When I am Fading as Fast as Summer

 Today it is still summer, but school has begun in many places, and will in 11 days here. 

I am as always, still reluctant to give up the warmth and water and grandchildren time that is summer to me. I usually opt in for parades, river time and then give myself time to write. 

But I am also still sick, so summer has also been more time at home, more time in bed, more time getting ready and then not going, or leaving early. Even when grandchildren are involved  

I am never one to say no to a child's birthday party, but I stayed home from my granddaughter's third birthday party. Even now the tears spring into my eyes at the thought.  I got up and just showering and getting dressed took all my energy for the day.  I remembered 15 months ago, at the same place, and realized that that time I couldn't sit on the ground, so I brought a camp chair.  Now I would fall sitting down and not be able to get out of the camp chair.  Even my dining room chair is lifted now and my wingback chair, and a love seat and the bed.  My home accommodations allow me to pretend to be OK, but a lakeside birthday doesn't.

Then last night I took the 7 yo to swimming lessons, and then climbed in the pool to join her for family swim, but my back locked up from cold, even though it actually was pretty warm in the water and after 45 minutes of trying to look ok, I got out and left her with her Dad and Grandpa while I turned on the heated seat in my van.

I have been left at a blank wall by my personal care physician and my neurologist, and everytime I think of the argument I need to have with them,  and I sit at the computer to write a letter, I fade out and can't think.

I don't know what to do or who to see and all the news makes going to medical places seem foolish at best, but this life is only a half life and I need to keep pushing.  The two labels that seem to match most of my symptoms are Parkinson's Disease, and a fairly innocuous sounding, but horrible "Stiff Person Syndrome."  If you have personal experience with either, I am sorry. 

I love being her Grandma.

There is this girl I love intensely. She calls me Grandma, and lately she gave me, what is undoubtedly the most wonderful compliment I've ever received. She was standing in font of the mirror and I was a couple rooms away, when she called to me, "Grandma, you know what I like about me?"

"I like everything about you. What do you like?"

"When I see me - It reminds me of you."

I choked up, tears instantly springing to my eyes.  There is a lot of amazing beauty in my granddaughter, but there is also a lot of leftover doubt and self loathing in me from my early school days when I was the target of more bullying than I could easily recover from. 

"I remind you, of you?" I questioned

"Yes, we are both Strawberry blondes, and we have the same freckles and the same pink in our skin, and we smile a lot."

She came around the corner then, and clambered up on my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. I've never felt more blessed, or more loved as she nearly choked me with a hug and dropped a copy of "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" into the chair next to us, "and we both love Daddy and Grandpa and BOOKS!" 

searching for leprechaun Tracks

St. Paddy's world of beauty

So Yeah, if the size of our smiles and what we love is her measuring stick, then being the same, is just perfect.

summer goals

People can debate back and forth forever  on writer’s block and if it is real, or how to cure it. One group of writers insists that if writing is approached like a job, and one writes every day, even if what they produce is garbage, that that “Shitty first draft” is infinitely better than having produced nothing. At least a bad draft can be improved on and polished. But even polished and fossilized shit is still just shit at the core is the counter argument.

I’m not sure it matters when after months of not writing, I have nothing but a lot of Facebook posts, and if I could have pushed through and written three books in that time is no longer relevant. I didn’t.

What might matter is the future. A school year is ending and the greater freedom of summer beckons with possibility. This year my husband is retiring as a music teacher after 29 years, and transferring to a year round, General ed. teacher at a huge penitentiary. So no family summer vacation plans. If I do as I hope to, I will discover if I am capable still of the drive needed to finish a novel. Yes, I’ve done it four times before, but this one is its own beast. Im not sure yet that I can tame it into submission while spending time digging out twenty years of clutter from the unused rooms of my house to accommodate play space for grandkids, and also playing with those grand grandkids. 

I just hope that when August comes, and a new granddaughter along with it, that I have figured out the many aches and pains of my rheumatoid arthritis and found a happy medium where I can be productive as a writer, and involved as a grandmother. 

WISH ME LUCK