Dreams About Birth Inevitably Turn To Thoughts of Death

I had a dream about my mother this morning. We were on a native reservation somewhere in the woods. My friend Jeanette Garcia was there. We were working all together, gathering sticks and binding them together in bundles. On the path ahead of me sat a small round piece of drift wood. As I reached for it, it turned into an owl, spoke to me (words I don't remember) and then flew away. I turned to my mother and she had streaks of blood along her thighs. The streaks of blood became earthworms and I knew from that her time had come. We put her in a birthing chair in a small smokey room and the baby began to push its way out. I heard one of the elder men say from outside the tent that my mother needed to birth a "workhorse". I knew by that he meant a boy baby. The baby slid out into my arms and as I was trying to clear its mouth I poked one of its fragile eyes. It began to cry and sputtered out amniotic fluid. I noticed it was a girl. Donovan tried to hug it and I told him the baby was covered in blood and he should wait for me to clean it. He then tried to cut the umbilicus and I told him he must clamp it first. I remember thinking that this work was enjoyable and fulfilling and that I should get an apprenticeship under my friend Kamy Shaw. She would help me learn. My mother began cramping again and I assured her it was only the placenta passing. I left her to get a bowl big enough to hold it and that part of the dream phased into another one about a double decker carousel with fairies.

The thing is, on the surface of it I understand consciously why my mother may have been pregnant in the dream. Because her liver and kidneys aren't functioning her abdomen is filled with fluid and terrifically swollen, even as her limbs and face are wasting away. This "fluid filled abdomen" is exactly what it is to be pregnant. The fact that she had a baby girl instead of the "workhorse she needed" indicates that I feel like a failure to her. That as a weak woman suffering from RA I am much more ineffectual in helping her than if I had been born a strong boy. The thing that concerned me the most was the presence of the earthworms and the owl. I have been taught that these are symbols of imminent death and as I have always believed, death is also a form of rebirth, thus leading back to the birthing sequence. In essence, I delivered my mother from the womb of my own mother. I am then called to look at the word "Delivered" and understand that it has multiple connotations, one of which is to rescue one from a bad situation. So, here I am knowing what it all means but wondering if it was all made up by my subconscious or if the universe planted the seed in my mind to help me prepare for my mother's death being sooner than I thought.

I did call her this morning and my father said she was fine. The dream still has me in a very thoughtful mood this morning, however.

Howling For All The Wrong Reasons

The doctor says I have shingles. They itch really badly and I've been promised by multiple people that pain will probably follow. The doctor also said that stress can cause them. I told her about my mother and about my new puppy and about Loki the cat's insane pink eye. Then I looked her straight in the eye and told her it probably was stress after all.

Mother called a couple times today. She is still fully convinced that she will die tonight. I told dad she needs to put her advanced directive on file at the hospital just on the off chance she gets put back into the hospital which is really very likely considering they would have put her back in today if a bed had been available. Both the numbers in her blood pressure are in the double digits and the home health nurse says that her kidneys are shutting down. Dad says everything will get better if they can just get her hydrated and back on the milk thistle. She has tricked us so many times that I really don't want to believe her when she says she is going to die tonight but part of me says if anyone is going to know wouldn't it be her? Then again, a very dear friend said that its possible its just the dementia talking and that she could have years left.

BUT it rained tonight and I'm watching a biopic about Allen Ginsberg and his poem "Howl". The puppy is curled up beside me asleep and Mike made a wonderful green chili crusted grilled salmon and latkes for dinner so my tummy is full. The night is cool and I'm contented. If mom passes on tonight its what she wants and if she doesn't then that is just as well because it means that I get to spend more time with her.

Gods and goddesses bless us with whatever is best for us now.

"Real Women Have Curves... Not the body of a fifteen year old boy."

I just joined a facebook group with the name above because I thought the title was funny. I don't necessarily enjoy my curves one hundred percent of the time and I thought it would be mentally uplifting to become part of a group that did enjoy their curves. Perhaps it would make me more appreciative of what I have. The whole group was nothing but trash talking between fat people and thin people. Pure hatred going back and forth. All the thin posters said that "curvy" was just code for fat. They used words like "fattie" and "rhino". It was ugly and hateful. They made assumptions like all curvy women have diabetes or all curvy women cheap horny women just looking for some. The curvy women were just as bad. In the end I left the group after only being a member for a couple of minutes.

I did a search for groups that represented curvy women in a positive light and couldn't find any. All I could find were groups of skinny women calling other women fat and so called curvy women calling skinny women all kinds of terrible things. The interesting thing is, most of the women who had posted pictures on this group I wouldn't even consider over-weight and I got to wondering if anyone stopped to even look at these women. I am 5'6" and 177lbs. I've been this weight for almost 6 years. The medical world considers me overweight but not obese. I think most of the women who had posted pictures on this group had a lower percentage of body fat than I did. And people were on there calling them "hippos". One person said it was "easier to hit like than to go out and exercise".

Suddenly these women who are trying desperately to like themselves and be proud of who they are were being attacked not because they were being physically unhealthy but because they had the gall to try and be emotionally happy. One thing I don't think any of these women understand is that becoming emotionally happy is the first step to becoming physically happy. If these women are supported in their lives to becoming emotionally happy  they will become strong enough to be physically healthy.

I wish these women, both skinny and curvy find the strength they need to be happy and healthy and like themselves regardless of the world around them.

The World Doesn't Stand Still

It is almost midnight. Summer break so the kids are all still up. They are watching something on the internet that has them all cracking up. I watched a silly horror movie with Kevin Costner in it. I ate Taco Bell for dinner with a large Mountain Dew. Tomorrow Keira starts her acting classes and Donovan has a dentist appointment. Maybe Barnes and Noble with call me about an interview. It seems as if nothing is different. Everything is good, right?

The fact is my mom called at 2 this afternoon and told me I should drive to Deming because she wasn't going to make it through the night. She knew she was going to die. Arianna came with me, so brave for a ten year old to face what very well may be the death of a loved one. She knew the implications and came anyway. I went. Not because I thought my mother was going to die but because I knew if she did and I wasn't there I would never forgive myself. I told Mike is was like prophylactic guilt protection. I didn't go to what I called the Death Watch because I wanted or needed to say goodbye to her or because I didn't want her to be alone but because I knew I would feel guilty if I wasn't there.

All the grief that a daughter can feel bottled up into one crystalline moment that shatters when my mother said "I made a mistake, I didn't really need you. Go home."

And so here I sit, the world still turning and everything feeling all normal as if it will go on like this forever. But it won't because one day she really will die and what if that guilt isn't enough to sucker me into her drama next time... or the time after that... or the time after that.

Blogging is good for the soul

"I think she only crawls out of the woodwork to blog when her life sucks."

Yes folks, I haven't posted in forever because frankly, things were going pretty good there for a bit and I thought everything I could possibly post was boring and redundant. It was almost as if I was waiting for that moment when my life turned to shit and got exciting again.

We had that huge snow storm two weekends back and the pipes all froze and we had rolling blackouts which was fun. The kids and I played "Grandfather's Store" by candlelight. I realized that when I used to play with my parents we used what their great grandfather would have had in their store and I was still kind of stuck on that era. I kept coming up with things like "washboard" and the kids kept coming up with things like "atom bomb". Technically we were both right - it just depends on whose grandfather you are talking about. Except Keira who insisted on using words like "giraffe" and "penguin". I think she was using Diane Fosse's grandfather - or Jane Goodall. Or maybe that guy from The Snows of Kilimanjaro, a movie I might point out, that has neither snow nor Kilimanjaro in it.

Anyway, I should have seen it coming - It's like the curse of Valentines Day, right? Saturday an Sunday we house sat for Sabine in Radium Springs and the weather was gorgeous and the river was low. We spent most of the weekend on the sand bar, playing in the sand and the kids watched movies and we had snacks, etc. Sunday Mike was home all day. It was warm and we grilled. I got to see Rebecca's new baby Coraline and it was amazing to hold her and play with her. At the same time it was good to see that Rebecca was wearing motherhood like a new dress. Monday morning was V-Day and I got up feeling chipper with little to no expectations about the day or romance or any silly thing like that. Mike slept late and then we went to have lunch. We talked a little bit about the future and decided that we may as well stay in Las Cruces for a year to save up money for a real move. We've done the poor move twice and it sucks, especially with kids. I'd like to do a prepared move for once.

Michael mentioned he wanted to take me out to the movies for Valentines Day but by the time 5pm rolled around it was like thunderheads gathering on the horizon. I could smell the ozone in the air and knew it was not going to be a pleasant night. A night at the movies with my honey quickly deteriorated into dinner with the kids at "wherever you want". The dryer broke. Michael started getting anxious and throwing up again.

By six am this morning I'd had little to no sleep, almost chopped my hand off in the dryer, fought with Keira about 80 times, and realized I was still so far behind on homework I'd never see the light.

Optimism is just the guy that sets it up so the fall really hurts this time...

Shedding the Pounds

I've been trying to lose weight the last couple of weeks - I've been exercising by riding my bike to school, eating better, drinking only water. The first week I gained 6 pounds. I was livid but Michael said it was only water weight and when I finally lost it I had also lost two pound so regular weight. So, in the spirit of bettering my life I began spring cleaning and in the spirit of water weight I gain a whole bunch more stuff before I was able to get rid of other stuff. So now my house is trashed but I got rid of 3 bags of garbage and several boxes yard sale goods...