Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

The Swan Thieves…

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

When I first received The Swan Thieves as part of the From Left to Write online book club, I wondered how in the world I was ever going to complete it over the holidays.  Luckily, we were granted an extension.  And I’m still down to the wire.

It’s not just that.  I was trying to find my story.  That’s what we do.  We write our story from the story.

So while I could relate to any number of the aspects of this book, I want to think about pleasantness and beauty.  And so I’ll be writing about France.  I was blessed with the opportunity to go there once…when I was a junior in high school.  I had been studying the language for four years.  With our proximity to the Canadian Border and Montreal in particular, I had many opportunities to use it.

It was safe to say that I was enamored with and loved everything French.  While in France, we visited a perfume factory, which was nice.  And we visited the Eiffel Tower while it was all lit up at night.  We took a boat ride down the Seine.  We ate crepes from a vendor not unlike the New York City hot dog counterparts.  And there was a glorious afternoon where we dined at a cafe.

There was an entire day spent touring Versailles.  I love castles.  It’s the romantic in me.  I love the beautifully manicured gardens, the fountains, the water features, the stunning architecture.  I marveled at the Hall of Mirrors, with all its history.  Simply incredible.

All of that, however, paled in comparison to the time we spent at The Louvre.  Nothing can compete for my attention when I am surrounded by art work, or when I am in a library surrounded by books.  I absolutely lost myself in this museum.  (And this was long before The DaVinci Code romanticized so many elements of it.)

The Mona Lisa was carefully protected as she smirked at me from behind glass.  The Venus di Milo was glorious in a place of honor in the center of one of the galleries.  There were paintings there that were larger than the walls of my bedroom.  And I became completely enamored with one of them.  It was dark and haunting, a drowned  and bound woman floating in the foreground, a looming mansion in the back.

What I remember most about The Louvre was that the building itself was a work of art.  The ceilings and walls were painted and intricately molded.  I had an appreciation for that type of effort and architecture even then.

*sigh* Someday, I shall return.  And that time, instead of sharing it with virtual strangers, I hope to share it with my family, those that I love.

The Swan Thieves was provided to me for free as part of the From Left to Write Online Book Club.  I received no compensation for this piece.  And why should I.  I probably made you long more for France than for the book.  Guess you’ll just have to read the book to figure out how all that factors in.

Posted in From Left to Write Book Club | 7 Comments »

Take the Cake…

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

It came upon me so quickly, my commitment to write about one of the many books I have been blessed to receive for free.  And for a moment, I wondered what I could say about Take the Cake: A Working Mom’s Guide to Grabbing a Slice of the Life You’ll Love! I shouldn’t have worried.  It came to me like that.

Yesterday was a day.  Make that..a DAY.  Yes, deserving of capital letters even.

It all began when I missed a phone call from Rachel when I was in the shower getting ready for work.  I called her back, via the school office phone.  Oh, but she wasn’t there.  They had sent her back to class, since I hadn’t responded to her SOS.

Well, I made it to the school as soon as possible figuring it would be a brief detour on the route to work.  It wasn’t.  It was merely the beginning of a giant detour that took over the rest of my day.

See, once I arrived I found Breanna getting picked up by Spring.  So glad the girls spent all weekend together at our house and the ex husband’s.  Guess they had caught something together.  Great.

And so by the time they agreed to call Rachel down to the office, it was after 9am.  I was officially half an hour late to work, and I was literally mentally counting the minutes until I could get to work.  Only that didn’t happen.

Soon after I collected Rachel and heard her breathing, I knew that she was going to the doctor.  So, I called the doctor and tried to get her in as soon as possible.  That would mean that they were squeezing her in at 11am.  So, I had an hour to kill before heading to the doctor.

The wait wasn’t so bad.  I saw one of my patients.  He came over to talk to me, but I warned him away since we didn’t know what Rachel had.  And then it was back to waiting.

After a while, Rachel was in a room.  They were used to us by now.  This office had watched Rachel grow up.  They knew of her fear of needles.  And they loved our witty banter, the way we played together.

Rachel had a list of ailments that rivaled an 80 year old man.  Her throat hurt.  When she coughed she saw black dots.  Her lungs hurt.  Her heart was palpating strangely.  The list went on and on.  Slowly, patiently, the doctor worked to find a cause and thereby a cure.  It was a slow process.  And there were long waits for test results before proceeding to the next test.

By the time we left, I was mentally drained and Rachel had had her first (and hopefully last) EKG.  Luckily, there was nothing wrong with her heart.  And it was on to the pharmacy to get her antibiotics.

Oh, but the first pharmacy, the one closest to home, didn’t carry the drug he prescribed.  So, we were off again. seeking another pharmacy that stocked her prescription.  It was…not fun.  It wasn’t fun because she was hungry and didn’t feel well.  And even though she was wearing pajama pants and her sleep cami, it wasn’t the same as actually being in bed.

Finally the script was filled and we headed home.  The biggest blow came when she realized that she was going to have to wait another hour to eat.  It resulted in a major meltdown.  And my patience were waning.

After all these years of child rearing, I have come to embrace the routine of life.  I like things predictable.  I power through when facing a giant monkey wrench, but mostly I have created a life I am comfortable with and have control over.  Sickness…well, I can’t control that.

And recently, my writing and writing commitments have really taken over.  I am literally working all the time.  But this is the year that I will focus on finding balance, a new way to make everything happen.  It is, after all, the only way that everything will be accomplished.  And if there’s anything a working mom needs, it’s a sense of accomplishment.

Posted in From Left to Write Book Club | 3 Comments »

The Kids are All Right…and so am I…

Monday, October 11th, 2010

After reading The Kids are All Right, the latest From Left to Write Online Book Club selection, which magically appeared on my doorstep a few weeks back…for free, I thought about how different  life was for the four siblings.  Even though they were raised by the same parents, products of the same gene pool, their experiences were dramatically dissimilar.  And I looked at my own life and realized…we’re all like that.

Even more, I realized that life isn’t so much about surviving our experiences, but growing and learning and thriving on the challenges we face.  Like the Welch kids, my father passed away unexpectedly when I was fifteen years old. There was no air of mystery surrounding his passing, really, after a coroner proclaimed his unattended death the result of a massive coronary.  And that’s just one of many childhood events that changed the course of my life and impacted the person I would become.  Before that my parents had separated, though never divorced, two years previous.  And there were the financial challenges that face a single mother that I now know all too well.

Instead of focusing on things that once bothered me, like the disparity between the way my sister and I were raised, (simply a product of birth order rather than favoritism), I chose to treat it as a learning experience.  At the tender age of twelve, I learned how to be self-sufficient and take care of a house.  I mowed our acre lawn by myself for years, since my sister (three years my junior) was too young.  And she was pretty much too young until I went off to college…despite being a good five inches taller than me.  The same was true of shoveling.  And much of the housework.  And starting dinner.  Don’t even get me started on the chocolate pudding incident.

I’m still smarting from that.  Obviously.

Only…I’m not.  I’m proud of the fact that I can survive just about anything.  Really.  I am your go to girl in a crunch.  I can asses a situation and problem solve with the best of them.  I like that.  I like that my kids think I can handle anything.

Our life experiences shape who we are.  Our childhood is what we spend the rest of our lives trying to overcome.  And I like who I am.  I like where I came from.  I have tons of happy memories of my childhood.  I wish my sister and I were closer now, but I’m not dead yet and neither is she.  I keep hoping that there is time.  At the same time, if there is anything life experience has taught me, it’s that life itself is tenuous and time is short.  We don’t know how long we have and should make the best of the time we are given.

This post was written in reaction to this month’s From Left to Write Book Club selection that I received for free.  Hopefully, no feelings were hurt in its creation, since that was not the intention of the author. 

Posted in From Left to Write Book Club | 9 Comments »

The evolving room…

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

There’s something about reading a novel…really reading it, feeling it to your core.  Much like every experience in life, it’ll change you.  And once I’m done with a novel, I can’t help but become introspective.  I can’t help but sit and think and feel.

When I finished reading Room, by Emma Donoghue, I was struggling to find my story within her story.  That’s what we do in the From Left to Write Book Club.  It’s a nice deal.  I sign up for the books I want to read.  They send me the books for free! And then I find my story from the story I read.  It’s a pretty sweet deal.

For me, this time, I was struck by how my life has evolved, how my living situation has changed through the years.  I remembered a time…or a couple of times…that I lived with my mom in her condo with the kids.  On one particular occasions, I stayed there on bed rest for Rachel in what was the den in the basement.  I slept on the sofa bed.  Mom had created a make-shift kitchen, since she was still working and I wasn’t supposed to brave the stairs, but would definitely need to eat during the day.

I had my dorm fridge, the big one, and a toaster.  I had paper plates and cups and silverware, pretty much everything I could need or want.  It was magically supplied to me.  My mother would come down and visit with me after work.  She’d cook dinner for us and we’d eat together in my one room.  She made being on bed rest bearable.  But after six weeks, I had more than a little cabin fever.  In the book, it made me wonder how Ma could survive her one room for seven years.

There are times I long for some alone time, for some solitude, for a room of one’s own.  There are aspects of that situation that I think I might really like.  In the months that I lived in an apartment on my own with the kids, I began to embrace my alone weekends.  I transitioned from being afraid of being alone, needing to have every minute of time taken up with friends and activities and dating, to being finally happy and comfortable in my own skin.

I shared a room with Rachel during that time period.  We have a healthy relationship, for the most part, that was put to the test many times while sharing a room.  I was in her good graces, sleeping on her trundle bed…a place we nicknamed Narnia.  It was a challenge sharing the bathroom.  She’s a slob.  It was a challenge for her reading when I was writing on the computer, or sleeping when I was writing on the computer (no wi-fi), or sleeping when I was watching Hulu on my computer.

Still, there were ways for us to get away from each other.  We had the living room.  There was a dining room.  And of course, there was the great outdoors.  We could take walks.  I could take drives.

At the same time, I miss some of the closeness we had when we were so close, living in such close quarters.  I miss the nights that we would be curled up together with Keenan in Narnia watching television on the laptop.  I miss our nights eating dinner together on an end table that was our coffee table.

It was a life of simplicity.  We had enough.  And we rarely complained.

Now we’re in a house, again, where everyone has a room.  (Okay, I still share mine.)  And we have extra space…a study, a man cave, a screen porch, a patio…in addition to the great room and dining room.  And I’ve discovered that while it’s nice sometimes to have some space, it’s also easy to lose each other, to lose the connection and the family focus.  It’s easy for people to get caught up in going their own way.

There’s good and bad in everything.

This post was made possible and inspired by a book from the From Left to Write Book Club.

Posted in From Left to Write Book Club | 6 Comments »

Following Polly and my not so finest moment…

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Let me begin with a disclaimer, and a hope that you won’t see me too differently after this…painful admission.

Remember last October when we broke up?  Remember how devastated I was?  Remember how much it hurt that HE told me that he thought his ex-girlfriend the surgically enhanced sometimes Maxim model was THE ONE for him?

Yeah.  That’s what I was reminded of as I read this book.

Following Polly, by Karen Bergreen, reminded me of how I cyber-stalked the competition.

Maybe cyber-stalking is too strong a term.  What I did was something akin to what the main character did.  I had to know what was so magical about this chick.  It ate at me.  I had to know after being told repeatedly that I was his best friend, the best girlfriend he ever had, the best thing to ever happen to him…I had to know what she had that I didn’t.

And so…I checked her out online.  I couldn’t help myself.

Unlike the main character in the book, I am not invisible.  I can’t blend in.  I don’t hide well.  There is something about me that makes me stand out.  HE always told me that I had a light, a charisma that drew people to me.  And I believe that.  I know that to be true.  I do have a way of drawing people in…good and bad.

I know that I’m not as young as I once was.  I don’t think of myself as beautiful.  Instead, I see myself as cute and perky.  What I lack in actual physical appeal I tend to make up for in personality.  And that light.

So, to have HIM tell me that he thought she might be THE ONE was devastating.  And I had to know about her.  I knew it was her physical appeal.  The stories he told me, the quotes he shared, made her sound vapid and idiotic.  That only left the outer package.  And I knew that would only take her so far with him, only help her for so long.

Well, I found her on Facebook.  It wasn’t hard.  We shared a mutual friend, and aspiring model that she is, her profile was public.

*sigh*

So, I looked.  I more than looked.  I studied the pictures.  I visited the links.  I wanted to know her as much as possible.

And the thing is, much like Polly, once the mystique was revealed…I wasn’t so worried.  I didn’t feel so badly.

I know that comparing myself to others is not a good thing.  I preach against it citing Desiderata all the time.  There will always be greater and lesser persons than myself.

It was a learning experience, just like everything that followed over the next few months were for him.

I learned that I need to be true to myself.  I learned that I am smarter and stronger than I imagined.  I learned that looks aren’t everything.  I learned that sometimes the best and most important things in life cannot be seen, but instead must be felt.  And I learned that there is no comparison when it comes to love and relationships.

Youth, beauty, an amazing body…these things will only take you so far.  That’s why those features are best left for print or for the big and small screen.  Ultimately, it really is what is inside what counts.  Ultimately, the kind of person you are, how you treat others, and your intelligence will take you farther.

It wasn’t my finest moment.  I’m not proud that I stooped to that level, that I felt the need to investigate.  I’m not proud that I was that girl. At the same time, I was human and I was hurting.  And I think that when you are in the bad place, you get a pass.

At least my moment was fleeting and online.  Since my luck tends to be bad luck, someone could have been really  hurt.  I’m guessing…*gulp*…me.

This post was made possible by a free novel provided by the From Left to Write Online Book Club.

Posted in From Left to Write Book Club | 19 Comments »

Because of Cowboy and Wills…

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

One of the smartest things I’ve ever done is to join the From Left to Write Online Book Club.  I have been blessed with an amazing array of books…free!  And the latest read, like the last two, hit close to home.

Unlike Monica Holloway, the author of Cowboy and Wills, I don’t have a son struggling with Autism.  Oh, but like her, I have a dog with a mystery illness.  And, like her, we are going to great lengths and great expense to diagnose it.

It all began soon after Bishop came home.  Within a matter of weeks, he was headed back to the vet with a strange case of diarrhea.  After testing for several curable illnesses, and with nothing concrete to work with, he was sent home with antibiotics and special pricey puppy food.

The digestive issues were cured, it seemed.  And then it was a strange skin ailment.  After another vet visit, wipes were prescribed and the skin lesions proclaimed a fungal infection.  It seemed to work…for a while.

Next came another vet visit in early spring for the recurring lesions.  It was a new shampoo ordered this time.  And new soap.  And another antibiotic.  All for the love of Bishop.

By July, I wasn’t overly surprised that the lesions seemed to be popping back up on his underbelly.  I was, however, surprised, by the severity of Bishop’s other symptoms.  He couldn’t get off the couch, his legs were stiff, his appetite was non-existent, his energy sapped.  It was a trip to the emergency vet and loads of tests and bags of fluid under his skin and three weeks worth of antibiotics before he could come home.  It was a long night.  And the convalescing was even longer.

Determined to peak his interest in food, I found myself baking dog biscuits and scrambling eggs.  I hid pills in ham rolls and pepperoni.  I finally found the perfect way to drug the dog.  I made Bishop twice a day peanut butter and pill sandwiches.  It was the perfect combination to hide the pill and ensure his compliance.

By the end of the course of antibiotics, Bishop seemed great…the picture of dog health.  Only…within three weeks I had noticed the lesions were appearing once more.  So, HE took Bishop to the vet.  It was a source of friction between us.

At first I didn’t understand it.  And then I knew…HE felt that I was questioning his ability as a pet parent.  HE thought that I didn’t think he was doing enough.  More, however, was our differing approaches to the medical profession.  HE believes and trusts implicitly those with a higher education.  I have a higher education.  I believe I can question anyone, that no one is infallible.

And I had just finished reading Cowboy and Wills the day before Bishop went to the vet once more.

me: Have them test him for lupus.

HIM: I’ll mention it.

Then later.

me: Did they test for lupus?

HIM: I mentioned it, but they want to test for tick born illnesses first.

me: His flea meds are also a tick preventative and he already had a tick scratch test.  Have them test for lupus instead.

HIM: What do you want from me?!  Why don’t you talk to them when you pick Bishop up?

me: Okay.

And so I did.  I called.  I didn’t even wait to pick Bishop up.

I heard what the vet said.  Bishop had received several other treatments, new antibiotics and more fluids.  He hadn’t had any more tests done.  And the fact that vet kept mentioning bloat, a twisting of the stomach that often results in nearly instant death, made me doubt her even more.

WE came to an agreement.  WE decided to humor the vet…this time.  Bishop will be off the new course of antibiotics on Friday.  At the rate these flare ups occur, he should be sick in another month.  (It’s always good to have something to look forward to.)  At that time, we will have him tested for lupus.  It should be a simple blood test…and a skin biopsy.

Wish us luck.  We’re running out of patience.  We’re low on money.  At least time seems to be on our side.

Bishop hasn’t worked the miracles Cowboy did, but he’s still a  valued member of the family and oh so very loved.

Posted in From Left to Write Book Club | 10 Comments »

Sometimes it’s best that stuff never happened…

Monday, August 9th, 2010

I’ve rushed out to the garage to write after hastily collecting my laptop.  I need air.  And I’m not sure the garage air is going to be fresh enough. It’ll have to do.

Moments ago I finished reading the stuff that never happened, by Maddie Dawson, I almost couldn’t breathe.  It was the weight of it, the understanding of it all.  It was seeing in the main character, Annabelle, a kindred soul with stories so similar and yet so different.

My first marriage never should have been.  At the same time, I wouldn’t have changed the existence of my kids for anything.  And to alter the marriage would have done just that.

In my case, maybe it’s best that some things never happened.  Maybe it’s best that I let the old boyfriend leave.  He was the one guy from high school that I never could get over.  And when he and his parents finished building the house and sold it to move three thousand miles across the country, back to California, he asked me to go.

I was already engaged then.  I was already miserably unhappy.  I was playing that game, lying to myself, imagining a magical moment when the planets would align and our relationship would fall miraculously into place and become what it should be.  I used to tell myself that it would be different when we were married, or when we had our own place, or once we had kids.  Sometimes, I realize now, some relationships aren’t meant to be no matter how hard you work at it.  Sometimes you simply lose yourself.

Like Annabelle, I found myself in the not so unique position of loving more than one man.  I loved the fiance for the life I imagined we could have.  I loved the fun and the jokes.  I loved that we DID things.  I loved that we would never be bored.  All of that comes with a price.  I know that now.

And then there was the high school boyfriend.  He was blond haired, blue eyed, tall and handsome.  He was quiet and controlled.  Every gesture, every touch, every talk moved me more than I could ever imagine.  He was intense to the nth degree.  Yet because of his stand-offish nature, his way of pushing me away, his inconsistencies…I was reluctant to drop my life back home and move away with him.

I’d be giving up my net.  I’d be giving up security.  I’d be dependent upon him for more than I ever wanted to depend on anyone for.  And I couldn’t do it.  I had watched my mother after the separation with my father.  I had seen her inability to complete tasks that I find commonplace, not a reflection on her as much as it was the time period.  She didn’t know how to gas up a car or check the oil or fill the wiper fluid.  These things we learned together.  She made me the independent woman I am today.

There were times over the years that we reached out to each other.  The old boyfriend helped me feel loved and wanted again after I lost my first child.  We spoke on the phone for hours and hours for weeks on end.  There were other times, too, through the years.

Only now…not at all.

Maybe it’s not only best that some stuff never happened, maybe it’s also best that I did what I did.  Maybe all of that prepared me for the life I was supposed to have.  Maybe it was all meant to lead me to the stuff that has to happen to get get me where I am now.

Now I’m in a relationship with someone who is the best of both worlds, the best of all the men I’ve ever loved.  We have a frightening level of honesty.  We can talk about anything.  He has a strong quiet way about him, an intensity that I find intoxicating.  And we dream big and work hard to make our dreams come true.

The novel speaks to the different kinds of love.  And I am blessed to have experienced so many of them first hand.  Just as I am now blessed to have the love I have now, the love that will stand the test of time, endure through trials and tribulations, and still be passionate, affectionate, and grow.

As a member of the From Left to Write Book Club, I received my copy of the novel that inspired this post for free.

Posted in From Left to Write Book Club | 13 Comments »

It really wasn’t the story I expected…

Monday, July 19th, 2010

I’m not sure what I expected when I began reading This is Not the Story You Think It Is, by Laura Munson.  All I know for sure is that I find myself at a crossroads in life.  I am about to get remarried.  And the fear for me is that I could fail at the marriage thing all over again.  Maybe I will find that I once again can’t make a relationship work.

If you fail at marriage once, if you’re divorced, you can blame it on any number of things.  You can say that you outgrew each other.  You can claim that you were never truly compatible.  You can blame it on having married too young, even.

If, however, you remarry later in your life and that relationship crumbles like a sandcastle built too close to the sea, suddenly there are less excuses.  Suddenly there is the fear that maybe the only common denominator between the two failures is you and maybe you really are the problem.  It would be difficult to face that truth.

I needed to believe that I was making the right choice this time.  I needed to know how I could make this marriage work, last, endure, and be something special, something I know it already is.  I needed to conquer those fears.

That is why I read the book.

It wasn’t easy.  The author asks that we not pick sides, that we not lay blame, that we not see fault.  Instead, we are given the opportunity to look at the situation from another perspective.  Instead we are shown how to make a choice that can change the course of our future.

When her husband comes home one night and tells her after twenty years together, two kids later, a life built on the promise of forever, that he doesn’t love her any more and isn’t sure if he ever did, Laura responds.  And her response is one that I understand.  It is one that I, too, have given.

Laura: I don’t buy it.

How many times have I said that to HIM out loud or in my head?  I can’t keep track.  He told me once that he didn’t see us being together forever.  I didn’t buy it.  He told me once that he didn’t love me, wasn’t in love with me.  I didn’t buy it.  In all of those situations, I recognized that what we had was completely different from what he had ever experienced before.

I chose not to believe him.  More than that, like Laura, I chose to be happy.  It wasn’t an easy choice.  It went against everything I believed.  In the past, I had counted on the power of words to help him see the truths of our life.  In this situation, I had to rely on his reasoning skills, that deeply analytical side of his nature that he would come to the real conclusion on his own.

He did.  He has.  He still does.

He knows now that we truly are supposed to be together.  He understands that sometimes the best love is a warm comforting blanket and not a rug to be ripped from beneath his feet.  He gets that sometimes, the best things in life are completely unplanned, wholly unexpected.  That’s why I claim to be the woman he never knew he always wanted.

Still, we face moments where stress takes over and boredom sets in.  I have learned to recognize that the dissatisfaction he tries to find in me is really a dissatisfaction he has in himself.  I have learned not to bite back or skulk off to nurse my wounds.  I have learned to choose happiness.

Sometimes this happiness comes in the form of a spontaneous day trip that steers us back on course.  Sometimes this happiness can be found in the comfort of a simple family night watching movies and pigging out with the kids.  Sometimes the happiness is discovered in a new project we tackle together.  Sometimes the happiness simply has to be intrinsic, knowing that I am loving him the best I can, even when he’s hardest to love.

After the book, after putting it into practice, after fine tuning what I was already doing right, I’m less afraid.  I don’t worry that ours will be another story of a good love gone bad.  I don’t worry that he’ll crumble our castle.  We’re not building it in the sand, or in the clouds.  We’re building it on a firm foundation that though sometimes tested, promises to weather the challenges of time.

This book was freely given to me as a member of the From Left to Write Book Club.

Posted in From Left to Write Book Club | 16 Comments »