Hello--Goodbye

For the past few months, I've been dating a wonderful man. Initially, I was (as usual) ambivalent about him--not sure if I was really attracted. I've dated a lot of nice guys, but I thought that if the chemistry wasn't there, I couldn't force it, and those men usually went into my friendship category.

This time, I broke my usual pattern, or went beyond its limitations. As I got to know A, my feelings for him grew, and I found him more and more attractive. But just as my feelings were developing, A realized that he was in a difficult financial position,and needed to earn more money than he could get in Mass. Over the past month he's been preparing to move away from the area to work as a traveling nurse. To do that, he has to go where the jobs are--often in out of the way places.

Now, just as I'm getting used to being in relationship, I'm preparing to lose one. The whole process has been accelerated and surprisingly difficult.

Passover

About 2 weeks ago,I came back from visiting a friend in Albany and found a mini-flood in my kitchen. It seems that literally when it rains it pours, and the water damage came the week after I discovered that my bike had been stolen out of the "secure" bike room on the first floor of my condo building. Also, I was in the middle of refinancing my condo and had just received my new appraisal--in the last few years the value of my condo has been shrinking incredibly fast--and seeing the new/low number brought me up short; I felt like I'd just been slapped like the men in those old Aqua Velva commercials.

Today, my unit is pieced back together and I've managed to pull myself together, too. But I was and am amazed at how quickly I felt ungrounded/of how I lost my composure as soon as I spotted a note on my door and then entered my unit to find peeling plaster, water-stained walls and a wet floor. Once again, I'm reminded that I need to practice yoga or meditation--to do something so that when the shit does hit the fan--as it inevitably will, especially when life seems to be going my way, I'll have something to fall back on.

Snow Day

I'm officially sick of winter--no longer seeing the beauty of white on red brick or bare trees. I'm tired of being cold, of feeling the wind whip through my four or five layers of clothing. But on this Monday morning, I'm grateful for snow; for the first time this year, my college (work) is closed and we have a snow day.

I feel a bit like the kid I was, back in Cleveland, when we'd get a rare (about once a year) day off due to snow. In that lake-effect snow region, school would be canceled only if we got a foot or more. My friends and I would grab our fathers' shovels and head out, shoveling the neighbors driveways for $5 or $6, and earning $2 each for that numbingly cold work.

Still, it was exciting--an unexpected gift--to get that unplanned holiday. Today, my car is in my condo lot, which should be plowed out by this afternoon. Then I'll head down out and dig out my car....which beats shoveling a whole driveway. I'm hoping this will be the last major snowstorm of the season, but March can be a long month.

Still, the time changes next weekend and I'm going to pretend that spring is just around the corner instead of being a month away.

Coming Back to Earth

The last few weeks have been a blur--after New Year's I was caught up in the count-down to Barack Obama's inauguration, and then on January 18th I flew down to DC and it was suddenly all happening. Of course, my own small plans, within the larger scope of events, didn't roll out the way I'd imagined. Boston got blasted with a snowstorm, which delayed our flight a bit. The bigger hassle was the ingrown toenail I discovered that morning, and the infection that had set in.

Sometime after our arrival, I went to a walk-in clinic and started taking an antibiotic to clear up the infection. While taking care of that issue, I missed the concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Then, on Monday night, (the medicine made me sick to my stomach) so that I got very little sleep and didn't think I'd make it down to Obama's swearing in. Still, I'd waited 8 years and traveled 500 miles, and so I made the trek, by Metro and foot, to the Mall.

There, I stood with my two friends and 1.8 million others, savoring the moment even while my stomach churned and gurgled. Even though we were far back in the crowd, in front of the Washington Monument, we could look out and see the Capitol, and watch the proceedings on a giant screen.

Knowing that I was a (tiny) part of history, caught up in the excitement, it was hard to get back to my humdrum life of work, errands, paying bills, etc. But part of me is still basking in a post-DC glow, and grateful for the time I took to make it happen.

Sliding into the New Year

After a long break in my posting, I'm back to this blog. Naturally, I wonder if anyone is out there--if anyone reads these posts, especially when I've been an infrequent contributor. But during the months of November and December, I was, (as we'd say in Boston) wicked preoccupied with family issues. My mother's husband passed away in mid-December after a long illness. Now my mother has the time and ability to take care of herself, and to resume her own life. As I see her get on her feet, I'm getting back into my own life.

Now, once again, I have no (good) excuses not to write, to work on my one-man show (which I plan to perform next fall), or to plan my classes. I avoid formal new year's resolutions, but I am determined to write more, to practice my craft regularly, to use my precious time instead of frittering so much of it away in front of the TV.

The government is giving me a boost by doing what I lacked the will to do--essentially turning off my television. On February 17, when the remaining stations switch from analog to digital, my TV (complete with rabbit ears and no cable) will become a DVD player. This is one time I cut put my talent for procrastination and inertia to positive use....I'm not ordering cable or getting a conversion box--at least not yet.

The Same, and Different

Now that George W Bush is (almost) history, I've spent the past few weeks in a daze. It's so hard for me to believe that I actually backed a winner, and that we, the American people, voted for the most qualified man, regardless of skin color--a man who had actually earned the right to compete at a national level, instead of someone who (a la Bush) arrived there as a scion of privilege and family connections.

Thinking about change, and what this country is capable of, is both humbling and exciting. Though sleep deprived, I was on a dreamy high for the rest of the week.

And then I came back to reality. My mother, who is 80 years old, is overwhelmed, watching over her very sick husband back in Cleveland. At times, I make myself ill worrying over her--how she doesn't take care of herself, tries to do too much, and doesn't listen to my heartfelt advice/pleas for her to slow down.

At times I feel powerless, unable to prevent the traffic accident, the inevitable collapse of my mother's body if she continues to go beyond her limits. Ironically, by fixating on my fears--of having to go back to Cleveland to 'pick up the pieces' of being saddled with her care, and of seeing her in a weakened condition--I do the same thing myself--not eating or sleeping well.

Recently I've been having difficulty sleeping for other reasons--noisy neighbors, and stress at work. I like to think of my 3 room apartment as a safe haven, but sometimes it isn't--the outside world intervenes and again, life doesn't go according to my plans.

This lesson, letting go and trusting that things will come together, seems to be the hardest--a life-long challenge. I seem to confront this lesson over and over. (I must be a slow learner). Meanwhile, I'm still trying to hold on, to not freak out when I get into a disagreement with a neighbor, or a co-worker, to not immediately fall into my fear-based 'fight or flight' response, as I did yesterday.

I am a slow-learner, but I'm also trying to accept life's ups and downs--and the fact that ultimately, life will not go according to my plans.

Obama-nation

On the morning of election day, my stomach is rumbling. Not because I am hungry to eat, but because I--and just about everyone I know--is desperately hungry for change. After 8 endless years under the worst president and vice-president--(Spiro Agnew included--of my lifetime, I'm craving new leadership. I believe that Obama and Biden can provide what we/I need. Hell, he can hardly do worse.

Obama, like Bill Clinton, represents achievement based on merit, on ability, on intelligence. George W Bush represented, to me, the worst of America--nepotism, family connections, affirmative action for rich white men. Who honestly believe that GW would have come within sniffing distance of the White House, if he'd been born into an average American family, much less a poor one?

More than anything, I want to believe that my native state of Ohio will finally side with someone who could potentially benefit this country. Growing up there in the 1960's, I heard that Ohio was the "Mother of Presidents," basically tied with Virginia as the birthplace or residence of our supreme leaders. But later, I came to think of the Buckeye State as the "Mother of Bad Presidents," since we had birthed many corrupt and inept presidents--i.e. Harding and Grant,along with various mediocrities like Taft. Then there was William Henry Harrison, who was from (but not born in) Ohio, and who lasted all of one month before he caught pneumonia, and two who fell under assassins' bullets--James Garfield and William McKinley.

Lately, Ohio has helped to seal our nation's fate by sending GW Bush to Washington in both 2000 and 2004. In '04, the state vote was sealed by the machinations of Kenneth Blackwell, who was both Ohio Secretary of State and Bush's campaign co-chair. (A major conflict of interest).

Today, I want to hope that Ohio, and the nation as a whole, can finally begin to put the Bush years behind us and elect a leader who calls upon our better nature, rather than our xenophobia, our fear of the other, our narrow-mindedness. Will it happen?
I'm hoping that we'll know by midnight tonight, and that I'll wake up tomorrow in a new era of possibility, in which George W Bush is almost irrelevant, a footnote of history whom many of us are anxious to forget--like a nightmare that fades in the light of morning.