Talking Water

When my breath is stale, cold and dry 
rasping hard against my ribs
When my heartbeat thuds a hollow tone
upon a crackled skin
When the tender flesh upon my fingertips
feel neither heat nor cold
My feet no longer tread
the dampened earth
                                                             My dreams begin to wander
                                                             my ears seek out
                                                             the singing voice
                                                             of the Talking Water

foaming, splashing, dancing
over, under, around
darkened, rounded
boulders and stones
a fast moving river rushing
down the mountain
      
                                                              A voice in my dream
                                                              draws me ever closer
                                                              my feet and ankles 
                                                              suddenly damp, cold
                                                              my knees and thighs
                                                              chilled, wet

I fall  upon the language of the Talking Water
She feeds me once again
like so many years ago
when I walked her shores and stones.

                                                              I seek her now only in dreams
                                                              I am fed all the same
                                                              I breathe anew
                                                              My heart beats afresh 
                                                              Fingers grasp life once more
                                                              Feet again tread a steady path

I walk with the 
Talking Water. 

mec 
08182012
                        
                                                            

                                                           

For some time now I've been coming to the realization that I am no longer a young woman. I am among the "older set". It's strange to think of myself in those terms, though it's not painful like it was a few months ago. It's become funny, actually, and I don't find it necessary to defend my age anymore as I once did. I still am not finding myself looking forward to old age as some of my counterparts do. The "Croning Years" are still some time ahead of me, though I now stand on the doorstep, I'm not quite ready to darken the doorway.

I find that there are some things that bother me more now than ever they did before. Such as the maturity level of the 20 somethings of todays world. My kids hear me say this all the time, and they probably could quote me ver batim, "When I was 21...." or "When I was that age..." , "I would've never..." or "I would've done it this way...or that way". They're probably also sick to death of hearing me say it, but it's so very true. I look at the young people of today and I just can't fathom them.

Young men that work with my husband that just can't be bothered to work. If they were to ever pop a sweat it would be a miracle of science. Their sense of entitlement boggles my mind. The young women who start out from home for the first time and they don't know the first thing about the world other than to spread their legs and shop. They can't clean, cook or even make coffee. These youngsters come into the real world with nothing in their minds except how to play video games, play bed games, buy the newest technology, and expect everything to be handed to them.

What happened to my generation, their parents? Weren't we supposed to teach our children to think and reason? To be better? To be responsible? To be good care takers of the future? Where did the majority of my generation go wrong?

Enough Love in the Night

have i loved you enough
in all these years
to carry you
past or over all the tears
that are yet to come

have i loved you enough
after all this time
for memory to serve
when drugs cloud your mind
in coming days

did i tell you i love you
morning and night
for your heart to be engraved
as the scars of oak trees blight
in moon shadow

how many embraces
will follow you
will you feel them still
when all that is left is the nights dew
the scent on your pillow

have i loved you enough?
how could i have done
the time was too quick
life is too short for anyone
there is not enough love in the night.  

dw~

PEEVED!!!!! Beyond Belief!

What a friggin' day!   I set my alarm for 645am because our first appointment for the day was at 8am.  I should've just stayed in bed!  

We went to the oncologists office and waited to see him for over an hour just to be charged $224 for him to tell us he had to make more tests. A PET scan and another biopsy, because "the tumor is 'highly suspicious of cancer' ", then fill out paperwork.  What!!!!!!  We already knew this!   We actually only spoke to the doctor for about five whole minutes.  Thanks for your time, here have some of our hard earned money we're literally dying to give you!  

So, next Tuesday we get the PET scan, then we have to call the doctor on Thursday (a whole 'nuther week away) to find out what that test means and make another appointment in another week to see him, to set up a plan of action!  By the time they finally figure out and decide it's fuckin' cancer my Joe is gonna be two weeks in the grave and they're gonna say, OH well, we had to be sure!!!!!!!! GAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

But, all anyone says is "it's highly suspicious to be cancer".  No one actually says, "this is cancer" - no one has a plan of action.  no one has any friggin’ clue what to do.  Everyone just asks joe over and over and over again, "How are you feelin' today?"  "How is your mood?"  How the hell do you think he's feeling?  How would your mood be if you had a lung full of shit??????

Then when we get home, the cable is out again, and the phone keeps dropping out again.  So, I’ve finally have had enough of this shit.  so I call BrightHouse expecting nothing out of these nimrods.  but miracle of miracles, they're actually going to do what I want them to do today!...we'll actually have to see if they hold to that promise.  

Then we check the mail to see if our bank card that's going to allow to access the credited money that was stolen from us a while back when our acct was hacked is in the mail.   Of course, despite the fact that the bank said it would be here within seven days,  it is not.  so I've got $400 sitting in the bank that I freakin’ need, man, that I cannot touch for over two weeks.  I get on the phone and I'm talking to someone in India, of all places, cuz there's, of course, no customer service done in the US anymore, and he starts talking to me like I'm some inbred idiot!  Nothin' ticks me off more than being talked down to.  The top of my head started feeling like it was going to blow off!  I swear if I could've fit I'd've gone through that telephone line and throttled that idiot!  

I finally figured out that he was telling me to go to the SVC Manager at the store, get a service check, call back with the card number, get transfer numbers for the check and they would cash it right there at the CSD office in WalMart!  OMG - why the hell didn't they tell me this last week when the credit to my account was made instead of making me wait all this time for a card that isn’t even coming!

"Well, I don't know ma'am, it isn't our policy to...blah blah blah blah blah......" and on and on and on it goes.  

Then when I finally get everything I need in place to do this I get on the phone with another person, who is of course, from India again, and barely understandable, as per usual.  She and I have a VERY difficult time coming to any form of understanding.  I finally get that I have to use my old card number to access another section of the same phone program that she and I are using in order to get the information I need to fill out the check properly.   Humans do not have the authority to access account information for other humans.  Amazing, just amazing.  

All this while, Joe is walking around w/me, having taken his pain meds about an hour before leaving, he is beginning to wear down.  I can hear him start to breath heavier, he's sweating, his color is fading, he's holding his chest, he looks exhausted suddenly.  I ask him if he's okay and he says,

"It's only been 3.5hrs since I took the meds and they're already wearing off."  

It's all because he's been so physically active since he took them.  He's gonna have to wait another 4hrs before he can take another hit, and there's gonna be alot of pain before then.  Ya see, I stress and I get angry and get a headache, maybe have a seizure.  HE stresses and he gets crippling pain, he can't breathe, and he could pass out and end up in the hospital again.   I’ve got to finish this crap up and get him home so he can lie down and relax so the pain level lowers.  

Finally, finally, finally, we’re all done and we’ve gotten home.  Joe’s lying down, watching a movie and we’re still waiting for the Cable Guy.  It’s almost 3pm and I’ve about decided that it’s not gonna happen after all.  Why should it, nothing else is going easy today.  But, I look out the front window and low and behold it’s a damn BrightHouse truck sittin’ out there - HOLY FRIGGIN’ CRAP!!!!!!!  The guy came in puttered around the house, visited with us, laughed with ‘Lena when she started talking with him and asking all kinds of 2yr old questions and making knowledgeable 2yr old statements.  He replaced the modem, fixed our television in the livingroom, reset Joe’s computer, double checked the telephone and made sure everything worked.  He said,

“Well, ma’am, you’re all set and everything should work just fine.  Any other problems just give us a call, we’ll be right out.”  

And I started to cry.  Right there on my damn doorstep I started crying while I was thanking him for his time.  He swore up and down it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I had to explain that he was the only person all day that had done exactly what he’d promised to do.  That it had been a really long and rough day for me, in a series of really long and rough days.  I thanked him again, and gave this tall, skinny 22yr old kid  a quick hug and ran into the house.  

Thankfully, the day is almost over and I can close my eyes on another stressful day!

Mec

05172012

Horse Kick in the Chest

I don’t know how other people handle things like this.  I don’t suppose it really matters, because other people aren’t me.  Other people aren’t Joe, or my daughters.  Other people don’t feel like I do, or have my heart, or experiences, or mind, or perspective on things.  So what other people feel about the same situations in life don’t really matter.  Each occurrence in life is specific to each individual person.  Each person’s perspective makes it particular to that person, so I don’t suppose I even really care what anyone else’s feelings are, or how other people handle things like this.  

For me it was like being kicked in the chest by a young horse unexpectedly.  You know how it is when you have a young horse that you just know is gonna get you one day.  You are totally aware that the potential to be kicked to the moon is always there, but you sort of push it to the back of your mind because there’s life, and there’s every day, and there’s things that need doing, and you just get on with it without ever really considering how hard that kick is going to be when it finally comes along.  Especially since it’s been winding up for a long time, and gaining tension and torque, and leverage behind the hoof.  Then too, you never think about the size of the hoof either.  I mean, at the very beginning, the hoof is small.  It’s the foot of a little foal, about the size of a teacup, how much damage could that do, right?  But after twenty five or twenty six years that damn hoof is the size of a truck tire!  When it comes screaming through the air and smacks into your chest it’s as though the entire world just landed on you.  

Your breath comes flying out in a burning whoosh that never seems to end, until that last choking cry that seems so full of tears that your face seems like someone took a blow torch to it.  It’s an amazing thing, really.  I was truly surprised how much air there is in a pair of lungs.  I’m a long time smoker, pretty soon to be a quit smoker, but I don’t usually consider my lungs particularly filled with air.  But on this morning there was an awful lot of air in there.  When it came rushing out I could actually see the mist like a fine rainfall come down over that hoof.  Something you might see in movie taking place in a jungle set.  Would’ve been pretty if there were plants around.  But there weren’t, just that hoof; that huge truck tire sized hoof planting itself firmly into my chest.  

Then that cry started coming up from somewhere.  At first I wasn’t sure where it was coming from.  I looked around, I thought it was maybe someone else.  But, it wasn’t.  I looked down at my feet and it seemed as if, all of a sudden, the floor was getting awfully far away, awfully wee and small, as the saying goes.  hmm, I think I might’ve laughed at that point except i was too close to weeping.  The cry finally made it out of my mouth but I realized it was going to be too loud, so I put my hand over my mouth to stifle it.  The cry became a groan, or a moan, or a growl maybe.  I don’t really know, some sort of sound that didn’t even sound like me.  I don’t make those sounds, never in my life had I made those sounds.  Not even in the throes of the agonies of childbirth, or toothache, or migraine, or seizure, or for any reason that I can think of.  But this, this horse hoof, this truck tire....



this voice....this disembodied voice over a phone...

this....Doctor T....the oncologist....at the hospital, where we’d been waiting for news for three whole days about my most loved and adored and very nearly worshiped husband....

this truck tire sized horse hoof.... whose name is....

Lung Cancer.....

this....this...this..........



mec~
9122012

My Mother

i sometimes forget, in my distaste (to put it lightly), for my mother that there is, after all, something good and bad i get from her.  this something is a thing i've mistakenly passed onto my daughters.  i say mistakenly because it's something i suffer for, lol. 

my mother was the most impatient woman in the world.  she would wait for "her man" to notice that something manly needed doing.  if he didn't notice it, she'd mention it off handedly, and if it didn't get done within a reasonable amount of time (like immediately if not sooner) she would do it herself.  in the most pissed off and humiliatingly (to her man) manner possible.  whatever the job was, raking leaves, fixing holes in the wall, laying carpet, tearing down a garage, she would get it done with whatever tools were at hand.  hammers, screwdrivers, duct tape, her six kids, whatever it took she did it.  once she got started she absolutely DID NOT want him underfoot.  he was extraneous flesh at that point, useless.   she taught us not to tolerate weakness, laziness, shiftlessness, in ourselves.  if there's work to be done, get up and do it because no one else is gonna do it for you.  lol 

we kids took a BEATING in the work department, that's for sure.  we learned the limitless uses of duct tape.  the girls learned there wasn't a damn thing a man could do that a woman couldn't do at least as well, if not better, given the time and tools.  we learned that we didn't need a man to take care of us, although that was what was expected of us anyway, to marry and produce children, and be obedient, subservient wives.  as time went on we just became this, bull-workers.  this is what we do. 

today, i'm out in the yard, cleaning it.  i told joe i didn't want his help at all, because he works so hard at wally world and he doesn't need to be doing this too.  so i'm out their tossing trash, moving logs, moving lawn furniture, pulling tarps, bull work.  i'll pay for it later, i'll have to use ice, and the tens unit, and the shoulder is gonna be screaming.  but THIS is the thing my mother taught me and it just happens almost without even thinking about it.  and what do my daughters do?  not a thing. 

they know that i won't ask for help.  they know i don't really want or need it.  they know even if i need a glass of water, i'll come in and get it myself, because deep inside i still (even now) have a little streak of my mothers Martyr Complex.  GAG!!!!!!!  and i work this hard just to suffer and say to my husband, "see what i did because you couldn't...wouldn't". 

the very worst thing about this is that my daughters will do this very same thing to their spouses.  my mother, no matter how long i stay away, no matter how soon she passes or how long she's gone, will live on forever.  what a terrible thought. 

dw~