 Waiting for Spring by Roman Romulen That's me. Acting like a baby. Indulging in self-pity.
I need this time to wallow. I'll get back to being selfless another day. The harder my life gets, the less guarded I will be here. I am willing to be reckless, I guess. Privacy schmivacy. Who cares? It's just life on Earth. I am waiting for results of an MRI. No matter what the results, there will be a level of suffering, because if it's MS then I've got MS. If it's not, I have missing myelin sheath, and no reason for it. And I'm sick. And then I'm truly lost. I know life is suffering, but I'm not being very Buddhist about it. I think about my mom when she had brain cancer. She kept asking my dad to take her to this particular apple orchard. I know how she felt. She needed to get out, get away, escape the suffering. My suffering is not physical pain, though. It's dread. It's a sense of impending doom. It's profound disappointment. And it's not just about my stupid cough. (That's the part I continue to keep private for now). This is just a down day. My up one might come tomorrow. That's how it works with me. Waiting for this test result... that's what's getting to me. **UPDATE** Still no results yet, but I wanted to mention that I got over this misery in just a couple hours. Here is what helped. I sewed some pillows (I never would have sewed if not for the influence of Vera Farmiga and Norma Bates). Then, I went to the gym and did an intense 2.5 miles on the elliptical. Sometimes exercise does not help me. In this case, it really did.  Hear me!
You won't, so I'm done. Blink! And you see yourself honestly. Humility. Blink! You put on a burqa. Self-delusion. I have no energy to undress you. I don't want to. You. A lifetime victim. Martyr. Sarcasm: (Isn't it fun to live with a martyr)? Perpetrator If you were a self-professed asshole, I might love you. Probably not. I'd respect you more. If we are what we eat, do you eat fear? Weakness Wheaties? My friend will do this and understand this: I need a dog. Anyone who knows me just a little knows that I need to have a dog to breathe. S/he would love me so much that s/he would find me the perfect, beautiful canine companion and buy it for me as a surprise. My friend would want to read my writing. My friend would crave to know what is going on inside of my subconscious even if it challenges his or her own belief system. My friend would love to get coffee and talk late into the night. My friend is brave and might go on adventure with me. Maybe we would sell everything we own and go to Bali. My friend would have deep thoughts and share them. S/he would be passionate about spirituality My friend would know that enjoyment of life is more important than a green lawn or a vacuumed rug. My friend would see my children (and my dog) for the magical, beautiful souls that they are.  Paul Hermann I don't even remember if I mentioned this before. I probably did. I will likely know in the next few days if I do have MS. Multiple Sclerosis. Means many scars. Then don't we all have MS? In a way? At least by the time we're thirteen or so?
Anyway, I'm quite aware my writing here is just streamy, and ungrammatical, and impulsive, but it is reflective of how I feel so I think I'll avoid editing it this time. I have enjoyed writing on this site as a sort of therapy in the last few weeks. Lord, I have been suffering in so many ways! I haven't even written it all here because a big chunk is not for public eyes. I have just been blindsided by everything that's gone wrong in the last year or so. I couldn't cope without writing. So my intention now is to get back to screenplays. I'm all set to go with LIz's novella (making it into a short screenplay). Not so fun fact: Liz is in prison for life with no chance of parole for a crime she did not commit (she was guilty of accessory after the fact). She was my best friend in high school and helped me through the death of my parents both in one year when I was only 16-17. She has been winning awards for her writing from prison. Her novella would be expensive to produce, but it's such a good piece I have high hopes about it. I did have a bunch of dreams but I can only remember a little. I do want to write it down before I lose it. I was cross country skiing on downhill skiis. Not quite efficient, but I have enough experience to do it. I was following the people ahead of me and I went by "the road less traveled." I saw a couple of skiers go there ahead of me and regretted that I had missed the entrance to the road less traveled, but then decided I would catch it next time I came around. Dream interpretation: What road am I passing up right now? And am I making a mistake? Here is John's dream: He had a different family. Mom, Dad, sister about his age, and baby brother or sister. The family was getting on a raft. He was the last one on. A tiger lunged at them. Someone dropped the baby into a crevice that was part of the boat. He grabbed the baby, leapt off the boat and ran to a hair salon where warned everyone that a tiger was coming. John and the people there hid, and then streams of people came in to hide from the tiger. I wonder if it could have anything to do with Peter's funeral yesterday? (See the previous post). I'm super tired. No proofing. No editing. I'll just add a picture and say goodnight.  I'm so tired, but I feel compelled to connect here. Today I went to the visitation for one of my son's peers. He took his own life, but I don't know any more details other than that. He was fourteen years old. He had autism. He apparently showed no signs of sadness or depression. We all wonder what he was thinking. Maybe he was just experimenting with an idea of suicide and accidentally took his own life? Maybe he had a sudden upset or impulse and did not quite realize how permanent his solution was? Whatever happened to him, I hope he could see all the people who visited him today to say goodbye. I wonder if he knew that so many people cared about him, and that we are all so sad that he left.
I have lived in several states and I have felt that New Jersey (believe it or not folks) was generally the most friendly. Pennsylvania neighbors are a bit standoffish (again this is a generalization). I think, though, that we need to overlook whatever that is that makes people that way - standoffish -- and just offer them love. I'm not saying I'm going to go around hugging people; I am a born introvert with my own walls up. But I am saying that I am going to make more of an effort to remember that behind those walls are people, and the nature of being a person is just hard. I want to be more empathetic with people and reach out a bit more, and I mean a bit, because reaching out to people is not my forte. At least online I can more easily do so. I made a stranger feel good today and I've been seeing his posts on Twitter enough to know he's a genuine guy who has been grieving the death of his mother for the past year. He's a Bates Motel Superfan, I think. I imagine I actually might have touched him and made him not feel so alone in this world, because I introduced myself as a stranger, but as a fellow traveler in life who cares. This is a terrible time for me as I am disappearing, and it means so much to me that I might be able to give an honest warm and fuzzy to some guy who lives somewhere and who I think is often sad. This year is so sad -- school shootings, terrible president, my little Voldemort (illness), the death of a child I knew. I've got to rise up softly here and meet all this pain by spreading love. I'm going to start by using the same tool the terrible president uses for all his selfish schemes; that seems right. It will be my tiny positive drops in the bucket against his massive ocean of petty misery. Consider it David and Goliath.  So, I've been consciously asking my brain to remember dreams again since I heard part of a Radio Lab in which I learned that Robert Louis Stevenson would command the little people in his head to tell him a story. I have no little people in my head to command, but I'm pretty sure I heard a couple of real estate agents talking while a young girl, sitting on her front porch, leaned wearily against a post. No kidding, they are in there somewhere. I didn't sense that they were there for me, so I won't ask anything of them unless they want to contribute to my dreams.
I did have a dream last night that was symbolic of my illness (whatever that may be). I had a newborn baby, but it was disturbing to look at him from the neck down, because you could see all of his internal organs including his heart. He was still okay, but he didn't have the fat or skin that keeps our ugly, organ modesty. This was in part from seeing The Shape of Water yesterday and the creatures naked body was so strange and revealing. I dreamed I swaddled him. He was sweet. I loved him. I called the daycare to see if they would watch him while I went to work, but no, they needed a few days probably because of the whole visible-guts thing. Then I begged my husband to stay home with him so that I could go to work because I just knew I was needed (I think a lot of myself). He absolutely refused, and I was so angry because his work day on a Tuesday was relatively trivial (at least I believed that). So it was then that I realized that this baby was 100% mine. My illness. I can't leave him with my husband and be free for a few hours. This baby must be with me all the time because no one else wants him. And still, I love him. Which I think is poignant, and I hope it represents some sort of new self-love I'm discovering. My body is not betraying me. It is not the enemy. It needs love, help, care, and maybe a doctor to stick the guts back in. PS The painting is "Mother's Love" by Amanda Jackson. That they are looking away from the artist just works somehow as I think about them in the context of my dream. I need to be home now, and I want to be home, but I also feel strange about not being there. Though I know that I can't be there and it's not a healthy place for me, I miss it too.  Art by Julie Schroeder
 I'm always looking for artwork to go with my writing. I look for some image that expresses what I'm thinking, feeling, or experiencing. I am sorry to say I did not take note of the artist's name when I chose a piece for my 2/14/2018 post (and this one - see lake pic near bottom). I say this because the painting haunts me. It feels like whoever that is must be some sort of kindred spirit. In fact, I'm going to leave off writing this for a moment and see if I can figure out who this is. I wonder if s/he is going through some of the same issues with health (or the same reckoning with mortality) that I am? Didn't take more than ten minutes -- here she is: kathrynbeals.com/ She is Canadian. I'm northern MN (at heart) so I guess there's a feel and style to the area that is close. She has three small children. I have two medium-large sized children. She was actually on the lake rowing at night, and just the thought of that makes my heart flutter. I have dreams, sometimes, about swimming way out on Deer Lake in the middle of the night. So, I figure she's not necessarily going through a similar spiritual challenge, but rather I recognize in her the commonality of being awed by nature. Who knows. Anyway, the painting is on my mind, and I want to dream about it. I don't want to have those same sad dreams about the lake (aka my lost childhood) (aka the tragedy of Alderaan). I want to dream about a lake that leads to some spooky, otherworldly realm. I just can't stand Facebook. There are so many ignorant know-it-alls (who I happen to know suffer from enormous self-loathing) who put up "lies, damned lies, and statistics" that none of us need to hear. I put up uncontroversial moments, but it's all just like being at work -- living above it all -- pretending out of necessity that everything is "okay." And I feel like Macon from The Accidental Tourist though I've no right to feel as he does. I've no right because I have something that Macon does not have which is my children. And my children have turned out to be my greatest friends ever, because though I do have to nag them and boss them around (that's my job at times), they fundamentally understand me and I understand them on a level that is pure and without any ulterior motive whatsoever They are the reason why the disappearing author will not willingly disappear as of yet. I'm going to put up something real and deep about my child who has been taking care of me in a sort of reverse-maternal instinct that I feel guilty about, yet need and appreciate. "Now I'm far from everyone. I don't have any friends anymore. And everyone looks trivial and foolish, and not related to me." -- Macon Leary I think I'm going to dump almost everyone from Facebook that I don't actually care about. No, I changed my mind. -- JT Cole Here it is again:    I looked up the meaning of a pink aura (I'm assuming shoes that have a pink aura/smoke count) and found a place called Wisdom Door that says: "In meditation or dreams represents self-love, also resurrection. The color of flesh, of sensuality and emotion, romantic love, and supportive love."
I still have no idea what it meant in the context of that dream unless ressurection means being reborn in another world, or reborn in this world in a way as big changes in health can be the catalyst for big changes in personality, identity, or behavior. I don't know. I just want more dreams that give me clues. I'm suddenly interested in connecting with the dreams world in a way that I haven't been since I took a New School course called "History and Theory of Dream Interpretation" in about 1996. Today, I finally went back to the gym. I'm not sure how long it has been since I finally gave up dragging myself there. It might have been a month and half. The experience was okay. I don't think I lost much strength or endurance, actually. Coughing isn't great today, yet all in all today is more of a calm day. I'm just living my life in the moment. No great plans. No strong emotions or fears. I could use more of those days. Here's another quote I found about a pink aura person (the novel writing part fits, but I don't have "strong psychic abilities" though I always wished I did. That desire is why I wrote Robin Wingfield, who is essentially me as a child, but I get to have crazy psychic powers: "The Pink Aura individual is a natural healer, highly sensitive to the needs of others and has strong psychic abilities. They also have very creative ideas and strong imaginations. Because of these personality traits the Pink Aura person makes great writers of novels, poetry or song lyrics." https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/aura-colors-meaning-ginni-aneja 
Because my mother died at fifty-three (I'm 52), I'm often jumping to the conclusion that any little thing that happens to me is going to lead right to my death. I laugh about it. I think I'm over-dramatic. But I also feel this sense that I'm about to travel right out of this world soon. Sense of impending doom? Not exactly. Maybe it's something that I'm looking forward to. Maybe this isn't about death at all. Maybe it's about my intuition telling me that I will never go back to work again (at least not in the way that I had been working). Maybe it's that my family dynamic or geographic location will change soon. I welcome change because I haven't been happy for quite some time. Maybe someone else in my life will die. Maybe this cough will just end me. I'll cough and sputter and choke, and then I'll be released from everything here on Earth. It's terrible when I think about the people who depend upon me, but if it were only me, then I would not find the idea all that distasteful. That just goes to show how tired I am.
What is more distasteful is the idea of withering away in front of my family. I was a child when I saw my parents wither and die (though quite quickly), and it's traumatic. I can't stand the thought of that. My last blog had an image of rowing across a lake to some other-worldly place. I dreamt about that place last night. I was on the beach looking at it, meditating on it. I was with other people who were also looking at the sky or the lake. Before that I dreamed about shoes that had a magical pink aura -- it was almost like pink smoke. I wonder what that means. Maybe pink smoke coming out of shoes means that one is being over-dramatic and should shut up about it? |
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