Love in the Slow Lane

Somehow, it's already eleven years ago that I met Dan Paik.
The essay I wrote about it got published today in P.S. I Love You, a Medium publication.

https://psiloveyou.xyz/love-in-the-slow-lane-467df7d9ccc7?source=friends_link&sk=471110cfdbd9cefec817166908394638

State of the State in Margaritaville:

Write your own blog post. Here are the pictures. Make it good.

Friday night mussels by candlelight

Saturday morning coffee on my patio

Impromptu Saturday lunch: octopus salad and squid salad

Notes from the Afterlife, Advice from Pillville, and Lovelovelove

August 20, 2012 minutes after our arrival, the long drive from Iowa over.

Warning: this might be my longest post ever. But there's love, booze, broken stuff, danger, death, love, and....more, more, more.

I broke a glass yesterday. A heavy tumbler in a slow motion plummet to the tile. The fall, the impact, the shatter seemed to unwind in slow motion. The sound of it too.

That was after I took my mom out for a haircut and barely managed to get her from the car and into the door of the salon. It was a very short walk--a walk that most people would not even describe with the word walk. Enter, maybe, or arrive would describe the track from car to door. I didn't bring the wheelchair. One of those mistakes to which I'll never be able apply the lesson learned because I'm not taking her out again. But we made it. Thanks to the presence of a bench, I didn't have to gently slide her down my leg and sit her on the sidewalk the way C drilled me months ago after the Thanksgiving night blackout drunk face plant.

The hospice nurse came for her regular visit after we got home. My mom was napping by then, looking pretty fabulous in her new haircut. Her pulse/ox was low-ish again, and her blood pressure was really low. 80/60. Yeah. Take a deep breath everyone. My mom is on hospice. She has lung cancer. For the third time. This is the way it is. She was alert and chatty, telling us how her putty-like legs didn't hurt and how she felt just fine. We raised the head of the bed and gave her gatorade. Told her to nap. The nurse and I went into the kitchen and she talked to me while I took the blood pressure meds out of my mom's pill box. She called in a prescription for a steroid. Then we talked about Iowa.

Today is the beginning of our fourth year in Pillville. My mother has said from the beginning that she wanted to go home to Iowa to die. Every time she said it, I told her fine, let me know when so I can buy plane tickets. For months already, we've had tickets for a visit there the first week in October. Yesterday the nurse told me that if there's any chance that my mom might be re-locating to Iowa, that I need to get her there "before the widow closes." That said, my mom ate a hearty dinner last night and walked around the house just fine. She insisted on scooping out her own ice cream--her usual bedtime treat.

Last night I dreamed of Dan. He came back wearing a new jacket, a pair of tinted designer glasses, and tight jeans. He was with a zaftig blonde, whom I disliked immediately. The three of us spent the night in the same house. He slept in my bed. I felt pretty smug the next morning while she slunk around refusing to make eye contact. I was in the kitchen when I heard a certain rhythmic sound coming from the bathroom. When the two of them came out and went directly out the door, I followed them into the street. We were in a big city and a trolley came by. Dan got on. I don't know what happened to the blonde. You could at least say good-bye, I shouted. He raised his eyes to look at me. Fuck you, I said. He shrugged. The doors of the trolley closed and our eyes held as he rolled out of sight.

Dan Paik broke more than a half-dozen glasses in the five and a half years we were together. He broke them at the table, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, and once in the garage. Other than the broken glass our time together was safe and pretty damn beautiful.

Pete arrives today. He's at the airport in Chicago waiting to board his plane right now. The first day of the fourth year of living with my mom is also another sort of beginning. Pete and I became Facebook friends in March. We knew of one another through the T'ai Chi Chih community (he's been a teacher a long time) and he's also a caregiver for his father. After a friend shared a couple of my Pillville posts, he asked if he could have my email address. Over a thousand emails and hundreds of hours of Skype later, we will meet this afternoon in person when he steps off the airport shuttle.

Two dear and trusted friends are coming to eat dinner with my mom tonight. I hope my mom continues to feel well. I hope I remember to eat dinner. I hope I remember to sleep. I hope I continue to trust the universe and that this story keeps rolling along, and that hearts, heads, glasses, bones, and all breakables stay intact for as long as they are able.

Where I've Been (Have I Ever Not Blogged for Six Days?)

Okay, so that's not me exactly, but I do feel like I've been riding the waves.

The light chop of life here in Pillville--nothing big enough to roll a person under, but just enough to make me wonder if I should take a Dramamine. Ha. Great name for a pill. Drama Mine. Which might explain why my blood pressure has been higher than my mother's.

And there have been those other waves too that come with falling in love. That feeling. You know that feeling. It's still all happening over Skype, but in a couple of days we'll see each other in person.
Wish us luck.

Tuesday Beach Report

The ocean was choppy, the tide low. Plenty of rocks to encourage the hunt for beach glass.
I found a little.

The slope of bare sand was steep enough so that while walking along the water's edge, I couldn't see any houses. It adds to that getting-away-from-it-all feeling.

And the sand itself was firmly packed, making walking easy. That's the way I feel about things in general  these days. I don't have to struggle. Just walk forward.

Report from the Love Shack

Look closely. My head is in there somewhere.

Love changes everything.

And yes, I'm doing a sort of high wire dance--grieving the loss of Dan while falling in love. It's difficult and strange at times. My footing slips and I fall, but I don't hit the ground.

It turns out that going into my fourth year as a caregiver is not so bad. Caregiving is how I met this man I love. He's a caregiver for his father and due to some mutual friends on Facebook, he began reading my blog. Email addresses were exchanged, Skype was launched, and plane tickets have been purchased (he lives in Indiana.)

So I've been busy tapping out emails and looking through my laptop screen into a beautiful pair of eyes. But stay tuned. Soon there will be beach reports, more news from Pillville, and I'll get caught up with all of you. Thanks for the kind wishes

And I think a couple of you were wondering about the dance partner. We're still dancing. We're just not going to tango.

Oh by the way, my mom is doing just fine.

Where is the @%$&*#$ Beach Report?

I'm not quite sure when I was last at the beach.

As my mom's savings erode,  I've been considering our options. It seems like getting a housemate is the easiest option. Of course, I want a quiet, non-smoking, non-drug using, mostly absent, without furniture housemate who is a very nice, very kind person. The universe sent me someone like that when I needed a housemate a few years back, so I don't know if I'm entitled to another one.

With all of my kids and grandkids here over the 4th of July, there were 11 of us here, but keeping space open for those 2 or 3 times a  year gatherings is a luxury. I need to be practical--and so instead of going to the beach I did a massive clean out of my garage so that I can upgrade half of that space to an almost proper grown-up guest room. I've also cleaned out and painted my laundry room which is right next to the garage so that the garage guests can actually find the sink in there for face washing and tooth brushing. I can now hang lingerie to dry in there somewhat discreetly and it's no longer a complete obstacle course to travel from the kitchen through the laundry room to the garage.

I also painted my front door blue while I was at it.

So that's one of the things I've been doing instead of walking on the beach. And hauling crap to Goodwill. And hauling crap to the household toxic waste drop-off (which does not take everything-- so WTF am I supposed to do with half empty cans of butane and solidified silver polish and medical needles? People have this shit. It's not like it's spent uranium fuel rods. Give me a place to take it dear sultans of city and county waste.)

But before you get all aw hell no, this woman should be walking on the beach, I'll also say that I'm spending a very nice portion of my day communicating with a friend who has become more than a friend. We'd be walking on the beach together except he lives in the Midwest and it's hard to do that from there. It's hard to do lots of things when he's there and I'm here, but there's Skype and email and the phone, and while I have no fresh photos of the beach to share with you, I am well and happy. My mom is doing okay. I'm still going to yoga and T'ai Chi Chih, and dancing. I'm fine. I'm good. I'm better than fine and good. Hope you are too.

Amen.

Believe it.

Would you believe me if I told you I was sitting in my kitchen eavesdropping on my mom having a conversation with dead people? If you're a regular reader of this blog, of course you would. You might even know that you can click on the labels in the sidebar and read other posts about my mom talking in her sleep/talking to the dead.

Would you believe that the weather app on my iPhone says it's going to be 85 in Margaritaville  tomorrow? That's okay, I don't believe it either. It won't be 85 here, a mile from the sand.

Would you believe that I'm cleaning out my garage and that in the 3 years I've lived in this house, I've amassed bags of stuff that I don't need or want and that probably no one needs or wants? Sure, you'd believe that. You could probably clean out your garage and come up with just as many bags of stuff.

Would you believe I'm falling in love? I can hardly believe it myself. But it's true.

Report from the Love Shack

Thank you for your comments on my previous post about love. I've been reading them over and over again. I appreciate your wisdom, your stories, and your honesty from the bottom of my heart.

It's not too late to leave a comment if you haven't done so already. I'm listening. Tell me what you know.

Just scroll down to the previous post.

Love: I Need Answers

My parents.  I think they really dug each other. Look at my dad. Don't you want to be looked at like that?

I've been thinking a lot about love lately. Why we use the phrase fall in love instead of soar into love, melt into love, expand into love. So many possibilities. Fall out of love seems right. But why fall in?

How is it that you can commit your life to being with someone and then it doesn't work out? You promised. Now you're un-promising? How is it that you can laugh hysterically with someone for an entire summer and then just up and decide Nope. How can you waste weeks trying to convince someone that you really have nothing in common when you're so attracted to that someone that the house burned down every time he walked in the door? How can you love one person and then find that you also accidentally love someone else but you still love that other person too? Can you fall in love just by reading a person's words when you've never even met him? What if you never meet him? Will you go on loving him? 

I fell in love when I was 15. Does that even count? Does it have more traction because we had a baby? Why don't I ever think of that man I was married to for 30 years? Am I a psychopath? Is it pure survival? Can you survive love? Can you fall in love with someone so gradually you would have never predicted it? How slow can love go? How fast?  If Train A leaves the station at 4pm and is traveling 40 mph and Train B leaves the station at 8pm, traveling 60mph, how many hours will it take for Train B to pass train A? If there are lovers on those trains, what will happen then? Can you fall in love with someone when you don't really ever talk? How in the hell can a person go to work in the morning, come home in the evening and have nothing to say? (This last question courtesy of John Prine)

I'm asking. Just asking. Tell me. Tell me what you know. I'm listening. Tell me a story. Your story. Tell me everything you know.

Living with My Mother at 37,000 Feet

Here's picture of a dove. Whatever.

There were 20 people cued up for wheelchairs at the Southwest terminal at LAX. There was a roped off seating area and a maitre d' at a podium, taking names. This is the beginning of the future as the baby boomers age. Most of the wheelies were 2 or 3 decades younger than my mother. I am so grateful for my healthy body.

At the gate, there was a culling of the herd. "Who can walk onto the plane?" a chipper young woman asked, scanning the 10 or so wheelchairs at the gate. Her eyes brushed over the top of my mother's white head. When we got to the aircraft door, the young woman who'd wheeled the chair down the jetway didn't ask. She commanded, "Take my hand," she said at the doorway of the aircraft as she handed my mom off to the waiting flight attendant. Bless all these people. They make me want to skip and sing while tossing 20 dollar bills in the air.

We're fairly good at this now, my mom and I, on our third trip east, but once again my mother has said that she's never flying again. It's hard. I could rant about the specifics of that, but I won't.

Already, in the midst of this small torture, we're planning a trip to Iowa for my sister's 40th wedding anniversary. "Should I drive her there by myself?" I asked the charming and kind M as she drove us to LAX  this morning?  M explained to me how NFL teams choose their rosters. "They look for the best of the best overall players," she said. "Or they go for a specific skill set." You need a partner with a specific skill set." She said I should find him and get that road trip in motion.

Okay.

Here I am. A 62-year-old version of gorgeous. I need lots of time to myself to write and think. I do yoga. I do T'ai Chi Chih. I love to walk on the beach. I'm a lazy and healthy cook. I'm a reader. I like poetry. I'm learning to ballroom dance. I'm not getting married unless you're a billionaire. You can like what you like. I don't have to love it. We just have to like each other. And there's that road trip. There'll be a lot of bathroom stops and we'll be off the road every evening in time for a cocktail. We won't get started again until after breakfast. 400 miles per day absolute fucking maximum. Go ahead, tell me your interested. I dare you.