Why Namaste?

My regular followers and all the Saturday Centusians are aware that I close every comment and most e-mails with “Namaste.”  It occurs to me that you may wonder why.

I am not Hindu nor am I Buddhist.  I am neither Christian or Jew.  I am not Muslim.  I believe there are many paths to God, but I don’t subscribe to any one of them.  Instead, I have read about the world’s great religions and taken a little from here and there.

Here is my understanding of this spiritual word/gesture.  It’s the short version, which I am sure you will appreciate.

Namaste can either be a salutation or a parting gesture.  It is widely believed to have originated in the Hindu traditions.  In Sanskrit, the word namaste means, “I bow to you.”  It is a self-deprecating word or gesture that is actually directed towards God, who lives in all of us.  It signifies reducing one’s ego in the presence of another human being.

Namaste may be spoken or written.  It may also be a silent gesture in which one closes ones eyes and places the palms together over the heart - or the heart chakra - and bows the head.  It is believed to bring the mind closer to the heart.  It is a more profound gesture when the closed palms are held together with fingers touching the center of the forehead, then moved down to the heart. 

In my reading, I have learned that namaste exists in many religions, especially in Eastern faiths.  In America, it is used at the beginning and the end of every yoga class.  It is a self-centering gesture that conveys respect both for the God in one’s self and for the God in others.

When I use it in my writing, I am saying to you, “I honor the God within you who has blessed you with your talent, and I thank you for sharing that talent with me.  I am humble in your presence.”  I think about what it means every time I write it down or say it or show it in a gesture.

So, you see.  “Namaste” is not just a parting word that I plucked out of mid-air.  It is a sincerely respectful acknowledgement of your worth as a child of God.

Now, how do I reconcile this spiritual belief with some of my pieces, especially my poems, that appear to be so anti-God?  Writing, and particularly poetry, is my way of working through that reconciliation.  I said I was spiritual, not perfect.  Sometimes ranting at God frees me to forgive myself and others.  Sometimes, it clears my head.  God understands.

And the cuss words?  She has heard them all before.

Namaste..........cj

© cj Schlottman

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Please Pray for Us

July 18, 2011

Today at work I had only one patient, though a quite interesting and tragic one.  I cared for a 34 year old African American woman who has neurofibromytosis Type 1.  Really that’s the name of it.

Here’s a definition:  Neurofibromatosis type 1 is a condition characterized by changes in skin coloring (pigmentation) and the growth of tumors along nerves in the skin, brain, and other parts of the body.  Though the tumors in and of themselves are not malignant, they lead to a condition called spindle call carcinoma which is deadly. 

My patient has tumors all over her body - some exterior, others subcutaneous (under the skin).  She has a tumor in her pelvis larger than a basketball by two.  Her pain is excruciating.  The gigantic tumor has encroached on her aorta, the main blood vessel from the heart.  Because of that, her lower body is so grossly swollen that she is unable to move her lower limbs, and her kidneys are compressed.  She has tubes coming out of each kidney to drain her urine from her body.

Eventually, her aorta will be completely blocked by the tumor, and she will lose all circulation to her lower body.  It will squeeze her heart and the vessels that serve the upper body and brain, and she will die.  Her tumor is growing so fast that her end will be, I pray, swift.

She is mildly mentally deficient, but she is alert and appropriate, can express her needs and wishes.  I have never treated a more kind and gentle person.

Morphine drips into her vein at 2.5 mg per hour.  She gets Ativan for anxiety every four hours.  When I arrived at work this morning, I found her in pain and gave her what is called a bolus dose of morphine.  I pushed a button on the top of her pump and delivered a burst of morphine.  20 minutes later, she was still in pain and very anxious, so I gave her 1 mg of Ativan to treat her anxiety and potentiate the effect of the Morphine.  She went to sleep.

(Sigh)

She slept quietly until a few minutes after 1:00 PM.  Before we bathed her and changed her dressings, I gave her another bolus and increased the hourly rate of her drip.  She didn’t complain a single time while we turned and treated and bathed her, but the expression on her face is forever etched in my mind.  Deformed and in terrible pain, she is the very picture of dignity.

After her bath, she needed more medicine, so I once more gave her some Ativan and she drifted into the arms of Morpheous.  With God’s grace, she will remain there until her heart stops beating.  It is our challenge to make that happen.  And we will.

Please pray for all of us.

© cj Schlottman

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Good-bye Miami

  

Parrish had to leave at 8:00 because he needed to get back to Family Rest so he could get his morning drugs.  He was quiet this morning, deep in thought, it appeared.  When he left me, we hugged each other hard, and I shed a little tear.  His eyes remained dry - a rarity in our many “Good-byes” over the years.  I have to wonder if the medication that keeps him so calm is pushing his emotions down deep into his brain.  As hard as it is to see him almost emotionless (for him), it is preferable to seeing him manic and hallucinating.  

One of the most startling changes in his personality is that he wasn’t constantly perseverating about his appearance, repeatedly asking, “Mama, don’t you think I look good in this shirt?  I don’t look age at all, do I?”  There are, however, some things (harmless) things that have not changed.  He is still obsessed with looking well groomed; he just doesn’t talk about it all the time, still takes him clothes out to be laundered, taking a chunk out of his allowance every week.  I will concede him that habit, especially since some of his articles of clothing have not returned from the laundry at Family Rest.  

It’s now 11:00, and I am at the gate waiting for my flight. No upgrades were available, but I was assigned a good seat close to the front.  

I should feel rested.  I slept enough to feel rested, but I am already tired, and I haven’t even boarded the plane.  This thing with my upper back interferes with my sleep.  I am sure it is keeping me tired, but I don’t know who to see about it.

Boarding now..............

©cj Schlottman

Please read "South Beach."  It it's all about our my time with Parrish.

South Beach

July 10, 2011 - 9:30 AM

Parrish has gained weight, probably the result of taking Zyprexa for his schizophrenia.  He is more calm than I have seen him in many years.  God, if there were only a guarantee that this medication will continue to be effective.  He admits to racing thoughts brought on by the anticipation of my arrival here in Miami.  He is not perseverating and constantly talking about his appearance, fishing for compliments.    

Yesterday, as soon as I got here, I took a cab to pick him up, and we went to Bayside for lunch at Hard Rock Cafe.  We had great food and lingered to listen to rock and roll and peruse the exhibits.  I even bought myself a Ringo Hard Rock pin.  It’s very cool - even has “Peace, Love” on the front.  Since the Beatles came to the US in 1964, I have been in love with Ringo.

But wait.  This is not about me.  It’s about Parrish.

I expected his behavior to make for great fodder for my blog and inspire me to write poetry.  I have a hard time writing poems about happy things, as most of my regular readers know.  There’s too much happy going on here for me to be inspired. 

I have been asleep most of the the time when we were not out and about.  Yesterday afternoon, I took a two hour nap, and after we ate the pizza we called out for last night, I went back to sleep at 9:30, and only got out of bed one time until 8:30 this morning.  It reminds me of how many hours I slept when I arrived in Aix in May.

There I go again, making this about me.  Maybe I should just let it be about me.  That’s the directions this entry is pulling me.  One thing is clear, and that is that I don't get enough quality sleep in Macon.  Why else would I lapse into a coma when I leave town?

3:40 PM 

We went to South Beach for brunch at News Cafe, a Miami institution since 1988.  Well, I had brunch and P had a hamburger.  I had Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon instead of Canadian bacon.  It was completely luscious and rich and satisfying.  Then we walked along Ocean Drive in the humid Miami heat (90º/humidity 60%), window shopping and taking photos of some of the old Art Deco hotels.  Parrish is still manic enough that it is impossible for him to stroll, so I either chased him, ten feet behind, or I stopped whenever I wanted to take a photo and let him come back to me.  

We passed an establishment called The Palace.  The sign out front says it all.  "Every Palace Needs A Queen."  We were across the street, and I tried to take a photo of the Drag Queen dressed in gold lamé ruffles who was strutting back and forth on the sidewalk, singing and dancing.  I failed.  Cars and other onlookers created a curtain around her, and I only got glances of the Queen.  

We grabbed an iced coffee at Starbuck’s and sat in the cool for while, sipping and chatting.  If it had not been so blazing hot, we would have walked over to Collins Avenue to get more photos.  

I continue to be amazed at Parrish’s steady and even demeanor.  With the exception of the speed walking, he is the polar opposite of the man who came to visit me last December - unfocused, perseverating, manic, hallucinating.

A large part of this change is probably due to his new medication, but I still believe that when I come to see him, he does better than when comes to my house - for primarily one reason.  He carries so much guilt and shame about his behavior when he lived at home, he gets caught up in that web of guilt and his psychosis rears its ugly head and takes over.  It is a tragic thing to have to watch.

This, on the other hand, is fun for both of us.  I may just go home refreshed and relaxed.  Who knew?

“Just cause you got the monkey is off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.” - George Carlin

(I borrowed the Carlin quote from Amanda).

July 6, 2011

Remember the line in As Good as it Gets when Carol (Helen Hunt) shouted “Why can’t I have a regular boyfriend?”  

I’m here today to ask, “Why can’t I have a regular life?”

Take yesterday.  I woke to learn that my water had been turned off, so I called the Water Authority to report my situation and ask why it had been turned off.  After being on hold for 20 minutes (Thank God for speaker phones), I was greeted by a very polite woman.  I told her about my situation and asked her to please have someone come and turn it back on.  She put me on hold again and came back on the line about five minutes later. 

“Mrs. Schlottman, your water is turned off because you never paid your bill in May.”  She got points for pronouncing my name correctly, but she was wrong.  I had my laptop handy and went to Bill Pay and found a copy of the check I wrote in May.  It showed both front and back, and I could see that they had deposited the 

check on May 8.

When I reported this information to her, she put me on hold again but was back on the line in a couple of minutes.

“There were some administrative charges and one late fee that you never paid.”

“Really?”  

“Yes Ma’am.  Do you want to take care of them today so we can turn you water back on?”

I bristled. I have never been late paying my water bill.  I like showers and baths and clean clothes too much to take that kind of chance. I’m a widow living with three dogs, and we need water to live, just like the rest of the world.  So, I took a deep breath.

“How much will it cost me to get my water back.?

“Thirty-three dollars.  You can pay now with a credit or debit card.”

I weighed my options.  I could contest the charges and be without water for who knows how long, or I could pay the damned thing and wash my hair.

“Let me give you my MasterCard number.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Schlottman.  Your water will be turned on sometime this afternoon.”

Sometimes it is more important to be happy than to be right.

I took a couple of hours to work on some poems, then, after bathing my body with distilled water I keep on hand for emergencies, I proceeded with the rest of my day.

Errand list in hand, I set out to take care of some things.  When I tried to close my car door, it didn’t click.  I got out of the car a looked at the hook where it’s supposed to click.  A washer at the place where the door clicks when closed was about 80% worn away.  Great.  After several tries, I got the door closed securely.

My first stop, of course, was Auto Zone, where I purchased the necessary part and asked the man there to help me put it on.

“We aren’t allowed to mess with anyone’s car any more.  It’s a liability issue.”

There I stood, part in hand, needing to go several places before returning home to figure out how to do the repair.  (Did I mention that it was 100º and humid as a steam bath)?  Once I got the door to click, I did my errands and came home.  

There is no way in hell I could have fixed that door, so I called my stepson and asked him to come over and help me.  (By the way, the water was still off).  He was here right away and repaired my door.  One problem solved.

No water yet, and the Water Authority was closed for the day.  Wonderful.  Deciding to make lemonade, I offered to take Bert to the hamburger joint around the corner for a sandwich and a beer.  We went by Kroger and bought me some more gallons of water.  

When we returned to my house, there was a hanger on the front door saying that the Water Wiener had come to turn it back on but that no one was home.  Really?  I wasn’t home when they turned the damned thing off.  The hanger advised me to call them this morning.

On hold for 15 minute this time.  A very nice lady told me that they couldn’t turn the water back on if no one were home because there might be a faucet left on.  Seriously.  I checked and found that my patio hose was slightly open.  The nice lady told me someone would be out today.

“Morning or afternoon?”

“Can’t say, but you may turn your water back on at the meter if you choose.”

Right.  I can turn on the water - have all the right tools and everything - learned all about it when I was in nursing school - have the tool belt to prove it.  Oh, Piffle.

Stay with me, there is an end to this.  While sitting here on the deck beginning the post, Israel, the very good and kind man who cuts my grass, showed up. 

I raced out into the front yard in my pajamas and asked him if he could turn my water on.  Hell yeah.  Well, he didn’t say hell; he’s too nice for that. 

So, now I can take a shower and wash my filthy hair, shine my sink and wait for the bug man to come treat the exterior of my house so the effing Palmetto Bugs will stop coming inside and scaring the shit out of me.

© cj Schlottman

  July 5, 2011

Shining My Sink

July 1, 2011

Yesterday, while reading Amanda’s blog post at “This Side of Reason,” I found a link to a site called "FlyLady."  It’s a place where one goes to get inspired to de-clutter and simplify one’s life.  I found it a little touchy-feely for my taste.  Really, I don’t think that woman loves everyone in the world.

Anyway, she has come up with a system that is composed of a series steps to manage stress and just get happy as shit.  The first step is to shine your sink.  Really.  If you want to read more, just click your way over there.

I thought about the sink-shining idea, slept on it, and when I got up this morning, I decided to shine my sink.  Understand that I planned to shine my sink after I had drunk several cups of coffee, written in my journal, written a blog post, and helped Christy, my Domestic Engineer, work around the house.

So, it was 11 o’clock before I got around to the task I had set for myself.  I took everything out of my sink, put the dirty dishes in the washer and put away a bunch of stuff that was in the drain.  Then I went in search of the stainless steel cleaner I bought one time, a long time ago.  Don’t ask me why.  Maybe way back then, I was already thinking about shining my sick.

Cleaner in hand, I used an old rag to, well, shine my sink.  It didn’t get very shiny.  I think it is about 30 years old.  But I did the best I could and stood, rag in hand, and admired my handiwork. It looked pretty good.  

The thing about shining my sink was, well, that once it was shiny and empty, it was impossible to ignore the little (or not so little) piles of shit all over the rest of the kitchen - papers that were stacked up and needed to be filed, two ceramic bowls that had been sitting next to the coffeemaker for months and needed to be put away, receipts that were scattered about on every counter and that should have been put in the purple plastic envelope with dividers in it I use to store them for a year.  Wait, there’s more - junk mail culled out of the real mail but never thrown away, a couple of wine corks (really),a sink stopper that had never worked but which I had never thrown away, just parked it in the spoon rest I use as a sponge caddy.

Before I knew it, I was de-cluttering like a pluperfect fool, de-cluttering my ass off.  I took all the clean clothes that had been folded and left on top of the dryer for about a week, and I put them away.  I have left clothes in the kitchen so long that I once had to go in there to find a clean pair of panties.  I took the Christmas cards that had been in the basket where I keep my little coffee pods and culled out the ones I really wanted to keep and threw away the ones that had pictures on them of people I hardly know.  I put the three I wanted to keep in my desk in a photo file.  

But I was not finished, and my 1 o’clock nail appointment hung over my head whispering, “Your nails are a mess.”  I took a few minutes to go through my completely jammed pencil and pen caddy and threw away all the ones that didn’t work.  Now there are exactly two pencils and three pens in it.

I forced myself to dress and drive to the nail salon, but all the while I was there, I was thinking of what else in my kitchen I could dispense with.  The minute I got home, nails, toenails and brows groomed to perfection, I donned some gloves and completed the job - even straightened out the pantry - which has no door.

So, there you have it.  Me being me.  I’m fighting the urge to go back to FlyLady and tackle Step 2, of which I have no idea because I only read as far as Step 1.

Do you suppose there is a 12-Step program for de-clutterers?  God, I hope so.  I may already addicted.  

(Please, Sweet Jesus, say it ain’t so). 

© cj Schlottman

Friday, July 1, 2011

Getting It Out of My System

I did a good thing yesterday, a healing thing.  I’ve been stewing over the MF’s treatment of me since January.  Now he’s come slithering around acting as though nothing happened between us, trying to chat me up in the gym.  He even sat himself down at a table next to where I was having dinner with my good friend Frances on the anniversary of Clint’s death.  Just plopped his ass down and turned his chair toward us, even asked if he could have a taste of our appetizer.

When he went to the bar to get a glass of wine, Frances, who is 83, and I looked at one another.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.  

“What any self-respecting lady would do - be nice and get the hell out of here as fast as we can.!  We don’t dare risk a scene.”

She was right, of course.  We ate and made our exit as soon as possible.

I’ve been a little distracted by the thing with Michael, but the thing with Loren has also been chewing at me.

So,  yesterday afternoon, I sat down and wrote a poem.  It was cleansing and healing, and though I may edit it some, I went ahead and posted it on My Poems.  

God, I feel better.  Click here to read it, but be warned that it is rated R.  If you can’t tolerate the f-word, skip this one.  

© cj Schlottman

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Friends - Without Benefits

Michael has come and gone, has already called me from Houston to say he is home safe.

If you follow this blog,  you know that he and I were lovers nearly 40 years ago and drifted apart while life was going on around us.  We recently reconnected and started a phone flirtation over a month in length.  You know that he phoned me out of the blue when I was in the South of France at a Zona Rosa Retreat, saying he had important things to talk to me about, and that he wanted to come to see me.

He arrived on Thursday, June 23, and our visit ended last night when we said good-night and pecked one another softly on the lips.  The story of his visit is recorded on a new blog, a blog just for our story.  It may be a very short story.  Who knows?  It may be a very long one.  I chose not to write about my experiences with Michael here on this blog because this blog sprang from my experiences after the death of the love of my live, my Darling, my Clint, who passed away two years ago.

I had to give them separation.  I don’t want to make the mistake of co-mingling these stories, though they do have a few threads in common.

Michael and Me is the new blog, and it is not PG.  I don’t want any of my grandchildren running up on it by mistake, so if you don’t already have the URL, e-mail me, and I will send it to you.

I will continue to blog here on The Red Sweater.  This is in not way its end.  There will be essays and thoughts, but I’ve been reshuffling my priorities and plan to spend more time on poetry.  I will be posting links to new or reworked poems from time to time.  Please come by to visit.

It's Okay, cj. It's okay.

It was in April of 1997 that I first visited Zona Rosa, the ongoing and the now nationally known writers workshop in Savannah led by Rosemary Daniell. It was there that the seeds of my friendship with Rosemary were first planted. She invited me to become a part of the group and in the ensuing years, we have become close friends, sharing not only our love of words and writing but also the difficulties of being the parents of sons with serious mental disorders. She is a widely published and internationally know author of both poetry and prose, and she was on the forefront of the Feminist Movement. You can read about her, her books, her workshops and more by clicking on the Red Lips button on my sidebar.

Now, can we talk about me for a minute? I have never been a prolific writer. I am congenitally incapable of sitting down and telling myself to “write.” I need to have something rolling around in my head before positioning my fingers on the keyboard of my MacBook.

It is true that I am capable of quickly creating small pieces for the memes in which I participate - Saturday Centus and Six Word Fridays. They are a great learning tool, and I am not dismissing them as inconsequential. They carry their own weight, but what I mean is what happens when my words flow, sometimes rush from my brain to my fingertips, racing to get on the page - without a prompt. It’s a little like what is happening now.

For a long time, probably since I joined Zona Rosa all those years ago, I have been critical of my lack of output. I have actually felt guilty about not writing a dozen poems and six or eight blog posts every month.

I am here to say that I have been too hard on myself for too long. “It’s okay, cj. It’s okay,” is my new mantra. Nowhere is it written that my talent is measured by the amount of work I produce. I used to worry that I would lose my readers if I didn’t post a blog post at least twice a week. Piffle. My readers are my readers. There are not legions of them, but the ones I have support my writing and return to read my pieces when they appear on my blogs - even if it has been ten days since I posted.

One of the wonderful surprises about the Blogger community for me came when I realized I had, indeed, made my way into a community of committed writers who sacrifice their time to read one another - and to leave comments. I am aware that I have readers who do not comment publicly because they send me e-mails letting me know they have visited and read my work.

And I reciprocate. I see this exchange of material as an opportunity, not just to enjoy good writing but also to learn. Our community is diverse, and more than once, I have been inspired to write a post after reading someone else’s. My only complaint is that I rarely receive real criticism. I want to hear what others think about the quality of my work. It won’t hurt my feelings. I may accept said criticism or ignore it, but it would be nice to have it.

It takes me a long time to write a good poem - usually a few weeks, sometimes longer. I edit and rewrite and sleep on it, sometimes for several days, before I look at it again. Returning to the piece from a distance enables me to, sometimes instantly, see areas that need cleaning up or expanding or reworking. Other times, I labor for hours, reading aloud and even reading into a tape recorder to know how my piece sounds. I struggle for words that carry the right weight. I distill the piece down to a poem in which there are hopefully no superfluous words or abstract nouns. This I learned from Rosemary, not only my friend but also my writing coach.

When I began blogging, I published often. I was in personal crisis, not working and in need a safe place to write down my truths.

Now that I am working, posting has slowed down. With the exception of entries in my personal journal, I don’t write on work days. I am on the job at 6:45 in the morning, and many nights I don’t return home until nearly 8:00 or later. Even when I get off on time, it is 7:30 before I make it home. I am not whining. I am stating the facts. When I have worked for 12 or 13 hours, on my feet the most time, I have energy only to feed and play with my dogs, shower and go to bed so I can get enough sleep to do it again the next day.

When I have time off, I do my serious writing, and I have already confessed that I’m a slow poke at that.

So, there. “It’s okay, cj. It’s okay.” I have given myself permission to take as long as I need to do my best work.

© cj Schlottman

June, 2011

It Hurts So Good - Pain and Laughter

It is here, the 2nd anniversary of Clint’s death. I will get through it.

I woke, tired and aching, from a dream of blue crabs, some skittering around the deck, others dead, cooked to that bright orange they take on when heated. It was nighttime, no moon, and my dogs were chasing the live crabs all over the deck, ignoring the dead ones and trying to eat the live ones. I began to try to catch the live ones so I could to steam and eat them. I tried grabbing them with a pair of short tongs. The result was the picture of a frantic me, chasing the crabs and catching none. Then they were all cooked, perfect orange sculptures decorating the deck and glowing in the dark.

I looked into the dogs’ kennel on the deck, a product of my dream, and found the shells and flippers of large crabs scattered all over it. I got down on my knees and reached in to start cleaning up the mess.

Awake. Aware. Today is the 2nd anniversary of Clint’s death. I will get through it.

Two years ago, Clint lay in this bed, dying, scorched with fever but awake enough to say, time after time, that he loved me. The day unfolded and he was too tired to talk but would open his eyes when he heard my voice. The afternoon wore one, and I lay at his side, whispering permission for him to go, lying to him, saying I would be okay. He stopped opening his eyes, and at 6:33 PM he stopped breathing and I put my ear to his chest and his heart was still. Today, it beats within me, his heart so kind and good and loving.

This is the 2nd anniversary of Clint’s death. Will I ever get through this?

Clint fretted about leaving me alone. He wanted me to meet and marry someone else after he was gone. I shrugged off the very idea. No one in the universe, I told him, could fill his size 13 shoes, love me the way he did, treasure my very existence as he did. I had great romance with him for 35 years, and I could feed off that for the rest of my life.

These two years have been a time of transition for me, reinventing the parts of me that Clint took when he left. I have made some mistakes. I have taken great pleasure and gratification from my work. I have grown, but I have also shrunken. I have become more and more reclusive, less tolerant of fools. I don’t have enough time waste on prattle .

I have been dreadfully lonely, sometimes sitting on the hearth to talk to Clint, there in his urn. I have wept and laughed with him. When I sat down with him 10 days ago and told him my high school sweetheart had called and wants to come to see me, he smiled. He does not want me to be alone.

Now I am confused and crazy. I have always loved Michael as a friend, and we never lost touch. Clint grew to like him when he saw how important his long distance friendship was to me.

Now, in two weeks, Michael is coming from Houston to Macon to see me. I have a Gentleman Caller. We have not missed a day talking to one another since I returned from France. When he called me, I was in Aix. This sounds like something you read about, not something that happens.

I think God and Clint put their heads together and sent Michael back into my life at this painful time to give me hope, to help me through the tremendous pain I am feeling. When Michael calls, he makes me laugh and that laughter soars over my grief and covers it up, if for only a short time. This man and I have loved one another since our teenage years, a love born of great friendship and mutual respect. I don’t know what he wants, he won’t say until he gets here, but I believe he is coming to woo me.

Thus the crazy confusion. Am I ready for romance? Will I ever be? I’m lonely. Am I reading too much into this? What is Michael looking for? Do I have it?

Today is the 2nd anniversary of Clint’s death, and Michael is helping me get through it.

More Zona Rosa in France

The week flew by, and it is almost unbelievable that my retreat is over and I am on my way back to Georgia, via London. In order to save money, I booked a flight through London, even though it meant
changing airports in London. It saved me $500. And it was no problem. Shuttles run continuously from Heathrow and Gatwick airports, and the transition went smoothly.

To attempt to sum up my experience in Aix is a daunting challenge for me, and I will probably be writing about it for some time. There was so much good there. The weather was perfect - warm during the days and refreshingly cool in the evenings. It was the ideal backdrop for the intensive and gratifying experience of being surrounded by accomplished writers.

This is Rosemary, beautiful in red.

We were all there for ourselves, of course, but we were also there for one another, to offer encouragement as well as gentle constructive criticism. For the first time in my life I know in my heart that I am a writer - a poet before all else but also a decent writer of essays.

Yes, I am indeed a writer. I am reminded of a question posed to me not long ago at work. A colleague asked me what I did when I was not working. I told her that I spent much of my time writing. Her response? “No, what do you really do? She assigned no value to my love of words and the joy of writing them down. Because of this Zona Rosa retreat, when I am questioned about what I do, I can honestly say, “I’m a writer, a poet.”

I came away from this experience empowered to embrace my true writer’s self. The women there validated my work, even praised it, much to my surprise. Rosemary, my writing mentor, was the one who suggested I answer the “What do you do?” question by replying, “I am a writer.”

I accomplished two of the three of my goals for the retreat. Two of the poems I took to work on are now finished pieces, ready to replace the ones I previously posted on My Poems because I didn’t know what to do with them. The third is in total rewrite and will be ready soon. I will ask Rosemary to critique it before posting it - or maybe not. I now have a certain trust in my ability now, and if I believe the poem is worthy of posting, I will post it. I’m a real writer now. Remember?



Above is a photo of a ceramics booth. Below on the right is a booth of linen scarves.

During my week in Aix, I shopped at the street markets, buying trinkets and scarves. I took a tour of the city, which drove us past Cezanne’s atelier, or studio, where he painted many of his masterpieces. There was no time to visit the studio itself, so I have another reason to return to Aix. We also saw many of the city’s famous fountains.

We ate Provençal food, drank what seemed like gallons of wine - the Rosé was fresh and wonderful, not at all like the sweet stuff that sometimes passes for Rosé here in the states. I soaked up the light, the famous light so influential in Cezanne’s decision to go there to paint. It was a magic time, refreshing and regenerating, and I came away with a sense of empowerment about my writing and about myself.

Zona Rosa in Aix-en-Provence

It’s hard to believe I have been in Aix-en-Provence since Saturday afternoon, and this is the first time I’ve felt free to publish a post on this blog. I am taking this time while most of the other participants are off touring the countryside, something I am fortunate enough to have done before.

First, after I finally got to bed on Saturday night, I slept for 14 hours and almost missed the first session of our workshop.

On Sunday night, I slept for 11 hours. That kind of sleep is not solely the result of jet lag. I was just so tired from life, from all the craziness I was enduring in Macon before I started this journey.

Our sessions have been very productive. Each day, Rosemary highlights the work of one or more writers in our group sessions, and we each have one-on-one time with her to work on our individual manuscripts and/or poems. I brought poems with me, old ones that I have been struggling for years to perfect. I brought them here so that I could get satisfied with them or just let them go.

A couple of them are already published on “My Poems,” but I have never been satisfied with them, so if you follow that blog, you will see some drastic changes in a couple of the pieces.

Today I walked to the Grand Place and sat at a sidewalk cafe and drank a class of white wine while I enjoyed the view and the people watching that is so wonderful here. The famous Fontaine de la Rotonde is mesmerizing, almost hypnotic. Although the site on which Aix was built has been occupied since 121 BC, this fountain was built in 1860 to give the city a focal point.

Aix is a city of fountains. The Romans always built their cities on ground where there is water, and before it was called Aix, this city was known as Aquae Sextiaë (The Waters if Sextius) because of the abundance of spring water and in honor of its founder, Sextius Calvinus. There are 17 fountains within the walls of the city, and they span the gamut from ancient to modern. These bubbling and sparkling gems refresh the city and enchant both tourists and locals alike.

On my way back to our hotel, “Le Mozart,” I stopped and bought half a bottle of red wine, some cheese and and bread, the perfect Provençal lunch, which I ate on the little private balcony off my “chambre.”

Be Very Careful What You Wish For

Part 1 - May 17, 2011

On Sunday afternoon, after publishing a whiny post about having misplaced my muse, I ran straight into a situation that I must write about. I don’t want to write about it, but that is one of the reasons must. I have not been able to start this post until tonight, because I worked Monday and Tuesday, and I was afraid it would become so emotional that I wouldn’t get the rest I need to work 12 hour days.

Sunday afternoon, I piled the dogs into my car and went off to Walmart. It was a cool afternoon, and they had plenty of water. Honey, the Ruler of all Dogdom, had the front seat, of course. I cracked the windows and started toward the “Enter” door at Walmart. It was breezy, and I had my head bowed into the wind, so I wasn’t aware of what was going on at the entrance. I looked up when I heard a familiar voice addressing the man in front of me. The voice was asking for money, begging.

I was instantly aware of why the voice was familiar. It belongs to Clint’s granddaughter. She and her husband were panhandling at Walmart. I almost vomited, in fact had to swallow bile at the sight of them. My heart seized, my breath came in rapid gulps; I thought I would faint.

Gathering my wits, I spoke to the two of them, asked what they were doing.

The reply? “We’re just waiting on our ride. How are you doing?”

“Doing great,” I replied and moved through the automatic door, still tugging for air, seeing stars.

As I pulled a buggy from the carefully lined rows, I glanced over my shoulder. They were already gone.

An automaton, I moved through the store, followed my list, piled groceries and other things into my buggy. By the time I checked out, my breath was normal, but my heart was still pounding.

Arriving home, I knew I had to write this down, but I was afraid to. Putting the whole nightmare into words would make it real, make me own it, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to plant my head firmly in the ground and pretend it never happened.

I sat on my emotions, waited until I could make a halfway coherent recording of this story. I used work as an excuse not to address this issue, but I’m not working again until I return from France.

But I am exhausted, emotionally and physically. One of my dearest patients will not be here when I return to work. I don’t kid myself about that. I do bring work home. I wouldn’t be worth a tinker’s damn as a nurse if I didn’t.


Part 2
May 19, 2011

A little history is in order. The Beggar, who is now in her mid-twenties, was a difficult child from the beginning - disobedient, prone to outbursts and defiance of all authority figures. She could not wrap her head around the fact that there were acceptable limits to her conduct. If and when she wanted to do something, she did it, and the consequences be damned. She seemed to lack a moral compass, but she was charming and a great manipulator.

When she was 15, she “borrowed” her uncle’s SUV one night and took her 12 year old cousin on a joy ride. After running into a mailbox, she returned the car and said nothing about it. Her cousin, however, told on her. To this day, The Beggar has never understood what the big deal was. When faced with the fact that she could have harmed her cousin as well as herself, her reply was, “Well, only the car got hurt.” End of conversation.

On another occasion, she set her grandmother’s carpet aflame while smoking a cigarette she pilfered from her.

Punishment was never effective. Taking away her TV or her CD player or her MP3 player never phased her. In answer to her punishment, which was frequent, she sneaked out of the house, and her boyfriend picked her up at the end of the street, and off they went to buy cigarettes and beer with the money she stole from her mother’s purse.

A bright young woman, she made passing grades, studying only enough to keep herself out of trouble with her parents. After graduation from high school, she came to our house on St. Simons Island for the summer. Clint and I thought a change of venue and some separation from her parents would be good for her.

She was with us six weeks when she got her first DWI. We let her sit in jail for three nights, hoping to get her attention. Nothing worked. She had a job at a local restaurant and took to staying after work to drink with her coworkers.

We grounded her, allowing her use of her car only to travel to and from work. Her bedroom was at the opposite end of the house from ours, and she began to sneaking.

I could go on for pages, but I’ll just say we had to ask her to leave, find other living arrangements. I think she slept in her car for a while. She finally talked her parents into letting her come home, charming them with promises that she would not break house rules. Over the following years, she was arrested repeatedly for DWI, driving without a license, stealing, underage drinking. Finally, her parents asked her to leave.

Two years ago, she started dating her cousin’s ex-husband, and when he won a million dollars with a scratch-off lottery ticket, they got married. Without going into details, I’ll just say that now they are broke, flat broke, as witnessed by the scene I encountered on Sunday. They both had the dark, hollow, sunken eyes of the addicted.

That image is burned into my brain.

A Ramble

Sitting up on my bed, which is where I usually write, I am surrounded by my three dogs. They are sleeping quietly, but I am jittery from trying to force myself to create a blog post. My last post was on May 1, over two weeks ago, for God’s sake, and here I sit, wondering what will inspire me. I have not even the germ of a new poem inside my head. Maybe I’m a binge writer. I published four rather long posts between April 24 and May 1.

Oh, I have written posts for the memes in which I participate, but I haven’t come up with a blog post. I have set up a blog for my granddaughter, Addie Duck, and listed it on this site. I am managing it for her for now because she is swamped with final exams.

It is entitled “Addie’s Attic,” and she has never had a lesson in writing poetry. I think she shows impressive potential as a poet. She is very left brained, math and science oriented, athletic and very competitive. She never does anything halfway, never gives up.

I am dreaming that this blog will inspire her to write, even if she does want to be a neonatologist. After all, doctors can also be poets. Please click on her button and leave her a comment. She has received a number of comments but they came to my web site before I put up her blog.

This Friday, I am traveling to Aixe en Provence in the south of France to participate in a writer’s retreat hosted my Rosemary Daniell, my writing mentor.

I have several poems to work on, and yesterday afternoon, I started on one of them and just stared at it and stared at it some more. When I started to edit it but could not decide what shape I wanted it to take. The rhythm was all wrong, and meter became my enemy. When I'm done with this ramble, I plan to go back to that poem - or not. Maybe I should work one of the others.

Here’s hoping I will be inspired while in France. There is magic in the air of Aixe. I am fortunate to have visited there a couple of times before. There is incredible Roman architecture and there are museums and churches and the weekly market from which to feed my muse. Arles, which is not far away, is where Vincent painted some of his most important pieces. Just breathing in the air should be inspirational.

Sugar

Belle and Honey and I have a new member of our little family. His name is Sugar, and we rescued him. The name his irresponsible former owners gave him is Sugar Ray. Cute, real cute. I abhor the “sport” of boxing, so we dropped the Ray from his name. He is definitely a Sugar, a lover, not a fighter.

The only good thing I can say about his former so-called family is that they had enough sense to surrender him to Save-A-Pet. That was after they had used him for target practice with a shotgun. No shit. The vet who cared for him after his surrender picked buckshot from all over his precious body. He treated gashes behind Sugar’s ears that looked as though his head had been stuck in a barbed wire fence.

His former owners also neglected to take proper care of him, failing to give him heartworn prevention medicine or to feed him properly. Yes, when he was surrendered, he had heart worms, a severe case, according ot the vet. He actually said he had never seen such a severe case of heartworm where the dog survived the treatment. Sugar was rail thin, which is no surprise.

So, there is a reason Sugar is not in Doggie Heaven. He was meant to live with us. A couple of months ago, while dropping my dogs at Kottage Kennels for the weekend, I fell in love with Sugar. He was in a large kennel in the lobby, and I was drawn to him, even before I knew he was up for adoption. It was love at first sight. When the kennel owner told me he would be up for adoption after he had completed his heartworm treatments, I gushed, “Oh, he’s coming to live with us! Can we adopt him?”

Without hesitation, she said “yes.” She offered that another family had expressed a desire to adopt Sugar, but that she didn’t have a good feeling about them, and she turned them down.

It was meant to be! There was a caveat, though. He had to remain at the kennel until the vet was certain he was free of heartworms and able to run and jump and play without compromising his health.

So, we waited for several weeks, and finally we were allowed to bring Sugar home with us. Honey stuck up her nose at him, even snapped at him, feeling certain that someone was coming to pick him up. Belle was a little miffed, too.
Honey is the Lhasa Apso, and Belle, the senior citizen of the group, is the Boxer lying down on the foyer rug.

But, after a couple of weeks, they both realized Sugar wasn’t going anywhere and begrudgingly began to make friends with him. This acceptance came only after Honey had attacked him, driving him to jump out of the playpen. They made so much racket that the glass break alarm went off! I got Sugar a large kennel of his own, and that fixed that.

As you can see from the photo below, Sugar fits right in here in our little cottage. We just love him to pieces!


© cj Schlottman

Choices

At the risk of sounding like I'm whining, I am publishing this post because I need to.


Why is it that the things we least want to write about are some of the most important? It happens to me often, and I have to force myself, push myself hard, to write down my truths. This post is one I have been putting off for two weeks.

Why must a mother endure the loss of a son who is still alive? Can anyone answer that question? No. There is no answer, just the fact that it is true.

Once again, my son Parrish has dropped off the wagon and gone underground. When he stops contacting me, it is never good. Understand that I know where he is, at least I think I do, but I have chosen to distance myself from him because his behavior is self-destructive and too painful for me to watch. I wrote him a letter to that effect.

During his years in Atlanta, Parrish lived in a number of places - under bridges, in parks, at one of his girlfriends’ apartments. These “girlfriends” were drinking and drugging buddies, and they floated in and out of his life, always ready to get high. There were the inevitable break ups, but they always managed to find Parrish, or he them, and the cycle began again. He subsisted on whatever he could get by selling items he shoplifted and was arrested a number of times. The only time he contacted me was when he was in jail. He always wanted me to send money to bail him out. I steadfastly refused, but he never stopped trying. Since his crimes were petty, he was inevitably released on probation, which he consistently violated.

These women, Lisa and Angela, were, and still are, poison for Parrish. They are emotional black holes who sucked him into their lives, manipulated him, then kicked him out when they had no more use for him. He was a willing participant in these cycles of toxic behavior; something always made him go back.

For the last six weeks or so, I have known that things are not what they seem to be. Before Parrish went missing in late March, (The 48 Hour Day) I was concerned about his tone of voice, his slurred speech, his constant phone calls (four or five a day) to say how much he loved me and how lonely he was and how he couldn’t wait to meet me in Atlanta for the weekend of April 16. When I challenged him on his slurred speech, he blew it off by saying he had just taken his Ativan and was sleepy from it. Now I wonder if he landed in hospital for his stated reason - lithium toxicity. I don’t know what to believe.

Two days before he was to fly to Atlanta and spend the weekend with me, he backed out, saying he had a relapse, was back in outpatient rehab. That’s when the red flags popped up. Parrish not wanting to come to Atlanta, the place he insists he wants to eventually make his home again, where his best friend lives, where the two of us have found a neutral ground where we can actually enjoy each other? Given his recent phone behavior, I had my doubts but didn’t question. Honestly, if he relapsed, I didn’t want to hear about it. I am so utterly tired of him, I could scream.

There. I said it. I’m exhausted from his neediness, his duplicity, his lies.

This time it is Angela. They have been in touch via phone and facebook. How do I know this? Parrish’s best friend, Michael, called and told me. He is the essence of a good friend. Michael loves Parrish, wants him to be clean, behave, stay away from toxic situations. He loves him enough to tell on him, even if it means making Parrish mad.

My son knows I will not support his “friendship” with this dangerous woman. I have made that clear since he landed in Miami, over 650 miles from her. He has assured me all along that he wants nothing to do with her or Lisa.

So, what is going on? My guess is that he has been drinking and drugging for at least the last six weeks, and he must have called Angela because she had no way to contact him. (Or maybe she did). I feel as though he just spit in my face. Really. I do.

Parrish cannot use his mental illness to excuse this behavior. He made a choice when he called Angela. He made a choice to start drinking and using again. And I made a choice to distance myself from him because he did.


© cj Schlottman