It's That Day Again...

 So it's Dia de Muertos today. Or Dia de los Muertos. I switch back and forth on if I use the longer or the short version. I actually looked it up this year to see which one was right and got the "it's all good, no?" response so...yeah. 

Reading my On This Day posts and it started with remembering Jack. Then remembering Jack and Dad. Last year I actually put together an ofrenda, it was the week after Mom's funeral and it seemed right to do one. I did it just for my parents. I memorialized Jack in my blog and in my posts, but the ofrenda itself was just Mom and Dad. Which looking back this year I thought it was odd.

Then I started thinking about if I were to make one this year, which I'm not going to make an actual one because kittens...

But anyway, when I started to think about making one I was trying to decide what I would use to represent Jack and what I would put as an offering. Like for my folks I put Dad's ring and Mom's owl and used their favorite candies. For Ann I have a smaller glass bauble and I thought a shot of tequila or a Margarita would work, but what would I do for Jack? I've got some bigger items, the flag from his funeral, a gargoyle, a Frank Lloyd Wright clock. Maybe his challenge coins from the funeral? The ones people gave us. 

And then I remembered thinking last year about using the coins. And that I didn't because I wasn't sure they were really him. Or what I thought of as him anyway. And then the thought of "Ann carries him like Mom carried Dad so not this year."

Oh.

That's right. Last year I talked myself out of the coins and finding a brownie or some pizza for the ofrenda for Jack because like Mom had been the main memory keeper for Dad, Ann was holding Jack. And that it wouldn't be until Ann died that we would become the main keepers. And that wouldn't be for years.

That's what I had decided.

We all know how that worked out.

So...

I'm not making an actual ofrenda this year but I am thinking about one. 

A sugar skull surrounded by marigolds. My father's ring, my mother's owl, Ann's bauble and Jack's clock. The picture of Jack and Ann where they are standing by The Gorge and the picture of my parent's from the last time we had family pictures done. Orange slices and chocolate covered peanuts with a turtle brownie and a giant Margarita on the rocks, no salt.

Honor your dead. Remember them fondly. Hold them in your hearts. Build them an ofrenda, real or a vision of one. And remember that you don't get to decide or to know when your loved one will become part of your ofrenda instead of part of your life.

Rest in peace to our parents. We hold your memory now. 

Settling...

The heater clicked on and she heard the familiar pings and pops from the warm air coursing through the vents. The warmth expanding the joints, filling the walls. She knew that later on when the heat turned off she would hear the clicks and creaks of the house settling back into itself. The cold contracting everything again.

When she was a child the noises had scared her. Her mother telling her that the house was settling did not make her feel any better. What was it settling for? Was it waiting to fall on them or suck them into a ghostly vortex but was settling for waiting? When her father explained to her that settling could also mean a sort of relaxing she felt better. Comforted.

She imagined her house settling into its own foundations. Solid. Firm. A kind of settling she liked the idea of. 

Not the settling of a mediocre existence. 

Where your job was just okay. 

Your boyfriend was fine. 

Everything was...

Well everything was. 

She sighed.

She was not one to settle.

Not for long. 

She had in the past, of course, everyone does sometimes.

But she didn't dwell.

If she realized that a job wasn't really challenging her she moved on to a new position. 

If she found a relationship wasn't fulfilling she said her goodbyes and found a new one. 

She just refused to settle. 

Except into herself. Into her own foundations. The familiar comfort.

The good kind of settling. 

She took a deep breath and listened to her house creak. Felt the warmth from the heater. Thought about settling. And how she wouldn't. And why that meant her cheating bastard of a boyfriend had to die.

She refused to settle.  

Phantom Pain...

She hadn't remembered. That's the first thing that struck her. She hadn't even thought about it. She thought about the years when she would dread it as the day got closer and closer and she could feel the weight of anger and sadness start to take over. And then there were the years where it had snuck up on her. She was fine and then she would write out the date and remember. Oh. 

But this year? She almost made it the whole day without thinking about it. Almost. It was finally there at the end. Some small part of her mind told her, hey, you know what today is right?

Oh yeah. It is. 

And she thought about it. Thought for a second that she was going to get mad or sad all over again. As she had before but...

No.

She could remember it. The anger. The sadness. The feeling of being betrayed. But that's all it was. The memory of the feeling. Not the feeling. Not anymore.

It had been like a sore tooth. She had poked at it with her tongue. Not being able to leave it alone. Feeling the pain, swearing she wouldn't do it again, but she would. Then having the offending tooth pulled and her tongue still searching out that space. That sore spot. Until eventually the pain was gone but by habit her tongue would return again and again to the same space. A nervous habit without any remembrance of the pain. And then one day she didn't do it anymore. The missing tooth was just part of who she was. No need to poke at it. 

She had been so angry. She had been sad as well. But anger. There was so much anger. 

It took her awhile to reflect. 

She had known it was coming. She had known eventually she would have to deal with it, but when it happened? She had felt betrayed. Blindsided. He hadn't considered her at all. And that was what hurt. What made her furious. 

What fueled her life for a longer time than she would like to admit. 

She had realized that for so long she had still thought of what he might feel before she did something. Even though there was no reason to. No real reason to. But she had. Until then. 

Then she used it. He didn't think about me so...

So she cut her hair. Even though he liked it long. Why did she care that he liked it long? He didn't care about her. 

She toured Europe. Even though it was his dream vacation. Why did she care if he had always wanted to do what she was doing? He didn't care about her. 

She bought new clothes.
She bought a new car.
She got a new job. 
She got a new life.

And eventually she didn't think about what he wanted, what he liked, what he cared about. 

She cared.

And that was enough. 

Maybe eventually she wouldn't remember at all. The day would pass and it would be weeks before she thought of it. Realizing that she had missed the day. 

Maybe. 

But for now the memory of the pain was still there. But the pain was gone. The old rotted tooth had been pulled and she had healed. 

Another Anniversary to Mark...

 A year ago we were getting ready to have Mom's funeral. We had pushed it off from when she died in August to give a few family members time to get back to New Mexico. At the time I told you all that I absolutely didn't recommend doing it that way. That it was just like having your grief stuck on hold for awhile and then having to start fresh again. 

Then came the pandemic.

So many people have had to put their grief on hold. To either wait on funerals or to hold them with only a handful of people there. For loved ones to pass alone in hospitals or nursing homes and then to not even be able to gathering as loved ones to mourn them. 

It's been awful to watch. 

And it makes me wonder what we are all going to be facing when this crisis time has passed.

Grief on hold. 

Because we are all grieving right now, in various ways. Some of us have lost family or friends. Some have lost jobs. Or businesses. Most all of us have lost our sense of normal. And it's not just going to come right back. Even when/if we get a vaccine that works. And, I think I've said this before but I'm going to say it again, I'm not totally sold on the idea that a vaccine is going to work. Or at least not like we think of with measles or mumps or shingles. It's a type of coronavirus which is what the common cold is. A type of coronavirus. And colds mutate. That's why we get so many of them. And the typing that's happing with this virus shows that there are multiple strains out there. So how will a vaccine work against a mutating virus? I'm not an immunologist so maybe there is some sort of formula that hits a lot of strains and wipes it out, but I just don't understand it. And maybe it will be like the flu vaccine and we will need to get a different one every year. The flu is a different type of virus but still a mutating one, and we are still fighting the virus from the 1918 Flu Pandemic. It didn't "go away" either, just mutating and circulating. I will still get the vaccine when/if they come up with one that they think is promising but I'm not 100% positive that it's the silver bullet people think it is. 

Anyway...

Once that happens. Once we have some more protection from this. Or we all learn how to exist with it out there (wear your damn masks, people) we still aren't going to go bouncing back to normal. The people we've lost aren't coming back. A lot of those businesses aren't coming back. Those lost jobs aren't coming back. At least not for awhile. I think we are going to hit a strong recession, possibly a depression before we are through this. And I know a LOT of you are like, THAT'S WHY WE HAVE TO OPEN THE ECONOMY RIGHT NOW! But, look around. You can open a theater but you can't convince most people it's safe to go to a show. You can open a restaurant but you can't convince everyone that eating inside with people you don't know is a great thing. 

I read a story on the Navy Pier in Chicago and they closed early for the season because nobody was coming. Or not enough people, anyway. They had shut down then reopened and one of the business owners said he was doing about 6% of his normal sales. Six. Because you can open a store but if the virus isn't contained it doesn't matter. There aren't enough of the "who the hell cares?" people out there to sustain everything. And as we get more spikes, which are happening all across the country, it's just going to keep people in and away. 

So there will be more death. A lot more death, as I mentioned, cases are spiking and we still aren't doing anything to contain it, not really, not consistently, not everywhere. There will be a lot more financial upheaval. And we've got a brewing Civil War on our hands too. I think the rise of Q and the real acrimony between people has been exacerbated by the grief we are all living with. We want TO DO SOMETHING and Q has tapped in to that with people who believe that they are somehow really saving children. And the battles between political parties is a way to feel like you are doing something important in a world that's out of control. Good guys and bad guys and if we can help the good guys win then everything is better. Well...

I do want a massive Blue Wave. I do think Trump needs booted from office. And in such large numbers that there is no question that the majority of the American people saw him for what he is, finally, and said, that's not who we are, that's not what we want to be. 

But I don't think it's going to make things all better. I think if Biden wins he's facing and even more difficult presidency than Obama did. And Obama came in as the economy was crashing down around us. I think it's going to be really difficult. And I think there are going to be people rooting for him to fail. And I think there are some pretty scary groups out there that are just waiting to fuck some shit up (we've have multiple arrests for planned political kidnappings lately) So no, I don't think it's going to be all better. I think it's going to be really hard.

And we are all going to have to do it while we grieve.

A year ago we had my mother's funeral. We put it off to give people a chance to be there. I don't recommend it. But we are going to be doing it as a country here really soon. We are going to be dealing with the grief, with the loneliness, with everything that has happened during this stretch. 

I hope we are able to do it together. 

But Wait! There's More!

 It feels a little personal.

I mean, I know everyone is going through shit right now, but it still feels a little personal.

We finally got kittens again. After 6 years, we got kittens. We went back and forth on it a lot. We travel, we go to hockey games and shows. But with Covid shutting everything down we let our guards down and decided that sure, kittens would be good. By the time everything reopened they would be past the little stage and we could leave them alone here and there for sure. 

And they are so cute. And really lovely. And they love each other and play together and cuddle and the bond was instant and wonderful. And my onslaught of kitten pictures on Facebook has been met with mostly "Thank you! We needed kittens in our lives!" only a few, "Nobody needs to see that many pictures of kittens."

So yeah, it was such a good idea. A bright spot in the gloom. A positive out of 2020.

And then...

Tig fell. 

He fell off the back of a chair he had been on multiple times over the past week or so. He's our terror. He climbs and jumps and runs and does kitten pakour everywhere he goes. So falling isn't that unusual. But as soon as he hit I knew he was hurt. He yowled. Tig doesn't make loud noises. He's a squeaker. His meow is kind of pathetic. But this was the full grown cat yowl. And then he wouldn't put weight on the leg. 

So the vet calls started, me hoping that it would be a bruise or maybe a dislocated hip. 

Ended up at the Emergency vet, which Google helpfully let me know I had last been there 6 years ago...

It's a bad break. Diagonal. Near the growth plate. The vet at the emergency clinic said they maybe could repair it, or possibly amputate. He suggested calling our regular vet again to tell them what it was and see if they could do the surgery sooner than he could, which would be the next night. 

Vets are incredibly busy right now. Everyone got pets during the shutdown and Portland is a pet heavy place anyway.

So I get ahold of our vet and let them know what happened as the Emergency vet emailed copies of his x-rays over. How amazing is that really? In my lifetime that is something that didn't exist, now it exists and we take it completely for granted. When I say our vet, I meant the whole practice, so our vet gets back to me that yes, the orthopedic surgeon can do the surgery that day and just bring him back over. 

So now it's been 4 hours or so since the fall, back in the car with him once they could process him back out and back over to our vet. It was a hot day on Wednesday, but thank goodness it was hot like mid 80 not hot like 90 or 100. See, you can't sit inside and wait, you give them your pookie and then you wait in your car. And it's an emergency room so you wait your turn. Four hours. Stomach churning nerves and heat. So good.

They do the surgery, I talk to the vet, we make plans for a pickup the next day so I can get some supplies. 

We have to keep him calm. 

For two months. 

Two months.

He's already sure he's well enough to play and jump and climb. 

If he's not asleep, which is most hours of the day, but there are four or five he's not. He's ready to take on the world. 

Stoned to the gills. 

Wired and strong.

The first collar they gave us was too heavy for him. Poor guy was flopping around everywhere. 

We were trying to let him go without a collar at all while we were awake and watching, so at night he could wear one, but the rest of the time no.

Well that didn't work. He's fast. As soon as you blink he's at the stitches or the rod. 

Oh the rod. 

So the break, to fix it they wrapped his leg and the two bone shards that came off with a mesh cage. And he has a rod through his femur for stability. But since he is growing he also has an inch of rod sticking out of his hip. Which he hates. With a vengeance. If he can get to it he's chewing on it. 

So yeah, the collar. We have him in a softer lighter one right now, he still hates it. Fights it when he's awake. But it gives us a little piece of mind that he might, maybe, possibly, keep his stitches in long enough for the leg wound to heal. 

It's hard. I mean I know I sound whiny, but, guys, it's hard. 

He needs constant supervision. He hates all of it and fights every step. His brother doesn't understand why he can't play with him. And vice versa. The beautiful bonded pair we had is going to spend 2 months being told they can't play together and I am so worried they will both end up neurotic and hating each other. 

We had that. George and Gracie were not good together. Gracie was a mean bully and George was so much a better pet when she was gone. Which is awful to say, but it's so true. We didn't even know how bad it was until she was gone. We had thought that he was just a little standoffish and a loner, but no, it's that she terrorized him. 

And I am so worried that we are going to end up in a situation like that again.

And I get it, the sleep depravation is making it all seem so much harder and worse. But that's also a big part of it. Brent and I are sleeping on the bathroom floor in shifts so that someone is always with him. Because when he gets wound up in those hours that he's awake, we are terrified he's going to hurt himself. So yeah, I'm exhausted. Brent's exhausted. Tux is insulted. Tig is a mess...

It's been a year. 

And it so feels personal. 

This is why we can't have nice things....

Is It Still Going?

I just looked back at some earlier 2020 blogs. A couple from before the virus took over about politics, a couple from before Ann died, including the one I wrote about grief on the day we found out she had passed, but before I knew she was gone. And as I read them it seemed like a lifetime ago instead of a few months.

I feel like a different person wrote those. 

And in a way that's true. I mean cellularly for sure. We have that turnover of cells that happens and even with it being slower in my 50s I'm still a completely new person than I was. But also just experiences. Everything we see, do, hear, learn, it all changes us. Or at least it should. Sometimes it's a gradual change, those slow changes that we don't really notice until we are confronted with something from our past. But then there are the changes like this year. 

The tidal wave. The massive earthquake. The forest fire of changes. The ones that come and everything that was there before is now changed. Or gone. 

2020

The tidal wave, earthquake, forest fire year. 

And even literally with that last one. So much damage and destruction from the fires this year. The next time we drive down to Bend it will be completely different than it ever has been. I think the road is still closed right now on the route we normally take, the worry now is about landslides and falling trees. I'm not sure when we will see it again. What will be there when we do. 

That's what this year feels like on a personal level as well. 

Like the virus, the deaths, the political bullshit, it's all hollowing me out. Changing the shape of who I was. Quickly. Not a thoughtful slow change, but a sudden drastic, things will never be the same again shift. 

But then again grief always feels that way doesn't it?

And it's all grief. All of the changes that have happened, that are happening, it all feels like grief and loss. 

The loss of people, sure. We've had an abundance of that the past year or so. Personally just with friends and our mothers, and then the addition of over 200,000 dying from the same disease that Ann did, and that's just in the US, it's over a million world wide. 

But the loss of our normal lives. Our routines. Our comforts. All of that is gone. And yes, again, we are so lucky because it's an easy shift for us. Brent can work from home with only a few changes to our used to be mostly mine now mostly his office. We were able to adjust our house to fit our needs and our wants. Media room, workout room, front porch bar. It's all worked out. But it's still a loss. An adjustment. A change. We normally travel, we aren't. We normally go to sporting events and concerts and comedy shows and we aren't. By this time I should have an abundance of Christmas shows planned. There aren't going to be any. And it's all really superficial things, and I know it's not a big deal, but it's still a loss to me.

The politics have been a lot of loss for the past four years. The facing people you thought you knew and seeing a side of them that shocks you. Losing that veil of ignorance. Now, in a big way, that's a good thing too. Knowing who you are really talking to and dealing with is good. But, man, it can be a big loss. And this year being a presidential election year it's just moving so much faster. It's all of the stuff from the 2016 election that never healed and adding on to it. At warp speed. At avalanche progression. 

The racial injustice finally breaking through for a moment only to be pushed back when a large group of white people could clutch their pearls and say oh but what about... So there is loss there. Loss of a chance at redemption. Loss of a chance at change.

And the loss of respect I have for you that goes with all of that. The politics being more important than people. The denying that we need to change things in our systems. That it's not a fair country and that we need to work toward making it better. That for hundreds, HUNDREDS of years in our country we haven't done the right things and the cracks are now giant fissures and you want to deny that? Ignore it? Not see the pain? Tell people the right way to protest, even though you've ignored the people protesting the right way for years. 

The denying Covid because you might have to stay home more, or wear a mask when you are out. When I see that, when I see people I know taking that stance I want to find them and look them in the eyes and let them see what grief looks like then ask them to imagine that among 200,000 more families. People are dying and it's too much to ask of you to wear a fucking mask?

So yeah, it's a loss, but probably not really.

I'm not sure what or who I will be when this all comes to a close. I know I'm different. I know I've changed. I'm not sure what will stick. I'm not sure what I will still mourn as a loss in 2021 and beyond. Will I be like the forest after a fire. Different. Changed. But growing new life. Welcoming fresh growth. Or like the coast after a tidal wave? Everything gone. Swept to sea. Unrecognizable from what it was. Earthquake? Landslide?

Or just a quieter, cat lady, eating fresh baked goods and sitting on her porch remembering the lost things. 

Time to Push...

 I haven't had this few blog posts since 2016. Now to be fair I still have three months left this year so I could suddenly get prolific and end up in a more normal territory. 

Today while I was looking at numbers and saw the low 2016 number I thought...was that the year I was depressed all year just dying for a manic swing? And yeah, that was it. I read my birthday blog from that year (which would have been written before the election but during the season) and the deep frustration I had with how people didn't pay attention to facts anymore. Man, I had no idea that those would soon be the good old days.

That now we have separate sets of "facts" for everyone. 

Today, for instance, I read about a lawsuit being dismissed because anyone should know that Tucker Carlson doesn't deal in facts on his TV show. Well, I would argue with you that most of the people, if not all of the people, who watch Tucker Carlson think he's dealing in facts. The rest of us know he's dealing in manufactured outrage, but his viewers? They believe him. It reminded me of when Alex Jones told a judge that he plays a part on his show. That it wasn't real. He was acting. And I thought, well there goes his following. AND IT DIDN'T CHANGE! He admitted that he was spewing bullshit and the people who watch and listen were like, that's fine. 

I don't get it. 

I'm also feeling really on edge right now. I wrote about it when I wrote about RBG dying. It just all feels like we've passed the point where we can affect change. Like if she had been able to hold on and Biden won and the Senate went blue and the House stayed blue, then maybe, just maybe we could have pulled it back from the death spiral. But any one of those things not happening and we were either going to spin in place or go up in flames. I've been worried about Trump winning again (see above where people of that ilk don't fucking care about facts). I've been worried about the Senate (the odds are really tight there) and I was praying to every possible deity around that RBG would hold on. Now? Now it feels like I should just check my bank account, buy a gun and hole up with my new mixer, and bake my way to an early death.

Breonna Taylor got no justice. I didn't think she would. I'm always completely surprised when an officer is held responsible. They have manipulated the laws so thoroughly that it's pretty much impossible to charge them, let alone find them guilty. But it does seem especially galling that the only charges that happened were from shooting a wall. Like spitting on her grave.

Brent and I were talking about it at breakfast this morning and I said that I shouldn't have been surprised. That conservative branch has a real thing about protecting walls. I mean most of what they deemed "violence" and "riot" here in Portland has been spray painting walls. I had no idea you could be violent to a wall, Then I said, they should be the party of walls and as it came out of my mouth I realized what I was saying...Oh yeah. They've been upfront for the past 5 or 6 years that they love a wall much more than they care about people who aren't white. All white walls matter. 

Which did not make me feel better.

Right after RBG died friends of mine did a flurry of groups and added me to a ton of them. There are so many activist groups out there. Which should give me hope, but instead it completely overwhelmed me. Like if there are so many of us that know what is happening is bat shit fucking crazy and deeply wrong then why is it still happening? Which my inner nerd voice said, almost 3 million more votes. Oh yeah, there has always been a plurality of people who know what the right thing is, they've just had their voices drowned out by dirty political shenanigans. 

Which then again put me right back at the despair spiral.

It's really hard. Part of me feels like just unplugging. No more news. No more social media. No more information. I know what I'm doing in November. I know the Republicans will do everything they can to cast doubt and shadow on this election. I know that there is nothing that can be done to prevent the uber conservative tilt of the Supreme Court. I know that's all going to happen and why watch?

Then there is the part of me that realizes what an extremely soft candy ass position that is to take. It's hard and I don't want to...

Bah.

So...

I'll keep doing what I can. Which is write. These blogs, posts on my account, thinking things through and sharing those thoughts. It might not make a difference, but then again it might. 

I'll keep doing what I can. Which is donate. I can send money to organizations fighting for the things I believe in. It might not make a difference, but then again it might. 

I'll keep doing what I can. Move forward without getting bogged down. It means not being part of a bunch of groups because I can't deal with that much wound up energy coming my way. It means not fighting with people who aren't looking for a discussion, just an argument. It means stepping in to say something when it really needs to be said but otherwise holding my tongue. It might not make a difference, but then again it might. 

I'll keep doing what I can. Reading. Learning. Expanding my own knowledge base and understanding of what it is like for people who aren't like me. People who can't just shut it all down and pretend the world isn't what it is. People who deal with much worse shit than a bad case of the I don't want tos. This one I know does make a difference. Every time I learn something new I become a better version of myself. Every time I learn something new I can share it with others and help them learn something new as well. It does make a difference. 

So here we are...we keep doing what we can and seeing what makes a difference. We keep trying.

And we wear our fucking masks!