countdown to the breakdown

dos equis saved me from careening over the brink ages and ages (three weekends) ago by kidnapping me that sunday. the weather was so stunning, the experience so much an escape and the pressure on the inside of my skull so seriously relieved that our one-day getaway felt like a week in tuscany. his tactile shirt matched the room. the room matched the chardonnay he uncorked upon our arrival. the chardonnay probably matched something else, but mostly it just cooled me wee brain.

before, and since, i have been reminding myself to count my blessings and attempt to be zen. because...the roof still ain't right, although the six-foot section of exhaust pipe that the roofers ripped out and which subsequently crashed onto the kitchen floor has been replaced – but not completely sealed, because the roofers expected me to supply the screws (?!). this after a week of the downstairs neighbors inadvertently blasting noxious exhaust fumes directly into my loft – the one where i work and sleep and write incoherent run-on sentences and, ideally, not asphyxiate. then there's the fact that everything but the kitchen is covered in plastic sheeting and dropcloths so that cleanup of tar bits and plaster and not-asbestos* dust will be a snap later. oh, and when i came back from my thanksgiving holiday, the first without my mom expertly turning out her usual extravagant feast, i found my down comforter, feather bed and futon soaked through with dirty rainwater that had leaked through my skylight, a skylight that had previously not leaked until the roofers came and demolished our sad but mostly functional excuse for a roof.

so maybe it's because i've been sleeping on the loveseat in the middle of the dance floor underneath a springtime-weight sleeping bag and half-aired-out down comforter that i woke up with a scratchy throat this morning. it was frigid last night, but i can either keep some of the windows cracked or kill an unacceptable amount of brain cells with the exhaust that is right now seeping through the bolt holes of the half-repaired exhaust pipe. my landlady flagrantly writes off my diplomatically worded complaints as petty whining and refuses to reimburse me for a new futon. my lease-holding roommate is out of town. my bed is a petri dish of mildew. much as i love this loft, i think perhaps it would be wise to move on after i get this assignment done. did i mention that part? the part about having three weeks left to write 67% of this current gig? my life disaggregrating sort of reduced the amount of time i have to boot this part of it out the door. both the living and working parts of my live-work situation have been sticking pins into my voodoo simulacrum lately.

OK, i can't tell if my face is hot because i'm drinking shiraz as a cold remedy, or because carbon monoxide fumes are accumulating under my moroccan tent (=office). if i don't get carted away in a white jacket by the end of december, would anyone with leads on good living situations kindly let me know tout suite?



* fingers crossed!

roofer madness

i'm a little angry and on edge lately. i'm finding that grieving just happens when it feels like happening, which is fine and natural and part of how you move on in life. also finding that work is a good distraction, although it is frustrating that i'm the only one who can meet this deadline whose finished product, honestly, i am not fully dedicated to. i just don't care as much as i should and am more concerned with just being done with it.

so now, this morning. this morning. at 8am as i contemplated throwing off the down comforter, i wound up LEAPING out of bed so as to avoid being seen through the skylight by the heavy-booted yetis who had climbed onto the roof and clomped from the front end of the warehouse to this here back end. break-in? i thought, standing on the workspace side of my loft – which isn't visible through the skylight.

it's not a break-in, although IT MIGHT AS WELL BE with the scraping and shoveling and dragging of who knows what across the roof. i'm sure they're improving the watertightness of the place, which hey! it's about flippin time. but you know what? when bits of ceiling and rafter come crumbling into my home because these people are banging so dog damn hard it is as if they are drilling for oil eighteen inches above my head, then i just might have that nervous breakdown, thank you. i've taken measures to avoid it, like just now hurriedly tacking up a faded turquoise tapestry above the blue desk so that i don't completely lose my shiz when plaster begins falling onto my laptop and into my coffee. because then it will get personal. and then i might do something i'll regret, like climbing up that hall ladder wielding my two-foot batteryless maglite.

motherless

maybe she's looking after my dad, who says he sees her every day, says he sees sort of an aura of her in unexpected places. i haven't sensed her, haven't had one dream, haven't encountered her anywhere in my first off-balance, floaty steps through motherlessness since she died three sundays ago.

my oldest friend L, who grew up one door down from me – her mother was diagnosed with a similar type of cancer just a month or two before my mom's diagnosis. L lost her mother just a year and a half ago. my mom saw her obituary in the paper and phoned me. i drove down south for the funeral and remember seeing L there on the ocean cliff of the cemetery on that sunny, blue day, shell-shocked, having lost her best friend, biggest supporter, and original source of fierce, unconditional love. i had nothing to say beyond a choked, tear-blurred i'm so, so sorry because i could not imagine the overwhelming pain she was experiencing.

L heard about my mom in the same way, when her aunt called the other day after seeing the obit, and L called me crying because she knew exactly where i was and how much further i have to go. but she said it will get better, if i don't believe it now, and i take her words completely to heart because i saw her live it herself. even in losing our mothers we have the small comfort of being able to draw from our parallel histories. it's a lot more bitter than sweet, but as long as i can catch that barest implication of sweetness i'm going to close my eyes and taste it.

it hasn't all quite settled into what forms my reality. i was there when my mother died; i saw the silent change between life and death, and yet it doesn't feel like i was there at all. i had a moment of dissociation the other night, speculating on what i would end up doing, as if i were watching the actions of another person. it was the first i'd noticed, but it's probably an impromptu coping mechanism. i'm able to laugh; i've actually had a little fun without feeling guilty. but as another friend put it – one who lost her mother at about the same age – my life will never be the same. and i feel that so keenly, not just that i've lost this irreplaceable, amazing and beautiful person who nurtured and gave me life, but also that i've lost something intangible i can't even explain but which leaves a dimension of my selfhood missing.

my dad and brother and i are so grateful that she didn't die a painful, cancerous death. although the cancer had recently returned to her brain and lymph nodes, the only symptom she felt was exhaustion. what eventually broke her in body and spirit was the massive stroke that didn't seem to hurt terribly much. in the beginning, she knew who we were and smiled when she saw us enter her hospital room: a blessing. but she also began remembering the date, and how long she'd been in hospital, and that she'd been moved from rehab institute to nursing home: a curse. i am still thankful that she didn't suffer physically, when cancer can be hideously painful – but the idea of her understanding that she was deteriorating on a daily basis just crushes me. she was so proud, so independent. i almost wish it had been more sudden, even if i weren't with her when she died, if she didn't have to know that she was dying. if it was momentary.

it is a fearful thing to love what death can touch. – anonymous