I’ve Anchored My Soul

I decided that today I needed a nap more than I needed exercise. As I lay down and tried to settle, listening to the birds outside the window (we have a lot of mourning doves here – whoo-OO-hoo-hoo-hoo), that old hymn came into my head, and I could hear Grandma Swain singing it:

“I’ve anchored my soul in a haven of rest…”

Later, I went to dinner with new friends from TMC, Karen and Kendra. We went to this awesome-expensive steak house that Karen picked, and it was sort of an accident that it was so expensive. But we went with it and had a great meal and a great time together. The food presentation was fab. So there were a few photos from my Blackberry.

Pockets of Sanity

I’ve been working little by little on getting the house set up. First, pockets of sanity amid the chaos, then rooms full of sanity. It’s coming together nicely. I’m glad I decided not to leave my furniture behind. It’s nice to reach in my same sock drawer and find my socks where I left them when so much else has changed.

“In the Gloaming”

This photo reminded me of lines from two Robert Frost poems that I recorded recently, so descriptive of the days-end shadow-fall.

Flower-Gathering

By Robert Frost

I left you in the morning,

And in the morning glow,

You walked a way beside me

To make me sad to go.

Do you know me in the gloaming,

Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?

Are you dumb because you know me not,

Or dumb because you know?

All for me? And not a question

For the faded flowers gay

That could take me from beside you

For the ages of a day?

They are yours, and be the measure

Of their worth for you to treasure,

The measure of the little while

That I've been long away.

Asking for Roses
by Robert Frost

A HOUSE that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,

With doors that none but the wind ever closes,

Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;

It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;

'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.

'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,

'But one we must ask if we want any roses.'

So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly

There in the hush of the wood that reposes,

And turn and go up to the open door boldly,

And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.

'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?'

'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.

'Pray, are you within there?

Bestir you, bestir you!

'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses.

'A word with you, that of the singer recalling--

Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is

A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,

And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.'

We do not loosen our hands' intertwining

(Not caring so very much what she supposes),

There when she comes on us mistily shining

And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.

Here is the link to my Librivox recordings of these and other poems, in the Robert Frost volume, A Boy's Will.

Today I realized that, hey, it may be warm enough outside to swim! Really? Actually? Yes, 70 degrees. People are probably doing that. So I donned the suit and walked over to the pool. Yep, folks are here, but all are lounging in the sun and reading in the quiet shadows. For at four o’clock the shadows are setting in here. Relaxing in a lounge chair and reading a book. What a concept. You’d think they were on vacation. Maybe they are. I could learn how to do this, maybe. Maybe, with practice.

But today I plunged in and did my 30 minutes of aqua jogging, staying in the sunshine beams to keep warm, because the air was chilling quickly. Nice. I could get used to this. Maybe, with practice.

The Ultimate “Poor Me”?

I tried a new massage therapist today. He did a pretty good job, but kept talking about himself and how great a therapist he is. At one point I mentioned my fibromyalgia (it’s relevant in this setting) and he apologized for missing that on my chart. Then he said that a lot of people with fibromyalgia have “energy problems” and that he is really good at releasing unhealthy energy from the bodies of his clients. I responded that I understand that science is now showing that muscles in the body have memory of trauma, that not just the brain remembers. I agreed that I could maybe have some such “energy” issues, residual from a college rape. He said, “Yes, a lot of the people I talk with who have fibromyalgia seem to have suffered something similar.” Then, he added, “Yes, fibromyalgia appears to be the ultimate ‘Poor Me’”.

Whhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!????? Part of me wanted to jump off his table then. The other parts of me were saying, “He’s ignorant, Becky. Don’t listen to him. Just consider the source and don’t get mad.” So I asked, “Is this ‘Poor Me’ term you’re using something you’ve heard from the field of psychology?” Yes, it was. Something he read in a book by so-and-so who breaks human personality profiles into four types. OK, that explained some of it.

But it rankled, and still does. Later I kept thinking, “The Ultimate ‘Poor Me’?” As though all we fibromyalgia patients need to do is stop the self-pitying behaviors and we would get better?

Maybe I should try telling my weather-related flares to stop being so self-pitying - only on bad weather days. Let’s try telling that to my left leg which locks up, so it can explain to my right leg, which never locks up, why it is more self-pitying than the right one. We’ll try telling that to my teeth when they get infected following dental work, since they – and their infections - are apparently linked into my consciousness. Let’s tell my skin rashes, my IBS, my knuckle pain, my foot pain, my bursas, and my flaming back which only flames between the hours of 1 pm and 8 pm, apparently my most self-pitying times of day.

“Poor Me”, subjected to yet another misinformed know-it-all about fibromyalgia who has never walked in my poor flaming body.

Fibromyalgia is neurological, Asshole.

I am heartily tired of hearing about behavioral cures, as though we can fix this thing with simple lifestyle or mental-behavioral adjustments. Do we tell a cancer patient to “take more naps” or “think positive thoughts”? OK, well, yes, we do, but we don’t expect her cancer to go away as a result.

I think physicians offer these little pats on the head because they sometimes are misinformed and have precious little else to offer the fibromyalgia patient. Nice thought, Docs, but you’re doing a disservice to people who are very ill, to propagate the notion that all or most of this disease’s symptoms can be mitigated with behavioral changes. I know our understanding of the impact of the psychological on the physical has swung like a pendulum, and that just now it is toward the far side of “Positive thinking can cure anything”. But I’ll sure be glad when it swings back to a more reasonable setting. I hate to think of all the sick and dying people being blamed for not thinking themselves out of it. Just what sick people need is more guilt.

Well, I think I’ll go and have a little discussion with my left leg – a nice positive, upbeat chat.

Dream Keeper?

Dream Patcher
Dream Catcher
Dream Matcher
Dream Hatcher
Dream Maker

Maybe that’s the one. Dream Maker. Dream Keeper? That’s what I am. I’ve had a hard time deciding what to name my blog. Maybe one of these? I thought about Dream Catcher because of the one I brought home from Tucson. But that’s too passive. I don’t just catch dreams on the fly-by. I don’t patch them up from other old ones. And I don’t match them up or hatch them up. I make them happen. And then I keep them.

Moon River, wider than a mile
I’m crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you’re goin’, I’m goin’ your way
Two drifters, off to see the world,
There’s such a lot of world to see.
Were after the same rainbows end, waitin’ round the bend
My huckleberry friend, Moon River, and me.

Music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, from the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Honesty Is the Best Policy

As much as I hate to admit it, I lost my wallet on Sunday, at the last stop Rod and I made before arriving in Tucson. I was so sure that I hadn’t done that, though, at first. I remembered taking my wallet to the bathroom with me, thinking, “Now, don’t set this down. Don’t LOSE IT!” The bathroom was abysmal so there was no temptation to set anything down, not even your butt. But somehow my wallet was no longer with me when I wanted to give Drew and Jess the claim ticket for getting Jess’s car out of the Columbus airport valet parking.

The troubleshooting team of me, Drew, Jess and Rod went into action and with the help of Drew’s laptop internet connection, we located the wallet almost immediately. Someone had turned it in at the station and they had it there for me to pick up. Well, I needed to see an apartment (Plan C, remember), and Drew and Jess had a plane to catch in Phoenix, so Rod, very graciously, agreed to go back the hour’s drive for the wallet. I found out later that the woman at the station had even tracked me down using a sticky in my wallet with the Comfort Suites name and confirmation number on it, and left a message on our hotel room voicemail about my missing wallet.

When Rod retrieved it, nothing had been removed, not one of the three fifty dollar bills, and not a single credit card. Now that’s good old fashioned happy honesty.

Again, Arizona had a surprise for me, when we discovered that Drew had left a large framed print behind the seat of the truck, forgetting to tell me that it was there. Rod had turned the truck in for me on Monday, move-in day, and Drew didn’t remember to tell us until Monday evening. But a phone call the next morning put it to rights: Penske had the print and would hold it there for me to pick up. Good old fashioned honesty. How refreshing. Both the wallet and the print would have been goners if we had made these mistakes in Columbus. I think I could get used to this place.

The Movers Were Able

Our movers were EXCELLENT! Three really nice big young guys (Thomas, Ray and Kevin) from Able Movers. They worked very hard and very intuitively, unpacking and putting away all of the boxes of glassware for the great room and kitchen, unpacking the wardrobe boxes, and “playing Tetris” as Ray called it, with the items in the kitchen to get them to fit into the cupboards. They were all so tall that they could load things into the cupboards, even above the refrigerator, with no effort.

We accomplished a great deal in the one day, and the place is starting to look like my home.

Highlights: Thomas,looking at my black and white chintz towels and accessories: “This looks like bathroom stuff, you don’t want it here in the kitchen, do you?” Becky: “No, that’s my kitchen stuff. It’s just a girly kitchen.”

Ray: “This is a premium apartment for Tucson, that’s for sure.”

Becky: “Funny! The prior owners must have left these size Extra Large condoms behind in the box in the laundry, and Thomas must have found them, thinking they were mine!” [Coming from the laundry closet with condom packets in her hands]

From Los Angeles to Tucson via San Diego

Here are some photos of the trip Rod and I took to get to Tucson to meet Drew and Jess in the moving truck. It’s a pretty wild landscape, but I didn’t get to take many photos. There’s a section of desert dunes, even, which I drove through while Rod rested. I had forgotten that the US has sand dunes of that magnitude. These were all crisscrossed with the tracks of ATVs and such. Made me wish they’d leave some of it unspoiled for those of us who would wish to see them as nature left them. But even the rocky mountains were beautiful to me. I always wonder how they were made, what upheavals created them and what the ancient earth looked like when they were formed.

Plan C

I had gone to L.A. thinking that there was little to do to complete the paperwork on my home sale. No. There was a lot yet to do, including home inspection, carpet cleaning, etc., as well as final loan and title paperwork. I was leaving a huge amount of work on Annette Henderson, my real estate agent.

Then came the blow, my realization that I could not afford to buy at all. I had depleted my money market account dramatically without even realizing the extent of the withdrawals. How embarrassing! I’m usually so good at knowing what the most important things are, and paying attention to them. This was egg on my face of some of the worst kind, financial, having gone out on a limb, then having to slither off it again with huge apologies. It was one of the worst phone calls I’ve ever had to make.

But, as Rod said, sweetly bucking me up, “Everyone makes mistakes.” And this may feel like the end of the world, but it’s not. And it’s not death and mayhem, just one town house not selling. Still. Still. I felt totally rotten.

So, on to “Plan C”. Trying to find a rental in time to move in Monday since the truck is on its way and arrives Sunday.

This is Rod in his kitchen working on Plan C, mapping the six rentals we had decided to look at from a larger list.

Packing

Chris and Jenna came last weekend and started the work both Saturday and Sunday. Chris was tired of getting bruised by my "attack bed", which has wicked-bad projections on the foot-board that seem made to kill your thighs. I've been beaten black and blue by that bed, and so have Chris and Jenna. So she wrapped it in bubble wrap. Good solution. Here's a photo of the pile of yarn Jenna and I sorted to give away. I gave it to the Mid-Ohio Knitter's Guild people.



I thought we were maybe half-way through after that. We spent all of Saturday on beads and yarn, to give you an idea of how much work there was. Mom and Dad came Sunday and helped, too.




I had an extraordinary crew of packing helpers. I could never had made it through this move without their help, especially without spending way more than my relocation money from TMC would allow.

This weekend, Susan Paxton, Drew and Jess packed all day Saturday until they finally put me to bed. Literally, all of them in my bedroom talking about the remaining work while I lay there with my big pillows. We had not been half way done. Maybe a quarter or a third. It was scary. Could we finish in time? I had made the insane move of booking a flight to Los Angeles to see Rod My Love, leaving Monday morning. But the price was great! And I wasn’t thinking straight. Twitter-pated, as my brother Charlie called me. But the packing? I had planned to have it completed by then so that Drew and Charlie would “only” have to load the truck, not pack, later in the week. Would we make it?

Sunday the 18th, my friend Kay came right after church, in spite of having company that morning and expecting them back for dinner in the evening. At lunchtime, Erica came with loads of packing material and packing tape and went into Cyclone Mode, finding us cleaning out the frig and making a meal from assorted frozen dinners. She went ape on the spare room, and that was just what it needed. I had just brought it to the point of some organization so it was ready for boxing. But I had to hit the bed again, and feared I wasn’t getting up any more that day. But I got a second wind and continued helping Drew in the garage, in my double pants and chenille-wrapped head, and helping everyone with packing all over everywhere.

Jessica sat on her butt in the middle of my living room floor and bubble-wrapped glassware for two solid days. The girl worked her heart out for me, and I am so touched to think that she would do so much for me when I have known her for such a short time. I never imagined that I could love my son’s wife like I already love her. She is a true gem.

Highlight:

Drew told Jessica, “None of your lip, Bubble Bitch!” There was stunned silence, with Erica and I a half beat behind as we jabbered away in the spare room. Then we all burst out laughing. Did he really say that? Yes, he did. Drew said later that he thought Erica and Kay thought for a second that he was seriously trash-talking his fiancé. No. They just think that’s funny. And it was. “Bubble Bitch”. The photo shows the dear girl working away, for once not on the living room carpet, but instead on the cold hard tile of the entryway.