Why I'm Not at the YMCA -- and other tales

There is no truth.  There is only perception.  

Gustave Flaubert

I'm supposed to be at the Y. Sweating. I'm not.

I'm enjoying a morning at home. The Y is open every day, isn't it? How often does one get to enjoy a morning at home? Alone?

This is what I'm telling myself as I sit in my favorite spot - my bed. I have this view to my backyard  if I just lift my head ...

And this view, if I look to my right.

And all my crap spread out on the bed before me. Journal, book, phone, computer, coffee cup.  Lunch. What more could you want?

Well, there is that svelte body the Y reminds me I want.  And the gratitudes I haven't written yet today.  I'm also in need of a new journal for this morning I finished my old one and once again it is time to make a new one.

I've long been an advocate of journal writing, dedicated to the cause, anxious to write in it every day. Not only does it provide an avenue to bitch, but also a place to share my ideas, joys, novel notes, New Yorker covers, stickers ranging from tea cups to birds. An email or letter from someone I want to save. A hatred I want to rid from my brain. An event I want to remember. A plan to improve myself. Another plan to improve myself.

Yes, my journal pages are personal. I don't worry about what I've written for I'm fairly certain no one will ever read them. Anyone willing to peruse the pages would probably die of boredom and if they perchance came upon that one little nugget here and there, most likely they'll have flipped past it while yawning.

For years, before children and with children, I started journals. I don't know how many I had with only a few entries before I forgot about it. Five entries seemed to be a magic number before I no longer remembered the dedication I'd sworn to uphold. Finally, finally about 15 years ago I began a much more defined foray into my thoughts. I'd read where if you did something 21 times in a row, it would become habit.

I passed my newfound knowledge onto my mother as I sent her another pretty blank book to collect her memories and thoughts. "Twenty-one days in a row, Mom. That's all we have to do." (I also used that method to entice her to wear her seatbelt. Twenty-one times, Mom. Then it will become habit. "I just don't like being confined.")

Need I add that when I cleared my mom's house I found most of those journals I'd sent - complete with empty pages. However, there were many a plain old spiral notebook filled with incredible gems of her thoughts and past.

To each her own in the type of journal, but I digress. The point of this story is that I didn't get to the Y because I wrote my three morning pages in my journal this morning and I finished the last available page. Twas time to put it up and create a new one.

I keep old journals on the top shelf of a bookcase in the bedroom.

Up there on the top shelf. That black binded stack. Here's another reason why I know no one will ever read my old journals. None of the men in my family would look up that high. My husband sleeps in this room every night for sixteen years and he probably doesn't even know there is a bookshelf in there. Even though that's his baseball signed by somebody famous on the second to top shelf. (Okay, he probably knows that is there but chances are that is all he sees on that shelf.)

That's my Michigan State football music box. Go Green!

Anywhoo, when I went to add my newly finished journal to the shelf I discovered the stack was crammed to the top. Therefore, I needed to move that stack to this box in my closet (which I'm also certain no one in my family knows is there. See, you all know stuff now that those closest to me don't.)

Before adding them to the box, I spread them out on my bed and leafed through a few of them.

What I found surprised me. Even though it was a healthy stack of writing, the journal I'd completed before this one today encompassed almost two years of time. That the one I had finished this morning only the past year. That the other sixteen covered the three years before that.

I knew that the last few years I'd become remiss. That events in my life had left me cold for words. That those years, although filled with many joys, had been hampered by a few deaths. But still, so few words during a time of such activity and emotion.

I blame my Midwestern upbringing.

Something about stiff upper lips. Something about don't brag and, most certainly, don't whine.

Okay, I get that. But it never occurred to me that that thinking would transfer to my personal thoughts in a journal. That the times that rang high through graduations and weddings I couldn't translate into words on my morning pages. Having too much fun. Or that the events and emotions leading up to and after the deaths of my parents wouldn't convey either. Much too painful.

Perhaps it was my Midwestern upbringing in regard to the bragging. Perhaps I was just a chicken shit for the whining.

At any rate, it is time to make a new journal. Obviously I make my own. Here are my ingredients:

Empty pages - spirals, black-spotted line or blank book
Paper - either scrapbook paper, old wrapping paper, newspaper, whatever appeals on the day

 

Construction paper for inside flaps

Ribbon for a placemarker

Spray glue

Scissors

And there you go. A new journal.

Here are my choices today, always based on mood, for my next journal.

 

Butterflies. For new beginnings.

Headwaters - Found

I'm ready to begin again, but I'm not quite certain where to start. 

Julie Sucha Anderson

History tells us the white man searched for years to find the beginning of the Mississippi River. Most meandered fruitlessly, never finding their way to its origin. The Native Americans in the area must have chuckled as these explorers wandered aimlessly. Finally one explorer had the sense to ask the Indians where the headwaters lay. Eureka! The Headwaters were discovered.

Summer before last, my husband and I took a trip up to northern, northern Minnesota to visit friends. Even though I had crossed the Mississippi River countless times in the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and even attended Girl Scout camp on the backwash of the Mississippi in Wisconsin, I'd never seen the headwaters. Always wanted to see the river's beginning. To experience its grandeur.

I was born in Minnesota and lived there my first thirteen years. In adulthood I returned each summer  to an old fashioned resort of tiny cabins in Spicer, Minnesota -- my husband and kids, my parents and my brothers' families all in attendance. Too much fun!

But this trip with only my husband seemed very strange to me - bypassing the familiar roads leading to the lake and continuing north. To search for something new in a place beyond where I'd spent so much time. Where the before, wasn't anymore.

It had been almost a year since the passing of my mom; almost two years since losing my dad. I was soon to complete the task as executor of my parent's wills and the dismantling of their household to be distributed between my brothers and me. A most difficult time in my life compounded by not having the time I once had to pursue writing due to an outside the home job, my children heading off on their life adventures and me trying to find myself, while also trying not to think. I worked many substitute teacher days in order to take my mind off getting myself together. Doing everything I could by rote to make life simpler.

My writing disappeared. I had nothing to say.

The Headwaters of the Mississippi are located in Itasca State Park. Way up Nort, don't ya know. (You can take the girl out of Minnesota, but you can't take the Minnesota...) Unlike the early explorers, my husband and I were able to follow a wide man-made path down to the waters where we came upon the rock ledge that separates the Lake Itasca from the narrow beginnings of a grand river.

I took off my shoes and socks and wandered through the unseasonably warm water to have a seat. As the water passing over my toes began its journey to the Gulf of Mexico, I stared down its path, wishing I could ride down along with it. Embarking on an odyssey of something new from where I'd been. A hopeful journey of new adventure, discovering more and more as I floated.

I sat there and imagined that this could be the beginning of my release from the grief and stagnation of the past few years. That now, with my children out on their own and my parent's passing behind me, I could begin to think of myself, and what I wanted to do with my life.

I felt so hopeful.

Like the explorers floundering through the woods seeking the headwaters, my thoughts and hopes didn't quite come to fruition either. Sometimes my dreams are bigger than my mind can grasp. I forget those details that can cloud a big picture. Those details one has to plod through. And that sometimes the plodding can get mucky. And rest is needed for perhaps there is no strength to move forward.

I retreated to my rote world. I relished my friends and laughter.  Fun. Brainless complacency.

The two (Mom) and three (Dad) year anniversary of my losses has passed. My youngest son has settled in a school where he has found his passion and future.  I'm not teaching as much. The tangles around my feet have lessened. I feel lighter. The Wa I've sought has arrived. I like it.

A few weeks ago, my dear friend, Carolyn Scarborough, a writing coach and author of Backyard Pearls, announced a one-day writer retreat. She has facilitated retreats in the past, but I was not in retreat mode unless it involved a beach and a gallon of wine. But when I saw her announcement, a retreat where my brain had to participate seemed right. I signed up immediately. The time had come to get up off the rocks at the Headwaters and begin the new journey.

My writing goals have changed from years ago when the intense days of practice, membership in writing organizations, the pursuit and reality of publishing consumed me. I'm not that person anymore.

Now I want to write because I love it and I love me when I'm in writer mode. I have a novel I want to finish. For me. I have a journal with blank pages that patiently awaits my thoughts, aimless and empty as they often are. I have a blog that I often look back on and read my past entries, marvelling - "Wow, did I write that? I didn't know I knew words like that?" Maybe I should write more there.

I have a filing cabinet filled with finished, unfinished essays and short stories. They've been gathering dust since the whole Midlife Jobhunter deal came up.  I'm thinking I'll blow the dust off those files and explore what might lurk in there.

I'm ready to engage in the calm of my writing life. At my own pace.

The Mississippi takes a certain, well defined path. The water behind the water pushes it along its way. I don't have that force behind me, but that's the way it goes. Sometimes you find the flow and sometimes you just have to paddle. Can't begin unless you find the headwaters, though. And the paddle.

I found them. Wonder where they'll lead me.

I'm ready to begin again.  I now know where to start.

Julie Sucha Anderson

 

Waiting in the Weeds

It's so curious:  one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief.  But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.  

 Colette

Funny how life spins. How you plan that when you reach that certain point in time when a task completed will allow you to move forward, you suddenly discover you haven't finished where you were at all. Can set you right back on your ass. And, there, perhaps the only place to hang out is in the weeds, waiting for another day when it might be a little easier to emerge -- slowly.

Plan to return to my blogging world very soon. School's out for me next week. Several other things to tidy up and then, well, then I will see where the summer takes me. If I'll pull the  weeds out or let them hide around me a little longer. 

Hope all of you are well. I miss your worlds. Hopefully not for much longer.

Raking the Lake

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Kahlil Gibran

Last Monday, I returned once more to the lake after a two-week leave. Two weeks filled with familiar routes on two uncertain journeys. I know the way to Green Bay, Wisconsin very well. For twenty-two years I’ve driven it -- all 23 hours of it. Rarely have I had the opportunity to fly over I-35, I-44, the Mississippi River, I-55, I-39, and I-43.

In previous trips along this route, I wanted the miles to drift by with quick ease, for at the end of the journey, my parents would greet me. But this trip, I didn’t mind watching each farm go slowly by. In fact, I almost wanted to slow down for I knew when I reached my destination, the familiar embrace of my mom would find me, but an unfamiliar welcome from my dad lay ahead. My dad, dying. I didn’t know how to greet that scene.

I had hoped he might pass before I arrived. My dad, his body and mind devoured by Alzheimer’s disease, had fought this ugly demon for ten years. When I walked into his room at the nursing home, my fear of seeing him completely helpless and on his way out dissipated and diluted itself into the excited air of Packer camp brewing down the road at Lambeau Field. After all, he was just my dad -- whom I loved and I knew loved me.

For four days, a seat in a chair beside his bed became a comfortable place.

After he peacefully passed, my family gathered to honor him and celebrate his life. Within 28 hours of his burial, I was on an airplane, passing over the interstates and Mississippi River to return home to prepare for another trip, a day later.

A mere 12-hour drive this time to take my youngest son to college. With previous campus visits behind us, the road now familiar through towns along HWY 31 in Texas and I-20 all the way to Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

My game face on. Once again across the Mississippi to deposit my boy in his new home and encourage him on the grand adventure before him.

Another Mississippi River crossing, tired beyond words and home again, I retreated to the cabin only to discover during my absence, the silky, sandy bottom of the lake had been invaded. Without our watchful eyes, weeds had annexed every inch of our waterfront. Of course, they didn’t choose only us; my neighbor’s plots covered in the garlic smelling green vegetation also.

The languid heat of summer had crept in with indexes and temperatures in the 100’s encouraging the weed growth. With no one tending the floor of the warm water, the squatters took up residence.

I hate weeds. I hate the way they coil around your feet when walking out to swim. I hate knowing they’re down there when I’m floating above them.

These weeds, for which I’m at a loss of heart to research an accurate name, have shallow roots and tiny tendrils that swish across your toes. Rather unobtrusive for the weed world actually. I can use my toes to roost them easily out of the bottom, but this infestation wasn’t like the sprinkling of past years, easily harvested to restore our sandy bottom.

I turned my back on the heat and the lake and slept for two days, letting the weeds have their way. I watched the first two seasons of Mad Men on my laptop. I made a batch of gumbo and ate the entire pot.

On Wednesday, I wrestled a three-foot wide rake from the shed and tackled the lush weed bed.

I began in a grid-like fashion, following up and down the dock, across to the neighbors and back, collecting the weeds in the talons of the rake. I lifted the full catch up through water and spanked them with a harsh clang into piles on the dock. It was easy to follow my route, like walking up one street and down the next.

I tried to mark off my progress in squares, but every once in a while I’d take a crisscross route, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, my rake yielding a few recluses here and there.

At times I found myself bored with the section I platted. I’d meander making a new pass, marking new territory, winding this way and that. It reminded me of my father’s hearse, or coach as they call them now, weaving its way through the lovely oak covered cemetery trails, finding its way to his final resting place.

As I worked, the lake was calm, quiet and I was alone. Only an occasional jet ski or fishing boat’s motor droned in the distance. No one mowed their lawn nor arrived to pound hammers into the cabins around us enduring endless updates.

Just me, and a few turtles curious as to my motion. A couple of ducks hoping I might break to feed them while the raking of the lake fed me. The peace of my work, underground. Tearing free the weeds, so when I swim, it will only be the gentle sand cushioning my feet.

After five hours of work, more boats joined the lake creating synchronized waves. A breeze erased any remainder of calm water. My arms ached from sifting through two, three, four feet of water. I climbed the ladder and sat on the dock.

My arms tingling.

Feeling.

Rejoining life.

With sincere gratitude, I thank the Fragrant Liar for hosting during my absence.