Back

And pretty much intact. I am a little worse for the wear. I feel like I have waded through a couple of decades of murky emotional waters. Was it necessary? Probably. Did I handle it as well as I could have? Probably not.

Thanks for advice, by the way, on navigating the family visit. I only managed to get away to a coffee shop to work 2 (out of 14) days. I did end up going farther South to my father's house and a bit further down the cosmic drain, but I am in the end glad I went.

By the way and fyi, the plane trips to and from the Deep Red were HORRENDOUS. Delays, flight changes, hours and hours in airports, lost luggage. The airline system is broken, people, just in case you did not already know. I have traveled twice a year to the Deep Red for the past 15 years and I travel at least one a year for conferences, and I have never seen anything as ludicrous as what went on these most recent flights. Broken.

Okay. End of rant, I think. I do have something to say about the growing popularity of the Aerobed and the serious threat to sleeping comfort it poses for millions of visitors in homes across the country, but I will save that for another day.

I know I sound like a spoiled and ungrateful asshat of a traveler but DUDES it is good to be home and back with The Someone and easing back into what will be a crazy busy but--I have no doubt--completely awesome rest of the summer.

To bail or not to bail?

So. The second part of my Deep Red trip involves going deeper into the Deep Red to my father's house. He always comes to my sister's home about 6 hours away from his when I come to visit--for all holidays and in the summer. My sister and father have long suggested that I go down to my father's house for the 4th, which my sister, her husband, and four kids always do. My sister has many high school friends in this tiny Southern town, so she enjoys going. My father lives close to a tennis club, so the kids play tennis and swim all day. I got the hell out of that town as fast as I could within days of graduating from high school. My mother left about a year later.

So. This trip has already been difficult on a number of levels. I've been here a week. I have not had much time to myself and have certainly not made even a dent in the huge amount of work I have needed to get done while here. There are . . . tensions between my mother and me. I also miss The Someone desperately. (No small part of this is about missing The Someone desperately. What I am realizing even more here is how completely fulfilling being with The Someone is. If I did not have the contrast of knowing an amazingly full and rich and bright and beautiful life with The Someone, I might not even fully understand the lunacy of what goes on here. I would note it, but I would note it as something necessary and to be endured until I figured out what flaw in me needed to be overcome to make it right.) Without going into too much detail, I will say that I feel that my very identity is being sucked down some cosmic drain and there is nothing I can do about it. I am disappearing.

So. This trip farther South to my father's house? It's going to be traumatic. Every time I have walked into that house since I left, or maybe since my mother left, I have pretty much burst into quiet tears that never quite go away until I do. It's also going to be chaotic. Seven people and three dogs in a three-bedroom house. Normally this would be fine and even fun, but I need some time and space for myself, even the tiniest bit, right now and that's just not going to happen. My mother is very upset that I am leaving here and spending the last week of my trip away from her. So that's the emotional toll. Then there's the psychic toll. I am fairly certain my father's house is farther down the cosmic drain.

So. I feel like a selfish bitch, but I am seriously considering changing my plane tickets, flying out of here early, skipping the journey farther south part of the trip entirely. I feel guilty at even the thought, so it probably will not happen. But why should I do something that is so clearly not good for me? So damaging? So traumatic? Is the point to walk through it and learn what I can learn or is the point to know when and how I need to take care of myself and to do it?

My Word of the Day totally gets me

Word of the Day for Wednesday, June 25, 2008

forlorn \fur-LORN; for-\, adjective:

1. Sad and lonely because deserted, abandoned, or lost.
2. Bereft; forsaken.
3. Wretched or pitiful in appearance or condition.
4. Almost hopeless; desperate.

Henry had felt guilty at abandoning his sister; he had married not once but twice, leaving Rose forlorn.
-- Anita Brookner, Visitors

In these forlorn regions of unknowable dreary space, this reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.
-- Francis Spufford, I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination

Bloch remembers that Stephen was a member of the Milk Squad, comprised of children who were considered to need extra nutrition, and early photographs do show him as one of the smaller boys, in the front row, looking forlorn.
-- Meryle Secrest, Stephen Sondheim: A Life

Forlorn comes from Old English forleosan, "to abandon," from for- + leosan, "to lose."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for forlorn

I don't like being away from The Someone. And by "don't like" I mean that I feel like I might die. This is a new feeling. I have missed significant others in the past, but as a person who does not mind spending a lot of time alone, separations--even long ones--were always basically fine. Now? Part of me is here in the Deep Red, doing this and that with my family. And part of me is perpetually absorbed in thoughts of The Someone. All of me is longing to see The Someone and pathetically heartbroken that it will be twelve days before I do. Forlorn gorgon.

Random Bullets of Chaos and Joy

• I hereby declare this the Summer of Chaos and Joy. I am also going to go ahead and admit to myself that this will probably be a summer of light blogging. Too much joy. Too much chaos. I should point out that both "too much" and "chaos" are as joyful as joy to me.
• I am hands down head over heels in love with The Someone. In. Love. Bigly.
• I have recently pissed off important people at work. Again.
• I have recently made friends with important people at work. Yay!
• I just spent an amazing few days with my favorite person in Favorite City. Bliss.
• I leave on Monday for two weeks in the Deep Red. Pretty much dreading this.
• Work projects languish. I would make a list here of everything I need to do before summer's end, but if I did the space-time continuum would spontaneously explode.
• The Someone is exquisite. You have no idea.
• I must work 2-3 hours a day while with family in the Deep Red. Please advise.
• If you drink many bottles of this wine, you will have a vicious vicious hangover. Trust me: it is The Brain Science (as explained by The Wine Guy at the local liquor store) that proves it. If you do it with a bunch of fun and fabulous people in New York, it will be worth it.
• This morning I realized that The Someone and I have been together in four states (states as in the United, not psychological, physical, spiritual--feel like we have been in many more than four of some of these together) in the past seven weeks. (By the way--Happy Anniversary, TS.) We are fabulous gypsies.

Chalupa update

The Chalupa is quite the calm traveller and she loved loved loved the Deep Red, the kids, her cousin dogs, ALL! THAT! GRASS!, and my mom's and sister's houses, which must have seemed positively ginormous in comparison to the garret. She was particularly fond of the nieces, a certain fuzzy zebra-print pillow in Katydid's room, carpeted stairs, balconies, and the neighbor cat.

What she did not like: hardly anything, just walking in the cemetery (she refused to walk over graves and there was lots of leash-tugging to get out of there as soon as possible) and the American Airlines flight attendant, Anne Marie, who caused a huge scene trying to make me make her stay in her carrier under the seat while we were trapped on a 90 degree tarmac with no air and the Chalupa was overheated and a crying and mortified (due to Anne Marie's yelling and scene making) was trying to give the very calm Chalupa in her lap some water. Anne Marie, you are a crab-faced, sour-souled, petty-minded asshat. Plus, you have seriously bad hair. I am sure that's why you hated me but that's no excuse to be mean to my dog.

City mirror, Country mirror

I am back home, trying to find my bearings. On the one hand, I need to find them. On the other, I am thinking my current bearings, or the bearings I left a few weeks ago, suck.

I really am a mirror of sorts, the kind that absorbs and reflects its environment. What a different environment--physically, psychically--the Deep Red is. First, there's this laid-back and lazy and misty and breezy and lush and decadent mood to the place. Next, there is the energy and joy and love and angst and silliness of four children. Finally, there is the serious stress and dissatisfaction and anger and anxiety of my mother, my sister, and my father--bad enough individually, volatile when mixed. I absorb it all, each and every bit. This is the "zen" of me. My flexibility is the tendency to empathize to the point of losing any sense of my own perspective, needs, or desires.

Now this chameleon mirror is struggling to adapt to the old city surfaces, a home that suddenly seems unfamiliar and thoroughly unsatisfactory. Is my life a shambles or am I? Is my perspective skewed or is my life here really the barely glued together broken thing I am seeing it as right now?

Finding zen in the Deep Red

The list, untouched, of to dos before leaving tomorrow morning:

--Print out Big Project materials and pack all work-related papers/books, including: Big Project stuff, reader's report for revise & resubmit, revise & resubmit essay, de Man, Milton, DeLillo, Uncontrollable Putty: Toward a New Prosthetics*
--Pack the Chalupa's bag, including: hoodie, collar & leash, blankie, Squeaky Face, Mouse Baby, greenies, P-nuttier treats, Trader Joe's bones, lip gloss (i.e. her nose balm she likes to put on when I put on my lip gloss), Cosequin, health certificate
--Pack all electronics accessories, including: laptop power cord, cell phone charger, camera battery charger, extra camera battery, camera laptop cord, ipod charger cord
--Pack Father's Day gifts and cards; Mother's Dubliner cheese; gifts for the kiddies
--Quick trip to gym
--Quick shopping trip to Marshall's
--If time, exchange new cell phone that I hate (requires trip downtown, likely not going to happen)
--Two loads laundry
--Pack clothes and toiletries
--Pick up bookshelves from Sabine and deliver home
--Do dishes
--Car to Paloma's garage

Keeping me from the list is lots of lounging in the bed with the Chalupa, sipping coffee, reading some blogs, seriously lusting for this perfume, and considering ways in which to keep myself in tact during my visit to my family. Recent intense conversations with my mother, my sister, and my father tell me that I will not be finding an oasis of calm in the Deep Red.

For example, I had an hour-and-a-half conversation with my father last night, during which he told me everything we had to worry about in order of increasining importance, from my 12-year-old niece being more interested in social events and her sports and dance teams than in her schoolwork to a relative being in pretty serious debt. He asked me why he, at 76 years old, still had to worry about everyone and why everyone's problems--which he is bound by duty to worry about--did not get any better and in fact seemed to get worse, and why no one was getting him a rocking chair and telling him to go out to the porch to relax. He did not seem amused when I pointed out that my sister and I are CONSTANTLY telling him to go and relax while we take care of things. When I reminded him that he insists each and every time we do this that he wants no part of this relaxing nonsense, he explained that as soon as someone (anyone!) else in the family is as competent as he is to take care of business he would be more than happy to stop worrying and TCBing. He then assured me that he would explain in much more detail all of the things we should be worrying about, from global to local, during my visit. Woo hoo! Please don't get me wrong. I love my father and my family deeply. It's just that we are all really truly batshit crazy.

I am always concerned with steeling myself, reinforcing my sense of self, before I visit my family, with the idea that I will not slip into old patterns and will not push their buttons or let mine be pushed. I am thinking now that maybe "steeling myself" is exactly the wrong strategy. Yesterday I found this quote, from the Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön. (Did you know that Chödrön went to Miss Porter's School? Since I am now obsessed with Little Edie, I am also obsessed with anyone or anything to do with Miss Porter's School.) Anyway, the quote reminded me of how I usually feel when I am with the gypsies:

"In the most ordinary terms, egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness, as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness. It is our capacity to relax with not knowing, not figuring everything out, with not being at all sure about who we are - or who anyone else is either." (via whiskey river)

This endless adaptability, this sense of play, and the kind of inquistiveness that comes from not needing to know is precisely the way I feel when I am with the gypsies or on certain other kinds of adventures--the feeling I was so angry that I could not achieve this last time because of the big fat egoist ways of the Nemesis. There is nothing more important to the Nemesis than proving who she is. That's her toxicity--forcing the "who she is" of herself onto everyone else with an endless litany of "I do this like this . . . I did this so that this will be . . .I am the kind of person who . . . I I I I I I." This time my attempt to let go and find the gypsy floating-self feeling again, because of that recent experience, just led to radical insecurity.

Still, I tasted a bit of it. What if I try to go with this flexible sense of identity during this visit with my family? Ex-shrink is the one who originally suggested that I reinforce my sense of self and fight for that sense of self while on family visits. But that's the point of American ego psychology, right? Rather than trying to shore up my identity--my now adult identity vs. my then child/adolescent identity or whatever--what if I just let go of the concern with who I am and who they are? Will it work if I am the only one on the zen vibe? Especially in my mother's house, where all that happens is endless figuring out of the most mundane details, of when this will happen and how that will happen and why this isn't happening as it was supposed to happen at this exact minute and when it is not happening we had better talk about or call someone to see why it is not happening in the way it has been scheduled to happen?

I say it's worth a shot. At the very least, I might have something amusing along the lines of Zen Action A leads to Super Neurotic Reaction B to report here.


*These may or may not be the real books I am working on--anything to protect my wildly speculated upon identity, you know.

Stressed-out gypsy

My adventure with More Fun was not as carefree as I would have liked it to have been. If I weren't so loathe to admit it, I would say that the sucky situation of last week brought on by the putrid behavior of it (leaving him/her genderless) who shall now be called the Nemesis of Medusa was a bit too much to be overcome during my short trip. More Fun did his best to make me feel better, including affectionately demanding many times that I marry him, tell the Nemesis to fuck right off, and move to Rock-n-Roll Circus Land.

I think more than anything I am jealous of my gypsy friends. I was too aware that I had to come back to this. How dare NoM fuck with my gypsy time and my summer adventures, as few and far between as they are! I don't even feel like doing my work--work that I was excited about and work that makes the gypsy time all the more fun--since NoM pissed all over my career.

At least it has come to a showdown. I have to try to remember that and to move ahead, even though I am uncertain of what's ahead. Isn't that the gypsy way, after all? Day after tomorrow I leave for the Deep Red for a long visit with my family. I hope that change of scenery does a bit more to dispel the NoM nastiness in my head.

The Chalupa will be joining me on my travels! We are very excited but a little nervous about the long plane ride(s). Any advice on how to handle a wily Chalupa in a airplane cabin? Chalupas on a plane! Chalupas on a plane!

OK. . .I am going to end this disjointed and kind of nutty and kind of ranty and kind of maudlin post and go to the gym or drink some wine or both (but not at the same time obviously). The Nemesis just fucking sucks so fucking much, for fuck's sake! (Ahh . . .cursing does help, it really does.)