Day 6

A long time ago, while I was between lives, I worked at a large book retailer. For $6.00 an hour I could stand for eight hours and point breathless housewives to the giant shelf of Oprah Book Club books that they had just walked past in order to demand that they hadn't seen it anywhere. I also got to clean the restrooms.

One day, someone did something unspeakable to one of the restrooms and we were all back in the break room fighting about who would have to clean it up. A very cute boy with whom I had never had a shift before, finally sighed and said: "You all are useless. I'll just do it," and walked off with rubber gloves and a mop. I sat and watched him leave and wondered at this boy who would calmly step up to take responsibility for a vile and disgusting task that no one else would touch. I wondered at this boy as I watched him in the days to come, flirt with the middle-aged ladies who ran the office and make them blush. I watched him draw customers in conspiratorially to find the title of a book. I watched him dress up as Waldo from the Where's Waldo book series and entertain a room full of screaming children. I just watched for a while, though, remaining mute and trying to melt into the background.

I watched him save me a seat on a bench for my lunch break, with a cup of hot coffee waiting for me. I watched him dance to Birdhouse In Your Soul in a deserted parking lot in the middle of the night and tell me I was the only bee in his bonnet. I watched him ask my dad important philosophical questions and listen carefully to the answers. I watched him make my mom laugh. I watched him hand over money to my sister so she would quit the job where her boss sexually harassed her. I watched him while he drove us in midnight circles, listening to music and talking about all the world. I watched him introduce me to his friends and family. I watched him leave work to go and sit with his mom at the hospital when she had an emergency hysterectomy. I watched him take his little sister to dance lessons and pick her up again, turning the music up loud and laughing at her junior high silliness.

And then one day I watched him through a plate glass window after the store had closed, as he got down on one knee in the cold and showed me a picture of a ring.

I have watched this boy over the last fourteen and a half years grow into a man - become a husband, a father, a lawyer, a leader. I have watched him get up every day and shoulder responsibilities that the people around him have refused to do. I have watched him walk boldly into unspeakable messes and try to clean them up because it had to be done and no one else was willing. I have watched him work as many hours as were necessary to support us. I have watched him study long into the night for finals with a newborn baby on his shoulder. I have watched him take care, take action, take part, take responsibility. I have watched him bestow fatherly gentleness and affection that he has never received. I have watched him smile just for me. I have watched him dance, I have watched him cry, I have watched him survive, I have watched him live, I have watched him give and give and give.

I sat in a crowded room last night and watched him tell a group of people that his marriage is a tiny piece of the divine. I have watched this man over so many years and I hope for many more. I renew my vows every morning with such humbling gratitude that this man has let me watch him all these years and that he shares his magic with me. 

Brighter Than The Sun

"Tonight, we are young. We can set the world on fire. We can burn brighter than the sun."

Driving home tonight in the setting sun. Full of tandoori chicken and saag paneer and sunshine and all the good things this life holds, we chatted quietly in the front seat while the monkeys thumb wrestled in the back. The radio played as a backdrop, mostly ignored.

And then we heard a steady, catchy beat. We are not the hippest of cats, not caught up on the latest of everything new. What is this? we wondered and listened on.

The song, as a whole, had little to do with our lives or our loves. But there in the hook, it carried us over its bridge and we listened. Somehow in the fading springtime light, in the center of a stranger's voice, we found a spot we've been forever. We found the space where it is us and we are together and that is all that matters.

The last few years have been hard. The last few weeks have been full of stress. It's so easy to lose the beat of things that matter. The heartbeat of your love. The rhythm of the life you've built together. And sometimes, in a moment of doing nothing much important at all, it comes back. You're in the place you vowed you'd always be. By your true love's side, holding hands while he drives, and discovering new music together.

"Tonight," we sang, "we are young."
"We can set the world on fire.
We can burn brighter
than the sun."

Date Night

Not much time to write tonight folks. I have a date. The Chief Lou is putting the monkeys to bed and I have a date. He's all the things a good tryst should be: he's dark and mysterious. He's rich and he's sweet, but just salty enough to not be boring. He sits silently and watches me write, he shares a double tall latte with me and waits patiently while I think. He's also famous. It doesn't get any better than this, folks.
Click here for his picture. Don't be jealous.

David Is Not My Pal

They are at it again. The Davids. They are after me and this time they tried to break my brain.

[Back story: Read this post which explains, in chronological fashion, how the Davids have plagued me so.]

Over lunch a few weeks ago, a friend of ours (whose name is Mark and is in no way affiliated with any Davids of which I was previously aware) told us about this "sleep machine" that he had purchased. So well did this machine work that the only problem with it was that he would awake at 4 AM, completely refreshed and ready to go. The Chief Lou was intrigued and I was really only half-listening because I was still mulling over the previous conversation topic - some sort of water repellent that you could spray on your phone and then dunk it in water to no ill effect. I asked if it helped with the cell phone face cheese problem and everyone at lunch acted like they had never gotten face cheese on their phone before. Which is, of course, a lie. (Score one for the Blurters! Nothing says polite conversation like "face cheese".) So, imagine my surprise when this past Sunday, the Chief Lou danced up to me holding what looked like a camera bag. "He brought it!" [Insert confused conversation here. Who brought what and why? And why does that bag say "Brain Wave" on it?!]

Figure 1: David Pal. I have no idea what those nipple
clamps are for. They weren't in my kit.
Photo courtesy of Mind Alive Inc.

Skip to bed time Sunday night. We crawl into our bed, immediately roll into the giant divot in the middle, claw our way back up to our respective sides and turn on our reading lights. I am reading a book of essays with my hot pink reading glasses. The Chief Lou (so I thought) is reading some sort of dreadful "Hard Sci-Fi" (otherwise known as man-mances in our house. "Just because the women are robots does not mean they are not being objectified," says I. "I like the descriptions of the planets and technology," says he. "Suuuuurre," says I.) I momentarily thought his sci-fi had come to life because suddenly our room is full of beeping sounds and flashing lights. I look over and he is reading what looks like a homemade book whose cover says simply in block letters: David Pal. "I think I need setting C-3," he says and slips on the glasses and headphones. Yes, the glasses and headphones. (See Figure 1) Within about 10 minutes he's snoring away and it looks like a disco in our bedroom.

When I awoke on the couch the next morning I asked him how David Pal treated him last night.
 "I don't know, he did something. It was weird."
"Well, I'm sleeping with David Pal tonight and you can lie there and have seizures while I snore."

A few excerpts from "David Pal Operator's Manual":

"Welcome to the experience of the DAVID PAL, a digital audio-visual entrainment (AVE) device, designed to support you in your quest for wellness by promoting various areas of the brain to work together in a harmonious fashion. Through the use of AVE, you may experience yourself in a new and beneficial way."

Sounds good. Exactly how, you may ask does David Pal harmonize your brain? Well, according to the manual, in three ways:

"The first aspect of AVE involves dissociation.... Secondly, cerebral blood flow increases... Thirdly, EEG activity changes."

These all seem like very safe and innocuous things to mess with in the privacy of your own bedroom, right?
So, I selected setting C-3 because I was overwhelmed with my choices (there are 18 in varying wavelengths) and that was what the Chief Lou used and he didn't die or start to bleed out of his eyes or anything.

"Delta - The Sleep State - These sessions help bring on sleep by turning off the 'chatter' that sometimes occurs after a busy day"

C-3 is "Sub-Delta" (sounds like a cut-rate sorority) and is listed as being only "mildly dissociating". I donned the glasses and headphones and lay down. The glasses are muffled with a piece of foam on the inside of them and you are supposed to close your eyes when you wear them (so you can't read the warning sticker about seizures or scald your retinas, I suppose.) Lights pulse in patterns and rhythms across the glasses, which immediately my brain glommed onto and tried to make sense of. The headphones emit a series of tones in different frequencies, overlaid with a steady heartbeat that sounds suspiciously like a bass drum. In short, it's kind of like an instant, legal acid trip. (Hey, I've read Ken Kesey novels!)

You are supposed to think soothing thoughts during the first half of the "program" and then go to sleep during the second half. And then roll over and smash the glasses while you sleep and get tangled in the cords? (More on this in a minute.) Convinced to really give it a go, once I stopped giggling about how ridiculous and sci-fi I must look, I tried to think soothing thoughts. I think soothing thoughts all the time. It is a regular practice for me as I go about my day to soothe my bedraggled brain hamster. But when I am supposed to think soothing thoughts, this is what happens in my head:
SOOTHINGTHOUGHTSOOTHINGTHOUGHTSSOOTHINGTHOUGHTS!!!STOPTHATANDTHINKSOOTHINGTHOUGHTS!SHUTUPANDFOLLOWDIRECTIONS!STOPSHOUTINGATME!IDON'TEVENKNOWWHATASOOTHINGTHOUGHTIS!DOITNOW!STOPWRITINGINYOURHEADYOUSHOWOFFJUSTRELAX!!!RELAXRELAXRELAXRELAXRELAXRELAXRELAX and so on.
I believe this is why I have never been successfully hypnotized.

Meanwhile the heartbeat bass drum is bah-booming at a steady pace that does not in any way correspond with my own heartbeat or breathing. The tones start changing from high to low and some background feedbacky kind of noise and the lights are still flashing and it's a regular Pink Floyd laser light show in my very own bedroom. Nay, in my very own brain. So, I try to focus on my breathing like any good transcendental meditator will tell you to do... In... Out...wheeeeee ooooo wheeeee ooooo flash blink top side left side bottom side bah-boom In... Out... SOOTHINGTHOUGHTS! In... Out... What if this gives me a heart attack? In... Out... In... What was I thinking about? Out... In... I'm going to kill Mark In... Oops, I'm holding my breath Out...SOOTHINGTHOUGHTS! In... Out... boing boing boing wheeee ooooo boing boing boing bah-boom In... Out... what will my children do if I die in my bed? In...Out... what if the paramedics come and find me wearing this ridiculous contraption? In... Out... In... Out... what if I fall asleep and roll over and break this?!I don't want to buy Mark a new one! In... Out... what is my name again?

THINKSOOTHINGTHOUGHTS! Hanging with David Pal.

David Pal, that rascal, did do something strange. I found myself in the position of not being able to complete a coherent thought. I would test it by trying to think about something and then lose it right in the middle, drift off into Neverland with my lights and my boinks and my bah-booms and feel like I was floating on some sort of sensory deprivation island. Not quite asleep, but completely at rest. Can I say this? I don't often get to experience a quiet mind, not even while I'm sleeping. It was at once uncomfortable and a blessed relief. I suppose at some point either the Chief Lou finished laughing at me and took the contraption off, or I did it in my semi-conscious state because it was on the floor by my bed the next morning. (I've got to say, the latter option is a little disturbing. I'm not entirely sure what my body would do if left to wander around at loose ends while my mind was vacationing on Neptune.)

But let's talk about the next morning. The morning on which I thought for a good 3 hours that I had broken my brain. Or rather, that David Pal had. I stood up out of bed and immediately fell over. Stood up again and the room was spinning. Not the room, exactly, but the inside of my cranium. I was so dizzy I could barely see straight. I crept down the stairs and went about my morning: making breakfast, packing lunches, getting the monkeys to school - all very quietly and calmly so as not to alarm small people. I got home and sat down and watched the room slow its whir and seriously panicked for another 15 minutes or so (including a quick email to the Chief Lou: "David Pal broke my brain! Mark is dead!") until I sneezed. And sneezed again and again. I never sneeze unless confronted with direct sunlight, so three in a row only means one thing. That one thing is decidedly not "some crazy brain wave apparatus dislodged some really old fat soluble psychedelia from deep within the folds of my brain and now I am ruined for life just like all those pamphlets and after school specials said I would be". Thankfully. It means I'm catching a cold.

I just returned from the doctor's office where she pronounced my left ear "full of fluid" and issued prescriptions for dealing with said fluid. When describing my symptoms, I did not in any way describe David Pal or his presence in the sudden onset of this cold and its terrifying implications. I'm pretty sure I would have ended up with a few more prescriptions and possibly a referral if I had.

I will declare this a win. The Davids tried to get me down again and I rose triumphant with the aid of a simple antibiotic and a nasal spray. Until next time, THINKSOOTHINGTHOUGHTS!

*I am in no way affiliated with Mind Alive, Inc. or its products. I am not being paid for this post except in the way of comment love and my experience with David Pal is pretty much like my experience with other mind altering activities - abnormal. 

Feathering My Nest

There be geese on my horizon. I am wrestling with geese right now. They are flapping and honking and beaking  me. I love a good wrestle. One of us will emerge victorious and when the mud is washed off and the cuts and bruises are bandaged, I will display the fruit of those efforts here. Meanwhile, there are feathers everywhere. And there are things that come with Monday that preclude extended wrestling matches.

Here are some things from my weekend that I collected:

The feel and weight of bamboo and silk yarn in my fingers and across my hook. The drape and the sheen of the fabric they made together by the marvelously simple repetition. Hypnotic. Stitched into the whole experience is the knowledge that my mom will wear this sweater as she embarks on a brand new adventure, a life-long dream, and a courageous act of healing.

My jBird on my lap. So heavy, her head sticks up taller than mine, her boniness digs into me as she snuggles, her legs drape almost to the floor. But she sits and snuggles still. She turns the eyes toward me from an angle I've seen then since her birth. So dark and intense and thin veneers for everything under the surface. Her dimples and gums as she grins and closes her eyes, hugs and is happy.

The Chief Lou, who smiles and encourages and loves. I watched him flirt with the old ladies at church. I watched them twitter and giggle and clutch his arm in hilarity. He was telling them how much he liked my leather pants and my new haircut. He spreads ease to people in a way I find enviable, and I watched him, for a few short moments make a recent widow laugh uncontrollably and feel young and daring and fun again. My heart opens and opens and opens with love for him.

My Hooligan and his best friend sitting together, sharing books. She is a little younger, a little smaller and he knows it. Ever conscious, ever gentle, he shares and defers to her. They draw each other pictures and whisper secrets in each other's ears. They hold hands and pray. The Hooligan prays that "everyone who might get lost will find their way home" and I blink away tears. He tells her a secret and her laugh is explosive, surprisingly deep. In a fit of pure delight, he kisses her on the cheek and plays with her hair. He does this because this is how he expresses love to people that matter to him. An innocent, pure gesture of genuine affection for his friend.

A dear friend lolled about on the floor of my crowded living room with me. She saw my kitchen in disarray. She was close enough to the carpet to see the spots. It didn't matter and we talked of things that mattered. We talked like friends in comfort, silly, teasing, serious, wondering, blurting, madness. Three hours passed and I wondered why she thought it was time to go. Good friends are rare. Especially the kind that don't mind that your kitchen is a mess.

I picked apart a ball of fear in much the same way I do my beloved yarn. So tangled and claustrophobic at first, it's easier to just chuck it in the back of the closet and forget about it. It's not easier, though. I know this. I sat and unraveled, patiently, vigilantly. Strand by strand I sorted it out. I picked it apart and untangled the knots. I wound it into something useful and beautiful. The beauty of decision, of aligning and analyzing, of letting go and watching it whip too fast to see, round and round on my winder, turning it into something solid and manageable.

I will be back to speak of water fowl soon. In the meantime, read my inspiration most fowl: dbstevens at Kicking Corners has ruffled my mental feathers with this and this.