On accomplishing more and less

Recently, I realized that in several weeks it will be three years since my mother died, which was a defining period in my life for a number of reasons.

1. I realized that chronology had caught up with me and I was officially the eldest member of my family. Me, the matriarch. One who is expected to be wise and mature both in years and behavior. (Do not laugh here). One who is, well, old. Having a birthday two months later and adding up the numbers made me reflect that the majority of my life on earth was indeed behind me. None of these thoughts, to be honest, was a happy one.

2. My number two daughter discovered a week after my mother's passing that she was pregnant, making me not only a matriarch but a grandmother to be. Wow, talk about passages! Loss, pain, joy and hope all rolled into one package.

3. Losing the last parent suddenly and unexpectedly (despite my mother's advanced age) made me realize again just how fragile life is and regret the things begrudged, undone, unsaid, unasked, unknown. I wished then and wish now that I had listened better. Now that questions cannot be asked or answered, especially.

4. At the time of my mothers death, I was trying to sell my house as a means to provide more monthly income and downsize my lifestyle but like many in our area in 2007 couldn't find a buyer. My mother's passing made the move unnecessary and eased my immediate financial worries during a time of deep Recession in our country. I wish it had happened another way, but what, is is and I am thankful to my parents for their parting gift.

I have reflected recently more than I would like, usually in the early morning hours when I should be falling asleep but can't, that in the past several years since Mother's death I seem to have achieved very little. My daily routine doesn't change much. Hours merge into days into weeks into months with a similar pattern: I wake, read the paper, sip coffee, breakfast and check email then spend ninety minutes walking the dogs. By that time its lunch time. I eat, straighten up the house (ignoring dust and actual cleaning), do laundry or go grocery shopping, write a while and then its time to get dinner, walk dogs again, catch little TV, and go back to bed to read for an hour or two on Kindle. Boring, eh? Sounds like it as I write it. I have flayed myself emotionally for this. But, what was I supposed to be doing really? I have no real good answer to this question.

But wait: In that same time frame, I cleaned out her house (which was an enormous task for one little matriarch), organized all her financial records and went through forty years of haphazardly piled up papers, found her missing stocks, updated and staged her house, sold her house, reinvested my inheritance, settled her estate, and hand carried her ashes to the little mountain cemetery in Pennsylvania where her family has been buried since 1805.

I supervised the extensive updating and some renovating of my own house and perhaps most importantly I wrote three books. A collection of short stories and a poetry anthology. The first two are published and the third, my first novel, is in edits.

So, maybe I have accomplished a few things after all. On the non accomplishing but life enriching side, I spent the last non committed to something useful funds from my inheritance for a Winnebago. In which Danny and I have taken frequent weekend and day trips and two long trips in the past year. Traveling on the roads with a bathroom and kitchen in the back is educational as well as fun. Dogs can come, too.

So, I will say tonight, "Shut up little annoying in the dark voice. I am not idle and anyone who can be a matriarch and write science fiction is decidedly not ordinary or boring. And dust bunnies contain a multi verse of life even if we can't see it. Leaving them under the chairs and in the corners and over door jams is perfectly all right. So there."

POSTSCRIPT:

Still, as some clever fellow once said, even if you are on the right track you'll get run over if you stand still. While walking one of my three dogs this morning, I found myself thinking about that and wondering if I am indeed on the right track or standing still as regards my writing. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I am dragging my editing heels on the dragon book.

I am doing this, I think, because once done I have to decide what to do with this one. And folks keep telling me I should use it to seek fame and fortune. So, are they right? Do I seek an agent, seek traditional publishing and have to do the ghastly in person book promotions if it does get almost miraculously published? Aren't most of the big box booksellers teetering on financial collapse? Aren't a lot of book buyers like me, rapidly changing their habits and buying most of their books off Amazon and or on Kindle? Would the brief emotional high of seeing my book at Borders or B & N and the approval of those folks who only respect conventionally published writers worth the lengthy emotional cost of getting Tim's book there and the physical misery of promotion? I have to answer, no.

I don't fly commercially or drive self more than an hour away from home unless it is life or death. I hate sleeping in hotels. I hate being started at. I can't do cold call phone calls and early morning meetings. Doing readings, signings, and speeches whatever the time of day would give me migraines, stomach disorders and probably bring back my long vanished Panic Disorder. No quality of life here. I know many people would enjoy all if those things. To me, it would all be purgatory if not Hell.

So, I ask myself: Why did I decide to write the book in the first place? Easy answer. For my grandchildren (and I have three now), children, extended family, and any friends who would enjoy it. If the rest of the world wants to read it, super. So, I think my conclusion is just to finish the project, not worry about the agent and submission thing. Small press it or POD. Put it out as a Kindle book and as an Audio and/or Podio Book. Let the words fall where they may. On fertile ground or parched earth.

To those who see this as a cop out or as less legitimate, I will wave good bye from the window of the Winnebago as I ride off to enjoy the dusty road wherever it may be leading. As a matriarch, my years have earned me the right and excuse to do whatever I want to. Or not do what I don't.

Right now, before the day is over I'd better get to a few edits. Live long and prosper.

April update and musings

April update:

Still sneezing: the pollen continues to drop. Enjoyed Easter Sunday with a visit to Preacher Tom's church, an egg hunt in the front yard with all three grandkids, and dinner with the entire family for a change. Finished the first draft of my first actual novel. Took Laura and her little family to Flagler Beach.

Now, am struggling to edit the novel. That is not as much fun as writing it was and it is impossible to predict how long it is going to take. Think of pulling teeth. Yeah, it is like that without the Novocaine.

I think part of my problem is not knowing what to do with the novel when I do get it in finished form. So, procrastination is nipping at me. I am taking a lot of naps instead of working. Getting headaches. Will I look for a publisher, agent? Self publish? Or just take another nap? Huuummm...

Here's the facts: I hate selling myself or anything else. I hate public speaking and hate commercial airline travel. Hate staying in hotels and calling strangers. Book signings would give me a stomach ache. So, that little voice inside me is whispering that the book is bad, so I can avoid working on it, avoid finishing, avoid decisions, avoid looking for commercial publication. Obscurity is easy. Success would not be.

Am I cursed or blessed? Is it the journey or the destination? Does one bite off the head or butt of a chocolate rabbit first?

I am off for a nap.

Here's some recent pictures from my life from Santa Rosa Beach at Topsail State Park and my sweet grand baby Bailey Brown's first birthday.

Long time no write. I've been busy with:

1.The 51st annual Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival

2.Being abjectly miserable from Spring allergy season....achoo, scratch, scratch...arrggh, congestion!

3.Working for hours every day on the rough draft of my YA novel. I am at page 283 and have two more chapters to write. Then, the fun begins with the content edits. I consider the next phase as polishing a diamond from the rough until it sparkles from many facets. Hopefully.

Live long and prosper. I'll blog again soon. I promise. Ta.

I had a health scare this morning. I woke up with packed sinuses, searing pain in my left eye, and neck pain that radiated down my left side. Being the super allergic humanoid I am, I shrugged and got up. I am used to morning headaches. I cope. So, I got up, grabbed my ever necessary iPhone from the nightstand and made my way to the kitchen where I poured myself my usual mug of coffee, swallowed two decongestants, unrolled the newspaper and sat in my habitual morning paper reading chair in the family room. I looked down at the paper and blinked. My eyes wouldn't focus. I couldn't read. There seemed to be a black hole in my vision. I clicked on my phone and tried to read my facebook page. I couldn't see the words. Then, my left eye felt as if it was exploding with fireworks of light. An arc shaped like the Arabic sickle wiggled and arched.

I made my way to the closest bathroom and peered into the mirror. My pupils were pinpoints and would not dilate. By now, I was feeling a little panicky. What was happening? Was I having a stroke? Was I going blind due to pressure on the optic nerve or something dire?

I grabbed a bottle of eye drops and put some in each eye, swallowed some Ibuprofen with the rest of my coffee, picked up my phone and went back to bed. Tried some calming Yoga breaths. The flashing continued. If it doesn't stop in 30 minutes, I thought, I will have to call for help, have somebody drive me to the hospital. What if I die? What if I go blind?

Two more thoughts zipped past: I haven't had a bath yet and my hair is dirty and if I die I won't be able to finish my book! Then, I thought, If I just go blind I can dictate the book and somebody else can type it. I admit to saying a prayer at that point.

My angel must have been listening as five minutes later everything normalized. Eye fireworks stopped. I could focus my vision. Eyes began to dilate again. Nothing remained but a dull headache. I checked the internet and the symptoms corresponded closest to the aura some people get before a migraine begins. I've had plenty of migraines, but no auras before, although my mother had plenty. So, it was good that I didn't go to the emergency room as I would have been fine by the tine I got there. Guess the caffeine and decongestants and pain medicine did the trick in the nick of time.

The funny part of the story was my concern, not of death or disability but of not finishing my novel. I guess that means I truly am a writer at heart. FOI: I have 250 pages of the rough draft done. Maybe another 30 or 40 to go. So, TTFN, I better get writing. Live long and prosper.

Puppy Snaps

Chilidog, I was looking at your baby pictures today. Couldn't help but smile. Especially at the first.

In this one, you are a roly-poly two months. Your coat, grey and white and black tipped eiderdown. Fluffy as an spring time chick. Your stocky little tan legs appear too short for your black masked head and upright charcoal ears, which alertly point to the deep azure sky above the jungly spiky grass that you hunker down in. Your purple collar is too big for your neck and hangs slightly askew. I can't see it, but I suspect that your favorite red rubber ball is somewhere nearby. Your head is slightly cocked and your coca cola eyes shine with the mischief that I've come to know all too well in the five years since we made each other's acquaintance. In fact you are too cute for the poor description I've written.

If I had been made aware of the puppy finding expedition and had been coerced into riding shotgun, even I might have succumbed to your incredible cuteness, just like your first owned human did, even knowing better as I certainly would have known with my dog breed familiarity. For, you do not buy an Australian Cattle Dog puppy, not unless you have nothing else to do with your days and nights but train. You do not buy a no rules just right, one speed fits all at warp four, boldly going where no one has ever gone to before sort of puppy. A puppy that micro naps but never deeply sleeps. A puppy that defeats crates and pulls the eyelids of sleeping pit bulls with her sharp little milk teeth instead of just letting bully boys lie wherever they want to. A puppy that fears nothing, who leaps forward to catch misfiring bottle rockets on the 4^th of July as they whiz down the street straight at her instead of flying upward into the sky. You do not buy an Australian Cattle Dog puppy when you work full time and go to college at night and already have a cat and two pit bulls and four birds and a rat and a snake or four. Especially a puppy whose kennel name is Big trouble in Little China. There's danger there, Will Robinson.

Well, anyway , Chili dog, you were really as cute as an Easter bunny. The picture proves it. That's how you came into your first owned human's life and then ultimately into mine a few months later. After you'd broken your hip wrestling with the 100 pound pit bull. After you'd eaten her carpet and terrorized the cat. Was it really you that sent Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne packing? Or did it just seem so? In any case, I didn't regret taking you in. Well, not for the first ten minutes anyway, until you hopped against the front door and locked me outside. “How long is she staying?” Danny asked for the first three days. But then, something funny happened. Danny fell in love with you. It only took him a week. It took me awhile longer, and, dingo spawn, don't tell anyone, but I fell in love with you, too. Even after all the trash can robbing and the eating of roach baits and the ruined Oriental rugs.

In fact, we both missed you last weekend on our trip to the Panhandle. And, It didn't feel right without your forty four pounds pinning my legs to the mattress last night. No one barked me awake for biscuits this morning, since the other card carrying members of The Mutley Crew are more polite than you. But, I missed you. The house was too orderly and too clean this morning. Nobody rolled in the sand pit outside and then came inside to shake off the dirt all over the floor. There were no fluffy tumbleweeds of fur rolling around the baseboards. I'm nuts, that's why I drove halfway across God's green Orlando earth to fetch you home from the doggie pet resort with the bone shaped salt water pool and the canine play groups and pricy pet grooming as soon as I'd had my coffee. Even though you knocked my car out of gear in front of a policeman, lowered the automatic windows three times with your busy little paw, got your head in the dog food bag, jumped over the back seat at least forty times in forty minutes and turned off the radio and a/c just when I needed to watch for my turn.

Busy and bad to the bone, that's you, little Chilidog. You Tasmanian devil dog, you. Oh cleverest of canines, she who bring chaos in her wake wherever she trots. She who had dingos in her family clan, scratching pesky Australian fleas under widow-making Eucalyptus trees not so long ago as the Kookaburra flies. Welcome home, little blue heeler.

PS: Abby missed you, too. Ginny, I am not so sure about.

This post was written in a Woodstream Writing Workshop in response to a prompt that started "In this one"...

Dame Nancy and The Ides of Farch

Hello bloggers,

Short week for me as I am leaving town on Thursday to make the long boring drive to the edges of Alabama to join the Templars at their upcoming convent and investiture. Yes, the Knights Templar are still around and have been since the late 1100's. These days they leave the "Crusades" to the army and mostly raise money for charities around the world. Did ja know they created the modern banking system in the 1200's? And they accept females these days and I don't gotta join a nunnery either. Of course they call us Dames instead of Chevaliers. But, what's in a name? There is nothing like a dame, eh? So after this week you can officially call me Dame Nancy if you want. Just not to my face.

Actually, my own family has a history with the Templars in the bad old days. One of my great greats on me Mum's side a literal millennium ago was a Count of Anjou who became King of Jerusalem in Outremer. Sounds romantic doesn't it? Fulk of Anjou was also the ancestor of Richard the Lion and Bad old King John of Robin Hood times who was my own nefarious ancestor. Personally, I like being descended from the King who was, as Jack Sparrow would have said,"A really bad egg." Anyway, Chevalier Daniel and I and two of the Mutley Crew will be off on the Parakeet along Florida's scrub pine and swampy version of the yellow brick road for another week end adventure. I'd hope for good weather, but, alas, it is Farch, so I count on nothing.

Speaking of Farch, here's a little poem from Between The Lines:

The Ides Of Farch

By Nancy Wayman Deutsch

Is it February or is it March?

In Florida, it's hard to tell.

Neither Spring nor Winter

a time between Jingle Bells and colored eggs

mind scape of scarlet hearts and roses

morphing into shamrocks and green beer.

Mother nature misbehaving again

such an indecisive coy calendar girl,

changing her agenda from one day to the next

here and there, her azaleas blushing in pink profusion

where brittle branched oaks shiver in the wind.

My lawn is clothed in coco and verdant green

Old Sol playing peek a boo with steely clouds

scowling gray at patch worked earth below.

Have the robins come and gone unnoticed

before drifting yellow pollen blankets all in sight?

Cocooned with book and candle

I wait to be an April fool

longing for steamy sultry days and golden sunsets

my bare toes digging into damp beachy sand

the raucous calling of gulls filling azure sky above.

Live long and prosper. Resistance is futile, anyway.

On Doctors and the great health care scam

The weather is changing again from springlike back to wintery. The pressure is changing too and a storm front is coming. I knew even without checking the paper this morning or turning on the weather channel 'cause I woke up with sinus pressure and pain and clenched neck muscles. I had to take full sinus/decongestant medicine and painkillers for the headache even though I know it will adversely affect my stomach. Sigh. But, what's a person to do. Worse than the weather, I feel a rant coming on. So, duck and cover, friends.

The state of medical care in America is a farce: I suppose everyone knows that. Forget about Congress and the Senate and the President arguing endlessly about passing a health care bill. What they're proposing isn't going to fix what ails us, even if and when it passes. Premiums will continue to rise. The fat cats at the drug companies and HMO's will laugh all the way to their third vacation homes and yachts. Doctors will continue to push through their one size fits all agendas on the hapless patients who wait hours for their five minutes of being talked down to on the patient assembly line, questions unanswered, before being pushed put the door to pay for a visit that doesn't solve anything. Before the hapless patient know it, he or she is now seeing three more 'specialists' for conditions he or she may or may not have now or in the future. Money makes the world go round, world go round, world go round...here's another drug your insurance won't cover to add to the pile you are already taking, too. Feeling nervous about it? Well, there's an expensive drug for that too.

Everybody must have a bone scan, chloresterol check, invasive screening procedures colonostopy, etc. once you reach middle age...blah blah blah...even if you have no symptoms of disease. Because you might be precancerous or pre something else dire and if you are they have a surgical procedure for that that may or may not fix you. You may live into old age even if you only have some of your parts and you will spend a whole lot of time visiting the doctors for all kinds of new ailments. But, it will keep the doctors and the HMOs and the drug companies in business. And keep the moola flowing from your bank account too, insured or not, cause you must be pre approved for even part of the cost for any visit, treatment or procedure or drug!

Now, I've been lucky most of my life. I have been pretty healthy. I don't like going to doctors and generally don't have to. However, I have developed acid reflux disorder and have been seeing doctors off and on for it now for nearly five months. It isnt getting much worse, but it isn't going away either, so I reluctantly saw a gastro specialist yesterday. I waited forty minutes past my appointment time in the gynormous waiting room of his gynormous building before being taken into the august presence of the doctor. He started out our brief visit by being what he must have supposed was entertainingly condescending of my past jobs and present vocation of writing. He informed me that he too was a teacher and was going to explain how my body worked, after snorting in my direction and asking, "Are you here because you actually expect total improvement!?" That unexpected statement caused normally verbal me to shut down in shock.

He then told me to continue my present medication and watch my diet before saying that they "always" do a test on their patients at his office with a camera down the esophagus that requires anesthesia to determine possible cancer or pre-cancer growths and if they find any they do surgery in the hospital (which he did not explain the prognosis of). Then he said since I was going to "be out" anyway he'd do a colonoscopy since all women my age should have one. He pointed out that 1 out of 100 women are at risk for colon cancer "if they are black or non Caucasion , smoke, drink, have a family history of colon cancer or are overweight." Uh, hello, I fit none of those categories...but one size fits all here, he is in business to do those costly routine tests which are not covered by my insurance since I never meet my threshold deductable.

I then brok into the monologue by saying, "What if I decide to just have the camera esophagus test at the present time and forgo the other?" After all, acid reflux is my only symptom.

He quickly stood, picked up my folder and replied coldly, "Well, you could do that but you would be extremely foolish." He then said curtly, "I will see you at the procedures," turned on his heel and left before I could say anything else. A minute later a woman came in with a bundle of consent papers for me to sign for both procedures. I refused to sign or schedule anything and left. Nobody discussed what these procedures might cost me at any time during my visit.

I drove home, simmering with anger. "That guy won't be touching this White, non drinking, non smoking, non overweight, no family history of cancer woman fore or aft," I vowed.. No how, no way.

Oh, I almost forgot. At the beginning of our brief visit, I told him I was being treated for a sinus infection with antibiotics after going to an urgent care facility. He said "No urgent care doctor is capable of diagnosing a sinus infection. You must go to an ENT specialist immediately!!" Then he recommended a friend. "He's my ENT doctor, too," he declared, as if that was a good recommendation.

Yes, America is having a health care crisis. Most Americans have bad living habits. We don't eat right, sleep well, we smoke, we drink, we don't exercise. We expect doctors to fix us because we are taught to regard them as godlike beings and we are willing to pay through the nose for it if we're able to and suffer through the medical system as it exists like lambs to the shearing pens.

Rant over! My white, non smoking, no drinking, no family history of cancer, acid refluxing body is going to go walk my three dogs.