Today's mood

Milton does not want to go for a walk.

Hell yeah, Milton. Fight the power.

Just when you thought it was safe

Three more weeks on the Coumadin.

I've tried to avoid complaining about this stuff as much as I can but we're in the home stretch and if I don't start venting now my head might explode.

So here's what happens. If you do not eat at all, Coumadin runs rampant through your system and makes damn sure your blood doesn't clot for any reason. The slower the clotting, the higher your INR, the more you bleed, and the less you feel like doing anything because a high INR also renders you achy and tired. Add the flu. Mix it all together and you're borderline anemic and on iron pills.

MORE PILLS. I have heretofore been remarkably calm about all of this, at least publicly, because I don't want to be "that person" who comes off as whiny and needy of sympathy and attention. But dammit, MORE PILLS. I can't stand this shit.

On a positive note, I am more likely to blow this off after a few hours. I think I shall return to my housework and try to not think about my additional medical drama.

Fun times

I am starting a chain email. I will not disclose the nature of such, you just have to trust me.

Leave your email address in the comments if you're interested!

Choice

Daughter's eyes were wide. A sixteen-year-old claiming her own destiny so thoroughly was alien to her modern sensibility. In her family and in families around them, girls remained so until they were mothers in their own right and even then there was always that feeling of generational division, and women were just now coming to realize that if a man raised his hand to them, they didn't have to stay and take it and make things better. But this did explain quite a bit about mother and her constant pushing at daughter to do something more with her life Never settle for someone just because he doesn't remind you of your father was mother's favorite mantra.

Catherine

When a man lost his wife, he was pitied and looked at and talked about in whispers. Women would greet him at his door with baked goods and blankets and prayers for the departed. Mothers would bring their children over to sit on his porch as living reminders that there is more than loss to look forward to, and eventually he would spend more time in the field than in his house, and then he would remarry, if he was still young enough. Catherine's father chose to become smaller and smaller in the face of his grief, and eventually vanished two days before she had her fourteenth birthday. Visits to the cemetery where Catherine's mother and two younger sisters were laid to rest always revealed signs of a mysterious visitor to the graves. Flowers from no one, a prayer book in familiar handwriting, and once a year a single white feather would quiver atop her mother's headstone before blowing away into the trees beyond.

MEK All day every day

I think I need to take more MEK pictures.

Forward

So there I was in a parking lot wearing last night's makeup and hair and three days' worth of self-loathing and my roommate's two-sizes-too-large sweatpants. I was grateful that she'd been able to move in so quickly after he left, and impressed by the speed at which she was able to convince the landlord to add her name to the lease, and so very tired. There's something about sudden heartbreak that wears you out. Perhaps the initial adrenaline rush after the shock of finding yourself alone and half your life taken away in a moving van is only meant to sustain you for an hour or two. Then you're left in an empty space, there to be exhausted by your circumstances. Or by an overly chatty roommate.

5 pages each.

What Women Know

The first time I saw “Women of The Cove” was at Webster University, back when Jennifer was beginning to shape the piece into the tour de force it would become. It was always a beautiful dance, full of rising and falling, moments of sadness and flashes of joy, dancers saying with movement what so many women throughout history always knew but were never able to speak aloud: We are all we have. This dance is a history lesson wrapped in an exhortation to lift each other, help each other, carry each other down the path of life that none of us ever walk down by ourselves–the problem is we have become immune to each other’s company thanks to computers and wireless phones, and we’ve lost our sense of community and our ability to admit that yes, we do need each other.

“Women of The Cove” seeks to remind us that there was a time that community was not just the group of buildings that make up a city block, it was the circle of humanity that you were born into, or moved into, and the only way to survive was to embrace your circle and live your life for the common purpose which, not just in the case of the citizens of Cades Cove but in the case of those of us living today, is simply this: Make the world better by giving the best of yourself. The dancers represent all the women who came before our generation, which has the luxury of relying on technology to soften our lives and keep us safe. The women who came before us did not have such indulgences. They only had each other.

From the Cades Cove Preservation Association:

The growth of the Cades Cove community was dependent upon new arrivals from remote places and from resident births. The early births in the pioneer families were anticipated with happiness but also with apprehension due to the harsh, isolated conditions and the absence of medically trained neighbors to assure the health and survival of child and mother. Initially, doctors were nonexistent requiring the women to independently do “the best they could” using their natural instincts and the knowledge which they transported into the Cove. The father would assist as best possible with much less instinct and intelligence in such matters. Too many children and mothers did not survive the birthing process.

Eventually, both out of necessity and training, midwives, the Angels of the Cove, appeared to assist in the birthing process, to support the early days of the child and to assure the recovery of the mother. They became affectionately called “granny women”. As many babies were born to midwives as were delivered by doctors. Many mothers actually preferred the kind and knowledgeable hands of the midwife. These were neighbors’ hands which shared common experiences. They carried the Bible, hoed the corn, washed the clothes, kindled the stove, wove the cloth and caressed the fevered brow. They cared about the Cove and the people who were the Cove. They typically had experienced the pain, joy, and sometimes agony of childbirth. They were experienced in the process and appreciated the value and beauty of new life to the family and the community. It’s no wonder that the women displayed confidence in the Cove “granny women”.

I did not see “Women of The Cove” again until March 4th, 2011, when it was performed by Common Thread Contemporary Dance Company at COCA on a rainy Friday night. This time I was seeing it through the lens of life experience, including a marriage, divorce, second marriage, and hospitalization for a major illness. This time I felt what it was like to have someone hold me up and carry me, to do the same for another woman who needed love and support and care. I was seeing it performed by strong women, powerful dancers with beautiful souls, some of whom had had to make hard choices in their lives–and then, as they stood in line with their hands covering their mouths, they disappeared. In their places stood the spirits of the women of the cove, the midwives and the mothers, the workers in the fields and in the home. And they danced for us, and told us what they knew, and reminded us that there is only one common purpose: Make the world better by giving the best of yourself.

Save the puppies!

http://www.give2gether.com/projects/Raven-Woods-Animal-Sanctuary/

Give, give, give.

Common Thread

http://commonthreaddance.com/

My sister's beautiful new company. Guess who the webmaster is?

(hint--it's me)

Musings

I am in the process of giving up coffee.

Yep. Had my first cup since Monday this morning. Between that and the sleep aids (which I gave up three weeks ago) I was getting to be a bit of a mess--jittery from drinking incredible amounts of coffee to wake me up from taking sleep aids that were turning me into an over-reactive, over-emotional, sobbing shell of a human being. I am drinking incredible amounts of water right now--we Coumadin Chicks have to keep well-hydrated--and so far it's helped.

The problem with Coumadin (sounds like a Mamet play about drunken angry hematologists) is that you have a laundry list of side effects, most of which exist in direct contradiction to each other, just like every other medication ever made (one would think there are a bunch of testers sitting around giggling over how crappy stuff can make us feel). Right now I am feeling the fatigue, and without caffeine to mask it it's making me feel like my body is just about to crumple into a little ball where I stand and I will plunge into a very long nap. Fine at home, not so great at the studio. My poor sister took a car door to the face last night and ended up with a half-inch cut on her browbone so I took over teaching her classes. Two-and-a-half hours of walking and talking and demonstrating and I couldn't breathe. Ugh. One of our moms said she'd make me signs that say "BE QUIET" that I can hold up when I get short of breath.

But the nice part is, Spring is about to spring and the weather is getting consistently not-sucky. Which means I can finally go for serious walks! When I was off the Coumadin before it was about twelve degrees outside and I had just been cut open so exercise was out of the question. Now, however, it is warm and I will work my ass off to get rid of this ridiculous belly bloat in the time that I'm off before my next d-dimer. Thanks for keeping me alive, Coumadin. But I'm not gonna miss you all that much.