A Few Changes

I changed my blog site a bit. Added some links, but chief among the changes, I added Rubin's own blog. Pathetic, I know. It just seemed that I didn't want to crowd my own blog with endless pictures of the new pup. So...he now has his own blog -- Rubinations.

I will now insert pictures of other things aside from the dog...like Ann before her first cup of coffee while on vacation in a little cabin by the Wenatchee River.

She's going to kill me for posting this hysterical photo!

Home

It's been a journey, but Rubin is finally home!

We already have oodles of pictures, but I'm certain they'll be oodles more. Right now he's running up and down the hallway, sliding his way across the bamboo floors.

Our home feels complete.

A Lisp

Rubin (the soon to be new puppy in our home) was neutered yesterday. After losing his manhood he ate a large meal, or so the breeder said, which may have been more difficult than it sounds for during the surgery they realized that Rubin has an underbite. To fix the problem, they removed one of his bottom canines in hopes that his teeth will move back a bit.

The breeder emailed us with the name of the vet, a phone number, and many assurances that this will not pose a health problem in the future.

I wasn't worried about health problems. Instead, I was trying to imagine what a dog sounds like when he barks with a lisp? Will he be teased on the playfield? Will he need to go to speech therapy to work on his "s" sounds? Will he be able to whistle? What will his smile look like? Will we notice the gap in his teeth? Will he need to see an orthodontist in his teenage years?

Chester was not a gay dog. He was a woman-identified man. He liked girls. No, he loved girls. Boys were okay, but girls were attractive. He liked to hump them. He liked to lick them. He liked to sidle up to them and smile.

I have no idea Rubin's preferences, but I worry that with a lisp, he may be pigeon-holed, that he may not be able to express his true identity. And if he turns out to be a gay dog, will he be stereotyped because of his lisp?

I remember David Sedaris's hysterical essay on having to go to speech therapy to learn to properly pronounce the "s" sound. Sedaris claimed that all the boys in speech therapy grew up to be gay.

I will accept Rubin no matter what his inclinations, but I don't want surgery to determine his fate in life.

Although, if he turns out to be a gay dog, then I may just have to teach him how to loosely hang one paw in a delicate hand shake.

If anything, it's certain that his underbite has given him quite a smirk. It's that smirk that made us choose him. Gay or not, he's our son. Or will that be "thson"...with a lisp?

It Could Be Worse

Eight years ago I was struck by allergies. Tree pollen set me off and instead of a runny nose and sneezing, I looked as if someone had hauled off and hit me square in both eyes. Red, swollen and flakey, two circles formed around my eyes making me look like a sad raccoon. I went to my doctor at the time, she prescribed some medication and within a week, I was relatively back to normal.

That was eight years ago and I've never had any reaction to tree pollen since.

Except this month. Walloped. That's the only way to describe it. I knew what was happening even before it fully happened. My eyes teared up, my lids itched intensely, and before I knew it, I woke up in the morning unable to open my swollen eyes. I fumbled downstairs, found an ice pack, and pressed it onto my burning eyes. I had to work that day and getting a doctor's appointment was going to take time...time I didn't really have.

So I suffered for about three days before my teaching partner said...here are the keys to my car (I walk to work)...go!

My doctor is an earth-goddess. She's in her early 60's with wide hips and gloriously long, silver hair that glows like a halo whenever she walks into a room. She embraces me, her full arms taking me in for a warm hug that lasts long enough to make me feel comfortable and loved. She sits on her stool, her knees wide apart, and places her elbows on her thighs. "How are you?" she'll often start and then listen while I talk about my life. She even asks questions about work, about my eating habits, and about my nemisis -- stress. She takes her time. I never feel rushed. I feel as if she really cares so the struggle to get an appointment is well worth it.

This time, when I walked into her office, she took one look at me and said, "Oh honey, this doesn't look good." I cried immediately, adding salt to my already burning eyes.

We talked about stress. We talked about tree pollen. We talked about my need for a week in the desert. We talked about eight years ago when the same affliction struck and compared my life then with my life now.

Often, since she is both a naturopath and MD, she offers me a choice -- do I want a traditional treatment or should we try something more alternative? I'm more likely to choose the alternative first and then, if that doesn't work, get the drugs. This time, though, she said, "You don't get a choice. We're going for the drugs and then, if that doesn't clear up the irritation, we're going for a short burst of steroids."

The prescription worked with in 24 hours, but then we travelled to Santa Fe for a vacation (the desert, right?) and all hell broke loose again. The tree pollen was even thicker in the high altitudes of New Mexico and my medications had no effect. When we flew home, over the Cascades into the lowland valley of Seattle, the burning irritation reduced somewhat, but not until the first heavy rain did I actually feel any relief.

The medication, while it doesn't make me sleepy, clouds my thinking. Sentences form slowly. I forget things like my keys or appointments. This morning I lathered my hands with my special lotion, ready to apply it to my eyes when I found myself applying it to my hair as if it were gel and not lotion.

My eyes look much better. We've had a number of days of rain though today looks partly cloudy and feels a bit warmer. While I love trees, I look at them with caution, admiring their blooms from far away. My medication is taken every 24 hours and an hour before the clock makes its full turn, I can feel the need for the drug.

I am not a good patient for I am exactly what a patient shouldn't be -- impatient. I want it to be over. I want the pollen to disappear. I want to be able to walk outside without fear that I'll be a raccoon again.

Today, a friend called and when I asked how she was she said, "Miserable." She'd been suffering with a migraine for 3 days and the cause? Yes, allergies.

I thought I had it bad. For weeks I've prayed that I could just sneeze or wheeze or have a running nose, that the itchy eyes and swollen lids would end. But when Elizabeth reported her reaction, I was thankful the raccoon. "It's like a knitting needle in my eye," she said, "I feel as if my head is literally going to explode off my neck."

She's better today. The rain of last night has dampened her reaction just enough that she could get out of bed and make a call. "Jesus," she said, "I'm even laughing. Laughing last night would have killed me."

I'm not sure why I'm writing about this, but just like with Elizabeth's phone call this morning, it feels good to talk about it, to share your misery in an attempt to alleviate it. When I realized my pain was nothing compared to Elizabeth's plight, my eyes didn't itch so much. I suppose that's cold comfort for her, but I guess it just supports that old addage...it could be worse.

Please, if there is a god, NO!

Dead Virgins

She erupted. It was not uncommon. Three, four times a year she was known to spew. Usually about money, but often that morphed into feeling left out. No one ever saw it coming. How could you? No rumbling. No tremors. Not even little curls of steam emanating from her jagged ridge.

Sometimes it came in the form of a phone call. Endless minutes of circuitous prattle half of which wasn't understandable, as if she were talking through oatmeal, marbles stuffed tight into her cheeks. The pitch of her voice tip-toed up to the high ranges and dogs in the neighborhood could be heard howling in the background.

Other times, like this time, she'd write her eruptions in cryptic emails filled with small letters where there should be capitals and three magical dots to denote a change of subject. Wild changes of subject from "it's always all about you" to "how is the puppy?" to "do you even know what I'm going through?"

The clencher is the "i love you" at the end, which isn't really the end but only a warning that a PS is to follow, though she never writes the PS. Instead, she just keeps going, writing sentence after sentence about how "insensitive" we are, how we never "include" her in anything, how we have a "family and finances and don't have to make it on our own."

In the past, these eruptions felt like vomit. They'd seep through the phone or over the cyber wires and all you could do was wipe yourself off and then scrub yourself clean in a hot bath. In the past, responding to the vomit seemed important. Explain yourself. Engage in conversation. Be rational. Try to reason. Remind her that you love her too, but nothing she is feeling really comes from you.

But that strategy soon revealed itself futile. First, you couldn't get a word in edge-wise. There wasn't even a breath for "hey," or "Can I" or "Just one moment." Instead, you cradled the phone in the crook of your neck and said "uh-huh" or "okay" or "umm," and after awhile your grunts weren't even well-timed and she never noticed. She just kept talking and blaming and spewing.

Sometimes she'd even cry, but even after that, she'd giggle as if it were all a joke or as if she'd said something funny only you weren't really listening so you missed the joke and before you could ask, "What did I miss?" she'd cry again and get angry.

Did you know, that if you're really good at it, you can hear fists tighten over the phone? We could hear hers. If we listened carefully, we could hear them like a 7 year old, balled up and white, demanding the world change and address the crisis of the moment.

That's it, of course. You never know when the crisis will occur. You never know if it's something you said or something you didn't say so you throw the dice and make a wager -- speak up or don't speak up.

Roll the lucky seven.

Or lose the shirt off your back.

In between the eruptions is dormancy. Beautiful sunny days sparkling off her peaks and valleys. She calls and sounds reasonable. She sounds grounded and solid as if she's really worked things out, has found her center, is ready to learn from her past mistakes and move forward.

Or she emails and you see pictures of puppies dressed like humans or cats splayed out with big fat bellies waiting to be rubbed. At the bottom of every email a row of dancing smiley faces, kicking up their heels in unison. Like call girls in a chorus line.

And then the volcano erupts. You ask a question and pages or hours of response come flying your way. You dodge. You take cover. You wait for the debris to fall, the lava to harden or roll past in red hot streams.

Where before you responded, now you realize there is no point. Active volcanoes erupt. That's what they do. There's no avoiding it or trying to put a stopper in it. There's no monitoring the seismic activity since it's all over the map and never once changes course dramatically enough to provide you with a solid warning.

You can live your life just waiting for the explosion or you could just ignore it, let it pass and live your life without fear or resentment or in any kind of hateful anticipation.

This takes vigilance and patience. When others see the blow, they want you to react. They say, "Does this happen often?" or "Is she crazy?" or "By god, what in the hell just happened?" But you must not react because that's like tickling the rattle of a giant snake. That's like daring the volcano to explode, to wipe you out with ash or lava or a big, flat boulder -- a projectile flung by the force of the eruption.

Instead, you gather up the virgins in your neighborhood. You dress them regally with flowers in their hair. You annoint them with holy water. Then you toss them into the fire. A sacrifice, hoping this will calm the volcano.

And then you wait.

For the next email or phone call or maybe even the next visit.

They'll be no eruption then.

So you hope.

But even if there is, you just duck your head, cover your forearms over your neck, crouch down low and wait.

Soon, all will be normal again. The dead virgins, the wake of destruction will go unnoticed.

And you can once again live in peace.

11 Days

At lunch today, E stood by my desk and swayed back and forth in a little dance.

ME: What are you doing?

E (in a whisper): I don't know it's just sometimes I want to shout out loud, "I love you!"

ME: That you love me (I'm whispering back)?

E: Not just you, everyone.

ME: So, why don't you do it?

E: Oh no, I'm just too shy.

She has become one of my favorite students. At the beginning of the year she was quiet and thoughtful and took ages to finish an in-class assignment, contemplating the ceiling or her pencil until just the right thoughts came then slowly, meticulously writing them down, erasing a misspelled word and writing again. Now, 7 months later, she is silly and creative and beloved by all of her class members.

Her mother wrote to me and asked what we'd done to her shy child. This child, she said, is not the same one who she sent to school in September.

She's not and while I know the mother is pleased and teasing us, I hope she realizes what amazing kid she has.

I'm sure she knows. Her older daughter was much the same -- quirky and fun and brilliant in many ways. I just want E to not be in the shadow of her sister. I want everyone to see E for her beauty and her talent and her odd sense of humor.

Yesterday.

E: (We're at the park and she sits down beside me on the park bench from where I watch the kids play tag.) 12 days, you know?

ME: Really? 12 days.

E: Yep.

ME: Will that be your birthday?

E: Nope.

ME: Will that be the day you climb Mt. Everest?

E: Nope.

ME: Will that be the day you turn into an elephant?

E: Nope. I would not turn into an elephant, I would turn into a caterpillar.

ME: Why a caterpillar?

E: You're off the subject. 12 days.

We sit in the sun for awhile. I'm lightly tapping my foot and she's swinging her legs because they just barely touch the ground.

E: Do you need me to restate?

ME: No, I've got it. 12 days. I'm just trying to figure out the significance of 12 days.

I count in my head. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday...

ME: It's a Saturday.

E's eyebrows rise.

E: Yep.

ME: (I'm struck by lightning) Our puppy arrives in 12 days!

E: (beaming) Yep.

And then today. E walks up to me this morning and stretches herself to whisper in my ear.

E: 11 days.

ME: Yep.

And then she takes her seat, crossing her swaying legs, folding her hands on the table in front of her. I laugh. She's dancing in her seat. I offer my most loving smile.

She winks.

The Choice

The mother of our soon-to-be new puppy gave birth to seven puppies six weeks ago. Five of those pups are female, two are male. Unlike most of the people wanting a Labradoodle puppy from the same breeder, we wanted a male (perhaps as a way to balance out the dominate female energy in our house). These are the two males, the picture sent to us by the breeder so we could choose which puppy we'd like to call our own.


In the email she wrote: "The puppy on the left (in her right hand) is very sweet, but not as outgoing as the puppy on the right (in her left hand). If the puppy on the right were a student in your classroom, he would raise his hand to offer the answer, but be very polite as well. The puppy on the left would rarely raise his hand, but would know the answer if called upon."


She continued to explain that the more timid puppy would require softer discipline while the more assertive puppy would need a firmer hand.


It was a tough choice, but since we are both teachers familiar with a firm hand and clear boundaries, and both of a more outgoing spirit, we chose the puppy on the right. What sold us on the right-side puppy was not only his friendly confidence, but his smirk. Look closely at the picture. His smirk says, "Once you've taken this picture, can we go exploring? Can we play a little? Can we chase each other and roll around and then flop our front paws down on the carpet and wiggle our tails in the air? Can we, can we?"


It's been a difficult Spring. I've been socked with allergies that make me look like I've been in a bar fight. On our vacation in Santa Fe, I came down with a flu bug that made coughing as common as breathing. Ann has traveled thousands of miles, riding 14 planes in two weeks to first visit her father when he was still alive, then to return for his funeral, and finally to escape for a much-needed vacation to New Mexico. April is the one year anniversary of our beloved Chester pictured here at age 11 when we took him on an 11-mile hike where he romped in streams, chased butterflies, and relaxed in the sun of Spider Meadow.


We feel the heavy worry for my two former students now being treated for various forms of cancer as well as a deep love and concern for the years ahead for our beloved Fossilguy. And these are just the personal struggles -- the world offers us too many more.

Last night we travelled to Bremerton to hear the Seattle Women's Chorus sing the songs of Sweet Honey in the Rock as well as other choral arrangements of many great African American women singers and composers. We sat at small tables surrounded by my parents, Bookworm, and many other friends to feel the power of the inspirational music. It reminded me of how history is filled with examples of struggle and strife, people overcoming tragedy and hardships.

We are one ripple in that great pond. Our lives are filled with sadness, at times, but also with joy. On one hand is the death of Ann's father, but on the other is her visit back to Madison where she reunited with distant family and neighbors she has not seen for 30 years. On the one hand is the anniversary of Chester's death; on the other hand the anticipation of a new man in our lives. On the one hand, there is illness and on the other, there is NOW, this now filled with day-to-day activities that bring a simple beauty to living. Today will shall go grocery shopping, mow the lawn, finish up the laundry, grade papers and prepare lessons for the coming weeks, bake bread, ride our bikes in the sun, and hold each other as we fall off to sleep.

What choices we make today will not change the course of history, they will not determine our life's destiny. We will either choose nonfat milk or 2%, to mop the floors or not, to change the sheets or stay with this choice for another week.

We will choose one smirk over the other and life will continue, not as it was before, but as it should be all the same.

Rivers and Rocks

A few weeks ago I was talking with a woman who is a leadership consultant. Among many skills, Leah, the consultant, is her ability to listen to all sides and then bring out of the differences an agreed upon truth. Sitting in such a session, I marveled at Leah's ability to honor the feelings and opinions of everyone in the room even though those feelings and opinions often came from opposite and conflicting perspectives. At the end of the meeting I asked her how she does it -- how she can genuinely respect such opposing viewpoints making everyone involved feel heard, valued, and open.

Her response surprised me. "I learned long ago," she said, "that I must value each person's best side and assume, despite what they might be showing me at the moment that they live in their best selves." She went on to explain that often we say we're "respecting" someone when in actuality we're giving them the "benefit of the doubt," which she described as seeing the person as their best self 80% of the time. "That's not good enough," Leah explained, "because that damn 20% dominates and we assume that their best selves are contingent on situations or specific events or even specific moods or even days of the week. We must see the best self of everyone 100% of the time and in doing so, that is what we shall receive from them -- good and honorable people."

I am an 80% person and on some days a 50% or perhaps even 30% believer in the best self. To give it 100% seems impossible, equivalent to climbing Everest or performing brain surgery. Not that I don't want to be a 100% believer, but I'm not certain I'm capable of it.

"Are you capable of trying?" Leah asked me.

"I suppose I am, but..." I feebly responded to which she put up her finger and said, "In finishing that sentence your are committing to not trying. It is only in the trying that you catch yourself, that your conscience says, 'I am not accepting this person, whoever that person may be, as capable of living up to their best self.' When you catch the voice doubting that is when you say, 'I will erase my doubt and assume best intentions, best potential from this person.' And when you do that enough times, the doubt will fade away and you will begin to see the best self in everyone."

I am not a fan of Oprah. I don't read Deepok or the Dali Lama or meditate at coastal ashrams. My house is not filled with incense or with books teaching me about Feng Shui or balanced living. I don't go to church and until recently, with a growing list of friends and family diagnosed with cancer, I have not been a person who has attempted to utilize prayer.

I do not surrender. I do not "Let Go and Let God" or anybody for that matter. I prefer to live with my feet firmly planted on the ground. This became even clearer to me this past week as we vacationed in New Mexico, spending days marveling at the blueness of the desert sky and the shades of red on the mountain horizons.

On long hikes through canyons and the shores of the Rio Grande we ventured through time measuring our steps in the flow of rivers and the weight of rock, the cycle of water and the sculpting of earth. Leahs' words came back to me with every breath I sucked in, my sea level lungs challenged by the 7000 foot elevation and the steep, narrow trails of the ascending canyons.

I want to dismiss her words as hokey, as fluff used to market books and schedule expensive lectures, but the more I counted my steps up the rocky trails, the more I marveled at the patience of geologic time, the more I realized how right she is. I'm not exactly sure of the connection, but somewhere between the basalt and the tuffs, the waterfalls and the wide river beds, I committed myself to trying to understand the people in my life who irritate and annoy me, who anger and enrage me, who seem to purposefully find how to drag their long nails across a dusty chalkboard.

Perhaps it was the desert air or the heat of the sun despite the snow on the ground. Perhaps it was the rocks, mountains of Swiss cheese, carved by wind and sand and time. Perhaps it was the layers of age pressed into the earth or the water on its return journey down the same river through the same canyon generation after generation. Perhaps it was feeling insignificant not only in size to the canyon walls, but in comparison to geologic history.

We visited the cave dwellings of the "ancient ones" and even among all the tourists from France and New Jersey, their was a vibration of time and purpose carved in those cliffs. The narrow passages, the depths of the kivas, and the perfect arc of each dwelling seemed significant and important. The best self was present even in the petroglyphs and hand-made bricks.

Early this morning, as we waited to board our flight back home we met a woman from Australia. She had spent time in Santa Fe not exploring the wilderness, but taking classes in what she vaguely described as "energy work." In her late sixties, perhaps even early seventies, she talked with great animation about energy's memory, how we carry with us all of time. "Your vibration or your aura, as it were," she explained with her hands flowing through curves of air, "is specific to a place and time. Actually, it's specific to the place and time of your mother at least two months before you born. When you arrive back to this place, you are perfectly aligned with the energy of the earth, the vibration of the place. You are, in every sense of the word, home."

I am not a desert dweller. While the high desert is one of my favorite locations to vacation, I could not live with the dust and sand, the wind and the thunder clouds, the cacti or the snakes. While I was born in Iowa, I have lived most of my 48 years here in the Pacific Northwest. As we flew over the mountains today and ascended over Puget Sound, I was reminded of a drive my brother and I made from a small airport in Iowa northwest to the birthplace of my mother years ago. As much as the Pacific Northwest feels like home, I remember carving our way through the cornfields of Iowa and knowing I'd been there before, not just as a small child, but always. As if the corn and the sky and the dairy cows and the puffy clouds were as much a part of me as the rain and evergreens and salt water of Seattle.

Who is my best self? Most days I don't even think about it. Most days I am completely caught up in what must happen next. But this I know: My best self is rooted in place, in the unseen rhythm of the earth. In order to meet my best self and, I suppose, to allow myself to see the best self of those around me, I must be outdoors where rocks and rivers whisper in languages I'm just beginning to understand.

You Never Know

(I'm not certain why I took this photo. We were walking up the gallery street and I looked through the trees and saw the snowy mountains. The tree, the adobe pueblo, the hills, even the snow just felt like Santa Fe at the moment. Hard to see the mountains in the background, but I liked the photo anyway...more tomorrow.)

We fell asleep at 8:30 Santa Fe time, 7:30 our time. We slept like we were sinking, waking at 3:30 Santa Fe time. We rolled over and sighed. It's good to be close again, in the same bed, and semi-conscious. I read for a half hour and fell back to sleep and then we started our day with rain and hail and finally snow. Breakfast was an accident albeit pleasant and fulfilling -- organic everything right down to the Mexican Hot Chocolate Ann let me share with her. We bought an umbrella and sauntered around the plaza saying good morning to the artisans bundled in their colorful blankets trying to stay warm. Every gallery was beautiful and though we want to buy art for our house, it was overwhelming, a sensory overload so we walked away with only postcards from the Georgia O'Keefe museum.

And then a nap. I am still suffering from this nasty cold, which first settled in my throat where all my nasties settle and has now moved to my chest. I feared something worse on our hike after the nap as I had to stop on numerous occasions to catch my labored breath. "How high up are we?" I asked Ann. "I haven't a clue," she huffed back. So tonight, after another scrumptious bowl of squash soup and cornbread, we looked up Santa Fe's elevation.

7000 feet! No wonder I can't breathe!

The sun is setting and as our hillside retreat looks west, we've a beautiful view of the pinks and blues of the evening. Tonight Venus is supposed to be visible and the Seven Sisters as well. We'll stay up for a look and then I imagine crash again as we are both recovering from the life (and death) of the past two weeks.

Traveling is not in my blood. I like landing, but the journey brings about my impatience. Ann is very tolerant of my irritation with slow lines and nasty flight attendants, but I am a much better person when I am HERE and not on my way HERE. I am enjoying this HERE (Santa Fe) and I so thankful Ann's friends were out of town for the first half of our visit as their house has been the perfect retreat -- quiet, clean, spacious, and filled with good food and more bathrooms than bedrooms (odd, but helpful when you're in one corner of the house and nature calls -- oh, there's a bathroom right here!)

Traveling also makes me appreciate home more. Simple things like the taste of the water or not knowing the aisles of the grocery store throw me out of whack. Though our trip to Whole Foods was a cultural experience far more entertaining than our gallery hopping. I don't miss home, but I know, once we board the tiny plane back to Denver and then head home from Denver to Seattle, I will grow impatient with my desire to be home where the water tastes clean and I know my way around.

Ann (as we're sitting eating lunch at Whole Foods before shopping): Don't all these people looke like they live in Seattle?

Me: Yes, but they're all white.

Ann: True, but their clothes and their posture, it all says Seattle.

Me: Do you think we'll ever travel to some place that's not like Seattle?

Ann: We'll go to Paris and visit my relatives. That's not like Seattle.

Me: But then I'll have to wear fancier shoes. People in Paris wear fancy shoes, like fancy-expensive and uncomfortable shoes. I wear Keens. People in Seattle wear Keens. I'd be guillotined if I wore Keens in Paris.

Ann: (smiles)

Me: I like to fit in, but fancier shoes, well, I'm not sure I can do it.

Ann: We don't have to think about it now. We can just be here.


Yes, we can just be here with Venus and Mexican Hot Chocolate and the thin air.

From Where I Sit

The green mother-in-law tongue stands out against the yellow adobe wall, the terra cotta tiled floor, and the enormous picture window that lays before us the Santa Fe mountainous desert. We have arrived. Our road only slightly bumpy both metaphorically and in reality. All connections to cabs, planes, and the loaner car went well, only a bit of a hitch when the tiny plane that was to take us from Denver to Santa Fe locked up its emergency breaks and would not move. We all got off the plane, waited in the tiny corner of the huge airport until the crew brought another tiny little plane after deeming the first to be officially broken.

And the bumps down the road to Kasha and Rob's house chattered my teeth as much as the ride through the storm clouds in the little plane.

But we're here and we're the only ones as Kasha is offer on a mini-retreat and Rob is off hiking with his buddies in Arizona and we are left in this desert home listening to the rain pattering on the crooked juniper just outside the window. Kasha has left us homemade squash soup with just enough spicy kick to rattle my clogged sinuses. The freezer is packed with homemade goodies -- enchiladas, tamales, pesto -- that if we chose, we would not have to leave the confines of these four walls. When I turned on my computer to write, wireless popped up allowing me to contact the world if I so desire. Vivaldi and Eva Cassidy and music I've never heard of lines the shelves of a beautiful Mexican armoire with delicate hammered copper fronts. The floors are heated. The bed is lush and firm and inviting. Our room spacious and clean and perched at the highest point so from bed, we can see the park behind us and the mountain in front of us just by lifted our heads.

This is good. After all we've been through, it feels good to just sit next to each other and do relatively nothing with no one else around. Ann's emotions have run a marathon. We are both sleep deprived and exhausted. I have a nasty cold stuck where my colds always get stuck right in my throat. I've lost my voice.

But this is still good. We are finally here, where the world seems to have stopped, if only for a short while. I am no longer spinning. Ann is finally off a plane (she's been on 12 in the last two weeks with two more to go before we land home). And the desert surrounding us is beautiful. Georgia O'Keefe beautiful.

We don't even mind the rain.

Living In My Head

I haven't exercised in over 2 weeks. As I type this, I'm eating ice cream...low fat ice cream, but ice cream nonetheless...my life is on speed dial...

...so much so that now it's two days later and I'm finally getting some time to finish this post...

Here are the highlights (some lowlights, so perhaps best to just call them "lights" though at times they've felt heavy)...

Ann flew back to Wisconsin last week and came home for a brief stay only to fly off again this past Thursday...
...her father died.

If that wasn't enough, we had a number of emotional conversations around the whole "go back/don't go back" for the funeral and while I wouldn't call them arguments, they were emotional debates. (We rarely argue...)

Ann says that when we "debate" it's unfair because she says I'm far more articulate while she is a "quiet debater." Over the years, she's asked that I not respond so quickly and let her think in silence. Fair enough. In the meantime, I've learned to choose my words carefully, trying not to think out loud, but instead, form my side of the debate with well-chosen arguments and then set them out as methodically (and unemotionally) as I can.

This "debate" was harder though because in my heart, I knew she should return for her father's funeral and I knew she was extremely resistant to the idea. Finally, after patiently listening and letting time pass I said, "It's not about you, Ann. It's not even about your being there. It's about your NOT being there. No one cares really if you're there, they only care that you're not."

The debate ended when she got on the phone with her brother and sister and sent out this trial balloon -- I'm thinking about not coming to the funeral.

Silence. No pun intended, but it was DEAD silence.

When she got off the phone she said, "Did you plan that?" and then smiled.

So now, she's about to board her plane in Madison, fly to Minneapolis, and then arrive home this evening.

But here's where it all gets complicated...here's where I feel like someone pushed pause on my life and I'm now wrapped up in the dramas of everybody else's life...

We fly out for Santa Fe tomorrow morning...early. We have to be at the airport at 4 in the morning. Ann flies in tonight at 11. We'll be home by midnight and then up again at 3.

This isn't how we planned it. Every flight scheduled in the past two weeks has been delayed, changed, or cancelled. Ann was to be home by now, but her flight got cancelled, so now she's coming home later...much later.

In addition, her ex is here visiting from Michigan with her 7 year old daughter Zoe. I picked them up at the airport. I was supposed to pick them up this morning, but guess what, her flight was cancelled and she came in later.

And when we stood waiting for their luggage, we had to wait an extra plane as they loaded all the baggage on the plane after hers.

I've been on the phone with one person or the other these past few days double checking flights, making certain I'll be available for pick up or drop off, and checking in on funeral arrangements, sibling interactions (Ann's not mine), and blindly feeling my way through this emotional terrain.

Then our friend Laurie called. She's being stalked by freaky neighbors. She wanted to spend the night, but decided her dog and a pile of rocks by her bed would make her safe. One more emotion. One more person's life to deal with.

Not that it's a problem. I don't mind picking people up at the airport or offering our house as a safe haven. In fact, I love doing that...I just didn't expect it to all happen at once.

And so, of course, I now have a cold...a sore throat, a nasty cough, drippy eyes, and a need to sleep...but I can't sleep because Beth and Zoe are here, there are bags to pack for our trip to the desert, and oh yes, I must go pick up Ann at 11:30 tonight.

When whirlwinds happen like this, I move out of my body and just shift into my head. It's weird. I don't want it to happen, but I can't seem to stop it. I'm disconnected and while I try to sleep, it's difficult because I'm making lists or reliving my day or staring at the ceiling wondering why I said that to someone or this to someone else.

Then I look at this picture....


...and I feel my heart beating again, I wiggle my toes, I hear my breath relax and stretch through the length of my spine.

Laurie says the world is spinning just 5 mph faster these days and we're all holding on at a 45 degree angle.

Perhaps a week in Santa Fe will be just what we need, though that's been crazy too as Ann's friend, Kasha (with whom we are staying), called and said she won't be home until Tuesday. Luckily, we can still stay in her house and we can use her husband's car, but the logistics of getting from the airport to her house has been one more straw on this camel's back...

...I'm not breaking yet...so let's just hope the flights all take off and land when they're supposed to...