Old writing, and ghosts in my head.

Monday, December 10, 2012

I just rediscovered some content which I'll post below.  It was written back on 12-31-2010 and tucked away in my Evernote files.  Before my Dad was diagnosed with cancer.  It represents what I knew to be real, at that time.

I've been feeling down lately.  I was looking for some content I'd written earlier today, about how every day is a new loss, losing my father.  About how our instinct is to grasp at the material things, at the familiar things... Only to realize much later (if at all) that these things are just that - separate and not 'of' the person.

Dad's 2nd wife, Han, decided to cancel the main phone line.  The number that I've known for 32 years is no more.  The recording of my Dad's voice, saying (and yes, he enunciated just this clearly) "You have reached # # # - # # # #; leave a message if you wish." is no more.

I called the number on the day I found out - wishing, hoping... just wanting to hear his voice.  Wanting to grasp.

Would the familiar voice on the machine answer?

Two rings.  Three.  Four.  Finally, it picked up.  One last time.

And so, I heard it for the last time.  Last.  Gone.


Every day.

I've been a bit down.  

So.

I needed this.  I hope it may bring a ray of sunshine, to me and to others.

Every day.


12-31-2010 

Gorgeous Moments:

• A tired dog curled up in your lap
• Beautiful birds on the bird feeder in winter
• The first snow of the season and the change of the seasons
• Excited dogs chasing birds, squirrels, etc. out of the yard
• Cool beer on a hot summer day on the front porch
• The feeling you get just after completing a good workout
• The love of good friends, great hugs, and laughter
• Realizing how much you have in common with someone
• The excitement of doing something new or learning how to do something
• Sharing something that is exciting and new with someone you love
• The light shining through the windows and glimmering off of things
• The smell of good incense
• Wind chimes
• Resonating singing bowls
• A bright blue sky and glowing sun
• Comfort food on a cold day
• A good nap

There is something about all of these moments that is the same - thinking of them puts you in a very specific time and place - it makes you aware of the moment.  This is when Buddhism comes forward as "true" for me, because the emphasis is on being aware, and on being "in" the moment that you are living.  It is so easy to float through life in a dream (this theme is referenced often in the spiritual books I've read, including things like The Four Agreements, etc.).  We sleepwalk through our lives and rarely just stop, observe, and appreciate exactly what is happening in the moment we are in.  We live our lives in the past ("I wish I would have done XX differently"), or in the future (I can't wait for XX"), constantly reliving and pre-living, rather than bothering to stop and live in the present.  I suppose that our ancestors were wired this way, learn from the past, plan for the future.  Living in the moment is a bit of a luxury, but I think it could also be a great survival mechanism - be where you are, be aware of your surroundings, exist in the moment, don't dwell on the past or fear for the future.  Something I come back to, from one of the books I read, is "chop wood, carry water" - what this means to me is just that... For that moment, chopping the wood or carrying the water is what matters.  All the rest is just the noise - the ghosts in your head.

Dale R. Schissler, 12/04/1937 - 11/21/2012

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Moments of denial and hope still find me,
and then the truth - that my father is gone - envelops me.

A brightness has been lost.
The world is muted and muffled.
I am inside a heavy blanket of grief.

My skin stings as if it has been cut a thousand times.

My heart is crushed.

The threads of my life have been cut.

The light he brought to my life has been taken from me.

Words are too small to convey the depth of my sadness.

September

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

I love the way
September sunlight stretches, creating

long shadows
twinkling blue skies
brisk days
cotton clouds
brightened colors

heralding a beginning
and an end

Thanks*Giving

Monday, November 7, 2011

I could proceed to run down what feels like an obligatory list of extended relatives, friends, and loved ones, but I am not going to do that. This is about the things I am truly grateful for as they occur to me, or whatever makes the biggest impact of a particular day. If you want a shout out, feel free to try to make my day. :) A few more days' catch up:

November 4th
 

I have to give thanks for the blessing that is the animals and pets in my life. Every day I wake up happy (ok, so sometimes at 3am maybe not so much, but in general!) and every night I go to sleep knowing that there is a living thing that looks to me as their world. I am their provider and they love me unconditionally. Pets are a blessing to me.

November 5th
 

I would like to express my extreme gratitude for my friends. I got to spend time on this day in Atlanta with my inner circle of friends and I love being around them and I love the energy we share whenever I get to spend time with them.

November 6th
 

I am thankful for Mac and Cheese, and Oven Roasted Vegetables. Seriously. I made the oven roasted veggies last night (recipe later, SOOOO GOOD) and tonight John is making good old Kraft Mac 'n Cheese to have with them. I'd rather have homemade M&C, but without the ingredients and an hour to kill, Kraft will definitely do. I am thankful for having the means to obtain and make these lovely items. If you think that this one is superfluous or don't believe that you should be thankful for food, ask the people in Africa. Sign this petition with me if you are grateful to be fed.

I am ALSO grateful for my work friends, specifically the Racker Writers group that got together to do writing sprints for NaNoWriMo over our lunch today. 1000 more words = all win! Every thousand words gets me another step closer to the 50k that are needed to "win" NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo Word Count du Jour

Friday, November 4, 2011

Word count, per MS Word, as of yesterday (11/03/11): 3,119

Only 46,881 words to go.

Did I mention I'm traveling to Atlanta this weekend (14 hours of driving)? And I have a lot to do tonight to get ready for my quick trip.

NaNoWriMo

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Ok, so it is November, and the annual occasion of "NaNoWriMo," a.k.a. National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, writers around the world sign up for NaNoWriMo and try to write 50,000 words before the end of the month.

I recently joined a group on our internal Chatter site (like Facebook, but internal to my company) for Writers and some of the folks there were talking about doing it. I've always fancied myself a writer and love this idea, so I decided to go along for the ride.

We're on Day 3 of the challenge and I thought I'd jump over here to do a quick update. Isn't it funny -- now I'm worried about "wasting" my words over here, versus putting them to my "novel." C'est la vie.

My friend Debbie Talley gave a great tip (which I didn't follow, but still think is a great idea) that last year she wrote out 30+ index cards with writing prompts, prior to Nov. 1st. If I had a plot in mind going in, I definitely would have done that.

So, anyway, the big news of this post is to let you know about a tool I found that I'm loving - it is called Write Or Die. You put in your target word count, and amount of time, set a few other options and away you go! It has a tracking bar at the top to show how you're doing on your word count, and another for your time. If you stop typing for more than a second or two the screen starts to fade over to a bright red color, and after about :10 an annoying sound (of your choice!) begins. I chose the 'bad violins' (or something like that, is what the sound is called), and BOY does it work! I HAD to start typing just to make that noise stop!! I set a goal of 1000 words in 1/2 hour (there is a twitter hashtag you can follow for others attempting to do this - #30min1k), and according to WOD I met it! (OK, the disclaimer is that the 1012 that WOD said I got only showed as 940 on Word, but still - 940 words in 32 minutes - I think that's great!).

You can also follow @nanowordsprints on twitter for word sprint suggestions (which I haven't found too helpful, personally).

Anyhoo - just checking in. Now to leave you with, hopefully, a smile... I had a silly idea this morning for a gimmicky novel about the future, where the English language has evolved (devolved) to the point that common phrases were converted to their TXT equivalents. Here's a sample:

"Well, teeteewhyell, got a meeting."
"OK, teeteeeffenn - just elmeekay if you can catch lunch later."

That's about it. Teeteewhyell!!

Multiple Myeloma

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

On the plane, a tall, angular black woman makes her way down the aisle. Her knobbed elbows form a sharp bracket around her body. Two hats are stacked atop her dreadlocked hair, and small thick-framed glasses perch above a small gold nose ring. A loose scarf is wrapped around her shoulders. I imagine her to be a voodoo woman, and myself falling to my knees to beg her to help my father. She arrives at my aisle and asks if the seat next to me is hers ("is that 5A?") of course, it is. She removes the hats and the magic is gone, we are just strangers flying toward our separate futures.

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Dad is sitting up in his chair and out of it. He got a "level 4" dose of morphine this morning for the pain. He looks out the window at the clouds and sees a dragon. I'm not sure whether to be glad or not, when I see it too (I am).


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Up the hall a high sound comes... "Oh, the insane laughter again," Dad says, "at least, I hope it's laughter...". But I've registered the sound; someone is sobbing, their voice carrying a broken heart out to the world in progressively louder and more violent high-pitched sobs. The 8th floor is full of pain, sorrow, and death. Oncology, floor 8.


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"It's amazing how life gets broken down into little pieces sometimes." "How so?" "Oh, you know, here I am in my chair, looking out the window, worried about my back pain and all the little things, things that nobody else gives a damn about."


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My father's bed faces a large window, but the view from the bed is back toward the other parts of the hospital. Looking out you see the center part of the building that has the big "Methodist Hospital" sign. It is the window without a view. Each day we move him to the recliner, where he can look out and see the sky. I worked late tonight, and arrive at the hospital at just before 7. Dad is so tired, his eyes blink closed every few minutes, and I can see that it's been another long, hard day. I ask Han (his wife) if he's done all of his shoulder work, the exercises prescribed by the physical therapist to happen three times a day. "Two times," she says. He has to do one more round, five types of exercises. He does the first three types and rests, drifting out. A few minutes go by and I convince him we must do the hardest ones - a movement where I support his arm and raise it up. This is the most painful, and the more he tries to use his muscles the more it hurts - he is supposed to relax his arm completely. It is a challenge; he always wants to be in control and is terrified we will let his arm drop and cause excruciating pain. This time he is so tired, his arm is heavy but I can still feel his muscles competing to carry the weight. I remind him again to relax: "Move your head from side to side, relax your neck." "Let your shoulders drop." He does a bit.

I see the pain etched on his face, so I try to distract him. "The clouds were amazing today. They were the big puffy rain clouds, you know the kind? The edges were so sharp they looked like they had been drawn up in the sky. It was so beautiful - the tops were lit up from the sun, the bottoms gray and heavy with rain, and in between it was this incredible peach color." My heart breaks as his eyes flutter open and he lifts his head, looking out to try to see them through the window without a view.