Bits from Sunday pm

It is not so easy to recapture the silence and movement of yesterday in the chatter and chairs of this afternoon, but I will do my best.

The television is not where it will be, though it is also not where it was one step closer to ready for the summer's heat escaping from the sunny funk in the kitchen that was the whole reason to move the television in the first place.

Every goal must be achieved through a series of steps as I reconnect with my home after it or I have been ill, usually both together and similarly. The funk must be identified and eliminated, it does violence to my healing senses from its invisible perch lately placed somewhere near the kitchen sink. It could be from the dishes.

The dishes get done last.

In order to move the cookbooks and the cat food and the table, the television, DVD and VCR must take space from the radio, writing desk, telephone and lavender which have been dislocated to the chairs for the duration as Pledge wipes make their way and the broom sweeps up litter and I mop the rugs of cat hair, glad to be free of the vacuum that sits in the almost way and has and will until I get around to letting go. Sets of altar decorations (for every horizontal surface is an altar) move together and are cleaned together and rearranged as I make plans to do this again in two months, only hoping that my apartment tetris skills allow me the mental space to work again, tho I have the had space for days and have not used it but for sleeping. The refrigerator top, the table top, the boards and blocks and stove-top and burners and door handles the hyphens between movement.

And all of this accompanied by dancing and a grace the felines do not acknowledge to my face. It is the grace of knowing where everything is or will be, how to get there and how to make things happen. The invisible part of housework and homemaking and living in rooms defined so specifically. This is my little cave and I the bear, groggy and dreaming and unwilling to tolerate tripping over shit in my way and tired of litter under my feet and in the cats' fur and sensing the absence of friends and comfortable surroundings.

The sunlight in rays inaccessible to small cats leaves the kitchen warm, spreads the smell of something. The discomfort is no longer bearable.

I have not been well enough to dance through the mess, cleaning. Today is different, legs and back and arms and focus working, though slowly, and the sink is clean, the stove white, the trash out and in the late evening I find quiet in the chair too large for the living room, and my home settles.

The funk is still present.

The dance continues.

Facing the future

It is almost impossible to think of tomorrow while stretched out on a hammock feeling the sun like a blanket and the breeze from all sides. It has been a lovely respite from attempting the impossible, being here. My mother mows in a straw hat with a black band around the crown. She has cleared something like 4 acres of yard and mows it in sections as often as she can. My father has potted plants and planted flowers all around the house. He bought mums for the pots on either side of the driveway. The cats give love and chats with very little meaning to me or any other human. The feral cats adore my mother and her gentle voice and manner. They stand still and let her pet them, rubbing against her ankles and throwing me dirty looks.

I walked out into the world of the trees last evening and watched the clouds rush in, changing and growing and billowing and going gray and white. The sound of the rain and the flashes of lightning filled the room in which I sleep. It is the room in which I slept when I lived here so many years ago. I thought it was green, maybe it was, now it is tan and the bed is much smaller and while I am not sure how well I will take to being in the world again, I miss my bed and my room.

I am dreaming oddly, the hospital dreams have stopped, but there are more people than I am accustomed to and last night there was a man on my arm, and it was good. And Brad was stocking up on water cooler jugs filled with wine and there were smoked turkeys and platters of fruit and I asked if he was throwing a party and said if he was I'd like to know so that I could not be there and he said something about how O'Neill was always saying how if anyone's hungry he's the one to feed them and Brad was pissed and decided he would feed the hungry for a while and see how O'Neill liked it. I thought he meant Thanksgiving and was even more confused as it is not yet September. Upon waking, I thought I would have to remember to ask Brad if he was talking about Jack O'Neill from Stargate or someone that I've never met. Then I fully woke up and realized that wouldn't make any sense at all.

As a younger person I always resented the reality of chores, the day-to-day crap of job and laundry and dishes and cleaning my room. Now it is going to be my life line. I do not know what has happened to my brain, but something is different, bound to show up at some point on the scanner. I have a guess, but I know too much about electrons to believe it can be all true.

Have decided to cut back on the ibuprofen. It works to cut my pain, but my pain is no longer great. I am tired and somewhat more stiff than I would like, but in no way incapacitated or stalled. The only real issue with me being tired is that I am now much more emotional than I am used to being. Still fragile. Not in the mood to fight it anymore.

It is odd to think that today next week I will be thinking of different things, sitting in a different place, using a different computer, reading different books (okay, maybe not), facing the future as me, still, but differently. Why that strikes me today so much more strongly than it has struck me in the past is quite beyond my comprehension, but then, right, there are many things which are.

I am looking forward to the world and the me that I am become, mostly because that's the way my feet are headed.

What the Dr. Said

My incision is healing just fine, I get to take the tapes off as they start curling up. My scar will be very neat and tidy, I think, with a little tear drop at the bottom.

I am very tired, which is what my life will be for the next 5 weeks, I am told. Particularly given "what you went through." There are only so many times a person can hear that from members of the medical profession before wondering just how bad things were that I am not expected to be fully recuperated a week and a half after surgery - it's just an appendix, right? So, I asked:

"How bad was it?" (this from me)

(my doctor said) "It was bad. If you'd waited any longer, you might not have survived the surgery."

I keep remembering that the important thing is that I'm alive, and that everyone involved in making me not die was good at their job and available at the time. However: I'm an emotional, mental, spiritual and physical shadow of my former self, I cry at the drop of a hat, my temper is shorter than a bald man's hair and I miss my cat.

Today is one of those days when I really wanted a sweetie, someone to tell me that the important thing is that I'm still alive and loved. Just to keep me from dwelling on the melodrama of "how close was it?" you know.

I am told that this all takes time. I am unused to allowing for time. I nap all day and find that eating takes more energy than it gives. I feel that this is become whining, it is all new to me, I am uncomfortable with my present state.

I am allowed to go back to work in about a week. I will have to start looking for jobs again.

My father, the person to whom I am listening for the first time in my life, suggests that it is more important to focus on healing than on anything else. He offered me the chance to come out here to rest and recuperate in safety and relative silence. I think it didn't hurt that I was bawling at the time and needed more than I could articulate.

This is just not my way. I need to be taken care of. Not emotionally supported, not believed in, not anything nice and intangible and cheap like having people around who have faith in me. I mean actually taken care of, with the laundry and food and reminders to bathe and a room in which I can sleep that is removed from the rest of the house and gentle conversation and time, lots of time.

I don't need to tell you that I am reminded of the people in this world who do not have the friends and family that I do who have been available and who have been gentle with me and given me space and safety and silence. I cannot imagine what the lives of people who do not have time to recover from something like this must be, how tired and worn down they must feel. The bills will be bad enough, at least my day-to-day isn't piling up on me as well.

I am alive to complain and hurt and read and feel. One of these days it will sink in and then my temper will explode and the rest of my life with it.

well, i’m home again

Before anyone asks - I thought it was gas. How often does an appendix burst in a person in one lifetime anyway? Once. Max. Scared the fuck out of me and not looking forward to doing it again. Ever. Hospital food sucks. Except for the Jello. I love Jello.

Doctors were nice. The ER doc was impressed that I had held out against the pain for so long. Go me for being stubborn and cheap.

Spent 4 nights in hospital. Then 3 nights at UlaRobie's. Now am home. Pushed myself too far yesterday in a fit of being really pissed off and not wanting to be anywhere near this place. Today I am tired and frustrated that there was so little sleep in the night times.

Now there is a lovely feline on my lap. She is confused about why I keep moving her paws from certain places. She has grown into such a lovely cat, 'specially now that her face has lost its kitten roundness. I enjoy that she's as demanding about pets as she is some days. Truly cat-like behavior. The other adult cat is crashed out on the landing upstairs. She's back to looking like a snake with no scales. She's mostly crashed out all the time, unless she's meowling for no good reason.

I was going to head down to the library today (bus passes make us happy) but I am tired and would rather stay home and play with fabric and lie about and try to remember why I wanted to come back here in the first place.