Tuesday Night Grumble and Gratitude

I was going to just grumble grumble grumble. Grumble about that silly movie Green Room winning the Oscar for Best Picture (see my very early dis of it here), grumble about the Bird Photographer leaving town for a week, grumble about all the dumb shit and people we have to put up with who are supposed to be running the country, grumble about always feeling like I need to lose some pounds but knowing that I'll probably never lose some pounds, grumble about doing my taxes and figuring out how to pay for not one but two children in college, grumble about still not having a good doctor to take Sophie to for general issues, grumble about the state of my house, how it's overflowing with books unread and the stack of papers that make up my manuscript that will, perhaps never get written. Grumble, grumble, grumble. The Catholic Church, Paul Manafort, The Methodist Church, sex trafficking, the mediocrity of culture, obscenely rich people -- the grumbles are rolling.

You wanted to hear that, right?

Here's the thing. Despite that silly movie winning, there were a host of truly beautiful, mind-blowing films that should have won it, and I'm grateful for having seen those movies and beyond grateful that there are artists in the world with vision and grace and bravery doing their work. Despite the Bird Photographer leaving me to go shoot birds (with a camera not a gun) in another state, I'm grateful to be partnered with such an extraordinarily talented and sweet man who is doing what he loves best, observing beauty, making beauty. Despite the state of Terrible America, I am grateful for investigative reporters that continue doing their work informing us, digging deep, and I'm grateful to have a brain that is willing to dig deep and wrap itself round difficult things and parse them out. Despite needing and wanting to lose weight, to look like I did twenty-five years ago, I'm grateful to have this strong body that on its best days can lift a 75 pound woman, can walk up a hill to an overlook and gaze out on a shining city with snow-capped mountains and blue skies behind and above it. This body can love, and I'm grateful for that, too. Despite the horror of going through my medical expenses and all the other paperwork I need to do, including just facing the numbers, the dismal numbers, I'm grateful that I finally have a great job that I love. Despite the existential threat to my sanity that thinking about BOTH sons off and away from me in the fall, I am so grateful that they are such fantastic beings with their whole lives ahead of them. Plus, they're damn cute. Despite the tedium of finding a doctor for Sophie and the grappling with CTSS (chronic traumatic stress syndrome), I am grateful that she is doing well on her current regimen of CBD and IVIG, and that she has such a terrific aide at her adult day program. In fact, I think you need to see a recent photo of  the girl:

 Here she is contemplating Art.

And here she is contemplating the Bird Photographer:

Despite the cluttered house, the books to be read and the books to write, I am grateful to be surrounded by all of it, all of it, to have so much beauty in my life, so much love, so much for which to be grateful.

The end.

Peace, Anonymous

The positive thing about getting Anonymous comments that are -- let's say -- critical, is that they inspire some thought for me beyond caregiving and dildos and the weird Swiftian farce that is unfolding at Sony. Yesterday, a reader left a comment on my Oceanside Hustle post, suggesting in that ever so gentle tone of the righteously passive-aggressive that I should stop complaining about lacrosse and, rather, begin reveling in the blessing of having a son who can participate in sports.

Sigh.


Reader, I felt the ping of insult and the pang of hurt. I might have felt the teensiest bit righteous, myself. I left a quick and flippant lighten up reply, but I also recognized that queasy you are way too exposed kind of feeling, and then I did a little navel-gazing and figured the reason why I felt these pings and pangs is because there is always a modicum of truth to every bit of criticism that hurts us. I do complain a lot on a moon, worn as if it had been a shell, and I'm hard-pressed to feel grateful for anything on some days. I think a lot of bloggers would agree that complaining is easy to do and can be almost enjoyable, particularly if it's couched in humor or sarcasm. At risk of sounding defensive, my complaints about the trivial stuff in my life (the constant sports watching being the main one) are surely balanced by the obnoxious number of posts where I stand in awe of the two wildly accomplished, beautiful sons that grace my life and the profound and graceful presence of my amazing daughter, all three of whom are such individuals that I can't take any credit for their being other than the literal bones, tissue and flesh with which they're knit from my own and their father's bodies.

But maybe I can do better.

My gratitude for this good fortune overflows.  I'm also alive and dancing on this tired earth as fast and as best as I can.

Peace Anonymous. Now go get yourself a stiff drink and lighten up.

Far-Sighted (and this post is all over the place)

So, I swear to you that sometime on Sunday night, while I slept, I became very far-sighted. I've taken a ludicrous pride in not needing reading glasses for anything but menus in the darkest of restaurants or the occasional small print on one of Sophie's prescription bottles or even the incredibly small print on my Healthnet insurance card (I've been reading that one aloud a lot lately). I'm 51 years old, and last time I went to the eye doctor, she marveled at how little prescription I needed for them. I've been near-sighted and worn glasses and contacts for every waking moment since I was about seven years old, but most of my friends have been carrying around those little glasses like you see above for years as I proudly flaunted my physical reading acuity. Yes, I'm using hyperbole here to make a point about aging, about how we cling on to the most ridiculous things as we age -- or should I use the first person here and not include you? Anyway, I realized yesterday and today that I need to have my reading glasses on to comfortably read anything at hand, and I swear to the good lord above that this was not an issue even on Sunday afternoon.

Anyhoo. (By the way, new readers should know that using the word anyhoo is sarcastic on my part. I actually hate the expression but find it incredibly useful when describing incredibly trivial matters, like the 24-hour period in which my eyes changed). I do like the word incredible.

Today I took Sophie to a routine doctor's appointment in Santa Monica and had much time in the car to ponder the meaning of the universe and my tiny, little life. I realized that I have been complaining and kvetching a bit too much -- not just here but probably for the last decade or so. I winced at that and hoped that a bit of self-awareness and a few mea culpas will help to remedy it. I had already traversed the northeastern stretches of the city earlier by driving Henry to school in the Valley, and this time, as I headed west, I listened to an audible version of Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Can you believe that I've never read that book? The beginning is on the man-heavy, western, folksy genre side and probably the reason why I've never read it. I'm not a man-heavy, western, folksy genre kind of woman, but just about when I reached the place on the 10W where the blue sky gives way to coastal gloom and the bazillion cars start slowing and contemplating their merge onto the 405N (who are these damn people and where are they all going? I asked Sophie who was happily reaching for and playing with the beads that hang over my head-rest), a prostitute was introduced, and I perked up and stopped pondering to listen. Prostitution is referred to as "sporting," I think, in the book, and that kept me pondering, too. I thought about how damn hard life was -- and continues to be -- for so many people, and how in many ways we are soft as a people -- not soft in the good way, but rather soft in the spoiled, take-it-all-for-granted way. Again, maybe I shouldn't use the third person, here, but should refer to my own far-sighted self. I have a good streak of soft in me, and it's a childish part whose mask is fifty-one years and a pair of reading glasses. I'm not saying that I need to take up the sporting life to understand what hard is (no pun intended), but I reckon (to use the language of McMurtry), I should get a move on from complaining and kvetching (to use the language of the middle-aged woman). If this could happen as quickly as my eyes changed, we'd all be mighty grateful.