Thursday’s Bumper Sticker
Alarm
“How do you set the alarm on a Fitbit?” he said.
She said, “Tell it that you’re going to replace it with an Apple watch.”
“What?”
“That’ll alarm it.”
All Along the Spectrum
I’m bouncing along the spectrum this week, sliding from hopeless negativity into enthusiastic, boundless optimism.
I know there’s a sweet spot there. Just can’t seem to find that balance.
That’s not overly surprising, and I don’t knowingly let myself fixate on it. ‘Knowingly’ is key, because my mind has created traps that I fall into without realizing, following worn paths that I should avoid, except they’re so damn easy to follow. Do you write fiction or pursue goals and dreams? If so, you might understand what I mean when I refer to these dark, weary paths.
I don’t know all the nuances that trigger my spectrum slides. I have ideas and insights into that process. When I win writing battles, my spirits soar toward the positive end. Good food, a good time, and a surprising compliment can take me there, too. Struggling with writing decisions, events that seem beyond my control, and simple frustration can drag me down into sour, doleful depths.
I know those things. Unseen health issues affect me with sneak attacks. Or, are they health issues? Maybe they’re not. I note, I feel off, and ask myself, what’s going on? Is it too little sleep, something I ate, part of the aging process, the first symptoms of a disease, or intellectual activities affecting my emotional activities affecting my physical activities affecting my spiritual activities affecting my intellectual activities?
Yes, that circle exists. It’s more complex than those few arcs described. That’s the spectrum. It’s not an orderly, linear line, but a circle, perhaps even a mobius. I think of it as a spectrum on a circle. Abstract visualization is one of my strengths, so I turn to it to help me think through things.
Being aware of the circle’s existence, like the monster in the dark, is helpful. Dreams can sometimes help, but last night’s dreams about aliens and seeking understanding seemed to highlight my morass rather than illuminating a way through it. Bummer. Fortunately, finding a satisfying resolution to whatever artistic-writing-intellectual problem is challenging me helps as well.
Today, after dwelling on the dreams during my morning coffee, I did find a satisfying approach to resolving the problem (which, yes, was of a writing nature), feeding my positive energy. It came while I dawdled, putting aside my normal routine to read some fiction and goof off, rather than to go out to walk and write. After just a few pages of distracting my brain with another’s fiction, my sub-conscious announced, aha, and an idea was floated. The solution isn’t fully formed, but has enough substance that I can grasp and shape it into something more and move myself forward.
Knowing this minutiae about myself is helpful to coping with its repercussions and trying to contain it. It’s easy to let these things eat me up, starting a more self-destructive circle. I encountered those when I was younger, when I didn’t know how to sort myself, when the territory that is me was darker and more unknown. I did a lot of destruction to myself and my life in those days. Fortunately, others helped me with patience, kindness, and insights. When I think back on some of the craziness, I gulp with amazement that I’m alive, intact, and not incarcerated.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
A Dream So Real
Do you ever have a dream so real that you’re certain it happened?
I had one of these last night. My eyes were extremely bloodshot in the dream. Looking at my eyes in the mirror in the dream, I thought, wow, what the hell is going on? What caused my eyes to be so bloodshot?
But when I brushed my teeth and saw my eyes this morning, they weren’t bloodshot. I was damn sure that they would be, and shocked and amused when they weren’t. I wonder from that, what other things did I dream that I was certain was real?
Monthly Darkness
I passed through the monthly darkness this week. Darkness strikes me every month. I became aware of it a few decades ago, when I was in my thirties, but I can’t confess to understanding it.
I can’t predict it, either, except it’s a monthly thing. I ended up comparing it to volcanoes this week, because volcanoes are in the news. Like volcanoes, you’re not positive about what’s going on underneath. Yes, a few fissures and tremors can provide clues. But mostly, awareness that something is there is about all that’s accomplished.
Then boom, eruptions clarify the moment.
I expect this every damn month, yet, it’s such a dark, stealthy flow, that it overtakes me and has me in its grip before I recognize it. Everything is touched; nothing is spared. Those areas where I think myself weakness are savaged the greatest. It strikes hard at my self-esteem, self-image, and self-confidence, debilitating my belief I can write fiction and my determination to do so. Thoughts like, “What’s the fucking use?” multiply like mosquitoes in a warming tundra. “Just quit. Walk away. Live a normal life of….” Complete the sentence.
Partway through it, I gathered awareness that I was in it. Awareness is probably the most comprehensive tool I have in my set. Knowing that I’m going through the monthly darkness lets me endure the rest, knowing it’ll past.
I must admit, it was a very dark one. I think the stresses of traveling, personal relationships, and visiting with family contributed to the depths. Those activities also limited my writing time. Writing is my primary therapy.
The darkness is gone now. I’m fortunate in that regard. I know my spectrum of moods. I feel for those without that self-awareness, or those whose moods take them more deeply and lovingly into the darkness, holding them down until they can’t breath. I’ve had such darknesses from time to time.
It’s not a fun place to exist.
All That’s Left
Inflammation surged in her right shoulder through several days, demoralizing her. Pain afflicted her with the smallest motion, dressing, cleaning, even brushing her teeth and combing her hair. Trying to think through options, she put bread in the toaster and considered conversation with her rheumatologist. He disliked giving cortisone shots. What else was there for the agony?
The toast popped up. Flinching her shoulder at the sound, she cried out in pain and fell to the floor, where all she could do was laugh and cry. Sometimes, that’s all that’s left.
Hidden
Watching others cope with diseases and declining health, slowly moving hunched bodies as they struggle to remember simple words and phrases and master common movements, do you ever wonder, what’s secretly going on inside yourself that’s waiting to come out?
It’s like looking for the monster hiding under the bed.
Mr Sigh
He sighs when he wakes up, realizing it’s another day, and sighs when he gets out of bed, stands, and sits, motions stiff with pain. Sighs slip out as he makes his meals and eats them, and as he reflects on his life. Sighs accompany every task, as if his world is filled with strife. Sighing, he works hard to do what he can, trying to get by, contemplating his death, sighing, holding on, and trying to stay alive.
The Trap
He doesn’t want his father to die, but this person that he sees every day doesn’t tell the jokes that his father used to make, and he doesn’t drink beer and coffee, doesn’t go walking with his dog, or wash his cars, or go for drives (driving too fast), or watch television and argue about sports.
He doesn’t want this man to die, even though his beard is white and wispy, and his hair is gone, and the lean, tall body sags like a worn fence, and he no longer barks out demands and orders.
He doesn’t want this man to die, the drooling one who sits in a chair and stares most of the day, the one that doesn’t eat much, mostly eating candy when he does eat, the man who doesn’t remember his name and needs help to use the toilet.
He doesn’t want this man to die, no matter what kind of wreck he is, because he knows that he’s still his father, and he will miss him more when he’s gone.
But he doesn’t want this man to suffer any more, because he is his father, so he comes every day, visiting and waiting, wondering and remembering, wishing that he had hope for something besides what it is.
The Reality
The sister got down on the floor on her back. She’d come down to help her younger sister with their mother’s care.
“I’m almost eighty years old,” she said. “I’m tired.”
It was expected. Her mother lived with her younger sister, who was seventy-two. One hundred one years old, Mom suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Other than that, and some minor injuries from falls, she was in great health, better health than her daughters.
It was a frustrating experience. The sisters loved their mother, and liked having her alive, but Mom often no longer remembered them. Mom would stand up and pee on the floor, and then cry over what she’d done. It wearied the sisters. After a lifetime of raising children (and now helping with grandchildren), divorces, bankruptcies, and health issues, they were ready to rest.
But rest wasn’t available, and that was the reality.
Michael Seidel, writer 