Travels With Canines

Double Rainbow

Griefs

Herself.

It is inevitable, I think, that after traversing over five decades on this planet, I should accumulate a certain amount of grief.

Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go. ~ Jamie Anderson

At this moment, there is a multitude of small griefs shadowing me. I feel them nip at my heels and demand my attention as I try to go about my ordinary business. They are assorted sizes, shapes, and colors: actual griefs, potential/future griefs, aged tiny griefs that are usually quiet but have a sharp tooth. Griefs of bypassed hopes and silent wishes. Some griefs so tiny as to be scarcely there; other griefs larger, patient and silent, waiting.

Sometimes I only notice the crowd of them when a single grief is unusually vocal. Sometimes I sit alone with the group of them in the evening in the backyard. Sometimes I try to drown their voices by consuming excessive carbohydrates. Sometimes I assuage their thirst with a few tears shed in solitude.

What I would like, I think, is to be gathered up, without criticism or reproof, in arms warm and strong enough to encompass me together with all my griefs. We could rock the griefs to sleep for a little while. And I would be content.

1,050 Miles

Herself speaks.

In past three and a half days, I triangled across the desert southwest. It's a lovely area, with miles and miles of nothing punctuated by tiny towns, fields with a smattering of cows, rolling hills with desert shrubbery, and interesting rock formations.

First leg: north and east to install Offspring the Third into his new apartment for his next school year. My vehicle was packed to the gills with his possessions. After a solid six hour drive and a short night's rest, we unloaded everything and set it up. Dishwasher works? Check. Washing machine works? Check. LED lights installed for decoration; internet set up; groceries purchased. Everything put in its place to enhance the chances he would stay tidy and organized. Fifteen hours later, we were done. Good luck, Offspring the Third. I hope you have a fruitful school year. We love you.

Second leg: once more a short night's rest, and then a five hour journey north and west to Cherished Friend's corner of the desert. It had been far too long since I'd made the trip there. (I have been a mediocre friend of late, I think, because Life has been eating me alive. Forgive me, my Friend. Know that you are never less cherished even when I am less attentive a friend.) It was a much-needed respite from the hectic pace of this summer.

And the third leg the next afternoon: nearly due south for four and a half hours, and finally home again. Phew.

I am tired. The air conditioning broke while I was away, so it was a restless and hot night on the couch in the living room after all the travel. Still, the small dogs were delighted to have the opportunity to sleep next to me. So there was that.

And now, back to ordinary life.

Go 305 miles, and turn right. 

This is driving in the desert southwest.

Home Again

The Flatlands In Between

Across The Flatlands

Jumping Spider

Hero

Anniversary Sushi

You Will Have To Wait To Fold That Laundry

Strong

Omens and Portents

Herself speaks.

When I was young, sometimes I would have thoughts about future events that would turn out to come to pass. I hesitate to use the word premonition because of its negative connotations; foresight is a bit closer, though that word contains a component of prediction which is not quite appropriate. It was never anything weird or unusual -- no Professor Trelawney prophecies here -- more like some aspect of something that I would have no reason to know in advance, that would turn out to be that exact way. And I would be unsurprised at what would happen, because I had somehow known beforehand.

Harbinger, augury, foretoken, precursor?

Happenstance. Providence. Coincidence.

As I have gotten older, these occurrences have become fewer and fewer. Perhaps I don't spend enough time observing to be able to see them, or perhaps I do not recognize them for what they are. Have I lost the ability to hear the whispers of the Universe? (Did I ever have it in the first place?) Do I just mistrust what I hear? Am I afraid to listen? Perhaps it is the knowledge that so often, things do not go as we expect, that has changed how I see the future. I don't look for omens and portents, because I doubt them. And perhaps they are too clouded by worries and hopes to see, anyway.

And with all this being said: yesterday morning, there were two deer in a neighbor's front yard, and a rattlesnake in a parking lot, and I feel as though I should be looking for more right now. I have That Feeling. I cannot tell if it is expectation, or if it is merely a thing that is occupying my thoughts enough that I am misinterpreting the space it mentally occupies as the possibility of it occupying actual space in the future. Preoccupying. Prognosticating? Wondering.

Maybe it's nothing. Maybe I am getting a migraine and my brain is stuck on something (as happens from time to time). I won't mention what it is, because I will feel mighty silly if I'm misinterpreting a vague indigestion and and a few stray thoughts as something more meaningful. We'll just wait, and see.

Evening Butterfly

Morning Millipede

Selfies

Herself speaks.

On my birthday, I posted two pictures of myself to my Facebook page. In the first photo, I sported the pink birthday tiara and fluffy boa that we keep in the office for birthday celebrations. The second photo was a more conventional photograph, head and shoulders, smile. And yes, it took a few attempts before I took pictures that I liked enough to share. But I did it, because I wanted to capture myself as I am, at 52 -- both silly and serious. Myself. 

-----

Selfies: good or bad?

On the one hand, they can be seen as the height of vanity. LOOK HOW WONDERFUL I AM.

On the other hand, when one is an invisible middle-aged woman -- the type of woman who receives no compliments, with whom no one flirts, who merely exists in the background of a world replete with advertisements and television shows populated by airbrushed young and impossibly beautiful girls --  a self-portrait serves a useful purpose: it acknowledges existence. LOOK HOW... I AM. 

I am myself. And in the end, I am enough. 

Flower Basket

My mother-in-law always sends lovely flowers for my birthday. Since I effectively bring about the swift demise of all plants that are entrusted to my care, I am afraid that if I even look at them for too long, they will wilt. They are beautiful. Thank you, Buela. 

Fifty-two

Appearances

Conversations between N and Herself (H), with commentary. 

Conversation 1:

N: I saw this girl at the vet's office the other day. She was just SO FAT. I worry about her health.

H: I'm sure she knows it's not good for her health to be fat.

N: She's making life so much HARDER FOR HERSELF.

H: I'm sure she knows that, too.
-----

I do not believe for one moment that pointing out a stranger's level of obesity is a legitimate concern for that person's health. It is just another permutation of fat shaming.

We overweight people know we are overweight. We know that our body mass impacts our health. Many of us are trying, with varying degrees of success and failure, to reach a more healthy -- or at least a more socially acceptable -- weight. We know we do not meet societal standards. We are often embarrassed by the amount of space we take up. We try to be invisible, because to be seen reinforces the possibility that we are unacceptable.

We carry enough shame with our pounds. Spare us your "concern" about our waistlines. Just be kind.

Conversation 2:

N: [Unsolicited] Have you considered cutting your hair back to shoulder length?

H: [Momentary surprised silence]

N: [Rushed] I mean...  you are a beautiful woman and you have elegant bone structure, and your hair looks okay like this too... but how about some more shaping and layers?

[Contemplation of defensive statements, followed by change of topic]
-----

Let's be realistic: by societal standards, I'm not a beautiful woman. I do not have noticeably admirable bone structure. I'm middle aged and rather plain, overly ruddy, prone to being toothy when smiling and to having my chin disappear if I hold my head the wrong way. I have a loud unladylike laugh. No amount of artful flattery will disguise when particular statements are said purely to "soften" other commentary which can be summed up as I think you need to change a particular aspect of your appearance.

I generally like my hair. I admit that it is a nice color purely due to the careful ministrations of the very talented Ruben. Though I subjected my hair to perms like all the other girls in the 1980s, it never took a curl properly, so I now wear it in its natural, extremely straight state (except for when it mysteriously takes on the occasional wave in very humid weather).

I prefer to wear my hair up when I am working -- I need it out of my way to think hard. I wear it down only when I am relaxing. I do like to run my fingers through it, because it is long and has a nice texture. It is like a portable security blanket.

It is fine the way it is. I do not want to change it. Nor do I want unsolicited suggestions about it.

Thank you. That is all.

Home

Herself speaks.

[edited to update the number of deceased. Lord have mercy.]

I am currently in an airport, awaiting my flight home. I have never felt so desperate a need to be back in my corner of the desert.

My corner: El Paso, Texas.

Two days ago, a gunman drove hours and hours across Texas specifically to cause mayhem for the Hispanic community of El Paso, Texas. Twenty-two dead. Twenty-four injured. (And yet, this terrible attack was not even the only mass shooting within 24 hours. God bless Dayton, Ohio. How do we live like this?)  Our hearts are broken.

News of the dead came painfully slowly -- because of the magnitude of the crime, the bodies of the fallen were left until the scene could be processed. And meanwhile, Facebook posts were shared by local friends: "My Tia is missing." "Brother, I pray you are all right." "We cannot find my boyfriend's mom."  And the more time passed, the more horror-stricken we became, knowing that no news at all was NOT good news.

Because the very worst aspects of tragedies make for the most-often-repeated "news", the reports have focused in particular on a young mother who died shielding her two month old son from the gunman. Only a day later did we learn that the son's father also died, shielding her as she shielded her son. They leave behind two other children as well, ages 3 and 5. Three orphans, who will likely grow up retaining only ephemeral memories of their parents.

I am reminded of the Harry Potter series. Of James in his last moments, shouting to Lily to run and that he will hold off Voldemort to giver her time to escape; of Lily throwing her arms wide and pleading "Not Harry!" before being struck down. Only this time, the deaths are real and tangible, a gaping wound in a safe, peaceful city.

There is Evil in the world, and it is far beyond that of the fictional Dark Lord. There is no Boy Who Lived to save us; only orphaned children, widows and widowers, now-childless parents, all the grieving souls. Plus an ever-increasing feeling of powerlessness in the face of the Horror that brings death to us even as we go about our ordinary business.  Workplaces.  Garlic festivals. Concerts. Local watering holes. Churches. Street corners. Walmart.

Nowhere is safe. No one is safe.

Have mercy.

How Do These Pillows Work?

We shall see.

Teeny Tiny Lizard