Moo Who

I don’t know that much about anything in particular.  But that’s not to say that I don’t think about everything all of the time.  Like, whenever I go to Tanner’s farm and I get some of their homemade ice cream, I go outside and I stare at the cows as I lick my ice cream cone.  They stand there and swat flies away with their tails like their not even thinking about it; like it’s just something their bodies got so used to doing.  Like a mother who stands in line at the grocery store and sways back and forth because she got so used to rocking her babies over the years and now she can’t help it.  But I look at the cows and I think about how my sweet, sticky treat was made from the milk inside their bodies and it makes me suddenly uncomfortable and grossed out and unable to make eye contact with them.  It’s the same kind of feeling like when you accidentally walk in on someone who is naked.  I feel like I need to apologize to the cows and walk away with my head down in shame. And I’m not sure why everyone comes out to look at the cows like I do, but everyone does.  They don’t do anything.  They might lie down and someone will nod and say, “Mhmm. Look, that cow just layed down.  It’s gonna rain.”  And I think that makes people feel smart, like they have a really good read on cows, and the weather.  Some people bring their kids, and they hoist them up to get a better look over the fence and they say, “Look, honey! Look at the cows!” But the cow is just standing there, blinking or eating grass, or thinking about lying down.  Some people make jokes too.  Like a father to his son, “Knock, knock. Who’s there? Moo. Moo who?  Moove over so I can see the cows!” And the cows lie down because that guy is an insufferable nerd and they feel sorry for his kid and they have heard just about all of the knock knock jokes that they can handle.  And it’s not like cows are the most majestic creatures either.  I don’t think that anyone is standing there absolutely captivated by their beauty like you might with a horse.  I could be okay with staring at a horse.  The cows just always look pissed off or depressed to me.  Maybe they don’t like us eating ice cream in front of them. Maybe they feel too much pressure to be entertaining to children. Maybe they don’t like being stared at. Maybe they don’t want to mislead us about the weather.  Maybe they just want to lie down because they’re tired or they’re just trying to change things up from standing.  Needless to say, I don’t go there anymore.  I don’t think I was getting the same kind of cathartic experience like everyone else.  So now I eat my ice cream at home like a decent human being.  And I do it for the cows.

Get Back on the Bike

Get Back on the Bike

        When I was a kid, I practically lived on my bike. I rode it everywhere. Down hills, up hills, to friends houses, to the ice cream shop where I would ride home licking the dripping cone the whole way back. No hands!  I had my accidents too.  I flipped over the handle bars, broke my arm, got a groovy cast, and got back on the bike the next day. I was fearless and invincible. 

       Somewhere along my teenage years, I ditched the bike. It grew cold and rusty as I pursued other "hobbies".  I may have become too cool for the bike, I'm not sure. But after so many years of being cool and inactive, after lounging around and smoking cigarettes became my number one hobby, it was time to get back on the bike. 

        My whole family was down the shore for a good old fashioned summer vacation and everyone was headed to the boardwalk to ride.  Everyone looked shiny and happy and I wanted to be shiny and happy too. So I put out my cigarette and walked over to the bike I was meant to ride. I swung my leg over it and sat down. I wobbled, the bike wobbled. It felt foreign and I was scared. My palms were sweaty on the handlebars and my legs were shaking. "What happened to that fearless girl I once was?" I thought.  I left her back with my old bike, locked up in the dark. I had forgotten about her. 

         I rode shakily behind my family to the boardwalk. "Okay," I told myself, "the boardwalk is totally flat. I can just cruise at a comfortable pace and my lungs need not fear any steep inclines. I can do this."  I smiled nervously at my family, my 65 year old mother hauling ass right past me, not a care in the world. 

         As I rode the bike, something strange was happening. My equilibrium was off. I gravitated towards everything I looked at: seagulls, light posts, the ocean. I rode in a diagonal, becoming dangerously close to other bikers. They shot me surprised and appalled glances as I became too close for comfort. I was a strange, sweaty girl with a smokers cough and I was suddenly there by their side, rubbing elbows.  I couldn't help it. I was like a moth to a flame. 

       When they sped forward to avoid me side swiping their tires, and I was once again a lone rider, something else happened. The lines of the boards beneath my tires were drawing my gaze down like an optical illusion. Now I was gravitating towards the hard, unforgiving ground. What the hell? Had I ruined my eyes spending too much time trying to see the hidden pictures emerge from those magic eye posters in the 90's?  I had bike vertigo, and I wanted to go home. 

       But it wasn't vertigo, it was fear. I realized that I had stopped doing a lot of the things that I once loved and my life had become stagnant. I lived so far inside my own head that the outside world became scary and threatening. I started to think that the world was for everyone else; that I wasn't worthy of the good things that life had to offer. I'm not sure how or why this happened, but now, almost ten years later, after I was lying on the boardwalk pinned beneath my rental bike, shiny happy people cycling around me, it's time to lose the fear. 

          I turned 32 a few weeks ago, and at a party my family threw for me, they presented me with a gift--a brand spanking new, shiny pink bike, equipped with a basket, a cup holder, and a bottle opener (in case I need to crack a cold one for some liquid courage).  But when I looked at my new bike, I felt the fearless girl in me squeal with excitement. The world is for me too. I am worthy too. It's time to get back on the bike, and I'm ready. 

Cheers!

    I haven't written a new post in a while, and I think it's because I've been mostly happy lately.  And when you're mostly happy, you tend to be more active.  You do things like wake up in the morning as opposed to the afternoon when you've slept through the most annoying part of the day.  You make that satisfied Ahhh... sound after you sip your coffee, and you piss people off with your optimism.  When you're happy, you cheers people even when you're drinking something stupid, like milk.  And just because you're holding a glass, not because you're celebrating anything. "Cheers! I'm drinking milk!" Or, "Cheers! I showered today!"
     So why am I writing now?  Because underneath my mountain of joy hides a creepy little animal that tells me it's not okay to be flitting around with such an obnoxious twinkle in my eye.  It is that negative voice that most of us hear when things start to go right.  It stands in your peripheral waving a red flag, making you question and doubt yourself.  It offers to tuck you back inside your little box with a glass of whiskey and a ratty old blanket.  "Come back," it says, "turn out the light. Who do you think you are to be shining so brightly?  People don't like that."  And the truth is, some people don't.  But it doesn't much matter one way or the other.  Happiness can be fleeting.  Hold it gently. Cherish it.  Silence the voice that tells you that you are undeserving of it by shining even brighter, and eventually, the only voice you'll hear is your own, pushing you forward with compassion and encouragement.  Happiness.  I'll cheers to that!

A Poem

Till Death do us Part

Our love is that cliché boat lost at sea,

the sun beating down on us mercilessly.

Abashed are our dreams that we held in youth,

But our mouths are too dry to speak that truth.

So we bob and we sway under circling gulls,

too listless to jump or to patch up the holes.

What fools were we to see a way out,

Leaving behind all denial and doubt.

This boat will not hold us. The sea is aloof,

And you and I are living proof,

That it’s easier to sink than swim.

I'm Kind of a Jerk

      When you're in a relationship with someone for a long time, strange things can start to happen to your brain. However, I can not speak for everyone--strange things may just happen to my brain (but I doubt it).  Anyway, here is an example: Every now and again, I would lie beside my beloved and watch him in his blissful slumber. It was not a loving stare as you would expect, but more of a squinty, hissing snake like stare. I would lie awake and fantasize about rolling him off the side of the bed and spreading out like a star fish, sending my fingers out in search of the cool, delicious recesses beneath the pillows.  I imagined scissoring my arms and legs back and forth in the same way you would to make a snow angel.  Yes.  I would make a lovely cotton sheet angel if I could and it would be bliss.  If a toe innocently found its way over to my side, I would resent that toe for all of eternity.
      Well, now I sleep alone.  And surprisingly, I am not a star fish and I don't make sheet angels. I lie perfectly still on my side of the bed as if the other side was still occupied.  And because I have no one to bounce my crazy off of anymore, I am forced to learn how to be alone again, to keep myself company. And one thing that I have learned about myself is that I am kind of a jerk and I can be really annoying.  I learned this through quiet contemplation and sentimental reminiscing.
      It's a strange feeling when you first start sleeping alone again.  I would say things to myself like, "Oh, I really miss going to bed together and sharing stories about what our day was like."  Then I would realize that it never actually happened like that.  It was more like me crawling into bed hours after him, slap his face a little bit to wake him out of a sound sleep when he had to be up for work very early in the morning and say, "Holy shit!  Do I have a story for you!"  Jerk like and annoying.  Also, I would read in bed all night, leaving the light on, and wake him if something I just read was so touching it just couldn't wait till morning.  Also jerk like and annoying. You know what?  Lets throw creepy in there too, cause who squints and hisses at a sleeping person like a snake because they want to be a star fish.  This creep does.
      But although these things are surfacing about who I was and I'm not particularly pleased with myself or my behavior, I have come to recognize these realizations as gifts.  And little by little each night, I learn to be alone, and I stretch out a little bit more.

Annalise

Whenever I start to feel agoraphobic, like I can't even open my front door for fear of the sun like a vampire, I am reminded of our old family dog, Annalise (may she rest in peace).  Annalise was a dachshund but she was not your typical slender "hot dog".  Her belly was full and wide, and it dusted the floors on which she shuffled, her long toenails endlessly clicking against the hardwood.  Her expression was always that of guilt and shame--for whatever reason was not aparent.  She was also an agoraphobe.

  Annalise and I were quite indifferent towards each other.  For instance, if we were in the same room together, I would see her looking at me through her peripheral vision and I would say, "I know you're looking at me."  And then we would stare at each other in an awkward silence until I would eventually reach down to pet her.  But only slightly and very reluctantly.  It was more like a couple quick pats to the top of her head.  Then we would walk away in opposite directions like nothing happened and I would vigorously wash my hands because she was always covered in a greasy sheen and she was extremely odorous.  

This makes it sound like I had no love for the poor dog, but I did.  On one occasion, after she had eaten some moldy trash and was foaming at the mouth and having seizures in the drive way, I rushed her to the emergency vet and I wailed and sobbed thinking she was going to die and that I should've been nicer to her--I should have pet her for real.  But when the veterinarian told me that she was going to live and that she had just eaten some trash and I could take her home, I was furious with her for wasting my Saturday like that.  It was a love/hate relationship, I guess.

As to why the dog was agoraphobic, one will never know.  Why do these things happen to any of us?  But if anyone got it in their mind to take her for a walk, it was a sight to behold.  She would sit in the doorway and look out into the world with fear and loathing in her eyes; just as I do sometimes.  If you pulled at her collar to get her outside of the house, she would resist with all of her might and extra belly fat.  She would have dug her toenails into the cement if she could.  If you managed to get her onto the side walk, she would scurry as quickly as she could to find shelter from the cruel world under the safety of a parked car.  All of the sweet, "Come on, girl."s were useless.  So you were left there on the sidewalk, red in the face and seemingly alone (because an onlooker could not see the stubborn beast under the car), your good intentions manifesting into irritability and swear words.  In the end, it was always the dog walker who was dragging their own nails across the cement to fish her out.

Maybe the reason for my indifference towards her was because she mirrored me in a way.  I saw the same qualities in her that I loathed in myself.  So one day I decided to make an effort in changing our relationship.  I looked her in her shifty eyes and I said, "Look at me, Annalise.  I am in my pajamas and I am going to the store like this.  You are a dog, and you're supposed to like car rides.  You're coming with me."  I jingled the keys.  She shook.  I hoisted her dead weight up into my arms and carried her like a baby out to the car, her body seized in sheer terror.  I drove to the convenient store with Annalise sitting beside me in the passengers seat, looking like a lamb being brought to slaughter.  I encouraged her to look out the window at the beautiful day, but it was in fact a very dreary day, with dark clouds looming above us like a bad omen. And it was.

I went into the store, filled a cup with coffee, paid for it and walked back out to the car, where I could see Annalise looking frantically for me through a rain soaked windshield.  Thunder boomed, the rain fell from the sky in whips and lashes.  I quickly got in the car, looked at her and said with a smile, "See? That wasn't so bad, huh?"  I imagine if she could talk, she would have had some choice words for me, or maybe she would have just said, "You're right. I quite enjoyed that car ride. Thanks for being decent." Who knows.  I'm no Caesar Milan.  So we drove out of the parking lot and down the street, through the underpass--except we never made it THROUGH the underpass.  My car died in a large puddle right under the underpass.  Cars lined up behind us and beeped, as if beeping would help start a dead car.  I looked at Annalise, suddenly regretting bringing her for the ride, but at the same time relieved that I wasn't alone.  Finally, a man walked up and helped me push the car out and on to the side of the road, Annalise still inside, shaking and having a near death experience.  I stood outside with this man, in my pajamas, in the rain and he offered to give us a ride home.  When I opened the passenger door, Annalise stared straight ahead, her toenails threatening to puncture the cars upholstery.  I pleaded with her to jump down.  "PLEASE, Annalise!" She shot me a glare that didn't take a dog whisperer to figure out what it meant.  It was a look that said, "I am a lady, and I do not get in strange cars with strange men.  And neither do you."  And I knew that trying to get her into his car would be like trying to stick a cat in a tub full of water.  So I sent the nice man on his way.

I once again lifted this dead weight of a dog and tucked her under my armpit like a football.  And as we walked home in the pouring rain down a busy street, her tongue dangled from the side of her mouth and her stubby little legs jutted out in front of her, her hind legs stiff and straight behind her, as if she were superman, flying home to her safe haven, away from all the cryptonite that is this world. I loved and hated her so much that day. But I know that she felt courageous in this moment--maybe for the first time in her life.  So it was worth it:)

Face Your Fears, or Whatever

           Every once in a while, I try to face some of my fears.  For instance, I’m afraid of bees.  So I will sit Indian style in the grass and try to become one with nature.  If a bee comes near me and starts buzzing dangerously close to my ear canal, I will try to sit perfectly still.  This is extremely difficult for me because normally, if I even spot a bee in the distance, I start screaming at the top of my lungs and running around in circles like I’m on fire.  And sometimes I cry.  I am also afraid of heights.  So I will practice becoming comfortable with heights by standing on a curb and looking down.  When my dizziness gets to be too much, I walk away and tell myself I’ll try again tomorrow.  But one of my top ten fears of all time is going to the dentist.  I would rather be tossed out of an airplane than sit in a dentist’s chair.

            People sometimes say to me, “You have such nice teeth!” and I say, “Thank you! I do absolutely nothing to maintain them!  Sometimes I even fall asleep with candy bars in my mouth!”  Well, they may look okay but lately they’ve been poking their roots into my business, entering my dreams and whispering, “Floss me!  Take me to the dentist!  Don’t you care about us?”  If ever I find myself jogging (which is very rare) I can feel the teeth on the top rattling and threatening to come loose.  If I floss, they will fall out for sure.  I chew everything with my front teeth, like a rabbit—except chocolate; chocolate I just let melt on my tongue because chewing it is not an option.  Well, the jig is up.  I can no longer live in tooth denial. 

A few weeks ago, I was eating a piece of cheese and my tooth fell out.  I gasped and my seven yr. old daughter asked me what was wrong.  I showed her my tooth and she said, “Well at least it will grow back!  And the tooth fairy will come!”  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that neither of these things would happen.  So I just looked at her and smiled—a big toothless smile.  It was time to face my fear and call the dentist.

At my appointment, I was so embarrassed that I started rattling off so many excuses as to why my teeth were so jacked up.  Well, my tooth genetics are very bad. I mean, neither of my parents even have teeth.  This half of a tooth I’m pretty sure is just a baby tooth that never fell out.  Oh and I was pregnant twice and my babies totally drained all of my calcium from me.   None of my excuses included the fact that I hadn’t been to a dentist since I was fourteen. 

It didn’t help that the dentist I randomly choose based on nothing scared the crap out of me.  He was a big Russian man who had zero tolerance for sissies like me.  He said, “Vhat?  You scared?  Don vorry, I von’t feel a thing!  Muahahahahaha!”  And then, as he was coming towards my face with the needle, he did the strangest thing.  He started making robot noises like, Beep-Bop-Boop-Bop-Beep.  A Russian robot was about to stick a needle in my face.  He knew I was scared so he was treating me like a baby.  I am not a baby! I shouted inside my head.  I wish I were a baby because then it would be acceptable to poop my pants right now!  But then I calmed down…kind of.

I told myself that I could do this, that I could be strong, like bear-- like Russian bear.  And I thought my throat was closing and that I was having a heart attack but the dentist told me, “Don be ridiculous.” So I prayed for death. It sucked.  Every single second of it was the worst ever.  But I did it anyway because I don’t want to look like a pirate. 

But the moral of this story is, facing your fears doesn’t always make them go away.  Bees sting, heights are scary, and going to the dentist sucks.  I have to go back to the dentist for a root canal, and I’m still afraid.  Next time I think I will beg them to knock me out because it is a fear I don’t feel like facing without drugs.  The end.