Morning Reading

We had a snowy week. Only one day was bad enough to stay home but I'm always worried about falling so I stayed home the whole week. I'd eat breakfast and then take my coffee, sit in my recliner by the window, pull on the purple throw and read.
In the past I have turned on the news and the computer first thing and preformed a simulacra of working. I usually read in the afternoon and/or evenings. Morning reading feels decadent. Luxurious. I have no where else to be. There are things I could be doing. Dusting the never ending dust, emptying the drier, watering the plants, writing a blog post. Writing anything. But no. I sit with my legs up turning pages and feeling like I am doing exactly what I need to be doing.
After the snow week the morning reading has continued on the days I don't swim. Swimming is the only thing I'd rather be doing.
I blazed through seven novels and a book of essays and I loved all of them. Reading so many books in a row like that can be tricky. A writing style that you love one day feels hollow in comparison to another that you just loved.
I took a class on women writers of the southern cone years ago. We read Of Love and Shadow by Allende right after Mothers and Shadows by Marta Traba. I like Allende very much and have read many of her books. But following Traba's much sleeker and more devastating prose the Allende read like a romance novel. I feel like I would have liked it better if I'd read it first. The Traba tore me open. I'm not sure any writing would have felt real after that. 
I just finished another book of essays. This one by Vivian Gornick. The book is about rereading but as with all Gornick it's really about everything. There was an essay about this problem of reading when you aren't open to the writing and then rereading. She mentions a reviewer who had given a book a bad review and then reread it at a later date and loved it. One of the reasons I don't read or write many reviews is the fluidity of affection.
I bought books specifically because I want to reread them. Books that I read when I was younger. I spent the summer between my junior and senior high school year reading Dostoevsky. I'm sure I would get so much more out of those books if I reread them now. I started to buy all of the Anais Njn diaries but hesitated because I doubted I'd get through them ... again. I'd like to reread all of the Little House books. DH Lawrence. Lawernce Durrell. Collette. Jung.
Years ago I was house sitting for a friend who had all of the Herman Hesse books. I had read them all in high school and loved them dearly. They were pivotal in terms of how I saw the world. I tried to reread them and found them horrible. But I wonder if I might try again and ... fall back in love.
There are just so many new books. And I'm always seeing more. It's quite overwhelming. I am a slow reader. I often need to read sentences and paragraphs two or three times. I may have dyslexia. Or I may just not be able to concentrate. 
OK.
So.
Back to the book. 

Shelving

Someone recently asked me if I had a method to how I shelved my books. I was thinking about it as I stood in front of a shelf looking for my Borges.
I have one specific goal. I want all the books by a specific author together. That was a challenge for me before I had so much shelf space. An author can have a bunch of books in the same size and then one that is much bigger, or smaller. If the new book doesn't fit on the shelf sometimes the best you can do is put it near by. There are exceptions to all-books-by-the-same-author-in-the-same-place. I have a few sets in which a group of authors were asked to write in a given format. I have almost all of the Canongate myth series. I lost interest when they change the size of the books. I wasn't alone. Comments on the web site were scathing. When you invest in the idea of a set you get a little attached.
If you're a crazy person.
Like me.
I also really like the Modern Library and Library of America books. I love the line of matching spines.  And I have a few stacks around the nest of very small books. There are some scattered authors.
I forgot to mention that there is a row of poetry and literary journals. That shelf moved several times. Downward. It was too high. I needed it right beside me. There is a row of books about food. Memoirs and essays. I have a really chunky bunch of my beloved Mary Francis (MFK Fisher) many of which were given to me by Val. I only have half a shelf of those kind of books so right in the middle It shifts to random titles.
In the conversation about shelving I mentioned my idea about reading Proust right away if I'm ever diagnosed with a terminal illness. Penquin started publishing really interesting translations of the books years ago and I have the first four. Then (when he was a congressman)  Sonny Bono authored the Copywrite Term Extension Act. It froze the date at which things can become public domain. He did this to protect Micky Mouse. (eye-roll) It also stopped the publication of the Proust translations. The copyright on the last two books expired in 2019 but it isn't clear if Penguin will publish them. I'll be impressed with myself if I make it through the first four. It still aggravates me to look at them and know there are two missing. 
This obsession with books on shelves started when I was young. The mommie wouldn't buy books but she took me to the library. I can still visualize the row of Little House books. I read them all several times. I remember Little Women. It was a white cover on which there were little squares with drawings of the four March sisters. Under those were another row of images of all the interests of each of them. I checked it out a few times. When I didn't have it I usually checked to make sure it was still there and I worried when it wasn't. It was my book.
My aunt took me to the tiny library in Fredericktown, Mo when I visited my grandmother. My aunt was a teacher and was well versed in books for children. She had arranged for there to be a stack of her choices available. She was big on Lois Lensky, as was I. I looked around as we picked up our stack. There wasn't much there. Made me sad. She went back to St Louis for the week and when she returned we'd discuss the books. I often tried to begin the conversation before she was half out of the car.
As soon as I was old enough to earn my own money I bought books, much to the dismay of the mommie. I love libraries but I also love having my own.
This standing in front of a book case looking for a book thing happens all the time. I don't actually have that many. I do have enough to be confused about where things are. I was looking for the Borges because I found two books about him and wanted to put them beside the books by him. One is by Manquel, a very small volume. I think I have read it but I'm rereading it. I was looking in the library and suddenly remembered the Borges was in the living room. Now I'm thinking I'll move the Borges next to the Manquel.
Crazy person.

Last of the year.

My birthday is in June. In my early adult life I'd do a critical assessment of my self every six months. It was exhausting. I'm not even sure when I stopped but I did stop. Happily.
I don't make resolutions. Resolutions seem like a way to feel bad about yourself. I am always thinking about ways to feel better. Ageing makes a new to do list as fast as you can scratch things off.
I want to write more.
I always want to write more.
I want to draw. It feels really hard to integrate it into my day. Why? I don't know
I've been trying to meditate. It feels like I should mediate in the beginning of the day but that never works. So I've been trying to meditate at night before I sleep. I've done four (maybe five) days so far. It's not good meditation. It's me laughing a lot at how hard it is to quiet my brain and my body. Ten minutes is as much as I've been able to do so far. For the moment I'm just happy I'm doing it at all.
I'm content with how much I exercise. I do yoga every day and bike pedals every day. I swim, four days a week. I think my yoga could be more focused. I was doing some hand weights and I bagged on them. It's just so boring. I feel like I need to keep my arms strong so I'm going to try and get that back.
I have some digestive issues that I need to try and accommodate. I am really not sure how I'm going to do that because it's not clear on what the problem is. My biggest food problem is being desperately hungry after I swim. It's not always true but it often is and always has been. If I'm not careful at that time my appetite gets all messed up. If I eat carbs or sugar with no protein I can't stop eating. Even if I eat protein it has to be the right kind. I have no idea what I mean by that. I'm going to experiment with Splendid Spoon. I think you're supposed to drink a smoothie for breakfast and one of the grain and veggie bowls for lunch. I really like my breakfast. I'm going to keep it the way I want it. I'll either drink the smoothie or eat the grain bowl (or both) for lunch. I'm not that into dinner. I often eat and apple and call it a day. They send five days worth. I usually cook for Jane on Saturday and eat lunch with Mandy on Monday. So that's the week. If I can manage the after swim food panic I think things will be fine. I'm not sure though. We'll see. I just don't always want to cook. And I mean when I'm having a food panic I DO NOT WANT to cook at all. I try to make things ahead of time but I'm also really fussy and can't figure out what I want to eat. Aging pancreas. Wacky blood sugar. And so on.
I'm going to drink tea instead of coffee. At some point this year I stopped wanting coffee. I only drink it on non swim days, I have more time to relax and sip. That part won't really change. I'll drink Numi gunpowder green tea. My favorite. If I really want coffee, I'll drink coffee. 
I'm not sure how I feel about the last year. There are so many moving parts. Today I feel pretty good. I'm already in my pajamas. My new pajamas. They are black and soft and I like them so much. I have snacks planned for the rest of the day and some Prosecco. I have roses. They're a week old and kind of fading but I can't toss them yet.
The nest is clean.
I have new books.

"The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
The heart will not retreat."
                                       Leonard Cohen

Parade

I have been writing a post in June every year on the day I moved into the nest. I always write that I love my nest and am ambivalent about the Hood. It's still true. I love my nest. I never get tired of just sitting and looking around. It's all beautiful and filled with objects that are loaded with meaning and memory.
I am still ambivalent about the Hood with a few exceptions.
I love the Christmas parade.

The mommie died a few days before Thanksgiving. November is a bad month, full of sadness and memory swarms. Thanksgiving, which used to be my favorite holiday, is a dark day for me. Partly because of the swarms and partly because I love to cook for people. In my young adult life I cooked huge meals for all the orphans in town. Even smaller dinners were fun for me. But I don't have the stamina to cook for days. Most of what I cook now happens on top of the stove. Hot and fast.
So I crawl through November but as soon as possible, after Thanksgiving is over, I like to decorate.
A few years ago I was looking for a tree and just couldn't find one. I don't have a lot of space. They were all too tall, too wide. Just not gonna work. We went to the local garden store, knowing that they probably didn't have cut trees but they did have live ones in big buckets ready to be planted. And there was a perfect tree. That began the tradition of buying a live one, enjoying it for the holly-daze and then planting it in a friend's back yard. It is more expensive but it feels great. The trees last longer inside and, so far, grow well once they are planted.
Most of them are in one particular friend's yard. Last year, a woman with whom I'd had a pleasant casual friendship in the pool, mentioned being sad because she'd lost two trees from her yard.  One from illness and the other because of a problem with the roots. I told her about my new Christmas tree tradition and offered her the one from that year. It was all pretty fun. I texted her pictures of the tree when it was decorated. She and her husband came to pick it up and we chatted. They sent me pictures of it planted. Her husband is a jazz guy. We named it, Miles.
A short time later she sent me a long text telling me she went to OA (over eaters anonymous) and asking if I wanted to join. She wrote this in a relatively passive way but the assumption that she had any idea about how much I eat irritated me. I wrote a fairly terse no and she didn't ask why. When we saw each other at the pool I was not as open and I think she might have felt a bit tenuous. In the year that followed we didn't talk as much. Once in a while she would mention that the tree was doing well. Sad.
Sort of.

I have a crazy amount of ornaments. My friend does all the work putting them on the tree while I tell stories about them. Like so many things in my world many of the decorations are the mommie's. Many are things I would not have purchased. And I love them now. She had a small Christmas village. It sits on the shelf above my head as I type.
On what would be her last Christmas my friend helped me put the village up on her window sill. Before I left I told her she didn't need to unplug them. They were like a night light. When she came back from dinner some of the ladies joined her and there was an impromptu party in her room. I was always hoping she'd be more social so I was really happy to hear about it when I called to say good night.
She was too worried to leave them on. She couldn't find the plugs so she ripped out the bulbs, breaking most of them. When she turned around she fell. She was covered in back and blue marks and had a small skin tear. I get weepy when I think about it.
All the memories aren't good. But I don't need them to be.

I live on the main street in down town Hood River. There are a few times a year when it gets blocked off. In the summers on first Fridays. Halloween and for the Christmas parade. First Fridays are OK. Halloween is really fun. All the shops hand out candy. In the early evening there are lots of kids. So much cuteness. And I love the Christmas parade. It's a time when the Hood is most like a small town.  Local businesses make sweet little floats. Fire trucks and cop cars are covered in lights. Santa shows up at the end tossing small bags of candy. It all ends at the bottom of the hill. They light a tree one block up. I can't see that part but I do get to sit in my chair and watch the parade.
Last year my friend found the perfect huge wreath for my little balcony. When the tree is up my window is full of light. I have a few Christmas plates. I have Santa pins for my coat. I have a mix of Christmas music by artists I love. I shop like a maniac. I get sad and feel lonely but not like I do in November. And then it's a new year.

I think about moving away from the Hood but I don't really want to leave my nest. And moving about kicked my ass the last time. Not sure I can do it again. So I'm kind of a cranky, judgy old lady sulking in my nest ... but not when the Christmas parade is passing by.

Six Years In

I never write.
I have things I might like to write about but I do not get it done.
So when this anniversary of my life in Oregon arrived I felt like ... why bother. I don't have anything new to say about life here. I still love my nest. I'm still ambivalent about Hood River although there are things I like. It's a very beautiful place.
There are more books on the shelves in the library but it is still true that if you move a chair you see either an empty shelf or a box full of junk I need to sort through. I spend lots of time moving books around.
But I don't write.
There are lots of recommendations for how to get back to writing. None of them ring for me. One is simply -- butt to chair. This one is kind of ironic. I bought this really beautiful desk chair. It was pricey. And so uncomfortable. I kept thinking it would get better. I'd break it in. It just got worse. For years I've spent hours in front of the computer. For years. But after the chair I could barely sit for minutes. I finally gave up on it and pulled my old one out of storage.
So here I am. Butt to chair.
Blogging has always been an attempt at conversation for me. I'm always hoping for some kind of response. Back in the day I blogged toward conversations that were happening in other blogs and never quite felt heard. I made myself a little crazy. A lot crazy.
In April I tried to do the poem Tweeting thing. Not many people seemed to notice. I was purposefully picking obscure poets and abstract lines. Which might have been why there wasn't much response. I didn't make it through the month.
Last year after the poem Tweeting I did the little story project, which led to working on the book. It was a surge. A surge that fell flat. The printed out book sat on my desk for months. Then I put in the closet. 
Here I am. Six years into life in the Hood. I go to doctor appointments. Lots of doctor appointments. I don't think I'm aging well. It's never anything that serious. Just a million little things.
I swim.
I read.
I don't have enough fun.
I never write.
This is probably where I'm supposed to resolve to write more.
Well.
I just don't know.
I think about it all the time.
Last night I finished the very lovely Patricia Hampl book: The Florist's Daughter. It starts and ends in the hospital where she is holding the hand of her mother who is dying. She lets go of the hand to lie down for a bit. In that sort moment her mother is gone. I read this in the room where I went through the same thing. I was holding the mommie's hand and stopped to rest and then she was gone. 
It didn't exactly make me sad. I'm always a little sad about it, But I wasn't made more sad by the book. I was actually a little mad. I didn't think I would be smashed into the memory. I thought I was going to be reading about flowers. That room is consecrated.
Six years.
A moment.
And they are gone.

The Miracle of the Easter Eggs and Ham

The last time I went to North Carolina the mommie surprised me by saying she wanted to move to Hood River. I knew she was in decline and was happy that she was going to be closer. I also knew it was going to be very hard for her to move away from the little house that she loved so much.
I found her an apartment in an assisted living place. I did everything I could to make it look like her home, which was not really possible. I brought her back to the nest every weekend. I had seen the beginning of her decline the year before. I got her to quit driving by throwing temper tantrums. I think she knew she was in decline but neither of really understood how bad it was.
Dementia is insidious. There was a learning curve in which I always felt behind. The last year she was in NC she stopped being social. I didn't understand that it was part of the decline. I thought she was a little depressed. She had always been social. Always made friends. But she stopped going out in NC and never went out in her new place.
One weekend I noticed some blisters on her leg. I showed the nurse and a long story full of bad faith, lies and confusion began. Most of which I won't write here now. Maybe someday. One blister became an abscess. She was put on strong antibiotics that caused so many problems. Her confusion got worse and worse. She stopped wanting to eat or drink, even water. She flinched when I made her sip a bit of water. Now I know that it was probably a sign of Thrush but I didn't know that then. And the long list of medical professionals who were visiting never looked in her mouth. They were telling me she might die. I was not feeling that. So I asked every person every question I could. I moved in with her.
More bad faith. More lies. More confusion.
After a short hospital stay in which the Thrush was diagnosed and treated. And a UTI was diagnosed and treated. I brought her back to the nest. I still struggled to get her to eat and drink.
On Easter I made myself a plate of eggs and ham and sat beside her to eat. She looked over and asked what it was. I told her and asked if she'd like some and ... she did. She ate my breakfast. All of it. I was so relieved.
From then on I could get her to eat eggs, oatmeal, chicken broth, OJ. Little by little she came back.
I found her another facility but this time it was memory care. She was so diminished. I felt like she needed that level of care. But the day she moved in she rallied and that rally continued. I talked the facility manager into moving her to their assisted living side. I hired home health care to give her extra help in the morning and I was there every afternoon. I still brought her back to the nest of the weekend. For a short time things were pretty good.
But the decline continued.
Mandy had to help me figure out how old she would have been on her her birthday this year. I couldn't do it. Sometimes the pain of those last years is so present it seems like it all just happened. But it's been three more birthdays. Three more Easters. And in November it will have been three years.
For me grief doesn't go away. It's part of how I am. That doesn't mean I'm always weepy. But I cry more than I use to and at times that seems so random. I just cry. She wasn't the first experience of grief in my life and I know she won't be the last. I'm just trying to hold in a way that doesn't exacerbate it. Or make it into a token. It's just. Grief.
I will eat eggs and ham tomorrow.

Unwell

I just reread the last post. This one is going to be similar.
I haven't been well. A few months ago I started having dizzy spells during exercise. Not when I was exercising but if I went from standing to lying down or sitting up from lying down. The doctor thought I might not be drinking enough water but I drink a lot of water. It just got worse. Then she discovered a blockage in my ear. She tried to flush it out but no luck. I put mineral oil in it for a few day and it cleared up. The dizziness was almost completely gone and the nausea happened less often.
And then.
I got sick.
Some kind of really bad cold or flu. Sore throat, runny nose, achy muscles. All the usual but really bad. I did have a flu shot. I even had the senior flu shot, which is supposed to be really bad ass. and it got worse. I got Conjunctivitis. So gross. For a few days all I could do was lie down with a wet rag on my eyes. No reading. I was too sick to listen to pod casts. I listened to Rachel a few times. Such is my devotion.
All of that has cleared up for the most part although I'm still more congested than I think I should be. And my ear feels plugged up. The doctor saw no signs of fluid but it feels like it's in there. I can barely hear out of it. She put me on antibiotics, which I think may have cleared some of the general congestion but did nothing obvious for my ear. I have another appointment next week. The dizziness and nausea are back. 
It's just been a weird year. It started off with me doing the poem thing in April and then the little story project. And then doing lots of work on the book. When I stopped being able to swim I got really depressed and I haven't completely shaken it. I am back in the pool. Which is good.
I was thinking that the idea of these moments of demarcation, birthdays, anniversaries, first of the year are used to affirm our hope and intention toward some kind amelioration in life. But I'm not sure how to make all of this better.
I mean, I am better.
But still unwell.
I'm in that age zone. All my doctors start sentences with - as we get older. Stuff just wears out. By stuff I mean eyes, ears, internal organs, skin, knees. Ailments. I have ailments. Some of which I may be able to fix but some of which I may not. That may sound dour but it feels like acceptance. The last time I felt this was when I realized I wasn't going to have my own child. I was over fifty. I'd held onto hope. It was a moment of having to accept that my life had entered a stage. A stage in which there were limits.
It's probably good to deeply consider exactly what you have to accept and what you might be able to change. But my body is only ever going to get so much better.
Except for the days I was under the wet rag I continued to exercise. I didn't go to the pool but I did my little home routine. The dizziness wasn't bad but the nausea was terrible. Still is.
Thanksgiving was the second year anniversary of the mommie's death. I might have done a little memorial on Facebook but it seemed like the wrong day for it. It was not a good day. I'm probably not going to celebrate Thanksgiving anymore. Christmas is hard in some ways but easier. I had a very nice Christmas this year. In the beginning of last year I felt like I was in a good place with my grief. I was still sad but I could concentrate on things and had a bit more energy. This year is hard to parse what I am feeling and why. 
Mandy made really good bread. I made a dinner out of it last night with cheese and apple and olives and a split of Prosecco. I had a nice New Year's eve. Quiet and sweet. Today I've been doing laundry and watering plants. Did my little exercise thing. I've been taking down Christmas stuff. I feel like being quiet.
But I also wrote this. And a little bit in the paper blog.
So.
That's the story.