The day must come for us all when we have to get that first Cat-Scan. Maybe we think we're going crazy, and our doctor thinks we're irritating enough that it could just be so. Sometimes we're convinced we're dying, and the Cat-Scan seems like the proof we need. It's possible, too, just to have that inconclusive general feeling that, "Oh, my head's stopping!", as I once so famously exclaimed as a child while trying to put on a dramatic skit with my sister Annie.
My first brain scan came last Friday, and it was all in all simply because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed in the wrong way at the wrong time.
I have been sleep-deprived for the majority of my adult life, so I think I can safely say that when I tried to get out of bed at a little after 5am a week ago, it was much too early if not unusual. As for the wrong side of a bed, well I didn't really have an option. I was getting out of my toddler son's bed, and one side of it is flush against a wall, so my sole option was to sit up and sling my legs to the floor on the side with the bed rail.
The moment I attempted to accomplish the simple feat of getting up, my brain set the world spinning at crazy carnival-ride speed, and I fell back to the bed with my son in my arms, excruciatingly dizzy and closing my eyes against the funny house of distorted, whirling objects. I kept still a moment or two, thinking it a momentary dysfunction of my operating systems. Then I made another go at freedom from the low toddler bed. If I had known what I was defying, I never would have done it, but I managed to gain the cooperation of feet and legs as I stumbled into my own bedroom to peer at the fuzzy alarm clock. From there I staggered to the living room and just made it out of the hall before I fell forward to roll my son out of my arms and then fell back groaning and moaning and at full mercy of my suddenly deranged, malfunctioning brain.
That's how my husband found me. He kept our toddler son free of me, though the little guy kept reaching his arms toward me and crying out, completely discombobulated by his mother's bizarre behavior. I had to push him back and repeat, "No!" a little desperately, because it was now apparent that my body was going to be violently affected by my brain's haywire signals. I should have shouted to my little boy, "Save yourself!" Instead I said to my husband, "I'm going to be sick...."
So it went. My brain absolutely insisted that my body join it out to sea for the entire day, and it was to be no Carnival cruise. Instead I was dumped in a physiological Bermuda-Triangle with no navigational controls and despairing that I would ever make it home to solid shore again. Every movement I made, each small shift of position on this tour of travesty built into an intense nausea that had me bending over a plastic-lined trash bin. I threw up about twice an hour. I ate only half a bagel, and it did not stay where it should have. I drank water simply so I wouldn't get dehydrated and so that I wouldn't be forced to dry heave.
Thankfully, while I was lost at sea, there were those intent on aiding in my recovery. My husband came home from work when it became apparent that I couldn't drive the kids to school. Then he stayed home to tend the children while I tried to remain perfectly still on the couch. When his boss called him back into work, our very dear friend picked up our oldest kids from school and brought them home. Later, when it was evident that I could not overcome the illness on my own, there was a harrowing visit (for my man) with all four kids to our family practitioner's. When she discovered that I was experiencing an alarming drop in blood pressure and rise in heart rate each time I went from lying to sitting or sitting to standing, she determined that I should go to the ER for that first Cat-Scan.
Matthew felt certain neither he nor I would likely survive a trip to the ER with the kids, so we sent out a distress signal to some friends who abandoned dinner plans to come to our house to watch them. Here I was set to moaning about something new - the disastrous state of our home - forgetting to some degree my own sorry circumstances.
Matthew was so frazzled that when I begged pitifully for a different solution that didn't involve our friends seeing the near unlivable state of our house, he said sharply, "There's nothing to be done about it. It's the best solution," and then basically told me to close my trap. By some luck, we got to our house a few minutes before our friends, so my man and kids had time for a bit of frantic straightening. However, I feel quite sure that nothing could have removed altogether the smell of sea-sickness mingled with carpet-crushed cheerios from the atmosphere.
Ah, vertigo. For, of course, that's what it was. After a shot in the bum for nausea, a Cat-Scan, blood work, and more futile medicine for nausea, they determined no cause for it - no tumor (thank goodness), no vital vitamin deficiency, no fluid in the ear. Just vertigo - mysteriously tossing me about on an ocean of malcontent.
Until a bright ER doc decided to give me some "anti-vert" medicine, saying, "You're not going to get rid of that nausea until you get rid of the dizziness."
Yes. Amen! Illumination in the distance, a shore, a lighthouse, a miracle. Gradually after taking a little pill, I felt better sitting there in my PJs in the exam room, and my sallow, sullen face and dull eyes no doubt gained some color, depth and spirit at long last. I begged for food and was offered instead a cup of the best ginger ale I have ever had the pleasure of imbibing. Life, it seemed, would be livable again.
And so it is. The dizziness still comes and goes, haunting me like a temperamental spirit with a wrong turn of the head or a sudden forgetful flopping on the bed, but I am not nearly so ill as I was on that freaky Friday and hope never to be again. People have confided in me that this strange ailment shows up out of the blue for no reason, stays several months or a few years, and then usually disappears as strangely and as suddenly as it came. It's a chess game where the brain says check every so often to the body, keeping it at its continual mercy.
Still, this unwelcome vertigo taught me some things. I have now a new-found and intense respect for my brain and for all the signals it conveys to my body all day long with no special attention from me. It is a beautiful thing...and a terrible thing when it betrays us.
And it hit home profoundly, that which Count Rugen tells Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride. "Get some rest...if you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything," he advises before flashing his one-two smile from one self-interested psychopath to another.
Lastly, I learned to trust family and friends when things hit the rocks. I don't know what we would have done without our friends since the nearest relative is several hundred miles away. As for family, I must give a shout-out to my eldest son. He was enormously kind while I was so ill and became my young nurse. Every time I went to get up, he reminded me gently, "Slow, Mama, slow..." When I said I needed water, pitifully, and then tried to go get it, he said, "No, Mama. I got it." Whenever I got dizzy and fell back or was sick, he exclaimed in alarm, "Are you okay?" Most mercifully, he kept his siblings out of my hair. In short this nine-year-old child of mine who requires so great an investment of my resources and energy as a mother gave me it all back with interest when I was down and out, and I thank him for that.
And I thank God that I am a normally healthy person who had one sorry abnormal day.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Knight and Kind Stranger, Rescue Me
Sometimes you need a hero, whether he's trying to put the kids to bed or not, and if he can't gallop up to you on his tall white steed, nowadays you can usually reach him by cellular.
I didn't plan on being a lady in distress that night. No, I planned on simply going to a small artsy theater in the affluent city of Scottsdale, Arizona to see an Iranian film with a couple of friends. This small theater I had been to twice before, but I couldn't quite remember how to get there. Instead of looking it up on a map before I left, traditional or Internet, I decided to wing it, fully expecting to recognize the necessary turns I needed to take when I met them. (Yes, I don't have a smart phone. I'm probably the only person on the planet who doesn't have one and lacks the insatiable desire to acquire one.)
Everything in Scottsdale was supernaturally dark when I turned off the highway and headed west that night. Either that city is inhabited by ritzy, uppity vampires who work diligently to maintain their ideal nightlife environment or my uncertainty and poor eyesight made me acutely aware of the absence of any familiar guiding light. I became irrevocably confused between two streets - Goldwater, Drinkwater...huh? I made a wrong turn and then another. Then I circled back to the main street, so that I could yet again take the wrong street to the wrong fluorescent lights that glared like a false, malevolent and mocking beacon. I knew my east, west, south and north, but I had no clue about local landmarks. Everywhere I looked there were fancy low-light clubs, tall dim buildings, fancy (vampire?) people, and I was often sandwiched on the main thoroughfare between sleek, gargantuan hummers and tiny, haughty sports cars which almost careened off my back bumper when I stopped abruptly at lights.
My anxiety grew as the car's clock dialed toward 7pm. That was the showtime for the movie, and I needed to make it before then, because I knew my artist friend did not like missing her previews.
There was hope...until I lost it somewhere on Camelback, Fifth Ave, Goldwater, Drinkwater, Indian School...bleh, it was all a terrible mess. And the darkness was cruel, cruel! I began to twitch at every light, slapping the steering wheel and shouting, Come on!", rushing to God only knows where only to get more confused. The stress of being lost was eroding my practical self, and emotion was seeping into the brain, muddying my already muddled faculties. At one point I considered calling into cars that stopped next to me at lights, pleading for directions from their drivers, but I couldn't tell if that was rational or lunatic.
I didn't have my friend's cell number, and I didn't have the cell of our friend who was joining us. My panic was intensifying as I passed the same little strip of shops that seemed to be the only light-emitting things in Scottsdale. There was only one thing to do.
"Matthew, I'm lost!" I cried into my phone. "And I can't reach Holly. I'm going to be late, and she'll miss her previews. And I keep making the wrong turns, because it's so damn dark. I can't see anything til I'm right on it! Stupid Scottsdale!"
He tried to calm me, so he could clarify my damsel in distress circumstances. After much back and forth and cursing from the damsel (me), he extracted from me the street where I was and name of the theater where I was supposed to be. While he was trying to look up my location, I panicked and hung up the phone, thinking it was taking too long and hoping by sheer dumb luck or by magic that I could finally find my way. Unfortunately, I had lost all sense of where I had begun. And as I was doing another lap, my man called back, asking if I had yet figured it out. Upon my emphatic No!, he told me which way I should turn to make contact with civilization, and I turned the opposite direction (being already in the wrong turn lane). By this time it was after 7pm, and I was desperate. I turned back at the next road and then sped down a pitch-black and absolutely indifferent residential street that made me feel as if I had been inked out of existence. A radar sign flashed "Slow Down - Slow Down" like a ghostly refrain to Matthew's "Calm down!" I braked and tried to breathe in some common sense.
"Everything's so dark! I just need to come home," I sobbed, defeated. "I don't know where I am at all. I'll never make it in time."
"No, you need to go to your movie and have fun," he vowed. "Especially now. If you take a right at the next street, you'll be fine. Goldwater splits off from it."
I took the right, kept right, and then had the panicky feeling that I was again lost as the lane I was in curved away and up into the dark as if taking me to a highway.
"I took the wrong turn again!" I blubbered into the phone in absolute despair, my body shaking violently with freely erupting emotions.
But, no. Lo and behold, on a small hill to my right emerged a vaguely familiar set of red and blue fluorescents, and this time the beacon was sincere, the harbor clear.
"I'm here; I'm here. I found it!" I exclaimed in joyous relief.
"You're there?"
"Yes, thank you, honey. Thank you, thank you so much."
You're not running?" my knight asked after he heard the car door slam. "Don't run."
I wasn't, but my voice was still quavering with emotion as I walked to the ticket window with my wet face and my stricken eyes.
"It's been...a rough night," I said haltingly to the young lady behind the glass. A gentleman in a dark suit and glasses to her left glanced up as he sorted through receipts or cash. "I got lost on the way here. Have two women come through...?" The young lady was gave me a blank stare and raised her shoulders, so I suggested desperately, "One of them was named Holly..."
"Really, I have no way of knowing," she said, but upon my request she gave me leave to look for them in the lobby.
Of course they weren't there, so I asked the lady taking tickets for permission to scout them out, and I promised to come back and pay for my ticket if found them.
In the theater where A Separation was the feature, previews were no longer playing. The movie's opening scene was running, and everything was again dark and impenetrable to me. I had no hope of spotting anyone as I wandered down the aisles, and again I was feeling cursed by the lack of light, but in my dejection I was spotted. My friends waved me down from a center row, and I exited quickly and returned to the ticket booth once more where there were now six or seven people in front of me in line. I would lose more precious time, so I took the opportunity to call Matthew back and let him know I had found the girls.
"Good," he said. "Now get some chocolate to make you feel better. But not that fancy Scottsdale kind! Not the $50 a bar variety. Tell them you want the $20 chocolate."
I laughed at Matthew's joke, and in doing so I felt so much love for this man who could deal with me while I was sobbing and hysterical and, yes, rude with fear over a silly little trip to the movies. And not just deal with me, but treat me with love and kindness while rescuing me and guiding me, then make me laugh after.
As I was hanging up the phone with my Knight, I glanced up to find that the man in the dark suit and glasses had emerged from the ticket booth and was near me.
"Your friends are here?" he asked.
"Yes," I said and smiled.
"Then, here," he said, extending his hand and a stiff bit of paper. "It's on me."
"Thank you!"
I thought he was indifferent to my rididulous plight when I'd seen him earlier beyond the glass, so I was stunned as I followed him through the doors and past the lady taking tickets. My simple thank you did not seem to suffice for this wonderful act of kindness and generosity. For heaven's sake, he had redeemed Scottsdale by his action!
As he turned away toward the offices behind the concession stands, I called again, "Thank you...thank you so much..." but my voice broke as the tears surged back in gratitude.
"You're welcome," he said, and added over his shoulder, "That movie's not going to make you feel any better."
He was right. It was a movie about things falling apart, kind of like my night. Still his generosity did make me feel better, as did the love, strength and calming influence of my man. The boisterous laughter that a friend inspired in the parking lot afterward did, too. Then I finally let go completely over a very belated meal with my artist friend after the movie. We shared wonderful spinach/artichoke dip and great conversation about our high brow soap opera, Downton Abbey, and our super steady and long enduring husbands.
Afterward, I made it home just fine.
I didn't plan on being a lady in distress that night. No, I planned on simply going to a small artsy theater in the affluent city of Scottsdale, Arizona to see an Iranian film with a couple of friends. This small theater I had been to twice before, but I couldn't quite remember how to get there. Instead of looking it up on a map before I left, traditional or Internet, I decided to wing it, fully expecting to recognize the necessary turns I needed to take when I met them. (Yes, I don't have a smart phone. I'm probably the only person on the planet who doesn't have one and lacks the insatiable desire to acquire one.)
Everything in Scottsdale was supernaturally dark when I turned off the highway and headed west that night. Either that city is inhabited by ritzy, uppity vampires who work diligently to maintain their ideal nightlife environment or my uncertainty and poor eyesight made me acutely aware of the absence of any familiar guiding light. I became irrevocably confused between two streets - Goldwater, Drinkwater...huh? I made a wrong turn and then another. Then I circled back to the main street, so that I could yet again take the wrong street to the wrong fluorescent lights that glared like a false, malevolent and mocking beacon. I knew my east, west, south and north, but I had no clue about local landmarks. Everywhere I looked there were fancy low-light clubs, tall dim buildings, fancy (vampire?) people, and I was often sandwiched on the main thoroughfare between sleek, gargantuan hummers and tiny, haughty sports cars which almost careened off my back bumper when I stopped abruptly at lights.
My anxiety grew as the car's clock dialed toward 7pm. That was the showtime for the movie, and I needed to make it before then, because I knew my artist friend did not like missing her previews.
There was hope...until I lost it somewhere on Camelback, Fifth Ave, Goldwater, Drinkwater, Indian School...bleh, it was all a terrible mess. And the darkness was cruel, cruel! I began to twitch at every light, slapping the steering wheel and shouting, Come on!", rushing to God only knows where only to get more confused. The stress of being lost was eroding my practical self, and emotion was seeping into the brain, muddying my already muddled faculties. At one point I considered calling into cars that stopped next to me at lights, pleading for directions from their drivers, but I couldn't tell if that was rational or lunatic.
I didn't have my friend's cell number, and I didn't have the cell of our friend who was joining us. My panic was intensifying as I passed the same little strip of shops that seemed to be the only light-emitting things in Scottsdale. There was only one thing to do.
"Matthew, I'm lost!" I cried into my phone. "And I can't reach Holly. I'm going to be late, and she'll miss her previews. And I keep making the wrong turns, because it's so damn dark. I can't see anything til I'm right on it! Stupid Scottsdale!"
He tried to calm me, so he could clarify my damsel in distress circumstances. After much back and forth and cursing from the damsel (me), he extracted from me the street where I was and name of the theater where I was supposed to be. While he was trying to look up my location, I panicked and hung up the phone, thinking it was taking too long and hoping by sheer dumb luck or by magic that I could finally find my way. Unfortunately, I had lost all sense of where I had begun. And as I was doing another lap, my man called back, asking if I had yet figured it out. Upon my emphatic No!, he told me which way I should turn to make contact with civilization, and I turned the opposite direction (being already in the wrong turn lane). By this time it was after 7pm, and I was desperate. I turned back at the next road and then sped down a pitch-black and absolutely indifferent residential street that made me feel as if I had been inked out of existence. A radar sign flashed "Slow Down - Slow Down" like a ghostly refrain to Matthew's "Calm down!" I braked and tried to breathe in some common sense.
"Everything's so dark! I just need to come home," I sobbed, defeated. "I don't know where I am at all. I'll never make it in time."
"No, you need to go to your movie and have fun," he vowed. "Especially now. If you take a right at the next street, you'll be fine. Goldwater splits off from it."
I took the right, kept right, and then had the panicky feeling that I was again lost as the lane I was in curved away and up into the dark as if taking me to a highway.
"I took the wrong turn again!" I blubbered into the phone in absolute despair, my body shaking violently with freely erupting emotions.
But, no. Lo and behold, on a small hill to my right emerged a vaguely familiar set of red and blue fluorescents, and this time the beacon was sincere, the harbor clear.
"I'm here; I'm here. I found it!" I exclaimed in joyous relief.
"You're there?"
"Yes, thank you, honey. Thank you, thank you so much."
You're not running?" my knight asked after he heard the car door slam. "Don't run."
I wasn't, but my voice was still quavering with emotion as I walked to the ticket window with my wet face and my stricken eyes.
"It's been...a rough night," I said haltingly to the young lady behind the glass. A gentleman in a dark suit and glasses to her left glanced up as he sorted through receipts or cash. "I got lost on the way here. Have two women come through...?" The young lady was gave me a blank stare and raised her shoulders, so I suggested desperately, "One of them was named Holly..."
"Really, I have no way of knowing," she said, but upon my request she gave me leave to look for them in the lobby.
Of course they weren't there, so I asked the lady taking tickets for permission to scout them out, and I promised to come back and pay for my ticket if found them.
In the theater where A Separation was the feature, previews were no longer playing. The movie's opening scene was running, and everything was again dark and impenetrable to me. I had no hope of spotting anyone as I wandered down the aisles, and again I was feeling cursed by the lack of light, but in my dejection I was spotted. My friends waved me down from a center row, and I exited quickly and returned to the ticket booth once more where there were now six or seven people in front of me in line. I would lose more precious time, so I took the opportunity to call Matthew back and let him know I had found the girls.
"Good," he said. "Now get some chocolate to make you feel better. But not that fancy Scottsdale kind! Not the $50 a bar variety. Tell them you want the $20 chocolate."
I laughed at Matthew's joke, and in doing so I felt so much love for this man who could deal with me while I was sobbing and hysterical and, yes, rude with fear over a silly little trip to the movies. And not just deal with me, but treat me with love and kindness while rescuing me and guiding me, then make me laugh after.
As I was hanging up the phone with my Knight, I glanced up to find that the man in the dark suit and glasses had emerged from the ticket booth and was near me.
"Your friends are here?" he asked.
"Yes," I said and smiled.
"Then, here," he said, extending his hand and a stiff bit of paper. "It's on me."
"Thank you!"
I thought he was indifferent to my rididulous plight when I'd seen him earlier beyond the glass, so I was stunned as I followed him through the doors and past the lady taking tickets. My simple thank you did not seem to suffice for this wonderful act of kindness and generosity. For heaven's sake, he had redeemed Scottsdale by his action!
As he turned away toward the offices behind the concession stands, I called again, "Thank you...thank you so much..." but my voice broke as the tears surged back in gratitude.
"You're welcome," he said, and added over his shoulder, "That movie's not going to make you feel any better."
He was right. It was a movie about things falling apart, kind of like my night. Still his generosity did make me feel better, as did the love, strength and calming influence of my man. The boisterous laughter that a friend inspired in the parking lot afterward did, too. Then I finally let go completely over a very belated meal with my artist friend after the movie. We shared wonderful spinach/artichoke dip and great conversation about our high brow soap opera, Downton Abbey, and our super steady and long enduring husbands.
Afterward, I made it home just fine.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Love...true love, Bennet, and the best bouquet
I love my husband, and so sometimes - as crazy as it might seem to some with our 10 years of marriage - I pine for him during the day. Yeah, I said pine - especially if I'm bluesy, dejected, mentally malnourished. The pining starts pretty soon after he walks out the door in the morning, as do my preparations for his return home. Before I shuttle the kids to school, I put on more makeup than just a dash of color on the lips or cheeks, and I hope it holds til evening. I dress in nicer clothes, even my heels; though I know with running after kids, they'll have reached their time limit a good few hours before I see him again. And I think about him. It's not some lame dependency. I just know what will cheer me up - his conversation, his humor and his touch.
Luckily, today as I thought of him, rubbed vigorously at the eye makeup badly irritating my lash line, and wiped perfume samples from the Wednesday paper on my wrists, I had a romantic CD to listen to, something that reminded me of My Man.
The CD has Lady Gaga, Amy Whinehouse, Carrie Underwood, Michael Buble (Matthew calls him Mr. Bubble), and k.d. lang among others, and they are all singing duets with Mr. Tony Bennett. Matthew surprised me with this collection of music after we watched the recording sessions on PBS and realized that Tony Bennet has a remarkably good, strong voice for a man of his years; he can still carry the standards so well. And the songs are some of the music I love so very well but listen to so seldom - the swing with your baby around the living room or dance cheek to cheek in the dark variety.
If you still believe in dancing cheek to cheek with your lover instead of romancing phone to phone, Tony Bennett Duets II could be a V-Day treat. Sure, it could use a few more swings songs, but The Lady Is A Tramp w/ Gaga is fresh and fun, and Don't Get Around Much Anymore w/ Buble is spot on. Buble's voice is of course perfect for just such material, and I've come a long way to say that. I have a natural disdain for any man who confesses in an interview that his female fans throw their underwear at him while he's on stage, but, well....I heard him sing I'll Be Home for Christmas for the tree lighting ceremony in Rockefeller Center a few years ago. I was so impressed with his simple, poignant rendition - nothing new, just brilliant in its clear simplicity - that I have not looked back since. I'm a Bubble fan (though very far from the underwear-throwing kind).
There's also a song in the Bennett collection that reminds me of a very special day for My Man and me. The song is Blue Velvet. The day was Christmas Eve 2000. As we sat in his rental car outside my parents house, Matthew leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I love you." To which I whispered back, "What...what did you say?" You can imagine his joy at my response, but the point is that I was wearing a long blue velvet dress when he said those words, and then said them again. Though the song Blue Velvet is sad, it reminds me of my first true I love you.
Approaching Valentine's Day has me thinking about that profession of love and about love generally and the tokens of it, especially flower bouquets. Men have long given women these perfect emblems of beauty judging by the very old songs with lyrics like "flowers for my lady's hair...". Nowadays, these divine gifts from nature are most likely to be genetically altered for color and length of life to the detriment of their gorgeous scent, and they are very often delivered to the door by some online floral affiliate in some exotic bouquet. The chosen flowers represent, as best the man can tell, the nature of the woman he loves. I've received a fair amount of bouquets from my husband. Some, like my perfect little square vase of daffodils, given for an anniversary. Others, like the many bright gatherings of daisies from the supermarket, given simply because I'd had a tough day with the kids (those arrangements have stopped coming; I suppose I complain too much now).
Passing our wedding picture yesterday, I was reminded of how my wedding day bouquet was not quite me. It was perfectly round, smaller, comprised of roses which though absolutely classic have never given me palpitations. My dear sister made it for me, so I am by no means ungrateful. For heaven's sake, I'm the one who opted to have no floral arrangements at all in the church for the ceremony, and I wasn't really bothered by the aesthetics of my special bouquet either. Yet in remembering how symmetrical and tame it was, I thought of how wild and free form I would have liked it to be. Then I was reminded of the best bouquet I have ever received, given to me before my marriage.
The bunch of buds came from My Man and were for absolutely no occasion at all. They were plucked from a roadside field in Texas late in the evening as Matthew was coming home from work. He saw them, thought of me, and picked them out from their abundant fellows by the headlights of his car. He presented them to me at the door where I met him after a long day apart. They cascaded over his hand as he offered them up, fragrant and wild and leafy. I was so thrilled I could barely mumble my thanks as I took them and looked up blushing into my fiance's beaming face. Wildflowers chosen for me! In my mind's eye I could see him kneeling in the dewy grass in his work slacks, pulling flowers from the earth. The romance of it is still a sweet memory.
So there is my valentine as I wait for My Man to come home today - a Tony Bennett CD, the hope of dancing cheek to cheek with My Man to it while wearing sexy if uncomfortable heels, and the memory of a bunch of wildflowers making me flush.
A little addendum: I was flipping through my wedding album tonight and had the opportunity to bestow on the memory of my wedding bouquet more than just a mere passing glance. It was not comprised solely of roses. It had purple and yellow mums with yellow roses, as well as white daisies. Honestly, it was quite beautiful to look at. Yes, the blooms were very meticulously bunched together and as near symmetrical as they could be in design, but I cannot fault my bouquet's flowers, colors, or beauty.
Also, as enduring symbols of passionate love, a dozen deep, deep red roses might indeed have the power to give me palpitations if they came from Matthew's hands.
Luckily, today as I thought of him, rubbed vigorously at the eye makeup badly irritating my lash line, and wiped perfume samples from the Wednesday paper on my wrists, I had a romantic CD to listen to, something that reminded me of My Man.
The CD has Lady Gaga, Amy Whinehouse, Carrie Underwood, Michael Buble (Matthew calls him Mr. Bubble), and k.d. lang among others, and they are all singing duets with Mr. Tony Bennett. Matthew surprised me with this collection of music after we watched the recording sessions on PBS and realized that Tony Bennet has a remarkably good, strong voice for a man of his years; he can still carry the standards so well. And the songs are some of the music I love so very well but listen to so seldom - the swing with your baby around the living room or dance cheek to cheek in the dark variety.
If you still believe in dancing cheek to cheek with your lover instead of romancing phone to phone, Tony Bennett Duets II could be a V-Day treat. Sure, it could use a few more swings songs, but The Lady Is A Tramp w/ Gaga is fresh and fun, and Don't Get Around Much Anymore w/ Buble is spot on. Buble's voice is of course perfect for just such material, and I've come a long way to say that. I have a natural disdain for any man who confesses in an interview that his female fans throw their underwear at him while he's on stage, but, well....I heard him sing I'll Be Home for Christmas for the tree lighting ceremony in Rockefeller Center a few years ago. I was so impressed with his simple, poignant rendition - nothing new, just brilliant in its clear simplicity - that I have not looked back since. I'm a Bubble fan (though very far from the underwear-throwing kind).
There's also a song in the Bennett collection that reminds me of a very special day for My Man and me. The song is Blue Velvet. The day was Christmas Eve 2000. As we sat in his rental car outside my parents house, Matthew leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I love you." To which I whispered back, "What...what did you say?" You can imagine his joy at my response, but the point is that I was wearing a long blue velvet dress when he said those words, and then said them again. Though the song Blue Velvet is sad, it reminds me of my first true I love you.
Approaching Valentine's Day has me thinking about that profession of love and about love generally and the tokens of it, especially flower bouquets. Men have long given women these perfect emblems of beauty judging by the very old songs with lyrics like "flowers for my lady's hair...". Nowadays, these divine gifts from nature are most likely to be genetically altered for color and length of life to the detriment of their gorgeous scent, and they are very often delivered to the door by some online floral affiliate in some exotic bouquet. The chosen flowers represent, as best the man can tell, the nature of the woman he loves. I've received a fair amount of bouquets from my husband. Some, like my perfect little square vase of daffodils, given for an anniversary. Others, like the many bright gatherings of daisies from the supermarket, given simply because I'd had a tough day with the kids (those arrangements have stopped coming; I suppose I complain too much now).
Passing our wedding picture yesterday, I was reminded of how my wedding day bouquet was not quite me. It was perfectly round, smaller, comprised of roses which though absolutely classic have never given me palpitations. My dear sister made it for me, so I am by no means ungrateful. For heaven's sake, I'm the one who opted to have no floral arrangements at all in the church for the ceremony, and I wasn't really bothered by the aesthetics of my special bouquet either. Yet in remembering how symmetrical and tame it was, I thought of how wild and free form I would have liked it to be. Then I was reminded of the best bouquet I have ever received, given to me before my marriage.
The bunch of buds came from My Man and were for absolutely no occasion at all. They were plucked from a roadside field in Texas late in the evening as Matthew was coming home from work. He saw them, thought of me, and picked them out from their abundant fellows by the headlights of his car. He presented them to me at the door where I met him after a long day apart. They cascaded over his hand as he offered them up, fragrant and wild and leafy. I was so thrilled I could barely mumble my thanks as I took them and looked up blushing into my fiance's beaming face. Wildflowers chosen for me! In my mind's eye I could see him kneeling in the dewy grass in his work slacks, pulling flowers from the earth. The romance of it is still a sweet memory.
So there is my valentine as I wait for My Man to come home today - a Tony Bennett CD, the hope of dancing cheek to cheek with My Man to it while wearing sexy if uncomfortable heels, and the memory of a bunch of wildflowers making me flush.
A little addendum: I was flipping through my wedding album tonight and had the opportunity to bestow on the memory of my wedding bouquet more than just a mere passing glance. It was not comprised solely of roses. It had purple and yellow mums with yellow roses, as well as white daisies. Honestly, it was quite beautiful to look at. Yes, the blooms were very meticulously bunched together and as near symmetrical as they could be in design, but I cannot fault my bouquet's flowers, colors, or beauty.
Also, as enduring symbols of passionate love, a dozen deep, deep red roses might indeed have the power to give me palpitations if they came from Matthew's hands.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Short, mostly unedited post: Other Writers
I'm going through an angry period with my writing. Can't seem to wrestle the words into a cohesive tale. I felt like writing today (and actually had the time), read an e-mail, and my muse was smothered. It happens like that sometimes - we creative people being much, much too sensitive. I anticipate that it will pass soon. Until then, I want to send you on your way and let you discover some very excellent stories from other talented writers. These posts from other bloggers were my favorite finds in January, and I hope that you too enjoy them.
From A Lady in France: Prayer. And Humor and When I Was a Princess
From Resistent but Persistent: Broken sunglasses and an old potato
And this is a blog I've discovered this month with the help of a couple of close friends: http://befriendingfaith.blogspot.com/#!/
So go. Enjoy. And if you'll just excuse me, I must revive my muse. Somehow...
From A Lady in France: Prayer. And Humor and When I Was a Princess
From Resistent but Persistent: Broken sunglasses and an old potato
And this is a blog I've discovered this month with the help of a couple of close friends: http://befriendingfaith.blogspot.com/#!/
So go. Enjoy. And if you'll just excuse me, I must revive my muse. Somehow...
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