Seriously...what's next?

OK, so with all the holiday craziness commencing around me the last few weeks I haven't had much down time for vegging out on the couch and indulging in the mindless lull of the boob tube. However, this last Thursday the flu took me down, so I basically slept through the New Year with the aid of cold medicine and sleepytime tea. This morning I awoke with the deliciousness that is an entire house to myself and not nearly enough energy to be truly productive. I did however shower, dosed myself with more hot tea and honey and migrated from my sickbed to the couch with books, magazines, and laptop in tow. I then set forth to alternate between catching up on Oprah's, reading my first Johnathan Franzen work, putting in a load of laundry, flipping through the latest issue of my Psych Today, nibbling on leftover Christmas peanut brittle, and flipping through the channels. It was during this comforting hubbub of my veg-out time that I came across a show on TV that made me question whether or not my cold medicine was having lasting side effects or that my peanut brittle had somehow gone bad and was inducing some sort of Salem-esque hallucinations or that the apocalypse was happening well...now.

Some of you may have heard of the "Do It Yourself" network; a network comprised of home improvement shows, house flippers, and basically just an interior decorater's form of porn. I happened upon a show on this network this morning that was so inherently wrong, so utterly ridiculous, so outrageously farcical, that well I had to blog about it. My good people I introduce you to the Vanilla Ice Project. What on earth do flipping houses and Vanilla Ice have in common? On what alternate, crack-smoking, Keith Richards inhabiting universe did the producer of this show come from? And of course it's a train wreck and I can't stop watching it as my brain tries to make sense of this demi-thug-like 90's heartthrob of many 30-something suburban white girls everywhere conversing about the latest intercom systems and educating "all you green people out there" about LED light bulbs all while he's dressed like he's heading to the club. Vague "Oh's" are heard coming from his mouth as a subcontractor explains how a doorbell works to his vacant nodding eyes and he states " I love this technical stuff", this has to be seriously one of the most amusing and cringe worthy things I have ever seen...painful, yet hilarious. Will I be DVR'ing this theatrical gem? Ummm no, but if you can come to terms with giving up 10 - 15 minutes of your life to listening to absolute mindless drivel that may contain words like "bling" and viewing scenes of the ice man picking out art in Pier 1, and exclaiming phrases like "It's hard for me to pick art, I don't know, its got some purple in it, some red, some green, aghhhh, I don't know...it might be awesome in there.", then you may walk away with having experienced a shred of amusement similar to what I did today.

Here's to a new year! Clearly the dumbing down of the U.S. will continue, but Vanilla Ice may learn a few new things about hardwood flooring and outdoor lighting, well thank God for that, now I can finally get a good night's sleep...

What I learned today and other things I was reminded of...

1. A banana seems like an appropriate breakfast after several days of wanton food consumption.

2. Sam's Club isn't cranking out the free samples at 11:30am when the caloric energy value of the previous mentioned banana is spent.

3. That the husband does not need a new 55" flat screen TV (when we already own 6 TVs in our household), nor do I need a $500 elliptical machine that would ultimately become a very expensive towel rack.

4. That my feet are too wide for those cute little heeled ankle boots that are all the rage right now.

5. That the smell of Borders reminds me of my father and gives me an overwhelming sense of peace and happiness.

6. That I really enjoy the peppermint mocha frozen decaffeinated coffee-like beverage that they offer at above mentioned bookstore.

7. That about 45 minutes after the sugar rush peak from said frozen mocha wore off I was ready for a nap.

8. That the husband is patient and kind when I say " I'm tired, can we go home?"

9. An afternoon nap is delicious any way you look at it.

10. That leftover honey baked ham, green beans and mashed potatoes make for a perfectly tasty dinner.

11. That the dogs and cats equally love honey baked ham.

12. That sometimes you should just call anyway.

13. That I miss my sister...and snow.

14. That saving the other half of that chocolate eclair for dessert tonight was a show of good forethought.

15. That I have an ant problem in my boudoir.

16. That some things are never going to change.

17. And sometimes I just wish I was a cat.



Adam

Suddenly, she found herself standing in her bedroom. The room was pebbled with patches of moonlight, the avocado colored walls turned charcoal in the darkness, heavy wood furniture lined the walls looming like mountainous deep shadows. The carpet felt soft and cool under her bare feet. The large mirror on the dresser reflected what light was spilling through the window. The mirror stood like a vast pool of liquid against the wall pushing deep into the charcoal paint. She reached out to touch the mirror half expecting her hand to pass through it's fluid appearance into some unknown dimension. She only felt the cold smooth surface of the glass on the tips of her fingers. She stood there with her fingers still touching it and a distant memory deep from the core of her brain stirred, she closed her eyes and let it come...

A frosted window, her gaze long and serious, her fingertips tingling with delight from the feeling of the icy glass. The chilled surface stood in great contrast to the warm yearning that was emanating from her eyes as she peered through this winter portal. The sprawling old oak just beyond the window was standing ominously in a sea of white, it's branches gnarled, entwined, dark, spider-like and brittle from the weight of their ice. Such a fragile extension of life in the dead of winter. Then she watched as the ice miraculously melted away and the tree transformed, the gleaming ice that once covered the branches was replaced with leaves of green and foliage so thick she wondered at all the animals that would make this tree their home. She heard laughing in the wind, felt the warm air brush against her body, she could feel the roughness of this tree's trunk against her palm and almost tasted the oak pollen in the air.

She knew she wanted to remember more, she wanted to know why this tree had meaning, why she felt this heated yearning and sadness when she peered through that window, but something stopped her, she could go no further. She opened her eyes and pulled her chilled fingers away from the mirror, staring at her hand like it was no longer a part of her. She turned to sit in her grandmother's old rocking chair near the window. She stared out at the moonlit sky, a wash of memory pieces flooding over her...the laughter, the warm wind, and then his smile. She turned back to the mirror expecting to see him staring back at her, beckoning to her. Instead, she saw them dancing and chasing each other around that oak tree, laughter and squeals in the air, leaves rustling in the warm wind. Then in an instant they were gone. The leaves fell to the ground and the snow began to fall and all at once the tree had gone barren, it stood once again ice-covered, still and alone.

A cold shiver brought her back to reality, she could see the shape of her husband's body sleeping on their bed and could hear his slow, heavy, even breathing. She climbed back into bed wondering why she had been up in the first place, welcoming the warmth and softness of the blankets. Just before she fell asleep one fleeting word entered her mind..."Adam", and then she gave way to her exhaustion.

Words Rush In

mel·an·chol·y
1. a gloomy state of mind, esp. when habitual or prolonged; depression.
2. sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness.
3. Archaic. The condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression.

  
Melancholy...I have always considered this word to be beautiful, it looks beautiful, and it feels beautiful when it rolls off your tongue; like the first bite of an expensive chocolate savored with each syllable. It almost sounds like something you want to experience just so you can say it. This word has been echoing in my brain all week. When I wake up, before my eyes have even opened this word floats through my mind, whenever I'm quiet and alone with my thoughts it creeps in. I spoke it out loud today hoping that uttering it's expression would deter it's haunting. Naturally, the next step is to write it, explore it, define it. Give it time in the spotlight, so it will leave me alone. The irony that such a beautiful word could be used in conjunction with "black bile" boggles my mind.
 
When my husband asked me why I had been so melancholy this week, it shocked me. Was this word oozing from my every pore? Was it so powerful that it had manifested itself through me? This had to stop, but the more thought I put in to clearing this intruder from my mind the more it appeared, teasing me, this word dancing through my mind linked over and over again in different colors, different fonts, different sizes and direction, taunting me and gaining power. What did I do? I gave up. I let the word flow over me like a storm surge; crashing in and waters rising until it came in calm waves lapping at my tears and bringing with it every word of it's definition, accepting it and embracing it. Then, and only then was I able to visualize it falling and swirling down, down, down into a whirlpool well of emotion.
 
A new word is what I need, an empowering word, a word that doesn't make my husband's eyes appear worried or concerned. A word that will leave both my thoughts and my husband content. Am I ready for this new word? What if the beautiful sadness of melancholy seeps back in and rubs it's pink eraser across it's new rival? Then this new word must be strong, it must not acquiesce to the taunting chocolate truffle that is melancholy. How bittersweet it can be to give in to that word, like wanting to stay under the covers on a cold winter morning...it's almost easier.
 
I think maybe "happiness" should be the new word and yet that seems to be too drastic of a contrast. Maybe "contentment", but how could just status quo "contentment" hold up to melancholy? So, I decide on "journey". A journey is always moving, always changing, sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow; it can hold it's own in the ring with melancholy; ducking, and dancing, and weaving around to avoid a strike. Yes, "journey" it shall be. Let me awake each morning to this word, wondering where it will take me each day; it's letters are bright, bubbly and the color of sunshine and promise. I will speak the word in a breathy whisper when melancholy comes calling, I will visualize it behind my closed eyelids and think of it anytime my world turns even the slightest shade of blue. Journey, this is a journey...and tomorrow there will be a new one.
 
jour·ney
1.an act or instance of traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long time
2.chiefly dialect : a day's travel
3.something suggesting travel or passage from one place to another, journey through time

Maintain appropriate levels...

It seems much easier to sit down at the computer and numb myself with endless hours of Bejeweled Blitz than to actually do some writing that requires me to think and process the latest events in my life. I'm having a really hard time accepting the fact that my father is gone. Everyone shares with me their thoughts and opinions on the grief process and much of it is very helpful and I can certainly recognize many of the stages that are mentioned, but I still feel off-kilter, like life isn't really normal anymore.

One of my good friends told me that death is easier to accept when we have a concrete belief about what happens to us when we die, herein lies my problem. I don't have a solid belief system. I would love to think of a place where we all meet again in a paradise world on another level, but the bottom line is no one knows for sure, they call it faith for a reason. My father was a scientist, he believed in concrete research and support of theories, nothing was ever fact, just supported research, thus much of his belief system rubbed off on me. I have a hard time believing in something I can't see or read a published research article about. I am holding on to the basic concept of energy to help me accept the finality of death for the human.

Essentially we are all matter; so is the nightstand, the lamp, this keyboard, and my hot tea. All of these things are energy, the infinite compilations of the elements and their respective subatomic particles within each atom interact in a way to make something exist. Well, that energy has to go somewhere when it changes state, right? I am holding on to the idea that when energy leaves the body, when our life force stops it shifts either to a different place where it exists in a state that the human brain cannot even begin to fathom or is dispersed back in to our atmosphere and surrounds us. Both ideas are a comfort to me, but I especially like the latter. The idea that his energy surrounds us, complementing our energy adding his strength, knowledge, and intelligence to our own is deeply comforting. In either scenario he does not cease to exist, his energy now just exists in an altered state.

Yes, these thoughts are comforting to me. Yes, I feel that he is still here, and I especially feel it in my decisions, my thoughts, my strength and my convictions. I hear him in my thoughts daily telling me to "do this, or not that", "watch your tone" or "think it through". I never realized how many times a day I think of my father until now, how many times I pull my decision making and words from his education and guidance. I know he would not want me to go on and on about my grief and sadness, but rather to learn and accept from this experience. It is a daily process and I can hear him saying "Shell, you need to maintain the appropriate level of grief, but also set your sight on new goals of healing and acceptance. Research and study those avenues so that you will be best prepared for this journey."

I am Daddy, I am.

A Poem for My Father

For Daddy

By: Michelle Greene Hurd

The warm hues of green and blue will you embrace,
A warm and knowing smile forever on your face.
May you dance with the manta and the shark,
In the sparkling waves of sunlight
And the luminescence of the dark.

Let the waves rise up to meet you
In the powerful blue mist.
May you feel them touch your spirit
As our eternal kiss.

Though our hearts are breaking,
We know that you would want us to be strong.
We will make you proud with our choices, sir
And we will continue walking on.

For when the ocean we are near,
We only need listen to hear you in our ear.
The sharp cry of the seagull,
Or the sting of an anemone
Will forever bind us to you,
Through the spirit of the sea.

A Fresh Pair of Eyes

I am a contact lens wearer, without my contacts or glasses I am severely impaired. There have been several occasions when I have gotten out of bed in the middle of the night still in a dreamy sleep-like state and walked directly into a wall or tripped over the snoring dog causing mild injury to myself, the dog and possibly the wall. This generally happens because of the mixture of said dream-like state and lack of proper correctional eye gear. Most of the time I sleep with my contacts still in to deter these middle-of-the-night confusions or injury and yes, I know how bad it is for my eyes, but the truth is that most people (whether they admit it or not) will continuously wear their contacts for an absurd amount of time until one has no choice but to put in a new pair. A striking thought occurred to me as I was recently changing out my old pair of contact lenses for a fresh pair. When I placed the new lenses in my eyes everything was dramatically brighter, sharper, and clearer than it had been before and I began to see a resemblance in this "change" of contact lenses and my life.

The old pair of contacts had been in my eyes for some time and I'm sure when I originally put them in everything was bright, shiny and new-looking, but after some time things began to dull a little, lose their luster and their brightness and because this process happened so minimally over time, I did not take notice. Finally, I was aggravated by them, they felt uncomfortable, constricting and well, old. A change had to be made. So, I placed the new contacts in my eyes and marveled at the clarity that this change brought forth. I hadn't noticed the gradual degradation and corruption of my sight because it was happening on such a small scale every day. All I had needed was a change of view. So I think the optometrists are right when they say we need to change out our contacts often and on a regular basis and I think we should apply the same advice to our lives. We may not even realize that things have lost their luster, we just keep on motoring through every day, while our views of life dim, shift, and become blurry. Only when we make a change can the luster be restored and the clarity return. So as much as we lobby against change, in the long run we know it is what is healthy for us, and we know that everything will be better on the other side of it.

I vow to keep my prescription up-to-date and make changes when needed!