Driving Forces

Our "vacation" starts Monday. Now, I put that in quote marks, because, like everything else I do, nothing has only one side to it. On the way to Texas, we plan to make multiple stops, including one at Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas (after a t-storm, I hope). We will shop antique malls, hit some weird and wonderful places of touristy interest (I'm letting him choose a few), and we will not drive too far in any one day.

Perfect, right?

Of course - once we get out of here. Until then ... just shoot me.

I'm writing this in a hurry in between balancing the checkbook, making sure all the bills are paid and things like paper delivery is suspended, double-checking the dog's boarding arrangements and the cat's caretaker, finishing up the "sod" (despite a bit of mud), and clearing all the surfaces in the house (so I can dust and vacuum tomorrow before I start in on the packing). I spent three hours yesterday cleaning my jewelry, another two finishing the reservations and arguing with my mother (who wants to pay for our hotel), and at least thirty minutes printing out confirmations, coupons, and maps. This is in addition to geting the car inspected, then teaching until 9:30 last night and waking at 5:30 because a much longer list ran uncontrolled in my head - in addition to the above, I leave early today to get the Big Lug's tea, some material for tonight's class from another location because nobody in the office planned well, and get a book that's on hold.

Oh, and did I mention I must do it all now because Saturday and Sunday are 12-hour work days?

I know, I know, I can farm some of it out, right? I already have. And prioritized. And let go of the more perfectionistic items. I'll probably even ask my daughter to come over and vacuum, maybe clean the bathrooms, while we're away before this is all through. But some things only I can do, and I will - some time.

I want a vacation. I need a vacation. And I will darned well get one. Just as soon as I do this one more thing ...

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I'm starting to feel like myself again - slowly, but I'm back - and I was digging up yet another row of "sod" when I realized that I'd never asked the Big Lug to help me do it. As a matter of fact, I ask him to do precious little.

Why? Part is because he works so hard, at a job that stresses him out, while I ... okay, lately my job is worse on me than his is on him, but that's because I've added almost as much piddly crap to my life as they have. Part is because he's not really the handiest person in the world lately; I mean, I'm not great, but he gets impatient then starts to hurry, cut corners, most of you know the drill either because you're just like him or your partner, parent, or kid is. And part is because this is a gift from me to him.

That's the stupidest reason I've ever heard. Actually, all of them are.

First of all, some hard work would relieve his tension: digging, breaking up clay, focusing on getting rocks and wild onion bulbs out, all are now jobs, very cathartic in their zen-ness - mix liberally with the serenity of planting, the creation of beauty and life, the immediacy of accomplishment, and we have a perfect prescription for tranquility.

Secondly, who needs to be handy when the most complicated thing he would do is decide if it's a rock or a stick or a clump of dirt? (No Commander jobs for this stress monkey - only the Drone.)

And third, the Big Dope's numbers are higher across the board - physical labor, sweating like a horse, is the best cure for what ails a body especially when it's blood pressure, sugar, and other nasties.

I'm an idiot. The kind of gift I can give him is not only a secure retirement but a healthy and long-lived one. All I need to do is turn into a work Nazi. Oh, he'll bark and snort and get all cranky with me, but I will dig my heels in and weather the storm. He needs this. He'll get over it - or get used to it.

After all, I can always blame the new witchiness-with-a-B on menopause.

Mocking Up

Several Springs ago, we had an alarm clock that woke us with a series of beeps - not the harsh, calamatous fright-fest most play now but an ever-louder, melodious serenade of a single, only slightly irritating note. One day I heard it going off and slapped the snooze, as I always did, for that extra seven minutes of sleep. But it didn't stop so I hit it again. And again. Always, always, the silly thing kept going, on and on, seemingly without end. I finally woke fully and realized it wasn't coming from my clock but from my open window. Outside, in a ragged cherry tree, a mockingbird had picked up its song and run with it, waking us fully every dawn until we had to close up for air conditioning.

I feel like that bird - an imitator, a fake. I don't know what I'm doing any more.

I'm not a landscaper or a gardener, but I'm acting as if I am (I couldn't even play one on TV, I'm that bad) - seriously, though I'm picking, nibbling, digging away at the beds in the yard (making progress) my lack of talent is starting to show. The house, too, while started well this winter, is just not going as planned. I'm doing the best I can but I'm intimidated by the scope of it, the multitude of colors and skills and details involved, not to mention the aloneness of the work. And after fourteen years of preparing students for finals, APs, and college entrance exams, I think I need to head to a "real" job - in part because the in-house bureaucracy is growing (which I hate), but mostly because I don't feel as effective as I used to (which I hate more). The clarity of it all is disheartening.

Sigh. I know (hope) I'll pop out of this when my schedule clears up, when the trip is over, when everything works out somehow (even if for the worst). But for now I feel ... not like the bird, really, but more like the song she sang, an imitation of the real - an imitation of a mechanical real, at that. A mock-up of bits of other people I set in place, pretending that it's me.

And yet ...

There was this moment today, when the newsletter from the Crater of Diamonds State Park arrived in my emailbox and raised a serious crop of goosebumps. According to the release, two days ago someone found a perfect, flawless, 2.35-carat (rough) white diamond in their field on Tuesday - and not just anyone but a down-on-his luck someone, a guy who had prayed for help for him and his family, a guy who saw the glitter-stone lying on the ground two rows away and just ... picked it up. He's calling it "Faith." My first thought, then, was, "if he can do it, so can I."

My second thought, now, is ... maybe imitation isn't such a bad thing after all.

Update

Friday, I picked up a half-drilled seed pearl to replace the one that wasn't there on the pendant I bought at the rummage sale a week ago - I paid more for the pearl ($9) than I paid for the piece ($1), but the meticulous match told me the three already there are very nice pearls indeed. Add this to the two diamonds I identified and it means that, marked or not, the thing is gold.

Pickings were slim this Saturday, though, at least where I checked - the first week of three that it sucked, but since the other two were spectacular I just can't work up a good give-a-crap. Next is Memorial Day weekend, which can mean anything around here.

I worked some long hours Sunday, and I'm paying the price today - a cold I've been fighting for weeks finally ran me over like a Mack truck, with all the horns, bells and whistles playing their gritty tunes in my head, throat, and chest. One of these days, maybe, I'll get a good night's sleep.

Won't be this week, though. I'm babysitting the Electric Kid for several days, each one ending in tutorials and night classes. We (mostly the Big Lug) watched Princess last night, too, because Head Trip's boyfriend is in ICU - with extremely elevated blood sugar and dehydration, among other things. He was laid off last year and has no insurance, so he let it get nearly to the killing point - he has pride, and he believes in working for a living, not riding the government gravy train. Though I'm not for socialized medicine (I know too many Brits) I know we really must do something, and soon. (On a side note, it was a "wake-up call" for my daughter, who's fought her weight for years - maybe the Big Lug will see it that way, too ... the timing is kind of weird for it, though, isn't it?)

For now, however, I don't have the energy to fight. I didn't think I even had the energy to write, but I did. Now I'm headed to the shower, then to help some students who are struggling with the material (ACT math), then to work with another (far from here) and afterward hit Walmart for a pastel-colored bandanna I remember seeing one day. (I use handkerchiefs to shield my morning pages from the oils on my hand so the colored gel pens I write with will actually stick to the page - yes, and I color-coordinate the bandannas with the covers of the composition books I use ... I am the ultimate geek.) I can only hope that tonight I won't have a walnut-sized sandpaper patch in my throat to keep me awake and coughing. And I can pray that by Thursday I'll have at least one happy-ending story to tell.

Storms

So, I didn't have class that night. (Anyone surprised? Anyone?) The trepidation I'd felt truly had dissipated by the time I got the word, though, because that closet of non-"other"-dropping-shoes was full of multiple-planning-just-in-case by then. And this isn't a good thing. My head has been spinning like a top - or a cyclone - because I'm now fully involved with a level of emotions that are ... Well, this week has been all about tempests.

Storms aren't always bad. They blow and destroy, yes, but, like most things in nature they also clear the way for the new, the stronger, the more numerous. They wash and uncover, too - I checked out the Crater of Diamonds web site yesterday, and it said some of the biggest stones have been found after hurricanes and heavy thunderstorms. And storms, whether meteorological or emotional, sometimes just take things down the bone, showing us what's really important.

My mom is sick with cardio-pulminary hypertension. She has been for quite awhile, but it's getting bad now. Instead of focusing on the shoe-drop this time, however, I tried looking at the vortex that has been spinning for just as long - my anger. I'm angry at her for trying to take the easy way out of so much of her life, especially the weight loss she needed (she took Fen-Fen years ago), and even more for not trying to do it the old-fashioned way (or any other) after she found out she had the CPH when she could have done it. I'm angry for the way she treats this all so casually, ignoring the realities of her situation as she chatters on and on about moving to an apartment and living on her own even though she forgets to pay bills, forgets to shower, even forgets she has a call on the line when the phone is in her hand. I'm angry at her for making us watch as she slowly kills herself with her denial.

Except I realized today I'm not angry with her at all - well, not much. Truth is, this squall belongs to the Big Lug.

His triglycerides are up again, which means new medication - added to the others that help his hypertension and type-two diabetes. When I listed everything I was mad at Mama for this morning, I found a fit for him, too. This explained the escalated level of emotion I've been prey to (especially since the misdirected fury revved up the same day he got the results). He needs to lose the weight while he still can. He needs to stop using the meds as a cure when they are nothing but a patch. And he needs to want to do it - which means I have to shut up.

That's the hardest part of all of this. I have to bottle it, redirect it, calm it - something other than focus on either my husband or my mother. The storms that help us aren't other people's but our own; stuff happens and either turns up a diamond or blows leaves around, but it's our storm, and our choice, not someone else's. I feel like the guy stuck in his car in Kirksville during that tornado last night - I have to watch it all happen and do absolutely nothing.

Am I worried? Yes. And no. He's not seventy years old, he hasn't spent his life abusing his body, and he's not severely obese - in other words, he's not in immediate danger, not like my mother is. I just love him so much I don't want him to be even close to it. And, truthfully, it's timing - with this whole alternate-planning thing going on, with all I see as possible futures (good and bad) along with the alarmist swirls that accompany them, and the frustration of continually biting my tongue ... darned if I wouldn't rather have those ever-dropping shoes.

Or I could just take in all his pants.