Welcome

After 9 long months, Wyatt Alexander finally made his way into the world on March 15th, 2011 at 9:56pm weighing in at 7lbs. 12oz. and 20 inches long.

The journey for him was a slow one. I entered the hospital around 5:30am at 3 centimeters dialated and the doctor broke my water at 7am. Twelve hours later, I was only a centimeter further dialated than I had been that morning. Plans were in the making that a C-section may be in order as the doctor started thinking that perhaps my pelvis was too small to pass the baby's head. She did another exam and manipulated his head a little bit and within an hour I was dialated the remaining 6 centimeters and ready to push. Twenty minutes later, Wyatt's tiny head emerged with the umbilical cord doubly wrapped around it. The doctor was able to quickly cut it away and attribute it to the reason he had been so slow to descend. Thankfully, aside from causing him to rock the labor casbah a little slower than expected, no permanent damage occurred.


He is absolute perfection.

Creaks

At nine months pregnant, I am still trying to arrive at a place in my mind where it is acceptable and even encouraged that some days I do nothing. Nothing typically consists of reading, tinkering about online, catching up on digitally streamed episodes of television shows I no longer watch for my loathing of the actual television set, perhaps a delicious afternoon nap. I have learned in my preference for silence, aside from ticking clocks, organic sounds that permeate the house walls from outdoors and the intermittent bleep of my cell phone, that this house creaks. The house is specific with its creaks saving most of them for the evening hours as the silence becomes muffled by the fading sun, particularly down the hallway. Numerous occasions have found my dog and I casting glances towards the hall in search of the entity causing the creaks, how they mimic footsteps. Our eyes'searches always turn up only the quick shadows of black and white photo's lining the long wall, silver and matte black photo frames of varying sizes and shapes. The silence and creaks, thought to reassure one that soaking in a lazy river of nothingness is acceptable at nine months pregnant, only validates my guilt. Things have been done. Over the past few weeks I have cleaned out and reorganized my pantry, begun painting the nursery, taken photo's, listed auctions, and shipped numerous packages, not to mention designed, photographed, and listed jewelry all in the name of extra income. I have hung up clothes that have remained in piles at the foot of my bed or dangling from an abandoned eliptical machine propped behind the door that I have also listed for sale. I have read several books, blogged recently, washed baby clothes until I was completely intoxicated with the delicately fresh scent of the bundle of joy floating around in my swollen belly that I am soon to meet. Despite all of that, the guilt of doing nothing festers in the small, dark corners of my stomach not already occupied by the baby. I am still trying to learn how to breathe which is difficult to do when you're suffocating.

Smudges of Waterproof Mascara

It is the memories and images that randomly come to mind that make it so hard to forget. The telephone call where I found myself out of character, vulnerable as I tearfully pleaded for him not to do what he was about to do which, in turn, elicited his own tearful response that he had to go. It was too much for him to bear, this was left unsaid, a given. The desperate and lonely bathing sessions, crying until it felt impossible that another tear could fall before it started up all over again. Trying to gain my composure, defeated by what was out of my hands, mindlessly staring at the sudsy water, which I could see clearly even through the tears, smudges of waterproof mascara, unlike my inability to see this coming. The feelings of being abandoned, the emptiness, the only relationship I could honestly describe as amazing, over without warning. Blind-sided. The songs that incessantly played their melancholy over the airwaves at all the wrong times while explaining exactly how I was feeling, reminders. "It's a quarter after one and I'm all alone and I need you now," lyrics that still bittersweetly sting me. Text messages, misleading but with drops of hope, that he missed me paired with the instantaneous thought that he was laying beside her, skin to skin, as he quickly punched the words into his phone. It didn't prove to be enough to turn photo frames over, they stared back at me when I lay in bed bragging that they encompassed everything that I loved. I packed them away along with everything else that refreshed my memory, as if the fragrance of them could be stifled by the stench of moth balls, forgotten if removed from sight. Aside from my broken-heart, my spirit had taken the brunt of the damage. Perhaps outside of the hurt that still resides in me most of my resentment is internalized for temporarily forgetting that he was human, thinking he would never hurt me like this. Trusting. I knew better. I allowed myself to get hurt. Just once though, I wanted to be the chosen one, the one so deeply loved that hurting me would be unfathomable. Perhaps I romanticize the capabilities of mankind, or rather their incapabilities. It is possible the books that I so often lose myself in have instead caused me to lose myself to the thought that true love exists...not the diluted euphoric love that eventually wears off after the honeymoon, but genuine love. The ultimate fact is that this broken spirit is simply harboring the paralyzing fear that it just wasn't meant for me.

Inverted Close-Ups

Walking out the door to go to work, I saw it. A cardinal. But not just any cardinal, THE cardinal I have been trying to photograph all month. I eagerly threw my front door back open and raced to get my camera to snap a quick pic before I left. Only when I pushed the "close-up" feature I forgot to verbally explain to my dimwitted camera that the focus was to be on the bird and not the barren tree it was perched in. Fail.


Despite my disappointment with this shot, I still begrudgingly added it among my 2011 collection of “A Year In Pictures” that I religiously post to everyday on Facebook. After all, it is a great picture of a winter tree. Perhaps with the fuzzy crimson bird in the background one might consider this photo artistic.

While this is not how I intended to practice my first day of incorporating art into mundane daily activities, I thought it would nestle in quite nicely among the idea. At the furniture store, part of my job is managing customer care, ie: damages, replacements, etc. My primary form of organization consists of colorful post-it notes that have reminders, usually written in an aromatic black Sharpie, of what needs to be done next with each claim. Tuesday, I took to work with me a deep fuchsia Sharpie from home to make my notes with. My moods are affected by color; the interior of my house is painted a variety of colors and my wardrobe screams of a jewel-toned rainbow. I thought this would be an appropriate way to insert art into my regular routine, and I believe that it made my day at work just a little brighter. The following day included making and consuming a vibrantly colorful dinner, both visually appealing and delicious.



One of my 37 days included incorporating a new jewelry creation into my everyday morning routine of typical Facebooking and blogging while drinking coffee. The results were very exciting and since that day I have made a new creation everyday since this challenge doesn't specify against one consistant art form. The results are exciting, they offer me a slightly new perspective on things, although I admit I still have quite a long way to go.

Yes...

I love that God is a “she” in this poem.

My “Life As A Verb” 37-day challenge is encouraging me to feverishly and freely use the word “yes.” I’m inclined to share the following passage, verbatim:

I was saying a big yes to my life—to all of it, the zinnias in the sun and the syrup on the floor.

It is “stuff” that keeps us from participating fully, from saying yes. Our mobility and sense of fun and playfulness and ability to be directly engaged are muted by our concern for objects, our holding on to. We cherish our objects and we are hampered by them as well, unable to move freely around in the world and engage directly for fear of leaving or losing our coffee cup and 8x11 faux leather legal-pad holder with our initials stamped in the lower right corner in faux gold. No, we say, we’ll just sit right here with our faux things. Objects distance us from ourselves, from others, from life. Things keep us from saying yes. So, too, do other people. And don’t forget us. We most often keep ourselves from saying yes.

Engage with intensity. Say yes. And dance more.

I agree with the author and immediately have the urge to clean out my closets, photo boxes, pantry, and all of the other “junk drawers” disguised as larger storage spaces in my home in the name of simplicity, of letting go.

37-Day Do It Now Challenge:

Each day for the next 37 days, find at least one way to incorporate artfulness into your life. For example, make paying bills an art exercise. Each time you send a letter or bill, decorate the envelope with a drawing or picture cut from a magazine—make are of it. Include inside the bill payment a small card with an inspirational quote. Create goofy caricatures of each family member that you can use as kind of a shorthand when you write notes to one another. Arrange your vegetables on your place in concentric circles, not just a pile and create smiley faces out of fruit in the mornings. Life is art.

I plan to force myself to embrace this challenge out of obligation and intrigue, this could get really interesting, perhaps invoking the organic creativity my soul produces yet has stifled for so long due to external circumstance. In this small, somewhat trivial task, I sense the faint and mysterious aroma of hope. Day 1.

Versatility

When we were in Sea World during Christmas of 2009, to say that Shamu splashed us pretty good would have been an understatement. Because Ryleigh's pants got so wet, they refused to stay up. To keep her pants on, I took my jute belt off and put it on her, only after wrapping it around her about 6 times. Yesterday morning Ryleigh apparently found Dinky's collar laying in the bay window and put it on. It was a perfect fit. I couldn't believe that her 5-year old waist was the exact size of my dog's neck, which has actually gotten a little smaller over the years as he ascends the dog-year ladder. I guess we know where to find her belts from now on, Pet Smart.




I was randomly thinking the other day that water has to be the most powerful “thing” in the entire world. It has the power to clean but it's also the destroyer of many things it comes in contact with, fire, paper, electronics, people, and the ladder also makes it fatal all the while a life source for underwater animals and fish. It is relaxation therapy with the sound of its crashing waves topping the chart of every sound machine available on the market and its soothing abilities as a hot bath releasing tension from achy muscles or the stress of a hard day at work or an icy blast of relief in a pool on a dog-day of summer. Water, in moderation, plays God on many levels for the necessary role it plays for plants to grow and for humans to survive. Water is rain, that which falls outside and also inside ones soul.


The hubs asked me what I wanted for Valentines Day and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing a little. He is notorious for asking about things in advance, my favorite albeit pet peeve is when he asks me what I want for dinner while or right after I have just finished breakfast. My answer usually goes something like this, “Well, I don’t know, can I eat/digest my first meal of today before thinking about my last?” I almost wanted to answer in the same manner about how I’d like to recover from Christmas before thinking about the next giving holiday, but instead I came up with something I think we both desperately need far more than sarcasm, a weekend away together. While I haven’t read of any such known power, I am hoping that the Shenandoah Valley is able to offer us, along with amazing photo opportunities, equestrian entertainment, and the quaint Olde Town colonial shopping experience of the cobble-stoned Friendship Circle, some much-needed healing and renewal.

Rain, With a Chance of Torrential Downpours

I can already confidently cross off several things on my resolution list—and sadly, it’s only January 7th. The "Positive Thinking" flew out of the window when the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve. The “Do something new everyday” that I so eagerly lifted from my friend’s list was a crash a burn. After the first 3 days I found myself too busy and forgetting to do something new or simply not having the strength to muster the creativity to think of anything new. This New Year couldn’t have come at a more uninspiring time in my life. I even sealed last year with a reading of “The Alchemist” known to be the “book that comes along each decade that changes the lives of its readers forever,” and I was left with nothing.
No inspiration. No optimism. No sense of renewal. I do plan to give this novel another visit at a future date, but what I had hoped to gain from this book was swallowed by my present feelings of defeat. But oh, you say, this should be the best time of your life. You’ve recently gotten married and now have a bundle of joy on the way, and you’re right, one would think that this would be one of the pivotal highlights of my life, and yet, there are so many other burdens clouding this vision that I cannot see past the rain.

Of course, to begin, there is the common third trimester agitation of wanting my own body back from the discomfort of not being able to lean forward to enjoy a meal without my stomach getting in the way, the hip pain that comes from the daily regimen of sleep, the back pain due to the asymmetry of my protruding stomach, and the constant urge to release my bladder.

To compound this problem I have been having routine biopsies done on a batch of pre-cancerous cells that plagued my body early last year. I had an initial surgery to remove them hoping that would take care of the problem but soon after I found out that I was pregnant, before I hit my 6-month check-up mark from my surgery, it was discovered that the cells had returned, and better yet, more aggressively. The cells that have invaded me run on a scale from 1-5. 1 being considered “abnormal,” then there is 2,3, and 4, and finally 5, which is cancer. Last year, these cells were at a solid 2 and since then they have increased to level 3, a mere level away from cancer. The good news is that the baby is now big enough where if my results from yesterdays biopsy prove to be cancerous, he is at what is considered a healthy weight and size to easily survive living outside of the womb with proper medical attention, should they need to take him in order to get me started on immediate treatment. Should all go well and the cells remain under control at a steady level 3 or even 4, then I will simply have another surgery to remove them after we are introduced to Wyatt for the first time. In the meantime, what this means for me is numerous biopsies which get more and more painful the further I am along, as well as the sheer torture of waiting for the results of how these cells are progressing.

I’m in agreement on your thought about my having just gotten married, although I certainly don’t feel married. My husband’s current job has him working and living over an hour away from me, which may not seem like much, but between both of our jobs and each of out children, the time we have available to actually travel those few miles to spend time with one another is limited to about one day per week.
I spend most nights with the sound of the ticking clock in my living room and my dog, my nose glued to the pages of whatever book I have available for my mind to temporarily escape the loneliness that eats me up inside. Gives whole new meaning to my blog title of "The Lone Reed" doesn't it? I feel, even though technically speaking I am not, that I am going through yet another pregnancy, alone. The lack of time spent with my husband has taken a severely negative toll on me and to make matters worse because of our physical distance we have become spiritually distant from one another as well and spend many conversations in argument about the most trivial of things, yet when we're together what becomes painfully obvious is just how desperately we miss each other.

These past few difficult months have reflected on my graduate school work and I ended up with my first “C” in the one class that my fall schedule had dwindled down to after dropping a few others that I simply couldn’t handle with everything else going on. The graduate program at my University holds that any student who receives a grade lower than a “B” must be reviewed for continuance, meaning the panel could decide that I am not a suitable match for their graduate program and dismiss me altogether, and along with that, my career goals, all of my hard work up to this point, not to mention any and all student loans that I have financially accrued. The continuance hearing is supposed to take place this month.

This is honestly, just to name a few of the things that are constantly running through my mind. I could add to this list several others that include but are not limited to finances, anxiety over the new baby, and dissatisfaction with my employment, again, just to name a few, but what is the use. To see all of this laid out in black and white just enhances the depression that has already started to wash over me. Perhaps rather than crossing off “Thinking Positive” from my resolution list, I should cross everything else off and solely work towards this goal in hopes that a little change in thinking might help me make sense of all of this. Then again, maybe not.