Day Twelve - Living till Dying

 Good Mother's Day last Sunday.

I spoke with all three of my sons, nice long chats about potential move, which is on hold until we hear from one of the apartment complexes where I'm on waiting lists.

I am able to verbalize a new term that describes myself. I am now frail. That is really hard for me to acknowledge. I choked up saying it for the first time to my son and his wife.

So far M (in FL) has started checking on moving companies, and pods where we load everything and then unload at destination. But he's shy of being spammed and wouldn't give any of them his email or phone number. So he doesn't have any quotes.

Did I complain? Did I do it myself? Nope. Gonna let them figure it out, even if it hurts.

R said he is able to support me flying out, but probably won't be able to do any more hands on help (he lives in OH). His middle daughter is graduating college next week and they are driving to DC for that. Big family gathering, which I refrained from joining.

​T and K are welcoming, but somewhat cautious about having me stay with them more than a week. K also wants to continue her life choices...and I respect her needs for space too. But they are also pushing for me to not move to their town (Cortez) and rather to Durango. Durango is bigger and is probably a good choice for social and medical needs for me. But if Cortez offers an apartment earliest, I'll take it. Cortez has a much smaller hospital, no pulmonologists, and I'd still need to drive to Durango for the UU church as well as Dr. appointments.

I explained that the biggest thing is just to get me to CO. Once there, I may still move later to another place if there's a reason to do so...and with very little furniture in the move, it won't be as big a production.  I will eventually purchase furniture from thrift stores. That's probably where a lot of my current pieces will go. Or I'll just give them to whomever wants to come get them. They are all from thrift sources anyway.

And I said to each of my sons how important this conversation is to me. They do tend to go elsewhere with a lot of their lives having needs. So each Sunday I'll be calling them in the foreseeable future.

My current situation is one of continuing my health care needs, cleaning up the apartment after last month's hospitalization, and packing the rest of the things I want to keep (dishes, books, clothes etc.) At least most of the pottery is in 10 boxes already.

I am also checking in with the 5 apartment complexes where I'm on waiting lists. Two look promising, one in Cortez, one in Durango.

And I am aware that I had a mental/emotional burn-out last week. I want to figure out just how to stop that from happening again. Pondering the feelings, and any choices I can make for earlier awareness and halting it.

Day Nine - On Living Till Dying

 OK I'm in the midst of reading a delightful article on Substack through Facebook which is inspiring about feminism. I think I've quoted it somewhere, if not, I'll find what was most interesting about "Unmanned." These young feminist writers are so right on! 

Soraya Chemaly's Unmanned

But I'm also thinking about the infrastructure crumbling.

I foolishly have put most of my eggs in one basket...the Google domain on line.

But I do also have the Apple system going for me. Some millions of photos apparently, except I somehow deleted a bunch.

Blogger (a Google product) has recently failed me grandly. I've complained, and some aspects have improved. Must note, complaints just float out into the ether, not addressed to anyone. Not solved by anyone. Just a system that is not a system.

I do gmail for most of my emails. Google. (AKA Alphabet)

I read through the engine called Chrome. Google (big G)

Of course I also have Safari (the Apple engine) but my socialization through blogger works only through Chrome on my iPad. Strange melding of systems.

And Facebook is another system, which I thought was pretty separate, Meta running it. Until I wrote a draft for my blog (big G) with 2 photos I'd saved from years ago on FB, and within minutes the live FB posted those 2 photos again. They were still in draft form on the Google blog program! I just scrolled past them on FB, feeling deja vu, and didn't look to see who the authors were.

I already use Duck, Duck, Go as my search engine, which so far works to not send me ads appropriate to my interests. However, my phone does listen to what I say and then make sure I have proper underwear ads.

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And that leads my thought in this direction: the world wide web is not completely independent of the geo-political-ecological crisis we are finding ourselves immersed within. We are just frogs in water that is slowly coming to a boil. The infrastructure is crumbling.

Where is there true communication? Not the www kind.

Where is my own health and safety, and that of my loved ones? Not through the current institutions promoting it. (consider my recent efforts to have a yearly wellness visit with my doctor.)

The more frequent protests and demonstrations with millions of ordinary citizens trickle through to my consciousness. 

The billionaires and corporations are waaay ahead of what most of us fear. They are already paying for all possible futures, and I'm very much afraid they do not include common man and woman. No wonder AI is replacing so many people's jobs.

Its as if we really depend upon the weather man to know what our weather is doing.

Excuse me? How accurate are all the predictions? All the gadgets in their repertoire fail us about as much as they save us.

Weather is within ourselves. We have physicality. Weather exists within us, not outside us, and not just outside our windows. This is not entirely radical. Just stop and feel how the air, the air pressure, the temperature, the humidity, the wind, the possible rain, snow or dryness influences your very core. Your bones, joints, mucus membranes, mental acuity...they're all connected to the environmental changes of weather. Sure we don't know what's going to happen in a week. But neither does the weather man, really.

And at this point the efforts of the rich and not so gracious to control things still miss out on being able to control the weather.

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Mesa Verde, Colorado. These artifacts show that people much like us were unable to continue their lives as planned, even with their best efforts.

Day Five - Living till Dying - Dragon-Woman

 I thought I skipped yesterday, May 4th, in order to have the days of the month match my days counting forward for Living till Dying. (I ended up posting something anyway!)

Of course when June comes along, if I actually continue to have something to say here, it will be out of kilter (whatever that means.)

OK I looked it up for you. Kilter comes from older English Kelter, meaning good health, in order.

Some demonstrators on May 1 representing the Unitarian Universalist association.

So the last thing I was thinking about was how to get myself to do something new...rather than procrastinate, rather than continue doing whatever I already was doing.

It's a law of physics. Whatever is in motion tends to stay in motion. Whatever is NOT in motion, tends to stay NOT in motion. Equilibrium or stasis. Thus myself. Sitting typing, sipping something. Getting up every now and then to stretch my legs and move my body. But start something else?

Ach! Not easy to do.

So I'm thinking back to how my life began...being rudely pushed out of a warm damp womb where all my needs were met and I was constantly lulled by mom's heart beat and other sounds of her digestive tract, as well as her voice and those of my father and grandparents too probably. Laughter with the interesting bouncing against mom's ribs. And just as soon as the pushing squeezing stopped, I was cold and stretched and in brightness and noise, and wrapped in soft but dry blankets and clothes. And screamed my lungs out to get back to comfort again.

So I started life. And now I need to start the next thing I'm going to do. I will take baby steps.

Remember how much I wanted to find out things? Curiosity drove me to explore, to move....crawl, then walk. Balance on 2 legs! I just knew how. But wait, there had to be the necessary growth of muscles and brain support.

Baby Steps. I know how still. Just reach for the next thing, just do it (thank you Nike). So I was able to demonstrate this skill to my own satisfaction, putting the laundry away... no not doing the washing and drying. A friend kindly did it a week or so ago, and folded it. And now I've finally put it in closet and drawers. There are more clothes lying about the room. Am I curious enough to see what's under them? To see them hanging in the closet? To fold them and stack them in correct places in cupboards?

I have also accomplished washing the dishes after making bread. All the kitchen is ready for the next useful thing that needs to happen there!

Whoo hoo! I am woman! And I am dragon-woman! The dragon energy is needed these days to combat the elder sick status which tends to be-fog my being completely.

Fire breathing if you please! 

My last dragon at a women's circle ritual

Day Four and a Half - Living till Dying

 

New life being considered, myself as mother with two oldest sons.

Fellow blogger, Beyond the Fields we Know, posted this yesterday. I'm reposting it here, because it is so beautiful.

Once, I thought the universe’s greatest gift was scale — those vaulting immensities of gas and dust, planets flaring like thoughts inside a skull of stars. But time, that sly astronomer, has shown me something subtler: how much of the same splendor hums within us and all of nature. The pulse of a leaf opening to sun, the quiet veer of a child’s attention, my own heartbeat a small percussion in ancient starlight — all are galaxies folded inward, universes in miniature.

What surprises me now is not just the infinite, but the intimate. That carbon dust became breath and laughter. That our cells remember ancient oceans. That every discovery, no matter how remote, begins with the same feral impulse: our roving curiosity reaching outward, hoping to belong to a larger story of life seeding itself throughout the universe. The Cosmos expands and so does our vertiginous curiosity, an old companion still sending sparks of wonder through the brief ribs of our lives.

Diane Ackerman

The quote is from an article by Maria Popova at The Marginalian. It is one of my favourite places on the web, and I visit it often.

Day Four - Living Till Dying

 My emotional level continues to be tamped down by intellect and consideration of survival...probably part of the healing from pneumonia. But it's also how I run. This person approaches everything that way. Probably how I lived to this 83 year age. Not intentional. More organic coming from the determined attitude to just continue in this existence. To possibly get as much out of each experience as possible.

Once I thought I was pretty hedonistic, thinking of joy, happiness, many orgasms taking the place of true love (whatever that is). I had fun. I was self-centered. Yet I had closeness with other people. Now there aren't that many people who I feel really close with. At chair yoga I hugged a couple of friends, including the teacher (after asking permission of course.)

I blame it partly on the pandemic - this sense of disconnection, which only comes back when a crisis happens.

And aging of course...less energy, less sexuality. Less sensuality. Less physicality!

So Friday I went to chair yoga...after the shower. Then stayed for lunch with other seniors. Listened to their topics of interest...How were they spending their lives?

It was most enjoyable sharing experiences, like when first talking in public as comfortable (or not!) That was after the woman sitting next to me led the prayer for grace. I didn't bite when one of the women said that in the past I'd said this was the Christian table. It may be, but adding my pagan ideas would have not gained any friends.

I was wanting to listen to these people, find out more about their lives. I did. From the events when each was in the 7th grade, to when Kennedy was shot, to the most recent purchases of plants (and where they were bought!) to a new store in town with good sourdough bread and fresh tasty tomatoes. We even got into personal experiences of early deaths of school-mates. I shared how my Republican Texas family had been highly critical of JFK when he was elected president, and then their feelings when he'd been killed. I was aware that many of the 4 other women at the table might have been tRump supporters...and avoided saying a word about him, or my being a Democrat who had stood my ground with my Republican relatives. I've learned that if I want to listen, I'd best keep my mouth shut.

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Yesterday I searched and searched blogger for my usual blogs I read...my favorites, which are listed in the right hand column. They didn't show.

And I started mentioning it on all the comments I made. 

I think it happened when I changed my profile photo to one of my FATHER as a child, in 1916. I also tried to change it on Google. BIG MISTAKE. If ever a 83 year old woman seems to be a Ped O File, the algorithm must have listed me. So I've gone with a dragon. 

The comments don't seem to work on this particular blog yet, as I've asked for them to be moderated and sent to my email (and I tried adding the blog link as a contact...we shall see.)

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So rather than having anything new to add as Saturday the sun is dipping close to the western trees, I've spent the last couple of hours making bread. Yep, when all else is frustrating, make bread.

It isn't very good coming out of the Cuisinart Bread Maker with much too thick a crust, and rises only about 2/3 of a loaf height. But it smells good and tastes ok with melting butter.

I did appreciate a Facebook post I just read. I think another blogger, Gwynneth Rixon of Ook, shared it, because I commented directly to her...perhaps in error, as I now am finding several other sites which published it. Here is the written text, and following that is the YouTube video of the interview with Terry Gross.

It's from Maruice Sendak, and his loss of his partner, and dying...

In September 2011, an 83-year-old man named Maurice Sendak picked up the phone in his Connecticut home and called Terry Gross at NPR.

He had been on her show many times before. As one of the most beloved children’s book authors in history, he had written and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and dozens of other books that became woven into the childhoods of millions.

He had a new book out called Bumble-Ardy. He had created it during the most painful period of his life, while his partner of 50 years, Eugene Glynn, was dying. "I did Bumble-Ardy to save myself," he told Terry. "I did not want to die with him."

What followed was one of the most beautiful interviews ever broadcast. For nineteen minutes, Maurice Sendak talked about getting old, about dying, and about the people he had loved. He spoke of the maple trees outside his studio window that were hundreds of years old and how, in the final stretch of his life, he had finally fallen completely in love with the world.

He cried. Terry cried. Listeners all over the country, driving in their cars or washing dishes, pulled over and cried with them.

He spoke of the tragedy of being 83 and outliving almost everyone he loved most—his parents, his brother Jack, his sister Natalie, his longtime publisher, and most painfully, Eugene. Then he said something that has been quoted ever since: "I’m not unhappy about becoming old. I’m not unhappy about what must be. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more."

He talked about how strange it was to find peace so late in life. He had spent most of his years unhappy, raised by Holocaust survivors who carried a grief they passed down to him. He had spent decades in therapy, once saying he believed in the existence of happy people but had never been one of them.

But near the end, something changed. He told Terry he was now in love with the world. He could look out his window at those beautiful trees and see them for what they were. He called it a blessing to grow old and have time for the things he loved—the books, the music, the quiet moments. "I have nothing now but praise for my life," he said.

At the end of the interview, he shared something with Terry that stayed with everyone who heard it: "You are the only person I have ever dealt with... who brings this out in me. There’s something very unique and special in you, which I so trust."

As they both wept, he added: "Almost certainly, I’ll go before you go, so I won’t have to miss you." Then, before hanging up, he gave her three final pieces of advice: "Live your life. Live your life. Live your life."

Eight months later, on May 8, 2012, Maurice Sendak passed away peacefully in a hospital in Connecticut at the age of 83.

His friend Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked, was with him in his final days and brought him a gift: a photograph of Lewis Carroll sitting on a windowsill with his feet hanging outside. It was a perfect goodbye. The man who spent his life drawing children stepping into other worlds was now stepping into his own.

His books remain in nearly every library, and generations of children still join Max on his wild rumpus, always returning home to find their dinner waiting for them—and still hot.

In that final interview, he told Terry he would keep crying for the people he lost all the way to the end. "I’m a happy old man," he said. "But I will cry my way all the way to the grave."

He cried because he loved them. That was the whole secret. That was always the whole secret.

Day Three, Living till Dying

Coping Strategies

Before...with my reflection of the trees outside my windows - in my newer larger glasses.

After shower and hair wash...still drying. Wearing my last year's glasses because I'm about to nebulize, and I've found a film that  comes out of the sodium (salty) fog that the nebulizer makes seems to eat away at the "expensive protective anti-scratch film" on the glasses. I've already used the "one year guarantee" on the glasses to get them replaced once, so I'm again coping with things the best way I can.

I also open the windows and turn on the air handler on constant fan, and still my little air purifier turns its lighted signals to cautionary levels. It usually clears out faster if I open windows on opposite sides of the apartment to get an air flow. It does need my adapting to different temperatures outside also.

How do I feel about pushing myself to use the shower yesterday?

Not thrilled at all the resulting coping strategies I'm dealing with.

I see how much of my life is coping and being glad to be resourceful enough to do so. Gratitude for that.  Felt cold after the shower, and the day was colder with nighttime lows forecast to be in 40s, while Saturday night is due to get into 30s F.

Emotional? Not much feeling. Some personal satisfaction at an accomplishment. But also some determination to push myself forward for continued progress. Baby steps!

Baby Steps as a phrase comes from Bill Murray in the movie What About Bob. Richard Dryfus too. Funny flick!

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I just revamped the comments, which for some reason were disappearing. They supposedly will be moderated and posted as soon as I see them in my emails. But even this phrase seems to have disappeared.