Life in the Slow Lane

There isn’t a route to school that doesn’t lead us through at least one extra school zone, where traffic is slowed to 20 miles per hour (for my friends overseas, that is 32 kph).  I have to watch out for those.  I was caught by photo radar a couple of times.  It’s terribly embarrassing to get that notice in the mail, not only telling you that you were caught speeding, but providing you with the evidence:  a lovely photo of yourself, behind the wheel of your car, with an expression on your face clearly showing that you were entertaining thoughts of running down the “Slow Children” about which the street signs are giving warning. 

I’m much better now at remembering where the school zones are.  It only took two traffic tickets to etch that into my memory.  Now I gloat when, after slowing down to a 20 mph crawl, a car behind me honks, speeds around me, and is instantly nabbed by the police who are hiding around the corner. 

Slowing down is something I do well these days.  This says a lot; because there isn’t much I do well these days.  Getting out of bed is now a process; a process of making sure that I’m still all here and everything is working as it should.  Feet curling up?  Check.  Walking in little shuffles to the kitchen where my meds are kept?  Check.  Vision slightly blurry?  Check.  Hands swollen and all the joints creaky and painful?  Check.  Anything new happening muscle or joint-wise?  No?  Then everything’s cool.  I’m all together and ready to start the day.  When something new shows up, I’m not a happy camper, but the familiar wonkiness is just fine.  After I take the meds, things will even out a bit and the shuffle will turn into a walk, the feet will uncurl, and I’ll be able to see more clearly.  Life is good!

During the last few weeks, however, the pace of life has suddenly become faster. Just as I get used to starting slowly, making a big healthy breakfast, and going for long walks with my husband, everything has changed again.  This time, it’s not me.  Happily, I’m the same wonky person I have been for the past year or so.  Granted, I do freeze up now and then, but that’s okay.  I’ve learned a little shuffle dance that can get me going again, and if that doesn’t work, I just stand there muttering “oil can” without moving my lips too, and someone quickly comes to my aid.

No, the pace of our lives has changed so that we can help my parents out a little bit more.  I figured they did enough to help me out through the years; I’d better be there for them, too.  I find myself multi tasking again.  Mom’s recent hospital visit made my siblings and me aware that, though Mom and Dad aren’t doing too badly, they will need help if they are going to be able to stay in their house. 

My sibs and I seem to be on the phone constantly, to each other and to various service organizations, attempting to line everything up for them.  We’re also working on cleaning and fixing up their house so that it is safer for them.  Cleaning, packing, phoning, we are talking about carpeting on the stairway and adding an extra hand rail.  Do they need extra hand rails in the bathroom?  Do we need to take up the small area rugs?  We are also making sure their legal and financial paperwork is in order.  We expect, of course, that they will live at least another twenty years, if for no other reason than to prove to us, their children, that all our work is really just a big fuss.   

I tell my Dad that we will go down the road, one yellow brick at a time.  Hopefully, everything will settle into a nice rhythm and will slow down again.  Until that time, when I drive each day, I’m going to savor those school zones where I have to slow down to a crawl.  As I came back from taking my daughter to school this morning, I realized just how nice was to drive slowly.  A car honked at me and quickly pulled around me and sped away.  I started to gloat, waiting for the inevitable police car to come out from the shadows and nab them.  Then, I stopped in mid-gloat.

I had passed the end of the school zone 4 blocks back.

A Bucket List

A number of years ago, a colleague of mine challenged me to create a list of 100 things that I wanted to accomplish in my lifetime. It sounded like one of those good and noble things to do, so of course I did it. Naturally, I will do anything that is good and noble.

There’s been a movie made about this and so now it’s called a “Bucket List”, meaning that you write down all those things you want to do before you kick the bucket, hand in your dinner pail, shuffle off this mortal coil, take the last bow, and hop on the last rattler. It seems like everyone is making a list. Now it’s not only good and noble, it’s also fashionable.

Maybe it’s time to review mine. Unfortunately, the computer ate it. I think it was the crash of 2007, when I lost my parent/teacher conference notes, family photographs, journal, and found out what an external hard drive is for. Anyway, my list is gone. I do remember a few things. It had a lot in common with my daily to-do lists: finish cleaning my workroom, paint the kitchen, and build a patio in our garden. Not a thrilling read.

There was one item on the list that was interesting; however, that one will have to go. I will not pose nude for a life drawing class. It’s not that I have suddenly become overly modest or that I am worried about my not so perfect body.  That’s actually the point. Human beings come in all shapes and sizes and they are all beautiful, even if not all their bits are quite what our society sees as attractive. It’s my humble opinion that all students, beginning in high school, should be required to take a life drawing class and that the models should be a diverse group.But, as much as I sincerely believe in these classes, I have to admit, I cannot do this. I get cold easily now, and when I get cold, I sneeze. When I sneeze... well, let’s just say, it wouldn’t work.

Since my list has vanished somewhere into cyber world, I asked my family and friends for help. What would they put on their list? My daughter wants to ride a camel. One of my sons wants to write a really thick novel, one that he has fully illustrated. My good friend, Eric, would go white water rafting and sky diving. Andrea would take a three week holiday in Greece. Vicki would go to Israel to see the places where Jesus walked, Chris would buy his pickup truck, and Mike would drive to their mountain cabin and spend an entire day hiking with his family.

I’m not exactly sure what I’d put on my list. Maybe I’d add the tandem sky diving experience. I would also like to be able to play a musical instrument, very well. Of course, I’d mostly like to just snap my fingers and suddenly be able to play an instrument! Learning to play is a lot of work.

When I look back on everything that’s happened in my life so far, however, I’d have to say that the most precious moments to me were those that were not planned and would not be anything that I would ever have thought to put on a list such as this. I never planned out ahead of time that we would have a foster child. Who could have known that I would one day help rescue a baby woodpecker and hand feed it for five days until we found a rescue organization? I never planned on working for three years, for minimum wage, in a nursing home. I always planned on having animals, but the baby goats were a bonus. The biggest unplanned event in our lives would have to be our daughter. We hadn’t planned to have another child. She planned on having us, though, and she was and is still our most amazing unplanned bonus!

I once had a dream that my doctor called me at home. In the phone call, he told me that my health issues were much more serious than they had realized and that I only had three days to live. I remember, very clearly, going into a panic for just a moment, then suddenly saying to myself, “What am I doing? I don’t have time to panic. If I only have three days, I need to get busy. After all, I should clean the house and cook a few dinners to put in the freezer, finish the laundry, and call Rev. Hindes. I have to plan the funeral.” My mind was suddenly a whirl of recipes, menus, folding clothes, and choosing my favorite songs.

I did the whirlwind thing for awhile, in a scatterbrained sort of way and then I stopped. I took a deep breath and sat down. I slowly took out a few sheets of good quality paper and a nice pen. The heck with the housework and cooking; and when does one plan their own funeral anyway? I forgot about everything else I wanted to accomplish and sat down to write love letters to my husband, my children, and my friends.

Now, back to my bucket list. I will still start over again. Then I will have all sorts of ideas for whenever I feel the need to rebel a little and do something big. But I also plan to leave every other line blank. I want to leave some room for all those things that I would never think to put on my list. Hopefully, I will recognize them when they happen and then I can go back and fill in the blanks.

And, just in case I don’t have three days warning before I hop on the last rattler, I’ll start writing those letters.

Flying

I got an ad for funeral insurance in the mail today, addressed to me. It offered $20,000 tax free cash to my family, in the event of my imminent demise. I decided to dispose of it quickly. I don’t want my family to start thinking of what they could do with the money.

One of the great benefits of having Parkinson’s, I’ve always said, is that I don’t have to do things like run a marathon. I’ll happily let others do that! I’m built for comfort, not for speed. One of my friends has tried to tell me how much fun it is to go skydiving. He says it makes you feel like you are flying. I tried to tell him that flying is when you go up. If you can see the ground coming up at you, you aren’t flying, you’re falling. I’m well acquainted with falling already, thank you very much.

However, when little things like this ad for funeral insurance start coming at me, there is a small part of me that wants to rebel. When a salesman was trying to sell long term care insurance to my husband, he suggested that I may well be in a nursing home, five years from now. I glared and thought....And this would be about the time you graduate from high school?

It’s not just the ads. My body has also begun to turn against me again. It happens from time to time. Something new will begin to present itself, usually due to my Parkinson’s. Then for awhile, everything is in flux. Is this just a fluke? Will it go away? Is this part of my Parkinson’s or is this something else? Which doctor do I go to for this one? If it doesn’t go away with time and/or new medications or therapies, then it may be time to adapt to a “new normal”.

Part of my new normal is arthritis in my hands and feet. It’s far worse in my hands and there are many mornings now when I cannot move them without pain, but I get up and stretch them over and over again, working through the pain until they will move a little easier. Being an artist and writer, I would like very much to keep the use of my hands. Let the feet go, if something needs to go; the use of my hands is something I consider vital. I have a grandchild coming, for goodness sake! How am I to get all my knitting done?

If I look ahead too far, it can be pretty scary. I’d like to stay very happily in my comfort zone, doing my arts and crafts, and writing to try and make sense of everything. My life right now is a nice, comfortable place to be. However, I know that I will need to face more changes as time goes by and I will need a considerable amount of courage, if I don’t want my world to become smaller and smaller.

I also want to be a good example to my children, adult children included. In the world today, our children will need to constantly be willing to go beyond their own comfort zones. More than ever before, they will need to have the courage to put their selves out into the world and connect with people. They will need to be flexible and creative in problem solving and most creative in how they make their living. Jobs aren’t jumping out at them.

This means that, if I want to be a good example, I need to go outside my comfort zone – big time. I decided that I should start doing things that I have always been afraid to do. I will start facing my fears in other areas of my life and see what happens. That was the plan anyway. I talked about this with my daughter. She wants me to start drawing more because that’s one artistic skill I do not have in abundance. It is something to try, however, with salesmen predicting my early entry into nursing home care and more ads directed at seniors coming my way every day; my rebellious nature took over and demanded a more challenging deed.

I called my skydiving friend and asked him to take me on the XLR8R Bungee Swing ride at our amusement park. I didn’t need to explain all the reasons to him. One of the best things about this friend is that he is so enthusiastic, that when I am with him, I feel like I can do anything. The downside is that his comfort zone is very, very broad. “Cool,” he said, “name the day.” That’s all it took. Was I being courageous? Hell, no! I didn’t even tell my family I was going to do it. I knew that I could easily be talked out of it and, if I wasn’t talked out of it and chickened out instead, I didn’t want to have anyone else know that I failed. If that happened, it would be putting up with enough teasing from my freind.

So yesterday, I allowed myself to be put in a harness, along with my friend and his daughter, hauled up 182 feet into the air and then, when he pulled the rip cord, we dropped and started to swing back and forth in huge arcs over the amusement park. Never in my life could I have imagined myself doing this.

It was amazing! I loved it! By the time your brain actually registers that you are falling, the fall part is over and you are flying! I actually soared over the park, looking down at all the sorry people who were stuck on the ground. I even put out my arms, briefly. Then we rode on roller coasters and rides that made us spin and go upside down. I concluded that the ride that I had been the most frightened of was actually the one I enjoyed the most. I also concluded that there are a few rides that I don’t want to repeat. I don’t enjoy being upside down!

The best part is what this did for my confidence. The future doesn’t look quite so scary after you’ve dropped 5 stories on a bungee cord. My friend says that I need to do a tandem sky diving jump next. Then I would really feel like I’m flying. Who knows? It might not be so bad after all!

"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."

- Douglas Adams 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWfhP0cOffk&feature=related

(This is not us but it is the same ride. We even forgot to bring our cameras. Next time?)

Comin' down the Mountain

I suspected that we were back from our vacation last week when no one came to change the bedding and put clean towels in our bathroom. I suggested that we try putting the “Maid Service Requested” card on our front doorknob but my husband just gave me a funny look. When we didn’t go out to dinner that evening, it hit hard. Our vacation was definitely over.

I’m having a hard time adjusting to life at home again.  I have to cook my own meals, wash my own towels and make my own bed. There are people calling me and asking me questions other than “what type of dressing do you want on your salad”. Our bank called to replace a lost debit card and they misunderstood me and cancelled the wrong card. I wonder.... Maybe it confused them when they asked for my account number and I answered, “I’ll have the cottage cheese with fresh fruit, please? I’m trying to stay healthy.”

I found out just how easy it is to get used to being on holiday. Our week in Glenwood Springs was refreshing and fun. We walked, or at least Chris walked and I rode, all over the town, everyday. We shopped and didn’t fret about how much money we were spending. We ordered an entire bottle of wine with our dinner.

The scooter behaved well, too. I rode it in and out of shops, down the streets and sidewalks, and I was even able to ride right to the side of the Hot Springs Pool. Glenwood Springs isn’t totally wheelchair accessible but it looks as though they are trying. A couple of times we found beautiful smooth ramps which led directly to a flight of stairs; nothing more, not a door or anything, just the stairs. At the end of the block, the sidewalks were gently sloped as to allow a mere two inch bump instead of a six inch curb to go over. Shock absorbers would be a great idea. The pedestrians were very gracious. They kindly stepped out of my way and let me pass. In fact, they seemed rather eager to get out of my way quickly.

When we arrived back in Denver and I rode down the ramp, out of the train car, the attendants stood in a semicircle around the ramp and sang, “She’ll be coming down the Mountain when she comes...”  It was a touching moment and a nice welcome home.

The scooter is still getting a good work out. I take Chris out for walks every day. I generally walk him for twenty or thirty minutes, then take him to the park and let him off the leash. After a good romp, it’s time to head back home.

Now that we’re back, our attention is being demanded all around the house and garden. The garden has been the most demanding. On our first day back, we picked four and a half pounds of green beans and nearly that amount of snow peas. The lettuce appears to be bolting but hasn’t gone to seed yet so we’re still providing the neighborhood with salad. It was a bit disappointing to see that the zucchini hadn’t produced much. I had to buy a few more just to make a batch of pickles.

I am back at home and back at my routine. It’s good. I have been writing up my to-do lists and getting through most of the tasks each day. I’m looking forward to having friends working with me in the studio next week. I no longer look for the little bars of soap when I go in the bathroom and I haven’t left a tip on the dinner table for several days. Life is back to normal and tomorrow I’ll get up and work in the garden and clean my house.

I’d better have an early morning wake-up call...

...and some White Zinfandel for dinner, please.

Off Road Traveling and that Someday which is Today

As you have probably seen already from the photo that's been posted several times, I am "off-roading" these days. The photo is not totally honest. I rarely travel in the streets if I can help it. I travel almost exclusively off road, on the sidewalk. We finally bought my mobility scooter and we've been putting this little baby to the test. Last Saturday, we got on the train in Denver and came to Glenwood Springs. We had planned to do this as our 30th wedding anniversary celebration and also as a way to begin Chris' retirement.We had talked for a long time about taking a trip together someday, and now we finally are doing it.

There are all kinds of things that I plan on doing someday. Someday, I plan on finishing my book. Someday, I plan on writing down the Grandmother Willow stories. Someday, I will have the studio finished. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. When will someday turn into now?

This is part of why I am so happy that we have come to Glenwood. Of course, the biggest and best reason for taking this trip is that Chris and I can spend 6 days together, just the two of us.  We have had a marvellous time wandering around the town, shopping, swimming, and today, we even rode the Tramway up the mountain! Chris was rightly proud of this accomplishment as he has a serious fear of heights.I have been most excited about wandering around the town and shopping. I can do that now because I am not concentrating only on keeping myself upright and moving, as I need to do if I am walking.

My new scooter is part of how we made our someday become today. Parkinson's is a strange disorder. My neurologist refers to it as a designer disease because it affects different people in so many different ways and our reactions to medications are also very different. There are some days when I don't appear to have any physical challenges whatsoever and other days when I have difficulty getting around in my house.

I met one man whose Parkinson's wasn't at all visible to other people. When a friend of his, whom he hadn't seen for several years, came to town, she didn't believe that he had anything wrong with him and she actually became angry with him for worrying her with his story of having Parkinson's.For those friends of mine who see me only when I am doing well, they might wonder why I would even think of getting a mobility scooter. Isn't it important to exercise when you have Parkinson's? And why would I want to make myself look and be more disabled than I am?

My answer to these questions is simple. I am not trying to be more disabled, I am trying to be more mobile. Over the last 7 years, I have given up a lot of activities that I loved, just because I knew I could not do the walking involved. I didn't go to festivals and fairs anymore. I wasn't able to take long walks or opt to walk with my children to the library instead of taking the car. I didn't go to museums or shopping malls. Some places have simple non-electric wheelchairs that can be used to get around but that really makes me feel disabled! I don't have the strength to push myself through a museum so I would be dependent on someone to push me. Walking will never be the way I get my exercise because, after a half a block or so, my dystonia will kick in. My physical therapist agreed with that. With my scooter, I am able to do things that I haven't done for 7 years. I am more able, not more disabled with my scooter. Why wait till my disease has progressed to the point where I can't get around any other way? I feel good now and I want to do as much as I possibly can do, now!

Why wait for the someday that may never come? Having successfully accomplished so much on this trip, I now have renewed energy to bring home with us. I am determined to make many more somedays turn into todays.

First things first, however. We have just spent two and a half days wandering around the town and being very busy.

I think I need a nap.

Hot Rod

I guess I did leave everyone in the dust.  Patrick took this photo of me on my new mobility scooter.  It's funny, but everytime I looked at the photo, something had changed slightly.  The tattoo is new.  I know it's hard to see, but it's a large red heart with MOM written across it.

Light

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." ~Marianne Williamson~

Thank you to my cousin, Lucy, who posted this quote on her Facebook page.

Chocolate chip cookies

I love my daily rituals. I confess I have a lot of them, beginning with getting up and making my tea in the morning. It’s getting better now, but for years the ritual required me to take two or three sips of tea, then set it down somewhere, and forget about it. During the time that Uncle Bill lived with us, he decided it was his duty to search for my tea as soon as he got up in the morning, two or three hours after I had set down my cup. He would find it, lukewarm and very strong (the tea bag was still in it) and bring it to me. It was a ritual.

When I was teaching, it was a daily ritual of mine to lose my scissors. At least once during each morning, I would look around the work table, the counters, and inside the cabinets. Finally, admitting defeat, I would ask my assistant teacher if she knew where they were. They were always in the same place: my apron pocket. It’s the equivalent of losing your glasses when they are on the top of your head. But it was a ritual and if it didn’t happen one day, my assistant teacher would begin to look a little worried. Something just wasn’t right.

The kindergarten children had their rituals, too. Every morning, I would wait patiently for Ella to come in, sneak around in back of me and start pounding her fists on my back. I never scolded her for this; it felt wonderful! Katie loved to do dishes every day and Dylan wasn’t happy unless there was something to be fixed. If I didn’t find something for him to repair, he would find the screwdriver and begin taking something apart just so he could put it back together again. It was then MY daily ritual to find him, make sure the play structures outside had not been taken apart, and confiscate the screwdriver.

For one of my high school students, the daily ritual consisted of talking nonstop while I explained to the class the next step in how to bind a book. Then as soon as I finished explaining, he would raise his hand, saying, “Ms. Reinhart, what do I do now?” I was not thrilled with this ritual and finally was frustrated enough that I collared him and yelled. I will admit it would have been much more effective had he not been 6’4” and nearly 200 lbs. 

The beautiful moment with this student came the year after he graduated from high school and was hired by our school to assist the gym teacher. After a particularly trying day, he came down to the teacher’s room and began complaining about how the students didn’t listen to him. Then, graciously, he smiled and shouted out loudly, “I FEEL LIKE I SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR THE LAST TWELVE YEARS!”

When our children were small, we read stories to them every night. All of us would sit together and listen as the story was read. We did this for years, even after our kids were old enough to read books on their own. When I took them to bed, the last thing I did was to kiss them on the top of their heads. I still do it, when they are home, but they have to bend down now.

Now that I am home, I have been creating my new rituals. Finishing a full cup of tea every morning is a delightful one. So is baking chocolate chip cookies. Having worked outside my home for most of these years, I rarely had time for this traditional mom duty. I started out small, baking one batch for our family. Once I got into it, I began making more. Then I could save some out for John and Coco. Our drama teacher loves cookies, too. So do the rest of the high school faculty. And I thought maybe my friend, Mark, might like some. And Marie should have some now and then. She used to bake for me all the time. And Mr. Thomas next door....and mom and dad...and Sr. Carol and Sr. Diane across the street....

Before long, I was making a triple batch of cookies, every week, and leaving bags of cookies hanging on mailboxes or doorknobs, on teacher’s desks, or leaving a basket full in the teacher’s office. I enjoyed this ritual all winter long and all through the spring. The house would be toasty warm and smell so good! Having homemade cookies to eat was worth the work.

But now summer has officially begun and the weather report says it will be in the 90’s for the rest of the week. Chocolate chip cookie baking season is officially over. It’s just too hot. I prefer eating fudgecicles in the hot weather, anyway. I’m a little sad, though. I can’t leave fudgecicles hanging on mailboxes. I might have to find a new summer ritual.

If it includes food, I’ll keep you posted. Or you might want to check your mailbox now and then.