We're All Aging

Just some of us are doing it faster than others. Not me, of course. I retain the mind of a child, and no, I’m not going to follow that up with “in a jar on my desk,” though I’m sorely tempted. That should give one indication that I’m not aging gracefully.

One of my dogs, Honey, the charming half chow half retriever I’ve had for what seems like forever, is aging. So far, she’s been rather graceful about it. As graceful as a dog can be, anyway. Like me, she likes her sleep, and, also like me, she still likes to play. Ash, the four year old dog, can run circles around her, and me, but she doesn’t mind so much. She’ll wait until he’s exhausted himself and then pounce on him. She’s still the lead dog, the head honcho, the big kahuna, despite him now being slightly taller. In the middle of the night Ash will wake me up (by staring at me intently) so I can escort him past the big scary lump of dog standing between him and the water bowl. In the morning, as they rush down the stairs together, he jumps all over her, attempting to impede her progress and start play time, but when she’s between him and his food or water, he dares not cross her.

Yesterday when I got up I found Honey, as usual, sound asleep in the bathroom. She falls asleep on her dog bed at night, then during the night she decides the bathroom floor is a better place and moves. Sometimes after this happens Ash then gets off the bed, sometimes off the pillow we share since he’s lately decided he’d rather sleep at my head than my feet, and takes possession of the dog bed, but never while Honey’s around to see him do it.

And yes, I know, what kind of person lets a 60 pound dog sleep on their pillow? Well, now you know.

Honey wasn’t moving much, even when I called her name. No movement. I got closer. “Honey?”

Still nothing.

“Honey?”

Nothing.

So I reached down to pet her, and scared the crap out of her.

Not literally, obviously.

We’ve been testing her hearing ever since, and it’s sort of not there, at least not on one side. One day we have a perfectly healthy dog and the next day she’s deaf. She’s on antibiotics for an abscess in one ear flap and is getting twice a day ear drops, which she’s had before, but she’s never been so . . . deaf.

How can I keep telling my dog how wonderful she is if she can’t hear me? I do it anyway, because I’m not sure what she can hear and what she can’t, and I’m not taking any chances. I used to be able to say her name and her tail would wag, even if the rest of her wouldn’t move, but now, not so much.

This morning she raced downstairs with Ash, out to her favorite place, the back yard, where she could run around and lay in the grass, which is her favorite hobby. She acts like she’s fine, but when I went out to give her another antibiotic I had to go find her around the corner instead of calling her. She seemed to hear me when I got close, but it’s hard to tell when she’s not speaking to me.

Just for the record, my dog has never spoken to me, so this is nothing new.

She’s pretty healthy, overall, for a dog her age. Just two weeks ago the vet said so. Nothing wrong with her, other than that ear thing. I’m hoping to delay her aging process for a long time. Getting her a puppy four years ago helped – I’m certain she got younger when she had a puppy to keep up with.

(Perhaps as we age we should get younger companions since keeping up with them will keep us active? I covered that already by marrying my husband.)

We shower her with love and affection and play time. And in return, she doesn’t bite me when I startle her because she didn’t hear me coming. It’s a fair exchange. Beyond that, we don’t think about it. We’ve got too much present going on to think about the future.

A Book Awaits!

It’s been decided: the next nonfiction book-length project will be essays with family as the theme. The governing board thought this would suit me and let me stick with my strengths. The governing board, for those of you not in the know, is me. I can comprise an entire governing board all by myself because I’ve put on a few pounds in the last few years.

The governing board also laments the lack of my work ethic, but we’re working on a compromise: I won’t tell the governing board where to put their (mine) poorly thought out opinions and the governing board will stop hassling me to do Something That Matters. It’s a good compromise, as long as they stick with their end of the bargain.

Besides, as I like to tell the governing board from time to time, I am engaged in running a business at the same time in order to, y’know, make a living. The governing board scoffs at this, saying that if I were really industrious I’d be working nonstop from 6 am to 1 am, with five hours for sleep.

I counter with the idea that the governing board is not in touch with reality, and that if they’d just get off their high horses (which remind me of Trojan horses, for some reason), they’d understand that I’m also a person and not just a working machine.

Said governing board scoffs back. Etc. We’ve reached an uneasy truce, but I tell you, the board is in danger of getting fired if they veer off course again.

I love my family. Even the ones who can’t stand me. I chalk it up to me not being easily stood at times. Let’s face it, I am a bit of a prima donna. And tactless. I possess no social skills. I don’t remember them on their birthdays. I hardly ever invite them to my family reunions, mostly because I don’t have family reunions. Every family needs someone to look down on, and in my family I was it. I didn’t realize this at the time, I just thought no one liked me.

TURNS OUT I’m not completely unlikeable at all! Sure, my stepmom didn’t like me much, but that’s okay. I’m too much like my mother, and stepmom never cared for mom. Reviewing some of their correspondence from when I was young I can see why. I’m not sure I would have cared for either of them if I had been an adult and not an emotional ping pong ball.

(Note: Said correspondence is only that received from stepmom, since mom kept everything ever sent to her, and it all resides now at my house.)

I’m fairly certain that had any of my siblings had a choice, they would not have selected me for a sibling. But guess what! They had no choice! Hah!  When I first met one set of stepsiblings they openly made fun of me, while accepting my brother into their clan. And my older sister, who was the perfect older age to mentor the stepsister. My stepmother looked at me with no small measure of disgust and said, “Art, you let her go outside like that?”

Art is my dad, in case that wasn’t clear.

My stepmom’s disdain for my appearance/attitude/demeanor carried over into my real life, by which I mean the life outside of my family, but I’m totally grateful to have had a family who provides me so much material. Who needs the whole happy childhood thing when you can instead have things to talk about? Well, in my case, anyway. Hey, it works for me.

That whole hogwash about family being the one place that has to take you in? Hogwash. Family is what you make of it, and some families will take you in, even if you aren’t theirs, and some won’t, even if you are theirs. And some families have to kick you out, lest you spend your life lounging on mom and dad’s couch, which isn’t a good idea in most circumstances.

Ahh, family. I love them all. Doesn’t mean I won’t make fun of them now and then, but as far as I know they don’t actually read the things I write, so I think I’m good. Of course, since I’m compiling these into a book, you can’t read them until then. So sorry. It’ll do you good to wait a bit anyway. 

Tacos and Sunny Days

Today is sunny, a rare thing here in the PNW lately, one of those days that makes me wish I had become a forest ranger instead of an accountant, but then I remember that being a forest ranger sort of involves working all year, not just on the rare nice day. I don’t function in extreme heat or extreme cold, in high winds, in rain or snow, so I’m rather limited. Still, if I could be a writer/accountant on the bad days and a forest ranger on the good days, that might work.

In Yuba City, which is not in the PNW but in California, there is, or used to be, a little taco place. There may be several in fact, but this particular one was housed in a Mexican market, and in bad weather the restaurant section was confined to the back of the store, with utilitarian metal tables. No frills, no amenities. But when the weather was nice, there was an outdoor patio with long wooden tables and servers who would bring fabulous food. I suppose they had food other than tacos, but since I always ordered tacos I’m not sure what that would be. They were the best tacos, and combined with the sunny springlike weather (in the spring, at least), it was my favorite place to eat.

When Stew and I were still just friends we’d meet there often, especially since we met in the spring. Later we’d meet in the summer, and that was good too. If it was a nice Saturday outside and my husband was sulking, which he did pretty constantly since he’d temporarily cut back on drinking, I’d call Stew and say, “Want to go have tacos?” and Stew, being Stew, would always say yes.

We’d meet, have tacos, laugh, talk about whatever on the shaded patio, and somehow my whole unbearable life became easier. I don’t know if it was the tacos, the sun, the company, or the break from the unbearable one, who had become a grumpy old man far before his time, but it restored me so I could go back to my work with a lighter step and a better attitude.

My work at the time wasn’t accounting but writing, which may have made it easier, or not.

Now when the sun comes out in that same shade of warmth, with the sky the deep blue of spring, the kind of blue you can’t find in the summer when the sky is a pale hot blue that tells me to seek air conditioning, I wish that taco place was here, and not 8 hours south. Charming husband and I could sit outside and have tacos on the covered patio. Heck, long as I’m wishing, Stew could be there with us, the three of us celebrating spring and another successful issue put to bed. But Stew’s not here, there are no issues to finish, and the taco store is far away, so Charming husband and I will make do with ourselves and the lovely spring, and count ourselves lucky.

Lucky, by the way, comes right after 10, if you’re really into counting it. I say forget about the counting and just go with it. 

Invisible - Part Two

There are a great many of us who have experienced this, and it’s certainly not restricted to middle aged females, which has been my current season (I was going to write reason, but it is my season as well, like the season of the witch). We are many of us invisible, sometimes for certain times, sometimes to certain groups, sometimes to ourselves, sometimes always. Are we perhaps ephemeral, bare wisps of mist that travel silently among society? Or are we just too quiet about our existence? Should we clamor more for attention? But if we all clamor to be seen all at once, wouldn’t that be quite a cacophony? And who would be there to recognize us? I fear we’d still be invisible to those who don’t see us, we’d be as an annoying little mosquito flying around their heads, and they might swat at us and smack us silly.

Good advice has been given, such as “smile at people.” Since I am known for walking around with a glum look on my face this might help, but it only helps in that moment. As soon as I’ve passed from view there is no recollection of who I was, and this is with friends I’ve had for years.

Okay, that was a lie. My friends know who I am and remember me. To them, I am not invisible. Or so they tell me. And what kind of person would I be to doubt my friends? And besides, I am often quit cheerful when out in public. It’s because I love the public, and I love my life, and I love people. Not all at once, mind you, and not when they’re rude and obnoxious, but generally.

But I digress, as usual.

I was also an unseen child, much like a poltergeist who wanders through the house creating havoc. No one knows who is creating the problems, but they’re sure unhappy about it. Once my stepmother and father had a huge blowout, and it turned out to be about me, which was a mystery since I was unclear on what I’d done wrong this time. I suppose this would be the opposite of a poltergeist. My stepmother knew damn well who was to blame for her failing marriage, and it was her husband’s sneaky lying bitch of a daughter. I was 11, but it’s never too soon to learn to be a sneaky lying bitch.

Fortunately, I had older sisters, one from each of the parents, who would whisk me out of the house when things got bad. We’d drive off to go do girl things and return when the coast was clear.

I had brothers too, but they considered me a source of trouble and avoided me like the plague. That, and I was a girl. Still am, too.

Again, I’ve digressed. Please forgive me.

In my family, I wanted to be more invisible, and less invisible, all at the same time. I was mocked for being a prolific reader, and I was shunned for not being cute. I thought no one could see me at all, and then I thought they saw all too well what sort of loser I was.

I was confused a lot.

When I was in high school there were several occasions when my parents, still the same stepmother and father, who’d managed to reconcile despite my continuing presence, forgot me altogether, leaving me alone waiting for someone to come get me late at night (well, in the dark 9 or 10 seemed late) at a deserted school, and only after I called them and reminded them I wasn’t home did they come for me. “Oh, we thought you were here,” they said, “Oh, we forgot you were there,” they’d say.

To give them credit, they did have a profusion of children wandering around by then, seven altogether, though two had left home by then, so it’s no wonder they’d misplace one now and then. Something had to give, right?

I did some modeling in high school, and everyone expressed, if not shock, at least confusion. I had a face made for being kept hidden in the basement, but I had the form of a runway model. Of course it wasn’t anything glamorous, it was for Sears, not well known for fashion, but I had low expectations. I’d stand in the store and be a mannequin, which was okay as it allowed me to be both invisible and visible all at once, but then some punk kid would walk by and say, “How come that one has zits?” which would completely ruin the allusion that I was unreal. I did a few shows at Sears, and a few country club shows, the kind of mother-daughter event those places like to have. My family was not country club material, obviously. The mother-daughter teams needed a couple of fill-ins, “real” models who wouldn’t mind parading in front of a room of people in bikinis, who could quick change into another outfit, do the runway, pop back for another change and do it again, all as filler for the mother-daughter teams who were agonizingly slow. This was perfect. I was both visible, as the too-tall girl on the runway in the bikini who had to swerve to avoid the chandelier (and what kind of people put a runway under a chandelier?), and invisible, as the fill-in Sears model who was just part of the help.

There are many ways to be invisible, and many ways to feel visible. Though if you feel visible, you’re most likely not noticing it because it seems normal. And if you are visible, you don’t realize that many of us feel invisible – it’s not something we like to advertise because it implies there’s something wrong with us. Of course there’s not, we’re just different. Everyone’s different, which is what makes this all so much fun. If we were all alike there’d be a big crowd at my favorite coffee place and I’d never be able to get a seat, and that just won’t do, will it?

Right now I have to run out and be visible for a short while. Then I’ll revert back to my normal chameleon wrapping. But maybe you could tell me when you feel most invisible. I’m not in this all alone after all.

The Plight of the Invisible

I am told, from certain reliable sources that shall go unnamed, that I am now one of the invisible. This means that I have reached an age at which I can wander freely through society and no one will see me since I am not young and attractive, just middle-aged and running to seed. That, and I’m female, and old females should just stand in the background tending to the world at large. While I could see this as a perfect opportunity to bemoan my lost youth and wonder what happened, I am instead quite irritated that people can still see me.

I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to be seen, though being seen does require me to wear a stunning array of outfits on a daily basis, which is in itself an inconvenience, but wouldn’t it be more fun if I could be unseen when it really mattered? Instead, people see me when I’d rather they didn’t, and don’t see me when I’m standing in front of them, jumping up and down and making the sign of the cross over them in an attempt, however ill-fated, to save their souls. This is not my normal sort of interpersonal interaction, this is only an example.

Just last week I misplaced my car, which isn’t the worst thing that can happen, but it is disconcerting. And when I’m wandering around looking for it I would really like it if people could not see me. I’m sure I look just a bit mad at these times, and that is not an appropriate look when I want people to trust me with their financial data, which is how I earn a living. While I looked for my car people pointed and laughed, and this was especially disconcerting since the parking lot had been empty when I started my search.

I have also found it impossible to escape scrutiny when I’m having a particularly bad hair day, which is every day since I forgot to go to my last appointment and my hair is now several weeks expired. I don’t have charmingly unkempt hair, I have . . . bad hair. It’s just bad. However, if I should get it cut and if it should behave itself for one day, that will be the one day that I will be invisible. People will walk through me and feel only a slight chill, which would be from the iciness of my soul which is starting to be quite irritated at being so ignored.

It is convenient at times, I must admit. When I’ve made appearances at events at which I felt as if I were sticking out like a sore thumb, a giant inept thumb, I’ve later discovered that no one even knew I was there. I could take this one of two ways: 1) I’m not memorable, or 2) I’m invisible. I tend to stick with number 2 because, really, who could forget me? I say this with no small measure of pride.

While I am eager to exploit my invisibleness for my own nefarious purposes, it does tend to inhibit my ability to grow a fan base. At such an advanced age I can’t claim to be a young undiscovered literary genius. Common sense indicates that by this time my genius would have been discovered, somehow , somewhere, despite my best efforts to hide my brilliance under a rock. Isn’t that how it works? But since I am neither young, nor a literary genius (literary competence just doesn’t garner the respect it used to), and I am invisible, I have to work harder at growing a fan base. Unfortunately, I am allergic to hard work. It makes me sneeze, and it makes my eyes water, and it gives me hives.

Which reminds me of a charming story about bees, but I’ll save that for another day.

Meanwhile, I’ll be the one standing in the corner behind the potted plant. I’m really in front of it, waving my arms frantically, but you can’t tell because I’m invisible.

A Stew Dream

Stew was in a dream again this morning. It happens every so often, especially when I’m dreaming vivid action dreams, which are similar to action movies except there aren’t any explosions. Car chases, perhaps, but no explosions.

In a part of my dream which wasn’t connected to the plot of the dream (my dreams always have plots, storylines, and a cast of characters), I was in New York, a place I’ve never been to, other than to switch airports, which doesn’t really give one much time to look around. I was in a place that could have been an airport, or a mall, or a large facility with people traveling to and fro and a wide range of vendors. Call it what you will. My dream locations don’t usually come with labels, or if they do the fine print is too small for me to make out.

I stopped for a minute to look at something on a lower level, just a break for a few minutes from either tracking someone or being tracked, because my dreams are exhausting. And on the slightly lower level I could see a row of one-person video game booths, and on the end one something was going on, some kind of championship. I could see the back of the person currently playing, and it looked just like Stew.

It looked like Stew back before he started wearing shorts all the time, for this Stew had on black pants, and it was Stew without the illness that made his life hell, for he was fine in a sea of people. The mental illness, that is, not the cancer, which was its own hell. He turned his head slightly, and it was him, definitely, and he kept playing. He won then, and he won big, and he turned and walked out of the booth and raised both hands in fist pumps. He was happy and he was calm and he was In Control. He turned and walked out of my field of vision, and he went on to life a good life, wherever it was.

I considered going down to the lower level to see it from that angle, it was such a joy to see him so happy, but then realized I couldn’t, it was over, I couldn’t replay it, and I couldn’t change my vantage point. It was just that one moment out of a time that was perfect for Stew, and there was no going back.

He comes to me now and then to give me messages. Like that one. Each moment is its own moment, and there’s no going back to do it over. I’ve been procrastinating on some things, feeling conflicted about others, and generally letting time get away from me. Sure, it’s been a super busy tax season, and continues to be so, but really, is that any kind of excuse? It shouldn’t be.

It’s a manufactured excuse, because it’s not the real reason I’ve been stalled. It’s a convenient side issue that allows me to procrastinate while I combat my feelings of not being good enough to do the additional things I want to do. If I proclaim myself too busy making money (which in this economy is something I truly appreciate being able to do), I can neglect the things that will carry me forward. It’s like playing Whack-A-Mole, just hitting on the immediate issues right in front of me and ignoring the things in the background.

This post was meant to be about Stew, about seeing him happy and whole. I’m sure that after he passed out of my line of sight he had something to eat, something that was no doubt bad for him but tasted great, and he ate it without having to vomit afterwards, without being in pain, and that too would be unusual for him. But like most Stew things, it’s also about me, and the things he taught me, and the things he continues to teach me. He saved me once, when I first met him, and he continues to be there, reminding me of the things I tend to forget. I’m really lucky that way.

MAGDA - Fiction

I hear the crickets outside, scads of them from the sounds of it. The cats used to care, always wanting out so they could catch them, but now they just sleep right through it, as if they can’t hear them at all. Just two weeks ago there weren’t any crickets at all, at least not that I could hear, but time isn’t standing still, even when it feels like it is, and before long the crickets will fade away too, like everything does, and I’ll still be here, with the cats, listening.

Or maybe it’s frogs I hear. Frogs, crickets, things that make noises in the night when the rest of the world is asleep. I used to think it was peaceful out here, miles from the nearest town, but now I just think it’s dead out here, with nothing alive for miles in any direction, nothing but me and the cats and the crickets and the frogs. 

During the day it’s even quieter, not so much as an airplane overhead or the mail truck passing by on the road. There used to be all kinds of traffic on this road, everyone in a hurry to get from one place to another, and it bothered me, all the noise, and I wished for peace.

Now I have it and I don’t like it, not one bit. I’m not sure when the traffic stopped. Maybe it was when the bypass was built, a better smoother road that takes the people away from this area, as if we’ve ceased to exist. Maybe we have. I can’t really tell anymore.

I used to keep in touch with people out there, people out in the world, but that was when the telephone was still working. Somewhere along the line, perhaps a couple of years ago, the phone stopped working. Maybe I stopped paying the bill, I’m not really sure. I picked it up one day, after months of not picking it up at all, and there wasn’t so much as a dial tone on it. Nothing at all. I would have called to find out, but I had no phone.

Inertia took over from there.

I stopped driving after I had the accident, the one that banged me up pretty bad last year. It was so bad for awhile there I didn’t want to keep going on, especially when they had me in the rehab place. But eventually they sent me back home with my crutches, had a taxi drop me off right at my house, and I just stayed here after that. I had nowhere to go, after all, and no one to see.

It wasn’t always like this, just me and the cats. Used to be we had ourselves a regular life, but that was when Alan was still here, before he run off on me. He said he was tired of me just moping around, never trying to get better, but I did try, I know I did.

Just seemed like no matter what I did things wouldn’t get better, and I never could get myself back into a rhythm.

He left on a Tuesday morning in the middle of April. Things were starting to bloom, spring was coming, and usually that helped, usually I could rouse myself into caring just a little bit, but before that could happen Alan said he’d had enough, that no one should have to live like this forever. I didn’t understand what he meant, though I knew I hadn’t been myself for quite awhile.

“You have to get over it,” he’d tell me, and I’d wonder how he could expect that. How could I get over it as if I didn’t even care? Are men that different that they can just move on so quickly?

And then, “I can’t live like this, Magda, I just can’t.” I didn’t even try to stop him. I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? If he really loved me he’d stay, he’d understand, he’d make me better, but I guess he just didn’t love me enough.

I’m not sure anyone has ever loved me enough, not for me anyway. Not even the cats. They only care for me because I feed them, and I feed them because I love them. But they don’t love me back, not like I want them to.

It’s lonely out here, that’s the truth, but what am I to do? I don’t know anyone out there in the world anymore. All that ignoring people and hiding out got me the exact result I thought I wanted, and now no one knows of me at all. Knowing of me is the most basic of knowing, and what I really want is for someone to know me. But no one knows of me anymore, much less knows me.

I was never the most sociable of women anyway, always waiting for others to come to me. But I made myself agreeable. I laughed at their jokes, I listened to their stories, I put on a face that I thought said to them, “please be my friend.” And it worked, for a while, or at least it seemed to.

Until I turned them all away when they came out, all so concerned and sympathetic. I hated the sympathy, I hated the way they looked at me as if they pitied me. And so I hid, and I sent them away, and they went away and forgot all about me. Just like I wanted. And then there was only Alan, and now there’s no Alan either.

There’s nothing but me and the cats, and the frogs and the crickets. I can’t even remember how long ago it was that Alan left, how long I’ve been here alone. I’ve got my garden, but over the winter I finished off all the canned goods. Not sure how long I can go on like this, but I can’t go back out to the world now. I don’t know how anymore. I lost my way.

I sleep a lot now. It’s something to do, and when I sleep I dream of the beach, and the boardwalk where Alan and I used to go in the summer, sometimes in the winter too, when no one else was there and the sky was dark and the wind would put a chill right through us. We didn’t care, we loved it when we were together. I don’t even know if the beach is still there, if the boardwalk is right where we left it, but in my dreams it’s all the same, so I’ll keep that. I wouldn’t like to go there and find out it was gone, or that it had changed. I want it just like it was, and so I’ll keep it in my dreams where it won’t ever change.

That’s why I like the past. It doesn’t change, it just is. There’s nothing scary there, for I’ve already been there. I’d live there all the time, if I could, but sometimes I have to wake up and feed the cats, feed myself, take care of what little life I have left.

It’s not so bad, I tell myself. At least the worst has already happened, and nothing can ever be that bad again.

It helps me sleep, that little bit of knowing that nothing else can ever hurt like that again. If it weren’t for that, I think I might go insane.