Quit Whining and Pay Attention

It's been a surreal fall. Tomorrow I go to court for my dad's will probate and I was thinking "Life will somehow be 'normal' when I've gotten all that taken care of." Yeah, sure. Life is never 'normal.' It's always FUBAR. Anything else is an illusion. You just have to take the blows, feint left or right, dodge, go on.

FFP sent out an e-mail saying his latest surgery didn't find cancer. Yeah, we are happy and thinking about being festive and such. Someone replied that their journey was taking a different turn, toward hospice. And then we saw in the paper that our friend died on Sunday. I heard that my aunt had a fall. Don't know where that's going but they took her to a big hospital in Dallas from the suburb where they are living. Fortunately she's near Dallas, near my cousin. She doesn't have children, just nieces and nephews. So I'm glad my cousin's wife is there to help her husband. And her.

I have a feeling that I have got to quit whining and pay attention to things. But, of course, I feel like celebrating FFP's good news of the day. (The permanent sections confirm: no cancer in the thyroid. Turns out the tumor on his eyelid was the only thing that was cancerous.) I told him that for Christmas I wanted to dine in nice restaurants and he made a reservation for tonight at one of the best. Now, of course, I'm worrying about other people. Those not so lucky. But you just go on. You do. Grabbing what joy you can. Whining when you have no right and not paying proper attention to your duties. Fact is, we walked to a place for breakfast this morning and while crossing Congress, solidly in the crosswalk with a walk signal, a guy ran the light, managing to stop only after getting well through the intersection. FFP alertly grabbed my arm and we halted as he passed a few feet in front. I really, really have to try to pay attention even as I keep whining.

We took cabs back and forth to Jeffrey's last night so we could both drink and had delightful food and wine. We are lucky. No whining. Awareness.

What I Wish For

I wish I were out taking a walk on a bright, cool day. I took this from the Pfluger Pedestrian bridge last Sunday. I was walking back from Zach Scott theater and I was going to meet FFP at the condo and we were going to a party that promised to be wonderful (and was). The "kids" (my 39-year-old niece and her husband and their three-year-old daughter) were still with my dad so I wasn't worried about him as much. Life felt right.

As I type this I'm sitting at my dad's. Just goofing off on the Internet at the moment. We've been sitting here discussing what help he is going to ultimately need when he finishes recovering from this illness and when/if home health is stopped. There were no big duties when I got here today. I got his paper in and that pleased him. "You get addicted to things," he said. He told the OT evaluator yesterday he didn't read much anymore. He doesn't in the way that I don't read much anymore: he reads papers and magazines but hasn't gotten around to any books lately.

My life hasn't been the way I've wanted it lately. Too much hospital and sick room. Too much worry and unknown stuff with Dad. Heck, with myself as well. Not enough exercise, not enough walks (like the one from the picture), not enough tennis. Not even enough cleaning my own apartment and doing other chores there and computer stuff. (I always long to do that stuff when I don't have the time for it.)

I've gotten away to holiday parties and some adventures with FFP in the evenings and it's been good some nights, great even. Other times I was down a little, feeling sorry for dad, angry at dad, angry at myself, feeling like a failure. Mostly, though, it's been delicious getting away, going to parties and out to eat.

I used to have a little writing exercise I did when I felt my life wasn't going my way. I would write down a perfectly imagined future, what I'd do day in/day out and week in/week out. There would be descriptions of exercise, dining, travel, shopping, creating. Then I would ask myself what parts of the life described I could have in spite of my current situation. In other words, I'd try to find time inside the real life limitations of my existence (work, chores, taking care of others, limited resources like money and time) to do things that I'd do if there were no limitations. This made me really realize how much I enjoyed, say, exercise or playing tennis or even some chores. It made me realize that if limitations were cast aside, I'd still love a fine meal and a glass or two of wine or reading the newspaper with a good cup of coffee.

Digging deeper in your desires will make you realize how much you really have already of your 'perfect' life. And it will make you make a few changes, too, because many times what you want is right there. You just have to do the things you love.

What We Notice

In this shop window reflection I think I'm perfectly recognizable. Just the shape of the head, the glimpse of glasses, the unruly hair. I was exploring a little strip of North Loop yesterday where there are some weird shops. I can always find something to post here but I quickly run out of current material for Austin Daily Photo.

It's amazing what people notice. For example: I almost always wear black shoes. They tend to go with black and gray, after all, and those are my favorite colors. I always felt I should own brown shoes, however. So I've ended up with several pairs, not often worn. A couple of times in the last few weeks, I've worn brown shoes. Yesterday, I put on a sort of brownish shirt and greenish khakis and it seemed that the brown loafers would look good. I've been trying to wear stuff in my closet to see if I really, really should be keeping each article of clothing and pair of shoes for the new, simpler life. As it happens, I saw my dad both times that I was wearing these loafers.

Dad remarked on the brown shoes the first time I wore them. Yesterday he said as soon as I saw him, "She's wearing the brown shoes again."

You wouldn't think he would notice.

It's funny what I notice, too, among all the things I'm 'processing' in this downsizing. Yesterday I realized as I sorted books that the early nineties was an era when we bought books with abandon. I was trying to get rid of some books, but found myself having trouble putting down a story collection copyrighted 1993. Later I found myself walking around with a receipt from 1993 destined for the shredder (even though the credit card number was not even valid any longer). I had some current receipts for logging into the budget in my hand, too. What are the odds?

A couple of days ago I was cleaning out some storage containers I'd been through a couple of times. I found some posters I'd kept over the years but never framed. There were a couple I remembered having, but would probably not have remembered where I put them: a poster from the 1972 Oktoberfest and one of the Berlin Wall commemorating its fall in 1989. But there was another tube mailed to me from a friend who lived in California in 1988. And inside was a poster from a winery her relatives had at the time in Sonoma Valley. As it happens I was having lunch with her yesterday. I took her the poster and in the twenty years since she'd sent it both of us had completely forgotten it. She seemed happy to have it, though, and said she didn't have one like it.

It's funny what we notice. And what we overlook in every minute of our existence. Never mind what we forget after we take notice.