Bad news / good news

The bad news is I just got an overpayment notice from the unemployment people. Apparently I forgot to report some income I had back in February – despite my sincerest efforts at accurate record-keeping and reporting – and now I have to write them a check for the amount they paid me, that I wasn't entitled to. Plus, they "may" add a 30% penalty. Not to mention they "may also assess a penalty denying future benefits that I might claim for up to 23 weeks." Which would really suck.

I know it doesn't do any good, but man, I'm so mad at myself about this right now. I don't know how I could have overlooked it, but looking at the check stubs, it appears I did. The worst part is knowing that it doesn't matter that it was an honest mistake – when I call them on Monday to ask them to please not add those penalties, I fully expect them to think I'm a liar and a cheater trying to rip off the system, and to treat me as one. It's so maddening. I didn't do it on purpose! Also, anyone who knows me would know that the anxiety I feel at the very thought of possibly getting caught in a lie is more than enough to keep me in line.

So I'm just going to have to try and let this go, accept whatever they decide, and write the damn check. But for the record, I do want to state: I am not a liar!

On to the good news. We may have found a puppy. There's a litter of golden retriever / black lab mix pups at a rescue up north of Sacramento that we're going to look at tomorrow. I'm nervous and excited. I just found out about them this afternoon, and am feeling a little overwhelmed at the idea of having an 8-week-old baby dog to look after on only 24 hours' notice. With Tater it was so natural and easy; I knew his parents, and visited several times a week starting as soon as the pups were born. My friends and I spent that entire summer in puppy mode, so by the time he was old enough to come home with me I was totally in sync with the energy and routine of taking care of a very young dog.

I knew even at the time that it was about as perfect an experience as anyone could hope to have, and I appreciated every minute of it. It would be so great if I could do it that way again this time. There's something kind of weird about walking into a room, spending a few minutes with a dog, and then having to make an on-the-spot decision about whether you're going to invite that dog to be an intimate partner in your life for the next twelve to fifteen years.

Normally I would expect someone from the rescue to be intimately involved with each of the dogs, so you could get a more informed impression of each dog's temperament, energy level and personality. The lady I talked to on the phone today sounded like kind of a dingaling, though. She just kept saying how "sweet" the puppies were – which I didn't find very useful, since pretty much all puppies are sweet. I guess there's really nothing to do but drive up there and see for ourselves.

(Out the window: A small gopher standing at the edge of a garden path, chewing something.)

What I would like to Not do is spend every weekend for the rest of the summer driving all over the state to look at puppies that either aren't there anymore by the time we get there, or that turn out to be not the dog we want. Or, adopting a dog and then finding out that she's totally insane, untrainable, or otherwise incompatible with our family. Or, waiting too long, and ending up with a broken heart and an empty house utterly devoid of dogs.

I think I mentioned recently that Tater will be 12 years old on June 1. When he first came home with me I remember thinking, "This dog will be with me until I'm almost 50." I still really hope that happens, and it could. His health is good and he's happy, energetic for his age, and always up for a walk. Still. There's that saying about eggs and baskets. Going from two dogs to one was hard. Going from one to zero would be unbearable.

It's impossible for me to imagine loving any other dog as much as I love the Taterman. Is this how parents feel when they contemplate having more than one child? Maybe I'll be surprised to find I'm capable of more love than I realized. I hope so. Actually, I suppose I do already believe that's what will happen – it's kind of the whole reason we're getting another dog. Our family feels smaller these days, because it is smaller – by two members in the last year, with more to come – and we need to renew ourselves.

With all the hospice work and other death-related stuff I've been doing, this has really come home to me in the last few months – the need to renew. The older I get, the more I seem to see what it looks like at the end of things. Sickness, old age, death – they're all inevitable. If you don't make a point of mixing it up a bit with people who are still just starting out (babies and kids, in other words), it's easy to start feeling kind of fatalistic about things, like why even try when it's obvious it all ends the same way for everyone?!

The trouble is, I don't know many kids around here. I have 18 wonderful nieces and nephews but I only see them a few times a year. The kids I know here, I can count on one hand. One finger, if you want to know the truth. In this whole entire town I have exactly one friend who is a child.

Bizarre, eh?

So – a perfect time to start re-balancing my life in the direction of youth, growth, and puppies. And maybe start thinking about signing up with the mentoring program; it might be nice to know a few more kids, too.

A soundtrack for winter

Apropos of nothing but my need for constant reminders, I give to you: the new wallpaper on my phone.

I discovered this band recently and have been keeping this song on repeat as I move about my days. Really loving the way it's coloring my life as the fall moves into winter. Click here to download the file.

Not too much happening on the job front. Nothing at all happening, in fact. I'm OK with it at the moment; this time of year is so slow and quiet and inward-turning for me – despite the holiday rush – that I'm mostly just grateful to have the time, for a change, to experience the shifting seasons out in the weather and under the sky, rather than from inside a building. It's been beautiful.

Seems like every day there's something I want to write about, and then suddenly the day is over and I haven't written anything. That's probably OK too.

So, what have I been doing? Reconnecting with a few old friends and a couple of new ones, too. Getting ready for Christmas. Dealing with some financial matters that I've been meaning to organize for a very long time. Taking lots of dog walks. Roasting lots of chickens, and making lots of soup. Over the weekend I went to a great daylong program at Spirit Rock, on the topic of neuroplasticity and the brain, and how meditation practice and consciously choosing to focus on positive experiences can help the brain heal from neurological and psychological trauma, including post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries like strokes. They also spent a lot of time talking about anxiety and teaching specific practices to help protect the brain from the damage (yes, actual measurable damage) that can occur when brain tissues are exposed to prolonged stress of any kind.

One simple practice that I especially love is to make a point, six or more times a day, to focus on a pleasant experience for at least 30 seconds. It could be anything – I think of the smell when I peel one of my beloved Satsuma tangerines, or the way it feels to snuggle up with Tater in the morning. Or the way his adorable legs move when we're out walking, and his ears are bouncing up and down, and he turns around to look at me and smile. The point is that "neurons that fire together, wire together" so the more you run your brain in the pathways of positive experience, the more connected those pathways become, so that the brain actually grows increasingly capable of experiencing feelings of happiness, contentment and well-being. And they're not just making it all up – as a neurologist and a neuropsychologist, they know their stuff. They've also written a book, which I've ordered from the library and am excited about reading.

Another sort of interesting thing that happened recently is that I ran across a folder containing printouts of all the email I wrote to a nice variety of friends and family over a period of about 11 months in 1996-7, when I was in the process of getting out of my marriage. Reading through it all (it's a fairly tall stack) was a bittersweet experience. There were so many things I'd forgotten about, especially having to do with my job (which was far from secure that year) and the clarity I felt that it was going to be really difficult to make a good living here with the skills and experience I had at the time. I've sort of been soldiering on ever since, teaching myself to do lots of different things to stay afloat but never feeling quite secure enough to make a real investment in the kind of training I would need to actually thrive.

It still scares me to think of what I'm going to need to do to change direction at this point. First of all, I don't really know what I need to do. So I need to get clear on that. And whatever it is, it's going to take some money to get there. More than anything else it terrifies me to think of going into debt, even for something as important as a degree or certification that could help me get a truly decent job for the first time in ... well, awhile. Possibly there are grants and other ways to fund my next steps, or maybe I'll have to find another job first and then work and go to school at the same time. Yet another thing to figure out.

Somehow I feel like I've said all this before. Probably many times. Possibly even in the last post I wrote before this one. As I was reminded while reading those letters, and other things I've written since I was a little kid, I tend to repeat myself over and over and over again ... My core concerns and emotional tendencies have remained basically unchanged for at least 35 of my 44 years. In one way, that seems kind of depressing. In another way, I guess at least I know more or less what I'm dealing with when one of those fears or mental roadblocks arises for the 16 millionth time. And every year I feel I get better at working with the conditions I've been given.

Anyway. One way or another, I'll get through it.

Last night I was in the checkout line at the market and noticed my favorite checker's stand was closed. Then I noticed the conveyer belt was covered with flowers and garlands of nuts and berries. Then I noticed a picture of him on a little easel, and I turned around to raise my eyebrows at the kid who was checking me out and he said, "Yeah. He died last night." Just like that, of liver failure. He was only about 10 years older than I am. We both teared up and spent a few minutes talking about him, and as I was leaving it occurred to me – he's done now. He made it. He's out of range, safe from everything I'm most anxious about these days: the grand trifecta of sickness, old age and death.

Not that I'm feeling quite ready to go myself, just yet. But remembering that it's going to happen someday does help me bring myself back to reality in a way that feels healthy and grounding. I really don't need to make such a big deal about all the stuff I don't like – my job insecurity, my general lack of confidence, my boring mental and physical health issues ... Those things are not unique to me, and they're not even remotely the most important elements of my life. And I feel so much better when I focus on the parts that feel good – life is too short to do anything else.

Wow. I just put that song on the iPod (in preparation for a rainy day sunset dog walk) while I still had it playing on the computer, so now I'm hearing it playing over itself like a round. Very interesting.

P.S. Also: I got some gorgeous cranberry colored alpaca wool the other day and have been knitting neck warmers for bike riding. Speaking of things that feel good! Oh – and also – this tea, with milk and a tiny bit of honey – is making me so very, very happy each and every afternoon of late. Highly recommended.

Sadder than I wanna be

For some reason I guess I really did think that knowing it was coming would prevent me from feeling it so deeply when it finally did happen. It's strange to be reminded so inescapably that I am not as strong as I always think I am. I'm still glad I stayed with him and held him while he died, but was not prepared to feel this sad and sort of ... disoriented.

I've had some of my usual anxiety dreams again, waking up crying or drenched in adrenaline. Knowing it's a natural reaction to the stress of grief and change – that helps me not get too wrapped up in freaking out over it. I know it will pass. It's still distressing while it's happening, though.

I keep thinking I see him lying in his corner, or walking through the door. I turned around in my chair just now to look at his bowl, which we'd left where it always was, and noticed Mr. A has put it away somewhere. That feels strange too. I wasn't going to move it. I wondered when he would do it. It must have been this afternoon – it was still there this morning. I know because I checked it, like I always do, to make sure he'd eaten all of his breakfast. Which, of course, he had not.

Feeling the life drain out of someone you've known for five years ... is something. Feeling his breath slow, and stop. Feeling his heart beat fade away to nothing. It would be strange NOT to be affected. And yet I feel grateful for the experience, though I'm not sure why.

Maybe it's because it makes Life seem so real and vivid, and precious. It really doesn't go on forever.

I also keep thinking about that guy who tried to run me off the road last month. What if he really had killed me? I've known lots of people who've been killed by cars and always hope that when I die it has nothing to do with a car – I hate the thought of essentially being crushed to death by a big metal machine. My thoughts about the guy himself, though, have been strangely benevolent ... in a weird way I've sort of come around to thanking him for the reminder that it's really up to me to take care of myself out there, to always remember that I am a precious, fragile living being and that the person most capable of making sure I stay healthy and safe for as long as possible is ME.

So strange, to think of my own death someday. Incomprehensible. Still, no more incomprehensible than the thought of my own life. Anybody's life.

Anyway. Dark thoughts, dark night. Better try and get some sleep.

Pending

We're probably putting the Jeeps down tomorrow.

He's been having trouble with his hips for a year or more, and all winter it's been getting harder and harder for him to get back up when he falls. Now, in the last month or so, it's gotten suddenly worse. And today for the first time he can no longer stand or walk at all, not even if we help him.

Tonight we were holding him up to eat a little dinner and noticed a horridly infected gash in his leg. All I can think is that he must've cut himself on one of his falls in the yard. I cleaned the wound as best I could, and held warm compresses on it for a half hour, which seemed to feel good to him. Then we laid him down on some towels in front of the fireplace.

He's sleeping now. Not like his usual sleep – he's clearly out of it.

Maybe the wound is the reason he can't stand or walk. It's definitely possible. What if we treat his leg, and he gets better, and gets to have one more summer? Would that be a good thing?

I don't know. Summers here are so brutally hot. He's almost eighteen years old. An astounding age for any dog. Even if by some miracle he does come home from the vet tomorrow, we've always said we wouldn't let him suffer. Until now, I don't think he has been. Today he clearly is.

We'll see what the vet has to say.

Again

My brother just emailed me to let me know that this guy, one of his best friends from high school and my friend too, died of a massive heart attack over the weekend while walking along a Manhattan street with his wife and two little kids (5 and 6). He was carrying his little boy on his shoulders, got dizzy and set the kid down, then just fell down and died. It happened across the street from a hospital, so response time wasn't really a factor – there just wasn't anything that could be done to save him. He was 40, the same age as my brother. A year younger than me.

My brother always had nice friends, but Tom was my favorite. I don't know if anyone ever knew that. He was one of the sweetest guys I remember from high school. Funny, smart, adorable, etc. etc. etc. I would've allowed myself a major crush on him if he hadn't been my brother's friend. I found this picture of him online. He was some kind of amazing analyst in the financial industry. Lots of quotes, forecasts and interviews when I googled him.

So, yeah. How many friends is this now who have died this spring? I hadn't seen him in almost 25 years, but my brother used to have dinner with him whenever he was in New York. I guess I always thought that out of all the people from high school that I never bothered to keep in touch with, he was one I might actually see again, and be glad to see again. It makes me realize there are still more people in the world that I would be sad to hear had died, and that I ought to track them down and say hello. At least one person comes to mind ... my friend Angie, who I still hear about via her mom's Christmas letter to my parents. She would probably love it if I emailed her out of the blue one day.

Sometimes I feel so exhausted by my relationships. Even the people I love the most, I don't keep in touch with very often. I still haven't told my father about this blog. Now I'm thinking maybe I will do that on this trip next week – the Mesa Verde trip. Still, opening parts of my life up to the world online is not the same as really being In Contact with people. To do that, I would have to live there. Wouldn't I? Or would I? How do people keep their relationships strong over distance and time? How did I develop this disconnected way of loving people?

I've written elsewhere about this feeling I have of having grown up in some kind of exile – my mom's longing to be in Utah, closer to family and the sense of support she thought she would feel there that she didn't feel (I guess) in Moscow. I always had the feeling that the life we had there wasn't our "real" life – it was just where we lived, because my dad's job was there, but it was never our real home, the place where we were meant to be. That sense of distance has been with me everywhere I've ever lived. For a long time I thought it was because there was something wrong with me, that it was somehow my own fault for not being a good enough person. These days I'm more inclined to think it's just a way people feel sometimes, part of the normal spectrum of human emotion – the feeling that something is missing. Lately it seems like it's been a major theme of this blog, too. Kind of a bummer to some people, I suppose, but something I'm interested in exploring.

The other part is interesting too though – the part where you feel real, whole, alive. I've spent so much of my life focusing on the stillness, trying to cultivate calmness, equanimity, a sense of inner peace. People actually say it to me now – "You're so grounded, so peaceful." Once every couple of weeks or so, probably, someone makes that comment to me. I always used to take it as a compliment (I think usually it's meant as one) but lately I'm starting to wonder. Are other people's lives or souls really all that much less peaceful than mine? Am I really peaceful, or am I just boring? I know that at least one person in my life (Mr. A) sometimes feels, when I fail to freak out over something he thinks is freak-worthy, that I'm either not understanding the situation or not taking it seriously enough, or that I don't care as much as I should (not true, but maybe others see me the same way?). And is that the best thing I can think of to want out of my life? Peace and quiet?

I think for several years my life was in such disarray, at least emotionally, that my answer would have been "yes." Not so much anymore, though. Stillness and quiet are still what I find myself naturally settling into when there's nobody around to influence me in another direction. That's why it was so stressful to have my friend's child around – she's all about noise, movement, chaos, exploration. But it's good to shake it up a little too, every once in awhile. On the other hand, enthusiasm and excitement about life are not the same as drama. Drama, I've had my fill of. Drama I can do without, mostly. (Re. my friend & kiddo: "a couple days" at chez moi turned into a week and a half, at which point they moved into a new place here, without the husband, who remains in Arizona. I don't know if he'll be back or not. Speaking of stress.)

I guess what I'm getting at here is this: I want to live while I'm alive. Right now it feels like I'm wanting a little more activity, vitality, connection, creation, color, flavor, fire. I need to stretch more, maybe even sweat a little. Doesn't it seem like I'm always saying this?

Anyway. Tonight I'm going to help a friend hive a swarm of wild bees that's hanging on a bush in his back yard. That oughtta be good for a little excitement.

P.S. Since I'm already writing about death (that sounds so harsh, even though it just is what it is. Should I say "end of life?"), I will report that the Jeeps is continuing to decline at an ever-increasing rate. The latest development is that he's starting to have real trouble standing, walking, or doing anything else that requires the use of his back legs. Last week I took him in for a cortisone shot and we've started him on Rimadyl twice a day, which seems to be helping somewhat, at least for now. He's still in good spirits though, enjoying (demanding) his dinner and attempting to leap and cavort in his usual fashion whenever Milkbones are in view. I've rarely met anyone with such joie de vivre. It's kind of an inspiration.

Returning to the source

This morning I found out that a friend who's been fighting cancer for several years has finally died. This is someone I've known for about six or seven years, although we never got together in person – we met through our blogs and collaborated on a few mail art projects over the years, including last year's infamous apron exchange. She's been so much on my mind over the last several months, ever since she emailed me last summer and let me know her cancer was back, and that this time she wasn't going to be getting better.

I'm so grateful to her for sharing some of her experience with me. I don't know very many people who will talk about death – for one thing, what is there to say, really? – and she and I didn't actually talk a lot about it, either. But just to know someone who's willing to just acknowledge the fact itself – yeah, it's real, we really do die! – without getting all metaphysical about why things happen, where we're going, or what it all "means" – to me that has meant a lot.

It seems important, while living my life, to always remember that somewhere down the line my death is already waiting for me. It makes everything seem more real, more vivid and saturated, more raw and sensitive, which is, I guess, the way I've always tried to live, even though I've often complained about how much it hurts sometimes. It reminds me to keep asking myself, "If not now, when?"

Anyway, this friendship was not about death, even when she was dying. It was about enjoying life. In a way it was a very pure friendship, because it only included a very thin, clear slice of both our lives. We shared the pleasure of making things, giving gifts, listening to music, enjoying colors, smells, textures. I'm going to miss knowing she's around, here on the planet somewhere still, making everything around her more beautiful.

The little statue up there is a Jizo - in Japan, this is the guy who protects the souls of children who have died, including miscarried or stillborn babies and even aborted fetuses, among other things. I started making little jizo statues this winter as a way of meditating on my own "lost" children, the ones I never got to have – something I've more or less come to peace with, but which still gives me a pang every once in awhile. Jizo statues are commonly seen in graveyards and also along roadsides, since they also protect travelers.

Tonight I'll make one for my friend. May you walk in peace and beauty, wherever you are.

Small creatures

First of all, thank you to everyone who emailed me to express concern over my last, quite dramatic post. Just when I think that nobody's reading this thing anymore, I suddenly find out that a lot of people still are – and they are (you are) lovely, wonderful, caring people.

I'm okay. The thing that happened wasn't really such a huge shock or revelation, but more just an unwelcome deepening of my understanding of a situation I already knew about ... And if that's too obscure an explanation, I'll just say that I've been reminded of how important it is to me to try to stay present and aware in my own life, and that that is really the most important thing that happened. And it's not a bad thing.

Moving on: Last winter, in an attempt to keep ourselves warm at night, Mr. A and I bought a few of these furry bears that are stuffed with flax seeds, which you heat up in the microwave and snuggle up with in bed. They worked great, but over time their fur went kind of flat and they started exuding a strange (flax-like?) smell whenever we heated them, so we stopped using them. They were still cute, though, so we kept them around thinking we might give them away next time someone with a kid came to visit.

Then this morning I noticed the mice had gotten to them. They'd chewed little holes right through the fur and extracted a cup or more of seeds, which they'd hulled and eaten, leaving a huge and surprisingly neat pile of feathery chaff on top of the Yoga Journal on which the bear was sitting. So I'm back to killing mice again. Sad day. They're so cute, but so destructive. Not only of stuffed bears, but also linens, furniture, walls ... not to mention, they pee constantly wherever they go. Filthy creatures!

Also, on my way to work I accidentally killed a dove with the car. It was standing on the road with a bunch of its friends, who all flew off as the car approached. But this one last dove just kept standing there and standing there, and I kept thinking, "He's going to take off any second! They always do!" And then, he didn't. I hit the brake at the last possible moment, but it was too late. I heard a thump on the bottom of the car, and when I looked in the rear view mirror there was a big pouffy cloud of fine brown feathers trailing out from behind the car. And the poor little brown body, lying on the asphalt. Sigh. He will make a nice breakfast for some larger bird today, I imagine. And maybe there was something wrong with him already – why else didn't he fly away with his buddies?

Finally, I will report that I'm very glad the low-rise jeans thing is coming to a close soon. Yesterday at lunch I saw a supremely curvalicious young woman sitting at a cafe table, with a full three inches of crack exposed at the back of her jeans. No doubt she looked fabulous in them standing up. But man. The crack action was something I just really did not need to see.