Rest beside the weary road

If you feel anxiety or depression, you are not in the present. You are either anxiously projecting the future or stuck in the past. The only thing you have any control over is the present moment . . . (Hanson)

Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice . . . (Eriksson)

Why, on some mornings, are my cats as good as gold, peacefully snoozing away with sweet little kitty smiles on their faces and purrs in their bellies, and on others, holy terrors, racing about, dragging tinsel and Christmas balls in their wake, cackling manically at each other.  Today they are attempting to persuade the dog to join them in their 5 a.m. mayhem, and while he looks mildly interested, he also knows no cookies are gonna be forthcoming if he does, and so heads back to his warm bed.

Because yesterday was cookie baking day, and the sweet, spicy aromas still linger in and about the keeping room, where I am hunkered down under the Christmas tree thinking these deep thoughts about the animal psyche.  It was an unpleasant awakening this morning with what I call a bad dream, one of those where I am in the woods, futilely trying to find my former husband and a foster child, both of whom passed on many, many years ago.  So I would rather avoid any deep thoughts which would engender anymore anxiety this morning.

It is still dark, and I can see the car lights of our nearest neighbor about a mile over on the mountain, heading out to work.  She is an oncology nurse, and there is a reassuring sameness in her routine every morning.  Even in the midst of the pandemic our routines go on.  I bake Christmas cookies to put in the freezer since our grandkids and friends won’t be coming this Christmas, and my neighbor heads out to work.

Since I still want to avoid my bad dream, I let my mind drift back to all those thousands of mornings when I also headed out to work in the predawn hours.  They seem very long ago now, and at the same time, like yesterday.  In these days of semi-isolation, I often wonder if former students and patients still remember me.  It is one of the many idle thoughts with which I fill my mind so I won’t have to think of the ever-present angst and suffering that permeates the very atmosphere now.  But at night, when my guard is down . . .  Ah, that’s when it appears in all its fury and strides in hip boots to and fro in front of me . . .

And so on this morning, my under-the-Christmas-tree reflections have considerable avoidance in them, especially since my readers don’t even have a hint of the reassuring cookie aroma that floats around me.  Wouldn’t that be a great perfume scent?  Essence of Christmas cookie.

Still avoiding.

Eventually I will tire of it as a defense strategy, as I always do and instead embrace the current anxiety and angst reflected in my dream for what it is, a normal response to a new and frightening and terribly ambiguous reality.  None of us really know how to go on right now.  We cling to our routines, our rituals, our traditions.  Some of us become even more rigidly authoritarian about our beliefs and the rightness of our positions and ways of being, whatever they may be.  And as I talked about yesterday, some of us become overly positive cheerleaders, as an antidote to the ambiguity.

And some of us just wander in the woods, futilely looking for something that is lost forever.

My husband is fond of using the analogy of the difference between fear and anxiety as being whether or not there really is a train on the tracks headin’ toward you.  I would say,  “In this case, yes.  There really is a pandemic that threatens us all.  There IS a train.”  He would say,  “No in this moment, there is no train.  In the next moment, there may be one, so stay alert and pay attention, but it is not here now.  NO train.  If the train appears in that future moment, you can and will face it and act appropriately.”

In this moment, no train.  Only peace.  Outside it is still dark, and the frosty, crisp air freezes in my nose as I put out the dog (who had finally decided that chasing the cats was irresistible), and inside, cookie-ghosts still linger.

Everything will be fine . . .  This, too, shall pass . . .  It could be worse . . .  Be grateful . . .   (Me, at many many times in my life)

arruuugggghhhhh . . . (Me, at many times in my life)

Contradiction is the essence of human existence . . . (C.G.Jung)

Having had it with toxic positivity, and the idea we should focus only on changing our thoughts in a more positive direction in order to change our negative emotions, today under the Christmas tree, I decided, in the interest of the balance of which I spoke a few days ago, to indulge myself in all the negativity I could find within me.  And wow, I could find a LOT.

It wasn’t all that hard not to focus on staying positive and grateful for what I do have, and not counting my blessings.  That’s the part that takes work.  The uneasiness, the grief, the anger, the fear were all just right there, and seemed utterly delighted to be acknowledged, to be given a voice.  And I must admit the voice got pretty nasty sometimes.

But you know, the relief was incredible.  Giving room for all the positive and negative emotions was enormously freeing.

Maybe we (or at least I) forgot for a time how complex our inner world can be sometimes, how we can hold such contradictory feelings or thoughts inside us at the same time . . .  for instance, caring tremendously and at the same time feeling utterly indifferent; anger and a wish for revenge and an equal desire for peace; suspicion and trust; knowing we’re right beyond a shadow of a doubt, and also not having a clue . . .

When we widen our circle to include it all, when we accept the wonderfully contradictory people that we are, all of a sudden it does become simpler.  I can attest that it sure becomes more freeing to live in the both-and rather than the either-or.

No matter how bad you day is, when you start talking cookies, . . . there’s just not bad news.  The worst news is,  “Hey, there’s sugar in that.”  (Tosi)

Today me will live in the moment, unless it’s unpleasant, in which case me will eat a cookie.”  (Cookie Monster)

Buttery, soft, crisp around the edges and loaded with white chocolate chunks, pieces, chips, whatever you got . . .  It couldn’t get any better for a snow day, especially when you know digging out is just around the corner.  Enjoy!

1 cup softened butter, 1 cup light brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon vanilla, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 2 1/2 cups flour, 2 cups chopped white chocolate.  Cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla, and mix well.  Then add the dry combined dry ingredients until just incorporated.  And then add the white magic, the chocolate, sprinkling the top with additional to melt.  Form into any size cookies you like, and bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes or so.  Winter White!

I was a little excited but mostly blorft. “Blorft” is an adjective I just made up that means ‘Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.’ I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.  (Tina Fey)

. . . what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.  (Seneca)

There is a cold, bleak, wintry-mix-sound on the porch this morning, and Hank made haste taking care of business before demanding a return to his warm bed, 30 seconds top.  And then I read an email from a dear friend whose husband is a fellow weather freak like me, and I quote:  (our) weather guy says we’re going to get “slammed.”  70 % chance of 10+ inches and 40% chance of 20+ inches, “storm of the century.”

Will 2020 never end?  With two more days before the storm of the century, should I go to the grocery store this morning in the wintry mix, or wait for the sunshine promised tomorrow, and face crowds?  Do I even need groceries?

Am I excited?  You betcha.  Altho’ not as much as snowstorms usually thrill me.  Nine months of pandemic have raised my Adrenalin-Standard, and even for a weather-freak, the return-to-childhood-innocent-excitement at the anticipation of a big snow is tempered by something less innocent, and more in the “oh, s___” category.  Something within me has already been on high alert for too long now, and is pooped.

Which is probably why, even tho’ I have used this time of necessary isolation over the last several months to become much more “fit,” my recent medical lab results were really out of kilter.  Most discouraging.  But the reality is that I’m out of balance in almost every way.  Maybe we all are, expressed in many different ways — physically, attitudinally, behaviorally, emotionally — it would certainly account for all the dysfunctionality and societal angst we seem to face, huh?  A worn-out people, fighting a war of a different kind, one for which we were ill-prepared, on many fronts.

How long will it take ’til our systems adapt to this as a new normal, a reality that is all we know?  Countless people throughout the centuries have done it before we happened along.  Maybe we just got wrapped up in our 20-21st century complacency and assumptive entitlement.

Wow, that sounds harsh.  I might be angry.  I don’t feel the anger, tho’, just the ever present on-high-alert experience within, that which gets me up at three in the morning now, to sit “Under the Christmas Tree” to have a conversation with God and you.

Deep breathing time.

 

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it . . . (Eleanor Roosevelt)

It is Sunday morning, and that means our traditional Sunday morning breakfast.  But it is still quiet in these pre-dawn hours, and some time until I need to start preparations.  This morning I am preparing what my mother would have called a “substantial” breakfast — sausage gravy and biscuits, crispy potatoes, and scrambled eggs ‘n cheese.   Since I tend to be more of a nuts and berries person right now, this is big.  In more ways than one . . .

But my two breakfast companions sometimes rebel against the variety of seeds and nuts found hidden in their peas and carrots and smoothies, so this is a special treat for them.  I hope.

I have always wished for a biggggg family, one of those Norman Rockwell paintings of huge families gathered around a table come to life, but alas, it wasn’t to be.  Not on my life path.  I have married into large families twice, hoping for the best.  Alas again, that wasn’t to be either. Attempting to create what lies in one’s fantasies can be an exhausting and disappointing affair.

Although I churlishly tend to put the responsibility on others for why it hasn’t worked out in accord with my fantasies, the truth of the matter is that it’s probably me.  Perhaps I am just not a big family person, as much as I want to be.  Back in my church attending days, I used to sit and watch Rachel and Lowell’s family, youngish parents of at least six little ones.  A picture postcard family.  Rachel was living the life I was born to live, I often thought.  My guardian angel musta fallen asleep on the job at some critical juncture.  I delighted in observing them.  And wondered sometimes at what their own challenges might be.  I’m sure they had them in abundance, since what they were doing wasn’t easy, but they sure weren’t apparent to me as I observed them with pleasure and longing.

I have been given so many incredible blessings and am at peace (at least most of the time) about my life’s path now, but especially around the holidays, I wonder.  And long . . .

Do we get the life we’ve planned?  The one we want?  The one we need?  Is the grass always greener on the other side of the fence?  Do those in large families long for solitude?  Do we ever get a chance for a “do-over?”

In my fantasies, I often picture sitting down with my guardian angel in the celestial realms before I ever got “borned,” and collaborating with her about my life-to-be:  “Okay, One-About-to-Be-Incarnated, this is what we have in mind for your life.  Whatcha’ think?”

And I would say,  “You gotta be kidding.  You want me to do That?  How about This instead?”  And she would purse her lips and tell me that,  “Well, that’s not really what the committee had in mind . . .”   The world needed this instead, and would I be agreeable to take on the challenges needed rather the ones I wanted? . . .   “The Big Guy would be grateful.”  And of course, since after all, it’s my fantasy, and I wanna look good, I would graciously acquiesce and say,  “Oh, of course.”

My choice.  My responsibility.  To live this precious life with as much Grace, Enthusiasm, Kindness, Appreciation, and Humor as I can muster up . . . . With all its challenges, disappointments, futile strivings, and questions, it is such an incredible Gift.  Beyond words . . .

 

Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.   (Peter Pan)

You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.   (Dr. Seuss)

Well, Fred and me, we’re on the Trail again, headin’ back on north after rescuin’ the girls from their hideout on Dry Devil River.  Wouldn’t you know it, turned out they actually had been taken by slavers, aimin’ no good thing.  But those were some feisty women, a tribute to us all, and they soon had the upper hand, an’ had them slavers hog-tied and headin’ on down Dry Devil River on the raft that was intended to take them down river into slavery instead.  Trouble was,  JanelleElise (who woulda thought??) got a little free with a rock or two she was beatin’ one of ’em with, and rendered him a little bit dead, so they hid his body, and then hid themselves in an old cave they discovered in the rocks down there, not wantin’ to risk her goin’ to jail.  Persuadin’ ’em to come back with me wasn’t hard, tho’, when Fred suggested I inform ’em of the four footed critter who called that there cave “home”, and when I told ’em what the sheriff didn’t know couldn’t hurt ’em, well, that sealed the deal.

So the girls was restored to the Yella Rose Schoolhouse, still outa business due to the sickness of course, and commenced to helpin’ the others, led by Autumn Glory, on the new business scheme they’re a’cookin’ up, somethin’ to do with “empowerin’ women.”  Good for them, I says, needs to be done.  They wanted me to stay and help ’em, especially Miz Suze who it was hard to say good-bye to, but Fred and me, we were hearin’ the call of the open road and those ole mountains again, so we headed out after we’d rested awhile.

So, like I started out sayin’, we’re back on the Trail again, and should be home in a week or so, barrin’ unforeseen adventures.  I was mighty relieved ole Fred is still with me.  Thought the Big Chick mighta called her back to heaven, but evidently they must still think Fred’s still got work to do, protectin’ me, which is all I can figure her job really is.  Wouldn’t a’thought I needed all that protection and all since I take pretty good care of myself, but I reckon the powers that be know better’n me.  The thing I appreciate the most about ole Fred is her intuition, her way of kinda knowin’ somethin’ the rest of us don’t know or can’t see.  Mebbe it’s because she’s from the heavenly realms.

Sayin’ good-bye to Miz Suze and the girls was hard, and I find myself thinkin’ what kinda life I might have lived if I hadn’t lived the one I did.  I don’t think I coulda been one of those there folks that ever quite settle down, whatever that might be.  My feet, they somehow got a mind of their own, and just take off, an’ my body is obliged to follow.

We’ll see, I reckon.  Right now, just a’restin’ a spell sounds good to me.  Mebbe I’ll be back to tell you some more of our adventures sometime.  You never know what lies around the next bend of the trail.

(By the way, in case you was ever a’wonderin’, since you been readin’ about me ever since The Old Country Store and Post Office, what I looked like?   Well, one of the girls had a man with one of those newfangled cameras take a picture of me an’ Fred . . . for some reason, Fred’s image wouldn’t come out on the photographic plate, but she suggested I share mine with you.  It’s not my best look, but I reckon it’ll do.)

 

 

Anxiety cries for answers . . .  (Wilmer)

AnnabelleLee, SamanthaJocelyn, and JanelleElise IS GONE an’ NObody knows WHERE!! . . .  (BessieJune)

Well, this is sure a fine kettle of fish . . .  an’ as much as I love these women, I gotta say helpin’ them out is more than I bargained for.  Some time has passed since I last wrote, and me and Fred, we’re back out on the road.  Turns out when BessieJune filled me in on all the happenins’ the mornin’ after I got to the YellaRose Schoolhouse, first thing off, I learned three of the girls is missin’ and unaccounted for, and it’s been months since they been heard from.  They apparently didn’t just leave to go help out their families in the illness and all, they disappeared, just like that.  One day they was there in their room, the next day . . . poof! . . .  they was gone.  An’ Miz Suze, after she didn’t get no satisfaction from the law, who just laughed at her and said you couldn’t never trust girls like that, she sent for me, rememberin’, I reckon, that I was pretty good at solvin’ mysteries.  Miz Suze, she says her worst fear is that they got caught up somehow in that white slave trade that’s so bad down here.

So, like I said, Fred an’ me, we’re back out on the road, tryin’ to pick up a trail of those women that’s colder than a witch’s tit, excuse the expression.  It’s just a symptom, I reckon, of my frustration . . .  Because instead of that nice long rest me an’ Fred was anticipatin’ after our hard time on the Trail, we was back out on the road the next mornin’.  Fred, she don’t care, didn’t take too much to all those people at the YellaRose Schoolhouse, especially when BessieJune tried dressin’ her up in a bonnet and  some feathers.  She was akinda interested in the feathers, but after she found out they wasn’t attached to nothin’ edible, she spit ’em out, ate the bonnet, and laid under the bed ’til we left.

Anyways, we been on the road a good week now, and our vittles are givin’ out, so I reckon we’ll have to hit the next town and take our chances on gettin’ exposed to that there plague.  And no clues a’tall.  Unless you count that riddle one ole feller gave us, a half-blind ole man we met just kinda meaderin’ down the road.  When we told him what we was a’doin’, he just kinda cackled and mumbled  what can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps . . . heh, heh, heh”, all kinda creepy-like before he stumbled off.

I was right disgusted, as it woulda taken me a while to puzzle it out, but ole Fred, she knowed right away it was a river.  So, since it’s the only clue we got, we are headed to the nearest river, which is Devil’s River, not such a righteous name, I’m thinkin’. . .  Should be there tomorrow, and God willin’, we’ll get another clue . . .

Fer now?  We gotta get some vittles and some sleep.

We’re finally here, after a mighty hard trip.  There’s a bitter plague in the land, like I told you before, and people are righteously scared of it.  Headin’ down the Trail, me ‘n Fred hadta stay on the back ways and hide out some of the time from bands of people tryin’ to get away from either the plague, or somethin’ else dangerous.  They didn’t look none too friendly, and while ordinarily we woulda tried to make some kinda contact, we hadta make as much haste as we could since I’d promised Miz Suze to come as quick as I could, and ole Fred’s bein’ so torn up and needin’ to heal had delayed us so.  She was still a’feelin’ a lotta pain, but she’s a game critter, and kept a’goin’, often bein’ the one who was responsible for catchin’ us a rabbit or such for our suppers.  She’s a’earnin’ those stars in her crown, or her wings, or whatever.

So we’re finally here, at the Yella Rose Schoolhouse/Saloon, and at least we got a chance to see Miz Suze and let her fuss over us for a spell.  She’d about given us up, she said.  But she insisted on a’waitin’ ’til tomorrow to tell us what the deal is and why she wanted us here, since she said what me ‘n Fred needed was to rest up.  And I gotta say, indeed this here bed feels mighty good after so many nights on that hard ground, a’sleepin’ with one eye open, and ole Fred is enjoyin’ the heck outta bein’ fussed over by the girls.

Not all the girls is here.  Some got sick and hadta leave, and some wanted to go home to their families on account of worryin’ about them.  And of course, Miz Suze, she closed the place down, no business at all, so there’s no work for ’em, and she ain’t teachin’ except for the girls.  But Autumn Glory, remember her?  She’s still here, motherin’ everybody, ’cause she don’t have no place else to go.  And little BessieJune?  She an’ her animals are here permanent-like now, since her pa up and died of the plague.  Matildie’s still here, a’takin’ care of everyone, thank the good Lord.

But EthelLouise, she’s gone, she done up and got married to that boy her pa was so opposed to, good for her.  But AnnabelleLee’s gone, nobody knows where or what happened to her — Barefoot Woman and Pony took off to be with her people, where the sickness had gotten real bad, even tho’ Miz Suze tried to get her to not go.  JanelleElise and SamanthaJocelyn just left — folks are still waitin’ to hear from them and if they’re okay.  And AngelinaMay said she was needed at home to take care of her family.  BessieJune, she told me she’d bring me more up to date tomorrow, and I don’t doubt it a bit.  That little girl can really bend your ear.

If you kinda forget the different girls’ stories, mebbe you wanta go back and read ’em — BessieJune said she’d clue me in tomorrow.  But for now? — me ‘n that featherbed have a long overdue date a’comin’ up.

 

We are the authors of our own stories throughout every circumstance in our lives.  We are not in control of plot complications, but we can make resilient choices in the face of them . . .  (author unknown)

Well, life don’t ever turn out quite like you think, does it?  Mr. A (me) starts out for B (Miz Suze) at the other end of a straight line.  Halfway there, he meets C (to be described later).  That contact sidetracks him to D.  D bein’ the situation of Fred ‘n me bein’ stuck on the Indian Trail.  Nearly lost ole Fred when a bear (C) took him on a few miles from here and tore her up pretty bad.  Fred, she did herself proud, fought to the end protectin’ me from that ole mama bear that was on a rampage, but in the end, Fred wasn’t no match for that bear’s fury over somethin’, who knows what.  Mebbe her cubs had got killed.  Just like I thought was gonna happen to Fred.  Thought she was a goner for sure.

After the ole bear lumbered away, prob’ly leavin’ us both for dead (I was up in a tree), I gathered up Fred and found she was a’livin’ after all, just barely.  Brought her here to an abandoned shack we found, and been nursin’ her back to health.  And she’s a tough ole bird, or else that there angel (remember the Chick and the Vole??) that sent her here to be my guardian angel had somethin’ to do with it, cause she’s nearly healed now, and we’re a’talkin’ about heading on south to meet Miz Suze in Texas.  It’s been a spell since she got in touch with me askin’ me to come, so mebbe whatever she needed me for has worked itself out already, but we’re still plannin’ on a’goin’.

Problem is, there’s some kinda sickness in the land.  People say as how the soldiers brought it home with ’em from the war, but it don’t really matter where it came from.  Right now what we gotta do is deal with it, and that means bein’ careful and stayin’ away from most people we meet if we’re gonna get to Texas.  Gets right lonesome not talkin’ to folks along the trail, or stoppin’ at the little towns or settlements.  And Fred, she hasn’t been able to hunt for us until just lately, so we’ve been eatin’ a lotta fish, and a lot more nuts and berries and roots than I ever wanna see again.  But don’t get me wrong.  I’m mighty grateful.

While we’ve been workin’ on gettin’ Fred better, I been doin’ a lotta thinkin’.  Fred ‘n me, we’re writin’ our own story during this time, and all we’ve hadta deal with.  I wanna make it the kinda story that I’d like to read.

And the next chapter is gonna be gettin’ on down the road . . . we plan to hit the trail tomorrow early . . .

 

Still around the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate.        (Tolkien)

I don’t want to live in the kind of world where we don’t look out for each other.  Not just the people that are close to us, but anybody who needs a helping hand.  I can’t change the way anybody else thinks or what they choose to do, but I can do my bit.  (charles de lint)

I know I told you earlier that Fred ‘n me would be stayin’ put for awhile, and tellin’ you these here stories, but I’m here today to tell you that we gotta be gettin’ on the road again.  And I can’t say as how I’m sorry.  Her paws and my feet were gettin’ kinda itchy.

The reason we’re gettin’ ready to go is that we heard from Miz Suze down Texas way.  Her message just got to me and come from some weeks back, and whatever kinda help she needed, I just hope I’m not too late, since I think a powerful lot of that woman.  We’re settin’ off early tomorrow mornin’, after we get our road provisions together.  She, Miz Suze that is, is  still at the Yella Rose Schoolhouse, and didn’t say much, other than that she could use a friendly hand, and needed somebody she could trust.

So we’re off back down the Indian Trail, and I’ll be talkin’ to you again, most likely from Texas, if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise.