Powerless

I have been feeling like I live in Brazil. Not the country (is it “third world” or not?), the movie.

We were without electricity for four days due to wild thunderstorms. This, 24 hours after returning from a week away with very spotty internet and phone service. It doesn’t sound so hard (and the weather wasn’t as hot as it might have been) but the scenario started to feel stressful for mellow me by the third day when I realized the power utility had no idea what was going on. When I ran out of towels. Oh, and when all of the adjacent blocks got their power back, all within 48 hours.

*

The power company has opened a special line for this crisis and to provide “service restoration times.” I call and they say they don’t have a time for my address yet, I should call back that evening.

I call back and they say Thursday at 11:30 pm. Conveniently, a time when the call center is closed.

I am pretty sure they are making this up. No one has even been out to look at the downed tree yet. It is Tuesday afternoon.

*
Why does it have to get dark so early? It’s hot as summer.

Doing dishes by hand, by candlelight, does seem to get better results than we’ve been getting from our dishwasher. Hey, silver lining.

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My daughter asks me when we’re going to have normal breakfast again (toast instead of raw bread, real fruit not raisins, butter). I tell her when the power comes back on, we’ll replace all the food we had to throw out of the refrigerator and freezer. She asks, with a big smile, “Are we poor now?”

I tell her that in this country, even poor people usually have refrigerators. Then I recall the 5 kinds of bottled salad dressing I threw out and regret my callousness. But even in Brazil they have internet access. I tell her, no, this would be much worse if we were poor. But Mommy’s still frustrated.

Our home phone, run off our cable, is down. The cell phone is barely working. Whether it’s always being on low power, or a tower is down, I can’t be sure. I am conserving minutes and charge in case of a real emergency.

My mother calls and complains for 5 minutes that she is confused because she got my cell voice mail when she called our home number.

Everything is winding down, and I’m out of clean underwear.

*

I am a social media consultant preparing a PowerPoint for a conference and two client proposals and I can’t get on the internet except on my phone. It would be nice to fix that typo in my resume and respond to the edits on my catalog essay, but I can’t get online unless I run to Starbucks. Where I already spent all morning. AFTER drinking room temperature, supersweet bottled Frappuchinos.

I can get a few things done, as long as I spend a lot of time driving place to place for power and wifi, but not enough. My kid is delightful, doesn't mind a bit, except that she is pretty sure that I made it up about the TV. She gets extra playdates and that's fine.

*

I am getting in touch with the helpless and silent rage that fills me at times. This isn’t like someone is dying right next to me, but the uncertainly, the increasing dread that it will never turn, is suffocating. And the heat’s building up again.

*

My daughter is learning the complex meaning of the valuable term “room temperature.”

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Linesmen from neighboring states are here to work 16-hour shifts to fix it. But there are still trucks patching potholes (why do we need roads if all the businesses are closed?). We hear scuttlebutt that the Governor has offered resources for tree removal and the power company said, No, thank you, we’re fine.

*

There was chatter on our neighborhood listserv saying that the company listed a fallen tree on our block as the culprit in just 5 outages, when there are at least 50. The power company made it clear they were trying to deal with problems affecting the most customers, first. So I called in to be counted.

The automated system asked me to confirm my address. I haven’t lived at that address for 8 months. I punched through to get a person.
“I’m trying to report an outage but your system is picking up my OLD address.”
“I’ll look that up… which number is yours?”
(I told her)
“And you live at (old address)?”
“No, we moved in November, now we live at (new address).”
“And your number is (old home number)?”
“No, it’s the number I’m calling you from, which your system understood…”
“Oh I see, the problem is that number is listed as your work number.”
“How is that the problem? You shouldn’t have the old address connected with any of my numbers. Work or home, I still moved. Can you change it?”
(click click click)
“Okay, that’s done. Now where is your outage?”
(I give her the new address).
“We already have a report of that outage.”
“They said they want every household to file a separate report so you know how many people are affected.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s already in the system.”
“Would you please make another report or record or whatever? Your online map shows only 5 houses affected and it’s been three days. If someone knew it was really 50 families maybe people would get to it sooner.”
“Oh. All. Right.” She sounded like my exasperated but resigned first-grader.
“Could I please speak to an executive about the confusing orders we’re receiving about whether to call? I’d like to clear up the confusion on my neighborhood listserv. It’s hundreds of your customers chattering about this.”
She might have shuffled some papers. “No one is available right now. Someone will get back to you this evening.”
They never did. Probably called the old number.

*

On the listserv a neighbor reported: “It seems we may be caught in a loop between the power company and the county. My wife spoke with the power company this morning and they said they can't touch the lines until the county clears the tree. A county employee came by on our street tonight to look at the tree and he said they can't remove the tree until the power company clears the lines.”

Buttle, Tuttle. What difference does it make?

*

On Wednesday I get an email from the power company telling me it’s best to keep my fridge and freezer door closed because the cold will keep most food okay for 24 to 48 hours. It has been 72 hours.

The email advises us to dispose of meat, dairy, and eggs first and check the USDA web site for details. Eggs don’t actually need to be refrigerated. I ponder using my scarce charge to check USDA.

I don’t know why I’d bother. I’ve already thrown everything out and propped the doors open so it doesn’t get too moldy. The inside of my fridge smells warm and brown, like moss might if you kept it locked up for a while.

*

I loved that being responsible meant throwing out tons of food. Imagine the rat carnival this will spawn! For the past few weeks our neighborhood listserv has been all about rats, crazy backtalk, energized. Accusations of cheap birdseed and compost piles fly.

We’re too like rats. We like the same things, and they are similarly social and family-oriented. That’s why they’re always around us. People only complain when they see them. If you really want to stop rats, you should stop eating, or at least, stop wasting food. Although rats can live on paper, drywall, and sewage. It’s your damn water feature that attracts them. Rats can’t carry water.

No one is talking about rats any more. A real emergency seems to bring out the best in people without suppressing their charming crankiness.

*

I fantasize about creating Molotov cocktails out of rotten jars of bleu cheese dressing and lobbing them at the power company’s headquarters.

*

The power company is expected to announce earnings this week. I’m not feeling much like paying the next bill they send. Listserv’ers suggest calling all the major media outlets but don’t provide the numbers. A newspaper columnist is screeching about his street, too.

*

Only 10,000 customers still without power. Nine thousand of them are due to one station problem. I start to doubt they will ever get around to our street. Our wonderful street which shoulder-to-shoulder shoveled a path out of 3 feet of snow this past winter. By hand. Maybe the grid is really going down.

The weather report shows more fierce storms headed our way.

*

There’s an article in the paper about the power company’s social media person, who started full time the morning after the storms. He’s doing okay and has a sense of humor. At least it shows that his bosses believe there will still be an internet in September.

*

I check my phone constantly for updates. Now there are five trucks on site. One from the power company, four from tree trimming subcontractors. Three hours later the joyous messages begin. A hundred machines washing seven hundred towels start up with happy hums.

I am plugged back in.

It'll be okay.



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What is a "remarried widow?"

A remarried widow shouldn’t exist. People ask her, “how can you call yourself a widow if you’re also married?” She’s milking the label. They don’t know what it was like to be married, widowed, and single all at the same time, 3 labels she never chose to wear together. She’s already cheated on a dead man. Nothing gets more absurd beyond that, so she keeps the labels that fit.

A remarried widow may be two things at one time, but she can never be what she was before.

A remarried widow is used to being a problem to somebody. She knows there’s not that much in life that she can control so she doesn’t accept a lot of the rules that others live with.

A remarried widow is grieving, but she is not alone.

A remarried widow is comfortable being two things at once, satisfied with ambiguity, and secure in her definition.

A remarried widow raises children who have one Daddy who died and another Daddy who met him a few times and thought he was a good guy and who will show up at soccer practice.

A remarried woman has made some tough decisions, and has also been presented with some easy choices.

A remarried widow enjoyed her independence, for a moment.

A remarried widow is sharing a story with a happy ending, and she knows you’re comfortable hearing about it only because of the last bits. She accepts this frustrating aspect of socializing but she is still thankful to own all the earlier parts of the story, too, as well as what may be next.

A remarried widow says, in public, that she knows how lucky she is to have had two great loves in one lifetime. Secretly she thinks it’s an option for everyone.

A remarried widow is not remotely interested in your “epic” kitchen remodel.

A remarried widow inspires women whose lives are recently broken, especially those who can’t imagine kissing someone new.

A remarried widow wears black, but never to weddings.

A remarried widow is pretty judgmental about most divorces.

A remarried widow recognizes her duties and her pleasures.

A remarried widow cries at weddings, funerals, and birthdays.

A remarried widow has really good life insurance coverage and so does her husband.

A remarried widow does not want to go through it again, but doesn’t want to die first, either.


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Cancer, Schmantzer. When Will We Market Death Awareness?

October’s over. The debris from the pink tsunami I see in every store I visit could be evidence of the recession or that people are as sick as I am of the idea that consumerism can heal our disease, which I suppose are the same thing. Or they could be evidence that this particular product push has had its day. Maybe it’s time for something new?

In October I got pretty hot in a debate on the BlogHer site on “Do we really need Breast Cancer Awareness month?,”  initiated by the great Denise Tanton. Suzanne Reisman followed up with her own piece, "Breast Cancer Awareness month is bunk." I contended that the pink has done its job, and it’s time to move on.

(I could also engage further in questions of how much funding BRCA receives compared to other cancers, the politics of cancer advocacy, the limitations of the American Cancer Society, the effectiveness of funding research versus reducing disparities in health care delivery and outcomes, how much money from these purchases actually gets to an organization, or how much each organization actually helps people with cancer. I could argue about the different types of BRCA, the ages they affect women, and the efficacy of mammograms for each type. I could talk about black women’s rates of death, which are much higher. Or about health care reform, pharmaceutical companies, and the changes that would make a bigger difference than mammograms. But I won’t do that here. [Do you like how I spent 124 words “not talking about it? Me too. Where’s a good editor when you need one?])

I do, in general, support medical research and public education about health. I have several friends who’ve lost loved ones to this deadly disease and I in no way wish to diminish their pain, or the courage presented every day by people faced with any cancer.

But I think it’s time for a change. (No, not that one, but thanks.)

See, we’re all going to die, right? No exceptions. And probably, we won’t be the first person we know who will undergo this fate, which many say is the only fate.

My public awareness campaign would encourage us all to plan for the inevitable. Here are the elements:
-- Discussion with your loved ones that specifically gives them permission to remarry and do anything else that’s important to them.
-- Write a will and make sure everyone knows it’s true to your intentions. If folks are going to receive bad news, might as well tell them now, or they will make life hell for everyone else. And for the love of God, put in a fund for a mediator in case of dispute so your family can avoid fighting in court.
-- Prepare an Advance Health Care Directive (I just preached about my experience the other day). Understand that this is a dynamic document, because you never know what the situation may be. Discuss it with loved ones but have paper to comfort and cover them in this most stressful time.
-- In some states, you may need a living will and some other documents. I’m not a lawyer. At least Google it, okay?

Naturally a public awareness campaign is necessary. People can be eased into the discussion. Just like “breast” 30 years ago, “death” is still a fairly dirty word and something most of us would rather not think about at the grocery store or in the garden products aisle at Home Depot.

But just think about the products in this campaign (of course everything is black):

-- Ribbons? Sure, what the hell, black ribbons. Satin, not grosgrain, those Swarovski crystals make a lovely accent and they get cheaper every year.
-- TV ads featuring famous actors: Don’t be morbid. Be prepared.
-- A panel on the bus: Talk about the end: it isn’t just for widows any more.
(and) How much do you love your family? Will love be enough? *
(and) Wow! What bargains! How much did you spend today to protect your family?
-- A frisbee: Life’s a breeze when your Advance Health Care Directive is in place. (Maybe we make a boomerang for Hindu outreach).
-- Bumper stickers: Shit Happens. That’s why I just updated my will.
(and) In case of apocalypse, I speak to Jesus. In case of cancer, I speak to Hospice.
(and) I wrote my will. What’s your excuse for driving like that?
-- Produce state-by-state kits of the necessary documents and sell at FedEx office, Target, etc. Cute designs for men and women, Gen-X and Gen-Y, Latinos. Lots of butterflies on the chick stuff, motorcycles for guys. (Yes, it’s all available for free, but to reach everyone you need a consumer option. As demonstrated by BRCA).
-- Partner with banks to produced branded kits to offer FREE when you open an account.

Yeah, I presented it as sort of a joke (sort of), but I do believe in this cause.

Don’t you think there’s room somewhere, somehow, for a more public discussion of what death requires of each and every one of us?

* Note the potential synergy with life insurance marketing -- we can learn from their successes and failures, and I bet they'd love to work with us. Win-win!


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Anything My Little Heart Desires

As an investor, I’ve always seen value in contrarian strategies. The evening after Lehman fell, Mr. Fresh (then, Marshall) and I went out to buy a diamond. We were nearly the only shoppers in the mall and we’d had this conversation:

Mr. Fresh (PhD in economics): Now, about a ring. Do you want a diamond? You know the scarcity is strictly….
Me: Yeah, I wrote a 15 page paper on DeBeers in b-school. I know it’s all bullshit.
Mr. Fresh: Okay, so…
Me: Uh huh, I want a diamond.

Gavin and I had artsy, wonderful rings that alluded to his artwork, made by a friend, no stones. I was a breadwinner the first time. While Gavin’s job was to understand the newspaper, his naivete and poor math skills left me, delighted, holding the business pages.

Now Mr. Fresh and I are having money issues. The checking account is declining, his new job demands longer hours plus a ridiculous commute, and I’m not planning to go back to work anytime soon. And he’s stressed about applying for a mortgage in this environment despite our strengths.

It’s hard to give up my financial independence. This late in feminism, it’s hard to remember that my attitudes were formed in an era when it was surprising, some would overstate it as “revolutionary,” for a woman to pay her own expenses.

During Gavin’s illness I grew accustomed to taking my only breaks at Target, spending always $46.34. What a luxury to know you could afford anything in the entire store. In a way, this was what I’d always dreamed of: being able to ignore the price tag. Gavin would say “you’re spending money like there’s no tomorrow.” I knew we were spinning toward bigger disasters than money. I didn’t reply.

As an overwhelmed widowed single Mom heading toward bankruptcy, but sitting on a cool half-mil of home equity, I kept up those habits. What was another $50 when I was spending down savings to buy groceries anyway? The savings accounts I’d built up during my years studying the market, pre-kid, dwindled. And I woke up in the solution every morning anyway. It wasn’t ideal but I’m pragmatic.

But I also became careless about paying bills on time, something I’ve been fastidious about since my mid-20s.

I’m at the point in my new life when “I watched my husband die” is a pretty weak excuse. Even with my contempt for a million things, I respect the world’s numbers and values to know that at some point, the shit has to hit the fan.

We were told we had nearly perfect credit when Gavin was dying. I hated this contrast. I wonder if I’ve spent the last five years ruining my credit out of contempt.

I’m thinking a lot about my spending as a way of bleeding out the grief.
I’m realizing how much I used spending to shed responsibility.
It makes a terrific, inevitable story climax when a rich man finds money can’t prevent or cure a disease.
Someone loses their home and says, “At least I’ve got my health.”
Widows feel incredible guilt living off life insurance benefits (I was “lucky,” haha, he had just the barest bit,)
Bloggers can’t really feel too happy about getting loads of traffic after they lose a child or are hauled off to the nuthouse.
Neither prosperity nor health have any moral sense.

I suppose worst case is that the bank will ask us to reapply for the loan with just Mr. Fresh’s name on it. I imagine I might be embarrassed, and he might be disappointed. Not the end of the world.

But I’m not feeling happy about the uncertainty, and it’s ruining my post-feminist enjoyment that someone is buying me lots of “free” time. I mean, yeah, I’m a housewife and mother, and we’re moving, but I have the luxury of figuring out what’s next in a fairly relaxed way. It matters to me that for the first time, someone, other than Oprah, wishes I'll create my best self.

Cross your fingers.

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"Moving On"

Are we gearing up to star in a soap opera or a reality T.V. show? We’re switching houses with Mr. Fresh’s first wife and two grown sons. All of my shit is going to be taken out of this old box where I’ve lived for 12 years, put into about 150 boxes and then fitted neatly into that giant white box, then the white box gets picked up by a monster truck and carted over to another box about a mile away. (I’m trying to “contain” the drama by compartmentalization. Is it working?)

Yes, we are buying out her half of the house where their marriage fell apart. Yes, the three of them, with one job between them, and a cat, will rent my old house downtown. “If we were all Vulcans, this plan wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow,” jokes Mr. Fresh every time a friend points out the potential pitfalls.

This old house represents my old dreams. A third of an acre close to public transportation, in a semi-urban suburb. Room for vegetable beds, perennial beds, dedicated space for tender, stellar dahlias. Space to build Gavin his dream studio. Ample sufficiency for a patio where we could dine au naturel 3 seasons of the year and a wild area for a child to explore. Maybe even room for a playset if we strike the jackpot someday.

Ten years later, I understand why they’re called “widows’ weeds.” The garden is overrun, some of them are taller than I am and they’re all much more fertile. Seeds shoot out at your pants cuffs as you forage for the last few string beans of the season.

Halfway through our time here, we did build Gavin’s studio. It’s an architectural beauty, industrial and considerate at the same time. He had a few months to work in it before our daughter was born. Just a few more after that to work, struggling to produce, to meet his expectations while caring for her. And then diagnosis. A few intervals, in between treatments (he was a single-tasker) when he took advantage of the light, the space designed to fit his work habits precisely.

My abandoned room for sewing, beadwork, and silkscreen (etc., etc., etc.) in the lovely loft.

This studio stores paintings, drawings, and prints left over from 30 years of shows. He was lucky to be so successful; 90% of his output is in homes and boardrooms, where it is appreciated, and it left the gallery paid and professionally framed. The oddments (and a few treasures that were held out, NFS) remain to us. What’s left after love.

But the house is also full of his crappy handyman work and that of the husband before us. We never could afford to fix up the house, grade a patio, open up the back windows to see the gardens. The house is a hundred reminders of what didn’t work in our relationship, the decisions about paint colors that we couldn’t peacefully make, two argumentative artists, devoted to being happy together even if things didn’t get done. We couldn’t fix it all ourselves. The heat was on me to produce (money, a child). Love couldn’t extinguish his disease.

I wake up and ask Mr. Fresh like a child on the boat to the New World: “And is it really true? That two people can shower at the same time in the new house?” “Yes.” “What if the dishwasher is running?” “Yes.” “And the laundry, then too?” I wouldn’t be more surprised if we got there and there was hot and cold running milk and honey.

So many widowed bloggers are moving, and we all say “moving on,” appreciating how undescriptive it is, how ambiguous a phrase, how if someone else says it we resist. But it’s sort of true. Still, can’t I move on and also stay? If I’ve had two loves, why not also two homes?

“To move” is such a big word. People say our stories move them. I’d like to think we’re starting a movement of the grieving, perhaps for visibility, perhaps for quiet. What do we need except for our loss to be reversed? At any rate, many of us are working together even if we don’t know what for yet.

So, widows, keep moving, keep talking and sharing and writing. And stay tuned to see find out how this “move” goes. Despite the potential for histrionics, exchanging real property in this economy makes a lot of sense for both households (or all 3, depending on how you count). And thus far, every step has been smooth and easy. Perhaps we’re turning into Vulcans, or at least, examples of Rational Economic Man. Or perhaps we each understand that our backstories are only ours, and not a threat, and that a good coat of bright colored paint can make a new day seem fresh.

Either way, it’s bound to qualify for good ratings.

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Two Stages of Denial: Another Crappy Analogy

Skip ahead to the next dating-related post!

A few months ago, I watched everyone around me and everyone in town open their eyes. Shit -- this economic thing was not going away. It was real. Change hit us like a sack of bricks and people seemed distracted, off-balance, and not very bright. Perhaps even sad, thinking of all that would be left behind. The denial that had existed was pretty benign: we weren’t pretending, we just weren’t looking very hard.

And after a time we sort of got accustomed to “things.” People spoke of “matters” indirectly: “things,” “changes,” “uncertainty.”

Now we’ve hit a second patch of something. Seems to me my circle (which includes NPR) is in a second level of denial -- we understand that the first shift happened, but we just don’t think it will get any worse. In fact, everyone’s talking about positive signs.

(In some ways we don’t want the crisis to end yet. Everyone thinks it’s good that we’re prioritizing time with family, saving, sufficient sleep, conservation, and even conversation over material things. There is a major movement of folks finding their true direction in life -- or at least, a more socially-valuable but lower-paying way to spend time [how many of them are actually jobs?]. So don’t end this thing yet. I’m planning a mid-life crisis, can I just tuck it in with this whole restructuring-the-economy dealie? [My personal favorite is that as we green and cut costs we are required to treat ourselves to $500 phones because they are now part of our increased efficiency! Even if we’re not, um, working right now. (Well how do you expect me to get a job without one?)])

Major flashback to dealing with cancer.*

First you have a giant shock -- diagnosis. Important advice: Don’t drive for the first 30 days. You’re a space case. Wait till you adjust to dealing with the inevitability of death as an everyday matter. You can handle it. Sure! Thousands of people do it every year. Even worse! Heck, people live in Sudan! We’re very resilient creatures.

So you make a way to keep going. You can even be happy. You say you’re living in the present. Wow, you sure say it a lot. But things keep happening. And they keep sending test results no matter what. You have to keep spirits up because healing has a huge emotional component!

The cells in this second period of denial are malignant. This stage is qualitatively different -- this denial hurts, maims, and kills. You are watching your loved one dying, or it's your own face wasting away day by day. It’s high stakes to say anything. Everyone’s already oversensitized and if you name it, you create it. It’s funny, the doctor might be trying to tell you something, but you had to get used to tuning her out in the first stage. And God, you do not want anything to escalate. So keep quiet.

But no, it’s a crappy analogy. The economy is not a human body and it isn’t destined to die.

It’s not like the U.S. has a midsection full of unproductive lumps or poison-spewing organs. It isn’t as if we were ignoring those sections for years whiel they weakened and dragged others down. It’s not a situation where a few cells were actively robbing the entire body of nutrients. We didn’t try to limit the spread through surgery, and it's not like we forgot that the hip bone is connected to the leg bone. No, with our economy, we’re fully aware that all the parts work together, bankers, banks, and bank customers. Plus, I mean, it’s a rule that home prices go up and up forever. It was true for our parents and we deserve it too. And that is not the equivalent of thinking you will live forever. And there’s nothing organic about an economy.

There’s also totally no parallel when patients and families expect big daddy Pharma (or Dr. God) to take care of everything, and damn if they can’t, it was their job to prevent it and they screwed up! (Huge institutions are super-useful when you’re pissed. Ask any ex-Catholic.)

Just forget I said anything, it was a superficial comparison from the get-go. As Miss Litella would say with her small syrupy smile: “Never mind.”

* Of course I’m speaking of experiences like my own, with my husband’s terminal diagnosis -- not situations where there are actual non-miraculous chances at 5-year survival, and excluding the pussycat cancers like the one Lance Armstrong had. Every cancer is different, every patient is different. (Didn’t Tolstoy say, “but every denial is the same?”)

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"The New Normal" x 2 Contexts

In grieving group, we often talked about "the new normal." What future might that describe? One when you didn't cry every 2 hours? One when you could make a decision? Would it be like everyone else's "normal" or just a bit better functioning than now, with higher standards than now?

I might almost be living a (never "the") new normal now, as a remarried widow. We'll attend an opening tonight that includes a few drawings of Gavin's. I imagine saying "my husband" there and causing some confusion, maybe some eyes not knowing where to look, as we stand awkwardly holding plastic cups of cheap wine. "Oh no! I mean my living husband," I'll laugh. I felt still married when I started dating; sort of the best of both worlds. I had two men -- I was two women. Stable and allowed to be wild at the same time. (I know. Widows have a crazy way of looking at shit.)

And then I get this from one of my MBA lists. The business world thinks it can start adjusting to a new normal!

We wouldn't want to start making plans until we know if the wheels are done turning. Is the patient still dying? Will we ever know? Won't there be a grieving period? Will there ever be a "new normal?" And yes, what would it look like?

I didn't know it two years ago, but I do now. Those support group conversations always assumed this understanding: No. It will not be the same. Things will stop moving so quickly someday, but they will not be still. Don't even ask for them to be the same as they were. This changes everything.

(Oh, and McKinsey: Excuse me, this is a "conversation starter?" Is anyone having trouble coming up with things to talk about????)


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The Backbeat in the February Funk

After September 11, we all expected each other to be flaky, emotional, to have trouble sleeping, to be inappropriately open, to reorder our priorities, to acknowledge the world was breaking up around us. It was a major disruption and public.

What's different now? Why is everyone cranky and thinks it's "them?" How could it be "you" when things are falling apart?

We were glued to the TV, to the recaps of the buildings as they crashed and evaporated. We were filled with denial -- I remember the posters, "missing person," over all the lampposts. It was baffling and external.

And now for months I've been staring at the ^DJI, down, down. Back in time, back to 1997 now. Before Gavin's first "death." Before 2001. Before the dot.com bust and reboom. We're drowning in tales of people cutting more than corners, of abandoned pets and homes, of seniors ruined by Madoff. Some assisted living facilities are offering that you can have a roommate now. I'm so glad I'm not close to retirement. I'm so glad Mr. Fresh's parents were scared early on. I'm glad I have a cheap house and I'm so, so happy to not be alone.

Yes, I'm in a seasonal funk, and I'm still grieving, and I do hit that special widow dramatic spot of "why me?" when I get low. Add that to numerous real issues in my personal bit of the world and this is a challenging time for me.

I remember September 11 feeling unbelievable and totally real at the same time -- a lot of us said "surreal."

But this crisis is just plain real. Many of us, at least in my town, only cracked open our clenched eyes two weeks ago and we are all feeling it. Hell, I think the concrete feels it.

Why aren't we all giving each other room to be grumpety-grumps? (Why aren't we all considered heroes for showing up and soldiering on, as we were on September 12?).

Maybe we all feel we are partially to blame, even those of us who can say we didn't benefit from the boom. We were still living in the dream world. I heard a story about someone who went to jail for an alleged sexcrime and said he hadn't fought harder in court because of his Catholic guilt over having sex at all. Do we all have something like that going on?


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I HATE FEBRUARY.

I shouldn’t, my daughter’s birthday is in February, and I am usually on the upswing by Valentine’s Day, even when I haven’t been in love. I can understand why red signals prosperity for the Chinese – I love seeing those cupids and hearts everywhere, drugstore windows made me smile, and the candy!

Good things have happened in February: I moved here on Valentine’s Day 1989. Childbirth, Chinese New Year, and other explosions. The evenings lighten. I find daphne and camellia and hellebore surprises consistently.

But I spent one and a half days last week convinced I’d be fired Friday afternoon. It was a level of paranoia that I don’t think I’ve experienced … ever – although I think it was also based on some decent observations. And the truth is that since I got married and didn’t need the job so much – this is the first time in my adult life that I've not been the breadwinner – I have been phoning it in, at best. I can’t handle the detail in the kind of work I used to do, which they hired me for. I don’t have the patience for it, or the eyesight. I’m impatient and stupidly unafraid to show it. And I’m bored with doing it after 10 years and I don't fit this particular environment.

And the next tasks which they’ve trained me to do seem to antagonize someone important to a degree that I can’t imagine fighting, or winning, or accommodating and hugging into some great hippie happy ending.

Combine that with all the other things that sucked the past few weeks:
-- Mr. Fresh got a notice from IRS saying he owes $17K. He was super upset. While he has been blown away by my competence and ease at hiring a professional to do tough stuff, it's a stress on a new relationship, one that has had to hit the ground running.
-- Volunteer work for church has been haywire because I couldn’t get the data I need (just got ‘em; supposed to be done tomorrow; Good effin’ luck!)
-- I got angry at one of my NIMBY neighbors and he exaggerated our conversation to the point where the community association has called and asked if it’s true that I have giant plans to destroy the character of the neighborhood. I was provoking him, I’m mad at myself, and of course, I still want everyone to like me. (And no, this will not be what makes me rich, not in the next 10 years anyway).
-- I ran out of time to schedule an art thing that will be fun, but requires preparation, and now I have to do it this weekend.
-- We got an offer from the cab company that destroyed our front yard in September and the company is in bankruptcy. We may have to settle low.
-- We reserved honeymoon tickets, but then had to confront that they cost money.

And oh yes, the economy. Yeah, that. We didn’t want to notice, but the hammer keeps getting bigger every few weeks and those whacks are beginning to smart. On the Tuesday that the stimulus bill passed and the market tanked anyway, I told someone that I felt our whole town woke up and could see the vultures circling above. Did I mention Mr. Fresh was trained as an economist? He had been pretending along with the rest of us, sanguine, it will be limited. No more.

I am pretty sure someone put itching powder under my turtleneck two weeks ago and it’s still there. So in the hallway in my great anxiety I told a friend how I hate February and she said, “Isn’t that when Gavin died?”

Nope.

He died in June. But let me think of that February. 2006. It was effin’ hell. He was dying on the couch. I could see him receding from us. I was furious and trying all kinds of futile manifestations like taking him to a neurologist, vacation, church, anything. Anything! Let it make some difference! Let it HELP! HELP.

The insight is that this loss still connects to everything in my life. Nearly three years later, I’m not in active grieving, but find a thumbtack on my chair and my first thought will be “why me” all over again. All the pain, the anger, the position of widowing comes flooding back. I’m there again, not here, not married again and better, not mothering competently, not holding down a job. There, watching someone fade and flow away from me. Unable to do a fucking thing to stop it. So sad I could kill.

The rage that sent me crying after the argument with my neighbor. Crying in Mr. Fresh's shirt: “Why do those people care what I do with my property when they never did a goddamn thing to help us after Gavin died? They were all one block away and we could have died a dozen fucking times! And they couldn’t bring one fucking casserole?”

But it’s a lie, this position, my widow’s anger. (Though it is true that widows traditionally exploit their properties. That’s another kind of rage.) The fury that made me provoke a good neighbor who is actually one of the only people who helped out that year and a half when we were dying, Short Stack and I, and who put a gate in the fence so she could play in his kid’s treehouse.

Maybe it’s rightful rage – loss sucks – but like so much in my life, it’s been misdirected.

I still expect that ax to fall, and I am still angry. But I already saw one lawn full of purple crocus, and I can work on the resume. [I am so bad at ending on a hopeful note. Ack, February!!!!]


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More Winter Blah's

It's hard for me to convey just how much I hate this time of year.

Usually, though, Valentine's Day is the start of the off-ramp, the upswing. Even though the light's been gaining on us, a minute at a time, mid-February is when it begins to seem real, that spring might come.

Yes, there are still treasures: Mr. Fresh bought me some chocolates yesterday, thinking there were actual mushrooms in the "truffles." I asked him if he was joking, looking intently in each other's eyes, and I could not tell if he was. (He was serious).

And we are planning our honeymoon. In our own way, while we learn about each other and how to cope with the in's and out's of each other's routine weekend lowpoints.

The other night we were teasing each other and he said, "God, we are just like an old married couple." Me: "We are an old married couple. We just weren't married to each other most of that time."

So I'm still feeling down, and needing naps. It doesn't help that the economic situation seems to have sunk in a bit all around. Tuesday I felt everyone in town was finally seeing the buzzards circling above (no blame -- I have been looking steadfastly away too). And reading blogs of young widows and widowers, recapping their death experiences and their denials, hearing of their shocks, does not help (though finding comrades does). I dread looking at my analytics and seeing the downward bounce after being featured in BoingBoing (thanks, Gar). Sure, it was up 3217%.... that means it will soon be down 3216% too. I'm a silly blogger, a bad journal writer, and a mediocre worker overall.

But there's dark chocolate in the house, and a scuba honeymoon to look forward to. So, onward.


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My personal leading economic indicators

I knew something was happening:

• summer 2007 -- fountain cokes at several lunch joints are flat or improperly syrup'ed.
• fall 2007 -- increased incidence of food poisoning.
• winter 2007 -- deli meat has been frozen, texture ruined.
• nov 1, 2007 -- no one brings leftover Halloween candy in to the office.
• fall 2008 -- lots of broken windows in neighborhood, with handwritten "we're open" signs.
  
• september 2008 -- half of restaurants with flat cokes close.
• october 2008 -- dumpster divers in Harpers Ferry, W.V., report that grocery stores are no longer throwing out food.
• november 2008 -- windows still broken, signs still handwritten.
• nov 1, 2008 -- a little bit of candy makes it in, but you have to ask.
  

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