I Wish I Had a River

 I wish I had a river

That I could skate away on...

             Joni Mitchell

 

I have all my good enough Christmas plans in place. I am saving wrapping presents for tomorrow, so it will seem Christmas Eve-y. My new couch arrived, and it is absolutely wonderful. Meg has bought the cinnamon buns we always have Christmas morning. I am working very hard to be upbeat when I talk to anyone, and I definitely don't want to be a downer here.

 

But through my dark glasses, it feels as if even those I know who also suffer Christmas depression, who rush around too much and superhuman their ways through the Holiday madness into exhaustion, are doing better than I am. Mostly, I am lonely, a complaint I have whined over all year long. I have even had well meaning people offer advice ranging from relax and enjoy your solitude to well, get your butt out there and meet new people, join a group, volunteer, DO something. None of these people have been living with chronic pain, facing, then recovering, from major surgery. I have no doubt that I will do something as soon as I am able, but still I'm sad and alone, during all these long, boring days leading up to Christmas.

 

I have only to think of anyone who is incarcerated, or mourning the death of a loved one, or sick, or homeless, or hungry, or caught in a war over which they have no control, and I feel ashamed. I know as well as most, and better than some, that this is the season for giving, not throwing a pity party. A time to celebrate the renewing of light, both at Solstice and Hanukkah, and soon a celebration of family and heritage at Kwanzaa. A time to meditate on the birth of a child to a virgin, an event which many think is part of a cycle reaching back to ancient times. A time to be thankful for the family and friends I do have.

 

And I am thankful, truly, and do meditate on the meaning of the season, and, in my own small way celebrate, by having a tree and giving gifts. I have simply been stuck at home for too many days, with no way to get out and get moving. When I can drive, I will take my shiny bluewalker with the seat (for when I am dizzy or tired) and go people watch while I walk from one end to the other of the Mohegan Sun Casino- I live between the Sun and Foxwoods, which is the biggest casino in the western hemisphere. What a weird thing to have in the middle of the woods only 5 miles away!

 

I need to walk, and casinos are better than malls, because I spend less. (My gambling limit is $20 three times a year, and I stick to it.) Meanwhile, between bouts of misery and sorrow, I am working to be busy here inside, despite the gray days New England has been blessed with lately. I read journals, play online games and solitaires and roam the Internet. I sit on my new couch for a different view of the living room (in which I have been living, day and night, since October 20th). I am even sending out a few Christmas cards, though it is lucky that Christmas really ends on Twelthnight, or Three Kings' Day. This gives me plenty of time!

 

I really do wish those who love the holidays, or value the religious aspects of their holidays, or are lucky enough to be busy with family and friends and are loving it, the very best joy of the season. And for those who are struggling, I hope you can make it through the season with some sense of hope for the future. I know from personal experience that human nature is strong and resilient, and enables us to endure and even grow and change.

 

Blessings, Margo

 

 

Christmas is Coming

 

Christmas is coming,                                                       

The goose is getting fat,

Please put a penny

In the old man's hat.

If you haven't got a penny.

a ha'penny will do,

If you haven't got a ha'penny,

God bless you.

          -Old English Carol

 

It's coming on Christmas

they're cutting down trees
putting up reindeer
and singing songs of joy and peace 
I wish i had a river 
I could skate away on...

           -Joni Mitchell

 

Christmas is coming, all too quickly for nearly everybody I know. I have been meditating a bit on how I feel this Christmas, and these two songs seem to sum it up. The former is one we sang at Shipley, the all girls school I attended from four to fourteen. I can still see us, all in our short, forest green, pleated gym-type uniforms, over long sleeved white cotton blouses, all wearing white socks, brown tie shoes, our forest green bloomers over clean while undies. There we stood, lined up by height (me at the left end of the back row) singing Ye Olde Englishe Christmas Caroles to our assembled parents, the fathers having been coerced into coming home early (by commuter train) at a time when they would have much rather worked late, then hit the club car before confronting family Christmas duties.

 

Never mind, I did learn all the words of lots of old British Carols, and they come floating back to me at odd moments of the holiday season. I learned a lot more Advent and Christmas Carols when I sang in my church choir for a decade or so, long ago. I especially love Advent carols. Surprised that this pagan was so active in a church choir? Shouldn't be-I have always been interested in religion, ever since I left my Episcopalian universe for a Quaker boarding school- a study in opposites that sent me on to (eventually) major in Comparative Religion, a truly useful major for a woman planning to be divorced and needing a job badly.

 

Anyway, as an adult I put in a decade of hard labor in a local church. I don't think anyone else in that church went to more retreats and study groups and Bible courses during that time period. In the end I realized that I kept banging my head on misogyny and homophobia, with which the same denomination is still struggling to this day. Good thing I didn't hang out, waiting for change. In reality, by the time I left the church, the Goddess, the feminine side of the Divine, had claimed me, and I could no more refuse Her than Paul on the road to Damascus could deny his own, more dramatic calling.

 

As I hum the first song, I think about the historical Jesus and his birth story. More than two millennium later, we know something of the outcome of this birth to a young single mother, already in labor, riding a donkey into a strange town teeming with others vying for room and board, all because of some governmental regulation about taxes. Mary (a Goddess figure if there ever was one) didn't know about Christmas or Christianity, she just gave birth in the straw, accepted first, shepherds, then (no doubt) curious townies, followed by three Kings bringing offerings of unthinkable wealth, along with a warning to get out of town quick. And off they set for Egypt on that donkey with a new born. No wonder she pondered all this in her heart. Any mother would.

 

Christmas has come a long way. Mostly downhill. I am not out in the Christmas Crush (being home bound, still, six weeks after surgery), but most of the people I talk to are either strung out with stress, or tired of the whole idea. And, since I am watching more television than usual, even I have not escaped the rampant consumerism. The ads are all about buy, buy, buy, buy, spend, spend, spend. That child born in the stable or cave or wherever, grew up to be a man who would be appalled by it all. I am absolutely sure of this.

 

If the historical Jesus was anything like the stories his life generated, he would be far more likely to be putting his last penny into an old man's hat (on his way to heal some lepers, no doubt, then on to teach those without any pennies about the power of Peace on Earth) than out buying one of his disciples' kids a Tickle Me Elmo. Which I will no doubt be buying for my granddaughter Myla next year. I am quite able to admit I don't always practice what I preach (and I bet Jesus himself didn't either. He was human, after all.)

 

The second song is also one I hum every Christmas. Depression always creeps up on me as Christmas nears. It has been a year since Rene moved out, and the second song is about lost love, so you might think I'm in an anniversary funk. Except that I have hummed it every Christmas for years, long before she came into my life. I suspect it is a generational thing. My grandmother had perfect-Christmas-itis. She passed it down to my mother, who passed it down to me.

 

In my childhood home there was always too much alcohol, a Christmas Tree fight, and some sort of mild catastrophe that sent my mother into a tailspin. Which I recreated for Meg, who miraculously seems to have escaped such a need for perfection. I have rid myself of the need for a perfect tree and family dinner, but somehow I cannot pull myself out of the depression which settles painfully around my shoulders like the dimming of the light that comes along with the Solstice, the shortest day of the year. (Solstice is a pagan celebration, and the reason that Christmas was moved to this time of year. Many Biblical scholars believe Jesus was born in the spring or early summer.)

 

Over the years I have gained several techniques to cope with this kind of depression. I have come back to the most helpful of these: choose five things that will "define" Christmas for me. If these five things happen, the I will count it as a "happy-enough" Christmas, and let go of other hopes, expectations, and fantasies. This year's five are:1) get a tree up 2) give gifts to those I love 3) buy myself a couple of small presents to open ChristmasDay 4) spend time with Peggy, and her son Ian, who is my god(dess)son and 5) spend time with Meg, Myla and Adam. There is a sixth which I always do anyway; make a donation to charity.

 

Then I go about making sure these five things happen. Luckily, I have also learned to choose thing that are quite possible. The (small artificial) tree is up, and only needs a few decorations. I've ordered nearly all gifts on line-for those I love and myself. Peggy has invited me for dinner-some oddball, non traditional meal, I'm sure. And Meg has invited me for Christmas breakfast and gift opening- a meal I have organized for the last two decades. She is even more excited than I am!

 

There. Christmas is taken care of. It will not stop the dimness of depression completely- it never does-but it will somehow bring joy into a life which is still on hold as I wait for healing and change. I hope the man who was the historical Jesus, the latest in a long history of dying and rising gods born to a virgin mother, would understand.

 

Blessings, Joy and Peace,

 

Margo

 

Not So Good Day

Today has been a bad day-I have been hurting more than the last week or so. And I am once again feeling sad and lonely. I guess the two probably go together. I am down to taking pain pills twice a day (along with the fentynal patch I've been on for three years now), and spent the first half of the day waiting until the pain hit a level five and a half to take my first pain pill of the day.

 

I spent all day catching up on e-mail, going to various favorite sites and trying to convince myself that I am fine, just fine. And of course, in one way, I am fine. I saw my surgeon last week, and he was delighted, not to mention amazed that this long time diabetic healed so well (the incision, that is) and without any infection. He was beaming when he left, and was even nice to my worker's comp worker, who turned up to make sure I actually did have the surgery and am not ripping off the system.

 

Actually, she's okay, and has enabled me to take a cab to and from physical therapy, so I can go back to the people with whom I rehabbed the first time. Luckily I love them, because it will be a long, painful project. Ugh. On the other hand, I get the excitement of leaving the house twice a week, and even the 15 minute ride is out of the house! And it is 15 minutes, both ways! Such wild excitement.

 

I know that such good worker's comp treatment will end all too soon-probably by the end of the week, for I "ought" to be driving by now-never mind that I don't feel safe doing so. Not only will my free rides end, but my aide, too. Alas, I am still afraid of taking a shower alone, because if I am unsteady getting in or out, my first response is to reach out to brace myself with my right arm. A real no-no.

 

Part of my problem today is probably because Christmas is fast approaching, a difficult time for me.

 

Never mind, I've done my therapeutic crying for today, and tomorrow is almost here, and no doubt be better, or at least different.

 

Blessings, Margo

 

World AIDS Day

 

Today is World AIDS Day. All day, I have been thinking of the women at the Women's Prison who are HIV positive, and their friends, those I never knew there, who died in the 80's and early 90's, usually alone, in the single cells of an infirmary full of nurse and doctors who, at best, didn't care and, at worst, were full of fear, disgust, even hatred towards all who had the disease.

 

It's better now, of course, if dying in prison can ever be "better." There is a great inmate-manned Hospice program, and no one dies alone anymore. And now far fewer die there of AIDS related illnesses, because of better meds and state mandated HIV medical protocols. And most nurses and doctors at least understand the illness, which takes some of the fear factor out. Some are still prejudiced and disgusted, though. Some are wonderful.

 

But, as one inmate told me, "It's a drag to have HIV in general, and worse in prison" because there is still stigma, lack of understanding, and real ignorance in the prison population, and a few correctional officers who can be cruel.  [Most C.O.'s are good people, doing a good job, respectful of all inmates who stay out of trouble. HIV is just another illness to them-like diabetes or arthritis.]

 

Some of the inmates in my groups of positive women got HIV while in prison in the 80's. Back in the day, so my long term or recidivist positive women in would say, there was less vigilance and therefore more drugs in prison. Most of the time there was one underground needle for all those who used in prison. In the morning it would be in one side of the prison, in the afternoon the other side. Nobody knew about AIDS-or considered it a "gay disease"-so they took turns shooting up, passing the virus back and forth and all around. Their stories would make me cry.

 

Then somebody would remember some funny story about so-and-so who had AIDS, and suddenly the whole group of women-including me-would be roaring with laughter as one would leap up, take on another persona and act out the whole story.

 

I laughed more in those groups than I did anywhere else in my life. Then I would go back to my office and cry.

 

Of course, many woman got HIV from their husbands or partners, who used needles, or were on the down low. Some got the virus from working the streets, the only job they knew, to feed their children, or their habits. And in reality, it doesn't matter how anyone-men or women-acquired the virus. It is living with the virus that is important, getting into medical treatment and taking the meds correctly that is important.

 

I don't want this to turn into me standing on a soapbox, beating my breasts, and whining about the obvious. I came to care about those funny, manipulative, sacred, courageous, angry, frustrated, even dangerous women in my HIV positive groups.

 

I was also enraged by them, and those who were not (yet) positive. Some were in deep denial that they were at risk, or putting others at risk. A few were just uneducated about HIV, and many didn't know who to ask about the rumors they heard about HIV. Some care and use condoms when off drugs, but not when using. Some don't care at all.

 

As an HIV counselor, I tested people-inside the prison and out-and have been the one who had to tell people their tests came back positive. In a split second their lives became "before" and "after," a terrible experience for all. I liked the group and educational aspects of my former job better.

 

The sad thing is that we need a World AIDS Day at all. This is an epidemic that was preventable by the 90's, but our country's leadership, many of our churches, a lot of conservatives and middle-of-the -roaders refused to allocate funds for research (it was a gay disease, who cares?) or allow meaningful education to sully their, and more especially, their children's, ears.

 

Gee, come to think about it that part hasn't changed much-studies show that abstain only curriculums do not stop epidemics. Now many don't care because large numbers of African American and Hispanic women are turning positive now.

 

HIV/AIDS is now a World-Wide pandemic, rampant in Russia, China, India, and growing fast in South America. It is the only preventable pandemic, and especially (but not exclusively) in third world countries there is not enough money for life saving medication. And it is a disease of women and children. it makes me sad and angry and frustrated.

 

The point of this, I guess, is educate yourself, your children, your grandchildren, your neighbors and their children and grandchildren, even complete strangers if you have a chance. Nobody is completely immune. Educate your grandparents, your elderly widowed parent, for the elderly are a fast growing positive population. Be careful, negotiate sex with a new partner before you are in bed, use condoms, reach out and help (or hold) those who are positive, donate money to reputable programs that help with medication and education.

 

Today I am also remembering the gay men we lost to this epidemic. A whole generation of men who never got to live beyond their 20's or 30's. One guy I went to school with. A friend's brother. Several men I loved dearly. Those who pulled me into the fight against AIDS, to whom I am still grateful.

 

I hope that someday, maybe in my lifetime, but certainly in Meg's or Myla's, we will no longer need a World AIDS Day.

 

Blessings to all, especially those who are HIV positive, Margo

 

Giving Thanks

Not surprisingly, I have been meditating on giving thanks these last few days. Mostly I have always given thanks for the good things in my life-Meg, Myla, family and friends, the beauty of where I live, my partner and job, the food on the table, the abundance in my life.

 

This year, I have come far enough to be thankful-at least to some degree-for the difficulties life has handed me in the last three and a half years. I have lost both job and partner, ice cream comfort eating and 200 pounds, friends and financial comfort, my sense of balance and independence, and more. But because of all this, I have had time, days and days of time.

 

I've spent a lot of those days in serious pain, physical and emotional. I have cried me a river, fallen into the dark pit of depression and been stuck there, and crawled out, almost literally. I have had surgery four times, rehabbed three times and am in the beginning stages of my fourth. My years as a diabetic caught up with me-I'm dizzy a lot, cannot feel my feet, and now fall a lot. And more.

 

But, as I meditate this weekend of thanks, I realize I am grateful, and blessed, to have adjusted enough to be happy sometimes. Despite it all, I like the life I have now, and the one I see just over the horizon. I have more surgery ahead of me, this time to remove the approximately 15 or more pounds of hanging skin left by my weight loss. But I now believe I will eventually get back to my HIV poz women in prison, and find other ways to volunteer in the community, hopefully with women.

 

And I am beginning to make new friends, slowly, and mostly online, but it is a start. Of course, I've had Peggy as a friend forever-53 years to be exact! What a gift to be thankful for. I really like living alone right now, too, even though at the moment I am relegated to the first floor only. I love my antiques and tatty old furniture and mismatched chairs. And I can keep it as clean-or cluttered-as I want to. [I am sure Rene feels the same!]

 

I find this all quite amazing. I really hadn't noticed that some happiness had crept into my life and lingered. I knew that sometimes l felt happy, but then some huge chunk of reality [like needing a walker, or no help when I got home from the hospital] would land on my head and knock me flat for a while, but these days when the crisis headache is over, life looks good again. Quite amazing, all things considered.

 

I am grateful that I can recognize that even when life throws me curve after curve, I can call on Warrior Woman to come to my aid, and can be strong and grounded and keep on getting up. Completely alone and on my own, if necessary. 

 

A good recognition for a Thanksgiving Weekend, and I am truly grateful.

 

Blessings, Margo

 

PS Rene has begun posting again occasionally in her journal Growing Old Younger,[the link is in my list of other journals] and often posts stuff I enjoy thinking over. M.

 

 

An Interesting Week?

 

I would like to make an interesting entry about almost anything, but it's been a long, slow week. And practically nothing has happened. Again, this is not a complaint. Life is what it is. Sharon, my aide comes in for two hours three days a week. she helps me shower, does a bit of light housework, visit for a while, then is gone.

 

A nurse drops by once or twice a week to take my BP, listen to my lungs and heart, and change my bandage, for I have developed a "chair sore" on my coccyx. I would sit less, but my downstairs is basically four rooms, and that is my world at the moment. I'd go out for a walk, but it's difficult to use my walker left handed. And getting it down the porch steps, let alone back up, is problamatic.

 

Of course, I did have a couple of exciting moments last night.  I got up, stood still briefly, assessed myself as not dizzy, took two steps into the hall, and quickly realized I was not only dizzy, but would never make it to a chair. [ I have chairs placed strategically throughout the house.] Knowing that my surgeon has forbidden me to fall, lest I undo all his brilliant work, I had a true moment of panic. Then, in a second of brilliance, I threw myself against the wall, back first.

 

I slid down the wall rather too fast and landed hard on my no longer ample rear end, irritating my "chair sore" no end (pun intended). I sat there a while, wondering how on earth I was going to get up. Then I gathered myself together, scooted across the floor to the phone, and called 911 for lifting help, for I could not for the life of me figure out how to get up without using my right shoulder.

 

Neither could the two firefighters who soon arrived. They usually lift people by the shoulders, and were rather surprised at my vehemence when I declined that option. They brainstormed ineffectually until I turned over onto my knees. One grabbed my left shoulder, the other grabbed me around the waist and both hauled up. A lovely, graceful moment, one of so many in my recent life. I did thank them profusely, though I had come way too close to screaming in pain.

 

Then I had to report the fall to Meg, who somehow managed to elicit a promise from me to tell her whenever I have to call 911. Luckily, it was very late and she has to get up at 3:15 AM, so I could leave a reassuring message on her machine. Of course she did call me back at 4:45 AM, just before she left for work, to make sure I really was okay. Glad that is over, at least for now. Eventually she'll use all this as ammo for putting me in some old folks home by the time I'm 60! [NOT] :)

 

That's what has been happening in my life; remind me not to complain when life gets busy again. I get giddy thinking about the freedom of driving again! Soon I'll be able to run my own errands, do my on shopping, escape from these four small rooms! Only another week or two, to live through. Then I can complain about being tired all the time again. :)

 

Blessings, Margo

 

 

House Bound

Well, I am still here and healing [way too slowly] in Southeastern Connecticut. I am being well taken care of by an aide who comes to help two hours three days a week, and a nurse who comes once a week. My staples came out Monday, and Wednesday and Friday I had real showers, thanks to Irene and Sharon, my aides. Alleluia!

 

My PA says the outside is healing nicely, and I've started occupational therapy too, to begin breaking up scar tissue...holy shit from a holy cow! I had forgotten-or blocked-this kind of pain from 3 years ago. There are not enough pain pills in the whole universe to mitigate the pain of breaking up shoulder scar tissue!

 

But mostly I'm bored. I have been "home bound" for three weeks now, except for two outings to the doctors, and one to vote. I can't drive, and probably won't for another few weeks-at least. As long as I'm stuck here, I can continue to receive services here. And even after I can drive, it will be for short distances only.

 

Now I sound as if I am whining. I am not. I am grateful to be on the other side of this surgery, knowing that eventually I will have a life to build, though it is not yet clear in what direction.

 

Meanwhile, after three full weeks of sitting (and sleeping) in my recliner, I have decided that I hate my living room. Well, not all of it. I love the paintings on the walls, one of which is Hope, one of Judi HeartSong's Light Series. She is blue and silver and her eyes follow me when I move around. Her name says it all; the wise, knowing eyes have given me hope enough to move on, time after time.

 

I also love my antiques, an old, handmade sled on legs, which I use as a way too small coffee table, and my Pennsylvania Dutch all wooden pie safe bureau, both of which my mother gave me, along with a huge old copper apple butter bucket. I have filled it with homemade dolls and bears and other stuffed animals.  And I love my fireplace, which now has a propane fire in it, complete with remote control(!).

 

And, although it is way too big, I'm okay with the TV console, which is tall and wooden. It holds a lot of stuff, though, and keeps the corner of the room anchored.

 

That leaves the sofa. It is a perfectly fine sofa, well made, fits the space, a Forrest green, now with a rose slipcover on it for a change of pace, and I've had it fewer than 10 years. I have come to focus all my hatred on this poor, innocent piece of furniture. It sits under the bay window, and every time I look out the window, I am stabbed with my irrational hatred.

 

The sofa came from neighbors when they upgraded to leather.  I know they spent a lot of time and money on finding it. I know it will probably last another ten years. I know it is reasonably stylish, though plain. I know I hate it. unreasonably.

 

So yesterday i asked Peggy to smuggle me out of the house (remember, I'm supposed to be house bound) to the store where i bough my recliner. i had seen a sofa there that i loved, but had worked hard to put out of my mind. it is too blue. it is too rough. it is way too big for my overarmed living room. it has red flowered pillows. it has an ottoman that covers one square mile. It was way, way too expensive.

 

I love it. I bought it all, including the ottoman. I must be crazy.

 

I am going to have to completely rearrange the living room, get rid of some pieces I love (or al least move them upstairs) rehang pictures all over the room, and all at a time when I cannot lift my right arm up to my shoulder without screaming. Although the sofa won't arrive for a month or so, I suspect poor Peg and Robin, who have been my support system throughout, will end up doing all the dirty work!

 

Still, I can't wait. I have only had one new sofa in my life, which I bought as a newlywed. I loved it, but it began to fall apart after about 15 years. I let it go sadly when we were given a secondhand couch by a neighbor. (There seems to be a pattern there.) Though not my taste at all, it lasted until I received the sturdy, innocuous one I have now.

 

Don't you think I deserve a new sofa every 36 years or so? I do. and thank goddess I have nobody to consult or ask permission! I'll let you all know how it all works out.

 

Blessings, Margo