Short, mostly unedited: Hard to be Human

 

What a terrible weekend!

Sorry, I couldn't think of a better way to start.

I was sucked up into the tornado of my emotions Saturday evening, and all this week I have been trying to find my way home from this desert in which it finally dumped me.

The funny thing is that when I feel insanity coming on, there is always the unruffled voice of reason urging me quietly but relentlessly to steady on. I try to listen. I want to listen, but darn it all, my emotions are like wild beasts that threaten to eat my heart right out of me if I do not let them carry me away into their habitat of chaos.

So here I am. It's Thursday, isn't it? And I'm still not well, and on top of that, I am fantasizing about what peaceful lives cloistered nuns must be living away from the world, in their routine of quiet prayer with their unmade up faces and simple attire.

But wouldn't you know I would probably cause havoc in a convent, too. I bet I could.

My dad posted something on Facebook a while back about trying to fight with my saintly mother. It's a hard road, because she does not fight. She stands still and quiet with faith that this, too, will pass. My aunt, Dad's sister, commented that she wished she was like sweet Karen, but no! She's a fighter! My uncle said it must run in our family. It sure does, I agreed. It runs wild.


So I have this proclivity, you see, to fight and debate and be emotionally tyrannical. It's not so bad when I'm with my own kind. We duke it out. We argue. We duel. We "debate". We're not calm or even always civil about it, but in the end, we're good. That's simply how we communicate.

It's much harder when someone like me marries a calm person who is fully in control of his emotions. I always wanted a calm man. I knew I would need a calm, steady man. And I got him, but he just won't fight! I feel like I am just wearing him down, wearing him down, and how much can the poor man put up with? I can't join a convent now, especially not with four kids in tow.

So the option, as I see it, is to mortify myself. And, no, I do not mean lashing or beating myself with whips and sticks. A spirit of mortification is to deny one's own selfish, prideful inclinations. (I have plenty of those.) To mortify oneself means to smile at and listen to that person who really irritates you, to offer others the last slice of cake, to agree to help a friend when you'd rather be lazy on a Saturday afternoon, and - this one's a kicker - to not act out your petty but powerful emotions at the expense of your loved ones so "you can feel better".

Anyway, I never feel better. It's like a whirlpool once I turn the jets of my feelings on. The more I act out and talk about my feelings, the more I am getting sucked down to it's terrible center, so I try to pull as many others as I can in with me, at least to slow my progress. It never works out. It never, ever does. So I must learn to swallow my emotions like a secret agent lady who rips up the code and swallows it before a really awful secret with international implications gets out.

My secret is that I'm half crazy. I'm not all there. Yet.

So what?

I must swallow my emotions. Honestly, I'm afraid I'll overdose.

It's so hard being human. We've all got something (except for my husband). Me? Well, I'm obsessive-compulsive. I think about everything too much, methodically, not ever really making up my mind, terrified of what can be. I've broken locks by checking them repeatedly in the throes of this disorder. I've even broken my husband's patience. I have turned my car around, slowed down, and obsessively glanced in my rearview to make sure I haven't run over anyone on bumpy roads. (And let me tell you, there is not a single smooth road in this whole blasted town!) I have driven myself wild with jealousy, with imagining what is or might be or could be under certain circumstances. Everything is worse with this disorder, for though I know I am beautiful in my way, I have always struggled with vanity and with comparing myself to others, and I HATE vanity. It's a terrible vice. It's prison. I dread being vain. But woe is me! I dread being ugly, too.

Even my vivid, disturbing dreams claw at my peace. Yet my dreams show also the beauty of my mind, for while I may dream of witnessing something so devastating it stays with the conscious me for days, I also dream of landscapes so vibrant and strange that I savor them and applaud my own imagination.

Regardless, it's getting old being the unstable one.

So I have to change. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

Passion must be expelled. I used to think passionate people like myself were the only ones who were interesting, worth knowing well or conversing with on a regular basis. Reserved, quiet people were boring, flat: all cold fish with no depth of feeling. But now? I wish to heavens I was like them! They have emotions, but they don't make a habit of wreaking others' peace with the expression of them, with the blurting out of opinions and moods. Sure, crazy is interesting, exciting, but their way is a far better way.

The thing is I have to sacrifice to change. I have to remove myself from the center of my universe. I have to let go. Not bottle up. Let Go. Maybe I have to shut myself up for a few days every quarter in the bathroom. But I have to learn to control, one way or another, these out-of-control emotions I feel periodically. I have to say no to fear, to so many fears, and really cling with my whole heart and soul to faith, hope, love.

I have to love at all times. I have to listen to that voice of reason. I have to accept grace offered. I have to pray, and not be afraid of what God might ask me to do or not to do in order to change. I have to stop ignoring his nudges in order to dig myself a deeper hole. I have to give up and raise the white flag, beg for help in climbing out of my self-erected cage.

Wish me luck.

Gulp.

I'm gonna need it.

Family Music

When Daniel, my youngest, was just over six months old, I took him with me when I flew up to Idaho for my grandmama's funeral. My parents drove up, and my sister Vinca flew in from Virginia. We all had to do plenty of commuting between two small towns in Idaho, the epicenters of both sides of the family. That road was very familiar to my parents, for it was their slice of the world, where they had grown up, gone to school and church, where they'd met. They told stories and pointed out special spots from their courtship.

But my little guy hated his car seat and therefore hated the drive. Like his big sisters before him, he treated it like a torture device and cried inconsolably for most of the time that he was strapped into it. The flurry of family visits and family business that was sometimes comforting, sometimes heartbreaking but a necessary part of saying goodbye and preparing the funeral for Grandmama was hard on him.

One night we stopped at a gas station on our commute, and I comforted and nursed my distraught baby before we headed down the narrow, paved road again. Of course, he was already crying again within moments, overstimulated and exhausted, sick of being confined. My dad felt especially bad for his namesake.

Then Vinca started singing softly to soothe my Danny. It was melancholy and quite beautiful, accompanying the hum of the car and the stillness of the passing rural environment, swathed in consoling darkness.

As Vinca and I sat by my son, holding and stroking his hand and hair, he fell quiet. We were all feeling very sad, and the songs didn't serve to distract us, but simply gave voice to our grief and let us dwell in it together. I listened to Dad, Mom and Vinca sing spiritual songs, completely captivated by their voices as I gazed at my little boy's face and out the window at the trees, fields and streams, my own thoughts hushed.

The five of us on a dark road, grieving and singing hymns to my baby and for our comfort, is one of my favorite memories from that time.

It is not the only memory encapsulated in and kindled by music.

The last night of my visit with my brother Nate this past April, my friend Holly, Natie, my sis-in-law Natalie and I sat at their dining table playing cards, eating pizza and drinking wine. We told family and personal stories, debated a little (something without which my family can't survive), and Nate had a playlist on his smartphone through which he skimmed and skipped. A Gordon Lightfoot song came up, and I asked," Natie, you still like Gordon Lightfoot?"

"Of course."

My heart swelled with familial pride. Dad raised his four kids on Lightfoot's music. I knew my sisters still enjoyed it, but to know that it was honored by Nate, too, made me feel that the years with no visits and the thousands of miles between us, the distance from our own childhoods, was not so great as I sometimes felt.

Natalie and Holly didn't feel the same. Holly said it was sleepy music, and Natalie called it Country.

Nate and I protested. "It's not Country. It's folk music."

But no hard feelings. Nate and Holly sang along to 1990s tunes and made me laugh with their vocal interpretations. Natalie told a story about discovering the true meaning of a song she used to love as a young girl. I confessed that 1980s music made me nostalgic, and Natie pointed out it should be that of the 1990s, when I was a teenager. When Holly said, "Just don't play 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'," by Deep Blue Something, Nate and I banded together again. We have always loved that song.

There are songs and albums that remind me of my parents or make me think of my siblings as soon as I recognize them. "Superman (It's Not Easy)" by Train never fails to remind me of my sister Annie and all the time we spent together when I was first married and still living close to her. Gordon Lightfoot's album, Waiting For You, reminds me of going through the Blue Ridge Mountains with my sister Vinca as she drove fast and sure on those twisty roads. "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day will never fail to make me smile and say, "My mom loves this song!", or if I'm speaking to my children, "Grandmama loves this song!" And, of course, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" reminds me of Nate and of our time in Idaho with relatives before he left for the military. As for Dad, many Credence Clearwater Revival and Gordon Lightfoot songs connect me to him. The songs that bring Dad most to mind, however, are the ones he wrote himself and the ones I sing myself with great appreciation.

I could not name all the songs that remind me of special people or specific times in my life. It's a gift that keeps on giving. Music powerfully binds people together, weaving our memories into its melodies and lyrics by capturing our emotions, embracing, even enlarging our experiences, and expressing our culture. It transports us back in time and keeps us forever young, reminiscent of time with family and friends.

I, for one, am grateful for the memories.


 

Lady Jane of Devizes

She was a small, older woman in simple clothes. She had short, grey hair and unwavering eyes behind glasses. I startled her only momentarily when I yelled for her help on a deserted Devizes street after dark, and she invited my friend Holly and me in immediately, trying to prevent her two cats from getting out, one who wanted to storm our laps and one who observed us nervously from a good distance.

As we sat in her warm cottage, grateful for the help and rest, Jane told us of her travels to Kentucky, Canada and Italy and of how her amorous, temperamental cat was one she had rescued from an Italian street. Maybe that was why she wasn't put off by two strange American women who accosted her on her own neighborhood street. She was used to rescuing foreigners, and as Mark Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..."

When we explained how we couldn't figure out the lock box to our vacation rental, she graciously offered us her phone and lap top to contact the cottage owner. When at first we couldn't get a hold of her, Jane offered coffee with cream and sugar.

On the way to get the coffee, she paused, "Do you want wine instead?"

She knew we had had a frustrating night. What hospitality!

Finally, we found out what we had been doing wrong, and we thanked her repeatedly and continually asked what she wanted us to send her from Arizona as a thank you, but she wouldn't accept the offer.

Before we left, I said, "I don't know what we would have done without your help, Jane!"

Holly added, "Yeah, we would have been sleeping on the street!"

And Jane replied, "I have an extra room. I would have just put you up in there."

My friend Holly and I would later refer to her as Lady Jane, and we, who are so keen on English literature, could not think of a more auspicious name than Jane (except for maybe Anne, Elizabeth or Margaret).

I tell the humorous side of our ordeal here: Left to our own devices in Devizes.

Despite the fact that we were temporarily out of our wits, Lady Jane will always have a fond place in our memory, and it's about time we sent her something from Arizona, even if it's just a simple thank you.

England Anthology: Of All the Trees I've Known Before...

My friend Holly wanted to have her picture taken in art havens and historical spots while in England. I loved those, too, but I also wanted to pose with trees.

I went all over England hugging trees. It wasn't planned really, but I fell in love - not with one but with several of them. Being a bonafide tree hugger and whisperer, I haven't really noticed that my whispering or hugging makes a difference to them, but perhaps that's because, except for a few special trees in my life, I tend to love and leave them.

I couldn't really get my arms around this burly guy, but immune as I am to most forms of self-inflicted embarrassment, I tried. He was on the beautiful grounds at Leed's Castle. I had a terrible virus that day. I feel sorry for any human who came along after me to hug him. I'm sure there were several.

These trees seemed a bit delicate, like elven trees. I didn't embrace them. But this picture? I'm no photographer, but I am in love with this image for some reason, technically good or not. There were a fair amount of people touring the castle grounds that day, but this memory takes me to the English countryside all by myself, soaking in the peaceful sounds of nature, possibly taking a nap in the sunshine, and waking up to play with wild rabbits.

There were other trees that had a superb sense of place in a different sense, city dwellers. They were a little bit like Londoners, though: aloof.

 

Big Ben artfully obscured - by the tree, not the photographer

 

The three guardians of Westminster Abbey

The below tree was in Bath. That alone was reason enough to hug it under its towering canopy. I was ebullient that day, savoring the passing moments, fully cognizant of my good fortune, appreciative of my glorious surroundings.

 

It was perhaps the friendliest-looking tree in arguably the loveliest spot, Royal Victoria Park with views of the majestic Royal Crescent. I would live there if at all possible.

 

 

And speaking of the Royal Crescent in Bath, Somerset, there was a very old magnolia tree adorning the front of the Royal Crescent Hotel and Spa.

 

 

I could not afford to stay there, but I could admire the tree.

 

Another tree of Bath, simultaneously down to earth and majestic

 

Ah, the simple and priceless joys of nature.