Migraines (Let Go)

I am tired.

I am tired of being a human guinea pig for a doctor whose name I can not pronounce, who would not know me if he saw me at a coctail party with a name tag on. 

This doctor throws medication at me like a dart board, “let’s just see what works,” he says. “Why can’t we find out what’s wrong first,” I ask. He looks at me, annoyed. I ask questions. He doesn’t like questions. I give explanations. He looks at his watch. He likes writing prescriptions, one after the other, after the other. He likes the sound of his voice. He looks puzzled when I don’t jump with enthusiasm at the drugs: Imitrex, Amitriptyline, Verapamil, Celexa, Nadol, Cymbalta, Feverfew, Riboflavin, Excedrin, CoQ10, Vitamin D, Cyclobenzaprine. They sound frightening, toxic, a recipe for disaster and they have not worked.

He scrambles the perscription like he’s making an omelet. “Well, just stop the Cymbalta, go back to the Celexa. Keep taking the Nadolol for another week, maybe two…did you try Imitrex?” My chart is in his hand; how does he not know?

Drink coffee, he tells me; don’t drink coffee, says my mother. Don’t eat tomatoes, cheese, yogurt, fresh bread, spices, sauces, peanut butter, lemons. . . eat meat, don’t eat meat. Eat vegetables, but not pea pods or onions.

The Neurologist prescribes herbs, more drugs and vitamins. I was fuzzy, jumpy, twitchy, stoned, nauseous, dizzy with nose bleeds.

I reread this. I sound like a junkie. What is next? Detox.

Meanwhile, the lights get brighter, the pain pulsates in my neck, behind my eye, my head. ”Just letting you know I am here,” it tells me, laughing at these lists, the doctor, the advice, all of it.  

“I will go away,” I imagine it telling me, “when you let me go . . . when you stop, pack up, leave town and don’t look back. Go to the desert–you already know this–walk barefoot through the sand, the sage, wade deep into a calm river, fall willingly into an ocean. Float. Only these will save you, but you must let go. Let it all go.”

But then what?  I want another list, I think. A road map of what comes next. I am too afraid to just let go, even if that’s what might save me.

Room With A View

This is the view from my bedroom window at the cabin. It’s a window seat and some days I believe I could sit there all day. The only thing better, of course, is to go downstairs and sit on the beach or the pier.

I’ve been lucky enough to have this view a few days a year as far back as I can remember. The family is getting bigger, our time there is getting shorter, but it’s the last place left that has my whole life’s worth of memories stocked up like an old photo album.

Room With A View

Even sitting here at my computer staring out over the water works.  My thoughts go backwards and my blood pressure drops.

What a lovely evening that was. I even caught the canoe just as it swept through the middle of my picture. Tell me that isn’t the most beautiful room with a view.

The First Lemon

I love Myers lemons. I mean, I really love them. My neighbor has a tree smattered in yellow like polka dots. They never eat them. I take them away in full bowls. I squeeze them in water, baste salmon, stir lemon thyme pasta and occasionally make lemon squares.

Three years ago I properly planted seeds I had squeezed from one such lemon, although my compost pile is filled with them.

The seeds took root upon my kitchen window sill, grew larger until I moved them outdoors. They battled winter, bugs and various other attacks of nature that descended on them like locust.

After a year,  I had three plants left, one barely hanging on. They vary in shape and size, like siblings perhaps, but this year to my absolute surprise one blossomed an aromatic flower and then two.

The weather, being particular balmy, urged them on and this is the fruit of my labor–my very first lemon. It’s only an inch and half long yet and as green as a lime, but still, it feels like magic.

This winter when the rest of the garden as fallen asunder I have this to look forward to, one–maybe, more–delicious homegrown Myers lemon.

Mother Nature

I love the craziness of my garden, the way it takes on a life of its own from something I created and others I didn’t. This raised bed was made from discarded 2 x4s my neighbor and I found. The small green wood box was  discarded in the street as well. I painted it green. The bottom has fallen out, so I stuffed it with a plastic planter and one ceramic pot. I love it.

Urban Gardening

The nasturtiums are actually growing from the bottom of the large wood bed. I never planted them there, but their seeds have blown across the yard over time and they sprout up everywhere. The white puffy flowers (I never remember names) grow from cracks in the cement all over the yard. I let them blossom where they like, weed around them and the yard looks styled that way in white lavendar clouds.

Nasturtiums

Just today I found a hint of rosemary growing from the cement as well. Last year a sunflower came up. If I left it completely alone the vegetation would take over. Soon enough the old asphalt and cement would crumble, disappear. I love that. In the end Mother Nature wins.

New Blog Banner (It Smells Like Home)

It’s summer. I was tired of looking at the misty autumn river scene on my banner. So I edited in my favorite view in the whole world. It’s a bit grainy, but I don’t mind.

The pier on the left is our family pier. It’s fairly new, 10 years or so. My grandfather built the original sometime in the 30s. It weathered a good long life, then got traded up for steel pylons. No more walking from wood hand post to wood hand post. Now it’s a clean, straight walk to the end. A balancing act if vertigo is an issue, especially at cocktail hour.

The whole view w/my kayak

I miss the old pier. It smelled like fish and bait and suntan oil. It had history. Still, the new pier works.  Eventually, it will assume the summer odor appropriate to all beach cabins. It will take on the patina of dropped ice cream cones, Popsicles, clam dip, wine, sodas, lotion that have baked in the sun crusted with sand.

I don’t get enough time looking at this real view anymore. The family has grown, everyone wants their time there. And who could blame them. Look at that view!

I was blessed to grow up on the other side of this grand lake, way up on a mountain over looking the lake from what seemed like a  far distance. Really, it was only a mile, if that. Still, nothing was like driving the miles around the lake to spend time at the cabin. It is the only family home I have left. It is the only place that still holds onto my childhood, no matter how long I have been away. I walk out on the beach and down the pier and I am a kid all over again. “Welcome home,” it calls. “Thank you,” I say. A hundred, blessed thank yous.

Cafe Flowers (or My Water Cooler)

Today is my two year anniversary of keeping the cafe flowers . Two years ago I sat and sipped coffee beside one of these enormous cement pots. A dead gardenia bush stuck from it’s center while an array of cigarettes and detritus floated about it. It was appalling.

I went inside at the urging of a waitress I knew and told the manager, Remon– a very friendly, flirty man whom I’d met before–that I was going to the nursery for myself and that I wanted to get  flowers for the cafe too. I told him I was going to replant that one pot.

I planted a fiery apricot Chinese Lantern surrounded by various  flowers I had no name for. It looked lovely. Customers applauded; I referred them to Remon.

So, I planted another, then all five; then later–a very ambitious undertaking–I dug up a 10 feet long triangle of curbed ground along their side door. A dead begonia, weeds. I pulled up buckets and buckets of cement clods beneath sparse inches of dirt. The cooks hauled them to the dumpster in intervals. It was nearing 100 degrees. We were exhausted.

I imported dirt, mulched, watered, fertilized, then finally, I planted: two French lavenders, rosemary, a gardenia, yarrow, wild grasses and a plethora of yellow, orange, pink and white Gazanias. In the spring I added sunflowers that grew to overlooks one table. It looked wild and lovely and I have fought to keep it that way.

Customers are the enemy. Cigarette butts, gum, lemon wedges from water glasses (wait staff) and various unwanted food pieces. Children pick the flowers–actually, so do adults.  And sometimes a random clump of flowers will disappear completely. I have no idea where to. Still, I keep showing up. I water, prune, declutter, fertilize and replant.  I treat it like my own garden.

Today,  I just buy flowers then give Remon the bill. I bought a new hose, a trolley and watering system replacement parts. I pushed Remon to get a new lawn mower man and  table umbrellas.  I mess with the watering system. I steam at Remon when any of it has been messed with. And often I can be found deadheading flowers as I sip my morning coffee.

And coffee is what I get in exchange. Depending on who you talk to I am either getting screwed or a great deal. Most days, I think it’s a great deal, because I have a two-trips-a-day coffee habit, minimum. Plus, I like having a place to go to chat. When you work at home there is no water cooler to stand around for gossip. The cafe is my water cooler.

So, today has been two years of cafe gardening. I am their gardener; the cooks call me their ”flower lady.”

This day is a good reminder that life is what I make of it. This includes work, relationships and even fun. (All of which I often think aren’t out there for me because I can’t, won’t, don’t see or find them.) But, like my garden, this is a good reminder that my life will take a bit of personal creation. Just because they don’t exist yet, doesn’t mean I can’t make them on my own.

Raising Dogs

I was reminded last night of how dogs are like children, except they don’t grow up and go away to college. A woman on twitter announced her dog had been chewing on a dead squirrel from behind her shed and was sick. I immediately though “rat poison!” which I didn’t yell to scare her, although I’m sure it didn’t help, but because in a dog centered world, like a kid centered one, you’re the mommy in charge of safety and care of the little bugger, except dogs can’t say “ow, it hurts here.” In fact, their job, they feel, is to hide any pain or weakness for fear of being left behind by the pack. Just like men.

Zephyr

Zephyr has managed so many hairbrained, split second danger diversions it’s amazing I leave the house with him at all. Here are a few  ringers:

1. As reminded, the day I looked down at the park and saw a squirrel tail hanging out of his mouth as if he’d swallowed a Davy Crockett hat. Me, being seasonably calm, pushed down on his head with my left hand then yanked up the tail with my my right. Insta-squirrel jerky and all in one piece. Dogs don’t savor anything, the smellier the faster it’s gone. This includes so many other unsavory items one finds in a park, along the river, I can’t even mention because it’s early and it will ruin your breakfast.

2. Engulfed in biting wasps when he stepped on a hive at the river. Screaming, swatting and running for our lives. We escaped, but Zephyr went from adrenaline high to nearly dropping as we neared the car. I  now keep Benedryl everywhere.

3. Attacked by pitbull & me playing super adrenaline mom, grabbed huge pitbull and wrestled it to its back on the ground. I was VERY lucky that time.

4. Peaceful river walk ends when Zephyr tears into a bramble hedge hiding a coyote den. Horrid teeth gnashing and yelping ensue. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t get to him and I was certain he was a goner. When the sound softned to no sound at all  I sobbed and ripped through the limbs until there was a  nose poking back at me. I yanked him out, no visible blood anywhere, unimaginable. I body checked him to the  end, his ass, where I found a deep hole the size of a silver dollar. He must have turned in fright at momma coyote who gnashed him in the hind quarters. Through the grace of god I had my own vet pharmacy at home: antibiotics and pain meds, which saved us, because it was a Saturday evening of Memorial Day weekend. Of course it was.

 

I see all these gleeful puppy owners in the park, people who have never had a dog before and I imagine if they really knew what they were getting into they would have passed. “What’s to a dog, ” I overheard one guy tell another. “You feed it and walk it once in a while.” I already felt sorry for this guy–but mostly for the dog.

When I found my first and dearest dog, Shadow, 13 yrs ago I had no idea what I was getting into, even though I grew up with a dog. Looking back over the years to follow I can’t imagine it without him. When Shadow died he left behind Zephyr and now it’s just the two of us. After a painful prolonged ending for Shadow, I no longer wait around until the end to be thankful.

Everyday, Zephyr helps me practice the Art of Now. Be here now, because there may not be a later. (Oddly, I can do this for him, with him, but not as much for me.) Often, when I’m rushing around with a list of errands and Zephyr hasn’t been walked  even once I stop and ask myself, “which is more important in the long run, finishing errands or walking Zephyr? I often make myself choose the later, because at the end of my day, year, life, I don’t want to look back and say “well, at least I got all those errands done. Phew!” What I do want to say is “I raised two dogs, loved them and cared for them to the best of my ability.” It isn’t monumental. It won’t make headlines, but it’s an ending I feel I can peacefully live with.

Oak Trees

I had a rough morning. I came out doors to find my neighbor had dug two grand holes in my front lawn and planted  juniper shrubs awash in  red dyed bark.  I freaked.

I couldn’t fathom a person who just digs up another person’s yard. The boundaries are clear. He had to come across his cluttered driveway with a shovel, dig up my lawn!

I was indignant, but something else as well, sad, even frightened. This inexcusable act of intrusion set off a history of personal trespassing that sent me into a rage and then tears. I was a complete mess.

I have been mistaken for a blank canvas my whole life, created for others, it seems, to carry out their bidding, their ideas, their lifestyles, their personas of who I should be and how I should behave.

I am not you–or her, or him, or a symbol of my parents, this family, your ancestry. I am not here for you to live your lost life through, or follow in your footsteps. I am me and no one else.

I pulled up the dreadful plants. I hate junipers. They are the ugliest suburban blight plant I can think of. And so appropriately nestled with dyed red bark; good god. . .

Later, after I had cried and told myself that my reaction did not match the intrusion,  that something grander and far deeper was going on than ugly junipers,  I wrote him a letter.

His boundary issues are his. He has none–and isn’t that ironic that I live next door to him. He claims he thought he was adding something pretty. ”You are a gardener,” he said. “What’s your problem?” There was no point in discussing  it. He agreed to keep them out. I will repair the lawn and set my space back two feet to where it was.

I took Zephyr to the park after that. Laid on the grass, under a weeping tree and stared at the sky for a long while. We continued at home in the backyard, staring at the sky, sipping coffee, Z playing with his ball. I wanted to dig my body into the ground, grow roots like an old oak.

 

Staring at the sky eventually leads to rolling over and perusing the yard. Weeding ensued, then trimming, then planting. Planting is good. I want to erect a fence, a wall, steel girders, brick enforced, between me and the neighbor, but leaving it alone takes more courage. Saying the boundaries outloud and keeping them there are better. Return to planting.

Inward

The weather has cooled again. I am so grateful. Still, my sadness won’t lift. I am frightened about money, my home, work, or the lack of it, my migraines, that seem to run my existence.  Everything comes second & we can’t find relief, a cause, it just is. And I don’ t accept that, yet I find myself lying down more often than not, ice packs over my eye & neck. This is not a life.

I try and make small positive moves every day, but today showering, walking Zephyr and getting coffee are all I’ve managed to summons and it’s 2:30. Pain is lonely. And I’m really good at suffering  alone. What could anyone do anyway? Stare at me in pity. It only makes me feel bad for them, having to deal with me.

Yet, I need to talk, share, cry, console with someone, so I come here. Isn’t writing what I’ve always done? Even when I’m doing it with one eye closed. Ridiculous.

I’m going to make myself do one thing now and then hopefully another will follow.

d.

Triple Digit Sadness

The world is freaking me out today. The simmering triple digit heat has left Sacramento feeling edgy, jagged and hostile. It’s May and this is way too early for  July weather. It’s best to ease into summer, one digit at a time, instead it  feels like an intersection collision.

Triple digits have become a trigger. I relate it always to Shadow and that dreadful summer where we laid together on the wood floor beneath the whining window AC. Two weeks of heat that would not relent below 100 and more often rose to 114 degrees. The living room became small, suffocating. I draped sheets over the stairwell and wet towels over Shadow.  He was in so much pain by then. Time has never moved so slowly.

Now, when the sky feels like it’s on fire,  those days come back  in a viscious flood. Life was measured in teaspoons then. They were the worst–and the most important–days of our lives. And then Shadow’s life was over before he could feel the coolness again.  I wanted to go with him, but I had to stay behind.

***

So, this weekend has been all about haulting encrouching demons,  staying  present, remembering  that it is just heat,  just weather and it will pass. It’s difficult. I don’t want to live here anymore. I hate summer.