18 October 2012

There are times when I see that I am so close to engineering my time like I have dreamed of doing -- doing what I like and as much as I like and doing no work that is not my bliss.  Ever.  And then I backslide, things come up and I am too busy to get everything done.  And I want to goof off and be lazy.  I had been adding activities and responsibilities to my plate with abandon.  Right now, this very instant, I don’t know if I can do everything.  And then, there are a bunch of those new things that I have no idea of how to do.  Trying hard not to think in terms of failure but the need to tweek  the schedule.

Change is not for wimps.  New adventures are so very scary.  There are times when I have to make myself get off the couch and go to Waisman or DRW and once again try to make sense of what I have signed up to do.  The “making myself” is an act of will to overcome inertia and fear.  I do it believing that sooner or later, I will understand and will be able to do the work, but there are no guarantees.

I am in free fall.  I am hoping for angels.

Writing time slips away.  Almost without notice until it is gone.  And I have a nagging feeling that I should be making writing time, like it is time to be writing hard.  I may have to get up at 4 a.m. like David used to do to get the time in.  But I need to sleep as well.

Specifics.

Weekend highlights:

*Julia and Chinatown.  Julia and I spent some of Sunday walking around NYC.  Julia hates walking like a proper mid-western child.  Cheshire was the same way at about the same age when we brought her back to NYC for family visits.  I have faith that Julia was adjust.  

So, Julia whined with every step.  We spent part of the afternoon at the Children's Museum of the Arts (CMA) (cmany.org) which has a clay bar, a painting room with several painting stations, and a few more rooms that we never got into, plus an exhibit, a ball room, and some other activity type spaces for younger kids.  The clay bar was the big attraction because the two adults advising could do more impressive things with clay than Julia could.  She was pretty mesmerized and I wished we could take one of those people home.  

Afterwards, we walked through part of the West Village, SoHo, Little Italy, and then on to Chinatown.  Okay, to be honest, we did walk a lot.  We stopped at some very cool toy shops in SoHo -- toys that are definitely not for kids but very cool to look at.  Clothes in the West Village that even Julia remarked on.  But when we got to Chinatown all complaints about walking ceased.  Quite soon after we got there, Julia said, “Mom, I love this place!”  And later, she said, “The Chinese people here see me and know that I am a Chinese girl.”

We ate Soup Dumplings, or Xiao Long Bao, known to the very cool as XLB, at Shanghai Asian Manor (21 Mott Street, New York NY 10013) which, according to one review serves the second best XLB in the city.  Of course, this makes me long to go back and try the “best.”  Julia ate pan fried noodles and Cheshire and Chris and I had some wild shrimp with pecans and a sweet sauce and some lovely, greasy eggplant.  When we finished, we happily rolled out of the restaurant.  Be it MSG or something else, we were high on delicious tastes and smells.

As we began walking to our subway, Julia heard the distinctive sound of Chinese drums -- one of the drum and cymbal bands that we hear on Chinese New Year celebrations.  Around the corner from our restaurant, another eating place was hosting a private party.  A wedding party was outside watching Chinese Lion Dancers perform.  A crowd gathered and watched and applauded.  I had never seen anything like it and felt privileged to have just ‘run’ into such a celebration.  In retrospect, it was a reminder of something that is not part of our lives, of Julia’s life.  It is a lost part of her heritage.  Of course, she was an orphan and there was no family to be a part of such celebrations.  I also have no idea whether weddings are celebrated this way in China.  

Instead of dancing lions and Chinese faces, my girl went to a wedding in a Catholic Church, in Jersey with all that a Jersey wedding implies, with a bit of Ukrainian customs thrown in, and with grownup cousins who doted on her.  Some of that is not so bad.

*Crying at the wedding.  So, I had a drink at the wedding.  Really a drink and a half.  And a real drink -- a cosmo.  I can’t even remember the last time I had a drink -- oh, yes, when Lisa and I went out for her birthday this summer.  But either that drink was very weak or . . . well, it was probably weak because there was no buzz.  So, the cosmo was not weak and I buzzed.  No difficulty talking or putting feet in front of each other but a bit too much of the emotional damn breaking.  There was a point sitting next to my niece that I could not put two words together without a sob.  I could be embarrassed.  I would have been once, but this was a hard weekend with too many emotional pits to fall into.  To fall into a few and to cry some was not such a bad thing.  I may not have been the best of company, but then,  I did not back down or shy away.  I think that the tears that are there will come out eventually or will rot some part of the soul.  Like mold.  Maybe it was like an airing of my soul.

*Walking my City.  Ya’ know, whenever I get to NYC, I know I am home.  It is such a difficult place to live, and thinking logically, I would be insane to consider moving back there, but it is home.  Even when I don’t know it, I know it.  I take in the sights and sound like food.  I believe that the ocean renews my soul, but New York City does the same thing.  Chicago isn’t bad, and frankly, I’ve never been to any other place that was even close.   

*Coming home.  I was so present during the weekend.  The immediacy of the City.  The familiarity of my old stuff in Cheshire’s apartment.  The reminders, flash of the past, holes in the company, joyful celebration of a family wedding where I am part of the oldest generation present, the noise of the lion dancers celebrating the Chinatown wedding.  And then taking the plane and landing in Wisconsin where Autumn is waning and the smell of rotting leaves and a cold snap envelope the senses.  I am left almost dizzy and disoriented.  A little bit sad, remnants of depression without real reason.  Lonely, yes.  I came back to a much quieter life than what I experienced on the weekend.  Not that anywhere would be as intense as the weekend on a every-day basis.  Feeling the need to curl up with someone who was my constant, my own rock.  Finding it challenging to be that constant for myself.

*Complaining about my Caseworker.  I’ve been trying to get information from my caseworker for Julia’s post-intensive funds for weeks.  He is impossible to get a hold of and when he communicates, it is always excuses as to why he was not in touch and then some hurrying to get done what he should have done months ago.  I send email and leave phone messages.  I try not to nag but when I’ve called and emailed every week for a month, how can any communication sound like anything but nagging?  I am using some of our funds for respite -- childcare in non-disability speak -- and my providers are paid through a multi-stage procedure.  It is not difficult but the systems demands that my caseworker take part.  He has not done this part this month -- and this was the first month that I used respite funds.  I have limped along without a few things that I asked since July with the promise that he would get to it, but I can’t let those who are taking care of Julia go without pay.  These young women are loyal, dependable, and dear to us.

And so, I had to call my caseworker’s supervisor.

I felt kinda’ lousy telling on him but then again, I felt like I had given him months of chances without success.  I left a message with the supervisor who called me back and I explained my challenges.  She is talking to him who will get back to me.  I don’t know how much of a good relationship I have with someone who I am always reminding to do what he has promised, but I still worry that I have ruined what little good will that is between us.  

*Dreams.  I saw Amy yesterday and she told me that she dreamed the David called her on the phone and told her to tell me that he loved me.  In the dream, she called out to me, as if I was in another room or upstairs, David’s message.  And that was the end of the dream.

I had a dream last night of getting married.  Not to David but to a tall man.  I was preparing a party in a store, like a flower shop, at least somewhere that was not a restaurant.  We -- friends who I cannot identify -- were decorating, putting tables up and cloths on, maybe stringing lights.  It was not a long dream or a complicated one but in it I was happy.  When I awoke I had a lingering moment in which I remembered the happy before settling into the now.  

If I can dream and remember happy . . . although it amazes me that I can go so long, in an everyday life without it.

The grief journey may be the most complicated journey I have ever been on.