Swimming pools, telephones, and serial killers

I'm afraid to go to sleep tonight. My dreams last night were disturbing; I wasn't always afraid, but I woke intermittently with a start after segments passed. There is a house in my recurring dream that belongs to my mother, but it isn't my mother's house, and there are steps going down in the back out of the kitchen that is too white. The house seems to be an old one and is in a town with sidewalks and where buildings are too close together for my taste. My mother is never there, in the house in the dream. In the same dream there is a swimming pool with a number of women who are trying on swimming suits and diving into the pool.  They don't see to want to wear the suits and some of them remove them in the water. A small girl comes to the side of the pool and yells at me that I am in the wrong place; yes, certainly I know this but the water is nice and I love swimming. The third part of the dream I become separated from myself and watch myself as if on TV. I am doing everything to save the little girl in the next room, even if it means sacrificing myself to the killer. The telephone rings and it is my brother telling me that this has gone on long enough and we should do something, I say something to him but he's put me on hold. He comes back on the line with my other brother who says, "Hi Anne." I say, are all three of you there? The first brother says yes. They say that they know the truth and I tell them that they are wrong; they don't know anything about what is true. They want to know what I mean by that, was I calling them liars? One slams down the phone and I scream at the other something so loud that I cannot understand or hear it myself.

Pomegranates

My mother found pomegranates

in Kansas

for us to eat. She separated the blood-red

seeds out and placed them in bowls.

We sat with our short legs outstretched

on the floor in front of the TV

with towels tucked into our t-shirts.

Pomegranate juice stains.

We ate the hard and cold seeds

with spoons, my sister and I, while

Mom told the story of Persephone

and her mother, Ceres; how

the seasons are because Ceres

loved her daughter so much that

she could not bear to be without her

so let nothing grow or produce.

I was careful not to let the seeds

fall; I swallowed the seeds after

sucking the juice;

I wondered what Persephone’s

life was like in the Underworld

and if she missed her mother.

It's over

I have to finally admit that it's over. I am not a poet and will not publish anything of significance. I will not ever be a poetry professor or be a poet in residence. I'm 50 and only have rejections and cannot get published in any significant publications. It's too hard to do this. It's just too hard.

Rejection-stance

It gets harder as I get closer to death. Each rejection of my work is yet another chance gone. I don't have the writing life that I want, and I know all of the rugged individualists say that is my fault, but it really isn't, and here is why. Life takes us places without our knowing it. Each decision, even if you think it is what you want and will lead you toward your goals, may not do that because other people are involved. I'm not the only one making decisions and now my decisions affect people, those I know and love, those I've created, those I work with and may not know very well at all.

Talia likes to say "it's a curious random happenstance." That is it. She's got it; the meaning of life.

And Beyond

Now in my 51st year, and I always seem to have to explain the math of that to someone. I'm not going to again. I want to change the title of this blog to "My 50th Year...and Beyond." It sounds lofty, I know, but I need a place to write the crap out of my head, to spill the blood and guts all over a page, a screen. It feels more like spilling when you use a pen and paper, but I think I can manage to spill here.

Saturday was two days ago, and it was a particularly crappy day, and I should have written here on that day, to get all of it out of me and onto or into something else. When priests exorcise demons and the bad spirits depart; that is what writing is: an exorcism. Driving out the demons that make me feel bad, that give me my biting sarcasm aimed at people I love. The demons must go, and yet I know that they will be back. Does the writing really help?

I knew Saturday was going to be bad when I woke up and still had 14 papers to grade. I am teaching online again after taking a break, and I would really love to have my break back please. The day was dark (the typical bad beginning to a bad story) and stormy, tornado watches and warnings in New York. Later in the day two tornadoes would touch down, one in Queens, one in Brooklyn. Crazy.

So I knew it would be bad. I had a pain in my chest. I get them regularly now, about two or three times a week. I've also had a few dizzy spells since the whole PE fiasco and I had one on Saturday. That coming up the stairs and even if I stop my head keeps moving feeling. It's awful and scary and I think, ok, now I'm going to die and what goes through my mind? Where are my children and will I get to say something to them before I go and then, "But I'm not finished!"

I hate thinking of dying so much, and I never did think of it much before nearly doing so. Even after the anaphylactic bee sting event, I didn't think I would die until I was very very old. Now, I know I could have died and I was lucky as so many people keep telling me right after they tell me they know someone who died with a PE. I'm lucky, and I'm unlucky.

That's what the pulmonologist said. I didn't even know that there were doctors who specialized so specifically, but it makes sense I guess. He said, "You're lucky, and you're unlucky." Lucky because I didn't die and unlucky because, well, it could happen again, although unlucky since I'm taking blood thinners. But it could happen again and yes, I was smart not to go on the long trip to Cyprus with Andreas and the kids, that very long two weeks. I'm lucky.

I am lucky, but I don't feel lucky. PE recovery is a wicked little thing, a reminder that it happened and that my lungs are damaged by having blood clots in them at all, where they should never have been, and at the cellular level, the doctor said. Of course there will be pain, and I should just toughen up and know that while I'm taking blood thinners my blood cannot clot and I won't die.

I have to buck up and remember that I am lucky. The hardest part is the not dying. The nearly dying. The part that I remember when I have a pain or when I forget to bring my pills with me at the time I'm supposed to take them. I forget to remember that I am lucky.

The End of the Year

It's here. The day that the number changes on all the forms yet to be filled out in offices I have yet to enter. Today marks the 50th anniversary of my birth, so now I can look back on 50 years. When I think of myself, I am not really any age though. I'm just here and working and being a mom and getting things done or going on vacation or writing a poem or knitting or brushing my teeth. I am no longer young, but I don't feel that I'm old yet. I'm just here.

Party Conundrum

Still here and enjoying a nice afternoon thunderstorm. I love that smell and the sound of thunder. The air is cool for June. In twelve days I will mark the 50th revolution of the earth with me on it. Talia has promised to make me cake and brownies as long as I acknowledge that I share my birthday with Neil Patrick Harris. I can do that. Chloe has made a work of art for me that was put into the kiln at school last Friday; I am so excited to see what she created just for me.

I decided to have a casual get-together the night of my birthday. It is a Friday, and I've told some local friends to come by if they would like to celebrate with us. I have been going back and forth trying to decide if I want a party in a restaurant or at my house, and I decided on my house because I would not like it if I planned something public and people were not able to show. I live far from family members whose presence I would like to be in as I here the "click" of the age clock, so many of them cannot be here. We have some family in NY, but they may not be able to drive up. So, I'm going to set up my canopy on the deck and string some white lights all around, put the speakers in the living room window and play a list of my favorite songs.

I want to celebrate 50, but I know that this marks more than half of my life gone. I've had a challenge this year with my health, and I hope I will make the changes necessary; I'm not sure if I have the will; I still have some things that hold me back.

I will not be able to drink much wine at my party, which is a sad thing. I enjoy wine and I don't want to have to curtail my consumption, but blood-thinner meds are no joke. They dictate what I can and cannot do just now.

So I will have an uber-casual party on my birthday and hope for the best!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

June 1st. My birthday month. My 50th year is almost at an end and then the 51st will begin. I have neglected writing here because I fear where it will inevitably go. I received my reminder to make an appointment for my annual mammogram, and since I began this blog with my 2011 mammogram visit, I thought I'd mention it here. This year, I will not be making the appointment. Before anyone emails or comments about the importance of early detection and mammograms, let me say that I know all of the arguments and I've been having yearly mammograms since I was 40 and had my baseline when I was 36 since some aunts of mine had breast cancer. I know. This year is different. I am just not in the mood to have my too-large-for-my-body boobs squeezed between metal plates and thrust upward while my feet stay planted on the floor as in some medieval torture device promising to rip my tits off if I don't admit to some buried secret or heinous crime. In that position I just might admit to anything. Seriously.

I started my 50th year thinking about what I wanted to accomplish, and I even made my little list, knowing full well that it was a list I had no intention of paying attention to. I kept that promise anyway. I accomplished nothing on that list. I did do some other things in the past 11 months though. I watched my 16-year-old daughter perform in two high school productions, Peter Pan in the fall and Jekyll & Hyde, the Musical in the spring. She is amazing, and I am so happy that she has found this talent and drive within her to follow her passion. I also helped (at least I hope I helped) my 13-year-old daughter muddle (not quite the word for it) through 8th grade relatively unscathed by mean girls and impossible body images to live up to. She is also amazing and continues to search for that thing about which she is passionate.

For me, passion waned during my 50th year. I did not produce much writing but resent older, revised work out to editors for rejections. I excelled in my job and added another, though. I am passionate about teaching, but as I continued to say yes to every class and workshop and coaching experience, I knew I was going to burn myself out.

And then last month, May 2nd, I collapsed in my kitchen. In the ER, the doctor first told me I'd had a heart attack-like event. Later, the diagnosis changed to two pulmonary embolisms, one in each lung. This never occurred to me, that something like this might happen. I've been healthy, albeit fluctuating from my normal weight to overweight throughout my adulthood, and I've been to my yearly physicals where my doctor proclaims that everything is perfect but informs me that losing weight would be a good idea. I know that. I know I should exercise. I always plan to. I don't get to it though; I have to work and take kids to rehearsals and club meetings and parties. I have to plan trips and read books and write. As it turns out, a confluence of different events probably caused the deep vein thrombosis in my left calf: a low-estrogen pill to deal with pre-menopausal symptoms; a job that requires hours seated at a computer desk; a plane ride to Kansas City followed by a 3-hour car ride; and probably genetics. Until I know the underlying causes, I will take my anticoagulant medication daily. I'm slowly recovering; I do not have as much shortness of breath (SOB as members of my pulmonary embolism support group call it), and pains are few. The medicine makes me very tired and most afternoons will find me nodding off with a book or knitting in my hand. Sometimes I fall asleep typing on my laptop.

So the 50th year ends with me changing some things and getting the message I've been knocked over the head with that getting old sucks (yes, yes, I know the alternative), and that I will have to change in order to live longer for my kids. I will have to give some things up and create some new things for me to do. Fortunately, I have a phenomenal support system in my husband, my daughters, my sister (Teresa), and her family. I also have my Mom who still remembers it's me when she hears my voice and wanted to rush here to be with me when I talked to her from the hospital.

I've been sitting a while at the keyboard, so I will need a break and get myself moving. Things will change slowly but will most surely change.

The Remembering

Tonight I flew back from Kansas City after visiting my mom for a few days in the small town of Oswego, in SE Kansas. I went with my sister, who is also my best friend, and we spent a few days visiting mom and taking her out to eat. We bought her a few things, took her to lunch, bought some flea market items, went to the grocery store, and generally hung around with her for some time this past weekend. The thing is, my mom has signs of dementia and short-term memory loss. No one is diagnosing Alzheimer's at this point; she knows the people in her life and also people in the family even if she rarely sees them. She knows my voice on the phone and always asks about my life in New York. She asks about her grandchildren, my teenage daughters, and my husband. She forgets that I call, and she does not usually know what day it is. She writes things down to remember them, but she doesn't always remember to look at the notes she makes.

I told my husband that if I have the gene in my DNA for whatever type of dementia is making my mom forget me as soon as I leave her presence, the day that I forget who he is or my daughters, he has my permission to smother me with a pillow. Since I don't want him to go to jail and he could never do that, I guess I'll have to live with the terrible forgetfulness if it happens to me.

I am sad that my mom probably won't remember that my sister and I visited her this week. I am sad that there may come a time when I go there and she doesn't know who I am. I am sad that we cannot have conversations that do not go around in circles and return to the first story in the loop as if we were replaying a cassette tape over and over.

I love my mom and want to be with her more. I live in New York, and she lives in Kansas. There is not much to do where she lives, and I cannot bring her here, out of her comfort zone, away from the town and people she knows. It's not that I need distractions or tourist attractions to keep me busy while I'm there; I can sit in my mom's room in the assisted living facility and listen and talk. After a while, though, there is only so much we have to talk about. I listen to her stories of her childhood and her mash-ups of current events that meld into one long story. I try not to cry.

Definition

I always thought that I was a writer. Even as young as 12, I knew I should write. I kept journals and diaries and wrote poems and stories. I was told in school that I was a writer. I believed it. I remember in 7th grade telling my friends that I would write the "trashy" novels first and make millions and then write the really great literature once I had that writing life and could afford to write whatever I wanted. When later I earned a degree in English and panicked about making a living, I found teaching which I thought the perfect fit for a writer. I will teach the great literature and write it on my summer breaks. Perfect. Even later I was afforded the opportunity of creating my own schedule, ostensibly to stay home with the kids, but in the back of my mind a way to get that writing life without the "millions" that I hadn't made since I hadn't written any novels. Home during the day, I could write and hone my craft, and I did. I took online workshops and face-to-face workshops. I joined the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Society of America, and I subscribed to The Writer and Poets and Writers. I sifted through websites and guidelines for submissions in print and online. I wrote and revised poems and stories. I sent poems to far-reaching places such as The New Yorker where I knew I'd never be published, and to online literary journals and those of my favorites that I subscribed to. I followed instructions to the letter and sent poems that were risk taking and original, in structured poetic forms and in free verse. I read the work published by the journals and submitted when I thought I'd hit the mark. And I did hit the mark, twice, once in an online journal and once in a journal in print. During this, my 50th year on the planet, I thought that my writing had found a few readers and was on the way to becoming my true vocation. I still teach to bring in the paychecks, but the writing was going to come to some kind of fruition in the form of a collection that would be cohesive and represent the best of what my art could be. As so much of this year has been, however,  rejections continue to disappoint and derail. I succumb to self-pity and then resolve to do better. This time, though, I am nearly ready to throw in the proverbial towel and live in the world of mediocrity from which I can't seem to extract myself, at least not with my words, which of these the best have eluded me.