Patience

I walked around the back of my property today, a quick consolation. The dog on a leash following me, picking her way through blackberries recently flattened by snow but no less sharp. It felt good to poke around back there and to imagine keeping a path open through the underbrush simply by walking it daily. I have been in a weird mood lately. Anxious and nervous, sad and sullen. The weather has been unusually cold for about 6 weeks and it's been hard to get out and walk everyday. I am deeply afraid of slipping and falling, perhaps cracking my skull open. I step and slip and stop myself with large jerking gestures that rip at my muscles and tweak my neck and shoulders, the body losing control while the brain sits idly by. Everything feels uncertain and the little tears seem to welcome bigger worries and my brain is all too willing to entertain fantasy horrors. On Friday I felt too weak to ride my exercise bike and while the forecast was for warmer temperatures they were slow coming. I felt so tired after waking early I ended up asleep on the couch at 9 am when I am usually going to work. My regular walking partner came by around noon and despite the cold we forced ourselves out and took our walk. She struggles with anxiety and depression too so we were able to talk about the spiraling down process as we went along. My legs felt weak and wobbly the result of a virus that lives down deep in me and flares up at those times when I am vulnerable and the light is low. It's like water flowing down seeking the smallest openings, the places you can't see or even feel sometimes. It's dreadful and precarious and I think about the long sleep. We shared a light lunch after our walk and I gave myself permission to rest and watched a movie. Eventually I planned a meal and drove to town to shop. I prepped and cooked and laid back down to wait for my husband and daughter to arrive. I watched a documentary about photographer Vivian Maier and then one about Maya Lin. The weekend came and went, I skated on a perfectly frozen lake and again on an indoor rink. My husband got the cold my daughter and I have had. I am home alone again back in my studio meeting with clients. It's raining now, the ice is melting and soon I will be able to walk daily, to do the thing I am designed to do.

Road Trip to the Past

 Big sky and supplies at Lac La Hache

I wanted to go to Smithers. I didn't want to go to Smithers. All summer long we were allegedly going to Smithers. The drive is scary to me, it's long and the highway is undivided most of the way. It's lonely and empty and dusty and it can be hot or very cold and sometimes icy and always bumpy and under construction. The logging trucks and transport trucks are plentiful, huge and vicious. The first several hours of the drive seems to be straight uphill with the river below you on one side and a crumbling rock face above you on the other side. My head hurt, we couldn't listen to music, I was worried about the car making the trip, I was worried about being stranded in a hostile landscape in a country that has become foreign to me. I worried about my dog back at home in the kennel. In the video clips of our first night at Lac La Hache I can see how I have my hand over my mouth surveying the scene, trying to sort out what to do first. The next scene is of the tent set-up and I know by then I had had a beer and was feeling better. The clips of the following morning I look more relaxed, by the time we reached Smithers, 9 hours later, the video shows me warmly embracing my family members who had also come for the Centennial of our little town. We had made it, alive.

One of many roadside shrines to those who have died along the Yellowhead 16

Wellness

I had a migraine on Tuesday brought on by whatever causes these things. I felt horrendous for about 18 hours and then after the pain subsided I was left with rising anxiety and severe heart palpitations accompanied by acute self awareness spiked with massive dread. These feelings rise up in me and I get thrown off, I feel lost and afraid to be alone. And then as quickly as they arrive the feelings disappear and the intense despair is replaced by my normal happy outlook, keen to embrace the day in all it's mundane wonder and I am left wondering if any of it really happened. 2 versions of the same picture sliding apart and then back together overlapping each other calmly. Fortunately for me I have an extraordinary partner and friends who have known way more misery than I ever will and they are always nearby when I need them most. My work is busy again and to counterbalance the stress of being creative for a living I have been helping my good friend in her garden. I am going once a week. We have a little visit and discuss this and that and then I help her with a few tasks. On my way home last week I felt an overwhelming sense of well-being. I am well. Well I am.

A new path.

12/12/12. An auspicious day perhaps. I picked up this book after clawing my way through a particularly bad week. I was stuck in the throws of an anxiety attack that was making it hard to walk when I went into the local library and spied this book. I sat and read the first 30 pages and confirmed that I was not in fact losing my mind, my memory, my ability to speak, and to walk. I felt hopeful for the first time in a long time. My hormones are out of whack and I have to take control of the situation because the toll it is taking on me is ridiculous. I had a flash a few days before the 12th that maybe I was missing the point of Perimenopause, that maybe it isn't an end, it's a beginning. A chance to really experience our collective wisdom as women. This book shares that notion. The book is very straightforward in its approach. 6 easy steps including detoxification, diet, exercise, treatments and supplements, and mind body work. It all makes good sense and presents this phase as manageable if not even potentially filled with opportunities for greater understanding of ourselves resulting in less depression and anxiety and fewer health complaints in general. So expect to hear more about this. It's a pretty closeted subject I think and it's a pretty tough experience for many woman who choose not to medicate for the individual complaints, or are unable to recognize that all of those component parts make up the whole picture of Perimenopause. It's baffling to begin with and then shocking how extreme the symptoms can become. So I am going to start to document a little more closely what I am eating and how I am feeling and try a few treatments and supplements as well as exercising a bit more. Let's not kid ourselves, being happy and alive is a lot of work.

Falling in

September 5th. I feel a bit contracted but I also feel kind of stoked. I'm worried about money but I also feel like there is endless potential work if I just flip the switch. My mood is up but I feel nervous about that too because it changes so quickly but mostly I have been trending up into that good place where I feel both happy and calm, if I can battle the anxiety I will have achieved a trifecta of sorts. The days are shortening at both ends but it's most noticeable in the morning when I awake in the darkness. My mid morning walks have been refreshing and warm once I get out to the road where there is more sun. There are spider's webs everywhere and yesterday I picked an albino woolley bear off my car tire in an effort not to squash it. The edges of the road are dry and crunchy and when I go to feed the hens there are more leaves down, they are mostly green but getting yellower by the day. Have finally begun to sleep better after a long stint of not being able to achieve that deep state of unconsciousness. It wears me down so and weakens my mind, I feel frayed and bare after a while. As you can see by the start date of this post I have been a bit slack. On the other hand I have been working and the kid is back at school and the routine has been good despite the first day when I felt like I was falling into a big pit of sameness. A week or so has passed and my happy state seems to be taking hold. I can honestly say I am looking forward to fall.

Layering

Painting detail 5/25/12

Last Thursday I burned the red beans I was cooking while a man was rumored to be holding his family hostage a few miles from my house. I imagined at gun-point. On Friday with my skin still smelling of the burned beans I melted down and spent the weekend puffy-eyed and pale while my family simultaneously stroked my hair and avoided me. As scary as my mood swings are to me they must be terrifying to those around me. On Sunday I confided to my dad that I had been having a rough week. He has these rough patches too, we all do. On the bright side I did not hurt myself or take anyone hostage, and after a few rounds of Bananagrams Friday night we were able to laugh about the debacle of the day, the misunderstandings, and I think we may have all experienced teachable moments. I slept so hard that night that I didn't know where I was and on Saturday morning when I visited my stepmother and suddenly found myself trying to hack up a lung like I had TB, my stepmother who is struggling to get her words organized easily uttered "pollen". I agreed because it felt too hard to say no, it's a chunk of grief passing through me, but I feel certain I am going to be okay.

During my painting class on Friday I could feel myself relaxing into the work. The technique seen here involves creating a quick and simple gestural layer followed by subsequent layers of warm and cool colors all applied with tons of water. It's pure magic watching the image emerge.

Drawing from Life

Detail from 5/22/12 

Had my second life drawing meeting at UFO Studios yesterday, my drawings were nothing short of awful. Today I spent some time looking at David Hockney's early work and felt better about everything. The woman who hosts the class has a very predictable style which is slightly intimidating to someone just coming in to the group. I remind myself that she draws everyday. my skills might improve if I drew a bit each day, who knows. The interesting thing to me is the pleasure I get from drawing, even badly and how much I like some aspects of what I have put down on the paper. The host announced a "Drawing Pathologies" class where they look at the hidden meanings in your work based on your approach. I am not sure I will attend but I have an idea what my strokes might indicate. Each drawing is very different suggesting an absence of attachment, the bodies are out of proportion which could indicate my lack of knowledge of my own form and finally the filled in backgrounds might mirror how interested I am in knowing what someones back story is. This might not be fodder for a good draftswoman, maybe they are better skills for a party planner. At any rate I am struggling a little at the moment and going to these classes takes my mind off things. It's cheaper than therapy and honestly I am not that interested in sitting in someone's office weeping about it all. I'd much rather have a quick cry in the car on the way to class and then go make a mess quietly in a group of strangers who are devotees of the instructor and barely pay attention to me. I know what my problems are, I know what I need more of and less of. The hardest part is when my anxiety gets me pinned and I feel like the only way out is so final. The feelings pass but being held down by the black mass is frightening in the moment because it feels like my normal life will never return, it's hard to not want to do something, anything to make it all stop. In those moments I have to tell myself, this too shall pass. This too shall pass, and it generally does.

Next Up

It's been awhile since I thought too far into the future. Caring for an elder means you live in the moment and that is where we have been for the past 8 years. Living day by day, week by week. Today my horoscope says to fantasize about a thrilling adventure you will have one day; and imagine who you want to be three years from now. I am pretty sure I still want to be me but a less worried version. In fact I am less worried these days, work is better and my general outlook continues to improve. I used to worry about losing my ambition and sinking into the couch like lost change. But dammit if I didn't get happier and then I started getting ideas again about doing things and making things and it turned into some kind of medicine for my poor tortured soul. I have actually been toying with a 5 year plan again which I have not done for some time. The last one came around the time of a grand-mal seizure I had in 1991, the same night Rodney King was beaten senseless by the Sylmar police. I lived in Sylmar then, what were the odds? I was stressed out and exhausted. My husband at the time was in the throes of some horrible anxiety disorder that made it impossible for him to leave the house. I lost my drivers license as part of the fall-out of the seizure and the one thing I needed him to do—drive me around—he could not do. I needed a plan so I made one. I concocted it late at night when I lay in bed afraid of falling asleep waiting for my brain to fail me, it involved moving away from my comfy job as an Art Director at A&M Records to create a life that was a mix of what I had known growing up in rural Canada and a car commercial that was playing on TV in 1991 for Isuzu, that involved a guy driving down a mountain side to get his mail. This spoke to me and so the 5 year plan took shape. It actually took about 4 years to realize but let's not split hairs. In the ensuing years things have happened in 4 or 5 year increments. This year marks 10 years that Mark and I have been together and 15 yrs since my mother died. So I am looking ahead. With Eddy no longer what we are planning around in the short term we can turn our minds to what we want to do next and it feels good and light despite the sadness. I have no answers yet, just some broad strokes and loads of ideas that I am not holding onto too tightly, rather I am watching them flip and fly and entice me to keep moving forward, coaxing coaxing.

Grocery Store Confessional

I got into one of those random conversations with a near stranger in the local Trader Joe's that got me thinking as I walked away. The cashier was speaking to the customer on line ahead of me. The cashier was confessing her lack of attendance at the gym where the customer worked. I piped up and said I have to admit I have never had a gym membership. It's true I am not a gym person, I go occasionally but not religiously like some, I prefer my long rather meditative walks. The cashier cocked her head and said well you're lucky, you're naturally slim. I scoffed at this a bit and it got me thinking.

I am tall, at over 6 feet, I am 60% leg. I weigh between 182 and 190lbs depending on what season I am in. I do not consider myself slim, in fact I most often see myself as slightly pudgy. In reality I am not fat. I have a round belly but my arms and legs are long and fairly free of fat. I have a flat ass, I can't sit on hard chairs without my it hurting. I recognize that my perception of myself may not accurately reflect my physical reality but maybe that's a good thing. Honestly I try not to think about my body as I find my size sort of freaky.

I am not going to confess an eating disorder here, I don't have one. What I am realizing though is that I don't see food as convenient entertainment, I see it as a necessity and it's preparation an artful practice that is orderly and logical and subject to much control. I am not a faddist. I am trying to maintain a healthy body and I have strict beliefs about how to do that. I have that quote on my fridge and the fridges I frequent, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants". I think before I put things in my mouth and there are many things I simply won't eat any longer. I buy whole foods, meat, cheeses, grains, fruits and vegetables. I have fewer and fewer presto fallback foods. I still get that feeling of wanting something naughty like a doughnut or cake, I generally want the bready or the doughy but if I can just think about it awhile in a rational way I can usually easily dissuade myself from the craving.

Consequently I think a lot about food and what I should eat to keep my intake well balanced and interesting. I have the big picture in my head of what I have generally been eating and what I have eaten on any given day. I carry the macro and the micro view around with me, always weighing the findings. Have I had enough beans or grains, enough cold water fish, too much dairy, too much salt, not enough protein? At the moment I am attempting to train myself away from white flour and sugar which when I went at it hard core before Christmas yielded a 5lb weight loss which was a pleasant side effect. More importantly I noticed that my general anxiety was much less severe because my blood sugar levels were more constant, this is what truly motivates me, a feeling of calm.

I have been accused of being controlling and it's probably true but in a world where we have so little control over most things I feel okay about controlling how I am feeling through diet and exercise. I am less concerned about how I look since my view is fairly distorted anyway it's hard to gauge. If I feel good hopefully I look all right and if my 501's fit me that's ideal. It's funny to realize that others make these assumptions about a person's body. If only that cashier knew that I spend my day weighing and considering what to eat making sure never to have too much, denying myself all sorts of things in the name of physical and emotional enlightenment.

Untitled

So it's day 13 of the meat bird project and day 24 of the 90 Day Novel. I hope I don't confuse the two. I jut moved the chicks out of their stock tub into a child's swimming pool which felt like pure genius to me as the tractor I have for them felt too big and drafty. The pool offers some additional protection. I had one death yesterday, probably from  a heart attack due to rapid growth. These birds are genetic freaks, their thick post like legs tell the tale. I continue as I am told, to imagine the world of my story, the characters are emerging like slow moving zombies out of the primordial ooze. I am still distracted so I am reading the The War of Art which is all about resistance. It encouraged me to blog today because as we know too well not blogging is akin to becoming constipated. I have issues but I am trying to train my mind away from them and toward the world of the story. It's more interesting.

Looking forward

I was in this place again with my little family feeling all grateful and happy like eating a comforting and healthful soup. No news, no internet, no endless facebook updates, no regrets. Another summer is coming to a close, like a good novel it had it's ups and downs. I am still fragile, more so than I probably care to admit but I think change does this to me. Things are changing. Fall is coming, the kid is changing, the old man is changing, my parents are changing, it's a lot to reconcile in 2 short months. Fall is a time of renewal too and I am eternally optimistic about everything, including my ability to rebound to the person I want to be again. I have plans to reno my bedroom, sewing projects, knitting projects and more portraits that perhaps I could show somewhere, someday. I really believe that we can all be happy in spite of the trajectory we are all on, hurtling toward infirmity and sure death. As long as there are calm lakes to swim in I'll be fine.

Derailed

Sometimes it just doesn't pay to go out in public. I was supposed to give blood yesterday but my Blood pressure was off the charts so they sent me home. The funniest part about it was the nice guy who took my vitals trying to make sense of me telling him I was anxious and nervous. He reminded me that I knew them and that I should feel okay but what he couldn't see or hear were the alarms going off inside in my body fueled by hormones, lack of sleep, feelings of fear and confusion and all of it lined up like a parade marching band of all cymbals clanging and marching and no one in step and I was smiling and nodding and acting like maybe it could be okay but my heart was pounding and that part he could clearly hear. He was right to send me home. I needed to rest. My body knew it needed to rest. As stated here previously I do not vacation well and I had just returned from an entire week away from home. An entire week of not sleeping well, eating crap and drinking more booze and less water than normal, and not exercising or doing any of the activities I had planned to do to quell my black soul. So there I sat behind a vinyl partition, pulse racing, once again choosing duty to a faceless blood blank over my own well being. My self which often feels like a flaccid appendage of my body seems to cause so much trouble at times and needs so much fucking attention and care that it's astounding. So I came home and instead of throwing myself on the couch I went to my office and thought about doing things I like and I made a sketch of a Chuckbox that I could build from wood and glue and it would keep me organized while camping and it felt like a good compromise between my hands and my head, and for my heart I will remember to sleep, to read, and paint, and walk or run so that I don't explode, at least not just yet. This helped too.

Disruption

Sample of grass collected during the walk.

I hate the dogs who come barking, biting and bitching as I walk. They hurl themselves down bucolic driveways, from rest on sundecks, snarling and lunging until they hit invisible walls of electricity or lengths of rope. I am peaceful as I go along because that is my mission, the goal of the whole activity to clear the poisonous slackitude from my mind and the road complies. It stretches itself out straight and open with only one big turn which I can easily navigate with my narrow body, narrow dog on narrow leash at my side. I look up and down as I go, noticing the grasses, Buttercup, Skunk Cabbage, the beginning of Indian Paintbrush and so many more silent road residents whose names I don't know. Do they know my name as I pass by occasionally stopping to yell "back-off" at the charging retrievers? What is the point of this walk, designed to calm me if my blood pressure shoots up while my body tenses forming and expelling the words that I launch not really toward the dogs at all but at the house they have emerged from. Hoping the words will drift along with the cottonwood fluff and be heard by the woman who lives there. What I wish she could experience are the jagged spikes as my heart pounds against my chest, feel them like sharp jabs in her temples. As I wait for the car—that I know is approaching—holding my breath as it rushes up to us and meets the dogs now in the middle of the road. Will today be the day they get hit? I am always surprised by how loud I can yell in these situations. It stops the dogs, perhaps saves their lives and I move on following the freshly mowed edge of the road with my eyes but still conscious of my disturbed heart.

Looking busy

Recently completed coat.

Try to keep busy. Apparently after all these years of existence this is all we can collectively come up with to keep our minds off what troubles us. Be it religious genocide, eternal strife, impending death or absent children. Keep busy the chorus sings. I sew to fill the time between doing client work and lying motionless on the couch, my mind running wild with scenarios of danger cooked up from the local news and periodic viewings of crime shows. Pearl is going off for a few days with her dad and I will practice the time honored tradition of keeping busy. I still remember the weight of responsibility the first night I spent with her and I took it on, my instinct to nurture and protect overtook me. So now you might think a few days off would be something I look forward to but instead it is just the opposite. I feel like the herding dog, left purposeless, panting and nervous at the gate waiting for its flock to return. My little flock of one who lays sleeping 15 feet away from me.

Off-Track

I'm easily stymied. If in between things, at the end of one thing and not quite ready to begin another thing, I drift. Until I am ready to engage my brain in focused thoughtful work I loiter in the kitchen and eat or mindlessly clean dog nose prints off the doors, or just sit and stare. I am easily distracted and what felt up a week ago now feels down. I don't want to cook, I don't want to start my taxes. I need to think of numbers and scenarios for a client that I may or may not want. The things I want to be doing are jammed up behind the things I should be doing which are in turn pushed up against the things I am not doing and so I can feel my mood spiraling into chaos. To make matters worse I ate a crappy fast food hamburger today, the worst in terms of self destructive behavior in my books. The sensible thing of course is to stop whining and take a walk or a ride or do the pilates DVD I bought but have yet to do. I feel better just writing this itchiness down somewhere, thanks for listening big empty blog void.

One positive note, I saw "Secretariat" and really liked it. Who doesn't love a good horse story.

Making Friends

In my perpetual quest for a satisfying life this question has been plaguing me lately. How do you make friends in a new town? As kids, if you move to a new place you have the arena of school in which to sample the various flavors of friends. As an adult if you move with your job, the workplace offers an instant supply of personalities to connect with. Time and routine also create friendships. I have lived in Whatcom County for 16 years and have made friends in a handful of places, the library, the grocery, post-office, the farmers market, work interactions.

Mark bought his place in Abbottsford with one singular reason in mind, to be closer to me. He works at home by himself as I do. 6 years have passed and I look around this town and think how the hell do we meet people here? Don't get me wrong, I have many friends. I am not forlorn and friendless unable to connect with other humans I just want some friends here in Abbottsford, someone to play cards with on Saturday night over drinks. It presents an interesting sociological problem. How do a couple of people in their 40's make friends in a town where they don't got to church or school, or even work, not to mention that we spend a lot of time away.

I am solution oriented personality so I think what can I do. What if I put a little flyer up around the hood that read, Professional married couple seeks similar for light social activity, cards, tennis, rides in a big red car, BBQ-ing. And our phone number. Seriously what would happen? Swingers is what comes to mind for me, freaks, and other lonely misfits. So sad, I need a friend, will you be my friend? It's more complicated than all that of course, developing friends.

I walk the dog in a park near us and occasionally I see someone who looks nice and we might stop and talk about dogs. But then it's time to go and it seems so socially awkward to suddenly blurt out, I need a friend here in town. Here's my card, call me anytime. Well not anytime because I am not actually here that often but sometimes I am. I met a woman with a really fat Weimaraner and thought okay now we're getting somewhere but she lived up the coast. Thwarted I was.

Yesterday I ran into a woman who attended the same dog obedience class as we did 4 years ago when Luna was a pup. She had a little fuzzball dog called "Butters", a name some of you will recognize from the long hours you spend watching "South Park". She barely recognized me but was happy to chat once I explained who I was again. The whole time we talked I was thinking, give her your number she is funny, you could be friends. She lives in town and probably has enough friends already, that's the other thing, by this age people seem to have all the friends they can manage, why take on more?

I have 259 friends on Facebook. According to Mashable this is the optimum number any one person can hope to interact with in a meaningful way, which really means that of that 259, about 40 of them actually participate regularly in normal FB activities, posting pictures, making status updates, sharing links. I like Facebook but it is a slightly empty experience after a time and sometimes I just want to encounter a real person. But how?

At my place we have friends near and far who are happy to come over. We go to town occasionally and meet friends there for music and meals and holiday parties. When we got to Vancouver we have a mix of friends and family we routinely encounter. Occasionally some of the Vancouver people pilgrimage out to Abbottsford but it is a long drive home especially if you have been well fed and watered. Our American friends don't come to Abbottsford often, I feel it is an imposition to invite people up because of the border crossing, not everyone is comfortable with the scrutiny and frankly some people just can't cross so I don't ask.

Again, what to do? Join something? A quilting group, museum boosters, tennis or running club. It all takes time. I just want to see some nice couple who sort of resembles us in natural fibers out with a dog and at the risk of coming across as completely strange, say hey there, need a friend? Me too, here's my card.

No time to blog

13 consecutive days of work, and no end in sight. I am emotional and anxious with a capital A. I need an ectomy of some sort, head-ectomy, heart-ectomy. If I can just get through the next few hours I will celebrate with a few pitchers of marguerita because, as you know, alcohol helps these conditions greatly. Perhaps a few moments face down on the lawn would be helpful, will try that. BRB

They're Back

It started again Friday night. I woke screaming and flailing, scaring the hell out of my sweet husband. It's not even a dream that does it, it's more like a sudden awareness that I am about to be attacked. What is this energy that plays in my brain at night? I used to love going to sleep but these days I am becoming more reluctant about falling into bed. I laid down for a nap on Saturday and was visited by that uneasy feeling of death brushing past me on the couch where I lay. I have been so calm lately, feeling good and yet when I lay down and go to sleep all the anxiety seems to seep out. Will think more about this and get back to you. Right now I have 4 decades of a timeline to finish in the book I am designing on the NW Washington Fair. We had a great pre-production meeting yesterday and I feel like we are in good hands with the printer but it wasn't enough to buy me a good nights sleep. My bed was a mess when I woke up today, twisted sheets and blankets, pillows strewn, ample physical evidence of my elusive terrors at play.

Change in Venue

Cross section of Russian nesting dolls, an apt illustration of my routine within a routine

I am naturally restless. I believe it's got something to do with my existentialist beliefs. On one hand my routine is what keeps me together, on the other hand the sameness sometimes feels like a noose around my neck. Where this feeling manifests itself the most is with teeth brushing. I am pretty committed to excellent oral hygiene but occasionally at bedtime I just don't have it in me to perform this small meaningless task. I see myself before the mirror growing old, brushing my teeth each night getting closer to death. It's heavy. But like everything in life there are dichotomies and dualities and the routines that horrify me at times are also enjoyable and keep me on the straight and narrow. "Off the streets, and out of the river," as my father says.

Mark comes to my place at the weekends and generally retires to his home north of the border on Mondays, at the latest Tuesday. This week was a little different and of course it got me thinking about this routine. Whilst out retrieving a pizza for us on Tuesday his car refused to start and so set into motion a particular chain of events. His Wednesday radio show at CITR in Vancouver was canceled and the whole week was altered.

I need to be delicate here in how I describe this because I would not want anyone to infer that I do not enjoy more than life itself being with my partner. I did however recognize this week how much I enjoy the time I spend completely alone at home during the week. Now granted I did consult my calendar and noted that I was in a particular phase of my menstrual cycle, irrational crankiness abounding. It was fun having Mark there on Wednesday, it was novel. We went to a friends house for a little birthday party. It's always nice to go out as a couple/family. Thursday found Mark replacing the baseboards in a few spots in the house that never had them, very helpful. I focused on work and stayed close to my office, and took a walk in the rain to try and calm my anxiety about additional cooking duties and the general chaos two more people in the small house generate. Friday came and we were all still together. I felt guilty about wanting to be alone in my routine and it made me realize just how lucky we both are that we have this amazing flexibility in our relationship.

Friday afternoon we packed up our stuff, tidied the house and set out north. Driving out of my driveway I felt relaxed and excited to be going somewhere else, a change of scene, a change in latitude albeit very small is comforting to me. Now I just have to work on my little control issues around the house. My mother had this too, she feared chaos and worked hard to keep it all under control. I do it too and it can be a lot of work and really hard on the people around me. I need the structure of the big routine and the small sub-routines with the addition of the occasional anomaly in the form of a side-trip away or surprise house-guests. The tooth-brushing still has to be done but it feels less desperate when done in different bathrooms, in different countries.