Cranky: Shingles Belong Only on Roofs

OK, I'm not in a good mood.  Could even be called a rotten mood.  I don't run in the direction of self-pity very often, but today, I may indulge it.  Well, maybe for 60 minutes.

I have shingles.  On my forehead and scalp.  Yes, I have been to the doctor, yes I am taking antiviral medication, yes I had chicken-pox as a kid  (I was one of 7 kids - we got everything).  Aside from the pain - which is nothing to sneeze at, here is why I am cranky---------

Today, I believe that if one gets Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) in your thirties and has Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) in your fifties, you should get a flipping bye on some of this other crap like shingles.  Yes, I know that RA raises the risk of shingles (compromised immune system and all that), yes, I know the medication for RA further raises the risk (more compromising), but still.  Should get a bye.  Certainly, all survivors of SCA should be able to skip this one.   Really --- just because I say so.  Well, I'll bet we would all say so.

Cranky, self-indulgent, irritated.  Don't like having to take pain medication during the workday.  Fretting about how to wash my hair.  To crawl out of this pity session, I will remind myself that generally, I don't care about infirmities that I know will be going away in a few days.  But screw it, I'm going to just be cranky for another 45 minutes or so.

This could be the most boring post I have ever put up there. Or I sure hope that it is.  Blessedly, it appears it will be short.  I can't seem to make shingles funny.
Welcome any help there is on that.

Lurking - I Have Become A Lurker

Guilty admission: I have been lurking in men's 12 step phone meetings.   I'm not a man, so I know it's weird, I know it's embarrassing - or should be.   Here's a few more effects of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA); 1) I've probably become more honest and 2) I don't give a rip about things that should embarrass me.  I think the motto of SCA survivors may well be "F__k it".  

So yes, I've lurked this week.  I'm a veteran 12 step program person - Alanon.  That's the one for people who supposedly don't have an addiction themselves, they/we just happen to love or care about or obsess about a person who does have one.  So I know the lingo, I know the ropes.   But this is different; I've been shocked by the men with whom I have lurked.

Alanon saved my life a few years back, it truly did.   I had surrounded myself with so much alcoholism, some I believed by unwitting choice, some by genetics.  I was a mess by the time I first stumbled in;  my dad had died of cirrhosis, a cousin lost by 40, my marriage unraveled, an understanding that my older sister was a way-down-the-line alcoholic.  She would be dead at 51, but we didn't know that quite yet; there was a little bit more blessed ignorance on that one.

So I became an Alanon devotee, and it worked.  You can regain your footing, you can let the alcoholics go, you don't let their disease/crap/'ism' dominate your life.  Then you can turn back to your crap.  Then something else happens, the dirty little secret.  There creeps in a smugness.  We are subtle about it, or we think we are - if we have any awareness of it at all, the creeping smugness. We wrap the smugness up in kindness, in sympathy,  in tolerance,  in coo-ing recovery type noises.  But it's there.  Smug.  They, the alcoholic/addict/gambler/eater - they are screwed up - I'm fine.   At the end of the day, when we are privately honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge our belief that our emotional health would have been intact had we not been forced to associate with the alcoholic/addict.

Of course, I had sought out some of them - not the sister or the father or the cousin, but the others; I had sought them.  I have come to understand  that this is my crap; they are symptoms of my mess.  This I learned from lurking in men's meetings.  Phone meetings; I figured they'd never know.  And there, on those lines, were healthy recovering men. Far healthier than me.  Far healthier than I had guessed men could be.

So I lurked. I stayed muted. They'd never know.  I was stunned.   With that latent smugness of mine, I have grown so accustomed to thinking of addicts/alcoholics as flawed, as less than.  These were the men who were the bane of my existence, the ones I tolerated, loved, hated.   These meeting men were different.  They were breathtakingly healthy.  Their spiritual life is on more solid ground, their emotional health stronger, more honest.  They had come to terms with their shortcomings and compulsions in ways I never had.  They are searingly introspective, deeply committed to living the fullest life possible, they have firmly put into the number one priority slot: their health and the health of their relationships.  These are not the men who pass through life just putting one foot in front of the other.  They aim higher, far higher.  They aim at happy, joyous, free.  They aim for a shame-free life,  eradication of self loathing and self destruction.  They choose health and they choose the work it takes to get there. They are heroes.

Lurking there - it was humbling, disturbing, inspiring, a little scary, slightly embarrassing, and I am going to do it again.  

Aren't I ridiculous.

photo by daustin@sandcarveddesigns.com  

Jurgensen - Be Still My Heart

Believe me; I understand this seems nuts.   I can blame the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), but truth be told, this long pre-dates that 2009 event.  More truth - I don't care.

Sonny Jurgensen was my first crush.  I know, I know.  Yes, this was the start of my long, dark road of exceptionally poor taste in men.  Sonny was an intermittent attender of my childhood Philadelphia church - St. Matthias. (That's a post for another day; Matthias was the apostle who replaced Judas in the lineup).
Sonny would show up  from time to time during the Eagles football season with his pal, favorite receiver and co-future-inductee into the Hall of Fame - Tommy McDonald.

Sonny was an adorable, dynamic, charismatic, witty, sharp-edged, full-of-vortex, jagged,  tortured  heavy drinker.  Just my kind of guy.  Sonny was magnificent on the field, and a bit spotty off the field.  I adored him.  In college, the only photo I had in my room was one of him and my beloved godfather Bill J.   Well, I might have  had one of the dog.  Like I said, I understand this is nuts.

I was shocked in 2009 when I moved here (no pun intended re: Skippy the implanted defibrillator) - he grew up in my adopted home town of Wilmington, NC.  Went to high school here.  The city field is named for him; I begged a photographer friend to take a photo of the Jurgensen scoreboard last year; it's enlarged, framed and inside my back door.

This week, Sonny was honored at his high school by the NFL Hall of Fame "hometown heroes" program, whatever the hell that is.  I saw a small announcement in the paper of the upcoming ceremony and had to go.   Just had to.  Wilmington is a big small town, unlike any place I have lived.  So when I called the school to find out what I had to do to be able to attend - the Athletic Director called me back and welcomed me in.

Sonny was charming, gracious, humble, and talked to his true audience - the high school football team assembled on stage that morning.   He talked about promise and possibility, as all speakers at a High School do.  But then he also told them he was far from the best athlete in his class.  He told them he had been a member of the boy's chorus, had played a role in the Mikado.  He then burst into song, mimicking his performance with the fan.  Seriously.
I fell in love with him all over again.  He was a delight.

I met Sonny Jurgensen this week.  I shook his hand; he shook mine.  I got a demi-hug.

Life is to be gobbled.  I don't give a damn if I looked like an ass.  I met Sonny.

How Things Should Be

"He was meant to be a photographer; he had that sense of  how something  should  look".  I love that sentence.  It's not mine.  It belongs to David Nicholls who wrote "One Day", a clever novel.  It's a wonderful sentence that reminds me of someone.

I am not an excellent photographer, though occasionally I take a picture I like.  And more rarely, I may take one I like enough to keep carefully, maybe print.  I don't have Nicholls' sense - my good photos are happy accidents.

There is 'how things should look' and then there is 'how things should be'.  When he started taking photos, he didn't trust or rely on his sense of how something should look;  he wanted only to capture the image.  In any way.  He's learned; he's learned to count on it.  Now it's clear - he heeds his strong sense of how it should look.  His outstanding photos reflect that.

His photos show he's grown so far past just getting the action shot, just getting the image.  He's learned that big, burly boys being sweet to a mom or girlfriend or being nearly ill with game anxiety or sitting with their pure love of a sport - these are better photos than big, burly boys crashing into one another.

I don't know if he's yet learned how things should be. There is magic in one's camera snagging that perfect second where something looks exactly as it should.  How things should be is something else entirely.

Hearts should not stop without warning, no one should have to come up with a cute name for an implanted defibrillator so that it's less terrifying,  kids' bones should not break,  children shouldn't get ill, friends should be kind to one another.  That is how things should be.  We should be kinder to people we care about than we are to near-strangers.  Though admittedly, sometimes it is safer to show the kindness to those mere acquaintances.   It's just as true for me as for him;  there is far greater risk in kindness with people we are coming to care for.  Kindness with near-strangers is just a pleasantry;  kindness with loved ones creates vulnerability.

With friends and people we cherish, there is magic in unexpected kindness.  And there is brutality in unexpected harshness.

Pictures are lovely.   Life is messy.

PS I took this photo.  A happy accident.  Click on it to see it full-size.

Writing and Salvation

Writing is a rich giver of gifts; it helps heal, it can light the way out of a fog, it can slay fear.   Sometimes I write, but first, I am a reader.   Of real, actual, old fashioned books.  I read fiction, nonfiction, biography; I stay away from the murder-and-mayhem aisle.   I read many books solely based on someone's recommendation - almost anyone, really.  Even non-readers, though that trust has taken me down some dark paths.  A few pretty scary books came to me that way.

I read purchased books, I read paper books, I read electronic books.  I like to write in some books;  it helps me think.  For years, writing in a book felt sinful, but now I embrace it;  it changes the way I read.  It helps me appreciate the author or a sentence, and it helps me keep track when a book contains an ungodly number of interrelated or unrelated characters.   Reading may be a solitary pleasure; book clubs are a joyful communion of eager, disparate souls.

There are times when a well-turned phrase or brilliant sentence stops me cold.  The sheer joy and appreciation of it.  I remember when I first read John Irving, many sentences had that effect.  (Caution - don't read autobiographical works by authors you admire and enjoy.  I did and found him smug and exceptionally, arrogantly, obnoxious. I have been unable to enjoy his fiction since).  Harry Crews was an exception to the no-mayhem rule, recommended by a non-reader.  Crews is a violent minimalist; he can deliver the most astonishing jolts with the fewest number of words imaginable.  (I know this is nerd-heaven, I admit it.  This has been me since I was old enough to bike to a neighborhood library as a little, little girl.  Confused the non-reading parents and six siblings.  That tiny building on Bala Avenue was the first of many libraries I fell in love with.  Libraries and hardware stores, what a goof.)

Walt Whitman.  And here, nerd meets sports fan - I love excellent writing about the sublime sport that is baseball.  I thought none reached Walt Whitman's heights, but here are a few I stumbled on today.
From George Will:   "Baseball, it is said, is only a game.  And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona."

And from John Updike, with a gloriously crafted sentence reporting on how he felt as Ted Williams hit a home run in his last at bat in Fenway Park in 1960:  "It was in the books while it was still in the sky".

Makes a girl want to pick up a pen.  How I wish I could write those sentences.  And how grateful I am that someone can.

Corners to Turn; Corners to Cut

Working our way out of a difficult time doesn't seem ever to feel the same way twice.  On this one, first, I thought - at last, that challenge was in my rear view mirror.  I could happily move on, prance on, skip on, and leave it in the past, or at minimum, leave it to grow ever smaller.  The problem with rear view mirrors is that the object/issue/crap is still visible.  Depending on your pace, it may be visible for quite some time.  And visible is not helpful, at least for me.  It enables me stubbornly to hang on, to continue to believe it to be fixable,  to believe that I am the Fixer.  The line between optimism and hubris blurs.

Then, I turned a corner.  That is more jubilant, more liberation.  Turning a corner leaves no visible remnants -  the crap is left behind on some other sorry street, even if it's a sorry street with a vista.  Turned.  Gone. Left.

Those emotional corners can't be cut.  As much as we would like to accelerate that turn, we cannot.   Time is friend and foe.   There was no emotional corner-cutting available for me, not on this one.  No matter how tired of it I had become; no matter how weary I was of its living rent-free in my head; no matter how aware I was of its futility.  Corner could not be cut; return to emotional health could not be hurried.  No tools created a shortcut; at times, it seemed like the longest, slowest turn. We have to wait, work, cope, work, wait --- then suddenly, finally, there it is ---  the corner to be turned.

Maybe it's because "this one" was several challenges blurred or bound together - imagine the giant ball of string out there in the Midwest somewhere.  (Why are these things always in the Midwest anyway?)  This was tough, this was the heart, both literal and figurative.

Corners were not cut here to be sure. They were labored, pondered, processed; they sat through sadness, anger, disappointment, wistfulness, regret,  hurt, fear, confusion,  and even joy for having known it.  At times, I wondered if I had become hooked on the dark of it, and I am not one to relish or wallow or linger in darkness.  Then, the corner cleared; there it was at last.

Turned.  Said farewell to that sorry ass street.

P. S. Amuse yourself; google "largest ball of string"; there is a lively, spirited debate out there.  Above is actually largest ball of rubber bands; took some license.

Gonna Have Me Some Damn Fun

Life is life.  It comes with times of great joy, times of serenity and then what can feel like a season of loss.  Some losses are swift, unforeseen body blows.  Others are gradual -  small bites taken one at a time, and then the sudden end.  But all seasons pass.

Gradually, veils lift.  New seasons - reveling in a day of no loss and no anxiety about an impending loss. (I feel nothing but compassion for those who are hard-wired to see the next loss around every corner.  I am not that; it is not my chemistry, and I am grateful beyond words for this).

Fun.  I remember fun - from before this past season.  Happily, this was a week for water fun.  Spectacular weather; several days I got to the beach for a few late day hours  -  with a great book.  The best of times.  Decided to get to competence on my last remaining  basic boating skill - dock the damn thing.  I mean geez - stupid drunk people can dock a boat, children of 10 can dock a boat....  So out I went with a willing teacher (though I know she wishes she had brought some wine along).  Hour and a half or so - docked the damn thing dozens of times.  Got a "F"on my first try (though I thought that was a tad harsh - I think "F's" should be reserved for attempts that involve actual damage).  Happily and proudly got to a "B".  Though there is some chance she up-graded me to a "B" because she really needed to get off the boat and have that glass of wine - all teachers have tolerance limits, particularly with an incompetent yet stubborn student.  Bad combination - inept and determined.

Then my kayaks were delivered.  Postponed until after Irene - there is no sense adding projectiles to your possessions right before a hurricane.  Went on the virgin trip on another spectacular day.  Again, no damage to life, limb, kayak, dock or friend.  Success.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is not fun; having a flipping defibrillator in your chest wall is not fun, waiting for it to shock the crap out of you is not fun, saying farewell to a beloved dog is not fun.

Today was fun.  Lean into it.