signs

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When she flutters her hands in front of her nose, I know that she needs a Kleenex (well, we use Puffs because they’re softer on her nose). When she taps her teeth, I know that she wants her flosser. When she reaches out with her right hand and opens and closes her fist, I know that she wants her cane.
She doesn’t always use her self-devised sign language, but she’s tending to do it more often — especially when she’s tired. And she seems to be tired more and more. The signs are often there. The words are often not.
On a sunny day last week, when I got into my car to go to the drug store, I flipped down the visor mirror to check for any stray chin hairs that my Tweeze might have missed. No chin hair — but what’s that??? Long white hairs in my eyebrows??? Now there’s a sign. Definitely a sign.
I’m not sleeping well, my reflux is acting up, and that contact dermatitis I get on my elbow every once in a while is itching like crazy. I can’t ignore the signs.
Signs that I need a break. I need a couple of days away from here. And so I’m going to my daughter’s from Sunday to Tuesday. It’s my birthday present to myself.
In two years I’ll be 70. It just doesn’t seem real to me.
Maybe it will seem real when my natural hair color finally grows in. Then I will see the most obvious of all signs — the gray signs of being where I am in life.
Each year, on my birthday, I take a photo of myself. Each year, the signs are more obvious — the drooping jaw, the sagging chin. There won’t be much of the gray hair visible when I take this year’s photo. But next year, there will be no denying that sign of this life fading to pale.
If I were able to live my life at the age I am today in the way I would prefer, I wouldn’t be obsessing so much on my age and what I am losing with each day that passes.
But here I am, watching for signs and missing those times when the only sign I looked for was the one that said “dancing until 2 a.m.”

walking widdershins

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Sometimes, if my mother naps in the afternoon, I try to get outside a walk a bit. Only I can’t go out of earshot, because if she wakes up and can’t find me, she’ll spiral down into one of her dementia episodes.
So, like a prisoner let out into the prison yard, I walk in circles around the open area outside the front of the house. I go out in between snowstorms, when most of the snow has melted. I leave my footprints in the mud of now, rather than in the sands of time.
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I find that I prefer to walk “widdershins,” which is, in the rituals of myth and magic, counter clockwise. And which, if done while chanting an incantation, is supposed to generate productive energy.
What should I chant, I think, as I pace around my imprisoned yard. “Freedom!” If only.
Meanwhile, it’s March and there’s still a good deal of snow on the ground. Inside, the seeds I planted have already sprouted. I thought it would take a month. Now I have to transplant them all into pots and figure out where to put them. The windowsill is not an option. The cold radiating in would wipe out the whole crop. Sometimes my timing really sucks.

1) ??? 2) ???

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(Monday is myrln’s day to blog here at Kalilily Time.)
1) ??? 2) ???
There are two items that could use some attention since both involve our tax dollars and in some ways, they point out just how ignorant we may be about the use of OUR money by the feds.
First off, for the past how long, we’ve been endlessly bombarded about the primary contests being waged to help find our candidates for the next president. We can’t escape the news about them — which in truth is good. It reminds us that our government is our choice and ultimately our responsibility. So far, what we’ve been seeing is a number of senators and congressmen mostly out campaigning, trying to whip up votes. Day after day they’re out “on the stump,” working hard to make their points to the potential voters.
Only, when you look a little harder or just sit and think about it, you come to realize something they don’t mention very much. Consider: for months they’re out there somewhere in the country and moving from one locale to another, days on end. What they are not doing during this time and in those activities is their job. Remember, they were elected to go to Washington as representatives of their state or district. Yet here they are anywhere but D.C. — while still getting paid, still getting health care (the best in the nation), and still piling up credits toward their pensions. All of it paid for with OUR tax dollars.
Doesn’t bother you? No big deal? It’s the process? Oh yeah? Try getting the same deal from your boss.
***
Item 2 is different. It’s this: why do we have an FDA, a Food and Drug Administration? At least as far as concerns new drugs coming into the marketplace? Without FDA’s approval, no new drug makes it out for sale here. Good idea, a watchdog for our protection against the release of dangerous substances. Oh yeah? Then why in this flood of TV commercials for new and existing drugs does every one of them finish off with someone sounding like a shady used-car dealer talking a mile-a-minute and warning us, almost unintelligibly he’s talking so fast, about all the potential dangers of the product?
If it’s so dangerous, why was it approved by the FDA for sale in the first place? Hm-m. Good question. Our tax dollars going to approve drugs that in normal use could harm us, even kill us.
A great service, huh?

Nader’s nadir

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(Monday is myrln’s day to blog here at Kalilily Time.)
NADER’S NADIR
Once upon a time there was a man named Ralph Nader, a tireless champion. He spoke up on behalf of the American working class by taking on industry and big business and government. He ceaselessly showed up their shortcomings, their lack of concern or care for consumer’s safety and pocket books. Product after product, business after business, government policy (or lack) after policy put the almighty dollar ahead of people. So Nader took the abusers on.
And he so rallied the working class to his side that he actually forced Big $$$ and government to make changes. Changes that actually benefited consumers — meaning all of us. He was a hero and deserved all the credit in the world. The big shots hated him.
Today, there’s still a Ralph Nader. But it’s a different story. He still takes on the power elite, tho’ with much less success. He is particularly critical of politics and government failures — all good intentions and a necessary voice (tho’ largely unheard). Only now he’s complicated matters: he insists on running for President as a third-party candidate. Some would say he’s obsessed with it. Others that he’s delusional, which may be nearer the truth because when he’s reminded his last run likely cost Al Gore the presidency and stuck us with what we got (remember Florida?), the current Ralph Nader disagrees and denies. What about the Democrats and Republicans, he asks, and their support of war, attacks on freedom, and free-hand function for big business? All valid points — but whose hopeless candidacy gave us George W. Bush, Ralph? (Remember Florida?)
But he insists on running yet again — even tho’ he makes no inroads toward valid ends, even though he holds such huge responsibility for the presence of the incumbent in the White House. If he can’t see that, he indeed at least borders on the delusional.
Ralph: REMEMBER FLORIDA? Apparently not. Too bad. It fries all the respect he once attained.
Nader’s nadir.

this manic mama

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Not, not me. My mom.
When she’s on her 16 hours-awake binge, she talks in rapid fire nonsense, can’t stop moving. If I can get her to sit down and eat anything, her foot taps on the floor like an idling motor, just waiting for the gas pedal to be depressed.
She opens drawers, moves her belongings around so that, later, I can never find what it is she decides she wants. She bends over and roots around in the bottom of her closet, packing and unpacking her shoes into a duffel bag. When she stands up, she’s on the verge of falling over. Her back hurts. Her arm hurts. But I can’t get her to stop. She is driven by her dementia.
Sometimes she will sit long enough to eat something, sometimes not. She rants about people stealing her money, her shoes, her dishes. It doesn’t help that I show her the shoes, the money, the clothes. She is beyond reason. The world is dangerous and deceptive as far as she is concerned. She refuses to take any of her meds, and that only makes things worse. Eventually, she will collapse and sleep.
After sleeping away most of the past few days, she again started in with her manic behavior this morning. I slipped her med into her mouth (it dissolves on her tongue) and in fifteen minutes she had calmed down enough to have some of her fake coffee and toast.
And then she went back to sleep and is still sleeping.
She says she always feels cold, even under her electric blanket.
There is so much I should be doing to clean up my own space, to keep on with the purging of stuff. Instead, I shuffle around, waiting for the electric eye alarm to go off to let me know that she is up.
I am not used to living in such personal stasis. I have always courted change, created it if necessary. Here, my days are caught up in the cycles of her dementia.
In slow motion, I plant seeds, shred mounds of old paper files, watch my hair grow out gray. If I can just keep moving forward in these small steps, keep making small changes, I will survive.
I sure can use some of her manic energy.

sun and moon and seeds

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I’ve been trying to find the time to plant the seeds I want to grow for my planter garden this spring. (No more dig-in-the-earth garden, where pests of all sizes devoured what I had last year.)
The sunny day seemed auspicious for planting, so I got out my supplies and got to it.
sunseeds.jpg
I planted seeds for flowers that might not be too tasty to the critters who munched and lunched here all last summer. Mostly, I planted ornamental hot pepper plants — colorful fruit and foliage, and inedible by, or unappetizingly firey to, any living creature. But they sure do look pretty in pots.
Perhaps the full lunar eclipse tonight will also mean that it is an auspicious time for planting seeds. I guess I will find out in a few weeks time.
Meanwhile, I hope this also is an auspicious time to open up my CPU and insert more RAM. I printed out instructions, and am ready to tackle another project I’ve been waiting to find time to do.
My mother has had a few days of either sleeping for 16 hours straight or being up for 16 hours straight. Her 92nd birthday was on Monday. On Tuesday, we had a local Polish Catholic priest over for lunch. They knew each other well back at the old parish in Yonkers. She doesn’t remember him. But he remembers her and tried to talk to her about the old days. She sat and listened, and the only thing she seemed to be able to say was “How long have you been here?”
She is growing smaller and lighter, a drying pod waiting to fall.
Over in the corner, seeds wait to wake.
Now I will go out and watch the eclipse.
Then I will tackle the RAM.
Auspicious days are too few.

going where?

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(Monday is myrln’s day to blog here at Kalilily Time.)
GOING WHERE?
One day soon, Spring will show up, and our attention will begin to turn to summertime travel…just getting us out of the grime and racket of the city or the cheese of suburbia. But sometimes, even just the shore or the mountains — customary destinations — seem not as inspiring as usual. We feel the need for something even more different. And there’s real possibility as an alternative. How about trips to weird? No, not weird events but weird in an unexpected way. How about we go to places with weird or hooting funny names. The country’s littered with them…honest.
For example, we could go to BIRD IN HAND, Pennsylvania. Or better yet, how about that state’s INTERCOURSE? (Yeah…honest.) Or maybe to Massachusetts for BRAINTREE (don’t you just wanna see that?) or TINKERTOWN (do they makes toys or pots and pans there?). Or maybe to New York for CAHOONZIE and CUDDEBACKVILLE…which are not far from each other. Or SHINHOPPLE. Or another two towns not far from each other: SURPRISE and CLIMAX. (They could do an exchange program with INTERCOURSE — see above). If you prefer the west coast, then try Oregon. They’ve got SWEET HOME, and BEND, and IRONSIDE (no, Raymond Burr doesn’t live there). They even have LOOKINGGLASS and LOOKING GLASS, one near TENILLE (not Toni) and the other near TOLLGATE on opposite sides of the state.
But the champion state for weird place-names is New Jersey. It’s as if they had a competition or something. Some are not weird names but unusual sounding, probably directly from original native American tribes or places — like MAHWAH and HOHOKUS. But the later settlers went to extremes. You can visit KITTATINNY LAKE, if you want. Or take trip over to FORT NONSENSE or MILLSTONE (which might weigh you down). Or maybe try HOPTCONG or NETCONG (neither of which has Viet Cong). If you get hungry, you can go to CHEESEQUAKE or BIVALVE or CINNAMONSON. Shopping? Try BARGAINTOWN. Wanna meet some new women? Spin over to NORMA or SHIRLEY or DOROTHY. But somebody in Jersey had the good sense to remember all that driving around often leads to serious bodily needs. So they’ve thoughtfully provided a LEEKTOWN…which could go with the food group, yeah, but….
You don’t need to stay at any of the towns listed…just drive on through. You can also find your own weird additions to the list. But take pictures of the roadsigns that announce where you’ve arrived. Otherwise, nobody back home’ll believe you when you tell them where you went.
Going my way?

I should be doing laundry….

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… but, instead I’ve turned my back on the chaos of clothes surrounding me and lose myself in the only space of mine in which I have any control.
My email includes one of Jim Culleny’s daily poems.
I get to the last line and my heart leaps into my throat.

Personal Helicon
Seamus Heany
As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.
A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.
Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.
Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

I blog to see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

our president, ourselves

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I have not been a supporter of the Hillary Clinton campaign, but I was given a good smack on the head by an article by Robin Morgan, which, among other things, makes this point:

So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?

Morgan pointedly criticizes this campaign…

… where he has to pass as white (which whites—especially wealthy ones—adore), while she has to pass as male (which both men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If she were black or he were female we wouldn’t be having such problems, and I for one would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn’t stand a chance—even if she shared Condi Rice’s Bush-defending politics.

.
And she reminds me of why I am a devoted feminist:

Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery, invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of the poor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDS afflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religious fundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati, purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attempted gynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all. We know that at this historical moment women experience the world differently from men—though not all the same as one another—and can govern differently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Morgan’s lengthy piece brings the issue of electing Hillary Clinton into focus.

Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There’s not a woman alive who, if she’s honest, doesn’t recognize what she means. Then HRC got drowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media’s obsession with everything Bill.

And she ends with:

Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she knows how to get us out of Iraq. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s—and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.

As for the “woman thing”?

Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman—but because I am.

The above excerpts can’t really capture the force and fury of Morgan’s article. Go and read the whole thing here.