the busy heart

Last night I cleaned out our fridge, a task I've been dreading and avoiding for some time, which made it particularly daunting. I moved swiftly, trying not to think, shoving shriveled red and orange peppers into a garbage bag. I I shoved a package of pale ground turkey and a clamshell of already-cut and now softening butternut squash in the bag, too. It felt late at night, though it was only eight. Henrietta was winding down, and I was sweaty from cleaning my kitchen while dancing and listening to Taylor Swift. The energy I had begun with had gone, and the mean voice in my head began to turn on me. What a shameful waste of money , the voice said. Look at this nearly full garbage bag full of rotten food! What a failure you are, what a loser. Who do you think you're kidding? I stood up and shook my head. ** Just after the end of classes, about a month ago, I entered the deepest bout of depression I've ever experienced. I don't know how much I'll end up sayin...

Henrietta has been sick. She's happy, for the most part. It's not the miserable sort of listless sick. She's just had stomach trouble. Explosions in her diaper. Horrifying puddles on the floor. You see what I'm saying here? It's lasted a couple of weeks, as her pediatrician told us it would, and though at first I was surprised by how cool I was with it, it has begun to get old. I'm ready for that sort of event to not  punctuate our days, and I'd really like to take her places without worrying she'll pass illness to every kid in a mile radius of the park. One night last week, Sam and I both had trouble sleeping. I was up late working on a freelance project, and after that I couldn't settle my brain down. It was nearly three in the morning when I finally fell asleep, and just after three in the morning when Henrietta woke me up, crying. Or actually, it was Sam who woke me up, saying she'd been crying on and off for fifteen minutes, and maybe we...

Last night, while I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, I came in the living room to see Sam dancing with Henrietta to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He was swinging her around and tossing her up in the air and she was squealing with joy. Sam was shirtless, and I tried to talk him into putting a shirt on so I could take video of it, but he declined, and so I just sat and watched them, laughing. When I finished the kitchen and came upstairs, Sam was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, and he was worried. His throat was tight and his left arm was numb, which are alarming symptoms when you're a man who had a heart attack at thirty-five, which Sam happens to be. I changed the baby's diaper while we talked it over--it being whether or not to take him to the ER. We prayed about it, and I felt more worried than I had before we prayed, so I talked him into letting me call his cardiology office. The doctor on call said what we expected: don't take a chance; he needs to go...

I'm particularly fond of her wee crossed feet. Henrietta is teething. There have been indications of teething for months, but now we're into some pretty fussy territory. I'm not sure that what we did Sunday night could be categorized as sleeping, and last night wasn't much better. She's quicker to cry in general, and by afternoon she's pretty much spent, which she expresses by screaming. I realize we're lucky that this is fairly unusual behavior. Tonight as I was trying to get her sleep, I sang to her, and I realized how grateful I am to have a repertoire of songs from my Mormon upbringing. I make up a lot of songs during the day, inserting her name here and there, rhyming sweet with feet, that sort of thing. (Sam has a killer song about her comfort rabbit, Elroy. I need to get him to record it for me.) But when she's upset, when she needs the big guns, I go for the hymns. I often sing her "Come, Come, Ye Saints" (which Sam also requests ...

I had a dentist appointment today, which I wasn't exactly dreading but also wasn't excited about.  Mostly I wanted to call in sick for the whole universe, so the dentist was no exception.  And although it's a nice place and my chair of doom was facing a set of windows looking out on ivy-covered red brick buildings, and although they had cheery music on, I could feel, as soon as sat down, that I wanted nothing to do with the foolishness that would ensue.  I suddenly felt like all of this fuss about our teeth must be absurd, since my teeth are working just fine, thank you very much, and what if I just suddenly tore the little bib off and in an instant became one of those people that simply does not do the dentist thing?  What then? But I stayed, dreading and dreading it, as the faces began hovering over me, and a pina colada flavored stick of numbing gel met my gums, and then the sting of a shot, and strange orange glasses they made me wear over mine, I assume to pre...

 I rather like outfit posts, but I wonder if they make me feel too silly.  Should I feel silly, or is it just fun, or maybe silly in a good way?  Would you be interested in seeing more outfits?  Anyway, here's an outfit.   I've been having a super lot of fun getting dressed lately.  Losing, well, 60 pounds, helps in that department.  Shocking how much less I fret about what to put on without that extra weight, although I keep having to go through my closets and get rid of stuff.  I've given away enough clothes to clothe an army (and wouldn't they be a super cute army?!), and there are still days when I think, Gosh, I'm feeling so frumpy/lousy about myself, and I look down and realize that every item of clothing is too big.  That's a weird thing, to not have realized your clothes are too big, but you have these clothes, see, for example, a pair of pants that were always your skinny pants, the ones that fit you for a day or so if you held in...

[sunrise.] Before we left for Mexico, we watched a few of those Planet Earth movies, and happened to see one that had a shot of hundreds of sailfish swimming through the water like kites.  Oh, they were pretty.  So although we were looking forward to fishing, we were reluctant to find one of those guys on the other end of the line.  I needn't have worried.  I didn't fish a bit, since about a half hour after I got on the boat I threw up my breakfast over the side, and pretty much stayed horizontal with my eyes closed for the rest of the day.  Seasickness was not a good time for me.  But I did manage to get some pictures, and Sam did catch a sailfish.  It was enormous (you'll see), so I think by the time he got him in the boat, after several near-escapes, Sam didn't care about the scene where they all looked like kites.  At least not when it came to this guy.  Kite, shmite.   ...

Sam and I spent much of Saturday night and Sunday in the hospital for what turned out to be a pinched nerve in Sam's neck.  There was some concern, since his left arm was numb (heart stuff, you know), but it turned out to be just fine.  Or relatively fine.  He's still in quite a bit of pain, the poor dear. Anyway, to help with the pinched nerve, the doctor gave Sam a neck brace--the sort you see people wear in movies when they're pretending to be injured.  And then he insisted I draw a bowtie on it.  He knelt in front of me, wearing the brace, lifting his chin while I sketched it out with a sharpie.  He said, "This.  Now this is true love."

Don't know if I can capture this experience, but I feel compelled to try. A few weeks ago, when I first started taking the train, I told Sam that watching people wasn't that interesting, because in Boston everyone's a student or young professional, and they pretty much all look the same. I've felt guilty ever since I said that. I knew it meant a piece of me was buried. It didn't mean they weren't interesting, it meant I couldn't see them, and that made me and my writerly self feel very sad. So last night, on the train, I was listening to a podcast ( RadioLab's latest: Animal Minds), and somehow, since my ears were occupied and not my eyesight, I could see how incredible everyone was. It was a crowded train, and I was up higher than about a dozen people, and there were these three kids, three young men (student ages)--and this is the part where I'll fail to describe what happened--they had eyes . I mean, all three of them had these insanely uni...

the raging cold turned into pneumonia. Sigh. It was a nice two days working, anyway. It was terrifying to call in sick on day three. Hopefully, one more day and home and I'll be ready to get back in there.

Day one of work was pretty wonderful. I mean, not anything too exciting yet, mostly filling out forms and such. But I was surprised by how much I loved sitting at my desk, writing emails to my editorial assistant, trying out my new lingo, etc. When I came out of the building to go home, it was dark out, and I had wondered if that would bum me out, but I giggled a little, because the whole city was there in front of me, and it was incredibly beautiful,as Boston tends to be. The trees were lit up with little bright lights and all these young professionals were walking to the train and there was a beautiful window display of trendy home furnishings, and I felt like I was living the dream. Okay, so then I fell when I was crossing the street. But even that was sort of cool because this kid (read--kid the age of my former students) stopped in front of me so that I wouldn't get hit by a car, and as humiliating as that was, what he did seemed so kind, and made me feel like we were ...

I have an ear canal infection. I find this odd. And painful. I think this is how it happened: A few weeks ago, I took a bath before bed. Then, because there was some snoring up in here, I wore some ear plugs--that smooshy silicon kind. The doctor said this weird bacteria only grows in dark, damp places, and I think the combination of the bath and the plugs sort of sealed the deal, literally. Ha. I don't want to think of how this bacteria got in there in the first place. My house is clean as a whistle, honest. My ear started to feel funny after that night, but I just thought I had done the ear plugs wrong. I always do the earplugs wrong. You know how you're not supposed to shove them in there? I have no idea how they would work without a little shoving. I mean, I've tried the seal-it-off approach, but it don't do no good. And so I shove, and then it gives me a headache, and I wake up feeling like I'm underwater, and it's not pleasant. Anyway, so the n...

It's been awhile since I poked my head up and said hello. We moved and it was hard. The semester started and it was busy. We went whale watching (!), and that will be another post. It's late. I taught the third week of my night class tonight, during which this grown up accountant man said, "This class is like going to therapy!" I think that was a good thing, but I can't be sure. We were talking about childhood and identity and innocence and experience. And out of all the things I could pluck out of the hours of my life to tell you, it seems most important to say this: I am, finally, happy. Really happy. Pleased as a peach to be in my life, not really longing for anyone elses'. I can't explain this, really. I was depressed last year, and sick. And all of that seems so clear now: that I simply wasn't okay. Depression makes every moment into a brick; they weigh so much and take so long to stack up and once they're stacked you feel trapped an...

So I got sick. Real sick. I'm feeling better enough now to be out and about, but yesterday I slept and slept. I'm pretty sure I was feverish and my throat closed and ached; my nose hated me. Sam spent the morning tracking down vitamin C and orange juice in little Italian pharmacies where they luckily understood the phrase "wife sick" and were willing to help. I finished reading Poisonwood Bible (which I adored until the last 100 pages or so) and read all of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (which I absolutely did enjoy--quick and delightful, if full of some unrealisticly lovely dialogue). I can also recommend The Cellist of Sarajevo , mostly. I found it to be rather, slightly, oh, dramatically written? May I say that when it was about such a terrible event? I think I can. I was in a swoon for it for many many pages, but then it seemed the characters thought thoughts that were too similar, ultimately too simple or something. Nevermind. I'll do...

My visiting-teachee has cancer. (For non-LDS, this means a person at church that I visit once a month and make sure she's okay.) I know this, even though I technically shouldn't. She doesn't seem to want people to know. She told me it was a possibility, and then seemed really really bothered that she had. So, it's not like we're dear friends. I can't just call her and say I'm sorry and what can I do. She doesn't like scheduled visits, since she never knows how she'll feel. They don't need meals. I'm not even sure she likes me. And yet, my heart aches. I want to be able to DO something. Bring flowers? Bring flowers and leave them on her doorstep? Just pray from afar? Anyone have any ideas?

Dumping snow, now. Maybe, just maybe, we'll have another day off school tomorrow. And then I can stay home and get really bummed out again. I LOVE doing that. In other minor news, last night Sam and I went to CVS to pick up a prescription. When I was backing out of my parking spot, I stopped short because there were three missionaries walking behind me. One of them held up his hand, and I was convinced he flipped me off. CONVINCED. Horrified, ready to scold the naughty young one, I threw open my door and yelled, "Excuse me, but did you just flip me off?!" You should have seen the fellow shudder, cringe. I thought he would weep. "No no! I was just holding my hand up to say thank you!" I apologized, told him I was LDS, hence my concern. For some reason this incident was wildly funny to me. I don't know that the poor missionary felt the same way. Oh, and, I slipped on the ice again today. This time I landed on my side, which is also cushy. It ...

Sam loves this Frank Zappa song that goes, "Let me take you to the Beach! La la la la la la la la lalala!" It's kind of silly, with high-pitched voices like the Beach Boys, but the actual music is complicated and rich--sort of what Zappa does. Sam used to sing it to me when we were dating. We had my brother put it in our wedding video, which caused him to ask, "You do know this is your WEDDING video, right?" Anyway, I'm thinking of that song, substituting ER with beach. Again with the emergency room for us. Here's what Sam said about his tummy ache last night: "the intestines felt a bit like one of Santa's little helpers was in there, trying to scrape his way out with a razor blade." Fun, no? We called primary care, they told us to go in. So in we went. Poor man. I wonder if we'll just get used to taking him in on a quarterly basis, for one reason or another. This quarterly visit was a breeze ... sort of. (Now that I said tha...

Started back at school yesterday. Before my first class, making copies: the English faculty member who reminds me of my kindergarten teacher and always corrects me came in, said hi. I was literally trembling, I was so nervous and scared about being back there, having to see these people who have become big scary meanies in my head. I was trembling so badly that I gave myself TWO papercuts. And they bled profusely for some reason. So there I was, trying to have a pleasant chat about Kindergarten Teacher's holiday break, bleeding my heart out. Good grief. But anyway, it's been okay so far. Incredible what even one semester of experience will do to make me more comfortable. I'm teaching the same classes, too. So I can directly apply what went terribly wrong, I hope. Not to mention, hurrah for thyroid medication. For those of you who don't know, the symptoms are as follows: weight gain (hello 30+ pounds in the last few months), lack of energy (yes yes), low immun...

The doctors of this town have FINALLY deemed me worthy of thyroid medication. After getting tested over and over again with various docs, after detailing my symptoms for them (which are ALL symptoms of low thyroid), after drawing them pictures of my immediate-ish family tree (which has a half-dozen thyroid problems perched in it), and after giving up hope they'd ever believe me. Now. Now they fork it over. I know it seems weird to be sort of, like, happy about having a disease. But trust me. If this stuff works, it's wonderful news in Dejaland.

I feel like I'm always writing on here when I'm sad, but whatever. I write when I'm happy, too. And today I feel happy. Sam is napping, so I've had the house to myself. I've made healthy-ish brownies, listened to the Speaking of Faith podcast, straightened the house. Maybe some will judge me for straightening my house on Sunday, but I feel like it's been a physical manifestion of a much-needed spiritual straightening. So at least my rationalization is fancy and metaphorical. I've been thinking I need to write down my little miracles, my humble gratitudes, etc. So here I am. Yesterday I was sad. More than sad. I've had my bummer teaching days, but this was more like the heavy, aching depression that I experienced last year, and have been fighting off for months. I don't know how to describe it if you haven't felt it. Nothing was wrong: Sam and I went to an incredible performance in Cambridge (see other blog), we had a ward Christmas bru...