A Little Rough Patch

I hit a little rough patch recently. Meaning I got twisted around an axle or I took a short ride on the crazy train or I could not get my act together. So many ways to say I lost it. Yep. I lost it and told everyone. Yep. Told everyone and resigned from a thing or two and talked with someone which is different from telling someone. Talking with someone means I actually listened to them talk back to me and I felt better so I have regained my balance, untwisted, jumped off the train and gotten my act together in so much as that can take place. Whew! Being colorful or a character or given to histrionics (my least favorite descriptive term for it) is exhausting. To be fair I have been and still am in an extremely stressful situation and was knocked off my game by the stress. I was, like the infamous weeble, wobbling but I did not fall down. ( Google it. Weebils wobble but they do not fall down.) So, this is short and sweet but meant as an encouragement to anyone reading it which is, admittedly, a short list of people. The encouragement is that most of us will live to fight another day, the sun will come out tomorrow and all that happy stuff. Problems may not fade or even dim. It seems that perception and attitude are the two component parts that, when plugged into faith, can affect a change in me and in you even if the problem remains the same. The lesson for me is that I am not bad or wrong for being knocked off my game. Nor is it wrong that the problem did not change. I am able to accept the opportunity for change and apply it. This, my friends, is no small grace of God. I seem incapable of lingering for long in the mire of misery even when many understand the misery given the circumstances. I make a lousy cynic and would fail completely at being a curmudgeon. In contrast to that statement, I enjoy the company of curmudgeons so much. They are funny and determined to keep a stiff upper lip. Underneath the crusty old so and so's sullen look lurks a heart of gold. Don't let on that you see it though. Bad form. Very bad form. If it is true that poets are born out of deep melancholy and depression I am destined to fail at rhyming. I may dash off a few lines while in one of my frequent pity pots but nothing more and what's the point? I can, however, conversate on almost any side of any argument with an equal passion. I am particularly good at this if I have very little knowledge of the topic. This would mean that I do have an advanced degree in slinging the bull. Americans are overrun with expressions in statements to indicate a state of mind or a character trait. Of course, I cannot literally sling a bull. Slinging the bull verbally? Yes. Yes, I can sling the bull verbally. Sling, slam dunk and over and out. I need to eat something. I am off on a tangent. Oops. Sorry. Another expression of statement to describe a mood. They are literally everywhere. 

Say, Lady, Can you spare...?

Throwing one arm up in the arm and calling across the street towards me the old, black woman pushing a walker with a built-in seat began crossing the busy street and calling me "Teresa". As she drew closer she realized I was not Teresa but she began declaring how much Teresa and I resembled each other. Seconds later she began her story of extreme woe and a time constraint of two hours. Could I give her a ride to Beaufort? She needed $37 in two hours to pay the remainder of her rent or she was going to be evicted. Lawd-a-mercy, she declared, life had been hard and she had a muscle removed from her right leg and was completely exhausted from the walk from her apartment to the Salvation Army where she saw me who she thought was Teresa but was not but I was obviously an angel meant to be in that exact place at that exact time. 
I never will know how many times I have been a sucker when responding to a plea for help. Once I commit I figure that is God's business. I am rarely approached when I am flush with cash. This day and this appeal came at a particularly challenging time, I looked out across the street, thought for a moment and, preferring to err on the side of grace, agreed to give this woman a ride using precious gas and time. The way I figured it if my life depended on 20 miles worth of gasoline I had no business hogging that resource. Share the little with someone less fortunate, I thought, and not with exhilaration but with an inward heavy sigh. Five minutes before or after and this meeting would not have taken place. 
I wondered if I was entertaining an angel and could see my crown in glory glitter a bit brighter. Shaking off that imagination I decided I was in the middle of a run of the mill response to a request for help, plain and simple. It did not help that my distraught passenger was extolling my angelic timing, my Christian willingness which she said was so in contrast to some of those lying so and so's in that church three blocks away, and I kept silent. Why subject her to the truth that most of the churches are loaded with one variety of so and so or the other?
My new friend sat in the passenger seat pointing out the open car window at the ground floor window of an apartment in what passes for the projects in our town.
"See", she said in a proud voice often employed when someone is proving what they have said to you."I told you I don't have any money." I said I believed her without the proof. I told her I was going through financial difficulties myself and she found that hard to believe and I knew proving my lack of finances by taking her to where I live would not cut the mustard. I do live in a trailer park but the trailer is paid for and the rent I pay for the lot ensures me a small yard, lovely trees, neighbors with two or three cars in their driveways. The projects were the winner. She was holding all aces while I was holding all twos. Later I would take her home and she would insist that I come inside and she showed me the inside of her refrigerator with precious little food inside. Again saying, "I told you the truth!" I told her mine looked the same way and I was not lying. I did know that I had been gifted with the means to put food in my refrigerator while she obviously had not been so fortunate. 
From the first time I pulled into her parking space to the second time I pulled into the parking space I had given her the $37.00 and half of the rice bowl from Bojangles I had in my car and she had bought herself two pieces of chicken and a Pepsi. She asked the drive-thru person for hot sauce and salt and something else and said she was taking that food home and "mess it up". She was hungry and exhausted from walking to the Salvation Army with her walker only to believe I was Teresa but I was not Teresa but an angel of some sort and our meeting was meant to be and somewhere in the conversation, she mentioned a size of clothing she had worn at one time. I said, "Oh, that is my size." On the visit to her apartment to see her refrigerator she grabbed up several blouses and a sweater in the size I wear and pushed them at me. She thanked me again and asked for my phone number.
Next morning she called and wanted me to pick her up and take her to church with me. Later she called and asked me if I use to work at the base and I told her yes and she put a guy on the phone who turned out to be a friend of mine from work. I have not seen him in years. Once more my new friend began talking of how God had put us together and how everything works out and she was going to skip church today but would go next week and we hung up.
Later I called her and begged off going to see her this afternoon.  Being an angel is work intensive and takes a lot out of a girl. ( just kidding!!)

Struggling

"You are so strong", a friend says to me with admiration in her voice.
"You do so much for so many." someone from church says when I seem to be on my last bit of sanity and question everything.
"You should write." I hear this all the time and I often wonder who it is that writes so well that so many people say I should write.
"Take time for yourself!" This has become a laughable suggestion. I can go five hundred miles from here but Robert will never be further away from me than the time it takes to have a thought.
"Mom! Your place is chaos. You never use to live like this...Mom?" I hear my son and I shrink inside. I don't remember when there was any other time than this one. If my home was neat and organized then I cannot imagine I kept it that way but my son says I didn't use to live this way. I cannot remember so I take his word for it and feel myself sinking deeper into a dark place. I seek a place to hide.
"We need to check your sugar!" I am gaining weight. I have been drinking coca-cola for a while now. Full sugar coke. I have recently begun to get more sleep. I am not exercising. I wonder what it is exactly I am doing and when did I start and how do I stop. I need to eat better and care about my weight. I do care about my weight. The idea of managing my food intake is overwhelming and I want to cry and ask an adult to help me. Oh, wait! I am an adult. I do not feel like an adult.
Decisions, questions, money issues, my own expectations and the expectations of people who have become accustomed to my presence, family, get a job, what is wrong with me, is it wrong to wish this was over?
Lately, I feel that I have stepped into quicksand. I cannot get myself out. At first, I wait and try again. I sink a bit deeper. I don't know what is happening to me. I am afraid and I do not know what to do next or if I want to do a "next". I wonder if people like me or if I am a difficult person. I see myself looking in at myself and I cannot see myself clearly. Who is this woman? Wake up! Wake up! Who is going to be the strong one? I am sinking further into the quicksand; I am drifting further from the shore. I hear my name. Someone is calling me. I wonder what they want, and I realize I have nothing to give. I am lost and sinking. I wonder if anyone knows. I don't remember telling anyone. Was I supposed to tell someone? I am ambivalent. I am void of feelings. I cannot feel myself. I wonder what is going to happen and I think of Robert, and I love him. I want to want to call for help.
I am struggling. I am full of tears I cannot cry. I am sad in all the cells of my body, and I think of Robert. Am I failing him? A very long time ago when I was so little someone told me I failed to protect someone. Who? Am I doomed to repeatedly fail to protect?
I wonder if I am o.k. I wonder how I will do tomorrow. How do I keep my sunny side up? How do I find the strength to get up and do the day? I have no idea. I have no idea at all. Have faith someone whispers. Who are you? Have faith someone whispers. I am angry and I want to slap the person telling me to have faith. I want to scream in their face. Have faith! Have faith! Have faith!
I pray it is true that Jesus suffers the little children to come unto Him. I am as a little child, and I am struggling, and I have lost my way.

Not Titled

A stream of consciousness. Nothing finished. A few things started. A stream of consciousness..what the heck does that even mean? My consciousness is streaming without interruption all day every day as far as I can surmise. Why is that process identified with brief and seemingly random observations? Like I bet very few people know that I am ocd about pictures hanging crooked on the wall. I am ocd about leaving my car and always have to count to three before walking away. if the count is sketchy i do it again. or that i can do multi-task thinking if need be and the need seems to always be. it takes more energy and thought to appear to be random. I, who am frequently random throughout any given day, become ordered and organized the minute i claim i will be random. it is a mystery to me. it is frustrating and like so many frustrating things it is impossible for me to keep the point of my frustration in focus leading to a mild, inexplicable discontent. all dressed up with nowhere to go comes to mind. i watched a little boy having a temper tantrum on youtube yesterday or the day before...the day is not pertinent to the telling...he was throwing down and using the word that rhymes with truck right at his dad. but his dad did not believe in spanking. i got nervous watching and felt my spanking trigger finger twitching on the handle of my short fused temper. oh lawd child, be glad that is your daddy. i know people came close to eating the likes of you back in the day when i was young, skinny and stoned. stoned in florida a fair amount of the time. a mellow jamaican kind of reefer and a bottle of cheap wine was enough to make the evening rest in peace. sitting on the porch watching not much of nothing when a squirrel ran by on one of the power lines. he became our mascot for a short time because that is all the time i gave to anything back in the day. i was always moving on and finding the sickest of the sick to hitch my star to back then. back to being stoned...i remember someone stopped by our house one day with seven ounces of reefer he said would mess up your mind and he did not want to be so messed up that he could not talk or think his own thoughts so he was gifting us with the reefer hoping we could ride it for the count or maybe beyond. but it stewed our brains immediately. no howdy ma'am or what's up? just took a few hits and then forgot what was going on around myself and i remember thinking if i could ever come down from that smoke i would not be doing it again and my partner agreed without reservation. about a day later the guy rides up on his motorcycle and asked how we like the reefer, and we giggle a lot, get serious, and the reefer that he could not handle becomes the reefer he is relieved to find out we still had and did not want. He tucked the seven ounces, short a tad, under his arm, pulled his leather motorcycle jacket on, put his helmet on his head, revved the engine and rode away and this is the truth. we never saw him again. he lived in an old school bus he had remodeled a bit and rode that motorcycle and did not appear to have a job so who knows. i don't remember his name...if I ever knew it. 
long as i am telling tales from the past i will tell this one which happened when i was still in florida, still in the same house and still with the same man. i have always met "interesting" people when left to my own devices. i met a man with long, flowing and very red hair. he was tall and had a full build on him. could easily have been a heck of a bouncer. he had a flaming red beard and he drove a bright yellow hearse. he possessed a vivid personality and when he showed up in our driveway, he freaked my boyfriend out. i received a look like who is this fellow and is he an undercover cop? paranoia always lurks in the heart of people who use drugs but i was naive and rarely thought to think of those things. in later years when i was no longer doing drugs, for a time, i did become exceptionally paranoid for very different reasons. but back to "big ed". He did not smoke pot or drink. He developed an unnerving way of bursting into our place saying, "wake up, hippies!" going through to the kitchen and fixing us a full breakfast. i have no idea who he really was to this day. i know he was in love with a woman who he was watching from afar, clandestine like stuff. she had a beau and this drove "big ed" insane. he said she was such a love and he wanted us to meet her and we did but i remember very little of it. the situation was so odd and out of place that i had no context to place this man, his hearse or his love for this woman so i just accepted him as best i knew how and he became part of our lives for a short while. always showed up unannounced. depressed at times. content at times. always talking of this woman and always lurking around her place. over the years i have decided that none of that story was true. i think he was some kind of an agent or dea but we were not on his radar. we did not know anyone who would be on his radar or, i should say, he never knew who we knew. one day he rode out of our lives, and we never saw him again. that was the theme of my life for many years. intense relationships of all sorts and then gone...poof! either i booked or they booked. it was the early 70's and nothing like today at all. 
i may talk about "crazy ed" one day but not today. he was a cat of another color for sure and i don't want to give him space in my head at the moment. 
streaming redirected. over and out!

I Am Grateful

I am visiting a dear friend of mine who lives in New Bern, N.C. I worked with her husband for many years. He and I were close friends and I became close friends with his wife who I will call Miss B in the remainder of this post. John, my friend, passed away several years ago after a long and agonizing decline brought on by symptoms related to having been a smoker. Miss B and I have remained great friends and I have a standing invitation to visit with her at any time. Her family has taken me in as one of their own. They are close knit and often eat their evening meals together. All of them are in their late seventies to mid-eighties. All of them have many stories to tell of the area we live in and around. Time with them puts me in mind of the years when folk would sit at the table or in the living room and talk to each other.
Miss B lives in the historic district of New Bern. New Bern is the second oldest town in North Carolina and, arguably, the home of Pepsi Cola. Miss B's home was built in 1904 and is basically a shotgun house. It is as solid as a rock and comforting. I believe the strength in this home comes from both the construction and the love that has permeated the fabric of the home. I stay here when my husband is in the local hospital or, as in this case, because it comforts me. Miss B spoils me. I have learned to let her spoil me.
I called her yesterday and asked could I come visit for a couple of nights. She said yes without hesitation and began making plans for our visit immediately.
There are people who have come and gone in my life who brought something into my life that sustained me and lifted me up and over difficult times. Miss B and her family are those kind of people. She and I love to reminisce about John. We talk of him often and tell the same stories over and over again. Miss B and I loved him so much and he loved us. He found a great deal of joy in our nagging him and threatening to tell on him. When he passed away I realized what a huge place he held in my heart. Like myself he was quirky and given to coloring outside the lines of convention. He was humble and, as I found out later, far deeper than I imagined.
Paintings hang in their living room that John painted. I am convinced he was a high functioning autistic. I knew him for years before I knew he painted. It took him two years to paint one picture because he did intense research to ensure he represented the subject matter accurately. One of his paintings has a forest with pine straw on the ground, grass pushing through the pine straw, trees full of leaves  and a variety of other plant life. Every blade of grass is individually painted, every leaf on the trees is individually painted. The effect is exquisite in detail. It defies imagination. He used an old pencil drawing he found in a book as the source of his painting. He changed the trees in the painting because the trees in the pencil drawing were not indigenous to the area portrayed in it.
I could go on and on and maybe I will one day. John was a man within a man within a man. I learned so much about him at his funeral. I learned things I would never have guessed. Wonderful things. Tender things. He never mentioned them. He was that humble in his response to his many amazing life choices outside of work.
And yet, he was a conspiracy theorist who would go off on a tangent in a skinny minute and talk it through for hours. He was naïve of the technical world. Like many men his age he never trusted computers or their output. He refused to learn beyond a certain point and taught himself what he felt he needed to do on a computer. This made him the subject of a number of jokes. I don't know if he ever caught on because he stayed on track about the stupid computers and why should he use them and how "they" could see "us" and hear "us" over the computer even if we were not using the it at the time. Yet he developed a detailed catalog of a large variety of aircraft parts, their names and assigned part numbers. He did this on  a computer along with small pictures for demonstration purposes. This was awesome but in no way meant that he planned to learn anything further about the computer and the systems we utilized.
So now I am sitting at the computer in the home he resided in since the 1960's and I am certain that he highly approves. Anything that made Miss B happy made him happy. He lived for her happiness.
Miss B and I have learned to live with his absence but we do not see the time when it will feel natural to us. We talk of him often. We laugh at stories of him and at times we believe he is nearby grinning and feeling happy that we are happy.
Tomorrow I will drive the 30 plus miles back home. I made a good choice when I called and asked could I visit. Love given freely and without reservation is deeply healing. I return home having been gifted a wee healing from my friend who loves me freely and without reservation. I am grateful.