The Length of the Rainbow Bridge

Over two years ago now, on Saturday, May 20th 2017, we had to make the hard decision to put our buddy Buster to sleep, our beloved boxer mix dog, our family companion and friend. I haven't posted anything about it online yet even though it was awhile ago now. I wrote up most of a blog awhile back but then never finished or posted. A year after I still had his Pill Pockets in the closet and a bin of his supplements stuffed in a bottom cabinet. I'm not entirely sure why it is that I didn't post anything about it, perhaps because it was a difficult phase and decision for our family to deal with and make. Maybe I was too emotional at the time for the outreach, I don't know. I also had just given birth to our second child at the time. It was a time of transition for our family, but we have had some time to deal. Celie and I had a chat about him awhile back and we decided that we "don't feel horrible anymore" so I'm ready to post about it I reckon. Now, two years after she has started to ask about getting another dog. While I am not ready for that step quite yet, and am also currently preoccupied with now gearing up to have our third child, I suppose I could at the very least finish up the blog post. 

On August 4th, 2016 Buster was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer after we took him to the vet for a swollen neck and a persistent hacking cough. They delivered the sad news and I knew I had to reframe it for Celie somehow. She was just 6 at the time. It was also only around a week before we found out that I was pregnant with Jasper. We were excited to be having another baby but simultaneously sad for the impending loss we had ahead of us. The vet told us that dogs usually only live 4 to 6 weeks after diagnosis so we had to tell Celie something because we didn’t think we had much time. We were obviously heartbroken and were not looking forward to saying goodbye to him so soon, but I made the choice to tell Celie up front and talk to her about it through it all because I thought that he would die or that we would need to decide to put him to sleep within a month or so. Being 6  years old at the time, I felt that it would be good for her to be told up front in an age appropriate way. I immediately bought her All Dogs Go to Heaven and did my best to explain cancer to her and what was happening, also so that she would be aware that he wasn't feeling well and would act accordingly because we had no idea what was ahead of us. It forced me to break down death to a child's level while simultaneously reexploring my own thoughts and beliefs. It was painful, sad, and vulnerable, but in the end I am grateful that I had the opportunity to explain it to her using a dog companion first instead of a human one, as it was her first rememberable experience with death at the time. 

I am grateful for the pure love that Celie and Buster shared. We already had Buster when she was born so Celie was raised alongside her furry friend. “Buster” was even her first word. He was her four-legged older brother and he was so patient and gentle with her, despite her high energy. For that I will also forever be grateful. If he was a mean tempered dog, it could have been a bad experience but he seemed to understand that she was a tiny people, one of us, and very dear to us, never doing anything overtly aggressive unless in a defensive manner and having a great way of judging how gentle he needed to be with her. It helps to keep in mind that it was special for her to have a good connection with a dog so early and this was a gift in itself. It still hurt like hell and was one of the most heartbreaking things to witness and have to explain to her, given her mix of emotional reactions through it all especially because it ended up taking much longer than the vet initially told us.

I, of course, not wanting to accept the death sentence even in my adult mind, initially Googled my fingers off about dog lymphoma and things. I frantically considered chemotherapy briefly, read up on that. Decided against it. We purchased supplements and ebooks on dealing with canine cancer. I started him on a mixture of vitamins and things. Most notably we switched his dry dog food to grain free Blue Wilderness. Ultimately, though, his lymph nodes continued to swell and eventually he was hacking and could no longer eat the dry dog food. About a month after diagnosis he wasn't in the best shape, but he was still here. The swelling in the lymph nodes in this chest and throat eventually became so significant, though, affecting his ability to eat, that we decided to put him on prednisone to see if it would shrink them and give him some relief. This is basically the first line of cancer treatment with dogs anyway. Luckily it worked, the swelling went down, he was able to eat better again, and he just kept going. 

I had planned on making him his own homemade dog food from recipes I found on the internet in canine cancer support groups and the ebooks that I got, but in the end we just switched to Blue Wilderness canned food for the most part, mixing it with the grain free dried kibble. He seemed to love most kinds, he was hungry because of the prednisone so at least he kept eating. We were fortunate to be able to afford it because grain free dog food is so much more expensive and it added up! I switched up kinds when they were on sale but stuck to grain free, high protein. Merrick’s was a brand he liked a lot also and some of it honestly looked so good I would have eaten it! All through my pregnancy we were in this limbo state where we gave him his medication and bought him his special food, every week we repeated the drill and it somewhat stayed the same. I called in and refilled his prescription at the vet so many times. I broke his pills in half and put them into chunks of Fresh Pet loaves. All the while he slowly got worse but still remained basically Buster, playful and social with a happy tail. 

We switched him to a completely grain free diet when he was diagnosed and I attribute this to most of the bonus time that we got with him. Aside from his diet, we also refrained from giving him any table scraps unless it was a pure protein or fat source like meat or something. He lived quite a few fairly active months after diagnosis, fetching tennis balls a month or so in and even playing tug of war with Celie close to only a month before the end, but he slowly got worse, though, and the cancer ultimately took over his body. In the end it was in his stomach, which became swollen, and in his skin that started to harden and peel although it didn’t seem to bother him. He was uncomfortable but didn't seem to be in significant pain. I continued the supplements that I had read showed the most results in other dogs with cancer. In the end I still feel like I failed him, not trying aggressively enough with the supplements or not making him his own homemade food or not doing this that or the other. But who is to say Colloidal Silver would have done anything? If I had tried crazy baking soda treatments I could have sent him into heart failure. I wasn’t sure of anything, but my mind was awash with all of the things I had read or ever heard that could fight cancer, this invasive beast that had killed so many family members. Now it was taking the best dog I had ever had who was the equivalent of a human only in their 50s, no where near done with life with still so much love to give. Son of a bitch. 

Seemingly selfishly lost in my own depression at the time and dealing with my pregnancy, I feel like I wasn’t able to give him my all.  While that was true with everything else happening, I know that it is also true that I did try my best to keep him as healthy and comfortable as possible through it all. I believe it got us a good amount of extra time, the equivalent of a human living for 5 more years after diagnosis versus the 1 year sentence they were given.  That’s fairly significant considering most of those months were decent months.

I remember nights of me putting my legs up to ease my swollen feet. I would grunt and rub my swollen belly and he would grunt as well as he rolled onto his swollen belly. In my limited positioning, he would snuggle his face into my toes and I would rub the side of his head with my foot as we gazed into each other's eyes in an understanding misery, only mine was temporary and self-induced, the creation of life, while his was an unfair sentence that would take him from this place, the slow destruction of life. He held on and watched me grow our new baby, though, almost like he wanted to see the family unit completed to where it was advancing to before he left. He wouldn't give up the happy tail and seemed only in mild to moderate pain. After 8 and a half months, though, his front legs began to swell. We had all of this time with him to prepare for our goodbye and in the end it didn’t seem long enough. 

At one point one of the tumors on his side burst open and he needed a vet visit. She said she thought it was a cat bite or something like that, but I knew it was one of the growths he had on his side that must have broken open some how, or he dug it open himself. It was squirting blood, regardless of how it happened. We thought that was the end but we bandaged and tended to it, covering his dressing with pet sweaters to keep it in place...and he continued. When his legs started to swell and his one front paw seemed as though he had punctured it on something simply from the pressure of the fluid, we once again thought it was the end. We took him into the vet again and they said it was most likely the beginning of the end and this vet was actually so surprised that he had such a happy tail and was in such good spirits. We got him on an antibiotic to help with the swelling, and it did take it down temporarily. Because of the antibiotic we got around one more month after that point, but it was apparent that the stubborn old boy wasn't going to go on his own laying out in the sun one morning like we selfishly hoped would happen. After the course of the antibiotics he started to go downhill pretty fast.

He had taken to standing instead of laying down, we are unsure if it was because it hurt his stomach to lay on it or what, but it was a weird stage. At first we thought that it was just the pain pill we had been giving to him at the end to keep him more comfortable but he seemed to be slipping out of consciousness while standing in the yard, almost dropping to the ground at times like someone falling asleep and then catching themselves. This is when we made the decision. He had taken to nodding out standing up in between lucid moments of happy tail interaction, but he looked in your eyes like he knew something big had changed. He sat out in the yard in different spots just looking around the grounds, like he was becoming aware of something we were missing. He was a mere 9 years old, only 57 in dog years, but in those moments he looked to be well over 100 in dog wisdom. Something was changing and we knew it was time, but it took us a good day to accept our responsibility. Nobody wants to put their dog to sleep. Nobody. The only reason we "want" to do it is to ease their suffering because there comes a time when our responsibility to them is to take their life, to show them mercy. There is a lot of guilt involved in trying to make the right decision when the time comes, a lot of dilemma over when the time is right and I think we did good by our boy. In the end, I think he'd understand we were trying to give him the most life that we could without allowing him to suffer unnecessarily. 

The day we knew it was time, Celie had left for school and I was having a chat with Buster in the yard. He gave me the look. I didn't want to accept it, I sent Celie to school that morning half knowing. The dilemma was then that it was a Friday and I didn't want to put him to sleep while she was in school so that she wouldn't get to say goodbye and know he would be gone when she got home. He seemed to be okay with it. I wished there was an at home service in our area for pet euthanasia, but there isn't. So we kept him that one last night so that Celie could say her goodbyes and wouldn't be jarred with him just being gone. So Buster got one last night at the ranch and that next morning as he sat in the yard in his drowsy state in what had become his favorite spot I watched from the window as my husband walked Celie over to tell him goodbye before he took her to my parents’ house. I will never forget his reaction to her approach, snapping out of it and immediately going into his happy tail and walking up to her. He was running on pure love at that point. I believe he knew he was going to die, or at least knew that something was up, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to leave us, but regardless of all feelings from all parties involved it was time to say goodbye. 

We had to travel to Mezger's in State College because of our decision, because our normal vet was closed on Saturdays and we didn’t want to make him wait until Monday, fearing he was experiencing a lot of pain. I had asked my mother to watch Celie for us, but Jasper was only 2 months old at the time and was still nursing so he had to come along. When we got there, the vet on call had an emergency surgery he was in. We were preparing to put him to sleep in the back of our Jeep in the parking lot so that we could avoid any added stress on him by taking him inside a weird and scary place in his state. Two nurses came out to put an IV into his paw as I nursed Jasper in the back seat. They said it would only be a little bit of a wait. We spent the time crying and loving on Buster in the back of the Jeep with the back hatch up in the parking lot. I bounced and held Jasper all the while in one arm while petting Buster with the other. 

At one point a stranger approached us in what was an odd interaction. In retrospect, I imagine she saw us upset and was just moved to do anything to help. She came up to us and asked if we were putting a friend to sleep that day, which was pretty obvious, I guess. She asked if there was anything she could do, offering to take a picture of us. In my surprise at forced conversation at such an upsetting time I almost told her to get lost then paused and thought she surely must have just wanted to offer anything she could. Given his state and appearance, though, it seemed like a weird request, but I did give her my phone and let her take one last picture of the four of us in the Metzger’s parking lot. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it at first, but in the end decided on appreciative. It was a kind act of a total stranger and a final documentation of our sad time. 

By the time the vet was out of surgery and able to put him to sleep we had waited going on two hours. We had waited so long for his transition that when it was finally happening it was surreal how quickly it was over. He wouldn’t lay down so he was sitting up as it was done. The vet, my husband and myself positioned ourselves to catch him. I lovingly rubbed his furry face. The vet did the first injection and then with the second his head immediately dropped into my hand and we all caught him as he fell, gently letting him settle onto the blanket we had placed under him. Buster Buddy was finally resting. I cried and stroked his snout and we both pet him, apologizing. I think that the vet felt bad for us having to wait so long and with a baby in tow and all. He said Buster seemed like he was a really nice dog. I agreed, through my tears, that he was the best we had ever had and he was so great with our kids. He apologized for us having to wait and to our surprise said he would give us the euthanization free of charge. We thanked him heartily. 

The ride home was sad and the wrap up was bittersweet upon our return. We were happy to know he wasn’t suffering but had to make him a box, dig him a hole, and help Celie process her big feels. We saw her through the curious touching of his lifeless body. We witnessed her raw reactions, at one point screaming his name up into the sky like some dramatic scene from a movie. We felt his soft floppy ears, his favorite part to be rubbed during life. He would always push his head against your hand and grunt and groan with pleasure as you gave him a good ear scratch. One last stroke before we covered him up, burying him with his favorite squeaky duck toy and some tennis balls. We chose a spot under the hemlocks where he would always lay and bask himself in the morning sun. We could see him from both the kitchen and living room windows there. 

In the end, it was our duty to help Buster transition as comfortably as possible. We grant them that act of mercy despite our qualms, guilt and personal pain. It’s the least we can do. It will always make me sad that he didn’t live a longer life but he had just made it to his 9th birthday in February and we ultimately gave him a pretty happy life. He had survived having Lyme disease as well as anoplasmosis a few years back and had outlived his cancer prognosis by a significant amount of bonus time. His diagnosis led to a longer walk across the rainbow bridge than we initially anticipated, but I like to think he would understand that the choices we made were made out of love and compassion. Him was a good boy. 

Just a Blog After the Show

Graham Nash

Whitaker Center, Harrisburg, PA

March 13, 2019

When I was around 10 years old or so, on television at the time they were using Teach Your Children in a commercial for something or other.  I immediately loved it and latched onto that song, asking my mother who sang it, wanting it on cassette tape. It had spoken to me...because it was timeless and it says a lot, even in part in a commercial. And so I received my first CSN album for my birthday that year. I honestly can’t even remember if it was CSN or CSN&Y or Deja Vu or a Greatest Hits? Regardless, it had Teach Your Children as well as Our House on it, and it was a hell of a good start. 

My mother also listened to The Hollies a bit, so I was also exposed to that good stuff as a kid. The commonality, of course, being Graham Nash, a vital harmony in both bands and the one who penned the song that grabbed me in my youth. I loved their harmonies. Not enough can really be said about good harmony. Some groups have such distinct harmonies, they’re almost familial and their combined tone serves as a stand out voice in and of itself. The Beatles, The Mamas and the Papas, The Beach Boys, etc....Crosby, Stills, & Nash. It’s a wonderful thing.

So, this Christmas I needed a gift for my mother and nothing is better than a concert experience in her book; I stumbled across Graham Nash’s tour and found a small venue in Harrisburg where he would be performing and jumped on some tickets for her and myself. I am currently pregnant with my third child but at the time figured I wouldn’t be too pregnant to go by the time of the concert, so it was a doable wait. I saw he had been playing Hollies songs and classic CSNand/orY as well as his solo work during concerts, so it would be exciting to share that with my mother and I was sure she would enjoy it. Music is the gift that keeps on giving! 

I had never been to this venue in Harrisburg before, The Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts. Overall, it was fairly easy to navigate to and the trip wasn’t a pain at all. The weather was good and there wasn’t much city driving involved, it was on the outer side of Harrisburg on Market Street. The parking garage was connected to the building so you could get to the theatre through the building, which was neat and nice for my near-waddle pace. We made it with a spare hour to grab some grub, so we hit up a Freshido restaurant nearby. I’m convinced it’s Korean food, even though the webs told my mother it is Hawaiian; my dish was called the Gangnam Style plate and there was bulgogi meat and kimchi? I rest my case. It was a little spicy but good and didn’t even give me heartburn, which was pleasantly surprising! So much winning! 

We made it back in and found our seats after checking out the swag stop on the way in. There was the usual array of t-shirt, CD, and vinyl memorabilia but also a section of signed photographs, one of Joni Mitchell in a rearview mirror, signed by Nash, and copies of his new book “Our House” that just came out. Inside the theatre, actually the Sunoco Theatre inside the Whitaker Center, was about as big as The State Theatre, in State College, if you are familiar. It was quaint and lovely, with an orchestra section, where we were seated, and mezzanine and balcony sections that were directly on top of each other. They even had moody string lights along the balconies. We had a great view from our seats.

After some dimming of the house lights Nash and co. came out onto the stage to a cheering crowd. He greeted everyone immediately, waving to the balcony folks. He humbly thanked the Universe for bringing us all together at this moment in time. He said something akin to all they had were songs but they were “gonna sing the shit out of ‘em!” They opened with Pre-Roads Down, going next into Bus Stop which was exciting to witness with my mother. I was fairly sure he would play it because he has been but also really hoping he would because it was one from The Hollies I had heard a lot growing up. Afterward, he commented on the cheering, saying it really showed how old we were as a crowd, stating jokingly that we must be well into our 40s. He was pretty playful and funny the entire show. 

Different artists do different things on stage and have different relationships with their audiences. Graham Nash had a casual and intimate way about him. The show was, in a way, a mini Story Tellers; Nash introduced most of his numbers with a little anecdote about the song’s conception. Some introductions were short, one liners, at times just the song title and/or the year he wrote it, while others were lengthier tales. 

He started into I Used To Be a King after the quip “I wrote this right after breaking up with Joan” and then afterwards went into Wasted on the Way. Before Better Days he mentioned he wrote it for Anita Baker. Then Carried Away. Right Between the Eyes. Moving into Military Madness he said he was so tired of playing the song, not because it’s a bad song but because he wrote it about his dad leaving for WWII and the wars keep happening—-so he must keep singing. 

He introduced his two man band right away, after the first or second song. It was impressive how well they harmonized together covering classic vocals with Nash that you were so accustomed to hearing with CSN/Y; my ears deemed it totally acceptable! Shane Fontayne, who he said was most notably English and had played lead guitar with another band in England as well as Sting and “more importantly for you Americans”, Bruce Springsteen. His keyboard player was introduced as being from a musical family, hailing from Lubbock, Texas, which got some cheers. To the cheers, he said “If you know, you know!” This was a little setlist foreshadowing. 

Shane Fontayne was remarkable! It was fun watching him switch guitars from among his rack and recreate classic riffs. His guitar playing was superb and he did a lot of great emotive stuff, most notably on Wind on the Water, where he made sounds akin to a whale’s call, fitting to the song. Graham told the story of being off the coast of Africa on Crosby’s boat and having an encounter with a blue whale that was bigger than their 80 foot boat. He said that it was a near spiritual experience and he was inspired to write the song. 

They did a really cool rendition of The Beatles’ song A Day in the Life, after which Graham noted that it was great and “if you were a singer wouldn’t you want to sing that song?” Agreed! Before Marrakesh Express, he told of a time he was in Africa, taking a train from Morocco to Marrekesh. He spoke of his writing and said “most of my songs come from ordinary moments” although something like this might not be too ordinary to us, to Graham Nash, it was! The band took a 20 minute break after this. 

Coming back from break, Nash looks at Fontayne and playfully asks if he thinks they should really do this [next song]. To much delight, they break into Love the One You’re With! I was thrilled. I never would have expected to hear it, so it was perhaps my favorite number of the evening? Perhaps. Taken at All; Golden Days; Immigration Man: he tells of the time he was stopped at the gates after a trip to Canada and denied re-entry to America. They let Crosby and Stills in. Even Neil Young, he said, was allowed back in but he was denied. He was a mad Englishman as his friends laughed at him from the other side. He said he wrote Immigration Man before he even made it home. 

Just a Song Before I Go was dedicated to the child of a woman that he had met on break. He shared how he wrote this one on a $500 bet from a low-level drug dealer whose house he was at while in Hawaii. He still has the $500 and said that the song became CSN’s most popular hit and had he known, he would have written a better song. The conception of Cathedral was, perhaps, the funniest tale of them all. He said that while in England touring with CSNY he had a day off after the last show. He chose to rent a Rolls Royce with a driver, find a dealer, and then drop acid, spending most of his day laying in the grass in the middle of Stone Henge, which was accessible at the time and wasn’t fenced up back in the day. He later made his way to the nearby Westminster Cathedral where he said he walked over top of a grave of a soldier and had the weirdest sensation in his legs, not from the acid, as he attested to knowing the affects of the drug. Upon inspection he noticed the day the man in the grave died was his birthday. “I don’t know if I was him or he was me or what?” but what followed was an ecstatic experience that led to the writing of Cathedral. It was interesting to learn that not much of that song was made up, which one would be led to believe, but rather gathered from a completely real experience by Nash. 

He mentioned again about the ordinary moments inspiring his songs, and went into a tale of an ordinary “shitty rainy day” when he was simply out walking around with Joni Mitchell window shopping. Joni spotted an interesting vase in a window and bought it. We could excitedly see where this was going. He said they came home to a chilly house and he lit a fire, she filled the vase and then he sat down and wrote Our House. 

As for the foreshadowing, the keyboard player was from Lubbock, Texas, which is, incidentally, where Buddy Holly hailed from. The three of them moved center stage and played a lovely harmonized rendition of Holly’s “Everyday” which was excellent. I had read they were doing this, but forgot all about it in the excitement so I was still pleasantly surprised. Their final number, which I was able to record (although I wish I had captured Love the One You’re With or even Everyday) was what I had expected, Teach Your Children. My mother went to hug me, but saw I was recording on my phone, although that didn’t stop us from exchanging happy glances and singing along. We had come full circle. A good time was had by all, even the baby who had been kicking away the entire concert. 

Graham Nash at the Whitaker Center was truly a bucket list epic show. I am very grateful to have been able to experience it with my mother and especially in such a quaint venue. Nash’s intimate explanations and introductions to his songs were wonderful and insightful. I love when artists actually take the time to connect with their audiences like that, especially ones who have played for so many years. It really makes for a better show. His sharing of his writing process was insightful. Although somewhat less “ordinary” than the lay man’s moments, it was neat to see that most of his songs basically did come from ordinary days and events in his life, each was “a day in the life” of Graham Nash, if you will. Who wouldn’t want to sing about that? 

Neo-words

Focus focus discipline.

I can’t I can’t I can’t win.

Lose it, lost it, once again.

Seek it, sought it, find the pin.

Laser, loser, precision.

Dueling needles, under skin.

Dig it, dig it, carve it in.

Kick it, kick it, in the shin.

Focus focus, self-control.

Hocus pocus, rig’marole.

One track mind, my mental goal.

No fault for a lack of soul.

Darling, darling, darling dear.

Keep me, keep me, keep me near.

Show me the darkness you fear.

Take me with, don’t leave me here.

Call me gorgeous, precious sphere.

Shed a crystalline blue tear.

Underground, bones rotting here.

Living hell, my darling dear. 

Darkness, darkness, in the hole.

Hill of beans upon the fool.

Working with the crudest tool.

Found my mind and lost my cool.  

Stand Up to Anything and Anyone

A picture is worth how many words? I need to say a few about this good thing right here. It's clever. It's simple. It's positive. It's me and not me at all, simultaneously. Its none of me. It's all of me. It was also not my idea at all. All in all...it was all little Miss Celie Ruth who will be turning 8 in 3 days and is proving herself to be not quite so little anymore. 

Last week on a family trip to Lowe's Home Improvement, which is sadly and gloriously one of Celie's favorite places, we were walking past the display for Valspar paint that they have enlarged since their removal of Olympic, which I personally feel is for the best (okay, it's one of my favorite places to), when #celiesays "Hey, mom! Look! That could be a thing!" She points over at the signage and then says "That could he a good message!" She holds her fingers up to cover a letter in one of the Valspar claims. A moment of awe fell over me and I was compelled to document the moment on my shitty Grammy-phone with my 4,677th-4,679th photos for posterity.

She later would use the word "metaphor" when describing it as being a good message. Arguing all semantics and technicalities aside, this still brought on a "holy-shit-you-do-listen-to-me" moment. You know they hear some things but the vast amount of pearls you attempt to spew out at your children seem to fall on deaf ears. Needless to say, I had a moment. Her two little fingers outstretched to cover up the "S" in Valspar's claim that their paint "Stands Up To Anything" which is funny, because I would have just snapped the pic without covering anything and laughed and said Ha Ha yeah: Celie stands up to anything. Tough little shit. That's a metaphor. Yadda yadda. Not my girl, though. My girl gave it a twist; she made it an action. In truth, she gave it a positive twist and and made it a call to action. Love her love her LOVE her! 

The positive, active mindset is one that I struggle the most to pass on to my daughter because it's also the hardest for me to hold onto myself. I experience such negative moods that it is essential for me to counteract that with grasps at positive perspectives. I strive to teach her to do her best to focus on the positive side of life as well as that side of me. While the beast cannot be fooled by platitudes or other contrived bullshit messages, I also try my best to look for things that are actually believable and resonate with me in order to raise my spirit. After every storm I do my best to trudge onward through the scattered debris and remember to look on the bright side of life as Monty Python taught me. It is a struggle, though, because I have both rides to hell and trips to the moon. In my understanding, the Eternal Nothing and The Absolute All are mere polarities of the same pendulum swing. I digress. 

My point being with all of this, parenting is hard regardless. I found it to be the hardest relationship to be in successfully because the size of the mirror may be small but it reflects every little fucking ugly angle right back at you. At least it only gets bigger in time, though, and if you break it, you're ego will be cut to shreds! Definitely keeps you on your toes with your bullshit and I come with a lot of bullshit. One of the things I have taught and encouraged Celie to do is to call me out on my bullshit. While you need to parent from a place of authority, they also need to see that you are human and capable of error. It does not serve their psyche to be totalitarian in your parenting, it crushes their spirits. They need to see that you are flawed, you make mistakes, and you are willing to own them. I've taught her to stand up to anything and anyone, including me. While some might think this is destructive, some people need to get real with their power trip parenting style. You aren't a super hero, you are only a person and they are capable of understanding that if you just take off the mask. I eat a lot of crow over the matter, willingly. Every day. I eat crow, I eat dirt, I eat my hat, I eat my words; I eat, I eat, I eat, I eat. Seems to be a theme in my life, but in this instance it's my sickening saving grace. While fucking up on the daily and losing my temper, saying stupid shit, doing stupid shit, and being generally emotionally unstable I have tried my best to explain the "boo boo in my head" to her since she was 2...because as a SAHM I had no other choice. I was alone with her and there was no escape. She picked the bathroom lock. That's a fucking metaphor. I had to keep it real in order to keep our attachment healthy. Has it shifted back and forth at times? Absolutely...it does with any parent-child relationship at times, but I always strive to remember that my point is connection and not control, which seems to be what comes programmed. Fighting the system is hard when you are a part of the system, which is why checks and balances are vital. I essentially taught Celie to call me out on my shit. This is essential but has also added to her already genetic inheritance of stubbornness from both sides, but I just like to think that she's going to be a hardheaded woman some day in a Cat Stevens kind of way. She knows how she should be treated because I am teaching her to recognize and express feeling even when I, her primary caregiver, cross a line. I don't just act like nothing happened and it's within my parental right to be a total asshole. She knows all about moods and emotions. She knows all about anxiety and is learning to deal with her own developing weirdness and the connected struggles. I do my best to help her to understand herself as I better understand myself through understanding her. Does that make sense? "I understand!" she is constantly telling me. It's fucked up...but I really believe her. I'm not the kind of mother that would stack bills to bet my kid is smarter than yours or give IQ that much overall value in a child. Celie Ruth is smart as a whip but her true gift lies in her innate sensitivity, her learned compassion, and her striking emotional intelligence. Kids can understand a lot more than you think they can if you just talk to them, meet them at their own level, and never take away their source of love. Know your audience, keep explaining yourself in order to be understood, and eat the fucking crow. Always. EAT IT!! Just don't choke on the feathers.

Okay, so I couldn't just say a few words about this image but I can seldom say only a few about anything. I essentially never really stood up to anyone or anything and I took people's bullshit all of my life which feeds into many of my problems. My goal with my daughter as a parent is to raise a woman that will not react that way to the world she finds herself in, no matter what. Celie has been through her share of bullshit and I will inevitably leave her with her own pile of bullshit because of my own bullshit because of their bullshit, but I hope that it's a small pile and doesn't stink as bad as mine does. #parentinggoals Knockin' off the shit, my girl is going to be turning 8 on Sunday and birthdays are bittersweet, every one of 'em. Her looks are changing; she's growing into her big girl face. I'm growing up right along with her, though. She has, so far, been my biggest teacher. Being called out is hard enough in life, but when it's by a child it does all kinds of weird things to your heart and mind. Ego punches; growing pains. Children innately have a very strong sense of indignation and if you allow them to apply a durable coat, they actually have their own excellent scrub and stain resistance. This whole idea was just too phenomenally beautiful not to share. Stand up to anything and anyone. 

Trapped Inside the Interstellar Bookshelf

The cycle of Life. It's fucked up, right? I've been in this crazy head space this past year and I have failed to describe it using words aside from saying that it feels like I am trapped inside the Interstellar bookshelf. Have you seen the movie Interstellar? If you haven't, you should; it's a good flick. And that's how I feel. Closterphobic, lost in space. All of time laid out before me. Endlessly spirally away from me. It's not an entirely bad feeling. It's a bit nihilistic, because everything I do is futile and pointless, but in the same breath, a fractal mirroring of that...everything I do is of the utmost importance. I am inside the cycle of life peering out at the entirety of the thing. It’s a little nostalgic, because I am fixated on the past and how much things have changed. But we can’t go back, we can only move ahead. And the beat goes on.

I am the age now that my parents, aunts, uncles, etc. were when I was Celie's age, when I remember them. I am them. They are my grandmother, who I can remember in her late fifties, who is gone now, God rest her soul, and I miss her every day. I'm a panicking child periodically as I think of the monotony of life and my role in it and I just want to crawl up into Grandma's lap again. I'm a mother and a wife. What the fuck happened? It feels like high school was yesterday. What happened to my twenties? I'm going to wake up soon and be in my 60's, I'm fairly certain that's how it happens. Out of nowhere, boom, there you are. Before you know it, you're elderly....going back into the vagina of life only to be shot out of one again. It's like a conveyer belt! I guess only if you believe in reincarnation, but still...I digress.

I just gave birth to my second child 4 months ago. My entire pregnancy seems like a blur. My dog was sick and dying of cancer for 9 months right along with my pregnancy. Life and death were occurring simultaneously once again. He died when our baby boy was 2 months old; at least he got to meet him. We just built an addition onto our house, two rooms that we desperately needed for expanding our family. My daughter's bedroom was my old office space, a tiny little room that's not much more than a closet. We remodeled the entire room for her when I was pregnant the first time. Since then we remodeled the bathroom and moved the washer and dryer into her already extremely small room. I felt horrible that she barely had a space of her own so I tried to make it hers the best that I could, getting her a lava lamp and a My Little Pony clock and all kinds of purple shit. There was a bed, a dresser that was blocked by the bed so it couldn't even be opened fully, and a tiny path to the washer and dryer, that were stacked in the corner. I would sit on her bed as I loaded laundry. It was tight, but we made it work for the past 6 years.

When I became a mother I lost that space, that room that I had my computer and office things set up in, where I would hide and write. In building the addition, we moved my daughter to our old bedroom, so her old bedroom could become JUST the laundry room but I have taken it over as more of a multipurpose room. My husband put wire shelves up along the whole length of the wall and built me a countertop in it. I made it my desk already. We are moving my two bulky filing cabinets that are in our dining room into it soon. This room is going to clear up a lot of cluttered space throughout the house. We are still shifting things all around; it's been so chaotic here lately. Everything is up in the air and there is a Great Settling that is going to take place. There's so much to do but I feel like I know where I'm going now.

Creating life is a mind fuck. It's intense, not only the whole process of pregnancy and the mighty pain of labor, but the rearing and raising. Parenting is what can change the world. Parents are directly molding the entire future...no pressure. There has been so much change here lately. Another baby, finally. Our dog is dead. Our house is changing. Trees were cut down?! (Is that a metaphor?) We just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. I put off having a second child for a few years to take care of myself mentally. Although, I feel tremendous guilt for not making a playmate for my daughter sooner, I really needed those years to get to a better state of mind, one that is conducive to parenting. Parenting alone all week took its toll on me. This time around my husband is working locally so he can be home every night, that's a real game changer. It's a completely different life for us and we are still learning to coparent during the week. It's been an adjustment.

So, here I am. After 6 years and a ton of life changes I find myself once again sitting in this little room writing. I paid all of our bills the other night, too. I have been avoiding that…for years. I think having somewhere to actually sit my laptop and paperwork helps. That’s a whole other part of me that I haven’t been in touch with since I became a mother and had to give up this room. This room is a metaphor. This is where my Drifting Sun dream began over 12 years ago. This is where I set my small business self up. This is where I kept up with my blogging self. This is where I kept my life in check with my office manager bill-paying self. This is where I designed t-shirts with my graphic designer self. There are so many parts of me that I lost when I became a mother because I foolishly thought that was what mothers were supposed to do. Ultimately, this way of thinking is what required me to take that time to go to therapy, etc. I had lost my Self in motherhood. I feel that I have done enough self analysis and discovery to know how to approach it this time around with a better grasp of what I need to do to take care of myself, maintain my own identity and continue to grow as a person. Self-love is important because you can’t pour from an empty glass. I am no good as a mother if I am not CONTINUALLY caring for my self. Now doing it is the hard part. So, it’s a long road ahead. At least I am more self aware and know when I’m fucking up now.

Inside the Interstellar bookshelf, I reside. It’s funny that I am in this room once again after all these years. I’ve heard that nothing ever goes away until it teaches you what you need to know. Apparently I have more to learn from this room. It’s like starting out, making tons of progress, you think, then unraveling all of said progress, and ending up right where you started in the beginning but with new eyes.

The Upside to Procrastination

HAIKU:

PROcrastination.

As the dishes pile up.

I make a cheesecake. 

This weekend Joey worked on Saturday, so I was bored and sad. At first, I was motivated and said, okay, that's fine, I'll do the dishes. Then I looked at the dishes and immediately decided I had much better things to do. This was Friday night. I was in good spirits and had the best intentions but then I got bummed out because it was Friday and he wasn't coming home, so instead of doing the dishes and cleaning up the destroyed (I mean, put off for days) kitchen, I would write a song. I sat at the counter, facing the mocking dishes, and instead penned and strummed out a song that actually made me fairly proud. So that was a Friday well spent, I'd say, even if my kitchen was a disaster. The first lesson in procrastination..sometimes, putting off doing the dirty work allows you to create something new.

On Saturday, I thought about cleaning up the kitchen again but just wasn't in a cleaning shit up mood. I figured, since Joey's ETA wasn't until after 6, I would make my leap into cheesecakery. I finished up the song I wrote the night before and played around with it a bit, but then I started to bake, regardless of the state of my kitchen, which is something I'm not usually inclined to do. I usually prefer to have it cleaned up if I am doing any kind of fun baking and added mess making. I have never made a cheesecake from scratch before, but my mother had given me a 9" Wolfgang Puck springform pan as a gift this Christmas, because I had said about wanting to make one. So I finally got around to trying it out. This baby was from scratch. I mean, not from a box, but an honest to goodness cream cheese heavy whipping cream concoction of a for real cheesecake. My first!

I found a recipe on the internet. It is allegedly The Perfect Cheesecake, a twist on another woman's recipe posted by another woman. I didn't even look in my books and for some reason just searched the net and went with this one. It's a New York Style cheese cake, that actually required a water bath and everything and had a few steps. Leave it to me to go with a harder one, because I don't believe they all require a fancy pants bath and foil wrap? I also found out that our oven is incredibly uneven and needs leveled before I make my next cheesecake or a cake of any type for that matter. So, it's a little lopsided, but that doesn't affect the taste at all. It's still a beautiful thing.

This cheesecake actually called for a sour cream based topping spread on it, and then an optional fruit (raspberry) topping drizzled over it. I was at my mother's last week when she had been picking rhubarb out of their garden so I got some off of her to try out. Surely I should be able to make a fruit concoction for cheesecake from it? So I tried it out. My rhubarb topping wasn't exactly drizzlable, so I just spread it over top of the sour cream topping layer after I chilled that a bit. It worked. It ended up tasting quite sweet and yummy; rhubarb and cheesecake actually go together well.

The cake, as a whole, was a success. The butter in the crust was perhaps a bit much, or the salt wasn't stirred into the crumbs enough, perhaps, and I would let the cream cheese come a little more to room temperature next time, but I'm still mmmmmcredibly pleased with the end result. We ate a bunch and gave a bunch away. The second lesson in procrastination...sometimes putting off the dirty work is pretty tasty! It's all about priorities. A dirty house doesn't need to be the end of your endeavors; you aren't putting things off if you are still doing something worthwhile. I got a song and a cheesecake out of the deal. There are so many better things to be doing than dishes!! So there. My first cheesecake, a rhubarb New York Style one, even. Delicious.

SOURCES: Perfect Cheesecake Recipe

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_cheesecake/

The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra at The Rowland Theatre

The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra Presents:

THE CLOWN PRINCES

Saturday, May 14th, 7PM

Rowland Theatre, Philipsburg

Saturday, May 14^th I had the honor of going to our locally treasured Rowland Theatre in Philipsburg to see The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra conducted by Rick Benjamin that did a show there to a mix of silent films, entitled The Clown Princes. The performance included films by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd as well as a selection of American theatre orchestra favorites. The show cost $20 and was filled decently well with fans of all ages, including some fun ladies in their flapper garb, feathers and pearls who really got into it. I went with my mother and my Aunt Peggy. It was a really good time!

Something about me…I have had a Buster Keaton thing since college. I love Charlie Chaplin, also; who doesn’t love the Little Tramp? But I, for some reason, was incredibly drawn to the Great Stone Face and his contribution to the silent film era so this was an exciting event. Silent films are pretty interesting. The acting had to be big enough to get the ideas and gags across with absolutely no sound, while also being entertaining and filmed from the best angles. It relied heavily on slapstick and stunts, most of which were done by the actors themselves who were, in many cases, directing the films as well. These guys were hard core. They were pioneers in filmmaking, our forefathers of visual comedy, acting and directing. It was such a cool experience to see these silent films on the big screen with live music from a real ragtime orchestra like it would have been at the time of their production. We were actually encouraged to hiss and boo at the bad guys, and ooh and ahh for the good guys.

The first selection was the 1922 film Cops starring Buster Keaton, directed by Keaton and Eddie Cline. Afterward, the band played an orchestral interlude for reel change music, as would have been traditional back in the day. Rick Benjamin, the conductor, spoke some about music history, and how most of the films were made around the year that the Rowland opened, in 1917, and also how rare music would have been back then. He spoke of today and how music has become a kind of “sonic wallpaper” as he called it, as in it’s everywhere in the background. He said he thinks that it actually devalues the music.

In the silent film era musicians, writers and publishers were all in high demand to create the musical scores for movies. People didn’t have access to music like they do now and they would only be able to hear music if a family member or a friend played an instrument, or if they were able to catch a live performance. It makes you think and it’s really true. Music has been devalued because it is so ubiquitous now. It’s everywhere from elevators, waiting rooms, cars, stores and commercials. He’s right, it IS sonic wallpaper! So much so that people probably don’t even realize a lot of the time that it is there sticking to the wall. In the silent film era, however, the music stood out and was more important because it wasn’t as prevalent. It was a luxury!

The second photoplay was the 1920 film Get Out and Get Under starring Harold Lloyd, who was a boxer turned actor. This film was directed by truck driver turned director, Hal Roach. Loyd’s “Glass” character was more like the common man. People loved Buster’s “Stoneface” and Charlie’s “Tramp” because they were goofy and different, Benjamin said, but they loved Harold Loyd because he reminded them of themselves. I wasn’t as familiar with Lloyd as the other two clown princes, so it was really neat to see this film.

After intermission we were treated to a selection of American theatre orchestra favorites, including 1921’s I’m Just Wild About Harry, 1904’s The Cascades, and W.C. Handy’s 1915 blues number The Hesitation Blues. The third photoplay section was 1916’s Easy Street starring and directed by Charles Chaplin! It’s amazing to think this film came out just one year before the Rowland opened its doors in 1917. The music to this film could actually not be found so the entire score for this one was reconstructed by Rick Benjamin based on musical settings of the time.

This was a very entertaining show. Benjamin asked the crowd if we would each bring “two and a half” people with us if they returned. We cheered that we would, of course. It was a great time; highly entertaining watching Joseph Ellis do the drums and sound effects along with the film. They pulled out all the bells and whistles, literally. Quacky noises for people talking or giving speeches, sobbing noises for when people cried. With just 11 members, The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra sounds pretty boomin’! I highly recommend it!

Also, interestingly, it is the eve of the Rowland Theatre’s centennial. The Rowland was opened on June 4^th, 1917 by Charles Hedding Rowland and its very first offering was a silent film entitled “Within the Law”. Currently, the Rowland Theatre’s Board of Director’s is in the process of collecting funds to restore the marquee to the original glass structure that appeared in 1917. The original marquee apparently extended over the roadway about two feet. In conjunction, they will be designing a plaza in front of the theatre to protect the new structure that will be made of bricks, extending the sidewalk. People can order a personalized brick for $100 each. The Rowland Theatre is on the National Register of Historic Places and really is a local treasure. I look forward to seeing the finished marquee in 2017 and supporting them in the future as they continue to bring entertainment to the Moshannon Valley area, just like this showing of The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra’s The Clown Princes!