Another Sunny Day, Yippee!

So sick of sunny, hot days. No rain in so long.
All the plants are suffering and the trees are starting
to lose their leaves. I can't wait to smell the rain
again, the earth after the rain, that musty, loamy
wondrous smell.
*sigh*

*

My sleep patterns are getting crazier. By 8, I am wiped
out and ready for bed, which means I wake at around 12
and then again at 2 or so and then again at 5 and then again
at 6:30. Never feel rested. Just sleepy and tired and my brain
foggy and unfocused. Frustrating, very frustrating.

*

I am not doing well. Unemployment does not suit me. If it
had been by choice and I had been doing something productive
or creative during these 10 months that I have been home,
perhaps I would better, but most of the time, I have simply
been grieving or depressed. I try to be positive, but I am not
succeeding.

*

Molly requires so much of me. So much patience that I don't
have right now. I was so looking forward to a dog. What I failed
to remember was that a dog has to be a puppy first, and puppies
are major work. If she would ever just have a decent day--a day
that she didn't bark at the cats constantly or jump all over people
or chew up my furniture or pull my arm off when I take her walking
or try to lick all the clean plates as I unload them from the dishwasher
or not eat all of the clean (and dirty) socks she grabs from the laundry
basket or off the floor or not pee all over someone who comes in the
door because she's excited, but she does all of those things every
day, and despite my attempts to teach her how to behave, we have
made no progress. I was wrong to get her. Wrong to think I had
the energy. Wrong to think investing time in teaching her things
would make her a good dog, wrong and selfish to want her to help
me through this pain. Wrong because she deserves more. I pray
every day, every day for the strength to take care of her and to
not give up on her.

*

My sister called yesterday to ask me if I knew the story
behind the bird tattoo on Dad's left calf. I don't and I told
her so. And then I started telling her how I made such
a point that night he died to look at all of his tattoos,
to touch them all, to burn their images in my brain,
these images I had seen all of my life but couldn't clearly
see, and that despite all of that attempt, I still couldn't
tell her which tattoo was on his left arm--only that I knew
he had a tattoo on one of his arms that had the name
of the first ship he was ever on, but you know what,
I don't know the name of it. And then I started telling
her about the night he died and going in his room and how
the doctors had left the intubation tube in his throat
and left his eyes open and then I just had to choke back
the tears because I was right back in that room again,
standing right over him, looking into those eyes that would
never look back at me or look at anything else again
and I was sobbing hysterically and saying breathe, Dad
breathe, Dad, breathe. I finally just closed his eyes,
went in the hallway to get my youngest son, and brought
him in to touch his grandfather's still-warm body.

*

Been thinking so often about all the friends I've lost--
to death and just to other interests besides me. The
pain some days is simply intolerable. I don't do well with
all this alone time. I used to beg for alone time or
wish for it. I have learned to be careful what you wish
for. So, I start this day as I have started many over
the last year or couple of years--or hell, maybe for
all of the years of my life--I start it feeling sad and alone
and somewhat angry and a whole lot bitter. Well, not
a whole lot bitter, but bitter. For reasons I'm too tired
to get into. So, the following poem is for all those "lost"
friends.

*

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-- Elizabeth Bishop