As I have mentioned here before, my daughter is my best friend, well, one of two, but the other one I haven't yet met in person. She shares the same wacky and sometimes witty quick wit that I like to imagine that I have. But like me, it is only the people who know us best, who ever see any hint of it. We play off of each other better than Laurel and Hardy....But we are not safe to be in public places together because we never fail to engage in this strange phenomonon that I will describe and we never fail to cauese a disturbance. It usually occurs in boring situations where we are forced to wait.
Today it was at the Dept of Motor Vehicles...and we all KNOW how long and boring that can be. (Actually, I couldn't believe it when I learned that the DMV in our small Pocono town is only open on one day out of the week and only from 10:00 - 3:00!! This is a great contrast to the busy Manhattan suburban city I came from and lived in for most of my life...There, as I told my daughter today, you have to pack a lunch, bring dinner and be prepared to bear your first two children there because once you get on that line, you simply are NOT going ANYWHERE soon!)
So today, as we waited on line we began to talk, quietly at first...but as one or the other of us made witticism after wise crack, we fell into an old pattern: We just had to make a scene...
My daughter once had a doctor which we had to visit frequently when she was about 15 or so and this is the first occurence of one of these "episodes". On our first visit I noted, as we entered, the incredible number of instructional placards distributed in
every free inch of space both on the walls and on the tables. They said things like "DO NOT PLACE YOUR FEET ON THE FURNITURE" "NO GUM CHEWING IN THIS OFFICE" and "PLEASE RESTACK THE MAGAZINES YOU MESSED UP BEFORE EXITING"...We were handed, not the usual two or three pages to fill out, but literally a thick PACKET of forms...which they insisted were to be completed before we could see the doctor. So as I went through the forms, I began to be annoyed at the nosiness and impudence of the questions. Some of them were downright intrusive...stuff they had NO NEED to know. Like: "Where did your parents go to High
School?" And "Did they graduate?" Things like that). At least, that's how it seemed to me...and so I began to make up the funniest and most outrageous answers I could think of - and some of them, I believe, I actually wrote in.
My daughter picked up my cue...and with a wit and intelligence far exceeding her years, began to go on with her own commentary...And eventually our attention turned to the multitude of signs around the office and we began to say things like "Excuse me, but you forgot the one that says,..." and would create an even more preposterous demand than the ones which were already posted. Her jokes built on mine and I completed her sentences with an even funnier possibility as my thoughts began to rapid fire without my volition. Now as this progressed the receptionist peered over her half glasses and wrinkled her numerous frown lines at us as we continued to get louder and even more ridiculous and amusing as we continued....And we couldn't stop. It was a runaway freight train...and we had the overcrowded waiting room in stitches of stifled laughter.
But neither she nor I paid any attention to the people who sat giggling into their magazines...It was just she and I in that universe and we were having a blast. Well, the same thing happened today at the DMV. Now we live in, as I said, a small town,
so in a situation like this, there is a real possiblity of seeing someone you
know...but it didn't matter. Once again, we were in our own world of comedy and I was loving her and she was loving me...both admiring each other's proficiency with the English language and the adeptness of her thoughts which continued in a steady stream until we were called up to the desk to do our business there...and the people around us were either annoyed or guffawing with us.
And the title of my post today? Well, as my daughter beganto pull on a jacket that she hadn't worn all summer, since the last Fall; she reached into her pocket and began to laugh. In her pocket was a yarmulke (from her grandfather's Kosher funeral last November), a container of Silly Putty and 51 cents. She giggled at this odd
disparity and we had begun our inclination toward inanity before we even left the house.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Rollerblades and Nursing Homes
It's a little after 3:00 AM and I've been up for a while already...online, of course, and am now considering what to talk about with you today. Of course, regardless of what I plan to speak of, my mind will likely take a left turn and take me somewhere else, so maybe it's just a good thing to get started and see what happens.
Several things are on my mind this early morning. Because I'm in a LOT of pain at the moment, my thoughts are turning to what the future holds for me. I know that, barring some kind of earthshaking miracle of God (which is not to say that that couldn't happen...) even my near future, will not be a good or comfortable one. I'm heading for complete dependence on those around me to care for me. This is a frightening thought to me, because there just is no one that I have in my life who would be willing or able to take on such a responsibility...I know then that this means things like "NURSING HOME" - which thought makes my skin crawl. I am SO fervently praying that God will see fit to bring me to the end of my journey on this earth and take me to His Kingdom to wait for the arrival of the New Earth that he has promised us, he is creating for us--before that time.
OK, hang on, because the conversation is going to shift here. Yesterday, in my other blog on Blogger (www.cynthialottvogel.blogspot.com), I mentioned my favorite author, Randy Alcorn and the debt of gratitude that I owe him in clarifying and enhancing my understanding of what is coming after this life...what it will be like, based on what Scripture tells us...and this has made my whole view of,not only that time, but my life here and now, shift radically. It has made me realize that the people who will be great in God's kingdom, who are even now, famous in heaven, although unknown on earth...these are the people who are so special to God. And I so much desire to be one of them! And the great thing about it is, that I CAN be! It's not something for which I need money, fame, or power or physical strength! It comes through my relationship with the Lord God and through the depth of my prayer life.
Anyway, this has helped me by showing me that, even if I should become totally disabled, this does not disqualify me from seeking that goal and prize. So as I thought about this yesterday, I decided to email Randy, and tell him this myself. So I got his email address from one of his books and wrote to him. And I expected, at best, a form letter several weeks from now. But you know?? That SAME day, his personal assistant wrote me a lovely letter and she thanked me and said that Randy was going to love my letter when he sees it and that she had visited "Treasures from Darkness" my other blog...And by her responses, it was clear that she 'd really read a good bit of it. This really made my day. I guess it doesn't take much does it,to excite someone who doesn't "get out much" . lol.
Anyway, all of this is to say, that while the future scares me in terms of what pain etc. I will have to endure, and just the issues of physical provision and personal needs I will face...I am completely at ease in knowing that I can still make profitable use of my time and life while I wait for Y'shua to come and get me and bring me to the place where one of the first things I will do (after loving Jesus and probably falling on my face to worship him,) will be to go rollerblading! I have missed that ability greatly. I did it up until I was in my mid thirties, when, shortly after my first major illness, I found I was too weak to continue this sport safely...(I found this out by falling on my butt and breaking two fingers and
scraping up the rest of me pretty badly). I then began to get the message that this body was achanging and that nothing, for me would ever be quite the same...
Which brings me back to this moment...having traveled through a decade of major illness and three decades of mental illness...It would be easy to feel that I was less valuable than others. I mean, what do I accomplish now?? I'm lucky if I can wash a sinkful of dishes!...Not exactly what you would call a productive
life! But, thank God, HIS views of things do not come from quite the same perspective or angle as do those of humans. It is the quality of our spirit, and our rightness before his eyes as we are in Jesus and covered by HIS purity rather than relying on what we ourselves can do or be.
It's really all about what we allow JESUS to be in us and to us that matters to God.
There's a song by Jars of Clay called "Take my World Apart"...Three years ago, as my relatively comfortable life began to completely unravel due to the resurgence of mental illness which had been in abeyance for the past decade and a half, this song meant so much to me. It's about how God dismantles us and removes all that we are relying on other than him...and this process is PAINFUL...And God is still taking my world apart. Now he's doing it via pain. Giving me an amount to endure that sometimes all I can do is lie in bed and whisper his name...just literally getting through the day one second at a time. All of this dismantling could be a cause for bitterness or anger, but I find it to be a cause for rejoicing. Because I know that what God takes apart, he will restore...and he will do it RIGHT! Correcting all the flaws and showing me how to love him better...he will one day look at me and say to me, "Come and get your reward, because you have served me faithfully and well. And you know what? Those are the only words I really want to hear.
Several things are on my mind this early morning. Because I'm in a LOT of pain at the moment, my thoughts are turning to what the future holds for me. I know that, barring some kind of earthshaking miracle of God (which is not to say that that couldn't happen...) even my near future, will not be a good or comfortable one. I'm heading for complete dependence on those around me to care for me. This is a frightening thought to me, because there just is no one that I have in my life who would be willing or able to take on such a responsibility...I know then that this means things like "NURSING HOME" - which thought makes my skin crawl. I am SO fervently praying that God will see fit to bring me to the end of my journey on this earth and take me to His Kingdom to wait for the arrival of the New Earth that he has promised us, he is creating for us--before that time.
OK, hang on, because the conversation is going to shift here. Yesterday, in my other blog on Blogger (
Anyway, this has helped me by showing me that, even if I should become totally disabled, this does not disqualify me from seeking that goal and prize. So as I thought about this yesterday, I decided to email Randy, and tell him this myself. So I got his email address from one of his books and wrote to him. And I expected, at best, a form letter several weeks from now. But you know?? That SAME day, his personal assistant wrote me a lovely letter and she thanked me and said that Randy was going to love my letter when he sees it and that she had visited "Treasures from Darkness" my other blog...And by her responses, it was clear that she 'd really read a good bit of it. This really made my day. I guess it doesn't take much does it,to excite someone who doesn't "get out much" . lol.
Anyway, all of this is to say, that while the future scares me in terms of what pain etc. I will have to endure, and just the issues of physical provision and personal needs I will face...I am completely at ease in knowing that I can still make profitable use of my time and life while I wait for Y'shua to come and get me and bring me to the place where one of the first things I will do (after loving Jesus and probably falling on my face to worship him,) will be to go rollerblading! I have missed that ability greatly. I did it up until I was in my mid thirties, when, shortly after my first major illness, I found I was too weak to continue this sport safely...(I found this out by falling on my butt and breaking two fingers and
scraping up the rest of me pretty badly). I then began to get the message that this body was achanging and that nothing, for me would ever be quite the same...
Which brings me back to this moment...having traveled through a decade of major illness and three decades of mental illness...It would be easy to feel that I was less valuable than others. I mean, what do I accomplish now?? I'm lucky if I can wash a sinkful of dishes!...Not exactly what you would call a productive
life! But, thank God, HIS views of things do not come from quite the same perspective or angle as do those of humans. It is the quality of our spirit, and our rightness before his eyes as we are in Jesus and covered by HIS purity rather than relying on what we ourselves can do or be.
It's really all about what we allow JESUS to be in us and to us that matters to God.
There's a song by Jars of Clay called "Take my World Apart"...Three years ago, as my relatively comfortable life began to completely unravel due to the resurgence of mental illness which had been in abeyance for the past decade and a half, this song meant so much to me. It's about how God dismantles us and removes all that we are relying on other than him...and this process is PAINFUL...And God is still taking my world apart. Now he's doing it via pain. Giving me an amount to endure that sometimes all I can do is lie in bed and whisper his name...just literally getting through the day one second at a time. All of this dismantling could be a cause for bitterness or anger, but I find it to be a cause for rejoicing. Because I know that what God takes apart, he will restore...and he will do it RIGHT! Correcting all the flaws and showing me how to love him better...he will one day look at me and say to me, "Come and get your reward, because you have served me faithfully and well. And you know what? Those are the only words I really want to hear.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Turquoise Hair and Nude Models
Well, my daughter (who is 18), is finally a working person. She managed to land her very first job, on her very first interview...with an eyebrow ring and turquoise hair (which
she'd tried to cover up by re-dying it brown, but it was a classic failure which was to go from bad to worse.) All of you poor, unemployed people who have been faithfully and
daily pounding the pavement for a job: please do NOT come to my house to kill my daughter!! Her new employer is a major chain of toy store and she is going to be a sales associate for $10 an hour.
HMMM. I think I got paid ummm:$3.00 and change an hour for MY first job: as a legal secretary! haha. Well, in all fairness, that $3.00 probably got me much more than her $10 will today.
And here I sit. At home. Jobless. And broke. Collecting Social Security Disability which I am praying will keep on existing until I die or miracles happen and I can work again. And to add insult to injury...she just got hired to baby sit a sleeping child for two hours--for $40.00!!
EXCUSE ME????
I got paid $1.50 an hour...worked several jobs a day after school and on summers and if I came home after a job with $5.00 in my hand, I was rich!...and no, that $5.00 did NOT get me as far as her $40 will get her!! Oh well, when you're young, smart and beautiful--I suppose you're marketable. I fell into a couple of pretty cushy situations in my day, I guess, as well...so maybe it's just her turn center stage.
It's so hard to see my daughter at the age that I am still in my head. I do NOT feel like a 47-going-on-48 year old disabled woman!!!
Nope. I'm maybe 20 and still good looking and fit...(okay, and crazy too, but hey, you have to have some faults.)
Those years should have been the best of my life...and well, while looking back on them, does bring a sense of nostalgia...they were pretty-freakin-miserable. No, I would have to say that the BEST years (okay, it only lasted like two years...) of my life was when we lived in a NY upstate suburb in a rented condo with a pool and a town that actually had a main street within walking distance of our home ...(don't get me started on how we now drive 30 minutes to get a gallon of milk...and that is NO exaggeration!).
My daughter was in 5th and 6th grades then (not at once, obviously) and I was recently sprung from a wheelchair having been stuck in it for close to two years. (That's a whole other story...) And I went back to my chosen profession, for which I'd been trained, as a fine artist. Now, I'd worked before for many years as a freelance artist...even working for some major companies as temporary help for a couple of months at a time...or for smaller ad agencies and such. But I'd never had the nerve to go and pursue my first love, which was painting, as a full-time career.
I don't actually recall what prompted me to move into that choice. It was really a matter of something that just morphed. I'd been home, in the wheelchair, and picked up a pen and paper or paintbrush and started - after a hiatus of over 10 years - to draw and paint again simply because there was nothing else to do. And then, after I regained enough strength to walk, I joined a few art groups...who met together, like a life drawing group and a plein aire
(painting outdoors on site)_ group. My work began to gain attention and soon, I was invited by the art society of that town, to have my first one-person show. And that was the beginning of about two years of many, many showings and sales. And they were blissful. I especially loved it because my daughter, who is also talented in art, used to accompany me on my painting trips and brought her own to work alongside me.
She once modeled for my Life-Drawing group (clothed of course) and made, once more, a GOOD amount of money...Just a foreshadowing of her potential earning capabilities, I guess. And maybe I was a tad jealous then--I mean they never asked ME to model! haha. No, I was the proud mommy and loving every minute of it.
So now, I am in the sad spot of saying goodbye to my years of beauty, freedom and indepedence...as I wave goodbye to her every night as she leaves to work or on the arm of her
boyfriend...
....And I wish her, with all my might, a better life than
mine.
she'd tried to cover up by re-dying it brown, but it was a classic failure which was to go from bad to worse.) All of you poor, unemployed people who have been faithfully and
daily pounding the pavement for a job: please do NOT come to my house to kill my daughter!! Her new employer is a major chain of toy store and she is going to be a sales associate for $10 an hour.
HMMM. I think I got paid ummm:$3.00 and change an hour for MY first job: as a legal secretary! haha. Well, in all fairness, that $3.00 probably got me much more than her $10 will today.
And here I sit. At home. Jobless. And broke. Collecting Social Security Disability which I am praying will keep on existing until I die or miracles happen and I can work again. And to add insult to injury...she just got hired to baby sit a sleeping child for two hours--for $40.00!!
EXCUSE ME????
I got paid $1.50 an hour...worked several jobs a day after school and on summers and if I came home after a job with $5.00 in my hand, I was rich!...and no, that $5.00 did NOT get me as far as her $40 will get her!! Oh well, when you're young, smart and beautiful--I suppose you're marketable. I fell into a couple of pretty cushy situations in my day, I guess, as well...so maybe it's just her turn center stage.
It's so hard to see my daughter at the age that I am still in my head. I do NOT feel like a 47-going-on-48 year old disabled woman!!!
Nope. I'm maybe 20 and still good looking and fit...(okay, and crazy too, but hey, you have to have some faults.)
Those years should have been the best of my life...and well, while looking back on them, does bring a sense of nostalgia...they were pretty-freakin-miserable. No, I would have to say that the BEST years (okay, it only lasted like two years...) of my life was when we lived in a NY upstate suburb in a rented condo with a pool and a town that actually had a main street within walking distance of our home ...(don't get me started on how we now drive 30 minutes to get a gallon of milk...and that is NO exaggeration!).
My daughter was in 5th and 6th grades then (not at once, obviously) and I was recently sprung from a wheelchair having been stuck in it for close to two years. (That's a whole other story...) And I went back to my chosen profession, for which I'd been trained, as a fine artist. Now, I'd worked before for many years as a freelance artist...even working for some major companies as temporary help for a couple of months at a time...or for smaller ad agencies and such. But I'd never had the nerve to go and pursue my first love, which was painting, as a full-time career.
I don't actually recall what prompted me to move into that choice. It was really a matter of something that just morphed. I'd been home, in the wheelchair, and picked up a pen and paper or paintbrush and started - after a hiatus of over 10 years - to draw and paint again simply because there was nothing else to do. And then, after I regained enough strength to walk, I joined a few art groups...who met together, like a life drawing group and a plein aire
(painting outdoors on site)_ group. My work began to gain attention and soon, I was invited by the art society of that town, to have my first one-person show. And that was the beginning of about two years of many, many showings and sales. And they were blissful. I especially loved it because my daughter, who is also talented in art, used to accompany me on my painting trips and brought her own to work alongside me.
She once modeled for my Life-Drawing group (clothed of course) and made, once more, a GOOD amount of money...Just a foreshadowing of her potential earning capabilities, I guess. And maybe I was a tad jealous then--I mean they never asked ME to model! haha. No, I was the proud mommy and loving every minute of it.
So now, I am in the sad spot of saying goodbye to my years of beauty, freedom and indepedence...as I wave goodbye to her every night as she leaves to work or on the arm of her
boyfriend...
....And I wish her, with all my might, a better life than
mine.
Monday, November 1, 2010
11:15; Dirty Houses and Fat Deer
Well, I'm a bit early for my appointment with you...Tonight I only slept until 11:00. I get so exhausted and to be hurting so much after a day of being up and about, that I usually crash early...like at around 8:30 or even earlier...So when I say I'm up at 11:00,you should understand that I've already had about 3 hours of sleep. Some nights this is all I'll get (most nights, I should say.)...although on some really blessed ones, I will doze off again, two or three hours after my first arousal. (And NO! get your mind out of the gutter! It means to wake up!! Look it up!!)
So now that I'm up, what shall we talk about? Well, two things are on my mind at the moment...One is that my lovely, lovely friend, who comes every two weeks to try to restore order to a home where, if I drop a glob of something on the floor, it pretty much STAYS there, because I can't bend down and wipe it up. So our kitchen gets sticky really fast. And the bathroom? Well, the floor gets filled with what my husband calls, "tumbleweed" - and that is little conglomerations of body hair which blow about in the drafts on the floor...(HIS body hair! please note). And the tub? Forget that...NO way can I bend over it to scrub it...especially considering the fact that my hands won't grip a sponge and couldn't summon enough strength to wipe off a chalk line on a chalkboard, let along hardened-on-ick. So my friend's visit is much anticipated. She USED to come once a month and work for a good 8 hours at the task...cleaning even the beams across our living room ceiling. (and she scrubs the kitchen floor ON HER HANDS AND KNEES!!! Who does THAT nowadays in the days of Redi-mops and such???) No, dirt fears the arrival of the wrath-of-Betty whose mission it is to seek-kill-and-destroy all evidences of it.
Now, when she came every month, I have to tell you, the place was really needing her attention...I mean REALLY. I mean consider: I can't vacuum and we have a maroon living room area rug and that fake-wood flooring whose name escapes me at the moment...as well as a a grey Russian Blue cat. So when she told me it was easier on her to come every two weeks for four hours each instead, I could've kissed her. (And YES, we pay her, although what she will accept is probably not in par with the market standard--That's what I love about being in a family of faith; when you need a hand, there's almost always one there waiting).
OH boy, my eyes are getting that boiled onion feeling which comes after too many days and too little sleep.
Anyway...The other thing that was on my mind was the lovely smell of the apples drying in my dehydrator here in my study. I talked my father into stopping at an orchard in upstate NY (about an hour from here), to pick some up while on the way home from a doctor appointment last week and I bought a huge box of apples (I mean HUGE, over 25 gallons of apples), for less than $4.00. They are what this place (which is one of my favorite places on earth; a family owned farm and produce/bakery/condiment store who makes the BEST almond butter anywhere around) calls: deer apples. Those are the apples that nature lovers feed the deer in the sparse winter months. Now, I have nothing against deer (okay, actually I do; they eat EVERYTHING, even inedible things in my yard...including all of my garden). We have so many deer that at any given moment you will see herds of them in my yard somewhere...You have to creep down roads, because, guaranteed, at least five of them will leap in front of the car as you are on the way to the pharmacy. So no, I don't feed the hungry deer. (They are fat enough on my peonies; should last them all winter.)
These windfall apples are FINE; might have a small bruise, but usually are too small or too large to be saleable and did not pass the strict standards of the orchard....They are the apples which are on the lineup for the cider press, until I save their sorry souls...by cooking them or slicing them, then drying all of their life juices from their tender bodies so that we may consume them in later months! Or, worse yet (for the apple, I guess) is my juicer; the terror of every fruit and veggie within miles...with teeth that could pulverize...well, that image is too gross; let's not go there.
Anyway, yesterday, I finished up the last of these not-for-the-deer apples as I made an apple crisp and stuck a huge batch into my industrial-sized dehydrator to make apple chips. They should be nice and crispy now. When I'm done here, I will take them out and put them into a container. I love the smell of them...sometimes I sprinkle a little cinnamon and stevia on them and that makes them smell even better. Yesterday, though, I was too tired, even to manage the cinnamon sprinkling after cutting up that large batch...and just let it--without.
So there you have it. A long, wordy blog about....NOTHING. Yep, welcome to my life. When you only go out twice a week maybe; to church and to a doctor appointment most likely, your life DOES tend to be pretty limited; and thus my topics of conversation can be too. So I guess this blog is really about what tidbits - hopefully of interest - I can pull from this tired 47 year old brain; a brain, I might add (okay, pride compells it), which once won me a place as a National Merit Scholar and to earn a 1587 on the SATs. But all of that; all the promise of that and the multiple talents which accompanied it, are GONE. Wasted and destroyed by many years of a brain disease which has caused my mental illness and won me over 30 psychiatric hospitalizations in as many years. (These hospital stays were confined to the first ten years of my illness and the last four when it once again flared its ugly nostrils....) (I thought that was more interesting than the cliche, "reared it's ugly head." haha.)
Sometimes when I think about what could have been, it's hard to keep from crying (as if I were a crying person...I rarely cry...unless in the throes of the confusion I have after general anesthesia; then I cry at nothing). But, as they say about spilt milk and water under the bridge and such....So the world went without another Nobel winner...no big loss; it's gone on just fine without me.
OK. I think that's enough rambling for the night. It will be hard to keep from writing more in the --ummm--seven hours or so, until the day officially gets underway. This was rather fun...felt like I had company for once. You were sitting right here with me, you know. Thanks for sticking with me through this long tangled train of thought -or twenty-four car pileup - however you'd prefer to describe it. Good night, now; it's past your bedtime!
So now that I'm up, what shall we talk about? Well, two things are on my mind at the moment...One is that my lovely, lovely friend, who comes every two weeks to try to restore order to a home where, if I drop a glob of something on the floor, it pretty much STAYS there, because I can't bend down and wipe it up. So our kitchen gets sticky really fast. And the bathroom? Well, the floor gets filled with what my husband calls, "tumbleweed" - and that is little conglomerations of body hair which blow about in the drafts on the floor...(HIS body hair! please note). And the tub? Forget that...NO way can I bend over it to scrub it...especially considering the fact that my hands won't grip a sponge and couldn't summon enough strength to wipe off a chalk line on a chalkboard, let along hardened-on-ick. So my friend's visit is much anticipated. She USED to come once a month and work for a good 8 hours at the task...cleaning even the beams across our living room ceiling. (and she scrubs the kitchen floor ON HER HANDS AND KNEES!!! Who does THAT nowadays in the days of Redi-mops and such???) No, dirt fears the arrival of the wrath-of-Betty whose mission it is to seek-kill-and-destroy all evidences of it.
Now, when she came every month, I have to tell you, the place was really needing her attention...I mean REALLY. I mean consider: I can't vacuum and we have a maroon living room area rug and that fake-wood flooring whose name escapes me at the moment...as well as a a grey Russian Blue cat. So when she told me it was easier on her to come every two weeks for four hours each instead, I could've kissed her. (And YES, we pay her, although what she will accept is probably not in par with the market standard--That's what I love about being in a family of faith; when you need a hand, there's almost always one there waiting).
OH boy, my eyes are getting that boiled onion feeling which comes after too many days and too little sleep.
Anyway...The other thing that was on my mind was the lovely smell of the apples drying in my dehydrator here in my study. I talked my father into stopping at an orchard in upstate NY (about an hour from here), to pick some up while on the way home from a doctor appointment last week and I bought a huge box of apples (I mean HUGE, over 25 gallons of apples), for less than $4.00. They are what this place (which is one of my favorite places on earth; a family owned farm and produce/bakery/condiment store who makes the BEST almond butter anywhere around) calls: deer apples. Those are the apples that nature lovers feed the deer in the sparse winter months. Now, I have nothing against deer (okay, actually I do; they eat EVERYTHING, even inedible things in my yard...including all of my garden). We have so many deer that at any given moment you will see herds of them in my yard somewhere...You have to creep down roads, because, guaranteed, at least five of them will leap in front of the car as you are on the way to the pharmacy. So no, I don't feed the hungry deer. (They are fat enough on my peonies; should last them all winter.)
These windfall apples are FINE; might have a small bruise, but usually are too small or too large to be saleable and did not pass the strict standards of the orchard....They are the apples which are on the lineup for the cider press, until I save their sorry souls...by cooking them or slicing them, then drying all of their life juices from their tender bodies so that we may consume them in later months! Or, worse yet (for the apple, I guess) is my juicer; the terror of every fruit and veggie within miles...with teeth that could pulverize...well, that image is too gross; let's not go there.
Anyway, yesterday, I finished up the last of these not-for-the-deer apples as I made an apple crisp and stuck a huge batch into my industrial-sized dehydrator to make apple chips. They should be nice and crispy now. When I'm done here, I will take them out and put them into a container. I love the smell of them...sometimes I sprinkle a little cinnamon and stevia on them and that makes them smell even better. Yesterday, though, I was too tired, even to manage the cinnamon sprinkling after cutting up that large batch...and just let it--without.
So there you have it. A long, wordy blog about....NOTHING. Yep, welcome to my life. When you only go out twice a week maybe; to church and to a doctor appointment most likely, your life DOES tend to be pretty limited; and thus my topics of conversation can be too. So I guess this blog is really about what tidbits - hopefully of interest - I can pull from this tired 47 year old brain; a brain, I might add (okay, pride compells it), which once won me a place as a National Merit Scholar and to earn a 1587 on the SATs. But all of that; all the promise of that and the multiple talents which accompanied it, are GONE. Wasted and destroyed by many years of a brain disease which has caused my mental illness and won me over 30 psychiatric hospitalizations in as many years. (These hospital stays were confined to the first ten years of my illness and the last four when it once again flared its ugly nostrils....) (I thought that was more interesting than the cliche, "reared it's ugly head." haha.)
Sometimes when I think about what could have been, it's hard to keep from crying (as if I were a crying person...I rarely cry...unless in the throes of the confusion I have after general anesthesia; then I cry at nothing). But, as they say about spilt milk and water under the bridge and such....So the world went without another Nobel winner...no big loss; it's gone on just fine without me.
OK. I think that's enough rambling for the night. It will be hard to keep from writing more in the --ummm--seven hours or so, until the day officially gets underway. This was rather fun...felt like I had company for once. You were sitting right here with me, you know. Thanks for sticking with me through this long tangled train of thought -or twenty-four car pileup - however you'd prefer to describe it. Good night, now; it's past your bedtime!
Evening Ramble
Well, it's not midnight, but since I just got the blog up and running, I thought I at least owed you an opening post since you dropped by. As I mentioned in my bio, I'm always in pain...and I like to write poetry...so add the two together and you get...No, NOT pained poetry! You get poetry about pain. I have a number of such poems but I won't slam you with such a gloomy topic since you just got here for the first time. And don't worry, the blog won't always be so erudite...It will be my talking to you, just like I sit and talk to myself.
I'm a compulsive writer...I have numerous blogs, and participate in forums, and also have maintained a journal since I was in eighth grade...Of course I burned about 20 years' worth of them. What I wouldn't give to have them back now! The reason I destroyed them was that, my daughter was young and I was currently ensconced in normalcy and didn't ever want her to look into the dark corners of my earlier life. But now, she's 18 and my best friend and both she and I would be interested to find out what kind of craziness went on back then (since I don't recall much of it at all, and what I recall was more what was in my head than in my surroundings...so I'm quite confused about what really DID go down.) That was when my 30 year struggle with mental illness really got underway....But that's a whole OTHER story. We started out talking about pain...so I guess I rambled into telling you about all of the pain of my life and not my current, physical pain.
I have an expression. I say it to people who have a clue what I'm going through and who don't say things like, "Oh, yes, I fully comprehend what it is you are going through. I hurt my back once..." Well. It's apples and planets my dear. It is easier for me to hear when people say things like, "I have such a stiff neck today! It's really hurting." But then they go on to apologize for complaining while all along they are sitting next to Job himself. haha. (Sorry for the "haha's" I often make myself laugh.) And I say to them this, (and THIS is the expression I referred to above before I was so rudely disoriented): "Pain is Pain. Everyone has pain of some kind and to them in that minute, it's as large and all-consuming as they can endure it to be."
Now, lest you think that I should have said that to person #1...The reason it bothers me, is that they think they understand what it's like to say, be on the rack for thirty years or so and every day have the screws pulled tighter...and they think that their pulled muscle gives them the authority to think that. However, I definitely must give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe that was just their awkward way of trying to be sympathetic...And they only confused empathy with sympathy. Person #2 has more humility and comprehension I think...and so I don't pooh-pooh their pain. To them, it is as disconcerting, maybe, as mine is to me. I've gotten to be quite a pro at managing pain that exceeds belief.
NOW, to the poem! The reason I like this one (other than for its silly rhyme scheme ((I just wanted to see if I could pull it off)) ) is that it's among the more positive of my pieces...well, maybe that's not true. Anyway, I will stop arguing with myself and give you the poem:
I'm a compulsive writer...I have numerous blogs, and participate in forums, and also have maintained a journal since I was in eighth grade...Of course I burned about 20 years' worth of them. What I wouldn't give to have them back now! The reason I destroyed them was that, my daughter was young and I was currently ensconced in normalcy and didn't ever want her to look into the dark corners of my earlier life. But now, she's 18 and my best friend and both she and I would be interested to find out what kind of craziness went on back then (since I don't recall much of it at all, and what I recall was more what was in my head than in my surroundings...so I'm quite confused about what really DID go down.) That was when my 30 year struggle with mental illness really got underway....But that's a whole OTHER story. We started out talking about pain...so I guess I rambled into telling you about all of the pain of my life and not my current, physical pain.
I have an expression. I say it to people who have a clue what I'm going through and who don't say things like, "Oh, yes, I fully comprehend what it is you are going through. I hurt my back once..." Well. It's apples and planets my dear. It is easier for me to hear when people say things like, "I have such a stiff neck today! It's really hurting." But then they go on to apologize for complaining while all along they are sitting next to Job himself. haha. (Sorry for the "haha's" I often make myself laugh.) And I say to them this, (and THIS is the expression I referred to above before I was so rudely disoriented): "Pain is Pain. Everyone has pain of some kind and to them in that minute, it's as large and all-consuming as they can endure it to be."
Now, lest you think that I should have said that to person #1...The reason it bothers me, is that they think they understand what it's like to say, be on the rack for thirty years or so and every day have the screws pulled tighter...and they think that their pulled muscle gives them the authority to think that. However, I definitely must give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe that was just their awkward way of trying to be sympathetic...And they only confused empathy with sympathy. Person #2 has more humility and comprehension I think...and so I don't pooh-pooh their pain. To them, it is as disconcerting, maybe, as mine is to me. I've gotten to be quite a pro at managing pain that exceeds belief.
NOW, to the poem! The reason I like this one (other than for its silly rhyme scheme ((I just wanted to see if I could pull it off)) ) is that it's among the more positive of my pieces...well, maybe that's not true. Anyway, I will stop arguing with myself and give you the poem:
God and Pain
By
Cynthia Lott Vogel
I cannot articulate my agony;
Cannot convey its tenacity.
Lonely, I live out its verity
As anguished, I pray to my Deity.
I do not ask “why?” but only
Wonder in some deepest part of me
Why God should seem to be in complicity
With powers of suffering, When He is Almighty
To save and to heal out of love for me.
Yet inner healing must have priority.
Greater need have I of maturity
Than to coast thru life being pain free.
My weakness keeps me clinging fast to Thee,
Trembling legs stumble haltingly
Your ears are soft to my prayer and plea
As you bend down, lift, and carry me.
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