A Letter to A Friend

     If you've ever been through something traumatic, you've probably experienced the whole "I'd rather not repeat this story again" routine, so for the sake of time and energy, I am taking the liberty of sharing "A Letter to A Friend" written shortly after a brief hospital stay that encompassed my own NDE. (I didn't see a bright light, but I did face my own mortality, thus I share.)
     Lest this come across as trite, it was anything but...And while I can look back on it now and say "Thank God I dodged a bullet" in truth, I DO thank God, not simply for sparing my life (for it is my belief that life continues with or without a body), but for once again, lending that all too important ingredient of "perspective" that I think all of us secretly, sorely long for...

              (To my friend who reads my blog, you've already read this once, so skip ahead...Tomorrow's a new day.)

Dearest ___,

Been meaning to sit down and write for awhile, but as with our phone calls, so go our missives. (Some people you don't just "jot a note" to...right?)

For the past 3 days I've been in the hospital. How I got there is a story unto itself, but like Mary*, I got a good dose of silence.  Several times tonight I've awakened, to see the moon through my stain glass window and I start thanking God all over again, thinking "I'm HOME! Thank you God, I'm HOME!" I hear Minsky snoring next to me. I can walk down steps and throw myself on my big white Rosey dog...I don't think I was taking any of this for granted before, but they certainly take on all new depths of meaning now.

(*I am presently reading and re-reading the Gospel of Mary; a book voted out of the Bible by no doubt, well-intentioned men. If anyone had a friend in Jesus, it was this woman, thus her perspective is to me, worthy of intense study...how she dealt with his bodily departure from this planet, much less the pain and anguish she witnessed, is worthy of many a dissertation. AJ be warned.) 

The (hospital) stay itself wasn't bad. Because of the snow it was unusually quiet; when I checked myself in (at my dr's advice--go straight to ER), I was the only one there. I got in rather quickly. The techs and even administrators were peaceful (hoping to go home early I'm sure; I got there just before it all hit). My only bobble (to this point anyway) was with the CAT scan. I've never been one to get claustrophobic, but this time I did...Had more to do with the dyes they ran through my veins than anything. I nearly threw up and it triggered a panic attack, but once out (as they're looking at me like: "Go easy with the crazy girl") all was ok. I really do have such a tremendous respect for what those people have to do everyday.

Much as I begged "Please don't admit me. Check me out. Send me home. I've got a Jeep. I can drive through the snow and be back at the dr's office first thing tomorrow, after all, he's not gonna have time for me today anyway" Just make sure I'm not about to die or anything, then we can plan a scope tomorrow...

But they said uh-uh. No way.

I had lost way too much blood (which is what sent me there in the first place). They slapped that little band on my arm so fast it made my head swim. And then they slapped a second one to start cross checking blood types and donor bases.

I just kept thinking "But I'm not in pain...How serious could this be?"  Turns out that non-pain thing... BIG gift. But it has precious little to do with the overall of if you're going or staying on the planet. Matter of fact, it can be downright misleading.

Bottom line, I've been asking God for more depth, more meaning...to understand at all new levels the reasons for the lessons and the overall of this thing called life...Well, times like these sharpen your focus quicker than anything. Not that any of us sit around asking for painful lessons, but once in them, better yet through them...on the other side of them (be it this side or that) there's depth alright... Gives life a whole new meaning.

Even as I write, I stop to love on Minsky. I smile as Boo swooshes his tail around his bowl. I set my water glass down and throw my body on top of Rosey...These tiny things ...They are me. They are my life. Not the life everyone sees (save for the occasional blog reference). But I do these things 1000 times a day. May I never take a single time for granted...ever. Never again.

Furthermore, you know what kept me sane while IN the hospital? The fact that I had, just a few short weeks ago, sold a bit of gold and set the money aside for a farm hand to come a day or two a week. (OK. Let me back up...GOD kept me sane, but here's what God did for my monkey brain that helped)...Much as it PAINED me to think about my critters back home (AND during a blizzard, no less) I knew One person knew what to do...and WOULD!

Same person drove me TO the hospital. (I know. I have many who would; heck, I could've driven myself. I wasn't in pain. I was just low on blood.) But that same person was on hand, AND that same person kept saying "Don't worry. Got it covered. Don't worry." And because I knew he KNEW all my routines with the animals (when I feed them, what they like, be sure and count before closing them in at night) I was afforded a lot more peace.

It's the book I've been saying I was going to write...Well, consider it started.

Single folks in particular (though ALL folks really...for there are a lot of couples out there who are singles simply cohabiting...otherwise, total strangers) ...We need to know there's someone who could run our gauntlet....do our chores...Make sure our library books get returned...That sort of thing. 

More on this later...

Right now, my heart is so full of gratitude for being home...for my doctor...for Mary, my nurse...for my little goats who jumped on my back when I knelt down to hug them...for my helper who came for me before I even called...There's a long, long list. You're on it too~big time.

As with my garden, so with my life...What am I learning that might benefit others ? If it saves time, adds insight, offers help...Go fish. Any card from my hand, I'm game for sharing...

I share all this simply to say there's more behind the smile than most will ever know. Honestly, as I watched them put (what they called) the Michael Jackson drug into my veins, I knew "whatever happens after this is going to change my life forever." I'm sorry to say, I imagined that would be a fatal diagnosis. (Honestly, for the amount of blood I'd flushed down my toilet, I didn't see how it could be anything but...I'm ashamed of how poor my faith was in that moment. The good news is, I didn't care about me so much as I worried for my critters.) 

When I came to, the doctor asked, "Is anyone with you?" I asked "Why?" He said, because you're groggy and most folks usually have someone to take notes. I said "I'll take my own notes. I'm awake." (Thinking to myself, if it's bad, I don't want anyone knowing anyway. My mother will shudder to read this, but honestly, she was the last person I wanted or needed worrying.)  Not to say it's not serious, but it wasn't cancer (oddly, that's the only thought you're thinking at a time like this) ...He explained the blockage...What had probably happened....At that point I heard precious little more and will take more notes when I go back in another week....My mind was too wrapped around ThankYouGodThankYouGodThankYouGodThankYouGod.... The rest was like that Farside cartoon of what dogs hear ..."BlahblahblahGINGER!"  (Priceless timing...Literally as I type this, Minka's chasing a bunny in her dreams~ I stop to pet her and her whimpers turn to deep snores :) How precious is that?)

About as precious as me being home writing my dear friend to say Let's talk through our plans...Not in morbid ways, but in everyday, "The cat loves it when I do this" ways....

These physical bodies aren't the answer...The Spirit that rushes through them...that animates them...THAT's the answer...

Mine blew a gasket this week (my body, that is)...A serious hole we're working to patch. But the fact that it appears (from this vantage point anyway) as something "patchable" speaks to me. It says, "Don't take this for granted. Take it as a sign that whatever it is you THINK you are here to do, get busy girl! DO IT. Snip! Snip! Time's a-wastin' ~)

Meanwhile, my waking thought is

Thank you God for sparing me the drama... 

(Thank you God for sparing me period.) 

Thank you God for adding yet more meaning 

Thank you God for a new pass at another day 

Thank you God for gentle reminders to get going with ideas on the sidelines

Thank you God for souls like this one to share such thoughts with.

Love you dearly~

Talk soon/See you soon~

Wake Up Calls

           Don’t have time to re-watch the movie, but I’m pretty certain it was about day 215 when that Julie girl, blogging along to her Julia Child cookbook, had her meltdown. And while no one holds blogs to the same journalistic standards required of professionals, the journalist in me takes quite seriously the need to be fair and balanced as my little garden story unfolds. To those admiring cute goats and ambitious gardens as well as those concerned for my health in general for having taken on too much, well, you are right to have spotted it: there is a disconnect. I want to paint as honest a picture as I can and what I am now about to paint, is not pretty.

            The good and quippy news: Mystery of the Itchy Palm is solved!

            The bad news: Sometimes it takes a wake up call to make you rethink your strategy all together.

            A week ago I blithely blogged about my itchy nose and palms, quipping that company must be coming and money close behind. Meanwhile, the itch in my palms now goes round my wrist and moves halfway up my arm making it time to quit speaking in wives’ tales and get myself to a doctor.

After reaching out to an ivy-resistant neighbor to ask if he might remove what I thought was more poison ivy growing up my front porch, we too soon discovered that it was not poison ivy. Ruling out one more culprit while googling pictures of faceless, nameless limbs with rashes by which to compare this odd occurrence, it suddenly hit me.

The pain I was feeling I’d lived before, last encountered the summer of my junior year in high school. With parents newly divorced, juggling summer jobs and college applications, (while dating a guy my dad was less than thrilled about) …I was, in my silent in-between times, generally sad for everyone around me who seemed to be in some sort of pain ... for the family I could not keep together even if it wasn't my job to. It was stress born of the inability to control anything, (where most of our stresses come from) the internalization of which netted me the worst case of shingles, known to girl.

I recall that stress vividly. And while today’s stress does not compare, (after all what’s not to love about a bountiful garden, adorable goats, unconditionally loving dogs and a life I am living with intention, not to mention how blessed I feel to get to do what I love for a living, namely, writing)…I can  honestly say, I cannot imagine a better life. (Granted, I would like to imagine living it a little more gently.)

“Overwhelm” is a word that keeps creeping into my vocab these days…in my self talk, in my writing, my blogs. I know better, but for some reason calling it “overwhelm” has me believing that I, myself, will one day flip this capsized boat of mine and go sailing smoothly across the lake of life. I spend a lot of time visualizing “Someday I’sle”  …But when wake up calls hit you like this has, it just might be time to release the oars and consider doing things another way.

It dawned on me on my way to the doctor that I’m 3 for 3 with August and hospital visits. Year one I got bitten by a brown recluse, and because I waited 2 full days before confirming it, I got to go through not one, but TWO methylprednisone packs…the likes of which threw my body into a zone I didn’t know humanly possible. (I now know why baseball players risk their careers to get this stuff.) In addition to insomnia, the other side effect for steroids is constant hunger. I gained 10 pounds in 10 days. Fortunately, once the steroids left, so did the cravings, but for 10 (22 hour) days it was all I could eat, all the time, wreaking havoc on my body.

Last August landed me again in the ER (again with a take home prescription for steroids). Little did I know when I agreed to judge a pie contest at the county fair that 37 bites of 37 pies (with a pickle in between to cleanse your pie-lacquered palette) could shoot your Crohns right out of remission. (Ladies please don't take it personally. I’d gone so long without the ulcerative symptoms of my 20s I forgot I had a weak gene, but I was reminded all too swiftly within two days of coming home from the fair when I landed in not one, but two different emergency rooms in a 4 day stint.)

Year three and here I am again—this time it’s shingles. Pretty amazing how a body in pain can grab your attention. At points like these you have no choice but to take your wake up call seriously; I slow down now to reflect on just what it is I’m doing wrong (save for trying to do it all by myself).

Truth be told, I love the process…even more than the end game, I absolutely love working and all the rote and routine details that go therewith. While most keep their eye on the prize, I keep my eye on the moment, which, as I’ve confessed before, can find me losing myself in a sink full of dishes turning into a newly cleaned fridge, or the cleanest goat bowls this side of the Mississippi. While I adore every phase of the garden process from the planting, the tilling (I especially love the tilling), the weeding and nurturing…That my plants come out healthy is a nice side effect; what I love is the process itself…watching the miracle of life play out before my eyes. But once everything starts to ripen (and sadly, it all comes in at once) well you’ve got precious little time in which to pull it, pick it, pickle it, freeze it…make massive amounts of food go into tiny little containers (all done in a tiny little kitchen by one fairly tiny girl). Nope. My management plan for the harvest is sorely lacking and I’m sad to say, it’s all my fault. (Of course, adding guilt on top of exhaustion pretty much guarantees your body’s gonna fight back, if for no other reason than to beg you get it drugs to prop up on or ERs to slow down by.)

Sure friends come and help, but given the heat and the downright work of the matter, the farm part’s usually more social than serious…what gets picked is usually enough for the meal we will share and all the veggies I can cram into your car before you go. (Like Jesus with the loaves and fishes, things just keep multiplying, and multiplying...and multiplying.)

Let the record reflect, I am seriously in love with farm life. Recently my mother reached out to ask if I had any regrets...Maybe I wanted to reconsider things…Perhaps I’d bitten off more than I could chew…Maybe talk radio needs another co-host.  A paper, another columnist. It’s not that I hadn’t pondered that…But truth is I love all I’m learning. I love stopping to write about what I’m learning. I love the whole life cycle proposition, only my cycle is a bit outta kilter. What’s more, my cycle is a unicycle, and well…as I’ve written on more than one occasion: farming is not a solo sport. To do it right, it takes a village.

It’s a notion I’m pondering more and more seriously these days. I watch a world of people, racing to offices, dealing in road rage, dreading their bosses, hating their jobs and I think “How blessed am I…My boss is a herd of goats and some plants that love growing for me.” (It is about this time that I seriously ask God to forgive me for sounding so whiney. I don’t want to give this up, so much as I want to figure it out. As I see it, for me anyway, I have two choices…I go back to the city; resume a day job. Make money the way I know how so as to pay to have farm hands come help …

OR

I create a village. Find others who share in the dream. They are out there. I hear from them increasingly…from friends out of the blue, to FB links directing me to others doing the same. There is something in the air for this notion of sustainable living…Not sure if our cultural subconscious is picking up on something (like those elephants that sensed the tsunami coming and headed inland long before the weather forecasters predicted) …or if we’re all growing suspicious of Washington politicians that are nothing like us, leading us into mounting debt, thus debilitating our spirit, all while we are left to process our stress and frustration in whatever ways we might (and often in ways that aren’t good for us).  If there is but on take away in all this, it's that farming is no hobby. It’s a serious commitment with serious deadlines … and like any serious business, you need a working plan in place. (My biggest mistake is I entered it while already working another full time plan –writing cookbooks—only I didn’t factor just how full time a farm and garden is. My admiration grows by the minute for the Thurmans of the world.)

For me…a girl rather addicted to work in the first place, I literally delight in the process even more than the end game (which is why I have so much overgrown okra lying on the ground turning to seed. I grew so much I couldn’t pick it fast enough.) What’s at issue is: what matters most, followed by “What am I going to do about it?”

They’re called “wake up calls”…Those breaking points in life where you can’t dodge the obvious anymore…It’s that point where something stops you in your tracks (your own health, loss of a loved one, loss of a job, a crisis or a life drama that forces you to stop, unplug and take a serious inventory of your life while going deep within to discover just what pea it is that lies beneath all those mattress layers you’ve been padding with)…

In the same way it hit me when my bankrupt friend spoke of  surrender and the peace that immediately followed…these wake up calls, most often come as the result of something so shocking to our system we have no choice but to listen. It must, in order to grab our attention once and for all, bolt us out of our self-induced haze in order to affect change. I can’t say I’m surprised entirely; I try to ignore it…fill it up with more work, but deep down I have known something had to give. But it occurs to me I’ve been hoping my wake up call would come much like my morning alarm. (Rather than a loud honking noise that jolts, I have a dainty little Disney clock, that wakes me to a music box version of “It’s a Small World” or “Chim-Chim-Cheree” ~ Why God? Why couldn’t you give me THAT kind of wake up call? Preferably with a snooze button attached.)

At this, God laughs. After all, what’s the point of a wake up call if not to snap you out of whatever it is you’re numbly, blindly not paying attention to.

As for me, it’s not that I hadn’t noticed. Nope. It’s hard to miss the messy kitchen and the growing mulch pile of compost for trying to salvage on the second round what I missed on the first. As I reread morning pages from days and weeks past it was all I could do not to tear up when I realized how much of my day I live in guilt, simply for having bitten off more than I can chew, then feeling bad for having wasted anything like food or time or _______ (fill in the blank…I’ve got an endless stream of things for which the residual emotion is guilt…Being late for goat feedings, watching a pup endure a surgery and not wanting to leave his/her side for something like work…Count ‘em up. I’ve got a million of ‘em….I suspect we all do.)

Bottom line: it’s time for a change. It’s time to admit, I need help. It’s time to surrender to those things I cannot change, while changing the ones I can. It’s time for a serious soul search to ask myself, “What’s it gonna be?”

Right now, I do not have that answer; all I have is one very poignant question…(and one very itchy arm.) But this much I know…There is a state that precedes these wake up calls…A warning if you will…Usually several. You can recognize this state by one simple warning sign, and that sign is: discontent. I like to call it “divine discontent” for if we heed it, pay attention to it, stop and admit THE SECOND WE FEEL IT that “Hey. Something’s not right here. There’s a rock in my shoe, and it’s uncomfortable.” Because of our crunch on time, most of us will walk on that rock for a bit…usually long enough to form a callous. But when that callous becomes infected and serious attention is needed, well that’s when your wake up call hits home.

For me, the solution lies is recognizing these pebbles early on…before more serious damage is done. But this requires a sensitivity to pebbles that doesn’t have us saying, “Well, if I just stay busy enough, go shop some more, drink some more, watch mindless TV some more…maybe it will go away...Heck, I almost forgot it was there...” But I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t go away. The only thing that makes pebbles go away is stopping to address the discomfort, unlace the shoe…shake out the rock. This is not a “Take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning” kinda proposition. This is a life habit one must learn to cultivate. In this day and age and particularly in this culture, it does not come naturally. And just because I’ve got others who can relate, well that’s no excuse for me to keep ignoring the obvious…

And so I shall not. For me, it’s time to redirect, regroup…come up with a new plan…A better way that not only brings relief to my in my little world of one, but brings perhaps new ideas and alternatives for others, for I hate to say it, but I take too much comfort in thinking I’m not alone on this one…Just because others are feeling it too, doesn’t mean I should keep walking on a rock.

I enter this week on a much more somber note.

Here’s trusting he meant what he said about knocking…seeking…asking.

Ok God. You got my attention.

I’m listening.