The Talking Trellis

A feeling has come over me that is somewhat hard to explain. It is a new sense of motivation, yet it is from the inside out and feels terrific. Much different from the eleventh hour have to get it done scramble. It is a feeling paved by building blocks and well thought out plans. Developments that can now come to fruition because of all of my years of experience and plotting, whether noticeably or not, to make such things happen. I am bringing things into the now and ever present. I am facing the work that has to be done and embracing it. I have given myself a year, the last year of my thirties, to lay the groundwork for a healthier, more organized, more productive life. And I am loving it!

I may not be doing so much of the “Talking” here on the “Trellis” as I have set up a separate entity to encase this year long proactive project. You, sweet blog and sweet readers, have been here for me before this new burst of excitement, and you will be here after this project is done. You continue to give me a home for thoughts that need to be shared, and I value that. I will be by every once in a while, have no fear, for my love for you is strong. Though I would love it if you followed me over to the bridge I have created to sustain me for a year:

The Last Year of My Thirties

It houses a list of my goals and dreams, a plan to bring them into action, a call to be my cheerleader, and a pledge to keep tabs on my progress through 39 blogtv broadcasts. The first of which will be tomorrow evening, April 4, 2010 6pm Pacific.

Also, I will be updating my progress through the blog from feeds to my Facebook fan page. Yes, I know, I thought it was silly too when Alicia made me a fan page after my friend’s husband said he wanted to fan me. Yet, now I love it, as it gives me a place to record and share all of this, as well as my professional endeavors, while keeping my personal wall to share how I am feeling about myself and the world. Sometimes it is good to have specific homes. If you are on Facebook and would like updates and feeds from The Last Year of My Thirties, my professional talks, and my one woman show- please fan me and nothing will get lost through the cracks:

Fan Me Here!

It’s funny,  when I turned 21, my mom sent me 21 packages as presents that had 21 items in them. Now, I cannot stop looking at things that contain the number 39! We went over to her place last night for artichokes and she had a little belated birthday shindig for me. I cannot stop celebrating my birthday! It was really nice. She and I have rarely lived in the same city and for many many years I have not even seen her near or around, and most certainly not on, my birthday- so last night was very sweet. We came home with a huge sheet cake that I think we will have to freeze and eat all year long! As we left, my mom announced that I can be, “39 forever now!” I told her one year will be enough for me. And I meant it. What a great adventure this last year of my thirties will be! Thank you to everyone in my life, you have all helped me more than you will ever know.

(A letter to my younger self upon the arrival of our thirty ninth year)

Forgive my interruption, I am twenty years ahead of you right now, and thought it best to address a few of our issues. I’ll try to be as brief as possible, well, no not really, for if you cannot be winded with yourself, who else will ever listen?

You have been out of high school for almost a year now, more then likely you are working a shift at The Wherehouse where you are too young to be a manager. I know you are doing a good job, you are a hard worker and way too stubborn to admit the job is beyond your maturity level. In fact, in a few days, on our golden birthday, you will be wearing a t-shirt with your full broom stick skirt (I am sorry I wasn’t able to get to us sooner to stop the broomstick skirt phase) that commemorates our birthday as the release date of Depeche Mode’s Violator album. I know you are contemplating sharing with Martin Gore how much their song, Somebody, has meant to you since junior high, it is a wise decision not to share, I am proud of us for that, just as it was a wise decision to stock the manager’s office with bottled water. You will save several people’s lives on our birthday, including the members of Depeche Mode. Trust me, though your boss will be too egotistical to give you the props we deserve, Alan Wilder’s appreciation will make up for it in spades.

This birthday that you are about to face is going to be a tough one, there is no way I can sugar coat this information, you’ll just have to face the truth. I know you would rather retreat into your journal (relax, I know you are near the last page of that beautiful journal your parents gave you for graduation, the one from 84 Charring Cross Road, the gift they got so right. I promise there will be other journals, just try and find ones that lock, this will safe us a lot of grief and despair) and wonder the days away, wishing our world was still under Oberon’s rule, yet I need you to face some facts. You are on the eve of discovering how your life will be on every birthday for many, many years. Our golden birthday is just the starting point. You are going to cry, and let yourself, it is a good cry and needed and will cushion our future birthdays to come. Your family will forget that you do not like chocolate cake. Your family will order pepperoni pizza, despite our being a vegetarian since our fifteenth year on earth. Your family will give you presents that make no sense, and they will wrap them in a plastic trash bag. I wish I could say this was a metaphor for something else, I am sorry, it is not; though its image serves well as a metaphor for our birthday next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that, ad nausea. You will pull yourself together and find the strength to celebrate the way you want to, good for you! Frenzy is playing at Gazzari’s, and do me a favor, listen to Charlie Sheen when he tells you where to get a tattoo, the experience is one of our best experiences ever, you’ll mark my words.

I know you are trying to decide if you should go to Europe, do it, do not hesitate. Stop worrying about money; it will be there when you need it. Speaking in German with the Japanese Mime student in France will be a pivotal moment for you, for us. As will be: getting recognized as your great grandmother’s descendant on a tour bus in Holland, sitting illegally (shhh, you and I do not get much better about following the rules, I’m afraid) on Dionysius’ throne in Greece, chipping away at The Berlin Wall, hearing the Irish end their sentences with, “love”, being harassed for sitting down in the train station in Rome, picking up litter in the Vatican, earning the nickname- panini bambino, staying up all night on the ferry from Brindizi to Greece, and seeing Mr. Zentis in the Louvre. (I am sorry, this last one made me cry. It will be the last time we see him before HIV takes him away and before we get the chance to tell him how much he meant to us, how much we learned from him. Cherish that conversation on the stairs, about the molding, on the building, that holds some of the world’s finest art. We will replay the lesson from this talk over and over again, especially when someone tells us that details do not matter.) If you can, for me, go and meet that young woman at the Van Gogh Exhibit, missing that date remains my one regret from our time on the continent.

I am pulling you in for a hug now, because I know about the two main things that are on your mind. First- When you did that favor for Helen and the object of her affection found you attractive, attractive to the degree to want to have sex with you. This will happen again. It happened before, we were just too dense to realize it, and it will happen again, many times, I promise. I wish I could tell you that our denseness goes away in this regard, however, it doesn’t, though it does add to our charm. (That, and a good pair of fishnets, so you may as well stock up whenever you can.) Besides, you are only a few months away from successfully sneaking back stage after The Indigo Girls play The Wiltern and when Amy Ray smiles at us for the first time. Second- How you would like to tell Aleks that you two are the same, yet there is a nagging difference that keeps you quiet. You, my sweet young self, are struggling with that difference. It is going to take you another decade to really work it out. All I can say is to embrace your attraction to masculinity. Eventually you’ll discover that you do not have to be masculine, that you will find the women who own it and one in particular that will set your, our, heart on fire.

The twenty years to get from golden to me, us, are not going to be easy. You are going to have to face many hard obstacles, hardships, and hard truths. You will do so mostly with a smile. You will hold onto things that matter so tightly you’ll scare some people. You will let go of things that no longer serve us, things that were woven tightly into us as intrinsic for survival. You’ll find a happy medium and set up some good boundaries. You’ll make a lot of mistakes, and you won’t listen to me when I tell you they are all worth it. Your family may never fully understand our favorites, yet, they not only love us all the same, they like us an awful lot too.

The twenty long years it takes you to get to me, will go by in a flash. We will carry on together, still making some uncomfortable, still standing up for what we believe, still laughing everyday. We’ll not see ourself as a strict black and white model of our ideal. Instead we will allow us some space to grow and change and evolve; to fully become our conscious self. I’ll need to borrow your youthful enthusiasm to help us get over some of the damage we have amassed. In turn, I will constantly remind you of how far we have come, as I gently, with kindness and warmth, envelope you with the magic of how we learned to love us.

Sincerely,
me

Almost a month ago, Alicia and I received some sad news. This isn’t necessarily uncommon; we have been receiving a certain type of sad news on almost a monthly basis for going on a year now, so hearing the sad news is not what made the event extraordinary. Rather- it is where we were when we heard it, how I reacted, and what chain of events followed.

Gearing up for the news we decided to be decadent in the best comforting food sort of way and so we headed out to Waffle House- no judgment dear readers, sometimes you have to go where it feels right and cozy, arteries be damned! As there are no Waffle Houses near us we went up to one in the burbs. It was an odd time of day, therefore we had the place mostly to ourselves. We ordered and waited and then the phone rang announcing the delivery of said sad news. Usually, I roll with the punches and take things in stride. This time, I cried.

I am not a pretty sight when I cry. I turn red, I shake, my nose runs, my eyes swell and puff, I try to hide it but I cannot. For the most part I can be quiet, but everything else gives it away in spades. Alicia does not like to see me cry and does everything she can to comfort me, yet once I start I cannot be calmed for quite some time.

Our food is delivered, and the waitress asks if I am okay. I cannot speak when I cry for if I do I sound bitingly angry. Because of this, Alicia answers for me. The waitress sizes up Alicia and will not accept any answer from her, and so she asks me again- her eyes piercing into mine with a glow that I have shared before in my time. It is a look that communicates more than the words that have been spoken, it says, “If you are in danger or harm, I am here to help.”

I assure her as best I can that I am indeed okay. Yet, my crying continues and another worker comes over to ask if I am okay. Then another and another. Each time, Alicia’s words are not accepted, only mine. Each time the unspoken is shared through a look of protection.  This look is mare than a pact, it is a call to action, a summoning of a comrade for the good fight. The fight that will save your life.

Alicia and I finish our meal, slightly bewildered. I have stopped crying and seem to be able to speak without choking or yelling. We pay and head out to the car. The eyes of every staff member upon us every single inch we cross. The look is present and stays with me long after we pull away.

Enough time has passed that I can write about this day. This isn’t to say I have just remembered it, for nothing could be further from the truth. That day has been with me physically and in my mind everyday since. I simply wasn’t sure how to put it into words until now. You see, if one didn’t know Alicia they might misjudge her as someone who could do harm, someone who could inflict pain. She is fiercely protective and if someone hurt someone she loved, she would (and does) rise to the occasion. However, she is not violent and would not ever hurt nor oppress me. I know this. Anyone who knows her knows this. The staff of Waffle House does not know this. The staff of Waffle House, in the very least on the aforementioned day, is compromised of people that no one likes to talk about. People who have been hurt, people who have been saved, either by themselves or by another unsuspecting good Samaritan. People who recognize and know how to give that look.

The earth is crowded with these silent heroes, heroes who were once victims and are now doing whatever they can to survive. It is the person next to you on the bus, the person behind you in line, the person who held the door for you and perhaps looked after you a little longer than you noticed. You see, once one has shifted from victim or oppressed to survivor, they are in an automatic club that knows not of its membership for there are no words to fit the pledge, no words that could adequately express every individual journey. Besides, this club doesn’t need words, it thrives on action. It is ‘Pay It Forward’ for the under dog who may not ever see justice, but will see to it that everyone has the chance to try for it.

I recognized that look only because I am a member of this club. I made the shift with help from others and help from myself, help that came from the most unexpected places- like a long distance phone call, or a cop who looked a little longer than needed to make sure. Help that was loud and help that was silent and help that was as simple as a squeeze of the hand. Now, as a survivor I pay my grateful dues in being watchful for who might need that look. I pay my dues by helping to push the car that ran out of gas, by navigating a wheelchair turn, by opening a door and all the while looking out for the subtle and not so subtle signs of distress.

The staff of the Waffle House that day are my kin. We may not have the same appearance or the same ideology, but we know what it means to look out for people, to not take the big voice as word but to seek out the little voice who may be screaming for help. They didn’t recognize me as one of them that day as I was not on duty. Some times we get lucky and find a protector who allows us a day off when we need to be vulnerable and find a way to bring ourselves back without worrying about being on the look out for others.

How wonderful to know the chain is in effect. How sad to know the links are still building and so many have woes and tragedies that are shaping their lives. Yet, I am on the watch and the look is in place to speak all those words we all understand, “I am here. I will help.” Thank you staff of Waffle House and thank you my love for allowing me the space and the silence and the comfort to embrace it all.

I kissed you good bye in the earliest am, only to miss you as soon as you left.

I got my nails done, put together my flowers, tried to eat lunch, made it to the mansion without running into you. You sent me the sweetest text and I cried.

I fought my way through my tiny bridal room with its overflowing people- how many people can you fit in a dressing room anyway? I held it together until I put on my dress and turned around to see the faces on my Mom, Aunt and Mindy- they were glowing and crying and I knew I had officially become a bride. I didn’t even need the mirror to tell me I had finished my trousseau. I took a sip of the pelligrino my Dad had left for me and headed downstairs.

I saw you before I started to descend and pulled everyone back up the stairs to use the other staircase so you wouldn’t see me. I made it downstairs to see our wedding party in the hall at the ready with the separate parts of our Maypole- it was the first time I had seen some of them and the first time they had seen me! I started to cry, My Dad lead me into the washroom for some tissue and I heard our music. I gathered myself to walk down the aisle toward you.

I stepped into the doorway and saw you, standing there, waiting for me, and I couldn’t stop smiling and crying. Everyone we had invited was there, no one stood, they all were mesmerized by our love, by the excitement and the sweet calm in the air, and crying and smiling as well. Our ceremony and reception were beautiful! The vows, our closest friends surrounding us in a quote circle, our nieces and nephews taking it all very seriously, our toddling over the broom, the May Pole, the cake pull, the food, the petite fours, the music, the people, the weather, our celebration!

I meant it, I mean it, I live it- I DO!

I love you baby- My Lock, My Soul, My One,
Your Key

Organizing never ends. I have made or taken tiny baby steps- yet it seems with every step I think of 300 more that need to be taken. I am working toward better time management to accomplish all these steps. Wish me luck.

My thyroid keeps on. I have been trying to improve my sleep patterns in the hopes that this, along with the medication, will help. Also- now that I am taking the medication properly- I am hoping to see improvement. My face is slimmer, that is about all I can report on that topic.

Does anyone know of an inexpensive place to live in California where A and I could both get jobs? A originally said no to CA, but we would be legal there and we are both so tired of fighting so hard. Another criteria is that we do not want to deal with winter so much so this is why CA is coming back into my brain as the only other state we would be recognized fully is MA and I’d rather stick with this winter in CO than trade for harsher winters in MA. Portland was number one on our list for quite some time, yet this morning it is bothering me that we would have the same rights but still not be able to call it what it is- MARRIAGE. Also, it is expensive and hard to find jobs. Any suggestions? Anyone?

On Sundays nothing gets done. This isn’t to say that we don’t have grand plans- we do, lots of them. Usually in the form of cleaning and organizing and going to the movies and going for a bike ride and talking Murphy for a walk. Lots of lovely plans, zero activity.

Sundays are the only day we have together and I think we save up all of our exhaustion for Sundays. Sleeping in, snuggling, not getting dressed, watching silly TV, playing on-line, going out only to satisfy cravings- even then it is rare. Still, Sundays are swell. We talk, we make plans that will eventually get done later in the week, we dream out loud, we reaffirm our bond and thereby making it stronger.

I love Sundays. My go get ‘em guilt sometimes clouds my love, yet it is momentary and passes little by little with each hug from my love.

How do you all spend Sundays?

I once wrote in a story, though I cannot remember which one at this exact moment (is it possible I am that prolific?!), that you can take the girl out of Austen but never Austen out of the girl. I belive this to be true. If one devours and falls in love with Austen, even if it is only one or two of her novels, this love stays with you and empowers many aspects of your life.

Hence, my being slightly lured into obtaining a Betta by one very loving spouse.

“Hey we could get a Betta and name it Mr. Darcy?”

Now I ask you, what Austen Fan- no matter how slight- could resist that?

I couldn’t. I am weak and proud. When we got to the store, I was entranced by a female Betta and suddenly we had two fish!

Mr. Darcy and My Pearl are a delight to have as part of our family. Swimming happily and somewhat camouflaged in our ‘Fish in Space’ aquariums as the space background is comprised of various shades of blue and our Bettas are the radiant blue ones. I am all for giving everyone privacy, so this works out fine. We have decided that these tanks are great for their infancy but we may need to upgrade to something more elegant as they mature. The minuscule price and the cuteness of the aquarium may have clouded our judgement as to their practicality. The opening is tiny- the fish net doesn’t even fit! A was great in getting Mr. Darcy and My Pearl into their new homes but I worry about getting them out during cleanings. I am such an over protective mother!

A Happy Home is a Fish Home- that doesn’t sound right, yet the sentiment is true.

…but it went on too long!

That’s not me, that’s the irreverent Ogden Nash. What a pill, but I have been thinking about progress today. Our apartment is small- much smaller than our belongings and ourselves combined. This means some severe organizing has to happen. When we first got here there was no time, then when there was time we were so exhausted from not having time, and then we just got used to it and did the best we could.

Now, I have reached my limit and have been taking action. Of course I want everything done right now- which is impossible. I have been doing the best I can to chip away at it little by little. Progress has been made, but by golly, it takes so long! Why can I not snap my Merry Mary Poppins fingers and have it all done in a jiff with a song?! I would love that so much.

Today, the kitchen looks better and I have a Vanity Area- two things we didn’t have yesterday!!! So I am pleased. It is hard but I am learning that sometimes, not everything has to get done in one sitting. While I unearthed the vanity from the piles and piles of things placed upon it that were rendering it non-usable, part of that hindrance was my jewelry collection. This collection is now safely in the drawers of the vanity and some jewelry boxes and some hanging organizers- but not actually organized; to do this it will take a good concentrated day or weekend or week. Yes, I have a fair amount of costume jewelry. The collection has a tiny bit of fine jewelry, but mainly I am attracted to clunky 50’s and 60’s reminiscent jewels. This will be a project for the future- not to worry, I will keep you posted.