and so it is Hemingway's last stand

There are a hundred things I'm not going to say, but could. What I will do is offer half of an explanation. Over the weekend I discovered this space is no longer mine.  

I have always been aware that the thoughts I publish become echos of themselves, like rocks falling down a canyon wall. Once I have written them I no longer have any say in how they are read or used. What I do have say in is whether or not I continue.    

Before I joined all the other "blogging moms" I wrote for myself.  And I will let you in on a secret- after I joined the world of bloggers I still only wrote for me.  I adored the format of words and pictures together.  I enjoyed the way the random pieces merge creating a larger story.
  
It doesn't matter to me if what I write is ever seen by another person. In fact, there have been many times while publishing pieces that I have discovered how much I prefer to write for an audience of one.  I'm a selfish (dyslexic) jerk when it comes to writing. I am careless in my rereads, my grammar, my spelling...because what I write is honest, especially my fiction.

Having said that I hope one would understand that I can't stay here in this space writing under the dimness of another woman's shadow. I refuse to edit myself (lol!) and I will never fight a dirty fight when I have the power to simply walk away. But if I may offer her one tiny sandstone peddle of advice: you really should look deep inside yourself and find your own words.   

And so this is me signing off from this blog.  

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places. 

~ Ernest Hemingway ~

windows

In all honestly I have no idea how I'm going to make through the day. And then the next. And the next. And the next... I can tell I've been running my heart and mind through half thought-out circles for weeks now trying to stay afloat. 

Last night after midnight I finally wore myself out to the point of now. Sitting here in the grey morning light looking at the day stretching out before me wondering how to somehow magically make this day happen like all the days behind it.

I didn't sleep much last nigh. When I did my dreams were a twisted rehash of one of the only 2 adults conversations I got to have yesterday.

Of course I know what to do. From time to time we all have to do this.  The right things: drink coffee, run, take a long hot shower. Vacuum straight lines in the carpet around a sleeping dog. Read an extra chapter to Beach when she asks me to.  Put on a smile and clean pair of pants.  One foot in front of the other, fake it until you make, lol. 

I just feel like this time I have run out of things to say.  And somewhere at that the bottom of my second cup I start laughing because I sort of know that not having anything to say doesn't really matter because no one is listening anyway.

Rumor is there will be snow here by Saturday.    

skimming the surface, mlb

My whole world lies at his feet.  I watch him maneuver the rocky cove, tentatively at first testing a toehold for solid ground.  He shifts his weight applying pressure but not enough to commit if it is an unsafe spot to come ashore.  He is careful, perhaps too careful and I am always left unsure whether or not it is safe between us.

The soft sunlight glints like salt off the sheen of blond hair encasing the caramel of his skin.  He smiles back at me as if to say “I’ve got it figured out now.”  But I can’t see his eyes.  His hair has fallen forward, his chin dipped too low.  Maybe he is trying to tell me something else entirely.

From there he jumps.  I can hear the light splash of water nipping at his heels as he travels with effort to dry ground.  His strong hand pulls the nose of the small boat forward.  I float with it.

His other hand holds the line.  I am slightly jealous.  It coils around his fingers and loops his wrist like a snake.  Rocks growl against the hull as he glides us to the precise spot he wants.

I watch him.  He squats to tie the line around the base of a waterlogged tree.  His hands move quickly with more assurance than his feet will ever know.  I watch his round, speckled shoulders rise and fall as he works.  His movements seem to control the waves.  He is Gravity, I think.

His voice startles me, “What are you thinking about?”

I squint skirting my gaze away, out to open water; looking for a better answer than the one I have to offer.  Finding nothing but a blurred blue horizon I turn back to our shoreline, “You.” I reply.

He laughs, twisting to face me.  Now I can see his eyes.  He straightens.  There is a pause between us as if we are both straining to listen to a fading echo.

The waves lap the sides of the boat where my fingers linger in the cool water mixing with bits of splintered wood and drowning leaves blown in by the summer winds.


He is no longer laughing.  He has come to stand knee deep in the water.  The waves and foam drift around him.

His voice tentative on the edge of a rocky shoreline, “No, really what were you thinking about?”

He stumbles in the slick shallows letting his carefulness slip and drift away from him.  It skims the surface near enough for me to collect it. I am a thief not a fisherman.  I have no intention of returning it to him.

I stand and come ashore with dry feet. “No, really, I was thinking about you.”  

on the mend (because I say so)

It's hard to imagine that under the circumstances- beer in hand, the soft darkness and shelter of the greenhouse folding around the hot tub like clouds of opal, my head tipped back over the edge to keep my hair out of hot water, BC across the tub smiling at me- yes, it is hard to image under all that perfectness I would be whining but I was.

I admitted everything to him... well, not everything, but a lot.
I told him I am losing this battle of control.
I told him I dread the work and the math of food and I'm at the point where it is no longer worth it to me. 

I'm under pressure I can't seem to shake. It is coming from the insult and ludicrous of being sued for child support for a kid who lives with us full time. From the Season and the wrench thrown in by the way the bank is, or shall we say isn't issuing funds for the Moab job until later; and there is no back up plan. It is from the other season, the crazy mad one of meets and travel. It comes from the feeling of being too comfortable & close to my ex. It is from the backhanded compliments and criticisms, some warranted, some not, like phantom chatter coming in on me from other households. It is the long stretches of time without a strong shoulder to lean my head against so I can really relax and smile.       

I laughed.
Then knowing he would be gone by the weekend I said, "I give up."

It is the weight of water. 

He waited.
I laughed again and said, "I don't want to let Beach down or worry her. This is a horrible time to not be well."

It is the vastness of the winter sky stretched across the mountains.

He waited.
I laughed once more at myself and said, "I know I got this. I'm just tired. And stressed. And lonely. And I know, I have good people around me. It is all here...I just have to figure out how."

His smile widened. "Do you want me to come to the doctor with you? It might help if there is someone there who isn't lying to him." He paused, "I shouldn't say lying, I mean you aren't always completely honest with what is going on with you."

I laughed answering, "No, I'd say at this point calling it lying is fair." 
He laughed too and waited patiently for me to find the answer.

It is the way it has always been.

I have never much cared for my resilience.

My money is on my sense of humor- it is most often my only saving grace.

  

sleep to dream

I keep having these dreams that I am an estate sale or clothing swap and I am trying to find things Beach needs- free things, good things, things offered up for the taking by the generosity & thoughtfulness of others, things I can't give her on my own....

the feeling is quiet desperation.

This morning I lay in my bed watching her twitch in her sleep. Mental note: don't let her sleep in bed with me after meets. She hit me so hard in the face last night, probably saluting, it made my nose bleed. 

Hours later she is still sleeping. I have long since finished the farm chores. Long since shaken the stinging cold of carrying metal buckets of crisp water around the yard, dumping and filling watering stations.  My boots dotted with sticky leaves in the mudroom waiting for the next time. My gloves already lost, my hat somewhere in the bed-sheets- I fell asleep with it on last night.

And in a silent house over a hot cup of coffee I think about the dreams, about the things, about the feeling, and I know what I am looking for has been right in front of me this whole time. 

The free, (well, indirectly free), the good, the generosity & the thoughtfulness, that which I alone can't give her, it's all laid out for the taking. It is way up high, on the second floor, seated on the bleachers, bubbling over in fits of laughter. And it is out across the sprawling maze of blue, in the distance appearing calm.  

It is so abundant in our lives it falls like drenching rain, soaking us and puddling at our feet.

...we are not alone.

I certainly hope now I can find better things to do while I am dreaming than to waste time looking for what we already have.

she was my sister

He watches me go to my knees and pull the box from its hiding place under the east slope of the house's low eves.  I drag it out.  He watches me as I circle the box a few times then open it.  I pull out two frames both of which the glass has been shattered. I set them on the lid and circle the box a few more times.  It is over flowing with photographs and papers- none of which are mine.

He breaks, "Are you going to be able to do this?"

"Yes, of course."

 I'm not feeling anything. There is a dull remembrance of a time when feelings were all I knew. The world of reason and logic silent and the chaos of lose, of regret, and of something else I don't have words for, took over.


People who know me now may not have any idea. And as much as I don't want to out myself not having any idea is a big part of what killed my sister. So the truth is after my sister died I suffered a complete mental collapse. I sank so far into depression I didn't even want out. 

The trigger for destabilization was PTSD.  Although I might have been the "good" well, the "better" sister of the 2 of us, I was not as smart as we thought I was. 

I thought all my medical knowledge, all my time sorting through the dead of others, all my time in the OR, my success in the ER, all my book smarts, that they would protect me from any of the gruesome reality of my own sister's death. I foolishly thought I was untouchable, mentally and emotionally. I knelt in her blood, cleaned her apartment, identified the 4 day old rotting corpse and thought I would be okay. 


I wasn't.       

"Will you be able to be honest with her?" He asks.
"I can answer any question she asks but...." and the stammering takes over. This is disassociation a coping skill that turns disease. 

However I managed to climb out of the darkness of those couple of years, I paid a price. And I don't mean having to walk away from a career in medicine. I am at peace with that decision.  What was hard was I had to give up all my words about it. I can see them lined up down a long alley and as I try to read them doors start closing- leaving me wordless. An ironic event only witnessed by those asking about my sister, life with my ex husband, or about love & commitment. 

My niece, her daughter, is coming over to talk to me. She has questions for me about her mother. I am the person most willing to be honest- me and this box. 

For better or worse I am the keeper of her mother's soul. And too many things have been left unsaid.

Driving in the dark (excerpt from Taming Venus)

October

How do you explain the slow descend into madness?  What words would you choose to describe the world as seen though my eyes?  Would it matter?  I mean, how anyone who has not been there themselves could possible be made to understand just how I came to be here not knowing which direction I was running.  Whatever reason stops you, you will find a world crashing to a halt carries casualties in its wake. And when you dare to open your eyes you will find that this is the bottom. Maybe it isn’t so bad.  Maybe around the next corner you will find your way.  Standing alone beneath a ceiling of grey branches stabbing out the sky one by one, walled in by thick knee-high under brush threatening to over take the trail.  The road, worn with deep troughs, long ago weathered and dried.  It is as if summer has forgotten this place, sentenced to an endless winter without snow.  At every corner there is another turn, no spots from which you can view your progress.  In shadow there is an ominous feeling of a mountain high above you but no sight of it.  Do you continue up hoping to find your mountain or do you ascend hoping to find you home?    

I often believe it all still there.  The apartment intact, her body underneath me as I straddled her width, reaching into the bathroom greedily grabbing the most out of reach, most hated, most prized of all, the thing I believe she saw last- the photo of her children.  I see the currents of evil and hopelessness circling the rooms as I waded through them.  I see time over lapping.  I see my sister walking to her death.  I see her.  Was she scared? Did she know? 

Related Blog Posts:

Taming Venus, mlb  (A real life, firsthand, unedited, often graphic, diary-essay of the time surrounding my sister's death and the aftermath.)

Seven Years, give or take, mlb
     

forget the moon

I'm pretty sure none of what I write today will make much sense. Dispatches from the far field... thoughts like words you can hear but not quite make out because the distance is too great. 

Or perhaps that is a lie.

I know exactly what is there under the layer of fragile frost. 

I know what the moon stirs over the night.

but i'm not big enough to do anything about it 

Not smart enough to remember that flip-flops are a poor choice for a morning stroll around the perimeter of the farm checking fences; checking for casualties of the night.

Dragging around my camera, a cup of coffee, and a the obvious signs that I have broken a finger or two one too many times.

 "It never occurs to her something is wrong when it is. 

They said that is the reason she travels in the company of dogs."  

~Life With Man, mlb~

fortress

I woke at 4 am instantly aware of what I had done.  At some point in the night I had locked my elbow between my knees- again. The pain is a gentle reminder of why I shouldn't sleep alone too often.

Well, I wasn't really alone. At 9:30 last night my patient 11 yr old sidekick marched by carrying a zoological sampling of stuffed animals. "You almost had me." She said, "I was almost asleep in my own bed then I remembered dad is gone."

It is our habit to sleep together if ever BC is away. He has long since outgrown sharing a bed with a kid who sleeps on a diagonal and dreams gymnastics. 

But I know how little time is left here in the land of childhood so I allow it. In a king-sized bed, after the twitching dies down, it is easy to lose her in a landscape made of blankets and pillows. And then there is that other small detail, I am afraid of the dark.   

I called her patient because she had patiently waited for me to knock loose from work last night. I was slow to want to leave. I didn't want to walk the dark parking lot and drive the empty drive, walk through the front door and close it behind us. 

I had collected her from a pile of mats only after having to ask one of the coaches where she even was. He had answered straight away, "She's in the donut" sounding tired for her, his own patients with me possibly thin telling me yet again to "Go home."

Eight O'clock at night and I don't even know where my own kids is. 

After her practice had ended, tired (and missing the idea of her dad), she had wandered out to this same coach in the back of gym and sat down beside him on the floor. Not typical of Beach to seek company from grown-ups but it was bound to happen eventually.   

He probably thinks I'm a bad mom; he's probably right.... that was what I was thinking when Beach said, "I have the best life." She does that sort of thing to me all the time. It used to amaze me; I don't know how I feel about it anymore.     
 
Crossing a sea of shiny blacktop into the night together. Climbing into a cold car. Eating potato soup from the slow-cooker in fat mugs, way beyond any reasonable dinner hour. I haven't checked lately but I don't recall these sort-of things showing up in the book of Best Lives. They all seem more like behaviors from the Crazy Cat Lady's Handbook to me.

I let her fall asleep in her contacts.
I let her take-up most of the bed. 
I didn't even bother to tell her we didn't win the lottery again. I checked.

And in the night, lost in a big bed, I let all the things I worry about for her roll me up into the tightest ball I could make- a fetal fortress. 

Dreams of sulfur springs & river stones, of cold air settling in on a tent lit by stars, memories of watching frost in a field change to dew at dawn, all lost to worry and doubt of a mother.   
  
I am the one who is always in her corner. I am the driver to gym and the keeper of the schedules. I am the parent in the waiting room. Her teacher, sometimes her opponent, often her playmate. I sit single at her meets and pretend it doesn't matter that we are alone surrounded by the fan clubs of others. I drag her to the gym early and keep her there late in the name of devotion but really we have no other choice.  By default she is isolated by my shortcomings.

Somewhere in my head I know she is okay. In my heart I can't help but to feel like I am letting her down. For everything I can do for her I fear it is the one thing I can't that will undo us.  She deserves so much more than just me...

the most convenient

Did you sleep he asks. His words quiet and slow, caught in a tangle of sleep. In the dark of morning the house sits on the edge of waking up. A dog groans, a cat switches sides on the sofa, and the coffee maker gurgles and seeps.

"Here is the thing," I say with a long pause so he knows I am trying to answer him, "no one should die in a convenience store. There are lots of bad places that are fine to die in but not there. It should never happen."

We hadn't talked about it. 

The news of a fatal shooting at a convenience store within a block of our house had been delivered by one of the clerks from the other store, the closer more convenient one right around the corner. He had come in to our house early Sunday morning bringing the mood of the rain with him.  "I thought you guys should know what happened last night..."

As he talked I remember thinking about life here on 10th. About a place where store clerks know where you live and you them. The clerk carrying the news had borrowed tools and BC's trailer- he had also dropped off beer and an emergency coke or two. 

Most of the clerks are locals. And in fact the clerk who was shot and killed -for our convenience- was also one of us. He lived right on 10th about 5 long doors down. About where the wild roosters like to cross.

Tenth is not a small street. It is a very big place to live... and die.

After the clerk left we didn't mention it again. We set it aside with the other items to handle later. 

We hadn't talked about on the 2 hr misty drive into the back country of Idaho- searching for hot water. 

We were going up for me. One of BC's last ditch efforts to offer me a piece of what I'm missing. Time far away in the middle of nowhere. Time to get cold and dirty and then too hot and not give a shit about any of it. 

A place without the need for conveniences. A place where ghost can whisper without being heard.   

He was seeking shelter for me from the storm I'm not seeming to be able to out run on my own.   

But I had thought about it anyway. Wondering about what happens when you die in the wrong place for no reason at all. Thoughts falling like the snow kissing the windshield, never getting anywhere, never piling up... and drifting away.

He tries again to assess where I am. 

"Misty, you never answered my question; did you get any sleep last night?"

"Tons." I say, because that is the most convenient answer.

yep. law enforcement is our friend (July 2011, Hiking without happymeals)

yep. law enforcement is our friend ~mlb

Law enforcement is our friend even when they have to cowboy up & be that good friend who is willing to tell you you have something stuck in your teeth, or how about that you have a hole in your insurance coverage? 

Our old policy expired this week before BC & I could forge an agreement on a new carrier. The only thing we could agree on was it wasn’t going to be the old one.  We felt like the Federal Government hopelessly dead locked.  

So I was taking a chance driving Beach to gymnastics.  I mean really what are the odds?  (Heard this out of my mouth before?)  

Pretty good as it turns out.  And you can see where this is going, we got pulled over.

The officer exits his highway patrol vehicle in the rain. 

“Good afternoon Miss, can I see your license, vehicle registration, & proof of insurance?”

“I don’t have my license on me.” I say opening the glove box. “What does the registration look like?” I ask handing him through the window every damn paper in the glove box.  

This accomplishes 2 things.  First and foremost it changes him from an Officer into a man, a woman just asked him to use his man skills to help her, serve & protect kick in to high gear.  He is instantly sweeter.  And second it uncovers my registration because I really have no fucking idea what it looks like.

He hands me back the rest of the papers along with the car’s owner’s manual, a drawing of Beach's, & a straw.

“Here is the insurance card but we are in the middle of changing policies and honestly Sir I don’t think we have coverage.”  

There. My crime spree is ended.  I feel relieved to have it all behind me.

“Well we can deal with that but the reason I pulled you over was your registration is expired.”

BUZZ. Wrong, that is not the crime I am busy committing. Wait what?!?!

“What do you mean my registration is expired?!”

“Expired Miss, back in May.”

“Okay that I didn’t know.  The questionable insurance coverage and not having my Utah DL I will own but had I known about the registration I would not have driven this car.”

“It’s going to be okay, just hang tight for me for a moment and I will look up the Driver’s License and we can check the insurance.”

Then the second Highway Patrol car pulls in.  

Now I should tell you that back on the highway I saw the first HP looking at me I pulled off early onto 700 East and when he followed and the lights went on I pulled into the parking lot of the The Salt Lake Running Company.  So I’m in the little red Subaru in the parking lot of a running store with 2 Highway Patrol cars surrounding us. Yep. This getting good. 

I have had other brushes with the law.  I got pulled over about 10 years ago oddly enough in another Subaru wagon gunning it to try to get some speed behind me just to make it up and around the east side of 215. 

“Do you know you were going 85 miles per hour?” he asked.

*Laugh, snort*, “Officer this car could not go 85 if you pushed it off a cliff and any way I wasn’t.  I was going fifty because I was in fifth.  My husband taught me to drive and he told me first is ten, second is twenty, third thirty, fourth forty, and fifth fifty.”  *Girl Smile*

His turn: *laugh, snort*, “Hold on a minute Miss.”  I could see him laughing so hard he was shaking as he walked back to his car trying to compose himself.  Ten minutes later with no luck and even less composure, tears streaming down his face he got out of his car and waved me away. 

I could see this was not going to end that way because then the third car pulls in.

That’s right I am so BAD it takes 3, count them 3 HP’s to take me in…or simply there was a horrible crash up the interstate a few miles from me and my crime spree & they were all hanging around the aftermath.  

So he issued me a warning about not carrying my DL, a ticket for the expired registration, & a good chance to prove I actually do still have coverage under the old policy for three more days.

“Now we could in-pound the car but I’m not going to do that to you so if I were you I would leave it here until you have your proof of insurance but we are going leave and what you do when we leave is up to you.”

I have older sisters I’m not falling for that one.  I take Beach’s hand walk her in front of a 3 HP cars into The Salt Lake Running Company. The doors slide open and the staff gasps but it’s okay I am among my people here.  

“I brought the police with me.” I laugh standing in my Adidas T-shirt, running shorts, sports watch, & new balance running shoes.

“What did you do?” One of them asks.

“My car isn’t registered.  Can I use your phone?”

  

In the end Beach was a half hour late to gymnastics with very little appreciation for the humor of the situation and I got to drive Chester the Molester Van home while BC sneaked Little Red the Suburb Mom Wagon the back way home down 27oo South to our mechanic.

You just got your ass pulled over by 3 HP officers & lived to tell about it what are you going to do?  I’m going to get my Driver’s License, walk to 7/11, & buy some beer.  I could really use a drink.