Irene the Athlete

We were away over the past four days. I must have come up with four blog ideas during that time, yet I cannot remember any of them.

 

What I do remember was the fact that I am not an outdoor person.

I am not a vigorously active person.

I actually don't like to overexert myself in any way other than mentally.

 

Hey, I can't feel my feet, thank you CHEMO, so walking is a task most of the time. Forget about dancing or jumping up or taking stairs two at a time.

 

Anyway, there are several people that I know who are (were) real athletes. They play organized sports, they run, they jog, they walk everywhere, they spend hours on their feet doing whatever it is that they do. But not me.

 

It bothers me sometimes that I am rather limited. I frequently have to rest, I stumble on uneven pavement...forget about walking alone on macadam. My fear of falling is accentuated by the roughness under my feet.

If I fall, I'll probably break something.

 

I've already done that and am messed up because of falling off a curb.

 

Anyway, going back to my childhood, I remember not being able to run fast. I always got caught playing tag. I couldn't throw a ball far. I could kick, but running to the base during kickball usually didn't accomplish much for my team.

 

I couldn't figure out how to twirl a baton.

Well, I got some moves down, but nothing that would get me to be a majorette.

 

Turns out, there were two things I really could do.

 

I could dance to popular music. Came in handy often.

 

My crowning achievement, however, was that I could walk on stilts while no one else I knew could. They tried, but they failed.

For some reason, I figured out how to do it and did it all the time to show my ability.

 

What a big deal! I must have hung around with very supple, athletic people. But I wasn't one of them. Elementary school friends were faster, more capable on the field, more likely to finish first in games. I would have liked to be among them, sometimes.

 

But I could walk on stilts!!!!!

 

Thinking Pleasant Thoughts

Once, long ago, while riding in the back seat of my parents' car through either NY or PA, I saw a wondrously beautiful thing.

 

We were looking for a place to stay (never had reservations because we didn't know where we would be going); we drove down a lonely road with hills on the north side for the most part, and farmland on the south side.

 

I remember passing a white and blue cabin type motel.

 

On the other side of the road was a small farmhouse and barn, also blue and white, with a fenced in paddock. In the paddock, a young girl rode a white pony, complete with flying mane and gorgeous white flying tail...looking like something from a magical fairy story.

 

I was enthralled.

 

We drove further on, then backtracked to stop at the motel. I guess we got a room there. Wasn't my five year old business.

 

Along with the room came a boy about Jack's age. He lived on the farm and came out to see the new guests.

I asked him about the pony...he was vague about it, but offered to take us into the barn to see some animals.

 

It was in there, in a stall. It was small and gleamingly white and I loved it instantly. It was being boarded there.

Right next to that stall was a huge bull, complete with nose ring and horns. The kid told us not to go too near the door as the bull did not like people.

 

Yesterday, while watching The Adventures of Buckaroo Bottoms, he worked on a white miniature horse. It ran away from him, and I saw its long white mane flying high and its tail waving as it escaped and I remembered that long ago white pony in some place that probably doesn't exist any more, but the magic returned.

 

I live for the magic.

 

 

Facing Facebook

2009 was not a very good year for me or my family.

I started the year, literally started the year, receiving my first 13 hours of chemotherapy in hospital. It didn't initially bother me because I was in a comfy bed with a flat screen television and nurses and aides at my beck and call (they were truly there when I needed them, I wasn't saying that they existed on the holiday just to respond to my whims.)

 

Still, my body was being filled with poison.

As good as it was supposed to be for me, well, I was being poisoned.

 

After the treatment, I thought I'd stay in the hospital for a few days to see what would happen. No, my husband insisted I come home immediately because "you never know what can happen in the hospital...germs, diseases (like the skin rotting thing") so I went home. I'd been in the hospital for 9 days.

 

I thought I was okay, that I wasn't going to undergo the horrors of puking my guts out constantly as so many people (Charlie Dalton, R.I.P.) Back in the early 70s, Charlie had testicular cancer. He was treated somewhere in NYC, Sloan Kettering, I believe, and he puked for days afterwards.

 

There were homebound kids I taught who had cancer.  They were mostly over their chemo, but they were out of it and really didn't care about what I had to teach them. They all eventually died, bald and sadly left everyone miserable.

 

The day after I got home, I ended up sitting on the bathroom floor, emptying the contents of my digestive system. Constantly. I don't know where all that stuff came from, but I was in bad shape. Considering I rarely toss my cookies at all, like registering 4 times since I was 9 years old, this was horrifying.

 

From January 1, 2009 until May 30, 2009, I had chemo. Lost 70 pounds.

The oncologist prescribed some very expensive drug for me to take and once it was in my system, I never found myself on the bathroom floor again.

 

The chemo stopped the lymphoma. It also probably destroyed some important parts of my body, but I am here and though tired all the time, I'm alive.

 

I forgot why I started writing this post. I was interrupted twice and my reasons vanished. This is one of the "benefits" of chemotherapy.

 

But I am alive. I'm working toward 70 and I am alive. I can enjoy the breath of Spring, I can hear the songbirds and the grackles fighting over the feeders in my backyard. I can look at my kids and husband and love them intensely. I can spend time with my friends and they give back to me the strength I need.

 

Oh, I just remembered why I started this. When I was in my bed, I had the computer, this computer, on all the time. It would ping when I got an email or a message on Facebook and I would rally and find out what was going on in the outside world.

 

It meant so much to me, to be sort of connected while I was in bed, barely able to move or even sit up.

 

So, if Facebook shared my personal information with some dark web, I hope somebody enjoyed whatever it was, whatever information they garnered from me. No bank accounts, no social security number, not even my telephone number though they've requested it many times.

 

Here I am, a woman approaching OLD AGE, who lost her mother recently, whose father was in the Army, whose husband is a Viking, whose daughters are brilliant, who votes regularly.

 

Eat it raw.

 

Because I could not stop for Death

Mortality is not infinite.

We won't live forever, even if we believe in an Afterlife where everything is peachy if we have been good while on Earth.

 

We're going to die.

We will cease to exist and those we leave behind will put our remains in a box and forget all the bad things we have done and say nice things about us if they can remember anything.

 

I've come close to death many times so far.

I've been scared every single time.

 

The thought of not being around confounds me and hurts me and scares me. I don't want to be nothing.

 

Have I left behind anything good?

 

My husband and children sure are good. But what would he do without me? How would the girls feel?

Would they cry or just be glad I was out of the picture?

 

Not saying they feel that way...but a long, slow death makes people wish for the end to come. No matter how much you are loved, if you are slowly, very slowly dying and exhausting your loved ones and worrying them and causing them great pain, they will wish for you to pass as soon as possible, with their permission.

Given gladly.

 

Every little pain, every pinch, every headache, every sore, every hiccup makes me worry about dying.

If I do not accomplish all I am supposed to do on Earth, I guess I will come back to haunt my house.

 

 

Oh, I am not on the verge...just thinking about it and THE END.

I'm not relishing the idea one bit.

 

 

 

 

 

Anne's Ashes

In the mid 1930s, the government allowed the CCC to create a small lake as a bulge in the Ambrose Brook that ran from Piscataway through Middlesex, NJ and down through parts of Bound Brook to end up in the Raritan River. They gov't named it Creighton Lake, or Lake Creighton, and nearby, houses were eventually built that were included in Creighton Manor.

 

There were two islands full of flowering trees that were beautiful in Spring and a wooden bridge at the narrowest end to enable people to cross to the other side where the elementary school was, still some distance away.

 

The workers created a "boat house" cobbled out of stone and at the other end, a small construction, similar to a pergola and castle (depends on how you looked at it and how young you were) that in Spring was covered with wisteria vines. This was beyond a small dam and relief valve that could keep the raging waters of the lake from flooding.

 

All in all, the lake was beautiful, the islands were beautiful, the park that contained these man-made structures was beautiful, and lined with forsythia bushes and some fruit trees. There were many open areas in which to fulfill dreams of dragons and army men and baseball heroes.

 

In later years, however, due to hurricanes and nor'easters, the lake would overflow its banks.

The first  big flood I remember, my older brother had gotten a rubber raft for his birthday in July. It was tied onto the railing of the cellar stairs to get it out of the way. When we woke up that morning after the violent storm, the raft was floating in over a foot of water. We rode that raft around the cellar before we bailed the water out back into the swollen lake.

 

At these times, the water table rose and with it, the water in the cellar of our little house on the next street, the one that bordered on the park. I have written about the flooding several times.

 

The lake became more threatening after Hurricane Donna. It covered the park road and definitely got into the cellar of our little house. Things in the cellar were ruined. This kept happening with the biggest storms, but my mother worried as she checked the lake level against some sort of raised sewer thing across the lake. She worried about the cellar and would dash downstairs to make sure that everything was off the floor so she would only have to mop up the dirty water.

 

Hurricane Floyd ruined the sheetrock walls and reached the top step of the cellar stairs. Everything floated up. She refused to abandon her house, though, and when the water receded, my younger brother and sister in law managed to get rid of the damaged sofa, piano, rugs, whatever, in the cellar for her. It was quite a cleanup.

 

Mom never trusted the lake again.

 

Now that she is gone, and her ashes need a place to go, I intend to throw some into the lake. Sort of sweet revenge.

 

Goodbye, Mom.

Thrills and Chills

Okay. Early this morning I dreamt that I was in Antarctica. Living and working there.

Problem is, there was a part of the frozen continent that was green and had a little town in it...with a main street and stores.

The Gilroy was there with me, showing me the ropes.

Herb was in some sort of supervisory position, so I had to figure out how to adjust all by myself, with The Gilroy's help.

 

Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

 

Find some hidden meaning in that, Dr. Jung.

Nightmare

Early this morning, I had a dream that I was in charge of some sort of tribute to my paternal grandmother. Now, since she died a very long time ago and my mother just died recently, I think things got a little fuzzy there. But the horrifying thing was that I had rented a hall for the celebration and people kept filing in...hundreds of people and outside of my immediate family, I did not know them.

Now, I was one of 17 cousins. One passed away while quite young, leaving a daughter who went to live with another cousin. All my cousins married and had children and probably grandchildren by now. But still, that wouldn't be hundreds!

So, this morning I went on the old desktop and plugged in the last name and asked for a list of all those sharing this last name living in the US.
To my shock and surprise, there were a couple hundred.

I know that there were 17 cousins in the old country. I know that there were clans in upstate NY (I checked that years ago) and some in California. I have no idea how many stayed in Europe, nor how many came to the US.

But it could have been enough to fill the hall of my nightmare.
Yeow.

I think that all the folks listed on the computer page are related to me.
Oh, my God.