Motivation: quiet, loud, guilty, and other.

I am really working the whole procrastinating thing today. Working as in neglecting to do, working as in putting off, working as in revising my to-do list instead of doing my to-do list.

I haven't felt guilty about it until I've put pen to paper (which, to be honest, I'm not really doing that either), so I've really not completely felt even a modest amount of guilt until right about... now. Hollow keys, hollow sound, undone work.

#HMPH

I like to think there is a sort of scale where intention to act, action, and continued action/completion are clearly delineated, that every intention to act gets you closer to doing the thing you said you'd do. That the itching, inkling, almosting thing is really work. We can call this quiet motivation. It's really the polar opposite of procrastination, though they look remarkably similar.

Loud motivation is like my kid, or a thunderstorm, perhaps both. I woke up at 5:15 this morning. I had NO motivation to do so. Thunder decided it was time for that. So I woke up, but I woke up in that way that really mirrors sleep in that my eyes were closed, the covers were over my head, and the curtains were as taut as a young drum. My child then woke up. Enter loud motivation: I DONT LIKE THUNDER MUMMAH. I NEED AN OUTFIT MUMMAH. Thunder had much to say too. Think of the scale, mentioned previously, loud motivation is an element of that scale too, moving you perhaps not from motivation to act, to action, but from each section of the scale (and backwards too) depending upon your own predisposition to loudness.

Guilty motivation is an ever-constant non-companion. I have it various points of the day, the hour, the month. It supports me looking for a higher salaried job, it causes me to think about how often or infrequent I see my Mom. It likes to do that part most. And I haven't seen her in weeks. Given that I'm not sure where I'm at in my motivation to act/action grid. Perhaps I'm under it.

Which leads me to the other type of motivation: hungry.

I have been known to be a hungry person, both with regard to what I eat (I get away with caloric murder to not be at least now, morbidly obese) with regard to books (I ate the story of HELA in less than 2 days) and with cultural stuff... I won't detail my curiosity about what folks do around the world with their own placentas, but I could.

Hungry motivation, at least mine, is thoughtless, reckless and thoughtful. It is full of want and need, and can be quiet guilty and loud. But it infrequently turns off, and reluctantly goes to bed. It's a major part of who I am...

It's my greatest burden, and biggest too. But definitely greatest.I'm hungry as hell. And that means something. But back to neglecting my to do list. And time to see Mummi. Some other stuff too. Time to walk the grid/plank/whatever it is.

D

A quieting and disquieting thought; all at once.

In the middle of balancing my budget (particularly foliowing this latest ended affair as a career grad student) I've realized I need to make some necessary reductions. Some are clearly trickier than others: think grande soy-lattes and weekly hair appointments. They're simply NOT going anywhere... and neither are certain other costs: that of my daughter's and my mother's long-term care (education or otherwise).

Fortunately I'm only 2 or so years away from my daughters astounding-but-worth-it daycare (think college) tuition bills being greatly reduced (suburban public pk2, here we come), that is should we not give her the baby sister she's been requesting, but I realize given my parents age, and the urbane gruffness of their lives, some costs will only rise in time. Largely that of my mom's long term care. It sounds, perhaps cold to think of it that way, but I'll admit, I do, and I have for a very long time. It is expensive, will get expensive, and like my daughter's care, will always be more than worth it.

I perhaps am thinking of it most at this time, as a very close friend of mine lost his own parent abruptly. Like my own mom, his parent too had a long term and chronic mental health diagnosis. His parent (dad) was in the care of family. He was loved, beloved even. And like I've made mention to in previous blog posts, persons with more serious and largely less stable mental health diagnoses, tend to lose their lives sooner, by nearly 25 or so years. Unfortunately, this week, his dad became part of that number.

And while I sit here, nearly numb from how sudden the loss is of this dear and sweet soul (and his is a profound spirit), I also think of the woman, my mother, who raised me as best she could, and whose eyes mirror my own, and whom my daughter looks too for silly talk and kooky knit hats, one day needing more of me than she needs now, or worse, one day not being here to need me at all. And while it doesn't scare me per se, its a quieting and disquieting thought all at once. An inevitable and dis/quieting thought.

And I'll plan for it, and I'll hope for it not to come, but it will just the same.

Dry spell. Don't laugh. Or do. But read.

I think with my recent graduation, and with the enormous heartsong of a card my father gave me, and a coming of age/coming to terms with that relationship, I essentially ran out of words for a few days.

I realize that's fine, and we can/should learn to live and be in happiness however quiet or resounding it is, but this silence has made me feel more uneasy, more questioning, more moreness. And I'm a little-too-much most days as is.

I've been thinking about what true-value this blog brings to folks who read it, folks who know me, and, based on analytics the folks who read and don't know me in Alaska, in Iran (hi friends), those referred from Facebook, from LinkedIn (hi future employers and colleagues).

I have been wondering how and if it is OK that I'm unsure if and how my brand of caregiving fits what folks may remember caregiving looking like, months ago, years ago. Some of my caregiving ends with the last four digits of my social, some of its in urgent-care centers, most of it is on weekends, and in late night phone calls. Some of it will always and only be in my heart.

I remember conversations with my now 92 year old (feisty and cussy) grandmother. Caregiving for her as a nurse was round-the-clock, tiresome. It threatened to grove her even-now perfect skin in sockets, deepen her already deep set eyes. Caregiving for family was even more tiresome, though she never called it that, it was simply, a duty.

I wonder how much it is for me. I'll admit, I don't know about that. It's more magnetic, puling and pushing me at the same time.
And I wonder, for my readers, for my Facebook friends and Family (hi Pauls and Prasads) if that is also ok, in the this is legitimate sense, this is not burdensome of a read sense, and in a this is helpful sense.

I think that's the point.
I'm getting there.

Ultimately, however, I've been thinking, and I'll likely keep doing so.
In the interim, I'll be caregiving, which today looks like ordering fresh edamame Mummi will turn her nose up to.
I'll be coordinating the delivery. Emailing my father to support him in her care. I will be worrying too, but I don't clock those hours.

Profound to me.

The truth about caregiving...

Sike.

I have no truth. I have a short-story though.

I've been semi-battling with the legitimacy of this being a true caregiver blog in that:
1. Mummi doesn't live here
2. I write almost extensively about me/our past/my kid and her
3. some other shit too.

And I've not come to some meaningful and communicable point about where I stand with that, or if it is a true issue and not a created one...

#hmph

I'ma let this be my boring post for the weekend. Brief too. Unless I think of something else.

#ImFried
#Iwont.

-D

My mother makes hats, sometimes my father makes things too.

As many may know, I graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine over the weekend. I'm no medical doctor, but I'll save my accomplishment for another day, another blog. It's really not the event of focus, though it provided an opportunity for one; a really really big one at that.

So, I guess I'll start from the top/bottom, whichever.

I didn't grow up with my dad, really. I kind of almost didn't grow up with anyone at all. Excrutiatingly long story short, I'll say this: things didn't start out well, and if they did, I don't remember them 100%. I lived with my mom in a studio apartment. Sometimes we lived on the street. Later I lived with my Gram. And I did so, stably for eleven years. I saw my parents on weekends. In week long bursts sometimes. Sometimes they could handle it/me. Sometimes they couldn't.

But, I knew why. My mother was, as we all referred to her, "sick".
I told folks she had a chronic disease. To some I said she passed away. In my heart, on some days, she had. In my heart, some days, it would have been so much easier if she did. It wasn't right, but it was how I felt.

And I had those folks who hated my parents for how bad they'd done me. Leaving me. And so, I was for years anti-parents, or actually, anti my parents. I kind of had to be. Perhaps, during those years, I was dead to them too. Perhaps it would have made their pain less burdensome.

I never really allowed the blame I had to truly extend toward my mom, never allowed it to seep and spread, disease-like into my soul. It remained topical. Treatable. Seasonal. I got over it enough to remind myself;you know, she's not well. I saw (and still see) mental illness as a chronic disease. A hardship.

But I was so very angry with my father. I called him (if I needed to refer to him at all)) by his first name. I avoided him. Downtown Boston. Places we'd walked during the lean years. I encouraged additional lean years. I couldn't forgive him the loneliness. The separation. The never really fighting for me. The weeks where I hadn't heard from them at all. I needed to blame him.

And some of the blame (much of it) was rightly oriented. Logical. Appropriate, if blame can be these things. I didn't later realize I was mistaken, that it was misdirected. It was all true. They were wrong and I was hurt.

And so, some things I needed to recover from. And I did, in a few year long journey that isn't actually over, but has ceased my need to blame, or to get back at. And now that part of my life is over.

And I graduated. And I invited him. And this, unlike the last graduation I had, didn't involve the police, or handcuffs, or embarrassment, or unhappy tears. But a tall freckled man, with large grey-brown eyes, and a silvering afro waving from the right of the stage as he watched his only surviving child receive her diploma.

Later, I'd find he wandered the campus for hours, both to ensure he wasn't duped, that he wouldn't find out about his unwelcomeness, to ensure he was on time. Later, I'd read a card I'd refer to as the best gift I've ever been given besides my daughter herself. A card that read:

"Every time you glance at this card//I want it to remind you that your presence in this world//is a wonderful thing//I want you to come home to this card in all the seasons ahead//I want you to feel a flow in your heart//just from knowing that you never//ever have to wonder if you're in someones thoughts//or if there's anyone out there who//truly and lovingly appreciates you..."

And I can't alter this harrowed and harrowing past.
And I can't go from calling him by his name to calling him dad.
And I can't change that we once walked the street, and ignored each others footsteps.

But I've graduated from a place of where he is a monster and my heart was full of holes.
And I can't imagine a happiness larger than what I have now.

And I don't even want to.

Random recall. 270 Huntington Avenue.

I was 9 when I left my mother. Our studio apartment on Huntington Avenue. The Tobin School. My two (first) cats: Kitten Pepper Randolph, and Lady. When I lost my favorite book: Henrietta Wild Woman of Borneo. When I first and last lived in a place called home. In the original sense. I moved to Roxbury. To Cambridge. To Newton. To Southern Florida. To Brighton/Allston, places with and without space to park a car, or fly a kite. I moved to Harlem. A suburb outside (way outside) of Boston. In just that order. Sometimes twice.


I've lived in my share of houses. In places I've decorated with the same African gods, princesses, masks my daughter makes eyes at; masks my daughter knows are mine. That's YOU Mummah!


I've lived alone. With men. College friends. In a shared and a silent bed. I've had a family, grown well above and beyond the confines of a small space on Huntington Avenue.


And yet, when I walk by 270 Huntington (and I have, and I do, both in my mind and in the flesh), I remember, as if randomly, but more purposeful and poignant, less polite, more profound:

How many winding steps I once took to get to our apartment. How the lighting was so dim it was my first analogy of a country-fog. How it felt to be hungry, over-full. How it felt for your tears to swell and seep into your ears when laying in bed causing a warm and hallowed near-deafness. How to later listen with a hungry ear to the wall, when the neighbors played Harlem Blues. How it came to be that I'd love cats, and loathe pigs, and learn to smile though my head was full of city sounds. How I was, and will be if forever only in my heart: a small, city, child.


And, of course, how Mummi mothered me, even when she could barely mother herself
But she did.
As well she/we could.

Sniffle. A bug perhaps. Karma. Ultimately: A bad day. I think. I dunno.

This morning semi-sucked. I mean that. If one can be firmly committed to mediocrity. #shrug.

But it did. Kinda. Maybe. I dunno.

I woke up worried about my karma (yes for real). About putting things out into the universe that I am not ready to accept (i.e. consequences, injustice) cause I have perhaps fallen from the throne of responsible, perhaps made a prank call, something so unserious but that has me worrying about my fall from the stellar. I semi-wondered if my eyelash extensions were holding up well enough for this week. If I could realistically buy a new dress, tell my grandmother I started and am completing another masters degree (uhh, as of this week completing it) without her knowledge. So much stuff, such little motivation. #anothashrug

any way, I woke up to the reality of Zora calling me to her bedroom. B is in CA so it really was just the 800 of us (if you count the cats/ants). Walked into her room and... well, its hard to be worried about Karma and other assorted neo-soul-yogi-vodoo when your kid is this cute/this bubbly. And well, this itchy too.

#WTF?

Z: I'm itchy mummah
Me: Ok baby. (I'm ignoring it in a mom kinda way)
Z: NO Mummah, I"M ITCHY. (In a this-shit-is-serious-even-if-I'm-is-2 kinda way)

My child had a damn tick in her back.

I call the doc, who laughed at me (we live in the western suburbs). I call Brian who is in CA and its technically 5 AM there or so (he adapts quickly to time change), he sounds like its 5 am or so there.

I cry. Zora cries.

I call the doc for the 3rd time. She reiterates how OK and normal this is. I urge otherwise. I also get the tick (or most of it) out.

Zora thanks me. Most likely not for crying, but for being as good a mom as I can given my bad-damn-karma. I decide we'll tip the whatever the tipable thing is in the proper direction and go see my Mummi.

She looks thinner every time I see her. Her eyes look a lil dimmer too. I remember now, how in a recent office meeting, someone mentions that people with mental illnesses die about 25 years younger than folks who are "without" a diagnosis. I almost do the math. I'm interrupted by a smile my mother saves just for my daughter. I can only count her beautiful teeth.
Zora waits knowingly for her strange-bag of luck/love.

She also knows, we're not going upstairs. We won't be greeted with tea. We won't await Nana's attention as she skims AARP mail. We'll meet in the car. We'll love in a very small space. We'll leave before it gets too intense. Perhaps we'll drive. But we'll say I love you a dozen (or more times). These are our visits.

But Zora knows especially, most importantly, to be gentle, always gentle with Nana.

When we leave/post-car-visit, Zora asks to roll the window down. She says as dramatically as Nana needs to hear it:

I love you Nana. I neeeeeeeeed you Nana.
Nana smiles through tears.

And when we drive away, Zora asks me in a very small voice: Hold your hand Mummah?I yoga-bend backwards and drive one armed as my response. But a few achy moments in, ask why she needed this now.

A few second pause: I can't see the blue sky Mummah. mumble, mumble. The bug bit my back. mumble, mumble. I want banana juice.

But I know what she means. Karma. A bug. some other shit. I know baby.

I'm blue today too.