Dragonflies in the Garden
There are two sun-catcher mirrors I picked up at the Fall Festival, swaying gently and throwing little shots of rainbow across my gardens. I have two gardens: the lavender garden and the herb garden, which is fuller now with the red rocks Jason and I picked up at Lowe’s. Two different sizes, small ones for the stepping stones inside and larger ones for outside. It adds depth. The bigger rocks will go around the firepit too, the one I seriously need to clean out. It’s full of lavender ash from the overgrowth.
A huge dragonfly just flew in and paused on the brown porch shade, which stays down these days for obvious reasons. Every day, more junk to deal with. Nala is watching it, wriggling her whole back end, and then it’s off again.
9:26 a.m.
Two more dragonflies have landed on the rooster’s head and tail, frozen there, big and long and green. I need to make more hummingbird food. I don’t want to go inside, not on a day like this. Bright blue sky, rainbows in the air, the chimes tinging, the river murmuring somewhere past my ears. A calm day.
We ran the dishwasher last night, so the new purple feeder is ready to go. I hope it does well. I already have three, and I only wanted one, but when I saw this medium purple glass feeder for eleven dollars, the cheapest one there, I couldn’t pass it up, which means going inside eventually.
Four to one, feeders to me, and I don’t want to go in. I’m comfortable right where I am. If I don’t move, I don’t move.
I’m still recovering from a fall at church, a week and a day ago, or maybe two weeks. I’ve lost track. I know it was quite a tumble. My side still aches, although the pain under my arm has finally eased.
I learned something new today. The brain flushes toxic waste through cerebrospinal fluid while we sleep, and when we don’t get enough sleep, it can build up. Wrinkles too, apparently. I’ve been reading a lot lately about how much sleep I actually need at my age, at least seven hours, uninterrupted. Of course, things are starting to spin again. Just in a different direction this time.
3:20 a.m.
I fell asleep around seven and woke up to Logan asking his dad if he had work in the morning. He does. Jason didn’t stir until I finally raised my voice and told him to just go to bed. I fell back asleep on the couch and woke again at 1:30, sore. I’d love to be able to cough properly or clear my throat without pain, but that’s not where I’m at. I’ve graduated to Tylenol now, easier on the stomach, though it takes longer to kick in. That’s just my reality these days.
The porch light was on because Diamond needed to go out, so I sat with her for a few minutes and listened to the river while Jason showered. The air was warm but cool, perfect for that deep, dark part of the morning, with the yard lights off. I was still in yesterday’s clothes, minus the bra: a pink T-shirt and a pair of capris, no socks.
Not long after Jason left, the bugs drove me back inside, gathering around my face, my feet, my arms. I was barefoot, and who knows what else was crawling around down there.
Maybe it’s age, or maybe it’s just how many times we’ve made the drive there for work, shopping, friends, the kids, but I’ve come to see Ann Arbor as a genuinely beautiful city, somewhere I’d love to call home.
I talked to Aaron yesterday and asked if he and Kelly might want to come stay for a visit. Money’s tight for everyone right now, but I mentioned a downtown hotel in Ann Arbor, maybe in the fall or winter. I think they’d love it, just a thought. I doubt anything will come of it soon, especially with Molly’s wedding coming up.
I’d love to just sit and talk with the two of them. And fantasy football season is almost here, which would be a good excuse for a big football party, maybe.
I’m too tired to think straight this morning.
5:21 a.m.
Bedroom, here I come. For what it’s worth, I already cleaned it yesterday, getting ready for today. Every day, another version of the same routine.
A Good Nap
I’d been up for a few hours after falling asleep early and not waking until mid-morning. I lay there for a minute with one thought circling: I didn’t want to go see the minister today, whether it was two o’clock or three. I could never remember.
It isn’t that I don’t want to talk or pray. I do. I was just frozen. I hadn’t moved from my chair in a while. Barre was at 5:30, and I wasn’t up for that either.
I ended up calling the minister to cancel, genuinely sorry about it, and spent the whole morning bouncing between going and not going, watching the clock, still not even dressed. Licking my wounds, I suppose, in my own way.
He was kind about it, genuinely concerned. I told him I’d rather explain myself over email than try to say it out loud. There’s simply too much.
I want this, with my whole heart, but it’s overwhelming, the way anything new tends to be. And that’s the real problem: anything overwhelming has always been my cue to quit. But at this point in my life, I’m starting to think that the things that overwhelm me the most might be exactly the things worth getting to know.
So I’m choosing baby steps.
Take voting, for instance. I really meant to. I wanted to. I just didn’t. Still, small steps count.
Back on track. Dragonflies everywhere today.
Minister Williams, where do I even start? I need something to believe in, and something that believes in me too. I need to understand. I need to love, and be loved. I need to do my part, to plan, to be ready, ready in my own head so I don’t feel so alone or scared.
I want to be included, to sit among friendly faces, to read, to listen to people sing, to hear voices that feel warm. I want all those words from the Bible woven into my life, jumbled as they might be at first. I want the cross, and the right prayer, always close by. I already own two Bibles, and several more besides.
Let me back up.
I was baptized at fourteen without really understanding what that meant, and honestly, I still don’t fully. I’m inconsistent in my thoughts, inconsistent in what I dream about, though I think I get a little better every day.
I still shut down more often than I’d like. It’s my safety net. I disappear into the garden, which makes winter especially hard. I carry a lot of distrust and have a hard time forgiving.
Some of that traces back to a car accident in 1988. Thirty-eight years of pain, discomfort, and gaps in memory. One difficult decision led to another. There was alcohol. There were drugs, and there was alcohol, both starting even before the accident.
It became argument after argument, fight after fight, with anyone and everyone. I turned bitter. Bitter with my husband, bitter with my doctor, bitter within myself.
I don’t want to be bitter. Some days it feels like there’s no other option. But there is. I just choose the anger instead.
Minister Williams, I think I told you too much too soon, and I’m sorry for that. There’s so much going on in my head that I don’t always know where to begin, and I got ahead of myself.
I’d love to start at the very beginning, but there’s both too much and too little to know where that is.
So let’s start here: I have trouble with almost everything I do and say. I forget things, often. Yesterday was worse than today. Today isn’t bad.
I actually feel good today, something I haven’t felt in a long time. I can’t quite name it. Not powerful, exactly. Maybe strength.
Not a bad feeling, not quite a great one either.
Just a good feeling.
And I like it, whatever it is.
What Comes Next
Hello, and good morning.
This feels like the right place to start again.
There’s a lot on my mind today. I got the results back from Saturday’s blood work, and they’re not good. I keep checking the clock, trying to figure out when I can get an appointment to sort this out.
My thyroid numbers are high, even though I take my medication at the same time every day. I never got around to the cholesterol test, and I have a feeling it’s going to come back off too, since I stopped taking that medication for a while.
In my defense, I wasn’t fully present during that stretch. Something was happening to my body, my mind, my muscles, my medication, all at once, and I was scrambling in every direction.
Now I’m left wondering how to even talk to the doctor about it. What do I ask for? What do I actually need? I’m nervous about all the testing she might order, worried it’ll send me spiraling before we even get answers. My head is juggling more than usual, which is saying something.
I need my mind to slow down.
On top of it, Jason’s dealing with his own neck issues right now, and honestly, I want to handle mine on my own. Alone.
And then there’s the marijuana question again. It’s stopped serving any real purpose for me. I don’t even want it anymore, but I’ve been smoking it anyway, vaping again too, mostly for the ease of it. I’d been turning into someone I didn’t recognize emotionally when I found some things out again.
So when Jason got home, it was the usual exchange at the door.
“How was your day?”
And not much beyond that.
I tried to bring up how nervous I was about the cholesterol news, but trying is only half the effort when the other person is scrolling their phone. He read me his own numbers off MyChart instead- good numbers, for what it’s worth- though I’m still not sure why he was telling me.
When he finished, he just went quiet and turned back to his phone.
And that was that.
The same old pattern. Suffocating, honestly, and it bothered me more than I let on.
On a lighter note, the boys are moving the dressers around today, which will give Logan more room and give Jason more space for his things. And maybe I’ll finally get to breathe a little easier too.
I woke up on the couch at some point I couldn’t place and wandered around, nervous, waiting to hear from the doctor, and thinking about open-heart surgery. About my mom. About Aaron.
I remembered flying into Tucson for her, the December after she passed, about three weeks after, to go through her things. Kelly picked Jason and me up from the airport since she was already there, and Aaron was home resting.
The moment we walked into the house, I felt it immediately. He was asleep, which made sense given the late flight, but he looked so tired. I noticed something in that moment I couldn’t quite name.
His open-heart surgery came just a few months later.
Is that in my future too?
I try to stay aware of it, and honestly, I think I am aware of nearly everything these days. I’m my mother’s daughter, always have been, and I try to avoid the mistakes she made. Not always successfully.
Some things are just built in.
Fear, for one.
It sat with me all day yesterday and followed me into this morning. Right now, though, I’m okay. I’m outside in the sticky, humid air, where I’ve been since I woke, after Logan left for work.
I heard him get up but didn’t want to move until he’d gone, not in the mood.
I slept well for once and just wanted to lie there and listen, probably because I was actually in my own bed. I opened the window after Diamond jumped up, having forgotten how clearly you can hear the river from that room.
9:38 a.m.
I’m sure the doctor will call sometime today, probably right in the middle of barre class. Of course.
For now, I’m going to go be social, get moving, get to class. I’ve done what I can to find another way through this, and I think I’ve found it.
Now I just need the strength to actually walk it.
I’m tired of the climb. Probably because my arteries are clogged half to death anyway.
Negative waves, as they say. Enough of that. Onto whatever comes next.