Words and Birds

Wednesday, 09/25/13

It’s raining.  I think it rained most of the night.  I should know because I was up twice nursing my injured hip and it was coming down pretty hard both times.  It rained most of yesterday and the night before that, too.  Being a pluviophle, I like this weather.

This morning during dorniveglia, I pandiculated and had a strong desire to feed my clinomania.  I’ve been a clinomaniac all my life and never knew it had a name other than laziness.

This business with my hip has me off my game.  When I am comfortable enough do something like write, I soon realize that I am too sleepy to stay awake to do anything.  And I’m crazy.  On Friday Marnie and I went out to do some errands and I put the mailbox key in my purse so I could get the mail on the way back in.  When we got home the key was nowhere to be found.  We went to get my new glasses and then to Harris Teeter.  I don’t think I dropped it at either place, but I suppose I should call and ask.

Well, I just called both places and my keys are at neither.  So, I will have to pay to have another mail box key made.   Shit.  It’s only money.

Update 09/26/13 - Thursday Afternoon

This has been a funky week.  I expected to hear from P in jail by now since I wrote him last Friday and said I opened a special account on the landline for him to call me.  Today, a friend of his, Clay Wilson, called me to say he had spent the weekend with P.  I didn’t ask any questions.  I suppose he got a DUI.  Anyway, he said P is doing well, that he is campaigning to become a trusty so he can get his sentence reduced by 30 days.  

I don’t know how I feel about that.  Life is easier without him around.  I’m holding fast to my resolve to make him live elsewhere when he gets out of jail.  I suppose I should get in touch with Lawrence and Melissa and start making some plans for an apartment or studio.  The idea of once more setting him up in a place makes me want to pull my hair.  The last place he lived was so awful, he was so scared when he moved out that he left his television set in his room.  So we get to start all that over again - a TV, cable, dishes and linen and all that crap.  I hope Lawrence will give him the bike that is at his house.  

I am maybe a little depressed.  I’m tired all the time and nothing seems very funny.  It started with the pain pills I took after I hurt my hip.  I haven’t taken any in two full days but I still feel out of it and lazy.  I can’t walk very far and that’s not helping.  And my hip is still very uncomfortable.  

Around noon today when Honey and I went out for a little while, we walked toward the marina.  I was looking straight ahead, which is the way I do, and Honey was pulling me to the left.  When I glanced over, there stood a Great Egret just as still as a statue, right there in the middle of one of the side roads where people park their boat trailers.  His neck was extended its full length, and I swear he looked closer to four feet tall than the usual three feet or so.  He was as regal as any king.  

Honey, Dumbass that she can be, didn’t notice the bird.  She was all about a dog approaching from the other side.  I could see the dog’s owner in the background, walking slowly and trying to quietly call off his pet, a curly haired terrier sort. 

I knelt down and held on to Honey while we watched that magnificent bird just standing there like he owned the entire bluff.  As the dog approached him, the egret extended his wings to their full expanse and flew off toward the river.  I just stood there with my mouth hanging open and stared after the magnificent bird.

We see Great Egrets every day from our balcony.  There are not only Egrets but Great Blue Herons and the occasional Wood Stork.  In the mornings, they fly over toward Saint Simons Sound, where they feed, and when the sun is down but before it gets dark they return to their roosts farther north on the island.

When we lived on Dunbar Creek, we could look across the marsh with binoculars and watch Great Blue Herons nesting and feeding their young.  Once we saw a Bald Eagle perched there.  We used to watch Wood Storks fly over toward the sound in the mornings.  Amazingly enough and in spite of all the development that has taken place on this island in the last two decades, there is a Wood Stork rookery near the north end.  

The nesting area of those Great Blue Herons we enjoyed so much when we lived on Dunbar Creek, regrettably, is gone.  The marsh hummock on which they nested was rezoned from  "conservation" to "residential" so a rich person could build a house there.  Seems he wanted his own island.  Someone should have told him it was already occupied by the original owners.

I can happily say that I fought hard against the rezoning of that little piece of land.  It was over ten years ago and many of us bird lovers knew it would only be a matter of time before someone went in with bulldozers and cleared some land on that hummock for a house.  I guess the only thing to be glad of today is that it took so long.

The Famous Writer

Whatever I did out on that dance floor Saturday night is painful and scary.  The pain is a sharp ache, if there is such a thing, and it is constant.  I think I managed to do significant damage to my hip.  This afternoon in the shower, I noticed a large bruise on that side.  Yes, a bruise.  My hip bled internally and probably is still bleeding some and I didn’t even strike it on anything.  All I did was shake my moneymaker, hard.  Tomorrow I’m going back to urgent care to get a referral to an orthopedist.  The pain pills continue to make me nauseated and I vomited violently yesterday afternoon.  With all the vomiting and itching and fuzziness they cause, the pills don’t stop the pain.    

Wednesday afternoon I fetched The Famous Writer from Bennet House, the assisted living facility where he is living for now, and we went off to do his errands and eat some lunch at a place called The Brewery.  We had a little trouble finding the place because he wasn’t really sure where it was, but we stumbled on it with a little help from Google.  He seems a bit foggy at times and I think it’s because he was treated for Parkinson’s (which he does not have) and for some unidentified psychosis for a while and the drugs messed with his brain.  He’s always been crazy but those drugs were not what he needed.  

We settled in and he had a glass of Guinness and I had some Glenlivet on the rocks while we chatted and caught up.  His life is pretty much in chaos, but he seems resigned to it, at least for the short term.

According to The Famous Writer, his ex-wife, went crazy and divorced him a few months ago and that’s why he’s living at Marsh View.  He says she’s been throwing crazy all up on him via emails and texts and he is pretty aggravated about that.  I expect he's thrown a little crazy her way, too.  She kept the car.  He hasn’t bought himself another one yet but he has a line on a Toyota with only 100,000 miles on it.

Some years ago, The Famous Writer made a deal with the university in College Town to house his considerable archives after his death.  Since his divorce from Susan, he got in touch with the librarian who is in charge of archives at the university and offered his things now.  The librarian is pumped at the idea and is sending a crew to gather up all of his notes and interviews and memorabilia.  Most of the things are in his office at Susan’s house, which used to be his house too, but he has some things in his cell, as he calls it, referring to his tiny room at Marsh View.  He was unclear about the time frame for all this, but he is going to College Town later this month to have dinner with the university president and some dignitaries who will be funding the project. 

It turns out that The Famous Writer is good friends with Colonel Bruce.  He’s the man we went to Coastal Kitchen to hear on Saturday night.  I didn’t know they were friends when, as soon as we arrived, I told Celeste, my roommate, that we should have brought The Famous Writer with us. I'm not surprised, though. He knows a whole lot of people in the music world.  

We went to the bank and the drug store and to a liquor store down at Exit 44 where they keep his favorite sauvignon blanc in stock for him.  He bought a case, which it what he usually does, and when we got back to his assisted living facility, he produced a tote from the leather bag he always carries around and we loaded it with six of the bottles.  He took them inside, and after another trip the whole case was safely in his cell.  He reminded me more than once that it was okay to have that much wine in his room.  I said I didn’t care.  What he drinks is his own damned business.

He needed to go to the drug store to question the amount they charged on his credit card.  Turns out someone else has been using his card number - to the tune of nearly $900.00.  He got all that straightened out and was feeling considerably less poor when we left.

We sat on the porch and rocked in the cool afternoon breeze and talked some more.  He remains in touch with the members of the band he wrote a book about.  He told me he has a new book in the works but that because he has chronic pain, it is difficult to write.  He has an appointment with a pain specialist next week.

  

In his own words, “I can’t write with all this pain, and if I’m not writing, I’m not me.”

I was reminded of a quote from Franz Kafka, “A 

non- writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”

My hip was throbbing so I said I had to come home.  We kissed and said good-bye.  I can’t wait to bring him over here.

God, how Clint would love that I’ve found The Famous Writer after all these years.  He would just love it.

© 2013 cjschlottman

The Fat Man Made Me Do It

I’m blaming it on the fat man.  I mean, the scrawny man with the glasses is not at fault here.  He’s just the reason I ended up on what was making do for a dance floor.   

Colonel Bruce was jamming it up at Coastal Kitchen on Saturday night so Marnie and I went to hear him and his band.  Old Bruce was singing and playing that guitar of his and laying his soul out for all to see and we were hanging out on the porch just dancing with ourselves.

Then I saw the scrawny man with the glasses dancing all alone right in front of the bandstand.  He started pleading with a table of stuck-up women to come out there with him but they didn’t have any time for him.

Okay, I might have been wanting to dance with a live person pretty bad.  So I went down where he was and started shaking my moneymaker.  He was jumping around like a chicken but he would occasionally swing me around.

I guess the fat man didn’t want to miss out on the action because before long he appeared out of nowhere and stepped out there with us and started grinding his rather abundant booty around and waving his arms, kind of like a hippo on speed.  Jesus.  I was dancing in a zoo.   

I swear to God I was not gyrating hard enough to throw anything of joint.  I swear.  The pavement was uneven and when the fat man lost his rhythm while we were doing a sort of bump thing, I stepped on a brick and threw out my right hip.  I felt the crunch.

Embarrassed and not wanting to look like an old lady who couldn’t dance a little while without injuring some body part, I stayed with it for about a minute more.  I have to say the pain pretty much took my heart out of it.  My hip was screaming at me to stop so I did and after a while Marnie and I came on home.  We were both tired and I needed to put some ice on my hip and pray nothing was broken.  I worried that I might be dragging her away from the band but she insisted she was ready to leave.

I didn’t sleep much.  My hip was hurting pretty bad and I couldn’t get comfortable.  Honey was outdone with me for flopping around from side to side all night and she settled at the foot of the bed instead of on the pillow next to me where she usually sleeps.  Who could blame her?  A dog deserves a little peace and quiet in the middle of the night.

Sunday morning finally came and I got up and made some coffee and looked in the phone book for the number of the urgent care place that is so conveniently located about half a block from here.  I called and found out they didn’t open until twelve o’clock and then waited and watched the clock until noon.  I somehow found out I could walk without a lot of pain if I flailed my right leg (the injured one) way out to the side.  It wasn’t pretty, really looked like I had something shoved up my ass, but it worked.  I tried a cane and it helped some but not like the leg flailing thing. 

Marnie took me over to urgent care and while I was waiting she went to the nail salon to fetch my iPad.  I left it the other day when I got a manicure.  That’s the kind of thing I do all the time - leave my important stuff around town.  I have to do business with people I can trust.  I once left my debit card at The Players Club in Macon.  They all just sighed and put it in a safe place for me.

When I got in to see the doctor he ordered an x-ray and I am pleased to report that nothing is broken, which is not to say that nothing hurts.  The doctor explained to me that I have a severe hip sprain, probably some damage to the muscles and tendons.  Hell, I didn’t know a person could sprain a hip.  An ankle, yes.  A hip, no.

So he gave me a prescription for some pain pills and muscle relaxers and said if I were not a whole lot better in four days I should come back and pick up my x-rays and he would send me to an orthopedist.  He said I should rest in bed as much as possible.  It wasn’t hard to follow his instructions.  Every time I took a step I wanted to scream. 

Here it is Tuesday night and I have to say if it weren’t for the pain pills I would have pulled out all of my hair by now.  I can actually walk without the flail and be pretty comfortable but when the drugs wear off, the pain starts up again.  There’s a down side to those pills, though.  They make me nauseated and itchy.  My nose is red from me scratching it.  My skin feels hyper-sensitive and itches too.  I’m foggy in my brain and slow to react.  I can’t think of any reason anyone would want to take Lortab for fun.  

Tomorrow afternoon I’m supposed to go to Brunswick and pick up Stanley and take him off to a pub so we can have a proper visit. I haven't seen him in over ten years and I intend to keep that date.  Ever since I talked to him on the phone the other afternoon, I’ve been excited about seeing him.  

Stanley Booth is a writer of some note, having written Rythm Oil: A Journey Through The Music Of The American South, not to mention The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, which has been translated into just about every language and remains popular since its release in 1985.  It was re-released last year.  Also last year, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Smithsonian honoring his work.  There are other books as well and he has written articles for GQ and Rolling Stone just to mention two well respected magazines who have published his work.

He’s about the best story teller I ever knew, and the idea of missing an afternoon with him because of this fucking dancing injury is out of the question.  I will be there.  Stanley will talk and I will listen and forget about my hip for a while. 

Denzel Washington

“Well, hello there, Miss 202!”

The voice rang out from across the atrium in the doorway of 201.  A handsome and animated black man in his Mailman uniform hurried over to my side of the walkway.  He was wearing those cute Mailman shorts I like so much.

“I was wondering where you are.  Have you been in and out since you moved?  I have some mail and a package for you.  I worry when I can’t get my mail to my folks.”

His teeth are as white as any I’ve ever seen and his smile is wide and contagious.  I smiled back as we got on the elevator to go down to the garage where the mailboxes are.

I stuck out my hand.

“Hi, I’m Claudia.”

“Denzel Washington,” he said with a straight face as he gave my hand a firm and friendly shake.  There was a glint in his eye that made me want to hug him.  

“My name’s really Melvin.”  

“Well, it will always be Denzel to me!”     

“I was out with shoulder surgery for a while and just about the time I was ready to come back to work, somebody busted the other one. I missed you moving in and I've been trying to catch you since I got back.”

I decided not to ask any questions about his shoulder.  After all, it was our first meeting and the idea of someone hurting this man makes me queasy.  Maybe he will tell me about it later.

He showed me how to open the big box in our mail stack where he puts packages.  I wondered what the extra key in my mailbox was for, and now I know.

He handed me the package.

“Here you go, Missy.  Be careful.  It’s heavy.  Must be full of money.”

I laughed

"Bye, Miss Claudia," he called as he climbed into his mail truck and drove off to deliver a few smiles someplace else.

“Bye, Denzel!”

I stood a moment and watched him pull away.

I love it here.

© 2013 cjschlottman

Nobody's Gonna Steal my Happy

I just got a call from Judie McEwen.  She’s a visual artist and a blogger and I met her online a few years ago when I was doing this online meme called Saturday Centus.  Jenny Matlock conducts the meme if you have any desire to check it out. Judie’s blog is called Rogue Artists.  She says she has been slack about posting but it’s worth a visit just to see her blog.  I’m still planning to build my own domain but that has taken a back seat to all this moving and unpacking and settling in.

I knew from her blog that Judie had been uprooted from Tuscon, Arizona, to Brunswick, but I somehow didn’t think of it until yesterday.  I looked her up on Facebook and sent her a message and now we are probably going to have lunch on Thursday.

The amazingness of this move continues to, well, amaze me.  I’m so full of myself I went out yesterday to get new lenses put in my glasses and ended up buying a red pair.  And they are red.  And they look good on me and they make me feel sassy.  

This whole change has made me feel sassy and sure of myself and creative.  Even with all these boxes yet to be unpacked and all these things sitting around waiting for me to do something with them, I feel empowered and strong.  

Honey and I are walking over a mile twice a day on the fitness trail down the road.  It’s woodsy and wild and cool and filled with bugs.  I have all natural insect repellent and I spray it on both of us before we leave the house.  It works.  Yesterday a snake slithered across the path in front of us but Honey was so busy with her nose to the ground, she didn’t notice.

There are usually some young people playing Frisbee golf on the course that’s laid out among the oaks on the bluff.  They take it very seriously and that makes me laugh.  

I guess I’ll never stop feeling like I need to tell everybody how happy I am.  At least I hope I never stop.  Not even the business I post on Madness, Mania and Muddlement can steal my happy.

© 2013 cjschlottman  

Brain Vacation

Why do you suppose there are times like this when I sit down to write and can’t find my voice?  It’s not really writer’s block because I don’t have any trouble writing down my words.  I just feel disconnected from them.  

Maybe it’s physical fatigue.  Maybe it’s mental fatigue.  Probably it’s both.  It's a little brain vacation.

Joey and Shannon packed up the Teens and the Littles and Kristy in their big square Ford hybrid and were on the road by noon.  The energy in the flat changed immediately and Honey began to emerge from the funk she got in while they were here.  I keep forgetting she’s 10 years old and not a puppy any more.  The Littles didn’t do anything wrong.  The only thing they did was be themselves.

Late yesterday afternoon, Kiki and Marnie and Jacob and the Littles I all went to the beach at the old Coast Guard Station.  Kiki is Kristy’s grandmother name, and it suits her.  The tide was high and the waves kept knocking the Littles around.  They didn’t care.  They retreated momentarily then waded back in to be knocked around some more.

I tried to body surf but the waves were short and I only got in one decent ride and that took forever.  More than a couple of times the rough water turned me into a pretzel knot and kept busting me back down every time I started to get up.   

The rest of the time I spent at the edge of the water with Kiki and the Littles.  We took a break and started making sand castles but the tide kept coming in and dissolving them.  The Littles squealed in dismay every time it happened, but they wouldn’t move.  I could tell they secretly enjoyed the destruction.  I showed them how to make a drip castle and I made one on my thigh so the rising water couldn’t get to it.  It kept falling down anyway.  

If I weren’t on steroids, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed this morning.  I think everyone should get a Dose Pack on his or her birthday every year.  It makes me feel all full of energy and really smart, which is probably why athletes like steroids so much.  God knows they need to feel smart and all that extra energy doesn’t hurt either. 

So much for my Dose Pack theory.  My brain is shorting out and I'm going to bed.  

© 2013 cjschlottman

09/03/13 @1:00 AM

A Love Letter

My Darling Clint,

I’m home.  After all that time thinking I would be too sad to come back to The Island without you, I returned and it is right.  I know you are smiling.

You would be happy to be here this Labor Day weekend.  Kristy is asleep on the other side of the bed and the big boys are on the white sofas and Abby is in the bed with Marnie.  Drew is in the room with Shannon and Joey and I am the only one awake in the whole house except Honey, who is giving me the I-need-to-go-outside look that she has perfected.  I will be right back.

I’m awake because I woke last night with back spasms and had to go to Urgent Care this morning and get a Dose Pack.  I’m riding high on the ‘roids.  The pain in my back is gone and my sore and swollen left knee feels better.  

Okay.  I know what you are thinking, so I’ll just say it for you.  I’m not as physically strong and powerful as I once was.  This move has cut me down a notch or two.  It’s not a bad thing.  I’m old enough now to slow down when my body starts snarking at me with pinches and aches and sharp pains.  In some ways I have grown up.

I have a purple streak in my hair and I love it.  You probably wouldn’t love it but you probably wouldn’t hate it either.  It is who I am right and it might be who I am for a long time.  It’s my badge of courage and strength and freedom.  You would love it after you got over the shock.

Cuz has cancer.  There.  I said it.  He has lung cancer that has  metastasized to his brain and forearm.  He will follow you before I do, but in so many ways, like John, he is planning to die living instead of dying.  We have been exchanging emails about all this shit, and I want to put his last one in this letter.  You will be proud, so here it is:

“This cancer may kill me, but it is NOT going to consume the rest of my life. It will be a fact in my life, but it will not BE my life.  I refuse to give it that power over me and I am not praying to be cured, but rather to have the strength to live my life with dignity and grace. I can't stand to be around complainers and I refuse to be one.

I met my radiology oncologist (radio doc, I call him) this morning and was impressed with his manner. I like him already; he comes highly recommended by my doctor friends and actually had bought one of my prints at a charity auction a couple of years ago. He had his nurses check out my web site so that they would know something about me when I met them.. I thought that was a very nice gesture on his part.

My nuking will start next week and run for 10 sessions over two weeks, starting with the brain and arm tumors being treated simultaneously. Doc said he expected me to look a whole lot worse than I do based on my reports. Hey, I really feel fine except for the arm. Blessed again.”

Isn't he something?

I don’t have to tell you that I have lost just about every important man in my life, and I am not looking forward to losing Cuz, but the fact is that I will probably outlive him just like I outlived Daddy and Harry and John and you.  I am sick to fucking death of men dying on me.  

I’m handling this just like I handled the others.  I am believing Cuz will live until someone proves otherwise.  It’s the only way I know to operate.  

Last Sunday, I got a speeding ticket when Sophie and I were returning to Macon for her to reclaim her life and for me to close on the Canyon Road house.  Yes, she came down with me on moving day and stayed and helped me get unpacked and she made my bed the way she does.  I don’t know how I will do without her making my bed.  She doesn’t know how she will do without making my bed.  She does it just right and wants all the sheets and pillowcases to match or at least coordinate.  But you know all that.  And she makes it so tight she would shame a soldier in boot camp.

Back to the speeding ticket.  I was driving at 90 miles per hour on I-16.  It was my fault.  For a while we cruised with a pack of cars going about 85, but I decided to pull ahead because my car really likes to go 90.  I set the cruise control.  Wrong.  Stupid.  I even told Sophie I hadn’t had a speeding ticket in years.  Wrong and stupid.  My car has a thing called collision protection, and when the cruise control is not on, if I lift my foot from the accelerator, it pulls back.  I had engaged the cruise control, and when I rounded a curve, the Treutlan County Sheriff’s Deputy who was waiting in his big old sheriff’s truck had me dead to rights.  I slowed down a little but made him earn his pay.

When the Deputy finally pulled me over, Sophie just sat there and acted like I got stopped for going 90 miles an hour every day.  She's that way, calm in a crisis.

“Ma’am, is there some good reason you were driving 89 miles be hour in a 70 miles per hour zone?”

He was young and very tall and about 50 pounds overweight but he had honest eyes, fair eyes with a glint in them that endeared me to him.  I could have lied like a rug and gotten away with it.  I could have said you were still dying or something or Shannon was having another set of twins or that Sophie had appendicitis and I was trying to get her to the hospital.  

“No, Officer,” I said.  “I like to drive fast and there was no one out here on the road with me and I set my cruise to 90 so I wouldn’t go any faster.”

He smiled.

I said I just told Sophie it had been years since I got a speeding ticket and he smiled some more.

“Well, Mrs Schlottman, you are about to get another one.  I clocked you at 89 and I can’t let you get away with driving that fast.”

His tone was folksy and I knew he was just doing his job so I didn’t get mad.  He was the kind of kid it is hard to get mad at anyway.  Hell, I was the one breaking the law and I thought I might as well take my medicine.

I don’t know what it will cost me, but I know I won’t be that stupid again.  I don’t intend to stop driving fast.  I just don’t intend to get caught.   No more cruise control at 90.  That was really stupid.

You can tell I have my groove back, can’t you?  I thought I lost it forever, that it was cremated with you, but I was wrong.  You were right all along when you said I was strong and would be okay.  

Tomorrow morning we are all going to The Sandcastle for breakfast and I will miss you more than ever for a while.  Then I will be infused with all the innocent energy that is Abby and Drew and all the craziness and fun of Shannon and Joey and Noah and Jacob and Marnie and Kristy and me.  I will be content with what I have since I can’t have you.  I will love like I have not been able to love since you died.  I will make you proud and I will love myself enough to make me proud. 

I will never stop loving you.  Even if the right man comes along and I fall in love at first sight again, (and what are the chances of that)? you will live in my very core until I breathe my last breath.  If some fool comes along and falls in love with me he better be in love with you too.

I will be Your Fat Girl forever.

PS - Last week I finally emptied the pockets of the last pair of trousers you wore.  I found your pocketknife and I’m saving it for Drew.  I also found four neatly folded one dollar bills in your money clip, and I am saving them for Jacob.


© 2013 cjschlottman

A Sea of Determination and Hope

Some nights even in these last smoldering weeks of summer I sleep in Clint’s red sweater.  Worn and washed dozens of times, its softness is almost painful.  I still feel his warmth in it and every now and then I sprinkle a few drops of Old Spice on it so I won’t forget how he smelled.  Even after he was sick and dying my husband smelled of Old Spice and not death.

I survived.  I thought I would perish in my grief, drown in the sea of sadness that rose around me when Clint died.  But I lived.  In spite of myself, I lived.  It took three and a half years for the toughness that is at my core to beat down my grief and come to the surface.

Clint never doubted my strength.  I never thought about being strong or not being strong.  I faced life and did what I had to do to make it work.  I thought everybody did that.  

On the afternoon he was dying and I was lying next to him in our bed whispering into his ear that I would be okay, that I was as strong as he always said I was, I thought I was lying.  I thought I was telling him what he needed to know in order to feel okay about leaving me alone.  

I was wrong.  Challenged first by the void in my life that Clint left behind and then by my inability to function as a nurse because my grief was so complicated, I was then faced with a series of stress driven autoimmune syndromes that paralyzed my life for a year.

I didn’t want to deal with Parrish.  I resisted letting him back into my life but he wouldn’t go away.  As I watched him deteriorate into what should have been a terminal psychosis triggered by alcohol abuse, a sense of the raw need for survival welled up inside me.

Less than three months ago, when Parrish nearly died of an overdose of Seroquel, something happened in my soul, in my spirit.  Even with all the craziness around me and in me, I began to think of a future for myself, a meaningful and creative life without Clint.  I dug in.

I knew with complete certainty that I had to come home to Saint Simons.   On June 6, I decided to sell the house on Canyon Road and on August 22, I moved into this flat.  Four days later we closed the deal on the house in Macon and here I am, swimming in a sea of determination and hope, surrounded by the comfort and cover of sprawling oaks and the force that is the ocean. 


© 2013 cjschlottman 

A Purple Streak in my Hair and Why I'll Never Drown

It’s hot as the hinges of hell.  Earlier in the day Ole Dick was out on his balcony dicking around with his stained glass.  I have to give it to him for working in all this heat.

I, on the other hand, have been thinking up ways to avoid organizing my boudoir.  This is the way it looks and I’ve been here eight days. 

That’s my chandelier sitting in the tub.  The maintenance man was supposed to come over today and hang it up in my bathroom but I guess he got too busy or found something better to do on the Friday before Labor Day.

Living down here is a little like living in Mayberry.  Everybody is on Island Time and I better get used to it if I’m not going to pull out what’s left of my hair.

A little over two weeks ago I went to see my friend and hairdresser, Peggi, and got her to put a streak of purple in the left side of my hair.  It’s awesome.  I don’t have a photo of it yet because, as they say, the camera does not love me.  The camera essentially hates my guts if you want to know the truth.  I’ll probably have to wait for Cuz to come visit and take about a hundred photos of me to get a good one. 

After I got the purple streak, people in Macon started talking to my hair instead of me.  They looked straight at the streak and asked me how I was doing, not that they really cared.  Macon is like that.  It’s full of phonies.  I’m not counting the real friends I have there.  They don’t give a shit what color my hair is.  Nobody here seems to notice.

It has been a rainy summer in Georgia and the rivers north and west of here are all at flood stage or higher.  That means our rivers are wide and at high tide the marshes on either side of the causeway are dotted with ponds of water.  It is beautiful and like no other place I know.  Earlier I got in my car and drove across the causeway and back just to look at it.

There is strength and courage and danger in water.  I’m a good swimmer but when I was little I nearly drowned in the deep end of the swimming pool at the Crooked River State Park down near Kingsland.  The lifeguard pulled me up from the bottom and I was in love with him for about 10 years after that.  I ended up spending so much time learning how to do every swimming stroke known to man that I swam on the swim team when I was 12 and 13.  I swam the backstroke and the breaststroke.  It didn’t do much for my breasts, but I by God never worried about drowning again.   

© 2013 cjschlottman  

I Am Happy

The man in 101 makes stained glass.  His name is Dick and he comes across as one.  He’s a real I’m-on-the-condo-board kind of guy.  You know what I mean.  I should give him a chance.  This morning he was working on his balcony and I could see he the beautiful blues of the glass.  He can’t be all bad.

I spend too much time on Facebook, and how I have become fascinated with Pinterest, a site where one builds a virtual bulletin board and pins stuff on it.  Mine is full of quotations like, 

“You belong somewhere you feel free.”  Tom Petty

“You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy.”   Unknown

“So this is my life.  And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”   The Perks of Being a Wallflower

It’s cool on the balcony and Honey is guarding the neighborhood from the other chair.  I am happy here.  I think I said that already today, but I want to make sure I say it enough.  I can write here, write like I am meant to write.

Kristy and Shannon and her family are coming down tomorrow night for the holiday weekend.  Shannon and Joey and the kids are staying at Lawrence’s house and Kristy is staying here with Marnie and me.  I am glad they are all coming to my Island.  I want those great grandlittles (Abby and Drew) to learn to love this place the way I do.  I want them to see the moss on the trees and be amazed by it.  I want them to put their feet in the sand and dip themselves in the edge of the ocean and feel the power of the universe as the tides move in and out.  I want them to catch blue crabs and learn to pick out the sweet meat without leaving a bunch of shells in it.  I want them to love crab soup and want me to make it for them and think about me when they eat it, even it somebody else makes it.  

I want Jacob to sink himself into all this beauty and history and get his creative brain stirred up and want to draw or paint or write.  I want Noah to feel the magic of this place and know the force of the river as it flows by all filled up with river critters and dreams.

There’s a fearlessness about the energy here and I want all of them to drink it in and be empowered by it and become fearless themselves.

My house is in total disarray but my mind is squared away just fine.  Marnie is on her way from Macon and I am going to go in the kitchen and make us a pot of chicken and mushroom risotto so we can have some comfort food in the middle of all this mess.  

I am happy.

© 2013 cjschlottman

Life's a Trade Off

Saint Simons Island

I am happy here on my island.  Honey and I walked the fitness trail yesterday afternoon and again this morning.  The trail itself is a half mile long, so the entire trip is probably three quarters of a mile.  It’s a start.  I am walking the stairs at least twice a day.

Last night I started rearranging the kitchen.  Marnie and Sophie didn’t put away things the way I want them, so I am placing my stuff where it works for me.  I am grateful for what they did.  At least, I don’t have to unpack the boxes to get to them.  

The weather is hot, but this morning is pleasant here on the deck.  By mid-afternoon there will be steam in the air even through the sunshine but I don’t care.  I am happy here.  

All my life I took the beauty of Saint Simons for granted.  Now every time I look out the window I am in awe of its splendor.  I am surrounded by ancient oaks that are dripping with Spanish moss, their limbs hanging over the roads forming mystical.  

I am concerned for Cuz.  He has lung cancer that spread to his brain and forearm before he had any symptoms.  The lesion on his forearm, which he thought was a cyst, began to grow and became painful, so he went to see his friend John Kendrick who is an orthopedic surgeon.  

X-rays and scans and biopsies followed and the metastatic lesions in his brain were found.  He will go to Moffitt cancer and research center in Tampa as soon as his doctors gather all of their findings to send with him.

Cuz has been a big part of my life - and Clint’s too - since the night before Mary Ellen’s funeral in December of 1996.  That’s 17 years this year.  I cannot imagine him being sick and in the bed and suffering.

Jesus.  I am tired of the men in my life getting sick and dying.  No, Cuz isn’t dead, but he is dying.  No matter what treatment he gets, his life will be shortened by this killer.  

Maybe one day I will understand all this loss, but I'm not counting on it.


© 2013 cjschlottman

Beginning to Break 02/11/13

I am sorry this post is out of order.  I try, but I still haven't mastered the art of changing the order of my posts.


It has begun.  Parrish is starting to break.  He calls me and is hysterical about some imagined situation.  Today he is convinced that the other people in the house are doing crack and smack.  He perseverates and his voice rises until I ask him to lower it.  It is nearly impossible to break through his manic strings of words to insert my own word or words, begging him to stop talking. I have to shout to get is attention.

He needs medication, and the day after his release from jail he went to the Health Department’s psychiatric facility only to be told it would be four to six weeks before he could see a doctor.  No doctor, no medicine.  Really.  How in the name of God do they rationalize turning away a clearly psychotic man?  I suppose they have no sense of a crisis.  They should. 

All of this wears on me, chips away at my sanity, makes  me reclusive and agoraphobic.  Will I survive it?  

© 2013 cj schlottmn  

It's About Me

I have spent too much time thinking and writing about Parrish.  It’s important that I do that but not at the expense of my own person and physical needs. 

I have lost sleep and been traumatized by the situations into which P’s disease inserted us.  I have been anxious and in pain while he stole my pain and anxiety medications.  I am gaining weight because I am feeding my fatigue and frustration with sweets.

Yesterday and today, while Parrish has been asleep, I have rested and written blog posts and eaten a healthy grain-based diet.  There are dishes to put away and more to wash.  I will take care of that when P is awake.  I need a shower.  

Belle is old and sick.  She is confused and I wonder about her eyesight.  Wobbly when up, she sleeps most of the time.  After two days of refusing to eat, she finally ate something yesterday.  That made it possible for her to take her medicine from Dr. Pam - an antibiotic and Remadyl and an antacid.  Dr. Pam is a mobile vet and brings her office to us.  

Belle has tumors in her mouth and her gums are in bad shape, making it difficult for her to chew.  She is too old and fragile to go under general anesthesia for a cleaning, so we manage with an all meat food that is finely ground and which she can lap up.  Tomorrow, I am going to buy her elevated bowls because when she leans over to the floor for food and water, she sometimes loses her balance.

Honey is healthy but sometimes anxious and fractious.  She snaps at Belle when Belle is getting food and she is not.  Parrish’s manic episodes of the last weeks have sent her hiding behind the toilet in my bedroom.  It’s as far away from him as she can get.  Pitiful.  God, I hope these long hours of sleep will have the benefit of settling him down a little. 

There I go, writing about Parrish and his disease again.  I can’t seem to help myself.

©2013 cjschlottman

March 19, 2013 - Things are Improving

Things with Parrish are improving.  He is calmer but extremely drowsy, having difficulty keeping his eyes open, and he has occasional slurred speech and is sometimes paranoid.  He is on several drugs that could cause a multitude of side effects but doesn’t have an appointment to see a physician at River Edge until the middle of April.  So, we do the best we can.  It would be such a gift if we had a doctor available to call at times like this.  

When things are more settled and Parrish has a place to live and we have his finances in order, maybe he can see a private psychiatrist.  Since his father and stepmother are contributing to his upkeep, we may be able to swing it.

For now, I am spending time with him about 4 days a week.  He rides along when I run errands, and we eat at Waffle House (his favorite) nearly every time we go out.  I gave him a tiny iPod I bought several years ago but decided not to give it to him then.  He was in Florida and I knew he would lose it or sell it or give it away.  He loves it.  

I am anxious and unsteady and a little afraid of what may happen.  Life with P is much easier without the manic episodes, but they have now been replaced by a sluggishness that means he sometimes cannot keep his eyes open.   It will take constant monitoring to keep Parrish on an even keel.  I should be grateful for what we have, unsatisfactory though it may be.

We have talked about a visit to the hospital for medication management.  He says he doesn’t object, saying, “Why wouldn’t I want to stop feeling like this?  If I need to go to hospital, then I will go.”  We can’t take any action until I have guardianship.

March 18, 2013 - March 21, 2013

Parrish is asleep on the big white sofa in my living room, where he has been since noon.  He’s covered with a thick felt tie dyed blanket that looks as though it came straight out of the late sixties, and he has been up twice, both times to eat.  Only his buzz cut of graying brown hair is visible and he is snoring loudly.

He has a dreadful cold and chest congestion.  I gave him cough syrup and a decongestant at noon and then again at 4:00.

So, I need to fill in some of the blanks since my last post about my son.  

Last Monday, March 18, there were severe thunderstorms in our area.  There were trees down all over town, including the front yard of the boarding house. A large pine fell over the hood of a young woman’s car as she drove down the steep driveway.  She is unharmed but the front of her car is flattened.   The other residents' cars were in the back of the house and no one could get up the driveway.    She had no money for a cab, so she stayed over at the house.   Parrish gave her his bed and slept on the floor.  

He called to tell me about all the exciting events and insisted he did not want me to come and get him.  Things were chaotic there, but he seemed to be managing.  

It was Wednesday morning when P called, anxious and perseverating.  He said there were drug deals going on in the house and that people were coming to the door asking for “Fat Mama,” the landlady.  He said Fat Mama had dozen of bottles of pills, most of which she stole from her renters, using their medicaid cards and keeping the meds.  I knew she tried to get Parrish’s application, but he gave it to me to complete.  He said that Fat Mama told him she was going to open a Direct TV account in is name.  She told P to ask me if I would co-sign a loan application with her so she could buy a new truck!  I thought he was paranoid and tried to reassure him and went to fetch him.

We went out for a drive and I continued to try reassure P and try to convince him that Fat Mama couldn’t take out a contract with Direct TV in his name.  He has no job and no credit, so I let it go, though he continued to obsess over it.  He was so sluggish, he did’t want to eat and asked me to take him home so he could sleep.

The next morning, Thursday, Parrish called, saying he was in a bad place, that he was afraid someone would hurt him, that there were drugs everywhere and he was afraid “they” would steal his meds and his phone and his iPod.  When I arrived, he was standing in the street waiting for me.  He had a note from Big Mama asking me if I would use her food assistant card and give her the cash.  She tried to sell me her food card.  Hell, it could have been someone else’s, given her propensity for applying for them in the names of her tenants.  I balled up the note and threw it in my car trash can.  P said he woke in the night to find Big Mama “borrowing” his phone because hers was dead and she needed to make calls about the tree and other things.  He foolishly let her have it.  

Parrish continued to be fearful and insist that he needed to get out of the boarding house.  He said Fat Mama “borrowed” his phone because hers had been cut off by the power outage.  I called Parrish’s number and when she answered, I told her take the phone home and put it in his room.  (I later learned she did so only after using all of his minutes).  I brought him to my house to spend the day with me while I searched for a one bedroom apartment that is affordable and safe.  I learned that there is no public housing available in this town and that none of the facilities are taking applications until next year.  

I was frustrated and Parrish was anxious and didn’t want to go back to the house.  For as long as was practical, we stayed here and avoided going.  When it was nearly too late for me to be out alone in my car, I dropped P off with a stone in my stomach.  When I got home, I called his phone but it went straight to voice mail.  Of course it did.  There were no minutes left on it.

I didn’t sleep.  I was unsettled, wondering if I should have dropped Parrish at the house.  At 1:30, the thunderstorms rolled in with multiple lightening strikes and booming thunder. 

Belle panted loudly and wandering around the room.  There was no way to sleep through that noise.  Honey climbed on my stomach and shivered.  Then she jumped down and hid behind the toilet.  Now and then, she got on the bed, then jumped back down.  I did not make this up.  

There’s more......

© 2013 cjschlottman