Tuesday Slice: Hitting the road

Why did I pick Thursdays?  Maybe because four days into pacing the confines of my sixteen-hundred-square-foot home during COVID shelter-in-place each week hit some sort of internal limits.  Maybe because Fridays conjured images of crowded roads, people beginning their weekends early, and crowds are a no-go during a pandemic.  Maybe because I had an argument with my husband that first Thursday, and I had to escape the stifling miasma of anger recirculating with every reboot of the air conditioner.

Whatever the reason, I hit the road on June 25th.  I didn't really know where I was going, only that I wanted to avoid major highways and any sort of schedule.  I headed north and east, stopping to take some pictures on roads so quiet, I was often the only driver for miles.

There was such a sense of freedom in that drive; I decided to go out again, the following Thursday, heading south and west this time.

I didn't go as far on July ninth, only stopping to take in the views of Lake Georgetown.  It was really warm outside!

July sixteenth was the trip on which my phone died, then came back to life.  I was driving on the east side of IH35; not much to see except farmland and hay bales, but I am always drawn to wide open skies and horizons uninterrupted by buildings.  I felt I owed the car a trip through the wash after these past few drives, so I treated it to a rainbow sudsing.

Last week's trip was the last Thursday drive of the summer, so I had to make it a good one.  I mapped out a series of back country roads that took me to and around Canyon Lake.  The clouds were spectacular that day!  I got lost a couple of times...or was it just wandering?

This Thursday, I have my first leadership team meeting of the new school year.  My work calendar begins next Tuesday.  Thursday drives will have to wait until next summer.  

I am grateful for a working car, money for gas, and the opportunity to get away.  I credit these hours of focusing solely on the road and the view for maintaining some semblance of sanity, belting out songs with the radio a cathartic clearing of my lungs and my lonely worries.  Here's to the wide open, healing skies of Texas.

Tuesday Slice: When a phone dies

"What are the moments you are holding onto? What are you letting go of today?"

Using today's writing prompt...

The "dangerously full" warning was flashing on my phone.  Ugh, I thought, again?  I've already deleted a memory-eating app and several hundred pictures.  Guess I need to go through the apps and gallery again.  I'll do it on Saturday.

That was Wednesday.

During my weekly Thursday road trip, the phone decided to die while I was posting a picture to Facebook from the shoulder of a country highway.  Oh, well, I thought, I'll get it up and running when I get home.  An hour later at another stop, the phone was fine again.  It worked all day Friday, too.

Saturday morning...I turned it over to find it in constant reboot mode.  After Googling and fiddling and cursing, I gave up.  My kind husband Googled and fiddled, then took it to a repair shop.  Could just be the battery, they said--a glimmer of hope.

Monday afternoon, the phone was back home, still broken.  Not just the battery, apparently.  I'll be contacting tech support later today.

What am I holding onto with this phone?  Thankfully, I downloaded all the pictures to my computer a month ago; the only one I would really miss from these past few weeks is a selfie with my son.  I use my phone to track my walking routes, practice Spanish and Japanese, keep in touch with my daughter in Japan via LINE, time my meditations.  My fitness band syncs with a phone app to record my steps and my sleep patterns; I use another app to track calories.  There are dozens of unmemorized phone numbers of friends, family, colleagues in my contacts list.

For the past few days, I have had to let go of having these conveniences and information at hand.  I am able to continue my language practice and fill in my food journal on my computer, and revisited a folder of meditations I had saved. I have a landline, email, and online social media to stay connected to people. 

If tech support can't fix my phone, or at the very least assure me that my data is backed up, I will have to let go of a month's worth of photo memories, several years' worth of texts with my daughter (was I really going to reread those anyway?), possibly progress (or lack of it, ha!) on my fitness app.

Contact information can be regathered.  Apps can be reloaded on a new phone.  Other than the picture with my son...does anything else on this old phone really, truly matter?  I'll find out soon, but my guess is...not really. 

Tuesday Slice: I thought I was okay

I thought I was okay.  

In so many ways, I am okay.  I have a solid roof over my head and food in my pantry.  My husband still goes to work, and I still have a job.  My adult children are healthy, making smart choices, and staying in contact.  Our air conditioner is working through this 100+ degree Texas summer.  I do the laundry each week, make the bed and empty the dishwasher every morning, drink sixty-four ounces of water every day.  I even shower, and sometimes put on makeup even though I'm the only one who will see it.  For the past few Thursdays, I've gone on road trips just to get out of the house.

See?  I'm okay, in so many ways...

The first clue that I wasn't really okay was my planner.  Every Sunday, I sit and write out what I need to do in the coming week. I don't ever get everything done, but most weeks I can check off at least half of my plans.  These days, the planner is full of plans and woefully lacking in checkmarks.

The second clue was a bag of potato chips.  I was standing at the kitchen counter eating from a bag of BBQ chips (yes, I know how unhealthy this is) and the doorbell rang.  Mail, and not just mail, a delivery that won't fit in the mailbox!  I gathered up the packages on the doorstep and walked out to the mailbox to get the rest of the delivery.  After dropping off the mail inside, I washed my hands and puttered around for two hours before re-entering the kitchen and seeing the open bag of chips on the counter.

The third clue was a frying pan.  Still in pajamas, I decided I wanted eggs for breakfast.  I got out the frying pan, then went to the other end of the house to use the restroom.  While there, I decided to make my bed and take a shower.  An hour later I realized that I hadn't had breakfast, walked into the kitchen, and saw the frying pan on the stove.  

I finally had to come to terms with my current mental state.  Activities that I usually enjoy are being affected.  Crochet projects are lying within reach, untouched.  I can barely read five pages at a time before I find myself rereading sentences, trying to focus.  There are days that I list, out loud, the next three things I need to do, and more often than not I get distracted before reaching number three.  I am racking up Duolingo points (Spanish, Japanese, and now French, because why not?) and computer solitaire games in lieu of much needed cleaning and decluttering.  I finally had to put myself on a no-spend challenge for July, because my retail therapy over the last three months was ridiculous.

I realized that I have been drifting around my house like a ghost since mid-June, when the school year effectively ended for me.  

I'm not writing this to gain sympathy or as a cry for help.  Now that I know that I'm not okay, I am taking steps to feel better--a bit less social media and news, reimplementing daily exercise and exposure to fresh air and sunshine, food journaling and habit tracking to hold myself accountable.  I've accepted my inability to read a lot right now, and gave myself the grace not to book-blog for a couple of weeks.  

I am writing this as a COVID19 diary entry.

I am writing this so that someone else can know that it's okay not to be okay, too. 

Tuesday Slice: The tree in our house

It arrived at our house sometime around her birth.  I can't remember whether it was delivered when she was born, or when we brought her home.  There were sixty-six days in between those two events.  Those months were filled with twice-daily trips downtown to the hospital, attaching myself to a breast pump eight times a day, updates from doctors and nurses, phone calls with family and friends, and work, surprisingly. 

That was almost twenty-seven years ago.  The pink ceramic baby buggy contained an assortment of plants, one of which was a small dragon dracaena.  The plants lived on the nursery windowsill in the buggy for awhile, until it was evident that they needed their own pots. 

The dracaena must have liked the light on the eastern side of our house, because it continued to grow...and grow...and grow.  I transplanted it into bigger and bigger pots, until its current twenty-inch home in the living room, because that's the only place that gets that light and has a higher ceiling--which is not high enough.  And because I know nothing about the care of a dracaena, it has become a twisted, tangled, looped mass of trunks and dead ends, with massive heads of long leaves in our window, thriving in the light there.  I can't bear to prune it for fear of killing the plant, and so it continues to grow up and around, the ends that hit the ceiling bearing sparse leaves that don't enjoy the same access to sunlight as the bent branches below.

Our daughter's husband is a botanist by training; perhaps when they move to the United States and get a home of their own, he can tame the gangly dragon.  The tree really is hers, after all.

(Happy?) Fourth of July

Up and down my Facebook feed, there are pictures and memes and Bitmojis declaring "Happy Fourth of July!  God bless America!".

I want to join in those greetings.  I really do.  It is the Fourth of July, and I do want God to bless America.  

But I'm not particularly happy.  Profoundly grateful, yes, but not happy.

I am so very grateful today for the health of my family, and access to medical care at our point of need.  I have a roof over my head, clean water to drink, a working vehicle with a tank of gas, a job with a fairly stable guarantee of income.  I have a spouse who loves me without abuse.  Our children received a decent education, and attend(ed) college.  I have debts, but God willing that I keep my health and my job, I have reasonable assurance I will pay them off.  There will be burgers and hot dogs on the grill today, and there's plenty of food in our pantry.  I have all of my basic needs met, and then some.    

I am grateful, and unhappy.  We have leaders who waffled on decisions that could have lessened the impact of our pandemic crisis, and people who just refuse to listen to science, and now our local ICUs are reaching capacity.  Yes, I have access to healthcare, but if I end up sick and hospitalized, it will not only be a health crisis, but a financial one.  

I am unhappy because once again, there is mounting evidence of interference in the essential act of our democratic system--voting--from within our own country and beyond.

I am unhappy because even though people are screaming in righteous anger and frustration due to injustices based on skin color and sexual orientation, there are those in power and in the general populace who are arguing to keep the systems in place that perpetuate those injustices.

I am unhappy because there are people who still think that all it takes to make it in this great country of ours is grit and determination, when it really takes much more than that.  Not one of us is a "self-made man"; our place in life is determined not only by our own efforts, but by wealth or lack of it, opportunity or lack of it, and assistance or lack of it--and much of that is influenced by race and gender.  A little bit of luck doesn't hurt, either.  

I am unhappy because too often I think of myself and my own wants, and forget others' needs.  I am consumed by consumerism, to my own detriment (refer back to aforementioned debt).  I have allowed outside influences to tell me what will make me happy, what determines a successful life, what makes me worthy and others not-so. I've given myself a no-spend challenge for the month, to jump off of the consumer hamster-wheel and redefine wants versus needs. 

Part of my "celebration" of this Fourth of July will be reading two books:  How to Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi, and A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.  

I am grateful that I live in a country that allows protest, allows those authors to be published, allows me to write these words without fear of reprisal.  I am grateful that my basic needs are met so that I have the brain-space to contemplate these issues.  

I just wish I could be happier about it all.