Tag Archives: Writing

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Life and Death

At the beginning of May I got a text from my aunt who lived at my parents’ house April of 2020 through mid-December of 2021 which said that my Mom’s only brother’s wife (my Aunt by marriage) had Stage 4 Brain and Lung Cancer and wouldn’t be seeking treatment. In the text it said that I was only to go through her and not anyone else. That felt weird so I said that I would send a message to my other cousin through FB because I had communication with her there and she freaked out. I get it. She’s 70 and thinks that people can read private messages.

I called her and she was so upset that she spent most of our conversation yelling at me. That’s about her and isn’t about me. She’s about the same right now and really negative so I’m not talking to her or communicating with her much. I never had noticed how much unsolicited advice that she gives either until this time.

She called me Saturday afternoon and I was in a coffee shop.

I was at a coffee shop because my house is still tented, plastic is everywhere and the rooms are either barren or have odd things around such as ladders, equipment and I don’t have faces on many of my cabinets as repainting those is a whole 3-day process that the project manager has described as “tedious.” I was taking space from this disorder in a local coffee shop.

When my Aunt called I said, “Hi, I’m in a coffee shop and I’ll have to go outside,” and then when I walked outside and put my cell back to my ear she was still talking. She then said, “I’m not sure that I’m supposed to tell you but Aunt _______ passed away this afternoon,” and I said, “Thank you for letting me know, I’ll text ________.” She told me don’t call until tomorrow. I said, “Ok, thanks for letting me know.” She talked about my not calling or getting into contact with my cousins today some more and I just listened to her prattle and didn’t say anything because she’s been on edge and prone to yelling. I know it’s stress, but I can avoid being the recipient of her mismanagement of it.

I texted my cousin and she and I exchanged texts afternoon and evening on Saturday. My other cousin, who I recently had breakfast with when she was here for an appointment with her daughter, texted me too.

It’s going to be really rough, but I’ll drive approximately 5-hours  before the sun comes up on Thursday morning to attend my Aunt’s wake and funeral. I’m driving back around 1 pm or so because I don’t want to be away from my house or pets. Luckily, my neighbors are feeding (both meals) and tending to my pets a few times on Thursday.

I’m loyal to this Aunt. She has put flowers on my brother’s grave for years. This uncle, who is my Mom’s only brother and was married to my Aunt, drove my brother’s body to this area where my mother’s family was born and farmed. He got my brother’s body to the church and he’s buried near my Grandfather who I adored.

They’re good people and I’m proud to have them as my family.

When my mother died, my son, my then wife, the Aunt who took care of my parents’ house, my Uncle (mother’s brother) and my cousin and I conducted a short graveside service at my brother’s and grandfather’s grave for my parents. We spread ashes of my parents’ on those graves. Doves landed on the wires and sang songs. It was nice and simple.

I’m really glad to be there for this cousin on Thursday to be part of rituals for the loss of her mother. Sadly, her mother was my cousin’s self-described “person,” and from what I’ve gathered via text was her touchstone. This loss will be incredibly difficult for her. Like me, she has one brother, and I’ve not seen him in nearly 30-years. It will be nice to see him; although, that our connection is at his mother’s funeral is sad. His sister is a gem and wrote to my mother for years. There were times that my mother received her letters when she was in the facility too. Again, they’re wonderful family members.

Rituals for the dead are really for the living
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Cozy

We had our first game last night on summer bowling league. Sadly, I averaged 117, but I do think that I can bring things up to 130 or more for averages next week. I love hanging out with these three women. We connect and encourage each other and laugh so hard.

I can’t remember the last time that I slept this well. I have just switched doctors and can see her on October 2nd when my super expensive insurance kicks in. I have been waking up once in the middle of the night for probably 6-months and am having other new and lovely middle aged things like a weird fanny pack below my navel, aching hips for no reason, and have had two times after exercising felt like I’m going to faint. I assume it’s time for a cocktail of progesterone and estrogen.

I woke up just before six and felt so cozy. So, I stayed in bed, slept another hour and had another dream cycle. It apparently finally rained down here. It had been raining the in mountains and not getting down here. It’s cool and partly cloudy.

I bought a domain yesterday and started playing with pages a tiny bit. I’ll finish the text draft of the book today too. I feel so rested and loved this cozy morning.

What can fuel your productivity? How do you best create?

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Stories

The climber spent a couple of hours with me yesterday and we added a final scene with a crone type of character who had appeared in the book at a turning point in our story. She sketched five different scenes and I started numbering the existing storyboards. She’s going to show me more work on the 31st of July. She’s out of town climbing in Canada for a couple of weeks.

We had twenty existing pages, and I think that we’re up to 26 now. So, I’ll need to write out full narratives rather what is in the storyboards that simply illustrates plot advancements in a comic book style. It also includes my poor drawings. I should’ve taken a picture of her drawings for our book in her sketchbook. I’ll write over the next few days, which will be easy now because she called working together “inspiring,” and I reflected later and would term it “energizing” for me personally.

She looked beautiful. She had on a close fitting one piece sleeveless jumper with a plunging neckline. I had never seen her in anything low cut before or anything nearly as feminine. It was a little distracting to watch her draw at my dining area table especially when she was leaned against it.

We had an intimate dynamic yesterday. Just greeting and exiting long hugs; however, we talked about personal things when we made conversation.

I learned that she and her ex-husband were together for 16-years in total and that they read to each other every night.

I read an entry from my blog to her. I chose this one: https://balance17.com/2024/03/29/mom/

The climber paged through her book and showed me some beautiful things that she had drawn. She is such a good artist. Although she had outlined sketches yesterday, I’m excited to see full pages when we meet yet as I had a point of comparison now seeing her work in the small sketchbook. I asked her if she’s always drawn. She has. I have always written.

There hasn’t been a day in 16-years that I’ve not written something. I certainly have not blogged everyday, but I have written notes, letters, emails, journal entries and the like. It’s interesting now for me to have a full story to tell and complete. I have a muse-filled momentum right now.

Image by Kankanravee Kanyawath from Pixabay

I was thinking this morning when I got up to tend to the pets that we all tell ourselves stories. Stories about why our lives are going the way that they are, and stories about other people. I think that feedback about those stories that are internal is important. The feedback helps us evolve.

For our book, it’s different. I need to have it in full draft form and read it to some kids before I take the next step for publication. I’m glad that we she and I have a commitment to monthly work on it too, because it keeps a timeline. For me, it was the conversation about the plot of the book that was most important when working with her yesterday. Although writing is a solo task, I think that I write better when I have some collaboration and joint work. Also, being around her is always something that impacts me intellectually and in my body.

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Grow

I’ve known the climber for nearly 6 years. Our relationship started to change significantly in the fall of 2022 when she took me climbing. I think that it’s growing and I know my attachment to her is too. Seasonal change is upon us, and I know that I’m reflecting on her and whatever “us” is.

It’s getting on toward spring now and I’m so happy about it. I hope that we have a spring and it doesn’t just start getting beastly hot. I used to train practitioners in suicide protocols. Did you know that spring is the time that people die by suicide most frequently? I’m happiest in spring, so maybe that means that I always have something to look forward to annually. I don’t know.

Commute

End of a friendship: The nice guy gives excuses instead of commuting with me. One time he confirmed and when I got in my car to go to his house he called and said that he needed to go to the dispensary after work. Yesterday, it was that he needed to go to work early to set up. It’s ok. I think he’ll just fade out of my life after spring. I won’t see him unless he’s walking his dogs and I’m biking.

The climber (Batman) wanted to leave early and ride with me. However, my dogs take forever to walk now so when I got her text, it was late, and I texted that I’d try to get there at 7:20 and she said that she’d just come to me.

She had completed a super long inventory for one of our clients for me so I made her a toasted bagel sandwich (egg, cheddar, spinach) and washed some blueberries for her. She said that I didn’t have to do that because it was her job. I also had a cup of coffee for her too, and this time had vanilla protein milk which is a good substitute for creamer, I think.

We planned the end of our book on our drive to our building. She had a great idea regarding changing the art with the turning point of the protagonist. The main character is like me as a child and now I think that she’s adding elements of her to the character. It’s beautiful actually. I’m excited. We talked about our parents a little bit and she wasn’t tired and we were able to chat the entire time. The commute is pretty mundane after we get out of our neighborhood–it’s complete with a long stretch of city traffic and then two awful highways complete with poor rush hour drivers. Conversation between she and I certainly breaks up the monotony.

Riding Home

She talked a lot about work. She said because it was the last leg before summer term–a term that neither she or I work–it was a good use of time. I said, “I had you all to myself in the car and we mostly talked about work!” She laughed. She planned the final page of our book and said she’d sketch before she did her ice climb workout that she does every Monday.

When we got to my driveway she said, “Thank you for driving. I love your company. I’m so excited to sketch,” and she was lingering by her door. I put my lunchbox, backpack and jacket down. She walked around the front of my car and embraced me tight. We both took deep breaths. I kissed her cheek.

I said that I would be starting breath work, which is concentrating deeply on your breath and moving it in a guided fashion through your body with a guide. I had mentioned previously that all the talk therapy that I’ve done has run its course. I said that when she gave me feedback about not breathing, I knew that was some work that I should do. She said, “You weren’t breathing at all!” I said, “You make my heart race!” She said, “You really like to make me blush!” I said, “While that’s true, right now, I’m just being honest.”

I like this slow and somewhat deliberate expansion between Batman and I ❤ She is part of what I’m thinking about and hopeful for this spring.

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Gearing up

I’m going to work with the climber for a couple of hours the week after next on our book. I’m looking forward to her feedback and seeing her illustrations. I told her that I’m also amenable to story changes. I want to have a couple of pictures out too, because I’m a little married to the idea of a couple of scenes that are autobiographical, so I want to show her the context of them when I was growing up and a child. I’m interested in her childhood too. We should add some elements from hers.

She and I commuted without the guy from work on Monday. I was talking to her about my dog and then my Dad. I said, “It’s going to be much more difficult to lose my dog than it was my Dad. I think that you know that my Dad was abusive.” She was pretty quiet. I told her that I’d done 5-years of analysis and it fixed everything and I was able to show up for everything until he died of COVID. I didn’t really grieve him per se, and made peace with all the yelling, some limited hitting and aggression, and also intimidation. I did what was right. I didn’t give these specifics that I’m writing about here, but left it at “abusive” and making peace with my childhood. Finally, I said, “I don’t want you to feel like my therapist. I want to make sure that it’s ok that you know these things about me.” She said that I know her well too, and I said, “I don’t feel like I know you very well. I just want you to feel comfortable with me when I share.”

I took her home because she doesn’t have a car right now and sometimes borrows her partner’s car. We wished each other well and we have a time and day scheduled after work on the 15th for our book. I still get fluttery with her, but I don’t make any moves because I don’t know what is on or off the table with respect to her partner and don’t want to be disrespectful. I don’t know either if she has another partner currently. Regardless, she is smart and a brilliant artist and I’m so glad to get the book going!

I went to a book launch on Thursday and it was nice. I was incredibly tired though. I left right after it was over because I had already socialized with my friend (The author who I see when I go to the co-ed discussion group.) and met a new friend. The new friend lives near me, so when I go to this group again, I’ll text her to see if she’d like me to pick her up. I’m going to the Women’s Discussion group at the end of the month. My friend who leads it is out of town with her family currently, so I’m going to bring whey protein to drink because the other facilitator doesn’t do any food.

I have my car back. It looks like a cyclops. I have a man who restores headlights on luxury cars coming to my house today to work on the passenger headlight. I’ll have to move out all of my bikes. I’m bringing my Mountain Bike inside. It’s really rainy today. It feels like April. I’m so glad to be out of the monstrous rental car with front wheel drive. It was terrible and really noisy with actual bells and whistles. It barely fit in my garage!

I got the door of my hall closet repaired. I got the sheetrock in the entryway to my basement repaired too. Oddly, right before the potluck the mirror above my stairs fell. It didn’t break and was lodged onto the cat perch where they eat and drink. The paint behind it was bright white. Who paints a house and tapes over a mirror? So careless and lazy! The contractors textured the wall, painted primer over it, and hung the mirror with subtle metal clips. The next project is finding three nice door knobs, painting all the doors, and painting the stairwell where I had a new retractable gate installed. I’ll have the painter also paint behind the mirror in the same color and match the paint that is on most of the accent wall behind my hutch. I want to do projects in my house now that I am alone in it.