Changes.
(and pictures)
(with a post-script about El Salvador)

Part I: A bunch of unattributed quotations

• Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.
• The more things change, the more they stay the same.
• If you're in a bad situation, don't worry: it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry: it'll change.
• They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.
• Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed.
• All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
• Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.
• I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.

Part II: A brief account of my inner life the past two weeks, in no particular order

• I'm no longer feeling horribly out of control, only mildly so. Acceptance and resignation are sometimes hard to tell apart.
• I've had quite a number of periods of calm, happiness, hopefulness, and/or wisdom to go along with my sense of despondency, hopelessness, and being overwhelmed.
  
• I've accomplished a bunch of little things, given up on a few, and made discernible inroads into a few more.
• I've taken a few steps towards resolving some of the more outstanding issues.
• A few unexpected good things have happened, and I've enjoyed them thoroughly.
  
• I've regained my ability to be at least mildly amused by my own moods, to laugh/shrug (again, sometimes difficult to tell apart) at more of my dissatisfactions, and to remember a lot of the small things that make life saner
• I've become sick and tired of my foul disposition, and so less prone to take it as seriously, while acknowledging that hey, what the hell, I am possessed of one hell of an inner bitch. I'm sure it must be a strength as well as a fault...
• I refuse to pretend that everything is fine, and I also refuse to let the fact that everything is not fine overshadow all the things that are.
• I'm OK with being dissatisfied with my life right now. Did I already say that?
• I'm ready to give some serious thought as to what I do and do not want to do anything about.
• I'm really freaking tired of taking too much too seriously too much of the time. Screw that.
  

Part III: Lyrics to the Phil Ochs song "Changes" (my favourite version of which is Ian & Sylvia's)

Sit by my side, come as close as the air,
Share in a memory of gray;
Wander in my words, dream about the pictures
That I play of changes.

Green leaves of summer turn red in the fall
To brown and to yellow they fade.
And then they have to die, trapped within
the circle time parade of changes.

Scenes of my young years were warm in my mind,
Visions of shadows that shine.
Til one day I returned and found they were the
Victims of the vines of changes.

The world's spinning madly, it drifts in the dark
Swings through a hollow of haze,
A race around the stars, a journey through
The universe ablaze with changes.

Moments of magic will glow in the night
All fears of the forest are gone
But when the morning breaks they're swept away by
golden drops of dawn, of changes.

Passions will part to a strange melody.
As fires will sometimes burn cold.
Like petals in the wind, we're puppets to the silver
strings of souls, of changes.

Your tears will be trembling, now we're somewhere else,
One last cup of wine we will pour
And I'll kiss you one more time, and leave you on
the rolling river shores of changes.

Sit by my side, come as close as the air,
Share in a memory of gray;
Wander in my words, dream about the pictures
That I play of changes.

Part IV: The inevitable reference to dogs and the outdoor world we share












L'chaim, ya'll!

Part V: The Post-Script
I finally got to hear about my daughter Mackenzie's adventures as an international elections monitor in El Salvador in March. What an amazing experience, and how much I learned from her story!
Democracy. Not that old a concept, when you think about it. We (in the U.S. and many other countries) take it so much for granted now, and yet such a short distance away, geographically, it's a precious, treasured, fragile gift that needs to be carefully protected and actively nurtured. There, people who fight for their rights as citizens of a democracy risk their lives and those of their families and friends. At least one family of an activist was murdered before the election.
The really great thing, aside from the wonderful news that the good guys won, is that the people of El Salvador stood up to the ruling party's attempts to defraud and intimidate them, to deprive them of their democratic rights. When busloads of people were brought across the border from neighboring countries to vote (fraudulently) in the elections, citizens of El Salvador literally stood in solidarity, gathered en masse and simply refused to let these people out of the stadium where they'd been housed for the night, keeping them from getting to the polls.
Mackenzie and her group spent a lot of time meeting with groups of activists of all kinds, of all ages, talking and listening and encouraging and sharing. Their presence made a difference in achieving free elections and a return to democratic government in El Salvador, and they also served as ambassadors for the fight for freedom and human rights. They showed the people of El Salvador that the world cares about them and their struggles, and is willing to put that caring into action.
Mackenzie, it is such an honour to be your Mom!

Watching the clouds in my mind playing in the wind
My inner life has been a maelstrom lately. Emotional states whirl through me, changing from moment to moment, careening wildly. I feel buffeted, out of touch and out of control, watching myself tossed about. Images from nature abound: tossed like a leaf in the breeze, like a twig in a spring stream's waters. Resting only restlessly, I'm tired, exhausted by the constant flow of moods. And so much negativity. Can't seem to be OK with anything.

External influences, which I can usually face with equanimity, have taken over the steering of my emotional life. Work, which used to be a pretty good gig, has been intensely stressful, and I feel it coming from too many different directions. I don't like feeling so hostile, angry, inpatient, intolerant. My usual defenses against petty irritations aren't working; petty irritations feel like major attacks. My toys and games and silly diversions, things I've gathered to keep my experience of life in perspective, fail me now. Frustrated with myself, with the people around me, with my work, I spend too much of my day letting this stuff get to me, watching helplessly as my moods move out of my control. I don't like myself like this, and dislike begins to feed on itself.

Things don't feel much better at home. I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs doing, by the chaos my surroundings have slipped into while I wasn't paying attention. Having myself slipped into a hibernation mode that's common in Maine during the long winter, I look around and see too much to do, too many things that feel wrong, too much stuff, too little time, too little energy. Nothing satisfies; everything becomes a chore and a problem too big to handle right now. I'm surrounded by clutter and disorganization, and each attempt to attack even one small piece of it ends in frustration. Feng shui, hell. Feng shui Hell.

And money! Always an area of great weakness for me, finances have become a nightmare, another experience of chaos. My attempts to gain control over my budget, like my attempts to gain control over my physical environment, have become overwhelmed by external circumstance and internal angst. I hate living on the financial edge, and in trying to keep myself relatively safe while peering into the precipice, I find myself in free-fall instead. I keep miscalculating, and one small mistake leads to a n avalanche of costly screw-ups. Again, I can't seem to make any headway. It's all become overwhelming and hopeless and frustrating.

Even the good parts of my life aren't feeling good. I look forward to coming home to the critters, to going out for a walk with the dogs, to lying down and cuddling the cats. But I'm tired and irritable and unable to enjoy the company of my patient and loving companions. I feel like a bad mom. I'm not giving them enough time and attention. I just want to be left alone, but being left alone is really the last thing I really want, or need.

And throughout it all, that part of me that knows what's important, that knows "this too will pass," that sees the goodness and the beauty and the great blessings of my world, that part whispers in the background, trying in vain to keep my attention for more than a moment. In the swirling gusts of my impotence and dissatisfaction, that voice is the brief flash of sunlight, the glimpse of brightness and sensation of warmth that pulls at my consciousness, trying to remind me, trying to bring me back into balance. But like my check book, like the dirty floors plagued by mud and pet hair, my consciousness doesn't seem to balance, doesn't seem to come clean for more than a moment. Then it slides back into that gray, restless state, overwhelmed by itself.

Last night I got reading and lost track of time, it was nearing dawn before I realised how far past time for sleep I'd gone. Facing a day of challenges on a couple hours of sleep doesn't make for getting closer to balance and perspective. I was feeling pensive when I opened my laptop to write about all this, and in the short time it's taken to dash off a few paragraphs, I've gone through a smaller, less intense version of the whirlwind that my mind's been lately. The words aren't right, I'm not expressing what I want to say, my thoughts are disconnected, I don't like what I've written. My pensive state has moved into desperate tiredness (that lack of sleep last night), frustration with the writing process in which I usually take delight, disgust at my own inadequcies.

It's time to turn my head around. It's time, I tell myself, to just suck it up and deal. Use all those clever techniques you know perfectly well, those things you write and talk about so glibly so often. Just go to work and let go of the crap. Just take on one task, one colleague at a time. Just clear off one counter, go through one box of junk. Just pay one bill, make one phone call. But damn, all those ones add up and start to look big again--a lot bigger than the potential payoffs of actually doing them. And here I am again, blowing in the breeze, tossing in the stream, and totally and completely unable to Be Here Now.

But wait! Sudden inspration. The sun comes from behind the clouds, the wind dies down, the air feels sweet and warm. Oooh, I even get a line, Dylan: "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind." Well, hot damn! I'm blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind, things must be well with the world after all. I can handle this shit. Tomorrow is a new day. What am I worried about? It's all good. Look what fun you just had talking to your new friends online, reading all those Twitters, listeining to those new songs you found tonight. Look how sweet the dogs are. sprawled out, contented because Mom is close by and their tummies are full. Look how cute the kitties are, all curled up together on the bed. Good lord, woman, just go brush your teeth and put out the lights, get some sleep. What a silly you are!

Yup. Feeling much better, thank you very much. Wonder if I'll wake up happy or hostile. Wonder if tomorrow will be the day things turn around, or more of the same. Wonder what I'll have for breakfast. Boy, am I tired.

Wonder how we crazy humans ever evolved to be what we are.

FISH-DO. Fuck it. Shit happens. Drive on.

Who gave Time a Speed-Pass?

I find myself wandering into the past today. Ten years ago, I was exploring the eastern side of Aruba with my husband, Chip. I'd given him a surprise trip to a new place (a week on a Caribbean island, no less!) as a Valentine's Day gift. Yeah, in 1999, I could do that. We were both working, we had the comfortable six-figure income, we had the big beautiful home (a 1780s colonial in southwestern Connecticut), we had all the books and music and toys we wanted. The kids, my daughter and his son, were doing well. Life was pretty good. We didn't realize how much we had to lose. Most of all, we had no idea that it would all fall apart, completely, within three short years.

Was that really as much as 10 years ago? Was it really only 10 years ago? It was another world, another lifetime, another me. I'm older, perhaps wiser, though still frustratingly full of human frailty and fragility...

The new century heralded the beginning of The Bad Times. In February 2001, Chip lost his job. A week or two later, he had his first mysterious brush with death: admitted to the ICU in a diabetic coma, in heart, lung, and kidney failure, with double pneumonia and a heart attack for good measure. Two weeks in hospital, two weeks of touch-and-go and "We don't know..." Then they sent him home. Just as mysteriously, he recovered completely, with no lasting damage, with nothing to show that anything had happened at all.

Yeah, February 2001 was the beginning. From then on, a dark cloud followed us everywhere. There were no jobs to be had for Chip, and one by one the clients for whom I did medical writing were cutting back: the dot.bomb fall-out. Crises touched down like tornadoes in our lives and the lives of our friends and relatives. No sooner did we attend to one than another showed up on the radar, racing in from a different direction. Trauma and tragedy became comedic in their proportions. Crying and laughing often seemed the same. Struggling so hard our psyches snapped, we crawled through that year. Did good stuff happen? I have to think hard to remember. Yep, good stuff happened. But it was so overshadowed by the clouds, the precious sustenance it provided lasted only moments and we were once again parched with exhaustion and dread.

Illness. Accidents. Unemployment. Legal problems. Bankruptcy. Death. Misfortune of all kinds dogged us through 2001 and 2002. Chip had another mysterious, too-close-to-fatal illness. Relatives became ill, became hurt, became dead. Friends lost jobs, lost homes, lost spouses. Clawing our way blindly, we often lost ourselves and each other. New afflictions struck us both on what seemed a monthly basis.

In November 2002, Chip's best friend since high school, and an ex-lover of mine, died in his sleep on our living-room sofa. Five days later, I came home from being fired from my new job as a pharmacy clerk, to find Chip unconscious. Two hours later he too was dead, two days shy of his son's 10th birthday. By Spring, still jobless, I had to sell our beloved home.

And now it's Spring again. Where did those years go, and how so quickly? Even here in Maine, where I've lived fairly quietly for almost five years (that many!), the signs of renewal are appearing. The sun melts the snow and warms the mud that lies everywhere the snow is not. My beloved sister is off on her first trip to the Caribbean, and I wonder if I'll ever again have money for such extravagances. My cats and dogs want to be outdoors all day long, and I wonder if I'll ever again have a place big enough for all of us. Well-intentioned friends and my daily inspirational emails advise me not to wallow in the past, and I tell the dogs to stay out of the mud, much to the same effect.

Usually, it's in the autumn that I become restless, questioning, wanting to make changes, wanting something new. But in 2009, the advent of Spring brings me to wonder where I am, and what I'm doing. Where did those years go, and how so quickly? What will become of me, seemingly unable to keep up?

I sigh, and take a deep breath. The sun is still shining, and the lake is still frozen. I think it's time to take the dogs for a walk.

A chip on my shoulder.
I don't know how I managed to fracture my shoulder without knowing it. Really. And it's totally unfair that I should be so inconvenienced and in so much pain without an interesting story to go with. Sky-diving. Barrel racing. Fighting crime. Leg-swept during a really intense session of sparring. Swept off the rocks while communing with ocean waves. Fox hunting. Even snow boarding or ice skating would do. But nothing? That's just ridiculous.

And, the dogs totally do not like my being in a sling, and not able to play with them or rub their tummies, and not feeling up to walks, and not letting them stand up with their paws on my shoulders for kisses (NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! OFF!). Plus I'm a bit crabby.

The cats, on the other hand, don't really care one way or the other. They have been blessedly good sports about not jumping onto my shoulder from the top posts of the bed while I'm sleeping... Perhaps their cat-psychic-powers warn them that I might not react in a completely positive way...

And typing with one arm completely immobilized is wicked hard. That's why this is a short post.

Life with dogs.
Yesterday, we had snow falling. Today, a sunny 48 degrees, and melting snow and ice all over. In Maine, in March, that means MUD. Late this afternoon, we took a walk down the dirt (mud) road, and into the woods, still a good foot deep in snow. The dogs raced down the road like they'd never been out before, splattering mud everywhere and leaving footprints an inch deep. When they got to the woods, they bounded in, once again chest-deep in snow. Koko ran to check out his favorite, blessedly empty, burrow on the hill, while Harley went off to find the best spots for exuberant bear-dog full body rolling. As I watched them both frolicking like puppies, I listened to the buzz of the snowmobiles racing up and down the lake, themselves frolicking in the last weeks of being on the ice.

Walking home, my boots sinking several inches into the sun-squishy mud, I still had to watch for icy patches, and the metal Trax on my boots, while keeping me from slipping on the ice, also collected a pound or two each of earth. Yuk. This kind of weather marks the first stage of mud season in Maine, between winter and spring, marked by days of deep mire where car tires sink six inches into the muck, and night temperatures dropping well below freezing, turning the mud tracks into huge, frozen, solid ruts. Our cars steer themselves through all this, if we're lucky. If we're lucky, the ruts don't get so deep we can't drive through. We did out our rubber boots, cleaning and storing the heavy-duty deep-snow boots for another year. The heaviest parkas move from convenient hooks to hangers, not yet ready to retire for the season but no longer needed every day.

And throughout it all, the dogs. Excited by the sunny warmth, excited by the still-snowy woods, excited by the slowly emerging signs of new life: scents accessible only to them, of sleepily stirring critters beginning wake from hibernation, of new birds returning from winter wanderings, of not-yet-visible new growth that we humans won't be aware of for weeks yet.

The thing about dogs is, as much as I wish winter's clean snows and crisp cold could last longer, as much as I initially despair of keeping two big dogs, and the small house we live in, un-muddied, their enthusiastic enjoyment of whatever comes their way is contagious, and I too begin to take joy in the warming sun, the sloppy earth, and the marks of nature's march onward.

Tonight, we change our clocks, turning them them ahead an hour. But it's my dogs that tell me it's time to enjoy the outdoors in a different way now.

Confessions of a middle-aged network addict.
I meant to go to bed about, oh, five or six hours ago. But then I needed to spend a little more time with the dogs, and then I decided to run the heat for a bit and warm the house up. You see, my heat is currently of two persuasions: "Full Blast" or "No Heat" and nothing in between. And while I waited I thought I'd check in to Facebook, just for a quick look. Which led to looking at my friend's friend's art designs, her photos of her dogs, my nephew's pictures, a home-made zombie video, several animal welfare causes... And I'm not sure how I got started searching for a high-school friend I haven't spoken to since 1973. But that eventually got me logged into MySpace, so I checked out my comments and bulletins and updates and said hi to a couple of people. And then I remembered a link from delicious that I'd wanted to check out when I was cleaning up my tags the other day. Oh, yeah, then I Stumbled a site, which got me Stumbling, which is a never-ending process. And then I got a snack and while I was eating it, logged into Twitter and read a few tweets there. Maybe more than a few. And then I thought, while I'm up, I could get this blog thing going; I've been meaning to do that...

All I want to know is, why do I never have time to clean up my house and tidy the clutter?