A Crab Molts Its Shell

I found a spider crab shell on the beach last week. Purplish pink with the horn-like protuberances seen in the video above, it was too weird (and too large--bicycle helmet sized) to pocket. I poked it with a stick and flipped it over. Alas, it was not a shell that had been molted, but a casket for the remains of a creature who perished. Not picking it up was a wise decision. Even after the waves cleaned it out, I didn't want it in my arms.

I feel like I'm molting. Dashing around to distract myself while there are bigger things happening as the second anniversary of Dan's death approaches. Yesterday it was as if I stepped out of bed and into chasm, dropping down into a place airless and dark. I lay on the couch and dozed, too stupefied to read or muster the good sense to go out for a walk, meditate, or do anything.

Today it felt as if the sun was pouring in despite the May-gray skies here, yet there are more dealings with the dead. Another beneficiary form to fill out as we close my mother's last bank account.  And her supplementary insurance continues to send emails (despite my emails announcing her death and the attaching of a jpeg of her death certificate.) They're asking for her to sign the cancellation form, asking if she'd agree to serve on some patient  panel and fill out questionnaires about how they're doing.  While I'd like to impersonate her and participate with scathing commentary, I don't have the heart for it  right now. Darn. I know an opportunity for a heck of a good time when I see one, right?

From the New Yorker

Meanwhile, I continue to tend to my health. Beset with swollen knees, fingers, and hands and in pain since I returned from final visit with my mother in Iowa in March, blood tests show no Lyme disease, no autoimmune diseases. I have paid my thousand dollar bill and have letters from my primary care physician and a rheumatologist proclaiming the good news. A week ago I took my swollen self to a Functional Medicine doctor. Of course he told me to change my diet. No dairy. No gluten. ( I used to be a gluten free vegetarian, but converted back to being a regular omnivore about a year ago.) My cynical self didn't want to believe that I needed to give up dairy and gluten, (I mean, c'mon, it seems like such a knee-jerk alternative thing) but my desperate self was, well, desperate. After two days the swelling in my knees and fingers was pretty much gone. My right hand is still deciding whether or not to go with the miracle. But maybe it's lagging behind because it actually poured the milk and put the toast in the toaster.

And back to the molting--my caregiver skin is nearly shed. Another form/email or two and I am something new. The ex-wife skin, while only able to be gotten rid of when either or both The Someone and myself meet the same fate as the crab I found on the beach, feels like there's been  at least some exfoliation or a nip and a tuck. July holds its own treacherous anniversary. This year it will be nine years since my marriage ended with a three-sentence conversation. I lost my husband, my family, my house, my town. Three decades of personal history became a fraud. Half my life felt like a hallucination.

But I'm all right now. Quite wonderful, in fact. A new person, alive and well. There is that chasm.  But I think I can remember to climb out.

In Which I Fall Off a Ladder and Get Laryngitis

This is me.

I fell off a ladder on December 23rd while putting Christmas lights on top of the armoire in my dining room. I didn't do anything ridiculous like standing on the step inscribed with the warning, "This is not a step." The tree was already up, and there were Christmas cookies in the oven, and I had a friend over---and so I was excited to  be finished with the lights, and I simply backed up to admire my handiwork. But I was still two steps off the ground. When I fell, I collided with a dining room chair which tipped over, and I planted my ribcage onto its edge, and the ladder planted itself on top of me.

The treatment for broken ribs is the same as the treatment for bruised ribs unless you can't breathe or are coughing up blood or you have a bone poking out (so says the Internet) so I didn't go to the ER. I did the things Dr. Internet said would help. Rest. OTC painkillers. I did a ton of OTC painkillers.  My ribs got better, but the hip I'd landed on (the left one) still hurt so I took more painkillers. And it was Christmas so I ate five dozen Christmas cookies and special desserts, and I was tired from not sleeping well because of the hip and rib pain so I drank a lot of coffee. A lot of coffee. And a lot of wine. So much wine. And after I did these amusing and entertaining things, I napped (on my right side, which is the side to lie on if you want to be good to your heart, but the left is the side that is good for your stomach.) And I didn't go to yoga and got fat.

All of this led to acid reflux (all the while my stomach felt fine) which irritated my vocal chords and  little growths formed and my voice got huskier and huskier. I couldn't sing. Wait. I could never sing. The only songs I can remember the tune to are Happy Birthday and Jingle Bells.

The irritated voice was irritating. But then my knees swelled to the size of grapefruits and I was as stiffer than I'd ever seen my mom. And my fingers were swollen and stiff too. The knees and fingers are improving, but the confluence of the many symptoms led me to go to the doctor. The swelling and the stiffness is still a mystery in progress, but I am now officially on my first prescription med. And the medication can deplete your body of calcium so now I have to take an OTC med for that. It's probably temporary. But there you have it. Don't fall off a ladder. Because one  thing leads to another.  The next thing you know, you'll be taking drugs and more drugs.

And meanwhile, I've now had a total of three bad dreams about my mom. Two in which I woke up crying for help because 1) she was a zombie trying to drag me off  2) a ghost controlling things in my house 3) spending all my money.

The therapist from my bereavement group says I'm going through a kind of post-caregiving collapse. But I'm really okay as long as I'm not having a nightmare, and I'm doing more yoga (with a billion modifications) and following the lifestyle changes for acid reflux as best I can. Don't Google all the yummy things you're not supposed to eat or drink. The thought of giving them up will give you nightmares.

Read this quote by Rumi instead: This day of sunshine will not walk to you; you must go to it. And that's my rough paraphrase because I couldn't find it on the Internet. But the yoga teacher read it to us today at the end of class.

The Sunday Report

I may have reached my zenith as a caregiver when I created this--whenever that was.

There were many papers spread out on the kitchen island and on the bed in my mom's old room, and somehow, today,  most of these projects are nearing completion. The things that needed mailing have been mailed, other papers are stored for now in a file box until it seems reasonable to shred them. There is a box of treasures to keep, old photos to organize, and a few things to give away. Leaving this world with such a light load of material possessions is not something I would have predicted for my mom decades ago. I am most grateful. 

 Now, f I can get the U.S. Commemorative Gallery to stop sending their "valuable" collector sets of coins. I sent back their "Eisenhower and Kennedy Golden Dollars" and received a note from them that my mom had pre-paid for them. I may take on a battle with them just to see if I can get any of her hard-earned money back. What a bunch of hucksters. Can you even spend these damn things like regular money? How is it that with dozens of consumer complaints against them, we still let a company like this exist to prey upon the elderly?

I'm in the process of my own estate planning now. Letting my adult children know what is what and what is where. I'm now the family matriarch, I guess....And hoping that I will lighten my load of material goods substantially before I leave the planet. It's all just stuff. And it's stuff that our kids or friends will have to sort through when we leave. Then again, who doesn't like pretty things? I can't even walk by a piece of beach glass without pocketing it.

Postcard from Pillville: A Rant

Chocolate. My current medication.

My mom's regimen of a dozen prescriptions was a bit more complicated. After she moved in with me in August of 2009, it took me at least a month to get acquainted with her routine. She filled her own pillboxes in those early days of living together, but confusion would ensue when the pharmacy re-filled a prescription with a different brand of drug than the one she was used to. When I cleaned her room, I often found pills on the floor or in her bed. More and more frequently she asked me questions that made me worry she didn't quite know what she was doing. Eventually, I became the dispenser of meds, filling three weeks worth of pillboxes at time from a giant plastic box of bottles divided into sections labelled A.M., P.M., and 2X PER DAY. 

Now that she's in a nursing home, I'm relieved of all that. But I've been left with a gallon zip-lock bag of meds. My mom moved out in October and I still have the bag of drugs. No class-one narcotics, mind you, just heart meds and blood pressure pills. Pills to help the sinuses, the digestion, drops for the eyes and the ears, and god only knows what else. Burping, farting, itching, swallowing--name your problem and there's a drug for it. I know drugs are not to be disposed of casually by flushing or in a landfill, but the pharmacy (Vons) that filled the prescriptions won't take them back. The DEA hotline had me on hold today for eleven minutes. The Internet has steered me wrong--Walgreens does not take back meds and they don't know who does. I called 211. Nope. They have nothing in their database. 

But I'm a late-night Google-er and I found a note I'd tucked into the bag that I'd forgotten about. It was the name of a pharmacy in the neighboring town. I called them, and they say they will take back the meds. I hope it turns out to be true.

Caregiving is hard enough. When it's over you want it to be over. Not that it is if you are still handling the mail and the banking, etc. I think all pharmacies should take back what they fill. And yes, I know I could have gone to the Sheriff's office. I did that after Dan died and dropped off the morphine and the Oxythis and the Oxythat into a secure bin, but I didn't especially want to retrace those steps. And by the way, I still have a tub of needles from Dan. The Sheriff's office does not take those, and they're not supposed to go in a landfill either, and I tried taking them to a toxic waste site. That was a no-go. I could, however, send away for a special mailer that costs 20-some dollars, and yes, I have the 20 bucks, but really, this is the shit that just wears you down. 

Thanks for listening. 

Any artists out their who make things out of pills? I have a bag full.

Secret Solstice Sunset

The sun refused to show itself at the close of the shortest day, sinking into the water behind a wall of clouds.

I haven't shown myself much lately either. I've been roaming the house in the dead of night with a throat so sore that I can't sleep, then making my way back to bed when the middle of the night House Hunters re-run lulls me into submission. In the morning I wake with half-a-dozen Ricola wrappers on the night stand, convinced that certainly this will be the day I feel better. And I do for a little while. But then. Crash. However, this being the longest night of the year, I may be up again watching Love It or List it, International House Hunters or god knows what. I should be reading through my stack of New Yorkers, brushing up on my French or something but it feels like there's a block of goo filling my brain. Okay, it might have been that last night I finally did sleep. If I sleep again tonight, I'm going to proclaim myself cured.

Meanwhile, I've been appropriately engaged during  these dark days.  I'm spinning around and around trying to get my mom on Medicaid. This morning I confirmed that state #1 has now faxed State #2 in order to confirm that the measly little life insurance policy of my mom's has no cash value and therefore cannot be counted as an asset prohibiting her from qualifying for Medicaid yet again. So if State #2 faxes back to State #1, all should be well. Riiiiight? How's this for a darkest day of the year fear: My mom will finally get that Medicaid acceptance letter the day she takes her final breath. I've been working on the Medicaid thing since the end of September.

Here's what I've been reading these short days and long nights:

It's Never Too Early to Start Thinking about Your Own Death

What Working in a Nursing Home Taught Me

Our Bodies, Ourselves

If You're 30% Through Your Life... (of course I know that I'm at least 60% through my life)

A Parting Lesson From My Parents

How Mindfulness Can Ease the Fear of Death and Dying

I might add that I've also been drinking some nice wine, eating rum balls and chocolate truffles, and lighting lots of candles.

One of the denizens of Hearst Castle

What have you been reading during these dark days, dear ones? Where are you finding the light?

Pillville: the Iowa Version, part 2

Silos and barn, shot from a moving car

Something feels all wrong, taking care of my mom in Iowa. This is the place where she took care of me. The place where she laid down the law and cooked dinner every night. The place where she lit the candles on our birthday cakes, The place where she once held court at my brother's kitchen table when we gathered there to bring our far-flung family back together. Yesterday, after three nights with her here, we wheeled her away from that kitchen table and drove her to the nursing home where she will live out her days.

But it's better than it sounds. People know people in small towns. People know almost everyone. We hadn't been in the nursing home but a few minutes when one of the nurses ran up to hug my sister-in-law. They used to work together. Another staff member came up to introduce herself because her parents live next door to my aunt. One of the residents waylaid us more than once. Some relative of his married one of my mom's great aunts. He was quite familiar with our family tree and wanted to talk about it. 

My brother and I spent all day at the nursing home yesterday. Unpacking, labeling my mom's clothes, measuring the space for a new recliner, making arrangements to have pictures hung and wine served with her dinner, filling out a mountain of paperwork.

Afterwards we drove back into our little town next to the bigger town where the nursing home is. We went to a furniture store on main street and within a few minutes found the perfect chair for my mom's room.

This morning we delivered the chair and took care of a few more loose ends. The place and the staff continued to impress. The view across the street from the nursing home is a bit much. But my mom's room faces an enormous deck out back instead of a cemetery.
.

And this afternoon as I was getting ready to leave, this was delivered to her room. She thought it was too early to drink, so she saved it for dinner. I carried her glass of wine to the dining room, and that's where my brother and I left her.

Last night I went out to dinner with a friend. Is it a special occasion? the waitress asked. Yes, I said after I stumbled for a moment. I've just retired.

Our Last Night in Pillville

It's been unusually hot here for months in case you haven't heard. Like the weather gods have finally complied and made it possible for my mother to remove her long underwear and enjoy the patio. She has a suntan--which might be a feat that only a few hospice patients manage. We aim to please here in Pillville.

The wind kicked up this afternoon. It's blowing off the ocean and it's blowing harder than it has in months. There's an eerie pinkish yellow gray light out there as dusk settles in. Now the weather gods are saying go. Get out of town while the getting's good.

I wouldn't say the getting is good, exactly. I think the getting is iffy. "I think she'll make the trip," the hospice nurse said. This is what the nurse has been saying for weeks--without the emphasis on the word think. I'm not going to weigh in with what I think. What I think doesn't matter. I'm going to put one foot in front of the other. I'm going to put my lips together and blow.

Report from Pillville: The Final Days

Mom, let's talk about socks, I said. Mother, you like all these tank tops, right? Okay, now lets talk about pajamas. Sweaters. Pants. Shirts. Skirts. Shoes. All afternoon I went through my mom's closet while she sat at the dining room table eating cookies. We discussed the pros and cons of every article of clothing. How hard it was to put on or take off. The itchiness factor. Whether or not there were pockets. (Must have pockets!) What color rocks with the silver hair. Almost of  the keepers are in the giant roller bag--except for the outfit for my sister and her husband's 50th anniversary party--which will go on the very top--and what my mom's  wearing on the plane. I have a small load of laundry yet to do and then we'll be good to go. Thank god for my Delta mileage and my free checked bags.

How are you, the hospice nurse asked when she came by for her regular visit. She meant me. My mom's pulse ox and her blood pressure were fine. I see stress, she said, locking her blue eyelinered eyes with mine. I'll make it to the plane, I said.

Years ago when I was in college and home for the holidays, I went to my mom's company (John Deere)  Christmas party with her. We were a bit late and when we walked in the room some guy shouted out, "Hey! Ethel's here!" There was a chorus of Hi Ethel, Merry Christmas, Ethel, Can I get you a drink, Ethel? Let's dance, Ethel. I felt like a geeky wallflower.

So hey, party people, if you're a relative of mine and living in northeast Iowa my mom is coming to town. I don't know about asking her to dance, but please visit her. If it's allowed, mix her up a 2-ounce martini or buy one of those single serving bottles of wine and join her for dinner. If you're a relative or friend of mine/hers and reading this, can you please share this post on Facebook to the wall of every relative/friend we know? If you're a niece or a nephew or hers, she'll tell you stories about your parents. As far as I can tell, she loved all of her siblings. Ask her who came home from the war unable to hold a cup of coffee. Ask her who was her favorite (you might get different answers, depending on her mood.) Ask her who had PTSD after the war and what he learned to do because of it. Ask her about the bobsled ride and who her mother threw out and took back when he came back with a broken arm. Ask her who became a hobo and rode the rails. Ask her who was the most talented. Ask her about bloomers and who always made her mother cry. About the baby who was a preemie, small enough to fit in a shoebox, kept warm by the wood stove and survived against the odds. Ask her about the goats and the Italian family, and the crick with the colored clay, the den of wolves, the snakes in the basement, the bounty on rattlesnakes, and the dog who would let people into the yard but not out. Tell me what you find out because after more than three years of stories almost every night, I'm pretty sure I haven't heard them all.

Monday Morning Beach Report/ Report from Pillville

Can you see it? The hint of an island? Maybe, right? Or is it just a band of fog?

Right now the music therapist is here, playing her guitar and singing "Puff the Magic Dragon" to my mom. Lifelong friendships, mists, and magical lands.

And now they're tapping on singing bowls. Tap to send out love, the therapist says. Love is magic, right?

And life itself is magic if you ask me.

Super Moon/Blood Moon and Its Eclipse

Mural by Los Angeles artist Kent Twitchell

It's been a million years or so since my regular drives on the Hollywood Freeway that took me by this mural. The mural has long since been painted over and the '66 Dodge Coronet that carried me through L.A, was consigned to the scrap heap ages ago. But the freeway lady materialized before my eyes tonight when M and I wheeled my mom outside and around the corner to see the eclipse.

Just like that the past slipped its shadow in front of the present. I was my daughter's age, windows rolled down, the heat of the freeway and southern California's 70s drought searing me to the seat of that old car. I didn't know I'd end up here and now with grown children and an ancient mother, trailing the wreckage of a life behind me as long as the freeway lady's afghan.

But here we are. Tonight my mother and my daughter and I stood outside and stared at the moon as it disappeared. Gone. Like a painted over mural.

Wednesday Morning Beach Report (Delivered on Saturday) And the Report from Pillville

Some days you're the pelican. Some days you're the fish.

Somedays I'm just me in couch limbo. From my couch, I can see the patio where my mom likes to sit. And I can see the front door if we're waiting for some one to arrive like the hospice nurse or the handyman or the music therapist.

Yesterday the music therapist (beautiful wonderful talented amazing person) was here. She encouraged my mom to strum away on her harp.

We had friends over for dinner last night so they could see my mom before she leaves for Iowa. I forgot to take pictures, but it was lovely. The best I can offer is the grocery list. Can you guess what I made? My friend Carol brought watermelon, blackberries and raspberries that we threw together with some fresh mint and it made the most delicious fruit salad. Prune juice was not served. The milk and bananas were for breakfast. That's enough clues. Oh-- and there was champagne, flourless chocolate cake and caramel bars for dessert. And espresso. And love.

Today, I feel like my mom and I are both hummingbirds. But not the way you usually think of hummingbirds. We've buzzed around and indulged in plenty of nectar. Now we're resting. Delicately. On a strand of a palm frond, balancing.

Monday Morning Beach Report: the Road to Shangri-la

They groom the beaches here and this morning it looked like a road had been laid out to take me straight to the horizon.

But life is complicated here in Pillville. I feel more like a behemoth of a cargo ship navigating a treacherous passage. I'm sitting on the patio right now with my mom. There's a breeze and the water is shimmering. Our silver hair is probably shining in the sunlight and passersby might think how darling these ladies are. Did they choose shirts the same color this morning by accident or by design? How nice they can sit on their lovely patio and enjoy the day. They have no idea. Does anyone ever really have any idea what it would be like to be in someone else's shoes? I mean their everyday shoes. Not their church shoes. Mostly, I think we do not. But sometimes we do and those people who can slip into our shoes the way that Cinderella fit into that glass slipper, they are meant to be held close and not let go.

I've been making phone calls to Iowa this morning and messaging my aunt. I've been talking to the hospice here and the nursing home in Iowa. I've been putting on my mom's shoes. We've talked. She most definitely wants to go to Iowa. She's not particularly excited about going to a skilled nursing facility but she says she knows she should. I told her I want her to have 24-hour skilled nursing care. She understands the particulars of that. She knows what's gone on around here. So we're back on track with the plan. More or less. Meanwhile, I'm fixing my eyes on that broad smooth road I took a picture of this morning and I hold close those of you who understand.

Report from Pillville: Cake and a Plot Twist

My mother turned 91 yesterday. My friend Carol turned 70. Last night we had a party celebrating their 161 years of life. My son and his family drove all day to join us. Carol invited friends. My friend Sasha's parents joined us. My friend Pete skyped in for the singing of Happy Birthday. Carol's nephew joined us after dinner and snared the last piece of completely delectable birthday cake. If Sasha had made two cakes we probably would have devoured both of them.

Sounds fabulous. It was.

What happened before the party was not fabulous at all. After my son and his family arrived and we gathered around the dining room table to talk with my mom about Iowa. How nice it will be to go home. To get her wish. How so many people there love her and will be happy to spend time with her. Then someone flipped a switch. I don't remember how it started. But my mom started to yell at us. She's not going to a nursing home, she said. (After a month of being totally in on the plans.) She's going to move in with my brother, and if they don't take her she's going to take back their bedroom furniture that used to be hers. She doesn't need a caregiver because she can make her own bed. Okay, I said. Okay. Guests are arriving soon, I said. Let's not spoil the party. 

My mom has never yelled at me. Never. Really. I've heard her yell like crazy about stuff that makes her mad and she used to yell like a maniac at my brothers when they were wild little boys. 

It could be the steroids that she's on. Which she kinda needs right now. It probably is the steroids. 

The party was perfect. Thank you for the party, she told me before she went to bed.

And not everyone in the inner circle is supportive of my retirement from caregiving. As with many big family decisions, there's dissent. I've been juggling that. I'll look like a liar now. Like I am  pushing my mom out the door. Because now I am.

Life is softening me up. That's what I think. A punch here. A kick there. I get that. I'm learning. It's the blows to the heart that hurt the most.

Last Call

The final batch

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I ration my mom's martini intake. I mix up a batch, then pour a single martini into each jam jar and lock them away. For this batch I carefully counted out the jars we'll need to get us to our departure date. Who needs x-es on calendar squares? We have mixed drinks.

Just a bit ago, I got the automated call from the sheriff's office regarding the tsunami. We are not being asked to evacuate. Which is good. Very good. I gasped though as the message unfurled. 8.3 magnitude earthquake in Chile. Tsunami forming. Holy crap. I stopped breathing for a minute as I imagined waking my mom and getting her into the car and remembering to put the wheel chair in the car, in case the traffic jammed in a mass exodus and we had to run for it.

There's still quite a bit of martini mixed up in that gin bottle. Note to self: if you do have to evacuate, take the bottle!

My mom continues to talk about going home. I think she will get lots of visitors. Tonight at dinner she reviewed her burial plans: she wants to be cremated and then have the ashes buried in my father's grave. She has a plot next to his that I guess was purchased for her at the same time his was, but she's very clear that she does not want to be buried there. I assured her that I understood. That other grave though--she's obsessed with it. It shouldn't go to waste, she says. We own it. I should be buried there, she says. Or my brother should be buried there--it drives her crazy that good money was spent on it and no one has plans to rest eternally there.

What are you going to do with your body? she asked. I told her that I was going to be cremated and leave instructions for my children to deposit the ashes in the Mississippi, the Seine and the Aegean. I hope they'll take those trips together. Then again, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind about all of that. It would be nice if I had a good 20 or so years to think about that.

Back to Pillville

It's really pretty awesome here.

Post respite, my mom and I are back in our routine. Morning beach walk for me, snoozy day for her. Martini at 5. Dinner was a piece of diced up sausage, a sweet potato with a ton of butter, and half an avocado. There will be vanilla ice cream later.

Both my mom and I had a wonderful time. Wonderful, marvelous, such beautiful scenery, were some of her descriptors. She especially loved that her room had French doors that opened onto a private patio where she had her breakfast. When I got there, the white tablecloth was still on the table. Just a like a resort, she said. The hospice nurse and the hospice facilities coordinator said the staff thought she was the life of the party. I'm not making this up. 

And me? I had a wonderful time with my friend Pete.  Fun with his family and friends and a visit to Chicago.

Buckingham Fountain under a remarkably gorgeous sky.

Skyline reflected in "The Bean"--one of the most delightful public sculptures ever!

We caught one of the World Music Festival's concerts--Aziz Sahmaoui and The University of Gnawa.

Amazing. Look and listen.

And we paid a visit to Obama. Well...just his house. And right down the street, THIS was going on.

Seriously. Both my mom and I came home happy. 

Belated Wednesday Beach Report, News from Pillville, and a Brief Note from the Love Shack

Today, 10 a.m.

There was a little bit of everything at the beach today. A few surfers riding medium waves, almost visible islands, a modest variety of birds, a little drama. 

The drama: As I walked in the surf I saw a small child (I'd guess 4) trekking across the sand far ahead of his mother. The mother trudged about as slowly as a person can trudge, carrying a large beach bag and a beach chair while the kid headed straight for the water. Hi, I said. Hi, he or she said. It's pretty here, isn't it, I said, stepping between the kid and the water. I'd already gotten wet to the waist accidentally, having misjudged the waves twice. The mother was still only about half-way across the sand and the kid looked fearless, inching into the water. Aren't you going to go help your mom, I asked. The kid climbed up the sandy slope and headed her direction as she was closing the gap. I went on, looking back to keep an eye on the situation. On my return the mother was halfway back across the sand again. This time she was going away from the water towards an even smaller child who was now making the trek. The older kid splashed at the edge of the waves, the mom's back to him. Other beachgoers and a fisher woman seemed ill at ease with the situation too. We all hovered at the periphery, underneath it all a low menacing roar of some invisible something. Military aircraft, a dredger in the harbor, construction equipment, something. I couldn't see what.

Life in Pillville is mostly un-bloggable these days. My mom trudges through her days. Eats. Sleeps. Sits on the patio. Chats a bit--often with difficulty. Her body is failing, yet she does not seem to understand the significance of it. There are new physical ailments. Enough said.

Of late, I've found the situation harder than I ever imagined I would. The hospice is giving me a  caregiver respite. My mom will go to a skilled nursing facility. I will go to Indiana to go see the man who, last month, came to see me. I'll meet his family and some friends, spend time, and after a couple days, turn around and get back on a plane, ride the airport shuttle, get a ride to my house from the shuttle stop, and then get in my car to go pick up my mom. It all seems like a love shack fantasy right now, but the washer is spinning, and my suitcase is mostly packed. Tomorrow must go like clockwork if I'm going to catch my plane, but it feels possible. Easy even. Easier than any recent day in Pillville. I'll get up early. Do what I have to do, and ignore the low menacing roar that hums  beneath every day for my mom and me.

My kitchen island lined with documentation for my mom's medicaid application.

Pillville, the board game. I win!

Remember THIS?

I emerged victorious in today's round of Pillville after a fortuitous roll of the dice that landed me on a square that said this: Great job keeping all those old meds! You've saved yourself a trip to the pharmacy that would have meant leaving you hospice patient alone. You've earned a night out and a trip to the Finish Line. You win!!!

Report from Pillville: The Balance of Opposites

Photo from this morning's walk along the beach in Ventura--a local artist stacks these stones.

My mom is more frail than ever but feels well.

I'm happier and stronger than I've been in a long long time but feel spent.

Those statements balance one another in a way I can't quite explain. And maybe there's balance too in the fact that my mom is sleeping more and more these days while I am sleeping less and less. And even when I do sleep, I awake feeling hung over. There's no gin involved in this, I swear--at least not for me. She is, of course, still having her martini. The balance of opposites right here in Pillville.

I almost had to sit during my T'ai Chi Chih practice yesterday. Today I opted out of yoga and took a walk. I need the sky over my head to feel the vastness of possibility. I need to be quiet.

I'm in the process of transitioning my mom into a nursing home after more than 3 years of caring for her in my house. I'm filling out the forms for Medi-Cal and Iowa Medicaid. I'm gathering documentation. I'm making travel plans and not making travel plans. I'm formulating a Plan A and a Plan B and wondering if they are mutually exclusive while wondering if both of them will fall away.

I'm sitting on the couch in my living room as I write this, wholly aware of the sound of her breathing in her room, while feeling that I'm barely breathing at all.

My heart is in Indiana with the man that I love and my heart is here, heavy as a stone, and so light it is a tower reaching for the sky.

This morning's walk took me past the estuary. Here it is looking inland--and looking out to the sea, just like me.

The path I was on took me under the freeway, framing a perfect view of the hills,
and it took me across the railroad tracks. Travel plans, vistas, hopes, dreams,manifested through a camera lens-- and if you look closely at the photo below you'll see a white cross in the lower left. I didn't see it when I took the photo.

Report from Pillville: How to plan

1) Fill the pillboxes for the next two weeks as if you are sure they will be needed.

2) Thank M and her friend for cleaning up your mom's coffee spills while you were at yoga.

3)  Thank M and her friend for making your mom another piece of toast when she forgot she'd eaten the first one.

4) Spill your own full cup of a perfect latté all over your stack of journals, your lamp, your end table and the white chair in your bedroom.

5) Clean up your mess, but decide that the slipcover to the chair can be spot cleaned, not removed and washed.

6) Talk to your other daughter on the phone about getting her grandmother to Iowa (or not) about getting her into a nursing home in a timely fashion there (or not) about you staying in Iowa longer than planned (or not).

7) In the same conversation decide to take your mom's wheelchair to Iowa. (duh) Decide that the daughter's husband will pick you up from the airport in Minnesota and take you to the airport hotel so your mom can rest before the drive the next day. Decide to get just one room for the two of you. Joke about hiring an exorcist to eliminate the possibility of middle of the night shrieks and hollers.

8) Throw the slipcover in the washing machine. Remove the towel from the bottom of the lamp. Note to self: be careful when switching the lamp on later.

9) Realize that your mom has picked new wounds into the skin on her arms while you wrote this post. And then wonder why the anti-anxiety med worked the first day of the picking, but doesn't seem to be working now.

10) Wonder when you might see this man you love again. Go over the plans and try to make peace with potential failure of said plans.

11) Realize that you started this post an hour ago.

12) Ponder your goals for today: Unsubscribe  to a few more emails. Pay the overdue water bill. Or not.

13) Make peace with sitting on the patio with your mom so you can suggest more ointment if she starts picking at her skin again.

12) Look forward to everything by planning nothing. Let go. Let go. Let go.

Wednesday Morning Beach Report

A cloud of sanderlings in flight.

A cloudless blue sky dropping into a band of fog. 

And unlike the past few mornings, a lone set of footprints following me on the sand.

While the new man in my life has gone back to Indiana to resume his role of caregiver for his father, the love and joy are still here--as wide and deep as the ocean.