>I feel hopeful and alive. Spring is coming and I will clamor into the freshness and go for a ride. Am I able to leave everything I know, to relinquish what is familiar? I shall leave my expectations of the future and most of what I have thought was valuable in the field beside my biggest fears and hop into that river to battle the flow. I know in my bones I will reach the other side.</div></div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-72658744746110632792023-02-26T07:54:00.018-07:002023-03-31T08:13:12.748-06:00Becoming Real<div>The story I told myself is that the way for me to be successful, make the most money, is to work for an organization, get benefits and impress leadership. I am a good employee and so they keep me complacent. <div><br /></div><div>I am also different. I’m drawn to things that stand outside the norm. I like counterculture. I crave not being like everyone else. </div><div><br />I have spent two years cocooning and trying to change the look of my life. I’ve dreamt about being a writer, making my money remotely, having a more fluid day, control over my schedule and true creativity. I thought the other day about how energizing it is for me to write. How I have felt an unseen presence coming through me. How I search for other writers out there. I am searching for myself. I’ve spent my whole life knowing this is my calling and then falling in line and doing the thing that needs to be done for stability. <br /><br />My role as a mother intersects with all of this because I want to be available for my kids as much as possible. I also want to show them what staying true to your story is all about; what it looks like to respect your passion and hold space for it to come alive. <br /></div><br />I’ve been so focused on work, the holidays and my mother, that I forgot how it feels to have this beautiful writing muse speaking through my pen strokes. This morning it came back; it has been months. I can’t control these words, they feel like they are coming through me rather than from me and I just let them roll. I struggle with all the words about my mother, and what to do with the content that I have written by now. It is so angry and not the energy I want to put out into this world. I keep asking myself how do I shape all of this into something worthy and beautiful for others to interact with? I keep wondering how will it become real?<br /></div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-29960810509678248122023-01-26T09:39:00.035-07:002023-02-10T09:47:33.516-07:00Gumption<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHbHp-XfPGsXF9-8AMdjmWBpHU5IZqpgF_IqS_kYTl0ETxJhyEBWtU-5e5vYLEEGfxTKjFPEfreAAo1rt5O7eEMfCOHyZ0_OL6y2fIHGdM6SPSDpFiQGk-0TdhU0z3A_NlBO8NMZ0naVNP7lF-ZwzB_DUWgyaGYPyjmJT9zrrPA6J2bcptkxcNx6UfQ/s1112/IMG_4780.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1112" data-original-width="1112" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHbHp-XfPGsXF9-8AMdjmWBpHU5IZqpgF_IqS_kYTl0ETxJhyEBWtU-5e5vYLEEGfxTKjFPEfreAAo1rt5O7eEMfCOHyZ0_OL6y2fIHGdM6SPSDpFiQGk-0TdhU0z3A_NlBO8NMZ0naVNP7lF-ZwzB_DUWgyaGYPyjmJT9zrrPA6J2bcptkxcNx6UfQ/s320/IMG_4780.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div>The true gift as we age is moving from what society tells us to value to what we find meaningful and valuable. We begin with colorful robes and medals adorned with possibility. As we grow, we craft jewels from found treasures and moments we’ve uncovered, experienced or survived. Our presence is larger, yet we no longer feel the need to stand out but rather to commune with our surroundings. Not disappear, but rather we find comfort in our space. We honor how we have grown, celebrate our gifts and pass them along for a new generation, a new cycle to grow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>My time not working helped me experience an existence where I wasn’t hustling to get everything done. I didn’t feel overwhelmed by what needed to be accomplished in the day. I felt connected to the world, to my intuition and to my family. Yet I needed more gusto and gumption around what I could do for myself and what I could do to change my days. </i></div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-36848957370039897922023-01-20T23:02:00.003-07:002023-02-10T09:33:31.164-07:00Conversations with my Father<p><i>Grace Paley</i></p><p>I started the day wishing you Happy Birthday wherever you are - whether you’re Stardust or a being in a different ecosystem. Your memory is still so alive in all our hearts. But oh how I miss the sound of your voice and your laugh.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnIObeOFH4WC7qMVTet20bpb0yPBLOMJISXRIGLHaYsfzEeCNbVia_ej3V1Ajnub3HDd7bDUgoFEz4mbS36MmHatFikbKIMLELiPmYKDL3EeM3oVlxQ22HbvBuyb5hw0WakpFbGYPrAjVFfKr7-WacP3ve6AIaV3KhXbq8Eig-bsrFtxszNaWkFBWR9A/s4032/698B8332-947A-4E3F-837C-0AC515767AE0.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnIObeOFH4WC7qMVTet20bpb0yPBLOMJISXRIGLHaYsfzEeCNbVia_ej3V1Ajnub3HDd7bDUgoFEz4mbS36MmHatFikbKIMLELiPmYKDL3EeM3oVlxQ22HbvBuyb5hw0WakpFbGYPrAjVFfKr7-WacP3ve6AIaV3KhXbq8Eig-bsrFtxszNaWkFBWR9A/s320/698B8332-947A-4E3F-837C-0AC515767AE0.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>"Ask yourself one question: does this path have heart? <br />If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use." </i></p><p style="text-align: center;">- Carlos Castenda</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;">I’m not even sure I know how to truly sense the heart of some thing. My mind plays tricks on me and I project what I think are peoples intentions. I’m still working on trying to find my heart; to listen to its desires. I feel so lost, sometimes trying to let my heart lead. Perhaps just for today I will listen.</span></p>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-67591509402661335382023-01-09T09:24:00.003-07:002023-02-10T09:27:56.211-07:00Wandering OffThinking about how my ego fantasies take me away from this reality. Being present, facing the moments that I feel uncomfortable in, and living through them allows me to grow. I'm trying to get comfortable with change and more familiar with friending myself. <div><br /></div><div>I am mostly in the state of calm and clarity today. I’m trying to avoid feeling frantic and desperate about work and finding a different way to make money professionally. I believe it’s possible but then I worry about the logistics. Somehow I know it will happen. </div><div><br /></div><div>I trust I will step into a new phase sooner than later, and it will feel inspired in the work I am doing. I can bridge that gap to the new phase, and offer myself compassion as a traverse this river of change. I’ve always had the pioneer spirit as I wander off into the unknown. </div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-67449613238257261862023-01-01T09:11:00.011-07:002023-01-16T07:08:26.873-07:00Family. Love. Money. Alignment. Connection.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0k2rpfs7_2bQ4BEtFtv-kItAhYhhML4qOAekgDENvMVyfYTKgDTWw5aZuWXJutaGLuqB3NMlKO-sfeTsd4j0DytVcU5E4c_zqaj-ZZhWTg6Ee2uJ0ukUtKquABmdQKYv2jSFL--LUkyRwSl766tT2E-ILLYv85wC59kEm7qU90onVefvDOPa29IxWg/s1112/5A0D1788-F756-47D7-8085-EAF8A9BD1D94.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1112" data-original-width="1112" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj0k2rpfs7_2bQ4BEtFtv-kItAhYhhML4qOAekgDENvMVyfYTKgDTWw5aZuWXJutaGLuqB3NMlKO-sfeTsd4j0DytVcU5E4c_zqaj-ZZhWTg6Ee2uJ0ukUtKquABmdQKYv2jSFL--LUkyRwSl766tT2E-ILLYv85wC59kEm7qU90onVefvDOPa29IxWg/s320/5A0D1788-F756-47D7-8085-EAF8A9BD1D94.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>What I am trying to hand over to the fresh young year that is about to take over:<div> <br />I must believe and accept myself and acknowledge what I am good at. <br />I must embrace that I work hard and play hard, and I will always give more to a company than I get. <br />Showing up with an abundant, joyous demeanor is so important. <br />Not settling for less than I know I’m worth. <br />Sheer space and place isn’t always enough. <br />Appreciating what I have and striving for more - always. <br />Holding boundaries in a way that celebrates my space and doesn’t prioritize others. <br />Standing in my integrity. <br />Trusting my wisdom to led me to the next step. <br />Giving myself grace for my choices and mistakes. <br />Learning and growing from both.<br />Rebuilding. <br />Laughing as much as possible. </div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-81287957055194294652022-12-31T09:00:00.001-07:002023-01-11T20:47:20.895-07:002022 Reading List<p></p><ol><li>Heart Berries by <a href="https://teresemailhot.com/" target="_blank">Terese Marie Mailhot</a></li><li>And The Mountains Echoed by <a href="https://khaledhosseini.com/">Khaled Hosseini</a></li><li>The Boy, the mole, the fox and the Horse by <a href="https://www.charliemackesy.com/" target="_blank">Charlie Makesy</a></li><li>The Year of Magical Thinking by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7253506/" target="_blank">Joan Didion</a></li><li>Spark Joy by <a href="https://konmari.com/">Marie Kondo</a></li><li>The Bounce Back Book by <a href="https://www.notsalmon.com/notsalmon-story/" target="_blank">Karan Salmansohn</a></li><li>So Far So Good by <a href="https://www.ursulakleguin.com/" target="_blank">Ursula K. Le Guin</a></li><li>The Gifts of Imperfection by <a href="https://brenebrown.com/" target="_blank">Brene Brown</a></li><li>The Alchemist by <a href="https://paulocoelho.com/" target="_blank">Paulo Coehlo</a></li><li>Raising a girl with ADHD: a practical guide to help girls harness their unique strengths and abilities by <a href="https://adhdstrategymom.com/blog/" target="_blank">Allison Tyler</a></li><li>The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by <a href="https://www.davegrohlstoryteller.com/" target="_blank">Dave Grohl</a></li><li>Helping Your Child with Language-Based Learning Disabilities by <a href="https://www.danielfranklinphd.com/" target="_blank">Daniel Franklin, PhD</a></li><li>The Midnight Library by <a href="http://www.matthaig.com/" target="_blank">Matt Haig</a></li><li>Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by <a href="https://gailhoneyman.com/" target="_blank">Gail Honeyman</a></li><li>The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by <a href="https://gabriellezevin.com/" target="_blank">Gabrielle Zevin</a></li><li>Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by <a href="https://www.trevornoah.com/" target="_blank">Trevor Noah</a></li><li><a href="https://drlisadamour.com/books/untangled/" target="_blank">Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood</a> by Lisa Damour, Ph.D</li><li>Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol</li>by <a href="https://www.hollywhitaker.com/" target="_blank">Holly Whitaker</a></ol><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"People inspire people."</span><span><i> - Dave Grohl</i></span></span></h4><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #990000;">"She was a volcano and like a volcano, she couldn't run away from herself. She'd have to stay there and tend to that wasteland. She could plant a forest inside herself."</span> <i>- Matt Haig</i></span></div><h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #e69138;">"Libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder. It's not you, libraries, it's me; as the popular saying goes."</span><span><i>- Gail Honeyman</i></span></span></h4><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">“We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.”</span> - Gabrielle Zevin</i></span></h3><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="color: #38761d;">“Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love. It’s a strange feeling. You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad, where you either love or hate them, but that’s not how people are.” </span>- Trevor Noah</i></span></span></h3><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">#MustRead #nationalbookloversday</span></p><p></p>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-69616549710870555182022-12-25T08:57:00.003-07:002023-01-14T09:42:34.970-07:00Light December on Fire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJupCU_H11Cz1KvqsN-8x41Dqnmf0SFnxfy4bqFkJiRagkykRiZIO-q4PWsdaheEtC6K-lOkTU3j3NLayf8ca5o6Gwn1r6Dgqfo9U0TFFi3xFNQqJdeuBNnpL1ybAevnhrGQ1bb26o7zcE-xFMK4-IEeSC4A_gpHjZ9Si-zDF0XjW1aoZ_VKywvV9Fag/s4032/IMG_4524.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJupCU_H11Cz1KvqsN-8x41Dqnmf0SFnxfy4bqFkJiRagkykRiZIO-q4PWsdaheEtC6K-lOkTU3j3NLayf8ca5o6Gwn1r6Dgqfo9U0TFFi3xFNQqJdeuBNnpL1ybAevnhrGQ1bb26o7zcE-xFMK4-IEeSC4A_gpHjZ9Si-zDF0XjW1aoZ_VKywvV9Fag/w150-h200/IMG_4524.jpeg" width="150" /></a></div>There are four weeks to Christmas, and the countdown has me heightened. I lit my mother's white square candle yesterday, the one she has had for decades now. It made me feel good to pull it out and add it to our holiday decor. For a few months, since we emptied her storage unit, I have wanted to do this. It makes more sense to me than having it sit in a toy box in storage - a candle never being burned. It also is one way to lighten the pile of things in my office: papers and photos that are hers that I still need to go through and purge.<br /><br />I told D and the girls about the candle yesterday as we were eating lunch. We all admired its' beauty and craftsmanship. It’s likely 50 years old. I caught myself wondering what my mother would think about it: would she be horrified we are burning it or would she be happy to see it lit finally; I really have no idea anymore.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWxs6oaWoGz1GO0pxO6GqCBPblaf0HuAvt0N77jvoYNl09f2j1ddoXM_yV-Ku36ArH9__GACsJ5dTHXfwTr4wQh2J_1lI-FT66lq8tb8KDciNDMb67G0J0snAH-cq_3_wQw78IfxIQMvJptF3p28w8cv-PIzmcmD7nPNwMpifyl4y-6oicWUVaIdgvxg/s4032/IMG_4570.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWxs6oaWoGz1GO0pxO6GqCBPblaf0HuAvt0N77jvoYNl09f2j1ddoXM_yV-Ku36ArH9__GACsJ5dTHXfwTr4wQh2J_1lI-FT66lq8tb8KDciNDMb67G0J0snAH-cq_3_wQw78IfxIQMvJptF3p28w8cv-PIzmcmD7nPNwMpifyl4y-6oicWUVaIdgvxg/w240-h320/IMG_4570.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><div><h4>December 1</h4></div><div>I woke up and the light seemed brighter; it was later than other mornings. I'm still feeling down about myself: feeling like my potential is so much more and I’m not showing up well. I have no idea how to negotiate myself into a better space and I can’t seem to find a way to settle. It’s as if something deep inside me doesn’t believe. <br /><br />It feels like every Christmas movie I’ve ever seen: the hero needs to find a way to access her goodness, her magic, her potential to make others feel special. She needs to release what has happened in the past and embrace what is currently in her life and ultimately find different ways to approach it. <br /><br />I feel like I’ve landed on the island of misfit toys and I’m walking around being a judgmental bitch about it. I can’t even believe I wrote that because I hate that word but it’s true, I need to find my center.<br /><h4 style="text-align: left;">December 9</h4>Yesterday, after I dropped off some medication for my mother, I looked through the windows trying to see her eating dinner with others, like a mother peering in on her child at daycare. As I was driving toward the grocery store, I realized I already consider my mother dead. Mostly. When her body finally breaks down and lets go, it will be a relief. The thought horrified me in a way since I was literally just peaking in on her.<br /><br />I’m having a hard time understanding this path to death. I feel like a heart attack or stroke or Covid, with their relentless speed and finality would be a welcome way to help her transition. Not that quicker is easier, just that this journey grows more precarious. Sometimes I find myself outside myself looking in over the course of years I have traversed. <br /><br />My mother is more than just a carcass, but at this point I feel much less about her "being" while in her presence and more about her body. When I realized this last night, I wept from the loneliness of that feeling. I’ve started to think of my mother now versus my mother then. The woman now seems so content in many ways but is she feeling scared and alone and just doesn’t have the words to express it? The woman she was would be horrified at her existence right now; she would be angry at us for how she is living.<br /><br />Putting these heavy thoughts on paper makes me feel both relieved and sad. I’ve been looking for the light these past few weeks and finding it in the strangest places. Maybe it’s because I’m looking for it that it appears to bring me brief brightly colored moments of joy.<br /><br />My mother's Christmas candle has always been part of my life. As a kid I unpacked this candle from our holiday decorations and placed it on the table behind the couch in our family room many, many years in a row. It sat next to or near the gold advent windmill - the one that would be lit so the candles heat would make it turn. It was a huge delight until inevitably we would touch it and it would fall apart. I got good at fixing it - we all did. The square white candle just down the line went unused. It was beautiful and textured and had fake mistletoe on each side at the bottom. As a texture person, I'm sure I caressed it often when she wasn't looking. It was a curiosity of sorts, mostly because we could never light it. It was there for looks, a museum of her own making.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNnPjb_U4Lgtzh7QVWIz7c9DdCcpbkc2i2wjAStPZPVkLNHwgTAm5akHi2ll30L-H46Jcw_VU_p7sJGdL3xsxT8esYWfJ_Ndgv6n5eBK02bwE6eB9r9SoJlU03ZgVqCDt3ubQSqkvIJWzwH0J7TOorqjNMKAHfSM9lowyGnk6pQcsljCZZrOKQFlcKOQ/s4032/IMG_4525.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNnPjb_U4Lgtzh7QVWIz7c9DdCcpbkc2i2wjAStPZPVkLNHwgTAm5akHi2ll30L-H46Jcw_VU_p7sJGdL3xsxT8esYWfJ_Ndgv6n5eBK02bwE6eB9r9SoJlU03ZgVqCDt3ubQSqkvIJWzwH0J7TOorqjNMKAHfSM9lowyGnk6pQcsljCZZrOKQFlcKOQ/w150-h200/IMG_4525.jpeg" width="150" /></a>When my mother finally transitioned into assisted living and it was clear she wasn’t going back home, we began the task of emptying things out of her space. There was Christmas decor everywhere. Loads of fake poinsettias, garland, wreaths, ornaments, and nativity scenes. The list literally went on and on. We all felt it was best to save some items she might ask for; we could pretend to bring them from her house. We were on edge to respond to a woman who would always put us in that frame of mind. </div><div><br /></div><div>A year after her stroke we finally got around to emptying her house. A year after that, we got around to emptying the storage unit we packed the outliers into. She only asked for the CorningWare and even that went unused once Nancy brought it to her. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Christmas stuff proved to be the bulk of the storage unit content. It's funny what you choose to value and save. As we paired it down, we either donated more or took what we could back to our house. The Christmas candle was one of the only things I truly wanted. It sat in my office all summer, along with papers and photos I have yet to go through. </div><div><br /></div><div>But the candle was on borrowed time because for 46 years, I’ve been aching to light it. I like to think for even longer the candle has felt the same way. </div><div><br /></div><div>When the holidays finally rumbled in, the candle was one of the first things I took out and placed on my table. I could burn this content of my mom’s and release the years and the light, in truth I was also trying to release her. </div><div><br /></div><div>It’s a strange thing to get rid of someone’s items when they’re still alive. Had she been gone completely I would’ve projected her joy about burning the candle but the first few times I lit it, I wondered whether she would be "damn mad" at me for doing it (<i>her words not mine, and most likely the case</i>). Though I held hope that she might be ideally relieved and glad to see it burning. </div><div><br /></div><div>I still feel conflicted but we all light it and burn it. This object has come alive and it has become a prominent fixture in my life <span style="text-align: center;">this season.</span></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kYC9UcAVTaHT5sKtJ9mrhfn9lV98UBr_5ewJYB5FiYb5A0Ey70Yz6F-ngdXgzYQSp4_NdA7XR0_1P3Pn_Aj5wkvNm7KDXkmNKCU08_PdAd-cnmNf9mffeDIeOvvu7eokP7raRjElKc3IqPjOSfUU68ejTBzqLPKHsgpH1R6rU9LJhz3m9qVbzguOzA/s2941/IMG_4744.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2941" data-original-width="2520" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kYC9UcAVTaHT5sKtJ9mrhfn9lV98UBr_5ewJYB5FiYb5A0Ey70Yz6F-ngdXgzYQSp4_NdA7XR0_1P3Pn_Aj5wkvNm7KDXkmNKCU08_PdAd-cnmNf9mffeDIeOvvu7eokP7raRjElKc3IqPjOSfUU68ejTBzqLPKHsgpH1R6rU9LJhz3m9qVbzguOzA/s320/IMG_4744.jpeg" width="274" /></a></div><br />Christmas Day</span></h4><div><span style="text-align: center;">Last year, she came and spent the night on Christmas Eve. It proved to be a heavier lift than I anticipated but I know it made her holiday special. Truth be told, it was nice to have her around. Everyone loves to wake up with childhood enthusiasm on Christmas Day. Even though the girls no longer believed in Santa, we still had fun. </span><span style="text-align: center;">At the time, I assumed it would be her last. </span></div><div><span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="text-align: center;">This year, I knew it would be too much to handle both for me and my family and for her. She is mostly in a wheel chair now, barely walking and closes her eyes 10 minutes into any conversation I have with her. I take comfort in the fact that she boldly wished me Merry Christmas a week before the actual day. It would be just another day in her new world.</span><span style="text-align: center;"> Still the guilt lingered through the month. Would this be the last one? Only time will tell.</span></div></div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-37758619410522651532022-11-24T09:00:00.054-07:002023-01-11T20:40:43.853-07:00Incessant ScrollingIt is in inevitable. I’m walking toward myself, and the weight of old ways has to go. Some of it has fallen off, like old skin I didn’t even notice disappearing. Other pieces have to be pushed away, scraped off like a scab, and I know I will be raw as I heal and grow into a new form. <div><br /></div><div>Incessantly, we are rebuilding our cells, our skin, our look. We have the same constant nature, but shift form and presence, depending on light, water, or environment. How far I have come; how much more I have to grow. Still the desire to do so pushes forth from within and I wonder whether I am drowning or flourishing in this space? <br /><br />I have existed in so many forms. My energy currently feels like an unharnessed force. My desire is to put forth something new and authentic. But I am not plugged in anymore; I feel lost and fumbling. </div><div><br /></div><div>I never tell stories. Even when I recount moments, I stumble and lack true memory to what happened. I go for humor instead to camouflage the parts that feel uncomfortable.</div><div><br /></div><div>I must conspire my own magic to go after what I want. It doesn't feel like a grand pursuit, one that will surely evade me, but rather more a coaxing, like with a vulnerable animal that I ache to help. </div><div><br /></div><div>I want to yell, "I AM HERE!" and make something happen, yet it feels like I am standing alone in a great valley surrounded by mountains, and the remains of my voice and my energy are bouncing off matter around me. Echoing. I am left my own devices. </div><div><br /></div><div>_________</div><div><br /></div><br />This is for after your escape. After all the heavy breath and tears it required to tear you away from your chains. <div>This is for when you have already felt the elated freedom of being on the outside of it all. </div><div>This moment comes once you have settled and started to look around and consider what you should do next. </div><div>When you consider whether you made the right decision and fear failure is right at your back. </div><div>Don’t look back. </div><div>Now you are truly alive and you only have your internal devices to survive. </div><div>Anything is possible. </div><div>It is up to you to decide.</div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-44907004021988961532022-11-20T20:36:00.003-07:002022-12-11T08:45:07.850-07:00Stepping in to the ShadowsI'm a little early for that time of year when I get sentimental and want to show it. Most of the time I wear heavy armor and feel comfortable keeping distance with people except a chosen few. The truth is I'm a romantic at heart. I'm a softy for the feel goods and I want the underdog to win. I also painstakingly try to heal the past or find myself closing the circle of the year during the holidays; I think we all do in our own way. <div><br /></div><div>The longest, darkest night has a way of calling out to your personal shadows. The past week felt low and I heard the sentiment reflected in many others. I needed something to pick me up. I sense Christmas coming towards me like a bumbling giant. I feel the earth shake as the season enters and this year, I resolved to meet it with a smile and maybe try to be prepared. So I put my tree up today. I put a piece of joy into our space and let my gals sing song the moment into their memories. For me it was more about rearranging and having another light source in my front room. It's just has lights, no ornaments, and I put the white owl on top so it feels like something wise is watching over us. </div><div><br /></div><div>I like to think I'm growing kinder with each passing year. Kinder to myself, kinder to the energy I put forth in this world. I've come to appreciate happiness is magic I can make. Also when it is darkest, we all have to find and create our own light and do it for others when they just can't light their own way. I've been finding joy in those sweet passing moments that make me feel good. </div><div><br /></div><div>In my youth, I got really good and intimate with feeling low and blaming others. I have a bestie who taught me to make my own happiness. Really just recently, I've come to understand the power in that. Also the magnetism of spreading joy to others. <div><div><br /></div><div>That's not to say it's all puppy dogs and kittens over here. I like a good honest chat one-on-one, and the ability to pick apart something in the underbelly of my life that I would like to change. I get super turned off by the always #blessed sort but I dig what they're trying to muster for themselves and their loved ones. It just indicates to me that I'm not at their inner table. I can NOT be at most people's inner table. I assume many of my good friends might not know they're at mine because of how private I am. </div><div><br /></div><div>The inner table is set for those you can really trust with the good and the bad. I like to laugh with others but I can also be dark as hell. I also like to bear witness to vulnerability. The truth is though, I can hold the space but I can't mirror the work because I am so scared of myself. I am the underdog; even with all the privilege I have, I come in second place most every time. That's the story I've been telling myself since I was a child and it's stifled most every phase of my life. Me: horribly hard and unrelentingly unforgiving to myself - it's how I learned to survive. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've been feeling mostly alone lately, mostly responsible for the child in my childhood since I'm basically orphaned now. As a parent, I see how isolated I became at a young age and how easy it was for me to put on a uniform and go out into the world I was being raised in and check the boxes.</div><div><br /></div><div>A friend sent some college photos and I looked back on the girl I used to be. I asked D, "would you date her?" He said, "What girl?" at the zoomed in picture. We had a good laugh but the truth about it stung. Not D's candor but perhaps the honest moment with myself that the image stirred up in me. All that armor, all those ways to hide my beauty and potential, to not face myself, to pretend I was getting by so I could actually get by. The girl in that photo had escaped an unhappy home and was relieved to be far away. But she wasn't free enough to go be alive in herself and her experiences. She was stifled always and scared deeply. </div><div><br /></div><div>It prompted me to dig through some old emails and reread my youthful voice. There was a back and forth with an old friend over a few years. It was mostly banter and sorting out life in your mid-twenties. I couldn't stand some of the words I put out there as armor, as flirting, as a way to connect. Though I know they were coming mostly from jest and lack of self confidence, they were harsh and not really what I wanted to say. The truth is I never thought I was good enough and I valued this person more than myself. I always felt like the fat girl without a chance. I was too scared to see the opportunity that might have been there and so I didn't take any chances and let the moment pass. I regret that now because the years have helped me understand that mentality is bullshit.</div><div><br /></div><div>It took me well into my 40s to muster enough courage to put some of these old fears to rest. It took the caring love and support of a good partner to help me see true value in my being. It also took me giving myself the space and respect I so readily threw away before. I've made peace with many things I never thought I would settle and I regret a few moments I never risked. I guess that's who I am in some ways, seemingly brave and courageous, secretly a chickenshit unable to recognize when others care and just want to be there for me. </div><div><br /></div><div>Twenty years from now I will be in my sixties wishing I was 40 something again, wishing I was here right now. I imagine the waning vibrance that I am feeling these days will feel like a fire hose of life that has long since left my bones. I will still be writing. I will not forget the joy I've learned to kindle for myself and to spread to others. If all else fails, I will reach out to friends to remind me of these moments that are fleeting but forever part of my story. It all comes down to me. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm going to go tuck those gals into bed. One day, they will be twenty-somethings themselves, far away from me forging their own path and hopefully finding some grace. </div></div></div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-61866309996637049972022-11-08T09:40:00.001-07:002022-11-27T09:46:42.974-07:00Tethered Thoughts<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">I’ve been in a caregiving headspace about my mom for two years now. I’ve sifted through the literal remains from her life and distilled a three bedroom townhome into a 600 square-foot room. I still have some of her old papers and photos in boxes in my office. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Her presence is still very much with me. The person she was haunts me and the person she’s devolved into panders to my emotions. I am a dutiful daughter; she raised me that way. At times even now, two years into a dementia diagnosis, I still think she might be manipulating me. Is it wishful thinking? Have I become so accustomed to her abuse that I long for it now as a way to deal with her disappearing brain? </p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I have even begun to grieve her, though she’s still alive. Perhaps it is a gift to be able to walk upon this journey with her – perhaps it is one I give myself as a salve for the mental scars I carry. </p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Still, there are days when I humbly acknowledge how hard it is to be a mother, and I am taken by the amount of love and anticipation I have for my children. I’m sure she was the same way, even if she didn’t express it in a way I could relate to well.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Her birthday is this Friday, she will be 84. I feel compelled to bring her balloons. I might have to remind her what they are called, but perhaps not because she always love balloons. It drove me crazy how compelled she was to bring my girls balloons on their birthday. When you have kids, a stale balloon can bumble around your house for weeks under the dawdling security of a toddler. This week the idea lightens me. A dollop for floating hope in an otherwise hopeless situation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-80096189525569798062022-10-30T19:34:00.001-06:002022-11-26T07:59:28.806-07:00Drifting Off<p>Sweet child, though you may not think it, you are not alone. In the silent blanket of night there are signs to remind you of the love that surrounds you. The day retires and whispers moments into your memory that ripple throughout your being. </p><p>As you wrestle your body down under the blankets and let the last surges of movement leave your being, you soften to the stillness that is to come. You remember the turning leaves popping against the blue afternoon sky. The warmth of the sun while you talked to your daughters at the playground. The way the dog reminds you he's always by your side. </p><p>Release the heavy thoughts and wrap the warm feeling of love around you. There is peace in the air and the promise of love - unexpected after so many moments of disappointment. All that remains true is the feeling you are not alone. The gentle unseen forces are softly by your side. </p>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-41638175156707607392022-06-14T16:46:00.001-06:002022-08-31T16:49:34.217-06:00Reframing How lucky I am to have time to visit my mother and observe the crazy changes she is going through as a result of dementia. It is a non-cohesive mess she is in. Engaging with her seems like a duty but also like a min-adventure. I have no clue where she will take me - certainly no place she has gone before.Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-53824113706566292412022-06-06T22:47:00.126-06:002022-08-26T08:52:20.110-06:00Space and Place<div>I am at the end of a girl's weekend; it’s Monday morning and I can hear the traffic building. The fence along the street of this corner lot is lined with a hedge, so it creates a secret garden. I can see into the backyard of the house next-door, which faces another direction. The sprinkler under the huge elm in one corner is gently dusting the grass. Purple sage lines a curved brick path along the side of the house to the front gate. It is alluring and it makes me want to follow the hopeful feeling of this backyard. </div><div><br /></div><div>I haven’t even looked in all the beds around the edges of this lawn but it is clear someone is tending to this escape. It is lovely; I sense a wise person is caring for this place. The birds seem to love it too. I truly think it’s the best part of this rental. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the room my old U of A roommate and I shared, a small shelf called to me, not all the books but rather the curiosity of pulling from the books and finding quick wisdom with a flick of my hands: a note on the inside cover of one that said "Arizona rocks!" and a business card from a bookstore in Waltham from another. I smile at the synchronicities and felt kindred to some unseen presence. I was drawn to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/179955/earth-song-sky-spirit-by-clifford-e-trafzer/" target="_blank">Earth Song, Sky Spirit</a> – a book I surely have seen before but not read. It's an anthology of Native American writers. I randomly opened to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Gunn_Allen" target="_blank">Paula Guinn Allen</a>’s <i>Spirit Woman. </i></div><div></div><br />I could barely fall asleep after I read the story. I was charged, felt energetic and anxious. It could have been that Dahlia was gone and I was the only one sleeping upstairs. It could have been that I had just spent the weekend with some old college friends I've known since we were silly kids. It could have been I found an escape I greatly needed. It could have been that I was searching for what to do next with my life. All these things. <br /><br />I was reaching out for that grandmother feminine energy. I felt encircled by it. It was as if I was waiting for it to deliver a message, assigned to me. It led me to think we are all grandmothers, even tiny Amelia. We all have the wisdom of the ages in our being and the companionship of each other. We are grandmothers from the get go, with our knowing solidified and perhaps just untapped and undiscovered. Age is not the only way we get to the river. Some of us are just naturally connected, some of us wander for years to get there, some of us assert our wisdom and some coax it, carry it like a fine light veil. Still we all have our space, our birthright to the knowledge, to the moment and to the flow of the great river of knowing.<br /><br />I have come to fear the company of women. I have come to feel apprehensive of a coven of us coming together. Deep inside I wonder if it is because I am not aligned with myself, though I am more aligned than I have been in forever. Perhaps it’s that I sense so much worn out emotion from the women I know: the ones working and raising children, tending a home and taking care of family, frazzled and fearful for the spiraling path our society seems to be taking. I don't fear the world though, this living earth, this grandmother so entrenched in the circle of time, knowing this is but a mere story, a moment, all drips in a much longer lifetime.<br /><br />I feel these things and yet I do not speak of them to my friends. I sit silent or let their stories take center stage or fall flat without battling back. I hide in humor and use alcohol to relax. Alone I feel free and alive and vibrant but I do not express myself the same way in the presence of others. I am scared of myself, I am scared of others; I don’t know how much to give and what boundaries to draw. I should release all fear of giving and do it with a gracious heart.<br /><br />I'm thinking now that this house came to us for a girls weekend. The space, not perfect but kind, and just fine for us. Perhaps us too, bringing our energy to this house, as we had to a few others in Tucson, letting it shelter a few kind travelers since it has not had many guests. Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-61850343718446531682022-05-25T21:51:00.068-06:002022-07-12T14:31:08.830-06:00Enough.This morning I’m gutted. I couldn’t take anymore. I was feeling so emotional about 19 kids getting gunned down in their elementary school in Texas yesterday. I finally felt it was my duty to tell my kids before another kid shared the news with them about school shootings. So for the first time I told my own girls how some kids go to school and don't come home. <div><br /></div><div>All the while thinking I should be recording this because this is disgusting. The innocent eyes, the gentle questions. The sheer clarity of how obscene it sounds. I agree with them whole-heartedly. This is our world, this is America, and it’s not OK. </div><div><br /></div><div>I told them that the drills that they do at school are drills for this situation - they hadn’t really known that before now. I told them that the person who did this in Texas was sick and, when they asked, I told them yes he was dead, a police officer shot him. </div><div><br /></div><div>A didn’t want to go to school. M asked if we could go now. I’m not quite sure which is more disturbing in the face of this: the desire to just shut down or resolve and resilience. </div><div><br />I can’t believe this has been repeating itself since Columbine - that moment still so fresh in my mind. All the parents, family, and friends who have gone through this each day since they’ve lost a loved one.</div><div><br /></div><div>We are all victims here. We are all entrenched in damaged communities and I have no misjudgments that some communities have been surging for years because of decades of disproportionate resourcing. But still it indicates sickness in our streets.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had to tell them it’s not just in schools. It happens in grocery stores and places of worship, it happens at concerts, it happens in yoga studios, the list goes on and on. What the fuck is wrong with us?</div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-60844352948478632402022-05-09T16:42:00.311-06:002022-07-12T14:39:51.065-06:00ObservationsWe’re in the emergency room waiting area, it’s 9:30 pm. I’m sitting next to my mom and she has told me to keep my mouth shut. I’m triggered like a 13-year-old girl and hating her, hating me. I haven’t felt this way for sometime now. <div><br /></div><div>This past year, a lot of moments that are strange and unusual and offensive get swept away with the excuse that her dementia leaves no mental capacity for her to be as manipulative as she once was. But the familiarity overtakes me every now and again and tonight it's like a tidal wave. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am frustrated. I was at home getting ready to relax after a long day when I got the call from her memory care team. Since she recently moved, this has happened a few times in the past week. I was thinking they had once again fallen short with the care that they were providing, especially when she is sundowning, and now they want me to rush over to address it. When I arrive at the facility, I ask them to take her vitals, which they stumble through at best. Everything indicates that she is fine except for her changing ailment complaints: chest pains that shot across her chest a few hours ago and now her abdomen is hurting. I am reticent to take her to the ER. We start fighting like we used to do when I was younger, when she would just boss me around. I finally resolve to take her to the ER to dismantle the argument. It is also a way to navigate around the sub par performance of the "caregivers" (not "nurses" as one whispers to me when I tell my mom the nurse will take her blood pressure). Aha.</div><div><br /></div><div>The ride feels long and arduous and is literally a half a block away. I have been told many times to not talk once we get there. Truth is she doesn't know where she is when we pull up in front of the ER. She asks me what this place is? She wanted to go to the hospital. I am so frustrated I practically scream that this is the hospital. </div><div><br /></div><div>I pull her cumbersome wheelchair out of the back of my car and struggle with opening it up. I am crazy laughing at myself for not watching the nurse collapse it at the facility. Sooner or later I get her in it and wheel her through the metal detectors. She sits across from a gentleman checking her in to the ER. I stand behind her mumbling some of the answers that he needs, though she wants to do it all by herself. She signs all the paperwork, her signature still looks fairly intact. Then he tries to confirm her address and I tell him she now lives at Porter Place. It bothers her. She doesn't want him to know this because she still thinks she has a house. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is how I came to be sitting next to my mother, fuming about that all too familiar feeling of her diminishing my presence. Minutes pass as she digs through her purse. I watch the two ER people enjoy cookies from a thoughtful supervisor. Other patients come in to be helped. My mom asks me if I want a Werther's? I turn her down. By the time they called her back, her anger towards me had dissipated. I am not so lucky.</div><div><br /></div><div>...</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been sitting in the ER room staring at my mom for hours; it is the early morning now and I am tired and loose. I actually like being up every so often in the middle of the night but the chairs are hard and I want to go to lay in my bed. A paramedic is helping out because they are short staffed. She has the distinct joy of having to catheter my mom if she can't provide a sample soon. My mother has mistaken her for a man and seems to be hitting on her. This adds levity to the situation. We laugh together and the woman graciously says it’s common with older adults, my mom misses the joke. I consider how my mom hits on all the doctors when she comes to the hospital. It might be why she likes to visit so often. The medic manages to get a sample and sends it off for testing. She turns out the light so we can sleep a bit while we wait for the results. </div><div><br /></div><div>I wake up from a crampy snooze, sitting in one chair with my legs stretched out on another. <i>Why is this taking so long and who is the drunk guy in the other room?</i> He is playing music and provides comedy relief for me now. It's 3 am and I'm sick of waiting. I search out the results from the doc. It's slow for them to identify a UTI and administer some antibiotics. My mother is perking up from the IV and meds. She keeps making conversation to fill the space, asking over and over about going to New York with the girls in the summer. I keep answering the same questions, as if each time it's a fresh request and novel idea. I know the whole time it's complete bullshit because I'm not going cross-country on a bus to NYC; quite honestly neither is she, but it's Mother's Day now and the least I can do is indulge her. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's 4:15 when I finally load my mother back in the car. The drunk guy gets released at the same time as us and we follow him and his music out. I marvel at how they walk him out the front door of the ER and leave him to his own devices to get home. He wanders off in the dark towards the park across the street. I assume he's in college. </div><div><br /></div><div>I take my mom back to Porter Place and the staff is sleeping when we come down the hall. I tuck her in bed and leave as the "caretaker" not "nurse" comes to check on her. I'm grateful now that we went but I just want to get home. Birds are chirping as I pull away.</div><div><br /></div><div>...</div><br />A rough day follows. D and the girls have a special breakfast waiting for me when I get up at 11 am. I am out of sorts and emotional all day, not showing up very well for my family on a day when they are trying to celebrate me. I hate how I acted and how my mother acted towards me but I can no longer hold her accountable for her actions. Sure I can write it off as an infection, but there is no way to absolve the darkness triggered from our history. Add to that my disappointment for not doing a better job as an adult handling my sick mother. Then layer on questioning the move to memory care since the experience has been underwhelming and the transition hard. I am left feeling horrible about myself, horrible about how everything is being handled, and horrible for wanting it to be over.Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-19625029855657720922022-04-28T10:50:00.031-06:002022-06-08T16:09:48.280-06:00MorningWaking up this morning, the sounds of early spring are so hopeful. I open the blind by the chair I sip coffee in and scare the duck that’s been hanging out searching for food. He’s been showing up lately without his partner. Since there are no squirrels to be found, I’m hoping he can eat. It is chilly and Martha is out in the coop so I give the chicken some corn too. <div><br /></div><div>Now I’m sitting here trying to piece together my day and my life. I woke up feeling hopeless but the birds would not hear it. They called to each other from the trees. Their songs so light and so confident, not for one moment did they remain silent. The sprinklers hummed to life too and the traffic on a distant road. I joined the buzz. I went out into the morning and felt the cool air through my unbrushed hair. The coffee brewed, the dog stretched his bones and went back to bed. </div><div><br /></div><div>I will carry on like this, hoping that somehow a lighter feeling will come soon and I will be free of the weight of this mess.</div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-25691203987654628842022-04-23T17:14:00.002-06:002022-05-23T21:58:40.966-06:00Spiraling Through TimeMy 83-year-old mother told me she didn’t feel 83, she felt younger. She said this from the comfort of her recliner spread back, not having moved for a while, her walker nearby. She said it from the comfort of her dementia too. It seemed a moment of clarity in an otherwise nonsensical conversation that had me laughing and falling down rabbit holes to catch facts and distill what I could from her memories. She rarely shared them while I was growing up and so now, though they aren’t 100% true, I still feel compelled to follow them and knit the truth from their pieces.<br /><br />I am 46 now; I don’t feel 46 either. My mother tells me I look good, perhaps it’s because I just got my haircut. I am not happy with how my body looks. I’m getting old but in her quiet room on the fifth floor of this assisted-living facility, I feel my youth and vigor, my ability to pop up and walk across the room, to Google photos of her childhood boarding school in New York, to write her a note to leave on the table for her to find later so she does not feel so alone when the night sets in. <div><br /></div><div>I visit my childhood quite often in memories. I am reminded of moments in the presence of my eight-year-old who walks around like a hologram of me when I was young. It is a gift to be with her and to view myself from a parental vantage point since I no longer have my parents to give me perspective. Time is as contrived as all the other systems we have been indoctrinated into. We are caged by this framework since the day we were born rather than freed to flourish throughout it's entire spectrum. </div><div><br /></div><div>I do not feel old but my body is slowing down and the waxing of years has built up faster than I anticipated. Yet in a heart beat, I can jump back to learning how to ride a bike, to my first place in college, to being pregnant and moving in to our home. I watch my mother jump around in her experiences too. Her neurons misfiring and jumbling the facts, making a relative a brother she never had, handing me names I’ve never heard. Somehow though it’s soothes her; even when I have to break the news that my grandmother is no longer alive or that my dad has been dead for 11 years. Often I derail her plans to move to Florida with him or to choose to stay in Colorado while he moves, which makes more sense because they were unhappily married and divorced for more than 15 years before he kicked it. We never talk about the divorce. </div><div><br />I watch her feel her way through this web of thoughts, get disappointed about the deaths, and then asked to go shopping all in one or two minutes. I know the real treat is that I am just sitting with her, listening to her, and relieving the loneliness and confusion that sets in when she is left to her own devices. I see her struggle to escape the confusion by falling into old patterns of what she would do as a homemaker. She tells me she needs to go grocery shopping, to the bank, and to get light socks because the heavy ones are too much on her feet now that it is getting warm. She tells me her feet sweat, she tells me things she would never have revealed to me as my caregiver, as a woman bread in the '50s with the expectations of that generation. </div><div><br /></div><div>I remember how she would cobble six fruit cocktails together as dessert in thick glass cups with stems that felt fancy and fun as a child. I tell my kids about this, about the things she would do that seemed delightfully odd and now almost mythical because that person is slowly disappearing and they see how nonsensical she has become. I tell them because they would have loved it, because she still believes she can watch them for a night and spoil them the way she wants to while she gives Andy and I a break. I find myself making Shirley Temples in wine glasses for them because that’s something she would’ve done. The Gen X parent in me worried I’m indoctrinating them into drinking while the caregiver in me appreciates the lightness of something familiar from the happy moments of my youth. I too am still a nine-year-old longing to be fancy and I have a real wine glass with a fun drink to cheers and clink like an adult.</div><div><br /></div><div>I look at my girls as little people. Perhaps I am too candid with them about life and death, about things I should hold off on explaining until they’re older. Then I imagine their trajectory, about how fast life flows and how I can’t control the moments they will find their way back to when they time travel. I remember how their entrance into my life saved me in many ways but mostly from myself, mostly from my desires to not care. I admit how quickly this journey we are on will pass. Each step feeling whole and true right now but it will be no time at all before we are looking back at all of this "so long ago" and seemingly only yesterday.</div><div><br /></div><div>My mom is spiraling along this wheel too and time has been tossed away as irrelevant. As I sit with her sometimes she can’t quantify my age, so I am simultaneously a teen and an adult with a husband and two kids. To be honest, I find it refreshing and true now that I am no longer disturbed by the lack of sense. Aren’t we all different versions of ourselves at any given moment - pulling from every phase and experience we have lived over the years? All those moments remain in our being whether as part of the trunk of our existence holding us up or as flowers that have bloomed from something so powerful it made us become.</div><br />In this moment I am walking my mother home. Each day she moves slower, she’s practically in a wheelchair. She has moments of clarity and frustration, embarrassment, and moments where she grasps to recall the woman she was. She still feels compelled to her duty as a matriarch, to the story she told herself about her marriage, to the society she lived in so long ago. Now she stares out the window, wandering her memories, aching to control the lost words or make sense of what once seemed so easy.<br /><br />I cannot figure out why she won’t let go or admit she wants to let go. At the same time, I admire her compulsion to mother us still, mother us always, to not leave in case we need her help. This is what I like to believe in to make sense of this ending because otherwise I get frustrated and angry at the slow progression of her exit.Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-59648976239085230372022-04-20T10:31:00.049-06:002022-05-23T22:00:31.374-06:00MagneticHow she came to her art felt like a dance, it was the same sensation. There was an awkward cadence to it, as if she was young and fresh and didn’t understand her own existence, let alone her partner’s. She felt nervous and new and she wasn’t sure of her actions. She held steadfast to the moment and followed the motions through her body begging to understand, to learn how to move. She wondered if on the other side the curiosity was mirrored?<div><br />From things unseen, there was a patient pause; a sense of grace about being recognized. There was no judgment or malice about how long it took. Time was uninformative. Rather there was a steady open listening, a gaze from across the room waiting to be returned. It was true and required nothing more than authentic recognition of what she wanted. </div><div><br /></div><div>Passion is not a such a strange thing. It is in fact a flowering plant that craves to bloom. She did not understand how to cultivate it and she expected that it would sprout wildly in her and grow uncontrollably taking over her being, leaving her old self cracked open, a husk to feed what was new. But no this was part of her, one she had to welcome and coax; assuring it she too was ready and would not abandon it. In this way it started out as an affair of sorts: she stealing away in fits and fear for being discovered. All the while feeling more live and aligned with each rendezvous. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is not hard to want, to crave something. It is much harder to be wanted, to be watched and release control of being carried away. It is never clear what story will wait on the other side. Truth be told, it is a web one gets entangled in long before they realize they are caught. There was not much else to do but throw fear aside, to relinquish it as a shield. She would stand naked across the room staring back into the eye of a being she did not yet fully comprehend. All the while knowing it was kin to her, all the while feeling magnetized to its presence.</div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-17378595211029506182022-04-13T16:52:00.082-06:002022-05-23T17:13:19.865-06:00MovingWe went to tour the memory care wing of Porter Place yesterday. We looked at two tiny rooms and walked the one hallway of the wing that I so often passed on my way to my mother's fifth floor "penthouse" (as she liked to call it). <div><br /></div><div>I don’t recall a single resident saying hi to us. Some would look and nod but none said hi. I felt the overwhelm of what this move encompasses for my mom and for us. My eyes welled up and I just blinked away the feeling, sniffling under my mask. </div><div><br /></div><div>It’s clear this is the next step my mom needs to take. When she walked the floor, this sheer length of it tired her. She was not impacted by the small room size. She had a hard time envisioning or understanding not all her furniture could come with her. I could tell she felt comfortable and that the reduction of space made it easier for her to navigate.<br /><br />It felt like the decision came down to what do we want to see when we come visit her because the surroundings didn't seem to impact the residents much. It is a lonely energy, a silent one. There are people physically there but not looking engaged. If they do interact, their actions leave most social conventions behind. It can be a little unnerving and also a little funny. </div><div><br /></div><div>My mom just wanted to sit in the chair in the common area. She needed a break. Perhaps it was overwhelming for her too but she had no way of expressing it; I'm not even sure she really understood the proposal to move. She certainly wasn’t angry like I was expecting. The night before, I realized I was overthinking her response and just had to include her in the process. </div><div><br /></div><div>Pretty soon, that step will be unwarranted. It feels like a slow decline and yet it has been a year and a half since her stroke. I've moved her three times since then and sold her house. I never would have guessed a year ago when we moved her in to her penthouse that we would be moving her to memory care so soon. I also hoped perhaps we would never get to this point.<br /><br />I don’t understand the end of life struggle with this disease. It seems to slowly pull at the fabric of a persons being and leave the caretakers grappling with their character too. I’m at a loss for wanting to fight. I don’t know why we must drag this dying out. We walk with my mother slowly, each step worrying she will fall; while hoping something might steal her away. </div><div><br /></div><div>Heartless I know.</div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1059465473140448108.post-35544337100918168082022-04-08T13:35:00.151-06:002022-07-08T16:20:27.327-06:00CocooningThe light began to seep through the dark days of silence and a loosening came to the space she wrapped herself in. For so long, she has been tightened to her being, disappearing away from even her body to retreat to the depth of her existence. She wasn't sure if she was searching or letting go; perhaps she was doing a bit of both. In the safety of her swaddle, she came apart to leave behind the world she knew.<br /><br />There is a little comfort in falling away. She had been answering the compulsion to consume for so long: to crave, to chew, to carry-on. It felt right and clear and true. Until a murmur came to her, slowly harkening then surging faster and fuller until she could no longer hear anything else. <div><br /></div><div>She had enough the day she finally retreated to a quiet space. She found a spot to settle and wrapped herself to keep warm and safe. She disappeared inside. </div><div><br /></div><div>Silence.</div><div>Slowness.</div><div>Slow. </div><div>Slower. </div><div>Slowest movements called to her and so she listened. </div><div><div><br /></div><div>The darkness began to weigh on her and break apart heavy barriers she had built. She loosened to the lightness. She began to consider what life would be like if she conjured that feeling more. It seemed an impossibility to float so easily over existence. It was unlike anything she had known before. </div><div><br /></div><div>The feeling nudged at her, similar to the consumption she used to crave. It felt real and true to her being.</div><div><br /></div><div>She sensed a shift and the murmuring grew as she amplified the echo. At first she merely listened and learned from the call. Then she began to believe in its value and power. Somehow the feeling became part of her. </div><div><br /></div><div>Deep in the heart of this coming apart, there was no clear way home. She salvaged the pieces she loved and found new parts to use for what she didn't have. There was no guarantee she would be able to put herself together again so she took a new form and moved differently through the world. She shifted her entire existence and yet everything around her stayed the same. </div></div>Mailornishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02868509708209186861noreply@blogger.com0