quest for a faerie child

the scent of heaven

There are certain scents that I love, certain scents that just send me right over the edge.  The scent of my children as I bury my face in their necks, the first waff of garlic as you crack a clove with the flat edge of a knife, the lovely aroma of the holy trinity sauteeing in a hot pan and the earthy smell of tomatoes just plucked from the vine in summer.

And then there are the herbs:  basil, thyme, dill, oh lovely dill and last, but certainly not least - rosemary.

I adore the scent of rosemary.  Wherever I live, I plant rosemary.  A fresh sprig is heavenly.  It is one of those herbs I will only use fresh, never ever dried.  Never.

Luckily, it grows like a weed in the Pacific Northwest.  Plant a small start this year and you will have more rosemary than you know what to do with within a couple months.  It also survives year round, which means that small start will soon become a grand bush. 

I say it survives year round and yet sadly, my two 3 year old bushes went down in the great holiday snow storm of 2008.  And when I say they went down, I mean they died down to the roots.  I was devastated.  I was also shocked.  It's not like we haven't had snow on the ground occasionally. Rosemary bushes I planted at my last house, survived several winter snow and ice storms in the 4 years I lived there.  Though, I've heard tell that they also did not survive winter's wrath.

Today we stopped by friends of ours.  They have a fairly large house in a great area about 20 blocks or so from us.  When I first met Moose, he was renting out the top floor of their house from them.  It is a place in which I have spent a great deal of time.  It is also the home, come November, we will be living in if all goes as planned.  Our friends are moving to the coast for a job and we will be renting theirs.  It is easily 2.5 times the size of our current home, which we are renting from Moose's best friend since grade school.  We will be moving from one friend to another, a friend of over 20 years.  There is something lovely about the rent you pay being paid to people you care about, rather than some nameless, faceless corporate entity.

The house also has an extraordinary rosemary bush that not only survived, but thrived after last winter's storm.  My friend kindly cut a bunch of branches for me, wrapped them up with wet papertowels until I could get home and place them in water, which I did.

So now as I walk through our tiny little house, the scent of rosemary fills it wherever I go.  It was such a lovely thing that I began thinking of the two lavendar bushes in the front yard.  I went outside, cut a large bouquet of lavendar sprigs, and placed them around the house, as well.

Our house smells like lavendar and rosemary and I am in heaven, even as I wander from room to room with a tinge of melancholy about leaving it.  We made the decision today to definitely leave and while the house drives me crazy and is literally bursting at the seams with all of our things, it has seen us through the happiest and saddest times of my life so far.  There is a certain sadness in the going, even though we are doing what we absolutely have to do.  We need more space and until we are in a position to buy our own home (read until Max's astronomical healthcare bills have been paid down some), we are forced to rent.

Perhaps some day, some how we will find ourselves with the ability to buy.  It is a long, long way off.  But I still find myself dreaming about it.

And when that day comes, I will fill it with sprigs of rosemary and lavendar and heaven will be ours.

excuses...

I honestly believe this has probably been the longest I have ever gone without posting on my blog.  My excuses are varied and good, but they are just that:  excuses.  Suffice it to say I am only just now beginning to dig myself out from being unbelievably behind in household endeavors after the mega marathon of a stay my sister, nephew and my mother just did in the ol' PNW. 

Imagine three kids under the age of 2.5 in our tiny crackerbox of a house.  Throw in two more adults and then add two out of town friends for a day and overnight for good measure.

Do you get the picure?

Don't get me wrong.  It was fun. It was lovely to see my boys interacting with their cousin.  It was great to see my sister, whom I hadn't seen in years due to a variey of different cirumstances.  It was also fabulous to finally meet a very good friend of my husband's and his wife.

But honestly, it can be utterly exhausting to have to plan activities every day when you are used to spending long periods of time at the park and roaming around our neighborhood and that is simply what a normal day consists of.

Ah well, life is approaching some sense of normalcy once more and I hope my posting will, as well.

my life as a droplet of water....

What can I say, lovies, except that life is a hurricane and I am a droplet of water hurled about with unimaginable fury?  The sitter bailed on us after already having been away for five days.  This was last Monday and she decided the day she was supposed to return, to stay away until Saturday. 

Maximus had his last IV infusion last Tuesday, which was an odyssey of a trip up to the hill, the likes of which I have not seen in recent months.   Imagine two toddlers in a large area where there are no doors and only curtains for hours at a time with absolutely nothing happening except me quickly and surely going crazy as I attempt to contain them in said area.

One word:  INSANITY

On my day in the office on Wednesday, I began getting pressure to come into the office more, instead of working as much from home.  Joy.  I had a feeling this was coming.  My situation at work was my situation because they understood Max's situation.  Now that Max has been transplanted, apparently my situation has changed and they would like me in more.  I'm supposed to 'think' about it, which really means I need to come up with a plan and get myself in for more hours/days a week.  I managed to stave this off until Fall, but it is a'coming and there is not much I can do about it.  This saddens me in ways I cannot even begin to describe.

I don't want to work.  But alas, I work for the insurance and that's all I can do.  Oh and I do want to have another baby, but I don't want to tell them that.  I can just see it now:  "See.. I don't want to commit to coming in more because I'm actually preparing right now to remove the old mirena and have another go at it.  I'm not going to want to come in more during the week if I have another infant on my hands."

Somehow, I don't think that will go over very well.

Thursday was speech therapy and Max is developing with leaps and bounds.  I know they told us this would happen, but believe me, I had no idea it would happen so quickly after transplant.  He is talking.  He is signing in phrases.  He is unbelievable.

He is also eating.

That's right.  I said he is eating.

We are working on learning what chewing is, but he is eating and he loves it.  It's amazing what a functioning kidney in a toddler will do.

Friday, was outpatient surgery to remove the peritoneal dialysis catheter and the peripheral IV line.  Within 30 minutes of coming out of surgery, he was running (and I do mean running) around surgery like a maniac.  He heals quickly, that one.

Saturday, my mother, my sister and my 10 month old nephew flew into town for a 10 day trip and we've been on the move since then.

I'd like to blow up the Medicare office because Max's medicare (which was applied for in January due to his beginning dialysis) is STILL not in place and now he's already been transplanted a full two months.  I keep getting mailings from them stating, "Maximus, you may be eligible for Part B prescription aid, please call us to talk about this."  "Maximus, we understand your doctor has qualified you as End Stage Renal Disease, we'd like to talk to you about medicare, please call us."  "Maximus, we have preliminarily determined you are not eligble for disability, this could be because you haven't applied for it."

I call.  And I call.  And I call.  Do you think you can get a live body to answer the phone?  No.  You have to leave a message.  I have not received a call back.

And why in the world would you review him for disability when we haven't applied because we know we don't qualify?   Does that not seem like the biggest waste of time and money you have ever seen? Why don't you actually get to work on his MEDICARE benefits, which he does qualify for and start paying some motherfucking bills before people start trying to send us to collections (8 months after we began dialysis)?

That's what I'd like to see.  Excuse my language, but good god.  What a mess.  It's no wonder they're running out of fucking money. 

Today we spent the afternoon at the Portland Children's Museum.  This was our first time there and let me just tell you, it will not be the last.  That place is like crack for babies.  I am completely serious.  I couldn't get a non-blurry picture to save my life because the boys literally did not stop running around like speed-freaks from the moment we stepped in the door to the moment we left.  They were screaming in delight.  They were maniacs.  It was the most gorgeous, beautiful thing I've seen in recent months.

And that's my last week in a nutshell... the down and dirty, quicky version.

Oh, and my second writing prompt attempt won an award on Typepad.  How's that for giving me a kick in the ass to get back to real writing?  I was astounded and delighted.  Too bad I'm so busy I can't think straight, or I'd already be composing my third attempt.  It's brewing in there, but trying to get it out into words is a little more than I can take at this moment in time.

Perhaps in a day or two or three....

Or Four... 

A distinct escape.

If you were only allowed to own one book, what book would you choose?
Submitted by The Private Library.

My fondest memories of my childhood are long, lazy, hot summer days spent reading until my eyes crossed, until the characters in my books became my best friends, my family, those that provided solace in an uncertain and largely tumultous time.  A distinct escape to the point where I would become more concerned with what was happening to Trixie Belden or Vicky in a Ring of Endless Light, than to what was happening to me.

I read voraciously and broadly; from children's literature to adult fiction, mysteries, romances and classics like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.  I owned a box set of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and I read them more times that I can count.  I was always a creature of habit, returning to my favorites when I was most in need of comfort. 

The best days were when a library run became necessary.   I'd pack up the stack of library books I had devoured in a backpack, grab my bike and begin what seemed at the time, a very long journey to the Waukegan Public Library, always ensuring I was there right as the library opened. There was something so visceral about the long ride on a hot and humid summer morning with sweat trickling down my neck, anticipation of what I might find that day bubbling inside me.

Once inside, a sense of wonderment and excitement built as I breathed in that library smell of old and new, dropped off the spent books and ventured into the library stacks.  What would I find today?  Would it be something new, or would my old friends exert their powerful pull and tug at my heartstrings once again?  I would trail my fingers over spines, reading titles, examining those that grabbed my attention.  Even way back then, I always read the first page.  If it hooked me, I was a goner.  I'd choose as many as I could comfortably fit in my backpack and never had to worry that I wouldn't finish them before they were due.  I always did.  I could and easily did read a book a day.  Now whether or not I actually did return them on time, was another story altogether.  I probably spent more of my allowance on library fines than I would have if I had just purchased some of the books myself.

One spectacular summer, I spent reading in the limbs of our neighbor's maple tree, glancing down at the cars passing underneath from time to time, that is until they finally told me I needed to stop climbing it, for reasons I can no longer recall.  I switched to the trampoline we had set up in the backyard, stretched out on the warm, taut, black canvas, under the shade of another neighbor's tree, breathing in the scents of summer, swatting the occasional mosquito and fell into another world.

Spending time at my grandparents' house in Indiana was no different, except the long and anticipated trip to the library was lost.  They lived directly across the street from the library.  At a dead run, I was out the door and inside the library in five seconds flat.  For a small town library, they had a remarkably large children's book section, almost as large as the adults.  Perhaps larger even.  It was there that Madeline L'Engle caught me in her snare, where the Austins became the family I wished was my own.  I was most alive inside the tales others had woven. 

Since that time, reading is still the joy it was back then, though my ability to devour a book in a single setting or in a single day has reduced dramatically.  But I do still return to my favorites now and again. 

So, in thinking about this question, I began rifling through the extensive collection in my mind.  I was, at first, tempted to cheat and choose a collection of works.  It's not really cheating, is it?  The question states, "What book..."  A collection is a book, right?

I discarded that thought.  The book I would choose needs to stand alone, needs to stand the test of time, needs to provide new and insightful lines of thinking each time you pick it up.

For a time, I considered not even answering this question because it seems cruel to me.  How can you ask someone who adores reading to choose only one book for the rest of their lives?  It would be like telling a foodie they needed to choose one food and be satisfied for the duration.  Noone in their right minds could do that, could they?

And that's when it came to me.  From my memory, visions I've built of an architect and the woman who loved him so deeply, so passionately she could do nothing but try to destroy him, bubbled to the surface.  This book affected me so profoundly from the first moment I cracked it and continues to each time I read it, though for different reasons.  It never fails to present me with a different perspective.  It grows as I grow, morphs and changes as I develop.  It is shattering.  It is tense.  It is epic. It is beautiful and strong and cruel, bewildering and familiar.

It is The Fountainhead.

a task for the weekend...

If you hadn't noticed, I decided to try something different last night.  Typepad does these "question of the day" type deals and if you answer it, the post appears in a list with everyone else who answered the question.  Normally, I gloss right over those questions on the Dashboard.  If I'm logging in to typepad, I'm logging in to write and we all know how well my writing is going of late.  I try to get to the compose page as quickly as mouse clicks will allow because who knows when that fleeting creative bug will flee me and I'll be left with the sense of horrid frustration which comes from being blocked.

However, I saw that question and in my mind an answer immediately bubbled up to the surface, "Why of course.  That's easy.  I want Max to be transplanted."

And then I stopped, checked myself and shook my head at the fact that I automatically responded in my own mind with an answer that would have been fine months ago, but which is now hopelessly and ridiculously out of date.  It horrified me and fascinated me at the same time and so I began to write.  It bothered me mildly that the damn question was sponsored by a corporate giant and I briefly considered boycotting it altogether.

But the creative pull was tugging and I couldn't help myself.

This morning, I got up before the sun arose because I wanted to open up the house and air it out.  Although the tremendous triple-digit, we're-in-hell-now, heatwave has broken somewhat, we are still expecting mid 90's temperatures and opening the house to let the cool morning air in is a necessity. 

As I was going about my business, I was thinking about how satisfying it had been for me to take a topic someone else had given and expound upon it.  It reminded me of when I took an online writing class during the summer four years ago.  That class, though not particularly earthshattering in form, was an eye-opener for me.  It took a tiny burgeoning spark and fanned it into a flame, despite the fact that the class was just a continuing education class offered through a local community college, despite the fact that the participants were largely retired women with huge dreams of writing and a distinct lack of talent.

The instructor was ridiculous.  Most of what she posted made me cringe.  I would read her responses to assignments from others and think to myself (fairly unkindly, I might add), "Are you kidding me...?  You liked that run-on, rambling, not even mildly grammatically correct, piece of fluff?"

I can be horribly snooty, or at least I could be at that time.

I was full of myself and my own imagined talent.  Of course, as soon as she posted something on my own writing, I would puff up with pride and think, "Finally.... she has something worthwile to post.  She does know real writing when she reads it..."

Even as I write that now, I cringe again, but this time at myself.  Nevertheless, the class served as a means of making me think outside the box, of taking topics and making them my own.

Anyway, I was thinking about that this morning and thinking perhaps what I need is to be pushed once again.  Perhaps I need to have someone give me topics upon which to expound.  Maybe that will take my block and decimate it. Perhaps that will also help me get out of the 'blogging as writing' mode and back into the 'serious writing' mode.

And that is my task for this weekend:  find a topic list or group upon which I can focus.