Category Archives: change

Blooming Bulbs and Other Spring Things

Posted on by
3

Ballerina Tulip

This is a Ballerina Tulip, one of the stunning blooms at the Botanic Garden at Mt. Holyoke Collage, where David and I spend Sunday afternoon.  (Upside down, it looks like a ballerina’s skirt.)

I was hoping that there would be some calla lilies, but there was only one lone white one stuck in the corner of the Medicinal Plant section.  Apparently, The underground stem of the calla lily was used as a medical treatment for dressing wounds in South Africa.

But other blooms abounded, with all kinds of tulips, daffodils. hyacinths, and myriad other plants labeled with their scientific names. I wished that they had also included their common names so that I could actually identify them.

Two of the medicinal plants that were included were Ayahauasca and Peyote.  The  exhibit featured a large Ayahauasca plant, but the Peyote was nowhere to be found.  We wondered if someone stole it.

I noticed that there were no cannabis plants and I wondered why.  I never thought to ask, unless it’s not considered medicinal?

Spring is a time to celebrate new beginnings, so on our birthdays (March11 and March 12; we we born exactly 36 hours apart), David and I exchanged commitment rings.  I have not worn a gold band for more than 40 years, so it was a major decision for me.

At age 83, we are both at the same stage of our lives, and while we have different histories, we have arrived at the same place — physically, psychologically, emotionally. It’s all good.

Today, at 5:24 pm is the Spring Equinox.  We are all eager for Spring to arrive in full force, especially after the most recent Nor’easter, which dumped about 18 inches of snow up in the hill towns where David lives.  He is trying to find a place to live closer to me, but it’s a challenge, for all kinds of reasons.  But we will figure it out, together.

GOING…GOING………………..

Posted on by
3

The other night I dreamed of my best friend and roommate in college (from 1959-61). The last time I spoke to her on the phone, probably 7 or 8 years ago, she was living in an Assisted Living place while her husband, afflicted with Parkinson’s, was in the Memory Loss Unit. She was furious because her children had taken away her car and license.

When I “googled” her today, I found her obituary. She died in 2021, “peacefully”, it said, and suggested contributions to the Alzheimer Association.

In our Junior year, we shared a room in the sorority house with two other girls. This is three of us in 1959.

Shirley, Carole, and me.

I (on the right) am the only one of us three who is still alive.

Here are the four of us at our reunion in 2004. Shirley and Carole, in the middle, are both gone. Cathy married a guy with whom I loved to dance.  He had great style and knew how to lead.  Cathy has been a widow for the past 4 years.

Cathy, Carole, Shirley, and me.

Shirley and I shared our clothes and countless adventures during our college years. We wore the same size clothing, and I was more than happy to wear her comfortable, casual outfits, while she wore many of the dresses and skirt-sweater sets with which my family saddled me each year. Another difference between us was that I wore lots of makeup and she wore none. And while she was a Business major with a very linear and logical mind, I was an English major who fantasized about moving to San Francisco to write poetry and live in a garret. We also had different taste in boyfriends, so we were never in competition with each other. I don’t think we ever had an argument, unless you count the time my roommates got fed up with my messiness and took all of my stuff that was lying around, wrapped it all in my blanket, and threw it in the closet.

Shirley taught me to drive while she was taking the college class to get certified to teach Drivers’ Ed.  She had a car, and I was 19 years old and had never learned.

Shirley’s and my greatest adventure was heading out to Daytona Beach during the spring of ‘59 for Spring Break. We drove straight through from Albany, NY to Daytona in a little blue coupe with three guys we knew. I think it was Chuck Recesso’s car, and he did most of the driving. One of the other guys was Frank Fallace, but I can’t remember the name of the third, although I can picture his face and could probably find him in the yearbook. I remember the drive through the South and the signs in the places we stopped for both ingesting and eliminating food that boasted signs of “coloreds not allowed.” We were liberal Northerners, and were taken aback by the reality.

While the guys were probably assuming that we would hang out with them, Shirley and I had other plans, since she had male friends from Cortland State College who were also planning to be there.

I don’t remember much of our time in Daytona, but I remember that the water was filled with Portuguese Man-of-War fish, and that we partied hard (still vehemently protecting our virginities, of course) and finally wound up booking flights to come home, avoiding the stifling car ride back– 17 hrs (1,157.2 mi).

We each married in June of 1961, but our lives went in totally different directions. Shirley married the handsome and sweet Owen Davis, teaching business subjects at a community college, and boasting three children and, finally, several grandchildren.

The last time I saw her and her husband was about 15 years ago, when I met them one Fall, down in the Catskills, for an apple festival. Owen was already showing signs of the Parkinson’s disease that finally ended his life; but he was still handsome and sweet. I wish that I had kept in better touch with her, but, you know…..LIFE!

And this is the way it will go from now on.  Because, you know….LIFE!

 

Sleep still won’t come.

Posted on by
3

Months and years have gone by as I unsuccessfully struggle to find something to help me fall asleep. I have blogged about it various times, the latest here:  I never did the Ketamine Therapy for various reasons.

Over the years, Ihave undertaken several steep studies, the results of which say that I have apenea and need a CPAP.  But, I say to them “Once I manage to get to sleep, I sleep.  I just can’t FALL asleep.  A CPAP will not do anything to help me fall asleep.”

Last night I did an at-home sleep test, which required that I wear a strap around my chest so that a sensor was where my heart is, a tube around my ears and into my nose so that my breathing could be tracked, and a sensor on my finger to gauge my oxygen levels.  Even though I took some of the mariijuana gummies that often help get me sleepy, I was awake all night.  Well, I might have dozed off now and again, but mostly I watched the hands of the clock move through the night.  All of the paraphernelia I had to wear did not encourage sleep.

I know that we are advised not to get medical help off the internet, but the various doctors I have been to can only advise me to use a SAD light in the morning and go and sit before it.  That’s the standard way to fix a Circadian Sleep Disorder.  But I am so tired in the morning that I just can’t get myself out of bed until almost noon.

I have a theory that I can’t seem to get the doctors to consider, so I have been researching the way neurotransmitters have to work in order to support sleep and stave off depression. Severe, chronic stress, sleep deprivaion, and some drugs can cause neurotransmitter depletion. Some researchers believe that insufficient levels of neurotransmetters could lead to feels of sadness, depression, and sleep problems. One of the therapies that specialists use is Amino Acid Therapy, which provides the specific nutrients that the body needs to built its own neurotranmitters and rebalance the brain. I have been taking supplements, but apparently they are not enough.

Without an amino acid infusion for neurotransmitter balancing, it’s not unusual for patients to deal with an absence of dopamine or GABA, which means that they have difficult time resting, relaxing, and sleeping. Most importantly, neurotransmitter balancing reduces stress. With these natural chemicals, patients return to the point of equilibrium and feel more in control of themselves.

There are other theories that I am researching, including one that involves the brain producing an enzyme when under severe stress that diminishes the effectiveness of the “happy” hormones that the neurotransmitters send out.

My Circadian Sleep Disorder began during the five traumatic years I spent caregiving my mother while we lived with my brother in his house.  I slept when she slept, forced myself to stay awake when she was, and had to survive abuse from my brother.  When I finally moved out into my daughter’s house, I spent two years healing the best I good, but my sleep never went back to anything near normal.

I have always been a night person, but I still was able to fall asleep on a dime.  Not any more.

My plan is to discuss all of this when my doctor calls me with the results of the sleep test.  A Neuropsychiatrist is the specialist who can test for neurotransmitter functioning and prescribe a treatment.  There is one locally, and my goal is to get an appointment with her.

I desperately need to knit up my raveled sleave of care.

 

Getting Back in the Personal Blog Saddle

Posted on by
6

More than 20 years ago, my son, Bix (who is autistic but didn’t know it back then) got me into blogging.  The personal connections that I made back then helped to get me through some rough caregiving years.  We all posted every day, whatever was on our minds at the moment — politics, culture, health, family, mutual support, cats. We commented on each other’s posts and kept conversations going. We were a real community; we got to know each other pretty well.  Some of us even found a way to meet in person, but even those of us who never did, still developed real friendships.

But, times change, priorities change, culture changes. Life happens.

My last post pretty much explains why I have been otherwise occupied.  I am on my last great adventure — the adult love affair of my life.  At 82.  It has it’s challenges, especially since we live an hour away and each of us lives with our daughters.  But we are figuring it out, together.

Now that we are past the Solstice and into a new year, I’m going to make an effort to post more often.  There are still things I care about, struggles I and others are going through.  Maybe there will be a way to slowly build another blogging community, but even if not, I will again follow the example of my son and get my blogging hat back on and see where it goes.

One of the things that has gotten my brain interested in writing again was a request from my daughter to write my story for my grandson, Lex.  The request actually came as a gift last Christmas from Storyworth.com, which provided a question every day that I could answer, with the idea that it would all be printed into a book at the end.  I opted just to start telling my story (I just finally started), and I have until January 16 to finish it.

My circadian sleep disorder is still not under control.   Medical marijuana usually helps.  I manage it the best I can.

And so it goes.

 

 

We are Pisces. We are water. We flow.

Posted on by
7

There is much I need to document here about what is going on with the Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome that is wrecking my life, physically and psychologically. No one has helped me find a fix, but I am still working on it.  I will get to that at some point.

What is making it all bearable (as a result of a very recent synchronicity) is a man I met unexpectedly because of some kind of glitch with match.com.  Both of us had been members in the past but are no longer.

Out of boredom and curiosity, I recently joined Zoosk, which is a dating app (I didn’t want to date; just wanted to see what is out there) for educated elders. It must be associated somehow with match.com, because I got an email from match.com telling me that they have a match for me in Longmeadow, which is the next town.  Out of curiosity, I clicked on the link.  Unbeknownst to me, the link took me to a different profile — one that caught my interest because he plays the djembe and is a Buddhist.  So, for the hell of it, I sent him a brief reply, saying I also play the djembe.

Since he is no longer on match.com, he was surprised that his profile was still out there.  Being tech savvy, he somehow managed to find out who I am.  (I never use my regular email or name for stuff like that.)  He sent an email to my regular email address and used my actual name.  He said he wanted to check and see if it is really me or someone trying to mess with him.  He gave me his name and a copy of a document to prove he is who he says he is.  Of course, I Googled him and found him on FaceBook and Linkedin.

Many emails later, discovering that we were born a day apart (same year) and have so much in common it’s spooky, we decided to meet face-to-face, which we did yesterday.  He lives an hour away, not in the next town.

At 82, we both have been presented with a chance to find some kind of intimacy again, a chance to have a best friend as a partner and to share the good things that we are still capable of sharing.

It continues to be mystical and magical and it all takes my mind off my troubles, which of late have included two ambulance rides to the ER with unstoppable blood rushing from my nose and a blood pressure so high it didn’t register.  Sleep deprivation wreaks havoc on the body’s functions.  I am working on getting my blood pressure under control.

At the age of 82, we both have our health issues and complicated histories.  But we are Pisces.  We are Water.  We Flow.

Life.

 

Other Aprils (05/15)

Posted on by
3 
Tank tops and shorts
on the first warm day of April,
sprawled on the dorm lawn
in adolescent abandon,
air smelling of
baby oil, iodine,
and sweet spring sweat.

The Eiffel Tower
on the first warm day of April,
arm locked with arm
among the winds of Paris,
air smelling of
wine, tulips
and a lover's sweet caress.

Boy child and ball
on the first warm day of April,
laughter on a learning curve
stumbling in wet grass,
air smelling of
new mud, wet pine,
sweet sun after rain.

Contemplating the dappled shade
on the first warm day of April,
glider swing creaking
its soft lullaby,
air smelling of
lavender, memories,
and sweet seasoned dreams.

The Fragility of Friendships

Posted on by
6

I first posted this several years ago.  I am now 82.  I came across it while surfing through my old posts, looking for fodder for a new poetry project.  I thought it is worth reposting — with some editing.

Making friends is easier when you are young.  The potentials are all around you — at school, in the neighborhood, your church, your teams.  If you are lucky, some of those friends stay with you throughout your life.  

Such is not necessarily the case as you get older, move, find a new job, get married. If you are lucky, you find new friends wherever you are.  I was lucky for decades after I settled into a job and a community and joined organizations with like minded folks.  For forty plus years, although I lived alone, I was rarely lonely.  I had a group of women friends who gave my life the kinds of rich interactions described by Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in this video.  Watching the video stirred up in me profound feelings of loss; I left  all of my friends behind when I moved to a new state to live with my family.  I call it my “assisted living”, and there are great advantages for an 80 year old to live alongside  kind and nurturing offspring.

But as wonderful as family can be, they are not my close friends — the five women (originally six) in the photo strip.  For. 40 years, we shared events, feelings, frustrations, vacations; We all were without partners at the time (although some came and went, pretty much operating on the periphery of our female friendship).

The first photo shows us in our glory days. I was the oldest– in my mid-forties.  The youngest was 10 years my junior.  While our personal histories were different, we shared the common grounds of politics, agnosticism, irreverence toward authority, an appreciation of belly-laughs, and a need to have fun.  We met when I ran a discussion group for single women.

Over the decades, the dynamics of our group changed, as one distanced herself, one (who often chose playing golf to hanging around with us) also fell off our radar.

Eventually there were only three of us to continue the friendship.  And then I moved away.  I still keep in touch with the two I left behind, but it’s not the same.  No longer face-to-face, it’s more difficult to hold onto that feeling of intimate connection.  Now one of the two is battling breast cancer.  I recognize that change is a part of life, but there are some things I wish hadn’t changed.

I left my old life 20 years ago to become my mother’s caregiver.  Ten years ago, I moved to live with family.  Since I moved, I’ve made several efforts to find friends.  I have made one close friend.  Am I spoiled by the intimate and supportive close friendships I had in the past and so I am not as open as I once was?  

Part of the truth is — while I want to have friends and to have some fun — I am tired of the effort it takes to find kindred spirits at this point in my life.  At age 80, I am also physically tired, with aching knees and a non-fixable torn rotator cuff.   I am resorting to trying the Rummikub player group at a local senior center.  It was a game my former group of friends used to get together and play, armed with several bottles of wine.  Lots of fun and laughter.

Is this what it’s like for many single women over 75 who find themselves severed from their former lives?  I would like to start an older women’s discussion group (I was really into the consciousness raising groups of the 1970s).  The challenge is to find some women with the same need. And senior centers around here don’t seem to be a place to find them.

There are so many things we don’t appreciate until we don’t have them any more.  Close friends fall into that category.

Go and watch Tomlin and Fonda.

 

 

It’s going to be an all-nighter.

Posted on by
4

It’s 3:30 am. By now I have usually taken my Remeron and also 35 mg of marijuana and am on the verge of sleep. Last night I did that, fell asleep about 4:30 am, and slept for 12 hours. Which means I got up in time for dinner. Their dinner was my breakfast. Enchiladas. That’s what I had for breakfast.

The truth is, I never know when I’m going to fall asleep even though I go through the same routine every night. I take my Remeron at 11:30 pm and take my marijuana edibles (THC/CBN) between 12 and 1 am, with the lights down low. I get ready for bed at 2 am and am in bed by 3 am.

But that doesn’t mean I will necessarily fall asleep right away. There are nights (days) I don’t fall asleep until 6 or 7 am. There are some mornings when I’m still awake while my son-in-law is up getting ready for work.

For a while, it was “asleep by 3:30 am and up by 12:30 pm.” And I could live with that. But as time goes on, my sleep schedule gets more and erratic, and I don’t know how I’m going to be able live with that.

And I am having a hard time productively using those night hours when I am awake. I guess, psychologically, for me, night time has always been for sleep. Or dancing. It’s like I’m on my old dancing schedule: I used to go out a 11 pm, dance until 2 am, and be asleep by 3 am. Sometimes, now, I actually put on music during those dark hours and dance. But it’s not the same. Nothing is the same. I am caught in this limbo of a non-life.

Since I have an overwhelming backlog of yarn, I started to crochet a sweater from what seemed like a simple pattern. Made continuously from the top, down. Half double crochet all the way, with some increases. What is making me crazy, is that every time I make the indicated increases and then go to check the number of stitches, I get a different number. It’s making me crazy at 3 am. So I ripped it all out and am starting again, and I’m still never getting the number of stitches I’m supposed to have. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Eating on this crazy schedule is also a problem. If I wake up around noon, no problem. I have “brunch.” And then dinner is around 5:30. By 10 pm, I’m hungry, so I have a snack. And around 1 am, I’m hungry again. So, maybe a banana and chocolate almond milk. What I need to do is stock up on some yogurt.

And when should I take my vitamins? If I take them with dinner, will they increase my energy at night so that sleep becomes even more difficult?

My isolation has become toxic. I don’t even see much of my family. We used to at least have dinner together, but the “dog experiment” messed with the old patterns. It was an “experiment” because, while we all loved the dog, who was very smart and was already learning to respond to commands, he was not able to be “cured” of biting. We know he just wanted to play, the way he might with other dogs. Except that he had not been around other dogs to get the message from them that biting them was not OK. It all got very complicated, and he had to be taken back to the Rescue folks.

So, the family will be looking at more middle aged dogs who tend to be couch potatoes. And, while they are looking, they are fencing in the yard, in anticipation of finding a dog that is a better fit for this family.

Meanwhile, here I sit, at 4:14 am, not sure what to do now, except to just stay up for the rest of the night and try to make it through the day.

I binged watched some stuff that is streaming: Evil, Midnight Mass, Chuck, and now I’m watching Why Women Kill. Maybe I’ll just watch more tv.

Maybe I’ll look on Pet Finder and see if I can find an older cat to keep me company. Their mean prissy “don’t touch me” cat can just suck it up. And if they finally find a dog, he will have to suck it up too. My comfort/happiness/ is just as important as theirs.

I just don’t know how I’m going to manage living like this.

Shifting Blog Gears

Posted on by
5
This box marks the end and the beginning. What follows below this post is who I was. What precedes it is who I am and will be. With the Covid-19 Pandemic, with my achieving octoganarianism, came a sea-change, and this blog will reflect my life yet to be lived, as I persist.