Vintage: I Saw What I Saw

While you're wondering what happened to me, and I'm doing my best to do anything but blog, I'm going to share this vintage piece I wrote ages ago, after an experience in the October of 2007.  It is merely about perspective.  Don't read too much into it.  Or you'll be like me.  We don't want that.  From this point on, it is exactly how I wrote it then.  It has been left untouched.

Disclaimer: For those seeking my usual satire or humor, please note that this is of a more serious tone.  Although it may still be insightful and worthy of your time, it most likely will not be of the jocund variety.  Also, I began writing this on Tuesday, so time is no longer accurate or relevant.

  

I see a lot of things.  Some of the things I see are hallucinations.  That happens, especially when you're as wacky as I am.  And some of what I see is real. Like the homeless looking guy I caught a glimpse of last month. He was riding a bike, with a computer balanced on the handlebars.  At night.  With no reflectors.  And I was enamored by this, naturally.  Was I imagining it?  No, I swear to you I wasn't.  I told myself I'd write about that moment for everyone's benefit, but of course, I never did.  But I didn't want to forget because some things I see are worth mentioning, are worth sharing, are worth remembering.

Yesterday, I was coming back from a week long road trip, driving through Missouri, returning from visiting other states, taking in the beauty of the autumn colors surrounding me.  It was breathtaking.  During this wonder, I received a phone call.  As typical for me, I retrieved my phone in time to miss the call. I won't bore you with details of unnecessary proportions, like how an hour prior to this, it was determined I should call this person to ask about how they were doing and if they'd heard about how someone else was doing.  And I also won't mention to you how this person was calling because of how the other person was doing.  All I will divulge is that my voyage to home from the exquisite trees of Missouri sojourned at a hospital, a destination not on the vacation itinerary, but somewhere I needed to be nonetheless.

In the insanity that ensued during this time, it wasn't all that insane.  It was actually almost peaceful, surreal, considering what was happening, considering what everyone was waiting for.  And as I proceeded down the sparkling clean, bleach scoured corridor, I was for one of the rarest occasions in my life, even perhaps the only time, not at all curious about what I'd see.  I didn't have my usual millions of questions.  My menacing mind wasn't juggling scenarios.  Maybe I was frightened, but above all, I was just numb; really, really numb.  And not curious in the slightest.

Once we entered that room, I found myself looking in as a bystander.  Somewhere down that hallway, I misplaced my relative status.  I forgot who I was. I forgot who was in that bed.  I forgot why I was there.  All I knew was sadness had engulfed the entire space of the room, sadness so great it swallowed every emotion, encumbered every thought of anyone in a two mile radius.  But I was still just numb.  And then I became reflective.  And while the despair sucked tears from every eye, I was immune.  Well, not fully impervious, but after years of being me, I do have certain immunities.  But it wasn't that.  I was captivated.

I don't know how to explain what happened in a comprehensible manner.   There in the hospital bed was someone cherished and respected, someone well loved by all those around him, and all that was left was his irreplaceable shadow.  His skin was a shade of yellow I couldn't recall and later I realized it was because of the jaundice.  I had forgotten about that minor detail.  Cancer had eaten away at him, but it never made it to his dignity, to his spirit.  And although I regretted seeing him in such a way, and I was in a state of obscurity due to his condition, he strangely enough wasn't my focus.  He's not the story I will reveal for years to come and the vision I'll hold onto for the rest of my life.

You're going to find me crazy, you probably do anyway, but I was transfixed by something else, someone else in that hospital room that day.  Beside the shadow was his heart, stiffened in a chair.  The true heart outside of his chest, she was a stunning marvel, going through a process few people could ever identify with. I don't know how to clearly explain my infatuation with the woman in the chair, the peril of strength she always is; in such a weakened state, she seemed even stronger than ever because of that. 

In front of me and all my confusion, was one of the loveliest sights I have ever witnessed.  I couldn't take my eyes off of her.  She was lost in a trance, her droopy eyes, lost in her thoughts, mislaid in the moment, dying as only a life can do.  I think I could have waved a hand in front of her face, and she wouldn't have ever noticed.  And finally I was curious.  Was she lost in thought?  Or was she sick of thinking?  Her circumstance was unfair and unfathomable.  And that only had me rapt more.

Her russet eyes were made of glass and there was a reflection of lights and darkness off of them.  Her expression was frozen in time and will forever be embedded in my brain, and this will disturb you, but if I could've gotten away with taking a photo, I would've done it.  But the snapshot is framed in a special region inside my head, an area reserved for things most people would never grasp, but I treasure them anyway.  She was morose, in the worst pain of her life, so what was wrong with me to find it besotting?  I can't answer that for you.  I can't answer that for me.  But I was caught in such intrigue. And I unintentionally impolitely stared at her.  She never knew.  She had no idea.

I wasn't being uncouth, I assure you; at least not deliberately.  I was taking in a realm of emotion that few people could ever be exposed to.  I wanted to present to her my heart to replace her breaking one.  I admired her poise, her loyalty.  But never once did I envy it.  Never once did I wish to be her.  She had transformed into one of the greatest pieces of art and I was respectfully admiring it.  Never had I seen such unconditional love until that moment.  She defined it. 

I only heard the woman speak once during this.  The doctors had stopped some medication because there was nothing else they could do.  They asked her if she wanted some alone time, and she answered, "I think I do."  The room of people resumed later bringing me with them and I examined her, exploring her sole expression all over again.  And as motionless as she had been, she suddenly jumped with a vengeance, in her weakened condition asked a nurse to remove the blood congregating around the tube in his mouth.  I had been completely unaware of the vivid red, caused by the massive internal bleeding. And standing before me in a position I wasn't familiar with, she broke down for the first time I had seen.  She mentioned losing him and every single head in that room united in thought that the prospect of the blood reminded her all over again what was happening to him, to her, to their son.  And she continued.  She gasped.  And she repeated her concern.  Adamantly.  And as we kept overhearing, "I'm losing him, he's gone," suddenly the invasive machine's countdown started, and within seconds her prediction, her knowledge had been right all along.  And I couldn't get over the fact that not only was she the most inspiring display I've ever seen, she was the most phenomenal.  I had heard of this occurring, but until this instant it had only been an unexplored myth.  But there really is such a connection so deep between two people and it is possible to be that entwined that one person can know.  They know.  Because she knew.

I will be haunted by that for eternity.  I will relish that for the rest of my life.  I will always ponder how.  But sometimes in life, there is no rhyme or reason, it just is.  And it just was.  For the first time, I heard the sound of a heart breaking.  And although I never want to see or hear something as powerful ever again, I have to appreciate the moment shared with me.  And as I felt like such an outsider and being so intrusive into such personal territory, it was an experience like nothing I'd ever observed and I'm a better person for it.  In me it will stay.

Within moments, the strongest woman in the world became a widow.   And through all of her sobs, she confessed she knew how sick he was and that this was a better passage for him, much better than any alternative to the situation.  And after a continuance of weeping, she suddenly looked up and towards the window and pointed the room to the sun.  There had been no sun that day, and then there it was, coming out long enough to set, coming out long enough to allow the woman to know its presence.  And as the faces looked up, a huge flock of birds flew across the horizon, looking picturesque and something only an incredibly gifted writer could have written, something unfortunately I cannot adequately describe to you.

And as enlightening as the sunset when there was no sun at all, and magically depressing as it all should have been to me, I still hold onto the image of the woman.  In all her vulnerability, she was beautiful, the most beautiful I have ever seen her.  I don't expect you to understand.  It was like in a photograph or a painting.  And it was beautiful.  Human emotion is beautiful.  Even the tears.  Even the despondency.  Life is beautiful.  And maybe death can be too. Because I saw what I saw, and what I saw, that was beautiful.

10 in 10 Days

Except that was nine days ago.




Where has the time gone?!  How has it escaped me so?






July 3rd, The Redhead exclaims from the backseat of the car, "I'll be ten in ten days.  Double digits! Oh yeah!"


It was a bittersweet announcement.  At least for me.  She was ecstatic.  For me, sometimes it seems like she's been in our lives forever, and other times, it doesn't seem possible it's been almost an exact decade. Parenthood for me has been finding that missing piece of my soul in a tiny human being and marveling at the miracle of such.  Rediscovering that bliss each and every day.  I'm not sad she's ageing.  I've never felt that way.  I enjoy every waking moment of being her mother and I embrace each and every year.



The best is yet to come.  I just know it.  But I'm going to attempt to treasure every moment I can.

I like Madness. And bow ties.

And by the way, I'm not a scrapbooker, but you wouldn't know that.  And I had this urge today to do something else.  Something bigger.  Something messy.  So I collected my supplies from the craft stores and I got to work.  And all this one needs is a name tag and it will be completed.

The party plans have been too easy.  I needed to shake things up.  I needed a real project.  Making an atom among other little things just hasn't been enough.  Now I feel more like myself.

99 Reasons: Catching Up

Even though I haven't posted any recent shopping trips at that one particular store, you and I both know I've still been shopping.  It's not like I'm going to just quit or something.  That would take willpower.  Which I don't have.  I can give you reasons why I haven't been posting my 99 Discoveries or...I can just show you my purchases.  Either way.  I choose the latter. 

Those pretzels....are SO GOOD.

Yes, they sell milk.  And eggs.  And other things...that aren't 99 cents.  But technically everything is 99.99 cents.  And they round up. Which makes it a $1.  The milk is $3.79 or so, which is fine with me.  It saves me an extra trip, and I appreciate that.  As for those Hanes bras, I thought they'd make a nice donation item.

The cell phone cases were nifty.  But they made my lungs burn, and even though my lungs do that anyway, my nose claimed they smelled like charcoal.  Another funny thing about those.  The one is made to look like a cassette and The Redhead asks me, "What is that supposed to be anyway?"

I'm slowly picking up party supplies, random items I keep thinking I should get.  Among other things.

Gotcha!

On July 6 of last year, we should have been at a wedding in Kansas.  Our beautiful sitter's wedding, a Cinderella affair.  Instead, we were at Petsmart, acquiring a cat.  I had intended to only pick up a business card before getting lunch and heading to a Despicable movie.  And I know I've told this story multiple times, too many times, but that business card turned into, "please, please, I'll do anything."  And The Redhead just kept saying it, followed by, "I love her, and she loves me."  She found a homely looking kitten and wanted to make it hers.  And that was not our intention.


Of course, we ended up paying to adopt that kitten anyway, and they agreed to let us pick her up later.  They knew they had us.  So we went for lunch, saw our movie, headed home for the pet taxi that luckily we had brought in the car with us from Kansas (for the Perpetual Toddler and not a cat), and retrieved that little kitten we had never intended to get that day.



Finding Alexandra that day was probably for the best.  Two days after we arrived as a family to California seemed a bit hurried, but for The Redhead, she had waited an eternity.  We had originally asked her to wait until after Spring Break that past March, and then the job prospect became quite serious.  And well, traveling across country with a feline seemed like a really bad idea.  Traveling with dogs seemed crazy enough.  And it was.



Although we thought it was too soon to get a cat, we think back to it now, and I know it was for the best.  The Redhead had few toys to entertain her and only a few of her stuffed friends.  That homely little kitten ended up being a welcomed playmate. Once The Redhead's easel arrived with the rest of our belongings over two weeks after we arrived, she realized she had meant to name Alexandra something else.  She had a list of boy and girl names and Audrey was on the list.  Alexandra never had been, but it's perfect nonetheless.


And Alexandra has also been perfect.  She has completed our family in a way I didn't think was possible with a cat.  So far, she still has her claws, as she's not that interested in using them in hideous ways like other felines.  And I'm going to need to knock on my desk in a second, but she hasn't had a lot of naughty habits like other cats.  She doesn't like to jump very high.  She loves being carried.  She doesn't mind when you touch her tail, paws, stomach, or any other part of her.  In fact, she loves it.  She makes the sweetest noises.  People who don't even like cats like her.  Including my Father-in-Law who I repeatedly caught playing with her and luring into his luggage.  She loves The Redhead more than I thought cats could love children.  And she's made up for how hateful our former cat Aerial was, our sick feline who lived to almost exactly thirteen years.


So Happy Gotcha Day, Alexandra.  As much as it nauseates me to use that term, a term we first heard from a lousy Disney show, "Gotcha Day" has stuck, and well, July 6, will always be her, "Gotcha Day."  Which she shares as our former sitter's Anniversary Date.  It was meant to be.  She was meant to be. And if you ever need a feline picked out, I think The Redhead might have a gift.  Something tells me that silver marbled kitten with blue eyes that Mister Man and I liked would have been a holy terror.  And that cat definitely wouldn't have been our Alexandra.

 A few pictures, because that's how I am.

 We didn't mean to put her on exhibit in front of the dogs, it just sort worked out that way.

 A gift for the Gotcha Day Girl:

And because we do not eat cat food, I made us our own cake.

And this one did manage to get even for Alexandra's special "cake" and stole the rest.  She was banished to her kennel, but she smugly and gladly went there.  She felt the crime was worth it.

A Letter to our Neighbors

Dear Neighbors,


        Aside from waving in the mornings and evenings, and maybe a simple "hi" or "hello" from time to time, you don't really know us.  All you know is that we moved from Kansas and bought the house from Gladys, that lovely eighty plus year old lady who owned this house from the time it was built.  You may have even noticed that it sure took us plenty of time to license our cars in California and that we painted over that fecal brown paint and stripes back in May.  Knowing those things about us is enough.  We're fine with waving and a brief "hello."


      However, where we came from, shooting fireworks in town was illegal.  Then again, it's illegal here too.  Plus, add in the dry climate of Sacramento, the current drought, and the browning, dying grass, you'd think it's just common sense that fireworks aren't allowed.  I realize there are firework stands all throughout the suburbs, right within the city limits, something we never would have found in Kansas.  But that doesn't change the legalities, the drought, and most of all, the aversion my large Newfoundland has.  So you can only imagine how we felt as we had fireworks flying above our house for what felt like an eternity, coming from the sides, the front, and the back of our humble abode.


   
       Your fireworks were all lovely, I assure you.  And we should appreciate the display each of you set off for us, without having to leave our formerly striped home.  However, we were too preoccupied by the items bouncing off our roof, our dogs whining, the paper lanterns flying in the sky, and the fireworks shot directly over our house from every direction imaginable.  Our backyard grass is dead, so there was that slight concern of anything landing there.  We have house insurance, of course.  But neither one of us wants to use it.  I'm sure you understand.  Our houses are all fairly close together.  If ours is on fire, yours probably will be soon.



        So while we thought the random fireworks throughout the year were obnoxious enough, especially the ones on New Year's Eve, we weren't the biggest fans of such a spectacle.  So next year, while you continue to shoot off your fiery bombs, we'll be hiding in our house with the hose ready.  And we will probably do just as we did this year, hang out in the living room with the television loudly and assure our dogs that all will be right in the world eventually.  Because we know you won't suddenly follow the laws, and we won't stir any animosity with you by calling you out.  But just know, please know, that next year, we would love it if all of you offset your aim just a bit and went over another house.  Like the abandoned one next to us.



                                                                                                                       Sincerely,


                                                                                                                           The House with the Rocks

The 'One Year Ago' Game

I've been finding myself saying, "one year ago..." since this time last year.  Sometimes, I even include such memories on the blog.  And within the last couple of weeks, I've been saying it even more.  I keep meaning to blog about these moments, but alas, I haven't.  So it's too late to tell you how a year ago on June 30, we were finally leaving our house in Kansas before 10 at night, driving as long as we could before sleeping briefly in our car at a rest stop because Mister Man simply couldn't drive anymore.  Yeah, we seriously did that.


Or how July 1 of last year, we made it to Utah in my poor, broken car, and fortunately, found a mechanic right next to our hotel.  A hotel that allowed our dogs.  We hung out there three extra nights with our dogs as the mechanic got our parts in and worked on our car so we could finally head out on July 4 in a car without air conditioning, heading straight through the desert.  Which brings us to this time last year, us arriving at our California house with hungry stomachs and curious furry beasts.  By afternoon, we abandoned them in a house without furnishings, a house they'd never seen before, and looked around IKEA and watched Monsters University in a local cinema before driving back in two cars (we picked up one from the airport) and drove past a huge fire.



For a lot of people, they can't believe it's been a year.  For us, it feels like a lifetime ago.  We barely remember that time.  It's just this monstrous blur.  I'm not sure if it's because it was that traumatic, or if it was just too much to consume at once, and too much to remember.  I would like to think it's because we're settled now. We've gotten past the initial transition and the majority of the chaos.  And now we're home.  While we still miss some things about Kansas, and I certainly miss some of the people, we are now Californians.  Or at least we're closer to becoming so.  We were never truly Kansans anyway.  We just happened to live there.



Happy Independence from Kansas Day!  At least what I'm calling it now.




I'll probably continue to play the memory game, as I have that sort of memory, and I remember dates quite well.  But that nostalgia, those memories don't necessarily mean I'm clinging to the past.  I'm just cherishing our whole story.  I'm going to continue remembering the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Because those are all parts of our glorious tale, and the foundations of where we are now.




A year ago today, we drove down our street realizing we left our dogs in a strange place for hours, alone, and fireworks had been going off all around them.  Like many canines, the big beast hates fireworks.  We were so consumed by our own chaos, we hadn't even realized how unintentionally cruel we were being. We stayed home this year.  We sort of owed them one.