Desert Diaries, Volume 2

I originally wanted to write EVERY SINGLE DAY during this trip.
Yeah, that hasn't happened.
Today, I'm thinking about all the ways I've handled different situations while on this trip.
One of my church friends/mentor ladies told me (paraphrased) "There's going to be lots of ways this week where you will be tempted to respond like the old man inside of you.  Remember that it is now Jesus Christ who lives in you, not the old man."
If you know a little bit about me, you know that my family relationships/dynamics are not the most....traditional.  But I'm really proud of myself for the way I've handled myself and interacted on this visit.  I've helped redirect and de-escalate some conversations at home, and even had some damage-control-type input, here and there.  My mom and I have had some really grown-up conversations about life things, and we've never been able to do that before. I would always let my emotions get the best of me.  Now, I know how to manage them and put them aside, in order to see clearly while I'm in the moment.
I've been able to clarify some things with mom which are huge for my future, and my sister and I have been communicating and brainstorming all week about common goals we have for my mom and younger sister, as far as what we can do to help them.
The communication between my sister and I (don't know if that's grammatically correct---judge me)  feels pretty good.  We have had to communicate about schedules and plans, dinners, breakfasts, DIY projects at my mom's house, and midnight burrito runs.  She has also let me borrow clothes a few times while I've been here, because I'm a crazy minimalist hippie who brings nothing but a carry-on suitcase, and a tote bag full of books.  She has encouraged plans with my friends, and not been overly needy when she has been off work.  And we haven't killed each other yet.
While I don't have a smartphone to snap tons of pictures and post them immediately to Facebook, I have thoughts.  And, I have the ability to write those thoughts down.  Then, I take those thoughts and I look for patterns, and I see what I'm learning, and how it's growing me.  I pay attention to how I feel about each lunch/dinner/coffee/midnight burrito run date I make (midnight burritos are important here in Yuma, AZ).  I feel my feelings; i get excited to see old friends; i smile at people, i think about people, i wonder what i can do to help.
There's this Watermelon Man who sits on the corner with his little pickup truck full of watermelons for sale.  He waves at everyone who drives by, or stops at the stoplight.  Just a friendly wave.  When I see him, I remember, and I am thankful.
I remember growing up, and seeing random produce truck-stands, and knowing this is normal. I remember stopping at many a produce stand to buy corn, watermelon, or cantaloupe with my dad when I was a child.  I remember all of the people who surrounded me while growing up in this city.  I remember how I've always loved all of them, even the strangers.
It is SO the little things in life---and on a trip back home---that make you stop, take a deep breath, and smile.

Desert Diaries, Volume 1

Well, this week, I've gotten to spend some time in my hometown--Yuma, Arizona---visiting friends and family.  I haven't been here in two years, and I had been getting pretty homesick/nostalgic.  I don't know that homesick is the right word, because I don't LONG for home or anything like that.  I've gotten to this point where I've accepted and created my home around myself in the state and city where I live now, so it's strange to come back here.
I find myself driving the streets of this city, wondering, "I really grew up here?" Not because it's a bad thing, but because my entire adult life has been somewhere else.
I feel strangely at home, and a stranger, at the same time. While I've been here on this visit, I've gone running on the canal, which I ran 2-3 times a week during cross-country season in high school; I've gone running at Smucker Park, another high school favorite; I've had meals with friends and people I love; I've reminisced on "the good ol' days" and had conversations about my next steps in life; I've been around all my friends' and families' animals, mostly cats and dogs; I've visited and bonded with my Ocean in San Diego (yes, I needed to re-bond with my Ocean).
I've helped with a lot of things at my mom's house, planned and brainstormed with my sister, taught my baby sister card games, and eaten lots of fresh avocado.
I always end up with same panicky feeling: it's never enough time.
There's always someone else I wish I could spend time with, another old haunt I wish I could revisit.  I hate always running out of time.
I feel like at some point soon, I want like a 2-3 week period to come back and visit.  Life feels so different out here from what it does in my little Midwestern city.
I am more present and more appreciative of certain things this time around: the sunshine, the occasional warm (cool?) breeze, the faces of all the people who need someone to acknowledge their existence and say hello.
It feels like nothing's changed, and yet, like everything has.
I'm not the same person I was when I was growing up here.  It's strange to go develop and spread my wings as a person somewhere else, then come back to visit and bring everything I've learned with me.
Life is a really wacky thing.

Mom-ish Friends

05-04-14

“Mom-ish friends”

I know I use this term a lot.  

I think I may have coined the term, actually.

You see, not all little girls grow up with a mommy to look to for answers to life’s questions, or to pick them up when they fall down.  Some little girls grow up meek and quiet, watching their life go by in a whirlwind around them, across two states, two schools, and two homes, with two parents who were together, yet not, and always seemed to have something to argue about.  

Some little girls grow up with all their basic needs provided - food, clothing, transportation, schooling, pets, even - and so, they never even realize that they are missing something.  They don’t even know what entitlement is, so how can they feel it?

These little girls grow up into pre-teens whose friends want to be all huggy all the time, and they realize this is the first time they remember giving and receiving hugs.  So then these little girls start building their identity around their friendships.

Then boys want to start giving and receiving hugs, and these little girls realize they don’t ever remember hugging their fathers.

But then these little girls get stuck living with their father, while the person who holds the title “mother” is in and out, back and forth, across two states, working, making whirlwind decisions at very loud volumes.

So, trust begins to build in father-daughter relationships, but then mothers get jealous and make up lies and stories and do everything in their power to rip away the relationships that they never cared enough to build themselves.

So then little girls end up confused and caught in the middle of custody battles, not understanding why they have to choose one parent over the other, upset and experiencing separation anxiety when it’s a “mom weekend”, but not sure from which person they feel anxious about separating, the mother or the father.

These little girls eat too much and don’t get enough exercise, but rely on Nickolodeon and Disney Channel for company.  (They fight too much with their sisters to ever get along peacefully for any actual amounts of time)

Dads win the custody battles and little girls continue with schooling.  When boys want to start holding hands at lunchtime, there’s no mommies to ask for advice.  There’s just daddies to hide information from.  

Little girls find their peace in books and schoolwork, spelling and arithmetic, and get a “Good job, mija” when they bring home a good grade, which by the way, is always an “A”.  

Junior high goes by with no more from Mommies than demanding questions and high expectations when they come to visit.  

By high school, little girls have found some more of their identities and escapes in sports.  Building bonds with teammates is easier than building bonds with family members.

The schoolwork gets more intense, and little girls grow more confused and feel more pressure.  By this point, they’ve mastered the “Thank you for cooking dinner, Daddy” and help with housework and take on more responsibility than they maybe should.

By age 15, little girls have seen how some of their friends interact with their mommies.  They’ve seen the hugs, and the eye-rolling, and the kisses on the cheek, and they hear the “Love you’s” and they wonder, “Why is my family so different?” But by this point, they don’t really care.

Because by this point, they’re getting hugs and kisses from boys and doing well with sports, and algebra and biology and theology at their Catholic high schools, and they’re headed toward a college scholarship.

Then Daddy dies and leaves Mommy in charge.

And there’s so much anger and hurt feelings all over the place that little girls don’t even know how to handle themselves.  But they don’t have to, because they get college scholarships to faraway places like Kansas, so they get to run away.

But every time they come for a visit, it’s fireworks, and not the good kind.  And all along, they don’t know who they are, or who they’ve been, or known guidance, or a mother’s love.  For Mommy was too busy figuring herself out to pay any attention to her Little Girls.  

It wasn’t completely her fault.  She just didn’t know how  

Thank goodness for Mom-ish friends, who step in when Little Girls are 20, 25 years old and help answer all the questions; who stand by and offer words of repair and wisdom, gestures of healing and kindness.  For it’s not the Little Girl’s fault that she wasn’t given what all Little Girls should have.

Thank goodness for Mom-ish friends.

Crazy Cat Lady: Lindsay

Lindsay

 

            My mom and her then-boyfriend came home with her one May afternoon.  They said they found her over by the school, and decided to bring her home as a birthday present for my younger sister.  She was still a young kitten, her gray and white fur was soft, and she was friendly.  My sister named her right away: “Lindsay”.  This was my sister’s 9th birthday.  I was 11.

            Lindsay was there through my awkward pre-teen years.  She was there while we (my sister and I ) were both preadolescently chubby and acne-filled.  She witnessed our chickenpox.  She adjusted to a home that already had two dogs in it.

            Then she was there to greet me when I came home from after-school basketball, track, soccer, and volleyball practices, curiously sniffing my bags and shoes.  She saw good days, bad days, sad days, stressful days; fad makeup and hairstyles.  She saw everything that had to do with two girls being brought into their teenage years with essentially a single dad.  The mom that initially brought her into our home was seldom around.

            She was a companion; she came meowing and headbutting whenever she heard tears or sobs.  She purred happily when brushed or petted.

            In the summer of 2002, she had her only litter.  They were born on July 3.  There were four altogether: Cupcake, Liberty, Bell, and Shamu.  She adopted Smoky, the rescue kitten brought to us by the neighbors.  Smoky was the first to be adopted, after the ad we placed in the Super Shopper announcing “Free Kittens to Good Home” was seen.  Shamu and Cupcake also found homes, but we decided to keep Liberty and Bell.  Liberty was around for about 1 year, then went missing.  Bell was around about 4 years, then went the same way.  We were never sure where they ended up, but searched frantically for both of them.

            All of them were always inside/outside cats, so a couple times, Lindsay didn’t come home for about 2 days, and we freaked out, thinking she was gone forever.  I stressed, cried, and prayed that she would come home.  She always did.  She had her favorite playing spot across the street in the neighbor’s hedge. 

            I took my anger out on Lindsay once.  I think it was high school, and I was crying and she wouldn’t leave me alone, so I threw her onto my bed. 

            When I left for college, it was hard to leave her, and the two dogs, who were also both around at the time.  But, every time I came home to visit, Lindsay was there to cuddle.

            Lindsay stayed at my mom’s house the whole 4 years that my sister went away to college as well.  My mom never took very good care of her (this was after Dad died).  She said her fur flew everywhere, so she kept her mostly outdoors and in the garage.  Her fur got matted.  Still, she never ran away.  She was always loyal.  My sister finally got smart and moved her to Tucson to live with her last year.  She shaved her down and made her feel safe and loved again.

            Lindsay is still alive as of today, August 14, 2013.  However, she has had a few vet visits lately, due mostly to my prodding my sister to get her in for a wellness check.  I have a cat of my own now, and encourage my sister to be a responsible pet parent since this is the first time she has had Lindsay on her own.  The vet was concerned about Lindsay’s overall health.  She had mites in her ears; some of her teeth were questionable and look like they’re on their way out.  She also found an abnormal amount of fluid in her stomach, and told my sister further tests would be needed.

            Now the vet is worried that Lindsay has cancer.  Lindsay will have an ultrasound tomorrow to determine what’s next. 

            My sister just had her 23^rd birthday.  That means she’s had Lindsay for 14 years.  I wish we had kept her healthier, like more routine vet visits.  She never went to the vet for wellness checks ever, and hasn’t even had vaccination boosters for like 10 years.  But we were kids.  Our parents were supposed to take care of us and our pets. 

            They didn’t.  So now, we do the best we can to continue to care for ourselves and our animals, making up the ground that was lost. 

            Lindsay wasn’t our first cat, but in a way she was.  (We had Mota and Zeeper before them; I was 9 ish and Sister was 7 ish; Mota had a litter that all died at birth/shortly after/went missing; Zeeper disappeared.  It was a family legend that certain neighbors to the back stole all of our cats over the years.  We’ll never know)

            She’s been such a good cat.  I hope she feels as though she’s had a good life. 

 (Lindsay, 12/21/2012)

 

Christmas Lights

            It was the closest thing to a family tradition we had.

I have this memory, a memory of togetherness: It wasn’t every year since I was born or anything, but it was consecutive for about 4 years there; mostly 2^nd through 6th grade (ish), I think.  Dad tried hard to keep us happy, and often we didn’t notice.  Every year around Christmastime, when Yuma began to light up around dark with strings of bright bulbs and tall trees, we went to two specific neighborhoods to look at the lights. 

The first was “Candy Cane Lane”.  It used to be in the newspaper for being the largest display in Yuma.  We always drove the family car really slowly around the block and looked at the Santas and snowmen and reindeer.  Usually my sister and I would find something to argue about in the car.  We rarely got along during our childhood.

The Klein Electric Company had a spectacular display each year for Christmas.  Their driveway is “U” shaped, and cars would line up around the block to go through.  Such a simple activity, yet so looked forward to.  Usually, the Kleins had a pile of “snow” for the kids to run and climb in.  I don’t think our parents ever let us do that.  Mexicans don’t do cold. 

For a few years there, Dad really involved my sister and myself in the Christmas-tree shopping.  Once, I wrote down “Noble Fir” on December 1^st of my calendar for the next year, so we would remember what kind of tree we bought and we would be prepared.  Dad also screwed these hooks into the perimeter of the roof so that we could easily hang lights up every year.  I think the last time we hung Christmas lights was 2001.  I remember getting picked up for my winter formal in 2002 and not having any lights up.  Dad died in 2005.  My first Christmas home from college, 2006, we had a Christmas tree for the first time in 4 years. 

Christmas lost its glow for my family slowly over the period of several years.  Maybe it never really was what it was supposed to be.  We have pictures from when I was really little, of us opening presents and sitting on Santa’s lap.  It’s like my parents tried for a few years, but then things got too hard, and so we became a dysfunctional group of people who lived under the same roof. 

Even when I was that little kid in the backseat of the car, going through the Christmas light display, I wasn’t in the present moment.  There were always questions in my head, always thoughts rolling around, plans being made.  Or maybe they were wishes.