First Week of November

I woke today feeling better than I have in ... wow, maybe eight months or so.  Felt rested, strong, ready for activity.

Can it be because I got a haircut yesterday? I'd been thinking of letting my hair grow over the winter to keep my head warm, but the tangles after getting out of the shower are so painful to me; I tried a conditioner, but hated the perfume smell and it made my back break out in itchy blemishes. This week I had had enough, and printed out my little Man Haircut picture and drove over to the hair salon. Speaking the ritual words, "I'm not a man, and not young, but this is the haircut I want," I proceeded to have what felt like about a pound of hair removed from my head. A severe, short haircut looks good on me, I think, and I liked what I saw in the mirror this morning.

Maybe it looked good because with the short hair, it was very apparent that I've lost weight -- over 15 pounds -- this past year. That could contribute to feeling good, too.

And last night I dreamt well: an exciting and challenging chase and defeat-the-evil-baddies dream, instead of the nightmares of not being able to find Howie.

The other thing that happened yesterday was dog-related; Jack-Jack, an Australian shepherd with a tendency to roam found a way to let himself into our yard. He lives across the street, and since he's something of an escape artist, I've met him on a number of occasions. He's wonderful, with a luscious blue merle coat and such kind eyes, and when Alex got home last evening and exclaimed, "What is Jack-Jack doing in our yard?" I jumped up from my chair and hurried to say hello to him, getting a nice snuggle in return. God alone knows how and why he came into our yard, but I was thrilled to see him. And you know, if his surly and inattentive owners didn't want him, I'd take him in a heartbeat.

Sitting out on our newest patio a couple nights ago, we watched the moon rise, and I got some passable pics of the event. The one above doesn't do justice to the ripe golden glow I saw, but it's a good moon shot for me. Weather since the rain a week ago has been ridiculously clement, and I could complain that it isn't cold and rainy enough, but you know, November clothing that is suited to a t-shirt with a flannel shirt as a light jacket is not something you sneer at. "Shut up and enjoy it." At least that's what I think I heard God say.

Feels good to feel good.

Houses

I dream about houses a lot.

In dreams of longing, I somehow get transported to the house on Louther Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. We lived there for a miniscule year and three months; it was a five-bedroom palace of neglected antiquity, with huge wooden pillars, a warped hardwood floor, eleven-foot ceilings ... and I could have lived there all the rest of my days. I loved that house. Should I be so fortunate as to get to Heaven, that house -- or its counterpart -- will be mine.

But for many years, every house in my dreams has been what was my mother's house. In my dreams, I lived there, no matter that nearly 40 years have passed since I did. The enclosed back porch, what had been my bedroom, the living room, the side yard ... one or more features would form the backdrop of my dreams. There's no wonder at that; my mother's decline into Alzheimer's and my sister's death anchored my subconscious there. What I had to do, and what I failed to do, what I watched crumble into an unholy mess -- all those things burned themselves into my heart.

Waking from dreams of my mother's house, I'd sigh, and wonder if I'd ever be free of it, rise, and go about the day. Sometimes you just have to let the dreams go, otherwise, you go nuts trying to outsmart your subconscious.

A couple nights ago, I was back there again, but there was a difference. Yes, there was still a sense of frustration that things couldn't be put right; yes, there was still a sense of accusation that I had failed somehow; but one thing was different: I was packing stuff up, getting ready to move away.

I stood at the top of the stairs, looking at the basement (that my father had in real life dug out and finished, but in the dream had been made into two rooms), and thought, "Well, I'll be out of here soon, and won't have to come back again."

What a thought for a dream! All the symbols in dreams are our own selves. Did my dream mean that I am soon going to die, and so the house that is me will be left behind?

When I woke, I just drifted with the sense of relief in the dream, and let it go at that. We're all going to die, some sooner than others, and I can't do anything about that. But relief -- that made me smile.

The next night, I dreamed I was back in Mifflintown (where I grew up) again, but instead of being in my mother's house, I was in this truly cool little boutique hotel down town, with wide cement steps to the upstairs, and comfy rooms. Why haven't I always stayed here when I've visited? I asked myself in the dream. It was so pleasant, and peaceful, and pretty -- a delightful fabrication of my dreaming mind.

And then, perhaps born of the triumph of not being in my mother's house, the next night I dreamed that I was staying in a beach-side resort, with very wide floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the beach, and a flight of wooden stairs leading from sliding doors off the bedroom to a deck below on the beach. Yeah. I could get into that. Big dark brown stones made a natural windbreak for the deck, and the sand was the light brown of the Pacific coast rather than the white sand of the Atlantic. I love it here, I thought, and woke up.

Sad Dream, Sad News

A few weeks ago, I had a nightmare.

In it, I was in a house with my mother and my father. I wanted to get something from the upstairs, but I was so tired that I could only crawl up the white painted steps. (Note: I have never lived in a place with white painted steps.) As I neared the top, Molly the Macaw came waddling around the corner, and as she usually does in real life, began coming toward me. 

As I do in real life, I tried to get away from her, but slid down the stairs. She landed on me, and I kept trying to keep my face covered while she flapped and squawked. I shouted for my mother to help me, over and over, but she just kept on doing whatever she was doing in the kitchen.

Finally, I was able to get an arm under the bird and fling her away from me. I scrambled to my feet, staggered over to my mother and shouted at her. "Why didn't you help me? Why didn't you help me?"

She turned to me, looked down her nose, and said, "Because I don't like you." I raised my hand to crack her across the face, but all she said was, "You can't hit me."

Indeed, she was right. In the dream I knew I could never hit her, and just turned away, sick at heart because my mother hadn't really loved me at all. I'd been loving someone who didn't love me back. And my father, in the background, just shrugged, as if to say he didn't care about it at all.

Honestly, in the dream, it felt like my heart was being torn into pieces. Even after I woke up from the dream, I hurt inside, and shed a couple tears.

Now, a person could be miserable for days after a dream like that, even to the point of being afraid to fall asleep in case they dreamt something like that again. But I do know something about dreams, and I believe that you have to tackle them head on sometimes, to find out what's actually lurking in your subconscious.

The parrot as fear is a no-brainer: I'm scared as hell of that bird in real life, and every time she screeches it feels like someone put a chainsaw to my spine. Perfect symbol of a fear from which I need to be saved, right? But what is it that I'm afraid of, that my own mother won't help me overcome, and just turns away from me instead, disdaining me? And how could I be that angry at her, that I would (as I never did in life) raise my hand against her?

Any guesses? Oh, right. Alzheimer's.

And with that realization, I understood that at some level in my subconscious, she should still be the Mom I knew growing up: fierce, fearless, vibrant. She should have been able to surmount Alzheimer's! But instead, she has drifted away on the tide of forgetfulness, not even looking back. On that deep and cloudy level of my mind, I have anger at her for leaving me behind, no longer remembering me. And Dad, oh, Dad, where have you been while her disease has been crippling her, and breaking my heart?

I was able to find peace in understanding the dream, and I know she loved me. She didn't always know the best way to love me, but I never doubted that she did.

This afternoon the nursing home called me. Mom's foot is ...'better' ... but she is not. Some new phase of the disease has kicked in, and she forgot how to feed herself, forgot how to swallow after a bite of food. Uncomprehending, she just spit out her food and couldn't figure out what she was supposed to be doing with it. For the last three or four days, she hasn't wanted or tried to eat or drink anything, too weak to stand.

The nurse said they would put her on an IV to see if rehydration would "perk her up" -- but warned me that if there wasn't a big change in the next couple days, they'd be calling me again to discuss ... "making her comfortable." That means, in real life, allowing her to die.

I know that. I knew from the beginning that Alzheimer's is terminal. But my heart still thinks ... well, you know.

Drifting in the Clouds

The skies of this area are never as richly blue in the summer as they are in the winter. That dark blue reminds me of the color of Alex's eyes a few hours after she was born; her eyes were already open wide, seeking the source of the light beside my bed.

How easily I'm distracted! I was going to make this post about writing, not about how it felt like I was holding my very heart in my arms as a new mother.

In spite of having tried to cement in a new habit of getting up and writing in the mornings -- that was why I finally decided to do the National Novel Writing Month challenge -- the habit crumbled with the first cloudy daybreaks and a strange sleep/dream cycle that hits me around 7am, causing a very sound sleep and some VERY interesting dreams, so that I sleep in past 9:30 a.m. most mornings and am left bemused and unmotivated.

So much for that new habit.

However, what I have of a new story (minus the stupid word count efforts) is pretty solid. I love the story, in fact, and have had a lot of fun with the main character so far. She's feisty and furious, inventive, and mischievous. Her name is Roj, and bullets won't stop her.

God alone knows when I'll get a chance to finish the story, with the holidays coming up, the onset of a shitty cold last night, and the lovely prospect of coming down with the stomach flu that hit John last week, and Lillian this morning.

Back to the old evening habit now, of taking my place in the comfy chair in the bedroom with pillows to prop me up, my laptop glowing, my faithful dog Howie staring accusingly at me from the bed because I'm in his favorite spot, perhaps to write, perhaps to re-read what has been written, and to thank God that for this hour, at least, I'm not plagued by that stomach flu.