Folding Up

 

Ed's Clothes Pile.
4ft from front edge to back of closet
3.5 between closet doors
16 to 18 inches deep.

Today I tackled Ed's clothes.  I spent hours at it and I've barely put a dent in it.  And that's not just because of the size of it but because I kept folding up over some item or other I'd just picked up and having to leave the room and even stand out on the balcony until I stopped smelling him like he was standing right behind me.

It doesn't help that to access that pile I must stand right on the spot where they found his body. The awareness of that is acute and unrelenting.  It was all I could do not to just crumple to the floor and completely loose it.

The physical labor and time spent had little impact on me.  I used to enjoy doing laundry as it was something that tapped into one of my competencies and shall I say joys--sorting and organizing.   But those memories triggered by the sight of each item or by the motions of bending to pick up, shake out, search pockets, inspect for stains, frays and missing buttons...  

Memories of all the times I prepared loads of laundry over forty years...  

Flashes of moments when he was wearing that or that or....  

Watching him walking up the sidewalk toward me wearing those jeans...  

Seeing him standing at the stove wearing that shirt and it's rucked up a bit in back showing skin and I walk up behind him and slide my hand up his spine--my cold hands from having just transferred the condiments from fridge to table.

Oh, the things I will never do again.

I actually thought I was getting that project started and organized so I could work at it during the read-a-thon tomorrow.  Now I will have to leave it be until Sunday afternoon after I've slept at least six hours after the 5am end of the thon.  Now I know sorting his clothes is going to take more mental and emotion bandwidth than sorting papers, books, music and electronic paraphernalia. 

I thought sorting his clothes might work as it was such a familiar task and I'd often done it on autopilot before.  I didn't bargain for the impact of his scent on my physical, mental and emotional equilibrium.  So that is obviously not going to work for the read-a-thon.

That leaves the kitchen: washing dishes by hand and by dishwasher, packing clean dishes into boxes, washing cupboard shelves and doors, washing inside and outside drawers, washing the counters, sink, stove, fridge and small appliances and mopping the floor.  I've already done a little of that and nothing about it triggered the kind of meltdowns handling his dirty clothes and bedding did today.

I'll have to move dry goods from the cupboards and counters to boxes without sorting though as that entails reading labels and inspecting for spoilage and that is not compatible with listening to a book.

But first I've got to get a good long sleep or I won't get to do the full 24 hours of the thon.  Or worse I won't enjoy it.

Read more...

Do I Have Samantha Stevens' Twitchy Nose, Or What? #ROW80 #Preptober

Here's the #ROW80 #Preptober portion of this post.
This is Ed's office after I got done creating my island of sanity before returning to work on Ed's mess.  I changed my mind about using this room as the sorting and packing station.  I needed someplace less public than the balcony to escape the chaos in between spurts of activity.  So I made my bed on the floor next to the wall adjoining Ed's closet.  I cleared all of Ed's things off his desk and made it mine. I set up a charging station for the many USB chargeable items--lights, power packs, earbuds, speaker, keyboard, androids x 5, mouse x 2 and more. With creative use of a tall chair and a couple cardboard boxes I made a second desk for spreading out papers and tree books and writing by hand.  I didn't advance any of my ROW80 goals since Sunday but by creating this environment I increase my odds of advancing one or more goals by Sunday.

The answer to the question posed by the post title is: Or what.

The photo essay I posted Wednesday morning was a walkthrough tour of Ed's apartment upon my arrival Tuesday afternoon. [Look at your own risk as they cannot be unseen] My intention to spend the night was thwarted by not being able to create a safe enough environment  before Carri had to return to Mom's coupled with having no phone or Internet to reach out for help if necessary.

If you haven't  seen those pictures yet, you might want to go check them out before proceeding as the photos below will be more meaningful and the meaning the title is referencing more poignant. Because the photo essay I'm about to commence shows the apartment conditions less than thirty hours after the first photos were taken.

I will caption the location of the shots briefly and save the explanation for after the last photo.

I tried to trace the same path with similar angles as I did Tuesday.  Keep in mind, the difference between the two sets of photos is under thirty hours.

Crossing the Threshold Facing the Long Wall Between Hall and Kitchen.

Looking Across the Living Room Toward the Kitchen.

Looking Toward the Far Wall of Living Room With Visual of Couch.
The trash bags against the wall contain only aluminum cans for redemption.  The rest of the trash has vanished.

Standing On Edge of Linoleum Facing the Kitchen Table.
The stuff on the table, all related to eating and drinking, came with me. 

Along the Kitchen Window Wall

Looking Across the Expanse of the Kitchen Towards Counter and Sink.

Including the Rest of the Long Counter Along With the Stove.

Looking Down the Long Wall in Living Room Toward Coat Closet and Hall Closet

The Bathroom Sink, Mirror and Cabinet.
That's all my stuff on the counter.  The cabinet is still all Ed's.

The Toilet.

The Tub

Standing in the Hall Looking Past Foot of Bed to Far Wall

The Bed is Now My Sort and Pack Station.

So if It wasn't my twitchy Sam Nose what accomplished this in under thirty hours?

The answer:  Two of Ed's friends from across the street.  The didn't get started until after my return approximately 24 hours after the first set of photos were taken.  So it actually took them less than three hours.

It happened like this: Because it was Mom's shower day we were unable to leave until after Mom's was settled for her after lunch nap.  It was after three and we had to make a stop at T-Mobile to get a SIM card for my RCA Smartphone.  I purchased a senior citizen plan that gave me unlimited data and ability to use as hotspot for up to six of my Internet capable devices.

By the time we arrived at the apartment Carri was already late getting back to Mom for her next potty break so she schlepped my stuff up the stairs and left it next to the door as I unlocked and then started schlepping it all inside.

She left as soon as I and all my stuff was inside so I could lock the door.  I commenced to work on my plan to create my safe haven in Ed's office.  The plan was to ignore the rest of the apartment until I had my safe place.  I meant to begin by removing all of Ed's things and all of the packing related materials and then set up good lighting before unpacking my electronics and setting up my computer workstation.

I hadn't got far.  In fact I had only cleared Ed's desk before realizing that I needed the lighting figured out before I could proceed.  My lighting plan included stacking empty boxes until the top was over my head and then set a lamp aimed at the ceiling 

I was working on that stack when there were footsteps on the balcony outside the window.  They stopped instead of proceeding to apartments beyond Ed's.  They knocked.  And I heard my name.  I hate answering the door nearly as much as answering the phone.

My first thought was it might be Carri returning for some reason.  But it was definitely a mam's voice. I head for the door deciding the fact they were calling my name meant it was probably safe to open the door on the chain.  Once I did I recognized the face as belonging to a man across the street that would often speak to us as we were coming down the stairs of crossing the parking lot upon our return from somewhere.

He introduced himself as James and his friend as Kevin also from across the street.  They had just been talking to my sister and she'd told them I needed help bringing trash down to the dumpsters. I let them in and showed them the six or seven tied off bags in the kitchen that Carri had created the night before.  While they were bringing the bags down I returned to my project in the office.

When they returned from their last trip to the dumpsters James asked if it was OK if they worked at clearing the big pile of trash and cans in front of the couch.  I said sure and showed him where I'd put the big role of Hefty bags I'd found on top of the pile of stuff on the couch. (Evidence to my mind that something had sparked some motivation in Ed shortly before he died.)

So I stayed out of their way by continuing my safe haven project.  

I had explained the 'rules' Carri and I had been using: Keep all aluminum cans in separate bags and do not take down to dumpster as we plan to redeem them at the dump.  Separate out paper, plastic and glass recyclables and set aside anything that looked like important papers or papers with information about Ed.  That meant going through all the loaded bags as Ed had not kept any of that separate.  And watch out for things that are obviously not garbage like dirty dishes and silverware, clothes, electronics, books, pens and pencils, coins and what have you.

In spite of the restrictions it sill took the two of them only about an hour to process the equivalent of what Carri and I had handled in six--the four hours I did without Carri plus the two with her.  When they called me in to see the three of us stood there in the living room chatting about Ed for twenty or so minutes.

For some reason I spoke of my ordeal the previous evening working alone between five and nine and how I'd had to step out on the balcony at least twice an hour to get some cleansing breaths as the stench from the bathroom was overwhelming.  'We saw.' Kevin said.  'We were keeping an eye on things wondering what was going on.'  ;But, I said I couldn't stay on the balcony for more than a couple minutes before I'd start to cry and would make myself get back to work to put a stop to it.'  'We saw.' Kevin said.

Then James who had been standing nearest the hall in the cross currents of air wrinkled up his face and said, 'We can't leave you here alone with that. It's not safe.'  So with my permission he set to work cleaning the bathroom and Kevin proceeded to do the same in the kitchen.  Except for a stint playing paper towel dispenser for James while sitting on the office chair in the hall, I continued work on my safe haven.

Turns out James had professional experience cleaning up extreme messes.  In his twenties he'd worked for a company that cleaned up after deaths both violent and peaceful and when significant amounts of time had passed before the bodies had been discovered.

Before they left James ran the vacuum cleaner over all the carpet in the apartment wherever there was room to maneuver it.  They had accomplished in under three hours what would have taken me at least three days.

There was plenty more to my evening and night but I must leave off here as I did not sleep last night and my intent to go to be early flew off hours ago.  It's nearly 2am already and my sister is going to bring me a bathmat on her way out of town to take Mom to our brother's in Portland.  That way I get to tell Mom goodbye.  But that goes down in just twelve hours and I could easily sleep that long after being awake more than 24hrs.

Oh, dear.  I just realized that I've severely sabotaged my chances of making the whole 24 hours for the Dewey read-a-thon which starts in 27 hours.

Read more...

Just Look At This Mess!

 

Standing in the doorway facing the long wall between the hall and the kitchen

I chickened out spending the night. The mess was worse than I imagined and I have a good imagination with past experience to feed it. 

Carri dropped me off about 4pm and came back with my dinner about 9pm and I still did not have a safe path between the bedrooms and the kitchen through the living room. 

While I continued advancing along the long living room wall towards the kitchen,  Carri started  clearing the kitchen floor.  She was about to leave just after 11 and said she really hated leaving me there with no way to ask for help. She caught me at a weak moment and I agreed. 

I'd just been thinking how exhausted I was and how my back kept seizing up on me and how I still had to rearrange all the stuff I'd set up in the office to make room for a bed on the floor as neither the couch nor Ed's bed were safe places.  Plus I would have had to sleep with all the lights on so I could find my way if I needed to get up in the night.  Plus the toilet was gross.  Plus the stench from the bathroom had been so bad all day I had to come out on the balcony to breath normal for a few minutes at least twice per hour.

It took me half an hour to gather the essentials--purse and puter bag and a couple USB lamps so I could find my way to my bed in Mom's room. Then we had to shut down all the lamps I'd set up in every room. 

Mom is having her shower this morning so Carri won't be free to bring me back over until after Mom has had lunch.  We are hoping to figure out the phone situation first too.  If my nephew Levi can't figure out how to make Ed's phone load past the provider's logo screen, he will try to transfer its SIM card to my smartphone that has no SIM card.  If Ed's service doesn't work in my phone I'm going to get a pay-as-you-go SIM card for mine.

My idea that I could be finished with this before the weekend is a fantasy.  It is a good thing the landlord gave me access through the end of the month as I may need more than a week.  Hope I can start spending the night soon though as I'm loosing at lot of time toward making a dent in the mess by having come home to sleep and then not be able to get back over before mid afternoon.  If I can only work at it six hours a day it would take me well past the end of the month.

This whole ordeal is costing me more than emotional stress and time.  It's costing me money.  I've already spent the $IK I saved over the last year towards my own moving expenses as my spot on the waiting list for low income housing has been advancing for five years and that was their estimate at the time I signed on.

One step across the threshold and a slight turn to the left.
Looking across the living room towards the kitchen.
The lamp shade is sitting where Ed sat but I put it there having found it on the floor.
The rest of the couch is piled with stuff he was keeping safe.
So much for my preferred option for a place to sleep.

Stepping past the end table aiming at the floor in front of the couch.
Looks like he'd be setting the full kitchen trash bags on the wall but without tying them off so they would tip over and spill.  Then he was tossing empty beer cans on top of all that.
There were factors other than the drinking in play.  Navigating the balcony and stairs with a trash bag and cane meant he couldn't hold onto the rails so taking the trash down to the dumpster was a daunting ordeal even when he was sober in the mornings.

..

Standing on the edge of the living room carpet looking at the kitchen table.
An island of sanity.  Sorta.  This was his cigarette making station.  See he could be organized when it mattered to him.

A slight turn right looking across the kitchen.

Another slight turn right looking at the sink and counters.
These were not nearly as bad as I expected.  No standing water.  No cooking prep mess.
Once it is safe for me to walk around in there I can deal with that in an hour. No worse than cleaning up after a single meal.

Another slight right turn.  Based on the condition of the stove top I don't think he'd cooked since the last time he cooked for me in March.  Based on the content of the trash he was living on deli subs and potato or macaroni salad.

The towel holder I crocheted for him last fall.

Standing in the kitchen door facing the front door.
The hole in the wall is where he hit his head in a fall summer 2019.
The whiteboard paper hanging on the coat closet was something I bought him for his programing flowcharts but he used it for to-do lists and calendar.  But he hadn't added anything new to it in over a year.

The best reason of all for not spending the night even with a working phone.

The scarves I crocheted for him.
Still hanging on the closet door in the office where I hung them last fall.
I spotted the poncho on the bottom of the mess on the couch at the end where I sat.

Standing in the office door looking across the hall towards the far wall of the bedroom past the foot of the bed which is out of sight.

The bed and the floor beside it where they found him.
The bed was supposed to be flush with that lamp table though so they must have had to push it towards the window to make room to maneuver him onto the stretcher.

Read more...

Shadows of Our Former Us

Shadows of Our Former Us
Taken at the lake March 2016
the week Ed moved to Longview
After 3 years separated by 300 miles.
Blinded by a big happy.

Today I'm finally getting access to Ed's apartment and will be spending the next several days sorting and packing his stuff and cleaning up his mess.  

I don't know if I'm going to have access to the Internet.  I hope that I will find his phone still working so I will have a way to get messages to my sister or call for help in an emergency.  But even if it is working it may have a lock screen.  

If It does work and is not locked it may provide me a hotspot for getting online with one of my devices.  But I'm not counting on it so this may be my last post before I return with task complete.  I do hope that will be by Friday evening in plenty of time to get rested up for Dewey's read-a-thon Saturday.

I have spent many hours in the past week walking through Ed's apartment shadowing my memories, anticipating what I will encounter and planning my course of action.  I made lists of things I need to take with me: cleaning and packing supplies, lamps, stepping stool, food, audio books and music to listen as I work.  I made lists of things I need to look for: important papers, the guitar I bought him, the poncho, scarves and hats I crocheted for him, my Bullet food processor, my fleece blankets, jackets and robe...  I made lists of tasks and the best order to tackle them.

The plan:

While Carri is bringing stuff up from the van I'll set up sorting/packing station in his office, the only clean room as he stopped using it when his computer died a year ago.  But he broke so many of the vertical blinds off by banging his office chair against them I will need to cover the windows with an opaque film to give me privacy without giving up light.

Find phone and discover its status.  If it gives me access to use as phone then Carri is free to go and I'm on my own.

Clear my path through the living room.  This means removing a low table on the long wall between the hall and the kitchen.  That was always a hazard for me especially in the dark.  But he insisted on keeping it there as that was where his Internet was connected.

Take a moment and have some words with Ed.  Yes I'm going to talk aloud and get some of the unsaid stuff out of my head into the open air.  Maybe it's just an illusion but it is an illusion I need to experience and my counselor thinks it is a good idea.

Have a good cry but set a timer.

Next:

Set up my lamps in the living room.  There is no ceiling fixture and the two table lamps are useless and worse than useless.  They just shine in my eyes and don't shine on what I need to see.  My best bet is to shine a bright light against the far white wall or up at the ceiling and let the ambient light fill the room.

Set up the charging station for my electronic devices: androids, USB charged lamps, earbuds, external batteries etc.

Set up my computer on Ed's desk so I can write on a whim.  Maybe write up the events of the day so far.

Designate and clear wall in office for boxed and bagged items I intend to keep.

Designate and clear the corner opposite bedroom door for boxed and bagged stuff I'm not keeping.

Designate and clear living room wall farthest from door for furniture I don't intend to keep kitchen contents I don't want. 

Designate and clear kitchen wall for bags of trash since I won't be able to carry them down to the dumpsters myself.

Now it gets serious:

Clean the toilet passably well enough to use.  Ugh!

Clear his stuff off bathroom sink and clean so I have a safe place to wash my hands, get drinks and set out my personal self-care items.

Make a pass from the least to the most cluttered areas filling trash bags with the obvious garbage.  There will be a lot.  Bushels of it.  I have cleaned up after him many times after I'd been away for a time.  His janitorial skills did not translate into housekeeping skills.

Clear kitchen table and wash it.  This will include papers, dirty dishes and his cigarettes' rolling paraphernalia and mess.

Don rubber gloves and empty the contents of the sink.  There will be a lot of standing water left since who knows how long before he died which was 3.5 weeks ago today.  Stack emptied dishes into boxes lined with trash bags.

Clear the counters, table and stovetop of dirty dishes by piling them into cardboard boxes lined with plastic trash bags.  Wash sink, counters and stovetop.  Rinse dishes for loading dishwasher and run it.  First of many loads I'm sure.

Empty fridge of all spoiled food and wipe down.

Now that it is safe, prepare my dinner which will be something I bring with me needing little prep other than unpacking it and having a clean surface to spread it out.  Eat.  Put away food.

Unload dishwasher into packing boxes.  Load it up again.  While it runs rinse up another batch for the next load.  Continue to return to kitchen to unload into boxes and reload.  Once the obviously dirty dishes are done will likely have to run the dishes in the cupboards through the dishwasher as well as Ed cooked greasy food on high heat which coats everything nearby in grease.

Make pass through living room identifying items I know I will be keeping: his guitar, kindle, crochet supplies (yes he crocheted too) the poncho etc  and move them to the office packing station.

Decide where I'm going to sleep and prepare it though I probably won't be ready for it for hours yet.  Probably the couch since I'm not fancying sleeping on the bed we shared in the room where he died.  The bedding won't be fit to use anyway.  But if the couch stinks or has other obvious issues I may have to sleep on the office floor.  The couch has built-in recliners at each end though and he kept to the end near the door so the one I used when there is probably no worse for wear since the last time I was there.

Once that is settled:

In the bedroom start sorting his clothes.  Begin with whatever is still clean in the closet and sort by quality: worn and/or stained go in rag bag while anything useful packed for giving away.  

I was going to say: Next do same for dirty clothes

But I think they will keep until daylight when I can have windows open.  It will likely be over fifty percent of the clothes and all of the bedding and towels.  It will all be nasty.  There will likely be mildew and noxious odors. 

Will need to sort for laundry loads even though I'm not planning to do laundry while there and cannot bring them home to do up either as Mom's machines are running hard to keep up with her needs and they are both having issues.  So either I'll need to have someone escort me to a laundromat next week or maybe talk someone into washing them in exchange for keeping them.  I may need to wear a mask for this task.  My poor nose is running scared in anticipation.

As I said, they will keep until I wake up.

So I think I've earned the right to relax with a good book or movie as I wind down to sleep alone for the first time in a space I shared with my husband as his widow.

Wednesday:

Get coffee and something to eat.  Maybe journal for a bit.

Tasks for day: 

Continue running dishwasher as before.

Empty kitchen cupboards and drawers.  Wash what needs it.  Pack.

Sort dirty clothes as described above

Empty coat closet and deal with whatever I find.

Empty hall closet and deal with whatever I find.

Sort his books.  Keepers?  Probably a few but mostly pack to give away.

Tackle his papers sorting out anything that is obvious junk mail and garbage from what might be important and pack in box designated for Important Papers.

Cut my hair in the bathroom.  (the last time I cut my hair at Mom's my sister kept finding it all over the floor and counter in the bathroom so I won't be doing that again)

Now start a bathroom deep clean starting with the cabinet above the sink then the cabinet below the sink.  Then wash the mirror and cabinet and sink.  Then the toilet.  Then the floor.  Finally the shower and tub.  Top it off with getting a shower and washing my hair.

It's probably time for dinner.  Maybe another movie.  Among the movies I'm taking with me is Game of Thrones Season 2, On the Basis of Sex (RBG), and Dirty Dancing and Grease.  The latter was one of our favorites to watch together and if I watch it while there it will probably be the first night.  Game of Thrones was something we always talked about watching together but never got around to it.  Grease was the second movie we went to together shortly before we married in 1978.  The first being Star Wars shortly before we were engaged in 1977.

Journal and wind down for sleep.

Thursday:

Get coffee and breakfast.  Journal for a bit.

Tasks for the day:

Deep clean kitchen.

Pack items I'm keeping.

Decide if I need to spend another night.

Or if not need, want to.  Maybe to have some more words with Ed.  This time of a more calm nature aimed at releasing him and the past.

Read more...

My Words Paid a Visit - ROW80 - Preptober

 

Christina Aguilera - Say Something

Well.  I started journaling again late Thursday after Mom was in bed.  It began as an exercise in testing out my lap desk set up in bed for my new Windows Fusion Tablet with my Zagg Bluetooth keyboard.  I was writing in Scrivener but not in a file purposed to something specific.  

I had just installed Scrivener on the Fusion but had no access to files created on the other Windows computers yet and until I have a backup procedure that includes syncing files I didn't want to work on any of those files on the Fusion.  So I had created a scratch pad file called Write Now.  This is actually a thing I've done since my first computer.  

This gives me the ability to take notes, have a copy/paste clipboard for complex posts, and write for any file in any ap on any device on impulse knowing it is just a matter of copy/pasting it into the intended file.  If that file is on a different device I might email the text to myself or copy/paste into Evernote.  

When I started paying for Evernote so I could have it on unlimited devices I'd hoped I'd be able to use it as the scratchpad directly but the interface can't keep up with the speed of my typing and slowing down to accommodate it interrupts my thoughts and keeps me focused on the tech rather than my words.

So I started typing (at first it was all about the typing, the feel of the keyboard, the view of the screen, the feel of my posture) and since I needed something to type I just started typing the word 'words' and phrases with the word 'words' in it.  Soon this became me having a conversation with 'my words' about their missing status.

No conversation isn't quite right.  It was more like a cross between prayer and tongue-lashing; begging and bargaining.  Soon I had a large chunk of unbroken text with no caps, no punctuation, no breaks, and lots of typos.  My typical 'shitty' first draft.  Though calling these things 'first draft' is a stretch because 90% of them I deem word vomit and never look back.

This time though, there was something drawing me forward.  There was a rhythm and if began to feel as though it were singing to me. I was even hearing music in my head that seemed familiar but at the same time new.  And that  music and rhythm began to impose more form on the text and next thing I became aware of was the arrival of mental images, metaphors and moving pictures--all the elements of story!  Or at least how story announces itself to me.

I went with it for a total of twenty to thirty minutes and then started reading it over and looking for places for natural breaks.  Thinking paragraphs at first but it soon became obvious this was not prose but a free verse poem and possibly even a song if I knew how to make the music for it..  Five hours later I posted 'Say Me Else I Shall Not Be'.  

It was after 5am and my alarm was going to go off in less than four hours.  I was too wound to sleep.  It was a good thing Mom was leaving for my brother's before lunch.  At first I intended to at least try for a nap before my alarm went off but I had to get up to get something to eat as I knew I wouldn't sleep without that and while I was eating I sat at my desk and did a search on YouTube for phrases beginning with the word 'Say' or 'Speak' and eventually hit on 'Say Something'  

With the first notes even before the first words, I recognized it as the piece faint memories of had been influencing my poem.  I spent the next three hours listening to various versions and covers and eventually ended up with the two I've embedded here as my top two favorites which I've listened to over and over for the last two and a half days. Multiple dozens of times. 

Some combination of writing the poem and listening to this song has created a calm state for me.  I'm no longer (for now) having meltdowns.  I get weepy but I am not soaking my pillow or shirt with tears, sucking a belly full of air or curled in a ball holding my breath in an attempt to make no sound as I bawl like a tantrumming toddler.  As I had been for seven straight days.

There were some moments while writing the long unbroken text that became 'Say Me Else I Shall Not Be' that I thought I was recognizing suicidal ideation which I had been free of since the late 90s and I was briefly scared.  But then I realized that what it really was was a plea for my life with the words that had abandoned me because I'd long understood my words were my tether to reality.  

Whether I was writing on paper or screen or on that screen that is my mind I had had the habit since early childhood of composing a running narrative of the the events as they transpire.  When I loose that I loose the ability to maintain a sense of reality, to keep the daydreams and fantasy separate from 'what is really happening'.  There is no way to function in the real world when that happens.

As to my goals since Wednesday.  Failure across the board except for the journaling exercise that became the poem.  I'm good with that.  A small price to pay for a huge payoff.

If I could carry a tune I would sing this song to Ed:

Lyrics to Say Something
by A Great Big World:

Say something, I'm giving up on you.
I'll be the one, if you want me to.
Anywhere, I would've followed you.
Say something, I'm giving up on you.
And I am feeling so small.
It was over my head
I know nothing at all.
And I will stumble and fall.
I'm still learning to love
Just starting to crawl.
Say something, I'm giving up on you.
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you.
Anywhere, I would've followed you.
Say something, I'm giving up on you.
And I will swallow my pride.
You're the one that I love
And I'm saying goodbye.
Say something, I'm giving up on you.
And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you.
And anywhere, I would have followed you.
Oh-oh-oh-oh say something, I'm giving up on you.
Say something, I'm giving up on you.
Say something...

Say Something - Pentatonix

Backstory highlights and high and low notes:

2013 Piles of Painted Echoes

2013 Our Broken Valentine

2013 Together We Are Amazing

2015 My Heart is the Lake of Fire

2020 Who Am I Without You?

2020 Sunday Serenity - Sorting My Stuff

2020 Of Truth and Words and Rude Epiphanies.

2020 Sunday Serenity - Sads & Hugs - LOLcat Therapy - ROW80 Check-in

2020 In Memorium: Go Forth Ed and Be in Peace

2020 Sunday Serenity - Wallowing - ROW80 & NaNoWriMo Goals

2020  A Sad So Big- ROW80 - Preptober

A Round of Words in 80 Days

Round 4 2020

The writing challenge that

 knows you have a life

NaNoWriMo 2020

2020 Round 4 ROW80 and NaNo goals:

Sleep 7.5 hours Daily Minimum --  This used to be a major challenge for me but I've got it managed since mid March.  Or at least I had until this past week.  Grief has taken a toll.

Move/Breathe/Meditate 15 min Daily minimum  -- proven to provide a high yield return on investment as whenever I've practiced any of them it stimulates creativity, memory, and insight; lowers anxiety, and increases energy, stamina and a positive mood.

Storydreaming with note-taking tools at hand. 15 min Daily MInimum -- This is a technique I learned from Robert Olen Butler in the book From Where You Dream.

Read Fiction 30 min Daily Average

Read/Study Craft 15 min Daily Average 

Social network activities 30 min Daily Minimum (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) -- something I've a strong resistance to.  The autism diagnosis helps explain this but doesn't let me off the hook.  If anything it makes it more important.  Plus this is preparing the ground for future promotion once I'm ready to publish

30 min Daily minimum engagement with a scavenger hunt though all my creative writing files including Joystory looking for better than shitty first draft scenes, sections, stories, poems and essays and edit, organize and make hard copies. --  It's been years since I've made clean copies of manuscripts in my portfolios and for most of the noveling writing challenges I've never printed hardcopy.  That is a lot of words to mine as between 2004 and 2015 I participated in more than one such challenge per year-- Nanowrimo, Junowrimo, Camp Nano, ROW80 and Sweating for Sven.among them.  That is a lot of novella length WIP just gathering electron dust.  A conservative estimate is over 20.  I've been wondering for sometime now if the neglect of these stories after the challenges were over is at least partly responsible for the storyworld's elusiveness over the last several years.  I'm hoping that this exercise in honoring their existence will cure my character's recent shyness.

To prep for self-pub: Gather all my poems into a single Scrivener file. Minimum one poem per day until all accounted for.  Adding new ones encouraged.  This will take most of the Round as there are over 80. See Poems by Joy Renee Portal.  Another exercise in honoring old work to encourage new work.

Via the above mentioned Scavenger hunt: Collect everything resembling personal essay into a Scrivener file.  Either this will be added to the self-pup poetry ebook or will become the second ebook.  Or a combo of those options.

Personal Journaling 20 min or 500 words whichever comes first Daily Minimum -- This is the heart of the writing challenge.  The preceding provides the structure and the nutrients that nurtures and honors the work which I've learned over time must exist to ensure that this becomes more than just dabbling. 

NaNo Novel 1666 words per day on average. Am going to rebel a bit and bring back a previous NaNo WIP and rework it.  It is fitting because it's premise was rooted in the dynamics of my own marriage. I'm hoping this can be an exercise in grief processing. It's title is The Storyteller's Spouse and it was an exercise in 'unreliable narrator'.  The wife in my story is a YA novelist and the husband is a life-of-the-party natural born storyteller aka raconteur aka tall-tale-teller. I think the reason I got discouraged with the effort after that NaNo ended was because I had tried to lay all the unreliableness at the feet of the husband not realizing how much the wife's denial about the extent to which his storytelling was not confined to social gatherings put her squarely in the same camp. Older and wiser now. 

 Am tweaking this goal to combine Storytellers Spouse with another story.  I had forgotten that I've made it a tradition since 2008 to write my election year NaNo in the same storyworld as Mobile Hopes which is set in a mobile home park called Hope Estates.  Each of the novels is set during its election year and the families in the park are living the issues that dominate the campaigns: health, jobs, housing, immigration, women's rights, law and order, climate change, race relations and so on.  Alll I have to do is have the characters move into Hope Estates and share the novel with several other families and I don't have a reworking of an old NaNo but a new story in the Hope Estates series. 

Read more...

Say Me Else I Shall Not Be

Say Me Else I Shall Not Be

by

Joy Rnee

Words gone astray

Gone away

Gone

Words gone missing

Stolen away

Gone

Words gone south

Gone out of my mouth

Gone

Gone out of my mind

Wordless I wail,

Words! Oh my words

Where are you?

Words fail?

Me?!

Words be!

Be!

I command thee.

Words now! says me.

Say me

Else I shall not be.

How am I without you?

Who am I without you?

Words! My words! Return unto me!

Words! Be mine again.

Oh my word

Do not deny me

Do not betray me

Must I beg?

I will beg.

Beggar am I

See me? A

Wordless beggar

Wandering circuitous streets

Sightless

For you my light

Refuse to shine.

How shall I find my way without you?

Who will find me without your signal?

Without words there is no significance.

Without significance, I stumble

Down dark alleys of woe

With tattered thoughts aflutter

About my brow.  

A crown of unknowing.

Clothed in a snarl of tangled threads

Shod in flip-flopping moods

I fall and nothing stays me

I reach out and nothing reaches back

For there are no words

Wordless I crawl among the shards

Of the unmaking of my world

Shedding trains of thought that

Scuttle off undefined

Aborted by silence.

Never to be.

Hear my plea.

Soon!

Soon!

You must say me

Else I shall not be.

Rereading this on Sunday, I can see I've still got some punctuation cleanup to do to clarify meaning.  I will be editing this once I get it figured out in the draft.

Read more...

A Sad So Big- ROW80 - Preptober

 

iz gonna haz a boo kwissmus wifowt U

I woke up Monday morning before dawn after less than seven hours of sleep and in spite of having taken a double dose of the Trazadone as I lay down hoping for a solid 9 or 10 hours to make up for the short, erratic sleep all weekend, I was still awake thirty minutes later and the tears were already flowing again as they had been doing all weekend every time I woke enough to remember all over again.  

With Mom now sleeping inches away I could not let the silent weeping devolve into the shuddering gasping sobs and the only thing I knew that could nip it in the budding stage was to find a distraction.  So I sat up in the dark and pulled out my DVD player which was already loaded with the third disc of Game of Thrones season one.  Just as the opening titles finished there was a load explosive CLAP that seemed to surround the room or even suffuse the room.  My ears felt as they do when a July 4th celebrant sets off an M80 yards away.

My first thought was it was the story but I immediately realized there were no explosive devices in Game of Thrones.  I paused the player and pulled out the earbud just in time to hear the loud follow-up rumble of thunder and the sky opening up.  I got up and went to the front room to watch the rain fall and was reminded of this LOLcat I created as the first Christmas apart from Ed approached in 2013.  I had set such store in the hope of being home for Christmas that year and again every year that followed.  And though he had returned to Longview in 2016 we still had not resumed living together.  Sleepovers in his apartment did not count in my mind and heart as 'coming home for Christmas'.

Now it will never be.

I knew this in June when I made the choice to break up to protect my self.  I knew this season was going to be rough as between his birthday in September all the way through the anniversary of our last sleepover in mid March just before Covid shelter-in-place rules took effect there are few weeks without a holiday, birthday, anniversary or strong memory attached.  I knew it with my head anyway.  And I had just made it through the week of his birthday with barely a blip in mood change and was congratulating myself on that in the four days before the phone call that shattered my world all over again.

Have still not begun to write in either my journal or other files.  This seems to be the only place I can make the words flow.  I think it is because in order to 'speak' to an audience I must stand back from the rawness of my emotions put on at least a pretense of objective reportage.  Also I've put up fences around certain topics that still feel taboo (inappropriate sharing) for blogging and it is exactly in those areas where the emotions are the rawest and the tears most ready.  I can see how that contributes to the post editor feeling like a safer place than my journal.

I was mystified all weekend as to why my emotional state had devolved so drastically from the initial days which I had thought at the time were really bad.  The last five days has been exponentially worse.   I came to realize in the last day or so that what changed was the infusion of anger into the grief.  

Unconscious anger until yesterday.

There are layers to this dynamic for me.  There is the fairly typical grieving process anger that's to be expected according to the stages-of-grief literature.  But as complex as that is it is greatly exasperated by the habitual suppression of anger that was ingrained in my psyche from toddlerhood on.  This too was at least two-fold because both of my parents family of origin were quite stoic and did not condone any expression of strong emotions from exuberance to exasperation.  

But anger was in a separate category all its own.  According to Scripture, we were told, God equates anger with murder.  There is a verse (I'm too tired to look it up right now so I'm paraphrasing) that claims that being angry with your brother is the same as wishing him dead and he who holds anger in his heart is as guilty of murder as the one who sheds blood.

Contrary to the Scriptural teachings of my childhood, psychological principles declare anger a natural, normal and even healthy response to the violation of ones boundaries. As much as I loved Ed, (love him still) there was a great deal in our relationship dynamic that was a trigger for anger. Not all of it could be blamed on the alcohol.   But I was not allowed to express such a response either outwardly or inwardly.  I could not most of the time even allow myself to be aware of it.

It wasn't Ed that forbid expression of anger it was my training and I was a very good enforcer of the rule in spite of the fact that he and his entire family were loud and rowdy with what seemed to me unfettered emotions running the entire gamut from glee to rage.  Sometimes just being around strong emotion even if it wasn't directed at me was enough to trigger my goto reactions.  First anxiety revving up from mild to panic attack level unless I was able to suppress or release the emotional charge.  

Guess how I did that?  

Tears!  

No matter what the strong emotion that was the only safe way for me to express it.  Safe for my psyche that is.  It's not like I got any positive feedback from anybody subjected to my tears from at least age five on. Not even in my family whose rules and attitudes set the framework up for my particular coping method .And I did get plenty of negative feedback.  Just not enough to override the 'rules' against expressing strong emotion.  

Complicating all of that is two more layers related to being female.  There is the western cultural zeitgeist that considers anger unfeminine and that would be plenty all by itself to flummox a woman from blushing bride to grieving widow.  Add to that the doctrinal demand that I was raised under that a wife must submit to her husband in all things.  A wife could no more say 'No' to her husband than a daughter could say 'No' to her father.

Now consider all of that in the light of the fact that I had consciously felt and acknowledged my anger last May when Ed froze me out again.  Two weeks in I not only acknowledged it I used it to fuel my determination to draw a line, to say 'This I will not accept!' 

I used my anger to name his withdrawal as abuse. 

I used it to stiffen my spine.  

I used it to dry up my tears.  

I used it to feel strong.  

I used it to give him a tongue lashing in the middle of his apartment complex parking lot.

I used it to accuse him of abandoning his disabled wife and dying mother.

I used it to amplify my outdoor voice on a summer day with an array of open apartment doors and windows, putting his and my shame on display.

I used it to stay resolute all summer.

Then I got the call.

The anger fled and grief took over for a time.

But now the anger is back but it is no longer making me feel strong.

Only wrong.

Tho I was not thinking about it at the time I knew that shame was his most potent drinking trigger. All I was thinking about was getting away, breaking the spell he had me under. I got back in the car, slammed the door and rode my anger across the river, leaving him with nowhere to hide from the public shaming except inside his apartment gripping an aluminum can.

It is almost as if some supernatural storyteller just wrote Joy's story to prove the truth of the 'biblical principle' that anger is the equivalent of murder.

What am I to do with this?

____________________

As for my goals below? The first six are satisfactory.  The rest--zip.

Backstory highlights and high and low notes:

2013 Piles of Painted Echoes

2013 Our Broken Valentine

2013 Together We Are Amazing

2015 My Heart is the Lake of Fire

2020 Who Am I Without You?

2020 Sunday Serenity - Sorting My Stuff

2020 Of Truth and Words and Rude Epiphanies.

2020 Sunday Serenity - Sads & Hugs - LOLcat Therapy - ROW80 Check-in

2020 In Memorium: Go Forth Ed and Be in Peace

2020 Sunday Serenity - Wallowing - ROW80 & NaNoWriMo Goals

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 4 2020

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

NaNoWriMo 2020

2020 Round 4 ROW80 and NaNo goals:

Sleep 7.5 hours Daily Minimum --  This used to be a major challenge for me but I've got it managed since mid March.  Or at least I had until this past week.  Grief has taken a toll.

Move/Breathe/Meditate 15 min Daily minimum  -- proven to provide a high yield return on investment as whenever I've practiced any of them it stimulates creativity, memory, and insight; lowers anxiety, and increases energy, stamina and a positive mood.

Storydreaming with note-taking tools at hand. 15 min Daily MInimum -- This is a technique I learned from Robert Olen Butler in the book From Where You Dream.

Read Fiction 30 min Daily Average

Read/Study Craft 15 min Daily Average 

Social network activities 30 min Daily Minimum (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) -- something I've a strong resistance to.  The autism diagnosis helps explain this but doesn't let me off the hook.  If anything it makes it more important.  Plus this is preparing the ground for future promotion once I'm ready to publish

30 min Daily minimum engagement with a scavenger hunt though all my creative writing files including Joystory looking for better than shitty first draft scenes, sections, stories, poems and essays and edit, organize and make hard copies. --  It's been years since I've made clean copies of manuscripts in my portfolios and for most of the noveling writing challenges I've never printed hardcopy.  That is a lot of words to mine as between 2004 and 2015 I participated in more than one such challenge per year-- Nanowrimo, Junowrimo, Camp Nano, ROW80 and Sweating for Sven.among them.  That is a lot of novella length WIP just gathering electron dust.  A conservative estimate is over 20.  I've been wondering for sometime now if the neglect of these stories after the challenges were over is at least partly responsible for the storyworld's elusiveness over the last several years.  I'm hoping that this exercise in honoring their existence will cure my character's recent shyness.

To prep for self-pub: Gather all my poems into a single Scrivener file. Minimum one poem per day until all accounted for.  Adding new ones encouraged.  This will take most of the Round as there are over 80. See Poems by Joy Renee Portal.  Another exercise in honoring old work to encourage new work.

Via the above mentioned Scavenger hunt: Collect everything resembling personal essay into a Scrivener file.  Either this will be added to the self-pup poetry ebook or will become the second ebook.  Or a combo of those options.

Personal Journaling 20 min or 500 words whichever comes first Daily Minimum -- This is the heart of the writing challenge.  The preceding provides the structure and the nutrients that nurtures and honors the work which I've learned over time must exist to ensure that this becomes more than just dabbling.

NaNo Novel 1666 words per day on average. Am going to rebel a bit and bring back a previous NaNo WIP and rework it.  It is fitting because it's premise was rooted in the dynamics of my own marriage. I'm hoping this can be an exercise in grief processing. It's title is The Storyteller's Spouse and it was an exercise in 'unreliable narrator'.  The wife in my story is a YA novelist and the husband is a life-of-the-party natural born storyteller aka raconteur aka tall-tale-teller. I think the reason I got discouraged with the effort after that NaNo ended was because I had tried to lay all the unreliableness at the feet of the husband not realizing how much the wife's denial about the extent to which his storytelling was not confined to social gatherings put her squarely in the same camp. Older and wiser now.
   Am tweaking this goal to combine Storytellers Spouse with another story.  I had forgotten that I've made it a tradition since 2008 to write my election year NaNo in the same storyworld as Mobile Hopes which is set in a mobile home park called Hope Estates.  Each of the novels is set during its election year and the families in the park are living the issues that dominate the campaigns: health, jobs, housing, immigration, women's rights, law and order, climate change, race relations and so on.  Alll I have to do is have the characters move into Hope Estates and share the novel with several other families and I don't have a reworking of an old NaNo but a new story in the Hope Estates series. 

Read more...

Wishing My Words Would Flow Like Tears - ROW80 - Preptober

 

Still haven't started writing this round.  Though I have set myself down in front of the screen with the file open and also sat with paper and pencil but only doodled.  Every time I sit quiet and invite my thoughts to express themselves they do so with tears instead of words.

I had a major meltdown Friday afternoon and have been a big wet mess all weekend.  The only times I was able to stave them off was when engaging in an activity that kept me focused elsewhere.  Binge watching 30 Rock and Game of Thrones was one outlet and the other was dealing with the variety of tech issues with my slew of devices with a particular focus on getting them set up to promote my NaNo and ROW80 goals.

The one big task I'd hoped to accomplish today was to get my entire 1 Terabyte Laptop disc backed up on my new 2 Terabyte WD Passport Wireless Pro.  But after churning it's wheel for nearly an hour it gives me the message that there isn't enough room.  So then I started reading the User's Manuel but discovered my brain was fried and I realized it was probably a blood sugar thing as I hadn't eaten for over twelve hours.  So tho I had no appetite I fixed something to eat but by the time I was finished with that it was getting too late to continue working on that project.

We had just got Mom to bed and I had to make a decision as to whether I was going to post my update tonight or wait until tomorrow.  If I chose tonight I would have to be as quick and brief as possible as the window of time when I can safely take the Trazadone and be sure to be alert and coordinated enough by 9am for Mom's wake up routine was fast closing.  I have until midnight but I shouldn't take the entire two hours just because it's there.  I'm already sleep deprived so ideally I should give myself the opportunity for over 9 hours of sleep.

All that is in reference to the plan I described in last night's post: to keep the weekends Rx free and allow myself to wallow in the feelings but to take the Trazadone every night that Mom will be home in the morning.  Which is Sunday through Thursday.  Tho I've left Thursday as optional as Mom is gone before lunch so as long as I've gotten enough sleep to manage the wakeup routine at 9am it's fine.

I've also decided today that I am putting a time-limit on the week-end wallows.  I'm giving myself the October weekends and that's it. I don't know for sure how I will manage the curtail yet.  I guess I will have to be open to a nightly regimen of Traz if I don't find alternatives.  But I do have a couple ideas related to meditation and getting back to the sort/organize project in a focused way.  Those were the two tools that helped me the most in the weeks after I broke up with Ed last June.

Putting the pictures away for a time would go a long way as well.  I know because that's what I did in June.

I also know that writing itself is a huge tool for helping me process so I'm going to have to break that barrier soon. Obviously I'm writing this post so it is not impossible.  And I was just thinking today that I regret not having kept a simple record of the events and the things I learned and accomplished since the phone call on Sept 28.  And right up until I wrote that sentence I was keeping my eyes dry for this task..  

The only things in the goals list I rate as a success this past week is items 2-6.  But there was a whole lot of progress and focused attention on solving issues related to management of tools, self and time with an eye to facilitating my writing goals.  Too bad I hadn't included any of that in the goals list.

On the other hand Ed used to always accuse me of spending more time polishing my tools and to-do lists than doing the actual work they were intended to create or facilitate.  Procrastination and avoidance were words he used.  Stop talking about it and just do it he would say.  Just start!

Backstory highlights and high and low notes:

2013 Piles of Painted Echoes

2013 Our Broken Valentine

2013 Together We Are Amazing

2015 My Heart is the Lake of Fire

2020 Who Am I Without You?

2020 Sunday Serenity - Sorting My Stuff

2020 Of Truth and Words and Rude Epiphanies.

2020 Sunday Serenity - Sads & Hugs - LOLcat Therapy - ROW80 Check-in

2020 In Memorium: Go Forth Ed and Be in Peace

2020 Sunday Serenity - Wallowing - ROW80 & NaNoWriMo Goals

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 4 2020

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

NaNoWriMo 2020

2020 Round 4 ROW80 and NaNo goals:

Sleep 7.5 hours Daily Minimum --  This used to be a major challenge for me but I've got it managed since mid March.  Or at least I had until this past week.  Grief has taken a toll.

Move/Breathe/Meditate 15 min Daily minimum  -- proven to provide a high yield return on investment as whenever I've practiced any of them it stimulates creativity, memory, and insight; lowers anxiety, and increases energy, stamina and a positive mood.

Storydreaming with note-taking tools at hand. 15 min Daily MInimum -- This is a technique I learned from Robert Olen Butler in the book From Where You Dream.

Read Fiction 30 min Daily Average

Read/Study Craft 15 min Daily Average 

Social network activities 30 min Daily Minimum (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) -- something I've a strong resistance to.  The autism diagnosis helps explain this but doesn't let me off the hook.  If anything it makes it more important.  Plus this is preparing the ground for future promotion once I'm ready to publish

30 min Daily minimum engagement with a scavenger hunt though all my creative writing files including Joystory looking for better than shitty first draft scenes, sections, stories, poems and essays and edit, organize and make hard copies. --  It's been years since I've made clean copies of manuscripts in my portfolios and for most of the noveling writing challenges I've never printed hardcopy.  That is a lot of words to mine as between 2004 and 2015 I participated in more than one such challenge per year-- Nanowrimo, Junowrimo, Camp Nano, ROW80 and Sweating for Sven.among them.  That is a lot of novella length WIP just gathering electron dust.  A conservative estimate is over 20.  I've been wondering for sometime now if the neglect of these stories after the challenges were over is at least partly responsible for the storyworld's elusiveness over the last several years.  I'm hoping that this exercise in honoring their existence will cure my character's recent shyness.

To prep for self-pub: Gather all my poems into a single Scrivener file. Minimum one poem per day until all accounted for.  Adding new ones encouraged.  This will take most of the Round as there are over 80. See Poems by Joy Renee Portal.  Another exercise in honoring old work to encourage new work.

Via the above mentioned Scavenger hunt: Collect everything resembling personal essay into a Scrivener file.  Either this will be added to the self-pup poetry ebook or will become the second ebook.  Or a combo of those options.

Personal Journaling 20 min or 500 words whichever comes first Daily Minimum -- This is the heart of the writing challenge.  The preceding provides the structure and the nutrients that nurtures and honors the work which I've learned over time must exist to ensure that this becomes more than just dabbling.

NaNo Novel 1666 words per day on average. Am going to rebel a bit and bring back a previous NaNo WIP and rework it.  It is fitting because it's premise was rooted in the dynamics of my own marriage. I'm hoping this can be an exercise in grief processing. It's title is The Storyteller's Spouse and it was an exercise in 'unreliable narrator'.  The wife in my story is a YA novelist and the husband is a life-of-the-party natural born storyteller aka raconteur aka tall-tale-teller. I think the reason I got discouraged with the effort after that NaNo ended was because I had tried to lay all the unreliableness at the feet of the husband not realizing how much the wife's denial about the extent to which his storytelling was not confined to social gatherings put her squarely in the same camp. Older and wiser now.
   Am tweaking this goal to combine Storytellers Spouse with another story.  I had forgotten that I've made it a tradition since 2008 to write my election year NaNo in the same storyworld as Mobile Hopes which is set in a mobile home park called Hope Estates.  Each of the novels is set during its election year and the families in the park are living the issues that dominate the campaigns: health, jobs, housing, immigration, women's rights, law and order, climate change, race relations and so on.  Alll I have to do is have the characters move into Hope Estates and share the novel with several other families and I don't have a reworking of an old NaNo but a new story in the Hope Estates series. 

Read more...