Disorder in the House (Warren Zevon)

I am still here, although it's been three months since I've checked in with my blog - I'd like to say I'm okay... but that would not be true. July 19 is the one-year anniversary of my mom's passing - I have spent the last two months re-tracing my steps as to what I was doing this time last year (caregiving since mid-May). Today feels like a destination of sorts, of raw grief and the beginnings of healing - I have allowed myself minor meltdowns in these last 24 hours but, as soon as I hit Publish Post, I will get in the jacuzzi and weep until I am empty...

Today also marks eight years since Dave Carter died - I am exhausted, I am sad, I am bone-weary... and I leave for Falcon Ridge (by way of Boston) in a few hours. I will only get a few hours sleep - it is now 5 a.m. although, for clarity's sake, this post is dated yesterday to honor The Day of the Dead...

I had grand plans for this post, and it has fizzled along with my energy level - my annual festival beckons, and with it a promise of rejuvenation and regrouping and renewal. I have to snap out of this emotional chaos, and surrounding myself with music friends is a lovely first step - Mom and Dave would want it that way... and I trust them to lead me on the path to, as my friend Myra says, "the new normal" (sigh)...

SONG: Disorder in the House by Warren Zevon

BOOK: The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self by Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Debbie Ford

POEM: The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart by Deborah Digges

The wind blows
through the doors of my heart.
It scatters my sheet music
that climbs like waves from the piano, free of the keys.
Now the notes stripped, black butterflies,
flattened against the screens.
The wind through my heart
blows all my candles out.
In my heart and its rooms is dark and windy.
From the mantle smashes birds' nests, teacups
full of stars as the wind winds round,
a mist of sorts that rises and bends and blows
or is blown through the rooms of my heart
that shatters the windows,
rakes the bedsheets as though someone
had just made love. And my dresses
they are lifted like brides come to rest
on the bedstead, crucifixes,
dresses tangled in trees in the rooms
of my heart. To save them
I've thrown flowers to fields,
so that someone would pick them up
and know where they came from.
Come the bees now clinging to flowered curtains.
Off with the clothesline pinning anything, my mother's trousseau.
It is not for me to say what is this wind
or how it came to blow through the rooms of my heart.
Wing after wing, through the rooms of the dead
the wind does not blow. Nor the basement, no wheezing,
no wind choking the cobwebs in our hair.
It is cool here, quiet, a quilt spread on soil.
But we will never lie down again.

QUOTE: "Like cars in amusement parks, our direction is often determined through collisions." ~ Yahia Lababidi

Keep Me in Your Heart (Warren Zevon)

This morning was the funeral and interment of my friend M's mom Phyllis - I of course needed to be there, for myself as well as for the family. My daughter Sarah met up with me, as did our friend R (who introduced me to M about 14 years ago) - my husband and son both had to work, and my other son is away at college 4 hours away, or else they would have been there too...

There are few things more helpless than witnessing another family's grief - we paid our respects before everything started, and then stayed for a lovely service - the highlight for me was when the minister asked if anyone had anything to say... and K (M's daughter) got up to share. She spoke of her grandmother's love of, and aptitude for, crafts... and asked how many people in the room had in their possession anything Phyllis had made - over 90% raised their hands (heartwarming)... and it made me vow that the Santa she gifted to our family many years ago will hold a prominent place of honor for years to come...

Much love to M - may she be surrounded by the love and support of her family and friends during this most difficult time... and beyond...

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On Star Maker Machine this week, the theme is 1989... although, since Saturday is Valentine's Day, there was a last-ditch possibility of changing it to Hearts... which was quickly squashed - I figured I could issue myself the Hearts challenge here instead... and, in a two-for-the-price-of-one anarchic/conciliatory move at SMM, all my 1989 songs will include Love in the title (ha!)...

P.S. SMM...

SONG: Keep Me in Your Heart by Warren Zevon

BOOK: Feathers Brush My Heart: True Stories of Mothers Connecting with Their Daughters After Death by Sinclair Browning

POEM: A Rescue by John Updike

Today I wrote some words that will see print.
Maybe they will last "forever," in that
someone will read them, their ink making
a light scratch on his mind, or hers.
I think back with greater satisfaction
upon a yellow bird--a goldfinch?--
that had flown into the garden shed
and could not get out,
battering its wings on the deceptive light
of the dusty, warped-shut window.

Without much reflection, for once, I stepped
to where its panicked heart
was making commotion, the flared wings drumming,
and with clumsy soft hands
pinned it against a pane,
held loosely cupped
this agitated essence of the air,
and through the open door released it,
like a self-flung ball,
to all that lovely perishing outdoors.

QUOTE: "Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains." ~ Kahlil Gibran

This Fleeting Moment (Tom Dundee)

My dear friend M has been sitting vigil with her mom today - I know I used this same picture over at Star Maker Machine last week, but it suits here as well. All my candles (purple and otherwise) remain burning for M, Phyllis and their entire family for the strength to accept the next step in their journey - sending love along with the light...

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In an update/follow-up on my mom, the following is a distilled-down synopsis of Mari's report to me (in which I've added some editorial comments) from Mom's visit with Dr. E (the new pulmonologist) last Wednesday afternoon - we were able to get questions to the doctor in advance, and it appears many of the items we were concerned with are now *finally* being addressed. Lots of hope and optimism in the air (and not just politically-speaking!) - we now feel pro-active rather than reactive...

Love the new doctor!

We can do OTC Zantac or Pepcid for the burping which, it turns out is quite common - can't believe Dr. C (past pulmonologist) was so nonchalant about it...

Mom is now on the steroids again, which helped tremendously last go-around (but which Dr. C would not prescribe again) - side effects include osteoporosis, thin skin/bruising, higher blood sugar and/or weight gain, but these are risks Mom is absolutely willing to take. Dr. E wants her to see how she's feeling after about a month of the steroids.

If better, we need to look into respiration therapy again (the machines where mom "exercises" with oxygen). When your muscles are out of shape, they use more oxygen. Dr. E stressed that it is important for mom to stay active as best that she can. (Dr. C seemed content to allow mom to vegetate on her corner of the couch, naysaying further respiratory therapy)...

Dr. E really does NOT see any signs of COPD (different from pulmonary fibrosis) from the Chest X-Ray etc. She raised mom's oxygen to Level 6 - can't believe she's been struggling at Level 4 these last few months, when this could have been an option.

BP was 100/70 - so that's good news.

There is lots of fibrosis in the chest x-ray - lung capacity is now at 50%. Imperative that mom should stay away from sick people.

The Connie Circle (the e-mail distribution list I set up with mom's neighbors, my sister and my daughter) is thriving - so great to get regular reports from the home front...

I myself am breathing easier - less worry, more calm...

P.S SMM here and here...

SONG: This Fleeting Moment by Tom Dundee

BOOK: Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally by Patti Digh (thanks to Catherine for the reminder!).

POEM: Otherwise by Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise.

I ate

cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

QUOTE: "Enjoy every sandwich." ~ Warren Zevon

Sleep (Melissa Etheridge)

After months of festival preparation, hosting a house concert, the South Florida Folk Festival weekend, out-of-town company, back-to-back jaunts to the Luna Star Cafe (in addition to my regular life of a full-time job, running a concert series and various UU church commitments), I was finally able to get a good night's sleep - I got in the bed last night at 8 p.m. and woke up at 8 a.m. (a full twelve hours!).

My normal sleep cycle is 4 - 6 hours... and I feel so rested that it's actually disorienting - my weekend is laidback such that I'll go to a movie with my husband this evening (a date night long overdue), work on the BFC newsletter (as well as my laundry and housekeeping) Saturday and make it to Brian and Ellen's festival decompression party Sunday.

That's all... that's enough - gotta love January in South Florida (music overload!)... but I'm ready to segue back into normality (at least my version of it, which is still too frenetic for most... :-)

SONG: Sleep by Melissa Etheridge

BOOK: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon

POEM: City That Does Not Sleep by Federico García Lorca (translated by Robert Bly)

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention
of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes
are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.

No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.
No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the
night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

QUOTE: "Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer