Monday, October 17, 2016

It's been a while. I'm ironing. My mother taught me to iron my father's shirts. With starch. Ug. I got pretty good.

I was on retreat all last week on Samish Island. Beautiful windy place with a heron roosting site, bald eagles, seals and deer, all of which I saw. I slept 12 hours a day and then sat in the meditation hall nodding out. Really pathetic. I brought 'natural' M & Ms to munch while trying to read by flashlight.

I met people who have been to the Burmese temple where I'm going in January. My right knee is giving me fits so I'm going to see a sports medicine doc on my dime to see if I can get injections to help it out while I'm gone traipsing around a foreign country with a backpack. I have fear and trembling to go by myself. I was supposed to do this sort of adventuring when I was young but I was busy with babies.

My sister is in a secure treatment center while they try to figure out the right cocktail of drugs to get her stabilized so her depression lessens. I talked with her today and she sounds ok.... The family illness scurries around our brains. Being across the country is so frustrating. Helpless. The subtext to this post. The worry that she won't be able to right herself. The guilt she feels that she can't be 'normal'. Our collective family curse. At least she told her AA sponsor to fuck off. Nope, this doesn't get fixed with prayer and giving it up to a higher power.

Gawd.

Michelle Obama is my personal guru. And a Saint for the people. Because she's beautiful and fierce and she tells the truth.




4 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

I love you. YOU are fierce. Now see if you can get that knee better.

37paddington said...

This life is hard. May your cares grow lighter, and your sister's too.

Sabine said...

I love that speech.
Some Burmese healer may be able to help your knee. Or maybe get a Thai massage before you go. I got my neck remodelled with a Thai massage last week. (Or maybe she put a new neck together from scratch while I dozed covered in herbal oils.)
All my best wishes to your sister.

Elizabeth said...

I'm sorry about your sister's struggles. My little sister has struggled with depression her entire life and was hospitalized twice. She was treated with all kinds of drugs and even EST. Ugh. It's all a nightmare. She's doing quite well right now on some sort of cocktail -- I love her so much and hate how much she suffers.

I'm happy to catch up with you here. I've been having a hard time keeping up with my blog reading -- part of the reason is because my blogroll disappeared from Blogger, and I can't seem to replace it. The other reason is that I've had so much goofy crisis in my life of late with my kids!

Oh, and I'm in love.