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Thursday, June 30, 2016

Weird days.

Writing about my hearing a little, as i did in the last post, is a little weird these days.  These days are weird.

fiddling with the aide... 
But, as I have been spending a lot of time in therapy, and a lot of time thinking about myself (which is good. and bad.), my hearing has been coming up more and more as a significant obstacle.  An obstacle to the sorts of work I can do in my future, an obstacle to the social relationships that I may want to forge.  One of the things this hearing does is get in the way of my understanding conversational flow.  If I am sitting in a small group and things are bouncing and bounding as they do, I miss almost all of it.  One on one? I'm a freaking rockstar. but more than that? I start quieting, missing bits and pieces and losing the thread entirely.

Last time I was single, this was not the case, and I enjoyed myself in social situations quite a bit. Still and always an introvert, I still loved witty rejoinders, humor of almost all kinds...not really a fan of humor with 'boobs' in it, but I can dig it sometimes, when I get to then make fun of the joker.

The J is/was a social succubus and can talk to anyone, for any length of time and really make them feel like he is involved.  Just because he can turn and do it immediately to the next person, without a blink, and without any depth of actual intimacy doesn't make him a sociopath, right? Bligh...not true. Emotional Tourette's.
But because he had that skill, I left it to him, and did not make my own way further down this new, quieter path. so now I am.

SO what? How does one share life in a meaningful way when that conversational flow is so stilted? I'm probably too old to hang at bars, and I'd be on my own there anyhow, so What?

What is this going to look like?

I don't know either.  I say that a lot in these weird days.  I don't know what it is going to look like.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Deaf, and in the waters...

Today I took my boys and my niece to the water park.  The littlest was dropped at my mom's and we took our chances with the grey day and headed out to tackle the one thing that has lasted two whole Summer's on our 'gotta do it' summer list.  The water park: slides, floats, tubes, waves, lots and lots of cement, lots and lots of chlorine... And water. Beyond the beyond.

If you've been reading here for a long time, you might already know that I have pretty 'tricky' hearing.  I've got one ear that is totally deaf (hello?? Car. Bike. Boom.((me on the bike.)) The other ear has a profound hearing loss and is filled up almost 24 hours a day with a high-powered hearing aide that is nonetheless really tiny and mostly cute.

But I got some challenges in the hearing department and put me in the middle of a water park, and this kid can't wear the hearing aide. Water, electrics, no mix. The kids were forewarned, and frankly, really loud as a baseline, so we all got along just fine. I did get yelled at by a lifeguard, but it was a mistake, and the poor kid was more stressed out than I was, so it ended up all good.  When you can't hear someone yelling at you, it is much easier to bear.

The whole reason I am writing today is to share this moment: as I went down the blue slide, the yellow slide, the red... I was totally deaf.  I slid, I rode and watched waters rushing, I slapped my boys on the shoulders, I grabbed them with my feet and my fingers, but it was all silent.

Completely silent. Charlie Chaplin silent.  It is something you can probably envision because we've all seen that commercial at some point, with someone else's toes in the slide... And, just believe me, it's a quiet and beautiful thing...just taking all the noise away, makes it magic, real magic.

In these six months of separation, J has had the kids every weekend, and I have not.  I have missed so the formless times of late wake ups, meals with no boundaries, 'activities' designed with nothing but fun in mind.

So this summer is especially ripe.  And I'm on the climb.


Monday, June 20, 2016

I'm okay, you know.  My life of mom of sports kids is winding down, and there is one more game/trophy ceremony to go through, but I am planning already to miss it as it will be my birthday, and I can do without seeing another trophy ceremony for second graders who really live in the ether and not on the ball field, thank you very much.




I have three more days after today, before the school year is finished.  I am trying to relish them deeply, the quiet, the pressureless wait for the bus to return, the tiny Three and I sitting around, playdoughing, tireswinging, just us.

Today I go, again, to the house I have loved, to fix a hole in a closet wall, and to meet with the realtor again, to be certain it will get onto the 'market'.  It is my birthday present to myself, this work.  The house is one of my beloveds, and while I still set aflame the man and the history he tries to tarnish, the house stands, beauty in its bones.

One of the things I have realized, as I look upon that house, and the one I live in which is threatened by the man, is that I AM a homemaker.  it only took me ten years or so, and two of the three are in school now...  slow tides.... all these items, these corners of beauty, all have come about because of me, and my thought for their creation.  I am feeling deeply rooted, and deeply possessive. There is a floating knowledge that I may not be able to afford to keep the kids here, and so, like the last week before school lets out, I am trying to spread out my awareness to all its magic.  The sparkle lights by the back door, the tin heart hanging on the wall outside the kids rooms, the paper mache snake hanging over the dining room table, the tea cups J's grandmother gifted us for our wedding, the primary colors of kidtoys and the stories they have all seen... the half-done treehouse, which may live its days half-done, but used.  the view from its platform is legendary. . . in that it captures this magic, the grasses, the home.

so, there is a lot.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Six months.

evidently, thats how long it takes, to dismantle fifteen years of marriage. To shred memories, to make two people into utter strangers, to make the stories all show their wear and their lie.

six months.

on a side note, my new chickens have started to lay eggs, and I can be the egg woman of my dreams in the next few weeks.  how bout that?


sorry, a short post, and i know i have dropped off the face of the earth, but i am here.

Monday, June 6, 2016

GIANT Asterisk: one sentence, one thought.

An online friend was exploring what an asterisk was and I am completely enthralled.  Originally, starlike, with teardrops radiating out from the center, connotating an omission, a dropped sound, a deliberate pause.


I'm living in an asterisk.

How damn cool is that?



Photo Credit: denisecoles via Compfight cc

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Remember.

I sat on the stoop of the first house I ever owned. I had been cleaning to get it ready to sell. I was quiet, after much lifting and sweating and moving things from the basement that have been there for five years, and probably more than that. I bleached baseboards, and washed memories of dog from the front door. I was on my own, as the man with whom I shared that house, and that family with, has moved on and on and on.

I remember writing a post one time years ago about his having had the last beer, and leaving me on my own with my afternoon frustrations with the kids and the life. I remember the nights of not-knowing when he'd get home, the weeks of his overnight shifts, the pressure he felt at the steepness of his learning curve on the new job.

I remember the fire between the two houses and being woken, irritated, and then seeing a fireman in my bedroom and carrying the infant outside in a blanket. I remember my neighbors, I remember an everlasting battle with the bamboo, and I remember the awesome glory of the cherry tree in bloom. The whole kitchen was bathed in pink.

I remember losing my hearing entirely. I remember thinking of suicide. I remember telling him to get a new wife. I slept with my hand on my infant's chest to be ready to wake and nurse. I remember the kids in the neighborhood being a needy bunch, no socks in the whole lot, and turning them away when they showed up with a toddler. I remember his parents sleeping over often enough that the pull-out bed was named for them. I remember crying while watching a narnia movie on Christmas Eve...I remember rocking my children to sleep and trying all crazed tries to get them to go to bed on their own. They still, now three, all sleep with me in my bed. The bed time routine involves piling up, books, and stories told in the night... I remember the boys first experiences with snow, with rope swings, with log piles. The dog who died before the move, Roxanne. I remember it all. all of it, not just the pretty.

As I drove away, I thought first of him, and his new life, free of memory, and then I thought of me, and raised my fist, ala john bender, and thought... my past is on fire, aflame, and I am driving off.  Let it burn, beauty and all.

Let it burn.