Silent night.

(I'm not cheating on you, but I posted this on Facebook today because I wanted to send love as far as it would reach.)

Friends and family, I love you. Those I don’t know well enough to love like that (because it’d be weird)---I love you as fellow human beings and as my sisters and brothers on the planet.

I had a fall to my knees, “Why, God? Why?” moment when I heard the news today---full on Sally Field. I thought of those parents and the mammoth agony tearing through them now and how it will inhabit them always. I thought of the presents they might have in their closets and how much it will hurt to look at them in these next days when they reach for a sweater. How they may beat themselves up for not giving their child some special sled or stuffed animal the moment s/he asked for it, waiting instead for a Christmas morning that never came. I thought of how much sorrow this time of year will bring them from now on.

My thoughts shifted then to what to do? What to do for those people and also what to do with my own pain.

And there’s nothing really to be done...except to tell everyone I love them.

It’s all I can think of. I don’t feel like being angry with anyone this particular moment. I understand the anger---we’re grieving and anger is a part of it. But while I’m sure I will feel angry tomorrow or in 10 minutes or in a few months or for a few months, right now I am not angry, nor do I judge those who are. There is no sense to be made of any of it, so I am closing my eyes and trying to picture a current of love flowing from my own tight chest southwest to Connecticut. I’m picturing my love and prayers meeting yours there and holding those families tonight. I know I sound like a smelly hippie---I know. But maybe prayer does something. Maybe energy helps with healing. And as it’s the only way I can figure to help, I’m putting love out there in the hope that it contributes to some greater collective love that reaches those families and all who are hurting tonight.

So, all of you---even you, person whose status updates sometimes bug me---I love you.

I also wanted to share this from Brene Brown's latest book, Daring Greatly.

“When I asked people who had survived tragedy how we can cultivate and show more compassion for people who are suffering, the answer was always the same. Don’t shrink away from the joy of your child because I’ve lost mine. Don’t take what you have for granted – celebrate it. Don’t apologize for what you have. Be grateful for it and share your gratitude with others. Are your parents healthy? Be thrilled. Let them know how much they mean to you. When you honor what you have, you’re honoring what I’ve lost.”

I’m opting for a night of quiet and gratitude tonight. I have a warm home, a pretty tree in the living room, and all the kids I love made it through the day safely today. I am grateful for this and to be alive and for the capacity for gratitude. Love you all...even you FarmVille weirdos.

Peace to all your hearts.

'Cause no matter how far away you roam

I'll be thinking of them...

So, the battery story ended like this: It wasn’t the battery that was the problem.

I didn’t get out to get a new one so Dan brought one home. It’s a good thing because imagine my frustration had I made a mission of it and then realized it wasn’t the battery at all. Goddamn Motherfucking Frustrated, that’s what I would’ve been. GMFed.

Turns out there is something wrong with the opener’s receiver or something...I don’t know, I lost interest. Dan called our landlord and the situation is pending. (I will miss the magic of the landlord bat phone should ever we buy a house). When I first started writing the Goddamn Motherfucking Battery entry it was titled, “The Psychology of a Monday Morning” because there was more to it than my simply verbally swatting at Dan for being a Goddamned Motherfucking Mosquito buzzing in my ear with his barrage of questions. (Words must be chosen carefully when spoken before I’ve had my coffee. This was in our vows.) Mostly it was the stuff of two people who could’ve used one more day in the weekend. (It was also a little bit the stuff of, Are we still having this conversation? Just write it the fuck down. And also the stuff of, Didn’t I say months ago that we really ought to figure out how to work the code in case we lose the opener? And, if I’m being fair to Dan, it was also the stuff of, My Darling Lola, it must be hard being so right all the time.)

Bottom line is we’ve been able to get into the garage because my brain somehow retained the four-digit code the woman who had the garage before us assigned it (It is hard, my oft-wrong Danny) and for some reason it's working now. I don’t know why I’m even still talking about the goddamn motherfucking garage opener. Maybe so you’ll finally rest easy tonight knowing that Dan and I are no longer separated from our crap.

And we're getting our extra day this weekend.

Remember this little trip from last year ?

Well, Dan really liked the whole Christmas card/shopping getaway so this time we’re heading up to North Conway which is just about two hours north of where we live. My family rented a place up there every February vacation when I was a kid and those trips were a lot of what got me to pick New Hampshire when I decided to move from RI all those years ago. It’s funny though---I went there every year as a kid but have maybe been there three times in the last twelve years of living here. Not sure why. I’m looking forward to the getaway, though I know there will be some sad turns down Memory Lane.

It’s just how it goes. The first Christmas without both my parents on the planet. The shock surrounding my dad's death is fading, leaving only the throb of loss. I miss my mom every single day, that never fades. It's even more pronounced during this season. I was so the kid who packed all my dirty laundry into the car and blasted “Home for the Holidays” as I set out for my parents’ house every December. Home for the Holidays was my mom. It was her huge greeting---”My Laura is home!”---from the table when I walked into her kitchen. It was my Dad coming in because he heard my mom’s excitement and asking if I wanted him to put on a fire. Home for the Holidays is the saddest thought to me now because there is no such thing anymore. I was lucky to have had it, I know. And I am lucky for Dan, my home now, but Home for the Holidays is another loss in all of this. So I can’t pretend this season doesn’t have a sadness to it now for me. It’s a constant chest ache even during moments of joy.

So, I know there will be some of that this weekend especially as I see the old spots where my family went cross-country skiing or where I can remember my dad breaking out the video camera and my mom doing head counts of all us kids and our friends. And Dan knows that---I think he wants it for me even. He’s the one who booked the place and then got on me to make an appointment for a massage while we are there. He just gets it---all seven hundred emotions I feel at once. How the good days are ones where I cry because it means there’s release and a break from fighting all of it back.

He’s my Home For The Holidays now. No Goddamn Motherfucking pressure, Boo.

(Pretty snow pictures to come if there is pretty snow up there! If not, pictures of dirty side-of-the-road snow to come!)

What kind of battery was that again?

We need to replace the battery in our garage door opener. Because the code for the garage keypad has never worked, the remote opener is our only means of access. Fortunately we don’t keep a car in there and it’s only a spot for storage---but still, we need to be able to get in there.

This morning, as Dan got ready for work and I sat trying to get an early writing start, he said he would pick said battery up at the store today.

I, unsure if perhaps I would want to get into the garage before his approximate 7pm return home, suggested he write the battery size down for me just in case I wanted to tend to the task myself before then.

Apparently, “before” is a complicated concept to digest because it seemed to confound Dan. Why, he wondered, would he write the size of the battery down on the off-chance that I make it to the store when he would definitely be making it to the store and purchasing said battery today.

I had not yet realized the extent of the communication impasse we had reached and didn’t look up from my work---nor elaborate on the concept of before---and suggested he write it down just in case.

But “just in case” was not enough to squelch the fire of incomprehension that roared inside Dan, who again questioned the necessity of his writing the battery size down.

“I might want to get in there, so can you just write it down in case I---”

“But I am telling you I am going to pick it up today, so why would you also pick it up?”

“CAN YOU JUST WRITE THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SIZE OF THE BATTERY DOWN SO THAT I CAN GET IN THERE BEFORE YOU GET HOME IF I WANT?”

Seems an entirely appropriate response even now, hours later.

After he left for work, I found this on the counter:

It is in these moments that I love Dan the very most.

It hurts to write. No, really...

Hello, Lovelies Out In The Universe Whom I’ve Been Avoiding But Whom I Miss and Love. That includes you, Friends I Haven’t Called Back. And also you, Adored Ones Whose E-mails I Have Not Returned. Hugs to ya, Everyone I’ve Let Down.

Apologizing feels a little weak at this point since I’ve done it so many times, but what I’m really just sorry about is that I’m doing the best that I can and sometimes that best falls short of demonstrating how much I care about and am grateful for All Of You. So, I’m not so much sorry for my absence as I am just regretful of the unfortunate circumstances that have limited my capacity for consistency with regard to human interaction. (I should really write greeting cards.) There’s a dearth of consistency on the whole in these parts. Or, to put it less writery and rationalizey----there are good days and bad.

I’m sitting here going back and forth between explaining what’s been up/ keeping me away or not doing that because it will feel boring to you and blah, blah, blah to me.

But of course part of my intention in keeping this blog going through my parents’ illnesses and deaths was to share the experience honestly, so trying to edit myself now that they're gone in order to sound less whiny (or sad) sort of defeats the purpose...and also causes two-month posting gaps.

Since today’s small goal was to simply show up, I’ll keep the explanation of where I've been brief. Really it’s just the stuff of dead parents, depression and anxiety, oh my. Just that. Really, boiled down, it’s just that.

Sometimes I need to isolate. Sometimes I feel too fragile for the vulnerability required to share my work. Sometimes it’s just too painful to write.

Emotionally painful, yes, but as of late it’s been physically painful as well.

About a month ago I made an appointment with the eye doc figuring I just needed stronger glasses because I was increasing the font on my computer to size 87-year-old, and the doc discovered I had a hole in my retina and sent me to see a retinal specialist. (There is such a thing.) Though it had taken me over a month to get an appointment with the eye doc, I got an appointment with the retinal specialist just a week later, something I now recognize to be indicative of an urgency I didn’t pick up on at the time. This was when I learned that not only was there a hole, but my retina was actually partially detached and I needed to have laser treatment...that very day. The idea is to scar the area around the tear so that it can’t rip further. This is done by BURNING MY EYEBALL WITH A FUCKING LASER! It was some crazy shit, guys. I had my face in a machine and there was a flashing green light searing my eyeball and I might have even time traveled for a minute. When the nurse led me out to Dan in the waiting room afterwards---eye patch and all---I declared (with a smidge of whimper), “I was brave!”

Dan couldn’t be in the room for the procedure because the doctor said something about the indirect laser exposure being a risk to him (although apparently perfectly safe when aimed directly into my retina and right through to my soul). But he was able to be with me before the procedure and watched as I GOT AN INJECTION IN MY EYEBALL! He said the anesthetic created a bubble of fluid on the surface of my eye, though in all my Googling I’ve not been able to find a picture of it so I can only offer Dan’s artistic rendering.

That is exactly what my face looked like. He could probably do courtroom sketches.

The whole procedure made my eyes pretty sensitive in general this last month---reading and light were especially tough----but it worked. My retina is not likely to rip further though I’ll have to have my other eye examined somewhat regularly since I’m predisposed to this kind of thing now. The seriousness of the situation was again made clear when I saw how relieved the retinal specialist was at my follow-up appointment to see that it had gone as planned. He said I was really lucky it was caught when it was---totally a fluke thing since I didn’t have the typical symptoms. If it had detached entirely, I could have had permanent vision loss.

It’s pretty messed up and there’s no explanation for it. Not aging, not advanced diabetes, not a blow to the face. Everyone kept asking me if there had been trauma or injury and I think it was code for, “Is everything okay at home?” which amused me to no end since of course Dan is Dan and, let’s be honest, the least likely of the two of us to be the abusive spouse.

He is, however, the most likely to say that were I to lose my vision he would rearrange the furniture and watch me stumble around the apartment. This was his first thought upon hearing that I could have gone blind.

My first thought: I’ll have to learn how to write dirty words in Braille.

So you see, I have been thinking of you guys...

Just thinkin'

Tonight Dan and I are going to see Idina Menzel in Boston. She's famous now but the first solo show of hers Dan and I saw was at the Regattabar in Cambridge---a famous, but really intimate jazz club inside the Charles Hotel. I didn't even really know what she looked like then, so when Dan told me as we stepped off the elevator in the hotel that we had just shared the ride with her, I was shocked and then pissed that I missed it. Though I do recall that I was a little drunk---we had just finished a bottle of wine on the back deck of a little Italian restaurant near the hotel--and I'm sure I would have embarrassed myself. Tonight's show is at the Wang Theater...I'm doubtful we'll ever share an elevator again.

It's been hard to get myself out of the apartment lately---in large part because I'm writing again, so I'm not complaining---but I am making myself go (and made myself buy the tickets) because Idina Menzel's voice is nourishment for me. The thing about music is---there's no thinking, just feeling. As a person who can muck up feelings with layers and layers of thought, music is sometimes a Lola-to-Lola (Lola-to-Laura? Laura-to-Lola? Sybil-to-Sybil?) translator. With music, my brain gets totally bypassed as the processing center and while sometimes the result is the stuff of shedding a mood to dance alone in the car, often the result is sudden, aching weeping. It's why sometimes I dodge musical entirely but also why it's sometimes the only way to get release and relief.

I'm a little nervous going into the concert tonight though---like I'm bracing to be ripped open. The last time we saw her was the spring of 2010---two months after my mom was diagnosed---and for the encore she sang "Tomorrow" from Annie and my whole body just caved in on itself as the tears roared up in an out-of-nowhere cry. Because just thinkin' about tomorrow all of a sudden felt totally terrifying. I saw that tomorrow and the tomorrow after that and those that would follow would be the tomorrows when my mom would get sicker. Would be the tomorrows that would take me to the tomorrow when she'd be gone. I could take being stuck with this day of gray and lonely forever because my mom was still alive. She sang that tomorrow was only a day away and it felt like a threat. I was overcome with panic that I couldn't stop time. I cried and thought, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I hate you. Stay the fuck away.

The song doesn't offer any more comfort now, even as I know that the cobwebs and the sorrow of today are exactly what it promises relief from. When I listen to it now it feels like my chest muscles are straining to hold a load beyond their strength---the weight of yearning for yesterday, steeling myself for today, and fighting for the absence of fear and the cultivation of enough optimism to want tomorrow. Time feels like a betrayal now and tomorrow is a day traveled further from my mom and dad and the memories of their smallest details. Tomorrows fade the details, they already have. People look down on visiting your yesterdays, but I never feel worse than when I tell myself I shouldn't look back. That's what now feels like to me. I know I should want tomorrow---I know it's coming (it came) no matter what I want, so it would be helpful to look forward with hope. But this is the stuff of thinking versus feeling that I was talking about. What I know is moot---what I know has no power and soothes me not.

It will be a barometer of healing, this song. If listening to it ever again reminds my heart (as it used to) that time holds dreams instead of pain, well then I'll know that, wow, I'm in that tomorrow now. I've already felt whole minutes of that tomorrow, just not whole days. And maybe that's what this song will eventually mean to me---that time is no longer concrete. That yesterdays, todays and tomorrows will just always exist on top of each other from now on...come what may and come what already has.

Even in this post I've gone from feeling to thinking (hence the time-as-abstract-concept meanderings). I'm sure I'll love the concert. It will unlock me from my brain.

My dad's birthday is next month and I've been shutting my eyes when I think about, like I'm hiding from my own thought. The two-year anniversary of my mom's death will be days later. My body is re-experiencing her dying---the trauma of watching her get sicker, of not being able to protect her from her pain and fear, of knowing she was going---through the cellular memories triggered by the changing season. This used to be my favorite time of year and I am hiding from the leaves she loved---we wheeled her onto the deck to see them---and the memories carried on the changing air: her hand holding mine, our connection still tangible and resting on the lap of her cotton nightgown; hugging my crying father as we stood alone on an early fall morning and said to each other, she's gone.

And now you're gone too, Dad. And your birthday is coming up.

My body is telling me in its cute way---insomnia, conjunctivitis and a cold sore---that it's best if I just acknowledge this escalation of sorrow rather than create further sickness with my resistance. It's a time for self care and compassion and I'm trying. I began beating myself up for something yesterday and then I heard myself saying, "You're doing the best you can, you're doing the best you can, you're doing the best you can." I heard it afterwards, as if through a two-second delay and I thought, when did that voice move into the neighborhood? I ought to make her a pie.

I'm dreading the holidays. Better that I say it out loud than try to pretend I feel otherwise because I think I should or wish I could. In bed the other night I told Dan that I wish I could just wake up in January and it made him sad because he once knew a Lola who lived for this time of year.

I don't think I'll feel this forever---today just feels sad.

Tomorrow? I'm not betting my bottom dollar on sun, but I do feel grateful to have one.

Also, the lines on my computer are all wavy.

So...hi.

Hi, guys.

hi.

I am trying this now because, well, I miss being a writer and I miss you all and I'm so close to hallucinating, having slept maybe five hours in the last 48, that I figure a blogpost will be proof that this night really happened.

I CANNOT sleep. CANNOT. cannot. It's been days of this.

And it's not the productive kind of not sleeping---it's the cracked out kind. It's the a-brain-can-really-only-take-so-much-of-this kind.

This is going to be a strange reentry to our thing here, isn't it? And I'm just going to try to go with it---no picture, and blob-like as it is---because lowered expectations on the whole are probably a good thing.

I'm seeing spots.

Love y'all.

Something fierce.

I've been drinking!

Dear guys,

That’s how I just started this post---as a letter. Like I’m writing to my family from prison.

I’m not in prison, though I do watch MSNBC’s Lockup to help me get to sleep. (Dan has suggested that this is unwise but I think he’s just mad because I ripped a hole in our mattress so I’d have somewhere to store my toothbrush/shank.)

I’ve been gone because...

I’m just sad---that’s the title of the memoir at this point.

I’m just still fucking sad. (And there’s book number two.)

I’m sad and pissed and just all sorts of unpleasant right now. (A self-help trilogy?)

It boils down to this: I miss my mom and dad and I wish they hadn’t died and I’d like things to just go back to how they were when I was stalking my next-door neighbor and all was right with the world. (The fact that writing those words makes me feel like a 10-year-old kid does not help.)

I’m assuming at this point that you understand my longish absences to mean I’m struggling/hiding. Maybe I should change the entry titles while I’m gone to keep you posted on the state of things---a sort of Spew weather channel.

Monday: Hot Mess.
Tuesday: Miserable Fuck.
Wednesday: Trying to not worry and be happy.
Thursday: Bobby McFerrin is a douche.
Friday: Inexplicably horny.
Saturday: Aha---ovulating. God’s a dick for making everything harder for chicks and inventing centipedes. Also, giving both parents cancer and nabbing them? Not cool, Dude.
Sunday: (Intentionally left blank.) (Despondent.)

The last few weeks were actually more the stuff of anguish, mania, and a kind of pathetic bewilderment that took the following form:

I painted the wood paneling in my dad’s office white.

I watched the entire first season of Showtime’s Episodes. (And also what’s aired of the second season. Solid show.)

The form it did not take: writing.

That’s not true, actually. I was writing. I just stopped writing. It’s more cause of the crazy than effect.

See, I wrote my way into a sad patch---I often can’t see where I’m going---and then I ran. I painted. I Episode-ed. I ran and ran.

I tried to write an e-mail to a friend and the sad patch showed up there too! The computer ratted me out! So I ran again.

The sad patch wants to be written and I don’t want to write it. I don’t want to feel it.

So I’m putting on a third coat of paint in the office.

I’m thinking of getting into Web Therapy.

Also, I’ve made a new friend. Her name is white wine and she’s the shit! She’ll hang out any time of day---screw 5pm! She’s pretty much orange juice’s prettier, more sophisticated cousin.

Sometimes though...sometimes...right now...white wine brings along sad patch and I’m like, “What the fuck, white wine? I thought you were cool!”

And she’s all, “Really? I’m pretty sure you learned in 10th grade about my depressant properties.”

And I’m all, “Did you really just say ‘depressant properties’? Cool it with the three-syllable words, Miss Smarty McSmartSmart.”

And she’s all, “You’re going to have to look at sad patch sometime. You might as well---”

And with that, I have to run.

I know I sound like a fucking lunatic. I know.

But it’s coming on fast and I’m feeling too sad to breathe so I have to go.

More to come.

Love,
Lola

Hostess Cupcake O'clock

Hostess Cupcakes were my mom's favorite treat...mine too when I was a kid (and again now). When I was young, I would walk up to Cumberland Farms and get each of us a package (two per person, the way it should be) and surprise her with them when I got back. Then we'd sit at the kitchen table or out on the deck and eat them together---a cup of coffee complementing hers, a glass of milk with mine. She was always so delighted by our little cupcake parties---our stealing a few minutes of the day for this little bit of fun.

And I was delighted by the chance to steal her.

As I spend time at the house now, working on my parents' gardens or writing, I always take a break for what I now call Hostess Cupcake O'clock---a time to just stop whatever I'm doing and sit down by the river and appreciate the beauty of the day or think of my parents. It's much more reverent than a moment of silence.

Today I'm taking it at my mom's spot at the kitchen table---another most sacred place.

How I spent my summer vacation

You didn't think I was going to follow through, did you? (Missing from photo---some of my favorite people.)

I didn’t want to feel sadness going into our Chatham vacation but there it sat. In my chest. It’s always in my chest. As I folded each thin cotton dress and set aside each pair of worn flip flops, I thought of her. I thought of how much my mom would love to be joining us on this trip. I thought about how seeking joy, no matter how much I know she would want it for me, feels like I am betraying her.

And then I danced alone in my bedroom on a Tuesday morning.

I visited Chatham for the first time two summers ago when Bec and Jeff first invited us to join them at the house they’d rented there. By that time, five months after her diagnosis, my mom had tried two kinds of chemotherapy and a grueling round of radiation and was beginning to feel like and know that she was dying. We all had hoped she would join us in Chatham but she just didn’t feel well enough. I didn’t want to leave her but I was tired. I had been to every appointment since her diagnosis and thought I owed it to myself and especially Dan to take the week for vacation. My guilt and worry were exacerbated when I checked in with my mom each day via text message and learned she was getting worse. She was supposed to have chemo that week---the first treatment I’d be missing---and she skipped it. I read magazines on a towel warmed by the Chatham sand and tried to pretend I didn’t know how poorly she was doing.

As I packed for this year’s return to that beach, I thought of all of this. Here I was again trying to forget her. I felt constipated in my chest.

And then a song from the Broadway version of The Lion King came on---out of my shuffled iPod rose Circle of Life. I closed my eyes and listened. My neck started to roll in rhythm with the swelling chorus and as my arms rose above me, I lifted my knees and set each foot back down in gentle stomps. My hands swayed through the air as my body moved. I felt my mom telling me to go down to Chatham and love my sisters up for her. To love up my Aunt Gail who joined us from Miami. To love up my brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews. To let myself be loved up. That it didn’t mean I was forgetting her. That it was our turn for the long beach days that she had enjoyed so many of during her life.

I did a white girl’s tribal dance and then I finished packing.

****************************************************************

I spent our week in Chatham at the intersection of joy, sorrow, love and anxiety---a four-way stop where each emotion took its turn without pattern, unsure who had the right of way. We packed coolers of food and stared at the ocean all day in a semi-circle of beach chairs, family and love. But afterwards, as I hung towels over the railing and thought of my mom doing this chore on summer evenings, sorrow took and squeezed my heart. At night we did puzzles and laughed and talked over big delicious dinners, good coffee, and fresh blueberry and key lime pies. And then I’d go out on the porch alone for a bit with a glass of wine and let myself think of her text messages.

“I skipped chemo today. I don’t think I’m going to do it anymore.”

It was a great week---a wonderful week in so many ways---but the sad tugging never quite left me. My sisters probably felt the same but we didn’t talk about it as much as you’d think we would have. It’s hard to synchronize our grief. The aching, working, sobbing, writing, child-raising and anguish of our days rarely coincide. Or maybe like so many other families hit by tragedy, we just don’t know how to talk about it. We just try to get through the days.

But when everyone packed up their damp bathing suits and greasy half-used bottles of suntan lotion to leave Bec and Jeff to enjoy the rest of their vacation without us, the grief came through in the heaviest of good byes. Our sadness was left for the last moments of the trip when our hearts dropped together, contained and disguised by the busyness of getting out the door. We all felt it, some of us cried. We hugged good bye and it was every good bye. The good bye with our mom and dad, the good bye with the house, the good bye to life innocent of this pain. It was the good bye in which we now exist. And it was good bye to a reprieve from the ache of pretending out in our individual worlds, that we are hurting less than we are.

When one of my sisters started welling up, I locked the door of the bedroom behind us and told her to let it out, to give herself that one minute to cry. She took just the minute. Then she put on her sunglasses---we all put on our sunglasses---and we walked out the door.

We emerged from our vacuum and felt the sorrow of not being able to keep each other in our pockets.


Photos by Becky Breslin. Also, there is an entire sister/Ohio constituency/family that was missing from this trip and is missing from these photos. Don't you think they should move east?

Chatham on Dwellable

I'm under that hat and towel.

...sun-lover that I am.  And I'm on my back as you can tell from my ample bosom.  See 'em?  (Photograph by Becky Breslin)

As they say in England, I was on holiday---which sounds much lovelier and not so socks-and-sandals as vacation.  Dan and I were in Chatham staying with my family at a house that  Bec and Jeff rented down there and generously opened up to all of us.  Then Dan and I  took our time (and an overnight) getting off the Cape before heading down to RI where I am now on this perfect 10---sunny, breezy, glistening river---day.  I am writing from a rocking chair on my parents’ front porch, if you must know how truly picturesque this scene is.  

I should have told you I’d be gone but I really thought I was going to check in during our trip.  In fact, I have about five half-written entries from the last two weeks that I just never got to posting. It’s a hard thing for me---that balance between living life and writing about it.  I remember thinking that I should have been writing more during my mom’s illness---capturing every conversation, every handhold---and then realizing that I didn’t want to miss a minute that I could be spending with her to be alone writing about it (in any capacity that required my spelling words correctly).  It was much the same in Chatham. Should I find a quiet spot to write about how the joy of my family gathering at the beach like we did as kids is tempered by the sadness of knowing how much my mom would love to be here?  Or should I head out to the back deck with my sisters and eat blue cheese on rice crackers with a cold glass of chardonnay?  


You see the dilemma?

It’s one I have here at my mom and dad’s house too.  Like with my parents, I am aware that these are my last days with the house.  Do I find a quiet spot to shape my feelings on all of this into a topiary?  Or do I scribble out pages of messy reflections in my journal and then get out in the gardens for a good bye with this home and the sense of my parents that dwells here.  I will spend my life fighting the urge to stay in my head and analyze and the need to get out of it and live, but this is different---this is death.  Any day now---any day the universe decides upon---these gardens will no longer be mine to tend.  I would regret missing my chance to prune my dad’s roses and water my mom’s brilliant purple hydrangeas were I to miss it.

And while vacation doesn’t hold this same weight, my trying to engage with the world and allow moments of joy does---which is why I tried so hard to stay on vacation rather than retreat into writing.  But there’s so much joy I get from writing and hanging out with you guys here, so I’m never really sure where I should be.  Mother fucking balance---I’ll be trying to find it forever.  

I’m going to try to shape what I wrote while in Chatham into some sort of “How I spent my summer vacation” to post here but I’ve put in eight writing hours already today and the yard is calling me.  Maybe today I found a smidge of balance.  Maybe I just have to accept that this is a time of imbalance.  The truth is---whether it’s in Chatham or New Hampshire, in the gardens or on the porch---I have to consider it a good day when I’m standing at all.

It might kind of be cheating to post this video here since it already had its Facebook premiere and some of you have seen it---but, c'mon, it needed a Spew showing.

Plus---who knows?---maybe the next owner of this here MicroMachine (remember, if it doesn't say MicroMachine it's not the real thing) is one of us! (Or one of your friends who was just telling you how as a kid she always wished that she would grow up to drive the Barbie Dream Car.)

Dan bought the car for himself when I was living in New York. I came up to NH for a visit and we were walking from the train station where he picked me up to what I assumed would be his regular car (a black VW Beetle nonconvertible)----and there it was. Surprise. (It was dark out so it took me a minute to notice...) We've gone on some fun drives in the seven years since then. And nobody loved this car more than GiG. But we inherited my dad's Jeep Liberty so it seemed like time to say good bye to the bug. (Though I am kind of digging being a three-car family...choosing which car to drive each day conjures the childhood joy of picking a cereal for breakfast.)

Anywho, I'm heading down to RI for an overnight at my parents' house. Dan and I feel a sense of duty to tend to their gardens since it's the first summer that neither of them are here to do it. If any of you guys down there are interested in looking at the car, we'll be down there next week too. (Just shoot me an e-mail with LOLA MELLOWSKY IS A BADASS in the subject line.

I'm not trying to be Sally Salesperson here, I just figured I would put it out there. Plus, I'm hoping the video is enough fun to pardon the fact that I've just posted my first ad at The Spew.

Thanks for the "Baby Steps" sugar, y'all. Here's to more of 'em!

P.S. We've already lowered the price of the car (since making the video) to $6,000. And there may be a SPEW discount...

Baby Steps to The Spew. Baby steps to The Spew.

Hi, guys.

Can we just start there?

I’ve missed you fuh real.

You know when you miss someone and you want to call them and you have so much to say but are just not sure when you will have the time/energy to have the phone (or e-mail) conversation you really want to have with them so you put it off, thinking you’ll wait until you have the time to really talk, but that time doesn’t come and now more and more has happened so the phone call feels even harder and, worse, you feel further away from your friend because so much has happened (for her too, you’re sure) and you don’t know how you’ll possibly jump into the initial conversation you wanted to have with her, let alone cover all the new ground, and it’s all feeling a little overwhelming because this friend is really important to you and it breaks your heart to think that she might be feeling otherwise.

You know how that sometimes happens?

Well, you guys---I’m a fuck. Sorry I haven’t called.

I’ve felt such unease about this and for so many reasons. First of all, I miss you. I miss us. We had this great thing, you and I.

C’mon, boo, look at me.

Ain’t nobody got eyes pretty as yours, baby.

(Cue Boys II Men).

(99% of my 1994 make-out sessions went down while this song was playing.)

I'm really not trying to change the subject.

I have so much I want to tell you

Except I can’t. Not in one breath.

This is all feeling very frightening all of a sudden.

I told myself that I would unpack it in parts. See, there’s this thing that happens when I’m having a hard time--my defenses go down and in walks anxiety like the bitch never stopped owning me. There have been moments---weeks, months even---when I was sure I had her beat, but she smells my weakness and shows up just in time to judge me for crumbling. And she always kicks me square in the writer. The more time and energy I’ve spent with a piece, the harder she kicks me. She shows up right at the end----right after I’ve gotten in all down, right in that moment where the tiniest bit of satisfaction could be---and chastises me for every word I’ve written. Try hitting “publish” after that. The bitch owns me, you see?

It’s not always like this (or this blog would never have been born), but it's definitely the story of now. So rather than trying to fight through it, I’m going to try to accept my limitations and work with it because I want to hang out with you guys. I’m thinking if I start small rather than trying to say it all at once, well then maybe I can get this written and posted and then be out of the room before anxiety shows up.

Be straight with me---do I sound a little unstable right now?

I do, right?

A smidge?

No, it’s cool. I am unstable.

But, c’mon, this is the shit that makes heroin addicts---I can live with unstable.

What I can’t live with---and what today’s baby step blog entry will be about---is that I pulled such a no-show here. Well, I can’t live with it anymore. I needed a minute and I know you got it, but at some point it became about me putting off that phone call and you were getting further away. But because you guys are wicked awesome, you started checking in and gently nudging me back here. One of you even wrote, “Not for me to say it’s time," which is a statement of such tenderness and compassion and respect---something you all have shown me so much of---that it made so clear to me that it was for you to say it was time and thank gawd you did. And then yesterday I read a wonderful piece written by friend Amy about how “your blog will change your life” and I realized how much it really has. Which is to say, how much all of you have changed my life. You have. Fuh real. (You still are.) Because you guys were there, I wrote my way through my parents’ deaths---it’s a gift you gave me. Your support and love kept me writing and now I have an account of this time. You are all a part of this story. You were in the hospital room with me as I sat at the foot of my mom’s hospital bed while she slept . You were there for the last cup of coffee I had with my dad.

These aren’t small moments and I’m so grateful for you for being there then and being here now. That’s why it was time for me to show up again. I don't know where I'm going or what the timeline will be----and I gotta get outta here before I start overthinking it---but I hope you guys will be there.

Baby steps to The Spew. Baby steps to the publish button.

Love all y’all.

Bleeding Heart

Before my dad died, I told my sisters that even though we now knew death, we would feel something entirely different with his passing---something we couldn't then anticipate or know. I was right. I could not have imagined the pain of this medley of loss before being wrecked by it. The wound of my mom is wide open. My dad’s death is just becoming real. And we are readying to sell my childhood home, the symbol of everything I knew for sure during the first 30 years of my life.

Now I know nothing for sure.

People say they will accomplish certain things in their “next life.” It feels now like I am in a tidal wave of death and endings and that in my next life I'll be a person without parents.

I am writing this on a folding chair on the balcony off my parents' bedroom, looking down the lawn out to the river. The birds are so loud and active---all of them in pairs. Parents everywhere. I never noticed how many different greens there are in this yard as the spring trees bloom.

When I finish up here, I will return to their bedroom---my area of focus for today’s cleaning. The room where during my mom’s illness, I fell asleep beside her on the bed. The room where I ran her baths and while she soaked, cleaned and organized her closet. Now the closet is empty of her and full only of my father. I am sorting through him.

I’ve been trying on some of his button down shirts. As a kid, I didn’t dress up in my mom’s fanciest skirts and necklaces. I sifted through their closet and donned my dad’s hats and pants and ties. Now I am hugging his sweaters as I go, wishing I would have released myself into his hugs more when he was alive. I keep having to sit down on the footstool to cry into the sleeves of his red fleece coat.

There is too much going on to even keep track of, let alone write about. I’ve never wanted to hit pause more than I do right now. Things are moving too quickly for comprehension.

All I know for certain is that this pain and sadness feel bottomless.

If I can return here, I will.

If I can’t, well, I know you’ll understand.

Thank you all for your kindness and support.

Simply put, death is complicated.

I've felt many things in the 12 days since my father's death. Many, many things ranging from full and easy love to regret to longing to frustration to anger. There is no linear, stages-of-death pattern to any of it; at times I move through all of them and more in a span of thirty seconds.

But the moment my dad died and in the days following it---when we made it through the wake and the memorial and the spreading of his ashes---all I felt was the purest love and the deepest gratitude that Barry Mellow was my father and that I was born his daughter.

And it's from that place that my eulogy was born:

How do you do this?

How do you summarize this guy?

Dad...you really lived a life.

Nobody in this room can say they ever knew another Barry Mellow.

He wore his philosophies on his t-shirts:

“Kayaking is Life.”

“Question Authority.”

“The one who dies with the most toys wins.”

And then there was his baseball hat which read simply, “More balls than most.”

(He wore that hat to two of my sisters weddings.)

He wasn’t a guy to wear a tie----he was more the type to stay in his bathrobe all day---and while part of this had to do with his need to buck the system, part of it was that he just didn’t take himself or life too seriously.

That’s why he enjoyed himself so much...and in the end he took life for all it was worth.

It was very cool being Barry Mellow’s daughter and having a front-row seat to his life.

There just wasn’t another father out there like him. He juggled, he tap danced, he played the spoons. He introduced us to every type of music.

It wasn’t uncommon to come home and find Mambo music blaring in the kitchen---my mom and dad and a group of friends jamming along with a collection of instruments that only he would have hanging around the house---bongos, congas, sleigh bells.

My dad was an artist. Our house was always littered with brilliant doodles. Napkins, pizza boxes, envelopes---all of it his canvas. He made incredible papier maché masks. He worked with clay. He weaved wreaths together from branches he found in the yard. He whittled wood. At Halloween all of my sisters and I lined up to have our dad paint our faces with detail and artistry that no other trick-or-treaters could touch.

He taught yoga classes. He put tofu hot dogs on the grill long before anyone knew that they even existed. He made his own Chinese food.

He served us seaweed.

As kids, my sisters and I knew him as “the fastest man on the planet” because even running backwards we could never catch him.

And he always made sure his daughters knew how to think. He strengthened our brains with riddles and debate. He taught us to resist herd mentality. The lessons he imparted had little to do with practicality. He taught us life was short and that there were a million different ways to enjoy it.

He gave us three central pieces of advice:

---If you’re struggling to make a decision, choose the option that’s most fun.

---When you can...skip work. He’d say, “What will you remember more----another day of work or one in which you go on an adventure?”

---And he always fell back on the Yiddish proverb: People make plans and God laughs.

Never was this more clear than when, just a little over a year ago, he discovered he had a brain tumor.

When my dad got sick, I began interviewing him.

I wanted to learn as much as I could; he was my dad, but I recognized very young that he was a most peculiar and fascinating medley of a human being. I asked him about his timeline. About how his life led from Point A to Point B. About how he became the man we all knew him to be.

And what I soon realized was that he saw his life as one built from a sense of humor and curiosity...and also a series of whims and mistakes.

As a kid in Chicago, he was accidentally placed in an accelerated English class despite his poor grades. And when the school finally caught their mistake, he was already blowing the rest of the kids out of the water.

This, he told me, is how he learned he had a brain.

Later, a friend asked my dad to join him to take the medical college admission test. And when my dad nailed it, he decided---Eh, I guess I’ll go to medical school.

This is how he became a doctor.

He chose to do his residency at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan because an intern told him there were a lot of pretty nurses there.

This is how he became our father.

He met his pretty nurse.

When I asked my dad what the best thing he ever did in his life was, he didn’t hesitate: “I married your mom.”

And he loved recounting stories of their courtship:

At night he would whistle their song from the hospital balcony above her nursing school dorm so she could hear it through her window.

On rainy days, knowing that she would have forgotten hers, he stood outside the building, waiting to raise an umbrella over her head.

She taught him how to ride a motorcycle and he showed her Manhattan in that way that only Barry Mellow could.

The prettiest spots on the East River---he found ‘em. Pickle shops, the best spots for Chinese food; my dad had a knack for discovering treasures wherever he went.

My mom was a perfect and willing accomplice, barefoot and brave on their wedding day.

Eventually they made their way to Rhode Island and then came the five of us, his daughters.

People always asked him how he survived five daughters. And though he might have feigned suffering, we knew he loved being the father of girls.

He loved becoming a dad. He told me once that after they had Tara, my eldest sister, and my mom got pregnant a second time, he wondered how he could possibly love another baby as much as he loved the first. But when Becky was born he said it was like another chamber opened in his heart, filled with an entirely new kind of love. And that this happened with each kid that came next.

There was a song we were never allowed to play around the house. It’s called “The Man in My Little Girl’s Life” and it tells the story of a little girl who starts the song telling her father, “Daddy, there’s a boy outside, his name is Todd, he wants to play in our backyard. Can he daddy? Oh Please daddy?”

As the song progresses---and the girl ages and goes from calling him Daddy, to Dad, to Popsi---each new boy outside wants to do something else with her; carry her books, then take her to the prom and finally marry her. In the final verse she says, “Hi Dad, there’s a boy outside. His name is Ben. I told him Grandpa was going to babysit him.”

The song made my father weep.

But then he was always a crier, another thing we were grateful to have in a father. He taught us that crying was a good thing; a release...proof that you loved someone. He cried at movies. He cried when telling stories. He cried when a song was just too beautiful.

“I have something in my eye,” he’d say.

He loved being a father and later a grandfather. And all kids loved him because he was one of them.

One of my sister’s friends remembers sleeping over our house as a kid and being deeply homesick. My dad, trying to make her laugh, walked to the refrigerator, took out an egg and smashed it against his bald head, the yolk dripping down his face.

And of course she laughed.

He was also known for making kids laugh at the emergency room where he worked for over 30 years. Always a marker in his pocket, when a kid showed up in the exam room he would draw them a cartoon---a smiling elephant, a waving monkey with the child’s name in its thought bubble. He once filled all the walls of a pediatric exam room with his cartoons.

And it was always great for us to hear about the kind of doctor my dad was. For such a playful guy to have had such a serious job, it seemed like it shouldn’t work. But we always heard from so many people about what a wonderful doctor he was. I’d see letters from patients thanking him for taking such good care of them. Kids would draw him pictures. Co-workers told us how they trusted him with their own family members. He made house calls when that was no longer the norm and I’m sure more than one of you has been stitched up at our kitchen table.

But he was humble in this regard. He said the most important thing about being a doctor is being able to admit when you don’t know something. He would never let pride get in the way of taking care of a person.

Of course being a doctor was only his job and never his identity. When people asked him that age old question “What do you do do?” he would say, “I draw, I garden, I read.”

His life was never about his job. It was always about creating as much time as possible for play. And nobody played like my dad.

He bounced around on pogo sticks.

He pulled quarters out of people’s ears.

He explored New England by kayak, bike and cross-country skis.

And whatever he did, he approached it with a one-pointed focus and the goal of mastery.

If he was growing roses, they looked and smelled the loveliest.

When he took up shooting, he won awards for his marksmanship.

He was the best juggler.

The best whistler.

The best chess player.

His interests were infinite and his enthusiasm was infectious.

When you were with him you saw the world differently. He would say, “Let’s go for a ride,” and you’d hop in his car or later onto his motorcycle and you never knew where you were going or when you’d be back.

A town you might have passed through mindlessly became a magic place when visited with my dad. He would show you its loveliest views---the spots where cliffs meet ocean, a shore from which to watch a marvelous sunset.

I once wrote a paper in college about how being my father’s daughter showed me how accessible adventure and wonder are. I later learned that 30 years earlier my aunt Gail, my dad’s sister, had also written a college paper about the influence he had on her.

My dad was a guy to write about. A guy to examine.

Whatever he wanted to do, he did. And he did it well.

In truth, I think he took this same approach to death. For the majority of this past year my dad felt pretty well. He would say, “If you didn’t know I had cancer, you wouldn’t know I had cancer.”

And when he no longer felt that way, when he started declining---which really only started a couple of weeks ago--- he stopped treatment and died less than a week later with almost no struggle. Like everything else, he did it on his own terms. I think he would have described his death with a word he used to describe so many things--- “Interesting.”

And I think he would have been somewhat surprised and amazed by all the love which surrounded him in the moments of his last breaths.

I always got the sense with my dad that he couldn’t quite believe this was his life. Like its fullness---particularly in terms of love and family---had befallen him and was not of his creation.

Never, he would tell us, could he have predicted that his life would look as it did----a beautiful home on a river, a wife so loving and wise, a gaggle of girls.

And I think he wouldn’t have predicted that his last moments on earth would have looked as they did---each one of his daughters touching him, loving him fiercely...and eternally. For all that my dad knew he could get out of life, I don’t know that he ever knew he would get that.

You had it, Dad.

My parents’ deaths, just 17 months apart, will always be tied to each other now. They even died in the same room overlooking the river. I’m sure over time it will seem to my sisters and me that they died next to each other.

It’s fitting really---for all their bickering, it always seemed like they couldn’t live without each other.

I guess it was true.

Dad, I hope you are off on the ultimate adventure.

I hope when you got there that mom reached out her hand to you and said, “Hey Bar. Let’s go for a ride.”

I hope that you’re back on your motorcycle, mom’s arms around your chest and that the two of you are off laughing and chasing sunsets.

Give her a hug for us and enjoy the ride.

So you know.

Portsmouth, RI - Dr. Barry Alan Mellow, aka Lombasso Karaunch, 68, of Water Street, died peacefully in his home surrounded by his family on Monday, April 9, 2012.

There was nobody on the planet like Barry Mellow and there never will be. From roses and guns to yoga and cartooning, Barry was the exception to the rule; a jack of all trades, master of many. Hobbies became passions, passions became skill sets and Barry’s unrivaled zest for life always manifested in new and surprising ways.

He was the husband of the late Jeanne Mellow, father of Tara Mellow, Becky Breslin, Katie Gross, Cherie Waluk and Laura Mellow, and grandfather/Poppi to Alex and Sam Breslin, Molly Carlson, Ben Gordon, Savannah and Evangeline Gross, Waverly Waluk and brother to Gail Urban and Audrey Korn.

Born in Chicago, Illinois to the late Jay Mellow and the late Edith Korn, Barry grew up romping the city streets, becoming the ultimate foodie. He went to college and medical school in Chicago before taking a residency in New York City where he met and married Jeanne. The two explored Manhattan on a bicycle built for two before the city boy and his wife moved to Rhode Island in 1972 where they remained married for 40 years.

Barry worked as an Emergency Room doctor at Kent County Hospital for 30 years and in Urgent Care at Charlton Memorial Hospital for the last eight. Cool under pressure, he handled an emergency room well. Five daughters, however, cost him his hair.

An avid reader, an avid motorcyclist, an avid gardener----Barry was a true renaissance man. His curiosity and appetite for excitement led him all over the place---from the most beautiful corners of New England, through volumes of books about bacon, to building a fine jetty by hand along the river. An at-home Jeopardy champ, there was no sharper mind or better sense of humor than his. Unable to live without his Jeannie, who passed away just 17 months ago, Barry followed her to the grave.

He will be missed always.

Calling hours will be held on Friday, April 13th, 2012 from 4-8pm at Connors Funeral Home, 55 West Main Road, Portsmouth, RI. A memorial service will be held Saturday, April 14th, 2012 at 11am at the funeral home. Further information may be found at www.memorialfuneralhome.com

Barry Mellow October 24, 1943 - April 9, 2012

Just five days ago.

Weren't we just here?

Were it not for my dad, I wouldn't appreciate how wonderful this is.

I knew the words to this song by the time I was five.

It's just the two of us having coffee this morning and I just played it for him. We've not been playing music for my dad because before he went into this deep sleep he really seemed to prefer quiet. I think that's part of dying. But I wanted him to hear this song one last time.

He opened his eyes briefly just minutes ago. He has beautiful blue eyes---something my mom always loved. I said, "Good morning," and he said it back to me. I said, "I love you," and he said that too, which is of course a wonderful gift.

They think he will slip into a coma soon---no more random eye-openings. No more I love yous. Just a peaceful death. That's all I could want for him.

Thanks, all, for the loving thoughts and prayers.

My dad is dying.

I hope she takes him soon.

The hospital bed was brought in today, we had to lift him onto it. He slept and barely spoke and swallowed down spoonfuls of ice cream while we all sat around him. It is just past midnight now and I can hear his gentle snoring from where I sit on the kitchen floor. Since I was a little kid I've loved this spot---right next to the floor heater; right next to my mom's seat at the kitchen table.

This is a very strange movie. And yet I've seen it before.

I will keep you all posted as best I can. I know his loved ones are checking in.

Sweet, sweet dreams to you all.

Based on the true story

...of the events that transpired in the 36 hours that fell between last Thursday morning and Friday night. Also, it's not so much "based" on truth as it is entirely factual.

Thursday 8am

Guys...guys... I thought I was passed these mini little break-ups. I thought I had changed and would do better this time and become a man and not run away from love or my commitments or any of the other werewolves that are chasing me. But there’s been some runnin’ and some hidin’ from this blog going on. And more than even that, there’s been some straight-up not carin’, which is much more worrisome.

Let me clarify: It’s not that I don’t care ABOUT YOU GUYS---I like you all very much and, as always, am so grateful that you have been here to snuggle up with through all of this. But there’s an apathy sitting in my chest right now and it is weightless and it is dangerous. Although I joke about my “writer’s disposition,” there’s a difference between resting your body during times of stress and saying, “Fuck it. Looks like I’m riding this life out from bed.” And I’ve been a little too close to “It’s just you and me now, MTV” than I am comfortable with.

I am desperately reaching for my health in all the natural ways---rest, movement, flax seed---both ground and oil, Oprah---both TV and magazine. Since returning from Miami I’ve given up gluten, given up drinking(!), started walking again, and still I’ve been battling deep despair. One of the lowest point occurred at a movie theater when Dan and I were seeing Friends With Kids---a fine movie, though not so much a tearjerker. I sat in the darkness crying through the whole film, submerged in sorrow and anxiety and worry that had nothing to do with the movie. At home afterwards I had the deepest, longest, breathless, moaning, keening cry that I’ve had in months and Dan just lay beside me on the bed, handing me fresh tissues and tucking my hair behind my ear like my mom used to do. (He knows she used to do that. He is a love.)

I’ve even taken to praying.

Though I’ve dabbled in God for most of my 30 years, we never hang out as much as I’d like. I recently read that writer Anne Lamott says she uses three main prayers:

Help me.

Thank you.

Wow.

Cutting through all the pretext with that kind of naked sincerity make me feel like I have the best shot at getting through, so I’m going with it. And God doesn’t seem mad that I only call at night when I’m alone and can’t sleep. She’s cool with being my Booty Call. (God is my Booty Call. There’s a bumper sticker.) (Though it does sound kind of churchy and anti-boomboom, doesn’t it?)

The situation has gotten rough and it feels good to hand some of it off, but I’m not going all “Found the Lord” on you so don’t go Googling “money shots” just to get the Jesus off; this is not going to be a blog entry about how I prayed the depression away.

I’ve started messing with my meds too. Well, my therapist and I have. (My therapist needs a blog handle. Should we call her the Spew Tamer? Thoughts?) I try not to mess around with medication on my own because I like my brain and hope it will someday like me back (in the form of performing at its maximum ability and not being such a douche). Although I’ve come a long way in therapy---I swear to Booty Call that I have---we’ve never been able to touch my depression in any consistent way. I want some of these “happy pills” I keep hearing about. All the meds I’ve tried---years’ worth of trying---I’ve never found anything that makes me feel all that much better, let alone happy. There’s gotta be something out there that I’ve missed. I’ll take whatever all the overmedicated kids are getting. Cut me in, School Nurse!

I’m envious of others’ successes with medication. Remember how I was talking the other day about Alice Bradley ---that writer whom I sort of adore and wish I could chat with over falafel? Well, there I was loving her and then I read this about her first experience taking anti-depressants:

“A few days after I began the Prozac, I woke up one morning, and I felt fine.

Here's the thing: up until that day, I had never felt fine. Not ever. I didn't know what ‘fine’ was. I thought I did; I thought there were periods when I thought I was doing quite well. I thought the Prozac was treating a relatively recent development in my emotional state. And then I woke up that day, and I realized that this was normal, and this was how I was supposed to feel all the time.”

I cannot begin to express the longing and frustration that came over me when I read this except to say: TANTRUM! MOTHER FUCKING TANTRUM!

I want to feel fine.

I waaaaaant to feel fine.

The first (and second and third and fourth through tenth) time I tried a new med it went like this:

I’m not sure if this drug is doing anything.
I did go on a walk the other day, so maybe it’s working!
But I didn’t leave the house for three days in a row, so maybe it’s not.
I did get ten pages written, so maybe it’s working!
But I did screen out every single phone call last week, so maybe it’s not.

Never did I wake up fine. I’ve woken up feeling like I was going to faint. I’ve woken up drenched in my own sweat. I’ve woken up completely incapable of urinating because my brain couldn’t communicate effectively with my hooty-hoo.

But never fine.

And I understand that I am not currently living in an environment that is any way hospitable to fine. I know that trying to lift my depression in the midst of this brutal one-two parent-cancer death punch, is like trying to light a match while under water. But I don’t expect for it to be lifted entirely. What I want is someone in the boat to strike the match, light up a spliff and, as I fight to swim toward the sun, to hold the joint to my little surface-breaking lips.

I can take the grief. I can do the sadness. But it’s the tiredness that kills me. The inability to focus. The feeling that I can’t get anything done. I need to feel better so I can do better even just for a little bit. Or maybe it’s that I need to do better so that I can feel better. I just need to know that I still have it in me---that I can write and finish a few pieces and just gather up my self worth again into a little ember that I can hold in my palm for later on.

“But, Lola,” you might say to yourself. “You just wrote quite a bit---quite a bit!---telling us how you are too miserable to write.”

And you’d be right. And I will now tell you how I did this.

I’m high as a fucking kite.

How’s that for payoff? I bet you’re glad you stuck with me through the Lola for the Lord chapter. God found me a drug. God is My Dealer. (That’s a much better bumper sticker.) I’m jacked way the hell up and now I got some ‘splaining to do.

I had a therapy session the other day where I delivered some version of what I’ve just written here. I used the word desperate, which I’ve never used before because I’ve never felt it. Not like this.

And the Spew Tamer heard me.

We decided to try one last thing in combination with my current med---we decided to add a little Kahlua to my milk. (For the record, I had already tried getting off my current med since it seemed to not be serving me, but as soon I started weaning down I realized that there is a lower to this low so I quickly crept back up to my usual dose.) Now, normally I leave the names of medications out of my entries because I just think every brain is different and I can’t go trumpeting my prescription drug successes (or lack thereof) like some endorsement for a cleaning product that you really must try! (Also, I feel strangely private about it.) But I think omitting the name of the drug at this point---when it’s clearly a main character---would just detract from the story. Plus, I may sound a little loopty loo right now so this might not be an endorsement as much as it is a buyer beware.

Adderall. I’m trying a smidge of Adderall. While it’s not an anti-depressant and is usually prescribed to people with ADHD, it is also used for treatment-resistant depression, which is what we’re doing here.

One other thing. Adderall is kind of, well, speed. The chemicals are a little different---the potency is a lot different (speed being the big guns)---but they work the same way. I’m taking a drug that has street value.

AND IT’S FABULOUS!

I wish you could see me typing. I’m like a crazed typing phenom! I am Lola, Queen of the Keyboard. Dan and I just spoke on the phone and he told me to take a breath. High, high, high. Not stoned. High.

You have to understand where I started this day. Where I started this blog entry. My head was on the laptop. I titled this document “Apathy Blog.” How’s that for flavor? The plan today was to write a few quick sentences explaining why I’ve been gone and that was going to be it. But I can’t stop typing and I can’t take my eyes off the screen because I am Super Lola, an extraordinarily capable version of the Spew’s bungling birthmother! I started this day as a pile of bathrobe and now I feel drag-queen fabulous! This whole entry is born of manic typing that has grown steadily faster since about a half hour after I swallowed down my first pill.

I had to share this news.

Thursday 11:30am

To: Dan
From: Lola

This medicine is awesome so far.  I have been writing all morning and staying on task and I feel like a real human. Actually, I feel like Superman! Did I tell you that this drug is essentially speed?  Whatever...it's helping.

Thursday 11:31am

To: Dan
From: Lola

I'm trying to keep up with myself.  I don't want to waste it!  I'm so scared it's going to run out and I'm going to be me again.  I feel like I have Star Power from Super Mario Brothers.

[Note: “I’m so scared it’s going to run out and I’m going to be me again.” That’s sad, isn’t it? I deserve this, don’t I?]

Then I sent Dan this link.

And he sent me this.

He’s been checking in all day to make sure my heart hasn’t exploded. Isn’t that sweet? He doesn’t want to come home to find me drowned in the tub. Such a lover! Wait ‘til I tell him that one of the side effects is increased arousal. He’ll be all, “You know the heart is a very resilient organ.”

He really is thrilled that I feel so good. He said he couldn’t believe that the person sending him these e-mails was the same sad mess he left this morning. (He didn’t say “sad mess” because he likes being married as opposed to, say, being stabbed 76 times in the chest.) He and I sat on the bed before he left for work today discussing this new drug because I was worried about how I would feel and just wasn’t sure what to expect.

You have to understand that I was raised by my doctor father and nurse mother to be extremely averse to all medication. When I was a kid I used to joke with my mom that I could bring any ailment to her---”I could be telling you I have cancer, Ma,”---and she’d tell me to take a dip in the river because the salt water was good for it. As a result, Dan will often take Tylenol and put it in my hand after listening to me complain about a headache because he knows I’ll never reach for it myself. So I’ve always been deeply ambivalent about taking medication and this morning I was also filled with the requisite shame that comes with taking “mood-altering” meds as well two nagging fears.

1)That it wouldn’t work.
2)That it would.

If it didn’t work it would be just another win for depression and another failure to add to the pile of futile efforts I’ve made to stave it off. But if it did work, I knew I would be saddled with a new set of dilemmas. Am I really going to officially be on another medication? For how long? To what end?

But let’s not talk about any of that now because I’m hiiiiiiiigh! I’m hiiiiigh! Don’t be such a downer, yo! It’s working! Probably a bit better than it was supposed to, but it’s working! This is all very fun! Am I using a lot of exclamation points? I am! I totally am! I’ve not felt remotely exclamation pointy lately so this is fun! I’ve been way too heavy on the forlorn and drifting ellipses...NOT TODAY!

My hands are trying to keep up with my brain. Usually my brain is the slacker and my hands have to pretend to look busy---typing my name over and over again---to cover my dopey brain’s ass. I’m too focused to even take a bathroom break where as normally I‘m waiting for the faintest urge to urinate solely to have a reason to get out of my chair. This is true for most writers, by the way, not just the ones dealing with depression or ADD or any of the others on the list of maladies that could thwart someone’s motivation or concentration (like, say, the internet). “Butt in chair”---the writer’s credo. When asked to offer guidance about how to succeed as a writer, almost every author I’ve ever heard offers some version of “Butt in chair.”

My point? I think I’m juicing. Will there be an asterisk next to my name on my first book cover?

Thursday 7pm

“I get it, I so get it!” I keep saying to Dan, whose home from work now, about writers and cocaine binges.

I’m still sitting here typing away. Did I tell you Adderall is in the Urban Dictionary? They call it Addie. Addie! It sounds like someone’s beautiful, doe-eyed freshman girlfriend.

I mean, ahem, it sounds like a highly addictive medication that needs to be handled with serious care.

I totally don’t have a drug problem. No, really! The reason this is so funny---and this is SO FUNNY! Dan’s laughing now too!---is because I don’t do drugs. I’ve never done anything other than smoke pot and, you know, cuddle with my wine bottle. Okay, I tried shrooms twice in my late teens but that’s it! No cocaine, no acid, no ecstasy, no anything else. You see, that’s why it’s a little bit funny that I’ve been speedballing alone in my apartment all day. Because I’ve never felt like this before and I’m such a dorky straight-edge that even my attempt to look cooler by throwing the word speedball in there---which has nothing to do with Adderall ---reveals my squareness.

So, since it’s a fluke thing, I get to just enjoy it. Tonight when I go to bed I will be saying the prayer of thank you. Thank you and good night to my sweet, sweet Addie.

That is, if I ever go to bed.


Friday 3:30am

I never went to bed.

After two PBS documentaries---one on Fenway Park, the other on Steve Jobs---an episode of the Colbert Report and an article about “fullness” from my Oprah mag, I am now mesmerized by a show about whales.

Did you know that right whales have nine-foot weenies? Can’t call that a weenie now can you? It’s a thick, albino flagellum of a thing. Just sort of swings in the tide. Nine feet. Picture it. It’s taller than you, this dick. Also, their testicles are twenty times that of blue whales despite the fact that blue whales are twice their size. Apparently, blue whales are the Irishmen of the sea. Scientists wonder if the reason right whales are such sexually active animals is because of their gigantic balls. Their nads weigh a ton! Literally! But the ladies are no slouches either. These gals take multiple partners, one after another---the whole football team, even. I guess nine-feet of whale cock will do that to a girl. They also mate belly-to-belly; they must be into eye contact.

It is 3:30am and I am watching whale porn.

Friday 8am

I cobbled together 22 minutes of sleep last night and have been writing for hours! When Dan woke up this morning I gave him all my whale facts. I retained all of it!

“Look how smart Addie makes me!” I told him. “I think it’s still working!”

“You think?” he said, noting how quickly I was speaking.

Needless to say, I did not take another dose this morning as was planned. Maybe I did need to say that; I do seem to be enjoying myself, don’t I? I also left a message for the Spew Tamer first thing this morning to let her know how this has all gone. I really am quite responsible. (She had me check in with her yesterday too. She’s also quite responsible.)

“Did you know that right whales have nine-foot schlongs?” I said to her voicemail. Of course I didn’t say that, but I did say that I’ve been up for 24 hours and loving it and that I know all sorts of new things about whales and that I wrote all day yesterday and I feel like it’s magic and do you think I should take another one today?

Friday 11am

The Spew Tamer called back.

“I don’t think is the drug for you,” she said.

I gasped. “It’s not?”

She actually laughed at me. She said she’s never seen---never even read about---someone having this kind of reaction to such a low dose. See, you guys, Addie and I have something special.

“Well, what about half? Can I take half? What about as needed? Can I just take it as needed?”

“Laura, you’re begging.”

She really said that.

I really was.

She asked about my heart. Fine, fine, fine. She told me to drink a lot of water. She said something else but now I can’t remember what it was. My genius for retention is failing! Quick, ask me a whale fact!

One theory on how right whales got their name is that their slowness and thick blubber---which makes them float---made them an easy catch and thus the “right whale” to hunt.

Phew! As long as I’ve got my whale facts I’ll know this whole thing really happened.


Friday 1pm

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! I’m crashing, folks! I’m crashing hard! I’m becoming a robe monster again. I’m melting...I’m melting...


Friday 1:10pm

To: Dan
From: Lola

I am out of star power. And I am sad.


Friday 4pm

It’s dark in this bedroom. Thank God.


Friday 8pm

It’s me again, guys. Super Lola is dead, I haven’t napped, and there are pages and pages here that I’m not quite certain can really be called a piece of writing. The whale hours were weird, right? I really went on about that dong. It was like a separate animal. Like a freakishly long and discolored tongue. Make it stop. Please make it stop...

Oh no, ellipses.

Those swampy, ambivalent ellipses. I can’t even end a sentence definitively in this state.

But I was in there. For a minute---for those hours---I reached in and grabbed myself. It may have been an enhanced superhero version, but I taught her all her tricks. (Note: I really do know I am one person; this is not drug-induced psychosis.)

All I wanted was to care about writing again. So even if it was all whale dicks and exclamation points (a duo whose pairing is really akin to peanut butter and jelly's) at least I was putting my mind to something. It’s truly a relief just knowing I can do that.

P.S. The Spew Tamer did say that tomorrow I could try a quarter of the dose I originally took to see how I do. I wouldn’t say that I’m looking forward to it per se, but I do want to point out that tomorrow morning is only 12 hours away.

Thank you, Mattie

I've been listening to this song nonstop since Wednesday when Mattie (friend since we were but wee 15-year-old babes) told me about it. Right now it is my prozac drip. I have great dreams of organizing a flashmob where everyone dances and marches---kids on shoulders, drummers, bright sun---through the center of downtown Portsmouth (NH). Throw it on your iPod and rock out in your car or your kitchen or down a bustling street.

In the wink of a young girl's bloodshot eye

Tina (our sista from anotha motha), GiG and Lola, age 17, (when, incidentally, I learned the truth). (Did that joke land?)

‘Sup?

Something is off right now, kids. I don’t know what to write about, that’s why I’ve been away. Usually I have some sense that I’m hiding from my computer because the subject that wishes to be penned feels too emotionally daunting to take on but I at least know what it is that wants to be written. Sometimes I recognize early on that the project I want to embark on requires too much work to see it to fruition---and have it turn out with the level of quality that it deserves---so, again, I hide. (I’m not proud of those days, but they happen.)

But today, I am just not certain where my mind is. There were points back in my high school days where I wanted so badly to escape that stale, brick building and run out into the sun that I nearly cried with longing. That’s where I am now. My head half in the game, half in the sun.

I would like to take this time to thank our Heavenly Mama for making this winter the most mild and bearable I’ve ever lived through. Maybe global warming played a part, maybe this means an early end to civilization--I am thankful just the same. I knew back in October---staring down at my already dry and cracking hands---that I would not be able to endure a doozie of a winter. I felt brittle before the leaves finished dropping. The fact that we were spared the 12-degree days and the icy winds that cut through our coats and slash at our cheeks---well, I’m kissing the crocuses with gratitude about it.

But none of this is particularly interesting, is it? Ultimately, this is really just a conversation about the weather and can I really write that kind of crap and feel like I’ve done my job?

No. No, I can’t.

And yet...it seems to be all I’ve got. I’m spacey with spring fever and am staring out the window just like I did in Trigonometry class all those years ago. I got caught once playing Tetris on my graphing calculator during that class---a pretty mathematical game, if you ask me---and got it taken away. It wasn’t my graphing calculator so I ended up pleading with the teacher to give it back to its rightful owner. Later in the year, this teacher---who was really a very nice woman---insinuated that I cheated on the final because not only did I get a high B (after performing somewhat meh all year) but I also got the same exact score as my then boyfriend who sat right behind me. I would like to go on record here as saying: I DID NOT CHEAT ON THAT TEST! (Nor did he...just in case his mom happens to read this blog---or was actually the one who pushed me to start it---and is wondering.) I don’t blame the teacher for thinking I cheated (I was as surprised as any by that B) but I didn’t. I really didn’t.

I was usually okay with earning an honest F or getting out of the test/paper another way---usually in the form of skipping class but other times more creatively. I took Anthropology my senior year and the teacher, a good guy, was a bit of a talker. On days that we were supposed to have exams I would start asking questions at the beginning of class---prompting his long explanations--- until enough time had passed that he couldn’t possibly administer the test. I want to say that I’m not proud of this, but I am. If someday little Lola Jr. comes home and tells me she did the same thing, I think I’ll give her a cupcake.

I’m doing the same thing right now. Filling the time so that you’ll get to the end of this entry thinking we accomplished something here. I might as well write: I am very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very unsure about what to write.

All of this glory days talk probably makes me seem like a worse kid than I was. I hate to paint myself as a leather jacket-wearing teen with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth when that wasn’t the case. Though, I did wear a black leather jacket (see above) and I did smoke cigarettes. And I drank and smoked pot (as did everyone). But I did a million and one extracurricular activities---student council, school newspaper, drama club---so I was definitely part do-gooder. I was the homecoming queen for fuck's sake.

So although I did sometimes fail tests and the occasional class---gym, for one---I was a pretty solid student until about 11th grade. If you were to look at my report cards from that time you would see the gradual eroding of my GPA. And, yes, budding young psych students, your inference that perhaps outside circumstances were affecting my school performance would be spot on. And though I don’t wish to be cryptic, it’s a long story. I can tell you that this is when I experienced my first real bout of depression (the pot didn’t help though I rejected the theory at the time) and it’s also when I went to my first therapist. ‘Notha story, ‘notha day.

Mostly I was just all over the place. A’s and B’s when I wanted ‘em. C’s when I was phoning it in. D’s and F’s when I chose not to study or turn in papers. I just looked at one of my old report cards and the comments from my 11th grade English teacher went from “Shows sincere effort” to “Inconsistent in class work” to---and this quarter he offered two comments--- “Projects not completed” and “Excels in writing skills.” I got a D that quarter because I didn’t turn in a research paper. The kindness in the combination of the guy’s last two comments kills me. It’s like he would have written “She’s not a complete schmuck per se” were he not confined to the standard comments the computerized grading system offered.

There was also a lot of “Does not work to potential” scattered about. Were I being graded on life, this would probably be the comment that would show up now too.

I am still not working to potential. Projects are still not completed.

But this just might be who I am for now. Or who I was then. I was being graded on my school work then, not my coping skills. Maybe I was doing okay in that regard. Maybe I am now.

If I was to give myself a report card now, the comments would be as follows:

“Behaves appropriately given the suck-ass circumstances and the student’s wackjob disposition.”

“Excels at drinking.”

“Stares out windows.”

How would you grade yourselves?

What comments would you give?


P.S. I have to give credit where credit is due. This entry was born (somewhat unconsciously; I really didn’t know I was headed down memory lane) from a project writer Alice Bradley is doing on her blog Finslippy . Her blog is so fantastic and funny that I almost didn’t want to share it here because it will show how paltry mine is in comparison. But that seems awfully shitty and plus it was a reader here, Marianne, who turned me on to it so it seems only right to pay it forward (especially since I'm borrowing her idea). Anyway, Bradley is participating in the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge . DonorsChoose is a charity which raises money for classroom teachers and when you enter the code FINSLIPPY at checkout any donation you make up to $100 will be matched. She’s posting funny school-related stories for the next two weeks while participating in the challenge and reading her tales of woe got me in touch with mine. Normally, I wouldn’t copy someone else’s idea---I DID NOT CHEAT ON THAT TEST!---because as a general rule, writers don’t like when you copy their ideas. Apparently, this is frowned upon. But I was reading through some of the comments on Finslippy and one of her readers--- “Alexandra/Empress”--- said she wanted to copy the idea to which Alice replied, “You must!” Now, assuming Alice Bradley and Alexander/Empress are not besties, the conclusion I drew was that she’d be cool with anyone playing around with the idea. So that’s where this came from.

But because I lack discipline---”Projects not completed” remember?---and am still waaaay all over the place, I am not sure I will continue writing about all these memories of yesteryear. Still, I would love for my one day of semi-pirating another’s idea to go to good use. Donate if you can!