A conversation on the stairs

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“Mom, are you sad?” Patch asked as he hugged me around my neck. He’d found me sitting on the stairs with my head on my knees.

“I’m just tired.” I replied, but then honesty drove me to expand. “And maybe a little bit sad.”

“What are you sad about?”

I looked at his seven-year-old face and his big blue eyes. He did not need a list of all the things I still have to do, for which I have a short supply of energy. Nor did he need a list of all the things which I have completed which drained my reserves dry. He was just a little worried about his mom who doesn’t usually spend time sitting in the middle of the stairs.

“Sometimes being tired can cause sadness.” This seemed to be enough for Patch. He let go and slid past me to continue his game. I thought about my answer after he left. It really is true. Today has mostly felt bleak and sad, but this is not because anything has gone wrong. There is no cause for the emotions. They simply exist because I’ve over-taxed my emotional reserves. My life is good. The things that are coming are exciting and interesting. I just need to figure out how to rest before they get here. I am oh so glad that one of the upcoming things is a retreat. I really need that right now.

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Swimming in deep water

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Dierkes Lake has an area set aside for swimmers. The shallow area is cordoned off by an orange mesh fence, while the deep water is edged by a long dock. One can walked the dock perimeter of the swimming area without ever getting wet. This presumes that one wears shoes. Otherwise one will walk about halfway around the dock, realize that the sun-baked dock is quite hot, and then stop to cool one’s feet in the water. The focal point of the swimming area is the floating dock. The only way to get there is to become fully immersed and swim. (Or have an inflatable boat, which we were sadly lacking that day.)

Kiki and I went to the dock early. Link took a little longer to find his courage. The swim was not really far, 15-20 yards. But the greenness of the water, and the unknown depths made him cautious. I swam alongside him for his first trek. Patch looked at the dock and knew it was beyond his skill. He happily spent the day in the shallows. Gleek really wanted to be on the dock. She demonstrated her strokes for me and for the lifeguard. We agreed that she could go if I swam with her.

She began strong. The distance was not too far for her, but her awareness of the deep water distracted her. She did not swim efficiently. Her limbs tired too quickly. My words of encouragement did not help her to stroke calmly or surely. I offered to let her put a hand on my shoulder for a moment. The hand clutched my shoulder and she leaned upon me, sinking me deeper in the water. My limbs redoubled their efforts, striving to get both of us to the dock, but her weight threw me off balance. I swallowed water, suddenly aware of the depths below and of how easily a panicked swimmer can drown a rescuer. There is a reason that lifeguards use flotation devices for rescue. Gleek was anxious but not panicked. I remained calm, so sputtering and tired we made it to the dock. Both of us were very aware of how badly things could have gone, and grateful that they didn’t. When the time came to get Gleek back to shore, I borrowed an inflatable toy to tow her to shore.

Of late much of my life has felt very similar to that moment in the water with Gleek. It takes all my energy to keep me afloat, but then Howard is having an especially rough day and so I lend him my shoulder. Or sometimes it is the other way around and Howard lends his shoulder to me. We cling to each other and keep swimming, trying to reach a place where we can rest a little bit. Even as we swim we know that we did it to ourselves. We are the ones who scheduled so many things in our lives. We are the ones who set the goal and set out on the journey. That knowledge doesn’t help much when we’re trying to keep our heads above water. I think we’re just a hair’s breadth from the dock. I can almost touch it and begin to catch my breath.

Not every day in the last few months has felt like almost drowning, but far too many have. It is a small comfort to me to look back and realize that I really could not have changed any of it without giving up something that matters to me. Sometimes you just have to make a hard swim to get where you want to be. But once you’ve reached the dock, you make plans that next time you’ll remember to bring the boat. And so I’m going to try to plan differently for next year. But I do so knowing that this was not how I’d planned this year to go and it happened anyway.

The thing is, we all had a great time swimming at the lake. Gleek loved being on the floating dock and she loved getting to ride back to shore. I’m not at all sorry about a bit of it. Even a hard swim can be a good thing.

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Escape velocity achieved

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The morning began with a trip to Alphagraphics for the final test print on the QFT cover. This was followed by a trip to the storage unit to pick up the last boxes necessary for Monday’s shipping event. After that I emailed the last bits of paperwork to the kind folks who are handling the shipping of books to Australia. Janci arrived to work on postage printing, and I was done. I had accomplished every bit of work that it was possible for me to do before 8am Monday.

Normally this would be the signal for me to turn into a jellyfish and accomplish nothing for two days. Instead I switched gears and started field marshalling my children into packing suitcases. By noon we were in the car and on our way to a family reunion. Tomorrow and Sunday will be filled with bonding activities and laughter. It is a good thing. I am glad for it. I am also thinking longingly of hiding in a quiet corner as a jellyfish. Fortunately my extended family reads my blog and they have kindly not required me to plan anything. I’m just along for the ride, where ever it may go.

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News of various kinds

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So the news that I could not blog about last week is that my sister Nancy has been diagnosed with cancer. In the space between diagnosis and surgery she requested that I not say anything on the internet. Now she blogged the information herself. She seems very prepared to treat it all as an interesting experience. I look forward to reading her observations and hearing about both the good and the bad which will come from what lies ahead for her. Prognosis is good. It was caught early and the survival rate for this type of cancer is high. In addition, everyone feels strongly that she’s going to kick this in the teeth and be around for a long time to come.

Since I found out last week I’ve done lots of wrestling with my own thoughts. I want very much to be able to help, but the things I can do are severely limited by the fact that she is in Germany and I am in Utah. I am also very aware that while this blog is for me to discuss the things about my own life, her cancer is not about me. And it shouldn’t be. And yet it very definitely affects me. It’s like one of those slow-motion bullet strikes seen on Youtube or Mythbusters. Shock waves ripple far from the point of strike. I’m not in the middle. I’m out on one of those waves, moved and affected, but not directly damaged.

I had my turn in the middle with my tumor and radiation therapy (not cancerous) a decade ago. Those experiences may prove useful in understanding what lies ahead for my sister. Alternately, those experiences may lead me astray and merely make me more grieved than I need to be. I really can’t tell. It also sets me an interesting problem. In the middle of my radiation I found it very hard to communicate with many people because I did not have the energy to watch them grieve for me. Their grief, and desire to do something to help, was a huge elephant in the room that we could not talk around and no one had the courage to call out. So in the next few months during Nancy’s chemotherapy I shall have to do a careful dance to try to make sure that my necessary emotional processes do not cause her further fatigue during a time when energy will be in short supply.

In other news, I spent the morning in a nearly blind panic trying to simultaneously assemble a pallet to ship to Australia, stack everything we will need for the shipping day in a place where we can easily find it, and finish the last layout corrections on QFT. Fortunately Howard and Janci were here to pick me up when I collapsed into a quivering pile of overstressedness. The pallet is now on the way to Australia. The supplies are neatly stacked. Layout is not completely done, but I pick up what is hopefully the last test print at 8 am tomorrow morning.
Then I pack my kids into the car and head North for a family reunion, far away from my house and my work.

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Perspectives on clutter

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Our front room is like a little eddy in the flow of our lives. Things wash up here and remain until some effort is made to move them elsewhere. I know the traditional use for a front room is a place that is always clean to welcome guests. I like that idea, but I’m not good at putting it into practice. More often our front room gets used as a staging area for any large project which includes things exiting or entering the house. Which is most of them these days. Right now my front room contains:

The tent Link took to scout camp which needs to be set up, washed, and stowed properly lest it mildew.

The roll of banners which I need to mail to Indiana so that they can adorn the booth at GenCon.

The box of legal sized printer paper that I bought so I could make sketch sheets. I made the sheets, but the remainder of the box still sits where I dropped it two weeks ago because I haven’t yet mustered the mental energy to find a place for it to belong and to carry it there.

A half empty bag of 360 plastic cups. It was given to me along with the keys when the former church activity chair handed over everything relevant to the assignment. The cups are destined to be stowed in a cupboard over at the church building, but I haven’t had time to do that yet.

Backpacks and winter gear which have spilled out of the coat closet. Everything got jumbled in there during the last month of school. Now they need to be sorted and stowed properly.

A set of playing cards scattered. Not sure why they’re here.

Two baskets, a woven stool, and a wooden box. They are evidence of merit badges that Link earned while at camp. Also evidence of camp are the two pairs of extremely dirty tennis shoes and the scattered particles of dirt and tree.

5 plants which have not been watered often enough, two of which I was supposed to plant outside as soon as I was sure a freeze would not kill them.

A plastic bin full of Little People toys that I brought into the front room to entertain the child of a friend while we visited. The visit was a month ago.

Random books and papers perched on various flat surfaces. Scattered toys and art projects. Lots of shoes kicked into one corner.

Oddly this list does not depress me. Today I am not looking at these things as clutter that I failed to clean up, but as evidence of important tasks either in process or completed. I’d better hurry and put it all away while the mood holds, because on a harder day they’ll feel like evidence of failure.

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A little bit of running away

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I really should have gone straight home after I finished helping a friend move a load of boxes to her new house. I found that I did not have it in me to go back home and start working on the list of chores. Instead I drove to Zupas, bought lunch, and ate while reading. I even found a table in the corner where I could tune out all the other patrons. So I narrowed my focus to the world in the pages, transmitted to me through text. When I emerged, all my food was gone and an hour had passed. I gathered up my things and proceeded home. On the drive, business thoughts re-settled themselves over me. The to-do list resurfaced in my brain. But somehow it did not feel quite so heavy. A little bit of running away can be a good thing.

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Sea Monkeys and a part time cat

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Gleek would dearly love to have a pet. Her desires are hampered on two points. First, Howard and I require children to express their commitment to pet ownership by saving up enough money to buy both the animal and all the accouterments. Gleek tends to spend her money impulsively. Second, I am allergic to the pets she would enjoy most. This really stinks for both of us, because she’ll sadly cry to me about how she would love a furry pet and I will feel guilty because it is my fault that she can’t have one. (Yes I know there are hairless, and hypoallergenic options, none of them has felt right for us so far.) An additional barrier, which Gleek does not see, is that our lives are incredibly busy right now and I’m mentally rejecting anything that would add complexity to our lives.

So we’ve been force to be creative in attempting to fill Gleeks emotional need to nurture. I try to make sure she gets a chance to play with other people’s pets. I also try to give her chances to play with young children. These things help. But they are still not the same.

Yesterday we got something of a welcome surprise. The cat we rescued over a year ago, kept for two weeks, and then returned to her owner, has shown back up at our house. Her owners went on vacation and she came to stay with us. We’ve already called the owners and left a message. When they get home I’m sure they’ll come claim her. Until then it looks like we have a part-time cat.

We also have Sea Monkeys. Two little bowls of brine shrimp are sitting on windowsills. At first it was just one and we thought that all the shrimps had died. But there was one left. It grew quite large and Gleek named it “It”. She spent significant amounts of time anthropomorphizing the little beastie, telling me what It liked and did not like. I knew that one day It would die, so we invested in the second bowl. Once again it looked like all the little shrimps died. But yesterday we discovered that half a dozen were still there. This is good because It died the same day. We’ve started a fresh batch of eggs in the bowl. And so the colonies continue.

A longer term solution would be good. There would be significant emotional benefits for Gleek if she had a pet. There would also be significant impacts on the rest of us. I have to make sure that we can all commit to supporting and meeting the emotional/physical needs of the animal before I agree to add it to the family. And so my mental circling continues, not unlike the circling of Gleek’s sea monkeys.

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At the end of an insane week

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I’ve spent today stumbling around, trying to get things done, but never really developing focus. If I didn’t still have so many things to accomplish, I would have spent the day reading or watching a show. I think I have entirely depleted my well of organizational energy. At the moment I don’t want to be in charge of anything.

I am now the owner of an iPhone. This is the result of Howard and I needing to use the devices as credit card terminals for GenCon. Having two will be a great benefit. It will also allow for some other useful business interactions, as well as some personal ones. In theory I will be able to finally dispense with my paper planner and instead track my schedule electronically. But I’m not going to switch scheduling systems until after life has slowed down a bit.

I’ve finally got all the interior pieces I need for QFT. All that remains is the cover and some editing. Then I can move on to test prints. Most of the stress has left the project, what remains is just work.

My impossible to do list has shrunk and is now looking possible. I don’t know how that happened, but I’ll take it.

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A visit to scout camp

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“How long till we get there?” Patch asked for the third time.
“I don’t know.” I sigh. Rush hour traffic made time estimation difficult, as did the unfamiliarity of the destination. I did not dare use the length of the hand drawn line on the map as an accurate measure of distance. I was sure the map would get us there, I did not know how long it would take us to arrive.

50 minutes. I’d estimated 30, so we arrived at the camp 20 minutes late. This was when I discovered that finding a campsite inside a Scout Camp was more complicated than I had anticipated. during 30 minutes of walking, in the heat, with no water, we circled the entire scout camp the long way to find where my son was staying. Good thing the woods were filled with scouts willing to share their water and give directions using their camp maps. I’ll admit to being grouchy and hungry. The scout motto is preparedness, and I had no one to blame but myself for the unpleasantness of the trip. I could have planned much better.

But there was Link. He was sunburned and grinning. He told me story after story about his experiences. He showed me the target paper where he had clustered seven rifle shots near the bulls eye. He displayed his purchase from the camp store. (A ball-shaped ice cream maker.) He announced that he’d earned 5 merit badges. He chased Gleek and Patch around, scolding them when they broke Scout Camp rules. (This did not endear him to Gleek.) He had so much to tell, and I listened.

Then we all trekked down to the Friday night presentation. I sat in the amphitheater, looking out over the lake. Wind rushed through the trees and sometimes ruffled the surface of the lake, making the boats shift against the dock. Camp songs were sung. Counselors jumped about for the amusement of scouts. Other counselors infiltrated the audience and helped flagging scouts regain enthusiasm. Gleek and Patch loved it all. They loved the snake and the deer we saw while trying to find the campsite. They loved the two story tall US flag. They stomped and sang and laughed. Gleek tried to take home pockets full of rocks, but settled for just one. Then they both saw deer cross right in front of our van on the ride home.

The visit was totally worth the minor frustrations it took to arrive. Link will be home tomorrow and I’ll get to hear the rest of the stories.

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Overload

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Sometimes life is too full of things and I can’t process all of it. Then my brain shuts down. I find myself reading a book without having made a conscious decision to read, or I realize that I’ve been staring at the wall for the last 30 minutes, but I can’t remember a thing that I was thinking about. It is a normal defense mechanism. Usually when I discover it, I just give myself a break and write off the next hour, afternoon, or day. I have no space for that. I’m scrambling to finish things so that I can create space. It does not help that I have a sudden influx of things happening beloved people, about which I can not write because the stories are not mine to tell. Not helpful and not anybody’s fault. For some types of news there is no convenient timing.

In the category of Good News, because I think today should have more of it:

I just sent of the large shipment of merchandise to GenCon. In a mere 5 days I will know whether it arrive intact. It is out of my hands now. There are still things to send, but not today. I’ll think about those next week.

Kiki has made friends with a local professional artist and between the two of them they have plans which essentially amount to an apprenticeship for Kiki. I could not be happier. She is going to get to do amazing projects and learn tons about being a working artist.

The Children’s Museum in Salt Lake is an excellent time for a nine year old and a seven year old to hang out for three hours. They had a great time. I would love to write a whole blog post about that trip, but I’m afraid I won’t have the space in my brain before life moves on to something else.

All the invoices are sorted for shipping. I am incredibly grateful to my Janci and really glad that she’s worked with me on this before. She kept me on track this morning. In fact the whole “prep for the shipping day” project is on track.

Howard spent part of our writing group hammering out plot points to finish off this Schlock Mercenary book. It makes me glad and is full of fun.

Next weekend I get to flee all my business things and spend time with my kids. In fact, despite how crazy busy I have been, I think I’ve done fairly well at making sure the kids get spaces each week where their things come first.

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